Zzz...

The finish line is here! This final post completes the blogathon. I am tired and ready for a break from blogging. Wednesday, I head down to Orlando with my family for an early Summer vacation. I've never been to Disney World; I'm pretty excited. 

The blogathon has been a good experience/exercise. I will probably write an entry reflecting on what I learned in the process sometime next week. Thanks for following my little endeavor. I'll be back soon.

Your feedback is appreciated

This phrase always sounds pregnant to me. When someone tells me that my “feedback is appreciated,” I don't feel appreciated nearly as much as I feel that I am being asked to give feedback. Let me rephrase; the feedback you have given has been appreciated.

You have been good readers. I don't exactly know who you are though. A couple of people have posted comments, others have said things to me in person. I think feedback is necessary for blogging. Not quite as necessary as an audience's laughter and/or jeering is for a stand up comedian, but necessary. Mostly it lets me know people are reading.

X-treme Cheese!

Yuck. Someone ordered one of our “X-treme Cheese” pizzas and then asked for extra, extra cheese. This comes through the computer as cheese times 4. So basically 7 to 8 cups of cheese on a 16” pizza. “Uh...yeah...do you guys have that new 16 inch 'get me backed up for a week' pizza? You know, the one with all the cheese?”

I don't know if it is just in America or a worldwide epidemic, but this obsession with cheese is absolutely disgusting. People just can't get enough of the stuff. “More cheese! Extra cheese!” they chant, and we give it to them. Stuff it in the crust! Melt some more on the top! Put a layer in the dough! Put some under as well as over the toppings! Gross.

I actually quite enjoy cheese. But I usually crave Gouda, Havarti, parmesan, Swiss, Colby, MontereyJack, provolone or cheddar, not pounds of melted mozzarella on starchy bread.    

"What do you do?"

I really don't like this question. It seems like the goto introductory question when there is ice to break with a new acquaintance. I try to put this question off as long as possible. I might start with “Nice to meet you. How do you know so-and-so?” or maybe, “Where are you from/where's home?” This is because I, myself, hate being asked the question “What do you do?”

Like it or not, work is like the caste system in this country, and your occupation puts you in a category in people's minds. Thankfully this is not always the case, but most of the time we link our identity and the identities of others to a job. Never mind that Larry the bank teller may be a fantastic tango dancer, a poet, a tenor, a father. He is a bank teller.

So I often want to reply to “what do you do?” with “I am a direct sales representative for a major international narcotics supplier,” and as they pause to process this, I would reaffirm boldly, “I'm a drug dealer.”

Usually, I simply reply with “you mean, for money?” making the inquisitor feel embarrassed for asking such a rude question. “Pardon me sir, what do you do for money?” Why not be a little more obvious with the query, “Would you consider yourself more bourgeois or bohemian? Are you a 'white collar professional,' intellectual, floating hippie, or simply a working class layman?”

Naturally I have thought about the question more—and it has bothered me more—because I currently work a service industry job that requires little education and training. I also embody a cliché – the liberal arts student who delivers pizza. But most of the time I really just don't care what people think. This is the perfect job for where I am in life right now. I am raising money to go overseas and do mission work with a non-profit organization. I'm only on the States for another year or so, and the job market is pretty lousy right now too. Honestly, right now I am just thankful to have a job.

I do notice a significant difference in tone, however, between conversations where I answer with “I deliver pizza” early on and conversations where what I “do” comes up later, after someone has gotten an idea of who I am and what I am about.

Very Short Entry

Six words short, to be exact.

Ulysses (and other bad baby names)

I could never name my kid Ulysses...or Hercules, Rasputin, Nero, Achilles, Adolph, Barack, Voldemort, Crispin, Ganondorf, Drogan, Icarus, Darth, Bart, Akuji, Jolon, Princess, Ryu, Alva, Ravana, Teivel, Iyzebel, Baal, Ahab, Soren, Anakin, Neo, Dartagnan, Bogart, Zuma, Oedipus, Ares, Zeus, Apple, Orange, Atlas, Steropes, Polyphemus, Metope, Midas, Medusa, Moses, Samson...

Tipping

The tips I receive while delivering pizza are pretty erratic. I will get stiffed on a couple orders and then maybe get $10 from some generous (or ignorant) soul. I have calculated my average several times and it always comes out to around $2-3 per delivery. I have tried to find a correlation between the demographics of the costumers and the amounts they tip. I have thought about everything from socio-economic bracket to age, ethnicity, number of pies ordered, and political leaning (usually signified by a bumper sticker on the customer's car) but have rarely seen any connection.

