those angels are singing again

i feel like if i don't write down my ideas in this blog, that they didn't really happen. that i didn't do the reading, process it, make opinions and subsequently want to share what i have learned.


my first one is this.

1st, i think it is an interesting, deconstructionist view of a solider. you want me to honor the solider and applaud his service to his country. but i can't. because he willingly signed up to be a part of the war. you can not tell me at this point in time that a solider doesn't know what is going on. they are not defending freedom of America, or spreading democracy. we've known for at least a good year that it has all been fucked up. instead what enrollment in the military has become the bad guy in the situation. they are the ones who are still murdering civilians, but we don't know how many because there is no official count. have we murdered more people than Sadam Hussein? Yes. Sadamm H deaths US deaths i really don't care what you reasons for or against the war are. all must agree that war/killing is wrong.

my second one is this

no, not that the smartest man in the world is gay. although it does make for a good title. i found what he said about relationships to be very revealing. it's on the second page. i really like this line 'relationships require heroism on the part of both people'. you can read more on your own. that's all.

oh, and scotty is looking for someone to eat late night nachos before he leaves. holla.

1000

today is share an awesome link with someone you could care less about day. here ya go



link


5 animals i like

kitties
horses
tortoises
dogs
bookworms

happy secular festivities

so tonight's subject brings together 5.37 years of college.


who feels like college is a little too easy?

i remember when i first attended college, i was expecting to spend about 20 a week studying. i remember hearing stories from my teachers about how many hours they spent.

what a joke. the only semester of college that is comparable to the high school studies was my freshman year in college. hard to believe, but i was a chem/bio major for a year cause i enjoyed that kind of stuff. still do. anyway, my almost 5 years in college has been some easy-pass to a better tax bracket. my GPA in college better than my GPA in high school. but i bet that i would do worse on an ACT test. it kind of disgusts me.

so what is college? well, for one it is learning how to meet prof's teaching styles. you have to learn how to study for their tests and write papers that say what they want them to say. for many, including myself, it wasn't learning how to figure out problems on your own. instead we asked the prof. it wasn't critical thinking, it was doing research and then copying their ideas down. it wasn't creative, it was calculating. i want my money back. i really think to be happy with my college experience, i need to go to grad school

if i was able to do it differently, i would have stayed at NWC and majored in ecology or botany.

if i ever teach a class, the first test that they take will be an essay test. here's the question.




water. discuss.

i ain't never gonna

nope, not rick ashley. you bummed?
i had the knee surgery today and got great drugs in a gift basket. how nice!


so it's late and i'm loopy, this should be one of the most mind blowing-posts EVAR!

however, i find that a lot of my introspection comes from being upset or frustrated with something/one. tragedy is one of the greatest sellers. a story doesn't connect with an audience unless there is antagonist. maybe some modern work doesn't follow that model, but it makes up such a small part of the total collective work. even heaven has an antagonist.

i kinda want to do some of those dumb facebook notes get forwarded to you by the odd friend (usually a girl):

think these things are dumb...but I thought I'd give it a shot. It's actually pretty funny sometimes.


1.Put your iPod or iTunes on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!
4. Tag 10 friends who might enjoy doing the note as well as the person you got the note from.


IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
Seven Seas of Rhye

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
November Has Come

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Community Service - true

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Alone Down There - (ooooo!

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Deepspace 5oul

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
One Thing - (hmmm, interesting

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Never Surrender -( aka domination

WHAT IS 2+2?
Hero

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Hypnotized

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Rumba/Boler0

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Interplanet Janet (yes, yes it is

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Cataclysmic Circles ... World Is Round

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
When Everything Falls (nice

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Born (haha

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
The End (ominous

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Can't Take God Away (okay

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Money Song (haha

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Ban Marriage (kind of honest

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Let Me Live (true

WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Alone (interesting about the human condition to want social interaction but yet have such a terrible group mentality

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
First In Flight (fun

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Original Species

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
TakeThe Wheel (not Carrie

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
Death of a Martian (it would

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
Ain't No Sunshine (again...

