Priorities

Rosanna sure has her priorities straight.

92 Jell-O Shots and nothing else.

Whoa.

“I don’t give a shit what happens. I am coming there with a gun,” police say Liddane told a Group Health nurse on the phone as his wife was going into labor at the facility. “I will shoot anybody that gets in my way. I will watch my baby be born. Then I will shoot my baby, my wife, and then myself. So get ready. I hope you have some guns ready.”

What a genius. So surprising that he was arrested and charged with felony harassment. People these days…

Club owner charged for threats against wife, baby, staff at Capitol Hill birthing center – CHS

Ride Safely

Mary, giving us a reminder of proper comportment while on the high seas:

“Thank you for riding Washington State Ferries. We remind you to be safe while aboard.”

Seattle DOES have good looking, fashionable people

People always joke about how unstylish and casual Seattleites tend to be, what with their stand-bys of Birkenstocks worn with socks paired with any old fleece from the local REI. As evidenced by the following photo, there are denizens of this fine city who do care about what they wear:

Via Needle+Thread.

Michael Jackson: Alien vs. Predator

Purple drank, skateboarding Ewoks, and Michael Jackson as the venerable Predator (from Alien vs. Predator). Awesome.

Via Goods.

DB Longboards

No doubt inspired by Amazon.com’s famous Three Wolf Moon tee, DB Longboards has launched the Wolf Prowler for this season’s collection:

Maybe the coolest skateboard graphics I’ve seen this year.

Yesterday, I got a new Hello Kitty Skateboard. Here’s a shot of David Cantu holding it:

I’m pretty psyched about it.

Party for Haiti! – Seattle

I’m proud to announce that I’ll be hosting a benefit for Friends of the Orphans on Thursday, April 8th at BoConcept in Seattle:

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

Tickets are $10 presale or $20 at the door, and can be purchased here:

http://bit.ly/party4haiti

Get yours before they sell out!

Tigerbeat and DJ Marty Mar – HollyHood Mixtape Vol. 1

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Just released. Press play. Download. You will thank me later.

Download link:

http://bit.ly/ctDSc4

Tigerbeat on Twitter: http://twitter.com/tigerbeat206
Tigerbeat on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/TigerBeat/250204295321

Touche’

My First Look On Lookbook

I’ve finally taken the plunge and started posting my best looks on Lookbook:

Be prepared for a lot of new stuff ahead…

OK Go – This Too Shall Pass

Amazing.

Via TechCrunch.

Mars Hill Church: The Grand Idea Face-Plants Into Ugly Reality

A guest post by Steven J. Patrick.

The Narrowing of Mars Hill Church: How Humans Screw Up Theology

When Mars Hill Church started, it was a grand idea: eliminate the window-dressing and ceremony of conventional Protestant churches and embrace aspects of pop culture: rock music, sports, films, and current popular issues. Dress down. Bond as a like-minded brotherhood…what’s not to like?

But, as time went on, with young people today being generally either agnostic or indifferent to religion, the task of finding pastors became a process of Whomever Shows Up. Finding anyone, in any arena of human endeavor, who can speak, be confident, command attention, and maintain at least a facade of logic and rationality, as any HR recruiter will quickly tell you, is like looking for your lost cuff links in a gravel quarry. Those who speak without fear or self-consciousness in front of large groups of people tend to fall into four categories: bosses, con men, actors, and psychopaths. And, on the surface, they all look pretty much the same.

Enter guys like Mark Driscoll; people who have few, if any, real ties to the mores of this generation and a fierce, zealot-like belief in “traditional values”, that code phrase for “Let’s turn the clock back to 1956!” What Driscoll says and preaches is no different at all, in essence, from the old-time religion that Mars Hill claimed to reject. Driscoll’s Seattle area messages to the flocks of the local Mars Hill Churches are really no different from what Jerry Falwell advocated, all those years in Lynchburg, VA – minus his $1000 suits and the White Shoulders spume hovering over the chapel. Having attended and/or watched both those churches and seen them in action, I find it crystal clear that Driscoll is attempting – maybe even subconsciously – to elevate himself to the status of the “New Jerry Falwell”; an effort rooted in the fact that The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Grease. Driscoll appears to have a soul-deep understanding, as Falwell did, that the path to personal stardom as a minister/politician is to say whatever outrageous, controversial thing pops into your head, as long as it produces SOME reaction. THAT is how Liberty Baptist Church grew: Falwell ticked people off with his carny antics and his followers rallied around him, forming an “Us vs. Them” bond against the outside world. Every simple, vaguely-disillusioned person within that area of Virginia who felt that the world was not quite “right” gravitated to his message of Assigning Blame for their ills to something, ANYTHING outside themselves. There’s comfort in the idea that the world is to blame and that this crap in our own heads, that gets us odd looks and confrontations when we verbalize it, is actually Right, while the rest of the world is perverse and ignorant of The Truth.

