Being a Part of the Misfit Generation Pt.6 "The Misfit Generation"

This title track is the most relatable song on the EP. I say this because of the chorus:

"Going through life man I'm feelin like I am a ghost
If you ain't ever been called a loser don't act like you know
Haa
Have you ever been the butt of someone else's joke
Have you ever felt that suicide was the only way to go

I didn't think so
Oh, oh, oh, oh
(x5)"

Not everyone has felt this way but some of us have. I have had family that i've never had the pleasure to meet because of suicide. 

In their own verses Marty and Fern talk about their lives and how they started being misfits and that they started this because they were called by God to do this. To make a whole generation of Misfits: The Misfits Generation. 

They've just started their journey. They just officially signed with Capitol Records this past year and that gained some traction for them.

Being a Part of the Misfit Generation Pt. 5 "Kumbaya"

"THIS SONG IS DARK, TRAPPY, VIBEY, EMOTIONAL BANGER. ONE OF OUR FAVORITE SONGS OF THE MISFIT GENERATION."- Social Club Misfits on their song "Kumbaya"

This song I haven't listened to that often but it does seem very emotionally driven:
 "Hope you having fun I feel miserable
Defeated by my regrets, Living check to check to check"
That's one of the first lines in the song which really sets up the whole song.

Fern talks about what he was before Social Club and more importantly what he was before Christ got a hold of him.

"Tho we are blessed to do this cause what I was doing then
Moving packs is something you shouldn't know but I tell you I did it when I be producing flows
Marty told me Fern grab this moment I told him that be no problem homie"

He talks about his life now that he is a part of this movement that Marty and Fern are on.

This song is inspiring. Marty and Fern are inspiring because they know they've done some wrong in the past, everyone has
, but it's the way that you carry yourself after you've been forgiven.

Being a Part of the Misfit Generation Pt.4 "Courage"

"Courage" is my favorite song on the EP because it gives me goosebumps every time i listen to it. It starts out kind of dreamy with Tree Giants (I've never heard of them before this song.). The message is that they found their place: "You found your place in the mystery when you said to me
I finally begun to see what I'm meant to become". They found their place in God's grand plan.

Next verse is Marty talking to his wife and what they had done before he married her. He took random drives and long talks on the bottom step of her house. Their conversations got deep and he fell in love with her which he was not prepared for.

Now Fern's verse is the part where i get goosebumps.

"In my life time, I've been out of my right mind
With nothing left no lifelines just wishful thinking in my rhymes
And my kids is soaring, how time flies
My eyesight set way past the sky because I probably been on 10,000 flights and the first 5,000 I was petrified
When you know God's real, you settle down
This song is nothing but motivation in a time where real is a dying breed
Though there ain't none, me I want unity
Everybody knows, ain't no I in team
From now on we all shine like diamond rings and we won't stop till the whole world sings this song about hope and the love God brings
I told them the plans always been unify
We all fall short is just you and God
To me this song is more than lines because I could've died like four times, but I didn't so I know there's a plan
Difference is this time took the Lord by the hands
Deviate no man, not part of the program
Now please all stand and tell them we all can"

Even though we make mistakes even though we all fall short of the glory we can still live in His story. We are all a team, Christ's team. God doesn't have to keep us alive: I could've died like four times, but I didn't so I know there's a plan" but he has a plan for our lives and even how we influenced people in our life after we are gone. "Everybody knows, ain't no I in team
From now on we all shine like diamond rings and we won't stop till the whole world sings this song about hope and the love God brings": We need to stick together: Misfits, Christians, Catholics, etc. Stick together and bring God's love to ends of the earth. That's the mission.

Paralympics Pt 9

Getting the Paralympics on free nationally televised channels is the best way to get the word out. Everyone with a television can get this channel. Therefore, everyone with this channel can watch the Paralympics. Getting the word out and changing the worlds perception on disabled individuals is what we need. I have had people give me the weirdest looks because of the way I walk. When I’m in a wheelchair basketball chair I don’t get those kinds of looks because when I’m in it I’m usually in front of other people in one or they are used to wheelchair basketball athletes.

We need to change the way people understand disabilities, disabled people, and disabled sports. Life for disabled people is hard, but having people know about disabilities will take some of the worries off our shoulders. When someone looks at a disabled person they shouldn’t think “Ugghh they’re gross!” they should think “I want to know more about them. I’m going to go over there and talk to them.”. 

