Some Perspective

The best "...nation" in the world

According to a Gossip column in the NY Daily News, Matt Cassel was urinated on in the bathroom during the Super Bowl.

An intoxicated man allegedly tried to cut in front of Cassel at the Raymond James Stadium urinals. After Cassel told the drunk to wait his turn, the man "barged in and proceeded to purposefully pee directly" on Cassel's leg. Security tossed the liquored-up individual, but Cassel was forced to return to his seats with smelly wet pants.

Wow... poor Matt had a worse Super Bowl than Kurt Warner!

Music Review: Zendher "Moving Up"

out of 5

I listened to this cd quite a few times as I have been thinking about reviewing it. Being a musician, I am probably more sensitive and gracious about music reviews than I am about other things. The first thing that I want to say about this band is that I admire their talent. For the most part, it is clear and obvious that they are very good at what they do. Unfortunately, as hard as I try, that's about the only good thing that I can come up with to say. I should lay out a few prejudices before I go any further, because I'm sure they will affect this review.

Prejudice #1
I really don't like Christian music. Some of it is ok, some of it is even good, but most of it that I have heard is pretty terrible from a musical point of view as well as a theological one. I'm not going to get into too much of this right now, but I have spent a lot of time in the "Christian" music scene as well as the "non-christian" (I guess) music scene. What I have learned is that there is not always much difference between the two scenes and "Christian" Bands are profiting on the perception that there is a difference. I also just disagree with using the word "Christian" as an adjective, especially when it comes to music.

Prejudice #2
I have spent a lot of time analyzing, writing, and recording music. There are things that are very important to me when it comes to music that are not found on this cd. They are: a solid grove and consistency within a song and over the space of an album. Problems in these areas stand out to me and bug me a lot.


With all this said, this band "Zendher" had the cards stacked against them from the beginning with me. The style of music is pretty inconsistent and it is definitely Christian music. I do have to say that theologically, it seemed fine and didn't bug me like most Christian music does. The talent and this pleasant surprise earned the second star in the rating. Now the stuff I didn't like...

The songs seemed to change styles in the middle and the groove was completely altered in the middle of a song at times. The vocals seemed silly at times and didn't sound authentic. This could have been a problem in the mix or whatever, it just had a very fake sound at times. The band had a kind of African and reggae feel at times and reminded me of Paul Simon sometimes, Bob Marley, and the Dave Matthews band at others. The problem is that there is no way that they even came close to emulating those amazing artists. It is a problem when it sounds so much like people that I think of them and comparison is inevitable. It kind of sounded like a cheaper rip off of these brilliant artists. It was way too much like those influences way too often. I am also very sensitive to Christian stuff being like second class secular stuff, but we are supposed to appreciate it because it is "Christian." Excellence is an important value that we must appreciate. The album itself was so inconsistent that it could have been a compilation of many bands and it would not have shocked me. It didn't establish a genre and nothing seemed to fit. There was no strong groove or hook in any song that did anything for me. I just couldn't see using this in worship or listening to it for pleasure. I even let other people that were into Christian music hear it and they didn't like it either.

I hate giving a negative review of a band and I appreciate the uniqueness and talent of Zendher. I think they just need to work some more on songwriting and their identity before recording another album. After listening, I am more confused about who this band is than before I heard them. I hate to anger the music gods when I have stuff coming out soon myself, but I gotta call it like I see it!

Great clip about Evangelism

Bailouts

I had the best economics teacher in high school. I feel like I learned a lot from that class, especially about economic theories and things like that. I am utterly perplexed and confused about the kind of "capitalism" we are practicing and defending. I don't really have a dog in the fight, so to speak, so I'm not going to share my opinion, nor do I even have one, but this does not seem like capitalism to me. I don't feel the need to defend capitalism or condemn whatever it is that we are practicing, I just want to call this what it is. I yearn for honesty in our country, a value that doesn't seem to be shared often enough. So... I have some questions that these bailouts, in theory and practice, have led me to think about:

1. How did these huge corporations get so powerful that our entire economy will fall apart if they go out of business?

2. If our economy is dependent and run by specific corporations, what kind of economic system is that? The means of production are no longer in the hands of private citizens, but large companies.

