A little of this... a little of that

Mary Ruth rolled her eyes at me last night. For any of you scoring at home, she’s only 3. I was able to make it three years before this happened. I thought she would at least be 13 before this would happen. Of course, there is no one to blame for this but the left-wing, ultra-liberal, child rights activists with all of their “Children are people too” talk. Even at 3 years old, Mary Ruth knows that I can only do so much before these people will step in and put me in jail. Just to compare this with my relationship to my Dad… He’s made it 30 years (and counting) without me rolling my eyes right in his face. Don’t get me wrong, my Dad is a good guy. He never beat me excessively or anything like that. (Disclaimer: Now would be a good time to say that I don’t think parents should abuse their children). But even though he didn’t spank me all the time… he still had the option. I don’t want to do things to make my daughter scared of me… I just want to have that option. That’s how it was when I was growing up...

I saw a while back that a football coach was found ‘not guilty’ in a case where he was accused of murder because a player died during a practice. The fact that he was brought up on murder charges made me question if I could bring my high school baseball coach up on attempted murder charges? I know there were plenty of practices where we thought he was trying to kill us. There were some practices where we thought of killing one of our own just so the practice would stop. It’s funny, in a way, but back then I didn’t think it was possible to die in practice. I don’t know why... I just thought that there was some magical rule that said players couldn’t die in practice. Seeing reports of kids dying in practice kind of burst that bubble for me. Now I’m amazed I made it through playing high school baseball.

Isn’t it funny that there are people in this world who think I’m stupid (or naïve... or uneducated... however they want to word it) because I believe in God, but they think they are educated because they believe our ancestors were monkeys.

Speaking of funny things... Bob Dylan. Is there any other singer out there who has songs that everyone else can sing better? You show me where someone has covered a Bob Dylan song and I’ll show you someone who sounds better singing the song than Dylan. Honestly, I think he is the reason Karaoke became so big. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you have to get up in front of a group and sing a song, sing a Dylan song. At worst, you’ll sound like him. (****SIDE NOTE: I would not recommend singing Dixie on Karaoke night at your local bar. Don’t get me wrong, it’ll probably be a hit. The problem is, at least the one time I did this with two good friends, Dixie actually has about 50 verses. Who knew? The last thing you want to do is sing a song that is so long people will walk in, start drinking, get drunk, and then sober up before you’re done singing. END NOTE****). Don’t get me wrong, I love Dylan. He gives me hope that one day I’ll become a successful singer.

There are two (non-Dylan) songs that I think actually sound better with “imperfections”... Amazing Grace and With a Little Help From My Friends. You don’t have to sound good to sing these songs. I bet these would sound great with Dylan singing them.

If you are in a band, my advice to you is this: Learn how to play Free Bird. My other advice is this: Until you learn how to play Free Bird, don’t ask people what song they want to hear. I don’t care what the situation is... you can be in a bar, on a sidewalk, or in the middle of a worship service, it doesn’t matter... if you ask people what song is it that they want to hear, someone will yell “Free Bird!” There is a good chance that someone will be me.