2026-03-30T23:06:25+00:00

2 Movies

March 30, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/1 Comment

Last night, the Angel and I decided we’d watch a movie. She likes romantic comedies, love stories, and I like her, so that’s what we watch. (She also doesn’t want to watch too often, so I always get to choose what’s on tv.) But what to watch that’s not vapid and awful??? It’s a process, as you probably know, and we scroll and scroll.

We landed on It’s Complicated, with Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin as exes…I guess that’s about all I know for sure. In the first 15 minutes, Baldwin cheats on his new wife with Streep (whom he first cheated on to destroy the marriage.) I am not the mayor of Prude City. However, as I get older, there are plot devices that are too heartbreaking to be effective as plot devices for me. Sexual assault in any form is a deal breaker. I can’t even watch 300 again (and that’s a very quality super-stylish and super-violent epic that I once liked) because there’s a scene that I simply can’t stomach. No sexual violence, non-negotiable. Adultery, it seems, is now another one that is proving hard to take, certainly in a comedy, as if it’s just another pratfall or punch line. Maybe I’ve seen too much wreckage and cried too many tears.

I don’t know if they end up together, if he leaves his current trophy wife and goes back, or what, because we turned it off to get a snack and never went back. Instead, we watched something called Look Both Ways. This was about a woman in a Sliding Doors-esque situation, where her life hung on one moment in which she took a pregnancy test: In one future, it is negative. In another, positive.

I found Sweet Home Alabama an interesting surprise, for only one reason. The man Reese Witherspoon was engaged to that she ultimately left, was McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey), a good man, totally respectful and kind to her at every turn. The love interest was a huge jerk, and she made the wrong choice, 100%.

This Look Both Ways was surprising in the same kind of way. The 2 romantic leads were the new Superman, David Corenswet, and the new MCU Falcon, Danny Ramirez. The main character has a best friend, parents, and a boss. The dad was Luke Wilson. I mention all of the men because they were so exceptional, as characters. None of them are no-integrity cads. None of them behave in the abysmal way in which boys are too often depicted.

It’s become pretty common to watch and listen to really negative depictions of human beings, and the lives we make, and sometimes fall into, and call it real life. Breaking Bad is supposed to be real life. Antiheroes are the rage. We think villains are more layered and interesting, but as it turns out, they’re not.

Look Both Ways carries conflict, hurt, confusion, and there are bad decisions, but the people remain…well, I guess there’s no other word to use than good. The people remain good. They don’t always do the good or right thing, and some of the things they do drive me crazy, some are self-destructive, some are immature, but we understand why they did them. They’re not mean spirited or immoral or violent or even particularly selfish.

They’re just real. They are all of the people I know. They’re trying to move forward, to make themselves happy, proud, satisfied, trying to find their purpose and someone to love. They’re trying to take the next best step, and sometimes they fail at that, but they keep trying. They’re actually the real ones, the slice of life we find far more often. They’re the ones we trust, that sometimes hurt us, but never because they decide to hurt us, but just because we sometimes do. They’re the ones trying to help, trying to take care of their neighbors, opening themselves and loving themselves and others despite the possibility (inevitability) of pain.

Sometimes we find treasure in the strangest places. Superhero movies can be more honest than documentaries. And sometimes, a silly rom-coms is the most accurate portrayer of truth going.

I don’t know what happened with Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep (2 of the finest actors ever on screen), and their excellent director and great cast and pedigree of a fantastic film, and I don’t care at all. It’s the other one, with its positivity and hope for us, that matters. I really, really loved it.

Shoelaces

March 24, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I often wonder why I am the way I am. As I have asked many times before (and wondered countless times more), do I like the things I like because I am the way I am? Or have those things influenced me, gently nudging me (or violently shoving me) into the way I am now, which will not be the way I am tomorrow or next month or in 30 years?

I love a book called The Mezzanine, by Nicholson Baker, published in the mid-1980’s and which finally made its way to me around 1996ish. It’s a short, 130 page story of a man who tears a shoelace and goes to buy a replacement over his lunch hour. That’s all. Seriously, that’s what happens, and that’s all that happens.

This is not a book that everyone will like, obviously. But I really do. My job is to be the pastor of a church and I very often teach about paying attention to our lives. Look closer, feel the hands in your own, listen, kiss a little longer, notice, lean into this gift we’ve been given. The Mezzanine has entire chapters on escalators, milk cartons and straws. It’s about shoelaces but it’s really about presence.

