Too Old to Be A Hipster

I wish I wasn't so opinionated.  I'm really not that difficult to please. I like good food, I like my jokes to be occasionally laughed at, and I like to be comfortable. That's basically about it.

But I'm tired of other people's garbage ending up in my yard. That was a metaphor, although I do hate it when litter ends up in my yard that is not from my garbage can. I wish I could live in harmony with the rest of society, but why does the rest of society have to be so IN YOUR FACE.

Let me explain what I'm talking about.

Today my sister invited us to hear her perform musically during a block party in a "revitalized" part of Eugene. The Whitaker area. The area is, how you say, counter-culture. I've been to the area many times, as it is only four minutes from my house, but it doesn't offer the type of lifestyle I find enjoyable.  The supermarket only offers local produce and oddly packaged foodstuffs at exorbitant prices. This market, however, does offer four different homemade peanut butter dispensers. So it's good for that. The rest of the businesses are similarly kitschy and organic.

In reality, the area is like to a foreign nation bizarre where everything is alright and kind of exotic, but not really your cup of tea. This area also has a tea bar, so yeah.  Generally, the area looks dingy.  Most establishments use recycled goods in their restaurants and shops. Most chairs are wooden benches or something a metal-welder artist couldn't sell back to a scrapper. It's very artistic in the wrong ways.

I think this Whitaker Area Mural sums up the area perfectly.
Naked Tarot Card women living harmoniously with Native Americans.  

So when I decided to go to the function, I was going to support my sister, not the event.

Now offered in overly revealing shorts!

What I found was a poorly planned event full of profiteers and weirdos. I'm trying not to be judgmental,  I really don't mind hippies, hipsters, grunge-mongers, pot-heads, DKs, college-kid dropouts, intellectual wannabes, and slutty biker chick rejects; but all in the same place at the same time? I get anthropophobic around so much pseudo-culteralism. I've tried very hard to pretend that people's isms don't bother me in the last ten years, but when their looks/smells/attitudes/actions are physically annoying to me, I can't hold back my sneer face.

At least ten times I saw women's buttocks (partially). I can't stand this new fad of girls wearing 1980s mom jeans with the high waist that immediately end where their gluteus maximus meats meets their thigh. As a man, I should love this...but something about the whole look is just...wrong. Maybe its because as a man, I can't NOT look at this (even with it's super unsexy appeal); and days when I'm with my kids and wife equates a lose-lose situation. Can't we all agree that nobody likes this look?

This poster screams: Drugs encouraged!

Numerous times the smell of marijuana wafted my way. I don't really care about pot. I don't use it, and even if I wanted to use it (which I don't), I'm not allowed to as an educator. My town, and the youth of America act like it is more illegal to have an anti-pot viewpoint than to be okay with the substance. Well, here's my real opinion. I don't think the drug affects people over 25 very much. However, I have watched way too many young kids start taking it and completely change. Like a total personality 180º.  So when I see young kids (even college kids) act like the drug has no effect on them, I get bothered. Many of these same "Eugenites" won't drink from a plastic cup for fear that the BPA has melted into their drink. Look people, can't we agree that anything, ANYTHING you put in your body has an effect on your blood chemistry?!  Just because a product is "natural" doesn't mean your body will love it more than an ear of Monsanto's corn-on-the-cob. Opium is a natural product and it is horrible. Arsenic is natural? Where are its advocates? Currently Marijuana is experiencing what St. John's Wort did twenty years ago when the homeopathic crowd thought is would cure everything. Well, most now believe that Wort does very little except maybe curb mild depression. Marijuana will be legalized in my lifetime, but I don't understand the fully functional people who think it actually enhances their lives (besides chronic pain/ glaucoma/etc. sufferers).

I guess I wouldn't be so riled up about pot if it wasn't for the dirty hipster mom and dad in front of me who were smoking it with their toddler kid in a homemade baby sling. I'm fairly sure that a developing one year old should not be getting a contact high (no matter how "safe" the drug is). If it would have been a cigarette, the entire neighborhood would've beat these parents to death with anti-WTO/ 99%er signs from their yards.

Who doesn't like frequenting a business that looks like
a trailer park crashed into a Picasso painting?  

