prz:Blogue

more christmas clarifications

2011-12-23T09:12:00.001-08:00

Well, my post yesterday definitely gathered a bit of a response- which is good. Now, 24 hours(ish) later, I realize I need to clarify a few things.

First off, I know full well that not all praise team members are lazy- but a lot of them are. In fact, I'll go as far as to say most are. I hear the statement all the time that "it's a matter of heart, not ability" or words to that effect. That's crap, and here's why:

I have a heart to fly an airliner. I think I can do a great job at it because I know how to fly an airplane already (variable prop rating); I perform well under pressure because I don't panic; I genuinely care about people and making sure that they are safe; I love to travel and I've been lots of places so I know how to get there. I've spent a little amount of time at the controls of an airplane, and I understand the physics, the rules, how to use a radio, read a compass, understand an artificial horizon, what "trim" is, etc. I have "the basics", in other words.

Get the idea here? Would you get on an airliner with me at the controls, just because I "have a heart" for this and I have a teeny amount of experience? Of course you wouldn't, and no one would blame you. Let's take that further- even if you are a born-again, Bible thumping, evangelical, on-fire Christian, and you KNOW that you have eternal salvation, and you KNOW that if I killed you in the inevitable crash you would immediately go to Heaven - you still wouldn't get on that plane. My point is that, in the example I cite above, the proof of my ability is not borne out by my heart. Others will not benefit from that. It's dangerous to expect a better outcome - I mean, yeah, I probably could fly an airliner, but the real question is SHOULD I? I need to study with other pilots, practice, study some more, take a test, take an audition, study some more, and then.........maybe.........

Which brings me to my second point- if you, as a Christian traveller, pointed out that I was ill-equipped to fly that airplane, I really can't take offense at that. In fact, if I did - and then, went forward and insisted that I was the guy for the job based on my "heart" - you'd call me crazy, and again no one would blame you. You are telling the truth. But, if we, as Christians point out that someone really needs more practice befpore climbing on a stage, we're told WE are the problem for pointing that out, and that we have offended the other person, and that is somehow bad.

My third point is that, even though I know the direction from Seattle, Washington to Los Angeles, California, I still need a map, right? And, I need to know how to read that map. "But- all I need to do is follow the coast line south to Los Angeles, right...."- uh, no. Yeah, that will get me to Los Angeles, but I don't know how to get to the airport, and even if I did, I don't know the route without a map (and talking to the control tower) - and there's lots of other planes in the area, and I don't want to hit them. "Oh, wait- you have a window. Just look out the window and you can see the airport, and you can see if there are other planes and keep from hitting them that way"- uh, again, no. Having a scribble of paper with "x's" to mark the airplanes doesn't work, either. This is the same thing as telling musicians that they are NOT musicians unless they can read- and, once again, if I point that out to other praise team members, I am again told that I am being egotistical and vain.

My fourth point takes us to the Control Tower, or the Praise Team Leader. They have to give the final instructions to planes that land and take-off, and occasionally, they have to handle an emergency or two. In order to do that, they have to be able to converse in a common language with the other planes- but not only that, but they need to know the rules, too. They need to be able to make decisions quickly and precisely and for the good of all involved. In order to make that happen and make sure that everyone who communicates with control tower can do so properly, all the pilots of the planes have to go through constant training and updates in procedures. If you talk to a pilot and ask them "when does your training end" they will tell you that it never does. It's a constant thing- and, if they don't do it and stay current, they're fired.

Ah- now, there's the rub- I said "stay current". That might sound like it serves the argument I'm against, but it absolutely doesn't. Why? Because, even though the rules get current, the basics don't. Lift is lift. Thrust is thrust. Pitch and yaw are pitch and yaw. The physics of flight do not change and they never will. If you do not understand the basics of flight, you cannot (and should not) participate in the rest of it. There are no shortcuts to this, either- because a shortcut here means bad things to the passengers.

All of this is true with the praise and worship musician. If you don't know how to read music - and, I mean printed sheet music with rhythms and notes - you are a drain on the process and you cannot and will not ever increase your skill. If you cannot communicate with other musicians, you cannot get better.

"Success" only comes before "Work" in the dictionary.

If the sum total of your musical ability and your goal is to mimic a few shallow concepts, then you are wasting everyone's time, so please- get off the stage and don't come back. If your goal, as a worship leader or music director, is just to emulate the crap you hear on the radio without trying to understand what's happening or increasing your team's skill and ability and are afraid to rock this boat, then you are wasting everyone's time, so please- don't take issue with me when I call you out and tell you why there's more to be had and more to be done. I might just know a little more than you do.

I have more points to this discussion that I need to spend a little more time on before I commit them to this blog, but rest assured, I will. Soon. And, in the meantime, if I call you out because I think you're lazy - and I will do that - it isn't to exalt me. I am keenly aware that I still have much to learn. It's to tell you that I expect more from you, and that I am willing and most able to help if you want. Otherwise, if you're offended by my attempt to help you, take your faux-hawk and get off the stage. You don't belong here.

oh, for christ's sake.....

2011-12-22T11:25:00.000-08:00

At least once a year, I take at least 10 minutes and gripe about the state of music in general. And, it's that time of year again- but I'm hoping I can be a little more focused.

As most know, I've spent a good deal of time in my career playing recording sessions. The life of a session musician is an interesting one, in that while I consider it a distinct honor to get to be involved in someone's very personal manifestation of muse, let's face it- a lot of it is not great music. That's a very personal indictment to be sure, and even though it sounds like I'm slamming the folks I've played for, I really don't mean to. See, the thing of it is that not everyone can be a Beethoven, Mozart or J.S. Bach. Not everyone who picks up a guitar will be Eric Clapton or Jeff Beck. Not every bass part of every song is going to have me playing maj9#11 chords like a wild-haired Jaco clone (even if I had hair.....) - and that is 100% ok. Music is about expression of the heart - and that is what makes a lot of (what I would call) "sub-standard music" worthwhile.

But, the thing of it is that being a session player gives one a view - perhaps micro-cosmic - of what's going on in the industry. I've been doing this a long, long time, and at no point in my career have I ever been so completely displeased and depressed about the state of music than I am now. To be honest, I would really have to use the word "despondent".

Just like Hollywood now, there is almost nothing original anymore. What's worse, I find that some of the people that I play with - be it live or studio - find originality and craftsmanship to be a joke. They marginalize my argument by telling me that I'm not "current" or that I am an "old man" - and, perhaps that is true - but, when I think of artists that I hold in high regard, all of them had their influences. They recognized their predecessor's talents and offerings, but rather than just emulate them part for part, they would add their own signatures to what they did. This caused forms of music to evolve. Nowadays, none of that exists. It's more about the appearance (I can't do a faux-hawk) or the latest gear or software- but no one takes any time to craft what they do. It's all part of our microwave society - "SUCCESS NOW!".

Whether or not you are a spiritual person, there is no denying that there is a direct connection from art to spirituality. The greatest songs ever written are great because they touch people- either by evoking a shared experience like love lost, or by initiating a thought of a heretofore not-thought-of emotion. Those things that touch us in this way are timeless, but one of the cruxes of being able to do that for an artist is to craft things so that they tie up nicely. There was a day not long ago when Christian songwriters were the cream of the crop as far as tying all things artistic and spiritual together. Artists like Phil Keaggy, Randy Stonehill and Keith Green had a way of invoking an immediacy and a sense of urgency through their lyrics in words and pictures. For example, the Randy Stonehill song, "Sweet Emily" - a song about a dying girl and her quest to make her members of her family at peace with her impending death had this lyric to sum up the message:

"This life is but a moment in the morning of my day."

Even now, as I write this blog entry, that lyric literally brings a tear to my eye.

But today, we don't have that. Instead, we have what I'd like to call "Jesus Fan-Boy" music in Christandom. There is precious little difference in the Christian music idiom that is different from a Justin Bieber song. Or, more often than not, it isn't considered "Praise Music" without a healthy dose of a Line 6 MM4 delay pedal and some kind of rudimentary ostinato pattern with pedal tones, that constitutes "closer to God" - but only if you have the right haircut. (Am I bitter about this hair thing? Yep. I am.) To make matters even worse, when bringing up the idea that "kum-by-ah" charts (words with an occasional mark of a chord) are somehow substandard to an actual chart with barlines - and, yes, I am suggesting that real musicians are able to read music - is met with all sorts of reasons like, "it's easier for most people to play these" and "you wouldn't be so lost if you weren't reading all the time".......

All of this is pure laziness and all of it is not of God, and I'll go as far as to say that it's not music, either. It's a formula and nothing more. No one is interested in excellence anymore. No one cares to know anything about performance. (And don't get me started on the subject of "it's worship and not a performance" because people who say that are stupid. You cannot have one without the other, period.) No one cares about craft- and worst of all, in the realm of Christian music, they think that they are playing for an audience, or that somehow if things look a certain way and there's a lack of depth to things that they will be able to usher people into worship and commune with God-

Hey! Understand this, you with the faux-hawk- your audience isn't the people in the congregation. Your audience - who you are playing for- is God. It's an audience of 1. And, God doesn't care what it looks like - I guarantee it.

All of this really comes to a head for me when Christmas rolls around. We are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior- the one, true Living God- and this is NOT the time to press your skimpy, misguided ideas. This is one of two times that most non-church goers actually attend, and here we are, more worried about being "hip" and looking good and trying to sound like yesterdays crap music than we are in telling people the story of what Christmas is actually all about.

