football?


for all the attention that HACAM has paid to alabama's football season, you'd have thought the owners presidents had locked their paid-to-play scholarship athletes out, paving the way for fans to spend more quality time with their families, make up with long lost friends and find mission opportunities in our local and respective communities. those ideas, in an of themselves, are fairly ludicrous. in fact, college football has been played this fall.

as it has happened, i've actually watched most of alabama's games in their entirety. i left work early twice this year to make it home before the 2:30 cbs kick only to watch bama's potential dynasty fall at the hands of stephen freaking garcia and jordan "he's a quarterback now?" jefferson. as the season and the promise of back to back sec and national championships went down in flames courtesy of the two biggest underachievers at quarterback the sec has seen in 10 years, you can understand my lack of want to wax poetic about a team that, on the field, turned out not to be who i thought they were back when i put up this season's only college football preview that mattered. in that column, i feared the idea that auburn would come into today's game with more at stake. i cannot tell you how brutal the reality of that idea coming to fruition is for this alabama fan. not because i hate auburn, mind you, but because i wanted something incredibly special to bookend julio jones career in a way that, no matter the outcome now, cannot happen anymore.

julio jones has been the most prominent recurring character on this blog since it's inception, if you'll allow for the obvious exception of my girls. julio and his coming to alabama marked clearly the end of one era of alabama football and the beginning of something newer, something more polished, something more worthy of the resources my rooting interest of choice possesses. remember when tim tebow chose florida over alabama? of course you do. remember when julio chose alabama over everyone else? of course you do. the next year, trent richardson sealed julio's ("he a pretty big...") deal and chose alabama over florida, signaling not only the end of urban myer's overlord-ship of the sec, but it meant that things like sec championships and the like would now run through tuscaloosa for the foreseeable future. much to my dismay, this season, south carolina and lsu came through t-town, figuratively, and lived to tell the tale. they both navigated through alabama's still young secondary and made their seasons memorable at alabama's expense. it's been a hard pill to swallow.

harder still is that a win today over auburn doesn't mean much of anything for the tide. sure, it would end auburn's national championship hopes, but, for alabama, it's would only be a moral victory. the alabama in my head takes no joy in playing spoiler. it would continue into next season an impressive run of consecutive victories at home. yet, it would only feel fulfilling up until auburn and south carolina met next saturday for the right to carry the sec champion's banner for a year. in my eyes and my eyes only, i almost view the outcome for this alabama football team in today's iron bowl as lose, lose. if they lose to auburn, their state rivals continue a march towards their own dream season that proportionately and historically would mirror alabama's run last year. if they beat auburn, it only shines a brighter light onto the losses in columbia and baton rouge and makes the season's lost relevance seem more substantial.

for julio, if when he declares himself eligible for next spring's nfl draft, the impact will not feel nearly as significant as it should or would have if he could claim two sec and/or national championships on his resume'. instead, he will simply be remembered as the best receiver in the history of the school. that's it. the torch of his legend will quickly be passed to trent and his memory will start to fade. it makes me sad.

today, in the three and a half hours the game will be played, i will root, root, root for the home team, but, if they don't win, it won't be a shame, per se'. it will just be another loss to another good team with flaws that this group of alabama football players and coaches couldn't take advantage of this year. my world will not end.

if they win, though, i hope it's because julio treated the auburn secondary like he did tennessee's. i hope, by the end, he's established himself as the best, pound for pound, player on the field. i hope he can take this game by the horns from his totally dependant position and dominate.

the credibility of my predictions became null and void the moment alabama transformed stephen garcia into brett favre (the good one) and alshon jeffrey into terrell owens (the younger one), so there is no need to predictably fashion a scenario in which alabama wins this game.

i will say this, though. in the meta-narrative that has been the last three years of alabama football, i was right about julio.

and that makes me happy.

roll julio.

 

to be or not to be
(cam newton)


cameron newton.

cam newton.

scam newton.

cash newton.

i stand with cam.

if you are a fan of college football, the story is inescapable. annoyingly so. fascinatingly so. hilariously so. the emotion attached to your level of interest solely rests on if you are an auburn fanatic, an auburn fan, an alabama fan, an alabama fanatic, a college football fan with another rooting interest or a casual sports fan that happens to watch a lot of sportscenter. let's break the groups down.

auburn fanatic - cam newton is your child. just like any of your children, you absolutely will not allow yourself to believe or see that your quarterback is guilty of anything. ever. neither are his parents. or anyone that may have represented him. none of the scandal would have happened if not for a massive conspiracy perpetuated by a scorned school(s) and ambulance chasing media and people that wanted auburn to fail because everybody hates auburn except auburn fanatics. if you have judged cam newton guilty of anything other than being awesome, you have jumped to conclusions, you have not reserved judgement and you should be shot. you are not worth the human blood that streams through your veins. people in this country are INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY, GODDAMMIT, nevermind the fact that cam newton is charged with no criminal wrongdoing. to the auburn fanatic, this scandal proves to you what you've known all along. everybody is wrong. and you are right. about everything. to this group, cam newton is jesus christ. if i were cam newton, i would avoid this group at all costs.

auburn fan - this group has been the most compelling to follow over the last three weeks. the story broke. unbelief was shouted from the mountaintops and in chorus with the athletic director and head football coach at auburn university. the story was "garbage", "unfortunate" and "sad", up until the point there proved to be legs to the story. all of a sudden, it made less sense to argue that the new york times and espn and foxsports and every other media outlet that ran with this story were the journalistic equivalent of the national enquirer. (a good example of this shortsightedness happened last weekend before the auburn/georgia game. a story started to make waves that cecil newton had admitted soliciting mississippi st. for cash, but his son, family nor auburn ever knew of it. lesser outlets with lower standards, like tidesports.com ran the story. interestingly enough, espn and fox and the new york times did not. why? because the story only could credit one source. so think about that for a second. to break these kinds of stories, the larger outlets and their editors are rarely, if ever, going to throw caution and their reputations to the wind just to break a story about auburn university. not based on one source. they just aren't. and they didn't. so, now, what does that say about everything else they've reported thus far? i digress.) all of a sudden, the athletic director and the coach were told by someone to shut the fuck up and, for the last week or so, they have. auburn fan sees this as foreshadowing. they are processing the information, hoping that nothing is acted on before auburn can play their last three games, and they'll deal with any future consequences in the future, ever being able to play the "well, no one could stop us on the field. so, there!" card. their alma mater or rooting interest of choice may be punished, but this season will live with them forever, whether it is erased from technical history or not. cam newton should probably fear these people, too, because if, IF he turns out to be just as much a part of this story as his father, auburn fan will defend their school/rooting interest and they will turn on him faster than he threw that laptop out of his gainesville dorm room. burn.

alabama fan (the group i claim) - this group loves their school/rooting interest of choice passionately, just like any fan of any school/rooting interest does. they also know that a strong sec makes their team look even better, so they cheer for the other schools, even auburn. earlier in the season, when cam newton was an unknown quantity, alabama fan was every bit as mesmerized as the rest of the college football country. who was this guy? the more cam newton led auburn back from deficits to victory, the scarier the prospect of his ruining alabama's season became. then lsu ruined alabama's season. then the story became the scandal that wouldn't stop growing. then it became much more interesting to follow the scandal than it was to spend time worrying about alabama games that held no more national or conference significance. this group has been through this before. they know that the murkier the waters get, the clearer the picture becomes. this group knows what is going to end up happening, and they are starting to feel bad that the auburn equivalent of alabama's dream season of 2009/10 will be tainted forever. cam newton should only care enough about this group to want to further drive a nail into the coffin this season has become for alabama fan. one year removed from the bcs national championship, debate concerning cotton bowl vs. capital one bowl sounds as exciting as that one time i tried to watch dancing with the stars.

alabama fanatic - this group stirs birmingham talk radio's drink. they are every bit the conspiracy theorists that auburn fanatics are, only more practiced. to this group, the ncaa is always looking for a reason to come down on alabama. this group fears that the fbi's investigation into cam newton will only serve to uncover that one time that one booster paid julio's mom to take that one vacation to cabo. to this group, cam newton (or his father or an agent or a runner for an agent or it-doesn't-matter-else. it all breaks the same rule.) is not only guilty of soliciting money, but he used what money he eventually got from auburn to pay for prostitutes and throw them out of his dorm window, too. burn. auburn boosters totally paid for cam newton. they paid for cecil newton's church to be renovated. they've been paying players for years. and after they come off probation for the cam newton thing, they'll pay players again. alabama fanatics give human beings a bad name, but they do make auburn fanatics want to kill themselves. i know two wrongs do not make a right, but if we could let these two groups battle it out at legion field with spears, the world would be a better place. cam newton should pay minimal attention to this group unless a member of this group embedded themself into the auburn fanatic group and actually paid cam newton. to that person, he should probably say thanks.

