Now young Skywalker, you will die!

Ooh that evil emperor really got my goat, using Anakin as his pawn then trying to kill Luke! Rrg!

The Ol' Chug and Glug

Yesterday, my Didi and I went out to see a big NFL football game, the kind Mel Allen used to do voice-overs for, and about which the big-shouldered broadcasters talk with such apparant authority. Yeah. Well, anyhow, we went to the "Game of the Decade", in which we were supposed to learn whether the Bengals are a) an astoundingly good team that's slipped the surly bonds of mediocrity and is en route to the Super Big Game (tm considerations)!, or b) poopers with a slack schedule.

Well, as you might guess, b) happened, and we now know that we're among the best of the lame teams. So what. That's not why I write you good people. I write because I understood, after seeing big-league sports First Hand and Up Close and In Person and Without Televised Help and Stop Spitting on me, jerK! Anyhow, I understood that people by the ultra thousands don't attend these games because they're all aficionados of the finer points of the game of football. No. Like so, so many other things, people go to these games so they can spend quality time with their best friends: beer. Think of it: how many concerts have we attended where the goal of those around us is merely the thoughtless consumption of as much beer as possible? Maybe ace can give me some clarity here, but this applies not only to public musical venues and sporting events of every stripe, but also to fairs, bowling alleys, drive-in movies, statue unveilings, legal presentments from state attorneys' offices, etc. etc. etc. My heavens WHAT IS WITH THE BEER, PEOPLE? Really.


I understand that some people claim to enjoy its taste. Great. Enjoy away. But that's not what I'm talking about. Socially speaking, what else is like this? I really used to loooove Dr. Pepper. But I didn't talk about Dr. Pepper all the time, wear shirts and caps proclaiming how much I loved Dr. Pepper, make fraternity t-shirts referencing Dr. Pepper, buy posters and neon signs for my dorm that touted Dr. Pepper, and constantly invite people to enjoy this deliciousness with me. There is no equal to beer in these respects. I just want to understand. If you just want to get blasted, save your $70 on Bengals tickets, or the big musicFest, and just down your brews outside the 7-11 where you got them. Either way, you end up toasted and happy. Why all the external fuss and hype? And (I'll just casually throw this in) why ruin the pleasant enjoyment of non-boors around you, whatever they may be drinking?

**I feel the need to insert here that I am not against alcohol consumption, per se. I'll have a water, you'll have a beer. We're good. It's the glorification of beer that's so confusing, unlike anything else. And it's the kind of way it's referred to as an enhancement of something else, when the observer can see that the drinking of the beer, itself, is really center stage. I'm just saying.

This brings up a related question of mine, regarding the nature of 'partying'. I always thought I had a pretty good time in my life: I've done a lot of laughing, had a lot of fun. If partying is really fun, I'll tell ya, I want IN. But I've been places where people were just milling around drinking a lot of BEER, then the next day what was described about the night before was that a lot of PARTYING!! went on. Now, somewhere between execution and description, I missed the partying, or at least the appealing part of it.


Surely there are some people out there who can help me, here. Maybe this all sounds very prudish and self-righteous, and if so, I'll take it. I have been those things before. But here's the fact: Beer. I don't get it.

For me, it's a good day in sports

**Our Cincinnati Bengals, well, they're quite good these days.

**My erstwhile Disastros are going to the World Series, full of confidence.

**Vlade Divac has just announced his retirement. His complaining and bad acting will be reserved now for the local grocer or his own kitchen.

**Andre Agassi is still a force in the tennis world.

**I recently read in Slate magazine that the jock strap is definitely on its way out.

**The Yankees were humiliated this year.

**Being that the season is just starting, the Mavericks are full of hope and optimism. "This could be our year!" they say. This won't be disproved for months and months yet.

**I don't think the Texas football Aggies are very good, though I don't really know, and that doesn't bother me a whit.

**Jerry Glanville is still not doing network football coverage anymore.


I would be fine if we ended all sports today. Things sit pretty well for me at this juncture.

