Ministry Wednesday- Christmas in Montebello

My least favorite Christmas song of all time is Feliz Navidad. It’s not that I don’t like the Spanish (language), or the melody, I just don’t think it’s very Christmas-y. My idea of Christmas consists of Norman Rockwell paintings, Bing Crosby, and Charlie Brown Christmas, none of those things really give off the whole “Feliz Navidad” vibe.

there's the vibe I was looking for.

When I moved out to Montebello it was the start of the summer and I was going through a ton of changes in my life. Summer has never been my favorite season and so it made it hard to acclimate to my new surroundings. I found myself dreaming of the day when the weather would be cooler, the nights longer, and the streets of Montebello would be decorated in beautiful lights. When the season finally came I realized that Christmas in Montebello is not the same as Christmas in Villa Park. I don’t know why I thought it would be but I did nonetheless.

Large signs reading “Feliz Navidad” lined the streets with multi colored decorations, there wasn’t a single picture of snow or snowmen to be found and there were signs every few blocks reading “fresh tamales sold here!” Why in the world would someone want to eat a tamale for Christmas? Apparently that’s a thing in the Mexican culture that’s incredibly common. To me there is no Mexican food that is Christmas-y. I just can’t imagine walking into a taqueria on Christmas morning and seeing an ideal Christmas setting, but yet this song “Feliz Navidad” exists. This song that never made sense to me is a common Christmas song.

Ever since I got here I found myself pushing against the culture. I would say things like “sometimes this feels like a mission(s) field, and I just want to go home”, I barely got through that first Christmas. The only reason I did was because I flew out to Missouri to see my family. Missouri doesn’t need pictures of snow, it has real snow. It has real evergreen trees.  As the year continued after that winter season, I found myself more and more at home in Montebello. I started to know the streets, the good restaurants (and that’s not just because they opened a Chipotle), and what a typical high school student would do on the weekend (the local Krikorian is apparently a hot spot).

So Christmas came around again this year and I found myself prepared this time. I actually wanted tamales (even though I didn’t get any this past Sunday, grumble). I still don’t like Feliz Navidad but I’ve found some spirit of Christmas in all of this.

This reminds me of a conversation with a friend of mine (most things do, I guess I’m blessed with that). He knows this guy at his church who hates “the commercialization of Christmas”. He hates Santa; he hates all of the malls and craziness. He wants Christmas to be contemplative with people to solemnly think about the true impact of Christ’s birth. It’s like he’d prefer watching Charlie Brown Christmas without all the stuff at the beginning and instead just having Linus’ monologue on repeat. Being a Christian and seeing all of the crazy commercialization I can’t help but kind of understand but here’s the problem.

See these people are just really excited about Jesus.

Christmas is a celebration of the Spirit of Christ. Christ came eating and drinking to the point that some called Him a glutton and a drunk (Luke 7:34). He knew how to party, and when we say celebration is there any part of you that thinks “Bible study”? My friend put it like this: it’s like having a birthday party and then saying ‘of course I don’t have any presents, or games, I’m just going to sit here and think about how awesome you are.” I mean that’s great and all, but no presents? That’s too commercial. No party streamers? That’s pagan. Are there party streamers in the Bible? No games? How do games help me to show you how awesome you are?

A celebration of something implies that you let loose. My first thought is “I’m gonna have to loosen my belt for this cause there’s gonna be pizza!” And Christmas is supposed to be a celebration in the name of Christ. It should be the celebration to end all celebrations! And that’s how it’s become what it is today.

Now we can finally get back to the whole Montebello thing.

I’m starting to see the way people celebrate here, and it helps me to let loose. It helps me to put aside all of my worry and judgment (and Judgy Mc Judge Face attitude, as Kate put it). I’ve come to love the people here and celebrating with them is a way of sharing that love, of just letting go.

