13 Hours Later...

I know. It makes you want to throw up. But this is what my windshield looked like after driving from Chicago to Dallas in 13 hours. There's bug splatters aplenty but this is an anomaly.

The only guess I have is that it came from a bird. While driving through downstate Illinois, I was listening to the best of Prairie Home Companion as I drove through the endless miles of prairie. And then some black bird (indistinguishable at 80 m.p.h.) flew into my windshield.

I didn't notice the mess on the windshield until later. Was it a 1 pound mosquito? Something flicked onto the windshield by a car ahead of me that didn't see one the hundreds of indistinguishable roadkills on I-55? Who knows. But I can wait to get my car washed and let it dry in the 90-degree Texas heat.

For a playlist of my 13-hour drive see the newest edition of the Son of a Beach.

Gluttony

As I leave the city that has shaped me for the last seven years, I’d like to pass on some of the wisdom (grub joints) that has expanded my territory (waistline). This wisdom excludes the common sense (obviously gluttonous joints such as Fogo de Chao, Cold Stone Creamery, or Krispy Kreme Donuts) well known to the common Chicagoan. So here are the places you won’t hear about except through tough lessons learned (heartburn) and sage advice (people who told me about the great food).


My Hood- Lincoln Square

Café Descarte - Corner of Lincoln and Western Avenues - The Oatmeal Latte - Yeah, someone thought of steaming up oats, raisins, walnuts, and dates with milk and espresso. Not for wimpy cappuccino drinkers or those who’ve already had breakfast.


Café Selmare – 4700-ish N. Lincoln Avenue- Rum Balls - rich, chocolate cake soaked in rum and rolled in nuts or sprinkles - Bread Pudding - made with leftover croissants and drenched in caramel sauce-a changing variety of other European and American desserts. Perfect for putting yourself over the edge after eating across the street at…

Garcia’s Mexican Restaurant – 4700-ish N. Lincoln Avenue – The Chimichanga-one of Garcia’s as-thick-as-your calf burritos deep fried and smothered with guacamole and sour cream. Not for the wimpy taco eater.



My (old) Hood-The West Side

Margie’s Candies - Corner of Armitage and Western Avenues-Any sundae off the three-page dessert menu and at least 5 of the homemade turtles.

Feast - 1616 N. Milwaukee Avenue - Anything from the menu.


Work-related Wisdom (places I’ve learned of through jobs)

El Milagro - 3050 W. 26th St. –The Steak Tacos-Two of these will satisfy the buds-delicious steak laid over cabbage, lettuce, cheese, salsa and refried beans. Simple but ohhhhhh, so effective.

The Original Billy Goat Tavern - 430 N. Michigan Avenue (lower Michigan Avenue) - Double Cheese, Double Cheese, No fries – Don’t be scared away by the dismal looking surroundings. This is a must for anyone who knows anything about Chicago, journalism or the news.

Sam’s Grille- 300-ish N. Clark St. – The Philly Chicken Sandwich- a roll overflowing with grilled chicken, peppers, onions and cheese-great downtown greasy spoon that will load you down and have you loving the calories.

Frankie Z’s Clark Bar - 420 N. Clark St.- The Taco Salad- a huge (but not too filling) mix of lettuce, chicken or beef, cheese, salsa, guacamole, sour cream and beans in a fried tortilla shell.


Without Classification

Moody’s Pub - 5900-ish N. Clark St. – The Bleu Cheeseburger- Or any other cheeseburger. Intimate atmosphere with a perfect outdoor seating area.

Portillo’s (maybe this was an obvious one) - Corner of Clark and Ontario Streets - Bacon Cheese burger-This burger has the freshest toppings around and can’t be beat.


Coffee Experiences (always excluding the chain-that-shall-remain-nameless)

Filter - 1585 N. Milwaukee Ave. - By far one of the best atmospheres in the city (and now smokeless thanks to the city ban on smoking)-Low lights, retro furniture and a changing menu of staff drinks

Intelligentsia Café - 3123 N. Broadway – The best lattes or mochas and it shows in the foam. Another great atmosphere and hand-crafted goodness that can only be imitated by some chains.

Café Ballou - 939 N. Western Avenue - Russian tea with raspberry compote-Eastern European look and feel. Closes early.

The Perfect Cup – 4700 N. Damen Avenue – Another of the greatest atmospheres; quaint and simple with great artwork and photography.

Uncommon Grounds – Corner of Clark and Grace Streets. – Any oversized coffee desserts in a two-handed cup. Now has a bar/restaurant with a coffee shop and back room with live music every weekend night.

The Bourgeois Pig Café - 738 W. Fullerton Avenue. – Mexican Hot Chocolate or Grasshoper latte - Two levels of space that makes you want to read books; with one the largest tea selections I’ve seen.

Adios Chicago

The Beach Picayune is now counting down the days until it moves to Dallas (about a month) and planning out the last few issues. The editors wish to leave their wealth of knowledge about Chicago with those in the windy city through a few issues detailing the best spots in the city. So prepare for Gluttony and Adventure, two posts of places to stuff yourself and places to search out in the city. Gluttony and Adventure are two musts for anyone living in the city.
(And if anyone knows of Gluttony and Adventure in Dallas, leave a post.)

John Woo on the Dan Ryan Pt. 2

So I'm writing down details as fast as possible and as legibly as numbed-by-the-cold-fingers can manage while standing in the northbound lanes of the Dan Ryan expressway around 45th Street.

The cutting wind is numbing my face at 3:30 a.m. as the mess that has blocked off the northbound local lanes of highway is explained.

About an hour before, the silver Pontiac-looking car was seen driving "suspiciously" around 50th and Clark Streets ("suspiciously" is one of those vague words that police use to say as little as possible when talking to reporters). When a squad car tried to pull the vehicle over, it sped off toward 47th Street and the entrance to the Dan Ryan Expressway. The squad car "pursued" the silver vehicle onto the expressway ("pursued" is the preferred term used by police instead of "chase," which is way too sensational).

The silver car sped into the express lanes of the Dan Ryan, trying to escape police, who followed it closely. The silver car, being in the far left lane of the express lane, attempted to cross all four of these lanes to enter get back into the two local lanes. The speeding car didn’t quite make it but instead crashed through four yellow sand barrels near the entrance to the local lanes in order to enter them. The silver car lost control as it entered the local lanes, sideswiping the driver’s side cab of a semi-tractor trailer in those lanes.

The car then sped ahead of the truck and then flipped over onto the on-ramp for 43rd Street. It settled right-side up and the passengers fled, obviously dazed. One sizeable passenger wearing a puffy, yellow coat exited the car and stumbled around.

The "pursuing" police officers did not follow the silver car’s drastic moves but instead pulled over to the shoulder of the express lanes across from where the silver car came to rest. The officer hopped over the cement barrier separating the express from the local lanes and drew his weapon. He saw the large, staggering man get out of the silver car and the others run up the on-ramp (The officer by now had already called for backup, who were on their way to the location of the accident).

The puffy-coated man dropped a small, silver revolver on the ground near the wrecked vehicle, prompting the officer (who was crossing the local lanes to apprehend the man) to put his gun away. The officer, seeing the largess of the man, got out his yellow stun gun and ordered the man put his hands over his head. The massive man instead reached into his coat to pull out a silver-colored, semi-automatic assault rifle (the aforementioned silver pencil box with a clip and a barrel shoved into it) and began firing at the officer.

Seeing that the stun gun may not be as effective against this semi-automatic, the officer threw it down, got out his gun and returned fire. The gun battle moved from the expressway to the grassy embankment of the 43rd Street on-ramp, where (by this time) backup had arrived. These officers joined in the firefight from the top of the ramp and fatally shot the large man.

After receiving the explanation from the director of Police News Affairs (who was the authority whenever police fired their weapons), I was led through the crime scene with the freelance videographers. I saw the shells littering the local lanes, the revolver, the stun gun and the shiny semi-automatic. And then there was the yellow, and now red, puffy coat formerly worn by the man shot by police.

During the gun battle, the puffy-coated man was the only person to be shot. Unlike movies like Face Off of Hard Target, people in the heat of a firefight don’t necessarily take time to aim (least of all an untrained man who may have bough the gun off the street). Officers are trained to do so but (without assuming that the man shot was one) gang members are not.

I took in the entire scene and realized that not too many people would be able to say they surveyed a crime scene in the middle of one of the busiest interstates in the country. This was one memory of my City News Days that I won’t soon forget.


Editor's Note: To find out what would happen if a fire alarm went off while swimming at a gym, check out the latest Sonofa3.

Memories of Clark Pt. 3

Clark Allen Stacy

Clark made me feel like one of the guys. Though we only spoke to each other occasionally, he made me feel like a friend.

My first real interaction with Clark was at one of the aforementioned fight nights. I'd just transferred into Moody in the heart of winter and it was difficult to get to know people in the middle of the school year.

