Do you have what it takes to stay and watch the credits when a movie ends?
There are two kinds of people in the world. 1) Those who leave the movie theatre when the credits start to roll and 2) those who stick around to actually read the credits. Obviously, I’m part of the latter group.
It all started for me circa 1985 when the 1982 comedy The Toy constantly aired during a free trial period of HBO. I loved that movie, without good reason. All I remember about it now is that at the end a kid shoots a guy in the forehead with a suction-cup dart gun. And that’s the end of the movie.
Then the credits roll. At the very end, the last thing to rise up on the screen was the symbol for The Motion Picture Association of America. At that point, I would scream with excitement, “Ball, ball, ball, ball!…”
I think the reason I was so ecstatic was because it reminded me of one of the enemies from an Atari game I played all the time. And that taught me to stay tuned to watch the credits at the end of movies. To see The Ball. At some point, my motivation stopped being to see The Ball and instead to find out actors’ names and the location of filming.
It’s always interesting to see when a movie is filmed somewhere other than Los Angeles or New York.
Plus, there’s always a possibility of a hidden scene after the credits- most perfectly executed in Napoleon Dynamite.
There are certain male musicians who while they seemingly have a unisex audience, it’s mainly women who are openly proud fans. Key examples: Kenny Chesney and Keith Urban.
Then there are those male musicians who seemingly have a feminine audience, yet they also earn the genuine respect of men who recognize their talent despite their charm. Key examples: Michael Buble and Jason Mraz. But the epitome of this category is none other than the 6’ 3”, tattoo-sleeved Connecticut native, John Mayer.
His most romantic songs are typically my least favorite- “Your Body is a Wonderland” and “Come Back to Bed”. What draws me most to his music is a quality found in his lesser hits like “83” and “Something’s Missing”. Half nostalgic, half philosophical.
In reviewing any genre of entertainment, I can’t say any one thing is the best. I can only say what is my personal favorite. Because my favorite is simply an opinion; I am not qualified to declare what is best- that would go beyond a matter of opinion.
That being said, my favorite John Mayer album is his 2003 Heavier Things. It features the hits “Bigger than My Body”, “Daughters”, and “Clarity” (“ah whoo-ew… ah whoo-ew”). Along with its less featured songs “New Deep”, “Home Life”, “Split Screen Sadness” and “Wheel”.
The cover of this album itself perfectly captures the style and direction of the music. It represents a simple sense of timelessness, yet at the same time somehow reminds of me of Eric Clapton and/or Sting between 1988 and 1993.
I say that to say this. John Mayer’s newest album, Battle Studies, is a hybrid of two of my favorite things of his: 1) The album Heavier Things and 2) his very much underappreciated song “I Don’t Trust Myself with Loving You” from his 2006 album Continuum.
Very bluesy: “Fell down on my knees, asked the Lord for mercy, said ‘help me if you please’” (“Crossroads”).
Very jazzy: “Who says I can’t get stoned?” (“Who Says”)
Very soft rock: “I’ve got a hammer and a heart of glass- I gotta know right now which walls to smash” (War of My Life).
I decided half-way through this decade that John Mayer is incapable of releasing an album that isn’t good. I stand by that. Battle Studies is completely up to par with all his other recordings. But just like how Dave Matthews Band will never be able to top their Crash album, in my mind John Mayer will never be able to top Heavier Things.
Actually I see Battle Studies as a direct sequel (yet not necessarily a continuation) of Heavier Things. So in other words, I love it.
A year ago I posted a review of my favorite albums of 2008, and in a prophetic moment, I praised the then unknown song “People are Crazy” by Billy Currington. A few months later it was released as a single and went to #1.
Therefore, I will predict the soon-to-be hits from Battle Studies. The most obvious is the industrial-infused groovy tune “Assassins”. John has never sounded more like an African-American lead singer of an alternative rock band than he does in this song. Maybe it’s because this song has so many Michael Jackson qualities about it.
Like it was written with “Smooth Criminal”, “Dirty Diana” and “Give in to Me” in mind: “I work in the dead of night when the roads are quiet and no one is around… I’m an assassin and I had a job to do… Little did I know that girl was an assassin too.”
Another song destined to be a radio favorite is “Half of My Heart”. Perfect catchy melody. Perfect opening line: “I was born in the arms of imaginary friends.” Perfect choice of a female vocalist to do a song with: Taylor Swift.
The only downfall is that there’s not enough Taylor Swift in this song. She just does background vocals towards the end. Every time I hear it, I keep hoping the song has magically changed since the last time I heard it and that the song has become a true duet like the immaculately crafted “Lucky I’m in Love” by Jason Mraz with Colbie Caillat. Great song though: “Half of my heart is a shotgun wedding to a bride with a paper ring.”
Often when a musician or actor becomes a superstar, showing up in the tabloid magazines, the authenticity of their art suffers. Despite dating Jennifer Anniston and Jessica Simpson (to name a few) and being a Twitter slut, his art hasn’t suffered (just his personal reputation). He’s still got the talent. Just as much as ever. Going beyond the rut of “the same three chords” compositions and “I miss you baby” lyrics.
And not that this takes away from his music at all, but this lifestyle definitely shows up in his song content. Like in “Perfectly Lonely”- “Had a little love but I spread it thin. Falling in her arms and out again. Made a bad name for my game ‘round town.” It’s also evident in the future hit which will inevitably be featured on several romantic comedy soundtracks, “Heartbreak Warfare”.
