Bates Motel

Very few television shows are challenging, unnerving or horrifying. American Horror Story comes close. I watched a few episodes that focused on the side show and I found it interesting but not scary. Most clowns are annoying and I include the scary ones. If you want to do a clown character, it had better be perfect. Krusty the Clown from The Simpsons is perfect. That's about it.  The scary clown in that show wasn't scary. 

Bates Motel isn't just scary, it's disturbing. Hitchcock understood that you don't need excessive blood to terrify an audience. The scariest scenes in Psycho are when Norman Bates is talking to Marion Crane. Perkins is terrifying for many reasons, but one of the main reasons is how normal he is. He looks harmless. He is frail, looks weak, and dresses like a totally normal person. We expect villains and psychopaths in movies to look like Jason Voorhies or raging lunatics. 

The actor who plays Norman Bates here is outstanding. He's plays Bates the same way Perkins does-so normal that you know people who look and act like him-but in reality he's a raging psychopath who should not be in free society. The actress playing his mother is also quite good. We never got to see Norma Bates alive in the movie, it's only Normans thoughts masquerading as Norma. I thought that Norma Bates would be more manipulative and emotionally abusive than how Vera Farming is playing her, but Farming is still believable in the role.

Bates Motel is one of the few seriously creepy television show I've seen. 

Album of the weekend

Title of Show-Original Broadcast Recording 

And now it's time for something completely different.

And Title of Show surely is. It's a musical based with four outstanding actors/actresses playing themselves and a keyboard that looks like it's from the 1980's. Or, in the words of Hunter, one of the main characters, it's "a musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical." In other words, it's meta. 

Title of Show has great songs, but it's more character based. The chemistry they have together is so outstanding that you can't help but be hooked in. The two women (Heidi and Susan in the original, but the names can be changed to the performers actually doing it) steal the show with their charm, wit and banter-but the two male leads (Hunter and Jeff) are often times just as amazing. 

Title of Show is funny without being cheesy and it's surprisingly touching. A few of the songs are real tearjerkers because you like the characters so much and you believe in their story. Just when they go of the heartstrings-they pull you right back into a Seinfeld-esque "No hugging and making up in the end" style. 

Title of Show is the most underrated musical of the last two decades. It's too quirky for Broadway, but that's okay. Quirky is good. 

Attaching political labels to Christ

It's very odd to me that people who don't believe in Jesus tell us how He would vote, but those of us who believe in Him would never apply political labels to Christ. 

Often times you will find what you seek. The Catholics (with some truth, actually) find Shakespeare to be a Catholic. The atheists find Marlowe to be an atheist. John Milton in some LDS circles is called "Milton the Mormon" because he is non-trinitarian. 

On social media I often find agnostics and non believers posting "Jesus was a socialist" type posts. They'll put a quote of His there and a scripture piece here and determine that Jesus was, indeed, a socialist. Often times people who say this would never talk about Christian social teaching on abortion, adultery or gay marriage but they become bible scholars because it suits their goal. 

The world was vastly different back when Christ lived. Our social structure, government and political structure was not even close to what it is today. While it's true, Christ did make political comments (Give to Caesar what is Caesars and to God what is Gods) He had better things to do than discuss political theory with Peter and James.  

Personally I think Jesus was a libertarian. After all, He was killed by the state. Doubt he'd be much of a fan. 

(Kidding, by the way. I don't attach political labels to Christ either) 

Being a "good person"

"I have a big heart"
"I am a good person"

Aside from calling yourself tolerant, both of these comments are among the most absurd things to say.

Are you good at something? I mean really, really good at something? Maybe chess. Video games. Billiards. I'm not-basically I have no enjoyable or unique skills. I'm horrible at chess, terrible at pool, and I lack the discipline to really excel at anything more than Fallout 3. Anyway, back to you.

If you are really, really good at something do you go around telling people you are better than them? You wouldn't, you'd simply know. LeBron James doesn't tell people he's a better basketball player than they are because he doesn't need to. It's just known. If you say you are a "good person" you automatically proved you aren't because a "good person" wouldn't say it. It's like saying you are humble. Truly humble people don't say they are humble. 

