david cross & will arnett in "the increasingly poor decisions of todd margaret"

oh what fun it is to ride

Took both kids to the ER in the space of 12 hours, R had an ear infection and J has pneumonia! They're feeling way better now but it was awful. Before they got sick I had an internal sort of breakdown from it being Christmas but I'm dealing with it instead of trying to numb out and I got a lot of people to pray for me and I'm better. I super love this woman, Belleruth Naparstak, who does guided relaxation and it is corny but that's okay. I love medicine but I'm down with this holistic stuff too about the mind-body connection, I think they're actually the same, not even connected but the same. Anyway she does these tapes to help people deal with anxiety and all kinds of sicknesses and she's so rad. Her voice sounds like Michael Jackson and Betty White all in one but if you can ignore that it's good. You can find her on youtube. I feel like I should put fewer youtube links on here cause this is turning into one big youtube routing hub.

In other happy news, today Mick from Supergrass tweeted that he likes my Christmas mix and I think that is a Christmas miracle. I kinda want to tweet this good news but then he'd see it and have even more evidence I'm insane. As if flying to see them in Cali and NYC last year wasn't enough. And I'm going to LA to see them next month, thanks to my partner in Supergrass crime Simone! She bought my ticket as an early birthday present. Yips!!!

Now I would like to show you some pictures I think are funny. My friend Jason was given a subscription to Car & Driver under the name of Deez Nutz and he's asking everyone if they did this, and we're all saying we wish we had.

Then Simone's husband Gregg put this sticker on a McDonald's sign the other day. (He's a vegan. He really would throw up if he ate McDonald's.)


That's all the funny I have for now. I hope my kids get all better. xo

long sleeves! am i right, ladies?

I was so happy when my lady love Maria Bamford was in those black Friday Target ads. I just saw she did a one hour Christmas standup special from her couch. HEAVEN. If you don't have an hour to listen at least listen to the two minutes at the end where she properly skewers female comedians, it's a minute 49:00.

Maria Bamford's Christmas Special! from Punchline Magazine on Vimeo.

jeff breakfast

Here's a bad Christian comedian named Jeff Breakfast. He said "the crowd was very accepting of my tender sacrilege." NOT FOR KIDS

Part 1



Part 2

I'm in my therapist's lobby and found this, they asked Garrison Keillor how he mastered storytelling and he said "I didn't. There's no mastery to be had. You love the attempt. You dont master a story any more than you master a river, you feel lucky to canoe down it." That seems allegorical on so many levels and makes me happy.

stadium pal

I'm fascinated by Stadium Pal and I found David Sedaris talking about them on Letterman!

And here's my lady love Amy Sedaris on Martha Stewart. You all know how I feel about Martha and I love how Amy gets some brilliant digs in.

My favorite part:
Martha: "No, I don't live alone! I have five cats and three dogs..."
Amy: "Oh, those people."

i am so g.d. busy

that i only have time to write about my death pool picks for 2010. These are the celebrities I predict will kick it next year. Actually they weren't really chosen based on probability, because who would've thought Michael Jackson and Billy Mays would die this year? Billy Mays here! There's still time for you to send your Death Pool picks to Grapes of Rad before the new year.

Okay, so: my picks are

Norm MacDonald
Steve Jobs
Lindsay Lohan
Pete Doherty
Brian Posehn
Ralphie May
Richard Lewis
Artie Lang
Pat Sajak
Steve Buscemi

On the bench:
Dave Coulier
David Hasselhoff
Barack Obama

norm macdonald

I'm on a Norm MacDonald youtube streak and church-laughing listening to him at work, this might have been my favorite, when he was on The View like ten years ago. The View women all deserve wedgies and he gives them to them all verbally. This one doesn't have when he kept saying that Clinton killed Vince Foster and Barbara kicked him off though. I need to find that one.

But the best is when he's on the Adam Carolla show and they start talking about Kenny Rogers lyrics, I was dying the whole way through.

I think that Norm and Christopher Walken and Billy Corgan could all meld into one.

i can't believe this is real

I do most of my blogging these days via facebook & twitter cause it's all I have time for (140 characters or less) but this is the most fascinating thing I've seen in so long - Richard Nixon talking about "those queers" on All in the Family. So hilarious and crazy!

seattle weekly rips mark driscoll a new one

Love this.

my xmas mix

I have no idea if it'll load in the right order, which isn't even the order listed. That's why two Silent Nights are back to back. Anyway, click on it to download. I love you all!

death pool

Celebrities who aided the death pool in 2009

Our friends Ben & Aaron have a podcast called Grapes of Rad and they also have a morbid version of fantasy football called Celebrity Death Pool. I couldn't get in on it since I didn't discover them until May of this year and they only take submissions for the next year before Jan 1 but they're drafting again and if you read my blog on a regular basis you might be sick enough to want to participate.

