Gilligan's Pathos

I was watching an old episode of Gilligan’s Island with my kids. Overall, it’s not an especially good show, but it is still strangely compelling. The raw use of stereotypes to create comedy somehow draws you in. And then there's the lagoon. Man, when I was a kid, I loved the lagoon on Gilligan’s Island. How I wished I lived near that lagoon. Still do. But, I suppose, the real beauty of Gilligan’s Island was that you could watch it with your brain turned off. It’s oddly cathartic.

So imagine my surprise when I was watching it the other day, and I found a really poignant moment that had a lot to say about friendship. Who da thunk it?

In this episode, there’s a typhoon headed for the island, so they find a cave and, with no time to spare, they realize there isn’t enough room for all of them. What to do? The men quickly draw straws and Gilligan gets the short straw, which means he has to wait it out in the storm, tied to a tree. Then the Skipper realizes Gilligan broke his own straw to protect the others. The Skipper is moved by Gilligan’s bravery, and decides to go out into the storm and wait it out with Gilligan. Then the Professor decides the same thing. Then all of the castaways are out in the storm, holding onto one another, braving the typhoon together because it’s just not right to stay in the cave when your friends are out in the storm. It’s not right to be a coward when your friend is being a hero.

Skipper: Professor, I order you back in the cave!
Professor: After the storm.
Skipper: Look, I'm out here. I'll take care of Gilligan.
Professor: I know you can, so I'll take care of you.

This was on Gilligan’s Island? This episide, “Hi-Fi Gilligan,” was a nice piece of work, blending the slapstick comedy elements and the character elements really well. Come to find out, the episode was written by a woman named Mary C. McCall, Jr. Her real name was Mary McCall Bramson, and she was a founder and the first woman president of the Writer’s Guild of America. One of her screenplays for a movie called “The Fighting Sullivans” had been nominated for an academy award years before. It’s considered a classic war genre film. And this was her only episode for Gilligan’s Island.

They should have had her do more episodes.



Peace to you.




© LW Publishing 2011

I Don't Like Mondays Either

So. You ever have one of THOSE days?

Yesterday was a Monday. It was horrible. I was tired all day, feeling down and restless. My mind was wandering all over the place. Erratic.

I tried to work on some music, to distract me from myself, but everything went wrong. Everything. Something happened that messed up all the files, literally ruined the mixes of all the songs I’ve been working on for over a year. It was madness. I was starting to panic and I had no idea what to do.

So I did what I do when I don’t know what to do.

I prayed.

Then I called my friend Tom.

Tom fixed my songs. Tom was patient with me. Tom was kind. It took a lot of time that I know he doesn’t really have. It was sacrificial. An act of grace.

He’s just that kind of guy.

I don’t know what I’d do without friends like Tom. I have some others like him too, who give and give to get me through. I don’t deserve them. I know it. I feel bad because there’s no way I’m as good a friend to any of them. I just do what I can and hope it’s enough. And remain thankful for my friends, who get me through.

Good friends do that, I guess. They get you through Mondays.

Let me just say: Thank you. You know who you are. All of you who help me get through Mondays, whatever day of the week they happen to happen.

Thank you.



Proverbs 17:17
Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2010

Snow Angels

I think I was around 7 or 8 years old. I was playing at my friends house, across the street from where I lived, and it was right after one of the deepest Lower Peninsula Michigan snowfalls I’ve ever seen in my life. We were climbing up onto his garage and jumping off into the snow – poof – and it was no problem, like landing on cotton. It wasn’t really that far of a fall because the snow was so deep.

At one point we decided to make snow angels. We fell back onto the snow, staring up into the cold, gray Michigan sky. The snow was so deep, we were sinking pretty far in as we did this. These angels were deep. And there was something hypnotic about laying there, moving arms and legs, together, apart, together, apart. I drifted off into that place we go when we stare at nothing.

When I came out of my angel shaping reverie, my friend was gone. I wasn’t sure where he went. It was a little confusing. I called his name, wondering if he had somehow gotten buried in the snow. But he didn’t answer. So I went to the back door of his house and knocked. He came to the door, pushed through the door roughly, punched me in the face and went back into his house, closing the door behind him. I tried to ask him why he did it. He wouldn’t answer the door.

This was my first encounter with random violence. I have encountered a lot of it since then. It never gets any easier to deal with.

I went home, crying. My nose was bleeding. Like always, his mom fought with my mom about it and they kept on fighting long after we had made up and were sneaking off to play where they couldn’t see us.

He told me later that I had kicked some snow in his face while I was making my angel. He went into his house to dry off his face and his big brother said something like, “You’re not going to let him get away with doing that to you are you?” So he felt obliged to punch me in the nose. Which is how many people operate well into “adulthood.”


The angels melted. I survived.




Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010

Two Guys in a Band

I have been watching a DVD set that has the four appearances of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show back in 1964 and 1965. As Mr. Spock would say, it's "fascinating." They did three weeks in a row in February of ‘64, on their first trip to the States, then another week in September of ‘65. When this actually took place I was in diapers, enjoying Gerber’s fine products.

The three weeks in '64 are interesting. Ed Sullivan, the host, seems very nervous. He’s worried that the crowd of teenagers might erupt into something . . . rude? Dangerous? It’s hard to tell. But he’s pretty nervous. He keeps saying “be quiet” He had to get those commercials in.

