Is This What We Are to Strive For?

This post is in response to a comment from a dear friend of mine on the previous post.

My post was not to imply that Dr. Thompson wasn't an intelligent man, nor to be a knock on his character. On the contrary, I was fascinated by the stories that his friends could tell about him and the obvious respect they had for him. Having never really read any of his writing, I don't feel that I have a right to have an opinion about it, and I apologize if it seemed that I was making a statement on his writing; that was not my intention.

What I was trying to get at with that post was the hopelessness of life as portrayed and promoted by Rolling Stone, even a life as celebrated and successful as Dr. Thompson's. For him, it came down to a pistol and a whole lot of despair in the end. My point is best articulated in the form of a question: is this what we are to strive for?

It being Holy Week I've been thinking about who I am in Christ and the hope for the future that I have because of what He did for me on the cross 2000 years ago. While reading the various articles about Dr. Thompson, the memorial service for Dr. Bill Bright came to mind. For anyone not familiar with the name, he was the Founder and President of Campus Crusade for Christ for 50 years. Like Dr. Thompson, the last few years of his life were spent in a wheelchair; it was expected that the pulmonary fibrosis that bound him to that chair would take his life slowly, leaving him gasping for breath at the end, and as I understand it (and I’'m not a doctor, so my understanding is limited), eventually killing him by asphyxiation. By the grace of God, Dr. Bright died peacefully in his sleep. At his memorial service in Orlando, his sons wore black, but his daughter-in-law wore white in celebration of his arrival in heaven, his “"coronation day"” as a child of the King. There was of course sadness at the service, but beneath it there was hope and joy; the hope and joy that can only be found in the saving grace of Jesus Christ. The memorial service was a celebration that his life is not over, that even though his earthly body is dead, his heavenly body, a perfect body not plagued by pulmonary fibrosis, is dancing for joy on streets paved with gold.

As I read, the hope that was so prevalent at Dr. Bright’s memorial service contrasted in my mind with the epitaphs and articles written about Dr. Thompson. There was no hope, no joy; only relief that he suffers no more, and sadness that he is gone.

So I will leave you for now with a question: what are you striving for? The cover of Rolling Stone, or a walk on streets of gold?

I'll go back to being funny soon, I promise. Happy Easter.

Heroes, Idols and Mentors

One of my roommates subscribes to Rolling Stone Magazine and leaves it in the bathroom for everyone's toilet reading. Garbage in, garbage out as they say. On the cover of the March issue is not a scantily clad songstress with bleached blond hair and an eating disorder; nor is it a platinum record selling band with a political agenda and a sour expression (question: why isn't anyone ever smiling on the cover of Rolling Stone?). No, this month the cover is graced by a dirty, faded old picture of a bald man smoking a cigarette (kind of like the back cover, although that picture features a funky looking camel too). This peaked my interest. What would cause a magazine so consumed by physical appearance and sex appeal (did you see the Lindsey Lohan cover?) to put a photograph of a crotchety old man on the cover? Written across the bottom: "Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: 1937-2005". I realized that Hunter must have been a pretty amazing man to get a posthumous Rolling Stone cover, not to mention the majority of articles contained therein dedicated to his life and times, putting him in the same class as Bob Marley, who was on the cover a couple of months ago. The editors must have loved him a lot to do that. After cracking open the magazine and slowly flipping through the clothing advertisements featuring insanely good looking people, I came across the first few articles about Hunter S. Thompson. I've really only skimmed through the magazine thus far, but in doing so I have absorbed a few things.

The first was that Hunter was the author of and inspiration for the character from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas played by a skull cap wearing, perpetually high Johnny Depp. I saw Fear and Loathing last semester at the Student Life Building. It did not really tickle my fancy, seeing as I am not particularly interested in two weird men running around "sin city" stoned out of their minds making bad decisions. Sure, it was funny, in the way watching your drunk friends is funny. There really wasn't a plot, and as I've said before, I'm not a huge fan of plotless films, plays, or books.

The second thing I picked up from reading the magazine in many five to ten minute stretches was that Hunter wrote for Rolling Stone. What articles he wrote and of what nature, I don't know; I only know that he wrote, and apparently pretty well, as long as there was a constant supply of drugs and alcohol.

