Santa Is My Homeboy

Bill Lacovara and his son were fishing off the coast of Atlantic City when they spotted a bag dumped in the ocean. Inside were hundreds of unopened letters to God — some dating back to 1973. Many were still readable, including a man praying to win
the lottery (twice) and an unwed mother praying for the baby’s father to marry her. Lacovara later asked, “How many letters like this all over the world aren’t being opened or answered?” Naturally, he went on to sell the collection on eBay.

This month, 600,000 similar letters from around the world will be sent to FIN-96930
Arctic Cir., Finland — the official address of Santa Claus. In Britain, some children will burn their letters as tradition follows, while children in Latin America fix
them to balloons to float towards the heavenly North Pole. After befriending Santa on Facebook, myself and many other Americans will likely email or text Santa.

Cultural similarities between Santa Claus and God are centuries old. From Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel (where God looks like Santa with a six-pack) to Coca-Cola ads, these two are depicted as jolly, Anglo-Saxon bearded men who punish the naughty, reward the nice and, as Ray Stevens reminded us, are “watchin’ you.” And apparently, Santa battles Satan as well. In a 1959 film, Santa is literally turned into the god-hero when he joins Merlin to fight the Devil, and also in the Cold-War era “Santa Conquers the Martians” — which is pretty self-explanatory.

This decade has found Santa stuck in the chimney of political correctness — rejected by some religious groups for being too secular and by civil liberties groups for being too spiritual. While Santa’s in Australia are currently being told to say “Ha, ha, ha” instead of “Ho, ho, ho” (because it’s derogatory to prostitutes), it is his being a face of Christianity that upsets most secularists. Last month, pets around the country were outraged when PetSmart removed the word “Christmas” from promotions.

As the War on Christmas rages from holiday trees to public schools banning nativity scenes, some foresee a dark liberal day when Santa can’t even say “Ha” (because it’s derogatory to clowns) and he’s censored to the shelves of cyberspace — found only as a toy with highly poseable limbs.

Which is ironic, because the other hero has already been sentenced. At the satirical mcphee.com, you can find an action figure of God, or for $12.95 get the Deluxe Jesus which has “glow in the dark miracle hands” and comes with five miniature loaves and two fish. Jesus’ face has had a recent cultural surge in South Park, Kevin Smith’s “Dogma”, Jesus air fresheners, and Urban Outfitter’s successful “Jesus is My Homeboy” clothing line. Perhaps we should ask Gillian Gibbons about cultural blasphemy. The 54-year-old mother of two was nearly executed by a Sudanese mob last week when her Muslim class named a teddy bear Mohammed. While this offense to Islam was a radical over-reaction, is there any sanctity left in the way we present Christ?

In sharp contrast since being boycotted in 05’ for not saying “Merry Christmas”, Wal-Mart has teamed up with One2Believe, a faith-based manufacturer, and will start selling religious toys this Christmas. In their Battle for the Toybox campaign, they set out to create an alternative to violent action figures, by simply creating violent (Biblical) action figures. A plastic Goliath grips Samson in a chokehold on their site with the caption: “Spirit warriors ($24.99) are big tough toys that boys will love to play with!”

Problematically, the Jesus portrayed in the blasphemous toy market appears no different in the faith-based market. Such is the case with other well-intentioned Christian attempts at staying relevant like Napoleon Dynamite spoofed “Jesus Died For Pedro” t-shirts, the widespread Halloween “Hellhouses”, and church marquees like “Git-R-Done Fer God.” When our dumbed-down presentation of Christianity stoops to what we were fighting to begin with, how can anyone tell the difference? As sermon analogy after analogy compares God to everything from cookies, to maple syrup, to Superman, why should an intellectual think our belief in God is any different than a child’s belief in Santa Claus?

What Bill Lacovara found in the Atlantic is meant for a child’s Santa: some far-off magician to whom we float our wishlists. But God is not our white action figure or our “homeboy,” and when he’s put in a box (especially the kind that include batteries), his existence is trivialized. It sends the message to the world: “God is American — did you know that?” This Christmas let us share true love with every person of every race, without mistakenly creating God in the image of man.

Shake 'Em To Wake 'Em

“If you don’t touch the actors, they won’t touch you.” These aren’t normal instructions to attend church. Neither is paying $5. But standing in line for Searcy’s third consecutive Faith Assembly of God’s “Hell House,” I was embarking on the spiritual adventure aiming to scare the devil out of me—by letting me meet him face-to-face. This week, thousands of churches nationwide offered a moral-conscious “Hell House” alternative to Halloween, leaving many wondering: Are evangelism and scare tactics mutually exclusive in 2007?

Hell Houses, also known as “Revelation Walks” and “Torment Tours,” took off in the mid-90’s when Pastor Keenan Roberts decided to re-gain the attention of teenagers by creating “the most in-your-face, death-defyin’, satan-be-cryin’, keep-ya-from-fryin’, cutting-edge evangelism tool of the new millennium.” The concept is simple: deliver a fire and brimstone sermon in a spook house attraction. Groups are led by a demon, or multiple demons, through short scenes where unrepentant sinners are cast into Hell. Scenarios range from drunk-driving and pre-marital sex to political scenes like 9/11 ground zero and the Columbine shootings. The journey ends with heaven’s angels rescuing the group from Satan and taking them to meet Jesus, where they can respond to their experience and pray for salvation.

Roberts mass-produces Hell House outreach kits (chainsaw not included) which he sells for $299. Included is an instructional DVD, a special effects tape of Lucifer’s voice, and a 263-page manual on everything your church needs to know to run a Hell House, including this prop advice for an abortion scene: “Do your very best to purchase a meat product that will resemble as much as possible pieces of a baby that are being placed in the glass for all to see.” New for this fall were also $45 scripts of a dance club overdose and a gay wedding where Satan performs the ceremony.

