indiefaith

The Gospel According to "John"

2013-04-25T16:57:00.001-07:00

So Jesus, having just spent several hours hanging out with this large group of folks from all walks of life is sitting down now at the base of a hill and he is addressing this same group of folks letting them know that it does not matter if you are poor or rich, young or old, jew or not, you are included in the Kingdom of God. -- this wonderful existence with God referred to as Heaven by the Jews that begins now, not later.

Everyone had to be so excited. Even folks who were not allowed in the Jewish Synagogue, those folks were being told that they have a seat at this table. This was a happy jubilant time for these folks. until Jesus drops the bomb on them.

KA-BAM!

In Matthew 5:20 (NIV), right after this little love-in, Jesus says this "For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."

WHAT? I would have been pissed. So what is all this "every one is blessed, everyone is welcome" BS he was gabbing about earlier? Why say that, only to drop this line afterwards? Is this the old bait and switch we have become accustomed to with these types of individuals?

Look a little closer with me though. This is what Jesus says. "Unless your righteousness…"

Wait a second. Jesus is saying the we have "righteousness" that those folks possess righteousness All of us, each of us! EVERYONE. We all posses this inner goodness that he is referring to.

Born into sin my ass

So who is it that says we were all born with original sin? I mean God himself says in Genesis after creating man and woman "And he/she are good." And now Jesus is referring to an inner goodness that EVERY LIVING SOUL POSSESSES. This is the sort of stuff that leads me to believe that original sin, and sin from birth are constructs created by the early church, designed to make us need the church. We got the sin, and the church has the solution don't they?

So by telling us all these years that we have this disease within us, this scourge that we were born with, we all feel pretty bad about ourselves. But, the church, they say "Come on over here folks, we have the cure, we can make you all better, well at least temporarily, you will always be consumed with sin, but we have the bandaid. " And we just go flooding to the first open door looking for the cure. Don't we?

So here is Jesus saying, NO. You all are possessed by goodness, each of you.

Apples to oranges

So lets continue. He says "Unless your inner goodness surpasses (passes up, is better, beats) that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

Wait a second now, if each of us possess this inner goodness, then what control do we have of whether it is better or passing up that of the pharisees and teachers of the law?

Well the answer is we don't. The answer is also that just by being there and listening to Jesus we/they already have surpassed the folks who depend solely on the rules. All those people, who were just called Blessed, their righteousness already surpasses the Pharisees.

Why so?

Because they were not depending solely on the law, they were not waiting for the next nugget of truth to be passed down by the teachers. They were seeking out God on their own. Not only were they rejects of the religion of their day, but they had moved on from all of that out of pure necessity. Their inner goodness made them move on. Their righteousness rejected the status quo and made them look for something better. All of the folks who were so concerned with outer appearances and performance and appearing holy, those folks were lumped in with the pharisees. They, along with the pharisees and teachers of the law had trampled their own inner goodness to run towards the triple-guarantee of the written word, the expressed rules of tradition and the holy words of a lost kingdom.

Jesus, was not interested in them, he was interested in these rejects, this band of dirty, homeless, diseased and impoverished people. It's worth thinking about isn't it?

The time has already come...

2013-04-16T14:24:00.001-07:00

I was reading an article that referred to something Pat Buchanan recently said in regards to Christians having to enter a new age of civil disobedience compared only to the racial civl rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr.

In the article Pat claims that Christians will be forced to disobey laws that go beyond God's standard by giving LGBTQ folks civil liberties like everyone else. It was a bit infuriating. I can only hope that not many people listen to this psychotic babbler these days.

But where does Pat get his will to break the law in order to protect the sanctity of marriage as he would say? Is it from the Bible? Is it the whole Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve debate? I have no clue. However when I think of Christianity and the model for Christians, my mind does not wander towards the Old Testament, nor does it float on past the Gospels to what Paul had to say.

No my model for Christianity is Christ himself. So let's examine a commonly known story about Jesus. This one is more commonly called "Jesus and The Woman at The Well." It is found in the book of John and the story picks up around verse 2. The quotes below are from the NIV version.

So here we go, Jesus is on the run again trying to avoid his pharisaical enemies when he stumbles upon a woman at Jacob's well. He strikes up a conversation with her by actually asking her for a drink.

“You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” says the woman.

According to custom, Jews were not to speak to Samaritans, and Samaritan women were even worse to converse with.

Jesus says,

“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

First things first here. Why is Jesus talking to her? She is a foreigner and a whore (which are both equally bad).

He does more than just talk to her though, he gives her an invitation into the inner circle immediately upon talking to her. He tells her "You would have asked, and he would have given it."

Wait a second where is the lists of things he requires of her first in order to be "in?" What about the list of things she should do afterwords in order to be holy?

Keep reading. In verses 16-19 look at what they talk about:

16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.

What? Where is the condemnation? Are we supposed to believe that condemnation is implied? Sanctity of marriage, this woman has been married 5 times and she is currently co-habitating with a man. In Jesus' day that was enough to pick up a few stones and take aim.

Instead, Jesus seems to be kidding with her, "You are right when you say you have no.... and what you have said is quite true." I can imagine him sitting quietly and smiling at her while he says this and then moving on to the important stuff...

What was the important stuff? He wanted her to know in NO UNCERTAIN terms that she was accepted, loved, welcome and perfect just the way she was, oh and her boyfriend too.

23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

This is one of the most quoted verses in the Bible. Jesus is saying it to the foreign whore. Here is what he says in my own words.

"Put down all of that religious BS that segregates and isolates and only serves to spread a kind of elitism that some call "true worship." Instead worship God with what is inside you and with who you really are. These real people, as opposed to the plasticy religious types... these are the ones that the Father is seeking, they are the true worshippers. God is made up of all of those things inside of you that are so important and much more, not a list of rules and images, prejudices and hatred."

The time has come for true worshippers to welcome the "other" with open arms, and allow them into the inner circle that Jesus would have wanted them to be in from the beginning, unconditionally.

2013-03-30T14:50:00.001-07:00

Easter Comic

Made this little comic strip for Easter...

I’m Sick and Tired of “I’m Tired”

2013-02-12T08:04:00.002-08:00

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” – Sam Houston (8 years later, Abraham Lincoln)

“Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.” -- Jesus

Imagine with me for a moment that there are folks out there that would rather see the United States in constant internal battle, than thriving and unified and strong. These folks have convinced themselves that they speak for a majority, when most folks just want to get along and move forward.

The title of this post was inspired by a wrongly attributed rant called “I’m Tired” being shared via email and Facebook right now. It originated as a blog post back in 2009 by a retired Republican State Senator from Massachusetts. Although, the post is obviously right-wing, I am not saying this to promote a left-wing political agenda.

I am saying this as an American who served his country in the military, who has worked a job since the age of 10, and who raised a family here. I am speaking to you as a fellow American who not only has not run for public office, but will never run for public office. I am writing this from the perspective of a man who was raised by two Americans that are still happily married to this day. I am speaking from the perspective of an individual with a 4 year bachelor’s degree from Sam Houston State University in Texas. I am a husband, a father, a brother, a cousin, a nephew, a grandchild, a son and a friend. You know me.

I am tired of politicians, be they left or right who put votes ahead of a unified nation. I am sick of our two party system that has successfully divided this country right down the middle. Sick of words written to destroy rather than to inspire. Sick of politics dividing friends, spouses, families and churches. You like gays, you hate gays, you want to ban abortions and imprison women who obtain them, you are for home abortion kits given away freely at Kmart, you want guns, you hate guns, you are for paying taxes, you refuse to pay taxes, you think we have too many rights, you think we don’t have enough, you think our military needs to be increased, you think we should not have a military at all, you want a black president, you think a white man should be in office, you hate Muslims, you think Muslims are nice, You think hard work is the answer, you think the government should pay your way, you want socialism, you prefer capitalism, REALLY?

Have these issues really become who we are? Are we just the sum of our political musings? Is that our true identity? Because frankly, if it is, we deserve to go down with the ship. We deserve to self-implode. God forbid that this idea of idealistic party- pride spread throughout the entire world.

I get it. You identify with a group of people that have opinions. I get it. You want to be counted as someone with an opinion about something. I get it. You think it makes you look smart, concerned, involved, important, Christian, decent, hard-working, whatever. I understand. You get praised by your parents or friends for believing and saying it.

Let your own words represent you. Stop quoting the war-mongering extremists. You really are not that extreme in practice. Are you?

I lost a childhood friend recently who also happened to be my cousin because of this bullshit. She decided that since I did not agree with her husband about gun control, that I was NOT worth knowing. She wrote me off and unfriended me and kicked me out of her life for politely disagreeing with her. Guns? Really. Is this who we are, me, a gun-hater, she a gun-lover and neither the two shall mix?

Think about it. The reality is, she owns guns and shoots them all the time and her freedom to do that has not changed. I don’t hate guns, but don’t own one, and that has not changed. The laws have not changed, the politicians still thrive and get acclaim and praise for their STANCE, but me and my cousin are no more. A family split in two. My kids will not get to hang out with her kids, No family meals. No more.

Does that shock you? Because, it shouldn’t. This is what the war-mongers want. They want to divide us and destroy us. They make money doing it while we flounder in their war of words and ideas, feeling as if we are saving the country. They sit back raking in the doe, while the country does a number on itself over and over again. AND NOTHING EVER CHANGES.

It is the most detrimental act of terrorism I have seen in my 46 years of living. 9/11 does not compare to the amount of casualties we have laid by the way-side with our cutting words of division spoken from a self-righteous, self-absorbed, team-speak point of view that is usually not based on reality or on any kind of actuality.

This is the reason I got so angry with the Republican party back in 2003. It’s the reason I vowed to be anything but Republican. The truth is though, the Democrat party is just as bad. It’s just that the Republican party uses good church people to deliver it’s death message of division. The Democrat party uses good natured people who don’t affiliate with church typically to do the same thing. To divide. Regardless of the issue. Why? So they can get votes.

Can We Move Past This?

I don’t know honestly. I really don’t know. This could destroy us all. Please, take it seriously. We talk about how we want change so that our kids and grandkids will inherit something worth having, but the truth is, we are tearing it down to the ground before they ever get a chance to participate in it.

If we are going to move past this, we will have to stop the war. We have the power to stop it. We do. When we are tempted to say something to each other that one of those politicians or their peddlers (MSNBC, FOXNews, etc) have said in opposition to one another, we can just choose NOT TO SAY IT.

Likewise, we have got to quit passing this diseased speech around (disguised as clever words of wisdom or rants) to each other like it's good medicine. It is not. It doesn't matter if they are not your words, you put them on your wall, you forwarded them on to others, you are just as responsible as the war-mongers who wrote the words originally. Just because the words written do not refer to someone specifically does not mean they are any less hateful or mean. Phrases like Lazy people, racists, those people, and other generalities used to describe the undesirable folks, are still targeted hits on one person or another. Stop spreading the hate.

Yes, it does go back to what your grade school teacher taught you. If you have nothing nice to say then say nothing at all. Likewise, we can choose to do what wiser folks would do:

From World Scripture:

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” -- Judaism

“Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.” -- Christianity

“Try your best to treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself, and you will find that this is the shortest way to benevolence.” -- Confucianism

“One should not behave towards others in a way which is disagreeable to oneself. This is the essence of morality. All other activities are due to selfish desire.” – Hinduism

“What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah; all the rest of it is commentary; go and learn." -- Judaism

“Not one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.´-- Islam

How I became a traitor, Part 3

2013-01-19T10:13:00.001-08:00

I watched him work on a week-in-week-out basis on the old house. Most people never realized how old our house really was, because Dad was constantly at work behind the scenes fixing this and fixing that. Once things were in good repair he would even go as far as to renovate.

Mom always had some kind of project in mind for the next renovation. Move this wall, put that room in, expand here, add this, renew that. The house could be purchased on the market for roughly around 120K, but my parents put at least three times that much in it over the years.

The amount of carpet purchased to clothe the old wooden floors could have paved a stadium. At some point a few years ago, Mom and Dad worked for weeks to restore the old wooden floors, and add wood floors to their expansions. My parents were in their 70s at the time. Imagine them on their knees for hours working endlessly.

At what point will they stop? At what stage in their life will they decide to just let it go - give up on the old house - rest on their laurels and regardless of trend or time just say “it is what it is” and accept it?

I think I know the answer. You might, as well. Yes, of course. My parents will stop the renovations and improvements and changes, when they are both resting under-ground somewhere in Houston. Because to stop — for them — is the same thing as death.

In Biology, one of the key characteristics of a living organism is growth. This of course means that if you claim to be alive, you are growing all the time. Now I don’t necessarily mean that your body is getting bigger — God forbid. But, your mind is growing and changing and expanding and renovating constantly. We are like little houses, are we not?

God made us this way. He really did. I mean, he could have done something different, right? Like made more manageable homes out of us, something akin to mannequins. But, he didn’t.

Some of you may already be thinking of the whole “free will” argument. You know God made us this way (completely unmanageable at times) so that we might freely choose him on our own will. I am suggesting something different. That God made us this way, because God is like this. God made us in his own image. So it makes sense that we are innovators, game-changers, renovators. because God himself is the epitome of change.

What’s that you say? What about the Biblical verse that “God is the same yesterday, today and forever?” You cannot be suggesting that God actually changes! Well, I think I am. In fact, yes, I actually am. God changes. There I said it. God changes, and so do we. Otherwise we and God, would be dead. The reason we seek to improve, to change and to renovate, is because that is God’s primary role in the universe. Think about it.

I began to have these thoughts back in the 90s and once I actually started to find God to be this way, it sort of skewed everything I had been taught up until that point about God. If God changes, and God renovates — indeed like us — then how exactly should I see the Bible?

The Bible changes?
What is the Bible then? Some would say that the Bible is a blueprint. Others, that the Bible is the playbook, or the manual for life. I would agree. A blueprint, playbook and a manual can be added on to. It is only the start of our ideas about a house or a game, or life itself, and so as we go, we can add to it. We must. As we create renovations and additions and improvements we can create addendum’s to the original plan.

Others call the Bible “THE WORD OF GOD” never to be changed or altered in anyway. They stand on the King James Bible as the authentic word of God, and no other versions shall be read or utilized in church. They fail to mention that the King James Bible has been through at least two and in some cases three translations in order to provide it in the King’s English.

Anyone knows that translation is not necessarily exact. For instance let’s take the word “Cochina” in Spanish. Cochina refers to a woman that is dirty, or that sleeps around. Not a nice thing to be calling your girlfriend. However, if you hang out with Spanish speaking people, you will see that they in fact refer to their best friends as Cochina.

Really? I don’t get it. Didn’t you just call your best friend a slut? Well, of course. But, they did not mean literally a slut. It was used instead as a term of affection. As you might imagine this gets a bit confusing at times.

So what am I saying? That we can’t trust the Bible to be God’s word because of translation? Of course not. In fact I am not sure it matters how the Bible communicates those words, because God has a way of speaking to us through it. Some would call that the Holy Spirit.

What I am saying is that many folks tend to worship the Bible rather than God. They place so much importance on the words of the Bible and what and how it says stuff, and they completely ignore the Spirit behind those words.

I am also saying that the Bible can not be the last words from God. No way. Remember, God is a renovator, an improver a game-changer. God would never put together a book in 60 AD, and then just leave it that way. It is not in his nature. No, instead God has always been writing little love letters to us, little instructions, and little encouragements. We just fail to acknowledge them as God’s Word because of our stubbornness about the Bible.

It was not until the 90s, that I started listening and seeing God’s word. I had read the Bible and had studied it and had placed it in my heart and head. But, what God had to really say to me was only in that book in Spirit, not text.

If God built a house, would he fix things when they break? Would it be beautiful, regardless of the era? Would he expand it’s size and add more to it to accommodate for his ever growing family?

God is the same yesterday today and forever

Here is the verse in context:

7Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. 8Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
9Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them. 10We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat. (Hebrews 13: 7-10 NIV)

So remember your leaders who “Spoke” the word of God and “imitate” them. In other words, the writer is telling them to be like their leaders, go and speak the words that God is telling you. Don’t write them down, speak them and be faithful to those words and the life of Christ.