I think we miss too much. We miss the trees beginning to respond to spring, the pre-budding of the flowers, the warmth of the seats and steering wheels, the way the verse slides into the chorus. And we take everything for granted – especially the people. The things we loved when we met are the things that we’d most like to change, or in the best case, the things we most easily ignore. Why is that? Is it simple familiarity? Or is it distraction?

At the end, he discusses the paperback he holds (Meditations, a collection of the words of Marcus Aurelius), he turns his eye to philosophy, and the great philosophers. I don’t know if he intended this novel to be his philosophical manifesto, or if he even saw a small, “insignificant” book about shoelaces to be philosophical at all. Probably. His is an attitude of being – or more specifically, being here, now. What could be more important, or necessary, than that?

Do I care so much about it today because I read that book then? Or did I read that book then because I have always cared so much about it, even before I could articulate what “it” was?

The answer is, who cares, right? It’s most likely both. Either way, the point of all of anything is to show up to our lives, to not wake up wondering what happened yesterday and wished we would have paid attention, right? The influences in our lives (or at least the positive ones) all push & pull us, sometimes kicking and screaming, into the present, and the reality of who we are, and who we’re going to be.

It’s not really shoelaces at all.

Grace

February 9, 2026/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

There are 2 new Morrissey songs out (“Make Up Is A Lie” & “Notre Dame”), before a new album release in March. We have been hearing stories, these last few years, about at least 2 complete albums worth of material. One of those albums (Bonfire of Teenagers) has been called “the best work of his life.” The album that is coming out contains some of these songs, plus some that were not on either unreleased album. At least this information is some of what I’ve heard.

The 2 songs were released a few weeks apart, and baby, I was so excited. Each time, I woke up like Christmas morning and immediately listened.

They’re both really, really horrible.

Over the course of such a long, beautiful career, there is bound to be some stinkers. And there have been. It’s odd that the first 2 releases of his comeback could possibly be so bad. It doesn’t say great things. Was there honestly nothing better???

I’m not angry or anything, just maybe disappointed. I wasn’t dreaming of another Queen Is Dead or “Ask,” but I hoped maybe we’d get another You Are The Quarry or even Kill Uncle.

But here’s the thing, we now have the memory of goldfish and attention span of fruitflies. Our last video or post or book or game is THE ONLY VIDEO/POST/BOOK/GAME. Who cares about anything else? If the line isn’t up and to the right, you can take it down the road, we’ll replace you with somebody else. One misstep is ruinous. Last night, the New England Patriots were whipped by the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl. Drake Maye (quarterback of the Patriots) didn’t play particularly well, and some commentators are wondering today if he’s actually as good as we thought. After 1 less than stellar game in a season where he was 1 vote short of the league MVP.

Is there room for grace in such a judgmental place as this? Does our last note erase all the other notes we’ve ever played? If you don’t like this post, will you unfollow me? Will you never read anything I write again?

These songs of Morrissey’s are terrible, but in March, I’ll have another Christmas morning when the album they’re on comes out. And if these songs truly are a reflection of what’s on it, I’ll be awfully disappointed, but it won’t make me love him less, and it certainly won’t make his impact on my life less significant. It’ll just mean this isn’t awesome. And I’ll keep waiting to be the first in line for his next release.

Panic!

November 24, 2025/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Today, I’m listening to Panic! at the Disco (that strange, misplaced exclamation point is not a typo on my part – though it was dropped for the 2nd album, as they attempted to become the Beatles, and the Beatles didn’t have a strange, misplaced exclamation point. Then, when that album wasn’t as commercially successful, they brought that punctuation back for the rest of their existence. Maybe people just were disoriented & confused, maybe there were 2: Panic! At The Disco and Panic At The Disco, and we couldn’t like them both.

I don’t hate that 2nd album, Pretty.Odd, and in fact, it has one of the songs I listened to most for a several year span (according to my iPod), “Nine In The Afternoon.”

I know we aren’t supposed to love them, for some of the same reasons we aren’t supposed to love Fall Out Boy (pretense, ridiculous song titles, etc.), but whoever decides what we’re “supposed to” love is wrong. That person (or group, or board) is always wrong, incidentally. There is no such thing as a guilty pleasure.