The rules:

1. Choose the names of 13 people that are somehow famous or otherwise known to the general public (movies, music, sports, politics, books, etc.). 10 will be on your active roster, and 3 will be on your “bench.” More on that later…

2. The people you select must be known for themselves, and not just for being associated with someone else. For example:

Acceptable: Hillary Clinton – Bill Clintonʼs wife, but she is known on her own
Unacceptable: Kobeʼs Wife – Unknown other than as Kobeʼs wife

If you feel like there might be some grey area, plead your case when you submit your selections. If we feel your argument is valid, weʼll give it to you. Weʼre pretty relaxed.

3. The purpose of the 3 bench players is to replace any losses during the game. Since no names may be added after the entry deadline, if 4 of your picks die during the year, you are down to only 9 total players.

4. You may activate/deactivate people at any time throughout the year, just let us know.

5. Each person on your list must be a living human being, not in a vegetative state, have a DOB verifiable through public means and not on death row or scheduled for execution as of 12:01 am on 1/1/10. If you submit someone who dies before 1/1/10, you will not get any points, but will be given the opportunity to replace their spot in your lineup.

6. Rosters will be made public once the game starts (but not before). All entries must be submitted by 12/31/09.

7. Player with the highest score at the end of the game wins.
SCORING:

1. You will only be given a score for those on your active roster. If someone on your bench dies, you (and they) are S.O.L. Only activated players count.

2. YOU must notify US of any death/score, and any proof (a link) would be great.

3. Scoring is based on how far the age of the deceased is from 100. For example, if someone you chose died at 28, they are worth 72 pts. If they were 85, you get 15; 112 years old, and you get 12 points.

4. In the event of a points tie, the winner will be selected according to either the fewest dead folks, or, if thatʼs even, whoever has the youngest average age of dead folks.

5. Score bonuses: 1st Death of the Year = 10 pts; Unique Death = 20 pts
OTHER RULES:

People must be named individuals, not just “world’s oldest dude” or “the guy from that thing.”

The time/date of death is local time where the person died. If the time of death is reported as exactly midnight local time, the date of the new day used.

Players must not murder their chosen celebs. That’s cheating, and cheating is wrong.

All the rules are at Grapes of Rad.

thxgvg

unicorn planet, heyyyyy!

This really is the best episode, makes me laugh so hard I roll around and hit things. (Ryan, I ache for your comment.)

sarah palin confessional

upcoming

Having a panick attack about the weekend. Church stuff has been bad for me in the past. It feels like a giant crushing risk right now to go on this thing but it didn't seem like such a risk when I signed up for it.

heh

Conversation with stranger on the bus this morning, a Tippi Hedren looking lady in her 60s:

"There's this one girl who calls in sick two times a week and she never gets in trouble, she's been doing it for years, but think she can't get fired because she's black."

Christopher Hitchens is so rad.

south park does glenn beck

PS - my other blog went up today at Beliefnet. I'm all nervousy about it.

christians and their status updates

I posted this today -





- and said "Christians on Facebook need their own blog, SCCL just can't handle it all." And someone started this blog and emailed me. YES.

bad theology

My friend in Texas sent me this picture he took during church yesterday. He said he was visiting his parents and they'd been asking him to go to their church (it's called Brenham Bible Church) for a long time and he finally went, and he said it was horrifying - the sermon was on not being friends with Muslims. I just listened to the sermon online, just to rile myself up I guess. I can't believe this goes on. The Dave Bazan song "Backwoods Nation" kept playing in my head, this is what it was written about. The pastor is using the 2 John verse totally out of context. I asked our friend Rich about it and he said "That letter is basically an address against a specific group that are actively selling the claim that Christ's coming was a non-physical, spiritual reality (not human, not bodily) and true faith has to do with rejecting the physical world in favor of a "spiritual", pie-in-the-sky world. Basically, Gnostics. In other words, these aren't non-Christians, they are people claiming Christianity is something it is not and convincing people of it."

I think that people and teachings like this church are who the letter was about, not Muslims or other people who don't claim to be Christians. Some jaw-dropping parts of the sermon are at minute 42:30 where he said "Stay away from Muslims!" and at 47:20: "Stay away from them! That's what God's word says."

My blood pressure is too high from listening to this. This is all good fodder for my other blog though.

most insane "fan" mail at my blog ever

I get a lot of disgruntled emails for my Stuff Christian Culture Likes blog but this one wins. I don't know how it could ever be topped. I already put it at the SCCL facebook page but thought I would immortalize it here in case the facebook page ever goes tits up.

---

From: jeffrtilley@aol.com
To: drurydrury@gmail.com
Date: Sat, Oct 24, 2009 at 4:23 PM
Subject: You're Not Who You Portray Yourself To Be ... You're a Homosexual Male ... You are in Violatio of Your Blogger Terms of Service

Hi “Stephy”

I looked at the Terms of Service for Blogger, and noticed this little piece of legalese:
Impersonating others: Please don't mislead or confuse readers by pretending to be someone else or pretending to represent an organization when you don't. We're not saying you can't publish parody or satire - just avoid content that is likely to mislead readers about your true identity.

First of all, let’s get this straight … YOU’RE NOT. Your “Stuff Christian Culture Likes” BLOG is a thinly veiled swipe at Evangelical Christians – one that is highly offensive. The only thing interesting here, is that it appears that many who comment on your posts are completely oblivious to your satire. Your blog is shot through with the spirit of anti-Christ. You are not a Christian. You might have been raised in a Christian home, but you are a gay man who is possessed of a spirit of unholiness.

