One of the more unusual aspects of Mike Deasy's tale of life in the 1960s Los Angeles rock world is that Deasy survived with his spirit (and brain cells) intact. Via rock historian Steve Stanley, here's a reminder that not all musicians of the era were so fortunate: the first page and the second page of Stanley's 2003 Mojo interview with Bobby Jameson, a former prodigy of both Frank Zappa and the Rolling Stones.
On the positive side, the article does mention that Jameson's been sober for the past 27 years. The turning point, he says, was when he went to sleep after a night of bingeing and woke up next to a corpse.
"In all religions sacrifice is at the heart of worship. But this is a concept that has been buried under the debris of endless misunderstandings. The common view is that sacrifice has something to do with destruction. It means handing over to God a reality that is in some way precious to man. Now this handing over presupposes that it is withdrawn from use by man, and that can only happen through its destruction, its definite removal from the hands of man. But this immediately raises the question: What pleasure is God supposed to take in destruction? Is anything really surrendered to God through destruction? One answer is that the destruction always conceals within itself the act of acknowledging God's sovereignty over all things. But can such a mechanical act really serve God's glory? Obviously not. True surrender to God looks very different. It consists — according to the Fathers, in fidelity to biblical thought — in the union of man and creation with God. Belonging to God has nothing to do with destruction or non-being: it is rather a way of being. It means emerging from the state of separation, of apparent autonomy, of existing only for oneself and in oneself. It means losing oneself as the only possible way of finding oneself (cf. Mk 8:35; Mt 10:39). That is why St. Augustine could say that the true "sacrifice" is the civitas Dei, that is, love-transformed mankind, the divinization of creation and the surrender of all things to God: God all in all (cf. 1 Cor. 15:28). That is the purpose of the world. That is the essence of sacrifice and worship."
— Pope Benedict (writing as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger), The Spirit of the Liturgy
[The following contest is no more; Tess is the winner.] The first person to correctly identify the author of the above quotation receives a copy of the book from which the quotation comes — or, if you already have the book, any book of comparable price by the same author. Only one entry per person, please. Contest ends midnight tonight.
[The following is an article I wrote for Mojo magazine in August 2001 that never made it to print. I'm sorry they didn't use it, because Deasy was so gracious in telling me his story. I haven't been in touch with him since then, and hope he is still active. He was still an amazingly powerful guitarist in 2001; I saw him perform before Pentecostalist churchgoers and he really slayed them. If you'd like to reprint this story, please e-mail me, dawn -at- dawneden.com.]
When imagining the prototypical Sixties session musician, one generally pictures a clean-cut gent in shirtsleeves, not a bearded hipster bearing incense and a goatskin rug. Then again, there weren’t many studio musicians like Mike Deasy, a powerhouse guitarist who cut a wide swath through Los Angeles studios. Even as he juggled sessions with Phil Spector, Brian Wilson, and Elvis Presley, he found time to record acid-drenched psychedelic albums under names like the Ceyleib People and Friar Tuck.
Deasy, now a successful Christian musician, has never before spoken to the press about his Sixties exploits. Reached by phone while on tour in Lexington, Kentucky, he says that he started playing rock and roll while attending high school in an L.A. suburb. Upon graduation in 1959, he joined Eddie Cochran's band, the Kelly Four, playing both baritone sax (you can hear him on Cochran's "Hallelujah I Love Her So") and guitar.
After Cochran's untimely death in April 1960, Deasy toured with the leaderless group for a time before returning to L.A. There, he quickly developed a reputation as an astonishingly dextrous--yet disciplined--guitarist, equally comfortable reading music charts or improvising fiery riffs. By the end of 1965, he was doing 15 sessions a week including ones for the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, which he remembers fondly. "Brian Wilson couldn't write out the musicians’ parts, and he didn't hire an arranger to do it. Instead, he would say to each musician, 'Now, you play this,' and he would hum out a part. He could describe sounds to you, too. If you just listened to one part of it without hearing all the others, it almost didn't make sense. But we all knew that we were going somewhere with this music."
Although Deasy only did a few sessions with Phil Spector, he is often named as a member of Spector's legendary Wrecking Crew, because he recorded frequently with Crew members such as drummer Hal Blaine, bass player Joe Osborne, and keyboardist Larry Knechtel. Together, Deasy says, this elite group had a chemistry that belied their studio origins. "We played with each other twelve, fourteen hours a day. A person could walk in with a song, and, without any rehearsal, we would record the song and sound like we had been playing it all our lives."
