Archive for August, 2008

I did things decidedly different in this week’s podcast, going mostly for laughs via playing more songs and tying them together with brief commentary about whatever.  The idea was to have fun.  I did; hopefully you’ll find some as well.

No transcript or lyrics this week.  Instead, kick back and listen.

You can listen to the podcast here.  If you have iTunes, you can subscribe to it here.  As always, please let me know what you think, and thanks.

This week’s podcast (or should I say this month’s?  Ah well) talks about the past few weeks in NASCAR, seizing opportunities while they are still available, and what it means to be a genuine rebel.

You can listen to the podcast here.  If you have iTunes, you can subscribe to it here.  As always, please let me know what you think, and thanks.

Here’s the text for this week’s edition.

But enough about the prom.

And welcome to this week’s edition of the Diecast Dude’s (Mostly) NASCAR Positively Persnickety Podcast.  It is Tuesday August the twelfth 2008, and this week I’ll be talking about the need to seize the moment when and while it’s available, as well as what it means to be a genuine rebel.  With a cause.  And a clue.

But first, a look back at the past few weeks in NASCAR.

It’s becoming progressively more difficult for me to watch NASCAR this year.  While I freely admit a part of that has to do with how Jeff Gordon is having by his standards a miserable year, the majority of my discontent stems from how awful the races themselves have been regardless of who wins.  The lack of genuine action and almost total absence of lead changes anywhere than during pit stops is making the four plus hours I spent on the weekend watching this thing, plus time spent writing about it, something I actually resent far more than enjoy.

It’s a sign of how deep my devotion is to the sport that I along with so many continue to stick around, although among this merry band of pranksters that has over the years come together around the NASCAR blogging Maypole the conversations and friendships between us is of far greater interest as an action item than tuning in to catch our weekly dose of driving fast and turning left.  Certainly it’s more important.  However, it would be nice if when we gather the conversation could start with “did you see that race!” and not “why are we subjecting ourselves to this?”

A couple of songs before the next segment.

Now that I’m truly in the home stretch of finishing the new book, I’ve started contemplating what I want to do next as far as writing is concerned.  Also coming into play is my oft-expressed desire for a new gig.  Add the two together, and while I don’t foresee making it my full-time job I do want to re-enter the world of being a freelance journalist, selling stories to different periodicals and Web sites.

I’ve been chasing a couple of different stories.  One, suggested by a dear friend of mine, would be an expansion of a post I wrote on the NASCAR blog last month, talking to the people involved to make it a complete story as opposed to an observational piece, which is what the original post was.  The second is taking an upcoming charity event in NASCAR and exploring the story behind the action, which would necessitate talking to the people involved.

In both cases I have followed proper protocol, namely contacting the PR people involved, explaining who I am and what this is all about, and would you please set up the interviews with the people involved.  In the case of the first story, I was originally told the person I wanted to interview, who I needed to help set up the interview with the second person in addition to getting their story, had been told about the request.  This was followed by the sound of crickets.  I asked again.  The response was the person I wanted to interview didn’t work there anymore.  Um, could you tell me where they went?  Apparently not.  Okay, thanks.  Disappointing, but these things happen.

The second story was a different matter.  So you’ll do a story, the question eagerly came.  Yes, but I need to talk to these people so will you please set it up.  So you’ll do a story, came the earnest reply.  Yes, but I need to talk to these people so would you please set it up.  Crickets.  Hello, is anyone home, what’s going on.  Oh, we’re too busy to set up any interviews.  If we send you some existing quotes from people who have no connection whatsoever to your story will you write one anyway?  Gee, let me think… oh wait that’s right.  No.  You can’t be bothered to do something that will give your charity organization a ton of free positive publicity, guess I can’t be bothered either.

Not to be morbid, but don’t these people realize we all could die tonight?

Life on this earth is fragile and fleeting.  The wise see things in terms of eternity, and during their tenure on this planet plan accordingly.  They work not with frantic uncontrolled urgency but rather with calm deliberation toward taking care of the things that truly matter.  Inspiring others in life matters.  Helping others in life matters.  Laying the foundation for eternity matters.  And part of that is doing the work God asks us to do.  Namely, love.  In all its many forms.  Inspiring and helping is love.  It’s something worth pursuing.

