Life with two kids has definitely been an adjustment. Most moments around the house are spent comforting a crying child or having my crotch pulverized with a plastic baseball bat (by my wife, for doing this to us). There’s noticably less peace and quiet and considerably more time spent vacantly staring in the distance amidst the chaos. My wife Bridgette represents the eye of the Welle household hurricane, while the rest of us relentlessly whip around her – Alice crying, Oliver getting into mischief, and me offering unhelpful, unsolicited jokes. She is a beautiful, smart woman and an assured mother. She does a great job of putting up with my behaviors and redirecting me to clean the toilet again.

One of my favorite things about Alice joining our family has been watching Oliver enjoy being a big brother. Whether he’s poking his finger deep into her mouth or dropping to dead weight and laying on top of her, he is truly infatuated. Often as he is positioning my daughter’s feet behind her head, he turns to me and explains, “Helpful!” In those moments, I thank him for his servant’s heart and gently return her to a customary human position.

Things have changed quite a bit for me the past couple years. I eat alone at Wendy’s a lot less often these days, and I only rarely get to watch Minnesota’s fine sports teams on TV. The fact that those activities were about as good as it used to get for me demonstrates how far I’ve come. I’ll gladly trade those for my new family, even if it means that I get less sleep at night and must carefully apply various creams to my children’s anuses.

These are the tradeoffs, ladies and gentlemen. My life has been enriched with a rewarding job, a sweet companion for a wife and two uniquely cool little kids, but I must pay for this in free time. Like the typical American consumer, I am leveraged to the hilt. I have zero leisure liquidity. (Don’t ask where I’m getting the time to write this, smart guy, because I’m writing it while I’m going to the bathroom. So there.) I’m crammed full of life’s enrichment, like a washtub brimming with applesauce.

There was a simpler time in my life when I was able to repose and read history books, accompanied only by the crackling roar of a cozy fire and my silken nightgarments. I was served spiced refreshments by Quigley, my faithful manservant, who always knew the perfect moments to whisper my name and lift my pipe to my lips for another soft, invigorating puff. Specifically, those times I speak of were the 1890s, during America’s Gilded Age, a time I visit nightly in my dreams. (Incidentally, these dreams usually end in me being slain in a labor riot by socialist insurrectionists.)

Dreamt luxuries and idleness aside, my life is actually quite lovely these days. Yes, I don’t have the same time for reading or blogging or hating my cats, but it’s frankly much cooler to have a loving wife and two little kids who need me to be a good dad.

On an unrelated note, does anybody know how to rescue a 2 year old stuck in a drying machine?

Father’s Day is a wonderful occasion when dads across our great republic are treated to pancake breakfasts and the promised opportunity to change the oil on the car without the shrill shrieking of their children to inturrupt them. It is a day of warm, obligatory embraces and the cold, gentle rewards of having a Dairy Queen Blizzard all to oneself.

My Father’s Day began well this year, as my wife allowed me lay in bed until 7:30am. A non-parent reading this might be startled that this would count as a luxury, but in the world of fatherhood, where children unmercifully awaken at 6am and proceed immediately to kick at your genital regions (maybe that’s just my kid), it’s downright indulgent.

After a pleasant morning spent in my underwear without shame, we packed up and went out to Culver’s, a fine establishment whose menu features various rearrangements of meat and melted cheese. Our dining experience was harried and mechanical, as it usually is when accompanied by a 20-month old. Yet it must be said that their crinkle cut fries added an element of savory sophistication to my Father’s Day experience. Too bad my kid threw a lot of them on the floor.

By this point you may have gotten the impression that I somehow view fatherhood as a grotesque burden that must be carried, as if I were the poor horse that Wilford Brimley is sitting on in that diabetes commercial.

Of course, that would be a gross mischaracterization of my feelings (not unprecedented for the JLP). I genuinely love being a dad, and I love Oliver more than these 300 words would allow me to say. Fatherhood is the biggest and best thing that has ever happened to me (seriously though, I still don’t exactly understand exactly how it happened to me). It’s just that things are really different once you’re a dad. Sleeping in and leisurely dinners at nice restaurants are extraordinarily difficult to pull off. Instead, we dads get an awkward Sunday in late June filled with nice sentiments in the morning, chores by mid-afternoon, and maybe a few crinkle cut fries in between.

Truth be told, it was an awesome day. I loved (and was incredibly thankful for) every part of it.

I like pizza!

It is hot and thick and delicious and I have loved it since November, 2006!

Shhhh! I have a second annoucement to make!

Bridgette and I are going to have another baby!

Babies are magical creatures who fart applesauce. They communicate wordlessly though animalistic squawks and by staring at light fixtures. They fill our days with wide-eyed wonder and our nights with quiet desparation. My wife and I are excited about welcoming such a being into our home, as Oliver is now nearly ready to begin a lifetime of work in the coal mines.

This is indeed a special time for our family. My sincere and simple wish for our new child is that he or she be born healthy and clutching a fistful of hundred dollar bills.

Despite the fact that I am his amazing father, Oliver didn’t show much interest in me while in the building. Instead, he seemed enamored with the wide open hallways and beaming students doting over him. Our house is made up of small room, narrow halls, disinterested cats, and tired adults, so this was something entirely new for him. Delighted, he raced off as fast as he could and squealed his satisfaction, like me in a Culver’s parking lot.

Watching the remarkable speeds he’s able to reach, I’m thinking of sending a tape into an Olympic track coach to see if there is some competetive edge our athletes could gain from him. When he runs, Oliver stays on his tiptoes, but keeps his head down. Simultaneously, he swings his arms up and down in front of his body, but never to the sides or behind. Also, he falls down sometimes. While it is admittedly veering and woefully asymmetrical, his style is poetic all the same, like a drunk Shaquille O’Neal somehow making 100 consecutive free throws.

All in all, it’s fun having my kid come in for a visit. It’s a good reminder why I’m working in the first place and where my priorities lie. Maybe next week I’ll see if Bridgette can bring in one of my Boba Fett posters from our bedroom so I can be reminded of the second-most important thing in my life.

It’s been an incredible year in more ways I can describe. Simply put, becoming a dad is a completely transforming experience. There have been very real challenges and strains and sleepless nights, but those pale in comparison to the overwhelming love I have for my son, the delight I take in seeing Oliver discover the world, and the joyful moments when he giggles and falls into our arms.

Here’s wishing all of you a few moments like I’ve gotten to experience this last year.

The Naptime Sessions was recorded in my sunroom with various friends over the past 5 months, usually during stolen moments while Oliver was sleeping (hence the title). It’s a mellow run through 8 songs, mostly centered around my family. There’s layered acoustic guitars, harmonies, strings, piano, and handclaps galore – it’s homemade, but not cheap (and maybe a bit more full-sounding than my last album)

CDs are available through CD Baby here. The cds aren’t free, but they’re cheap (the price is enough to cover my manufacturing and shipping costs once CD Baby gets their cut)

If you’re not a snob about needing a CD in your hands, you can download the album for free through Noisetrade:

(Or just download a HQ zip file here)

I’ve written a few thoughts on each of the tunes, and embedded a player so you can listen at your leisure before you download.