Gone is the charming, mysterious John Mayer from the beginning of the decade. Gone is the gentleman. Apathy and aimlessness are starting to show up in his attitude and lyrics. I don’t like his music any less because of it. But I do recognize the change.
Though this may actually be hurting him with his current single, “Who Says”, which is his lowest charting single, breaking his string of 5 consecutive Top 10 singles. This song much departs from his former classy charm, containing douchebagery lyrics like this: “Call up a girl I used to know, fake love for an hour or so” and “I don’t remember you looking any better. Then again I don’t remember you”.
Not to mention the song’s constant references to marijuana use. (Around 90% of marijuana users are male, according to Pot Planet, a book written by a “marijuana journalist”.) Like a Playstation 3 or a Hardee’s Thickburger, pot is a female repellant.
John Mayer is suffering from what I call “King Solomon Syndrome”. King Solomon had it all: Extreme wealth, fame, and wisdom. And 700 wives. And 300 concubines (sex slaves). But by the end of his life when he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, he said it was all meaningless. None of it made him happy.
At least at an early age, John Mayer recognizes something’s missing.
I have learned to accept the Top Five Unspoken Rules of Disney Animals:
1) Without explanation, animals can speak to each other in English. (Even when they are native Africans: The Lion King).
2) Humans can talk to animals and vice versa.
3) Goofy can walk upright and talk, but Pluto is just a normal dog.
4) When Donald Duck gets out of the shower, he is embarrassed by his nakedness, covering himself up with a towel. However, he never wears pants.
5) As a cartoon, Mickey Mouse is pretty much the size of a real mouse. But at Disney World, he is around 6 feet tall.
It’s all fine as long as these rules are consistent which each other within the Disney Universe. However, I have recently been made aware of a rare exception. A hole in the Disney Theory.
This exception to the rules involves one of my favorite Disney cartoon movies, Robin Hood. I’m referring to the 1973 version where Robin Hood is a fox. It contains an ever-addictive whistling theme which I can’t describe in words and the melancholy ballad “Not in Nottingham”. The movie is full of adventure, action, and romance.
The weird thing about it, though, is that it’s the only animated Disney movie I can think of where there are no humans AND the animals assume the role of humans (in other words the animals are anthropomorphic).
For example, in The Lion King there are no humans, but all the animals act like normal animals (other than the fact they can talk and sing). They live out in the wild and kill and eat other animals. The characters are beasts, not mutants.
But in Robin Hood, the animals wear clothes, eat food at a table, and walk upright, to name a few distinguished human traits. While this in no way discredits the greatness of the film, there’s not an animated Disney movie I can think of before or after its release that follows this formula.
One of my pleasures in my life is pointing out the universally accepted concepts that surprisingly no one ever questions. The majority of children’s animated TV shows and movies involve talking animals. We have simply accepted this as “make believe”. Okay. But what I can’t accept is that fact there is no explanation as to how the animals gained the ability to talk.
Was it a magic spell? Extreme intelligence? Possession? And did the same thing that made the cast of the Lion King able to speak also enable the cast of Looney Tunes to speak as well? And sometimes animals interact through speech with humans like it’s no big deal. If I found a talking animal I would definitely exploit it for all it’s worth.
There has to be a physical explanation for this. But I just can’t see it. Even if an animal had the intelligence to speak, most animals don’t have the physical features necessary to do so. For example, how could a cat say the word “brother” since cats don’t really have lips? It would sound like “rother”.
Also, the other hole I have found in this concept of talking animals is that their voices would sound nothing like they do on Disney movies. By doing a quick search on “talking cat” on YouTube, I can watch a cat saying “I love you” but it sounds more like “rye row yoo-oo-ow”. And its voice has the same sound and tone as when a cat meows. It doesn’t sound like a man or woman’s voice.
School lunches weren’t always awful. In fact, sometimes what they were serving in the lunchroom ended up being the highlight of the school day. I always loved “Chef Salad Day” because that was a larger than average meal, plus it was guaranteed we would get a good dessert to offset the healthiness of the salad. And “Chicken Finger Day” was good because they served the chicken with mashed potatoes which I used as dipping sauce. So good.
But of course, there was one legendary favorite lunch, which has become immortalized along with other fond memories of elementary school like Oregon Trail in the computer lab, or that miraculous loudspeaker announcement that we would be getting out of two hours of class because the local community college was promoting their newest play in the auditorium. I am referring to, of course, the always-satisfying “school lunch pizza”.
A simple 4×6 inch flat pizza consisting of a crust reminiscent of Saltine crackers, brushed with tangy red sauce consisting of one sole herb (oregano), and covered in magical government cheese. Of course, I would do my best to scrounge up enough spare change to afford an extra “slice” of rectangle pizza for a dollar.
Every once in a while, I would get lucky because the first 15 minutes of lunch went by and the girl sitting diagonally across from me still hadn’t touched her pizza (or had only taken a small bite out of the corner). At that point, I would softly and nonchalantly ask the famous question, “Do you want your pizza?”
The weird thing is, just recently I realized that our school lunch pizzas didn’t even have any toppings. No meat! How did I just now realize that? As a 9 year-old boy, I would completely devour Burger King’s Double Whopper Combo Meal. Yet I never realized that those pizzas were just dough, sauce, and cheese.
“I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“I was just playing with ya; you know that, right?”
“I’m sorry, I was wrong when I did that.”