Gay men (and women) are hell-bent on tearing down and ripping to shreds the underpinnings of the Christian Culture in America. As soon as you complete your demolition of Biblical Morality (btw – this is the REAL “homosexual agenda”) you will have succeeded in your endeavors to elevate your own standards of morality by destroying those outlined in the Holy Bible. You are succeeding … you are now less than ONE GENERATION AWAY FROM SUCCEEDING!

I’ll be the last real man standing and fighting you. You can’t run from the truth Mr. Drury. I’ll be in contact with the hosting service of your blog. You don’t deserve to get by with this farce. You are welcome to call me. I will be happy to lead you through the Bible to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. You are advised to repent while you have the chance. That chance goes away when you reach the gates of hell.


Jeff Tilley
850-508-9465

panorama

Dave Eggers on the future of newspapers.

two for thursday

For was a little while in 11th grade I listened to Hey Bulldog every day.



My favorite Leonard Cohen song, 'The Future.' (Added bonus: it starts like every Wesley Willis song does.)



Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it's lonely here, there's no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that's an order!

Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that's left
and stuff it up the hole in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother: it is murder

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul

When they said "Repent, repent"
I wonder what they meant

You don't know me from the wind
you never will, you never did
I'm the little Jew who wrote the Bible
I've seen the nations rise and fall
I've heard their stories, heard them all
but love's the only engine of survival

Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold:
It's over, it ain't going any further

And now the wheels of heaven stop
you feel the devil's riding crop
Get ready for the future: it is murder

There'll be the breaking of the ancient western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There'll be phantoms
There'll be fires on the road
and the white man dancing
You'll see a woman hanging upside down
her features covered by her fallen gown
and all the lousy little poets coming round
tryin' to sound like Charlie Manson
and the white man dancin'

Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ
or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don't like children anyhow
I've seen the future, baby:
it is murder

Things are going to slide ...

bill o'reilly vs. richard dawkins

Hmm. Bill is kind of restrained actually towrds the middle but starts name-calling near the end and getting dismissive.

I like Richard and his points are valid. Bill is valid too in what he says he believes but when he gets agro...that's when he loses me and makes me feel really sad. It's not okay to dismiss people like that. That's where a big disconnect lies between people who aren't Christians and how they perceive Christians, and often for good reason.

quote of the day

"She sent me a friend request, so we could "keep in touch" and she could "pray for me." I've yet to accept, but I probably will. Give crazy Christians and inkling of honesty, and those bitches will pray all over you! God damn!" --Chrissy

being/becoming

I get a healthy amount of disgruntled comments at my other blog but yesterday I had a redeeming one. It was actually in response to a disgruntled comment on the pipe smoking post. The disgruntled comment was left by someone named Andrew and it said

"Wow, just finished looking over the blog, some of the stuff is pretty correct.
But still, what the hell do you think you are doing? I'm a believer but still,
are you approaching addressing Christians/"Christians" in a way as to which they
will grow from what you are saying or are you just pointing out, sometimes
rudely, the inconsistencies in people's lives without saying why this is bad or
can be fixed? Paul said I'm the first/greatest among sinners, did you write all
this with that attitude? In Christ's love.... oh wait, I just fit the stereotype
didn't I? Way to put Christians in a box. 2 points for you."

I get sad when I people leave comments like that, but then a comment was left that showed that some people do get my blog. Someone named Chrissy wrote

"Andrew, Stephy did not put Christians in a box. Christians did. She merely
points out that there IS a box in which many Christians live. Because you agree
with her observations, you are validating the evidence. Many times that box
confines us to simplicity. We are not liberated if we believe we must conform
ourselves to fit into the box. When I tried to fit the image that Christian
culture presented, I forgot who God created me to be. I was playing a role. I
was not free. Personally, I relate to this blog very much. The entries bring to
light the image that Christians are told they should fit. They point out things
that distracted me from being content in Christ's righteousness. I was trying to
perfect my own righteousness by climbing an elusive spiritual ladder that led
nowhere. When it disintegrated, I found I was home, on the ground, with Christ
where He comforts the weary. I assure you, Stephy does not write to deter people
from Christ. She writes to expose the trends which distract us from Christ, but
are performed in the name of Christ. They are harmful, half-truths that lead to
the term "cookie cutter Christian." Christ didn't come to make cookies. He came
to free human beings, shedding His blood, and conquering death that we might
live. It is "Good News!" If it means I have to conform to the cookie cutter
image, the news becomes very average. It means I must not be me. So, what the
hell is Stephy doing? She is "shedding light in hidden places." She uses humor
to share the observations that so many of us have experienced. We find kindred
spirits here. And we laugh together. Do not condemn us. "Laughter is good
medicine." Lord knows we need it! Life is so hard."

