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stubrock
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Name: Stuart
Country: United States
State: Tennessee
Metro: Clevegas
Birthday: 10/20/1982
Interests: Mission work, C.S. Lewis, Ben Folds, Cake, Relient K, Audio Adrenaline, Buffett, Mozart, Ozma, photography, politics, guitar, piano, Jazz/Blues, food, John Steinbeck
Expertise: Talking, listening, the outdoors, Intercultural Studies, pretending to know about something which I don't, philosophizing, making new words.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Nonprofit
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  stubrock82
Member Since:
9/20/2003
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| Hey everyone (err, one..),
Not much to update on. That's why I've been away for so long. I'm still at the same job, still in Knoxville, still not hanging out with anyone in my own area code. Especially depressing, since today marks the one-year anniversary of my moving here. So.... what's new?
Since last update, I've read The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren, Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell, and Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. Velvet Elvis was pretty good, and TWHF was a great read.
Book Club is no better than last reported. In fact, it's worse. In fact, no one has come to Book Club for several weeks, save Bob. Bob doesn't read the books, though. He makes up for it with good company and plenty of conversation, which is all I ever really wanted out of the book club, anyway.
I bought a brewing kit yesterday, and I've currently got a homemade IPA bubbling away in my kitchen. This batch will be ready for bottling on Saturday, and then it's on to a good wintertime porter. I hope to have my second batch finished, bottled, and ready by Thanksgiving.
That's about it, really.
Oh yeah, and I'm missing the Cleveland County Fair.
Damn it.
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| I took a vacation last week, the first real one I've had in a few years. I went to Oak Island, NC with my girlfriend, her sister, and a couple others. We rented a house for a week, within sight (and sound!) of the ocean. It was scrumtrelescent. We basically sat around all week. It was great. I cooked a few meals, played in the ocean, watched movies, sat in the sand, slept in, played in the ocean some more, ate seafood, and walked down an empty beach after each dinner. That's about the full itinerary, really.
Summer's going along kinda slowly. I really wish I had more friends (read "ANYONE") to hang out with sometime. Most nights and weekends are spent alone and/or with my girlfriend, or sitting at cafes with a slow-reading book. Everyone close to me lives in and around Cleveland, or further, and I'm fairly inept at getting into any social scene. I'm not really sure what happened. This used to be what I was good at. Part of my problem is not being in school. There, I could easily connect with dozens of like-minded individuals and have someone to call at anytime and hang out. Now, I'm not taking classes, and I've moved away from the school and only town I've called home for the past 7 years. I live in a non-neighborhood of apartment buildings isolated on the backside of a desolate shopping mall on the empty side of an ever-thinning, urban-sprawling Knoxville. My horizons are not bright. I lead a book club on Wednesday nights, but regular attendance (or even repeat attendance) of members is rare. The last time, no one showed up but myself. I'd take that as a hint to change things if I didn't get differing feedback. Every week it's "Hey, sorry I wasn't there..." and "Yeah, I'm really glad you picked that book! I can't wait to talk about it!"... But then when it's time, I'm left wondering if I've done something to disinterest people or even turn them away entirely. I don't know. I've finally been given a full load of hours at work this week, so I'll be busy enough to keep other things off my mind...
... not that Panera Bread gives me much to think about.
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| So uh, it's the weekend.
I've planted the beginnings of a small garden on my apartment patio/deck. I've got two tomatoes, a bell pepper, banana pepper, basil, thyme, and cilantro. It's gonna be epic, trust me. (Eventually, ok? eventually...)
Last week my pastor volunteered me to take over command of our church's book club. I'm thinking of covering Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution. It's kinda awesome. Apart from that, I have no idea what I'm doing. Any ideas or suggestions for making a book club work? I'd like it to have a lot of discussion, and maybe some activities. So far, all we do is show up, and no one has a clue what's going on, except that we've all read or are reading a common work. The dialogue is random and sparse, and we rarely stay on topic. I'd like to be able to change all that. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
I'm off to start my weekend. You guys stay classy.
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| Stephanie called me on my lack of updates, so here we go...