How dare they exercise their authority!

This, from this morning's USA TODAY:

The NBA has announced that a dress code will go into effect at the start of the season. Players will be required to wear business-casual attire when involved in team or league business. They can't wear visible chains, pendants or medallions over their clothes.

[Stephen] Jackson, who is black, said the NBA's new rule about jewelry targets young black males because... the league is afraid of becoming "too hip-hop." In protest, he wore four chains to the Pacers' exhibition game against San Antonio on Tuesday night.

...Philadelphia's Allen Iverson also was critical of the new rule, which the NBA made teams aware of in a memo Monday.
"I feel like if they want us to dress a certain way, they should pay for our clothes," he said. "It's just tough, man, knowing that all of a sudden you have to have a dress code out of nowhere..."

Recently, I have been doing some study, along with my pals Rooster and the Rod, on the subject of authority. These fellows give me a good handle on how this works in America, the land of freely talkative and bravely rebellious.

Hey, um... Allen? You receive an annual base salary from the National Basketball Association to the tune of $12.4 MILLION. This comes out to $6,200 an hour. THEY DO PAY FOR YOUR CLOTHES.

The Eyes of Truth Are Always Watching

When I'm perched atop one of those electronic seeing-eye robot toilets that flush on their own, and that toilet will for some reason (I leaned forward too much? My shirt fluttered before its aperture? The barometric pressure in the room changed?) flush prematurely, preventing me from... er... VIEWING my... er... PRODUCE, I feel rather cheated (not in a sick and perverted Jungian, I'm-so-proud-of-what-I-made-and-won't-mama-love-me-now-kind-of-way, though, I don't know--maybe--my eyes are not haughty; more of in a oh-this-is-my-chance-to-do-a-little-research-and-see-how-I'm-functioning-up-on-the-insides kind of a way. I'm not like my friends Rod and Tinff, who have 3+ bowel movements PER DAY!!! No, it is not so for me. The instances happen MAYBE every other day, which is fine by me, but I have only so much opportunity to see what's going on inside of stevie. And the seeing eye robs me!).

You Can't Have Any New Old Friends

Last night was a night when I thought of two old friends. First off, I had the rare joy of seeing people I know and like on the teevee. It was that zany Extreme Makeover gang with more of their big-hearted hijinx, who'd done up and gone to Camp Barnabas, a place that I know well and love a lot. It's a camp for kids with disabilities of every stripe. I wiped many retarded butts, as we like to say, and showered many bodies there. Restrained many would-be violent kids. Sweat about a gallon a day. Good times. Hard times, humbling times. Good times.

When I think of that place, as I did last night, I think of a few people, none more than my old friend Jesse Robertson. Jesse and I met in Scotland, where he started telling me about this camp he worked at and how much he loved it. I asked if this camp had a theme song, and he said it did. After I made him sing some of it to me, I told him that I'd writ that very tune years ago. What a serendipitous moment for us both. Really. He responded that I caused many, many retarded kids to run around with glee by making up that silly ditty, and that they sing it every night at Camp Barnabas. That made me glad.

Something that's nice about Jesse is that he really BELIEVES in his St. Louis Cardinals. This is ironic, because my (erstwhile) Houston Astros have just ended the Cardinals' season and put themselves, for the first time, in the World Series.


This reminds me of Chris Havard, my best friend since the 1st grade. I believe we met in Mrs. Raines' Sunday School class. Anyhow, my formative years were all with Chris (when I say formative, I really mean "up through college", because really, I hope I'm still being formed, but you understand how such things are used in the vernacular. It can be exhausting, though, when language is so un-literal), and we spent many many evenings of junior high and high school shooting baskets and listening to Astros games. These were all disappointing seasons, ultimately, and none so much as 1986, when Nolan and Mike Scott took us to the brink of beating the eventual champs, the NYMets. At the time of that particular series, with so much hope in our young hearts, Chris and I worked on Wednesday nights at our Christian organization's meal kitchen. We worked, as I recall, from 3-8 p.m., mostly washing dishes, for the free meal and $10. We always came out of there slippery with grease on our soles (as is anyone who works in a retail kitchen), and faces oily due to excessive steam. By God those were good days. But these days are even better, at least as far as the 'stros are concerned.

