Depression Series # 2

So here's the next in my depression series. This article I wrote for a counseling journal I put together for my senior print media project in school. I called the journal, "Issues", and it was pretty well received. I did a reprint a few years later when it became very relevant at my alma mater.
So this is what I was thinking about depression four years ago.


"Living With Depression"

Is this what Hell will be like?
To not have any connection with God
My memories of Him are all that’s left
But the past is gone
The future can’t be reached
And I’m just here

That’s what goes through my head when I’m depressed. God isn’t real and seems like merely a nice idea that a lot of people have. There’s not really a way to contact Him or see a response because you’re just here with all your thoughts to keep you company. And those thoughts are not usually kind.

Thoughts of regret, sadness and guilt were what consumed me for the longest time. I would drown in a tidal wave of guilt because I didn’t complete some small task on time or to the tee. Perfectionistic tendencies still set up shop in my brain despite my having studied Galatians in depth and marveled over 'grace' my freshman year. Forgetting to ‘do my devos’ was one of the largest initiators of guilt because if God was important, I’d make time for Him.

I’d regret not saying or doing something I ‘should’ have done or I’d just feel sad that I wasn’t connected to God. All of this would just create this cloud of sadness that would wrap around me for long stretches of time. I’d just sit and think about how I wasn’t right with God and how bad I felt about what I did 'wrong'.

I’d try to read my Bible and pray more but all these things were just physical acts that had no meaning. There was no God behind any of it. I could read for 24 hours straight and still not be right with God. Something major was wrong with me and I didn’t know what to do to get better.

I could try to do other spiritual things to fix it but my thoughts were still wrong. I could pray and God might have heard me but I was still consumed by wrong thoughts. These thought patterns had grown into me like ivy around a house and could not be cleared away without extensive work.

I was also numb to most everything. I didn’t really connect with people or to sad events that I heard about. Someone died of cancer, committed suicide, or was raped? “Life goes on,” I might think. It would take something extreme, movies like Magnolia or stories by Flannery O’Conner perhaps, to revive my senses to a low-level working order. Existential philosophers, like Søren Kierkegaard, also became geniuses to me.

I ache to be alive again
I ache to feel what feelings are
I yearn to know the experience of worship
I yearn to have the words truly affect me
Does what I’m singing really mean anything?
Can saying what’s true mean something
Even if it’s just an physical act?


I can’t remember when I first started to be depressed but I do remember when God reminded He was still there. Halfway through this past summer, I had a few thoughts that were pivotal in coping with depression: “This isn’t going to last forever. You won’t always be like this.”

I was pretty sure this was from God because my mind could never have produced this during that time. There were no romantic notions or spiritual revelations going through my mind. If the clouds in the sky spread apart and sunlight broke through to warm my numbed skin, it wouldn’t register. I’d see the scene above and think, “That’s kinda nice.” The two thoughts from God were awesome but they didn’t change how I thought.

I’m not sure how long it took, but I started to realize how huge a role my thoughts played. Even if I just finished some awesome time in the Word, the depressed thoughts could still take over and make me waste another two hours sitting and wallowing. I started to ask God to help me with my thoughts. I didn’t know what or how to do anything but I just needed help.

More time passed and I started to realize quicker when I would be depressed. I could almost figure out a specific time of the day when an episode started so I kept praying and asking for more help. I eventually was able to pin point what events triggered the thoughts of guilt, sadness or regret, but only after more time and stretches of depression had passed.

It was about then that I realized how much I truly needed God. I realized how idiotic was the Schuler-esque, American evangelical idea of changing your thinking through your own will power. A person’s thoughts are more powerful than we realize and any self-help fluff you can buy in a Christian bookstore can’t truly fix them. Only a genuine relationship with God, and perhaps some counseling, can really change negative thought patterns.

As much as I wanted to get help from a counselor, I never did, which was probably to my detriment. After almost a year of suffering, I finally was able to figure out my thought patterns and know what triggered a downward spiral of thoughts. Whenever I realized I was in that state, I could stop and ask God for help again with my thoughts.

Sometimes the episodes last a day, sometimes only a half-hour, but they haven’t gone away completely. I've come to realize that this is not just something you can cut out of your life. Overcoming depression would be awesome if all you had to do would be cut out part of your brain. But things aren't that easy. Depression is something you have to live with, but not give in to. It's almost like this sadness, guilt, or despair has to play with happiness, joy and contentment. Joy plays hopscotch with Sadness and cheers him on so he can figure out that he is Son of God. Despair is given an underdog on the swing set by Contentment and is made to laugh and smile.

Yet whenever I do get depressed, I see, yet again, how much I need God and turn to him. God won’t seem real and there won’t seem to be any reason to even consider getting better. But just asking for help, be it from counselors or God, is the only way anyone will ever get better.

Editorial; Evil Dead 2; A Nyquil Night

I posted March's editorial on The Brew today.
--------------
I watched the Evil Dead 2 tonight, as well. Easier to take than the first. Had a classic scene of Bruce Campbell fighting against his own hand, which had been infected with evil.
------------
I'm also fighting a wicked cold/flu/seasonal malady. Tally of everything I've taken today: 2 packets of Emergen-C; Thera-Flu, 2 Aleves. And I'm soon going to be very good friends with a bottle Nyquil. Oh, the sweetness of a Nyquil night and a good night's sleep.

Depression Series - #1

So this is the first of nine articles I'll post on depression. I wanted to do this because I wanted to draw some attention to mental disorders. So many people out there struggle with all kinds of maladies of the mind. Besides struggling with depression myself, a friend of mine struggled with obsessive compulsive disorder, one of the possible reasons for him committing suicide two years ago. (For more on this friend, search for Clark Stacy on this blog to find all the posts that are flagged about him).

So this was probably the first essay I wrote on depression while I was in college. I put it together for the Jerry Jenkins Writing contest my alma mater held. So I had to think, "What would the author of the Left Behind books think would be a great essay on depression?" I almost didn't know how to answer that question but here's what I came up with.
---------
God Isn't Real When You're Depressed

God isn’t real when you’re depressed. He doesn’t reach into your naturalistic life and affect you in any way. All that is real is what you can see and touch and what crumbles in your hand when crushed.

For about half a year, these were the kind of thoughts that I had. Somehow, God became Someone who was extremely distant and didn’t have much to do with how I went to work or how I brushed my teeth in the mornings. Whatever connection that injected divine purpose, or any purpose for that matter, into my life seemed to have disappeared. There only seemed to be the methodic activities that I had to perform each day.

Shaving became a joy, or as much a joy as such an act can be. A Mach 3 triple razor skidded across my cheek, slowly ripping out the stubble that had grown through my skin during the night. The warm, burning sensation on my neck and cheeks from shaving were physical sensations that helped me to feel pain. I was happy for being able to feel anything at all; emotions and other sensations had withered away.

There was once a relationship with Christ that showered me with physical sensations and meaning from some otherworldly mystery. Before I went to bed each night, I could kneel down to pray and just by remembering the events of that day be overwhelmed with how God had worked in my life. I could hardly pray or think straight because I saw how much God loved me and how He had orchestrated what different people had said or done to show me this. I could only cry at knowing how much I was loved and how much I meant to God.

Yet for some reason, I didn’t have that anymore. Those snapshots of faith seemed to be a sort of photo album of the past and not much more than memories. The dynamic relationship with Christ from back then seemed too distant to have any effect on the depression of the here and now. Life was more existential and focused on the table and chair I was sitting at rather than the mystery of God speaking from above the clouds or wherever He truly was.

I knew that God was still there somewhere, yet that didn’t help me with my present situation. I had gradually become numb to anything spiritual and didn’t want to bother trying to figure out why. I was just here and knew that I needed to be somewhere else. My relationship with God had somehow become shredded, if not hacked to pieces, leaving me to merely wake up, exist for a few hours and then go to sleep again. There wasn’t really any reason for doing anything except that I was alive and had to do something.

During those months, one of the best distractions from thinking about how I wasn’t right with God was an online computer game called Super Bounce Out. I would spend hours rearranging colored balls on a screen so that when three of the same color were side by side, they would bounce out, making room for new ones. I made this a sort of priority and cherished the time spent scoring points on something that didn’t matter for anything. I reached a high score of 145,000 points on level 11, where you had to bounce out 175 balls in a short period of time. Somehow, this had meaning for me: I could always get to the next level and this was an accomplishment.

I didn’t know how or why I was like this. My life over the past year was a success story, like many others who get this way. I was editor-in-chief of the school paper and scared some of the administration with an article I wrote. I applied for and became an RA. I went to Africa over Spring Break and helped to proofread a translation of the Bible in a native language I didn’t know. I was a leader in the youth group at my church. I met a girl and started dating her during the spring semester and would spend the whole summer growing closer to her. I had absolutely no reason to be like I was.