Wearing Weeks Away:

I wrote this tune when Bridgette was about 7 months pregnant. We were waiting for the big day to arrive with the usual mix of excitement and anxiousness. I tried to capture some of that buzz while also keeping a bit more of my conversational voice in the lyrics – very little revising went into this song. It’s pretty much as it came out that day. I tried to make this song as poppy as I could given the ethic of the album, and I’m really happy with how it came out (and with how Oliver came out).

Grace Appears:

This is a total emotional reversal from “Weeks”, but I kinda like moments like that on an album. It was written about a miscarriage that we suffered in 2008. The balance here was trying to maintain the gravity of that pain while offering in just the right amount of light in at the end. It was a hell of a thing to go through; this song represents the end result of the grieving process.

The Cedars and the Shade:

This is a tender song that comments on the experiences from “Grace Appears”, but from a more universal perspective. While the previous song is distinctly about our experience, “Cedars” asks the question so many of us wrestle with at some point: where is God in these painful moments? Oddly, I have almost no memory of writing this one – it seems to have just floated to me. Getting to record with my sister (who added piano and backing vocals) was a genuine treat for me. Her overdubs were the final additions to the album, and definitely among my favorites. Probably my favorite recording I’ve ever done.

Exposed:

This is a song about suddenly finding myself a grown-up but secretly feeling like a fraud. In the end, after a lot of reflection, I realized that exposing myself as such is precisely what I needed to do to generate the spiritual intimacy I was desiring. Musically, this song went through a ton of mutations. I changed time signatures, added and removed drum parts, and added and removed piano parts in an attempt to find the right mix. Though it doesn’t rock, it sits in the rock aesthetic. I had to make it rock politely in a back porch kind of way. For what it’s worth, this is my favorite song to sing on the album.

In a Hurry:

I wrote this song 4 years ago, but the questions it asks grow more and more true each summer. What am I doing with my time? Where did my year go? I wrote a new bridge after Oliver was born to help it fit thematically with the album. This song features the least overdubs of any of the songs here – just a couple guitars banging it out and Todd Luker’s sweet harmonica. My comment to him at the end was out of relief – I felt like he had hit the sweet spot, and nothing more was needed.

At the Time:

This is the story falling in love with Bridgette. I made no attempt to make this a universal love song – this is about me and her and how it felt to fall for her after everything I’d been through in my early 20s. The long instrumental outtro is one of my favorite stretches of the album. When I listen to it, images flash through my head of the last 5 or 6 years with her and I feel very happy.

Drivin’ on 35:

My friend Jon Smith helped a lot on this album, and in a sense I returned the favor by recording this song of his. The pleasure was all mine, however – I’ve always loved the song, having long been a fan of taking long drives by myself to think and reflect. For years, this was a tune that I would play for fun around the house. At one point I played it for my brother Brian, and he responded really strongly to it, which placed the idea in my head that maybe I could use what Jon wrote to say something myself. Whereas his recording was sparse and the mood was more shattered, I tried to create nostalgic heartland ballad. It was a fun one to sing and record.

Campfire:

I wrote this song back in college, and like a lot of my songs from back then, it’s laden with nostalgia and simple sentiments. Unlike a lot of the stuff I wrote back then, however, I feel like this one has aged well. I loved returning to this old song and recording it with my friend Paul Carolan, who I was close buddies with in those years. We recorded the backing tracks together, sitting facing each other in my sunroom like we used to back in the dorms. I barely touched the tracks to preserve the ambiance of the room and those moments. Todd came in later on to record a few perfect harmonica lines and the song was done. I love simple songs like these.

Ten years ago…

-I weighed about 80 pounds more than I do today.

-I was at the most depressed, emotionally screwed up point in my life.

-I had managed to push away most of my closest friends through a series of selfish, self-destructive behaviors.

-I had a terrible work ethic and had little professional ambition beyond working at the music store near my college.

-I could fit all my worldly belongings inside my Chevy Lumina.

-I didn’t read books and my academic curiosity was minimal.

-I was afraid to commit to a relationship with God because I feared he would ask me to give up things that I now realize were silly or futile to begin with.

-I didn’t know how to let my guard down and stop the jokes.

-I spent all my money on music and fast food.

-I had a bloated ego that was in the process of being crushed to smithereens by life’s circumstances.

-I had never changed a diaper or had a baby smile at me in recognition.

-I had a fear of my own deep-seeded emotions which manifested itself in a latent callousness toward women.

Ten years later, I still don’t have everything figured out, but it’s pretty amazing to consider what God was able to do in my world over this last decade.

As a kid in rural Minnesota, I idolized certain pop cultural figures like he and Kirby Puckett. Turns out both of them had their demons, but there weren’t any bigger in my world when I was young.

Well, now Michael Jackson is dead at age 50. He is survived by his children Blanket, Pickle, and Rainbow Bright.

Well, guess what? Now Leroy is a father, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Yesterday, little Forrest D. Dehnke was born! Hooray for writhing newborns!

What does the D stand for, you ask? Get ready for this: Danger.

And that, my friends, is not a joke. Rather, it is the single greatest middle name I’ve ever heard of in my entire life.

Congratulations Leroy & Krista!

Now, seven months later, I am so, so happy to tell all of you that we’re thirteen weeks pregnant. Lord willing, we’ll have a baby this October. I’d be lying if I said that this pregnancy has been a carefree one thus far. In truth, it’s been filled with a tremendous amount of anxiety and guarded hopes. It’s only been in the last couple weeks, upon hearing our baby’s heartbeat and getting through the critical first trimester that we’ve finally been able to talk about this as if it’s actually happening, as opposed to the big might. It’s not that we haven’t been able to trust God, it’s just that our wound was still fresh enough that it took a little work to let our hearts go there again. Little by little, however, conversations have turned to baby names (Slobodan McWiggles Welle has already been cruelly dismissed), and the logistics of becoming parents. It’s been an exciting few weeks, made even more so by the announcement that Dairy Queen has made Chocolate Truffle the Blizzard of the Month for April.

To all of you who worry that this news somehow bodes ill for the JLP. Fear not – I will remain true to my pledge of old. The John Larroquette Project will never become a horrible baby blog where I share cute stories and cute pictures and say cute things and post once every eleven weeks. I will continue to spend 6 minutes most weekday mornings making this site the bastion of obscure historical trivia and pagan goat-feasts you have come to tolerate. I will delight in animal hoarder stories. I will make fun of joy and kindness and other human emotions that make me uncomfortable.

Well, maybe I’ll blog about our baby sometimes. I’ll just try to keep things even-handed by writing about the awesomeness of corn dogs the next day.

Here’s us doing Save Me, a song of mine from back in the old Welmore Mile days…

And here’s us slip-sliding our way through Peaceful, Easy Feeling by the Eagles. I think we managed quite nicely, at least once our singer got started…

For more live recordings and details on our next show, check out our MySpace page!

Now it looks like those days are going to be no more, thanks to the State of Minnesota’s skyrocketing tax and lease rates.