Now to tie the two things together…

Let’s say Santa is to that one guy as Tamales are for me (or for those studying for the SATs “Santa: some dude:: Tamales: Alex”). They’re just not a part of what I imagine when I think of Christmas. Now I think it’s fair for me to call this total stranger a Scrooge for this main reason, when people came to him with hearts full of cheer ready to celebrate Christ he responded with “this isn’t good enough”. Now if a woman came to me with a dozen Tamales on Christmas ready to celebrate Christ I’d eat 10 of the tamales and then put the others aside “for later” then eat them as soon as she left, I’d hate to look like a fatty.

I would but it's just too commercial, ya know?

For the first year I was here I was a Scrooge. I couldn’t imagine this being what Christmas was really about. When I saw others celebrating I had an air of condescension (like the phrase “air of condescension” has, I couldn’t say superiority because I’m just above that). I knew the secret of what Christmas was supposed to be and they just didn’t get it. But as is often the case I was completely wrong. These people were celebrating with all their hearts and I was stopping myself from letting go and expressing my love for Christ.

See when we talk about the true Spirit of Christmas I think it takes on many forms (and I’m not just trying to be post-modern). That’s part of the greatness of it is how the spirit of Christmas takes the best part of any culture and makes it better. What’s the best part of Mid-western culture: snow, and Americana, and over eating of all sorts of fatty foods. What’s the best part of Montebello culture: crazy decorations, tons of tamales, maybe even a piñata. The only reason why we have images like Santa is because St. Nicolas wanted to give his best during Christmas and then people just kept making him out to be better and better than what he originally was, now he’s a legend.

there goes Santa.

So this Christmas put your whole heart into it, wherever you are. Accept the celebrations of others and celebrate with them because the best thing about anywhere you go is community (not the TV show).  You can’t celebrate by yourselves, so surround yourself with friends and family and let yourself go.

Instant Queue Review- Snowglobe

Christina Milian, you’re back! You must have been off making some really crappy pop music. Oh you don’t do that anymore? Just Christmas movies?

Sorry.

She holds it like it's a grammy, how cute.

Alright guys were here for another go ‘round the ol’ Instant Queue and this time with a few familiar friends. Christian Milian is here with another ABC Family movie but before we go much further let’s look at the stars:

Actual Rating: 3 stars. As far as movies go this is nothing spectacular. Decent script. Decent directing. Poor acting but not so bad that it’s laughable. Overall it did have some good moments in the script and certainly wasn’t as bland as Christmas Cupid so it’s gets a .5 star boost.

Enjoyment Rating: 3 stars. Again, I found myself liking it mostly because it was a Christmas movie, but I will say it had some good twists and moments in the script that I genuinely did not expect, even if they were similar to movies like Pleasantville or Coraline (both great movies).

Kate’s Cryometer: a half tear. No actual tears were shed but she found one of the actors attractive and that made me cry a bit.

Blasphemy Rating: 1 star (should I really measure blasphemy in stars, I’m not sure). Now this movie is very different from the last in that I think it actually had a good message. The difficulty is that it’s not talking directly about God or the afterlife like the other one did so it’s harder to judge blasphemy. Overall the film had some good ideas that I felt reflected biblical teachings which means it’s got to be less than 2.5 stars on the blasphemy rating. A zero stars would be complete Christian doctrine so a 1 is a good amount.

Overall: 3 Stars

The theme of this review will be “slightly above average”. The movie did a great job of not being offensive to my senses or to the art of film while also not standing out that much. The moments that did stand out seemed almost accidental, but overall it was the general plot that won me over.

Christina Milian is back, as I mentioned before, but this time with no crazy sex obsessed bear humper like we saw in the last movie (I know some of you are disappointed) but the first twist is that Christina Milian actually ISN’T BLACK? Now I’m not trying to say that every black actress needs to portray a stereotypical black character but in this case her character is flat out Italian. Christian Milian is by no means Italian, in all fairness she actually isn’t black either (she’s Cuban and her birth name was Christina Flores… I now officially know too much about Christina Milian). She certainly seemed black with her R & B career and her… I’m gonna stop before I dig any deeper with this whole “racist” thing. I don’t care if she’s Cuban, Peruvian, or Snooki (Christina Milian is also from Jersey) but she is not Italian!

This is a screen cap from her "Dip it Low" music video.

