rubberfish.moments

post MTV video goodness

2007-06-25T11:34:00.000-05:00

here is a rare combination. in this post-MTV world, where the art form of video has been locked away in closets and banished to the low-quality fansites of youtube and myspace, it is truly rare to see a band spend the time and effort to build a creative, strong, and fluid music video that matches up to a song that is actually good.

i'm not saying that there aren't good videos out there [or short films in some cases] -- but in most cases anymore they are linked to really mediocre music that needs a gimmick [like a catchy, ironic, pithy viral video] to sell it.

NOT SO ANYMORE!

in a clear homage to Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues [and probably INXS...], one of my newfound favorite bands [the Matches] has built a great video for Salty Eyes.

tell me that's not stunning?

i love my wife.

2007-06-04T11:07:00.000-05:00

tami is a trooper. the due date for baby #2 [within ONE year] is only four days away, and she is ready to burst at the seams. in perfect coordination with that, our super-calm, quiet, perfect baby #1 [talia sian] has decided to cut a few more teeth and generally begin to hate life.

so, while my incredible wife gets closer and closer towards delivery, and gets proportionally less mobile, talia is crying more and leaning onto the brink of walking.

in the midst of this chaos, tami is cool. she is calm. she is smiling. she is beautiful. glowingly beautiful.

i love my wife. i hope she survives this week. :)

eight days to go. or... who knows when?

2007-05-31T14:54:00.000-05:00

june 08th is the due date for baby #2. that brings to mind a few remainders for the day:
1 // babies rock. especially the ones my wife makes. she's wicked good at it. so, we have another one coming, and we have been entrenched pretty deeply in a period of complete wonderment of how we got to be so blessed/lucky/crazy. the fun is really about to begin.
2 // baby names suck. we are in the midst of close deliberations about what the name for our next child will be. i'm sure that we merely need patience -- talia sian pretty much told us her name when she first met us last june, and i'm pretty sure this one will do the same. but it would be nice to feel prepared.
we have ruled out cedric, dwight, and anastasia beaverhausen.
3 // the new kate walsh album is pretty good. if you like to hide inside with a songwriter's thoughts and pore through her brain, this is the one for you.
4 // i haven't seen spiderman III yet. go ahead and kill my fun by telling me that it doesn't live up to #2, but you won't be able to disuade me. something tells me that i won't see it anytime soon. hrumph. anyway...
5 // i am lamenting the loss of the celebrity mustache. nobody did it like amgnum p.i., but could someone at least try? here's a place to work on it: http://www.celebritymustache.com/. what i actually would like is to see a good version of the "kenneth" show up on TV. Or, on kenneth.
6 // i need to plan a roadtrip, just to listen to this mix. i guess there's not much else to say about that.

i'll let you know when the next baby shows up.

things to do in berlin when you're dead tired

2007-05-15T13:29:00.000-05:00

after a fantastically gruelling week, i'm back from berlin, rolling around in the normality of the states. the work has piled high, and i have a lot to prep for this week, but in spite of it all, my girls love me and have been smiley and wonderful.

the time in east berlin was stunning.
new friends and new ideas, all wrapped up nicely in good german beer and bad germano-mexican food.
anyway, the concept of having allies five thousand miles from home that live in a language that simply doesn't compute with the american south is a stimulating and humbling experience. i'm intrigued by what will happen next.

While i was in town, i got to track through one of the original churches pastored to by Dietrich Bonhoeffer - a potential new home for the Berlinprojekt, and a chilling place to sit and pray.

today in berlin...

2007-05-10T05:04:00.000-05:00

today i am in berlin. have been since tuesday, actually.
spent the day in hamburg yesterday working with a small group that will be planting a new chruch there in 2008. fantastic group of people -- and a really stunning city. here's a pic or two:
while i was in town, there was a massive raid by the german police on all of these alternative bookshops and theaters and artist squats. they were looking to break up the planning for the demonstrations/riots before and during the upcoming G8 meeting here in Germany. it backfired and wound up inciting some pretty stiff riots in some really fun neighborhoods.
two of the most amazing new core group members for the HamburgProjekt are Nils and Tabitha [aka pitty]. here they are with daniel, the planter for HP.
I'm sure there's much more to come as this trip goes on.
I'll be here in Berlin until Monday, working with the music teams for BerlinProjekt and learning about how we can partner with them -- as well as how to begin to create our own network for extension.

the world according to Kurt V.

2007-04-29T11:14:00.000-05:00

I'm not a complete fan of Kurt Vonnegut. Gish knows I disagree with a bunch of his politics and methods, but there are few that can argue with his incredible turn of phrase. His writing is so marked by incredible capture of conversational genius that I'm regularly intrigued by the fashion and grace with which he attacks graceless and fashionless questions.

If you wonder what I'm talking about, take a look at this article from the AVClub online. It's called 15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will and it actually delivers on that title.

Let me be clear. I disagree with a lot of what he says, but that doesn't mean it's not valid or well said. One of my greatest complaints about both politics and the church nowadays is that the leading voices in both seem to have lost their grasp of how language [specifically english] works. The magic of well-used language -- and nuance -- is an incredibly powerful tool in the battle to win hearts and arguments.

Here's one of Kurt V's quotes:
"There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too."

You don't have to agree with the antagonist who utters this in Mother Night, but you can easily grasp the nuance of his long position through this one turn of tongue. I'm no expert, but I am a fan of how language works.
And KV knows how language works.

Enjoy.

fintune // sweet, sweet tune lovin'

2007-04-03T06:46:00.000-05:00

So at this point, I have a ton of friends that have jumped on the FineTune bandwagon and are posting a multitude of mack-daddy playlists. So as to not be left completely behind, here's my original one.

Mmmmm..., do I love some gooey hits from Colin Hay.

zoos with limos and tuxes are still zoos

2007-02-12T16:07:00.000-05:00

i spent the weekend in LA. what a zoo.
in the midst of all the grammy limos and stiffs in tuxes [ooooh, did i see some fun ones] i got to do two truly fun things:
1 // Puffy. I let Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/Diddy/The P. to the D. into traffic on Wilshire Blvd. he was all decked out and driving a sweet little car. I didn't know it was the P.Diddly until after he crossed my lane and was driving next to me. Fun. I got the traffic "thanks" nod from a billionaire. Kewl.
2 // KROQ. If you've ever been to LA, you know the majesty that is 106.7, the world famous KROQ. Name the rock band from the last 15 years, and they probably played on KROQ a year before they hit B-94, crazy-96, or Lazer-102 in your town. I got to listen to two full days worth of really good music, including the Cold War Kids. Listen to them. Now.

Now, here's the challenge. If you like music enough to take some of the suggestions i have offered over the past few months, take the FineTune challenge. Basically, you need to spend a few minutes and build a playlist to share with the world. Their library is HUGE, and it's VERY easy. The trick is, the list needs to be 45 songs long, with no stinkers in the middle, or whole Radiohead albums at 2/3 done.

Here mine: If you build one, link to it here.

save the cheerleader. save the world.

2006-12-21T07:47:00.000-05:00

it's christmas time, in case you missed it, and to celebrate, steven spielberg has released the trailer for the new transformers movie. it's not due out until next summer, but i am already a little jittery in anticipation.
watch the trailer here

even though the movie looks great [in a 12-year-boy-meet-millions-of-hollywood-dollars kind of way], i'm more intrigued by the recent influx of cultural phenoms that focus on saving the world. i realize it's not a new concept - in any way - to project the need of humanity, and the whole world, in order to sell the plot of a book or movie. BUT. i am somewhat amazed that that well never seems to run dry.

my wife and i are mildly obsessed [can mildly modify obsessed?] with the NBC show heroes, which offers a never-ending stream of plot lines about the slavation of mankind, and a cheerleader in texas. whether they've been charged to "save the cheerleader, save the world" or simply figure out why there are people trying to stop the annihilation of humanity, this story constantly builds toward a day of hope in the middle of pure pain.

in the show the black donnellys, the first episode shows a woman asking a simply devastating question about her unrequited love, "what if he dies and he never knew that i loved him?"

it's christmas time. in the midst of all of the world-saving madness that we see in our culture every day, do you think God asks that questions EVERY day?

blackened blue eyes

2006-12-15T10:20:00.001-05:00

what an incredible combination of visuals and music. The Charlatans UK have always been a favorite of mine, but this new video has pushed them over the edge for me.