In 1967, Deasy contributed psychedelic guitar stylings to recordings by producer Curt Boettcher's groups the Ballroom and the Millennium. (He says Boettcher and friends would jokingly put microphones on incense to pick up the "good vibes".) He also produced several trippy recordings of his own, most notably Tanyet, a mystical concept album by a studio act called the Ceyleib People. The players included Deasy himself (under the pseudonym Lybuk Hyd), Ry Cooder, and future Derek & The Dominos drummer Jim Gordon.
Although Tanyet (available on CD from Drop Out/Demon) failed to chart, it increased Deasy's reputation as one of rock's finest sitar players. When he was hired to play sitar, he would charge double his usual rate, but he gave added value. "I would take a goatskin rug and burn incense."
One night in 1967, Deasy crossed paths with rock's other great sitar player. "I was working with [The Mamas & The Papas'] John Phillips at Western Studio B, when this entourage of people in drapey clothes came walking down the hall. One of them came in and sat down with me in the studio, just hanging out.
"I had this guitar that didn't have any frets, and it could make some really interesting sliding sounds. This guy was interested, so I handed it to him, and he was a good guitar player. We played guitars for about 45 minutes. It turned out he was George Harrison! I had no idea."
In 1968, producer Bones Howe tapped Deasy and James Burton to play guitar in Elvis Presley's comeback TV special. When Elvis played the guitar at the beginning of the special, he was actually miming to Deasy’s playing. "Elvis was at his best when he was with other musicians. He was most relaxed then, because he could be himself. What he really loved was things like when we were sitting around in a circle, playing guitars and singing."
In June 1969, six months after the wildly successful Elvis special, Mike Deasy was on the verge of losing both his health and his sanity. It started when Terry Melcher, who was then employing him as a guitarist, producer, and engineer, innocently suggested he visit a group of hippies at the Spahn Ranch. "Terry said, 'Dennis Wilson and Gregg Jakobson found this singer up in the hills.'"
The singer was Charles Manson. "I had a trailer with a four-track unit that I was going to use to record the Hopi Indians. Manson and the Family lived like a bunch of Indians, so Terry said, 'Why don't you go check it out?' So a friend of mine and I went up there to record their songs."
Deasy won't go into detail about his three-day encounter with the Family (only two months before the Tate-LaBianca murders), calling it a descent into hell. "I felt this great fear of the evil that was there." Overwhelmed, he overdosed on LSD. "I took so much acid, I couldn't get down. I was having so much difficulty with my own mind. Here I am, working with Elvis Presley and the Beach Boys, I'm at the height of everything I've dreamed of doing, I've got a wife and beautiful kids, and all of a sudden I've wrecked it. It all crashed down, and I couldn't put it back together."
When Deasy made it home, still in a state of drug-fueled paranoia, he knew he had to get help. "I tried everything I could. I went to Jungian analysis, I went through transcendental meditation, and nothing was working."
After facing hell, he was ready for heaven. "I went to a Billy Graham crusade where I heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I ran to Jesus to set me free from all the terror of drugs."
During the early Seventies, in between playing on albums by Billy Joel and Frank Sinatra, as well as the soundtracks for "Dirty Harry" and "Play Misty for Me," Deasy entered the Christian recording world. By mid-decade, he had produced and written songs for several hit Christian albums, often working with his wife, Kathie (the sister of saxophonist Jim Horn). Today, while he continues to record his own music (available from his Web site, mikedeasy.com), he concentrates his efforts on "Yes to Life," an antidrug musical presentation that he performs in schools.
Listening to Deasy's fuzz guitar on the Association's "Along Comes Mary" or his acoustic fingerpicking on Scott McKenzie's "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)," one senses a level of genuine feeling that was rare for studio musicians of his time. "Once, I was talking with Tommy Tedesco and Dennis Budimir, who were both fine studio guitarists, and we agreed that the difference between me and them was that I liked what we were doing. They really loved jazz. I'd worked with jazz groups, and I liked that too. But I actually liked playing rock and roll."
The God Squad is a rabbi/priest duo who write a newspaper column in which they answer readers' theological questions. Their theology is liberal, making them an easy target for the RA, who, over the past four years, has regularly roasted them in his blog for the logical contradictions he finds in their wishy-washy answers.
Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, writing against the Raving Atheist, claims that the pro-life thinking of the RA is logically unsound. Referring to the RA's volunteering at a crisis pregnancy center, she writes: "RA’s argument is a fetus has different DNA, which means I’m sure that when he finishes his volunteer work at the CPC, he goes and pickets for the right of tapeworms not to be removed, due to the rights due to them from having separate DNA than their hosts."
I find it difficult to believe that Marcotte is serious writing such a statement as that. As one who prides herself on her ability to point up logical fallacies in arguments, she must know that the reason the RA cares about the existence of a preborn child's DNA is that the DNA belongs to a human being.
What's interesting about Marcotte's throwing out such a statement for shock value is that she's stating in the most explicit terms the "fetus as parasite" argument that underlies many pro-abortion rationales on her blog and on those of other Third Wave feminists.
The question, then, is: Since a woman's body is designed to help conceive, then support and foster, a gestating human being, why would Marcotte or any woman consider such a child a "parasite"? I'm assuming that the women who make such a statement are not willfully cruel — for the logic of their analogy, if carried through, would mean that any child dependent upon its mother would be a parasite and deserving of death. (They'll say that the analogy extends only to a child who's physically inside the mother's body. However, if a woman begins by viewing her preborn child as a parasite, that child, upon being brought to term and remaining dependent upon its mother, would still be the creature that began life as a parasite. People don't begin life as a tapeworm and end it as Amanda Marcotte.)
I haven't myself quite figured out why a woman would use the parasite analogy, but I have an idea that it begins with the woman's view of her own birth. A woman who feels unloved is going to see herself as a parasite upon her own parents, spouse, or lover. In viewing the child gestating within her as a parasite, she is extending her own feeling of worthlessness and alienation to her baby. By exterminating the child, she is insuring that it will never be the burden upon others that she believes she herself was or is to those close to her.
That's the reason for the enduring appeal of Margaret Sanger's slogan "every child a wanted child." Those who support the abortion of "unwanted" babies are responding to their own trauma of feeling unloved — and perhaps, without realizing it, exacting revenge upon the people who didn't want them.
The more delicate subscribers to the parasite philosophy use the same excuse for aborting the "unwanted" as euthanasia advocates use for starving the disabled: "I wouldn't want to live that way." When someone makes such a statement with the express object of killing another human being, they are really speaking of themselves. They wouldn't want to live that way; therefore, nobody should be permitted to do so. Murder, after all, is suicide turned outward. The truth that such people don't want to hear is that when they kill the "worm," the demons remain. ___________________________________________________
"No human being escapes the necessity of conceiving some good outside himself towards which his thought turns in a movement of desire, supplication, and hope."
— Simone Weil
Several months ago, I found a copy of Simone Weil's Waiting for God lying on a sidewalk. I started reading it and was at once taken with the beauty of Weil's faith and the depth of her philosophy — and at the same time frustrated at her steadfast refusal to be baptized. Overflowing with love of Jesus, she was yet bounded on all sides by what some might call scruples, but seem upon closer inspection to be intricate layers of integrity. It was impossible for me, reading her words, to believe that she was willfully resisting the Church; what hindered her entry was her sincere conviction that God wanted her to be an outsider.
Some would say that the greatest benefit of Christian faith is joy. I myself am thankful for that joy; it brought me the realization that life has meaning and purpose, erasing the serious depression that had plagued me for over a decade.
In daily life, I find that the most useful gift of Christian faith is not the experience of joy — but, rather, of shared suffering. When reconciling with the world feels like a struggle, then — with Paul as an example — I may unite my sufferings with Christ. Doing so reminds me that He has overcome the world — and that He has promised that those who endure until the end will be saved.
Empathy — like altruism — points to something, or rather Someone, outside ourselves that enables us to do things we wouldn't be able to do on our own power. It is an unspeakably beautiful gift to be able to alleviate another's suffering with our love, and to receive such selfless love.
Maximilian Kolbe exemplified such love, not only when he gave his life so that another man might live, but throughout his sufferings at Auschwitz. He found meaning in his sufferings there because they gave him the opportunity to help others — like when, recovering in the infirmary from a guard's brutal beating, he heard fellow patients' confessions.
Another who was imprisoned in Auschwitz, Victor Frankl, may have been thinking of Kolbe (whom he mentioned in his classic Man's Search for Meaning when he wrote, "The meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, but rather detected. ... What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment. ... We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by doing a deed; (2) by experiencing a value; and (3) by suffering."
