My twin brother left town this morning.
Technically, it was this morning, but it felt like a very late night just after midnight as my brother, Matt, and his wife, Jo, loaded the final hangers and pillows and boxes of books into their taxicab-yellow Penske moving truck, and pulled the clanging metal door shut. We had all had a party together for the hours before their midnight departure, ostensibly celebrating this new chapter in their lives, I suppose...but my older brother Brian said it well when he described "a pall over the whole thing." It was a celebration of new things, I guess...but for me, it felt a bit like a funeral.
I've never lived apart from Matt, really. We grew up in the same house, as you might imagine, and shared a bedroom for the bulk of our youth. We went to college together and lived next door from each other. We got ourselves married, and moved down the street from each other. Hell, we even shared the same room in-utero, and that was close quarters. We played together, we sledded together, we swam together, we joined rival ten-speed biking gangs in our neighborhood together, we fought each other, and we bled sometimes. I hated him when I was still in the stage where I could hate someone for stealing my dessert or not handing over the TV remote, and I loved him when I was still in the stage where you believed you didn't have a choice. He was my rival, my playmate, my bully, my confidant, my equal, my conscience, and the only one of us brave enough to tell Mom off.
Matt and I have always highlighted the enormity of the differences between us. He is a sports fanatic, an athlete, a social butterfly, and a raucous and loud voice that carries in any crowd and that sneers in the face of disagreement. I am an artist-type, a sedentary, an extrovert who fears the disappointment of others, and a peacemaker. But jesus, we're so alike sometimes. We did life together in a way that, unless you're a twin yourself, I don't think you can understand. In some ways, we polarized in order to live our lives as two halves of the same exprience, I think...we polarized to differentiate ourselves, and we polarized so that we could experience the completeness of life more fully together.
As kids, we were often asked if he could feel the same things I feel, and if we had any kind of special "twin power" that would allow us to sense what was going on to the other twin at any given time. I always laughed and said no. Today, I wonder more.
If this reads like a eulogy, it's because it is. Matt is far from dead...he is beginning the next step of a journey that will undoubtedly prove magnificent, frightening, resonant and powerful. He and Jo are finally going to be in a town big enough to accomodate their talents and their training. He will practice law, and he will excel. She will write and publish, and she will excel. They deserve this success...and I would never wish for them to stay here. But the fact remains, he's further away than he's ever been, and for the first time in my life, I can't just go see him. This is new, and this is hard.
Matt and I, for all these years being so close to each other in young adulthood, never spent a lot of time together. Truth is...I never felt like we had to. My love for my twin brother is as saturating, profound, and as unconditional as I will ever know. He was a constant for me...I quietly trusted because I knew he was there. He was always there.
Matt, if you're reading this...I miss you already. I cried last night, I cried this morning, and I'm crying now. I am so happy for you and Jo, and I have no doubts that this is the best move for you...but I don't want you to be gone. You are the only twin brother I will ever have, and I can't help but feel like a part of me is in DC now.
I love you deeply, and I look forward to seeing you soon.
-Justin
Friday, August 11, 2006
Sunday, June 18, 2006
I always become a nihlist when I'm on vacation...
Not a dedicated, Uli Kunkel, floating in a pool surrounded by Jack Daniels bottles, "I beleeve in nuh-zing!" nihlist, mind you...just a "nothing means anything" nihlist. Which, as I think about this again, may not qualify as nihlism...or any ism for that matter...it may better qualify as good ol' fashioned depression.
I had a great weekend this weekend. I drove up with Stacy to Put-In-Bay, a tiny little island on the Ohio side of Lake Erie whose homes and city streets resemble Pleasantville and whose night-times resemble Mardi Gras. It's essentially a party paradise for four months out of the year, with all varieties of wealthy white boat-owners and their college-aged offspring gathering together to drink beer, flash people for beads, and spend a lot of time saying "WOOOO!" Fifty-something men with white hair tucked under straight-billed baseball caps roam the streets by day, buying cigars and t-shirts with funny sayings on them, and young people wake up at nooon and slowly take over the town by nightfall, when all is transformed into a pulsing, sexy, simmering party for those who can afford to get themselves blurry.
In short, it's a lot of fun.
However, I don't tend to enjoy it as much as I would expect. In the middle of everything I get introspective, distant, and navel-gazing. I wish I could say it was some kind of pious soul-thing...watching that sort of gluttony and debauchery from a distance with a holy discontent for the short-lived things of this world...but I'm usually four or five beers south of that ivory tower by then. No, I think it's more the realization that several hundred miles, several hundred dollars, several dozen cigarettes, and seven days of severance from my soberest sentience later, I'm left with a feeling of..."is this all there is?"
Right now I'm sitting in a bed in the Seelbach Hotel in downtown Louisville. I'm in a very large room with very dark oak, surrounded by four posters of bed and lying on a duvet with a thread count that exceeds the average Nicaraguan's yearly salary. The lighting is perfect, the dinner was magnificent, and the Kentucky bourbon that followed deserves a post of it's very own. I was lucky to be treated to these great amenities on this particular trip, and I'm glad to consume them and to smile while doing it. Yet, for all of the soft touches and scented soaps and leather seats and tasty glasses of wine...I still feel a bit hollow, and more than a bit useless.
I think that's the problem. I work at work, and I feel useful. I work at home sometimes, and when I do, I feel useful. I occasionally get to counsel my friends, console my parents, and fix things that break around the house...and I feel useful. But when I'm on vacation...all I do is consume. I just keep taking things in. The only thing I'm doing as I move from hotel to restaurant to rental car to playhouse to hotel is contribute to the GNP and global warming. I'd like to relax, to be sure, but I feel like there has to be more than just tickling my own underbelly, and that thought keeps me discontented. That discontent, if left to simmer long enough, eventually turns into a bland form of disgust, which eventually commits itself to pseudo-nihlism. That nihlishm takes the shape of, "If I am having all of the finest things in the world and all of them offer only momentary feelings of joy or growth...than nothing can mean anything."
Seems dramatic, doesn't it? I realize. But I can't get that feeling to go away. It comes as one of the many flavors of my neurosis, I guess...one little Buttered Popcorn in the multi-colored bag of Jelly Bellys we call the human condition. (Lord, that metaphor is a stretch, isn't it?) But it is what it is, and it's my blog, so there you have it.
I sleep now, and I dream of Stacy. I love to travel, and I look forward to going home.
Peace,
Justin
Not a dedicated, Uli Kunkel, floating in a pool surrounded by Jack Daniels bottles, "I beleeve in nuh-zing!" nihlist, mind you...just a "nothing means anything" nihlist. Which, as I think about this again, may not qualify as nihlism...or any ism for that matter...it may better qualify as good ol' fashioned depression.
I had a great weekend this weekend. I drove up with Stacy to Put-In-Bay, a tiny little island on the Ohio side of Lake Erie whose homes and city streets resemble Pleasantville and whose night-times resemble Mardi Gras. It's essentially a party paradise for four months out of the year, with all varieties of wealthy white boat-owners and their college-aged offspring gathering together to drink beer, flash people for beads, and spend a lot of time saying "WOOOO!" Fifty-something men with white hair tucked under straight-billed baseball caps roam the streets by day, buying cigars and t-shirts with funny sayings on them, and young people wake up at nooon and slowly take over the town by nightfall, when all is transformed into a pulsing, sexy, simmering party for those who can afford to get themselves blurry.
In short, it's a lot of fun.
However, I don't tend to enjoy it as much as I would expect. In the middle of everything I get introspective, distant, and navel-gazing. I wish I could say it was some kind of pious soul-thing...watching that sort of gluttony and debauchery from a distance with a holy discontent for the short-lived things of this world...but I'm usually four or five beers south of that ivory tower by then. No, I think it's more the realization that several hundred miles, several hundred dollars, several dozen cigarettes, and seven days of severance from my soberest sentience later, I'm left with a feeling of..."is this all there is?"
Right now I'm sitting in a bed in the Seelbach Hotel in downtown Louisville. I'm in a very large room with very dark oak, surrounded by four posters of bed and lying on a duvet with a thread count that exceeds the average Nicaraguan's yearly salary. The lighting is perfect, the dinner was magnificent, and the Kentucky bourbon that followed deserves a post of it's very own. I was lucky to be treated to these great amenities on this particular trip, and I'm glad to consume them and to smile while doing it. Yet, for all of the soft touches and scented soaps and leather seats and tasty glasses of wine...I still feel a bit hollow, and more than a bit useless.
I think that's the problem. I work at work, and I feel useful. I work at home sometimes, and when I do, I feel useful. I occasionally get to counsel my friends, console my parents, and fix things that break around the house...and I feel useful. But when I'm on vacation...all I do is consume. I just keep taking things in. The only thing I'm doing as I move from hotel to restaurant to rental car to playhouse to hotel is contribute to the GNP and global warming. I'd like to relax, to be sure, but I feel like there has to be more than just tickling my own underbelly, and that thought keeps me discontented. That discontent, if left to simmer long enough, eventually turns into a bland form of disgust, which eventually commits itself to pseudo-nihlism. That nihlishm takes the shape of, "If I am having all of the finest things in the world and all of them offer only momentary feelings of joy or growth...than nothing can mean anything."
Seems dramatic, doesn't it? I realize. But I can't get that feeling to go away. It comes as one of the many flavors of my neurosis, I guess...one little Buttered Popcorn in the multi-colored bag of Jelly Bellys we call the human condition. (Lord, that metaphor is a stretch, isn't it?) But it is what it is, and it's my blog, so there you have it.
I sleep now, and I dream of Stacy. I love to travel, and I look forward to going home.
Peace,
Justin
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Hola amigos...it's been a long time since I rapped at ya.
(Onion fans, grin break now).
I had a wonderful after-dinner conversation with a very good friend last night about the relative goodness or badness of humanity. I don't know why dinner tends to induce good conversation, but I suspect it has something to do with the blood leaving your brain to support your bloated stomach, freeing up the brain from the burden of all those nutrients, and readying it for brash opining over tiramisu.
The conversation began with a discussion about drinking, as I recall. Which was odd, because neither of us were. In fact, now that I think about, that very fact probably made the discussion so topical. My friend is not a drinker...she will have an occasional drink here and there...but she's not a drinker like I'm a drinker and my father's a drinker and the men of Omega-Delta-Chi are drinkers. She samples, she sips, she moves on. She drinks to taste. I drink to drink for the most part, and I drink to get dull and happy.
My friend is very, very smart; so I tend to listen to her pretty carefully. She said that she doesn't drink much because she wants to live a healthy, natural life, and that getting buzzed or drunk doesn't seem natural to her. I told her that when I drink, I usually drink in order to feel more natural. I am an anxious person by the combined efforts of nature and nurture (with a healthy tip of the scales toward the latter), and I spend a great deal of my time worrying and fretting about one thing or another. I have a hard time letting go of what concerns me, and tension leaks out of me the same way gold bricks leak out of Fort Knox. So, when I drink, I drink to help me let go, settle down, and smile more. I don't know if it's a good policy or a bad policy, but I drink with relative modesty, so I'm not too worried about it.
What really interested me about the conversation is that she kept saying, for me. "Drinking is unnatural for me." "Being drunk is unhealthy for me." "It's a bad idea to get drunk to make yourself feel better...for me, anyways." She's like that...it's one of my favorite things about her...she refuses to exercise judgement against others as being good or bad in any real sense, which works out great when you're a solid mixture of both and you hang out with someone as excellent as her.
The trouble is, something being bad solely for me is a pretty foreign concept to me. I tend to believe that most things that are bad are bad, and most things that are good are good. I think it's the Catholic in me, or at least the Christian. Christianity doesn't have a lot of tolerance for moral relativism. If the Bible is to be believed, then Jesus didn't have a lot of conditional morality to share with the world. Nor did the God of the Old Testament. There are a lot of hard lines in the Bible, and less grey area than I think I'd like. At least, that's the case as I see it at first glance...
..but if you look a little deeper...
In Exodus 20, God says "Thou shalt not kill." (Thank heavens God speaks fluent King's English, or I'd have a hell of a time understanding him). But, then he orders the Jews to slaughter the Philistines. He says, "Thou shalt not bear false witness" [or, "lie" in modern translations], but then in I Kings 22 it says "The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee." God says, "Thou shalt not steal," but also orders His people to "...spoil [steal from] the Egyptians" in Exodus 13.
So, if you think the King James translation is somewhat accurate, it seems you have a couple of options:
1. The Bible isn't accurately reflecting God's words to man.
2. The Bible is accurately reflecting God's words to man, and God is unintentionally contradicting Himself.
3. The Bible is accurately reflecting God's words to man, and God is intentionally contradicting Himself.
Or...of course...
4. Justin, it's wrong to question God and the Bible. Just have faith, or go to Hell.
If you believe #1, which I'm still trying to make up my mind about, then this conversation can probably wrap up here, because what's the point of worrying about something somebody made up a long time ago?
If you believe #2, then you don't believe in the same God I do, because my God tends to remember stuff.
If you believe #4, then enjoy this video, I'll pay you back for the time with a prompt money order to your place of residence.
But if you believe #3, which I ostensibly do, then you have to ask why God would do such a thing? Is it possible that morality can't simply be spelled out with hard rules? Is it possible that it's OK to kill some people some times, and not OK to other people other times? If that's the case...are there any hard rules? Is it ever OK to have sex with children? To eat your parents? To abort a baby? To lie?
And...if it can't be said that there are absolute lines of good and bad...how can it be said that a person is either? For the pedophile who was molested as a child, and who knew nothing in his life other than pain and suffering, and for whom the desire to understand his pain drove him to molest another...can we call him "bad?" If so, can we call him "worse" than he who steals two dollars from the register on his way out of work at Starbucks...providing the man at Starbucks knows it's wrong and has the ability to control his impulses?
If those who are driven by madness, revenge, or a crippled past (or a tasty cocktail of the three) to perform horrendous acts against humanity were truly oppressed by their disturbances, can we call them "bad?" Can we rightfully punish them? Shouldn't the child who has everything be punished more severely for a small transgression than the child with nothing who commits a large one?
Can a person ever be called "good?" Can a person ever be called "bad?" If not...can we call God either of these?
It was a good conversation, and it was a troubling conversation. I've thought about it all day...which is probably best. I don't want my fear of what would happen if there were no moral plumb lines to drive me to presume that there is one.
Peace,
Justin
(Onion fans, grin break now).
I had a wonderful after-dinner conversation with a very good friend last night about the relative goodness or badness of humanity. I don't know why dinner tends to induce good conversation, but I suspect it has something to do with the blood leaving your brain to support your bloated stomach, freeing up the brain from the burden of all those nutrients, and readying it for brash opining over tiramisu.
The conversation began with a discussion about drinking, as I recall. Which was odd, because neither of us were. In fact, now that I think about, that very fact probably made the discussion so topical. My friend is not a drinker...she will have an occasional drink here and there...but she's not a drinker like I'm a drinker and my father's a drinker and the men of Omega-Delta-Chi are drinkers. She samples, she sips, she moves on. She drinks to taste. I drink to drink for the most part, and I drink to get dull and happy.
My friend is very, very smart; so I tend to listen to her pretty carefully. She said that she doesn't drink much because she wants to live a healthy, natural life, and that getting buzzed or drunk doesn't seem natural to her. I told her that when I drink, I usually drink in order to feel more natural. I am an anxious person by the combined efforts of nature and nurture (with a healthy tip of the scales toward the latter), and I spend a great deal of my time worrying and fretting about one thing or another. I have a hard time letting go of what concerns me, and tension leaks out of me the same way gold bricks leak out of Fort Knox. So, when I drink, I drink to help me let go, settle down, and smile more. I don't know if it's a good policy or a bad policy, but I drink with relative modesty, so I'm not too worried about it.
