An interval of silence interrupted them.

Goofy ran for the door, hammer in hand, and smashed.

Bugs have been with us forever.

“Does this happen often?”

“What? Oh, sorry. Gosh, no. Yes, I mean sometimes. Where were we?”

“The third question: ‘Why do you think you’d be good at this job?’”

“Right, yep. Let me see now. People say I make them laugh.”

“You’re applying for the position of Agile Scrum Master.”

“That’s it. Yep. And I’m agile. I sure am. That’s me.”

To be “agile” is to be able to move quickly. To be an “Agile” leader in software product development is to practice the “Agile methodology” to facilitate a team to exchange information and quickly accomplish certain defined short-term goals. Think of a pack of rugby players pushing, changing and self-organizing to advance the ball. That’s a “scrum” in the parlance of the rugby game. It is fast moving and adaptive and, at the same time, quite a nice mess. The Agile Product Scrum Master manages the development process, sort of like the coach signaling time, calling the players to the side and quickly allowing the exchange of information without slowing the overall progress toward the goal. You know, we’re all enjoying the products of Agile Scrums today. Simply check your phones, pads and computers for the frequent deliveries of new software updates. Those are the products of the scrumming process, the quick development and delivery of new software products, and that’s what the Scrum Master manages so well.

“Mr. Goofy, are you there?”

“Uh? Uh . . . Uh . . .”

“You seem to be thinking?”

“Think . . . Yep, I was watching a scrum – in my mind. About to call time. Get the team together. Exchange some ideas.”

“Excellent, excellent. That’s just what we’re looking for.”

Goofy has been at this for a long time. He first arrived on the scene in 1932, and he had a bunch to learn. First, he had to get younger and lose the beard. In those earlier scrum cartoons, he was foolish and harmlessly eccentric. With time, he started thinking and acting younger and moving faster. He would always be one of Disney’s most loved characters, and he worked to make the transition from black and white, to color cartoons, TV, movies, cable, hand-held gaming and beyond. I like to think of Goofy as strong, resourceful, plucky and goofy.

“Wonderful. We’ll see you Thursday then.”

“Yes and yep. I’ll be there. . . . Hey! I see you!”

Goofy grabbed the hammer, jerked back and launched the missile through the air, smashing with a deafening crash, deep into the drywall.

“Got ‘em that time. Gotta’ be quick with bugs. Ya’ sure do.”

It is estimated that there are 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) insects on our planet today. That is a bunch of bugs, but nowhere near the number of bugs inhabiting our software at this very moment. Most are harmless and hardly noticed. There are those, though, that can smash a party and send the guests screaming onto stools, and there are those, even worse, who can crash your operating systems with the blue screens of death. Those are the bugs to be dealt with swiftly and effectively by an Agile Scrum Master and his fast-moving Team. That’s what a Scrum does best, and every Scrum needs a good Scrum Master.

“I get it! You are a genius, Mr. Goofy. What a brilliant exhibition of scrumming. You are exactly the dog for the job. You’ve taught me and those old bugs some new tricks today. Yes, Mr. Goofy, you certainly have. We’ll see you Thursday.”

The recruiter ducked under the hammer protruding from the wall and exited with a smile.

“Yep. I always make ‘em laugh.”

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s_7H3HQcH8[/embedyt]

Now are the Days of The Mall.

As Gandalf lowers the crown to the head of Strider — now King of Gondor, who mumbles a healing song, we hear the soft call in the cool breeze, turn, lift the keys to the car, amble to our transportation and leisurely head to the vast indoor arena of merchandising known in our world as The Mall.

The Mall of Mid-Winter is a comfort, peace and retreat from the rushed wars of the holidays past. Along the long cloistered halls is a noisy lull between the seasons. No grand events are scheduled. The prelude with little anticipation draws a welcome sigh. We go not so much to shop as to wander, wait and watch. A covered coffee in one hand, we sit – gelato in the other, by a shooting fountain, catching sigh of a rainbow in the floating spray above. We brush between the racks of the 65%-off and more sales. The items are more given than purchased. There is no real pressure to buy, and the clerks are smiling. These are the days without a name, The Days of the Mall. Our hearts soar to find so meaningless and meaningful the mindless activity of focused inactivity, and we say a silent prayer that The Mall should always find it so.