The Searcy Hell House was unique in that, after the opening séance where demons circle the group chanting “nobody wants to go to Hell,” the skits build around Abby, a depressed teen, and her suicide. I was too terrified, however, to get the full plot effect and at one point was told by the head demon (possibly Screwtape) that if I didn’t settle down I would have to leave. This really served as my only moment of spiritual reflection: Where do you go if you get kicked out of Hell? The local tour also replaced the Heaven meet-and-greet with a guy handing out the “Book of Hope”—a copy-and-pasting of the gospels into a single “more complete account” of Christ’s life (for those youngsters who couldn’t possibly understand four separate books about him).

Still, not even Hell House can escape judgment. Many continue to criticize this radical evangelism’s gory nature (often including graphic abortions), attempts to scare people into converting, and the literal demonization of homosexuals. A Hell House in Florida featured the coffin on an AIDS victim where a demon joyously proclaims “I tricked him into believing he was born gay.” Pastor Roberts’ justifies these methods by citing 1 Cor. 9:23, “I do all this for the sake of the Gospel.” But how far does this logic go?

Last Monday, I called Roberts—who has appeared on the Phil Donahue Show and in the New York Times—and asked him if the ends always justifies the means in evangelism today. He defended his ministry by saying it wasn’t as if they were walking up to non-believers and hitting them with baseball bats (which I found very ironic since I was chased by a ghoul holding a two-by-four). He likened Hell House to modern day parables with multimedia. “And as these desperate times call for drastic measures,” Roberts said, “sometimes you’ve got to shake em’ to wake em’.”

While I appreciate the motive behind such productions, souls can not be won and issues debunked in 10-minute spook houses to the humming of demon chainsaws. We must be conscious of the fine line between adapting our evangelism and compromising it when trying to stay relevant. Does the gospel have to be an X-rated video game for kids to respond?

Upon exiting my first (and hopefully last time) in Hell, a kind demon held open the door for me and I asked where the baptistery was, to which he laughed and said “God bless you, and watch out for Satan in those bushes.” Satan in the bushes—now that’s something I’d pay $5 to see.

The Great Mall In The Sky

ATTENTION CONSUMERS: The latest conspiracy theory in America is taking place, leaving many robbed of brain cells and big bucks. And it’s happening at 35,000 feet. Somewhere between the flight attendant’s monologue and the second Nabisco snack pack, passengers become disoriented and fall into the ultimate trap: reaching for that SkyMall magazine. Exactly what happens next, no one knows. But three easy payments of $39.95 later, the person looks to their spouse and says, “We now own a Turbo-Groomer Cobalt nose-hair trimmer.”

My first encounter with SkyMall magazine was during a flight to Little Rock on an American Eagle aircraft (which felt more like an American Sparrow). I became entranced by the glossy paper and glowing smiles of pajama models, narrowly escaping the purchase of a marshmallow gun with a range of over 30 feet. Luckily for me, the marshmallows were not included.

SkyMall was created by Bob Worsley in 1989 to allow flyers to order products using airplane telephones. Today, the magazine appears on most major airlines, tempting 1.7 million people a day to buy their very own hand carved statue of Don Quixote. While products seem random, ranging from the children’s ATM bank to the voice activated R2-D2—programmed to “dance while playing the famed cantina music”—themes do emerge, usually involving more travel cushions and ways to survive the apocalypse (see Holiday 2006 issue’s “gravity-defying boots”). Is there anything that can be learned about America from SkyMall? With help from Claxton’s Collegiate Culture Police (the CCCP, if you will), here are the top three SkyMall products.

First, The Motorized Snack Float: In case your R2-D2 isn’t around, this remote control device brings you drinks and snacks while in the pool with “no need to paddle around or get out.”

Secondly, The Runaway Alarm Clock: If you dare hit the snooze button on this alarm, which has wheels, it will roll off your nightstand and hide until you come find it.

Finally, the most outrageous $99.99 ever spent is on the iCarta Stereo Dock. “Perfect for the man who has everything,” this system plays your iPod while doubling as a toilet paper dispenser (I shudder to imagine why it’s “moisture-proof”). Now you can listen to your Elvis playlist as the king of your own throne.

Last week, I decided to test the limits of SkyMall by calling Atech Flash Technology, the people who made the iCarta, to pitch my own product—the “iPet.” I explained that an iPod docking station for small animals would be sensational. Imagine your cat creeping into the room wearing a jacket that’s actually playing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “CATS.” After two SkyMall operators loved that idea, I was connected to a manager who told me they already had that product in Japan. Needless to say, I wasn’t surprised.

In Ron Rosenbaum’s article on Slate.com, he labels SkyMall as a “techno-porn culture” that directly reflects what Americans are caring about. Leave it to the most materialistic country in the world to create a mall in the sky. One would think that with 35,000 thousand feet of perspective on our tiny planet that consumerism would lose its grip. Unfortunately, the urge to spend $80 on “The World’s Smallest Indoor Remote Control Helicopter” is often too strong. Trends of ultimate comfort and convenience, where we never have to leave the pool for anything, are replacing the natural with the iLife (which, go figure, is a new product from Apple in 2008). How can we preserve our humanity without being forced to rent Will Smith’s “I, Robot” for answers?

If any of the products mentioned above have indeed sounded interesting, please call 1-800-SKYMALL for the newest, quickest, smartest, biggest and all around best-est way to lose your check in three easy payments. The marshmallows, of course, are not included.

The Maybe Challenge

In 1991, Nickelodeon unleashed “Rugrats,” chronicling the triumphs and tribulations of toddlers, as one of its first cartoons alongside “Doug” (produced by Harding Alumni David Campbell). But it wasn’t until season five, episode 54 that “Rugrats” made television history in the controversial “Naked Tommy” episode—featuring Tommy removing his diaper to become more like Spike, his dog. “You shouldn’t take off your clothes. It’s not natural!” pleads Chuckie, Tommy’s conservative friend. With diaper waving in air, Tommy gloriously proclaims: “Nakie is fun! Nakie is free! Nakie is…nakie!” And with that, a generation is defined.

