New Brews; Film Faux Pauxs

Over the weekend and today, I posted Jane Does'"When SHE Struggles"and Lonnie Smith's "Talk To Your Kids About Sex, Dammit!".

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So I went to two movies on Sunday. And each time, I made some kind of mistake that was pretty stinking funny.

The first happened when I purchased a ticket at a automated kiosk. I went through the process of picking which movie (You Kill Me at 4 p.m.) but then I came to the type of ticket I wanted. I wasn’t watching too closely and got a senior citizens discount ticket.
And then all of sudden the ticket popped out of the machine with ‘senior’ printed under the movie title.

The ticket taker did a double-take at the ticket but didn’t say anything. I was more than willing to explain the mistake, but I guessed I passed for over 65.

At the next movie, I got another ticket from an automated kiosk. This time I picked the regular price and the right showtime (The Simpsons Movie at 7:10). But I didn’t realize the ticket taker standing a few feet from the kiosk. So I walked right on by the taker, not even noticing that I blew by her. I didn’t realize what I did till I sat down in my seat in the theater and saw that I had both halves of my ticket.

Both movies were great, by the way. You Kill Me was a great, dark, dry humor movie about a alcoholic hit man, Sir Ben Kingsley, who starts going to AA. And The Simpsons Movie was pretty funny throughout.

Why The Renaissance is Sexier, etc.; One Punk Under God

I posted Georgie Lee Fledderjohn's "Why The Renaissance is Sexier" article on The Brew; it's a look at other fantastical ideas about sex and what is sexy.

Be watching through the end of the month for more articles. I won't be blogging about every single one, since there will be many over the next few days.
Next up is another Jane Doe article on female sexual struggles; then Lonnie Smith's "Talk to Your Kids About Sex, Dammit!". The last one is pretty self-explanatory.

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I love Jay Bakker. I empathize with him. But he is also my hero. He survived a religious catastrophe that never really stopped. He survived a faith that could have surely killed someone else. I could almost say that he survived the church, evangelicalism, the dark side of Christianity, etc.

I moved this DVD to the front of my Netflix queue when I heard that Jay’s mom, Tammy Faye Messner, died from cancer earlier this week. After watching the portions of the series with her in it, it truly is a miracle that she lasted so long. There weren’t many details of how bad the cancer was but what I saw of Tammy Faye disturbed me. Doctors said in the one of the episodes that any day that she keeps living is a miracle. The series was probably filmed last summer, so that could mean that Tammy Faye lasted another year on a who knows how many pills, a portable oxygen machine and Hospice care. And perhaps prayer and faith.

It’s hard to care about someone’s eccentricities when you literally see them dying before your eyes. And that is what you’ll see in One Punk Under God.

You’ll also see Jay do what he can to have a relationship with his dad. This was so hard to watch. The only way that either Bakker was able to communicate to the other was when they were preaching or doing a TV show. Now, naturally, Jay took a lot of initiative to foster a relationship with his famous father, Jim Bakker; but both were so similar in that they almost needed an audience in order to be genuine, open and honest.

I’m always fascinated by anyone’s struggle with their religious identity. I can relate to that. I empathize with that because I do the same. It’s easy for me to over dramatize my struggle for faith, my relationship with my parents or anything else that might be considered hard or traumatic. I’m surely no where near what someone like Jay Bakker has experienced.

But I was completely moved when his dad came to visit the new church Jay started after moving to New York City. I cried when I heard his father say that he was so proud of his son and that Jay was doing what Jim couldn’t do. That was just beautiful.

Homosexuality and The Church on The Brew; Expensive Coffee

I posted part one of an anonymously written article entitled "Homosexuality and The Church" on The Brew. It's one woman's encounter with homosexuality and then the right and wrong ways to respond (Pt. 2 which will be posted tomorrow).

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So The Coffee Chain That Remains Nameless is raising it's prices for the second time in less than a year (the first was this past fall). Here's a short blurb on it. Coffee and barista-made drinks will go up by .09 on July 31.

The funny thing is that I heard this from regulars at my new store, rather than from someone inside the company.

A New View Of Purity on The Brew

I just posted Dan Morgan's "Entering the Forbidden Garden: A New View Of Purity" on The Brew. It's a damn good article that shows the beauty of purity, without the puritanical downsides.

Enjoy.

