“How often are we inclined to ask for the removal of trouble from our path? And yet He told us clearly that trouble is a constant companion, a tool for character growth, during our earthly life:
‘In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.’ (John 16:33 NIV)”
-Hugh Ross
Every time that I hear somebody say that they want to meet someone who will just accept them as they are I feel a buzzing sensation in the back of my head (we’ll name it after an arachnid later). I can’t help but feel that this statement is wrong somehow. Not being the dating, or even the social, type I cannot claim expertise on this subject but it seems to me that a relationship is something that needs to be worked for, on, and with. It isn’t something that just pops out of nowhere and makes life instantly better, curing all worries to come. I don’t see why some people in their twenties can be so complacent in their lives. Don’t get me wrong, life is good and all but I hope that it gets alot better down the road. I don’t want to settle down with someone who is all-accepting of who I am and doesn’t expect me to change one bit. I want to meet a woman who pushes me to be who I want to be, who I need to be, and who God chooses me to be. And I should do the same for her. A relationship should be a back and forth work in progress whether it be with another person or with God. We should never accept anything the way it is if it is not right. We need to strive for better lives.
I apologize for two posts in a row on similar subjects but I am just so sick of reading all the whining that’s going on on Facebook about being single. Maybe there’s a reason for that! Maybe you need to sort out some things in your life before you can be ready to share it with someone else. Maybe you need to move out of your parents house. Maybe you need a job that can support more than your video game habit. Maybe you’re just not prepared to be the spiritual anchor/support of a household. Or maybe if you just didn’t spend so much time on Facebook you would meet someone new. Facebook is fine for when you are bored but if you’re bored all the time then maybe you should be doing something with your life.
Of course everything that I know only works in theory … much like my conversation skills.
“Perhaps we ought not fixate on the call to lifelong singleness. Some people, of course, are called to lifelong singleness, but most of us are called to singleness for a spell, if even a very long spell. Often, our task is to discern a call to singleness for right now, and that’s not so difficult. If you are single right now, you are called, right now, to be single – called to live single life as robustly, and gospel-conformingly, as you possibly can. The problem comes when the assumption that these are lifelong callings creeps in – panicked single folks think they must discern, at some given age on some given date, whether or not they are called to singleness forever. Again, consider professional callings. We are often called to certain vocational or professional paths for periods of time – one is called to be a doctor or a teacher or a waitress, but to discern a call to go to dental school at age twenty-four is not to assume that one will be called to work as a dentist forever. Perhaps at thirty-five, one will be called to stay home with small children. Perhaps at forty, one will be called to open a stationary store. Perhaps at sixty-three, one will be called to retire. Indeed, even calls to marriage are often not lifelong – not because of divorce, but because of death. Jane may be called to be married to Peter right now, but if Peter dies, she will find herself called, for a season, to singleness – to widowhood.”
- Lauren F. Winner from her book Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity
“The kingdom of God doesn’t throw all guilty people in jail; it doesn’t execute every one of us who have made mistakes or tell us we’re just getting what we deserve. Instead, it brings us forgiveness, reconciliation, a new start, a second chance. In this way it mobilizes us so we can have a new future.”
yea, I totally stole this.
“Jacob was a cheater, Peter had a temper, David had an affair, Noah got drunk, Jonah ran from God, Paul was a murderer, Gideon was insecure, Miriam was a gossip, Mary was a worrier, Thomas was a doubter, Sara was impatient, Elijah was moody, Moses stuttered, Zaccheus was short, Abraham was old, and Lazarus was dead. God can still use us and love us despite who we’ve become.”