I believe the Raving Atheist already experiences the first two events that Frankl cites, via his volunteering at a pregnancy resource center. Reporting his experiences has earned him a measure of Frankl's third event — suffering. Whether he unites his sufferings with those of Christ remains to be seen. But I have no doubt that, reading about his journey, I will learn from him as one can learn from one who wrestles with God — and as I learned from Weil, despite my frustrations.
Here is a poem that sparked Weil's journey to faith:
Flash: 'Pro-Choice' Blogger Hints That Perhaps, in a Small Minority of Cases, Women Should Not Receive Late-Term Abortion on Demand
Pandagon's Amanda Marcotte writes in a comment to one of her own posts that she considers arguments against late-term abortions to be "red herrings":
Of course, I’m clearly unconvinced there’s a reason to restrict the vast majority of late term abortions, which are done to save a woman’s health or to remove a dead fetus, but that’s neither here nor there to my point about Red Herrings and Anti Choicers Who Won’t Admit They Don’t Have An Argument.
The fascinating thing is that she's unconvinced only that there's a reason to restrict the "vast majority of late term abortions."
Why, if she believes in abortion on demand — a "right" that she regularly champions in her blog — is she not unconvinced there's a reason to restrict all late-term abortions?
With heavy heart, I suspect Ms. Marcotte will issue a swift response saying, in typically forthright manner, that I misunderstood her, and that there is never any valid reason to restrict abortions. But for now, I'm enjoying the moment.
Oh, joy — a YouTube user has posted my favorite comedy sketch ever; "Superthunderstingcar," Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's parody of Gerry Anderson's puppet TV shows ("Thunderbirds," "Stingray," and "Supercar"), from their mid-1960s series "Not Only But Also."
Warning: If you're at all familiar with Anderson's shows, or with "Team America: World Police," the "South Park" creators' homage to them, this sketch is liable to make you spit out your coffee.
Some comedy relief for you this morning: a legendary clip from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's "Not Only But Also" Christmas 1966 special. It's a satire of Swinging London, with John Lennon as the doorman at an exclusive nightclub located in a men's lavatory. Love Cook's attempt at an Idaho accent:
The Raving Atheist, like his spiritual brethren Nat Hentoff and G.K. Chesterton's friendly sparring partner George Bernard Shaw, has never been afraid to align himself with Jews and Christians when they take a stand for something he believes in.
Those who have been following RA's blog know that the most obvious common ground he shares with certain theists is a belief that abortion kills a human being.
His post today describes how he was recently excoriated on atheist blogs and message boards because he suggested to an atheist who denounced crisis pregnancy centers that she should see one for herself — and he offered to compensate her if she volunteered there.
Twice in the past couple of months, I have accidentally thrown out one of my favorite books.
It happened because I was distracted. I'd be leaving the house with a bag of trash in one hand and a book in the other, and by the time I'd realize I'd accidentally thrown out the book, I had no time to run back and fish it out.
The first time it happened was with a copy of St. Teresa of Avila's Life. Thankfully, I made the blunder on a night when the trash wasn't taken out. The following morning, after a heavy rainfall, I managed to fish out the book — bedraggled but intact.
Strangely, although I regretted my mistake, I had the feeling the saint actually liked being left out in the garbage can in the rain. Practically her whole book is about how this angelic woman thought she was such a miserable sinner, deserving of harsh penances. I could almost picture her saying with a shrug, like the parents of Mel Brooks' 2,000-Year-Old Man, "S'aright, I wait out here in the rain ..."
Last week, I did it again, but with one of my very favorite books — The Kolbe Reader, a collection of St. Maximilian Kolbe's writings, a gift from blog pal Fr. Shane Tharp. This time, by the time I got home from work, the bag containing the book was buried under trash, and I couldn't bear to Dumpster-dive.
I was so annoyed at myself that I immediately set about to buy a new copy of the book from the online shop at Marytown, the U.S.'s national shrine to Kolbe and headquarters of his Militia of the Immaculata. Then, of course, let loose in a shop containing all things Maximilian, I went bonkers.
Which is how, yesterday morning, I picked up from my P.O. box a package containing the Kolbe Reader, various and sundry other St. Maximilian items, 50 Miraculous Medals, and 50 explanatory brochures to give out with the Miraculous Medals.
More than that, the Miraculous Medal puts one in mind of God's graces, as expressed through Mary's maternal love. As Mary said to St. Catherine, who received the vision of the medal's image, we have to request these graces in order to receive them. I imagine them to be the fruits of the Holy Spirit — and the medal reminds me to request them in prayer.