So- Mr. Faux-Hawk- pull your head out of your rear, and at least try to excel at something, rather than being utterly, forgettably hip. Have some substance, and don't reject the idea that people (yes, like me) who have not only been around the block, but actually helped build it - might just know what we're talking about. And, if you're like me and actually have participated in making actual music and you find that you are just bending to go with the flow- shame on you. The people that I'm railing against - the ones that really don't have a clue - they need your help. You need to stand up, man up, and start demanding the excellence from these people just as you have demanded it from yourself. To do anything less is not a God-thing - it's a lazy thing.

what a difference 70 years makes

2011-12-07T14:32:00.001-08:00

This really is a momentous day. Many, many Americans make the mistake that WWII started 70 years ago today, December 7, 1941. The fact is that if you talk to historians, they will give you varying dates on when it started- and, even though I'm not a bonafide "historian", I have my own date that I consider as the start- October 3, 1935, when Italy invaded Ethiopia. But, why even bring this up?

There's more parallels between this country's current state of war and back then than a lot of people realize. Japan had invaded Manchuria in 1931; the Germans (for all intents and purposes) had so much participation in the Spanish Civil War in 1936 that they might as well have been listed as an actual combatant; and Mussolini had decided that a little border incident in Somaliland in 1935 warranted a full-fledged invasion. Germany annexes Austria and the Sudatenland in 1938 and invades Poland in 1939; Russia, France, Yugoslavia and a bunch of other countries in 1940 and attacks Britain in the summer of 1940. Germany sinks American ships all during 1940 and early 1941.

So, what were we doing during this? Not a whole lot. This country was being "isolationist". In fact, FDR, prior to 12/7/41, really didn't want to head us into a war. We had lots of problems here- a really bad economy; rampant unemployment; a double-dip recession after the Great Depression- the very last thing we needed was to get involved in any fight that was thousands of miles away and had no real bearing or security problem for the US. No one thought for a second that the Japanese would invade the US, and Germany was too far, and the Italians didn't have any of the infrastructure needed to supply anything like that, so we sat by and offered aid to the Brits and hoped it would all go away. When the situation in China got to the point that the world was watching, we started an embargo against the Japanese- and that was the entire reason for the Japanese to attack us in the first place. (The Japanese intent on the attack on Hawaii was not to get us into the war- in fact, it was the opposite. The Japanese figured it was just a matter of time before the US would have to act, and in order to keep their expansionist movement in place, they would cripple our ability to fight and withdraw the embargo.)

All that changed when the Japanese came calling on that Sunday morning in Hawaii, however- but, even then, the American people knew that there was no way that Japan could sustain any kind of real, meaningful action on US soil. But, that didn't matter.

Just like then, if you were to press the average American on an answer to "what do you think the real goal of terrorism is", no one in their right mind is going to say that they fear an invasion. And, like the US of the late 30's, we sat largely idle while our allies like Israel and others took attack after attack, invasion after invasion, and didn't really act. Not really. And, all that changed on 9/11/2001.

But, that's where the common ground ends. In 1941, the entire country galvanized around the loss of 2,500 service men and women and said that was enough. I believe that there were certain elements of the US Citizenry that was probably against declaring war, but the undeniable vast majority of this country was steeled for it. And, remember- the US was losing the war until The Battle of the Coral Sea in May of 1942 (some say The Battle of Midway in June of '42) but even then- when our losses were in the hundreds of thousands- the Americans remained steadfast in their resolve.

Let's face it- when you hear people call that generation of Americans "the Greatest Generation", that is a 100% accurate term. No matter what date WWII "started", we were faced with an enemy that had superior numbers, superior equipment and troops that had been in battle non-stop for almost 10 years. They had experience and drive, and for a time, the upper hand. Check your history books for accounts of battles like Guadalcanal, The Solomons, North Africa and the invasion of Italy in 1943- we were getting our butts handed to us at every single turn.

But, we prevailed.

Ok- so what, you say. We kicked ass. Yes, we did- but the Greatest Generation didn't stop there. We sent folks to the enemies we vanquished and rebuilt their countries. We started companies and families and jobs, jumpstarted our own economy in the process, that generation continued to go forward and innovate and clean up the mess that the rest of the world had caused. And, they didn't complain one bit. The US had sustained 300,000 dead and 800,000 wounded over the course of WWII- and that was less than 4 years of fighting.

In the days since 9/11, we have sustained far less casualties than that- and I am in no way suggesting that those casualties are less in the cost. Any life lost is a tremendous loss.

So, what's my point? My point is that back then, in the days where we didn't have up-to-the-nanosecond news and embedded media and a country that was as backwards as it could be- when the chips were down, this country rose up from the inside, took a deep breath and practiced a big bunch of TCB while building huge containers of whup-ass and delivered them with pin-point accuracy and resolve right where it was needed- and we did it in less than 4 years. Now, we're 10 years in and the fight seems to have gone out of us wholesale. We struggle with things like political partisonship over the dumbest things, and can't seem to get our collective heads together enough or come together long enough to get anything done. It really pisses me off when I think what The Greatest Generation did for all of us alive today, and how much we have squandered that gift- a gift very much paid for in blood and sinew- and how we soil that gift every single day.

Today, there's not many men and women left of that generation. I would like to extend my deepest thanks and gratitude to them- especially the 2,500 men and women of Pearl Harbor- who took the fight to the enemy and emerged victorious. And then, I'd like to extend that same deep sense of gratitude to the men and women who are sacrificing right freaking now- doing a job I'm am very glad I don't have to do. And, after that, I extend the challenge to everyone who is here at home (like me) who has never had to participate in something as horrible as armed conflict, to take a deep breath and try very, very hard to be the next Greatest Generation and never, EVER forget the price that has been paid for us.

ready for the rapture?

2011-05-20T09:34:00.001-07:00

Of course you're not. Nobody is.

So- tomorrow at 6PM, there's supposed to be an earthquake in the east somewhere, and all the Believers in Jesus get to make that cool trip to clouds and watch as God destroys the rest of the world over the next 6 months or so.

Wow. Some people actually believe this stuff. Needless to say, there's a veritable plethora of reasons why this probably won't happen. Strike that. Won't happen.

Every few years, some whack job with a calculator and a very basic understanding of Scripture comes up with something like this. This is far from the first time, kids. William Miller (no relation- thank God) predicted that the Rapture would happen sometime in 1843, and his followers sold their possessions and climbed a hill in Ohio in October, 1844 to wait, only to be sorely disappointed. (that's the first one I can think of) Paul Yongghi Cho predicted it in 1989 again. They just don't learn. The bottom line is this- no amount of math, equidistant lettering, secret codes or Dean Brown exogesis gets around Matthew 24:35-37, Mark 13:31-33 and Acts 1:6-7. (To name but a few)

It's totally ok with me if people want to run their mouths over their 1+1=5 calculations, but there's really two major issues with it- one self serving and one not so much so.

This kind of thing makes all Believers just look stupid. I don't know about you, but I do a darned fine job of making myself look stupid on a daily basis, so I don't need their help.
This kind of teaching is false prophecy, plain and simple.

It's the second reason that is really the most troubling and from two really interesting viewpoints. The fact that anyone claiming Christ as their Savior would even entertain this kind of idiocy is very troubling, because the Bible is full of statements from Jesus and the Apostles saying that there will always be false prophets, and that we need to be aware of them. The people who entertain this are plainly not cognizant of passages like Matthew 7:15-23 (and 24), or other passages in Acts, 2nd Peter and the Gospel of John. The final false prophet, shown in Revalation is actually the Anti-Christ- but I don't think this latest idiot has that much juice- and besides, Satan knows Scripture and would never even attempt to get around it.

(And, yeah- I'm saying that this latest prophecy is probably not given by Satan. It's a foolish man, apart from anything else that is doing this)

The other troubling aspect of false prophecy is that Deuteronomy 18:20 is pretty clear on what is supposed to happen to the false prophet.

I make no secret of the fact that as far as Rapture disposition goes, I'm more of a post-tribber than anything- and that's if the Rapture - as we have heard about it for the last 30 years or so - is even real. (I'm not saying it isn't, so please don't start a flame war over that.) Whatever disposition you adhere to is fine- but, for me, I actually don't care if it's pre, post, during- all I want is to be with Jesus, and however it happens, happens. I'm not going to worry about the actual semantics of it. Personally, I think that all that Rapture theology does is divert people's attention from what is important to something that isn't, and that they don't really have control over anyway. God's ultimate desire for all of us is redemption and reconciliation - end of line. Nothing else matters.

a cause for celebration?

2011-05-02T11:09:00.001-07:00

It's been awhile. The knee is better; the back is worse. <sigh> I hate getting old.

One of the things I really hate about getting old (beside the physical falling apart) is the fact that with age, comes wisdom. More often than not, that wisdom is a good thing- it's welcomed. You see things a tad more proactively, and if you're really lucky you even get to act upon that foreknowledge. Unfortunately, you also get to see things in light of a bigger picture.

Osama bin Laden is dead. Good riddance, I say. Last night, when the news first broke, my initial reaction was, literally, "WOO-HOO! WE GOT THE BASTARD!". I then had a good nights sleep- hardly because an inflamed boil on the buttocks of society had been lanced, but because the drugs that I took for my back problem, coupled with a nice 3 fingers of Tullamore Dew had the desired effect, but I digress.......

When I awoke this morning, that feeling had changed, drastically:

Ezekiel 33:10-11
Son of man, say to the Israelites, ‘This is what you are saying: “Our offenses and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of[b] them. How then can we live?”’ Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’

Obadiah 1:12-14
But look not thou on the day of thy brother in the day of his disaster, and rejoice not over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; neither speak proudly in the day of distress. Enter not into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; yea, look not thou on their affliction in the day of their calamity, neither lay ye hands on their substance in the day of their calamity. And stand thou not in the crossway, to cut off those of his that escape; and deliver not up those of his that remain in the day of distress.

So, what does this mean?