Die Radio Die was not a band whose members I knew and hung out with nor was it a band I saw once and the obsessively followed from show to show. The truth is that I’ve never seen Die Radio Die and I don’t know anyone who has. A buddy of mine returned from Oklahoma one summer with tales of this band that he heard of from a friend of his and he would constantly be singing this song, The Chase. That was the first I had heard of Die Radio Die and, with a two hour break between my classes, I would learn much more. MP3.com was in full swing and every independent band everywhere was giving away its music in hopes of building a bigger fanbase. This was pre-Purevolume/MySpace popularity. Fans were still meeting on band websites and forums, always on the lookout for new music and MP3.com is where we got it from. The majority of the Die Radio Die songs I have originally came from there (with a few from Kazaa) and its a miracle those mp3s still exist in my possession. They’ve survived 3 different computers and countless burnt CDs, scratched, broken, and lost. Having not experienced Die Radio Die in person I took most knowledge of what songs were what on faith. Up until today I had never even heard of a recorded cover of U2′s With Or Without You yet one came in a torrent package I downloaded. The validity of this track is still up in the air as is the track Party Crasher which I downloaded from the Die Radio Die forums when they were still up as a file labeled CHRISCHADPARTYCRASHER. I believe this to be the Chris Widowmaker demo that I’ve seen mentioned on other sites and comments but have no way of knowing for sure. And until today Lincoln Logs & Lumberjacks was labeled as [Boosted Levels]. I knew why it was labeled this but never had the original title.
What bothers me the most is the lack of internet coverage this band has. From what I’ve picked from the general fan vibe, these guys were beloved for their music yet almost no info on them exists online except for countless lyric pages. While they may not sound like much to the new listener, Die Radio Die’s songs came out at the height of this style of music when emo rock was being recognized as something more than a post-grunge experiment and people were latching on. It has its many flaws but attached to these songs are memories: of growing up, friendships gained and lost, and the discovery of even more music. This appeared some time back giving an interesting second hand look at the band and piqued my interest in finding more songs that I knew had been missing. In my search I noticed many people mentioning that they had a song or four laying around or had lost their physical copies and I thought to myself, “I have more than four songs (17 to be exact), maybe I can help.” So here are almost all of the songs that I have. iTunes has a different version of New England Sunrise released on a Militia Group sampler called Stepping Stones Volume 1: The Best Bands You Have Never Heard. My problem now is that I’m a sucker for sorting and organization and would love to know what songs are part of Die Radio Die’s first EP so any help would be greatly appreciated. Also if there are songs that I am missing I would love to be told what they are and, if you have them, would like copies to add to this collection.
Recently I’ve been avoiding newer bands because I’m so sick of being let down and being out fifteen bucks. Its been almost two years since I’ve bought an album from a band that I’ve never heard of and really enjoyed it. Because of my wariness towards new bands Mosquito Fleet sat in my Downloads folder for days before I almost deleted it but instead took a chance to at least give it a listen first … and I didn’t stop for a whole week. Even albums that I had been looking forward to by some of my favorite bands were benched in favor of this band I had never even heard of.
As I have mentioned many times before, what attracts me most in music is lyrics rooted in honesty and great storytelling and All Those Who Wander Are Not Lost has them both. While not the most innovative music, Mosquito Fleet gives us a loose story of a back and forth between doubt and faith. Well, maybe not doubt but more an acceptance of hopelessness. While it works well overall it does feel odd singing along to a song about holding onto sins.
My absolute favorite track on this album is Times Are Changing
I can’t let go of whats holding onto me.
this is just for show
because you don’t want to see who I am.
I am surprised that this isn’t talked about more often as it reflects who I’ve been in the past as well as who I continue to be and I know I’m not the only one who sometimes feels like this. I’m a firm believer in that if no one addresses something then how will we ever be able to overcome it.
The song Back And Forth sums up the album and leads into the conclusion Oh Indiana, a song you wouldn’t expect to hold such redemptive lyrics just by looking at the title. One of my favorite parts of All Who Wander Are Not Lost is that it is self referencing by hearing bits of other songs, like hearing God’s Not Listening during Back And Forth and the little rewind effect at the end of Oh Indiana used earlier as well. It makes the album more cohesive (something I find lacking in popular music’s constant search for singles).