The motive. Somehow it changes everything. From a forgotten detail, to a borderline insult of character, to a practical joke that is taken too far. If the motive wasn’t malicious, it makes a difference.
Or even a simple, sincere apology will quench the fire. Just knowing the crime was an accident or is regrettably acknowledged; it helps. Forgiveness is much easier when it happens sooner rather than later.
But when the damage was indeed intentional, we immediately go into defense mode, or at least struggle to hold back. Our DNA code is imprinted with the phrase “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. Revenge is the natural response. Retaliation is easier than healthy communication.
There are many times the offender did mean something by it, they did do it on purpose, and they weren’t just playing around. Then it becomes an issue of both parties trying to prove to each other than the other really is the one who is morally wrong and/or more incompetent.
And that sparks the “who’s better?” contest. A competition that leads to grudges, insults, hurt feelings, arguments, fights, and as the course of history has proven, even war.
Being humble sometimes means being humiliated. That’s why it’s so hard to be wronged.
If the only way you could eat any meat was by actually killing the animal yourself, would you still be a carnivore?
I am aware that I am a hypocrite. Because if I could only eat the meat of animals that I killed myself, I would dang near be a vegetarian. Fish don’t really make sounds or look at me, so I could kill them. And eggs. Plus they don’t have to suffer such a violent death as noise-making, blood-spilling cattle, chickens, turkeys, and pigs.
The thought of eating the veins, muscles, and fat of what was recently a living being is so weird. But still for every lunch and most dinners, I eat a meal consisting of cut-up chunks of animal flesh. And aside from the act of slaughtering an animal, there’s the cleaning and processing of the carcass.
The only animals I have a desire to kill are the ones that want to kill me. And so far no grizzly bears, killer wolves, rabid foxes, spitting cobras, or hoof-punching deer have tried to attack me. Just mosquitoes. And they deserve to die because they’re trying to steal my blood. And blood is life. They are trying to kill me; therefore they deserve to die.
When it comes down to it, I’m a vegetarian at heart. Just not in action. The main reason I’m not a practicing vegetarian is because I don’t see how that would be a practical lifestyle.
We plan so much of our lives around eating. When people get together for more than a few hours, a meal is often involved. What if I went to dinner at someone’s house and they grilled out hamburgers for me and there was no salad available? What would I eat, just a bun with ketchup and onions and pickles?
Often vegetarians eat portabella mushrooms instead of meat. Maybe I could do that with pickles. Put a slab of pickles in between two buns. I can see it now, taking the nation by storm: Pickle Burgers, because…
“If you don’t hear that crunch, then it ain’t worth the munch!’
Pickles Make for Good Reading Material Table of Contents:
A behind-the-scenes look at writing with authority.
It’s a funny title because technically, there’s no such thing as a “wrong opinion”. I spend a lot of time reading articles online (movie reviews, political blogs, etc.) every day and I always make sure to read the comments that other people post below them. The majority of comments tend to agree with the writer. But a good third of them have the polar opposite view of the topic. To me it’s funny when they disagree, because ultimately what they are saying (especially when their comment is emotionally charged) is that the writer’s opinion is wrong.
In a way they are the treating the writer’s opinion as a fact, by questioning it like it is a fact. Because only a fact can be wrong. An opinion is completely subjective.
And what that points out is the importance of the natural assumption of credibility in a writer. A convincing writer is able to supplant this idea in the reader’s head: “If he’s saying it, it must be true.”
No writer is completely right-on and in-tune all of the time. Even if a writer was, they may just not simply be right-on and in-tune with the exact same perspective as the reader.
Writers must present their information in confidence, in a way that says, “This is unquestionable truth”. When executed correctly, the reader subconsciously puts their trust in the writer, assuming that if the writer says something that seems a little off, it must be the reader that is out of touch and off-sync, not the writer.
I know this is true for the writers that I follow. Even when I read an article from one of my favorites and I don’t thoroughly enjoy it, or it just doesn’t grab me, I still come back the next day or the next week for more. Because despite their shortcomings, they have instilled a sense of reverence in me through their talent. A sense of belonging, even.
Non-movie review movie reviews by a guy who likes weird movies. Plus a free lesson in demonology.
There are two kinds of people in the world, those who liked the movie Paranormal Activity, and those who liked (and actually saw) its current counterpart and competition, The Fourth Kind. I’ve yet to find a critic who thought they were both great movies. Paranormal Activity is the highly buzzed about, surprise blockbuster which has received mainly positive reviews from critics- an independent thriller filmed on a $15,000 budget.
Then there’s The Fourth Kind. A multi-million dollar movie that combines side-by-side glossy professional reenactments next to the “real” footage interviews of “real” people. And the critics aren’t impressed.
But I am.
Conveniently, my wife and I saw both movies over the weekend, back-to-back. I punch people in the face that give away movie endings or essential plotlines. So there’s no fear in reading this that I will do that. I also hate the clichéd term “spoiler alert” which is yet another reason not to give away anything good about these movies.
To truly explain why The Fourth Kind is so great, I first have to clarify why Paranormal Activity is so awful. Paranormal Activity is in essence a movie I saw 10 years ago; evidently enough time has passed that I should have forgotten about The Blair Witch Project by now. I can safely say that anyone who has seen one has seen the other.