Honestly, though, I found that a bunch of guys going at it with boxing gloves and little else to be a little crazy. But Clark's driving encouragement brought a unique atmosphere that drew me in. He danced around the fighting pair, cheering them on and making sure that the flowing testosterone didn't lead to a real fight. It felt a little safer with him watching over it all.

Soon the guys were looking for another victim amongst the new guys on the floor, and they found me. I assured them that I didn't know how to box, but they didn't think that was an issue. Clark assured me that the other guy who'd volunteered didn't know how to box either (he was wrong). So I removed my glasses, put on the gloves and stood there while the other guy repeatedly hit me full force in the face. I don't think I really even hit the other guy once, and I totally lost count of how many times he nailed me. I was glad Clark had bought training gloves.

I walked away with a bloody nose and chipped tooth, but I didn't regret the event. It was good to just let go, to feel the comradeship of the guys behind me, and to hear the empathetic groans. It was a painful initiation to a great floor and a time of healing for me —-from more than just the nose.

Throughout the rest of that semester, I looked up to Clark as a peer. I admired the way he interacted with everyone. He made you feel like a friend even when you didn't really know him well. In many ways, he had it together.

Looking back, I still admire how much of it Clark had together. He had his inner struggles, but his outward life was one that reached out to others that faced similar struggles. He never disappeared into the background but was always stepping forward to take leadership, or to just help out. That smile and that voice cut deep into the darkness. Talking to and being around Clark pushed the oppression of a dark winter away.

Perhaps that is why it was so hard to loose all of that when Clark didn't return. His life meant so much to the whole atmosphere of Moody that the lack of his face left a huge void in the mosaic of the crowd, but I remain thankful for that face that still crosses my memories. There, in the memory of the past, Clark still pushes the darkness away, and makes me feel at home. I can picture him organizing fight nights right now that will initiate me into his world again--hopefully without the bloody nose.

Daniel Morgan

Memories of Clark Stacy Pt. 2

My memories of Clark are brief. And you may be reading this saying, "Lana - Clark didn't even like Lana." I say that because I really don't know what Clark's perceptions of our brief friendship were. So for what it's worth, these are my memories. I met him in the summer of 2003 and didn't have much contact with him after that to be honest. We met during the Moody summer church history tour through Europe. We both gravitated toward the Quiggle family and ended up sharing many meals with them and walking through museums alongside them. I think we found Mary, Greg and the kids to be a stabilizing presence. It was a nice little nitch of family while rolling through Europe and sleeping in a different bed every three nights.

I have lots of pictures with Clark and the kids. One with all of us climbing on the lions in Trafalgar Square. Clark was trying to convince me that I could just leap up on the big slippery back of one of the lions (in the dark, by the way) like it was so easy, after he had already pushed the kids up onto it. I knew there was no way. So I think I am just standing next to it leaning on its back in the picture.

I have pictures of us in Pizza Hut with the Quiggles, laughing. That was one of my best memories of the trip. The picture is priceless, Clark and I holding out our pizza with looks of excitement and hilarity. It took two takes because I couldn't keep a straight face. Why'd we even take the picture? There was something just so pure and joyful about it.

I also ended up sharing a train car with the Quiggles and Clark. You would think that it would have been awkward. But it wasn't. It just seemed like the way it should have been. Me, Clark and the Quiggles. Looking back on it, I think we both needed that stability, that joy of family life while we were both battling darkness. I definitely can see that now, knowing after the fact that Clark struggled with such deep darkness and knowing what I was going through at the time.

Clark and I spent some time walking around alone together too, in different towns. I remember one walk in London, in particular, which led us to a pub. There was that touch of irony, sharing a beer while on a Moody trip. And I can't honestly remember if it was a big deal to him or not.

What I remember from my conversations with Clark was a certain understanding. Conversation didn't necessarily flow the most easily. It wasn't like we became best friends, obviously, because we never hung out after the trip. We did have a few squabbles. But what I remember was walking around London and feeling like there was no need to conjure up something to say if there wasn't. And there was no need to sugar-coat my comments.

I remember a certain grittiness that results when people are real. I remember being uncomfortable at moments and saying things that pissed Clark off a few times. But I remember that even in those moments, thinking, Clark was someone who wasn't going to judge me for not pulling off the "Moody" look or tone. I didn't feel like I needed to try to be something. There was an understanding that we could enjoy 'being' in the presence of the other and appreciate that person without necessarily having anything in common or planning to become best friends. It was peaceful.

But I do remember that even in the quiet we shared that he was anxious about the future and it seemed like the things he was thinking about - the future, what he was studying, relationships, etc. were all one big question mark for him. I remember thinking that there was a lot going on in his head that needed to be sorted out. I was thinking grad school, an internship or some other broadening experience like that would be formative and help sort things out. That's what I was hoping for both of us. I had just graduated and I was thinking, "he only has a couple years left - he'll make it and find himself on the other side."

But I guess I can take heart that he chose to make me a part of his summer and that at least for those 3 weeks I know we shared moments of real happiness and security with the Quiggles - a foretaste of that for which he could not wait.

Lana Wood

Memories of Clark Stacy Pt. 1

Clark Allen Stacy

The best memories that I have of Clark always involve him doing things, getting people riled up about something and staying physically active. He was always a mobilizing force for anyone around him.

Clark transferred into to Moody and was placed onto Culbertson Five, the floor to which I was a Resident Assistant. He helped to start boxing night on the floor by buying some pairs of gloves and egging people into 1-minute matches against someone else. I couldn’t say no to the cheers of all the guys on the floor, spurred on by Clark, of course. He knew the value of camaraderie, the need for a healthy dose of competition and the value of releasing some pent-up anger. I’m sure some of this idea came from the infamous but genius movie Fight Club, which he always lent out to guys who were uninitiated in the ways of Tyler Durden.

If there was any kind of event that was organized, it was often made or broken depending on whether Clark was behind it. If he was, you could be sure that it would be top-notch and well-organized. Such was a floor open house, where all put their efforts into a sketch show of different musical performances. And what put the icing in the cake of that evening was Clark’s no-holding back act as a lost pig that was lamented in song by its farmer (played by Kansas great Will Regier). To prepare, Clark found some ratty pink clothes, a pink pipe cleaner as a tail, and lots of pink paint to transform himself into the best souuuiiieeee this side of the Mason-Dixie Line. Being bald, Clark found it easy to coat his head, not to mention any skin not covered by his small shirt and skirt, with the pink paint. It was an incredible transformation that turned the event from pretty good to perfect.

After I graduated, Clark and I kept in contact by going out to eat with his half-price restaurant coupons (which he got from the internet) and watching great movies, one of which was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

As time went by, Clark and I would only run into each other at Moody’s gym. He would work out after chapel and catch me right after I woke up (I was working a second shift as a crime reporter at the time and wouldn’t be able to get up until about 10a.m.). Clark had an idea of maybe enlisting in the Marines after he graduated and wanted to prepare as much as he could for it. And so he, and I as his workout partner, reaped the benefits. There were seemingly endless sit-ups, push-ups and leg lifts he put me through; though I never felt better than when I finished working out with Clark.

During those times in the gym, we talked about all kinds of things, one of which being our spiritual lives. He told me of breaking up with his girlfriend and how hard it was on him. We talked of him struggling with depression and other things. We got onto the topic of knowing what to do with all the theology and information that you learned at a Bible school like Moody. Having been out of school for two years already, I had learned a thing or two about real life and how your spirituality changes for the better or worse.

I told him that nothing I learned while at Moody made any sense until I was out. It wasn’t until after the fact that some aspect of God’s character, say his sovereignty, would seem to play out.

And it now being a year after Clark took his own life, I still haven’t made any sense of anything. I'd like to think that sometime in the future it may make sense. But then it might not, either. And I think I'm okay with that.

Eric Beach
4848 N. Rockwell St. #3
Chicago, IL 60625
312-217-0976


Clark Allen Stacy

This is to the memory of my friend Clark. I thank God for allowing me to have a friend like Clark with whom I was able to grow, share, pray, laugh, and just have fun with. And I miss him so much.

The following took place one fall evening in downtown Chicago. Matt Troyer and I went out on the town with Clark many times and this was a memorable one for me. This gives you a taste of how three guy friends communicate with each other.

Clark: Hey guys look (then pointed to a sign that read "CASS"). I can't believe it, those are my initials.

*Matt and Barry give a confused look to each other*

Matt (sarcastically): Yeah, Clark Allen Stacy Stupid!!!

Clark: Uh........ Shut up Matt.

Barry: Hey look my initials are everywhere. BMW there, BMW there.......

Clark: I hate you guys.

There are so many memories that I have with Clark. He was one of my best friends and one of the most difficult roommates I've ever had. I loved the guy and this is harder than I thought because all of my memories are still very fresh in my mind; as I'm sure yours are as well. I will do my best to share some of them with you.

Clark came to Moody when I was a junior and my roommate Matt was a senior. Right away, Matt and I became great friends with Clark. The three of us seemed to be together whenever we could (that is when Matt wasn't out on a date). We did a lot of fun and crazy stuff, but one serious thing we did was we had cave time together. Cave time was a time when Matt and Clark would jump into my bed while I was sleeping or just about to and we would pray together. This was a great time because we were able share how our lives were going and talk about everything and then pray for each other.

