The Texafornian

You've Got a Friend

2012-01-11T21:40:00.000-08:00

At a party a few years back I was explaining to a guy that I was in the Master's program for Marriage and Family Therapy. "You mean you want to be a therapist?" he responded incredulously. "Like a shrink?! Don't you think people can work out their problems with just good friends?" The guy was a realtor, too. I mean seriously, talk about the kettle calling the pot names. I declined to illuminate the irony for the guy and instead gave some puerile riposte about how people need safety to change and not everyone has close friends blah blah blah; I was hardly a year through my program and had no idea what it really meant to be a therapist.

If I had it to do over again, though, I would tell him this: My therapist and my friends are like my paycheck and all the cool things I get to do with said pay, respectively; I don't need the paycheck to have fun, but it makes it a whole lot easier and gives me a lot more options.

I have been exceedingly fortunate, too, when it comes to good friends. I seem to be, as they say, peculiarly rich in them. Of the many superb friends that I have, however, two men stand above the rest. We have sat with one another through the uttermost depths of despair and danced together (metaphorically) over the apex of ecstasy, and this past weekend we got the opportunity to hike up a snowless Yosemite Valley in January. We talked about life, the Universe and everything, as we are wont to do, kicking around the world's problems like cherished curs. We didn't come up with any answers per se, but on the other hand, maybe we came up with the only answer. And at the end of the day, what other solution is there other than friends being friends? And yeah, I can honestly say that I'm a better friend for the therapy that I've done.

All in the Family

2012-01-05T06:12:00.000-08:00

Its a funny thing getting married. There are all the things that you know that y'all don't agree on, and then there are all the things that you had no idea that you disagreed on because the fact that someone could even think differently on the subject was on par with saying Jimmy Carter was an effective president or that Megan Fox was a talented actress. One of those Fox traps for Christy and me was grandparents. When it came time to think about where we wanted to live after grad school with progeny on the intermediate horizon, I suddenly came to the realization (with Christy's help) that being close to potential grandparents was going to be more important that I had previously realized. Not growing up with grandparents as an everyday essential part of my life, the thought of predicating the position of our pad on the proximity of parentals was a bit strange to me. For example: at our wedding there were 7 grandparents. None of them were mine. It was difficult for me to generate a context for the necessity of having grandparents in the immediate vicinity.

Over Christmas, I had the chance to take my burgeoning brood to Gainesville, GA to spend the holiday with my mother in law's family and stay at The Farm. The Farm is 20-some-odd acres of pasture and woods north of Gainesville in a town called Rabbiton which is presided over by Papa Kit and Carolyn. Papa Kit was a doctor from the 50's on into sometime in the late 20th century, has had both knees replaced several times, knows more dirty jokes than the US Navy's 7th fleet combined and used to hunt religiously several times a week. Carolyn cooks without recipes, puts up with Kit's dirty jokes, has more common sense than every advice columnist combined and takes in stray dogs whenever her heart gets the best of her head (which is often). They are American Gothic 2.0. After four days of spending time with them and the family, the wisdom, support and direction that these people have obviously provided to their children and their children's children is something that I reap the benefits of on a daily basis through my relationship with Christy. Needless to say, nearby grandparents are no longer optional.

Watching my own parents with Madeleine has been a slow unfolding of the possibilities that having grandparents in the equation could bring. Spending time with the Walkers was an opportunity to see the thing in time-lapse, and seeing Madeleine grow up with her grandparents is now one of the things about having her that I am looking forward to most. And what is marriage for if not for filling in the gaps that our own lives have left us?

In the Image of God They Were Created

2011-12-19T13:39:00.000-08:00

I've struggled with feminism for a long time, and have felt generally schizophrenic about the whole idea since probably junior high. It's been hard for me mostly because if you say that you're not 100% on board with feminism you tend to get lumped in with the misogynists, and that's certainly not descriptive of me; that being said I am certainly not 100% behind feminism as I have often encountered it. What's stuck in my craw with the majority of the feminist approaches I've found is that they seemed to have sprung up as as a polemic to misogyny and as such they end up turning into righteously indignant misandry masquerading as real change. I very much believe that gender equality is an essential component of a healthy psyche and society, but as long as the discussion is predicated on a polemic paradigm I don't foresee much progress in the future. If it were possible, however, to move towards a more dialectic approach to gender relations ... well, then, we might could be getting somewheres.

The upshot of all this thinking about reworking the antagonistic concepts in gender relations has me thinking about the whole idea of pitching women's rights to men. In my experience, presentations about gender relations have focused on the damage that inequality has wrought on women and I completely agree that gender inequality has visited a host of evils on the women of our culture. I am not a woman, so I can't fully empathize with the experience, but I fully believe that cultural messages about the feminine have a profound impact on self esteem, efficacy, and perceived vocational options for the females. This approach no doubt has moral justification, but can easily end in the polemic and antagonistic mess mentioned above. What gets lost in the shuffle, however, and where the dialectical approach brings some wiggle room is how damaging women's inequality is to men. Discrimination necessitates dehumanization, and dehumanizing the feminine is a profound tragedy. Dehumanization of the feminine is devaluing the love of a mother, discounting the exhilaration of erotic connection, and denying the joy of providing nurture. No wonder so many guys today hide their faces in microbrews and fantasy football stat sheets and interminable rounds of Halo ODST. Men: Gender relations isn't about being guilted or intimidated into acting in a politically correct manner, it's about recognizing the incalculable value of the feminine in both the women around you as well as in your own self.

I'm still polishing my ideas on the subject, and if you're a guy or a girl or know one of either, I'd love to hear what you have to say about the topic.

Adjustments

2011-12-12T10:58:00.000-08:00

I watched The Adjustment Bureau over the weekend; I enjoyed the film, and along the way came to a few conclusions. 1: If Emily Blunt and Matt Damon had a child, they would produce the cleftiest chin known to mankind. 2: Men in fedoras are inherently suspicious. Yes, this includes hipsters. 3: I was somewhat disturbed by the central premise of the movie.

Talking to his guardian angel (who, 4: Anthony Makie looks a LOT like Will Smith ... long lost brother?), Matt Damon is told that he cannot be with his clefty dream girl because to do so would ruin both of their dreams. He would never run for President o' the United States; she would never become Dancing Jesus. The explanation proffered is that to be with one another would blunt their ambition. To very closely paraphrase the movie, being with one another would 'be enough,' and they would no longer need to be driven to succeed. SPOILER ALERT: SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU'RE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE. So the movie goes on to have the mystical 'Chairman' rewrite the plan of the world for them to be together and it's all very lovey dovey, but it never goes on to address the question of whether or not them being written back into one another's stories precludes their destined accomplishments.

The message, however, is trouble to me. Is it really impossible to achieve greatness AND be in a fulfilling relationship? The picture often portrayed in cultural institutions (films, politics, etc) is that balancing family and work is an impossibility. Even films which emphasize the importance of family over work often have the protagonist give up their professional ambition in favor of caring for their families. My daughter is 4 1/2 months old, I have been married to my wife for 6 1/2 years, and I really feel like I am driven to succeed because of them. Not because I need to prove anything to myself or to them, but because I want to be successful. This is the difference between wanting to challenge myself and needing to chase a phantom to prop up a sense of self worth. And most days I believe that. Some days, though, some days I wonder if Hollywood don't have it right ...

Commitment

2011-12-05T10:36:00.001-08:00

My best friend James and I have known each other for about half of our lives so far; everything from this point onwards is going to be us knowing one another longer than we haven't. Two years ago today I had the profound pleasure to be his best man as he was married to the most amazing and inexplicably perfect woman in the world for him, and below is the text for the toast that I gave that night.

The night before he got engaged, James told me, "I think I could handle not being married," waited a beat while I looked at him with a cocked eyebrow, and finished, " ... but I'd probably end up pretty weird." And that's part of the genius of language, the flexibility of definitions. A mutual friend of ours, James Lyons, once showed James and me a giant brass soy bean he had sculpted for his future wife and explained to us that as a person handles brass the oils and moisture from their hands will patina the metal. The trick being that everyone's touch results in a different patina depending on their diet and nutrition, body chemistry, etc and has its own unique impact on the way the brass ages and changes. I'm not sure what kind of effect dozens of powdered doughnuts and gallons of mountain dew have on a brass patina, but I do know that as [James] and Patrisha begin to share one another's joys and handle one another's challenges, that you will uniquely impact one another. In effect, you will be weird. Not the pale, long goatee wearing, wood-shaving sprinkled weird you would be left to your own devices for the next 80 years, but weird in a glorious way you never could have achieved on your own. I'm proud to have done my part in making you as weird as you are today, and pleased to have the honor of watching that processes continue to unfold between you and your wife. So here's to growing old and weird with the ones we love.

I have been very happy to be not only a part of their wedding, but a part of their lives for the past two years. I look forward to the day that they can both look back to Dec 5, 2009 and realize that from this point on they will have been married longer than it took them to find each other.

My Christmas Conundrum

2011-11-30T06:06:00.001-08:00

Sometimes a worm ain't the only thing at the bottom of a tequila bottle. What do you figure the over/under would be on how many drinks you'd have to get into Joseph of Nazareth before he admitted that he was pretty pissed about being God's cuckold? I mean, as far as being a cuckold goes ... being one to God is pretty much as good as it gets, but he couldn't have been 100% thrilled about the situation, right? Yeah, the Bible talks about him balking and deciding to divorce her quietly; that is, until he is strong-armed into staying with her by an Angel of the Lord. I know he gets a lot of credit for being a stand-up guy and all, but it kinda makes me wonder if the Angel said "Don't be afraid to marry her," or if he really said, "Be afraid not to marry her."

Maybe this is all heresy and I'm going to Hell for it ... but these are the things I think about now when I listen to Christmas carols ...

Space Out

2011-11-28T09:06:00.001-08:00

Dissociation is augustly defined by Wikipedia as "an altered state of consciousness characterized by partial or complete disruption of the normal integration of a person’s normal conscious or psychological functioning." While that might not sound like a ton of fun to you at first blush, and in a clinical context can indicate significant trauma, an altered state of consciousness is the place from which most great art is born. Not necessarily chemically induced, in a state of what I like to call 'constructive dissociation,' artists are able to tap into the depths of their own psyche and retrieve material that connects to a wide audience on a deep emotional level. I heard an interview with the guy who plays lead for Springsteen one time, talking about what its like to engage in a dissociative experience playing in front of tens of thousands of people. Paraphrasing, Lofgren said that during a concert he had the experience of looking down at his hands playing a riff and struggled to convince himself that he had to keep playing the guitar because he felt like if he stopped his hands would continue to play all on their own. He was completely clean and sober, and entirely lost in the music in an altered state of consciousness. The host of the interview rightly elaborated that people chase a similar experience taking drugs, having sex, playing sports or any other myriad pursuits; we are looking for the chance to loose ourselves in an experience, to stop thinking and start being.

For me, one of the most important revelations of the past year has been a change in my Myers-Briggs personality type from ESTP to ENTP, meaning I have moved from weighing data and observables to trusting my 'gut feelings.' This is likely somewhat the result of me practicing psychotherapy for the past several years, but is also at least somewhat associated with me re-discovering who I am and moving past what other people have told me I am.¹ One of the ways that I really enjoy getting lost in my intuitive nature and 'constructively dissociating' is fighting. Boxing doesn't leave time for evaluation or weighing alternatives, for me it is a visceral and thoroughly enjoyable dissociative experience in which I am not thinking about anything at all and am simply present. Very Zen. I encourage you to find that thing for you, and do it as often as possible. Hopefully for you, it doesn't involve pugilism.

¹ I realize that's a somewhat loaded statement, just not one I want to unpack in this blog post. Maybe next week ....

The Ugly Truth

2011-11-21T09:03:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I get weird ideas, and Saturday was one of those times. Washing dishes, a truth which has been self evident for most of my life revealed itself to me. In the words of Smee ... "I think I just had an apostrophe." As a child of the 80's I've grown up hook-line-and-sinker accepting the Disney story lines. This Saturday, though, while listening to my 'Show Tunes' Pandora station, I realized that maybe there was more to the story or Beauty and the Beast than met the eye.

Belle's own collection of quirks aside (scroll to #4), her two legitimate suitors in the movie are 1: A megalomaniac who excels at myriad pursuits and is universally revered in town and 2: A ... well ... an illiterate reclusive megalomaniac surrounded by traumatized servants quaking in fear of him and who was cursed because of said megalomania into what can best be described as a bipedal feral lhasa apso. With horns.

Now I'm not saying that Gaston wasn't a douche; he clearly was. All I'm saying is, The Beast clearly was as well. When stuck with two terrible choices, why are we being asked by Disney to applaud Belle for choosing either of them? The more I think about it the more the story seems to promulgate the mephitic belief that if you love your abusive significant other long enough and well enough they will eventually melt into a gooey tub of love and you'll live happily ever after. Seriously, wouldn't Le Fou be a better choice for Belle at this juncture? Or a convent? Or literally anything else?

Just saying ...

Back in the Saddle

2011-11-14T08:59:00.000-08:00

Probably the worst thing about trying to start writing again is the part where I try to come up with a justification for 1: starting again and 2: quitting in the first place. Over the past couple of months I'd found myself repeating the mantra: "I must return to writing," only to find myself several weeks later reciting the same thing without any movement and now that I'm actually sitting down at the computer to compose a masterpiece I find myself chasing my rhetorical tail trying to come up with a clever and profound way to say, "I got real busy for a while and stopped doing something I really like doing for the sake of watching tv and playing Angry Birds." I even spent about 20 minutes massaging awkward attempts to cram psychosocial theory into an introspective piece about the fear of failure and the difficulty of change, etc etc. Below are some excerpts from those attempts.¹

The reality is, though, that I just kinda stopped writing once I got done with grad school and started working. I got out of the habit, like working out and eating healthy. The only excuse I need to get back into it is: I like it. The only excuse I can think of for why I quit in the first place is: I didn't quit (which to me sounds like an active choice) so much as I just kinda ... stopped? And started doing something else. Writing for me is like one of your favorite recipes that you forget about because you've been too busy to cook for a while and you've just been eating Ramen and pb&j. I don't really need much of an excuse to starting eating the good stuff again, other than "It's good!" I just sometimes forget that it's good because I get all stacked up with other stuff, which is the best excuse I can come up with for why I stopped in the first place. There may indeed be deep-seated and menacing psychological reasons for me stopping (and, conversely, starting again) to write, but seriously. Who wants to read about that on someone's blog?

So if you made it through all of this, the cliff's notes version of the post is this: I'm going to write at least one post/week. Not because I have to but because I like to I just forgot that I like to for a while. So ... GET READY WORLD, IMMA WRITE AGAIN!!!!!

¹Writing (and by writing I just mean communicating) has been one of those things that I've always been doing. Coming back to things is hard; it can be so difficult, in fact, that it can often prevent a return at all. Few things in life are as frustrating than returning to an activity that used to come effortlessly only to find that the skill is not there anymore.Classically, Not just hard because That's why the story of the prodigal son strikes a chord, and that's why the 12 step program makes people do it. It is That's probably not the most profound statement ever made, but cliche as it might be I've found it to be one of the most true statements.

What Dat?

2008-08-25T19:09:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from J.F. Masterson's The Search for the Real Self: Unmasking the Personality Disorders of our Age

It is relatively easy to spot narcissistic personalities in politics, business, and social movements. The limelight that goes with leadership is a strong magnet for narcissists, and even though success requires long hours and grueling work schedules, the payoff is worth the effort to them. Frequently, their staffs are overworked and are expected to produce perfect or near perfect results. The narcissistic leader or boss elicits martyrlike devotion from followers by manipulating their desire to be part of his achievements. With rhetoric and ritual, the narcissistic leader creates a sense of excitement and purpose and draws on his workers’ sense of mission. He is often fulsome in his praise of their devotion. In the end, however, the shrewd observer can see through the empty praise and the façade of concern for his supporters, for ultimately the narcissistic leader is only concerned about praise for his own achievements, and values others only in so far as they fulfill their role in promoting his own glory.

And . . .

One of the principal benefits of the activism of the sixties was the change in standards in all these areas – a change from authoritarianism to a greater emphasis on individuation and entitlements. These changes ostensibly created a better environment for the flowering and expression of the real self – in other words, healthy narcissism. Buy to what extent, then, does the sense of individual entitlement, now woven all the more tightly into the fabric of our society, also open the door for pathologic narcissism? Or to put it another way, does the resultant narcissism contribute to a unique and American character, or is it a pathological national flaw?

Ours Is Not

2008-08-14T18:05:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from J. G. Stoessenger’s eerily prophetic book Why Nations Go to War, 3^rd Ed., c. 1982.

There is a remarkable consistency in the self-images of most national leaders on the brink of war. Each confidently expects victory after a brief and triumphant campaign.

Doubt about the outcome is the voice of the enemy and therefore inconceivable. This recurring optimism is not to be dismissed lightly by the historian as an ironic example of human folly. It assumes a powerful emotional momentum of its own and thus itself becomes one of the causes of war. Anything that fuels such optimism about a quick and decisive victory makes war more likely, and anything that dampens it becomes a cause for peace.