Guilty pleasures are those things we like that we “shouldn’t” like, like the Bravo Network, Growing Pains, Matchbox 20, and cargo pants. Nonsense. If you happen to like ‘80’s Kirk Cameron (actually, if you happen to like ‘20’s Kirk Cameron, for that matter), then who is anyone to tell you you’re pleasure is misplaced or shameful? Cargo pants are the coolest and Mad Season is a GREAT album.

I recently discovered that Panic! At The Disco is problematic, and that might be a reason to move away from them. Apparently, they’ve been accused of being sexist, transphobic, homophobic, and/or racist. I think there might be more, but I didn’t go any further than the AI headline.

The truth is, I don’t know if I care.

I’ve asked a form of this question before. Does “Baby Be Mine,” by Michael Jackson, suffer under the weight of a mountain of allegations? Is the “Himself” stand-up special from Bill Cosby stained so badly that the jokes are no longer hilarious? What about Kevin Spacey and Seven or The Usual Suspects? And what are the transgressions that warrant a reconsideration of the artwork? I think Hemingway was a terrible person, now what? Brandi Carlisle was absolutely awful TO ME, personally, and that did totally change the way I hear her output. But that seems a little selfish, that it only counts if it happens to me.

I’m listening to the Vices & Virtues album right now, and if I was forced to decide now, I guess I don’t care. I can’t help from dancing (a completely involuntary response!!) to “Baby Be Mine.” Maybe that makes me a bad person. But I bet, if you listen to “Trade Mistakes,” you’d be a terrible person, too.

I think I do care, though. I want to care. I want to expect more of humanity, of my neighbors, of us. I want us to love and take care of each other. Is that too much to ask?

And is this similar to shopping at Walmart or buying Nike’s or anything from Shein? If we want our corporations to behave better, shouldn’t we withhold our money until they do? And wouldn’t that make sense to carry that into our record stores and theaters?

Is this what a guilty pleasure is? In that case, maybe it’s not so nonsensical, and maybe it requires even more thought. (But maybe that consideration shouldn’t happen while I’m dancing to Panic! records…)

Culture War

October 20, 2025/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

I am a man who was raised on pop culture.

I use the term “pop culture” often, but I don’t know why I add that first qualifying word. Why isn’t it just culture? And why does adding pop, or popular, immediately feel reductive? In a world such as ours, where every single aspect of our lives is touched/manipulated by the breakneck speed of advancing social technology, is there really any separation?

Whatever. I guess maybe I don’t actually know what we’re talking about when we refer to culture. Here are 2 definitions. 1. the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group. And 2. a set of meanings, behavioral norms, and values used by members of a particular society, as they construct their unique view of the world.”

When I started this post, I planned to talk about Chuck Klosterman. But now I’m wondering how we construct our “unique view of the world.” Of course, we all have lenses through which we see everything around us. How we think, believe, act, take in and interpret information, and what we do with that information are all included, but are these parts of us so integral to our identity a conscious decision? I guess what I’m asking is are we intentionally constructing this “unique view of the world,” or passively, mindlessly accepting what may be the most important thing about us??

Why do you do what you do? Why do you believe what you believe? Do you ever think about the social institutions and/or achievements that define us and our time? There is a real danger, as history gets faster and faster, eras become compressed – what took decades now happen in months – that the dog we were comfortably walking is now dragging us along as we struggle to hold on and try to stay alive.

Where are we?

In the Talking Heads song, “Once in A Lifetime,” David Byrne sings (talks), “ And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack. And you may find yourself in another part of the world. And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile. And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife. And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”

How did I get here?

I have always hated Talking Heads, and I think this song is mostly dumb (maybe I just think it’s dumb because I have no idea what he’s talking about) and unlistenable (I think Talking Heads songs are unlistenable because they are), but it’s interesting, in this context. How often have I “found myself” somewhere, with someone, and the only thing I can ask is, “How did I get here?”

The next verse begins, “And you may ask yourself…” And I guess I think that’s the answer. My sons are 18 and 20 and making decisions independent of the Angel and I. Now, of course, this is terrifying, but it’s also the design. These 2 young men need to discover who they are, and that process only happens through a messy differentiation. I don’t want them to live like me. I want them to live like them. I don’t want them to love Jesus like I do, I want them to love Him like they do.