In case you need convincing of this point just listen to her terrible Italian accent. It’s confusing to me as to why they would keep the character Italian when they could have just as easily changed the family to a bunch of Cubans… but apparently ABC Family isn’t that kind of family.

Now, since I’ve clearly done a lot of research on Christina Milian I can say she seems to be a nice person and I don’t want to tear her down too much… or more than I already have, and like I said the beauty of this film is in its plot. Christina Milian’s family is trying desperately to get her a husband (I guess this is an Italian stereotype), so much so that they rent out the rooms next to her in her apartment complex only to attractive single men. I feel like if I saw an ad for an apartment in the paper that said “seeking only attractive single men” I would certainly not apply, unless I was feeling especially saucy that day.

I asked for a picture of the apartment and this is what they sent.

So this guy moves in who is awesome, but awesome in the rough around the edges way, in the sense that he has a sense of humor but is super nice and caring and artistic… so really just awesome, but Christina Miliana Corleone turns down this offer she can’t refuse (oh man, that was a good one!) because she is so obsessed with Christmas that she wants a perfect man (later we’ll find out this means blonde and stupid).

So she gets this magic snow globe that sucks her into a world of Christmas perfection where nobody kisses or has romantic thoughts and they all give each other mittens. I don’t know about you but that just sounds terrifying and sad, like a Christmas party at a hospital. “Here’s some mittens to keep you warm Mr. Corleone” “Thank you, I feel nothing but the darkness of my impending death”.

But for some reason she loves it, so much that she falls in love with one of the guys who is skating in circles perpetually. She ends up going over to his house where every time she opens the oven there’s another completely cooked turkey. She does open it multiple times and in when the mom of the house sees she basically just calls Christina Milian fat. Even in the perfect world she can’t catch a break.

So she keeps going back to this world every time she falls asleep until something happens. The creepy blonde haired perpetual skater guy follows her home through a magical gateway back to the real world.

No, she’s not terrified. She’s over joyed to have this perfect man in the real world. Now mind you she’s already fallen in the love with the real guy in the real world and so this ends up making for a crazy Shakespearean dramatic irony where you know what’s going on but the parents don’t but they find out and they don’t tell her even though she could help and then all of sudden things get worse. Now she’s stuck in the snow globe and she realizes she actually stole the creepy man away a creepy woman… a very creepy woman. Christina Milian didn’t just bring love into this sanitized world of perfection she brought lust and greed too. Oh that evil trollop. That’s what she gets for dreaming and accidently showing up in a magical world.

It makes you wonder how many perfect worlds this little
jerk is ruining right now.

In the end everything works out. Christina Milian realizes that there’s no place like home for the holidays and there is now kissing allowed in the snow globe. Yah!

It’s everything I’ve ever wanted for Christmas!

Overall this movie was much better than Christmas Cupid. Mostly because it didn’t make me feel like God was mad at me but also because I really related to that idea of seeking out perfection. In a way it reminded me of Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris which came out recently. I always get wrapped up in the nostalgia of Christmas, and dwelling on the memories of my life which I’ve warped to believe are perfect that I often forget that Christmas is new every single year and yet it never loses it’s awesomeness. Each Christmas is unique (I’m trying desperately to avoid a snowflake metaphor), but it’s still the best time of the year.

I hope this season brings to you new gifts and new excitement, and maybe some twists that you didn’t see coming. Maybe you’re actually Cuban, who knows?

Thanks for reading.

Occupy the Church Pt. 2- Famous Amos (Redistributor of Chocolate Chip Cookies)

This post is going to try to get a little more scholarly. I’d cite all of my sources like a good little college grad but 1. I still haven’t received my Bible College Diploma so I am by no means obligated to be scholarly. 2. You can find all the same info presented clearly on Wikipedia so if you really want sources you should just scroll down on the Amos Wikipedia page and start clicking around. Lastly, just read the book of Amos for yourself, pray about it and if you disagree with me then write a comment cause that’s the reason this blog exists.

Disclaimer done.

So here it is.