The feeling of being understood is amazing and I'm so glad to have found other people who are like me in this...this thing I've been dealing with for so long.

and this is why i fucking hate martha stewart

Geez, are my issues showing? But everything Martha does gives me shocks of PTSD. I just found this in Vanity Fair.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A verdant landscape filled with beautiful animals of all kinds, harp music, cumulus clouds in a bright-blue sky, and happy people conversing pleasantly, sipping cold sake from homemade bamboo cups. —Martha Stewart, Vanity Fair, November 2009

kenny shopsin

A few months ago we watched this documentary called "I Like Killing Flies." It's a bad title for something great (like with Mad Men) but it's about a restaurant in Greenwich Village and the guy who runs it, and some people say he's who the Soup Nazi is based on. We loved the documentary and then last week I got his book (at Carrie's recommendation), his book is called Eat Me and I read it all right away.



Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book -

"Customers in this country have been raised to believe that they are "always right." Their neuroses are coddled and their misbehaviors are tolerated for their patronage and their money by every restaurateur in America. But not by me. My approach at Shopsin's is the exact opposite of "the customer is always right." Until I know the people, until they show me that they are worth cultivating as customers, I'm not even sure I want their patronage."

"The brilliance of my restaurant is my ability to control my clientele. The thing that makes my restaurant special is my relationships and interactions with my customers—and the way they relate and interact with one another. With the wrong people here, those interactions don't happen, so to keep the wrong people out when I don't like them. I probably axe at least one party every day—and usually more than that."

"I enjoy cooking and giving what I can to my customers, and, in turn, my customers don't just enjoy giving me money, they enjoy receiving what I have given them. Once we've established a rapport, we're absolute equals in my restaurant. But I guess I shouldn't expect newcomers to understand this. In all fairness, they're right and I'm the asshole, because my way is hardly the traditional you-give-me-the-money-I-give-you-a-bagel. I want more from them. I want a relationship."

"I had an employee working for me named Jimmy, a skinny, dynamic, diabetic black guy with a Sammy Davis Jr. face. Jimmy had a girlfriend named Elaine who was really fat. When the Health Department came out with new regulations, I sent her down to take the inspections course for me. I hated the Health Department even back then. I think I'd rather go out of business than take that fucking course. People said "How can you have her take the test for you? She can't pass for you." But she was perfect. Who the hell is going to ask a 300-pound black lady if she's Kenny Shopsin?"

"Bacon pancakes remind me of pussy. When you press the cooked bacon into the raw pancake batter, it really likes to sink in. When you flip the pancakes back to serve them bacon side up, the bacon is in there, enveloped by soft walls. It's really very sexy."

"I used to make turkey dinners every day. My beautiful turkeys were everything that fresh food could be. Sadly, it is now a thing of the past, because one day, some prick from the Health Department came in, looked at the turkey sitting up there on its shelf, and said, "Is it 140 or 40?" meaning over 140 degrees or under 40 degrees. It's the law. Everything in a restaurant has to be either super fucking hot or super fucking cold. Well, it wasn't either. It was sitting out at room temperature as it did every day. Nobody ever got sick from my turkey or anything else in my restaurant. But the Health Department took that gorgeous brown juicy Norman Rockwell bird, threw it in the trash, and poured Palmolive on it. . . I like to think I won my battle with those Health Department pricks, because I am still doing what I like to do."

"I often compare my ideas about cooking to the children's book "Goodnight Moon" where the little boy discovers that everything he needs is in his life already, right in his own room. In a Goodnight Moon world, it's pretty easy to be a good home cook. It's really not about having some terrific skills or exotic ingredients or expensive equipment, or even the right recipe. To be a good cook, to turn out good, honest food that satisfies your individual tastes, it is all about having the kind of confidence and self-awareness that comes from Goodnight Moon living, in which you are happy with what is already in your life."

space needle & the market

lolly's pet puppy (it's low maintenance)

my sister jenny visited from chicago

aunt jenny made flourless chocolate cake with them

adam carolla on weathermen

things my friend's dad yelled during the huskies game

(My friend wrote down stuff her dad yelled at the TV during the Huskies game. She said this was about a quarter and a half's worth, chronologically).


Come on, take it in, Huskies!

They make the same fucking mistakes they make every fucking time!

Look-at-this-look-at-this!!! HA HA HA HO HO!!!

Come on, get outside get outside-! Ohhhhh brother. What a wimpy run.

[standing up close to the screen] OH SHIT--[politely] Oh, thank you. [accepts coffee]

False starts are gonna take 'em right outta the field goal range here!!

[very loud] GOT 'EM! Whoa-HO!!!!!

[quietly] he didn't make it [louder] Shit OHHHHHH SHIT. Goddamn you Huskies!!! Oh NO! Jeeeesus Christ, you guys [groan] I can see where this is heading...

[sincerely] Well, this is FUN! It's really startin' to look like these guys could beat Notre Dame!

Ohhhhh now shit you guys, you GOTTA get this ball, ohhhhh [breaks off into faux sobbing noises]. AH NO!!! Now how can you not catch that ball?!?!

He's got it!...OH FUCK

[very loud, very serious] I can't believe this. I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS. This is UNBELIEVABLE.

[happily] Automatic first down! Ahhhh yes! [clap] Here we go!