When the cabin’s lot was originally leased 30 years ago (can’t buy land in a national forest), the lease rate was at $60 a year, and it held at that rate for a long while. Over the past 10 years, the lease rate has increased at double digit rates annually to the point where it now stands at $1,200 a year. In 2010, the lease will be $4,000 annually, and that’s just for the small lot of land.

State taxes have also been increasing rapidly on cabin properties. Last year, the family paid $1,100 in property taxes, and this year the rate topped out at over $2,000.

This means that by next year, the family will be be paying over $5,000 in taxes and fees for a 600 square foot summer occupancy cabin deep in the woods. Trust me, there’s nothing luxurious about this place – it’s basically a hunting shack with three fridges. If we got lucky, we could sell the place for $120k.

So we’re probably going to be selling the place, since the costs of ownership and upkeep have rapidly begun to outpace the benefits of owning a cabin on a dirt-poor Indian reservation.

Our only hope is if I can somehow return to the cabin and find that mythical can of Stroh’s that transformed me in to the rugged man of wilderness vengeance back in 2004:

I can see it now, I would sluggishly sip the stale Stroh’s, and in an instant transmogrify into a simmering, sinewy man-beast capable of chasing down a wolf on foot and slamming it to death against an oak tree. I would sniff at the morning air and detect the weak, fusty scent of Minnesota Senate Democrat and chair of the Senate Tax Committee Larry Pogemiller. Then I would bark to him in hoarse, haggard shouts across Lake Winnebigoshish. Then he might commit suicide or something.

Be forewarned, Larry Pogemiller! It won’t be long before I find the Stroh’s of Legend!

—-

The landscape of central Illinois and northern Indiana isn’t much to look at. As a matter of fact, it’s basically nonexistant. Sagging barns, empty billboards, truck stops every 25 miles, and there you have it. I will say, however, that vacant billboards are more welcome than the well-intentioned but grammatically confused ones that populate rural Minnesota’s highways.

—

Upon reaching the beautifully loping Kentucky countryside on our way to Elizabethtown, I found myself gazing admiringly out the window. Less pleasing, however, were the prominent billboards in neon yellow blazing “XXX ADULT BOOKS” (ironically, most of these were found in Hardin, a dry county). As a child, I remember seeing signs for “adult books” and imagining shelves loaded with fat novels about really complex, hard-to-understand topics.

If that actually described an adult bookstore, I would go there all the time.

—

In what was certainly the most unusual part of our Christmas, we ended up going to a church called Heritage International Church on Christmas Eve. Bridgette’s sister doesn’t really go to church all that often herself, and so when we expressed interest in going, she brought us all along to this place she had recently been invited to. We walked in, and realized that we were just about the only white folks there. Once the culture shock subsided, it ended up being a pretty cool experience. True to every stereotype, the music was pretty excellent, and not hard to enjoy. The pastor’s message (regarding seeking correction from God and avoiding a calloused heart) was genuinely stirring. The 20-minute session of faith healing and speaking in tongues? Ehhhh…

—

The best thing I got for Christmas this year was actually a small item from an ESL American History student of mine from Korea. She handed me a Starbucks gift card (always a great gift) with the following inscription: “Andrew Jackson’s hair may have been crazy, but Father Christmas’s beard is much more crazy!”

—

Now that I’m 30, I’m past the point where Christmas is amazing on its own terms. Maybe once Bridgette and I have kids things will feel different, but otherwise this season is best spent reflecting on fond memories of Christmases past. However, a few factors made this year’s celebration notable. Being with our two nephews on Christmas morning helps the celebration resemble an adrenalized meth binge. In addition, spending time on an army base (where my brother-in-law is stationed) gave us plenty of time to meet and talk to veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. This was incredibly significant to me – no longer were those words attached to an abstract political debate discussed by my current affairs students or columnists armed with talking points. I was talking with these men about their own experiences, what they saw, what their families endured, and what they went through. It lent a lot of gravity and significance to this year’s Christmas, and those men and their families will remain in the forefront of my mind for some time to come.

—

We met a friendly cat during our stay. He was a black cat named Flapjack. His special features included a runny eye infection, extreme friendliness with strangers, and a meow that sounds like a Ringwraith with laryngitis. For various humanitarian reasons, Bridgette and I briefly considered adopting him until I imagined myself explaining to dinner guests, “These are our three cats. Mona will probably leave you alone to go spend time in a filthy corner of our basement, Ben Franklin will aggressively try to sit on your lap and give you a hernia by pinpointing all his weight on your lower abdomen, and this is Flapjack. You can count on him rubbing his diseased eye juices across your clothing in his vain attempts to snuggle. Okay, now let’s play Monopoly.”

—

I hope your Christmas was similarly odd and wonderful!

Tomorrow through Friday, I will be working shifts at my second job, and my weekend is already filled up with various endeavors sure to leave me wracked with shame and ill-cheer. On Monday, I return to school for teacher workshops, the most pointless, needlessly cheerful exercise known to man.

This is it. It’s all over.

As you regular readers may be aware, it has been an epic summer for the wife and I. Our house was broken into, our car was stolen, no fewer than five calls to 911 were made from my cellphone, I formed intimate relationships with our insurance adjustors, and various financial benefits ultimately found their way to us. Our house was re-painted, a new door was installed, along with new windows and a new backyard fence. We visited family, were visited by old friends, and spent a lovely weekend with some close friends at the cabin. Also, I did my twirls for Mumsy.

All things considered, it’s been a good summer. There are many other good things that God has done in our lives over these last few months that I don’t have the time or the inclination to delve into, but suffice to say, we’re in a much better place in August than we were in in June. I’d also like to note that we are currently in a better place than sharecroppers were during the 1930′s dust bowl famine, though I suppose that goes without saying.

And so, in conclusion, I have scabies now.

Looking into the mirror this morning, I strained in search of signs of my body’s increasing decrepitude and infirmity. With some chagrin, I noted the dark areas and wrinkles beneath my eyes, as well as the budding harvest of gray hairs that crown my head with shame. Certain images came to mind as I pondered my body’s inexorable march toward physical decay…

I have to say that, in all seriousness, my 30th birthday finds me in a healthy, happy spirit. I am married to a beautiful, insightful, loving woman who shares and reinforces the values I live by. I am a part of a dynamic, committed church community that rewards and enriches my life in many ways. God has blessed me with a stable career that I love (this is a particularly sweet blessing, given that the first half of my twenties was marked by failure and unhappiness in my professional life). My relationship with God is peaceful and renewing these days, and my intellectual pursuits challenge and inspire me. I love being with my family, I deeply enjoy the company of my friends, and, somewhat less importantly, I have two cats.

Having said all that, it’s important to note that none of that means a thing without this blog. The John Larroquette Project is indisputably the most important thing in my life, without which I would have driven into a ravine years ago.

Seriously people, without this website I am nothing.

Learn and enjoy!