On the first show John Lennon doesn’t sing lead on anything, which seems weird. John liked to be out front. But Paul sings all the leads. I wonder if John was sick? Maybe he had a cold and couldn’t sing so Paul took the lead? John makes up for it on the next two shows, singing most of the lead vocals. And his mic is up front, on an angle with George an Paul behind. This gave an interesting angle for the camera, but it also placed John prominently in front of the rest of the band.

And then there’s the show in September of ‘65. It’s a year and a half later but a lot of things are still the same. The crowd is still going gaga. Girls looking like they’re going to pass out, screaming like in a horror movie when the guy with the axe jumps out to chop up the girl. They scream and their hands come up next to their face. What is that? Ed Sullivan is still nervous that things might get out of hand. The audience still putting up with the other acts, just waiting for the Beatles to play.

Then the Beatles come out and you can tell that year and a half has passed. The hair is a little longer. And the way they play, you get the impression they’ve seen the Rolling Stones and feel threatened by the experience. The Stones first record was released in April of ‘64. But, whatever the reason, the Beatles rock harder. John is playing the Rickenbacker 325, painted black. Then Paul does “Yesterday” all by himself, which John doesn’t seem to like much. He makes an odd comment about it. He’s trying to be funny but he’s really just acting a bit strange. Is he nervous or just giddy from the experience? Is he on something?

But then they do another song, and during this song there’s a really great moment. John Lennon has moved back to sing in the same mic as Paul McCartney. Paul is on harmony. They’re into the song, and for just a second they make eye contact. Instantly they’re both grinning, as if the two of them are in on a private joke. And the joke seems to be this: Man. Can you believe this? Can you believe what’s happening to us? How did we get here? This is nuts, don’t you think?

Two young friends, in their early twenties, playing songs in a rock band, and suddenly it’s become something huge and impossible to account for. Somehow, they’re in America playing on a tremendously popular TV show with people screaming their names. And, somehow, they are the stars of the show.

When they look at each other like that, it’s a very sweet moment. Like kids on Christmas morning, they're amazed to be there and having the time of their lives. Not icons. Not rock stars. Not a piece of history. Just two guys who liked to play music together blown away by what their passion has led them to.

I think that moment says a lot about why the whole thing worked. It reveals the heart behind the songs that are still listened to by so many people. At least until the drugs and the egos started to get in the way.


They enjoyed what they were doing.




Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010

A good friend of mine has been grieving because his best friend committed suicide. My friend has been handling this in what I consider a heroic manner. But grieving can be hard because it’s so unpredictable. Grief does not always behave like you expect it to. It can do weird things to us.

Years ago, when I was 19 and still living at home, my parents were in the kitchen, making dinner or something, when the phone rang. My mom picked up the phone. I didn’t pay much attention until I heard her say...

“No.”

She said it quietly. It was disturbing. I dropped what I was doing in the next room and walked toward the kitchen. I saw her hand the phone to my dad. While he listened, his face started to change right in front of my eyes. In a moment it went from the face of a grown man to the face of a broken and hurt child. He said, “Alright.” But it wasn’t. He hung up the phone and collapsed into my mom’s arms, weeping. I have never before and never since seen my dad weep like this. Sobbing. Uncontrollable. It scared me.

Two of my dad’s sisters, living in Tennessee, had been driving to work. At some spot on the road, near a school, there had been some ice on the road. They collided with a semi truck and were killed instantly.

A good friend decided to drive me down to Tennessee for the funeral. We drove until we were passing out, then we stopped on the side of the road somewhere and slept in the car. We drove some more. We talked. We observed. We philosophized about life and death. Jack Kerouac would have been proud.

I was nervous about getting there.

When we arrived in Tennessee, I didn’t know how to feel. I think seeing my dad like that had messed me up. Knowing how my aunts had died, so violently, left me not knowing how to respond. Everything about how I felt seemed inappropriate and out of place. I laughed at things I shouldn’t have. I was unintentionally rude. I said things that were outright goofy, which I’m pretty good at regardless. But, more than usual, I was nervous and unsure about what to say to people. I didn’t know how to act. I just felt numb. And I didn’t shed a single tear. It was weird.

We got through it, then the friend took me and we detoured over to the Smoky Mountains for a day. Had a nice time. Headed on home.

Life went on. Time happened. Over a year went by.

I’m sitting in the car with my newish girlfriend. She would later become the wife. We’re talking about different things. Somehow the subject of my aunts and how they died comes up. I start to talk about the trip. I try to explain what I experienced. And, suddenly, I realize that I am broken and I fall apart. Sobbing. Uncontrollable. I wept for my dad and the family. I wept for my aunts. I wept from the center of my strange, inscrutable heart.

For some reason, finally, after all that time, I mourned.

I’ve learned over the years that the process of mourning can heal if we don't let it take possession of us. It can be like a demon, or it can be like a guide. You can let it control you or you can let it take you through the loss to a place of peace. Without mourning we would be emotionally destroyed by our broken world. But we can't belong to the sorrow because we belong to the Creator.

Like love, mourning works to heal us. So we need to grieve over whatever we've given away or whatever has been taken from us, we need to mourn, to confess our loss and, through that expression, begin to move on. It’s okay to weep, to grieve, to mourn. For a time. But it’s also okay to move on. It really is.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Do you see it?




John 11:35; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14
Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2010