Paralympics Pt 8

Now on these television channels are movies and television shows ranging from crime dramas to comedies. What do these forms of media have in common? They all have actors and actresses in those movies and shows, that are some sort of celebrity. Daniel J. Boorstin said it best: “Only media can create the celebrity”. What Boorstin is saying is without something for people to notice someone there is no way that that someone can become famous. The way we fix that is by having disabled people in the media. Whether that is having disabled athletes on television in their particular event or even having them on a prime time talk show. Just getting these athletes out there can make a difference in a life. I didn’t even know the Paralympics existed until my freshman year of high school. That’s how well the media has been doing in getting the word out on the Paralympics and disabled celebrities. And the only reason I knew about it then is because I was doing a research paper on getting adaptive sports facility into my hometown.

Paralympics pt 7

The reason I share these stories is because people don’t understand the disabled community. Some able-bodied people, not all, think that if they have something wrong with their physique then they probably have something wrong with their intellect. The way we disabled athletes show that not all disabled people are that way is through the Paralympics and it’s events. I love the way the United Kingdom did this during the 2012 Paralympics in London. According to From Awww To Awe Factor: UK Audience Meaning-Making Of The 2012 Paralympics As Mediated Spectacle by Caroline E. M. Hodges, Richard Scullion, and Daniel Jackson: “In the region of 2.75 million tickets were sold, making the London Games virtually a sell-out. In addition to those spectators who experienced events live, an audience of nearly 40 million people (70 per cent of the UK population) watched some of the Paralympics on television (Hodges et al. 2014). The competition was broadcast in the United Kingdom by Channel 4, a publicly owned, commercially funded public service broadcaster, and it was the first time this station had covered the event.” That’s what I want: “a publicly owned, commercially funded public service broadcaster” (Hodges) or what we usually associate with this: free local digital channels. I don’t know about you but that’s almost all I watch unless I go to my grandma’s house where she has cable and every channel you could imagine.

Paralympics pt 6

In the spring of 2016 was my final tournament: The NWBA National Tournament in Louisville, Kentucky. I had been there last year, but couldn’t play because I wasn’t registered with the NWBA yet, so I knew what to expect when you roll/ walk into the Expo Center and you see people in all shapes and sizes, with various disabilities, and from different backgrounds. This tournament is different from all other tournaments as the other tournaments I had played in were either just Varsity level or Prep and Varsity level. This time all of the age groups play in one venue. So, there were 4 groups of teams in one building: Varsity, Prep, Collegiate, and Adult. The tournament takes 4 days to complete. We started 10^th and ended 10^th, in my opinion not a bad season. In our last game, we played the Mary Free Bed Junior Pacers, which since our team sees them at every other tournament my team played in, some of my teammates became good friends with them. In the fourth quarter with like 7 seconds left my teammate Alex, who hadn’t thrown up a three in any of our other games, shot the basketball right behind the three-point line…. And … MADE IT! Yeah we were down by like 20 but HE MADE IT! The crowd went wild, both sides, Alex starts crying, his dad starts crying, it was just an amazing experience. Alex told me later that the Pacers were the first team he had ever played as a wheelchair basketball player. He also said that when he went into his shooting motion, he knew he was going to make it.

Paralympics pt 5

A few of my favorite memories happened in the summer of 2015 and the spring of 2016. During the summer of 2015 Coach Bob and the rest of my team went to a camp at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. We stayed on campus for a week, were assigned to a team that was coached by an U. of I. player, practiced with our team, learned new skills from the U. of Ill. Men’s coach and Women’s coach, and got to eat authentic college cafeteria food. It was so much fun. This is going to sound weird, but I felt in my comfort zone with all these athletes that either had the same disability as me or closer to my situation than an able-bodied athlete, which I hung out with in high school. 

Paralympics pt4

I loved the interaction and normalcy of how we (my teammates and my coach) interacted as “normal” human beings. We would make jokes about our particular handicap and go to Taco Bell basically after every practice and be “normal” human beings. We went to Taco Bell so much I think by the time we finished our season the workers at that particular Taco Bell knew our order. When I say jokes, I mean jokes that no able-bodied person would get or be able to tell without being offensive. My teammate Molly, who mind you has no finger tips and only one full leg, is the funniest one, I think, out of our whole team. She used to always tell us funny stories that had happened in her life. She told us this story about how one day she had a substitute teacher in one of her classes and told the teacher that her ankle hurt. (the one that she didn’t have) The substitute told her to go to the nurse and Molly just sat in the hallway, basically skipping class. I have so many other stories like that from my teammates.