Introduction
Many of those who know me well have heard me talk about the “ladder theory.” I often find myself explaining this over and over to family members, friends, and acquaintances, not because they do not understand it, but because I have found it to be a profound tool of social understanding. The other night I had the privilege of sharing the theory with a friend’s sister whose eyes grew large with enlightenment. Afterwards I received an e-mail from her stating that she had shared it with one of her friends, who was at first skeptical, but soon persuaded. It was this event that inspired me to publish my findings and provide a resource for future reference to all who seek to better relate to the opposite sex in a world of every-growing uncertainty. It is also important to keep in mind that much of this is written with a bit of tongue in my cheek.

Prolegomena
The purpose of this essay will be to explain and move towards an understanding of the so-called “ladder theory” from a Christian perspective. Being a Christian, I have no other alternative perspective and will differ from much of the secular literature in my formulations of that perspective. According to Wikipedia, the free Internet encyclopedia, the ladder theory is a “pop psychology explanation of the ways in which men and women evaluate potential sexual partners and platonic friends of the opposite sex.” Popularized on the Internet, the theory has been subjected to much criticism and remains to be scientifically tested; yet it has a growing number of adherents.

Originally written as a satire, the theory has gained a community of enthusiasts who believe it offers a true sociological explanation of interactions of between men and women. Being one of those enthusiasts I have devoted much thought to it in light of my Christian presuppositions and have come to some diverging conclusions, yet retain many of the core premises that, if communicated charitably, will help single men and women to properly relate to one another.

At the outset two things must be noted before we begin our survey of the ladder theory: (1) the theory is an explanation put forward uniquely by men, and (2) the theory is inherently offensive to women. (2) most certainly follows from (1) in that the theory’s epistemology is accessible only through the experiences of men, hence challenging women to submit to its claims. But for a theory to have any kind of meaningful persuasive power it must match with, reflect, or correspond to the reality it refers. To dismiss it on the grounds of whom it originates is to commit a genetic fallacy. Still, the vexing problem remains that in order for the claims of the ladder theory to be tested one must rely on the knowledge given by men who are not at all without bias in their accounts.

With that said, it is quite understandable why women find the ladder theory offensive. First and foremost, the original formulations of the theory were written in a very bitter and crude demeanor that borders on misogyny. The way in which women were thought of and objectified in these early presentations is reprehensible and should be condemned by any ethically minded person. Second, it reveals an aspect of male nature, as we shall see below, that is often thought of as morally repugnant. Third, there is an insistent skepticism based on personal situations and experience that seem contradictory to the theory’s claims.

Perhaps the best objection to the ladder theory is that it depends upon gender stereotypes that are unsubstantiated and easily dismissed. I share this sentiment realizing that many gender stereotypes are bogus sociological constructions that find their root in ambiguous personal and cultural reasons. Yet generalizations must always be made if one is to say anything about the differences between men and women, and they should not to be thought of as rigid constraints that properly define femininity and masculinity. There are exceptions to every rule, but if one defines these generalizations broadly enough the less controversial they become. For our purposes, it should be said that the ladder theory is not in need of narrow definitions though they have been used in the past.

Explanation and Justification
The ladder theory seeks to answer such questions as “Can men and women be just friends?” “Why is it so difficult for men and women to be friends?” and “What do men want from women?” “Why do some men ‘get the girl’ and others do not?”

The premises of the ladder-theory are clearly seen in the following dialogue from the movie When Harry Met Sally:

Sally: We are just going to be friends, OK?
Harry: Great, friends. It’s the best thing…You realize, of course, that we can never be friends.
Sally: Why not?
Harry: What I’m saying is – and this is not a come-on in any way, shape, or form – is that men and women can’t be friends, because the sex part always gets in the way.

The “sex-part” Harry refers to, as he makes clear, is not a “come-on” where he is stating his desire to have sex with Sally, but a recognition of an underlying sexual component to male and female relations that is unavoidable. This, of course, is hardly controversial and is virtually accepted by all men and women. It only becomes controversial when we consider it in a destructive and absolute sense proposing that men and women cannot or never could be friends. This requires explanation, for many of us have experienced friendship with the opposite sex and continue to do so.

Much of the confusion revolves around the idea of friendship and how it is defined. For purposes of this essay, we will loosely define it as “openness” between two persons who find pleasure in each of the other’s being. This openness can be casual or intimate, but it is always exercised by the choice to reveal one’s nature to the other in an affectionate fashion. Given this idea of friendship, it is not immediately obvious how the sexual components of male and female relationships give warrant to Harry’s absolute conclusion, but they go a long way in explaining how friendship might be hindered.

The ladder theory simply states that whenever you meet someone of the opposite sex you give a quick, unconscious mental rating as to how sexually or nonsexually attracted you are to them. It is at this moment when someone is “placed on the ladder,” be it high or low or somewhere in between. You might be disposed to think, “I like Jim but not as much as Sam,” or “I would like to be with Jane, but want more to be with Sally.”

At first, men and women assume that they operate in similar ways. Men believe that women, like them, rate every man they meet in a sexual way whereas women believe that men rate every woman they meet in a sexual and nonsexual way. It is here that the ladder theory meets its most contested point: the belief that men have only one (sexual) ladder and women have two (sexual and nonsexual) ladders.

As we said in the beginning how we come to such knowledge arrives solely by the experiences of the male. Most every man as most every woman has had the regrettable experience of having a friendship come to an end because the male thought there was something when there was actually nothing. In theory, what is happening is that the male is high on the female’s “friends ladder” while being under the false impression that he is high on her “good ladder.”

A man high on the friends ladder may think that he is really connecting with the woman by sharing intimate feelings, helping her through problems, and becoming close with her family thus feeling an openness unparalleled to his other female acquaintances. He thinks to himself, “Wow. I am really going somewhere with this girl. She must really like me. I don’t have this with any of my other female friends. I am going to ask her if she will be my girlfriend.”

The man “takes the plunge” so to speak and reveals his desire to the woman for a relationship, which is met with scorn. “What are you talking about,” she says, “I thought we were just friends. I had no idea you liked me like that.” The woman feels betrayed, the man confounded, and the whole relationship in turmoil.

What happened is that the man was essentially “ladder-jumping,” trying to leap from the woman’s friends ladder on to her good ladder. To her perplexity and dismay she finds this to be a grossly unnatural state of affairs and “kicks him off” the good ladder where he plummets to the abyss.

Now it must be noted that the abyss is not necessarily a bad place. To be sure the pain and misery of rejection and a broken friendship are never to be desired, but it is only in the abyss the man realizes that there are two ladders. This is why we maintain that the epistemological basis for the theory derives solely through the experiences of the male, for it is clear to any man who has gone through the experience.

The basic idea in all of this is that women are somehow able to be much more sexually disinterested than men with those they are close to. With this innate ability, women can be more open with certain men and yet have no sexual or romantic inclination towards them whatsoever. Men, on the other hand, find this excruciatingly difficult. Of course, men can be “friendly” to women and, in some sense, “friends” with them as well, but only if those women rank low on the ladder. A man is inclined to be more romantic or sexual when the friendship becomes more open and intimacy levels go up. Hence, some have gone so far as to propose that men may have a “friends zone” on their ladders:

This may be the best explanation as to why men are friends with women, but it cannot be ruled out that they are altogether sexually disinterested in them. For whatever reason if Jane, Michelle, and Julie were removed from Tom’s ladder, he would have a harder time viewing Laura, Kelly, and Tonya as friends. This phenomena is all too typical of men who may be incarcerated or on military duty where there are simply no other women to be found. Even someone who is normally a “bottom-runger” can find themselves at the top of a man’s ladder given the right circumstances.