I'm no Biblical scholar. I won't claim that I am at all, but what I think it means is that God is basically telling us that even though the wicked get what they deserve, it is not a cause that He celebrates. And, since God would be the only One who would able to actually be above the wickedness, only He could celebrate, and since he doesn't, we definitely shouldn't.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that bin Laden got what he deserved. No doubt at all. The world is a far, far better place without his taking up any kind of oxygen displacement. He was the dregs of what any thinking person would describe as a meaningful member of society. His brand of his religion is backwards and has no merit at all (and, I am NOT lumping Islam into this category- I am saying that he was apostate to the bulk of Islam as a whole) and hopefully, this will be the end of that part of it, but I also think that this is the beginning for us as society.

Here's the deal- and really give this some thought for a second before you dismiss it out of hand. That pig was fond of saying that we (the U.S.) did not deserve to live, and that our lives are forfeit because we don't share his viewpoint. He declared that there were no innocents in the world, and that anyone who stood in the way of Shariah Law and his particular viewpoint of Allah deserved to die, and more than that- he would celebrate when that happened.

If we do the same thing, aren't we just as bad in some small way?

Now, before anyone gets too red in the face about me even foisting the possibility that the U.S. is anywhere near the swine who ran off to a cave to hide, and in his final moments took refuge behind an innocent woman (only to suffer sudden lead poisoining of the left eye as a gift from a very sure-shotted U.S. Navy Seal) - I am not saying that. I am saying, however, that this day presents a really interesting challenge that might possibly really show the other parts of the world that we actually get it. Instead of celebrating his death with chants of "USA! USA! USA!", we can and should bend a knee and thank God that we live in a country that is protected by heroes, and repent of our own sins before a just and Living God.

Killing Osama bin Laden was not a sin- I truly believe that. It had to be done. But, what people seem to fail to realize is that killing, necessary or not, does come at a price of our collective souls. It's not enough to take care of one complete asshole and call it a day- now the real work has to begin. It isn't good for kids to parade in front of the White House and celebrate this moment as some kind of fraternity party with crowd surfing - this is hardly the time for that. It is time that we, as a country, put our money (and our faith) where our mouth is and stand up and make a difference.

I'll finish by saying this- God Bless and keep the men and women of our armed forces. They did an outstanding job in what must have been a grisly and ghastly affair, and they are to be commended for doing a job that few of us could ever do. Those people who took part in this operation have every right to celebrate a job well done. We, as the people that are being protected- our job is not to celebrate it (or use it as a political statement to get re-elected.......everyone feelin' me on that one?) but rather, to acknolwedge that once again, God has provided for us.

God Bless the USA!

happy knee year

2011-01-04T10:06:00.000-08:00

Hee-hee.....I crack myself up......literally! For those that don't know, I blew my knee up on 12/29. I had sent an email to work telling them of this, and was told I had a gift for writing comedy. Here's that email-

Last Wednesday, at about 7:30PM, I took our new puppy, Ruca (5 month old pit bull/labrador mix) out for a walk, and it was snowing. I was walking down my driveway (which, as some may know, runs downhill as my house sits on the downward side of a hill) and moved to avoid a slippery patch of ice, and stepped onto my lawn - and into a slightly frozen over mud puddle, which I immediately broke thru. I started sliding, standing up (and Ruca decides this is a race and starts running....), so in order to control the slide, I decided to sit down. (That will stop me and the dog, right?) Unfortunately, just as I reached the point of no return on sitting down, my right foot caught the end of the mud puddle too soon, and stopped forward motion, canting my foot to the right at about 45 degrees off center. My butt contacted the mud/snow mix (at about terminal velocity I think.....) but still had forward motion, as I did not lock my knee. (can't lock my right knee- it's been replaced.) So, my butt slides on the snow/mud mix, into the back of my right heel, putting my knee into a rather odd and not-designed for angle. (For emphasis, turn your right foot outward at a 45 degree angle, and then put your heel against your rear end. See what your knee wants to do?)

KER-ACK! Several words rhyming with "truck" , "jam" and "split" came out of my mouth at high volume. I think I mentioned God. I definitely scared the dog. Not good.

Got back on my feet, and my knee felt really funny- wobbly. Great. I know what that means. I managed to get inside the house and upstairs to my kitchen; grabbed some Aleve; grabbed an Ace bandage; told my wife what happened (still didn't think it was terribly bad- just hurt) and went and laid down with an ice pack and watched some TV. Fell asleep. (that was weird) Woke up 2 hours later, and it felt like I had been riding a bicycle uphill for a long ways. Decided that I should probably assess the damage.

As soon as I put weight on it, I knew something was terribly, terribly wrong. The room became very bright, my vision went grey and I heard rushing water in my ears - I'm passing out??? No pain - oh, wait- there it is. Like nothing I've ever felt before. My knee is the size of a grapefruit (and about the same color, too) It won't bend at all, and I'm afraid to move in any direction. Hearing the commotion, my wife came downstairs, says "You don't look good. Oh, My, GOD- your knee..." and at that point my stomach decided to get in on the action and give back my dinner due to the pain. I honestly don't remember much past this point- paramedics coming through the door; an ambulance ride to the emergency room on a VERY bumpy freeway; being asked if I wanted pain meds (my wife told them "yes" for me - good call) and I got some x-rays. Called Jim at least once to say I wouldn’t be at work the next day. I think I made some other calls to some of you, but I can’t remember very well. (My apologies about that, but please understand that nothing I said will hold up in court.)

The x-rays say that it’s not broken, but they can't tell me what's wrong exactly with an x-ray. They gave me Oxy and sent me home. My wife made an appointment with Dr. XXXX, my orthopedist - can't see him until Monday. I spent most of the holiday in a drugged-out haze just sleeping.

Yesterday, saw Dr. XXXXX, the orthopedist who did my right knee replacement back in 1999. (Had a partial replacement done back then) The fear is that I've done something that is going to require extensive surgery to fix. Turns out, I dislocated my knee (badly), I may have a slight tear in my vastus lateralis and a strained but not broken anterior crusceate ligament. Thank God. My appliance in my knee is completely undamaged and took the accident very, very well. Thank GOD!!!!!

Dr. XXXXX will now shoot you full of many, many drugs, and will play "Quarterback Sneak" where he will endeavor to run your right foot into the end-zone for 6 points, or to re-align your knee - whatever comes first. (All I'll tell you is that this little maneuver - however painful you think it is - is much, much more painful than that. Times 10. And, yes, there were more rhyming words.)

I have an MRI scheduled for later this week, and that will tell the tale of whatever surgery I may have to have- and it does seem likely that there will be some. Absolutely no walking, lots of bed rest, lots of anti-inflammatory drugs, decrease the pain meds ; keep the knee iced and elevated. I’m in an immobilizer from the top my ankle to my top of my hip until at least 1/12, barring any surgery. I will be working from home until I can drive myself- which I do not think will be much before 1/16, but we will see.

predictions for the near future

2010-10-23T13:00:00.001-07:00

So, it's no big secret to folks that I'm a talk radio junkie. My personal fave is Bryan Suits on KVI 570AM here in Seattle, but I listen to a bunch of others - Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, etc. (If you've never heard Bryan Suits, you're really missing out. Get his podcast and see what I mean.)

Notice a theme? Yeah- they're all conservatives. So am I. Ok, now that that cat's out of that particular bag, I wanted to get a couple of things off my chest.

First off, I'm pretty sick and tired of all these folks (with the exception of Suits) going on and on about how the liberals are all finished as of November 3, 2010.

Second- and, here's the prediction part- I predict a sound defeat for the conservatives on November 2. I say that there is no chance for the Dems to lose their majority in the Senate or the House. Maybe it's my native Nihilistic tendencies, but when you look at the how the libbies are running their show, it's clear to me that they really aren't all that rattled- nor should they be. Yeah, there will probably be a few that get moved on- perhaps quite a few- but it just feels to me like a lot of my friends have already written this off and we've already won. It just hasn't happened yet, and what's worse is that when the conservatives lose the libbies are gonna be even more re-energized and more damage will ensue.

I'll admit that I'm not watching all of the candidates, but there's a couple that have peaked my interest, as well as a couple of Washington State items that have my attention. So, here's the specific predictions on the items that I've really been paying attention to:

Washington State

Patty Murray will be re-elected. (Dino Rossi will lose by at a least 5% margin)
Prop. 1100 and 1105 will be defeated. (Washington State will retain the right to sell liquor)
Prop. 960 will not be overturned. (Our incredibly written taxation of food items will stand)
Prop. 1098 will fail. (Washington State will not have an income tax- yet.)

Couple of hotly watched State Senate Races:

Ken Buck will lose Colorado.
Christine O'Donnell will SOUNDLY lose Delaware. (That poor woman doesn't have a chance in hell)
Lisa Murkowski will lose in Alaska, but will make a stronger showing than anyone thought she would. Joe Miller will win.
Barbara Boxer will win in California. Handily.
Harry Reid will win in Nevada, but just barely.

The Upshot:

The Senate will remain Democrat controlled.
The House will remain Democrat controlled.
Nancy Pelosi will retain her job.

On a lot of these, I'm really hoping to be wrong.

But- and here's another not-so-fun thought- if the conservatives do take the House (or even more miraculously, the Senate) what does that really get us? It was the Bush "conservative" ideals that got us a lot of the way to where we are now (and, Barry has just made a bad thing much, much worse) and I just can't believe that the Tea Party movement candidates have enough political judgement to see their way clear of even more weird practices. And, that's going to add fuel to the fire of the libbies, who's pet projects would get stalled and the conservatives will get blamed even more. which will make 2012 even harder to overcome the liberal agenda on.........yeeesh.

It took us 4 full years of Jimmy Carter and his bunch to get us Ronald Reagan. I think it's almost better for things to get worse before it gets better. I know that sounds weird, but think about it- if the conservative movement does get into power again and they don't turn it around, in 2012 we're definitely going to get 4 more years of Barry. If the Dems continue to drive things for the next 2 years, they absolutely will screw it all up, and Barry will get his well-deserved pink slip and we can get on with things.

