December 18, 2019

Back by popular demand. This is Boethian, but I haven’t written about exactly how. Yet. 

I didn’t see the sign until after the first Cactus Cup. And then, there it was. #TYLERSTRONG. A printed plastic banner memorializing the kid with cancer, strung across the ceiling, facing the dance floor. You couldn’t see it in the first picture I took because the rotating light turned the whole frame green. The second one was clear – the banner, the bar, the bottle of Fireball whiskey painted on the wall. Cactus cups have a lot of alcohol. The longer I looked at the sign, the stranger its placement seemed. Such a serious disease, osteosarcoma, such as serious book, The Upset, such a serious topic, Where Will You Spend Eternity. I thought I was a serious person. Drawing parking lots, sizing pipes, analyzing narrative. Sitting here, being happy, getting dizzy.

A week after I read the serious book, I wrote a casually sincere review on Goodreads.com:  “Reads like a giant faith essay written by a high schooler from the Midwest, which, of course, it is. Beyond the cliché phrases, which I feel like I’ve heard a million times (probably because I went to high school in the Midwest), this is a powerful personal testimony that will resonate with anyone, but especially with those passionate about sports.”

I came into work at 7:09 am on Wednesday, January 2nd. They said that Tyler Trent died. Of course, I already knew, Facebook had it first, had had all the news, all winter. Reading the book was like re-reading Facebook; like watching people I didn’t know go to more away games and another summer of church camp. Nothing was a surprise except how it made me feel. When I read Tyler Trent’s book containing its myriad of commentaries, I read how mainstream Midwestern non-denominational Protestant faith is written in experience. Years before I read The Upset, I read The Sensate Culture, All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes, No Place for Truth, Rediscover Catholicism, Church History in Plain Language, The Orthodox Church. Catholics and Orthodox lived experience. The writers who I would later recognize as childhood specters scorned experience. Intellectual faith, mature faith, grown-up adult faith, relegated Experience to the Sensate Sixties.

Eleven years after I read the cultural criticism, I wrote a casually salty review on Goodreads.com: “The summary of this book is ‘the world is trash, and it’s gotten trashier in 3 stages over the last millennium since Rome. The only fix is the 2nd coming’. Everyone already knows that, but this dude blocks it out with parallels to Rome and agonizing details of the decline of Western Culture. I would not recommend reading it, it put me in a bad mood for about 6 years. However it’s quite well written and obviously did its job, so. 4 stars for you mr. Brown.”

A few hours later, I sat in front of a bar not named as a bar, texting my sister. When I am drunk, it is possible to be in the present. When I remember, I remember a moment, in the moment. This, I think, is why we talk about experience; because, experience tells us what we know is true, is true. Experience brings to us what we know, and in the moment we experience it, we are reminded of what we feel we felt. When I saw Tyler Trent’s serious sign, hanging there in the prickly place, the irregularity isolated the present pooled my present prayer with past experience, and started thoughts which I would use to tie time together: Show me why I’m here.

An excerpt from the only really drunk text I’ve ever really sent: How does affect theory apply to breakfast club? Don’t you, forget about me”.

That guy from the Exponent’s Facebook Page: BOILER UP HAMMER DOWN TYLER STRONG