... we should have no fear that in wearing a holy medal we may be relying on some sort of good luck charm. I wear a Miraculous Medal to remind me of why I exist because I know how easy it is to get tricked into thinking that life can be lived comfortably without God. But I know I would be hopelessly lost without His Mother holding my hand and redirecting me back to Him.
I received my own medal as a gift from someone who overheard me asking someone after a church service if they knew where I could find one. This churchgoer apparently carried an extra medal around just for such an occasion. His generosity made me want to be like him — and St. Maximilian, who gave the medal to pretty much everyone he met, regardless of their faith.
After getting the Marytown package, I brought the medals to Father Myles Murphy of the beautiful Church of St. Michael (the one with the restored Sacred Heart statue) to have them blessed. (Appropriately, Father Murphy is a past president of the Mariological Society of America.) Then I proceeded to make like Maximilian and give them out, along with the explanatory brochures, to everyone I knew who wanted them.
You would be amazed at how many people who normally don't have anything positive to say about the Catholic faith light up when offered a Miraculous Medal. I think it makes them feel loved.
I have about 42 medals left, so if you'd like to receive one or two and the brochure (which tells about the medal's history and St. Maximilian's devotion to it), drop me an e-mail (dawn -at- dawneden.com) with your name and address.
The [Episcopal] House of Deputies officially killed the following resolution:
Resolved, the House of _____ concurring, That the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church declares its unchanging commitment to Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the only name by which any person may be saved (Article XVIII); and be it further
Resolved, That we acknowledge the solemn responsibility placed upon us to share Christ with all persons when we hear His words, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No-one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6); and be it further
Resolved, That we affirm that in Christ there is both the substitutionary essence of the Cross and the manifestation of God’s unlimited and unending love for all persons; and be it further
Resolved, That we renew our dedication to be faithful witnesses to all persons of the saving love of God perfectly and uniquely revealed in Jesus and upheld by the full testimony of Holy Scripture.
The Church’s one foundation Is Jesus Christ her Lord, She is His new creation By water and the Word: From heaven He came and sought her To be His holy bride, With His own blood He bought her And for her life He died.
She is from every nation Yet one o'er all the earth, Her charter of salvation One Lord, one faith, one birth, One Holy Name she blesses, Partakes one Holy Food, And to one Hope she presses With every grace endued.
The Church shall never perish! Her dear Lord to defend, To guide, sustain, and cherish, Is with her to the end: Though there be those who hate her, And false sons in her pale, Against or foe or traitor She ever shall prevail.
Though with a scornful wonder Men see her sore oppressed, By schisms rent asunder By heresies distressed: Yet saints their watch are keeping, Their cry goes up “How long?” And soon the night of weeping shall be the morn of song!
'Mid toil and tribulation And tumult of her war, She waits the consummation Of peace forevermore; Till, with the vision glorious, Her longing eyes are blest, And the great Church victorious Shall be the Church at rest!
Yet she on earth hath union With God the Three in One, And mystic sweet communion With those whose rest is won, With all her sons and daughters Who, by the Master's Hand Led through the deathly waters, Repose in Eden-land.
O happy ones and holy! Lord, give us grace that we Like them, the meek and lowly, On high may dwell with Thee: There, past the border mountains, Where in sweet vales the Bride With Thee by living fountains For ever shall abide!
(That's the original hymn, including verses not sung in church today. The hymnal from which this quotation was taken is online. More information on the hymn's history is available here and here.)
"I believe that the opposition to pre-marital abstinence (and chastity generally) is a case of good ideas facing rejection because of their historical association with theistic orthodoxy. "
Jill of Feministe writes to point me toward Feministe's post criticizing a high school that punished a female basketball player who gave birth. The post notes that penalizing high school athletes for having babies has caused some young women to have abortions.
It is indeed good to see Feministe criticizing a policy that leads some teens to have abortions. I wouldn't call their position pro-life though, any more than a steak house that offers mashed potatoes could be called pro-vegetarian. The Feministe position is based on a commodification of the preborn child; the baby is not a person, but an object that must not be allowed to stand in the way of a woman's education. That the blog recommends the bureaucratic obstacles to education be removed, rather than the baby itself, is admirable — but it still doesn't acknowledge the preborn child as anything more than a political basketball.