a college football fan of another school - to a person, EVERY SINGLE football fan of another school is loving this. why? because every school is guilty of some ncaa violation. they just haven't been caught yet. for football fans of other schools, 2010 will go down as that year you didn't have to worry about anything other than football. boise fan can be obnoxious. tcu fan can be self-righteous. oregon fan can celebrate the idea of a national championship. and lsu fan can be satisfied that a team with the worst quarterback situation in the history of top ten college football teams will finish the season 12-1 and ranked in the top five. a quick aside...my favorite recruiting story is the one about eric dickerson from way back in 1979. he was a senior in high school and started driving a brand new trans-am that he told people his grandmother bought for him. later, it came out the trans-am was purchased by texas a&m.  eric dickerson ended up going to play football for smu. just brilliant. cecil or cam or albert means or reggie bush or name-that-athlete-that's-been-caught-scamming isn't the first to try and outfox the broken system that is the ncaa and they won't be the last. every single college football fan of another school should know this and be thankful the hammer is pointed elsewhere this year. cam newton should love this group, because they unconditionally love him.

casual sports fan that happens to watch a lot of sportscenter - cam newton should be terrified of this group, because they all want him to die. instead of talking about sports, espn has flooded their lives with this story of yet another entitled college athlete that broke some rule (or someone broke it on his behalf) and now they have to sit through two segments of joe fucking schad before the monday night crew starts to break down the chargers/broncos game. this group doesn't even like college football. they have no idea where auburn is and they have no idea what any of this has to do with them. if cam newton comes to their professional city, though, they will love him and throw their underwear at him because they've heard on espn that he is "just that good". casual sports fans are the best. especially of pro sports teams. they care nothing about the process that led this person to be on that team. they just care about winning. of course, they are part of the problem, too.

i've gone on record with no one and everyone in particular to say that i believe cam newton will eventually be ruled ineligible. i said that way before EXTREME DENIAL gave way to reasonable analysis. i said that because i live in the world of sports. and in the world of sports, this kind of time and attention is not paid to something that will lead to the cam newton allegations being proven entirely false. it just doesn't happen. you can hold that opinion against me i suppose or believe with your whole heart that the cam newton thing will be the exception to the rule. you may like to read or listen to npr or knit or stay up too fucking late so you can complain about being tired the next day or play videogames or spend too much time at church or whatever your vice is. mine is sports. it doesn't make me an expert. it just means that i am right this time. i'll probably be wrong the next time.

as far as cam newton goes, though, none of this matters. he is a gun for hire. he will leave auburn after one year like he left florida like he left blinn community college because auburn is a means to a professional end in professional football. he said as much back in gainesville. although illegal information has been leaked that suggests otherwise, his story is that he left florida because he didn't want to sit behind tebow. he wanted to play football. he served his "time" in community college last year so that he would be ready to take his talents to a school that wanted a physical freak of an athlete to play quarterback for their school for one year, two if he got hurt or accidentally chose a school that sucked at playing football and didn't do anything for his draft stock.

another tangent. that's the part of this "i stand with cam" thing that i will never understand. i get that auburn fan and especially auburn fanatic loves their school. i get that newton is primarily responsible for the success of this season and, because of that, you feel some indebtedness to his causes or concerns, but you don't. you were going to cheer for auburn every bit as madly and every bit as passionately if barrett trotter was leading your team of choice to a 8-4 season. success breeds contempt, though. contempt for common sense, common sense that has been traded for blind loyalty to a young man that has reportedly said both before his freshman year and before this year that he wanted to play football somewhere other than auburn. he loves auburn now, sure. he may come back and visit on the school's dime in the future to be celebrated and wave his hand to the crowd and laugh with bo jackson. he loves auburn now, because he ended up there. period. excellent. end tangent.

as far as cam newton goes, this story makes him instantly and infinitely more marketable. once he is drafted next spring, the theme of redemption and struggle will follow him for two to three years or until he has proven himself as a capable starting quarterback in the nfl, whichever happens first. his commercials, if he's lucky, will stress those themes and make him and his family even more money.

cam newton will be alright. currently, he is protected from the lion's share of this mess anyway. his school and his coaches encourage him and feed him enough of it like chum in the water to motivate his performance. his school and his coaches, his fans and fanatics will cheer wildly for him friday and then a week from saturday and then in some bowl game and then he'll move on to where he was going all along. to be a professional football player.

when i was a little younger, not a day passed that i didn't think about how i wished i was a professional athlete. when i was a little younger, like yesterday, i daydreamed about it. could you imagine, a year from now, being in cam newton's shoes? a millionaire professional quarterback in training. how great would that be? this season's scandal and the head end of his redemption story fully focused in the rearview mirror. he and his dad, sitting across from each other reminiscing about those tough times. "they tried to take you down, son. but they couldn't do it. not my boy." cam smiles back at him. "thanks, dad."

"when i was a little younger" wasn't that long ago.

to be or not to be cam newton.

i choose "to be".

500 posts of summer kevin
(a retrospective)
((hannah and caroline and me))
(((part forty-one)))


you've claimed to hate something, but for some reason you're drawn to it anyway. you've understood the logic, and yet you've hated it for the same logical reasons. you like to journal, or you did. but you don't anymore. you've had thoughts that ranged from the silly to sincere as to how people have journaled of and about you. you've been flattered. you've been mad. you've swore you'd get even. you've been proud that you didn't. and so here goes... -me, october of 2005

had you asked me on monday night, october 24, of 2005 if i thought the blog would have lasted over five years and five hundred posts, my honest answer would have had to be "no." i've never been known as someone that's stuck with something very long. aside from my family and, what, 3-5 long time friends, the only thing in my life that i've ever been able to throw myself completely into was church, specifically the seven year run when i served on the staffs of huffman united methodist or common ground.

i don't know that i would say that i am a flake in that regard. i've never been terrible at following through with commitments, per se, but to take on something like a blog, a hobby and time-killer in every sense of those words, and stick with it and the original vision through which it was created impresses me. it really does. i am proud of myself. it's a nice feeling.

as has been documented on this uniform resource locator(s) ad naseum, the genesis of this place was not complex. in the early and mid-2000's, social media was transitioning from niche to mainstream. every young person, seemingly, in my youth department had something called a livejournal or a myspace page that they would use to communicate either their angst or joy with their internet community. for the longest time, i was only an observer. the outlets, while frowned upon in general, were fascinating snapshots into the working minds of teenagers and college students that i held near and dear to my heart. they were conversations that our daily routines would never allow us to have one on one or in other more corporate settings. sure, sometimes they would lash out against parents or friends or others in their lives and, sure, some of it seemed to be done without regard for rational thought, but it didn't make any of the entries any less compelling.

at the time that hannahandme.blogspot.com was born, hannah was about to turn two. i could feel the beginning of the end of one era of my life happening and moving from being paid by a church to not being paid by a church felt like a seismic shift. sarah and i were growing busier by the second. the huntsville experiment would have been hard to make work without hannah in the mix. with a baby girl as part of the equation, it was nearly impossible. i started looking for and brainstorming my own not-so-private outlet. i've loved writing for a long time. i'd, at that point, built up enough passer-by experience with blogs and the like that i figured i could stumble my way through my own. wouldn't it be cool if i started writing things down so that somewhere deep into the future hannah (and now caroline) could be introduced to parts of her father that she may have never known? and so, it happened.

five years and five hundred posts later, HACAM (formerly known as HAM) is still running strong. not a day passes that i don't think about sitting down and writing something to my girls. unfortunately, not many days pass that afford me the disposable time to make that happen. my pace has slowed in the last couple of months, but i am hoping that the end of fall soccer means a little extra time to invest back into the blog. back into ongoing series like "to be or not to be" and "conversations with kathy" or ever-going series like "hannah and caroline and me".

to the handful of people that have been with me from the beginning and continue wasting their life by making this blog a part of your daily routine, i can't thank you enough. you know who you are. without your constant constructive, critical and supportive feedback, i would have probably hung this thing up the first time a united methodist pastor commented that he wanted to see me because of some jacked up opinion i shared "for all the world to see". "fear the community", anybody? :)

to the rubberneckers that have been handed a sheet of paper with my asinine reflections upon them and were forced to read them against your will because the department of homeland security demanded you to, i am sorry. and i agree with you. my existence threatens all of us, and i should be destroyed.

to those that i've hurt with my "potty mouth" or posts that obliterated some perception you had of me prior to your reading one out of the now 502 entries, that was not my intent. if i wanted to push your buttons, i'd kill one of your threads on facebook.

speaking of facebook, to those of you that have met us because i now shamelessly promote this place to 271 (and counting or subtracting...depending on who i pissed off yesterday) of my closest "friends", thanks for visiting. "pass some time" while your here. just don't expect anything that will add even one iota of depth to your life. remember, in the immortal words of the pearl and the jam, "this is not for you". pimp your blog on facebook, too. everyone is doing it, right? i'd love to read your thoughts.

to my brother, brian, that won't read something unless i text him asking him to, i love you. you are the third muse. every time i write something, i kinda hope you read it and wonder what you think. i wish i could see you.

to sarah, who got tired of me asking her "what did you think of the blog?" four and a half years ago, thank you for your support and i am sorry, more than anything, that people being little bitches about something i've written hurt you once, let alone the seventy-five other times.

and to hannah and caroline, well, here's a tip of the hat to the first 500. my labor of love has only cost me one kidney up to this point, and i do not blame that on you two. i love you both more than anything this world could ever offer me in return. i can't promise you that some slippery little misfit will never hurt you. but i can promise you i will call him a fucking douchebag on the internet when he does.

with love, daddy

because it's never too early for christmas advent


here's a sneak peek into what you'll be getting when the 2010 humc advent devotionals are handed out come, you know, advent. don't you worry, though. i know for a fact the others will be way better than this one.

forgive the capitalization.