What really interested me about the conversation is that she kept saying, for me. "Drinking is unnatural for me." "Being drunk is unhealthy for me." "It's a bad idea to get drunk to make yourself feel better...for me, anyways." She's like that...it's one of my favorite things about her...she refuses to exercise judgement against others as being good or bad in any real sense, which works out great when you're a solid mixture of both and you hang out with someone as excellent as her.
The trouble is, something being bad solely for me is a pretty foreign concept to me. I tend to believe that most things that are bad are bad, and most things that are good are good. I think it's the Catholic in me, or at least the Christian. Christianity doesn't have a lot of tolerance for moral relativism. If the Bible is to be believed, then Jesus didn't have a lot of conditional morality to share with the world. Nor did the God of the Old Testament. There are a lot of hard lines in the Bible, and less grey area than I think I'd like. At least, that's the case as I see it at first glance...
..but if you look a little deeper...
In Exodus 20, God says "Thou shalt not kill." (Thank heavens God speaks fluent King's English, or I'd have a hell of a time understanding him). But, then he orders the Jews to slaughter the Philistines. He says, "Thou shalt not bear false witness" [or, "lie" in modern translations], but then in I Kings 22 it says "The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee." God says, "Thou shalt not steal," but also orders His people to "...spoil [steal from] the Egyptians" in Exodus 13.
So, if you think the King James translation is somewhat accurate, it seems you have a couple of options:
1. The Bible isn't accurately reflecting God's words to man.
2. The Bible is accurately reflecting God's words to man, and God is unintentionally contradicting Himself.
3. The Bible is accurately reflecting God's words to man, and God is intentionally contradicting Himself.
Or...of course...
4. Justin, it's wrong to question God and the Bible. Just have faith, or go to Hell.
If you believe #1, which I'm still trying to make up my mind about, then this conversation can probably wrap up here, because what's the point of worrying about something somebody made up a long time ago?
If you believe #2, then you don't believe in the same God I do, because my God tends to remember stuff.
If you believe #4, then enjoy this video, I'll pay you back for the time with a prompt money order to your place of residence.
But if you believe #3, which I ostensibly do, then you have to ask why God would do such a thing? Is it possible that morality can't simply be spelled out with hard rules? Is it possible that it's OK to kill some people some times, and not OK to other people other times? If that's the case...are there any hard rules? Is it ever OK to have sex with children? To eat your parents? To abort a baby? To lie?
And...if it can't be said that there are absolute lines of good and bad...how can it be said that a person is either? For the pedophile who was molested as a child, and who knew nothing in his life other than pain and suffering, and for whom the desire to understand his pain drove him to molest another...can we call him "bad?" If so, can we call him "worse" than he who steals two dollars from the register on his way out of work at Starbucks...providing the man at Starbucks knows it's wrong and has the ability to control his impulses?
If those who are driven by madness, revenge, or a crippled past (or a tasty cocktail of the three) to perform horrendous acts against humanity were truly oppressed by their disturbances, can we call them "bad?" Can we rightfully punish them? Shouldn't the child who has everything be punished more severely for a small transgression than the child with nothing who commits a large one?
Can a person ever be called "good?" Can a person ever be called "bad?" If not...can we call God either of these?
It was a good conversation, and it was a troubling conversation. I've thought about it all day...which is probably best. I don't want my fear of what would happen if there were no moral plumb lines to drive me to presume that there is one.
Peace,
Justin
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
The following is the most romantic post about stomach flu you'll read all day...
I got sick this week. Quite sick. The kind of sick you don't talk about at dinner parties. And for the last 36 hours or so I've been lying on my couch waiting for the sick to pass. And, lying in the overstuffed and oversized chair five feet from me has been my also very sick wife. (It seems she got me sick with the flu she had last week...and, not to be outdone, I returned the favor this week. I didn't think it was possible either, but then again, here we are). We have spent the last day-and-a-half trying to sleep, trading turns in the bathroom, and trying to guess how long ago four hours ago was so that we can take the next batch of Tylenol.
OK...I'll give you...not a formula for high romance.
However, for some reason, it was romantic. We were sharing the experience together. We took care of each other, watched each other get worse, and we've begun to watch each other get better. We called out quietly for one another in the hot and wakeful midnight hours, and we did so hoping that, for some reason, the other person would be awake enough to respond, just so we know that they're there. We hoped for each other, and even prayed for each other a little bit. We loved each other in our sickness...the kind of love that is bigger than grossiness and pukiness and trashcans by the bedside.
I loved my wife today...and she loved me. It's a strange thing to say, but I actually enjoyed being sick with Stacy. Being sick is life, and I love having life with her.
Peace,
Justin
I got sick this week. Quite sick. The kind of sick you don't talk about at dinner parties. And for the last 36 hours or so I've been lying on my couch waiting for the sick to pass. And, lying in the overstuffed and oversized chair five feet from me has been my also very sick wife. (It seems she got me sick with the flu she had last week...and, not to be outdone, I returned the favor this week. I didn't think it was possible either, but then again, here we are). We have spent the last day-and-a-half trying to sleep, trading turns in the bathroom, and trying to guess how long ago four hours ago was so that we can take the next batch of Tylenol.
OK...I'll give you...not a formula for high romance.
However, for some reason, it was romantic. We were sharing the experience together. We took care of each other, watched each other get worse, and we've begun to watch each other get better. We called out quietly for one another in the hot and wakeful midnight hours, and we did so hoping that, for some reason, the other person would be awake enough to respond, just so we know that they're there. We hoped for each other, and even prayed for each other a little bit. We loved each other in our sickness...the kind of love that is bigger than grossiness and pukiness and trashcans by the bedside.
I loved my wife today...and she loved me. It's a strange thing to say, but I actually enjoyed being sick with Stacy. Being sick is life, and I love having life with her.
Peace,
Justin
Saturday, May 06, 2006
I've been trying to post for two weeks about something I'm not sure how to talk about...
I have written a number of posts, edited them, and deleted them...all because I'm not sure how to say what I want to say on this very difficult and inflammatory issue, about which I am extremely emotionally connected.
All to no avail. So...on the excellent advice of my friend Steve...I've promised myself I'm just gonna write it and let it be what it is. Here is what I've been trying to say:
...
...I think being an illegal should be illegal.
...
...
...there, I've said it.
Whew...that feels better.
I'll expound a little.
I tend to think of myself as a liberal, progressive, dare I say Democratic kind of guy. I tend to think that I'm a compassionate kind of guy...at least in certain squishy areas of humankind. I also tend to think that I tend to speak without thinking, so I took some extra time to think about this one before I started speaking. And I still think being an illegal should be illegal.
If you've turned on the TV...or the radio...or the newspaper...(let that one go)...you've surely seen the great debate on immigration in America. Or, more specifically, the debate on Hispanic immigration into America. Nobody seems too concerned about the extraordinary number of people from India, or Korea, or China, or Eastern Africa who are streaming into the United States. And there's a perfectly good reason for that...
...they came here legally.
What's pissing everybody off is that people from Cuba are floating in on rafts, people from the D.R. are stowing away in the bottoms of freighters, and people from Mexico are t across the border in the middle of the night to get into this country. And get in they are...to the tune of an estimated 700% growth in illegal Hispanics living in the U.S. over the last ten years.
...wait, I'm not done. That part isn't pissing everybody off. In fact, as you may have noticed, illegal Hispanic workers have been living in the U.S. for quite some time, and doing a fine job at it. I don't know who was legal and who was illegal, but I know that Hispanic workers with very little English at their disposal have cooked my meals, mowed the lawn where I work, constructed my gym, cleaned my hotel rooms, delivered my Chinese food (which was a strange surprise), and so much more. And you didn't hear me complaining. They work cheap, they work hard, and they seemed happy enough.
That's where we get to the part where everybody is pissed off.
The seemed happy enough...for a while. And then, protests started. Protests about equal pay for equal work, protests about getting social services and schooling for the children of illegal immigrants, protests about minimum wage increases...and...here's my very favorite...protests about the U.S. Government's attempt to enforce and toughen immigration laws.
You know what, let's change the POV here to make things easier...
---
The following is an open lettter to pissed off illegal Hispanic immigrants:
---
Dear pissed off illegal Hispanic immigrants,
Thank you for doing all that hard work for me. You do really good work...truthfully, you do better work than I would have done, and you worked twice as hard without complaining. Thank you for doing that...I'm really glad that you chose to do that work, and I'm thankful that I could benefit from your tremendous work ethic.
However, I'm a bit concerned. You see...you're not supposed to be here. I know it sounds insensitive and elitist...but I'm actually just telling you what the law says. The law says that you're not supposed to be here. It says that you're welcome in this country...as tired and/or poor as you may be...and that you may come and work our fertile lands to make your living. All you have to do is what everyone else on the planet who wants to come and work in America has to...you have to apply, and you have to be accepted. I'm sorry that we let you make your living here without kicking you out sooner, because I can see why you'd get the impression you had the right to be here after a few years of nobody saying anything. That was our bad. But now you need to go home.
You see, I have a good friend named Maria. Maria is a brilliant woman, and a gifted lawyer. She wants to move to America from Peru so she can be a lawyer in the US and make a life for herself here. She went to school here on an educational visa, she fell in love with an American man, and now she wants to work here. She applied for a work visa and was denied, unfortunately, so she went back to Peru where she now waits for a chance to return to America, see her love again, and try to get a visa again. She's playing by the rules, and it hurts her. My prayer is that she gets her visa, moves here, and gets married to that man. My hope is that she may even some day wish to be a citizen of the US, though I will always respect her even if she doesn't.
So, here's the thing...I don't think you should be here. You weren't invited, you weren't cleared, and you sure as heck weren't approved for a work visa. In fact, we did everything we could to keep you out...we spent millions and millions of dollars building fences and hiring guys to drive up and down the border, just so you wouldn't come. But you made it through our fences, and you made it past our guards, and somehow you made your way into your current job. I admire your courage and your resolve...but you still shouldn't be here. This isn't "Red Rover"...just because you made it across the border and through the locked arms of the patrol doesn't mean you get to stay on this side. You don't get to stay, you don't get to work, and you sure as shit don't get to live off our social services.
You are here against the laws of this country. You broke the law, and like any other resident of the US who breaks the law, you are subject to consequences. You can march in the streets, sing our anthem in your language, and fly your flag above ours...you may be as polite or rude as you like (that's the beauty of our first amendment), but you're still here illegally. And until we make running over the border in the middle of the night a legal shortcut to the immigration process, you will remain illegal.
It sucks that you come from a shitty country. It sucks that I was fortunate enough to be born into a free country with great opportunity, and that you weren't. I hope that your country changes, and I hope that my country changes its laws so that good people can find good homes here easily. But that hasn't happened yet, and you're not supposed to be here.
Go home, find the application office for an American work visa, and get in line. While you're there, look for Maria...I'm praying she's up near the front.
Good luck,
Justin
---
Peace,
Justin
I have written a number of posts, edited them, and deleted them...all because I'm not sure how to say what I want to say on this very difficult and inflammatory issue, about which I am extremely emotionally connected.
All to no avail. So...on the excellent advice of my friend Steve...I've promised myself I'm just gonna write it and let it be what it is. Here is what I've been trying to say:
...
...I think being an illegal should be illegal.
...
...
...there, I've said it.
Whew...that feels better.
I'll expound a little.
I tend to think of myself as a liberal, progressive, dare I say Democratic kind of guy. I tend to think that I'm a compassionate kind of guy...at least in certain squishy areas of humankind. I also tend to think that I tend to speak without thinking, so I took some extra time to think about this one before I started speaking. And I still think being an illegal should be illegal.
If you've turned on the TV...or the radio...or the newspaper...(let that one go)...you've surely seen the great debate on immigration in America. Or, more specifically, the debate on Hispanic immigration into America. Nobody seems too concerned about the extraordinary number of people from India, or Korea, or China, or Eastern Africa who are streaming into the United States. And there's a perfectly good reason for that...
...they came here legally.
What's pissing everybody off is that people from Cuba are floating in on rafts, people from the D.R. are stowing away in the bottoms of freighters, and people from Mexico are t across the border in the middle of the night to get into this country. And get in they are...to the tune of an estimated 700% growth in illegal Hispanics living in the U.S. over the last ten years.
...wait, I'm not done. That part isn't pissing everybody off. In fact, as you may have noticed, illegal Hispanic workers have been living in the U.S. for quite some time, and doing a fine job at it. I don't know who was legal and who was illegal, but I know that Hispanic workers with very little English at their disposal have cooked my meals, mowed the lawn where I work, constructed my gym, cleaned my hotel rooms, delivered my Chinese food (which was a strange surprise), and so much more. And you didn't hear me complaining. They work cheap, they work hard, and they seemed happy enough.
That's where we get to the part where everybody is pissed off.
The seemed happy enough...for a while. And then, protests started. Protests about equal pay for equal work, protests about getting social services and schooling for the children of illegal immigrants, protests about minimum wage increases...and...here's my very favorite...protests about the U.S. Government's attempt to enforce and toughen immigration laws.
You know what, let's change the POV here to make things easier...
---
The following is an open lettter to pissed off illegal Hispanic immigrants:
---
Dear pissed off illegal Hispanic immigrants,
Thank you for doing all that hard work for me. You do really good work...truthfully, you do better work than I would have done, and you worked twice as hard without complaining. Thank you for doing that...I'm really glad that you chose to do that work, and I'm thankful that I could benefit from your tremendous work ethic.
However, I'm a bit concerned. You see...you're not supposed to be here. I know it sounds insensitive and elitist...but I'm actually just telling you what the law says. The law says that you're not supposed to be here. It says that you're welcome in this country...as tired and/or poor as you may be...and that you may come and work our fertile lands to make your living. All you have to do is what everyone else on the planet who wants to come and work in America has to...you have to apply, and you have to be accepted. I'm sorry that we let you make your living here without kicking you out sooner, because I can see why you'd get the impression you had the right to be here after a few years of nobody saying anything. That was our bad. But now you need to go home.
You see, I have a good friend named Maria. Maria is a brilliant woman, and a gifted lawyer. She wants to move to America from Peru so she can be a lawyer in the US and make a life for herself here. She went to school here on an educational visa, she fell in love with an American man, and now she wants to work here. She applied for a work visa and was denied, unfortunately, so she went back to Peru where she now waits for a chance to return to America, see her love again, and try to get a visa again. She's playing by the rules, and it hurts her. My prayer is that she gets her visa, moves here, and gets married to that man. My hope is that she may even some day wish to be a citizen of the US, though I will always respect her even if she doesn't.
So, here's the thing...I don't think you should be here. You weren't invited, you weren't cleared, and you sure as heck weren't approved for a work visa. In fact, we did everything we could to keep you out...we spent millions and millions of dollars building fences and hiring guys to drive up and down the border, just so you wouldn't come. But you made it through our fences, and you made it past our guards, and somehow you made your way into your current job. I admire your courage and your resolve...but you still shouldn't be here. This isn't "Red Rover"...just because you made it across the border and through the locked arms of the patrol doesn't mean you get to stay on this side. You don't get to stay, you don't get to work, and you sure as shit don't get to live off our social services.
You are here against the laws of this country. You broke the law, and like any other resident of the US who breaks the law, you are subject to consequences. You can march in the streets, sing our anthem in your language, and fly your flag above ours...you may be as polite or rude as you like (that's the beauty of our first amendment), but you're still here illegally. And until we make running over the border in the middle of the night a legal shortcut to the immigration process, you will remain illegal.
It sucks that you come from a shitty country. It sucks that I was fortunate enough to be born into a free country with great opportunity, and that you weren't. I hope that your country changes, and I hope that my country changes its laws so that good people can find good homes here easily. But that hasn't happened yet, and you're not supposed to be here.