Same with the "big heart". I've seen people say they have "big hearts" who cheat on their husbands, ignore their family, and are as ice cold as the White Witch in Narnia. The size of your heart doesn't matter, it's your actions that do. If you hate everyone who doesn't agree with you, spout your anger towards the busboy on Twitter and are constantly talking about how the unfair the world is, you lose the right to say you have a "big heart." 

Making cigarettes illegal

A popular (but so far, unsuccessful) politician has said that he wants to "ban cigarettes". This is the same politician that wants to legalize marijuana. 

Obviously, I don't expect cogent thought from this guy, nor his followers. They emote, they don't think. But this was still pretty jarring. In fact, I want to make sure it's really true. Yes, it seems that Bernie Sanders really said that cigarettes should be banned but has gone on record that marijuana should be legal. 

I used to smoke cigarettes in high school, college, then off and on in my twenties. I quit about eight years ago. No regrets or shame. Life can be stressful and you need a pressure cooker. I don't advise smoking cigarettes, it's not a healthy habit and again, I haven't smoked in many years-but I'm not an anti-smoking zealot who thinks that all smokers are evil. In fact, I've always thought that bad filmmakers give villains cigarettes to smoke so that stupid or overly moralistic people can figure out who they can root against. "Hey! She's smoking! She must be evil!" Again, this is how stupid people know who to root against in Joel Schumacher movies. 

Anyway, back to banning cigarettes. A government banning cigarettes would be absurd simply because of the tax revenue that cigarettes provide. Like it or not, smokers pay huge taxes. The other grim truth is that smokers die earlier than non-smokers so they don't receive Social Security benefits.  

There are moral reasons not to ban cigarettes as well-yes, you read that correctly. The government should not tell me what to do with my body. Pro-chociers say this all the time. Because smoking cigarettes is unhip but smoking weed is cool, that "my body. my choice" part is ignored. A government has no business protecting you from yourself. If you want to smoke cigarettes, pot, snort cocaine or shoot up heroin-it really should be your choice. 

Arena Football

I went to an Orlando Predators game, and the Amway Center is absolutely gorgeous. Unlike some other arenas the seating is extremely comfortable, the concessions are still pricey but actually tasty and the whole arena has the vibe of an upscale mall. An added treat is that a parking garage is attached to it so you have a safe, well lit walk. 

All that is interesting but would be pointless if the event being held there was boring. I'm not into NFL football. Nothing against it but it's never been my big thing. I've always been a huge baseball fan and that's where my I get my sports fix. College football has grown on me, but I'm hardly a big fan. 

The rock band Kiss owns a struggling football team called "LA Kiss". In their inaugural season they had their own television show called "Fourth and Loud". It was a very interesting show. It showed how little Paul and Gene know about sports-expecting a championship in the expansion year of a franchise is laughable-and it also showed the players lives. Arena football is minor league football. The players aren't paid nearly as much as the NFL and therefore, the players are more accessible to the lives of everyday Americans. 

Sure the football "isn't as good" as the NFL but for a non NFL fan, I couldn't tell the difference. You are also close to the action, very close in fact. You can see the players talking to each other, you can see their faces when they take off the helmets. 

It's also high scoring and action packed. The field is smaller than the NFL and I'm sure there are other reasons, but the scores in Arena Football seem to be much higher than the scores in the NFL. 

Minor league sports have always had their benefits over the big leagues. It's cheaper to go to, usually not as popular as the big leagues and it's a little bit more of a party atmosphere. 

Arena football is football for people who aren't into football. 

Scripture Sunday-Mosiah 2:41

You Mormons are so happy all the time. 

Yes, yes we are. The Book of Mormon even says this. Perhaps one of the reasons we are happy is just what the passage says "consider the blessed and happy state of those keeping the commandments of God, for behold they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual." 

It gets better. "If they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, and thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness." 

This is the religion for those who like to party with the happiness. So many religious people are mopey, angry, sad or depressed. Sadly, they fall into the stereotypes that atheists and non believers apply to us. Don't be "those people." 

True LDS should show their inner happiness. The book of Mormon commands it, after all.