WillPreachForFood

Pondering the Product and the Process: "Mostly Just Hyde"

2013-06-03T13:18:00.001-07:00

Both the product and the process of my latest ditty have gotten me thinking.

First, the process. I have a journal where I doodle lines and phrases of poems-in-progress. I’ve got about a dozen “solid starts,” and many more “seeds of ideas”. The journal was given to me by a friend over five years ago. It wasn’t until I finished this lyric a couple of days ago that I realized that the “Jekyll and Hyde” idea was something I had messed around with on the very first page of my journal.

In truth, I am already well-aware that I am a better “starter” than I am a “finisher.” Kind of by a lot. But still: Five years? Wow.

What’s especially curious for me is that I finished this after deciding that I really wanted to finish one of my fragments. It was about 3 weeks ago, and I thought, "I gotta finished something." “Mostly Just Hyde” wasn’t even the one that I first attacked. I worked on another fragment, hit a wall, then bounced over to this one, and finished it.

While my commitment to finish something preceded my completion of this, I still feel as though finishing “Mostly Just Hyde” was largely out of my hands. With most of what I write, I feel like I am at the mercy of ideas. They either come or they don’t. It was like this when I used to write sermons, too. I would sit down and be like, “OK, God, what have you got?”

Even now, I’m not sure what I did differently that caused me to finish this lyric instead of just add an idea or two. I’ve got theories, and how I frame them is related to how I reconcile the Christian paradox of “free will” versus “God’s sovereignty”. Was God waiting for me to earnestly commit to something, at which point he laid out the path of completion? Did I initially commit to finishing something because God intended me to do so? Am I choosing to cooperate with God? Does he even need me to?

Surprisingly, I don’t expect to exhaustively resolve this theological mystery to everyone’s satisfaction in this blog post (resolving “free will” and “God’s sovereignty” deserves a post all to itself). But my takeaway is this: Maybe finishing things isn’t as hard as I think it is. Maybe God is on board with me finishing more things. Maybe he’s ready to finish right alongside me.

So that’s the process. About the product: I’m a little ambivalent about it. In some ways, I don’t advocate the theology behind it. The motif, as you’ll see, is “Jekyll and Hyde” as a metaphor for what I sometimes feel like in my attempts to follow Jesus. I think most Christians can relate.

But maybe we can relate a little too much. I don’t believe God intends for us to commit ourselves him and then spend the rest of our lives in a constant tug-of-war between “who we are” and “who we used to be.” This lyric may suggest that God intends for the Christian life to be one of constant struggle, and that the goal is to struggle more diligently for “the good side.”

I think that the intended struggle is at least one step removed from this idea; I think the struggle should be between “struggling” and “realizing that it doesn’t have to be as much of a struggle as we think.” Of course there are passages in the New Testament that talk about how difficult it is to follow Jesus. But there are also passages that talk about how easy it is, and how the power of sin in our lives is an illusion. Paul, especially, has a knack for making things seem pretty easy, like in Romans 6:6 when he writes, “…we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.” Oh, is it that easy? Well, it kind of is. Paul might suggest that if you’re pitting “Jekyll” and “Hyde” against each other and expecting the participants to be somewhat evenly matched, you’re already ascribing to a flawed view of the Spirit-filled life. Maybe the hard part is believing that it doesn’t have to be so hard.

I believe that artists are somewhat responsible for how their work is interpreted. So, for the record, my hope is that struggling souls may read this and take heart in realizing that they are not alone, and that relatively normal followers of Christ sometimes feel torn between these poles. On the other hand, my hope is that struggling souls will not read this as an endorsement of the life of perpetual struggle. At least sometimes—and I can’t say how much or in what ways—it shouldn’t be a struggle, even if this lyric may suggest otherwise.

-THP

Mostly Just Hyde

VERSE 1:

It’s like the beast with Dr. Jekyll, but with me it is reversed.

I came to God with raging flesh, burdened by the curse.

He calmed me with his potion and subdued the beast inside.

He named me Dr. Jekyll and he banished Mr. Hyde.

Why, oh why, I can’t tell you I summoned Hyde again.

I told him where I lived and when he knocked I let him in.

He’s like that loser college bud who always calls you “bro”

Then reminds you that you owe him when you say it’s time to go

CHORUS 1:

Some days I’m Dr. Jekyll and some I’m mostly just Hyde

Some days I choose to follow you some days I can’t decide

I conveniently forget some days my flesh is crucified

Some days I’m Dr. Jekyll and some I’m mostly just Hyde

VERSE 2:

I’m Mr. Hyde’s accomplice ‘cause it’s me who let him in

Then I let myself be charmed by his warm, seductive grin.

He mentions “good old days” and he offers me a hit

And he glares inside my soul when I tell him that I’ve quit

He asks me who I’m kidding, and he claims to really know me

And he says there’s more to life and he’d really like to show me.

I see his lips are moving which is how I know he’s lying

But it’s easy to forget, some days, that Mr. Hyde dying

CHORUS 2:

Some days I’m Dr. Jekyll and some I’m mostly just Hyde

Some days I play the harlot and some I’m the faithful bride

Who I am and what I think some days don’t coincide

Some days I’m Dr. Jekyll and some I’m mostly just Hyde

BRIDGE:

So Dr. God, prescribe for me some pill to make me strong

Some tonic or elixir that will make Hyde run along

Some transformation stabilizer that will make me see

That no matter what he says, Mr. Hyde—he isn’t me

The Mother of Creative Inspiration

2013-05-14T11:21:00.001-07:00

I hope all of you mothers and friends-of-mothers enjoyed your weekend. In our neck of the woods, we celebrated the only way we know how: with creative and slightly unorthodox homemade tributes to mom, conceived and executed by the Hungry Preacher's Kids themselves, Monkey 1 and Monkey 2.

I'll provide photographic evidence in a moment. First I'll offer a quick recap of the weekends events.

-What's a Mother's Day celebration without attending the grand opening celebration of the Missouri's first Lego store? This year we finally celebrated Mother's Day the way it was intended to be celebrated, with Beth cutting out of work a bit early on Friday and the whole gang driving over to West County Mall. The girls got to build bricks that were assembled by a Master Builder to construct a giant 8-foot tall Lego Incredible Hulk.

-Saturday morning, I stealthily drove down to Busch Stadium, negotiated a fair price for a single Cardinal ticket from a local ticket dealer, then entered the stadium and claimed a pink Mike Matheny jersey to give to wife. She has been mourning since she missed out on getting the replica throwback jersey a couple of weeks ago. El pink-o would not have been her first choice for jerseys, but I think it helped ease her pain a little bit.

-Saturday evening, me and the Monkeys treated Beth to "breakfast at dinnertime," since Sunday morning Beth and I both would be serving at church, making a Sunday celebration impractical. We feasted on omelets, hash browns, bacon, sausage, and donuts. We gave mommy her jersey, as well as a necklace that she had wanted, each of which brought her great gladness.

-Sunday, the girls presented mommy with their own creations. Monkey 2's creations were more traditional than Monkey 1's. First, she wrote an acrostic poem for her mommy:

I think the only word that I came up with was for the "U," though I did help with the spelling on a few of the words. Monkey 2 also created some jewelry of her own to present to her mother:

For these, I assisted with tying, and I served as a consultant on color selection and jewelry-type-designation (i.e., ring, bracelet, or hair band).

Monkey 1's creations were less on-the-beaten-path. To honor her mother, she created Lego vignettes, wrote encouraging notes in the form of speech bubbles which she placed beside the characters in each scene. She used a thin red pen to write her notes, so you probably won't be able to read them, but I'll transcribe below each picture. So when mommy opened the guest room door, this was the first thing she saw:

"Surprise! Happy Mothers Day!!! -Marie"

As she opened the door wider, she saw this sprawling scene:

Here are the close ups:

From top to bottom:
"Like my new pool? I built it just for you! -Isabella"
"I love you more than I love my favorite ice cream flavor: Orange! -Andrea"
"You are more important than swimming to me. -Olivia"
"I have a Mother's Day horse named Candy." -Sophie"

From left to right:
"This water is cool! But not as cool as you are! (get it?) -Stephanie"
"You are more important to me than sleeping in every day! -Andrea"

"Have you come for Olivia's Mother's Day diamond? -Mia"

From top to bottom:
"I'm proud of making this room beautiful for you! -Mia"
"I'll entertain you with a Mother's Day song! -Stephanie"

For me, it is exhilarating to watch two of my three favorite people in the world be genuinely moved to encourage my other favorite person in the world in creative and meaningful ways. That Legos were involved is gravy. I'm already looking forward to next Mother's Day.

-THP

Manning to Mullins, and So On

2013-04-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

On April 12, Brennan Manning died. He was a Christian writer, best known for writing “The Ragamuffin Gospel” (though he wrote about 20 other books, as well). Outside of Christian circles, Manning was not widely recognized. Why his works didn’t “crossover” into mainstream culture, I don’t know.

But those who liked him like him a lot. It's debatable whether Brennan Manning would even crack a list of the 50 most recognized Christian authors of the last 50 years; but in terms of “admiration garnered per fan,” Manning would rank near the top. This intense admiration is exemplified by a couple of descriptions of Manning that I stumbled across on the internet: “The Grandfather of Grace” and “Our Ragamuffin Pope.”

In the mid- to late-nineties, I was on the Brennan Manning bandwagon. I read and loved “The Ragamuffin Gospel.” For a few months, he may have been my favorite author. And I still do love his works and his message, by the way. Though I have not devoured everything he has ever written, I am someone who appreciated him and his message, and was influenced by it.

It wasn’t until later that I discovered how much Manning had influenced me.

It turned out that Manning had made quite the impact on Rich Mullins. Rich Mullins was a Christian singer/songwriter throughout the 1980’s into the mid-nineties. Many people with the credibility to say such things regard him as one of the greatest lyricists in the history of contemporary Christian music. If his music and career had been shifted back in time about 15 years, he would probably be regarded as “the Bob Dylan of CCM” (except by people who consider Bob Dylan to be the Bob Dylan of CCM, but that’s another debate).

Mullins died in a car accident in 1997 at the age of 41. It was shortly after his death that I stumbled across a story that is now legendary in Christian music circles. In the early 1990’s, Rich Mullins was driving through Kansas when his friend insisted that they listen to a particular book-on-tape: “The Ragamuffin Gospel,” by Brennan Manning. Though Mullins was already a Christian who wrote and recorded profound and popular songs about God, he testified that this was the moment that the grace of God finally penetrated his soul in a way that it never had. Mullins was so impacted that he renamed his band “The Ragamuffin Band," and included the phrase in the title of his next album. He also wrote a forward to a subsequent printing of Manning's book.

Brennan Manning’s insights have impacted me directly and significantly. But his indirect influence on me—through Rich Mullins—is immeasurable. Mullins, you see, is my single favorite Christian artist. His lyrics have impacted and influenced me as much as anyone’s—including Bruce Springsteen.

I had already been thinking about Rich Mullins in these past few weeks, because my daughters have been requesting some of his songs in the car. My younger daughter asked me about him, and we came to talk about how he lived and how he died. When we drive to Rockford to visit Beth’s family, we pass the spot where Mullins died back in ’97.

But when Brennan Manning died, an even greater sadness and appreciation stirred up in me again. I started thinking about a few of Mullins' songs, and why I like them so much.

I imagine Brennan Manning would get a kick out of knowing that someone’s idea of a tribute to him in the days after his death is to list some songs of a musician that was influenced by a book of his. I suspect he would appreciate it a lot, actually.

Instead of focusing on songs, per se, of Mullins, I’m going to list 5 of my favorite lines from Rich Mullins songs. These lines collectively illustrate why I appreciate his artistry so much; each of these lines expresses profound truths about God and following Him; and they do it in simple, ironic, and even playful words.

LINE: “Surrender don’t come natural to me / I’d rather fight you for something I don’t really want / then to take what you give that I need.”

SONG, ALBUM: Hold Me Jesus, “A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band”

WHY IT IMPRESSES ME: If someone asked me to draw from my own experience and explain what it is that he’s describing, it would take me an hour. Even if I could reduce it to a phrase or two, it would still be cumbersome and would end with me saying, “Does that make sense?” Here, Mullins takes this concept and explains it in what may very well be the most succinct and clear manner in which a human could possibly explain it—oh, and the words themselves happen to be rhythmic and lyrical.
SOMETHING I PROBABLY WOULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN WITHOUT HAVING BEEN INFLUENCED BY THIS SONG: It's an unfinished fragment of a song called Mostly Just Hyde. The chorus goes: "Some days I'm Dr. Jeckyll / And some I'm mostly just Hyde / Some days I choose to follow you / Some days I can't decide."

LINE: “Oh, Eli / There’s a sanctity in your innocence / A certain beauty and no uncertain strength / that brings me to the faith / I don’t know if I / If I am climbing to or falling in.”

SONG, ALBUM: Eli’s Song, “Brother’s Keeper”

WHY IT IMPRESSES ME: The last part of the lyric—“If I am climbing to or falling in”—is another one of those perfectly succinct capturings of something. I’m like, “Yeah, that’s exactly it—but I never would have thought to say it like that.” But the phrase before that—“A certain beauty and no uncertain strength”—is insightful and playful. I enjoy using the language itself to engage connoisseurs of lyrics.

SOMETHING I PROBABLY WOULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN WITHOUT HAVING BEEN INFLUENCED BY THIS SONG: I've tried a handful of times to use linguistically-in-tension phrases to create a vibe. A very in-passing example of one of my attempts is in Home, when I wrote "barely caring and barely giving a second thought to a single thing..." "Second" contrasts with "single". To what effect, I'm not sure, but it's fun. :)

LINE: “If I stand let me stand on the promise / that you will pull me through / and if I can’t let me fall on the grace / that first brought me to you.”

SONG, ALBUM: If I Stand, “Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth”

WHY IT IMPRESSES ME: The words are simple, and I fear they may even be written off by some as clichéd, but I think they are an elegant declaration of loyalty through whatever may come his way. They are very much like marriage vows to God (Mullins never married), and Mullins has the credibility to infuse this straightforward proclamation with boundless sincerity.

SOMETHING I PROBABLY WOULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN WITHOUT HAVING BEEN INFLUENCED BY THIS SONG: This one is finished but not yet posted. It's called "I'll Follow You," and the Mullins-influenced line is "You pulled me from the darkened depths / So for all my days I will trace your steps / I will follow you."

LINE: “I can’t see where you’re leading me unless you’ve led me here / Where I’m lost enough to let myself be led / And so, you’ve been here all along I guess / It’s just your ways and you are just plain hard to get.”

SONG, ALBUM: Hard to Get, “The Jesus Record”

WHY IT IMPRESSES ME: Most of what I said about “Hold Me Jesus” and “If I Stand”. I read these words in the liner notes of the CD case on the day the album was released, while standing by a display case in the Christian book store in the mall (I think I just dated myself in about 5 different ways). I got to this line and cried. This album was released posthumously, so the sadness of knowing that Rich wouldn’t be writing anymore lyrics for me combined with the poignancy to trigger my emotional outpouring. To this day, I may consider this to be the single greatest lyric I have ever read. Structurally, the song follows a Springsteen-esque pattern of replacing a traditional chorus with single returning line/image at the end of each verse (“Jungleland” and “Tunnel of Love” come to mind as two examples). Mullins’ recurring phrase is “hard to get,” but the striking twist that he pulls off is switching how it is used in the last verse. In the first two verses, he accuses God of playing hard to get, like a lover who wants to be “got” but enjoys the chase. The last verse—which may be more tragic than hopeful if the song were removed from the context of its album—Mullins seems to abruptly break off the chase, essentially blurting out, “I just don’t get you” (i.e., “you are just plain hard to get”). The reader/listener realizes that the images in the preceding verses were all jabs, setting up for the knock-out punch at the end of the song. Once I picked myself up off the ground, I tipped my cap, acknowledging the genius of a man who used every artistic tool at his disposal to create the most gutwrenching lyric imaginable.
SOMETHING I PROBABLY WOULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN WITHOUT HAVING BEEN INFLUENCED BY THIS SONG: Also finished but not yet posted, I've got an entire song called "Will You Reach Me" that is my most conscious attempt to model the entirety of a poem after the work of someone else. Here's the bridge: "You were right there when I found you, but now it seems you're lost / While you count up my faithless tears, I'll recount the cost / If this test of faith is over now I think we'd both agree I failed / I admit I need your grace to pass--must you keep your presence veiled? / 'Cause now hopeless desperation oozes out of me like sweat / Are the promises of heaven all that in this life we'll get?"

LINE: “…the Lord takes by its corners this old world and shakes us forward—shakes us free / To run wild with the hope / The hope that this thirst will not last long, that it will son drown in the song not sung in vain.”

SONG, ALBUM: Calling Out Your Name, “The World as Best as I Remember It, Volume One”

WHY IT IMPRESSES ME: This song is front-loaded with imagery, and springboards from that imagery into theological insight--which culminates with this lyric. It's a great and hopeful image. From a more "nuts and bolts" perspective, I love the slightly unconventional sentence structure in the first part. Placing the prepositional phrase "by its corners" in between the verb ("takes") and the object ("this old world") is NOT typically how one would speak this sentence; but lyrically, both the flow and the clarity are enhanced, and the mood conveyed is all the more whimsical.

SOMETHING I PROBABLY WOULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN WITHOUT HAVING BEEN INFLUENCED BY THIS SONG: In "Highway 1" I tried to blend imagery with insight, as Mullins does here. I went for the same thing in the song that I wrote for Grant and his family. Additionally, in that song I used some alternative sentence structure, like in the last verse: "All these stories, songs, and scriptures, conversations, prayers, and pictures / instead of sharing time with Grant it’s these things that we share. / But then, through them, God’s bestowing all the things that where Grant’s going / he won’t need—like faith and hope—but that we will until we're there." Shawn and Emily let me know that they appreciated my efforts, and I'm glad for that. It's funny that way: without the efforts of Rich Mullins, I may have settled on writing a nice note to try to capture my feelings. It was from reading songs like Calling Out Your Name that I thought, "You know, maybe I could convey what I'm thinking in a poetic and/or lyrical manner."

The influence of Manning-to-Mullins, Mullins-to-The Hungry Preacher is hardly linear. It is a web, and it involves hundreds of voices, all of which ultimately derive their influence from God. I am grateful for the impact Manning has made on my life, directly or otherwise. Like I said, I am sure that he would get a kick out of seeing how uncontained his influence was. He is missed, but his impact remains.

-THP

Disney Whirled: Hightlights of a Nine-Day Adventure into Magicalness, PART 9: "Appendix, Volume 2"

2013-04-19T10:31:00.002-07:00

So, what has the Hungry Preacher himself been reflecting on vis-a-vis his family's Disney World experience? After going back and forth on what to write about and how to write it, I settled on what I think was the clearest choice all along: I staged an interview between Rob, the ordinary family man; and his alter ego, the Hungry Preacher, blogger extraordinaire. I decided to have the Hungry Preacher ask the questions, and he decided that distinguishing his words from Rob's would be best accomplished by the use of italics.

So, it’s been several months since you got back from Disney. What is the most striking memory of the experience?

Certainly the memories shared with my family. The things we saw and did, and watching the girls take in the experience. These are the things that I most fondly remember. These are the reasons people take vacations in the first place.

Anything else?

I’m still struck by the park itself. When I think about “Disney World,” I really remember it being a “world.” It’s still weird to think of it as being contained in a state. I see it as a planet, unencumbered by organizational paradigms of Earth. It would only surprise me a little if we eventually discover that the entire complex was developed by aliens who are using it as a way to spy on people from all parts of the world. It would be a good idea, actually—let the peoples of Earth come to you, instead of the other way around. The flaw in their plan may be that they actually “do amusement parks” way better than Earthlings. It’s raising suspicions.

That would be ironic if that was their undoing. Have you shared your ideas with other Earthlings?

Not in so many words. But I have interacted with people who have done the Disney World thing and seem to “get it” when I talk about how impressive it is.

Is it something you have to have experienced to really get?

Something like that. I’ve heard that Corvette owners have some sort of signal or look that they give each other when they pass on the street, something that communicates, “I know that you 'get this', and you know that I 'get this', and we both know that other people don’t. So let’s share a moment of superficial bonding.” Surfing might be like that, too.

Are you saying that based on the movie "Point Break"?

Yes. It's the only movie I know that features both Keanu Reeves and Gary Busey. That must count for something.

Fair point.