While no one at Harding would ever be so immature or careless as to ever go streaking to, say, the Mabee building at midnight during a session of Honors symposium, it’s important that we as college students are exposed (pun intended) to a range of ideas, including: Why are we so fascinated with being “nakie?” And yes, there is a Wikipedia article on streaking; no, the filter doesn’t block it.

Living in Los Angeles last fall, I read about a local art gallery displaying a photo of a nude person that was free for anyone to take. The catch? If you wanted the picture, you had to become the next person to pose nude. The cycle continued and became a huge success. Sound awkward? A group in Miami didn’t think so. Last Monday, over 600 random men and women posed in a massive nude photo shoot recreating the Tower of Babel. And these displays aren’t limited to trendy beach cities like L.A. or Miami. Restaurant patrons at The Black Frog in Greenville, Maine are upset about police prohibiting the “Skinny Dip” sandwich: sliced prime rib in a baguette roll, served free to anyone who will jump into the restaurant’s lake naked. How did these trends begin? Is this just another liberal conspiracy to put clothing enterprises like Wal-Mart out of business?

Naturism, nudism, and flashing have been around long before Will Ferrell let us all know “we’re going streaking.” The first college “streak” was in 1804 at Washington and Lee University by George William Crump—who later became a Senator and ambassador to Chile. Streaking really took off in 1974, a year after Time magazine called it a fad, when the University of Georgia set the record for the most streakers at 1,549. Erskine College followed by setting the highest per-capita streak involving 25% of their 600 students. That same year, country artist Ray Stevens recorded “The Streak,” a #1 hit ironically preceded by Paul McCartney’s “Band on the Run.” Since then, thousands have run “naked as a jay-bird” through the Olympics, the Academy Awards, the Super Bowl, weddings, funerals, Wrestlemanias, and of course, college campuses.

There’s Harvard’s “primal scream” before finals week, Notre Dame’s “streakers’ Olympics,” Michigan’s “naked mile,” and Dartmouth’s “blue light challenge” where students try to press all the alarms on the blue light emergency phones. Harding is no exception to such traditions with Allen dorm, the nudist colony of campus, the “Mabee challenge,” HUF’s “Scandicci challenge,” and the brand new “Zeedonk Dash” which sends students running to Kensett to feed the Zeedonk oats and sing the alma mater. With modern technology, however, many students are apprehended—as was the case several years ago when Professor Michael Wood bravely unmasked a student streaking through muffin chapel. But realistically, does Harding have a nudity problem?

Let’s first be honest about streaking: it’s not political. This summer’s World Naked Bike Ride (WNBR), an international event that attracted over 1,000 participants, claimed it was “to protest oil dependency.” Basically: we want to ride bikes naked. Secondly, girls must admit that guys aren’t the only guilty ones. Though extremely wimpy, the female “Little Rock challenge” involves a unique car trip to Little Rock and back— just in time for curfew and new inside jokes on Facebook.

For guys, as Robert E. Lee said after George Crump’s first campus run in 1804, streaking is often a rite of passage. A communal experience. Still, with pledge week approaching, the notion that we’re “nakie” all of the time will likely be reconfirmed. So I’m proposing the “MAYBE challenge”: maybe guys can break the stereotype by reducing excessive streaking/going one week without playing nude ultimate-Frisbee. Can we gather as civilized students of higher education and watch one episode of “The Office” without waiving our diapers in the air? True, Harding may be the closest thing to heaven on earth, but let’s remember it’s not the Garden of Eden. Grab some fallen leaves and, as Ray Stevens pleaded, “Don’t look Ethel.”

Honky Tonk Zedonkey Donk

Look past fall’s cool breeze, the new smiles of freshman friendship and those white swings rocking the soon-to-be-engaged, and you’ll see something often overlooked on Harding’s campus – civil war. Both sides of the battle are demanding resolution, leading to graffiti on bathroom stall to Facebook wall. This age-old issue has baffled philosophers since the beginning of time: Are we the Harding Bison or the Harding Bisons?

Inconsistencies in our newspaper, sports teams and t-shirts (featuring the buffalo that resembles a bowling ball with horns) have stirred a long debate over the word ‘Bisons’ being grammatically incorrect. However, while most dictionaries don’t recognize it, ‘Bisons’ can be a rare plural form of ‘Bison’. But try typing ‘Bisons’ on Microsoft Word and you’ll be met with an obnoxious red line that pierces the school-spirit. Before I offer my exotic solution, consider other schools in Harding’s Division II Gulf South Conference.

The GSC contains the most delightfully random mascots in the NCAA: the Monticello “Boll Weevils” and “Cotton Blossoms”, Ark. Tech’s “Wonder Boys” and “Golden Suns”, Southern Ark.’s “Muleriders”, Delta State’s “Fighting Okra” and Western Fla.’s “Argonauts”—a mythical group of bitter Greek sailors. With the generic “Bisons”, we join eight other universities (including that other Church of Christ school in Nashville) struggling with 2,000 hairy pounds of plurality problems. Since 1924, we’ve never been afraid to ask, “Can Harding do better?” So imagine this scene: It’s homecoming 2007 and instead of a bison charging the field endangering cheerleaders and journalists, one brave soul gallops out on Harding’s new and improved mascot—the Zeedonk.

Just four miles from First Security Stadium, a Kensett man owns “Trouble,” Arkansas’ only known zeedonk. Before you log onto snopes.com to crosscheck this with urban legends, drive to the corner of Searcy and 4th street. It’s impossible to pass the extremely rare hybrid between a zebra and a donkey without staring at the striped socks on his brown body. Also known as the zebronkey, zonkey, zebadonk, zenkey, zebrinny, deebra and, my personal favorite, zebrass, the animal gained national attention on Jay Leno’s “Headlines” when he mistakenly corrected a carnival for advertizing “zonkies.”