It is very important for women to understand that men do not have the desire to be in a romantic or sexual relationship with any and all women they meet. Having one ladder does not imply that anymore than having two ladders implies that women either want to be friends or romantic with any and all men they meet. However, it does imply that there are no women that men want to be friends with whom he would not consider having some sort of romantic or sexual relationship. Hence, a man can be “friends” with a woman who is low on his ladder but he is never sexually disinterested in her.

Male Sexuality
We began by acknowledging that part of the ladder theory’s offensiveness is in that it reveals an aspect of male-nature that is often thought of as morally repugnant. The man’s inability to be sexually disinterested in a woman is commonly seen as a dehumanizing and morally defective. Men of a more noble character are imagined to be those who are free from such impulses until they become sublimely appropriate. Yet we maintain that there is no such man.

Male sexuality can be troubling, but it is not difficult to understand. For whatever reason, feminine periodicals seem to spend a countless amount of words analyzing it thinking it to be somehow mysterious. But the hard truth of it is that much of it is rooted in how the woman looks. Certainly there are deeper factors like personality and particular ideas of femininity, but for the most part it boils down to physical attraction especially in those crucial moments of first impression. However, it is clearly true that attraction may be enhanced (or worsened) by such deeper issues that often serve as the factors for energizing the motion by which a woman moves up or down the ladder:

Male sexuality can be easily demonstrated in the metaphor of the light switch. If you are “on” you go on to the ladder accordingly. If you are “off” you are in the abyss. The deeper issues are determinant of how many watts run through the switch and make the woman shine brightly. Hence, Jane is “on” and depending on how moody or funny she is, she will fluctuate accordingly.

Objections
The genius of the ladder theory is that it is remarkably simple. But like all good theories it has its anomalies, though none of which are fatal. In this section we will try to look at some common objections and questions people have with the ladder theory. While there are many questions and objections I could answer I have chosen to examine the three most common ones from women and one question from men for the sake of space and fairness.

I have to be friends with a guy before I even begin to like him.
The issue here is familiarity. Most likely, such “liked-men” never were on the friends ladder, but low on the good ladder even though he was not known very well. Like the male’s single ladder, it is entirely possible for women to have a kind of “friends zone” where the man may fluctuate up or down. Attraction is always the decisive factor, but it may be indecipherable because (1) it not all that strong and (2) can be obscured by the affectionate nature of the friends ladder. The woman herself may not even be able to tell which ladder the man is on, hence the familiar experience of “not knowing where we are at” or “I’m not sure how I feel about him;” a state commonly expressed as “limbo.”

This has baffled ladder theorists for decades as the only data we have to go one are of the conflicting testimonies of women. Often we are lead to conclude that perhaps women are either unaware of the two ladders, or experience confusion in trying to decipher the moment of attraction. If we were to determine the mechanism by which a man is pulled off the friends ladder and put on the good ladder it would be an astonishing discovery that would forever change the course of our field. As of now, all we have are hypotheses, but many are either flimsy or untestable.

Nevertheless, this objection is easily answered in that it misconceives the nature of the good ladder. One only needs to show her a picture of Matthew McConaughey, Keith Urban or Jude Law to show that men are put on the good ladder immediately. The issue is not whether they are known personally, but whether they are attractive. It is here that both men and women can take comfort in knowing they are more alike than different in this area.

Are you saying that every man I’m friends with wants to date or sleep with me?
What the man wants to do with you largely depends on his values of love and sex, but the short answer is “yes” if you are on the ladder. This does not imply that he is trying to make those things come to pass, but that he is not altogether disinterested in them. His interest in them corresponds with how high or low you are on the ladder, and his motivation for them depends upon how readily available you are. For example, many men are attracted to married women and even rank them on their ladder. However, depending on the man’s values he will either avoid placing himself in compromising positions with her out of respect for her marriage, or he will plow ahead with no regard for it whatsoever. The ladder theory does not cease to operate after marriage or if other restricting morals are suddenly made significant. Ethical codes only impose themselves on the people involved, not on the theory itself.

What? Men will put me on their ladder even if I am unavailable?
Ladder theorists are generally in agreement that if you have been rated you have been put on the ladder. But some ladder theorists have observed that certain men truly do become disinterested in women who get married or get a boyfriend and develop what has been called “the shelf.” For example, Jane may start going out with Travis, and Tom, who may or may not be in despair over this turn of events, takes Jane “off” the ladder perhaps out of spite or indifference.

Jane, however, cannot be thrown into the abyss for she still is interesting to Tom, so he holds on to her in a disinterested way that seeks preserves latter interest. However, the mechanisms of this are immensely complicated and are hardly self-evident. The only real evidence for it is when the woman becomes available again via break up or divorce. The man suddenly finds her in the same place on the ladder or even higher than she was before.

How can I tell which ladder I am on?
This of course is the million dollar question for any male seeking a high ladder female who is friendly to him. While it can never be provable there are several question-tests that have been found to be useful in discerning the friends ladder from the good ladder:

1) Do you make dates with her without telling her they are dates?

2) Does she pull uncomfortably away from hugs or does she linger?

3) Does she put make-up on around you or for you?

4) Does she promptly return your phone calls and e-mails or “is she really bad at it”?

5) When she tells you that she is busy do you convince yourself that a) she is a “free spirit”, b) she “needs some space, or c) you “have a good heart”?

Towards a Christian Ethic
If the ladder theory is to be accepted it would go a long way in helping men and women relate to one another. Particularly, Christianity singles often find themselves in a morass of frustration, confusion, and pain that can often be avoided. I am well aware that much of these same problems are present in a non-Christian context and I hope that my suggestions will be helpful to that as well, though to date, the ladder theory has only been used to embitter men and scorn women in the secular arena, which is most unfortunate.

For Christians, sex is inseparable from marriage. As I have commented before, authentic sexuality is innately monogamous and inherently requires commitment to one person to be satisfying, edifying, and honoring.

Hence, men are to pursue whoever may be at the top their ladders with these values in mind. Moreover, they are not to be ashamed of their sexuality, though they must be on guard of its constant presence and impulses. They should allow it to play a dignified part of their motives towards women they are interested in. Men should not be made to feel strange for “being forward” or “up front” about their interest in women and would do well to make such motives known in a gentle and respectful manner. However, if a man finds a married or otherwise unavailable woman on his ladder he should be sensitive to her presence and guarding of his motives. He should be restrained yet cordial with her realizing she is a person, not an object, who has deeply meaningful relationships that would be violated if he were to allow his impulses and emotions to control him.

Moreover, men should not scorn a woman’s friends ladder even if he does not want to be on it. Women genuinely value their friendships, especially with men, and can be easily hurt when they are rejected. At the same time, though, women must realize that they cannot be as open as they would like with certain men. There is a peculiar egoism that can be gained from the attention of men that is particularly enslaving.

