Life After Abbey

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Why I, a 31-year-old man, thinks a horror movie from 1979 with is one of the scariest movies of all time, I don’t know. Phantasm was one of my first horror movies.

Maybe it was the time and the place. The soundtrack music. The late night watching as a kid. The fact that little metallic spheres could fly around on their own and kill people was a pretty scary. However, the young kids and their penchant for having sex in cemeteries… that’s a little weird to me. But all of it, combined, made for a creepy movie for me. Alice, Sweet Alice and The Shining also had the same effect on me.

But I think it was those movies that opening up my viewing habits, making it easier to watch more garbage or creative expression. You make your own assumptions.

But the last few years have been scary in both the movies and in real life.

The movie Saw came along a few years ago and has been made into six sequels while creating a new genre. Torture porn, I think they call it.

Now there’s a new morbid movie making the rounds and I don’t know what to think of it. The movie’s called Deadgirl. It involves zombies and men taking advantage of a helpless woman.

How it got made, I don’t know.  I’m starting to squirm in real life.

But it’s timing concurs with the brutal gang rape of a 15-year-old girl in Richmond, Calif. As the community comes to grips with the fact that many stood and watched instead of calling for help or the police, one has to wonder if we put ourselves in this position.

Are movies becoming real life or are they just taking real life and putting it into a movie format?

I would like to meet Rabbi Yaakov Menken.

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/10/yaakov_menken_belmont_abbey.html

Word is getting around on the non-Catholic Web sites about Belmont Abbey College’s EEOC saga. Shoot, even a rabbi weighed in on the whole thing. His ‘take’ led to a public rebuttal (smackdown, even) that if you’re an alum, professor, employee or student, you better see it. Put down your religious material for a few minutes and take a look.

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/10/guest_post_another_view_on_bel.html

I’ll admit I’ve been a little quiet lately, but there’s many things going on right now. But I’ll share a couple of thoughts while I can.

*RIP, Fr. John. I’ve still got the card you sent me for my graduation nine years ago. Such a classy man and fervent monk. I’ll always remember World Literature with you, your great sermons during mass, your smile and laugh. Your comments. “Ha. Ha. Ha is not an answer Mr. Memrick.” and “Time will pass, But will you.” It was fitting that your funeral was on Tuesday. It was such a nice day. I look forward to visiting your gravesite and saying a little prayer when I can.

*People. This EEOC thing is getting out of hand…especially by people WHO HAVE NO IDEA WHAT’S GOING ON. I’m talking to you, Rick Santorum.

http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/columnists_blogs/story/139865.html

Give it a rest. Don’t read only Catholic publications, students and outsiders! If I did that when I was in high school and college, my view of the world would be very warped! Don’t go telling Chicago mayors to go to Belmont Abbey College. Just don’t do it. It’s stupid.

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/abbott/091013

* Belmont Abbey women’s soccer team runs up the score on a winless Coker College team last week. I don’t know what to think about that. Maybe it was needed or justified or something.

More to come…..

Homecoming. It’s almost here and soon enough they’ll be able to take down the announcement on the billboard. Not the Got Monks one, but the electronic one near the South Fork.

I hope it’s fun. I hope that it’s enlightening. I hope that I can put my feelings of contempt, controversy and maybe, pettiness, aside and maybe see a few folks that I haven’t seen in nine years or so. I’m bringing my wife for the first time. Maybe we can have some fun for a few hours.

I remember as a freshman doing a fundraising call-a-thon and asking an alum about coming to that year’s homecoming. She responded that she quit drinking and couldn’t come anymore because of it. Then she hung up on me. Obviously, that memory is still with me today.

I’ve never really enjoyed a Saturday afternoon homecoming since my first in 1996. I’ve probably been to a few (more as a student and less as an alumni).  Let me clarify that. I’ve either covered the Abbey soccer games as a ‘reporter’ or just dropped by for an hour before going to work. I realize there are other stuff events that older alums go to, but I’m not really interested in all that. When I was attending college and as a alum years after that, I had to see the event as both a fundraising event or/a drinking party.

It might be a crucial event for me to see first hand. Not only will it give birth to more blog entries but it will shape my feelings about what the college was and what the college has become.