In verse 9, the writer is talking about “all kinds of strange teachings.” Christians for years have used this verse to condemn other religions and beliefs that differ from their own. But, I think the tables are turned here. This is a verse clearly about legalism. Don’t become a “rule-monger” it’s not about the rules, but about the words of God.

So the writer is really saying “Go and speak those words from God that you are hearing, in a faithful way. Do it in the face of stagnant and lifeless religions that are all caught up on the rules. Grace is much more important than ceremony, and those that practice those sorts of harsh religions have no place at the table with us.”

The writer is saying that the way we have always done things is NOT good enough. They are talking about change, and they are using the Word of God as an example of change. So when we say that God is the same Yesterday, Today and Forever, we can speak with enthusiasm about God’s ability to change. For he has always changed, and those very characteristic of God that he placed in each of us are the same yesterday, today and forever.

How I became a traitor (Part 2 - Matt and Me)

2013-01-08T15:20:00.001-08:00

So, I hope you realize that since this post is labeled "Part 2" that it actually is the second post of two. So if you did not read the first one, I recommend going back or this will not make a whole lot of sense.

Believe it or not I am trying to be brief, because I know lots of text on a single page can be somewhat overwhelming to folks and they are more than likely not going to read it if it's too long. So here we go with Part 2.

____________________________________________________

In Part 1, I was explaining who I was at age 26 and how for lack of a better category or term I was mostly an Evangelical Fundamentalist Christian who was for the most part morally and politically conservative.

I neglected to mention that from the time I was 17 I had always been a part of some Christian ministry or another. So, at this time in my life when I was living in Huntsville, I really had no outlet for that. I was a married man working 20 hours a week and a full-time student with three children.

We really did not have time for a lot of ministry, so I kind of did ministry as I could. Particularly with my friends and friends of my friends. For those folks that knew me, I always let them know of my religious beliefs.

It was at this time that I met a guy named Matthew (not his real name). He was a friend of a friend that engaged me in some pretty serious conversations. I took on the role of counselor to young Matthew and he was all too ready to have someone in his life fulfill such a role.

He was kind of a mess. From the earliest age he could remember, his parents had put him in therapy of some kind. From his point of view he was a classic borderline personality disorder patient. He expressed to me with a straight face that in his entire life, he had never loved anyone, ever -- not even his parents.

I was very concerned for Matt, and I spent several evenings in discussion with him trying to get at the root of his issues and help him to see that Jesus could help him. Jesus could cause him to love and Jesus could take on his pain and heal him.

I was convinced that all Matt needed was Jesus. So, I explained to him what God had done in my life. How I was a mess and how God had brought me thus far. That my journey was not nearly complete and that I had quite a way to go, but that with God things had been easier. That God had given me love for the people in my life, and without him I would be a very selfish and narcissistic individual.

It was my way of telling him he needed to get saved. I was an evangelist after all at heart, and though a good talking and listening to was always a good thing, ultimately he needed Jesus. Matt was not very receptive about such things, but he did listen to me. He gave me the respect of someone who has doubts and who is honestly seeking what is true for them. I respected that and was not pushy.

So, one day Matt came around and said "Guess what, John?"

I said "What?"

"I have been working a new job and the guy I work with, walked me through the sinner's prayer yesterday, and I got saved!"

I was ecstatic for Matt. Truly happy. I could not help but to think that our talks helped him to come to the conclusion that a life with Jesus was a life of love lived out. I patted him on the back and said "Congratulations. I am so proud of you, man."

He looked at me and said "If you would have told me the good news, I would have done this a long time ago man. Why didn't you ever tell me?"

I looked back at him and said "What do you mean? I thought I pretty much bored you to death with the good news."

"John, you never told me that Jesus was coming soon."

"Oh, that. Well yes. Of course."

"And you never said that when he comes he will take all of his followers away from this hard cruel world."

"Well, yes. Sorry about that. I kind of left that out."

"Wow, something that important. Man I cannot wait to leave this God-forsaken place. Thank God I am saved and can finally be rid of this terrible world."

I began to realize that somewhere along the lines, Matthew may have missed the point. I said "But Matt, you do know that 90% of the Bible is about living life here on this planet and with others? It is about loving all people, not just those that you like."

"No, why does any of that matter? I am out of here man. All of those people can burn in Hell, and I am going to be whisked away. Jesus is coming soon, man."

I was dumbfounded, and I started to argue, but Matt was actually quoting scripture. I let him go, and began to consult my Bible. I spoke to others and they too had this yearning to leave the earth behind. I started to really question my faith. I asked God, "Is this what you meant?"

I wondered why God would make a place like earth and carefully design human beings to live on it, just to destroy it as well as our bodies and our friends. I was having a real-life faith crisis, and all of my religious leaders were telling me to just "trust God," and "The Bible does not lie," and "focus on getting people saved," and "pray about it."

This was the beginning of my demise -- this little conversation, and this one person and these circumstances and this God that I followed. Because when I prayed, I felt God saying "keep searching, John. Keep asking questions. You will find me. Don't give up. You need me."

So, that is what I did. I went searching for God after 10 years of supposedly following God. Really what I found out was that I was following a certain group of men's interpretations of God. More on this later.

How I became a traitor (Part 1)

2013-01-07T16:36:00.000-08:00

Hey folks. I have not written for quite some time on my personal blog and I want to apologize for that. I have been writing other cool stuff, mostly for my own entertainment, nothing serious. I think that if anyone read my blog over time they would judge me as schizophrenic or possibly a person with Bi-polar, or even multiple personality disorder.

I go from some very serious theology, to a mixture of theology and politics, to complete and total frivolity, then to political stuff. Well, what can I say. As a human being I tend to be flippant and I pretty much have wrote what I feel at any given moment.

I have decided however, that it is time to talk a little more about myself on a personal level. I think that my approach to theology and politics and culture has often times come off as rude, sarcastic and maybe even a bit haughty. By that I mean to say that my writing is very matter of fact and does not leave very much room for argument or even disagreement.

Again, I apologize, it is very hard for me at times to reign it in, but I think that if I could describe the kind of phase I am currently in emotionally and intellectually it would be the "reigning-in period." By that, I mean that I wish to explain myself, and by doing this expose a part of me that is vulnerable and even impressionable.

So, let me get started by telling a bit about who I used to be.
_____________________________________________________
John Martinez Age 26

1992 - A college student who recently separated honorably from the United States Air Force after serving more than 4 years active.

A columnist for the Sam Houston State University campus newspaper. My column was an opinion column that I wrote somewhat in the style of Rush Limbaugh - of whom I was an admirer.

I was going to school to earn a degree in Criminal Law so that I could ultimately become a State Prosecutor for Texas and put away felons where they belonged - prison.

I was married to Tammy and had three small children, and I was a strict disciplinarian, just like my Dad whom I respected on a level near god-hood.

I owned a handgun and fought staunchly against anyone who would merely suggest a change in the gun laws.

I was an Evangelical Christian who believed that getting people saved was THE MOST IMPORTANT thing in the world. Any and all tactics were fair game so long as the end result was getting people in contact with Jesus, so that He could "take care of the rest." <- Lyrics to an old Keith Green song.

I only listened to Christian music, because I believed that all other music that did not "honor God" was a waste of time.

A staunch Republican who honestly could not see how anyone associated with the Democratic party could call themselves a Christian. Because our party protected the rights of the unborn, and our party rejected the idea that homosexuality was an acceptable way of life, and because our party funded the military like crazy and did not restrict my right to bear arms.

I was a Republican also because most Republicans claimed to be Evangelical Christians like me. I just knew that Jesus would work through their spirits to make our country a Christian nation. Because I believed that the founding fathers started the country as one nation under Jesus and that with Jesus at the helm of our great nation we could do no wrong.

One of my favorite public speakers was Dennis Miller. I used to love to listen to him rant about how America was going off course and how we could all get it back if we just start being more moral and more Republican.

I strongly opposed Bill Clinton for President and was astonished when he beat Bush. I was blown away when he was re-elected and I pointed my finger and said "I told you so" when he got caught dipping his cigar in the Monica-jar.

I was even more astonished when he was impeached, but somehow allowed to remain president. I could not believe the sad state we had come to as a nation. I believed that he was the worst president we had ever seen. I was convinced that he would bring us all to ruin.

I had a strong sense of family values and wanted to raise my children in a world where family values dominated. I supported organizations that sought to legislate my values out loud, like Focus on the Family and even loud riske preachers who "told the truth" regardless of how hard the truth sounded. I reserved the strongest criticism for men who would cheat on their spouses and leave their families to be with a younger woman.

I did not wish any harm to come to homosexuals, but wanted our country to let them know that what they were doing was a sin and that Jesus could heal them if they just gave him a chance. I saw this as an opportunity to get more people saved. Everything was.

Likewise if our government was telling everyone that Gay is OK, then people might actually become gay more and more and completely reject the Lord in their lifestyle. What if everyone wanted to be gay? What would happen to our world? What about my kids? I had been telling them since they were old enough to understand how misguided and lost and silly gay people were. How we needed to pray for them. How, I could not accept their choice if they were to become one of them.

I made my parents proud each time I took a stand for our shared values whether in word or deed. They were so proud of me back then. I was everything they had cultivated me to be - an extension of them in a world gone awry. A way for them to live on and actively write the wrongs vicariously and in their name. They were my heroes and I was their namesake. Life was perfect.

I believed in the theological concept of Holiness. That as a Christian, I could and had already achieved a cleansing through the process of sanctification -- a purification of sorts, and that God wanted me to remain pure and holy at all times. In fact Jesus died for our sins, and he suffered a tiny death and re-crucifixion every time I sinned against him, others, and myself. Therefore it was necessary to come to Jesus with EVERY sin and confess and be cleansed all over again, when I fell.

Oh yeah, I had a bit of a daily obsession with porn, and flirting with girls in order to build-up my lack-luster ego, and I lived each day with tremendous guilt for the things I was thinking, and doing at the time. I told no one about this, and that made it much easier to keep my secrets. I secretly went to Jesus EVERY DAY with my sins, and there were so many I was consumed by guilt and the feeling of worthlessness and self-hatred for not being able to live up to the standards I set for myself and others, based on my understanding of the Bible as explained to me by my religious leaders.

So What Happened?

I will go into more detail about what happened to me in my next post. For now this ought to be enough to get us started.

From Horror to Action

2012-12-17T22:14:00.000-08:00

Horror: A genre of writing that is designed to inflict terror, a feeling of dread, or disgust upon the reader as a form of entertainment.

As a writer, I have recently been working on my first horror novel. The idea is to shock folks and scare them a little, build to a climax, throw a few twists in and then hopefully form some kind of decent conclusion in the end. All of this done purely to entertain people with a fiction story that is sure to keep you up at night (hopefully reading, not because of the horrendous nightmares).

Strangely enough this article is not some kind of clever marketing approach to sell a book. Instead I have decided with much reservation to weigh-in on the truly horrendous tragedy that has occurred 90 minutes away in a town called of all things Newtown, Ct. The name itself would be the perfect city setting for a horrific tale of fiction.

When I first heard about this on the news a few days ago, my thoughts admittedly were “great another shooting. What mall, or university or work place was it this time?” But then I kept hearing the news, and kept hearing it, and people were calling, texting and Facebooking me and asking me how I was, and how I was affected by the shooting, and whether I knew anyone out there.

As each news story broke through it was as if the words were ripping away at a carefully constructed shelter I had built around my heart. This onion-like barrier had been placed there by years and years of other tragedies and massacres. At some point I started actually listening to the stories. It was sometime in the afternoon - just as I was leaving work and getting in my vehicle to come home that it dawned on me.

And so when I was driving home, the first wave of horror hit me. “Children” I said out loud in the van. “They were just children.” My voice broke on the word “just”. I was truly horrified, but not in an entertaining sort of way, but in a way that makes me never want to write another horrifying word.

What happened on Friday morning was worse than any horror story ever written. I don’t say this to suggest that someone ought to get out there now and write a similar story. What I am saying is that the capacity for some humans to hurt one another seems to far exceed any heinous thoughts that a writer in the genre of horror could even fathom. I was not outraged, nor was I angry or scared, or hurt. I was horrified, truly horrified.

My friend Cameron compares this feeling to a wound that is “torn open every time we see one of those precious faces.” Yes, that is sort of what it feels like. There is this natural compulsion to change the channel, or change the subject, or do whatever we need to do to focus on something else, anything else.

Because the thought of 20 children ages 6 and 7 being corraled and assaulted by a crazed gunman armed to the teeth, is frankly too terrifying and painful to manage. There was no one victim with less than 3 gun shot wounds, and some children with as many as 11 bullet wounds. 20 Children. 6 Adults. Each of them someone’s baby.

It’s disturbing to say the least. Someone, at the risk of sounding political has got to ask the hard questions. The questions that come to mind are:

1. Could the coward have done so much damage in so little time with a Smith and Wesson 6 shooter?

2. If all the bastard had on him was a knife, how many little bodies would he be able to plunge through in an hour?

Now, I know. I know what you are thinking. John is one of them liberals and he voted for Obama and he is all for a socialist society and he is using this tragedy to sell his brand of government. Well, I say bullshit. Bullshit.

I’m a Texan. I was born and raised in Texas. I spent 8 years of my life with a sidearm strapped to my hip because I was employed as an armed security officer for those years off and on. I spent another 4 years in the military where I was trained on an assault rifle. I believe in responsible gun ownership, always have.

Obama’s term will be up in four years, and I have no reason to try and sell you a brand of goods. The only thing I am saying here is that we have got to get back to sensible and responsible gun ownership. Do I have a clue of what that looks like? Not necessarily.

I do know that although as a Texan and a man I like holding big shiny metal semi-automatic assault rifles that have 30 rounds in the magazine, as an American and a responsible citizen I do not need such a weapon. No citizen does.

As a Texan and a one-time gun owner I loved the ability to purchase a light-as-air Glock handgun with 30 in the clip, but as a citizen I do not need it. I don’t.

If I claim to have a gun for my personal protection and the protection of my family, then a simple .45, or a .38 or a .22 ought to do. My uncle Bill, a gunsmith said one time “if you can’t do it with a .357 Magnum, you might as well forget it.” He had a good point.

When I was a kid, my parents and relatives were all at my Dad’s barber shop on a Sunday. Dad and Mom were cutting their hair and the shop was closed, when suddenly a man armed with a sawed-off shotgun forced his way into the shop, held the shotgun to my Mother’s head and demanded everyone’s money and jewelry.

My Dad, a Marine and the bravest man I know, was armed with a pistol that day. Needless to say, the pistol did him no good. It remained in his front pocket the entire time of the robbery. He gave the man all of the money and jewelry he had. One of his bravest acts was NOT pulling his weapon and endangering everyone else in the room. Afterward, when the robber left Dad chased him outside with a hail of gunfire, to no avail.

Now I know, this sounds like a trumped up story, but it is true. I do not want to take your guns away. I might actually want to own another gun someday, but seriously folks, wont you at least consider some form of gun CONTROL? Some form of governmental gun ownership restriction?

Now I don’t want to neglect everyone’s cries for mental health reform. My wife informs me that the government cut significant funding to mental health research in the 80's under Reagan. Now I don’t know all the facts here, but this is certainly worth a good looking in to by someone who knows more.

I know the tendency here is to say something like “These shootings are so rare there is really nothing that can be done to prevent them.” Well, maybe there is some truth there. Maybe not. But, tell me this. If you could prevent your child from being a future victim of such a horrendous thing simply by doing something now, wouldn't you commit to whatever was necessary? Wouldn't you at least think about it harder than you are thinking about it right now?

Well, that is my plea. Let’s not let the lives of those 26 precious people come and go, or worse yet become a trigger for a new campaign of glossy sentiments, well-wishes, and positive affirmations, without a flurry of activism that truly changes our world for the better. When we think back on the lives lost in Newtown, CT let it be a springboard that truly leads to lives being saved somewhere down the road.

