Pepsi Max & Chimp

Part anthropology, part history, part deconstruction – this is new material that Rob hasn’t taught before, exploring how humans invented religion to make themselves feel better.

My thoughts after the jump:

I’ll preface everything by saying that I love Bell’s teaching style, even going as far as saying he is my favorite teacher. However, I am taken aback (as I’m sure he is) at all the ‘Bell worship’ – whether its blogs I’ve read online or the awkward partial standing ovation at the end of his teaching. As for people who blindly follow his teaching or for those who discount him as a heretic (see Amazon.com reviews) – he is human; he is sharing his views from an admitted flawed human perspective. As he says in the preface of his book, “Just because I’m a Christian and I’m trying to articulate a Christian worldview doesn’t mean I’ve got it nailed. I’m contributing to the discussion.” I do think that he is someone that God speaks through, and he did so last night.

With that caveat, I was overwhelmed at the perspective he took on this teaching, and I’m not going to summarize his hour and a half teaching here – no spoilers! Never before have I heard a Christian teacher take head-on anthropology as the beginning of the teaching. So much of my experience with messages is the avoidance of the Old Testament and its roots/similarities to pagan gods and goddesses of the era. In college, I took a class in Hebrew scripture and the teacher spent most of his time discounting the Torah as stories ’stolen’ from culture of the time. Animal sacrifice, human sacrifice (i.e. Abraham and Isaac), etc all finds roots in pagan culture, yet our modern teaching does all it can to avoid that. When was the last time someone taught Leviticus in church aside from quick quotes or as a joke? How many non-Christians approach the Old Testament and leave the scriptures entirely disturbed? The Old Testament is essentially uprooted from history and interpreted from a modern culture. I realize this is not a new concept to teach rooted in culture – rather, it was used as the foundation of the teaching and ultimately brought so much beauty to Levitical law and the history of encounters with God up to the sacrifice of Jesus. I’m not at all summarizing his teaching either – he really brought it full circle without making the whole discussion analytical or heady. A phenomenal message that I do hope is available on video soon.

If you can catch this series in your city, I would highly recommend it.

I’ll back this up a bit to explain the Shredded Diet. A few weeks ago I signed up for a free one-week membership to Pure Fitness to abort the rising bun in the oven. The bun isn’t so much in the oven but escaping over the sides of my jeans. Being 160lbs and 6′, it’s easy to notice the slightest additional 10lbs of fat. While signing up at the gym, the Ferociously Muscular Black Man Who Could Smash Me With his Hand fat tested me. You may recognize him by the biceps slip ‘n’ sliding out of his shirt sleeves like a wet bar of soap. Maybe when you are in the area you can stop by, say ‘hello’, and ask him to make you feel terrible about yourself. He pulled out his fat pinching tongs and squeezed my triceps and then my biceps. I wasn’t even flexing and that tool couldn’t grip anything! Me: 2. Tongs: 0. Then he lifted up the side of my shirt and those tongs gripped a fistful of love handle.

“This is where most of your fat is.”

Thanks! I didn’t know that! Clearly I couldn’t tell when you squeezed my sides into your depressing fat device. Or that my power house feels more like a fun factory these days. He took me back to his half-cubicle and got out a calculator and a pen. The pen served no function aside from drawing arrows that served no purpose.

“You are at 16% body fat. This is in the ‘Good’ category. If you want to be in the ‘Excellent’ category, you should be between 10% and 14%. But if you wanted to be ‘Shredded’, you gotta be at 6%. Now what do you want to be?”

The question hung in the air. I know he delivered that line thousands of times before, but to me, it was shiny and clean. The answer was simple, but I unconfidently replied, “Uh… shredded?”

“That’s what I thought. In four months, you will be shredded.” He drew something with his pen. It was an arrow pointing into the white space of the page. Then he drew the number 6.

He shared some figures and facts about getting shredded and explained how ‘Today Only’ I could save 50% off the signup fee and only drop $200 to start. He drew more arrows than Legolas at Helms Deep. I pretended like I was blown away by his sales pitch and confusing diagrams. I did a double-take when he picked up his laminated sales paper. I said I’d think about it. I stood up, shook his hand and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow bright and early.” But I wouldn’t see him tomorrow, or the next day, or for the remainder of my free one-week pass. We pretended to be buddies, but really, he had violated my personal fat space and wanted to charge me an unrealistic amount of money to take it away.