The last thing I realized was that Hunter killed himself on a cold Colorado day in February with his .45-caliber revolver. This I learned from a caption on a photograph; the actual articles were so busy singing the man's praises that they barely mentioned the fact that despite his apparent successes (yes, writing for Rolling Stone is a success), the man was so depressed and full of despair that he took his own life. Euthanasia, some people might call it; he was old and in a wheel chair.

All of this brought me to realize that the powers-that-be at Rolling Stone magazine have a twisted view of life, death, addiction and success. From what I've read, the man was thoroughly addicted to drugs and alcohol, two things which are generally considered bad in popular society. And at the end of his life, he died alone in a cabin in Colorado. Is this what they consider success? They see this man as an icon to be emulated, a person worthy to have half an issue of Rolling Stone dedicated to his memory, thousands of words written about his genius and "righteous life". What about the other people who make the cover of their illustrious magazine?

(read the comments then click here to see my response)

I'm Feeling...Discouraged

Why, you might ask, am I feeling discouraged? I'll tell you, but only once, so pay attention! This whole car thing, it sucks. That's why I'm discouraged. It seems like every time there is a car that looks like a possibility, it doesn't have something I want, or it's been in a fender bender, or it's too expensive. I'm tired of the emotional ups and downs of thinking I might have a car by the end of the week, and then not.

Furthermore, I've got plenty of homework to do. Not that it is anyone's fault but my own, the deep hole of boredom in which I now reside is of my own making, mostly because I slept all of yesterday afternoon. Ugh. This is really whiny.

I just don't want to be in school anymore, I'm getting antsy. I just want to put my fist through a wall or something. B. closed the kitchen, that makes me very very angry, especially when it's for something as ridiculously stupid as THREE PICKLES ON THE SINK. No offense to B., but please, before anyone makes a house decision, she should pull the large stick out of her butt and relax. Three pickles=NOT A BIG DEAL. If she doesn't want to mess with them herself, tell me and I'll throw them away. Ugh. Now we get PB & J for the next 48 hours. What the crap.

Okay, I'm going now. Homework...die.

My Spring Break

So we're back. Spring break was good. I went to South Beach with a bunch of people from school, got into this ultra exclusive club, ran into P-Diddy, Lindsey Lohan, one half of the Olsen twins and Usher all in the same night, got a record deal and am flying out to California next week to begin work in the studio.

Okay, everything I just said was a lie. I'm sorrry. I know you wanted to know if I got their autographs. Here's what I really did over spring break.

Upon arriving at home Friday evening, I was whisked away to University High School where they were having a benefit to raise money for States. We got there late. The house manager, who happens to be...well, let's just say he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, decided that people shouldn't be let in late. So we didn't get in. I was quite a bit irritated. Who does that? My parents, brother, brother's better half, and I went to Marble Slab and partook of the Lord's Goodness. I had butter pecan.

I didn't stay up really late, I had pulled an all-nighter the night before. Yay.

Saturday passed like any other Saturday around my house, except that we began moving furniture to take up the carpet so they could install wood floors. It wasn't that bad really.

With Sunday came further deconstruction of order around the house. Various pieces of furniture moved into the parlor/living room (whatever you want to call it), and I began preparing myself for my oral surgery Monday morning.

My alarm went off at 6:45AM Monday, and I rolled out of bed, very conscious of my parched throat and my restriction drinking and eating. I got dressed and stumbled out to the van, at which point Dad drove me to the oral surgeon's office. I don't really remember much from that morning. It flew past pretty quickly, mostly because I was sedated. I don't remember walking out to the car, although I do remember buckling my seatbelt and various turns on the way home. I went to sleep in the couch with ice packs around my head, doing my best Vincent Van Gogh impression. I took a pain pill some time in the early afternoon. I slept the rest of the afternoon, the pain medication really knocked me out. That evening I had a satisfying dinner of Cottage Cheese and Apple Sauce...mm..mm..good. Seriously, I don't know what people have against cottage cheese, it's really wonderful stuff, especially when you can't feel your lips. I stayed up late that night, I couldn't sleep after spending all day sleeping...go figure.

The rest of the week I did a lot of sleeping, playing Nintendo, a little bit of reading, nothing productive. The surgery did not really knock me out too bad, I was up and about the day after. I had a slight case of lopsided chipmunk cheeks, but that's to be expected.

The house is still in a state of upheaval. As it turns out, most of the furniture on the first floor had to be moved, so it was all packed into the kitchen, foyer and garage. It's really quite impressive.

