A little inspirational music for y'all...

[Motorboat Cruiser]

What better way to start a morning than with a heartfelt hymn...

And so I present, Omazing Grace (http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=14e_1179875131).

Now, you might be inclined to turn it off after a few seconds, but for true inspiration you will want to continue as long as you can...for the full effect. :)

[Ghoulish Delight]

Oh.....my

[Gn2Dlnd]

Boy, I can't wait 'til people start posting phone videos from AA meetings. Won't THAT be a hoot.

[Not Afraid]

Words are superfluous.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Boy, I can't wait 'til people start posting phone videos from AA meetings. Won't THAT be a hoot.

Point taken. But if you are going to go up to a podium and sing a song that you only know the first six words from, perhaps there are others that might be more up to the task.

[Not Afraid]

You know, there are some pretty stupid things said at AA meetings as well as at church. People feel safe in these places. Feeling safe is nice, but it's not sacred. Nor is it terribly realistic.

[Tref]

Point taken. But if you are going to go up to a podium and sing a song that you only know the first six words from, perhaps there are others that might be more up to the task.

Point taken and dismissed! Never back down from funny, soldier!

[blueerica]

I lasted 55 seconds.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

I lasted 55 seconds.

Aw, he was just getting warmed up at that point. :)

[Disneyphile]

Now I know what I've been missing at church all these years!

[Gn2Dlnd]

Point taken. But if you are going to go up to a podium and sing a song that you only know the first six words from, perhaps there are others that might be more up to the task.

Oh, I agree. It just made me wonder about the person actually filming the thing.

Point taken and dismissed! Never back down from funny, soldier!

I defer to the senior ossifer.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

Words are superfluous.Evidently so are notes.

[Ghoulish Delight]

It's shameful the way you all mock someone having a genuine spiritual moment in which the lord is speaking through this man in ancient tongues.

[Alex]

You know, there are some pretty stupid things said at AA meetings as well as at church. People feel safe in these places. Feeling safe is nice, but it's not sacred. Nor is it terribly realistic.

True, but it doesn't reduce the jerkishness of the people who make the public private. Particularly for purposes of openly making fun of someone.

[blueerica]

Meh, whatever.

If I get up on a podium, in a place where there are possibly video tapes, and at the very least an audience... Well, then come what may - it was my choice to put myself out there. Ridicule hurts, but if he didn't want to get ridiculed, he should have brought up a lyrics sheet. Or asked someone.

ETA: I think it's generally understood that what happens in AA/Al-Anon/etc is said in a bit of sanctity. I can't imagine private matters getting put up on the Internet, then again... who knows?

It may be too late for that guy, but the next one to get up on that podium might just think twice about singing a song he/she doesn't know.

[Alex]

Yes, if he wanted to avoid ridicule he should have been prepared. But that doesn't make it more appropriate to actually ridicule him. And it really doesn't make it appropriate to expand the ridicule around the globe.

If I'd been there I'd have laughed at him but I wouldn't be out at the door calling for people to come in and watch this guy make an ass of himself.

I'm bothered by the growing acceptance of the idea that because something can be recorded that it should be recorded, and that once something has been recorded it should be shared.

I was just in the restroom at work and there was another guy in there. I had the ability to record things. I should have put it on the internet, hell it is the guy's own damn fault for being excessively flatulent in a public restroom. Nothing funnier than good fart humor. That little sigh after the last big fart would have been worth an extra 10,000 YouTube hits.

Besides, there is something special about getting to be part of the small community watching the semi-private self-humiliation of a person. That is cheapened by YouTube. Just as the spread of easy access porn has distorted the sexual expectations of our young people, the spread of YouTube is going to distort the expectations as to humiliating behavior. It will be a race to the bottom. Just as 13-year-old girls have now seen and wish they had Jenna Jameson's boobs, 13-year-old girls will soon be striving to top the most devastating of home-tabed skateboard prat falls.

Give me another 10-15 minutes and I"ll really work myself into high dudgeon.

[blueerica]

I really think that the natures of bathrooms and churches are two different things. One is quite private and the other is quite public. The man's self-humiliation wasn't private at any point in the venture.

I agree that it is certainly more 'acceptable' to record and display these days and that's not necessarily a good thing, but there's no stopping the train from what I can tell; It's not worth my time to get worked up about it. It is worth my time to have talks with my sisters, my cousins, my friends, my future kids, but my sphere of influence is pretty limited outside of that.

[JWBear]

:eek:

[Tref]

Hmm.

[Morrigoon]

It's schadenfreude! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22rech4U5gM)

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Give me another 10-15 minutes and I"ll really work myself into high dudgeon.Miss debate club, Alex? I'm impressed by your inventive post.

I was waiting for the guy to be dragged off stage. I mean, come on, if you were a preacher of any stripe and a guy gets on the pulpit and doesn't even sing the words, wouldn't you want to find the big hoop to pull him off with? How disappointing that he was left up there....except that he cracked me up again at the very end. If you quit the video you missed it.

[Morrigoon]

Well, I think the preacher getting on the mic himself and slowly raising the level until his voice was at least on par with Mr. O was one way of dealing with it.

[RStar]

Ok, I can see the guy getting wrapped up in the emotion of the moment (or wrapped up in hearing himself on the speakers- hard to tell), but why the music team didn't do more I'm not sure. They tried to help out a little with music, and some even tried to help a little with the words near the end. I guess they didn't want to hurt his feelings, but when it was obvious he didn't know the words, he should have been thanked and led off stage.

I agree, it was an unfortunate event that should be left to fade away, not made fun of.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

I'm sorry but I still can't help but feel that there is a little arrogance involved in taking the microphone and announcing that you are going to sing a song, a song of worship no less, when you don't know more than six words of the song. Did he expect divine intervention? Perhaps it is just me, but his "performance" seemed more about being in the spotlight than being caught up in the emotion of the moment. And if it indeed was fifteen minutes of fame that he was seeking, he now has that. Perhaps a lesson was learned.

Regardless of his motives, however, in the history of song butchering, I think this wins the blue ribbon. And for that reason alone, I found it amusing. My apologies, however, to anyone who felt that posting this was in poor taste.

[Alex]

Does he not know the words or didn't know the words once he started singing in front of people?

I'm thinking of the periodic story of the person singing the national anthem before a sporting event but once they get out there and get started their brain shuts down and they forget the words.

And my issue isn't so much with people spreading the video around (there is some issue but not so much). It is primarily with whoever decided "hey, I have funny video, let's share it with the world regardless of what personal humiliation it brings to another person."

I just don't tend to find much humor in this type of thing, more empathy for what they're going through now. For me, it is up there with the cruelest of the candid camera shows where people are tricked into acting like fools just so other people can laugh at them. Doesn't mean I don't find it funny, just that I kind of hate myself for finding it funny (see also, my reaction to Borat).

[Cadaverous Pallor]

When Alex talks about empathy and feeling bad for doing something it makes my head spin.