Bust a move on Jesus

I've been sitting watching Ted Kennedy's funeral services. Funerals always seem more appropriate in the rain. I have great respect for him but this service is agonizing. Plus, think of the millions of dollars that were spent on security, secret service for all those presidents, transportation for all those people--the buses, limos. The Boston and Arlington police. It's incredible. Being a big advocate of cremation, I think, wouldn't that have been a million times easier and more efficient to cremate him? A small service on the water at Hyannisport? Ashes in the water, some roses, a few thoughts said by family members? John Lennon was cremated, had no service and God only knows whatever happened to his ashes. A service for him would have been huge. Look at the Michael Jackson fiasco. California is in debt up to its ass and roads had to be closed while a police motorcade lugged Michael's body around for all the freaks and fans to cry over. And, as of now, he's still not in the ground. At least one more motorcade is still ahead.

Back to Ted. I'm listening to this agonizing music drone on and on. Here's my point: Church music is nauseating. All of it, without exception. I remember as a little kid sitting in our hot Methodist church on a bright, sunny Sunday, thinking to myself, "This music sucks, I want to shoot myself." I was probably 5 years old. Sometimes I was offered a choice between sitting in a Sunday school class with some teacher trying to convince us that practically all fun things were sinful or going to "big church" sitting with the grownups. Stuck there with this horribly depressing music and long winded minister telling everyone that practically all fun things were sinful. Either choice was bad, except Sunday school didn't have the crappy music. Throughout my life it always seemed odd to me that if I went to a wedding, a christening or a funeral, all the music sounded exactly the same. Same old man sitting at the organ, nearly motionless, staring down at the music through small glasses resting near the tip of his nose. Exactly the same tonality of the organ and choir, regardless of the church. Whether the songs were sung out of sadness or happiness, it was all the same monotone drab depressing tonality. Did it all originate during the dark, plague-ridden Middle Ages? Going into these damp, dreary, dim, candlelit churches, crying and praying for the end of war, disease, and famine? Who first came up with this horrific music? Somewhere, sometime, someone decided "All of the music played within these walls will be depressing beyond belief... FOREVER. For THIS will be church music." I think I'll find a nice black Baptist church to go to. Get me a tamborine and bust a move on Jesus!