"When the Saints Go Marching In" to my #AtheistEar

I have been wracking my brains all month, trying to think of the ultimate "Halloween hymn" to talk about today, and it hit me: for all that Halloween has been (literally) demonized by evangelical Christians, the actual Christian holiday - All Hallows' Day, or All Saints' Day - already has an almost universally recognized theme:





(Lyrics available here...as if you needed them!)

 This version is by two of the most New Orleans-ian of New Orleans artists: Dirty Dozen Brass Band with a guest appearance by Trombone Shorty. The video is a bit sea-sickness-inducing, but the audio isn't bad, and the band is phenomenal under any conditions.

As a kid, I picked up on unspoken levels of discomfort whenever this song was brought up in my rural, white, evangelical church or around my family. On one hand, this song expresses the same sentiment as "I'll Fly Away" does:

O when the saints go marching in,
O when the saints go marching in,
O Lord, I want to be in that number
when the saints go marching in.

As a Southern Baptist kid, I noticed that two lines of questions would lead to uncomfortable conversations: "What exactly are 'saints' supposed to be?" and "This song is so exciting; why don't we sing it more often?"

According to what I was taught by adults in my Southern Baptist church, "Saints" refers to anyone who has accepted Jesus as their savior. It's just a word for those who are Saved in the Baptist sense of the word. What I didn't learn until years later was that the catholic churches had developed their own mythology around the idea of "saints" which Baptists considered to be non-Biblical, and therefore, evil.

(As an atheist, whenever I run across the stories about these Catholic saints, I marvel at what horrible people they were, and at the way their horribleness was turned into mythology... but that's fodder for another series of posts.)

In high school, I began dating a girl who was Catholic, and I got to learn all over again from my church how Baptists are supposed to feel about Catholics - while at the same time I had my girlfriend as a resource for sorting out Baptist myth from Catholic reality. Baptists told me that Catholics prayed to dead people; my girlfriend explained about the Catholic concept of "intercessory prayer." Baptists told me that Catholic "saints" were not usually Saved, and therefore were actually un-redeemed and not truly Christian - which meant they were, in fact, following Satan. My girlfriend balked at that twisted logic coming from people who reject orthodoxy.

And yes, there were Bible verses about false prophets produced as "clobber texts" on both sides, which were meant to prove that one side or the other was Right(eous), but only served to confuse the issue. Looking back at all of this controversy as an atheist, I recognize that I was stuck in an impossible position between groups that were in violent disagreement over bullshit.

Each side believed they were right, and by maintaining their disagreement, they were making themselves part of a tradition that dated back to the First Century, and a schism that developed between the earliest Christians; a schism between those who believe in orthodoxy, and those who believe in personal revelation. In other words, it was the religious equivalent of arguing over the superiority of Star Wars vs. Star Trek - and no one wins an argument like that.

As to my other question - "Why don't we sing this exciting song more often?" - that turns out to have a very simple explanation that no one wants to admit out loud: Race.

The very similar song, "I'll Fly Away," was written by a man named Albert E. Brumley in 1929. It was one of those songs recorded by dozens of groups and performed frequently on the AM radio stations which grew up across the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. In contrast, "When the Saints..." was not credited to a composer; instead, it was included in our Baptist Hymnals as a Negro spiritual.

Of course, as written, there is nothing in the text of "When the Saints..." that is overtly controversial. "When the sun refuse to shine/I want to be in that number" and "When they crown Him Lord of all/I want to be in that number" are essentially the other two verses of the song. The implicit core desire expressed by the lyrics are a yearning to be included. I think that was the source of discomfort that no one wanted to discuss, because the origin of the Southern Baptists is rooted firmly in exclusion. They split from their Northern brothers before the Civil War in a disagreement over whether black pastors could be ordained as missionaries.

Growing up in a post-Civil Rights era version of the Southern Baptist church, I was surrounded by adults who had not yet figured out where their traditional beliefs fit in America's new political reality. And hearing "When the Saints Go Marching In" apparently reminded them, even if it was on a remote, subconscious level, that they belonged to a community built on excluding fellow saints... saints who wanted nothing more than to be included in that number.

By their nature, Baptists occupy an uncomfortable eschatology. (They try to believe literally in what the most allegorical of books says about the End of Times; so that leads to a lot of cognitive dissonance.) The core of their belief system is inherently prone to heresy, which they can't combat, because they consider personal revelation and conscience to be the basis of spiritual salvation. That means that their own core beliefs don't allow for an "authority" in the church to determine who is or is not a "real, true Christian." They do claim to follow the literal, inerrant text of the Bible, but as I pointed out above, that doesn't allow them to authoritatively resolve even the most central and basic arguments stemming back to the earliest Christian churches. And that means that they have no foundational, scriptural basis for excluding anyone who claims to have come to their faith through personal revelation.

In other words, anyone who says they are a saint, is a saint. That causes a problem for Baptists who don't want to count someone as a saint. Rather than deal with the discomfort of including people they have long worked to exclude, they have a history of projecting their discomfort on the music itself.

"When the Saints..." is a very deeply black song. Being a negro spiritual, it was forged in a community of oral history by people who were being deprived of inclusion in humanity itself. As simple as the text is, it speaks very powerfully of people who want a promise fulfilled - the promise that if they work hard and follow the rules, they will someday be free. It's morbid to consider now how many of them only had death to look forward to. And whether white evangelicals want to admit it or not, this song is a painful reminder of their historic role in maintaining the system that put those people into that forge.

Sadly, I've seen how the discomfort from that painful reminder gets transformed into a reason to continue to exclude. They don't want to be called racists... but they can't seem to square inclusion with the things they do and teach.

White evangelical culture has a long history of demonizing black culture - and pretending that this has nothing to do with race. Consider the example of Sketch Erickson, as the Slacktivist describes here. Then watch that Dirty Dozen/Trombone Shorty performance again, and connect the cultural dots. I think now that the awkward relationship my church family had with this particular song had a lot to do with where they drew their personal line between what is divine and what is not.

And demonizing is what Halloween is all about, isn't it?

This was always the most uncomfortable time of year for my church community. On one hand, you have the unavoidable historic fact that All Hallows' Eve is a Christian feast day... for the wrong kinds of Christians. On the other hand, you have the celebration of evil spirits being glorified in the secular culture, especially when it uses that historically black music.

As modern Americans, we weren't supposed to believe in evil spirits anymore, which always added to the confusion. (I'm still confused by the logic that Christians use that, "There are real witches ... real because they believe in magic, even though I don't, because magic isn't real.")

So our churches would attempt to reclaim the holiday by refusing to have Halloween celebrations, and instead have Harvest Night, or some similarly innocuous sounding alternative... which accidentally imitated the pagan festivals they were trying to distance themselves from in the first place.

As an atheist adult, I look at this holiday with a mix of amusement and pity. I feel bad for the people who work themselves into a frenzy over the "Satanic" nature of the holiday - which seems pointless, considering there is no Satan. And I feel some sense of schadenfreude that the people who are most worked up over the whole thing are battling demons of their own making.

But mostly, I feel like dwelling on the afterlife is a huge waste of time and energy - especially if we can't swallow our pride and address the schisms that we've created for ourselves out of all of these misinterpreted myths.

Michael Jackson's "Thriller" to my #AtheistEar

(Apologies for the mix-up in posting earlier; and apologies if you didn't see this one coming, but...)

Those who have read my book know my personal connection to this song, and the violent act it drove me to commit. Here is the full 13:47 minute experience for those of you who may have missed it:




(Lyrics are available here - but, wow, they're silly.)

