The Merry Monk

Mother Internet has been very good to me this week.

Burnside Writers Collective published “May God Bless the Hell Out of You” and just yesterday a new magazine called Genuine Motivation published my piece titled “Our Father.” Pretty cool huh?

Click the links above to check out my work and let me know what you think (I’m a comment junkie).

I’m a little bummed that the good folks at GM had to edit “Our Father” down to meet the 1200 word limit. But hey, the fact that anyone wants to publish my messy monkery is a gift.

Anyway, just in case you were interested in the full piece, here’s the original as it appeared in Key Life Magazine this summer.

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.”

- Dr. Seuss

“Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them.”

- Dr. Seuss

I did a good bit of cleaning this weekend. Nothing helps energize me for housework like good tunes. This weekend Phish kept me and Mrs. Monk rockin’ in the clean world.

Where does the Merry Monk go for his Phish fix? Glad you asked.

LivePhish.com pumps out a free live stream that will blow your mind. Head on over there for some spectacular live jams 24×7. Just click “Listen” in the upper right corner of the site and you can use the player of your choice to jump into the live stream and catch some Phish!

If you really dig it and you want Live Phish Radio on your phone, there’s an app for that. Looks like it’s currently half price for $3.99. I just bought mine with some remaining gift card money!

May God bless the Hell out of you Phish!

Felicitations my soul bruthas and sistahs,

Recently, here in ‘Lando, FL, we had Star Wars Celebration V, and it put me in a Star Wars kind of groove.

So with that in mind, dig on this: Imagine Lando Calrissian starring in his own blaxploitation film. It might be a little somethin’ like dis:

After all that excitement, I think I need to relax. Perhaps some Star Wars Yoga (not a typo) will do us all some good:

Click here for all the poses.

I LOVE the Reclined Jabba, Salacious Crumb variation!

After some yoga, you wanna hit the dance floor and show off your skill and you wanna smell good, right? I’m not talkin’ that Old Spice Guy smell, either. I’m talkin’ smellin’ like a legitimate businessman, you need Eau Lando! It comes with a FRIKKIN’ CAPE!

And for the ladies, you can get more scoundrels in your life if you smell like Princess Leia!

Ever wonder how baby AT-ATs pass the time? Well, find out anyways:

And finally, lest you think the title of this post was apropos of nothing:

BAM

That. Just. Happened.

Dig it.
The Merry Monk of Funk

Join me on the MonkCast as I talk with Marta Szabo, author of The Guru Looked Good

Click here to listen to my conversation with Marta Szabo.

The Guru Looked Good details Marta’s ten plus years as a staff member in Gurumayi’s ashram, the same yogic monastery that Elizabeth Gilbert describes in her bestseller/movie Eat, Pray, Love. However, the picture painted by Szabo portrays the experience of working intimately with a guru in an international spiritual organization that extravagantly promises happiness, demands service, hypes a guru as God, but actually delivers escapism at best, oppression at worst.

Click the link above to download or listen to the interview, or use the player over there to the right in the sidebar. Click here to subscribe to the MonkCast via iTunes or your favorite RSS reader and join me for more merry monkery.

This is absolutely BRILLIANT! So fun. Be sure to watch it all the way to the end. Thanks to The Merry Monk of Max for passing this one on.

P.S. Did you find yourself quoting all the lines before they came up on the screen like I did? All the signs that George Lucas hijacked your childhood too.

Sufjan Stevens – To Be Alone With You from Andrew Gill on Vimeo.

“Don’t be ashamed, don’t cry in the bath
For it’s the story of, story of, morning glory story
It’s the gloriole that comes to your path

There is a time when the lights will arise
For the mother is, the mother is the glorious victorious
The mother of the heart of the world

Go on! Little sister! Go on!
For your world is yours, world is yours
All the wilderness of world is yours to enjoy

Go on! Little sister! Go on!
For you’re beautiful, beautiful
All the fullness of the world is yours”

- Sufjan Stevens (“Djohariah“, All Delighted People EP)

Sufjan Stevens meets Paul Simon. No more reading, listen.

Click here to listen to the All Delighted People EP and purchase the album.

Album description:

All Delighted People is built around two different versions of Sufjan’s long-form epic ballad “All Delighted People,” a dramatic homage to the Apocalypse, existential ennui, and Paul Simon’s “Sounds of Silence.” Sounds delightful, yes! The song was originally workshopped on Sufjan’s previous tour in the fall of 2009. Other songs on the EP include the 17-minute guitar jam-for-single-mothers “Djohariah,” and the gothic piano ballad “The Owl and the Tanager,” a live-show mainstay (and Debbie Downer if you ask us; what’s it doing on a “Delighted” EP?).

Raise Your Hands!

Greetings from Funkytown,

I thought i’d kick things off with this awesome jam by the Funky President himself, James Brown. It’s a medley of “Brother Rapp” and “Ain’t It Funky” in Paris 1971. The transition from the first song to the second around the 3:45 mark is absolutely SICK! This show also features the Bootsy Collins on bass (although you can hear him much better on the live album of this show: Love Power Peace Olympia, Paris 1971.

Now that you’re swimmin’ in the funk, groove on this:

Mother T’s got some chops! I heard Jesus was too busy making this meteor shower happen to join in the jam:

Joshua Tree Under the Milky Way from Henry Jun Wah Lee on Vimeo.

That’s some divinely funky stuff. Feast on it, baby!

The Merry Monk of Funk

Join me on the MonkCast as I talk with Ian Cron (that’s him in the pic to the left…the white one).

Click here to listen to my conversation with Ian Cron.

Ian is the author of Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim’s Tale, a book on St. Francis of Assisi that Phyllis Tickle calls “…absolutely seductive…a feast for the soul as well as a great, churning, joyful romp for the spirit!” The Archbishop of Canterbury liked the book too. So Ian has that going for him…which is nice.

Listen as we talk about mysticism and swap stories about being one with God. I’m a mystic, he’s a mystic, wouldn’t you like to be a mystic too? You probably already are.

Click the link above to download or listen to the interview, or use the player over there to the right in the sidebar. Click here to subscribe to the MonkCast via iTunes or your favorite RSS reader and join me for more merry monkery.