You're my only hope

5 Minutes With Frederick Buechner

The gods are dying. The gods of this world are sick unto death. If someone does not believe this, the next time he happens to wake up in the great silence of the night or of the day, just listen. And after a while, at the heart of the silence, he will hear the sound that gives it away: the soft, crazy thud of the feet of the gods as they stagger across the earth; the huge white hands fluttering like moths; the little moans of bewilderment and anguish. And we all shudder at the sound because to witness the death of the gods is a fearsome thing.

Which gods? The gods that we worship. The gods that our enemies worship. Their sacred names? There is Science, for one: he who was to redeem the world from poverty and disease, on whose mighty shoulders mankind was to be borne onward and upward toward the high stars. There is Communism, that holy one so terrible in his predilection for blood sacrifice but so magnificence in his promise of the messianic age: from according to his ability, to each according to his need. Or Democracy, that gentler god with his gospel of freedom for all peoples, including those people who after centuries of exploitation and neglect at the hands of the older democracies can be set free now only to flounder in danger of falling pray to new exploiters. And we must not leave out from this role of the dying what often passes for the god of the church: the god who sanctifies our foreign policy and our business methods, our political views and our racial prejudices. The god who, bless him, asks so little and promises so much: peace of mind, the end of our inferiority complexes. Go to church and feel better. The family that prays together stays together. Not everybody can afford a psychiatrist or two weeks of solid rest in the country, but anybody can afford this god. He comes cheap.

These are the gods in whom the world has put its ultimate trust. Some of them are our particular gods, and there are plenty of others, each can name from himself. And where are they now? They are dying, dying and their twilight thickens into night. Where is the security that they promised? Where is the peace? The terrible truth is that the gods of this world are no more worthy of our ultimate trust than are the men who created them. Conditional trust, not ultimate trust.

--from The Magnificent Defeat



Unfermented grape juice is a bland and pleasant drink, especially on a warm afternoon mixed half-and-half with ginger ale. It is a ghastly symbol of the life blood of Jesus Christ, especially when served in individual antiseptic, thimble-sized glasses.

Wine is booze, which means it is dangerous and drunk-making. It makes the timid brave and the reserved amorous. It loosens the tongue and breaks the ice especially when served in a loving cup. It kills germs. As symbols go, it is a rather splendid one.

--from Wishful Thinking

Chew Turns a Critical Eye on Ailments

Everyone’s always going on about their Strep Throat:
“Say, I’ve got Strep Throat!”
“Oh, sure, I’ve had Strep Throat! Who hasn’t?!”
“Boy oh boy, I’ll never forget my first Strep Throat.”
The examples proliferate.

Frankly, I’d had enough. Tired of being the one kid sitting in the corner full of stinky britches, while the other kids are enjoying Pudding Packs™ out on the playground, I decided to go get my OWN Strep Throat. I think I deserve it.


Strep Throat is an okay illness… not a great one. I rate it as follows:

Exotic/Shock value name: **
Exotic/Shock value symptoms: 1/2 (+)
Sympathy factor (inside the home): ***
Sympathy factor (outside the home): *
Ease of diagnosis by doctor or know-it-all: *****
Desirability for retelling later: 1/2
Ability to get you time off work: * (read: half day)
Ability to sleep well in spite of it: 0
Ability to eat well in spite of it: *
Treatment/cure-ability: ****
Average score for this illness: 1.8 Stars

(+) When I described my symptoms to Peb over the phone, he suggested it might possibly be the famous “mono”, which is SUCH a favorite with the high school and college crowd, and I knew this would be an instant hit. The ambiguous symptoms allowed me to say, “It might be mono!” a couple of times, so the half star was awarded.

