Everybody has got something. Something that eats at them. A secret past. A dirty habit. A guilty pleasure. A quiet obsession. Everyone has demons. Some of them are very noticeable; you can see the meth addict's open sores with your eyes. Still others have demons that are deep down inside somewhere no eye can see; though the poison that gnaws at their bones is just as real. Maybe it's your fault, or maybe someone else did something terrible to you. But I'm here to say that it's all OK. It's perfectly normal. Really.
Know why? Because EVERYONE has something. Not having a problem is weird.
We are surrounded by ruined people. Everyone you will ever meet has done something that they regret. You can never know until they tell you. Even your best friend may have some horrible issue that they are too embarrassed to admit. So lets start assuming everyone around us is guilty until proven otherwise. Know what happens when we do that? We can finally take a breath. It's oddly liberating to remember how imperfect and screwed up we all are. It is wonderfully reassuring.
The genius behind all of us being screwed up is that our problems seem less bad when we choose to help, love, and lift others instead of condemning them. I can say all this because I believe that we are here with other people for a reason. If God had wanted us here alone, He could have figured out a way. We have other people in our lives to help us, love us, and lift us. And guess what? Those people that are helping, loving, and lifting you have demons too. That is what makes it so great. If they didn't, we might resent their help because "they just don't know what it's like to suffer."
Remember, Jesus saved his most scathing rebukes, not for harlots, adulterers, or thieves, but for hypocrites. God loves us, faults and all. But the thing that angers Him the most is when we try to pretend that we aren't screwed up. We pretend we aren't screwed up whenever we judge others. We pretend we aren't screwed up when we withhold help. We pretend when we selfishly focus inward. We pretend when we numb ourselves with alcohol or drugs. We pretend when we waste time. We pretend when we lie. We pretend when someone asks how we are doing and we answer, "fine." If we truly stopped pretending to be perfect, we would look outside ourselves more often. And the irony is, the more we realize how imperfect we are, the more compassion we have for others.
That is why the scripture says, "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." We are supposed to have problems. It's so that we will be humble. And when we are humble, we are teachable. And when we are teachable, we can get stronger. God doesn't magically take away our problems, but he knows how to help us subdue our demons. And we've all got 'em. So when your best friend pours his or her heart out to you, if you remember that you are screwed up too, you'll know exactly how to react.
[Keep Following.]
01 August 2012
20 July 2012
Movie Snobs
I interrupt my regularly scheduled Hair Theory post to bring you this important message:
Every once in awhile I need to get serious on my blog because something just irks me. I hate the word 'irk' but I'm using it anyway because I'm so irked. The recent release of The Dark Knight Rises and people's subsequent reaction to it has caused me to start thinking. We are such movie snobs nowadays. (I also hate the word 'nowadays').
I've seen SO many people negatively review this movie just because it wasn't as good as the last one. First of all, WHAT?! What do you want people? How could Christopher Nolan have made this movie any better? What would have satisfied you? Please submit your suggestions. I'd love to hear them.
If you had wet yourself in the theater would you have been satisfied? This movie was still the best movie I've seen all year. And I refuse to pan it just because it wasn't "as good as the last one."
Which brings me to my next point. You can't compare these two movies. Yes, they were both Batman films, but that's about all they share in common. If Heath Ledger hadn't died, and Joker had made a return, and the plot had been boring, and the acting not as good, THEN I could see people saying, "This isn't as good as the last one." But again, other than having some of the same characters, they are completely different movies. Chris has managed to capture the nation's zeitgeist three times in a row. Each film in this series has a different and potent message about our society. I'm nerdy enough to admit the movie gave me chills 3 or 4 times.
So comparing the two movies is like... I feel like I'm already losing you, so I'll use an example that even the most... simple... can understand. Comparing these two movies is like comparing a Granny Smith apple with a Red Delicious. Both are apples, but they taste completely different, and when subjective preferences are cast aside, the two apples have different functions. Who can say which is better? Granny Smith are better for pies because of their tartness, and Red Delicious are preferred by most to pack in lunches. Get it? Stop comparing them, it makes you look ignorant because you've missed the deeper messages the films have been trying to deliver.
And finally, we are such snobs today. I would go so far as to say these three films are the Godfather Trilogy of our time. These films are fantastic. I can't stop thinking about TDKR. Yes, it had minor flaws like Bane's voice and a slightly over-complicated plot, but other than that it was superb. I want to see it again because I know I'll get deeper meanings out of it. Which I can't say for almost any movie I see. What do most people think when they walk out of a movie like Transformers? "Hmm, it had awesome visual effects." And then they forget it. It's throwaway entertainment. This is not the case for any of the Batman movies.