The few minor scary moments are overshadowed by the overwhelming feeling I had as I left the theatre, thinking, “That was it? I could have made that myself. That was so pointless. What a waste of my time and money…”
Paranormal Activity seemed like a good idea: A night-vision camera films a couple as they sleep, as they hope to spot the demonic creature that haunts them (makes noises) at night. The thing is, the thought of anyone watching over another person in their sleep is creepy anyway. I know I wouldn’t want to watch what I do in my own sleep.
Ironically, besides the demon, the other creepy creatures watching over the couple in their sleep are the viewers in the movie theatre themselves.
If the movie is indeed scary, that’s all it’s got going for it: Watching people toss and turn in their sleep, waiting for a demon to show up and maybe stand over the girl, possibly whispering things in her ear.
The reason my wife and I decided to see the movie in the first place was because of friends who warned us, “Don’t go see it! It’s demonic. I’ve had nightmares since I’ve watched it…” After hearing that a few times, nothing could inspire us more to go watch it.
But after seeing Paranormal Activity, I am confident that The Wizard of Oz is freakier than this one. Flying monkeys win any day over an invisible demon banging on the walls downstairs in the living room.
Something I think is funny about Paranormal Activity is that it mixes the ideology of demons with zombies. From all accounts I’ve ever read concerning demon possession, a possessed person does not try to kill other people who aren’t possessed. They try to harm themselves, but not commit murder. Demons are looking for a place to dwell in, not a body to kill. That’s my take, based on what Jesus said in Matthew 12:
“Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came’; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself and they go in and live there… (43-45).”
I’ll put it this way, if a person’s idea of a good comedy TV show is Two and Half Men (which ratings prove that millions do), then there’s a good chance they would think Paranormal Activity is the epitome of horror movies.
And now for the underdog. The Fourth Kind focuses on the clients of Dr. Abigail Taylor, who hypnotizes her “alien abducted” clients into revealing the traumatic events that their minds are not allowing them to remember. They all have the same re-occurring nightmares and remnants of memories involving an owl that visits them in the night.
One of the most terrifying parts of this movie is when the abductees, under hypnosis, try to explain what happened to them. The terror on their faces says it all. And their screams.
The other part of this movie that really stands out to me is when one of the “alien’s” voices is recorded on a tape recorder. The language it speaks in is Sumerian (modern day Iran), which is one of the world’s oldest languages, dating back hundreds of years before Christ.
Interestingly, and this is one of the major reasons I’m fascinated by this movie, when they find a translator to decode what the “alien” said on the tape, the message is actually demonic: “I… am… God.” He also claims to be “savior”. What is misdiagnosed as alien abduction is actually demonic visits/possession.
Another hint of this demonic slant appears when one of the hypnotized abductees describes the re-occurring owl dream as “the ultimate feeling of hopelessness”. That’s a spiritual issue. Especially when combined the “alien’s” statements of ultimate deity.
I admit that if I wasn’t solid in my spiritual beliefs, this movie would keep me up at night (and possibly Paranormal Activity as well). The Bible makes it very clear that a person has put their trust in Jesus as their eternal hope, believing in Him to forgive them for their lifetime of spiritual debt, they will be inhabited by the Holy Spirit- therefore making it impossible for a demon spirit to dwell inside. The New Testament is full of stories about people who were possessed by demons, but none of them knew Jesus at that point.
And the biological half-brother of Jesus wrote in the book of James: “You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. (2:19)”
In the Bible demons were cast out of people by using the name of Jesus and they shuddered at the fearful thought of him. I am inhabited by his Holy Spirit. So why in the world would I be afraid of a demon trying to inhabit me? It’s fascinating. It’s creepy. But I’m not worried it will happen to me.
There’s obviously spiritual warfare to deal with, but that’s a completely different story. That’s not possession; that’s moral combat.
The Fourth Kind is a meatball of sci-fi. It’s like putting all these things in a blender: Unsolved Mysteries, The X-Files, conversations with my Haitian dorm mate (who grew up in a village with witch doctors), LOST, Dateline, and the movie Insomnia.
It’s a pass/fail formula. For me, it works is because it was able to truly suspend my belief. It was completely entertaining. And at least for my wife and me, it was very thought provoking. Enough that we’re planning to see it again this weekend. I call it original, smart, truly frightening, sci-fi spiritual, trippy, and disturbing.
On the downside, I have trouble figuring out whether the acting is either really good or really bad. Plus it’s a movie that’s supposed to be about alien abduction but it’s really about demon possession and this is never addressed in the movie. And most importantly, I’m pretty sure the “real” footage is fake. But it doesn’t really bother me. Because this movie is effective, at least for the 15% of the critics who gave it positive reviews.
Aside from demons, something both Paranormal Activity and The Fourth Kind have in common is the lack of blood and violence. The secret to the scare of both of these thrillers is seeing terror through the victims. Not the beast itself. And that’s unusual in a movie genre crowded with slasher and torture films.
It all comes down to this question: What’s scarier? For a person to lose their life by a killer they can see, or to lose their soul by one that’s invisible?
I am thoroughly amused by advertisements designed for morons. The “healthy” snack franchise Smoothie King wins a special prize in my book. Every morning as I’m driving to work I have to look at their lame sign with a weekly message for passers-by. Every year during the first week of May their marquee reads, “Slim down for summer with a healthy smoothie for dinner”.
Yes, because drinking a smoothie with more sugar than two sodas is going to help the situation. Like having a syrup-based smoothie instead of balanced dinner is going to magically melt the pounds away. Simply hilarious.
