NOW SHOWING AT A BLOG NEAR YOU

Looking for something to do in between trick or treating and celebrating All Saints Day? Well, why not catch up on some Halloween reading? After all, this is the time of year all the big boys and girls blog about the same stuff we do here all year round. Best to take advantage of it while you can.

First up, Taylor Marshall from the Caterbury Tales offers up his Top Ten Suggestions to Have a Catholic Halloween. I couldn’t help but chuckle when he suggests refraining from passing out religious literature instead of candy. Methinks perhaps that Mr. Marshall once fell victim to those well meaning, but ultimately insane, Chick tracts just as I once did. You can be sure that happened to Fr. Joe from Southern Fried Catholicism, who while discussing the surprisingly holy origins of Halloween, recollects the popular ‘Judgment Houses” many protestant churches put up in the 90s. But you know, rather than ponder too long on what some nut jobs gave done the holiday, why not stop by The Crescat’s place and consider The Virtue of Halloween instead (it’s worth it just to see the homemade costume of KISS’ Paul Stanley she wore as a child). But whatever way you choose to approach Halloween bemoans Danielle Bean at Crisis Magazine, please don’t mommify it! “The Church doesn’t ignore pain, fear, evil, and death.” she notes, and neither should we.

Now as you might expect us to around these parts, we spend the evening watching scary movies. And we’re hardly the only ones. Even a non-horror fan like Red Cardigan from And Sometimes Tea manages to step out of her comfort zone during this time of year and surprisingly finds some enjoyment in The Walking Dead (at least the parts she keeps her eyes open during). It’s all enough to make Paul Jarzembowski from Spirtual Popcorn wonder just what can scary movies teach us? There’s something to them, that’s for sure. Take for instance Fr. Dennis Kriz, OSM, who on his personal blog manages to find some Marian Imagery in the Terminator, or the Curt Jester, who while musing on those bygone days before his conversion, questions to what extent his atheism led to his love of movies involving horror and supernaturalism.

Well, it’s time to carve some Jack O’ Lanterns and get the boy suited up for trick or treating, so I’ll be going now. If you still need some more reading material, The Happy Catholic has some good links of her own worth exploring this All Hallows Eve. Stay safe everyone, hope none of you get a Chick tract this year. Or any Mary Janes. Man I always hated getting a bag full of those when I was a kid.

HAPPY HAPPY HALLOWEEN V

As long time readers know, it’s just wouldn’t be Halloween around here if we didn’t offer our yearly cheap and easy to make costume suggestions based on some of the movies we’ve discussed over the past twelve months. We do this to help out those folks who might feel that the fare found on store shelves is either too demonic to wear to their local Protestant fall festival, or too risqué to walk around in at their Catholic parish’s Halloween carnival. Of course, we realize that what is and is not considered risqué changes with the times. If you don’t want to take our word for it, just check out Business Insider’s history of slutty Halloween costumes (because nothing says business reporting like an article about slutty Halloween costumes).

Costumed cuties exposing their shoulders in 1930. Harlots.

Still, even with changing social mores, we think the costumes we have to offer this year will meet just about anyone’s minimum standards of decency. Not standards of good taste or intelligence, mind you, just decency.

First up, we have what has to be the infinite loop of Halloween costumes, SAM SMITH from ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES.  In the movie, Sam was a master of disguise who was so good that he even managed to infiltrate the enemy camp by masquerading as a tomato. So, basically, if you choose this costume, you would be disguising yourself as a master of disguise disguised as a tomato. Got that? And all you would need is one of those Dept of Corrections orange trash bags, some leaves, and a pair of green leggings. And what better costume for Christians as we’re often called to take on many guises in order to get God’s work done on this world of ours? As St. Paul wrote in I Corinthians, “To the Jews I became like a Jew to win over Jews; to those under the law I became like one under the law—though I myself am not under the law—to win over those under the law. To those outside the law I became like one outside the law—though I am not outside God’s law but within the law of Christ—to win over those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, to win over the weak. I have become all things to all, to save at least some. All this I do for the sake of the gospel, so that I too may have a share in it… So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. Avoid giving offense, whether to Jews or Greeks or the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in every way, not seeking my own benefit but that of the many, that they may be saved.”