The tone of the album reminds me of Die Radio Die but I have no spot on comparison for the music. So many bands play like this but none do it as well as Mosquito Fleet.
You can get All Those Who Wander Are Not Lost and Swings & Cloves EP on their website, Amazon.com, iTunes, or the Zune marketplace.
Their absolutely intoxicating version of Come Thou Fount of Ev’ry Blessing can be found on Indie Vision Music’s Passionate Hope: Songs of Worship vol. 1 for free along with many other great songs.
As a Christian I believe the truth that is told through the Bible but as an American I stand by the freedom of, or freedom from, religion allowed in our Constitution. Like many Christians I accept the (literal or literary) creation story recorded in Genesis but unlike many outspoken Christians I do not think that Creation should be taught in public schools. I strongly believe that this is a violation of the religious freedom promised in the first amendment. I often hear of outrage from Christians over the teaching of evolution in public schools and their desire to have the idea of Creation tacked onto the curriculum. This is what I don’t understand: if someone disagrees with a teaching so much why do they offer an alternative to be taught alongside it? Would it not be easier to pull evolution from textbooks than to add Creationism? I am often told of the holes in popular evolutionary theories (which I refuse to go into because, honestly, Evolution vs. Creation does not interest me at all) but never hear of any practical movement to prove such holes and remove evolution teachings from schools. Whether evolution stays or goes doesn’t matter to me. What matters is how I see Christians represent the church in unappealing ways whether it be ignorant, inclusive, or just downright mean. We need to remember that as we represent Christ we need to be accepting of others and their beliefs. We also need to remember that the country that we choose to live in offers freedom and we need to respect that freedom. Just as many of us would be outraged if our students were to be taught the religious practices we don’t live by we must too not force what we see as true onto others.
It all started one night at work when I was humming to myself and it got me praising God right there I was sweeping the floor. After closing I put in my earphones and continued to pray while walking home, then standing in line at Taco Bell, even sitting down to eat my chicken burrito and it reminded me of of the many times I’ve heard someone mention “prayer without ceasing” in the Bible. Every time that I had read that or heard someone speak on it I thought it would be amazing to live life in constant prayer but I ever realistically thought that l would ever be able to do it. The only long periods of prayer I’ve had were either at the altar or during prayer meetings. I mean, I had put on music and would sing along and pray but I wasn’t always focused. I would go from singing praises to God to imagining what it would be like to be in whatever band it was that I was listening to and would then find myself acting out stage movements in my living room. Then it was back to prayer. I wasn’t necessarily lacking a prayer life but what I was doing was praying only on my own time, never God’s. I had turned prayer into something to pass the time. I would fit prayer in before breakfast or before I fell asleep at night (many times falling asleep before I could utter an “amen”). I would put in a few minutes here, a few there, in between the end of a TV show and the time I would have to leave for work or I would save it for the walk home when I wasn’t doing anything else. These past few months I’ve learned not to measure time in 44 or 22 minute increments but to work in God’s time. Prayer isn’t something that needs to have time set aside for (that does need to be done but there’s more). It is something to live in. In these recent months I’ve been learning to live in prayer and it has helped me work through some issues that I have been struggling with.
So That’s what I’ve been trying to do.
Live my life in prayer.
So far its working out great. Lets just see what happens when something crazy comes along to shake up my world.