I wonder if it is purely coincidental though that when I deliver to a trailer I often get $5, and when I deliver to a multi-million dollar home (garage bigger than my whole house sort of thing) I might get handed a twenty dollar bill for a $19.73 total and told to “keep the change.” My favorite was a recent delivery where the total was $29.75. The woman wrote me a check for $29.50 and then handed me a quarter. Wow. I was so stunned I couldn't feel offended.

And the thing is, do I deserve a tip? I keep this job for the tips—all delivery guys do—but why is everything based on tipping? Tipping is not taught in school. Most of the time, unless I am in a restaurant or bar, I still don't know who or how much to tip. How much do you tip a bellhop, a cab driver, a valet, a hair stylist? As a result of working as a waiter, barista, and now delivery driver I am a much better tipper than I ever was. When I go out to eat I rarely think of leaving less than 20%. But why is such a significant amount of the cost hidden and/or at the discretion of the customer? This means the worker providing the service is at the mercy of the customer for a chunk of their income. I really don't think this makes the worker perform better though.

In England I noticed they don't have tipping – or at least that's what it seemed like; maybe just much lower tipping. From what I heard, the waiters and bar tenders were paid flat hourly rates, and when you bought food or a drink everything was included in the price. You could tip if you wanted, but it was not expected the way it is over here.

During many shifts, in order to keep a positive attitude, I continually remind myself that “it all averages out.” This is somehow supposed to ease my frustration after driving down a long bumpy gravel road at the edge of our delivery zone to bring some recluse in a log cabin 3 pizza pies, some bread sticks, a cinaswirl desert thing, and 2 beverages only to get molested by his wolf-like dog and receive no tip. I wonder if I wouldn't care as much if there were no tips and just a flat hourly wage. It would make the job less interesting; that's for sure.       

Starbucks

A large purple chair slowly swallows me while caffeine rushes through the blood stream of my nervous body, my foot quickly and involuntarily twitching back and forth while Frankie Vallie wails over the in store radio “...I love you baby...and if it's quite alright, I need you baby...” I take another sip of very over-roasted, slightly over-priced Arabica coffee as my eyes scan the room: Two business men talk over a laptop and a legal pad. A crying woman covers her face with her hands while the man next to her reaches over and speaks hushed cliché consolations, “...I'm sorry...I really care about you...I never wanted it to be like this...” A young stylish guy—who seems to have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to look like a disheveled rock star—sits behind a Macbook Pro and adjusts his white earbuds while shaking his finger rhythmically – perhaps in time with the track he is editing for his band. 

Starbucks is a strange environment. It's a place where people make up as well as break up, where people enjoy community and fellowship while others experience isolation and loneliness. The modern coffee house (which, in the suburbs, is basically limited to Starbucks) is America's third space (not home, not work, other place). In England they have pubs (short for “public house) where people meet up or unwind in the evenings. In American it seems we mostly have bars, which are usually not as inviting or friendly as pubs, and we meet up for caffeine and sugar in the evenings.

I am not too fond of Starbucks coffee, but at least three or four times a week I visit one of the half dozen Starbucks locations less than 10 miles from my house. Why? Caffeine addiction and habit are two reasons, but mostly it's because “Sure! Let's meet up for coffee next week.” Starbucks is the common meeting spot. Meetings with church friends, work friends, old friends, and my weekly Bible study group all take place at one of the ubiquitous green monster's many locations. Furthermore, the bearable (and sometimes genuinely good) music, the predictable (if burnt and mediocre) coffee, the amazingly addictive cake donut, and the familiarity of my favorite reading chair (sort of) are all parts of the song sung by the siren (perhaps the one in the logo) to draw me in.

When people see me drinking out of a Starbucks cup, I often worry that they are making certain assumptions. Mostly that I paid $4/5 for my drink, and that I go to Starbucks everyday. This is because I assume these very things about the people I see with Starbucks cups. The Starbucks cup seems to be a symbol of consumerism and waste (even if the cup is partly made from recycled fibers). I often want to speak out in defense against the silent critic, the stranger watching me drink out of my 8 oz (short) paper cup. “I actually almost never buy a drink over $2. This drink I'm holding now actually only cost $1.63. And I only go about four times a week. I bet you buy a 20 oz Diet Coke ($1.58) everyday you pious jerk” Honestly, I usually don't have a well of hatred for strangers (or really anyone), but my point is illustrated.

Starbucks is an interesting part of our world. I could talk further about it (the culture of employee interaction between different stores, some of the silly policies, etc.), but I will end here.

Radio, play my favorite song

I am not quite old enough to remember the album-rock era when radio stations would play whole albums, but the quality of commercial radio has gone down significantly in my lifetime. Most of my peers seem to have completely abandoned the medium in favor of iPods and CDs. "There's never anything good on the radio," they say. 

I have to disagree. Regardless of how homogenized, repetitive, and obnocious many radio stations have seem to become, I still find good stuff. Sometimes you have to flip around for a while, but there is good music on the radio. Maybe I feel this way because I like so many kinds of mainstream music. 