Occupy the Church Pt. 2- Famous Amos

Where we last left off I had just made some very sweeping statements about the church at large and our failure to get involved with these struggles that are being voiced by the Occupy Wall Street Movement. I’m aware that there are likely many churches who are continuing to contribute to the overall well being of our youth and are finding themselves very successful, for those few churches you can pat yourselves on the back.

Good job.

But is it the duty of the church to redistribute wealth?

Before we go forward it’s best to define what I’m talking about. When I say “redistribution of wealth” I mean taking money from those who have more and giving it to those who have less to create a more balanced national economy. To some extent this is the moral behind the Robin Hood story, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Robin Hood remains one of the first anti-heroes because of this morally ambiguous act and I think that story is a good jumping off point.

oh, no one was thinking of the Russel Crowe movie? Just the cartoon fox?
My bad.

Now I just wrote about 4 pages trying to go into every single little detail about our cultural presuppositions that surround Robin Hood and redistribution of wealth, but I figured if you wanted that sort of stuff you wouldn’t be reading a youth pastor’s blog, so here’s a summary.

We’re all idiots and are making big sweeping claims that are inappropriate (see what I did there with my big sweeping claim). Not all redistribution of wealth is right, and not all of it is wrong. There are circumstances when you think it is appropriate that happen every day (like when I give to somebody in need) and there are times that are inappropriate (like when a mugger takes from me what he needs). Some muggers have a good excuse and others don’t, some times the people you give charity to really need it and sometimes they just want to buy booze. The morality of your decisions are determined more so by your own personal motivation than they are by their outcome or the outcome perceived by others. So let’s lift back our blanket statements for a moment and try to see what our motivation should be biblically.

Is redistribution of wealth, as in taxing the rich to give incentives and services to the poor, a God honoring thing?

Amos was one of the first prophets chronologically speaking. He kind of defined how the rest of the Minor Prophets did things. Amos is basically, as many of the prophets are, a rebuke of Israel and essentially telling them “oh man, you guys are gonna get it.” I love the language because of how elegantly it sounds when the prophets basically say “God’s gonna kick your ass.” But Amos outlines the reasons for Israel’s destruction as “They sell the innocent for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed.” (Amos 2:6-7).  There seems to be some very clear financial inequality in Israel. That’s actually the first thing he says to them. That’s the most grievous offense.

It’s gets better.

Just a reminder that this post is not actually about cookies.

For those of you who think “well Israel was a theocracy and they were the chosen people so they had a different set of rules.” (Amos 3:2 certainly suggests that) There are three things that I've really been thinking about. 1. What about the language in Revelation? I think a lot of that language applies to Rome and we see God does not hold back destruction for them. Historically the fall of Rome was filled with terrible atrocities that seem to be a lot like some of these Old Testament prophecies. Even if you don’t think that Revelation is talking about Rome directly and you just take it to me the destruction of the world upon the second coming then how do you explain that sort of judgment for the world? 2. In Christ is there any difference between the expectations of Israelites and the expectations of Gentiles (Galatians 3:28 seems to say that there isn't). Lastly we look at the beginning of Amos and the first thing he writes is that God is going to pour out wrath on Israel’s neighbors, you know, not the chosen people, not theocracies.

I think a lot of modern theologians have moved away from the idea that God will punish a nation so that they can adopt a theology of personal relationship over communal relationship (that's a post in itself), but we can’t forget what God said in Amos, “when disaster comes to a city has not the LORD caused it?”  (it’s a hypothetical question, and the answer is yes, yes He did). When we look at the struggles we're facing here with the economy we have to note that God has caused this, or at least allowed this. I'm sure these brings to mind a lot of different natural disasters, especially those felt recently, and I want to make sure to note that I'm not trying to say that God punished New Orleans or Japan but to really explore these topics in detail would require more time. So if you don't mind, and you can forgive me glossing over this, let's go back to Amos and Occupy Wall Street.

The craziest part to me was when it starts to get into that disaster and the LORD says, “There will be wailing in all the streets and cries of anguish in every public square. The farmers will be summoned to weep and the mourners to wail. There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst.”

And a double dose of wailing for those UC Davis suckers.