And if you'll promise to go read the much improved version in the book, I'll share this excerpt from the original blog post recounting the 6th grade field trip in which this song was my downfall:

One of the girls in my class was the daughter of an extremely wealthy construction mogul in the area, and he sponsored a field trip to his house for our class, complete with a fleet of limousines for the students. Looking back, this makes no sense; I have no idea what the educational value was in tramping about on his huge estate looking at his antique car collection and his enormous pool. But, there we were, and on the way back to the school, someone discovered the radio.
There were several of us in the car: my friends Robert and Scott, and the class bully, Todd. Upon discovering the controls for the radio, they promptly tuned in a Top 40 station. I protested... arguments flew... and I accused them all of loving Satan. This may be where the break-down in civility occurred.
Somehow I ended up pinned to the back seat by Scott, while Robert cranked the volume. "I love this song," he crowed. It was "Thriller". You have to understand that in my mind "Thriller" represented everything that was wrong with our society at that time. It was about zombies (the undead, a tool of Satan), it encouraged dancing (think "Church Lady"), and worst of all: Michael Jackson was a Jehovah's Witness!!!
Yeah, lame. But I was so mad that I leaned up and bit a chunk out of Scott's sternum.
In retrospect, it was extremely stupid, and for so many reasons. But until it happened, I didn't realize what a completely unreasoning dogmatic prick I was growing into. Receiving four swats from the principal of the school (I pleaded with him that I was defending the faith while he tried valiantly not to laugh at me) was a wake-up call.

That wake up call I referred to was the beginning of many years of growing realization that the people who were filling my head with their religious dogma, trying to keep me on the so-called straight and narrow, didn't really believe all of the things they told me.

Sure, they said I should gird my loins with the Sword of Righteousness... but if you actually try to cut anyone with a sword, you will be the one who is wrong. If I follow through and violently defend what I have been told is a core tenet of my faith, I will be in the wrong.

Think about the implications of this, not just for a confused middle school kid who thinks he's standing up for his beliefs in a silly scuffle, but for people who do much more serious things in the name of their faith. People like Eric Rudolph, or Shelley Shannon and Scott Roeder - people motivated to commit infamously violent acts, which church communities like mine frantically denounced after they occurred. I see those people following what they see as the logical, defensible action demanded by what they believe is right.

I can't blame their church for their choices, any more than I can blame my church for the bite on my friend Scott's chest - but I also didn't arrive in that limo on that day fresh out of the ether, with no influences and no teaching.

The lesson I eventually derived from this experience was that I couldn't trust people who tried to tell me that without their message of "peace" I would have no moral compass. I couldn't rely on the Bible as a rule book, because that's not what it is. I learned to listen to my own conscience, and eventually tested my own moral code, keeping only the parts which were sound.

It would be too easy to claim that learning this is what made me an atheist - but that's not actually true. If anything, it made me a Baptist in the tradition of Roger Williams (you know, the guy so opposed to organized religion that as soon as he founded the First Baptist Church*, he left it because his conscience wouldn't let him stay in an organized religion). Biting Scott because of a Michael Jackson song forced me to re-examine my conscience, and put that in the center of my moral code.

Of course, following my conscience meant always being honest with myself, and following evidence instead of wishful thinking, no matter how uncomfortable it made me or those who cared about me. That's why I eventually had to admit to being an atheist. But the way I see it, my intentions are the same as the people who unwittingly set me on the the path that lead to violence. They didn't intend that, and I learned the lesson.

In the end, we all have to struggle to find our way, keep our head, and do the right thing. As the song says:

'Cause it's a thriller, thriller night
And no one's gonna save you from the beast about to strike
You know it's thriller, thriller night
You're fighting for your life inside a, killer, thriller tonight, yeah

*Fun fact: I'm descended from one of the original members of that church. See my post on Mightier Acorns about him!

The Satanic Panic to my #AtheistEar

I really wanted to show you something that would convey to you just how bad we evangelical Christians thought things were in the 1980s when it came to the occult. I remember the figures on our local Family Life Radio station excoriating the popular trends of horror films and heavy metal music, and I remember hearing parodies and take-downs that I thought (at the time) were really sticking it to those heathens.

But for today's post, this is the best I could find:


(Lyrics are... probably available somewhere. I'll let you Google this one if you really want to.)

I'm truly sorry for that, but it was honestly the best video I could find to represent what I wanted to talk about today. And by "best," I mean that it's almost listenable.

That was Carman, one of those artists I thought was pretty cool and entertaining in the mid-1980s. He apparently went on to re-imagine Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a wild west showdown. He made several videos like this in the early 1990s, and they tend to be longer and less entertaining. I guess a career is a career.

But I remember there were a lot of smaller-time artists out there doing similar things at the time. I can't remember their names, and clearly, they aren't easy to find on YouTube. But what I wanted to talk about was the way they went so over the top in portraying their Enemy.

There is no denying that a lot of the things that rural Christian communities like mine saw coming out of pop culture in the late-1970s and early-1980s were terrifying. John Carpenter's Halloween, the Exorcist, and the slasher movies they inspired; Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and the increasingly cacophonous and increasingly depraved bands they inspired seemed to confirm that demons and Dark Powers had taken over our land, and were intent on convincing kids (like me!) to ignore their upbringing and sin, sin, sin.

Unfortunately for their message, the people behind the Satanic Panic went too far in building up the Enemy. What do I mean by that?

First, a lot of the panic was based on lies. A man named Mike Warnke was one of the more famous, but there were several people who made a living touring the country and telling stories of their lives as "high priests" in Satanic cults. They described awful rituals, murders, baby-killing, and rapes occurring, and then spoke about how Jesus had saved them, and told them to spread the word. Spoiler alert, Mike Warnke, and those like him, turned out to be frauds.

But not only were these people lying about things that Christians find scary, the truth is that those scary things - like demons and the Devil, and Hell - don't actually exist. I don't just say that as an atheist who does not believe in the supernatural - I also say that as a former Christian who is quite familiar with the Bible. The very concept of Hell, as these people teach it, is not Biblical.

As the Slacktivist said a few years ago, after controversy flared up over a book by Rob Bell:

"Dante teaches this. Jack Chick teaches this. Iron Maiden and countless B movies teach this. But the Bible does not. The doctrine of Hell can be, with only partial success, taken from Dante and Chick and Iron Maiden and grafted onto the Bible. But it cannot be derived from the Bible...
"The Hebrew scriptures offer no support for Team Hell. None. The pages of the Old Testament mention “sheol,” or “the grave,” but not Hell...The gospel as Paul preached it, as he described it in his epistles, does not include the doctrine of Hell."  (from Team Hell gets loud)

The point is that none of these supernatural beings exist, either in reality, or in the scriptures that those perpetuating the Satanic Panic claim to follow.

So why were evangelical Christians like me motivated to buy into the lurid stories we were being told? Why did we want to believe those stories were true? For the answer to that, I'll refer you to another incredible Slacktivist essay, this one about the Anti-Kitten-Burning Coalition. (Spoiler: it comes from a deep need to feel superior to others that becomes more important that combating actual evil.)

At the end of the day, it's important to remember that the vast majority of Christians want to help make the world better. They see the problems that come from drug use, alcoholism, poverty, and crime, and they want to share what they think is a simple solution. If only solving real problems were as easy as shooting a demon with a magic pistol.


But, since you put up with that Carman video, I thought I'd share this gem: it's Steve Taylor's  live performance from 1984 of his song criticizing Bob Jones University and its racist policies. Enjoy!

Reality Denial in Children

I have four (4) children. They range in age from 8 to 14. That means that for the last 8 years I have had four (4) people in my home between the ages of 0 and 14. I am well aware that this number is far too small to represent any kind of statistical sample of the general population - but despite that fact, I feel safe in drawing some conclusions about children.

Observation A - A child has an object - such as a toy, a cup full of milk, or socks (on their feet). Later, the child is unable to locate said object, even if it is pointed out to them.

Conclusion 1: When something a child has in their possession loses contact with that child, it ceases to exist.

This object or possession effectively disappears when the child lets go of it. You or I may see the object fall from the child's hand and fall for a very long time and shatter in a spectacular display of destruction and disorder, and the child WILL NOT NOTICE. And when you call attention to said object, they will be surprised to discover it there in a pool of its own constituent elements.

Observation B - The child pours a cup of milk. The adult, witnessing this, cautions the child not to leave the milk on the table (where it will inevitably cease to exist - and also become cheese). Despite this helpful warning (see Conclusion 3), the child will later deny leaving the cup of very new cheese on the table in the sun.

Conclusion 2: The history of a given object has no bearing on its current condition.

This idea manifests itself in a variety of ways. In the previous example, the child will deny breaking the object - regardless of their shared history with that object. Even if they have carried that cherished possession with them for an entire day, singing songs about it and professing their love for it, when they become angered and hurl it away, Conclusion #1 takes effect, and Conclusion #2 allows them to say - with all true honesty and belief, "I didn't do that!"

