You Can't Always Get What You Want
(Aside: I wonder how many hundreds upon hundreds of blog posts have started with that same overused but apt title.)
So you've probably noticed the comics I occasionally usurp and use here on Scooter Nation--my dear friend and fellow ex-desk hostage the Cooking Junkie turned me on to Married to the Sea and Natalie Dee a while ago. It's this husband and wife team in Ohio and I have to say, I'm glad CJ pointed me in their direction because hitherto, in my opinion, the only good things to come out of Ohio were the Wright brothers and my MFA thesis adviser (not at the same time, obviously). Not only do I find some of their comics terribly apt and wickedly funny in that not-laughing-out-loud-but-will-chuckle-to-myself-all-day sort of way, but I also love their T-shirts and very much want to own several of them (note to Expat: my birthday is in April. Hint, hint).
But I am sadsadsad at the fact that I will really never be able to own or wear even if I did own (and really, what's the fun in that?) this shirt.
Our dear friend the Fabulous Public Sphere Theorist refers fondly to all musicians who pay the bills with church work--myself and her own organist husband included--as "whores for the Lord." It's true. I haven't attended a church as a member or a parishioner since I was about 17 and started getting paid to show up and sing. This doesn't cause me any spiritual angst and it hasn't yet motivated any existential crisis. But this . . . this T-shirt changes things. In all my years selling my voice to churches, I've never really felt that my wardrobe was restricted, mainly because you can wear a choir robe over anything. Yet in this incarnation of my church job, I'm not the director of an adult choir. I'm the director of children's music. Imagine, if you will, the questions from a hoard of 10-year-olds if I showed up wearing this shirt. And then imagine the hoard of parents. The phone calls. The emails. The moral outrage of suburbanites who feed their kids McDonald's on the way to soccer practice. "This is Alabama. We take God seriously here. We do not want our children exposed to cartoon people gallivanting in champagne saucers. On a Wednesday."
But beyond the simple logistics, the sad fact is, no one at my current church job except maybe my friend and boss, THE Tenor, and quite probably all the other voices for hire, would get it.
Maybe I could wear it on a Thursday.
So you've probably noticed the comics I occasionally usurp and use here on Scooter Nation--my dear friend and fellow ex-desk hostage the Cooking Junkie turned me on to Married to the Sea and Natalie Dee a while ago. It's this husband and wife team in Ohio and I have to say, I'm glad CJ pointed me in their direction because hitherto, in my opinion, the only good things to come out of Ohio were the Wright brothers and my MFA thesis adviser (not at the same time, obviously). Not only do I find some of their comics terribly apt and wickedly funny in that not-laughing-out-loud-but-will-chuckle-to-myself-all-day sort of way, but I also love their T-shirts and very much want to own several of them (note to Expat: my birthday is in April. Hint, hint).
But I am sadsadsad at the fact that I will really never be able to own or wear even if I did own (and really, what's the fun in that?) this shirt.
Our dear friend the Fabulous Public Sphere Theorist refers fondly to all musicians who pay the bills with church work--myself and her own organist husband included--as "whores for the Lord." It's true. I haven't attended a church as a member or a parishioner since I was about 17 and started getting paid to show up and sing. This doesn't cause me any spiritual angst and it hasn't yet motivated any existential crisis. But this . . . this T-shirt changes things. In all my years selling my voice to churches, I've never really felt that my wardrobe was restricted, mainly because you can wear a choir robe over anything. Yet in this incarnation of my church job, I'm not the director of an adult choir. I'm the director of children's music. Imagine, if you will, the questions from a hoard of 10-year-olds if I showed up wearing this shirt. And then imagine the hoard of parents. The phone calls. The emails. The moral outrage of suburbanites who feed their kids McDonald's on the way to soccer practice. "This is Alabama. We take God seriously here. We do not want our children exposed to cartoon people gallivanting in champagne saucers. On a Wednesday."
But beyond the simple logistics, the sad fact is, no one at my current church job except maybe my friend and boss, THE Tenor, and quite probably all the other voices for hire, would get it.
Maybe I could wear it on a Thursday.
posted by Sparky at 10:41 AM
3 Comments:
I think those glasses are also called Marie Antoinettes, and the fun part is this: supposedly, they're the same shape and size as her breasts.
How do you like THEM apples?
Oh, and by the way: MY favorite love-but-could-never-wear shirt from our friends in Ohio is the "It's Mother####ing Booze Time" shirt. I saw it on a young woman at a show at the High Noon recently... so of course, I had to stop her and compliment her taste.
I want that shirt !!! . . . I imagine the monks and nuns at my college would find it as hilariouis as we do.
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