If being a tomato just doesn’t grab you but you still like the costume within a costume idea, then how about giving PAUL as CTHULHU from THE LAST LOVECRAFT: RELIC OF CTHULHU a try. Just print out and laminate the head of H.P.’s most popular elder squid thingy, grab some old swimming pool noodles to use as tentacles, and you’re ready for trick or treating. The neat thing about Paul is that while he still lives in his mother’s basement, is totally useless in a fight, and probably smells like the dollar menu at McDonald’s, the two main characters in the movie can’t accomplish a thing without him because he’s the only one who took time to memorize Lovecraft’s works so he’d know what to do if Shoggoth showed up. Christians should keep that in mind. As Fr. John Hardon wrote, “The seed of God's revealed truth has been sown into our hearts at Baptism. But that was only the beginning. We must do everything in our power to grasp the meaning of what we believe. Otherwise the devil will come along and steal the faith from our hearts. There has never been a substitute for understanding our Christian religion. There is no substitute today. But now, this understanding is absolutely imperative. The world in which we live is hell-bent on stealing from our hearts what we believe. That is why the Catechism of the Catholic Church is such a providential Godsend.” The Catechism is free online. Read it.

You know, our first two costumes are fine for individuals, but since this is a Catholic site, we recognize the possibility that some of our readers might have a whole brood of younglings to deck out for Halloween. If that’s the case for you, then the CHILDREN OF THE CORN should be a no-brainer. And the best thing is, If your family dresses very conservatively, you may already have all the clothing you will need to outfit the little buggers. If not, no biggie, just go borrow some from the local Pentecostals. Then all you need to do is pick up a few ears of corn from the grocery store, hand the kids some old gardening tools, and you’re ready to go. Now to get the most enjoyment you can out of these costumes, be sure to find the nearest neighborhood where there’s a large concentration of new atheists and send your mob of kids marching down the middle of the street waving their corn and utensils about while yelling “Outsiders!!!” at the top of their lungs. Hey, this is what cowards like Richard Dawkins are telling everybody you’re training your kids to be like anyway, you may as well have some fun with it.

Speaking of being hated, we come finally to what may be the most horrifying costume we’ve ever suggested. Yes, it’s NUKIE from, what else, NUKIE. Now, to wear this costume you will have to go through the trouble of making a paper mache head that looks a bit like Yoda after he fell into a wood chipper. But after that, all you’ll need to do is go roll around in some mud (or if you’re brave, a septic tank) and you’re good to go, although for the full effect, you might want to rub some Vaseline under your nose so it looks like you have an unending nasal drip. Whatever options you choose, the end result is guaranteed to make you the most hated trick or treater on the block. There’s a good chance any home on whose door you knock will actually egg you. If that happens, just consider it good training for the Christian life. Remember, Jesus said that “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” So we weren’t exactly promised a life of endless yucks as followers of Christ. And if you know your Church history, people like Dawkins are nothing new. There will always be someone who hates us for our beliefs. But if we’ve had a true conversion in our hearts, and we bolster that faith with a continued study of the reasoning behind it, we can weather the hatred and be all of the things others need us to be as God deals with them. At last that’s how it works on our good days.

And that’s about it for this year. So everybody suit up, get out there, and have some fun. Happy Happy Halloween everyone!

BMC MOVIE OF THE WEEK: NUKIE

Nukie (1993)

• Ronald France,
• Glynis Johns,
• Steve Railsback

A benevolent alien arrives in a sparcely populated African country to search for his brother who has been captured by a secret U.S. government agency. Two African boys help "Nukie" trek across Africa as U.S. government agents seek to head him off and prevent what they believe to be an extraterrestrial invasion.

12% want to see it

PG, 1 hr. 39 min.