Observation C - Child sitting on the couch, pulling socks off of their feet, is warned that socks do not belong stuffed behind the cushions, and nods violently with understanding (while craning to see the TV). Later, when confronted with the 5 socks discovered in the cushions behind the spot where they were sitting, they deny loudly and sincerely having ever placed any sock anywhere. The adult will insist on the child removing the socks to their laundry basket. This is declared to be completely unfair.

Conclusion 3: Cause and Effect are not related.



Observation D - You observe a child armed with a dark crayon traversing a room. No other children are home. Upon entering that room a few minutes later, you discover a new work of art not in the Sotheby's catalog, but sure to be worth $24.95 (for the jug of caustic chemicals which will be required to remove it, and the paint to patch the marred spot on the wall). When asked, the child will nod sagely, and cluck with false sympathy that it must have been Sibling A or B - who have both been at school for 4 hours.

Conclusion 4: The existence of Other Children absolves every child of all blame for everything - ever.

If you have an Only Child, you may not have noticed this phenomenon; that is assuming that you also have no pets, cousins, local playmates, convenient adults (like Dad), or imaginary friends for the Child to blame. They don't have to live with you in order to take the rap.


I do hold out hope that these phenomena are limited to the larval stage of human... despite the existence of Doomsday Believers, Global Warming Deniers, and Supply-Side Economists.

Was It Worth the Hype?

When it started, we thought we could help by providing some common sense and facts. We couldn't.

After it caught on and flooded the internet, we thought our friends would at least pay more than lip service to respect and listen to us. Most did, but many didn't.

Now that the initial shock is over, a lot of people are asking, "That's it? What was that all about?" We tried to tell you. The whole TSA Pat Down Conflagration is not worth getting your panties in a bunch.

This was hardest on my lovely TSA bride. This girl is no wilting flower, and she can take a joke. Heck, if you visit her blog, you see that she can dish the satire as well as anyone.

But after the "scope or grope" jokes wore thin, and the exchanges turned mean-spirited, we both got a little angry. One alleged friend exploded his Facebook feed with every scandalous allegation of TSA wrong-doing he could find - repeatedly suggesting that the new screening procedures amounted to government mandated child molestation. When asked to tone it down and look at the facts behind the stream of half-baked conspiracy, he claimed that HE was the one being demonized! He never said that Kate was part of the problem... just anyone working for TSA who followed their new, evil procedures. How dare we question the facts HE was finding, and try to tell him to accept the skewed TSA propaganda!

The good news is that reactions to the media were not all this extreme. We live in a complex world, and people do tend to be nuanced in their behavior, even if it seems they are behaving as a herd. And I'm happy to concede that this is not a simple issue. In fact, that's my main argument in favor of taking a step back and trying a bit harder to avoid oversimplifying it.

You can't blame any one group or organization for the situation we're in - except maybe for the actual terrorists. Since they recruit from all over, you can't profile on race - and even if you did, how would you profile terrorists? Even if you were to only target Muslims, as some have been demanding, how would you identify them visually? Never mind that racial profiling simply won't make you safe.

Unfortunately, you can't just swear off flying - our so-called free market doesn't have any reasonable choices (of trains, buses, or cars) available to allow that. The trains don't go all the way, the buses are crowded with people you don't want to travel with, and the cars don't drive themselves (at least not yet).

What DO I suggest? Before you fly - before you buy your ticket - visit www.TSA.gov and look at what the actual regulations are. Look at the list of prohibited items, and DON'T BRING THEM. You don't need knives, shampoo, chainsaws, or gallon jugs of cologne in the cabin of an aircraft, so put those things in your checked bags. Trying to save money on luggage charges? Mail those things to yourself in advance, or break down and buy them at WalMart when you arrive at your destination.

These are not "intrusive government mandates" - these are common sense tips that would be true regardless of security procedure.

And what about the "naughty pictures" and the sexual harassment allegations? Those things are ALREADY against the rules. TSA officers ought to know better, and if you see any of that going on, or if it happens to you, report it.

My challenge for you: look behind the stories that you see. Follow up for yourself on the "Don't Touch My Junk" guy (John Tyner) in San Diego, and answer this question: did anyone involved, whether Tyner or the TSA, *actually* get into trouble? Was anyone convicted of a crime or served a reprimand of any kind? What about all of the child molestation allegations? Did anyone get charged with anything? If no, then is there anything happening that you should be upset about, and if yes, then isn't justice being served?

You're right to be on your toes. Stay vigilant. Watch your children closely, especially in any public place. And when there is any kind of authority figure involved, remember to be respectful, listen to and follow reasonable directions, and most importantly - STAY CALM.

Because when you let the hype send you in looking for a fight, you're more likely to cause one.

Meanwhile, how did the big travel week turn out? There was supposed to be a big "Opt Out Day" protest; my lovely bride was braced for a lot of smug jerks to come through and drop their trousers, trying to get on TV. Instead, the passengers were better prepared, more polite, and easier to deal with than usual. Many came through and thanked the TSA officers for the job they do. Some asked, "Is that the pat down I've been hearing about on TV? What's the big deal?"

For all of the muckraking, shouting, and yellow journalism, the public actually came through. And there is a lesson there, too, I think.

Christmouse Time is Here Again

So there we sat, two "Br"s and two "T"s, watching Arrested Development, when the dog (one of the "T"s) exploded.

This wasn't the "IED dog harness" type of explosion; this was the "Loony Tunes many-feet blur" type of explosion, and since we haven't clipped her toenails in a while, it took her some time to get enough traction on our hardwood floors to go after... Der Maus.

The mouse made it behind the hutch in the dining room just as I finished a spectacular super-sectional leap. I am not bragging. My leap was made even more spectacular in that I went from a supine position on the swivel chair to full ballet extension, paused the DVD, and landed in the entryway in one smooth movement. The smoothness was only slightly ruined by the Snoopy-dance I did on landing, but since it was less violent than the dog's explosion, and it allowed me to slide gracefully across the dining room in a manner envied by Brian Boitano, I will not feign humility.

Of course, with all of this grace and smoothness, the mouse saw us coming and made a break for the illusion of safety that is the Girl's Room. He dove under their dresser, and I snapped on the light, shouting for the "Br"s to bring me "a shoe or something smashy!" (Both arrived in seconds brandishing goofy looks, and not much else.)

As I excavated old socks, graded homework, karaoke CDs (dang, I could have done "The Middle" at Festivus!), flinging them every which way and barking strategic orders at the others, and trying to get the stupid dog to sniff where the mouse was, NOT the end of my finger. Brent stood in the hallway. "Hey, I see him... he's back behind the hutch!"

So we re-mobilized.

The hutch has a back panel that touches the floor, and Der Maus had foolishly pinned himself back there. If I had had an X-wing fighter, I could have flown it into the little Death Star trench formed by hutch and wall, and blown him away. I blocked my end with a spare cardboard box from the recycle pile, and hollered for backup at the other end, thinking to enact the trash compactor scene instead (still on the Star Wars references for those who are lost). But before one of my storm troopers could get there, Der Maus slipped around the end of the hutch, and disappeared under it.

Now armed with the sneakers of a Texan, the two "Br"s and I arrayed ourselves around the three exposed sides of the hutch. We took turns shouting out nose sightings in a bizarre, non-violent version of whack a mole. We were discussing our next move - something to do with the vacuum cleaner - when he bolted.

He was a scruffy little streak of dark brown. A teen aged girl, a dog, and two grown men chased it the 15 feet from the hutch to the stove without disturbing a single hair on his furry little body.

Once under the stove, Der Maus disappeared. We move the stove, and poked into its many dark crevasses, but to no avail.

Saddened, disheartened, and wretched, we left the dog on guard and went back to the important business we were about before our world was turned upside down.

Vengeance for this humiliation will... be... ours.

Why Skeletons Don't Have Kids...

Here is a small sample of life in our car. It was written a few years ago, when our eldest was 8, but you get the general idea. You won't get the full effect unless you read the parts aloud -- very loud -- and have a Greek chorus of gigglers accompanying you:

Dad: What a great dinner out at our neighborhood family restaurant.

Mom: Yes, and such amusing holiday themed activity books for the kids!

