It's the Oscars!

Forget the Oscars…This is the:
"Year in Trevor’s Life" Awards!

2009 has come and gone, and now the time has come to award the people, events, and stuff in Trevor’s life from this past year. What is the purpose of these awards? Come on, it’s awards! Everyone loves awards.

*Please note, these awards may not actually cover the most important parts of Trevor's life from 2009. Think of it more as a grab bag filled with mostly inconsequential randomness.





Biggest surprise: Getting my own place before the end of the year….in Claremont?!

Biggest Letdown: Ramen noodles are not as nutritious as home cooked meals.

Best Television show from a past year: Arrested Development

Best Television show (current): Lost

Best source of random knowledge: Derek

Best partner in comedy, and crime: Johnny

Lead the flock (best pastor): Chuck

The one that ran away (best runner): Amy

Best author of actual books and not just stupid blogs like this one: Joyce

Most awkward in a social setting but getting good at it: Trevor

Best at eliciting a reaction of shock in a social setting: Johnny

Best excuse for being late for work: "It was snowing!"

Most disturbing comment: "I could eat a person before I could eat a rat."

Most prominent feeling of the year: Lethargy

Runner up for most prominent feeling of the year: Hope

Biggest source of disappointment: Good people using God as a weapon against those with a “smaller faith.”

Story least likely to be completed: Frank Cumby

Most likely to marry my brother: Casey

Best proof that my brother has always been the lucky one: Casey

Most likely to run a Marathon: Amy

Most likely to beat world 8 in Super Mario Brothers: Johnny and Trevor


Thank you to everyone who participated in life this year. May 2010 be a year to remember. It better be, because the world ends in 2012 anyways.

Frank Cumby says Hello...Not!

.

While you, the patient readers, wait for the assuredly miserable chapter 2 of Frank Cumby's story, I (your sluggish author) thought you might want to know what Frank was up to last week. So here it is:

Monday: Frank went in to work (at 8:03 of course) and grumbled aloud at what a real dump the building was, and how most the machinery wouldn't pass code in Mexico, much less here in the U.S. of A.

Tuesday: Frank went in to work and complained about his turkey sandwich. If the grocery stores weren't owned by the terrorists he could have afforded roast beef.

Wednesday: Wednesday was so insignificant that no one remembers what Frank did that day.

Thursday: Frank went in to work and lost his concentration when thinking about how much he hated being there, thereby sewing the heads of 346 Care Bear dolls onto the bodies of 346 "Super Military Action" G.I. Joe dolls,complete with assault rifles and bayonets. Many children will be paralyzed with fear as a result.

Friday: Frank went in to work and thanked God it was Friday, then remembered he didn't believe in God. He promptly remembered that he didn't believe in anything else either.

Saturday-Sunday: Frank stayed inside.


Chapter 2 coming soon.

The Worst Day of Frank Cumby's Life

Dear Reader, the following is the first chapter of a short story about a man named Frank Cumby. If there is any demand for a continuation, Frank's story will be completed. If not, he will fade into obscurity, which is probably what Frank would want anyways. He's not a likeable guy, so we both understand if you want him to go away and never come back. Just know that Frank doesn't like you either. Not one little bit.

Chapter 1

Frank Cumby hated his life. He hated every awful second of it. Frank was fifty-two years old but felt twice that, just based on the number of crappy years he could remember. He was always disappointed when he went to bed at night but was way more disappointed when he woke up. Frank had no friends and no family, at least none he ever wanted to see again. His wife had left him years ago. He treated his neighbors like crap, and he treated his coworkers like crap. Frank even found little ways to make sure his pets weren't all that happy. He fed his cat dog food and fed his dog cat food. He fed his goldfish Goldfish snack crackers just for the sick irony. Frank worked in a factory where they had lots of extra packaging material, so every day when he got home from work, he tossed out those little white foam peanuts in his lawn just to watch the birds peck at it and fly away disappointed.