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
Starry Eyed Surprise (right, a surprise baby would scare me

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
Forfeit

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Sum Of Us

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Red Morning Light

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Fly


one things that was triggered as i was filling this out was how my view of marriage has changed. 3 years ago, i was seriously considering marriage. I had found a girl that I loved, and considered tying the knot. man, how my life would have been so different. i would have lived off campus. there goes about 90% of the friends from campus. I would have been working a lot more at a different job. i wouldn't have been able to survive on 6.75 at 20 hours a week. she was interested in being a nanny. we broke up because she was interested in someone else and i was moving to nashville. i wonder if i would be as happy as i am now.

now, marriage is even questionable. do i want to even get married? i just look at all the broken marriages in the music industry because music is their first love. and right now, it is mine too. i don't have the money, and i'm not financially secure.

i have also thought about what if we made everyone's marriage illegal. it kinda goes along with this story by Jon Stewart. i would really recommend viewing the whole thing. it kinda has changed my viewpoint.

i would also say that I am happy with my life right now. I have everything that I need. (Working on the wants (haha)) My future looks good. I'm in good health. I'm surrounded by people that I love and that love me. it's good.

encore

modern music makes me angry.


modern, classical music makes me want to punch something. especially things like babbit, or crumb. Henry Nyquist has his famous theorem, and so that makes him an expert in audio things, maybe. he has this theory that because of digital music's limits of sampling frequency, it causes people to become angry.

no, i think it is modern classical music. it's not that i don't get serialism, or atonality, or twelve tone music. i've studied it and understand how it works and solved the twelve tone tables. these people were insane. 1st, it is odd that music is considered an art form considering how many rules and structures it must conform to. it is better suited to it's old classification of a math. but these composers wanted to be different and original. so instead of just breaking rules, they made up new ones. different ones, original ones. and made some of the most disgusting music on the face of the earth. they weren't inspired, there was very little external inspiration in their writings. instead, they drew upon their own ideas. they were modern.

so bring back music that connects with the human emotion. bring back music that touches souls. bring back a heart. don't ban what was created, for it was and will always now be. but do what is right for my little robot heart.















post script: this was the first picture i clicked on.

post post script: i really like one of the comments about the crumb piece. can you guess which one?

post^3 script: 2 finals left.

idle

Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.

~ Ellen Goodman

i think it is time to withdraw my money from Bank of America. Here's why.

knee surgery got bumped up to Friday at 7:30am. Oh, it's going to be a glorious weekend of drugs! to be pain free. who's excited? i know i am.

finals are done on Thursday at 2:10pm. See you then.

moderate

2021:
a small group of rogue Americans hijack an airplane and fly it into the Burg Al-Arab, in Dubai. The United Arab Emirates spend the next 8 years invading Canada and toturing it's citizens, eventually leaving over 80.000 dead.


Oops, that's not funny.

do you want to see a show in my basement?

hahahah


today's topic of greatness, cause that's all i give you, is my thoughts on christian interaction.


i'm a pretty guy (add 'easy-going' between what ever words you choose). not a whole lot gets my ducks out a row. of course, i do a lot of wrestling with the day to make it the best day i've ever had, but you don't know that.

anyway, i silently boil away as i see people be nice to each other and the only thing that holds them back is Christianity. so you aren't a nice person. i don't care. be rude, biting, mean, tell them to fuck off, because God already sees you for the heartless stuck up-wad that you are, and second because i probably want to tell you to do shove your head in a pile of thistle based shit.

i write this because i really feel the need to tell people off. so it's a self-criticism. i'm working on changing that. i will start begin to tell people when they are uncontrollably stupid.


another thought for the day. college. it is the one place that everyone is the same age, deals with the same problems, has some of the same goals. it is the one place we loose touch with the outside world. we don't have to interact with those older or younger than us and cope with it. aka a work environment. we are bubbled into ideas of similarity. i remember in high school that i wanted to try really hard to stay in touch with my younger ideas. that is really hard to do in college. and i hear some people say that they don't like kids or some other bullshit like that. WTF!!! did you just pop out as a 20 something hipster? i want to do some slapping!

who likes 70's funk and r&B music? cause i would like to expand my non-drug induced haze of music some. give some names of artists and i will give a gold sticker. k? k.


i have a version of pro tools, the academic version, and it is less capable than other versions. doesn't the word academic have the conotation of being greater than average? like academic research, or an academic study? versus like business or personal? oh digi-design, how i hate thine gutz.

get out of my studio!

not original, but you don't care

A College Version of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas

Twas the night before finals,
And all through the college,
The students were praying
For last minute knowledge.

Most were quite sleepy,
But none touched their beds,
While visions of essays
danced in their heads.

Out in the taverns,
A few were still drinking,
And hoping that liquor
would loosen up their thinking.

In my own apartment,
I had been pacing,
And dreading exams
I soon would be facing.