Go home, find the application office for an American work visa, and get in line. While you're there, look for Maria...I'm praying she's up near the front.
Good luck,
Justin
---
Peace,
Justin
Monday, April 24, 2006
I've been neither funny nor clever in recent days, and as much as I'd like to post my shopping list and a copy of my insurance policy, I thought I'd post something of real content.
This is a blog entry from someone who I don't know who that someone is. Another someone sent it to me, and I thought it was both brilliant and sort of stupid at times. I thought the collective you might like it.
------
When you build up a structure and slap the word church on a sign out front, it becomes very easy for people to forget that church is not a place to go once a week, but rather something that we are. Uh oh, here I go...
Forgive me, but I dont need a weekly program of rehearsed hooky tunes followed by a barrage of announcements and a puffy theological dissertation. I dont need cell groups, home groups, singles groups, young married groups or mens groups. Frankly, I'm pretty grouped out. What I need is fellowship. Not "Fellowship Bible" or "Fellowship Community" or "Fellowship Covenant" or "Fellowship Baptist." I need community. Not "Christ Community" or "Faith Community" or "Real Life Community." And dont get me started on grace. God knows we need that, but not in the form of another catchy church name. I don't need to read another trite quip on a marquis telling me that a church is "prayer conditioned" or that "regular bible check ups prevent truth decay." And I don't need to be professionally greeted at the door of the sanctuary. I need to be known, not counted and alphabetized. After all, Mr. Greeter, is it really nice to see me, or are you just happy to see another seat filled? No, I don't want a bulletin. Associate Pastor Whats-His-Name is going to read it all to me during the prayer-slash-announcement time anyway. Besides, it's a good way for him to squeeze in some face time between "worship" and the offering. Oh excuse me, I mean "tithe" (the word church leadership uses to ensure Gods promises will be fulfilled to His people). The "freedom isn't free" sales pitch: Freedom comes at a cost! And that cost is 10 percent of everything you have. But if you're a guest, please don't feel obligated to give (only members should feel obligated). Excuse me, do you not see that we are clinging so desperately to these laws that Jesus [admittedly] lived to fulfill, but also bled and died to free us from? James says if you take on one law you must carry the weight of the entire law on your shoulders. Brothers and sisters, that is not a burden we were meant to carry in light of the finishing work of Christ! Tithe is merely a control device for leaders who can't trust the work of the Holy Spirit in the Body if Christ (or who don't understand that we have been freed from those regulations and rules). It's the same thing they did back in the early church with circumcision. Am I saying we shouldn't give? By no means! The apostle Paul has plenty to say about that. He said that we should excel in the grace of giving just as we excel in the other good gifts (he also had a teensy weensy tiny bit to say about the end of the law too, which includes the mandate of tithing). I didn't want to get started on tithe. Guess its too late for that. This is not merely a piece on tithing. Rather, it is a satirical challenge issued to the prodigal church of America.
You see, we don't need churches with schedules to keep, fundraisers to promote, and people to reintroduce to life under law. No thanks. I'm over that. What I need is a safe place for people who know each other intimately and, at a moments notice, can lay hands on one other and exercise their gifts with confidence and without fear. Gifts like prophecy and healing. It isn't wrong for me to desire a place where I can come to be prayed over without the formality of a scheduled altar call at the end of a service. Besides, what kind of service is it to erect a building and obligate everyone to come and help pay the utility bills, outrageous mortgages, expansion funds, and salaries (for a staff who claims to equip, but mostly enables laziness amongst the members by doing all the work for them) when there are congregants who can't find healing from a common cold, let alone afford to pay their own rent? And when we do attempt to reach out to those people, we stamp our church brand all over the project and piously advertise our "mission."
Is that authenticity? Yes, it is very authentic. But I can take you out in my back yard and show you something very authentic that my dog left behind - and no amount of clever marketing will make it stink any less. We don't need authenticity. We need truth. And truth is not a marketing strategy. It is not programmed. Truth is only a formula when it is math. The gospel is not math. It is not an equation. It is mystery - mystery revealed in the person of Christ our Deliverer, who never prepared a four point sermon, rented out a billboard, or handed out a tract. He taught, he corrected, he rebuked, he interacted, he had compassion, he healed, he prayed, he studied, he believed in others, he cared for the poor, he had close friends who knew him well, and he looked people in the eyes simply because he took the time to. But most of all, he loved. And that's the truth.
-----
What do you think?
Peace,
Justin
This is a blog entry from someone who I don't know who that someone is. Another someone sent it to me, and I thought it was both brilliant and sort of stupid at times. I thought the collective you might like it.
------
When you build up a structure and slap the word church on a sign out front, it becomes very easy for people to forget that church is not a place to go once a week, but rather something that we are. Uh oh, here I go...
Forgive me, but I dont need a weekly program of rehearsed hooky tunes followed by a barrage of announcements and a puffy theological dissertation. I dont need cell groups, home groups, singles groups, young married groups or mens groups. Frankly, I'm pretty grouped out. What I need is fellowship. Not "Fellowship Bible" or "Fellowship Community" or "Fellowship Covenant" or "Fellowship Baptist." I need community. Not "Christ Community" or "Faith Community" or "Real Life Community." And dont get me started on grace. God knows we need that, but not in the form of another catchy church name. I don't need to read another trite quip on a marquis telling me that a church is "prayer conditioned" or that "regular bible check ups prevent truth decay." And I don't need to be professionally greeted at the door of the sanctuary. I need to be known, not counted and alphabetized. After all, Mr. Greeter, is it really nice to see me, or are you just happy to see another seat filled? No, I don't want a bulletin. Associate Pastor Whats-His-Name is going to read it all to me during the prayer-slash-announcement time anyway. Besides, it's a good way for him to squeeze in some face time between "worship" and the offering. Oh excuse me, I mean "tithe" (the word church leadership uses to ensure Gods promises will be fulfilled to His people). The "freedom isn't free" sales pitch: Freedom comes at a cost! And that cost is 10 percent of everything you have. But if you're a guest, please don't feel obligated to give (only members should feel obligated). Excuse me, do you not see that we are clinging so desperately to these laws that Jesus [admittedly] lived to fulfill, but also bled and died to free us from? James says if you take on one law you must carry the weight of the entire law on your shoulders. Brothers and sisters, that is not a burden we were meant to carry in light of the finishing work of Christ! Tithe is merely a control device for leaders who can't trust the work of the Holy Spirit in the Body if Christ (or who don't understand that we have been freed from those regulations and rules). It's the same thing they did back in the early church with circumcision. Am I saying we shouldn't give? By no means! The apostle Paul has plenty to say about that. He said that we should excel in the grace of giving just as we excel in the other good gifts (he also had a teensy weensy tiny bit to say about the end of the law too, which includes the mandate of tithing). I didn't want to get started on tithe. Guess its too late for that. This is not merely a piece on tithing. Rather, it is a satirical challenge issued to the prodigal church of America.
You see, we don't need churches with schedules to keep, fundraisers to promote, and people to reintroduce to life under law. No thanks. I'm over that. What I need is a safe place for people who know each other intimately and, at a moments notice, can lay hands on one other and exercise their gifts with confidence and without fear. Gifts like prophecy and healing. It isn't wrong for me to desire a place where I can come to be prayed over without the formality of a scheduled altar call at the end of a service. Besides, what kind of service is it to erect a building and obligate everyone to come and help pay the utility bills, outrageous mortgages, expansion funds, and salaries (for a staff who claims to equip, but mostly enables laziness amongst the members by doing all the work for them) when there are congregants who can't find healing from a common cold, let alone afford to pay their own rent? And when we do attempt to reach out to those people, we stamp our church brand all over the project and piously advertise our "mission."
Is that authenticity? Yes, it is very authentic. But I can take you out in my back yard and show you something very authentic that my dog left behind - and no amount of clever marketing will make it stink any less. We don't need authenticity. We need truth. And truth is not a marketing strategy. It is not programmed. Truth is only a formula when it is math. The gospel is not math. It is not an equation. It is mystery - mystery revealed in the person of Christ our Deliverer, who never prepared a four point sermon, rented out a billboard, or handed out a tract. He taught, he corrected, he rebuked, he interacted, he had compassion, he healed, he prayed, he studied, he believed in others, he cared for the poor, he had close friends who knew him well, and he looked people in the eyes simply because he took the time to. But most of all, he loved. And that's the truth.
-----
What do you think?
Peace,
Justin
Monday, April 10, 2006
I just had a terrifying dream.
I tend to dream vividly, and, fortunately, I tend to demonstrate no hint of a gift for prophecy in my dreaming. Which is comforting when you have the dream I just woke up from.
Bear with me...it may be hard to follow...
I dreamt that I was on a gameshow. I don't remember much about the gameshow, other than at the very end, it was possible to run up a giant ramp and grab a big TV and slide down with it. (Your prize was that you got to keep the TV). My brothers and I were competing as a team on this show, and I was the last to go. I ran as fast as I could, I grabbed the TV, and I got it back before the buzzer. (This is not the bad part of the dream). I handed it to my older brother and we all celebrated.
Then, something happened. I don't remember precisely what, but something. Somebody criticized me for not doing it fast enough, I think. I was hurt, and yelled back. Fine, no big deal. But the conversation escalated into a full-blown argument, which escalated into a full-blown fight. Once again, I don't remember why, and I don't think it matters much why. All I know, is I felt a rage boiling up in me, and I'm pretty sure that's why I had the dream in the first place...to address that feeling. Our verbal fight soon became a physical confrontation, and my twin brother, at this point, was smart enough to walk away. That left me and my older brother. I felt like he painted me into a corner...he had called me irresponsible and foolish, and had threatened to prove it to everyone I knew. The only thing I had left was my weight to push around, so I did. I attacked him, and I did so viciously. It was a good fight, and it should have been a fair fight...it was on paper, anyway. I did not significantly out-strength or out-skill him...it's just that I was so angry, I went nuts on him...and really hurt him. And I was glad.
...I wish the story ended there. I love my brother very much, and that was bad enough. But it didn't end there....
...On the way out the door, as my brother lay beaten on the floor behind me, I ran into a friend of mine. My friend is a she and she is a good friend and a good person. She asked what was going on, and I tried to explain why what had happened was totally reasonable and how I was pushed to it. She became frightened and angry and...worst of all...disappointed in me. She began to yell at me and even worse, I could see in her eyes that she didn't trust me. (BTW, I'm fairly sure she represented Stacy...because while I like this friend and all, I don't have the sort of heart investment in her that would make this dream as scary as it was. My guess is that my subconscious couldn't handle the thought of this being Stacy, so it made the nightmare more bearable by making it someone else). She saw me as a different person, and despite all of the relationship equity that we had built up over the years, it was all forgotten because of one bad choice. She threatened to tell everyone what a monster I was. I felt painted into a corner. I was angry, hurt, and felt trapped. (Are you seeing a pattern yet?) She tried to leave...so I hit her.
...I couldn't believe it. This strange gameshow dream had turned into a horrible nightmare...and it wasn't a nightmare where I'm chased by a knife-weilding psycho or confronted by an armed mugger on a dark street. In this dream, the psycho was me, the mugger was me...and that was even more terrifying.
I hit her twice. She fell to the ground, bruised and a little bloody, and yelled for help. Nobody came. As soon as I had done it, I knew it was wrong, and I immediately begun to apologize. I tried to help her up, but it was too late...she wouldn't let me come near her (and with good reason). She called the police from her cell phone. My she called my twin brother, and my parents, and even a couple of friends of mine who are much, much bigger than I am...just to protect her from me. They showed up, they comforted her, and they told me how despicable and disgusting I am. They stared at me with disappointed and hateful eyes. A couple of the men threatened to kill me if they ever heard that I did this again. In short, they did what I would do if I heard this about someone I knew.
The last thing I remember is my twin brother looking at me with a hurt, anger and disappointment and saying, "you're disgusting." That's when I woke up, and that's when I started to write this blog entry.
...please bear in mind, I have NEVER hit my wife. Nor any other woman. I haven't even been in a fight with another man for years. I am, for the most part, a gentle person who keeps his fists reserved to the punching bag, not for hurting others. I have never hit a woman, and that's part of why this bothered me so much. Why would I have a dream like this? Am I secretly a wife-beating husband? Am I harboring some deep resentment I don't know about? Am I truly dangerous?
This was a horrible dream. I woke up sweating and scared. I want to dismiss it and forget it, but my mind doesn't work that way. The best way to deal with it, for me, was to write it down. So I have.
I scared myself this morning.
Peace,
Justin
I tend to dream vividly, and, fortunately, I tend to demonstrate no hint of a gift for prophecy in my dreaming. Which is comforting when you have the dream I just woke up from.
Bear with me...it may be hard to follow...
I dreamt that I was on a gameshow. I don't remember much about the gameshow, other than at the very end, it was possible to run up a giant ramp and grab a big TV and slide down with it. (Your prize was that you got to keep the TV). My brothers and I were competing as a team on this show, and I was the last to go. I ran as fast as I could, I grabbed the TV, and I got it back before the buzzer. (This is not the bad part of the dream). I handed it to my older brother and we all celebrated.
Then, something happened. I don't remember precisely what, but something. Somebody criticized me for not doing it fast enough, I think. I was hurt, and yelled back. Fine, no big deal. But the conversation escalated into a full-blown argument, which escalated into a full-blown fight. Once again, I don't remember why, and I don't think it matters much why. All I know, is I felt a rage boiling up in me, and I'm pretty sure that's why I had the dream in the first place...to address that feeling. Our verbal fight soon became a physical confrontation, and my twin brother, at this point, was smart enough to walk away. That left me and my older brother. I felt like he painted me into a corner...he had called me irresponsible and foolish, and had threatened to prove it to everyone I knew. The only thing I had left was my weight to push around, so I did. I attacked him, and I did so viciously. It was a good fight, and it should have been a fair fight...it was on paper, anyway. I did not significantly out-strength or out-skill him...it's just that I was so angry, I went nuts on him...and really hurt him. And I was glad.
...I wish the story ended there. I love my brother very much, and that was bad enough. But it didn't end there....
...On the way out the door, as my brother lay beaten on the floor behind me, I ran into a friend of mine. My friend is a she and she is a good friend and a good person. She asked what was going on, and I tried to explain why what had happened was totally reasonable and how I was pushed to it. She became frightened and angry and...worst of all...disappointed in me. She began to yell at me and even worse, I could see in her eyes that she didn't trust me. (BTW, I'm fairly sure she represented Stacy...because while I like this friend and all, I don't have the sort of heart investment in her that would make this dream as scary as it was. My guess is that my subconscious couldn't handle the thought of this being Stacy, so it made the nightmare more bearable by making it someone else). She saw me as a different person, and despite all of the relationship equity that we had built up over the years, it was all forgotten because of one bad choice. She threatened to tell everyone what a monster I was. I felt painted into a corner. I was angry, hurt, and felt trapped. (Are you seeing a pattern yet?) She tried to leave...so I hit her.
...I couldn't believe it. This strange gameshow dream had turned into a horrible nightmare...and it wasn't a nightmare where I'm chased by a knife-weilding psycho or confronted by an armed mugger on a dark street. In this dream, the psycho was me, the mugger was me...and that was even more terrifying.
I hit her twice. She fell to the ground, bruised and a little bloody, and yelled for help. Nobody came. As soon as I had done it, I knew it was wrong, and I immediately begun to apologize. I tried to help her up, but it was too late...she wouldn't let me come near her (and with good reason). She called the police from her cell phone. My she called my twin brother, and my parents, and even a couple of friends of mine who are much, much bigger than I am...just to protect her from me. They showed up, they comforted her, and they told me how despicable and disgusting I am. They stared at me with disappointed and hateful eyes. A couple of the men threatened to kill me if they ever heard that I did this again. In short, they did what I would do if I heard this about someone I knew.
