Get your blab on!

Try to click that button on the right and leave me a voice mail through the computerized network system! I would love to see how this sucker will work! The information superhighway promises much, and delivers (sometimes). Let's give this thing a go. Come on, peeps. chinGO!

Same Guy.

I know it's LESS funny when you have to explain, but that's Liam Gallagher of Oasis.

Pro Video Bandits Destroy! Details Below.

Your 2005-2006 Pro Video Bandits have taken home the Audience Choice Award for their 48-hour Film Project entry, Heartfelt. The first-time entrants were surprised to have won the popularity contest, since their film's "funny parts" elicited so few actual laughs from the crowd. Still, producer Bill Poff was pleased, if not satisfied: "What I want is to win the city. I want to go to nationals." Those type things will be disclosed in two weeks.

Non-winners, at least up to now, are those darned Dallas Mavericks. I am so put out with this non-winning team that I have declared that, for me, the 2005-2006 NBA season is over. I cannot grade the season; I give it an I for Incomplete. I have no plans to watch other games. It is neither here nor there. And I can say, and I hate saying this, but I can say that if the Mavs do pull it out and win the next two games, I will not crow nor tout them as The Champs. They have forfeit that right. That is too bad, but it is my stance.

There were winners, and there were losers. The fifth day.

Who is this guy?

Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Argentenian revolutionary leader, was driven, at least in part, by compassion and conviction. If you want to see an inspiring (and romanticized) account of his life, see The Motorcycle Diaries. By the way, the word "che" is the familiar diminutive for "you" in Argentina, as in "hey, you!" It's a one-word call of urgency and engagement, and it was his name. Pretty cool.

Zechariah 7:9 This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another

He was a charismatic leader, known for his exploits. He spoke in Cuba several times, beginning in 1964, and people came to see him because his exploits were passed around and he was generally regarded as a folk hero. Castro did much to hype his legend and exploit it for his purposes, which Che was okay with, at least sometimes.

Matthew 8:1 When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him.

People wanted to be around him, but the demands for coming alongside him were huge:

“[Che] believed a successful revolution must begin in the countryside… not in the cities. Any number, no matter how small, could begin it, keeping a low profile while they accumulated recruits, then increasing their daring and their numbers as the movement gained notoriety through its exploits… the leader… would have total command…if it persisted, even a small group of dedicated revolutionaries could overcome great opposition.” -Henry Butterfield Ryan, The Fall of Che Guevara

Luke 14:25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.27And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple...33In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple

Che wanted people in small groups. He wanted them to Go To The Crags. That's where change took place: once people went to the crags, they were never the same again. It was there that they counted the cost, and Che knew that the dynamic in the crags would shape people into the revolutionaries they'd become.

Che didn't believe that he was the revolution; he believed that the revolution was in the hearts of the people--he only wanted to fan the flame that (he believed) was already there in people's hearts. That being the case, he traveled to other countries to help facilitate strategies for uprising. He did this not only in Cuba, but in Guatemala, Congo Kinchasa, and Bolivia.

What did Che have to gain by swooping around the world to help others along then get out of the picture? It goes back to the fact that he was driven by compassion and conviction, not by ego. He didn't care that his name was made great; he cared about people living in (what he saw as) freedom. His dream was to cover the globe with socialism, setting people free from tyranny and oppression.

Matthew 28:18 ...Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

“[Guevara] brings to mind early reformers of the Christian church, with his extensive learning, his disregard of worldly rewards, his devotion to an ideal, his despair over the imperfect commitment of colleagues, and his certainty that he would someday become a martyr for the faith...” --Ryan

"His dedication to his revolutionary beliefs was deeply religious. Che had a missionary's faith in the innate goodness of man, in the ability of workers to dedicate themselves to ideals and to overcome selfishness and prejudices. It was the other side of the coin of his passionate indignation against injustice and exploitation of the humble. He saw the solution in an exalted form of Marxism that would bring freedom and brotherhood. Such men are born to be martyrs." --Herbert L. Matthews, Revolution In Cuba

I'll Not Take This Injustice Without Complaining!

Now I will take an ace/moljer approach: I will rant.

I have whined some about this in the past, but I must report more snobbery on the part of motorcycle owners and shop management. These people act as if a bike over 10 years old is tantamount to litter, to street trash floating by.