My roommate was speechless,
His nose in his books,
And my comments to him
Drew unfriendly looks.

I drained all the coffee,
And brewed a new pot,
No longer caring
That my nerves were shot.

I stared at my notes,
But my thoughts were muddy,
My eyes went ablur,
I just couldn't study.

"Some pizza might help,"
I said with a shiver,
But each place I called
Refused to deliver.

I'd nearly concluded
That life was too cruel,
With futures depending
On grades had in school.

When all of a sudden,
Our door opened wide,
And Patron Saint Put It Off
Ambled inside.

Her spirit was careless,
Her manner was mellow,
She started to bellow:

"What kind of student
Would make such a fuss,
To toss back at teachers
What they tossed at us?"

"On Cliff Notes! On Crib Notes!
On Last Year's Exams!
On Wingit and Slingit,
And Last Minute Crams!"

Her message delivered,
She vanished from sight,
But we heard her laughing
Outside in the night.

"Your teachers have pegged you,
So just do your best.
Happy Finals to All,
And to All, a good test."

half ton of TNT

i am extremely tired of school. I want to be done. It wants to take all my efforts, and I'm sick of it taking all my time. If it wasn't for school, I could do more things that I enjoy. I do not enjoy school. Well, make that piano. I feel pulled in so many directions. Two different schools and education objectives. A couple of different jobs. and there are social responsibilities. I am so angry at school. School school, please go away. Never come again. and then go even farther away.

i bought a new vacuum

no, cause i don't have any carpet in my house. that would be silly, gosh.

but think about this, why are we busy all the time? why do we always have something to do, somewhere to be, another thing to strike off our list?

bills, maybe.


let me put this forth. it is because we don't know how to be bored, or fill a vacuum of time. typically, sunday afternoons are a lull in the work week. we don't have the business of the week to keep our minds away from our lack of imagination. and so what do we do? we find something: naps, homework, reading my blog. instead, maybe try using your imagination.

if you are looking for a good book over a break, check out Man's Search For Meaning by Viktore Frankl. it's a view of a man who survived the concentration camps. he is a psychologist in logotherapy. very interesting views and commentary.

also, if you ever read back in school; 'The Giver' by Lois Lowery, it is now a trilogy. eat it up.

5 childhood books i can remember

• 3 little pigs, extended version
• The big red barn
• Ranger Don
• a cloth book of nursery rhymes
• The Boxcar children
  

hahaha, it's sooo funny

yah, everyone likes it. i mean, that's what i have striven for. and so have millions of other people. when i got up this morning, it put a smile on my face. cause i knew that i was doing it. just like you.


we are working for the man.

what? i thought we just finished some hipster semi-intellectual institution that really, you know, just opened our minds. we saw what everyone one else before had done, and we weren't going to let that happen to us.


but

we were too lazy. man, that first year out of college was hard. we needed to find a place to call home outside of the dorm room that i shared a bathroom with 3 other people. my meals had always been prepared in the caf. now we look forward to going to the caf because we have no idea how to cook something other than ramen. and man, i am so happy that they came out with a lighter color of brown salt to put in those flavor packets, cause i knew one day i was going to be done with beef flavor.

then i met this really awesome girl, and i couldn't think with anything other than my crotch and now i'm looking for health insurance. and guess who offers that? the man. man, the man is the man, man. so now i'm at the entry level graveshift so i can eat that other flavor of ramen on my lunchbreak cause i don't have enough money.

point of it all, no one is looking to work for the man, but because we make some bad decisions we are trapped in a cycle that we succumb to in hopes that our children will be able to escape it. so don't spit in disgust at him, he had dreams just like you.

freedom


i would like to say tonight that knowledge is freedom. along with power, knowledge is the freedom to make a choice. the freedom to say something pertinent. the freedom to be informed. the freedom to know both sides of a argument. the freedom to ignore advice. the freedom to accept council. the freedom to share wisdom.


things are getting better.


anybody know of a recording studio that is looking to pay their interns?
just thought i'd try.