This common belief in a short, decisive war is usually the overflow from a reservoir of self-delusions held by the leadership about both itself and the nation.

The Kaiser’s appearance in shining amour in August 1914 and his promise to the German nation that its sons would be back home ‘before the leaves had fallen from the trees’ was matched by similar expressions of overconfident and military splendor in Austria, Russia and other nations on the brink of war. … Thus leaders on all sides typically harbor self-delusions on the eve of war. Only the war itself then provides the stinging ice of reality and ultimately helps to restore a measure of perspective in the leadership. The price for this recapture of reality is high indeed. It is unlikely that there ever was a war that fulfilled the initial hopes and expectations of both sides.

And again later . . .

… As these wars resolved less and less, they tended to cost more and more in blood and treasure. The number of dead on all sides bore mute testimony to the fact that America had to fight two of the most terribly and divisive wars in her entire history (Korea and Vietnam) before she gained respect for the realities of power on the other side.

As the Dawn Breaks

2008-08-13T13:26:00.000-07:00

The autonomic responses which had served Liam so well to date seemed to hiccup momentarily as he stood frozen in place, gun smoke still creating an indistinct halo as it drifted lazily out of the leveled barrel of his Beretta. The Eye Brothers, still incapacitated by his furious onslaught, were beginning to regain their collective wits as their writhing on the floor became less agonized and more purposeful. As his brain slipped back into gear, Liam simultaneously lurched forward and examined his options. With no time for tactical analysis, Liam followed the elusive wisp of implicit memory which had carried him through the night so far. His gut was telling him that the Eye Brothers were more trouble than they were worth and that if he was going to get anywhere at all it would be through Cwik; Liam dutifully followed his gastronomical cognition out the door.

Not bothering to disarm the prone figures on the floor, Liam bolted the handful of steps through the mauled door frame and felt his breath threaten to pack up and go to Florida on vacation as the early morning air hit the film of sweat on his exposed skin. “I’m gonna have to find some clothes here eventually,” Liam thought to himself as he scanned the balcony, standing in the crepuscular gloom of blues and the first small hints of yellow and orange worming their way over the horizon. He was brought back to the task at hand by the muted metallic clank of Cwik stumbling against the railing of the balcony to his right as he continued his dogged, if not somewhat haphazard, escape. Hands still fastened in front of his body with the electrical cord, duct tape still encircling his head and hanging from his clothes, gangly frame skittering down the concrete and wrought iron balcony, Liam reminded himself to laugh at the memory when he wasn’t being pursued by two homicidal thugs and pursuing his only link. Rick seemed to be attempting to untie the cord while running and gaining his bearings all at once, and hadn’t made it more than 15 feet down the balcony. Somewhere a dog began barking an unenthusiastic monologue, and Liam could hear the Brothers begin sniping at each other through the wrecked door still swaying drunkenly on its hinges. Time to go.

His bare feet thumping on the concrete, Liam overtook Cwik in a space of a few strides. With another deft movement which left him surprised, he stepped past him, pivoting with his left foot and planting with his right as he swung Cwik into a fireman’s carry and finished his pirouette to continue running pell-mell down the balcony. Cwik’s frame was surprisingly light on his shoulder, either from his scrawniness or from adrenaline Liam was unsure. He offered no resistance to his new mode of locomotion either, though whether due to surprise or some other reason Liam was again unsure.

Pounding down the stairs with the potato sack Cwik over his shoulder, Liam quickly spotted the black town car parked haphazardly over three parking stalls at the base of the stairs, lights on and engine idling. Apparently the Eye Brothers had been in a hurry to make it up the stairs. Wrenching open the back door, Liam deposited Rick in the back seat and slammed the door after him. Clawing open the front door, Liam swung into the seat. Above him, he heard Charles’ voice shout unintelligibly, answered by Hard Eyes. As he slapped the shifter into reverse and resurfaced a generous portion of La Concha’s parking lot in Goodyear rubber, the pop of pistols just barely inserted themselves over the squeal of tires. Three hailstones hit the roof of Liam’s borrowed ride, echoing with the hollow clunk of a tin can being shot. As he fishtailed out of the parking lot onto the deserted early morning street, he stole a look to the backseat over his shoulder. Ricky was clutching his right thigh with both thin talons and grimacing.

“Those peckers shot me!” he managed to growl, as Liam returned his attention to the road. “This ain’t good, Liam,” he continued, barely audible through his grunts and pants. “I think they nicked a vessel or somethin’. Imma need a Hospital . . .”

Liam should . . .

A) Pump Cwik for information in his wounded state
B) Take Cwik directly to the Hospital
C) Let Cwik bleed and the chips fall where they may
D) Attempt first aid on Ricky

All in the Family

2008-08-03T22:45:00.000-07:00

I rattled into the South Fresno parking lot in the extensively long cargo van. Pressed against the screen leading to the cavernously empty hold, just behind the driver’s seat, I had already collected 5 lbs of specialty Italian Sausage and one bottle of super cool wine in a Exodusian trek back and forth across the wastes of the greater Fresno area to assemble a custom basket on order at the Sierra Nut House. Christmas was only three weeks away, and already the fevered pitch of the operation had crescendoed into a cacophony of insanity, resulting in me spending $50 in gas and three hours of driving time assembling a rush-order by piece meal. Logistics were not JoAnne’s forte.

Flipping open my steno pad to the page I had scrawled the address and rough map onto, I confirmed that I had arrived at the right location. Shoe-horning my square elephant into the only open small, round parking space about 25 yards from the store front, I slipped down from the driver’s seat and pocketed my keys, slapping the door locks and slamming the door in one smooth motion. As I headed towards the entrance of my destination, the now-flattening rays of the December sun lit with deceptive warmth the shop’s sign. Squinting against the glare and approaching the fairly non-descript store front, I noticed two figures standing a few paces from the door to my destination. A small, swarthy, balding man was standing next to a tall, thick, cruel looking man: Leo and Guido, respectively, I imagined.

Leo was, and had been, screaming Italian into the cell phone in his hand, only taking breaks to similarly castigate Guido. When it was the cell phone’s turn, Guido stood silently, hands clasped at his front, staring slightly up and to the left. When it was his turn, he slightly inclined his ham of a head down towards Leo and slowly nodded and occasionally muttered something unintelligible while continuing to stare at nothing in particular. My steps faltered as I entered their social range and came to a complete stop about 15 feet from the pair. Leo rolled his eyes and muttered scathing Italian into the phone. As he looked up and clasped his hand over the mouthpiece on the cell, sun glinted off the large gold medallion hanging on a bed of chest hair framed by the open collar of his black silk, short sleeve, button down shirt with a white tiger embossed on it. “What?” he spat, glaring at me as his eyebrows impossibly raised another ¾”. The word was a curse word. I kept my eyes trained on his woven leather loafers and the cuffs of his immaculately pressed white slacks.

“Is . . . um. Is, uh, I’m supposed to pick up an order from Sargento’s.’ After a beat and another 1/8” on the eyebrows, I finished, “It’s some cheese . . . I’m, uh . . . from the Nut House?”

Leo jerked his thumb towards the tinted glass door, sneering. Guido stared slightly up and to the left. The Italian diatribe continued and I hustled towards the door. Retrieving my order, I swiftly walked back through the front door and towards my van with my eyes unwaveringly fixed on the ground, Leo’s emphatic tones echoing in my nearly empty cargo hold all the way back to North Fresno.

Long Live the King

2008-07-27T12:01:00.000-07:00

The Kings of the Marmots roused himself from his royal slumber when the sun had already began its indefatigable climb into the azul expanse, shielded occasionally by shreds of cloud left over from the previous day’s storms. He was glad that he had decided today would be temperate. He stretched himself luxuriously on his throne of impregnable stone and reveled in the warmth the sun offered for his pleasure. While the previous day’s storms had been perfectly crafted by his will, drenching his domain in fecund blessings and peals of thunder which sent the picas and chipmunks scurrying for cover, today would be different: Party cloudy throughout the day with scattered showers across the Denver area. High of 78, low of 47. The King of the Marmots had decreed it would be so.

As he finished his stretching and leisurely grooming routine, he looked around to see that the first of his supplicants had arrived. Red-faced and puffing, these strange bipedal serfs made a steady stream in pilgrimage to his throne, strewing it with offerings of Doritos and granola crumbs and taking pictures of himself and his domain to bring back to their abodes far below among the mire of the world. The King of the Marmots cared not what these peasants did with their photos, but he often imagined his portrait hung above their mantles. Perhaps with candles surrounding it, or a wreath of pungent summer wildflowers. Perhaps they kissed it as they went to sleep in their hovels in the dregs of the world.

Perched at the very pinnacle of his high mountain throne, bestowing his haughty gaze upon the throng of serfs congregated to celebrate his greatness, the King of the Marmots spent his later morning and afternoon fulfilling the highest hopes of those who had come to give their worship. As the sun reached it’s zenith in the sky above him, a tallish skinny worshiper approached his ensconced presence and said to the couple to his left, ‘Hey, look at that guy. He thinks he’s the on top of the world, huh?’ The King of the Marmots flicked his lavish eye lashes and turned his head to another angle in response. After appropriately bowing and scraping, the lad made his way back down the mountain, his soul sustained by his encounter with the Marmot-Deity.

About the 10^th hour of the day, when the sun had begun to near the Western horizon, the King of the Marmots saw the last of his subjects make their treacherous way back down to the flats, leaving the appropriate gifts of food and homage. ‘What loyal subjects I have,’ he thought to himself, ‘to risk their life and limb to come and ply me with supplication in my high and unassailable fortress.’ His thoughts were interrupted, however, by a quick flash across the late afternoon’s flattening rays. He peered towards the heaven to see what might have caused it, straining his majestic neck into the cooling afternoon air to better see. Without ceremony, the Golden Eagle which eyried nearby grasped him in its talons and neatly severed his head. Hauling the King of the Marmots’ lifeless form back to his nest, the King of the Eagles thought, ‘What loyal subjects I have, for that marmot to present himself so selflessly on that high and unprotected spot just for my evening meal.’

Words of Wisdom

2008-06-15T22:39:00.000-07:00

If you know me at all, you know that I deeply lament this country's treatment of the Native Americans. Here are some sage words from of of their most famous leaders.

I am a red man. If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man, he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans, in my heart he put other and different desires. Each man is good in His sight. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows.

- Sitting Bull

What If?

2008-06-11T18:13:00.000-07:00

Last night, while washing dishes, I had a thought. Not a very bright thought, not a very courageous one, but a thought none the less. And it was this:

What if, in the year 12 000 B.C, by the light of a guttering fire in a sooty and ramshackle cave, a Neanderthal man conceptualized the theory of relativity. "Ah ha!" he would have shouted in the guttural equivalent of his still nascent speech mechanisms. "Eureka! Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared!"

Lacking a durable method of communicating such concepts, however, and the theory of relativity having very little practical impact on skinning a woolly mammoth, it was simply lost to the mists of time for another 13 945 years. What if.

A Song For Mish

2008-05-07T13:49:00.000-07:00

A farewell ballad.

Too True

2008-04-02T21:50:00.000-07:00

The sad thing: this isn't even a hyperbole. Perhaps more sad: I miss it.

----------------
Now playing: Bob Marley - No Woman No Cry (Live at The Lyceum)

The Loss of a Friend

2008-03-31T11:57:00.001-07:00

I was about 13 when we brought Ruby home. My sister and I had wheedled and pled, promised and pledged; We said things like, ‘Nothing for either of us for the next three Christmases!’ ‘Walks every day, we swear!’ and ‘Food every night, we promise! We’ll never ask for anything ever again!’

Today at about 9am I drove with my parents to a small veterinary clinic off of Palm and Herdon to have Ruby’s vet of 13 years give her one last injection and say things like ‘Today’s the day, huh?,’ and, ‘Let us know when you’re ready to take her body home.’

My dad and I dug her grave together through the unyielding valley hardpan, mixing our sweat with tears to soften the ground as we chipped away and said things like, ‘She was a good dog,’ ‘Remember the way she used to eat horse crap?’ and ‘Is digging a grave supposed to be this hard?!’

I carried my dog of 13 years from the back of the car to her grave, held her frail body covered in matted fur to my chest one last time, and placed her on her favorite blanket facing Northwest. Towards Alaska. My father and mother and I stood next to the mound of dirt with a circlet of Star Jasmine on it and said things like ‘That is that.’ and ‘I’m glad that you are here for this.’

Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday. We’re surely gonna miss you.

Times, They Are a' Changing

2008-03-24T12:47:00.000-07:00

My mother gave me one of my childhood journals this Easter she had found while cleaning out a storage closet. I am currently in the process of writing my Senior paper, and it was a refreshing and entertaining break to see the progression in such a short time from near-unintelligible scribbles to fairly coherent thoughts in three short years. Behold!

Transcript: This is space. Space has no air so astronauts have to keep air packs on their backs so they can breath and so they won't die. - Summer '87

Transcript: Today is October 15, 1987. I like the bike ride because I like going across country on the road and I like the park, too and riding home was just as much fun as riding there and school was fun because we listened to the legend of the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow and a black cat and tomorrow I will make a pumpkin patch picture and a paper bag and I ran five times. I played monster with Michael today. - Fall of '87

Transcript: August 9th, 1989. When it is hot I like to go swimming. Katie taught me how to do somersaults, backward rows, hand stands and straddles. One time Katie and I swam 100 laps. I can do three somersaults in a row. The end. - Summer '89

This one is pretty legible and readable. - Fall of '90

Today's entry.

Sometimes it's encouraging to know where you come from.

Muffled Sob

2008-03-10T16:24:00.001-07:00

I just finished a 34-page draft this afternoon . . . now I'm listening to Metallica. I'm planning on writing out the rest of the Liam adventure after I graduate, for those of you who may still be interested; stay tuned!

Freakin' Weekend, Baby!

2008-03-07T22:18:00.000-08:00

and for a change of pace . . .

About Time . . .

2008-03-03T09:39:00.000-08:00

I was really hoping that we'd come up with a new and better way to kill each other. Enter: Blackwater! Nothing like a shotgun that can deliver nearly 300 rounds a minute to slake your blood lust. The host of the show gets even more creepy at about 4:30 when he starts describing specialty rounds.

Touché, M!

2008-02-07T22:23:00.001-08:00

Daniel Gross on Slate had a fine point about the economic stimulus package passed through Congress today and, baring any major setbacks, in our mailboxes in May sometime. I thought it was worth sharing.

Of course, there's no guarantee that American will turn their 2008 rebates into consumer activity instantaneously, or in six months. The only way to do that would be to make the rebate something more like a reimbursement. Require taxpayers to collect $300 worth of receipts from the Cheesecake Factory, Target, and Dick's Sporting Goods, and then mail them to the IRS order to receive a rebate. That would certainly be a backward way of boosting the economy. But it would be perfectly in keeping with Washington's general approach to managing the nation's fiscal affairs.

Confused, I'll Admit

2008-02-05T22:43:00.000-08:00

If you can adequately explain to me how this is any funnier than the class clown in Jr. High riffing before gym class, I'll give you a nice crisp $2 bill.

The Other Foot

2008-01-25T15:09:00.000-08:00

Today at the gym, a girl told me I had 'nice boobs.' That was a first for me. On a related topic, I heard that if you don't vote 'yes' on the Indian gaming props, Arnold will personally crush your head between his massive pecs. Food for thought.

How Many Days Later?

2008-01-22T21:15:00.000-08:00

This cracked.com feature is worth a peruse. If you like zombies. I promise I'll get around to writing something of my own sometime soon, too, instead of just regurgitating the tripe I excavate in my study breaks.

Satisfaction

2008-01-21T14:33:00.000-08:00

This is worth 17 minutes of your day. Read along here if you'd like, or simply listen. In a little more than a week, we'll find out if a black man will be the Democratic nominee for the President of the United States of America. His stiffest opponent is a woman. Our country has come a long way in it's short 230-some-odd years, farther than Dr. King would likely have dared to dream. The dream, however, is not yet realized. May we refuse contentment with great gains and each in whatever big or small way we are able work at extending our hands graciously in fellowship and service.

American Haiku Friday

2008-01-18T07:43:00.000-08:00

The bottoms of my shoes
are clean
from walking in the rain.
-Jack Kerouac

Doing My Part

2008-01-16T14:22:00.000-08:00

I hope to pick back up with regular posts, which seemed to have been somewhat sidetracked with finals and transcontinental travel. In the mean time, enjoy the theremin.

Artiste!

2007-12-17T22:24:00.000-08:00

This weekend, after finishing my last paper of the semester, my wife and I drank a bottle of wine and painted a few canvases. Below is my sophomore effort, and the first painting I've done since my senior year in college.

This is the canvas my wife painted. She's done a few more than I.

To Over or to Under?

2007-12-13T22:53:00.000-08:00

A question while I take a break for writing myriad final papers: Would you rather have people consistently underestimate you or overestimate you?