It is the author’s experience that women do not respect a man who waits one to two years in friendship to tell her that he is attracted to her. Nor should he be respected, because he is always concealing the truth and is too scared to inquire what ladder he might be on. But it has been found that women do respect one who is upfront about his intentions, and respond much more gently either tenderly accepting or tactfully rejecting him. This makes the dating process much more clear and rejection process much less painful. And this being the case, one might find you at the top of their ladder who is at the top of yours.

On Saturday afternoon, while we were out, some lovely individuals broke into our house. They shattered the window slats on our sunroom, cut the screen, and wandered through the house. They rummaged through drawers, and took my new 80 gig iPod. Bridgette was working an overnight shift, so I was alone to deal with the mess and call the police. After the cops left, I realized that they had also taken the spare keys to the house and to our Toyota Camry, along with an extra garage door opener. I called the police with this information, but they got annoyed and told me to call back on Monday so they could file it in the report.

Saturday night was an anxious time. Thankfully, Todd and Adam came over to keep me company, and after securing the house as much as I possibly could, I went over to Kevin’s to spend the night. It sucked, but I read the Bible a lot and talked on the phone to my wife pretty regularly. We were both exhausted from stress, crying, and fear.

I spent Sunday morning working on re-programming the garage door opener and calling around to get quotes on security systems. Around noon, as I was on the phone, I peered out my window and noticed that our garage was opened. Running out the door, I saw that the Camry was gone. In a blind panic, I called 911 and saw that two of my neighbors were already outside on the phone with the police, having watched the whole thing happen themselves. They said three 15 or 16 year old kids with oversized white t-shirts and black do-rags managed to get the garage door open and peel out of the driveway achieving heretofore unknown speeds down the alley with my 2001 Toyota. Stunned, I waited for the police to arrive and we all gave our reports.

(Incidentally, that police officer apologized profusely for taking 10 minutes to get there – he said he was working down near Plymouth and got called up to us because of how drastically undermanned they are. Thanks, Mayor Rybak.)

All things considered, the afternoon was actually pretty cool. My parents showed up, along with my brother, and together we put in new locks to the house, put in a new secure door between the kitchen and sunroom, and made a number of other helpful improvements. It seemed like our whole neighborhood was out and about, talking with us about what happened. I had a hugely encouraging phone conversation with Mark, the pastor at the Rock, who seemed to know just what to say.

Sunday evening around 9, just as we were trying to settle in for a routine evening, our doorbell rang. It was Maria, a 10 year old girl from our neighborhood to tell me that she had seen the three boys break into our house on Saturday and she asked them what they were doing, but they yelled at her, so she was too scared to do anything about it. The whole time we were talking, she was nervously looking over her shoulder down the block. Eventually, she told me that the kids with the oversized white t-shirts and black do-rags were playing basketball down the street. We thanked her, and called 911 again. They said they’d send out a squad car, and we figured that was it.

20 minutes later, the doorbell rang again, and this time it was a police officer. He told me that he had ID’d the three kids, but there wasn’t a ton to hold them on (Maria apparently clammed up in front of the police). He told me they’d get taken in for questioning that night, and that I should call the precinct every day to keep bugging them about my case – the squeaky wheel gets the grease. This didn’t seem very encouraging, so I asked him about the car. He said he’d read a report earlier in the evening that it had been recovered after a brief chase, but that the kids inside scattered. He didn’t know if it was trashed or not, but he didn’t seem particularly hopeful.

I went inside and hugged Bridgette, thankful that at least we were each safe and with one another. Also our cats had not been mutilated beyond recognition.

We’re each feeling a million things right now, and I think it will be a long while before we feel really comfortable about the situation. We know that God allowed this to happen, and we know that ultimately, a ton of people (including Mark) are going through much worse than the expenses and emotional craziness we went through over the last 48 hours. We know we’ll be okay, and that God is good.

Let’s just hope that those three punks in the oversized white t-shirts and black do-rags who like to play basketball at 5315 Fremont Avenue see justice. Maybe I’ve been reading Kevin’s blog too much, but I’m not very optimistic.

Backstory: when the Betkers were going to the Rock, he served as Rock TV’s computer animation master. Now in retirement from our ministry and attending another church, he apparently thought it wise to apply his technical wizardry to the world of music videos. I smiled as I realized that he was showing us an unsolicited video he had completed for “First Ship Out”, a song from my album The Silent Era

“First Ship Out” (a song about a girl who falls in love with the wrong guy, though Adam puts a much more literal take on things in the video) was always one of my favorites from that album, so it was fun for me to see somebody’s interpretation of it. I like animation a lot – it’s like a modern take on Terry Gilliam’s old Monty Python bits. Adam was nice enough to give me a copy once he had finished it up, and I was nice enough to put it online and waste 3 minutes of your time with it. So I guess we’re both good guys.

Enjoy!

Two weekends ago, I was stuck at home, sick as a dog. I sat on my couch, absent-mindedly strumming my guitar and reading Psalms, and a song suddenly popped out. Literally, this song wrote itself in probably two minutes – the words are lifted from Psalm 42. A couple hours later, I recorded a little 4-track demo of it. My voice is pretty weak in it from being sick, but I think that’s part of the appeal of it.

The song is called Hope, and you can download the demo here.

Featuring Paul Giamatti as the intelligent yet stubborn Adams, and Tom Wilkinson as the crafty Ben Franklin, the cast for this film could only have been improved with the inclusion of Harrison Ford has a gruff, finger-pointing Alexander Hamilton.

With HBO’s financing and Tom Hanks as executive producer, the production and attention to detail was excellent – reminiscent of HBO’s earlier Band of Brothers, only with fewer explosions and more petticoats. Episode 2 was particuarly inspiring, as you watch Adams push the Continental Congress toward independance while Franklin tries to quietly keep the ship together and Thomas Jefferson stuns the both of them with his first draft of the Declaration. The only way this could have been better is if Chris Tucker would have been there to make fun of everything.

The filmmakers wisely don’t obscure Adams’s deeply held religious convictions and devote quite a bit of time to an examination of his famously loving marriage with Abigail. I was particularly touched by their famous letters to each other when reading the book, and their moments together thus far in the film have been among my favorites. She was a woman admired by Adams’s contemporaries (probably more than he was, to be honest) for her wit, intelligence, and fierce loyalty to her husband.

She was also super hot, for a 1700s chick.

At any rate, this miniseries has now been graced with the official JLP Stamp of Approval. Let me know if you want to watch it with me sometime – maybe we could arrange a historical viewing party where we all dress up in britches and watch it together and get smallpox.

And if you have HBO, tune in this Sunday for episode 4, when John Adams invents drugs.

How did they get those photos? Because the students posted them on their Facebook pages.

Now, in a show of protest over the invasion of their privacy and what they feel are the overly strict punishments being meted out to some students, a walkout is planned after first period today.

If there were an annoying little “eye roll” emoticon I could use, I would use it here. Give me a break. This morning on the radio, I listened as an ACLU lawyer himself said that anybody who thought the content of their Facebook page was somehow private was “an idiot”.