5 favorite things about the internet
you can learn anything
someone is always wrong
the common collective is strong
it is always on
it is free

google life

Google + Life = Loogle


i could have went with Glife, but that is such a copy. and this sounds like loogy.


anyway, this is super cool. google has teamed up with Life magazine to scan pictures that no on has seen. right now, there are 2 million of them, but when it is finished, there will be 10 million. if you want some cool pictures to look at, i would start here.

say it takes about 3 seconds to look at a picture, that would be 60 million seconds, or 100000 minutes or ~1666.67 hours or ~694.44 days or 1.90132588 years. (years calculation done by google)

tomorrow, i swear

just a picture for today.


odd that the less time you spend writing something, the less you have to say.

killing buzz like bees

okay, so your kid wants to be an astronaut. and you're like; hey, my kid(s) are the greatest thing since barack obama. they can do whatever they want. so i decided to post some guidelines on how to prepare your kids for such and awesome career!

step 1: buy a van. it has to be old.

step 2: take the owners manual and translate it into Russian.

step 3: tell your kid the van is a space station. their job is to rotate the tires.

step 4: sink the van in your pool, hand them the manual, and a balloon full of air.

Go Get 'Em, Junior

helter skelter

everybody to the election!

so what are the intertubes going to clog with after the election?

i know, conspiracy theories about how the race was biased! or so many people weren't counted!


i'm just going to protest either way.

shattered glasses

man, i don't do enough. hahahz.


my 5 current dreams,
to find happiness and love in serving

to find success in work

to be at peace with whom i've become

to seek understanding in everything

to overcome pain

i broke my tape deck

actually, i'm going to add extra inputs to my tape machine. it will still only be 4 tracks though. but then i will dump it to ProTools HD and layer it. ftw.


anyway,
so today during church, i was having a thought experiment with the guy sitting beside me. He had some physical proof of a fact. I said, well, what if i rip it up and write down my own physical proof of another fact, that would make mine the fact. and he didn't get it. he couldn't refute my phsycial proof except by what he had in his head. i was kinda bummed that he didn't do better.

out of eden

okay my christian music listeners, this isn't about how i saw an out of eden concert. i just think was thinking about the concept of being out of eden. and i'm not going to really expand on that thought, because that will influence yours.

So, if this tree is 9550, how does this fit it?

time to begin again random endings!!!


top 5 favorite ways to end a night:
with milk and cookies

being home after a long day at work

with intellectual discourse

talking to my family

running

kindertotenlieder

i have a musical history test tomorrow.


question, now that gas has gone down from 4.00 to 2.85, why haven't the prices of airlines and shipping companies do the same? or even the florist? come on...

I am free

go to work
send your kids to school
follow fashion
act normal
walk on the pavement
watch TV
save for your old age
obey the law
repeat after me:

I am free

classical

here are some running quotes to get up! get up! get up!

everyone is invited, not everyone shows up

membership dues are collected daily

prove it

you vs. you

start arrogant, find humility

sing birds

general update.

went to my grandfathers funeral last weekend. it wasn't unexpected, which made it not as difficult. there were points that i actually enjoyed the weekend. i enjoyed sitting with the cousins. i think that was the only times that all the cousins had been together in quite a while. i don't think it will happen anytime soon, unless like Sharina said,"i hope grandma dies soon so we can do this again."

i am super ready to be done with school. i could also sleep in a studio and live there eternally. nice.

i quit. this is the last post on this one. i won't drag this death out any longer.


but could there be a phoenix? yes. humans live for hope.

stop

go read something about the upcoming political situation.



ANYTHING!



PLEASE!
CNN
go read something from outside the USA, like the BBC


(no picture, go read)

don't be surprised

i popped it. ghosts. toothpaste. my life at oceanway.


i have come to the conclusion, that as a scientist, I can no longer call myself a conservative.

Science is about progress, conservatism isn't.

This has been quite a neat little journey to go on. I came into college as a conservative, believing that things were better how they used to be. As I have discovered, it wasn't better. People just remember the things that they want to, and they will even make things up.


This could mean I'm liberal, I could be whig, or green, etc... just not conservative.

dancing with cash

dan from the listener project spent the night at my house last night after his show. it was cool, cause he brought his knives along.

tomorrow looks to be a long day.

i haven't written in such a long time, that i don't have any ideas that need to have more attention than all of them. they all want to come out, but i can't focus on them one at a time.

i don't write songs. too tedious.

the knee isn't really getting any better. taking meds, but no goal.

each day needs more sleep.

tuxedos are a cop out.

i end each day with punctuation

if i got

my bike is oiled.

i have a headache.

if you can give me a moment, i'll be back with some man.

give me

the opposite of fear is not courage, it is compassion


i'm too busy for a normal life. but i want it that way. but i would like to know what Jesus wants.

i thought about

my dreams


i have more vivid dreams and i sleep better when i wear my teeth retainer.


conservatism in 2008: bigger government with more power. wtf. i would vote for (gasp) ron paul over mcCain right now. i know. but at least he understands what the word conservatism stands for.

