Synaxis TV

For lunch I listened to an intereview with David Sedaris on the Glenn Mitchell Show, but it weren’t that great. We had fajitas for lunch in celebration of Independence Day. I got stuffed with sopapillas.

After work I read some more. My PDA had come in, but they didn’t leave a note of any sort so it just sat in the office sad and alone.

During lunch I ordered a Dell Axim x30 then later re-faxed a sheet for my loans that I didn’t fill out properly (blanks instead of zeros).

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After work I just spent the evening reading.

During lunch I put together another copy of a 1040EZ form (my mom didn’t make a copy) and faxed it over to Purdue to complete the loan process.

After work Laura and I went to see The 24th Day.

I spent the day working on the journal again then went to the improv with Laura and Sandy to see Freddy Soto. I had lots of fun and my face hurt by the end of the night. It was funny to see Laura’s mom laughing at such course humor. The first comedian had a good line about the “Plano clap” where he slapped his arm like he was about to shoot up.

The second comedian, Al Madrigal, was quite funny as well. He had a joke about the “Latino breeze” sweeping across America, and how soon enough there would be Meximoes in Canada. Laura was particularly amused by this since we are after all an interracial couple. His joke about second and third generation Mexican Americans whose knowledge of Spanish is summed up in the word “poquito” definitely hit home.

The last comedian, Freddy Soto, was funny but I think his set was disturbed by a woman in the audience trying to get him to do shots of Jagermeister. I thought his funniest jokes were the ones that relied on imitations of good ol’ boys he encountered living here in Texas when he grew up in El Paso. His imitations of his father were also quite humorous. It was almost as if one of my relatives was up there.

When I was in Japan, I thought it was odd to see American stores like Wendy’s and Denny’s or even McDonalds and KFC. But it hit me one day that we are surrounded by products from other parts of the world here and never think anything of it. The most immediate product consists of electronics by companies such as Sony. But another product which has integrated itself into our country is Hello Kitty.

Cats are revered in Japan the same way that dogs are here, so it should come as no surprise that such a well known Japanese product is based on a cat. Surprisingly enough, however, Hello Kitty, just a year older than myself, is only celebrating it’s thirtieth anniversary which they are billing as “Thirty years of cute.”

One of the places I am sad I did not get to visit when I was in Japan was the Sanrio Puroland (Sanrio is the maker of Hello Kitty and friends). Some of their pictures make it look as if the cute would have bled from my eyes and imploded my skull. The most curious thing to me, given my interest in religion, is their decision to name it Puroland, which I take as a reference to Pureland Buddhism. To make my state of perplexion more lucid here are some words from an introduction to Pureland Buddhism:

Pure Land Buddhism is a religion of faith, of faith in Amitabha Buddha [and in one's capacity to achieve Buddhahood]. Amitabha Buddha presides over the Pure Land, a “paradise” in the west, the land of ultimate bliss, named “Peaceful Nurturing.” In the Pure Land, there is none of the suffering and defilement and delusion that normally blocks people’s efforts toward enlightenment here in our world (which the Buddhists named “Endurance.”)

The immediate goal of Pure Land believers is to be reborn in Amitabha’s Pure Land. There, in more favorable surroundings, in the presence of Amitabha, they will eventually attain complete enlightenment.

The essence of Pure Land practice thus consists of invoking the name of Amitabha Buddha, contemplating the qualities of Amitabha, visualizing Amitabha, and taking vows to be born in the Pure Land.

Interestingly enough, President (can’t believe I’m calling him that) George W. Bush recently stated that we should learn from practices being used in other countries to stop AIDS, such as Uganda, where they use the “A.B.C.” program: “They’ve started what they call the A.B.C. approach to prevention of this deadly disease. That stands for: Abstain, be faithful in marriage, and, when appropriate, use condoms.” Yes, that’s what he said, condoms.

Some might not see this as a big deal. Condoms are thoroughly integrated into American society. We see commercials for them on primetime television. But I cannot help but think about the Catholic Church’s stance on condoms, which is to say that they are adamantly against them and any other form of contraception.

The lines do get a bit blurry since, in this case, the purpose of their use is not for contraception. But around the world there has been steady message coming from the Catholic Church against the use of condoms. However, some Catholic officials have made comments refuting this stance. For instance, Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels has stated, “When someone is HIV-positive and his partner says ‘I want to have sex with you,’ then he does not have to do it, but if he does, he has to use a condom. Otherwise he will commit a sin.” In addition, outside the walls of the Catholic Church, the organization Catholics for a Free Choice have started a Condoms4Life campaign using the motto “Good Catholics use condoms.”

The good news about all of this is that it seems that those who are religious, in this case Bush and the Catholic Church, can change and are learning. Now if only this important message about condoms would reach our schools and their “sex education” programs where it is needed most.

I spent most of the day working on my journal, but as usual, I don’t think I made much of a dent. I watched Totally Gay and Totally Gayer on VH1, which were quite interesting histories of the gay presence on TV. After that I watched Best Week Ever, which seems to have started including Lil’ Jon. The best part was when they mentioned that Britney was engaged and Lil’ Jon did his trademark, “What!”

In the evening Laura and I went over to Mio and Neils’ new home for a housewarming party. I talked to James for a bit, then he talked to a friend he knew from college, then Mio came over and talked to us about burakumin, and finally, Scott told James and Laura his tremendously amusing story about being molested in an onsen.

I had read in different places that this movie was too preachy, but I didn’t really understand until I saw it what they meant. Although the movie poked fun at Christians, albeit a very specific group of them, in the end it was still a Christian movie arguing for tolerance and acceptance.

There were lots of humorous elements to the movie, but the sad truth is that some elements of it seemed so real as to make me cringe regardless. Shortly before I saw the movie I caught part of an interview with the director, Brian Dannelly, on NPR, where he said that he was religious until 9/11 when he lost his faith, so that explained things a bit, but I wonder how he feels about the movie now.

What captured me most watching the movie was thinking about all of the teens out there who are trapped in similar situations and have no one to talk to or help them in their misery. One of the last moments of the film is when the main character states that there has to be something out there because everything turned out ok, and I agree. Except that thing, out there, making everything better for those who suffer isn’t God — it’s us.

Though I was dragged to this movie, I thought I might be wrong, I thought it might be half decent instead of the terribleness that I expected, but my openness was not rewarded. The only bearable segments of the movie were made so by the celebrities they contained. All of the dialogues were difficult to suffer through and at their heights only achieved levels of quaint amusement.

Amidst this refuse, however, the movie did contain two jems at the very end. The first was an incredibly comedic segment which contained the RZA, GZA, and Bill Murray. The other was a slightly surreal exchange between William Rice and Taylor Mead. I’m not quite sure who William Rice is, but Taylor Mead captivated me enough to look into his history, and I found that he had some association with Warhol.

For lunch I just stayed at my computer and ate some leftover dip while reading my feeds. I also got some flan for a snack.

After work Laura and I went to the Shops at Legacy with Eric and Travis to see Fahrenheit 9/11. It was sold out until 9:30 PM so we went to Cafe Express to waste some time. I made some notes in my Moleskine while eating a dream bar, but that didn’t last long. We all ate free breadsticks too. Travis made us laugh with his German Canadianness. On the way back to the theater I became quite upset at the fact that the cafe across from Angelika had extended their hours, so I could have been using their free WiFi the whole time we were waiting.

The movie was so horrifying and sad that it made the humorous parts seem out of place. Laura was disturbed by some of the facts presented and felt a bit uncomfortable knowing these things were going on in our country. I tried to discuss some of the surrounding factors with everyone in the car on the way home and relay what little I knew.