Suspension of Disbelief Dot Net

If you'd like to see more photos of our wedding, Here you go.

posted by Steve Johnson @ 8:11 PM 0 comments

Why I love the Internet

Read this.


When people threaten to beat other people up over the Internet, everyone wins!

posted by Steve Johnson @ 10:02 AM 0 comments

The Rest of the Wedding

After the ceremony, the reception.

Here's an inside joke Robyn and I have:

When we were in the early stages of dating, and the subject of marriage came up, in a purely hypothetical sense, of course. Robyn said something like: "How do you feel about marriage?" and I said, "Well, we could get married... if we had a jug band play the wedding." and Robyn answered, "We could have a jug band." To which I replied, "...and the jug band has to play The Imperial March from Star Wars." (Da Da Da DUN da DUN, DUN da DUN)

...and it happened. A highlight of the reception was the What--Me Worry? Jug Band handing out kazoos to geeky party guests and all of us buzzing out Darth Vader's theme song. You don't get that at your fancy society weddings.

There was wonderful food. We ate it. The Preacher ate more meat than any man ever seen. Cake, too. It wasn't that dry, sort-of-crappy wedding cake that costs 11 dollars a slice, either; it was delicious cake baked with tropical fruits (mango, kiwi, coconut, etc.)and love by our great friend and ace baker Michelle Gardner. We love her.

We love everyone who attended, helped and contributed. Here's a partial list, partial because I'm sure I missed some people. (The day was a blur) We love Charla Myers because she was our wedding project manager, running around with a clipboard and taking care of details. Angela and Paul Hungerford helped out running things too, and we love them. We love Scott: He put together artful flower arrangments far beyond what we could have envisioned. We love Lenny of Cookin' With Lenny because he made delicious tri-tip sandwiches and bread pudding and his helpful assistants provided marital advice. ("There's only two responses to disagreements," the Andrew-Dice-Clay like Server told me. "One: 'You're right, dear.' and Two: 'I don't see it that way, dear, but I'm going to go out for a couple of hours and then we'll discuss it.'") We love Carolyn and Dana Gamble and Alicia Aquilera because they held the hoopah-thinger we got married under. We love Tom Rhodes and Paul Hungerford because they set up the stereo. We love Frank Langley because he took beautiful photographs. We love little Finn because he was the Ring Bearer, and kept saying he was the "Ring Bear." We love Carla Rudy, Carole D'Agostino and Alice Simms for cutting out flowers for decorations while we listened to Woody Guthrie MP3s. We love Marty for saying the wedding, and Mike and Sarah for speaking during the ceremony. We love Rebecca for doing such a beautiful job with Robyn's hair. We love Simone for setting up the amenitiy baskets (and cleaning the bathrooms.) We love Mike and Keely for putting up signs directing our guests to the ceremony; we love Cindy for putting together a wedding album and presenting it to us before the sun even set on our wedding day. We love Moms Johnson for throwing a rehearsal dinner; Wes Johnson for being the Best man and making a rousing speech at the reception. We love Dana and Carolyn for throwing an after-reception party for us, where Battlestar Galatica was discussed, and beer was drunk. We love The Tiny Bandeleros because they all piled out of one car like a gang or some clowns and rocked out to the jug band. We love everyone who attended for making our wedding day so damn special. We love all the friends and relatives and well-wishers and really the whole human race.

Everyone helped! We feel a little guilty for "putting people to work." but knowing that every aspect of the wedding, from the cake, to the flowers, to the preaching, was undertaken for love and not profit means everything to us.

Thanks, guys. We'll never forget it.

Soon, I'll post pictures, and get back to cynically complaining about nonsense.

posted by Steve Johnson @ 11:24 AM 0 comments

Thing about getting married

I'm a married guy. People always say, "Things are different after you get married." And it's true. At the risk of sounding all new-agey, so far (and I'm only a few days in) being married has imparted a sense of peace and calm that is close to magic.

Here's how the wedding happened:

1) Rehearsal Dinner

Moms threw us a rehersal dinner at a local Santa Barbara Italian restaraunt. Among many highlights: My sister Carolyn invented a game wherein each guest writes a fact pertaining to either Robyn or me. Fun Robyn Fact: Robyn is a graduate of Clown College. Fun Steve Fact: Steve worked in a kite store. Thanks, Mom!

2) My Friends Tried to get me drunk on the night before the wedding.
This is an important custom. My good pals Mike, Jack, and Tom and cousin Rob and brother/Best Man Wes, took me out for an all-guys night on the town in Santa Barbara. We started at some rock club where we watched an AC/DC coverband perform Hell's Bells. This was fun. Then, on to some dance club called Coney's, where I used my soon-to-be-married power to make Tom do a poledance. His sexy gyrations had me thinking 2nd thoughts about this whole wedding business. I'm only human. I did not drink too much. Moms insisted I refrain from showing up on my wedding day hung-over. Mom was right.

2) Getting a Shave







If you are a fella and have never had a straight-razor shave, you really should try it. It's worth it, I tells ya. It was a little frightening when my friends were trying to make me laugh while I had a straight-razor to my jugular, however.

