Kids

Kids, I’m talking to you.

Make next week “Take your parents to school week.” Let them see what your job is like. Let them discover what a curriculum is, a lesson plan, project in action. Let them see what a teacher does all day, how you are learning, what you are learning. See if they can answer the questions, figure out the math problem, explain the three branches of government, learn how to not be a bully.

They need to see you and your teacher hard at work.

Sex

Sex is a private matter. Until it’s graphic, portrayed in TV and movies, in pornography, used to sell us everything we are conditioned to want. And then it becomes global and cultural. Culture, for it purposes good and bad, acts to both reflect and to manage sexual appetites and sexual expression.

This is done by titillation, by hovering around the juicy edges, by moralizing and glamourizing. What would happen if we dropped all the pretenses and fantasies and addressed our human sexuality in a clear-headed, direct and honest way in sex education, in media, in love and relationships?

Campus survey

Campus Survey

Name one member of Phi Beta Kappa on your campus.
Duh.

Name one Rhodes Scholar on your campus.
Duh.

Name one member of the basketball team.
Oh, wait. I can name all ten.

Name one student heading to Harvard for a PhD in biochemistry.
Duh.

Name the captain of the football team.
Oh, that’s easy.

Who has the highest salary, the College President, the Governor of the State or the Head Football Coach?
The Head Football Coach?

What is your average donation to the college scholarship fund?
$15.

Do you have season basketball tickets?
Sure, doesn’t everybody?

What was your favorite college course?
The History of Rock and Roll.

Stormy weather

Sung to the tune of “Stormy Weather”

Wonder why
I am such a sleazy guy?
Stormy Daniels.
She knows all the sex manuals,
So I thought I’d give her a try.

Don’t know why
She turned on me with such anger.
Stormy Porn Star.
The media’s set us a word war.
We’ll see if she’s really a danger.

March madness

I know I’m treading on hollowed ground, but answer me these questions please.

(March Madness edition).

1. Why does everything have to be such a goddam spectacle?

2. Of all the silly questions the NCAA is using the Google Cloud to answer, why don’t they research violations in recruiting, grade manipulation and corruption?

3. Why is there so much bling in the sets, the titles, and the infographics and how much does all that cost?

4. Why does March Madness need an official hamburger?

5. Can someone give me $1 million, a support staff, a first class facility and money for recruiting?  Then I’ll guarantee a winning team of a dozen great young artists.

6. If you add up the salaries of all the coaches, the equipment and uniforms, travel costs, medical costs (the basics), then what is the cost to maintain each player?

7. What is the average scholarship paid to each basketball player compared to the average scholarship paid to each art student?

Anything is art

Anything is art. Call it art, it’s art. These days that’s how it is. It allows the experience of making art to be more widely experienced and enjoyed. But that doesn’t mean that it will all stay art.

The reality is that art is constantly tested—by viewers, experts, through dialogue and time. At every instance it must defend itself as art. At every instance it must be able to give up meaning. It may fail a test here and there—which is only reasonable, especially in its early life. If it endures, it endures as art. As Walter Darby Bannard says, it is always “art becoming art.”

Art is made in its time and for its time. It’s the passion, discipline, depth, craft, commitment and deep humanity of art that transcend time into the timelessness of art.

Updated Bible stories

Updated Bible stories:

It was not a trumpet that knocked down the walls of Jericho. It was actually the East Jerusalem Junior High Pep Band that accomplished this.

David did not actually fell Goliath. David sued Goliath and the Goliath Corp. for crushing his entire grape crop with his big feet. David won and the settlement bankrupted the Goliath Corp.

Moses was not found in a basket floating on the Nile. He was left at the Safe Zone in the Cairo Kroger. The pharaoh’s daughter saw him took him home when she was shopping for dishwashing liquid.

God did not really want Abraham to sacrifice Issac. He wanted the sacrifice of a nice fat sheep because He had more recipes for cooking sheep than for cooking children.

Genesis

GENESIS

On the FIRST day, God said, “I will create a universe, and I will take as long as I damn well please. It may never get finished.”

On the SECOND day, God said, ”I will separate the earth from the sky, and I will make the sky so beautiful, everybody will want to go there.”

On the THIRD day, God said, “I will make all the creatures of the world, and a lot of them will be beetles. I like beetles.”

On the FOURTH day, God said, “I will give men penises and see what they do with them. Should be interesting.”

On the FIFTH day, God said, “I can trust women. I’ll give them wombs.”

On the sixth day, God said, “Now let all the species dance their way to fulfillment.”

On the SEVENTH day, God said, “I’m tired. Let’s all take a rest. And sure, you can buy alcohol today as long as it’s after 1 pm.”

Stud

It’s porn stars and bunnies he’ll savor
While his wife is nearly in labor.
He thinks he’s a stud.
His performance, a dud.
The payoffs are just for the flavor.

Lust

Lust is what drives our new President.
Lust for money and power is his intent.
Is he making a deal
When he’s copping a feel?
We’ll find out from the tweets that he sent.

Twump

At the start of his President’s day
Twump twitters and twitters away.
The Allies all chuckle
His sycophants suckle
His incompetence and lies on display.

Narcissist

He’s a narcissist extraordinaire,
Hefty penis and bright golden hair.
If you’re not on his side
He’ll twitter your hide
Folks with integrity, beware.

NRA

Get your guns from the rich NRA
Anyone, any kind, any day
The Congress they sought
Is the Congress they bought
For a price putting conscience away.

Trump's cabinet

In Trump’s cabinet we deserve all the best

Tables and flights in a cabinet spend fest

Taxpayers won’t know

And we certainly won’t crow

Because business will feather our nest.

Trump

There once was a President Trump

Who porn stars he wanted to hump

He grabbed and he groped

And he hoped and he hoped

But he wound up a 100K chump.

To football or not to football

NPR story: A high school football players was going door-to-door asking for support for his team. He just happened to knock on the door of the world expert on CTE, concussion brain damage. They had a long talk. In the end the student decided to continue playing football because he loved it and wanted to have fun while he was young.

This is a place most of us as men have been, and it’s increasingly true of young women. The not-fully-developed adolescent brain allows for the belief of invincibility and the inability to really think in terms of the future.

If this young man develops CTE later in life, who will care for him? What impact will this have on a future spouse and children? And what about the consequences of smoking, binge drinking, DUIs, drugs?

Young people have money, personal transportation, freedom and the consequent illusion of adulthood. What’s often missing is responsibility. There is no real cultural signifier or ritual that means adulthood. Most young people have little understanding of human development.

Is the home safe? Is the school safe? Do political leaders care about the health and safety of young people? Where’s the place to be young, be safe and have fun?

Truth guides

No one can understand all of the world and its reality.  Each brain is a filtering mechanism that through its agents, mind and senses, grabs whatever it can of the world and its reality. As these two agents are built and nurtured, the world and its reality expands. In this way, we each find a truth in the world and its reality than we can live with and live by.

In this age of instant, global and personal communication, another filtering and mediating mechanism has emerged. News media, social media and entertainment media all throw images of the world and its reality at us. They swamp us in a muddle of information, misinformation, lies, distortions, marketing ploys, and even some provisional truths. These can be malicious, manipulative, educational, uplifting; but they all force us to constantly assess and reassess our “truth guides.”

The church

The ritual church

The entertainment church

The white church

The black church

The mosque, temple or synagogue

The storefront church

The church with the doors open

The church with the doors closed

The social activism church

The evangelical church

The megachurch

The TV evangelist church

The institutional church

The people as church

The church that can inoculate you

The church that can bore you

The cathedral with homeless sleeping at its door

The church in a tent

The church you wish would