There are roughly three dozen FM radio stations in Atlanta. If you discount the non-English stations, country music stations, Christian radio (about twice a year I hear something descent on Christian radio), and NPR (which is great, but not for music) you are still left with a handful of good stations. My presets include two Top-40 Pop stations, one Hip-hop station, a soft rock station, an Alternative Rock/Adult Contemporary station, two college stations, two classic rock stations, and an oldies station. Sifting through the fluff and rubish (Fergie, Nickleback, etc.) I still seem to hear plenty of good stuff (David Bowie, Sigur Ros, Natalie Merchant, U2, Peter Gabriel). 

So you might wonder why I wouldn't just play the songs I want from my iPod. (And actually it is rare that I hear a good song on the radio that I don't have.) There is just something about the unpredictability of radio. Even if I put my iPod on shuffle, I am not as genuinely surprised or excited when say David Bowie's "Modern Love" comes on as when it comes on the radio in between mediocre singles by lesser artists. 

Yes. I'm basically saying that I often wade through the crap on the radio because it makes those little diomonds shine brighter. If David Bowie's "Modern Love" comes on the radio (which is not a very common occurance) I get pretty excited. I could turn off the radio and play the song from my Best Of Bowie CD or from my iPod, but of course I don't. I listen to it in lower, compressed quality via an FM signal miles way, because of an inexplicable excitement that comes from the radio format. I spend hours in the car, and I listen to plenty of audiobooks and full albums (good Jazz is particularly hard to find on the radio). But when I turn on the radio, even if the music is more lousy than good for given stretch, it's like someone is in the car with me. Even when the DJs are automated recordings, it's like there is a living, unpredictable thing sharing the audiospace. 

Oh, and I love pop. That's also a pretty genuine reason. I will never have to pay to hear Kanye West, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and many others thanks to the radio. The radio that introduces me to fun pop singles is also responsible for making me hate and dispise them months later, but still, I like the radio. 

Q is for Singles and Albums

The arrival of digital music has meant several things for the way we listen to music and the way it is made. Musically there seems to be a return to a pre-Beatles singles culture, where individual songs are more important than full albums. Obviously it doesn't work to use a full album as the background music to  your Youtube video, or as the song that welcomes viewers to your Myspace page, or as your ringtone (it'd probably be best for phones to not ring constantly for 40-80 min anyway). Furthermore, while you can certainly listen to full albums on your iPod, digital music players are like pocket juke boxes. It's the ultimate mix making machine. How can you resist the temptation to tailor a playlist to the moment?

Artists are adjusting to the change differently. The recently reunited (sort of) Smashing Pumpkins announced recently that they plan to never record a full album again; they will only release singles. Frontman and songwriter Billy Corgan says people don't want anything but the hits. Meanwhile Jay-Z wouldn't sell his album American Gangster through iTunes because he wanted to ensure that people would listen to the album as a whole and not just download the song “Roc Boys” (I still found a way to just download the one song).   

Many songs seem to work better as singles than as album cuts though. An example would be “Take On Me” by A-ha. I bought the full LP containing this song a couple years ago, and while the whole album is surprisingly solid, that opening track feels like its own entity. If the tracks were paintings hung in a gallery, “Take On Me” would need its own room. I don't think the song is necessarily better than the others on Hunting High and Low, but it was meant to be a single. I would guess that, of the people who have heard “Take On Me,” over 99% of them heard it as a single instead of in context with the album. In fact, when I get to the end of the song my mind does not expect to hear track two of the album, Hunting High and Low. I naturally assume an 80s pop hit by another band will come on next, because the context of the song is usually a mix disc or an 80s radio show like “Retro in the Metro.”    

Because of digital music stores like iTunes no one has to pay $10 for a reissue CD of Hunting High and Low if all they want to hear is “Take On Me.” They can buy that one song for $.99 (I actually only paid $3 for the whole album, but not everyone is ready to re-embrace the turntable and vinyl records.)

I admit I have often listened through full albums that had plenty of filler just out of the principle of listening to the whole album. The assumption is that the artist put much time and energy into the whole thing, that every track is like a child to the artist. With some albums this is the case, and every track is phenomenal because the album is made up of only 12 or 14 songs chosen from the 50 that came out of the recording sessions. But then there are artists that have just one good song that they didn’t even write (an example being Natalie Imbruglia and her hit “Torn”) and the rest of the album is mediocre, even if written by the artist on the cover.

I’m not sure what I’m trying to say exactly. Listen to full albums. Feel free to listen to singles. I think the act of listening to just one song gets a bad rap, as though the listener is doing the artist an injustice. Some songs, like “Torn,” work great as singles. On the other hand, some stellar albums are ignored because all that stands out is the single. 