Exiting a departmented store, we glimpse The Mall Tree silent in its graceful soaring, naturally ornamented without pretense of false tinsel. Our fingers reach to a pocket with the temptation to write “organic” on a sticky note and affix the title to the base of the botanical wonder.

At our passing, the gaping maw of Tiny Mall Orchid yawns more lap dog at our heels than bark to drive our traffic to the nearest shop.

Even the squinting alien housed in Yellow Alien Orchid is content to offer no real menace at this time of honored amnesty.

Pink Panda Ninja Orchid wings a smile, its chomping teeth at rest until the flags of frenzied flusterment are again unfurled and the recumbent shoppers arouse and launch their next real assault at the retail mart.

On a comforted chair outside a dressing room, we enjoy the rest of Denimed Right Knee — little surprised when our partner emerges not to buy a thing.

With soft white Cactus Dreaming, we bench our ship and gaze without aim at the distant galaxies.

Cactus Dagger on spindle top does not our rest to ruin. We awaken from pause and reverie to the busy bustle of castle mall and the walk of royalty with no need to mend.

One day soon these things will change. Dark rush will again invade these halls. Til’ then, it is good to know that quiet can touch and calm even the most busy of battlefields near our homes.

Still, there can be a sleeping beauty, and it may be good on future trips to be careful about the gaping maw of Tiny Mall Orchid, the spindle tip of Cactus Dagger and all the others.

They may now appear at rest, but a careful shopper is cautious always.

Enjoy the mall — what it can offer and all its risks.

Grandpa Jim

A tale of two schools.

The Oscar statuettes have begun their stately walk to the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. On the evening of February 28, 2016, the best of the big pictures will vie for the coveted trophies whose official name is the Academy Award of Merit but who has been known as Oscar since 1931.

A tale of two schools will not be there.

“Together We’re Stronger” is a documentary film centered on an inner-city building in Kansas City, Missouri. That structure has housed two schools and been home to decades of students. It is not a big place, and the film is not a big picture. The movie is a surprising story of heart, hard work and unexpected joys.

If he knew, I think Oscar would take notice and smile.

* * *

The story begins in 1961.

Three high schools in Kansas City, Missouri, are consolidating. Two will be all girls. The third will be coed and house all the boys.

On the first day of classes, the young men converge on Lillis High School. They are a different mix. Many probably don’t care much for the move or their new classmates. Before, they had been separate with their own ways and their own teams. Now, they’ve been forced together.

At the first practice, the basketball coach sees something special. In the eyes of those young men, he sees fight. In their moves, he recognizes skill. And in their sighs, he understands their need for identity. He gives them everything he has.

Their first basketball game, the opposing team scores 49 points. The Lillis men score more and win. No opponent will do better that season. The Lillis High School Basketball Team wins every game, and Lillis High goes on to win the 1961 Missouri State Basketball Championship.

* * *

In 2015, the remaining players sit on the bleachers of the old gym.

The coach and their top scorer have died suddenly weeks before. (Death swings fairly, if unkindly.) As they reminisce and the camera runs, sadness wrinkles the corners of their eyes and softens their smiles. They each have had their successes and they are grateful. The missing star won an Olympic gold medal and played professionally. One speaks of the remembered loss of a close relative and they reach together to comfort their teammate.

They are a team, and they will always be unlikely friends who became family at the old school.

* * *

Back to 1979, Lillis High is shutting down.

A group approaches. They need a larger space for their school and they’re willing to renovate. The DeLaSalle Education Center, an alternative charter school for students without a school, makes the old building its new home.

Like the 1961 Lillis team, the DeLaSalle students are a different mix. At first, many probably don’t care much for their surroundings or their new classmates. Like the Lillis coach, the DeLaSalle teachers see the fight in their students’ eyes, the skill in their moves and the need in their sighs. They give those young people all they have.