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

Maybe one day soon

It will all come out
How you dream about each other sometimes
With the memory of
How you once gave up
But you made it through the troubled times -Fountains of Wayne

Living in and on our own “private Idaho” on the corner of Huffman and Gene Reed Roads, it’s easy to feel like HUMC is the only community of faith that has ever suffered or will ever suffer from the emotional and sophomore-ish ups and downs of life.

Surely, other congregations have mastered the calculus of interpersonal relationships while we’ve just discovered that we are behind the curve. “He said, she said” doesn’t exist at “the church across the street”. Otherwise, they would have empty spaces in their parking lot, too. The “University of Jesus” down the road never questions their leaders. They have their ducks in a row, and, therefore, have the capacity to build new buildings that will serve even more members of their community in new and fantastic and interactive ways. “That church that my friend goes to now” hugs and kisses each other all the time. Then, they go and hug homeless people and feed them and, then, they hold hands and sing “Kumbayah” and always go home happy. Right? Right?

Well, of course, none of the above three hypotheticals are totally accurate, but it’s easy to feel that way at Huffman United Methodist Church. The comforting thought is that Huffman United Methodist Church is no different from “the church across the street”, “the University of Jesus” or “that church that my friend goes to now”. If we don’t intentionally and often remember the connectedness that is a life lived in union with The Divine Spark, it’s easy to feel isolated and alone and discouraged, no matter where you hang your hat on Sunday morning.

If Advent means anything to me, it means a fresh and renewed understanding that I am not alone. It means that it is time again to renew the effort “to put on a new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness”. If not for myself, I effort for my family and my church family and those that I call “brother” and “sister” in Christ.

Feeling alone is a very human and flawed emotion. In Advent, in Christ, it is never “us vs. them” but a global connection that helps us work for a Greater Good.

Scripture: Ephesians 4:20-25

34 is just a little older than 33
(hannah and caroline and me)
((part forty))


this time last year, i was certain i still had cancer in my body.

this time this year, i am still pretty certain that there is something bad lurking in there somewhere.

i don't have a real reason to think these thoughts. my neck is still jacked up, but i've been told not to worry about that. occasionally..., okay pretty much every day i'll feel some sort of twinge on the left-hand side of my back and think, "fuck me. there is a tumor in the other kidney now". i've been told this line of logic is irrational, too.

we lost it yesterday morning with hannah. i mean...lost. our. minds. she's been on-again, off-again congested for a couple weeks now and was pretty gunked up yesterday morning. naturally, we were out of liquid everything, so sarah suggested she take a pill. hannah freaks out. starts crying. backs herself into whatever corner that she can find. sarah starts negotiating in a very nice and concerned mommy voice. "you can do this, hannah. you put the pill on the back of your tongue. you put some kool-aid in your mouth. you lean your head back. you swallow." game over, right? hannah tries the first time and somehow performs an unintentional magic trick. the pill ends up in the kool-aid. sarah fishes the pill out of the kool-aid. hannah retreats, saying "it's nasty" and doesn't want to try again. sarah tells her that's not an option. she's already made the mistake of telling hannah that, now that the pill is wet, it really is going to be nasty. hannah will not try again with the first pill. sarah throws it away. she opens another pill for hannah to try again. this time, hannah gags and kool-aid ends up on the kitchen floor. it's now time for all of us to leave the house. we were running early. not anymore. all the while, the negotiating tactic has gone from cool and collected to "kick the door in, shoot...ask questions later" to sniper-level "we gotta take this fucker out. NOW! NOW! NOW!" i have been invoked as a weapon. "hannah, if you don't swallow this, i am bringing daddy over here and, well, you don't want daddy over here." another fail.

i come over and it's my turn. i ask hannah for her undivided attention and make sure that she hears me when i tell her "you are ruining the morning." excellent, right? i try and encourage her as best i can that she can do this. it's not scary. "here, why don't we try this. daddy puts liquid in his mouth, then puts the pill in to swallow it. try that." she takes the kool-aid in her mouth and then proceeds to toss the tiny pill under her tongue. god. dammit. she swallows the drink. catches the taste of the nasty-ass whatever kind of pill is in her mouth and spits it back out. she's crying. sarah's crying. caroline has no idea what the fuck is going on, but she is still pretty fucking stoked about her new boots that she got sunday, so she's super-cool.

negotiations have now moved from "we gotta take this fucker out. NOW! NOW! NOW!" level to "fuck it. let's just blow the city up. atomic bomb, please." i am ready to rip my lovely, sweet, smart, gentle, playful, wonderful first daughter into a million little pieces. i will rip her into a million pieces and i'll do it in front of her mother. her mother and i will laugh, laugh, laugh at each other the maniacal laugh that only parents at their wit's end with no discernible answers know and we'll take caroline to school and pretend like none of this ever happened.

hannah tearfully looks at caroline and mouths, "help. me."

caroline looks back and says, "zip my boots, mommy", making no sense at all.

sarah was finally like, "dude. we probably need to back the fuck off for a second." it's just a pill.

so, we backed off. we talked. i crushed the pill up (instead of my daughter) in hannah's kool-aid and she took her medicine. i walked out after making up with hannah. it took me a good hour to come down from never wanting to see her again. i picked her up from daycare after school and gave her a big hug. she was past the morning. i was thankful for that being the case.

this time last year, i was certain that i still had cancer in my body.

this time this year, i still wonder, but i move on with my day in the hopes that i don't.

episodes like yesterday morning and the fury with which i momentarily think unhealthy thoughts about my daughter(s), family or friends are telling. they tell me that i care again, which is different from twelve months ago. twelve months ago, i just stared into space a lot and worried about when i was going to die.

i am happy to care again, but i ashamed of how easily i can and have stepped into occasionally being a dickhead to the people that i care about the most. i suppose it's easy to do that. rather, i hear that i am not the only one guilty of it.

maybe, if i am lucky, another good report in january will free me from even more demons. maybe some of the fear and anxiety and anger and spite that boils over and into situations like yesterday morning will no longer be a part of me.

more than likely, they will be a part of me, though.

i'll just have to handle it better.

end of the world
(part eleven)
((the end of "the end of the world"))
(((the banger's embrace)))





"they say you can't relive the past, but as the lights went down it all came rushing back."

back in march of 2009, i picked up propagandhi's supporting caste with the expectation that it would be every bit as valuable to my music collection as their previous effort, potemkin city limits. after the first listen, i knew i was not going to be disappointed. after the second, third, fourth and fifth spins, i was certain that, based only on my own opinions and taste, caste had leaped into my own personal pantheon. the place where good albums go after they are determined (by me) to be great. in the last 12-14 months, this album, above every album in my vast and varied broken plastic case that sits on the floor of my closet, has taken its rightful place. it sits on the throne. it looks down at every other album purchased by me or for me. it sees potemkin at it's right hand. burn, piano island, burn to the left. it glances across the room and sees nevermind and dookie and one chord to another, pinkerton and chumps on parade and hello rockview and dog problems and tell all your friends and out come the wolves and dude ranch, electric boogaloo and 59 sound and when the pawn... and tens on top of tens of other albums that, over the course of the formative realization and continuing creation of one kevin michael o'kelley, have served as my personal soundtracks. caste looks over his subjects that, at some point in time, i personally allowed to define and motivate me, and caste sees that it is good.

i "luff, two f's" this album. i completely consumed it in a way that would have never happened before my blog became a four letter word. before the blog, i loved music. played it badly. appreciated and respected those much more talented than me. appreciated and respected those that ever crafted a tune that i couldn't get out of my head and made my life a better place. since the blog's inception, though, i have written about my music and the way it has moved me. for a couple years, i wrote out "best of..." columns in which not only could i identify which of my purchases provided the most healthy return on my investment, but i could process why. i am no music critic. i don't know the difference between a "good" album and a "bad" one. but i can tell you if an album is "AWESOME"  and i can tell you if "it sucks". taste is relative. "your favorite band sucks", right?

as an extension of those "best of..." posts, at some point early last year i decided i would deconstruct caste in a way i had never thought of before. i would take each song, play it on a loop and see where my my mind and my fingers would take me for a little while. fucking cancer interrupted that flow last summer, but i was happy to pick it back up several months ago and today brings us to the conclusion of the "end of the world" series.

"bangers" is a song written by a fan for a fan. it details any and every long strange trip any person has ever made to pay good money to watch their favorite band play a show. we all have "that story" to tell, right? we've all packed too many people in a protege and headed east to atlanta since, with very few exceptions, only shitty bands come or ever came to birmingham in their prime. we've all packed way too many people in a protege and headed east to atlanta ready for a moment captured in two or three hours that could possibly "change our life, man". the sound hall would be small, smoky and stink like hell. the proprietors would keep letting people in the door even though you knew they reached capacity, like, 100 people ago. you stood shoulder to shoulder with bastards you've never met, but, for the next three hours, you would be their best friend and they yours. if their ass got knocked to the ground, you would pick them up and they you. you would stand, jaw agape, at being 25 feet away from this band that had wrecked your crappy-ass stereo and car speakers for months. they looked just like you. same age. same size. same shitty goatee. but there was one difference. they played your favorite songs.

you would bounce and bellow, scream and wail at the top of your lungs. force yourself a foot closer...and then a foot closer to the stage. scream in agony if you took an elbow to the face. stick your chest out and glare like a bad-ass as you delivered elbows of your own. this wasn't just a show, man. this was fucking war, albeit amidst the friendliest of fire. the opening band that you never heard of with the killer-ass name rocked you more than you anticipated. you went and bought their shirt. the headliner did what headliners do. they tore the roof off of that dilapidated auditorium, temporarily paralyzed your eardrums and sent you home completely cool that some dude behind you sprayed vomit on your back an hour ago.

the last song in this series is what music and a show is about and can be about. communal, live together or die alone experiences that you share with yourself as much as you do your buddies. it's not an original thought that there is something shreddingly primal and intensely personal about the music we love.

chances are, you probably don't worship the ground proagandhi sweat on. it's okay. it only makes you a moron. and all of my best friends are morons.

chances are, i don't like your favorite band either. it's okay. it only makes me a moron. and i've been a moron for a lot longer than you've been a moron.

sarah, let it be known that i would like "night letters" to be played at my funeral. turn it up to eleven, please. the congregation will whisper to each other that it makes perfect sense. "he's always been such a fuck-up". and i will move forward with a smile on my face to...