These two thoughts did not become a romantic experience where I saw an opening in those clouds and was washed in a warming light that gave life to my cold, numb skin. As great as that would be to experience, I might not even have been able to receive that. My mind might have merely responded, “That’s kind of pretty.” Rather, the thoughts were simple and without flashy lights or sensuous smells to awaken me from my slumber.

“This isn’t going to last forever. You won’t always be like this.”

There was hope in those two sentences because I knew myself so well and knew where the thoughts must have come from. I knew where my state of mind presently was and what had been trickling out of it. A person who is depressed is not so likely to have hopeful thoughts because they are in the habit of dwelling on whatever is wrong. I couldn’t stop what I was doing, take a deep breath, and take a few moments to fix all the wrong thoughts that had been isolating me from God. My mind was still tightly fastened to the existential, natural world and couldn’t suddenly break the roots that held me there. So the idea that what I was suffering through wouldn’t last forever must have come from somewhere outside of me.

I soon began to realize that God was above all that existed around me and had the power to trump the natural laws He had made. He could dig into my grimy, dirt-under-your-fingernails-world to change things and perhaps even help me repair my shredded relationship. I slowly began to learn what ‘supernatural’ looked like in the numbing grind of daily life. A pitiful creature whose faith in himself and his reason to solve things would be shown how little meaning there was in himself and his reason. I saw this lack of meaning and began asking for help.

The hopeful thoughts became a new companion in the playground of my mind.

Unhappiness skipped over hopscotch squares as Hope of Changing cheered it on. Lack of Motivation swung harder on and higher on the playground swings as Hope of a Better Time pushed it. The depressing thoughts would remain like an unwelcome guest despite my knowledge that God had begun to supernaturally fix me.

I thought about reading the Bible and what better book to read when depressed than Ecclesiastes. Solomon, the wisest king of Israel, had gained everything his natural heart could want but, thanks to his wisdom from God, he saw it all as meaningless. All he could build or do was all in vain if meaning was not found in God. I discovered a phrase that Solomon repeated five times throughout the book: There is nothing better for a man to eat, drink, and enjoy his work, for that is the gift of God.

Solomon’s wisdom seemed to affirm my experience with depression. This life was just what it was and nothing else. Any meaning for all of my activities must come from God. In my natural world of tasks and tending to responsibilities, God would supernaturally provide meaning for it all.

This supernatural ability was more and more revealed to me as time went on. Small vignettes of people being put in the right place or circumstances working out to my favor didn’t always look like coincidences anymore. From an existential mindset, God working in our boring, everyday lives can be seen as nothing but chance. However, I can’t accept that anymore. God is supernatural and can rescue us from our naturalistic lives and prove His character through our struggles.

Jesus on Your Arm; What I Really Mean; American Splendor

So a guy walks into my store yesterday with a tatoo of this painting on his forearm. So, thinking I'd be pretty with it, I asked him, "So you got a DiCianni on your arm?" (What I didn't know is that the painting merely looked like a Ron DiCianni painting).
The guy then began telling me about something about what the Bible said about the Gospel. Not wanting to admit my artistic faux pax of mixing up artists, I moved on. (The tat was something to see, though. It was in full color and looked like it took a while to finish).
I then asked him about his t-shirt, which said "Epic Surf Ministries". "Yeah," he said. "We're in California and we run surf summer camps and Bible clubs."
Wow. Didn't know there was such a thing.
-------------------
I posted the last ambiguous article on The Brew today, written by none other than yours truly.
-------------------------
Watched American Splendor yesterday. Great movie about an odd file clerk who drew comics of every day stuff and became semi-famous for it. It's a great mix of film, interviews and comics to tell Harvey Pekar's story.

Caffeine-Free Can Wait; Trent; Books For Lent; My 9 Articles

So I bought a pound of unroasted beans from White Rock Coffee at half the normal price. I got a pound of Ethiopia Harrar Makeda for only $7.50. A friend with a home roaster is going to hook me up so then I can enjoy the great blueberry flavor that comes from the coffee. Having done that, there's no way I can go caffeine-free during March like I had planned. So I'll have to wait till the Makeda runs out.
-----------
I posted Trent's article on The Brew on ambiguous political allegiances.
-------------
So far so good with no TV during Lent. Finished The Book Of The Dun Cow. Started slow but picked up quickly. Other books up for reading during Lent: The Devil In The White City; Blessed Assurance; Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference; Searching For God Knows What; The Book Against God; Cry, The Beloved County.
------------------
I found that I had more on depression than I thought. So I'll start posting the 9 essays I've written over the years staring next week.

Had a conversation with a friend about different translations of the Bible. My thoughts came together as I was talking out my NAS but it ended up sounding truly together, smooth and...(trying to find a way to work in an ESV pun)....

So here's what came out: The New American Standard version came out in the 90s, and was kind of rigid and wooden, though more accurate than the NIV, which was published back in the 60s or 70s. I'm sure that since the NAS, everyone's understanding of the Bible and scholarship has matured and grown since then. I thought that perhaps the generation that each translation was produced in might have bearing on how that version is put together.

The example that comes to mind is how the ESV translates some pronouns, say he or she. The ESV has side notes whenever there is a pronoun which isn't necessarily masculine that says, 'he or she'. This made me wonder if this is according to the newest scholarship or evangelicals realizing past mistakes (?) in how they treated the pronouns.
So my spur of the moment conclusion is that there's surely some influence each generation has on newer translations.
---------------------
Dan's article on the Brew spurred some true dialog with lengthy comments and responses. Check 'em out after Dan's "Compassion and Theology" article.
Also, I posted another new author Lesley on the current Brew. She writes about the ambiguous future.
-------
Next month will be two years since a friend committed suicide. I've been trying to think of what to do and I think I'll post all that I've written on depression during March. So it'll be four or five essays I've written over the last five years on my experiences with depression.
--------
And to keep you guys from thinking that I'm too spiritual, I'll admit that I watched The Evil Dead last night, at my roommate's request ( he recently got the complete trilogy that ends with Army Of Darkness). The description on the DVD case said it was the most disturbing movie ever made. Though it stars funny man Bruce Campbell and contains the cheesiest horror effects from the 80s, it was truly disturbing. I'm hoping the middile installment (The Evil Dead 2) might be funnier. Chalk one up for truth in advertising.

Lent is coming up and I'm thinking of giving up TV for that six weeks. I'm weening myself off of it this and next week. So far so good. Instead of TV, I'm getting into writing more and reading more.
I've gotten used to the fact that I won't be able to see all the Lost episodes in order, so giving it up is easier. And Lost is best viewed in weekend-long binges where you watch half of a season in one sitting.
I wrote two devotionals for my church's Lent devotional and I'll post them on the days they were designated for.
--------
Started reading The Devil In The White City. If anyone else salivates over anything Chicago like I do, this book will surely curb your appetite in a good way. It's a history book of Chicago set around the Columbian Exposition of the late 1800's. Half the book is research in presented in quotations marks but author Erik Larson works the facts in around a storyline following city architect Dan Burham and a serial killer who used the expo to kill scores of women.
---------------------
I posted Dan's article on compassion, theology and ambiguity on The Brew today. It's another article that defines potent.
I'm looking for writers who have an interest or opinion on the Emergent Church for the March issue. So far, I've only got one taker, leaving many topics to be covered. To see a full list of topics for March, email me at eric@caffeinatedstudio.com .

I posted Kate's article on a social experiment involving online dating sites and co-workers on The Brew. It's The Brew's way of saying, Happy Valentine's Day.
The Brew is getting bigger and bigger. I spent nearly all of my free time today online with posting new articles, answering and sending out emails and keeping up a good online presence. You think if I didn't have an actual physical body, I might exist only online.
What a thought.
------------
Upcoming movies I'm pumped about:
Blake Snake Moan: if someone turned a Flannery O'Conner story into a movie, it might look like this.
Sunshine: Brit director Danny "28 Days Later" Boyle's version of sci-fi.
---------------
Another great Kierkegaard prayer from Provocations.
"Oh God, forgive me for seeking excitement and enjoyment in the allurements of the world which are never truly satisfying. If like the prodigal son, I have gone in search of the wonders of the transient world, forgive me, and receive me back again into your encircling arms of love."

Love and Chicago-Style in Dallas

In honor of Valentines's Day this week, The Brew is feature a three articles all on the subject of love, with the usual Brew style. First up is a penetrating look at abuse of the word love by Lonnie. Watch later this week for a social experiment involving co-workers at an online dating site and for finding where theology, love and ambiguity come together.
-----
Found a Chicago-style pizza place in Dallas. Chicago Rick's has a pretty decent pie. It's almost a light version of the real thing, with about half the crust and half the cheese, but still made upside down as it should be. I would've thought that Texans would've wanted a bigger, better, more gluttonous version of Chicago-style, but it seems that they can't even handle the real thing. So chalk one up for ol' Chi-town.
---------
The coffee-chain-that-shall-eternally-remain-nameless now only serves trans-fat free pastries. Including the silly cupcakes which are more trouble than they are worth, packaging-wise.
----------
Watched the painfully funny Series 2 of the Office this week. Sometimes the British-isms still needed translation but the awkwardness never does.