Here are some quotes from Pravda’s “Palin —the Devil in disguise”:

The candidate for the Vice Presidency of the United States of America, whose experience in small town politics, mothers´day [sic] dos and the local hockey club is her claim to fame, threatened to open the gates of Hell by attacking Russia in the event of another invasion of Georgia in a televised interview on ABC (shown today). One question for this self-opinionated upstart: Do you know what a nuclear holocaust is?

Sarah Palin, Mrs. Nobody know-it-all shrieking [sic] cow from Alaska, the joke of American politics, plied with a couple of vodkas before letting rip in front of incredulous audiences while McCain coos in the background, cuts a ridiculous figure as she strives to be taken seriously.

So Sarah Palin, Mrs. Hockey Mom housewife-cum-small-town gossip merchant and cheap little guttersnipe, suppose you shut up and allowed real politicians and diplomats to do their work? Threatening Russia with a war is perhaps the most irresponsible thing anyone could do at this moment in time. Have you any idea what a nuclear holocaust is? Have you any notion of the power of Russia’s armed forces? Did you know that Russia has enough missiles to destroy any target anywhere on Earth in seconds?

And have you not forgotten, you pith-headed little bimbo from the back of beyond, that small detail about the slaughter of Russian citizens by Georgians, which started the whole debacle? So next time suppose you keep your mouth shut and while you’re at it, make sure the members of your family keep their legs shut too. Your country has enough failed mothers as it is.

For those who have stuck with me this far, there is one redeeming piece in the Pravda article: a picture, and it is not of Sarah Palin.

original article here

tomorrow brings rain.

here it here here here it comes

i don't have a lot of new things to say. i have had a lot of things to do, but not many interesting things, unless you are a beginning audio engineer. so let's just assume that you are, cause that will make me feel better.

so i tracked on friday a piano minor, bass major, percussion major, flute major. that was the shit! it was soooo tight. i had little moments of this is the coolest thing ever, and then it got better. it might be the best thing i've recorded here at belmont.

i met with jim gray, and he introduced me to bill richardson. i think that is his name. anyway, he taught me some cool little things in pro tools, and then taught me how to tune in the box. we spent about 4 hours in his studio last night for free. and then he offered me his studio this weekend to get the rest of it done. um, WAY awesome

and then the other day, i was starting to look for a pro tools rig, and a guy last night gave me his cause he wasn't using right now. God's provision is good.

i listened to some classical Indian (from Inda) music last night. i really got into the rhythms. the Indian culture is quite spiritually mature, espcially compared to the USA. the main concept behind classical Indian music as i was told is that the voice is the most scared instrument because it is part of the body, there is no gap or void to prevent the loss of meaning from the spirit. the music is spereated into ragas which are moods of the day. more here

i haven't done much with piano, but i'm going to regret that in the next two weeks. yikes!

much either with friends.

the statement was made today in one of my audio classes (by me), "if you have a girlfriend, you're not doing it right" if only pro tools could make sweet love :)

well, that's all i have for you. buh- bye.

protect ya neck

i follow evolution. creationism has more to prove than evolution. can you find and read the hidden link?

drama mama

hey mama, i can spell drama.

so give it up. do you feel it? you just gave up and i won. :|

this week i go in to dr. elrod (name?, idk) cause i have a tear in my pateller tendon. like a big one. my dr. was surprised at how big it was, cause i'm superman. surgery? possible. therapy? yes. will i get looked after like a sick puppy? yes. will i milk it for everything it's worth? depends on how sassy i feel that day. is elrod a medical professional that works for the titans? yes. am i excited? no. do i like applesause? yes. are you still reading? i hope not.

i like the dark honesty of gnarls barkley.

i have a really busy week looking at me. 3 or 5 studio sessions. 2 night classes. 2 nights of work. i hope i can make everything. here's hoping.

waits for the

well, i don't have any homework for tomorrow, so i'm all yours tonight. love me more.

he sits in the babbles babbling in a roach infested alley, starting fights with all the people, like harry, dick, and tom with a broken snapple bottle. he gladly looks back beneath all this rock and roll, prostitues, drugs and watch them go. he left his wife for everynight she kept him from these glamerous rights of passage. now he keeps them right there, standing, turns the leaves black, and looks upon the skyline. time and time again talks to God and asks him for a shot again. he wants a quick response, he's used to fast food, doesn't realize that it's chick with the tatoos and glass shoes standing right before him.

