We’ve had a little tradition in my family for the past 9 months or so called Family Food. Whenever we get together for an event (holidays or graduations or whatever )and there are enough people to play, we compete to see who can put on the most weight during the meal.

Everyone who’s competing weighs in before the meal and then the eat as much as they want. When you’re done eating, you weigh in again. Simple as that.

We have two trophies for the individual and team competitions. Both of them are statues of Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus that Erica got for graduation. She wasn’t really sure what she was going to do with them, so her bad-influence brother and sister took it from there.

I had won every individual Family Food contest leading into Thanksgiving, when I was upset by my 16-year-old cousin Bailey and brother-in-law Nolan. Both of them put on 5 pounds and I was only able to put on 4.5. I was probably a little overconfident, but Bailey was determined to win, and as sick as her commitment made her, it paid off. Nolan beat me too, but Bailey deservedly stole the spotlight.

Sara and I were always consistently good in the team division as well, but my stumble and Sara’s poor showing allowed the team of Bailey and my Dad to sneak in and take first there. So it was a big night for Bailey, as her two first-place finishes made for a strong debut.

Fast-forward to Christmas. Bailey’s after-dinner misery at Thanksgiving meant she had no interest in defending her crown. Sara was with her family, so I had no teammate. Bailey’s brother Gavin was there for his first Family Food. It was quite a different scenario.

Eating for weight on Christmas eve was a challenge; everyone had been snacking all day on cookies and chocolate and other sweets. Nobody was prepared. But after three sandwiches, three bowls of soup and various side items and desserts, Gavin and I emerged with 4.5 pounds each. I was hoping to fully reclaim my title, but sharing it with someone was better than third place again.

Christmas day meant dinner with my mom’s side of the family. And unlike the soup and sandwiches of the night before, this was all-out turkey, ham, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, rolls, corn, banana bread and desserts. This was also the first time that my cousin Eric was competing. Eric is a monster. He’s not fat or anything, just a naturally big and tall guy. And he has a bottomless stomach.

Nolan, Monica, Erica, Dad and I were all competing less than 24 hours after our last Family Food; Tim and Eric were in their first. Eric had finished his second plate before I finished my first. Finally, we all weighed in.

Right away we knew it was going to be anyone’s game. Dad - who I partnered with - weighed in first with a 4 pound gain, which was solid for the sidekick position, even though he said his heart wasn’t in it. But then Monica - Nolan’s partner - surprised us with 4 pounds also. Then Tim - Eric’s partner - really shook things up with 5 pounds. Everyone knew that Eric was likely to clean house, so Nolan and I were depending on our partners to give us a chance in the team bracket; Tim’s strong finish really seemed to squash our hopes.

Then I weighed in with a 6.5 pound gain, which would typically guarantee a victory, but Nolan and Eric both had about 5-10 more minutes of eating after I filled up. In what would be the first shock of the day, Nolan weighed in with only a 3 pound gain. Soon to follow, Eric weighed in with only a 3.5 pound increase.

That meant my 6.5 pounds put me back in the champion slot, and our team’s 10.5 total gain would get us that trophy as well. But Nolan and Eric were suspicious of their low weight gain. Eric re-weighed, and this time, he had gone up 6 pounds. I was still the individual champ, but that put his total with Tim at 11 pounds, knocking Dad and me out of the top team spot.

The re-weighing continued, and I thought it was getting a little out of hand. Eric was now showing an 8 pound gain, so I hopped back on and showed 8 pounds as well. Disagreements arose about a standardized weighing stance, form, etc. I argued that there should be no standard from person to person; it’s up to each individual eater to stand the same way on the scale both times, and then all will be fair.

So the official record will show that I won the individual competition with 6.5 pounds and Eric was second with 6.0. Tim and Eric won the team bracket with 11 and Dad and I had 10.5 for second. But then there will be an asterisk beside my victory noting that upon subsequent weigh-ins, Eric and I both showed an 8 pound gain.

We intend to pool money to buy a fancier scale for next time.

I’ve been putting off sitting down and writing about this for a little more than a week now, and I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s just because there’s so much to write about and I don’t want to take the time, or maybe I’m a little afraid that if I type it all out, it’s somehow going to be released from my brain and I won’t have a hold of it as much.

If you’ve followed this blog at all in the past two weeks, you’ll know that I read a newspaper article about five high schoolers from an alternative school in Eugene, Oregon, who were heading to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi to help with hurricane relief - dressed as superheroes. And at this time two weeks ago, with only the added detail that they were traveling in a bio-diesel school bus, that’s all I knew.