Frank's most despicable habit was throwing empty beer cans at the neighborhood kids who were dumb enough to get within throwing range, and Frank didn’t even drink beer. He just preferred empty beer cans for throwing because they made the stickiest mess when they popped a kid right in back of the head. He knew the little yard apes would go home crying with sticky beer in their hair. He liked to think that the children's parents would say something like: “You smell like a common street drunk! Go to bed without supper and you're grounded for a year and your father will always be disappointed in you.” This was the one hobby that gave Frank a feeling of something close to inner joy. And yes, it was very much a hobby. Frank would pilfer through his drunk neighbor's recyclables several times a week just to get all the Busch and Budweiser ammunition he could find. He only took the cans that still had a little smelly beer left in the bottom. Frank was a mean old bastard.

Frank woke up at 7:21 every morning, which was the last possible minute he could wake up and still make it to his crappy job at “Happy Place Toys” by 8:03. Frank had learned many years ago that the punch-in clock only counted you late if you came in at 8:04 or later. Frank despised his job. He hated it more each of the twenty-one years he had been there. The only thing on this earth he disliked more than his job was children, and he made stupid children’s toys for a living. Well, he didn’t so much make them as just screw the head onto the “Super Turd Action Man” doll that was all the rage at the moment. Or maybe it was Tickle Me Elmo, who knows. It's not as if Frank cared.

But Frank had a secret. And it was a true secret because no person living within five hundred miles of Frank knew his secret. You see, Frank's life was not always a cesspool of filthy habits and bitterness and anger. Twenty-seven years ago, after four years of wonderful marriage to the woman he’d loved since he was old enough to go to the bathroom by himself, Frank found out he was going to be a daddy. He hoped it was a boy. Frank was always fond of the name Matthew. His son's name would be Matthew.

To be continued in Chapter 2…

Glass Elevator (We saw into our lives but never had control)

Up the elevator he goes,

Stands still and nervous,

Stares out glass windows,

Might jump off on purpose.



Up up up,

Still going up,

Up.. up.. up..

God it’s a long way up.



Past bank office employees,

Past the secret lovers,

With a marriage destroyed,

While pigeons find cover.



Twenty-six stories tall,

People below are crumbs,

He can’t see them at all,

When he holds up his thumb.



Near the rooftop,

Lump building in back of his throat,

On the rooftop,

Wonder if I can float?


Nope.


Down, down, down,

God it’s a long way down.


.

What it was Like when I Died

I died last Tuesday when I was out for a walk in the cold night air. There are train tracks close to my house, but the train doesn't run too much after dark. Well, tonight the train was running so I had to wait for it to pass. I remember thinking that I like how waiting for a train to pass is the one kind of waiting no one ever seems to mind. It seems we're just happy to be safely on one side of the tracks or the other, as we sit back and respect the deadly iron power shaking the earth as it passes by. Once the train was only a spot in the distance, I safely crossed the tracks and was back on my way to nowhere.

Now, I've been walking the better part of 25 years. I get the concept. I would say I'm even pretty good at it. I enjoy stepping out the front door and just walking for a while. But for some reason, on this achingly normal Tuesday, I tripped over my own feet and tumbled towards the curb mouth first like a lion about to take a big bite out of a gazelle's rear end. It's funny. A life full of so many moments, some more impressive than others, is ended by one moment so clumsy and mundane.

I don't remember thinking about death or seeing my life flash before my eyes. Mostly because all I could think was "Idiot, walk like you have been since you were an infant! Moron!" Next thing I knew, I was standing up, pain free. Only, I was looking down at myself. My dead self, to be exact.