The Thundering Herd Marching Band will become the “Prancing Zebrinnies,” and other improvements will follow. What better time to correct the Bison/Bisons debate? Harding has new programs starting, a new head football coach, record enrollment, and a new international program in Zambia—which has real zebras. At a university that highly values staying up-to-date on current technologies and resources, it’s time to move on from the bison—a species that hasn’t run wild in White County in nearly 200 years. The close proximity of an actual oat-eating zeedonk is unique and far exceeds the nearest buffalo—living in the Ozarks on a ranch called “Happy Buffy” where they are happily sold between hamburger buns.

With modern emphasis on shock value, much like in this article, the Harding Zeedonks are sure to be a YouTube sensation. After visiting with the local owner in Kensett last weekend, he told me of the radio and television stations interested in “Trouble.” The Montel Williams Show has even contacted him for a segment on wacky animals—the ultimate dream for every mascot. And with the new Zaxby’s Chicken coming to Searcy, they can have an employee stand on Race Street dressed as a zeedonk in a firework-proof suit. The children will love that.

Until then, who are we? Among students, there is usually a stronger connection with the squirrels on the front lawn than the unseen bisons. Watching football on Saturdays, I see (often freakish) devotion to mascots and school-spirit around the country. Is this possible at Harding? Obviously Harding’s emphasis on athletics is prioritized differently than at public universities, but should football school-spirit improve? We are 6,332 with a spiritual bond that is nearly as unique as the cross between a zebra and a donkey—how are we going to show it?

Love Me Tenders

“Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” While Joni Mitchell’s voice filled my car as I drove to Searcy this semester, I became painfully aware of what I was leaving behind. It always seems, as far as restaurant options in Searcy go, that you “don’t know what you didn’t have” until you return home for a summer of great food.

The last time I was in Searcy, a restaurant called Just Ribs had just opened and just closed. In case some of you blinked and missed it, it was where Trail Dust had been, and bit the dust, a few years ago. While I can’t know for sure, one reason for Just Ribs’ short run could have been its motto: “It’s so good it’ll make your tongue slap your brains out!” Any restaurant slogan that ends “…your brains out” is probably more disturbing than appetizing.

Why does Searcy have such a hard time attracting good places to eat?

I pondered this question as I began the 105 mile stretch from Memphis to Searcy—a driving experience comparable to simultaneously watching Charlton Hesston’s “The Ten Commandments” and “Ben-Hur” on mute. And it is in Marion, Ark. that I leave behind my favorite fast-food restaurant for three lonely months—Zaxby’s.

In case you haven’t tasted the Zaxby’s chicken experience, which the mission claims will “enrich lives one person at a time,” it is the only restaurant exception where the Just Ribs motto may be applied. With over 400 locations from Virginia to Texas, Zaxby’s is becoming the In-N-Out of the south. They’ve raised the letter Z’s self-esteem from last to first with their delicious zappetizers, chicken salad zalads, meal dealz, chicken fingerz, zax sauce and party platterz. So as I drove past the banner for the limited-time-only kickin’ chicken sandwich with tongue torch sauce, I knew it was time to do something drastic.

I began my crusade by calling the Searcy Chamber of Commerce. Explaining that I was Zach McLeroy (founder of Zaxby’s), I said Searcy had topped our recent poll of candidates for a Zaxby’s location. But since the entire Chamber of Commerce staff was out playing at a golf tournament, I was told to call back. My plan, however, didn’t change: set up a virtual “blind-date” between an economic developer from Searcy and a franchise contractor from Zaxby’s. Once on the phone with Zaxby’s, I became Israel Moore (founder of Searcy) and passionately pitched Searcy as a chicken-tender deprived college town made of Harding University, ASU: Searcy, and Searcy Beauty College. Their response far exceeded my expectations.

As a profile of White County was pulled up by the representative, she explained that negotiations, ironically, were already in place and that a citizen had begun the application process. Once the license agreement was signed, Zaxby’s would be built in 6 – 18 months. I was ecstatic. I learned all that is needed is $650,000 and one commercial acre. Who knows, if the pharmacy program doesn’t start next year, perhaps their new building could become the nation’s largest Zaxby’s.

To the mysterious citizen of Searcy who is applying to “enrich lives one person at a time”: if you’re reading this, I want to thank you from the bottom of my stomach. While we must all find ways to be satisfied with the options we do have in White County, it never fails to be creative. Some say call your congressman—I say, call your favorite chicken place. Who knows what could happen? Today Chili’s, tomorrow Zaxby’s, the next millennium—Panera Bread.

Lessons From Bad Newz

I wonder who will play Michael Vick in the destined to be released: “The Michael Vick Story.” If they wait five years, maybe Vick himself will play the roll. Or Denzel Washington. Or perhaps rap artist Snoop Dogg (for pun alone).
As another celebrity’s downfall dominates our media, I call the attention back to us. But first, the dogs. ‘Jane’, ‘Big Boy’, ‘Magic’ and ‘Tiny’ were just a few of their names.

We know the story. In 2001, the same year Vick became the number one pick in the NFL draft, he joined the multi-million dollar subculture of dog fighting. Six years and an army of trained killers later, Vick, 27, has pleaded guilty to felony charges and awaits a December trial deciding the next 1 – 5 years of his life—his NFL career suspended indefinitely.

While Vick called his actions “very immature,” I struggle to relate to a time in my life when I “matured” out of hanging, drowning, and electrocuting dogs. Some 6 – 8 dogs were killed during his “Bad Newz Kennels” (codename of this group) training sessions. Now the fate of the 53 remaining pit bulls, found in a blood-stained building, is up to you. Or at least it was until Thursday, August 23.

Prosecutors set Thursday as the deadline for all dog-loving Americans to adopt a ‘Magic’ or a ‘Tiny’. Unfortunately, no adoptions were made. What is to become of the remaining animals that Michael Vick didn’t kill? They become U.S. property and will be exterminated.