The students of Lillis became what they couldn’t in the old school. The students of DeLaSalle become what they can’t in the new school. The old building is alive again with friends becoming family.

In time, the students will move out and into the world. With persistence and perseverance, they too will find the unexpected joys their hearts desire. It is the legacy of the two schools.

* * *

One day, a Mom and Dad with their two children will stop outside an empty building in Kansas City, Missouri.

The boy, the great-great-grandson of a Lillis basketball player, will look up and ask, “What is it, Daddy?” The girl, the great-granddaughter of a successful DeLaSalle graduate, will point and ask, “What happened there, Mommy?”

With a smile lightening the corners of their eyes, the parents will answer together, “There were champions, children. There were champions.”

* * *

“Together We’re Stronger” is dedicated to the old and new schools and for the support of The DeLaSalle Education Center. Take a look and enjoy the show. www.twsmovie.com I think I see Oscar smiling.

Grandpa Jim

The Movie that time forgot: The Revenant.

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRfj1VCg16Y[/embedyt]

A good yarn has a life of its own – even if few parts may be true.

There is a real story behind The Revenant.

In French, “revenant” is the word for a person who returns or is reborn.

In 1823, Hugh Glass was an American frontiersman on a fur trapping expedition up the Missouri River when he is attacked and mauled by a bear. Abandoned for dead by his companions, Glass crawls and floats many miles over many weeks to reach Fort Kiowa in present day South Dakota, USA.

Hugh Glass returns and is reborn as The Revenant, and his story is told, retold and grows into legend in paper, book and film since the days of its actual happening.

The most recent retelling is The Revenant movie that last evening at the Golden Globe Awards won Best Film Drama for director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Best Actor for Leonardo DiCaprio who plays Hugh Glass.

In real life, Hugh Glass sought out the two erstwhile companions who had taken his gear and left him for dead. History does not recount why he did so. Revenge may have been a factor, or maybe he just wanted his old rifle back. In any event, Hugh Glass cornered both parties on separate occasions and . . . he forgave both. He did not chase them with a hatchet or stab them with a knife. He forgave both men.

Hugh lived on in the Old West. He continued to hunt and fish and trap and have close-calls and real get-aways. The life of The Revenant was a life of true adventure.

Attributed to the Milwaukee Journal, I found this account of Hugh Glass’ final hour: “Old Glass with two companions had gone to Fort Cass to hunt bear on the Yellowstone, and as they were crossing the river on the ice, all three were shot and scalped by a war party of 30 Aricaras.”

In a sense, the bear was there at the story’s true ending.

Hollywood loves the exaggeration of retelling. Like Gollum in the cold pool at The Return of the King, they sink their teeth in the rawness that makes us cringe and turn away. With the pain of embellished experience, they would have us like Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back hide in the warm carcass of the slain beast. Unlike Jimmie Braddock in Cinderella Man, we do not choose but are forced to endure the long slow crawl back to life – and the place we reach is not a cottage in New Jersey. With the sweep of Maria in The Sound of Music, these western hills are not just alive, they are overly alive with the clash of chase, fight and the bad business of mean men. We search for Mr. Peabody & Sherman and the validating historicity of the Wayback Machine to lend credence and meaning to a landscape run amok and find none. Yes, the scenery is beautiful, but disheveled and disassembled, in a tinted miasma of surreal season.

There is little to encourage in this retelling, and, at its heart, there is little hope.

At show’s end, I searched for the printed scroll to tell me the long struggle would not begin again for Hugh Glass. I found no such words crawling down the screen. To their finish, I watched to read but a brief paragraph on the new life of Hugh Glass. I waited not to see more red on white snow, but to view bridges built and crossed and the real story beyond show’s end.

I watched in vain, and for that we are both the lesser.

Grandpa Jim

Now we emerge to face the morrow.

Let the cameras begin to roll.

87 times to show.

This is the year of the 88^th Academy Awards ceremony to be held on February 28, 2016, in Hollywood, California. The best films of 2015 will be honored there and the Best Picture selected.

To date, there have been 87 Academy Award ceremonies and 87 Best Pictures selected and carefully place waiting on their shelves to be viewed again.