Blackened blue eyes
I don't care too much for your
Circumstances or you
Situation wise

A Charlatan I
Will blossom and die
One day you'll find a real need for love
Or you live with the fear for
The rest of your life
And there won't be a dry eye
In the house tonight

in search of bad press

2006-09-26T10:40:00.000-05:00

ok, it's time to toss something onto your reading pile. it's an article from salon magazine written by Lauren Sandler about the Mars Hill church community in Seattle. it's actually a chapter from her new book "Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement". she did much of the research for the book while writing a series of articles for Mother Jones magazine, and her take on Mars Hill especially has a far different flavor this time around than her original [positive] portrayal.

the reason i'm putting this article up here is because one of the consistent themes that has been coming to me, and that has been inhabiting my prayers, is a musing on whether we [warehouse in general] have accepted a role in charlotte that is just safe enough to allow us to be moderately "successful" as a church - but without actually creating any radical change. in Mark Driscoll's [the lead pastor at MH] blog, he almost laments the positive press that MH has received over the ten years since their founding. he seems to be unpleasantly surprised that they've been able to fly under the radar - in terms of the change they are trying to create, and the radical difference they are attempting to BE in seattle.

it seems to me that he is saying that if we are truly challenging the established landscape of a city that is severely broken at its core, there should be people up in arms about it - rallying to call us crazy.

the funny thing is, i almost completely agree with that thought. and it makes me wonder whether warehouse is really as radical as we think [or would like], or if we have slipped oh-so-silently into the norm that we want to change.

countercultural [american heritage unabridged]
"the culture and lifestyle of those people (esp. among the young) who reject or oppose the dominant values and behavior of society, or with values or lifestyles in direct opposition to those of the established culture."

one of the simply magical elements of the Gospel is that it is so illogical, countercultural and completely non-intuitive. the Gospel screams for civil disobedience of the greatest kind. it begs for us to invite others to meet Christ on His terms and to walk away from the life they lived - but promising that in doing so they don't have to sacrifice a life well-lived.

a crucial and exciting piece of the attached article revolves around a portion of a conversation the author has after an evening spent at a MH member's house for a small group meeting. The member [Ted Deitz] has been a part of Mars Hill for quite a while, and served as the author's tour guide for a portion of her time spent learning about MH. The author has already made clear that she [an atheistic Jewish woman] was not interested in Christianity, and was very happy with her current life.

according to the author, this is how the evening went:
A few days later, the men in the group pulled up in front of the house with a pickup truck full of lumber and set about building a new fence on the spot. Now whenever the Dietzes look out their kitchen window, they see a proud and solid reminder of the strength of their community, and the unity of their faith in God. Dietz recounts this story sitting squarely in his big chair in the living room, his eyes set on mine over the rim of his coffee cup. I tell him the truth: I have wonderful friends who I have considered close as family for many years now, and I can't imagine any of them helping me lug the wood, much less building me a fence. He pauses and sets down his coffee cup in a motion that is about to put a definitive end to a delightful evening. "Listen," he says. "We have a really nice rapport. But we believe different things. And let's face it, because of that, you're never going to feel like family to me. So, what I'm saying is, this is as far as it goes." Stung at first, upon reflection I can't blame him. I have nothing like his shared faith to connect me to other people.

ted deitz really lays it out on the table to her - saying that if she is not willing/able to commit to the life-change that Christ brings, she will never experience the community that is deeply intertwined there. he doesn't apologize for this, and he makes clear the position. when i read this, I'm reminded of a friend's story yesterday morning about how he was looking forward to spending time with two Jehovah's Witness believers that are making a second visit to his house.

lauren sadler's article is amazing to me, in that she is so clearly filled with disdain for the amazing way that these people live life together. her unrepentant judgementalism is a real dose of "bad press" for all the right reasons.

so, read this, and ask yourself. what are we [the post-modern church in general] doing to deserve some bad press?

time to kick the music back up

2006-09-15T08:12:00.000-05:00

at the heart of it all for me is a simple desire to be able to communicate reliably with the people that challenge me, love me, hate me, never met me, or never thought about what i might say. now, this may seem to be an incredibly self-centered concept [i mean, i used "me" five times in that sentence] but i am convinced it is not. i feel incredibly convicted that there is a supple and elegant message that needs to be said in a gritty, genuine, peaceful, and painful way for each of our peers to hear.

and if we won't step up to say it, who will?

in proverbs, tc and i have always dwelled around one incredible verse [24:6] that says: "for waging war you need guidance, and for victory many advisers." That simple connection of phrases blows my mind. It's not a new thought, nor is it ground breaking. But it IS simply true. If there is no one speaking into our lives - no one fighting the fight next to us - we will fail, no matter how hard we work, struggle, tear, and grumble. that role of 'advisor' hits home in each of our hearts, but we so often feel fear in not knowing when is ok to act on it. when we are shy about speaking into our friends, we are leaving them hanging on the line - fending for themselves.

anyway, all of this has been just a way for me to say that each of us has a voice, but none sounds alike. i don't have a lot of self-confidence in this area, but i think my voice may be the way i can engage music to tell the tale. even though my actual voice [physically] is departing quickly, i'm amazed by how called i still feel to write, and write well.

so many great artists have used the medium of flying fingers to do this, and here's two that i love.

don't say i never gave you anything.
nickel creek will rock your world
and rhett miller can play, too

there's more in my brain that needs to spill

2006-09-05T21:43:00.000-05:00

granted, i've had my hands pretty full over the last few months, bit's kind of re-donk-ulous how slack i've been about posting here. maybe i can try to get this kickstarted again. y'know, i could raise the roof, get the party started, and get my groove on all at once.
worth a try?
who knew?

johnny cash is a bad a**

2006-06-19T19:05:00.000-05:00

i'm officially changing my stance [not that it was a well-known stance, but it was held true in my heart] on posthumous record releases.

why, you ask, would i ever oppose the release of a record once an artist is gone to the next and beyond? well, call me a cynic, but tupac is just making waaaaay too much money - or, i guess, his record company is - even though he's been dead almost a decade. he's more prolific than u2 [look it up] over the last ten years, and he's been DEAD most of that time.
it seems that every rap star that gets killed "in action" or "before his/her time" has an incredible catalogue of critically acclaimed music waiting to be heard when they die. the questions for me has always been, why WAIT? why didn't we hear it when you were still alive? seems fishy to me.

down from my soap box. corrected.

johnny cash is dead. but he also has a new myspace page. THIS is music that deserves to be heard once you're gone. JC on myspace.

listen. have i ever led you astray?

!::newsflash::!

2006-06-19T19:00:00.000-05:00

talia is still gorgeous.
go ahead, challenge me on that.

the whitby family expansion plan

2006-06-15T09:27:00.000-05:00

talia sian whitby is here.

the rebirth of hocoby corner

2006-06-09T10:56:00.000-05:00

after nearly a year of consternation involving two of our favorite families, and the last few months of tremendous uncertainty in our house, it looks like the corner where we live we be seeing some big changes very soon!

the simple background is this:
two of the best families we know have been working hard to move into two houses that are next door to each other in our neighborhood. right now, those houses are really a blight on the area - with constant police problems and substandard living conditions.
they agreed to a contract to buy the houses months ago, and have been working to sells theirs prior to closing on the new properties.
in january, TC and I bought a house that shares a backyard with those homes and would complete a triangle of property that share a common backyard. we moved in last february, and have been patiently waiting for the deal to happen, the next door houses to turn, and our feeling of a safe home to increase.

recently, the current owners of the houses next door have been trying to wiggle out of the deal in order to make more money... and this has caused some real wiggling in our guts about the possibility of living in our beautiful little home with a very sketchy neighbor situation for the long haul.

long story short, it looks like the contract will be honored, the sale will go through, and we will soon have treasured neighbors and a great backyard.

all praise and happiness.

my beautiful wife

2006-06-03T08:32:00.000-05:00

tick, tock. tick, tock.

songs that get stuck in my head

2006-05-24T08:02:00.000-05:00

i've got a few songs stuck in my head right now that are really bugging me. in mostly good ways, i guess, but they are still bugging me.

first, there's a tune by sia that won't leave me alone. it's called "breathe me" and it has an incredible combo of haunt, raw power, and lilting play to it that are entrancing. i think the artist is a total kook after reading her blog, but the music is still pretty dang good. "breathe me" is on the six feet under soundtrack, and i only found it through dan [i think] who will be using it this week at 242.

second, there's the whole dang mutemath collection. wow. lauren gave me their two albums and they are fantastic. the second disc [called mutemath, how creative] is like one long composition - it fits together amazingly well and is so strongly written that it seems more operatic than albumic [is albumic a word?]. check out their myspace page for some sample tunes. i think what ireally like about them is their strange resemblence to early police tunes - with a good rock slant instead of pure reggae allegiance.

third, is the stupid little song i sing to tc and the baby each morning to wake them up. the reason it's stuck in my head [besides the fact that lazy mornings are about to be non-existent] is that i wonder if the baby will recognize my voice when it shows up here on the other side? i mean, it hear's tc's voice all day every day - but i only get a few special on-call performances to bring it onto my side here... i guess i'm just reeeeeeeelly anxious and want to know who the tyke will be.

so now, we wait. with songs in our heads.
we wait.
for baby.
anyone got any really good name ideas?

light speed baby

2006-05-05T08:07:00.000-05:00

ummm...
june is soon.
really soon.
really, really soon.

with june comes a baby.
which i'm sure will be bouncingly beautiful, and wonderful, and joyous, and happy, and love-drenched.
it's staggering how much i love this bundle of baby already, and i haven't even met him/her yet.
but.
it's a baby.

wow.
having an actual baby - that's like the first step in becoming a dad, isn't it?

ummmm....
june is soon.

chandler bing or lorne michael?

2006-05-05T07:59:00.000-05:00

chandler bing is coming back to tv, and i must say, it looks like an incredible project! [i'm not joking...]
here's the deal - it looks like NBC has picked up a drama starring matthew perry that is written by aaron sorkin and tommy schlamme [best name in tv] - the guys who write west wing.
it's a behind the scenes look at a SNL-type show. could be good...but the CAST is what amazes me. look at this list:
matthew perry [friends]/ amanda peet [whole nine yards]/ bradley whitford [west wing] / DL hughley [the hughleys] / evan handler [sex in the city] / timothy busfield [thirtysomething] / steven weber [wings, etc].

looks pretty cool.
wonder if he'll still have the nubbin?

a few more remainders before this blog goes petrified...