3. How can anyone defend bailing out corporations but no individual families or people that are in need? Is this a double-standard, or do we really thing that helping the companies really helps the people more than just helping the people directly?

4. How will letting large corporations go out of business ruin our economy more than throwing billions of dollars at them, when they have proven that they can't run their business effectivly enough to stay in business without the government's help? I really don't understand this way of thinking at all...

5. Will letting some big companies go out of business reduce competition and lead to other companies monopolizing their industry?

These are just my thoughts and questions. It seems like people are so reluctant to help individuals because they might take advantage of the system, but we don't seem to care about compaines doing the same think with much more money... I don't get it.

Back to Blogging

I realize that I need to get blogging again, so here are some things to look forward to:

1. Reviews on music, movies, and books among other things like coffee and wine.

2. Regular Lectionary posts... I miss all of your discussion as part of my sermon prep.

3. Random thoughts and videos, like always...

New House

So I got approved for my mortgage and I'm gonna close on a new house on Friday! I'm really excited! Makes me think of this song...

book review: "My Beautiful Idol" by Pete Gall

out of 5

This book was very well written and kept my attention very well. It made me want to keep on reading. I was a little disappointed at the sudden ending that kind of let me down. The entire book seemed to build up to something that never happened. It kind of fast forwards at the end and seems like time is going at one consistent speed throughout the book and then boom, it speeds up a bunch at the end.

The way that this book is written helps the reader to identify and empathize with the author. It does a great job going behind the scenes and explaining why things happen and what feelings surround actions, rather than leaving the reader to wonder or to draw his own conclusions. I really felt for the guy. The theology that he seemed to assume was quite different from my theology and it kind of bothered me that he just kind of assumed it was the right way to think. I kind of felt that he was pushing his theology on the reader just by assuming so much, but the book was so well written, I got over that. The book left me wondering if perhaps some of the hard-line theology was partially responsible for some of what happened to the author. I wonder if he thought about some things differently, perhaps things may have turned out differently.

All in all, I thought that this was an enjoyable book to read. I liked it and it really provided a good understanding of many social problems. It shows that when you get to know people, you see their problems differently. You can learn to see people as people rather than seeing people as problems.

Excuses

Sorry, I haven't posted in a while... we got done recording our album in LA and I'm still in the middle of trying to find a house in Albuquerque. I'll be posting more regularly soon... until then, chew on this.

book review: "I Became a Christian and All I Got was this Lousy T-shirt"

out of 5

"I became a Christian and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" by Vince Antonucci is amazing! I recommend it to anyone that wants to think about Christianity in a new way or anyone that wants to teach people that are not active in church. The best thing about this book is that Vince puts complex ideas into simple language that really helps to put many theological ideas into perspective. He is more conservative theologically than I am, and I disagree with some of his stances, but honestly that makes no difference. This book is fantastic and he doesn't come off telling the audience what to think, he just shares why he believes what he does. His beliefs are very thought out and articulated well.

An example of the insight he shares is in the chapter entitled "Speed." He explains the sabbath in terms of moving at the "speed of love." He talks about how we are always in a hurry and how Jesus moved at a much slower speed and the fruit that came from that. Vince shares a great deal of personal information and tells stories from his life. This makes the book very personal and relational rather than only informational. I give this book 5 out of 5 stars!

La vida loca

Man, my life has been crazy lately. I had to finish my school work and then i got to go to do a wedding for some friends in San Antonio. My birthday was when I got back and then I had to be out of my house and have the truck returned by thursday evening. I am finally all done and all of my stuff is in storage in albquerque, barely! I have way too much stuff and i think I am going to try to go through it a little at a time as I move it out of storage in the next few months. I have some book reviews coming soon...