Initially, I struggled with this irony. Michael Vick kills half a dozen dogs and goes to prison for five years; authorities react by killing 53 more.

“These dogs are ticking time bombs and a threat to society. Euthanasia is the most humane thing for them,” a spokeswoman for animal rights argued. Well, if we’re now eliminating all threats to society, what about terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay—should they be euthanized? As a Christian, I obviously value human life over canine, but not all people do. The decision to kill Vick’s dogs because of what they could do in society made me wonder: where is the line of applying human morality to animals?

Working in Yellowstone National Park this summer, I was in the heart of bear country. I avoided one Grizzly encounter while hiking with nothing but a book entitled “Death in Yellowstone.” Not comforting. So when an 11-year-old boy was killed by a bear in June, I was not surprised. 26 search dogs and a helicopter SWAT team hunted down and killed the bear that had been labeled a murderer. Something here reminded me of the infamous 1916 trial of “Murderous Molly”—a 5 ton circus elephant who was hanged for trampling two men in Tennessee. Surely I would want the aggressive bear that attacked my son in his tent destroyed, but we must be careful not confuse animal instincts with human motivations like revenge, greed, or meditated anger.

While ethically weighing what Michael Vick did, it is clearly not about killing dogs. If it was, the government would be equally guilty for euthanizing—a decision that is probably justified. Instead, this case is about the corruption that happened within Michael Vick, reflecting an idea Christ taught when he said: “…Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt. 5:28). Christ here is cautioning us against treating our thoughts and attitudes lightly.

It is unfortunate that this man’s mistakes have been sensationalized to the point of a Long Beach minor league team allowing free admission for fans who burned their Michael Vick jerseys. As citizens we need to control the attitudes within our heart, as Vick is learning, before we judge others’ actions.

Thankfully, it is the dogs who take the last bite out of this ex-star quarterback. And rightfully so. For just $10.99 your dog too could have its own Michael Vick chew toy from vickdogchewtoy.com. Who knows, I may buy one for myself.

Back to being back

I have discovered much, much of the same. Something happened out in the Northwest corner of Wyoming that completely jolted me out of the timeline of my life. I don't know whether to put "Yellowstone" on a dusty shelf marked "?", a photo album marked "!", or in some stash under my pillow marked "XXX." Wherever and however we learn to classify this past summer, it all serves to remind us: there is never a limit to the amount of experience you can have in life. As we predicted, we're all now back in wooden desks listening to lectures and waiting for bells. I check my emails 6 - 8 times a day. I have not been able to find a moment to appreciate anything outside of fluorescent-lit rooms with 1907's clocks. I have not been able to completely "leave" when I play the piano as I did in some soon-to-catch-fire wooden rec room 2,000 miles away. I go to Sonic everyday. TV remotes are easy to come by. Those moments this summer of craving the Southern Groove and Humidity, I am in them now and feel nothing but lazy and sweaty. Gross mostly. Surrounded by thousands of people wearing clean Lacoste shirts (collars popped) and the whitest teeth I've ever seen. But did they drive for hours past nothing but mountains and hold postcards of the Avalanche Peak in their eyes? Did they ever wonder on their way to buying those Costa Del Mar sunglasses if they would ever use to them to stare at the sun reflecting off mountain snow, or to judge a rapid on some Snake River, or a joke by some Jack Daniel inspiration... or a Bison that may or may not charge?

I know it is natural to romanticize every "checkpoint" in life. Every point where before it and after it look completely different. But somehow, this summer seems even more complicated than that. Like Yellowstone is buried as some time-capsule within my mind. At times like this (2:50 on Thursday 8/30), I am for some reason aware of it. But at other times, I completely forget this summer. The capsule may prove to be something that surfaces 30 years from now--maybe when my kid wants to go to Yellowstone, or I hear Yellowstone exploded on the news, or I hear that Luke is finally getting married. But wherever I am in life when I FINALLY understand the truths that were shown to me this summer, I will undoubtedly smile and think about all those small things that for a small time seemed to be all that life was (and should be) about.

The Abundant Life of Ian Terry

Searcy, Ark.- Pass Frozen D’s ice cream and the razorback factory mural and you’ll spot the globe at Truth for Today. It is the only building on Great Commission Avenue.

Inside, a team led by Eddie Cloer prepares Bible materials to ship as part of their “Into all the World by 2015” project. Standing in the lobby among foreign flags and clocks with international time zones, I sense an urgency that must be unique to an organization concerned more with the souls, than the checkbooks, of their consumers.

Thirty-eight years ago, New Zealand’s music scene was buzzing about the boys in white vests and the flyers announcing: “Hear... Dave, Ian, Alex, Billy, and Frank of Hogsnort Ruperts’ Original Flagon Band.”

A second place win on the American Idol equivalent of 1968 launched their first album. Known for their musical style of skiffle—a form of homemade bluegrass—Hogsnort Rupert took their pub-based show of eclectic rock and comedy on the road to growing populatiry.

After “Gretal” became an overnight hit, the band’s future as a major-label force looked certain until half the band suddenly dropped out in 1970. The cause? Christianity.

Today I sit in a conference room at Truth for Today with Ian Terry, 61. Once the lead guitar player and vocalist for Hogsnort Rupert, Terry is now an evangelist at Truth for Today where he has turned his last thirty years of experience since leaving the band into a seminar on Christian outreach

He flips through an aged scrapbook of albums and photos from his days as pop’s next-big-thing.

“Here we are at #2 with ‘Gretal’,” he says pointing to Wellington’s Pop-O-Meter. “And here’s the Beatles’ ‘Let it Be’ at #3. See? We were above the Beatles.” His English accent seems only fitting for such topics as rock n’ roll.

Born in Bradford, North England, Terry was raised by his grandmother at the height of the British music invasion. A telecommunication technition by day, he was “The Intruders” lead-man by night.