And, yeah- that's quite a price to pay, but we've done it to ourselves. We've allowed these scumbags in power to remain that way through indifference, not voting and most importantly by watching "Jersey Shore", Lindsey Lohan, Octo-Mom and other mind numbing dreck instead of paying to attention to things that matter. This entire country has become nothing but slack-jawed, mouth-breathing, media believers who care more about Mel Gibson's antics than they do the fact that our government is now controlling huge, tremendous chunks of our lives. It's going to take some real suffering to change that, I'm afraid.

I say that the real suffering begins 11/2/2010.

the state of "metal"

2010-05-28T14:52:00.001-07:00

My wife and kids will tell you that I'm rather opinionated about the state of music today- and, strangely enough, even more so on the topic of heavy metal. And, yes, I said heavy metal. Yes, I am somewhat of a "jazzer", but I listen to everything, or at least try to.

First, let's say what heavy metal is: Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Iron
Maiden, Judas Priest, Motorhead, early Metallica, Dokken, Living Color,
Pantera, early Slayer, Megadeth, Dio, Ozzy, Rainbow, Sevendust and
anything with Tony Iommi, Richie Blackmoor, Randy Rhoads, Dimebag
Darrell, KK Downing, Steve Harris, Paul D'Anno, or Rob Halford in it. I
will go as far as to say that bands like AC/DC, Kiss and a few others
that skirt the edge of classic rock, as well as things like Dream
Theater and Tool also fall into this category. (And, no- I'm not
interested in what you call heavy metal.)

Second- let's say what heavy metal is not: Darned near anything else that calls itself metal- especially these days. Specifically, I'll state that bands like Mudvayne, Cannibal Corpse, Napalm Death, new Metallica, Mastodon, Killswitch Engage, Into The Moat, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Bring Me The Horizon, As I Lay Dying, Gwar and, yeah- even Opeth (my apologies to the Swedes) are no more metal than say, Abba. I dare you headbang to "Dancing Queen". Go ahead. I'll wait.

(And, before I go too much further, let me again state- I am not interested in what you call "metal". This is my blog. Get your own.)

Now, let's get specific. Both my son and my wife are what I like to call "rivet heads"- they enjoy a bunch of different bands, and make regular trips to various concert venues around Seattle to see some bands that tout themselves as metal, but I can't stand them. It's not the cookie monster vocals that bother me. It's not the "black magic", death images or even the satan worship stuff that bothers me. (The satan worship cracks me up, actually) It's not the screaming, unintelligible lyrics; the crunching guitars; the swearing; the constant barrage of sexual and dismemberment images; the darkness- none of that bothers me. It's just schtick.

What bothers me is the kick drum. What????!???

It used to be that heavy metal had some lyrically social relevance and actually required a certain amount of ability for all the players to pull it off. Now, all it requires is a drummer with a double-kick pedal that functions like a pneumatic jack-hammer and at least 2 guitar players who do nothing but play dropped D5 chords that sit on top of the kick drum firings, and you have what people call "heavy metal". There's no concept of major, minor, diminished, half-diminished chords, no semblance of melody and certainly no semblance of style - and all the tunes are the same thing, regurgitated, straight from whoever can tune down the lowest. Even a lot of the theatrics are gone. Heavy metal is now nothing more than a shriek and a kick drum, and all the "new metal" - all of it - is completely and totally irrelevant. No one tries anything new anymore.

The other evening, as I was driving home from a jazz gig, I was trying like mad get "All The Things You Are" out of my head, so I flipped on Sirius Radio and tuned into one of the metal stations, and I was immediately struck by the fact that every, single, solitary band sounded exactly alike. I thought, "ok, Marc- you've turned into your dad" and felt sick to my stomach at the very thought of it. (My dad considers Supertramp to be "hard rock"........yeesh.) Then I flipped to one station who was playing "Wishing Well" from Sabbath's "Heaven And Hell" as a tribute to Ronnie James Dio (someone who is TRULY deserving of many, many tributes) and I was equally struck by the absolute genius of it all. It's dark. It's stylized. It's got intelligence. It's got balls. Dio sings like his head is about to come off and fly through the speakers. I turned it up to about the highest the radio could go, and reveled in its dark glory.

Last night, while on (yet another jazz) gig, I found myself talking to one of my guitarist's students, who was obviously another rivet head. We got to talking about what his band does, and he proceeded to tell me that they all "tune down to B!" (like that's impressive) and that most of their songs are centered around "the B note", and once again, I was saddened to hear this.

Why has this happened? What took guys like Yngwie Malmsteen and Rising Force and made them into The Jonas Brothers with Cookie Monster from Sesame Street on vocals? Doesn't anyone care anymore? I miss the days of Maiden and Priest- bands who had something to say and a way to say it that was original - and I desperately now believe that all double kick pedals should be removed from all but Dennis Chambers' feet. How about you metal-heads- you know who you are- learn a couple of actual chords - not barre chords, by the way- and learn to write a song rather than a kick pedal ornamentation? What you're doing isn't heavy- it's just crap.

misguided

2010-05-07T10:53:00.003-07:00

Lots and lots of stuff going on here- family stuff, music stuff, work stuff.....just lots of stuff. Since, apparently in the blogsphere I'm something of a malcontent, I have to share one thing- but I think that this topic transcends more than just the obvious.

Lately, I've been working on a side project- I can't go into too many details about it, but it's an online music education system that, if it's done right, will be a total game changer. The concept is something I've never seen before, and it's truly revolutionary. It's been dreamed up by two players who are in that strata that can only be described as "the best of the best" (and, no, I hardly qualify in this company) and will be something that will be emulated- I guarantee it. If it's done right.

If.

The problem is that in the "inner circle" of this project is one person who I'm not sure really understands what is being attempted. He has a modicum of technical knowledge, but that knowledge is really limited to his skillset (he's a marketing dude) and how to hook this piece of barely functioning software to that other piece of barely functioning software in kind of a "cobbling" methodology. And, the gameplan seems to change day to day, minute to minute, and I'm partially convinced that this happens for his own amusement- but, I'm more convinced it's because his knowledge of what's being attempted is at such a high level that he can't get down into the weeds (where I am) and worse than that- he doesn't want to, nor does he see any value in it.

We've all experienced people like this in our personal and professional travels. They've experienced a small amount of success in doing something a certain way, and that certain way becomes their hammer. The trouble with always wielding a hammer is that everything else begins to look like a nail. Pretty soon, all the identity of what you're trying to do -be it a web site, band, widget - goes out the window and what you're left with is something that is far, far less than what you started out envisioning.

Why am I telling you, my gentle readers, about this?

In this day of microwave society, everything anyone does has just become mediocre. It only has to be good enough, and no one expects or wants craftsmanship. They don't see the value in deferring to people who have been doing things for years and years at a level that they don't understand. Some of that mindset is actually good and warranted- it keeps things simple- but when the person who is directing your efforts has no interest in the value that you are providing, you're faced with only two options: Educate or Eradicate.

I like to err on the side of Educate first. That's where I am right now with this thing. I'm extremely passionate about how this thing is supposed to work, and I'm passionate about working with the two owners of the project. The marketing guy seems to see our passion as unnecessary- and we're having a devil of time convincing him otherwise. If we can't convince him that the passion is an absolute requirement in order to do this correctly, we'll have to move to Eradicate. Hopefully it won't come to that- unlike him, I see the value that he is providing in his misguided way.

The next time you're faced with someone who's "know-it-all" attitude just doesn't have the juice to back up what's trying to be attempted, my fondest hope is that you'll remember this and identify it for what it is. Misguided.

More on the Ballard High School Incident

2010-03-24T07:32:00.001-07:00

I've gotten a number of emails about this. Here's the latest.

speechless in seattle

2010-03-23T17:23:00.001-07:00

I had my mind made up on a blog entry for today, but then I heard a story on the radio on the way home that really has my head spinning. I'm as prone as anyone to hyperbole, but I honestly think that this is the worst thing I've ever heard in my life. Read on- and know that I fully intend to find out much, much more about this and post what I find. Here's the story as I heard it on the radio, and I'm going to parrot everything I heard without histrionics. This is how KVI reported it:

There is a 15 year old girl who goes to Ballard High School in Seattle. Somehow, her mother finds out that she is on birth control. Trouble is, mom had nothing to do with the girl's obtaining said birth control. The girl tells her mom that the clinic at her school (which is run by Swedish Medical Center in Seattle) gave it to her. Mom was not notified. She had engaged the clinic because she had become sexually active with her boyfriend of 6 months. Mom confronts the school (from the sound of it, she was a tad angry) and was told to leave the premises. OK. Daughter is sexually active, but she is on birth control. Things could be worse.

Fast forward to October. Girl becomes pregnant. Instead of telling her parents, she goes to the school and tells them that she's pregnant and doesn't know what to do. The school then schedules a taxi cab ride for the girl to a clinic in downtown Seattle (for those that don't know the area, this is about 8 miles away) to get an abortion. Once at the clinic, she is told by the clinic that if she tells her parents about this, they (the parents) will be liable for the cost of the procedure. If she doesn't tell them, the procedure is free of charge. She has the abortion, takes another (school paid for) cab ride back to school, goes back to class and then rides the bus home from school as if nothing has happened. Parents were not notified of her being off campus for some 4 hours, and apparently the school also arranged for her attendance records to be falsified so that the parents would not know.

Fast forward a bit. Girl has to be taken to the emergency room 3 times for a racing heartbeat. The doctors at the hospital ask the girl's parents if she's under any kind of stress. They answer "no".

Fast forward a bit. Boyfriend is so distraught over what has happened that he "ends up in the hospital". When pressed for why he is distraught, all this comes out.

Mom calls the school and is told that she has no right to her daughter's medical records, and they will not comment or tell her anything. And, apparently they have been doing this FOR YEARS. They (the school) apparently feels that they can do this, and the clinic does not have to notify parents of abortions, reproductive rights or even mental health counseling where children are concerned.

