Boston 2010

April Fool's Day might have been a bust this year if Joe Keohane, much-missed editor of the Weekly Dig and currently a staff writer at Boston Magazine, hadn't penned the hard-hittingest Boston-oriented satire since John P. Marquand's "The Late George Apley."

Titled "Are Space Aliens the New Jesus?," and predicated on two current trends -- the Archdiocese of Boston selling off its local properties in order to stay afloat; and the rapid local expansion of the Church of Scientology, which recently purchased the South End's historic Alexandra Hotel -- Keohane's tour de force appears in the current issue of BoMag.

In a column dated April 1, 2010, Keohane reports that the foundering Archdiocese of Boston as announced it is selling Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the Mission Hill basilica and shrine whose healing powers are legendary, to the Scientologists.

Only a redheaded former altar boy named Keohane could get away with this:

Count Peggy O'Harridan among the opposition. The lifelong Mission Hill resident, who says that were it not for the Mission Church's miraculous power her annual battles with "the gout" would "probably be a hell of a lot worse," learned about the possible sale from the Herald. "It's an outrage," she says. "A blasphemy. That L. Ron Howard [sic] is nothing but a demigod -- and you know what the Bible says about demigods." Standing in her modest St. Alphonsus Street apartment, she then takes a tissue from her purse and polishes the gold frame around the photo of the Pope that hangs in the kitchen.

But Keohane may need help from a higher power to protect himself from the Scientologists.

Peggy "Sully" Sullivan of South Boston, who visits the Mission Church regularly, says, "It's not just the building, it's the healing power." But [Gerald Renna, head of the local Scientology chapter] says that will stay intact. "We plan to harness the church's power to destroy psychiatry, which is the cause of everything from swollen ankles to pederasty," he says, adding that the spires would also be outfitted to transmit signals to "our allies, as we continue our struggle against Xenu, lest he attempt to unleash another wave of H-bombs and Body Thetans upon us." Asked what any of that means, Renna replies, "Take a free stress test and find out."

Read on -- Keohane also takes the piss out of Protestants, Muslims, Christian Scientists, and Mormons. Good stuff!

PS: I also got a chuckle out of the excerpts from Deval Patrick's autobiography published by the Globe yesterday. Sample:

Furthermore, I understand that, from a strictly business-as-usual, get-elected political standpoint, serving on the board of Ameriquest might not have looked good. Yet looks can be deceiving. (That’s why we need nice drapes -- just kidding.) The average voter was unlikely to grasp the particular personal appeal to someone like myself -- someone whose life has been a "quest," a distinctively "American" quest -- of a name like that company’s. For that matter, the average voter could hardly understand how much good can be accomplished from the "inside." Texaco, Coca-Cola, Ameriquest -- even as I type the names I feel the burden once again weighing down my shoulders -- they were tough, tough jobs, but someone had to do them.

Kudos to Alex Beam and Mark Feeney! Thanks for not taking the buyout, fellas.