Director: Sian Odendal, Sias Odendal

 

October 23, 2011: Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

When the weekly readings start off with the words “Thus says the LORD: You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt,” you can pretty much guess the subject matter of the movie I’ve got in store for you this week. But if you’re expecting Alien Nation or District 9, well, you just haven’t been reading this blog long enough. Oh no, I’ve got something much, much more painful in store. What I’ve got for you is Nukie… and it’s possible you may never forgive me for that.

Nukie is the touching story of two small aliens that kind of look like ET (if ET resembled a monkey sculpted from human excrement) who become stranded on Earth and struggle to reunite. This is problematic because Miko has been captured by the evil American Space Foundation (an organization I strongly suspect is modeled after NASA, mostly because every time they show these guys getting out of cars, the doors have the NASA logo stenciled on them), while Nukie gets stuck in the middle of nowhere Africa hiding from a bunch of ritual sacrifice practicing tribesman, a sympathetic nun (Glynis Johns, hoping nobody remembers her as the mother from Mary Poppins), and a NASA Space Foundation helicopter pilot (Steve Railsback, hoping somebody, anybody, will remember him as Charles Manson from Helter Skelter).

On the surface that might sound like a decent setup for an entertaining movie, but trust me, it’s not. For those foolhardy enough to watch it (go ahead, I dare you, it’s on YouTube), Nukie will hurt you. The pain starts right away as Miko is tortured by the NASA Space Foundation scientists while he continuously screeches out NUUUUUKIEEEEE!!! again and again and again and… you get the point. Anyway, simultaneously, Nukie is plodding all over Africa incessantly screeching out MIIIIIKOOOO!!! again and again and again and… all the while failing to wipe his constantly running nose, not even once. (I’m serious. Picture a walking turd with a sinus infection. That’s Nukie.) About all Nukie does manage to accomplish is to talk to some baboons (who talk back!), terrorize a local tribe by causing an earthquake, and spend way too much screen time calling out for the ground to swallow him up and end his miserable lonely existence (which, at one point, it does). It’s all made completely unbearable by the fact that five minutes into the film, you realize absolutely nothing that happens during the course of the  movie is necessary because the aliens have the power to turn into balls of energy and fly off into space anytime they want to. But apparently that slipped their minds until the very end of the movie, because neither alien ever does it. Instead, Nukie just teleports around the jungle until the natives reject Christianity (no, really) while Miko uses his powers to escape his prison cell, only to sit in the very next room teaching the NASA Space Foundation mainframe how to have feelings. I suppose it just goes to show that if you’re going to assume the physical form of feces, you’re likely to end up with s@#% for brains.

To make matters even worse (if that’s possible by this point), Nukie leaves you with the distinct impression that it’s trying really hard to say something serious about the United States. I don’t know quite what, but… something. You see, all Nukie knows about Miko’s location is that he is being held captive by America, whom both Nukie and the two tribal children he has befriended mistakenly believe to be an individual person. So basically Nukie spends the length of the film looking for this guy America so he can find out why he’s treating everyone so badly. It all leads to a really bizarre scene near the end of the film where we see Nukie writhing around on the ground after being riddled with harpoons from a spear gun and one of the children curled up dying from a snake bite (wow, they just don’t make kids movies like they used to). Faced with all this carnage, the remaining child shakes his fists at the sky and bellows out, “America! AMERRRRICA! Help us!” (It’s true. May I be struck with leprosy if I’m making this stuff up.)

Look, I’m not even gonna pretend to know what the South African filmmakers had in mind with all this. Is it anti-American? Pro-American? Do they even know where America is? Whatever the specifics, the broad insinuation appears to be that we Americans don’t treat those from outside our country as best as we could, not even when they literally land right on our doorsteps. Now, how much truth there is in that criticism is arguable, but in general, Christians should view any degree of antagonism towards “aliens” as a thing to be avoided. The Catechism explains that “The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him. Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants' duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.”

