Wednesday, December 31, 2008

 

Skynyrd sighting

Complete with Rebel battle flag. Live. Pikeville, Ky. On CNN. 10:52 p.m. Central, Dec. 31, 2008. Senator and future Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Bubba, present on stage.

That is all.

--ER

 

'Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances'

Now *that's* a resolution.

Today's devotion by the Rev. Dr. Jo Hudson, pastor of that big ol' happy and gay church in Dallas, the Cathedral of Hope, still-new congregation of my brothers and sisters in the United Church of Christ.

Happy New Year's Eve, y'all.

--ER

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

 

Presents accounted for

OK. Enough of the mushy stuff. Let's talk loot!

What'dja get for Christmas? Let's make it meme-ish: What were the first few things you played with or used, in what order, not counting food or candy??

Myself:

1. New nonpants pants and comfy shirt, from Dr. ER. (Jammies-type wear, used Christmas Eve as we unwrapped gifts at home).

2. Old Spice from Bird. (Used Christmas morning and every morning ...)

3. Flip video recorder from Dr. ER. (Used the day after Christmas at Big Big Sister and Mr. Big Big Sister's house in Terrell, Texas.

4. Olive spoon, from Bird. (Last night, to fish olives for a coupla martinis).

5. Oklahoma State University necktie. (Wearing it right now: GO POKES! Whup up on some Ducks tonight in the Holiday Bowl!)

Other loot of note: an 1887 copy of Will Carleton's 1875 book of poetry "Farm Legends," from Dr. ER; "The Audacity of Hope," by President-elect Barack Obama, from Mama Dr. ER; an OSU-themed hammer, with a handle grip made with football leather and laces, orange and with OSU emblazoned on the head(!), from Dr. ER; a couple of shirts and another necktie (I LOVE to get ties, srsly!), from Dr. ER; and some anchovy-stuffed olives, from Bird.

Now y'all!

--ER

Monday, December 29, 2008

 

The bile tells me so

Lord help these people!

Would YOU want to be known as a "top Christian" in light of what Someone said about the first and the last?

The bile that prompted this post.

--ER

Sunday, December 28, 2008

 

The Westport Fight in the Neutral Strip

Here's a right fine historical read, from late-19th-century west Louisiana, courtesy of Doc Bill.

--ER

 

John Henry Faulk's 'Christmas Story' 'n stuff

The great Texan John Henry Faulk's "Christmas Story," via NPR.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION today at my wide-open, open-and-affirming, crazy lefty grace-dripping church:

"Lord of Life, we are fellow journeyers on this path of life. Sometimes the way is clear and unmistakable. Other times it is cloaked in uncertainty and doubt and we search for someone to light our way. ... (some more purdy but wordy words) ... give us the strength to turn and fix our eyes on the present and our hearts on the future ... (a few more a mite airish words) ... with your guidance and with your light, knowing that it can show us the path that leads to restoration, redemption and reconciliation."

Amen. And, well, not everbody is John Henry Faulk. :-)

P.S. A good friend of mine once told me the ER Roadhouse, with all it's Christians of every kinda stripe, deists, doubters, plain-Jane atheists and cantankerous sorts, sometimes reminded him of the way the church in Corinth comes across.

I'll take that.

And I'll offer this, today's off-the-lectionary Scripture Reading:

1 Corinthians 1: 4-8.

Amen and amen -- and oh, my!

--ER

Saturday, December 27, 2008

 

For Feodor

Church of Christ, Valley View, Texas.

Is this the one where your grandmother taught Sunday school?? I shot it on the way by on I-35 this afternoon thinkin' you might find it of interest.

--ER

 

Oklahomeward bound

With a jog over to Muenster, Texas.

One word: strudel.

--ER

Friday, December 26, 2008

 

G.T.T.

Y'all try not to burn down the house, hear? :-)

--ER

Thursday, December 25, 2008

 

'You say yes, I suppose, the only way faith can ever say it if it is honest with itself ... You say yes with your fingers crossed'

"It was thousands of years ago and thousands of miles away, but it is a visit that for all our madness and cynicism and indifference and despair we have never quite forgotten. The oxen in their stalls. The smell of hay. The shepherds standing around. That child and that place are somehow the closest of all close encounters, the one we are closest to, the one that brings us closest to something that cannot be told in any other way. This story that faith tells in the fairytale language of faith is not just that God is, which God knows is a lot to swallow in itself much of the time, but that God comes. Comes here. "In great humility." There is nothing much humbler than being born: naked, totally helpless, not much bigger than a loaf of bread. But with righteousness and faithfulness the girdle of his loins. And to us came. For us came. Is it true - not just the way fairytales are true but as the truest of all truths? Almighty God, are you true?