Perception vs. Reality

I rarely cry while watching Youtube. The other day I teared up though, while watching a clip from the show “Britain's Got Talent.” The contestant Susan Boyle blew judges and audience members away with her stunning singing voice. Everyone was especially surprised though, because Miss Boyle does not look anything like a celebrity (aspiring or other). She is not quite on the same planet as the Hollywood ideal. This normal looking, middle-aged woman was harshly viewed as frumpy and embarrassingly unattractive. So when she opened up her mouth and sang with the voice of an angel people were shocked.

I feel a glimmer of hope as I watch the cynical shallow standard of the media being exposed for what it is, even if only slightly. My brother pointed out to me the other day, however, that Miss Boyle is still only being appreciated because of her skill, her performance. She would unfortunately not be seen as a special and valuable person by the judges and audience if she were simply frumpy and had a bad voice. She would have been scorned and ridiculed publicly.

Still, a powerful moment. Check out the video here -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PPlkOyaqaQ

Obesity

This tends to be a controversial topic. There is much to qualify, bounds to overstep, people to offend. Thankfully today's post isn't really about obesity so much as it is about humans with issues (which is all of us).

I often feel remorse for quickly judging a significantly overweight person on account of their size. I'm not talking about people with a few extra pounds; I'm talking about unhealthy weight. I realize the reasons behind an individual's obesity could be anything and everything from genes and metabolisms that are especially unaccommodating to the typical processed American diet to food addiction and laziness. I often find myself assuming the later.

Even if someone's obesity is completely their fault though, I don't see why they should have to suffer socially the way they do. Obese people are viewed differently. A specific one of their imperfections is visibly obvious to everyone, and almost instantly they are judged.

What is interesting is that we all have major issues, imperfections. We lack discipline, are conceited, greedy, lack compassion, are driven to success for many selfish reasons. Many of us are just much better at hiding our vices. It seems like often times when I see someone who is obese, it's like they have a sign on them that says they have a problem. But everyone has problems. There is no sign reading "addicted to approval and performance-driven living" attached to the woman standing in front of me in the checkout line, or a sign reading "compulsive liar, gossiper, and backbiter" pined to the man socializing at the bar, or an arrow pointing to the jogger saying "this guy has a major gambling problem." No. I just see a perky, slightly stressed woman, a man talking with some friends, and a guy going for a run. But when I see an obese person I immediately "know" they are lazy and overeat (this is actually often not the case). I don't really know anything about them, but one of their problems seems pretty obvious. 

Nothing To Say

[Written 4/16]

I didn't post yesterday, the 15th, because I didn't have anything to say. I feel like writing is part of a larger conversation, and I'm feeling more and more that I just need to be listening and learning at this stage of life. Sometimes I wonder if I have any insights to contribute at all, but on other days I feel like writing a confident unapologetic book of thoughts and reflections as though I had a wealth of life experience behind me. I actually have lived a lifetime. I'm only 23, but if I died today it would have been a lifetime, right?

I've told myself I should be writing some of these ahead of time, but that hasn't really worked out. I also just found that I can change the post time of a given entry. Seems like cheating, but it keeps the whole post per day blogathon going. And I am managing to do this alphanumeric posting order as well. 

Motivation

It's difficult to be motivated all the time. Honestly, I think it's difficult to be motivated most of the time. I often hear the term self-motivation, and simply can't seem to grasp what exactly it is, or how it could truly be a reality.

This past fall I worked in direct sales for a privately owned dealer of a major brand home security system. Cold calling. Door to door. It was emotionally brutal. Rejection after rejection. Occasionally I would win someone over at the door. They would be convinced enough of my authenticity and the legitimacy of my “free promotion” that they would invite me inside and eventually provide me, an “Advertising Representative,” with their Social Security number (for credit check purposes), their banking info (EFT for the monthly payment), and a check for the $99.00 activation fee. This was no small feat, and I would have never made a sale if it had not been for my wingman, an older friend who got me the job and then helped train me.

Each morning I would show up for a sales meeting (read: pep rally) at the company “office,” an unbelievably depressing building they were leasing that appeared to have once been a fast food restaurant, maybe a Taco Bell. My boss (and sometimes his boss) would stand in front of the group of washed-up former used car salesmen, out of work contractors, and drifting philosophy majors (the last category included only my friend and me), and spew catch phrases like “fake it till you make it!” and “people's fear of loss is greater than their anticipation of gain!” (At the end of the meeting he would ask, “What are we gonna do today?!” and we were to respond with “Help people! Have fun! Make money!” My friend said it reminded him of being in the Marines where they would respond with “Kill! Kill! Kill!”.