Paralympics Pt 3

Now, I wasn’t as impressive as Mr. Serio in my wheelchair basketball career (Which totaled about a year). I remember the first time I got into a basketball wheelchair. My dad had been a friend of Coach Bob Burnsworth for a long time and had tried to get my dad to play for his team for probably since he first found out that I had cerebral palsy. Here’s the thing about Bob: He got into a wreck about 20-30 years ago which took away most of the use of his legs. In between the time he lost most of the function in his legs and 2015 he became one of the most prominent National Wheelchair Basketball Association’s (NWBA) head coaches winning the Ed Owen Coach of the Year Award in April of 2014 which is the highest honor a head coach can receive in the NWBA. I didn’t know this at the time though. So, when I went to the local YMCA to sit in (pun intended) on one of Coach Burnsworth’s open practices. (this particular practice anyone, even able-bodied people, could get in a chair and try WB out for themselves) I wasn’t very good at it at first. Have you ever seen wheelchair basketball played? It’s rough, you have to push the wheelchair, dribble, and shoot basically all in 3 or 4 different motions. As I started to come to more practices and meet my teammates, I got hooked. 

Paralympics pt 2

The Paralympics have some of the greatest athletes (able-bodied or otherwise) that have ever hit a court, track, floor, etc. This is evident when you look at Steve Serio. Mr. Serio is 29 years old and plays for Team USA on the wheelchair basketball team, and because of his and the teams efforts went undefeated in the 2016 Paralympics in Rio this past summer. They won their first gold medal in 28 years. “To think about what we accomplished and to accomplish it together with this group of guys, it is special. From my personal experience, getting fourth at Beijing [2008] was really hard. Getting bronze at London [2012] was an important stepping stone for the programme, just to know that we belong on the podium. Four years later to win the gold it has been an amazing journey. I would not change it for anything.” (Paralympic) says Mr. Serio after the gold medal win, beating Team Spain 68 to 52. 

Paralympics pt 1

Volleyball, tennis, basketball, and track and field events. What do those four things have in common? They all have adaptive counter parts. Sitting volleyball, wheelchair tennis, wheelchair basketball, and adaptive track and field events. This is just a short list of the events that take place during the Paralympics. The Paralympic games are an adaptive series of events that take place during both summer and winter. By adaptive I mean: these events are for disabled veterans or disabled citizens of participating countries and the rules of the events are fitted more toward a person with a disability like paralysis or cerebral palsy. Also, the rules for who can play in what event is different for each event. A person with quadriplegia can play wheelchair rugby, but a person that has cerebral palsy can’t.  In summer, the Paralympics, have sports like wheelchair fencing and wheelchair basketball. In winter, athletes compete in events such as sled hockey and wheelchair curling. The Paralympics can be very entertaining, intense, and inspirational for disabled and able bodied people alike.

Bobby Bones

Yes, that IS his actual name. He is most famous for his Country radio show aptly named: The Bobby Bones Show. He is in his mid-30’s, not married and loves what he does. He has dabbled in a few different mediums other than radio: Author, Singer, and now Comedian. His book is named Bare Bones: I’m Not Lonely If You’re Reading This Book. His band is named the Raging Idiots.

The Raging Idiots consist of Bobby, his radio buddy Eddie, and a few random friends around the Country music scene. As their name portrays they don’t take themselves too seriously.  With songs like “She’s a 10 and I’m a 2” and “Netflix Love Song” you get the idea. 

And your welcome!

I love Bobby because of his realism. He talks about what he is going through in real life such as being single(when he was single) and working out. They also talk about different things happening in the world whether it's sports or politics or their own segment named "Tell Me Something Good"."TMSG" is a segment that everyone on the show tells a news story where something good happens. It's the best thing to hear in the morning. There is also a segment where Lunchbox (that's what they call him) tells another news story where someone does something stupid: "Lunchbox's Bonehead Story of The Day"

In conclusion, I love this show and aspire to be Bobby one day.

I LOVE TRUMP!

Alright so now that I have your full undivided attention:

I know this is late and we are done with both animation and music videos, but I had to do a blog on two of my favorite music videos. Both are by the Social Club Misfits (I know I haven't finished my series on their EP yet. I'll get to it.) Any way the songs these music videos are for are "Bad Advice" and "Marriage Goals". Both songs and both music videos make me laugh every time I see them or hear them.When I listen to these songs I see me. I see myself in Marty's lyrics most of all. He's awkward, funny, loves Jesus, and knows that if he doesn't put any of these things into his lyrics he's not doing his job.

Bad Advice:


This first video by Marty and Fern is a throw back to the good ole days when 8 bit video games were cool. Even if you don't listen to the song you notice things: the 8 bit Jesus flipping a table, Marty dancing at the disco, The 8-bit Chewie standing up in the convertible. The reason I love this video is because of the references to pop culture and their previous works (Paisano's Wylin').