Like with many areas involving Catholic social teaching, what the Catechism does here is lay out a guiding philosophy for immigration issues, but leaves the specific methodology of carrying it out to our individual consciences. We can legitimately support or oppose various legislations, even taking an opposite side of the argument from the guy sitting next to us in the pew, as long as our solution adheres to the general ethical guidelines regarding the fundamental rights of the human person and charity towards strangers. For instance, the USCCB is currently throwing its weight behind the DREAM act legislation and makes their case for supporting it at this site. And since the bishops do represent the teaching authority of the Church, it’s not a bad idea to check out what they have to say about the issue. But since the DREAM act is a specific legislation, individual Catholics can still oppose it in good conscience as long as they are doing so for the consideration of the “common good for which they are responsible” and not just out of fear or hatred for the “aliens” it is meant to benefit.

So, which way should you feel about something like the DREAM act? HA! Like you’re really gonna get an answer here. Immigration is one of those issues that requires a lot of thought, and God (no matter what the current crop of uninformed atheists would have us believe) expects us to put the big brains He gave us to the task. Always keeping the guidelines above in the forefront, consider the issue, pray about it, and make up your mind.

As for Nukie though, just take my word for it and avoid the wretched thing. It’s just what Nukie looks like, a big heaping pile of crap.

THE B-LIST: QUESTIONABLE MUSICAL MOMENTS #9 – WILLIAM SHATNER PERFORMS BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

Because some site is bound to inflict this on you anyway, it may as well be here in our dark little corner of the blogosphere where it belongs…

Well, at least now we know what happens when geeks drop acid. I know that picking just one weird thing out of this freak show seems futile, but there is one extra confusing moment in the video for me. At about the 3:40 mark, the correct lyric should read “Bismillah!”, but the onscreen subtitles declare “It’s my law!” Why?

According to Wikipedia (I know, I know, but it’s what I had on short notice), “Basmala, or Bismillah, is an Arabic noun used as a collective name for the whole of the recurring Islamic phrase bismillahi r-rahmani r-rahimi. It is sometimes translated as ‘In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful’. This phrase is recited before each sura, except for the ninth; according to others it constitutes the first verse of 113 suras/chapters of the Qur'an, and is used in a number of contexts by Muslims. It is recited several times as part of daily prayers, and is usually the first phrase in the preamble of the constitutions of Islamic countries. It also forms the start of many dedication inscriptions on gravestones, buildings, and works of art, which go on to name the deceased or the donor.”

So, considering Bismallah is a Muslim exclamation, were the lyrics changed so as not to offend Muslims? Doubtful. I sure don’t remember anyone declaring a fatwa on Freddie Mercury when he first sang the song all those years ago. So it could just be that Shatner’s getting old and couldn’t understand the words Queen was singing in the first place. Or maybe (and this is a long shot) the Jewish Shatner is uncomfortable using a Muslim term. Now, I doubt that’s the case, but wouldn’t it be something if it were? After all, people can get a little wonky when you start bringing religions together.

If you want to experience just how wonky, try reading paragraph 841 of the Catechism to one of your more stringent evangelical friends. That’s the passage which says, “The Church's relationship with the Muslims: ‘The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day.’ Now I can’t tell you how many protestant websites there are which takes this paragraph as proof, PROOF I TELL YOU, that Catholics are not Christians. Because after all, Muslims worship God (Allah) but don’t recognize the trinity, so if the Church teaches that Catholics and Muslims worship the same God, then Catholics must worship God (Allah) and not recognize the trinity, so Catholics must not worship the same God as other Christians, ergo Catholics are not Christians. And they put this kind of stuff on their websites with a straight face.

Sigh. Sometimes, there’s just nothing so dangerous as a Christian with a highlighter. Paragraph 841 of the Catechism by itself does read a little iffy when taken by itself. But if you keep reading, paragraphs 846 and 847 not only leave little doubt where the Church stands on Jesus, but puts paragraph 841 in its proper context. "All salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is His Body....They could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it." So you see, paragraph 841 is NOT ecumenism gone wild. By itself it just recognizes that Islam (not without errors) stems from the same Abrahamic tradition that the Church herself does. And when combined with the surrounding paragraphs, it hints at the way God may save folks who are not “fully incorporated into the society of the Church” because they never knew “that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary".