But this week’s sign literally made me laugh at loud in the car, looking like a crazy man when seen by the cars next to me at the red light: “Flu season? Not this year! -Immunity Boost”.
Are you Efron kiddin’ me? While Smoothie King’s Echinacea-based “immunity boost” in their smoothies has to do some good, it’s asinine to trust that this $2 shot of an herbal supplement in itself will prevent the flu. So lame.
I’m of the old school of belief that says to let nature just run its course. The more I am exposed to what’s out there, the more immunity my body builds.
While I do catch something more serious every five years like strep throat, in which I have no choice but to visit a doctor and get a prescription to fight it off, I’ve learned in my 28 ½ years that pretty much every week of October 14th, March 28th, and sometimes January 15th, I suffer from major allergic reactions. To the air, I guess. And usually when that happens, it turns into a mild form of sinusitis.
I have encountered this so many times that it’s just a part of life to me now. Being that I get around five sick days a year from my employer, I use them for the days of the year I have the most severe symptoms: migraines, toothaches, oversensitive skin, body aches, depression, lack of appetite, inability to focus, foggy short-term memory.
Since I have dealt with allergy and sinus issues most of my life, I know that what many people call being “sick”, I simply call a “bad allergy and sinus week”. Unless I have a lasting fever or am unable to swallow food and keep it down, I am not sick. And I’m definitely not wasting my time and money to go pay a doctor to give me a prescription to weaken my own body’s ability to fight off what I can become stronger by suffering through.
If I’m gonna be “sick”, I might as well enjoy three straight days of Netflix online streaming without the interruption of a doctor visit.
In the final scene of the 1983 classic holiday movie, A Christmas Story, Ralphie’s family is forced to have their Christmas dinner at a Chinese restaurant because their neighbors’ dogs ate the turkey. Today I had my first holiday dinner of the season. I reminded myself how miserable I would be (like with every other holiday feast) if I ate too much.
For the first time ever, I was successful. I controlled myself. I didn’t feel like I had been given a tranquilizer dart after the meal.
But even with the careful planning of portion control, it’s easy to eat too much and feel groggy the rest of the day. I discovered why today. Holiday dinner are a Chinese buffet, in disguise. All the major elements are there:
Meat that has little flavor (turkey). Cooked vegetables that are saturated in butter and often intertwined with pork (green beans). Plenty of carbs (mashed potatoes, hash brown casserole, macaroni and cheese, and of course, dressing). And a sugary dessert (carrot cake, pumpkin pie, egg nog). All set up on two big folding tables. Come-and-go-as-you-please-there’s-plenty-more style.
Really, eating Chinese food for the holidays isn’t much different than what we do anyway. Except there are no labels required to inform us of exactly which meat is being served. Because that’s never a good thing.
As followers of the financial superhero Dave Ramsey, my wife and I are both allotted $10 each at the beginning of every week for what is called “blow money.” We can waste it on whatever we want: going out for lunch (instead of bringing our lunch to work), buying a CD, picking up a magazine at the book store, anything that would fall under the category of “disposable income”.
Because it’s evitable we all blow money each week. It keeps us from going crazy. Besides, we all “deserve it”. But my wife and I are putting perimeters on this human tradition. In the terminology of a child, it’s our weekly allowance. The rest of our income is for our needs (groceries, gas, etc.) and paying off our debts. No exceptions.
In the past year since we started doing this, my “blow money” has mainly been spent on the cheapest coffee available at Starbucks ($1.75 with tax). Taking the five minute drive during my lunch break as my workday escape. Sitting in a comfy leather chair, reading a book, sipping what truly is wonderful coffee.
And really, I must admit that a major reason I frequented Starbucks is because all of the staff there knew me by name. There is much truth in the lyric from the Cheers theme song, “You want to go where everybody knows your name.” But like any fast food joint (which Starbucks definitely is, just an upscale version of one), the place has an extremely high turnover in staff.
I realized last week all the people I knew there have gone on. And I just don’t feel like starting over with a new cast of characters. So as of last week, I stopped going.
Conveniently at the same time, I learned that the new office I now work in is a two minute walk from a beautiful walking park. So now I can take a nature walk (comparable to a state park) during my lunch break and read outside at a picnic table next to the flowing creek beside me. And when it’s too cold, I can walk an extra five minutes to Barnes and Noble and get the warm atmosphere I liked so much at Starbucks.
So now each week I use less gas, get more exercise, see the great outdoors, and don’t waste $10 a week on coffee. And now I’ve converted back to work coffee, bringing in good creamer from home like Spiced Vanilla. Still, work coffee is pretty awful. I entitle it “Cigarettes: The Drinkable Version”.
In 8th grade, I saved my parents plenty of money because instead of hoping for new cool clothes for the 1994-1995 school year, I just used my dad’s closet as my wardrobe. At the time, I was around 5’ 6”, compared to my dad who is 5’ 11”. Obviously there was a notable size difference at the time, but it didn’t matter.
Because I didn’t need Tommy Hilfiger to be cool. I needed my dad’s long sleeved, button down shirts (AKA “casual dress shirts”). Worn unbuttoned over any random t-shirt pulled out of the drawer. And it didn’t really matter if the shirts matched each other either.
Fifteen years later, I now wear long-sleeved, button down shirts every day to work. Uncomfortably tucked into dress pants to look professional. And when I get home, I change into jeans. But the shirt stays.
Why are casual dress shirts so awesome? A few simple reasons.