“My greatest ambition as a young man was to be a pop star—a popular star,” Terry says with a certain ‘pop.’ He further pursued music by sailing around the world to New Zealand as a 21-year-old and forming Hogsnort Rupert with Dave Luther, who arrived from England the same day.

As the band developed into a local pub favorite, Terry keeps reminding me, pointing to the beer and cigarettes in a club performance, “This was before I became a Christian.”

1969 proved to be the year of the dream and the wake-up call for Terry. With “Gretal” climbing the charts in their first hit, a Bible professor from Libscomb University named Joe Gray arrived in Wellington, New Zealand.

Growing up, Terry attended a Church of England school while frequenting the Pentecostal congregation where his grandfather preached.

“I rejected both extremes—the emotional miracle-promising Pentecostals and the rigid Christianity of England’s Church,” Terry said. “I knew if there was such a thing as true Christianity, it was somewhere in between. A balance.”

Once drummer Billy Such converted on Joe Gray’s campaign, Terry found the balance he’d been looking for and was baptized in April. Bassist Frank Boardman followed.

Hogsnort Rupert—a band whose identity cannot be separated from late night clubs; a band that drinks alcohol on stage; a band with a top five single—was now majority Christian.

“I sacrificed my dream of being a well-known pop star because of my Christian commitment,” Terry says. “So the band folded.”


Following the reordering of Hogsnort Rupert, minus Terry and the other converts, the band released “Pretty Girl,” their only #1 hit, and are regarded today as New Zealand’s longest-running pop band. EMI released “The Very Best of Hogsnort Rupert” featuring Terry’s “Gretal” in 2001.

Terry was eventually supported through Ivan Stewart’s school of evangelism and has been preaching in California, Louisiana, and Texas for the past twenty years.

“Did I do the right thing?” Terry asks himself. “If I’d stayed in the band, I wouldn’t have married the woman I did. I wouldn’t have had the kids I had. I wouldn’t be in America… so, yes.”

His work at Truth for Today on a 6-session seminar and DVD series is finished. He slides over a blue pamphlet titled: “Sharing the abundant life.” A product of the great commission himself, Terry now looks to share with others the abundant life that was shared to him by a missionary in 1969.

Though Terry occasionally plays the guitar for his College Church of Christ care group, I detect nostalgia in him as he signs a Hogsnort Rupert poster for me. Staring down at the five boys in white vests, he says that on returning to New Zealand in 1999 for a campaign, he heard the local radio station play “Gretal” one afternoon.

“It was almost like they were welcoming me back,” he says.

Christ Cove

I took this photo in front of the World Outreach Dome (W.O.R.D.) in Memphis, Tennessee.

The Statue of Liberty, now wearing Jehovah’s Crown, defiantly raises that old rugged cross.

My car magically found its way into park as my hand found the camera zoom. I stood, speechless, marveling up at the revised icon. Yet again, Christians have put more dollars than brain cells into their collection plate, erecting an idol to ignorance that symbolizes the belief that a Christian’s job is “to return America to Christ."

In 2001, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against Alabama’s Chief Justice Roy Moore for displaying a wooden set of the Ten Commandments. Moore retaliated with an even larger 5,280 lbs. granite version (paid for with taxpayers’ dollars). Mt. Sinai became the Alabama Supreme Court rotunda as Moore unveiled the Ten Commandments saying, “May this day mark the…return to the knowledge of God in our land.”

Both Moore and the monument were eventually removed, to the dismay of thousands of protesting Christians who had spent weeks outside the courthouse.

Earlier this month a sculpture titled “My Sweet Lord," depicting a crucified Jesus made of chocolate, was banned in New York after much controversy. Some Christians called in death threats to the artist, Cosimo Cavallaro.

Bill Donahue, leader of the watchdog Catholic League, called it “one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever.” Mr. Donahue, if that was the worst attack on your Christian sensibilities, then you’ve been a very lucky man (and haven’t traveled much).

These are just two examples of a good motive—standing up for moral sanctity—turning into further pettiness and inconsistency within the religious community.

The issue of God’s name on our currency is another controversy that will intensify as it is most likely removed in the coming decades. There are sure to be Christians picketing. There are sure to be bumper stickers. And I all can think of is the spec of white powder brushing up over God’s printed name and into the nose of some junkie who just shot a convenient store owner for his daily wage. “In God” the gangster trusts. “In God” the prostitute trusts. “In God” the congressman trusts. And it is at that moment that the hatred from Muslim extremists towards America’s hypocrisy becomes perfectly clear.

I don’t fully understand the politics behind our Constitution, our First Amendment, or the separation of Church and State. I don’t pretend to. But as a Christian, I can voice my frustration with those who still believe in some “manifest destiny” for this ungodly nation. They vote for a President like they’re voting for a preacher: “Whichever Republican prays the most will get my vote.”

Before Jesus offered his famous “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s,” the Pharisees said of his personality: “Teacher… you aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are (Mt. 22:16).” Jesus used no bullhorn or billboard, but offered a lifestyle to the world.


I am not politicking for either side of current-day controversies; I am simply tired of the over-reliance on symbols to speak for our faith. Christians shouldn’t need statues, t-shirts, tattoos, or even a moral President to follow Christ. If our President supports gay marriage or abortion, we are to follow Christ. If our media begins saying the “F” word on the 6 o’clock news, we are to follow Christ. If our artists begin making sacrilegious sculptures made of mozzarella cheese, we are to follow Christ. If our retailers stop saying “Merry Christmas,” SO WHAT: we are to follow Christ. And if our government begins hunting Christians down, throwing them in jail, and nailing them to posts along our interstates, we are still to follow Christ because we are not responsible to change the world, but, as Gandhi said, to “be the change you want to see in the world.”

God bless America? God bless the USA? God bless Texas?

God won’t bless one lazy acre of this country before he blesses the woman in India who has nothing but still gives to her children, the man on death row who prays at night but has never told anyone, and the child in Africa who has never tasted communion or worn a tie to church, but knows more about Jesus because he actually loves his brother more than himself.

