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.

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.

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

Missing the Obvious

Sometimes I'm not the only one who is extremely moronic. To be sure, I have shown my stupid stripes on many an occasion, but every once in a great while, I am outdone. And boy is it beautiful!

As most of you know (and if you didn't, now you do) I turned 21 about a month ago. I've been enjoying the tastes of stout, hard cider and other things ever since. Anyway, I was walking around the grocery store the other day looking for milk and something for dinner, when I noticed an amber ale called "Shock Top." The label intrigued me, so I picked up a case to look at more closely. Wonder or wonders, it was a CITRUS ale! I am a nut for orange juice and all other kinds of citrus things, so I immediately took the case over to the counter.

The lady checking me out (and yes, I know how creepy that sounds), was one of those ladies who calls anyone even remotely younger that she is "darling." So after she had rung up all my quote/unquote "normal" items, I was assaulted with "May I see your I.D., darling?" I grimaced and handed over my drivers license.

Now, for some reason my North Carolina driver's license confuses the heck out most Idahoans. It makes their heads kind of explode and leaves them going: "ddaaaahhhdududududdaaaaa" for about 15 seconds before I explain how it works. After watching her stumble over my identification for a few moments, I pointed out the big red box right by the picture that says:

"TURNS 21 ON JUNE 4, 2010"

It's in kinda big letters, and hard to miss if you're really looking. Anyway, she finally decided that I really WAS old enough to buy beer, and punched in my birthday.

Now, there is something else that you must know about buying alcohol from grocery stores: it's pretty much a fail proof system. There is no way that the computer will let you sell to a minor. You have to deliberately screw with the system to sell to someone under 21: give the computer a false date, disable the "WILL NOT SELL TO MINOR" system, or something very similar. If you do that, in my opinion, you DESERVE to get caught.

Anyway, she punched in my birthday, and the computer says it won't sell to me and cancels the whole transaction. "HA! Now you can't buy milk EITHER!" I almost hear the computer laugh manically. The lady looks at my I.D., at the computer and then back at me. "This is weird."

She punches the date into the computer two more times with the same result. Then she calls over one of the girls working in the same section of the store and has her punch it in. Same thing. They start laughing and wondering what the heck is going on. At this point, someone walks up to the counter and asks: "Can I get some help over here?"

The lady who first tried to take my order looks over and says sarcastically: "No, sorry."

At first I was a little shocked, but then when the other women who was asking for help said: "Wow, service here SUCKS!" I looked a little closer and noticed that they were sisters. I breathed a little sigh of relief. I had no desire to be the cause of contention among Safeway staff and customers.

Finally, the lady got fed up with the whole thing and just punched in her birthday. I made a joke to let the women behind the counter know that I was in no way put out by the whole ordeal, and headed out to my car.

Suddenly, as I was unlocking the great red behemoth, it struck me: they had been putting in the wrong date the entire time! The text on my I.D. had said, "turns 21 on June 4, 2010." So like any lazy human who doesn't want to think too hard, they put the date into the computer... the date that they had read: 06/04/2010. Of course, the computer, smarter than your average human, had said: "No WAY I'm selling to a 1 month old! How the heck is he even trying to buy groceries?!?"

I laughed all the way home, taking comfort in the thought that I am not the only one who makes dumb mistakes like that.

JSTT

God Works in Mysterious Ways

God works in mysterious ways. Example? My roommate, Jeff, who is an absolute bike nut is now making jewelry instead of fixing bikes... which he was trying to make money doing at the beginning of this year.

How about me? The movie nut? Yeah, well, again... at the beginning of this academic year that's what I was doing: making movies. But stuff started falling through, and now what am I doing for money? Making wine.

Who would have guessed? The story never turns out like you think it will.

JSTT

New Frontier

Ok... so there are a lot of things that scare me about having a job. Let's start with the fact that I have not had a job in about 2 years since I left Virginia Beach Alcohol Beverage Control back in 2008 when I moved down to NC and then out to college. That's right... I have not had a job in 2 years. I suppose this reflects on the grace of God, as I have not HAD to have a job to support myself. But the time came this year for me to enter the working world. It wasn't a new year's resolution or anything like that (although, 2010 DOES begin and new chapter and new story), but it was more the fact that I am almost 21, and have no real work experience.