Let me say right now that I don't agree at all with those who say that it is better to not be a Catholic than to be one and be unable to locate a suitably reverent, liturgically orthodox house of worship.
That said, I'm trying to find a suitably reverent, liturgically orthodox house of worship within a five-mile radius of my home — and it's about as easy as finding Kobe steak at the PETA headquarters.
On Saturday evening, I tried a place that looked on the outside like a bank crossed with a teepee — but I had a grain of hope because it was named for St. Thomas More.
Inside, it was all wood paneling, of course, but it also boasted a large crucifix that I thought was well done; it invited contemplation. I knelt down and prayed that I would remain in the church for the entire service, even if they did the reggae/polka "Alleluia."
A woman walked up to the microphone stand. I sat back in my pew.
Her voice was nasal and piercing, and she sounded to my ears just a tad slower than the man in those 1980s Federal Express commercials, though that's probably an exaggeration.
I burst into tears. Just cried and cried. Thankfully, I was sitting about fifty feet back from the altar, and I'm good at crying silently, so it wasn't too obvious.
There were a couple more announcements, and then the woman segued into an introduction:
"Well, if you see me sitting up front, you know there's going to be an announcement ... [Laughter] ... Here at St. Thomas More, thanks to a grant from [nonprofit group], we've gone high-tech. [Parishioner's name] is an audio engineer and he's developed headsets that will enable those hard of hearing to hear the Mass. He'll now tell you how it's done ..."
Parishioner: "Just come up before the Mass and take these headphones ..."
Et cetera. Finally, something resembling a procession came through, and the priest blessed us in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the Mass "officially" began. I wiped my tears and did the job of an active participant.
The Mass itself was about what could be expected, minus the reggae or polka. It was happy here and there, but, thankfully, not clappy. The priest mentioned Chesterton in his homily, which was very nice, except I think it was a misquote. The story he said was from Chesterton was about a mother whose young son was so impatient for dinner that he tormented the cat — so she mollified the child by hugging him to her heart. The priest meant it to illustrate God's love.
The only Chesterton quote I know about a boy tormenting a cat has a different message. From The Everlasting Man:
There comes an hour in the afternoon when the child is tired of 'pretending'; when he is weary of being a robber or a Red Indian. It is then that he torments the cat. There comes a time in the routine of an ordered civilization when the man is tired at playing at mythology and pretending that a tree is a maiden or that the moon made love to a man. The effect of this staleness is the same everywhere; it is seen in all drug-taking and dram-drinking and every form of the tendency to increase the dose. Men seek stranger sins or more startling obscenities as stimulants to their jaded sense. They seek after mad oriental religions for the same reason. They try to stab their nerves to life, if it were with the knives of the priests of Baal. They are walking in their sleep and try to wake themselves up with nightmares.
Interestingly, there were no altar boys nor altar girls. There were two or three altar men and an altar woman, all of them graying. There were also three or four extraordinary ministers, likewise of baby-boom vintage or older. For one frightening moment, as the extraordinary ministers congregated by the altar, I thought there might be one for every two people in attendance — like a bizarre alternate-universe version of Jan & Dean's "Surf City" dream.
At 37, I was easily the youngest person out of the 75 or so there — a realization that gave me a spark of hope. It made me think that somewhere, in the catacombs (perhaps hiding in the Delaware Water Gap) there is a young, vibrant Catholic congregation whose concept of the Church isn't frozen in time at the end of Vatican II.
Oh, and the Holy Communion was the same as it is at every Catholic church the world over. It was Jesus. It's amazing how He's present in the Eucharist regardless of how much or how little I sense Him in the rest of the Mass. That made me cry too.
12:22 AM |
Monday, June 19, 2006
A Mass will be said at the Church of St. Michael at 12:10 p.m. today for the Sacred Heart of Jesus. At 1 p.m., Bishop Robert A. Bruncato, Vicar General for the Archdiocese of New York, will bless the the Sacred Heart statue.
My stepfather just called me from a Houston airport, where he and my mom have been forced to watch "CNN Showbiz Tonight" while waiting for their flight home. He told me that the show had a spot where commentators rated the most disgusting commercials. The antismoking one showing a smoker with a tracheal tube got a pass, because it highlighted an important issue. Likewise with the Jetta commercial showing a car crash.
Know which one was rated the grossest?
The government PSA promoting breastfeeding. A female commentator complained, "The U.S. government should stay out of our blouses."
