Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Listen and Watch and Sing Along

UP and I saw the clip of Gene Simmons' tribute to the US military on Big Hollywood last week, but I've found myself thinking of it several times since and I had to go back and look at it again today. It made me choke up; then I sang along and it made me feel proud and happy. If you haven't seen it, do go look.

I am not given to saying that everyone must like this given thing or feel a particular way about that given thing. Comments like that are mostly idiotic. But right at this moment I can't help thinking that if anyone does not understand why I like this video so much, that person must not be fully American somehow. Skimming a little way down the comments section I saw this comment on the video: "That's completely American... loud, proud, sloppy, ready to kick ass, and a bit off key." [Ellipses in the original.] Damn straight.

Sunday, June 06, 2010

A Bumpersticker That Made Me Happy

Two or three days ago Uncle Pookie and I were going to see a movie with a friend. They were talking games or comics or something when I nearly squealed, "That car has something about black Catholics!" "What?" "The bumpersticker on that van over there," [I indicated one in the next lane] "it has something about black Catholics on it." UP drove up a bit closer so I could read it:

"No matter what,
no matter when,
black Catholics respect life."

I felt really happy seeing that bumpersticker; not even the laughing comment of our friend (who is black himself), "As if they exist!" could dampen my enthusiasm at seeing it. I guess technically it was a pro-life bumpersticker, but I see those frequently (and the "Choose Life" car tags even more frequently) and I'd never before seen a bumpersticker about black Catholics.

I don't have time right now to go into why that made me so happy to see that I'm telling you about it several days later, but it did. For now, suffice it to say I have occasionally looked around at the pews in mass and, seeing only a few black faces, found myself wondering, "Where are all the black people?" Say I'm racist for even noticing the color of my fellow parishioners, fine, whatever, I'm a racist who wants more black people to have the fullness of truth available in the Caholic Church. Say instead I ought to keep myself more focused on what's going on in mass instead of looking around at my fellow parishioners, and I'll agree with you on that.