All of that said, God bless all of the families and friends and neighbors and other people who are broken by this tragedy. The women who fought and died among the children there were the closest thing to heroes we will see in our lifetime. These are the kinds of people that I truly love to write about.

The End of The Distillery Church

2012-10-13T19:57:00.001-07:00

So, I have heard that all good things must come to an end, and I do believe this is true. In this case, our little faith community known as The Distillery Church has come to it's end, at least as a church. As many of you might know I have taken great pride in being part of this idea since it's inception in July of 2007.

For a little more than five years, we have done so much good. We have made friends for life. We have learned to love each other and not judge each other. We have let our relationships define church, and not the other way around.

Did we have our flaws? Of course we did. Everyone does. Namely we were not very good at explaining who and what we were as a church to others. We were not very good at inviting others into it, and so for most of our time the church remained mostly a few good families, friends and some stragglers.

I personally learned a lot. When I got the idea for The Distillery in 2005, it was after having experienced a lifetime of churches. Some of those churches were well intentioned communities, yet still managed to do a great deal of harm. Most of them were okay.

One of the things I saw about the church right off that bothered me beyond words was the fact that in order to attend and be treated with respect, you had to either become someone you were not, or pretend to be someone you were not. For some reason these churches could not simply take you at face value, and value your face as one of a kind.

I vowed that when I did plant a church, it would be a place where I could just be myself. All the good parts of me, along with all my darkness. No pretending to be better. No acting holy, when I was anything but holy most of the time.

There were times I was tempted even within my own community to feign holiness, and at those times I did what I could to break the mold and just be me, much to my mutual leaders' chagrin.

I also wanted a place where if I got up the nerve to share with others what I believe, and ask questions, that there would be no big bosses in the church, telling me how silly I was, and that I must believe like them or leave. I needed a place to ask the hard questions, and rather than expect criticism or judgement, I would experience true reflection, response, and appreciation for my inquiries.

They say never trust a leader that does not have a limp. Well my goal with The Distillery was to have a congregation of handicapped people, all visibly sharing their lives together, all with the goal of growing and learning together about God and each other in truly authentic relationship.

Halfway through our little experiment, Martin and I got to hear a woman named Kathy Escobar speak at a conference in DC. Her words for community so resonated in my heart, I remember tearing up right in the middle of her message.

She framed the words for me, "Learning to love God, each other, and ourselves" as a motif for our little community.

See, the idea of learning means that no one, I mean no one has all the answers. We are all students. None of us are very good at loving others. I mean we had a good model right? Jesus. But, when it comes to it most of us choose our own well-being over the well-being of others. Most of us are selfish and always have been. So we need to learn HOW to love others.

Most of us have no clue of what it means to love God. The church would have us believe that if you love God you will run around town and get everyone saved, or read your Bible and pray a lot, or you will protest a group of gay Christians or you might stand on a street corner and read scripture out loud to passer byers from a megaphone.

But loving God is a whole other thing isn't it? We are all students when it comes to this. Even the most polished, experienced pastor needs to learn how to love God.

Finally loving ourselves, is nothing at all like selfishness. It is about learning about ourselves, both the good and the bad. Putting everything on the table and then looking in a mirror and saying "I am okay." "I am not a monster." "I am good." "God loves me because I am lovable." "I really am forgiven." Learning to love ourselves is just as important as learning to love God and others. For some of us it takes a lifetime of learning to even begin to love ourselves.

These three things became what church is for us. The Distillery Church was a beacon of all of these things, and for that reason folks who were used to things more traditional, did not quite understand who we were.

As I write the last words here about our little community I want everyone to know just how proud I am of everything we were able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. For five years, I got to be copastor of the church I have always wanted to go to. I will treasure everyone of those years going forward.

In the process of doing church this way we all became such good friends, I will continue to see the good folks of The Distillery on a regular basis. But rather than calling these encounters church activities, I will simply refer to them as good times with good friends. God Bless all of you, and God Bless the Distillery Church.

8 Things I Love About My Dad

2012-10-04T19:15:00.003-07:00

My Dad, Thomas Martinez, turns 80 tomorrow. I know, crazy right? Anyone who knows my Dad, knows that he is full of energy, and is still working 3 full days a week. They also know that he doesn't look or act 80.

I always imagined an 80 year old man to be shrunken, hunched over, walking with a cane, hearing aids, glasses, mumbling to himself. And here we have this guy who stands 5’ 10”, good posture with no help from any kind of brace, still cuts his own grass, still works on and washes his own cars, doesn't even have a limp, has most of his hair, still sees well without the aid of glasses, still hears well again with no hearing devices.

Dad cutting my Son's hair June 2012

In honor of 80 years, I was going to write some kind of tribute and so I settled on 80 things I love about Dad. I realized that some folks would actually want to read this, so I shortened it to just 8. So, each of these things represent a decade of Dad’s amazing life up until now. However, you must keep in mind that I have only known the man for 46 years, so my experience with him is rather narrow.

So, without further ado…

8 Things I Love About My Dad

8. Dad talks tough, but he is all about self-control - Yeah I have Dad to thank for this. Sometimes growing up Dad would bark at us, even threaten us within an inch of our life, but he never killed us – not once. This led me to believe that 1. He was either a lot of talk, or 2. He would have killed us but there was a rational part of him that was able to reign it in so that he did not end up having to spend the rest of his life in prison. Self-control, I learned it from him. Thanks Dad, 1. For teaching me how not to kill my kids even when they deserved it and 2. For not killing me.

7. He never failed to provide for us no matter what – You know in the several years that I lived at home, the country went through all sorts of economical fluctuations both good and bad. There were the really amazing times, like the day Dad brought home an RV and told us that he bought it. Just like that. One day we were a family of 5 driving around in a Chevrolet Station Wagon, the next in a large fiberglass camper that slept 6. Dad drove us all over the place in that thing. We even took a two month vacation one Summer with the thing and drove all the way to Canada. Then there were the tough times. It was the big oil crunch in the late 70s. In case you didn't know, Dad is a hairstylist and has always cut hair so long as I have known him.

In the late 70s, no one came to get their haircut anymore. So, rather than make excuses, Dad took on some other jobs. We never knew there were money problems, because dad never complained about it, ever. Me and my brothers never heard him blame the economy for tough times, or use the recession to take a break from having to work or look for work. He just, worked and worked and worked and made no excuses, because he didn't have to.

We never saw an interruption in our every Saturday pizza, and our regular weekly meals. We always had a new wardrobe on the first day of school, except for Chris who refused to wear new clothes. J My Mom and Dad both cut hair to provide for us, and it worked. They still do. I learned that a Man does not make excuses; he makes money and brings it home for his family, period, no matter what.

6. He loves my Mom stubbornly – My Mom is amazing don’t get me wrong, but sometimes the things she fought us for seemed silly, even ridiculous. However, we never told Mom this, or Dad. See, we knew that bad mouthing Mom was pointless with Dad. Not only did we risk dying, but Dad would probably have first killed us, then in defending Mom’s honor he would have killed us again while telling us we were wrong and Mom was right and to shut up about it.

Niagara Falls June 2012

That’s right I said he would kill us twice. Because once you have gone as far as to kill your kid, you can’t get booked for killing him again, so why not? Anyway, not only did dad defend Mom even when she was wrong, he let us know in no uncertain terms, that Mom always came first, period. I think he knew that once we were long gone and grown up, she would still be there with him, and she never forgets anything. Or he just loves her that much.

Either way, I learned 1. What love looks like in a marriage, and 2. How the best approach to parenting is a team effort –a united front. Thanks Dad for teaching me that.

5. He is the life of the party - a true entertainer. Man can that man dance. Party after party, event after Mexican event, quinceaneras, weddings, funerals, there was Pop moving faster than the speed of light with his feet, moving Mom all over the room while everyone else was winded. When he wasn't dancing he was cutting up with the relatives.

When my grandmother was alive, I swear dad saw it upon himself to make her laugh every time she turned around. One liners, complicated jokes that took setting up, crazy off the wall comments. Dad was a goofball, and people loved it. They still do. Today, Dad works in a large building full of hairdressers, mostly women and gay men, and he has them all in stitches most of the time.

He is a comedian alright, but he can also sing, and he can sermonize and deliver a eulogy that would bring Hitler to tears. He is also a story teller. Everything that has ever happened to Dad will be in a story of sorts - a dramatic retelling of the event with details that had to be slightly embellished in order to make it interesting of course. Mom is the fact-checker in the relationship and is commonly on hand to let folks know that “it did not happen like that.” But when she is not around, the stories are amazing.

Dad has always been an artist when it comes to making people laugh, cry and listen. I have always tried to mimic his ability to do so, and maybe one day I will be as good as he is at it.

4. He doesn’t half-ass anything – My Dad is not just a hairstylist. He is also a barber. But not just a barber, but a licensed barber instructor. Wait and that’s still not all. He is also a cosmetologist. And… you guessed it, a licensed cosmetology instructor. If you don’t happen to be in the know, a barber, is different than a hairstylist and the two are different than a cosmetologist. It was not enough that Dad cuts hair for a living, he had to be the best. He spent a great deal of time in his early life traveling around and doing shows for folks, explaining to them how to cut hair and style hair and color hair in ways that he knew best.

Aside from all of that, Dad is a carpenter, and an electrician, a plumber, an auto mechanic and an all around handy man. He was never satisfied to pay someone to do something that he could do himself. I spent many a Sunday under the hood of a car or under the car itself with Dad while he fixed things and I handed him tools. Occasionally he would bump his head on something and then I would learn new words to add to my vocabulary. Dad is an explorer, a learner and a tireless student. A few years ago I gave him a computer, and to this day he not only uses it daily to read scary conservative political emails, but he actually gets on Facebook and posts on people’s walls.

Facebook, at 80. Wow. Dad you taught me that “if that guy can do it, I can probably do it too.” You taught me how to troubleshoot what’s wrong with my car and my friends cars. You taught me how to dig a hole, mow a lawn, paint a building, pour cement, lay bricks, trim a hedge, change a light bulb in an oven, fix a dryer, hammer a nail, put up sheet rock, frame out a building, put in insulation, lay carpet, build a roof, shingle the roof, fix a motor, clean a battery connection, change a fuel filter, change oil, fix brakes on a car, pull the head off of a motor and replace the head gasket (without catching the fuel line on fire), and the list could go on and on, Pop. I have learned so much from being around you and from just being unafraid to try something new and then eventually master it. That is you in me. Thanks!

3. He can still kick above your head – in the 80s I was pretty much convinced at the age of 15 that I was going to be Rocky Balboa. I had purchased a 60 lb body bag to suspend from a rafter in the garage and pummel on during my intense work out sessions. I also had a speed-bag to practice my punching on. Dad helped me hang that up by building a custom fixture for it out of wood.

One day, me and my friend were in the garage hitting the bag when Dad walked in. He had to be in his 60s back then, and he said, “I don’t need to do all that punching, because I can KICK…” on the word KICK he lifted his leg straight up off the ground and hit the bag right where the person’s face would have been, nearly knocking the bag off of it’s rope “…above your head” then he brought his leg down and walked off.

Me and my friend laughed a little bit at the randomness of it all, but we were both impressed that he could do that. My Dad can still kick “above your head.” Not sure when that will come in handy, but if anyone ever needs a good kick above the head, just ask Dad, I am sure he has been waiting all these years for someone to need him in that way.

My Dad has periods where he works out and some where he doesn't but he has always been strong and healthy and tireless. I hope to aspire to that one day.

2. He is strikingly handsome – Okay, now I understand that this is a subjective point of view here, but my Dad is pretty handsome. I mean he must be, because people say I look just like him, so it has to be true. See what I did there? Yes, I always thought that my dad with his ability to use his voice, and put on an act for anyone anywhere would have made an excellent Hollywood actor. I think he missed his calling honestly.

I have had girlfriends in the past tell me that my dad is handsome and that they would stay with me forever because I would probably look like him as I grew older. All those girlfriends have left me for other reasons entirely, but that is beside the point. The problem was with them really. No seriously, they were all bad bad girlfriends.

1. He had regrets. He made changes – okay, serious here. My Dad has made some pretty solid decisions in the past. He has been stubborn at times and made rash decisions. Haven’t we all? But, I got to see him have regrets. He let me know when a decision he made was a bad one. He let me see that side of him that fails, and then gets up and tries again -- tries something different this time.

He let me see the part of him that realizes that his point of view was wrong and then he let me see how he changed his point of view to accommodate for his new knowledge. It was subtle and one of those things that we never talked about. My Dad showed me that he could appear very stubborn, but deep down he learned from his mistakes and he did not go on making the same ones.

Because of his regrets, he changed. This has been a major, major thing for me. I am who I am because of this. My whole life has been about one stubborn decision after another, and how I have had to learn and learn and learn and change to accommodate for what I have learned.

Because I was younger I got to see Dad raise kids, make decisions about money, about drinking alcohol, about morality and culture. I saw him change from a guy who bad mouthed one group of folks, to a guy who praised those folks later.

Dad, thank you most of all for making mistakes and not being afraid to admit when you were wrong about something. Thanks for teaching me how to accommodate and change based on my knowledge of the world around me changing. I know you don’t agree with me when it comes to politics, but the reason I am who I am today is because of what you taught me.

I love you Pop. I hope your next 80 years are just as amazing as these have been. Happy Birthday!

Your son -- you know, the hard-head…

Me (in my diaper) and Dad (In his barber smock)

I'm not a Tramp...

2012-09-02T16:58:00.000-07:00

In case you are not aware, I am an avid movie watcher. No, I don't mean that I rush to the theater every time a new movie comes out. In fact I rarely if ever see a movie in the theater. What I mean is that I am a Netflix subscriber. Other people like to curl up with a good book in their spare time, I on the other hand like to watch a good movie.

I usually go for the thriller, sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat kind of movies, but sometimes I will even watch a tear-jerker, or an intense drama. I love good stories, and dialog... dialog is everything to me. In fact, I can watch a movie that is pure dialog providing that it is good. I also can watch lifetime movies that depict true stories of shocking stuff. So it was today that I was watching a 70s film called "Someone I Touched," when I came across this scene.

The girl in the scene below has got a secret, and Mom is trying to find out what it is. Suspecting that the girl is pregnant, she inquires strongly. I recorded this on my mobile phone from the TV, so sorry if it's not the greatest quality.

Am I a Patriot?

2012-08-28T04:12:00.003-07:00

Yes that's right, I hate my country, I am un-american and I should go back to Mexico where I came from. Let's just get that all out of the way, because for those of you that think these things about me, nothing I say here is going to change what you think. So for you lovely patriotic, freedom-loving, red-white-n-blue through and through types, I recommend reading another blog for today, if you don't mind. This one is not for you.

America, land of the brave home of the extremely naive
Man, glad I got that first paragraph out of the way, it will make anything else I say sound sweet, I hope. So some of you may notice that when it comes to waving flags and promoting "freedom" and "justice," and "liberty" and "insert ten dollar word here," I always seem to fall a bit short, much to my own father's chagrin.

You will not see me posting anything "Patriotic" on my facebook, nothing about "supporting the troops," nothing that disses other countries or talks about the good ole US as being the "BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD." You wont see me crying about how the pledge of allegiance is being taken away from our schools, or how boy scouts should be allowed to do whatever the hell they want. You won't see me defending wars (none of them) or talking about justifiable war theory, or any of that other bullshit.

For those of you that do all of that, I am not going to jump on your band wagon with you and "celebrate freedom." I am about to tell you why, so please be a little more patient here -- no I mean really take it easy on me. What I am about to say is going to sound extremely ironic and even contradictory to everything I have just said.

See, I don't do all that crap for several reasons. Here are a few:

I was duped
I grew up in the South. I know, I know for all you Northerners and other folks (not from there) you probably are already feeling sorry for me. But seriously, the South is about as Apple Pie, John Wayne, and Chevrolet (Toyota) that we get here in the USA. In school every morning we stood up and said the pledge of allegiance.

