Discovering Johnny Cash

Posted on October 11, 2010 by benjaminfrog

To say that Walk The Line is one of my favourite movies, it’s been surprisingly difficult to find a Johnny Cash CD that I like. Within the flavour of Johnny Cash music is a particular sub-flavour that I can find in very few places, and seems most present in his later performances. It’s this hard-to-find sub-flavour that really gets to me.

I picked up the CD The Legend of Johnny Cash mainly for the song The Man Comes Around, not expecting to enjoy much else on the CD. The playlist on this disc really caught me off guard. It spans his entire career from 1955 to 2003, and it’s mostly the later songs that hold that sub-flavour I’ve been looking for. The Wanderer has such a deep story to it, Highwayman spawned a series of short poems my father and I wrote to each other, but the song I ended up replaying over and over the night I got the CD was Rusty Cage.

I’ve been wondering what it is about his later performances that I prefer so much. I say “performance” rather than “song” because even many of his earlier songs sound much better to me later in his career. I realized one big difference is the creative use of instruments. Let’s face it, he didn’t have a wide variety of ideas at first. But later on he revisited many of those old songs and added new instruments and new sounds – and they worked.

But another big difference is the depth of soul. Johnny’s soul was deep to begin with, more so than most. But as he aged his soul became too deep to reach.

My church recently did a series of sermons on the book of Lamentations, and as I mulled over the themes and messages of this book I related it to the song Cry! Cry! Cry!.

When I listen to I’ve Been Everywhere I picture the truck driver staring at him and saying, “It was just a question…”

One problem with this CD is that when you take it out of the case Johnny Cash flips you off. It seems an odd way to say, “Thank you for buying my CD.” But I suppose that was his way. Perhaps the picture was taken after the cameraman pointed out to Cash that he was wearing a white suit…

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Labyrinth – (a review)

Posted on October 9, 2010 by benjaminfrog

Not all movies from my childhood have stood the test of time. The Dark Crystal for example turned out to be quite terrible when I watched it again as an adult. The Hobbit and Return of the Jedi I love just as much today as I did two decades ago. But then there’s movies that I loved as a child for childish reasons, and then loved as an adult for different reasons. Off the top of my head I can think of three movies that do this – Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, and Labyrinth.

Labyrinth is an alice-in-wonderland-type story about an imaginative teenage girl who wishes the Goblin King would take her baby brother away, regrets it when it happens, and then sets on a quest through the labyrinth to the Goblin King’s castle to get her brother back.

The messages in this film really resonate with the tension of that difficult time in life between playful childhood and responsible adulthood. The parralels between the trials of the Labyrinth and the trials of real life make for good lessons that are entertaining and easily remembered. My personal favourite is the False Alarms.

Of course I didn’t understand or care about any of that as a kid, all I cared about was the insane creativity of the whole thing, the realism of the creatures, the catchy tunes, and of course Jennifer Connelly (I was old enough to appreciate that).

The downsides:

There are a couple of psychological scenes that would scare the crap out of some kids. The transition from the everyday world to the labyrinth feels discombobulated.

The Fire Gang sequence is pretty random. They come out of nowhere and all the sudden it’s a musical number. On the other hand, one of them sounds like Elmo, and it’s fun to hear Elmo threaten to rip someone’s head off.

The dynamics between Sarah and Jared are creepy at times. Didymus annoys me.

More upsides:

The Bog of Eternal Stench. Just imagine how often that’ll come up in conversations with your kids after watching this movie together!

If you watch the DVD or Blu-Ray then there’s a big treat in the special features as well. Seeing all the concept art and puppetry and talented people that went into this movie is a fun viewing experience all it’s own.

Oh yeah, and David Bowie’s in it. …As quite possibly the most eccentric-looking goblin I’ve ever seen.

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A Bit of Background

Posted on October 1, 2010 by benjaminfrog

I suppose I should share a bit about my story,

As a young child I was severely autistic – non-verbal, unable to communicate in any form and totally lost in my own world. Nobody knew what the issue was because little was known about autism at the time.

At about the age of five I had a turn-around, becoming aware of my environment and the people around me, and having at least some speech capability. Though at one time I could only communicate by copying what I’d heard someone else say if I thought it fit the situation. This was problematic for a kid who was raised on Montey Python and didn’t understand half of the blue-collar English phrases that he repeated to complete strangers.

