I thought this was a thought-provoking piece from a Dallas radio personality named Gordon Keith.


Reflections on the like of Hunter S. Thompson.


So he blows his head off and I don’t think it is heroic. I don’t think it is romantic, glamorous, or defiant. I don’t think it is praiseworthy, toastworthy, noteworthy, or manly.


You won’t catch me pouring whisky on a grave. Now or ever. It is just sad that such men corrupted my youth and destroyed my adulthood with their permanent adolescence.


Those who make Hemingway, Thompson, Cobain, Morrison, Hendrix, Cassady, Kerouac, Thomas, Hart Crane, Kennedy Toole, or any other sad sack a romantic figure for doing what bums do everyday are pathetic fools. They praise the incarnations of their adolescent angst and tell the rest of us who wouldn’t let ours kill us that we are squares.


I want to live a full and adventurous life for its own sake, not for the sake of giving the advent of my existence the middle finger. I don’t want my life to be shock value, I want it to be a life. Time to tire of being pissed off I was born.


Self-destruction is not the romantic inspiring dance with the Reaper these men promised me it was in my youth, back when wasted talent was as intoxicating as mescal, and every bar was a new novel. Drinking and whoring. It’s false living and it’s a grade of bullshit that sells. And every young man with a literary or rock-n-roll bent burns with that tired Gospel until it is no longer cute, then they turn into old singed men. It happens just like that. One day you are a rock-n-roll bon vivant, the next a drunkard that shit his pants. These goods have always been marketed and sold to the young and I’ll bet all my first editions they always will. I bought it by the caseload and drank their form of death one shot glass at a time with conspiring friends. These men were great at marketing it and some of them sadly believed it until it killed them, or realized their lie and that’s what killed them.


And I was right there, buying it and doing a cheap job of living it. Do not go gentle into that good night. Ok. Then, what shall I go gentle into milord? Nuthin? Ok. Thanks for the help.


I’ve spent too much of my life drinking, smoking, and last-call philosophizing. It’s a frustrating roundabout that creates as much pain as it masks.


As you can tell, this isn’t about Hunter as much as it is about me, and I am truly afraid I will spend the rest of my life trying to kill the 22 year old Gordon Keith.


I don’t know Hunter’s mindset the last few years of his life and I am a shithead for assuming. Yet here I am vomiting up all these words because something so meaningless has meant so much to me. I am not mad at him for his suicide. Nevermind the Catholics. Maybe we all have the right to end the suspense to our own liking. We all kill ourselves at different paces. I am just the old codger who fears what it does to the impressionable who feel like vicarious living is the only true kind. What a sad mistake it is, and how I hate that it robbed me of good years.


“Did you hear what Hunter Thompson did? He said fuck it, if life won’t give me what I want, I’ll wrestle back the wheel of this renegade Buick.” When in reality it was a lonely old scared man who did what lonely old scared men do everywhere. It is ironic to me that poets, authors and sages, who spend the better part of their lives working on the problem of mortality are the ones who fail at it the most come nut-cutting time. You can’t beat that old whore, and it seems to surprise those who “know” it the most.


The ones who want the most life are the ones most disappointed. I don’t know the answer, I just smell a problem.


We praise those who can put words on that which we cannot. So I guess I come to praise Hunter Thompson and bury him.

Bobby loves Danny

Bobby & Camera Day 1
Originally uploaded by smanuel.

Many of you might not know this, but both Jiff and Bobby live and work (and good for them, showing some initiative!) out there in Los Angeles, home of broken dreams and broken and re-sculpted noses. Bobby does (and Jiff did) work in the world of filmed and recorded entertainment, where people make up stories, act out the stories, edit and musicfy them, then sell them to us. This industry (again, if you don't know), makes a lot of money and, because it does, produces people who "live large". These people can be identified by people who don't know them at all, and you, for instance, may have an impression of Tom Cruise as a happy, fulfilled success of a man, while on the inside he's a misogynistic egomaniac. I'm not saying he is, though he very well could be. Anyhow. The beauty of knowing J&B is that you sometimes get silly stories about people we can identify but don't know, and sometimes the Mash writes itself. From Bobby, who's handling the front door of an entertainment-pooping boutique:


I'm at the front desk. Hovering outside the front
door, be-capped, be-jacketed, be-cell phoned, Mr.
Danny Glover. Big man, the expression of a lost
child. I buzz him in. He has the phone to his ear,
but doesn't seem to realize it. He cuts the jig of a
homeless man who has FOUND a cell phone. He never...
quite... actually... makes it... to the desk. Just
floats in the middle space.