Eldest daughter, age 8: Hey! It's got jokes in it! "Where do elves keep their money?"

Mom: In a snow bank.

Eldest: Ha, ha! That's right!

Older Brother, age 5: Mommy! How did you know?

Little Brother, age 3: Knock, knock!

Little Princess, age 2: (shrieks with laughter)

Mom: I'm older than you, I know things.

Eldest: "What do snowmen eat for breakfast?"

Little Bro: Knock, Knock!

Dad: Cereal flakes?

Elder Bro: Who's there?

Princess: Eeeeeeeee!!

Eldest: That's right, dad! Gee, you guys are smart!

Mom: Enjoy that while she still says it.

Dad: No kidding! I like people who are easily impressed with me.

Little Bro: KNOCK, KNOCK!!!

Elder Bro: Somebody ask him 'who's there'!

Mom: Who's there, honey?

Little Bro: Uh.... POOP! Ha ha ha ha ha...

Princess: Poop! Aieeeeeee!

Dad: Oy...

Elder Bro: Why didn't the skeleton cross the road?

Eldest: Hey, that's not on there... they're supposed to be Christmas jokes!

Dad: Why didn't the skeleton cross the road, Schmoo?

Eldest: But that's a Halloween joke! It's Christmas!

Elder Bro: Because he had no guts!

Princess: Poopy guts! Ha ha ha ha....

Little Bro: Knock, knock!

Mom: Oh, nice.

Eldest: Why did the elephant stand on the marshmallow?

Dad: Huh?

Little Bro: KNOCK KNOCK!

Dad: Oh, God....

Mom: Why did the elephant stand on the marshmallow, darlin'?

Elder Bro: Who's there?

Little Bro: KNOCK KNOCK!

Dad: "Who's there?" already!

Princess: Knock, knock!

Eldest: So he wouldn't fall in the cocoa!

(silence)

Elder Bro: Cocoa? Ohhh.... I get it! Ha ha ha!

Little Bro: Knock, knock!

Mom: *sigh* Who's there?

Little Bro: Cocoa

Mom & Dad: Cocoa who?

(silence)

Little Bro: Uh... POOPY CHOCOLATE!! (pronounced "ch-LOCK-it")

Unison: HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!

Dad: Good grief...

Mom: Oh, good... we're home...

Princess: (chanting) Poopy, poopy, chocolate, chocolate...

Mom (to Dad): Is this really our life?

Dad: I'm afraid so.

Mom: Can we complain to somebody?

Dad: No one would believe us.

Little Bro: Uh... POOPY CHOCOLATE!!

Mom & Dad: ENOUGH!!

Answer to the subject line: Because they have no guts.

Politically Incorrect (Doesn't Cover It)

Before you start reading this, you need some background:

1) I used to be a much bigger jerk than I am today. (I will give you a moment to collect yourself after such a shocking statement.)

2) When I joined the US Air Force in 1994, they tried to teach me Korean. My immune system rejected it. No one was pleased with the result.

3) What you are about to read should be interpreted as an "attack" and a "slur" ONLY on the specific people mentioned by pseudonym in this post - Do NOT presume that I harbor any racist grudges or hatred against any group of people.

In other words, if you are Korean, or of Asian origin, this is not meant to offend you; it is meant to illustrate how a twenty-something jerk dealt with self-absorbed teachers in an oppressive and stressful environment.

Okay, enough background.

I think the statute of limitations for having a bad attitude has run out by now; I hope so, because I have found evidence of my bad attitude. If I recall correctly, our teacher, Donny Kim, found us a video on Korean culture one day (in Korean, of course, so I understood none of it) and asked us to take notes as we watched it.

Here are my notes.

Report on Korean Culture
While it may seem that Koreans borrowed art and customs from China and Japan, and borrowed their music from an African tribe which communicates solely through farts and tap dancing, Koreans do have some practices which are solely their own.

For example, on some holidays they try to coax dead relatives out of their burial mounds with plates of rotten cabbage. They have also been known to dress like fags and dance around graveyards, or climb to the tops of mountains to wave.

When they want to celebrate, they get drunk and tie streamers to their heads and dash about the town beating pots and pans. Sometimes people are accidentally killed by the streamers, which gives those who were annoyed by the celebration cause to celebrate in a like manner, which sometimes leads to a month-long stretch of perpetual noise and accidental streamer-decapitation.

Koreans have a world-wide reputation for their dog-training technique; if only those damned dogs would learn!

So, while it would seem at first that Korea has nothing to offer to world culture, this turns out to be a severe understatement.

I share this insightful glimpse into my psyche for one reason, and one reason alone: so that you will understand how innocuous the next part of the story is, by comparison. You see, as horrible as that little essay might be, I had the decency to keep it mostly to myself (though I probably made my classmate/neighbor read it). When it came time to put together a little three-sentence assignment for Mr. Kim, however, I did indulge in a bit of offensiveness.

The assignment was to write 3 sentences in Korean about our hometown. My hometown is Phoenix, so I tried to come up with 3 quick sentences made up of words that I knew. There weren't a lot. "Phoenix is big." One down. "Phoenix is hot." On a roll! Now what? I thought for a long time, but nothing really came to mind. Then, a flash of genius: "I love Phoenix because there are no Koreans there. (Just kidding.)" Yes, I looked up "Just kidding", and put that in there, too.

In retrospect, it wasn't a really good move.

Donny Kim dragged me into his "office", which was separated from the classroom by a thin, fabric wall, and proceeded to rip me a new one. "This is racist stuff, you know? You could be prosecuted for this! I don't know if you're trying to be funny, but you gotta be a level 2 at least before you try humor! Like me, I gotta level 2 in English, and that's why I write a pilot for a sitcom. (Have I let you read it? It's funny... about a used car lot, 'cause, you know, they get different people in every day, and some of them are probably crazy.) But if I see this kind of racist stuff go on, you will get in big trouble. Now go back to class!"

Chastised, chagrined, I crept meekly back to my seat. I felt two inches tall, and sat staring intently at the tip of my pencil until Mr. Kim came back into the room to continue our lesson.

"Today, I write a Korean sentence on the board, and you try to figure it out from context." He scribbled something up there, and we puzzled over it, feverishly flipping through our dictionaries. The only word I could make out looked like "hug-in", which the dictionary defined as "a Negro; a darkie; a coon..." I sat back, put down my pencil, and waited silently for one of our three "hug-in" students to notice.

When they did, the class had a very calm, rational discussion about how the word was really a technical term, on a par with "African-American" or "person of color". Once the tensions were allayed, someone thought to ask what the rest of the sentence meant.

"Oh, it say, 'Black people are lousy tippers.'" The temperature dropped 10 degrees. "What, that not racist! That true! You go into restaurant, they eat and eat, but don't leave anything on table. It just observation!"

Needless to say, I was never written up. But I saved those notes in my memento's box.

Fishing With Dad

Originally posted Wednesday, August 11, 2004

I love my dad. Even better, I know my dad loves me. The only trouble is that we are very much alike.

Oh, sure, growing up I used to hear some of the "small town chatter" that people of my grandparents' generation still believed about fathers and sons. Talk of the way Dr. Eismann's boy acted just like his old man, right down to sitting on his foot when he spoke to people. The whole "he has his eyes and her nose" game they play with newborn babies. I always blew that stuff off until I saw my own sons turning into me. Then I began to look at my dad in a whole new way.

I mentioned one time how I had noticed that I was beginning to turn into him, and he blanched in horror. "I'm so sorry," he said. We laughed about it, too, but there was no denying that sense of dread that men of our line were inescapably cursed to be...well, to be like us. Easy-going, funny, amiable, and yet, hapless. A little accident prone. Somewhat likely to say the wrong thing in public when we got nervous. Nothing flamboyantly evil or wrong, but just us. Frustratingly and unavoidably passing along some kind of dork gene.

My grandfather had a history of clumsiness. He used to restore Volkswagen Beetles - the old kind that used to come to life in movies - and no matter how careful he was, he always picked up some new and unlikely injury. The trunk lid would fall on his arm when he reached for a tool. A fender would leap off the car and crush his toe. Once a tire exploded while he filled it with air. One car was particularly creative, leaving his arms all scabbed up like a nine-year-old skateboard novice: he named it Fang and painted it a horrible shade of orange out of spite.

