sprawled out

nice to hear your voice again, RD--and to hear why you didn't stick around CES. attaboy. ;)

al, i'm pretty sure this is him: http://www.brucenaylor.com/index.php tell him i said hello.

i'll tell him you said so, d! (he's still playing and singing, by the way, in a good old rock and roll band, with me!)

no, really--i swear!

ok, for those of you who are truly interested, here's what's going on: they're disbanding stfi. dismantling the entire operation, taking down the websites, wiping every hard drive, burning every syllabus, book and any other materials, and advising everyone on their mailing list to do the same. they're gonna take out a full-page ad in the NY Times that says "WE'RE SORRY. WE WERE WRONG." and then everyone's gonna get a job and stop being silly. oh, yeah, and they're returning all the money, too. once all that's done, monkeys will fly out of my butt. any questions?

Happy Belleday!

i forgot all about him! it's cool that his whole family plays. thanks.

there actually IS a tape somewhere of outtakes. one in particular i remember was us dissolving into hysterical laughter, trying to nail the vocals for one of those four-part harmony songs, i forget which. but it was like 3 in the morning, and we were all exhausted (surprise!). amazingly, we pulled ourselves together and did it. glad you liked it, though. listening now, i wish it had more balls. it's sad to me how it has NO rough edges--and we thought we were pushing the envelope.

certainly not you, paw.

wow, you've got quite a memory, white dove! dog lover, PM me.

who remembers that old song by the buckinghams, "Kind of a Jerk?"

30 years later, it's still embarrassing how stupid and gullible i was. (on the other hand, it's amazing my bullsh!t alarm still worked at all, after being unplugged for so many years.)

i like the fact that it looks like it was done maybe 30 years ago. cutting edge design, it ain't.

dot-- i was married for almost 25 years, to a lovely person, but i was almost NEVER satisfied with the relationship. eventually, i realized that i didn't HAVE TO be miserable the rest of my life; i still had a chance to be happy. splitting up was the hardest and most heartbreaking thing imaginable, but i am now in a wonderful relationship with a woman who cherishes me and who i cherish right back. (interesting thing about her--we first met in 7th grade, then lost touch. met again freshman year of college, then she dropped out. and we hadn't had any contact for 26 years when i looked her up--and she had recently ended a 20-year relationship. timing!)

what I want to know is, did vp always look so much like art linkletter?

...like i said. but i wonder how much of it has to do with the limitations of the medium? perceptions are a funny thing--for example, i can't understand how anotherDan could think my dancing calvin looks like he's fighting. we bring a hefty set of filters to this place. (and every place!) maybe people aren't really being as nasty as i think. nah--they are. have a good weekend, all!

anyone else noticed how contentious it's become on GSC? i haven't been around that long, and i'm not as involved as some, but it seems to me that there's been a marked increase in sniping, angry back-and-forths, even personal attacks. in the short time i've been around, the tone seems to have really changed. it kinda sucks.

chapter and verse, please.