I had decided early on that I wouldn’t be joining Pure Fitness. Walking into the gym reminded me that I hate gyms. They are the grown up version of high school. There are jocks and cheerleaders everywhere, and I’m still the skinny nerd. Only here, I can’t beat the jocks and cheerleaders in 6th period with my outstanding Algebra test scores. This is the house of vain, and I didn’t feel like paying $200 to feel self-conscious.

So I started my home version of the Shredded Diet. It pretty much involves salads, oatmeal, no beer, this rubber stretchy cord thing, and feeling disappointed in yourself all of the time. I invented this diet. It will be the next Atkins and South Beach. Soon all of your friends will join up on the diet that has rendered no visible results aside from these purple rubber cords I constantly have to step over when I leave my bedroom.

Then again, I’ve only been faithful for two weeks to the diet. That is, until I went to Mexico. More on that later.

Why did thousands of people around the US walk downtown to sleep outdoors? In short, the Global Commute was in recognition of the commute that thousands of Ugandan children make each night because the risk of abduction and forced enrollment in the LRA army is too high. It’s a dire situation. I can’t use words to try and convince you of the amazing story of these resilient children who face murder, rape, forced killings and torture in the LRA. I would say, though, that if a self-centered, cheap bloke like me can be inspired to get involved with their plight, it’s not a stretch that you could also get involved.

Check out these amazing organizations – The bracelet campaign is a great way to get involved in a small way. It’s very inexpensive and you get a DVD with the story of one of these children. Unlike the other cheap rubber bracelets, these are handmade in Uganda and provide work opportunities for their country. Plus, ladies love handmade Ugandan bracelets. A spritz of AXE and a bracelet will surely help your lack of personality.

Fine Woman: What’s that on your wrist?
Ugly, Normally Unsuccessful Male: A bracelet that supports the poor and the plight of youth in Uganda. It accents my sensitivity and fashion sensibility. It matches my LL Bean corduroys as well.
Fine Woman: (hands you phone number)

In all seriousness, please consider buying a bracelet:
Bracelet Campaign

Other options to donate/support:
Invisible Children
Far Reaching Ministries

Thanks to all who walked Saturday night.

August | Heber, Arizona
Camping trip – chock full of stories about hunting lil’ birds with a potato gun, sleeping in a river, eating blackened hotdogs and drinkin’ Dos Equis.

Read about it here.

August | Tempe, Arizona
Steve and I avoided posting about something we did in August, although we did put a picture in the chimp cam for a few days that generated what some might call “less than positive results.” We moved into our house in Tempe in August, and several things were left here: old chairs, tools, drool-stained pillows, Junior High yearbooks, stuffed gorillas, and old rusted bikes. It was the bikes that pissed us off because there were three of them stored at our house. We didn?t know who?s they were, so we did what anyone would do: we rode one of them into the pool. Unfortunately, a Chimps Ahoy reader who will remain unnamed, owned that bike:

Video 1 (Steve)

Video 2 (Greg)

It wasn’t so much the “riding a 10 speed into a pool” that was the best part; but the whole course of events that followed.

September | Tempe, Arizona
When Sonath asked Steve, “Do you like Wheat Thins bangin’ on your chin?” After asking, he about passed out and fell over laughing. This is a big inside joke, but it ranks high on the moments of 2003.

September | Tempe, Arizona
I was having a lackluster day at ASU, and wouldn?t you know it, the system paid off and I experienced one of the better disasters in ASU bike riding history. In one corner, an Asian student riding eastbound on Tyler Mall. In the other, a Middle Eastern student heading west on the same route. They could tell they were on a collision course: one would bank right, and unfortunately, the other student turned the same direction. They moved back in forth in a death dance, did the final “wobble” and then collided full speed. Both flew over their handlebars, and much like the skateboarding incident Brad and I witnessed, I couldn’t stop laughing. I’ve never denied being a bastard; I know what it’s like to biff on a bike at ASU.