So starts “The Marathon of the 87 Best Pictures” and “EthnoSocioFamilyMovieOgraphy.”

Before we start, let’s visit the things that started the year.

One person defined a New Year’s resolution as a promise made at the beginning of the year and carefully kept for two weeks. The suggestion is that short-term resolutions are of small merit. Can this be true? The collective experience of the masses is that most resolutions are of a brief and passing nature – seldom reaching to year-end. Are those resolutions for their limited lives of little value?

In a past New Year, I resolved to eat more salads. After a brief period of time (let’s say two weeks to honor our humorous naysayer), my intent flagged and the green leaves wilted to brown on their plates. Was this from a failing commitment on my part? “Nay,” I say, “No!” I had in my weakened state experienced an epiphany, a revelation: I cared little for salad, and salad cared little for me.

Without the initial, if short-termed, resolution, there would have been no longer-term revelation. I would have been a lesser person lingering in continuing fear that lettuce was absolutely essential to my life. It is not.

The experience of my salad revolution birthed a revelation of personal understanding. I experienced a better appreciation of me. Resolution led to revelation. I now understood that lettuce was not as important as my own reasoned selection of foods. To eat less green was the wiser, happier and healthier personal choice.

In being broken, my New Year’s resolution had worked quite well!

We see then that what is important to the New Year is the honest experience of resolution, not blind commitment to a 365-day goal.

Some might say that this is just a rationale to justify broken resolutions. It is if you did not learn something about yourself in breaking the resolution. If you did learn more about you, it is not a rationale. If you learned the resolution is not compatible with you, it is a requirement to break that resolution.

Having said all of that, I am glad I did not make “The Marathon of 87 Best Pictures” a New Year’s resolution. It is not. It is a hope.

A “hope” is much more mysterious and less demanding than a “resolution.” Hope focuses beyond me to the future. Resolution focuses on me in the present.

I hope to watch all 87 Best Pictures in 2016. I am not resolved to learn anything about me in the process. I do hope to learn more about what those movies mean to friends and family who watch the shows with me.

That is the “EthnoSocioFamilyMovieOgraphy” part: “ethno” for people, “sociofamily” for the community of family and friends doing the watching, “movie” for the Best Pictures we will watch, and “ography” for my recording and tabulating the results.

We start this Friday by watching “Wings,” the first Best Picture, filmed in 1927 and winner at the 1^st Academy Awards held on May 16, 1929 in Los Angeles, California.

Reports will be posted, and I do hope we go the distance.

But I’m not making any resolutions.

Cheers,

Grandpa Jim

There is heartlessness in the Holidays that can drag down the spirit. Sometimes, the mean and hateful show through the kind and loving. Christmas will prevail. I know this. And I know when this happens, it helps to find a good movie.

People didn’t know it was. They weren’t sure what it was. That was thirty-eight (38) years ago. The first movie was Star Wars. It had another name, because it was the fourth in a series of nine stories. We knew little of those things or the future. We knew Star Wars, and it was the first and the best of the movies.

Thirty-two (32) years ago, the third movie was released. Return of the Jedi was the last of the first trilogy. It was a good movie — not as good as the first, but a commendable undertaking. With that third film, the actors of the first trilogy retired – or so we thought.

Now, 32 years later, those first characters are back in movie #7, The Force Awakens, which is playing in theaters around the world.

Actors usually age more slowly than their parts. This is not so this time. The stars are thirty-two years older in real time, and the story is set thirty-two years later in Star Wars time. It is a perfect fit. Little make-up is required.

With wrinkled brow and furrowed skin, Han Solo sports the same roguish smile. Chewbacca stands tall a mighty furball, but one who wounds more easily than in the past – even with the years, he is still the Best Fur in town. Princess Leia stops and stares with the same regal airs, but now she does so as General Leia. Luke Skywalker manages a face of graying stately hair that bears a remarkable resemblance to the beard of creator George Lucas. With laugh and action, it is good to have the old crew back with their new endearing looks.

They are not alone.

There are some young faces.