My stepfather didn't describe the offending PSA, but I found a couple of possibilities online: this one and this one.
Watch St. Louis seminarians Michael Grosch and Edward Nemeth battle for the eminent position as Camp Director of Kenrick-Glennon Days summer camp, hosted at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary by St. Louis seminarians and the St. Louis Office of Vocations. Mike and Ed’s performances are spectacular in this film produced by Jeff Geerling.
Check it out — and make sure you stay for the end of the credits. Way to go, Jeff! Now, put it on YouTube already.
It came from several people in response to my writing, "Likewise, when you become chaste, you'll notice for the first time that women who have sex outside of marriage don't really appreciate men." As voiced by Jill of Feministe, the criticism ran like this:
"... just as I would never tell [Dawn] that she must have premarital sex in order to appreciate men for who they are, I find it completely offensive that she would attempt to tell everyone else that we can’t possibly respect and love men as human beings unless we refuse to have sex."
What I find funny about this reaction is that it's in response to a line that I wrote to readers buying my book, who have presumably an interest in getting off the premarital-sex merry-go-round.
For the condoms-and-Cosmo coalition to say that it's wrong of me, in a book about chastity, to tell women the positive experiences they'll have when they become chaste — it's like the Fraternity of Fabulous Fatties berating a diet author. It's like unregenerate drunks ganging up on Bill W.
How can the wanton wags be so certain that I'm wrong? They can't. I'm their 9/11 widow; they can't deny my experience, because they've never been there.
If the concupiscent kaffeeklatsch really wanted to criticize my chastity advocacy, they could attempt to show empirical evidence that the unchaste live as happily as the chaste. That would take us into the seemingly bottomless morass of conflicting scientific studies — the pro-marriage and family side of which is displayed on MarriageDebate.com — but at least it would remain on the level of civil, reasoned, intellectual debate, and each side might learn something from the other.
The real problem that the lattes-and-latex lads and lassies have with chastity is not an intellectual one, but a spiritual one. They know that if chastity truly enables one to enjoy life, love and friendship on a deeper, more intense level than one can experience through nonmarital sex, then the mere existence of such a lifestyle invalidates their own.
None of this is to say that I live in any way a sinless life, or that my life is free from stress or loneliness. But, with the life I'm living now, I firmly believe that there is far more joy ahead of me than I ever could have found in the life I left behind. I wrote The Thrill of the Chaste not to make women feel bad about their sex lives, but rather to help them see that they are more, far more, than their sexual nature — and that their sexual nature is far more than biology.
The News Blog Responds to The Thrill of the Chaste
"She's delusional. I will reinterate once again: if any man is spending lots of time with you, he wants to f--- you. Maybe not immediately, but he wants to f--- you. Eden can spout this delusional nonsense, but straight guys like women. And like means wants to f---, unless they don't. Men, at least those not using her as a beard, will play along until they can find the situation to f--- her. They humor her, probably because she is attractive."
"... just as I would never tell [Dawn] that she must have premarital sex in order to appreciate men for who they are, I find it completely offensive that she would attempt to tell everyone else that we can’t possibly respect and love men as human beings unless we refuse to have sex."
"DEAR KIDS: Father’s Day is next weekend, and I know this comes a tad on the early side. You’ll have a gift or two for me (right? yes?) next Sunday, but consider this as an early gift from me: some words of wisdom from your Pops. ...
"You know, I saw you squirming around in Mommy’s tummy during the ultrasound before you were born, with your little heart beating and fingers and toes wiggling. I stepped into a whole new world that day, and I thank the maker for that on a daily basis.
"I also realized in those beautiful moments that you were children—not 'fetuses,' which is the word some people call babies in a mother’s tummy, but a real baby, just waiting to be released into the wild.
"Ain’t nothin’ Planned Parenthood can say to top the miracle of a rockin’ baby kicking out the jams during a sonogram.
"I’ll tell you a secret: Before your mommy and I got hitched, we weren’t so sure we were the right candidates for parenthood, to be honest. Between rock ’n’ roll, college, dinners out with friends, and late nights of “Late Night with David Letterman,” we seemed pretty much locked into a different way of life.
"God apparently didn’t agree with our assessment. Flash forward to 11 years later, and if I can even remember what David Letterman looks like, it’s a miracle on par with the burning bush. And those leisurely dinners out have been replaced by a careful search for Places That Can Handle a Big Family Without Giving Us Evil Looks or Breaking the Bank. While there aren’t too many of those, and they often have a waiting line, there are usually crayons for you to do really cool drawings or play Hangman with me, and I can talk with you about your awesome jump into the pool the other day."
