Who Says Ideas Don't Have Consequences?

One of my hitch-hiking buddies
in UT. enjoying the scenery, 1971

It’s no secret my early ‘70s impulse to travel was inspired by popular culture. Travels with Bronson (TV) and Easy Rider (film) fostered wanderlust. A friend’s journey to and from New Orleans by thumb gave me itchy feet. But without a doubt the sweet harmonies and cleaver guitar licks of AM radio had the greatest impact.

I was told to: Get out of this place (Eric Burdon), Head out on the highway (Steppenwolf), Get a move on (Dave Clark V), Hit the road (Ray Charles), Ride captain, ride! (Blues Image), Join a traveling band (Neil Diamond), Ramble on (Led Zeppelin), and get On the road again (Canned Heat).

I was told I was: Born to be wild (Steppenwolf), Born to wander (Rare Earth), and Born free (Roger Williams).

I was told to go to: San Francisco (Scott McKenzie), San Jose (Dionne Warwick), Massachusetts (Bee Gees), Nashville (Lovin’ Spoonful), USSR (Beatles), California (Mamas and the Papas, Scott McKenzie), Arizona (Paul Revere and the Raiders), New Orleans (Judy Collins, Arlo Guthrie), Phoenix, Galveston and Wichita (Glenn Campbell), Lodi (Creedence Clearwater Revival), Marrakesh (Crosby Stills and Nash), Woodstock (Joni Mitchell), Indiana and Carolina (James Taylor), Clarksville (Monkees), Alberta (Gordon Lightfoot), ‘Frisco Bay (Otis Redding), and No particular place (Chuck Berry).

I was told how to get there: Walkin' down that long, lonesome road  (Peter, Paul, and Mary), Kickin’ down the cobble stones (Simon and Garfunkel), Like a rollin’ stone (Bob Dylan), Hitchin’ a ride (Vanity Fair). And I was to take a Country road (James Taylor), To the country (Canned Heat), on a Long and winding road (Beatles).

I was told which mode of transportation: Magic carpet (Steppenwolf), Greyhound (Simon and Garfunkel), Diesel ( Janis Joplin), River (Creedence Clearwater Revival), Airplane (Boxtops), Boxcar (Roger Miller), Magic bus (Who), Beautiful balloon (5th Dimension), Motorcycle (Arlo Guthrie), Truckin’ (Grateful Dead), Wooden Ships (Crosby, Stills, and Nash), and a Yellow taxi (Joni Mitchell), a Yellow submarine (Beatles), on a Yellow River (Tony Christie).  No transportation? No problem! We can fly! (Cowsills).

And I was told I'd be gone awhile: Maybe I’ll be back someday (Sonny and Cher), I’m a long way from home (Peter, Paul, and Mary), because I've gone to look for America (Simon and Garfunkel).

After spending years marinating my brain in these songs how could I not throw cooked brown rice and dry granola into a back pack and hit the road when Simon and Garfunkel told me to hitchhike 100 miles?


Good thing pop songs of the day didn't encourage eating Mt. Ranier or building bridges out of toothpicks.

(Musings on my past for a memoir-in-progress)

Good and Bad Marriage Advice from Sonny and Cher

When Will I Learn Misery Doesn't Sell?

In 1971 I tried to sell the following dismal gag cartoons to Boy’s Life. Somehow the editor’s felt poisoned campers and cliff hanging kids weren’t in a nine-year-old subscriber’s best interest.

"You see? I told you earth worm stew would taste good."

"Yes, they're moose tracks, Jimmy. Pretty fresh, too."

"Tell me again how much fun we're having. I keep forgetting."

In 1977 I wrote and illustrated a children’s’ book entitled The Miserable Life of a Sockeye Salmon. What was I thinking? Here are the illustrations; I’ve spared you the maudlin text.

In 1982 I began drawing a 64 page graphic novel wherein the parish of a country priest gets kidnapped and held for ransom. Click here for the world’s first gander at Parish Snatchers. Our now 27 year old son was born at that time and I never took Pastor Amos beyond the first 7 pages. The world’s probably a better place because of it.

