Laurel Canyon Redeemer

Back in the day — and this being #ThrowBackThursday it’s gotta be said — we had this writer by the name of Jaimie Beebe. That really is her name and that really is how to spell it. Her mother says so. Jaimie used to blog for us on a weekly basis, now she just threatens to write again once a month or so, which is okay because it’s always nice to hear from Jaimie.

Her writing came to a screeching halt when she met a man — I blame him — and love bloomed. You see Jaimie was on a quest for love and maybe some romance and it appears, judging ffrom her Facebook and Twitter accounts, she’s found both with this apparently nice man. My best wishes to the happy couple, but c’mon! You could start writing about … being happily in love, or some such thing. Or everyone’s favorite topics: Kim and Kanye or the Beiber.

Okay, the kvetching is over, because an odd thing happened to Jaimie and her man, Gary Ousdahl. Now, if you read Jaimie’s blog, “Mancation,” you know nothing gets done in Jaimie’s world without at least a few drinks. Well, okay, she went to an A.A. meeting once … you’ll have to read her blog to see where that went.

So Jaimie and Gary had a couple of friends over for dinner and drinks — okay, another thing to point out about Jaimie and Gary: they are a “do-it-yourself” couple. Jaimie built her home in Laurel Canyon with a couple of friends and some help through Playboy TV and Radio … really, she has pictures. She and her friends built this house wearing not much more than bikinis and wood shop aprons and then created some publicity about it, just Google “Bikini Builders.”

Since building her house about five years ago Jaimie has been casting movies and such (Tempting Fate is the latest) and building stuff to put in her house. One of the more recent items was a dining room table. Someone threw it out and Jaimie fixed it up and made it new again. That’s where we pick up the story.

She and Gary had some friends over for dinner and drinks, Jessica Stampe & Greg Tate, and after a bottle or two of wine, “… all of a sudden Jess said ‘Oh my God, I see Jesus!’ ”

They took a couple of photos, in case Jesus decided to leave in the middle of the night. “But lo and behold the next morning we woke up and ran downstairs to see if he was still there and he was!  We knew then that we had something special.”

Jaimie and Gary were on to something. Once word got around though, the media circus roared into action. Jaimie said, “We realized that as soon as we let the cat out of the bag there was a good chance to be insta-famous. It was awesome talking to Ryan Seacrest, I feel that he authenticated our religious experience.”

Indeed. Once you get on Ryan Seacrest’s show, the news will spread like the mumps at a Luddite convention.

So I asked Jaimie if she and Gary were religious. “We have never been a religious couple, but are strongly reconsidering our viewpoints now that Jesus has appeared in our dining room table.!”

We hear and read about these things all the time: someone sees Jesus in their grilled cheese sandwich or he mysteriously appears on the side of a building. One of the most famous religious sightings was Our Lady of Lourdes, in France. Young Bernadette Soubirous was gathering wood one day when Mary, mother of Jesus appeared and started talking to her. The events (there were 17 visitations by Mary) were authenticated as real by the Vatican and Bernadette eventually became St. Bernadette. This wasn’t something Jaimie had ever expected to experience in her life. “I’ve seen news stories about things like this, but never in a million years did I think it could happen to us. We’re just a normal couple.”

Normal? Okay, that’s a different discussion altogether, suffice it to say: follow Jaimie on Twitter.

Since her appearance on Ryan Seacrest’s show Jaimie and Gary have been getting email requests for photos of Jesus in the table, and another guy in Oklahoma might fly out to take a look at it before he puts a bid on the table.

Oh yes, after Jesus appeared in the table and other people showed such a strong interest in it, the couple decided to put the table on the auction site, eBay.

This is a crazy situation, to say the least. Jesus shows up in the table while they are having a few drinks and voila! “The thing is, we were just chatting about some bills that need to be paid, right before Jesus appeared, so that’s why we decided to sell Him on eBay. Normally I wouldn’t want to put a price on our Heavenly Father, but we feel the reason he’s here is to pay our bills.”

As a former Catholic who was told a lot of wild stories growing up (Really, I still get scared watching The Exorcist), this ranks right up there on the crazy meter.

Jaimie is, by anyone’s description, just a but irreverent and one could imagine Gary is as well — or at least willing to go along with the irreverence of Jaimie. But has this spiritual experience changed them in any way?

Jaimie replied, “Gary is pretty much the same person, he hasn’t really changed much in a spiritual way. I’ve changed how I look at things because I keep searching for the Good Lord in the rest of our furniture.”

Wow, she’s on a spiritual journey that will take her all the way through eBay. Is it possible Jaimie could forsake all her worldliness and become a Good Catholic girl? A nun even? She just laughed at that notion …

“Get thee to a nunn’ry, why woulds’t thou be a breeder of sinners or a purveyor of sainted tables?” That’s not exactly what Hamlet said, but if Jaimie were Ophelia and Gary was the Mad Prince … just a thought.

Well there you have it: the story of the Laurel Canyon Redeemer. Jesus in the table that is, not Jaimie or Gary, although I’m sure they would make very nice Redeemers if asked.

Maybe I’m just a jaded old, fallen away Catholic (who still shutters when watching The Exorcist), but after looking at all the photos it looks like a floppy-eared dog to me. If you remember your Saturday Morning cartoons, Underdog was a bit of a Redeemer.

Who knows? “Dog” spelled backwards is “God.”

(All photos provided by Gary Ousdahl and Jaimie Beebe)