Clark and I went on a lot of road trips together. One Thanksgiving, we went to Minnesota with about 10 other close friends. On this trip, Clark walked on a frozen pond for the first time. We all thought it was pretty weird how he was so amazed about walking on a frozen pond. Another trip we took was to Kentucky for Easter to meet up with some friends of ours. We drove with Suzanne Beyer and I thought she and Clark were going to kill each other by the time the trip was through. Another time, we went to Cleveland and some other places that I can't remember right now.

The summer of 2003, Clark and I thought it would be a good idea for him to live with me at my parents’ house in Spokane. Looking back on it, we had a lot of great times. We were able to work together for a roofing company and went to the lake a lot. We worked at a camp for junior high kids as counselors, we were able to spend a lot of time talking and that was the first time he opened up to me about his depression. I remember one talk we had and he actually told me that he had thought about suicide. That really took me by surprise, but I never thought much about it because he told me he knew that was not an option. My favorite memories of our time in Spokane together were when we drove to Seattle and Grad Coulee. In Seattle, we went to a couple of Seattle Mariner games and stayed with my family. In Grand Coulee, he met the Native American side of my family and we went out boating with our friend Joe Hedrick.

I hope this gives you a picture of things that I remember about Clark. There are many more like boxing nights in our dorm, working at Moody Press together, eating meal after meal in the student dinning hall, running along Lake Michigan together, and on and on. But what I will always remember is how Clark challenged me to live out my faith in God day to day. He had a passion for believers to be real and not mock God by pretending their faith is strong and living a lie. And I'll remember his bald shiny head and his big smile that said "I love you man."

I sure miss him.

Now that I have a child, I wonder what he would have said or if he would have been there when he was born? I don't know, and I think the hard part now is that all of the memories I make in life will be without him.

God bless all of you that have read this. Thank you for putting up with my rambling.

With love,
Barry Warren

Tiffany, Barry, and Silas Warren
1670 N. Davis
Cornelius OR, 97113
(503) 992-0316

In Memory of Clark Stacy

The Picayune will pause its normal service to remember Clark Stacy, a friend who is no longer with us, during the next week. Beginning on Sat. the 18th, The Picayune will feature memories of Clark by those who knew him.

John Woo on the Dan Ryan Pt. 2 will run after the memorial ends.

John Woo on the Dan Ryan (Another in the True Crime Series)

That’s what I first thought when I saw a long stretch of the Dan Ryan Expressway (otherwise known as 90-94) blocked off at around three in the morning last winter. Did they just film some over-the-top action sequence from some overblown project by the high brow director John Woo, famous for such masterpieces as Hard Target and Mission Impossible II? Or was this just another night of crime that will fade with time and only be remembered on some reporter’s notepad?

I was working the night shift again at the New City News Service in Chicago when I heard of the police-involved shooting and car chase on the expressway.

I parked my car on a parallel street and walked down a steep embankment to the northbound local lanes of the expressway. These slower lanes, where semi-tractor trailer trucks were always forced to drive, were closed off beginning around 47th Street and off limits until around 35th Street. Squad cars blocked off the entrances to the local lanes while police tape billowed in the wind across the two lanes at least one hundred feet in front of and behind the crime scene.

I took a moment to take in the scene. There was a semi parked on the shoulder of the local lanes with the driver’s side cab smashed in. Ahead of that on the on-ramp to 43rd Street, a silver Pontiac Sunfire-looking sports car lie upside down, looking like someone had just rolled it like a die. Another squad car was parked on the right shoulder of the express lanes, directly across from the crumpled car on the on ramp.

Bunches of numbered cards were being placed all over the expressway, near the car and in the grass between the on ramp and the expressway. Cards were placed near spent ammunition casings, near a revolver that lie next to the silver car, near a semi-automatic Mac10 assault rifle (those guns that look like a pencil box with a barrel sticking out of one end and an ammunition clip shoved into the bottom), next to a puffy, yellow coat that had blood on it and near other bits of stuff that I couldn’t make out.

It happened to be about ten degrees out that crisp morning. I had on some bulky gloves that made it impossible to write with and was also completely bundled up. Past experiences in the bitter cold and piercing wind of Chicago taught me to have a pencil handy during such times. During such extreme cold, the ink in ball point pens freezes up, making it useless. And the only thing that can you can speedily scribble illegible notes with is a good, old fashioned pencil.

I learned this from one of the freelance videographers, who ruled the night shift in capturing the news. Well, that is if us City Newsers didn’t get there first. But more often than not, they would beat us to it. These videographers would call us up and give us tips from the scene and we would even exchange info at the scene (They helped out in the Sheridan Road Serial Killer).

These guys would film the police spokesman as he told us a version of the events while standing on the piercing wind on the Dan Ryan Expressway. They would catch on tape the man explaining the chase, the shootout between a man with the Mac10 from the silver car and other police and how no cops were shot in the gun battle.

And the explanation is just as thrilling as a John Woo movie. Which, since this blog is already too long, will be concluded in our next issue.


Editor’s note: The editorial staff at the Picayune apologizes for the delay between issues. Due to recent events, the home office of the Picayune will be moving to Dallas, TX in June. Much reorganization for the moves has tied up our editorial staff. We regret the lapse in service.

Book Makes Reader Blue In the Face

After many friend’s urgings and hearing about how Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller, is the book to read, I finally submitted. While reading it and carrying it around on the el to and from work, I felt like I was part of some club. I felt a little chic, a little part of some ‘in’ crowd, a little like I was part of some group blessed with the special knowledge that comes from reading one man’s attempt at putting his spirituality into book form.

Now all book snobbery set aside, I enjoyed parts of Jazz although I can’t tell you one thing I remember from it. Miller uses and abuses the stream of consciousness writing style where different events in his life lead to reflections on whatever subjects those events deal with. I remember certain anecdotes and things he did, like live in the mountains with some kind of leftover hippie Christians and then returning to the world at large and then speak to the issues that ensue. But I couldn’t tell you any well-put arguments or ideas about faith in the world today and I can’t remember any kind of theme from the book.

Miller gets kudos for pursuing honesty and transparency in his faith and addressing the shortcomings of Christianity, or possibly more accurately, evangelicalism. This honesty is surely what makes this book such a popular read. Anyone who can speak to the hurts, frustrations and disappointments that come with being a Christian today is surely to gain a following since it is becoming rare to find someone who will do so.

But being an aspiring writing, reading the book was in some parts like listening to someone scrape their fingernails down a chalkboard. My beef with Miller, oddly enough, would be his writing style. Looked at as a whole, the book, subtitled Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality, seemed to do exactly what Miller railed against.

One chapter in the book has Miller going to see some “Christian” author of books on spirituality at a Borders-like bookstore. Miller has liked the author but at the current book promo, he listens to the author and is upset to hear the author ‘use’ Mohammedisms and other eastern religious terms to help sell his Christian beliefs. Miller is incensed that the author would need to re-market his books using something that would be more easily accepted by the world at large. I took a step back and thought about this. I thought about Miller’s subtitle, Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality, and thought I saw some similarities. Miller shares the author’s need to re-market his own spirituality to gain wider acceptance.

Now, being an author who has yet to publish, I don’t know the pressure from publishers to market a book a certain way. I don’t know that perhaps authors have to write books with a selling point in mind and have to think of some thirty second tag to sell the book to distributors or book buyers at the Christian Booksellers Association convention. I do not know the evils of the marketing machine that is Christian book publishing. So these criticisms may be thrown at you from the armchair that I’ve been sitting in since I decided to write. But other of Miller’s books, namely, Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance, seems to be a complete rip off of the classic volume on philosophy Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Persiq. Maybe it’s just me but that seems to be trying to again to re-market work for a certain audience.

But Miller’s style still grates on my writing sensibilities. He tries too hard to be ‘random’ like Anne Lamont or Annie Dillard. I hated the two cartoons that were included in the book. I couldn’t stand his obsession with having to make his faith seem exotic and cool. Hence this passage:

“Some of my friends have left their churches and gone Greek Orthodox. I think that sounds cool. Greek Orthodox. Unless you’re are Greek. Then it sounds like that is where you are supposed to go, as though you are a conformist. If I were Greek, I would never go to a Greek Orthodox church. If I were Greek, I would go to a Baptist church. Everybody there would think I was exotic and cool.”

But as I finished the book, Miller addressed some issues that had been piling up through my read. Miller seems like he could be a nomadic-type Christian who isn’t so keen on being part of a local body of believers. He could be a traveling speaker with no real affiliation or be supported by some smaller Body of Christ. I have issue with that, having felt those nomadic longings but then have realized the need for involvement in the smaller Body of Christ at a local church. Miller addresses issues arising out of a nomadic lifestyle in the last three chapters. I was impressed with how he tackled loving other members of the body of Christ and the need for community. Kudos to Miller to wrapping up his book this way but not for making me read through 200 pages to get there.