That brings me to the next thing that scares me about having a job: I haven't HAD a real job before! I've "worked," yes... but not regular kind of normal person job. Well, I did do the classic mow your lawn, watch the mentally insane 3 year old boy jobs. (Andrew was crazy, and I loved him for it. But that's a story for another time.) But after that, I decided to work at a place called River Ranch Retreat Ranch (I kid you not), more commonly referred to as "Triple R Ranch," perhaps because it was less harsh on the ears and sensibilities. It was a Christian summer camp, the kids that attended it were not. I babysat 12 prepubescent boys for a week at a time for 4 weeks with the help of another college aged guy. It was... fun?

My next job was as an underage buyer for Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC). My dad found that job for me; to this day I don't know how he dug it up. Perhaps he will comment on this post and enlighten us all. Basically, I had to fill out several reams of paper (as it was a government job), and then sit in for training at a police station. Once I was hired my job consisted of going around, trying to buy alcohol from any place that would sell it, with two armed police officers trailing me. We were all undercover, so if the establishment handled themselves well, asked for my ID and refused to sell to me, we walked out and no one was the wiser. If you sold to me however, the officers would immediately walk up to you, tell you what you did, tell the manager what you did and then tell the state what you did. Then they'd arrest you, which I learned working this job does NOT actually mean that you get put in cuffs. It just means... well, I'm not sure anymore. But anyway, you were caught red handed and you would have to show up at court. (I got to tag along as a witness when we did catch someone.) Usually anyone we busted would either get a 500 dollar fine, community service or some kind of combination of the two.

There are so many tales I could tell about that job: the time an ABC agent got called in to do a drug bust in this pink polo. How the agents would try to make me look as young as possible so I wouldn't get sold to; cuz if I did, they'd be stuck with miles of paper work. How often Food Lion sold me alcohol. How we had to drive through the projects... the list goes on.

The next "job" I had was as an actor and creative person in a local film company. Never saw a dime of profit... but I think we gained capital in other areas. The relationships forged were always the big focus for me. We made a movie that still isn't finished, and the company kind of blew up at the end of last year... but I don't regret any of it. Sometimes an adventure is worth taking just for the fun of it.

Back to the new job:

Another thing that kind of bothers me is that I am not good with liquids, and I am going to be working at a winery... During high school I joked with my friends that I had a drinking problem. (Not alcoholic drinking problem... but that leads into reason 3.) The insident that I remember specifically was when I was at a party at my best friend's house. I had a big glass of Sprite in my hand, and was standing behind the couch where some of our other friends were playing Nintendo. Then, inexplicably, I kind of drop, kind of throw my fizzy drink of goodness all over my friend's couch. We laughed it off afterwards, but that still didn't alleviate my drinking problem. How bad am I going to be around wine bottles all day??

Of course, although I will be soon, I am not yet 21. Obviously that means I cannot be a taster at the winery. I can see myself now:

"Sir, what wine would you recommend?"

"Ummm... That one!"

"Oh? How is it??"

"Good... we make it."

"What's it taste like?"

"No idea..."

Even more than that, I am a full time student, at the school with the craziest work load this side of the Mississippi. I have already had to tell my teacher I won't be able to make one of my classes on Monday. Now, I have just found out that my new work schedule directly conflicts with two of my finals in about 4 weeks.

But the biggest one? Taxes, taxes, taxes... *twitch, twitch* I think the federal government is trying to drive us mad or something. Everytime I see a W-4 form I start to have minor heart attacks.

But you know what? I just realized... all this (although amusing perhaps) is worry. Clearly a sin in the Bible. God saw fit to grant me a job. I am immensely thankful for it. Do I want God to take away the gift that He just gave me? No. I'll practice being thankful instead of bothered.

Cheers, and have a blessed Sabbath!

JSTT

Creation

Is there really anything more important? The start of everything there ever was was creation. And the end? A NEW creation. We are made in the likeness of our Creator. Hence, we create. Next to breathing, eating and relationships... is there anything else?

"You start with a feeling" -The Edge

Does it matter what you create? Not particularly. Do it because you love it. Do it for others. Do it for the Creator.

Then comes the question: "How MUCH do I create?" As much as you can. There is no virtue in writing a Russian novel over a sentence. A riff is no less important than a symphony. As long as you put your all into it. Make it the best you can.

My, my, my...

It has been some time, has it not? There are many questions to be answered: What? (eating burnt grilled cheese and nursing a Mountain Dew.) Where? (Back for another round at New Saint Andrews.) Why? (Because it sounded like another adventure.)

Yes, the tales will be coming. The heads will be rolling. And suddenly I have realized that I am much more like Luther than Calvin. (More on that another time).

I do not know who reads this or why... but the world awaits. And I have a feeling that one or two would like to hear what I have to say about it. Cocky? I hope not. Amused? Perhaps.

Let the stories begin again.

JSTT