Other News

Ted Haggart finished a three-week rehab program. Read about it here. What's most interesting are the comments at the end of the article that show the worst of who we are.

In better news, I posted the first ambiguous article on the Brew. It's a great look at G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday, by Kevin.

Headline News

The Brew received around 11,400 page views in January, with 1,791 unique visitors. That's freakin' awesome. Word of mouth is picking up steam. If you like The Brew, join the blogring (xanga) or group (MySpace or Facebook) so others can hear about it. (That's my persuasive speech to ask you guys to help advertise The Brew for free.)

I posted this month's editorial on Ambiguity on The Brew. There's lot's of good stuff to come. An essay on The Man Who Was Thursday; confidence in ambiguity in on online dating site; Word abuse and the word 'love' becoming ambiguous; An Exercise in Ambiguity; Finding God in the Ambiguous Future; unclear occupation expectations for young single people in Evangelicalism. And more to come as well. If interested in writing, email eric@caffeinatedstudio.com.

I'm known at my church as 'that single guy from Chicago' to a growing number of people I have never met. The reason this is remarkable is because there are no other people from Chicago there.
Ha! I wish. A single guy at my small Dallas church is more the oddity than someone being from Chicago. I've fielded many a question like, "So what do you think about a singles ministry?"

A friend got me the first six Season 3 episodes of Lost, which I missed. I'm caught up now, both story-wise and it's-all-I'm-thinking-about-now-wise.

Was disappointed with the Superbowl. Bears had one good play but then went downhill after the first two minutes of the game.
Commercials? Anyone else yawn through them?

Chicago's temp today: 5 degrees (w/out windchill). Dallas: 64 degrees.

Who do you look like?

Writing...

Feb.'s come quickly.
I have an editorial and an article to write for The Brew.
I also volunteered to write four devotionals for my church's Lent Devotional book; and they're due on the 1st.
----
Kevin's blog inspired me to share a recipe of my own.
This is a dessert you can get at that one coffee shop. The name has slipped from my memory for the moment but here's the recipe.

Gold Coast Tiramasu Wannabe
Get a French press of the Gold Coast Blend.
Get a slice of Marble Pound Cake.
Get a barista (who tows the company line of "Just Say Yes") to pour a shot of espresso over the pound cake.
Sip the Gold Coast and notice how well it pairs with the drenched pound cake.
------
The film "Paradise Now" is intense, heartbreaking and beautiful.

Read this Kiekegaard quote this morning and couldn't stop thinking about it.

"It was said of Christ that he would reveal the thoughts of many hearts, and this he did. How? Simply by proclaiming grace. He who proclaims the law forces a person into something. People try to hide themselves when faced with the law. But grace, the fact that it is grace, makes them completely unconstrained. Face to face with grace a person really learns to know what lies deepest within. Tell a child to do something--this does not mean the child does it, nor do you really get to know the child's nature. No, but to say, "You are free, you may do as you please"--then you find out what lies deepest in the child." - Soren Kierkegaard's Notes and Journals.
---------------
Beck's 'The Information' rocks the catskills.
------------
I posted my article on ending my newspaper career on The Brew. It's the first article I've posted to ever contain profanity.
---------
Beside the Oscars nominations being announced, the Razzie's were announced, too.

Subtle Nachos...

I watched "Nacho Libre" over the weekend. I was mildly surprised. All fart jokes aside, there was an odd subtlety that reminded me of the style of movies like "The Royal Tenenbaums". If you can believe it, the style and soundtrack were subtle, making it seem more than a little indie.
--------------
I'm thinking of doing a Chicago vs. Dallas post.
----------------------
I posted a new author on The Brew: William Fortenberry writes on The Death of Ivan Illych. Check it out.

New Brew

I posted Dan's article on rethinking how one does church on The Brew.
I was hoping to go Chicago for Founder's Week this year but I ran out of money. Alistair Begg is preaching and that was the big draw for me. I can just taste a traditional Lou Malnati's slice. I can taste the smoothest mocha from Intelligentsia. Anyone's who still up there should grab one for me.

Winter in Texas

t's finally gotten into the 30s and 20s down here. I'm hoping for snow during a weekend-long rain storm. But everyone keeps laughing at me or saying, 'Keep hoping.'
Instead of snow, Texas only gets ice; making Southern drivers who don't know how to drive even worse. And I also find out that because of the inclimate weather, my church might cancel their services on Sunday.
--------------------------
I posted my article on the end of Arrested Development on The Brew today. If you've never heard of the show, check out the article to get a glimpse.
--------------------------------
Another great waste of time is www.willitblend.com. The site it pretty self-explanatory an simple fun. The machines used in the videos are what are used to make Frappaccinos at the one coffee shop. You know the one.

Getting Busy

I'm starting to get busy again. It's been a while and I almost forgot what it was like. Gauging your time and seeing what you fit into a given day. I'm in a book club at church; helping lead a movie night and discussion for the college group at church; writing articles and organizing the magazine; etc. etc. It's almost like I'm back in school again.
Something that's taken up some of that time is www.freeshow.blogspot.com . Don't visit the site unless you want to waste some time.
--------------------------
There's plenty more Brew articles coming for January. I just posted Jamie's article on losing a parent today. Many more are to come more frequently.

La Villita Drive-By - Real Crime Series

School had just let out in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago and kids were walking home or taking buses. I was working in the press room that City News had at the Chicago Police Headquarters on the South Side. I had a computer monitor in front of me and two police radios squawking to my right.

Little Village, also known as La Vallita to it’s many Mexican residents, had many gangs, one of which reared its head that afternoon when someone shot a high school student walking with his girlfriend.

One of the police radios squawked up when the report came into Chicago’s 9-11 center. Person shot in the 3100 block of South Kedvale. I wrote down the address and then got online to check out the address at whitepages.com, a sort of online phonebook where you can put in a generic address, such as 3100 South Kedvale, and get all addresses and phone numbers to match.

I punch in the numbers and get around five addresses and phone numbers. I pick one that seems to be in the middle of the block and call them up. A middle-aged man answers the phone.

In as understanding a voice as I can muster, I tell him that I am a reporter from the City News Service of Chicago. Then I say that a shooting had occurred on his block and ask if he had seen or heard anything.

He pauses and then tells me that a kid was shot on his front lawn.

I can’t believe my luck. Sometimes people hang up on you or say they didn’t see anything. Or they answer the phone with “Bueno,” giving you the signal that they probably don’t speak English.

So I keep talking to him, asking questions and catching a great news story that just fell out of the sky.

Some vehicle drove down his street and shot the boy (what you have to call males under 18 in news copy) who was walking with his girlfriend. The boy fell onto the lawn of the homeowner, whose kids saw the shooting and then went outside to help. The father grabbed some towels and blankets to help the boy until the paramedics arrived.

Police and the fire department (which sends the paramedics and ambulances) came to question witnesses and help the boy. They talked to the girlfriend, the homeowner, his kids and other neighbors.

I asked the homeowner if his kids would be wiling to talk and, luckily, they were. I put on my “Sorry-to-have-to-do-this” voice and heard from a son and daughter what they saw. They heard a couple loud pops from a gun and then looked outside to see the boy fall into their yard. They told their dad what happened and were outside to help the boy and his girlfriend, who escaped unharmed.

The kids’ voices wavered while trying to tell me about all the blood. I held my bulky phone between my head and my shoulder while scribbling down all I could on some paper at my desk.

The dad was put back on the phone and told me about the girlfriend’s bookbag, which cops initially took as evidence but then tossed away near some garbage cans. He had picked this up to take it back to the girlfriend, who has since gone home.

Thinking quickly, I asked the dad if there was an ID card in the bookbag. He found one and read me the name and address of the girlfriend. I double checked this info with him and thanked him for all his help. To make me seem more caring of their situation, I told them that their info, which included a description of the vehicle the shooter rode in, would hopefully help catch the people who did this.

I then used the White Pages website to get the girlfriend’s phone number. An elderly lady answered and I gingerly asked if the girlfriend was there. I did another slow introduction and then asked if the girl could answer a few questions about the shooting. She declined, which I was fine with, having been able to talk to an eyewitness to the shooting.

This was one of around five times when a story fell in my lap or I was able to put together a great story.

-------------------

On a different note, I think I'm addicted to Facebook.

----------

The newest Brew article will be posted tomorrow; Lonnie wrote another amazing, beautiful and raw article. Check it out on Monday.

I'll putting together two articles for this month: one on the end of Arrested Development and on the end of my journalism career.

Add Another One To The Lists...

So I got a Facebook site today. It's pretty shnazzy, technologically speaking. So whenever I post here, it will automatically post the same thing on Facebook. Pretty cool, huh? I'd link to my site but I guess you have to have a Facebook to look at other's page. So if you have one, look me up.