Anyway, I've been surprised to feel this "bond" with fellow veterans of the Disney World experience.

Is there any meaningful significance whatsoever to this bond?

Objectively, I don’t feel like there should be. I mean, it’s an amusement park, right? But subjectively, the connection seems real, whatever that means. I feel shallow ascribing very much significance to that it, though.

There, there. You’re among friends. There’s no judgment here.

Thanks.

So is there?

Is there what?

Meaningful significance to the “Disney Bond”?

Let’s say “yes”. At least insofar as people’s desire to bond about something like an amusement park—even an awesome amusement park—demonstrates a deep rooted longing to make connections of any kind.

It sounds like the "Disney Bond" is subjectively significant to you, but that you’re trying to place your own appreciation of the bond on a higher cerebral plain by pointing out that the bond is compelling to you primarily as a sociological and anthropological illustration. It’s like you’re saying you’re wrapped up in it, but your “wrapped up-ness” is intellectually defensible.

I might be saying that. It sounds pretty arrogant when you put it like that, though.

Isn’t it OK just to be wowed by something, even if that “something” is a corporation unapologetically trying to wow you so you give them more money?

I guess so. Can I at least keep thinking of it as “the place where the talking mouse lives” instead of as “a corporation”?

If that helps maintain your self-image as a thoughtful person.

Talk about irony! (LAUGHS)

Since I mentioned the goal of the corp- uh, “talking mouse” being to draw more money out of you, let me ask you this: Do you think you’ll ever go back?

Hard to say. There was talk among Beth’s family of taking a trip all together, but that has been postponed for now. At this exact moment, the girls are still in the window of appreciating things like Princesses and kid-focused rides. But it seems to me that the next age range—let’s say 10 to 13—might be that range of being too old to really get into the kid stuff, but not quite old enough to appreciate the experience from an adult perspective. Now, realize that what I just said may be an example of me completely talking out of my butt. But it seems to make sense, right?

Sure.

So what I’m saying is that if we don’t go back this year, we might be looking at a few years down the line.

When you say “adult perspective,” is that a nice way of saying, “Epcot”?

Maybe.

Let’s shift gears. Did you have any personal “take aways” from the trip? I mean, other than good memories, did you learn anything?

I learned that my kids may be more ready to travel than I realized. They did really well in the car ride.

Any other trips lined up?

Nothing planned yet, but most of the country seems like fair game. Driving to the west coast might be a little much, but anywhere else could work.

Any other lessons?

Something good for me was that the trip went pretty smoothly. In the past, it’s kind of been “my thing” that every time we take a trip somewhere, I forget something important—either literally forgetting to bring an item of some sort, or I forget how long it will take me to load up the car, or I forget to put a hold on the mail. This trip was very smooth. Of course, there were isolated moments of chaos here or there, but nothing directly tied to poor planning on my part.

Do you think you're the only one who forgets things on trips?

Probably not. It's hard for me to gauge how common it is, though. For some people, it might be a once-every-five-trips thing. Maybe other people forget lots of things every trip. I reckon that I'm in the top 80% of the population when it comes to "effective trip planning." See how I phrased that in a positive way?

Yes. Very smooth.

Regardless of how widespread the tendency is, I find it annoying and I get frustrated with myself.

So this trip broke a trend for you?

Yes, but I’m not sure that’s a good thing. I mean, I know that it is NOT a good idea to attach your self-image to how well you plan a trip. But sometimes it’s hard to ignore the voices. Like, when we’re visiting Beth’s parents and I have to make an emergency run to buy some toothbrushes for the kids because I left theirs in St. Louis—I start to generalize pretty quickly.

Generalize what?

Bad thoughts about myself. Some may be accurate, mind you. Like, I may not be as generally dependable as I like to think I am. If that is the case, I need to realize it and work on it. Grow and mature--that sort of thing. But when I unfairly generalize bad thoughts, or when I let “areas of potential growth” become my defining characteristics, that’s a problem.

So the smoothness of the Disney trip made it so that you didn’t have to be tempted with bad thoughts about yourself?

Yes, but I realize that may be attacking the symptom. Avoiding the trigger of unproductive negativity is a quick fix. Conversely, the satisfaction I get from planning a smooth trip only feels substantial. It fades.

Because it only lasts until the next time you forget toothbrushes?

Exactly. Or the next time I forget to back up pictures on the computer.

Sounds like there’s a story behind that.

After we got home from Disney, when I was still glowing over the smoothness of the trip and generally feeling pretty good about myself, our hard drive crashed. The short story is that we almost lost about 5 years worth of pictures that were only stored on the computer--because I didn’t back them up. I went from a high high to a low low in about 10 minutes.

Did you recover the pictures?

Yes, but that’s kind of an aside. The contrast in my mood made it apparent to me how fleeting my hope and joy were when they were attached to “what I have done lately.” It’s like I’m a ship being cast around stormy seas.

The New Testament, right? The book of James?

Yes. 98% sure of that. I don’t like saying 99% because it’s a cliché and it makes it sound like I haven’t really thought about it. But I really am at least 98% about that. Besides, aren’t you the Hungry Preacher? Shouldn’t you know this?

I’m also 98% sure. Any other lasting lessons related to Disney?

Can they be cheesy?

We are talking about where the talking mouse lives, right?

Well put, my friend. Well put. OK, if cheesy is allowed, then let me say that a week at Disney World can be a microcosm for life itself. Or at least what life can be. There is all sorts of symbolism at Disney, all sorts of talk about “believing in your dreams” and “making things magical.” Maybe “experiencing Disney World” is a litmus test; if you walk away thinking about how commercial everything is or how expensive or whatever, maybe there’s part of you that’s not really willing to dream, and not willing to make your dream happen. But if you appreciate the “magic” on any level, maybe your appreciation can propel you to create magic of your own in your “real life.” Maybe the magic doesn’t so much originate from Disney World. Maybe Disney World draws out the magic in your heart.

So you’re saying that maybe, for some people, Disney World is like a magic feather.

Ooo, that’s good. Exactly. Disney World can’t make you fly, but it can make you recognize that the ability to fly is in you, even after you get back home. Metaphorically, of course.

What is “flying” a metaphor for?

Living. Loving. Creating. Doing beautiful things. Believing in something life-giving and bigger than yourself. That is flying.

That’s scary for some people.

I know.

-THP

Disney Whirled: Hightlights of a Nine-Day Adventure into Magicalness, PART 8: "Appendix, Volume 1"

2013-04-16T10:54:00.002-07:00

Two days ago I was having lunch with a friend, and I was wearing my Disney World T-shirt. The server came to take our orders, then saw my shirt and said, “I used to work there.” She had done the year-long internship about ten years ago, and was planning to return as a guest within a year with her young son.

Later, she brought out my round plate of nachos, along with two small plates for the sour cream and salsa. After she left, I arranged the three circles as a Mickey Mouse silhouette. When she returned to check on us, I said, “Look!” She panicked for a second, like I had found a fly in my salsa or something like that, but then said, “Ah, hidden Mickey. Nice.”

It’s like they say: “You can take the Hungry Preacher out of Disney World, but you can’t take the Disney World out of the Hungry Preacher.” (For the record, the dorkiness probably isn’t going anywhere, either.)

Anyway, a few months have passed since our Disney vacation. After blogging about our experience in the critically acclaimed series “Disney Whirled: Highlights of a Nine-Day Adventure into Magicalness” (the links are below), I promised I would offer a closing post at some point in the future, in which I would share some more reflective post-Disney thoughts. If you were hoping for something profound or philosophical—well, that would be a strange thing for you to hope for. But keep reading—you never know, right?

PART 1: "Preparations"
PART 2: "First Impressions"
PART 3: "Pretend People, Real Autographs"
PART 4: "Mac and Cheese and Legos"
PART 5: "Rides and Attractions, Volume 1"
PART 6: "Rides and Attractions, Volume 2"
PART 7: "Why So Sad?"

As far Hungry Preacher family members go, Beth had the scariest adjustment back into real life. Our first night back in St. Louis, in our own bed, in our own house, I was sound asleep, probably dreaming about roller coasters and stunt shows. I was suddenly awakened by an urgent whisper. “Rob!” My subconscious realized this was not one of those “it’s OK to wake up slowly” times. Instantly, I was ready to spring into action. I just needed to hear what the problem was. Tornado sirens? The sound of glass breaking from downstairs? The smell of smoke? Will I fight, or will I flee? I was ready for either, and maybe even both. I propped myself up sideways, “What?” I whispered back. Beth was lying perfectly still, then whispered as clearly as she could, “There’s a dog in our room.”

I looked up. Sure enough. There he was. Our dog. Sitting next to our bed. In our room. In our house. We made eye contact. It was a nice moment.

Meanwhile, Beth was sorting through this bizarre incongruence. She sat up, let out a confused and exasperated sigh, then shook her head and said, “Wait—are we back at home?” Before I could even touch my index finger to my nose in an exaggerated manner, she had flopped her head back to her pillow and was sound asleep.

The next day, wanting to make sure I investigated the situation as thoroughly as possible, I sent this photo and caption to Beth.

"Is this the dog that you saw last night?"

The Monkeys had their own adjustments to make.

Monkey 1 was none too happy about having to go back to school; apparently the “2 weeks at school, 1 week at Disney World” schedule is way too heavy on “school” for her. But she’s gotten back in the swing of things.

I had wondered if her enjoyment of Disney World stemmed primarily from the fact that Disney World was “not school”, but she seems to have fond memories of Disney World in its own right. The other day at school, a teacher asked her, “Do you have a place to go when you just need to get away from it all?” Her answer? “Disney World.” There you go. Why go to “your room,” when you could just go to Disney World, right?

Monkey 1 still loves mac & cheese and Legos. She has built and re-built her Lego souvenir many times, and has recently graduated to Lego Friends sets. Friends sets are like regular Lego sets, but they are marketed for girls. The pieces are mostly pastel colored, and the sets come with fewer guns and lasers than Lego Star Wars sets do. This transition has been difficult for me. When I was a kid (“kid” = “suggested maximum age printed on Lego boxes, multiplied by 2.5”), I viewed it as a compromise to play with any Lego sets that were not space-themed. As I matured and grew to appreciate diversity, my own kids finally warmed me up to playing with Lego City sets. But I never dreamed that a day would come that I would play with girl Legos. Thankfully, with the support of family and friends, I am adjusting. And I have done a commendable job of not forcibly steering Monkey 1 towards the more traditional Lego City or Lego Star Wars sets.

Monkey 2 seems ever-so-slightly less enthralled with princesses than she was when we went to Disney, but she still likes stuff that is generally pretty girly. In fact, that was the theme of her birthday party in February: being girly. It’s like being “princess-y”, but without the crowns. She keeps her Princess autograph book displayed in her room. It’s a nice keepsake.

Lest you think her interest in Princesses has completely faded, just last week, Monkey 2 created this during her quiet time.

Editor’s note: Monkey 2 had drawn a picture of Sleeping Beauty. This is NOT that picture. That picture was on the white board for about a week. The day The Hungry Preacher went to take a photo of that picture, Monkey 2 had replaced it with another picture. This is not THAT picture, either, but is yet another picture drawn by Monkey 2, using the same medium. Thus, this picture will serve as an appropriate stand-in for her now-erased drawing of Sleeping Beauty.

Long live the Princess!

Check back tomorrow, and I will open up a can of first-person-reflections on your eyeballs in what will (almost certainly) be the final entry in the Disney Whirled series.

Until then…

-THP

LaMenting LaRue: Why La Russa Got It Right* (PART 2.0 of 2)

2013-04-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

*even if he considers it an attack on his credibility to say so

Well, well, well. If it isn't the last part of this 3-part series that I started writing around last year's MLB All-Star game. I've actually had most of this written for quite some time, but have been waiting to post it so that it would correspond to some significant event on the MLB calendar. I kept "just missing" those events, right up until the last game of last year's World Series. Turns out there's not much going on in MLB from October to April. So goes it.

Anyway, I decided that the embarrassment of posting 7 months late was less than the embarrassment of writing all of this but not posting it because I missed some arbitrary posting window. Besides, I kind of like how it turned out.

I hope this doesn't seem like I'm not appreciative to those of you who have been reviewing PARTS 1 and 1.5 of this series for months and months, because I am appreciative of you (you also worry me a little bit, but that's beside the point). But for everyone else, here are the links to get you up to speed: PART 1 and PART 1.5.

When we last saw our hero, he was being let down in his quest for justice by all sorts of people and entities. We've covered three of those people and entities. And now, I pick up mid stride. It's like no time passed at all:

Speaking of the media…

4. The media. Of course the media doesn’t have an obligation to lament baseball’s loss of Jason LaRue or to paint Johnny Cueto as a thug. I’m just saying it could have.

Compare Cueto’s act with, say, Roberto Alomar spitting in the face of an umpire. For years and years, Roberto Alomar could hardly be mentioned in any article or telecast without the commentator mentioning the spitting incident, even if just to say that it was a shame that the spitting incident had become such a significant part of Alomar’s legacy.

The legacy of Cueto’s assault is a hard-to-find footnote in the tiff between Molina and Phillips. Game 3 of the Cards/Reds post-All-Star Game series was televised on ESPN. At one point, the commentator said something like, “Cueto, in my opinion, really was a snub.” That’s it. Had it been Roberto Alomar fifteen years ago, the announcer would have added, “I mean, I know he spit on the umpire and all, but if you just look at his numbers, he was deserving.”

How do the media decide such things? I honestly don’t know. I doubt there is a rule of thumb, and the intentionality of reporting or ignoring details of a story certainly varies from incident to incident and among media outlets.

Ultimately, people watch ESPN to see their favorite players doing and saying great or interesting things. Not very many people have Jason LaRue on their list of favorite players.

Speaking of players…

5. The players. We’ve already seen how Jason LaRue’s union dues were less valuable to the MLBPA than Johnny Cueto’s. But individual players have had plenty of opportunity to act independently of their union (gasp!) to pursue something that--if it’s dark and you didn’t get a good look--could probably pass for justice. After all, announcers promise us that players remember things like what Cueto did, and have ways of settling the score. They allude to things like spring-training at bats, and suggest that when players violate “the code,” payback—usually via a fastball in the ribs—is imminent.

Maybe in the 70’s that was the case. But these days, even spring training at bats are filmed, and if Cueto ever took a fastball in the ribs from, say, Chris Carpenter, it would be on Youtube in 5 minutes, whether it happened during the playoffs, spring training, or a church picnic. Even Frank Robinson would have seen it.

Perhaps ballplayers have other ways of enforcing “the code.” Maybe Chris Carpenter unfriended him on Facebook. Maybe Yadier Molina hums the line from the INXS song "sometimes you kick, sometimes you get kicked" when Cueto comes up to bat. Maybe the scoreboard guy at Busch Stadium rounds Cueto’s ERA up to the nearest hundredth of a point, instead of down.

At the very least, though, guys like Carpenter and Molina could have been reminding the public and the media that Johnny Cueto, despite possessing a low ERA and a to-die-for slider, ended a guy’s career with his cleats!

It wouldn’t be the same as a suspension, but if even just once a year, after a game against the Reds, a guy like Yadier Molina gave a shout-out to Jason LaRue—well, at least that would be something.

Specifically? Imagine this:

Reporter: Yadi, how’d you feel about the win tonight?

Yadier: It’s great. A win is always good. But every time we play these guys, win or lose, I think about my man Jason LaRue. Not that anyone asked, but he’s doing OK. Still having headaches, forgetting things. Keep praying for him. That’s all I got right now.

(Surely after a few years of that, Jeremy Schapp would pick up the torch and run a human interest story on Sunday night Sportscenter, right?)

Yes, this is what we’ve come to in terms of hoping for accountability: vague shaming from other players. And even this hasn’t happened. Could there possibly be a 6th level of dispensing discipline in a case like this when the first 5 levels fail? Ordinarily, no. But in steps a guy who is so not ordinary that he used to bat the pitcher 8th instead of 9th.

You know him, you probably-don’t-love-him-but-there’s-a-chance-you-don’t-mind-him-as-much-as-other-people-do, he is none other than Tony La Russa.

6. Tony La Russa. It seemed perfect. After Johnny Cueto got away with assaulting one of Tony’s players, guess who could have included Mr. Kicky-head on the All-Star roster but didn’t? You know the story. La Russa took matters into his own hands and decided his team would do just fine in the All-Star game without 15 pitches or so from the Red’s ace.

It wouldn’t make Jason LaRue’s headaches go away, but for a 6th level of accountability, it wasn’t bad. Call it “karma light”.

Then La Russa did something strange. He denied that his omission of Cueto had anything to do with “the incident.” Indeed, he took the mere suggestion as an attack on his integrity. You’ll recall that he said the All-Star Game was too important to let personal vendettas get in the way of roster selection. Uh, OK. You gotta stand for something, I guess.

Of course, once the All-Star Game is actually being played, managerial integrity is in no way compromised in the least when managers prioritize “getting everyone in the game” over “putting your best 9 on the field.” For example, double switching Barry Bonds out of the game in the top of the 4th inning of the 2007 All-Star Game completely passes the "competitive integrity" test, even if your team ultimately loses the game by one run, 5-4 (it's completely slipping my mind who was managing that game for the losing team).

So the definition of “maintaining the integrity of the All-Star experience” might be up for debate. But whatever it looks like, it seems like La Russa could have just as easily played the “personal integrity card” when talking about Cueto. He could have said, “Cueto’s numbers are good, and maybe another manager would have picked him. But, to be completely honest, I get a little sick to my stomach when I imagine his cleats sinking into Jason LaRue’s face. On a very basic level, I simply don’t want to invite someone like Johnny Cueto to play baseball with me. It would make me feel like a sell-out. Win, lose, or tie, I have to look in the mirror at the end of the day and feel like I made a decision that was consistent with my integrity as a human being.”

See how there are different types of integrity? Had La Russa played that integrity card, people all over the world would have debated the legitimacy of La Russa’s stance. The debate itself would have reminded people of Cueto’s actions. Ending LaRue’s career may very well have become for Johnny Cueto what “spitting in the face of an umpire” was to Roberto Alomar or “hitting Roseboro with a bat” was to Juan Marichal.

La Russa instead insisted that his snubbing of Cueto somehow made a great deal of sense from a baseball standpoint. That case is hard to build. In fact, it would be easier to build a case that, at the time of La Russa's omission, Cueto was the single best starting pitcher in the National League. Tony makes us question either his commitment to build a winning roster or his ability to build a winning roster. He either doesn't value winning or he doesn't recognize talent. Whatever critical-of-Tony stance you let Tony push you into, the important thing to remember is that it's all about Tony. It's not about justice, and it's certainly not about Jason LaRue. Remember him?

This begs the question: If justice falls in a forest and nobody takes credit for dispensing it, does the recipient of said justice recognize it as such?

We’ll let Johnny Cueto answer that for himself: “I see that I have great numbers. I thought the way I pitched this year, I’d have a chance to go to the All-Star Game. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if the manager of the All-Star Game is pissed at me because I went out with one of his girlfriends.”

Wow. The grown up in me is thinking, “Did he just say that, probably in mixed company?” The junior high boy in me is thinking, “I’m not so much offended—it’s just not really very funny.”

Suffice it to say that if you’ve seen Johnny Cueto taking a long, hard look in the mirror, it’s probably to make sure he looks good for the ladies.

It’s a strange ending to a sad story. Johnny Cueto ends some guy’s career, and somehow dodges any significant discipline for his action. La Russa could have been the heroic sheriff of the story, but decided to play the role of “uncooperative conduit for watered-down karma.” Strange. To me, it’s also disappointing.

But does it matter? Does it matter if Cueto is disciplined at all, or if hundreds of people and dozens of systems shrugged their collective shoulders at Jason LaRue losing his livelihood and possibly his ability to function normally? Does it matter?

Short answer: Not really. It’s a game. There are a lot of injustices in the world, and this is a pretty minor one. Plus, some of us believe that every act of injustice will be answered for anyway, so it’s not a matter of “if,” just “when.”

Long answer: Kind of. It’s no great revelation that I view Johnny Cueto as the bad guy in this story (though it doesn’t seem like there are very many good guys). On a personal level, yes, I like to see the bad guy “get his”—probably more than I should. It’s personally unsettling that Jason LaRue has been let down in so many ways.

But there is a more significant way that it “kind of” matters that Johnny Cueto got away with assault. In fact, there is someone who has been let down even more than Jason LaRue. That would be Johnny Cueto himself.

