Hey,
Just a quick post that I forgot to mention in the excitement of school and new digs.
Little Miss Sunshine is the best movie I've seen since Sin City. If you don't know what that means, that's about two years.
It's a gut-busting, tear-jerking, knee-slapping, heart-wrenching...umm......bum-numbing, mind-boggling look at what it means to be smart, successful and cool in America, and how America's idea of that is pretty much wrong. It's an odd movie, with plenty of language and "did he just say that" moments.
Anyway, go see it, B
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
A 'Ho' Nuffer Rebel!
Alright, so Mad TV and SNL have sucked for a long time, but this title is from one of my favorite new sketches from Mad.
School's started again and they're not foolin' around this time. In fact, it seems to have gone to the HNL, or whole 'nother level. I have two, count 'em, two ethics courses-Engaging World Religions through Ethics and Ethics for Parish Ministry. The former is half an actual world religions class where we learn about the four other major religions and their ethical systems and half an experiment by our teacher, Dr. Richard Randolph (who everytime he e-mails I think is Robert Randolph calling me to join him on tour before I read closer). The whole class requires a computer and an internet connection. I tell you guys, it's like these people have never seen a computer before. If you entered graduate school after the year 1999 and you don't know how to upload....GET OUT NOW!
The latter, and if you don't remember that's Ethics for Parish Ministry, will be no picnic. Part of the course objective is to define my ethic for ministry. I have no idea what that means. This would be fine and expected, I would fully look forward to learning what that meant and being able to write the heck out of this paper...except it's the first assignment. I'm supposed to be able to identify and articulate my ethic for ministry by Sept. 28th. Oh, and CS's were out in force in this class too. (We call them Captain Students, for more info, see www.youmightbeacaptainstudent.blogspot.com ) People just couldn't get their little heads around the possibility of having an ethic for ministry that's something different than your personal ethic. Even Dr. R (yeah, I have him twice, and after I pissed him off by dropping out of his Brazil immersion this summer) got flustered and had to end the conversation. You don't treat your congregation with the same ethical convictions that you treat your children...and if you do, either quit the ministry or stop having kids.
At the end of my marathon 8 hour school day on Tuesday's is Worship-Dining in the Kingdom. This will be a good class except that everyone I didn't want to have class with again is taking it. Teaching this is Dr. Susan Smith, an absolute space cadat but one of the smartest space cadats I've ever known. This might be the first class I actually use when I get out of this place.
And then....there's Greek. AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!
Alright, on to more important things. When my sister moves, with a lot of help, on Sept. 16th, I'm getting my first set of matching furnature, an industrial size couch that's actually longer than The Beast but not as, shall we say, unique in appearance, just big and soft and perfect for napping, and a chair that's really a love seat with matching depth and softness. They kinda smell like small annoying dog, since both Steph and her roomate havea small annoying dog, but nothing a little Arm and Hammer and Febreeze won't take care of. To go along with my new perfect movie/football watching living room, I'm getting...wait for it...a big screen TV. It's not a plasma or liquid, one of the old ones but who cares. Everywhere I've lived, I've kinda felt like I'm only there for the summer and waiting to go back home. I hope that maybe this, along with Lindsey, Bates, Steph and the NKC fam., will finally make me feel home.
Living large and in charge,
B
School's started again and they're not foolin' around this time. In fact, it seems to have gone to the HNL, or whole 'nother level. I have two, count 'em, two ethics courses-Engaging World Religions through Ethics and Ethics for Parish Ministry. The former is half an actual world religions class where we learn about the four other major religions and their ethical systems and half an experiment by our teacher, Dr. Richard Randolph (who everytime he e-mails I think is Robert Randolph calling me to join him on tour before I read closer). The whole class requires a computer and an internet connection. I tell you guys, it's like these people have never seen a computer before. If you entered graduate school after the year 1999 and you don't know how to upload....GET OUT NOW!