And I think I was joking earlier when I said it was terrifying. I mean, yes, this breaking away to identify themselves includes so many, um, questionable twists and turns, decisions I might not have made and certainly would have advised them against. And that is not easy or smooth, but terrifying? No. What is terrifying is if they wake up some morning and find themselves as these new people and have no idea where they are or how they got there. If they trade my “unique view of the world” for someone else’s, if they just simply adopt another’s perspective without the wrestling that comes with individual formation and growth.

That doesn’t just go for them, it goes for me, too. What do I think, and why? Hm, this wasn’t at all the water I meant to splash around in, on this Monday afternoon. I probably should have just stuck with a nice long post about how awesome Chuck Klosterman is.

Sheen

September 17, 2025/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

The special new Netflix documentary is about Charlie Sheen. Now, I have always regarded Charlie Sheen as some sort of sideshow oddity, like an embarrassing example of the worst of celebrity culture. His is a life built only upon the religion of excess. Like the writer of Ecclesiastes, he devoted his life to tasting every single thing there was to taste, as much as a human could manage, then much, much more. I didn’t think he was a particularly talented actor, thought he built a name and career on his family name. (Yes, of course, I loved Platoon and Wall Street, everybody did/does, but figured they had little to do with him, and much more to do with the scripts and director. I’ll be open to the possibility that I am wrong.) We all saw the tiger blood and “winning” debacles, the wild drug abuse, and insatiable sexual appetite. Was there really any more to him than a tabloid caricature??

The best documentary films say, in all cases, yes, there is more. (This is one of those.)

And it made me think about our current cultural obsession with the opposite – that there is no more to anyone than one small sliver of the whole. We are all fighting all the time because we are no more than our political affiliation (or any other ideology), divided sharply along party lines. That man/woman, who is this, who has done that, is, has been, will always be, this.

There was a running back for the Baltimore Ravens several years ago (actually, it’s 11 years ago!!!) who was arrested for abusing his then fiancé (whom he would later marry). Maybe this is a poor example, as the brand from domestic violence might be one that should never fade. Should it? Never? But Charlie Sheen was also arrested for domestic violence. And it might be the perfect example because it is one of the most heinous offenses, one of the most difficult for me to forgive.

What does it matter if I can forgive, neither Ray Rice or Charlie Sheen asked me, and I’m quite certain they don’t care if I do or not. But it does matter, because Ray Rice isn’t the only abuser in the world. There’s probably at least one on every street all over the globe, in our schools, grocery stores, churches. Now what?

Are they monsters?

Over the last few days/weeks/years, I’ve heard many different types of people referred to as something less than human: serial killers, school shooters, politicians & presidents, CEOs, pedophiles with their own private trafficking islands, and on and on. Are they sub-human?

Charlie Sheen was a maniac with a massive illness hellbent on self-destruction. Is that an excuse, or a reason? It doesn’t change what he did, but it does expand the tiny slice of the identity pie. And maybe that’s the important thing. Maybe the Menendez brothers (Menendi) should face consequences for the rest of their lives, but what they endured as children sure does shift the perception of what they did. Maybe each time we learn more and more, each time our incomplete outline gains a new dimension, each time we ask questions like “should it?” or “never?” about a professional athlete, that produces a shift that – well, it doesn’t really change them, or what they did, but it does change us.

Then, when we sit across from a Trump republican or a Harris democrat and argue about immigration or government departments, we can quickly understand that how they see this issue is not even close to the entirety of who they actually are. Then, when we want to shut them down as unfeeling, ignorant, uninformed rage-monsters, we remember Charlie Sheen and, instead, maybe we could ask why, maybe we could discover who they are and, consequently, why they feel the way they do. Then, maybe we could stop fighting narrow-mindedness with narrow-mindedness and have a conversation, one with patience, kindness, and respect. Maybe this Charlie Sheen doc can give us the key to unlocking, and setting free, a shared humanity.

Or maybe it’s just a celebrity train wreck. I guess it’s whatever we want it to be.

Catfishing Again

September 8, 2025/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

There’s a documentary on Netflix called Unknown Number: The High School Catfish, about a 15 year-old girl who starts getting absolutely horrible, menacing texts from numbers she doesn’t recognize. No one else recognizes them, either, because they’re from a text app that seems to be designed for exactly this type of thing. Why do they exist? Why would I want a randomly generated phone number for text messages? I cannot think of even 1 time I thought, “I wish I had a different number to text ____.”