Preemptive Strike

2007-12-08T10:42:00.000-08:00

I'm going out and getting a mongoose right now. It's a miracle I've survived the Africanized honey bees this long, and I'll be damned if I'm not prepared for the latest threat.

Self Swap

2007-12-03T11:29:00.000-08:00

Today's question: Would you rather swap bodies with someone of another gender or another ethnicity?

Cheese!

2007-11-28T21:15:00.000-08:00

Have you ever found it curious that humans are the only species for which a display of teeth isn't typically a direct antecedent to mortal combat? I'm not sure what this means, but it seems important to me.

Quality

2007-11-27T22:03:00.000-08:00

If you were into So You Think You Can Dance Season 2, you already know these cats. Otherwise, just enjoy the show.

Fire up a bowl and grab yourself a phial of absinthe for this little ditty.

British humour . . . it does exist!

Success!

2007-11-25T22:45:00.001-08:00

There are a couple components that go into making Thanksgiving my favourite holiday. The season starts early for me with Fallstravaganza. Then comes family time on Thanksgiving day, followed closely by Lone Star Showdown Friday and Kill a Tree for Christmas¹ in North Fork, CA. It's a rare occurrence when all these cogs fall into place; either the Ags loose their game or weather in North Fork is crummy or family is grumpy . . . there are just too many variables for things to come out perfectly. This year, however, has gone off about as well as could be hoped for. Fallstravaganza '07 went swimmingly, I had a very enjoyable Thanksgiving day with my in-laws in town from Dallas, the Ags beat the HELL outta t.u. and we got a sweet tree on an idyllic afternoon in North Fork. Check, check, check and . . . check. I hope yall had awesome Thanksgivings.

¹Kill a Tree for Christmas is a Jensen/Qualle family annual event which just celebrated its 32^nd year. Our good friends the Jensens own several acres above North Fork and from its bounty a fresh incense cedar is cut for each family. Below is a photo of this year's Qualle II Family Christmas tree.

Summer Magic

2007-11-20T23:18:00.000-08:00

I was slumped up against several tons of luggage piled high in black military duffels like so many body bags testifying, the result of some great catastrophe. It was my second time to London in as many summers, and if I’d had known it would be my last for at least eight years I probably would have been out enjoying the experience. As it was, however, I had spent the lion’s share of my time in London this time around loading, unloading and transporting the several tons of luggage two teams of 20 people required for almost three months in Africa. Needing to rest my jet lagged legs, I crumpled down next to the wall of rough textured Teen Missions International duffels to be refreshed by the company of one Maryka Lier. A red-haired befreckled girl from Andover, Mass, she was everything one would hope a red-haired befreckled girl from Andover, Mass could be. I assume she read Dickens, listened to Radiohead and ate stew at least once a month during the winter months while somehow managing to make loose-knit sweaters fashionable. Expertly tight-roping the razor of wit and cruelty with an encyclopedic knowledge of movie quotes, Maryka had been delightful company for the first two weeks of our acquaintance and would prove to be increasingly excellent as our stint in Madagascar unfolded.

There had been some discussion about how to pronounce Maryka’s name before she had made her way from comfortable suburban Andover deep into the Florida jungle to join the rest of Teen Missions International Team 99007 to Mahajanga, MADACASCAR for our two week training course near Cape Canaveral. Armed with now-battered rosters with small grey-scale photos, the few early assemblers ventured guesses. “Mary Kay, definitely,” started Sarah, seated on a ten gallon laundry detergent bucket. “Mareeka?” ventured Grace. “I betcha it’s something like ‘Charles,’” I responded, lounging in a wheelbarrow. When Maryka showed up, she had set us all strait: It was pronounced ‘muh – `rahy – kuh.’ That afternoon in London, another guy from another place took a crack at it. I don’t remember his name; he was on the other team traveling with us from Orlando to Johannesburg. They were heading to Zimbabwe to ride dirt bikes for Jesus in black leather jackets; we were headed for Mahajanga to build a school in purple hardhats. Like I said, I have no clue what his name was now, but we’ll call him ‘Rosco.’ It seems to fit with my recollection of the man.

A rangy, bow-legged kid from Anywhere, Georgia, Rosco was just Maryka’s type. “Howdy,” he drawled out impossibly long as he almost gracefully splayed his legs out in front of himself, dropped down next to Maryka and cocked his camouflage John Deer hat back on his head.

“Hey,” she responded, raising her eyebrows in a passable imitation of interest.

“What’s yer name?” he continued, seemingly unperturbed by the general lack of reciprocity so far in the conversation.

“My name?” she said, and I could feel her skating the razor’s edge. She chose grace. “My name’s Maryka. What’s yours?”

“Oh, I’m jus’ Rosco,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “Muh r-eye kuh,” he strung each drawled syllable out to its extremity, a kid with their first piece of salt water taffy. “Say, Muh-reye-kuh . . . yer red hair sure is perty.” This just keeps getting better I thought to myself as Maryka swallowed a snigger in my direction. “It reminds me of that Anne of Green Gables girl, ya know?”

“Oh,” said Maryka, and pursed her lips ever so slightly. “Thanks, Rosco.”

And then the three of us just sat there in awkward silence for what seemed like hours until Maryka got up and muttered something about how nice it was to make Rosco’s acquaintance and how she was sure they’d run into each other soon. Things continued on like that on our team for another three or four weeks; awkward approaches at flirting, coy ripostes and the gamut of stereotypical teenage intersexual transactions until something magical happened under the Mahajanga mango groves. For the first time in my life, for about six weeks, I stopped seeing people and started experiencing people. Mike and Simon and Tom became as beautiful to me as Bronwyn, Brandt and Debbie. There was no male, nor female. We were all Greeks and one another's slaves. It didn’t last for long, and it didn’t happen for everyone, but it happened for me and at 17 years of age it was a mystical experience to commune with the selves and not the personas.

Lions, Tigers, Et al.

2007-11-13T21:23:00.000-08:00

The first time I clearly remember it happening, I was in World History summer school between my Freshman and Sophomore years, but I have a feeling I've been doing it my whole life. I zoopomorphize people; I see them as their animal equivalent. It's not that they even really look like the animal per se, but to me they somehow exude that animal's flavour, it's feel, it's impression. Odd, I know. In high school it was a girl from Clovis West named Caitlyn, and she was a sea otter. One minute I was gazing vacantly around the room and the next I was struck by the resemblance which would grip me for five more weeks until we went our respective ways and I was left with noting more than a colour coded map of Africa's several dessert regions. I can do it with most everyone if I try hard enough, but there area few that strike me and I see them more as their animal avatar than I do as people. Last week at the Gold's where I work out, while I lay panting under the bench press, Water Buffalo said to Lion, "Can you believe those f**kin' Dodgers?! They're gonna pay Torre 13 mil, and they're talkin' 'bout signin' A-Rod! F**k!" Lion, gloved paws on his hips, just adjusted his shades and shook his mane.

Finally

2007-11-13T21:18:00.000-08:00

It's about time people starting taking this stuff seriously. Seriously.

He Returns!

2007-11-12T22:27:00.000-08:00

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Editor's Note: This post marks the 100^th post on The Texafornian. Thanks to all of yall who read. May the next 100 be as random and relatively painless as the last!

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Taking stock of his impossibly limited options, Liam knew he didn’t have much time. The door to his suite had already sustained what sounded like an astonishing amount of punishment, far more he ever would have imagined the ragged portal could absorbed, and it was far overdue to buckle and admit his gentlemen callers. When it did, he was confident the proceeding pleasantries would be anything but. Sifting through the pile of loot from Cwik’s pocket, he quickly spotted what he was looking for. Liam flicked an opened Trojan condom wrapper aside and grasped the small but wicked looking knife. He opened it with a smooth *snick*, a whisper of encouragement against the cacophonous tribal beat upon the door.

With the pistol in his right and the small black knife glinting in his left, Liam pointed at Cwik with the later. “Here’s how this is going to happen, Ricky,” said Liam in a low, tense voice, barely audible over the drumming on the door. “You talk, you die. You bolt, you die. You cross your eyes, you get maimed. You say you know me, so you should know I’m not playing games here. When I cut you loose, you’ll stand up and wait for me to tell you what to do. You’re gonna be my lil’ puppet,” Liam finished, giving Cwik a mock jab under the chin. Working quickly and carefully, Liam stepped on Cwik’s feet as he cut the cord holding them, leaving his hands still bound. *THOOM-AArrrccckkkkk!* protested the door, and on the other side the shouts of two men became slightly more audible. Sliding the blade upwards along the side of Cwik and stepping back a pace in one quick movement, he instructed Cwik to stand up. Spreading his feet a bit, Cwik attempted to raise himself from his bonds and only half managed the feat before falling heavily back to the chair. Redoubling his efforts, Rick staggered to his feet as the door finally surrounded its courageous battle with the intruders and spat splinters into the room as it flew back with a loud crack and settled drunkenly on mangled hinges.

Two men in nondescript clothes piled after each other into the room, pistols drawn, and came to a crashing halt just a few paces from Cwik’s demonic scarecrow frame in the cramped room. The cool air now being gulped into the room reminded Liam he was still in his boxers, only increasing his sense of vulnerability and apprehension. Keeping Cwik between himself and the men as much as possible, Liam all-to-comfortably gripped his Berretta and knife in their respective hands. He couldn’t have been more than five paces from the other men, but with the furniture and people clogging the interior there was little room to maneuver.

“Ah, shit,” said the one in front after quickly surveying the situation. He was smaller and lighter than his counterpart, but not by much. He had small, hard eyes that seemed to be looking everywhere and yet nowhere at once. Liam could see those eyes efficiently search Cwik’s face, but what was said or what was understood was impossible to discern from his vantage. Both men now had their pistols up and leveled at Liam.

“Let’s just be cool,” said the other man. His eyes were malicious. Not quick, not stupid. Just mean, and Liam didn’t like them one bit.

“I’d be a lot cooler with you guys walking your asses right back out of my suite the way you came," said Liam levelly. He was shocked to hear the confidence in his own voice. Cwik stood swaying ever so slightly, but Liam still couldn’t see his face.

“Liam, man. You know we can’t let you go. Your pop’ll have our foreskins if we botch this,” said Hard Eyes.

“We’re both already circumcised, numb-nuts!” spat Mean Eyes.

“Well then his pop’ll grow ‘em back and cut ‘em off again, Charles! Only this time we’ll be old enough to remember the process!!” snarled Hard Eyes, now turning to meet Charles’ glare.

Liam reacted before he knew what he was doing. Cwik’s knife flew from his left hand and whistled past it’s previous owner’s right ear as it buried itself Charles’ right shoulder up to the handle, causing his pistol to drop to the ground with a clatter as he lurched back and gripped the blade now sprouting metallically from his flesh. In near simultaneous concert, Liam’s Px4 quietly exploded twice. One round grazed Hard Eyes across his left cheek and the other struck the clavicle just below and he reflexively squeezed off two rounds which bit into the walls as he spun down clutching at his marred visage. The bite of gunpowder and blood exploded in Liam’s nostrils as he spotted Cwik barreling out of the door, hands still bound in front of him.

Liam should now:

A) Chase Cwik and ditch the Eye Brothers.

B) Leave Cwik and interrogate the Eye Brothers.

C) Cut his losses with both and just try to get the heck out of Dodge.

D) Finish off the Eye Brothers and then try and track down Cwik.

The Even More You Know

2007-11-07T14:27:00.001-08:00

The last quote from Johnson's Inner Work was a little weird, I'm the first to admit. I strongly believe there is something to this whole 'unconscious' phenomenon, but "Lady Ingrid" is a little much for even me. The book as a whole is challenging, bizarre and more than a little disconcerting at times, but I thought I would risk another quote which I found much more concrete and helpful.

Ritual, in its true form, is one of the most meaningful channels for our awe and sense of worship. This is why ritual came spontaneously into being among humans in all parts of the earth. This is why modern people who are deprived of meaningful ritual feel a chronic sense of emptiness. They are denied contact with the great archetypes (ie. the Holy Spirit¹) that nourish our soul-life.
- Inner Work, Robert A. Johnson. pg. 102

¹Parenthetical mine

The Few, the Humble

2007-11-05T09:33:00.000-08:00

It’s rare for me to encounter someone whom I deem wise; I could have two fingers bit off by a cantankerous Iguana and still count the number of wise people I know on one hand. Don’t get me wrong, I know a whole mess of smart people. I know a bunch of intelligent people. I am even fortunate to know a fair group of individuals whose insight far surpasses what one might call ‘normal’ (these are not the people to invite to poker night). There is a quality about a select few, however, which can’t be quantified and which I label ‘wise.’ It has something to do with living, something to do with loving and something to do with lamenting but I’m not quite sure on the recipe yet. I saw wisdom in my great grandmother. My great grandmother Della was somehow always much more substantial than her wizened frame would suggest, I imagine because the voyage from Colorado Springs to Houghson, California in a covered wagon imbued her with a grit which only showed through more clearly as the years inexorably striped away the insubstantial. By the time I remember knowing her she was always sitting, always covered by one of her homemade quilts, and always watching the comings and goings around her. I heard wisdom when she would crunch her kind face into a smile and say to me at 104 years of age, “Micah, don’t ever live to be this old. It’s isn’t any fun.”

This Thursday, I met another woman who seemed wise to me. Margaret Hudson is a sculptor, painter and passionate pursuer of life as well as a fixture of the Fresno community. The daughter of missionaries, at 84 Margaret is still annually hosting every second-grader in the Fresno Unified School District at her home in West Fresno with the hope of instilling in them an appreciation of their intrinsic worth as well as an appreciation for all things art. She is a survivor of breast cancer, and has chosen to continue her battle with this pernicious disease through natural methods. She in a farmer, a carpenter, and a poet. Peering at our class through large glasses which magnified her eyes right up to the point of comedy, Ms. Hudson welcomed my classmates and me to the grounds of her home on a Thursday afternoon.

In her back yard, an overgrown collection of bamboo thickets, cottonwood stands and crawling ivy with an organic garden at its centre, I stood and listened to Margaret share her soul with our class. With one hand gripping a smooth, hard bamboo shoot I stood listening to Margaret speak and was struck by the dichotomy: the aged bamboo became larger, harder and smoother as it watched the years pass by. Those same years seemed to have effected the opposite for Margaret. That is, until she confided in us about her nearly impossible pursuit of God through the nightmare of loosing her son to suicide. In those interminable few seconds she was larger, smoother, firmer and more perfect than any Platonic bamboo as she nearly shouted with passion, “And all I came to discover was that I really don’t know much. But what I do know . . . I know that God is and that God is real and that God is real to me.” Her hands lifted to the sky in supplication and surrender and defiance and acceptance, she slowly lowered them and turned her magnified eyes back towards our rapt attention. We were 20-some-odd souls staring at another we suddenly realized was naked and unashamed.

I very much hope to one day be considered wise by others, but for now I content myself with being a witness to other’s wisdom.

The More You Know

2007-11-05T09:27:00.001-08:00

It is best if we get acquainted with our inner personalities as persons in their own right before we start putting distance between us and them by using psychological classifications and jargon. You will get much closer to your inner feminine if you know her as "Lady Ingrid," for example, and think of her as a special and interesting being who lives inside you, than if you call her 'the anima' and turn her into a clinical abstraction.
- Inner Work, Robert A. Johnson. pg. 77

Just thought you should know . . .

You Do the Math

2007-10-30T21:58:00.000-07:00

As a Therapist in Training, I fall under the purview of California's Mandatory Reporting Laws. They basically state that if I become privy to any information regarding child abuse while in a professional capacity, I am required by law to make a report to the Child Protective Agency. This weekend I learned that while it is not mandated that I report a client engaging in consensual sexual intercourse between a 46-year-old man and a 16-year-old girl, I am required under penalty of law to report oral sex between partners of which either or both are under the age of 18. Write your congressmen, ladies and gentlemen.

Effing Movies

2007-10-28T23:16:00.000-07:00

There’s something about the fall that makes me start thinking cinematically. The barometric pressure, ambient temperatures, and change in lighting angles seem to conjure up crisply framed scenes accompanied by poignant soundtracks in my mind for the most mundane of daily activities. The camera cuts to a strait overhead shot as I sit hunched, head in my left hand, shoveling oatmeal into my mouth in the semi-light of 6:37am. The colours are muted and the contrast high as Dire Straits subtly compliments the quiet clink of silverware and the muffled thwack of the morning paper hitting the door. With the embers of the day smoldering over the bucolic spread of vineyards and dilapidated barns, the camera pans along with a sprinting Honda as Bob Seager growls out Roll Me Away. I have these moments at other times of the year, but they seem to intensify and proliferate in the cooling environs of the fall, so in that spirit I've decided to renew my movie reviewing efforts. As per the previous review post, I’ll only review one film thoroughly and leave the rest to scores and highlights.

Since the last film review post I have seen a staggering 10 films. They are, in chronological order:

Born into Brothels
Capote
Memento
Charade
The Boondock Saints
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
The Chorus
Weird Science
Knocked Up
F**K

Maybe it’s the serial position effect or maybe it’s my affinity for the taboo, but I’ve decided to give the feature to the most recent documentary I saw, F**K.