Rey is a tall girl in Dune garb who scavenges forgotten starships on the desert planet of Jakku. She is the new Luke Skywalker — though an actual physical lineage is never clearly delineated in this show. With tomboyish charm and a knack for fixing things, including the aged Millennium Falcon, Rey brings to the scenes a credible naivety that transcends the decades and is the glue that binds this show to the first. Rey’s character makes the film a true Star Wars.

There are others.

Maz Kanata is not young. She is short, bespectacled and over a 1,000 earth years old. She is the new Yoda, and the second new character after Rey I most look forward to seeing in the next show.

Kylo Ren, a big-haired dark knight of good lineage, is presented as the new Darth Vader. The core of the show begins to fade here. Ren is no Vader. As with the decline of evil in the first six shows, we find again the paucity of complex villainy needed to hold the tension and the audience. Ren’s boss, Supreme Leader Snoke (perhaps the old Emperor recovering after a bad fight in an alley), lacks the substance of a true bogeyman and needs a smaller chair. General Hux is a replay of the bad generals of the past.

Opposing this motley crew of hatchet men, there are some new good guys who may themselves be best remembered as forgotten action figures on the shelves of dusty storage units. Fin is a reformed sanitary engineer who presents a puzzling romantic relationship with Rey. He may be at his best not revived from the sick bed at show’s end. Resistance Pilot Poe is a punctuation mark. BB-8 is the new R2-D2, but he is not the droid R2-D2 was.

Do you see the problem? The supporting cast of The Force Awakens is not as good as it was for the first Star Wars. In addition to strong leads, great shows need great supporting characters and great actors filling those roles.

Rey is the new lead. The old Luke, the old Chewbacca and the old Leia join her. They are strong, but it is clear the old guard is passing. Beside Rey, Fin does not make it. Behind Rey, I see only Maz as strong support. Kylo Ren and the bad guys are a serious meltdown.

The Force Awakens has an intriguing ending. It is my second favorite Star Wars movie of all time. Unfortunately, there is the single Rey of new life in the lead and little supporting cast to build two more installments.

I am, with many I fear, worried for the future.

For the present, let’s finish with the meaning of the season and the Star Wars.

Those closest to you will hurt and help you most. It is one of the deep secrets of the universe. This is the true Star Wars and the real Christmas. It rings most true when the hurt is fresh and there seems nowhere to go.

At the end of the movie, young Rey stands facing Luke on a cold rocky cliff above breaking waves. There, over the chill waters, she reaches for a new hope. At the ending, we glimpse a new tomorrow and the beginning of the next. So it is at the ending and beginning of all things, and so it is at Christmas each year and at Star Wars each show.

A new hope and the glimpse of a new tomorrow.

May the force be with them and with us.

Help in need is help indeed.

Merry Christmas!

Grandpa Jim

Is this the year the Christmas cards stopped? I’m not complaining, but we do seem to receive fewer and fewer. I’m referring to the old fashioned mail-‘em-in-an-envelope-with-a-postage-stamp-affixed Christmas cards. I get e-cards and social media Holiday hi-and-hello’s. Certainly I am sent all of those, and they are fun and appreciated.

Still, I miss the cards. I guess they’re a little like “vinyl” records. Funny, I don’t remember calling the discs vinyls. They were just “records.” Before 8 tracks, cassette tapes and CD’s, there were records. Now, they’re vinyl’s, and they’re making a comeback. Not so the Christmas cards. I fear no comeback is in site for them.

They really aren’t that old. In 1843 in England, Sir Henry Cole sent the first Christmas cards of his own creation using the newly formed Public Post Office for delivery. The post office and the railroads made those Christmas cards possible. Before that, the handling and transportation were far too expensive for mailed missives of Holiday cheer.

In the United States, cards were not widely sent until 1875 when Louis Prang started printing the Holiday greetings in mass quantities. As costs dropped, popularity increased. Then, in 1915, John Hall and his two brothers started Hallmark Cards. With the new fanciful and fun designs, who didn’t want to send Grandma and Uncle Ned a card at Christmas? The mailboxes were flung open and the flood of Holiday cards began in earnest.