2006-04-28T07:01:00.000-05:00

almost a month between posts? hmmm, feels like i might actually have a life.

i haven't been writing much as work has gotten a bit hectic [in all good ways] and my life with TC has really begun to build toward the exciting crescendo of welcoming a squirming ball of baldness into our world in june. she and the baby seem to be doing pretty well, aside from the usual fatigue and worn-outted-ness of growing a whole person. the countdown is on, though, and we're getting closer by the day.

our easter season went pretty well at 242. i am so energized every day by the volunteers that bring focus and clarity to the ways we can use creativity to show other who God is. tenebrae/good friday was an amazing experience to be a part of, and i feel blessed to know so many incredible artists. our scripture guide for the night, kristy, was friggin' amazing. no other way to put it. she drew together seven disparate works and helped the 250 people there to tie a line through the story being told.
not that you're really interested, but if you'd like to hear a piece of the night, the sixth word [finished - a song by sw/dh] is up for download.

anyway, here's the fun stuff. i love finding it, and sharing it will all 12 of you.

the death of music
blender magazine is usually worth a good skim. this month, they have their list of the 50 things that have killed music.
kevin federline is number 12.

tom cruise running
there's too much tom-hating going on out there. i know i'm one of the worst, too. soooo, purely for the fun of it, here's a way tom can make your day a little brighter. just beware the constant pained look on his face.

the death of 7th heaven
is there room for real faith on tv? i mean, not just 7th heaven soupy, syrupy, undead christianity - or the book of daniel's painful take on the painfully pained pain-y-ness of faith...
where's the people that just happen to live in faith?

brain stew on evangelism

2006-03-31T19:23:00.000-05:00

i was really convicted by bruce's talk on the basic, and most essential role that warehouse plays in charlotte. he made it simple. he boiled it down. he made it clear.
he didn't allow for any backpedaling.

the main thing: connecting people to God through Jesus Christ.
that's it. the main thing.

he didn't allow for any backpedaling.
he simply asked what we're doing about it.
all of us.

and now, we have to answer. we have to come to our senses and ask what we are doing every day - yep, every day - to make the main thing a reality in our lives.

it's a good question, and i think i have a real answer when we talk about what goes on inside our beautiful building on wilkinson, but what about outside? what should i be doing?

right now i'm sitting in drizzly san francisco, working building pretty little designs for a conference of 1000 college students. every day i'm here, i have at least 100 individual interactions with students, their advisors, and the riff raff that comes with them... and while i never back off what i do for a living, i'm not sure i've done anything about the main thing.

time for conviction? time for reality? what time is it?

five bands you should be listening to

2006-03-30T14:10:00.000-05:00

i'm behind the curve on some of these, but this is what's racing through my ipod right now.

1 / the fray. i know, i know, they've made it VH1, so it's a not a secret band or anything, but they're just plain good.
2 / the afters. nathan gave me this one. sort of switchfoot-meets-thom yorke. please don't yell at me for bringing the great and mighty radiohead into this, but the front man actually sounds like Thom.
3 / Matisyahu. I know this guy has been all over the place recently, but i am absolutely entranced by the lyrics he can dance out. the best track on the record is "Old City Beat Box", which involves transitioning from traditional orthodox cantor meditation to a full-on beat box. stunning.
4 / jenny lewis. go to the video link. you'll understand why she's worth a listen. she'd friggin' hilarious.
5 / well, i could only come us with four. deal with it.

there will be original thought here again someday

2006-03-29T22:54:00.000-05:00

but for now, here's two more things to slow down your brain:

the history of the world, according to the movies
this is an incredibly ambitious project, even if it is a plain-text website. it basically is trying to build a complete timeline of the history of the world, based only on the content of films. so, the adventures of bill and ted are chronicled as real history. 'nuff said. have fun

july 5th at verizon. i'm there. who else is in?
looks like a great way to spend a summer night. our baby will be about a month old then. is that too so to learn about the wheel in the sky, or open arms? you heard me right.

oh, and this picture rocks.

yes, you're seeing that properly. he crawled INTO the claw game.

remainders. brain spew. i'm lazy.

2006-03-27T21:38:00.000-05:00

i guess i'm really bad at keeping up with this whole blog thing. it was like gangbusters out of the box, but now it just never seems to be in the timeline on my daily ride.

anyway, here's a bunch of remainders to keep anyone busy who's still stopping by from time to time. enjoy.

jack black should be king of a small country
he's nearly the funniest man alive. and the 30-minute pilot for Heat Vision and Jack is now online for all to see. Back in '99, good ole JB made a pilot for a TV show where he starred as the smartest man in the whole dang world, and owen wilson was his motorcycle. ben stiller directed.
I hope someone got canned for not making this a regular show. c'mon. you can't tell me that "four kings" or "joey" is better than stiller and JB in tandem!

wanna be on jeopardy?
here's how to do it. quick, time is running out.

planning on being a reality show?
if so, you can go to defamer and get some already-pixelated clothing. don't worry, you can still be all hip and crap.

for a minute there, i was sure this movie would bite
yep, what worse idea could there be than a sequel to "bruce almighty"? what about one that did NOT have jim carrey in it? yep, pretty sure it will bite. but then i learned that steve carell [the office] is starring. check it out.

snakes on a plane
yes, you heard me right. snakes on a plane. all i can ask is, how bad can Sam L. Jackson's career get?

that's enough for now. enjoy your peaches.

too much stuff, not enough life...

2006-03-14T08:28:00.000-05:00

the best problem in the universe is to wake up and realize that there is more life going on than i have time for.
it's the best feeling ever. but it can be a little overwhelming. a little.

TC is feeling great, and the baby is in a constant state of motion. we're less than 90 days from the arrival of the wrinkly one, and i'm about giddy. it's great - i don't feel any undue pressure, but i sure wish i had more done around the house at this point. i'm sure we'll get there, but it will be a fun process!

we kicked off a bit of a new era at 242 this weekend: we moved to two sunday morning services, and it seemed to go pretty well. all told, we had close to 500 people in the arena through the morning, and no major crises arose. we'll see what happens in the next few weeks, but it was amazing to see so many volunteer teams kick it up and move forward with no major pain.

more later...

two things that are scraping my soul

2006-03-02T07:58:00.000-05:00

there is just too much going on to even possibly think of getting it all into the netherspace of this wimpy blog.
however, two aspects of life are really challenging me right now to ask questions, and wonder.

1 / will our beloved little house ever take a place other than as an idol in out lives? we're trying to be as conscious as possible about not letting it live there - in the land of complete preoccupation and idol-type-investment, but i'm losing the battle.
there is good news on the horizon, i believe. but it may be a ways off, and there's plenty of work to do.
the most recent fun has been the introduction of a demolition order [two years old] by the city that essentially condemns our house. we're trying to work well with the inspector and city to remedy the problem - that was never disclosed in the sale process - but we find ourselves getting wrapped up in anger and frustration. it's nothing horrible, and it's not life threatening, but it still is our home that they're messing with, and we'd love to not have the knee-deep hassle waiting for us every day when we get home.
all i need is patience, and a way to provide rest for my beautiful TC.

2 / metafilter and the soul.
i am saddened by the complete lack of awareness in most of our world of the love God has for us. read this post on metafilter [careful: metafilter is ADDICTIVE] and tell me it doesn't make you want to cry.
not one person recommends God. not one person calls on Christ.

by the way, i'm a complete snark when it comes to following fun habits. i was totally unable to do the "picture-a-day" thing for more than a day, and there's a guy out there who has been doing it faithfully for more than four years.
snark.

Marked for demo?

2006-02-27T12:00:00.000-05:00

A photo a day: day one

2006-02-23T11:36:00.000-05:00

one last day of cold?

2006-02-13T07:15:00.000-05:00

i'm sitting in my living room right now and the thermostat reads 41 degrees. i'm guessing that's a pretty generous reading, too. the space heaters are pumping, but there simply isn't enough warm to go around.
the bright news on the horizon, though, is that piedmont gas has PROMISED us that the gas would get connected today. of course, i have trouble placing too much weight on that commitment, considering they told us that we would get hooked up last thursday, then friday, then -absolutely, we promise- on saturday.
well, thursday, friday, and saturday all came and went with no gas hookup. all three days had miserable excuses to accompany them, and all the gas company has managed to truly accomplish is to hang up on my wife. sweet TC.

i hate public monopolies. they are heartless. they have no understanding of humanity.

so i sit and wait. while i shiver.

who needs heat?

2006-02-07T08:21:00.000-05:00

wow. we were met with an avalanche of love this past weekend. [yes, i'm stealing a line from a cameron crowe movie, but it's the only way i can describe it.]
we made our big [two-block] move on saturday, and it was a majestic display of how community is really able to work in a way that keeps life moving forward - in spite of all challenges and obstacles.
what challenges, you say?
well, as of last thursday night, we had no power, water, or gas in the house, and none of the utility companies were being particularly forthcoming about when/how we would be getting these aforementioned life necessities. in fact, both the power and gas companies were being downright belligerently mean to us, and were completely unwilling to help us understand what was going on. in addition, it looked like heavy rain was due for saturday morning. we were planning on a flatbed-type moving day, and that would likely not mix well with water falling from the sky.
it looked to us that we would have to postpone the move, incur another month's rent, and well, who knows what else?

and then.
community.

prayer is stronger than the power company.
i know this because, on thursday, the electric folks told us pretty simply not to expect power before next [this] week - if then. no amount of pleading or logical discussion was changing their minds or schedules.
the only thing that changed in the next 24 hours. was. prayer.
kenneth & laura - local warriors extraodinaire - got on the job, and. then. there. was. power.
to our amazed surprise, the power company showed up the next day, ran an entirely new line from the street, completed both on-house stubs, and installed both meters. they got the entire job done in one afternoon, and as of friday at 5, the lights were ON!

so, the move happened. the water is on. the power is on.
the gas is not. and might not be. for a while.
but chilly-in-the-hood is better than no-lights-in-the-hood.

so now we wait. and pray. for heat.

for fun, a blast from the past

there used to be a wall...