He has that sweet, gruff, library voice the whole
time. The conversation as it occurred:

Bobby: Yes, sir.
Danny Glover: (glancing around) Hi, I made it.
B: Yes, sir. Welcome. Who are you here to see?

The phone comes down.

DG: Oh... is this?... I'm here to see Chris.
B: Hmmm. Chris (carefully) who?
DG: This is... I'm... For Chris. (re: address) 9350?
B: Yes sir, Suite 100.
DG: Right, 9350.
B: Suite 100.
DG: Chris, uh, Ebert.
B: (gripping phone list) Chris Ebert? There's no
Chris Ebert that works here, unfortunately.

A very long pause, our eyes are locked.

B: **look at that old black buck**
DG: **i look stupid again**
B: **wanna talk some jive?**
DG: **i once consumed a boy about your size**
B: **i'll talk some jive like you never heard**
DG: **i want to crush ALL white people**

B: What project are you here to discuss?
DG: Projhhh?
B: I could send you to the right office that way.

And he wanders off, thumb poking open phone. Matthew
happens to walk up.

B: I don't know where to send Danny Glover. And he's
standing right there.
Matthew: (grins only)
B: (to DG) This is Intermedia.
DG: Right, I'm Danny Glover.
B: Yes, sir.

He gets no one on his phone, turns back to me. He
shifts his weight onto his other leg, then back again.

DG: Chris Ebert?
B: He's not in this building.
DG: 110?
B: Suite 110? This is suite 100.
DG: Is this Ascendant?
Matthew: Oh, they're next door.
B: This is Intermedia.
DG: (leaving) Oh... next... thank you... next door.

And he disappeared beyond the window.

Matthew: (just chuckles)
B: Well, he was good in Tenenbaums.

I'm celebrating all our past presidents (except LBJ) by sitting around the house writing today. And also, I'm giving you all a link to an incredible music video featuring the head of Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator. After you see this video, you will start calling him the Great Groove Activator. Here's to all former heads of state!

I will always be interested in what I call Generational Theory. I like to observe, from a social as well as spiritual standpoint, the differences between generations. I observe, for instance, that my grandparents' generation was about survival and establishment; my parents' generation has been much more into production and success. My generation seems to be more into personal development or relationships. I'm just saying.

Now, while these are interesting (and debatable) observations, there are SOME things that are NOT up for debate at all. They cut our generations clean into, like a lawnmower blade through stale dog doo. And here's one of them. Allow me to capitalize, to simulate a raising of the voice. OUR PARENTS LOVED WALLPAPER. WE DO NOT. Nobody reading this would choose to have a room like the one pictured below.
This was a very basic part of my growing up, the fact that wallpaper would get changed on most walls in the house every 5-10 years. I remember going to several wallpaper stores with my mother. And I can also say that, when I consider my life and that of my friends who also pay the bank monthly for the opportunity to claim that we 'own' a home, I DON'T KNOW OF ANYBODY IN MY GENERATION WHO HAS EVER HUNG WALLPAPER IN THEIR HOME.

I find this to be curious. I love the concept of zeitgeist, and I declare, there's SOMETHING in the air that makes such changes happen. What? What made all the cars get ovaly 10 years ago, and all awkward and non-drag-resistant now? What made neon colors so great 15 years ago and so taboo now (except in certain country and western dancehall-going sectors of society, which will not be discussed here)? What exactly happened that made the generation after mine (the Yers) want big, bushy, un-maintanainced hair? And WHY DO WE LOATHE WALLPAPER WHEN OUR PARENTS LOVED IT?!?

All I want to say is this: I walked past a ponytailed construction worker last week. He seemed about like you'd expect, except that, as we passed, he said, "Afternoon..." in a very dignified manner. I believe he might have even reached up to tip his hard hat, which was exciting and completely surprising. What a polite and genteel scholar this man came off as! I wanted to introduce myself immediately. He could easily have been a refined English gentleman--the kind that's been immortalized in this fanciful teapot that you can buy at some wheels-off antique site:
I knew a man in England who was as olde school as it gets. This man wore very dapper-looking hip coats, thought of corduroy as being the most casual garment allowable and, when pleased with something, would refer to it as "champion!" or "sterling!" I got a real hoot out of this guy. He also called me Squire, which I found very flattering, as if I was in training for something great. I loved that. Can one say that I'm charmed by chivalry and regalia? Yeah sure, I guess. I dunno.

THESE bad boys (can I say that? I'm neither from the inner city nor a cultural christian...) go on sale about this time next year. CAN I PLEASE HAVE ONE DADDY?? PLEASE??????