Most importantly, they are made from thin, yet quality material. I am a man, therefore I get hot easily. That being said, casual dress shirts are designed so that the sleeves can easily be rolled up, and because of the turbulence of the buttons on the sleeves, they actually stay up, unlike a sweater or hoodie. And people think that rolled up sleeves on these shirts look good. It’s professional/hip.
And with a casual dress shirt, no one really has to know how little money I spend on them. There are no obvious logos to notice. I buy most of mine from the Unclaimed Baggage Center near my hometown for around $6.
These shirts link back to boyhood. Transformers, Go-Bots, and even Legos. Boys love things that change into different things. I can go from a professional working man to a casual dude (but not a slouch).
Hoodies are great, but they do have a sloppy connotation attached. And sweaters are okay, but sometimes when I wear them, I feel like I’m wearing a sweatshirt, which makes me think of Hanz and Franz from early 1990’s Saturday Night Live.
Long sleeved, button downs are the jam. And best of all, when my wife and I are out somewhere and she gets cold, which is indeed a constant occurrence, I can sacrifice my casual dress shirt to keep her warm. Only to reveal the dorky Transformers t-shirt I happen to be wearing underneath. Double win.
The thought of cursing has a completely different stigma for Christians, namely Evangelicals. There’s this underlying rule that alarms our consciences, telling us that serious believers don’t use those words. Because it will hurt our testimony. It will keep an unbeliever from believing.
By not cursing, Christians stand out in the crowd and others may take notice, perhaps wanting to know why we are different. Like my pastor says, “It’s not that Christians are different that keeps unbelievers from believing; it’s that we’re not different enough.”
Like being a preacher’s kid, we have to live by a higher standard because our behavior is watched so closely. So just to make sure we have some way of feeling normal in society, we use the Youth Pastor Approved Church Cuss Words: crap, butt, sucks, idiot, freak, frickin’, screw, and dang it.
My first summer teaching English in Thailand was in 2003. The Christian school I worked for also had their own Baptist church there at the school facility. The whole service was in the Thai language, but a Thai translator spoke into a microphone which connected to headphones for us American and Canadian teachers to understand.
One Sunday the preacher was telling a story about how a few years before, he had to get an expensive crown put on one of his teeth. Shortly after he had the procedure done, he ate an apple. It didn’t take long before he realized he had eaten the crown. So he had to sift through his own crap for a week to find it. It worked. He found it. And took it to the dentist and got the crown put back on his tooth.
Awesome story. Especially to hear it in church from the pastor. But the funniest thing about the story to us Americans and Canadians is that our native Thai translator used the only word she knew for poop, and that was “shit”.
Throughout that first summer in Thailand I learned that “poo” and “poop” and “crap” are American words, not necessarily standard English. But “shit” is. When people whose first language is not English need to say “crap”, there is only one word that universally can be conveyed in English to everyone. The standard ended up being “shit”.
I remember trying to teach some Thai friends the word “crap”, helping them understand it’s a less offensive word. But because the Thai language and most Asian languages don’t really have an “R” sound in them, it’s pretty difficult for them to say “crap”. It sounds more like “kwlrwap”. I tried. The standard remains.
Ironically, it’s one of the very few words that is always bleeped out on American cable TV. America does not accept it as a standard, but much of the rest of the word does.
While the King James Version of the Bible does contain the word “piss” (2 Kings 18:27) and multiple uses of “hell” and “damnation”, there are not many words used by Christians in the Bible that could even remotely being considered cussing or cursing.
The only time I’ve ever seen an example of a Christian actually using profanity was when Peter denied Christ. He even swore to a young girl, insisting he wasn’t friends with Jesus.
It would have been nice to have taken Greek, Hebrew, and Latin languages in college like my seminary friends did. I have read from several different sources that the original languages of the Bible contained instances of Christians cursing. Like Paul the Apostle saying, “Hell no! May it never be!” And instead of saying that our human works are garbage, that they are “shit”. And that when Jesus was angry with the Pharisees, his use of the term “vipers” was a major insult in that day, worthy of a PG rating.
I don’t mind explaining the history of cuss words, but for the most part, they just don’t end up in my everyday speech. Minor injuries help though. And Nashville traffic.
But despite the connotations certain words convey, whether they are acceptable or vulgar, the true issue is a person’s heart. Black and white lines can’t be drawn to establish what words a Christian should and should not say. And while no one would take a potty-mouthed preacher seriously, it can be quite like a Pharisee to walk around with a mental score card of his own or other’s use of vocabulary.
These sort of things have a way of working themselves out. A person who spends time reading about and praying to their God will somehow end up speaking words of love and truth. Like the opposite of “garbage in, garbage out”.
It was the summer of 1988 that I became aware of “bad words”. My mom explained to me that there were certain words I wasn’t supposed to say. I didn’t know what these words were until I heard them on TV or a movie. Then, when an actor said one, my mom would look at me with this almost angry Italian face: eyes wide, lips curled in. It conveyed, “That’s one of the bad words. It’s bad. Don’t say that word…”
After waiting all summer for “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” to come to our small town theatre (which back then only showed four movies at a time), the day had finally arrived. My sister and I put on our Roger Rabbit t-shirts and loaded up in the Bronco II with our mom.
That was the only time I saw that movie. Twenty-one years ago. Something about a cartoon rabbit who marries a human woman and tries to escape an evil man who melts cartoons in acid. What I remember most about it is counting five specific times during the movie that my mom turned to me to give me the Italian face.