[very, very loud, standing up close to the screen] JESUS CHRIST!!!! YOUUU....SUCK!!! FUCK YOU, HUSKIES!!!!

[angrily] I wasted my WHOLE afternoon watching this game!

[pleasantly, sincerely] Boy, if they could pull this off, I'd be the happiest guy in Seattle.

[stomps outside to mow the lawn] I am NEVER watching those Huskies AGAIN!!!!!


end

youtube videos i watched twice each today

(Mick from Supergrass tweeted this)

i catch the world in the headlights of my justice!

then there's this

ropy

In church on Sunday, after communion but before the service was over, I went to go pee and thought there wasn't anyone else in the bathroom. I was thinking about how one time the morning after Saturday Night Live ran that commercial about how some prostate drug would make you pee "thick, ropy streams" David said he almost said that to the pastor when they were both in the bathroom but then he decided against it. And so I said out loud "Thick ropy streams!" Then I looked and saw there was a pair of feet in the other stall.

kinda amazing

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
So You Think You Can Douche
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

flailing and hitting things, i'm laughing so hard

I love the look he gives the camera when she says her dog has cancer. Also, I think she's high.

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis from Between Two Ferns

stop and go on the 405

I'm sitting here being offended by how ugly my Peet's cup is with that design and how they wrote 'cylindrical stamp consisting of curved spiral designs, from central America' on it. Don't make me go to Starbucks to get the less offensive mermaid cup where she's got her boobs covered by her hair. Don't you hate when you eat the red play-doh and it tastes like a blue crayon? Here is Zach (beardless fat-Jodie-Foster Zach) at a preschool. Don't go blue on me, let's work it clean. I can't hear you, take those boogers out of your mouth.



This made me roll around and hit things laughing. Shirt in your mouth! Flight of the Bumblebee! 8x11 picture of your grandma!! (Kinda dirty, not for pearlclutchers. Or maybe it is, maybe it will make your day a little more surreal.)



Yay, here's Adam making fun of morning DJs again! I remember when this aired live, I was driving somewhere downtown late at night and I about had to pull over I was laughing so hard. I'll link Grapes of Rad so Ben & Aaron have to see it.

inglouriously basterdly

We saw Inglourious Basterds on Sunday our last night in San Francisco and I still can't stop thinking about it. I was shaking and jittering in parts of it because of how Quentin works you. Most movies are way too long for me, every single movie I see I always think it could be edited down to about 45 minutes, but this one is kinda long and I didn't mind. That is saying a lot right there. I love you Quentin. (I love you Pumpkin. I love you, Honey Bunny. Any of you fucking pricks move, etc. etc.) Each of his movies I want to see in the theater over and over. These days I won't cause I'm a working mom and have no time, but I want to and I used to. When we saw Death Proof I wrote about that here, I just went back to find it. David was saying how Inglourious Basterds only had six scenes and thinking back I guess it did. I got so sucked in and he builds so much tension and I keep wondering if he'll ever relieve it or leave everyone hanging, he's so good at that. Christophe Waltz played the scariest SS guy and he did this Adam Carolla interview the other day. I'm eating it up, nom nom nom. Still thinking about it.

rev. mike on trust and parenting

Our friend Mike just wrote this post about parenting. I really like it. He says most parenting styles are hardcore how-to methods. David and I don't subscribe to that and neither do Mike and Karin - like Mike said, it doesn't seem biblical. His blog post deals with the fall, who we are as people and parents, and who are kids are. He says he's going to keep breaking it down and see where it goes. I am really interested to see where he goes with it.

gay scientists isolate the christian gene

i love so much when adam carolla makes fun of early morning dj's

When I run out of new podcasts I look up old Lovelines with Adam Carolla. I fell out of my chair and kicked the wall laughing at this one. Maybe not suitable for the easily offended.

guess who's back in the m'fin house

I haven't been over here as much lately, I'm trying to stay off the computer more because I don't want to be one of those moms who's always online or glued to her phone. So it's good.

So okay. Matt Tiabbi was on Adam Carolla's podcast yesterday talking about the AIG which I know about only by name, pretty much, and he was saying it's so complicated that people just glaze over and don't try to figure it out because it's so involved. Which is totally right, that's why I don't really understand what's going on with the economic collapse. He wrote an article on Goldman-Sachs for Rolling Stone and he was saying he had to study for six weeks before interviewing people for it because the subject is that convoluted, and the fact that we don't know anything about it is to their advantage and they were pretty easily able to create this economic crisis since most of us don't really know what's going on. They created all this artificial demand and it's so wrong it's dizzying, that they could get away with it. Like for oil, the reason gas prices were so high last summer is because they traded each barrel of oil 27 times before it was used in the US. But the oil supply was actually really high so the price should have been low but they created artificial demand! Bastards! I'm almost boring myself typing that so thanks if you're still reading, but I'm just interested enough to say I'm going to read more about this cause it pisses me off that they're using the boringness to get away with everything. /end rant

Okay, not end rant. Here's the article he wrote. I love this guy.