My last rant is towards elitist beer drinkers. The Whitaker area is now home to multiple brewery/brewpubs including Ninkasi, Hop Valley, and Oakshire. While I like a good microbrew every now and then, many Eugenites frequent these establishments and play the "I drink the bitterest beer" game. "Hey, try this IPA, it tastes like ground-up hops and apple cider vinegar. It's extremely bitter and your tongue will want to emigrate to another mouth, but you'll love it." No, I don't love it.  Let me order what I like (Hefeweizen) and stop mocking me for not liking your acrid spirits. It reminds me of 4th grade when kids pretended to like Atomic Fire Balls or Warheads, but secretly spit them out the second nobody was looking.

I guess what bothers me so much about this area is that everyone is trying so hard to pretend not to impress anyone. They act like their lifestyle is superior because they are open-minded to anything and that their homemade goods and services are so much better than what corporate America is offering. Even my Oregon Duck hat in EUGENE, was getting me ugly looks. I'm sorry, but half these people graduated from that university as well. I'm sorry I wasn't wearing a Ninkasi shirt. I'll try harder next time Whitaker area Eugene.

I think what the people of Whitaker are trying to achieve, is a true community of intelligent/artistic/and creative people who care about the neighborhood they are living in. I can respect that. Where I think they fail is that Saturday Market goods and services have to be better than what Walmart is offering to make people buy in. A neighborhood that sells expensive local wares in a KOA campground type setting is not going appeal to me or the masses. Which is probably fine with the Whitaker area as they are not courting my type people.  (I wouldn't meet their qualifications either).

I'm 34 and I don't know what or where "my people" are. All I know is that when I'm with the right people, we generally don't smell, we eat well, laugh well, and can relax for hours. Is that too much to ask?  I wish I wasn't so dang opinionated.

You Voted for Who? How Dare You!

As November 6th approaches, my quadrennial seasonal depression gets stronger and stronger.  Another four years of ineptitude, vitriol, questionable decision making, lies, and propaganda will be pushed upon us by two branches of our government system.  It no longer matters to me whether it is a donkey or an elephant voting or legislating on my behalf as I rarely think they have my interests in mind, but rather the interests of thousands of Washingtons, Lincolns, Jacksons, and Franklins.  In American politics it is always about the Benjamins, and I don't have enough to get my message heard.

"What did you say, YOU DON'T WANT TO VOTE!!!"

Which used to depress me.  I still get affected from time to time at the angry and frustrated words of friends and family,be it from the left or from the right. who think that their political affiliations will solve the problems of the current administration.  I hear what they're saying, but have had to remove myself emotionally from their passionate soapbox. I'm sorry family and friends.  I just don't care.  I don't care about either of these candidates and their plethora of hypocritical party stances.  I don't think my vote will mean anything.  I don't really care that much who gets elected president.  Some of you are frothing at the mouth in anger towards me right now for this wishy-washy commentary.  I want to say I can understand that.

But I don't.  Blue or red, conservative or liberal, have or have not, pachyderm or ass, to me, you are something other than a voting demographic.  You are a person.  And if I could guarantee that my vote would positively affect you, your family, your pocketbook, your belief system, and also everything about myself, my family, my wallet, and my ethics, I would vote for that party.  But I can't.  Our parties are too messed up.  Our interests are too varied.  So I will try and vote my conscious and my logic.  It might benefit what you believe, or it could go against everything you believe.  Or I could pull a wildcard and throw my vote away on a third party candidate that will have no shot at anything, or even more extreme: not vote at all.  But remember, it is my vote, it is my right.  And we as a nation used to respect that.

Pay no attention to the way that man voted.  Ignore the
man behind the curtain.  

It used to be that asking about one's politics was like asking about one's sex life.  It was something that only classless people did.  But as people become more open with their bedroom practices, so have they become more vocal about their voting booth experiences.  But I don't want to know about either.  Oh sure, we might all get a little curious about both, but at the end of the day, it's probably best that we don't know what you do behind or beneath the sheets.

So do your civic duty or don't.  Do what you think is best for your family, and I'll do what I believe is best for mine.  But by all means, lets not let something as arbitrary and disconnected from our human worth--as our voting record is--from separating us as friends and family.

Post Superstorm Sandy, it was the people who offered their power
for cell phone charging, their food for the hungry, and their homes
for warmth, that personify the America I believe in.  (photo:thuglife)

When Wednesday hits, and emotions are high on both the winners and losers sides, I propose we enact a new social voting idea:  "Don't ask, Don't tell"--don't assume your friends are celebrating, or assume they want to grumble with you.  And my other proposal is; regardless of who wins the presidency, lets come together and demand the betterment of our nation through our works.  Let us, the real Americans define America through our actions, instead of letting our "representatives" redefine America through their inaction and $ cronyism.