Movies are a good way for a kid to learn the basic library of cuss words. Junior High classmates take care of the rest.
For me the most irony in the world of profanity is in teaching kids not to use them. I never understood why so many kids movies contain two or three minor cuss words. It’s not like when Disney-Pixar movies contain minor innuendoes for the adults to laugh about. Adults don’t think that a kids movie is any better because a few mild profanities have been sprinkled in. And with the effort to teach kids not to use those words, why even do it?
The only reasonable answer I have for this is the fact that PG-rated movies make more movies than G-rated movies. In case the dark atmosphere and scary feel of Where the Wild Things Are wasn’t enough to ensure a PG-rating, the two uses of “damn” and one use of “hell” made sure it happened.
A few cuss words can literally make thousands of more dollars in movie ticket and DVD sales. Because everyone knows that G-rated movies are completely lame.
Despite popular belief, there is actually a difference between cursing and “cussing”. Cursing involves any harm wished upon another person or thing- whether spiritual, physical or sexual. This refers to damnation and the Big F (I’ve decided to stop using the term “f-bomb”; it’s becoming cliché). But “cussing” encompasses everything else:
Random, petty uses of actual curse words as exclamations or “emphisizers”, but not wishing harm to anything or anyone References to sexual activity and sexual organs References to excrement and body parts associated with it Disrespectful terms for women or implications that her children are illegitimate
Like so many words in our language, we have established a severity system for cuss words and their lesser forms. We never question why “hate” is a stronger word than “dislike”. But everyone knows that “hate” is more severe. It’s part of an understood system that we all live by. This idea is the root behind what makes certain words cuss words and make their minor synonyms more appropriate for wider audiences.
In college one of the weirdest classes I took was Chinese Geography 420. While the final exam was a breeze (pass/fail: we all had to go eat dinner at a Chinese restaurant with the professor), we had to read a ton of books on the history of Communism in China. In one of the books I read about an American man teaching English there, he said that the Chinese cuss word used to insult a woman is “turtle”. Therefore, one of the most offensive ways to insult another man is to call him a “son of a turtle”. Americans chose dogs to insult a woman; the Chinese chose turtles.
The history of the word “ass” is pretty interesting. “Ass” has been the term for what we know as a donkey for centuries, but the word “donkey” is a fairly new word; it only showed up in print for the first time in 1785. As people began using the word “ass” to refer to buttocks, more people started using the word “donkey” to refer to the animal, as to not confuse the listener. Now in the 2000’s, if anyone says the word “ass” to refer to a donkey, we laugh at them. Because they’re completely out of touch with current word use and all we think of when we hear the word is somebody’s butt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donkey
These days, people leave off the “ed” at the end “damn” when they use the word as an adjective. As seen in William Shakespeare’s Lady MacBeth, “damn” (the adjective) was once “damned”. As Lady MacBeth walks in her sleep, imagining the blood of the king is stained on her hands, she says: “Out, damned spot, out I say!” If that line were translated today, it would be, “Get out, ya damn spot!”
“Damn” is a curse word simply because of its ties to Christianity. A more old-fashioned and classic use of the word is, “Well I’ll be damned if…” More recently, “I’ll be damned if the Yankees win.” In this example, someone who is a Christian and fully confident in their salvation through Christ is proclaiming that if the Yankees win (which they don’t believe will happen), that person will lose their salvation (which they believe is impossible). The statement shows the lack of faith in the Yankees and the abundance of faith in God.
Every curse word, major and minor, is considered profane for a reason. “Damn” is a curse word because it takes a holy issue (God’s sole ability to curse, as the supreme judge of all) and makes it common. As a kid, I was always confused by the 2nd Commandment: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” Because I didn’t know what “in vain” meant.
I’ve come to realize that taking something in vain doesn’t necessarily mean making it obscene, it means making it common. God doesn’t want us to make his name common and basic, like Bob or road or dog. He wants his name to be set apart. Because that’s what being holy is: set apart.
On the heartwarming/annoying/over-the-top/predictable hit show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, the part of the show that I love to hate the most is the end, where each member of the family walks into their new bedroom for the first time, placing their hands over their mouth, then shouts, “oh my God!”. That phrase is used no less than 10 times during that segment of each episode. But sometimes, the family members are aware of the purpose of the 2nd Commandment, and instead say, “oh my gosh”.
The word “damn” has less to do with obscenity and more to do with a form of “taking God’s name in vain”. Unless a person says to another, “Damn you” (literally translated, “go to hell”). But people don’t actually say that.
So ultimately, I pretty much just steer clear of the word. Because I can’t really think of a time when I would need God to damn anything or any person for my sake. And to say the word loosely is to possibly be a form of using God’s name in vain. (Unless of course I find myself writing a 1,353 word post on the subject.) As technical and nerdy and extreme as it may sound, that is the reason “damn” is a “cuss word”.
However, I think the word is great when used in a sentence that is completely void of any spiritual connotation: “The Balloon Dad’s damning evidence was his own son, who innocently confirmed on camera that the whole thing was just a publicity stunt”. But people tend to shy away from using it that way, thinking that “damn” is always a curse word. Ironically, the word itself is damned.
The curse word that I am most interested in is the actual epitome of cursing: “damn”. Throughout the centuries it has evolved into an adjective and also an exclamation, but it was, and still is, a verb and/or state of being (damnation). Religiously, to damn a thing or a person is to sentence it or them to hell, for eternal punishment. And literally, that is something only God has the ability to actually do. (When used outside of any sort of religiously affiliation whatsoever, something that is damned is blacklisted or given a tabooed connotation.)