Then yesterday, still on my usual podcast-fest, I heard on Grapes of Rad that Starbucks is going stealth and opening coffee shops that don't say Starbucks anywhere to compete with the independent shops. Here in Seattle there's already one on 15th on Capitol Hill called 15th Ave Coffee & Tea. The Grapes also said that the owner of Victrola saw all these people in his store recently carrying notebooks that said "observations" and making notes about how they did things! Those douchenozzles! And we're not going to be able to tell these supposedly independent coffee places are actually Starbucks. Well, I bet we'll be able to tell. But I really don't like the idea of them doing that. Not sure why I care when it's just coffee but it came on the heels of the AIG information and the false demand and how just a few people can own everything and eff all the consumers. I don't know why I'm watching my language on this blog but oh well. So then after listening to that message I went over and listened to a sermon by our pastor from a few weeks ago on the Sabbath and rest vs. unrest. It was so beautiful I cried and cried and I went back and listened to it again. In case my christian homies or whoever are interested it's here. Then today my therapist brought up unrest and turmoil. It's interesting how everything is melding together with me becoming more aware of my tumult and what that comes from, what's under that, and what the sabbath and true rest mean. And as it goes away I'll have so much more space to explore and all that and be free from all that bullshit. (Guess I'm not watching my language anymore.) *Since I posted this I've been feeling weird about posting something so personal to me. But I don't know if I should delete all this. Yet.*

This post has been sort of a departure from my usual random youtube video posts and weird pictures I find online. Yesterday I went back to find the farting preacher video and was wailing from laughing at it. David said "Oh, you found that again? A few months ago you used to watch it over and over and laugh harder each time." He's right.

top ten disgruntled comments

Here are the Top Ten Disgruntled Comments On My Stuff Christian Culture Likes Blog Yesterday(of course signed by Anonymous as per post #80)

…and the irony is that these are things I would have said about this blog at one time in my life.

10. You really need to examine what you are doing here.
9. What do you think Christ will say to you one day about your blog?
8. Examine your motives and their eternal implications.
7. If you spent half as much energy trying to help people KNOW Christ instead of bashing those people who are trying to know Christ, think of the good you would do!
6. What I see Stephy doing is fitting God into HER little box.
5. You are a bitter hardened person bashing people trying to know Christ.
4. What we do has eternal consequences whether you want to admit it or not!
3. I'm so sorry this is lost on you.
2. Just because this upsets me in no way means my heart is not breaking for all of you.

And the number one disgruntled comment to date is...

1. It's all fun and games until someone goes to hell because of your actions.


I was telling David this morning "that blog is exhausting." He said "what's the exhausting part?" I said "comments saying God is gonna get me. I think I'm too sensitive to handle people saying that." "If you don't get stuff like that on your blog you're probably not doing the right thing with it. It means you're in the dogfight."

So that was interesting.

Last week it was way too hot and today I watched You've Got Mail and pined for fall. Here are some pictures from Sunday.

craigraham lincoln

My friend JP made this video. He used to be in Pleaseeasaur and now he's JP Inc. and I can't really describe what he does but I super love it. Here is his video for "Crap Factory"


Crap Factory

Atom.com: Funny Videos Spoofs JP Hasson

And the latest Grapes of Rad podcast is so good. I was listening to an old one, #23 I think, and Aaron sang 'Hey Man Nice Shot' in the manner of Johnny Cash and it was. So awesome. He also sang 'Loser' like the Humpty Dance guy. I was dying. I recommend the Grapes to stave away workplace and commute ennui.

stephy writes a post in under 4 minutes. go!

A lot of people in Nigeria want to be like Michael Jackson.

Simone and Gregg were at a crepe stand a couple weeks ago and the guy working at the stand really liked Simone. He kept giving her compliments and offering to teach her French and she said "I'm married" and he said "Well, so am I!" Gregg hated it and didn't want to go back to that stand. Since we have a sick habit of looking at the missed connections and laughing at the really earnest/gross ones I made a craigslist missed connection for his benefit and sent him the link and said "Do you think this guy is talking about Simone?" I didn't fool him (he called it funny but sick) but someone else DID respond and sent me this:

I love crepes.I am not the person you are thinking of but, after reading about
the special ingredient you put in crepes to bring women back for some more, now
I want some.I will also take the free French lessons. In return I can teach you
Russian.So, maybe I will see you and your crepes on Thursday.
Marine

HAHAHA!!

In closing, here are some pics of Neil Hamburger on the hamburger bed. It just went for $3,000 on ebay but if you ask me they should've just given it to him.

three things

1. I found my dream home.

2. Last week we saw The Hangover and Bruno at the Cinebarre which ruined me on all other movie theaters forever. Every theater should serve you drinks.

3. My TheRapist says I don't get enough time by myself. Shocking.

tilt your head back let's finish the cup

My favorite video today:



I just got a new mp3 player. I just get cheap mp3 players now because I really don't like pulling iPods out of the dryer, which was happening a lot. Now I just pull cheap mp3 players out of the dryer. I've had several Sansas and iPod shuffles and this one is made by Walkman which is kind of surreal just cause it makes me think of all the tape playing Walkmans I had. I had to give it a name when I synced it so I named it Red Walkman of Radness. How long till this one will be the Washed and Dried Walkman of Deadness? Now I can listen to stuff again during my stupid-long commute. I was getting a lot of reading done there for awhile but that's done till I wash my walkman.