Coming Soon...

A Review of Blue Like Jazz is soon to to come.

In the mean time, check out some other True Crime stories in the Archives: Under the Radar, originally posted on Tuesday Feb. 15, 2005; Man Shot 9 Times in Good Condition, originally published on Feb. 1, 2005; Crouching What?, originally published on Tues. March 8, 2005; and True or False?, originally published on Wed. Jan. 12, 2005.

Check Our the Picayune's Contributing Writers

In order to better serve our readers ( and give props to fellow bloggers) the Picayune Editorial Board would like to take a moment to recognize (plug) our contributing writers.

A Table For One-Master of Creativity and generous blog creator from Boston but living in Chi-town.

backdrop- Smart, grad student in Chi-area (I'll let you figure out where)

dia blogue-Master of a self-run design company who will kill if you mess with Texas

Lesniewicz Weekly-Polish native heading to Uganda but currently interning at the Beach Picayune and doing some other stuff in Chicago

Nelmezzo-Master of Theology (or soon to be) in Chi-town

Pathos From the Mind's Eye-One of many alias for my roommie

Redemption-Produced by Jameson(not the whiskey) but headed for Perth, Australia

seadonkey21-Sweating over espresso in Minneapolis (ask about the name)

Skofinopolis Recorder- Master Yank in King Charles' court

Touchstone-A great magazine

Two Luther's Collide-Yet another alias

In The Throes of The Winter Blues

It hit me hard last week. In spite of the mild winter in Chicago with 40 degree days at least twice a week and intermittent hours of sunlight. In spite of all that I’ve learned over the last four years about this time of year.

I got depressed and I blamed it on the winter blues. The shorter days and shorter hours of actual sunlight and shorter amount of exposure to natural light which produces melatonin in the brain. With less melatonin, the chemicals in the brain can become unbalanced and make a person more susceptible to depression.

So there I was with the realization that I’d been depressed for a few days. I swore in my head and tried to figure out what to do with it. Go to a tanning bed, said a friend of mine. Tanning is one solution to not getting enough natural sunlight. I haven’t read anything official to say that it is medically proven but I’ve heard people swear by it and others who aren’t so sure. Even black people do this in the winter to help out, said that same friend.

I didn’t have the cash to shell out for this and I leaned more on the skeptical side as to whether or not the bulbs of a tanning bed could be equal to the rays of the sun when it comes to melatonin.

So I did what anyone else in my situation is left with doing: figure out what is screwing up your brain and try to fix it. Although it’s not always easy to get to this point while under the blanket of the winter blues, it is the most effective way to throw off that blanket. What am I thinking that is keeping me from getting up and moving on? Do I feel like there’s some kind of situation that I can’t do anything to change? Is there some person to whom I can’t express how much of an ass they are?

There’s a million questions to ask yourself. There’s also actions that can help out. Put all your strength or effort into getting out and doing something physical. Go work out, swim, run or play ball. Do something to get your blood flowing faster than it normally does. Somehow, a quicker pulse can help out the brain and all the chemicals that are inside. Maybe it adds more oxygen or more chemicals or circulates something else besides blood through your stagnant gray matter. Somehow, it works.

And then I try to do something with God. My relationship with Christ is one of the best ways to get my mind moving again. I intake a little bit of the Bible and stimulate my brain to think of the theology behind a verse or think through why God saved me. I then remember that all who have been saved from themselves by God’s gracious gift were bought so that they could testify to what God has done in their lives. The idea that God is bringing someone through the winter blues or any other hardship or depression so He can show off His power over even psychological ills is one that is encouraging and sobering. I get a little bit of hope from that thought.

And that little bit of hope is what can help me to wake up the next morning and go for a swim or try to tackle my seemingly unconquerable thoughts.



Publisher's Note: For more on Winter Blues, check out Sonofa3

Also, Thanks to Chris K. for all the work of stealing someone else's template and redesigning The Beach Picayune. Check out Chris at A Table For One.

New Look Amazes All

Thanks for your patience while waiting for our construction to finish. The new Beach Picayune will be revealed shortly. Meanwhile, die-hard readers can get their fix at www.xanga.com/sonofa3 by reading, "A Coffee-Chain-That-Shall-Remain-Nameless Moment."
The Beach Picayune Editorial Board

Sheridan Road Pt. 2

So I’m walking towards the groups of detectives at around 1 a.m. outside a building where a serial killer may have struck twice. And it is because of this that there isn’t a single squad car light flashing or police tape around any section of the building.

I just put my press pass around my neck in plan view of CPD’s finest, hoping that they would be willing to talk to a wet-nosed reporter trying to confirm that someone was murdered in an apartment one floor above another murder scene that was barely a month old.

Such things can be expected when working for a 24-hour newswire service in Chicago. After the 10 o’clock news broadcasts, myself and other City News reporters had free reign to any mayhem that took place until about 4 a.m., when the day began again and other reporters began competing with us again.

One detective sees me coming and lets the others know. All look in my direction and they try to casually disperse. I identify myself (standard procedure) but each one ignores me. They walk back to their hibernating squad cars and then drive off, one by one.

No other cops talk to me but then I spot another guy just standing near the building. He’s not huddled up with anyone and I guess that he’s somehow involved with the building. He’s the landlord/handyman. He’s upset because now people will move out and no one will want to live in the building. I eventually ask him about what happened in the apartment the CSIs are looking through with flashlights.

I’ve seen people covered in what look like surgical gowns, along with shoe covers, coming in and out of the building. Make me wonder what it looks like inside there if everyone has to suit up like that.

Yes, the landlord/handyman says. Somebody was killed. His name was this. I didn’t know him too well. He was in apartment 3D or something like that. Yes, about a month ago someone else was killed in 2D.

Bingo. That makes it a story. I get the handyman’s name, thank him for his time and try to empathize with him, in spite of my excitement that I was able to turn a tip into a pretty good news story.

And months later, I was talking to the people at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office and they mentioned in passing that serial killer on Sheridan.

“The one on the 7300 block of Sheridan?” I asked, astonished and excited.

“Yeah. Oh wait,” they said.

True Crime Series

Instead of leaving all the wonderful stories of serial killers, dramatic shootings of high school students, or police chases that would put John Woo to shame in the pages of my notebooks from my City News Days, these stories will become part of the Picayune beginning today.

Sheridan Road Serial Killer

I was nearing the end of my mid-shift coverage of the North Side while camped out at Area 3 headquarters (also known as the 19th District of the Chicago Police Department) at the corner of Belmont and Western.

The overnight editor paged me, and I called him back to hear, “You better not screw this up. We got a tip from the ME’s (Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office) that there’s a death investigation in the apartment building where someone else was killed only a month earlier.”

This was an actual tip that a creative reporter had to weed out of people to make a story out of. I couldn’t just show up at some address with my pen, tablet and digital recorder in hand. I had to corroborate the tip through beating the street and shooting the shit with cops who were working that night. This is where I figured out how good a reporter I was.

The apartment building was around 7000 N. Sheridan Rd., placing the crime scene in the Rogers Park District (24). Luckily, a grandpa-like captain was working that night that I had a good relationship with. He would tell me anything that he had in front of him and he always made my job easier. So I call him up and act like I’m making a routine check on his neck of the woods for the typical murder and mayhem that night.

“So what’s going on tonight?” I ask after the usual introductions and pleasantries. “Any robberies, any…investigations?” Investigation was the key word, as homicides are often classified as death investigations until it can be determined that they are suspicious.

“Well, yeah,” said the captain. “They got a death investigation up on Sheridan. And looks like they sent a crime lab van up there.” I could tell he was reading to me right off the paper in front of him.

"Oh yeah?” I ask, trying to hide my excitement. “Where’s that at?” And then the captain confirmed the address.

Bingo.

That was what I needed: confirmation of the address and that something suspicious enough to need a crime lab van had happened there. So my editor sent me to the scene around 1 a.m.

I parked behind a building near the scene, not knowing that it was the building in question, and that cops were already wandering around inside with flashlights. I came around the corner of the building onto Sheridan Road and then realized that it might be smart to wear my press badge. It would probably prevent me from being arrested for appearing out of nowhere at the scene of the crime in the middle of the night.

A group of men I guessed to be detectives were standing in a group near the entrance of the building. As I approached, I noticed that there were three squad cars, two unmarked police cars and the crime scene van at the scene. The odd thing was that not a single light from any of the cars was flashing. There was no police tape roping off the area, no onlookers gawking at the scene, no noise other than the normal silence of the night. People didn’t seem to know that a serial killer had struck the same building twice in a month’s time and the police wanted to keep it that way.

…

Due to a shortage of column space on the page and people’s need to not spend all day reading blogs, the rest of the story will be continued next week.