Up to two billion a year – at their peak. It was down to 1.4 billion a few years back. Now, the US Postal Service says most households are sending less than half the cards they sent just the other December. And, the numbers are dropping.

I remember the joys of a child’s Christmas. My brothers, sister and I would wait wide-eyed in our beds until Santa had finished his and her work. As the house quieted, we drifted in and out of sleep until the bravest slipped to floor, crawled to the door and peeked to nod for the others to follow. Down the hall we crept to the glowing tree and the wonders beneath.

A month before, the Christmas catalog had arrived. We poured through its pages. Each could pick one wish. We did, we waited and we hoped for that night.

I can still see the small rocket launcher waiting for me. My excitement was boundless. I loaded a rubber tipped dart, aimed and fired. One of my mother’s prized ornaments exploded into glistening fragments floating to the floor. It was a moment I will never forget, both from the joy of the moment and the admonitions that followed in the morning.

From frown, the questioning brow softened to smile as the Christmas tune played in the background. All things were forgiven on that day.

To this day, I find myself singing, “Have yourself a merry little Christmas” just about anywhere, everywhere and pretty much all year long. Judy Garland first sang the song in 1944. My parents played it on Christmas mornings. It’s sung each year by new artists with new smiles and new tears. There are both in Christmas. Like the Christmas search, the rocket launcher and the shattered ornament, the song is there to surprise and comfort.

Cards may be fewer and paper less used. Pictured memories and even the music may fade with time. Let your heart be light. Have a merry little Christmas now. And hang a shining star upon the highest bough.

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyW1A-S1lmY[/embedyt]

Faithful friends who are near to us,

Gather near to us.

GPA Jim

Life like the year is a journey — from beginning to end, season to season, rain to sun. Ours is waning. Cold frosts the tops of morning fences. Plants hide near the fading heat of soil.

Splashed by recent rains, Brave Snapdragon warms its fierce breath beneath the blanket of newborn day.

At its side, Tiny Viola wrinkles pansy arms, stretches and sighs to dance her turn.

Friendly Garden Elf laughs at the antics of plants.

Lady Gerber demurely hides a blush beneath the browned tips of her chilled leaves.

Heightened hope lightens Languishing Lavender to leap for the sky.

Saddened Marigold sees, sheds silver tears and mopes.

Fate has stamped her seal on Daisy Profusion. Tears shed, head bowed, she droops to send the seeds of next-year’s spring.

Butterflies southward bound and gone, Mother Abelia lifts her strawflower blooms to the light-studded eve.

Father Holly Berry blinks to focus an eye as the time approaches.

Far off, three chipped Kings of Ancient East with camels and gifts under the bright bulb of Christmas star advance toward the cardboard stable.

There a child rests, mother and father nearby, a plastic sheep at the tiny babe’s feet.

While in the sky, a Brave Young Angel takes wing.

With bright voice and song, the sweet smiling cherub makes loud the pronouncement: “It is the Season of the King!”

Grandpa Jim

A Story by Grandpa Jim

The Turkey was reading. More precisely, he’d Googled “turkey” on his iPad.

“I’m a large bird native to the forests of Mexico and North America,” he read aloud. He liked to read and talk on his perch. “Most people don’t even know I ‘perch.’ All they ever see is my frozen cousins in the grocery. Poor birds.” He scanned down the page with his beak. “So that’s where the name came from. The early settlers thought I was a guinea fowl from the country of Turkey. I’m not. I’m a completely separate and independent species. The cheek.” He cleared his snood, uttered an incensed gobble and read on. “They’re right about that one,” he cackled. “We’re older than these pesky homo sapiens. Over 20 million years and counting. All the way back to the Early Miocene.”

He lifted and shivered. Winter was approaching. More precisely, Thanksgiving was approaching. He shook his wattle at the thought.

“Squanto was behind it all. He and those Wampanoag committed that first fowl act of inviting his roasted ancestors to Thanksgiving in 1621.” A native American, he reconsidered the criticism. “It was the Presidents,” he huffed. “THEY declared a formal November Holiday. From Washington, to Lincoln, to Roosevelt, those in Washington conspired to set the table for a feast on the fourth Thursday in November.” He could understand corn, potatoes and pumpkins – even eels (slimy things), but his friends? He lifted and strutted on the branch before roosting back with a sigh. It had been a struggle ever since.

