FEED ME! (Becoming an Adventurer Part I)

I spend a lot of time in video stores. I have probably spent hours upon hours in them; perhaps even as much time as a stay at home parent might spend at their local grocery store. This never struck me as abnormal until a day ago.

After 3 fun filled weeks with family and friends, the last week of my winter break was upon me and my family had all but returned to their everyday routine. Dad was back at work, the girls were headed out of town and my mom and her own dad were headed on a short holiday to DC. For the first time in 3 whole weeks I was going to be on my own again. Naturally I didn’t want to spend the majority of the next 48 hours alone in a big empty house, so I hit the town.

In between lunch and heading to a movie theater, I stopped in an FYE (For Your Entertainment). It is one of the largest I have ever been in, and I used to frequent it when I was a permanent fixture of the Hampton Roads area. Upon walking in I stopped and felt suddenly overwhelmed. It might have been that I was tired, or maybe I have just been hypersensitive about entertainment lately; but for whatever reason, when I walked in the door, I lost all desire to look for individual items, whether they were movies, music or video games. I was suddenly looking at the store as a whole, and all I could say was:

“Why?”

Why do we need stores that have as large a variety of movies as we do of food? In fact, there was probably a larger variety of sitcoms on DVD in that store than there are kinds of produce at the Farm Fresh around the corner.

Dizziness overwhelmed me as I realized that I had been part of this. I suck in movies often without thinking. Sure, I keep up a veneer of holiness to hide how much I am consuming, but that is something akin to a man who is 200 pounds overweight telling you that he only eats so much because he wants to tell you what kinds of food are good. He is not a cook, he is not demonstrating that he has actually learned anything about good food or how to make it… only that he enjoys eating and he does it with disregard to how it is effecting him.

The scary thing is that in America the way food and movies are sold and consumed is not so different anymore. A shiny, glossy cover can make a tidy little profit whether it’s carrots or Caddyshack. People buy Ho Hos and porn for the same reason… they taste good, even if they both make you feel like you want to vomit an hour after consumption. What is scarier is that an HBO show can now become “critically acclaimed” simply by containing gratuitous amounts of violence and sex, causing it be suddenly be “edgy” and/or “gritty,” even though underneath all that it is just another soap opera. This has already begun to bleed over into the world of food, with foods that are absolutely crap for you to eat getting actual stickers that proclaim that they have received awards like “BEST TASTING” or “CHIEFS’ CHOICE AWARD.” Yes… things are getting that ridiculous.

Just today I was returning some things to a Best Buy around the corner from me and got suckered into that very “ooh! Shiny!” syndrome that we all fall into so easily in the internet age. Do I not know that Satan is the Prince of Light? Do I not know that covers deceive? “That sin looks so hot!” one might say. And Mark Driscoll might retort: “Yeah… but so is hell.”

Anyway, I had all this money from the returns, so my consumeristic self decided that I show blow the money immediately. On what? Is always the next question. Well, it was new release Tuesday. (Yes, I am so consumed with my need for new stuff that I know that in the USA new movies, music and books are always released on Tuesdays.) The new HBO show Boardwalk Empire had just been released on DVD and a free preview of the show Game of Thrones came with it for a limited time. The covers looked pretty, Steve Buscemi was in it, it had won 8 Emmys. It must be good… right? RIGHT?

Well, I bought it and took it home, only to look up the content rating in IMDB. The show was filled with foul language… more than most R rated movies contain, full frontal nudity (male and female), and buckets of blood and brain bashing. On an HBO show? No way? You’ve gotta be joking! (/sarcasm)

I promptly went back and returned the DVD set and got the movie Moon instead, which I had actually been looking for for months and which was nowhere near an impulse buy. It still might have been better had I simply returned Boardwalk Empire and walked right out of the store, but there you have it.

And now I’m sitting here still thinking, “Why? Why has this been so important to me? How on earth did I let my standards drop so much? I almost exposed myself to… ick.”

And then I think a little bit more and I realize that I have been living vicariously through storytellers… like many of my peers have. We are too afraid to have our own adventures, so we watch other peoples’. And suddenly I come to a simple and yet monumental conclusion: it is time for me to have my own adventure.