Revolution MoneyExchange

I just signed up for this new service "Revolution MoneyExchange" Basically, it is like paypal, but with no fees. If you click on the button you get a free $25 dollars for signing up and I get $10. A win/win if you ask me. I signed up and got the $25 instantly. This is a new site they are trying to promote and so they are giving out the free money to get people to use it. Try it out by clicking the button!

#1224 on Million Blog List

This blog is #1224 on the Million Blog List!

Ooze Select Blogger

So I have been selected as an "Ooze Select Blogger" and I am going to be getting books and other things from some publishers to review on this blog. Here is part of the email that I got a while back:

For the past 18 months, http://theOoze.com and I have been piloting a program with select publishers where we send you (at no cost to you) new and even upcoming releases—some before anyone else sees them. We ask that you read these when you can and blog about them within six weeks. Whenever possible, I also get you unprecedented access to the authors of these titles, so you can host a blog interview, if you're inclined. This platform has been a delight to participants so far and we're happy to open it up to additional bloggers. You are part of a core group of 50 bloggers who will be receiving select books from us.

So I got my first book and I am going to read it as soon as I get done with all of my coursework that is already past due... be on the lookout!

The Cowboys go down

You heard it here first! The Dallas Cowboys will crash and burn this year! With T.O., Tank Johnson, and now Pacman Jones the team is going to implode. The straw that will break the camels back is that Wade Phillips has no backbone. He coached the Bills for several years and I know his style well. Dallas could have seriously made a dent last year, and they didn't because of Coach Phillips. He lets anything go and he neglects to hold his players accountable for anything. It could work ok on some teams but with this group of troublemakers, this is going to be a disaster.

Maybe this is just wishful thinking, but I hope not!

Quote of the day

Quote of the day: "No farmer ever plowed a field by turning it over in his mind."

Enterprise Rent a Car Sucks! (at least in this story)

My boy, Carlos from Atlanta, had a very bad experience with "Enterprise Rent a Car." In order to help get his experience on the first page of Google when you search for the company, I am going to link it here to give it one more link. So if you would at least click on the link so that Google will put the link higher on the search pages. This kind of thing helps everyone get better service when companies know that there is going to be some attention for bad service. Here is the experience: http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/?p=4977

Power to the People!

new look

I decided to do something different. I only know how to use the preset templates for this blog and none of them really seem to fit me. I'll try this look out for a while, let me know what you think...

Image is Everything

Carlos at "Ragamuffin Soul" posted here to put something creative that we've done recently. So here we go:

Recently my band, Next 2 the Tracks has been working on our image. We are going for a desert rock kind of southwestern image. Image is more than what we look like, so we have been tweaking our sound. We have been throwing some acoustic stuff in and using a lot of different percussion stuff. The cool thing is that we can just set up our amps early and the stage looks very empty. We can just come in and go right up and start playing, like we just came out of the desert. It's pretty cool and is fitting our image and sound together!

Emergency Room Fun!

I spent 8 hours in the emergency room on Friday night. I was really stupid and there was a spider bite or something on my finger so I poked at it... it got really infected. I was on my way to band practice on Friday and I decided just to run by urgent care and get a prescription for some antibiotics. To make a long story short the Dr. sent me to the emergency room immediately and I was there for 8 hours while they have me antibiotic shots, a tetanus shot, and 4 shots into my knuckle to numb my finger while they cut it open and dug out all of the poison and infection in my finger. Needless to say, the whole numbing thing didn't work so well and I definitely felt them cutting me open and digging around. All in all, it was a very long and painful night. It has been healing pretty well, but is still very sore. They gave me some Vicodin if that is any indication of the pain. I am hoping that it keeps getting better very quickly, because my band has a show on Saturday and I am playing on my djembe cuz this is an acoustic show. It will be very painful if it's not better... I wonder how Vicodin affects your rhythm?