Dad's luck was more subtly bad, and of a more self-inflicted nature. On long car trips, when we made a rest stop, he would accidentally lock the keys in the car. At church picnics, if he was asked to carry any food into the church, he would slip and drop whatever dish or pie he held top-down on the floor. (He quickly learned to only carry unbreakable things with lids.) I recall one occasion when, after locking the keys in the car while picking my sister and I up at school, we had to cross a busy road to get to my mom and her spare set of keys. Half-way across, while cautioning us to be careful and not to run, his shoes slipped on the hot tarmac. As he went down, flat on his back, he shoved us up onto the curb with his last bit of balance. That was my dad; hapless, but always heroic.

I think it was his resistance to this haplessness that made him so careful. He always had a number of little projects going on; house repair, car repair, painting, mending, landscaping. He always focused hard on things he did around the house, and didn't like it when I came around distracting him. It's not that he didn't want me around; he was just too used to doing these things alone by the time I was old enough to take an interest in them. For my part, I was perfectly content to wander about in my little fantasy world, playing "Star Wars" or "Indiana Jones" by myself. Whenever I got too close to what he was working on, he would gently mention something else I could be doing.

After he had finished the project at hand, he would always come find me to play ball, or go swimming. I think now that he must have felt bad for excluding me, though I didn't take it that way. I never felt neglected at all. Even if I had, I really couldn't blame him; after all, I am his son. I am the Crown Prince of Accidents.

I am the kid that was playing on the frame of his pickup truck while he tied down a full load of lumber the summer he built our cabin in Colorado. Just as he cinched the last knot around the last bundle of 2X4's, there was the soft but definite *POP*Hiissssssss..... of me stepping on the valve stem of his right rear tire. I am also the kid that threw a softball to him while he wasn't looking, and popped him in the nose - this happened on the same day that his bandages came off from the surgery on his "doubly deviated septum".

I think it was my flamboyant display of haplessness that led him to seize that chance to prod me into the military. Of all of the slackers in my generation, I had shown a special talent for apathy and my shoulder muscles were overdeveloped from all of the shrugging I had done.

"What are you going to major in?" Shrug. "What school will you go to?" Shrug. "How are you going to pay for it?" Shrug. "What kind of job are you going to get?" Shrug.

Dad didn't exactly call the recruiter and tell them to come and get me, but after I signed the papers, he acted like he had. His guilt was palpable. I tried to reassure him, telling him that if I hadn't thought it was a good idea I wouldn't have signed up. We weren't at war at the time, and despite the prevailing family trait, he and grandpa had both survived the Army, hadn't they? Besides, I was going into one of the more cerebral desk jobs in the Air Force. (As we were to find out later, there was no way they were ever going to let me so much as look at a weapon.)

He still felt a pang every time we talked about it, though. It was a whole long month before I was to ship out, and while I got more and more excited about the idea of moving on, he seemed more and more concerned. Until one afternoon, when he came to me with a twinkle in his eye and invited me to go fishing.

I knew he had bought a boat. I had seen it under the tarp in the back yard. I also knew that it wasn't ready; most of his projects of late had been related to boat repair. At last, he had made it lake-worthy, and was ready to go. He wanted one last father/son event before I left, and I agreed whole-heartedly.

We dragged out of bed at 3:30 the next morning, packed a cooler full of sandwiches, sodas, and snacks. He waved me off while he hitched up the trailer, so I dozed in the cab of the truck until we were ready. It was about a 45 minute ride to the lake. There were about half a dozen other boats ahead of us at the little concrete launch slip. When our turn came, dawn was creeping over the circle of low hills (we in Arizona called them "mountains") around the lake. The lake was still steely gray and in shadow, while the hills erupted with gold rods of light. Half an hour more, and the dome overhead would already be a pale blue, and the lake would already have overflowed with glare and would have started casting shards of it back at the sun. It would have been nice to see.

However, being who we were, it wasn't meant to be. Our turn came, and I stood by the water, guiding dad as he backed the trailer down into the lake. He set the brake, came back, and we shoved it off. I held the rope as he went and parked, pulling the boat along the little rocky shore so someone else could launch. Dad came down, and we hopped in. The water was lower than either of us had ever seen it, what with the drought being in its third or fourth year. Dad wanted to row out a good distance before firing up the motor. We got out about 100 yards, almost halfway to the line of buoys marking the edge of the lake proper. Dad dropped the engine down and fired it up.

Vrrrr-RRROOOMMMMM!!! *clank*

It was a small sound, like a rock off your windshield. He almost tried to start it again, but thought better of it. When he pulled the engine back up, the propeller was already ruined. It looked like a rose; all of the "petals" were folded up and in on each other. Dad looked down into the water, and saw the large, concrete block that we could see in the settling murk. He uttered the worst profanity I ever heard him use: "Crap." Then his jaw set, and he unshipped the oars.

Yeah, it was funny later. We chuckled wryly over it seven years later, in fact, after I had served my time and returned home with a growing family. He was standing on a chair, helping me put up a shelf in the laundry room. The baby-gate was up across the hallway to keep my son from getting into the nails.

"I better watch it. I'm getting to be as bad as your grandfather, clumsy-wise," he was saying.

Just then, he whacked his thumb with the hammer. Startled, I leapt forward to catch him, and only managed to upset the box of nails. Dad shook his head as they scattered everywhere.

"Well," he said, shaking his head good-naturedly and nursing his thumb, "there's still hope for the boys." The older boy chose that moment to charge around the corner, and ran headlong into the gate, which gave out. After a brief flurry, he landed on his back, blinking up at the ceiling and gripping the gate which lay on his chest.

We sat there, not wanting to laugh, and watching pained, embarrassed, or dazed expressions alternate on our strikingly similar faces. Three generations of hapless men, slowly turning into each other.

"Okay," said Dad, "There's still one more boy."

Part Two: Saying Goodbye

Originally posted Sunday, July 25, 2004

My recruiter told me to stay out of trouble. I was shipping out to basic training in two weeks, and all of the paperwork was done; if I got so much as a speeding ticket, it would screw everything up. I figured I was a pretty easygoing fellow, staying out of trouble should be easy, right?

I tried to have some last minute fun, went crazy and saw some concerts with my friends. Saw Elvis Costello with the Crash Test Dummies, Huey Lewis and the News, and even Kenny Loggins (thanks to the State Fair). Believe it or not, that was great. The last weekend before I was to leave, my oldest friend, Brian, came up with tickets to Jesus Christ Superstar.

Now, Brian and I had known each other since at least seventh grade, when we sat next to each other in band. In all that time, he never expressed any desire to learn to drive or to saddle himself with the expense and bother of owning a car. Until now. We were going to travel across town to Gammage Auditorium to see Jesus Christ Superstar in his brand new - to him - 1978 Honda Civic. He had, inevitably, dubbed it "The Beast."

I lived in my parents' house in the extreme northwest of Phoenix, and Arizona State University is in Tempe, located to the southeast of Phoenix. About 40 miles in The Beast.

We made it, and parked, and waded through the picket lines. Four nuns were marching with signs that said "Don't Make Fun of My Lord" or "The Savior Isn't Silly" in front of the theater. A couple of fundamentalist types were standing off to one side smoldering at the Catholics for trumping their own demonstration. It made me nervous, and I planned to head for exits on the other side of the theater if they started rioting.

The show was great, though they went a little too "campy" during Herod's big scene. It was the scene the protesters objected to, of course. Herod was dancing around in a leather S&M suit, smacking his butt and vamping around Jesus, who stood stoically at center stage. I leaned over to Brian and pointed out that Herod's mockery of Jesus is recorded in the Bible, but you never see anyone protest at the book stores. On our way out, we wondered whether the picketing nuns might have appreciated this point... but this conversation died a quick death when we got to The Beast.

The Beast had developed a problem while we were inside enjoying ourselves: three flat tires. One of them was the spare. After a bit of head scratching, we decided to limp the aged monster across the street to a filling station and try to inflate them for the ride home. Our plan was to see how far we could get before they went flat again, thinking we could leapfrog across town from air pump to air pump. The only danger there was in running out of quarters.