Adaptation

“The high for today will be about 42 degrees. It’s currently 41 and you’re listening to…” broadcast the radio station at around 4:15 a.m a few days ago. This was the beginning of January for Chicagoans; a mild streak of weather in what can often be the harshest season for this Midwest giant of a city. Business this week was back to booming at the coffee-chain-that-shall-remain nameless. More people were out and braving the Icelandic 40 degree temperatures and even buying frozen and iced drinks (much to the chagrin of my co-workers). People were enjoying the atypical weather.

But not two weeks earlier the city was crippled during the even rush hour by a furious snow storm that unceremoniously dumped at least 8 inches of powder in about four hours. From about 4 p.m. on, blustery winds and blinding snow delayed commuters on their way home. Some driving home on the Eisenhower Expressway reported a four-hour commute that night. I drove downtown to pick up something from my store that night but ended up staying downtown because of the traffic and storm.

Like all who live in this great city, I had to adapt and change my plans for that night. I had planned on going back to my apartment on the northwest side and accomplishing some things that night. But an estimated three-hour tour home on LSD convinced me to stick it out where I was. So I decided to call some friends who were close by and catch a movie. It’s not like I would be going anywhere soon so I adapted to the situation.

Adaptation seems essential to anyone’s life, since nothing ever goes as planned (And even if it does, one must still adapt to things going better than planned). Your checking account is overdrawn; you have to adjust your spending and finagle a plan to correct your account. You figure out that the profession you studied in school is not necessarily what you can succeed at doing. God deals you some kind of malady that cripples your body, mind or confidence. So what do you do? You learn to adapt.

Why? I adapt because I’ve seen what happens to those who can’t. Some revert back to some remedial stage of life and take some dead end job that has not hint of challenging them. Or they give up on using the gifts that God has endowed them with and accept something lesser. Or sometimes they feel it better to take their own life. And while I can understand how someone could get to such a place in life, I am enraged when I see such a situation. I am enraged at God for letting such a thing happen and I am enraged for whatever other reason I can assign for a suicide. Even if I know that these reasons are nothing more than me grasping at straws to try understand something that is incomprehensible.

So many people I know get used to some kind of support system and rely completely on that system, whether they know it or not. And then when they graduate from that stage of life and move out of a certain environment, they feel like they’re drowning because they don’t know how to sustain themselves without that old environment. Sometimes the solution is to just keep treading water. Eventually, the person may be able to see their situation and learn a stroke that will help them to swim on to the next stage of life.

But sometimes the best adaptation to a situation is to stop treading water. Some people need to be brought to the end of their own ability and begin sinking down into the water. Getting to such a point leaves a person one option: hope that something outside of themselves can help save their life. As they sink further under the surface and the water seems to get darker, a person can look to God and pray for some miracle. And then the person begins to feel a strange sensation on the sides of their neck, much like Harry Potter while in an underwater game in the most current installment of that series.

Something begins growing out of their neck and they can’t help but suck in the water that is pressing all around them. Gills appear on their neck and then they open wide their mouths against all their instincts and fill their lungs with water. They slowly begin sucking in water and their lungs somehow grab the oxygen out of the water and keep it flowing through their veins.

An astounding adaptation has occurred that leaves the person in awe that they can breathe under water and in awe of how inventive God can be.

New Startup Publication Peaks After a Year

So it's already been a year that the Beach Picayune has been in circulation. And thanks to the solid readership and advertisers who kept the Pic going during a time when the printed page seems to be on the out.

A new year brings new offerings and outlets for the Pic. A plan is in the works for readers to subscribe to the Picayune and receive new issues via email. Keep reading for details. And a new look is also under construction by the New Look Development Department.

Future issues that will satiate the insatiable appetites of the Pic readers include:Adaptations, a review of the book Blue Like Jazz, Reflections on Qtting Journalism, City News Days and further flashy, but never, never trashy, content on the Pic's younger sibling publication: www.xanga.com/Sonofa3.

SAVE CITY NEWS

Chicago will have to expunge a word from it's dictionary at 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2006: Scrappiness.

And yes, that is a word. And, yes, it is 12:01 a.m. not 12:01 p.m.

The idea of scrappiness originates from the New City News Service, an institution in Chicago journalism for the last century. And this idea will disappear when the service, formerly known as City News Service, electronically sends out it's last story on it's news wire sometime late that Saturday night. The service will be halted because the Chicago Tribune, who owns the City News Service (CNS), is cutting back on some jobs. There was something about CNS providing too much competition with the Trib's internet news services.

City News will define scrappiness for another 12 days but then after that, it will be hard to find some other source to take up that title. CNS has been an historic (yes, it's 'an' rather than 'a') training ground for journalists for decades. Mike Royko, Seymour Hirsch and Kurt Vonnegut were all alum and can credit CNS with catapalting their careers as a columnist, investigative reporter and novelist, respectively. Maybe catapalting would be too yellow a term for these journalists but they can at least say, "Yeah, City News taught me a few things." One of those things would be the importance of checking and rechecking facts. A CNS motto that emobies this principle is, "If your mother says she loves you, kick her in the shins and and tell her to prove it."

That's scrappiness.

And so would City Newsers racing around the city, beating five other newspapers, four t.v. news crews and a 24-hour radio news station to the scenes of breaking stories. Fires, police-involved shootings, bad car accidents, press conferences, etc. One legend has it that one reporter was passed on a tip from the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office that someone was murdered in an apartment building on the northern tip of Sheridan Road where only a month earlier someone else was found murdered a floor below. That reporter called up the kind, grandpa-like Rogers Park District (24) captain who told him that there was a crime scene investigation van sent to that Sheridan Road apartment building. Well to make a long story short, that reporter got to the apartment building before even the freelance videographer with multiple police and fire scanners in his car could (Check future editions of the Picayune for the full story).

Times like that were how CNS, a not-for-profit organization since it's restructuring in 1999 when it was revived by the Tribune, educated it's reporters in the old school methods of fact-finding. City Newsers wouldn't Google some address of a fire, they would know the general area after studying their official city street guide and be able to tell you the right way to get there. City Newswers wouldn't call up a random detective from Area 3 , which emcompasses the Rogers Park neighborhood, and ask about another murder in the aforementioned apartment building. They would shoot the shit with the 24th District captain and then bait him with, "Any investigations going on?"

The Tribune will be losing out on a great source of scrappy reporters who truly know the city when CNS stops broadcasting. All other news outlets will also be without the nitty-gritty, just-the-facts-maam, everyday dolldrums of reporting that followed the smaller crimes and kept track of bigger criminals all the way through the judicial process. All will be losing very cheap labor that does all the dirty work of hanging out in police stations and bond court hearings at 26th and California to know what's going on.

My 11 months there, though ill-fated, were some of the most formative and education of my life. I don't regret them at all.

It's too bad some other news agency, say Medill News Service or some other institution, can't pick up the work of CNS. If this newswire was saved, people would still be able to trace knowledge and scrappy reporters back to their home at CNS.

Afraid of the Dark Pt. 2

I was reminded again of how much a person's dark side can define them and help make them real.

I got an education over Thanksgiving of one of the most unpretentious but popular musicians after viewing Walk the Line. I came to see why Johnny Cash earned the name of the Man in Black. He was a normal man whose journey through the dark side began when he and some buddies tried to cut a record. The studio owner, who listened to Cash and friends play an old gospel song, stopped them halfway through the song.

He told Cash that their song was just another version of a gospel hit that everyone else has already sung. Cash asked if the owner was opposed to them singing a gospel song. The owner tried to explain what he meant but then asked Cash this: "If you were lying in a ditch somewhere with five minutes left to live, what would you say to God and anyone else who would listen?"

Cash paused and then began playing, a slow, dirge-like song called "Cry, Cry, Cry," one of the first hits that launched his career. The record owner knew that sometimes rehashed gospel songs wouldn't connect with any but a small group of listeners because they had the tendency to ring hollow. What gospel songs said about God was great but what they sometimes left out was the humanity, the pain, the darkness that so many people could identify with.

The owner didn't want Cash to be afraid of the dark. And to the benefit of the world, Cash didn't shy away anymore. Walk The Line show Cash's journey into drug abuse early on in his career and Cash's later music completes the portrait of the Man in Black, a man who lived in darkness but was still able to be redeemed. Some of Cash's greatest music were his four American Recordings, which were pointedly dark.

Cash was a better man for having ventured down the darker pathways and even into his own dark soul. He knew sin in his heart like a father knows his son and he was all the better a believer because of it.

COMING SOON

Due to a sprained ankle suffered while chasing down and apprehending some young punk who stole tips from the coffee-chain-that-shall-remain-nameless, The Beach Picayune was unable to be published for the last month. The editorial board regrets this lapse in coverage but pledges to return the thankless work of publishing the Picayune.

The Editorial Board of the Beach Picayune

Afraid of the Dark Pt.1

(This may seem like it was written in fast forward mode.)

I was scrubbing my dirty bathtub with Clorox bleach cleaner on Saturday. I had a good start to my day with two cups of Arabian Mocha Sanani and my compartmentalized time with God.