Anyway, at one of the meetings (my last one actually) I looked at the co-worker sitting next to me; he seemed to be taking notes on the pep talk. He was actually just manically writing over and over on his page, “YOU HAVE TO WORK YOU HAVE TO WORK YOU HAVE TO WORK YOU HAVE TO WORK...” It's hard to describe the oppressive horror and ironic hilarity of the situation. This kid couldn't have been more than 25, may have done some college. I would assume his personal aspirations, at least his career aspirations, were higher than what he was doing right now. I like to think that was true of everyone there. But many of them were just demotivated people who needed to make money. (Funny how people lacking in motivation would choose to be in sales).

I know an IT guy who is originally from the slums of India. He moved to the states to go to college when he was young. He has lived in 18 different countries, knows four or five languages, and is well accomplished in his field. From talking to him, I get the impression that the only obstacles he sees or considers in the world are external, much greater obstacles than I have ever had to face: severe lack of money, education, not being in geographic proximity to good opportunities, etc. In my world (the western middle class) all the obstacles seem internal: lack of self-discipline, demotivation, perfectionism, fear of failure, taking self too seriously, etc.

These obstacles seem invalid and petty compared to great physical obstacles such as spoken language and availability of education, but they are real to me and—as I am noticing—most of my generation. We are being called the “entitlement” generation by the working world, and appropriately. We are, in many ways, the most privileged generation in the history of the world and we have trouble getting out of bed in the morning. I don't think this is coincidental.

This topic could use some elaborating, but I'm out of motivation.

Love In This Club

If you surf the FM radio within roughly 60 miles of almost any major city it will not be too long before you will hear Usher's hit song “Love In This Club (feat. Young Jeezy).” While the hip-hop/pop favorite is not in as extremely heavy rotation as it was at other times in the past year, it is definitely still a staple on the airwaves. I would guess that many of you have heard it – and many of you have switched stations or turned the radio off, mourning the days of “good” music. This song is actually really “good” music, but there is a lot to unpack.

Usher is almost like a black Justin Timberlake...or maybe Justin is like a white Usher. Regardless, they both follow (pretty closely at times) in the footsteps of the superior Michael Jackson, while still managing to be established entertainers on their own. Like JT, Usher seems to treat his image with care. He wants to come off as cool, soulful, sexy, and sensitive, but also have a hint of badass credibility.

I haven't heard any full albums by the 5 time Grammy winning R&B star, but based on his radio singles he seems pretty consistent. He usually seems like the most collected and respectable guy of whichever group he is hanging with. Take his song “Yeah!” for example. He spends most of it yelping “yeah / yeah” in a falsetto and singing things like “next thing I knew / she was all up on me / screamin' 'yeah, yeah.'” He leaves the animalistic calls of “what?!”, “ye-uh!!”, and “okaay!” to his comrade Lil' Jon. And the most ridiculous lines of the song come out of Ludacris's mouth, “We want a lady in the street, but a freak in the bed.” Usher comes off looking like the least womanizing one of the bunch. After all “she” is the one to blame for getting it on. All he was doing was looking hot and putting out the vibe in the club. And he's so sensitive. Remember his “Confessions”?

But this post is about “Love In This Club,” Usher's eighth number one single. The incredibly infectious and memorable 1 5 6 4 chord progression is played throughout the song on a synthesizer while a piano seems to follow with 8^th or 16^th note arpeggios of each chord. Throw this over a kickin' hip-hop beat and you have a major pop hit. Definitely not the most inventive song, but well arranged and produced nonetheless.

I'm going to do a step by step analysis of the song following the lyrics. While it would be immensely fun to apply Freud and the whole male/female, viewer/viewed dynamic of film and art to this song, I'm going to try to keep it simple. Instead of listening to the song in the role of the female character in Usher's club world (This would mean Usher singing to me, wooing me, wanting to make love with me. Not me, Christopher per say, but me the person in the shoes of the imaginary female in the song.), I chose to listen from the perspective of a non-participating third-person voyeur (which is how we listen to songs 99% percent of the time) who has never heard the song before.

For this to make the most sense you will need to hear the song. You can stream it here http://thenotes.tumblr.com/post/94587275/usher-ft-young-jeezy-love-in-this-club.

Here goes. (Lyrics in bold)

 

Spoken: “Gotta do it for the ladies, And I gotta keep it hood, Where we at Polo? Aye” 

Typical opening babble, creates some hip-hop atmosphere, establishes Usher's attitude.

