I Really Do Kinda Like These Guys...

Friday I was at the Warehouse most of the day getting ready for a show that night with Grace Pettis and her band opening for San Francisco band, The Cobalt Season. Ryan and Holly Sharp are the very cool husband/wife team that comprise the heart and soul of this wonderful band (TCS), who have been traveling (along with their adorable 13 month old, Paxton) all over the US in their Prius for the last two months singing and doing shows. We were waiting for the Sharps and Grace to arrive for sound check, as well as helping four of our friends display their photography that would be available for folks to view during the show. As it turns out I missed a cell call from Ryan because they had rolled into town and to the home of our mutual friends, the Carltons. Ryan left a message saying that they were making some plan changes and wanted to get some feedback on that...but that was the last half of Ryan's message. Here's the first... "Hey David, this is Ryan from The Cobalt Season, and I was just online reading your blog right now, and was noticing that on the right side of the page under the heading of 'Bands/Musicians That I Kinda Like...' we're not listed. And frankly, it kinda breaks my heart because I see that you have The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Imogen, Sufjan, and even Grace, but no Cobalt...soooooo..if you could take care of that before the show tonight, I would appreciate it." Of course I laughed, and had to replay the message because I was laughing so hard I missed the end of the message which was the part I was supposed to really be acting on. The show opened well as Grace Pettis in her first show playing with a band was delightful, featuring her voice and songwriting, as well as shaking off the first-show-jitters. Then Ryan and Holly came on with video streaming across the front of the room. Ryan has an old school Dylan/Prine/Guthrie-esque talking/sing flow to his art, but it was derailed early by cable/pedal problems. Unfazed, Ryan unplugged, came down to the front of the room asked everyone to pull their chairs up close, and begin to do the show unplugged...I mean really unplugged...no mikes, no direct box, no eq or reverb, just he and Holly singing and talking. It was fascinating because everyone leaned in to hear the lyrics and strained to hear his startlingly honest and open struggles as a human being and a person trying to make a difference in the world. At one one he paused and observed that he thought someone might need to say something and he wanted to give the opportunity...there were a few playful comments from the audience, but it was a rare move by an artists to communicate that there is more going on at a concert than what is going on up on stage. At one point he confessed his struggles with feeling like the only way of living is that of peaceful non-violence, and that individuals and nations can always get along if they try...then he confessed his feelings of hypocrisy over not being able to have that kind of relationship with his own brother. After he sung a song written for his brother, someone from the audience asked why he couldn't just say to his brother what he has spoken to us...It was that kind of night. I couldn't help feeling that I had been a participant in something very very special...and I'm not even sure exactly what it was.

This morning in worship Dave Madden, Brandon and Harmony sang, "Lean on Me", "Now the Day Is Over" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water". Some Journey folks shared gut-level stories of the silence of God in the face of pain, suffering and honest questions. Then we watched REM's "Everybody Hurts" video and prayed and went home. I felt the very same way...I felt like i was in the middle of something very special...and I was. You know I feel sorry for those people who spend their lives trying to figure God out...Heck the fun of the faith is just trying to keep up... and go unplugged when the wires and pedals go freaky. And though it is probably a dubious honor, at best...Ryan, you made the list...traveling mercies to you, Holly and little Pax...

Pling...Pling...

dg

Cat Power, Regina, and The Black Eye

My friend Melinda introduced me to this fascinating, enigmatic young artist named Chan Marshall, who records under the moniker of Cat Power. She has a deep sultry voice that is dripping with pathos and sadness, and communicates a journey that, in one way or another, many of us have shared...a year or so ago, just as her record "The Greatest" was being released she went into treatment for alcoholism, and when she returned she decided that the healthiest thing for her was not to return to the temptations and rigors of the road in support of the new album (record companies and fans didn't see the wisdom in that move). She got major criticism, but she stood her ground and now is doing what she loves, with clarity and purpose for the first time in her young career. I am very impressed with not only her music, but who she is and what she has to say to the world.

