This Day Keeps Getting Better and Better

This Day Keeps Gettin Better and Better

I happen to be reading (or finally finishing) C.S. Lewis' space trilogy right now, so during lunch today I checked out Lewis' biography on Wikipedia. I had heard this before, but it was intersting to note that Lewis died the same day that President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. Then I read the "On this day" segment on the main page and realized that today is the actual anniversary of Lewis' and Kennedy's respective demizes. It also happens to be Greg Hawkin's birthday.

So, happy home-going to you Clive Staples Lewis! President Kennedy, I haven't much to say to you. And G, have a happy birthday and knock back an Amber Boch for me! It certainly is a noteworthy day in world history!



Ok, hey, I'm goin' outside you can put the plate back on the shelf
And it's cold, though the snow isn't falling
The neighbor can speak for himself
And the cold, hard look in your eye is more than a line in the sand
And the truth gets hard to imagine the hours get harder to stand

He's a seasick terminal passenger singing this song to himself
Til the soul bought soul on his skelleton leaks into somebody else
He's a sea-saw caught in a storm, a hurrican after the war
When he drinks all the blood you can offer he still wants more

Now the planes and rumbling trains
Are shaking the ground in our town again
Thought it twice, kicking the ice
I got myself turned back around singin'
Everything's gonna be fine
I'm sure that we'll both be OK

Hey, I'm back and outside now just put the plate back on the shelf
And its cold, though the snow isn't falling
The temperature speaks for itself
Its a moonlit reason to quit, and nobody answers the phone
So if there's still blood left in your body I'll come back
Home
- Kevin Moore

The Foolishness of Paragraphs that are Better as One Word

The Foolishness of Paragraphs that are Better as One Word

The beginning of this Thanksgiving week finds us remembering Kevin Gilbert, who's birthday was today. I'm not one to jump on the dead hero bandwagon, but I'll recognize the influence Gilbert had on my musical landscape. Not only did he write Sharyl Crow's "All I Wanna Do," he produced the first two Spock's Beard albums, and was a major influence on Neal Morse and Nick D'Virgilio. He also inspired the songs "The Great Nothing" by Spock's Beard and "I Was Not Ready for You" by Mike Keneally. For a guy who wrote sarcastic folk-pop and who got his break engineering sessions for Michael Jackson and Madonna, Gilbert really did set the stage for a large segment of the nineties prog rock revival. Before his death, he was in line to replace Phil Collins in Genesis, and was supposed to produce what became Dream Theater's Falling Into Infinity album. I've been enjoying his album Thud for the last week. Pretty sad guy, but he turned a great rhyme. We'll be singing nah, nah, nah when we all fall down...

The Cubs are about to sign Alfonso Soriano to an eight year, gazillion dollar contract. That's pretty cool, except that it appears Juan Pierre won't be coming back, leaving us with a leadoff man who hit 40 homers last year. This guy has to bat down in the lineup if he's gonna do us any good. I'm still waiting to see how Jim Hendry plans on fixing the pitching problem.

I was contemplating the existence of Eskimos last night. I live in Mississippi and get cranky when the temperature drops below 40. It boggles my mind that people live in Alaska. So I wonder, how did Eskimos and other northern folk ever learn to survive up there? These people make houses out of snow. That is absolutely amazing. Crazy, but amazing nonetheless.

So this Thanksgiving, I'm thankful that I don't live in a house made out of snow, and that it is only 38 degrees outside, instead of 60 below. I'm trying to be mindful of the many blessings of modern America, and not be an ungrateful materialist. I've constantly been reminded this year that very few people in the history of the world have the wealth, convenience, and opportunity that I do. The overwhelming majority of people in the world live in extreme poverty (Why are little ones born only to suffer, for the want of immunity or a bowl of rice?)

I'm also reminded of the friends I have who are spending Thanksgiving on the mission field in China, Ukraine, Ethiopia, and Nigeria without all the American conveniences we take for granted. Let's not pull any punches, it's idolatrous to be thankful for "blessings" in the abstract. Our treasure is Christ, and our God is the one worthy of thanksgiving:

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."

"Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content."

"Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ"

(Case in point, I'm thankful for www.crosswalk.com, the Bible online in every modern English translation. People have died to have the Bible in their language, and so many people don't have it. I can search the whole thing on the net.)

No One Notices the Contrast of White of White

No One Notices the Contrast of White on White

Music created out of depression can be starkly beautiful. The history of art is riddled with the stories of tormented souls trying to express themselves. Is it any surprise that themes of sadness, despair, rejection, loneliness, anger, and cynicism resonate with people almost universally?

Kevin Gilbert, a bright songwriter who lived a tragic life and suffered a despicable death wrote the line, "and everybody has someone they can share their sadness with" in the satirical Joytown, a song about a place that doesn't exist. People are in sad shape. While listening to Rush's Presto album last week, I was struck by the songs The Pass and Red Tide. The first deals with trying to talk a friend out of suicide, and the second is about modern epidemics, environmental disaster, and the ability of technologically advanced humans to kill others and themselves more efficiently. I realized, unbelievers have everything to worry about, because anything that threatens their own world threatens everything they have. See Neil Peart's Ghost Rider for a good example of this.

I dusted off Counting Crows' debut album August and Everything After last night. This is an amazing album musically and lyrically, one of those albums with a sound that fills up and changes the mood in a room. The critics loved this thing when it came out. Singer Adams Duritz is the perfect tragic Romeo character, desperately sad but loveable. He and all the characters in his songs have problems, and you get the sense that he is sharing your problems and singing about them for you.

In the song Mr. Jones, Duritz theorizes, "when everybody loves me, I'm gonna be just about as happy as I can be." When Counting Crows' follow up album Recovering the Satellites included more songs about depression and a retrospective on how life as a rockstar wasn't all that great, the critics became very unhappy with Mr. Duritz, labelling him a hypocritic whiner. Subsequent Crows albums have still included that air of melancholy, but haven't captured the pristine sadness of their first two works. They haven't affected me at all in the same way.

In real life, Duritz seems to be kind of a lousy guy. He apparently went Brian Wilson a few years ago, staying home for a year, not shaving, and refusing to record or play live because he couldn't handle criticism. I can't say I blame him. If he's down and out, the critics don't want to hear him whine. If he's writing happy-cheery songs, the fans are unhappy. At this point, I would rather the guy get his life together and never make another classic, depressed Counting Crows album. It's kind of selfish to hope that your favorite songwriters stay depressed so they'll keep making good music.

All this begs questions about art in general. Authenticity is very valuable in art, and most people are genuinely suffering. Christians should be able to recognize this, and be mindful of the fact that coming from unbelievers, good art is art that tells us about the condition in which they find themselves. Likewise, Christian artists shouldn't gloss over the troubles that are present in their own lives, as unbelievers will smell a fake. I think it is important to make the contrast as vivid and real as possible, to accurately portray the effects of sin in the world, admit our own weakness, and then be able to demonstrate the real hope that we have.


I got bones beneath my skin, and mister
There's a skeleton in every man's house
Beneath the dust and love
and sweat that hangs on everybody
There's a dead man trying to get out
Please help me stay awake, I'm falling

Asleep in perfect blue buildings
Beside the green apple sea
Gonna get me a little oblivion, baby
Try to keep myself away from me
- Counting Crows

Canadian Cowboy

Canadian Cowboy

"When I'm writing lyrics I always wear a cowboy hat, because I figure that you can never take yourself too seriously with a cowboy hat on."

I find this quotation from our favorite songwriter and drum guru Neil Elwood Peart to be hysterical. Good advice for the average joe rock star wannabe. The mental image got me thinking, "I wonder if there are any pictures?" Then I decided to make my own. Get along little dogie!




We should all wear cowboy hats more often.


We can rise and fall like empires
Flow in and out like the tide
Be vain and smart, humble and dumb
We can hit and miss like pride

We can circle around like hurricanes
Dance and dream like lovers
Attack the day like birds of prey
Or scavengers under cover
- Neil Peart