"You say you searchin' for somebody

That'll take you out and do you right

Well, come here, baby

And let daddy show you what it feel like"

Rather Michael Jackson so far – not the strange controversial Michael Jackson, but the romantic pop guy from Thriller. Lines like 'do you right' and 'show you what it feel like,' while sexual, allow for an element of mystery and romance to them. He's not being explicit. So, if I give him the benefit of the doubt, this far it's still a love song – kind of refreshing compared to all the “I wanna slap yo booty, get low shorty, superman that ho, crank that, etc.” crap that is commonplace for mainstream hip-hop and club music these days. I start to suspect the song might get a bit inappropriate (especially with that outrageous synth melody), but at this point it's still loosely in the sexual territory of Marvin Gaye's “Let's Get It On.” Mature, but relatively tasteful.

“You know all you gotta do is

Tell me what you sippin' on

And I promise that I'm gonna keep it comin'

All night long”

That last line could be interpreted sexually, but considering many clubs are open until 5:00—even 6:00—in the morning, I'm willing to believe he is really just talking about providing constant refills of her drink. What a gentleman...maybe.

“Lookin' in your eyes while you on the other side

And I think that shorty I've got a thing for you, yeah

Doin' it on purpose, windin' and workin' it

I can tell by the way you lookin' at me, girl”

So they're making a connection, making eyes. Flirting, dancing around the obvious attraction. Alright so far.

"I wanna make love in this club, yea

in this club, yea, in this club, yea, in this club

I wanna make love in this club, yea

in this club, yea, in this club, yea, in this club"

Woah. Okay. There it is. Rather obvious, but still the phrase “make love.” I'm not personally feeling the romance, but it's conceivable. “Make love” sound emotional and spiritual, not just carnal. I picture candles, maybe soft music. Then again they are in a club (noisy, smelly, crowded), but still it's plausible. At least I get the feeling Usher means it to be legitimately romantic.

“I see you got some friends rollin' with you

Baby, then that's cool

You can leave them with my homies

Let 'em know that I got you

If you didn't know

You're the only thing that's on my mind

'Cause the way I'm starin' at you

Got me wantin' to give it to you all night

Lookin' in your eyes while you on the other side

I can't take it no more

Baby, I'm comin' for you

You keep doin' it on purpose windin' and workin' it

If we close our eyes it could be just me and you”

In light of the chorus we just heard this second verse is definitely sounding more explicit. I'm having complete and utter difficulty trying to make this work in my head. It's not feeling romantic, and I'm really doubting Usher is looking for anything more than literally “doing it” in a crowded noisy sweaty club. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. If he repeated the chorus a couple times and ended the song, it would still be mildly clean (and even ever so slightly romantic) compared to most radio hip-hop songs about clubs and sex.

So then he goes into the chorus again “I wanna make love in this club, etc.” and as he's coming out of it Young Jeezy (who's is actually a rather talented rapper) busts on the scene and uses thuggish flow and gangsta cadence to obliterate any remaining hint of romance or sensitivity that this ridiculous song had left (if it was ever fooling anyone to begin with).

“Let's go! 

I'm what you want, I'm what you need

He got you trapped, I'll set you free

Sexually, mentally, physically, emotionally

I'll be like your medicine, you'll take every dose of me

 

It's goin' down on aisle 3

I'll bag you like some groceries

And every time you think about it

You gon' want some more of me

 

About to hit the club

Make a movie, yeah rated R

Pulled up like a trap star

That's if you have yo' regular car

 

You ever made love to a thug

In the club with his sights on

'87 jeans

And a fresh pair of Nike's on

 

On the couch, on the table

On the bar or on the floor

You can meet me in the bathroom

Yeah, you know I'm tryin' go”

Holy cow! This is for real! "Bag you like some groceries?" Every one of my worst fears about this song is coming true. Usher somehow still has his hands clean (after all it's this guest rapper who is really getting dirty), but the vibe is completely ruined. It's not like Usher had concocted much of a convincing fine dining experience, but Young Jeezy showed up to the banquet like a kid from McDonald's and shoved his face in the Bavarian creme pie!

Then it's back to Usher singing as smooth as ever – as if nothing has changed.   

“Might as well give me a kiss

If we keep touchin' like this

I know you scared baby

They don't know what we doin'

Let's both get undressed right here

Keep it up girl then I swear

I'mma give it to you non stop

And I don't care who's watchin'

Watchin', watchin'

Watchin', watchin', ohh

In this club, on the floor

Baby's let's make love”

Then a final chorus.

Wow. What an experience.

Kite Flying

"Go fly a kite" is usually an insulting phrase. It's in the same category as "Go take a long walk off a short cliff" and "Go kill yourself and make the world a better place." (That last one might sound pretty severe, but I remember when someone said that to me as a kid; I laughed so hard I wasn't even offended.)

