Mana Janji Ayah?

This eight-minute short film “Mana Janji Ayah?” (Where is Daddy's Promise?) is the story of a girl born into a very poor family. Her father is only a Bajaj driver (Bajaj is a three wheel vehicle, one of the public transportations in Jakarta). Since childhood, she has always been mocked by her friends, because she's very poor, and her fathers job is too inferior for them. They also make fun of his crippled leg. She is anger over her lot in life, and she vents this anger at her father.

The young girl has grown up with her anger, making her increasingly insecure, and underestimated by her friends. Her wishes for the trappings of the good life, especially material possessions, are not fulfilled. She is unaware of how much her father struggles to please her, to the point of selling his own prized possessions.

Her anger continues to grow, and the young girl continues to resent her father, because all her desires are not fulfilled. He is willing to struggle for his only one daughter's happiness.

Then one day, as her birthday arrives, he is finally able to fulfill all of his daughter's desires. It is then that tragedy strikes, and he is the victim of a highway accident, and is killed. Suddenly, and tragically, the little girl learns not only of the extent of her father's sacrifice, but the cost to herself, in losing that which matters more than mere possessions.

“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” (Ecclesiastes 1:2)

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This feature and commentary are possible through the kind assistance of Miss Fillia Astika, of Sidoarjo, Jawa Timur, Indonesia.
 

TGIF: Noah Ritter “Songified”

Thank God it's Friday, and here it is, your moment of whimsy.

Noah Ritter of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, stole the show on WNEP-TV News one evening, during an interview with reporter Sofia Ojeda at the Wayne County Fair.

Naturally, this gave The Gregory Brothers an idea. And so Even and Andrew teamed up to cover what would become the kid's smash hit, “Apparently.” This second clip facilitates the process that is called "songifying."

And that's how the job gets done, as only “The Gregsters” can do it. The result is for a kid who had never been on live television, to perform the greatest song ever, about not having ever been on live television. There's your fifteen minutes, kid.

And so it goes.
 

The Misadventure of Divorce

My wife left me twenty-four years ago today, and it is hardly an endorsement of the phenomenon to submit that it was one of the best things that ever happened to me -- eventually. That being said ...

You can find any number of television dramas that paint a picture of divorce as a sort of dark-comedy type of adventure, where one approaches middle age with a reprise of adolescent discovery, only knowing now what you wish you knew then. To enter the world of the post-marital meltdown is to descend into a sort of parallel universe, one that operates in the same physical space as the world of well-tailored soccer moms and well-manicured cul-de-sacs, with the latter demographic taking no notice of the former (and to a certain extent, vice versa). One can occupy this world for the rest of one's life -- the equally-wayward friends, the late-night parties, the torrid liaisons -- or, if one is fortunate, and with adequate recourse to Divine Grace, one can eventually evolve beyond the "need" for such diversion, the illusion that there is an escape from the consequences of one's past.

On a day like this, two articles are worth mentioning. One is my own, written for this occasion just four years ago.

It was twenty years ago today, that I came home from work, and found a note in the place of my wife and son. If you want to know the extent of the damage that divorce can cause, you can read this piece ... or I can tell you what it cost me.

The other is a piece by Austin Ruse for Crisis magazine, entitled “The True Face of ‘Happy Divorce’ is Quite Ugly.” He describes a recently released movie, The Way Way Back, the story of a teenaged boy who spends the summer at a beach house with his divorced mother and a coterie of equally-dysfuntional adults of a certain age.

There’s lots of drinking and some pot smoking and silly cavorting on the beach. All the adults act like adolescents while the real adolescents are disgusted. They are disgusted not simply in the way adolescents might always be disgusted. They have a reason for their disgust, which is the way the adults are.

