Letters from Kamp Krusty

Kamp Krusty's First-Ever Theme Week: Gird Yourself

I'll be unable to post next week.  I'll be Christian Cruising.

So I'm going to time-release some posts, one each day, that will amaze and provoke.

I give you:  The Most Disturbing Album Covers Ever. 

A local paper brought up the subject, so I thought I'd hand-pick my personal faves.  I will not be here, but they -- they will not, can not, be stopped.  They are timed to upload themselves onto Kamp Krusty, punishing readers like a slow, time-release drip. 

The first Disturbing Album Covers drop on Monday.  Gird yourself.

Hands Down: The Funniest Joke Ever

I'm quite serious.  Shawn told this joke the other night on the back porch, and I couldn't stop laughing.  I was embarrassed,  because everyone else politely laughed for the requisite five seconds, and I couldn't stop.

I went home and laughed about it.  I couldn't sleep, I was still laughing about it.  I awoke the next day and told people at work.  I could barely get through the joke, and then they stared blankly.

For me, this simply must have been the joke the British used in the Monty Python sketch, a joke so funny it killed anyone who heard it, and was deployed against the Germans.

Typing it won't do, so I tell the joke below.  Don't bother commenting about how bizarre I am.  I know, okay?  But perhaps -- PERHAPS -- someone else will find this amusing.  It's been two days, and I can't stop laughing.

Yes, again:  I already know I'm strange.  Insert your own cricket noises.  But I still can't breathe.  I know:  I'm a freak.  I've never argued that.

Download joke.mp3 (570.7K)

Perry Christmas to All

Birthdays are Consumerist Distractions. And I Can't Stop You From Participating.

I'm not going to mention my birthday, which is Thursday.  Don't feel like you have to buy me anything.  Certainly not any old something I'd enjoy around the house, something that just suits me.

Besides, I know what you'd actually send.

So don't send anything to my workplace for my birthday.*

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* -- If everyone who reads this blog just sends me a dollar, I could buy some cool things.  Like, say, nine things.  At the dollar store.

Can't You See What Love Has Done?

One theme of this blog, besides toast, has been how people, even self-described non-believers, "get" the Kingdom of God.  And they yearn for it. 

...which is why most people love a video like this.  (And, I might add, why U2 resonates.) 

Thanks and HT to Bill Kinnon, who lives in Canada, but has rounded up enough computer access to have his own website, like many real Americans do.

For Your Weekend: Enduring Genius

I'll admit these guys creeped me out when I was little.  Then, I realized they ruled.  I would kill to have that phone ring, plus yip-yip guys impression, as a ringtone. I've got to figure how to do that.  (Read:  Some computer-smart person, please do this for me.)

I learned from the finest actor of our generation, and I learned what drugs do to people.

What prompted the S-Street search?  Carolyn and I were talking about the "Capital I" song, and I remembered another song -- the saddest song I've ever heard.  I'm not sure why this just kills me, but it does, and always did, even when I was six years old.  This is what I was looking for:

That's Right, Iceman. I'm Dangerous

I just got in trouble at work.  And it feels kinda cool, I'll be honest. 

I used to be the compliant kid.  Couldn't lie to my parents, helped the teachers clean the erasers, the whole deal.  So am I in full rebellion now?  Maybe I am.  Yeah.

What of it?

Know what I did?  I brought a toaster to the office, and plugged it in the hallway.  Sometimes I would make toast right there -- IN THE HALLWAY.  Wheat bread.  Dark.  Seven, sometimes NINE grain, toasted -- oh yes -- in the hallway.

But the building manager came in, saw it, and just...went off.  I wanted to keep it in my office, unplugged, in a box -- and nooooo, that's not allowed, either.  Nossir.  Not even unplugged, in a box.

But you know what?  Right now?  It's STILL IN MY OFFICE, UNDER SOME STUFF.  That's right:  I forgot to take it home today.

I mean, I will take it home, but I forgot, and I don't plan on going back in to get my toaster right now, because I don't feel like it.  How you like them apples?

That's right, Iceman.  I'm dangerous. 

I'm a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride, and I'm wanted, dead or alive. 

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True related story:  One time the radio station I was working at went off the air completely.  Dead air for a twenty minutes solid, middle of the day.  I sat in my office eating toast, thinking about how frustrating that must be for the people trying to hear the station, typing up some stuff, as the tech guys ran repeatedly past my door, trying to find what was going on.

...then they converged, suddenly, on my office.  They looked at some grey box-thing, now unplugged from the wall. They looked at my toaster, now plugged in, and me, eating toast.  Turns out the grey box-thing links to some satellite or something.  I'm still not sure.

Dylan and Diapers

Flag me:  15 yards for Over-Rhapsodizing.  But this video makes me think about heaven.

Columnist Joel Stein once bemoaned the idea of heaven.  I read it on my Starbucks cup.  "Harps and clouds" and all that.  Pretty boring, he says. 

I'd have to agree.  Then again, the harps-and-clouds idea of the Kingdom of God, in its fullness, isn't in the Bible.  What is in the Bible is a picture of restoration, of things set right, of the lame leaping like deer, the blind opening their eyes, the deaf hearing and singing. 

No more pain.  No more evil.  Just pure joy.  Untinged by doubt, unfettered by hurtful memories, unbroken by betrayal, unburdened by the tragedy-that-just-may-befall-us.  Just joy.  Now.

It's not just the laughing, here. The kid is so young, there's nothing behind his eyes.  No yesterday, no tomorrow, just dad, being silly, right now.  Things are right.  Maybe the Kingdom sounds less like harps and more like this kid.

Bob Dylan once famously described heaven as "echoes of laughter."  I like that. 

Perhaps Some Conclusions Might Be Drawn from This

(From Ireland, HT: this sharp blogger via Alan)

 

Asterisks

Jesus loves the little children*

All the children of the world**

Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight***

Jesus loves the little children of the world****

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* -- But, based on observation of his U.S. followers, this is currently in question.  American Christians give, on average, 2.6% of income to churches.  Of that, 2 cents of every dollar goes to international missions work in any form.

** --- But, based on observation, mostly American kids, since 85 cents of every dollar is spent on "congregational operations", amounting to more than $35 billion per year for existing congregations -- as percentage of church-going actually declines.

*** -- But, based on observation, perhaps growing less so, since this internal-spending-on-operations percentage has gone up, not down, since the 1960s, even as church attendance has declined.

**** -- But, while some wonder why God "allows" these children to suffer in poverty, it remains that if American believers gave 10%, even after giving church organizations $35 billion for "congregational operations", Christians in the U.S. would give more than $150 billion per year to prove how much Jesus really loves little children -- even ones with special needs.