A Loss of Confidence

"The authorities were not what they claimed to be. The cool competence and the stoicism were a fraud. The catastrophe of the Suez episode in 1956, when our governing class had tried to behave like imperial rulers in Egypt and had fallen flat upon their faces, had shrunk them and weakened their power to command. The government had sought to abuse (as later governments would also abuse) the semi-sacred incantations of 1940: Egypt's leader, Gamel Abdel Nasser, was a "dictator." Acceding to his demands for control of the Suez Canal was "appeasement." As we have found so often since, these modern villains are not Hitlers, and their ill-armed backward nations are not the Third Reich."

-Peter Hitchens in The Rage Against God, pg 32

An Epic of Epic Epicness, or Why Scott Pilgrim is Better Than 99% of All the Other Comic Books Out There

Last night I went to the midnight release of the sixth and final book in the Scott Pilgrim series, and spent exactly $12.71 on the little digest sized comic book. 250 pages of black and white comic goodness were now in my hands. After an episode with some Scottish bikers on walk back to my apartment (another story for another time), I sat down and devoured the book in a mere 45 minutes. The ending was very satisfying for me; it ended much better than I had hoped… although, after my recent brush with Fullmetal Alchemist, I must admit that I was keeping my expectations pretty low. But after the last page had been read, I started thinking: “what is so great about Scott Pilgrim? Why did I… DO I enjoy his story so much?”

A few weeks ago, I got a call from my dad. We talked about the usual stuff; what am I doing with my life, how’s getting a job going, etc. Then towards the end, he asked me out of the blue (well, perhaps not out of the blue as my profile picture on Facebook at the time was a Scott Pilgrim avatar), why I liked Scott Pilgrim so much. I mumbled some response about how it was just “one of those dumb things.” I suppose that I genuinely thought that at the time; that I thought there was nothing really substantive about Scott Pilgrim, that it was just a goofy story that was fairly harmless, and that there were a lot of worse things I could be doing with my time. However, once I finished the last chapter, appropriately titled “Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour,” I began to reassess that opinion.

Scott Pilgrim is a lot more than just a dumb story to me, because he is someone that I relate very closely with. In a lot of ways Scott Pilgrim’s life is my life, except with more Canadians and Kung Fu.

Now, I know that several of you are looking forward to see the movie next month, so let me put down and nice big

(SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!)

The first reason that Scott Pilgrim is so much better than all the other comics out there is very neatly summed up in my roommate’s complaint against most modern pop culture today: its fascination with being “DARK AND GRITTY.” It’s very amusing to me that my roommate gets so angry when any story tries to be all relevant by being dark and, well, gritty. “Why can’t we have happy stories?!” he’ll say. “I want fiction to be diverting, not show me how much life sucks!!” Well, Scott Pilgrim strikes that precious balance between being true to real life, while still being light hearted and hopeful. It doesn’t betray you with a crappy “oh, sorry, life really DOES suck in the end” kind of ending. (I’m lookin’ at YOU Joss Whedon!) But it does touch on heartbreak and what it means to make up for your mistakes.

Now that I’ve gone on and on for a while, I should probably explain the main plot to those of my readers who are not familiar with Scott Pilgrim. Scott Pilgrim lives in Toronto, can’t keep a girlfriend OR a job, and is living on his parents dime in a super crappy apartment with his gay roommate Wallace Wells (with whom he shares a totally platonic relationship). Scott is a lazy bum who regularly sleeps in until noon or later. At one point in the series, Wallace says: “So, I was going to do you a favour and make dinner, but it appears that all you have in the house is ramen noodles and cereal.” To which Scott mumbles: “…..the EconOmY…..”

So while Scott was indeed a loser, from book one I felt like we were best of friends and already knew each other; a chemistry between character and reader that most authors spend years perfecting.

Halfway though the first book, Scott Pilgrim meets Ramona Victoria Flowers, the American ninja delivery girl. Ramona is amazing and mysterious and, well, dangerous. Scott is toast. After discovering that Ramona works as a delivery girl for Amazon.ca, Scott orders something and waits. Upon delivering his package, Scott asks Ramona out on a date. Although a little creeped out, Ramona accepts. But little does Scott know the baggage Ramona is carrying. He soon finds out that in order for him and Ramona to find their happily-ever-after, he must defeat her seven evil exes in hand to hand combat.

Suddenly what started as a rather funny romantic comedy turns into a wacky blend of Friends, Mario Brothers, manga and Street Fighter. A discussion about someone’s feelings will be interrupted by a robot attack, a party will be crashed by a boss battle, a walk down main street will erupt into a sword fight.