I guess it’s pretty much like the Ashley Madison website. These sites & apps are for what they’re for, with no pretense or apologies. Ashley Madison’s business model is infidelity, period. Text apps are for catfishing. I don’t need burner accounts or phones, and I don’t need a super secret special number because I don’t mind if you see that it is from me, Chad. Maybe you do. But if you do, maybe you can also not use it to send abusive texts to your children? (I recognize I just gave away the reveal in the film, but it was bound to happen. My mom spoiled it for me, too.)

Anyway. The doc wasn’t great. At least, that is to say, I didn’t really care for it. It was so provocative you couldn’t look away, like the junkyard fire I saw 2 days ago. But the best documentaries paint pictures and tell stories to ask questions we don’t necessarily want to ask. People are almost never monsters. We hear their stories and end up understanding, even if we don’t like them. We see the tiny, incremental steps it took to cross the lines they crossed. They become more than the caricatures we see in headlines and click bait, they’re complicated & nuanced. We see ourselves in them.

After enough exposure, the judgment begins to be siphoned out of our hearts. Slowly. But if they are human beings, like us, then what? If we can forgive them, give grace to others, allow them to fall and be redeemed, then maybe we can be forgiven, redeemed, too. Maybe we shouldn’t be defined by the worst things we’ve done. Maybe we shouldn’t define others by the worst things they’ve done.

That’s what I love about documentaries.

This one had a villain. She did the thing, barely took responsibility, continued to lie, pretend, cried, thought she had been punished too harshly, and at the end, we didn’t understand. They didn’t ask the questions that would’ve invited her into the introspection that might have given depth. We didn’t, couldn’t, see ourselves.

[I do not blame the filmmaker, Skye Borgman, who has made many films that are brilliant. She deserves all of the awards she’s won. This makes me wonder if she simply couldn’t impel this woman to walk through the door out of villainous caricature. Maybe she did ask all of the right questions, but the answers gave so little, all that was left was the shocking story itself.]

Scooby Doo and other cartoons (and cartoon’y movies) have good guys and bad guys, but it’s hardly ever that defined in real life. When it is, it’s jarring and uncomfortable. They are usually great characteristics for documentaries – jarring and uncomfortable – but for different reasons altogether. I was happy when it ended.

Then, next time I turned on the tv, I could get back to rewatching Fisk.

Top Ten

August 20, 2025/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

As you might have guessed, I have been making lists of “Top ___” lists as long as I can remember. Top 5/10/25/100 albums/songs, soundtracks, top 10 moments in professional wrestling history, top 3 MLB pitchers/shortstops, top 5 pizza shops, etc. You get the idea. This is not a new idea to me.

A very good friend once had a husband who made a list of his Top 500 songs. It was mostly awesome, (he turned out to be not awesome at all), but when you get past the first few, it gets pretty muddy and begins to be governed by little more than which one you listened to most recently. It’s obvious “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” is #1, but is “Rebel Yell” or “Possession” 14 or 15? I’d say “Heartbreaker” by Pat Benatar is somewhere in the area of 153, and so is “Overkill,” by Men At Work – who is to say which is 153 or 154 or even 171? AND are we including all Morrissey/Smiths songs? Because if we are, then the kind of list we’re making starts at, roughly, 40, with the exception of “I Can’t Help Myself” by Gene, which is either 1 (if Morrissey is omitted), 2 (if we’re only including “…Light That Never Goes Out”) or 6 (if everything is in play).

My Top 5 songs, incidentally, are 1. “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out,” The Smiths. 2. “I Can’t Help Myself,” Gene. 3. “Good Enough,” Sarah McLachlan. 4. “Hey Jealousy,” Gin Blossoms. 5. “Just Like Heaven,” The Cure. The 5 don’t change, but when “Just Like Heaven” is on, it’s #3.

Movies are an interesting proposition, though, as far as rules. Do you count entire series/trilogies as 1 or each individually? Will there be all 3 Lord Of The Rings films, or do you call it Lord of The Rings and leave it at that? What I’ll do is give my favorite of the series/trilogy and not include any others. And are there any genre limitations? Nope. Documentaries alongside fiction? That’s right. Here we go (maybe I’ll expand, if I feel it’s necessary). And we’ll decide at the end if this is the actual order…

Fight Club. Pulp Fiction. Kill Bill, vol 2 (and ONLY vol 2 – if I were to make a list of the movies I hated the most, vol. 1 would be high on that list). Point Break. Star Wars, ep. 8: The Last Jedi. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier (this will be the only entry from the MCU, although it probably could have been the first Avengers, Endgame, or Thor:Ragnarok. Any of those would be fine, too). Into The Spiderverse. LOTR: Return Of The King. The Dark Knight.

