the Gently Mad

Reformissionary recently asked readers to list the top five books that made them laugh out loud. I thought I would post my reply here.

I love all of these books, and all of them are valuable beyond a laugh. They are in no particular order.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris. Every single one of Sedaris’ books is genius, but there are some essays here that are among his best. I laughed almost the entire way through the title essay where he details in effort to quit smoking and how he felt the need to recruit a new smoker so as not to create a smoker/non-smoker imbalance in the world.

Fraud by David Rakoff. Along the lines of Sedaris, but where Sedaris is scatological and intentionally low-brow, Rakoff takes aim at his sophisticated New York life and how ridiculous it often is.

I Hate Myself and Want to Die: The 52 Most Depressing Songs You’ve Ever Heard by Tom Reynolds. A hilarious book that explores (and pokes fun at) 52 of the most heart-wrenching and earsplitting songs of all time and explains the reasons we continue to listen to them.

Confessions of a Reformission Rev by Mark Driscol. Classic Mark Driscoll. This one is more profound and funny than his previous effort, in my opinion. The part about calling all of the men of the church together and handing them two little stones was hilarious and convicting.

Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. His description of the generally lazy and solipsistic writer’s life was great. And true.

I know I probably overdo the mix-tape. I have given my wife a CD compilation for every significant occasion so far in our relationship. Our first Christmas, our first Valentine’s Day, her birthday, our first anniversary — all perfect occasions for the perfect mix.

Fortunately, my wife puts up with my high school antics because she is just as much of a music lover as I am. One area of musical taste that we do not share, however, is hip hop. She loves it. I, on the other hand, have never been a fan. But thanks to a couple friends who are true connoisseurs, I have come to appreciate authentic hip hop quite a bit.

I say authentic because, as I have learned, there is a massive difference between the rap that you hear on top 40 radio stations and real hip hop, which, historically has been far more influenced by jazz and soul.

So I set out to make my wife a hip hop mix that truly captured how I felt about her and what she meant to me.

This was far more complicated than it sounds. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find great hip hop love songs that aren’t completely misogynistic?

I had several rules. First, the songs had to actually express how I felt. Two, they had to be love songs. Three, they had to be true hip hop, not r&b, which often gets lumped into the genre.

This made putting together the mix a lot harder than I expected, because there are a lot of great loves songs that are r&b and a lot of great hip hop tracks that aren’t love songs.

Nevertheless, after spending nearly two months just listening to hip hop and exploring this genre I put together, what I think, is a phenomenal mix that will appeal to lovers of great hip hop and lovers of great music in general.

So without further adieu, here’s the list. Most of these you can sample on iTunes. Others I spent quite a while tracking down.

By Your Side
1. OutKast: The Love Below (Intro)
2. Count Bass D: Seven Years
3. Common: The Light
4. C.L. Smooth & Pete Rock: Searching
5. Lyrics Born: I Can’t Wait for Your Love
6. Method Man: I’ll Be There for You
7. De La Soul: Eye Know
8. Guru: Trust Me
9. World Renown: Butter Love
10. Common: Come Close
11. OutKast: Prototype

What do you think? Have you ever made a mix that you now look back on and cringe? If you were to make one for your special person today, what would be on it?

Steve McCoy is a genius.

A little humor courtesy of Carl.

and my favorite…

No better way to start restart a blog than with a little solipsistic intro. In this case, and for those who love brevity, I’ll forgo the details (you can read those here). The following is 28 years in bullet form…

• born in chattanooga tennessee in 1980
• spent a pretty standard childhood in the metro atlanta area
• homeschooled from third grade on
• developed a socially crippling inability to converse with members of the opposite sex
• graduated in ‘97 and job hopped for a couple of years before settling in at ibm
• developed an inexplicable desire to go to college and packed up for california in ‘02 where i majored in procrastination and obesity
• made several attempts to graduate in the ‘04/’05 time period but was, and have remained, unsuccessful
• decided to try my hand at writing and found myself editing the business section of the local paper
• realized i’d had enough of california in ‘06 and made my way back to georgia
• set up shop at the local starbucks and met the woman i would marry less than six months later
• decided money was a beneficial commodity and sought work at the local paper as an editor
• became a father in late ‘07 and am still trying to find the manual for how to raise a daughter that i’m sure must exist somewhere
• currently attempting to hide a complete lack of ability in order to remain employed and impress wife’s family with long, incomprehensible words and stunning wit

Interesting article on the AP wire yesterday.

Americans: My Faith Isn’t the Only Way to Heaven
Tuesday , June 24, 2008

AP

America remains a nation of believers, but a new survey finds most Americans don’t feel their religion is the only way to eternal life — even if their faith tradition teaches otherwise.

The findings, revealed Monday in a survey of 35,000 adults, can either be taken as a positive sign of growing religious tolerance, or disturbing evidence that Americans dismiss or don’t know fundamental teachings of their own faiths.

Among the more startling numbers in the survey, conducted last year by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: 57 percent of evangelical church attenders said they believe many religions can lead to eternal life, in conflict with traditional evangelical teaching.

In all, 70 percent of Americans with a religious affiliation shared that view, and 68 percent said there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their own religion.

“The survey shows religion in America is, indeed, 3,000 miles wide and only three inches deep,” said D. Michael Lindsay, a Rice University sociologist of religion.

“There’s a growing pluralistic impulse toward tolerance and that is having theological consequences,” he said.

keep reading –>

OK, so it’s been a long time. A long, long, long time. So long, in fact, the joke has been that I start new blogs just to put up “Coming Soon” splash pages. Unfortunately, that’s not an inaccurate observation.

But, the Gently Mad has returned. I’ve wanted to restart this blog ever since I got married and ever since my day job shifted away from writing.

Not all of the links are working yet, and I will be adding back posts from the Genly Mad 1.0 in case all two of you are interested.

The last time I regularly updated a blog I was an almost-graduated college student living in California. This time around I’m an almost-graduated newspaper editor with a wife and a nine-month-old daughter.

This blog is purely for my own benefit and will be repository for whatever I’m instereted in at the moment, which mostly revolves around the arts, the church and what it means to be an authentic follower of Christ in our day. I hope to add regular content and for those of you who would like to come along, comment ever now and then just to make me feel good.