“Through Jesus, then let us keep offering to God our own sacrifice, the praises of our lips that confess His name without ceasing. Lets not neglect what is good and share what we have, for these sacrifices please God.” Hebrews 13:15,16
The Ember Days are back with their newest release, Emergency. Earlier this year they gave us the single, Make Us One, allowing us a view of what a new full length would sound like. The long instrumentals of The Finger Painting EP have been shortened but the simplicity of their lyrics and message remain. This is the kind of music that is easy to get lost in and it becomes hard to differentiate one song from the next. Emergency creates a true atmosphere of worship with all focus directed to God. It fills the gap in my collection once occupied by The Glorious Unseen with some of the most haunting sounding yet truthful songs. You can tell that The Ember Days isn’t playing to the listener but to God and a means for you to get washed up in with the music. It surrounds you, swallows you, and and you get taken by the current, losing all control on your way to the divine. There are no specific standout tracks, the album stands as a whole. Fluid and cohesive moving without notice from one song to the next as a surrounding musical experience. Everything sounds so simplistic yet so full. Its another album to get lost in. I said it last time and I stand by it, The Ember Days have made the worship album that I’ve always wanted to hear.
For more information on The Ember Days or to download Emergency for free visit Come&Live!
There is nothing special about this EP from The Rock Music. Its just plain amazing. When I first listened to Alive My Soul by The Rock Music I wasn’t too impressed. A typical worship sound for a typical worship band. So I did what I should never do when listening to an album for the first time and shelved in in favor of something I knew I would enjoy. There was my mistake. Luckily I gave it a second shot the next day and was completely blown away by the power packed into these eight songs. My first assessment wasn’t completely wrong, there was nothing groundbreaking about the music or lyrics but sometimes I get so caught up in listening for these things that I forget that I’m listening to a band that’s purpose is to help listeners connect with God on an emotional level. And that is something they do very well. The songs are catchy enough to pick up on the first listen to sing along to but not so much that you’ll be humming these tunes throughout the day. Burn For You will sweep you up in a passionate call to follow God, Alive My Soul will have you smiling the whole way through, and Your Love Remains will keep your hopes up long after the song has ended. If you are looking for some fresh music to listen to as you worship then I suggest you check out this release, available for free download from Come & Live!
Standout tracks include :
Burn For You
Captured By Grace
The Lord’s Right Hand
Your Love Remains
For more information on The Rock Music and The Rock Church or to download the Alive My Soul EP visit Come & Live!
Cable television was still very much a big deal to have when I was younger before everyone had constant internet access and streaming video so I never saw a lot of movies growing up. Video rentals were the thing but still rare and mostly happened on holidays but grew in frequency as I got older. This is how I fed my young inner geek. I would obviously head directly to the science fiction section where all the geek knowledge I knew I needed to learn was. From Dune to Close Encounters of the Third Kind , these were already classics and I was an eager student. This is where I first made the decision to watch Planet of the Apes.
I already knew what Planet of the Apes was and what it was about. It is so ingrained in popular culture that just about anyone could pick up pieces here and there and have slowly absorbed enough information to understand what it is. So I rented it, I watched it, and I enjoyed it like the good little geek that I was but I don’t think I quite understood what it was that I just saw. What I saw was an adventure about an astronaut in a not so strange place not a man running from the downfall of his own society. Having watched it more recently all of my favorite parts, all of the best lines occur before an ape even appears on the screen.
“I can’t help thinking that somewhere in the universe there has got to be something better than man. Has to be.”
“Does man, that marvel of the universe, that glorious paradox who sent me to the stars, still make war against his brother? Keep his neighbor’s children starving?”
“Imagine me needing someone. Back on Earth I never did. Oh, there were women. Lots of women. Lots of love making but no love. You see, that was the kind of world we’d made. So I left, because there was no one to hold me there.”
If I had truly grasped the words that astronaut George Taylor was giving me then the pessimist that I was in high school would have rejoiced. I also would have rushed out and rented the rest of the series instead of renting The Abyss for the twentieth time. It wouldn’t be until much later that the true greatness of this series would be known to me.
In 2001 my love for sci fi was well established, going out to the movies with friends was a regular occasion, and a Tim Burton directed Planet of the Apes film had me pretty excited. I remember going to see it one weekend with my cousin and loving every moment of it. The story was great and the apes looked amazing. Admittedly my taste in TV and film was pretty bad. I would watch TV for hours on end just to watch and escape from the mundane lifestyle I had built for myself. I tried watching this version of Apes several times recently but couldn’t bring myself to finish it. I still stand by the story but the bad dialogue and terrible acting ruin whats good about it. It would have been a great series starter if it hadn’t been for those few things. It had a more novel accurate ending that made me want to see where this could head but though a financial success it was a critical failure for obvious reasons and I would never see a sequel.