The last thing I remember is my twin brother looking at me with a hurt, anger and disappointment and saying, "you're disgusting." That's when I woke up, and that's when I started to write this blog entry.
...please bear in mind, I have NEVER hit my wife. Nor any other woman. I haven't even been in a fight with another man for years. I am, for the most part, a gentle person who keeps his fists reserved to the punching bag, not for hurting others. I have never hit a woman, and that's part of why this bothered me so much. Why would I have a dream like this? Am I secretly a wife-beating husband? Am I harboring some deep resentment I don't know about? Am I truly dangerous?
This was a horrible dream. I woke up sweating and scared. I want to dismiss it and forget it, but my mind doesn't work that way. The best way to deal with it, for me, was to write it down. So I have.
I scared myself this morning.
Peace,
Justin
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
I'll give you... a space western is stupid.
...That's why it surprised me so much when I fell spurs-over-lasers in love with one.
Truthfully, I only kind of like cowboy flicks (save for Young Guns II and Tombstone...pseudo-cowboy, but fine filmmaking), and I really can't tolerate science-fiction. Star Wars makes me angry, Star Trek bores me and Star Crunch tastes like chocolate-covered boogers. (OK, I like Star Crunch, and it tastes nothing like boogers, but points are best made in threes).
So, when my friend Allan told me to pop in a DVD of a failed TV series from 2002 called "Firefly," I kept waiting for the punchline. However, it was better than editing the video I was supposed to be editing at the time, so I tuned in.
Holy....
...
....shit.
I have never loved a television series more. I have never had more heart investment, more head investment, and more wallet investment in a television series. I've bought the series DVD set twice, I bought the movie version twice (which we'll get to in a minute), I bought the comic book, and...good lord...I even bought the action figures. I love each of the ten principal characters with an interest that borders on perversion, when you consider that all of them are fictional, and when you consider that one of them is a spaceship. I've found myself using words like "Warp drive," "Grav-boot," and "Pert Near" in casual conversation. I've even cussed in Chinese once, which may seem odd, but it makes sense when you see the show. I listen to the podcasts about the show, I keep up with websites about the show, and I'm even a member of a couple of them.
I...am...a...geek.
I didn't mean to be. I've actually been in a six-month-long get-cooler regimen, including new clothes, frequent haircuts, and a scented spray I'm told is made of toilet water. This regimen isn't actually making me any cooler, but at least it's expensive. But this whole "Firefly" thing is really screwing things up.
It's the writing more than anything. The writing is so....so....so well-done. The writer, Joss Whedon, writes like I would if I were twice as smart and thrice as clever. It's deep...it's meaningful. Like, actually meaningful...it's about God, it's about family, it's about love, it's about trust, fear, gender roles, free speech, prostitution, God, the government, and sometimes it's about guns. The acting is almost entirely brilliant, with some exceptions, and even those exceptions are poorly-acted resucitated by well-written.
The show was cancelled because nobody watched it. Nobody watched it because it was on against something that was apparently much more interesting, and because Fox made them play the episodes out of order, so they made no sense. It also failed because "Space Western" is a pretty stupid idea.
But it worked. It totally worked. It is powerful, and it is profound.
The show failed, but the fans spread the word. They did such a good job, that the DVD sales of the failed show (it lasted less than a season) blew away expectations. They had to do a second and a third run...they flew off the shelves, and as word spread, they did more flying. They sold so many that Universal Studios picked up the failed (now extremely profitable) TV show and did the unprecendented and unthinkable...they made a big-budget movie out of it. The movie is called "Serenity," and it's a phenomenon.
Please please go rent the movie. If you can't rent it, borrow it from me. If you don't know me, buy it on Amazon. Better yet, buy the series. Watch at least three episodes. If you don't like it after that, I'll buy it from you.
I hate science fiction. I love Firefly. Go see Serenity, go and buy Firefly.
Now, I have some geekdom to get to.
Peace,
Justin
...That's why it surprised me so much when I fell spurs-over-lasers in love with one.
Truthfully, I only kind of like cowboy flicks (save for Young Guns II and Tombstone...pseudo-cowboy, but fine filmmaking), and I really can't tolerate science-fiction. Star Wars makes me angry, Star Trek bores me and Star Crunch tastes like chocolate-covered boogers. (OK, I like Star Crunch, and it tastes nothing like boogers, but points are best made in threes).
So, when my friend Allan told me to pop in a DVD of a failed TV series from 2002 called "Firefly," I kept waiting for the punchline. However, it was better than editing the video I was supposed to be editing at the time, so I tuned in.
Holy....
...
....shit.
I have never loved a television series more. I have never had more heart investment, more head investment, and more wallet investment in a television series. I've bought the series DVD set twice, I bought the movie version twice (which we'll get to in a minute), I bought the comic book, and...good lord...I even bought the action figures. I love each of the ten principal characters with an interest that borders on perversion, when you consider that all of them are fictional, and when you consider that one of them is a spaceship. I've found myself using words like "Warp drive," "Grav-boot," and "Pert Near" in casual conversation. I've even cussed in Chinese once, which may seem odd, but it makes sense when you see the show. I listen to the podcasts about the show, I keep up with websites about the show, and
I...am...a...geek.
I didn't mean to be. I've actually been in a six-month-long get-cooler regimen, including new clothes, frequent haircuts, and a scented spray I'm told is made of toilet water. This regimen isn't actually making me any cooler, but at least it's expensive. But this whole "Firefly" thing is really screwing things up.
It's the writing more than anything. The writing is so....so....so well-done. The writer, Joss Whedon, writes like I would if I were twice as smart and thrice as clever. It's deep...it's meaningful. Like, actually meaningful...it's about God, it's about family, it's about love, it's about trust, fear, gender roles, free speech, prostitution, God, the government, and sometimes it's about guns. The acting is almost entirely brilliant, with some exceptions, and even those exceptions are poorly-acted resucitated by well-written.
The show was cancelled because nobody watched it. Nobody watched it because it was on against something that was apparently much more interesting, and because Fox made them play the episodes out of order, so they made no sense. It also failed because "Space Western" is a pretty stupid idea.
But it worked. It totally worked. It is powerful, and it is profound.
The show failed, but the fans spread the word. They did such a good job, that the DVD sales of the failed show (it lasted less than a season) blew away expectations. They had to do a second and a third run...they flew off the shelves, and as word spread, they did more flying. They sold so many that Universal Studios picked up the failed (now extremely profitable) TV show and did the unprecendented and unthinkable...they made a big-budget movie out of it. The movie is called "Serenity," and it's a phenomenon.
Please please go rent the movie. If you can't rent it, borrow it from me. If you don't know me, buy it on Amazon. Better yet, buy the series. Watch at least three episodes. If you don't like it after that, I'll buy it from you.
I hate science fiction. I love Firefly. Go see Serenity, go and buy Firefly.
Now, I have some geekdom to get to.
Peace,
Justin
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Transvestites make the best freaking moccachinos.
...at least, that's been my experience.
Yesterday, Stacy and I followed the advice of a good friend to check out the isolated little burg of Yellow Springs, Ohio. It's about an hour northeast of Cincy, and is the home to Antioch College, WYSO, and Dave Chappelle. It is also a little island of liberal thought in an otherwise uber-conservative state. The "downtown" area consists of about three blocks of shops, most of which sell batiked scarves and Indian jewelry and incense holders and....err-hmm...tobacco water-pipes. It's a little hippie paradise with a terrific record store, a tasty place to get a veggie burrito, and a lot of women with nose piercings. It was, in short, a very cool place to be.
It is also home to a very tall man who dresses in women's clothing as he serves coffee drinks at the Mermaid Cafe and Bookstore. He stands probably 6'2", wears a long brown wig, has yellowed teeth and a baritone voice, was donning a string of pearls and bracelet to match, and sported a flower-print dress that June Cleaver would have envied. He was very kind, well-spoken, and friendly...and he made a hell of a moccachino. (I'm referring to this person as "he," by the way, because I'm not certain if he would consider himself a "transvestite" [man dressing as a woman] or a "transgendered person" [woman stuck in a man's body]...and I never got to asking his name, because the only reason I wanted to know was out of morbid curiosity...and that seemed exploitative to me). He served several other customers while I was there, and nobody really had anything to say about it...or even seemed surprised or taken aback by this very tall man in women's clothing.
...and, for some reason...this made me feel quite proud of this little town.
I have heard Yellow Springs and its university anchor, Antioch, referred to as "progressive" on several occasions. This is usually spoken to mean "open-minded," "non-traditional," "having a diversity of thought" and...most accurately, I think, "liberal." That is to say, reflecting the values of social and political liberalism...
read as: ...save the environment, local business is better than big-business, the government can't be trusted, political activism is the highest form of patriotism, feed the poor, use less, live communally when you can, women should have the right to choose, being gay is just fine thank you, have a veggie burrito...etc., etc.
These things are called "progressive," implying that subscribing to these ideologies is more than just a choice that a person makes, for better or for worse...but that it is actual progress. That this an ascent of sorts...someone who lands on these believes has progressed from a less-evolved state of being to a more-evolved state.
...Here's where I'm headed with this.
I was proud of this "progressive" little town, with it's "progressive" little cafe run by a crossdresser, because I think deep down, I do believe that this is progress. I think I agree with those who call it "progressive" to have a town where a man can dress as a woman and still keep a job and still sell coffee and not be mocked or laughed or shunned day after day. Now, I'm certain that the guy at Mermaid's has had his share of ridicule...but I saw nothing but smiles and friendly faces buying books and coffee from him for the 90 minutes I was there. It was as if this was ...gasp... OK. And, that was heartening to me...it was encouraging.
I don't know whether or not crossdressing is morally wrong. I don't even know if that's a fair question. I think a better question is, "is it healthy for that person?" For instance...if his gender-identity issues had driven him to the point of suicide...and he instead opted to simply embrace his feminine side and dress as a woman in order to carry on with his life...it's hard for me to call that wrong....I'd call choosing a string of pearls and a pair of panty hose over a bullet pretty damned healthy. However, if he dresses like that in order to avoid dealing with some very deep hurt that needs addressing...if he's using it as a crutch to stave off the sense that he has to deal with the tough stuff of his past...then I would suggest it is unhealthy. Either way, I don't know that it's a matter of right and wrong...more a matter of what is going to bring this person closer to God and to his own personal mission.
If that's the case...and I'm perfectly aware that you may not be convinced it is...then why should he be ridiculed? Why should be shamed, ousted, or even encouraged to change his ways? To love people where they are, while still encouraging them towards the things that will bring them closer to God, seemed to be Jesus's way. I want to live that way. I want to live as a person who does not judge or condemn others, but helps them to discern what is most healthy and likely to reconnect them with God. Sometimes, this may mean a "tough love" approach of telling people that the choices they are making are not healthy, but I suspect that most advice needs to be worked out on an individual basis...not as a blanket rule of "activity x is morally wrong" or "activity x is morally acceptable."
It's possible that the guy working behind the counter at the Mermaid Cafe in Yellow Springs is living the healthiest possible life he can right now...and that that healthy life involves doing something I don't understand and can't possibly empathize with...dressing as a woman. I hope that I would always walk into a situation like that wanting to understand him first, and then, if allowed, to help him find whatever is most likely to bring him closer to God...without self-righteous judgement, without condemnation, without ridicule. To me...that sounds a great deal like progress.
Peace,
Justin
P.S. - Let's face it, I am quite judgemental...my previous posts should make that abundantly clear. I'm just judgemental about other issues. As much as I'd like to be the loving, Jesusesque guy described above...well, I'm not. But I'm working on it.
...at least, that's been my experience.
Yesterday, Stacy and I followed the advice of a good friend to check out the isolated little burg of Yellow Springs, Ohio. It's about an hour northeast of Cincy, and is the home to Antioch College, WYSO, and Dave Chappelle. It is also a little island of liberal thought in an otherwise uber-conservative state. The "downtown" area consists of about three blocks of shops, most of which sell batiked scarves and Indian jewelry and incense holders and....err-hmm...tobacco water-pipes. It's a little hippie paradise with a terrific record store, a tasty place to get a veggie burrito, and a lot of women with nose piercings. It was, in short, a very cool place to be.
It is also home to a very tall man who dresses in women's clothing as he serves coffee drinks at the Mermaid Cafe and Bookstore. He stands probably 6'2", wears a long brown wig, has yellowed teeth and a baritone voice, was donning a string of pearls and bracelet to match, and sported a flower-print dress that June Cleaver would have envied. He was very kind, well-spoken, and friendly...and he made a hell of a moccachino. (I'm referring to this person as "he," by the way, because I'm not certain if he would consider himself a "transvestite" [man dressing as a woman] or a "transgendered person" [woman stuck in a man's body]...and I never got to asking his name, because the only reason I wanted to know was out of morbid curiosity...and that seemed exploitative to me). He served several other customers while I was there, and nobody really had anything to say about it...or even seemed surprised or taken aback by this very tall man in women's clothing.
...and, for some reason...this made me feel quite proud of this little town.
I have heard Yellow Springs and its university anchor, Antioch, referred to as "progressive" on several occasions. This is usually spoken to mean "open-minded," "non-traditional," "having a diversity of thought" and...most accurately, I think, "liberal." That is to say, reflecting the values of social and political liberalism...
read as: ...save the environment, local business is better than big-business, the government can't be trusted, political activism is the highest form of patriotism, feed the poor, use less, live communally when you can, women should have the right to choose, being gay is just fine thank you, have a veggie burrito...etc., etc.
These things are called "progressive," implying that subscribing to these ideologies is more than just a choice that a person makes, for better or for worse...but that it is actual progress. That this an ascent of sorts...someone who lands on these believes has progressed from a less-evolved state of being to a more-evolved state.
...Here's where I'm headed with this.
I was proud of this "progressive" little town, with it's "progressive" little cafe run by a crossdresser, because I think deep down, I do believe that this is progress. I think I agree with those who call it "progressive" to have a town where a man can dress as a woman and still keep a job and still sell coffee and not be mocked or laughed or shunned day after day. Now, I'm certain that the guy at Mermaid's has had his share of ridicule...but I saw nothing but smiles and friendly faces buying books and coffee from him for the 90 minutes I was there. It was as if this was ...gasp... OK. And, that was heartening to me...it was encouraging.
I don't know whether or not crossdressing is morally wrong. I don't even know if that's a fair question. I think a better question is, "is it healthy for that person?" For instance...if his gender-identity issues had driven him to the point of suicide...and he instead opted to simply embrace his feminine side and dress as a woman in order to carry on with his life...it's hard for me to call that wrong....I'd call choosing a string of pearls and a pair of panty hose over a bullet pretty damned healthy. However, if he dresses like that in order to avoid dealing with some very deep hurt that needs addressing...if he's using it as a crutch to stave off the sense that he has to deal with the tough stuff of his past...then I would suggest it is unhealthy. Either way, I don't know that it's a matter of right and wrong...more a matter of what is going to bring this person closer to God and to his own personal mission.
If that's the case...and I'm perfectly aware that you may not be convinced it is...then why should he be ridiculed? Why should be shamed, ousted, or even encouraged to change his ways? To love people where they are, while still encouraging them towards the things that will bring them closer to God, seemed to be Jesus's way. I want to live that way. I want to live as a person who does not judge or condemn others, but helps them to discern what is most healthy and likely to reconnect them with God. Sometimes, this may mean a "tough love" approach of telling people that the choices they are making are not healthy, but I suspect that most advice needs to be worked out on an individual basis...not as a blanket rule of "activity x is morally wrong" or "activity x is morally acceptable."