Stop being movie snobs. Even if you were to show our worst movies to people fifty years ago they would have brain aneurysms. Stop being so negative, and think for yourselves. Lighten up. After all, it is just a movie, isn't it?
[Keep Following.]
Every once in awhile I need to get serious on my blog because something just irks me. I hate the word 'irk' but I'm using it anyway because I'm so irked. The recent release of The Dark Knight Rises and people's subsequent reaction to it has caused me to start thinking. We are such movie snobs nowadays. (I also hate the word 'nowadays').
I've seen SO many people negatively review this movie just because it wasn't as good as the last one. First of all, WHAT?! What do you want people? How could Christopher Nolan have made this movie any better? What would have satisfied you? Please submit your suggestions. I'd love to hear them.
If you had wet yourself in the theater would you have been satisfied? This movie was still the best movie I've seen all year. And I refuse to pan it just because it wasn't "as good as the last one."
Which brings me to my next point. You can't compare these two movies. Yes, they were both Batman films, but that's about all they share in common. If Heath Ledger hadn't died, and Joker had made a return, and the plot had been boring, and the acting not as good, THEN I could see people saying, "This isn't as good as the last one." But again, other than having some of the same characters, they are completely different movies. Chris has managed to capture the nation's zeitgeist three times in a row. Each film in this series has a different and potent message about our society. I'm nerdy enough to admit the movie gave me chills 3 or 4 times.
So comparing the two movies is like... I feel like I'm already losing you, so I'll use an example that even the most... simple... can understand. Comparing these two movies is like comparing a Granny Smith apple with a Red Delicious. Both are apples, but they taste completely different, and when subjective preferences are cast aside, the two apples have different functions. Who can say which is better? Granny Smith are better for pies because of their tartness, and Red Delicious are preferred by most to pack in lunches. Get it? Stop comparing them, it makes you look ignorant because you've missed the deeper messages the films have been trying to deliver.
And finally, we are such snobs today. I would go so far as to say these three films are the Godfather Trilogy of our time. These films are fantastic. I can't stop thinking about TDKR. Yes, it had minor flaws like Bane's voice and a slightly over-complicated plot, but other than that it was superb. I want to see it again because I know I'll get deeper meanings out of it. Which I can't say for almost any movie I see. What do most people think when they walk out of a movie like Transformers? "Hmm, it had awesome visual effects." And then they forget it. It's throwaway entertainment. This is not the case for any of the Batman movies.
Stop being movie snobs. Even if you were to show our worst movies to people fifty years ago they would have brain aneurysms. Stop being so negative, and think for yourselves. Lighten up. After all, it is just a movie, isn't it?
[Keep Following.]
03 June 2012
Hair Theory
Get ready to take a fantastic journey into the center of my mind. Ready?
I notice things about hair. Whether it be the length of a grandpa's wicked comb-over, or the amount of blue dye in a grandma's fro, I am unnaturally perceptive. It is my blessing, and my curse. Because of my wonderful ability to read hair, I have noticed an interesting hair pattern among the women in Utah. I would now like to present the 9 stages of women's hair:
1. Baby Bald Eagle
This is a stage that, to be fair, is not most girls' fault. Indeed, one could say that because of the sheer lack of hair in this stage, that it is barely a stage at all. But it must be mentioned simply out of sheer ridiculousness. Indeed, it is the lack of the hair that causes the stage seven mother (see #7) to overreact. This overreaction consists of placing a Gargantuan-flower-headband™ on the innocent victim to remind everyone of the gender of said victim. I don't know what mafia-funded company is supplying moms with these headbands, but I have a contact named Vinnie who believes that most of them are produced by a company that sulks in the seedy underbelly of society. Under the guise of homemade craft production, they fuel the mom's supply of overly enormous flower headbands. Vinnie calls the company code-name: Etsy. Furthermore, I believe that this stage causes irreparable damage to the female infant's psyche, thus perpetuating each consecutive stage.
2. My Little Pony Girl
Again, this stage may have less to do with the girls themselves, and more to do with the mothers who are beyond saving imposing their demented wills upon their female children. Little girls from ages 2-4 have been known to prance. They revel in their new-found "hair-i-ness" and for them the only logical reaction is to prance. For some reason, prancing is usually accompanied by hushed, mindless singing to themselves. At this stage, most girls have no concept of "dirt-i-ness" and can usually be found playing with the boys in the dirt. The only difference being that the girls somehow manage to include glitter with their dirt. How they do this is still a mystery. Consequently, out of a utilitarian attitude and lack of time, emerges the mom's quick and neat solution: the pony tail. Unfortunately, this hair style lends itself to prancing mindlessly about so well, that the moms have unwittingly furthered the cycle, pushing their scarred little girls toward madness.