How does that not bring to mind the OWS movement? How does that not bring to mind the Tea Party Movement? How does that not bring to mind the general feeling that a lot of us have where we just want to cry out “injustice”? I hear talk about how unorganized people are in these protests and my first thought is “they are crying out in anguish, they aren’t trying to write out a declaration of displeasure to pass along to the congress. They feel cheated and they feel as though nothing works for them but yelling out.”

So here’s where I’m left.

It seems clear to me that inequality of wealth is not God’s idea of a good society. Through out Amos it is clearly frowned upon. Through out the Gospels it seems that Christ is opposed to it. So why aren’t we? Why aren’t we disgusted by it?

I talked last post about how I am removed from the situation and so it took me a while to even realize that this thing was serious. I certainly wrote it off when the Tea Partiers were voicing their frustrations and I began to write it off again with the OWSers (if you don’t like the comparison we’ll have to get into that in another post). So when I’m reading through Amos the sixth chapter really hits me. It’s titled “Woe to the Complacent” and it’s got this part “You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions, but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph. Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile; your feasting and lounging will end.” He talks about these cities that sit above the struggles, that look on and do nothing, feel nothing and he says to them that they will be the first to go into exile. We are meant to be disgusted by these things, to hear these struggles and have our hearts break and we are so desensitized by our pleasures that hearing that people are out of jobs barely phases us.

Now here’s the biggest wall I face when I’m talking to others about this stuff. They can agree entirely about it and still say it’s not the churches place to get involved with the government. We are not meant to require the government to take from the rich and give to the poor.

That seems like that’s all Amos did.

He went to the king and said (basically) “You’ll be ruined if this doesn’t change” he even goes on to say his wife will be a prostitute in the streets, that’s after going into great detail about his demise.

Amos was encouraging the King to do something to stop this unrighteousness.

Now we have to think of our political system like a monarchy, but the monarch is the constitution. We live under the rule of the monarch. The job of the politician is to work within the confines of the constitution to provide the best possible outcome for their constituency and when we talk about Christians in politics we are talking about trying to be under God and the constitution at the same time. We are talking about serving two masters. You cannot serve Christ wholly and also work under the constitution.

The constitution, as strong as it may be, is not the word of God. It is a broken and fallible document. To offer equal rights for all people means that you have to offer rights to the unrighteous and punishing them for things that God deems unworthy is simply unlawful. You can say “God Bless America” all you want but ultimately the constitution protects behavior that stands against God, luckily blessings fall on the righteous and the unrighteous or else America would be boned.

We’re okay with this because it also protects our behavior. It allows us the freedom to speak openly about our faith and it doesn’t wrong Christ by doing wrong in the name of Christ, which seems far more offense than doing wrong in the name of America. We look at nations that were led by religion and all we see are crusades.

So Amos telling the king what’s up leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but that doesn’t mean he is wrong. We have a duty, as people who take in the word of God daily through prayer and bible reading, to repeat those words to our nation’s leaders because when our nation is unrighteous than our nation will be punished. I sound like one of those megaphone preachers but I think that’s partially cause I’m talking mostly Old Testament, so bear with me.  These things are clear in scripture, there are complications surrounding their application to America but to dismiss the fact that Amos was a political figure as well as a religious figure, or to dismiss the fact that God pours out judgment on unrighteous nation’s, not just in the end times but today, seems like an ignorant view in the face of these scriptures.

Now I think there is a separate argument going on under the surface about whether it's appropriate for the government to enforce taxes on the top 1% to benefit the other 99%, and often times this includes language like "taking my hard earned money". I know there will be people who have already written off this post as overly liberal so let me say, I can completely sympathize with a republican point of view. I think that it even makes sense to some extent. If you feel like the government is being unrighteous than why would you want to give your money to it? Shouldn't you keep the money so you can make more righteous choices with it? Whether or not you think you should keep your money I do believe it's the job of the government to control taxes and I do believe Christian's should pay taxes (because of that whole "give Caesar what is Caesar's" thing that Jesus said). So the question becomes: is it more righteous to leave the taxes the way they are so as not to impose on the rights of the rich or to increase taxes on the rich to balance the distribution of wealth? I think Amos suggests the second but I'm not saying you have to agree with that, but if you're disagreeing because you don't trust the government than your response should be the same. You should be disgusted with the government, but you should actively participate in changing the government then, because "Woe to the Complacent".