(I’ve been working on a documentary on real-life superheroes for the past two and a half years. The documentary has some great content, but it’s been somewhat stalled for various reasons.)

By the time I read the story, the bus had already left Eugene, and the people at the school had no contact (or at least none they felt comfortable offering) with the people aboard. Going off the knowledge that five superheroes would be in this town of 8,000, I took the leap of faith that I’d be able to find them. So at 5:30pm Thursday, December 15, I left work and headed south.

I pulled in to St. Louis (the big city in Missouri, not the little bayside town that was my ultimate destination) a little past 1am, where I stayed with Sara’s sister Erin. I took off in the morning for the virtual unknown.

I didn’t know what to expect. You don’t hear about the hurricane-stricken areas much now that the stories aren’t as exciting. I didn’t know if I’d find a chaotic, third-world disaster area, a tidy reconstruction, or something in between. I had a few friends at different newspapers who had covered different aspects of Hurricane Katrina, and one told me to expect nothing out of the ordinary; it’d been three months - that’s plenty of time to clean up.

Reality was proving to be a little different. Another friend, JXZ in Little Rock, helped me find a hotel room for that second night. As far as hotels go, you’re lucky to find something within 2 hours of the coast. There are still so many relocated people that making a reservation still gets you a warning to check in with the hotel, because the post-hurricane reality meant rooms can be taken with little to no notice.

I ended up in Brookhaven, almost exactly 2 hours from Bay St. Louis. Friday night, I sat down to dinner at Pizza Hut, notes spread out on the table in front of me, seriously doubting what I was doing. I had driven 15 hours, taken two days off from one job and missed one day at another, borrowed a second camera, spent over $150 on more tapes and supplies for my camera and now already spent more than $200 on travel expenses. And here I was, sitting at Pizza Hut, knowing only that five high schoolers were in Bay St. Louis.

It was one of those moments where I knew that I was going to prove something to everyone. Either I’m some kind of visionary whose leaps of faith result in creative gold, or I’m a dreamer of the worst kind, whose lack of any grounding results in the wasted time, money and energy of myself and those who’ve invested emotional stock in me.

I was kind of stressing myself out, but it was in a “pump yourself up before the big game” sort of way. I had something I had to accomplish over the next two days. I was going to have to invest myself completely in those next 48 hours, being prepared for every moment and how the situation would have to be dealt with differently as each hour passed.

I went back, labeled every blank tape in a sequence of “Bay St. Louis - tape X,” charged each camera battery, put new batteries in each of the three microphones I brought, set the alarm for 5am and went to bed.

(to be continued…)

I drove out of Bay St. Louis Monday with a box of non-perishable items, thinking how funny it would be if I got pulled over, apparently removing relief supplies from a hurricane-stricken area.

The superheroes had decided to split up, with some headed immediately to New Orleans on the bus, some “inch-worming” their way on bike, to help in places in between, and others holding down the fort and fulfilling obligations in Bay St. Louis until the folks from the sister city project could return.

As a result of splitting up, the three weeks of food that had been purchased in advance had to be split up into what could be carried or left based upon how much cargo or storage space was available. A decent sized box of food was left with no home. A conveniently-timed dead minivan battery kept me around about 10 minutes after my goodbyes, and a solution was found.

Presented as my first superhero mission, they asked me if I could take that box of food to a pantry (in addition to taking the numerous glass bottles, aluminum cans and number 2 plastics to a recycling center). Fulfilling the belief that the universe knows what it’s doing, and what seems like a negative turning into a positive, I was happy to help. The minivan was packed with the homeless goods, and a few brief real goodbyes later, and I was on the road.

For about the first two hours, I drove in silence. I had some CDs ready, but about 20 seconds into any song, I’d shut the music off and just contemplate what I’d experienced the previous 48 hours. I wasn’t ready for the distractions. When I eventually did turn the music back on, one of the first songs I heard was “Bitter Sweet Symphony” by The Verve.

Among other associations, one of my most prominent memories of that song comes from December of 1997, riding in the car with my friend Josh. Josh had been my best friend in high school, and while we had still remained friends, a lot had changed in each of our lives over the year that had passed since graduation. The song came on the radio, and Josh turned and asked “What do you think of this song?”

I loved that song. I was living in England at the time, going to school at Lancaster University. It was a reminder of the excitement of the previous four months and what was to come over the next eight. The years before, first in Auburn and then my freshman year in Lincoln, I’d struggled through those indie-kid pains of loving a band no one else had heard of. This was the peak of the “modern rock” era, when mentions of The Verve would get responses of “Oh yeah, I love the Verve Pipe.”