My friend Scott was telling me a story about his kid, a 2-year-old girl named Lydia. The family was out sledding, and Lydia wasn't interested; she was giving her attention to a stick. So Scott picked up the stick, broke off the extranaeous branches, and handed it to Lydia, who immediately started drawing lines in the snow. At this simple thing, she was full of glee, and kept insisting that her father look at her having such fun. Stunned by this, Scott concludes that we should be people who can "get to happy with minimal effort."


Luke 18:17- I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.

*chirp*
*chirp*

*chirp*

Now I will say this. I just made a visit to Kansas City, Missouri, which is one of my favorite states. There, I spent time with my friend Richard, who has no working television and raises chickens so that he can eat their eggs freshly. Richard loves, loves, loves making bread, so he found a job doing just that. He lives extrememly simply, from my standpoint. I also spent time with my close friend Mark, who spends hours every day reading, and writing, pausing for honest work on his property when he has to. Mark took me for a walk, straight out of his front door, ending up on some relatively untarnished land with a pond. We walked in the rain, which was right and good. His son was strapped to his back, sound asleep.

This was a good time in my life to visit these friends. I'm at a point where God is calling me back to a setup we had a while back: unclutteredness. Earlier today, my friend Dave read me this verse out of his Bible, which I enjoyed. Having people read me verses out of their Bibles is one of my favorite hobbies, and I'm getting good at it. Here's how it went: "No one seving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs; he wants to please his commanding officer." Now, this brought back some memories, because years ago I was very into a dead guy named Jim Eliot, and he was really crazy about this verse. Jim was all about cutting through all the stuff of life in Laodecia (as he constantly called normal America). He said "'Culture', philosophy, disputes, drama in its weaker forms, concerts and opera, politics---anything that can occupy the intellect seems to turn aside the hearts of many here... from a humble life in the steps of the Master, though we sing about this most delicately! NO, EDUCATION IS DANGEROUS, AND, PERSONALLY, I AM BEGINNING TO QUESTION ITS VALUE IN A CHRISTIAN'S LIFE. I DO NOT DISPARAGE WISDOM---THAT COMES FROM GOD, NOT Ph.D's." In a journal he wrote, "I have been musing lately on the extremely dangerous cumulative effects of earthly things. One may have good reason, for example, to want a wife, and he may have one legitimately. But with a wife comes Peter the Pumpkin-Eaters proverbial dilemma---he must find a place to keep her. And most wives will not stay on such terms as Peter proposed. So a wife demands a house; a house in turn requires curtains, rugs, washing machines, et cetera. A house with these things must soon become a home, and children are the intended outcome. The needs multiply as they are met---a car demands a garage; a garage, land; land, a garden; a garden, tools; and tools need sharpening. Woe, woe, woe to the man who would live a disentangled life in my century. II. Timothy 2:4 is impossible in the United States, if one insists on a wife. I learn from this that the wisest life is the simplest one, lived in the fulfillment of only the basic requirements of life---shelter, food, covering, and a bed. And even these can become productive of other needs if one does not heed. Be on guard, my soul, of complicating your environment so that you have neither time nor room for growth!" I think we can all see from these two quotes alone that this guy was out of his mind. He acted as if something else was Really Important. All these words of Jim's could absolutely have come out of my mouth about 8 years ago. I think there's something in there that's self-righteous and proud, but there are other things in there that are hard to shake off so easily.

I can't help but think of another guy, when I get going in this direction. It's that Thoreau feller. He didn't know Jesus, but he walked down a road I often feel my Master leading me down. He is, of course, the "Simplicity! Simplicity! Simplicity!" guy, but he wrote a number of really good other things, too. "My Aunt Maria asked me to read the life of Dr. Chalmers, which, however, I did not promise to do. Yesterday, Sunday, she was heard through the partition shouting to my Aunt Jane, who is deaf, "Think of it! He stood half an hour today to hear the frogs croak, and he wouldn't read the life of Chalmers." This Thoreau character wasn't after Jesus, but he was after one thing, and he was awfully pointed about that pursuit. I like that. More Thoreau: "In the streets and in society I am almost invariably cheap and dissipated, my life is unspeakably mean. No amount of gold or respectability would in the least redeem it,-- dining with the Governor or a member of Congress!! But alone in the distant woods or fields, in unpretending sprout-lands or pastures tracked by rabbits, even in a bleak and, to most, cheerless day, like this, when a villager would be thinking of his inn, I come to myself, I once more feel myself grandly related... I thus dispose of the superfluous and see things as they are, grand and beautiful... I wish to get the Concord, the Massachusetts, the America, out of my head and be sane a part of every day." Now see, there's some good stuff there. I'm not so crazy about the alone stuff David touts so mightily, but I sure like that last line. I really want to get the Cincinnati, Campbells Soup and Crossroads, America and Texas, musician or athlete stuff out of my head and heart, and just walk with God every moment, finding all my place and identity in Him.