Good job reading this far! Here's a picture!

So I’ve been ranting, and for that I apologize and I’m going to try to wrap things up. Here are my conclusions:

1. Redistribution of wealth is a biblical concept presented in the book of Amos as well as many of Christ’s teachings.

2. We do have an obligation as Christians to participate in the political system.

3. There is destruction awaiting this nation if we do not actively move toward balancing the national income levels.

Lastly. A church that is following Christ should be disgusted at the way our nation allows dishonesty, and the oppression of the poor, to continue. Christian people should be unified in being disgusted with our nation taking more from the poor to give tax breaks to the rich or bail out plans to banks. Really we should be disgusted at how much we rely on banks in the first place.

If we are disgusted than we should participate in changing the system.

All of this reminds me of a discussion I had with my friends and a quote from C.S. Lewis. We were talking about government and how our nation is not established to make the most righteous decision in the eyes of the LORD but rather in the eyes of the constitution, and this C.S. Lewis quote came up, “Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.” Politics without values, though intended to protect the rights of the people, seems rather to protect clever devils. If we ignore this and allow it to continue, whether you side with the Liberals or the Conservatives, you have contributed to the failure of this nation to pursue the righteous that Christ calls it to.

Next week we’re getting into relative poverty/riches and whether or not it’s even appropriate for people in America to complain when there are starving kids in Africa. Hopefully the post will be shorter but no guarantees. Thanks for reading guys.

Short Post Sunday- 1

I trimmed my beard. It is short now.

Guest Post- Brett Arnold of CAT FACTS!

So here's a little treat for you guys, I know I didn't explain this in my about me but the weekends will be dedicated to GUEST POSTS! This one is brought to you by Brett Arnold, a good friend of mine, a Chapman University Alum (in Creative Writing), and a Co-Creator of Cat Facts (he does the funny ones). If you want a double dose of hilarity this weekend then you should definitely check out that blog when you're done with this one. 

The Importance of Blogging

Or, The Importance of Writing

Or, The Importance of Routine

You see where this is going? Yes? No? Well it doesn’t matter, because I’m not nearly finished here.

First off, I feel like I’ve bitten off too much to chew. I mean, with a title like that and all. (For my next blog post: “On Solving the Middle East Conflict: Let’s All Learn Esperanto”). So let’s narrow things down a little. Instead of “The Importance of Blogging”—because really blogging can stand for so much, can’t it?—let’s call this “Following the Ideas We Believe in Through to Their End.” 

The only pictures that fit these abstract thoughts are drawn by drug addicts.

No, that doesn’t feel much better. Sounds nice though, and really gets at the heart of what I’m about to say, but for the original sake of simplicity let’s stick with what we had and hone in on the idea of blogging as (a) a method for anyone to put out their feelings without having to worry too much about what’s said, and (b) great practice for aspiring writers to simply write. Of course blogging is (and continues to grow) much bigger than those two items, but stick with me. We’re talking about blogging as a place to collect your thoughts on a daily basis, however scattered those may be, not about your extremely specific Pokémon rumors, your collection of small and insanely cute animal pictures, or of your stream of daily photos cataloging your face for everyone (but really, probably no one) to see.  

yeah, we're looking at you "Ryan Gosling Disneyland Cats"...
I feel dirty even linking to it.

All art takes practice. Open that up a bit, and anything really great that we want to achieve takes practice. You don’t get a dream job without showing experience, a 12-pack without doing the crunches, blah blah blah. I really believe this. Art is not all about the finished product, it’s about the process too. (If this blog post feels a little rough around the edges, it’s because I probably haven’t taken the proper amount of time to make it perfect. But then again, it’s a blog). 

Doing something over nothing—if thought of like a math problem—will always be infinitely (or rather undefinably) more important. 

1/0 = ?

Something/Nothing = ?

try explaining to Ruben that this is the answer to a math problem...