"When you are standing up to your neck in darkness, how do you say yes to that question? You say yes, I suppose, the only way faith can ever say it if it is honest with itself. You say yes with your fingers crossed. You say it with your heart in your mouth. Maybe that way we can say yes. He visited us. The world has never been quite the same since. It is still a very dark world, in some ways darker than ever before, but the darkness is different because he keeps getting born into it. The threat of holocaust. The threat of poisoning the earth and sea and air. The threat of our own deaths. The broken marriage. The child in pain. The lost chance. Anyone who has ever known him has known him perhaps better in the dark than anywhere else because it is in the dark where he seems to visit most often."

-- Frederick Buechner, from Dec 2, Listening to Your Life.

Merry Christmas, y'all!

--ER

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

 

Merry Christmas from the ER fam-i-leeee!

"He was a Mex-i-can ..."

Shoot, Mexican, Yankee, I'da loved any ol' hairy-legged boy Bird woulda drug in. :-)

--ER

 

I commend this madness: Thy kingdom come! Let us, all of us, learn from our ancient and discredited dreams! Merry Christmas Eve!

Sermon from the Third Sunday of Advent 2007, by the Rev. Dayle Casey, The Chapel of Our Saviour, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Bless y'all and all!


--WE

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

 

Bird (nee Baby Bird), YankeeBeau, Apollo and Fenway are in the house!

Ice-T and Eames, the kitties, are not amused!

--ER

 

Merry Christmas Eve Eve, y'all!


--ER

Monday, December 22, 2008

 

My, oh, my, what a wonderful day

Plenty of sunshine headin' my way,
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay!

Mister Bluebird's on my shoulder,
It's the truth, it's actch'll
Everything is satisfactch'll. ...

Hmm-hm-hmm-hmm-hmm, hmm-hm-hmm-hm ...

--ER

Sunday, December 21, 2008

 

'God who refuses to leave us alone'

PRAYER OF CONFESSION today at church:

"Lord of Life, this is the time when the church says to the world, 'Come see what God has done. Come listen to a message that could not have been delivered any other way. Come sing about the possibility of a world at peace where everyone matters. Come pray on behalf of a God who refuses to leave us alone. Come rejoice at the upside down power of an infant with the world on his shoulders.' In the name of one born to us in the imagination of our hearts, and reborn in us each time we love and forgive. Amen."

--ER

Saturday, December 20, 2008

 

Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia

Wow! I found out about the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia after I picked up what turns out to be a fake repro of a drink glass from the (sur)real 1920s-1950s restaurant chain called Coon-Chicken Inn.

Don't anyone tell me that the way to foster understanding, and peace, in the world is by destroying or hiding offensive images! I'd never heard of the museum until I learned of the restaurant, after I bought a fake racist drinking glass.

--ER

 

Bad dope and a big dog up in Slab Holler

Y'all ever get to thinkin' I don't come by my redneckery honest, here's a story about the law findin' a meth lab guarded by a big dog up in Slab Holler, which is couple of miles due north of where I grew up.

Count me among the few souls on this planet who can truthfully say, "I used to date a gal from Slab Holler."

--ER

Thursday, December 18, 2008

 

So much for the man room

It's now a sick room for Riker. His hind end quit him, at least temporarily, and not for the first time or the last.

When I went to feed the critters this morning, he had his front end in his house and his back end out. He couldn't back out and the house is too small for him to turn around. I had to move the house off of him.

Poor critter. He's in no pain, but he was embarrassed. Later, Dr. ER got him to come to her. We took him to the doc's and he got some meds. He is now hanging out in the man room.

--ER

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

 

Rare ER sighting

In the wild. Below the recipe. I'm the tall one.

--ER

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

 

Today's post



--ER :-)

Monday, December 15, 2008

 

Um, any theology that isn't 'revisionist' ...

... is dead.

Focus on the Family, in today's mail-out, retreads last week's farmed-out response to Newsweek's clarion call on gay marriage.

Now, srsly. God's not dead (as the Singin' Ledbetters declared back when I was a little bitty ER). Why should theology be dead? Or even static??

One, humankind's comprehension of God changes constantly.

Two, God is still speaking.

--ER

 

Blah

That is all.

--ER

Sunday, December 14, 2008

 

No new 'messiahs'

Prayer of Confession today at church:

Lord of Life, we come together to hear the words of scripture, to sing, to pray, and to find an alternative way of being in this commercial vortex we call Christmas. Something doesn't feel right when we walk in the mall, or hear another tale of political corruption. We are looking for something to believe in, but we are so often disappointed by the latest self-appointed messiah. Perhaps we should not appoint another messiah, but pay attention to the one we already have. In the name of Jesus our Teacher and Lord we pray, Amen.

(Preacherman's forthcoming book.)

--ER

Saturday, December 13, 2008

 

Would the Sun of God send me to hell?