So when a man accidently hits his thumb with a hammer and yells “damn it”, what he is literally doing is telling God to curse the hammer (or the accident itself) to hell. “Damn it” is a phrase that is short for a full sentence. “Damn” is the verb, “it” is the direct object”, but what is the subject? God. The full phrase is “God damn it”.
But people leave out God’s name most of the time as to not curse His name. However, I have thought this through: People are not cursing God’s name when they say “God damn it”- to do that they would have to say “damn God”. No one actually says that.
When people say “damn it” they are literally (and unknowingly) telling God to cast something into hell. It’s like saying an irreverent prayer for an unimportant issue: “God, cast this annoying situation into hell for eternal punishment.” That is the literal translation of “damn it” as well as “God damn it”. Both phrases are one in the same- most people just don’t realize it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damn
While “God damn it” is one of the most offensive phrases in the American English language, it’s not the same over in England and Australia, and all those other countries were English is the main language spoken. That phrase is very rarely used there. When it is, it’s more of a nod to American culture. And it’s not usually offensive to them, either. It’s meaningless. They are unaware of the status it has with Americans.
However, they’ve got their own extremely offensive religious curse that means nothing to us: “bloody”. When we repeat lines from British movies like Monty Python, we say it. But that’s about it. But to a British person, when they hear “it’s bloody cold out here”, it translates with a much more vulgar connotation. “Bloody” refers to the blood of Christ when he died on the cross.
And I personally find that much more offensive than shallowly telling God to damn something to hell (which in turn is mistakenly viewed as cursing God’s name). Because when “bloody” is used as a curse, it’s taking the blood of Christ in vain. To me, it’s pretty clear: The British religious curse is much worse than the American one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody
An introduction to the history of “cussing” by a guy who is actually applying what he learned from his English degree. Some people are just wired to stay up late at night and think about this kind of stuff.
Something that has always fascinated me is society’s response to curse words. And based on the fact that by far the most read and searched-for post on my site is “Jenny Slate Will Not Be Fired for F-Word Accident”, I take it that I’m not the only one who realizes there are no solid guidelines or expectations when it comes to the use of “profanity”.
And that’s where the fascination comes in. Who makes the rules about this stuff? We do. A society’s popular culture is governed by what truly is accepted or rejected by its people.
Before 1983, if anyone tried to say “sucks” on TV, it would be bleeped out. Bill Maher is credited as being the first person to go uncensored saying it when, as a guest on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, he proclaimed, “Yeah, airports suck.”
It’s hard to imagine words like “sucks”, “crap”, and “butt” being actual curse words or profanity. I file them under “crossover cuss words”. Because at one time, many people found them to be quite offensive. But now these words have become so mainstream, their vulgarity has diminished.
They are no longer profane; though I wouldn’t use them in a conversation with someone I would call “sir”. Like a preacher or an older person. I also wouldn’t say them while wearing a suit and tie. (That would in some strange way make me feel hypocritical. Suits are supposed to make people professional.)
The invisible rules are set in place by… us. I admit in the back of my mind I do find in a little weird that “sucks” is so mainstream. Maybe I’m the only one who still thinks it refers to oral sex. But on the SNL skit “Wayne’s World”, one of Wayne’s phrases was “That sucks donkey!” It only makes sense that if a person says something sucks, they are implying it is participating in the sexual act. Because, why else would “sucks” be bad at all? It’s sexual. But no one seems to notice or care so I decided years ago just to go along with it.
These invisible rules of profanity work both ways. Vulgar words can be made acceptable and acceptable words can be made vulgar.
When a small kid falls and bumps their head, there is a Two Second Delay where he or she must decide whether to cry or to laugh, whether it is a painful or funny moment. They must choose which they want more- nurture or fellowship. As an older brother in 1987, I clearly remember that happening to my sister, who was three years old at the time. I said, “Dana, don’t cry. Laugh instead.”
Then I started making indistinguishable animal sounds and rolling my eyes and puffing up my cheeks. Her facial expression went from the verge of crying to actually laughing instead. That’s when I learned that it is possible influence the response of a young child during The Two Second Delay. Since then, I have been keeping this in mind as I am exposed to antsy kids in shopping carts at stores, forced to go shopping with their moms.
Last Sunday, in the produce section of the local Publix, a Russian-speaking mom with her little boy and girl facing her as they both sat in the cart caught my attention. The boy was grabbing for some grapes and his mom told him no. So he did it what he knew best.
He started squalling. Whining. Crying. Over grapes.
The Russian mom’s back was turned away from me, but the boy could clearly see me from 15 feet away. I made eye contact with him and started doing my best impression of a bumbling buffoon. It worked. From tears to giggles.
And the best part: I only did it when his sister, who was sitting right beside him, was looking the other way. So every 10 seconds, I would make stupid faces at the boy. Immediately, he would tug on his mom’s shirt sleeve and bump his sister with his elbow, each time failing to get their attention in order to see me before I stopped.
This happened for several minutes, as we all made our way through the the fruits and vegetables. And I never got caught. That boy went home, with his mom and sister, both thinking he was crazy for pointing at nothing. I’m sure they were just glad he stopped his tantrum.
I have been doing this procedure for about 20 years. It’s really great. I highly recommend it.