Carl Jung believed that we are all connected through a collective unconscious, and as such the Universe will tell us things that are, that have been and that will be if we pay attention. All week people have been randomly dropping the eff-bomb all around me, and last night (Saturday) I ended up watching Steve Anderson’s documentary on the word. I have no idea what the Universe might be trying to tell me through that, but I sincerely hope that it’s not an omen of things to come.

This documentary did three things very well. It let me know what Ice Tea thinks about the eff-bomb. It let me know what Drew Carey thinks about the eff-bomb. It also cleared up the urban legend that it is an acronym of some sort, which is a spurious urban legend according to the many distinguished linguists they paraded across the screen. Expecting a smart and well-crafted film about the history and utility of society’s most exciting and well-known taboo, the film ended up being more of a smorgasbord of famous opinions about the value of censorship and either idolization or vilification of the eff word, a la ‘I Love the 80’s.’

The movie was far from void, I don’t mean to give a completely pejorative vibe on the thing. It was generally well shot, there was an interesting cast of interviews from Sam Donaldson to Tera Patrick and everyone in between. There were some interesting segments over the linguistic flexibility of the word (it can be used legitimately as almost every part of speech), its history and the public debate over its use in several different contexts, and an honest effort to provide some contrast in opinion. In the end, however, the film ended up coming off juvenile due largely to some poorly constructed segments arguing for a categorical absolution of FCC regulation. Based entirely on Red Herring arguments about increasing fines under the Bush administration and some half-baked parenting philosophy pitched by Kevin Smith, it was 25 minutes of shaky rhetoric and shoddy diatribes that lost the film a lot of the luster it had previously garnered. It’s not everything I hoped it would be, but it’s a good film for everyone who’s ever muttered it under their breath after an excruciating exam or screamed it at a roommate after they ate your last lasagna again and took your calculator to study in the library when you needed it for a test.
Grade: B-

Scores and Highlights:

Born into Brothels: If someone had told me three years ago that it was possible to shoot an uplifting documentary about children born to generational prostitutes in Calcutta's red-light district, I would have had a hard time believing them. Zana Briski was able to manage just that in this stirring picture of the impact of one woman’s refusal to be content with moral outrage and instead commited her life to brightening an otherwise dark situation. Witnessing the change in how the children composed not only their photographs but also their lives was nothing short of miraculous.
Grade: A-

Capote: Phillip Seymore Hoffman is superb in this relentless film about Truman Capote’s pursuit of his groundbreaking non-fiction fiction piece In Cold Blood. The film didn’t do much for me other than give me an appreciation for the spent-uranium durability of the author and provide a fascinating look into the life of the midwife of modern American literature. The writing, acting, directing and pacing are all accomplished at the highest levels. So yeah, I guess it kinda did do a lot for me after all.
Grade: B+

Memento: I hadn’t seen this film in a long time and I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it. I’m not sure if I’ve seen a film before or since as conceptually intriguing as Memento, and while the acting is a little stilted at times and the writing is more than adequately covered by bizarreness of the plot, the film is able to sneak a surprising amount of character development in among the twists and is thoroughly enjoyable to loose yourself in. It was even better the second time after a bottle of wine.
Grade: A-/A+++

Charade: I have a bias against old movies, and I’m not sure why it is. If a movie is filmed before 1985, I always end up looking at a movie jacket and thinking it’s going to blow. Well, after polishing off this smart action/comedy circa 1963, I had not only changed my tune about older movies but also found myself completely enamored with Audrey Hepburn. A charming and classy woman from another time and another place, she is something we could use much more of in contemporary cinema. Decently acted and cleverly delivered, Charade was good clean fun for the whole family. Random casting note: This was apparently the other movie Walter Matthau did before Grumpy Old Men.
Grade: A-

The Boondock Saints: This film is exceptionally violent, frequently obscene and almost entirely dark, and yet somehow manages to preserve an unidentifiable quality which would resemble hope if it wasn’t so grizzled. This film also manages to capture filial piety in a way that transcends acting, writing or directing, and I have always been impressed by that. My favourite scenes from this movie are the old Irish barkeep screaming, “F**K!!!!! ASS!!!!!!!!” and blinking apoplectically as a group of Nuns hurry past in a hospital hallway and the brothers conversing in five different languages with Agent Smecker. It’s not a flick for everyone, but if you’re in the mood for some film noire killing and maiming, this one’s for you. Best taken with a Guinness or five.
Grade: B

Mr. and Mrs. Smith: Yeah, I saw it. I could have spent that 97 minutes counting the hairs on my forearm and been about the same off intellectually and emotionally. It wasn’t even bad enough to be entertaining. The end.
Grade: C-/D+

The Chorus: This charming French film about a transformation in a delinquent school for boys has found a warm spot in with me. Part of it is likely my inexplicable affection for the French, but this film did a fine job of portraying the power of decency and humility when speaking into even the most hardened of environments. Due to the film being entirely in French, this isn’t the flick for you if you don’t like subtitles and/or don’t speak French, but it’s well worth trying to get over either obstacle to enjoy this warm and affirming tale about the importance of being human in inhumane circumstances.
Grade: A-

Weird Science: What can you really say about this Saturday afternoon classic? It's basically a distillation of male juvenile primary processing, right down to the fecal troll Bill Pullman gets turned into, and it had been years upon long years since I'd seen it. Between the mutant biker gang, stealing the popular girls from Robert Downey Jr. and jaunting nonchalantly around town in Ferraris, it's a fun house of every Jr. High guy all dressed up in undeniably 80's threads. Not really intelligent, not really subtle in any way shape or form, but campy and random.
Grade: B-

Knocked Up: I actually enjoyed this flick a lot more than I thought I would when it came in the mail. I had heard rave reviews from several different sources over the months since its release, but remained skeptical. Partly because of my low expectations, however, and partly because most of the cast were strongly reminiscent of my friends in high school, I ended up appreciating the crassness and awkwardness captured so authentically in this film of trying to negotiate life between people who are so unalike. An enjoyable film as long as you don’t take anything too seriously.
Grade: B

Destination: Destruction

2007-10-19T07:38:00.000-07:00

*** This is one man's account of actual events that transpired on the evening of January 13^th, 2000. For another man's recollection, please take a dip in the Language Pool ***

///////

It was the middle of winter; the time of year which on occasion leaves you thinking you’re late for bed before the 6 o’clock news is even into their sports coverage. It was the time of year when the sun goes to bed early and this particular evening it happily obliged, pulling a blanket of high clouds after itself as it plunged the Western hemisphere into night leaving only occasional peeks of the lunar physiognomy to provide light. The preternatural gloom that followed, obscuring almost completely the memory of lavish summer evenings spent outdoors until late, had fallen long before I got the call; when I heard James’ voice on the phone, however, a light was kindled against the darkness. It was the moment we had been waiting for since the previous evening at Bible Study; or had it been our entire lives? We were 18, and we were going to purchase dynamite.

James had joined me in the ranks of adulthood just recently, and the Knudson brothers were the ones who first floated the idea. “Yeah, lotto tickets and smokes. Turning 18 just isn’t as exciting as I thought it’d be,” I said while Al Nunez desperately tried to redirect the group’s attention back to Galatians Chapter 2. “Welcome to the club anyhow, James.”

“You can buy dynamite,” Peter interjected. “Didn’t you know that?”

“Totally,” added his brother Nathan. “You’re adults now.”

There were some guffaws and ‘nu-uh’s’ followed by more ‘uh-huh’s’ before Al’s persistently patient redirections were effective in returning us to the text at hand, but the damage had been done; James and I were hooked. Dynamite was available for the purchasing and there was no way we wouldn’t be buying some.

After the study was over, James and I took council together. “What are we gonna use it on, though, James?” I said. Always the Bert to his Ernie, I’m thinking practically. “Heck, where are we gonna use it?”

“Can’t we use your house?” James asks, dead pan. A forgone conclusion.

“We’re not that far out in the country, James. And plus, I’m pretty sure my dad doesn’t want us blowing stuff up in the back yard with dynamite.”

“Well, we can probably find somewhere up in the foothills or around camp to do it, then,” he countered, undeterred.

“And the target?”

“Who cares? Even just a hole in the ground would be cool.”

“I wonder how much dynamite costs? For that matter, where do we even buy it? I don’t remember seeing it at Wal Mart or Target or anything, ya know?” I was excited about the project, but I couldn’t get myself past a few logistical hiccups. Like price per unit, and felony destruction of property charges.

“I betcha OSH has it,” responded James. “If anybody has it, I bet they do.”

“Yeah, I guess they’ll be our best bet. OSH it is. If they don’t have it there we could probably try Home Depot or something, too.” There was nothing left to do now but play it out, so when James called the next night I knew what he wanted. He swung by my house in his battered Geo Metro and we sped off into the gathering night to meet our destiny.

The ride over was uneventful, James expertly spiriting his nimble automobile through, around and over traffic. “This is gonna be awesome,” he had said while down shifting and accelerating past an old Dodge Ram, screaming through an orange light. Caedman’s Call blared over the small tinny speakers in the car.

“Totally,” I had agreed, looking up at the patchwork of high clouds and the penumbral moon high above, face half smashed against the cool window.

We skittered into a parking stall under a guttering light near the front of Orchard Supply Hardware, the closest corporate equivalent to Mom & Pop’s Hardware N’ Things. If the parking lot was any indication, they didn’t get a lot of customers after six on a Thursday night. Piling out of the Metro and casting furtive grins at each other, we strolled through the automatic doors as they whooshed aside and we stepped into the mausoleum. The fluorescent lighting above hummed in subdued tones, harmonizing with Kenny Loggins who was politely crooning over the store’s speakers. The tang of galvanized metal and fertilizer was thick in the air and employees conspicuously thin on the ground as we began combing the store for our prized purchase.

“What aisle do you think they keep the dynamite in?” I asked James as we made our way past the impulse-buy stands, coiled garden hoses and E-Z Up shelters.

“Well, you can make explosives out of fertilizer, right? Maybe they’re with that?”

“Yeah, I dunno. I figure we can probably just go down every aisle and check it out,” I guessed. We still hadn’t seen any employees.

Fasteners? Not there. Drivers? Nor there. Lighting? Plumbing? Sealants? Paint? Nope x 4. We had worked our way through roughly ¾ of the store from left to right, muttering to each other about the odds of finding our target down this aisle or that aisle and ogling power tools when we found our first employee re-stocking the snail bait shelf in the pest control section. The boy looked to be about 16 with floppy hair and a slightly hunched posture, dutifully putting box after box of Ortho Slug & Snail Bait next to its kindred. His nametag informed us his name was Travis.

“Here we go,” James breathed to me and quickly approached the kid. I followed along in tow slightly slack-jawed and still very much wondering how the immanent exchange would go down.

“Hey,” James began, stopping at just the right distance from the employee. Not too close, not too far away. “I was wondering; do you guys sell dynamite?”

Travis’ hand, which had been methodically conveying box after box from his cart to the shelf, ground to a halt in mid air. It set cautiously down the box it had been carrying, and instead of retrieving another brushed his floppy hair back out of his face as he looked from the shelf to the cart and back again, conspicuously avoiding looking at James except for a quick glance between oscillations. “Oh – ah – uhmmmmm, yeah. Wow. Dynamite? No. Gosh, no. Wow, yeah. Dynamite? Yeah, we don’t sell that, I don’t think. I’m pretty sure, yeah, we don’t sell that, what do you need it for?” Travis was obviously flustered.

‘Shit!’ I thought to myself. ‘This is what I was worried about. Travers thinks we’re terrorists.’ I started looking for escape routes. Luckily James had no such compunction, and responded cool as a cucumber.

“Rodents,” he stated matter-of-factly, his face inscrutable.

“Oh, wow. Yeah. Gosh,” floundered the kid. “What kind?”

My stomach fell down my pant leg. ‘I wonder if they’ll give us cells near each other?’ I despaired. This wasn’t going as well as I had hoped. I thought I might have heard police sirens swiftly approaching outside, and every creak and groan of the store around us was the stamping of booted ATF agents. Still apparently unperturbed, however, James soldiered on.

Furrowing his brow just slightly and leaning towards Travis for emphasis, he replied “Big,” nodding slightly.

“Gophers . . . actually,” I found myself saying. “Big gophers. Making a real mess out of the place, you know?” I was trying to sell an Eskimo a refrigerator.

“Wow. Yeah, gophers. Gosh, ummm, yeah, must be pretty big. I guess they really can make a mess out of things,” Travis weakly agreed. I could taste his apprehensive skepticism. “What have you tried to get rid of em?”

“Just, you know, poison. Uh, flooding.” My mind raced through a conversation between my friend’s dad and another guy I had overheard about a gopher problem he was having. “The, uh. Um, well, the usual. Nothing’s really worked and my dad just wants ‘em gone.”

“Have you – uh -- tried, um, gopher gassers?” Travis asked. “I, um, I think they’re one aisle over. They usually, uh, they usually work pretty good.”

“Oh yeah?” At that moment I couldn’t have been paid any sum of money to stay in the store one minute longer. “No, we haven’t tried those yet but we will, one aisle over? Thanks, have a good night, see ya around.”

James and I turned on our heels and pushed the envelope for conspicuous walking speed, flashing wan smiles at a bored elderly lady slumped at the customer service desk as we strained towards the automatic sentries to freedom. Three steps from the door we both broke into a run and the Metro had started rolling before I had managed to fully shut my door. It wasn’t until we’d made it a block and a half with no lights in the mirror that we nearly died laughing ourselves to death.

It’s been a long time since James and I made Travis fill out an incident report on Orchard Supply letterhead; there are a million and three stories, jokes, and sorrows between then and now, and we still never have managed to procure ourselves any dynamite. In retrospect, it wouldn’t have been appropriate (metaphorically, not legally), but that’s never something you can know at the time. My relationship with James has never been centred around destruction, explosion or demolition. Instead, it has been a nearly 10 year history of encouragement, exploration, trust, intimacy (in a masculine way, of course) and growth which I count among my most treasured of gifts. I’m just glad I never had to shank him with a filed down toothbrush in the Big House for a carton of smokes and some lotto tickets during our 16 year stint for Conspiracy and Terrorist Threats.

Eight Across

2007-10-09T21:15:00.000-07:00

Across:

8. Classless institution found in a God-forsaken, backward, wasteland of a town

Down:

2. One who dislikes, see 8 across

I've made no bones about my dislike for Texas Tech University. They've finally decided to make my job easy and show their true colours to the rest of the world. May they reap what they are so wont to sew this weekend; so let it written, so let it be done.

The Deeper Truth

2007-10-08T22:33:00.000-07:00

I stumbled unexpectedly on koans while reading an incredibly dull book about cognitive behavioural therapy and borderline personality disorder; a flasher on the morning commuter train of my Thursday afternoon that has left me unable to get the idea out of my mind. A koan is a saying or story which contains aspects of Truth which are inaccessible to rational logic, but which are said to be approachable through a deeper wisdom. They are a tool of Zen practitioners used to move both student and teacher towards a deeper understanding of themselves and the world they inhabit. They cannot be answered by any power of intellect, nor apprehended through a purely emotional encounter. A koan may have many right answers and even more wrong ones. The koan is a mercurial thing, some would say a capricious at best, seldom retaining it's Truth for even the same person for long at all. The true interpretation of a koan is said to be found only in experiencing life. That is to say, I have been enthralled with the concept of coming to knowledge of something outside of reason and yet not based entirely on my own inner subjectivity since last Thursday at about 10:45 am.

Here is a famous Zen koan:

A monk asked Kegon, "How does an enlightened one return to the ordinary world?"

Kegon replied, "A broken mirror never reflects again; fallen flowers never go back to the old branches."

And a famous koan from Chistianity:

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.

Not to go too Mr. Miyagi on yall, but I've been thinking about this and figured I'd share the wealth. In parting, I leave you with my favourite koan I've read so far.

The world is vast and wide. Why do you put on your robes at the sound of a bell?

Blue Sevety-Two Razor!

2007-10-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

Uhhhhh, actually, folks, we're gonna have to call an audible on the previous post due to some unforeseen scheduling complications. Right now we're looking at perhaps the 10th of November. Email me back with an ideal date for you and your others, texafornian@gmail.com, and we'll try and accommodate as many people as possible.

Ganza!

2007-10-03T23:02:00.000-07:00

The best part about that album cover: Disc II of Pipe Organ Extravaganza IV! I sometimes wonder how I haven't managed to release an album myself. There's obviously people out there willing to press, not to mention buy, just about anything (note the small script above the title!!!!!).

ANYways . . . I'm sure you've all been looking at your calenders and thinking to yourselves, 'Isn't it about time the Qualles threw another Fallstravaganza? I mean, it's been Fall for a least a week or so, what's the hold up?!' Or something to that effect. Well, wait no longer. The date has been set for October the 20th at my parent's place out east of Clovis from like 6ish till 9ish or so. Ish. If you forgot what it's like or didn't get to make it last year, it'll be a bunch of people hanging out and eating good food, and it'll be fun. So much fun that you'll want to compose a limerick about it when it's all said and done. There will be great food, likely some games, and generally good clean fun for the whole family. I'm posting this here because it's likely that I don't have the email addresses of everyone I'd like to invite and this event has historically been one which brought a lot of people together, so if you want to come and read my blog you're in. Email me or drop me a comment and we'll connect on the details.