I kind of want this creepy Father and Son Manual of Hygiene.

i'm praying for your gay self

Ryan wrote a thoughtful post here on how it feels as a gay person to be told someone is praying for your gayness.

bonhoeffer and stuff

Someone just left a comment at my other blog that made me think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and I looked at his wiki page and saw this quote

“Human love has little regard for the truth. It makes the truth relative, since nothing, not even the truth, must come between it and the beloved person.”- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I used to think this quote was kind of saying that God's love is different from "human love" and maybe that is what it's saying. But I saw it in a different way today, that maybe love is love. Because I've been thinking recently that what this quote is basically saying is so true with even biblical love. There are people who really want to explain and explain how their view is right and anyone who doesn't agree is wrong. The way they do it is not any kind of invitation to relationship and there is no sense of "I've said what I think, now what do you think? Your opinion is valid because it comes from your experience and you are a human being who deserves to be listened to. And besides that, maybe I'm wrong anyway and so I'm not threatened by listening to you." When there's no sense of that at all, I think love doesn't exist. Logic is comforting and love and vulnerability are scary, that is for sure. It sucks that we are so self-protective (myself included) that our relationships are sacrificed because we have no room for others. I talked about this in therapy today, more to come on that probably since it always bubbles up as much as I'd like it to not sometimes.

wenzday

I finished reading A Confederacy of Dunces yesterday and was a little sad to be done with it. I thought about all the other books I have that need to be read, but instead I'm reading C of D again. It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterdaaaaay.

Someone named Candid Wanderer left a lengthy comment at my SCCL Carrie Prejean post. I responded and said it would be nice for the gay community to weigh in on the Candid Wanderer's thoughts. So if any gays are up to it, here it is.

This is my new favorite picture. Hammerhead used to say this all the time.

i'm gay for mad men

i can't get enough of this picture

I'm totally applying for this job. When they won't interview me I'll sue them for gender bias. Then the nefarious underworld of Mars Hill church will come out in the courtroom. Set your tivos!

with you always. hey, stop that!

Our friend Bobby has his own take on the With You Always drawings. His are called Hey, Stop That. Here's an original bonafide With You Always sketch of Jesus with a barber.



Here is Bobby's rendering of Jesus telling someone to knock it off.


I'll post them as Bobby makes them. Yips! Some great ones he's done have been lost in hard drive crashes. He did one of a prostitute talking to someone in a TransAm and another one of Ellen DeGeneres crying about a dog. Hey, stop that!

the hot rats cover 'drive my car'

Supergrass. [pause] Is my favorite band. [pause] And two of them (Gaz & Danny) have a new side project called the Hot Rats and they only do covers. Hugo Boss asked them to do this song so they did. And I love it more than the original. Saying that is probably heresy but I will apologize not.

Supergrass has always gotten a lot of Beatles comparisons but this is the only Beatles cover I've heard them do (oh wait, besides Daytripper in 1997) and with both of the songs it's almost eerie, for me, the similarity. I think it's as if they are what the Beatles would sound like if they were from our generation.



It's been a year since Simone and Kate and I embarked on our Supergrass summer, Simone and I saw them in Seattle, Portland, & LA, then Kate & I saw them in NJ and we all saw them in NYC. Here is the blog entry with pictures from that. Sigh.

ryan quotes

Now for an installment of Ryan quotes pulled from his emails to me this week.

On these 'Christian alternatives' to MySpace and Facebook:

Wow! There's so many. I love "holypal" and "mypraize"! I'm sure you could infiltrate those sights and raize some holy(pal) hell!

On the show Cake Boss, which is the only show all of us in our family like equally:

I've never heard of Cake Boss. It sounds fun and amazing. I'll sent my fazers to stun and record it tonight. I'm frothing at the mouth with television scheduling anxiety.

On his beard:

In other news, I'm growing a beard. I feel like I've been inducted into some beard society at work. I liken it to the brotherhood bald men must engage in. I find that when I come into work, my bearded brethren want to check in with me and the progress of my growth. I must investigate further and see if I can't infiltrate the layers of this beard cult.

On...I don't know, duvets:

I know someone who looks like a cross between Seth Meyers (from SNL) and Andy Dick (from Andy Dick). He works for Pottery Barn Kids and I often use him to get me discounts on their merchandise. Really! I got a killer sailboat duvet that's on my bed right now.

On commuting:

I was on a super crowded train this morning and was looking at all the people smashed into me and thought to myself, "All these people resulted from a night of passion."

if you love maya angelou, do not read further

My friend Monica dislikes Maya Angelou and has this contest where she says she will give a prize to the person who writes the best Maya Angelou lookalike poem. This is David's entry:

Maya Angelou Sets Down Her Harp to Strangle a Passing Gazelle

“Philosophers should be the kings I perchance to think,”
Aristotle said when he was not yet dead yet
hardly bated the fate of States or startled the status quo, mate

Poets samewise should be the cover models
Their wisened visages gracing the covers of even Vogue and Vanity Fair
sans the vanity
The sans of time through hourglass-less bodies
Ill-filled Bikinis beckoning not lustful stares but varicose stairclimbs of knowledge
and unequivocable equality
Wrinkles welcome (but for a wrinkle in time!)