Years later during a discussion about my love for time travel stories and its use in the television series Lost I was directed to the Planet of the Apes box set containing the original films. I held in my hands the five movies that would warp my sense of cause and effect and would spend the next five days immersed in a world of apes, spaceships, nuclear bomb worshiping cults, ape uprisings, and time travel. It was glorious. I’m not going to go into how cohesive the movies seem to be because I know there are people who can do a much better job than myself. I see it as a near perfect story woven into these films (minus Beneath the Planet of the Apes which I found boring and only served as a catalyst for the events of Escape from the Planet of the Apes.) This is where it really got started for me. This is where I got borderline obsessive and all my thoughts played out in my head in the voice of Roddy MacDowell. Like many things that I’ve rediscovered later in life I latched on and immediately sought out a copy of the novel the film was based on. It really stands apart from the franchise that grew from it and is, by far, one of my favorite sci fi novels of all time. Save for the original film, I have probably read the book more times than I’ve seen any of the movies. A direct adaptation would be great to see yet wholly unnecessary.
When I first got word of Rise of the Planet of the Apes it was only called Caesar, an in continuity ape origin story seemingly ignoring Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Then I had heard that James Franco was attached to the project, it was renamed, and was now a reimagining, and hopefully, a beginning to a new franchise. I forgot about it until trailers started popping up and showing me a new kind Planet of the Apes. One that focuses on the break of relations between human and apes. The movie moves at a slower pace than expected but one that is required to tell this kind of story. It reminded me of District 9 with its slow beginnings and an action filled second half that blew by so fast you couldn’t believe that it was already over. But everything that needed to be in there was there and nothing was lacking. I expected this movie to be a major flop winning praise from fans and critics but losing general audiences. The three kids sitting in the row in front of me seemed bored and that is understandable. Here is a movie about a man raising a super intelligent ape. I don’t see this going over well with many people because, honestly, this being advertised as an action movie, wasn’t the best idea. But I enjoyed it. It had a more independent feel than that of a summer blockbuster. It is an all around good movie. Not just a good Apes movie or a good sci fi movie but a really good movie. Yes it was predictable and, yes, if you’ve seen the 1968 film you knew what was going to happen.
Spoilers if you haven’t seen the 1968 version: The moment Caesar spoke the entire theater was quiet and you could hear the audience gasp followed by a few hardcore fans shouting “YES!” There are also some obvious references to the original film you will have to see for yourself.
Its really hard to judge and compare this film to the originals because it was a series and cornerstone in science fiction history. People are saying that this is a great film for a revival of the franchise and I hope its true because I enjoyed it and would love to see more.
Growing up I shared a bedroom wall with the garage and just as 90s TV programs taught me, the garage was the man’s domain. Its where my dad kept all of his stuff, tools, workbench, he had a desk and some CB radio stuff in there, a refrigerator, and of course, his musical instruments. He kept his guitars, amps, and whatever else he had right next to this pile that I still don’t know what was in it. It was mostly wood and other long objects that are awkward to store so they would lean on the outer wall. In it there was this tandem bicycle that I only remember ever using once. I don’t even know why I’m mentioning it. Its a mystery pile with a tandem bike and for some reason that stands out in my mind.