Because little was known of autism, I was not diagnosed until about the age of eight, and by then I had developed so much that I was diagnosed as having Asperger Syndrome (A.S.) – or what some might call “high-functioning autism.”

By then I still had an imaginary world I could get lost in, but had a greater awareness that it was in-fact my imagination, and I could slip into and out of it at will. Sometimes when my mother needed to talk to me it was quite a struggle to get me back into the real world. Eye-contact had an effect but I avoided it when I could.

From what I understand, the main social difference between someone with autism and someone with A.S. is that an autistic has few to zero methods of interacting with others, wheras someone with A.S. has the ability to interact but an habitual disposition to not want to.

I had been developing gradually throughout my teen years, always a few years behind my age group in terms of social interaction. Now that I’m actually spending more time with my own age group I’m having opportunities to learn about the conventions of peer interaction, and I’m encountering a surprising amount of grace for my unfamiliarity with the whole thing. Perhaps shows like The Big Bang Theory and Community are paving the way for people with my unusual social tendencies.

It’s been reported that the age of five was also the first time I became open to Jesus Christ in my life. It’s annoying not knowing if that or the psychological development happened first. I don’t know if the awareness of my surroundings was necessary for me to understand the concept of a Saviour, or if it was the involvement of the Holy Spirit that enabled me to make that psychological progress. I know to some people that doesn’t matter, but I’m an analyzer – dagnabit! – I wanna study these things. But either way, it’s evident that God had his hand on me at that particular time in my life, and he’s been helping me ever since.

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Job Revisited

Posted on September 25, 2010 by benjaminfrog

I’ve been re-reading the book of Job – you know – that super-depressing book in the middle of the Bible right before Psalms. I’ve read it before but this time it was somehow different.

I remember the first time I read it I forced myself to get through it as quickly as possible, because you just don’t wanna hear about that kind of suffering and then leave the person there – you wanna push through to the end. I think that’s a tendency we all have.

Maybe I was numb this time, or more at peace, or just momentarily heartless, but I actually took the time to stay there and listen to this guy – really listen – and was stunned and inspired by what was there.

The stuff Job says here is exactly the kind of stuff that Christians think, but would never actually admit to thinking. It crosses our minds, even if only for a moment, but we think it so sacriligious that we shove it out of our minds right away and hope God didn’t notice.

That’s exactly the kind of stuff that Job says here – out loud – in the middle of the Bible!

Here’s just a few of the verses I’ve hi-lighted:

“A despairing man should have the devotion of his friends, even though he forsakes the fear of the Almighty.” – 6:14

“He [God] is not a man like me that I might answer him, that we might confront each other in court. If only there were someone to arbitrate between us…” – 9:32,33

“Your hands shaped me and made me…But this is what you concealed in your heart, and I know that this was in your mind…Why then did you bring me out of the womb?” – 10:8,13,18

I won’t go over all of them – that would eliminate the sense of discovering them for yourselves. But I would like to mention and talk about this one verse in particular:

“Will you speak wickedly on God’s behalf? Will you speak deceitfully for him? Will you show him partiality? Will you argue the case for God?” – 13:7,8

How often do we get into discussions over God being non-existent or uncaring because of an event in someone’s life, and come back to them with answers like “You just need more faith” or “If God let it happen then it was really a good thing” or the infamous “You must’ve done something to deserve it”?

Do we really think we’re speaking on God’s behalf when we say these things? Do we feel as though God’s honour is at stake and that we have to come up with something to say in his defense or else he won’t be glorified?

God is a big guy – he can take care of himself. If the answers to someone’s pain are not visible at the moment, that does not mean we have to look for answers or else. And frankly I don’t think God is too happy with us when we do.

What I find truly fascinating about Job is that even though he says all these things that we feel are so sacriligious – that nobody should ever even think – God listened to all this and decided “I want this in my book, which will go out to every nation. Everyone in the world needs to read this.” God wants people to know that it’s okay to have these questions. This left me stunned.

If you’re interested in what else Job has to say – you know where to find him (if not then re-read the beginning of this article). If you want to try reading it objectively (without the emotional storm) then maybe skip past the first 2 chapters for the time being. After that it’s easy to tell which parts are Job speaking because those passages begin with his name in big letters (depending on your version of the Bible). His friends have a bit of wisdom too, but not much, which God tells them off for later on.

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