It's possible that the guy working behind the counter at the Mermaid Cafe in Yellow Springs is living the healthiest possible life he can right now...and that that healthy life involves doing something I don't understand and can't possibly empathize with...dressing as a woman. I hope that I would always walk into a situation like that wanting to understand him first, and then, if allowed, to help him find whatever is most likely to bring him closer to God...without self-righteous judgement, without condemnation, without ridicule. To me...that sounds a great deal like progress.
Peace,
Justin
P.S. - Let's face it, I am quite judgemental...my previous posts should make that abundantly clear. I'm just judgemental about other issues. As much as I'd like to be the loving, Jesusesque guy described above...well, I'm not. But I'm working on it.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
I don't claim to know much about politics.
Whatever it is that I might know about one political happening or another I learn in one of two ways:
1. By catching it on Morning Edition on NPR. Morning Edition is my way of both getting a healthy dose of intellectual-sounding words in my head before I get to work, and getting just enough liberal crap in my head to offset all of the conservative crap I hear on my radio alarm clock, which is tuned to AM talk radio. My hope is that I’m fairly moderate, or at least appropriately confused, before I get to work.
2. By reading the free New York Times or USA Today that gets left on the doorstep of my hotel rooms. I don’t know how they decide which one to leave me on any given day, but I’m starting to collect some quantitative data on that, and so far I have linked it to whether or not I rehang my bathroom towels.
And, true to my form, despite having a breadth of political knowledge that resembles a Necco wafer, I tend to spout off about it a lot. So, in that vein, here are my honest positions on issues that make people angry:
The Death Penalty: If I could write a slogan more clever than this one, which I saw once on a bumper sticker outside of a Catholic school, I would: “It seems wrong to me to kill people who kill people to show people that killing people is wrong.” The death penalty is not a deterrent, it’s not a cost-saver, and the only person it seems to stop is the guy strapped into the chair. The defenseless guy strapped into the chair. The fact that we’re killing people based on our legal system, which is biased, influenced, affected, racist and flawed (as any legal system is) really really freaks me out. Since the birth of DNA evidence analysis, more than 60 inmates have been released from death row. Just… …think… …about… …that…
Abortion: For all of you who are waiting for this Christian to say something right-wingy and intolerant about how cruel and awful abortion is…
…you’re right on time. Abortion is cruel and awful. I’m a little mixed on situations where the mother’s life is in danger, because then it’s kill one person or kill another…but babies, unborn or otherwise, are people, and they deserve the same chance to screw up or champion their lives as the rest of us do.
Homosexuality: I don’t know if being gay is wrong. I think most gay folks are born gay, and I’m guessing a few other folks subconsciously become gay because of one reason or another, and very very few choose to be gay on purpose. The Bible says it’s wrong. My heart says it isn’t. So…what do you do with that? I’ll tell you what you do, if you’re me: you realize that if being gay is wrong then gay people are doing wrong stuff just like I’m doing wrong stuff every day, and that I’m no different…no better or worse or more loved by God or less loved by God…then they are. Bottom line. If you choose to be gay, then you’re a braver man than I’ll ever be…I can’t imagine all that you’d have to put up with. Point is, I’m not better than you are, and I’m no worse. You’re a child of God, not a gay child of God or a straight child of God. Go be gay, don’t be gay, but God loves you and I just the same.
Euthanasia: I respect people’s right to die, and particularly respect their right to kill themselves, so long as they don’t kill or wound anybody else in the process. I think your right to die and your right to your thoughts are just about the only two inalienable rights on the planet, and unless we can prove that you are mentally unfit to make any decisions about your own life or death (such as a jilted lover who, in a fit of depression, goes running to her GP looking for a lethal dose of sodium pentathol). If you’re a cancer patient who is struggling with the pain everyday…or even just a cancer patient who doesn’t want to fight it anymore and is ready to go home…and has carefully thought this out…by all means, Doc, make it happen. Seems contradictory to be so against the death penalty and abortion and so in favor of euthanasia, doesn’t it? The key difference is who is making the choice. I respect your choice to die, though I hope you’ve got a damn good reason.
The President: George W. Bush is a monkey. He is a magical monkey who learned how to talk. I think we should congratulate him. I don’t think he’s immoral…I just think he’s retarded. And not in a cute way, either.
The Bible: I like the Bible. I downright love parts of it. The Bible seems to be the richest fount of knowledge, spiritual insight and historical teaching I’ve read thus far. It tells the story of a man who I believe was/is God, and it does it through the eyes of those that knew him…or, if you believe the Jesus Seminar, those that knew the guys that knew the guys that knew him. I think it is God’s inspired word. With that said, I’m also not entirely sure it’s God’s infallible or uncorrupted inspired word. Every translation is an act of interpretation, and after 3,000+ years, the thing’s been screwed with pretty heavily. I’m not sure that every word in the original text is the inspired word of God, either…but I know that I’m not a competent judge of what is and isn’t God’s inspired word, and that I know that I’ve had parts of the Bible validated by my own first-hand experiences with God…so I know at least some of it is, and I’ve yet to find nonsense in there. The bottom line on the Bible is that it seems to know a hell of a lot more than I do, and if I use my own sense of right and wrong as my sole moral plumb-line, I’m going to end up a morbidly obese sex-crazed drug addict who dies in prison on a car-thieving rap after trying to steal the original KITT. So, I have to look somewhere else….I look to the Bible…but that’s not the end of it. I ask my friends. I ask people smarter than me. I check with my gut. It’s not a great system, but I’ve yet to go to jail, and as far as I know KITT is still in Orlando.
OK, so that was just six issues. But it’s enough controversy for one post. I hope you agree with me, because that means the world looks one more person just like me, which means I stand a better chance of getting a better mortgage loan. But, if you disagree, I hope you post and tell me why. And do it loudly, so I’ll be sure to hear.
Peace,
Justin
Whatever it is that I might know about one political happening or another I learn in one of two ways:
1. By catching it on Morning Edition on NPR. Morning Edition is my way of both getting a healthy dose of intellectual-sounding words in my head before I get to work, and getting just enough liberal crap in my head to offset all of the conservative crap I hear on my radio alarm clock, which is tuned to AM talk radio. My hope is that I’m fairly moderate, or at least appropriately confused, before I get to work.
2. By reading the free New York Times or USA Today that gets left on the doorstep of my hotel rooms. I don’t know how they decide which one to leave me on any given day, but I’m starting to collect some quantitative data on that, and so far I have linked it to whether or not I rehang my bathroom towels.
And, true to my form, despite having a breadth of political knowledge that resembles a Necco wafer, I tend to spout off about it a lot. So, in that vein, here are my honest positions on issues that make people angry:
The Death Penalty: If I could write a slogan more clever than this one, which I saw once on a bumper sticker outside of a Catholic school, I would: “It seems wrong to me to kill people who kill people to show people that killing people is wrong.” The death penalty is not a deterrent, it’s not a cost-saver, and the only person it seems to stop is the guy strapped into the chair. The defenseless guy strapped into the chair. The fact that we’re killing people based on our legal system, which is biased, influenced, affected, racist and flawed (as any legal system is) really really freaks me out. Since the birth of DNA evidence analysis, more than 60 inmates have been released from death row. Just… …think… …about… …that…
Abortion: For all of you who are waiting for this Christian to say something right-wingy and intolerant about how cruel and awful abortion is…
…you’re right on time. Abortion is cruel and awful. I’m a little mixed on situations where the mother’s life is in danger, because then it’s kill one person or kill another…but babies, unborn or otherwise, are people, and they deserve the same chance to screw up or champion their lives as the rest of us do.
Homosexuality: I don’t know if being gay is wrong. I think most gay folks are born gay, and I’m guessing a few other folks subconsciously become gay because of one reason or another, and very very few choose to be gay on purpose. The Bible says it’s wrong. My heart says it isn’t. So…what do you do with that? I’ll tell you what you do, if you’re me: you realize that if being gay is wrong then gay people are doing wrong stuff just like I’m doing wrong stuff every day, and that I’m no different…no better or worse or more loved by God or less loved by God…then they are. Bottom line. If you choose to be gay, then you’re a braver man than I’ll ever be…I can’t imagine all that you’d have to put up with. Point is, I’m not better than you are, and I’m no worse. You’re a child of God, not a gay child of God or a straight child of God. Go be gay, don’t be gay, but God loves you and I just the same.
Euthanasia: I respect people’s right to die, and particularly respect their right to kill themselves, so long as they don’t kill or wound anybody else in the process. I think your right to die and your right to your thoughts are just about the only two inalienable rights on the planet, and unless we can prove that you are mentally unfit to make any decisions about your own life or death (such as a jilted lover who, in a fit of depression, goes running to her GP looking for a lethal dose of sodium pentathol). If you’re a cancer patient who is struggling with the pain everyday…or even just a cancer patient who doesn’t want to fight it anymore and is ready to go home…and has carefully thought this out…by all means, Doc, make it happen. Seems contradictory to be so against the death penalty and abortion and so in favor of euthanasia, doesn’t it? The key difference is who is making the choice. I respect your choice to die, though I hope you’ve got a damn good reason.
The President: George W. Bush is a monkey. He is a magical monkey who learned how to talk. I think we should congratulate him. I don’t think he’s immoral…I just think he’s retarded. And not in a cute way, either.
The Bible: I like the Bible. I downright love parts of it. The Bible seems to be the richest fount of knowledge, spiritual insight and historical teaching I’ve read thus far. It tells the story of a man who I believe was/is God, and it does it through the eyes of those that knew him…or, if you believe the Jesus Seminar, those that knew the guys that knew the guys that knew him. I think it is God’s inspired word. With that said, I’m also not entirely sure it’s God’s infallible or uncorrupted inspired word. Every translation is an act of interpretation, and after 3,000+ years, the thing’s been screwed with pretty heavily. I’m not sure that every word in the original text is the inspired word of God, either…but I know that I’m not a competent judge of what is and isn’t God’s inspired word, and that I know that I’ve had parts of the Bible validated by my own first-hand experiences with God…so I know at least some of it is, and I’ve yet to find nonsense in there. The bottom line on the Bible is that it seems to know a hell of a lot more than I do, and if I use my own sense of right and wrong as my sole moral plumb-line, I’m going to end up a morbidly obese sex-crazed drug addict who dies in prison on a car-thieving rap after trying to steal the original KITT. So, I have to look somewhere else….I look to the Bible…but that’s not the end of it. I ask my friends. I ask people smarter than me. I check with my gut. It’s not a great system, but I’ve yet to go to jail, and as far as I know KITT is still in Orlando.
OK, so that was just six issues. But it’s enough controversy for one post. I hope you agree with me, because that means the world looks one more person just like me, which means I stand a better chance of getting a better mortgage loan. But, if you disagree, I hope you post and tell me why. And do it loudly, so I’ll be sure to hear.
Peace,
Justin
Sunday, February 26, 2006
If, right at this moment, you only have five minutes to read a blog.
Read Ryan Cook's.
Ryan wrote a response to our discussion on how I'm a jerk. He's my friend, and he's the kind of thinker and writer I want to grow up to be.
Peace,
Justin
Read Ryan Cook's.
Ryan wrote a response to our discussion on how I'm a jerk. He's my friend, and he's the kind of thinker and writer I want to grow up to be.
Peace,
Justin
Friday, February 24, 2006
This is a post about epicureanism, about Jesus, and about my dead fish.
I'll start with the latter.
This week, my fish died. He was a Beta, and his name was Sparky. As there was no funeral, please allow me to make my eulogy here.
When we were first married, Stacy and I attended an auction to raise money for my grade school. It was a good auction...we bought two things we couldn't afford for more than they were worth, which means the fundraiser went well. At the end of the night, the final thing to be auctioned off were the centerpieces on each table, which consisted of a rotund vase, filled with polished colored stones, with a green leafy plant poking out of the top and a Beta fish swimming around the plant's watery tendrils. I haven't owned a fish since I was five or so, and I was broke from buying whatever the heck it was we bought...so I was ready to pass. Happy and half-drunk auction attenders quickly snapped the fishy centerpieces up and, one by one, carried the large vases out with the lone fish inside of each sloshing around as its proud new owner toted it out.
As Stacy and I were leaving, a middle-aged woman with too much perfume and a very friendly smile came up to us with her own fish-in-a-jar, and begged us to take it, as her husband didn't seem to want a new pet as much as she did. Sparky had been a pet for all of five minutes, and already he was an orphan being moved into a foster home. Poor guy.
We took him. And for the last four years, he's been with us. He swam his lazy circles while we laughed, while we talked about getting pregnant, while we fought, while we tinked wine glasses to toast our first home purchase, while we celebrated my new job, while we cried over Stacy's first job (long story), and he swam while we did the thing married people do. We fed him as frequently as we remembered to, which probably averaged out to about once every week or so. Stacy changed the bowl water every month...give or take...mostly take. The plant that Sparky shared his bowl with has long since died, but Sparky pressed on. In fact, he pressed on, even when we went on vacation and forgot to feed him for a couple of weeks. He pressed on when we tried to change his water and dropped him on the floor. He pressed on when we moved the bowl to a place where we couldn't see it over the Christmas holiday, and thereby forgot to change the water for a couple of months. He even pressed on when he slipped by the sieve we use when we change his water and dropped right down into the garbage disposal...I had to fish him out with my hand, and he pressed on.
Sparky was a survivor.
And for some reason, that meant a lot to me. I'm not kidding...I really liked Sparky. I liked him more than the cats...which bothers me, because Sparky was free and required no effort at all, and the cats are expensive and loud and, let's face it, they're cats, which sucks. He pressed on, day after day, year after year, and never asked for much. I miss Sparky.
---
This ends the eulogy. And begins the other bit.
---
I had a very strange night a couple of nights ago. I was in Philadelphia working, and met up with a friend in Philly for a beer. Whilst sipping a stout dram of my favorite Scotch draught, two girls approached us and told a very long and complicated lie which I won't bother repeating but which was basically a long, stupid and highly involved pick-up line involving fake names and a greek man who doesn't really exist. As you might imagine, I opted out of the whole, "being picked up" thing. If you are wondering why right now, you haven't read enough of my blog or I haven't blogged enough of my love. I did, however, offer to play "wingman" for my very single friend, who is a bit of a ladies' man. To keep things short and tasteful, I spent the bulk of the evening talking to one girl about my marriage and her recent breakup, and he spent the bulk of the evening getting quite laid. He had a great time, she had a great time, and the girl I spoke with eventually left to meet up with some guys she met in the bar who had cocaine. And thus, the evening ended.
And I woke up the next morning and called my buddy and we had breakfast...and here's the thing...
...he was really happy.
He didn't sit down and say, "My god, man...I knew her for two hours before we had sex...what am I doing with my life?" He didn't say, "Man, I am so unfulfilled...I'm totally just living for myself...where's the bigger picture?" He sure as hell didn't say, "Justin, could you tell me about something better than this...like Jesus?"
In fact, he was really happy. He got to have sex with a pretty girl, and she was really excited about it, and they didn't have to exchange "I love you's" or digits or even learn each other's last names. And that's it. Lots of endorphins and fun and giggling and things that feel good when they touch you. And that was it.
Now don't get me wrong...I love sex. He loves sex. I do it with one person every time, he does it with different people. And that's totally cool with him.
That's what struck me...there was no gaping hole. There was no sense that, at the end of the day, he sits at the end of his bed and feels desperately alone and empty. There was no sense that he's missing a big chunk of his heart that only God could fill. He's a smart, successful, very cool guy, and he seems really generally pretty happy. And I think that's what confuses me so much.
When I was with Young Life ministry, we were told that every person needs Jesus. When I was with the Vineyard, we were told that every person has a God-shaped hole in their hearts/souls that calls out to be filled with what were offering. And those things may be true...but I don't know that I see it. And I don't know that those with the hole feel it as clearly as I assumed.
