You can take the man out of the red jacket...

...but you can't take the red jacket out of the man.

Today, as I casually flipped through the six channels that I get on my digital converter box I saw that The Price Is Right was starting and decided to settle there, as I sometimes do, to watch a show that I was so intimately involved with while working as a Page at CBS. It's a nice way to reflect and bring back memories, and it's always neat to see old friends and familiar faces on TV while recalling all the unseen faces that make the show happen as well.

I pay extra close attention at the very beginning of the show when they're calling out the first contestants because that's the best time to see my fellow Pages as the camera wildly swings through and pans the audience and their surroundings; not to mention that's when you usually get a really good shot of the Inside Head Page standing by the contestant stairs. As I casually looked for my Page friends today I suddenly noticed two men in the audience wearing large sombreros. A shot of adrenaline surged through me and I took two steps towards the television.

"WTF?!? Get those hats off! We're live!"

My mind was alive with activity.

"How'd they sneak those in there? Who do they think they are? They must have pulled them from under their chairs and put them on right when things went live. We've gotta get those hats off."

It was then that I noticed two girls in another section with crazy hats of their own.

"Oh my God, there's more. College punks! Probably a bunch of UF students there to see Rich Fields. How many of them are in on this? The Pages have gone soft. You can't let crazy hats and costumes in the studio."

I was aflush with the "us versus them" mentality, which kicks in when an audience member or an audience in general isn't cooperating with what we ask and what's being looked for on TV. I then noticed more costumes. Many of them. One of the contestants that was called down was dressed as a damn banana.

"Wait a minute. What's going on here? Since when are we Let's Make A Deal?"

As I tried to grasp this alternate reality I had fallen into, Drew himself came out dressed in costume. It was then that I realized I was seeing a rerun of a Halloween special. I quickly came back to my senses, at which time I had the first realization that I had fallen out of them at all. I was surprised to see how passionate I still was about a show that I haven't been involved with for over a year. For a few seconds there I was a Page again and nothing else mattered but the show itself because we were live.

Ah, those red jackets. They change a man. Once a red jacket dude, always a red jacket dude. Sharky Showbiz lives. Maybe this afternoon I'll watch the Tyra Banks Show and remember when she use to tape in Los Angeles at CBS. I'll get personally flustered if I see an empty seat when they come back from commercial, if someone yells something out at the wrong time, or if someone is standing when they're all suppose to be seated...Or maybe I'll just go up to the trailer and do some laundry on top of the mountain in another world far from that of the lights and sounds of Los Angeles and leave those memories behind like a dream.

Dueling license plates.

I didn't get very far from my car today in the K-Mart parking lot before I noticed I didn't have my wallet. This came to my attention during the mandatory OCD pat-down that I give myself any time I exit my vehicle, my house, or a room; a quick tap of every pocket, three to four times to make sure that all is in place. The first quick, subtle tap of my right butt cheek revealed the wallet to be missing. I returned to my car, commenced my routine for "entering car as driver" and headed right back home, thankful that I don't live very far from K-Mart.

On the drive back home I got stopped by a traffic light on a stretch of road that has two lanes going South on one side of the median and two lanes going North on the other. There were two cars in front of me, sitting next to each other in the lanes going South. One had a North Carolina license plate that said "First in Flight" and the other had an Ohio license plate that said "Birthplace of Aviation". The drivers seemed oblivious to each other despite the contradicting claims that their cars made. Before I could exit my vehicle and try to get to the bottom of the situation the light turned green and we were off again, the two fathers of flight soon headed in different directions. I continued South with my California license plate; father of procrastination.

Anyway, I wondered if anyone could help me get to the bottom of this. To whom do the accolades go? NC or OH? Or is it some sort of paradox in which North Carolina was the first in flight while still allowing Ohio to become the birthplace of aviation? As a Christian I love a good paradox, but what do I know about all this flight stuff. I'm just a Florida boy from the sunshine state.

Tony Awards 2010

Well, my 2010 Tony Awards party was a real bust. Nothing like the huge bashes I use to throw back in L.A.; a pile of Louis Vuitton shoes and handbags by the front door, large enough to bury a Smart Car. I don't know if it's my new Western North Carolina location or if I was too demanding in my dress code. (Dress as your favorite character from Wicked. No glitter because it gets on the furniture and never disappears, which totally doesn't work for Gossip Girl night.) Whichever it was I only had one attendee who I hardly knew.

From the moment he walked in the door he was giving me a hard time about my costume saying that "Kristen Chenoweth" doesn't count as a character from Wicked unless I'm actually dressed as Glinda the Good Witch. Well let me tell you, it took everything in me not to give him a little bit of the Wicked Witch of the West seeing as he completely ignored the theme and was dressed as Rue McClanahan. Trying to be a gracious host though I let it go. We settled onto the couch for night of big surprises.

Tony Awards 2010 Surprises:

1. I was really surprised to see how many Broadway actors have second careers as lawyers/attorneys. It seemed like almost every single one of them thanked their partners...Who knew.

2. I think my one guest might have been gay. Not that I'm judging, but he ate all my Junior Mints.

3. No audience shots of Liza Minnelli. She's still alive right? Totally messed up the drinking game I had planned. We had to do our shots to Will Smith and Angela Lansbury.

4. After lots of shots a good musical number from American Idiot can lead to heavy drinking straight out of the bottle.

5. The huge tickle fight between Kristen Chenoweth and Rue McClanahan.

6. Now that the party is over and everyone's gone I'm missing two large scented candles.

Overall, a good night despite the low turnout and candle theft. See you all again next year.

A suggestion for "intellectual" non-believers.

If thy 'head' [your intellect] offend thee, cut it off; for it is better, not merely to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as a child, but to enter it as an imbecile, rather than with your whole intellect to be cast into hell.

-G. K. Chesterton


How sad when one is blinded by their own "intellect" or the supposed "intellect" of others. I would argue that the proud and arrogant are more susceptible to this potential side effect, but I've seen it fall upon the humble thinker as well. The human mind is Fallen and flawed yet many trust in a broken tool in their feeble attempt to build a finite set of beliefs in which to contain all the mysteries of the Infinite. When this proves to be impossible they deduce that there can't be an Infinite God, revealed in the Word and made flesh in Jesus Christ for they themselves and no other man can fully capture and contain this Infinite Triune God within the confines of imperfect human intellect.

Where faith is needed to properly fill the gaps in man's limited intellect and pool of knowledge many an "intellect" instead turns to science to fill these holes. While science is an effective tool in itself it is no more appropriate to stand in the place of faith than a perfect baseball is appropriate to plug the basketball sized hole in a sinking ship. Yet the blinded intellect unwittingly says, "I have found that baseball to be perfect in its design so if it cannot plug the hole we're clearly meant to sink." Or worse yet some point to the truths of the baseball to try and prove that the ship clearly doesn't exist. In both cases the man who puts science or man's intelligence on the throne of God is doomed to sink whereas the man who drags his ship to God's throne and in so doing asks the builder of both the ship and the baseball to fix the hole will inevitably make his proper destination with God's help.