Monthly Archives: April 2004

Sexuality

Randall Terry’s Son Comes Out

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Interesting article in Out, a magazine about (what else?) coming out, about Jamiel Terry, son of Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry, coming out about his homosexuality. The full article isn’t online, but there’s some interesting comments there.

Talk about having a black sheep in the family. Randall Terry’s had some bizarre dealings, but this really makes for a tabloid story. I’m especially curious to see where Jamiel stands on Christianity. (I’m even more curious as to why Randall and Jamiel look nothing alike)

Part of the article really made me wonder about the gay lifestyle:

“From a very early age I knew I was different. When I was 4 my favorite female was Miss Piggy. That alone was probably not much of a giveaway, but my soft voice and my mannerisms turned out to be signs that I was gay.”

Why is the stereotypical, flamboyant homosexual such an accepted norm? Why are certain mannerisms and a soft voice signs of homosexuality? These are blatant stereotypes, like southern white males being unintelligent rednecks or urban black males being able to dunk or rap or kick your ass. I expect mainstream media would further these stereotypes, but why would a gay and lesbian magazine promote the stereotype? If it’s a legitimate lifestyle choice, why can’t we move beyond the stereotypes?

Just for Fun

More Dreams

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After yesterday’s realization about my recurring dreams, I had more freaky dreams last night. This time I had my glasses and I wasn’t back in high school, so they weren’t recurring. But they were freaky.

Dream 1: Ford Motor Company reneged on my dad’s retirement and forced him and half his co-workers to return to work in Connecticut. So much for retirement in Kansas. To top things off, my parents announced they were pregnant.

Dream 2: The whole cancelled retirement quickly turned into some strange coastal village inhabited by the characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. At one point I was desperately trying to jab the handle of a wooden spoon into a vampire, only to score a number of bruises and minor puncture wounds. Apparently you either need the strength of the slayer or a sharpened stake. I’m not even sure which characters were present, though I vaguely remember seeing Buffy, Willow, Spike, possibly Drusilla, and my wife. I’m not sure I was playing myself, but it’s possible I was either Buffy or Zander. Though I did suck at the vamp staking, so I was probably Zander.

Daily Grind

Recurring Dreams

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Last night I had a dream like so many I’ve had in the past few years. I don’t know how long or how often I’ve been having these dreams, but I just realized today that they’re all the same.

Most every dream involves me not having my glasses. That basically means I’m blind. I can’t distinguish faces until they’re right in front of me, I can’t read anything, I can hardly function. Then I’m back in high school. It’s not always my high school with the same group of people, but it’s a high school-esque setting with classes, the bells, the crowds in the halls. I’m also incredibly tired in every dream and can’t seem to remember my class schedule. I spent the entire dream frantically trying to get to the right class at the right time. But I’m too tired to remember my schedule and I’m too blind to read my schedule or follow the people in my classes.

It’s anxiety overload. Thankfully I’m fully clothed in these dreams. I’ll leave it to you folks to Psyche 101 my dream, but it seems to me like I have a little uncontrollable stress in my life. Unemployed? Starting a new business? Stress? Nah. Couldn’t be.

Internet

The Internet is the New Rock ‘n’ Roll

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“To kids today, the Internet is what rock ‘n’ roll was to another generation and TV was to the one before that and swing dancing was to the one before that,” Paul Boutin, contributing editor for Wired magazine, said in a FoxNews article, “Evangelism Catches Up with the Times”.

Somehow the image of sitting in front of a computer late at night, surfing across sites or pondering the next expansion of my own web site seems strantely akin to a kid cradling a guitar and creating some noise.

Family

Married in Vegas

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Viva Las VegasMy brother called two nights ago. He’s getting married. Not a total surprise, but a little unexpected.

The fun part is they’re talking about a Vegas wedding. I can’t help but have visions of Elvis impersonators dancing in my head, and I’m not the only one. What I’d really like to see is an Elvis officiant. And I figure it can’t be that hard. Of all the licensed officiants in Las Vegas, what percentage do you think aren’t Elvis impersonators? Most of the non-Elvi are probably booked, so the Elvis minister becomes the default. I’m not sure if my brother will buy that, but it sounds good to me.

At any rate, I feel like it’s time for another movie marathon. A few flicks come to mind, including Viva Las Vegas, Leaving Las Vegas, and 3,000 Miles to Graceland. Of course I’ve never seen any of those movies, but they all have Vegas and Elvis in common. Can’t go wrong there.

Books

Jesus Sound Explosion

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Jesus Sound Explosion by Mark Curtis AndersonI started reading Jesus Sound Explosion after attending a reading a few weeks back. It’s the memoir of Mark Curtis Anderson, a Twin Cities native whose father was a pastor and therefore grew up incredibly entrenched in the evangelical world. When I talked to Mark at the reading he clearly wanted to distance himself from the evangelical world he writes about with humor, but he also didn’t completely distance himself from faith. He talked about attending one of the local ‘church-but-not-that-kind-of-church’ churches, House of Mercy (or at least he plays in the band).

Anyway, the book is great. I just read this passage about the Billy Graham movie The Restless Ones (which you can watch online!) and couldn’t resist posting it:

Billy Graham and his people made a movie, The Restless Ones, that came to Galesburg theaters around 1967. The restless ones were living and breathing proof of what jazzy music could do to a life. The restless ones hung out in bars, smoked, drank, played pool, and drove souped-up Ford Mustangs and motorcycles far too fast. Then someone died in a very bad highway wreck, and this sure made everyone think.

Or maybe that was a different Billy Graham movie. Maybe every Billy Graham movie that I saw during childhood has merged in my memory and become The Restless Ones. They all had the same ending: everyone accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior and lived happily forever in the hereafter. Except for the foolish guy who died in the car accident. But he was the one who made everyone think. He died for their sins, and all things worked together for the good.

Dad brought home The Restless Ones soundtrack one afternoon. The title song had a lite-rock beat and a bunch of men and women singing verses about the wretched lives of the worldly rebels. At the end of each verse, they’d blurt out “the restless ones” in a way that reminded me of another jazzy music song I’d heard, the Batman TV theme. I don’t know what happened to the record, but the song in my head goes something like Running and running and drinking and smoking in the bars: The Restless Ones! Driving and driving their motorcycles and fast cars: The Restless Ones!

I played the song over and over, bouncing along with the beat, imagining the terrible places where the restless ones lived their lives and died their deaths.
(pages 15-16)

Sadly, The Restless Ones LP isn’t one of the few I walked away with when the BGEA relocated.