"...the place where all the best bands go." 

i am pretty sure humc just jumped the shark


i was chatting with the right reverend, chris perry, a couple weeks back about a lot of things. as always when we talk, i asked him about his progress at robinson springs united methodist church. as always when we talk, he asked me if anyone had firebombed my house because of my dirty little mouth on my blog. actually, he doesn't really ask that. but, he does ask me how i am feeling about things in general (he is nice like that) and how i am feeling about the church. this most recent conversation happened on the heels of blog-gate 2.0, version why can't kevin not say those words about cellphones and boring worship and george carlin or something like that. it's all a big ball of fuzz a few weeks removed. funny how i bet that seemed really important to some people in the moment. anyway, we got past blog-gate 2.0 and started talking about the church. he and i agreed that humc was in need of some serious victories. happy-stances that we could rally around, do together and feel good about ourselves for a little while. i mentioned that the halloween carnival was on the horizon, and, based on past experience, i hoped that the carnival would serve as just that. an event outside of worship where many in our congregation would actively choose to participate in some form or fashion, feel good about what will inevitably be a positive turnout and event, and wear a smile to church for a few weeks after. we are still in line to do those things. make the carnival happen. enjoy it and each other. smile for a few weeks after. use that positive to motivate us towards more positives. and i can't wait...

then this past sunday happened. nasty and i had already left the worship service sunday morning heading to atlanta when fonzie got on his skis. sarah called me just after we had said hello and good-bye to anniston, heading east on i-20.

"hey."

"hey."

"what's up?"

"i just wanted to tell you about harris' announcement/plea at the end of his sermon."

oh, god.

"go on."

"as he was finishing up his sermon, he came front and center, made sure everyone was paying attention to him and told us that if we didn't start filling up the pews on sunday morning, he was fairly certain the bishop was going to move him due to ineffectiveness."

...

alright.

i wasn't as much surprised as i was sad. sad that he felt like it had come to this. sad that, after having been with us for less than a year and a half, the powers that be in our conference were threatening (make no mistake either. the threats didn't just come down this week. they've been there for months) to remove him from this congregation because he had not steered us back onto (their) course fast enough for them. you see, humc, for those not familiar with the inner workings of our church or the united methodist church, is "asked" to pay a portion of their budget to the conference on the whole so that that money can be used for many, many connectional things. that portion is called apportionments. all churches are "asked" to find a way to meet 100 percent of their apportionment number, but if there is an honest effort being made towards the 100 percent, the conference will work with the church. huffman's problem is this. in the conferences eyes, it has been a really long time since humc has made an honest effort towards even 50 percent of our apportionment, much less 100. a couple years ago, the conference drew a line in the sand. no longer could united methodist churches be part of the connectional system if they were not willing to be true to the connectional giving. and huffman isn't true to the the figure we are being asked to contribute. not even close.

that doesn't mean we aren't working on it. not a finance committee meeting has gone by in the last year and a half where our connectional giving has not come up. we try and massage the money that we have to find ways to give more, but for us to make the letter of the number, we would have to make serious cuts to every section of the budget. that includes staff. which is where we are stuck between the biggest rock and our hardest place.

we love our staff. we can't cut one of them, can we? how would they buy groceries? and if we do, what potential does that give us to grow in the way our church hopes to grow in order to continue finding ways to minister to our huffman community as part of huffman united methodist church?

we love our building. in an unfortunate turn of events, our building now defines us. old. always on the border of being out of repair. seemingly more concerned with how we look on the outside versus what is going on inside. the maintaining of our old building is expensive. we can't cut there, can we?

and so, if we don't want to cut, if we don't want to redefine who we are or give up our building, we only have one choice. we have to grow. in number. and in "number". and by "number", i mean what is truly important to the bishop and our conference. the money we are expected to pay them. and that is all that matters. it's not our attendance that the conference cares about. it's our lack of connectional giving. it's money. it's what makes the world church go round.

maybe the conference jumped the shark before we did, but don't be confused. we got on skis sunday right along with them. if i won the lottery today and gave every bit of it to humc and only asked that humc pay our connectional giving for the the next ten years in one lump sum, we would never hear from the conference again. well, we'd hear from them. they'd ask to use our building sometimes, but there would be no more pressure on our senior pastor or on our members.

instead of sunday's service being about god, it was about money. it was not about worship. it was about attendance that, in theory, would make our bottom line look better. it was not about church. it was about business.

i don't blame harris for doing what he did. everyone has a boss. if his boss was god, we'd be fine. we'd be in good and the right hands. his boss is not god, though. it's our district superintendent. and his boss is our bishop. and our bishop is pissed at huffman because he thinks that he's sent us his best of the best and, in his mind, we keep burning down the forest.

"it only takes a spark to get a fire going.
and soon all those around can warm up in its glowing
that's how it is with god's love
once you've experienced it
you spread the love to everyone
you want to pass it on"

you may not like the methods with which i have chosen to articulate my love for my church on this blog. i get that. you don't like my potty mouth. i totally get that. you think i am stubborn. hardheaded. demanding. unwilling to submit. "always right". guilty as charged.

that being said, please get a copy of sunday's service if you missed it. listen to harris' plea with this post and your past experience with the church and this church as context.

i don't hate you, huffman. i hate this broken-ass down system and how we have fed this ugly beast for as long as we have.

getting butts in seats isn't what church is about. getting people to give their money to our conference is not what church is about. if people coming to our church or opening their wallets to give to a cause or a group outside of themselves happens as a result of god's love, then great.

god's love was not what sunday was about.

it only takes a spark.

war harris. and war humc.

the first post of october (baseball)


from february 11, 2010:

"do note that not one of my storylines worries about the braves chances at winning the division. i would love it if it happened. but the braves didn't add roy halladay to an already stacked team. the phillies did. it's wild card or bust, in my mind, when setting a realistic goal for the season."

so, the braves made the playoffs...as the wild card.

wow!

i mean that exclamation with the utmost sincerity. i resisted the temptation to post sunday because i would have been caught up in all the euphoria of the last game of the season, the last inning of the season when billy wagner looked like an absolute killer after showing his mortal side in the eighth, and how the braves, backs against the wall one last time in a season where that had become a recurring theme, gutted it out and held on for a win in their "most important game of the season". in baseball, though, moreso than any other sport, perspective is dreadfully important. one game or one series only becomes "important" based on the outcome of the previous game or series. the same logic can be applied to any sport, of course, but not in the same meta way that a 162 game regular season requires. given a few days now to ponder the strange course of the season, here is what i remember as the highlights.

 - opening day and the "THIS STADIUM IS UPSIDE DOWN!" call after jason "julio" heyward stepped up to the plate for his first major league at-bat and destroyed a ball into the right field bullpen. we'll get back to heyward in a second, but this moment had a more impactful lifespan than any other during the last five years.

- troy glaus being his usual terrible self in april only to explode and carry the braves through may and part of june, playing well enough to be the national league player of the month in may.

- heyward hurting his thumb, cox not allowing him to heal and heyward missing the all-star game.

- brooks conrad's monster walk-off grand slam to complete the bottom of the ninth, down by seven rally over the reds that propelled the braves into their best stretch of baseball they played all season.

- beginning of august, chipper gets hurt. i lobby for heyward being moved to the three hole. bobby cox does not listen.

- my timmy's string of dominance in late july and most of august that propelled him into the cy young conversation. he lost it a little bit in september, but made two HUGE starts during the last week of the season, won both, including the final game, and was the braves most dependable starter all year.

- derek lowe going insane during the month of september. 5-0, era under 1.25, commanding the confidence of this braves fan that he is totally going to beat tim lincecum in the opening game of the divisionals tomorrow night.

- martin prado and omar infante, period. last year, these guys "weren't good enough to play everyday". how about this season as one big "fuck you" to the detractors. infante finished third in the batting race, made the all-star team. prado was the braves offensive mvp this year, finished in the top ten in the batting race and made the all-star team. i was more heartbroken when prado went down for the year in the next-to-last week of the season than i was when chipper shredded his knee. that, in and of itself, tells me how emotionally attached i had become to prado. love that guy.

- mccann. mccann's the offensive lineman of the braves. you don't hear much about him. he just goes about his business being the best offensive catcher in the league and winning all-star game mvp's and hitting walk off home runs and braves fans, including me, just take him for granted.