Compare this paltry score to a truly successful illness, like Ebola virus:

Exotic/Shock value name: *****
Exotic/Shock value symptoms: *****
Sympathy factor (inside the home): *****
Sympathy factor (outside the home): *****
Ease of diagnosis by doctor or know-it-all: **
Desirability for retelling later: *****
Ability to get you time off work: *****
Ability to sleep well in spite of it: **
Ability to eat well in spite of it: **
Treatment/cure-ability: 0
Average score for this illness: 3.6 Stars

And you can see where we fall short.

So, now you know friends. In sum, Strep Throat sounds pretty good, but the actual symptoms aren't worth the trouble, and the aftertaste is terrible. See you next week, when we'll be reviewing endometriosis!

Progress, with a P!

I work in an office building. The people who work in this building largely work in... offices. Right now, there's a huge amount of construction being done here, so there are a lot of people around and about that work in... construction.

There is a bathroom at the bottom the stairs outside my office. This is usually my sactuary of quiet, of serenity, and of respite from the nonstop world of workaday life (I know, this is a total sham. My life couldn't be more cush. But follow me, here). Lately, for reasons UNKNOWN, the urinals are ALWAYS full of dark yellow, rank urine. Connect that to the above paragraph IF YOU WANT TO. I'm not going to do that myself. Anyhow, this is a great frustrator for me, so I have dealt with it in the following way:




When I went to post this sign, there was (shocker!) dark yellow, rank urine waiting in the urinal to greet me. Since posting it (no kidding) IT'S BEEN CLEAN, LIFE-GIVING WATERS ALL THE WAY. Credit my sign? That's not for me to say. But the change is, well, refreshing.

See folks, we CAN make a difference, in our own small ways. Never stop dreaming!

HalleLOOya!

This is in response to my good friend ace, who remodeled an entire apartment, stem to stern. I think he did it in about 3 weeks. I, on the other hand, remodeled a bathroom, and it took me from February to, I think, July. This was a LONG time to not have a john except on the first floor, and to have to go into the dank, fetid basement of ours for a shower, many of which left me feeling ickier than before.

Anyhow, Mr. Ace, these are for you:

This is the ceiling of the Great Bathroom, complete with new exhaust fan (innovative!), spa-esque tile work (natural!), and wavy lighting (sure to be out of vogue in five years!).


These are the shelf nooks I created in our shower. I am delighted with this addition to our cleansing world, but the molds for these babies cost $50 a pop, which is ridiculous. Yet, I sprung. Shower storage space matters.


What this is, is apparent to everyone. You can see, though, that I had a detail tile fall out on me. That part of the Great Bathroom is deemed "under construction--pardon our dust!"


This is the Tub of The Damned. If anybody ever walks up to you and says "hey! I'm about to install a tub, will you come help me? It'll be fun and easy: sure, it's a huge, awkward appliance that has to be set in just so in every way, and the connecting pipes have to be at exactly the right slant and angle, and you won't know if there's a leak until you install EVERYTHING then have to dismantle everything to fix the problem, but IT'LL BE EASY!", act like you're shaking his hand, but FLIP HIM on his back, then STRANGLE HIM.


This is our Ultra-Hot toilet (one piece!), and our sweet floor tile, which disguises Mexican Woman Hair From Massive Blow-Dryer Use expertly.


This is the glory of built-in cabinetry!!



Below you will find photos of the dump before I got my hands on it...

When you're in Phoenix...