Silly Christians, Labels are for Kids.

Ironically, I think Schlitz tastes like burnt beer.  

As I grow older, I realize more and more, that I don’t fit into boxes.  Partially because I’m fat, but partially because I’m a complex person.  I think we're all more  complex than we’ve been led to believe.  I watch beer commercials and think, “These men are Neanderthals, are we really this stupid?”  And then I look down at the micro-brew I’m drinking, and hope that these ads only apply to guys who drink the mass-marketed beers.   

And then I see these extremist Christians on television, on cable news, or during some political rally, saying really hurtful bigoted things, and I think, “What?  Are these the same people I grew up with in churches?  When did Christians get so mean?”

But appearances aren’t always reality.  The media: those egotistical talking heads and their political pundits, all need us to fit into their precious demographics, so that they can package us, bought and paid for, to a political party.  For Christians, since the time of Reagan, this package has been the Republican Party.  Overwhelmingly, most Christians that are Republicans, are so over one issue: abortion.  Some might say because of family values, or keeping the “sanctity” of marriage, but it usually comes back to outlawing abortion as priority number one to Republican Christians. 

And that’s sad.  Abortion is worse than sad.  And I understand the outrage.  But it has changed what being a Christian is all about.  The movement to outlaw abortion has eroded the core of what Christianity is: loving your neighbor as yourself.   Christianity has becoming a dwindling belief system in the U.S., especially with the youth, largely because they’ve seen the anger, hateful words, and spirit of judgmentalism that is so prevalent with the anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage sect of politicized Christians, and so little of the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5:22).   If the youth are good at one thing, it’s noticing hypocrisy. 

Do you think these words have ever
inspired a conversion?  

Which is why I no longer like being called a Christian.  Not with what the word means in today’s society.  I don’t like being thought of as a Republican pawn, or ill-informed moralist trying to keep “In God We Trust” on coinage, or the “Ten Commandments” in our schools.  Really?  These are the fights we “Christians” are going to tackle?  Why do I want to force religious doctrines on anyone?  Makes it sound a whole lot less like "good news," and more like force-fed news.   And it doesn’t make us look much prettier than the kind of religious legalism that controls Muslims in the Middle-East. 

I guess what I’m trying to say, is, I believe in what Jesus taught.  I grew up in the church (my dad was a minister), but those two facts didn’t make me a believer.  It took a profound spiritual act (one that is much too complicated and personal to describe here) that made me a life-long follower of Jesus.  And this personal relationship, through prayer, worship, etc. has continued from my late high school years until today.  But I’m not a very good Christian.  I fail often.  I swear sometimes.  I lose my temper.  I act spoiled.  I have many hang ups.  –But I’m learning not to judge.  I’m learning to have compassion.  I’m learning that I don’t know it all.  I’m learning that God can’t be boxed into nice political packages.  He is too glorious and perfect to be easily labeled or completely understood by mankind.  But man keeps trying to make God like us--imperfect.  So we market God as a product.  Give him catch phrases and identities that sound really cool and attractive, while wholly turning off large segments of society from ever seeing the “Real” Jesus. 

I understand why some people want to advertise their faith. But I think
 sometimes all they are advertising is their bad driving habits.   

These labels pain me.  Recently the DNC invited a young woman, Jena Nardella, with a cool ministry to do the benediction to close the day’s events.  Her prayer was beautiful and poignant, and was probably difficult in a room where certain ideologues cared nothing for the words coming out her mouth.  Then I read what many “Christians” had to say about her prayer on message boards like the Jars of Clay fan page (who work with Jena).  Posts like: I will have to agree with Jesus Christ. You can not be a Christian and stand on a platform of sin.....abortion and homosexuality.  Which quickly earned 19 “likes” by  other “Christians.”  Nice.  I’m sure Jesus loves the filth, debauchery, greed and war-mongering that the Republican party is so imbedded with.  (FWI, I currently don’t care about either political party, as I've found so little "truth" in either).  These politico-activist message board Christians are turning people off by the millions.  You can read Jars of Clay’s beautiful rebuttal to the ungodly words on their fanpage, here. 