Theoretically, at least part of the purpose of most punishments is to inspire change in the one being punished. Most formally-issued consequences (e.g., token suspensions) do little to inspire change. But—perhaps especially in the entertainment world—the grassroots “punishment” called “indignation of the masses” regularly jars bullies and airheads from their selfish delusions of invincibility. Not always permanently, but sometimes.

Consider the two baseball-related examples from this essay: Roberto Alomar spitting in the face of umpire John Hirshbeck, and Juan Marichal hitting Johnny Roseboro with a bat. These two incidents have at least two things in common:

-The public outcry against the culprits (Alomar and Marichal) was immense.

-The culprits and the victims eventually became friends, and in doing so demonstrated the value of things like forgiveness and respect—things that most of us try to model, and teach our children, and even write about.

Correlation does not necessarily equal causation. Maybe the public’s perception that these guys “crossed a line” is not what prodded these guys to look at themselves and make important changes. But it sure looks that way.

Will Cueto and LaRue ever talk about how much they respect each other? From the ruins of this situation, will an example of forgiveness rise like a phoenix? I doubt it. Cueto has been affirmed. He probably feels he has done no wrong. He possibly sees himself as the victim. He may even think that he’s funny. He has no pressing reason to change. LaRue, meanwhile, may or may not have a forgiving heart. Even if he does, it’s unfortunate that the public’s interest in this conflict has waned to such a degree that no one outside of LaRue’s family and friends may behold his graciousness.

Perhaps this story is a learning tool after all. In life, justice is not always served. When it is, it is seldom as immediate, drastic, or satisfying as we would like it to be. The decisions people make are unpredictable, except in hindsight. Even our own decisions (like going out on the field during a brawl because we think we are fighting for the right side) are easy to second guess, especially when they lead to unexpected and disproportionate consequences. Even so, we’re not sure what we could have done differently (we can’t just stay in the dugout, can we?). We are let down by our bosses, our friends, and by organizational systems that we never realized how much we counted on. As time passes, questions of “what happened?” and “who was right?” are buried by easier-to-process truisms like “everyone made mistakes” and “people have moved on.” Soon, details of “key elements” are remembered differently by different people, then not at all (before the 2012 All-Star Game, Jason LaRue’s career ending was an important detail of this incident). When the dust settles for everyone else, we ourselves may dwell on all that is still unsettled as we replay the memories that feel fresh and inescapable (strange, the things you can still remember even when you’re concussed). Maybe we still hope for justice. And maybe we will have to settle for a random blogger recounting “what went down” for his scores of readers. Or maybe not even that.

If we are brave, we can forgive and move forward. This is hard to do with so little fanfare, so little closure, and so many scars and headaches. Maybe there exists something more satisfying than justice, and even more satisfying than being a big-league ballplayer. Maybe there are bigger things to hope for, things that not even Tony La Russa can offer. Maybe there are bigger things to depend on, things bigger than the media or the most powerful union in the world. Maybe we would never have discovered these “bigger things,” these opportunities and possibilities, had we been granted the justice that we wanted. Maybe the life lesson is that even if the “lesson” seems lost for others, there is still “life” for us. A concussed life is still a life worth living. The life of a Major League fastball will fade over time. The life of hope will not.

-THP

Why I Probably Won’t Forward My Previous Post to the Crayola People

2013-03-18T13:32:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, I was eating breakfast when I found a hair in my Frankenberry cereal. I figured it was mine or my mom's. Not matter. Hairs in food don’t freak me out like they do some people, so I pulled it out and kept eating. Then I found another. I looked closer at my cereal. There were several hairs floating around in the milk. I slowly stirred, and when I lifted out my spoon, hanging there was a large, milky gob of hair. Drip, drip, drip went the milk from the lowest hanging strand.

Even I thought this was a little gross. I showed my mom, and we quickly figured out that the hair had been in the cereal box. My brother, sister, and I—the passionate consumer advocates that we were—clamored for my mom to “write a letter”. (This was back when people still did that.) She didn’t. I didn't blame her then, and I don't now. And it's not that we were truly aghast; more than anything, we were just curious as to how a letter would be received by the offending company.

This next story will suck, because I don’t remember very many details. But sometime after Frankenberry-gate, but before I left home for college, some company’s product didn’t do what I felt like it was supposed to do. I wrote a letter. I used to write a lot of letters, and I believed that I could change the world by doing so. I was excited to send off my letter, and enlisted my mom’s help with mailing it. She suggested I let my dad read it.

He read it, and suggested that maybe the company’s crime wasn’t as egregious as I thought. Maybe their promises weren’t so explicit, and maybe my demands weren’t so reasonable, and these are the kinds of things that happen in a capitalistic society, or something like that. I don’t remember if I still mailed it. If I did, I’m sure I didn’t hear back.

Since I’ve been an adult, I have expressed dismay to several different companies through letters, phone calls, or emails. Every time, my purpose is not to change the world, but to get something I want.

I called International Delight to tell them that I missed their old “screw top” caps to their creamers, and I wanted them to bring them back. The man told me that wasn’t going to happen, but that he would send me some coupons for free creamers—maybe to give me the chance to get used to the new tops. I thought that was nice of him.

I sent a letter to Williams-Sonoma because I felt like an employee had been rude to me when I returned an apple peeler that my wife had bought there. I never heard back from them.

I sent an email to Scrubbing Bubbles when our automatic shower cleaner sprayer stopped working after I changed the batteries. This had happened once before, and we had already footed the bill for a replacement. Not this time. Someone replied, asking if I had followed the directions for changing the batteries. I replied that I had. He wrote back, apologized, and told me he’d send me a coupon for a new sprayer. The coupon had a hologram on it. When I used it at Target, the sprayer was on sale, but the coupon scanned for the full price. The cashier and I both noticed this. She shrugged her shoulders, and said, “I guess you get a little more savings of your other stuff.” That was a happy feeling.

As a regular reader of WPFF would have noticed, I was not very satisfied with my family’s experience with Crayola’s Digital Light Designer. One thoughtful poster suggested I send my post to the Crayola people. Maybe I will. But probably not. Why not?

For one, I was able to return the product for a refund, minus shipping and a re-stocking fee. I’m not thrilled about the net loss, but such are the perils of purchasing online. The point is, you could make a case that I already got my money back—what else would I want the Crayola people to do? Maybe they would send me free stuff. But I’m not sure that I deserve free stuff. I mean, it wasn’t that their product didn’t work—it just sucked. To me, there’s a difference.

Also, I’m not sure it would behoove the Crayola people to send me free stuff. I’m not especially loyal to Crayola as a brand. I don’t know if them sending me free stuff would make me any more loyal.

Also, if I knew that my sending my blog post to the Crayola people would help them make better products, maybe I would send it. As it is, I suspect my post—with its admittedly over-the-top tone—wouldn’t be used in any useful manner. Would one blogger’s opinion outweigh the affirmation of winning the “Innovative Toy of the Year” award? (Not an award I was familiar with, but a win is a win.)

Finally, I think about why I am blogging in the first place. There are three reasons. One is “me focused,” one is “you and me focused,” and one is “you focused” (anyone else thinking “Venn diagram”?).

Me: I am blogging to make myself write. I’m trying to use my gifts, learn to be disciplined about it, and become a better writer. Maybe I will become a better person, too.

You and Me: I am blogging to connect and communicate. Whether updating friends or connecting with strangers, it’s fun for everyone when communication happens.

You: I am blogging to help you. I’m so sweet, I know. I’m not picky about how I help you. Minimally, I know that faithful readers of WPFF become more and more adept at deciphering long and convoluted sentences that make abundant use of commas, dashes, and parentheses. Sometimes, I try to help by giving you something to smile about in the midst of a stressful day. Or, maybe a post or two will challenge you to ponder important-but-invisible things that are easy to forget about, things like love and justice and hope. Maybe the words I write will inspire you. Maybe you will change the world.

The Crayola post was “for me,” so I could practice writing. And it was “for you” so that you could learn from my experience and perhaps derive some amusement from it. And it was “for us,” so we can communicate. This is how I want to change the world.

Of course I could have spent this time figuring out how to get in touch with the Crayola people and writing them a preface to my post explaining that I am not just some crackpot, but I’d rather spend it connecting with you.

I may send the post to the Crayola people. I don't know. I wanted to make you a priority, but maybe after I post this, connecting with the Crayola people will feel like a bigger priority. If I end up sending my post to them, for whatever reason, you’ll be the first to know.

-THP

The Toys of Summer (Winter Edition), PART 4: "Crayola Digital Light Designer"

2013-03-09T01:23:00.001-08:00

Click here for intro and PART 1.
Click here for PART 2.
Click here for PART 3.

PRODUCT:

Crayola Digital Light Designer

VISUAL PROOF OF THIS PRODUCT’S EXISTENCE:

[The Hungry Preacher and his family have been working hard to expunge the memory of this product from our brains. Thus, we have destroyed all visual records of this product. Sorry.]

WHAT THEY SAY:

"Grab the digital stylus and get ready to draw in an amazing way—with colored, spinning lights! Drawing, special effects, animation, games, activities, and so much more—it’s hours and hours of creative fun! You can even sit back and replay your favorite creations as they appear to float in mid-air on the 360° surface. You won’t believe your eyes!"

(from Crayola Website)

THE GIST:

It’s like drawing, but your canvas is shaped like a cone and your medium is light.

PROS:

I am grateful for the CDLD, because it has given me a new appreciation for things like coal and Etch-a-Sketches that can also be used for drawing.

Buying the CDLD has also taught me that returning a product to a third-party seller through Amazon can be difficult and full of hurdles.

CONS:

On the Crayola website, this product has 71 user reviews, and the average rating is 1.9 stars out of 5. That’s actually a little misleading, because 1 star is the lowest rating you can give.

Accompanying the ratings are user comments, and I agree with most of the concerns expressed:

-It’s loud. Probably not quite hair-dryer loud, but close.

-It’s pretty crappy that, unless you pay extra for the cord, you need 4 size-D batteries to use the thing (plus 2 size-AAA batteries in the stylus).

-It’s annoying that the dome needs to be almost completely level to be used.

-It’s cumbersome.

-It’s expensive.

-It’s hard to figure out how to use.

All of this is potentially able to be overcome, except for the small detail that

-It’s not very much fun.

No, really. The pictures that you can draw are no more precise than something you could do on a Light Bright 30 years ago. They are so pixelated that even using the word "pixelated" to describe them is misleading because it implies that they are still on the "spectrum of pixelation." But to achieve even this level of precision, you have to be very exact with the stylus. Of course, it is difficult to get the stylus to illuminate the exact spot you are going for. It’s like when you’re at an ATM and you realize that you need to touch the screen about a centimeter above the icon you’re trying to highlight. Now imagine that in the middle of your transaction, the touch-screen suddenly begins to accurately respond to the location of your finger. Then it doesn't. Then it does. Then you realize that how the screen responds to your touch seems to be related to some combination of the angle of your finger, the duration you leave your finger on the screen, the suddenness with which your finger touches the screen, and the precision with which your finger touches the spot you are going for. Now imagine you are six years old. That's how much fun this product was.

The descriptions of this product on both Amazon and Crayola.com read like those of a realtor spinning a house that no one wants.

From Amazon:

“The Crayola Digital Light Designer lets children express their artistic side, without the mess of traditional pens.”

Traditional, like with ink wells? OK, I guess I can see that. But clicky pens with a little adult supervision aren’t that messy, are they? Especially for a 6 year old (the minimum suggested age for this product), right?

“The round dome responds to the touch of a stylus to display up to seven colors, providing unlimited imaginative fun.”

Up to seven colors? As in, “One less than the number of colors included in Crayola’s most basic box of crayons”? Is that the seven you’re talking about? If seven colors provides unlimited imaginative fun, why do you make a box of crayons that has 120 colors?

To be fair, a thorough study of the Crayola website reveals that boxes of crayons come in seven different sizes. This can't be a coincidence, and it stands to reason that the type and degree of fun that can be experienced with seven colors of light is the same as that which can be experienced with 120 colors of crayons. This handy table should help you convert how many colors of light you will need to match what you experience with crayons:

# of Crayon Colors	# of Light Colors	Predicted Experience
120	7	Unlimited, imaginative fun
96	6	Slightly limited, imaginative fun
64	5	Moderately limited, imaginative gladness
48	4	Severely limited, rote gladness
32	3	Structured, uninspired ambivalence
16	2	Highly structured, disillusioned melancholy
8	1	Mundane, bitter hopelessness

“Kids can make their drawings move with animation options or even create short movies by combining drawings.”

A few paragraphs later, Amazon tells us just how short those movies are:

"They can also create six-frame movies with the Movie Maker activity on the light dome."

Six frames? Six? Forget for a second that the first movie ever made (of a horse galloping, in 1878) was 16 frames. Forget that for a second. Is there anyone in the world who would chose the word “movie” to describe what it is you’re saying my kid can do with the Crayola Digital Light Designer? Words have meanings. If you want to use a word (like “movie”) to describe something that it has never before described, shouldn’t you blaze that trail in something other than an official description of a product you are trying to sell? Is that asking a lot?

"The dome also features eight engaging activities and games to keep kids entertained."

I can’t really address this, because we didn’t make it to all eight. After about three, we realized we were neither engaged nor entertained. We were mostly bored and confused. I don’t want to think about what would have happened if we’d tried all eight.

In summary, if my kid had been born in the 1910’s and time-traveled to the present, maybe she would be completely engaged with this product. Maybe then she would “sit back and replay her favorite creations as they appear to float in mid-air on the 360° surface.” Maybe then she “wouldn’t believe her eyes.” But for non-time-traveling 6-year-olds and 39-year-olds living in 2013, the messages our eyes sent to our brains regarding this product were very, very believable. On the other hand, that a 6-year-old kid living in 2013 with $60 to spend (or have spent on his behalf) would be intelligent and patient enough to learn how to use this product, but still be inexperienced enough in his use of electronics to be fascinated for hours and hours with all that this product can do? If I saw that, it’s fair to say “I wouldn’t believe my eyes.”

RATING:

1 star out of 5

Thus we conclude "The Toys of Summer, (WINTER EDITION)." Thanks for reading, and be sure to check back in a few days when I will arrange letters and words in an entirely new way, thereby communicating thoughts that have never before been communicated by another human being.

-THP

The Toys of Summer (Winter Edition), PART 3: "Blobimals"

2013-03-06T10:56:00.000-08:00

Click here for intro and PART 1.
Click here for PART 2.

PRODUCT:

Blobimals

VISUAL PROOF OF THIS PRODUCT’S EXISTENCE:
[see below]

WHAT OTHERS SAY:

Very few people are saying anything about Blobimals. Even the Blobimals website doesn’t offer an entry-level description of the product. Instead, the website invites you to enter the world of the Blobimals, and I can’t find any place where they “break character” for Blobimal novices (“Blobimalices”?) and say, “OK, so here’s what a Blobimal is…” Same for the Blobimal Facebook page.

While it’s hardly an official product description, a writer at squidoo has this to say:

"Blobimals; my guess is that they'll be this year's hot playground toy this autumn/fall term… Blobimals are really easy to make.
1. Simply pop open the tub, and take out all the bits.
2. Start shaping your monster's body in the squishy putty and when it's done, place it on a clean, flat surface.
3. Stick your monster's feet, arms, horns, eyes, and mouth into the putty body - wherever they look cool!
4. Admire your monster creation, and take a photo for your friends.
5. Pull off those monster limbs and face, squash that monster body, and start all over again, to create a brand new monster every time!
6. Or, leave your Blobimal overnight to melt into a pool of monster slime - yucky!
Blobimals are available in three varieties: a one-eyed toothy green monster, a two eyed fanged monster, and a three eyed spikey red version."

THE GIST:

You get a ball of clay that seems like a cross between Play-doh and Silly Putty. Shape it into a monster. Add the accessories. Check back later and find your monster melted into a puddle.

PROS:

I’m a sucker for things that do what they’re supposed to do. Once, Beth and I saw some ad that was bragging about how this fancy new vacuum cleaner sucked up dirt. And I said to Beth, “Sucking up things is what makes something a vacuum! If it doesn’t do that, it’s not a vacuum! By definition!” She told me I was so cute.

And while I have lived long enough not to be shocked when a product doesn’t work exactly as advertised, at the same time I am especially satisfied when it does. Would Blominals provide that level of satisfaction? Could a putty really be firm enough to mold but soft enough to melt into a puddle?

Even though we bought it as last-minute stocking stuffer and didn’t have a lot riding on its functionality, we still hoped. At first, the clay was a little firm. We softened it up. The girls sculpted their monsters, then accessorized.

These pics are recent—not taken from that first day—but they are a fair representation of “take one”.

Yes, they melt. We were all pretty delirious, though none of us fully understood it. But they didn’t promise we'd understand it. They promised “mold and melt,” and on that basis, I offer my highest compliment: “The functionality of Blobimals exceeds even my greatest hopes for a product making these particular claims.”

CONS:

With the passing of time (and half-lifes?), the Blominal clay has become more liquidy and harder to shape. The re-uses may be finite in number.

It would have been nice to get just a little bit more clay to work with. I suspect that in the very near future, we will combine the blobs of clay and make large monster sculptors a few times before we dispose of the Blobimal clay.

I think we paid $6, which seems a little bit high. I don’t know what the ingredients are, so maybe $6 is a bargain. And, like I’ve said, the product does what it’s supposed to do, so I can’t fault them too much for trying to make some cash off of their invention.

RATING:

5 stars out of 5

To borrow an old slogan from the Army, this product is all that it can be. I respect that. The PROS are significant, and the CONS are nitpicky. Consider it stamped with The Hungry Preacher’s seal of approval.

Next up:
Crayola Digital Light Designer

-THP

The Toys of Summer (Winter Edition), PART 2: "4D Cityscape Time Puzzle"

2013-02-28T15:56:00.000-08:00

Click here for intro and PART 1.

PRODUCT:
4D Cityscape Time Puzzle: USA

VISUAL PROOF OF THIS PRODUCT'S EXISTENCE:

WHAT OTHERS SAY:
"4D Cityscape allows you to build the history of the USA over the 4th Dimension of Time. Starting with the base layer, our unique jigsaw play showcases the evolution of the USA - based on territorial expansion from the year 1783 to 1900's. You then assemble the 2nd layer 'modern' jigsaw map - which showcases the formation all 50 states in a time sequence based on each State's date of established statehood. The third layer is constructed using the 4D Time Poster where 93 of the most famous US monuments & buildings are placed into the puzzle in the order that they were constructed.

The puzzle includes 93 plastic building replicas that depict the Country as far back as 1450 to modern day. The puzzle includes such iconic structures as Arches National Park, Mount Rushmore, and the St. Louis Arch. The buildings fit into pre-cut holes in a traditional 2D jigsaw puzzle that form the country's layout and Rocky Mountains. The product includes a Time Poster that directs you through time as you rebuild America’s famous history. Ages 8+."
(from 4D Puzzle Website)

THE GIST:
It's part puzzle, part timeline--and all learning.

PROS:
The good things about this product are very good. The first layer is a visually engaging map, with each land acquisition of the United States distinguished by its own color and faux-texture. The map is loaded with names and dates, and includes natural and man-made borders. The second layer—pieces made of foam—lays on top of the original layer and depicts the US as it exists today. Then you fit tokens representing landmarks (mostly man-made) into their appropriate pre-carved spots in the foam layer.

Each layer conveys loads of information about the geography and history of the United States. This is one of those great “you can’t help but learn” toys that I’m a big fan of; if kids are going to do puzzles, why not make them do puzzles that will trick them into learning cool stuff?

CONS:
The painful thing about this toy is that the “CONS,” though minor seeming, were actually pretty annoying. Furthermore, they seem like they could be easily fixed. We’ll start small, and work our way up.

First off, the Gateway Arch does not straddle the Mississippi River. Yes, we all wish it did. That would be way cool. But it doesn’t.

Next, the puzzle pieces on the bottom layer are small and very uniform. Do puzzle enthusiasts consider uniformity of pieces to be just another element of a puzzle’s degree of difficulty? To me, it was annoying. When 4 people spend 5 minutes studying the connection of 2 puzzle pieces and still can’t come to a consensus as to whether they actually fit together—it just seems like overkill.

Do they or don't they?