October | Tempe, Arizona
I left my Halloween post unfinished, and I apologize for that. As you may already know, I went as Legolas for Halloween, capitalizing on my resemblance to Orlando Bloom. So, I dropped $70+ on a costume and had make-up and ears done. Better moments of the evening:
-The makeup transformation…I look like an idiot.
-The marriage proposals
-Getting kissed by a lesbian. Well, I found out she was a lesbian after she explained (among other things) that I was the first guy she had kissed out of 19 total.
-Shannon getting checked out and hit on by a girl.
-Nick making children cry
-I was walking close to a fence and someone started screaming, “Legolas! LEGOLAS! I need a picture.” I stood in front of the fence for a picture, and afterwards, she asked, “Do you want to party with us?? And then a guy dressed as Raggedy Anne leans over her, and in a gruff voice says, ‘Yeah, come party with us.’”
-The best moment of Halloween however is when a girl ran up to me in a costume I couldn’t quite discern and yelled, “Legolas! It’s always been my dream for you to shoot me with an arrow!? I didn’t ask questions, I just told her to start running around because I needed a moving target. She ran about ten feet away and pranced around while saying, “I’m a lesbian dinosaur, shoot me with your arrow!” Her costume finally made sense.

December | Tempe, Arizona
I capped the year off with a LAN party, and while that in itself ranks in a different category (see Nerdiest Moments of 2003), one specific moment stands out from that three-day extravaganza of fun. We were playing Battlefield 1942 (a game where you kill people and drive vehicles), and the object of the map was to capture and hold a hill. Steve and his team currently were fighting to hold the hill. My team was trying to take it back. I climbed into a transport truck and started driving towards the hill. A scout on the other team spotted my truck and yelled out my position, so I pulled the truck around and drove through a forest and behind some hills. After I was safely out of view, I pulled out of the forest and booked it full speed up the hill. While I was evading detection, I hear Steve frantically screaming, “I can’t find him! Where is he?” I couldn’t see him either but as I made it to the top of the hill, my truck caught air, and lo and behold I found Steve right under my chassis. I blew my horn just in time for him to turn around and get driven over. He screamed, “NOOOOooooo!” And I laughed so hard I almost fell out of my chair.

Now that I read that, I realize that I truly am a huge nerd.

Camping probably sounds like something I never would want to do again, aside from a personal vice of masochism and machismo. But every time it’s over I think, “Wow, that was great”, and I seem to forget that for 38 hours straight I was in pain from holding back a #2 for fear of falling into the latrine. I hate being dirty and smelly, but that’s all camping is about. It’s a time where not taking showers and cooking hot dogs that fell in the dirt is a moment shared. It’s a bonding experience with nature. And also, one of the experiences where fun and crazy stuff happens:

The Potato Gun

The picture on the right is a video of 10 Pepsi cans being blown up with the potato gun (3.6 megs, requires DivX). The one on the left is of a 2-gallon jug being blasted (1.6 megs, requires DivX).

The potato gun, a $45 Home Depot investment, provided several hours of entertainment and food on the trip. Steve and I set up camp, sat around, and then finally couldn’t avoid the itch to shoot the potato gun. We fired it angled, straight up, into trees, and at targets. Eventually, Steve started shooting from the shoulder, and then got the itch to go hunting. I could have swore he tagged a squirrel, but it got away. Eventually, he hit this small bird. I don’t know what’s worse: the fact that Steve shot a pretty bird or that Nick actually cleaned and ate the bird (after cooking it over an open fire, of course). He said it was good…we are all waiting for West Nile Virus to set in. Other highlights include firing a potato and a tent spike into a tree, and shooting the gun bazooka style.

A Fashion Moment

Another highlight of the trip is one of those times that in retrospect really sucked. The first night we were there, it poured. However, as I was going out to pee on a tree (which is of course allowable if you are camping and are male), hail started to pour down. A large piece of hail hit my hand (the one holding my hoo hoo), and I freaked out. I put up a make shift shield with lefty and quick ran to the tent as the ice shards flew. I was still zipping my pants up as the onslaught set in. After the hail, the rain poured. Literally there was water flowing so fast under our tent that you could feel it under your hands. And there I was, cold, wet and hungry, huddled in a leaking tent trying to hide my pillow and sleeping bag from the grasping wet hands of Mother Nature.

