I generally avoid going to Koorong Christian media stores because I just end up getting up getting enflamed with righteous fury (make that obsessed with self-righteous annoyance, but who's counting?) at the gross display of semi-religious commercialism on display, all claiming to be a resource centre for believers. Anything you can stick a fish on (it used to be WWJD) you can buy in Koorong. Don't get me wrong. They have some very useful materials in there. But they also have a whole heap of crap. My sister once found a "what would Jesus eat?" diet book. No, that's not one of my carefully crafted snide comments. That actually happened.

So I generally avoid going there in order to avoid being set off on rants such as the one you have just read (unless you skipped straight to this paragraph, which was probably a wise choice. Well done you). But today I was ensnared by the promise of a fifteen percent off sale and the fact that there were a couple of CDs I wanted to pick up. The first one I was after was a newish Kevin Max album. I say newish because although it has been out in America for quite a while, it cannot be bought off the shelf in Australia yet. At all. Even Borders, which is linked to Amazon.com told me I should try Koorong. Koorong (despite earlier assurances to yours truly by staff that it was on order) in fact do not stock his work. There was some controversy over his first solo album not actually containing the word Jesus. How dare he? I would have had to order the album in from America, which would take two months.

The salesman suggested I check out Shawn McDonald or Jeremy Camp instead. Much more Jesusful. I don't have anything against those artists. Well… actually I do. They sing like girls and have boring melodies. There. I said it.

The other album I enquired about was the new Compliments of Gus album, which I have mentioned in previous blogs. This one didn't even show up on the database. Most likely it is too new, ie. hasn't made it to shelves yet. This is fair enough in retrospect, but after the disappointment of travelling all the way into town to visit a shop I don't like to purchase two CDs that weren't there, I was just a bit irrational and quite annoyed. I punched the salesman in the face and threw his Jeremy Camp album at him. With the speed of a mongoose I dodged around the security guards and headed for the door, setting fire to the women's devotional materials shelf on my way out. Once I made it to the footpath I became so enraged that I mutated into a three-story-high ice-cream man and thundered down the streets of the Adelaide central business district, leaving a trail of death, destruction and indifferent elderly ladies who hadn't noticed in my wake.

Next time I want some new music I think I'll download a pirate copy like everyone else.

Far from home

Garry with 2 Rs

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