Every now and then, I have an internet conversation that I shouldn’t have. Keep your emails short and don’t let them get complex. Don’t do it. When emotions are heated, having instant access to a person over the internet is not a good thing for me. I don’t handle it well. When  I can’t see/hear a friend or acquaintance correctly and I often take short comments out of context.

Let’s say you don’t talk to a friend over a period of time and that grinds you. You make a simple facebook comment. You get a response that you don’t know how to take and you jump to a conclusion or just fire off a snide comment. That comment could either be a joke or a serious statement. The friend gets cheezed off and then the battle begins. And when it’s over, you don’t know what to think. Apology? Heck no. Give it some time? That’s what got your friend into trouble in the first place.

Talking on the phone is ideal, but talking to a person face-to-face should be what you want to do. But then, it’s easy to get a fist to the face. But humans have been doing that stuff for years.

You just got to not get into those one-D conversations. Stay away from them at all costs.

My new favorite site, next to The Crusader from two years ago, is a little-know place on the Belmont Abbey College Web site. Yes, details are few, but I can only image what kind of mischief the students are getting into. Or at least, the stuff that’s getting reported. Some of these incidents may find their way on to this very blog.

http://www.belmontabbeycollege.edu/student-life/CampusSafety/crime-log.aspx

Yes, it’s the day after the tenth anniversary of 9/11. I’ve got a few thoughts about the day and the Abbey.

It was a scenario that could’ve only come from a movie. Everyone knew somebody in the buildings or had a story to tell from being there.

*I remember getting off work that night like it was an ordinary Monday night. I remember being jolted to consciousness at 10 in the morning by a friend at Wachovia, who told me he was being evacuated from his building. I think from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. I was glued or around the television, watching the same clips over and over and over again. I hated the news crawl at the bottom of the screen (now….it’s become a regularly accepted thing.)

*I was curious about work, so I visited in the early afternoon. I remember walking into work with flip-flops on and the quietness of the room. Every front page was filled with a 9/11 tragedy. The sports world was affected greatly.

*The sports folks were quiet and working to get done as soon as possible. I remember we had stories about students at the Abbey. I remember the students we talked to and the New York-Belmont Abbey connections. Jim Riches, who would later be honored by the Abbey in the school’s sports hall of fame, died in the tragedy. If I remember clearly, one student, Brian Brady (Brody?) would later leave school and become a fireman in Rockaway Beach, N.Y. as a direct result of 9/11.

*I remember kids talking about their parents or friends in the buildings, desperately trying to get in touch with them by phone. I remember one individual who kept the last voicemail of his loved one on his phone for years after 9/11. He kept saving the voicemail. Then one day his cellphone provider deleted the voicemail and they couldn’t get it back. I remember trying to call friends and family and not being able to get a free circuit.

*I remember watching the 6 p.m. news with my Wachovia friend and his fiancee. We had dinner in his small apartment in Mount Holly.

*I remember going to Franklin Square to watch a movie to try and take my mind off the day. I watched American Pie II that night.

*My parents had a framed photo of the towers in their living room for a while after 9/11. They were in New York City months before with my sister.

*I remember the talk of movie studies wanting to remove World Trade Center tower scenes from movies or have them digitally removed. Randomly, I watched Pushing Tin the other day. The movie’s whole opening montage was planes flying down the Hudson River, right by the towers.

*I remember attending a local mosque days after 9/11. I wanted to do it as a sign of support. The imam there was friendly and repeatedly talking about how Islam was not a violent religion and it was just the actions of a few individuals. I believe it. I hope that one day Muslims can live in an America society without fear and discomfort.

*I remember a relationship that ended that night because I wasn’t comforting enough. I think I was still in shock from the day. I regret that day, but I think it helped me grow up a little more.

*I remember how the world reacted. Some places it was sympathy. Other places it was celebration with some even doing murals and trinkets to celebrate the event. I remember being a little sick over that. It’s like the Brazilian ad company last week who tried to compare thousands of planes attacking NYC to the attack of humans on animals. It was in poor taste and I can see why the WWF immediately distanced itself from the ads.

What’s been done since then? Lots of money’s been spent to ensure our safety and security. Terrorism became the ‘it’ word. Wars started. But what else?

Wow. Not quite the millions Belmont Abbey is for sale, but for a pretty penny.

http://www.claremont-realestate.com/homesforsale-detail/map/1007-Belmont-Abbey_Claremont_CA_91711_mrmls-A09079679-11533_0,0/