Sometimes, Didi goes on a work trip that takes her to a fabulous and swanky resort like this:

When that happens, we can sometimes go out the weekend before or after her little meeting or what have you, and live it up, since her flight was paid for, and we get the corporate rate on the swanked-up hotel room. Add to that the fact that my little lady is a terrier if/when Hertz gives us terrible service (and Hertz is, in fact, the "preferred rental car company of The Campbell's Soup Company", and would probably like to stay that way), so they subseqently give us a huge upgrade that ends up costing us no dollars:

Add to that the fact that I made my trip on a buddy pass, thanks to the kindness and administrative genius of Musrat Al-Kifattarhh, and on my return flight I was mysteriously bumped up to first class after begging for an exit row for the legroom:

And you get the idea that I was pretty much, as I said, "swanked up" this past weekend.

Now I know what you're thinking. "Steven, living like a king has no place based on the scriptures. There's no admonition to luxuriate anywhere. Actually, the opposite is encouraged: humbling yourself, taking the lower place, putting others first, etc."

Yeah I know.

So anyway, I had several thoughts after living this high-tone lifestyle. I will share them now.

***One of the weird things that happens to me whenever I'm in a hotel room is that I'm exposed to cable television, which is strange and sometimes entertaining. I came away with these telecentric convictions:
-I have no idea how this man's face, with it's comical moustache, is still being broadcast over our nation.

-I don't think I have EVER sat through an entire broadcast version of a movie and enjoyed it. I even saw Lord of the Rings on, a movie I have historically enjoyed, and just couldn't be bothered.

-I saw Jesse Robertson on television, talking about his recent loss against the Patriots. He didn't say anything about the baseball Cardinals or Wilco or Radiohead, but I know he was thinking about those things as well.


***Wealthy people aren't better looking. They're better cared for. You will not find more handsome men, or more beautiful women, in limos vs. taxis. Some, though, would disagree with me.


***Ritzy life is overrated. I don't use the minibar, I'm no more exhiliratingly clean after a shower with two heads (!), the plush towels make me no drier, and I get the unavoidable feeling that the concierge thinks I'm a poser--that I don't belong. Yes, things are more convenient, to be sure, but cold milk is cold milk, no matter how much you pay for it or what kind of container it comes in. Jiff and I once found a motel in El Paso that gave us 2 NIGHTS for 30 BUCKS. At that low-rent joint, we still had to yank the sheets out of the sides of the bed, and retuck the lower sheet under the mattress. Same at Posh L'Hotel.
All hotels are resistant to the common, and unendingly practical, fitted sheet. They're now making sheets with elastic built right in, people!

True Truth Beats the Deceitful Lie, part MMMMLXVII

Holy smokes; I just had an incredible conversation. I'm gonna sit down and write about it so that:

-I'll have more time to think about it and savor/evaluate it, and
-you can hear this wonderful truth, as well. Recall the verse, "Whoever has blogs to download, let him comment."

Now, Dora and I have learned from God via Peb and ace and others about all this 'evil spirit' mumbo jumbo, and one thing we've learned is that the enemy will use patterns of behavior and thought to wrap a big fat chain around our necks, by which he intends to tether us to death and not-Godness. One of the commonest things I've seen in my world is a tendency toward performance: that is, a tendency to work things out for myself, engineer my own protection or provision, or to make myself feel acceptable to God and others. Not good. If you're real quick, that last sentence might have sounded like "the law" (I'm using that phrase in a pauline sort of referential way). That's because performance feeds right into the law, which is religious. And I mean religious not in a James-said-true-religion-is-taking-care-of-widows-and-orphans kind of way, but in an if-I-go-to-church-every-Sunday-I-have-a-relationship-with-God kind of empty, dirty, and deceived way.

I know I'm talking fast here, but give me some more rope.

What I'm seeing is that performance and religion are close friends, and the devil uses them often in conjunction with one another. (It's like, what are you going to put in hot chocolate, besides marshmallows? Of course it's marshmallows! Duh!? Nothing else makes much sense. They just go together!) Anyhow, another thing performance and religion have in common, besides an unspoken (or sometimes overt) appeal to the law, is that they both appeal to the mind. They put forth effort to exalt the mind as God, and to give it plenty of room to operate and hold forth. The mind, of course, is greatly gratified by this power, and wants nothing more than to hold onto it, dictate to every other part of you, and generally run the show from its control tower right behind your eyebrows.