All this whole section of the Catechism basically does is recognize that since Islam helps foster a belief in one God, Muslims who are truly and innocently ignorant of Christ (another post for another time) can still be saved by the singular grace of God. This whole notion of “baptism of desire” goes all the way back to the Bible. It’s what St. Paul was getting at when he stood up at Areopagus in Acts 17 and said, “You Athenians, I see that in every respect you are very religious. For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines, I even discovered an altar inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’ What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.” So really, if you’ve got a problem with paragraph 841 of the Catechism, you’ve got a problem with the teachings of the apostles. All I can say to that is put down the highlighter and back away from it. Everyone will be better off in the end.

Now, with that cleared up… can anyone please tell me what’s going on in this Shatner video? Please?

STILL VOICES #007

OH, THE HORROR

Is everybody else as excited as I am? Tonight’s the night! It’s the return of everybody’s favorite primetime gut munching zombie show… THE WALKEN DEAD!

What? Oh. It’s The Walking Dead? Well, that’s pretty good, too, even if it could use more cowbell.

Man, we love October around here. It’s that time of the year when we hardly have to crank up the DVD player because all the channels are so jam packed with horror and sci-fi goodies. It’s also the time of year somebody has to remind the world that not only can Christians watch a lot of this stuff (a lot, not all), but that we might just have a better grasp of the subject material. This year it’s author Brian Godawa who’s taking a shot at it over at Speculative Faith with his series of post on An Apologetic Of Horror. Take a peak if you have the time. After the show, of course.

INTERMISSION

Sorry for the lack of content, folks. A couple of nights ago my wife’s step-father passed away, so while she helps her mother with arrangements, I’ll be doing double duty here at home. Prayers for Jack’s eternal rest would be gratefully appreciated even though, in all honesty, he was hardly the kind of person who would have accepted the validity of such things while he was alive. Like so many others, Jack renounced any belief in God decades ago after watching his first wife lose an an agonizing battle with lung cancer. He just refused to accept that a God could exist who would allow such suffering in the world. There are many valid theological reasons for why life is this way of course, but as those who have experienced such events knows, that knowledge alone can often be of little comfort. Jack, unfortunately, was one of those who could never overcome the bitterness of his loss to ever consider the possibility of such reasons, much less accept the peace of God awaiting those who’ve had to go through such things.

As so often happens, the lack of faith of the deceased has resulted in a kind of pallor settling over everything. Now I don’t mean to paint with a broad brush as I’m sure there are peaceful, even joyous, atheist funerals out there somewhere. But I’ll be damned if I’ve ever seen one personally. That being said, however, I know this much. I believe in a God who died on a cross, crying out in despair at His own overwhelming feelings of forsaken abandonment. That’s a God who knows intimately what Jack was going through those many years ago when his fist wife died. And as He’s a God of infinite mercy, I can have the hope that He’ll take that into account when Jack stands before him. And because of that, I absolutely do pray for Jack, no matter that he would have scoffed at such a thing. And if you’ve read this far and have got the time, would you mind sending one his way yourself. God bless.

BMC MOVIE OF THE WEEK: ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! (1978)

• David Miller,
• George Wilson,
• Sharon Taylor

One of the first films ever to be designed specifically to become a cult movie, this silly low-budget comedy has tomatoes growing to giant size and terrorizing screaming '70s types. It's really bad on purpose, with awful effects and a dumb script, in hopes of luring fans of campy old movies like Plan 9 From Outer Space. There's a fun Jaws parody as the tomatoes attack a swimmer and a cute bit involving a military meeting in a small office with a very large table, but overall it fails to generate many laughs. The problem is that the films which this one attempts to mock -- mainly bad 1950s sci-fi pictures -- have a cult following because they are funny unintentionally, and are beloved for reasons which this somewhat cynical effort completely misses. It has its moments, granted, but it just tries too hard. – Rovi

38% liked it

PG, 1 hr. 27 min.