Truth is, epicureanism seems pretty great. It seems fun, and exciting, and somewhat fulfilling. Living each day as a hedonist seems like a pretty great way to live...and assuming you're not hurting other people, it's pretty hard to argue with. This presents a problem with evangelism as I know it.
How do you talk to someone about filling a hole in their hearts when they don't feel a hole? How do you tell somebody about Jesus's healing power when they don't feel sick? How do you share the story of Jesus fixed a broken you when he doesn't sense a broken him? And what happens when you don't sense a broken him?
I don't have answers. I want to know what you think. Christians speak up. Hedonists speak up. Christian hedonists, speak up. I need to think about this with other people.
Peace,
Justin
I'll start with the latter.
This week, my fish died. He was a Beta, and his name was Sparky. As there was no funeral, please allow me to make my eulogy here.
When we were first married, Stacy and I attended an auction to raise money for my grade school. It was a good auction...we bought two things we couldn't afford for more than they were worth, which means the fundraiser went well. At the end of the night, the final thing to be auctioned off were the centerpieces on each table, which consisted of a rotund vase, filled with polished colored stones, with a green leafy plant poking out of the top and a Beta fish swimming around the plant's watery tendrils. I haven't owned a fish since I was five or so, and I was broke from buying whatever the heck it was we bought...so I was ready to pass. Happy and half-drunk auction attenders quickly snapped the fishy centerpieces up and, one by one, carried the large vases out with the lone fish inside of each sloshing around as its proud new owner toted it out.
As Stacy and I were leaving, a middle-aged woman with too much perfume and a very friendly smile came up to us with her own fish-in-a-jar, and begged us to take it, as her husband didn't seem to want a new pet as much as she did. Sparky had been a pet for all of five minutes, and already he was an orphan being moved into a foster home. Poor guy.
We took him. And for the last four years, he's been with us. He swam his lazy circles while we laughed, while we talked about getting pregnant, while we fought, while we tinked wine glasses to toast our first home purchase, while we celebrated my new job, while we cried over Stacy's first job (long story), and he swam while we did the thing married people do. We fed him as frequently as we remembered to, which probably averaged out to about once every week or so. Stacy changed the bowl water every month...give or take...mostly take. The plant that Sparky shared his bowl with has long since died, but Sparky pressed on. In fact, he pressed on, even when we went on vacation and forgot to feed him for a couple of weeks. He pressed on when we tried to change his water and dropped him on the floor. He pressed on when we moved the bowl to a place where we couldn't see it over the Christmas holiday, and thereby forgot to change the water for a couple of months. He even pressed on when he slipped by the sieve we use when we change his water and dropped right down into the garbage disposal...I had to fish him out with my hand, and he pressed on.
Sparky was a survivor.
And for some reason, that meant a lot to me. I'm not kidding...I really liked Sparky. I liked him more than the cats...which bothers me, because Sparky was free and required no effort at all, and the cats are expensive and loud and, let's face it, they're cats, which sucks. He pressed on, day after day, year after year, and never asked for much. I miss Sparky.
---
This ends the eulogy. And begins the other bit.
---
I had a very strange night a couple of nights ago. I was in Philadelphia working, and met up with a friend in Philly for a beer. Whilst sipping a stout dram of my favorite Scotch draught, two girls approached us and told a very long and complicated lie which I won't bother repeating but which was basically a long, stupid and highly involved pick-up line involving fake names and a greek man who doesn't really exist. As you might imagine, I opted out of the whole, "being picked up" thing. If you are wondering why right now, you haven't read enough of my blog or I haven't blogged enough of my love. I did, however, offer to play "wingman" for my very single friend, who is a bit of a ladies' man. To keep things short and tasteful, I spent the bulk of the evening talking to one girl about my marriage and her recent breakup, and he spent the bulk of the evening getting quite laid. He had a great time, she had a great time, and the girl I spoke with eventually left to meet up with some guys she met in the bar who had cocaine. And thus, the evening ended.
And I woke up the next morning and called my buddy and we had breakfast...and here's the thing...
...he was really happy.
He didn't sit down and say, "My god, man...I knew her for two hours before we had sex...what am I doing with my life?" He didn't say, "Man, I am so unfulfilled...I'm totally just living for myself...where's the bigger picture?" He sure as hell didn't say, "Justin, could you tell me about something better than this...like Jesus?"
In fact, he was really happy. He got to have sex with a pretty girl, and she was really excited about it, and they didn't have to exchange "I love you's" or digits or even learn each other's last names. And that's it. Lots of endorphins and fun and giggling and things that feel good when they touch you. And that was it.
Now don't get me wrong...I love sex. He loves sex. I do it with one person every time, he does it with different people. And that's totally cool with him.
That's what struck me...there was no gaping hole. There was no sense that, at the end of the day, he sits at the end of his bed and feels desperately alone and empty. There was no sense that he's missing a big chunk of his heart that only God could fill. He's a smart, successful, very cool guy, and he seems really generally pretty happy. And I think that's what confuses me so much.
When I was with Young Life ministry, we were told that every person needs Jesus. When I was with the Vineyard, we were told that every person has a God-shaped hole in their hearts/souls that calls out to be filled with what were offering. And those things may be true...but I don't know that I see it. And I don't know that those with the hole feel it as clearly as I assumed.
Truth is, epicureanism seems pretty great. It seems fun, and exciting, and somewhat fulfilling. Living each day as a hedonist seems like a pretty great way to live...and assuming you're not hurting other people, it's pretty hard to argue with. This presents a problem with evangelism as I know it.
How do you talk to someone about filling a hole in their hearts when they don't feel a hole? How do you tell somebody about Jesus's healing power when they don't feel sick? How do you share the story of Jesus fixed a broken you when he doesn't sense a broken him? And what happens when you don't sense a broken him?
I don't have answers. I want to know what you think. Christians speak up. Hedonists speak up. Christian hedonists, speak up. I need to think about this with other people.
Peace,
Justin
Friday, February 10, 2006
On a plane back from Baltimore…
I tell that you that only because I’m still in that stage where I feel cool saying on I’m on a plane back from anywhere. Even someplace silly, like Baltimore.
Here’s what I learned about Baltimore while I was there: 1) Crab Cakes are tasty when they’re made from crabs who were swimming just the day before, 2) even cities you don’t think about much can have big traffic problems, and 3) Cal Ripken Jr. was apparently quite popular for doing whatever it is that he did.
It’s a very pretty city…the harbor is beautiful, and there are lots of fun places to go. I was pretty busy, but I may return sometime to try out some of the neat-o stuff I drove by on my way to less neat-o stuff.
This ends the section about Baltimore.
This begins a section about how I’m not that great.
A guy who logged in anonymously but left me the name “Tito” had something to say in a comment to my post about Verizon Wireless and Capitalism (see previous post). If I’m reading his comment right, he basically said, “hey, you’re a funny guy. Not much of a Christian, but a funny guy.” Am I reading that right, Tito?
Man, I completely agree. Seriously, please don’t read this as sarcastic or cutting or facetious…I mean it. I’m really not a great Christian. And, I think it was really cool that you had the guts to point that out. I think the way you said it was, “you’re not much like what Jesus called us to” or something like that (can’t look it up, on a plane)…and I think you’re exactly right. I’m really not.
It’s not something I’m proud of. As much as I like giving the middle-finger to things and saying “I’m not following your rules, man!” [or insert some other suburban-white-kid-raging-against-the-world comment here], living as God wants me to live isn’t one of those things. In fact, that’s probably the only set of guiding rules and regulations that really matter in the loooooooooooong run [read:eternity], and I’m screwing many of them up.
Let me give you a laundry-list. It’s by no means complete, but at least it’s somewhat deplorable:
1. I’m very self-centered. I think of myself nearly all of the time, and I rarely do anything that makes me even remotely uncomfortable, regardless of how it might help other people
2. I swear like a sailor. And not just righteous swearing, like when I’m bowling or when I really mean something…I swear around kids sometimes on accident, and I swear at my wife when I’m angry. I picked it up as a little shingle of rebellion, and I haven’t learned how to put it down when it’s not going to be helpful. Swearing is great in some circumstances…lord knows I’m a proponent at times…but you’ve got to be able to hold your tongue when your tongue bears holding.
3. I’m a pervert. My mind is constantly darting in directions I don’t want it to, and while I don’t let my wang follow it in those directions, I can’t even claim that as righteousness because thinking and doing are so freaking married that it’s like I’m three-quarters-doing whatever it is I’m patting myself on the back for not doing. Nuff said on that topic, and no, I don’t want to talk about it.
4. I’m extremely critical and judgmental. I pick these niggly little human flaws and bitch about them to total strangers. Why? Probably just to make myself feel better about my own failings. Which, by the way, makes me a
5. Total hypocrite. As cute as it is to sit here and play humble by listing stuff I do wrong, the reality is that I really live this stuff. I criticize others, and I continue to live a life which begs criticism.
You know what? I was going to keep listing but my plane is landing and I’m starting to get depressed. I just picked the first five things I can think of…there are, no doubt, hundreds more. So, you’ll have to figure them out as you go, just like I am.
Sometimes, I’m a great guy. Sometimes I do great things for people and, every great once in a while, I do it for the right reasons. And sometimes…most of the time…I’m a pretty mediocre guy. I do and think things that are neither good nor bad but just are…I choose to live in lukewarm grays and browns for long periods of time without being outstanding in either direction. And sometimes I am a terrible guy, for a thousand reasons and in a thousand flavors.
I’m not great. I’m OK…I’d like to think I may get to be a better guy…but right now I’m just OK. Tito, man, the truth is you’re right…bottom line.
Peace,
Justin
I tell that you that only because I’m still in that stage where I feel cool saying on I’m on a plane back from anywhere. Even someplace silly, like Baltimore.
Here’s what I learned about Baltimore while I was there: 1) Crab Cakes are tasty when they’re made from crabs who were swimming just the day before, 2) even cities you don’t think about much can have big traffic problems, and 3) Cal Ripken Jr. was apparently quite popular for doing whatever it is that he did.
It’s a very pretty city…the harbor is beautiful, and there are lots of fun places to go. I was pretty busy, but I may return sometime to try out some of the neat-o stuff I drove by on my way to less neat-o stuff.
This ends the section about Baltimore.
This begins a section about how I’m not that great.
A guy who logged in anonymously but left me the name “Tito” had something to say in a comment to my post about Verizon Wireless and Capitalism (see previous post). If I’m reading his comment right, he basically said, “hey, you’re a funny guy. Not much of a Christian, but a funny guy.” Am I reading that right, Tito?
Man, I completely agree. Seriously, please don’t read this as sarcastic or cutting or facetious…I mean it. I’m really not a great Christian. And, I think it was really cool that you had the guts to point that out. I think the way you said it was, “you’re not much like what Jesus called us to” or something like that (can’t look it up, on a plane)…and I think you’re exactly right. I’m really not.
It’s not something I’m proud of. As much as I like giving the middle-finger to things and saying “I’m not following your rules, man!” [or insert some other suburban-white-kid-raging-against-the-world comment here], living as God wants me to live isn’t one of those things. In fact, that’s probably the only set of guiding rules and regulations that really matter in the loooooooooooong run [read:eternity], and I’m screwing many of them up.
Let me give you a laundry-list. It’s by no means complete, but at least it’s somewhat deplorable:
1. I’m very self-centered. I think of myself nearly all of the time, and I rarely do anything that makes me even remotely uncomfortable, regardless of how it might help other people
2. I swear like a sailor. And not just righteous swearing, like when I’m bowling or when I really mean something…I swear around kids sometimes on accident, and I swear at my wife when I’m angry. I picked it up as a little shingle of rebellion, and I haven’t learned how to put it down when it’s not going to be helpful. Swearing is great in some circumstances…lord knows I’m a proponent at times…but you’ve got to be able to hold your tongue when your tongue bears holding.
3. I’m a pervert. My mind is constantly darting in directions I don’t want it to, and while I don’t let my wang follow it in those directions, I can’t even claim that as righteousness because thinking and doing are so freaking married that it’s like I’m three-quarters-doing whatever it is I’m patting myself on the back for not doing. Nuff said on that topic, and no, I don’t want to talk about it.
4. I’m extremely critical and judgmental. I pick these niggly little human flaws and bitch about them to total strangers. Why? Probably just to make myself feel better about my own failings. Which, by the way, makes me a
5. Total hypocrite. As cute as it is to sit here and play humble by listing stuff I do wrong, the reality is that I really live this stuff. I criticize others, and I continue to live a life which begs criticism.
You know what? I was going to keep listing but my plane is landing and I’m starting to get depressed. I just picked the first five things I can think of…there are, no doubt, hundreds more. So, you’ll have to figure them out as you go, just like I am.
Sometimes, I’m a great guy. Sometimes I do great things for people and, every great once in a while, I do it for the right reasons. And sometimes…most of the time…I’m a pretty mediocre guy. I do and think things that are neither good nor bad but just are…I choose to live in lukewarm grays and browns for long periods of time without being outstanding in either direction. And sometimes I am a terrible guy, for a thousand reasons and in a thousand flavors.
I’m not great. I’m OK…I’d like to think I may get to be a better guy…but right now I’m just OK. Tito, man, the truth is you’re right…bottom line.
Peace,
Justin
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
I’m on the way home from our nation’s capital.
Actually, to be more specific, I’m on the way home from a little cookie-cutter suburb about half-an-hour north of our nation’s capital, named Rockville, Maryland.
It's possible that Rockville, Maryland might be the capital of something, but the odds are pretty good that it’s the “200+ Thread-Count Duvet Capital” or “The Residents Who Undergo Regular Prostate Exams Capital” or something equally mundane. For the most part, it was just hotels and chain restaurants…though I’ll concede that I really only saw as much as was within walking distance…which includes my hotel, and the chain-restaurant complex next to my hotel. So, for all I know, it may very well have been a small town inhabited by mermaid queens and fairie pixies of yore…but most of what I saw was little Mexican men working behind the swinging white doors at the chain restaurants, and little Haitian women who leave new soaps by your tub every morning.
I promise, this is not a blog entry about race, class, immigration, or the plight of poor Spanish-speakers in America.
It is, however, a post about the mystery of capitalism.
See, here’s the thing…when I was growing up, my dad and mom would come each evening into my bedroom and take turns lying down for 5-10 minutes with me to help me go to sleep. We’d talk about the day, we’d talk about what to expect tomorrow, and we’d talk about whatever it is they felt like talking to me about in order to get me to calm down enough to sleep. My mom, for the most part, nurtured. It’s what she’s best at, and I can tell you she’s brilliant at it. She would say comforting things and kind things and sleepy-bye kinds of things. It’s a wonderful topic for another post.
My dad, however, preferred to teach. I loved it. He would talk about how combustion engines work, or what Mastadons looked like, or how our bodies turn oxygen into carbon dioxide or how a bill becomes a law. Mind you…I was, like seven. But he told it so well, and with such interest and drama, that I was enthralled, and I was actually learning it.…it’s one of the reasons I think I know so many helpful little bits of reality today. One of my favorite talks…and one which I remember fondly…was the one about capitalism. He would tell me, night after night, about supply and demand. About widgets, and how the trick for the manufacturer was to create interest in widgets through advertising and PR, thereby increasing the demand, and then to meet that demand by orchestrating a supply. And the sweet spot, he explained, was to come as close to meeting demand as possible with the supply…that’s where the real profit was. He always said, “A thing is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it...no less, and no more.” It was a beautiful and simple explanation for a terrifically complex subject, and it’s the reason why I can always pay less for a hotel, an eBay purchase, and concert tickets.