O Woman I shall regard and desire you
You with your supple words
Your buxom line breaks
That sweet untapped assonance
Your punctuated pique-through titling, breasts heaving
truth.

- David Drury

i'd like to know where jeff tweedy lives that he can spend just $3.63 on diet coca-cola and unlit cigarettes

I want to write about my therapy session this morning but as therapy is wont to do it made me think about why I proffer so much of myself when I'm so fragile. I think it's because I didn't used to be this fragile until said therapy, and now I'm becoming more aware of my sarcastic shell that kept me safe or at least made things not hurt as much (because then I could put the bad feelings back on the people who hurt mine or, even better!, beat them to the punch). Doing that protected me when I was younger but now I want to be more aware of why I do what I do and what's underneath it and as a result I'm super vulnerable. I've never been this way before. I was talking to my therapist today about what triggers these responses in me and I'm realizing that I have some serious problems with men who are abrasive, peremptory, dismissive of people's feelings (especially when they rationalize away emotions because emotions are not logical), and most especially when a man does these things in the name of God. I have an extremely strong emotional response to it. It hurts me somewhere in my heart like a physical pain and I collapse. I break just like a little girl, I guess. I'm doing a lot of work to figure out where this stems from, and part of the process is heightened sensitivity. When people tell me not to be sad that makes me sadder, because I'm doing a lot of work to get my sadness back. It was shut off for so long and I was more numb. Now I can be happier because I can be sadder. Weird how that works.

Maybe that's all I better write about therapy today.

I really love this Steve Martin MJ tribute.

i don't enjoy the hipster plaid scarf phenomenon

Get away from me, gross scarves. You are like Crocs mixed with goatees mixed with velour sweats that say Juicy on the butt!

for some reason every 4th of july i think of what ms. stroud said in dazed and confused

"Okay guys, one more thing, this summer when you're being inundated with all this American bicentennial Fourth Of July brouhaha, don't forget what you're celebrating, and that's the fact that a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic white males didn't want to pay their taxes."

a confederacy of dunces

I'm reading A Confederacy of Dunces for the second time and it's even better than the first time. Almost every day I snort-laugh while reading it on the bus and can't stop shaking the seat and the big besuited businessperson I'm squeezed into the seat with looks at me sideways. A few times I've been reading an amazing part and I realize my mouth has been hanging open for awhile. The story behind the book is crazy too, the guy who wrote it committed suicide in 1969 when he was 32 and his mother found the manuscript afterwards. She started calling Walker Percy and telling him about this book her dead son had written which he did not want to read obviously and the way he tells the story in the foreward is delightsome. Then he read it and couldn't put it down and published it and it won the Pulitzer Prize. Every character reminds you of someone you know. The main character (Ignatius J. Reilly) reminds me of about a dozen people I've known and it's kind of eerie. Has anyone else read it? What did you think?

video thursday

Beatbox world champion, and she kind of rules.




Hot Rats cover The Cure's "The Lovecats" at Glastonbury last week: (audio only)




This guy is really excited about offering.

101 things: the facebook version

Since I've been asked to tone it down on a friend's Facebook page, I thought we could think of other things that have happened to us on Facebook and make a 101 things. Simone, David, and Ryan collaborated with me to make this list. Bold the ones that apply to you.

Have you ever:

Been pleasantly surprised by someone's delightful status updates when you didn't know they had it in them

Had a Facebook-centric nightmare

Had someone tell you he was un-friending you on Facebook because his wife wanted him to

Farted in fb's general direction

Flipped off someone's status update

Entertained the idea of just deleting your Facebook account

Rekindled a friendship with a high school person you'd written off because you thought they were judgemental and found out on Facebook that wasn't the case

Accepted everyone who requests you as a friend

Had someone tell you they abhor your "flagrant touting of an evil man" (Obama) on Facebook?

Unfriended someone you already had a strained relationship with because their annoying profile picture was the last straw?

Unfriended someone because their status messages were too boring?

Made a passive-aggressive status message with the intent of catching the attention of one particular person, but not admitting it

Had people talk to you in person about your status updates (because they are awesome)

Unfriended someone because they posted thing supporting "Yes on 8"

Unfriended a-sort-of-friend you'd already accepted as a friend because they became a "fan" of Old Navy

Added people that you later forgot why you added them ("Who is that again?")

Witnessed nasty replies to you that were taken back down within 5 minutes

Tried to add people who shockingly never confirm you, which is baffling and raises distress levels over what you might have done to them

Been told by your spouse that your replies to everyone elses posts are abundant and hilarious (your A material) but that your replies to their posts are non-existent

Been witness to picture posts which greatly undermine your admiration for your friends

Been witness to picture posts which greatly bolster your admiration for your friends

Felt exactly like you were in junior high again because of something that went wrong on Facebook

i've always thought flapjack looks kinda like jeremy enigk