This line between the mundane and the fantastical is explained by author Bryan Lee O’Malley: “ It's (what actually happened in the story) just not what he (Scott Pilgrim) thought. It's that his own narration of his own life is unreliable to himself, and he just was tricking himself. I think we all do that.” (For the rest of the interview, click here) It’s revealed that most of the story is what Scott Pilgrim THINKS is going on around him, not necessarily what is ACTUALLY happening.

But by the end of book 5, things are not going well for Scott by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, the books ends with the words “GAME OVER” scrawled across the page. Ramona has left him, his friends are gone, and the final villain seems nearly impossible to defeat. After the all ups and downs of the past four books, Scott is right back where he started: alone, jobless and depressed. Except this times it’s worse, because he’s tasted a bit of what it’s like to be happy, and he doesn’t know how to get back there.

Book six opens with that depression still present. In fact, Scott is dreaming again (he does a lot of that), but this time, instead of dreaming about Zelda and being Link, he dreams that all his ex-girlfriends turn into monsters and try to eat him. Yeah, Scott is having a tough time. Lost and confused, Scott wanders around bumping into his old friends and has to deal with his past mistakes; mistakes that up until this point in the series he has not only ignored, but made up fictions about in order to forget how things actually happened. How many of us have done the exact same thing? Painting someone else as the villain, so that we don’t have to admit that we were the ones who screwed up.

At the same time, it is revealed that Ramona is dealing with her own demons and insecurities. She, unlike Scott, is SO stuck in her past and her own mistakes that it’s crippling her. She doesn’t feel like she even deserves Scott, who is the biggest loser known to mankind.

Finally, through a weird chain of events involving a desert, an extra life, a nightclub, a purse and a katana, Scott and Ramona end up alone together in a netherworld. They finally come to terms with their mistakes, apologize and forgive each other, before going back to the real world to defeat the last boss, Gideon.

At the very end, after all the loose ends have been tied up, Scott and Ramona are left looking at each other.

“So,” Scott says.

Ramona: “So?”

“So… we try again.”

And with that, they dive off into the deep unknown.

In the end, Scott Pilgrim isn’t a dumb story after all. It’s is a classic story: it’s the story of winning the girl, fighting your demons, learning from your mistakes, asking for forgiveness, and letting the power of true love, agape love, conquer all.

It’s a story we can all relate to. It’s the story of becoming an adult.

Capital

Politics scare me… so does the internet, put them together and what have you got? Bibity-bobity-bad-news.

Explanation: I don’t remember WHY I did this, but for some reason I decided to “become a fan” of “being conservative” on Facebook. Yes, I realize now how horrid that sentence sounds. I cringe at the thought of having to proof read this rant because that means I will have to reread that sentence. I am tempted to blame Obama, but that’s cheap. I jump to extremes, so I suppose that is the best explanation. I “fanned” something as an over reaction, or perhaps because they had some kind of ad or post that resonated with me.

See, this is one of the enormous dangers of modern politics: one side will scare the willies out of you, but then the other side (who are just as scary) tries to mask their scariness by appealing to your fear of the other side. They both do this, so that those poor souls who are NOT fanatically loyal to one side or the other are left flip-flopping in between like some carp drying up in the sun, trying desperately to get back to the cool of the lake.

Now, for those of you who are familiar with the Facebook interface, I’m sure you have seen the “polls for science” that some of the fan pages and Facebook itself post. Well, the other day “Being Conservative” posts this:

The recent story about a homeless man braving a fierce storm to save an American Flag in distress got us thinking about how some others treat the flag. Please vote in the poll below.

Should burning the American flag be a crime?
a) Yes
b) No
c) Other

Allow me to fill in the “other” section:

What the heck!?!?!? Notice the spin that is put on this, you cannot answer this question negatively without feeling like a complete jerk. This is totally slanted, this is called sophistry… this is called “not being able to think for yourself.” Notice the usage of the words “braving,” “fierce storm,” and “distress.” This is no mere homeless man here, this is the arch angel Michael in disguise protecting the holy effigy of America!