My Daddy taught me that America was my home. My home is my family and I should die defending both. He was a Marine for heaven's sake and you don't get much more patriotic than that. He was proud of his service and he made me proud too.

In elementary and middle school we had more boy scouts than we had ballerinas and kids in the orchestra. At every sporting event there was a prayer and the national anthem -- every one - every. Did you get that? No seriously every one - the chess club had someone from the choir come and solo it out.

I grew up hearing about how we gotta keep our guns because the government wants to come along and steal them from us and then make us all into robots or something like that. I grew up hearing about the evil of Communism. That it was a perfect system of government that could never work because of the evil and corrupting influences of power.

I learned early on that all other countries were either communist, or they were going to be soon, unless we did something about it.

I became a grown-up who only voted Republican because of that rearing, because of what I was taught - because I could not see how anyone could claim to truly be an American -- a Christian -- a real man who voted Democrat. Then, I started reading.

I found out a few things. Like, those slimy political folks will say anything to get elected. It's true, you know it. I found out that for years I had listened to those old white men in suits and glossy hair who started there speeches out with the national anthem, or some other patriotic song. Who I had somehow decided represented me best. Me, a low-to middle class Mexican-American kid who lived in Texas. These men stood against a backdrop of the American flag talking about liberty and justice for all, using KEYWORDS to ignite our fears and take advantage of our ignorance about what the real world was like and what the rest of the country was like, and how they were going to go and CHANGE EVERYTHING in order to keep everything the same.

I listened to them. They talked about their military service and how that other guy doesn't have any. How they earned the right to be in office because of their time in the boy scouts, or because they flew a plane in a war, or were in the reserves during the cold war. They demonized folks that were objectors of the war, and said things like "I don't understand why those people who disagree with me, don't just leave this great country and go live in Russia," and everyone laughed, and everyone agreed and if you didn't, well then you probably ought to go to Russia too.

See, when you are all about fear and you are swindling ignorant folks to vote for you, it helps to make them feel a little guilty for not wanting to, for even questioning, because people who question things are probably just communists in disguise. Oh, did I say communists? Well today you might call them un-American, liberals, or just fancy-smancy-college educated kids that don't know their ass from a hole in the ground, in the 60s and 70s we called them hippies. Damn question-asking people - the country is plagued with them.

So, yeah I was duped. I was duped when folks (teachers in school) came along and said to me the entire time that he was in office that "Jimmy Carter is the worst president America has ever had -- he is so stupid." I was duped when Reaganomics was sold to me as the answer, and anyone who questioned his policies was just plain anti-american and hated Ronald Reagan. I was duped when all those "Christian" politicians used their "religion" to sway my vote. Used it like it was a cheap whore. Used it like it was a pedigree they earned in school. Used it and Used it, but NEVER used it to promote decency, kindness, fair play, honesty, the common good, anything that Jesus might really be into.

No, Jesusianity was used and used to draw lines, to take sides and make sides and to sell, sell, sell their brand of politics. Because you can't be a Christian and be FOR welfare -- hand outs? NO WAY. Hand outs are not what Jesus would do. Make those black people work dammit -- I have to. I was able to do this, so those poor minority folk oughtta just pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

It was really like that folks and still is. Oh they don't say "black people" anymore, but you know they mean it. No one back then ever bothered to tell me, that those poor folks did not have boots because we took them from them before they were even born. No one bothered to tell me back then that we took the lives of their grandparents and the people before them and we made them WORK for US Oh we didn't pay them anything, and they were certainly not allowed to read - why what do they need that reading for? Just get to work, negro.

Oh, yeah somehow Jesus was used to justify that too. And you were not American or Christian if you did not go along with it. Needless to say, when I started reading, I really started to get angry. I was mostly angry at Republican politicians who for years, made me vote for them for fear of being called "stupid", "naive", "bleeding heart liberal", "communist","anti-american", "anti-Christian", "baby killer", "nigger lover", "communist", "sissy", "gay." All of these terms have been used over the years for those who voted otherwise -- all of them, I witnessed this first-hand.

Republican Politicians have ruined these terms for me

American
Patriot
Freedom
Justice
Liberty
Land off the Free
Christian
Family Oriented
Soldier
Veteran
Minister
Brave
Courage
Home
WWJD
Duty
Honor
Pride
Peace
Faith

These words, ideas and terms have all been ruined by "conservative" politicians for me because of the way they bastardize them in order to make them all = "voting Republican." Do I sound angry? Well, I am not. Really. Can I say a few things about Democrats and politics in general that are equally as disturbing? Maybe I could, but that is not what this post is about.

My Service to My Country
I served 4 1/2 years active duty as an Airman in the United States Air Force prior to learning all of this. However, to this day I am proud of my service. I am proud of the fact that for 8 (4.5 active, 3.5 inactive) years I committed my time and effort to the service of whatever President happened to be in office at the time. I served under a Republican and a Democrat.

My service was honorable in that I did not get into trouble while doing it. I kept my nose clean and I worked hard. I knew that every morning when I woke up to "go to work." I was potentially saving lives and promoting the American way of life. I had a mission, not just a job. I felt inspired, and I felt important -- not like just a number, or another employee of such-n-such major corporation.

I never had to kill anyone, but the possibility to have to do this was always there. To be honest if the situation arose and I had to, I would have killed along with the best of them, because what I was fighting for was not some fat ass politician's agenda, but for my friends to come home alive and in one piece, and for my children to have the same opportunities - heck, better ones than I had, and I at least knew the evil that was America. I knew that much. I was willing to die to protect the evil I knew, and I was willing to die for my wife and children. I knew that could happen to.

I knew that the cold war was a result of fear on both sides, and that any one of us might choose to use nuclear power. I knew about the way America tends to ignite anger and resentment everywhere it happens to go with it's do-gooder attitude, but only when it benefits the US. I knew these things, I was not that naive. I knew that if I was asked to kill, I would probably be killing someone else's son, daughter, father, mother, friend.

I knew that if I did this, it would be accomplishing some politician's agenda in the long run. I am not saying it is right, or good. It is what it is. I got out after four and a half years because frankly it did not pay enough. I got out because I could get a job doing what I had learned in the military and make more money on the outside for my family of 5. I got out, because I had done my four years and the opportunities were good for Veterans at the time.

Am I a patriot? Yes, probably I am. Do I brag about it? I hope not, because I sure as hell don't want to be confused for one of those folks mentioned above, who have used those words and their "service" to get YOU to vote for them. Who would gladly 'Kill" for votes, and a job and to keep the lies and fear flowing.

My Son is Going to War
And here we go again. I not only put my self in harm's way and potentially hurt others because of America's agenda, but my sons have followed in my footsteps. Only problem is, this is not the cold war. We are actually AT war, and we can't seem to stop.

SRAs Johnathon and James USAFR

Don't get me wrong I have a whole hell of lot more respect for Obama, than any other president I have been alive to see serve as our President. He so far has done everything he said he would do if elected. I can't say that about any president I have ever voted for - none of them.

Well, he has done everything except END this stupid war. Sorry, if you disagree with me about this, I understand. I mean, we have to fear the Taliban, right? And therefore kill them? We have to fight off the mystery in the violent middle east in order to keep 'em from bombing us with airplanes again, right? Is that what this is about?

I hope so, because to think that we got into a war because we wanted to show the world who's boss, would be silly. To think that we just wanted to kill a few brown Muslims to get some payback for 911, would be horrendous. To imagine that we are at war and our children are dying every day because we want some oil, is just plain disgusting.

Regardless of the reasons, my baby boy is going off to war. I know what you might be thinking, "oh well it's not a real war John. It's not like Vietnam, and being in the jungle and having to tote a rifle and fight off the VC hand-to-hand." You might think "Oh well he is in the Air Force, none of those boys are in danger." Maybe you are thinking "oh well the base he is going to is the least dangerous location in Afghanistan. He will be safe."

No. Stop. Really. You have no clue what you are talking about. The base he is going to get's mortared several times a week, and people who have been there doing the same exact work that he will be doing have been shot and hit with shratnel. My son is going to war. We are at war. This is NO different then when we sent our boys overseas in 1917, 1941, 1969, or any other time in between. There are people out there in the world that want nothing more than to kill American's in uniform. They don't care if they are Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy, or Girl Scouts.

9/11/90

Somehow we have been okay with this idea for years, so long as "they" were over "there."

So what do we do? We send our children to them. We send them "over there." And we all just go about our daily routine of going to work, out to eat, home, the movies, shopping in the mall, fucking in our beds. Seriously folks, we are at war! Wake up! We should all be walking around with a little bit of sadness for our country. We should.

I mean, what do we do when we send our children to school and they come home with a note every day saying that they were in a fight? Do we smile and act like everything is okay? Do we go on about our business? Do we arm them to the teeth? OR, do we get upset that our kid can't seem to get along with anyone at school? We should all be a little sad that for some reason, America -- America can't seem to get along with the kids at school. What is wrong with us? Why can't we just stay out of other people's countries and play nice?

Graduation from Kindergarten

During the Iraq war, Henry Rollins, a comedian and public speaker went there and decided to walk around in areas he was told were unsafe, only to find that most Iraqi folks love Americans and the idea of America. He speaks of a conversation he had with a cab driver there:

Henry: So what do you think of us Americans being in your country, and stuff?

Cabbie: Oh, me? I love America.

Henry: Really? I mean we have not, like ticked you off or anything like that?

Cabbie: No, let me finish. I love America. It is a wonderful concept. And I am so grateful that you came here and got rid of Saddam. He was a bad man. A real asshole.

Henry: Okay...

Cabbie: But you can go home now, thank you very much, goodbye.

Henry: I hear you. But aren't you afraid that if America leaves and withdraws all of its troops that the bad guys will come back in and just take over your country like before?

Cabbie: We will manage. Thank you very much, but we have dealt with this kind of stuff our whole lives, You can go home now, Thank you.

It went something like that, and I can't help but to agree that yes, there are real assholes out there that could stand to be taken down a notch or two, but do we have to stay? Why were we really there, honestly? If Osama Bin Laden was such a bad guy, why did we arm him and train him? Why did we then arm his enemies? Why did we expect him and his followers to be okay with that?

So, am I a patriot, yes probably I am. I mean sending your son away to war is a hell of a lot different than just serving in the military. If you think about it, joining the military is all about serving during war time to protect your baby boy. You want to keep him out of harm's way, so what do you do? You jump in the gap between harm and your son. You do all you can all your life to do this.

"ME - not him - God" are the kinds of things you say. So now as a patriot to my country, I am allowing the government to send my son to a place where most people there want to kill him. Would love nothing more than that.

Me behind the camera fighting the urge to lock him in his room and not let the bastards take him

I am trusting the government to place a little more priority over the choices they make in regards to him than what some politician might choose to have for lunch. I am not naive. I realize that my son's life does not depend on a few lawyers and politicians in Washington, or what decisions they might make left or right. My son's life does not depend on things like who I voted for or who you will vote for or what fucking movie I saw last week, or whether or not we as a nation have solved the energy crisis.

His life depends a great deal on chance. Words and phrases like "luck," "providence," "happenstance," "the right place at the right time." These terms, right now for me are much more powerful than any of the words aforementioned. Although I ask God to protect him and all my children daily, I don't really believe that God would favor James' life over that of a young Taliban boy. I can't believe that. I want to. I really do. But, I don't. I still pray it though. Every day.

Conclusion
Wow, did I write a book or what? My conclusion here is this. Patriotism has nothing to do with what you say out loud in front of others or what you post or like on Facebook. It has nothing to do with who you voted for, are voting for, and equally nothing to do with reacting out of fear and ignorance to fight the school board to bring prayer or the pledge back to school. True patriotism is about standing up against -- the people who are loudest when it comes to their patriotism -- against a storm of names like "sissy, gay, nigger-lover, anti-american, anti-christian" to do what is right and good for our country regardless of what some politician or political party has to say about it.

Let's face it folks, Jesus himself was called a blasphemer. It's the same thing. Jesus, was really the epitome of faithfulness, and allegiance to God. The ones who cried foul the loudest were those who truly were in it for themselves, in it to protect their way of life that they feared losing, in it because someone else was riling them all up by playing on those fears -- taking advantage of their ignorance -- just to get votes. Sound familiar?

Introducing Zack and Terry

2012-08-26T19:09:00.001-07:00

Well as you may have figured, I have not been writing on my blog much lately. Which should come as no surprise to those of you that know me and know just how inconsistent I can be when I really put my mind to it. But, really I have a bit of an excuse. I have been working on a story. Not sure of its length yet, but it is a bit of a thriller based in Houston, TX. So anyway, I thought I would throw out a chapter for you to read. So here it is, don't say I never gave you nothing. See, there's a double-negative right there for you.

________

Zack and Terry sat at the dining room table over eggs, bacon and tortillas. Terry had placed the items there prior to coming to the bathroom to save Zach from the tub monster. The tortillas were still warm when they sat down.

“I have dreams.”

Terry looked up at him curiously. Finishing a bite of the food, she said “Okay.”

“Well, they are not really like the dreams you have when you’re a kid, they are very vivid and pretty damn scary.”

“Oh, so you have bad dreams?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m sayin’, I guess.”

“So, the bath tub monster lives in your nightmares?”

“Something like that.”

“Aww, so you really were scared?” She said this in a sort of mocking baby voice.

Zack rolled his eyes and took a bite of his breakfast taco.

“I’m just kidding. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Actually up until a few days ago you were helping by spending the night here. For the last few weeks, well since you have been spending the night, I have gone most of those nights without one bad dream, but it seems like my good luck charm is fading.”

“Wow, thanks a lot.” She chortled, then took another bite.

“That is not how I meant it. I meant to say that now, maybe because things are sort of getting back to normal, as in maybe it was the break in my routine that really kind of vanquished the dreams, but now that we are…”

“…becoming passé, old news, now that the honeymoon’s over?”

“Again, still not how I meant it.” They both laughed this time.

“Oh, I just remembered. I heated up some of those tamales in the microwave for you. They are over on the counter. I forgot to put them on the table, they sure smell good.”

Zack brightened up at this. “What kind did you heat up chicken or pork?”

“The pork ones, I think.”

Zack got up from the table and walked into the kitchen to find a paper plate with four tamales wrapped in paper towels. He placed his hand on the paper towels and was pleased to find them still warm.

“Would you bring me the Tabasco?” He heard her say from the dining area.

“Sure thing Missus Terry, anything else while I’m at it?”

“A Diet Coke?”

Ah, a little bit of black gold first thing in the morning. He thought, as he opened the refrigerator, pulled out a small glass bottle of hot sauce and placed it in his pocket, then grabbed two of the silver colored cans of Diet Coke with one hand, while balancing the plate of tamales in the other.

Back at the table he placed the items down and reseated himself across from Terry.

“So, these dreams did not start when we started dating, did they?” Terry asked with a bright toothy smile.

Zack thought for a moment then smiled. “No,” shaking his head.

“Okay, cuz my parents swear to me that I was their own personal nightmare for awhile there.” Terry looked around the table and then said, “dude, the hot sauce?”

Zack first looked around the table and then remembered the small bottle was still in his pocket. He pulled it out and presented it to her as one might present a fine bottle of wine.

She chuckled and took the small bottle, popped off the top and shook some of the red colored sauce into her taco.

Then with her eyes closed, she took a large slow bite of her taco, as if to savor the taste. “Mmmmm. So good, baby.” She said with a mouth half full of taco.

“I’ll take your word for it.” He smiled at her and then unwrapped one of the tamales sitting on the paper plate. It was still covered with a warm moist corn husk. Zack opened the husk and rolled the tamale out onto his plate next to the half eaten breakfast taco.

Terry continued. “Anyway, as I was saying, my parents call me the nightmare.”

“I can’t imagine why. You are such a delight to be with.” He said with a dash of sarcasm and playfulness.