Here's where it gets interesting. This girl I'm talking to, Jill, she says that God's just been showing her how much performance has been a part of her life, and how much she goes to God with this attitude that "if I think well, hard, and often, I can 'get God' in this moment." She said "It never works, but I always try to go to him that way. When I do, though, try to have a lot of good 'God thoughts' and intend to think so well that I end up 'in his presence', I ALWAYS feel resisted by him, as though He is saying 'Well, you just won't have me that way.' I don't play that game."

Now that much, right there, is fascinating on its own. What we basically say is, "Yes, God, having Jesus die on the cross was good in an existential, save-my-soul-and-pay-for-my-sins kind of way, but getting you RIGHT NOW is up to me and my effort. Okay... HERE WE GOOOOO!!!!!! [Giant grunting sound of religious effort here.]" Sound like anybody's "quiet time"? Sounds like mine, LOTS of times. Then we end up frustrated by that, like my friend Jill, because God just won't be had that way. You CANNOT walk down the road of performance and self-rightousness and find God at the end of that road. Ain't gonna happen. So we end up exasperated, and it feels like God's playing hard to get. Then we come to God, like the older brother in the prodigal son story, and say "hey. I'm busting my butt out here, and I can't get any attention from you. I don't feel affirmed; I don't feel like I'm the object of your affection. What gives?" And he says (now listen close to this, because it's an affront to your mind's message and methods)... "My SON [important word there. Denotes relationship that has NOTHING to do with performance. This is not an employee; it's not a soldier, or even a servant.], I AM ALWAYS WITH YOU, AND ALL I HAVE IS YOURS..." God says, "Maybe you can explain to me why you're putting forth so much effort to 'get me' when I'm always with you. That sounds frustrating to Me, too! Maybe you just need to come to the faith-based realization that I'm ALWAYS with you, and ALL I HAVE IS YOURS. You're exhausting yourself, there, kiddo, and my desire is that your lay down in green pastures, beside quiet waters, and have your soul restored. But boy are you working yourself up, here." Even when I write this stuff, I can hear/feel my spirit saying "Awwww yeah. That's what it is, Jack. I know He's always right here. I been telling you that, but you're up there consorting with your mind..."

What I'm familiar with is the feeling of giving in, of resignation, and thinking "Well, this is what relationship with God feels like. I think things, and He does or doesn't (okay, doesn't) respond, so I just do whatever I can toward him, and sit here feeling kind of neglected. Yeah... I guess this is relationship with God. Well, hallelujah I guess..." Not life. Not fullness. Not God.

Back to Jill. She told me the other branch at the end of this performance street: Defeat. "I was walking just this morning, and I was doing this stupid thing where I try to think my way into God's presence, into feeling close to Him, and I'm just feeling frustrated, like a failure [a common tendency for performers]. Because it sooo not working, this thought then runs across my brain: 'Am I even in a relationship with God?'"

Now this, I find STUNNING. I feel like Jill being honest with me outed the devil and his schemes. I was more familiar with that one branch, resignation and coping, but then Jill tells me about this other branch, where you throw your hands up and decide that, because you're not finding him with your mind, God cannot be found. Either branch is a huge win for the enemy. In either case, we're separated from the life of God. It's amazing to think that, by making a simple choice like pursuing God with my mind leading the way, I can end up being convinced that He isn't with me, He doesn't love me, and He's not engaged in my world at all--that He is unfindable. What a coup by the enemy!

Thankfully, God warned us about this road several times in the Scriptures. Here's one:

"...you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their minds, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
But this is not how you've learned of Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness." Ephesians 4:17-24

Thanks be to Jill, for being honest and real with me today. I'm getting it more and more. Fie on this Getting To God With Efforts brand of religious gobbledegook. More of the GOOD news, which sounds a lot more like this: "My son, I am always with you, and all I have is yours..."