I had a rock station playing while I scrubbed. A dark, pulsating industrial tune began playing and I recognized it as "No. 1 Fan" by Garbage. " I would die for you...I would cry for you...I would crawl on hands and feet until I bleed." The words were acidic, gothic and disturbing but the music was entrancing.

I remembered then how much I like darker music like Garbage, Linkin Park or any other secular band that honestly devles into the darkness of this life. I can't get enough of this darker music. I confess that most of my regular digest of music now is not produced by someone who follows Christ. And I'm okay with that.

Naturally, there are dangers to such a diet at this. The constant hopeless messages or depressing conclusions could easily begin to convert one's ways of thinking. A friend of mine realized this and is fasting from secular music for his health (see Trent's blog on the list of links further down the page).

But there is a tendency in Christian music to be afraid of the dark. Afraid of those honest but dangerous expeditions into the treacherous land of human emotion and experience. Sadly, there are followers of Christ who have adopted the ancient idea that the spiritual life should be more important the physical or human life. The messy, the torturous , the mindfield that is our God-given emotions are ignored or suppressed with zeal. And much to the detriment of a person's entire being.

I know this lifestyle all too well, having zealously pursued it for a period of time. But thankfully, I matured in my understanding of theology, humanity and where and how those two things intersect. I am thankful for a high school english teacher, with his long hippie hair and his own rock band, for getting me hooked onto Led Zeppelin. I am thankful for those trepidations first steps of buying a Moby CD and a Radiohead album. I am thankful for the realization that my human emotions need to be included in my spiritual life and should be explored in order to benefit my spiritual maturity.

And not all of my bridges from the world of Christian music have been burned; only about 81% percent of them. Those 81% were bridges that led me away from music that simplified too much; that formulaized too much; that was too afraid to venture out into the unknown territory of emotions. The remaining passages still receive traffic when a band can creatively or honestly sing of the spiritual life and man's eternal crusade to be redeemed.

Christian music that isn't afraid of the dark sits right beside other musicians, like Ben Folds or Ray Lamontagne, who aren't either.

Angst-Fueled Thoughts Lead to Spiritual Revelation

So it was 11:30 p.m. on some weeknight and I was restless. I had an aching to be out doing something late at night again. Being a reporter during the graveyard shift had left me with the need to be up when only a small percentage of the population still is. To be out and conscious while the rest of the city sleeps.

I realized that this sort of restlessness, this angst, is the perfect subject for a blog. It would be a great intro to catch a reader's attention. It's a vague feeling that surely someone else has had and can relate to but, like me, is not quite sure how to put it into words.

So I ask a friend if she knows a coffeehouse that's open all night besides the well-known anchor of Old Town at Piper's Alley, the collossus of coffee, the ever-present espresso pedler, the coffee-chain-that-shall-remain-nameless. This fell0w night-dweller knew of a place: the Pick Me Up Cafe on Clark. I drove there only to discover a line of people waiting to be seated in the not-so-reflection-inducing, sit-down restaraunt atmosphere. I felt a little out of place walking in with a black leather journal, a legal notepad for blog ideas and The Shipping News, by E. Annie Proulx; the materials necessary for reflection and digestion.

This is a good illustration of angst-driven restlessness, that need for reflection and connection with God. People can relate to this common experience.

So I settled on the haven that vampires, homeless men, chess players and procrastinating students can all agree on: the coffee-chain-that-shall-remain. I drove another few miles and parked up the street, only to find that on this night, it was closed. Apparently, a power-washing crew was super-scrubbing the floors to remove the grime that builds up on a continual basis on the floor.

This was a realistic portrayal of a struggle or a Pilgrim's Progress-like journey that readers can be drawn in to. Will the faithful (but Angst-filled) Christian find that much-needed time of reflection and contemplation? Will he be able to not settle for that coffee-chain-that-shall? Will there be some resolution or spiritual revelation?

I was out of options and I've already driven all around town. I gave up and headed back to my apartment. A Burger King with an open-late drive thru got my business that night. I ate my pre-fab Hershey's Pie on my back porch that night and just enjoyed the night sky.

And then I realized that I could have some spiritual revelation on my back porch. I could come to the conclusion that the only place to sooth my restlessness was in fellowship with Christ. Or I could remember that I didn't need a pre-fab atmosphere, or as some would call it the "Third Place," in order to sort through thoughts and see how my faith fits into my present life.

And soon enough, I'll have written enought to satisfy my readers with more angst-fueled thoughts that lead to a spiritual revelation.

Donnie Darko enthusiastts-Start drooling

I've done some research on a very well-made but confusing movie. Here's a buddy of Eberts' take on it and a writer from Christianity Today's Books and Culture Magazine.


http://us.f1.yahoofs.com/bc/3f838842_1414c/bc/essays/Donnie+Darko+essay.doc?bf71AUDBC1Y83Ghx


http://us.f1.yahoofs.com/bc/3f838842_1414c/bc/essays/DonnieandtheBunnyman[2].doc?bf71AUDBd5ItWXhn

These are great if you're a fan or wanting to just figure out what the movie was about.

Wisdom from the Past

I've been re-reading a journal I've kept that's covered the last two and half years of my life. I've found some pretty strong stuff that's encouraging and challenging.

It seems it's always good to remember the past, for all it's struggles and joys, because the past defines who you are and how you handle the present. On a less philosophical note, you can also learn from your mistakes and, hopefully, not make them again.

Here's some excerpts:

"A friend's words came back to me (concerning worship): Even if your not truly in it, you're speaking words of truth (and that means something). 'Half of everyone else in the room probably didn't do their devos this morning either.'

"The idea of God using us in spite of ourselves seems to connect here. Like the whiskey priest in Greene's The Power and The Glory. He was drunk half of his life and he still had to be a priest to so many people. He had to give last rites, communion and hear confessions and baptize hundreds while he himself was far from being right with God. He was distrusting of the guy with the two yellow teeth (instead of loving); he was a coward when it came to his duty (instead of bravely performing his duty); he merely went through the motions of doing mass for a few small villagers (instead of faithfully putting all the meaning into the acts and truly talking to God).

"Even me writing this page and a half on the subject could be evidence. I'm writing up a storm on my 'bad day'. But, as I remember more, I always write more and can think with more clarity when things are wrong. But I have to write everyday, whether or not I think I have time. Writing is just as important as reading my Bible or praying..."
....
"And last night I talked to (a guy who had left stuff on my floor at school). Another friend had given me the idea and all I thought to ask about was his stuff. But when he answered, he seemed so relieved and encouraged. He even went through the 'I was gonna call you' routine. He told me about his year and how it was rough but refining. I felt bad for calling him about when he was going to pick up his stuff. But he was still encouraged and flattered that I called him. Call me the whiskey priest again."

A King's Religion

Wes Craven grew up in a fundamentalist Baptist home. Stephen King grew up in the Methodist church. Who woulda’ thunk it?

Although I’ve yet to see some ripples of that upbringing in Red Eye, Scream or Nightmare on Elm Street, I have seen them in a novel by King and in his memoir On Writing.

It made me seriously consider where King’s life may lay; but only for an hour or so. I finished Desperation and then realized my delusions of spiritual grandeur. King may be been brought up in the as a Methodist but the ripples of his rearing didn’t flow into what I wanted to see in his novel.

Like countless other believers, I wanted to see some sense of spiritual truth in some celebrity to make my faith seem more real, more authentic. As if some celebrity could truly authentic anything except the shallow vacuousness of celebrity. But I read between the lines to find it anyway.

Probably not since The Stand has King written something so overtly religious as Desperation. The premise is easy: a cast of random characters is imprisoned by a devilishly supernatural cop in a small mining town where something sinister was dug up in the mines.

The leader of the survivors is a pre-adolescent boy named David Carver, who, a year or two earlier, had a conversion experience where his prayer of faith miraculously healed a friend who was deathly ill. David had then had regular meetings with a priest to dialogue about faith. That faith is what makes for some dramatic, although sometimes silly scenes in the book.

All of the survivors were locked away in prison cells when David had a vision, or heard a voice direct him to a bar of Irish Spring soap in his cell. So he stripped down, soaped up and began to slip through the steel bars. And somehow, miraculously, his head was able to squeeze through as well. He said later that God directed him to the soap which enabled to escape the prison and find keys to free everyone else.

The oddest scene was in an abandoned theatre where all the survivors had holed up to escape the cop. People were looking for food and found a sleeve of Ritz crackers and a couple of cans of sardines. Before devouring the only food everyone had had in over twelve hours, David thought of asking the blessing on the food. After quelling objections from some of the people, David prayed and asked a blessing. Then one person began passing around the bag. Somehow, everyone was able to take from the sleeve of Ritz and all received a can of sardines. Somehow, the brown paper bag never ran out of sardines and crackers.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or get upset at that. Or if I should really do either.

So there were some other religious imagery scattered throughout the novel but they all seemed to be disconnected and disjointed. They didn’t flow together in some bigger picture or prove to work together to make some kind of religious point. They were merely plot devices without any meaning.