Terry leaned over her plate and spat out a piece of the taco laughing and nearly choking in response.

Zack took a fork and cut into the warm moist masa of the tamale expecting to see shredded pork in the center of it. Instead, a cooked pinto bean rolled across his plate coming to rest against the soft flour shell of his taco. Curious now, he cut into the tamale at it’s center and found more beans. Realizing that the entire tamale was just masa and beans, Zach’s face started to turn red.

“What’s wrong?”

He ignored the question and went to work dismantling all of the tamales at the table. All of them consisted of only the corn grained masa and beans – no meat.

“Are you serious?” Terry asked with frustration.

Zack was about to stand up, when she said, “Let me. You just sit there and finish your taquito.”

He rested back in his chair and grabbed the bacon and egg filled tortilla. Terry went into the kitchen.

Seconds later he heard her talking from in there, but he did not know what she was saying because she spoke in such a low level, or was it that she was speaking in Spanish?

“What?” He asked.

More low level talking.

“I can’t hear you.”

“I was talking to myself.” She finally said at a level he could hear.

“You know they have a word for that sort of thing?”

“HA – Ha, very funny. Come in here.”

Zack put his taco down and stood up. He grabbed one of the Diet Cokes and opened it, took a sip of the cold beverage and put it back on the table, then walked into the kitchen.

“What, no Diet Coke for me? I heard you open it. So cruel.”

He smiled at her and then his eyes were drawn to the counter, where about 35 hot tamales lay in shambles with pieces of foil paper and masa and corn husk all laying in scattered piles.

“All of them, hun. Every last one of them” Terry smiled a humorless smile and shook her head slowly.

Zach was now visibly angry.

“I almost paid twenty dollars to that stupid old lady. Misses ‘Me no have no change.’”

“Calm down babe. I will make you some tamales later if you really want some.”

“That’s not the point. I actually felt sorry for her. Now I’m, I’m just pissed.”

“I understand. You go finish your breakfast and I will clean up in here.”

“You’re just gonna throw them away?”

Terry accidentally smiled at this comment. “Uh, yes?”

“I wonder how they taste.” Zack seemed genuinely interested.

“Like shit wrapped in cornbread.”

“How do you know?”

Terry did not respond, she just crossed her arms above her waist and raised her eye brows at him.

“No I mean seriously?”

“Okay, I will give you a hint. What do two poor little Mexican girls do when they want to make tamales but all their family can afford to keep at home is a little bit of (how-you-say) corn meal, lard and frijoles?”

“Oh no, you didn’t…”

“…me and Flaca. I will never forget it. Shit wrapped in cornbread” Flaka was Terry’s older sister, named Cynthia by her parents, the nickname Flaca stuck because growing up she had always been the skinny one of the two sisters.

Just then, Zack picked up the bean tamale closest to him and took a bite. He chewed it as only a true connesoure of authentic Mexican food might -- slowly and deliberately tasting every ounce of the bite while keeping the food in his mouth.

Terry looked at him with amused expectation.

“Not bad,” he said and then quickly moved past Terry to spit out the remainder of the food into the sink. He then turned, walked past her into the dining area, picked up his Diet Coke and took a huge swig of the brown soda.

Terry was laughing the entire time.

“Have you tried it with that hot shit on it?” Zack asked after swallowing down the coke.

“…and with cheese, and onions, and in a tomato based sauce… how else? Oh yeah, and in a tortilla.”

“Still taste like…”

They both said it in unison “…shit wrapped in cornbread.” Then they laughed.

“I should have known better.” He said at last.

Terry and Zack started cleaning up the mess.

“What do you mean? Little old lady selling tamales -- what were you supposed to know? She broke the code man?”

“You think?”

“Oh, I know. You know, it’s sort of like going to confession and the priest is staring at your tits the whole time.” Terry walked back to the dining area to retrieve the dishes.

“ha ha -- what?” Zack was wiping down a counter with a wet towel.

Terry came back to the kitchen with dishes in hand setting them next to the sink.

“Has that actually happened?”

Terry ran some water into the sink. “Hell no. Can you imagine? But, that is what I mean, as in, this is not supposed to happen. She broke the little-old-lady-selling tamales-code.”

“Yeah, I see. Sort of like an Irish man who drinks Bud Light, instead of a Smitwick's or a Guinness.”

Terry looked confused and said “uh yeah, sort of like that,” She smiled and started scrubbing a plate.

“So what do we do about this?”

“What?”

“I mean, you said it. She broke the code. What do we do?”

Terry was quiet.

“Maybe we go back to Fiesta with one of those fucking shit tamales and rub one in her code-breakin' old lady face.”

Terry turned off the water, and cocked her head in Zack’s direction.

Zack, noticing the look on her face, started laughing. “I’m kidding.”

Terry smiled and turned back to the task at hand.

“The least we should do is go and tell the manager of Little Mexico that he has got a con artist in his parking lot.”

Terry added a frying pan to the sink and began scrubbing with a Chore Boy.

“Hey, take it easy gringo, jur talk-eeng about my people. Anyway, I doubt she will ever go to that store again. I mean think about it. She probably lives on the other side of town, gets on a bus and hits up a different grocery store every day making fifteen here, twenty or forty there. She probably never goes to the same place twice.”

“Yeah, and in a city like Houston she could easily do that with a little research. I wonder when she pulls out her laptop if she Googles her locations first and then does a cultural analysis profiling the area both economically as well as ethnically and only targets places where gullible, young white Irish Americans might go and feel sorry for her in the damn parking lot. Maybe she doesn’t even take the bus. Maybe she drives a fuckin’ Escalade with tricked out rims and low rider effects as she travels from market to market ripping off dumb white boys.”

Terry was finishing up on the dishes with a long handled scrub brush and noticed that Zack had stopped wiping off the counter tops. “Will you clean something while you talk? There is a table in there calling your name.” She pointed to the dining room with the end of the brush.

Zack looked a little hurt and surprised by the comment and said “Whoa, I guess the honeymoon is over…” He laughed as she chased him from the kitchen, brush in hand.

Books -- One Dollar!

2012-08-15T17:04:00.001-07:00

There was a time not too far back in the past that I was actually talking to publishers about writing a book. I had what I thought was a pretty good idea, and I had just enough energy to do the work of writing it. I was spending a lot of time reading other people's books, doing reviews of their material, supporting the sale of their books and even promoting their books in an effort to work within a community of writers, so that one day when it was my turn I would have this group of folks to rely on for support when I began the difficult and arduous process of publishing a book.

I felt really encouraged during this time and was pretty excited about the possibility of having a published novel. Only one thing really discouraged me back then. It was something that a friend of mine said who had already published several books and who was a renowned writer and speaker in my field. This was a guy who wrote amazing books, and I was proud to say I read everything he put out there and learned an awful lot.

He was giving a talk one day and he said this. "One thing you should know, if you are planning on writing books, is this. Don't expect to make any money doing it. There is no money in writing books." He went on to explain what he meant. "The real money is in selling books. If you can sell your books, you will make money. If you don't go out and sell your books, you won't make any money at all."

Now I was never in the book writing business to make money, but I realized something that day. This was about more than just my ability to write an interesting book. If I wanted people to read it, I would have to go out there and sell it. I did not want to have to sell anything I wrote. I hate selling -- hate it. Sorry if you pride yourself on being a good salesman. I have nothing but respect for you. Really. I tried my hand at selling when I was younger and realized it was not for me.

It was then that I really began to look around and I noticed that all of my friends who had written books were attending conferences, concerts, book signings, interviews all over the country and all hours of the day and night in an effort to "sell their books." They did not do this by choice, but their publishers made them do it. I got to see that side of the business, and it is not nice. Sorry if you are a publisher, but you are not nice and you know it.

You demand that your writer not only finish their book within a certain time frame, but then you have them cut it, and cut it until it is nothing at all like their original work. Then you force them to go out and make you money. Anyway, I got to see it, and I decided that I did not like it.

If I ever write a book, it will be some Ebook that I release for free to anyone who wants to read it. I know that by reading this, it sounds like I have all kinds of scruples in regards to my writing, but honestly, I could just be speaking from fear. I mean really. Maybe, rather than the idea that I don't want to be owned by a publisher, maybe I am just scared that no one will want to buy my book. So, I put up the ole' integrity front to make you think I am better than all that.

Maybe I am just afraid that after all that work and time and effort that my book will end up here:

That's right, this is the book section at the dollar store. You can buy any one of these books for a buck. You know what that means? Someone is loosing money. There is no way that these folks set out to write a novel, or a primer or a lengthy read like these with the aspirations that one day, they might really be able to put their books on a shelf in the dollar store in hopes of making that big dollar bill.

The paper is worth more than a dollar. I mean, don't you think that it is a bit ironic that the #1 best selling organization guru David Allen, creator of the well known "Getting Things Done" system cannot sell his second book "Making it All Work"?

I mean granted it is merely a regurgitated copy of Getting Things Done with a different name and book cover, but you would think that if anyone had their shit together when writing a novel it would be David Allen. Nope. Someone lost some money here.

Then there was the guy who captivated audiences for hours with his clever solutions for government and spending and all sorts of other stuff, who had the general public in stitches over his common sense approaches to governing and quirky spot-on criticisms of our so-called leaders, who decided then to write a book. Again, ironically named "End the Fed." Looks sort of like it should have been called "End the Bid for President."

Both of these folks, very talented and enigmatic speakers and presenters with excellent ideas, and NO ONE is reading their shit -- NO ONE.

So, I would have to say that would be a personal nightmare of mine. To work and work and work on a novel, and then to put up with those publishing bastards, all so that my lovely work of art, my soul's investment ends up on the shelf at King Dollar, or Dollar General, or Dollar Tree, or Insert Name Here Dollar Store.

I wonder if these guys just weren't very good at "selling?"

Demon Scented Soap (more from the dollar store)

2012-08-12T17:26:00.002-07:00

Some of the more sought after items in the dollar store these days are cleaners of all kinds. You can buy bleach, shampoo, laundry detergent, surface and floor cleaners, and all sorts of soaps and liquids mixed with ammonia and/or gasoline, or whatever other main ingredient is destined to melt skin on contact.

I was browsing through this particular aisle when I came across a shell shaped bottle with what looked like hand soap inside. I was a little bit confused when I read the bottom part of the bottle however:

It says, "AIR FRESHENER". I immediately thought that I was mistaken in thinking that this was a bottle of hand soap, then I read the small print above AIR FRESHENER. It says "Remove label for use." So, I soon came to the conclusion that this was a multi-purpose product. Up top, you have a shell-shaped bottle filled with hand soap, but below, a cleverly placed AIR FRESHENER, all you have to do is remove the label to release it's anonymously scented odor into a bathroom of unsuspecting patrons.

No, it does not say what odor it releases, so I guess you just have to assume that it is a good one. The soap looked good enough. Hold on, I take that back. It actually says something on the soap label. When you zoom in on it, it looks like this:

I swear this image has not been altered. Does that actually say "Demon Scented?" It is highly possible that it originally said "Lemon Scented", but can we really be sure? Maybe this is some kind of an evil plot to get "Demon" scent into the homes of innocent people everywhere. Who would ever expect a Demon scent? I mean based on Tim Lahaye's recent release of the Left Behind series, the Anti-Christ is supposed to come in the form of a young black American president.

Oh wait. That is actually the claims of the American Tea Party, not Tim Lahaye. Sorry Tim.

But seriously, who would ever expect it? You go to the dollar store and buy some hand soap because you want to clean your hands, and the next thing you know you are on the phone calling the local Diocese looking for a Catholic priest. It could happen. Okay, for now and for the sake of world peace, let's just assume it says "Lemon."

Here is another picture of the bottle:

The hand soap is green. Not sure if this is actually convincing me that it is not Demon Scented. But if it is "Lemon scented", shouldn't the soap be yellow in color? Well, when you think about it who has ever associated the color green with the devil, or a demon...

Okay, I take that back. Just did a Google search for "Green Demon." I don't recommend that unless you like dreaming about green demons. Here is an image from my search...

Moving on now. Another thing that baffled me is the fact that these folks must really test out their products before putting them on the shelf. No, I mean really. Upon closer examination of the dispenser, it appeared as if someone had actually put this stuff to the test, as in - it looked used. No, I mean really used.

Yeah, I mean who wouldn't want to buy this bottle of Demon scented soap? It is obvious that this stuff had already been tested to the max. (that is such an 80's turn of words there... to the max, totally). I imagined the manufacturing process at the Demon Scented Soap/AIR FRESHENER plant, located in a remote part of Central America somewhere (or in someone's backyard somewhere).

The final piece of the puzzle, the last stop for this bottle and the thousands of other bottles just like it, finally ends up in the dirty hands of the testers/inspectors.

Needless to say, I did not buy the product.... :)

Community People - A Banner (From the Dollar Store)

2012-08-10T17:00:00.002-07:00

Dollar stores are a pretty cool place to find school supplies for kids. I mean for the most part they are going to just break or destroy whatever you give them on the first day (if they are boys), so why go to The Sharper Image or Staples to get your kid a pencil that will just end up being sharpened by that electric pencil sharpener in your kid's classroom over and over again until it is just a nub, on the first day of class?

I get it. Electric pencil sharpeners are pretty cool, and I have been known to sharpen a pencil that was just slightly dull just to hear the sound and feel the power. So, it was on this occasion that Tammy and I found ourselves in the local dollar store here in Delmar. She was browsing through all of the items there for school, and I was just walking around and laughing out loud randomly at some of the stuff they sell.

I think the dollar store we were at was confused though as to exactly what roll it is that they played in the whole school supplies realm. There were actually classroom supplies there, just in case a teacher happened to be looking for cheap deodorant AND also stuff for the classroom.

It was on this aisle that I discovered the colorful classroom banners that they had for just a dollar. There was one with numbers on it, one with letters, and then there was the "Community Friends" banner that I found near the bottom of the pile.

As you can see, prominently displayed in colorful circles against a yellow banner are some community friends. You have the police officer up top there who has a smile that just makes you think wow, he must have just now given someone a speeding ticket, he looks so happy.

You also have the construction worker lady, who is wearing an attractive brown faux-leather vest against a nice denim colored long sleeve button down. She is sporting a short-cropped hairstyle made popular by the 80s Olympic Gymnast, Mary Lou Retton, and has a look on her face that seems to say, yeah, construction worker, women can do that job too, dillweed.

Then over to the left side of the image is either a librarian, or a teacher, or just someone who likes to read a lot of books who happens to be wearing the same hairstyle that Princess Di, died with. Pardon the pun.

Likewise it is as if she climbed into a time machine and went back to the 60s to steal a dress from some poor woman on an Amish compound. I have to say, that I was not very impressed with the banner, and the thought of some teacher buying this piece of plastic to post up in their classroom for the children, concerned me a bit.

That is when I made the connection. I thought I actually recognized at least two of the players on the banner, but could not be sure until I got home and did a little Google research. Yep, when you take out the ill-fitting woman in the ill-fitting dress you might be able to see what I mean...

Add Felipe to the mix and it all begins to make sense. The faux-leather vest should have tipped me off. It's been awhile since someone asked these two to play music for them and riding the royalties of the song "YMCA" all the way to the bank might have been a great idea in 1992, but the money has pretty much run out by now (you can only buy so much faux-leather), even when you consider that this Youtube video is out there with well over 2000 hits. Yeah, I said 2000.

Needless to say, I did not purchase the banner... :)

Bald Barbies Make Me Unhappy...

2012-08-09T14:44:00.000-07:00

Facebook has become the place I go primarily to get news and lots of interesting ideas about culture and public opinion, at least in regards to my small circle of friends and family. One of the more curious phenomenons I see out there are these posted images that have been shared all the way back to Adam and Eve and the first laptop (although I am not sure that those two coincide).

These images almost always share the same characteristics:

1. They speak with conviction about some subject or another.
2. They express their opinion with that conviction.
3. They make you feel like you are either, un-American, un-Christian, un-Manly, in-humane, im-moral, or just plain stupid if you don't agree with them or share the same opinion as they have.
4. They guilt the hell out of you for NOT sharing them on your wall.