The latter, and if you don't remember that's Ethics for Parish Ministry, will be no picnic. Part of the course objective is to define my ethic for ministry. I have no idea what that means. This would be fine and expected, I would fully look forward to learning what that meant and being able to write the heck out of this paper...except it's the first assignment. I'm supposed to be able to identify and articulate my ethic for ministry by Sept. 28th. Oh, and CS's were out in force in this class too. (We call them Captain Students, for more info, see www.youmightbeacaptainstudent.blogspot.com ) People just couldn't get their little heads around the possibility of having an ethic for ministry that's something different than your personal ethic. Even Dr. R (yeah, I have him twice, and after I pissed him off by dropping out of his Brazil immersion this summer) got flustered and had to end the conversation. You don't treat your congregation with the same ethical convictions that you treat your children...and if you do, either quit the ministry or stop having kids.
At the end of my marathon 8 hour school day on Tuesday's is Worship-Dining in the Kingdom. This will be a good class except that everyone I didn't want to have class with again is taking it. Teaching this is Dr. Susan Smith, an absolute space cadat but one of the smartest space cadats I've ever known. This might be the first class I actually use when I get out of this place.
And then....there's Greek. AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!
Alright, on to more important things. When my sister moves, with a lot of help, on Sept. 16th, I'm getting my first set of matching furnature, an industrial size couch that's actually longer than The Beast but not as, shall we say, unique in appearance, just big and soft and perfect for napping, and a chair that's really a love seat with matching depth and softness. They kinda smell like small annoying dog, since both Steph and her roomate havea small annoying dog, but nothing a little Arm and Hammer and Febreeze won't take care of. To go along with my new perfect movie/football watching living room, I'm getting...wait for it...a big screen TV. It's not a plasma or liquid, one of the old ones but who cares. Everywhere I've lived, I've kinda felt like I'm only there for the summer and waiting to go back home. I hope that maybe this, along with Lindsey, Bates, Steph and the NKC fam., will finally make me feel home.
Living large and in charge,
B
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Land of the Free, Home of the Naive
I'm having a sick-of-it-all moment. Friends, I've tried my best to stay positive. But America sucks. I'm not even really going to talk about our idiot president and his evil vice-squad Dick/Rove. (I'll only retell a story from this months Rolling Stone. Kurt Vonnegut, author, tells his interviewer that he's going to sue Pall Mall cigarettes. Ya wanna know why? Lung cancer, the interviewer asks. NO, because I'm 83 years old. Those bastards lied to me. They told me I'd be dead by 40, but instead I now have to suffer through leaders named Dick and Bush and, until recently, Colon.)
What I'm sick of is how our media treats teenagers. As a rookie youth pastor, I'm coming to enjoy teens as deep, smart, complex little adults coming into their own identity. The media sees teens as shallow little pods to manipulate into buying crap they don't need and is dedicating itself to turning teenagers into consumerist robot adults.
This weekend I witnessed three things that have brought this epidemic to my attention.
First, Sunday night was the Teen Choice Awards on Fox. Dane Cook was hosting with Jessica Simpson. If you aren't familiar, go to youtube and watch Dane Cook. Needless to say, noone under the age of 18 should know who Dane Cook is, but their he was, telling the teens what to like. "Roll Model" Britney Spears, who's pretty much turned herself into the richest white-trash barefoot and pregnant, stand by my man, walk into public restroom without shoes, drive with my baby in my lap kuntry girl in the world. Britney's explanation of why driving with a baby on her lap is ok, "We're country". And, if you needed anymore prove that TV stations and record companies are ruining our teenagers lives, the show concluded with the first ever performance of Britney's equally trashy and undeserving hubbie Kevin Federline, or K-Fed, as I call him. Kids who think Pink Floyd is an energy drink and The Beatles were the precursor for the Wiggles are being forced, FORCED, into thinking that Federline actually has any sort of musical talent and really deserves to be performing for us all, not merely because his sugar-momma bought and paid for his entire career, but that he's breaking new ground in the COMPLETELY over white-guy trying to get into black music. You're no Elvis, you're not Eminem, you're not even Vanilla Ice. But, because of his wife, our teenagers are being told to like this immature, idiotic, talentless piece of garbage.
