So many things wrong with that sentence I had to stop listening to stupid people on the radio.

Next on Mutual of Omaha’s “Wild Kingdom”: Ants. While Jim is out there wrestling Anacondas, we’ll stay here, close to home, watching the ants that live under the stoop eat my popcorn.

Thanks to my buddy, Nate…

Wear a kilt or horns on your head or both! Or just get painted blue! Should be a darn nice way to stay up all night!

208 North St. @ Elmwood
Buffalo, NY

What’s a U2charist? Quothe the wiki:

A U2Charist’ (also spelled eU2charist or U2 Eucharist) is a communion service, or Eucharist, accompanied by U2 songs in lieu of traditional hymns and sometimes as part or all of the service music. The music can be played from a CD or, in less common cases, performed by a live band.

The U2charist was initially started in the U.S. Episcopal Church but has been adapted by several other denominations. It is typically a liturgical service (including communion) that features the music of the rock band U2 and a message about God’s call to rally around the Millennium Development Goals. The U2charist is held by supporters to be a great opportunity to reach out to people in their congregations and larger communities, especially young people, with U2′s messages of global reconciliation, justice for the poor and oppressed, and the importance of caring for your neighbor. Bono, U2′s lead singer, has been a particularly vocal proponent of the Millennium Development Goals, and has been proclaimed as a global MDG ambassador. The U2charist seeks to raise awareness of the MDGs and call people worldwide to a deeper faith and engagement with God’s mission.

Roll yer liturgical eyes and come inside for a trainwreck:

Back in the day (1999/2000 or so) when I was in the Discernment Process at St Gregory of Nyssa Parish, there was a group called “Gathering the Next Generation“. It was a wonderful group of committed people intent on keeping ECUSA open to GenX ministry. Our experience at that point was that there were large numbers of Baby Boomers who just didn’t “get” GenXers and, as we were coming into age in the church, trying to get into seminary, etc, maybe we needed some different styles, different ways of doing things, etc.

One of the problems noted was “contemporary services” which inevitably were designed “for the youth” and always included “contemporary” songs that came either from camp or from some pop-hymnal collection from the late 1970s. In other words, these services were really Nostalgia Services for the Boomer folks and not designed at all for the “youth”.

So… the U2charist in Buffalo is being sold a “youth” thing…

Why?

I was listening to U2 in 1984 when most of the people who are “youth” now were not even born yet. This man does not look like the leader of today’s youth:

But I’m willing to bet he is entirely convinced he’s young. Like a bunch of Xers I know.

The Number One song in the USA this week, according to Billboard, is Boom Boom Pow by Black Eyed Peas. Or, maybe it’s Black Eyed Peas by Boom Boom Pow. I can’t tell. Tinchy Stryder Ft N-Dubz is #1 on the British Charts… and don’t even ask me to parse that out into Artist and Title. The point being that I can’t imagine Mr and Ms Boom Boom-Tinchy Stryder being at all interested in the upper octave ranges of a nearly-50 year old Irishman wondering about Bloody Sunday (“this ain’t no rebel song”) where the streets have no name.

Despite the fact that that opening riff in Where the Streets Have No Name can send me over the edge (no pun intended) when cranked full on in my headphones, my friend, Nate (a DJ and Visual Artist at a local club) says U2 has too much “misplaced angst for these kiddos to get. Bono jumped the shark with Elevation“.

Yup, sounds like he’s really reaching the youth.

And GenXers are doing “contemporary” services the exact same way our parents did: for us instead of for the kids. If we want to imagine that “the kids” want something different maybe we need to ask them? I know a good few “youth” who would tell you exactly the opposite: they want traditional liturgy, by which they mean some hyper-romanticised idea of Victorian Anglo-Catholic attempts at being Mediaeval.

I got news for you: the best “youth” service out there would be a Tridentine Mass with Gregorian Chant and Candles. That is assuming we could find any priest who could say it without wanting to change the words.

ODAY IS The quarterly Work Holiday at my housing co-op, my commune, my 14 Bedroom Mansion that I share with a bunch of the coolest folk in Buffalo. My gaol today is at least some pictures of this in action. Evidently I’m ripping up carpet today.

And sneezing, I think. There will probably be sneezing to judge by the state of my seasonal allergies this AM.

There will also be breakfast. I’ve been promised a surprise if I get to the kitchen at 9:30 when the gong rings.

HILE Most folks incorrectly think that Cinco de Mayo is either Mexican Independence Day or else a small town in the West of Ireland, for us here in Buffalo’s Historic Allentown district, it is the Annual Re-enactment of the Battle of Puebla, hosted by our own Cozumel Grill. The hosts play the role of the Mexican Army, held in their fortress by the encroaching French – played in this annual event by scads of tourists from Amherst, Williamsville, the Tonawandas, Cheektowaga and the South Towns. The role of trapped Mexican Peasants is played – most often unwillingly, by area residents who must fight the French invaders at every turn, keeping them off our property, keeping them from stealing our shopping carts, keeping them from parking in our no-parksing spaces and, of course, fighting them for the few available parking spaces we have.

The local soldiers at Cozumel Grill yield the barricades early, letting the French in for the happy bribe of $10 and suddenly we poor peasants are inundated by men and women with bad fashion sense and too much cologne. They come from all directions, charging the fortress. They look hot in their finery, I will say. But this is before the battle is enjoined. Muscles flexing and booty shaking they walk gaily (straightly?) to their doom. Little do they know that our famous Mexican Soldiers are about to rape their wallets and destroy their minds with too much tequila.

Once within the gates of the fortress they discover it’s too small, too loud and too packed with their fellow French fools. In the heat and press they find themselves suddenly intoxicated and powerless to defeat our most secret weapon: the sombrero-wearing shot girls.

This stymied and repulsed, the French are forced back out the door onto the streets of our fair town where they ravage the countryside, get shot at (!!!) by B-B guns and yell at our dutiful uniformed officials.

Only the few stranglers doing the walk of shame show in the morning after. But these are the French… and they will be back to surrender again next year.