sprawled out

well, dmiller, you're right about that--i don't understand what you're talking about. i had no idea this was about ideologies, perspectives, discussions or rebuttals. i just thought it was about courtesy. i guess i can chalk part of all this up to the old email syndrome--no body language, inflection, etc. but for the most part, i just feel we're on two completely different wavelengths. and i don't see any further back-and-forth changing anything--certainly not within the limitations of this medium. i've already explained as much as i know how to. and what you just posted only communicates to me that we're just talking ourselves farther and farther apart. as for your closing comment, i don't apologize under pressure anymore. especially when i think i'm the one OWED the apology. if i wanted to submit to that baloney, i wouldn't have left twi. the sad truth is, sometimes when i'm hanging around here, i feel as though i haven't.

dmiller--i guess we have different definitions of "nice." i thought i was being perfectly nice, especially considering how rude and inconsiderate i felt your "who cares?" response was. obviously, I cared, or i wouldn't have asked. me, personally, i wouldn't consider that particularly nice (i.e., amiably pleasant, kind, agreeable). i even thought i was being nice in my initial response to tom strange's "bite me." i thought that was far from nice, and completely uncalled for, and tried to make light of it. i guess we disagree on what's nice and what's not. fine with me--too much "likemindedness" makes me uncomfortable. so thanks. it's been "nice" disagreeing with you!

out there--good memory! wow, i'd completely forgotton that. i think we were nameless in our first appearance, so JAL called us the Blue Suits. once we got our name, we referred to ourselves as Crawled Out, Sprawled Out and, in recognition of those reproof-laden days in-residence, Bawled Out. and i'll take that dollar!

you're welcome! this all makes me wonder how many of those tapes twi sold--and how we didn't get a plugged nickel for them! argh.

gee, now i understand, tom. i didn't realize you were nobly defending a couple of nice guys. i thought you were just being an a**hole. thanks for clearing that up.

shortfuse, where are you hearing "today's way leaders?" (quote, unquote)

thanks, john, glad you liked it. i thought we were somewhat unique, particularly for an in-residence band--though listening back, i hear where we watered it down and compromised. but we had a lot of fun, even though we had to get up at 4 am to rehearse! i played guitar, and that guy is sandy sanders.

dmiller--you're welcome. :D tom strange--what's your problem? you really feel you needed to attack me for stating my opinion? why don't we just meet by the flagpole after school and settle it? wanna fight? huh? HUH?

jealous? of the ninth corpse? the ninth? jealous? :blink:

mstar--your response indicates you understood the question well enough, you just had an issue with the word "flourishing." if we're gonna be straining at gnats here, let's at least be accurate: i wrote "apparently flourishing." so there really should be no issue, unless you want one. it can be so like the way around here, it sucks.

johniam-- yup!

dmiller and mstar1, i've got a crazy idea. how about we try just responding to the question, huh? yeah, i know. it's crazy.

i don't know about the when, but the why is because the leaders got more and more involved. the more they injected their "spiritual perspective" into what the musicians did, the worse it got. it's sprawled out's law. case in point, when i was in residence, i played in a pretty hot band. we had four good singers, and two strong lead vocalists. it didn't take long for one of the corps coordinators to pull me aside and suggest splitting the two strong singers up into two different groups--even though it was the combination that made the band as good as it was. THAT'S the kind of thing that happened all the time, and brought everything down to that vanilla level. it was like there was a fear of excellence. in music, anyway. (for the record, when i was asked what i thought of the coordinators' suggestion, i said i thought it sucked. amazingly, they backed off and never mentioned it again. of course, no one paid heed to our suggestion of sending us all out to the same area after graduation--THAT would've been too smart!)

thinking about all the many, many splinter groups that are apparently flourishing all over the joint, i wondered if there's any way to know how many people are involved in them. we talk about how twi's numbers have dwindled, but is there any way of knowing how many people are being impacted by various versions of twi doctrine through the offshoots?

to be fair, you could be in the corps and not go LEAD. i hurt my back my first year in residence, and was subsequently excused my second year. ya-freakin'-hoo!

hey, what the hey, if you want to devote yourself to christian fellowship in homes every day, in spite of the fact that you have a family, job, a life, etc., let me tell about this group that would be happy to load you up. they started in rural ohio, back in 1942...

geer's outfit collapsed, but people are still going to geer fellowships? :blink: please explain, twinky. (i could never take geer seriously. he always reminded me of chuck mccann (who remembers chuck mccann?), so how could i?)

and you wonder why more 11th corps don't come around here! :D

way to go, sunesis! i wish i'd done more of that. there's such a streak of meanness at the core of all that. and i saw that in a lot of top "leaders" (though not all of them, to be fair). harda**, hardcore, nastiness. and basically no evidence of anything that anyone would perceive as love--except according to their twisted re-definition of it.

i wondered that, too. was it walter mondale?

out there--you mean PM, don't you? BM is a whole 'nother thing!

pinklady: ATTAGIRL!! i'm sure it hasn't been easy, but doing the right thing seldom is. (pat powell, huh? how come i'm not surprised??)

seth-- even I don't believe that! has anyone around here ever accused vp of murder? anyone? anyone?

ex10, you bring up an interesting point: "churches are where christian-type people meet." it really hadn't occured to me, but that's one of the main reasons i DON'T go to church. christian-type people aren't my kind of people. i've got no problem with "love god and love your neighbor," but that ain't all christians are about. and what they ARE about gives me the willies. to be fair, it's not just christians. i make it a habit of avoiding just about any group that professes "special knowledge that makes them special." i'm more interested in understanding what makes us all the same, what makes us all interdependent, than in what separates us. we don't need any help being separate, being at odds with one another. if churches (synagogues, mosques, etc) could do their thing without breeding elitism, maybe i'd feel differently about them. but they can't--these institutions exist because they think "we're right," and therefore everyone else is wrong. spoken or unspoken, that's what they're about. it has to be--otherwise, they'd all still be whatever came before them. we wouldn't have thousands of different flavors of christianity, for example, if people didn't keep splitting off because of some disagreement or other. and people wouldn't be disagreeing if they didn't think they were right and everyone else was wrong. right? :P

you know, sunesis, it's a funny thing. being a new yorker, i remember expecting that he and i would get along--but in every dealing i had with him (and there were only a few) he was just a hard-nosed d!ck. he was never any fun--or funny--at all. in fact, he got on my case for being a "wisea**." my impression was that he was trying real hard to escape his "old man nature," which is why it makes so much sense to me that he'd spin a legalism trip. seems to me, it's only the people who have been there (in the world, having fun, whatever you want to call it) who are so afraid they might go back that they get legalistic. (of course, that's not the law, it's just an observation! some of us didn't go that route at all.)