Things You Should Know

2007-10-02T21:09:00.000-07:00

Alright, just kidding. I have no idea if cats actually even paint, let alone why. Nor do I know who would buy this book or why. What I do know is:

Next Tuesday, Oct. 9^th, is the National Day of Prayer for Mental Illness Recovery and Understanding. The Global prevalence rate of mental illness, encompassing everything from substance abuse to schizophrenia and everything in between, is somewhere between 65 and 85%. Whether you're aware of it or not, you know someone who has been intimately affected by psychopathology of one type or another. Let's not wait for one day a year to pray for our brothers and sisters.
In two days, we will eclipse the 50^th anniversary of Sputnik I's maiden voyage into the final frontier. This is really three things in one. The first is the anniversary. The second is a plug for Orson Scott Card's Ender series; I find them some of the better sci-fi political/military commentary available. Third, how long would you ride on a space ship to reach another M-class planet?
Eerily mirroring a movie I think I saw on the Sci-Fi Chanel at 3h30am one Tuesday night in college, brain-sucking amoebas are descending on our nation. Not good. Nose plugs might be un-cool, but not nearly as un-cool as having a pseudopoded microorganism feasting on your gray matter. Bleck.
Existential human connection is a real phenomenon. I have experienced it, and it totally freaked me out. Believe me or don't, I know what I felt.
I am now two years older than James Dean was when he died two days ago in 1955. What a lot I have accomplished in the last two years, and what a lot has changed. Sometimes I wish that we'd have had the chance to see Dean continue to grow and evolve, and sometimes it seems fitting that he remains unsullied by the corruption of time.

All in the Family

2007-09-24T23:32:00.000-07:00

“Yeah,” quipped Liam, hardly cognizant of choosing his words before the tumbled from his mouth. “Long time no see.”

“Oh, so now you remember me? I knew you were full of shit, Liam. I knew it! Damn it, and now I’m payin’ the price for m . . .” but Liam stopped hearing the now constant and virulent stream of words erupting from his captive’s mouth. What was this guy talking about? What did he mean, now I remember him? Something tugged at the corner of Liam’s mind, an unsettled buzzing that evaporated with every attempt to bring it to consciousness, only to reconstitute again just past the fringes of his awareness.

Liam squinted away the confusion and raised the pistol he uncomfortably realized had fallen almost slack by his side. “Stupid stupid stupid! Stay focused here,” he thought to himself and he snarled and took a shuffle step towards the interloper in the chair. “Why don’t you just shut your mouth for a second. How ‘bout that, for old time’s sake?” And he pulled the hammer back with his thumb for emphasis.

“Sure, fine, whatev . . .” the stranger began again, seeming to gain steam with his mounting level of consciousness, but was swiftly clammed up as Liam lifted his pistol a few menacing inches. He splayed his hands up in a sign of contorted surrender from under the binding of the tape.

“Here’s how this is gonna work,” said Liam, now itching his temple with the dark muzzle of his borrowed piece. “I’ll ask you questions, you’ll answer. If I think you’re snowin’ me, you’ll get a matching set,” he finished, now gesturing with the pistol at the stranger’s duct taped forehead. The rumpled man grunted and rolled his eyes in resignation. “So first things first, champ. Who the hell are you.”

The man raised his eyebrows, questioning, until Liam waved him on with his free hand. “My name,” came the man’s low reply, “is Cwik. Ricky Cwick.” As the man began his response, Liam had began rifling through the small pile of the man’s possessions. He grabbed the wallet and flipped it open. The Nevada DL of Reginald Walker glowered back at him through yellowing plastic sleeve. Liam shook his head slowly, sneering as he stepped towards the chair and raised his gun.

“Wait!” yelped the prisoner, trying to maneuver his bound body away from the impending blow. Liam remained statuesque, pistol raised back over one shoulder ready to deliver a vicious blow. “Christ! You don’t think I carry my real ID around on me, do you? Walker’s my cover, I’m trying to be honest with you here, man.” Cwik ventured a quick look back up from his cowered position. “You really don’t remember me, do you Liam.”

“Remember you from where?!” erupted Liam, but as Cwik began to formulate his answer, Liam held up a finger. “One thing at a time. One thing at a time, Ricky. Who sent you after me?”

“Well that’s really two birds with one stone right there, Liam. You always were one for efficiency, weren’t you?” Cwik’s eye was crinkling into what appeared to be a grin, but the twinkle only managed to come out menacing in Liam’s estimation.

“So?” demanded Liam, pistol now back at the level, unwavering.

Cwik sighed and dropped his chin towards his chest, then brought his eyes back to meet Liam’s squarely. “Your father sent me here, Liam. Your father sent me to find you after what happened last April, and that’s how you know me. I’ve worked for your father and his family for 27 years.”

The buzz in the back of Liam’s mind got louder, but it was soon drowned out by a loud thud against the door to the suite. The door must have been sturdier than it looked to turn back the first assault, but the frame creaked and Liam saw the wall next to it shudder as a second blow was landed. It was evident the door would not hold long.

“Well,” said Cwik brightly, now apparently fully recovered from his stunning blow earlier. “They didn’t take long to show, did they? For all your efficiency, Liam, you do get bogged down in the details from time to time.”

Blood singing again in his ears, wild eyed, Liam scanned the small room and its contents past the barrel of his pistol. There weren’t many options.

Liam should now:

A) Attempt to barricade the door with furniture

B) Cut Cwik loose and attempt to use him as a hostage

C) Gag and hood Cwik, using him as ambush bait

D) Kill Cwik and use his body as a human shield while trying to escape through the unknown assailants.

Get Learnt

2007-09-22T11:25:00.000-07:00

I have earned a meager income for the last two years of my life working for a tutoring centre that tries to fill in the gaps left by our state's education system. I see lots of kids who don't understand the reading strategies employed by their teachers, kids who have yet to learn their math facts by 10^th grade and kids that can't sit still for more than 83 seconds without climbing the walls and swinging from the ceiling. Some of my closest friends and my mother are also in the educational system, so when my professor recently assigned an article for my practicum cohort based on a lecture by a psychologist named Rudolph Dreikurs, I was extremely impressed by what he had to say. It has certainly given me material to think about as I tutor and work as a therapist. Here is the link to the full article, and below are some of the more exacting excerpts.

First Dreikurs lays some groundwork:

I have found many, many people who try so hard to be good. But I have failed yet to see that they have done so for the welfare of others. What I find behind these people who try to be so good is concern with their own prestige. They are good for the benefit of their own self-evaluation. Anybody who is really concerned with the welfare of others won't have any time or interest to be concerned with the question of how good he is.

There is only one area where we still can feel safely superior: When we are right. It is a new snobbishism of intellectuals: "I know more, therefore, you are stupid and I am superior to you." It is superiority of the moralists: "I am better than you; therefore, I am superior to you." And it is in this competitive strife to establish a moral and intellectual superiority that making a mistake became so dangerous again because, "If you find out that I am wrong, how can I look down at you? And if I can't look down at you, you certainly will look down at me."

And then he gets to the crux of his article . . .

I feel that in the majority of tests given to students the final mark does not depend on how many brilliant things he said and did, but how many mistakes he made. And if he made a mistake he can't get a hundred regardless of how much he has contributed on other parts of the same assignment. Mistakes determine the value. In this way, we unwittingly add to the already tremendous discouragement of our children.

It seems to me that our children are exposed to a sequence of discouraging experiences, both at home and in school. Everybody points out what they did do wrong and what they could do wrong. We deprive the children of the only experience which really can promote growth and development; experience of their own strengths. We impress them with their deficiencies, with their smallness, with their limitations; and at the same time try to drive them on to be much more than they can be. If we want to institute in children the enthusiasm which they need to accomplish something, the faith in themselves, regard for their own strengths; then we have to minimize the mistakes they are making, and emphasize all the good things, not which they could do, but which they do do.

It's Back

2007-09-22T11:09:00.000-07:00

I'm bringing it back, and this time I've got backup. One of the better shows on network TV starts up again October 5th, let's hope their sophomore efforts match their debut.

Magic Brownies

2007-09-15T22:44:00.000-07:00

It’s common knowlege that chocolate is not good for dogs, so naturally my wife and I were concerned when we discovered my 11 lb. Jack Russell Terrier ate 12 brownies. It took us a while to put the story together, piecing together the clues. About 6pm, we noticed her little pink belly was taunt and distended. She refused dinner. She licked her lips a lot. We were pretty sure she’d gotten into something, but the list of what it could be was extensive; it wasn’t until dessert time that we discovered the batch of brownies had turned up missing. Quelle méchante.

Reba lounged around the apartment for the rest of the evening, legs pushed slightly askew by her bulging belly. So far we hadn’t seen the brownies make a reappearance. When we put her to bed around midnight, Reba yowled and cried in her crate. Fearing that she might detonate a shitstorm of explosive diarrhea and vomit if we kept her confined all night, I was moved by compassion and a desire to not clean up the mess. “Let’s just leave her out tonight, babe,” I said. “If she tries to get up on the bed, we’ll just push her off, it shouldn’t be a big deal.” And it wasn’t. Until about 5am.

Consulting the internet about chocolate consumption in dogs the next morning, we discovered that . . . “As time passes and there's increased absorption of the toxic substance, you'll see an increase in the dog's heart rate, which can cause arrhythmia, restlessness, hyperactivity, muscle twitching, increased urination or excessive panting.” That would explain the manic rampage around our apartment from the hours of 5-8:30am. After the fourth strait lap through our apartment, jumping on and over every piece of furniture we own barking like Bill Cower on Crank, I finally got out of bed and groggily held one end of a rope with Reba spasmodically clamped onto the other. 150 minutes later, she seemed to have taken a slight edge off. She has since been fed a mild laxative, squeezed out several piles of a gooey tar-like substance, and calmed down substantially though her small belly still shows signs of distention. While I am sure that chocolate consumption poses a serious physiological threat to my dog’s life, it’s nothing compared to the carnage which will be visited upon her if she pulls off a repeat performance tonight. Oh, and check out my nasty ankle!

1. This morning about 6h30 during a brief respite from Reba's rampage

2. 10h30 tonight, after working on the car all afternoon

3. Some context

A Time to Laugh, a Time to Cry

2007-09-14T12:42:00.000-07:00

I cried last night. I can’t say that it’s an unheard of occurrence; I remember one time particularly from my childhood when I had fallen off a ladder. It was the first time I had the wind knocked out of me. Sprawled on the ground in Osh Kosh B'Goshes and deck shoes, a fish out of water, the most terrifying part of the experience was trying to cry from the pain and finding the agency to do so had left with the forceful expulsion of air from my lungs. It wasn’t until they had time to reboot that I was able to give voice to my panic and pain. And voice it I did, clinging to my mother like a frantic baby rhesus as she patiently carried me back inside and smoothed my hair, accepting without question or protest the large damp spot on her Easter blouse where I buried my face .

It’s been a long three weeks for me since the beginning of my semester. Early mornings and later nights have taken their toll, so it would seem, on my psyche. I have doubled my client load at my first placement. I have helped a husband commit his wife of 35 years to a mental institution. I have stumbled upon the startling possibility that the reason I think my therapist is full of shit may in fact be because I think I am full of shit most the time I’m doing therapy. I have played 10 games of softball in two days. I have started academic work after a summer of solely clinical exercises. And last night after a particularly nasty sprained ankle in a fútbol match my team narrowly lost, the weight of this reality got to be a bit much for me. As I sat on the couch in the intermediary period before the ibuprofen took hold, frozen peas tied in place by my socks, the throbbing in my ankle kept time with the repeating third person replay of me landing awkwardly while trying to avoid the prostrate player. I make a small hop over a leg, take a stab at the ball, connecting tissues sue for breach of contract and the whole thing starts over again. Morgan’s face makes an appearance in my reverie: “They didn’t score, did they?” I ask, still clasping my lower calf with both hands and grimacing. He smiles a wry smile and cocks his head while he pats mine.

My tears were Pringles, impossible to stop after just one. This time it was my wife’s sweaty soccer jersey that absorbed my tears as she held me and smoothed my hair. I’m not embarrassed that I cried, in fact I’m glad that I did. It’s started me thinking: in a world rife with suffering and pain and hurt and sorrow as well as joy, celebration and ecstasy why do we laugh so much more than we cry? Or is that just me?

Seeing Double

2007-09-10T14:01:00.000-07:00

I actually think that Carrie has done well in the Country market, so this isn't a slam on her. This song has been bugging me for a while, though, and I thought I'd feed it to the wolves to see what yall think. Click on the video and move ahead to :40 and/or read the chorus provided below. Woman power, right? Female empowerment? Three snaps in a 'Z', etc, etc. Now switch the gender pronouns and ask Quaadir Brown if the tune sounds familiar . . .

That I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up 4 wheel drive,
carved my name into his leather seats,
I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights,
slashed a hole in all 4 tires...

Maybe next time he'll think before he cheats.

Worm Hole

2007-08-31T09:42:00.001-07:00

Yesterday morning, I woke up at 6:30. Am. It's by no means a record for me, but after the second early morning rousing to drive down to scenic Handford, CA . . . the body wasn't diggin' it. Despite the severe and legitimate protests by my circadian rhythms, I slouched down the hallway and mindlessly spooned a bowl of oatmeal into my mouth. I evidently got dressed somewhere in the intervening minutes, hastily collected an assortment of portfolios, gym shorts and computer bags and kissed my wife goodbye. Bemoaning the fact that I had woken up at 6h30 and was still running late, I wrenched open the front door and stepped unexpectedly into Houston, TX.

In the mid-80's and humid as a Gorilla's armpit at 7 in the morning, the electrical storms and intermittent pelting of precipitation reminded me fondly of my time at University in College Station, TX. I am one of the few who inexplicably love humidity. Partly because my hair can't get any worse, partly because I've vowed to align myself with the Powers of Heat over the Powers of Cold, yesterday was a free sauna and I loved every minute of it.

Enchanté

2007-08-26T22:38:00.000-07:00

Chapter 3

Still absently blinking as his heart rate began to stabilize and the rest of the room came into focus, Liam’s hands fell momentarily to his knees and he stood silently bracing his body on locked elbows like a man who had just sprinted down a hallway and knocked an unexpected interloper to his hotel suite out cold with an oak book-end. As his brain began to warm up, executive functions beginning to catch up with the primal explosion, Liam soon realized that leaving the man unrestrained on the floor would soon prove to be a disastrous course of inaction. Stripping the man of his overcoat, Liam quickly ran through the man’s pockets and retrieved a small pile of booty. Both hands full, casting about the small sitting room in the tangerine glow of the serene ceiling lamp, Liam dumped his haul into the utilitarian wood grained laminate desk against the wall behind him. Next he grabbed the stunted table lamp from where it had been holding up a guide to local eateries and a Gideon’s Bible, and wrenching the cord from the back of the lamp with his left hand he set the pistol down next to the man’s possessions on the desk’s pocked surface got to work on the downed interloper. After awkwardly attempting to reassemble the scattered limbs, Liam hog-tied the stranger where he lay and eased him onto his side. Liam was almost overcome with the wave of stale marijuana smoke mingled with cheap booze and cheaper aftershave as the man’s face oscillated towards the ceiling. Wrinkling his nose in distaste, his still-heightened senses reeling from such a salient olfactory encounter, Liam left his ears in the sitting room and shot back down the hall towards the bedroom to retrieve his large black duffel. Ripping the zipper the length of the bag and unceremoniously dumping its contents in a shower of matted socks and rumpled t-shirts, Liam scooped up the roll of duct tape that had fallen heavily on top of the clothes and hurried back down the hall to find his charge unchanged.

Lugging the man’s body into the musty overstuffed sitting chair, cheek to cheek with the sallow visage of his assailant, Liam could feel his shallow breathing as the abrasive stubble grated into his own moderately scruffy skin. He haphazardly spun several dozen laps of the silvery webbing taut around the man’s body, the tape screeching as it pulled loose from the roll, securing him to the seat. Gaunt frame sagging against the restraint, Liam quickly assessed the man’s wounds. Not too bad. The man’s nose had nearly stopped bleeding, but the gash on his head looked angry and was still pushing a moderate amount of blood through the nascent clots. Wincing despite himself as he leaned in for a closer look, he took in the face’s features. They were craggy and grizzled, a face that could have been any age between 28 and 53, and seemed malicious even in their unconscious state. Scars festooned the man’s lips and cheeks, and lines of hard living were etched into deep folds around his eyes and mouth.