Connections on The Brew; Exploration; Undertow

I posted new author Jay Friesen's "Connection: Sex and Praise and Worship" on The Brew.
Jay looks at the longing for connection in music and in the desire for sex.

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I went to meet a good friend at a place called Tipperary Inn in Dallas' Lakewood neighborhood yesterday. I got there a little early so I walked around and explored a little was well rewarded.

I found a little hole in the wall coffee shop called Coffee Co. The entire store was about the size of my apartment living room but looked like a farmer's market/mercantile in the middle of a coffee shop. There were only about two tables in the small place, possibly due to the coffee roaster that took up the front part of the store.

When I walked in, the owner was roasting some Columbian beans and it smelled amazing and slightly nutty. My first thought was, 'How does this guy stay in business?' I looked at his list of coffee beans and saw the prices were slightly higher. But he did have Jamaican Blue Mountain beans (one of the most expensive beans, next to the Hawaian Kona beans and the silly Asian-monkey-digested coffee beans). I thought I'd support the little guy so I bought a 1/4 pound of the Jamaican beans ($13).

By that time, my buddy showed up to the Irish 'snug' for a beer or two. They apparently call it a 'snug' because, unlike the more open pubs, this place had partitions between seats to give privacy to the patrons. Two seats at the bar had partitions with stained glass on either side to separate them from the other bar stools.

I had a Boddingtons (really flavorful and complex) and a some other kind (can't remember the name) that had 1776 in the title.

Either I had an empty stomach before hand or the two beers I had were pretty potent. So I walked over to a used bookstore, Paperbacks Plus. I refrained from buying anything, mostly because I'd already bought two books last weekend at another used bookstore (Blue Blood, a memoir by a New York City cop, and Attack Upon Christendom by Kierkegaard). But it was great to smell that used book smell when I walked in the door. It was good to follow the maze of bookshelf hallways and find so many books that you think you might read.

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I watched Undertow last night. Great style; has a choppy, unfinished look that seems to imitate the look and feel of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre films (though Undertow is not a horror movie). Great Southern gothic tale. Not as dark and menacing as I thought it was going to be.

My Take on Tommy Nelson on The Brew; How To Become Outgoing

I just posted my article "Sex? Well, Duh! (A Look at
Tommy Nelson)" on The Brew. It's
my 'sex columnist' look at Tommy Nelson and his Song
Of Solomon series.

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So I realized that I'm becoming more of an extrovert (or maybe just an introvert that's coming to process more of everything verbally). My journaling has dwindled to a month's time between each short entry.

And I've spent a lot more time on friends' front porches, plowing through a six pack of Pacifico or Bass while also plowing through talk about friends, church and everything else.

God has blessed me with some great drinking buddies (one is a good bud from Moody and another graduated from Pensacola, but has since experienced grace) who have become my support system down here in Texas. They've taken the place of all the other Moody alum who stick around Chicago and help their fellow grads figure out life after Moody.

And I think that this is the first time in a long time that I've actually used the phrase "Life After Moody." It's like there's no need to use Moody as some descriptor or designator of time anymore. It's like it's just "Life."

Tommy Nelson For Females on The Brew; Goodbye Mall Stores and New Milk

I just posted Kennedy Lewis' article "Nelson Hits The Mark With Series On Sex", a female perspective on Tommy Nelson's Song of Solomon sermon series, on The Brew.

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I worked my last day at the mall store of The Coffee Chain That Shall Remain Nameless. There were some cool people working there and I prayed that my last day there would not leave me cursing North Park Mall; I prayed that somehow working at this store could be a good experience.

I lost hope of that when the person who was to open up the store that morning was 45 minutes late. Then plenty of other small things not finished the night before compounded the lateness, effectively destroying my hopes of this being a good day.

But then the day went on and a good crew of people came in to work. As the store got busier, the crew worked well together and I could direct people around to slide the rush through the drink process and erase the line out the door.

The last two hours of constant traffic were enjoyable, and turned the tables on my mood. So I left happy and satisfied. I guess that's an answer to prayer.

And the Coffee Chain found yet another way to improve efficiency yet again. A co-worker (who laughed long and hard about this discovery) blogged about a new way of labeling milk. Check it out.

SATC on The Brew; No Cable

I just posted new author Georgia Lee Fledderjohn's "What Carried Bradshaw Did (And Did Not Do) For Us" on The Brew. It's G-Fled's funny review of the series Sex and the City.

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Life without cable TV is awesome, though I slightly miss being able to watch Law and Order any time of the day and also Dirty Jobs.

