I got somethin' in my heart, I been waitin' to give. I got a life I wanna start, one I been waitin' to live. (Coming To Terms) Part I

Title today comes from a Bruce Springsteen song off his latest album Devils and Dust. The song is called Leah. Bruce may be the only person I'd consider disrupting the Music Trinity I've immortalized with the links on the right. Instead he's gonna get the double quote treatment as my next post will use the second half of this lyric. Click on the title to see Bruce's pretty comprehensive page.

Coming To Terms
Part I

This funk has got to end and it needs to end right now. I can't be what I need to be to people, for people, for myself with this weight on me. So if you will indulge my rantings I will be offering up a two part self induced therapy writing/bitch session/vision forming piece in my next posts, hopefully coming to some form of conclusion about how I get over my grayness...again.

First the bitch session...

Tonight I went to a movie, that was to begin at 5:20, it began at 5:43 after 4 commercials, 6 previews for other movies, of which I will be seeing 0, and a dated dumb introduction for the movie theater I was at, as if the decals on every doorway, popcorn tub, cup, and urinal cake wasn't enough. Okay that last one is just satirical, but it made my point. I go to the movies to get away from all the BS that comes with living near other people. I don't need sold Coke or Movie Tickets while I'm at the theater drinking a Coke, and I sure don't want to be persuaded to join the National Guard when I'm clearly blowing off steam watching Herbie Rides Again. (Satire people! Which I will denote from now on with a big italicized S)If the commercials were products related to the film I think I'd be okay with it. If the Marines wanted to show that dragon slaying commercial of theirs before Jarhead, okay. Or if The Occult wanted to sell broomsticks before Harry Potter I'd be cool with that S. Why didn't the Catholic church have some commercials on before The Passion of The Christ? Or why shouldn't OUT magiazine sponsor Brokeback Mountain. For God sakes, why not just have actors wear Nascar jumpsuits with sponsorship on them within the movie? S Skittles bring you Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain...Taste The Rainbow! (If you've missed the satire to this point, stop reading. I will only be making you madder.)

But EVERYTHING is for sale and no one isn't a sellout!

And it makes me sick. Christmas is supposed to be this blessed holiday where we celbrate the Son of God coming into the world to save all mankind, and how do we celebrate the beginning of the season? How is it that we kick-off this season of peace and hope and silent nights? By kicking the snot out of eachother over toys and electronics on the day after we give thanks to God for our many blessings. Let's beat each other over a Wipe-Me Elmo. This year there were fist fights over sales priced computers at Wal-Mart. Two things. One-if you are buying a computer at Wal-Mart, can the purchase really mean that much to you? Two-get some freaking perspective. On Thanksgiving we feed our big fat faces,(and in the USA most of us are big and fat) unbuckle our pants, rollover and watch overpriced crybabies play a game that too many act like is more important than life itself (I can say this because my beloved Packers are absolutely atrocious this season, but I'm guilty), sermonize what it means to be American, why the war is justified, why the Pacers are the best team in the NBA, and why Ron Artest is not a thug, (Okay this quickly became my Grandma Rose's house on Thanksgiving...let me rebound) we nap and eat and half-ass thank the Divine for our blessings we're clearly taking for granted, except for the wisest of us, and then, fed and rested, with freshly clipped coupons we rush to the stores at the buttcrack of dawn to kick the snot out of eachother over meaningless fleeting crap that could never bring us contentment or express love. Meanwhile some kid in Iraq is just glad his dad didn't get killed on police duty, some girl in Israel is simply thankful her mother wasn't at the fruit-stand when the suicide bomber denoated her bomb, and fifteen kids in a single tent split a bowl of rice I'd have let the waiter clear from my table with T-bone from my steak. Joy To The World!?

And this holiday my greedy ass asked for a computer or at least a sizable chunk of money so I could buy one. And what will I do with that computer? Write self-indulgent songs? Self-damning blogs? On my better days. I'll probably look up topless pictures of Carla Gugino and Jessica Alba and gamble online.

I work in a church, and I'd like to tell you that at least we focus on the right things during the holidays. But I can't. We're in steep competition mode. We have got to have a Christmas Eve service and it has got to be better than last year's and we have got to have it at 11 like every year because people expect that and the children have got to sing and the bell choir has got to play and the altar colors have got to be white and we need a brass quartet and lots of special music. Guess what? When God sent his son, on the first Christmas, you know what he did? He sent a host of angels into the fields to announce the birth to some shepherds. He didn't make the sky rain fire or the Earth rumble, except for a single star there wasn't a whole lot of cosmic fanfare, and except for a few shepherds, some stinking animals, and what had to be a few days or weeks later if you use your brain some kings, Jesus' birth is kind of boring. The Savior was born where cows slept and at my church we've got to pull out all the stops to celebrate it.