God is teaching me that I don't have any room left for other allegiances, if I belong wholly to Him. Let me tell a story: I brought my computer home one day and was reading some things in it in my living room, when my computer told me "you're hooked up on a wireless network right now." Surprised, I have come to find out that the ubiquitous internet has now captured my home, presumably by my neighbors' network. In about 2 weeks' time, I had formed a habit of going to USA Today's website to do the crossword puzzle, and even looked forward to that after working hours. Now, isn't that insidious? A little thievery there, a little removal or narrowing there. Mark challenged me this past week when he made a comment about Fantasy Basketball, of which I'm an active and enthusiastic participant. He said, "If I spent an hour in the entire year on that, it would be completely wasted time." All of my little lovers from my days of rest and complacency are under question right now. Why is our living room furniture all directed at that blasted television, which has never done anything but sallowed and softened our love for our LORD? Why do I need to drive a $10,000 automobile, when a $4,000 will be just as dry, go just as fast, and transport me just as successfully? Why must I give so much time to having fun, "relaxing" (from what? My job of writing music!?), and self-indulgence? Why so so so many sets of clothes? And hear me: I don't think any of those things are "bad" (because Bad is whatever is outside of God, and He's big enough to incorporate my $10K car); I just see that they're little threats. So the LORD is telling me to streamline, in these days. Must I always be looking for some kind of promotion? Must I want more? Must my life be Important? What if that's not what God wants, and I'm opposing Him with my ambition?

Zechariah 4:10- who despises the day of small things?


Well whew. Maybe you can see why I posted what I did immediately below this. Because I know what I'm writing can feel dogmatic and constricting, and if-you're-not-doing-this-you-can't-possibly-have-God-ish. And I'm not into those things. But this is what I'm hearing.

I hasten to add that this is stuff I'm thinking about and processing; the concrete has not set in me on this stuff. I have been here before, in my more legalistic days, and I hear this call again, out of invitation. If you hear something dangerous in my words, or just disagree, I'm really okay with that.

First let me say this: it's very easy for me to hear God speak to me, hear freedom and invitation and life in His Word, and then run out, tell you what He said, and imprison you by those same words. That is to say, what He speaks as freedom to one child might be death and undue restriction on another child. That's why, of course, we all want to hear Him speak to us personally. (This is what Jesus' sheep were meant to do, of course. Not to win souls or even love people, and not to study well or speak in tongues. Jesus' sheep hear His voice. That's their job description.) God has words of life to speak to you that have nothing to do with me. I want to know what He's saying to you, of course, because I want my understanding of Him to be as wide and complete as possible--but the foisting on you of His words to me isn't helpful.

Religion, the bad kind, is very good at filling in the blanks for us all when we don't know what God is saying. Have you noticed this? You don't really hear preachers encouraging you to stay in that place of uncertainly until the LORD reveals Himself. They say that you shouldn't just sit there; you should be doing something.
"You're unsure what He's saying to you? Well, He's telling you to serve, right? To get outside yourself?"
"Well, yes, He seems to have said that in the scriptures, and He seems to say that to me..."
"Here's what you do: go here, say this, put your money here, etc. etc. etc."
Lots of times, those instructions lead to their organization being benefitted. That's another topic, but it sure makes the whole line of counsel suspicious. How can a girl trust a boy when all his cousel leads to his own bedroom?

We become, in effect, spiritual investment bankers for each other. Just give me your assets, and I won't make you think or evaluate or understand. I'll tell you what to do, and you see for yourself that my instructions yield desirable returns. And hey, I confess: I have often thought that if people would let me run their lives, I would help them do a much better job than they do on their own. And I've been serious about that, and not megalomaniacal, either (and in the flesh, I would still maintain this. But so what? Better fleshly lives?). It wasn't about control; it was really about helping people. Yet it was religious (the dirty kind).

But here's the thing: what's the goal? If you tell me how to live, and I end up with a happy marriage and well-behaved children and a stable financial situation, did we win? If those things are the goal, then yeah I guess we did. But if hearing and having God is the goal, then you blew it for me by telling me what to do, instead of pushing me back into the ring and making me deal with Him personally. And I blew it by listening to your (well-meaning, possibly helpful) advice. If getting God is the goal, then none of the other things matter. At all. They do not matter at all.