“I am shocked – SHOCKED – to find that I have been suspended because I uploaded photographs of myself breaking the rules onto the internet!”

I should say this – I love working with teenagers. I find it immensely satisfying, entertaining, and rewarding. However, teenagers aren’t always the best at thinking through the consequences of their actions. In addition, certain teenagers who live with an unrealistic sense of entitlement (perhaps from spending their lives in a wealthy suburb like Eden Prairie) can develop an unhealthy habit of automatically blaming others when those consequences happen to break the wrong way. As you can read from the article I linked to above, many of their parents behave and believe similarly.

As for the question of whether the school overreacted, I’m not really sure what else the school could do. The rules broken were those of the Minnesota State High School League, who requires all participants to sign forms pledging not to drink or do drugs during their particular season. I’m not sure what else the school can do, once presented with the photographs, other than follow the MSHSL’s protocols.

I remember when I was in 7th grade, and the Persian Gulf War began. The students at my junior high planned a walkout to protest the war. That day, after lunch, a swarm of students (mostly the popular kids, as I recall) started chanting “No blood for oil!” and walked out of the cafeteria, across the school lawn, and God knows where after that. I remember the Rochester television station breathlessly reporting the story that night, featuring interviews with the newly politically active students. Of course, the unspoken reality was that almost none of those kids gave a rip about the war (beyond what their parents told them, anyway). Most of them just didn’t feel like sitting in class that afternoon. Walking out allowed them to feel autonomous and indignant.

Of course, all the kids that walked out had to come in to school that Saturday or they got suspended. So I guess that didn’t work out so well for them.

My guess is that’s about what will happen this morning at Eden Prairie High. A bunch of kids will walk out, some because they are feeling righteously indignant (although incorrectly so), but most because it gets them out of chemistry class. The media will report it as a political protest, radio talk shows will work themselves into a tizzy over teenage drinking, and not enough people speak up on the reality that these kids just made a really stupid decision that they’re now paying the consequences for.

Now this is happening.

This photograph was taken on the day of my wedding, when I was plump and in need of physical comfort. Like all good friends, Brent met my needs on that day. I will say no more.

I met Brent back in the fall of 2001. In those days, we were stallions on the wild prairie, kicking our legs in the air and molesting badgers at will. It was a simpler time, when men were men, and friendship meant nothing more than a firm handshake and a shared egg salad sandwich.

The fact that we have stood with each other at our weddings is made all the more rewarding by the fact that we’ve each counseled and consoled each other during various periods of insanely unhealthy anxiety and obsession about women. The only difference between us is that I ended up moving on and ultimately met and married the woman I love, and Brent ended up marrying the girl he just couldn’t get over. I’m sure you will all agree that both routes are sinful, and that we should have courted and refrained from physical contact until the third year of marriage.

So now my friend is getting married. Soon he will be tamed and domesticated, like a common gerbil. I, for one, will welcome him into this new state. After all, marriage isn’t so bad once you get used to the constant arguing and broken lamps.

Congratulations, Brent and Jen!

The following message was written after commenters complained to have taken offense to one or another of my posts:

I think I should clarify something.

Some people have lovely, thoughtful blogs. These people seem to take pains to have their blog paint a vidid, three-dimensional portait of who they are as individuals. My friend Adam might have my favorite blog in the world, and his posts are so thoughtful and philosophically dense that I can’t figure out what the heck he’s talking about half the time. I think it is wonderful that people take the time and effort to do this, and that their readers gain a deeper understanding of who they are as people through their blogs.

Let me be clear however – the John Larroquette Project is not thoughtful or insightful in any way whatsoever. I’m not trying to be sarcastic about this; I’m being quite serious. This blog is nothing more than an excuse to do a brief creative writing exercise from time to time. Very little thought or planning goes into anything I write. I just sit down, try to come up with a starting point, and then let my mind wander. If some people like it and keep reading, that’s great. I stopped keeping detailed account of web stats years ago. If it isn’t some people’s thing, that’s completely fine (and probably expected).

I have realized recently that for people who know me decently well, the JLP is an interesting diversion. However, there are a few people who have made comments to me which indicate that this site presents a distorted view of who I am as a person. My response is this: that’s fine. Quite frankly, I’m too busy to want to spend time and effort doing what others do so well – penning essays on my political insights, my prayer life, my marriage, or my fears. I’ll just commit my energies to actually doing and living those things, and continue writing about horse entrails or whatever it is I do here.

I’m sorry if, by reading this site, people get the impression that I’m a callous, shallow, insensitive person. I don’t believe I am those things. This is just a website that carefully documents concepts I find vaguely amusing during quiet moments when my kids are napping, nothing more. If you happen to be among those who pause to ponder my character when reading this stuff, I would suggest a few courses of action:
1) Stop reading. If it isn’t your cup of tea, that’s fine. I like my friend Thom a lot, but I don’t read his blog because I really couldn’t care less about the comic books he goes on about.
2) Interact with me on a personal level.

So in conclusion, this website doesn’t reflect who I am as a person. It doesn’t illuminate my beliefs, my goals, my convictions, or my character. It’s just a bunch of goofy stuff I wrote that perhaps some people enjoy reading.

I hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday. Feel free to return tomorrow, when I will blog about Dairy Queen again.

Yesterday was our first day in over a week with no bees. Hopefully this is a sign that those buzzing little suckbags are almost gone. Here are a couple pictures of the crusty bee carcasses from our basement window. Bear in mind that these weren’t killed by us – we just found these over the past 5 or 6 days. The paper towels you see were stuffed there by me in a vain attempt to block their arrival.

This whole ordeal has revealed a deep and eternal wellspring of hostility and bitterness toward the insect kingdom that I never knew existed. I suppose I should be thankful for this knowledge. Instead, I mostly just want to find the biggest bee in the world and stab it with an enchanted golden scepter and watch it explode into a giant ball of hate-energy that blots out the sun for generations.

—-
One of my favorite groups from my college years was an obscure British psychedelic-pop trio called Arnold. They made music that was beautifully hazy with unfocused edges and sweet harmonies. They’ve since broken up, but they released a free mp3 of a song they recorded recently. I think it’s as pretty as anything they’ve ever done. They won’t be reuniting, but this is an awesome, bittersweet coda.

—-

My friend Peter Dirksen (a professional comedy writer and sometime Rock TV contributor) put together a fun, snazzy website called ihateyoupeter.com. Check it out – I found contributing to be quite therapeutic. I personally think Kevin should submit an entry directed toward Minneapolis city employees.

All I can think to say is, “Screw you, University of St. Thomas School of Education.”

Why such bitterness, you ask? Surely I must be happy that they facilitated my new career in teaching? This is all very true. I find being a teacher both enjoyable and rewarding and I have never for a moment regretted becoming one. However, the path to becoming a teacher is a laborous, meandering, preposterously expensive one.