I’ll find other stories to write, and for them will hopefully get the cooperation I need to actually write them.  However, it is regrettable that these two stories will apparently not be written for the sole reason those whose job duties include doing what is necessary to facilitate the writing of such stories couldn’t be bothered.  There’s really nothing else to say about it other than they didn’t cheat me out of anything.  I’ll look elsewhere.  The ones they cheated are the people about whom the stories would have been written.  And the far greater number of people who would have been blessed by them.

And we move on.

So what does it mean to be a rebel, anyway?

There are few things in this world easier than striking a pose as the angry young man.  Or the angry old man.  Or angry young woman, or old woman, or middle-aged woman.  Instead of the angry middle-aged man you usually find the brooding middle-aged man.  I was thinking this morning on the way into work, headphones strapped on tight and the iPhone blasting away in same, that explains why I like Marillion so much as their mix of progressive and melodic rock together with introspective lyrics form a perfect soundtrack for brooding middle-aged men.  But I digress.

A lot of things in this world are worth being angry about.  Man’s injustice to man; our injustice to ourselves.  Those who protested the graphic depiction of Christ’s suffering and crucifixion in Mel Gibson’s The Passion Of The Christ, lamenting why it couldn’t have depicted the gentle meek and mild Jesus they learned about on a flannelboard at Sunday school, missed how the film did have flashes of that Jesus.  But it also showed the Jesus Who stared down the crowd eager to stone a woman to death for committing adultery.  It showed the Jesus Who suffered and died for both that woman and the crowd that wanted to stone her.  It showed the Jesus Who suffered and died for the people who complained about a movie showing His suffering and death.  Because nothing else could possibly save them from an eternity spent in hell as just punishment for their sins.  An eternity spent without love.

You want to know who a rebel is?  A real rebel?  I mentioned her in the Goldfish and Clowns blog a few weeks ago.  Her name is Ingrid Betancourt.  She was among the hostages who were recently freed in a daring undercover military operation after having been held hostage for years by a terrorist group in her native Colombia.  Shortly after she was freed, she fulfilled a promise she had made during her time in captivity:

Accompanied by her mother, son and daughter, she went to Lourdes, the holy place in France where Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous.

While what little coverage Ms. Betancourt’s story received following her rescue focused mostly on the Red Cross’ anger over its logo being used as part of the ruse to free the hostages, another cross has been rather ignored.

It was the one attached to the rosary Ms. Betancourt fashioned out of buttons and string during her captivity.

There is an inconvenient truth about Ms. Betancourt that makes her story less attractive, less sexy than modern news machine media prefers.  It’s this insistence she has about mentioning how her deep faith carried her through the years of torture and abuse at the hands of her captors.  Consider the following words she spoke while at Lourdes:

“I know I talk with God and God replies — people prefer to speak about the force of circumstances, rather than miracles, but I think miracles happen to everyone all the time,” said the ex-hostage, who also holds French citizenship.  “I have to do two things: forget and find spiritual peace, and be able to forgive.  When I do this, I’ll also have to recall my memories.  But perhaps, in time, these won’t be so painful.”

Betancourt, who noted the Lourdes pilgrimage would be her last public appearance until she recuperated, said she had made a rosary from buttons and old string during her captivity.

Meanwhile, Betancourt told a French Catholic magazine, Le Pelerin (The Pilgrim), July 12 that she constantly had read the Bible as a hostage, “made many promises to the Virgin Mary,” and believed her faith had “constantly grown.”

“If I had not had the Lord at my side, I don’t think I could have overcome this suffering,” she said.  “Being a hostage places you in a situation of constant humiliation.  You are a victim of total arbitrariness and you get to know what’s most vile in the human spirit.

“Faced by this, there are two paths.  You either let yourself grow ugly, bitter, peevish and vindictive, and let your heart fill with spite, or you choose the other path which Jesus showed us when he asked us to bless our enemies,” said Betancourt.

I wish I had that kind of faith.  I try to get there, but I fall so short of the goal.  Perhaps one day I’ll make it.

On that day, I’ll be a true rebel, rebelling against everything the world tells us we must feel and think and do.

How I pray to one day be a true rebel.

That concludes this week’s podcast.  Take care, everyone, and we’ll get
together again next time.

I’m sorry about the lack of podcasts lately.  Been running myself ragged (again) and not TCBing.  Hopefully I’ll get it together in the next couple of days.