2006-02-01T10:04:00.000-05:00

in the back of this closet.

it's demolition day one, and i'm having a blast.
hopefully, the walls won't fall down around me.

the deed is done

2006-01-30T20:37:00.000-05:00

thanks to the prayers of tons of people, the hard work of danny p., the foresight of our man dennis, and the graces of the land of BIG debt, TC and I have offishully bought ourselves a house.
we closed on the beautiful duplex [that i have been obsessing over for the last month] this afternoon, and now the fun really starts. i couldn't be happier about the week to come, but i'm just a little fearful for its impact.
wednesday, thursday and friday, i'll be holed up in the place ripping down a few walls, moving some cabinets, and creating a door or two. it looks like it will be a lot of fun, and i'm really jazzed by some of the fun folks who have agreed to join in on the fun.
while i'm sledging away, TC [my gorgeously pregnant wife] will be trying to pack up our fun little current house for the big two-block move. she loves the process of moving [thank you, Lord!!!] - but it's just not easy! whew!
our maximum fun starts saturday. at the bright, ripe hour of 8am, we'll be kicking down the doors and moving the farm up the road. if you want to help, let us know [thanks to all those that have already volunteered!] and we'll provide doughnuts and lunch.

welcome to wilmore.

love monkey

2006-01-26T07:36:00.000-05:00

no, i promise i am not propositioning anyone here. i am not advertising my services as a 'love monkey' either. rather, i'm just up on my tippy-toes with joy over the new CBS show 'Love Monkey."
here's a couple of reasons i dig the show:
. tom cavanagh
. it's about the music business
. and it likes stickin' it to the man
. really, really good soundtrack [we're talking killers, badly drawn boy, talking heads, and frankie goes to hollywood.
. gooood tunes
the post the music listing each week, and are even streaming the new artists.

the basic story revolves around a goofy guy who gets fired by the super-media-conglomerate-giant-label and winds up working as the A&R guy for a little indie label. it might now be a scathing social message show, but it has its moments.

the really promising piece is how they are treating musicians in the mix. it looks like we're going to get to see a bunch of new artists develop as "new artists" on the true vinyl label - and they get to feature their music for 12+ million people a week. blurry line, i know, but i'll never argue with good tunes.

try it, it's not that bad. [tuesdays / 10pm / cbs]

one step closer

2006-01-21T13:10:00.000-05:00

well, we're one step closer to the new house.
i know it's only been a 30-day adventure so far, but i am really glad to see a potential end in sight. or a beginning, if you're one of those dang glass-half-full people.
the appraisal came in on friday, and so all the paperwork is done, now we just wait to find out what the closing date will be. the contract says this coming wednesday, but i don't see that happenning. it looks more like friday or monday - or maybe even later. as soon as that little party goes down, it'll be time to knock the crap outta some walls and start moving in the love.
if anyone's game, i'll supply the sledgehammers. someone else needs to bring the skill and shoulders.
no idea when we'll actually move - we're hoping for a feb 4/5 weekend deal. that would be WANDO good.
who's game?

new music recommendation

2006-01-16T08:29:00.000-05:00

the lashes
a little bit power. a little bit punk. a little bit pop. a little bit strokes.
download and listen to sometimes the sun. it's guaranteed to put a jump in your step and a smile on your face.
chuck norris will love you for it.

chuck norris facts

2006-01-16T08:25:00.000-05:00

#04 : The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.
#11 : There is no chin behind Chuck Norris' beard. There is only another fist.

in all seriousness, your eyes will fall out of your head if you do not go to this list RIGHT NOW. do it. i'll wait here for you.
Chuck Norris Facts

baseball on mint street

2006-01-11T08:10:00.000-05:00

the party's at our place. the parking will be tough, but the locashun is waaay cool.
the march forward continues toward our possession of the new [old] mint street house. as long as no new hurdles arise in the next 15 days, we'll be moving soooooon. TC and i got into the house last night for few minutes to look around, and i'm really impressed with the condition of the place. we've got some work to do - knocking down a wall or two and figuring out where to put the dang appliances [yeah, i know, in the kitchen] - but aside from that, all we have to do is pack our entire house, but the dang appliances, and find a non-rainy day to move, shortly after we sign our lives away to the "man".
anyway... to the point. in case you haven't been watching local cable access coverage of the city council/county commission, there's fun a-brewin' on mint street.
it looks like the white sox will have a new home in uptown. no, i know it's not the real white sox, but it's their AAA little brothers from south cakalaky. the council/commission is "exploring" whether it's worth $5 million of the travel/rental car tax to bring 60+ baseball games [each with 10,000+ fans] uptown each summer. i'd say it's probably a good bet that we'd all benefit from the development of first ward like this, but those wily city folks seem to know how to kill everyone's fun, so we'll see...
the long and short of it is that having baseball in the equation is always good - for america, and for mint street. the new/proposed stadium would be in walking distance to our new little abode, and therefore would be beckoning our new child to have season tix for life.
as my grandfather [pop-pop, my willpower doughnut friend] taught me, honest baseball is the key to life. especially if the phillies are involved.

the best pen in the world: my crisis

2006-01-10T08:47:00.000-05:00

ok, there's no way for me to write about this without coming off as a complete sop [def #4 here] but i guess that's never stopped me before, so...
i like to write. not type. not come up with neat-o ideas. i like to write. ask my beloved TC and she'll tell you that i love to fill out forms, just for the fun of it. i will fill 'em out for no reason - just cause i can, i guess. and i love it. i have notebooks FULL of meaningless drivel - not because it needed to be written, but because i love the specific act of writing.
i've been told that my handwriting is a beautiful marriage of smooth lines and completely illegible chickenscratch. i'm ok with that, because it's sort of like putting my thoughts in a vault - there's little chance someone will be able to read them... but i got to enjoy writing them.
anyway, i digress.
the purpose of this post is simple. to sing the praises of the greatest pen ever created: the pilot varsity .04mm black ink disposable fountain pen.
now, lest you think me a real weird-o, let me explain that there are few implements of writing that allow for such a free expression of true thought as this incredible tool - built of unassuming plastic. the folks over at pilot managed to cram an incredible amount of handheld pleasure into one tiny little package, and i have been deeply in love with it since about 1996.
but here is my problem. [well, just actually one of my many problems, but you know what i mean]
for years, i traveled to college campuses for my job on a weekly basis. i was constantly on little plots of land stuck in the back recesses of nowhere towns of the midwest [see ames, bloomington, rolla, fort collins, etc] where our forefathers had seen fit to plop down pockets of great learning. now, i can tell many stories and reasons of why a college campus is a magical place, but none compares to the main and looming truth of the college bookstore.
these places are filled with mystery, magic, learning, tools, and mystical writing implements of all shape and size. for years, i was able to constantly try on new flavors of pens and pencils - ranging from liquid #2's to dry-ink space pens. and i, most importantly, had a constant source for my beloved varsity pilot fountain pen.
when my travels slowed, i had to find a new source. i felt like the junkie roaming the corners of the playground seeking my next fix - hoping to scrape up one more hit of flowing black goodness from the evil doers preying on little writing children. i was hooked. the monkey was living firmly on my back, burrowed in like a leech under my collar. i had no more supplier. there were no great bookstores here in CLT to satisfy my craving. i had to find a new link to my ink.
then, kinko's saved the day. they started to carry the VPFP. i could now slink in and consume 10 at a time, drinking the goodness.
but alas, the dream is dying. the pleasure is running from my fingertips. it appears the kinko's connection is no more, and no other store in charlotte carries these beauties. the dream is slipping away.
alas, what is a junkie to do?

i don't envy kickers

2006-01-04T08:05:00.000-05:00

penn state won the orange bowl last night. in triple overtime. with an all-american in the xray booth and their leading rusher knocked out in the first series. they did it.
they went 11-1 in 2005/06. number three in the BCS. they played and won one of the most exciting bowl games in years - if you like REAL football. ball control. defense. coaching. grit. thrid-stringers in as starters - called on to win the game.
what a great night, a great game, and a great end to a comeback season for JoePa and the Lions.
bu i don't envy kickers. especially freshman kickers. this kid - yes kid - who is only 19 - was called on to win the game for a huge money-conglomerate known as college football, and to win the game for 100 teammates staring him in the eye. this kid who was still trying to find a prom date last year at this time was walking the sidelines with one of the most storied college football progams in the land sitting on his shoulders, knowcking on his helmet, wispering in his little kicker ear. 'don't miss' and miss he did. twice. both would have won the game, and he missed BOTH. and then had to try AGAIN.
the third he made. the third sent everyone home. the third redeemed him to millions watching and rooting. the third was, well, ugly. but it went through.
and penn state is back.
long live Joe Pa.