Next, the tokens: I thought they’d be akin to “Monopoly game pieces.” Not quite. They weren’t metal. They were plastic, and came connected to frames. Breaking each token away from its frame was tricky. And after the pieces were broken free, most retained pokey, plastic nubs at the points they were attached to the frame. These pokey nubs had to be sanded off in order to fit the token into its spot on the foam layer of the puzzle. And I think we can all agree that when you’re reading a description of a toy, the phrase, “These pokey nubs had to be sanded off,” should be a red flag. Forget metal Monopoly pieces—in my daughters’ room there are literally hundreds of plastic toys, tokens, and chips that won’t cut you. I’m pretty sure the information on the map is public domain; is cardboard (level 1) and foam (level 2) that expensive that the monument tokens have to be the same quality as the bottom-shelf prizes at Chuck E Cheese? With a price tag near $40, this toy is like one of those big-budget Hollywood movies with no special effects or car chases. Where did the money go?

Full disclosure: My giant thumbs probably didn't make the sanding process any easier

Anyway, as you can imagine, a lot of questions go through a man’s mind when he’s sanding the nubs off plastic replicas of 93 American landmarks. Do puzzle enthusiasts consider sanding plastic nubs to be just another element of a puzzle’s degree of difficulty? How can we as a nation have the vision and skill to construct the Golden Gate Bridge, but struggle to create a 1-inch plastic replica of the Bridge that doesn’t cut your finger if you don’t sand it closely enough? Wouldn’t it be quicker for me just to build full-sized replicas of all these landmarks? Why does America have so many landmarks in the first place? What’s wrong with us? And so on.

Speaking of the landmarks, I can’t fault 4D Puzzle too much for going all “MLB All-Star Game” on us and including representatives from every state. Kids want to cheer for their home-state landmark. I get that. That said, when you have 43 “extra” landmarks to work with after you've handed out the “participation trophies”, should something like this really happen?

Hint: Count the spots for landmarks

I’m not saying Mississippi isn’t an awesome state or anything. But even Mississippi apologists would admit that their love for the state is not landmark-based. It seems like this conversation should have taken place before the puzzle went to print:
4D CEO: Did you develop a criteria for deciding how many landmark tokens go to each state.
PUZZLE MAKER: You bet we did.
4D CEO: Do California and Mississippi have the same number of notable landmarks?
PUZZLE MAKER: Yep. So says the criteria.
4D CEO: Destroy the criteria and start over. And never speak of this again.

The most disappointing component of this toy, though, was the informational poster included with the puzzle. It had pictures and dates of each landmark, but it was surprisingly short on, well, information.

Here's proof. It's a sample section of the information poster regarding the landmarks:

For comparison's sake, a few years ago, we bought the monkeys a National Park Memory game. This memory game also included an informational poster. Here is a sample from that poster:

I realize the print looks a little small, so here's the entry for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial ("the Arch" to you and me) in readable form:
"Jefferson National Expansion Memorial consists of the Gateway Arch, the Museum of Westward Expansion, and St. Louis' Old Courthouse. The 630' stainless-steel Gateway Arch gives St. Louis, Missouri one of the world's most unique skylines. Designed by architect Eero Saarinen in 1947, the Arch was built between 1963 and 1965. It is the centerpiece of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, a unit of the National Park Service established to re-tell the story of America's century of westward expansion."

It's not the most thorough description ever, but at least it's something. On the other hand, here's what we know about landmarks from the 4D info poster:
1) their names
2) their home states
3) the dates they were either started or finished
4)

The blank space after 4) is on purpose, for dramatic effect. Pretty powerful, right?

Of course, even this sparse information is more than kids will learn putting together a puzzle of, say, Sponge Bob. But how much effort would it have taken to include even 2 sentences about each landmark? Is “additional knowledge” seen as the 5th dimension?

Ideally, this additional information could tie together the layers of the puzzle. For example, the description of the Gateway Arch could mention the Louisiana Purchase (which is clearly designated on layer 1 of the puzzle). Nope. Instead, we learn that the Arch was built in 1963. That’s all you need to know (oh, and that it straddles the Mississippi River).

RATING:
4 stars out of 5
A 4-star rating may seem inconsistent with how down on the puzzle I seem to be. I am torn, for sure. It’s a 5-star concept with a 2-star execution. It’s like they invented pizza, but settled on St. Louis style thin crust pizza as though that was the end-all, be-all of pizza. Why settle? Why not tease this out to see where it goes?

Like pizza, the idea of the 4D puzzle is nearly impossible to screw up, no matter how hard it seems like they’re trying to. And at the end of the day, hey, they invented pizza! With much ambivalence, I give them their props. If they had metal pieces and a paragraph description of each monument, I’d probably give them another 40 bucks for any of their other 4D puzzles. Until that day, I just need some time to sort out my feelings.

Next up:
Blobimals

-THP

The Toys of Summer (Winter Edition), PART 1: "Squishy Baff"

2013-02-23T10:19:00.000-08:00

The household of The Hungry Preacher has experienced an influx of toys and games over the past couple of months. We partook in Christmas celebrations well into January; and in early February, Monkey 2 commemorated turning 7 years old by fluttering her maternally-inherited eyelashes and coaxing scores of loved ones to shower gifts upon her. (If this didn’t work, she was prepared to flex her paternally-inherited biceps. Booyah!)

For the next week or so, on this very website, I will post my first-ever product reviews of some of the more notable toys. I’ll begin with perhaps the most notable of all.

PRODUCT:

Squishy Baff

VISUAL PROOF OF THIS PRODUCT'S EXISTENCE:

Level of joy conveyed in this image is not typical. Your experience may vary.

WHAT OTHERS SAY:

"Turn ordinary water into glorious colorful goo and then back again. Create fun goo adventures, while feeling it squishing between your fingers and toes! It's safe, fun, and doesn't leave stains or residue. When you are done playing, simply add the dissolving powder and watch it go down the drain!" (from Squishy Baff website)

THE GIST:

Pour pink crystals into your bath to make the water turn gooey. Play accordingly.

PROS:

The goo-dissolving solution did, in fact, dissolve the goo. Whew!

CONS:

I was raised to believe that if want to bathe the way God intended, you need at least a foot of water. And if you’re splashing around in less than eight inches? Goodness, don’t even call it a bath! Biased as such, I cringed when I read that the recommended water depth for using Squishy Baff is 3.5 inches. Never mind that the bathtub on the Squishy Baff website is filled to the overflow drain, and that the goo is mounding. Emboldened with what I now realize was false hope, I filled our wider-than-average tub with about 4 inches of water, and poured in the powder.

My test subjects were ready and excited. We all hovered over the edge of the tub and waited. And waited. And stirred. And waited. Once I realized the gooiness of the water was probably maxing out, I instructed the monkeys to climb on in and play with the goo as best they could.

The clearest way I can describe the substance in the bathtub is to tell you to imagine about a half-inch layer of Osetra Karat Amber Russian Caviar mixed with 4 inches of water. Each bit of goo (like each piece of caviar) was its own entity, but the goo particles did not bond in any useful way with each other. About three minutes into the Baff, my girls were asking, “Is that it?” I assessed, then somberly admitted, “Yes. That is it.”

~~Fortunately~~, our pack of Squishy Baff came with 2 packages of goo particles. I should have just added the second pack to the first bath. Instead, I told the girls, “Next time, we’ll use less water.” “Next time” ended up being last night. I used about a third less water and—whaddaya know?—the goo was substantially more viscous. This time it was like caviar mixed up in Malt-o-Meal (AKA, "the breakfast of Saudi polo champions").

Apparently, the consistency of the goo makes all the difference in the world for bath time enjoyment, as my girls did indeed “Create fun goo adventures.”

I should note that a key plot-element of these “goo adventures” involved blobs of goo being splattered on the wall and on all the edges and ledges of the tub. Clean-up was neither “a breeze” nor “a snap”. It was more like “payback,” if you’re familiar with the corresponding phrase. Finally, for the record, there is nothing about a Squishy Baff that remotely serves the purpose of an actual bath, which 9 out of 10 fuddy duddies agree is “to get clean”.

All in all, Squishy Baff overpromised and was nowhere near worth the trouble to me, but did provide moderate enjoyment for the participants once the proper consistency was established.

RATING:
2 stars out of 5

Next up:
4D Cityscape Time Puzzle

-THP

Writing Is Hard

2013-02-08T12:49:00.000-08:00

"Writing Is Hard"
-The Hungry Preacher, 2013

For the past few years, we have sent out Christmas cards that included a “family update letter,” written by yours truly. If you didn’t receive a Christmas card from us, assume that it is either because:
-we don’t know you
-we don’t have your address

Please let me know if you think that we have intentionally not sent you a Christmas card in order to communicate our disdain for you, since this is almost certainly not an accurate assumption, and I would like to have the opportunity to throw myself under the bus for allowing this painful oversight to take place; furthermore, I would like to bestow upon you ex post facto whatever holiday joy you feel I robbed from you by not sending you a Christmas card. Are we cool then? Good.

Perhaps I’ll copy the entirety of the letter at the end of this post. For now, here is the paragraph from the letter that I want to focus on:

Year 1 of “willpreachforfood.com” was a huge success in terms of writer output. Year two has been more sporadic. I have been more pleased with the quality than the quantity of my posts. I do still believe that writing is an area that God has called me to pursue, and until I have more specific direction, blogging is a good way to dabble in a variety of topics while keeping friends and family updated on life events. But I need to be more consistent. I hope to look back on year 2 of writing/blogging as a bump in the road which I learned from. In the meantime, high view counts and reader responses are always good motivators. :)

In case you’re counting, this post will bring 2013’s total post count to 3. That’s not the consistency I was going for.

I have all sorts of reasons why I haven’t been writing. But a phrase that I usually believe to be true is: “We make time for what we want to make time for.” Maybe that’s the problem: I don’t want to make time for writing. It’s too hard. But not making time for it is deeply unsettling to me; if I go a month without having written very much, I feel like Buddy in the movie “Elf” after he discovers that he’s not really an Elf. It’s like he’s not living the life he’s supposed to be living. In other words, for as hard as it is for me to make time for writing, I want to have made time for writing. I’m starting to think that the latter requires the former.

When I said that making time for writing is “too hard,” I mean that in every way possible. It takes the proper alignment of mental and physical focus; it takes changing the way I schedule my time; it takes doing difficult things like ruthlessly prioritizing tasks around the house. These are things that are hard for me. I know: Waa, waa, waa. It’s OK if that’s what you were thinking—I’m thinking it, too. Maybe I feel OK whining a little bit because of a book I’ve been reading. It’s by a guy named Aaron Likens. He has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome as an adult. The book is pretty much a collection of stories explaining why things are so hard for him. Several times he says things like, “I know how lame and whiny this sounds. But I’m just saying that this is how it is.”

I don’t know if I have Asperger’s—probably not. But there are a lot of elements of his story that I can relate to. If my personality had to be described in terms of already-established labels, I probably have a hybrid of Asperger’s and ADD; neither is full-fledged, but striking elements of both are present. So some things are hard for me. I’m not doing anyone any good by pretending otherwise, even if admitting it seems like whining (or, for that matter, even if admitting it is whining).

If “things are hard” is how I was going to end this post, well, it wouldn’t be a post. It would just be some ramblings that I decided to bury. But the landing point of these previous paragraphs is that I’m going to try something a little different from what I’ve been doing, since what I’ve been doing has stopped working.

For me, I need to realize that if something is hard, that means it’s not "just going to happen". It will take effort and a plan. And, in this case, it might take revamping a plan that has stopped working.

What I’m proposing for myself is pretty simple: An hour a day of writing, until the last day of school for the girls. Then I’ll reassess.

This is strikingly unprofound, but it’s a tweak to how I’ve been approaching writing. My previous goals have involved “post quotas”, usually 2-3 a week. My brain is getting frustrated with this, because sometimes actually finishing a post is not within my power to do, at least not within a set amount of time. Conflicts come up. Things happen. And every once in a while, I’m a little more long-winded than I thought I would be. It is very frustrating for me to sit down with a block of time and think, “I’m going to have a post done at the end of this block of time,” and then have it not happen. Even if I wrote a bunch of stuff, because I didn’t meet my goal, I feel like I have wasted a block of time and accomplished nothing.

But an hour a day? Of just writing? And feeling good about just having written for that long? I think I can do that. As a bonus, I expect “more posts” will be a happy by-product of this shift of focus (but I only expect this in the back of my mind, since actively expecting “more posts” is not that different from making it a goal, which will likely lead to frustration and demotivation if it doesn’t happen).

Another difference is that I am not making this an open-ended goal. I will write for an hour a day until the end of the school year. Then I will reassess. Maybe I will change things then: writing more, writing less, writing not-at-all. I can’t see that far into the future. But for 3 months, an hour a day is doable.

So that’s all. Conveniently, I’ve been writing for an hour. Later.

-THP

Waiting for a Message from God

2013-02-05T11:14:00.000-08:00

I used to wait tables (off and on, for about 5 years). I also used to be a Christian pastor. So you can imagine my excitement when one of the headlines on my Yahoo home page teased something to the effect of “You won’t believe the message that a pastor left for a waiter!” I clicked. I read. I cried on the inside.

Apparently responding to automatically being charged an 18% tip, some pastor wrote on the charge slip, “I give God 10%. Why do you get 18?”

I read the initial report yesterday morning. Several times throughout the day, the story popped into my head. Each time, I shook my head and thought, “Why? What is to be gained, O brother in Christ?”

I got home that afternoon, and the story was still a headline on Yahoo. Only now, the waitress had been fired for posting the picture of the charge slip. Also, the pastor had been identified. My “brother” was actually a “sister,” and Pastor Alois Bell actually resides in my home city of St. Louis, Missouri. And there you thought that only Catholics had a voice in St. Louis! It seems that we Protestants were just waiting for the right situation to let our voice be heard.

A couple of clicks later, I discovered that not only was the pastor a Christian residing in St. Louis, but the Applebee’s where this incident went down is about 20 yards from my home church. (Just in case you think this will end with me discovering that it was my pastor who wrote the note… uh, no. That’s not where this is going.)

It’s a little surreal when an incident that took place at an Applebee’s on the same block as your church is the fourth “most trending search” on Yahoo.com.

In the past, I’ve wanted to write posts on current events, but I always wait too long to write them, and they stop being current. I was worried that had happened again, since I started this post on Friday, and now it is Monday, the day after Beyonce, commercials, Harbough v. Harbough, the blackout, and the retirement of Ray Lewis. Oh, and just for good measure, scientists found the remains of King Richard III under a parking lot in Leicester, England.

Rest assured, this information on the Applebee’s incident is still out there. It’s still the most popular story on stltoday.com, and easy to find on (for example) yahoo, usatoday, cnn, msnbc, foxnews, huffingtonpost, and (soon) willpreachforfood.com.

Having done my research, I can fill in a few more details.
What I believe to be factual details:
-Alois ate at Applebee’s in a party of either 8 (5 adults and 3 kids) or 10 (5 adults and 5 kids)
-Her bill was $34.93, and an 18% gratuity of $6.29 was added to that amount.
-Alois scratched out the $6.29 and wrote her message.
-Alois was alerted by a friend to the viral nature of her note, and called the Applebee’s to complain. A server—not the one who waited on Alois—was fired for posting the charge slip online.
-Alois has expressed something like regret over this incident. In an interview on a local station, she said, “I don’t know why I wrote it. It was a lapse in judgment. That was how I was feeling at the time. Would I do it again? No, I would not. And this didn’t even have to go this far when there are so many more important things we could be speaking about.” [note: I did not transcribe a couple of “um’s” in this quote, but believe it is an otherwise accurate rendering] In an interview with thesmokinggun.com, she said, “My heart is really broken. I’ve brought embarrassment to my church and ministry.”

Some things that are less clear:
-If Alois was “allowed” to scratch out the included gratuity—legally and/or according to Applebee’s policy. I.e., is refusing to sign for an included gratuity the same as pulling of a “dine and dash”?
-How many people Alois was paying for. $34.93 seems like a lot for one person to spend at Applebee’s, but not very much for a party of 8 or 10.
-If Alois left a cash tip. She says she did ($6.29) because she felt bad after writing her note. If she did leave a tip, then she obviously didn’t stiff anyone, contrary to almost every media report. In fact, if her scribbling out of the automatic tip had no bearing on what she was being charged (which may be the case), she may have accidently double-tipped her server.
-If Alois was trying to get her server fired when she called.
-If the server who waited on Alois was fired or disciplined, or if those actions were reserved only for the server who posted the message on the internet.

If I was waiting for something exciting to happen right in my back yard, this might be as close as I get—and it’s a topic whose sides I am familiar with. So, without further ado, my consciousness will commence streaming right now:

1. The media has, for the most part, not reported (let alone confirmed the existence of) Alois’ cash tip. Some of the other details have varied, as well. One report said that Alois was in a party of 20 and ran up a bill of about $200. It seems that the media has viewed this story as titillating enough to report, but not significant enough to, you know, check the facts on. It’s interesting to me that there exists a type of story that can be both important, but not THAT important. There may be more of these types of stories than I realize.

2. No matter what unrealistically generous explanation I could come up with for Pastor Bell’s note (I’ve decided against putting “Pastor” in quotes, unlike many sites reporting this story), I still wondered, “But what were you thinking?” When she finally got her turn to speak, she claimed that she herself didn’t know what she was thinking.

I’m skeptical. See, when I say, “I don’t know what I was thinking,” it’s usually because, a) I do something so spontaneously and mindlessly that I don’t even feel like any conscious part of me actually decided to do it (like grabbing the tongue of a dog), or, b) I fail to do something that I should have thought to do (like shovel the walkway after it snows). To say “I don’t know what I was thinking” regarding something that takes initiative and thought, like writing a note? It sounds like a euphemism for “If I were to say what I was thinking, it would sound so much more worse and/or embarrassing than it seemed at the time, I just can’t bear to speak it.”

For example, maybe she was thinking that this note would be funny. I agree that it is embarrassing when you try to be funny and end up doing something SO the opposite of funny that no one even realizes that you were trying to be funny. When I do that, I prefer to say, “I don’t know what I was thinking” than “This was an attempt at ironic humor.” Or maybe she was trying to glorify God with her words, letting her unsaved server see how God wants to be involved in every part of your life, including your bank account. That would be another embarrassing misjudgment. On the darker side, maybe Alois was angry and resentful about having to tip 18% and figured she would take out her anger on someone who had nothing to do with setting the policy.

Regardless, I would bet that, deep down, Alois knows what she was thinking but can’t bear to say it. I understand and even empathize.

3. Servers can usually tell if their patrons are Christians. Servers usually don’t like waiting on Christians, because they are regarded as poor tippers and because they often don’t drink alcohol (keeping the check low). Servers usually prefer not to wait on tables with children. They are high-maintenance, low pay-off. If you are a server and your host regularly seats large parties of Christians with children in your section, your host may be trying to tell you that you need to tip your host a little more generously (or that your host just doesn’t like you). Chains like Applebee’s might have safeguards against this kind of expression of grudges. I don’t know.

4. As a server, I didn’t mind waiting on parties of Christians with children (in moderation), because there were some non-financial benefits. For example, it gave me a chance to practice joyfully serving others even when there were no financial benefits for doing so. Also, it gave me a chance to “spy on” my Christian brethren to see how they treated people like bussers and servers outside of a church context. And, every now and then, Christians would tip pretty well (although this almost NEVER happened in large parties; my best chance for getting an especially large tip from a Christian was if they were in a party of 2).

5. Most servers care--at least somewhat--if their patrons enjoy their dining experience, even apart from how well they are tipped. Of course, this varies greatly. I have seen servers politely thank a party, wish them a good evening, then walk into the waiters’ station, look at the charge slip, and cuss out the people they just smiled farewell to. This is the exception. More often, servers will just kind of shake their heads and wonder why people can be so friendly and still so stingy. Most servers consider a 15% tip to be pretty stingy. They just do.

6. I do not love the tipping system here in America, but I do not hate it, either. As a server, I liked feeling (perhaps naively) that I could influence how much I made on any given evening by how well I did my job. As a patron, having to tip prevents me from eating out more often. Because I know—and have known for a long time—that the tipping system, love it or hate it, exists. It is beyond ridiculous for me to go out to eat, then act surprised or put out by having to tip. An automatic gratuity for large parties is also not a recent development. It has been around for at least 20 years (maybe 30). The 18% automatic gratuity has been around for at least 10 years (maybe 15 or 20). If I don’t like it, I can eat at McDonald’s or St. Louis Bread Company or Fuddruckers (and I do).