See, there isn't a Right way to live. There couldn't be. If there were a Right way to live, we'd be back under the law. So someone could move to India, take up where Mother Teresa left off, have the perfect 40-30-30 diet, always wash their socks and wear deodorant, and without God around, they'd be living Wrong. And somebody else could live in the fabulous hills of Bel-Air, CA, have servants and drive a Bentley and, with God around, be A-OK. This is hard for me to get my head around, since I've spent many years trying to figure out what the Perfect Life would look like, so I could emulate it. I think of the India person as Right and the Bel Air person as Wrong. But the fact is, again, that Right Living doesn't exist in a way that can be outwardly observed. The Kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21), and that's where God is. If I can see the fruits of His presence, can observe the effects of the wind, then that's enough. I don't need to understand or agree with any of the other stuff.

So go feel free to listen and know and talk to God. People who lead you into more conversation with Him are your friends. People who would fill in the blanks for you are not.

People who consciously look at their automobile buying dollars, shop around a bit, do some research, and end up buying a Pontiac Aztec should be issued a handicapped (tm) parking pass with their new ultra-strange vehicle. I feel similarly about the Scion. And yet I'm crazy about that Element! Go figger.

John 1:12- Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

Friends, the only thing you could ever possibly do, with relation to the GOD Who Speaks Planets, is to receive things from Him. He is not a man, that He could be served by men, as if He could ever need something (Acts 17:25), and it's impossible for you to make something that He could inhabit (Is 66:1). Kinda puts a big freakin Mac truck (tm) sized hole in our great delusions about "doing something for God", don't it? Kinda makes all that religious talk that we've all heard about pleasing Him with our work a little hollow, am I right? Can I get an amen?

Hey, I'm no fool. I grew up in the Present Religious System, where you get strokes for performance, so I sought to serve Jesus better than anybody (this is how you know you're Doing Well, by the way: you look over your shoulder). Then Jesus says, "You know, you can call yourself a servant if you want, but I don't want to call you that. Servants are used to do jobs, and they don't really know what their master's heart is all about. I'd much rather call you friends. Friends really aren't all that useful, as far as getting stuff done. They're just for enjoyment and relationship. I'd like to call you a friend." But like I said, I was no fool. You don't get strokes where I come from for being a "friend of Jesus". You get strokes for performing. So I told Jesus no thanks and went on with things. Ultimately, I got the shit kicked out of me by the evil spirits I'd be agreeing to (because, baby, you can only perform so well for so long, and one day the odds comes calling), and Jesus very patiently and lovingly came and rescued me. After this happened a number of times, I decided that I would actually really LIKE to be a fool. And the old crowd doesn't exactly ask me around anymore.

John 1:11- He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him. Is that not one of the spookiest verses you've ever heard? Why wouldn't His own receive Him? I'd bet you they were busy doing things, "God-things", and saw no usefulness in receiving Him. Religion is utilitarian; the Father is lavish, wasteful, and overboard. Think of the picture of marriage, by which we're to learn about His ways: of what use is sex to a husband? Satisfaction, that's what! Yeah, but what else? Well, maybe progeny, but you don't get the progeny without the satisfaction stuff! We think the progeny is the goal, and that the satisfaction stuff is a waste of time. There's a lot of counterfeit fruit out there to prove it.

Think of the picture of a tree. David said in Psalm 1 that a man who delights in the LORD and His law (=LOVE!) is like a tree planted by streams of living water. What does that picture tell us? Well, how much effort does a tree exert? Ever seen a tree strive, or work harder, or promise to try next time? Trees absorb food and water, and by virtue of what they are, they produce fruit. Always. Year in and year out. So what's the key to their success? Receiving. Jesus says "you know, if you do nothing but rest in me, just rest in me, you'll be like a tree. You will bear much fruit--can't avoid it. But apart from resting in me, you can produce nothing of lasting value. Heat but not light. Clouds without rain."

Again, think of sheep. Sheep go a step further. Not only are sheep specially made to simply eat, rest, and produce wool, but they will actually produce LESS if they're harassed or nervous. Their being at peace and careless is the job of a good shepherd, because if they experience stress, they'll become withered and won't eat. THIS IS US. Believe and receive. When we think "I'll serve you, and you give me some food and keep me safe", we're not coming to Him as sheep to a shepherd, we're coming to Him as slaves to a master. That's a great perversion of what the LORD has made available to you. And let me tell you this: servants will never know the Master's heart. Friends will.