Bad Advice (Above) and Paisano's Wylin' Below













Marriage Goals:
Now Marriage Goals is equally as awesome as Bad Advice. It is still animated but not in 8-bit format. This time it's more of a anime style. It is still funny, because that's who Marty is.  I don't think it looks like it took forever to make. Which might be the reason the animator did it that way.

Anyway, I love these animated music videos. As far as the music goes, I already did a blog post on "Marriage Goals", you can check that out under my label.

More of who I am:

I was going to do a post about the new comedy “Speechless” on ABC which stars a teenager with cerebral palsy. What I want to do now is not talk about a character who is played by an actor with cerebral palsy but I want to tell you about my experience with it.

I was born with cerebral palsy on January 16, 1998. The significance of this date I’ll get to a little later. I was born premature. The doctors/ in charge of my birth told my parents that I should be aborted. They went along with it… no no they didn’t. I’m here because they made the correct decision. The reason the doctors wanted me aborted was because they thought I wasn’t going to live past 2. I’m 18 now.

Yes, life has been hard. My family never has gotten government help so it’s been hard on our finances. I went to a public-school system throughout my whole life. With a few minor tweaks to the doors and different things to make it more handicap accessible to everyone not just me we got through that stage. My life is definitely not a sitcom, sometimes I feel like it is with what my family and I get into. It makes for a lot of great stories.

I want to finish off this post with a quote:

“Questions don’t hurt, Ignorance does”- Geri Jewell on “The Facts of Life” 1980’s

And also want to invite you to ask me questions. No question is a bad question unless you already know the answer.

This is an old picture of me at Shriner's Hospital for Children in Chicago. (I'm still rocking those knee high socks               till this day)

Being a Part of the Misfit Generation Pt.3 "Marriage Goals"

Next on the EP is “Marriage Goals” (Which I keep spelling wrong but thank you auto correct), a dreamy sounding, funny song that makes me laugh every time I hear it.

Song starts out with Marty pointing out that he can’t sing and then him singing but with an autotuned voice. He is talking to his wife wanting to take her on a private vacation after he is done working or “wylin” (Look up Paisano's Wylin’ by Andy Mineo Ft. Marty). Wylin’ basically means working. Then he starts his rap pointing out that she is his favorite person and that she doesn’t get his references to popular movies and he doesn’t question why she stays with him. As I’ve said before Marty is goofy and he seems to have fun with what he is rapping about.

Now after the Chorus of Marty singing autotuned comes Fern talking about his wife. She was his support system right out of prison and has helped him get back on the right path. He says that they went from “Mickey D’s to skirt steak” which is him saying that he has went from poor to rich since he met her and started this path that he’s on.

It’s so cool to hear songs like this because you get a feel of who these artists actually are without the microphone.

Next Blog should be up soon. Talk to you guys then. If you guys have any questions leave it in the comment box underneath this blog. Thanks for reading this!

Being a Part of the Misfit Generation Pt. 2 "Wavemasters" featuring Aha Gazelle and Chris Durso

This song as it says in the title is entitled "Wavemasters". At the beginning you'll notice that this song has a very electric sound to it. This works for the song because of the basis of the song "Wavemasters". Now when Chris starts talking what he is saying is that Jesus was the first misfit and it is installing the mindset that we are to be like Jesus so we must be misfits. He then goes on to say that Jesus got off the throne and lived among us for 33 years and died for the discomfort  (our sin) that brought him off the throne in the first place. Which is a very good point.

Next, we have Marty being his goofy self with the lyrics “I might be ugly but my girl is flames”. He goes on to point out the people that don’t like his music: mainstream rappers and radio. He then says he’s been changed after he became a Christian. He loves what he’s doing and loves the other misfits (Christians) that are around him.

Now in the middle of this Chris comes back and says that all Christians, all Misfits, have a part to play in God’s plan. No matter how big or small we must run to it. No matter if no one wants to do it. You do it. Not aware, that's a part of the problem

“Not involved, that's a part of the problem Not appalled, that's a problem with conscience They stuck in they pride and it leads to the violence It's a choice to be silent Like you stuck on a island all by yourself with nobody to vibe with” is part of Fern’s rap. What he’s saying here is that as Misfits, as Christians, we must get involved even if there is no one around to help us. We must be disgusted by our sin and not be prideful as that leads to violent protests.

Now with most of the song over Aha Gazelle uses the “I will make you fishers of men” line spoken by Jesus in the Bible for inspiration. Singing lyrics like these: “We see them, they bitin' the sound now” and repeatedly “They buyin' and pullin' the line down” The music or “sound” is the bait and the listeners are hooked.

Next Blog should be up soon. Talk to you guys then. If you guys have any questions leave it in the comment box underneath this blog. Thanks for reading this!

 

The EP Cover