I recently crashed my bike, which is an embarrassing experience. It was my first time to do so, but luckily I was prepared by not wearing a helmet, but compensating by wearing only shorts and a t-shirt. I rolled around a little bit in front of several cars and the UPS truck that caused my panic and eventual loss of control, but sustained only a scraped up knee and left forearm/elbow. Small price to pay for about 7 years of riding pleasure. Anyhow, my bike looked worse than I did: on its side, draining all manner of fluids, and not making any hopeful noises when I tried to start it back up. I took it to a shop.

There, the snobbishness was plied with expertise. Basically, these jerks didn't want to work on a 22-year-old bike which, if you ask me, they should be PROUD of. "Our girl's still running strong after all these years! What an advertisement for our brand! How can we help you, sir?" etc. This is what they say to me in my mind, when I go to get my bike worked on.

Instead, I was talked to about how they wouldn't be able to get any body parts for this bike if I'd asked them to do any body work (which I didn't). I was told it ran okay, so why would I want to have them take a look at it (it eventually ran after sitting upright a couple of days and the breather dried out)? When I asked them that, as long as they had it, would they just give it a tune up and maybe change the plugs?, I was treated as if I was impinging on their valuable time and my bike didn't deserve that. I was so annoyed I just asked for the bike back. There's a shop on the other side of town (a much more depressed area, with less snobbery) where they'll treat me like a customer who's willing to pay for a service. I actually even had this exchange with the 'service manager' (ha! misplaced title there, bucko):

ServManaJerk: Couldn't get a new tank or anything for this bike if you needed them. It'd basically be junked at that point.

Customer: I don't need you to do that. If I DID need a new tank, I could get one lickety split on ebay. It's not hard.

ServManaJerk: Yeah, but on those old parts, half the time it's all rusted out on the inside, and the tank cap might not be assembled properly. You're basically out of luck, there.

Customer, in his head: Look I GET that you don't want me to own this bike, asshead. I GET that you'd rather I owned a 2006 Shadow so that you could get me all new chrome parts and every time I walked in it'd cost me $300. I GET THAT. BUT THIS IS MY BIKE. WILL YOU PLEASE WORK ON IT, TURDO?! Also, can I borrow $10? (I would just throw that in there to totally cheese him off, because it's inappropriate, socially, to ask for a personal favor amidst a business interaction, and that would WIG HIM OUT!)

And THAT's the kind of ignominy that Rosie the Motorbike has to undergo, all the time. Prejudice exists, my friends, and it doesn't look like it's going away any time soon. Say "I appreciate you" today to an old-model form of transportation. I'm sure ace will nominate his Toyota if you need an object for your affection.

Smilin'

I'm taking it easy. I'm kicking up and not bothered. Mavs fans around the globe are eating their shoelaces today, but not me. As I said at the beginning of the playoffs, I am a Well-Trained Mavs Observer. SHOULD WIN means nothing to me. BETTER TEAM is irrelevant. I am a modern man, massaged by the years. I have learned to have no emotion, like my leader Dirk, and just say "it's a game. Maybe the team will be better next time." This makes for good sleeping. When you learn well (I didn't say the learning was easy! I said the lessons are thorough), you begin to stop taking the bait. Mavs get extremely nervous in crunch time, and that's all there is to it. And Dirk is like the oven cleaner: Easy Off. He's not like Jordan, who'd become INSENCED when he shot poorly, as if to say "exCUSE me!? How DARE me not shoot the way I'm capable of shooting! I will not cram this ball down somebody's throat!" He's Dirk. He's easygoing. It makes for a more balanced person. And that's good.

Now then. Consider:

SAME GUY



by the way, how great is it that the entire public relations and design teams of the Yakima Mavericks signed off on that logo, leaving the apostrophe in tact? Magic, I tell you. Magic.

Sleep is for suckers

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of working on a project for this thing:

This means that my team received a genre (buddy movie), necessary character (Rev. Paul Schwarz), necessary prop (egg), and necessary line ("That's the dumbest thing I ever heard!") at 7pm on Friday. I and two others (and Jiff's cell phone) wrote a script, due at 7am, at which point my director and producer scouted locations and started doing whatever they do. Then the actors (of which I was one) got together at noon and we shot that mother until like 3 am, then editing, sound, color correction, etc. started happening. We turned in our little love child at 6pm Sunday night, still wet with our kisses.

It's a modern parable, really: two loveably strange men perform a puppet show at a VBS and a brawl ensues. Who can't learn a thing or two from this tragicomedy? Nobody, I tell ye. Nobody.

