This post is going to address the specific entertainment culture of the '70s by allowing my memories (& amateur commentary) regarding television to narrate therein.
Some veteran Jackson Mississippi Samson guys' musings, recommended resources, and Samson Society news / updates (all written by 100% Grade A - Human Intelligence)
Weekly meetings available to you are as follows:
Tuesday at 6:30 PM, Truitt Baptist Church - Pearl. Call Matt Flint at (601) 260-8518 or email him at matthewflint.makes@gmail.com.
Wednesday at 6:00 PM, First Baptist Church Jackson - Summit Counseling Suite - 431 North State St. Jackson. Call Don Waller at 601-946-1290 or email him at don@wallerbros.com.
Monday at 6:30 PM , Vertical Church - 521 Gluckstadt Road Madison, MS 39110. Mr. Roane Hunter, facilitator, LifeWorks Counseling.
Wednesday at 7:00 PM, Crossgates Baptist Church. Brandon Reach out to Matthew Lehman at (601)-214-4077 for further info.
Sunday night at 6:00 PM, Grace Crossing Baptist Church - 598 Yandell Rd. Canton. Call Joe McCalman at 601-201-5608 or email him at cookandnoonie@gmail.com.
Tuesday, September 17, 2024
That First Foray Into The Notion Of The Supernatural
Thursday, September 5, 2024
Most Of My Hair Is Silver Now
The house I grew up in in Madison, back in the '80s, was a typical ranch house. After my parents had a small addition constructed (FL / sunroom), it amounted to +/-1,800 sf. A quirk of this house was that the garage flooded (even with the garage door closed) during a deluge. I remember having to "sweep out the garage" immediately following these rainstorms. There was always either a push or corn broom on hand for this task. But even then, the concrete garage floor would remain saturated / puddled, thereby making traversing throughout a slippery affair. And if it was mild weather, this dampness would remain for days.
When my parents sold this house (1990 - my freshman year at MSU) in order to move into a rental ('till their newly constructed home was finished), I wonder if they disclosed this quirk. For they never made any effort to remedy it. It was just one of those nuisances that we lived with throughout our time there.
Today, when you attempt to sell a home, disclosures are expected. For every house has its quirks. I remember populating my mother-in-law's disclosure statement for the home she sold a few years back. It was multiple pages of Q & A with sizable legal warnings throughout threatening legal action if the document wasn't ENTIRELY FORTHCOMING.
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My oldest friend's wife is morbidly obese. She's always been overweight, but over the past 3-4 years, she's gained more and more pounds. Now it's to the point (for those of us who've known her for decades) of the inevitable shock (especially considering their Xmas photo card).
She's also a heavy, heavy social media user (political commentary).
Monday, August 5, 2024
Time's Up
I believe it's important to address my marriage within my writings, but over the years, I've admittedly gone back and deleted numerous posts related to the familial struggles (her family) my sweet wife (& I) has had to endure throughout the course of our 28-year betrothal. These struggles I've observed mostly as an onlooker, and though my relationship with my parents has certainly not been ideal (whose is?), their overall mental health / stability has been such the positive contrast to what my in-laws brought to the table. These aforementioned (long since deleted) posts of mine were driven by heady emotion. Feelings of betrayal and mistrust, disingenuousness and spite were the absolute catalyst behind those writings. Thankfully, it didn't take me long to realize the inappropriateness of positioning / publishing them here.
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Thursday, May 2, 2024
Utilizing Unresolved Familial Baggage To Perpetuate / Justify A Rudderless Life / Existence (With Much Rubble By The Wayside). Recognizing How Easy It Is To Establish An Identity For Identity's Sake.
Growing up Southern Baptist, I recall vividly (as a teen) one particular pastor chiding us parishioners (First Baptist Church Jackson) from the pulpit with, "Do you know that you know that you know?"
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Resist Being Relationally Territorial Within Samson Society. Remember, You're Only "Brothers" In Concept Alone. Nonetheless, Never Stop Considering The Relational "What If?"
Being an only child helps me in this regard. I've no siblings to mar my relational outlook.
Friday, April 12, 2024
Either Remove Yourself From The "Handful" Or HOLD ON 'Till Opportunity Presents Itself To
This thought-provoking illustration could easily be a reference piece of an imaginative Hollywood screenwriter. Perhaps he / she's dreaming up yet another misunderstood villain (antihero?) for us his purported audience to love / hate.
Wednesday, December 27, 2023
Discovery / Narrative, Arousal = Architecture Of Sexuality VS. Longings / Triggers, Fetishes = Mobile Homes Of Lust
"I don't know much about art, but I know what I like." [This is horseshit.]
Architecture, by definition, wouldn't exist were it not for critics. Critics use their fine-tuned, scholarly adjudication skillset and from there, communicate to the masses what and why a building qualifies as architecture. And they do this as an outpouring of their zeal for standout, outstandingly designed buildings. Buildings which seemingly capture volumetric space in a masterful way (architect = master builder).