As promised, the Real Crime Story is coming.

And I'm thinking of putting together a satire issue of The Brew in the near future. Any takers? Let me know. I'd like the issue to be sharp, and smart. Writing that is both of these is not easy to produce; nor does it come quickly. If interested, email me and let me know.

The inspiration for this is a book I'm reading: Serrated Edge. It's a biblical defense of satire. So all those who don't think this kind of writing appropriate, I stick my tongue out at you.

Fact or Fiction

I finally finished Tom Clancy’s Teeth of the Tiger over Christmas.

I was reading it on the flight to Ohio when the guy sitting next to me on the plane asked me if I was a Clancy fan. I told him I was a fan of how technical and elaborate his novels were. Once bit of chit chat led to another and the guy, named Matt, told me that he worked for the space intelligence department of the Air Force.

Now, having forsaken all my reporting instincts and put a lid on my curiosity, I merely sat back and listened to all kinds of interesting facts about space intelligence.

Matt pretty much sits at a computer and keeps up with what’s going on around Earth’s space. And naturally, since Matt was part of the intelligence community, there was only so much he could tell me. Any reasonable person, though could guess what his work covers.

One could guess that since there are millionaires now paying to get shot into space, then there is much more space activity going on in the private sector than is publicized. So our government needs people to keep track of it so that they can keep up with it. One could also guess that there is also much more going on at the international space station than is publicized.

One thing that Matt didn’t keep a secret was that the space intelligence community regularly sends things into space with shuttle launches. Although the launches usually take place very early in the morning, they are not a secret. Only the specific equipment sent up in those launches are kept secret.

A humorous side to the launch site in California is that the beaches near the launch site have been closed off to the public because a rare species of bird lay their eggs in the sand. Foot traffic on the beaches would crush the eggs, so says PETA. Some of the more militant PETA members have swam up to the beach to “protect” or protest any use of the surrounding areas. They were promptly arrested and charged with endangering wildlife, as well as trespassing.

Perhaps one of the craziest factoids I learned was about ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles). The military test launches these missiles to remote islands in the Pacific. And, according to Matt, these missiles can reach anywhere in the world in about a half hour.

All this talk about intelligence made me wonder how much of Clancy’s novels were fiction. In Teeth Of The Tiger, a covert intelligence community is set up to accomplish what the CIA, FBI, NSA couldn’t. I wondered if Clancy’s novels became the what ifs that made the government think in a certain direction. An uncle of mine, who is a retired police officer and gun enthusiast, told me that Clancy spends so much time at the Library of Congress researching everything for his novels. Clancy has become so knowledgeable about the military, government and everything related to both that the U.S. hires him as a consultant.

And on a completely unrelated note, an older Clancy novel, Debt of Honor, published in the late 90s, seemed to eerily predict 9/11. At the end of the novel, a Japanese patriot flies a jet liner into Congress, killing most every elected official and leaving Clancy hero Jack Ryan to become president.

Creepy.

-------------------------------------

I posted an article on bi-polar disorder by Sarah that defines potent last week on The Brew. I also posted an article by Trent that tries to create a position on mental health and spirituality that is in the middle. It’s worth a few reads (because after the initial read, most will be too pissed off to see the wisdom in it).

-----------------------------

I also updated The Beach Picayune so that you can look up posts by topic, making it easy to find older Real Crime Stories, posts about Clark Stacy or posts about depression. Check it out.

A Quickie

A Quickie
I had some Costa Rican coffee this week that was smoov as butta. Tasted like bittersweet cocoa and was delicious.
Also got a free sample to brew of some Ethiopia from Dunn Brothers Coffee. I had to compare it to the Ethiopia at the Coffee-Chain-That-Shall-Remain-Nameless, which I'm used to. The sample, which was not roasted as dark, had smack-you-in-the-face grapefruit flavor; the stuff I'm used to has more of a lemony flavor and an herbal smell.
And yeah, you really can get all this just from drinking coffee. Kinda like getting an earthy flavor or roundmouth feel in wine. And, yeah, 'roundmouth' is truly a word.
--------------------
I posted the full version of my article, Re-Entering the Faith, which I previewed this past week, on The Brew. I also posted an article by Lonnie Smith (Mishraile) on figuring out the balance of focusing on God and yourself when trying to heal from a mental health issue. It's pretty solid.
------------
I'm working up another Real Crime Series installment about a drive-by in Chicago that I covered. I updated to the beta version of Blogspot and began categorizing the blogs so you can look up certain ones by theme. For a listing of all the Real Crime series, check out the "Coming Soon" post from Feb. 10, '06.

--------------------
Watched the first disc of 30 Days, a tv series by Morgan Spurlock of Supersize Me fame. Pretty well done. The episode on Muslims in America (Disc 1) is certainly worth a view.

Pho For All

Had some amazing pho (pronounced 'fa') today after church. It's about the third or fourth meal at a Vietnamese restaurant since I moved here. And there seems to be no shortage of Vietnamese restaurants around the NW Dallas area.

I found out that during the Vietnamese war, Dallas was one of the cities that they evacuated Vietnamese people to. Apparently they settled down in and around Richardson, TX (near NW suburb of Dallas) and there's plenty of restaurants.

My buddy and I were the only white people in there for a while (which means you're in the right place for real Vietnamese food). I had some great coffee, which they drip-brew in a small cup at the table. The coffee drips through a small filter onto a bunch of sweetened, condensed milk, which you mix together while it's warm and then pour over ice. Oooohhh, is it good.

-----------------

Got a little frazzled this weekend over Christmas plans. And then I realized that I write best while I'm frazzled, pissed off or depressed. Realized that I hadn't worked on my novel for a while, either; it's probably because I hadn't been frazzled, pissed off or depressed enough recently.

So I stopped by the DPL and picked up some music to help me write. I found Eminem's Curtain Call; Foo Fighter's There is Nothing Left To Loose; and Elliot Smith's From a Basement On The Hill. We'll see what happens. Maybe I'll finish the chapter I started six months ago.

Thanksgiving and The Brew

So I know it’s been a long time coming but I’m finally writing about my drive to Ohio and back for Thanksgiving. But, hey, you can’t rush perfection.

So here goes.

So there were three nuns in a van driving down I-40 in Tennessee.
No.
Really.

They were behind me in traffic for about a half hour while driving up on Nov. 22. That’s when I got out my digital tape recorder from my reporting days to entertain myself on the trip. “A van full of nuns is tailgaiting me…I just passed a brown pickup truck with a fish symbol on the back and…Oh crap! The nuns just ran him off the road. Well, not really. But that would be something to see.”

The nuns stayed behind me for a while but then passed me going about 90 m.p.h. “I’m sure they’re [passing me] ‘cause they know they can get away with it. They’ll get pulled over and say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. How fast were we going? My speedometer’s on kilometers because that’s how it is in Rome’ or something like that. I’m sure that’s how they get out of it. Or like, ‘Son, have you been going to church? Or blah, blah, blah.’”

Other religious experiences on the trip included passing a white church van emblazoned with the words, “Special Forces for Jesus Ministries.” It was as real as the nuns going 90.

Driving through Tennessee was the highlight and downside to the trip. On the drive up, I counted 17 Tennessee State Troopers between Memphis and Nashville.
17.

Traffic also sucked on the way up because I hit Nashville about 5 p.m. (this was after leaving Dallas at 6:30 a.m.). Yeah. I was about ready to call it quits then. But I plowed on, frazzled and cussing at rush-hour traffic for the next two hours. Some clips from the tape recorder would not be suitable for this blog.

But driving back through The Big T on the way home was great. I enjoyed the Smoky Mountains and the fall colors, all while listening to the O, Brother Were Art Thou soundtrack. That was ideal.

------------------------------
The Dec. issue of the Brew is up and running. I posted an editorial on Mental Health and Spirituality tonight, with an article by Lana Wood to come in a few days. You can still submit article for Dec. Go to www.thebrewmag.com and click on the ‘Contribute’ link at the bottom of the page.

Consolidating...

So I started a Myspace account to help promote The Brew. That makes my blogs three-strong and me content-weak. So I'm not going to try to keep up three (which means neglecting one or the other to maintain them all) but post the same things on all of them.
So if you don't like blogger, I'm at
www.xanga.com/sonofa3

www.myspace.com/sum

And coming soon, how I fared whiled driving to Ohio for Thanksgiving.

Giving Up On Answers and Suspending Judgment

I finished God in the Dark by Os Guiness this week and was humbled and changed. Reading Guiness’ answer to the question of ‘Why, O Lord?’ put something into words that I had been struggling with for a while. It was an idea that helped me deal with the suicide of a friend a year and a half ago.

Clark Stacy killed himself in March of ’05 while I was still a crime reporter in Chicago. Two years prior at Moody, I was his resident assistant but kept up with him after I graduated. I was naturally shocked when I heard the news on my way to work the overnight shift.

