Santa's Inbox
Just thought I’d add a little levity to the holiday season. I especially liked the email from Oprah about “patenting gift giving”.
Only 10 more shopping days, so get out there and be a good little producing/consuming wage slave! (Yeah, like I’m not going to be up to my eyeballs in shopping just like everyone else…)
Yeah, I know I haven’t been writing in a while. I’ll fix that as soon as I return from this weekend’s family Christmas activities.
Meanwhile, here is a little cheerful something to listen to until I return.
Plainsong by The Cure. “Cheerful” is being deliberately obtuse, but this is one of the prettiest songs I’ve heard, and I’m not normally a fan of “pretty” music. Trey and Matt were right when they said “Disintegration is the best album ever!“ Top to bottom, it is a record worth listening to.
Oh, and to give you an idea of what has been taking most of my time lately…
Keeping track of terrorist networks is very difficult according to most reports, but there are many problems with our own infrastructure that could be dealt with. The FBI is investigating the German heavy metal band, Scorpions, because a record (yes before CDs and cassettes) cover may have child pornography on it. Now first of all if the terrorists are going to nuke an American city you would think that was the priority, especially since the odds of terror attack are better than even. Aside from law enforcement being ordered to waste its time on something totally absurd, the real absurdity is that this record is 32-years old. It took 32 years for the top brass in Washington to notice something being sold in broad daylight in the US. If our own government notices a potential crime 32 years later, don’t expect them to do a good job of preventing terrorism before it happens. If you are lucky you’ll see a government report about why Dallas is missing 32 years after the incident happens.
Working as I do for churches, there is a very special feeling I get when I think about Christmas. And that feeling is trepidation. Allow me to ’splain.
The 2 biggest holidays in the church market is Christmas and Easter. Christians are big into birth and death. The in between parts, meh, not so much. Megachurches love to take advantage of these events and hold huge concerts or passion plays during these times.
Seems every year around this time, I get drafted into programming a lightshow for a Christmas concert or 2 (or 4!) This week it is a giant behemoth of a show, with 80 moving lights and a Vista T2 console, which I have never used before, and programs unlike anything I am used to. Not that that is a bad thing, as I am really impressed with the Wacom pen tablet GUI and the visual approach to programming, I just wish I had a better grasp of the interworkings of the programming commands. Of course, that is another blog post.
The trepidation comes from just knowing how these people operate normally and what they expect of you. Most of the time the stuff they expect you to do, they expect you to do it for free because they are a church and it’s the “christian thing to do”. I generally nip all that talk in the bud real quick and let them know that God works for free and I’m not God. However good this show is for my wallet, it is murder on my body, mind, and sleep schedule. Since Monday, I have put in 80+ hours with notes and the performance still to come on Sunday.
These people have a full 80 piece orchestra and 3 full choirs: children, youth and adult that number over 300 voices. They want all of them on stage, at the same time, and didn’t think to rehearse or stage any of that until 2 days before the show. /fail
Anyway, here are some iPhone pics I snapped real quick:
Shared by Data Vortex
Be there or be dead to me.
speaking of things that will really ought to get our and see, the plaza theatre will be hosting a showing of the documentary nerdcore rising friday night.
i’ll be honest with you, i knew absolutely nothing about nerdcore, which is apparently nerd rapping about world of warcraft, online bulletin boards and other such things, until i was perusing the plaza’s web site last weekend.
now i am hooked.
i will totally be at this event. you should too.
wondering about nerdcore, here’s a sample, optimus rhyme’s obey the moderator.
f’ing brilliant. it’s even better ’cause it isn’t a joke.
(details after the jump)
nerdcore rising
december 5, 7:30 pm
plaza theatre
1049 ponce de leon ave.
atlanta ga 30306.
404.873.1939
www.plazaatlanta.com
The attacks in Mumbai, India are the latest in the 1,400 year history of Islam and yet people continue to express surprise that the alleged religion of peace could harbor so many cold-blooded killers of innocent people.
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How to make an Old-Fashioned the old fashioned way.
December 5th marks the 75th anniversary of Repeal Day, when Prohibition ended and Americans depressed by the Depression could once again drown their sorrows legally — instead of having to get tanked in Tijuana, hammered in Havana, or literally paralyzed with the Jake Leg after quaffing poisonous home-brewed hooch.
To toast that auspicious occasion, here at the Deadbeat Bar we’ll be tossing back our favorite pre-Prohibition drink: an Old Fashioned. “And just what,” you ask, “is Tiki about that?” Well, for one thing, the Old Fashioned was Trader Vic’s favorite nightcap (in his later years, he averaged two a day in his office after work). Vic made his with rum, but we prefer ours with good ole ‘merican whiskey.