I do not believe that the quality of food at a restaurant like Applebee’s is light years ahead of any of those restaurants I just listed (even McDonald’s!). So why would someone choose Applebee’s over any of those restaurants? I think—and this is just my opinion—most people like to be waited on. It feels good telling people what you want and having them get it. I’m not passing judgment on that. I agree that it is a good feeling. But I doubt most people would admit it quite that way, especially people who resent tipping, because to do so would effectively amount to, “I came here to be waited on hand and foot, and I resent having to pay for it.”

(As an aside, I wonder if for some people, on some level, “having to tip” destroys the illusion of feeling like they deserve to be pampered like a king.)

7. When I do eat out, I see it as a chance to bless my server—and perhaps even to reflect God’s love and generosity to them. Nine times out of ten, my server will either do their job well or demonstrate a sincere desire to personally connect with me as a person. In other words, they either perform or they care. Sometimes both. Rarely neither. So nine times out of ten, I feel pretty good about blessing them with a couple of extra dollars.

Minimally, I know that a couple of extra dollars can actually make their day. That’s a trite phrase, but it is true. I’ve had it happen. There were days when my boss was mad at me, patrons were rude and demanding, the table I almost had seated in my section ordered a $65 bottle of wine, and so on. And that’s just at the restaurant. A lot of servers—like other people—have crappy things going on in their lives outside of work. As a waiter, there were days when getting a $3 tip on a $12 bill really was the highlight, and really was what I would go home and tell my wife about, and really did spark in my soul a measure of perspective, gratitude, and hope. What did it cost my patron to bestow these things upon me? $1.20. On a $12 bill, that’s the difference between a 15% tip and a 25% tip.

As a patron, I know that I won’t miss that $1.20. In fact, I cannot remember a single time regretting tipping a couple of extra dollars. It is money I don’t miss. On the other hand, as a waiter, I can probably rattle off a dozen times when I felt truly blessed by someone adding an extra $1, $2, or even $5 to their tip.

It seems to me that Christians, of all people, should jump at this opportunity to bless people in this way. It’s easy. It’s cheap. It’s almost guaranteed to encourage someone. And it seems, you know, kind of Christian-y.

Which brings me to the last reason I tip well when I eat out. Remember #3 above? The one about Christians being regarded as poor tippers? This reputation exists for a reason. I think that sucks. Like, really, really sucks. What a completely sucky reputation for an entire religion to have—especially one based on the gracious outpouring of God.

So I tip well because of the debt that my brothers and sisters have incurred by tipping poorly. It’s not fair that I have to do that. Neither is life. Neither, it so happens, is Christianity. The God of the Bible does not give us Christians what we deserve. He gives us infinitely more. It’s not fair.

In short, I see tipping as a chance to:
-offer hope and blessing to someone who needs it
-adjust a well-earned perception of Christians being stingy
-imitate the unfairness of God

All for a couple of bucks. What a deal.

8. Alois’s efforts to fix this situation, while ringing more sincere than, say, Lance Armstrong’s, are still a work in progress. I already talked about, “I don’t know why I wrote it.”

She goes on to say, “It was a lapse in judgment. That was how I was feeling at the time. Would I do it again? No, I would not.” Right… See, the problem is that everyone already thinks that that’s how you were feeling at the time, which is why everyone is so mad. And saying you would not do it again? If you had added, "Because I hurt another human being," that would be a step in the right direction. But it kind of seems like you "wouldn't do it again" because "doing it" in the first place brought high levels of inconvenience upon you. So, yeah. In that case, only a masochist would “do it again.”

Alois continues with, “And this didn’t even have to go this far when there are so many more important things we could be speaking about.” Though you didn’t say exactly what those things are, I couldn’t agree more. We could probably agree that, for example, "sex trafficking" is one of those "more important things". Here’s the thing, though: Nobody is talking about your note instead of talking about sex trafficking. They are talking about your note instead of talking about the Kardashians or the Golden Globes or how their day at work was. Your note already IS the "more important thing" that they are talking about. And the victim that people feel like they are defending is the server that got fired. For the masses, this injustice is more immediate than sex trafficking because everyone knows a server. Your note has not distracted anyone from “more important things." It has distracted them from less important things, and because of that, it has allowed them to feel like they are fighting injustice more than they actually are.

If you really want people to talk about sex trafficking (or the grace of God!) you can’t bring these things up in such a way that seems like you are using them to deflect indignation directed at you. If you really want people to hear what you have to say about sex trafficking (or the grace of God!), you need to generously tip your server. Then people will listen to you.

What appears to be the most recent quote from Alois reads, “My heart is really broken. I’ve brought embarrassment to my church and ministry.” This quote sounds like something is sinking in.

Alois, I feel for you. On the one hand, I don’t believe you were kind and generous to your server, and that should be embarrassing for a Christian; it’s not so much that you don’t deserve the backlash you received as it is that all Christians deserve backlash for the bad things we do, and for some reason most of the rest of us don’t have to experience it in quite this manner.

On the other side of the coin, people have been mean to you, and that’s no fun. People in this country tend to build up large supplies of moral indignation then pour it out all at once on situations that strike a genuine collective chord, but are curiously removed from “more important things” (think: the backlash directed at Kanye West for dissing Taylor Swift at the Video Music Awards a couple of years ago). You are probably not the devil incarnate. You are probably a generally sincere Christian that let an unsanctified spot of evil slip out in an unfortunate way. We all do it. Why your slip made it onto every major news outlet in the country, I don’t know.

Fortunately, for what you have done, God offers grace; for what has been done to you, God offers comfort; and from the midst of the wreckage, God offers opportunity.

-THP

Tom Waits and Dancing Outside the 99 Cent Store: "A Song in the Key of a Fallen World"

2013-01-14T09:27:00.000-08:00

Tom Waits wrote a song called “Hold On” (different from the Wilson Phillips song). It used to play on the college radio station at Truman State University. I’d only hear it in the background while I was meeting someone at the on-campus café. I asked around and discovered the song’s name and artist, information I filed away in my brain. A few years later, it became one of the first songs I bought through the internet.

itunes says that I’ve played it 332 times, but the only “play” I remember predates that official count, since it was on a CD that I had burned, and not through a device synched with itunes. It was around Christmas time about 6 years ago, and we were driving to Rockford, Illinois, to visit Beth’s family. It’s a pretty easy drive, but for some reason, I got turned around and ended up having to take some two-lane highways to make up lost time. It was getting late—probably around 10 or 11 at night—and everyone else had dozed off.

I popped in a CD and invited some musicians to ride along with me on that dark, isolated, two-lane highway. Tom Waits made an impression that night with the images that he painted in “Hold On.” The song is made up of a series of snapshots of (I think) different people in different lives, all of whom have experienced hardship. The connecting thread is that the storyteller (Waits, at times blending into the narrative) admonishes them each to “Hold On”.

That night, one of the snapshots particularly struck me:

Down by the Riverside motel,
It's 10 below and falling
By a 99 cent store she closed her eyes
And started swaying
But it's so hard to dance that way
When it's cold and there's no music
Well your old hometown is so far away
But, inside your head there's a record
That's playing, a song called
Hold on…

For me, being “struck” by a song like this means that I could completely grasp both the scene and the implication. I felt like I’d been there, and empathized along with Tom Waits for this girl. With him, I pleaded, “Just hold on…” If “being inspired” means “being propelled to something good,” then, yes, I was inspired that night. I wanted to help. I also wanted to create something that may inspire someone else.

Somewhat abruptly, I went from experiencing the effectiveness of this song to analyzing the effectiveness of this song. I was feeling that it “worked”. But why was I feeling that it “worked”? Of course, the music helped. How chords and melodies enhance the images of poetry is something that is beyond my understanding, but certainly intriguing to me.

Lyrically, the images were specific enough to be evocative, but general enough to be relatable. They were also sparse: 57 words, by my count. I knew that would be a challenge to replicate. But I considered how many other songs I knew that sparsely yet vividly developed powerful images, songs like “Pink Houses” by John Mellencamp and “Reason to Believe” by Springsteen. We’re taking snapshots, not writing novels.

Over the next few days in Rockford, when I would get the chance to slip away from family socializing, I would swing open my notebook and “lyrically doodle” ideas inspired by Tom Waits and his girl outside the 99 cent store.

Turns out, I couldn’t do it in 57 words. I decided to go with just one character, and give her two verses and a bridge. She ended up getting about 291 words, including the chorus.

I call these “lyrics” but I’m sure they would be difficult to put to music, given the drawn out verses and generally verbose nature of the lines. Plus, I would insist that any music accompanying these words would match the girl’s song in terms of beauty and sweet-sorrow. It’s a tall order, I know.

All in all, this came out pretty quickly, and I’ve only made a few tweaks over the years. I’ve gone back and forth on the Santa Fe reference; Beth loves this piece, but has said the Santa Fe reference isn’t her favorite and seems a little out of place. I don’t necessarily disagree, but I included it for a couple of reasons:

1. It rhymes (obviously)
2. It attaches a more specific locale to the scene, one which I had in mind when writing it. I pictured this little girl living some place like a desert plateau. That said, there’s no reason this girl couldn’t live somewhere like Nebraska or even Illinois. Maybe I’m not leaving enough to the readers’ imagination.
3. It was actually an intentional reference to the metaphorical use of “Santa Fe” in the musical “Rent,” as a place to escape to and start over in. I like to pretend that there is a subliminal enhancement of the effectiveness of using “Santa Fe” in this manner that is experienced by anyone who has seen “Rent”; that there are people who will read this and think, “Wow, that really works for me, and I don’t know why.”
4. There’s a sad irony that someone’s big dream of escaping would land them in Santa Fe, of all places. Of course, there are a lot of cities that a healthy, informed person wouldn’t dream of escaping to, even in places like Nebraska and especially Illinois. But Santa Fe works as well as any other in capturing this irony.
5. I haven’t come up with anything better. Maybe I will someday.

Nuts and bolts aside, the girl in this song is both imaginary and real. She’s imaginary in that I’ve never met this particular girl. But she’s real because there is a little girl like this, somewhere. There are many, in fact: little girls who have been forced to grow up but are still children. Girls who are sad and hopeful, in the desert, in the city, in the suburbs. You probably know one. She may just need to be told she’s not alone and that her prayers are not wasted. She may need to have her song heard. She may even need someone to spin around with her, then to tell her that it is OK to cry, but that it is also OK to hope.

-THP

A Song in the Key of a Fallen World

In the trailer park behind the liquor mart
the weeds grow high from fallen tears.
A lonely girl in a fallen world
Closely counts her daddy’s beers.
She’s learned to run by the seventh one
to the place she goes to disappear.
It’s way out back by the railroad tracks
that haven’t held a train in years.
It’s there she goes ‘cause it’s there she knows
she can tie to the tracks her saddest fears
while she joyfully spins and softly sings
the prettiest song you’ll ever hear.

CHORUS:
It’s a song of hope filled deep with pain, of dreams not dead but not set free
Its peaceful notes judge hard and fast all the things not meant to be
She makes the words up as she goes, this happy, lonely, dancing girl
It’s a song of wanting something more; it’s a song in the key of a fallen world

Though the sun beats down on this desert town
this girl just spins and sings and sways.
She kicks the sand up while she goes and
dreams that there will come a day
she’ll catch some train and find the rain
that washes all the dust away.
It’ll take her to the ocean blue
or maybe north to Santa Fe.
She doesn’t care ‘cause anywhere
will offer more than if she stays.
So she sings this song and deeply longs
for her soul, with the notes, to float away

CHORUS

BRIDGE:
Some people when they see this girl shake their heads or roll their eyes
Some people wonder why she sings and spins without a care
What they don’t know is that she sings ‘cause if she stops she cries
And that she hopes that someone, somewhere knows her song’s a prayer
CHORUS

-THP

Disney Whirled: Hightlights of a Nine-Day Adventure into Magicalness, PART 7: "Why So Sad?"

2012-11-16T15:43:00.000-08:00

The Disney Whirled series isn't quite over, but after today's post, I am going to hold off on the final post or two. The final post of this series will be called something like, "Lasting Impressions," and I want to give our clan another month or two to make sure that the impressions I deem "lasting" are, indeed, lasting. I may slip in one more "on site" post as well, if I am inspired to do so.

This is a fine time to summarize where we've been. Here is a summary, in convenient link-form. I'll give you a second to catch up.
PART 1: "Preparations"
PART 2: "First Impressions"
PART 3: "Pretend People, Real Autographs"
PART 4: "Mac and Cheese and Legos"
PART 5: "Rides and Attractions, Volume 1"
PART 6: "Rides and Attractions, Volume 2"

So, we've covered the future and the past. Here in the present, today I will be writing about those not-quite-Norman-Rockwell moments experienced by the family of the Hungry Preacher during their time in Disney World. After all, even in the world of magic, the girl sometimes accidentally gets sawed in half, right?

Without further ado, he is photographic evidence of a few times during our trip that the magic wore off.

1.

The Monkeys were mostly just tired at this point. While Monkey 1 is not quite as unimpressed as McKayla Maroney, there is definitely a vibe of "Oh, a giant Lego version of the Loch Ness Monster that is actually partially submerged in water? Meh."

2.

I don't remember exactly what the problem was at this point, but judging from the expression of Monkey 2, we can conclude that she was just told that Disney World would be permanently closing, effective immediately, and that all positive memories of the Disney World experience would be wiped from her memory, a la "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Oh, and that movie title was actually a typo: It was supposed to be "No Dogs Go to Heaven."

3.

Not to be outdone, Monkey 1 here was just told that she would not get to play with her new Lego set until we set the world record for most consecutive times riding the "It's a Small World" ride.

The thing I'm NOT sure how to interpret in this picture is my own expression. At first, I thought maybe I was just oblivious to how miserable my children were. Then I thought, "No, I know how fried they are, and that half-smile is one of determination NOT to let family morale be dragged down by the grumpiness of an 8-year-old and a 6-year-old." Then I looked even closer--at my eyes--and am now thinking that I myself was about to snap.

4.

Monkey 2 had found this little branch on the ground and decided that she wanted to keep it as a souvenir. At first we were like, "That's fine. No harm in that." After about ten minutes, we realized that letting her carry around the twig was going to inconvenience everyone in various ways. So we told her the leaves had to go, but we could take a picture of her holding them in front of the Disney Princess castle so that we could always remember them. The half-smile means she's only half-happy with this plan (or half-unhappy with it, depending on your outlook on life).

5.

From the "you should have seen her a few minutes before" file, here we have Monkey 1 pleasantly sitting, waiting for the Light Parade to start. Notice how there is no one else around her? It's because she was banished. After lot of whining and antagonizing of her sister, we finally told her to go over and sit on that little wall until she's ready to be with other people again.

6.

This is the only picture of the bunch where the person being asked "Why so sad?" is not in our family. Random out-of-context expression, or seething disdain for happy little girls? We'll never know.

7.

I snapped these gems just as we were arriving to Hollywood Studios, which means we had experienced all the stress of getting up and getting ready and getting to our destination for the day, but none of the payoff of actually doing anything fun. Beth wanted a picture with the girls in front of the Micky Mouse hedge. Hey, you've got the girls, you've got the Micky hedge--mission accomplished, right?

8.

The classic "Now hug your sister" pose.

9.

The existence of this picture explains its inclusion in this post. See, Beth asked Monkey 2 if she could hold the camera for a second. Monkey 2 promptly dropped the camera on the ground. So the next few seconds were pretty tense, until this test picture turned out just fine. Big, magical sighs all around.

All things considered, the magical moments far outweighed the "Why so sad?" moments. But they were all memorable, and I can't think of any that I regret.

Like I said earlier, I'll add a closing post or two for this series in a few weeks. In the meantime, I've got a bunch of posts in blogatory, as well as plenty of "from scratch" ideas to tide us all over through the holidays. Thanks for reading, and enjoy your weekend.

-THP

Disney Whirled: Highlights of a Nine-Day Adventure into Magicalness, PART 6: "Rides and Attractions, Volume 2"

2012-11-11T17:33:00.000-08:00

In case you missed Volume 1, you can read it here.

Space Mountain:

It’s a completely enclosed roller coaster. Pretty fast, lots of turns, almost completely dark throughout the ride. The problem was that the cars sat one person per row. This meant that Monkey 2, who has a history of being utterly terrified on roller coasters, had no one to sit next to her. I ended up sitting behind her and spent most of the ride stretching my arm forward as far as I could so she could cling to my wrist for dear life.

Since you asked, Monkey 2’s roller coaster trauma stems from riding the Screaming Eagle at Six Flags near St. Louis. Frankly, I was pretty shocked that the minimum height for that ride was only 42 inches. Monkey 2 measured 43 inches. Within about 4 seconds of being on the ride, she was crying and screaming “No, no, no!” and was clutching the lap bar with both arms (which meant she was almost sideways in her seat, causing her trembling little feet to stick out of the car). Meanwhile, I communicated as calmly yet urgently as I could that she was doing great, and that it was almost over, and so on and so forth. I didn’t tell her this at the time, but I was also thinking, “You know, it really does look like you’re going to fly right out of this thing.”

Space Mountain wasn’t quite this traumatic, but Monkey 2 decided once was enough. Monkey 1—who loved the Screaming Eagle—was initially only lukewarm to Space Mountain. She gave it another try, though, and ended up liking it enough to ride several times over the two days we spent at Magic Kingdom.

$14.95 or "free" if you don't mind having "$14.95" superimposed over your picture.

Anticipation builds

Astro Orbiter / Dumbo the Flying Elephant / Magic Carpets of Aladdin:

I’m not saying that coming up with new and different ideas for amusement park rides is easy. It’s probably pretty hard, especially when you have guidelines like “people can’t die on this ride, not even every now and then.” That eliminates a bunch of my ideas right away. So if you’ve got a ride that is unique, thrilling, efficient, safe, and has a small footprint, you may as well make a thousand of them. If you have a ride with maybe half of those characteristics, then you make three of them.

Which brings us to the "bike wheel on its side" design. But instead of a tire at the end of the spokes, there are cars that you sit in. As the wheel is spinning, the spokes (and attached cars) can go up and down.

The Astro Orbiter was obviously the first of the three. It has that rustic “this might fall over” feel to it. It is on the roof of building, and it is accessible by—get this—an elevator. It’s kind of adorable.

If the subject is slightly off-center, it is artistic. If the subject is literally as off-center as they can possibly be without ceasing to be the subject, does that make the photo infinitely artistic?

I suspect the Dumbo-ized version of this ride was the next to open. What sets this ride apart from the others is that while you are waiting in line, you can play in a large, Dumbo-themed playground to pass the time. When you get to a certain point in line, you are released into the playground. After a certain amount of time passes, you are summoned to return to the second half of the line. The girls loved this. In fact, Monkey 2 later said she wanted to go on the Dumbo ride again. When pressed, she admitted that she really just wanted to play on the playground. Pretty clever, Disney, turning “waiting” into the fun part.

The side-by-side seating lent itself to close-up photography

The original script of "Dumbo" didn't have a magic feather at all. Instead, Dumbo "flew" by skewering himself through the side with a giant steel beam that was attached to the ground. It was a much darker movie.

Carpets of Aladdin is smaller than the other two. That's its unique contribution to the "wheel and spoke" family of rides. I think one of both of the Monkeys rode this while I was not around.

It's a Small World:

Yes, we rode it, but I'm still trying to get the song out of my head, so please don't ask about it.

Main Street Electrical Parade:

Some disclosure: I'm not a big fan of parades. This might stem from the time that my Cub Scout troop got to march in my hometown's parade. It was then I realized that people in parades are usually at least as normal as I am. That strangers would line up on sidewalks to watch me walk seemed pretty arbitrary; I could just as easily stopped walking and started watching them, and it would have made just as much sense.

The times that there is something interesting in a parade (like a fancy car), I can almost always make arrangements to see the interesting parading thing in a setting where there are no crowds, no possibilities of inclement weather, and no feelings like I just didn't get enough time to see what I wanted to see (like at a car dealership, or on the internet).

Finally--and this will be the most controversial part of this post--I feel like many (most?) people also aren't crazy about parades, but convince themselves that parades are great things to go to because, hey, what kind of grumpy old grumple-face doesn't like parades? If that's you, I want to let you know that it's OK not to like parades. Be liberated! Wait, hold on. I just realized that maybe there IS something wrong with us for not liking parades. Maybe our feelings are not OK. I hadn't thought of that. So my new message is "You're not alone." Just replace my old message of "it's OK not to like parades" with my new one. The new message probably won't feel as liberating, but at least you can be sure of its validity.