OK- now the histrionics.

ARE YOU %$#*$%)(* KIDDING ME? OK- I'm a hard right conservative, and yeah- a pro-life one at that. Let's leave that out of the equation. Let's leave pro-choice out of it, too. Our schools are not allowed to give out an aspirin, have any kind of religious affiliation or observance- but they can do this? I'm beyond shocked. What if there were complications- and clearly there were. The school's hue and cry is that the parents need to work these kind of things out as a family, and yet they cut the very legs out from under these parents. They endangered this girl's life, and have scarred her (her mother says that the girl is absolutely wrecked as a result of this) - and they stand on some made up moral ground that they were looking out for the welfare of this very, very confused 15 year old. And, we, as tax payers, fit the bill for this.

I honestly don't think I've ever been so sickened in my entire life. I absolutely will post more on this when I found it out- I promise.

like the boston song....

2010-03-23T14:56:00.001-07:00

.....it's been such a long time.......

Somehow, some way, despite my best efforts to the contrary, I lost my keys to my blog. Now, I confess- I haven't been terribly diligent about recovering them- until now.

All this to say- look for a long overdue update soon. I promise.

I'm impressed

2008-12-21T17:06:00.001-08:00

OK- been awhile here since I posted- first off, I must make a slight retraction to my post of "Get Over It". Turns out that the pastor that I cited as wanting a bill passed to remove an atheist sign in the Washington State capitol building was in error. He was trying to get his sign posted as a "15 minutes of rebuttal" to the aforementioned atheist sign. If that were it, I'd probably be ok with it, but he decided to have a press conference that dissolved into saying things like because the governor allowed this to happen she was "turning Washington into the armpit of America". <sigh> Yeah, like that was better........gee, my mistake for inferring that this pastor was doing something stupid.........

Now that that's over with-

For those that haven't seen our weather up here in the Upper Left Hand Corner, it's been something pretty special, even for someone who has lived in snow before. Since last Monday, we've had something like 13" of snow (7 of it last night, and another 3 today) along with 1" of sleet and 50mph winds. Truly impressive. Here's a couple of pix:
This is from my living room window, looking across the street. Big fun.

Here's another shot, looking down my hill to the east. This is not a fun street to get up and down on with this kind of snow.

A shot into my backyard from my upstairs deck. This is a common yard, shared by 4 houses, and it's usually full of kids. Not today.........they'd be swallowed up.

I did try to venture out today to the grocery store for my wife (who is terrified of driving in snow) - and I got stuck twice in snowdrifts. Nice. Not terribly manly, lemme tell ya.

So, for all my friends here that I refer to as "WWW" - "Washington Weather Whimps" - I'll give ya this one. This has been a pretty good storm, and it doesn't look like we're gonna be in the clear anytime soon.

Get Over It

2008-12-05T06:56:00.000-08:00

Let's get the precursors out of the way first.

I am a Christian. A Protestant at that. I don't believe in God, Jesus and The Bible- I KNOW them. God and my relationship with Jesus Christ is like air to me- I require them to live. I know that Jesus is The Messiah, that His death on the cross atoned for my sins and the sins of others; that He resurrected in 3 days and ascended to Heaven, and that He is coming back. He was 100% God and 100% man (at the same time) and that He lives to this day. These are incontrovertible facts, and nothing anyone does or says will shake me from this. I've seen, experienced, tasted and smelled God in my life in things big and small, good and bad, and all other points in between. And, I believe that this time of year has everything to do with the birth of Jesus, and not some kind of weird, materialistic thing that some have made it out to be.

And, that is why the atheist sign in Olympia doesn't bother me. (For those that don't know what I'm talking about, click here.)

Yep- you read that right- it doesn't bother me. I could care less. Display your sign, folks. In fact, make it bigger and put lights on it. Make it bigger than the Christian and Jewish signs, and when the Christians and the Jews make their signs bigger, I want you atheist folks to make your sign bigger again with more lights. Do it!!

I am in no way being sarcastic, either. Quite the opposite, in fact. I assert that the atheist folks have the inalienable right to do it, and we, as Christians (or Jews) do not have the right to do or say anything that would take that right away. I'm neither offended nor am I challenged by different viewpoints of this nature. I don't want to suggest that the US Constitution has anywhere near the veracity of The Bible, but I do believe it. The Constitution says that any US Citizen has the right to do what they are doing- or, more accurately, the Constitution says that the government shall not keep it from happening.

That said, I heard a radio spot today that a certain well-known pastor here in the Northwest is trying to get some bill passed that would remove this sign. This pastor basically has no other ministry other than loudly standing in opposition to things like this, and honestly seems to believe that his efforts are noble and right in how they line up with Scripture. I say that's crap. They don't. They are nothing but hot air designed to separate a loving Christ from those that say they don't believe in Him in the first place. The Scripture I read says to tell these people who have the atheist sign that God loves them, too, and by doing that, you place those who created the sign and the sentiment in the path of a God that will deal with them. At that point, your job, Mr. Pastor, is done and over with. Get over it.

So- my ire here is not with the atheists who put up the sign. They have the right in this country to be wrong. They have the right to miss the point and say what they want to say. My ire is with those who share my belief in God who are so empty and so shallow that their entire existence is do nothing more than shout and miss the point that they are to exhibit love and nothing more. (Please note that there is a distinct difference between "love" and "acceptance") Anything that any Christian would espouse that would fly in the face of redemption and reconciliation and just create more hostility is wrong, and serves no other purpose than just raising the rafters. If there's a bill to be passed to have something removed, it should be this pastor and those like him.

Just get over it already. No matter what sign they put up, it doesn't change the immutable fact that Jesus died for them, too.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all.

Fascinating

2008-11-05T07:12:00.000-08:00

It's 1969. I am 5 years old, and my parents have taken me and my baby sister to rural Florida to visit my great-grandparents, who spent their winters there. They were from Nebraska, and were farmers. My great-grandfather, Noel Bacon, was born in the late 1880's, and came from a family that was so poor that they had to literally sell some of their children to other farmers in the area- and this was a common practice. Grandpa Noel had an accident when he was a little boy, and broke both his knees, and he walks with two canes. He's a tough old bird- this guy used to walk behind horses with a disc plow on his fields in the hot Nebraska summer sun to provide for his family- on canes!

Grandpa Noel and I are at a park, where I am playing on the playground- I don't remember if there were many kids there or not- but I'm thirsty, so I go to a drinking fountain to get a drink of water. There are two drinking fountains there, but one is much lower to the ground, so that is the one I use.

Without warning, a man walks around the corner and sees me, and begins yelling at me. I don't understand what he's saying, but he's very angry and he scares me and I run to my grandpa. My grandpa gets to his feet, and he begins yelling at the other man, and grandpa is very, very angry, calling the man "ignorant" and "stupid". I honestly think they're gonna fight, and I'm really scared. After a few minutes, the other man walks away, and grandpa says, "Come on, Marc. Let's go home." I'm happy to do it, too, because now there is a bunch of people standing around, staring at my grandpa and me, and they all seem very angry, and I don't know why. I'm just scared.

The reason that the man was angry was that I was drinking out of a "colored only" drinking fountain. Grandpa Noel's family were staunch Abolitionists during the Civil War, and grandpa made no secret of his disdain of segregationist practices. Grandpa Noel had older brothers in his "adopted" family that were killed in the Civil War, fighting for the Union because of this. (My sincerest apologies for my many southern friends here- you know who you are)

No, I didn't vote for Barack Obama. The reasons I didn't vote for him are myriad- I don't share his beliefs; I don't think he's qualified; I don't think the government's place is to be involved in the day-to-day individual's business; I like smaller government, etc., etc. I do think he's fairly genuine on many things- I truly believe that he cares about this country, and I don't see him as evil incarnate like many others do. I also think that since he's a politician, he's probably as scummy as the rest of them are, but that almost negates my point here: our society has progressed and evolved.

40 years ago, the great Dr. Martin Luther King gave his "I Have A Dream" speech. That speech really had little to do with the cause of minority civil rights- it had more to do with civil rights as a whole, and I don't think Dr. King had even the slightest notion that what occurred last night would be the outcome- and, more than that, last night's outcome isn't even something that Dr. King wanted, specifically. What Dr. King's message in that speech was that as we are ALL brothers and sisters in Christ, we ALL have an equal part to play in the world. We ALL need to recognize that and move through it.

No. I didn't vote for Barack Obama. I'm not terribly happy with the choice this country has made for its leader. I think there's going to be lots of fallout - good and bad - from this decision. I'm a little worried about the all Democrat White House, House of Representatives and Senate (and I would be equally worried about an all Republican version of that, too), but this country has weathered this kind of thing before. But, aside from those things - things I don't know and cannot forsee - I am thrilled beyond measure that this country has put aside a gigantic chunk of our shared history and has opted to look at man to lead this great country, and looked at THE MAN, instead of the color. Honestly, that does more to negate my misgivings than anything else. The people have spoken and the process has been worked. I am anxious to see how this all plays out, and even though I didn't vote for Barack, he is my President, and I will support him to the best of my ability.

God Bless the United States of America.

Let's Elect To Be Happy

2008-10-05T17:23:00.001-07:00

Well, it seems that I do more than my fair share of bitching about this and that. Here's a change:

After last weekend's Saturday fiasco, I was really looking to jump start this week, and I think I got that this morning. Had a great time at Soteria Church today- the usual cast of characters in Brad Boal, Ed Weber, Destry Lucas and myself in the band along with Chuck and Kathleen- but, we also had Mike McGee and Dave Yingling doing guitar duties, Eric Popowicz on B3 and my dear, dear friend, Dr. Ron Cole on trumpet and Chuck's daughter, Rochelle on vocals. Big band, big tunes, big crowd and bigger fun. While good tunes and good players are a good thing, something else struck me today.