So, what do I do? I spend a fair amount of time poking fun at them, and for the most part I am not always pissing people off. Many times people have posted or shared these images purely out of guilt and seem to be relieved when you point out just how ludicrous these things are. Okay, case in point.

There is a Facebook page devoted to the release of this particular image:

Have you seen this? Have you heard of this? (quote from South Park).

That's right, Mattel needs to make a Bald Barbie for cancer kids. How could making a request for cancer kids ever be wrong or irresponsible? You could substitute any request you like here so long as it involves sick or hurt kids. Who would disagree? People would feel terrible for not sharing it. For instance:

I am sorry, but I get so tired of the shame and guilt. And then there is the whole idea of what exactly a bald Barbie would look like. I mean the first thing that comes to mind is this song:

Then there is this...

And this...

Really people? Really? Is this what you want? Would this make you happy? Bald enough for you? Give that to your poor daughter and she is guaranteed to have nightmares for the rest of her life. Especially if you play that song up there when you give it to her.

This is not a new idea by the way. If you really want to give your kid a bald Barbie, why not a Bald Britney Shears doll instead? This hideous looking creature came out years ago, back when Britney's shiney white cranium was being displayed for all the world to see.

For some reason the doll looks less like Britney and more like what we might imagine a Grey Alien would look like if it bred with a bald Britney. Don't laugh, I am pretty sure that this has happened.

By the way, I don't really have an issue with a bald Barbie, I just don't like the whole guilt trip associated with these signs. I mean, honestly I am carrying enough guilt around for not following through on my Save the Children pledge in 1981. It was just "pennies a day", but I did not send one cent to that poor kid, and they even sent me a picture of the child.

No, wait sorry, that's not it, this is actually a picture of me as a child. Hold one second, got it somewhere. Yes! Here...

There he is. This is little Enrique from somewhere in the middle of Mexico. Isn't he a cutie? I had plans back then. I was going to adopt little Enrique and we were going to go on a world tour. Just me, my guitar, and little Enrique. It did not matter that I was only 15 at the time. I would name him Ricky once adopted, because Enrique was hard to say even for me and, I am somewhat Latino. That's right, me, little Ricky Martinez, my guitar -- we were going to OWN.

Then, I lost my job sacking groceries at Saccos Grocery store, and times got hard and I met a girl, and had acne and late onset puberty and well, you know how it is. I forgot about poor little Enrique until around 1984 -- right after graduating High School. Found his little picture at the bottom of a drawer and thought out loud, OH SHIT!!.

By that time I figured he had already found a new daddy to sponsor him, and so I just let my dreams of being a rock star go, right then and right there. It was hard, but some dreams were meant to die. Ricky Martinez, if you are still out there, I hope you at least have a Bald Barbie to play with. Call her HOPE would ya?

****************************************
Update:

Mattel has agreed to make a bald "friend of Barbie" doll.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/03/29/mattel-to-produce-bald-friend-of-barbie/

dazzled by the Dollar Store

2012-08-07T18:01:00.001-07:00

So, your all excited because you have a date tonight with that special someone. You go through your closet and you pull out your favorite dress. It's a little cotton thing that you know is sure to drive him mad. It better drive him mad it cost you 150 bucks. You spend some time in front of the mirror prepping and preparing your face. A little base, some blush, eye makeup, now the hair. After what seems like hours of prep, you look in the mirror one last time. You don't mind saying it out loud even though no one else is in the bathroom with you, "I look terrific."

You smile at the sentiment, and that is when you notice this:

That's right, not only are your teeth yellow, but you forgot to shave. But then that is when you suddenly cheer up and remember that you were just at the dollar store the other day. It was there that you found a product that claimed to have all the answers for your little yellow dilema and you decided to be a big spender and pick that product right off the shelf and take it home with you.

That's right! It's dazzling WHITE. Notice the emphasis on WHITE and the de-emphasis on dazzling, that is no accident. Because frankly if you are willing to take anything you find in the dollar store and put it in your mouth, it doesn't have to be DAZZLING, really. WHITE is good enough.

So I did some research on this product and here are the instructions on how to apply this stuff:

Instructions For Use:
1. Shake pen well for 5 seconds. OK, not bad...

2. Apply petroleum jelly to inside of lips and gums prior to starting treatment (optional). WOAH, Hold the phone -- WTF? Petroleum Jelly on the INSIDE of my lips and gums. First off where the hell is the inside of my gums? Oh, and this is optional? Why in heaven's name would you even do it, if it's optional?

3. Remove cap from the brush end. OK

4. Twist clockwise several times (initially requires multiple turns) until the gel covers the brush tip. Clockwise huh? what if I go Counter-clockwise, does it reverse gravity or something? Does the Sun start to revolve around the earth? Wait this stuff is "gel?"

5. Gently apply a thin layer of gel onto teeth, avoiding gums or lips.
they fail to mention that any contact with the lips or gums will cause irreversible damage to said lips and gums.

6. Continue to twist pen to apply more gel during application. Remember CLOCKWISE bitch. Don't you dare go the other way...

7. Be sure to cover all surfaces of tooth. Hmmm

8. Avoid painting on gums or lips. To prevent irritation, petroleum jelly may be applied to inside of lips before starting treatment. This again? Wonder if it is mentioned twice so that they can say - "WE TOLD YOU SO MORON!! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? GOOD GOD SHE GOT IT ON HER LIPS?? NOOOOOOOO... We told you to use the petroleum jelly, what is wrong with you? what do you need a personal invitation? Oh by the way, Petroleum jelly is also good for chafing, and rectal thermometers in babies..."

9. Wait 20 seconds for whitening liquid to dry on teeth before allowing contact with lips and tongue. By the way DO NOT LET IT TOUCH THE LIPS AND TONGUE (OR THE GUMS).

10. Leave the gel on teeth for 10 minutes, then wipe off. Wait wipe off? With what? How do you get it off of the "all surfaces of the teeth" part? I mean aren't there places the brush can go that a wiping cloth will not?

11. Rinse your mouth with water. Oh I see, rinsing will probably get rid of it...

12. Do not eat or drink for 30 minutes after application. What? I wiped and rinsed and I still can't eat or drink for 30 minutes? What the fuck are you afraid of? What is so bad about ingesting this stuff?

13. Repeat as needed. Do not exceed 2 applications per day. Okay, I am not going for this. No more than 2? Why not?

Hmmm, let's see what this shit looks like once it is applied:

Wow, I was mistaken. Not bad at all. I was expecting much worse. Apparently the active ingredient in dazzling WHITE is a product that we have been aware of for some time, but I guess it was beginning to become obsolete (image below). I mean honestly, when is the last time you used it?. Just make sure if you use it again, to put plenty of petroleum jelly all over your lips, gums and tongue. Hell might as well put it everywhere, it couldn't hurt. Oh and don't forget to shave. Geez woman, you might try laser removal, I hear it works pretty good, again don't forget the petroleum jelly.

Things at the Dollar Store You Can't Live Without (48 Crayons)

2012-08-04T16:17:00.002-07:00

So today, Tammy and I went to one of our favorite restaurants in Delmar (where we live). It is called Shalimar, and it features some of the best Indian/Pakistani food I have ever eaten. Of course it would have to be Shalimar, because I would not have left my lovely spot on the couch for Burger King today. I was pretty consumed with getting some work done and I did not want to leave. I figured we could go out to eat, and then run back to the house so I could get back on my computer and get more work done.

After we ate, Tammy asked if we could go over to the dollar store. I was a little miffed in that it would interrupt my plans to go home and get some work done, but I relented thinking that it would not take too long. I mean, it was right next door to the restaurant. Man was I glad that we went.

There are so many interesting things at the dollar store. We spent several minutes looking and I managed to snap a few photos of some of the more interesting things I saw there. I will take some time to share them with you, but tonight I wanted to share with you my experience after purchasing just one of these amazing items.

48 Crayons

Would you believe that for just one dollar you can own 48 crayons of highest quality? Isn't this amazing? I was baffled at the very idea of being able to take these babies home for just a buck. After marveling over them for several moments, I threw them in the basket with Tammy's stuff.

"Really?" She said, disinterested.

"Really." I responded.

I was wondering how I was going to spend my time this evening, after all my work was done and what with the kids all grown up and out of the house and all. The box claimed that these 48 crayons were "HOURS OF FUN" and I intended to devote the next several hours claiming my "FUN."

Step 1. Pick a Drawing
The Internet is the place to go for any number of lovely coloring sheets. Just type in "coloring sheets" and see what you get in image search. It's amazing. With such a large selection to choose from, I found a coloring sheet that sort of matched my persona one way or another and laid it out before me to evaluate.

Step 2. Choose a Dark Color

The first thing I like to do once I have selected a nice drawing is to choose a dark color from my trusty box of crayons and begin doing the outlining. I do all of the outlining first, even if the lines are already black on the drawing. Once the piece is finished the dark lines blend well with the colorful ones and are of the same texture. So I chose, what looked like "Black." Remarkably, none of the 48 Crayons were labeled.

Step 3. Begin the Outline Process
Outlining when done properly can take hours, and I was in for the long haul, because the box essentially guaranteed me that I was about to have "HOURS OF FUN" and I believed it.

As I held the crayon in my right hand it felt sturdy, you know sort of like a whip of cord that had been wound and braided tightly by Native Americans, for extreme durability and strength. I pressed down on the lines outlining the head of my little pony. Well, not my little pony, since I did not actually own a pony at the time of this post. Not that I bought a pony since, but I did make you wonder,didn't I?

Then... THIS...

And then THIS...

AND THEN FINALLY...

Most folks would have given up at this point and called it quits, but not me. I was only 15 minutes into my hours of fun and I was not going to let ONE cheap-ass crayon stop me from getting mine! I deserved the HOURS OF FUN. THEY BELONGED TO ME!

Sorry for yelling back there, it's just that I was not having fun yet, and writing about this just reminds me about how un-fun these crayons were at the time. I promise to exert at least a little patience as I continue to tell my story about these amazing crayons.

Step 4. If at First You Don't Succeed...

That's right. Could have been just one bad apple, ya know? Maybe when they were carefully crafting my box of crayons, one of them just slipped right past Quality Assurance Inspector 18. Maybe he or she were having a remarkably bad day and this little blackish crayon went right on by on the conveyor belt, and rather than having a firm sharp waxy like constitution to it, the crayon came out a bit more like a black eyebrow pencil or a grease marker. S'okay, I had 47 more crayons and I was not going to let one oversight on the conveyor belt, stop me.

I made a decision then to move on with the coloring of the base colors. It's important when coloring to lay down base colors soon after outlining your creation. The base colors give you somewhat of a background to work with when doing the fine tuning near the end of the art process. I chose a color near and dear to my heart, and maybe even your heart, "Pinkish." I called it "Pinkish" because well remember the crayons were not labeled and this one looked kind of pink, so I went with it.

My artwork was already beginning to look a little too cluttered with art-waste, but i pressed on and began making the cheeks of my little pony ( I did it again, didn't I? I did not own a pony...) look as if she were blushing right out of the image. The color looked good against the cool white paper, and I was just getting into the flow of coloring when this happened....

Refusing to give-in to one more weak crayon I chose another one that was "Pinkish" and proceeded to color uninterrupted. Until...

I chose another one that was slightly pinkish, unwilling to let the broken crayons dash my resolve to finish my beautiful art rendering.

I even tried doing a little work in blueish, to no avail. Every time I put the slightest amount of pressure on the crayon, it would snap in that tell-tale spot. I even tried putting my fingers real close to the drawing surface, and then the point would snap. I decided to give the "SHARPENER ON THE BACK OF THE BOX" a try.

Step 5. Know when to quit...

There really is no step five. After several minutes of HOURS OF FUN, I had not made any significant progress on my drawing/artwork. I had tried several of the crayons and each one seemed to be either perforated right in the middle and would snap in half with the least amount of pressure, or it's tip was made out of something with the consistency of ash, and would disintegrate with the slightest pressure.
Here is a photo of the end results of HOURS OF FUN:

Thirty minutes into my art project I found myself finally enjoying the process. I had broken several of the crayons by then, but I figured out how to have fun with this many broken crayons and a drawing that looks like someone right-handed had tried coloring the drawing with the crayon protruding out of their ear (either ear).

Step 6. LAST STEP

I found my kitchen waste basket and positioned it under the table I was working on and using my hand, I swept the debris into the garbage can.

THE END (of HOURS OF FUN)

Throwing Rocks

2012-08-02T16:28:00.001-07:00

I was talking to a friend of mine today who was trying to explain from his perspective why Chick-Fil-A has been on the news lately and his opinion about the whole ordeal. I listened to what he had to say, and from what I could tell he assumed that the issues folks were having with the restaurant were really about freedom of speech and freedom of religion and such.

I told him why I don't support Chick-Fil-A, which is more about where their proceeds are donated and less about how they feel about gay marriage. He was from the South and had not heard about the large amounts of money being donated to bonafide hate groups and wondered why he had not heard anything about that.

We came to the conclusion that sometimes people just prefer to throw rocks at each other. Plain and simple, we all have this sense of belonging that we tap into when we side with one faction or another, and we all derive some form of satisfaction from hurling rocks at folks on the other side of the street, so to speak.

It caused me to remember a time in my youth, when I was just 10 or 11 years old. One of our favorite activities as boys was to meet each other at the street, pick up random things, and throw them at each other. We got extra points if one of us lost an eye or went away bleeding, or chipped a tooth and went away bleeding.

It was the most fun I remember having as a boy. The idea that in the act of playing outside, someone could actually get maimed or killed made outside play that much more thrilling. See, there were ditches on each side of the road in front of my house and a kid could lay in wait for his arch enemy (or best friend, whoever happened to walk by), then suddenly rise from the ditch with no explanation and hurl a head sized stone at them. If the kid was lucky, someone went to the hospital.

This is what summer was like for a kid in the 70s. Nintendo had not been invented yet, so maybe Nintendo is not so bad after all. And maybe staying inside all day playing video games has contributed to more kids actually not growing up with missing teeth, eyes, hands, parts of their brain and such. Anyway, there was one particular day that I had decided to go outside on my front lawn to just hang out and check on the neighborhood action.

That is when I noticed that there was quite a contingency of young men my age on the other side of the street having a serious conversation. I knew most of them so I decided to cross the road and see what the big talk was about.

After listening in for a few moments I realized that they were talking about playing a nice game of war. I had arrived just in time to get assigned to a "side." Moments later, the 4 of us boys were stationed in our respective ditch, having loaded our pockets and hands earlier with rocks from the road. Ricky, Shane, Bo, and myself were all hunkered down and waiting.

We figured to let the other side go first, and after they emptied their hands of rocks, we would go on the offensive by storming the road and totally bomb them with everything we had. Of course this involved having a guy stationed close to the road so he could make sure it was clear for us to go, otherwise we might all be darting out into traffic.

Minutes went by and still no attack from the other side. Bo said, "maybe we oughtta pop our heads up or somethin' and pretend to be attacking just to get them going?"

"I don't know Bo, that never seems to work. Usually the decoy just ends up getting hit and the others just stay put, we can't risk our men." I commented.

Shane was squatting down low next to us when he said "I think I have to go to the bathroom."

That is when Ricky, who had been watching the road began to scream.

It started out as a low kind of growl and then increased in volume and pitch as Ricky first of all stood up, then he ran right at the enemy with everything he had, throwing stones here and there (none of them hitting their target) and assaulting them with his fierce war-cry. We had no choice then...

The three of us covered our heads and stayed down in the ditch marveling at Ricky's boldness as he took several large stones to the head, and then proceeded to run in the direction of home crying and bleeding.

One down, I thought.

Bo, not phased by the gruesome attack, continued . "If we lob some stones over there towards that van, we might be able to convince them that we are further down that way, and then as they move towards the van to come get us, we can just stand up where we are and get them from behind."

Bo was always so cool and collected when we were at war.