Director: John De Bello

 

October 2, 2011: Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

So, after 4 1/2 years of trudging through bad movies, we’re finally getting around to Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes. Really, you have to wonder what took so long. After all, this may not be the kind of movie which appeals to the more serious (too serious?) movie reviewers such as the one above from Rovi, but Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes is tailor made for sites like this. I mean, c’mon, any movie that has a couple of old, obviously unprofessional, actors sitting on a sofa deadpanning dialog like…

Jess: "Look at the giant tomato, Martha."
Martha: "I didn't know they grow'd them so big, Jess."
Jess: "I wonder where he's going. (pause) He got little Timmy."
Martha: "Poor Timmy."
Jess: "He et him all up."

…is more than welcome around here.

And it’s not just the horrible line readings that make Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes so endearing to bad movie fans like myself. There’s goofy characters like the master of disguise who successfully infiltrates enemy territory by dressing as a tomato (only to blow his cover by asking for some ketchup). There’s musical numbers with all the quality of a grade school play such as the mind numbingly bad pop opus "Puberty Love" (sung, if you want to call it that, by Matt Cameron, future drummer for Soundgarden and Pearl Jam). There’s the telltale signs of guerilla filmmaking such as the scene in which the film crew inadvertently crashed their rented helicopter and rewrote the script to include the accident because, on their budget, who could afford to waste a good disaster (no one was injured, but watch the actors playing the policemen in the foreground realize what’s happening and begin to freak out). And the whole shebang ends with a free for all tomato stomping bonanza that includes most of the cast and crew, some guys dressed like the Marx Brothers, a whole gaggle of kids fresh off the street, and inexplicably, the San Diego Chicken.

Now, if all that’s not enough to convince you that there’s no way to take a movie like this as a serious piece of work (much less review it as such), then just remember… it’s about a bunch of tomatoes… who kill people. Of course the movie is bad. Who cares if they made it that way on purpose, or just pretended they did after the fact. It’s about killer fruit. Who in their right mind would take a story about a bunch of tomatoes seriously? Now, grapes, that’s a different matter altogether. If the story had been about grapes, then we might have something serious on our hands. Grapes can be real trouble.

I sense there may be some doubt. Well, if that’s the case, perhaps you should take a peek at this week’s first reading if you need a little more convincing. In this passage, the prophet Isaiah tells us about his friend who owned a vineyard. “He spaded it, cleared it of stones, and planted the choicest vines; within it he built a watchtower, and hewed out a wine press. Then he looked for the crop of grapes, but what it yielded was wild grapes.” Wild grapes! Everybody run for the hills! I’m telling you, Isaiah is one of the big names in the Bible, and if he’s worried about wild grapes, then the rest of us should be as well. I’m serious, we should all…

Huh? What’s that? Pope Benedict XVI had a slightly different take on this passage? Well, let’s see what he had to say. "[This story] speaks above all of the goodness of God's creation and of the greatness of the election with which he seeks and loves us. But it also speaks about the history that occurred later, man's failure. God had planted choice vines and yet they yielded wild grapes. What are the wild grapes? The good grapes that God expected, says the prophet, would have consisted in justice and uprightness. Wild grapes on the contrary are violence, the shedding of blood and oppression, which make people groan under the yoke of injustice… what appears first of all is the accusation of the violation of social justice, contempt for man by man. Deep down, however, one sees that with contempt for the Torah, for the law given by God, there is contempt for God himself; there is only a desire to enjoy power itself… We want to be the sole owners in the first person. We want to possess the world and our own life in an unlimited manner. God annoys us or we make of him a simple devout phrase or deny him altogether, eradicating him from public life, so that in this way he no longer has any meaning at all. Tolerance that only admits God as a private opinion, but that denies him the public domain, the reality of the world and of our life, is not tolerance but hypocrisy. Whenever man becomes the only owner of the world and proprietor of himself there can be no justice.”

So, um, apparently that whole wild grapes thing is a metaphor for mankind’s tendency to reject God’s plan and try to run the world all by themselves? Well, as the Pope points out, that always ends up in a disaster. Much, much worse than killer fruit. Seriously.