Anyone who imagined that this new generation of Believers would be any smarter or more evolved than the generations of gullible folks who came before them is simply deluding themselves; indulging their egos with a self-serving view of their peer group as more enlightened than the ones that came before. Average, angry people will ALWAYS find a sympatico group who will tell them that Liberals, pop culture, Brittney Spears, American Idol, Avatar, and the media is to blame for their lot. The real truth – that the problems we ALL deal with are almost always of our own making – is exactly what congregations like Mars Hill has become are designed to avoid.

I saw Rob Bell, one of the founders of the Mars Hill “movement” onstage with the Dalai Lama at Hec Edmondson Pavilion during his last Seattle visit. I was taken by his gentleness and direct ideals and started to look into him and Mars Hill. I watched all of his videos on youtube and admired their style and content and simple, elegant truths. This, I thought, is a wonderful idea: religion which recognizes us and doesn’t judge all us rock ‘n’ roll-era kids and try to tell us that the things we love, the lives we lead, have to be gutted, purged, and reassembled to make room for God. No authoritarian old guys in suits, no fancy robes and collars and surplices, no thees and thous – just people of the generations after Elvis, trying to communally reach toward God. I wrote a previous entry in this very blog, dedicated to the idea that this concept can work, despite the wholesale vilification that Mars Hill was already incurring. I got angry emails from people who told me that I didn’t know what Mars Hill was really all about. And, full of myself as I frequently am, I chalked it all up to the Zeal of the Easily Offended.

I was wrong.

As a Christian, I can state without reservation that what comes out of the three Mars Hill Churches I have visited has NOTHING to do with any God I know. ANYONE who preaches confrontation, division, wholesale disdain, chauvinism, or the superiority of their own Truth has automatically disqualified themselves, in my eyes, as a Christian. There is ONE guiding principle with which NO real Christian can argue:

Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You.

Not when it’s convenient, not only when the cameras are rolling, not just when you agree with the other guy. ALWAYS. Mark Driscoll gets, as his followers do, a bit testy when anyone criticizes Mars Hill. But, apparently, as in this latest dust-up over the movie “Avatar” – “the most Satanic movie (Pastor Driscoll) has ever seen” – he feels it’s just fine for him to dump on whomever and whatever he wants. Those who defend him cry that he was only talking to his congregation, that it was a sermon and nothing more. The problem with that reasoning is that Mark Driscoll, for reasons I guess I am not equipped to understand, has Followers – followers who listen to his judgments and then go out among the rest of us and repeat what they heard, use it as a social weapon, and create artificial divisions based on nothing more than the views of one very ambitious, ladder-climbing, normally-imperfect man. I guess, when you’re angling for stardom, as Mark Driscoll certainly appears to be, the rules are supposed to be a little different for you.

Originally published on Seattlepi.com: link

Italian Table at Stella Caffe in Seattle on March 4th

I’m proud to announce that I’ll be hosting Seattle’s first Italian Table at Stella Caffè!:

Add to Google Calendar: link
YPIN Event Listing: link
Facebook Event Listing: link

Location:

Stella Caffè
1224 1st Avenue
Seattle, WA 98101
(206) 624-1299

Map:

View Larger Map

Date/Time:

Thursday, March 4th from 6:30-8:30PM

Event Description:

We’ve been starved of speaking Italian for far too long!

Come and join us for an evening of buona conversazione at the very cozy Stella Caffè, downtown Seattle’s only traditional Italian bar/café. Recount stories of your time in Italy with a diverse group of global-minded, inclusive people. If you can converse in Italian and would like to practice and learn, we would love to have you. Bring a friend or two!

Co-sponsors: World Affairs Council – YPIN, Stella Caffè.

Tim & The Space Cadets – Superhero

This track isn’t my taste, but I’m posting it because:

1) an acquaintance from high school (MTV VMA-award winner Josh Caldwell) of Meydenbauer Entertainment directed and shot the music video,

and

2) the little kids in the video are precious.

The band’s name, Tim & The Space Cadets, is right on–the lead singer seems so emphatically happy when he sings that he looks like a deranged space cadet. I cannot say I’ve seen a weirder lead vocal part (is this Christian rock?). This guy must just be high on life or something; there is no other explanation:

Great video, Josh. I wouldn’t have expected anything less.

You can hire Josh by emailing him at joshblog (at) meyd-ent (dot) com.

Via Hollywood Bound and Down.

Errol Knight and his signature move, the Baby Beerbong.

Years ago, Errol Knight, the once-celebrated star of Gonzaga’s talented basketball program, got into the habit of calling a good friend of mine (who attended Gonzaga at the time) “nigga”. My friend was and is very white. Errol didn’t know my friend’s name; my friend was instantly recognized by Knight each time, and greeted in the same fashion; “ay nigga,” “ay, what up, nigga!”, and so on.

On one memorable occasion, Errol Knight carried his newborn baby into a wild drinking party that was held off-campus. He quickly spotted and approached my friend, and said “Hey nigga, hold my baby,” as he took a monstrous beerbong pull, and then proceeded to take his baby back from my friend.

I just thought I should share that with you, because it is so horrible, irresponsible, and hilarious that I find it impossible not to share with someone. It’s a story that seems so fantastic that one would prefer to assume it never happened. But it did.

Here’s to Errol Knight, my hero.