As long as I can remember my dad was making music. We would all go over to my aunt and uncle’s, their friends would meet up there and they would hang out and jam for hours on end. None of this really bothered me because I have a cousin that is my age and we would do whatever it is little kids would do when their parents were laughing, drinking, and making music in the garage. The music was just always there vibrating through my bedroom walls, lulling me to sleep at night. That is until I started getting older. My parents never really did anything to me to really make me dislike them, I think it was just a phase I was going through. I was getting really sarcastic but I wasn’t getting into trouble or causing a lot of problems. It was mostly all in my head. And that is why all this is coming out now. Because I can not get that song out of my head. My dad would play What’s Up by 4 Non Blondes what seemed like twenty times every night and I could always hear it through the wall. Like I said, I had no real reason to hate my parents and most of what I thought at the time was just an overreaction but right then, laying in bed trying to sleep, I hated my dad. Not for anything that he had done. That’s just the way I was at that age. I always had these plans and schedules in my head and whenever something got in the way of them I would get upset, or angry, or something. My parents, my brother and sisters, rules, society, or anything I didn’t understand. I was on the path to becoming an evil genius …sort of. Its a miracle that I didn’t grow up to be a bitter person. This is such an odd memory to be so vivid in my mind but that may be because it wasn’t just a single night. Maybe it was several nights. Maybe they were consecutive nights. All of this would explain how I felt at the time. None of this really affected the way I grew up and thinking back on it now I just shrug it off and say, I was just a stupid kid. But I still think about it every time I hear that song and its not a bad song. I even broke down and bought the album a while back. Half Price Books had five copies of it. They must not have gotten too far. The album came out in 1992 but the music belonged in the decades before. They had released a solid rock album as arena rock was making its way out, leaving room for grunge, punk, pop, and the modern rock we’ve heard on the radio for the past ten years. The song Spaceman sounds like it should have been released in the late 70s which may explain why I find myself singing “I’m a space man, in another place and time ba da du dum, ba da da du dum” as I’m walking through work and their one hit, What’s Up, refuses to leave well after the song has ended.
Despite the negative feelings I’ve had towards my memory of this song I still enjoy it. Yes, I was a stupid kid the and have done so many dumb things throughout my life I wish I could just forget them all but that shouldn’t hinder me from enjoying an especially catchy song whenever it comes on the radio.
What seems like five minutes of work is really half an hour or more of photographing, internet searches, and editing because playing with images is something I love to do and time seems to pass by much quicker when I’m doing the things that I love. These photos of me with interwoven text may make me out to be some self-centered, pompous, ass but what I write in these isn’t how I feel about myself at all (though I am pretty impressive at times). Most of it is my online attitude or persona. Some will say that who we are and how we act online is our true selves but I see it another way. You can’t truly know someone from what they write online, you can know about them and their opinions on certain matters but you can never truly know someone only by what they write online. You won’t pick up on many quirks, know why they like what they like, or how they would react in certain situations. Who I am online is an overly confident jokester but those who know me can tell you who I really am. Rarely will I post my serious position on certain issues or causes and I hardly ever write anything serious in any social network. But get me in a serious discussion and you will see me as who I am. I often use Twitter and Facebook to practice my writing and come up with ways to express a thought or witty line in 140 characters or less. That’s where this self loving image of myself started. I’ve recently been acting out a false confidence because it helps me gain real confidence. Those who have known me for a while know how very little I talk and have seen me silent for hours at get togethers that involve more than a handful of people. I would even find it hard talking to some of my friends when there were people around that I didn’t know. But then come along people in my life that force me to socialize more often by saying here, you’re helping out now, or could you go talk to this person about ____, or put a keyboard in front of me and say, here, you’re in a band now which somehow leads to me being center stage with a mic in my hand and nothing but the back of my eyelids to hide me from all of the ten people looking up at me. These building moments in my life have helped me come out of my shell but I can’t rely solely on the help of others to develop stronger social skills. Sometimes I need to push myself and the internet is a great place for that. I would never walk up to anyone and just start talking about how great I am but I can leave little posts on the internet and maybe I’ll start acting a little more confident around those same people that are online. And, again, those who have known me going on five or ten years have probably seen a difference in the way I act around other people recently. I initiate conversations, voice my opinion more often (though mostly when someone is flat out wrong or just not getting it), and actually want to go out and do things with people instead of spend time alone. I feel like I’ve been changing a lot recently and some of that is due to this social growth. Now if I could only gain the courage to have conversations with the opposite sex…
I give my money because its easy but I don’t give my time, I don’t give my patience, I don’t give my apetites and interests … this needs to change.