- jonny venters being nasty and unhittable for the first five months of the season. billy wagner extending the same type of dominance through the end of the year.

- jason heyward will get his own post when the regular season awards start rolling out, but he should be the rookie of the year. end of story.

that's it. that's the scrapbook i have in my head for the braves, version 2010. this past sunday's game was incredible, but only because the previous 161 games had set it up to be so. the miracle win that i witnessed way back in april was every bit as important. the nine game losing streak that left the braves bandwagon searching for a driver was every bit as important. losing six of nine to the terrible nats and pirates down the stretch was just as important. the braves' sweeps of the mets and the marlins during the last 15 games of the year were every bit as important.

91-71. TWENTY games above .500. the sixth best record in all of baseball. in the meta-narrative that is any mlb team's season, the braves accounted for themselves quite well.

however the braves end up faring in the playoffs, in my opinion, the season has been a massive success.

while we are talking about it, though, the braves are going to beat the giants. tomorrow night and in the series.

we'll talk about the phillies if that prediction holds true.

roll braves.

the end of the world
(part ten)
((incalculable effects))


"she said she just turned six. she's got some good jokes for a kid. she's working hard to avoid a woman bleeding from her teeth...i know that sinking feeling all too fucking well. shame, frustration setting it. confusion that eats us inside out...i don't know what's wrong with me. i don't know why she can't wake up...her life goes on despite the fact her mom lies fucked up on the cement."


stephen colbert has taken some grief from people that take themselves way too seriously over the past few days since his testimony before congress on behalf of immigrant workers last friday, sept. 24th. the serious people seemed to think that the comedian coming before congress in character as the ultra-conservative champion of "truthiness" made a mockery out of the very real issue of immigrant workers' lack of rights and drew more attention to himself than those he was supposed to be lobbying on behalf of.

in some dark, dark world, in a universe removed from reality far, far away, i suppose i can see their point. what does this comedian know about immigrant workers? his entire shtick was borne out of one whole day of real labor. but in that one day lies the sad truth that politicians are not able to own. colbert's one day was one more day than the vast majority of those that are up in arms for or against more rights for immigrant workers will ever put into the "fields" of america.

count me in that vast majority. i can't tell you how much i never want to plant something that i would eventually eat. hell, i can hardly stand the thought of cooking something that someone else has harvested for me. i am the opposite of do it yourself in most instances. i take advantage of specialists, regardless of industry, found in the yellow pages any and every time i or sarah can't figure out how to stop water from dripping out of the faucet or a river running out of our air conditioning closet or how to make our grass as lovely looking as the neighbor's (a guy i have seen on his belly in his yard pulling weeds. are you kidding me? if you ever see me belly-down in my yard, i've either had a stroke or i lost a quarter down a hornets' nest and am trying to dig it out. either way, call 911). that's just me. call me spoiled. call me whatever. i am just playing with the cards that i've been dealt in the best way i know how.

same as immigrant workers. same as stephen colbert. same as the little girl in the propaghandi song that inspired these thoughts today. the little girl doesn't remind me of me. my mom has found problems as she's gotten older, but rarely did she exhibit any behavior (other than her choice in dudes) at home when i was a kid that i felt like i had to run away from. i and my brother were sheltered for a long time from the financial difficulties that come with being a single mom. we were sheltered from the early signs of the depressive state that has captured and imprisoned her for many, many years now. we were sheltered for a long time from her poor choice in dudes. she did what she could, playing with the cards she had been dealt.

not everyone in this world is as lucky as i was and am. this world is a filthy, filthy place. if we choose to see it, we can see it online and on our televisions and in our newspapers and magazines. people are mistreated. children are born into situations that will haunt and pervert every day of their life, no matter how strong they are.

and yet, we show so little patience. we don't want to see what comes next. we flip the channel. we expect things to happen as fast as we want them to. stimulate me now. satisfy me now. 30 weeks? how much longer is it going to take to make this worthwhile for me?

colbert, after hearing the last question that would be posed to him during his testimony, stepped out of his made-for-tv character and didn't quote scripture as much as he identified where he fit into the issue by citing the context of matthew 25:40, the "least of these..." passage. naturally, rather than listening to his sentiment, his detractors poked holes in his means. "he says bad words". "he isn't really a practicing catholic. how could he be? he's friends with jon stewart." "this is the best that congress can do? a comedian?"

it's this type of mentality that is destroying our human connections. rather than finding the common-ness between humans and working for the betterment of us all, we nitpick from our comfort(zone)able chairs.

raise your hand if you hate immigrant workers as people?

...

raise your hand if you think illicit drug use is a good thing? 

...

raise your hand if you like the state of birmingham's city schools?

...

raise your hand if you like abandoned children?  

...

raise your hand if you think you are better than any one person on the face of the planet?

...

confusing the issue(s) with the means by which the issue is raised or argued is a time-honored tradition.

doesn't make it right. 

"i know that sinking feeling all too fucking well." and yet, our lives go on despite the fact, our common sense lies fucked up on the cement.

being julio heyward
(part ten)
((fare thee well, bobby cox))


152 games.

that's how long the 2010 version of the atlanta braves were in the mix for the division. all things being equal, had you offered me that number before the season opened along with the deal that the club would still hold the slimmest of leads in the race for the wild card with 10 games to play, i would have jumped at it. given that deal and that deal alone, this is how i would have told you it happened.

jason heyward was worth the hype.

he has been. before he hurt his thumb in the second month of the season, he was going to run away with the nl rookie of the year trophy. then he hurt himself with one of his always cringe-inducing headfirst slides. cringe-inducing not because it looks bad. quite the contrary, it looks elegant and graceful, just like everything he does on the baseball field. cringe-inducing because there are ten digits that are exposed for all sorts of bad things to happen to them when sliding head-first into a base, all ten of the utmost importance if you are going to swing a bat and make contact with a baseball. he hurt his thumb. bobby cox kept trotting him out, because "i love seeing the kid play". his numbers dropped. he finally went on the dl and after cox's incompetence cost him STARTING in the all-start game as a rookie, (ugh) he came back. he got healthy. his average jumped 50 points, and he regained his form from april and early may. then chipper got hurt. braves nation (including myself) cast their lonely eyes to the twenty year old to lead them. on certain days, he has. he still gets on base a ton. but, to be as patient as he is, throw a breaking ball to him with two strikes that starts at his knees and ends up in the dirt, he is going to strike out 9 times out of 10. he's been good. probably rookie of the year good. but he hasn't been able to carry the team by himself.

hudson, lowe, jurrjens, hanson and kawakami would be the best starting five in the national league.

they'd have to be, right? the braves were never going to score a ton of runs. not like the phillies. and yet, only hudson has been really good this year. lowe is what we thought he was. jurrjens has been radically inconsistent. hanson should have 15 wins, but, when bad, he has been really bad. kawakami was the worst starting pitcher the braves have trotted out for more than 10 starts in 20 years. people call him "kamikaze" for god's sake.

chipper stayed healthy.

he did for a while. and then, of course, he didn't. on a great, jeter-esque jump throw against the astros, chipper's old knees couldn't hold him, and he shredded one of them, lost for the season.

those would be have been my three factors necessary for the above deal to manifest into reality, but only one played out. so, what happened?

martin prado and omar infante happened. both all-stars, both hitting over .300, both integral to the braves offensive success when they've had it. they've both been miscast as leadoff hitters, but the braves were presented no other choice when nate mcclouth forgot how to play baseball.

mccann's been mccann. i love mccann.

johnny venters happened. he's finally hit a rookie wall, but, wow, for several months he was unhittable. same with billy wagner. those two have been off the chain.

with the exception of one month and half by troy glaus and one grand slam by derek lee, first base has been a disaster.

the escobar/gonzalez combo at short has been up and down.

heyward is the only constant in outfield. platoon's sometimes "work", but they never thrive. how could they? baseball is a game where you will "fail" 65-75 times out of a 100 at-bats anyway. combine that fact with not getting consistent plate appearances, and you have a platoon. the ole "if you have two quarterbacks, you don't really have one." philosophy can be applied to the braves outfield, minus heyward. if you have four or five outfielders, you don't really have two.

and then there is bobby cox. the "players manager". the winner of all those straight division titles and a world series to boot. the guy that gets thrown out of games a lot.

i admit to being a "what have you done for me lately" sports fan, and here is what i will remember of cox in his last season. not being quick enough to let heyward get healthy. and this week's phillies series.

charlie manuel placed so much importance on this series, he rearranged his rotation to make sure his 1, 2 and 3 starters would face the braves. in doing so, he announced this series makes our regular season a success or a disappointment.

did cox find a way for hudson to pitch last friday against the mets so that he could pitch today against the phillies? nope. could he have rearranged things to get lowe a start too? of course. but he didn't. so, the braves went to war in the two biggest games of their season with a rookie making his first major league start on monday and a rookie making his seventh (i think) start last night. both were seriously outclassed. the braves lost both. thanks, bobby.

and now, the wild card that cox has said over and over and over again that he despises is "our" braves carrot on the stick.

i love the wild card. it allows me a small glimmer of hope that the braves may still wiggle into the playoffs after conceding the division last night. i can't wait to hear cox backtrack over the next few days and give us soundbites like "we just want to be in the dance" and riff on previous wild card winners' success. it will be soaked in irony and it will be beautiful.

here's hoping the braves have a little something left in the tank...,

in spite of their manager.

classic HACAM
(part one)


given my perception of the scope of blog-gate, 2.0, i've been thinking about this post a lot over the last few days. not that it justifies anything, but i remember it like it was yesterday, and the sentiment of it holds true to me just like it did almost three years ago.

from january 8, 2008...