This can only be expected considering how King writes. He prefers to not plot out his stories but only try to develop his characters. This isn’t a horrible way to write but then the story can almost seem aimless.

In spite of the aimless imagery, King did have a little redeeming theology that was worked into the story. David Carver and another of the survivors, a cocky writer surely to be modeled after part of King’s own personality, came to the conclusion that God can be cruel but refining. This was the one redeeming facet to the seven hundred pages of horrific and Texas Chainsaw Massacre-like gore.

Another revealing passage on King’s religious beliefs came in the middle of On Writing. King was hired to move some furniture to make ends meet during his early writing career. He was in the trailer home of the mom of a girl that gave King the idea for writing Carrie. Inside the trailer was an ugly crucifix:

“Dominating the trailer’s living room was a nearly life-sized crucified Jesus, eyes turned up, mouth turned down, blood dribbling from beneath the crown of thorns on his head. He was naked except for a rag twisted around his hips and loins. Above this bit of breechclout were the hollowed belly and the jutting ribs of a concentration-camp inmate. It occurred to me that Sondra (the girl who inspired Carrie) had grown up beneath the agonal gaze of this dying god, and doing so had undoubtedly played a part in making her what she was when I knew her: a timid and homely outcast who went scuttling through the halls of Lisbon High like frightened mouse.

‘That’s Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior,’ Sondra’s mother said, following my gaze. ‘Have you been saved, Steve?’

I hastened to tell her I was saved as saved could be, although I didn’t think you could ever be good enough to have that version of Jesus intervene on your behalf. The pain had driven him out of is mind. You could see it in his face. If that guy came back, he probably wouldn’t be in a saving mood.”

Prayers...

Here's a couple prayers I put together for a congregational prayer section of my church's service. It was great to be able to write it out and organize it all.

May 2005
The Lord will roar from on high and from his holy habitation utter his voice; he will roar mightily against his fold and shout against all the inhabitants of the earth. The clamor will resound to the ends of the earth, for the Lord has an indictment against the nations, he is entering into judgment with all flesh, and the wicked he will put to the sword.
O, Lord, how mighty is your power and your wrath for none can stand against your holiness. Yet in your complexity, you are everlastingly love.
The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression. He will pardon the iniquity of his people, according to the greatness of his steadfast love, just as he has forgiven his people, from Egypt until now.
Your love draws even the most unloveables to You. You pardon our sins without keeping record. Your complexity knows no bounds and we are blessed to understand what little our finite minds can grasp. The only way to comprehend what we can of You is to hold all your abilities and characteristics in tension through the wisdom from your Spirit. It is through that tension that we can fathom our lostness and your grace; our being redeemed but not yet complete; your coming to earth in our decayable flesh and your perfect, final return. It is in your complexity that we can understand how you cursed a fruitless fig tree that withered away to its roots yet fully restored the withered hand of a shamed man at the synagogue. Your fury, love, wrath and grace are wonderful things.
We ask for a glimpse of your greater plan of redemption so we can know how to better serve you in our short time on earth. Help us to see the people you’ve placed in our lives that need to hear Your truth and give us courage to speak that truth.
And lastly, blanket us with your wisdom so we can continue to understand all your complexities and how they all fit together in a giant plan that we will probably never be able to view as a whole in this life.



Aug. 2005
It seems that we are always the prodigal son returning to our loving father with our heads held low in shame. For we know how righteous and holy You are and how much an affront our sin is to you. It seems like just yesterday we had squandered the grace and mercy you cloaked us with when we returned the last time and are again in need of redemption.
But what this repetition has made us forget is that your forgiveness and love are the same as the last time we came trudging home. Your unceasing, unconditional love is there, waiting to rejoice at the sight of us confessing our sins and admitting that we can’t save ourselves. You are eagerly awaiting the moment when you can kill the fatted calf in celebration of our returning to you. You never grow tired of forgiving us and giving more grace for us to be the holy people we ought to be.
Thank you for the joy and hope we have in being loved by you. It is so easy to be overwhelmed by the guilt of our sins that we forget the true nature of your love. We forget that your grace exists to help us to be more than human and to exhibit your holiness. We forget that the joy and peace with our sometimes turbulent lives is what can attract other to you. The true happiness in spite of our humanness is what calls people to find where our hope comes from.
We ask that we understand and remember the joy that comes from being forgiven and are able to exhibit that joy to all those you bring into our lives.

Between a rock and loving place

I've found myself hanging out a lot with the comrades from the coffee-chain that shall remain nameless. I almost preferred their company to that of my local rock, my body of Christ one weekend.

I know what should be my base, fuel and reason for existing. And I know what acceptance and friendship are. And I know the bonds that are forged through the fires of trial, the pains of incompetant co-workers, and the shared sufferings of peddling the world's most expensive coffee.

It's seeming that in order to truly be Christ to them, I've got to be a friend to them. The picture's a little fuzzy right now but I seem to have glasses on that are helping me to be far-sighted and know what I'm being a friend for (besides just being a friend for friend's sake).

Traffic in Humboldt

I heard the sing-song happy music broadcast out of a scratchy speaker outside my apartment and knew that my local ice cream truck was driving down my block. I grabbed a handful of change from my change mug and dashed outside to catch the truck that would happily coat my mouth with lactose-based soft serve.

Luckily, a hispanic kid had flagged it down and was getting a banana boat ice cream cone. I asked for a Boston Shake when it was my turn. As I waited for it to be made, I had to breathe in the exhaust fumes that sputtered out of the truck. "I bet if you stand here long enough, you could get high," I wondered.

But then I also remembered having a conversation with someone about another way to get high from the neighborhood ice cream truck. It began with the observation that the truck had been out one night around 1:30 a.m. Now I know that only naughty children are out that late but I'm sure that those same naughty children may be able to get some naughty treats from the possibly naughty ice cream truck. And none of those treats would be lactose-based.

If the truck is as naughty as it seems, then it is only one of many ways to traffic naughty treats in my neighborhood. Through careful observation ( not even as a reporter but as a person who spends hours sitting on his apartment's front steps in order to get clear phone reception), I've come to realize that all I'd have to do to get high would be to talk my neighbors.

I can ride up on a bike and nod to the right person and he would leave his place of holding up the steel gates by the sidewalk and exchange whatever I'd like. Since I don't have a bike, I could drive up to another section of my block, say 'Hey' and another guy would hop into my car while I drove around a couple blocks and made a transaction in the privacy of my car.

If it were a few months ago, I could have just walked around near my place and looked for small dime bags stashed out in the open so no one person would be caught with them. They would be lodged between the post and wire mesh of a fence on the sidewalk, hidden in a hole between the edge of a sidewalk and the ground (where hopefully the rats wouldn't find them) or even in the cylindrical cones used to prevent people from reaching around to the nob on the inside of a steel gate. The tactical officers from the Shakespeare District station somehow caught on and searched my street for all the little nooks and crannys that hid the naughty treats.

I pondered all this as I sipped my shake and realized that I'd soon be saying goodbye to this neighborhood. I began to feel an odd sensation in my head after downing half of the Boston Shake. I probably wouldn't be able to run after the ice cream truck in my new neighborhood of Lincoln Square. And if I did, I'm sure they wouldn't serve the same tasty treats as my current neighborhood. My motor synapses seemed to be slow in functioning and I felt like I was wearing someone else's heavy perscription glasses. Everything began to be funny, even Saturday Night Live. There would be no more late night fixes from the ice cream truck...or was it a whale? I know it was big and blue and had eyes painted on the side. I wonder if the truck could fly like the Magic School Bus and play "What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been" by the Grateful Dead.

I'm sure gonna miss those Bostson Shakes.

Another Enthralling Entry....

Coming Soon!

The Coffee Master

Due to recent circumstances at my local coffee-chain-that-shall-remain-nameless, I have stepped up to the plate to become the barista that can. The master barista that glides around the espresso station in an effortless flow of arms, milk, espresso and plastic lids. If you slow down the security tapes to half-speed, you can almost see my arms pump four squirts of mocha into the medium cup while simultaneously marking the cup with a script only decipherable to the most-trained super-barista.

Our manager has up and moved to NYC where people apparently are more willing to pay bigger bucks for his artwork. Another senior barista (who preceded me by only a few weeks) who would have taken the spot had to move back to Oregon for surgery on a cist near his spine. The 50-some-year-old employee who is a 7-year veteran of the company, was forever banned from the barista station for slapping the hand of a customer who reached into the station to get something.

So who is left? The guy hired nearly two months ago that is to be the center of the all that is the coffee-chain-that-shall-remain in our River North neighborhood. After a few days on stepping into the fray of employees at registers calling out drinks and customers gathering around like zombies waiting for another taste of blood, I am the sole Barista.