During a lull around 2 a.m., I did what I could to corroborate the news. I found online the small newspaper in Tennessee that ran his obituary the day after the suicide. I instantly thought of what I could do to find out more. I could look up the local medical examiner, hospital, or sheriff’s office. A friend had called me to fill me in but any news story had to be corroborated. I had to get the facts myself.

An hour later, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to get any info. Why would anyone from small-town Tennessee talk to some small newswire reporter from Chicago? And if this was a suicide, no one would be talking about it anyway. I considered all the other roadblocks to getting information. I also considered my need to direct a sole reporter to best cover the city for the next 7 hours.

I stopped trying to find answers through reportorial means. Instead, for about two months I turned to the community that he and I used to be part of: Moody Bible Institute. I went to a sort of memorial chapel, talked to his friends still there and then listened to some crazy drama involving professors at MBI and Clark’s parents.

The man who counseled Clark at MBI was just as dumbfounded. I didn’t ask but the counselor gave me his professional opinion (which I wasn’t going to ask about for obvious reasons). I felt privileged that he told me what he did but I still didn’t couldn’t figure out why it all happened.

More months went by and I gave up trying to find answers. My anger burned out and I knew that I would never have the answer that I wanted. I was just going to have to accept that and, somewhere in the back of my head, try to accept that God was all that I was taught he was.

And then comes Guiness to tell me this:
“It is difficult to hold an impersonal universe personally responsible, and nothing less than personal responsibility will do. The only remaining option is to call God to the bar and charge him with the injustice of suffering that is otherwise inexplicable. Through doubt we can get even with God.”

So where does that leave me? What am I to do? Believe that God is good?

Guiness told me that “To suspend judgement on why something is happening is not the same as denying that something is happening. The former is faith, the latter is repression, which should have not part in the Christian faith.”

His idea is that you don’t know why but you can know why you trust God who knows why. You suspend judgment of God who knows why.

Guiness concludes by stating that all doubts about the Father are silenced in the Son, to which no suffering can be compared.

There’s not much to say after that.

The Brew Served Up

So I moved down here to Texas to try to start some kind of publication with a buddy of mine from college. It's coming together nicely and (if I haven't already mentioned it to you) it is called The Brew.
You can check out the finished product at www.thebrewmag.com when it served up on Nov. 1. (Right now the website is a just a possible logo).
We have all the articles in for the inaugural issue, which features the topic of boredom. The magazine will make money online by people visiting it. So if you like what you read, visit it more or tell others. You can respond to articles, visit contributor weblogs, even by The Brew T-shirts and memorabilia.

Here's a sample of an article I wrote for it on boring people.

So I tried a drink the other day called Sparks. The orange, extreme-looking can boasted itÂ’s ingredients in bold lettering easily read from far away: Premium Malt Beverage With Caffeine, Taurine, Energeene, Awakeene and Yellow Number Five. It seemed oxymoronic to have both a stimulant and a relaxant in the same drink. So what would the result be with both of these in your system? WouldnÂ’t each of the opposing ingredients cancel out the effects of the other? Would you feel relaxed as you stayed up all night to finish that magazine article that is due in the morning? Would you be rehearsing various ultimate Frisbee plays while trying to say the alphabet backwards?

I wanted a little adventure in my life so I closed my eyes and stepped out into the perilous unknown that this beverage represented. I didnÂ’t know if IÂ’d bask in the rich flavor of the energy drink or scrub my tongue to destroy every molecule of malt. I was ready for whatever may come because I knew that it wouldnÂ’t be the end of the world. My life would still go on after the can was empty and my stomach a little fuller. I may be wiser for having guzzled some disgusting combination that nature would never dare to bring together. Or I may discover the perfect liquid indulgence that would calm me down after a hard day of work but conversely propel me into a long night of writing.

IÂ’m realizing more and more that I am one of those restless kind of people. They donÂ’t like getting into ruts or being in the same place for very long. It may have something to do with me being born in between May 21 and June 21 or it could just be me always being curious about how things could be different. Either way, I like testing things out and trying something new.

I like knowing people that also are in motion and up for something different or adventurous. Seeing others move forward challenges me to keep up; not for competitionÂ’s sake but in order to get to where theyÂ’re at. And because of this, IÂ’m not fond of those who arenÂ’t moving forward or are not adventurous, especially in their faith. It irritates me to be around stagnant people, mainly because I used to be one.

Disbelieving For Joy

This seems like a nonsensical idea. But Os Guiness explains it in a beautiful and compelling way in chapter 9 of God in the Dark. The ninth entry is titled Scars From An Old Wound: Doubt from Hidden Conflict.

Man, I sound like a book report. Or a news story. For some reason, I had to find a way to shove as much information possible into the led or the first paragraph. Force of habit, I guess.

Well anyway, it was comforting and challenging to read this (like the entirety of this book). This is one of those books that you either read and change yourself accordingly or you read and completely deny that it has anything for you.

Here’s an excerpt that explains the disbelieving for joy idea:
“That was the moment when Jesus appeared [to his disciples after his death], and he caught them on the raw before the sedative of passing tim had dulled the pain. He stood before them, the sum of all they wanted. But for sheer joy of what it would mean in true, they refused to believe in case it might not be. What they were saying in their doubt is that it was too good to be true, and this way they adroitly protected the wound and refused to risk opening it. The one fact that they wanted became the one fact too much, so they disbelieved for joy.

“This doubt comes from the fear of being hurt where we have the scars from an old psychological wound. It is one to which many of us are prone. Are not most of us wounded at some point? Don’t we all have deep conflicts that are unresolved, perhaps unacknowledged? It is not necessarily that we have conflicts and scars that stand out publicly, livid and unhealed, but that even if our wounds are invisible, we know they are there, and we instinctively know the pain that pressure on them brings.”

This whole book is just what I need read during this time of life. I’m trying to recreate my faith or restructure it and adjust to all the things that have gone on over the last eight years. I think the book would be a polarizing force for anyone who reads it.

--------------------------------------

On a much different note, I figured out how to rip off the Half Price Books chain. Read how on Son of A Beach.

Emergent Church and Christian bookstores interview

I wrote a freelance article for Aspiring Retail magazine on how the Emergent Church's use of art and how Christian retailers can reach out to this demographic.
I got some great responses and the article was beautiful.
Here are the questions and repsonses I emailed to Aaron Lindloff, arts pastor at Life on the Vine, a suburban Chicago emerging church.

-How would you describe the role of art in emerging churches?Many evangelicals are suspicious of the emerging church, perhaps because it's a movement and not a denomination that you can pin down. Here we have a Christian movement that wants to embrace all of the arts, not music alone, but poetry, dance, and the visual arts. The emerging church movement elevates art because it respects the imagination, seeing it as a redeemed part of our life in Christ. Surely our imaginations can be used for evil, but also they can help us understand and experience God. Traditional evangelical churches have typically used art to illustrate a point. They USE art. Emerging churches, such as ours, display art and experience it. One might say that we submit ourselves to it, insofar as the art is a window to heaven. True, sometimes our art makes a point, a rebuke of some kind, but the overriding purpose of our art is devotion. Some evangelicals say that we are depreciating the Word of God. Rather, we are complementing the Word of God with the Image of God. We are affirming that God has fashioned humans as both rational and intuitive. Furthermore, our heavy display of Christian images serves to combat the barrage of perverse images we encounter in our culture.

How and what kind of art is used in your services?In our services we rely heavily on digital images. We project images of photos, paintings, sculptures. Some photos we take ourselves; others we find for free online or we subscribe to a stock photo site. Most of the paintings and sculptures that we project are found for free online, because they are public domain, made prior to 1923. Lining the walls of our sanctuary are a series of framed prints which are changed every month or two, depending on our sermon series. These come from art books. The altar is an important and central image. Besides being dressed with a vestment corresponding to the church calendar, we place on it an Orthodox triptych of Christ's resurrection and a cross. We choose different types of crosses depending on the time of year. For example, September is missions month, so we display a Celtic cross with a circle in the middle, representing the world. A green cross is displayed during the rest of green time. A rusty metal cross is displayed on the altar during Lent, along with a crown of thorns or three spikes. Aside from the children parading around the sanctuary in an orderly fashion every Advent and Easter, we do not dance yet. That's a tricky one to do... artfully.

How would you describe good art or how does good art function?Rather than defining good art versus bad, let me describe how some of my emerging generation friends and I define ourselves aesthetically. Post-Kinkadian. Referring to Thomas Kinkaid. Referring to the giant dove with Edwardian scripted Bible verses superimposed. Referring to multi-colored calligraphy on a poster. (Calligraphy can be okay, so long as it is faded and scratched onto some water-stained paper.) Kinkaid is a good example of what happens when a Christian artist hasn't any accountability. Life isn't like that. The Christian life isn't lighthouses and sunbeams breaking through the treetops. This generation wants to be real. That's one of our tenets. Be genuine. That doesn't mean we don't have hope or don't want any happy pictures around. It means we don't decorate our homes or churches solely with the bright side of life. We want crosses, crosses with Jesus ON them, cross with Jesus off of them. The suffering of the Christian life. That's real. Emergents also value community, not just with the like-minded brothers and sisters of our church in our town in our time, but with the multitude of saints who've gone before us, in generations and cultures past. This is why the emerging church throws around the term "ancient/future." This is why we like old stuff. Old stuff has lasted and will continue to last. Old stuff reminds us we're a part of something bigger than our immediate selves.