"Go fly a kite" is actually great advice. Look where it got Benjamin Franklin! Seriously, it's a lot of fun. I flew a couple kites this afternoon with Charles and William, two of my younger brothers. The strings got tangled at one point, and we ended up breaking them to free the kites. When we tied the pieces of string back together we had accidentally given almost all the string to one kite and left the other with only about 6 feet or so. The kite with all the string took off. It flew higher than a sky scraper, maybe as high as a low flying airplane (well, definitely, since airplanes fly low enough to eventually land I suppose). I then ran back to my car, remembering I had more string from a previous kiting expedition, and added a new spool to the already lengthy trail of string. "Woah! Look at it now!" said William. The moment felt epic and exciting. Not bad for a $1 plastic kite from Walmart. That's all I can say. Go fly a kite!

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No post tomorrow. Happy Easter!

Jesus Loves You

This phrase is cliché. It’s on bumper stickers and t-shirts, and people read it everyday without any proper context. Similar to the “Life is good” slogan, it can come across as  trite and insensitive to the human condition. Picture a woman who finds out, shortly after her son dies in war, that she has terminal cancer. While driving home from the doctor appointment she sees a “Life is good” sticker on someone’s car. “I know. And it’s being taken from me!” may be one of the things that goes through her mind. She might read “Jesus loves you” on a sticker and think, “Great. Where is He now?”

On a smaller scale, even as a believer and follower of Jesus (who is apparently my “homeboy” now as well as my savior), I often feel a frustration when I read “Jesus loves you.” This is because the concept—the truth—it is trying to communicate is usually missed and almost completely held back by the unusual context in which it appears. Also, the name Jesus has been severely bastardized.

Let me try to explain. I’m pretty sure that Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is a brilliant painting, but I wouldn’t know from experience. Even if I saw it in person I doubt it would impress me. It’s on postcards, postage stamps, in textbooks, floating all over the internet. Almost everyone has seen it, and it has no magic left. When I look at the painting, instead of sensing an aura of mystery surrounding the subject’s smile, my mind is overwhelmed with foreign thoughts and connotations - Dan Brown’s book perhaps, an awareness that I am only viewing a duplicate and not the original, or maybe thoughts about problems in academia and the art world. The Mona Lisa has lost its meaning, and it certainly can’t be expected to make an impression on people simply because they are told it is a brilliant painting. They have to experience it themselves.

If Jesus is just a good man, a white hippie-looking prophet with a weak and passive expression on His face, and you’re told that he “loves” you (let’s not forget that we “love” pizza, “love” that phone, “love” that song, “love” siblings and parents – who we don’t actually like very much), how can you not feel a painful disconnect?

In addition, Jesus is often viewed as the cop. “Would you do that if Jesus was watching?” This is the kind of phrase that makes kids swim in guilt and want to rebel further. Here Jesus has been painted as part of the Gestapo. He’s standing there holding a baton, and he “loves” you. Like a father who begrudging bails their delinquent son out of jail while sighing in disapproval and grounding them for a month, God “loves” you. This is such a lie! And the horrible thing is that it’s how most people—even many Christians—view God and His son Jesus.

What if, instead of standing over you like a police officer, Jesus stands next to you with holes in His hands and a wound in His side and says He loves you? Jesus came to save the world, not to condemn it. (John 3:17)

Maybe deconstructing and throwing out some of our wrong assumptions and ideas about Jesus is one of the first steps to embracing and experiencing Him, not the hippie or cop Jesus, but the all powerful and loving son of God who lived as a human and knows first hand the most difficult things we will ever experience in life.  

I Love My Car

I've never been much of a car guy. I could never understand what the hype was about, what all the numbers and terms meant. I would hear someone (always a guy) say something like “Yeah, I drive a red '98 Eclipse 5-speed with a turbo charged 4.5 liter V8 and a custom front lip spoiler.” I could assume that by V8 he didn't mean four and a half liters of tomato juice, but I still didn't know what he was talking about. 

One of my closest friends, Jordan Ziegenbein, knows a good bit about cars, and some of his knowledge has slowly rubbed off on me. I can now interpret the sentence above somewhat accurately. '98 is the year, Eclipse is a car model made by Mitsubishi, 5-speed means it's a manual transmission with five speeds, V8 means 8 cylinders – a big engine for a car, so it's probably fast and lousy on gas.

I never thought I would be the guy bragging about—or even loving—his car. But if you hang out with me for any serious amount of time you will hear me talk about my car, almost as if she was my girlfriend. I even try to hold back because I know money and car payments and repairs are all touchy subjects with people.

But anyway, I drive a green two door '94 Toyota Tercel, 4-speed manual, with a 1.5 liter, 4 cylinder, 82 horsepower engine. In May of 2007 I bought the car for $1,300 cash, and I have put less than $1,000 into it over the last two years/45k miles (it had 102k when I bought it). Jordan has saved me hundreds in repairs (changed CV axles, adjusted valve stem seals, etc.), but this car hasn't needed any major work, and it currently runs awesomely. It’s reliable, fun to drive, and I get 32-35 miles per gallon! Even the tires only cost $15-20 each. A while back I put on all new tires for under $100. This car has been the definition of a material blessing to me, a tangible way I have felt God's fatherly love.