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


HOLY FUCK!!!
(it's a gun!)
((part two))


(clears throat) would all persons at this meeting whose foreheads have been pressed into with the business end of an ak-47 assault rifle please come forward? ...

anyone...

anyone?

it's not that i have been dodging the "should i cuss or not" question since i brought it up a couple weeks ago. to be honest, i have been waiting for something to happen to me that would allow my ridiculous argument of "why i should" to be placed in it's proper context.

sunday night, something happened.

so, if you would kindly humor me, good and righteous people of robinson springs united methodist church (just the douche-y ones that wrote their pastor on christmas day and told them that he shouldn't link his blog to one that contains dirty words...not the actual good and honest and human ones), please enlighten me to the "holier" words that you would have spoken aloud or in your heart if a crazy-ass pet store robber (one that was in your store only two weeks ago) places a military-issue assault rifle to your head and you were unsure of his intent to use it. in the same moment, you were unsure if you had seen your wife, your two daughters, your friends, your family that may or may not like you, your employees or any other person that shares this earth with you for the last time. what words would you have chosen to emote in this "somewhat unpleasant" situation? "fiddlesticks!"? "oh, poop!"? "dadblammit!"? "ah, pickles!"? something else? you tell me. i would love to be ingrained with something other than the words that i chose after the situation resolved itself. those words were "fuck me!", and "shit." among others. i called the criminals "cocksuckers." i called their mothers worse. i called their friends and anyone that enjoyed their company much, much worse (they, you see are part of the problem. the mother may have disowned the sons long ago, hence i let her off the hook a little bit.) in the moments that i realized that my life was spared for the second time in just over three months, in the moments that i was grateful that my assistant manager's life was spared for the second time in two weeks (!!!), i could not resist the temptation to projectile vomit towards the heavens words that made me feel better about my current situation. and so i did. loudly and with defiance.

not defiant towards god, mind you. i truly believe that god couldn't give a shit (gasp!!!) about the words that come out of my mouth minus if those words might cause one of my brothers or sisters "to stumble". do i admit that my potty-mouth may have affected someone, even some young one, in a negative way more than once? absolutely, i do. and that's something i am working on. but i'll get back to this in a minute. not defiant towards god, mind you, but defiant with the small hope that the two guys running away from my store could hear my cries of rage and with the small hope that they understood that they, themselves, would need god's assistance to rip me off their ass if we ever happened upon each other at a time they were not carrying a gun.

i grew up in homes where the "cuss" words i use today were used as perfectly acceptable nouns, adjectives and adverbs. not that i am trying to justify anything. i am just being forthright. i inherited my blue tongue quite honestly. you, whoever you are, may not have grown up in such a home. your home might have replaced my words with other words that you said when you were so pissed off that you wanted to throw your cat at a wall. but, instead of hurting one of god's creatures, you chose to yell at the top of your lungs, "PINEAPPLE CHERRYCAKES!!!" does that really make your choice of words any less offensive? really? if you use any combination of letters and guttural sounds to express your displeasure, even if they don't rhyme with "shit" or "piss", haven't you still lost control in some way? hmm....

i lose control in small ways all the time, in bigger ways sometimes and in big, nasty ways hardly ever. but in all three instances, i usually use some combination of these. if you don't? awesome. if you do? awesome. if it bothers you to see them here? turn me off. i am ok with that. if i offend off everyone that ever happens across this page, that is fine. i hope you enjoy your time here, but if not, it's not for you. turn me off.

i am a bruised, beaten-down, imperfect and, at times, very lonely man. this is my journey. this is part of my life, living for my god and my family, living for you to see. sometimes, i get mad. sometimes, i cuss. sometimes, i have good reason. sometimes, i do not. sometimes, i care. sometimes, i care not.

sanctification is tough for me. i bet it is for you too. i wish you well on your journey. and i wish you less well today, you ignorant pieces of shit that scared the piss out of me and my employees again sunday night, than i will tomorrow. that's how it works. each day you heal. each day you move forward. some days, bricks hit your ass in the face and knock you backward.

(cue allen iverson impression) words??? words??? we gonna talk about words??? you gonna question my heart in the game, man???? or you wanna talk about words???

question my words, you may. question my heart, you may not.

i will prove you wrong.

welcome back, my love.


before "julio" heyward ascended to julio status and became the bottom half of my julio/huddy/"julio" oreo cookie sandwich of manlove, there was another.

his name was michael vick.

there are very, very few true forces of nature when it comes to athletes (let's stick with football). there are good athletes that overachieve to become stars (emmit smith, jerry rice, every white professional athlete, especially wes welker, et. al). there are really good athletes that become superstars because they combine a "head and shoulders above the rest" gift with good work ethic to obviously separate themselves from the field (lawrence taylor, barry sanders, randy moss, et al.).

then there are the force of nature types. talents that are so incredibly gifted, athletically, that, when on the field, it hardly looks like they are trying. bo jackson, deion sanders, ...michael vick.

before he went and started electrocuting dogs, there was no athlete on the planet that was any more must-see television than my michael. at his peak, his arm was as strong as i've ever seen. he was the fastest guy in the league, probably by a couple steps. he had quicks and jumpstops and full-speed-from-the-jump like barry sanders, but with all of those attributes he could get one gear higher than my favorite running back ever. It didn't matter who the falcons were playing. i wanted to watch.

like barry bonds or usain bolt or lebron, if you blinked, you truly had the potential to miss the greatest thing to ever happen in an athletic arena every time he took a snap.

and then he got caught waterboarding dogs. i've come to terms with that disappointment. sure, i hate it for the dogs and everything, but, back then, the selfish part of me was just pissed that i wouldn't get to see vick play for quite some time.

for two years, he either sat in prison or a halfway house serving his time for condoning and bankrolling his disgusting dog-fighting ring. Last year, the eagles took a flyer on him, but he was the third string guy and only came in on gimmick-y, wildcat plays.

this year, he would serve as back-up to the quarterback that the eagles handed their franchise to, kevin kolb. week one, kolb got his bell rung and is now having to sit out this sunday.

week two, vick returns. in the action that he saw last week against the packers, he was every bit his old self. Running for 100 yards and a td. Passing for 175 and couple scores. pulling away from helpless defenders as they chased him around the field. week two, vick starts against the lions. as soon as word hit that he would start, i ran to my fantasy league, acquired vick, benched tom brady (who went nuts and led me to victory last week) and plugged my michael into my starting line-up for old time's sake.

brady will probably go nuts again, but I don't care. if kolb can remember his name next week, my michael will be back on the sidelines. for one day, though, this force of nature will have the opportunity to make people remember who michael fucking vick was before he was best known as that nfl quarterback that got caught fighting dogs.

michael vick, i have missed you. you go get 'em.

hannah and caroline and me
(part thirty-nine)
((a mommy scorned...))

editor's note: so, are you tired of coming back and checking to see if any comments have been added to "a penny..." that might add fuel to your fire??? welp, here's the supply to the ever-increasing demand, only...it's not from me this time. it's from...someone else.

that's right.

after years of negotiations, the wife has finally come down on her appearance fee. please keep in mind that she totally hates me, too, so the venom that she is shooting in my direction should be taken for what it's worth. two, count it, TWO grains of salt. 

without further ado, i present for the first time on HACAM, mommy o'kelley.

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

Now read this!!!


Kevin has asked me to blog on at least a dozen occasions. Really, I’ve been holding out to do so about topics that I can’t get out of my head, like how I don’t feel for a moment that gay marriage is a threat to my marriage or how I really hate that there are people in jail or prison at all or many other topics that move my soul and mind.

But, it’s come to this. I have to be honest. Our church family has so much potential and does so many things for its members and community. But, in the 10 years I have been coming to this church, this church family has hurt me the most of any group or individual I have ever encountered in my life. I have experienced a taste of what it must be like to be married to a politician or a coach or a minister. Apparently being vocal and being a leader invites others to say horrible things about you. Apparently it is an open invitation to vilify every action and misperceive every comment. It justifies others in making requests that you change your behavior or stop speaking your mind or just go away.

The “concerns” and opinions that make their way back to me (and I am no idiot- what I hear is only the a sample of what is actually said) and my family and my friends are usually comical in some way. My initial response is, “seriously? THAT was offensive? I thought that was the mildest of what could be bothersome.” And usually I’m amused. However, as drama and comments mount, it becomes poisonous. Some things hurt Kevin. Some things hurt me. Some things hurt our friends. But overall it is the most sickening feeling I’ve ever had.

I think I can imagine some of the asides in these “have you heard about Kevin’s blog?” conversations:

“and what about his sweet wife?”

“I feel sorry for her”

“that language! Does he use that at home?”

“I heard he beats her up. I’m sure he does.”

“I heard he hates girls. His poor daughters.”

Or maybe it’s more like:

“she’s as bad as he is.”

“she tries to make points in meetings, too”

“I heard her say a bad word once, and one time she didn’t show patience when her 3-year-old was screaming and throwing herself in the floor in the gym.”

“she lets her child sit on the stage during dinner.”

GASP!