God wants sons (Romans 8, Hebrews 2, et al). People who receive Him and believe get to be sons. Not the workers; not the "faithful"; not the sin-avoiders; not the actively-sharing-their-faith; not the never-miss-a-quiet-timers. Receivers.

Following fashion is, as I've said, a chasing after the wind. Going to Banana Republic every month to see what the provacateurs are parading is silly: their entire job is to keep things changing so that everyone continually needs to buy new stuff to be current. That's insanity if I've ever heard it.

Yet my wife, she sometimes chases after the wind. Okay maybe not that, but she sees the effects of the wind. And makes observations (and purchases) based on that knowledge. She has bought me a new pair of jeans, my good men, and I'm a little confounded by them. When I was a boy [the year is 1986: Coca Cola rugby shirts were a must for high schoolers, the Ralph Lauren "polo" brand was associating itself with the posh and privileged, and Bon Jovi was Giving Love A Bad Name], the hip jean designers made their wares different and necessary by acid washing them and, in some extreme cases, made them black. Fashion has "progressed", I guess, because now the hip jeans are not only oh-so-prefaded-in-just-the-right-spots as well as being strategically 'stressed' at the hems and pockets, but they're also colored in such a way that you half believe they were ground in mud before being hung to sell in the store. There's an unmistakable dirty look to my new pre-worn-looking jeans. I can only assume that in 20 years, the clothes I'm buying my children will already have been given away to Goodwill.

I like the healthy drinks. I will always choose a fruity drink over those bad bad sodas that the kids all drink these days. I enjoy caring for my body; it's part of my heritage as a shepherd (really!). Anyhow, I got turned on to the Odwalla line about a year ago, when I was running ridiculous distances and such. It's all full of fruit and flowers and corn and stuff, and it's supposed to be really good for you. So I would occasionally save up my allowance and plunk down the $3 that one of those 14 oz. bottles cost. I'd walk away feeling healthy and scammed (I could go on and on about my strained relationship with Whole Foods Markets just because of their instictive belief that healthy food costs a lot more than crap food). Well that's all changed now...

BECAUSE I'M HERE TO HYPE HYPE HYPE THE WONDERFUL PRODUCTS GIVEN TO US BY BOLTHOUSE FARMS!!!

You may be saying "That's a terrible name for a company that sells nutritious drinks. Bolthouse Farms sounds like a lumberyard." Granted, but that's beside the point. BF (www.bolthouse.com) makes a V8 competitor, various juices, the green drink to compete with Odwalla's Superfood, and this killer thing I just drank called Perfectly Protein- Vanilla Chai Tea with Soy Protein. If you're like me, you can't imagine paying good money for tea, but this stuff doesn't taste or look like tea. It looks like milk, and it tastes like some kind of almond vanilla concoction that God revealed to someone in a dream. It's inCREDible. Allow me to go on: imagine a beverage with 19 grams of soy protein, Vitamin C, B6 and B12, iron, zinc, magnesium, 18 amino acids, and 37 grams of isoflavonoids per serving--can you see how incredible this would be for your body as well as your taste buds? Now imagine paying $1.50 for it at your local cut-rate Mijer foodseller. Yessssss.

I should go on about the milky thing. I have always enjoyed the creamy/milky beverage, no matter the flavor. Why, when I'd go visit my Uncle Jerald's homestead in Bedias Texas, we'd often be treated to strawberry or chocolate milk, and they were all ambrosia to me. I like malts of all kinds, and will even stoop to drinking Ovaltine when my milk jones kicks in. I'm not proud. Heck, I'll even drink drinks that are supposed to REMIND us of milk, but have no milk content, like Yoo-Hoo and Chocolate Soldier. I have often purchased those questionable Starbucks frappucino drinks just because they're milky smooth, though I'm not a fan of coffee. Are you getting the picture? SoBe makes a wonderful Tropical-themed Pina Colada drink that I'm all over. Again, I think it has no actual milk in it, but oh the sweetness! Oh the fruitiness! Oh the milkiness! This could be why I enjoy nougat as well, though I'm sure that nougat will probably kill us all. I've gone on too long.

Perfectly Protein, by Bolthouse Farms, is everything I could hope for in an ingestible liquid. It's sweet, nutritious, and has that milky quality that never goes unappreciated.


ps- wouldn't it be great if nutrition drinks also told you what ISN'T healthy about their drinks? They act like they're just perfect, like they've never done ANYTHING wrong. We all know they're just hiding their flaws, like you do when you're dating somebody. Will somebody be honest with me? THAT's the person I want to marry, anyway!

Attention: everyone who thinks/reads, please look away. I am about to talk about sports.