Liam quickly double checked the bonds on the man’s hands and feet and dashed off again down the hall to the bathroom, retrieving a spare roll of toilet paper and a plastic trash can with a brown flower on the front. Filling the trash can with a few inches of water from the faucet, Liam returned to crudely staunch the wound and clean some of the blood away with a sopping mass of cheap one-ply toilet paper. Once he had effected some semblance of repair, Liam dropped his bloody wad of tissue into the remaining water at the bottom of the trash can. As diluted blood continued to make its way down the eroded crags of the man’s cheek, Liam ripped off another four-inch swatch of duct tape and stretched it as tight as he could over a patch of fresh toilet paper before pressing it over the rend on the man’s oily forehead. Slapping it soundly once for good measure, he nearly tripped on his own feet as the man suddenly jerked and began to struggle against the layers of tape adhering him to the chair. The prisoner emitted a growling noise as he vainly thrashed in the grips of the tape, wild and low, but never cried out. Swiftly regaining his poise, Liam snatched the pistol from off the desk nearby and leveled it at the stranger, now glaring at him. One eye was nearly obscured with blood and duct tape. The other eye half squinted at Liam, who was unable to tell if the man was attempting to smile or glare at him.

“Oh, hello, Liam,” the man croaked. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Liam should respond:

A) "Yeah, long time no see."

B) "You've got about three seconds to start talking before I paint my nice pretty room here with the shit you call your brains."

C) "Who are you and what do you want with me?"

D) Say nothing, but stare coldly down the barrel of his new gun.

Who, Me?!

2007-08-22T22:43:00.001-07:00

Today was a day of firsts for me. This morning I started my new work-out routine from Bill Pearl’s strength manual. Today was the first time in a long time that I’ve spent consecutive days in the Daily Book of Prayer. Today is the first time I can remember when I have been overtly propositioned.

Sitting at the intersection of Bullard and Villa at 11h45 this morning, listening to Talk of the Nation on NPR and (as Blake Shelton would say) minding my own, a setting which shall live . . . in infamy. I was making a bid for the right turn, sandwiched between the through traffic and the curb, when I noticed one of the girls in the car next to me casting furtive glances back in my direction. Catching her eye, I summoned by best head jerk and wan smile, expecting little if anything in return. To my utter shock and discombobulation, the girl mouthed something back to me. Puzzled, brows furrowing, I cocked my head shook it slowly from side to side, an electrocution in slow motion. I didn’t understand. Again, she mouthed her demand. Again I was nowhere close to deciphering the code, all blank stare and oscillating cranium. After three more failed attempts, the window crank was employed. I silenced Neal Conan with a careless flail at the radio face-plate.

“Hey, ma girl wants ta know, is you single?”

“Oh . . . uh,” I stammered, taken aback. I would have been better prepared to give the square root of 43 2/3. “Ah, no. I’m married,” I finished lamely, brandishing the ring of my left hand.

“Ah, aight,” and they pulled away at the light.

Thanks, random girls at the light on Bullard and Villa. I think.

Let's Try That Again . . .

2007-08-14T14:40:00.000-07:00

Chapter 2b

Digging his knuckles into his eye sockets and straining his already extended senses beyond their limits, Liam could almost swear he could now hear the soft whistle of breathing intermittently trickle down the short dim hallway which lead to the rest of the suite he had been occupying for the last two weeks. His thoughts drifted to the past seven months of furtive habitation in suite after dingy suite in dive after dilapidated dive. He tried to remember the last time he had managed to string together more than six hours of restful sleep, but only managed to come up with a memory of his 7^th birthday party. Transformer theme. That had been fun.

Savagely shaking his head and rubbing his knuckles across his scalp, Liam froze as a he heard a soft suppressed cough ricochet down the hallway. His adrenal glands found a new gear he thought might actually cause him to vomit as the invisible spear of excitement exploded in his gut and effervesced through his scalp and toe-nails. Backing away from his perch directly behind the thin partition, Liam eased his head towards the hall-ward side of the door, catching a peek at the stark gray hallway and darker still room that lay beyond. Nothing could be seen stirring from that vantage, but all hope that he was alone in the suite had utterly evaporated. Tightening his gut and wiping his right hand on his boxers before re-gripping the cool hard bookend, Liam eased the door fully open and strained his eyes on the hallway’s aperture into the rest of the suite. ‘Fortune favors the bold,’ he thought to himself as he felt his feet begin to pump, grimacing mouth holding back his breath, a levy struggling against a flash flood. As the short hallway whizzed jarringly by, against the dim sitting room ahead an inky profile swung suddenly out from the left-hand wall.

“Oh, shit!” was all the gravelly voiced silhouette was able to blurt out before Liam hit him full tilt. Wrenching the body towards his own with his free left hand, Liam felt his forehead make contact with the bridge of the strangers nose, and as the intruder reeled back under the initial blow a vicious roundhouse swing with the bookend dropped the thin-framed figure to the floor with a perfunctory thud.

His shoulders heaving, blinking fiercely in the aftermath of the encounter, Liam spotted a wicked looking black Beretta Px4 on the floor near the body. Quickly stepping towards it and toeing it out of arms reach, Liam gingerly skirted the prone figure to be able to pick the pistol up himself. The body on the floor lay still, looking almost comical face down with limbs akimbo. “Squashed spider!” Liam wanted to guess, but there were no other contestants playing charades and the man on the floor didn’t seem able to either confirm or deny his postulation.

Keeping his eyes glued on the crumpled mass splayed on the floor, Liam backed up until his groping hand found the light switch, flooding the scene a warm light from the tattered orange light fixture hanging from the center of the room's ceiling. Taking a closer look, Liam could see that his interloper was beginning to ooze blood from his head and nose, slowly adding his own scarlet circlet to the already riotously stained carpet.

Liam should search the guy and then. . .

a) Jet, leaving the body there

b) Finish the job with his new gun

c) Tie the guy up in a chair and wait for him to come around

d) Take off immediately, forget even searching th guy

Long Shots

2007-08-08T22:57:00.000-07:00

As jaded as I am with the current political process in this country, with its reward of duplicitous speech and exaggerated differences between facetious candidates impotently pandering to some vague middle ground which nobody at all seems to actually espouse, ‘Republican’ Ron Paul has recently piqued my interest in the 2008 Presidential Race. A ten year veteran of Texas’ 14^th district, Congressman Paul still stands on his Libertarian (and some would say, truly Republican) philosophy of reduced government spending, strong state’s rights and free trade. As a matter of principle he refuses his Congressional stipend, voted against what has now been exposed as the woefully under-planned Iraq War Resolution and in the process of saving several baby seals from being clubbed to death discovered a compound which makes teeth both whiter and stronger. Ok, so I made the last one up, but he is bringing a breath of fresh air to a party which by all other indications has become utterly moribund over the last eight hard years.

Sure his name sounds like an adult film star, but in a Republican race where John McCain is begging lunch money off the sound guy and Rudy Giuliani is scalping Yankees tickets to the debate moderator, something about the pugnacious Mr. Paul has caught my fancy. I know he’s not the prefect candidate. I don’t mesh well with several planks in his platform, he's at times ludicrously unrealistic and he would be a wildly impractical President, likely making Jimmy Carter look as efficacious as Josef Stalin moving legislation through Congress. Regardless, here’s hoping for the greatest American tradition: The Long Shot. Viva Ron!

The Little Things

2007-08-08T13:25:00.001-07:00

Today is August 8th, 2007. The time: 13h26. The temperature? 84^oF (29^o C). This is a most convenient truth.

Liam's next chapter is coming soon . . .

Graceless

2007-08-07T11:32:00.001-07:00

WARNING: Prolonged vent ahead! I try not to openly vent too often because I tend to be a tad juvenile about it, but this got me riled up last weekend and I couldn't help myself. What's a blog for if not for venting sometimes, right?! Anyway . . .

Some say that it’s best to expect the unexpected, but I’ve found that to be rather tiring endeavour; I prefer instead to just not assume too much. Even still, it’s refreshing to know that the Earth is a big enough place that no matter how unassuming I am there will still be contexts which leave me confused and disoriented. This weekend while I was relaxing in downtown Santa Cruz at a small café, on their sleek flat screen TV in between the woman with shorn hair openly breast feeding her young child, the French kids, the petite Asian student and the glazed thoroughly inked beach denizen was something that did not belong: Nancy Grace. I was nettled.

Nancy Grace, the brackish talk show host who eked out a living as a state prosecutor before becoming one of the most inane talking heads on a TV today, was staring out at me smugly in a Santa Cruz coffee shop. I can only assume that something more worthwhile had been on before her and that the channel just hasn’t gotten changed, but there she was none the less. She opined for several minutes about the recent tragedy in South Carolina involving the death of two small children found under a kitchen sink, and for the most part I couldn’t hear what she was saying so I was left unperturbed, except for occasionally catching her sneering visage from the corner of my eye. She eventually, however, stumbled her way on to the Michael Vick saga; while I still couldn’t clearly hear what vitriolic and uninformed diatribe she had embarked on, the footage for the spot was her and an assortment of talking heads in small boxes in the corner of the screen while they rolled stock footage of put bulls fighting in rings.

So let me get this strait . . . we’re indicting Michael Vick for fighting dogs, and in the process ejaculating every condemnation imaginable about the depravity and inhumanity of the practice. About how anyone who would stoop to even watching let alone organizing dog fights deserves time in Federal prison. About how the concept is so vile it should hardly be mentioned. In the meantime, though, while we talk about it ad nauseum, you might as well take in some footage of dogs ripping each other up. Perfect. Makes perfect sense. Thank you, CNN, for providing us with that well crafted piece of journalistic integrity.

I don’t know to what extent Vick was involved in the dog fighting ring being run out of his house in Virginia, but I do find dog fighting one of the more reprehensible practices around. Close behind, however, is watching Nancy Grace or any of the other difficult-to-respect-or-take-seriously reactionary thick-hearted and stiff-necked hacks running amok in the news media. Mercifully the channel was changed shortly after the Michael Vick spot began.

Yall Chose B

2007-08-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

Chapter 2a

With anxiety dripping from his every pore, Liam inched his way around the listing bedroom door. His senses now almost fully divested of sleep’s dullness, every input was now being registered with laser precision. The cat yowling outside was out-clamored by a slamming dumpster while water dripped somewhere nearby and the toilet valve screamed at him as it clicked on momentarily to top of the perpetually leaking tank. The stale odor of years of tobacco imbibed by the walls around him combined with the delicate smell of the earliest morning, and both flirted with the slightest tinge of garlic. Trying not to think about the cute take-out girl from the Italian joint he’d ordered dinner from the night before, Liam began his stealthy descent towards the end of the short hallway. The suite he had been inhabiting for the last two weeks hung in a dull grey light, purgatory of the day, nearly familiar shapes indistinguishable in the small sitting room at the mouth of his vestibular avenue. Breaching the aperture of the hallway, still crouched and primed with the bookend at the ready, what had been at first a remnant of garlic odor swelled to an belligerent hurricane of olfactory sensation with overtones of cheap liquor and cheaper aftershave. Realizing too late the garlic scent had nothing to do with the leftover chicken parmesan in the sink, Liam turned to his left towards the impending onslaught. The last thing he saw as he wheeled around raising the bookend was the black steel dough nut of a silencer, followed by a Beretta Px4 both half obscuring a thin grizzled face sporting what would be the most and last unctuous sneer he ever saw.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Well . . . that was quick. So, the question is now where we go from here. Suggestions?

Holy Kegger

2007-07-30T11:38:00.000-07:00

Some of my favourite friends are the ones who constantly surprise me. Even after living with the guy for a year in college, my friend Chef Hanssen still manages to pleasantly surprise me every time I have the opportunity to talk with him on the phone, or better yet, to hang out. Reading the Bible is often like hanging out with Chef for me, constantly being surprised by a Father God and Christ who consistently refuse to stay in the boxes that we’ve furiously constructed for them to inhabit.

Most recently, I have been taken a bit aback by John 2. Many of yall know the story: Jesus is invited to a poorly planned wedding, gets goaded by his mother, and bails out the party host by coming up with some wine. There’s a lot more to the story, however, than the felt-board narrative I remember from Sunday school. The jars that Christ uses to perform His miracle are ceremonial cleansing jars, and I don’t know enough about Jewish culture to know what the significance of using them is, let alone filling them with wine. Was this an act of convenience or was there a deeper significance to the jars?

Perhaps most shocking, however, is what happens after Christ selects his vessels. A far cry from what we would expect from the pious figure cross-legged in the lotus position, Christ commands that six ceremonial jars, each containing 20-30 gallons each, be filled with water which is subsequently transubstantiated into wine. For those of you doing the math at home, that’s about 150 gallons of wine. Crunching a few more figures, we discover that such a volume of wine would fill over 750 standard wine bottles or nearly 300 two-litre bottles. That is a lot of wine. Furthermore, Jesus broke out this wine after everyone had already drunk through the previous supply and were well on their way to significant headaches the next morning. What does this tell us, if anything, about Christ’s ethics of alcohol? What he did for a good time? This is the stuff I wonder about sometimes.

Get Excited

2007-07-25T13:42:00.000-07:00

I've decided to be bold and install a feature I've been thinking about doing for a while. Here's hoping that it goes better than the movie reviewing . . . right?! Anyway, I used to love reading Choose Your Own Adventure books when I was young and I thought it'd be a fun thing to try on a blog. The plan is to update the feature weekly, so vote on the course of action you think most prudent at the end of each post and we'll see how many times we can end up dead. And now . . .

La Concha

The adrenalin was already singing through his chest and river dancing on his bowels by the time Liam’s eyelids snapped open, beginning to register his murky surroundings. The garish radiance of red, blue and yellow neon intermittently lit the room with a wan rainbow through the worn curtains hanging over the solitary barred window. His horizontal view shifted as he raised himself from his sweat-drenched pillow and swiped his hand over his damp face. “Stupid brain,” he murmured to no one in particular, now rubbing sleep from his left eye and yawing cavernously. Stealing a glance at the digital clock glowing a verdant 2:17 he shook his head ruefully. “Always coming with these weird drea . . . ” but he trailed off as he heard over the usual nocturnal bustling of the city about him a soft but distinct thump and faint rustle come from down the small hallway which lead to his kitchenette, like the sound of a trench coated body grazing a grimy wall.

With every nerve in his body now aflame and extending what felt like inches past his skin, Liam gingerly disentangled himself from his matted bed clothes and snatched the carved wooden bookend from his bedside table as he eased himself silently onto the dingy low-pile carpet of his bedroom floor. Toeing aside a discarded t-shirt and stepping over a pair of black wingtips, he ever so gently padded towards his slightly ajar bedroom door. Creeping along the wall of his bedroom, making sure to keep the door between him and the hallways as much as possible, Liam nervously worked his grip on the bookend, finding its solid weight and sublime burnish somehow reassuring. Arriving at the door still wound tighter than a nun at a frat party, he thought he could hear nasally breaths being drawn steadily from somewhere on the other side of the flimsy piece of composite board now only inches from face, but over the whooshing of traffic and the buzzing of the neon sign outside his window it was impossible to tell for sure.

Liam should:

A) Charge down the hallway into the kitchenette

B) Attempt to sneak down the hallway

C) Stay put behind the door until daylight

D) Call out to see if anyone is there

Bodamania

2007-07-24T09:44:00.000-07:00

Things I learned while in Mexico for my brother-in-law's wedding:

1. In the States we slow our speech and get uncomfortably close to a person if they don't understand our English. It would seem that in Mexico, the opposite is true. Tío Sergio was especially fond of approaching and rapidly pelting me with urgent sounding Spanish. I would blink slowly, quickly sorting through my lexicon of approximately 25 Spanish words and see if any of them sounded like they could fit into the preceding deluge. Next I would venture a translation: "You gave the box to Tom?" Tío Sergio would blink back, say, " . . . No." And then launch into what seemed to me a more complicated and break-neck Spanish explanation. All in all a great time.

2. You can pay $10 (US) to go 10 kilometres in a Taxi or $15 (US) to go 200 kilometres on Omnibus Mexico. This leads me to the conclusion that we either got shamelessly bent over on a cab fare or the bus system in Mexico is subsidized. I'm inclined to think a little or both.

3. It's possible for the temperature to remain in the low 30's C and still sweat through two shirts in under 15 minutes while sitting in the shade. It's not pretty, but it's possible.

4. Harry Potter has spread at least as far south as Tampico, Mexico. So has Wal-Mart.

5. It is entirely possible to spend four days in Mexico, enjoy the local cuisine to the fullest, and not suffer any major gastrointestinal incidents.

6. Rumours of 'Mexican Time' have been greatly under-exaggerated. When the bride showed up at 7h15 for the 6h00 wedding I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore.

7. Despite the laws of physics which dictate that no two objects can occupy the same space at the same time, two-way traffic on 18'-wide roads in Mexico continues unperturbed.

8. Just because the 1h15am (A. M. !!!!!) flight to Mexico is cheaper doesn't mean you won't still pay dearly for it.

9. Shockingly, some parts of Fresno are nearly identical to rural Mexican towns.

10. I enjoy Mexico a lot more than I thought I did.

PS. The pic is not my brother in law. Just some yokel I found on Google image.

Lo!