I know we live in strange times.  I know it looks like we are headed for another World War, this one probably pitting the West vs. the Middle-East.  Some have called it a Christians vs. Muslim conflict (which I know has been raging in Africa for decades), and the fact that so many Christians feel the need to get ultra-defensive and  militarize ourselves for a coming religious war is, well, disappointing.  

Hi diddly ho neigh-
bor, hope you're
living a sin free life.

Disappointing, because there is so much work to be done on the home-front regardless of if Armageddon is near.  So many hungry to feed, so many naked to clothe, so many sick to comfort.  America is desperate for the compassion that Christ espoused.  It does not need a judging and morally superior fan base preaching “right living,” when the church itself is hardly “right living.” 

The Church has plenty of in-house business to attend to before it starts looking outside its buildings and offering criticism.  There's enough sin sitting around  in the pews that could, or should be dealt with for any number of years.  Christian marriages, like their secular counterpart, need intravenous fluids to stay alive.  Why not offer more marriage counseling to those desperate to stay married, rather than telling others outside the church that they can't get married.  Why not find the young or misguided ladies who think abortion is their only option, and give them reasons to see it differently.  Be ready to open the coffers and fund these women who see no way they can financially bring a baby into this world.  It's a messy, hard, expensive business, working with people who have made mistakes.  Nobody said the gospel was easy.  The solutions, rather than shouting judgements and condemnations, are difficult and hard to come by.

"What about people who are vegans, can they be
Christians?" "Oh no, no, no.  You must eat all of God's
creatures to appreciate his creation.  Verdict: heathens"   

Mistakenly, we've let those Pharisees get control of our faith's pulpits.  Preaching an unattractive, and in my opinion, mistaken version of our faith.  Telling us who is, and who isn’t worthy of God’s glory.  Slowly closing the door on more and more people from ever entering a church building.  And I’m tired of being lumped in with them.  There are millions of Christians who’ve rejected the idea of being political or judgmental.  Who by their works do social justice.  They hardly receive recognition, and are rarely given media coverage.  But they impact lives in the gutters, daily.  Like Jesus would’ve.  That’s the demographic I want to be associated with. One that raises people up, instead of beating people down.  

So give to Caesar, what is Caesars; but do unto others as you would have them do to you.  See if you enjoy having somebody scream political hellfire and brimstone in your face.  I seem to respond better to grace, mercy, and love…and I think a lot of faithless people would as well.     

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Discussion is encouraged.  But lets please remember to keep it civil.  

What Nazi Germany can Teach America About Political Extremism

We're not there yet.  Thank God we're not there.  Many people think the Nazi party rose in Germany almost instantly from the ashes of the unfittingly named Great War.  Our History books hardly mention the years between the World Wars or the Weimar Republic (1919-1933), which was laden in reparation debt, impossible economic realities, and a disillusioned voting base that was desperate for any kind of change.  Desperation led to anger, which led to violence, which led to hate, which culminated in evil extremism: the Nazis.

Says: Death To Lies.  The snake has both Marxism and High Finance (Capitalism), with only the strong arm of the Nazi holding back their venom.  The Nazis routinely lumped all of their political enemies into the same boat (or snake). 

Invisible Obama, I'm upset that you didn't bail me
out after I made J. Edgar.  

Again, we, the glorious United States, are not there.  Each successive year, though, we inch closer to radicalism, with only a lukewarm economy keeping us from storming the Bastille, like crazed, starving peasants.  You can claim that social issues make you politically savvy, but in this country it is always the almighty dollar that rules over political animosity.  Currently, we just lob our fruits and vegetables of unhappiness at the government in forms of anonymous comments on message boards, or slightly amusing yet factually wrong memes and status updates.  Clint Eastwood took his grumpy old man act to the Republican convention the other night, and his ad-libbing was both refreshing and uncomfortable.  But Eastwood doesn't have to live in the reality of life.  He is a multimillionaire.  He will never rely on Social Security, or Medicare, or deal with HMOs, or the unemployment office, or a disappearing retirement fund.  He's a rich actor, putting on an act.  