I am blessed. I mean really, really, REALLY blessed.

The other church, while a dismal and distressing failure at providing anything that remotely resembles Christianity or Christ-like behavior, did introduce me to Chuck, Ed, Mike, Dave and Brad. Not only do these guys absolutely slay their respective instruments, but they slay as human beings- which in my book is really what matters. The old church has taught me that it's not about the resources, it's about the use of those resources- and the ability to allow the flourishment of ones gifts to partake in those resources. The old church couldn't care less if they had probably one of the best bands on the west coast of the US- or, that that band was made of some truly fine human beings who deeply cared for one another and loved worshipping Jesus. For them- or more accurately, the senior pastor- it was about perception of control.

Note that I didn't say control. I said the perception of it. In many cases, perception is not reality. It's the ability to cast oneself in the visage of knowing everything while saying absolutely nothing. Such was the case- and where I'm blessed in this case is that, due to my involvement with the old church, I now know the difference. And I can discern it. And- I can show others.

I am blessed in that God granted me a measure of discernment I might not normally have. Such is the case with having M.S.- if it weren't for this ridiculous physical limitation I have in my life, I wouldn't be nearly as compassionate as I am. In both cases, God took something that really should have been limiting, but instead turned it into something that has made me a better person, and all the while He gets the glory for it. That's thrilling to be part of, because when measured up against the absolute, undeniable FACT that God is the king of the universe, I've had Him directly involved in my seemingly inconsequential lifetime- but I know now that God doesn't see me as inconsequential. That's cool x 10.

So, I have decided that I will be happy this week. I have a gig on Wednesday with my dear, dear friends at Alligator Soul in Everett (you really should check this out if you can) and another gig on Friday evening with more dear friends. I have the privilege of hanging with cool people in cool places, playing cool music and serving a very cool God. How cool is that?

Benjamin Franklin

2008-09-29T19:52:00.000-07:00

"The absent are never without fault. Nor the present without excuse."

"Words may show a man's wit, but actions his meaning."

"The proof of gold is fire."

Benjamin Franklin was a very, very smart man. I've been a student of history for as long as I can remember, mainly from my father (who is a history teacher) and from internalizing the words of the great 19th century philosopher, George Santayana, who said "those that forget the past are condemned to repeat it".

Well all know the story of Franklin "discovering" electricity with a kite and a key in an electrical storm (which probably never happened) and some of us might remember Poor Richard's Almanac, and even fewer of us remember that Franklin was really the last great renaissance man. What always impressed me about the man was his uncanny ability in phrasing things in such a way that the listener was forced to view things that they had "locked down" in a completely different and satisfying way. Franklin's approach was winsome, but it had weight. And meat. And potatoes. A full meal deal.

So, I'm re-reading my post from Saturday about my horrifically sad gig; and I'm watching the markets go marching into the toilet; and I'm listening to stories about 16 year olds driving power boats while under the influence of alchohol into the backs of sailboats and killing people; and an old friend pops up on a chat to comiserate about life and times.......

....so, what are we gonna do about this?

There is an old saying, "Many people complain about the weather, but few do anything about it", (I believe Samuel Clements wrote that) and while that's a funny statement, again there is a weight to it. Seems like these days, most folks wait for someone else to do something about whatever the mal d'jour is. Today, it's become paramount for others to find their empowerment first, and we get to complain about it as our primary role, but I submit to you, my most humble reader, that this is the very reason we are in the boat we are in. We look to our government to provide bail-outs for company's who have trampled over the very laissez-faire spirit of capitalism that got them there in the first place; we look to our church leadership to make choices that are far, far better than they are equipped to make; we look to our own municipal bodies to enforce the rules for us- but we don't vote, don't stand, don't voice, and don't move.

I'm guilty here, too- lest you think I'm all about pointing fingers and nothing else.

Franklin's quotes were all about accepting responsibility for one's actions. Ben's thrust was that we have been given the tools to do the right thing and our reaction to the things around us are ours to make our own, and the only person that gets in the way of that is US.

So, what are we gonna do about this?

I'll tell ya what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna shoot straighter than ever. I'm gonna raise my game, and I'm going to lower my bullshit ratio. I'm going to get better at doing the things I do, and I'm going to quit making excuses for it. If I ever get a call from JA about playing at that church again, I'm going to tell him "no" and I'm going to tell him why. I'm going to vote. I'm going to make my voice count, and I'm not going to slough it off to others for their empowerment and then complain about it.

See, the great thing about this country is that we can do that. We have the voice and we have the tools, and all we need to do collectively is to stand up and take it all back, and stop waiting on everyone else to do the right thing. The right thing starts in your chest and radiates outward, not the other way around.

Painful

2008-09-27T20:52:00.000-07:00

This could be a long one…

From August, 2005 through March of this year, I was playing pretty much every single week at a largish church in Everett, Washington. The band consisted of some of the very best players in Western Washington, and we functioned like a well-oiled machine, able to take whatever was thrown at us. The worship leader, DT, is one of the best worship leaders I’ve ever had the pleasure to throw down with in any setting, and the music director, CH, is one of my dearest friends and an absolutely great sax player.

Trouble is that the senior pastor is….well…..er……he’s an interesting character. He’s a control freak of the highest nature, and to boot, in the almost three years I was there, he never even got to know me or anyone else in the band. Oh, we tried, but he was “above” us. Additionally, he was at great odds with CH and DT because he figured that he didn’t need them. There’s much, much more here, but I just can’t go into it. The main thrust here is that while DT has been on staff for 9 years, the senior pastor and the gutless elder board would never add DT to the position of worship leader- he was always the “interim”.

Last summer, CH split the scene. He just couldn’t take it anymore, and no one blamed him. Immediately after leaving the senior pastor began one of the worst played power plays I’ve ever seen in moving DT to the background. There were innuendos and politicking that made the Obama/McCain race pale in comparison. There were also bald-faced lies told by everyone in charge. The keyboard player in the band, EW, and I finally had enough and left, and have found refuge in CH’s new endeavor, a new small church in Everett that has big plans and a lead pastor who is just fabulous. The old church finally made a decision, and instead of hiring DT (as they had promised the congregation so many times) they made an end-run and hired a completely different guy into DT’s job, and relegated him to part-time status. A class act if there ever was one. The new guy is, according to all accounts, somewhat wanting in his directorial and people skills.

This last Wednesday, one of the guys in the band at the old church called me and asked if I’d be available for the Saturday service tonite. I told him that since I hadn’t “embraced the horror” first hand, I really should- it had been awhile since I’d been there, and I missed several people in that church very much. I took the gig- and it’s choir weekend, so they’re gonna pull out all the stops.

I meet the new guy. He can barely look at me. I’m thinking he feels a little threatened by the fact that as I walk in, the whole choir breaks ranks and begins making a big fuss that I’m there. (They like me- they really like me…..) We rehearse- wow- I’ve never heard the choir sound this bad. The new guy – we’ll call him JA – seems to treat all the musicians as second-rate citizens because they’re paid- a fact that is confirmed by drummer BA. When JA hands me my check for the evening right after rehearsal, I turn to him and smile and say “hey- thanks, man! I appreciate that!” and he literally skulks off. After the service, I meet him with drummer BA, and I walk up to him, stick out my hand and smile and say, “I just wanted to say thanks for having me. I hope we get to do that again.”, and his response is something that’s a little hard to put into written words- so I’ll put it this way:

“Yeah,thanksitwasgreat” – and he gets out of his chair and walks away from me.

The senior pastor saw me, and made no attempt to talk to me at all.

Neither of these guys knows me. Neither of them know my walk, or if I even have one. They don’t know if I’m married, saved, baptized, homosexual, Martian, college educated or what I do for a living. They’re too wound up in their own little worlds to even make the attempt at a connection. They’ve taken a vibrant, topical, relevant church and reduced it to their own little empire where a sermon that is based on 4 words that all have the same starting letter is all they need. They make no attempt at a relationship with anyone- another fact borne out by me asking other choir members “So, how’s it been going here?” and me receiving the same vacant 1,000 yard stare and the words, “Not good”. And, what’s even worse is that JA and the senior pastor and their elder board don’t care as long as the offering plates are full.

In my earlier years, I was a drug addict. My dealer, Skip, had a saying of “Christians are God’s worst P.R.” and folks like JA and the senior pastor make that a reality and it’s very, very sad. It’s taken me years to get to the point where things like this roll off my back, and every time I think I’ve arrived at “You-Can’t-Touch-This” land, I see the faces of people like DT, BA and choir members who have given their hearts to a principle only to see it stomped on, and I get mad again. In the meantime, senior pastor, elder board and JA will continue to hurt folks who’s intentions are among the purest, and even though God can and does get glorified in this process, it is still very difficult to bear.

I guess I have no great lesson here to give. Only to ask that my readers pray for places like this, and that they take time to treasure and protect those fragile relationships.

MIA

2008-08-23T09:34:00.001-07:00

Well, I guess my blog has gotten a little bit of notoriety among a select few, and when I don't write for a few days, they get a little cranky. Sorry about that- been kind of a busy week. I did a session yesterday where this blog actually came up in conversation. Apparently, my client had been reading it, and made mention of my "adapt and overcome" post of a few days ago. In bringing this up, it made me realize that I might need to clarify what I mean about being able to roll with the punches, musically.

Being that I am a bassist, I'm a big fan of Jaco Pastorius. It has little to do with his undeniable chops and facility, and has everything to do with his musicality. I've been playing bass longer than Jaco was alive, and while I can play a majority of what he played, I don't have his heart. I lack the personal experiences that drove him to do what he did the way he did it, so all I can really hope for is to try and interpret what he did through the filter of my own experiences. With that, I can lend my voice to the instrument, and maybe come up with some cool things along the way.