Alas, after filling them up, they were flat again after half a block. We debated turning around to go back to the filling station when I recognized the neighborhood we were in, and suggested that we stop at Bronwyn's place. Bronwyn was my former roommate. He had returned from his summer in South Africa to attend ASU, and set himself up in a tiny little one-bedroom place not far from the campus. We invaded his house, and tried to phone Brian's dad to come and rescue us. No answer.

"It's alright," said Bronwyn. "I'm borrowing a car for the summer. I'll just run you back to Glendale, and you can come pick up The Beast tomorrow." Brilliant!

So, we piled into a tiny little two-door contraption belonging to one of Bronwyn's classmates, an exchange student from Bangladesh, who had left the car, but no insurance or registration documents.

"Well," I said, "just don't get pulled over, because I can't afford any trouble this close to shipping out."

Brian was dejected. His "new" car was a bust, and he was fuming over the possible costs of getting it repaired, towed, and otherwise relocated back to our side of town. As he fumed, he smoked Camel after Camel, flicking the ashes carelessly out the sunroof. Most of them made it out of the car, but I had to duck a few stray cinders that blew back into the microscopic back seat, where I had folded myself up like a very heavy map.

We were cruising down the road, laughing at our own absurdity, when I began to choke on smoke. It didn't smell like cigarettes, though. I looked down, and saw that it was pouring out from UNDER the driver's seat.

Bronwyn noticed it at about the same time, and began furiously changing lanes, trying to get to the side of the road. We careened across eight lanes of traffic, screaming as thickening, blackening smoke poured out the windows. The car finally stopped, and Bronwyn and Brian leapt from the car like it was about to explode, leaving me stuck in the back. I frantically reached around looking for the latch that would release me from the charbroiler I was trapped in, and realized that there was no way out. I heard yelling from outside the car, and heard Brian fumbling around, trying to rescue me. I slipped, and landed head first on the floor of the car, which was littered with papers, and came eye to flame with the smoldering upholstery.

Then I saw salvation: a water bottle!

I unscrewed the cap, and tried to dump the contents on the glowing edges of the carpet, but couldn't fit the bottle under the seat. I tried pouring the water into my hand, but there just wasn't enough room for maneuverability. Somehow, though, I managed to soak some of the papers and stifle the flames. The thick, plastic-smelling reek began to clear, and Brian finally managed to work the latch and hauled me out by the ankles into the relatively fresh air along the side of the highway.

We sat on the berm looking down at the car for a long time, making sure the smoke didn't start up again, and watching for emergency vehicles. Four cops passed us, and didn't notice three smoke-streaked college guys with panic-stricken eyes sitting there on the side of the highway.

Then, since these tragedies happen in threes, Brian asked, "Where are my keys?"

After a brief search of the car, he looked down at the road... And saw there, eight feet down in the only sewer grate for ten miles, the glint of metal from his keys. There was nothing that could be done, but pile back into our illegal firetrap and make our way north.

By the time we got to Brian's place, we were dirty and desperate. We only wanted a drink, and a soft couch to collapse into. My plan was to crash there and call my folks for a ride in the morning.

Except that we couldn't get into the house. Brian's parents were gone, the house was dark, and not one car sat in the driveway. We just looked at each other for a long minute. Both of us were probably thinking the same thing: This will be funny in a few years.

Fortunately, we didn't get caught breaking into his house, since I was supposed to be staying out of trouble.


Next: Six Little Words

The Bachelor Party

(originally posted July 04, 2004 - all names have been changed to protect the guilty)

The Smoke Deck was the focal point of social life for everyone in the U.S. Air Force squadron at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA. Even people who didn't smoke would go there as soon as their duties were done for the day, just to put in an appearance. Some were fresh out of Basic Training, and glad to spend their 20 minutes of freedom outside; some were "sharking", which involved circling amongst the newbies, looking for one that would be easily wowed by the "seniority" of someone who had been there for as long as three weeks already.

I know of several young men who got their first dates this way.

I was one of those who went to smoke. I had never been more than a pack-a-week kind of guy, but just being able to go out and have a cigarette after eight weeks of stress and mind games was a temptation that I couldn't even think of resisting. It was October, a month after I had arrived at DLI, and I was lighting up a couple of stogies to celebrate being allowed to wear civilian clothes again. I was relishing my flannel shirt and Detroit Tigers baseball cap (I've always been a big Magnum PI fan), and I had on a pair of jeans that seemed much looser than they had last time they were worn, four months before. Bert came up to me, took the cigar I offered, and said, "I got someone who wants to meet you."

Then she stepped out from behind him. "Hey, aren't you the guy that can put a quarter up his nose?" she said. It was that adorable girl I had been admiring in formation for the last four weeks.

"Got a quarter?" I replied dashingly. She laughed, and to make a long story short, by February we had decided to get married.

Of course, most of our friends were scandalized. After all, it is common knowledge that DLI marriages usually don't last more than six-months beyond the end of the couple's stay in Monterey. And most of those marriages are just a temporary arrangement for the sake of qualifying for off-base housing. The odds for a marriage like ours were not good. Maybe that explains why I was more nervous about telling people about the wedding than I had been proposing.

Most people who heard our happy news offered flaccid congratulations before moving on to more interesting subjects, and most of my close friends seemed worried when I told them. But not Glenn. He became visibly excited at the prospect, and his first words were, "Can I throw the Bachelor Party?" So I said, sure.

When the big night arrived, we borrowed my fiancee's Saturn, and swung by the liquor store on our way to the motel where the festivities would be held. Glenn had outdone himself. He'd secured a suite under the name "Nick Nefsik" (Arabic for "F*** yourself") which had a kitchenette, and a balcony overlooking the Chinese restaurant behind the motel.

People started to show up, and we all started to get blasted and watch porn. A typical night, for most of the guys, and a bit boring. Then someone suggested getting a stripper. Everyone ponied up a few bucks, and Don Law (whom everyone called "Dong") went to work with the phone book. She showed up about half an hour later with her bouncer; a beefy, sullen woman that stood in the corner of the room watching us watch her friend.

Then the fun really started.

And then, there was a knock on the door. Apparently, there was an Air Force girl in the room next door with her boyfriend, an Army sergeant. I probably don't need to point out that their relationship was not legal, but I will. They didn't let that stop them, though. They were so upset about all the noise coming from our room, that they came over to do something about it.

First, the guy came to the door and demanded to know who the "ranking NCO" was at the party. Dong explained that there wasn't an NCO in charge of Bachelor Parties, but that the stripper would be leaving before 10:30pm. All we asked was a little patience. The guy seemed to agree, and left.

The Stripper was quite good. She zeroed in on the Bachelor (me, of course) and did a very naughty dance, which I wasn't able to fully appreciate because I had misplaced my glasses, and was totally obliterated. When she was done with that, she made a little pitch about needing extra money to play a game called "Feed the Kitty", after which everyone bolted from the hotel to find the nearest cash machine. This was fortunate for most of them. While we waited for the bank roll patrol to return, the Stripper disappeared into the bathroom (where my roommate turned out to be hiding in the tub), and a few of the guys had gone out on the balcony for a smoke.

Fred Kreigler was by the window staring myopically at the porno on the TV, when there was a knock on the window behind him. There were about a dozen guys in the room, and I was by the wall dividing the bedroom area from the kitchenette when Fred pulled back the curtain to see a grinning death's head with a chin divot and a hair-line that was retreating like a Redskin's defensive line.

"IT'S SERGEANT KNIGHT!!!!!" he shouted... and mayhem ensued.

I don't know who opened the door, because Kreigler swore later that it wasn't him. Maybe TSgt Knight really was the supernatural being we all thought he was. That night he burst through the door, and grabbed as many people by the back of the shirt as he could reach. The stampede flowed by me in my place against the wall, and I stared stupidly into the panicked faces of my companions followed swiftly by the leering, gleeful face of retribution.

When the dust settled, there were about six of us left in the room with TSgt Knight, who looked around the room, smirking and braying threats into our faces. The Incarnation of Death was turning to each of us and trying to find out who had escaped his clutches by diving off the balcony.

"Who booked the room?" he shouted. "I want to know who 'Nick Nefsik' is." We were trying to make it look like we couldn't remember, but we were really just trying to figure out who we would have to turn in. I remember reluctantly giving Glenn's name, but tried to make it sound better by pointing out that he hadn't bought alcohol for anyone but me.