So, just now I was sittin' in the man room on the Route 66-themed futon, still draped with a throw festooned with the logo of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which includes the image of the Confederate battle flag, myself leanin' against one pillow with a fightin' rooster on it, one hand restin' on a Dale Earnhardt Jr. pillow, the other hand holdin' a $5 cigar and a glass of George Dickel whiskey on the rocks, and I read in Jesus Christ, Sun of God: Ancient Cosmology and Early Christian Symbolism:

"After Christianity became the official state religion of the Roman Empire, many churches were constructed atop sanctuaries formerly sacred to Mithras, including St. Peter's in Rome."

And I involuntary uttered out loud. "Well, I'll be damned."

Oopsie~!

If I'm goin' to hell -- whatever that means -- which one of them sins up there pushes me over?

DrLoboJo, I'm readin' this here book on yer recommendation. I see strains of some of the things I've seen you talk about. What do you think of the book as a whole?

-- ER

Friday, December 12, 2008

 

Dwarfs, buses, boxes -- a story meme!

TAGGED: TECH, Trixie, DrLoboJo:

Here's the story so far:


The bus was more crowded than usual. It was bitterly cold outside, and I hadn't prepared for it. I noticed that a fair number of the riders were dressed curiously. As I glanced around, I stretched my feet and kicked up against a large, heavy cardboard box laying under the seat in front of me. (Splotchy)

I couldn't believe my eyes. Surreptitiously, I tried to establish, without giving it away, if anyone else had seen what I had. For ten years I had been looking for that box. What looked like an ordinary cardboard box to most contained something most precious. Only by the small golden "P" was I able to identify what I was looking at. (Freida Bee)

How the box got here, or how I happened to be on this bus with it now--these questions were immaterial. I just had to get that box. The bus slowed to a stop, so I steadied myself. Just as I was about to make a grab for the box, however, it moved. Someone else was picking it up to take it away! I had to stop her! (Dguzman)

What? This couldn't be happening--to get this close and watch some quick-footed little dwarf just up and snatch it away from me...no! I got up and just as I did the sweaty hillbilly in front of me stood up and stepped into the aisle. Moving like a bad mime imitating a man in a box he extended his arms and stretched, looking up at the ceiling as he did so. The dwarf with the box--I couldn't be sure if it was a man or a woman, but something about her seemed feminine--slipped out the front door and off the bus. I took a deep breath and slumped back down into my seat.(Bubs)

"F---. F---, f---, f---, f---, f---!" I mumbled under my breath. I leaned my head against the cold window and watched the dwarf threading her way through the crowd. She held the box tightly to her chest as she leaned into the wind and rushed forward. The small gold P on the box flashed teasingly between the coats and legs of the passersby. I bit my lower lip, trying not to cry. I had a brief flashback to the last time I'd seen that box. Agnes and I had just enjoyed a concert at Crew Hall. We ducked into her father's book shop for some tea. As we shrugged off our wraps, we heard her father arguing animatedly in French with someone in the back room. Agnes laughed and waved her hand dismissively at me when I looked at her questioningly. "Eetz nussing!" she whispered. "Eetz, mon pere and mon oncle! Zay are deescussing an order." Just then Agnes's father jerked open the door to the back room and hurried out. His face was ruddy with anger and he was carrying the box with the small. gold P. A second later, Agnes's uncle followed. He opened his mouth to say something, but seeing Agnes and me staring at him, closed it again with a snap. His large mustache quivered. The bus pulled away from the curb, jerking me out of my reverie. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and searched the crowd on the sidewalk for the dwarf. There she was! Keeping my eyes glued to her, I stood again and yanked the bell cord. I'd get off at the next stop and see if I could catch up to her. The bus pulled up to the curb a couple of blocks away. I could still see the dwarf as she hurried in and out of the crowd. I lurched to the front of the bus and ran down the steps, still not taking my eyes off the dwarf and the gold P on the box. (DCup)

The hillbilly stretched again once his feet hit the pavement, his arms blocking my view of the dwarf and the box. Overwhelmed by the odor of a three-day drunk, I skittered around him as fast as I could. There she was! She seemed to be moving toward a store front? No! An alley! She ducked down the alley, the box clasped to her small frame. I hurried past couples holding hands, individuals talking to thin air, and turned down the alley, only to be confronted by two daunting challenges. A man vomiting, and a whole series of doors, any of which could have been the escape route of the little lady with the box.(Geoffrey)


But then I found myself stumbling, shaking my head. I was dizzy -- and there was barf down my shirt! That was no man vomiting! It was a discarded full-length bath mirror, leaned against the alley wall amid some overflowing trash cans and piles of garbage. The alley backs a block of small eateries. I was standing in piss and thrown-away shrimp tails and oyster shells, about to hurl again. Between the hard run, the smell of the hillbilly and the smell of the alley, I'd puked and almost passed out! And that series of doors? There was just one. I'd been seeing double-double. One door. It was open! (Erudite Redneck)

Tahhed: TECH, Trixie, DrLoboJo!