A worthwhile architectural critic, by definition, is exceedingly knowledgeable of their subject. It's this knowledge that allows their critique to carry so much weight.
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Guys who find themselves within Samson Society typically fall into the category of sexuality aficionados. I would argue many of these men entered into crisis (pre-Samson Society) of some sort due to their individual passion for sex colliding with their (in very simplified terms) longstanding / life-long isolated state (inability to find helpful knowledge / understanding therein).
Religion undoubtedly can play a role in this cataclysm (the majority of Samson guys are Christians). As such, I would argue that this then knowledge / understanding vacuum will occur alongside the false accusation that "No one else within the church is experiencing nor is as interested in sexuality as you are...FrEaK". [This too is horseshit.]
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Porn, phone sex, hook-up & circle jerk roulette sites all provide pitifully unreliable information regarding sex, yet it's devoured by these men. Why? Ease of private accessibility. Too, (if they choose to take this step) transactional sexual relations (strip clubs, massage parlors, prostitution) further their woefully biased / distorted thinking. Why? Ease of private accessibility.
And all of this internalization of such their favorite topic eventually manifests ruts within their minds. Call them fetishes or triggers. They're deep valleys within their grey matter equating to salacious comfort food of the ultra-processed Wal-Mart impulse-buy caliber.
Hence, it's cheap, deadly fare. Would you choose to dine out of a trash heap for each and every meal? It's important to remember that although this is the least healthy means to find caloric sustenance, it's still sustenance.
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There has to be a healthy way for men - who're like us - to gain needed knowledge regarding sexuality in line with their individual discovery / narrative leading towards arousal.
Now, what am I referring to when I say, "men like us"? Go back to what I wrote earlier within this post.
I'm referring to men who're passionate about sex and therefore deliberately ruminate on it. Within the same vein as guys who're similarly passionate about other topics of interest such as cars, hunting, video games and so forth.
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Thursday, December 14, 2023
The Harsh Reality of Xmas (Re-post)
We live in a day and age of deeper and deeper still - personal lifestyle facades. Facades that we work to constantly perfect to the point that we actually begin to believe they're our reality, and I suppose eventually a facade, if it ends up deep enough, will serve to replace reality itself. Wait a minute, nope. That's not possible. Scratch that.
In the past, it was consumerism that fed this pursuit of lifestyle facade construction, but today, it's also social media and any / all forms of technology that serve to buttress our camouflage.
The end-of-the-year holiday season can serve to ramp up that work on said facades when in actuality, there's tremendous experiential pain going on behind the scenes. I became aware of this as a teen right around this time of year when there presented itself a breach in my serendipitous reality one Xmas eve. Read on.
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When I was a boy, my father spent Thursdays out of town (in the MS Delta) for business, and often wouldn't return home 'till late Thursday night. On one particular Thursday night where he was absent from the homestead, my mother and I were spending the evening watching Christmas television programming in the den (or TV room). The home in Madison I was reared within was +/-1,800 square feet, therefore like the abode I reside in today, a loud enough yell or scream would easily resonate throughout. The den was on the east end of this ranch house with a "formal" living / dining room on the front (north side). That "formal" room was always cordoned off since it was "reserved for social gatherings".
Our TV consumption was interrupted when we heard something that sounded like a knocking on our front door (which was only accessible through the living / dining room). My mother noticed it first. This motivated me to investigate.
I remember just as soon as I breached the "formal" part of our abode, I heard a very loud banging on our front door along with muffled cries from someone on the opposite side. The solid core door had an arched glass window close to its head, but it was too tall to see out of. Nor were there any windows within close proximity to peer through prior to opening the door. I wasn't sure how to proceed so I hesitated.
I remember clearly the harsh white light streaming through that arched door window into the dark living / dining room. The source of that light was the ground mounted PAR lamp out in front of our door. This cheap lighting stunt was the typical suburban attempt to ring in the season by highlighting your home's Xmas entrance décor. At this point in time, I found myself leaning against the back of the door attempting to hear more from the other side, wishing all the while that my father were home to handle this (more and more) frightening situation.
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So, I eventually opened the door, and what I witnessed changed my perception of Xmas forever.
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An athletically built white teenager was crouching on our stoop in obvious emotional and physical distress. There was no doubt in my mind that he needed help, but in that moment, as we stared at one another, neither of us could even begin to fathom how best to clearly articulate anything of any substance. Nonetheless, this strange teen he'd ended up at our door, and he looked to be on the run from something or someone. And here I was peering out at him awestruck.
The next thing I remember was a station wagon coming to a screeching halt at the STOP sign in front of our house. It slid to a stop due to the street being slick from an early evening rain. When I attempted to take a closer look at it, despite the harsh glare of the floodlight, I made out the driver frantically exiting the vehicle right there in the street. The man rushed around the back of the car before sprinting towards the teenage boy through our small front yard.