3. "The Butch"
The breaking point comes usually before the girl's sixth birthday. As the availability of scissors increases above the girls' cognitive abilities, so rises the chance of having an "incident." It is a ruthless positive correlation. It looks something like this:
The incident is different for every girl, but after observing the patterns, several commonalities emerge. The first is the girls' desire to cut their hair. This desire emerges from one of two places: either out of a desire to be free from under the bondage of gum-and-glitter-caked hair, or from an apparent desire to become Boy George's hairstylist. Another commonality of this stage is the shared lack of guilt that the girls have for chopping a large chunk of hair from the front of their heads. The only explanation that I can think of is that the girls have not yet developed the "I look hideous" reflex. The effects of this reflex can most easily be observed whenever a girl gets her hair cut later in life. I don't think I've ever met a girl who has been content after visiting the salon. I believe this happens because girls have lingering scars from their butch moment. Deep down, they still feel as if they could cut their hair better than anyone else, and when someone else cuts it, they flashback to their personal "butch" moment and begin berate the stylist. (It has become a personal hobby of mine to ask the stylists who cut my hair about women's post-shear freak-outs.) Sometimes, again this stage is not directly the girls' fault. Sometimes they force their mothers hand into cutting their hair into a freakish mess by sticking copious amounts of Dubble Bubble in an all too conspicuous spot. Sometimes the mom has no other choice but to use the nuclear option, the all-dreaded Perm. I would now like to invite any girl readers to submit pictures of their personal butch moment to me so that I may further my research. And laugh my butt off. Probably not in that order.
[Keep Following. Part two is coming soon to an internet near you.]
I notice things about hair. Whether it be the length of a grandpa's wicked comb-over, or the amount of blue dye in a grandma's fro, I am unnaturally perceptive. It is my blessing, and my curse. Because of my wonderful ability to read hair, I have noticed an interesting hair pattern among the women in Utah. I would now like to present the 9 stages of women's hair:
1. Baby Bald Eagle
This is a stage that, to be fair, is not most girls' fault. Indeed, one could say that because of the sheer lack of hair in this stage, that it is barely a stage at all. But it must be mentioned simply out of sheer ridiculousness. Indeed, it is the lack of the hair that causes the stage seven mother (see #7) to overreact. This overreaction consists of placing a Gargantuan-flower-headband™ on the innocent victim to remind everyone of the gender of said victim. I don't know what mafia-funded company is supplying moms with these headbands, but I have a contact named Vinnie who believes that most of them are produced by a company that sulks in the seedy underbelly of society. Under the guise of homemade craft production, they fuel the mom's supply of overly enormous flower headbands. Vinnie calls the company code-name: Etsy. Furthermore, I believe that this stage causes irreparable damage to the female infant's psyche, thus perpetuating each consecutive stage.
 |
| "Seriously?" "Yes! She looks so cute!" "No, she looks scarred for life." |
2. My Little Pony Girl
Again, this stage may have less to do with the girls themselves, and more to do with the mothers who are beyond saving imposing their demented wills upon their female children. Little girls from ages 2-4 have been known to prance. They revel in their new-found "hair-i-ness" and for them the only logical reaction is to prance. For some reason, prancing is usually accompanied by hushed, mindless singing to themselves. At this stage, most girls have no concept of "dirt-i-ness" and can usually be found playing with the boys in the dirt. The only difference being that the girls somehow manage to include glitter with their dirt. How they do this is still a mystery. Consequently, out of a utilitarian attitude and lack of time, emerges the mom's quick and neat solution: the pony tail. Unfortunately, this hair style lends itself to prancing mindlessly about so well, that the moms have unwittingly furthered the cycle, pushing their scarred little girls toward madness.