And we'll sing these ridiculous hymns. Away in a Manger? Second verse-The cattle are lowing the baby awakes, but little Lord Jesus no crying he makes. Why not? The cattle are lowing. I might be crying once I find out what lowing is. And why is it bad for Jesus to be a human baby, crying instead of some deity superaware of his surroundings? The First Noel? The First Noel, the Angels did say, Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay, In fields where they lay keeping their sheep,On a cold winter's night that was so deep. Okay. This song gets the story right, but what does so deep mean? Profound? Was the snow deep? Was it a cold winter's night in the middle of the desert? Yahoo Weather predicts December 25 to be in the 50's in Bethlehem this year, like most years. Lot of those snowy Bethlehem scenes seem kind of unifornmed don't they? Ofcourse The date of Christmas was originally a pagan holiday, but that is for another blog. I just think some of the hymns have a very Western December in Kansas take on Jesus' birth. But the hymns aren't the worst of the Christmas season's musical sins. Not at all.

Has anyone ever heard the song Christmas Shoes? Now, why does that singer grunt and groan that song, and why does the kids choir sing at all, and why do so many people fail to see how juvenile and clcihe that whole song is? I can barely go into stores these days, or banks, or offices-they all have cheesy Christmas music blaring. Overproduced cornball fluff piped over the speakers like The Tran-Siberien Orchestra is a respected group of musicians or Kenny G broke new ground with his Christmas albums. And nothing is as bad as new covers of Christmas classics. I heard some punk band do a just God-awful rendition of Silent Night, all sped up and angst ridden. For Christmas music you have almost got to go back to The Rat Pack, some Dean Martin It's Cold Outside or Frank Sinatra singiing anything to find the last time Christmas music didn't seem stale. Ironic isn't it-to find music that doesn't sound overproduced and cheesy I reccommend some of the most overproduced cheesy music ever made. But its the singers that sell it. When Dean sings a Christmas song I know he's had two or three egg nogs and he means some serious Yule-Tide business. Do you think Frank Sinatra ever went shopping at Wal-Mart and fistfought for a computer? (Striek that question...it doesn't even make sense.) Give me some Mel Torme Christmas Song or Burl Ives or hell Bing Crosby and David Bowie. I do not want to hear Avril Lavigne's version of White Christmas.

And Christmas will come and we'll all give away a little bit more of its meaning again this year. Today, Yahoo News reported that some megachurches are cancelling Sunday services on Christmas. That's right, some Christian churches think its a better idea to cancel service on Christmas so families can be together instead of worshipping. Amazingly, admittedly, I am torn on this subject. I have been to very few Christmas services that I thought had anything to do with Jesus, really. But to not try on this day of all days to celebrate Christ seems extremely hypocritical, and frankly kind of defeatest. I will be waking up on Christmas day to dig candy out of my stocking because my mom thinks its still fun to give her grown children candy and dollar store trinkets and blame it on Santa. My sister and I will trade all the stuff we don't like to eachother for stuff we do, and most of it I will give to kids in January sometime. I'll get to spend some time with my father's parents but as son as they leave I'll be sad because I never know when it'll be the last time I see them. the whatever I get, I will retreat to my room or some room to entertain myself playing with a toy or putting together something or reading. Each year, the fact that I don't have a wife and kids seems more serious than the year before, so I'll be down and the next few days I'll just be in my head waiting for New Year's Eve when I'll entertain three or four invitations, but ultimately go hang out with the friend that knows me least, because then my life seems strangely fresh, and by midnight I'll have convinced myself I am one hell of a guy and that this is my year.

After the New Year, when I'll justify getting blitzed and acting like I'm 21 instead of 26, waking up emotionally and spiritually refreshed, but physically ill, I'll watch five or six bowl games that mean nothing to me, but will dominate my week. The Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, The Nokia Sugar Bowl, The Drano Toilet Bowl! S And these five or six games, over three or four days will show my true spirit. Do you know who I'll be rooting for in every game?

The Underdog.

It is this knowledge of myself that leads me to the conclusions of my next post. I am a rooter for/supporter to/champion of the underdog. But there is no real point in acting anymore like I am one. It is time I quit complaining and seeing all the shit I can't fix and started hoping more and changing the stuff I can. It is time I truly took hold of my own promise and committed myself in a real way to what it is I am capable beyond all my peers of doing.