there i was, in-residence corps coordinator at hq during my last year in residence. it was late in the block, and i was really starting to feel like part of the place. one sunday morning, lcm taught something he was working on to the in-residence corps (at the 10:30 fellowship, or an after-meeting, or something), saying he was intending to teach it at the sns that evening. afterwards, i went back to my room, and starting looking at some of the verses (i remember what they were, but that's not important here). after a bit, i realized what he'd taught was wrong. so i talked to a corps brother about it. he said "you should go to the corps coordinator." so i did. HE said, "you should go to craig." i was a bit freaked, but i picked up the phone--which was not in my room, but in a common area--and called. i very nervously explained to him what i'd found, AND HE LOST HIS FREAKING MIND. i thought the phone would melt in my hand. woozy and nauseous, i foolishly tried to say things in my defense, which only made things worse. MUCH worse. eventually, he hung up, after cursing me out, telling me i had no right, reminding me over and over who he was, and telling me to pack my bags. i don't remember what happened between then and the sns. all i remember is that i was boiling mad and ready to leave. but we went to the service, sat in about the 5th row, just to one side of the lectern. when craiggy came out, he looked right at me and could see that i wasn't a happy camper. after his introduction, he went backstage, and a few minutes later, his lackey came out and handed me a folded 3x5 card that said "let's have a great night! love ya, craig," which i crushed and crammed into my pocket. the kicker came when he came out to teach--AND DID AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT TEACHING THAN THE ONE FROM THE MORNING. then i was really p!ssed. i remember walking into the corps after-meeting, pulling the note out of my pocket and throwing it at the corps coordinator, saying "what the f-ck is this?" afterwards, he and his wife took me back to their trailer, gave me ice cream, and calmed me down. don't ask me how. that would pretty much be the end of the story, except that when we received our assignments at the end of the year, old craig managed to be standing right next to me when i opened the envelope. i was expecting (and had been led to believe i'd get) new york. i got washington state. and craig gleefully said, "do you know where that is? ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE COUNTRY!!" to me, it seemed he'd bided his time all that time, to personally stick it to me months later. the pr!ck. of course, we went to washington, like good little corps. (ANOTHER time i should've left, but didn't!) i'll save those great northwest face-meltings for another time!

how can God be anal retentive? ("God has no anus but OUR anus...") and who exactly has 3 peters?

everybody's got one, oak--a point of view, that is. i think you're right, there were no corps grads among us. at least 2 were interim corps, though, and i think almost everyone else was apprentice. our area leader was a 6th corps grad, and he was hard-core about moving the word--but he was never a pr!ck about it. in fact, he was a GREAT guy. the best. we were all serious about what we were doing, but the folks i was close to were all terrific. (thinking back, one was kind of an a-hole. but i wouldn't blame that on twi. i think he was a self-made a-hole!) of course there were red flags--we were pushing PFAL! i was just making the point that some of us were still having fun in '79. (then again, i even had fun during corps training--in between periodic face-meltings! maybe i'm just a fun guy.) and dooj--you know it! :P

just for the record, i was a branch leader on long island in 1979 (also my apprentice year in the corps). there were loads of people around then, and we worked hard and were incredibly busy--BUT we also had a LOT of fun. I remember branch leader weekends (monthly?) where it seems like we laughed for hours. we also did lots of silly, goofy things like go christmas carolling in a mall, acting like we were in a hollywood musical, spinning on lamp posts and stuff. it was some of the most fun i ever had without a guitar around my neck. if i had to characterize that year, i'd say there was a complete absence of bullsh!t. except maybe for storing up all those buckets full of dry food. (was that '79 or '78?) just for the record.

if things hadn't gone south, i suppose i might still be in. but for me personally, the thought of that makes me cringe. i'm so glad i'm out and back to myself. looking back, i hate who and what i became. even though there was something nice, comforting about thinking you had all the answers, i'm much happier being my own me. and i'm perfectly fine with not "knowing." in the end, that's the only thing i really needed to "change my mind" about.

i like this idea. years ago, i wrote an essay (just for myself, to put into words what i thought i believed at the time) that talked about how everyone's perspective or interpretation was necessary because God is too big for any one of us to know every facet. of course, it kinda renders organized religion useless. which is ok by me. waysider, i understand what your saying. but it doesn't really address my question. i was talking about how God seems to choose to speak to us in words, i.e., in the bible and what people call prophecy. as for your second post, about musical notation, i think you've got i backwards. musical notation is fairly precise in terms of the fundamentals like melody, harmony and rhythm. if someone who knows how to notate transcribed "Mary Had A Little Lamb," anyone who reads music could read and accurately play it. (yes, yes, there is interpretation involved, but not when it comes to the essentials of a piece) for musical notation to be analogous to what i was saying about the bible, it would say "play something that sounds like a bird," rather than a highly specific system of notes on a staff.

maybe you should change change your name here to "Jonny Weasel." (while i'm at it, jonny-boy, there's nothing Steven Wright-like about your little sign-off. Wright's one-liners work because of some wordplay or ironic twist. yours has neither.)