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I’ve been trying out different shaving gels recently and had just opened a new one this morning but when I went to put some on my hand nothing came out. So, logically, I push down harder on the pressure pin in hopes of being able to shave and continue to look as awesome as I do on a regular basis. Now this goes on for several seconds until my finger finally finds the magic spot that releases the gel but by this time the nozzle is aimed right at my face. So here comes a highly pressurized stream of shaving gel right at the center of my head. Luckily my spider-like reflexes kick in and I dodge this perilous stream of finely scented foamy peril but not quite. I look in the mirror and the right side of my face has shaving gel starting at the lips and goes all the way to my hair just above the ears. I look at the wall and it reminds me of all the blood spatter reports I’ve seen on various police TV programs. I had to wait a while before I could begin shaving because I was laughing so hard. The moral of the story is Sometimes things just suck and you end up having to wipe shaving gel off of your wall with your only clean towel but as long as you see it for the funny story that it is and have a laugh every now and again then you’ll be just fine.
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Recently I’ve been wanting to go somewhere. Nowhere in particular just someplace different. Preferably out of the country but anywhere that isn’t Houston, Texas would feel foreign anyway. I just don’t like the idea of traveling without a purpose. I would want to go for a reason, to do or see something. But my heart stays with Houston, the city I may never leave. I love living in Houston with all the different areas of town for whatever mood I’m in. But I wasn’t built for this city. I love walking and find public transportation something I would do just for fun but this city is just too spread out to walk from one place to another and the public transportation system is a wreck. I recently bought a bicycle to expand my range of transportation but haven’t yet tested its limits. So far its gotten me to work and back and, if I ever need to, I could make it to the church. But beyond daily use I haven’t done much recreational traveling with it. I would very much like to but I’m no solitary explorer. I can sit on a bus or train and quietly watch the people around me and be entertained but would find boredom whenever I arrived and walking greater distances than school or the movie theater won’t hold my attention as much as being able to share that experience would. What kind of an adventure would it be if I didn’t have anyone to share in it with. All my best adventures involved other people and all the ones I’ve taken on my own get lost in my head and are indiscernible from each other. I never tell anyone about them mostly because they’re boring, There’s no one in them to have that amazing conversation with and no one pushing us to go any further making me step beyond what I find comfortable make the story that much more adventurous. The problem is that most of the people I know live in my head. I’m not crazy or anything like that its just that everyone I have ever known is up here in my head but they’re just that. People I haven’t seen in a while or don’t talk to as much as I should so they become something else. Not themselves but the memory of themselves which, in turn, grow just as my relationship with them grows further away. I need to get out more and reconnect with these people and meet new ones but sometimes I’m so overwhelmed during such social occasions that my voice just ceases to work and whatever it is I’m thinking of saying comes out in mumble and not as witty as it was in my head. I don’t k ow what it is with me and social gatherings but even the smallest of gettogethers keep my closed off. Part of it may be how much I enjoy observing people and the things that they do but even on those days when I’m feeling rather sociable my mouth stays clamped shut and my responses are reduced to head nods and shoulder shrugs. This is another reason I stay put and may never leave the city. At least with some other people with me I can just be “that quiet one” but being the quiet one all by myself won’t even get me into those situations. I don’t want to travel by myself so I won’t be by myself. It isn’t about loneliness. Its about doing things. If I go out by myself I will only be seeing things instead of doings things. I want to do things. There are things I would like to have done not only with my life but in my life as well.
How can anyone look up at the moon and just not want to go there?
