A friend of mine has a T-shirt that reads, “People say I have ADD, but they just don’t understand. Oh, look! A chicken!” It has become a kind of shorthand in my very nonlinear-thinking family. Kind of a warning that someone is about to go off in a seemingly totally unrelated direction. Now it only seems unrelated. Truth is that if you sit down and really analyze the situation, it is something like this: Something the other person said reminded me of something else, which reminded me that I had forgotten to do something I was supposed to do, which made me think of this thing I need to tell the other person. We used to just sound nuts. Now one of us will say, “there’s a chicken.” And the rest of us know we are about to go nonlinear.
OK, so we still sound nuts, but there is structure to it. But it has become a kind of constant reminder of the mass of contradictions we are. So, it is no real surprise that this little rant is inspired by two seemingly unrelated events.
First, my lovely wife (also known as the reality show queen — but it’s OK cuz she doesn’t watch the dating or dancing ones, and she’s actually pretty cool with the exception of the reality show weakness…) suckered me into watching American Idol on Andrew Lloyd Webber night. One of the contestants sang “Superstar” from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. She absolutely ripped it up and it was by miles the best performance of the night. But I remember telling my wife that this contestant would have problems in the voting because people in the Bible Belt would find the lyrics offensive.
And I was right. Hands down the strongest performance of the night and she was voted off. Oh, look, there’s a chicken…
Earlier that day, I killed a light, funny piece by the Anklebiters that went into some detail on the difficulty of maintaining focus on outdoor summer gigs given the wardrobe choices (or lack thereof) of some attendees of the fairer gender. Why did we kill it? Because we have come to a point — especially with certain elements of the church crowd — where stepping outside a predetermined moral line brings the kind of letters and complaints that take up valuable time and cause us problems with a few advertisers. It sucks and I hate it. But it is the reality.
The stupid thing is that we all work in the audio field and we all want to make things sound the best we can for whatever audience we are working for. And FOH exists to help in that quest. Tiptoeing around religious beliefs should not be a part of putting together an issue. But it has gotten that way.
The truth is that some of us need to get over ourselves and show a little of the empathy that the one we profess to follow showed. Now before you get all “this guy’s a heathen scum” on me, know this: I have given literally years of unpaid service to my church. Prayer — both private and with my family — is an every day thing. I have never turned down a request for help or service at my church and continue to tithe even though I rarely attend, mostly because I have such a difficult time relating to the people who make up the congregation due to the lack of tolerance for people who don’t “fit the mold.”
A publication like FOH walks a line. On one side there is the majority of readers who are not religious and do not work in the church market. Some of them have real problems with the whole church thing, and I get calls and letters from them every time we do a special house-of-worship issue. On the other side are devout believers who get upset at anything that smacks in the least of the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll thing. Fortunately, the middle ground is pretty wide and the people in it care about doing their jobs better, whether they are doing it in a church or a punk/goth metal club.
And the real drag is that the ones doing the complaining are a very small minority. They just happen to be really loud. Well, the next time you want to spout off about how offensive something is remember two things. First, there is, plenty of other content in each issue that you will be happy with. Go read that and ignore the one piece that may have a swear word or refer to sex. Second, remember the standard that most of the believers out there are supposedly holding themselves, too.
If you remember your Sunday School lessons, the first thing we are told to do is love God. The second is to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” FOH Publisher Terry Lowe reminded me of something when he read the first draft of this piece. There is a sign up in every House of Blues venue that says “Unity Through Diversity.” That sums things up nicely. Loving thy neighbor is not an easy thing to pull off when we are busy judging those different from us.
We can all help and teach each other. I don’t know about all y’all, but I am not going to ignore good advice (audio or otherwise) because it comes from someone who does not believe the same things I do.
BTW, Carly was robbed…