I'm sure if I scraped together a couple hundred dollars a month I could afford the car payment that would allow me to drive a prettier, newer car that may or may not run as well, but why would I do that? Not only are car payments absolutely stupid (financing a constantly depreciating liability), but I've grown a little attached to the Hamster (its nick name, mostly because of it's body style). My brother-in-law calls it “Money Maker” because I got rear-ended over a year ago and received more money than what I had paid to buy the car.

This car has seen me through countless rides between Chattanooga and Atlanta, a trip to and from St. Louis (which included five guys plus luggage), and a trip to and from Winston-Salem. It desperately needs a paint job, the gas cap won’t close, and the passenger side door doesn’t even lock. I will eventually need a safer car (one with airbags and anti-lock brakes), but for now...I'm happily in love. 

Hip Hop

I used to think Rap music was ridiculous. I didn’t get it. “He’s not even singing!” I used to think. Sometime in high school a missionary kid introduced me to sounds of The Beastie Boys. I was floored. I ended up buying almost all their albums, but my understanding of rap (and the broader hip-hop context it dwells in) didn’t extend much further than the work of these white New Yorker Buddhists. I bought one other old skool rap album, Naughty By Nature’s self titled debut. It was fun and their voices just cracked me up.

My exploration of Rap (which I recently heard stands for Rhythm And Poetry. not sure if that is true) continued in college and I acquired albums by Public Enemy, Run-DMC, and even a newer one by Outkast. It was around this time that I was beginning to catch on to what hip-hop was, something of an umbrella term to refer to the culture, a lifestyle. Many musical styles (R&B, rap, DJ, turntablism – even some soul and funk) can fall in the loose genre of hip-hop.

I’ve wasted a lot of time being unnecessarily disdainful and disgusted with the modern mainstream hip-hop scene, the stuff you hear on the radio. And a lot of it is lousy, but a lot of it is really good. Really, really good. We are actually at a very interesting and exciting time in the history of hip-hop (which is entering its forth decade right now).

Hip-hop is king right now. Rock had its day, and its not currently on the throne. Jay-Z headlined Glastonbury last year and Oasis had a fit. But Oasis is irrelevant, and Jay-Z is one of the best rappers alive today (it's hard to determine this, they all claim to be "the best rapper alive").

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This post is a rough draft. It's rather undeveloped. I'm only about a week into this blogathon, and I feel a little overextended. Ideally I would right posts a day or two ahead of time and then edit them. Anyway, I'll hopefully come back and fix up this one. All part of the learning process of this experiment. And I do have some serious insights about hip hop; they'll come later.

Got Time?

It's 10:04 PM right now (the times shown on these entries are always a few hours behind, I don't know why), and I am quite tired. This is one of the only instances I can remember when a day of delivering pizza pies made me genuinely exhausted. I was up at 6:00 this morning for a Bible study at Starbucks. (No, I'm not pious, just a sucker for sleep deprivation and coffee.) Later I worked from 10:30 AM to 9:40 PM. Granted, 11 hours of my job is probably nothing compared to 3 hours working as one of those melon cart pushers in India. But still, I'm tired.

This is my big excuse for not writing a full entry today. I told myself I had to post something after I got home from work or I couldn't eat. This is so I can eat.

I'll return tomorrow with a post on Hip Hop as the blogathon continues. Ciao!

Funny Red Sheet

A few months ago I was siting in traffic when a tear started welling up in my eye as my heart swelled with sympathy for Superman. Yes, Superman. The song playing on the radio was “Superman (It's Not Easy)” by Five For Fighting, and while I was in an emotionally precarious position that afternoon, I give full credit to songwriter John Ondrasik for the tear. 

Somehow this harmless, slightly flavorless, and contrived adult-contemporary pop tune had me feeling compassion...for a superhero. I speak of the song with slight disdain only because it is not in the typical vein of music that I like to think moves me. I would feel much more cultured, tasteful, and poetic if the song behind my tears was by Leonard Cohen or Bjork. I also like to think I am immune to the plethora of unrequited love songs and personal growth ballads that flood today's homogenized commercial radio.

But that is obviously not always true. This one hit wonder's falsetto and sappy piano were making me genuinely emotional, and he was singing about a comic book character. “This has got to be one of the greatest feats of emotional manipulation for a pop song – ever!” I thought to myself. Somehow I had become convinced that the 'man of steel,' the naturally airborne hero who is impervious to bullets, was actually just a regular guy who didn't like to fly. And evidently the only difference between him and me was that he wore “a funny red sheet.”