The site's a surprise to me; I don't recall granting permission for my interviews to be used, and I can't vouch for the accuracy of the transcriptions of the interviews, published in The Bob in 1986 (right about when I turned 18). One of the "Dawn Eden" interviews, with Tom Feher, isn't even mine; I have no idea where it came from. (It also looks like the site's webmaster doesn't have a later, more comprehensive article I did for Goldmine, for which I interviewed drummer George Cameron and road manager Bob Brand. The only recording member of the group whom I didn't interview was lead singer Steve Martin.)
Overall, I'm glad that research I did 20 years ago is still valuable to people who love the Left Banke. My love of the group's music hasn't diminished since then; if anything, hearing them has spoiled me for life. Parents, if your 16-year-old has an ear for melody, play him or her "Walk Away Renee," "Pretty Ballerina," or "Desiree" and see if the teen still listens to today's pop music the same way.
Check out LeftBanke.nu's video section for not one but two videos of the group performing "Renee," including one of them lip-synching the tune on "Where the Action Is." Watch how the camera pans away from the group during the flute solo; the show's director had to do something, since no one in the group played flute.
Since Amazon won't yet let you look inside the book, my publisher has allowed me to give you a little taste. The following is from Chapter 9, "Tender Mercies: Reconnecting with Your Vulnerability":
The realization that I had blunted my emotions for the sake of physical pleasure helped me gain the strength to resist casual sex.
Healing the damage takes time—but there are some fun surprises along the way. The biggest surprise for me has been discovering how much there is to like about men.
I now notice things about the men in my life that I never noticed before, like their thoughtfulness, their love of family, their integrity, even their vulnerability. These are intangible qualities that don’t jump out at you when you’re in a frame of mind where you’re viewing men only as potential dates. Put together, they add up to character. It’s the most important quality to seek in a husband, and the one that’s least discussed in this day and age.
Likewise, when you become chaste, you’ll notice for the first time that women who have sex outside of marriage don’t really appreciate men. You can’t see this when you’re having nonmarital sex, because you don’t realize how much there really is about men to appreciate. You think the mere fact that you’re attracted to them and that they seem to wield such power over you shows you appreciate them for what they really are. From there, it’s a short step to the cynical stereotype we all know from popular culture—the worldly wise, “been there, done that” single woman who doesn’t trust men any farther than she can throw them.
On television and in movies, if a single woman is friends with a man, the pal’s more often than not a homosexual. The message is that heterosexual men aren’t capable of friendship or even worthy of it. In contrast, gay men are depicted as safe and nonthreatening, trustworthy, and having more to give than straight men.
Imagine if the tables were turned. Imagine watching a TV sitcom where all the gay men are Neanderthal lunkheads, while the kind, thoughtful straight men are always ready to help their female friends without asking sexual favors in return.
If you saw a show like that, you’d think the producers really had it out for gay men. Yet, many women tolerate such stereotyping against straight men, because they’re conditioned to expect “manly men” to lack character. Part of this conditioning comes from the media, but a large part of it—I’d say, most—comes from such women’s own warped perspectives, brought about by the superficial nature of their dating experiences.
When I had premarital sex, I became accustomed to seeing myself as a commodity — a varied collection of looks, wit, intellect, and je ne sais quois. I looked for men whose commodities were worth as much as my own.
Most of all, I looked for men whose commodities were readily apparent. The singles scene isn’t known for its subtlety. Men who were reserved or modest, who didn’t flirt readily, who weren’t attuned to my single-gal vibe—the nature of my casual-sex mind-set forced them all out of the running.
Is it any surprise, then, that I tended to date narcissists? And that I believed, if I let them reach me emotionally, they would hurt me? So, I built up walls of protection. I thought I was “guarding my heart.”
Today, I see those walls for what they really are — and they look like poorly installed weather insulation. They don’t do anything they’re supposed to do. The chill winds of rejection seep through, while the warm breezes of love are muffled.
I still have a lot to learn about sustaining a lasting relationship, but I firmly believe that during the time I’ve spent working at chastity, the hardness that men perceived in me has been gradually melting away. In its place are an openness and a vulnerability that makes me more susceptible to being hurt, but infinitely more capable of attaining and sustaining the lifelong marriage my heart desires.