He’d escaped years ago. More precisely, he was a free turkey – perhaps the last.

“’Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.’” He kee-kee’d the lyrics into the damp woods. “’Nothin’, don’t mean nothin’ hon if it ain’t free, no no.’” He missed Janis Joplin and loved to listen to her on YouTube. In another life, he would have liked to play guitar in her band. Just to be her friend, not Bobby, just her friend, and help when she needed help. “’Hey, feelin’ good was good enough for me, mm-hmm.’” He sank a little lower on the branch. “I would have been her friend,” he whispered to the rain.

There would be no “Return of the Ape” movie for him and his kind. More precisely, their days were numbered, as they were each year.

The rain fell lightly across his feathers

It had been long since he’d had a true friend

His beak touched the iPad off

The games were fun and the media too

But there was more to life

He bowed his neck on the soggy branch

And hummed

“’And, feelin’ good was easy, Lord, when we sang the blues’”

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXV_QjenbDw[/embedyt]

Keith Urban is a very successful country music singer and songwriter. Keith was born October 26, 1967 in Whangarei, New Zealand. When he was 17, Keith lived with his parents in Caboolture, Queensland, Australia. His father owned a convenience store. One day, his dad placed an ad in the store window for a guitar teacher. The rest, we know, is musical history.

Thirty-five singles by Keith Urban have reached the US country music charts. Eighteen have gone #1. The young singer has three Grammy award singles.

On June 25, 2006, Keith Urban married American-born Australian actress Nicole Kidman. They have two daughters, Rose and Faith Margaret.

In June 2015, Keith released a new single to critical and fan-held acclaim. In part, the verses go: “I’m a 45 spinning on an old Victrola. . . . I’m Mark Twain on the Mississippi. . . . And I learned everything I need to know from John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16.”

John Cougar Mellencamp is a 64-year-old singer-songwriter. He is called a “roots rocker.” Mellencamp’s songs describe and document “the joys and struggles of ordinary people.” His rock ‘n roll “looks directly at the messiness of life as it’s actually lived.”

Cougar’s most successful hit single is “Jack & Dianne.” The song was released in 1982 and spent four weeks at #1. In its own words, the work is a “Little ditty about Jack and Dianne, Two American kids growin’ up in the heartland.” It is a sadly haunting piece, an aching after the lost days of small town youth, and a deep sigh for a past that echoes ever in your head. “Oh yeah, life goes on, Long after the thrill of livin’ is gone.” That refrain is its own lament to the fading glory of two young people lost in the heartland of their own souls.

Since 1837, John Deere has been tractors — rough engine growls in the cold morning and the endless checkerboard of plowed fields at day’s end. I grew up with the green and yellow of the leaping deer, the company’s mascot for the past 135 years. My Dad worked in their engine works, my relatives ran their equipment, and Uncle Joe favors the Deere on his lands. “Nothing Runs Like a Deere” is the proud slogan of the company and the pure country it serves.

The 1993 film “Pure Country” was not a particularly successful movie, but it was George Strait’s most successful country music album. A theatrical bombshell, it was nonetheless a musical blockbuster; and it contained the #1 song, “Heartland,” with these memorable lyrics: “Sing a song about the heartland . . . Where they still know wrong from right . . . Where simple people living side by side, Still wave to their neighbor when they’re drivin’ by.” The joys of the heartland were there for George Strait; and from his film and music, they continue there for us today.

Keith Urban saw the heartland in the music of his trade and in the equipment that works the land.

The heartland.

The heartland is the Bible Belt, and John 3:16 is the centerpiece of that book. “For God so loved the world” is the start and the heart of the verse. Those words remain to echo long after the thrill of life is gone. They are still running long after the Deere has stopped. They are the singer’s vision that follows the beat of the music and the throb of the land. They are the heartland.

The heartland.

John Cougar, John Deere and John 3:16.

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdu8M2val_w[/embedyt]