So we were talking about the Main Street Electrical Parade as Disney World. It was on Monday. Monday was our longest "park day," and the MSEP started about an hour after the time the girls probably should have been in bed. But the kids were VERY happy about lining up on the street to wait for the parade to start. This picture really captures those feelings. I'll pause for a few minutes while you count all the children's smiles.

Remember not to count grown up smiles

Oh, you're done already? It doesn't take very long to count to "1", you say? Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Let's just move on to the actual parade-part of the parade. There was a lot of marching. I vaguely remember some sort of storyline being presented. And there were vehicles with lights on them. Here is a picture of one of those:

It was a lot like the parade that I marched in as a kid, only replace "Cub Scouts" with "vehicles decorated with thousands of Christmas lights and driven by mascots"

The parade was progressing rather uneventfully, when all of the sudden, Monkey 1 caught a serious case of "dance fever." She just started dancing.

This move loses a little something when captured with a single frame photgraph.

At that moment, this became my all-time favorite parade ever (and I've seen the Rose Parade in person). Here's the equation to show my work: OK PARADE + SPONTANEOUS MONKEY DANCING = BEST PARADE EVER.

Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!:
Despite Disney's choice of punctuation at the end of this attraction title, I give you permission not to shout when you read it (especially if you're at work).

Had I gone to see this show by myself, I would have thought, "It's pretty cool. It's neat watching how well-choreographed and controlled they can make the all of the chaos seem. It's certainly more realistic than the last Indiana Jones movie. Not life-changing, but still a good show. B-."

But the truly engaging part of the show was watching my daughters take it all in, watching them see it for the first time. "Was that supposed to happen?" and "How did they do that?" were the most popular questions for those 30 minutes.

Most endearing was the concern expressed by my younger daughter over the fate of the woman who was grabbed and thrown into a van, which then blew up. You and I know it's all part of the show, but my younger daughter was very concerned until we walked her through exactly when and how they switched vans so that no one was inside the one that blew up.

This deep compassion for others is completely in-character for her, by the way. Case in point: The other day, she volunteered: "Daddy, you know what I hate most about the pigs in Angry Birds? I mean, besides that they want to steal the birds' eggs? It's that if you kill some of the pigs, but not all of them, the ones that are still alive smile, even though their friends died. It's like they don't even care about their friends."

Pre-show shenanigans

The Monkeys trying to figure out how things work

Beauty and the Beast--Live on Stage:
The show was entertaining. To Beth and I, the most amusing moment was when the narrator explained to the audience, "Through a series of circumstances, Belle became a prisoner in the castle of the beast in order to save her father." Alrighty, then. I suppose that's one way to transition from Belle singing with the town folk to Belle singing with Mrs. Potts and the castle gang. Fortunately, most of the crowd wasn't there for the story development.

Better than the show itself, however, was the pre-show entertainment provided by our very own daughters, especially our younger one. With 20 minutes to kill, and only a bag of Cheetos to kill it with, Monkey 2 invented the game: "What Do You Think This Cheeto Looks Like?"

The answer, of course, is "Cuteness. This Cheeto looks like cuteness."

That is my summary of selected rides and attractions, and I'm sticking to it.

Next up: PART 7: Why So Sad?

-THP

Disney Whirled: Highlights of a Nine-Day Adventure into Magicalness, PART 5: "Rides and Attractions, Volume 1"

2012-10-27T18:19:00.001-07:00

Disney World isn’t renowned for its rides the way that traditional amusement parks are, but the rides are obviously still a major focus. While we didn’t quite hit every ride in the three parks we spent time in, we hit most of them. Here is our take on some of these rides and attractions.

Star Tours:

Everyone loads into rows of seats on a rectangular platform. The lights go out, and the platform moves up and down and tilts in various directions. The gimmick is that you feel as though you are moving more significantly than you are because the screen in front of you is showing Star Wars-themed, 3D footage “filmed from the captain’s chair.” It’s a fun illusion.

More memorable than the ride itself were the 3D glasses everyone got to wear.

Monkey 2 working the "cool nerd" look

This picture came at a time when I was really starting to wonder if my "cool genes" actually made it to the next generation at all. Turns out, they were just waiting for the right pair of shades before they manifested themselves.

Pirates of the Caribbean:

Maybe you’ve seen the movies. I stopped after the second one, when I realized the filmmakers weren’t even pretending to maintain plot cohesion or believability. The ride is unbelievable in its own right. You ride in a boat on a lazy river, passing scenes of animatronic pirates engaging in all sorts of debauchery-themed hilarity. Like when a pirate is torturing some guy to get information about a treasure, dunking him under water, then pulling him up to ask him more questions. Oh, and there’s the part where women are tied up, then lined up under a banner that reads “Auction: Take a Wench for a Bride.” I’m laughing just thinking about it.

In Disney’s defense, PotC first opened when moral outrage over traditional American slavery had mostly dissipated and moral outrage over global human trafficking was still in its infancy. So, yeah, if you couldn’t make light of the buying and selling of human beings in the 1970’s, when could you?

On the other hand, it’s not like this zany take on raping and pillaging exists simply due to inertia. It’s obviously undergone recent improvements (so to speak). Case in point: Mingling with these less-than-completely-realistic animatronic creations of pirates and their victims is an extremely lifelike rendering of Johnny Depp—er, “Captain Jack Sparrow.” Think “Chuck E Cheese” having a conversation with a real (but human size) mouse. It’s a little out of place. But so is this ride at a family amusement park.

The two best things about the ride?

-That neither of our girls asked what a wench was

-That I got to incorporate some themes from the ride into the next sweet nothing I whispered in Beth’s ear: “If you were a wench, I would pay 12 bottles of rum for you—at least.”

Swiss Family Treehouse:

I’m only kind of familiar with the Swiss family, but I gather that a while ago they crashed a boat and ended up on a deserted island. Then they built a treehouse. Here in the present, you can walk through an actual replica of their treehouse right in Disney World.

As a tourist walking through the replica, it’s easy to forget the hardship that the Swiss family went through leading up to the building of the treehouse. But it’s kind of their own fault because, really, it’s a heck of a tree house. Like, it’s really nice. If the Hungry Preacher's family ever becomes stranded on a deserted island, I am not sure if we would be able to build such a nice treehouse. Well done, Swiss family.

Tomorrowland Speedway:

Don’t let the steering wheel and four tires fool you: driving on the Tomorrowland Speedway is actually more like “walking” than “driving.” That said, the ride does serve as a useful first step for parents to get used to the idea of their children driving actual cars (especially British parents, since the steering wheel is on the right). As an added bonus, each of my children was just a tad hesitant to grab the wheel, even in this highly controlled setting. Excellent.

I think Nascar telecasts have a name for this type of camera shot, but I don't care enough about Nascar to look it up

Monkey 2 doing her best "Where's Waldo?" impression

Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin / Toy Story Midway Mania:

Two similar rides here. But are they rides? Or are they games? Monkey 1 excitedly (and repeatedly) declared afterwards that they are “Both!” For each ride, you load into a slow moving car that moves and spins on a track through a tunnel. It's not that interesting by itself, but the fun part is that each rider has, mounted on the “dashboard” in front of them, a cannon you can fire at physical and virtual targets that are set up throughout the ride.

Buzz Lightyear’s ride seemed to be the first draft of this concept, while the Toy Story ride seemed to be the perfected version of the concept. The trigger mechanism and the accuracy of the cannon is practically flawless on the Toy Story ride. At the end of the Toy Story ride, you get a full report of how many targets you hit, and how your score compares to the scores of other people in your car and to the high scores of the day and of all time.

Even more impressive than the ride however, is the post-ride photography. You know how a lot of rides have it set up so that after the ride is over, you can see a photo of yourself on the ride and, if you really like it, you can just have that photo for free? What’s that you say? “I don’t get them for free—I have to pay for them.” Not any more you don’t.

I came up with the brilliant idea of using our own camera to take a picture of the screen that displays the expensive, official picture. This idea is tied with “laying my daughter’s old mattress in the back of the minivan” for my best idea ever. No, I didn’t mean to add “regarding our vacation” to that last sentence. These are my two best ideas ever. I’m obviously on a hot streak.

So here are our "free pictures" of "expensive pictures" from the Buzz Lightyear ride. Bonus points if you can guess which one of the grown ups is participating with the most intensity.

Next up: PART 6: Rides and Attractions, Volume 2

-THP

Disney Whirled: Highlights of a Nine-Day Adventure into Magicalness, PART 4: "Mac and Cheese and Legos"

2012-10-24T12:27:00.001-07:00

Looking back, I am sure that our older daughter enjoyed her Disney World experience. But we knew ahead of time that her enjoyment was going to take a different form than her younger sister’s. Monkey 1 is a bit of a homebody. The classic evidence of this is when Beth had run an errand with Monkey 1 in tow, and wanted to stop at Toys ‘r’ Us on the way home. She asked, “Sweetie, do you want to stop at Toys ‘r’ Us? There are a couple of things I need to check out for Christmas presents.”Monkey 1’s response? “No. I just want to go home.” Beth tried some arm twisting—you know, to get our then-6-year-old to go to a toy store—but to no avail.

There are plenty of times when she is up for an adventure. But we’ve learned that scheduling some time to decompress goes a long way towards helping her bounce back. We knew that during our week in Disney World, these “decompression periods” would be A) harder to schedule, and B) more necessary.

So we proactively scheduled an “off day” for Wednesday. No parks. Dinner was the only reason we would need to leave the resort at all. We also let ourselves plan for leisurely starts to our days. Whatever magic we would miss out on in the first couple hours that the parks were open, we would replace with morale and sanity gained from our relaxed mornings.

These choices would pay dividends starting on Monday. But you may recall that we checked into our resort on Sunday. Thus, Sunday evening was a little bit of a danger zone in terms of how well Monkey 1 might deal with the stress of a new environment.

This is obvious to us now. At the time, it seemed like a perfectly good idea to schedule our first sit-down, buffet-style meal for Sunday evening, and to schedule it at the restaurant in the Animal Kingdom resort. This restaurant was African-themed. It was large, crowded, and wide-open. Picture a dark-ish cafeteria with a three-story ceiling, African decorations everywhere, and bongo music in the background. Oh, and the food is “not weird—just different”.

Monkey 1 is hanging in there, but about to crash

Monkey 2 was loving this experience. On the other side of the table, Monkey 1 started off with an adventurous spirit, but then focused more and more intently on her macaroni and cheese. While the rest of us were devouring this new experience, Monkey 1 was gobbling up as much cheesy familiarity as her stomach could hold. It turns out it could hold a lot.

Exactly how much, we’re not sure. But after Beth and I finished our final trips through the buffet line, we asked the girls if they were ready for dessert. Monkey 2 lit up. Monkey 1 looked at us—bedraggled, zoning, and perhaps a little bit fearful—and declined. This declining-of-dessert is just as strange as it sounds. Even so, it still didn’t click for me exactly how difficult this evening was shaping up to be for our older daughter. Fortunately, Beth clued in. She walked over to her, shared a few words, then announced back to me that she and Monkey 1 would be waiting outside while the rest of us finished up.

So Beth and Monkey 1 got to spend some quality time together. Later, I found out that Monkey 1 had eaten a lot. Beth reported that her belly was rock-hard and protruding unnaturally from her tiny little torso. Laying up against Beth on a bench in the cool Florida night, away from the chaos that is “Disney Africa”—turns out that was just what our little homebody needed.

And so it went: adventure, decompress, adventure, decompress. I’m using “decompress” very broadly. Ideally, Monkey 1’s decompression meant having time quietly reading in the comfort of our room. But spur-of-the-moment decompression times happened any time she was able to hone in on something familiar and comforting. Maybe my favorite example of this took place on Tuesday morning at the Hollywood Studios Park. It was about 45 minutes until we were meeting Tim and Angie’s family for lunch, and it started raining. We ducked inside the “Magic of Animation” attraction, not knowing much about it other than it would protect us from the rain.

Once we got inside, we realized it was basically an animation museum. There were displays with pictures and videos documenting the process of animation. All of this was fine and interesting enough. Beth let Monkey 2 lead the way to what was most interesting to her, while I stood with Monkey 1 while she watched a looped-video of the progression of sketches of several different animated characters. She loves to draw, and watching these figures take shape was engaging and calming.

As she was being hypnotized by this video, a door opened into the hallway a few feet from where we were standing. A cast member announced that the animation class was starting in 5 minutes, and anyone interested should come in and find a seat. It was a perfect and unexpected chance for her to further re-set, and we eagerly scurried into this dim, quiet classroom and found a pair of drawing desks.

For the next 20 minutes, the instructor walked us through the steps of drawing Goofy. Monkey 1 was the perfect student, listening intently, carefully following each direction. The fact that this 20 minute adventure seemed so special to her immediately elevated the specialness of the experience to me. Here’s the evidence of our experience:

No reason to post my drawing, but it's similar enough to Monkey 1's that it took me a second to tell them apart

A final “point of comforting familiarity” that Monkey 1 stumbled upon during our trip was one that I myself have used to unwind on more occasions than I can count: Legos. Specifically, situated in the heart of Downtown Disney, is a Lego Store.

Monkey 2 outside the Lego Store in front of a Lego Snow White

Lego sea monster: real or hoax?

I have no idea where she gets her love of Legos.

I tried to photoshop myself a haircut, but to no avail

OK, let me rephrase that: Though I have encouraged her in her Lego pursuits, I have worked hard not to impose upon her the same Lego-values that I was raised with. And I am proud to say that, even apart from my wants and desires, Monkey 1 likes Legos.

So, once we were in the Lego Store, it was a challenge to pry either of us away. I treated myself to a plastic container of “pick a bricks,” cramming as many as possible useful-but-unusual bricks into a plastic container about the size of a Big Gulp. (For the record, I make it a priority to only build with Legos during the times that one or both of my children are building with Legos. It’s called “parallel play,” and it’s good for the children.) Monkey 1 helped me with my brick-picking, but also browsed the inventory of city-themed Lego sets, searching for a souvenir of her own. She decided on this one:

The banana (in the grip of the guy in green) is included apparently as a prop to set up an accident that would require an ambulance and/or helicoptor for the victim. I mean no disrespect to those of you who have experienced banana-based trauma that necessitated you being airlifted to a hospital, but I'm thinking something like a trampoline or maybe a table saw would have been a more realistic prop to include. That said, the banana was a significant influence for Monkey 1 picking this set; several times she mentioned how awesome it was that this set came with a banana. So maybe the folks at Lego know what they're doing after all.

Yes, we went to Disney World, and Monkey 1 decided that her big souvenir of the trip would be a Lego set. I don’t blame her: Legos are the mac and cheese of toys.

And, since even Monkey 1 sometimes gets full of mac and cheese, we bought her a "How to Draw Disney Characters" book. On some days, I'm sure it will seem just as magical to her as Legos seem.

Next up: PART 6: Rides and Attractions, Volume 1

-THP

Disney Whirled: Highlights of a Nine-Day Adventure into Magicalness, PART 3: "Pretend People, Real Autographs"

2012-10-17T10:49:00.001-07:00

Monday, September 17, was our first full day at Disney World, and we went to Magic Kingdom (quick review of nomenclature: “Magic Kingdom” is one of the 4 main theme parks within “Disney World”).

Our 6-year-old daughter was excited to maybe see an actual Disney Princesses. Weird, right? Fortunately, Disney provides plenty of opportunities for children of all genders to meet with Princesses, old and new. They are rarely just strolling around the park; they would get mobbed and hurt. Seriously. But you can visit them—or vice versa—in controlled settings, like carefully constructed attractions and something called “character lunches”.

Disney even sells autograph books so that you can collect the John Hancocks of Belle and the Gang.

On Monday, we attended a “Meet the Princesses” attraction (“attraction = something you have to wait in line to do). The princesses du jour were Belle, Cinderella, and Rapunzel (thank you Microsoft spellcheck for helping me on that one—that was a nice surprise; I’ll try to stop being so angry at you all the time for everything). Rapunzel happens to be the favorite of Monkey 2.

I love that you can tell that this is their first Princess photo. They are posing with such care.

Rapunzel's parting words? "Remember, never cut your hair." Yeah, thanks for that, Rapunzel. You wanna come over Monday morning and brush out the tangles quickly enough so that no one is late for school and carefully enough so that no one cries?

It was not until Wednesday that Monkey 2 warmed up to the idea of having an autograph book. Beth bought one for her. Though we were a little late getting in the game, the girls had reservations for a Princess character lunch at EPCOT on Thursday. Autographs would be flowing. Check it out:

Not sure if this Cinderella or the one at Magic Kingdom was the real one, but I get it; when I double-book, I often send a lookalike, too.

Imaginary conversation I had:
ME: Hey, Sleeping Beauty, can I get your autograph?
SLEEPING BEAUTY: Argh! 'Sleeping Beauty,' 'Sleeping Beauty'! I have a name, you know.
ME: Really? No, I totally didn't know that. Does that mean you won't sign 'Sleeping Beauty'?

Monkey 1 is kind of starting to lose it

The family of The Hungry Preacher voted this "Best Signiture"

Monkey 1 is definitely losing it

Notable absences from the EPCOT gathering were Rapunzel, as well as Merida (from “Brave,” which is one of the few princess movies that our kids have actually seen). Fortunately, we would be spending Friday back at Magic Kingdom, where Merida had a semi-permanent lair where you could visit her after standing in line. We also figured we could re-visit the “Meet the Princesses” attraction, and maybe land a Rapunzel autograph.

First up was Merida. Monkey 2 and I went to visit her while Beth and Monkey 1 rode Space Mountain (don’t worry—I got to ride Space Mountain, too). While waiting in line to meet Merida, kids (and possibly adults—I didn’t ask) could be trained to use a bow and arrow.

There's a large, angry bear charging right at them, but they really kept their cool.

I was a little far away, but it sounded like the Monkey trainer might have been speaking with a Scottish accent. It didn’t surprise me that Disney would import someone from Scotland for this task. I tried to position myself to read his nametag, which tells where cast members are from (cast members = Disney World employees). I was too far away, so I pulled out our fancy new camera with its 20x zoom.

So, no—not from Scotland. New Jersey. It’s funny how differently I view kilt-wearing for someone from Scotland versus someone from New Jersey. Anyway, after about a half an hour, a super-friendly Merida was signing our very own autograph book.

I actually met a "Merida" about 5 years ago. I have thought a lot about how one would handle having a name that almost nobody even knew was a name to suddenly having a name that almost everyone knows and that is poised to become trendy and popular. Would that mess you up? Would it change how you see yourself? Would you catch yourself explaining to people how to spell it, only to have them impatiently cut you off and be like, "I got it, I got it."

Beth was a little underwhelmed with the signature, but I felt like it was distinct and character-appropriate. I haven't checked back with Beth to see if it has grown on her. Maybe I'll include that information in "Disney Whirled: Highlights of a Nine-Day Adventure into Magicalness, THE APPENDIX"

Rapunzel was a little trickier. Friday afternoon, I scouted the “Meet the Princesses” attraction and discovered Rapunzel was NOT making any more appearances. I asked the nearest cast member if there was a way to track her down. She pointed across the pedestrian walkway to a building labeled “City Hall.” “They might know,” she said.

I crossed the street and got in line. It was like a bank, with “tellers” signaling their availability to help the next person in line. After a couple of minutes, I was summoned by a young woman named Sandra. I greeted her politely, then explained our situation as briefly and somberly as I could, concluding with: “So is there any way we can find out if Rapunzel will be making any more appearances anywhere in the park?”

Sandra was a pro. Very understanding. Seemed to really feel my pain, probably even more than I was feeling my pain. She excused herself to the back room to check some information, then came back and broke the news: “Rapunzel won’t be making any more appearances until the park re-opens in the evening for the Halloween party, which you would need a separate admission to attend.” Sandra continued, “But if you want to leave the autograph book here, and come back in about an hour, we can make sure that Rapunzel signs it.”

I wasn’t sure if she meant, “Rapunzel, wink, wink,” or if the actual Disney representation of the fictional character herself would sign it. I also wasn’t sure if I cared. Either way, I didn’t have the book with me. I told Sandra I’d talk to my wife about it, and would come back with the book if we decided on this course of action.

I found Beth and the girls. Turns out, Beth had talked with Angie (whose family we were doing the Disney thing with) and worked out her own solution to the problem of the Rapunzellessness of our autograph book. Angie would meet up with us later and say something like, “Hey, I think I might know where Rapunzel is—if you give me your book, I can go see, and maybe she’ll sign it.”