It took about thirty minutes to get over all the stages of dying: panic, denial, depression, sadness, anger... you know, all the stuff we think we're above until we actually kick the bucket ourselves. I guess that's when I realized that I was missing the most important point. Despite seeing my dead body lying there, I was still breathing and still standing on 2nd street in Claremont, the little town I have called home for only a few months. I had to call my family. Reaching into my pocket to grab my Samsung Propel, my hand went right through my phone! It wasn't kind of like in those movies about someone dying and having an out of body experience; it was exactly like in the movies. Great, even my death is one big cliché! I needed to get to my family, just in case this weirdness ended and my soul actually started the trip to heaven or...wherever.

Since I was not able to touch anything, I kind of figured my car was useless too. To get to my family, all I could do was start walking down I-40 and hope that my ghost legs were stronger than my old ones. Walking along the side of the interstate, it was obvious that no one could see me, even though I saw them as I always have. In my current state of...um…deadness, I laughed at myself for carefully walking along the side of the road. With my family in Vale more than twenty miles away, I started running in the middle lane, against traffic, just because I could.

It took me most of the night to get to my parents' house, but at least I was right about my new legs not getting tired. As I stood in the driveway of my childhood home, a dark thought overwhelmed me. What if someone had discovered my body back in Claremont and my mom already knew? Was I even doing the right thing by coming here? All I wanted to do was let my family know that I was okay, but how many people really feel comforted by a ghost? So I just stood outside the front door for an hour or maybe two, very conflicted and very dead.

As it turns out, all of my worrying was a waste of time. No one would wake up. There was no way at all to interact with my family. I couldn't pick up a pen or make a candle flicker or mess with electronic devices or any of that cool stuff. I was a weak and pathetic ghost. And I wanted my life back. I left my parents' room, walked through the wall and laid down in the grass in the backyard. Through the rest of the night and next morning I cried.

The grass was wet with dew, and the sun was hot on my face. Waking up in my parents' yard reminded me that all of this was not a dream as I had prayed the night before. For a moment, I wondered why I could feel the grass and the sun, yet any object I tried to touch went right through me. Maybe it was because of man's connection with the earth, or some other hippy nonsense. Or maybe God was saying "Ha! I can still screw with you even though you are dead!" Either way, I felt so completely alone. It felt like I was hidden from not only the eyes of everyone I had ever loved, but even God did not see me. I thought of all those times I passed up the opportunity to be with the people I truly cared about. I wondered what the Hell I was thinking all those years, never really getting all that close to those I loved so much. Now, knowing I could never talk to them again, I felt like the biggest fool who ever lived. What was so important that the people in my life had to come in second place behind whatever else I was trying to achieve? Oh wow, I held a steady job and had a neat little convertible. Well, Mr. Fantastic, what good is that doing you now that you are D E A D? Well, how about it? Moron.

I slept on the lawn for a couple more nights, knowing that I needed to figure out how to move on to wherever my new home was supposed to be. I couldn't do it. I could not leave my family or my friends behind without telling them I was okay. But, was I okay? Not really, but that's what we do to the people we love. We lie to them. And I wanted to tell them this great lie one more time: "Hey, I'm okay."

I promised myself and I promised God, that If I ever got a second chance, I would worry more about the people who loved me and less about the mundane tasks of living. All of that garbage could worry about itself for all I cared. I would get things right if I could only try again. "Please God, give me another chance...Jesus Christ help me!" I screamed in anguish before collapsing onto the ground. Somehow, my tormented heart was hushed for a moment and I fell asleep on the soft grass one last time.

I rolled over in bed and saw that it was already 7:30. Damn, I'm late for work!

One Guy’s Opinion on the Problem with Christian Entertainment

People like to be entertained, want to be entertained, and maybe even need to be entertained. If to live is to know pain, then entertaining ourselves is one escape from that pain. This is human, and it's a universal truth.

We constantly seek entertainment.