And now, the rest of the story

If you're like me, you had a Bible/Christian-style meeting at your house last night, then hit a bowl of buttered pecan ice cream, before retiring to your private quarters to enjoy the Truman biography you've been working through. But somewhere amidst the Sunday night mayhem, you wanted to stop by your Emmys, believing somehow that your interest would help secure at least one award for Arrested Development. Turns out it did, so you didn't have to watch much more than a half hour to see Mitchell Hurwitz pick up his trophy for writing (I think it was the show's only award), but just the same, you made some other observations, too. Here are the unrecognized achievements of last night's broadcast:


Worst Teeth on Television: Patricia Arquette

Guy I Can’t Believe Is Still Alive: Red Buttons

Least Charismatic: Ray Liotta

Most Non-Linear Attire: trophy presenter models

Roundest Earrings on Someone I’ve Never Seen on Television Before: Halle Berry

The Way More Entertaining Than All Actors Put Together Award: Directors

Manliest Voice: Geena Davis

Funniest Name of a Creator of a Miniseries: Disk Askin

Guy I Most Wish to See an Impersonator Do: Alan Alda

Most Desirous to See Hour-Long Interviews of: Dan Rather and Ted Koppel (less so, Rather)

Least Likely to Know Who Peter Jennings Was: Jennifer Garner, Charlize Theron (tie)

Best Reminder That ‘Hosts’ Are Usually Perfunctory: Ellen Degeneres

Haw!

PodCasting it!

First off, on the post below, I decided to go with no photos, since I've been too reliant on photos for entertainment lately. So here's the jpeg everybody was waiting for:

If your name is Bobby, you were hoping for this:

Even though it makes no sense whatsoever, it speaks volumes to me, and caused me to rethink my eternal destiny. Anyhow.

Now wit that out of the way, I want to get on to Bigger Things! Let's talk about podcasts! If you're not up on the podcast, well, I don't know what to tell you. It's like a mini radio show via iTunes or PodCaster or whatever. I don't know. Go read Wired Magazine. Anyhow, when I first found these little gems, I was excited by the possibilities. I thought "oo! A shot of Al Franken's righteousness, right when I want it! ESPN dailies, with the ability to skip past the football talk! Maybe some funny or clever people, too!" Yeah, well, as we all know, the funny people hide in a cabin somewhere in rural Montana, never to seek daylight. I don't know of any funny podcasts. Al Franken will have to suffice. But I can tell you this: the podcast that's shot to #1 with a bullet is from that great online mag, Slate.


I get the weird and wacky there, I get the intriguing and the informative. Want to hear about the rise of Ranch dressing in the USA? How about the Seinfelding of modern advertising? Or about America's ever-growing fascination with self-storage? Yeah, check out the Slate podcast. I'm hyping it right here. Right now. Like Jesus Jones.

Someday, the boys down at 3Cow Turd will make a podcast, and it will be worth listening to. They will do this AFTER they write a hit movie for me to star in, though, so they'll be busy for a while. My pal Todd is also tinkering with the podcast concept. Until these ideas 'drop', however, Slate will have to do. And do! it will.

Bulls eye!

If you think I'm a fashion snob, you're wrong. Well, I don't know. Maybe you're right. I won't wear parachute pants, I won't dress up like a goth-er, and I refuse to wear eye shadow on dinner dates. So I guess I do have some lines. I do have some statutes, some prejudices, some opinions. What I don't have, though, is a need to spend a lot of money so I can look like the advertisements. I don't need that.