God has blessed America. Is this how we repay him?

The Decemberists

It is refreshing to hear a band that’s not trying to change the world.

Last night at Nashville’s City Hall venue (essentially a concrete box with fancy bathrooms), I heard the Portland-based rock group The Decemberists.

Consider the month of December. Its collection of faded reds and visible breaths (I’ve often thought it would be the best month to kill someone and get away with it) and mix in the wooded mysteries of the Northwest with its foggy fish markets, and you’ll have the inspiration for one of the most unique indie rock bands today.

Stephen Colbert’s “hyper-literature-prog-rock” description of The Decemberists oddly fits the band that dresses like Victorian funeral directors and writes songs about tall tales and Japanese folklore—such is the case with “The Crane’s Wife”.

Released in October of last year, “The Crane’s Wife” is their fourth and most successful album, produced by Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla. (Picture below- Lauren and I outside City Hall)


On stage, the members seem like winners in an American Idol-Mental Institution edition. Guitar-player Chris Funk, playing under the alter ego “Crutchy McGee”, goes 300+ lbs. belly-down crowd surfing while accordion-player Jenny Conlee is in need of another remake of “The Shining.”

Gillian Welch guest appeared and played two songs with lead-man Collin Meloy in the most normal moment of the night.

I highly recommend downloading their 12-minute masterpiece “The Island” as well as attending a show for a first (or possible last) date. Check tour listings here: http://www.decemberists.com/tour.aspx"

As The Decemberists closed with “The Mariner’s Revenge Song”, featuring a giant whale swallowing the band members on stage, I could not help but apply the last verse to my entire experience as I walked to my car:

Don't know how I survived
The crew all was chewed alive
I must have slipped between his teeth

But, oh! What providence!
What divine intelligence!
That you should survive
As well as me

History Class, part 2

Woodrow Wilson was a Democratic President elected because of a Republican split in an iPod headphone wire. Unfortunately for the Bull Moose Party, Taft led the PHAT Farm campaign into a final exam reference as I looked into his plasma screen life.

Her St. Louis Cardinals’ hat caused a scare when the railroad trust was hit by anti-Sudoku legislation. The 3’s and 2’s already marked out in box 5, Washington D.C. became a place for merely text messaging your girlfriend. The popped-collar Congress of 1916 feared World War Warcraft was going to spill over into the 2007 Honda Civic guide. A “so what” here and, oh, there’s the professor’s belly fat poking through his shirt’s low tariff issue.

His lecture stuck in the presidential bathtub.

This class is study hall and every class but the suburban middle-class who has been to the water-fountain 3 TIMES since the bell rang (to the tune of “My Humps”). Blah blah blog this tonight Tyler F. Kennedy’s father was in the mafia of I wonder what Martin Scorsese’s next movie will be about. All turn-of-the-century election fraud power-pointed to a quiz written four years ago! Before Britney got KFed up. Before Nicole Richie lost her shadow and James Brown began feeling really, really bad. Before all we did was watch YouTube on FaceMySpace. The socialist candidate shut his eye on the drooping head with the dribbling drool on his and her and his and her sleeping, but not so beauty. Everyone is zzz-topping.

Except the guy behind me passing a Zimmerman Note over Rosie-the-Riveter asking: What was so great about the depression? Upton Sinclair’s The Coolest Carabineer on a Key-Chain Ever was highly influential in changing the temperature, please, Mr. History Professor-

And the bell buzzes over cell phones rings... The dream ends. The last hour is gone with the guy-behind-me’s broken wind.

Nuggetized

Listen carefully:
I am aware of the danger of writing this. I am aware of the powers-at-be who are watching me here in history class from dozens of well-placed cameras purchased from Japan. They are zooming in, which is why I am writing small, quietly, and in Hebrew.

Ms. Pencilbehindear is sitting in the row beside me with a gray, greasy box of Chick-fil-a nuggets. By now the grease has most likely seeped through the packaging flaw (see bottom of box) and is chemically reacting with the wood grain on the desk. There are 8 nuggets in there. And they’re getting a lot more than they were fried for: an awful lecture on America’s history of urbanization and its relationship with the frontier migration from 1880 – 1920. They soak up dates and names through their simmering bodies of peanut oil and a whole lot of mystery. If only they’d been waffle fries... all the information would pass right through those large waffle windows.

Captive in a sauna box of death… they’re so weak. If they were still birds they could fly out. Spread their wings. Poke their beaks out of the egg like they still remember how (and they do, believe me). Soon the nuggets and all the history they’re learning will just be toilet bowl attractions in a stall near some creepy guy.


And yet, there are 8 people in this classroom—and we’re all nuggets in a box. Fried a certain way, packaged a certain way, and served a certain way. Wings clipped; minds leveled. Sold and eaten up by men in corner offices who won’t listen to us because they can afford—and are often paid—not to.

Look at him. A MASSIVE nugget: processed, mashed, re-formed, re-colored, and ultimately something very different than what he started off as. And if you’re unaware of Chick-fil-a’s “Million Nugget Giveaway” sweepstakes, I have but one word for you: Genocide.

Society, through celebrity and trends, deep-fry us into compacted uniformity—causing people to like us for what we do (fill their stomachs) rather than what we are.

So be a bad nugget. Contain a bone, a disease. Be spit out. You’ll still be thrown away and probably eaten by cats, but hey... at least you’re not like everybody else.

Signed,
Watched and loving it

Take 1940 One

The pseudo-intellects, or "coffeelectuals", or "blackrimmers" as I call them (because of their glasses), needed no excuse to wear their scarves today. I sat from the cafeteria picking leftover friedness from Chick-Fil-A tin foil and watched the weather roll in. The clouds looked like chins on angry men when they've been driving too long without Paul Harvey. Or a P stop. They hit the breaks and realized there wasn't anything to stop them over the flat states—except that arch in St. Louis which they slid right under. The wind smacked the side of my face in Central Arkansas, forcing me to grab my glasses, my scarf... and run for coffee.