And I’ve always believed it. I believe Adam Smith when he says that supply and demand will control the market. I believe my college economics prof when he says that competition will hone the skills and agility of business the way natural selection hones the skills and agility of the woodland critters. I’ve believed that good businesses (or bad businesses with good marketing) will succeed, and bad business will either sharpen its operation, or it will fail.
Yes, yes…I believed all of it…my dad, my economics prof, Adam, Karl…
…and then, I went to a Verion Wireless store.
Good freaking god.
Let me back up. My phone died two days ago. Dunno why, just ceased to function. Fortunately, my hotel was directly across a very busy street from a Verizon Wireless retail store, which has a counter marked “customer service,” and a counter marked “technical support.” (The poetic irony of these two appellations will strike you in a minute). I was so excited; I thought I may be able to turn my phone in on my lunch break, and perhaps pick it up later that day or early the next.
Yes, that’s what I thought indeed. And it's only now that I realize, that’s a little like thinking, “perhaps my sweater will turn to solid marmalade that I could eat on my flight home.”
Instead, what happened was I entered a customer-support-hell, full of very very angry customers, and some tremendously stupid employees.
I don’t mean stupid like, “My god, that pizza man is so stupid, he forgot to give me back my change.” Rather, I mean stupid like, “Hey, is that tubby guy with the absent grin pooping his pants right now?”
The Verizon Wireless store in Rockville Maryland, should anyone ever ask you, is operated by a gang of imbecilic 17-year-olds whose IQ’s are only subbed by their basmented sense of motivation and pride in their work. I won’t get into the furry details, lest you get so empathetically angry that you punch your screen…but I will summarize:
Phone dies =
6 trips to Verizon Wireless store in Rockville Maryland.
4.5 total hours spent waiting in the lobby for the lethargic teens of tech support to diagnose the problem
2 new batteries, one of which didn’t fit in my phone, but was jammed in forcefully by Malak in tech support, in the hopes that maybe if the wrong battery is pushed into the wrong phone hard enough, God will sympathize and provide power to the phone.
1 complete loss of all my address book and contacts. The only reason this "1" wasn’t a higher number is because, let’s face it, you can only completely lose something once.
2 battery covers, neither of which fit, and one of which, I’m pretty sure, was just the top to a peanut butter jar.
2 brand new V710 Motorola phones to replace the one that Malak-the-tech-support-guy broke with the battery. (The second new one was to replace the first new one, which Greg in tech support broke when he dropped it trying to get the wrong battery cover on it).
And…in case you’re interested…I eventually did what the guys in Tech Support at Verizon Wireless could not…I figured out what was wrong with my original phone.
...The battery charger wasn’t working.
Seriously…it just needed a new battery charger.
Not a new battery, mind you. A charger. The little thing you plug into the wall.
That’s it.
And now I’m out a phone.
I was not alone…in the 4.5 hours that I stood in line at Verizon Wireless over the course of six trips, I watched at least 50 people get very very very angry with the people who work there. The employees were slow, they were stupid, they were poorly trained, they were poorly equipped, and they lacked basic customer support skills.
And, if capitalism works like it is supposed to, this store would be shut down. Its managers would be fired and its employees would be thrown to the wolves with nothing but their glitter encrusted cell phones, Usher or Beyonce ring-tone blaring, to protect them. If capitalism works, I would have a working phone and I would have spent another hundred bucks on cheap plastic electronic goodies while I was there, just because I was so enthralled with this amazing store and it’s brilliant associates.
Instead, I’m just pissed. And Verizon Wireless is still getting my $120 a month, because they offer better shitty service than the other shitty phone companies.
Hey, I wonder if the Verizon Wireless store in Rockville, Maryland is hiring? I’m pretty sure I know a guy…he sat two rows behind me at an Over the Rhine concert recently…
Peace,
Justin
Actually, to be more specific, I’m on the way home from a little cookie-cutter suburb about half-an-hour north of our nation’s capital, named Rockville, Maryland.
It's possible that Rockville, Maryland might be the capital of something, but the odds are pretty good that it’s the “200+ Thread-Count Duvet Capital” or “The Residents Who Undergo Regular Prostate Exams Capital” or something equally mundane. For the most part, it was just hotels and chain restaurants…though I’ll concede that I really only saw as much as was within walking distance…which includes my hotel, and the chain-restaurant complex next to my hotel. So, for all I know, it may very well have been a small town inhabited by mermaid queens and fairie pixies of yore…but most of what I saw was little Mexican men working behind the swinging white doors at the chain restaurants, and little Haitian women who leave new soaps by your tub every morning.
I promise, this is not a blog entry about race, class, immigration, or the plight of poor Spanish-speakers in America.
It is, however, a post about the mystery of capitalism.
See, here’s the thing…when I was growing up, my dad and mom would come each evening into my bedroom and take turns lying down for 5-10 minutes with me to help me go to sleep. We’d talk about the day, we’d talk about what to expect tomorrow, and we’d talk about whatever it is they felt like talking to me about in order to get me to calm down enough to sleep. My mom, for the most part, nurtured. It’s what she’s best at, and I can tell you she’s brilliant at it. She would say comforting things and kind things and sleepy-bye kinds of things. It’s a wonderful topic for another post.
My dad, however, preferred to teach. I loved it. He would talk about how combustion engines work, or what Mastadons looked like, or how our bodies turn oxygen into carbon dioxide or how a bill becomes a law. Mind you…I was, like seven. But he told it so well, and with such interest and drama, that I was enthralled, and I was actually learning it.…it’s one of the reasons I think I know so many helpful little bits of reality today. One of my favorite talks…and one which I remember fondly…was the one about capitalism. He would tell me, night after night, about supply and demand. About widgets, and how the trick for the manufacturer was to create interest in widgets through advertising and PR, thereby increasing the demand, and then to meet that demand by orchestrating a supply. And the sweet spot, he explained, was to come as close to meeting demand as possible with the supply…that’s where the real profit was. He always said, “A thing is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it...no less, and no more.” It was a beautiful and simple explanation for a terrifically complex subject, and it’s the reason why I can always pay less for a hotel, an eBay purchase, and concert tickets.
And I’ve always believed it. I believe Adam Smith when he says that supply and demand will control the market. I believe my college economics prof when he says that competition will hone the skills and agility of business the way natural selection hones the skills and agility of the woodland critters. I’ve believed that good businesses (or bad businesses with good marketing) will succeed, and bad business will either sharpen its operation, or it will fail.
Yes, yes…I believed all of it…my dad, my economics prof, Adam, Karl…
…and then, I went to a Verion Wireless store.
Good freaking god.
Let me back up. My phone died two days ago. Dunno why, just ceased to function. Fortunately, my hotel was directly across a very busy street from a Verizon Wireless retail store, which has a counter marked “customer service,” and a counter marked “technical support.” (The poetic irony of these two appellations will strike you in a minute). I was so excited; I thought I may be able to turn my phone in on my lunch break, and perhaps pick it up later that day or early the next.
Yes, that’s what I thought indeed. And it's only now that I realize, that’s a little like thinking, “perhaps my sweater will turn to solid marmalade that I could eat on my flight home.”
Instead, what happened was I entered a customer-support-hell, full of very very angry customers, and some tremendously stupid employees.
I don’t mean stupid like, “My god, that pizza man is so stupid, he forgot to give me back my change.” Rather, I mean stupid like, “Hey, is that tubby guy with the absent grin pooping his pants right now?”
The Verizon Wireless store in Rockville Maryland, should anyone ever ask you, is operated by a gang of imbecilic 17-year-olds whose IQ’s are only subbed by their basmented sense of motivation and pride in their work. I won’t get into the furry details, lest you get so empathetically angry that you punch your screen…but I will summarize:
Phone dies =
6 trips to Verizon Wireless store in Rockville Maryland.
4.5 total hours spent waiting in the lobby for the lethargic teens of tech support to diagnose the problem
2 new batteries, one of which didn’t fit in my phone, but was jammed in forcefully by Malak in tech support, in the hopes that maybe if the wrong battery is pushed into the wrong phone hard enough, God will sympathize and provide power to the phone.
1 complete loss of all my address book and contacts. The only reason this "1" wasn’t a higher number is because, let’s face it, you can only completely lose something once.
2 battery covers, neither of which fit, and one of which, I’m pretty sure, was just the top to a peanut butter jar.
2 brand new V710 Motorola phones to replace the one that Malak-the-tech-support-guy broke with the battery. (The second new one was to replace the first new one, which Greg in tech support broke when he dropped it trying to get the wrong battery cover on it).
And…in case you’re interested…I eventually did what the guys in Tech Support at Verizon Wireless could not…I figured out what was wrong with my original phone.
...The battery charger wasn’t working.
Seriously…it just needed a new battery charger.
Not a new battery, mind you. A charger. The little thing you plug into the wall.
That’s it.
And now I’m out a phone.
I was not alone…in the 4.5 hours that I stood in line at Verizon Wireless over the course of six trips, I watched at least 50 people get very very very angry with the people who work there. The employees were slow, they were stupid, they were poorly trained, they were poorly equipped, and they lacked basic customer support skills.
And, if capitalism works like it is supposed to, this store would be shut down. Its managers would be fired and its employees would be thrown to the wolves with nothing but their glitter encrusted cell phones, Usher or Beyonce ring-tone blaring, to protect them. If capitalism works, I would have a working phone and I would have spent another hundred bucks on cheap plastic electronic goodies while I was there, just because I was so enthralled with this amazing store and it’s brilliant associates.
Instead, I’m just pissed. And Verizon Wireless is still getting my $120 a month, because they offer better shitty service than the other shitty phone companies.
Hey, I wonder if the Verizon Wireless store in Rockville, Maryland is hiring? I’m pretty sure I know a guy…he sat two rows behind me at an Over the Rhine concert recently…
Peace,
Justin
Monday, January 23, 2006
I just lost a great post.
I had written a blog entry about loss. (Yes, I can see the irony oozing out from under my spacebar). I had written about four hundred words contemplating whether or not you ever truly get over losing something you love...or whether you just spend the rest of your life with a tender spot in you that hurts if it is poked or slept on wrong. It told the story of an acquaintence of mine who lost his mom...it's a tragic story, and it may very well have made you cry. I told the story of an old heartbreak of mine... a trivial story in light of somebody's mom dying, but nothing is trivial when you're seventeen, you're insecure, and you're infatuated with romanticism. I was just getting into a section about how I have a hard time letting go...that memories, even happy ones, produce a kind of melancholy in me and feel a lot like loss...
...and then I closed the window.
Why would I close the window, you ask?
Because I'm an idiot. I wanted to check my calendar for something, and so I instinctively clicked the little red "close" icon in my web browser to clear a path.
So, here we are. I didn't want to rewrite the whole post because I'm trying to spite my web browser by not giving it the sastisafaction of watching me retype the whole thing. Also because the second time, it's just not going to feel as good as the first one...that first one is gone in a tragic moment now, and much like Curt Cobain or John Lennon, it is thereore perfect, and can never be replaced.
At the same time, I didn't want to write about anything else because, let's face it, I wanted to talk about loss.
So, here is a very short thought about loss that I didn't type in the original post...
I think part of your development process can halt abruptly in the presence of loss. Based on what I heard last night from my acquaintence, I wonder if he is still waiting for his mom to come home. I think there may still be a five-year-old inside of him who stands at their afternoon rendevous point, waiting for a mom who will never arrive. I think, in many ways, I am still waiting as well. I don't want to get into it...it's too personal for me and probably too boring for you, but there is a part of me that is still waiting, hoping that I'll get what I've been waiting 24 years or so for. I don't know if I'll ever get over it...I don't know if I'll ever stop waiting. I wonder if any us do...if we ever stop waiting for that girlfriend to call and apologize, for Dad to call Mom and say he's returning, for your wife to come home from the hospital, for that shaggy golden retriever to come bounding through the door, or for God to answer.
I tend to think not. I tend to think there is a little part in us that keeps calling out, keeps waiting, keeps a hope alive that in the end, it's not a loss...it's just a delay.
Peace,
Justin
I had written a blog entry about loss. (Yes, I can see the irony oozing out from under my spacebar). I had written about four hundred words contemplating whether or not you ever truly get over losing something you love...or whether you just spend the rest of your life with a tender spot in you that hurts if it is poked or slept on wrong. It told the story of an acquaintence of mine who lost his mom...it's a tragic story, and it may very well have made you cry. I told the story of an old heartbreak of mine... a trivial story in light of somebody's mom dying, but nothing is trivial when you're seventeen, you're insecure, and you're infatuated with romanticism. I was just getting into a section about how I have a hard time letting go...that memories, even happy ones, produce a kind of melancholy in me and feel a lot like loss...
...and then I closed the window.
Why would I close the window, you ask?
Because I'm an idiot. I wanted to check my calendar for something, and so I instinctively clicked the little red "close" icon in my web browser to clear a path.
So, here we are. I didn't want to rewrite the whole post because I'm trying to spite my web browser by not giving it the sastisafaction of watching me retype the whole thing. Also because the second time, it's just not going to feel as good as the first one...that first one is gone in a tragic moment now, and much like Curt Cobain or John Lennon, it is thereore perfect, and can never be replaced.
At the same time, I didn't want to write about anything else because, let's face it, I wanted to talk about loss.
So, here is a very short thought about loss that I didn't type in the original post...
I think part of your development process can halt abruptly in the presence of loss. Based on what I heard last night from my acquaintence, I wonder if he is still waiting for his mom to come home. I think there may still be a five-year-old inside of him who stands at their afternoon rendevous point, waiting for a mom who will never arrive. I think, in many ways, I am still waiting as well. I don't want to get into it...it's too personal for me and probably too boring for you, but there is a part of me that is still waiting, hoping that I'll get what I've been waiting 24 years or so for. I don't know if I'll ever get over it...I don't know if I'll ever stop waiting. I wonder if any us do...if we ever stop waiting for that girlfriend to call and apologize, for Dad to call Mom and say he's returning, for your wife to come home from the hospital, for that shaggy golden retriever to come bounding through the door, or for God to answer.
I tend to think not. I tend to think there is a little part in us that keeps calling out, keeps waiting, keeps a hope alive that in the end, it's not a loss...it's just a delay.
Peace,
Justin
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
It seemed easy enough...
I had the mic, I had the headphones, I had the really neatO computer. I had a blog that I really enjoyed writing on, but I found myself without the time to do it. I also had a bunch of things that would probably sound cool if spoken in a nice deep voice about two inches off of the fuzzy mic-cozy. It seemed easy enough.
I'll make a podcast!
Yee-haw, look at me everybody! I'm going to join the internet revolution! I'm going to be cutting-edge! Yes, yes....I'll be cutting-edge...and perhaps, if I do a really, really good job, I'll also be other buzzwords...like "postmodern," and "relevant," and "innovative." Yes, I'm headed for the future of communication...I'll join the likes of David Bowie and Ricky Gervais and some guy named Mike from New Jersey who likes to talk about his cat...I'll be a podcaster!
I'll just plug this mic in...test, test, test...
And I'll just record this. Chickity-check, microphone check.
OK, now I'll just take what I recorded...and add some music...and export as an mp4...
And now...ummm...
OK, folks. See, this is where I got kind of hung up. What happens next?
I don't know. But I sure as shit tell you what doesn't happen next. You don't hit the "publish my podcast" button on your keyboard and wait to get famous. No sir. You don't do that at all.
Instead, you spend three or four days going to hundreds of websites and downloading a dozen or so applications trying to turn your mp4 file into a usable podcast. You process your audio every which way possible to try and get it into podcasteriffic form...to no avail. You check out help sites, user forums, FAQ's...you write to the people at iTunes, the manufacturer of the podcasting software, and even the guys who made your microphone, on the off chance that they can help. You even get the magic key at the bottom of the labrynth, give it to the werewolf in the dark forest, get the silver medallion of Moon'sRune from him, and use the medallion to gain entrance to the witches quarters, where you hope she will give you the magic Podcasting tonic, so that you might be able to join the other relevant, cutting-edge postmodernists who have joined the podcasting revolution.