Liam James stars as Duncan, the boy lost in his mother's faux-fantasy, and who is taken under the wing of a water-park operator named Owen, played by Sam Rockwell with just the right amount of attitude. According to the Catholic News Service (CNS), the movie “is to be commended for portraying the friendship between Owen and Duncan as natural and innocent, a surrogate father-son bond that is mutually beneficial. It is devoid of the sordid sexual content one half-expects from Hollywood these days.” The film earned a percentile rating of 87 from Rotten Tomatoes after its premiere one year ago this month, and last fall became available on DVD and Blu-ray. All told, it should serve as an effective cautionary tale for those who would glamorize life in what was once called a "broken home."

The CNS classification is A-III (adults), and the MPAA rating is PG-13 (parents strongly cautioned -- Duh.)
 

Art-For-Art’s-Sake Theatre: Shirley Temple (1928-2014)

Time once again for our usual midday Wednesday feature.

The pre-eminent child actress of the classic movie era, Shirley Temple, died on Monday at her home in Woodside, California, surrounded by family and loved ones. She was 85 years old.

Beginning her movie career in 1931 at the age of three, Temple went on to star in over ninety films in the three decades that followed. As an actor, dancer, and singer, her career peaked as she reached adolescence, for reasons undetermined at this writing, although she did marry for the first time at seventeen, and was a stay-at-home mother when her children were growing up. Even so, she managed to continue performing on stage and screen into the television years. Temple also participated in numerous charitable causes, and became a diplomat, serving as United States Ambassador to Ghana, Czechoslovakia, as well as Chief of Protocol.

The little girl known as "America's Sweetheart" appears in this video clip as she might best be remembered, tap dancing with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson in a scene from the 1935 film The Littlest Rebel.
 

When Harry Met Reality

Personally, I never watch shows like American Idol. It's bad enough watching some people embarrass themselves, like that one guy who sounded a little too much like Garth Brooks. (Will we see Garth Brooks impersonators in the wake of Elvis impersonators? You decide.) It's also a bit of dissonance when a lily-white boy or girl tries to sing in the style of Negro spirituals.

But none of that compares to the people who judge them.

I mean, seriously, what the hell can Simon Cowell actually do? Does he dance? Can he sing or play a musical instrument? Can he even do card tricks? No, he doesn't do any of that. The guy is a poseur, but he just happens to be really, REALLY good at it. (Notice I didn't say he wasn't any good at it. Did I say he wasn't good at something? Of course not. Anyway ...) The only other thing I can see him being really good at, is leaving his shirt halfway unbuttoned, which really kind of went out of style by the 1980s, unless you're a coming-of-age Italian-American male from New Jersey.

I believe the polite term is "Guido."

But then, there are the young ladies like the one in this video, fifteen years old, with stars in her eyes, who sang Grace Potter's Paris, a song that tells more of a longing for defilement than it does the City of Lights. (You've been warned.) Fortunately, the acclaimed jazz singer/pianist and actor Harry Connick Jr was on the panel. After hearing the young hopeful's selection, her own idol gave her the thumbs up. But then it was Harry's turn.

After J Lo called the performance “Cute”, Harry Connick Jr counseled Morgan that it was important to “find the songs that are right for you” and encouraged her to look for tunes that are age-appropriate, “Cuz hearing about you ‘shaving me smooth’ really was creepin’ me out.” ... J Lo turned to him and said, “You’re such a dad!” with a giggle in her voice.

As a matter of fact, in addition to being a practicing Catholic, Connick is also the father of three daughters, the oldest nearly fourteen. Connick also managed to one-up Australian country singer/songwriter Keith Urban, before all three were called to give the thumbs-up. On the bright side, it's probably a good sign that this season's panel of judges genuinely want to be supportive of anyone who gets up there and takes the risk that they do. (When I auditioned for talent shows and musicals, I had the luxury of hiding behind a guitar. Those were the days ...)

Yesterday's homily, in anticipation of the March For Life, was about Audous Huxley's 1932 dystopian classic Brave New World, depicting the loss of humanity through the mechanization of reproduction, and its separation from the conjugal act, indeed, from marriage and family altogether. A gentleman who spoke to the priest after Mass today told of a class of high school students given the book as required reading, who were unphased by such a civilization as this.