Having said that, there IS an establishment out there that keeps me dressed in clothing (another one of my prejudices. Did I mention that I refuse to wear discarded fruit skins or seeded sod? It's true: with me, it HAS to be clothing), and keeps me current (When I say current, I mean that I look like I belong in this generation. My belief here--and I learned this from Jorf Davenpolt--is that if I look semi-'normal', I will be more easily overlooked). That establishment used to be American Eagle Clothiers. I know that sounds crazy now, but 10 years ago, they were this little rag tag operation that passed out shirts on the cheap. Same thing with the Gap about 20 years ago (remember "fall into the gap", when they had the Levi's logo on every sign and ad? Much less high-tone back then. Very 'common man'. Also, very cheap). Well now, there is a place where fashion trends have already been sanded down to the middle (yay!), and the prices say so.

That place is Target.

I went into Target last week with my girlfriend, Didi. We picked up some laundry detergent, some milk, and some clothes. I bought a pair of pants. She bought a skirt. This same skirt was worn repeatedly on the famous September SeaTac Wedding Weekend, and she looked as good as anybody (Okay, better. I just didn't think it totally necessary to underline everyone else's inferiority when what I'm talking about is affordable clothing. I mean, this isn't all about the fact that the belle of the ball wants to bed ME. This isn't about the fact that *I* am the object of the prettiest girl you know. I mean, come on). Ahem.

Yeah, Target's got what I need. The clever/ironic 'statement' t-shirt? Sure. The 'Sunday night church' button up shirt that's not quite ready for the boardroom, but still nice looking? Of course. Cargo pants from 2 years ago? Natch. Jackets that say I've been to other cities to buy them? Uh huh. Target's got it all.

So let's stop the charade, people. No more of this "oh I've got to go around to 12 different shops looking for the IDEAL outfit for me! I'm so rare and unusual! I have a 'style' all my own! I can't conform!" Inflated self-opinions are exhausting. We know it's true. Come back down to earth, humans. Come... to Target.

Same Singing Voice

Che-zoos!

Dateline aside, I found this too good to pass on. I have, for a while now, been interested in who I think of as Idealist Revolutionaries, and in that group I include Che, MLK, Jr., Malcolm X, Ghandi, and even John Lennon. These people believe in something so doggedly that they'll go to the mat (or to the grave, if need be) for that which they believe. Their beliefs may be foolhardy (such as Lennon's pointless commitment to "love", however one defines it, or Schweitzer's "the sanctity of every living thing") but there is often a dearth of zeal in modern times. I rather respect that degree of boldness and faith, regardless of its object.

I do not simply include "world changers" in that list. For instance, what I read of Adolph Hitler makes me think of him as an insecure coward, who only knew how to manipulate fear, because it was the world he lived in. That's no good to me, and I'm not interested in what makes those kind of people tick. I'd rather be ignorant of evil. But these passionistas? Yeah, I dig that.

As for the image above, I like anything that will challenge the silly, simplistic notions of Christ in the marketplace. This image suggests that he wasn't merely a peaceful philosopher, but a revolutionary (which he undebatably was) and that he was an outspoken malcontent. I might not agree with all that implies (malcontent? Maybe too strong. Strong, socially deviant beliefs? Unquestionably), but I sure like piquing people's preconceptions.

Blowhard Review For Everyone!

Allow me the crass opportunity to capitalize on the tragedy in the south to harp for a minute about one of my pet peeves: Stone Phillips. He is, to me, the king of the smug breed of television news "personalities" (ha) who rush out to the latest crisis ["ON THE SCENE!"], then act like they 1) understand what's going on, 2) have some answers, and 3) are compassionate in a Can't-You-See-The-Concerned-Look-On-My-Face? My-Word-I'm-Positively-Presidential-Here! kind of way. These people make my eyes cross. I am very, very interesed in whatever coverage the news media can give me about New Orleans, Houston, the surrounding areas, and refugees trapped by horror. Unfortunately, I have to work through all the faux concern of Phillips and his ilk. Let's throw John Quinones and Matt Lauer (not pictured) under that same bus. I have repeatedly wanted to smack these man and their self-satisfied egos. Gagola. Okay, there. I said it. Selah.


By the way, I'm crazy about Ann Curry, also pictured.