Cinematic Sex On The Brew; Hell At The Coffee Chain That. Shall Remain Nameless

To kick off the sex issue of The Brew is Trent Starnes' article "Cinematic Sex: The Build Up And Let Down". It'll help ground your expectations of sex in the real rather than reel world.

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Helplessness, Hopelessness and Hell at The Coffee Chain That Shall Remain Nameless

So I’m working at a mall location of The Coffee Chain That Shall Remain for two weeks. I was spared working either the night of July 3rd or at all on the 4th. But today, Saturday, I worked the opening shift, which became a fill-in/afternoon shift.

This particular store is always understaffed, unstable and undesirable. Something about the store stinks and many partners (as this Coffee Chain communistically calls its employees) have sniffed that stench and stay away. The store has burned through three store managers in its less than 12-month run (with one walking out in the middle of a shift) and is currently being run by a guy hired from outside the company, whose resume includes being some sort of manager for Wal-Mart (probably the second-most demonized company in America).

Located in a semi-hidden corner of the mall behind the entrance to an AMC Movie Theater, the store is a place of refuge from the busyness of the mall, states the store’s district manager during his pitch to recruit me for this failing store. There is only one supervisor to run shifts during the day; the store manager, who really is a nice guy, also runs shifts but neither he nor the sole supervisor can cover all the shifts.

Such is the environment that I have to work in for two weeks (the reason why has to do with me working over the aforementioned district manager and the store being at a close, convenient location). Shifts during the week were easier than expected, with much of the normal work getting done. But weekends is where partners can experience Hell on earth.

Friday night was survivable. We had enough people to handle the rushes of people coming and going from the movies. But the store seemed sadly understaffed all day Saturday. From around 2:45 p.m. until I left at 5:15, there was a nearly constant stream of people into the store. All that transpired during these 2.5 hours was the stuff of a barista’s nightmare: people keep coming into the store; all sorts of products run out; the café area is trashed; half of the customers don’t know what they ordered and wanted something different from what you put in front of them, etc.

I stayed an extra hour and 15 minutes because the night crew wouldn’t be able to take lunch breaks if I didn’t. During uncontrolled chaos of those two hours, I became helpless to fix the problems all around me (‘You’re out of napkins and iced coffee’; ‘I ordered a drink before that person…’). The Coffee Chain’s idea of legendary service was trampled to death by the high volume and the five of us working during that rush couldn’t change that.

Anyone getting their drink quickly or made correctly was hopeless. The people working were hopeless to fix anything since no other warm bodies were coming to help. There wasn’t time to step away from the espresso machine to fix any of the problems. There wasn’t any way to make the customers happy or to keep many of them from stepping out of line in frustration and leaving the store.

You just stop caring and trying to rush around so much. It’s hopeless that things will let up and you’re helpless to do anything but continue trotting on, doing what you can to appease whichever customer makes the most immediate fuss (‘I asked for a glass of water ten minutes ago!’).

And then I realized that this kind of resignation is a powerful and accurate description of depression. I won’t make all the connections for ya but give this whole thing another read with that in mind. And if you have no idea what depression is about, this should give you a glimpse.

Sex on The Brew; Kierkegaard Always Amazes

So begins the July issue of The Brew, where we talk about sex. I just posted July's editorial today.
And since most of this month's articles are on the serious side, I wanted to post something that wasn't as serious. So in keeping with July's topic, here's a song to keep things a little lighter. It's 'Business Time' by Flight of the Conchords.

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I'm still working through Provocations by Keirkegaard. The chapter on his collected works on 'Spiritual Trial' is just constantly amazing.

Here's two of the more challenging quotes that I couldn't get out of my head.

"In the case of temptation the right thing to do may be to fight it by avoiding it. In the case of spiritual trial, however, one must go through it. Temptation should be avoided? Temptation is best fought by running away? But this does not work with thoughts that try the spirit, for they pursue you. If it is spiritual trial, go straight toward it, trusting in God and Christ. When you are weak, he is strong."

And here's a great prayer for spiritual trial:
"From your hand, oh God, we are willing to receive everything. And even if it seems that your arm is shortened, increase our faith and our trust so that we might still hold on to you. And if at times it seems that you draw your hand away from us, oh, then we know it is only because you close it only to save the more abundant blessing in it, that you close it only to open it again and satisfy with blessing everything that lives."