I’ve always had an odd taste in films, TV shows, and music so I’m used to an obscure side project only putting out one album or a planned movie franchise only getting a first installment and one scenario I’m all too familiar with is when one of my favorite TV shows gets canned. With shows like Pushing Daisies, Eli Stone, Jericho, and more recently, Defying Gravity all getting cancelled before being concluded it seems like TV execs are out to drive me crazy with unresolved plots and character development. Now some of these make sense. We were lucky to see second seasons of some of these shows and I was surprised that Pushing Daisies got picked back up (a pie maker has the ability to bring the dead back to life with a single touch) before coming to an end in its second year. And with the past few years of networks constantly pumping out serialized dramas hoping to mimic the successes of 24 and Lost I’m shocked that when someone finally does it they get the axe. Stargate Universe went from being a really cool show that had me interested in more during season one to being one of my all time favorites with the big reveal early in the second season. SG-1 and Atlantis were fine shows but they were genre shows. You weren’t going to get a wider audience with that kind of material and thats all right but Universe brought a diversity in characters and diversion in format from the previous two series that had the potential to become a real hit. The writing was right on and the acting? Wow. Just wow. The main reason the cancellation of Stargate Universe hit me so hard was because of the characters. In most shows that get cancelled I only worried that now I won’t ever get to find out what happens in the end but with Universe the characters are written so well and acted so superbly that they come across as real people. Real people that I will most likely never see again. Now, I don’t watch too much TV anymore so there very well could be shows out there that are far superior but I ask you, even if we are left with no concise ending at all, give this show a chance. The entire first season is on Netflix instant streaming and some episodes are still on Hulu. There are really only two shows I keep track of on TV and now one of them is going to come to an end. So essentially half of all the TV I watch is getting cancelled. I’ve got ten more episodes left with the crew of the Destiny and I’m going to make them count.
Who Can Kan Know It, the fifth album from Showbread came as a surprise in my inbox just days after the band announced that they themselves had just received the mastered tracks. Fully funded by online donations, this album will be released free of charge through Come&Live on Tuesday, November 16th as well as having physical copies for sale on their website and at shows. These genre jumpers have come a long way from the lo-fi noise of their early recordings to the pop sounds on The Age of Reptiles, uniformed industrial feel and explosive chaos on the double album concept Anorexia Nervosa, and their signature sound on No Sir Nihilism Is Not Practical and the recent The Fear of God. With Who Can Know It Showbread is at it again. After listening to the album only once I found myself humming songs by Guided By Voices, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Galactic Cowboys later on in the night (though none of those is an accurate comparison) which is one of the drawbacks of this album. The closest Who Can Know It comes to their previous releases are the songs And the Smokers and Children Will Be Cast Down and Matthias Replaces Judas on NSNINP and the closing tracks to both Age of Reptiles and The Fear of God (apologies for not having any Anorexia Nervosa references. I still don’t own that album.) There are no Mouth Like A Magazines, Dinosaur Bones, or like the majority of The Fear of God‘s catchy sing a long choruses. It took several listens for me to find myself singing I Never Liked Anyone And I’m Afraid Of People, Hydra, and Deliverance. The same style of lyrics are still present just delivered in a less catchy way. A Man With A Hammer, Dear Music, and You’re Like A Taxi remind me of older Pedro the Lion stuff while songs like Myth of a Christian Nation retain that classic Showbread energy. I’m not too sure how this album will be received by listeners. Hardcore Showbread fans will love it but the occasional listener may use the change an an excuse to ignore it. Don’t get me wrong, there is no doubt that Who Can Know It has the Showbread sound but with it comes an unexpected twist. I’m not their biggest fan but this is my personal favorite album they’ve released. Showbread made the album I’ve been wanting to hear for years, whether by them or another band. Its got those fuzzy, distorted guitars and a mix of personal and challenging lyrics with a punk rock attitude that I can’t help but enjoy.
For more information on Showbread and the release of Who Can Know It visit Showbread.net and the Come&Live! website.