During the summer of 1997, I’d heard The Verve were releasing a new single, which confused me and eventually made me feel horribly out of the loop. Last I knew, they’d broken up in 1995 or something; I had no idea they’d gotten back together or even considered releasing anything new.

When I got to England, “Bitter Sweet Symphony” was still the anthem of the world at the time. Follow-up single “The Drugs Don’t Work” was still a month away. In the first month, “Symphony” and this other fantastic new pop song I’d heard at the bar, “Tubthumping,” were on every mixtape I sent home. My friends were the lucky recipients of this great new music, until a month later when those songs hit America and putting them on a tape was a mixture of punishment and mockery.

I had come home from England for Christmas only a week earlier. Literally no more than ten minutes before the call came, I said to my mom, “I need to get in touch with Jeromy while I’m home.” Then the phone rang, and then my friend Brian told me Jeromy had been found after having hung himself. His funeral was in two days.

Josh and I used to go running and riding bikes together, invented made-up languages, were in a band together, built forts together in high school, and basically did everything that you do that proves you’re still young and free. Although our lives didn’t overlap as much after high school, we were still definitely friends and still hung out as much as possible.

But sitting in that car that day, 19 months after high school graduation, driving from our friend’s funeral in Iowa to his burial in Auburn, “Bitter Sweet Symphony” came on the radio.

I had told him I liked it.

“There’s a lot of truth in this song,” he said to me.

I’d never thought of the song as a source of truth, or anything beyond a catchy pop song. I’d never thought about lines like “Trying to make ends meet, you’re a slave to the money, then you die” being anything more than words rock stars say in songs. Thinking about such hopeless words striking a chord with my 19-year-old friend was almost as tragic as what we were honoring that day.

And that’s when I knew we weren’t kids anymore, and nothing was ever going to be the same.

It was a fantastic weekend and I have a ton to share, but I’m still catching up with being gone.

Phone blogging did not go as well as I’d hoped.

I met their leader. He’s taking me to the group now.

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Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com

JXZ found me the closest room to the coast, so i’m leaving now at dawn for bay st louis. Hopefully by ly by

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Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com

One of my new jack in the box ornaments, proudly displayed.

Got to Erin’s about 1:15. Had dinner at jack in the box, which I haven’t had since san diego. Bloo. Blo

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Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com

At approximately 5:15, or whenever the last of the LWF students heads home, I’ll get in my car and begin the 17-20 hour drive to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

As I alluded to in a previous post, there is a group of high school students from Eugene, Oregon headed there to help with the hurricane reconstruction, but they’re going to be in superhero costumes with superhero identities as they work. I’ve been in contact with the school, but they have no contact with the students while they’re gone. All I have is the town they’re going to, and the assurance that a handful of costumed superheroes will stick out enough in a town of 8,000 that I’ll be able to find them.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little scared. I’ve done the solo road-trip thing before, for much longer periods of time, but for many reasons, this is quite different. One big thing is the pressure involved in getting something good for the documentary. Lately, I’ve been having trouble getting into putting it together, largely because I just felt like it was lacking another good chapter. Then this came up. So the stress of the long drive down, needing to get some good material, and then the long drive back, is kind of weighing on me. But I think that’s probably the good kind of stress - enhances the performance or whatever.

The bad stress is how my parents are worried, my mom’s having bad dreams, and if something did happen to me, right before Christmas would be kind of a bummer. Not like my family wouldn’t care if I accidentally drove into the Gulf of Mexico in July, but holiday tragedies just have that extra layer of bad timing. I’m not really even worried about the whole “bad things happening” thing, but knowing that the loved ones are doesn’t sit too well.

One thing I think will be kind of fun about it is that I’ll be leaving from Lefler on Thursday afternoon and then rolling back into town in time to teach on Tuesday. So my LWF club will be the last people to see me before I go and the first people to see me when I get back — which means I’ll probably frighten them with my stench, matted hair and overgrown poor excuse for a beard.

So anyway, I should have something good to share Tuesday night.

The very special Christmas edition of You are So Beautiful, Beautiful Robot, airs this Thursday, December 22nd at 7pm on 90.3 KRNU (streaming at http://krnu.unl.edu/webstream.html), and if you have nothing better to do, it will replay in the wee hours of Christmas morning at 1am Sunday.

I have a lot of new music for this year’s show, including some of the favorites that graced last year’s show, so it’s sure to please.

Plus, as a special cheeksofgod.com bonus, here are links to two of the three versions of the promo for the show:

And as always, check out the show’s website at dancerobotdance.com for playlists and mp3 downloads.