Angie would head off for a few minutes and commit an act of forgery. She’d return the book, and everyone would be happy. Except for one little thing which I pointed out to Beth: this plan, technically speaking, involved lying. Now, dear readers, please believe me when I say that I do not think of myself as morally superior to very many people, and especially not to Beth. Even now, I see that this “lie” would have been more akin to “pretending stuffed animals can talk” than it would be to anything that most people would consider a “lie”. But for some reason the idea made me cringe just a tiny bit. I communicated my hesitancy to Beth.

Trying to be sensitive to my tender conscience, she gently wondered how her plan was any different from dropping off the book at guest relations where, for all we knew, it would be signed by some guy in a kilt from New Jersey.

I didn’t necessarily disagree with this comparison, except that at least in the “drop it off” plan, we ourselves could claim to be duped. I was prepared to concede that the line between “asking someone to commit forgery” and “asking someone to commit forgery but not tell you that’s what they are doing” might have been a little fuzzier than it initially seemed. Meanwhile, Beth tried to gauge how disappointed our younger Monkey would be if we weren’t able to get Rapunzel’s autograph at all.

I was not expecting her response: “Can’t you just sign it?” Have me or Beth sign “Rapunzel,” right there, with Monkey 2 watching? This would, by far, be the easiest solution. And admittedly, I was already excited about the possibilities for blending the tail of the “R” into the bottom of the “z,” and trying to make the continuous line look like a flowing stream of hair.

But if the idea of asking Angie to sign Rapunzel’s name gave me pause, this suggestion rocked me to my core. It was just too weird! I pulled Beth aside. “Having one of us unapologetically sign it right in front of her would contradict the foundational purpose of getting an autograph in the first place. An autograph is a way of demonstrating that this signed item was once touched and held by this very person. Think of the word itself: ‘auto’ means ‘self’; ‘graph’ means ‘writing’. By definition, neither you nor I can legitimately provide the ‘auto-graph’ of someone else.”

OK, so that’s a more articulate paraphrase of what I actually said, but the feelings were real. The bottom line was even if our child didn’t understand what an autograph was all about, it was our job to teach her. If that meant getting her book signed by some guy in a kilt from New Jersey pretending to be the actual Disney representation of the fictional character, Rapunzel—well, as long as none of us saw it happening, the sanctity “autographs” would be preserved.

Taking the book, I headed back to guest relations with boldness and purpose. I found Sandra, reminded her of her promise, and left the book. About an hour later, I returned. Lo and behold:

No way some guy from New Jersey signed that, right? It's kind of girly-looking, right? Maybe even from the hand of Rapunzel herself? To that, I can honestly say, "As far as we know."

Next up: PART 4: Mac and Cheese and Legos

-THP

Disney Whirled: Highlights of a Nine-Day Adventure into Magicalness, PART 2: "First Impressions"

2012-10-15T11:52:00.000-07:00

Sunday, September 16, we checked out of the Days Inn in Lake City, Florida, and pressed on to Disney World, a mere 3 hours away. As I've shared, I had little idea of what to expect from Disney World. But I must have constructed some expectations, even if subconsciously, because there were some characteristics of Disney that surprised me. Here are a few of my “surprising first impressions”:

HUGENESS:

I don’t know why I was so surprised at the enormity of Disney World, especially since there is a clue to its size hidden right within its name.

It’s not quite as big as a "the world," but the entire complex is much more like a city than it is like any park or attraction I’ve ever been to. Bear with me if this is old news to you, but “Disney World” is partially comprised of:

- 4 separate “main” parks: Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom. Six Flags, The Hungry Preacher’s local amusement park, could probably fit into the land covered by any of these parks.

- a water park (or maybe 2)

- a large outdoor shopping area (like a mall)

- multiple golf courses

- 20+ self-contained resorts

- 100+ restaurants

- lots and lots of undeveloped land

- well maintained roads connecting everything

The "land" and "roads" were most striking. Even if I could have grasped number and scope of the attractions, I kept picturing them bunched together. They weren't. Which makes me think: Remember how I said Disney World was like a city? It’s actually more like a state. When you enter, there’s a large, road-spanning sign, but no other manmade or geographic delineation between “Disney World State Limits” and where you were 2 seconds before.

The 4 big parks are like cities within the state. The resorts are like suburbs. Yes, it’s like a state.

We stayed at the newest resort on the property, the Art of Animation Resort.

This tiny sliver Disney World was comprised of 4 or so guest-suite buildings, each of which was about the size of the 5-story dormitory I lived in during my first year of college; 3 pools; a sprawling cafeteria-style restaurant; and lot of walkways and guest-relations areas to spread out in if you felt crowded.

Even their statues of Ursula are huge.

I had two thoughts about the 4-story Ursula statue.

First, I love that someone decided that a 3-story statue wasn't big enough. Because I actually can imagine seeing a 3-story Ursula statue and, in my more critical moments, thinking, "Yeah, that's fine. But 4 stories would have really driven the point home." I really do feel like that 4th story is the one that ensures that if anyone thinks it's too small--well, the problem is with them, not with the statue. It's the epitome of going the extra mile, of removing any doubt about your drive for success. I'll have to remember this if I ever coach youth sports and have the chance to psyche everyone up with a pre-game speech ("Today, you need to dig down deep and build your 4-story Ursula statue. Know what I mean?")

Second, I kept imagining myself being part of the resort-planning team, and having the team leader saying, "And Rob, you're in charge of the 4-story Ursula statue." What would I do? Who would I call? That the folks at Disney know how to get one of these built (who to call, how to negotiate a fair price, etc.) is almost as impressive as the statue itself.

So everything was big. Moving on...

CLEAN, NEW, AND WELL-MAINTAINED:

Our resort had only been open a few weeks when we stayed there, so you would expect it to feel new and clean. Even so, I was struck by just how clean and well-maintained it was. I’m pretty sure I've never used either of these phrases, but here goes: “they really outdid themselves” and “they thought of everything.”

For example, the folks who built this new resort realized that suites (as opposed to one-big-room-plus-one-bathroom) are the wave of the future. Also,“things that change into other things” are always popular. Hence, this fancy-schmantzy table/bed:

It's just a table, right?

I was really lucky to get a completely candid shot of these tourists transforming the table into a bed

Whoa! Where'd this bed come from? Wasn't there a table here a second ago?

Less exciting to Beth and me, but not to our children, was the hide-a-bed sofa.

No, I didn't cut this out of a Disney brochure. This is actually my child.

(True story: My friends and I used to take turns folding each other into our families’ hide-a-beds. I always felt cozy and safe folded up in a hide-a-bed, like a sardine with the can all to himself. But one time, my friend couldn't open up the couch to set me free. I was big for my age, and he was small, and the couch was old, heavy, and awkward. Also, his parents were out, and we weren't sure when they would be back. I was staying the night at his place, so for all we knew, it could have been several hours. So my friend ended up calling another friend who lived about a half a mile away, who set aside his annoyance and dutifully came right over. The two of them together were able to open up the couch and set me free. I know what you're thinking: "Rob, this story would make a great verse for one of those 'remembering old times' songs, like 'Never Say Goodbye' or 'Summer of '69'." Great minds...)

Other shiny, new stuff:

"When I was a kid, we played in junkyards. If we wanted 'tunnels' and 'coral', we used old refrigerators and empty, rusted-out, lead-based paint cans."

Not sure how this will look on your computer, but on mine the girls look photoshopped, like in the old vacation pictures in "The Truman Show".

Dude.

In addition to the bells and whistles in our room, Disney World was just so clean (this is a way it is different from a state). Apparently, the folks at Disney World don’t want the gazes of guests to fall upon trash even if it is where it is supposed to be; a source tells me that the trash cans in the parks are emptied from the bottom, from tunnels running underneath the park. These tunnels, says my source, smell very bad. I believe it.

So, yes, apparently there are people who inhabit those tunnels, with non-animated mice, and spend their days hoping that the bag they are standing beneath doesn’t rip and bury them in dirty diapers and germs from 100 different countries. But I bet that those workers seem pretty happy. Why? Because Disney World employees all seem pretty happy.

EMPLOYEE HAPPINESS:

They seemed happy. Very happy. Happy to work at Disney, happy to make the guests' experience as magical as possible. Most impressively, the happiness of the employees stopped just short of being that creepy kind of happy.

I can only speak to the perceived happiness of the employees with whom I interacted. Of those 100 or so, almost every single one not only followed whatever corporate mantra they were ingrained with, but they really, really seemed to believe it. There must be behind-the-scenes bureaucracy and bickering. And believe me, I was looking for cracks. I maybe saw one or two minor cracks. That's it. I genuinely tip my cap to the employees and their trainers for the sincerity with which they seemed to fulfill their roles.

The day we left, our daughters wrote "thank you" notes for Disney. We decided to hand-present these notes to a Disney employee. I scanned the employees at our resort's gift shop and picked a smiley and outgoing one. I approached her apart from my kids and told her that we needed a Disney employee to whom we could present these notes. I told her she seemed friendly. She seemed legitimately honored, and even said, "Oh, dear, you're going to make me cry." The girls gave her the notes, and she complimented them and let each of them pick a toy from a bucket of toys that is stashed behind one of the check-out desks (think "10-ticket prizes" at Chuck E Cheese).

Next up: PART 3: Pretend People, Real Autographs.

-THP

Disney Whirled: Highlights of a Nine-Day Adventure into Magicalness, PART 1: "Preparations"

2012-10-12T11:40:00.000-07:00

Friday night, September 14, The Hungry Preacher and his family pulled out of our driveway destined for Disney World in Orlando, Florida. The driveway? Metaphorical. The destination? Magical. The account? As follows.

Disney World had been a place I felt I knew everything about, yet nothing about. I knew it as an icon, but not as someplace where I could actually walk around in my physical body, spending actual hours of my life experiencing. It was like the Kremlin, or the moon, or how “going to college” used to be.

Not understanding the nature of Disney World made preparing for the trip all the more daunting. Come to think of it, it was a little like applying to colleges: my preparations were an exercise in cooperating with my destiny, but it was a destiny I didn’t understand and felt overwhelmed by.

Beth had taken care of much of the heavy lifting. We would be meeting up with Tim & Angie, friends of ours flying in to Orlando from Seattle. Beth worked with Angie to nail down dates and accommodations. With about a month until departure, I was tasked with things like figuring out the driving route, making arrangements for our dog (who only looks like an animated Disney character), and figuring out exactly where were would spend our days within the World that is Disney. Oh, and when and where we would eat.

goofy, but not Goofy

Of course, the first thing that popped into my head was, “I need to buy a mattress.” See, back when we bought bunk beds for our daughters, we let them use the roll-up mattresses that were included. Within the past few months, we realized—what with them being vertebrates and all—that they might need something more supportive. The search became urgent when I realized that one of their rollable mattresses might be able to lay flat in our minivan, providing a more comfortable sleeping experience for non-driving grown ups on their way to Disney.

I closed the deal on a real mattress for our older Monkey, experimented with seating configurations in our van, and tested the fit and comfort of the roll-up mattress. The result:

From left to right: right ankle, left foot

Everyone zonked out pretty quick...

...though one little girl did not zonk out quite as quickly as I thought. If only I had taken my eyes off the road, I would have seen she was still awake. What was I thinking?

Meanwhile, I worked within certain parameters to construct a schedule. The considersations were:

-the “light parade” would take place Monday night at Magic Kingdom

-Angie had made lunch reservations for Thursday at Epcot

-we would not leave a park just to go eat, then come back to the same park

-we would spend 2 days at Magic Kingdom, and it was preferable that they not be consecutive days

-many restaurants did not have reservations available for groups of 9 (the 4 members of The Hungry Preacher's family, plus Tim and Angie and their 3 kids)

I created a calendar and got to work. It was like a logic puzzle, like when you are told that 5 different people played 5 different sports on 5 different days, and you have to figure out how to match them all up based on a few clues.

Angie and I sent drafts of a schedule back and forth, until we ended up with this:

To quote Fletch: "If this were at all legible, you'd see what I meant."

I arranged dog-care from 2 friends, my mom, and the professional dog-boarders at Kennelwood pet resorts.

All that was left to do was drive. Do we leave Saturday morning or Friday night? After much consideration, I decided Friday night was the way to go. We made super-duper time. I made it all the way to Atlanta by morning, and Beth drove the morning shift all the way to Lake City, Florida, the self-proclaimed “gateway to Florida.” I like a city that knows its purpose. And the girls liked having a long afternoon in the hotel pool with mommy, while daddy caught up on some sleep.

I call this one: "Feet protruding from the Day's Inn Swimming Pool in Lake City, Florida"

Sunday morning, we would get a leisurely start and still reach Disney World by mid-afternoon.

Next up: PART 2: First Impressions

-THP

LaMenting LaRue: Why La Russa Got It Right* (PART 1.5 OF 2)

2012-07-31T12:17:00.000-07:00

*even if he considers it an attack on his integrity to say so

In PART 1, I reflected on a brawl between the Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals that took place on August 10, 2010, and resulted in Jason LaRue, a backup catcher for the Cardinals, being forced into retirement by concussion-inducing kicks from Reds pitcher Johnny Cueto.

A couple of years later, Reds manager Dusty Baker called out La Russa for omitting Cueto (and second baseman, Brandon Phillips) from 2012's All-Star team, saying it was payback for the brawl. La Russa (as he is wont to do about things people say) took deep offense at these words.

I suggested that, in light of the seriousness of Cueto's assault, the ridiculousness of Cueto's explanation, and the dearth of consequences suffered by Cueto, La Russa had every reason to "payback" Cueto in this manner.

It shouldn't have come down to La Russa doling out justice, but many other agents of discipline dropped the ball. Which brings us to PART 1.5 of this series, and none other than MLB's own disciplinarian, Frank Robinson...

1. Frank Robinson. Some sports have a metaphorical "czar of discipline". MLB has something like that in Frank Robinson, who handed down a 7-game suspension to Johnny Cueto. Many sports websites published commentary pieces following Cueto's suspension, the gist of which were "Cueto got a slap on the wrist—he’ll miss one start." Or not. Depending on how the schedule plays out, 7 games may not even cut into year-end total starts for a pitcher at all.

Frank Robinson had a major role in doling out the penalties for the brawl, and there is an account of how Robinson came to his decisions here. There's some good stuff, mostly about how Robinson decided NOT to suspend others (including Brandon Phillips, which I am fine with) for their roles. But when it comes to Cueto, most of what Robinson says ranges from suspect to silly.

To begin with, Robinson suddenly defers to everything but his own two eyes. He interviewed the umpires? What could they have said to make Cueto's kicks seem less like a felony assault? ("Yeah, we saw the look in his eyes, and he really did look nervous, just like he said.")

Robinson also chains himself to the idea of “precedent.” The viciousness of Cueto’s attack is pretty much unprecedented, but the closest comparison is probably NOT Chan Ho Park kicking Tim Belcher in 1999, as Robinson cited. It was one kick, to Belcher's leg, and Belcher was basically fine.

A more similar precedent took place on August 22, 1965, when Juan Marichal conked Johnny Roseboro in the head with a bat. This "Roseboro Incident" is absolutely legendary in baseball circles, and the black mark it left on Marichal almost kept him out of the Hall of Fame. This article makes a heck of a case that Cueto's kicks are actually more despicable than Marichal's conks, and that it's a stretch to cite even this as a precedent for Cueto's kicks (because Cueto's kicks were much worse).

Depending on the setting, a precedent can be either guiding or binding, and Robinson (undoubtedly with the MLBPA looming) chose to be bound. For all his video watching, interviewing, and discussing, at the end of the day, he essentially concludes, “My job could be done by an app on your phone. Just plug in that 11 years ago, an incident involving feet took place, and the player who was attached to those feet was suspended 7 games. So 7 games it is.”

Robinson all but explicitly admits having very little flexibility in dispensing punishments, as the article reads, “‘We did what we could to Cueto,’ Robinson said, noting even an eight-game suspension would have been ‘pushing the envelope.’”

In other words, 7 games is acceptable enough that Cueto didn’t even appeal (virtually unheard of for this sort of suspension), but 8 games would have been “pushing the envelope”? OK, so what is your job again, Frank Robinson?

A couple of other gems:

-“[If we had known severity of LaRue’s concussion, we] …may have added another game and gone against precedent. It’s more likely we would have increased the fine.”

May have added? Another game? One more game!? Hear that, Jason? They just didn’t know how bad it was, but if they had… Oh boy, we would totally be saying, “Oh no they din’t!” Precedent so would have been gone against.

Of course, another way of looking at it is that once LaRue’s career was ended by Johnny Cueto’s spikes, it should have been clear that no precedent existed for an incident like this! But it’s like they say: “there’s a fine line between hypothetically going against precedent and hypothetically saying that no precedent exists.”

-“Robinson and Watson played a combined 40 seasons in the major leagues and believe any comparison of MLB's code of justice to other leagues such as the NBA and NHL is inappropriate.”

Yes, they would believe that; the alternative is looking like lackeys for the both MLB and the MLBPA.

But here in 2012, if you were to throw caution to the wind and start making inappropriate comparisons like some kind of rabble rouser, you might notice in 2011 when the NFL suspended Ndamukong Suh two games for stomping on the arm of an opponent during a play (that’s about 20 games in baseball years). You might notice in 2007 when the NHL suspended Chris Simon 25 games for hitting an opponent in the head with his stick (that suspension included playoff games, something unheard of in the MLB). You might notice in 2012 when the NBA suspended Meta World Peace seven games for elbowing an opponent (this also included playoff games). Then again, those sports tend to frown upon players intentionally injuring each other, so perhaps the comparison is indeed inappropriate.

-“...we really can't take a starting pitcher beyond five, six or seven days because this individual may hurt himself being laid off for a longer amount of time. We didn't know the extent of LaRue's injuries until later on.”

This is one of the all-time strangest explanations for anything. Robinson seems to be saying that if a starting pitcher is too far removed from his regular pitching schedule, the pitcher runs a significant risk of hurting himself when he is again called upon to pitch. Oddly, if a pitcher’s arm is tired, his team may elect to have him skip a start or even go on the 15-day disabled list to “rest up” (this happens a lot and raises no eyebrows). But if a pitcher’s arm is fine, taking off the equivalent time is dangerous? So in terms of risk/reward, “rest” is kind of like “chemotherapy”? OK, fine. I’ll bite. Let’s say that this rest-pitch-hurt scenario is way more prevalent than it seems. Let’s say there’s an element of legitimacy to that concern.

But, Frank, let’s get real for a second. “Five, six, or seven days”? You can’t really have meant those numbers, can you have? Because five days off is a normal break for a normal pitcher during the course of a season! Most teams have five-man rotations, and they frequently do not adjust the rotation for scheduled days off. So five days is a normal break, but six days is dangerous?

Then there’s the automatic eight-game suspension that a pitcher receives if he is caught with a foreign substance on his glove. Are pitchers who use pine tar to make their fingers sticky generally more resilient than pitchers who kick other players in the face with their spikes? Has there been a study? Is that why the rest-pitch-hurt never came up when (for example) Tampa Bay Ray’s pitcher Joel Peralta was suspended this year those eight games? Or are actions like having pine tar on your glove that much more heinous than intentionally spiking a player in the face that pitchers like Peralta deserve to have their arms hurt?

Then there’s the All-Star Break, which this year was a full 4 days. Many teams do adjust their rotation for the All-Star break, starting their aces in games both right before and right after the break. This forces a team’s third, fourth, and fifth best pitchers to take upwards of (wait for it) “five, six, or seven days” off between starts. In other words, the four-day All-Star Break that is forced upon players in the middle of the season—according to Frank Robinson—is dangerous to the health of most of the league’s starting pitchers! It’s diabolical, really.

Admittedly, one difference between taking an extra day off and getting suspended is that a suspended player isn’t supposed to have any contact with his team, which means no between-starts bullpen throwing sessions. Could that be what Robinson is worried about? If so, shouldn’t a major league pitcher be able to take it upon himself to find someone to play catch with every couple of days? I think most MLB cities have junior colleges with baseball teams. Maybe one of their players could play some long toss with you? Afterwards, maybe you could pay $38 at MassageLuxe for your post-workout massages like the rest of us?