Number two, this week in Entertainment Weekly there's an article about the MTV "reality" show Laguna Beach. Laguna Beach is a horrorfyingly watchable show about horrofylingly spoiled rich kids from California. The channel that just celebrated 25 years of MUSIC TELEVISION, and hasn't played a music video in about 10 oof those, is watched by every kid in America 13-20. These shockingly shallow kids who have no idea what need is, what real problems are or how much they actually have, are being painted by the writers (that's right, the reality show has writers) as people the teens of America should aspire to be like. And because they're well-trained little commercialist robots, they listen.
Number three, getting a hair cut yesterday, the only thing to read was Seventeen. This is a horrible magazine. Not only is it not well-written or designed or edited, but the content itself is disturbing. One such magazine, "How to Make Him your Boyfriend", discusses the need for young women to define themselves based on the idiot jock on her arm. The other, "How to Get Over Him", says that all men are trash, and the best way to feel great after your boyfriend cheats on you is to go out with his best friend. No lie. No articles about finding yourself, defining who you are as a young woman, being comfortable alone. It's boyfriends and fashions. In one magazine, the front of the magazine has vomit-inducing pictures of Nicole Ritchie (another person who has done absolutely nothing but be born to be famous) and talk about the dangers of anorexia. Later, in the SAME MAGAZINE, there's a story about how to get Ritchie's style, which to me looks like "Hobo-chic".
I'm sick of it all. I put the blame 50% on the industry and 50% on the parents. The kids who shouldn't know who Dane Cook is but do, aren't getting the parental supervision that they should be getting. The kids who come to me at church to talk about the new System of a Down album or bloody video game (both of which, at 24, I buy with frequency) need parents who don't just send their 13 yr old to the mall with money but who take an active interest in what their child is doing.
America. Land of the ignorant. Home of the Consumer. Land of the ethnocentrist. Home of egomaniacs. Land of the shallow, the inept, the celebrity. And home of the free-blogger, able to type his mind. Love it or hate it, it's home.
B
What I'm sick of is how our media treats teenagers. As a rookie youth pastor, I'm coming to enjoy teens as deep, smart, complex little adults coming into their own identity. The media sees teens as shallow little pods to manipulate into buying crap they don't need and is dedicating itself to turning teenagers into consumerist robot adults.
This weekend I witnessed three things that have brought this epidemic to my attention.
First, Sunday night was the Teen Choice Awards on Fox. Dane Cook was hosting with Jessica Simpson. If you aren't familiar, go to youtube and watch Dane Cook. Needless to say, noone under the age of 18 should know who Dane Cook is, but their he was, telling the teens what to like. "Roll Model" Britney Spears, who's pretty much turned herself into the richest white-trash barefoot and pregnant, stand by my man, walk into public restroom without shoes, drive with my baby in my lap kuntry girl in the world. Britney's explanation of why driving with a baby on her lap is ok, "We're country". And, if you needed anymore prove that TV stations and record companies are ruining our teenagers lives, the show concluded with the first ever performance of Britney's equally trashy and undeserving hubbie Kevin Federline, or K-Fed, as I call him. Kids who think Pink Floyd is an energy drink and The Beatles were the precursor for the Wiggles are being forced, FORCED, into thinking that Federline actually has any sort of musical talent and really deserves to be performing for us all, not merely because his sugar-momma bought and paid for his entire career, but that he's breaking new ground in the COMPLETELY over white-guy trying to get into black music. You're no Elvis, you're not Eminem, you're not even Vanilla Ice. But, because of his wife, our teenagers are being told to like this immature, idiotic, talentless piece of garbage.