It is I who must use his innate attention to detail to magically make an iced, decaf, triple tall, sugar-free vanilla, two percent, extra hot latte appear out of thin air from behind the mechanized monster call the espresso machine. It is I who must battle the monster with my keen hearing and mutli-tasking ability to catch the scalding hot shots in labeled cups with syrup and other extras (even a freakin' packet of Sweet and Low) while finishing them off with the correct lid and cardboard sleeve (correctly labeled with the dreaded company logo). All the while never running out of steamed non-fat (not skim because skim could be confused with soy) or whole milk and never having the machine stop to have you empty out the spend espresso pucks, refill the espresso bean hoppers and never missing the next three drinks being called out by the company "partners" (as all employees are called in this communistic company).

And if by chance, I shall one day defeat this mighty monster, I can one day be called a shift supervisor (or if I can learn to swallow enough corporate BS) even Coffee Master (which is the communist term for asst. manager).

Top __ Reasons you shouldn't have signed the lease on your apartment

10. A bald musician named Frank lives in your basement with a ten-piece drum set.

9. You have to go to that a neighborhood fruit stand to drop off your rent money.

8. Your landlord tells you that if he didn't like you, he'd have charged you three hundred dollars more for the place.

7. You realize your garden apartment actually was used as an interrogation room for the mob but the landlord added another window and a bathroom since those days.

6. The two squad cars and police sergeant who greeted you at your first viewing of the place now know you by name.

And I'm out of funny reasons so five is all you'll get.

 

Moody Over Margaritas

"How many people have to kill themselves before Moody does something?"

A friend of mine posed this question not too long ago while she and another friend of mine joined me at an outdoor patio of a restaurant.

It was the first sunny day that dried up the April showers and began to usher in the May flowers. The breeze bustled through the patio and made me wonder how heavy the margarita glasses on our table were. They were holding their own so they must be heavy enough.

Each of us were halfway through our tequila and lime drinks when my friend (whom I hadn't talked with in over a year) asked, "Did you know Clark Stacy?" (See $%&*& $*#!)

It seemed that she had traveled to Europe one summer with a school trip. She got to know Clark well and took the above photograph while traveling over there.

All three of us knew Clark and all three of us knew depression. We vented about all our frustrations and then came the million dollar question I began with.

Is that too harsh? Too over-dramatic? Some could not even conceive of an institute that trains the next generation of Christian leaders as being responsible for the suicide of one of it's trainees. Yet some would cast the blame no where else.

We dialogued about frustrations over the loss of Clark, the culture of evangelicalism and our alma mater. It was an odd sort of therapy session that lasted for almost two hours. Even as the sun disappeared behind some buildings and the breeze brought back the all too familiar chill, we kept talking and chomping down on the guacamole and chips we ordered. All the other customers had retreated into the restaurant to warm up.

The chill outside reminded us that it was not yet the longed-for summer. We were inbetween seasons, having lived through the sunless winter and rainy spring but still waiting for the deliverance of summer. We were in an inbetween period where we had to persevere for the better that was to come.

My friend only lived about a block from the restaurant and invited us over to see her place. She mentioned earlier that a friend had given her an expensive bottle of tequila as a gift and that she didn't want to just open it to drink it alone. This seemed like a worthy occasion so she opened it.

"So what are we going to drink to?" she asked. "You're supposed to drink to something."
"How 'bout surviving?" I said.
"That sounds good," said my other friend.
"To surviving evangelicalism," she said.

We raised our shot glasses with a clink and let the warmth of the liquor remind of the coming summer.

Black, White and Red (Sometimes) All Over

During my many hours of TV watching last week, I came a across a show that I swore would have been directed by Quentin Tarantino (Kill Bill Vol.s, Pulp Fiction and the like). And sure enough, as I read in the entertainment section of the newspaper, it was.

What gave it away were scenes ripe with pop culture references, an imaginative presentation of gore (the show was CSI) and his trademark new style: using black and white film in particularly violent scenes.

The two-hour season finale of CSI saw one of the main characters getting buried alive in a glass coffin, much like Uma Thurman in the second Kill Bill. The rest of the team spent the remaining time trying to find him and dig him out without setting off the explosive charges rigged to the coffin. This is trademark Tarantino 'creativity.'

During the show, the man who buried the c.s.i. blew himself up in an attempt to take out other c.s.i. When the explosion was shown, the film switched to black and white to show the results. The film switched back to color to show that another c.s.i. had survived the blast.

Still later in the show, the man buried alive had either a dream or hallucination that an autopsy was being performed on him while he was conscious. When the blood began to flow and the organs were passed around, the film was in black and white again. After it was over, the man dreaming was shown from the neck up in color, slighty bloody (althouth not flowing). To end the scene, the doctors jokingly picked up the man's heart and told the subject's father, "He had a good heart." You gotta love that creativity and wit.

Tarantino used the same method in the Kill Bill Vol. 1 in order to not disturb a 10-15 minute scene where Uma Thurman slaughters an 88-man Japanese hit squad in some pretty disturbing ways. The color instantly disappeared when Thurman took out an eye of one of the men, making it an interesting style and transition to black and white. It returned to normal when Thurman blinked her eyes in a facial close-up after most of the team lay throughout the scene in varying degrees of slaughter.

Tarantino and Robert Roderiguez used similar techinques in Sin City (See Love, BaSin City Style). Most of the movie was already in black and white to begin with but when even the brutality was too much for black and white, the film took another step. Black and white cut-outs of characters were used to portray what happened, almost like flannelgraph figures on a felt board. This was used to show Elijah Wood's character get eaten by a dog.

Somehow, the color swap makes the violence not as visceral or real. And that's why the MPAA says okay to an R-rating for the above mentioned films. Kudos to Tarantino on the creative use of style to make us almost enjoy watching violence.

But woe to us if we are enticed to sit through this style in a movie which lacks any redeeming qualities.

Palahniuk Inspires

“Maybe people have to suffer before they can risk doing what they love.”
You told Misty all this.
You said how Michelangelo was a manic-depressive who portrayed himself as a flayed martyr in his painting. Henri Matisse gave up being a lawyer because of appendicitis. Robert Shumann only began composing after his right hand became paralyzed and ended his career as a concert pianist.
…
You talked about Nietzsche and his tertiary syphilis. Mozart and his uremia. Paul Klee and the scleroderma that shrank his joints and muscles to death. Frida Kahlo and the spine bifida that covered her legs with bleeding sores. Lord Byron and his clubfoot. The Bronte sisters and their tuberculosis. Mark Rothko and his suicide. Flannery O’Connor and her lupus. Inspiration needs disease, injury, madness.
“According to Thomas Mann,” Peter said, “‘Great artists are great invalids.’”

The above is an excerpt from Diary, a novel by Chuck Palahniuk, who also wrote Fight Club. So far (78 pages into it) I’m hooked and (despite the cliché-ness of it) inspired by it. The above talk about artists and the writing style of the book itself is inspiring.

The nihilistic tone made famous by the rants of Tyler Durden is the basis for the book; yet in the blunt, crassness of the writing all that is faux is stripped away, leaving raw nerves, harsh realities. But those nerves and realities are what lead to authentic change.

In the book, an artist named Misty married young in art school and was swept away to some idyllic small town on an idyllic island home where she could paint pictures that would change people’s lives. But the island was spoiled by tourists, advertisements and commercialism, and her husband, Peter, shot himself in the family car.

While the husband sits in a hospital hooked up to life support, Misty gets calls from summer home owners in the idyllic towns near the island where Peter had done some remodeling during the winter. Everyone complains of kitchens or linen closets missing from their homes, leading Misty to find that Peter sealed in entire rooms from the house.

Inside the rooms are nonsensical, yet prophetic scrawlings covering the sealed-in rooms. Some of it is nonsense while others are crass descriptions of life on the island. Intermingled with the nonsense are random quotes from various artists that somehow apply to life on the island or Misty.

I don’t know what happens from then on as Misty tries to figure out what all that means but I know that Palahniuk is an engaging storyteller. And the artistic dialogue is spurring me on to produce something.

From Homicide to Espresso

Change is good. Especially when you're able to change the types of conversations you have during the normal course of the day.

I used to have to ask, "Well, how many times was the man shot and where? Were there any shell casings at the scene? Was the shooting gang-related? Are you currently questioning the mother in connection to the shooting?"

But now I'll have to ask, "Would you like that frappacino affogato style? Would you like to try our new Chantico drinking chocolate? How's it going, do you want your normal double-shot soy latte? You're asking me if refills are free?"

I have succumbed to working for the man, the Big Brother of coffee, the corporate, suburbanized chain store I have always tried to avoid if possible. But to avoid advertising for them, I shall call them the coffee-chain-that-shall-remain-nameless.

Call me a sell-out but the benefits, flexibility and quality tips seemed a good offer at the coffee-chain-that-shall-remain. This would be career suicide if I were to pursue journalism but since I'm not, the coffee-chain-that-shall will work fine.

It's kind of a career twist but who doesn't need a change now and then to refocus their lives, reevaluate career choices and rediscover what a person's passions are. And the coffee-chain-that-shall seems to be an ideal place for that.

And if you know me, that means that sometime in the near future, you'll be getting a pound of beans from the the coffee-chain-that.