By GREG WESSEL
For The Beachcomber
Columnist’s note: This was discovered in a recent translation of the Unabridged Book of Exodus.
And lo the Honorary Mayor spake these words, saying:
I am thy faux leader, who raised the most money for my favorite charity, who brought ye chosen people out of the land of Seattle, out of the house that had a valid building permit. Observe what I commandst of ye today, or lo, I will drive before ye the Ammonites, the Trilobites, and the Scottish Rites, lest ye observe these 10 commands:
1. Thou shalt have no other island before ours.
2. Thou shalt not make for thyself any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth, that is not funky and brightly colored. For I, the Mayor of the Island of the chosen people, will visit the iniquity of the fathers on those who paint their houses beige and upon those who make their properties look like suburbia, but will show mercy to those who bring an artsy flair to life.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Island in vain on a regular basis, but once in a while is OK.
4. Thou shalt remember the Vashon-Maury Island Community Council meeting day, and keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor that week, and do all thy trivial work, but the Council meeting day is like the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not make an Ass of thyself by presenting Lame Resolutions or droning on and on about things of which thou knowst nothing. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them. On the seventh day, He met with the Galilee Community Council and passed the first resolution, on Dead Sea ferry schedules, and so shouldst thou.
5. Thou shalt honor thy Building Department and thy Health Department, so that thy days may be long upon the land on which thou wishst to build a house.
6. Thou shalt not move the Library.
7. Thou shalt not buy food at a fast food franchise.
8. Thou shalt not steal good art project ideas from other Island artists; but for the heathens who do not live on the Island, thou shalt smite them and taketh their ideas, for only the chosen shall inherit the Earth.
9. Thou shalt pick up thy dog’s poop on KVI Beach — unless it is below ordinary high tide — for that is an abomination upon heaven.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, even if it is on the beach, remembering that his septic system likely doth spew odor and pestilence; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s place in the ferry line, nor his organic vegetable garden, nor his forest management plan, nor his table at Gusto Girls, nor his llama, nor his brightly painted tractor, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.
Thus spake the Honorary Mayor.
— Greg Wessel, the curator of Two Wall Gallery, recently unearthed these commandments and decided to offer them up to the Island on this lofty and important day, April 1.
