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Just put your brain in neutral, turn on the television set

Just put your brain in neutral, turn on the television set

Last updated on: March 12, 2020 at 6:00 am by Fred Clark

Just put your brain in neutral, turn on the television set 2020-03-11T19:39:23-04:00 Fred Clark

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Here is your open thread for March 12, 2020.

Randall Evan Stonehill turns 68 today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN66cMhdoIU

Uncle Randy is one of my favorite classic Jesus rockers. And one of the most frustrating. He was capable of writing biting commentary and of heartfelt, really beautiful songs. He also seemed to keep an eye on whatever it was CCM radio deemed safe and acceptable — musically, lyrically, theologically — and recorded dozens of songs that seem to exist only for that reason.

The early Randy records are a strange and terrific collection of songs, the work of somebody who seemed like he might become either the next Don Henley or the next Weird Al (or both). For the former, give a listen to “Venezuela.” For the latter, check out “Big Ideas” or “Cosmetic Fixation” or “Great Big Stupid World.”

I’ve always had a soft spot for Randy Stonehill’s most honest, earnest songs of devotion. “God knows the tears that you have cried,” he sings on “Hope of Glory,” and I want to believe him.

But here’s the main reason I’ll always think fondly of Uncle Randy. It’s the early ’90s and the internship I landed out of college is ending. I have no idea what I’m going to do next, or what I’m supposed to do next.

I’m headed to this weekend conference/retreat thing with little idea what it involves other than the time and place. I’m going because my friend Arden told me I’m “supposed to be there” and she’s one of the few people who could tell me something like that and have me believe it. But I’m not really enthused about it, or paying much attention, so I don’t get to the retreat center until an hour after the thing had already started. The song playing on the mixtape in my car’s cassette player as I pulled in to park happened to be Randy Stonehill’s “Hymn.”

I shut off the car and start hustling toward the building where I think I’m supposed to check in and I hear a guitar start to play from inside. Then somebody starts singing, “In this land of the walking wounded …” I sneak into the back of the already in-progress conference/retreat thing and find Randy Stonehill himself singing this same song. Whether this was, in fact, providence or coincidence is something I’ll never know, but I took it as confirmation of what Arden said and wound up spending the next decade working for the folks who put that conference together.

So anyway, happy birthday Uncle Randy.

Charles Cunningham Boycott was born 188 years ago today. His name lives on. The best summary of what his name has come to mean comes from his contemporary, Charles Stewart Parnell, who said:

What do you do with a tenant who bids for a farm from which his neighbor has been evicted? … I wish to point out to you a very much better way – a more Christian and charitable way, which will give the lost man an opportunity of repenting. When a man takes a farm from which another has been evicted, you must shun him on the roadside when you meet him – you must shun him in the streets of the town – you must shun him in the shop – you must shun him on the fair green and in the market place, and even in the place of worship, by leaving him alone, by putting him in moral Coventry, by isolating him from the rest of the country, as if he were the leper of old – you must show him your detestation of the crime he committed.

Parnell’s idea of shunning — what we now call “boycotting” — was all about results. He wanted to invite the sinner — the person or institution committing injustice — to repent and thereby be saved. Short of that, he wanted to coerce them to do so, reversing the injustice regardless of their own spiritual wellbeing. In any case, boycotts were about getting results and producing tangible change, not about establishing the moral purity of the boycotters.

On this day 108 years ago, the Girl Scouts of America were founded. This was a Good Thing, even apart from the Thin Mints.

Famous refugee Agathe Von Trapp was born 107 years ago today. She’s better remembered as “Liesl,” and was actually 25 going on 26 when Germany invaded Austra. (She also never married, living and working with her “best friend” for five decades as teachers here in America. So I suspect being a Nazi wasn’t Rolfe’s only obstacle.)

Lejzor Shmuel Czyż, was born 103 years ago today in what is now Belarus. His family moved to Chicago, where he became Leonard Chess, founding a record company that gave us all the blues (in the best way).

Jack Kerouac was born 98 years ago today. I don’t have any strong opinions about Kerouac, but I sometimes have strong opinions about people who have strong opinions about Kerouac, if you get what I mean.

Wally Schirra — a Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo astronaut — was born 97 years ago today. Deliciously vicious playwright Edward Albee was born 92 years ago. The late great Al Jarreau would have been 80 today.

Today is the 88th birthday of pastor and politician Andrew Young. He might have been governor of Georgia, but white voters there chose Zell Miller instead. That wasn’t quite as bad as “choosing” Brian Kemp over Stacey Abrams, but it’s close.

Liza Minelli turns 74. Go watch Cabaret again to remember how much she deserved all those awards. And then watch Cabaret again again because it’s 2020 and we need to be paying more attention than poor Sally Bowles did.

It’s Mitt Romney’s birthday today, so he will be 73 years old when he votes to re-elect Donald Trump in November. Dale Murphy, a far better representative of Latter Day Saint integrity, turns 64 today. Here’s my favorite Murphy story.

Singer-songwriter James Taylor turns 72 today. Here he is on The Simpsons.

It’s the 60th birthday of Courtney B. Vance. Titus Welliver turn 58. So does Darryl Strawberry. Badass Black Hawk pilot turned kick-ass United States senator Tammy Duckworth turns 52. Graham Coxon — who wrote the ringtone on my phone — turns 51. Jamie Alexander turns 36. (Blindspot was a guilty pleasure, even if I’m still disappointed it didn’t turn out to be a time-travel thing.)

Talk amongst yourselves.

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