Now, I’m thinking about movies I loved that might have been high at different points in my life. I loved Dogma and Vanilla Sky. (Yes, I recognize Vanilla Sky is not the greatest, but for about 15 minutes in 2001, I thought it was just the cat’s pajamas.) Fraternity Vacation was exactly the kind of movie to really matter to a 13 year old. The Matrix, Adaptation, We Bought A Zoo, 12 Monkeys, and Knives Out all could’ve maybe made the list on a different day (with many others). But looking at the list – which is not in order, except Fight Club, that is #1 – maybe they couldn’t have. Those 10 are just about right.

I wonder what that says about me. Do we become the people we are because of the art we choose, or do we choose that particular art because we are those kinds of people? The Angel can’t get through 5 minutes of Pulp Fiction. Of course, she’s wrong, but why? What happened to make our interests so varied? Or did nothing happen, are we just pieced & wired together differently? Who knows? And honestly, who really cares?

When I took the Angel out on our first date, the first thing I did was look at her cd collection. It was cool and quirky, and it made me like her even more. As it turned out, the collection was her roommate’s. The Angel had about 15 cds, including Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, John Secada, and Backstreet Boys; it was like a traffic accident. Why would anyone possibly own these particular albums? After 25 years together, I still can’t answer that question, but what I did learn is that what we like isn’t nearly as important as I thought. Maybe it isn’t important at all. She finds no joy in Sarah M or The Cure, either. And I think she’s just the greatest, #1 in my list of favorite people.

I still make the lists, they still matter to me, I still care…I guess I just don’t need you to care anymore.

Get Off My Lawn

August 3, 2025/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

This post is being written under protest, with great hesitation. You see, I’m going to complain about the younger generation. I’m going to tell you what’s wrong with the “kids today,” and probably wax nostalgic on how it was ”back in my day.” I won’t really like it, and it’ll be very uncomfortable, but I’m going to do it because I hated the new Netflix Train Wreck: Storm Area 51 documentary that much.

As you know, I love the Train Wreck series. The filmmakers dive deeply into these strange, sometimes sad, sometimes hilarious, events that illustrate the insanity of you and me. This is great, for so many reasons, one of which being that we can see our penchant for ambition that is selfish, uncivil and often criminal. We are mostly all like this, any argument is simple arrogance, and it gives us a window into the human condition if we are allowed to descend into a Lord of the Flies-like environment. They are warning signs along our society’s roads.

Now. This last one, Storm Area 51, felt different. A vape shop kiosk employee called “shitposting” (or something equally mindless and depressing) created a social media event called Storm Area 51, where a group of people would, well, storm Area 51, because “they can’t possibly stop us all.” Why? Aliens, I guess. (As if any of us have any doubts and need more proof.) Area 51 is a highly guarded military base. The vape shop guy, called Matty, thought it was funny, but didn’t account for the basic desire of influencers to desperately solicit clicks. (How “shitposting” can not account for the neediness of social media is beyond understanding and the textbook example of a lack of self-awareness.) Many millions of people said they’re going, driving citizens of nearby towns, law enforcement, and the military, into a state of terror. As it turns out, almost nobody showed up, no one caused any problems, and it cost everyone many more millions of dollars.

Now.

The younger generation has an alarming lack of spacial awareness that comes from 2 things: they spend most of their time inside, on devices, populated by 2-dimensional screen names instead of human beings. And a refusal to acknowledge that our actions have consequences in real life. You see, 2-dimensional screen names don’t have mortgages, children to care for, dreams, feelings, or needs of their own. We are the stars of our own story, as a matter of fact, like the Truman Show, we are the only living boys and girls in this construct.

So, when the woman who owns sinks everything she owns (and much more) into a partnership with an absolutely clueless Matty (with a sociopathic inability to empathize with anyone) to prepare for the millions of YouTubers, only to be shafted by the same Matty in the end, he has no idea what he has wrought. He only sees his own tiny circle of one, and he’s deathly afraid that he will have to take a shred of responsibility (gasp!) for his actions.