Sarcasm aside, my point is this: protecting the flag with this kind of fanaticism is a fine practice if America is your god. You SHOULD worship and protect the honor of your gods. That’s the way we humans are wired. Question science? You’re a heretic. Blaspheme Allah? You get run through with a scimitar. Burn the flag? You are going to be stoned. This is the normal order of things; it happens all the time. I get all offended if someone insults my favorite song… so yeah, I have issues to sort out too.

So no, we should not be surprised at these kinds of reactions. Everyone needs something to worship, step on it and they will kill you. But this brings me to a very important theological point about Christianity. Many seculars believe that Christians embracing both the commands to not murder and to kill those who DO murder or rape or abuse other humans is nonsensical. Ah contrar, frater!

Based on the principle I already mentioned, it makes PERFECT sense. See, one of the basic tenants of Christianity is that we (humans) are created in God’s image, a gift that was not bestowed on any other creature (which is why PETA elevating animals above humans is ridiculous). As such, humans are made in the very image of the God I serve as a Christian, and as such, they are to be held in the highest respect and honor. Killing or raping and hurting a fellow human is to me what burning a flag is to a patriot, or insulting Darwin is to an Evolutionist, or denouncing Allah is to a Muslim. It is a capital offence, it is TOTALLY deserving of death. You have just defaced the greatest image in existence. Your death is the only option.

That doesn’t make this easy. Killing another human, even if they deserve it should NEVER be taken lightly. And killing animals or plants for the heck of it is akin to spitting on a painting by a great artist. I cringe when I see a fish flopping in the bottom of a boat or find a boy about to stomp on a bug. I am not advocating random acts of violence, I am merely trying to shed a little light.

Bubba Ho-Tep

MPAA rating: R for some violence, uses of the “f” word, and some awkward moments
Canadian rating: 14A
My rating: ****1/2 out of *****
Style: ****
Writing: *****
Awkward parts: ****
Message: *****




JFK and Elvis didn’t die. JFK just went through massive plastic surgeries and is now black and has a brain made of “mostly sand.” Elvis switched places with a guy named Sebastian Haff, one of his impersonators, only to have the real Haff who was then pretending to be Elvis die of drug overdose. Anyway, for some reason JFK and Elvis end up in the same nursing home in the middle of nowhere Mud Creek, Texas. Not only that, but there is a crazy, redneck, cowboy boot wearin’ mummy on the loose. No, this is not one of those movies I would have just picked up on my own; no matter how much you may think me the type.

The story starts with Elvis’ roommate dying and the man’s daughter coming to collect his things. She picks up her father’s Purple Heart and old photos of him coming back from war and is about to throw them away, when Elvis asks if he can have them. She shrugs and hands them over… they mean nothing to her. As she leaves, Elvis asks: why? Why didn’t she take better care of him?

“I didn’t have the money to,” she explains halfheartedly.

“You coulda visited. They don’t charge for that,” Elvis quips.

“Don’t lecture me.”

The whole movie switches between totally nutso craziness and this hard-hitting commentary on how we treat our elders as easily as turn it’s head from left to right. It just… works. It works really well. I felt horrified by the mummy and by our culture’s abuse of the elderly at the same time. I suddenly wanted to go treasure hunting with and/or visit a nursing home.

Another large theme of the film is how Elvis and JFK wish they had been better to their families and been more honorable in their lives. When the mummy shows up, they are given a chance to redeem themselves and take the adventure that they both craved, but never had. This is mostly manifested through Elvis’ long narration speeches about how he wished he had treated his family right.

(SPOILER ALERT)

Finally, the grand finale comes about at the perfect time. JFK has deduced that the nursing home is the perfect place for mummy to haunt, because it needs to eat souls to survive, and “no one would care if a few more elders dropped off.” So Elvis and JFK grab their walker and wheelchair respectively, a big tank of propane, some matches and go off to kick some undead.

The mummy chokes JFK to death, but doesn’t get his soul. Then in an awesome scene, Elvis rams the mummy and blowtorches him to smithereens. But before the end, the mummy deals some serious damage to Elvis, who is left by the creek looking back on all that has happened.

“He didn’t get my soul. I’ve still got my soul. It’s all mine,” Elvis sighs, relived. Finally he looks up at the sky, and for some reason the stars align and spell out the only thing Elvis needs to hear:

“All is well.”

“Thank ya… thank ya very mu…”

All is well; your soul is intact. How often do we need to hear those very words? I know this is a strange film to find the message of “well done, my good and faithful servant.” But that’s what I heard. Those are the words I long to hear when my life is coming to an end and I am looking back on all of my adventures. And I am so glad that some films find them worth saying as well.