The rain poured and everyone in my tent was hungry. I was trying to devise a plan to get the cooler of delicious food and drink into our tent. However, the cooler was 15 feet from the tent, surrounding by rushing waters and deposits of slippery mud. I thought about putting plastic bags over my shoes to keep the mud off. Eventually, we just waited for the rain to calm down. It slowed; I poked my head out of the tent, and got suited up. One warm ASU sweater, one weatherproof jacket, jeans, two Nike running shoes, and a beanie. I’ve never actually worn the beanie, aside from around the apartment when I wanted to play dress-up gangsta, dock worker, or rob the local Wendy’s.

I eventually gathered the courage to climb out of the safety hut, and I booked it for the truck for bread and the cooler for food. Everything was a blur – “Don’t slip!” “Watch out for that puddle!” “Faster!” I didn’t realize that it stopped raining, and it was just sprinkling at this point. So, I decided to tough out the misty rain and cook up a hot dog. I got a stick, put Hebrew National’s finest on, and blackened it in the fire. I also grabbed a Dos Equis and walked over to the nearest tent to see how the other campers were faring the weather. I opened up the door of the tent trailer and as I leered in, the conversation stopped. Laughter erupted. Someone yelled, “Snoop!” I couldn’t figure out what was so funny. Until I realized, there I was – I looked like a gangsta from another dimension – beanie on, hot dog on a stick in one hand, cheap beer in the other. It was quite a sight.

I thought everything could be blamed on the addition of a girlfriend with questionable balance or on the inherent evil of the state of Ohio (which I recently visited because of the aforementioned girlfriend) but I was proved wrong when I returned to what I thought was the comforting bosom of squishy, safety-padded Arizona only to be greeted by what can only be termed as a “big-ass” pipe (see below). More on that later…

Let’s go back a bit to my first aquatic adventure in the state of Ohio. Jess (the beloved girlfriend mentioned earlier) and I decided to venture across the mighty Sandusky River using only 5 or 6 mostly submerged stepping-stones. Where there were not stones, we uncoordinated whelps were forced to cling to one another like wet and confused otters and shuffle through the brown, contaminated, pointy rock-infested river water. Every third or fourth step, I managed to rub a previously existing ankle gash up against a chafe-tastic river rock. I silently cursed my ASU geology teacher who repeatedly insisted that river rocks were smooth… Ultimately the wound was reopened, worsened, and putrefied by water that could be synonymous with “bacteria hotel.”

A day or so later, Jess and I ventured to scenic Lakeside, Ohio which is like the cream filling sandwiched between the chocolaty wafers of Lake Erie and the rest of the state of Ohio. Jess asked me to pose for a picture on the rocks on the shore next to a lighthouse. I joyfully obliged; not wanting to settle for photographic mediocrity, I scampered innocently out on the rocks for the ultimate of pictures. I intended to pose on the half-submerged flat rocks, which would hopefully allow me to visually recreate Jesus walking on water. In my mind it was beautiful, however in execution, it was an unsightly violation of the human body. My feet hit the sludgy submerged portion of the rock and instantly conveyed skyward. In classic pratfall fashion, my legs ascended, my upper body descended and my back and buttocks collided most painfully into a very hard surface. Hoping to maintain some dignity and hopefully my relationship with Jess, I stood up quickly and then slid around for what seemed like five minutes of trying to regain my balance. The bad part was that I soiled an entire days worth of clothes (inside and out) and imbued myself with a righteous bruise, but the good part was that I got to go into town and buy a new shirt that cleverly says, “Get Your Ship Together.” I call it even on that endeavor.