I don’t want to get into specifics, but I’ll be paying off my college debts for many, many years. Is this worth it to find a satisfying career? Perhaps, but I don’t have to like it. Out of all the courses needed to obtain my licensure, exactly one (1) was genuinely informative and helpful. It was taught by a practicing teacher who offered excellent, down to earth advice on the day-to-day struggles that educators face. My other classes seemed to be an excercise in inessential feelgood theory taught by sallow-skinned professional academics who loved to wax philosophic about the time they taught an adult education course back in 1988. My instructors were all pleasant, well-meaning individuals, but I couldn’t help but feel that what I needed and what they were offering were many miles (and worldviews) apart.

Two and a half years after receiving my teaching license, I went back this year to finish off the last two classes needed for my M.A. Again, my experience during the day in my classroom had absolutely nothing to do with the redundant theoretical calisthenics I was forced to participate in during evening class. By this point, I wasn’t suprised or disappointed anymore; just grimly determined to finish my degree.

Why go back if I disliked it so much? That one’s simple – money. Teachers, you see, aren’t paid based on their job performance (in part because this is a tricky thing to objectively measure, but mostly because the teachers union seems to be wholly opposed to change of any sort, short of drastic funding increases). Instead, teachers are paid based on their years of experience and post-graduate credits. I went through all these classes, spent all those evenings and weekends doing research and homework, and spent all that money in order to boost my paycheck and allow Bridgette and I to have a family someday.

Was it all worth it? Probably. Like I said, I love teaching and I think I’m pretty good at it. At least now, at the end of this road, I can rest in the satisfaction of knowing that all those classes made me an even better teacher.

Oh wait…

As of last weekend, we’ve officially sold out of physical copies of the disk, which is pretty cool. Rather than spending the time and money to produce another run of them, I figure it’d be more fun to just release the mp3′s online for free. Here are the songs, with my comments and reflections:

1. Here I Go Again : This was written with another old friend of mine, Niles Randolph. It’s the least silly of all the songs on the album, but it was always the most enjoyable for Jon and I to perform. It’s a fun look into the mind of a man wondering whether to approach a woman he’s interested in.

2. The Viscount & the Mistress : This was mostly written by Niles, and I added in the “fly, fly, buttress fly” chorus. If you pay attention to the lyrics, it’s a pretty twisted story of clergical corruption in medieval France. Mostly though, it’s just strange.

3. Ballad of the Sasquatch Waterslide : This was co-written by Jon and I, after we determined that it would be a good idea to write a song about how much Sasquatch loved going to the waterslides. Jon sang lead and added the bit about the SWAT team, and I tossed in the “just some hairy guy” ending. The last 30 seconds of this song is probably my favorite part of this EP.

4. The Bee Song : This song has been available on my blog for a while, and it’s been written about enough already. I’ll just add that it was utterly exhausting to perform live and it completely alienated coffee shop audiences.

5. These the Presidents Be : I don’t know how well this recording really works. We were going for a Country Time lemonade kind of feel, but I don’t know if it was the right direction. My favorite part about this song are Jon’s additions, which sound like a retarded boy sitting on the porch next to the singer.

6. El Matador : This was the first song that Jon and I ever co-wrote, probably back in 2000 or 2001. I like it because it reminds me of how fun it was to just goof around together and toss out strange ideas. Also, it was a blast to record the dissonant breakdown at the end of the song. The song was recorded in one take, as Jon was running out of time before he had to go to work. If you can listen carefully, at the end he says, “All right, I’ve got to go”. Good way to end the EP.

Thanks to our friends Jake McAlpine and Craig Larson for their help with production and vocals, respectively.

Enjoy – and pass them along to your friends!

Willem was an 18 year old kid who was unfailingly polite with a moppy blond afro that belied his brave, goofy spirit. He died from an accident in his home. It wasn’t a suicide.

He was set to give a persuasive speech about the effects of outsourcing for my current affairs class. Knowing him, it would have been idealistic, while at the same time a bit cynical and frank. Willem was still working out a worldview for himself, like most high school seniors are. I’ll miss getting to hear his thoughts.

My favorite memory of him was a couple years ago when my school reserved a section at a Twins game so students and staff could go together. Willem was from the Netherlands, and had only been in the States for a couple months, so he was totally lost watching baseball. I got to sit by him and explain balls and strikes and the rules of the game to him until he left during the 7th. It was a fun night for me. The next day, he asked, “Who won the match, Mr. Welle?”. I told him, “They’re called games, Willem, and the Twins lost, so you should act more bummed out.”

I’ve been thinking about that night a lot this morning.

If you think of it today, pray for Willem’s family and friends, that they can make some sense out of this.

Thanks guys.

As a lot of you probably know already, Gioia was born very premature, and had to spend the first three months of her life in a hospital. She continues to have medical issues, and difficulty with swallowing and choking, but she’s improving so much that Ryan and Arlene are now able to go out on a date and leave her with clumsy people like Bridgette and myself. Though he’s really put them through the wringer, God has really blessed their family and continues to take care of them.

Last night’s shift went very well. Dylan played with a lot of toys, smashed lots of cars with me, and Gioia calmly took in the events from her perch in Bridgette’s lap, pausing occasionally to smile, grunt, and look around. Once she was in bed, Bridgette spend the remainder of the evening playing Tetris while I did the actual babysitting. Her maternal instincts appeared to be drowned out by the hope of getting to the purple level (which she did with great skill).

When Ryan and Arlene got back from their date, they presented us with Dairy Queen Blizzard treats (pumpkin pie and mint oreo). There was much rejoicing and celebration as Bridgette and I eagerly consumed the creamy frozen confections. In merriment, I spit a mouthful of runny mint oreo against their wall and motioned my delight. I was then tranquilized for my efforts as Bridgette made the standard apologies.

All in all, it was a success, given that we got ice cream, Bridgette got to play video games while ignoring a child, and the children’s life support functions were maintained.

Our babysitting services are also available to you, as long as you have a Nintendo and a Dairy Queen nearby.

Perhaps I should explain. Yesterday, February 13th, marked the three-year anniversary of when she and I first met. I remember that night pretty well – it was a Friday night, and the service at the Rock had just finished. I had chatted with some friends and was looking around for my friend Brent, who was in the throes of an unpleasant breakup at the time. I spotted him toward the back of the auditorium talking to this girl, and I quickly made my way toward them in order to officiate this conversation and make sure Brent wasn’t just spilling his guts to some random girl. I sat down and introduced myself, and the three of us had a fun, lengthy conversation. It turns out that Brent knew Bridgette from their college days back in Mankato. I remember noticing how this girl laughed a lot, and was so easy to talk to. This was a revelation for me, during a time in my life when I generally avoided conversations with most women for any number of complicated reasons.

In the dim lighting of the auditorium, I couldn’t really make out what Bridgette looked like – I just knew there was something special about her. As we were getting up to leave and walking out I finally got a good look at her, and the crush was on.

Yada, yada, yada…now we’re married.

I feel like we’re pretty lucky that we can celebrate a meaningful day that effectively substitutes for the unpleasantness of Valentines day. As I explained to my wife yesterday, it isn’t so much that I hate Valentine’s day as a principle – it’s just that I want everybody who likes Valentine’s day to die.

In summary – Valentine’s day annoys me, Bridgette makes me happy, and I owe Brent a favor.