Merry Halloween, everybody!

Tonight, we celebrate the festival of the haunted and the damned! We will plunge our knives into pumpkins and adorn them with visages of howls and demonic laughter. Groups of children will wander the streets aimlessly, dressed in all manner of ghoulishness. They will sing their droning songs celebrating flesh-eating trolls and the rape of Pippi Longstocking. Wild dogs will run roughshod through our cities, devouring toddlers dressed as Spiderman without mercy.

And we will pass out Skittles.

Last Halloween was a total buzzkill, in that I had to pick up a shift at the flour mill. This year is different, however. By 4:30 pm, my chin will be dripping with swine blood and I shall have thrashed at least six children indiscriminately. My haggard barks will echo across the now-empty streets of my neighborhood, as I demand my challengers meet me in face-to-face combat. If anybody chooses to approach me, I will hit them with a lead pipe until they are still.

See you there!

New Rock TV!

A few months back, Adam joined the Rock TV ministry as a writer. Soon after, he tossed out an idea to do a parody of the Da Vinci Code using the dippy mural at the school the Rock meets at instead of Leonardo’s paintings. The ideas flowed quickly from that (even though Adam was the only person in our ministry who had bothered to read the book - none of us saw the movie).

In the end, I’m happy with the way the video turned out. The whole team worked really hard, shooting during the hottest weekend of the year in long black robes. I don’t think it’s necessarily shoving laughs into every moment, but it stays entertaining. There were a lot of nice comments from people after the service about it, which was nice after our last effort bombed.

Enjoy!

Every morning I wrangle with this one stupid eyelash I have that won’t cooperate and get in line with all the other obedient eyelashes.

If only my eyelashes weren’t so long and lustrous!

I’m telling you, if I had dull, stunted eyelashes, I wouldn’t have to deal with this. As it is, when you have voluminous, eye-catching eyelashes like mine, then sometimes you have to pay the piper and spend a few extra moments in the morning primping them.

I know a lot of people would kill to have gravity-defying, miracle eyelashes like I do, but believe me when I tell you it isn’t all fun and games. Sure, people stare in wonderment and approach me for my autograph, offering me cash simply for the pleasure of having seen me, but sometimes it can be a real pain. Like when my eyelashes brush against the lens of my glasses and I have to clean them off. As you can imagine, that can be somewhat annoying.

Sometimes I wish I could just trade in my long, beautifully curved eyelashes for a set of dumpy, brittle ones like yours, but then I realize that such a trade would be dumb. Mine are way better than yours, it’s obvious. The only way it would be worth it is if you also gave me a Cal Ripken Jr. rookie card.

So do you have one?

This stupid cold just won’t go away!

Two weekends ago, it started as a sore throat. Last week, it bloomed into full-bodied pain and a lost voice. By the weekend, my voice was returning, but almost a full octave lower, causing me to sound like a Sith lord, much to my pleasure. Now, almost two weeks in, I’m still here coughing and sneezing up phlegm like a wheezing baboon.

Listening to me hack and gurgle away here in the morning, I sound like a wrinkled, craggy women buying a carton of cigarettes at a gas station with stringy, peroxide hair and tapered stonewashed jeans. Since I sound like this anyway, I may as well just give up the ghost on any upward aspirations I might have and spend my time buying scratch-off tickets and discussing WWE Smackdown with my rural peers. I could spend my day drinking Coors and complaining that the Vikings suck. To accompany the hacking drone of my lingering cough I could blast Nickleback’s latest album and rev up my Chevy Silverado.

I should also give myself meth mouth.

Hopefully this cold finally clears up and this transformation won’t be necessary. Don’t be surprised, however, if the next time you see me, I am riding a snowmobile and I knock you unconscious with a whisky bottle before urinating on you.

Because that’s what rural folks are like, you know.

My sister-in-law is a surgical technician in Virginia, MN, and yesterday she told me a very humorous true story from the delivery room.

A couple were in for the birth of their first child. The doctor and the nurses quickly began preparing for a C-section birth, and the husband started to become flustered.

HUSBAND: Why are we having a C-section?

*nurses continue to prepare*

HUSBAND: I don’t understand this! Why do we have to do this by C-section?

NURSE: Because your wife has herpes, sir.

HUSBAND: …

HUSBAND: When did my wife get herpes?!

Wow. That’s hilarious.

I love all wierdness between the lines. The wife just stayed silent the entire time, too. Nice move there. Just keep your mouth shut, and those herpes should clear right up, along with all the questions about when and how they were obtained.

I guess that’s how they roll on the Iron Range.

This weekend, Bridgette and I were walking in Uptown, looking for a place to eat. As we passed a coffee shop, I spotted a group of unshaven, 30-something hipsters sitting around a table near the window. There was something familiar about these guys, and as we got closer I tried to figure out why their faces were registering with me. Did I know them in high school? Somebody’s older brother that I knew growing up?

Finally, as we passed in front of them, it hit me. It was Jars of Clay, sitting around drinking coffee in Uptown. I offered a meek, “Hey, it’s Jars of Clay,” and a wave, and they smiled and waved back in return.

Moments later, as Bridgette and I were eating dinner, I sat and lamented the lost opportunities I had from this chance encounter. Instead of gaping open-mouthed like an idiot, I could have taken more decisive action.

I could have fulfilled my long-stated goal of straddling a member of a popular Christian rock group in public.

I might have asked them if they had ever heard of me.

I could have welcomed them to Minnesota by singing our state song, “Minnesota, Hail to Thee”, all the while maintaining eye contact with lead singer Dan Haseltine.

I could have suggested that they record a side project of songs about Hinduism.

I could have introduced them to Leon McDowell, an area homeless man of some repute. They could have done drugs with him, because Leon tells some crazy stories when he’s wasted! (ask him about the time his fingers were pulled off by a corn thresher)

I might have suggested that the next time they win a Dove award, they should pour gasoline on it and light it on fire during their acceptance speech. They could then remove their shirts and dance around it, screaming blasphemies, thus ending the Dove Awards forever (hopefully).

Alas, I did none of these. My dopey wave of recognition will have to suffice. Maybe I can pull one of these off the next time I run into Caedmon’s Call.