2005-12-30T16:07:00.000-05:00

Traffic stinks.

you gotta love ambrose

2005-12-29T09:14:00.000-05:00

This is the man, the myth, the Martos. This is Ambrose.

album review: paramore

2005-12-27T10:52:00.000-05:00

actually, i guess i'm not reviewing an album here as much as i'm reviewing a band. paramore just released theri first album, called All We Know is Falling and it genuinely worth a listen.
I'm finding it more and more difficult to nail down what kind of music i "like" and what genre is my cup 'o tea. i'm just as likely to be listening to a U2 concert bootleg as to david crowder's new remix disc, as to lovedrug, as to death cab, as to the heartwood EP that nathan gave me. some days, brtiney spears could even weasel her way into the itunes shuffle, and there's more than a few indigo girls tunes on that list, too.
so, it should come as no surprise that i'm entranced by paramore right now.
this group of five kids [all 16-19] from nashville by way of mississippi have real chops. they are firmly planted in typical teen-angst-punk, but have a real knack for creating great hooks. haley, the 16-yr-old front-chick-singer has a set of pipes that made me sit up and listen immediately. the three boys backing her up all ably find their way around their instruments, with particularly string guitar leadership by josh on an old les paul and an AC30.
they're on the 'Fueled by Ramen' label, which is a good sign - they currently have Fall Out boy and TheAcademyIs... on their roster and are becoming a great home for creative new-rock and punk. the band itself shows signs of maturity - they started recording almost immediately and found a great home on myspace to show off their work. by the time they got in the real studio to record this album for fueled by ramen, they really knew how to wrangle what the need out of their lines. the fact that there's multiple voicings in each tune makes it all very listenable, but they also have carved out a nice niche in the lyrics department. they list their influences as being "from classic rock bands such as U2 and the Cure to such modern outfits as Sparta and Failure" which shows a littl depth [and makes me feel old - the cure is classic rock??]
anyway, the album itself hits its highest points in "Here We Go" and "Conspiracy", but is pretty consistent across the board. all in all, it's worth a listen. you can stream most of it on myspace, so try it out.

long week, great christmas

2005-12-24T15:52:00.000-05:00

it looks like there's a happy end to this story.
i just faxed the contract back to the seller of our sooon-to-be home, and that's makes it official. i'm happy with the deal we made, and i'm really excited to put my beautiful honey in a great little home in our favorite neighborhood in charlotte.
of course, the schedule to get us there is INSANE... i mean, we're supposed to close on JANUARY 25! [30 days - ONLY] and move in...
WOW.

d-day on the house. where's the willpower?

2005-12-20T08:11:00.000-05:00

i'm telling you, this whole house-buying-thing has turned me into an impatient ninny. while i've always considered my grandfather's lessons in willpower to be the hallmark of my upbringing, i find myself mired in the land of but-i-wanna-know-now-now-now! sad, huh?
we got a call from the seller yesterday, and he seemed to be open to our offer - said we're "in the ballpark" but didn't give us any specifics. looks like we'll hear something more definite today... but, wow, is my patience running low! i know most people struggle through the home-buying process for months and find nothing but frustration, and we are only a few weeks into this... but i just wanna know!
ah, patience. willpower. somehow are completely escaping me.

pop-pop would be so disappointed.
every saturday that we spent with my grandparents , he would walk us down to the market on high street in pottstown - about five total blocks from his old row home on chestnut street, and he'd buy me and jenni-lee a hot doughnut. [probably a fried fastnacht, or the like] we'd walk into the bakery part of the market, and the smell would be so overwhelming so as to almost knock me down. after the seemingly endless process of selecting the perfect glob of fried dough, he'd pay the 20 cents and hand one bag to me, and one to my sister. the bags were the old brown paper lunchsacks that got very soft with the rising heat and moisture thrown off by the treats inside.
with those beautiful bags [containing unfathomable tasty greatness] in hand, we'd walk back to chestnut street, talking about what we'd do for the rest of the day. all the while, we could smell the pastry inside, and feel the warmth. but the rule was simple - no eating, or peeking - until we got home and showed mom-mom what we got.
that walk was always excruciatingly long. we're talking waiting-in-the-dentist-chair, last-five-minutes-of-the-last-day-of-school, christmas-eve-in-bed, loooong.
granted, somehow we always survived. the doughnuts were always amazing. and yes, the waiting did make them taste better.
willpower, courtesy of pop-pop umstead.
think TC will let me use this technique?

hocoby corner. the new wilmore.

2005-12-16T08:16:00.000-05:00

my hands are shaking in a "i'm-going-to-debtors-prison" kind of way.
no, nothing bad has happenned, only good. so far.
yesterday, TC and I put in an offer contract on a house in our wonderful hood of wilmore, and WOW - the economics of the whole equation blow me away.
this photo is from when it was a condemned piece of hmmm, and it looks a bit better now. long story short, we could very soon be looking at moving our whole existence into a little duplex where we'll be renting to someone else. we'll go from renters to slumlords all in one swoop. exctiting, no doubt, but daunting with a capital -aunting. the bank is about to own us, and we're both pretty creaky people.
all in all, i couldn't be more extcited, but i'm also really wary of the whole process of getting IN the place. there are so many pieces that need to fall into place for this to happen, not the least of which is moving our whole lot of stuff there - not an easy proposition when TC is growing a baby and i'm shaking a lot more lately. not a great recipe.
but it will no doubt be worth the effort to share a backyard with two incredible families.
HOCOBY corner is about to born.

how flat is paper?

2005-12-14T09:09:00.000-05:00

i've always just accepted that paper is, well, flat. i mean, i know that in reality there is thickness and actual structure to it, but i've never really considered that thickness to be relevavnt, other than when determining how thick a folder should be or something.
but this stuff, well, it blows my mind to think about the architectural nature of this stuff. the staircase in this pic is made ENTIRELY out of A4-sized [210mm x 297mm] pieces of copy paper. the artist, peter callesen somehow sees incredible structures made entirely of flat paper.
the truly incredible pieces are the ones entire from a single sheet of A4 paper. ONE sheet! like these:

it makes me ask myself how in the world someone can see that spider crawling across to trap a butterfly - from a truly blank page. i met with one of the genius artists from our 242 community last night, and as we bantered around ideas for a new installation to be used in an upcoming worship event, there came a time when he hit the 'zone' - and had left me so far behind, i couldn't even see him anymore. i kept up with him for a while, but then we entered a "but-how-flat-is-paper" kind of moment. i love seeing that happen. the pure thrill of watching an artist, a musician, a poet, enter that realm when they have allowed themselves to be posessed by Spirit - to be taken over by what could be - and trip through true creation.
i have another friend who uses language in a way similar to how michael jordan uses a basketball. if you were alive when MJ was playing, you couldn't help but notice the sheer abundance of posters of MJ rising above the court to dunk the ball with grace. on every one of these posters, the scale is maintained by having some poor schlep that looks nailed to the floor below him. there's always the guy there to give us perspective on how high MJ really is.
this type of flow / creativity / creation completely sucks me in. when i can sit and watch someone lift off the ground and enter a place i'd never known existed, well, i see a glimpse of how flat paper isn't.

U2 in charlotte. gloria.

2005-12-13T10:56:00.000-05:00

another day, another amazing U2 show.
last night was the second leg of the hopkins-whitby U2 tour of 2005. after seeing them from inside the ellipse in hotlanta last month, dennis and i got to jump around with some great friends in the rabble of the general admission section...
great show. great friends.
the boys were in top form, and aside from a little wigginess on the vox mix, the sound and light show was one for the ages. the set list changed enough from ATL to make it surprising, and we got to see them end on Yahweh and 40... two of my all-time faves.
i only took about 400 pics during the show... these two can't even give an idea of how good they are.

one of the best parts of the whole experience was the little bit of understanding that TC gave me about how amazing a woman she really is. she's always amazing me in this arena [i should just get used to it...] but last night took the cake.

we had tix to go to the show together, but after D&D sold their tix, she agreed to give her wonderful general admission spot to dennis so that he and i could have a good "date-night". [her words, not mine]
how amazing a wife is that?

movie review: RENT

2005-12-08T08:27:00.000-05:00

wuss alert.
as a warning, someone once told me that i know far too many show tunes to be straight. rest assured, i am 100% straight, but BOY, do i love me some show tunes.
and in the great land of showtunes that stretches from shall we dance to bring him home to tell me on a sunday, please, there's very few shows that shake my boots that way that rent does. now, if you're not familiar, please stop reading now and proceed directly to the movie trailer. do not pass go. do not collect $200.
go ahead, watch it now. that's ok, i'll wait...
alright, now, do you see what i mean? that tune that's in the trailer - seasons of love - doesn't even scratch the surface.
the long and short of it is, i saw the flick yesterday, and found myself in tears three times. granted, it's a pretty sad script - it's about a group of 8 friends in 1989 who are all dealing with HIV/AIDS in some way. some are infected, some are in love with someone that's infected, some are struggling through all of it.
but truthfully, the death that is inherent in the story is not what brings me to tears every time. the meat of it is these relationships that are built on knowing there is a worldly end at some point, but for them - that's not the whole story.

there is such beautiful simplicity in this lyrical line in my favorite song for the show:
"will i lose my dignity? will someone care? will i wake tomorrow from this nightmare?"
that's the whole song. REALLY. and every time, i cry. there is such grace in these friendships and love affairs. such simple and true grace.

overall, the film features nearly all the actors who pioneered/created the roles on broadway. so, the acting is brilliant - in a stage-to-film kind of way. jesse l. martin [law and order] is particularly strong, as is rosario dawson [one of the few not from the original broadway cast]. the direction is simple - they use real streets in the alphabet city area of NYC, but Chric Columbus doesn't let his feel-good nature [see Home Alone and Uncle Buck] get in the way of the solid writing. the voices featured are fantastic, but raw. they are the real voices of these actors, and whether it's rosario dawson graveling her way through 'light my candle' or taye diggs screaming in a very 2005 R&B voice, the reality of these is important.
overall, the film is well made, and allows for the opening 40 minutes to be slower and obsessed with the introduction of characters. because once the second act starts, there's no turning back.

solid movie. see it. NOW.

video. U2. atlanta on the 19th. mmmm, good.