Whatever. It’s my truth, my reality, my way, and if you don’t like it, Boomer/Karen/etc, I can’t possibly begin to care. I have my next videos to plan & promote.

I think all of the kids involved were genuinely surprised that their actions weren’t just fun, and that a massive cost was attached to an irresponsible prank. That’s not awesome.

I have a friend who is super sweet in person, and as mean online and in texts as you have ever experienced. He’d never say the things he writes. And when the actual human beings on the other end of the screen get their feelings hurt and block him, he can’t understand why, either. What do you mean? There aren’t consequences, everything is a vacuum. You’re just too old to understand.

Maybe that’s true, but I am concerned for my lawn when the new caretakers don’t understand that if they dump weed-killer, it can kill more than weeds.

I think the new age is exciting and wonderful, we are connected in ways that are astounding. I like YouTubers and want them to continue. There is so much fantastic content out in the cyberverse, we could never get to the bottom of the well. They’re funny. Memes are funny and often quite smart. I see things I would never otherwise see. This is an amazing time to be alive.

But, like everything, there is a cost. We just need to know & understand what it is, before we decide if we’ll pay.

(There, thankfully, it’s over. I’ll try not to write such a negative post again. Rainbows and puppy dogs from here on out!!)

Hulk Hogan Instead Of Terry Bollea

July 29, 2025/The Bridge Faith Community/Leave a comment

Theo Huxtable, Hulk Hogan, and Ozzy Osbourne died in the last several days, and so did big parts of my childhood.

I loved the Cosby Show. I probably would now, too, if Bill Cosby, paragon of (what turned out to be) hypocritical virtue, wasn’t so problematic. Malcolm Jamal Warner was the best in a perfect cast of bests. I haven’t thought of him in years, but I still might miss him. I wish his family peace. But I think I miss the show, and my pretend idea of what the show was, what the show represented, even more.

I didn’t much care for Ozzy’s music. Maybe that’s a terrible thing to say, maybe I should think Black Sabbath “changed my life,” like I’m supposed to think about wildly overrated Radiohead. Whatever. Who has time for what we “should like?” “Barbie Girl” sounds & feels better than anything Radiohead created after The Bends.

However, Ozzy is a very important footnote in my life. In my middle school hell years, I thought about suicide often, and wrote about it in some awfully dark poetry. My mom found these poems, and, appropriately frightened, confiscated my cassette tapes. She had, apparently, bought into the common belief of the moment that heavy metal bands were killing our children. I raged against her for taking my Ratt, Quiet Riot, and Ozzy tapes. She was THE WORST. She said she threw them in the garbage, and was willing to suffer my wrath forever. But my thoughts about suicide faded into a depressed rhythm, never too real after 8th grade. I discovered that it wasn’t always going to be that/this dark. As it turns out, she didn’t throw them away, and I got them back eventually. I was happy to listen to Ratt and QR again, but not really Ozzy. I don’t think he caused my depression, it was just probably timing. However, what my mom did remains one of the very finest things anyone has ever done for me. It means something very significant that you would be loved enough that someone will go to any lengths to hear/listen/help you, even to risk your hatred of them. She put my life before her comfort, our relationship, or anything else. She gets an A+ for that. And every time I think of Ozzy, I feel really, really important and loved.

Now. Hulk Hogan. I don’t know how to express to you just how much of my attention and life went to professional wrestling, and Hulk Hogan. And to tell you the truth, for some reason, I don’t want to try.

What I notice right now is that I refer to these 3 by their character names, Hulk Hogan instead of Terry Bollea. That’s telling. They weren’t people, they were someone’s invention, and they are that to me. I don’t know Malcolm Jamal Warner, I only know Theo Huxtable. I know how these fictional characters made me feel, or what they represent. And what they represent is other places and people, real places and people. My mom, sister, girlfriends, and my best friend. The ones who loved me, who I loved, who cared for me, the ones with whom I shared the most valuable moments of my life. I guess that’s why I love art – and artists – so much, for their ability to reach into our real lives through connected imaginations and find commonalities, emotions, events, giving hope that where we are is awesome, but where we’re going can be even better. They asked us to believe in them, in each other, and ourselves.

And I still believe.

Love With A Capital L

A journey towards living an inspired life of love in the modern world

Tag: pop culture