What better way to enjoy your favorite local band than to hire them to play just for you? Yep, I did. I decided to celebrate my 39th in style. YES, my 39th, for real. After months of planning, last Saturday night marked the beginning of the last year of my thirties…I’m pretty sure everyone in attendance will remember this party for a long time. It was epic. For starters, I came up with a theme. Now I know not everyone likes to dress up, especially the guys. So we kept it simple for them…guys came as greasers. Girls, on the other hand, went all out – pin up style girls were roaming around the party in all sorts of pin up – spin offs. There was Bettie Page, there were cigarrette girls, Marilyn Monroe look alikes, you name it, they were there!

When a few friends said their husbands were complaining about getting “dressed up” for a party, I reminded them to take another perspective. When else could the guys put on jeans and tshirts while they got to look at pretty girls dolled up for the night, listen to good music, and have a few drinks to celebrate a friend’s milestone? They got it, and boy did they enjoy it!

On to the entertainment. Big River, from Ventura, is a Johnny Cash tribute band. Wait…they are THE Johnny Cash tribute band. These guys are amazing musicians and entertainers.  Led by singer/guitarist Bobby Dickson, the band consists of four members, Joe Baugh, an incredibly talented guitarist, Tony Cicero on a mean set of drums, and bassist extraordinaire, Eric Monteith. The guys have been performing together for three years, and are experts at helping you have a good time. Check them out at their my space page Big River

The band usually can be found playing atBombay’s Bar and Grill or Rookies in Ventura throughout the year, but can also be hired for special events by contacting them on their site.

After dancing to many of my favorite Cash tunes, we were on to the surprise! You can’t have a pin up era party without synchronized swimmers! Early in the party planning, I decided that my sister and I and any really good friends would make this fun party even more fabulous with a surprise. After working with the band on a song that would work for the routine, and played “Cash style” we came up with ZZtops “She’s Got Legs”.

The crowd loved it, unfortunately, the cops didn’t, and after a polite but persistant request, we turned down the volume, and brought the party (and the band) inside. A great night was had by all. I wonder what we should do for the big 4-0?

One of our contributors recently got this pink Electra Townie as a birthday present from her hubby and son. At first, she admitted, she knew more about parking strollers than parking bikes. A trip or two to the grocery store, though, and she’s a pro. The idea isn’t that we can save the planet by riding a bike to the pharmacy or bank. The idea is that it’s FUN! When was the last time you had a blast doing your errands? Out here our favorite bike shops are Westlake Cyclery and  Newbury Park Bike Shop.

Not to be a downer or crimp your style, but we have to issue one safety reminder: just because you opt for the cruiser or the three-speed with a basket, doesn’t mean you don’t need a bike helmet. You want to have fun but you don’t want to be minivan roadkill, right?

Actually, the title of this should be It’s NOT Out Here. We’ve written about Cafe Firenze, a gem of a restaurant in Moorpark, previously. Then we started to hear rumblings that perhaps the chef Fabio Viviani had a falling out with his in-laws, who apparently helped bankroll the restaurant. Unfortunately, it’s true! Fabio is no longer in charge at Cafe Firenze. In fact, he’s just opened a new place, Firenze Osteria, in Universal City. We’re sure it’s great, just a little ticked he didn’t stick with us.  Oh well, give him some business and persuade him to open a Firenze Osteria II out this way someday soon.

Firenze Osteria

4212 Lankershim

818-760-7081

Also, weigh in if you’ve tried Cafe Firenze since Fabio left. We want to know if it’s still a great place to eat….

I recycle.  I feel a global responsibility.  My youngest daughter is studying environmental science at her university and she’s quite the queen of green.  So, it’s just what we do.

The process of recycling is both surprising and fascinating.  It’s surprising because of the sheer volume of trash that leaves my house.  It’s incredible.  You would think I’m pig-pen from Charlie Brown fame.   It seems I have just emptied my trash containers and they are over-flowing again.  It’s like my trash breeds.

I live alone (except when my kids visit).  I don’t eat a lot.  I don’t buy a lot.  How in the world do I keep piling up tiny mountains of plastic, paper, and cardboard?  Surprising!