Number two, this week in Entertainment Weekly there's an article about the MTV "reality" show Laguna Beach. Laguna Beach is a horrorfyingly watchable show about horrofylingly spoiled rich kids from California. The channel that just celebrated 25 years of MUSIC TELEVISION, and hasn't played a music video in about 10 oof those, is watched by every kid in America 13-20. These shockingly shallow kids who have no idea what need is, what real problems are or how much they actually have, are being painted by the writers (that's right, the reality show has writers) as people the teens of America should aspire to be like. And because they're well-trained little commercialist robots, they listen.
Number three, getting a hair cut yesterday, the only thing to read was Seventeen. This is a horrible magazine. Not only is it not well-written or designed or edited, but the content itself is disturbing. One such magazine, "How to Make Him your Boyfriend", discusses the need for young women to define themselves based on the idiot jock on her arm. The other, "How to Get Over Him", says that all men are trash, and the best way to feel great after your boyfriend cheats on you is to go out with his best friend. No lie. No articles about finding yourself, defining who you are as a young woman, being comfortable alone. It's boyfriends and fashions. In one magazine, the front of the magazine has vomit-inducing pictures of Nicole Ritchie (another person who has done absolutely nothing but be born to be famous) and talk about the dangers of anorexia. Later, in the SAME MAGAZINE, there's a story about how to get Ritchie's style, which to me looks like "Hobo-chic".
I'm sick of it all. I put the blame 50% on the industry and 50% on the parents. The kids who shouldn't know who Dane Cook is but do, aren't getting the parental supervision that they should be getting. The kids who come to me at church to talk about the new System of a Down album or bloody video game (both of which, at 24, I buy with frequency) need parents who don't just send their 13 yr old to the mall with money but who take an active interest in what their child is doing.
America. Land of the ignorant. Home of the Consumer. Land of the ethnocentrist. Home of egomaniacs. Land of the shallow, the inept, the celebrity. And home of the free-blogger, able to type his mind. Love it or hate it, it's home.
B
Monday, August 14, 2006
The Church's Stellar Social History
So, I'm reading an awesome present from Lindsey last night (actually couldn't stop reading it, stayed up 'til 3:00) called I Was There:Gigs that Changed the World. It's all about Jazz, Blues, and Rock shows that go down in rock n roll history for their "in the zone" playing, their social or political importance or just their you-had-to-be-there aspects.
As I'm reading through, I am amazed, and not for the first time, at what the church objected too. First, it was blues. Robert Johnson, the famous blues guitarman who, rock legend has it, sold his soul to the devil to get guitar skills. Well, of course, once that rumor started floating around the church could have none of it, banning and chasing Mr. Johnson out of town after town in the south. And then, as we all know, came Rock 'N' Roll and the legendary Elvis performance on the Milton Berle Show. Nicknamed Elvis the Pelvis, the church thought Mr. Presley was just too much sex for TV. The backlash was so great that he was shot from the neck up on the Ed Sullivan Show.
So, I got to thinking. Let's take a look back at the things the church has opposed over the years.
First, the church opposed pretty much anything that wasn't the church. The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, all that.
Of course, any woman who proported to have a working relationship with God was burned at the stake for witchcraft.
Reading the Bible in anything but Latin (NOT it's original language by the way) was once blasphemy. In fact, anybody reading the Bible who wasn't a priest.....blasphemy.
In the US, I don't need to remind anyone of how Christians felt about the native peoples of the Americas.
Integrated church services, I still don't think the church does very well on that.
And then came the evil, moral-draining rock 'n' roll revolution.
No woman speakie in churchie, woman brain not big as man.
Of course, I could go on and on and on. The church always seems get all up in a huff about something only to watch it become a cultural norm. Elvis too much sex for TV. I've seen Denis Franz's backside more than I've seen my own.