This is probably one of those suggestions that sounds appalling to a big leaguer, but it speaks to a philosophical peculiarity that permeates Frank’s defense of his punishment: Should it really be the disciplinarian’s concern as to how the recipient of the discipline will deal with the punishment he deserves? Could an objective observer fairly suggest that the inconveniences that accompany being suspended are actually a pretty big part of what makes a suspension, you know, “bad”? Instead of letting Cueto argue against the fairness of a longer suspension during an appeal process, Robinson took it upon himself to “pre-appeal” to himself, on behalf of Cueto, and then pre-emptively reduced Cueto’s suspension to a manageable length. (He all but used these words.) So Frank Robinson, MLB’s disciplinarian, is looking after Johnny Cueto. And who’s looking after Jason LaRue? His wife, mostly.

Frank, the pressure from your bosses and the MLBPA was probably immense. It’s also possible that you truly are a softy, though I’ve never had that impression. The point is, it looks like you either issued a punishment that you knew was a joke, or you issued a punishment that you thought was pretty firm until people started asking you about it. Then you started making stuff up and passing the buck in order to justify the punishment.

Speaking of the MLBPA…

2. The MLBPA. The players’ union does its job very well. It is possibly the most powerful union in the country. But what does the MLBPA actually do? The FAQ section on their website devotes six lines of text to answering this question (the same that they devote to answering the question, “When did the Major League Baseball Players Association launch its first Web site?”) Three of those six lines are spent explaining that the MLBPA is responsible for ensuring the safety of the playing conditions for MLB games. Everything else that the MLBPA does gets three lines of text.

Actually, three lines is plenty, because they could sum up “what they do” by saying, “We collect power and money for our players.” Believe it or not, I think this is an OK thing to do. There is a lot of power and a lot of money in the sports entertainment industry. I think it should be divided fairly between the players and the owners.

But the MLBPA’s goal of accumulating power and money should be a means to an end, not an end in itself. For example, the MLBPA could use its power and money to cooperate with MLB for the elimination of on-the-clock use of smokeless tobacco by its members. This would undoubtedly benefit players, perhaps even more than padded home run walls do. But working to eliminate tobacco would not bring any additional money or power to the union. So something that could be a noble use of power and money instead becomes a bargaining chip for even more power and money. After all, if MLB owners thinksquitting tobacco might help the image of the game, maybe they’ll concede something else to make it happen at the next CBA talks, right?

“Player discipline” is just another bargaining chip. The point isn’t whether players should face stiffer consequences for ending the careers of other players (or pushing an umpire, or driving drunk, or whatever). The point isn’t even that most players might desire stiffer consequences for such actions, since the actions of a few tarnish the reputations of everyone (PEDs, anyone?). The point is that if MLB wants stiffer penalties, then the issue magically transforms from being a good idea to being a bargaining chip.

So, should Johnny Cueto have faced more than a 7-game suspension for ending the career of one of his union brothers? “Should” has nothing to do with it, naïve friend.

What matters is that if Frank Robinson and MLB had dared to go even a game over the arbitrarily-selected precedent, the MLBPA would have treated it as a power-grab, an attempt to circumnavigate the CBA. Cueto may have chosen to appeal his suspension, and it would have taken even longer for the MLB to brush under the rug this whole ugly incident.

Speaking of MLB…

3. MLB. Everyone knows that MLB commissioner Bud Selig lacks the power (and perhaps the cajones) to make any meaningful decisions “for the good of the game” (or its players or fans). Whatever the next PED issue is in baseball, Bud would like to be able to stand before Congress and say something other than, “The union wouldn’t let me do anything, no matter how much I begged!”

But he won’t be able to. So, in the absence of making actual, substantial changes, he either highlights the awesome things that he has been able to negotiate for (Hey, did you hear that the All-Star game matters again?) or moves quickly to hide the things he can’t. He can’t throw the hammer down when players do things like assault each other at the work place. So he moves on.

This is especially true if the culprit is an ace-pitcher and the victim is a backup catcher on the tail-end of his career. Cueto is a face of the game, for many years to come. No one wants him to be seen as a thug who got away with assault. Fighting to punish Cueto does nothing for the image of the game.

Unfortunately, Bud is right. For all of the justice dispensed by commissioners of other sports, their efforts have probably heightened the perception among fans that athletes in the NBA, NFL, and NHL have a disproportionate number of criminals and bullies in their ranks. Often, the suspension gets more notice than the crime. Sadly, the best way to maintain a family-friendly image of a professional sports league is not to actually punish people who do bad things; the best way is to try to move on as quickly as possible. If you offer a token suspension that you can pretend is tough, but is light enough that the union doesn’t appeal, the dust settles pretty quickly.

If it had been Yadier Molina instead of Jason LaRue whose career had ended, the dust would have not have settled so quickly. If it had been someone like Bryce Harper or Mike Trout—oh, heavens, you can almost imagine Bud Selig sitting before Congress saying how he needed to fight the union on this to make sure that the world knows that this sort of behavior will not be tolerated, because baseball players are role models for children, and so on and so forth.

But Jason LaRue’s loss to baseball was not tragic enough for MLB to pick a fight with the MLBPA (yes, that would be Jason LaRue’s union). So MLB buried what it could, and refocused everything else. Online videos of the incident mysteriously lack the close-up, slow-motion replay of Cueto’s cleats entering LaRue’s face and Chris Carpenter’s back. The focus of the incident became Brandon Phillips and Yadier Molina talking face-to-face in a stern manner. (Brandon Phillips, despite his role in the incident and his inclination to talk smack, seems like a pretty good guy. He’s funny, doesn’t take himself too seriously, hangs out with his twitter followers, and is basically good for the image of Major League Baseball. What makes him endearing also makes him the perfect candidate to draw focus away from the man-child thug that appears to be Johnny Cueto.) After the conversation, there was some pushing, and who can know for sure what happened after that, right? We’ll let Frank Robinson play the grandfatherly disciplinarian at a press conference, issue a suspension that the union won’t bother appealing, hope that the media cooperates, and move on.

In PART 2.0, we'll finish up looking at the ways Jason LaRue was let down, and why Tony La Russa got it right. Until then...

-THP

Two Little Monkeys Going on a Date

2012-07-29T18:10:00.000-07:00

Many of you have read my last post and wondered, "So WILL Jason LaRue ever get justice?" It's called a cliffhanger, folks! I'm building suspense. Also, it turns out that the finale of that post will be closely modeled after the finale of the Harry Potter franchise (i.e., split into 2). So the next segment of that series (the first half of part 2) is in the proofreading stage. Meanwhile, the second half of part 2 is practically writing itself. And it has told me it will be done with itself by the end of this week.

In the meantime, we interrupt that series with a post involving some relatives of the Hungry Preacher himself. It started when Beth discovered that her youngest daughter enjoyed watching "American Idol" with her. It become known as "their show".

When the "American Idol Tour" rolled into St. Louis a couple weeks back, Beth had the idea that maybe, just maybe, going to that show would be a fun night of mother/daughter bonding. Realizing that we only live once, we got a couple of tickets, and told Monkey 2 the plan. She was very excited.

Monkey 1 has never been into American Idol, but we decided that she and her daddy could have a corresponding night out. So a couple of Wednesdays ago, while Beth and Monkey 2 went to the American Idol concert, Monkey 1 and me went to a place called "Sports Fusion" out in Chesterfield. We went for the indoor miniature golf but found quite a bit more. Here is the photographic evidence of our double date, starting with me and Monkey 1.

After the first hole, she was actually beating me by a stroke.

Her mom played golf in high school and is widely recognized as one of the best lady golfers at her law firm. Clearly, the apple fell from that tree.

The goal was to navigate through the room without tripping the lasers. She did great, until she got stuck in a corner, panicked, and started calling for me. I busted in the door, ran through those lasers, and pulled her to safety.

After much convincing, I finally agreed to pay for a round of laser tag before we left. Fortunately, there were only 6 people on the course: the 2 of us and 4 high school girls. Monkey 1 and me were on a team, and the 4 girls were split into 2 teams. Monkey 1 was very stealth, and benefited by having the height of her head be just above many of the barriers of cover. Thus, she could stand upright and look out over the course while her vest was still out of the line of fire. Tall people like me had to continually duck or squat down or risk being shot.

Like they say, "It's not the size of the gun, it's the size of the gun in relation to your entire body."

Meanwhile, at the Scottrade Center...

Mommy and Monkey 2 were having a blast.

We discovered that Monkey 2 takes her concerts very seriously.

And she's out.

All in all, the evening was a lot of fun for all parties involved, and both of the girls felt like they'd been given a very special treat. Of course, Beth and I felt like we'd been given a special treat, and we still do feel that way every day we spend with our little Monkeys.

I just wanted to share the joy a little bit. Thanks for reading, and I'll write more soon.

-THP

LaMenting LaRue: Why La Russa Got It Right* (PART 1 of 2)

2012-07-13T20:08:00.000-07:00

*even if he considers it an attack on his integrity to say so

Tonight, my hometown team, the St. Louis Cardinals, is playing in Cincinnati against the Reds as the second half of the MLB season kicks off. "Kicking" was also a popular subject before and during the All-Star break, also with regards to the divisional rivalry between the Cardinals and Reds. Actually, "kicking" wasn't mentioned explicitly so much as the "incident" from a couple of years back when these teams engaged in an on-field brawl. You can watch it here.

The most recent flare up of this rivalry started with Tony La Russa's team playing in the World Series last year. Even though he retired after the Series, he was invited back by Major League Baseball to manage this year's National League All-Star team (as per baseball tradition). Part of this job was picking (in conjunction with MLB) a handful of players to round out the roster after the fans and players have had their say.

La Russa did NOT pick either Brandon Phillips or Johnny Cueto from the Cincinnati Reds, though statistically either would have been fine selections. Dusty Baker, manager of the Reds, perceived these omissions as snubs, and egregious ones at that. So flabbergasted was Baker that he suggested La Russa snubbed Phillips and Cueto NOT because there were better options, but because La Russa is still holding a grudge against those two for their roles in the brawl of 2010.

La Russa responded: "The comments Dusty made clearly disappoint me and are attacking my integrity. The All-Star experience is too important to let anything stand in the way of a decision like that."

Some disclosure: I am a Cardinal fan, but am highly ambivalent about Tony La Russa. He has had a lot of success as a MLB manager. Double switches and pitching match-ups aside, word is that keeping a team motivated day-after-day is often the most challenging aspect of being a manager. La Russa did that, and many of his best players swear by his tactics. That said, I always wonder if he could have held on to what made him effective, but without coming across as such a self-important bully to the rest of the world.

His response to Baker's criticism is telling. Aside from offhandedly overstating importance of the All-Star experience, it's La Russa who elevated Baker's critique to an attack on his integrity. It's La Russa who effectively proclaimed, "How dare he?" It's La Russa who almost certainly would have said the exact same thing if the roles had been reversed.

Baker, on the other hand, didn't do any favors to Phillips, Cueto, or himself by including Phillips and Cueto in the same paranoia-infused proclamation. We'll get to Cueto in a second, but first a word on Brandon Phillips. He's having a good year. Maybe even a great year, at least for a second baseman. But it's not a slam-dunk All-Star type of year. Among qualified NL second baseman, he's 5th in OPS. He's first in RBI and 3rd in HR. He's also last in doubles (actually, worse than last, since he's been outdoubled by an unqualified second baseman) and has only 5 stolen bases. All things considered, the top half-dozen or so second basemen in the NL are pretty closely grouped, and Phillips is one of those. I'd probably rank him fourth.

Though not quite on par with the bawling mother who tells reporters that her just-convicted-of-murder son is "really a good boy", Baker's perspective on Phillips seems just a tad biased. Pretty much any reasonable fan with access to an internet site with MLB stats would conclude that Phillips is a borderline All-Star who could have been chosen, and could have just as easily not been. Even most unreasonable fans would conclude that there are at least 3 or 4 explanations less extreme than "the manager is out to get us" that explain Brandon Phillips' omission for this year's All-Star game.

All of this makes Dusty Baker look like a doofus, as paranoid and oblivious as La Russa is arrogant and defensive. (People in the know say that these guys are something like friends away from the field--oh, to be a fly on the wall...)

Now, had Baker mentioned only Cueto, that would have been more interesting. On paper, Cueto may very well be the second most effective starting pitcher in the National League of the first half of the season (though that whole "tightly grouped" thing still applies--he could also conceivably be ranked near 8 or 9). He certainly looks like a full-fledged snub.

There are several reasons why La Russa may have overlooked Cueto, but apparently, to suggest that one of them was payback for Cueto's role in the brawl is to attack his integrity. Presumably, the unwritten baseball code designates such behavior as "uncool" or something like that.

Here's another reaction to the possibility of La Russa intentionally snubbing Cueto for his role in the brawl: So what?

Cueto didn't just have a "role in a brawl". Cueto propped himself up against the netting above the backstop, pretended Jason LaRue's face was the mat of a Dance Dance Revolution arcade game, and started singing "Maniac" by Michael Sambello in his head. "Why, yes, those are metal spikes, and I'm not at all happy to see you." LaRue was severely concussed, and had to stop playing professional baseball forever.

A couple of notes on the brawl and its aftermath:
-I once thought that LaRue retired because he was going to retire at the end of the season anyway. In my research, I found no indication that this was a foregone conclusion. Maybe he would have. Maybe LaRue doesn't even know that. What he did know was that in the weeks following the kicking, "he experienced painful headaches and nausea.... He was unable to drive or ride in a car, cook for himself or watch television. His doctors, concerned that he was in no condition to care for himself, sent him home from St. Louis to his family in Texas." (This quote is from here.)

-Brawls are part of baseball. They probably shouldn't be. And maybe LaRue should have stayed in the dugout. OK. Instead, he stood around in the scrum, like 60 other guys on the field that day and hundreds of guys before him. Maybe he was even "in the middle of it." And then he got pushed and held until the next thing he saw was Johnny Cueto's spikes. Did he "have it coming" for getting in the middle of things? Mmm, I'd have a hard time saying that. It didn't seem like he was trying to hurt or kill anyone. Unlike, say...

-Johnny Cueto had an interesting explanation for his kickage. Apparently, he was frightened. Oh, just let him explain it: "When 15 people get over you, you get scared. I did get nervous, a lot. I put my feet up, trying to get out of the way. I was trying to get up. My back was against the wall and I was trying to get people out of the way so I could get up."

More disclosure: I'm one of those people who, when they heard Metta World Peace (formerly Ron Artest) of the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers explain his elbow hitting James Hardin's head as an "unfortunate... unintentional elbow" and as an outpouring of "too much... erratic passion", sincerely thought, "Yeah, I can kind of see that." So I'm someone who wants to believe ridiculous explanations for stupid behavior.

And I almost had that thought about Johnny Cueto's explanation. Then I had a couple of other thoughts:

1. His description of the incident just doesn't match the video. I tried to watch the video with his explanation of it running through my head as a commentary, and it was like watching "Spider Man" with the audio from a "Batman" movie: "I guess this is the same genre, but the details just aren't matching."

2. That "wall" Cueto was up against? It was more like what most people would call "a net." And it had a lot of "give." I'm no physicist, but I don't think even the force of 15 men could have made Johnny Cueto go all Play-doh-spaghetti-factory on the fans of row 1.

3. If Johnny Cueto was in genuine (or genuinely perceived) danger of being squished, sticking the feet up sideways like that would make some sense, as the legs of the squish-ee conceivably could be stronger than the force of the squish-ers. But that protective leg power is significantly reduced when the squish-ee starts kicking like a Riverdancer! If you're keeping someone at a safe distance by pushing them with your legs, "slow and steady when you're on the fence, 'cause fast and pokey makes no sense."

4. Finally, let's grant for a moment that Johnny was truly overcome by nervousness, as he claimed; that his visions of soccer fans being crushed against chain-link fences by hundreds of other fans all trying to press in the same direction, that these visions were overcoming his vision of reality, which was 60 guys bumping around together with no particular target in a corner of a wide open expanse of a field while Johnny leaned up against a net-like barrier surrounded most immediately by people who had no interest in seeing him crushed. Let's grant that he was truly and sincerely nervous, and was just trying to protect himself by "get[ting] people out of the way so [he] could get up." If that was the case, why were no Reds punctured by his cleats? There were plenty of them around. If Johnny was so frightened that his "fight" defense overcame his reason and sportsmanship so drastically, could he possibly still be clearheaded enough to only puncture guys on the other team (Chris Carpenter also received some cleatage)? Did Cueto just get lucky?

Or here's another way of wondering about this: If he HAD ended the career of a teammate--say, Scott Rolen (who was in kicking range)--would Rolen, or Brandon Phillips, or Dusty Baker have been all, "Well, he was nervous, and just trying to protect himself by 'getting up'. Makes sense to me. I mean, the man was nervous for goodness' sake!" No, they would have been like, "Are you a freaking idiot?!"

And it would have been a fair question. In fact, it's just as fair a question when the victim happened to be on the other team, because the explanation makes just as little sense.

To be fair to Johnny Cueto, his honest answer to the question "Are you a freaking idiot?" might actually be, "Yes." But I have a hard time believing anyone is that idiotic. A more believable (to me) answer is that, in those few seconds, Cueto saw an opportunity to stomp his spikes into Jason LaRue's face and get away with it.

(I was trying to find a clip online that actually shows the impact of Cueto's spikes into LaRue's face. It was curiously difficult to find, even though I know the clip exists. Maybe it's out there somewhere. But while I was watching the broader-view replay on MLB.com, the video paused several times to buffer. Three separate times, the video paused at such a point where Cueto could clearly be seen hovering just beyond the center of the scuffle and let me tell you this: His eyes sure as heck looked like the eyes of someone looking for a fight. Watch for yourself.)

Fortunately, baseball has all sorts of ways of disciplining men who manifest the flaws of their character in such a violent manner.

Unfortunately, if you're Jason LaRue and the guy who slammed his metal cleats into your face is the ace of his team, those measures of discipline... well, let's just say they become more like a net, and less like a wall.

Jason LaRue, a backup catcher on the back end of his career, got kicked out of his livelihood. Last week, Johnny Cueto's manager whined about Cueto not making the All-Star team. In between, a lot of forces that could have doled out some measure of justice to Johnny Cueto have--to put it simply--not done so.

In PART 1.5 and PART 2, we'll look at how those forces dropped the ball of justice, and why La Russa was right to snub Cueto even if he won't admit it.

Until then...

-THP

Putting the "War" in "Warrensberg," 2012 edition

2012-06-28T15:02:00.001-07:00

Back in 2011, I offered an eyewitness account of one of the greatest fights ever to take place at a church conference between offspring of The Hungry Preacher which involved padded pugil sticks and a giant inflatable fighting arena. Thanks to the miracle of Pay-Per-View, millions were able to witness this year's rematch, "Monkey 1 v. Monkey 2, II: the re-pugiling."

For those who blew all their pay-per-view coinage on the Bradley-Pacquiao fight, here are some snapshots from the re-pugiling.

The missing tooth was non-fight related

Pre-fight morale was high for both fighters.

They're all smiles now, but that part of the weigh-in where they stare at each other with their faces an inch apart? It was verrrry tense.

"willpreachforfood.com" was actually not my first domain choice, but "willofferjoustingtipsforfood.com" was already taken, darn the luck.

Last year was all about not being able to stay balanced. This year was all about not having the arm strength to extend the pugil stick far enough to make contact.

This was the closest thing to a knock-out blow in the whole fight. Well, to any type of blow, really.

Here I'm seriously considering stopping the fight. Not because of the reasons one usually stops a fight, but because there was a long line of people waiting to have a turn, and my girls had been going for about 4 minutes without having landed a single blow.

Moments earlier:
THE HUNGRY PREACHER: Sweep the leg. Do you have a problem with that?
MONKEY 2: No, sensei.
THE HUNGRY PREACHER: No mercy.

Timber!

Remember, win or lose, it's all about striking a cliched pose so as to communicate your elation or agony in a visually concise manner.

Here are some bonus shots from after the main event. In this competition, the Monkeys were strapped to one another with an elastic cord. They were each given a ball and a basket to shoot for. If one "drove to the hoop," the other one--theoretically, at least--would be yanked backwards by the cord.

Here, Monkey 2 is moving so fast, even the camera can't stop her movement. (The spectators, the playing surface, and the building were also moving incredibly fast.)

She has her mommy's smile and her daddy's "ups"

She told me later, "I wasn't flopping--I was just trying to help the refs see the consequences of what actually happened."

These last two can be printed out and put together as a flip book. What you will see is positively Jordan-esque.

Will there be a "Monkey 1 v. Monkey 2, III"? We'll see, but check back next June just in case.

-THP