2007-07-15T00:36:00.000-07:00

There arose in those dark days a champion from amongst the Arbourists against which no unruly shrub nor unkempt tree could stand. It is said that his saw sang stridently as it slaked its sap-lust slashing through misshapen foliage, and that the sound of his loppers was like a great engine breaking, a cacophony of staccato blasts chewing blithely through the stoutest of boughs. Amongst the evergreens he was named Ethanatl-ul-taunphl, which in their tongue means "He who hews with impunity." Amongst the hard-woods he is called Ntllnyâphn Hlthyphn, which means, "The Steel Jaw." Rumours of his shearing feats spread far and wide throughout the deciduous and coniferous world, and it is said that when the wind blows the trees can still feel his presence on the breeze; this is why they both moan in sympathy for the pruning of their brethren and quake with fear of their own inevitable coiffing as the gusts pass them by.

Good Idea/Bad Idea

2007-07-13T08:34:00.001-07:00

Today, Friday the 13th, 2007, will find me pruning my parent's Chinese elms. This activity involves several ladders, sharp implements and me dangling anywhere from 5-20 feet in the air while stretching to lop off offending boughs. I'm thinking about bringing along a couple mirrors and throwing them down to the concrete below just to make a propper job of it.

Der Untergang

2007-07-11T21:13:00.001-07:00

I should have realized when I started reviewing movies that I would never keep up with my copious consumption. I’m several films behind by now, well over a month since my last movie post, and after some soul searching I’ve come to terms with the reality of the situation. From now on, I’ll stick to only reviewing the standouts and smatter some of the more pedestrian films in and amongst real meat and potatoes. If, by some unfortunate accident, I happen to pigeonhole your favourite film into the ‘pedestrian’ category, I apologize in advance and will happily reprint a full retraction upon request. That being said . . .

Since my last post, I’ve had the pleasure of watching five films. At least four of them were completely different. They are, in order:

1. Love Actually (a James Orr fav)
2. Downfall
3. Confetti
4. Jesus Camp
5. Borat

I only really want to talk about Downfall, and I’ll leave the rest to scores and highlights.

The Germans, if you didn’t already know, are a singular people. Athletic, intelligent, cultured and industrious, it’s little wonder they very nearly brought the world to its knees twice within a span of 50 years. The film Downfall, an unflinching examination of Hitler’s final days as seen through the eyes of his personal secretary Traudl Junge, manages to capture the zeitgeist of the Nazi regime in its unwavering discipline, staunch principles, debauchery, decadence and myopia. Not once are the writers tempted to resort to painting their characters as caricatures, but instead force the viewer to witness the humanity inexplicably coupled with the monstrosity of the Nazi regime as Joseph Goebbles sings with his children and Hitler shares tender moments with his staff and friends.

The film is book-ended by an interview with Ms. Junge, and as the film closes she recounts a momment late in her life of passing by a monument to Jews killed at a labour camp and suddenly feeling the conviction of 6 million souls. " . . . But I hadn't made the connection with my past," says Junge. "I assured myself with the thought of not being personally guilty. And that I didn't know anything about the enormous scale of it. But one day I walked by a memorial plate of Sophie Scholl in the Franz-Joseph-Strasse. I saw that she was about my age and she was executed in the same year I came to Hitler. And at that moment I actually realised that a young age isn't an excuse. And that it might have been possible to get to know things."

While most WWII films claim to educate us about the atrocities so that we never allow anyone to commit them again, this film instead strives to warn the viewer that the person we must strive to censure is not a faceless enemy but in fact ourselves. It is our acquiescence, our own willingness to complacently follow and unquestioningly serve that must be constantly examined. In a nation where a genocide which still leaves its ghastly scar on a proud people is politely swept under the rug of casinos and firework stands every day, this film about personal and national responsibility speaks loudly and honestly about what can easily happen on any scale anywhere when we start to let our humanity come in second to expediency and convenience.
Grade: A+

Scores and Highlights:

Love Actually: A fun little romantic jaunt with the who’s who of British thespians. Strait down the pipe, with the drunken Bill Nighy character stealing the show for me.
Grade: B

Confetti: Another who’s who of British comedy, go figure. A clever film about marriage and weddings with a few genuinely funny moments, this film includes even more nudity than the previous, but none of it sexual. Actually very well done and enjoyable, I’d recommend it to anyone not offended by nudists.
Grade: B+

Jesus Camp: I was expecting a much more hard-hitting view of frighteningly conservative Christians, but the film really only picked on one charismatic church group from Missouri. Copious film editing and questionable sequencing aside, it was a fascinating look at the isolationist tendencies and blind espousing of rhetoric in certain conservative circles. Also featured in the film: Creepy behind the scenes clips of Ted Haggard preaching against homosexuality at his megachurch. Good times.
Grade: C+

Borat: Yeah . . . see it if you want to.
Grade: C

I Repent

2007-07-10T08:30:00.000-07:00

It was brought to my attention that my previous Celebrity Playlist did have a hole in it, and for this I am truly sorry. It was not my express intention to misrepresent myself as so crass. While some questioned the validity Metallica's inclusion (I'm listening to No Leaf Clover right now), I'd like to strike the President's song from the record. An enjoyable track, to be sure, but definately one I can live without. In its stead, I'd like to insert Luckenback, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love) by Waylon Jennings. A classic country track extolling the virtues of living simply and authentically, it's a relaxed two-step away from Heaven. In retrospect, it's rather shocking I didn't have a country track on there the first go round, and again I'd like to set the record strait. Waylon in, Presidents out. Metallica stays.

15 Minutes

2007-07-03T22:26:00.000-07:00

I was drooling around on iTunes recently and decided to thumb through some of the celebrity playlists. Let me just say, Sly Stallone's track list is everything I hoped it might be. Anyway, if I were famous, this is what you'd be dying to find out I listen to . . .

Batman Theme Song, Danny Elfman. I’ve listened to this before every test I’ve taken through my college and graduate career, and I haven’t ever outright failed one I attended. There was the French final I completely slept through, but even that turned out better than I could have possibly imagined . . .

Bye Bye Blackbird, Miles Davis. It’s called auditory heroin. I can't get enough of it! But seriously, I love this song, totally chills me out.

Dancing Across the Water, Dave Matthews. This is the favourite of my many so called ‘drug songs.’ My parents started to wonder when I began getting into Pink Floyd, Nick Drake and Jefferson Airplane (before they went Starship). Another great chill-out song.

No Leaf Clover, Metallica. When I need to get angry, this is a good song to go along for the ride.

Against the Wind, Bob Seager. A classic about growing up the hard way. Not that I’d know, but I’ve heard lots of crazy stories and I like to pretend.

Body, Presidents of the United States of America. Yes. Yes, they did put out some great tracks, and yes I still remember them. Musically and lyrically this jam is bemusing.

Where the Streets Have No Names, U2. Clichés are cliché because they changed everything at one time or another. A paradigm shift, if you will (Michelle!). If you don’t get goosies when you hear the opening guitar riff, check for a pulse.

Oh! Darling, The Beatles. One of my fav’s from possibly their greatest album. Just a strait forward lil’ ditty, but I used to belt it out when I was listening to it on vinyl, age 8.

Requiem, Mozart. It’s worth your time to listen to all the way through. When I think about the fact that dude wrote the music for his own funeral, the reality that genius has its price begins to sink in.

One Day More, Les Misérables. I’ve always thought it would be an unbelievable experience to be in the cast of a musical, and Les Mis is as smokin’ a musical as any. The highlight of any good show for me is the montage piece, and this one is thick with story lines weaving and dodging. And when they all come to unison at the end . . . *ah* It would make wearing stage makeup worth it. Almost.

An Unknown Unknown

2007-07-03T22:20:00.000-07:00

In honor of Independence Day, I thought I'd pass along a rather scathing Onion article which brought me back to '03. Here's hoping we figure out how to independence well some day.

Flash Back

2007-06-27T12:21:00.000-07:00

This one is for my good friend James, who despite his ample intelligence and otherwise decent taste in music, continues to denigrate Billy Corgan in favour of STP.

Knickers Ablaze?

2007-06-21T12:42:00.001-07:00

A question for you, readers. From the deepest, darkest, most pessimistic corner of my consciousness: Are we lying to our children when we tell them they can be anything they want? If not: Really?! If so: Is this a bad thing?

In Motion

2007-06-20T09:19:00.001-07:00

He may not be as mysterious as James' man crush, the pseudonymed Kim Jong-Il, but I very much enjoy Pablo Neruda's poetry. I've always fancied myself more Latin than Asian, and between his works and my new favourite radio station, I'm swiftly approaching the point in my life where I need to break down and add Spanish to my repertoire to retain a modicum of authenticity. This is an excerpt from Walking Around which grabs me every time:

Just the same, it would be delicious
To scare a notary with a cut lily,
Or knock a nun stone dead with one blow of an ear.
It would be beautiful
To go through the streets with a green knife
Shouting until I died of cold.

I do not want to go on
Being a root in the dark
Hesitating, stretched out
Shivering with dreams
Downward in the wet tripe of the earth
Soaking it up and thinking
Eating every day

I do not want to be the inheritor
Of so many misfortunes
I do not want to continue as a root
As a tomb, a sollitary tunnel
As a cellar full of corpses
Stiff with cold
Dying with pain.

Though I am sure that in the mouth of someone like Antonio Banderas the spanish reading of this piece would melt me entirely, Sam Jackson's English redention is pretty sweet. I also recently heard Sam recite another piece of poetry:

You want my blood,
Take my blood.

Double Trouble

2007-06-06T14:55:00.000-07:00

I’ve got a few films stacked up on me, so I’m pulling out the Drive-In classic double feature . . . and as far as double features go, this one’s a doosey. Both have stanch rebels against authority, wily women, shifting alliances and onerous villains. And now on to our feature presentation: Casablanca, followed by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest!

Casablanca was everything I thought it might be, plus some unexpected bonuses. I suppose this betrays a bit more of me than I’d like, but I’m always pleasantly surprised when I find old movies are crisp and poignant. Set in 1940’s Morocco, Casablanca follows suave cantina owner Rick as he attempts to make an honest living in a crooked world. Confronted with ghosts of his past and specters of the present, the film lets is characters struggle, showing their humanity and their desperate attempts not to loose it in what is ultimately constituted as a rich tapestry of history and character. Featuring lines like ‘Here’s lookin’ at you, kid’ ‘Play it again, Sam’ and ‘Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship’ which have become strayed towards cliché in American cinema, Casablanca is much more than a collection of classic movie quotes. If you like movies at all, give Casablanca 102 minutes of your life and enjoy a film made when Hollywood still wore the glow of youth.

Grade: A

Pirates of the Caribbean was everything you hope a sequel won’t be. Sequels are notoriously difficult to do well, with successful ones comprising a short list: The Empire Strikes Back, Temple of Doom, Weekend at Bernie’s 2. Maybe a few others. Presenting new material, continuing to grow characters and referencing the previous film tastefully are all very difficult tasks, and Pirates II seems to have had moderate to severe trouble with them all. The film have the flavour of a shameless remora, banking on the success of its predecessor and hoping to just enjoy the ride while doing as little work as possible, a poorly conceived follow up to a tight and witty first installment. Jokes were recycled ad nauseam, characters stagnated and plot lines were pressed thinner than Kiera Knightly’s waifish form. What could have been an interesting film with plot devices like confronting the immortal Davy Jones and reconciling Will to his father Bill, the film bogged down for me in some places and flew by at others, leaving me feeling confused and generally uninterested in the plot or characters. The special effects were impressive at times, and new characters such as Jones and the Fortune Teller showed glimpses of original thought and shine which garnered the first film its accolades, but as a whole it is a disappointing installment to an enjoyable franchise. I was left wishing the whole affair had ended with the first film in 2003.

Grade: C

Sound Stage

2007-06-04T13:17:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I love sound. Yes, I’m glad that I can physically hear and cognitively decode the mechanical waves into chemical signals my brain then interprets, and I’m fairly confident that if you can hear whether you’ve thought about it or not you’re thankful for the ability. That’s not what I’m talking about, though. What I’m talking about is some subjective, intimately subtle and barely noticeable quality of certain sounds.

Leprechauns that only make themselves known on blue moons when Democrats are in office, the sounds I love require just the right conditions to be detected, and may likely never be detected again. They aren’t everyday honks or bangs or screeches but minute vibrations of atmosphere which are to be captured and relished in memory, not in the prostitution of recording. They are the naked sound of cigarette paper and tobacco crackling as the smoker inhales. The unsullied sound of a knife being whet, grinding viscously and then emitting a slight ephemeral ring as stone releases steel. The felt more than heard sound of a bat’s super-sonic squeal just behind my ears at 3:47 am above Little Yosemite. These are the sounds that I love and with them I am never alone, and rarely bored.

My favourite sound, however, is found in College Station, TX. Rudder Auditorium still sports a very fashionable décor from 1972, and as such is usually as silent as a tomb. While outside the darkened neo-Stalinistic glass walls the free speech area throngs and sizzles with fish and fools, inside you can feel 68^o F silence as you move through the cool stillness like a gauze curtain you can’t quite make out. There is one exception, however. The air conditioning ducts lightly ping, a hollow resonance which somehow only enhanced the quiet. Rudder Auditorium is the best place in the entire world to take a nap. I used to walk through Rudder for a distance of perhaps 87 yards between classes, cherishing every step and trying my best to muffle every thunderous footfall, stifle every hurricane gale breath, shoe-lace ends intermittently providing staccato artillery blasts to my heresy. The sound of Rudder’s silence still takes my breath away.

Sing a Song of . . .

2007-06-04T11:55:00.000-07:00

A visited a friend’s church last Sunday night; it was a very different and very enjoyable experience. The people who gathered to worship in this church’s basement in a small rural California town sang with passion and reckless abandon, shared their lives openly and intimately with everyone there, and took the immanent stirring of God in their lives very seriously. While their service was full of joy and thankfulness, an outpouring of many of the Body’s experience with God throughout the week, I couldn’t help but think of the Biblical witness to the lives of people who are called to follow Christ. Starvation, explusion, inverted crucifixion. I couldn’t keep the words of the Psalmists out of my head, cursing their enemies. Expressing confusion. Crying out in pain and abandonment. Then I tried to think of songs the Body sings to express these emotions, and the list was very short. This, however, is my favourite. The expression of hopefull injury is something that I think could benefit many if sang from the loft and preached from the pulpit a good deal more than it is.

Come let us return
He has torn us into pieces
He has injured us
Come let us return to the Lord
He will heal us
He will bandage our wounds
In just a short time He'll restore us
In just a short time He'll restore His church
So we might live
We might live in His presence
In His presence

Oh that we might know the Lord
Oh that we might know the Lord
Oh that we might know the Lord
Let us press on to know Him
Let us press hard into Him
Then as surely as the coming of the dawn
He will respond

- Hosea; Shane Barnard

All Too Easy

2007-05-30T14:39:00.000-07:00

All hail the power of the information age!

'Bout That Time?

2007-05-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

Audience participation returns to the Texafornian! Today's question: If you were a racehorse, what would your racehorse name be?

Practical Theology

2007-05-22T17:31:00.000-07:00

"[Forgiving and forgetting or ignoring the past are] a travesty, of course, but it is something to beware of. No, we need something more positive to say about forgiveness. We need to recognize both the reality of the past and the hope of a future of forgiveness. Because real forgiveness is something that changes things and so gives hope. The occasions when we feel genuinely forgiven are the moments when we feel, not that someone doesn’t care what we do, but that someone does care what we do because he or she loves us and that love is strong enough to cope with and survive the hurt we have done. Forgiveness of that sort iscreative because it reveals new dimensions to a relationship, new depths, new possibilities. We can find a love richer and more challenging than before. If someone says to me, “Yes, you have hurt me, but that doesn’t mean it’s all over. I forgive you. I still love you,” then that is a moment of enormous liberation. It recognizes that reality of that past, the irreversibility of things, the seriousness of damage done, but then it is all the more joyful and hopeful because of that. Because this kind of love doesn’t have illusions, it is also all the more mature and serious. It can look at and fully feel my weakness, and still say, “I love you.”

- Rowan Williams in Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross

In the Beginning

2007-05-22T13:54:00.000-07:00

Then Illúvatar spoke, and he said: 'Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that he may know, and all the Aiunr, that I am Illúvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.'

- From the Ainulindalë¹ creation narrative, Tolkien

^{1. The Ainulindalë is one of the five books contained within The Silmarillion.}

Scene It

2007-05-21T13:22:00.000-07:00

I live for the unexpected momments in my life in which reality steps out for a quick cup o’ joe and the fantastic insuperably inserts itself in an all too infrequent cameo. This is probably why I like Scrubs. This morning, having had an appointment cancel on me, I thought I would swing by Barnes and Noble to see if they had in stock a certain book I might be interested in purchasing. As I swung my gallant Honda down the parking aisle feeding directly into the main entrance to my place of previous employment, it happened: The Momment.

“Double-non-fat-three-splenda-extra-hot-half-caf-vanilla-laté for Reality? . . .”