I'm just saying that I'm glad the church has finally moved on from these unimportant issues and moved on to the things that are really tearing this world apart, those evils that threaten our very exsistance. War? Violence? Poverty? Disease? Hunger? Oh no, I'm sorry, I meant gay marriage and the right to choose. I'm sorry for the confusion. (I know I can't type sarcasm, but you should be picking up what I'm laying down)
Hey, Rev. Brad Bryan, Christians, the Church.......GETOVERYOURSELVES!
Rock 'N' Roll will never die, Brad
As I'm reading through, I am amazed, and not for the first time, at what the church objected too. First, it was blues. Robert Johnson, the famous blues guitarman who, rock legend has it, sold his soul to the devil to get guitar skills. Well, of course, once that rumor started floating around the church could have none of it, banning and chasing Mr. Johnson out of town after town in the south. And then, as we all know, came Rock 'N' Roll and the legendary Elvis performance on the Milton Berle Show. Nicknamed Elvis the Pelvis, the church thought Mr. Presley was just too much sex for TV. The backlash was so great that he was shot from the neck up on the Ed Sullivan Show.
So, I got to thinking. Let's take a look back at the things the church has opposed over the years.
First, the church opposed pretty much anything that wasn't the church. The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, all that.
Of course, any woman who proported to have a working relationship with God was burned at the stake for witchcraft.
Reading the Bible in anything but Latin (NOT it's original language by the way) was once blasphemy. In fact, anybody reading the Bible who wasn't a priest.....blasphemy.
In the US, I don't need to remind anyone of how Christians felt about the native peoples of the Americas.
Integrated church services, I still don't think the church does very well on that.
And then came the evil, moral-draining rock 'n' roll revolution.
No woman speakie in churchie, woman brain not big as man.
Of course, I could go on and on and on. The church always seems get all up in a huff about something only to watch it become a cultural norm. Elvis too much sex for TV. I've seen Denis Franz's backside more than I've seen my own.
I'm just saying that I'm glad the church has finally moved on from these unimportant issues and moved on to the things that are really tearing this world apart, those evils that threaten our very exsistance. War? Violence? Poverty? Disease? Hunger? Oh no, I'm sorry, I meant gay marriage and the right to choose. I'm sorry for the confusion. (I know I can't type sarcasm, but you should be picking up what I'm laying down)
Hey, Rev. Brad Bryan, Christians, the Church.......GETOVERYOURSELVES!
Rock 'N' Roll will never die, Brad
Monday, August 07, 2006
Life and Death
Lately, it seems my life is full of both.
First, Lindsey's great-aunt and sort of adopted grandmother passed away a few weeks ago. Then, Lindsey's grandpa Herbie died in California. Then, Mustoe calls me and tells me the news of his friend from Columbia.
I tell ya folks, funerals suck. I'm lucky and unlucky in this regard.
I am very unlucky that I never knew my mom's dad, Papa, and my dad's mom, Nana. All I remember of Papa is a cigar, a birthmark and a dog he trained to be more human than animal. All I remember of Nana is a smile, a laugh and a story before bed. Papa died when I was 5 and Nana when I was 7. These were people I NEEDED to know. It's unfair that I didn't get a chance.
But, I'm also lucky. Just as I don't remember their lives, I don't remember their deaths. I remember Mom and Dad telling me about Nana and not believing it and running to the stairs of the Dome Home and crying. I remember something about Nate putting a car on Papa's chest, but I could've made that up. I don't remember my parents or siblings crying. Which is a good thing, 'cause when they cry I cry. I'm glad I don't remember the funerals, because, as mentioned above, funerals suck. I made it through Lynz's aunt's ok, but I broke down at Grandpa Herbie, mainly because of a beautiful euolgy that Lynz wrote and because I saw her crying. But it was weird, we were at the service, the very bored and boring preacher said all the right words in all the wrong ways, Lynz's thing was read and we cried. And then, 20 minutes later, we were all in the basement of the Eagles Club eating loose meat sandwiches like nothing had happened. I don't like funerals.