Comfortably inside my favorite antique store, I reflected on the irony of the whole town being rather antique. The price tag, however, on living here is breathing the fine dust that has kept the roads to the lungs, and the mind, closed from moving past 1965. I flipped through post cards in a shoe box titled "The Old South." Half of them were identical, featuring a red-lipped brunette straddling a Civil War cannon. She waves a rebel flag over her head, and has this grin like the war was yesterday... and yesterday was a dream that tomorrow will correct. But the cannon, it’s cracked and overgrown, and it looks through all of this—the photographer, the cut-offs—and pleads directly with me: Why are we doing this? Why can’t the south move on?

Moving on, I began looking through other cabinets and drawers for tin types when the Tuesday owner, the old wife of the Wednesday – Saturday owner, entered from what appeared to be a safe that Butch Cassidy and Sundance had robbed. All of that startled me into an ignorant comment about how the cold was back, to which she hammered: “It’s still winter.”

When will we learn that only meteorologists can have intelligent conversations about the weather?



I smelled the small booklet before I could bring it to visual range. The corner stuck out like a golden ticket underneath black and whites of ancient frowning couples—gender questionable. I love the smell of old, thick paper. It sends me into every attic I peered into as a child, every cat black coffee I wondered in at my reflection, and reminds me that there are still deeds—good and bad—that for whatever reason have been forgotten by the common fable.

I had found a Chicago Street Guide. Two of the front cover claims were instantly, but forgivably, wrong: the statement that it was free (tagged $1), and that it was the “latest” (the date was 1941). Inside was a listing of streets as well as, bizarrely, descriptions of current health problems ranging from sleeping disorders to social diseases—now known as STDs.

The writing was beautifully World War II in a font that seemed to match all of its upfront, black-and-white, legalistic ways. One hilarious example stuck out, titled “SEXUAL WEAKNESS.” Click the image to read.


I left the antique store and walked through the antique town holding the book up in front of my face like a comic to 1.) block the freezing wind and 2.) prevent the reminder that 2007 was still all around me. Grinning, I straddled a park fence, overgrown and cracking, waving my little treasure.

Then I wondered: Was I any different from the red-lipped brunette with her rebel flag and cannon?

True, the Civil War was a terrible blotch on our nation’s history and many of the social injustices it tried to combat still exist today (i.e. The symbolism the confederate “rebel” flag now assumes because of racists nearly a century after the war), but there were also many problems in 1941. Our “Greatest Generation” stood by nationwide segregation, unequal opportunities for women and immigrants, as well as the development of the largest mass-murder weapon in history—the atom bomb.

Was I celebrating hate, sexism, and violence by proudly displaying my Chicago Street Guide? Of course not. And besides, there are many aspects of an earlier America that are now tragically lost. The localized culture of 1850’s America, where each town had its own unique dialect and flavor, soul—now replaced by McDonalds and Starbucks coast to coast. And there’s something behind the honesty of the “SEXUAL WEAKNESS” article that used to lend our news and writing a certain energy—now watered down by political correctness in its aim to keep everyone as comfortable as possible.

I think back to the grinning Southern girl and the flag that represents her heritage—we are all apart of a similar heritage that should be openly celebrated and learned from. And for the cannon’s question, all I know is that the south can’t move on because… it shouldn’t have to.

Oh wait, this piece of paper is real

What isn’t known about George A. Custer is the story of his last one-night stand. The only remaining account, a banned History Channel teleplay, is locked in a historical cabinet marked “Absolutely Disgusting” because—it’s absolutely disgusting.

Sioux warrior princess Bear Wolf Cub Owl Dog (translated: Amy Adams) was winning a staring contest with her reflection in the Little Big Horn River when Custer arrived, sparking debatably the greatest love affair of 1876.

While his men, on a 24-hour recess, pillaged the Black Hills for gold and collectible arrowheads, Custer and Amy spent a day running up streams with salmon, finding clues in a childish “savager hunt”, and making fun of the earth without care of the next harvest.

Unfortunately, when they realized they might be sworn enemies, Custer changed the subject to avoid awkwardness. And in what would become the most obvious trap since Delilah cut Samson’s hair, Custer trusted the advice that there were only 2 natives (including her brother who didn’t really count for some reason involving poison oak) camped near the river.

So on June 25th, 1876 the Custer confidently led his 210 men into a battle with nearly 5,000 Lakota and Cheyenne warriors. In one of the largest massacres since the Civil War, Custer and his men wound up “absolutely disgusting”... and broken (like the treaties).

I have never seen a less threatening field. A giant obelisk in Crow Agency, Montana serves to commemorate the Little Bighorn Battlefield. The product of Custer’s last one-night stand. Have you ever been playing solitaire at work, visiting an old lady at a nursing home, or simply staring into the blue and red lights of a police car in your rear view and thought: I wonder what the field where George Custer died over 130 years ago looks like at this exact moment in time? Me too. Thanks National Park Service…

http://www.nps.gov/archive/libi/webcam.htm

Amazing, but still no comparison to real men on real horses without 6-minute uploads. If that doesn’t fill your insane George Custer craving, then this will. Thanks Hardin, Montana…

http://www.custerslaststand.org/

These were my thoughts as I was sitting in a wooden library cubicle handwriting notes on the American West. It’s amazing how textbooks consistently take the most fascinating people and stories, official or unofficial, and dull them down with enough dust to fill every bottle in every saloon of every real ghost town George Custer ever dreamed of during debatably the greatest love affair of 1876.

College ruled paper and Mirado Classic #2 Pencils. My hand was hurting from writing history notes, so the cell phone ring was a relief. I hesitated however, still in the moment, and for a split second alerted myself: I need to save this document to the hard drive. I looked to the top left of the paper for the “file” tab, but there was none. Oh wait, this piece of paper is real…

…So the battle between reality and digital continues, and it’s 210 versus 5,000