I agreed with a nod of my head.

Shane, looked at us with the sincerity of a Vietnam veteran, purely in his element, and said "I really gotta go guys," then he stood up and ran away holding his crotch in one hand. That was when Bo and I decided to start the charade. We tossed several stones to the extreme left of the enemy in hopes of drawing their attention towards the van and away form us.

Bo threw stone after stone. We had the pile of Shane's stones besides us that he left behind, so we continued to try and dissuade the group away from us by making it appear as if we were further down the road then we actually were.

The guys on the other side had bought it hook line and sinker, from our positions in the ditch we could see them moving as a group towards the van and away from us. As their bodies were turned away from us and focused on the ditch down the road, Bo and I stood up in full-out assault. We ran towards the other four boys tossing rock after rock at them hitting eyes, heads, hands, backs, necks. Kids were screaming and fighting and throwing back rocks in our general direction but remarkably missing us with every throw.

The tension in the air was thick with battle. With my last large stone I used all of my strength in an attempt to take out the leader just as he was turning towards us. That is when it happened.

My large rock flew through the air with all of the force of a civil war canon. It arched up and had a certain spin to it that made it seem almost as if it were a carefully crafted projectile fired from some kind of precision war machine rather than from my small hand. It whizzed right past the enemy leader's head and proceeded to plow its way through the large window of the custom conversion van that was parked on the side of the road behind him.

As soon as rock hit glass it was all over. Each of us ran to our respective homes. Days later, my Dad would pay off the guy with the van some 200 bucks in cash to replace that window I broke, because Ronnie (one of the enemies) from across the street told on me. What a wus! Anyway, that was a summer I will never forget, mainly because my Dad reminds me of it every time I need to borrow money.

Yeah, throwing rocks was so much fun back then. It's really not so much fun these days - of course, after all, I do have the Internet now.

When good cats go bad...

2012-08-01T15:42:00.000-07:00

Weird night last night. Ever wake up suddenly and on the edge of your consciousness you heard a noise like something fell over? Then when you sit up in bed all is quiet and dark and you wonder if you dreamed of a loud crashing noise or if there was actually a loud crashing noise that has subsided in the time it took you to sit up. You also wonder if the boogieman from your youth has finally caught up to you and he is much louder than before, because well, he is older and just more clumsy.

This has happened twice so far since we have lived in the new place. One night a few months ago I was sleeping soundly and woke up to the noise, sat up and then listened some more. NOTHING. So, I got out of bed and started looking around the room for something that might have fallen.

Why do we do this? It's not like we are going to then take the time to put that thing back in it's place, unless you are one of those totally severe OCD types. After, not seeing anything real obvious I threw open my bedroom door and ducked over towards the door jam, so that if someone came at me they would more than likely hit the door frame, before actually running into me.

I peeked around the door frame and it was all dark and quiet out there in the living room. Of course. Then I started thinking maybe I just dreamed it. You know, fast asleep dreaming about things falling and crashing to the ground and then I woke up? So, I convinced myself to go back to bed.

Next morning we found the culprit. A large canvas image of my oldest son had fallen off the wall and knocked the picture hanging underneath it down as well. Both items were found on the ground by the wall in which they were hung.

Then there was last night. Same thing. I was spooked awake by a sudden noise and I sat straight up in bed. Tammy was roused by the fact that I sat up so suddenly. She woke to me sitting there, listening intently to the silence. My heart was beating fast and I was anxiously looking around the room.

I decided then to get up and look around and as I passed the porch doors I noticed that we had left them open, with the screen door intact. There was a small fan on the floor in front of the doors blowing in the cool air. I checked the porch area quickly to ensure that there was no one laying in wait for me out there. No one. Of course, if there was someone out there it meant that they had climbed to the second floor and over the balcony to get on my porch.

I looked around the room as Tammy got up and motioned towards the bedroom door. I met her there and we opened it together.. SILENCE... DARKNESS... NOTHING...

We both turned and walked back to the bed and that was when I noticed that there was a small outdoor thermometer laying on the floor by my side of the bed. Apparently it had fallen from it's perch on my guitar stand (where Tammy last hung it). It was just a dial type thing mounted to a plastic platter.

Anyway, we were back in bed by 2 AM, then 4:40 AM rolls around and I get a phone call from a local number I don't know, I did not answer it, but it did cause me to sit up in bed and it also woke Tammy.

"Must be a wrong number..." I said.

We had just put our heads down on our respective pillows when the indicator went off that the local caller had left me a message. I had to listen to it. As it turns out it was our downstairs neighbor. She had called me and left a message on my phone. Here it is:

"Hi John and Tammy, this is Christy (not her real name) from downstairs, I just wanted to make sure that your cat didn't get out. There was a black cat outside of the apartment. I tried to scare it away at first and, uhm, my cat and that cat were arguing through the window, but it keeps coming back and now it is actually by your door, so I think it maybe could have been your cat, I am not sure, because it keeps coming back, so I just wanted to be sure that your cat didn't get out, but it is outside if it is your cat, alright? Thanks, bye."

Tammy and I both sat up in bed again. Velcro is our 15 year old indoor cat (otherwise known as The Black Menace, at least to me) that was in our apartment when we went to bed. Apparently when our son came home last night he left the door open long enough for Velcro to go exploring outside. Did I mention that she is an indoor cat?

Although she is an old cat, she has no capacity to handle outdoorsy stuff. Things like grass are a challenge for her, let alone other animals. When faced with rodents like mice, she has been known to find the highest place in the house to perch while she curiously watches them devour our food items and poop on our floors and breed. Because she is an inside cat, she thinks that all other cats are the enemy. Other cats just want to take her home away, so she growls and fights and messes with any other animal she comes along, except of course rodents as stated previously.

So, when our neighbor mentioned that she was "arguing" with the cat downstairs, Tammy and I knew it was Velcro. I imagine Velcro was telling that other cat something like this.

"What the hell are you doing in my house. Get out of my house, bitch."

The other cat "meow?"

"You heard me you calico looking hoe-bag, that is my window you are sitting in."

"meow?"

"I am going to tell you one more time, and then I am coming in there to kick your cat ass..."

"Shoo, git out of here cat..." Our neighbor.

We got up and Tammy went downstairs and opened the door to the outside. She made her classic cat-call noise, sort of a clicking sound with her mouth and then a soft whistle. Suddenly and without warning from out of the night, an ornery black cat comes running into the apartment. It was her. She proceeded to spend the next several minutes yelling at the two of us, probably for somehow allowing her to be outside at this hour.

It's a series of angry meows, and whining sounds that is impossible to go to sleep to. We went into the bedroom and closed the door so we wouldn't have to listen to her. So, she decided to follow us and continue the chorus of cries and whines outside of our bedroom door for what seemed like an hour.

Now if you are one of those cat loving people that love to write about your cat all the time and just how cute he or she is, then you are probably thinking right now something like this: you insensitive brute, maybe she had something important to tell you, did you even bother to take the time to listen to her?

Maybe you were expecting that Velcro had something to say. "What's that Velcro? Timmy fell down the well?" No, sorry. At 4:45 AM if a cat has something to say to me, it can wait until I am awake, then I will have the strength and clarity to truly ignore it.

Instead, I finally got out of bed again, opened the door and made the noise... "pshhhhhhhhhhhhh." One time is all it took. When the door opened she looked up like, oh finally someone is listening, maybe it's Mom, she loves me so..."

Once it registered to her that it was me and she heard me make the sound, she took off to the back room to hide under something. Her face was like crap it's him, my arch-nemesis. I will run now and regroup in the guest room, where I have been collecting my own urine in small samples for future use.

So, finally at around 5 AM, I settled back into bed only to realize that now, I was wide awake and it was pointless for me to even try to go back to sleep.

My Job Is So Fat...

2012-07-31T05:34:00.001-07:00

So, I have heard that people have actually gotten fired from their jobs for posting about work on the Internet. Have you heard this? I was trying to think what someone might say about their work that could be so bad, that work would actually, first of all read their meanderings, then take action.

I mean it would have to be something pretty bad, right?

"So I was sitting down the other day at work and talking to my coworker and she mentioned that work was getting so fat. I filled her in on the juicy gossip, that work is actually pregnant, and that work doesn't even know who the daddy is."

"Yeah, in a theater... you guessed it, work. Work was like all Pee Wee Herman and stuff in there... Who does that anymore? Ever heard of the Internet? Hello! I know. Especially at a PG rated movie."

No, not bad enough? Well, I guess you have to consider the media. I mean, I am posting about my weirdo job here on a tiny little remote blog site. And I am not even sure it is derogatory to call a job fat, or pregnant, or perverted. If so, it is probably a good thing I don't tweet.

Tweet-ing, seems to be a sure way to get fired. I mean one Olympian down this year for sure, but what about poor Jon-Barret Ingels, the waiter a couple of years ago? So the guy is a waiter first of all, that is hard enough. If anyone out there has ever done this thankless job, they would agree that waiters, of all people, should be allowed to complain about work on twitter and about the folks that stiff them.

Apparently when a popular actress came to his restaurant, she failed to pay for the $13.44 bill. The next day her agent called and paid it. So Jon-Barret posts on twitter:

Three months later Jane Adams hand delivered a 3 dollar tip after having seen the tweet. She also complained to Ingel's boss about it, who as you may have guessed, fired him a couple weeks later Not nice.

All of this to say that my job has become a real dick lately, but I would never say anything bad about it on twitter - god forbid.

Death by Prosthetic, Pinatas and Cruises...

2012-07-28T10:39:00.000-07:00

"In 1649, Oliver Cromwell’s forces attacked the town in the Siege of Drogheda, one of the most vicious episodes of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. When the town was stormed, the garrison and many civilians were massacred by the victorious Parliamentarian soldiers. Aston agreed to surrender after a parley on the bridge but Cromwell’s officers were ordered to put the entire town to the sword. It is widely believed that the Parliamentarian soldiers killed Aston by dashing his brains out with his own wooden leg, which they believed to conceal gold coins.” (Wikipedia)

There is no rule in life that says, if you pay your taxes, give pennies to the poor and say your prayers every night, you get to decide how you are going to die. Sir Arthur Aston can attest to this. Well he could if he was still alive, but then maybe he wouldn't have had the experience yet of this unusual death if he were alive and probably because of that could not very well attest to anything like this.

Aston having previously been a veteran soldier, who at one time had fallen off a horse and had to have his leg replaced with a heavy wooden prosthetic, probably would have chosen a different way to die if given the opportunity, don't you think? Although I wonder if anyone would know who he was if he died of a stroke, or a heart attack while reclining at his vacation home in his 90s. No instead, he was bludgeoned to death with his own leg - the reason? Oh, it was because the Parliamentarian troops believed he had gold in there.

Huh? Okay, so you take the leg and then using a hand saw you cut into the leg with the hopeful expectation of hitting pay-dirt. You don't try to crack the leg open on the man's head. I could buy into this excuse for killing a man with his own wooden leg if they actually believed that he contained golden coins inside. I just imagined a small sticker affixed to his lapel that says Gold Inside.

Okay that was a bit of a nerdish computer joke. Sorry for that. Anyway, you know, like they may have thought him an English Pinata or something. "Hit him with the leg there, there's Gold Inside!" I imagine the poor man suspended by a rope from a tree and each Parliamentarian soldier, wearing a blind-fold, and after sufficiently being spun in circles according to age, taking a crack at him with the peg-leg while the other soldiers wait with expectation watching both the man and the ground for gold.

However you choose to view this unfair, untimely and unusual death, I am pretty sure Arthur would have chosen a different fate for himself. But, we don't get to choose do we? I mean one day, you wake up, the sun is shining your wife is sleeping soundly next to you and you think, wow, this is going to be a great day. Then you get out of bed, walk across the bedroom barefoot, out the bedroom door and on the way down the stairs you step on a fucking Lego, causing you to misstep and tumble the rest of the way down the steps to a hard rocky landing (should have went with the vinyl flooring).

Your last words are "damn kids," as you pass from this existence to the next. Seriously, it could happen and probably has happened. My point is, you don't get to choose. It's at this time that I am supposed to insert some scholarly and maybe even pastoral words of advice that will leave you feeling more confident about the future and prepared to face your unfair, untimely and unusual death. Something like, and that is exactly why we should live each day like it is our last on earth, hug your kids, your wife, your dog, kick your cat, and start a campaign to methodically rid the earth of fucking Legos.

But, no that was not my plan. Instead I want to tell you a story. Once upon a time in a land far far away...
No, not that story. This one actually has a date associated with it, although a land far away is a pretty good description of where it takes place. Far far away, would be a bit of an overstatement. Two fars for the price of one. Does saying the word twice actually add emphasis to the word away or is it just redundant to say far far away?

Moving on

It was the Summer of 2004, and unlike most summers in Texas --where we all just find a dark corner of the house to hide in that meets our four basic human needs (according to Maslow, I think), air conditioning, food, a television set, and ample access to the Internet, no one daring to go outside for fear of Spontaneous Human Combustion -- we had opted to go on a Carnival cruise.

This was an awesome 9 day cruise extravaganza ordeal, and it was mostly paid for by Tammy's Dad, which made it even more awesome. It started in San Juan, Puerto Rico, which was okay except that we did have to fly our whole 5 member family to San Juan to board the boat. But who's complaining? Not this guy.

Three days into the cruise we came to shore in Dominica, which is not to be confused with the Dominican Republic, which at the time was found to be unfriendly towards Americans. Dominica (pronounced Do-min-EE-ka), was a lovely little island lush with jungle scenery and mountains and trees and birds and all sorts of other jungley stuff.

It was lovely. The excursion we had planned was an easy hike to one of the largest waterfalls on the island called Middleham Falls. The website said that it was a "casual two hour hike" up to the falls and that there would be swimming once we got there. Sounded like the perfect excursion for the twelve of us. Our party included Grandpa Clyde, Kelly and her clan, Scott, and the five of us.

That casual hike turned into a rugged, 2.5 hour journey up one of the steepest mountains I had ever encountered, that included jagged rocks, largely overgrown trails, scaling the face of a mountain overlooking a 300 foot drop anchored only by holding on to the roots of trees sticking out of the rock.

By the time we reached the falls we were overjoyed -- mostly because no one died on the way up. It was quite a feat, and some of us had more difficulty than others along the way. Some of us were also excited about getting to pee in the cool waters below the falls without anyone else seeing us, because let's face it two-and-a-half hours up a mountain after drinking two large diet cokes and a bottle of water, well you understand.

After climbing the face of the last cliff and nearly dying, we rounded a corner on the trail, and finally after hearing the running water for nearly an hour, we got to see the source of all the noise. As advertised it was a large stream-like waterfall spewing out of the rock 150 feet above us, and descending down into a large pool of water (the size of two Olympic swimming pools) below us.

The water was 60 degrees year round, our guide told us as we quickly descended the rocks leading down to the pool. Next thing, off came the clothes -- the shirts, pants and shoes -- everyone was wearing a swim suit. It was pretty much as great as one can imagine.

Moments later found us swimming in the icy cold water and splashing around like children at a wade pool. From the rocks our guide shouted out to us, "Who wants to dive off of da rock into dee water." All of the kids shouted back with a resounding "I do." And that is when the guide got into the water and started swimming towards the falls.

I was bobbing in the cool water, after just having relieved myself of some excess liquid, and thinking that my kids would soon be diving? Off of, what was that? A rock... into the water. My kid-dar was allerted and I soon decided to follow after the pied-piper of death, who had amassed quite a following at this point. A minute or two later we had traversed the pool and off to the left side of the falls was a hole in the cliff about ten to twelve feet up from the water. It was a cave.

Our guide scaled the rocks up from the water to the cave and all of the kids followed. It was not just my two boys, but Kelly's kids as well as her now ex-husband (remarkably he is not an ex because of this incident). Then it all kind of played out like a movie that I had no ability to stop. Kids were jumping from the cave into the water and coming up from the water unscathed with looks of glee and water-up-the-nose.