I pray for Corrine, Herbie, Tyler. I pray for Mustoe, Abby, Jeff, everybody. I pray for Lindsey, Brett, Cinde and her whole family. I pray for all the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, who have to have funerals.
At my funeral, no one will wear black, everyone will wear a different band t-shirt. No preacher, just stories. You'll sit and laugh and cry together, not silent in some stuffy room somewhere. Mustoe will play Free Bird and my wife and/or my kids will take my ashes to some mountian stream in Colorado and let me go.
My world has also been full of life. My sister's having a perfectly healthy baby boy and, yes, I'll probably be in the room. My brother's got two "bonus" kids, Joshua and Hannah for an indefinate time. And my best friends having a baby in March. I love those kids more than anything. Cori is so smart. Wesley is just as smart and such a laugh riot. Hannah has this bombastic belly laugh that goes along with her bombastic belly for a three year old, she looks like a doll. And Joshua, oh man, Joshua. I walked in the door and he ran up to me with his arms up and gave me a big year and half year old hug. I think he thought I was daddy, but it's ok he did it again the next time. I can't wait to be an uncle again, and an honorary uncle for Ryan and Honora. It's a role I think I was born to play.
Good times, bad times, the world keeps on spinning,
B
First, Lindsey's great-aunt and sort of adopted grandmother passed away a few weeks ago. Then, Lindsey's grandpa Herbie died in California. Then, Mustoe calls me and tells me the news of his friend from Columbia.
I tell ya folks, funerals suck. I'm lucky and unlucky in this regard.
I am very unlucky that I never knew my mom's dad, Papa, and my dad's mom, Nana. All I remember of Papa is a cigar, a birthmark and a dog he trained to be more human than animal. All I remember of Nana is a smile, a laugh and a story before bed. Papa died when I was 5 and Nana when I was 7. These were people I NEEDED to know. It's unfair that I didn't get a chance.
But, I'm also lucky. Just as I don't remember their lives, I don't remember their deaths. I remember Mom and Dad telling me about Nana and not believing it and running to the stairs of the Dome Home and crying. I remember something about Nate putting a car on Papa's chest, but I could've made that up. I don't remember my parents or siblings crying. Which is a good thing, 'cause when they cry I cry. I'm glad I don't remember the funerals, because, as mentioned above, funerals suck. I made it through Lynz's aunt's ok, but I broke down at Grandpa Herbie, mainly because of a beautiful euolgy that Lynz wrote and because I saw her crying. But it was weird, we were at the service, the very bored and boring preacher said all the right words in all the wrong ways, Lynz's thing was read and we cried. And then, 20 minutes later, we were all in the basement of the Eagles Club eating loose meat sandwiches like nothing had happened. I don't like funerals.
I pray for Corrine, Herbie, Tyler. I pray for Mustoe, Abby, Jeff, everybody. I pray for Lindsey, Brett, Cinde and her whole family. I pray for all the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, who have to have funerals.
At my funeral, no one will wear black, everyone will wear a different band t-shirt. No preacher, just stories. You'll sit and laugh and cry together, not silent in some stuffy room somewhere. Mustoe will play Free Bird and my wife and/or my kids will take my ashes to some mountian stream in Colorado and let me go.
My world has also been full of life. My sister's having a perfectly healthy baby boy and, yes, I'll probably be in the room. My brother's got two "bonus" kids, Joshua and Hannah for an indefinate time. And my best friends having a baby in March. I love those kids more than anything. Cori is so smart. Wesley is just as smart and such a laugh riot. Hannah has this bombastic belly laugh that goes along with her bombastic belly for a three year old, she looks like a doll. And Joshua, oh man, Joshua. I walked in the door and he ran up to me with his arms up and gave me a big year and half year old hug. I think he thought I was daddy, but it's ok he did it again the next time. I can't wait to be an uncle again, and an honorary uncle for Ryan and Honora. It's a role I think I was born to play.
Good times, bad times, the world keeps on spinning,
B
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