Not much going on recently, really. One thing, though. I have discovered a new favorite food, and I'm almost afraid to even tell you what it is: tripe and tongue. I mean, not together. Well, not entirely together. I found a half-hidden tienda on Washington Pike with a dining area in the back, next to the butcher counter. After watching way too many episodes of Anthony Bourdain and reading two of his books, I decided that organ meat couldn't be as bad as I imagined. So I go in to this shady (literally) little place, and, lo and behold, they offer fresh, made-from-scratch tacos with beef tongue and tripe. I know most of you are beyond convincing, so you may stop reading whenever you'd like. For the rest of you, however, know this: beef tongue is incredible, and beef tripe is even better. I'm actually kind of upset that I've lived so long without realizing it. Tongue (or La Lengua, for those of you with el español. Also, for anyone who may actually try to order some "off menu".) is almost identical to slow-cooked pot roast. It's skinned and cut into small pieces (or large, depending on the serving style) so that it's actual place of origin seems quite normal and benign. The same goes for the tripe, except that its taste is less like steak and more like crispy awesomeness. If you've ever had fried calamari, imagine if the little rings of squid were left unbattered, and then very quickly stir fried (for those of you who haven't had fried calamari, you're missing out). The meat is super tender, with little crispy edges. The taco shells are soft, doubled corn shells, and otherwise filled with heaps of cilantro and diced onion, served with quartered lime and salsa verde (also essential ingredients to the whole). They go for about $1.50 apiece, so with a large horchata, it makes for an incredible and cheap meal. A note, however, to the gung-ho: don't order either of these if they aren't made freshly. I once had some lengua and tripa that had been scooped from a steam table, where it had been sitting for several hours, and it had lost all flavor and texture. Not unsafe, just kinda gross. So there you have it. A new food! **Now be adventurous, go find una restaurante where the servers don't expect to see white people, and ask if they have tacos de tripa, or los tacos de lengua.** Trust me, it's totally worth it.
 
**Repeat after me, "tee-EN-ay Lohs TAH-cohs day TREE-pah?" or "... ... TAH-cohs day LEHN-gwah?"
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| I haven't lived in Knoxville for very long, but something I was aware of almost immediately is the seemingly large number of homeless people in this town. I don't know if there are more here than is usual, but it would look that way, especially if you were to walk or drive through the Gay / Jackson block of downtown. Of course, that's the block which houses a large homeless shelter and, I presume, a soup kitchen. The people in need of shelter and food generally don't stray far from this block, and it shows. Once I was driving past the shelter at dusk, and there was a line of people down the sidewalk and wrapped around the corner of the building. I know Knoxville isn't a small town, and that homelessness is fierce statistic which is ever-present, but the number of people I see huddled on street corners seems disproportionate.
Now, I've taken classes on sociology, urban missiology, etc., so I'm as aware as most of the prevailing reasons and causes of homelessness. I realize that many are homeless due to irresponsible decisions, drug addictions, etc. A very high percentage of homeless people have some form of mental illness. These causes are sometimes combatable, and I've met more than a couple people who have been homeless at one or several points in their lives, and who are now relatively stable and self-supporting.
What I don't understand is why I, and many others, have never given much thought to the epidemic that is homelessness in America. Sure, there are people who are inevitably going to end up on the streets due only to their reckless lifestyles, but there are entirely too many living in tents and cardboard boxes who don't deserve it. There are two thing which recently prodded me to think about the subject.
The first is this: My girlfriend teaches English as a Second Language to elementary students whose families have immigrated from several countries, mostly eastern Europe and Africa. The question arose one day of whether people ever gave money to the poor, and one of the Russian girls responded, "We gave money to the poor in my country, but we don't do it here because there are no poor people in America." I thought to myself, well, according to Russian standards, she's probably right. Ponder that for what it's worth.
The second is this: I attend church at Knoxville Life Church, or KnoxLife. It's located in the Old City, near the homeless shelter. We have a very nice man who's recently joined us on Sunday mornings, I'll call him Dean, and he happens to be homeless. He dresses well enough, he's clean, and very polite. I've never once heard him approach anyone for help or assistance. I can't say I know him well enough to know why he's homeless (but I intend on finding out). What bothers me is this: while walking through church this morning when everyone was still mingling, I walk past Dean and another man, and I overhear their conversation. The one man is relatively new, introduces himself, and asks Dean about himself. Dean responds, "My name's Dean. I'm a homeless guy." My heart immediately sank. I mean, what the hell, man? How long do you have to be homeless before it becomes a part of your self-identity? When someone asks who you are, you no longer say, "Oh, I'm a student / lawyer / teacher / plumber...", or even "Oh, I've been laid off, times are hard, etc.", to just "Oh, I'm a nobody. I have a name and a cardboard box." What does that do to a person's self-esteem? It's just mind-boggling to me. I can't get my mind around it.
So, I've set a mission for myself. Over the next several weeks, or possibly year, I want to learn more about homelessness, and, more specifically, Dean. What creates a man like that? How does he look at his own future? I want to understand these things so that I might one day be able to help people like Dean. I feel too many people just write off the homeless as a chronic symptom that can't be helped. They ignore the problem and hope that someone else tackles it to make it go away. I've got news for those people:
Homelessness isn't going away.
I'm going to learn something about this, and by God, I'm going to do something. And if I don't accomplish anything, I'll rest easier knowing I tried. How many of you have the ability to help one innocent person on the street? How many of you do anything about it?
  
James 4:17 (New International Version) 17Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.
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