Last Tuesday I accepted the invitation to attend a show at Stubb's with one of my coolest college friends...Amanda. Actually to call Amanda cool is redundant...the girl defines cool! You of course know that I am NOT in college, and am approximately 100 years old, so that makes this invitation all the more remarkable, but Amanda had an extra ticket and so we hit P. Terry's on Lamar and Barton Springs for a burger basket and then headed to Stubbs to see the young, delightful, Russian singer/songwriter, Regina Spektor. You must know that the name Regina holds fond memories for me of a beautiful lass who was the object of my affections in high school (Glen Oaks High School), named Regina Phillips. She was a vision of loveliness, who dated the school studly man, Gary Duvall (who was actually a really nice guy) and played tight end on the football team and center on the basketball team (Gary..not Regina). Yeah...I had no shot. Interestingly enough though, at the end of our senior years Regina and I were voted Mr. and Miss Glen Oaks (I'm pausing here not for the oohs and aaahs, but for the shocked silence)...yeah, it didn't make any difference...I still had no shot. Anyway, Regina Spektor did not need my "Regina" approval in the least for the sold out crowd hung on her every voice tremolo and clever line. The music was haunting at times and raucous at times and she used her voice as an instrument like few performers I've ever heard live. It was a real treat...I loved the show, and even though Amanda and all three of my girls, (and many many many folks) beat me to the punch...I'm a Regina Spektor fan.


Cleveland is my 17 month old Great Pyrenees (add about 100 lbs. to the puppy picture on the blog and you can imagine this big boy) who is my lone full time boarder these days. He's a frisky, happy, clumsy, loyal, monstrous ball of white fur. and other than snoring loudly when he sleeps, barking at every squirrel in the yard and eating more than me, he is a great pal. Except on Monday...when he gave me a black eye. I have had a few black eyes in my time...though none lately. I got in a fight with a kid on the playground when he called my cousin a bad name around the age of 8. He got the worst of it in the end, by the way (though I am in no way sanctioning needless playground violence) because my sandlot homeys came to bat for me...literally). Speaking of baseball, my sophomore year, my Glen Oaks HS occasionally fighting Panthers team was playing a regional playoff game in Opelousas, Louisiana on one of the worst dirt infields I've ever played on in my life. It was a routine ground ball (although my coach, Willis Stelly used to say, "Gentiles, with you in the infield, there is no such thing as a routine ground ball"...thanks coach) that hit a divot that looked like a pothole and popped up and hit me square in the eye. I chased the ball down and threw the runner out, but by the next inning my eye was swollen closed and I was on the bench holding an icepack on my eye with my baseball glove (hey...it was cold!). Anyway, I digress...Monday I dropped a bit of the sandwich I was working on in the kitchen, and bent down to pick it up. Cleveland, no surprise, was there before the sandwich morsel hit the ground. My head is down, his head is down and when he sees my hand reach for the tasty morsel, he jerks his head up to look at me, and crushes his huge noggin against my huge noggin...right around the ole eye...voila...my first shiner since Opelousas, Louisiana.

So that was my week...how was yours?

I Am A Rock...I Am An Island...

There are days when I want to be alone...not just in a room with nobody in it but me...just alone...I am not depressed...I'm not being particularly anti-social, though I am painfully shy at times (even though it goes against the grain of my vocation)...Today was one of those...actually the last several days have been like that and I don't want to talk on the phone or write e-mails or sit and visit. I heard a commercial today by McGruff the crime dog saying that in the past the police have told citizens to go inside and lock their doors to be safe...now they are realizing that a much better solution is to open your doors and get to know your neuighbors because then you create a community that watches each others back...or back doors and front doors, and windows...you get the idea. Community...it is not just the name of the finest coffee in the world...it is, as Bishop Tutu expresses in this interview with Brad Pitt, the "essence of humanity".

The interview starts with Tutu explaining the African concept of ubuntu...
Brad Pitt: What is this concept of ubuntu I keep reading about?
Tutu: "Ubuntu is the essence of being human [...] we say a person is a person through other persons. You can't be a human in isolation. You are human only in relationships. [...] So we say that 'I need you to be all of who you are in order for me to be all that I am.' Because no human being is totally self-sufficient. In fact, a self-sufficient human being is subhuman." [...] If you want to be human, we are not going to be able to be human in isolation. It will be that we are human together."