If the technology exists at some point, I will send you to youtube to see it. I'm going to the screening tonight, where I hope we'll collect massive awards and huge cash packages.


Viva la cinema!

This is the musical world we live in.

Today, in submission to the wishes of my iPod, I listened to Jack Johnson during my 1-mile commute to work. As I was considering his no-frills stylings, I was reminded of my opinion-how refreshing. About 10-years ago, I surveyed the pop/rock landscape and thought that we, as listeners, exhausted. Michael Jackson and others were so grossly overproducing their records that the radio often seemed more like a clattered cacophony of gizmos and clicks than a medium where songs were exchanged. There were also big, angry rock bands out there like Pearl Jam (what is up, CZ), Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Metallica, Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine, Smashing Pumpkins, as well as loud, meaningless rock bands like Guns N Roses, Bon Jovi, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Throw all those guys into the stew (and more--these are off the top of my head), and things are brash, frenzied, and sonically tiring.

Anyhow: what I said many times over, in those days, was "I bet things will change. I think this particular track is at its end. I bet we somehow return to the folksy days of the 70s, where James Taylor and his guitar and a sparce backing band are good enough to get the point across and bring a return of HEART to the landscape. I bet SONGWRITERS will be the new currency, where high-touch, high-vulnerability will somehow be edgy."

I remember Jewel happening, and thinking "I hope this is the beginning (of something better)." It was. Practically all of the emo artists (including the droning Mr. Bland, er, Blunt, Sufjan, Belle and Sebastian etc.), as well as our friend Jack are doing it low-tone style. Foo Fighters released an acoustic album this year! What?! Even Coldplay is less about noise than they are about emotion and connection, which is, as you know, a joy to me.

On the one hand, I am obviously pleased with these developments. It makes my predictions look sagacious, and there's more music out there that invites a dialogue, a conversation, an evaluation. I like that.

On the other hand, where's the fun, kickin' rock band gone? I don't think U2 would still be the presence they are if there were 20 year olds still cranking out great rock music. Not sideline stuff (Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Artic Monkeys), but radio-ready, fun rock music. There isn't even a rock band as big as Creed out there right now--not that I liked them at all, but I just like a crunch band BEING there.

But if that's the price of songwriters, I'll take it. John Mayer wouldn't have made it in the 80s or early 90s, but he is now certifiably cool, and I'm glad. I guess we can all hold our breaths to see if we can have a Police rebirth somewhere. Until then, I kinda enjoy the Curious George soundtrack. It might be simple, but it's trying to mean SOMETHING.

We gotta tear the machine down before we can build it back up again.

Open Question

2 Corinthians 4:4 refers to Satan as "the god of this age". Luke 4:6, Revelation 13:2-7, and Matthew 18 talk about the authority he has to do what he does, by God. Job 1-2 talk about this same thing.

Romans 13:1 Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.

What am I to do with this, since rebelling against that ruler and his authorities (again, Eph 6:12- "our struggle is... against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil...") is something I'm supposed to do? How can I know which authority is from God and which is part of the devil's system? The book A Tale of Three Kings (wonderful! wonderful! Everybody read this book!) says "you can't know, so submit to them all", but surely I'm not to submit to the enemy's intentions in my life and in the lives of those I'm to fight for.

Any help on this, anybody?

From the Archives

I just thought everybody should see this wonderful photo. May these two have many more exciting playoff series, and may Scrappy lose them all.

I would also like to take this opportunity to say RIP to Charles Barkley's 2006 Playoffs on TNT.

And one last (melancholy) Mavs point for the day: when they were hoisting up that Western Conference Champs trophy, and I was harkening back to 1996, the last time I was rooting for a winner, Didi said very matter-of-factly, having been through the corporate grinder herself: it's going to be a very sad day for Mark Cuban when his team wins the finals. Then what?

I quickly reminded her that, just like the corporate world, the carrot will keep moving. Then he'll need two, a dynasty, etc. etc. Still, I liked her jarring me back to reality that these are two corporations battling each other. Kinda takes the fun out of it, though.

I Cannot Help But Show This Wonder

In light of recent postings, this cannot be debated:


There it is, a wedding day tribute to an Aggie tradition that killed a couple dozen people about 10 years ago. Nothing says "I do" like a confectionary memorial to a fiery death trap, complete with an outhouse on top. Say you'll be mine my dear?