This is the same logic applied to the Occupy Wall Street post from earlier this week. (Despite your feelings about it, at least you don’t have a $5 debit fee. So, you know, there you go). 

Of course, I should argue as well that the end serves to justify the means, and so should watch the scope of my metaphor,but I think it’s safe to assume that blogging regularly really will lead to better overall writing (assuming of course your blog isn’t  "Hitting_My_Loved_Ones_With_This_Keyboard_And_Seeing_What_Jumbled_Letters_Appear_On_Screen.tumblr.com"), and that passion leads to perfection. (If that last part’s not a saying already, dibs. That’s right, you heard it here first). 

This notion can seem so simple, and so astoundingly difficult at the same time. It’s like saying “All you need is love.” Simple, right? Well, in practice, no, but it makes us better people, so get to it. Follow the ideas you believe in through to their end. 

another concept only drawn by drug addicts...

Signing off, 

Brett Arnold (brettarnold@me.com)

P.S. bgkjfrwsh uiv vbcf (I hit my own head with my keyboard. Really). 

Cop Out Friday- Just kidding, VIDEO FRIDAY!

So Fridays are supposed to be dedicated to uploading video blogs showcasing some of the things that you don't really get the full picture of when I just explain it with words. So Kate had a brilliant idea about doing a tour of my office (given that it is kind of the basis for this blog) and I thought it was a brilliant idea. My office shelves are covered with all sorts of things that remind me of my friends and family and it's simply a wealth of personal expression.

So of course when it came down to crunch time I wasn't able to get the whole thing edited and rendered. Let us count this as my first official blog fail. It had to happen sometime.

Instead I offer to you an old video that my friends and I made for a youtube competition put on by The Lonely Island. Back then we thought we were hilarious but we quickly found that our humor didn't transfer that well to film. The original cut, which is now inexplicably lost in cyber space, was easily 20x funnier than this but I figured now's as good a time as any to show of this spectacular failure. :-)

Random Thursday- Donald and the Dust Bunnies

Intro:

I started writing short stories when I was in 4^th grade. We had these spelling assignments and we could choose whether we wanted to write the words 10 times each or just write a short story including some of the words (I think it was at least 8). This is when I realized I was different from other kids. It seemed obvious to them that writing the words down over and over was a better option than writing a story. One way you needed to know how to spell 10 words, the other way you needed to know how to spell a nearly uncountable number of words, they feared the idea that they might be faced with a word that was hard to spell and thus have to learn more than necessary, but I was fearless. At first I wrote a story about Halloween.

When the teacher first read it she was taken back because I was literally the first kid in her however many years of teaching that decided to write a story instead of doing the other assignment, but then she did something that changed my life forever. She let me read it in front of the class.

At the time I had just moved to California from Kentucky and I was a round, chapped lipped, wearing shorts year round alien to most of these kids and Orange County was never too accepting of aliens. But when I read that story aloud I found that suddenly people knew my name, suddenly I had a place. Not to romanticize my origin story too much but I’ll just say that my life could make a pretty inspirational film.

but of course the book would be better.

Not too long after that I found out about a place called Orange County High School of the Arts. They had a creative writing department that was accepting applications and I knew that’s where I belonged. So I sat down and wrote a story.

I got a call a few days later for James Blaylock (the head of the department) who told me that he could tell I was meant for the program because of the story I had written only a few weeks earlier. My mom reminds me about this constantly because she thought the story was hilarious. It was about dust bunnies.

So after what may very well be the longest introduction in the history of blog posts, I know present to you...

Donald and the Dust Bunnies (a tribute to the original Dust Bunnies story):

Dust bunny picture stolen from an Etsy shop that no longer exists
it was called "Stitch Happens" apparently. RIP you adorable entrepreneur.

Donald wasn’t a particularly messy kid. He was about as messy as Kyle down the street and Kyle’s parents always told him how clean he was, even if he was a jerk to Donald at school. So Donald knew that he wasn’t that bad, but it never stopped his mom from the occasional yelling. “Donald I told you to clean your room.”