now it's a minute after midnight, and his riches back to bags. he's making records upon his phonograph, yelling 'you don't know the half'! half track mind got distracted. perhaps when he punched you in the face, he might have over reacted. turns up the music, he looses himself in each and every measure. he just wants it to get better.

it's another hustle, another lonely night, just another day of shuffling his feet and living his life, it's just a harsh reality that nothing comes for free. it's just another day. just another couple steps from where he needs to be.

she stands on the platform, glances at the headline and waits for the train. just another wistefull stranger trying to avoid each gaze. placing the blame on all the governments wasteful ways, laughs to herself and watches the city fly past. it's been a long week, maybe a long night, showing mr. what's-the-difference at the local social breeding ground, there's no need to get needy now. she sees these clowns and imagines of all her compainions, wishes them goodnight, could be that mr. right, it could be that last man standing. she's got "indepedent woman" tatooed in bold across both shoulders, so don't control her, but she still wants someone to hold her. she look and sees the bottom of the glass now, drinks too much and passes out. she's not too surprised if she would wake up inside of a crack house. wakes up in bed besides a stranger, 2 packs of cancer sticks and a lighter. just once she wants to match the name to a face to the man who lies beside her. burns a cancer stick or two before she gathers her things together, she just wants things to get better. she wishes

it's just another couple weekends and notches upon the bar. just another wish upon a star, just another couple heartbreaks till she finds just what she needs, she's just another couple steps from where she wants to be.

please try so hard.

i step right through that door. drop my bags and heart on the floor. i embrace her in embrace until you can't take it anymore. i put my faith in your face and i wait for that first kiss. i'm pale from all the memories that i've missed. the blistering pace of traveling across the globe from where ever god knows where ever. i never knew i'd have to daisy chain those loose ends back together, never knew love like this, never knew sacrifice like this before. it's just my first chance to pass his life out and your local record store. holding my lifetime in my arms, then i kiss her goodnight. on my flight, griping tattered edges, of a picture framed in fingerprints, it's just a single blimp of innocence. just a 60 second phone call seems infinite. all said and done, gone in an instant, man in a physical form with his heartbeat the speed of an infant.
typical storm weather, with an aftertaste... adrenaline let down, after the show, 3 hours to see how far we can get now, get down to business, get the party started, get back home to my wife to show these people where my heart is.
i pity the heartless, the man who can't see, i mastermind the revolution while i'm taking out the garbage. placing my carcass in my favorite chair, wondering if i can make it there. glaces at each new face looking back at him with a vacant stair. laying it bare on the records, it keeps my whole world together, i just want to make it better.

a few more days, a few more shows, a couple hundred miles more on this road, just another sorry baby till i set these people free, i'm just another couple steps from where i need to be.

sorry officer

i talked with the bliget tonight. jealous?



so why did my history just show up on the awebs? well, cause i am in this place of confusion. and i feel like i have a hard time trying to put it all together.

i talked with john. a john you don't know.

he said some things that i had said to myself a couple of years ago, when i was first wrestling with these questions. to summarize:
well, you might have the answers, you might not. even a lifetime of searching might not get you answers. be open to both sides, cause it is natural people trying to understand supernatural events. it is good to know about all the points, but that isn't the goal. close the conversation when it gets angry cause it's not going anywhere.

so there are no answers. and i'm at peace with this.

come holy spirit, and refresh my soul. time for prayer and silence.

now it is time to become conditioned to not having control. am i ready? HAHAHAHHAZ, no. so i feel like i make my own decisions, which is really isn't the truth. i find that my job leaves a lot out of my control. like the paycheck. or the phone call.
i guess that i need to translate that into a spiritual practice. i feel like i'm really going to fall upon my face. who likes to give up control? no one. it makes us feel powerful. one of those things right up there with sex and money. which are kind of like fire, they always can have more.
so i don't know what to do. i could give up. i could leave this all behind. which i've done before. it's about time for to do it too. i usually only last about 2-3 years in a circle or so, before i don't give a shit anymore. then, i see the politicos/feuds/love triangles that make me hate.

shak'em all down

pt 2

so i made it to belmont and i left the intellectual informatory that was nwc. a friend asked me if i wanted to go to church with her, and because i had only been in nashville for a couple of months i said sure. as we were driving there, she said, "it's different. you might not understand everything that goes on, but that's okay" so i was like, cool, something different. which was exactly what i wanted. i wanted to rebel from my old institution. i went to grace center. it was pentecostal as tents and manna.