--ER

 

'Everybody is a little bit gay'

In light of the previous post, comedian Ron White, late of Fritch, Texas:



Happy happy Friday, y'all!

--ER

Thursday, December 11, 2008

 

Let the Gay Reformation begin! -- UPDATED

"Gay marriages will save the economy!" -- and I have to thank Neil, of all people, for bringing this vid to my attention.

"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more... by Jack Black



Newsweek throws down the gauntlet.

Focus on the Family, stunned, farms out a weak response.

Jon Stewart gives Mike Huckabee a workout.

--ER

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

 

Star of Bethlehem: Close enough

A new scientific explanation of the Star of Bethlehem.

--ER

 

I heart this post by Teresa

"Merry Christmas, and peace and goodwill toward men ... even the schmucks."

Amen.

--ER

 

To Mao

In memory of Mao, our first black cat, a bobtail stray. He showed up around the time I was in a grad seminar on modern China and so took the name "Mao" readily, since that was what he said all the time.

Mao II, another black cat, but with a tail, lives in my in-laws' neighborhood in Texas. Pa-in-Law took right to raisin' him when he showed up, about the time that our Mao disappeared (this is pre-Ice-T and pre-Eames).

We like to think that our Mao accidentally got on a moving truck in the neighborhood one day and safely made it to his new home somewhere. Or, that he reincarnated somehow as Mao II, but the years and ages don't work out for that.

Anyway, to Mao, the cat.

(Image from Noisebot, which sells it and other oddball stuff on T-shirts and stuff.)

--ER

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

 

At the height of our revelries, when our joy is at it's zenith, when all is most right with the world, the most unthinkable disasters descend upon us



My poor Ice-T has barfed on his single favorite material possession: the Christmas tree skirt! Poor critter.

Dr. ER caught him tryin' and failin' to eat a curled ribbon from a gift, and in the process of tryin' and failin' he frowed up right on the tree skirt.

And he spent the morning, pawin' at the nothin' -- and an Ace Hardware colored ad slick that happened to be on the floor -- tryin' to cover up his barf, and his shame.

Poor Ice-T!

(This photo in its original post two years ago.)

--ER

 

Rod Blagojevich: Hair today, gone tomorrow




What a shame that such great hair has to be wasted on such a sorry son-of-a-bitch.

--ER

Monday, December 08, 2008

 

So this is Christmas, and what have we done ...



Discuss (and that don't mean argue till yer blue in the face and refuse to let go of a dang pount until it thunders, Feodor! It's called "chatting"!)

--ER

Sunday, December 07, 2008

 

Little ER's heart skips ...

... to see this, the house he grew up in, decked out. It never was so festooned when I was a kid, not on the outside, I mean. (Cell phone pic by Big Brudder, who now owns it and rents it out.)

--ER

Saturday, December 06, 2008

 

Christmas shoppin' at the Ace Hardware



Bought one of these today for a Christmas present. Regular ERdites might could guess who for. :-)

--ER

Friday, December 05, 2008

 

Clothes to make the Southern man -- and woman (black or white) ... ?


NuSouth Apparel designed their fashions to instill general Southern unity between whites and blacks, making clothes that could bring together the descendants of slaves with the descendants of slave owners in celebration of regional identity.

And to make some money.

I haven't heard anything about NuSouth since the mid-1990s. I think they failed, and that sucks.

Here's a site that seems pretty negative about the whole idea.

Discuss.

--ER

Thursday, December 04, 2008

 

FOTF on a one-night stand with NRA?

Egad.

Not sure what to make of Focus on the Family braggin' that it shares views with the cold-dead-finger bunch, other than it surely is makin' the Baby Jesus cry.

--ER

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

 

Behold, the man room



Cigar ...



... friendly!


Cigar friendly!


(Sunroom, but more recently a junk room -- and now ER's lair.


--ER

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

 

Saxby Chambliss can go to hell*

We in the ER household cannot forgive how Saxby Chambliss, that son of a bitch,** treated the genuine hero Max Cleland.

So, GO JIM MARTIN!

Georgians, y'all have a chance to redeem y'alls' selves and further repudiate that cartoon character, Sarah Palin. Bless y'alls' hearts.

--ER

* Not meant to be a comment on the state of Sen. Chambliss's mortal soul.
** Not meant to reflect on Sen. Chambliss's mama or his actual lineage.

Monday, December 01, 2008

 

'A fellow ain't got a soul of his own, just a little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody'

Dang. I realized after I posted that meme Geoffrey lassoed me into (previous post) that it was s'posed to end with a video clip from a favorite movie.

Here's what came to mind after ponderin' it some on a sorter melancholy Sunday.



--ER

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