A Tale to Tell

I've read a lot of stories in my day. Probably a lot more than most other 21 year old guys; but I never really started evaluating them until now. I mean, I could say "I like this story," or "I really didn't enjoy that one," but I would be hard pressed to tell you why. I never really evaluated those kinds of things. At least, I never did until I started thinking in terms of the "theology of story."

I came across the idea in my first year of college. It was introduced to me by some folks who shall remain nameless, because I respect them so much. If there is one thing my writing has taught me, it's that it is better to be safe than sorry. I don't want them to be held responsible for the stupid stuff I say. But if the following does sound familiar, you probably already know the men who introduced this idea to me in the first place.

Anyway, freshman year I was still mulling over the idea of how God is in complete control of the universe, and yet... man is still responsible for what he does and will be judged for it. Doesn't make a lot of sense to your average Christian, let alone the average atheist. For the few years before this whole new story idea popped up, I just took it as one of those "secret things" of God; a paradox that I simply needed to embrace and trust was true.

Then the theology of story hit me like a ton of bricks: was the Bard responsible for all the murders in Hamlet? Should he have been executed for writing that play? Of course not, he's the writer! His job was to tell a story and get a point across. Uncultured swine that I am, I could not tell you what the point of Hamlet is, but I'm sure Shakespeare had one in mind.

So, Shakespeare didn't have any problem writing sin and murder and evil characters in his plays, but did that make the characters in the play any less evil? Not at all! The story still judged them for what they did. There was still justice in the story, there was humor, and tears and pain and good plotting.

Now I ask, what is God? WHO is God?? He is the master Storyteller, of course. He is writing the best story of all time. A story where, as one book I read put it: "soldiers and spacemen, cowboys and ninjas, pirates and robots all really do exist!" A story that spans MILLENNIA! A tale of revenge, romance, justice, laughter, epic battle scenes, sweeping adventures, evil villains, and so, so, so much more! It is the most epic tale ever told. Why is there sin and death and evil? Because it makes for a good story. Because God must defeat it. Does the existence of something to be vanquished make God Himself evil? No! It makes Him a good story teller. Who would want to read a story with no villain? I know I wouldn't. If there was no challenge to overcome, if there was no struggle... then the victory at the end would be cheap, it would be meaningless. There would be little glory in it.

And for what did God create everything? He made it for His glory. Telling the most epic story of all time was the best way He saw fit to bring Himself glory. What is our job? As the creed says "to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever." And he chose to do that with a story.

Now that I know this, I find that I know why and how to appreciate human stories: because they are little pictures; little imitations of the bigger story. If it accurately depicts the grand tale, although it is more like a crayon drawing on God's cosmic fridge, it is a good story. Human creations that do NOT reflect God's story are lies, and are not to be held up as good representations of art.

An example perhaps? God says "dog." A dog appears. I draw a brown splotch with four leg looking things. God says: "Well done!" Alan Moore, however, draws a black mess with lightning blots and lots of death and blood. God says: "Badly done!"

We both drew messes, there is no mistake in that. But God sees through the mess into our hearts, He sees what we see, and He does not mistake that for something else. He knows if we are viewing His story correctly. He is also the one who gives us the eyes to see the story, cuz... well, we're the characters He's writing. We can only break the fourth wall if he writes us that way.

One last parting thought: the best human depiction of God's story I have yet seen is Les Miserables. It is a beautiful tale and includes nearly every aspect of God's world in it: revenge, grace, redemption, trust, beauty, love and justice. But best of all, it ends in a wedding.

Till next time,
JSTT

Interrupted

I was all settled down to write a nice essay extolling the wonders of Quentin Tarantino’s film making when I was very rudely interrupted by a great big mess in my apartment that resulted in a metric crap ton of laundry and a very angry Josiah.

Long story short, I ended up at the laundry mat at 11:00pm with a lot of laundry, a Bible, some Skittles and a bad attitude. Then it suddenly dawned on me: this is where I should have been the whole time. God had just resorted to some… unconventional means to get me where He wanted me.

Then all I found I could say was “speak Lord. Your servant is listening.”

Don’t worry, I may still assault you all with that Tarantino essay sometime.

JSTT