 |
| Yes, it's quiet time. |
3. "The Butch"
The breaking point comes usually before the girl's sixth birthday. As the availability of scissors increases above the girls' cognitive abilities, so rises the chance of having an "incident." It is a ruthless positive correlation. It looks something like this:
 |
| Copyright DJ Scheerer. All rights reserved. |
The incident is different for every girl, but after observing the patterns, several commonalities emerge. The first is the girls' desire to cut their hair. This desire emerges from one of two places: either out of a desire to be free from under the bondage of gum-and-glitter-caked hair, or from an apparent desire to become Boy George's hairstylist. Another commonality of this stage is the shared lack of guilt that the girls have for chopping a large chunk of hair from the front of their heads. The only explanation that I can think of is that the girls have not yet developed the "I look hideous" reflex. The effects of this reflex can most easily be observed whenever a girl gets her hair cut later in life. I don't think I've ever met a girl who has been content after visiting the salon. I believe this happens because girls have lingering scars from their butch moment. Deep down, they still feel as if they could cut their hair better than anyone else, and when someone else cuts it, they flashback to their personal "butch" moment and begin berate the stylist. (It has become a personal hobby of mine to ask the stylists who cut my hair about women's post-shear freak-outs.) Sometimes, again this stage is not directly the girls' fault. Sometimes they force their mothers hand into cutting their hair into a freakish mess by sticking copious amounts of Dubble Bubble in an all too conspicuous spot. Sometimes the mom has no other choice but to use the nuclear option, the all-dreaded Perm. I would now like to invite any girl readers to submit pictures of their personal butch moment to me so that I may further my research. And laugh my butt off. Probably not in that order.
[Keep Following. Part two is coming soon to an internet near you.]
28 May 2012
Locked in Looming Shadows
I wrote this poem during Fall semester while having a hard day and while considering going away from the PhD and towards creative writing. I've decided it's pretty good and worth publishing--even if only my English major friends appreciate it.
Your ghosts--
They lie with me
in grey matter,
conspirators
of the worst kind.
They squelch my voice
with halting choke,
beat my brains out:
Literary
Dictators divine!
I see you would
frame me between
lines and pages,
Magnanimous--
up to a point.
"Here, no further
mayest thou go."
Never to be
anthologized
or widely read.
"Pay us homage
and perhaps then
we will write your
stone epitaph--
unworthy for water."
I can hear your
silent judgments--
nay, screaming fiery
admonitions--
wishing me unwell.
Leave me alone
Milton. Keats, please
withdraw your hand.
Shakespeare! Redact
thy airy nothings!
I would burn your
works, forsake them
to fire, and insert
stark emptiness
in their absence
To be able
to turn a phrase
without thy mean
influences--
maligning presences all.
Generations
wallow in your
slick afterbirth.
We are raised up,
but doomed to fail.
[Keep Following. I'm perfecting a theory on women's hair.]
Your ghosts--
They lie with me
in grey matter,
conspirators
of the worst kind.
They squelch my voice
with halting choke,
beat my brains out:
Literary
Dictators divine!
I see you would
frame me between
lines and pages,
Magnanimous--
up to a point.
"Here, no further
mayest thou go."
Never to be
anthologized
or widely read.
"Pay us homage
and perhaps then
we will write your
stone epitaph--
unworthy for water."
I can hear your
silent judgments--
nay, screaming fiery
admonitions--
wishing me unwell.
Leave me alone
Milton. Keats, please
withdraw your hand.
Shakespeare! Redact
thy airy nothings!
I would burn your
works, forsake them
to fire, and insert
stark emptiness
in their absence
To be able
to turn a phrase
without thy mean
influences--
maligning presences all.
Generations
wallow in your
slick afterbirth.
We are raised up,
but doomed to fail.
[Keep Following. I'm perfecting a theory on women's hair.]
15 March 2012
Why I Hate Basketball.
First of all the NBA.
Why would I want to watch a bunch of freaks of naturerun jog around a basketball court for two hours when the winner of the game is decided in the last five minutes of play anyway? This is more true in the NBA because the teams are so good that the "winner" is the team who happened to score last when the clock ran out. "WAIT," you say, "that is true of most sports!" With that I would have to agree.
But the difference is that it is much harder in every other sport to make points. In other sports, you win because you did some really hard thing to score. Not so in basketball. I trust no sport that has scores in the hundreds when the time runs out. If you knew nothing about basketball and all you knew was that the final score was 103 to 101 at the end, you would assume that 1. it must not be very hard to score points and 2. both teams are evenly matched. These two facts... *yawn* sorry, I almost just fell asleep on my keyboard.
The games should be five minutes long. It would make my life less tedious and watching a game wouldn't be a total waste of my time. Also, in other sports, especially football, you can be proud of your team's effort despite the outcome. In basketball I would be more mad at the clock and the nature of the game's flawed structure rather than my team if they lost. I would hate to play basketball, knowing that despite my best efforts, and despite staying within several points of the other teams score throughout the game, that oftentimes the result of the game would depend entirely on which team's center raised his arms above his head last. And he makes how much money?! How is the center's effort worth two points when a little guy shoots the ball from almost 25 feet away and gets only one more point for doing so? Points should be worth less if you are as tall as the hoop.