The way that this happens is for me to constantly strive for excellence. Again- excellence is not being able to play a million miles an hour and have all these unending riffs that I just cobble together for the sake of being able to play "well". Excellence is being able to hear things and have the facility to pull them off, no matter what the style of music is. Sometimes I hit the mark, and sometimes I don't- I think I hit somewhere in the neighborhood of about 55%, depending on the day. Also, being that everything I play, I play for God, it's doubly important that I put my best foot forward, all the time, every time. As I get older and wiser, I find that I have less and less time to put up with people who don't see it that way.

I don't expect that everyone who picks up a guitar to be Pat Metheny, or every keyboard player to be McCoy Tyner. I don't expect that everyone will have my overarching, somewhat obsessive need to push themselves- but I do expect that everyone will at least try. Nothing makes me more angry than the statement of "Well, they aren't a great player, but they have a great heart" with respect to giving them a pass on learning their instrument and being able to perform well.

A slight tangent- I've been party to the old "playing worship has nothing to do with performance" conversations. In a word, that sentiment is CRAP. You simply cannot have a musical experience without performance, period. And, that extends to playing worship music, as well as anything secular or any point in between. Everytime I hear someone make this hair-brained statement, I'm struck by the mediocrity that goes with it. It's like demanding excellence is an insult, and those of us who make the attempt at trying to excel are doing so with pride- I suppose that for some, that could be true- but I'd ask those that who really think that to see if they really know what goes on with those things that seem like worship vs. performance at all levels. Do you really think that bands like Mercy Me don't have the very best people running sound and lights, let alone play the instruments? Come on, folks- it's all the same thing.

It's the above statement and the lack of drive by some Christian musicians and church staff members I know that have put the state of "spritual music" where it is today. They're afraid. They're lazy. They don't have a clue. For centuries, the church has led the way in the arts- from Michelangelo to Degas and Bach to Handel, art began as a means to worship. J.S. Bach wrote in the footer of every page of every Brandenburg Concerto that the piece was to the glory of God Almighty. Michelangelo and Vermeer were hired as artists in residence for various large churches in Europe, and created pieces of art that are transcendant to this very day.

Somewhere, we've lost our way. I wish I knew why that was- I think a little of it comes from some folks penchant for overstating and misusing the "causing their brother to stumble" verse in Romans 14. "Stumble" isn't "offend" or "challenge"- it's an obstacle that one places in the way that causes another to fall into sin. God holds us accountable for our brother, and I submit that if all we do is place obstacles in our brother's way that forces him/her into a state of unwarranted and inescapable mediocrity, THAT is more of a stumbling block than if I can play well. Ever think of it that way?

So, what's the point of being able to play well? What's the point of having facility that allows you to twist and turn on a dime? It's simple- to inspire. That's it. That's all. I am truly blessed to know that I have inspired a few folks along the way in my mere musical meanderings, and in turn, I expect those that I inspire to do the same. If someone's desire to be better truly gets in the way of their walk with God, then that is a different thing altogether- and natural selection can and does take over and those people are eventually shown for what they are. In the meantime, I exhort you to listen to things with the idea of making them your own and exploring your heart to see what kind of voice you can add to the instrument that you express yourself with, be it a bass, a guitar, a paintbrush or a voice.

Weird Weather

2008-08-15T21:02:00.001-07:00

Not much to add today- got a gig in Lake Stevens tomorrow; session after that. Sunday morning at church; a session in the afternoon and a gig Sunday night with Dustin Blatnik...... busy, busy, busy.

The big news- the weather in Seattle. Earlier this week, cool and rainy. Then, on Wednesday, it's 90; 92 yesterday; 94 tomorrow- and then- Sunday- it's supposed to be 80. By Wednesday next week, we're supposed to be in the mid 60's and raining again.

Hey- if you like climate changes, Seattle is the place for you. Don't like the weather- wait 20 minutes and it will change.

I'll buy that for a dollar

2008-08-14T11:12:00.001-07:00

Nothing musical related this time, but terribly funny nonetheless.

If you're like me (and, by virtue of the fact that you're reading a blog, you probably are) you get inundated with spam. Personally, I take great comfort in the fact that so many people I don't even know have such a desire to help me with my sex life. Recently, however, I've been getting new spam that says it's from CNN Alerts or MSNBC Breaking News, and the headlines are just hilarious! Do people actually click those links? Is anyone really that stupid?

Here's a couple of the ones that have just cracked me up lately:

Madonna's Former Home Destroyed By Jesus
Switzerland To Be Devoured By Black Hole
Barack Obama Can Fly Through The Air Like That Guy On Heroes
3 Die In Bus Accident In Antarctica

You have got to be kidding.........

Buckle Up

2008-08-11T17:03:00.000-07:00

An interesting gig on Friday nite last. My band, "The Jazz Collective", has a regular thing at Alligator Soul in Everett (we're there next on 8/20) and a couple of weeks ago, someone who works at Arthur Murray Dance School in Everett came to the show and just fell in love with the band. (Small wonder- it's a fantastic band in spite of me) They talked to our sax player, Chuck, and asked him if we'd be interested in playing their summer party on 08/08/08. Chuck of course, upon finding out that it paid well of course said, "yes!" and then set about finding out what kind of music they wanted. They said, "the stuff we're hearing tonight would be great", so this should be easy, right?

Here's the background tho- my band doesn't do dance music. We're doing things like Weather Report, Return To Forever, Herbie Hancock and a bunch of original tunes, but unless you're into things like the Ethopian Dance Of The Anteater, you're gonna have some trouble. Chuck tells me who the venue is for, and I'm instantly thinking that this is gonna end up being a problem. Chuck says he'll handle it, and I know for a fact that he verified at least twice what our repetoire is gonna be.

We get to the gig, and we're approached by someone in management. Guess what- they want dance music so that they can......gasp....... dance. Latin stuff mainly, but they also want a bunch of swing numbers. Now, it's not that we can't, but we're only 5 dudes, so it'll be difficult to pull off the big band numbers.

Quickly, we retire to the Chinese restaraunt next door, and commence to pouring over our books. We end up pulling things like "A Train", "Desifinado", "All The Things You Are" and "Wave". We can make this work- after all, we're pros.

We slayed 'em, too. They were ecstatic and asked us back, which we will of course do.

Point is that we had to adjust and overcome. "Overcome and adapt" is how Clint Eastwood put it in that movie, "Heartbreak Ridge". There just isn't a quick way to be able to do that. It requires commitment and practice, and pledging oneself to furthering their art. How many times have you been on a gig and had to make a change? No, it isn't possible always, but you have to be willing. Sometimes it's following a singer that forgets the 4-bar interlude between the first chorus and the second verse, and sometimes it's just adapting feel. It requires ears to listen and a heart to bringing joy, the latter of which is something that a lot of musicians forget is the reason they do what they do. (Guilty as charged here, your Honor.)

Next time you're on a stage- be it a gig or at church or whatever- and a curve ball like that gets thrown and you don't make it, ask yourself why you couldn't, and ask it in such a way that you don't cast the blame outside of yourself. You should be able to do it.

Ouch

2008-08-09T17:10:00.001-07:00

Later evening gig than I would have liked last night and a really nifty migraine today, so no post- except that I did get my beloved '62 Precision copy back today after a long absence. Probably gonna play it tomorrow.........

Lift and Separate

2008-08-08T07:53:00.000-07:00

I've now got two active projects in the studio right now, and it looks like I've got a third "short run" project of 3-4 tunes to put drums on for a new friend along with another EP/album for someone I've produced before twice, and now the distinct possibility of one of "those" projects coming up, too.

What's one of "those" projects, you ask?

As a session player/freelance producer, not all the projects you do are ones you're 1,000% wild about doing. Don't get me wrong- I'm really honored that anyone even still asks me to participate at this level (I'm overweight, balding and middle aged....) and I honestly make the attempt at offering the very best effort I have no matter how much investment I have in a project. It's just that "those" projects that make it all worthwhile.

For the last 6 months or so, I've been playing with a guitarist here in Seattle that just makes my head spin. I am truly blessed to know quite a few really good guitarists, and even more blessed to know a lot of really fine musicians, but this guy- there's something here that I haven't seen in a long, long time. Yeah, he can flat out play - imagine Robben Ford crossed with John Mayer and a little Hendrix and Clapton for spice - and he can sing - but it's more than that. This guy is
pretty young (28) and he has his head on.......gulp.....straight. No delusions of grandeur, and he wants to work to earn it, too. The group is a 3 piece power blues thing that basically came together after all 3 of us had done a few sessions together and thought "hey- why not?" -
after all, that's how Toto did it after playing with Boz Skaggs, right? (Boy, did that ever work.) We did a couple of rehearsal recordings at my place, and they turned out pretty good, but what was really interesting about them was the vibe of them- that was REALLY good. Now, he wants me to work on the new CD, and I can tell you right now- this thing is gonna SLAM.

So, why am I posting this? What's this got to do with the other pseudo-expository statements I've been making over the last 3 days? Well, I'll tell ya- the new guy is also a Christian. The tunes have a decidedly spiritual bent to them (think Los Lonely Boys meets John Mayer and Justin Timberlake groove) but the keys to what the new guy wants is ..... I can hardly believe it........ready? Here goes:

Simplicity and musical integrity.

Real guys writing real tunes and playing real instruments. Stuff that matters. And, before we record anything, he wants to work out roles, schedule, credits and pay and leave nothing to chance. How refreshing is that?

This is precisely what is missing from today's music, especially in the Christian arena. A work ethic and a vision of the bigger picture where the little things are concerned. Too often, the music business is about laziness and plagiarism; take a little from here and a little from there, and throw it through Alsihad and make it into something that lasts all of 10 minutes on the grand scheme of all things artistic. Everytime the industry foists these "artists" who know nothing outside of a barre chord and a couple dance steps on us, artistic quality and ability are diminished exponentially.

