kicking and screaming

I watched Kicking and Screaming the other day. Its about these friends who are in the netherworld of "just graduated from college and trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives" (I should of put hyphens between each of those words, but I I just didn't feel like taking the effort... so, I just typed out that sad digression). They have this existence that kind of floats from one thing to another with the social lubrication of alcoholic libation. They know the should be doing something, but for some reason, what ever that thing is they are not so sure about.

Kicking & Screaming is a movie that is ripe with one liners, they just escape me at the present. For some reason this movie went below my radar when it came out. I don't remember ever hearing about it, I'm sure part of that reason is it was probably an "art house" film or something like that or had a limited distribution. Either way it never crossed my movie going tableau. I bought it sight unseen a few weeks back, after reading about it and reading some reviews, it sounded like a movie I might like because I tend to like those movies that depict wayward college students in the death/life throes of after college angst and hand wringing (Lord knows, I've done more than my fair share of that!)

Is it a good movie? Its not bad, its actually quite enjoyable. It does hit to home that, particularly for anyone who has the "misfortune" of having a "humanities degree" i.e. English, philosophy, history, and the like. We humanitist have to do one of a couple things: learn how to run a drive-through, or get more degrees.

For that reason it is a bit painful to watch.

The acting is okay, but not stellar. Though, Elliott Gould and Eric Stoltz do some fine work in the film. Gould playing the neurotic, Manhattanite, who is seperated from his wife, father type and Stoltz playing the all "knowing" somewhat sarcastic bartender in the local college town divebar. Even Parker Posey of "Wipe that face off your head" fame (from Dazed and Confused shows up-- she plays her typical dumbish, bitchy role that she seems typecast for.

It may not be the deepest of movies, and that's okay but I do think it will lend itself to repeated viewings.

Fit like a glove, it did

I went to church for the first time in roughly four weeks, I think. Between going on vacation and working on the weekends (retail's a bitch when you're a church goer) it has been hard to get church. I too advantage today and went. It was the "contemporary" service, which means there were jams more than hymns, but a begger can't be a chooser and the thirsty must drink. It felt good to be in a corporate worship. To hear the Word read as opposed to reading silently.

Hopefully, I'll have next Sunday off so I can have communion (something else I'm in need of).

vishnu-ginsberg & krishna-miles

“howl” still rings in my ears
after a late night drive home
through darkened streets & green
traffic lights

vishnu-ginsberg howls from my
car speakers; i howl with him
gripping the steering wheel
feeling my eyes bug & my knuckles
whiten

i feel like shaking my fist at a passerby
thrust it at them & demand a duel
ginsberg this is your fault, you bastard!
peaceful, my ass!

i have the need for whiskey & miles

i have miles, but my whiskey is long gone
consumed long ago my hangover
forgotten

(half of the poet’s dream:
neglected/disregarded)

sleep is not possible
his words (reason unknown)
do this to me i am high
on wordcoke powered
by a zeal

& miles plays on-- fueling my
mania

my hands tremble with
overdose

Admission

I'm going to admit here, and only here. I've told my friends and my family knows, but none of you know and I suppose, if I'm to be perfectly honest with the world I must confess it here. I'm not ashamed. Really, I'm not, nothing to be ashamed of-- a lot of people did it. I'm not special, I'm just honest.

I paid good American money to see the best marketed film (even if wasn't necessarily marketed by the studio, per se) this year. Yes, I went and paid six hard earned dollar bills to see Snakes on Plane. With that admission, I'm sure I probably lost the only friend I had in the blogosphere. Either that or she'll be jealous and wish she had seen it, too.

The most asked question I get when I tell someone that I saw the movie is this: "So, how was it?" My standard answer is: "It was what it was, I knew exactly what I was gonna get when I got there. It is nothing more than a turn-off-your-brain-leave-your-problems-at-the-door escapism." Its overacted as only the great Samuel L. can overact. Its cheesy in the good Swiss Cheese kind of way and it has just enough pop, violence, contrived sex scene, and punny dialogue to make it a great dorm building movie (much like Showgirls and Twister were when I was kicking back beers with the boys in Behnken Hall at Con-You Austin).

This movie will probably not help you understand the theory of Pi, or even the deeper meaning of the lint in your belly button, but it will do a pretty good job of giving your a brain a much needed mental-lube job.

if the thirdworstpoet can do it, so can i

I figure that if the thirdworstpoet-- which is in fact totally untrue, she is an amazing poet, writer, and friend-- can write the everyonce and while haiku, so can yours truly.

Both of these were in part inspired by my recent trip to NYC.

Two Haiku-- Nature & Man

tree: man-made nature
broom-like trunk perfect green leaves
stunted bushes, too

steel concrete caverns
exhaust spewed horns bleet lights flash
humanity flows

Big City

I have been on vacation for the few days. My family and I left Indianapols on the eighth of August. That is my parent's wedding anniversary (35 years married). Our goal was New York City. Our first stop as a small town in Maryland in western Maryland, where I grew up.

We left MD and headed to Secaucus, New Jersey. That is where we are now. We have been in Seacaucus since the tenth. We have been in New York City, Brooklyn, and Bayonne, New Jersey.

I am using my laptop right now. The connection is slow so I'm not going able to add any pics, but I will, when I get home.

Adopted

Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
But yet in love he sought me
And on his shoulder gently laid
And home rejoicing brought me.

-- The King of Love My Shepherd Is
(Lutheran Worship 412)

We sang that hymn tonight. That is the third verse, but it is the verse that struck me the most.

Lately, I have been thinking about the word "adoption." I was reading the Bible the recently and read the word "adoption." It was probably in Romans chapter 9, verse 4:

I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

That word "adoption" is key. Adotion means that I was picked. That I was taken. I am an adopted son in the family of God, through Christ, through my Baptism. I am in the family of "grace." I should, by rights, be in the family of "sin." But I was adopted and taken into the loving fold of God's grace.

I am blessed by this adoption. And yet, I disparage it. I do often stray. I do get lost, but for some reason, my shepherd drops everything and comes finds me over and over again. And for that I am thankful.