After much soul-thrashing, we managed to come out with only five names of people we were pretty sure he'd already seen. He had to be satisfied with that. Then it occurred to our Ranking NCO that one of our drunken runners might have been injured diving off that balcony, so he sent someone around to see.

Sure enough, the guy returned with Dong draped across his back. Dong looked around the room blearily, whether through pain, inebriation, or both. He looked hard at TSgt Knight for a few seconds, then burst out, "Who invited THIS asshole?"

We all froze, and our blood ran cold as the smile of the Grinch crept across his malignant mug. TSgt Knight leaned back, took a deep breath (as we held ours)... and laughed! "You're alright, then, Airman Law?"

In the end, it turned out pretty well. Nobody got into too much hot water, though a few of the people there had been student leaders, and had their positions of responsibility taken away. The two under age guys (including my roommate) were put back "on phase", which meant they had to keep a curfew and stay in uniform all the time.

Most importantly, my wedding went on as planned. My lovely, new bride was mad that I had worried her so much, but I was forgiven for not actually causing any damage to either our plans or her car. Fortunately, I had been able to convince our apprehender that I should stay at the motel that night, since I was unable to drive it.

Glenn showed up after everyone had been dragged off, and he helped me clean up the room.

"I'm sorry your Bachelor Party got busted," he said.

"I'm sorry I ratted you out," I said.

"That's alright. Everyone knew I'd set it up; someone would have told on me," he forgave me.

"Where were you, anyway?" I asked. "How did you get away?"

"Well, when everyone else was going off the balcony, me and Duke hopped over the dividing wall to the balcony of the room next door. We lit up a couple of smokes, and just watched. TSgt Knight didn't notice us, so we slid down the drain pipe. I've been at another party down at the other end of the motel." Typical Glenn!

And the chick that turned us in? We made sure everyone knew she and her boyfriend had made the call to TSgt Knight... including her husband.

Nobody Sings Protest Songs Anymore

28 Mar 2008, 20:01 (edit | delete)

I hear this idea a lot. I hear it from people I know who sneer in general at peace protesters; from people who disagree with war, but don't want to appear "weak"; and from people who don't think, but feel that looking cynical is edgy and makes them seem smart. Sadly, I even hear it from people who actively protest; even they seem to feel that the outrage of the public is lacking in the face of the outrageous events of our day.

It's an insidious meme. The idea that our generation doesn't care enough to protest has crept across the media - the accusation ranges from Bill O'Reilly's assertions that "only stoned slackers" are watching The Daily Show, to stories on CNN about how many protest songs there used to be, and a widely repeated story by Jimmy Chang that accuses contemporary artists of burying their protests for the sake of sales.

But I say those characterizations are wrong. Dead wrong. As I said in my own blog, the Revolution is already in progress. It has also been described in an NPR story: "...the new generation is protesting in its own very modern way -- by recording protest-oriented music and posting it for downloading on Web sites, for free."

That was happening five years ago, when Lenny Kravitz released an online-only single recorded with Iraqi pop-star Kadim Al Sahir; you can still download "We Want Peace" orsee Lenny's clip discussing it on YouTube.

Protest is as strong as ever. Strong enough for Spinner to not only list the 20 important protest songs, but to come up with songs from each of the last four decades. Acts like Pearl Jam (World Wide Suicide) and Green Day (Minority and American Idiot) have always been vocal about their politics. Some have built their reputations on shouting their beliefs, like System of a Down with B.Y.O.B. (Explicit Album Version) and Serj Tankian's Empty Walls.

Some of the "elder statesmen" of rock have made protest their central theme, made even more significant by their artistic reactions to 9/11. Take Neil Young, who pulled no punches with the tribute to Flight 93, (Let's Roll), and has since release Living With War. Or Bruce Springsteen, who publicly mourned on The Rising and then championed the Kerry campaign in 2004. Maybe they haven't touched off the kind of popular reaction ofMarvin Gaye's classic What's Going On or become cultural touchstones like Bob Dylanand Joan Baez; but it is, after all, a different world.

Today's fires smolder under the upholstery.

Today's protest audience doesn't want platitudes; we have all the marching anthems we could want. John Lennon's Imagine and Give Peace a Chance, are all the slogan we need; Jimi Hendrix's wordless re-claiming of the Star Spangled Banner still strikes the same chord it has always struck.

These days, we know what the problem is; what we are hungry for is the solution. And this is where the modern protest song is hiding. Think of the subtle courage it takes forNada Surf to suggest to our world that we should Always Love. Consider the late Ofra Haza who sang about peace to Arabs and Israelis. And look at how hungry we are in America for someone like will.i.am to share with us a song about Hope.

A protest doesn't have to be fiery; John Mayer proves that by Waiting For The World To Change. A protest can be Fun and Games, thanks to the Barenaked Ladies. The Indigo Girls are a constant act of defiance, in their way, and their music reflects that hope for a more Perfect World.

And what about you? What if you do speak up, and they tell you to shut up? What if they tell you that you're just a stoned slacker who doesn't know what you're talking about... even if it's true... you have every right to reply:

Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me.Because, thanks to our protesters - like Rage Against the Machine - defiance is still alive.

In October

A couple of years ago, someone I miss very much asked me to describe autumn in Arizona. I tried to do what he asked, and this is what came out. (All of my original musical references have been linked; with my apologies and appreciation to all of the artists.)

Legal warning: all persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental.

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In October

There was a band in the late 1980's who took their name from a US spy plane, and they put out a spare, black & white album with spare, black & white songs full of dust and spindly trees. The sky I'm looking at is a full color version of the album cover, minus the pale, blurred Irish faces. The only blurred face within miles is mine.

I'm getting into a white Datsun hatchback with automatic transmission, which I'm not far from discovering it wasn't meant to have. I'm going off to school, and the music of that Irish band is pouring from my speakers. I'm trying to sing along - I am, after all, a vocal major - but I can't duplicate the delicate pain in that voice. It galls me, because I feel so superior to the androgynous man-boy singing the words. I am so certain I could write that song myself! The jealousy burns in me, and it will be years before I can deal with the fact that it is jealousy. I will never write a song like that. I will barely manage to sing it without my voice cracking.

But I will understand it.

After school, I will head to her house. She is still in high school, but now I am not, which means our relationship is now barely legal. I doubt her parents would tolerate me chasing after their daughter if I hadn't been there almost every day for almost four years. Everyone pretends that we are not lovers. Everyone knows we are.

But this time it's not the same. There has been someone else, and I'm enough of a fool - an honest and honorable one, I think - to tell her. I haven't "done the deed", but at our age, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that she herself was only the third or fourth female to show me any kind of romantic interest, or that I am vulnerable to the very idea that a fifth would come along. How do you explain that, when you are too young to understand it yourself?

So we sit in the Arizona room - a screened in patio area with lurid green astro-turf and wicker furniture - and she smokes cigarettes in defiance of her parents. Her mother sits stoically on the other side of the glass door, watching Oprah, and her father flits about through the kitchen, occasionally pulling out a show tune from the bench of the piano and playing it. He will play a song - "Stranger in Paradise" or "Lara's Theme" - once, and then put it away and go out to his car and leave. Two years later, she will be away at college when her sister finds what is hidden inside the piano.

We don't say much, because we know said sister is listening from her bedroom. She sits behind the screen quietly, with her stereo playing a bizarre mixture of 80's power ballads and this new kind of gritty metal music coming from Seattle. We don't want to corrupt her.

After stilted conversations about schoolwork and making half-hearted plans for the weekend, we get into my car. I have a predictable selection: Paul Simon's "Graceland",Peter Gabriel's "So" and "Us", Harry Connick, Jr.'s "When Harry Met Sally…" soundtrack, and "The Phantom of the Opera". There may be a leftover from summer, like the B-52's, and some Billy Joel, but she's gotten sick of those from driving around with me.

We drive to the new park they built in the canal. It only floods in late August and early September, if it floods at all. It is now October, and everyone feels pretty safe at the playground and on the volleyball court. It is, however, a little chilled, since the sun is blocked early down in the bottom of the canal. People are wearing sweat pants instead of shorts, and the cyclists are wearing thin windbreakers. The usual twenty to thirty degree drop in temperature at this time of year has given all of the children runny noses, and they play listlessly on the shiny new monkey bars, swings, slides, and merry-go-rounds.