All the while, the boy was continuing to plead for help, but when he became aware of his impending doom, his pleas turned to stark panic. At this point, time seemed to stand still, and I became frozen as I watched this bizarre scene unfold.
Within seconds, the man had the boy by the back of his coat, lifting him with ease off of our front stoop. From there, he dragged him back to the station wagon prior to tossing him into the backseat. The teenage boy went kicking and screaming all the way as the man repeatedly punched him in the head with his fist as he yelled obscenities at him.
Then I remember the car speeding away, but only after the man glared back at me right before opening the driver side door. What little I could make out of his looking at me was a combination of both threat and satisfaction.
By now, my mother was also in our front room, standing silently not far behind. From what I recall, she only witnessed what she could see from within the room itself. Eventually, I turned back to her, and we found ourselves standing there in stunned silence for a few seconds wondering what exactly had just happened.
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This was no doubt a once in a lifetime event. Madison, at the time, was countryside. Few people lived there, and those that did were church-going, lower to lower-middle class folks. Even today, I wonder why this boy picked our house to look for help, and of course, the greater question is why didn't I choose to respond in lieu of simply standing there like a pansy? It would have been so easy to simply let him inside our house, locking the door behind us. There was plenty of time for me to execute a rescue.
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My mother and I continued to look at each other without saying a word, and from there, both of us did the most shameful thing I care to admit to here. We returned to the den on the east side of the house prior to locking the front door and settled back in to watching television on our 19" Toshiba CRT. There was no telephone call to law enforcement. No discussion regarding the incident with my father. Nothing. The event was treated by us as if it had actually only existed as part of our TV programming.
Why?
Because we were too busy existing within our facade, and what we had just been sucked into didn't "fit" within that artificial construct. And this reflects perfectly of my entire growing up years and how shallow they truly were. It was like living within a Norman Rockwell painting in so many ways. A very deeply unoriginal Norman Rockwell painting.
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Xmas is a harsh, difficult, uncaring, brutally wicked time of year for so many folks, and all of these negative superlatives seem to only ramp up during the holidays in contrast to the traditional merrymaking. But, this ugly truth is so often hidden from view until you have it show up on your suburban doorstep.
If this reality decrees itself within your world during this Xmas season, don't cower away as I chose to do. Instead, come to the rescue of those in need. Open the damn door, swing it wide, and let the suffering inside for safe keeping. To hell with the devils of this world, but especially here at Xmas.
Saturday, November 18, 2023
Even When The Glass Partition Is Removed, It Can Take A Sizable Amount Of Time To Muster The Emotional Courage To Swim Outside Of Its Familiar Boundary.
Firstly, I want to encourage you, dear reader, to take a few minutes today to memorialize (those which you can recall) the men who've advocated for you in the past. Perhaps it was a peer or someone older / wiser, but in lieu of dismissing / looking down on you, they did the opposite.
Monday, November 13, 2023
Let's Not Forget To Consider The Unlevel Playing Field
Adam Young was our keynote speaker during the 2023 National Samson Society Retreat. I did not attend either of his sessions (I continued to man the registration table during Friday evening's session), but I did slip in at the tail end of the second one (Saturday morning). During those few minutes, a Q & A session was underway within the packed auditorium, and Adam was navigating those queries with answers that landed beautifully each and every time. Also, he was really humorous with many of his answers as he sveltely circled back to accentuate previous bullet points that were no doubt key to his talk.
Tuesday, October 10, 2023
Hot Tub Time Machine / Reckoning With NOLA "Steve"
Our family (Angie & I and our middle schooler) just returned from a long weekend relative to my 8th grade daughter's fall break (coalescing with my beautiful wife's 53rd birthday). As such, NOLA was our getaway vacation city, and it offered some interesting developments regarding my recovery (whilst also being incredibly refreshing / relaxing as a fall weather getaway).
I have a number of NOLA vacation childhood memories. Mainly due to how easy it was to reach (3-hours) by car from Jackson.
During my senior year of high school, my parents and I took a trip to "The Big Easy" to see Ole Miss play Tulane in the Superdome. The year was 1990. At the time, the New Orleans Centre shopping mall was directly connected to the Superdome indoor arena. It's important to note that this 3-story, marble-floored, skylight-lit testament to free enterprise failed to survive 2005's Hurricane Katrina due to extensive flooding via the storm surge.
It was during this football game that I slipped away from Bob & Darlene in order to "kill some time" wandering the retail storefronts of New Orleans Centre. Nonetheless, (as most teenagers do) I had an ulterior motive.
Having made a beeline to Waldenbooks, I very nervously purchased a clear plastic sealed copy of Playgirl magazine. Immediately following, I took the escalators to the top floor of the mall, found as quiet of a corner as I could and began coolly perusing this naughty periodical.
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