Sometimes “art imitates life” all too well, don't you think?

Or don't you?
 

George Glenn Jones (1931 - 2013)

One of the most prolific artists of country music died this morning, from complications related to irregular blood pressure. He was 81.

Born in a log cabin in Saratoga, Texas (a town outside of Beaumont), George got his first guitar when he was nine, and was playing for change on the streets shortly thereafter. From there he went on to local radio shows. His first recorded hit in 1955, “Why Baby Why” made it to number four on the country charts, the first of many in a recording career that included 119 singles under his own name, 68 albums, 26 collaborative albums, 24 compilation albums ... one could go on. In 1956, he became a member of the Grand Olde Opry.

It was particularly in later years that he was hailed as "the greatest living country singer," with unique facial characteristics that earned him the nickname “Possum.” But it was not only his distinctive voice that lent to his critical acclaim. In the tradition of Hank Williams and other country artists, Jones lived out the songs that he wrote. It was a life of hard living, hard drinking, drug addiction, bouts with the law, and stormy marriages. There were four of the latter, the first when he was 19, which lasted only a year. But he is best known for his third marriage, to country singer-songwriter Tammy Wynette, whom he wed in 1969. Despite a reputation as an abusive and irresponsible husband, their tribulations were often the inspiration for their duets, and a musical collaboration that far outlasted the marriage, which ended in divorce in 1975. Even his failure to show up for performances inspired the song “No-Show Jones.” What's more, his 1996 arrest for riding a lawn mower on an open road was parodied in the music video “Honky Tonk Song.” His cameo appearances in other country music videos also found him riding on a lawn mower.

But it was during his fourth marriage in 1983 to Jenny Johnson, that he cleaned up his act, and she was considered instrumental in his recovery from addiction. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1992, and was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2008. In 2012 he was presented with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award. It was during this latter period that he recorded a song penned by Billy Yates and Mike Curtis entitled “Choices.”

I've had choices
Since the day that I was born
There were voices
That told me right from wrong
If I had listened
No I wouldn't be here today
Living and dying
With the choices I made

Among the many albums he recorded were collections of gospel hymns. Some might have thought him to be a hypocrite for this, but a man at his lowest on a Saturday night can still wish for his highest on a Sunday morning. Russell Moore speaks to this desperation of the heart in his First Things article.

He was the troubadour of the Christ-haunted South. The raw emotion, and even whispers of torture, in his voice can teach American Christianity much about the nature of sin and the longing for repentance ... This is not a man branding himself with two different and contradictory impulses. This was a man who sang of the horrors of sin, with a longing for a gospel he had heard and, it seemed, he hoped could deliver him. In Jones’ songs, you hear the old Baptist and Pentecostal fear that maybe, horrifically, one has passed over into the stage of Esau who, as the Bible puts it, “could not find repentance though he sought it with tears.”

For yours truly, there is a sadness that comes with the news of George Jones' passing, and a longing for days gone by. They were the days when a singer who billed himself as a country or country-western artist, was not of the comfortable suburban middle-class life, that permeated themes of the "countrypolitan" sound in the 1970s, nor the over-styled, stereotypical exurban refined redneck with designer jeans that populates the airwaves today, but one who was truly without pretense, without pre-packaging, who was genuinely “born and bred, cornbread fed.” That generation is passing, one at a time, and we will never see their like again.

If the failings of a man that were so well-published are to be forgiven him, let it serve as a reminder to us all, of the reality of the Divine Mercy, and our own need to call upon Him for ourselves.
 

FAMW: “When I Grow Up”

What do you want to be when you grow up? Until you do, you can imagine what it would be like to try, while watching a cartoon character go at it, with the convenience of your mobile device. “Weird Al” Yankovic has authored a New York Times best-selling children's book with the above title, and is now available as an interactive application for your iPad, iPhone and/or iPod Touch. See a preview of this little adventure for this week's Friday Afternoon Moment of Whimsy.

Guess who's getting one for his iPhone. Go ahead, guess.