So I get it...I really do...I still tend to be fairly uncomfortable in large gatherings...and being in front of big groups, but you do what you gotta do, right...especially when your job is teaching and being in front of people...but it is bigger than that...and I know that community is more than just crowds, it is relationship and support and accountability...and really good coffee.

"There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community."
- M. Scott Peck

Pling...Pling...

dg

Close...But No Cigar! Cleveland Loses!

The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.
Robert Ingersoll (1833 - 1899)

Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools. William Faulkner (1897 - 1962) The Sound and the Fury

"If you ain't first, you're last." --Ricky Bobby, "Talledega Nights"

Congratulations are in order for the Boston Red Sox who won game seven tonight, defeating the Cleveland Indians and heading off to the World Series to face the upstart Colorado Rockies. After rattling off three consecutive wins, the Indians allowed the Sox to do the same and take their place in the Fall Classic beginning next Wednesday. The Red Sox are a wonderful organization with great athletes and great fans, and while the young Indians acquited themselves well, the Sox did what good ball clubs do...they take advantage of breaks and skill and impeccable timing and get the job done. Still, losing in this competitive culture, one that worships winners, gives them product endorsements, puts their pictures on Wheaties boxes, and sends them to Disneyland and the White House (those are two different trips, by the way) is so disdained that while we cry out publicly against steriod use, we privately wrestle with whether we would succumb to the temptation to juice if it meant the difference between winning and losing. Not coincidentally, Cleveland pitcher Paul Byrd...one of the few veterans on this baby-faced team...a smallish 35 year old with a Kelsey Grammer face, an old school two-armed pump wind-up and a fastball that wouldn't break a window at point blank range will be investigated for using Human Growth Harmones. Byrd, who originally signed with the Indians after a solid college career with the LSU Tigers and then proceeded to bounce around for several years with the Reds, Braves, Phillies, Royals and Angels before resigning with the Indians last year, has been linked to shipments of needles and HGH shipped to the stadium and to his home using his credit card (so if he's trying to hide something he needs to take some cheating tips from Barry). He had a doctor's prescription for it all with a validation that these drugs were used to bring abnormally low levels up to normal and not to give him an unfair advantage. In an interview last night before the game he said..."I wouldn't cheat. I speak to kids and groups all over the country about my faith in Christ and I don't want folks questioning my message because I was doing something illegal. ESPN The Magazine interviewed him recently about a manuscript for a book he's written on his faith and his career in baseball called "The Free Byrd Project". When asked about how honest he was about his past and how his faith impacted that he responded, "Religion can go over into every area, like whether I should cheat out on the field. I write about the desire to just make money at any cost. I share about my temptation to spit on the ball, put KY jelly on it or scuff it, to win more games and make more money. That's a big temptation for me, being a guy who throws 82, who relies on movement. You have a pull, because you have a certain window up here that stares you in the face. Are you willing to take steroids? Because that's available. People viewed that as me being weak. Like, "This guy doesn't want to win."

"This guy/gal doesn't want to win"...to an athlete, to a salesman, to a rock and roll band, to a politician, to a CEO... to most of our culture, those are major throw-down words. They question our toughness, they question our character, they question our courage, and they question our understanding of what is important in the world. It is one of the reason some friends of mine don't climb on the Jesus wagon. Their words..."Sorry, anybody who says that you gotta lose your life to save it, that you have to put yourself last to win and that the one who serves is the greatest of all is completely out of touch with the way the world works." Perhaps...for those who can't distinguish between playing a game and the way you order your life...hmmmmmmmm, that might have been a little harsh...or not...at any rate, I'll keep loving the game of baseball, pulling for the Cleveland Indians, and doing my best to live out the words of that loser Jesus...

Pling...Pling...

dg

Jonatha - "Because I Told You So"

UN-Conditional Love...

Nothing clever or profound to set this up...I was just listening to my old Jonatha Brooke, "Ten Cent Wings" CD and was transported back to a place of deep sadness and joy when the downbeat of the first note of Jonatha's Because I Told You So was played.


If I gave you the sky
If I laid down my life
would you believe me then?