Although I’m sure Emergent churches are more than young people in their 20s, many Christian retailers see the 20something generation as a large part of this movement. They also know that this demographic is not one that frequents their retail locations. This issue of Aspiring Retail is dedicated to exploring the Emergent church. What could be a first step for retailers to better understand the kind of art that is involved with the Emergent church movement?I suppose the first step for retailers in marketing to the Emergent Church--and here I feel somewhat like a traitor to Emergents--is that we are suspicious of marketing. Most ads on TV are lies inspired by greed, concealed with humor. Another step for Christian retailers is to understand our desire to make things ourselves. If we have an artist in our own little church who can make that, we're not going to buy that. We don't want knick-knacks or clutter. Though we do want a lot of candles. I have to drive 25 miles to a Catholic bookstore in Wisconsin to find a set of candles or an Easter candle.

A better interview with arts pastor David O. Taylor of Hope Chapel in Austin, TX, is posted at Son of a Beach. His repsonses were a little more inspiring.

An Unsafe Book

As I keep reading God in the Dark, by Guiness, I realize how unsafe it is to read this. And I think I’m going to need a Guiness to toss back while sorting through everything it’s throwing at me.

The subtitle is deceptive: The Assurance of Faith Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt. This rings of some kind of fundamentalist apology that might try to convince you with evidences or arguments that disbelieving in God is something for first grade thinkers. But the book is anything but.

Guiness examines doubt itself and all the reasons one would doubt. He also explains doubt as a regular part of faith and shoots down the notion that doubt is a negative part of belief. He then goes through seven ‘families’ of doubt that address various reasons for doubting.

I’ve only gotten through three of those families and my spirituality has already had the rug pulled out from underneath it. I can no longer operate the way I have been for the last three or four years.

I’ve embraced the idea of not trying to make everything work in regards to my faith. I’ve seen the downside to trying to fix everything or the downside of being disciplined enough to be ‘successful’ in my faith. I’ve embraced a sort of nihilistic attitude about achieving anything. I had to give up trying and just be. I had to come to the end of myself and embrace crashing and burning. This might be why I’m come to appreciate Chuck Palahniuk’s books so much. He’s been dubbed America’s favorite nihilist.

Well, I’ve crashed and I’ve burned and my crisis of faith seems to have past. So now what? I’m still alive and I still believe in Christ. Do I have to build some new kind of spirituality? Am I no longer going to be one of those troubled souls whose faith gets them through by the shreds of truth that shine out amongst the darkness? Do I mature in my faith and move on with my life and no longer define myself as one of those who struggle as an occupation?

If I read this book to the end, then I’ll have to.

Remembering

“In keep open lines to the past, the redeemed memory carries encouragement and conveys warnings and lessons to faith as faith is engaged in fighting at the front line of battle that is the present moment.”
-Os Guiness, God in the Dark.

This comes from the third chapter of Guiness’ book, entitled “Forgetting to Remember: Doubt from Ingratitude.” Reading this book has been revolutionary. What’s crazy is that I feel like (and sound like) I did almost eight years ago as I was starting my Bible school education. Every book was mind-shattering and life-altering.

I remember those days and look back fondly on them, though nowadays I’d say I’m very far from them. I don’t long for that pure milk of anything and gasp when some new truth is revealed to me. I more just long to continue on and not be dragged back into a depressed state that finds it’s cure in never-ending entertainment. God is still there and Christ has still saved me; I’m still redeemed and am being regenerated but I don’t quite feel like it. I’m accustoming myself to having feelings again and trying to sort them out after having turned them off.

I realized that my faith somehow keeps going, inspite of everything that I think would shatter it. My struggles with depression, although ongoing, aren’t as crippling as they once were. Five years after I began struggling with it, I see that life has gone on and I’v figured some things out. I’ve become one of those people I knew way back when who inspired me to keep going. I saw them in their darkest times but then later on, I also saw them able to get back to some kind of functioning faith. Somehow, they were able to deal with their depression or whatever other malady and move on. Time and their faith were able to help them grow.

I’ve more than survived the last five years and that’s something I try to remind myself of. I earned a bachelor’s degree and supported myself for going on three years. I was a freakin’ reporter for the Chicago Tribune for a year. Although I didn’t succeed at this and quit after a year, I didn’t let that send running home to Mom and Dad thinking that I couldn’t accomplish anything with my struggles with depression. And now I’ve up and moved to Texas to take a chance on starting a magazine. Who knows what’ll happen next.

--------------------
The Next Big Thing in Texas and then some.

Lost and Found

I’ve spent the last week watching the first season of Lost. I don’t remember much of went on during the week except for some mysterious set of numbers that are supposedly bad luck and all the different things the island could mean to the (now) 45 survivors (that’s the tally after the first season).

My roommate says that I spend every waking moment watching DVDs. Now I know that that’s not true; I’ve just spent around 23 or so hours out of the last 143 doing this. I’ve also worked around 40 hours and spent 42 sleeping and maybe 5 eating. That’s about half of the time I spent sleeping and three times the amount that I spend eating (though the eating time would overlap with watching since I usually eat supper or lunch while watching an episode).

Even if one were to consider that I’ve spend an inordinate amount of time watching DVDS this week, some would say that this is a naturally occurring thing, considering the show. Lost is so complex and well written that anyone could lose a week in it’s labyrinthine episodes (and that’s without touching the special features on the disc). It’s a huge hit that everyone loves.

And for that reason, I was wary of admitting that I like it. I have this notion that I’m an artsy kind of guy who likes more complicated and quirky movies. My DVD collection has many films that many people can’t stand or don’t understand. I like to think of myself as a man of refined tastes who may once in a while tolerate some lesser films.

But then reality sets in that it is possible for me to like something so popular as Lost. I look at the movies on my to-see list (Miami Vice, Snakes On A Plane, Prairie Home Companion, Pulse), the movies that I got from Netflix (Carnivale Season 2, Futurama Season 1, The Best of Christopher Walken from SNL) and movies I’ve borrowed from people (The Matrix Revolutions, Superstar) and I can’t keep up that snooty film air. I like popular things and truly enjoy them right alongside more artistic movies.

So when some friends tell me about a Lost Season 2 marathon that will kick off Season 3 (which begins in September), I won’t be sighing. I’ll be saying, “When?” “Where?” and “So what do you think that 3,4, 23,34, and 46 mean?”
-----------------------------
To read about what I should be doing instead of watching movies, read the lastest Son of a Beach.

Anatomy of A News Story

I was chomping down some sugar-coated cereal when I decided to catch up what was going on in the world.

I picked Good Morning America to help me do so for no other reason than someone I recognized from Chicago was now part of the morning team. Mike Barz, former morning sports anchor for WGN Channel 9 News, became the weather man for Good Morning America almost a year ago. Makes you wonder how talented someone has to be in order fill the shoes of the likes of Willard Scott.

There were the usual reports about the Mid-East crisis, some guy named Lance Bass coming out of the closet and tips on how to use dryer lint to fashion winter sweaters for dogs; all presented with equal importance.

Then came the feature portion of the show where the male anchor interviewed someone. This morning, it was Lehigh University student Greg Hogan, recently put on trial for robbing a bank in Allentown, PA. Hogan knocked over a Wachovia branch in order to cover gambling debts racked up online back in January. The reason why anyone should care about Hogan is that he was a class president at Lehigh and also the son of an eponymous Baptist minister.

Both Hogans appeared on GMA to tell their story. The younger Hogan explained that he had an online gambling addiction and that his parents had cut him off financially. Classmates had done the same after lending young Hogan money with no hope of a return. Robbing the bank, he said remorsefully, was a way to pay off his debts. He would stop after this.

I tried to think of why this was even a story. Hogan handed the unfortunate bank teller a note claiming he had a gun, though he never did. No shots were fired, no drama observed during the robbery. Pastor Hogan didn’t even say a word during the televised interview; he merely sat next to his son, a newly convicted felon, and looked stern and serious.

Why is this lumped together with Lance Bass and turmoil oversees? What makes this a ‘can’t miss’ news story?

Then I realized that a pastor’s son (or a university class president) robbing a bank is out of the ordinary.

I realized that Hogan was caught in the lurid world of online gambling that can make even the holy do something human. There’s an addiction that can be blamed.

I realized that the student was religiously repentant and may have thought, “What better way to truly repent than on national television?”

The long-suffering pastoral/parental/religious figure was willing to also be seen by millions, supporting the stereotypical rebellious pastor’s kid.