All to no avail.
I have no clue how to podcast. But I made podcast. And I would love for you to hear it.
If you're interested, it's at http://www.archive.org/details/JustinMastersonsPodcastEpisode1/
Just click on the mp4 file. It's like podcasting, but for techidiots like me who can't figure out how to podcast, so instead we just upload an audio file and make you do all the work.
I don't know that I'll make a habit out of doing audio recordings...but it was really fun. I may do it every once in a while. Tell me what you think, eh? Would you rather read, or listen? Or neither?
Let's look to the next wave of blogging...TACTILE BLOGGING. I'm not sure how it'll work, but you'll be able to TOUCH everything the blogger is talking about.
I'll get right on that. In the meantime, download the mp4 file eh? It'll make me feel like all that work wasn't for not.
Peace,
Justin
I had the mic, I had the headphones, I had the really neatO computer. I had a blog that I really enjoyed writing on, but I found myself without the time to do it. I also had a bunch of things that would probably sound cool if spoken in a nice deep voice about two inches off of the fuzzy mic-cozy. It seemed easy enough.
I'll make a podcast!
Yee-haw, look at me everybody! I'm going to join the internet revolution! I'm going to be cutting-edge! Yes, yes....I'll be cutting-edge...and perhaps, if I do a really, really good job, I'll also be other buzzwords...like "postmodern," and "relevant," and "innovative." Yes, I'm headed for the future of communication...I'll join the likes of David Bowie and Ricky Gervais and some guy named Mike from New Jersey who likes to talk about his cat...I'll be a podcaster!
I'll just plug this mic in...test, test, test...
And I'll just record this. Chickity-check, microphone check.
OK, now I'll just take what I recorded...and add some music...and export as an mp4...
And now...ummm...
OK, folks. See, this is where I got kind of hung up. What happens next?
I don't know. But I sure as shit tell you what doesn't happen next. You don't hit the "publish my podcast" button on your keyboard and wait to get famous. No sir. You don't do that at all.
Instead, you spend three or four days going to hundreds of websites and downloading a dozen or so applications trying to turn your mp4 file into a usable podcast. You process your audio every which way possible to try and get it into podcasteriffic form...to no avail. You check out help sites, user forums, FAQ's...you write to the people at iTunes, the manufacturer of the podcasting software, and even the guys who made your microphone, on the off chance that they can help. You even get the magic key at the bottom of the labrynth, give it to the werewolf in the dark forest, get the silver medallion of Moon'sRune from him, and use the medallion to gain entrance to the witches quarters, where you hope she will give you the magic Podcasting tonic, so that you might be able to join the other relevant, cutting-edge postmodernists who have joined the podcasting revolution.
All to no avail.
I have no clue how to podcast. But I made podcast. And I would love for you to hear it.
If you're interested, it's at http://www.archive.org/details/JustinMastersonsPodcastEpisode1/
Just click on the mp4 file. It's like podcasting, but for techidiots like me who can't figure out how to podcast, so instead we just upload an audio file and make you do all the work.
I don't know that I'll make a habit out of doing audio recordings...but it was really fun. I may do it every once in a while. Tell me what you think, eh? Would you rather read, or listen? Or neither?
Let's look to the next wave of blogging...TACTILE BLOGGING. I'm not sure how it'll work, but you'll be able to TOUCH everything the blogger is talking about.
I'll get right on that. In the meantime, download the mp4 file eh? It'll make me feel like all that work wasn't for not.
Peace,
Justin
Monday, January 09, 2006
The New Look...
My hair has a cowlick.
My wardrobe is lackluster.
My body type is what scientists call "Exomesomorphic," and what Lee Jeans calls "husky."
So, you change what you can.
Hence, the new look to the blog.
(My goodness, from a distance, this looked suspiciously like a haiku. A very very stupid haiku).
Will post soon.
Peace,
Justin
My hair has a cowlick.
My wardrobe is lackluster.
My body type is what scientists call "Exomesomorphic," and what Lee Jeans calls "husky."
So, you change what you can.
Hence, the new look to the blog.
(My goodness, from a distance, this looked suspiciously like a haiku. A very very stupid haiku).
Will post soon.
Peace,
Justin
Friday, January 06, 2006
I think my eyes are starting to go.
It's a weird thought...that I wouldn't be able to see as well. I've always had perfect vision...better than perfect, really. My vision was 20/25...what most people could read clearly at 20 feet, I could read at 25+. It's hardly adamantium claws or telekenesis...but I guess I always thought of it as my little mutant power. I could read road signs well before the other people in my car, I could read addresses on darkened houses as we drove by, and I could pick out the time on my alarm clock from across the room.
But now, things look kind of blurry. I have to really try to focus on something...my casual glance isn't enough...I have to make a real effort to see it clearly. For those of you with glasses/contacts...is this a sign that my eyes are going downhill, or is it possible that they're just tired or overwhelmed?
Perhaps it's a mental thing. I have trouble focusing my mind...why shouldn't it carry over? Perhaps my brain just lags a bit...instead of looking with focus, I look...and....then....I.... ummm.....wait for it.... focus. Perhaps I'm afraid to focus...afraid to see too closely. To look at the faces and expressions of my friends and my co-workers and my wife up close...to get that intimate. Hmmm....
If it turns out that my eyes are going weak...I wonder if I would be a glasses guy or a contacts guy. What do you think, those that know me? Stacy says my face doesn't work for glasses...which, however accurate that might be, is a strange thing to tell a person.
All this seems shallow, to be sure. But I love my eyes...I love what they do for me, what with the whole "seeing" thing and all, and I'd hate for something to go wrong with them.
Peace,
Justin
It's a weird thought...that I wouldn't be able to see as well. I've always had perfect vision...better than perfect, really. My vision was 20/25...what most people could read clearly at 20 feet, I could read at 25+. It's hardly adamantium claws or telekenesis...but I guess I always thought of it as my little mutant power. I could read road signs well before the other people in my car, I could read addresses on darkened houses as we drove by, and I could pick out the time on my alarm clock from across the room.
But now, things look kind of blurry. I have to really try to focus on something...my casual glance isn't enough...I have to make a real effort to see it clearly. For those of you with glasses/contacts...is this a sign that my eyes are going downhill, or is it possible that they're just tired or overwhelmed?
Perhaps it's a mental thing. I have trouble focusing my mind...why shouldn't it carry over? Perhaps my brain just lags a bit...instead of looking with focus, I look...and....then....I.... ummm.....wait for it.... focus. Perhaps I'm afraid to focus...afraid to see too closely. To look at the faces and expressions of my friends and my co-workers and my wife up close...to get that intimate. Hmmm....
If it turns out that my eyes are going weak...I wonder if I would be a glasses guy or a contacts guy. What do you think, those that know me? Stacy says my face doesn't work for glasses...which, however accurate that might be, is a strange thing to tell a person.
All this seems shallow, to be sure. But I love my eyes...I love what they do for me, what with the whole "seeing" thing and all, and I'd hate for something to go wrong with them.
Peace,
Justin
Sunday, December 18, 2005
An short poem to the guy who sat two rows behind me at tonight's Over The Rhine concert:
---
Cell phone, it rings.
Ring, cell phone, ring.
Beer bottle, it tinkles
It tinkles noisly on the concrete floor.
Your laugh is loud, your cheers are harsh,
Your exclamations are random and out of place.
Ring, cell phone, ring.
Your demeanor is gruff, you smell like cigarettes,
And you keep leaving the door to the lobby open on your repeated trips for more beer.
RIng, cell phone, ring.
You pick up the phone and talk,
Despite the fact that the concert is still going on.
Ring, cell phone, ring.
You are a dick.
---
Peace,
Justin
---
Cell phone, it rings.
Ring, cell phone, ring.
Beer bottle, it tinkles
It tinkles noisly on the concrete floor.
Your laugh is loud, your cheers are harsh,
Your exclamations are random and out of place.
Ring, cell phone, ring.
Your demeanor is gruff, you smell like cigarettes,
And you keep leaving the door to the lobby open on your repeated trips for more beer.
RIng, cell phone, ring.
You pick up the phone and talk,
Despite the fact that the concert is still going on.
Ring, cell phone, ring.
You are a dick.
---
Peace,
Justin
Sunday, December 11, 2005
It is one of my chief disappointments that life happens at 60i.
I'll explain.
Be prepared for three short paragraphs of nerd-talk, then on to the relevant stuff.
The term "60i" is video-nerd-speak for "60-frames-per-second, interlaced," which is the speed at which standard video is recorded. Basically, it means that my video camera takes 60 half-pictures per second, and then interlaces each half into a whole, for a very clear and crisp 30 frames of video.
But there are other standards for shooting. There is 30p, or "30-frames-per-second, progressive," which means that it takes 30 WHOLE pictures a second, instead of 60-half-pictures. Then, there is 24p, which is just like 30p except it only takes 24 pictures per second. (This is what movies are shot in).
If you want to think of the difference visually...watch an episode of COPS, then an episode of CSI, then watch Braveheart. COPS is shot in 60i...it looks depressingly like real life. It's full-motion...very crisp...and very...ummm...real. CSI, however, is shot at 30p. It's video's best attempt to look like film. (Video is MUCH cheaper to shoot and process than film is, so it would be very rare for a television show to be shot on film...though it's been done). It feels a little more...dramatic. A little strobe-ier, a little dreamier. Braveheart, and every other feature film for that matter, was shot on 24p. It looks like...well, it looks like the movies. The drama is more dramatic...less like life, more like movies. Things move a little slower. I can't explain it any better than to tell you to watch all three, and you'll see what I mean.
OK, enough with the video stuff. Here's the point: I don't want to live at 60i anymore.
Real life is to crisp...to clean...too real. It's the green flourescent buzzing over your head at the Jiffy Lube while you wait for your car to get done...it's the awkward hug you have with your dad after a saturday breakfast...it's the little bits of acne under your beard...it's the cell phone ringing in the theater. It's the difference between the triumphant moment at the end of the film where the two long-lost lovers embrace for the perfect kiss (the one that embodies every bit of passion, angst and energy that the audience has been storing up for the first 90 minutes of the film...and the one that ensures that they will always be together), and the lackluster first-kiss I had in a parked car outside of Talbot's at the Kenwood Mall (subject for another post). Real life is sharp, full-motion, crisp, and broad-scoped. The movies are dreamy, targeted, scripted, and narrow. And I can't help it, but every time I come out of a movie, I long to be back inside.
I'm getting the feeling I'm not expressing myself very well here. But I'll press on...let me know if this gets more clear.
It's interesting to me the way movies work on us. I think they work because they make us think of things that remind us of real life. For instance, I watched "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" last night, and the film opens with the bombing of London during WWII. During this very brief scene, my ears teared up as I watched a young English family scamper through their backyard into a homemade bomb-shelter, as blasts echoed in the streets of London. I was not, as you might expect, ever present at the actual bombing of London...nor have I ever been present at any bombing of any kind...ever. (I saw a car on fire once in fifth grade...that was about the closest thing). So why was I tearing up? Because I do know what fear feels like, and love for my family, and the belief that one or all of us may soon suffer pain or die. And the movie reminded me of those things...on a mostly subconsicous level, I think...and that made me cry. It reminded me of something that actually happened to me in my actual real life, and which I had actually stored in both my conscious and subconscious minds. A group of actors on a set surrounded by very expensive lights followed a script that some gifted writers had written. Then the film that was shot was brought to some gifted post-production guys, who added sound effects and lighting tricks, and made it feel like an actual bombing raid, and not a sound stage in northern London. Some guys, in real life did something fake to remind of real life, then mailed it to where I really live, so I could pay nine bucks to experience fake real life long enough to remind me of something real in my life.
And the amazing thing is...it worked. I cried a little bit in this otherwise unoutstanding film. And I left the theater regretting that real life is nowhere as great as the movies.
Huh.
Peace,
Justin
I'll explain.
Be prepared for three short paragraphs of nerd-talk, then on to the relevant stuff.
The term "60i" is video-nerd-speak for "60-frames-per-second, interlaced," which is the speed at which standard video is recorded. Basically, it means that my video camera takes 60 half-pictures per second, and then interlaces each half into a whole, for a very clear and crisp 30 frames of video.
But there are other standards for shooting. There is 30p, or "30-frames-per-second, progressive," which means that it takes 30 WHOLE pictures a second, instead of 60-half-pictures. Then, there is 24p, which is just like 30p except it only takes 24 pictures per second. (This is what movies are shot in).
If you want to think of the difference visually...watch an episode of COPS, then an episode of CSI, then watch Braveheart. COPS is shot in 60i...it looks depressingly like real life. It's full-motion...very crisp...and very...ummm...real. CSI, however, is shot at 30p. It's video's best attempt to look like film. (Video is MUCH cheaper to shoot and process than film is, so it would be very rare for a television show to be shot on film...though it's been done). It feels a little more...dramatic. A little strobe-ier, a little dreamier. Braveheart, and every other feature film for that matter, was shot on 24p. It looks like...well, it looks like the movies. The drama is more dramatic...less like life, more like movies. Things move a little slower. I can't explain it any better than to tell you to watch all three, and you'll see what I mean.
OK, enough with the video stuff. Here's the point: I don't want to live at 60i anymore.
Real life is to crisp...to clean...too real. It's the green flourescent buzzing over your head at the Jiffy Lube while you wait for your car to get done...it's the awkward hug you have with your dad after a saturday breakfast...it's the little bits of acne under your beard...it's the cell phone ringing in the theater. It's the difference between the triumphant moment at the end of the film where the two long-lost lovers embrace for the perfect kiss (the one that embodies every bit of passion, angst and energy that the audience has been storing up for the first 90 minutes of the film...and the one that ensures that they will always be together), and the lackluster first-kiss I had in a parked car outside of Talbot's at the Kenwood Mall (subject for another post). Real life is sharp, full-motion, crisp, and broad-scoped. The movies are dreamy, targeted, scripted, and narrow. And I can't help it, but every time I come out of a movie, I long to be back inside.
I'm getting the feeling I'm not expressing myself very well here. But I'll press on...let me know if this gets more clear.
It's interesting to me the way movies work on us. I think they work because they make us think of things that remind us of real life. For instance, I watched "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" last night, and the film opens with the bombing of London during WWII. During this very brief scene, my ears teared up as I watched a young English family scamper through their backyard into a homemade bomb-shelter, as blasts echoed in the streets of London. I was not, as you might expect, ever present at the actual bombing of London...nor have I ever been present at any bombing of any kind...ever. (I saw a car on fire once in fifth grade...that was about the closest thing). So why was I tearing up? Because I do know what fear feels like, and love for my family, and the belief that one or all of us may soon suffer pain or die. And the movie reminded me of those things...on a mostly subconsicous level, I think...and that made me cry. It reminded me of something that actually happened to me in my actual real life, and which I had actually stored in both my conscious and subconscious minds. A group of actors on a set surrounded by very expensive lights followed a script that some gifted writers had written. Then the film that was shot was brought to some gifted post-production guys, who added sound effects and lighting tricks, and made it feel like an actual bombing raid, and not a sound stage in northern London. Some guys, in real life did something fake to remind of real life, then mailed it to where I really live, so I could pay nine bucks to experience fake real life long enough to remind me of something real in my life.
And the amazing thing is...it worked. I cried a little bit in this otherwise unoutstanding film. And I left the theater regretting that real life is nowhere as great as the movies.
Huh.
Peace,
Justin
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