Maybe.....just maybe......if enough people stand up and say "enough", we could change the industry and compel a little quality. Or, are you too busy buying Paris Hilton's new album to care?

Context is Everything

2008-08-07T08:29:00.000-07:00

OK, I'll admit that The Saga of WJ is a weird way to open a blog. Some may read this as a first post and think, "holy cow- does this guy have an axe to grind or what?" - not true. There is context to this, and perhaps it would be somewhat valuable to hear that.

The quality of the state of music today is kind of a hot button for me these days - why can't anyone write a song anymore? Other friends of mine point to the advent of bands like Nirvana for "dumbing it down" for all of us, but yet, bands like The Ramones were around much longer ago, and their songs are hardly difficult or heady. Being that the bulk of the recorded music that I do is "Christian" in nature (and I like it that way) there is a spate of Christian music that is just......what's the word I want........derivative. Pedestrian. Dreck.

Seems like today, someone who has knowledge over this process is viewed as a threat. What's worse is the fact that apparently, heart is all you need (and the prerequisite number of mentionings of "Jesus") and you're valid. Not so. Folks seem to forget that the only place that success comes before work is in the dictionary. The Bible tells us that players in the temple had to be schooled for years in order to participate, and now, hey- you want to play? You have a heart for worship? Good enough for us!!! Come on up! Your in! Audition? No way........we can't offend anyone....

So, even though I left WJ's employ some time ago, I guess I'm a little raw still. The bulk of my session work is the Christian version of "good enough" or has a sentiment that if I'm paid, it somehow flies in the face of all things ministries, and through all of that, people like WJ go on and actually find validity. And, who suffers? We do, as listeners.

I want to make a difference. I want to glorify God. I want to make sure that the things I do, I do in such a way that they express the tiniest amount of perfection I can hope to contrast against the absolute perfection that God offers us all freely through relationship with Jesus. To do less is to disservice. To settle accomplishes nothing, and sets the bar lower and lower until there's nothing of any validity to offer. To sublimate the actual task of learning a craft and then perfecting it in favor of "God put it on my heart" does nothing to build God or God's presence in anybody's life.

So, I ask you- why is that a wrong thing to think?

The Saga of WJ

2008-08-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

I need to be careful. Before I tell this story, I need to make you all understand that, while this story is mildly funny, there is a very serious undertone that is the old statement that "all things are possible, but not all things are profitable". And, I am changing names here to protect the innocent.

Way back in 2003, I was contacted by a guitarist friend, "LV", to play a recording session for an artist named "WJ". LV warns me that this will be one of the weirder sessions that I've ever done, and LV knows that in 25+ years of playing for hire, I've pretty much done it all, so this is a statement not to be taken lightly. The session will be done in a fairly well-known studio in Seattle- a studio not to be named here.

I arrive at the studio and meet up with LV, who introduces me to drummer/percussionist "BM" and to WJ (more on that in just a second). Now, BM and I have played on quite a few album projects over the years, but we've never actually met face-to-face - a quandry that a lot of session players find themselves in from time to time. BM and LV have been playing for WJ for a bit now, and they get me alone before the session starts and tell me, "Dude- we're gonna need help on this one. WJ is seriously not-in-the-know on process. There's no charts, and you can't ear it out." Both LV and BM are seasoned players, and they're demeanor suggests that this one is not gonna be fun.

I meet WJ. WJ is about 45-47 or so, blonde and - well, my personal radar goes off and says she's on something- like drugs. Like.....I don't want to guess, and I don't care. This pays. WJ informs me that about a year before this session, she was sitting in church, and God told her that she was supposed to record an album, even though she'd never written a song in her life. God also led her to LV, who had in turn gotten ahold of BM, and another bassist- but the other bassist couldn't handle her material. (I'm thinking- cool! What is it? 12-tone avant-garde? Acid Jazz?) Things are about to get a whole lot more interesting.

So, we get started with the engineer we'll call "ED". ED is knowledgeable, fast, and he owns the studio, so we're good to go. We're gonna track piano (WJ) with a scratch vocal (WJ) and LV on guitar (from another room) and BM on drums in the drum room. I'm playing mainly electric, but I'm in a gobo'd section of the performance room because I'm also playing acoustic upright on a couple of "jazz" numbers. And, we commence to running the first tune.......and we have a MAJOR problem.

WJ tunes aren't just terrible- they're almost psychotically bad. There's no charts, because there's no form. There's a tonal center, but the chords have absolutely no diatonic quality to them whatsoever- and, hey- I like King Crimson and Ornette Coleman, so I'm not really needing any of that- but this is WEIRD. The changes modulate over a completely random set of changes, with a "melody" that has no inflection and doesn't reflect any type of structure. And, even better, every time she "plays" it's different- VASTLY different. Whole phrases and "passages" just appear and then disappear. Not fun.....and charting anything is going to be a nightmare. So, I basically throw my hat in the ring to start writing scratch charts with extremely dumbed down extensions- C, F#m, Bb7, a bar of 6 with Fmin9 - and, yeah, that's what the changes actually look like. We spend a total of 8 hours on the first session, and knock out 6 "tunes" while racing outside in breaks to play basketball in the parking lot and comiserate with LV, BM and ED, while WJ and her other vocalist, "W" eat copious amounts of the food they've brought in. Now, understand here that WJ is unemployed and is using her life's savings to foment the creation of what BM referred to as "Porgy And Bess Meet Jesus", and this studio time ain't exactly cheap. Nor are the players. I'm making about $1K for each of these sessions.........and so is every player. You can just imagine the price of this thing.

Some high/low lights:

Telling WJ to play with her left hand behind her back so that I can actually play a bass part that doesn't collide with the random psuedo-tonic changes.
Trying to get my head around the improvised hand-bell choir solos in one of her "jazz" tunes. (No. I am not kidding.)
Trying to explain key centers and motifs to the person who wrote the songs in the first place. (And why these things are necessary)
Watching a white woman attempt to "rap" while I and the other players jam on a spur of the moment set of changes. (And, she's paying for the studio time to do this)

I did a total of 5 sessions for WJ, totalling somewhere near 25 tunes over a span of about a year or so. After the first session, LV disappeared and was replaced by my good friend, guitarist "BA"- who I told that he really should make sure that he somehow lets WJ know that he's spoken for, relationship wise- which he didn't do- and was promptly hit upon by WJ for dating purposes. (Not gonna go into the gory details of that one)

So, here's what I'm getting at- at the end of session 5, I had a phone and email conversation with WJ to talk to her about her songwriting. Now, normally, being that I am a musical whore, I don't get involved in trying to make someone "follow the rules" of songwriting - setups, hooks, motifs, form, changes, etc.- but these tunes were so bad that I just had to do something. I inquired about her influences, to which she replied with something like "God", and I told her that to be a good songwriter necessitates being a good listener first and foremost, and gave her a list of 3 records to listen to: Carole King's "Tapestries", James Taylor's 1993 live album and Joni Mitchell's "Hejira". I explained to her that if you listen to these things critically, you can't help but pick up the rules (and I forwarned her that Joni Michell was a tad heady) and her reply was something like this:

"God has told me to do this, and He didn't tell me to do it by the rules. If he laid it on my heart, it's right to do it this way."

At this point, I was faced with a rather nasty quandry. Do I continue to whore myself for the money (which was very good) or do I try to educate? Do I discourage this because it is a frivilous expenditure being made by a very nice woman who hasn't a clue or the means to support herself and risk incurring the "wrath of the God who told me to do this", or do I bolt? I honestly don't know what to do. My professionalism and integrity being paramount, it doesn't seem like there is any way out of this, and what's more, when I try to extricate myself because I'm busy with other projects, she elects to move the scheduling of sessions around my schedule. Looks like I'm in- and now, after session 5, she wants to switch studios to a very good friend of mine's studio- someone I do a LOT of work for - and I know full well that the well of funds is rapidly drying up and my friend is gonna lose his shirt on this deal. Finally, to top it off, I've told session player buddies about this project, and we're all making fun of her, and so is everyone around her- and she doesn't know it. I'm really left with only one thing to do, and that is to be brutally honest with her and tell her I can't go on with the project, no matter what the cost. Karma be damned- this isn't good.

So, I call her and I tell her that I won't be continuing on. And, I tell her that I don't think she should, either, because quite frankly, she has no ability or talent. Her songs are terrible, she can't sing, she is a horrible piano player, and I hate telling her this way, but I would be doing her a disservice by molly-coddling her any further. I don't want your money, and I really don't think that God is in this project. Simply and bluntly, heart does not equal ability, and it requires a lot of introspection and musical familiarity to be able to do something that is pleasing to God, and she is wasting her money. I will not be a part of this anymore, and I will wish her well, and there's no hard feelings. Please don't call me.

Probably needless to say, she didn't take it well, and she continued recording. She updated me on her progress, and told me that it seems like the new players she'd gotten don't "get her" like I did (not sure how to take that) but she was trudging on, because God wanted her to do this. Her friends kept telling her that her heart was all that mattered.

I truly believe that WJ's project(s) are a heightened microcosm of what is wrong with the church today where music and performance is concerned. We're commanded by God to always put our best foot forward for Him, and, hypocritically, the church suggests that as long as you claim God in some form in whatever it is that you do, that God is in it. I say that is BS at the core, and the testimony to that is this very story- and many, many others.

WJ now has a web site where she has proferred her rough mixes. They aren't good- in fact, they're just awful. There's nothing I or anyone can do about it, and I will not link to it from here. All I ask is that if you read this, you become aware and steeled against all things mediocre and try to make a difference in whatever sphere of influence you have.

Here we go again -again.

2008-07-11T07:48:00.001-07:00

Yeah. We're trying this again. So sue me.

Seems like I try this once a year, but never seem to have the time or inclination to keep it up.

Will this be different?

Only time will tell......