2005-11-30T16:52:00.000-05:00

don't know if anyone is interested, but here's two tunes from the U2 show on Nov.19:
full video with good sound...

with or without you

bad - the finale

oh, and another pic:

the best day evah.

2005-11-30T15:21:00.000-05:00

*gulp*
this morning was one of the best of my life.
without a doubt.
*gulp*

t.c. and i spent the morning listening to the heartbeat of our 3-inch-long-and-growing baby!
we have been a bit spooked, aprehensive, anxious, scared, you-name-it, because of the mutlitude of health problems that inhabit our families - and the prayer warriors have been running strong - but today, we feel nothing but joy.

there should probably be restricitions on how many whitby's there can be in the world, as we're a pretty strange bunch, but somehow we slipped past the procreation guards and have ourselves a swimmer!

everything looks healthy, and t.c. is feeling pretty good. now we just have to wait till june to meet her/him...
is it june yet?

the methodist men of west blvd. know how to rock

2005-11-29T08:37:00.000-05:00

i spent last night with my wife at the monthly gathering of the methodist men at the united methodist church that sits next to our house. it was their annual christmas program. there was barbecue, carol singing, prayer requests and a trio of senior lady singers. all-in-all, the same emeeting could have happened in 1968 - with no changes or difference.
there was no evidence of any technology, save for a microphone that probably dated to the mid-70's, and the youngest people in the room [besides my wife and me] were all pushing 70.
tami and i were there to play a few songs from the warehouse242-style of worship - a sort of exchange of methods. we did three very stripped-down and acoustic tunes that would be regulars in our worship environment. while they were pretty quiet tunes, it was obvious VERY quickly that we were waaaay outside the norm and comfort zone for these folks.
but that's where the surprises came. two big surprises. one that i could have anticipated, [therefore not a surprise, i guess], and one that really took me aback. seriously - the surprise was in the simplicity.
the first surprise: even though TC and i were offering tunes that were incredibly foreign to these 80-year-old christians, and they were completely unfamiliar with the format, there was an incredibly warm response. there were shaky feet tapping, heads nodding, and a woman in the back in tears. the response was not the polite accommodation that i had anticipated. there seemed to be an honest and earnest desire to engage. afterward, nearly every person there spent time with tc and me to express their appreciation and - more importantly - remark on some element of one of the specifics of the songs. these folks - that are my grandparents' age - truly connected to what we were doing, and seemed to understand the different style we work within.
the second surprise: as a christian who calls a very post-modern, emerging, first-church, rock'n'roll place my worship home, i have become a bit wrapped up in the thought that the post-modern movement is here to save the church for the future. shallow, i know. self-centered, for sure. real? hardly. the second surprise was that these old folks - folks that have been committed christians for longer than i've been alive - really invest in and enjoy their 1880's style of worship and gathering. this antiquated style that i have been sure is way out of date and completely irrelevant, is incredibly vibrant for them. the hymns of john wesley are every bit as living to them as the next incredible tune by david crowder is to me. they don't need to 'freshen' anything up. they have found God where he has shown himself to them - and they have felt no desire to twist that experience to fit something they are not.
i realize that this is really what we're trying to do, too. BUT, that we are only ONE element of the body. only ONE part of His coming and engaging us.
these 85-year-olds really rocked as they sang 'it is well'.
will we be able to say the same?

the second row U2 experience

2005-11-21T08:23:00.000-05:00

so this is what it looks like to be in the second row of a U2 concert.
the weekend in atlanta was fantastic. we had general admission tix to see U2. my wife has never seen them live, and i have only seen them once, in spite of the fact that i have nearly 100 recordings of them in concert.
we weren't able to wait in line all day, so we were all prepared to stand way in the back of the GA section on the floor. we figured that they'd still be great "seats" and we would just soak in the experience. little did we know how cool the experience could get!!
all GA tix are scanned when you enter the arena for random selection of a few hundred fans to stand "in the elipse" - the best view in the house. the stage the U2 uses has a circular walkway that runs out from the main stage about 100 feet. inside that circle is a randomly-chosen group of people that get to see the whole show from the FRONT line.
the four of us went through the scanning process, and the three ahead of me were not selected for the eleipse. but my ticket scanned "V" for vertigo - i felt like Charlie finding the golden ticket to the chocolate factory.
the V scan entitled me to take one person in the elipse with me, but an unbelievably sweet security guard heard us talking about how to meet up with our friends afterwards, and she managed to get them V wristbands, too!
so we wound up - ALL FOUR - in the elipse. it's standing-room-only in there, and we staked out our ground about three feet from the stage directly in front of the edge's side. you can see from the pic just how close we were!
the concert was great. they put on amazing show, and the music remains challenging, broad, glowing, and energizing.

can't wait to see them again here in charlotte.

2005-11-19T22:16:00.000-05:00

U2. Inside the Elipse. 2nd Row.
Just no way to describe the experience!

death by caffeine

2005-11-11T09:57:00.000-05:00

sitting here in St.Arburck's, there's some irony to this, but, plain and simple - it's just funny.
looks like the coca-cola won't kill me today, but it just might tomorrow...
Death by Caffeine

how we get people there.

2005-11-07T07:56:00.000-05:00

Over at Amanda's Spot, there's an interesting post on the search for truth as idolatry. It's never too late to hear a new good perspective - especially from someone who works with youth, who can very easily get caught up in the cult or idol of who Christ is, instead of the pursuit of the actual person.

Amanda writes:
"His way is narrow and foolish. His way is confusing...he tells you to pick up a sword but then you get in trouble for using it. His way is offensive...he tells you to eat his flesh; or to be more true to the Greek, to gnaw on his flesh. Jesus is not the logical conclusion."

As I've been plowing through my new role on the staff of my faith home, I've come into direct contact with so many incredible perspectives on how we seek God on a daily basis. How we actually try to find Him. How we try to touch Him. How we try to experience Him in a way we can understand.
And therein lies the beauty of a fully God MAN. A person. He - who is really beyond our scope in every way - found the simplest way for us to interact with Him. To find Him.

He is a person. And that is who we seek. The person is the path to Him. And that path can be so simple that is actually difficult to comprehend.

My question then becomes, how do we, as emerging, post-modern, neo-acts, first-church, whatever-you-wanna-callit communities answer the call to lead normal people - the folks who have no idea who He really is - to Him in a genuine and creative way? What does it look like?

I love the way that UBC in Waco uses its direct connection with great music - a true leading competency for them - to show people beauty.

What are the best examples you have seen?

embrace the dork within [aka magic music]

2005-11-03T11:58:00.000-05:00

i love my wife. there's TONS of reasons that contribute to making this a simple fact, but let me outline just one.
for my birthday, she bought me tix to see the david crowder band in greenville, nc. the show was last night, and even though we had to drive nine total hours [4.5 each way] to see it, i have never encountered a more profound music experience.

now don't get me wrong, i've got a pretty solid frame of experience. i'm not a part of the christian music ghetto that only has amy grant, steven curtis chapman, and stryper concerts as my point of reference. i've seen coldplay [X&Y], U2 [elevation], nickel creek, donnie & marie, and the original genesis live. i have been to the mountaintop of live music. i have walked away from shows before saying WOW, THAT WAS FRIGGIN AMAZING.

but last night, i learned a little bit about what is possible with music.

david crowder has gone to the essence of who he is, and has been built to be from step one. as my beloved younger brother has told me for years: "embrace the dork within." david crowder has done so, and he has turned it into magic.
if you've never heard his stuff, seek it out. before you trash the thought, give him a chance.

and always remember, in bluegrass, you clap on the chuck, not the boom, of the boom-chuck.

the language of a broken rib

2005-11-01T10:13:00.000-05:00

ok, I need to admit my rising obsession with the weblog community called metafilter. it's basically a big collection of people that think they know the answers to everyone else's questions - and are willing to offer it without any reservation [or research, often].

there's actually some really solid questions and answers on here, especially in terms of quick lernin' [philosophy] or pop culture [ringu] or plenty of tech stuff. solid answers that sometimes are even right!

but the aspect of this brain candy that really intrigues me is wrapped up pretty well in this post: how much does a broken rib hurt?. [watch out for flying language...]
in short, we can witness a group of people attempting to agree on what it feels like to have a broken rib, and also diagnose whether someone's rib is broken - over the internet. simply put, it's pretty impossible to actually compare how much something hurts among people that have no other knowledge of each other. the "how much does it hurt" [what does 'a lot' mean] or "what does it feel like" part of the conversation just devolves into an unsolvable volley of opinions - all of which are valid, but not all of which make sense or come from the same origin or background of experiences.

i work in the land of post-modern christianity, and i love every changing day. my actual job usually revolves around integrating creativity, music, art, design, and all types of madness, into engaging and relevant worship gatherings. there is simply nothing about my job that i don't love. BUT... i find it interesting how often i find myself in conversations that are, essentially, "broken rib" questions. we all understand the concept of pain, but we all have different experiences that define it for US - and it is nearly impossible to communicate or understand the other side.

we all approach faith, and our interaction/service, from different and wildly divergent backgrounds, and this shows up in the ways we define who we are in faith, and how we believe others should define our interaction. these conversations are beautiful, but can be incredibly tangled in humanity.

well, sometimes we probably just need answers like this: witty songs

the tools we use are far too fancy

2005-10-26T15:31:00.000-05:00

I make things way too difficult sometimes. Actually *gasp* I think we all do - especially the church as it "emerges".
Before you go reading anything else here, take a look at this music video. Trust me. The first 30 seconds are nothing special, and I'm not sure that i even liked the song at that point... but what happens next is a perfect example of how powerful simplicity really is.
Jed's Other Poem

What you watched was a short film/music video featuring the band Grandaddy. Now, in today's hi-tech world, there is probably an incredible way to use a $4,000 machine and software package to digitally animate the characters on the screen to match what you just saw. Any reasonably trained animator could do it with a few days of work.