i went there for over a year. in that time, i saw jewels show up in people's hands, i saw healing miracles of cancer, and arthritis, deafness and such and further on. i saw the spirit move among a people, and i was moved. i worshiped without abandon, with out care of outside eyes. i grew in my knowledge of the spirit, tongues, and prophesy. i learned how to soak in the spirit. yet the ways of my youth came back to haunt me. i looked for biblical rigor, and found little, i looked for confirmation of the traditions, and found none. i looked for submission to leaders, and found none, i looked for discipleship. again, nada. i began to see a ritual in the worship service, i began to see the same people over and over having the same 'revelations'. i heard the same vague words. and i was just a tall face in a large crowd.

again, i became disenfranchised with the system. now i was burnt out on both ends of the candle. both on the logos and the spirit. i can't say that this story has a happy ending, in fact, it has a rather crappy ending. it doesn't end well. i have doubts on both sides of the tracks. i am skeptical of the spirit, and doubt the word. i am most often discounting the signs or wonders i see. i push away a lot of the radical religiosity. i am cold, calculating and spiteful towards most of the religious institution. i have wrestled with calling myself a christian. i would lean towards more of a theist. i believe there is a god somewhere, and he is probably good, but i don't know which one it is. and i really haven't found/read anything that convinces me that i should change my position. most of the stuff i read, i understand that these things are written with a specific purpose in mind; to change my mind. so i don't put any stock in them. i am open to faith, and i would love for something/somebody to convince me of something.

who is he? and what is he to do?

he's calling the hump

sorry for the super large pause.

i've taken this time to acquire the intertubes. but it blocks piratebay. boo

the classes have started. i have the class on saturdays and all other days. schedule changed.

so this is going to be a 2 part series, kind of as a basis/background for this blog. cause it might be long.

so i grew up in the church. my parents both grew up in the church. my dad grew up lutheren and my mom grew up reformed.

i have a lot of memories of growing up in the church. I remember my mom practicing organ. I remember running up and down the aisles as fast as i could. i went to awana with two older girls cause my mom didn't have the time to drive us there. i remember sunday school and such.

anyway, i grew up in a very traditional church. the RCA (Reformed Church of America), better than the CRC (Christian Reformed Chruch). which it isn't. it was just the rivaling denomination. It was very much a logos church. I knew all my bible stories. i knew mary and martha, i knew Job, i knew noah, i knew the pillar of salt/Lot's wife story cause it was my sister's favorite. idk...

In the summer before my sophomore year, i went to TEC (teens encounter christ). it was a weekend retreat run by students meant to bring bring christ into a more personal relationship to high school teens. it led to a mini-revival among the youth groups of the area. it was started by the catholic church, but the RCA was in charge in my area of the world.

this was the first time that i was introduced into the spirit. i felt him move and i saw the effects that he had in people's lives. it was a weekend of worship and testimony. a total of 10 testimonies were told by a combination of students and sprititual leaders. i made a lot of new friends during this time because i found people that were alike in their religious backgrounds and people who were excited about Christ. i went back and helped serve at other TECs. it kind of became a popularity contest and had a clique of people that were associated with it. i had a seperate TEC group about an hour away from me and i had my school group and i even had my church group. i had 3 different communities that i was a part of. i found the most acceptance in my TEC friends and so i started to hang out with them more and more. it was a break from high school.

by the end of my time there, i began to notice things that really made me feel uneasy and i started to question if it really was the spirit that i had experienced or if it was a psychological phenomenon that was orchestrated. there was a formula that the weekend followed. the windows were covered so to keep the 'outside' world away from the weekend. it was to keep the focus on what was going on inside the building. (it was held in a larger church) large amounts of candy and pop were freely dispensed. each testimony had a script to follow about topics that were supposed to be covered. they had to be approved by a moderator. each day ran deep into the night, and started early in the morning. so there was a large amount of sugar running through the candidates bloodstream, along with sleep deprivation, and hugely emotional stories. i wasn't surprised that people broke down and cried for no reason. i became skeptical of how it was run and if all the events were authentic.