The fascinating part of recycling is that my trash is being recycled.  Think about it.   Stuff I have used, crumpled, and discarded will be accepted, cleaned, and placed back into service. Pretty cool if you think about it.

So, almost daily, I take out a bucket of recyclable stuff.  I carry it to the blue dumpster at my housing complex.  A few days later, a huge green truck diesels up, lifts the bin, dumps it all in the back and carries it away.  Sometime soon, that which was trash is now clean and useful.

Dang.  I love this!

The parallel to the work of God is exactly like this.  Jesus is the blue dumpster.  I take all the accumulated stuff’ of my life (pride, anger, impatience, impurity, greed….shall I continue?) and I give it all to Christ.  I do this by praying:  “Lord Jesus, I have ( fill in your blank).  I confess it.  I know it’s not the life, attitude, behavior You created me to experience.  You made me for more than this, for a better life than this.  So please forgive me!”

BOOM, CLANG, CRUNCH.  My sin crashes and is deposited into the blue dumpster of Jesus’ hands.  He takes it.  He carries it away inside the green truck of forgiveness.  And then (this is the coolest part), God the Holy Spirit begins to recycle my soul.  He cleans me, reshapes me and places me back in service…back into life again—all clean, all new…ready to try again.

God has designed me (and you) for noble purposes.  He designed us to live a life of meaning and joy; real life!   Sin interrupts and corrupts that.  So, God recycles our pain, recycles our failures, recycles our attitudes and actions…and HE DELIGHTS in giving us a new chance at life!

Ya gotta love that.

Brad Johnson is the pastor of Life Change Community Church, beginning weekly services in Calabasas, CA, January 2010.

Alexander is the author of America Unzipped

I know I am getting older when people tell me exactly what “the kids” think and what the kids think is so different from what I think that what I think is that I am living in an exotic land that bears little resemblance to the one I knew.

Most recently this occurred while I was researching and reporting a story that is supposed to be part of a big MSNBC.com package to accompany a special report headed by Maria Shriver about women in America. (I am always suspicious of special reports about women in America because I think I am going to be hammered for having nerve enough to be a man. I wish somebody would do special reports on men in America.)

Anyway, it seems women are often making more than the men they love or sometimes acting as sole breadwinners either because the man has lost a job, or because the couple has made the choice to have him stay home with the kids and have her work. This is revolutionary, I agree, but it’s not really news to me since from the very beginning of my career I have worked for women. With two exceptions, women have literally been the boss of me, and I’ve never felt any less manly because of it.

My Sexploration column assignment this time was to suss out how this turnabout affects men sexually. Are the guys emasculated underperformers?

No. But some of the men I interviewed told me that they compensate for their lowly wage status by becoming bedroom studs. The woman is making most of the money, they figure, so they’d better put out. As one man said to me “You’ve got to take care of your business!”

Turns out that there is some empirical evidence that those of us who earn less than our lovers work extra harder to make sure they are happy in the sack. So while under earning men aren’t saying they are unhappy about female economic power, and say they love their wives and don’t feel less manly, it’s on their minds.

The younger the guy, though, the more natural he thinks this is. I’m not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I suppose it’s a good thing, but on the other, I picture a land full of Stepford husbands preparing breakfast in the morning, rushing off the gym to keep that six-pack, and then getting advice on what sex moves to make that night so their women won’t stray.

I am seeing, well, Laura Petrie in reverse. But here’s the thing: Aren’t we all — men and women — supposed to take care of our business regardless of who makes the money? Or is this just men ratcheting up their bedroom performance to where it should have been all along, the way women have tried to please men? I don’t know the answer to that, I’m just asking.

I also worry that the images of men we see in pop culture make us either overly muscled super heroes, oversexed slackers, or buffoonish suburban dads. I miss the all-around competent male. I miss Gregory Peck.

I do realize this role reversal thing, or whatever you wan to call it, is here to stay. But I also admit it makes me uncomfortable and that I can’t fully explain why without sounding like Mr. Retro Man. I am not my father but I am not 25 either.

Journalist Brian Alexander is MSNBC.com’s Sexploration columnist. He’s also the author of great book called America Unzipped.