And many politicians on both sides of the fences are putting on acts.  Sometimes I wish we had more than just a two-party system, so that somebody who actually represents my views would be worth voting for--but then I remembered that the Weimar Republic had a multi-party system.  And this allowed a disgruntled minority on the sideline of reality to take power.  Things were so chaotically bad in 1928 Germany, that they had FIVE elections in FIVE YEARS!  Can you image the voter apathy in that nation?  The NASDP (or Nazis as we know them) rose from a fringe group receiving 2.6% of the vote, to 33% at the end of 1932.  And yet, because of a flaw in their constitution, this 1/3 minority was allowed to choose the chancellor, Adolf Hitler.  After the death of Reichpresident Hindenburg in 1934, Hitler gave himself that title, along with Der Fürher (or father leader) and quickly shored up any remaining loose ends: enacting the Enabling Acts--thus making him a dictator, outlawing his closest nemesis (the communist KPD party), then blatantly murdering 400 of the next closest political rivals, calling them enemies of the state.  (You should know the rest of the story).

A multilayered piece of propaganda.  Here, a brownshirt Nazi is aided by St. George the Dragon Slayer (a German lore hero) to confront the three-headed beast of Communist, Socialist, and Jew which has laid waste to the German city in the background.  Linking your party with historically heroic figures, is a common practice of weak politicians.

The creation of a sick
individual.  Analogy ≠ reality

I am not, by any scale of the imagination calling Obama or Romney a political equal of Hitler.  Anyone who would is either historically retarded, or maliciously insane.  What I am saying, is that we are lucky we have a two party system.  Our nut jobs, the people spreading the vitriol of propaganda against or for these two candidates, are so far to the extremes on either side of the political spectrum that they are nowhere near ANY level of reality.  I like Eastwood, I really do.  But his comments and disrespect towards the guy in office, clearly show that he is in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s.  Likewise, the people who will sit there and say, “Well, Obama has done an amazing job considering the hole he started in when he took office,” are clearly just as delusional.  I still don’t know who I am going to vote for, but I sure as heck am not going to lie for either candidate. 

I’m not sure why people don’t look up facts when it comes to their candidate, but I’m guessing it’s because the poster/liar has a second agenda that their party supports/opposes.  Either, I wholeheartedly support Romney 'cause he is the best bet to overturn Roe vs. Wade (even though this is a judicial matter, and not something a president can do); or I prop Obama because he will more adequately fund our schools and colleges (which can get fuddled up by the budget committees in Congress).  The problem with standing for 1 or 2 issues a party supports, is that you are subconsciously supporting other issues that you may or may not agree with.  That’s politics.  It’s an ugly, greedy, conflicting, hypocritical entity that promises one thing, and supplies another.  To throw unfettered support for one side, is allowing yourself to be defined by their actions.  And I, for one, would never want to be labeled as the guy who voted for Bush, or the guy who voted for Obama, but rather the guy who did his civic duty, and was somewhat disappointed in the outcome seemingly every-time.  And that sucks. 

But it doesn’t suck as much as lying for political people you don’t know.  It doesn’t forgive us for misleading others as to what is truth.  Remember, this was the most successful enterprise of the Nazis.  Misleading propaganda.  It convinced a nation to go to war with the world, expel all minorities, then turn a blind eye as it systematically terminated all of the “lesser demographics.”  How could a proud, intelligent nation ever allow this kind of evil to go unchallenged?  Simple; A small minority of angry, malnourished, and economically depressed voters tiredly threw their vote towards something, anything, different.  The result was the Nazis.  Whoops. 

Again, we aren’t there, yet.  People aren’t being killed in the streets over political alliance.  The political lies, sometimes supplied by the media, are only mildly swaying. The voter base is obviously not angry or disenfranchised enough to sacrifice their life for their ideals.  And that, as my friend Dan recently said, is a good thing, as he pinpointed the major flaw in American politics; its lack of humanity: 

"It is hard for me to express how disinterested I am in party politics or unmoved by the well-crafted rhetoric. The differences between the two gangs are so infinitesimal that whichever one ends up in the White House will create such a small difference in the status quo that it will be, for practical purposes, irrelevant. For those of you expressing such passion and end-of-the-world-seriousness in this race. . . go volunteer at a homeless shelter or give respite to a caregiver or read to young school children. Redirect your emotional energy in some way that will make a real difference in lives. I guarantee you will like the results."

If only the disgruntled Germans would’ve espoused this theology.  If only our extremists could realize their fallacies and redirect their energy away from politics, then this world, this United States of America, would be a much saner, safer, place. And, on a much smaller, personal level, social media outlets would be happily traversable for the next five months.