well, then i moved on to college. my freshman and sophomore year were spent at Northwestern College. i took biblical studies with vonder bruegge. it wasn't bible study. it was biblical studies. it had nothing to do with a personal faith. it wasn't time to talk about how Jesus' sermon on the mount applies to our faith. that stuff was checked at the door. it was a class to look at apologetics. and the historical bible in a cultural and social context. it was my first class as a freshman. and it rocked my world. it addressed subjects that i had never thought of, nevertheless been introduced to. issues of originality, fallibility, and divinity.

i suffered through that class. these were foundational issues that i was struggling with, and because i was a little freshman, i didn't have any answers, and i didn't want to bother anybody with. a friend of mine from elementary school that went to NWC also found out about and talked with the prof. this was after the class was over, and he felt a deep sorrow that he had such an effect. that wasn't the point of the class, but it was too late.

i lost my faith. for the next two years, accompanying evidence and acts and words of others fully eroded my faith. i still went to church and bible study, but i wasn't in it. my flame was extinguished. the flame that i had found and had tried to hold on to in high school had been hit with a tornado. i was introduced to ideas of intelligent design, the clockmaker theory, creationism, and evolution. i was introduced to occum's razor. i was introduced into all these theories, and there weren't any answers for me that i thought could compete with the scholarly information. faith began to become second rate. i saw it as a poor excuse for irrational behavior. i began to see religion as a opiate. i hated the niceties of christianity, along with the formal, traditional rules.

no extra's today.

always gone too long

piano: my devil.

RADAR MANUAL

i'm so hungry.

so today, the house got together and we worshiped together. it was a time of thanksgiving for the gifts we had been given. how each of us had come together, for the house, for the food in the house for the ability to provide for ourselves.

well, during this time, matt asked us what we would think about fasting for a day. i was up for it. i had done some fasting before and it wasn't too hard. it was harder to explain to my mom why i was not eating the supper. i could usually get away with not eating lunch, but supper was always together. i usually faked being sick or something. well, so matt was like let's do it. so right before lunch, we started a fast.

so i'm hungry. looking in the frig is awesome. i mean, look at all that wonderful food. i just want to eat it. we are only drinking water, and i'll have some toast tomorrow cause i had a big day of work. but we will eat again tomorrow for lunch.

the physical toll it has put on me is kinda becoming apparant. i have a slight headache and when i exercise, my fingers get all tingly and numb. right, i know, that's not good. and my legs are really restless. i should be taking this time to really meditate on scripture, but it's not possible for me to do in the studio. i wonder if it will be fruitful or not.

tonight, i found a couch on craigslist. so matt will have somewhere to sleep tomorrow. so far, he's been sleeping with charlie or on the floor. i offered for him to sleep with me, but he didn't want to. i did give him my blankets for some extra padding, but it's really not that great.

They were the best consoles that Neve ever made

they sound are alright. the 8078.


well, here i am. new house. new kitchen and living room. A yard. new neighborhood. new roommates. things will be different.

ah the roommates. always interesting to talk about different people and then compare them. pico chico is going to be the most interesting. he has so many different facets to his personality. the chico around girls he likes, guys he gets along with, when he's tired, around his family. he took matt back to his home this past weekend, and i asked matt about what his family was like, cause it's always interesting to know abou the family to understand the person. chico is nothing like his family. i wonder what he doesn't like about home.

today's famous list: Amy Grant

oh, technology is making us dumber. just a little homophily. there is a divide, another social way to seperate us. for me, i find that i almost live in necessary connection to the interwebs. my draw of information is enormous. over the last 30 days, i have had 1328 different items delievered to my reader. i read about 95% of them. over the last 5 days, i've visited over 40000 web pages. the last 3 days, i've been without internet acess at home. 359 bookmarks (that's w/o submenus). over 3 hours of my own music, plus a good 4 hours of an elvis christmas song. just one song. i don't think that my time is 'wated' or that i'm getting dumber. i agree that there is a lot of information overload.

here's a good article on my beef with everyone must go to college, even if it is to fix a car. because you aren't any good w/o one. oh, a BA may show that you can work independantly, but how often do i do work that i am not supervised over. or that i have a well balanced education, because that makes america a better social scene because we can all discuss British Lit (aka bitch about how much we hated that class). why is college is even structured? if there is one insitution that could use a good reform, it would be the university. not in the idea of financial reform or of zoning or other crap like that. No, it should be on the cusp of new ideas and readily look at them. instead, it has gotten too huge, and is a slow footed-lazy ass-gum nasher. it makes me despise the monster i feed.




















MRI looks to be in my future. i would almost give anything right now to go for a run.