Recipe: Place a half-dollar-sized piece of orange peel scraped clean of all pulp, a teaspoon of cane sugar, and three dashes of bitters (either Angostura or Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel) in a rocks glass. Add a little water, then muddle everything vigorously. Fill the glass with ice, add two ounces of 90-proof bourbon (we like Knob Creek or Buffalo Trace), and stir until well chilled. Repeat until your depression about our own impending Depression lifts. (Four times usually does the trick for us.)
An interesting fact, Muslims consider blacks inferior and submissive as part of their religion. The other interesting statistic is that a majority of slaves shipped to the Americas were male and around 10% did not survive the journey. Contrast that with over 80% of slaves shipped to the middle east not surviving and the majority being female for the purposes of sexual exploitation. Still think that the War on Terror isn’t that important? Historical precedent has shown that the terrorists already look down on certain people in the world, the infidel, and the abid (a term used to describe all blacks as being slaves). Realistically speaking they are no different than barbarians who want to exert their power over those they consider inferior. Remember that the infidel and/or the abid could be your friends, family members, or your commander in chief. You may not like any of the above, but if you care about your mothers, sisters, and daughters you really should think of what a world for them would be like if the terrorists win.
I wrote this after Thanksgiving in 2007. With the holidays approaching and the recent birth of my daughter, I felt like putting it out there again. -Grim
Executive Summary: More maudlin shit about the holidays without my dad. I’ll “get over it” when I’m god damned good and ready.
Still with me? That’s nice, but this is for me, if you get something out of it, that’s great too.
So we had Thanksgiving dinner at my stepmother’s house. My step mom, her new significant other, some friends. and of course, my wife.
My stepmother broke out “The Good China”, which as any of you who understand why I capitalized those words knows means “It’s Officially the Holiday Season Now.” It felt like just about every other holiday meal with the obvious exception of the deceased patriarch and obligatory crying and swapping of stories among those who knew him.
The table is the traditional “Table which is way too damn long to fit in a normal sized dining room, but we’ll do it anyway”. Places are set, and after some drinks and socializing, which involved beer and the end of the LSU/Arkansas game, dinner was ready.
As everyone filed into the dining room to begin the hyper-ingestion of tryptophan laden goodness, I went to my usual space near the head of the table and started to sit down. I felt a gentle nudge from my stepmother and she said, very quietly, “Son, you’re at the head of the table now.”
You have no idea how those words can change your whole perspective.
For those of you who may be unacquainted with the niceties of formal dining, let me take a minute to explain.
You’ve surely seen large families eating a holiday meal, and you’ve probably noticed that the father always sits at the end of the table. That’s old-school etiquette/tradition, and it isn’t an accident. The head of the table, socially-speaking, is “master of the feast” and the de-facto host of the dinner. What my stepmother was saying to me was “You are the head of the family now”.
As I said, it was an “instant perspective change”. I was still thinking “But this is Dad’s chair!” when my stepmother asked me to say the blessing. Since I really didn’t feel like adding hypocrisy to my already formidable list of sins, I handle it the proper way and ask my stepmother’s significant other (who is more religiously inclined, and the oldest guest present) to lead us in giving thanks. After a short prayer, I thought to myself “Wow, I handled that pretty well.” and then got right back to “What the hell am I doing in dad’s chair?”
As the dinner conversation started, I felt like all eyes were on me. There is a big difference between looking across the table and seeing one person, and looking across the table and seeing everyone seated in front of you. I had noticed that the conversations, unconsciously I’m sure, always focused on me somehow. Someone would make a point, and look at me and say “Isn’t that right?” or “What do you think?” Each time I heard that, I heard a voice inside my head “This is dad’s chair.”
As the meal progressed, and plates were emptied for the 3rd or 4th time, I slowly started to accept the fact that it was “my chair” now. I did nothing to earn it, nor do I particularly want it, especially not the way I wound up getting it. I just happened to be the person it came to. I further realized that when my wife and I have children of our own, one of them is going to have the same experience I had. They’re going to sit in “my chair” and think to themselves “I shouldn’t be here, this is dad’s chair.” In a way, it’s a kind of royalty. The only reason I am in this chair is because I am the son of the previous occupant. Someday, I will leave this chair to make room for my child, and I might not be there to tell him (or her) that it’s his chair now. They’ll have to figure it out on their own and do the best they can to be the kind of parent they want to be. Just as I will.
Happy Holidays…
-Grim