Wally Szerbiak reminds me that some of the best looking ballplayers have the most inscrutible names.

HSO: If you put me and Shaquille O'Neal in the same sized body, and we played a game of one-on-one, I would win.

HSO2: Smaller basketball players have had to work harder to be successful; they've had to develop skills more diligently. The percentage of skilled basketball players decreases as the players become taller. The Kevin Garnetts, Dirk Nowitzkis, and Akeem Olajuwons are the anomalies. Big players have less skill.

ugh! Holy foes, superfriends--I caught the teevee on again. On it was Smarmfest Local Weather Guy. One thing that's patronizing and annoying is when they tell me what I want the weather to be like.

"We'll have snow flurries tonight, but don't worry: things are looking up tomorrow, as temperatures will climb back into the mid- to upper-forties."

"Lots of rain on the way this weekend--it's going to be an ugly one."

Come on! Is it at least CONCEIVABLE that someone could actually enjoy something other than bland, milquetoast weather? Why assume that I always want it dumbed down to middle-of-the-road? I mean, honestly.

JEERS, NOT CHEERS! THIS IS MY BEEF!

Remember Sweet Daddy, from Good Times? He was the friendly, well-meaning pimp with a tooth, er, heart of gold. Anyhow, there was a hilarious turn of events in Norman Lear's magnum opus in which we find Sweet Daddy laid up in a wheel chair, headed to the hospital. He had fuzzy dice on his IV hanger! Sweet Daddy, when asked about his ensuing visit to the medical world, confessed with aplomb (characteristically referring to himself in third person) that "Sweet Daddy's afraid of needles!" This was not one of the more dramatic moments on Good Times (like when Florida smashes the punch bowl and yells, "DAMN DAMN DAMN!" when she lets herself feel the depth of pain from James Evans, Sr.'s untimely death while working on the Alaskan pipeline), yet it revealed a vulnerable side of teevee's face of the prostitution industry, at least at that time.


If you think I could talk about Good Times all day, you're right. But I'm not going to do that. Instead, I'm going to parallel Sweet Daddy Williams' experience with my own. Yesterday, accompanied by my old and good friend Shane "Sweet Daddy" Miller, I went to a dirty, dismal Urgent Care office and receive innoculation for both typhoid and tetanus. I think I remember reading about people dying in terrible pain from typoid, but I don't remember anything about tetanus. Yet it's such a popular innoculation! Whatever. I was a little dubious about the whole "you take a slender piece of metal loaded with a potent chemical liquid that could potentially kill me yet about which I couldn't be more ignorant, then puncture my fragile skin with said metal, filling me full of poison" thing, since I hadn't had one of those experiences in maybe 15 years. Oh sure, I was soothed by the promotional posters that littered the dirt-tinged walls ("Travelling to the Carribbean is pure ecstacy. Lime disease isn't."), and I was delighted to find the Highlights magazine in the rack of old Woman's Day and People rags. [Allow me to digress. To me, the Highlights magazine is one of the commonalities of life in America that tells me I'm safe, I'm surrounded by people who care, and I'm NOT a Goofus, crassly hanging up on people when I dial a wrong number. I'm a Gallant, for crying out loud, and I will APOLOGIZE for cripes' sake when I accidentally call someone I don't know! Highlights not only supplies me with all the hilarious riddles that make the sun shine bright (Q: What time is it when 7 tigers are chasing you? A: Seven after one!), but it keeps my finding-what's-wrong-with-this-picture skills razor sharp. Highlights is tame, predictable, and perfect for the youngsters, as well as, I hasten to add, the youngsters-at-heart.] But none of that prepared me for the pain of those shots. Friends, it hurt. And I paid $113 for that pain. I even went a little sweaty and woozy for about 3 minutes after the jab, which was a little unsettling. But I made it. My body has absorbed the 1ml of poison/medication they stuck in me. And I wonder: can the scientific brains that have given us Guacamole-flavored Doritos (tm) Snack Chips NOT produce medication in pill form that will replace shots? How hard could that be? We already have pills, people--we're getting all sorts of chemicals through the pill and the caplet. I'm just saying, the technology is there.

But like I say, I recovered. The word on the street is that I bled like the Dallas Maverick defense when they pulled the steel from my poor arm, though I never dared to look, and yet I stumbled out into the icy Ohio winter, better off? for it. So like the Sweet Daddy of yore, yes, I was a mite squeamish about receiving the Medical Spear into my person. But UNlike Sweet Daddy, and this is what I want you to remember from my story, I am not a pimp, trafficking in the immoral and illegal business of prostitution.

sing to O How I Love Jesus

There is some food I love to cheer;
I loved it since my birth!
It sounds a little strange to hear
But doesn't add to my girth!