Honestly, given my experience with the reactions to Kevin’s blog, there is no way to predict or know what other people might be saying. It’s obtuse. And frankly, I’m too tired to even think about it anymore. I get that Kevin’s blog can be offensive. I’m pretty sure he has said that before. Having had my share of arguments with my husband, he can be pretty difficult to argue with and can be infuriating. He always knows he’s right. I usually know he’s wrong. We usually reach some sort of consensus. Whatareyagonnado?

Let’s just be clear about something. If any one of the people talking behind his and our backs or any of your backs (now or at any time in the last few years) were to publish their comments and thoughts in an online forum, would you be so quick to judge those comments? I would hope so but I am fairly certain that it wouldn’t. After all, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. And the past behavior in these situations really sucks.

I know that many of the people talking about Kevin’s blog have never actually read Kevin’s blog, and thus, this edition from me is somewhat wasted on the innocent. However, I can only hope that word can travel as fast that I feel like I am in an abusive relationship with members of my church as it did that Kevin looks at the internet on his cell phone during church. For the love…

During the sermon or announcements or hymns or anthem or any part of worship, how many of you can deny that you daydream? Write notes to one another on the bulletin? Make your Sunday to-do list? Look around and think about the choir’s hairdos? Wonder if we’ll get out of church in time to make it to Lee Garden before the crowd? Fall asleep? Would admission of these very human behaviors catch as much flack if you posted it on your blog or facebook? If you noted this in person or online, would word travel so fast? You all know where he sits, right? He’s not hiding it from anyone.

What really is at issue here? Is it the action/words or is it just that you are tired of Kevin O’Kelley?

It’s starting to feel a lot like the latter. We’ve seen this all before. The last time a group of church members turned on one of its own we lost a family and the “young” people who were associated with it. Actually, there are those of us whom that has happened to who haven’t left, too. Let it be known that Kevin O’Kelley does not stand alone. He has a wife and two young children. There might even be more spawn of Kevin one day (God help us all!). He has a Sunday school class (who he is on hiatus from) who loves him and looks forward to seeing him on Wednesdays and Sundays and sometimes other days of the week. He has created a Limbo atmosphere that is the biggest “attraction” we’ve had in years. But you probably wouldn’t like what any of those folks have to say either. I can almost guarantee it, because it’s out of your control. Maybe you want all of us to leave. That really would solve a lot of problems. At least until you (collective) turned on someone else…

Another aspect of this situation (and those in the past) that I feel the need to comment on is the sheer time and energy that is spent on Kevin’s blog and the loathing of said blog. Sure, my husband spends a LOT of time on the blog writing about LOTS of things he is passionate about. I can’t imagine there are those of you out there who spend near the energy discussing his man-love of (insert current sports star here) or his conversations with Kathy or his music reviews (although if you listened to some of the music he likes, you might think even less of him, if that’s possible- there are bad words in it).

What you don’t think about is that Kevin spends even more time thinking about the things that he writes about before they ever hit the page. And the marked difference in how Kevin spends this time and how many others who “can’t believe” Kevin’s blog choose to spend their time and energy is that I personally witness that Kevin spends equal time (maybe more) thinking about and participating in very important aspects of the daily life of the church. This week alone he has attended 2 meetings (both after leading soccer practice- Oh! The young minds he may taint there!) and has at least 2 meetings at the church in the coming week. He helped lead a Bible study. He coordinated a team that played over 2 hours of church softball on Monday. He will leave home without his family at 6:45 Sunday morning to prepare for Limbo. So, in coordination with all the time and energy that has been put into the blog, he’s matching that tit for tat in his daily actions at, for, and within the church and community. It’s like he never left the church staff. He’s just as busy as he was when he was the youth director there.

I’m in a similar boat in wanting to be involved in our church and community, except I don’t have the energy to fight you people anymore. I would prefer to put my thought and energy into my work and my activities in the church. I love my husband. He is not always right, but he is not always wrong. He rarely argues without good meaning and intentions behind it. If you took some time to see him as a human being, you might realize that too.

I swear my next post will be about something different.

Now, discuss amongst yourselves. Please print this installment along with the others you plan to print and distribute to your Sunday school class in your campaign to raise a rally against one of your own. I’ll put it in the Disciples’ Council meeting notes if you’d like. Just let me know.

a penny for your thoughts
(hannah and caroline and me)
((part thirty-eight))

torn.

it's what i've been for months.

torn.

torn between advocating on behalf of anonymous commenters and people that wish the pastor would send me to "christian delinquent" camp and members that wished djg had a magical influence over my hypocritical ass...torn between advocating on behalf of all the people that think know that i am the worst lay leader in the history of lay leaders and dropping this whole deal to sit in my pew, twiddling my thumbs with the all of you.

this morning, limbo started finding it's way to the crux of our situation. for 27 weeks, we've been pounding the pavement of what our function within the walls of huffman united methodist church was. did we have any function at all? was this church that was so generous to allow us one of the empty-ass sunday school classrooms to meet in representative of a system/structure/organism that we i believed in any more.

our talking point was an article whose author believed that 60 (!!!) percent of this country's population was culturally and relevantly removed from the way churches went about their business. the author (allan hirsch) lobbied his readers to embrace a new paradigm, one that encourages members of the outdated churches to take the spirit (not the letter. out of context scripture vomited from your mouth scares people. get it?) of the gospel of jesus christ to the 60 percent on their own turf in their own culture. it was an interesting angle and take. who knows where the dude came up with his numbers, but, in turn, it begged me to ask limbo this question(s).

is the "church" and church you are familiar with worth saving? is all of it's symbols and tradition and romance something worth working out the kinks, or is it time to say, "you know what? this shit isn't working. let's try something new."

a disclaimer should be entered here. no matter what you or we think of "church", there is one thing about this morning's conversation that is INDISPUTABLE. if not for huffman united methodist church and the people and our shared history and the resources and freedoms or sometimes lack thereof, there would be no limbo. it's just that simple.

on one side of the argument, you've got anonymous commenters and the like that are so blindly in love (a good thing, mind you) and loyal to their church that if some dickhead-sounding whippersnapper questions the church's means and motivations, well, then you absolutely wouldn't want to take communion from that asshole.

another side of a different coin might be interested in the idea that "church" by definition is limiting, just another governing, hierarchical body constructed so that type a's may assume leadership positions and enforce their own agendas under the guise that "jesus is lord" but might actually be operating under the "joe. q. awesome everyman is lord" concept, rarely discerning, frequently reactionary and built to eventually fail as every business model ultimately will.

before i closed our conversation this morning, i told the group that once hannah left for children's worship (didn't realize there would be none due to youth sunday), i'd yank out my phone and starting reading about football again.

reagan then asked the million dollar question that even anonymous commenters haven't asked.

"so, why even bother?"

it's a great question. a fair one. completely legitimate. and i answered him this way, the same answer that i hinted at in "the first post of september".

because i believe in the "idea" of "church". more specifically, i still believe in the "idea" of huffman united methodist church.

just because i am the definition of "hypocrisy" or a dickhead or a douchebag or an asshole doesn't give me the right as a parent to completely destroy the girls own experiences with church by poisoning them with mine.

do i see the limitations inherent in infrastructures that even call for positions such as "lay leader" (like i am qualified to lead anyone in a spiritual setting). well, of course i do. in my opinion, though, the same walls or boundaries or limits are part and parcel to any relationship. if you actively choose to marry something other than yourself, you are compromising part of yourself. if you actively choose to relate to any one thing, you say to yourself, "my experience tells me i am better off with you/it/etc. than without. let's do this shit." and when you relate to anything other than yourself, you give up on the idea that you will be solely responsible for the health of the relationship. it's not up to you anymore. it's up to y'all.

and so, as it relates to huffman united methodist church, i choose to be in relationship with the organism that is that community of faith. i choose to go every sunday even when i know people talk to the pastor behind my back. i choose to do so even when i am confident that the worship service will be, "second verse, same as the first."

i do so because i choose to. and here's the rub, anonymous commenter(s). i make all this noise because i genuinely believe in what i am doing. i believe, even if we absolutely refuse to change and make ourselves "better", that i am doing the right thing.

sucks for you, right? or not. just depends on what pisses you off and what doesn't.

i remain torn. i don't want to get in humc's way. there are days that i feel like i am more obstacle and less bulldozer.

i remain torn. i don't know if this system is what the god i love and spend time with had in mind for his work here.

while i am figuring it out, though, good thing there are several different stations for you to dunk your jesus bread in. while you're at it, maybe you can see those different stations and different options as a metaphor for our church experiences. different paths, different journeys, all finding our own way through the dark.

signed, the thorn in your side.

the first post of september


this morning in worship, i pulled out my phone and read a lot about the alabama and auburn football games of yesterday evening.

i fully expected to be able to keep up with the bama game on espn3 at the store, but it ended up being blacked out. instead, i kept up with the game by watching red arrows representing alabama and blue arrows representing san jose st. moving back and forth across a two dimensional field of dreams. it was terrible. alabama won, though, so that was good. as i type this, i'll start watching the css replay.

what i read during worship was pretty exciting. alabama took care of their weak competition just as they should. there was not a significant drop-off in production due to mark ingram being out. instead, the maturation of greg mcelroy and a group of players that seem to be growing comfortable in their current offensive system was detailed in several different articles by several different authors, all duly impressed.