We sit on the decorative river rocks that line the steep sides of the canal above the bike path. We are just under the bridge, and the traffic roaring by keeps anyone from eavesdropping. As though anyone would want to hear such whining and pleading. She doesn't. I take her to her house, and take a circuitous route home.

I end up at the park north of where they're going to build the new freeway. It will circle the whole city, they say. I don't believe it. By the time they finish it, the city will have grown around it like the belly of a fat man spilling out of his belt. I've even read articles asking for another loop even further out. You see the pattern, even if you're only a community college music student with no future.

The sun goes down slowly when you sit on top of a mountain. Even a worn and stooped hill like the one I'm on towers over the valley. If I was facing south, I could see all the way to South Mountain, where all of the radio and TV towers are. Facing east, I could see Camelback Mountain, sticking up from where it is pinched between extravagant wealth in Scottsdale and hopeless poverty in Sunnyslope. Driving around that one sorry hill is like driving from "Dallas" to "Sanford & Son" with a commercial break in between.

I am facing west, though. That's the direction I want to go. There is nothing out there, once you get past my house and the city where only the elderly live. Who named it "Youngtown", anyway? I hear that Irish band singing in my head again, and my mouth fills with a gust of dusty wind. Only two weeks ago it would have burned from baking in the harsh sun all day, but now it is slightly damp, and full of spores and pollen. No one could blame me for having to wipe my eyes and nose, and hurrying back to my car.

At home I call my friend, to see what he's up to. He's bored, and wants to go somewhere - how does west sound tonight? I am ready to agree even before he offers gas money, and I grab some supplies on the way out the door. Supplies are two sodas, and a few of mom's cookies.

We head west from his place, taking Bell Road through Sun City - which is Youngtown with a different mayor. We follow it until it becomes a dirt lined track, and then a dead end. We turn south until we find another major road. We are blaring Queen through the town of Buckeye, and stopping at the Circle K for more snacks for us and the car. We decide to head for Wickenburg, in the other direction. We've switched to Pogues, and we spit and curse along with the singer for twenty miles before the tape runs out. In the silence I tell him about her, and what I've done.

"Stop," he says, and I stop. He gets out of the car, in the dark, with the wind whipping across the flat land by the quiet road. He walks back up the road the way we came, and I get out, too. "Stay there," he orders, and I do. The car is off the road on the side, with the lights off, and I walk around it, looking up at the stars through the streaming wind-tears. I find Orion, and the Big Dipper, before I give up on keeping warm in a denim jacket and get back in the car.

When he comes back, I have James Taylor's Greatest Hits in. We ride in melancholy to Wickenburg, which is dark and empty with the hour and the wind. We feel empty, which could be some kind of hunger, and we turn around again, heading home. He wishes for the hundredth time that we were old enough to buy, and I agree. It won't be long.

I drop him off, and head back to my parent's house. It is too late, and there are words when I come in. It starts cordially - no one wants to offend anyone else. But, the words can all mean something else, and all three of us are wondering what I'm going to do, and how I'm going to do it. I can't stay a child forever. But I'm not a child. Which is why I should… But how can I when… I can feel my eyes glazing over, and I have a vision of squares talking in parallel about circles. I laugh. It is misconstrued, and I go off to bed.

I lie staring at the ceiling. The wind is still gusting, but tomorrow there will be more of the endless, cold sun. It loses some of its color along with the heat. The cold is only relative, but I think I can feel it, even though I've never lived through what some would call a "real" winter. Forty degrees is cold enough for me, and that's at least two months and twenty degrees away.

I think about something my friend said, while Shane Macgowan sang about whiskey and gutters. He marveled at my relationship. He said it gave him hope, and he hoped we would last forever. I tried not to tell him, but he could tell from my face. It broke his heart more than it did mine. It was why he had made me stop.

Years go by, with or without those you love. After a while, the songs are all that make sense. Their words aren't forgotten, though your own are. All you have left are images and temperatures, smells and sounds. They mingle with the memories, and the soundtracks take over the dialogue until you almost forget who did what to whom.

At least no matter how cold it gets, there is the sunshine, and the temptation to stay inside and pretend that it's warm.

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Since I never mentioned U2's Joshua Tree album by name in the text, I thought I should do here. I resisted linking the line Under the Bridge in the text. You're welcome.

Recycle Your Box

This one pissed a few people off. Posted Saturday, November 24, 2007, I still pretty much feel this way, and I am still hoping for an opportunity to demonstrate that I am as Centrist as I feel I am. Perhaps I should write a follow-up about that...

It is not easy being one of us. Whatever it is that I am, that is. One of the non-branded, non-affiliated, un-marketed.

I know I confuse people with my opinions. No one really understands what it means to reject the options that are forced upon us, and ask for something better. Everyone is constantly trying to fit us into one of their pre-defined, factory stamped, UPS-coded boxes - because then they feel safe and in control.

My tendency is to blow off the trappings of the Boxes, and deal with the substance of things. I don´t pay attention to the clues I give off when I express my distaste with things of a political nature, especially. That is probably why I was recently accused of being a Democrat. Yuck.

I can see where someone would make that mistake. After all, I spend a great deal of time criticizing the current American regime; the Republican controlled Congress that has worn the country down since 1994; the misguided incompetence of the Bush Administration; the mystifying workings of the Supreme Court. But all of this easy criticism means that the so-called opposition never gets equal time, and as FOX News has programmed us to believe, if I am not spending equal time bashing Ted Kennedy, then I am somehow biased... Heaven forfend.

Well, yes, I guess I am biased. So what? Find me someone without a bias, and I will show you someone without an opinion. But no one bothers to figure out what my biases actually are; instead, they determine that I am disagreeing with them, and therefore must be on the so-called Other side.

I find it to be extremely disingenuous that the same people who will dismiss my criticisms as biased often follow their dismissal up by telling me - proudly - that they get all of their information from extremely biased sources: FOX news, Talk Radio (tm), or some similarly slanted publication. They will often compound the blow to their credibility by telling me that Bill O´Reilly is not a conservative, or that NPR - my choice for news on my commute - is a leftist organization. If you believe either of those statements then you seriously need to go check out Political Science for Dummies or something, because you don´t understand what the words ¨conservative¨ or ¨leftist¨ mean.

What I find ridiculous about these arguments is that the people arguing with me are so busy attacking what they see as ¨my group¨, that they never seem to recognize that I have not aligned myself with a group. Rather than addressing the substance of my criticism, they put me in a box with their perceived enemies, and waste my time trying to convince me that their box is better than mine. They don´t get that my point is often, ¨Hey, these boxes are convenient for framing bubblegum poll questions and building colorful graphics on the TV news, but if we are going to solve any of our problems, the boxes need to go.¨

It is really easy to tell when someone is boxing you, rather than listening to you. You might learn that the President is lying about something, and express disgust; they will respond that Hilary is trying to take away your money and give it to brown people. This is called a non sequitor. Say you realize that all of the billions of dollars in spending ¨on the troops¨ has actually been going to pay for contractors with no oversight or accountability; they might then point out that John Edwards got an expensive haircut. This is called misdirection.

It reminds me of 7th grade algebra class when I pointed out to a classmate that she had made a mistake in a formula that we were working on as a group, and she sneered at me that she could at least pick out matching socks. True, my socks that day were slightly mismatched, but I was still right about the algebra. In my mind, the Republicans are the idiot classmates that ignored me and went with Suzy´s answer - costing us points on the exercise - and the Democrats are the teacher who dithered on the sideline telling me it was impolite to call a girl a name like that.

The issues at stake these days are a little bigger than getting a math problem wrong. We need to decide how to fix the mistakes made over the last six years, and confront the inevitable shortages in resources that are going to start hitting us as the rest of the world realizes that they don´t need to support our habits of over-consumption any more. We need to deal with our problems intelligently and not as a pack of squabbling teams of marketing experts. Marketing is great for selling things, but not for making tough decisions.

Meanwhile, I will continue to defy your attempts to box me in, and will kick in the sides, whether from the inside or the outside.

Box THAT, suka!