Ah-spar-a-ga-ee-zus!
Ah-spar-a-ga-ee-zus!
Ah-spar-a-ga-ee-zus!
It changes the smell of pee!

Today in Almaty, Kazakhstan, it is -3 degrees Farenheit, with a light snow. Almaty is a full 11 hours ahead of my world time understanding here in Whoville, Ohio. Almaty is quite near Kyrgyzstan (that would KILL if proper names were allowed in Scrabble, America's favorite Crossword puzzle game), which is, I think we can all agree, a Made Up name. It's also quite close to China, as you can see on the map above, if you're into maps. Almaty means Father Apple, so now your understanding has been significantly broadened. See?

I once had some missionary friends who served in Mongolia, which looks awfully close to Kazakhstan on a global map, so it's probably within 10,000 miles or so. Anyhow, in Mongolia my friends had to get used to drinking yak fat (yes), since Molgols give this to people who visit them, in a show of kindness and total disregard for triglyceride and cholestrol levels. They told me once that they put foods outside on their balcony if they needed to be frozen, and that, if one were experiencing a runny nose, one need only go out for a walk to solve the problem. I don't know what frozen snot feels like, but I can't imagine it tasting much worse than some of the horrific combinations they cook up at those Hawaiian Snow joints in front of strip malls in the summer. I mean, how is there a Tiger Tail flavor? That's not a flavor!

I will be visiting Almaty next month, as I've been invited there for a mission conference. I expect my time in that country, where the average person makes $1,150 a year, to be enlightening and affecting. You can talk to God about my time there coming up, or as I like to say, PRAY IT FORWARD. That's a little comedy I've thrown in for you today, which is pretty hilarious. Okay, enough ridiculous joking. Here's the thing: I have just filled out a visa application that looks like the cover of Ghost in the Machine. Should I tell them about my plans to convert their questionable industrial systems into a giant Steven Statue Making Machine, right on the visa application? I daren't.

I will tell you this: getting out of one's own culture, if even for a few hours, is sooooo good for the soul. It kinda has the same effect as fasting. It reminds a body that you're not the center of the universe, your needs are not the most dire, and that you've been given much, much more than your fair share. I really like the change of pace that causes me to learn things just so I can find an unhumiliating place to take a leak, or have to ask favors of people via hand gestures just to know which bus I need. I think it's good for me. This also reminds me of the encouraging fact that my spirit sometimes DOES win over my flesh. Sometimes I work to put it in its element, instead of working so hard to make my body happy. That's not at all an unfamiliar concept for believers around the globe, but for us, it's a significant lesson. So here's to being free, as the song says, and here's to killing off that flesh, as one of my heros would say, by any means necessary.

http://www.kazakinfo.com/Default.aspx?tabid=48

People who can't fit in a bed with a footboard- unite! Rise up against the fascist regime of bedmakers and their mute followers, the bedbuyers!

I never said I'm too good to sleep on the floor. I never said that. Truth be told, I prefer sleeping near the ground, though not necessarily ON it. I'm not too good to sleep on the floor; I'm too SOFT. I wasn't always this way, but I was married a habit-forming while ago, and I have already observed somewhere that women like things comfortable and accommodating. I really want to sleep with my wife, so I sleep in the same bed she uses, which is comfortable, accommodating, etc. In this way, I'm becoming less of a commando-style rough-and-ready male, and am, to be blunt, more feminine than ever. I don't doubt at all that this is the Will Of God. But here's to being easy to please, just the same. I'm not too good to sleep on the floor.

And another thing. Hey everybody who just HAS to answer your blasted phone every time it plays its over-the-top-clever song at you: ease up. Relax. Take a sedative. It's true for the phone in your tote bag, and it's true for the phone in your home- you can afford to let it rest once in a while. I release you from the fear that it's always going to be SOMETHING IMPORTANT. You know what?- it's not. Answer the phone when you have time, or when YES! you really DO want to talk to that person, or when you're just curious or whatever. But we have to stop the phone fear. I'm taking a stand today. Will you join me? I have symbolically cut the umbilical cord from me to my phone by taking the spark plug cables in my car and rending them with heavy wire cutters. I declare my freedom. Join me in taking a stand against phone fear. Let them ring! Let them ring from the hills in San Francisco to the hush puppy factories in Tallahassee. Let them ring on every recharge stand and place-in-your-office-where-you-put-your-phone. Let them ring!