Eric's Eddyfications

Think you don't need to care?

Check out Steve Nash's interview on Charlie Rose. Here's the link. Here are some highlights, stolen from some other blog:

The Phoenix guard knows a lot of stuff (except, apparently, how to select a shirt that won't drive the TV cameras insane) and talks about mastering the kinds of skills you might learn in some communications class, including non-verbal things like how his teammates are holding their shoulders, what's in their eyes, and what they're talking about. Who is frustrated? Who has lost confidence? Nash sees it as a key to his job to "take them all in at once."

What's the hardest part of all that? I'm guessing a lot of people can tell when Shawn Marion is feeling low, just watching on TV. Reading body language need not be rocket science. But the difference with Nash? He put his finger right on it: "To care."

That's the crucial difference. That's the special part. We all see Marion upset and think it's his problem. Nash sees Marion upset and sees that as, at least in some manner, Nash's problem.

Caring about his team like that, Nash says with the smirk of the understater, "takes some effort."

I knew I liked that guy.

Church Sign Update

BEWARE OF THE

HIGH COST

OF LOW LIVING

Ragtime and Faux-Community

Just saw the closing performance of Porchlight Theatre's Ragtime. Porchlight is the theatre company that I helped to start over twelve years ago. For a while I was its artistic director, before turning it over to the current AD, Walter Stearns.

The show was terrific. It should have been. It is the most successful Porchlight show to date - it ran for five months, moving from the Theatre Building to a longer run at the Apollo. More than 12,000 people have seen the production. Chicago's theatre awards, the Jeff Awards are due to reveal their nominees next week, and Ragtime is sure to be nominated many times over. I was very proud to be associated with such a successful venture.

The closing night was very emotional for the cast and crew. I got to go backstage and join  the creators and my fellow artistic associates in toasting the success of the production. The cast and crew had done life together, and there were many tears of joy and sorrow at the success and the finality of the journey's end.

It's funny, because while I do not know the spiritual condition of all involved, it's always fascinating to me to see theatre and the community that it builds as a "faux" community, particularly when compared to the community offered by the following of Jesus. First of all, the theatre community ends when the show ends. Sure, there are lasting relationships, of course. You want to work with others again. But you don't, for one reason or another. But in that moment - you're thick as thieves, and saying goodbye is very emotional. The Artistic Director spoke of the "love of doing it." and how this production was so great because everyone loved doing it ,and loved each other in the process.

But it's faux, compared to the genuine community that Jesus offers. That the disciples had. That the Acts 2 church experienced. The kind that lasts forever.

I used to think that was a bad thing. Like, "too bad that they don't know the real thing." But as I was driving home, I thought, you know - this may just be another example of God's relentless pursuit of us. The idea struck me that God may allow for faux community to "give a taste" of it to those who never have, so that when they are faced with the opportunity for genuine community, it is less foreign to them. It could very well be that many of us need the faux community if we're ever going to be ready to find our way back to God.

Just some thoughts.

Daryl Hall and the Flight

Just caught the latest episode of Flight of the Conchords, a comedy music series about a couple of New Zealand musicians. The series was very promising in the first three or four episodes but has tapered off a bit in the last few weeks in both quality and funniness. Seems like they have put their best foot forward and kind of ran out of gas.

But tonight, a cameo from Daryl Hall redeemed the conchords almost instantly. I am a huge Daryl Hall and John Oates fan. In fact, it was the first concert that my parents took us to when we were younger. My dad believes that concert was the moment that he began to lose his hearing. I'm not sure about that, it's not like Hall and Oates were known for their deafening sound. Nonetheless, I thought this interview with Daryl Hall was interesting - and it includes a little snippet about having appeared on the show.

I'm excited for the gym class heroes mash up CD that is forthcoming. Should be very interesting indeed!

Doing My Part

So I'm doing my part. If you frequent the blog you may have noticed that I changed my background from white to gray. Part of that was because I was challenged to do so. But the real reason I went ahead with the move is because several yokels have it in their head now that all white backgrounds on computer screens are somehow wasting energy, as though your monitor is a precious natural resource that needs to be conserved. It's already electronic people. It's already frying your brain and giving you the cancer. It's not going to become an organic product anytime soon.

But far be it from me to buck against the convervationalistics out there. So - go visit graygle instead of google - and "go gray!" Save the cyber-earth!

Church Sign Update

WORRY ENDS

WHERE

FAITH BEGINS

A Confession to Make

I have a confession to make. I watched the entire season of "So You Think You Can Dance" this summer, and didn't tell anyone. I was totally impressed with the talent, the system. Couldn't get enough of it. Was sad to see it conclude this week.

There is so much about this show that they "got right." And what I mean by that is that they seem to have fixed the errors that now seem unchangeable in the American Idol setup. In the first several phases, the audience votes, but the judges have an opportunity to "save" dancers from the low ranking if they feel like they should be spared for another week.

The other thing is that the constant changing of styles is much more interesting in dance than it is in music. When you devote an entire episode of American Idol to the Bee Gees, it can mean death. But every episode of SYTYCD contains disco, hip-hop, waltz, salsa, you name it. Very entertaining.

The other thing is that with dance, it's really clear what an artist's chief skill is, and so when someone is moving out of their comfort zone, it's obvious and applauded and interesting. With American Idol, it's not always clear what genre they are experts at, and it is rarely successful when someone is moving out of their range.

I wish that American Idol could learn from SYTYCD, and apply some of those principles. You would think that since they have the same creative producers, that they would be able to do so. Here's hoping.

Six Degrees of Bramlett?

Got a comment from my last post chuckling about the "six degrees of Bramlett" that were sure to come from our MSNBC appearance. Hah. Thought you might be interested to know that my brother, Elic, actually has a Kevin Bacon number of THREE. Here's how it plays out:

Elic Bramlett was in "A Mother's Revenge", a TV-Movie starring LESLEY ANN WARREN.

LESLEY ANN WARREN was in "Clue: The Movie" with MICHAEL MCKEAN.

MICHAEL MCKEAN was in "The Big Picture" with KEVIN BACON. Three degrees. Or is it two? Do you only count the actors in the middle as your degrees? I can't remember. Anyway, it's not many.

15 minutes of fame?

Well - it's happened. Elic and I are TV stars. Sort of.

Got an email from a long lost friend in Tucson Arizona, which was nice - he tracked me down after watching an MSNBC spot - an interview of the CEO of "GodTube." GodTube is a knock off of Youtube. Get it? Anyway, all of our videos are on youtube, except for the Mac/PC parodies. Those were posted by another church who had purchased our videos to show at their church (they didn't know they didn't have the right to show them anywhere else).

Anyway, the guys at Godtube were great - they let us gain ownership of our videos and decide whether or not we wanted to keep them up there ourselves or take them down. Since they were continuously in the godtube top ten, we figured we'll keep them up.

And so, on this MSNBC interview, you can see that they have featured one of our Mac/PC parodies as a part of the interview with the CEO. Pretty cool huh? Watch it below...

Church sign update

ANYTHING TO BE THANKFUL FOR? CHECK YOUR PULSE.

Eric Bramlett www.ericseddyfications.typepad.com www.communitychristian.org