The magic of the video, though, is that it was created on an Apple IIc that was built in 1979. The entire machine had less RAM than this text file would take up [48K]. It was programmed with a BASIC-esque language, and required about 15 minutes of learning to do it. I remember playing with BASIC back then, and being able to make some cool stuff.

The reason for this post? We make our lives [and our churches] too complicated in the way we create interaction with each other and Christ. It really doesn't matter what the newest-greatest toy is out there to guide us or complement our incredible worship experience. There were plenty of tools that existed in, say 60 A.D., to enable Christianity to spread thousands of miles in a few years. With no powered transportation and limited mass communication methods.

I'm not suggesting that we move back to pre-electric days and ditch the internet. In fact, I think that e-communication is essential in the future of our church. What I AM saying is: when does the pursuit of the next great method or format actually get in the way of what we're trying to do?

Nothing will ever replace face-to-face conversation. Deal with it.
Sure, we need to create new environments that foster those conversations, and find avenues to attract people into those moments, but in reality... won't the most simple tools work in most instances?
Try it, you might like it.

information gladly given?

2005-10-25T07:21:00.000-05:00

I've ridden the MUNI in San Francisco many times on my visits there, and there's a sign on every MUNI bus that says this:

The first time I read it, I nearly broke out into tears laughing. At the time, I thought it fit perfectly with the job I was doing - working for a non-profit organization made up of male college students.

Now that I work in a Christian community, I wonder even more how well this applies to what we do in the "church." As someone who came from outside of the emerging community within the last few years - and in fact was a pretty stubborn dissenter - I am impressed that the SF MUNI system was able to so closely capture how so many of us interact with normal people.

What I mean is that when I started attending my current church community, I was really impressed by so much of who the people were, how clear the message was, how beautifully committed everyone seemed to be - but not by how open they were. I felt like I could get to the same point with everyone I met, but never further, unless I already knew them.
This has certainly changed for me at Warehouse, and I really believe we are wrestling with this symptom on a daily basis. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we don't.
I've experienced the same thing in at least three other post-modern/emerging/non-trad churches that I've visited over the last year.
The key words in the statement are: "but safety requires". And I think we all believe that is true. So many if us believe [whether we admit it or not] that there is something distinctly dangerous, or just not safe, about freely admitting who we are to people who are investigating our communities. We all have skeletons in our closet - heck, our faith seems to be built on those skeletons some days - but the magic of our faith and the promise of Christ is that those skeletons liberate us. Our very flaws are essential to the story we live. Unless we openly remember on a daily basis how broken each of us still is we can't ever hope to speak into the lives of people who can only see their brokenness.

What should this look like? Beats me.
But I'm up for trying to find out. I'm up for the conversation. I'm up for the ten thousand conversations that need to happen every week. The turn we need to make to the newest folks in our lives to really ask what their pain looks like - and to share that ours is just as ugly, but the solution is beautiful.
Deb and Dennis did that for me a few years ago, and I'll never be able to repay that debt, unless I am constantly asking also.

the allure of wide distraction

2005-10-20T19:27:00.000-05:00

Over at 43folders [one of my absolute faves] Merlin brought together a pile of references to the very basic concept of distraction. Now, the guys over there are productivity wizards, and are mostly focused on personal and professional-type effectiveness tools, but I think this concept has particular bearing on our role in ministry.

Merlin quotes Paul Ford when he talks about the difference between wide and narrow distractions in our daily lives. The wide ones are those that are the dog toys - a piece of rawhide or a thrown bone - and the narrow ones are the things that take us down miles and miles of rabbit trails - farther away from where we started.

As we work in our daily interactions with normal people, how often do we let both elements of distraction (wide ones that show up as superficial red herrings - and narrow ones that allow for meaningless arguments we have with ourselves) prevent us from getting to the real depth of the conversation. I love the thoughts my friends are having right now [pat/jen/dan/crissy] of jumping off the ledge into church planting in london. While they are carefully planning and exploring, I get the real sense that the wide and narrow that run in our way will not trip them up. They are really listening to the base-level call of the gospel and they are investing completely and honestly.

That type of integrity in mission - the kind that overcomes the distractions we're dealing with every day - is sorely lacking in far too many of our christian communities.
The distraction of personality can be crushing some days, and i'm just wondering how often we let the wide and narrow nature of it get in the way of everything we say we do.

sometimes you have to believe yourself

2005-10-18T09:40:00.000-05:00

so i went to see elizabethtown over the weekend with TC, and was pleasantly surprised. i wrote earlier about how excited i was to see it, and i really have been pumped for a while now.
unfortunately, i read the reviews last week, and they tore it up!
i mean, without seemingly any exception, the reviewers called it an underachieving movie that just didn't hit the mark.
i can't disagree more. in fact, it was one of the first films in a long time that both my wife and i agreed instantly that we want to own on DVD.
the performances were solid - paula deen [the food network southern cook lady] was great, kirsten dunst got over herself just enough to keep from tripping on her own melodrama, and orlando bloom actually convinced me he's not a woman in men's clothing.
and, without question, the highlight of the flick was the most amazing use of Free Bird i've ever encountered. Cameron Crowe built a fake band [using My Morning Jacket as the basis] and created a tribute tune that is worthy of the ages.

the magic of the movie was built by cameron crowe's particular ability to meld acting and music into film. he never lopes on or manufactures with the crutch of a familliar song, and in fact used much more esoteric stuff this time around. somehow, he built it into a powerhouse of southern rock and wistful newcomers that constantly supports the story.
well done.

wallpaper and pure, blistering magic

2005-10-13T22:08:00.000-05:00

i'm amazed at what we let drift into the background.
my wife and i just got back from the nickel creek concert at ovens auditorium, and while it the most sterile environment we've seen them in, it was still an unbelievable show. the combo of those three kids blows my skull. newgrass, bluerock, alt.country, whatever you want to call it, the talent level in the room was blistering. there's three 20-ishs in the group, and they go off on their own for a few weeks, play with some of the best [read: oldtime] bluegrass musicians in the country, and come back together with a pile of new tunes that could create fourteen albums. they pick the best of that crop, jam on it for a while, and record their records 'live' - warts and all.
what comes out the other end is heavy magic, and i will never get enough of it.

but i digress.

in the midst of this group, made up of chris thile, a true savant on the mandolin [not many can woo successfully using only a mandolin], sarah watkins, a beauty who can create flames from her fiddle, and, well, that other guy, there is, well, that other guy.
sean watkins - that other guy - plays a killer guitar. he's not sexy in high heels ..sarah.., or reinvigorating a musical genre [hills music] ..chris.., instead, he simply plays a guitar like almost no one i've ever seen.
i mean, i've seen dave matthews, david wilcox, tim reynolds, phil keagy, and the edge - live. they are good. reeeeally good. but not one of them can match the finger skill - pure rolling grace - that sean owns when he's playing.
in nickel creek, he's the supporting act. he's the background. he's the simple grace that holds the tune together.
he fades into the background. he's wallpaper.

bu the wallpaper is magic. blistering magic.

$8.50 for a matinee. baaaargain.

2005-10-10T19:22:00.000-05:00

the list of movies-to-see never gets shorter. proof:

1 | elizabethtown. there's no substitute for good music in good movies. cameron crowe is good like that.
elizabethtown trailer
music feature trailer

2 | walk the line. johnny. cash. you heard me right. johnny. friggin'. cash.
johnny cash trailer

3 | v for vendetta. natalie portman shaved her head for this. written by the matrix guys. c'mon. this is too good.
shaved head. still hot. watch the trailer.

4 | rent. yeah, i like showtunes, and i know which of the actors in this flick played the original roles on broadway.
rent trailer [the song is worth it]

5 | domino. there just aren't enough movies about bounty hunters.
domino trailer

cameron crowe's gonna lose his job.

2005-10-09T05:45:00.000-05:00

this has to be one of the most creative things i've seen in a decade.
find it here. it's worth watching.
i'm already drooling over the whole mash-up music thing, now i have to deal with this, too?

current fave on the mashup front: Sombody Rock Me

watch. listen. then tell me you're not addicted.

well used. words.