Saturday was my mom's birthday. My brother and I forgot. He snuck out and got a card while I was cooking dinner. It was awesome. I burned the pecan pie, and it was still soupy. The filet-mignon, however, was awesome. So was the pillar of smoke I had coming out of the grill. Equally awesome.

Anyway, it's getting late. I'm going to do some reading now. Jane Eyre, it's a good book, you should read it.

Paper....Dang

Sitting here on the couch in the stairwell I am realizing several things:

1. It's really early in the morning
2. My paper isn't even half finished
3. I've been dodging this paper for many hours now
4. Modern Marvels on the History Channel is an amazing show, you should watch it
5. You should not watch Modern Marvels while trying to write an anthropology paper, since anthropology has nothing to do with modern or marvels in any way
6. A stuffy nose and a bit of a cough is not enough of an excuse to not write a paper
7. But it is a good excuse to sit on the couch for hours watching reality shows on MTV and VH1, eventually drifting off to sleep and drooling all over the throw pillows
8. On cold Tallahassee nights, laptops and sweatshirts are a great way to stay warm
9. I like working at night
10. I'm reverting to my high school self by writing in my blog instead of doing my homework (if you go back to the very beginning that's exactly what I was doing...but please for my sake, don't read them, they're really really bad, not even funny...kind of like this post come to think of it)
11. Laptops get hot after a while
12. Apple Cinnamon flavored tea is wonderful
13. It also makes you pee
14. I need to sneeze
15. Laptops don't help your toes with the whole heat thing

Okay, that's enough listing of things for the moment.

Oh, I've been accepted for the Barbados Summer Project with Crusade. Yay for me. Now I get to raise $4000. Hurray for support raising. I need to write that letter over spring break and get them out before I get back to school so I can start raking in the mula (A cow holds up a bank and says to the clerk, "Hand over to moo-la before someone gets hurt!...Bad joke, I know, I'm sorry. You know you laughed, or maybe shook your head in disgust). Well, time for me to get back to work.

Not that I want to get back to work. I do however want to get back to sleep sometime in the near future.

Excuses

Sorry I haven't posted in a couple of weeks [notice: generic excuse imminent], but well, I've been busy. I've been in one of those homework slumps, or perhaps more accurately, one of those everything slumps where you know you have things to do, but you just don't get around to doing them, setting them aside in favor of important things like changing all of the records held on Minesweeper from "Anonymous" to "Laura," or if we're talking about pinball, making the change from "Anonymous" to "High Queen of the Pinball Machine" [oh look, I made a rhyme]. Due to this, I haven't really touched my homework, my diet, my household duties (well, I mean, I've done them, just not very well). The saddest thing about this week of rest and relaxation: I don't feel guilty at all, not even a smidge. It's mostly just a little, "Dang, I should have done my homework...oh well." I promise that being a slacker is not usually in my nature, but this week I've grown to love my temporary self-appointed slacker status. I just have to snap out of it before the end of the week when I have to write that stinking paper for Anthropology.

On a totally different subject, the boys next door have recently discovered the endless amount of entertainment found in practical jokes played on innocent passersby who made the mistake of walking down the wrong stretch of Jefferson St. The first prank they pulled was quite a bit tasteless, and I will therefore not describe it. The second prank, however, was just flat out hilarious, and it involves a large box, someone with a lot of patience, a couple of cell phones, and a group of people keeping their eyes peeled. I hope you've gotten the idea by now. It's really funny seeing peoples reactions. This one girl was running by and one of the guys popped out of the box and she jumped sky high and continued her run at an accelerated pace. And there was the girl walking past talking on her cell phone who screamed super loud and assailed her assailant with a lengthy string of profanity. It was hilarious. Perhaps more hilarious was the group of eight college students sitting on their knees in front of the windows watching every moving soul progress down the street in suppressed anticipation. It's a good prank, I highly recommend it. Just don't do it too close to a busy street, 'cause when people jump you never know which direction they might go.

Well folks, as much as I love writing about stupid pranks and slackers, I've got to go, 'cause face it, this too is a distraction from the homework. Boo...homework.

Check this guy out, he leads praise and worship for FSU Crusade, he's awesome, hire him, buy his music, go to his concerts...he's opening up for Sonic Flood and KJ 52 later on this year.