“But Mom it is clean!” he would often respond.

But this day was different. He could tell it was getting to be around the time of the holidays because he used to be able to play a whole game of tag and still bike home before it got to dark but now he’d have trouble making it all the way back right after school, even if he rode his bike. As much as he loved the holidays, he certainly loved playing tag more.

It was a week before Thanksgiving and his mom was preparing all the things around the house. She took down all the spider webs and creepy ghost and started putting up the boring pumpkins and after dinner mints that adults like.  He knew it was a week before because Mom had put out the nuts with the shells on them and the nutcracker that his dad would use all through Christmas.

So when his mom came in and saw all the legos sprawled out across the floor he knew she was going to mean business.

“Donald I need all of this cleaned up, and when was the last time you vacuumed?”

“Vacuumed? What’s a vacuum?”

“Don’t be silly Donald, this room better be clean, and I mean dusted and vacuumed by tomorrow.”

His mom walked off, distracted by the millions of other things she needed to do, and Donald went back to playing with his Legos. At the end of the day he decided to be a good boy and put some of them way. As he was tidying up he saw a lone yellow lego brick just under his bed skirt.

He slid over toward it on his hard wood floor and began to reach under the bed but he couldn’t find it. He patted around and kept trying but to no avail. Finally he lifted up the skirt and looked under the bed.

Just as the light crept in from the room he saw a bunch of little things scatter as if pushed by the wind. He lifted the skirt up more and they scattered again, running from the light.

“Hello?”

He heard little giggles.

“Hello?”

Giggles again.

“quiet!”

“Hello?!” Donald said, now somewhat impatient and curious.

The giggles continued and so Donald threw his hand under the bed quickly and grabbed something. The giggling stopped.

As Donald pulled his hand from under the bed he noticed it was covered in dust bunnies. He looked at them for a second and reluctantly he said,

“Hello?”

A dust bunny chuckled.

“Are you laughing?”

“Well of course I’m laughing you keep saying hello to a dust bunny!” The dust bunny said. “You don’t just talk to dust bunnies.”

“And why not?”

“well… because dust bunnies don’t talk to you!” another one said, slightly angry.

“Then what are you doing now,” Donald said with a smirk.

“I’m trying to get you to let me go!”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Donald set them down gently on the hardwood floor. “My name’s Donald by the way.”

“That’s a fine sort of name I guess, us dust bunnies don’t have names.” Said the grumpy one.

“I can give you names!” Donald said, excited (hence the exclamation mark).

“I want to be named George,” said George.

“If you pick a name then I can’t give it to you,” said Donald.

“That’s fine by me! Hi, I’m George.”

“Hello George, I’m Donald.” He reached out his hand to shake with George and George tickled the end of his finger with a little bit of his lint. Donald let out a little laugh.

“And what about your name…”

“I’d really prefer not,” said the grumpy one.

“I think I’ll call you The Grump,” George said with a smile.

“And what exactly is a Grump?”

“Why, you are of course!” said George as he hoped about the floor.

Just then Donald heard his mothers footsteps coming up the stairs.

“Oh no guys! You’d better hide,” Donald said, but by the time the words came out of his mouth they were already back under the bed. Donald peeked his head under.

“Guys? Where’d you go?”

His mother came through the door way.

“Donald, are you actually cleaning up under your bed! I’m so proud!”

Donald jumped up with a shock and bumped his head on the bottom of the bed.

“What? No!”

“Well then you better get started”

“Mom, I can’t clean under my bed!”

“And why not?”

“Well, it’s just…” Donald trying to explain but simply couldn’t find the words.

“Now Donald, it’s almost bed time, if this isn’t cleaned up by the end of the day tomorrow then we’re going to have a serious talk young man.”

As his mom left the room he sat next to his bed, defeated. What was he going to tell his mom? What was he going to tell his new friends? As he slept he tossed and turned worrying that he was waking up the dust bunnies. He dreamt of evil vacuums coming and sucking them up, and of being caught in big ol’ gusts of winds that would pick him up and take him away. He barely got any sleep.

Join us next week to find out what happens to Donald, George, and the Grump!