2005-10-08T08:29:00.000-05:00

the power of simple language amazes me. especially in "church". heck, even that word has an indeterminably large bag of twisted power associated with it. not the entity, but the word. how many faith communities/plants/worship arenas/gatherings, etc, do everything in their power to NOT be referred to as a church? as if people might not know, or might not associate their baggage with us? c'mon. really? you sticking with that story?

i'm amazed by the ability some writers/lyricists have in building truly beautiful creations using only very pedestrian and simple words. that is where the true power of words is seen. not in big rhetoric, but in small, simple syllables that dance.

chris caraba - the dashboard guy - Bend and Not Break
I'm talented at breathing / especially exhaling / so that my chest will / rise and fall with yours.

conor oberst - the brights eyes guy - Waste of Paint
I have a friend, he's mostly made of pain...
Your eyes are poor / you're blind you see / no beauty could have come from me

now that's words well used.
when we get all obsessed with big words, big meanings, big ideas that have no real explanation that will work - where do we get trapped? do we really enjoy being confined but a mutt of a language that can't decide whether its coming or going?

if you don't believe me, ask someone to define faith, Christian, worship, or Bill Clinton's "is" - it's just not gonna happen without a fistfight.

i found a reason - by cat power

2005-10-05T13:13:00.000-05:00

quick review: "i found a reason" by cat power
chan marshall, a 30-ish singer with no real pop credits, put out a record filled with relatively obscure covers in 2000, and the gem stuck right in the middle is an old lou reed / velvet underground tune called "i found a reason". the whole performance is only 2 minutes long, and feels even shorter, mostly due to the barren arrangement that seems to alternately employ voice OR piano, but rarely both in conjunction. together, they form a seamless line that never seems to pause, even though there is empty space dripping all over the place.
the original song itself is much simpler and choppy than her performance would allow, and Cat Power has accomplished the truly rare: they have updated and improved a lou reed song.
what makes Chan's [pronounced Shawn] track so good is the notion that not all "pretty" songs need to avoid musical tension or follow a tested beginning-middle-end flow. the abrupt stop adds grace to the poetry instead of feeling unfinished, and her play on the lyrical bounce of 'come, come, come, to me' manages to avoid becoming campy.
overall, Cat Power has taken a song that didn't need to be remade [it was so good already] and made it better.
worth 99 cents.

iron and coke, chromium steel

2005-10-04T12:19:00.000-05:00

sitting in a coffee shop has the allure of mental poetry. it just feels like creativity should flow beautifully as i smell the sumatra roasting and watch the pretty people walk by. unfortunately, that has rarely been the case lately.

sometimes i feel trapped in the reins of the expectations of Creativity with a capital Cr. you see, Cr is also the periodic table symbol for Chromium, a transition metal. Chromium is primarily used in the making of stainless steel, but is a strengthening agent used around the world. Transition Metals are a family of elements that have a very magical quality - they are malleable, meaning they can be formed into almost any shape, and they conduct electricity and heat. The interesting thing about transition metals is that their valence electrons, or the electrons they use to combine with other elements, are present in more than one shell. This means they connect with other elements on more than one level, creating an incredible bond [thus the strength of metals] and betraying any desire to break at the atomic level. Transition Metals are also the only elements that create magentic fields.

Cr, this often ugly but vital metal, is the essence of creativity to me.

i know that may seem to make very little sense, but there is a liberating freedom in its qualities. really, the purpose of integrating the core of creativity into any environment is that sub-level and unbreakable bonding quality that these transition metals posess. they conduct electricity and heat - passing on the passion - and bond deeply with the other elements present to form painfully strong substances and expereinces that allow for indellible effect.

like music.
pure music.

the kind of music that never allows one line or lyric to bore magically into skull, but rather begs you to understand the entire piece before you can remember any single element of it. the kind of music that, when asked, you can't sing a line from it to save your life, you can only beg the person asking to sit and listen to the whole piece - five times without stopping.

that kind of music.
that kind of chromium music

baffled and trapped. all in a song.

2005-10-03T21:06:00.000-05:00

two times now recently, i've been overwhelmingly baffled by an amazing song - baffled to the point that i get trapped in it and can't seem to come up for air. it has the same feeling as when you're 11 years old and you run into an underwater stamina test that nearly breaks your lungs, and the feeling of fleeting life traps you and liberates you for a second that wraps you up for a year.
right now, imogen heap [the lead singer from frou frou] is lyrically seared into my ears with such a trembling grace that i'm now on a fifth-straight listen, with no end to the repeat button in sight.

i'm excited to hear the rest of her new album. josh a. turned me on to this one tune, and i'll be forever grateful.
there's a truly reminiscent quality to the performance, like a memory is actually skipping through while she sings. the lyrics are simply umcomplicated, but betray the depth of knowing where the pain comes from, or where she'll feel it next.

oh yeah, the song is called "hide and seek" by imogen heap. enjoy, just don't say i didn't warn you.

Imogen Heap Website

sweaty forehead & shaking hands

2005-10-03T06:22:00.000-05:00

the gathering at 242 this morning was smooth, short, and in need of a solid push beyond our comfort zone. dave's talk was really a breath of fresh air. i love the conversational nature of our usual talk format, but dave really ratcheted up the intensity by presenting the message in a theatrical way. by relating a piece of the story of david so thespianically, he drove home the reality of this ancient example. it's so easy to compartmentalize old testament teaching because it feels, well, distant. this morning, by taking the story into our modern context, i was able to connect more fully.
response and worship was trying today. rachel's voice was fantastic, and the technique of the musicians worked well, but i felt pretty constantly off-kilter. my hands were trmebling to the point that an average A chord was a challenge. psalm 131 worked. it flat out worked, and i want to invest more in the truly worshipful nature of peotic music, without worrying about the technical crap the binds me into myself. one simple riff of five notes - not even built into a chord - holds so much power in that song, and david's thousands of years old lyrics really entrance me.
i had a pretty shaky morning. the tremors were absolutely annoying, and my back was wrenched to the point that it made me sweat. scary, but we made it through. in the midst of these physical challenges, i really am forced [sometimes unwillingly] to rely completely on God to build a intelligible line out of my hands. it always works, yet i seem constantly untrusting.
what will it take?

3am conversations tend to be one-sided

2005-09-30T17:08:00.000-05:00

so sleep has now become the ultimate snodwrangle of this process. [yes, i like to make up words. snodwrangle - it's sweeping the nation]
i can take tremors and slowing down. even the freaky freezing doesn't really get me down, but wow. the sleeping really is starting to suck.
last night, i was still awake at 2:45am. i missed my window as the meds wore off around 10:45, and i really didn't feel like taking another pill just so i could calm down to go to sleep. what a mistake.
i was writhing pretty good by 11:15, and i couldn't even keep my fingers steady enough to use work the remote control kill the boredom as i waited for sleep. so apparently i did fall asleep at some point during the morning, because i woke up just in time to work through my 30-minute process of getting out of bed.
first, the pill goes down with a swish of warm water, or, like this morning, dry.
then, i wait for the glorious rush of "ahhhhh" to come - a solid 20 minutes later.
only then do i get to tug my withering butt out toward the edge of the bed so i can wobble onto two shaky legs.

when all goes well, i'm human by 6:45am.
when it doesn't, i'm cooked till 10.

and then it all starts again.

list #2 : the chain

2005-09-28T13:19:00.000-05:00

LIST TWO: top five ways to yank my proverbial chain
1 | make me watch a movie with juliette lewis in it. it couldn't be any simpler. all movies with JL in them are terrible. just like all songs by natalie merchant (post 10,000 M) sound exactly the same. go ahead, test the theory.
2 | put tomatoes in my salad. i know that tomatoes seem to be a logical addition for most people, but for me, they are an invitation for a week's stay at county general. so, while i appreciate the care and concern you have for broadening my horizons because the tomatoes at your truly-unique-and-customer-broadening-restaurant really are something special... i ain't sayin' no because of taste. the little red bastards will kill me. so leave 'em off, just like i asked.
3 | point at your wrist when you ask me what time it is. i'm pretty sure i can find my watch on my own, and if not, do you really trust me to give you the accurate time?
4 | call your product new & improved. it's simple logic, buddy. it's either new, OR improved. can't be both. don't make me call the darwin squad.
5 | make me take brain medicine eleven times a day. ok, i know i can't avoid this one, but my neurologist still pisses me off when he says it's no big deal. trust me.
BIG deal.

so this is how it's gonna be.

2005-09-27T14:16:00.001-05:00

every day. and i mean it. every day. i will toss together a list of absolutely no consequence to the world, and do everything i can to ensure that it remains useless.
that combined with a healthy obsession with the progression of fruitball music and rock-n-roll church should keep us all busy.

LIST ONE: top five movies with lists
1 | high fidelity
i know, it's based on a book, and doesn't hold a candle to it, but nothing beats a music list that comes from the mind of jack black.
2 | 10 things i hate about you
ok, we'll soon all learn that my love of teen flicks is almost unhealthy, but sometimes, it is validated by a poetic adaptation of a shakespearean drama featuring julia stiles. ok, let the laughing commence.
3 | se7en
yes, it should be tossed from any list because of the way it features brad pitt and gwenneth in the height of their screwed up relationtrip, but it's rare to find a film that can work an ancient catholic morality device into it's serial-killer plot.
4 | footloose
how long is the list of stuff these poor oppressed country-dancers can't do? but damn, isn't john lithgow beautifully imposing?
5 | say anything
"A career? I've thought about this quite a bit sir and I would have to say considering what's waiting out there for me, I don't want to sell anything, buy anything or process anything as a career. I dont want to sell anything bought or processed or buy anything sold or processed or repair anything sold, bought or processed as a career. I dont want to do that. My father's in the army. He wants me to join, but I can't work for that corporation, so what I've been doing lately is kick-boxing, which is a new sport...as far as career longevity, I dont really know. I cant figure it all out tonight, sir, so I'm just gonna hang with your daughter." - Lloyd Dobbler

and so it began.

and so it began

2005-09-27T12:12:00.000-05:00

it seems everyone in america is blogging. and, contrary to the promise i make to myself each morning, it seems i read most of them. i don't really think i'm learning much, but heck, who is? i'm not really convinced that i have a tremendous amount to offer to the world in written form, but i'm more than willing to litter and see who picks up behind me.

in that vein, i have four simple goals:
1 | create a kick-ass list of lists
2 | force my brain to regularly expel the flotsam [i'll keep the jetsam] for someone else's use & enjoyment
3 | write down all the amazing reasons i love the folks that make my life interesting [take that how you may...]
4 | sound foolish about music

any objections?