If I promised to change
If I carried the blame
Would you believe me then?

Could you see it like me
And believe what I see
Could you listen, and remember that I love you
Only,
Because I told you, because I told you so

If you told me you lied
But I stayed true and tried
Would you believe me then?

And if your beauty was gone
But my love lingered on
Would you believe me then?

Could you see it like me
And believe what I see
Could you listen and remember that I love you
Because I Told You So
Only,
Because I told you, because I told you so.

You take the wheel for now
I’m too tired to drive this one home anyhow,
For now

And when you mention my name
Let this one thing remain,
My love,
Believe me now


The reality is that most of us have few, if any, people in our lives who love us, or that we love, unconditionally...oh we have a handful who come close...probably my daughters come the closest to that for me. I can't imagine any circumstance that would deter or destroy my love for them...but then I am a fallible broken, often really stupid, human being and I am probably capable of anything. I really believe that God, as best as I understand him, loves me that way, but again, I'm accepting that on the basis of a bunch of things...and a trust in some written words a long time ago saying "because I told you so" is one of those. All of us have had people tell us they loved us and then the next thing we know we look up and they have done something that indicated they really didn't. To be fair...we have done the very same to others as well. My dad listened to mostly country music when I was growing up, and I can still hear that twangy lyric played on our local AM station, WYNK, "The Country Giant in Baton Rouge", "You stomped on my heart...squashed that sucker flat...guess you just sorta...crushed my ole aorta!" We learn that all relationships are made up of betrayal and disappointment at times...and yet there is a principle of forgiveness and reconciliation that makes them not only worthwhile, but life-giving and exciting if we are willing to ride the roller coaster of human frailty and strength. But...knowing all of that...we still long to be loved unconditionally... to have someone say they love us, no matter what...then actually love us...no matter what. The brilliant Richard Swift in his song "Everywhere I Go", says "I cannot earn your love, I cannot earn your love...you love me just the same...Hallelu, I need to sing with all I have...Hallelu, I need to sing. If I falter, if I fade, you will hold me still so close, and I need you like a Father to be with me as I go...As I go."

I don't often manage to get outside of myself long enough to love like that, but I am absolutely sure that is the model of love we are called to strive for...and the leap of faith that I take believing that I am inexplicably the unconditionally beloved child of God. Because he told me so...

Pling...Pling...

dg

It's Time To Break Up The Rockies...

Has anybody got the guts to tell the Colorado Rockies that they are not the 1927 NY Yankees? Certainly not me...Sunday night they put the Arizona Diamondbacks in an 0 and 3 hole and are one game away from making their first ever trip to the World Series. They have won a mind-boggling 20 out of their last 21 games on an unprecedented, at least in my lifetime, run to barely squeak into the playoffs, and then proceed to mow down everything in their path on there way to a spot in the Fall Classic. Their fuzzy-chinned youth and complete lack of playoff experience aside, they seem to have no weaknesses...who would have ever thought you would have uttered that previous sentence when you were talking about the COLORADO ROCKIES! Next you are going to tell me that the Baylor Bears are the lock to win the college football national championship, that the St.Louis Rams are the class of the NFL, Jessica Simpson was cast on her last movie for her superb acting chops, and that professional wrestling is a steroid free, legitimate competitive sport. Except..in this case, the Rockies seem to be the real deal...and I for one am pulling for them, unless they end up facing my own unlikely underdog story, the Cleveland Indians, who danced away from disaster and heading back home in a 0 and 2 hole against the powerful Red Sox with a Houdini-like escape act hanging on for dear life until they could walk away with the second game of the series with an 11-inning win on Saturday to head back home tied. This is why baseball is so cool... I know that it does happen in other sports...last year's Boise State performance, as well as this years upstart South Florida Bulls in college football are doing the same thing...A group of young athletes figure out a way to defy the odds, not only compete with the big boys, but manage to hold their own, and in some very rare cases even prevail...it is fun to watch...unless you are Goliath taking a skipping rock between the eyes. The Rockies and the Indians...keep that slingshot swinging...and then we have to decide which underdog has become the next Philistine giant.

Pling...Pling...

dg