I am by no means sitting on the forefront of popular culture, modern trends, the newest fads, or even the latest revolution in social networking (still don’t really get the whole Twitter craze). However, I do enjoy movies and music a lot, perhaps more than your average Joe Christian. And as a Christian, I am well aware that we have a need to stay away from anything which causes temptation towards sin, for ourselves and for those dwelling in our household. As a Christian human I can also tell you that I have very little interest in Christian entertainment today, and there are hundreds of thousands of decent Christian people who feel the way I do on this. Do you see the irony? As Christians, many of us can not enjoy the music and movies made specifically for us. So how can we possibly expect this entertainment to reach those who did not grow up in church, the same people who probably have a thick emotional wall built up against anything tagged as “Christian”?

Don’t get me wrong, there are quite a few exceptions to this lack of quality in Christian entertainment. There are some Christian movies which could pass as good movies to any audience. I personally am partial to a few Christian musicians, such as Andrew Peterson and Jeremy Casella. But these should not be exceptions! Directors, writers, and musicians inspired by God should be consistently releasing some of the most profound and powerful entertainment today! Any movie or music lover can tell you that truly great entertainment can be much more than just entertainment. Schindler’s List is a movie which probably changed who I am in some ways as a person. It hit me that hard. I say that not to promote Schindler’s List, but to stress that there should be hundreds of Christian movies far more powerful than this. A flawed man saving hundreds of Jewish people during World War II is a powerful story. The son of God saving the entire universe is incomparably more powerful.

So what’s the problem? Many arguments could be made, but for me the answer is clear. So much of the Christian entertainment today is produced without the slightest hint of honesty or grit.

In an attempt to keep everything so neat and clean, the details surrounding the truth being presented end up ringing false. Vulgarity for the sake of shock value is dreadful and disgusting. But that does not excuse sanitizing something until it no longer feels relatable, until it feels fake. When even a great story is populated with cardboard cut out characters and riddled with cheesy clichés, the more discerning viewers will roll their eyes and check out emotionally.

Okay, I hear you. “But Mr. Cynical Writer, aren’t most popular secular movies and most secular songs filled with cheap thrills and paper thin storytelling?” Yes, of course they are, and that is exactly my point! Christian entertainment should be different. It should not ring as hollow as the rest of the popular entertainment industry. So, is there a solution? Maybe.

I believe that the answer lies in being honest, being real, and admitting human brokenness. Life is a struggle for even the best of us. There is no use in trying to hide that! Whenever a character in a movie seems truly human, the odds of the audience connecting with the story increase exponentially. Even a mediocre movie with believable characters can leave an impact. Imagine how powerful the story of salvation should be when you deeply feel the struggles of the people in the story! By the same way of thinking, no Christian musician should, in my humble opinion, ever feel comfortable releasing a song that is anything less than their very best. If copying what every other musician has done, both lyrically and musically, is the best they can do, then so be it. But I believe that inspiration from God should lead to some of the most brilliantly honest and powerful music out there today, Christian or not.

The Christian entertainment industry needs to stop being so concerned over stepping on a few toes. We should be seeing and hearing a sample of the heart and the raw power of God on display, not a carbon copy of the same cheap entertainment the secular world is pleased with. All forms of Christian entertainment are in serious need of a dose of reality. There is no excuse for movies and music filled with so much truth to look and sound so phony. It is time to cut the candy coating away and reveal the truth inside. (Ouch, and I was complaining about cheesy clichés!)

Into the Dark

.

.

Into the Dark


We will never be
Be as a complete soul
Soul is dying as we wait
Wait in this night and die cold.

Body will fall asleep
Asleep in the cold air
Air grows too heavy
Heavy as what we must bare.

Giving into this feeling
Feeling like carbon and nothing
Nothing will bring life back
Back into what is something.

Will you be with me then
Then we will see what we are
Are we to become something other
Other than the story so far?

Hear the tune of the end of my time
Time to give up the fighting
Fighting for our piece of hope
Hope will die without us trying.

Hold onto me as we fade to black
Black overwhelms my face
Face the truth of falling forever
Forever we wander in this place.

Over there a man looks into our eyes
Eyes on the one we can trust
Trust my heart as we start to cry
Jesus Christ save us!




.