Also on the same Ohio trip, Jess and I, unsatisfied with our current level of water-based humiliation, sought out a canoe with which to again brave the mighty Sandusky River. We procured conveyance and launched into the muddy abyss. Due to abnormal amounts of rain, the water level was high, trees were down, and the current was flowing faster than normal. Like the brave (or stupid) souls that we are we ignored warnings and even had the stupidity to forego life vests. About fifteen minutes into the 2-hour trip, we encountered a downed tree. Unable to reign in our boat, we instead paddled harder and slammed headfirst into the tree. Jess, being in front, was startled and dropped her oar, which conveniently lodged in the tree branches. After being turned around and floating downstream a ways, MIGHTY STEVE ™ managed to single-handedly turn the boat around and row against the current back to the tree. Jess latched on and proceeded to reach for her oar. When she couldn’t secure it, she got the idea to knock the oar into the water and then pick it up after it resurfaced. The first part of the plan worked as she knocked the oar into the muddied drink, however we could not see the plan through because the oar never came back up. Dejectedly, we continued on, hoping for the best that can be expected with having a 14-foot canoe manned by an incompetent ape of a man whose water-based accomplishments max out at taking a bath with bubbles. As we continued on, I managed to lose control of the boat and run into something else. Efforts to maintain balance came to no fruition and ultimately we flipped the canoe sending life-vests, sandals, oars, and girlfriends flying into the water. After swallowing enough bacteria filled water to give me diarrhea for a week, I surfaced and frantically grabbed all of our buoyant personal effects. The boat sank and needed to be flipped and drained. I barked orders as well as I could with a wallet between my teeth (didn’t want to find leeches wedged between my driver’s license and credit cards) and we managed to get righted and continue on. In the course of the adventure, I managed to rip a nice gash in my hand and convince Jessica’s family that I’m both ridiculously stupid and incapable of taking care of their daughter. Score!

So I came home Wednesday, bruised and battered but none the worse for wear. I went about my life thinking that I left all personal risk back in Ohio with my girl. Then I went Saturday to volunteer doing construction type things at the Rio Vista homeless shelter. While ripping 2×4s down, a section of ceiling collapsed on my head, shooting drywall, wood and a freakin’ heavy lead pipe at my body. Narrowly missing my head, the lead pipe landed innocently in my arms and I simultaneously cradled the pipe and my own mortality like wee children.

After the dust settled, I managed to drop the pipe on my toe. If you want to get in touch with me, I’ll be at my house, appendages wrapped in foam rubber, wearing a crash helmet and gently rocking back and forth.

Nick, Mike and Brad

Nick and Mike

Some guy and his woman…Jim and Mike

In the dark days of elementary school and junior high (middle school, in the Midwest) there were always the fat kids. While the athletic kids were out wooing the ladies in the arenas of football, basketball, baseball, and other “traditional” sports, the fat kids were left to the one impressive skill no one else would touch…eating contests. Physical activity wasn’t my friend back in those days, for I was the quintessential fat kid. Always last to cross the finish line, always first to apply the anti-chafing powder.

In gym class there were several different units (i.e. baseball, dodge ball, wrestling, etc) and the most dreaded of units was the running unit. Those were the fateful days when we would trudge out to the track and were forced to run around it several times. I never made it very far…never completed the mile without walking a majority of the way. No matter how the gym coach yelled, I would not exert myself in the arena of running. After I finished, I always felt like a wheezing old man. It was on those dusty tracks that I uttered my first profanities.

As time went by, gym became but a memory and I assumed my role as “academic nerd boy.” No matter how much prodding there was to join the football team (and there was a lot of prodding), I would faithfully draw on my most reliable of excuses…”Hey man, I’m a thinking man…no sports centered around savage beatings for me.” I was still a hefty dude and running was still my bane. I ran only to get out of the way of speeding buses and to get to the front of the buffet line.

Fast forward to this past January. I decide (with the help of my faithful friend Greg) that it’s time to lose some weight. I go on this crazy diet and start walking every morning. It’s only a matter of time before I turn to my old nemesis, running, to speed the process of weight loss. It starts slow. I don’t run very far. It doesn’t quite seem to suck as much as I remember. I keep at it, enjoyment growing with each outing. Running’s not so bad.

My enjoyment of running culminates in one exquisite evening…the evening when I drank four cups of coffee at Perkins and then didn’t sleep for 40 hours. Much was accomplished in that caffeinated frenzy…I read a novel, watched a great movie (Il Postino), watched the sun rise from the hot tub, watched both “Martha Stewart Living” and “The Price Is Right”, and ran farther than I had ever run before. That night I ran and ran and ran and ran. It was then that I knew I would be a runner.

I then stopped running for a month and a half. It was too hot, I couldn’t get up early enough, and I certainly wasn’t going to stay up 40 hours very often. When I started running again, I hated it. Now I go with TJ and I hate it a little more every time. It’s crap. I feel all out of breath, my knees start to buckle, I get side aches, and tonight I felt like I was going to blow chunks all over Tempe Beach Park (maybe it was the hearty Sonic meal I had at lunch).

Running sucks and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.