This brings me to College Basketball.
There isn't much to say except that the games are shorter. This is a great first step. The major reason I hate the NCAA is because of March madness. This single-elimination "tournament" embodies all the problems of the time limit flaw. Teams can be upset so easily and lose by only one point, such that any victory can't really be called anything of the sort. The winner of this tournament shouldn't get a trophy. They should all get four-leaf clovers for being so lucky so many times in a row.
This brings me to brackets. Bracket is the worst word in the English language. I hate all bros and their brackets. Because the tournament is completely based on luck, there is no point making predictions about who is going to win. I consistently hear the following statement after the tournament is over: "this chick in the office who knows nothing about basketball had the best bracket, bro!" That's because you have biases. And because you did a stupid thing.
All exaggerated cliches aside, you literally have a better chance of winning the lottery than filling out a perfect bracket. Like, a WAY better chance. The odds are ridiculous. "The point isn't to get it perfect, brah. The point is to get 'most of them right.'" Yeah, you know who else said something similar to that? The local trash fisher at the sewage treatment plant when talking about his short stint in grade school. If there is 0% chance of even getting most of the picks right, why try? Because of the nature of the system, picking winners is pointless. It would be like me trying to fish a lake with a gun from a mile away. And not only fishing, but predicting which fish I'm going to kill out of the 68 fish in the general vicinity.
30 MILLION people fill out a bracket each year. Stop it. I don't want to hear how your bracket is doing. I don't want to hear it because I already know. It sucks. You weren't even close.
[Keep Following.]
Why would I want to watch a bunch of freaks of nature
But the difference is that it is much harder in every other sport to make points. In other sports, you win because you did some really hard thing to score. Not so in basketball. I trust no sport that has scores in the hundreds when the time runs out. If you knew nothing about basketball and all you knew was that the final score was 103 to 101 at the end, you would assume that 1. it must not be very hard to score points and 2. both teams are evenly matched. These two facts... *yawn* sorry, I almost just fell asleep on my keyboard.
The games should be five minutes long. It would make my life less tedious and watching a game wouldn't be a total waste of my time. Also, in other sports, especially football, you can be proud of your team's effort despite the outcome. In basketball I would be more mad at the clock and the nature of the game's flawed structure rather than my team if they lost. I would hate to play basketball, knowing that despite my best efforts, and despite staying within several points of the other teams score throughout the game, that oftentimes the result of the game would depend entirely on which team's center raised his arms above his head last. And he makes how much money?! How is the center's effort worth two points when a little guy shoots the ball from almost 25 feet away and gets only one more point for doing so? Points should be worth less if you are as tall as the hoop.
I wonder what sport he plays?
Little known fact:
Those would be full length jeans on any other person.
This brings me to College Basketball.
There isn't much to say except that the games are shorter. This is a great first step. The major reason I hate the NCAA is because of March madness. This single-elimination "tournament" embodies all the problems of the time limit flaw. Teams can be upset so easily and lose by only one point, such that any victory can't really be called anything of the sort. The winner of this tournament shouldn't get a trophy. They should all get four-leaf clovers for being so lucky so many times in a row.
This brings me to brackets. Bracket is the worst word in the English language. I hate all bros and their brackets. Because the tournament is completely based on luck, there is no point making predictions about who is going to win. I consistently hear the following statement after the tournament is over: "this chick in the office who knows nothing about basketball had the best bracket, bro!" That's because you have biases. And because you did a stupid thing.
All exaggerated cliches aside, you literally have a better chance of winning the lottery than filling out a perfect bracket. Like, a WAY better chance. The odds are ridiculous. "The point isn't to get it perfect, brah. The point is to get 'most of them right.'" Yeah, you know who else said something similar to that? The local trash fisher at the sewage treatment plant when talking about his short stint in grade school. If there is 0% chance of even getting most of the picks right, why try? Because of the nature of the system, picking winners is pointless. It would be like me trying to fish a lake with a gun from a mile away. And not only fishing, but predicting which fish I'm going to kill out of the 68 fish in the general vicinity.
30 MILLION people fill out a bracket each year. Stop it. I don't want to hear how your bracket is doing. I don't want to hear it because I already know. It sucks. You weren't even close.
[Keep Following.]
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