I became acutely aware of the radio, which had been previously blathering some rather innocuous music or another, but now was playing something very similar to Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries¹. My point of view shot up 25 feet and I saw my car lurch forward, hammer both sets of front doors from their hinges and spray parchment in every direction with impunity, spin 5 brodies in the cheap carpeting and finally streak off down Blackstone leaving a wake of dangling modifiers and mangled diphthongs.

I didn’t much care for the time I spent employed by Barnes and Noble, nor did they have the book I was hoping for.

^{1. Scroll down to track 6 for a sample if you're unfamiliar . . .}

Diggin' Dogtown

2007-05-13T23:08:00.000-07:00

My Junior High really only had two factions growing up. There were some ethnic minorities along the fringes that clashed from time to time, but in my North Clovis school the battle for campus hegemony was between the Skaters and Jocks. I wasn’t really part of either camp, weighing 115lbs soaking wet, sporting glasses, and yet not owning a single pair of Vans or cords. As chance would have it, however, I became friends with one of the Skater Barons, Anthony, and we remained friends throughout high school. There was a brief halcyon period between the two factions in the spring of ‘97 when a political marriage was hammered out between Skater Queen Amanda and Ronnie the Jock, but peace was brittle and the tenuous truce followed the unfortunate fate of its initiating liaison. The jocks were just too mainstream. Too clean-cut, too button-down to mix with the skaters. Both smoked pot, drank heavily, drove recklessly and despised authority but found themselves in the ironic position of the Nazis and Communists during the 1940’s; the two ideologically opposed factions found themselves pursuing similar goals through similar means with differing aesthetics and despised each other for it.

Dogtown and Z-Boys was my Silmarillion of skating culture. Providing a richly textured examination of skate boarding’s nativity from the economically depressed 1970’s Venice surf scene into a fully developed and independent sport as well as character sketching skate legends Tony Alva and Jay Adams, all the drama I saw unfold in my adolescent years suddenly made so much more sense when informed by this film. Set to a mishmash of 70’s rock, raw footage of long-haired bedraggled street hooligans bumming around on homemade decks and contemporary contemplations on the birth of the other true American art form, Dogtown and Z-Boys traces the roots of the Zephyr Skate Team from rag-tag surf rats to international icons. Exploring the urban-guerrilla mindset of pool riding, the fiercely territorial mindset of the sport’s first superstars and reckless pursuit of perfecting a craft, Stacey Petralta’s work behind camera draws the honesty and authenticity only a lifelong friend could from his subject. Whether you wore battered cut-offs cords or Tommy Hilfiger plaid button-downs in high school, Dogtown and Z-Boys is worth a watch to gain an appreciation for what has emerged to be a significant subset of youth culture today. A labour of love which easily held my attention through an enjoyable 90 min.

Grade: B+

God Bless America

2007-05-08T22:29:00.000-07:00

If they ever digitially remaster The Goonies, they should totally put one of these things in.

Talladega Naps

2007-05-06T22:34:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: I don’t much care for Will Ferrell.

I didn’t have many expectations coming into Talladega Nights, mostly because of the disclaimer above. I’ve seen Anchor Man, Old School, Zoolander the BOSNL disks and found very little that wasn’t passé by 5^th grade in Ferrell’s arsenal. If this makes me sound like I have a stick up my ass and I don’t really know how to have a good time then so be it. I know a few people who thoroughly enjoy Ferrell’s antics, I even think some of them are reasonably intelligent people, I just don’t happen to be one of them. Besides a good laugh at Eleanor Roosevelt’s spurious quote to open the film and a few of the PSA’s, I had to remind myself that this was a comedy consistenty throughout the movie. The plot was as fresh as a driver’s jock after lap 700 and the vast majority of the jokes laboured harder than a wound-out big block V-8 trying to pass to the outside. Sacha Baron Cohen’s Jean Girard managed to finagle a smile from time to time solely on the tenacity of his ridiculous French accent and TR reminded me of my second cousin from Greensboro, but in general I found very little to salvage from this wreck of a movie. If you are a die-hard Ferrellite you’ll probably love the flick, but I found myself glad to start cleaning my apartment ¾ through it. The Ballad of Ricky Bobby was more a dirge for me.

Grade: C

Staind

2007-05-03T10:40:00.000-07:00

“I ruined my witness to those guys,” divulged our Pastor one Sunday evening service as he was recounting his life as a former MTV cut-out Fratboy. I slipped on the comfortable phrase as I have countless times before, but this time I’d had my hair cut in it. It itched and itched for almost two full days until Tuesday night when I had to rip it back over my head and check out the damage.

What does ‘our witness’ mean in front of people who do not share faith in God the Father, Christ His Redeemer and the mysterious Spirit? What carries a better witness and a more authentic picture of discipleship and the Christian life: The perfection persona or being honest about the change which is taking time to be perfected in us? Should we flee our previous crowd upon conversion lest they tempt us or ‘bring us down?’ Where is the line between the two, because I don’t pretend that the answer hangs cut and dried on one side of the smoke shed or the other.

I’m still brushing the barbs out of it all, but the question is one that I’ve been wrangling with for a while in several different iterations. To what extent do we really believe that the light will shine in the darkness and that the darkness will not overcome it? Also, does that light come from us being behaviourally perfect or from letting others see the darkness fall off of us as we follow Christ?

I Flick, You Flick

2007-04-22T09:02:00.000-07:00

I've been toying with the idea of introducing a regular feature on The Texafornian for a while now. Now I know that some of yall might be thinking, 'Shawn Simas has been at the movie reviewing game much longer than you have, Micah. Who do you think you are muscling in on his racket?!' Well, my fine fellow critics, there will undoubtedly be some overlap in our catalogue, but it is my intention to review the movies sent my way by the benevolent Netflix, so this is your chance to get reviews on films that either haven't been in the theatre for 20 years or never made it to a theatre in the area. Our first feature, however, is a recent blockbuster staring The Cowboy Christian Bale and everyone's favourite to play Smurfette should the live action Smurf movie ever get the green light, Katie Holmes. Also present: Lliam Nielson (apparently unable to turn down any cameo appearances his agent throws his way), Michael Caine (keeping the investment portfolio alive w/ bit parts) and Cillian Murphy (of zombie movie fame).

Batman Begins was actually an enjoyable movie and arguably the most well crafted of the series. It covers an incredible amount of ground, zipping through Wayne's adolescence, nascest development and on through to his institution as Gotham's cowled crime fighter all in a reasonably coherent package. The characters have just enough depth to hold the viewers interest and the plot is strung together just enough that you don't feel like you're being completely left in the belfry. This is a military jet of a movie: It moves at an incredible rate of speed, is rigidly but not superfluously bolted together and has a mission to accomplish. A thoroughly enjoyable addition to the saga. B+.

Other recent flicks:

The Producers (c. 1968): B, enjoyable and lighthearted with Gene Wilder is in his prime and Mel Brooks as a singing Hitler. What else do you want?

Thank You For Smoking: A, great movie about the art of discourse. Immaculate and savoury film.

Little Miss Sunshine: B, enjoyable movie with a few entertaining shifts. The Vow of Silence and Young Tail monologue alone pull this movie up from a likely more accurate B-.

Babel: B-, lost out on hype factor. An ok movie about global cooincidences and people's lives that go awry, but I just coudln't get myself into it. Go figure.

The Unmentionable

2007-03-26T22:23:00.000-07:00

I've stumbled across another interesting passage in my reading and thought I would toss it up here for some public reflection. People in every emploi in the Church have debated for centuries about the issue of homosexuality and our appropriate response to it, and I think this guy has something to say worth considering. I don't by any stretch of the imagination agree with everything that he says, but this small bit struck me. This is Willard S. Krabill in Chapter 7 of a book entitled 'Sexuality: God's Gift.'

We have not broken fellowship with those whom we disagree on business practices and ethics, on the payment of war taxes, on registration for the draft, on lavish versus simple lifestyles, on the use of alcohol, and on many other issues. Instead, on these issues we keep talking, praying and striving for the will of God.

Althought the issue of homosexuality tends to be diverse, must it be a matter over which we divide our communion? Personally, I hope not. I believe that, mindful of the inexhaustible grace of God, we need to work responsibly on diverse issues and seek God's will in both our lifestyles and our discernment proceses. This will enable us to maintain fellowship with our fellow believers.

What Might Have Been

2007-03-23T11:46:00.000-07:00

Thomas Alva Edison once said, "Opportunity is missed by most because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." This one's for the Jameses.

Friends are Friends Forever

2007-03-20T21:39:00.000-07:00

The sculpture above is entitled Friendship by Miguel Guía. This week while reading a chapter on intimacy for one of my classes, I read this section I wanted to share with yall.

Most people don't realize that relationship success also creates systemic pressures that make balancing closeness and intimacy difficult. The more valued the relationship, the more there is to lose. We feel more anxiety in being intimate in the sense of being honestly and fully ourselves. Yet if we want passion, we need the spark and invigoration of intimacy. One of the central dilemmas of [relationships] is that the more important a relationship becomes, the more difficult it is to sustain passion. This is so because the tension between closeness and intimacy becomes increasingly profound. The paradox of closeness and intimacy is that the only way to really have either is to be willing at times to sacrifice closeness for the sake of intimacy. In other words, to be liked we have to be willing to risk not being liked, for the sake of being known accurately.

The above paragraph was written with romantic couples in mind, but I think the points presented are readily applicable to all types of relationships. Does this paragraph resonate with yall at all? The line that keeps coming back to me is '[we must be] willing at times to sacrifice closeness for the sake of intimacy.'

SAT Prep

2007-03-15T14:28:00.000-07:00

Directions: Fill in the blank to complete the analogy. Answer any or all questions, and there is no penalty for guessing. Feel free respond anonymously.

Pornography : Men :: _______ : Women
Christ : Church :: Church : ______
Cookies : Cookiemonster :: ______ : You

Point :: Counterpoint

2007-03-12T22:06:00.001-07:00

James Lyons is rightfully burnt out on the contemporary music scene. Hell, I gladly listen to ex-jocks blather on and on about the same handful of inane topics on sports talk rather than sit through most music on the radio. For me, the only fix is a magical one.

CTRL + ALT + DEL

2007-03-12T20:34:00.000-07:00

My wife was a double major in college: English and Journalism. She is a fabulous writer, a better wife, and this weekend while perusing through one of her old text books I learned the distinction between the two commonly misappropriated words 'nauseous’ and ‘nauseated’. Things which are nauseous cause one to feel nauseated, but technically speaking one does not ‘feel nauseous’ according to the Holy Bible of proper English utility, The Elements of Style. These are the kind of things which interest me, and in this case haunt me.

This weekend I attended my godsister’s wedding in Seattle with my wife, mother, father, sister and brother in law. After arduous hours of travel by land and by air (and very nearly by sea a few times, thanks to the legendary Pacific Northwest weather systems) we toured Pike Place Market, nearly got embroiled in a lover’s spat involving one exceptionally large and irate black man, one small but hurtful black man and one perplexed black woman, enjoyed the local cuisine, and sat through a lovely ceremony eternally and existentially smelting my godsister and her then fiancé in the bonds of Christian marriage. After the festivities died down, we decided as a family to take in the one essential feature of downtown Seattle: The REI. After skittering up and down narrowly glistening streets towards our destination, we came to a public parking structure half a block from REI and decided to make use of its services. We waved at the attendant, parked in the section labeled ‘Visitor Parking for Local Retail’ and ran like cows to feed toward our destination. The time: 6:17pm. 90 minutes and $120.00 later, we left Bobo Mecca contentedly laden with our purchases and headed back down to our tan rented Mercury van, only to discover that our every ingress to the previously hospitable parking structure had been cinched down tighter than a bullfrog’s rectum¹. On a wall near the main gate of the parking structure in unobtrusive letters a small sign read: ‘Sat: 8:00am – 7:30pm.’ Hello, Nauseous. Hello, Nausea.

We managed to track down a very convivial and very helpful security guard girl who went to extraordinary lengths to help us extricate our vehicle from the acquisitive parking garage, and after nearly 50 minutes of chicanery and a good measure of Tom-foolery we were back on the road towards Portland. I never thought that the movie Dodgeball would be apropos to anything in my life, but reading that stupid sign I found myself wanting to quote Christine Taylor’s character: “Yeah, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit . . .”

¹That is: Water tight.

The Miracle of Music

2007-03-05T21:42:00.000-08:00

If (when?) I form a face-melting rock band of mythic proportions, this will be our first album cover. The only appreciable difference will be the light rays forming the shape of a Gibson Firebird.

I've been trying to blog for the last three days, but every time I sit down at the computer I feel my brain congeal to concrete and my fingers consolidate to inarticulate flippers. Tonight as I was sitting down to bang my concrete head against the proverbial wall, I actually came up with an uncomfortably personal topic to write about. Thankfully, 'Video Killed the Radio Star' came up on my iTunes shuffle and inspired me to write about the magical ability music has to modify (most frequently mollify) my mood.

Audience participation portion:

What bails you out best when you're feeling beat down?
What does the song 'Video Killed the Radio Star' remind you of? (and yes, there is a right answer to this question)
Suggestions for the afore mentioned face-melting rock band's name.

Pride Goes Before the Fall

2007-02-28T14:50:00.000-08:00

I'm not proud of it, but I love sugar wafers. Even though I bellyache about processed food, MSG, transfats and addictive chemical additives to our food more than most (as my wife will be glad to attest) I just can't get enough of the eerily preserved pink, brown and yellow wafers filled with some sort of sweet tasting goo invented to trap rats in WWII. Ah, well, we all have our vices, right?

This past week has been effing murder. Tuesday saw two very important and very difficult tests both covering a glut of information on disparate topics come and go, followed by my faculty review for practicum today. I just ate a package of 'strawberry' sugar wafers; it seems to have taken the edge off.

See Below

2007-02-22T22:21:00.000-08:00

I'm not quite sure what's been going on inside my head for the last week or so, but I'm think I might have transmittable spongiform encephalitis. Damn the cattle industry and their cost-cutting ways. In all reality I’m probably just more stressed than I’m willing to admit, but I have been dropping the ball on a variety of life tasks for the last few days ranging from badly butchering the cornbread recipe tonight to somehow mistaking a class’ start time. Classic. While my life has been swirling, however, there have been three things that burn brightly through my mental fog. Apropos as it may be, one of them actually happened to me (I think) and the other two manifested out of the morass that is YouTube.

While tutoring earlier this week, I looked up to see one of my students hastily retrieving his left index finger from his right nostril. I cocked my eyebrow at him, and he looked slightly abashed for a moment. He then scrunched up his face in an entirely unabashed fit of laughter and confided in me, “I pick my nose almost every day!” Nuff said.

I somehow stumbled across a Phil Collins video that had me dumbstruck for nearly 15 minutes. I honestly can’t even remember how I found it, but after blindly clicking through a completely random series of ‘linked’ videos, I saw the MTV video for ‘Against All Odds.’ Great song. Inexplicable video. I can’t say much more without totally ruining everything, but I will say bare-chested Jeff Bridges + Count Collin-acula = solid gold music video.

As my test for psychopathology approaches, I surf more and more blogs. I found a link to a guy beat-boxing several different songs on a flute on Cory’s. On a FLUTE! If you want to know what it feels like to actually do what this guy is doing in the video, keep sucking in air and blowing it out as fast and as hard as you possibly can for about 3 min. But before you start, go ahead and call the Ambulance because you'll probably fracture your skull when you pass out and smack your noggin at the 53 sec mark. Props, dude.

PS: My dad played flute as well as starting flanker for Hughson High in 1965. We live in a different world now.

PPS: If you watched Phil, check out IMDB for more background on the video.

The Texafornian

You've Got a Friend

All in the Family

In the Image of God They Were Created

Adjustments

Commitment

My Christmas Conundrum

Space Out

The Ugly Truth

Back in the Saddle

What Dat?

Ours Is Not

As the Dawn Breaks

All in the Family

Long Live the King

Words of Wisdom

What If?

A Song For Mish

Too True

The Loss of a Friend

Times, They Are a' Changing

*Muffled Sob*

Freakin' Weekend, Baby!

About Time . . .

Touché, M!

Confused, I'll Admit

The Other Foot

How Many Days Later?

Satisfaction

American Haiku Friday

Doing My Part

Artiste!

To Over or to Under?

Preemptive Strike

Self Swap

Cheese!

Quality

Success!

Summer Magic

Lions, Tigers, Et al.

Finally

He Returns!

The Even More You Know

The Few, the Humble

The More You Know

You Do the Math

Effing Movies

Destination: Destruction

Eight Across

The Deeper Truth

Blue Sevety-Two Razor!

Ganza!

Things You Should Know

All in the Family

Get Learnt

It's Back

Magic Brownies

A Time to Laugh, a Time to Cry

Seeing Double

Worm Hole

Enchanté

Who, Me?!

Let's Try That Again . . .

Long Shots

The Little Things

Graceless

Yall Chose B

Holy Kegger

Get Excited

Bodamania

Lo!

Good Idea/Bad Idea

Der Untergang

I Repent

15 Minutes

An Unknown Unknown

Flash Back

Knickers Ablaze?

In Motion

Double Trouble

Muffled Sob