I mention these stories because it appears I just don’t learn. I’m currently working on a marriage-building board game for couples set in the Middle Ages: famine, plague, Inquisition, rebellions, leeching, torture, wars, no universal health care. I’m putting the feud in feudalism. A real crowd pleaser, huh?


Somehow I never inherited the “I like paintings of kids with big eyes” gene. Too bad. A velvet Elvis sells. For better or (probably) worse, I’m of the Bambi Meets Godzilla school of entertainment. Irony over tidy, adversity (sometimes) over victory, ambiguity, chaos, and puzzlement over cute.

This being the case, I now put on hold all plans for: 1) an expository essay reflecting on Jean Paul Sartre’s essay On The Viscous, wherein I deal once and for all with my aversion to things sticky, 2) a comic book version of Kierkegaard’s Sickness Unto Death, and 3) a novella wherein Orthodox Priests launch a church in rural Ferndale and marauding iconoclasts wearing Carhartt disrupt the liturgy.

I better stick to cute; it sells, misery does not. Now if only I can make the middle ages cute. Stay tuned.

300+ Free Handouts on Counseling Topics

Follow this link to a library of free handouts used in my counseling/mediation practice which is informed by the values of historic Christianity. I've been selling these on line for a while and am now making them available for no charge. There’s still a charge for the data wheels and books but the handouts are gratis. After 30+ years of helping people work through difficult challenges our inventory of topics has grown. Here are the major headings. Use the site's search engine to track down specific topics of interest. Check ‘em out and load up that shopping cart with freebies!

Yours for better managed conflict, Erik


Addiction
Affair Recovery
Anger Management
Character Building
Conflict Resolution
Counseling Topics
Difficult People
Distancing/Pursuing
Emotions
Family of Origin Topics
Fear and Anxiety
Forgiveness
Marriage Topics
Miscellaneous Parenting Topics
Pastoral Topics
Personal Growth
Premarital Topics
Proverbs
Suffering
Teenager Topics
Theological Topics

Quick Mind Dump on Gaming

SPROUTS

Pieter Brueghel, Children's Games

I loved playing Stratego as a kid. We raised our kids on (among other things) Husker-Du. Vicki and I would play Scrabble till the wee hours of the morning. When I was a youth pastor I met fans of Dungeons and Dragons.  I joined a chess club once (and quit when 10-year-olds kept beating me). Our three sons (Mario, Luigi, and Bowser) play uber video games (especially Portal). I notice Facebook folk play a variety of games. My guy friends are enthralled with baseball. I've known guys absorbed in fantasy sport games. I tweak Solitaire on my computer once in a while. I've visited several mega game stores in recent weeks. I delight in game reviewers on YouTube. We live in a gaming culture. There are lots of games out there!  I want to invent a new game and am looking for ideas. What are you favorites?

Stalking the Wild Dragonfly

Apart from the fact that I probably looked pretty goofy prancing around VanDerYacht Park in Ferndale with a plastic shopping bag chasing bugs, I was very happy when I nabbed this baby--all luminescent, glowy, with neon greens and blues.  This bug was thinking just before I caught him, "Even though mom said to stay away from tall spindly things waving white shopping bags I'm in no dan-" and then Snap! He just became an involuntary artist's specimen.

Homage to the R. A. T.* Boys** of Bellingham***

Homage to the R. A. T.* Boys** of Bellingham***

C. S.  Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien had their Inklings, Joseph Priestly and Ben Franklin had their Club of Honest Whigs, Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley had their Algonquin Club, Dante Rossetti had his Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Picasso, Matisse, and Sartre had their Left Bank, Ken Kesey, Wavy Gravy and Stewart Brand had their Merry Pranksters, and Martin Luther had his Diet of Worms.

*R. A. T. = Readers and Thinkers group includes (from left to right): Marriage and Family Pastor in Cornwall Church of God, former CEO of mega food chain and current business consultant, baseball historian and senior pastor of Bellingham Covenant Church, flash fiction writer and head of the INN (college group at Western Washington University), baseball artist and senior pastor of Birchwood Presbyterian, counselor/mediator/erstwhile cartoonist, CEO of the NW's largest camping ministry (FIRS), and career coach and pastor of Christ the King.

** Not Pictured, Writer in Residence Second Baptist Church, Houston, TX

*** Best city in America