3) Arriving at the Ceremony

With some flower arrangements courtesy of my new Brother-in-Law Scott, and some festive yellow tablecoths coutesy of my new wife, a simple, sunny picnic area in Santa Barbara's Tucker's Grove park was transformed into a wonderland. Maybe the wonder really came from the friends and relatives who'd gathered from all parts of the country to celebrate with us. I hung around as the guests entered the park, and was blown away by the sheer outpouring of people who care about Robyn and I, and are interested in the fact that we are in love and want to tell everyone in the world about it.


Then the bride, my bride, showed up. The whole getting-married-thing didn't seem 100% real until I saw Robyn from across the field. There has never been a more beautiful bride... and, double score... Robyn is also my best friend. I'm not sure how or if I deserve such good fortune, but I'm glad we found each other.

4) The Ceremony Itself

Our friend Marty Barrett was deputized as Commisioner of Civil Marriage in Santa Barbara in order to perform our ceremony. He is an amazing man. I can't remember what was said specifically (When you get married, you'll understand, trust me) but the gist of the ceremony, the idea that this was a joyous thing we were doing, and that our union was spiritual as well as of the world, came through loud and clear. His ceremony was perfect, like note-perfect, like I-don't-see-how-this-could-be-better kind of perfect. Marty channeled the mood for us from god-knows where. It was inspired, in the truest sense of the word: So uniquely suited to Robyn and I that it's easy to believe that Mr. Barrett was guided by some unknowable, benign force. Also, the Necromincon was alluded to. For this (and many things) I am grateful to The Preacher.



Our friend Sarah Thran Horowitz spoke about love. I'm having trouble describing how moved I was by what she said, because it's not a glib joke, so I'm going to leave it alone and let you fill in the blank. Thank you, Sarah.

Mike D'Alonzo, (who just the night before FORCED me to drink a shot of Jagermeister) spoke on marriage. Mike is an old friend (our friendship is old enough to drink) and a married guy, so he knows what he's doing. Again, there's just no words for listening to a much-loved old friend impart wisdom on our wedding day. I'm choked up just sitting here eating frozen pizza.

We said "I do," I smashed a glass and our friends and families yelled "Mazeltov!"

I will write more about this whole deal a bit later. And more pictures. I'll post some more pictures. I'll tell the story in more detail soon.

posted by Steve Johnson @ 1:07 PM 0 comments

A Funny Thing We Thought of as Teenagers that my Friend Mike Reminded Me of Last Night

In McDonaldLand there is Mayor McCheese, Ronald McDonald, Grimace, Hamburgalar and the cop who is also a hamburger. No one knew the cop's name, so we called him "Police Burger."

Then, whenever anyone was getting all heavy and authoritative, we would chide them with: "Stop being such a police burger."

posted by Steve Johnson @ 9:45 AM 0 comments

Two Interesting Musicians Andrew Told Me About

Andrew Quintero, expert LARP-hunter and star of Ghosts of Edendale, hepped me to two muscians lately.

1) Alexander Scriabin: A turn-of-the-century Russian Theosophist and modernist composer, Scriabin dedicated the last years of his life to "The Mysterium," a musical ritual with light-show and smell-o-vision to be "performed at the foothills of the Himalayas in India, after which the world would dissolve in bliss."

More ambitious by far than classic rock show Live 8, The Mysterium was to last a full week and feature bells suspended from clouds, sunrises as preludes and sunsets as codas, and flames erupting in shafts of light and sheets of fire. Perfumes appropriate to the music would change and pervade the air.

According to Scriabin's pal, "The choreography would include glances, looks, eye motions, touches of the hands, odors of both pleasant perfumes and acrid smokes, frankincense and myrrh... Lights, fires, and constantly changing lighting effects would pervade the scenery." Kind of like a huge planetarium Pink Floyd light show culminating in the elevation of man to a higher level of spiritual consciousness. Scriabin believed he would die of ecstasy upon playing the last note of The Mysterium. He died of blood poisoning instead, and never finished his piece.

He made a lot of notes on the "Prefatory Action," though. It was meant to prepare the world for The Mysterium. Recently, Alexander Nemtin, a Russian composer, assembled Scriabin's notes and a CD was released. You can buy it on amazon.com.
It's okay. It kind of sounds like the soundtrack to a self-important '70s sci-fi movie like Logan's Run or Zardoz. The rave-flyer-influenced cover art of the CD release is horrible though. Classical eggheads and graphic design often don't mix.

2) B.F. Shelton-- While Scriabin was an internationally famous libertine/artist/playboy, no one knows much about B.F. Shelton. There's no photos of him. I haven't been able to find any biographical information. All that's left of his work is three recordings from Kentucky circa 1927. Shelton's three songs-- "Pretty Polly," "Darling Cora," and "Oh, Molly Dear"--are banjo ballads detailing the murders of young, innocent women.

Are these recording of a thin-voiced, banjo-picking serial killer confessing his crimes? We might never know, but man, are they creepy. Haunting even. You can listen to "Pretty Polly" here.

posted by Steve Johnson @ 8:28 AM 0 comments