auburn, too, lit up their scoreboard. the quarterback that will make or break their season was, before last night, best known as the guy that was tim tebow's back-up at florida. the guy that got caught stealing a laptop. as campus authorities marched to his dorm room to question his involvement in the stealing of said laptop, dude tossed that shit out the window, cuz, yeah, that was ever going to work. anyway, all that's water under the bridge, cuz, from what i read this morning in worship, dude is the next randall cunningham. go figure.

so, "roll tide" and "war eagle", for whatever the first week of the season is worth. from what i read in worship this morning, we are marching toward an iron bowl matching two undefeated, offensive machines. I CANNOT WAIT!

so, why were you reading about football during worship?

great question. i don't really know, to be honest. i tried to tune in during the hymns and during the communion service and during the something about pottery and christ message, but i couldn't stay connected. on communion sundays, with hannah sitting in big church with us, i like to try and pretend that something meaningful or relevant will present itself.

that seems dishonest.

good call. you are right. it is dishonest. but i don't want to give up the ghost that big church could be a meaningful and relevant place for my children even if i don't find it as one myself currently. just because i am jaded doesn't mean i should indoctrinate my children with my cynicism.

d.j. fluker is freaking huge.

i love how marquis maze just dropped the ball and ran over to his own sideline after his td catch.

so, was there a point to this post?

not really. not other than the fact that eddie lacy and "war CAM eagle" and most especially julio jones are of way more interest and excitement to me than something about pottery and christ. don't get me wrong. pottery and christ got hannah talking, and that's all that really matters. at this point, i am pretty sure it would take harris cutting off his own hand and god sewing it back on in front of us for me to sit up and take notice.

that would be pretty awesome.

right? we could advertise it online or in the paper "recommended if you liked "the last exorcism"" that would bring the crowds. they'd come roaring in, rubberneckers all. we'd celebrate the packed house and then smash them across the face with the one and the only jesus h. christ.

that would show 'em.

i love my phone.

the only college football preview that matters
(to me)
((part two))


man.

today's news makes it a little harder to write what i had in mind today, that being a completely biased take on the college football season (or, at least, alabama's football season) to come written by a completely biased alabama football fan.

wait a minute. no, it doesn't.

mark ingram missing a game (or two or three) sucks. let's not dance around it. it sucks uncomfortably hard. one of the most intimidating aspects of alabama's team this year was their overwhelming depth, depth that is possibly more impressive this year than it was last year when they won it all. four and five star recruits back up four and five star starters. outside of the secondary, there isn't a spot on the roster that shouldn't be able to overcome an injury to a starter. that includes overcoming an injury to the reigning best player in college football. as you'll hear ad naseum over the next couple of days, trent richardson may, in fact, be "better" than mark ingram, whatever that means. ingram has won a heisman, so anyone suggesting that bama isn't going to miss a beat without him has got to be completely out of their minds. fortunately for the tide, they can miss a beat or ten against san jose st. and still live to tell about it. boy, had an equivalent injury happened before the clemson game two years ago or last year against va. tech, i would have been really, really worried. not so much right now. ingram's injury does add an unexpected storyline to the season, though, one where the only real headline of significance would be if alabama lost before the sec championship game. we have another headline now, a nauseating headline that makes what seemed to be an offensive juggernaut a little less juggernaut-ish. we can't get too caught up in the ingram stuff now. if we do, we'll miss the forest for the trees, or, rather, we'd miss the forest for the redwood wearing a crimson, number 22 jersey.

college football preview, commence!!!

san jose st. - how many times will ingram be shown on the sidelines during this ppv broadcast? i'll put the over/under at 10. any takers? the best news of my week was hearing that the game will be shown on espn3, meaning i'll be able to catch some of it at the store saturday night. the atmosphere will be insane. i wish i could be there for the announcements of the starters alone. goodness. it will be fantastic. everything leading up to the opening kickoff will be special because it will be the last of the celebration, the last opportunity to look back and remember how special 2009 was. there will also be a game played. it shouldn't be close for much longer than a quarter. should the game go according to plan, the commentators will be speculating by the second half whether or not ingram will be back for...

penn st. - all i can think about when it comes to the penn st. game is the unnerving interview espn ran with joe paterno during the big 10 media days. it was unsettling and unfortunate. gameday will most likely be in tuscaloosa for this game. i wonder if they'll run that interview again. penn st. will be competitive. i will be massively surprised if the game is still in question in the 4th quarter. bama, 2-0.

duke - AT duke. already scheduled for a 2:30 national television spotlight. duke has got to be extremely excited about this game, considering ingram will probably be making a token appearance to make sure he's game ready for the following week. there was a time, three years ago, that i would worry about alabama sleepwalking through this game. no worries here. 3-0.

arkansas - the first sec road test of the year against a lot of people's heisman contender, ryan mallet. mallet's receivers let him down during the first half in tuscaloosa last year. really, the only thing arkansas performed efficiently all game was the block that ended hightower's season. dont'a hightower likely remembers that game. my money is on dont'a announcing his butkus candidacy here with a pair of sacks and an interception. ingram and richardson go for 100 yards each for the first time this season and alabama feels dominant. 4-0.

florida - hmm. this game is the one i can't wait for. barring injuries, it should be the first nailbiter of the year. i don't believe in the rhetoric coming out of gainesville about how much better a "true" quarterback than tebow brantley will be. if he brings his team to alabama and wins, i'll eat crow and own my shortsightedness. i am not, on august 31st., worried about this in the least. ingram goes for 150 and 2 td's and people lament for the last time that he may have had a shot to heisman repeat "if he didn't miss those first two (or three) games. 5-0, but close into the fourth.

south carolina - this game scares me a little. it'll be the week after the huge emotional payoff of the florida game. marcus lattimore will have established himself as the rookie of the year in the sec and spurrier will use last year's game (the game that won ingram the heisman) as motivation to stop the run. introducing, julio jones!!! can you believe i was able to go six games without mentioning jesus, himself. think about this for a second. forever etched in stone will be the fact (THE FACT) that it was julio's coming to the capstone that set the stage for the potential five year dynasty that is the current era of alabama football. he was hurt last year. he was leaped over by a teammate in production and value to the team during a stretch of 8-9 games where he was not at 100 percent. he is now healthy. his quarterback has taken off the training wheels. i guaran-damn-tee you this. there will be two epic julio jones performances this year. i predict we see the first one on this night in a tight game. 6-0.

ole miss - a dangerous homecoming game, but this is the game i see alabama hitting their stride. jeremiah masoli will wish he stole a computer or something and got suspended (from his second team) prior to this game after the beating he and his team will take. not close. 7-0 (edit: doesn't look like masoli's going to be eligible. even not-closer.)

tennessee - i won't predict a laugher here, but i do think it could be a long, long year for young coach dooley. his best running back isn't on the team anymore. ut is rebuilding. rebuilding teams do not beat this year's alabama football team. 8-0, going away.

lsu - if jordan jefferson takes any sort of significant step towards becoming a real quarterback this year, this game could be tight. even les miles can figure out ways to get russell shepherd the ball. russell shepherd scares me. julio could be taken out of this game, or he could announce that he's a lot surer a nfl prospect than the cornerback that blanketed him last year in patrick peterson. flip of a coin on that mano-a-mano, but i think alabama wins this game by two touchdowns. 9-0

mississippi st. - ingram and richardson do their thing. mississippi st. thinks they are turning a corner 'til they get blown away by 28 points. 10-0.

georgia st. - bill curry brings star jackson back to t-town in a game that neither of the two will ever forget. alabama will win by 50, but this is a very cool game with very cool storylines. 11-0.

auburn. - oh, auburn. what will your record be coming into the iron bowl? 8-3? maybe 9-2? better??? who knows. according to a couple espn "experts", the 2010 iron bowl could have a trip to atlanta added to the already high, emotional stakes. auburn, i expect to be better, but i don't know how much i expect. i am not sold on cam newton...yet. i am not sold that auburn won't really miss ben tate. i am sold on michael dyer. but, if the season plays out the way i have it doing so above, this game will mean much, much more to alabama and they'll be at home. if alabama has stumbled once, twice or more coming into this game, this could be the game that puts gene chizik on the real map and not just the one they sell in alabama gas stations. also, keep in mind this will likely be julio (tear) and mcelroy (he's not terribly exciting, but he did quarterback a national championship team. he's the new jay barker.) and ingram's (yesterday's injury to ingram set that in stone for him) last home game. i don't see them losing their last home game. 12-0.

am i a homer? sure. biased? completely. off-base? probably not. alabama hasn't lost ONE of it's last TWENTY-FOUR regular season games. this team is deeper and more talented than the last two. are they better? who knows. that'll play out, beginning saturday night. i think they could be, though, and, if i think that, it makes sense to project them winning all twelve again this season.

if we make it to atlanta again, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

in years past, i kept my ear much closer to the national ground than i have the last two years. alabama's story and their runs through the sec have more than enough to keep my attention.

i can tell you that i hate, hate, HATE va. tech, and yet i'll still be rooting for them on labor day against boise st.

i can tell you that i will root for EVERY sec team to win their out of conference games to shut up everybody that's been talking about other leagues "catching up".

i can tell you that mark ingram WILL NOT win the heisman again, but trent WILL next year.

and i can tell you that i love being right (see last item). god help us all if i am right with the above predictions. god help us all.

roll saban.