After jumping from the edge of the cave into the water they would swim back to the other side of the pool where the rest of the family was. I watched in awe and with a deep respect for their damn-the-rocks attitudes. By that I mean that there were rocks. Not just any rocks, sharp, pointy, jagged rocks on the face of the cliff that we ascended to get into the cave. Likewise the face of the cliff had a curvature to it that bellowed out into the water and continued to expand outward below the surface.

Every time a kid jumped, the guide would warn them to "push off from de rock" and "don' dive, go in feet-first." I watched in horror as my boys jumped from the cave, and breathed much easier when they were all safely on the other side of the pool near their Mother. But then, it was my turn.

All I can say is I blinked and there was no one left in the cave but me and the guide. He looked over at me then and said, with a bright smile on his face in that Jamaican sounding accent of his "Okay, tis last one we do toget-er."

I smiled and said "Hell no. Do you realize what would happen if I got hurt out here? What are hospitals even like in Dominca? You probably don't even have a decent aspirin. I could actually die right here, and then what? Then what would you do? What would you tell my family, you freaking native that only wants to see White American's die out here in your wade pool so that you can eliminate any future threat you might have on your precious oil or diamonds or whatever!"

I said every bit of that. Just not with my mouth. Then I got up on the rock next to him and he started counting. "On de count of tree! One!" (I realize that my rendition of a Domincan accent sounds a lot like the crab, Sebastian in the Disney musical, The Little Mermaid - sorry about that).

What the Hell am I doing?

"Two!"

Okay what was that? Remember to jump feet first, and make sure I clear the face of the cliff by leaping out as far as possible.

"Tree!"

I pushed hard from the rock with my right foot, propelling myself up into the air as if I had just come off of an Olympic spring-board. I then made a classic arch through the air and well over the curvature of the cliff-side descending the 12 feet or so gracefully and artistically and making a perfect swan dive into the cool waters with no degree of tilt.

When I came up from the water I was greeted with a loud rumble of applause and genuine enthusiastic cheers from those standing by and watching in awe, my amazing feat of sportsmanship and skill. More loud clapping applause filled the anti-chamber of the pool area as people stood to their feet for my return to their side of the pool, cheerfully smiling and chatting back and forth about what an amazing dive it truly was.

Okay that did not really happen. Instead.

I had over-estimated in my mind the extent to which I would have to push off from the cliff, so when I pushed hard with my right foot, it slipped right off the rock and continued pursuing a backward path, causing my whole body to turn upside down as I fell from the cave. The next thing I knew my chest was scraping up against the face of the cliff as I was racing head down towards my impending death - the sharp rocks below. I was about to die and with my last breath I muttered, "damn kids."

But then I realized that I still had the use of my hands and since we were moving in slow motion I had the opportunity to sacrifice my hands in lieu of smashing my head into the rocks below, so I put them out in front of me and when I hit the rock, I pushed as hard as I could towards the water, causing my head and body to descend into the pool of cool refreshing water, but jamming both wrists in the process.

As I swam to the top of the water using just my arms and not cupping my pained hands, I realized that I was going to need help getting to shore. So I looked around in hopes that someone saw what had happened and was nearby enough to pull me the rest of the way in before the current took me down river.

NO ONE.

Everyone else in the area was either too far away to notice my distressed face, or sitting in groups totally consumed with conversation and chatter. So, with no one to help, I managed to swim back to my group using just my arms and feet (no hands). When I arrived, everyone was all smiles and happiness. I whispered to Tammy that I might need to go to the doctor. She looked at my hands with justifiable shock as they were mangled a bit by the rocks and said under her breath, with true concern, "I doubt they even have a decent aspirin here."

I told her that the cuts were not the problem, that I had jammed my wrists pretty good and could not really grip anything in my fingers because of the pain. I then went to the guide and explained what happened in great detail. He looked at me in terror for a moment, and then nothing, he proceeded to ignore everything I just said to him as he walked to the front of our little group to lead us out of the jungle and back to our cars.

That was my beaten to death with my own wooden leg moment.

I almost died that day. Instead I ended up with a couple of jammed wrists and a decent story to tell. The wrists hurt the rest of the trip, but not enough to go to a Dominican hospital. Here is a short video, if you look quickly, you will see our small group of divers to the left of the falls.

Croptastic Observations

2012-07-22T09:16:00.000-07:00

So I was chatting with a friend today on facebook and I noticed something a little odd. A bit of a strange phenomenon that occurs while chatting on facebook, or any other internet media that displays a picture or icon of the person you are chatting with.

If they are like me and my friend, the person is displaying a mostly pleasant picture of themselves that they like. For instance my profile picture shows me sitting in the midst of my three lovely children and we are all smiles and happiness.

Her profile picture was of her smiling generously with her head slightly tilted to her right. By generously I don’t mean that she would give a hobo a dollar or anything like that. Not that I have a problem with hobos, or that I actually call anyone a hobo, but that her smile was big and friendly and seemed to display her very kind nature all in the turn of a mouth.

(The picture above is not my friend, but a random Google image similar to my friend's profile pic. As it turns out this is the lovely Katie Ann Brown, a photographer hopefully she will not sue me for using her profile pic as an example.)

That is when I noticed two things really.

First thing was that as I typed my dialog to her I realized that no matter what I said, she would always be smiling at me that way. I could have just said “Lincoln’s head did not explode nearly as dramatically as Kennedy’s that day,” and she would have just kept on smiling. Her head would never actually level out and her eyes would not even blink, even if you consider the fact that we were talking about growing tomatoes in a home garden in the winter.

Then, secondly I noticed that each of us had cropped ourselves out of a picture that at one time contained other individuals.

I brought up the first observation in our conversation and she did not seem to mind that her response to me in her profile picture was all pretty much smiles and head tilts. I asked her a few questions about guns and compounds and religion and homeschooling and she continued to just smile at me and lean to the west like that, but then after answering one of my questions she cleverly asked me "Do you and your children approve of my answer?" (referring of course to my profile pic).

I thought that was pretty funny since my children are also included in my profile picture with me and so when she was chatting with me it was as if she were talking to not just me, but my three lovely smiling children who get along greatly all the time, so much so that they are willing to frequently gather around me on a chair and smile pleasantly to whomever I happen to be chatting on facebook with at the time.

That is when I noticed that though she totally cut out the person she was posing with in her profile picture, leaving them behind like so much cut up paper, I had actually sliced my precious daughter in half vertically at the nose, my two boys were chopped off above the eyebrows and yet everyone was still all smiles and good-times.

And that’s when I felt it…

For lack of a better term I am calling it “Crop-Anxiety™”

You know, it’s that pang of guilt one feels for cutting up or cutting out a loved one from a photo, because frankly they just don’t get too many good pictures of themselves and for some reason all the good ones happen to have other people in them. Why we can’t for the life of us just take one decent solo-photo is beyond us. But, for some reason every good and beautiful shot of us is either in a sea of people or next to a loved one or past loved one, or even now hated one.

So we snip. We slice. We cut (and I don’t mean that thing you do with razor blades, privacy, and depression), we chop and we remove, but not without repercussions. Our heart and our head take the hit in the form of “Crop-Anxiety™.”

By the way in defense of my friend, when I brought up my observations she said:

“I cropped him out because its' a bad picture of him. It was one of those, I look better in one photo but he looks better in the other. I won't let a good shot of me go to waste, you know.”

So this got me thinking of other terms that we could associate with this terrible macabre deed we do. Here they are in no particular order:

Crop-Anxiety™ - A feeling of sadness and guilt over using the crop-feature in a graphic imaging software program to methodically and intentionally slice other people out of an otherwise very good picture of yourself. Used in a sentence, “I am having a sad case of crop-anxiety™ over this particular photo, but don’t I look good?”

Crop-Excuse™ - Any explanation you might have for deliberately and unashamedly cutting someone out of a picture with you in it, because you don’t want to let “a good shot of me go to waste.”

Crop-Proud™ - The state of boldly defending your decision to cut someone out of a picture that you also happen to be in. Used in a sentence, “The Crop-Proud™ would have nothing to do with this conversation.”

Also, the state of using a maliciously cropped photo of one’s self on more than one social media site as the primary profile photo. Used in a small paragraph, “Man, every time I look at that picture of him on facebook and twitter and foursquare and path, all I can think about is how I used to be right next to him in it. You can still see my hand on his shoulder, cut off at the wrist like he decided to take a picture with a severed hand instead of with me. He is so Crop-Proud, it’s disgusting.”

Crop-Fog™ - a longer more substantial form of Crop-Anxiety that plagues you every time you look at that terrific photo of yourself, knowing deep-down that someone was terribly severed from the photo in order to make you look THAT good. Used in a sentence, “Sorry, I was in a bit of a crop-fog back then and didn’t really understand what you were chatting about at the time.”

Crop-Block™ - A person who intentionally and at inopportune times brings up the fact that a photo of you or another person looks to be cut out of another picture that actually had other people in it, thus alerting others to your debauchery while bringing on a terrible case of crop-anxiety at the same time. Used in a sentence, “Damn, I almost had that girl, until John brought up the fact that my profile picture is an old picture of me and my ex-girlfriend with her cut out of it (you could still see her hand on his shoulder). What a crop-blocker!”

Crop-Shocked™ - The feeling of astonishment one has over the audacity of someone else actually having to cut out others from a photo just so that they can produce a decent image of themselves on social media.

Croptastic™- A feeling of pure joy that only comes from proudly and happily cropping out a person from a photo that you no longer like or want to be associated with. In a sentence, “Consider it croptastic my brothers when your chatting with your friends, knowing that she/he is no longer in the picture, literally!”

Well as you can imagine there is more where these came from, but I have to eventually stop long enough to let you folks read all of these and maybe add a few to the comments? Sorry this is such an abrupt ending to this totally non-sensical post, but I am feeling a bit of a Crop-Fog™ coming on.

Really, Who IS your Daddy?

2012-06-17T09:13:00.000-07:00

So, lately I have been stingy when it comes to the amount of time I spend writing, but it is not something I am willing to give up just yet. It may be that one day I am not able to put two words together on a single page, and when that day comes I will be a different man altogether. And that’s okay if that happens, because it will prove that I am a living creature subject to change on a whim.

The reason I write is because of course I have read something online recently that has rather gotten my feathers stirred up a bit. I want to approach the subject as diplomatically as possible, but some things just need to be said in my opinion. Understanding of course that this is all my opinion. They need to be said and then said again. Likewise, some other things need to be brought to our attention.

Now if by reading this post, you think for some reason I am referring to you or some situation you are currently in or have been in lately, well then all the better. Just know that I will intentionally not name names or speak in specifics on the matter. And that I am certainly NOT speaking of you or about you.

Since it is Father’s Day, I will speak about family and I will also speak about the human condition a bit. Well, I suppose I will be writing not speaking, but anyway here we go.

What the hell is a family anyway?

Okay, first things first. In a recent post on Facebook my friend who shall remain nameless posted a question a month or so ago. It was simply “What is Family?” I wish I could say the responses were varied, but for the most part they agreed:

“People that love and care for you. That are there for you. Don't have to be related to you.”

“People that you can't get rid of easily; they've been there for a while, and continue to stick around. Real family that is. Some friends are family, cause they've stuck beside you in the same manner. Some "family" aren't really family at all, just acquaintances.”

“The people who love you no matter what and whom you can depend on no matter what.”

“Anyone who you will allow that will love you and accept you unconditionally and who walks with the Lord hopefully. I think all of us have some in the family somewhere who may not but that is another discussion.”

“people who are in your life by default, good or bad.”

The sentiments were overwhelmingly sweet don’t get me wrong, and to some extent they were deeply hopeful, but I believe they are wrong – all of them.

I know, I know, Geez John, can’t you just let a nice sentiment hang in the air a bit? Well, I could except that I think that this is very important. I think that family is very important and should never be substituted out for some alternative no matter how attractive the alternative is.

So what does all that mean? Well, to me family is about blood relations. You have ONE Father, ONE Mother (well some have two fathers/mothers I give you that). You might even have siblings, cousins, uncles, aunts, etc. What do they have in common? YOU DID NOT GET TO PICK THEM. YOU WERE NOT INVOLVED AT ALL IN THE PROCESS. GOD GAVE YOU TO THESE PEOPLE.

Did I write that in big enough letters? Because I can go back and do it in bold as well. Guess what? Life is not fair. Family sucks sometimes. You don’t get to replace them. You don’t. Now of course for those of you who are adopted, well you know who your family is. I don’t mean to make a hard line here.

Your Dad is an asshole? Too bad. Welcome to your family. Your Brother’s sense of humor embarrasses you in public, guess what? He is all yours. Your Mom is old and has lost her mind and insists on hitting you in the face every time you see her? Learn how to duck. We don’t get to choose. Everyone has an Uncle Harry who gets drunk and hits on his nieces at parties. Get over it.

DAD

On father’s day, there will be fathers all over the country who deserve to have lost contact with their kids. Those men that have abused their own children sexually, emotionally and physically for years, whose children had to escape their homes to get away from the abuse – those men who have exploited their kids and would exploit their grandkids if given a chance do not get to see or hear from their kids or grandkids -- and rightfully so. But if you are pissed off at Dad because he is opinionated and stupid and ridiculous and mean and rude in public and smells bad, get over it. He still deserves to have his children at 80 years old come and visit him at the nursing home. He still needs help making ends meet on his pension.

He still needs to know he is needed by someone, even if it’s just for a moment. He still needs to see your face and know you are okay, even when he thinks you need to lose weight. He still wants to see how the kids are doing, even though he doesn’t think you did a good job raising them and is not afraid to state his opinion about it. And guess what. He deserves it. He earned it. Get used to it. Get over the petty crap and go see him. Go help him. Tell him all about how pissed off you are and what he did to you last time you talked, he probably has no clue. Let him know you are hurt. Stop the bullshit, someone has to. Be a grown up, even if he insists of being an 80 year-old child.

Human-beings Change

It is a scientific fact that all living organisms CHANGE. If we stop changing, we are no longer living organisms. That’s right, no change, no life. So for those of you who think, that your daughter will never change and she will always make bad choices and be in broken relationships, you are wrong. For those of you who think that your son hates you and will always hate you no matter what you try to do, again you can’t make that statement unless you somehow can tell the future, and guess what – you can’t. For those folks that think that “old dogs cannot learn new tricks,” the statement should really read “Dead dogs cannot learn new tricks,” because if it is a living dog, it is changing all the time and it might just surprise you.

So Dad, if your kids don’t answer the phone because you were a bit of an ass last time you talked to them, send them an email, write them a letter, go and knock on their door. Do whatever it takes to show them that you care about them. Maybe even try something new, like apologizing.

Why Me?

If you are one of those folks that got the pick of the litter when it comes to kids or parents, first off, I am sorry. Really, it must be horrible to have parents that embarrass you or kids that don’t care about you. I can only imagine. I was blessed on both fronts.

But, these relationships are primary. They are the ones God gave you to start with. I believe that they are tiny representations of all of our relationships going forth. Not that they can ever be mastered, but I think that God gives us these first relationships to learn from and to work on our whole lives so that at some point we can become better lovers, friends, and children of God.

If you find it hard to be a good parent or child then that is a sign that God wants you to work harder on those relationships, take time with them, do them right. You may not have successful relationships in life until you get these first ones back on track.

Yes, I know it takes two to tango. I mean you can be the nicest kid in the world, but have a Dad that doesn’t want anything to do with you, I get it. But have you really been that nice? Really?

On the way to perfect

Some people are perfectionists, I get that. You might say well if I cannot have a good relationship with my sibling, I would rather not talk to them at all orevery time I talk to Dad he says something that pisses me off and that is why I stopped talking to him. Again, I hear you, but that is not a good enough reason. Sorry. If he pisses you off, you have to tell him. If this is really a relationship, then you have to work on it –all the time – every time. Get used to it, marriage is no different, neither is a real friendship.

So, no it will never be perfect, but so much good can happen on the way to perfect. Give it a try. Go ahead. Call him. Call her. Do it.