Monopolizing someone’s repentance, especially those religious people that maybe aren’t so righteous after all, makes for great television.

Hogan had yet to be sentenced when the show aired earlier this week. We didn’t get to hear if a pastor’s kid would serve any jail time. But we will remember long after GMA moved on to rising gas prices is that some crazy religious college kid robbed a bank to curb his online gambling addiction.

So I finish my Cheerios and then go back to hating the news. Until I feel the need connect with my world and see what ridiculous things become news.

___________________________________________________

To read about an MBI alumn who went to court on felony charges, check out The newest Son of A Beach.

A French Lesson

The last year and a half of my life I've suffered from boredom. I work my full-time job, go to church, hang out occasionally with friends grab a brew; the usual. But then I come home and have hours to spare. I occasionally write something but more often than not, I just find some way to pass the time. T.V. becomes the easiest time filler and then movies can fill in the rest. I've even come to the point of playing Solitaire on my computer. Nothing says boredom like the most basic card game designed for one.

I'’ve almost become bored with life. Sometimes I wish that some black hole would come along and swallow up where I live and take me to some other dimension. In this dimension, blending a freakin' Pomegranate Frappaccino would be exhilarating and laying out an appointment reminder card for a children'’s hospital would leave me speechless. And interrupting this would be some ace FBI agent who would need my help to solve some twisted homicide in Chicago. And only a veteran of the now defunct City News Service who toured the city and can hear the streets tell him what happened could help solve this case. I would be back in Chicago talking to neighbors and shaking down beat cops when Bryan Singer would drive up in a limo and ask me to screenplay his next movie.

But alas, I live in the everyday world where boredom can strike down the entire human population, where men like Milan and Manesquier, the two main characters of Man On the Train, can forge a friendship and each provide the other with an escape from the boredom that is their lives. If I sound a little like some faux French philosopher, it's probably from watching this 2003 French movie, directed by Patrice Leconte. There's not much action to the movie. Milan, played by French rock star Johnny Hallyday, arrives in a quiet French town to prepare for a bank robbery. He's old and has a headache, which leads him to a pharmacy where Manesquier is waiting for a prescription. Being a retired poetry teacher and having a faulty heart, Manesquier needs medicine for his ailing heart as well as some adventure from retirement. He invites Milan, clad in a black leather jacket, over for a glass of water, hoping for something out of the ordinary.

The movie continues to follow their friendship as Milan tries to teach the old professor how to shoot a gun. Manesquier teaches the bankrobber some French poetry and both bond through their consideration of what their life could have been. However, both are old, tired and resigned to whatever their fates will be when the end of the week rolls around. On this day, Milan reluctantly robs a bank and Manesquier has triple bypass surgery on his heart. The outcome for both men on that Saturday is somehow softened by the time they spend with each other. Their small friendship and sparse conversation throughout this subtle film provide each with the other's perspective of their own lives.

The only downsides to this movie are its subtitles and subtleness. While being a fine film, this is not the movie to watch if undercaffienated.

And while watching this movie cured my boredom for 90 minutes, it also spurred my mind on to consider my boredom itself. Why do I get bored? Should I even be bored? Do I really need T.V. or movies to cure my boredom? And then I realize how philosophically French I sound by asking all these questions and how boring it is to sit around and ask questions for too long.
----------
Find out the next big thing in Texas at Son of A Beach.

The New Coffee-Chain-That-Shall-Remain-Nameless

So I'm at a different Chain-That-Shall-Remain-Nameless down in Dallas and am adjusting fairly well.

A new store manager took over two months after the previous one was fired. Not sure why but I hear stories of him always eating pastries (from the case and after being put in the trash can, so they say), having emotional outbursts and not keeping the store stocked up. But the new one is pretty cool.

The drive-through store( a horrible idea) is located in a pretty shady neighborhood and is known for it's strip clubs all around. My first day on the drive through I got invited to a member's only sort of poker club. The middle-aged cocktail waitress (who paid with all ones and tried to make a joke about not working at one of those places in the neighborhood; I tried to laugh with her) who came through the drive through gave me a ghetto business card ( 'Sheila's Club' set in front of a black club) and wrote her name on the back of it. "You have to know someone in order to get in," she said. Haven't visited there yet.

Some repeat drive-through customers recognized me and told me they like flirting with me. One car in particular includes a corpulent, blonde woman (looking in her fifties and always sporting an oversized cowboy hat) riding with a young, skinny Asian girl, who likes to buy venti valencia mochas. The third time they came through, they said you should come see us sometime. "We work at Baby Dolls," she said. (I'll let you guess the reputation of a place called 'Baby Dolls' in the neighborhood. This is why I supressed a laugh when she said this.) There was a pause and then "We both wait tables there. We work the day shift." I chuckled and as legendarily (a company buzzword for great customer service) as I could tell them that a place like that wasn't my scene.

And one of the supervisors in the store is a Jehovah's Witness. He comes in frequently dressed to the tee (probably coming from some church service) and might be taking a leave to go on what would be equivalent to a mission trip to NYC to build houses. Everyone jokes around about all sorts of things, including this guy's 'virgin ears.' Then follows other jokes about him not having a girlfriend or not getting 'around'.

No one at the store knows too much about me, yet. Moody Bible Institute means nothing to anyone in the store and I don't mind. But it's odd to hear someone else getting all the religious ribbing that I'm used to getting. I don't know what to think about this.

Superman? Yeah, Superman.

So my buddies and I came out of the movie theater, talking about what we just saw.

One friend said, “I couldn’t believe they would just rip off his suit. I mean, he was dodging bullets with that suit, so how could the doctors just cut it off? I was like, ‘Ahhhh.’ It had to be harder than that.”

“Well it wasn’t the suit that was stopping the bullets,” said my other friend piped in.

“The man makes the clothes,” I said in my faux philosophical tone, trying to turn that old saying and twist it around to make it new.

Director Bryan Singer did a similar twist by remaking Superman and creating a top-notch film that wows and inspires, all the while throwing image and reference after image and reference of Christ at the audience. The entire movie, as cliché as the franchise seems, could be a 2.5 hour long portrait of Christ.

Singer, a superstar director with such varied and intricate features under his belt as The Usual Suspects and X2: X-Men United, continues to use his films to communicate what could be taken as Christian themes. Previous films, specifically the aforementioned features, had bits of theology, some better than others. Usual Suspects explored the reality of the devil and X2 comically portrayed faith. Superman Returns is bathed in Christian imagery, with scene after scene making reference to Christ in either in dialogue or action.

The film is technically brilliant and done in an old-fashioned Hollywood
style. There’s action but not some final showdown or drag-out fight between Superman and Lex Luther, played by Kevin Spacey who somehow recreates Gene Hackman’s earlier Luther. There’s daring rescues at the last minute that you tell yourself you know will come. There’s not a complete swear word in the entire movie despite the earthquakes, plane crashes, and sinking ships that imperil everyone living in Metropolis. A struggling plane carrying Lois Lane, her fiancé Richard White (nephew of The Daily Planet Editor Perry White) and son, possibly fathered by Superman, soars off the end of a waterfall, heading straight for the ground. It disappears into the mist at the bottom of the falls and a second and half later, veers up and out of danger.

And, as already mentioned, Lois Lane is engaged and has a son when Superman returns from his five year hiatus, taken to see his home planet, Krypton, which astronomers discovered somewhere nearby. So things get a little messy for Clark Kent, as well, having to work with Lois, her fiancé, and see Lois' son running around the newsroom. And whether or not Lois Lane did “Spend the Night With Superman,” as one of her columns was titled, becomes a beautiful way illustrate the Father’s relationship with the Son. Marlon Brando’s original voice work is recycled from the old Superman films and used to help explain this throughout the movie.

I’d rather not spoil any more of the movie and let you figure out whether or not Superman actually has a son or if Lex Luther gets killed in the end. It was a beautiful and moving movie.

And if you’re looking for another take on the movie, check out my buddy’s review who watched the movie with me: http://trents.blogspot.com/ .

True Crime Series --- Belmont Avenue Eyeball

This was an actual story that ran at the newswire service I worked for. It could possibly not be for the faint of heart. This is an example of how oddities make the news and (since it is barely a news story) then disappear from existance; except for those who were grossed out enough by it that they may never forget reading the story. Us reporters stopped checking on whether or not it was a human eyeball after a few days and many long sighs from the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office workers when we asked about it.

____

An eyeball was found stuck to the bumper of a Toyota and authorities were trying to determine its source.

Police got the call about the discovery, which happened in the parking lot of a Dunkin’ Donuts at 3801 W. Belmont Av., at about 9 a.m. said a west side police officer who didn’t want to be named. Police did not know if the eyeball was human or if it belonged to an animal.

A citizen called police after finding the eyeball stuck to the bumper of a white Toyota Tercel. The Cook County medical examiner’s office was scheduled to examine the eyeball the next day to make a determination.

The police didn’t know how the eyeball ended up on the bumper and an employee at the Dunkin Donuts had not heard about the eyeball.

______

Check out the next big thing in Texas at the Son Of A Beach.

Crisis Averted

So the crisis was averted, yet again. It almost sounds like the ending of some clichéd movie, where the main character learns some great lesson. Since he was only painted in one broad, monochrome color, he only learned that he was merely selfish or that he should’ve known that his friends would come through. He was not that complicated and so his lesson learned wasn’t that amazing. He was only two dimensional.

I feel like that character because for the last week, I had some financial crisis that propelled me into the realm of disbelief. I didn’t believe that things were going to change. I thought I would never get that refund for self-publishing that journal or that freelance check that would pay my bills during the time in between paychecks. I became angry at individuals, corporations or anyone else that seemingly contributed to my misery.

My bank account went way into the negative digits, throwing an entire toolbox into the machinery of my life. What was in the account would have covered the deposit check given to an apartment complex in north Dallas that secured a pretty sweet two-bedroom, two-bath pad for my buddy and I. Luckily, that check hasn’t been cashed in yet.

My back went out as well, only compounding the situation. Maybe I swam too hard and pushed and pulled that restaurant booth the wrong way while moving it into the graphic design studio. I stretched, heated, iced and just lay on my back, trying to rest it. But it didn’t squeeze back into place until a week later. Makes me wonder if there’s some medical connection between my mental state and a crick in my back that twists a nerve a certain way? I wonder if depression could stem from merely one nerve in the spinal column being pinched the wrong way?

So the week goes on and I continue to go through the motions of my Christianity. I go to church and then grab lunch with the 20 somethings afterward. I went to a small group dinner and tried to contribute something as people discussed chapter seven of Don’t Waste Your Life, by John Piper. Could there be a more appropriate (or inappropriate) book for this week of my life?

In each of these times of spiritual discussion, I felt completely disconnected because I didn’t feel like I had any faith. I just had doubts about all of God’s characteristics that I knew. I felt like I was talking about someone else’s life when I tried to say something authentic. I felt two dimensional. That lesson learned came from someone else’s life, not mine. I wasn’t the person who figured out that wise idea on how to be authentic. I was someone who didn’t know if he had any faith. I was someone who didn’t walk in anyone’s ways or follow hard after anyone. I was just here, groping for some way out of a two-dimensional mess.

I began praying two days ago (one of the things that I remembered from that other person’s life) that God needed to show himself to me again. I knew that I didn’t quite believe that He would take care of me so I told him so. I said this, somehow knowing that he would do what I asked because that’s what He does. I couldn’t say that God would always defend his character and restore the faith of his sons and daughters. But that’s what I pretty much asked him to do in so many words.

And then today happens. I call my parents to check in (and eventually ask for whatever money they could spare). My mom figured out she could wire me some money and did so. While I was talking to her in my bedroom, an overnight UPS envelop came. My boss handed it to me after I went back into the office. Inside was a check for a freelance project that I did three and a half months ago. The amount would bring my bank account back into the positive digits. While depositing this check at the bank, my Mom called while I waited for the teller to deposit the check. “I just wired ***** dollars into your account.” I told her the good news and she was excited. I guess God will come through in situations like this, just like my Mom said in our initial conversation.

I get an email from a friend who’s raising support to work for Campus Crusade for Christ. He’s my age and just had his third child, making support raising all the more interesting. I’ve given him my pittance for the last two years ‘cause were buds and he has the cutest daughter who says, “Hey Beach!” whenever she see me. I emailed him and asked him to pray for my situation. He emailed me today to tell me that he just mailed me a check for $100. That’s unfathomable for me. But not for him. He works full-time on raising support and not in any other job. He lives on the belief that God will provide for his needs and has done so for the last nine months.

He says his mailman took his check to me but then left another letter in his daily mail. He opened a letter to find a check for $500 the same day he sent out a $100 for me.

My current boss also gave me an advance to pay for a small editing job he lassoed for me from one of his clients.

So the two dimensional character realizes that there’s an entire other dimension where things happen and people believe all sorts of things. And then the character starts to see his hand in full color and realize there’s depth to it all.

On Not Being Named Alumnus of the Year

Disappointment abounded this past year when I didn’t get to go up on stage during MBI’s Founder’s Week celebration. Someone else was nominated for alumnus of the year and their deeds were announced to all the eager attendees. People were awed at their ministry prowess and kingdom accomplishments. The recipient (whomever it may have been; I missed that session) surely teared up, said some kind words and thanked God for how gracious, loving and powerful He is.

Maybe next year, I thought.

Or on second thought, maybe never.

I realized this because in the three years since I’ve graduated, a lot has changed in my life, including how I view everything. I don’t have the same goals as when I graduated. Those first dreams and aspirations were crushed once I tried to get out and accomplish them. My beliefs have been put through a blender, leaving me with a glass of smoothie-like substance that I’d have to dig through in order to see what the original recipe was. Am I a Calvinist egalitarian or an ecumenical amillenialist? And can I even give the definition of any of those words to show off my Bible and theology prowess? After all, Bible was my middle name for four consecutive years.
One conclusion I’ve come to is that full-time ministry is not something that God has planned for me. So that, along with earning a black sheep degree in communications, will probably disqualify me for the Alum of the Year. I’m excited for my fellow graduates who have been called to be pastors, missionaries and educators at churches, in foreign countries and in schools, public or private. However, a no B.S. look at my abilities and talents has led me to believe that God has not gifted me with the interpersonal capabilities necessary for a major leadership role in any ministry.

I breathed a sigh of relief when this thought came to me from either common sense or a blessing of wisdom from God. Ministry is rough, messy work that you have to be called to. I remember seeing classmates struggle with ministry because they wouldn’t entertain the idea that perhaps God had gifted them for something other than the typical ministry role.

An honest assessment of my talents led me to take a job as a reporter for the century-old City News Service of Chicago. I’ve always had a thing for writing. I wrote and then edited a newspaper during high school, where I wrote some article regarding spirituality or Christianity in every issue (as well as an investigation into the school selling way too many parking passes for a senior parking lot). I repeated this process while in college with more spiritual topics and a volatile investigation into why nearly a dozen Bible and theology professors left the school over two years. Success in writing on these levels led me to imitate other alumni that got their writing careers off to a great start at City News.

So for a year, I hung out at police stations throughout Chicago and covered the crime beat in city. I saw, heard and wrote about some things that I wish I never had. I became hardened, cynical and got twice the education that I received while in college. After a grating year of realizing more of my strengths, and more importantly, my weaknesses, I realized that I didn’t have what it took to be a reporter in Chicago. I didn’t have enough competitiveness, pluck and interpersonal savvy to make it in a city that is a destination for reporters across the country. I’m happy that another alumnus, Matt Wahlberg, rose through the ranks at City News, got a job at the Chicago Tribune and is now doing leg work for famed columnist John Kass. Walberg won’t get recognized at Founder’s Week either, because he’s just a damn good reporter who probably glorifies Christ through his hard work and skill. However, he was recently recognized and chided by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley for doing his job and asking tough questions: Walberg

It’s a shame someone doing a great job at something that isn’t ministry can’t become the famed Alumni. You probably won’t see anyone recognized on stage that makes some great artistic accomplishment or someone who donates a large amount of money to support missionaries or some private school (The people who donate fortunes of money usually become trustees at MBI, though). It sucks that James Schapp or Bob Muzikowski weren’t alumni of Moody because both have achieved great things through their non-ministry-type vocations.

And it will continue to suck because of what kind of school my alma mater is. I remember that Moody Bible Institute is a training ground for students wanting to go into full-time ministry. Knowing this, I am sure that I will never be given an award for whatever achievements God gives me. This is because I know that I am not going to pursue some full-time ministry. Instead, I’m going to pursue a career in graphic design and continue to work on completing a novel. Maybe I’ll go to grad school and pursue a counseling degree.

But I’m surely going to use the artistic talents God has given me wherever they lead me. And if they don’t lead up the isle and into the bright lights of Founder’s Week, I’m cool with that.

For more random Texas experiences, read the lastest Son of a Beach.

Stuff to Chew On...

Here's a couple articles to contemplate while I get another real post ready.

The first is from Books and Culture magazine on spirituality in the suburbs and the other is the Chicago Sun-Times' religion columnist writing about Rob Bell from Mars Hill.

Suburban Spirituality
http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2006/003/15.24.html
Rob Bell-Mars Hill
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-nooma04.html

The Son of a Beach is soon to have some birthday party pics. Check it out.

From Espresso to Graphic Design

So begins the journey of a graphic desinger. While still peddling espresso for the coffee-chain-that-shall-remain-nameless, I'm jumping into the world of graphic design. And so far, it's going fairly well. I created an inspired restaurant tri-fold brochure and it came together nicely. If only there was such a place as Joe's Highway Bistro.
Take a look.

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.)