"Five Score and Seven Years Ago"

I listen to a lot of music. A lot. A lot. And there’s nothing that makes me quite as happy as good music.

I love to watch bands evolve into more mature artists. What “scene kids” call selling-out, I call progression. Just because bands like Blindside and P.O.D. aren’t the atypical metal bands that they were when they first came around doesn’t mean they sold out for the almighty dollar. It shows maturity, experience and an understanding of who they are, not only as musicians, but as people. And it’s so much fun to watch the transition of these bands from album to album. The most recent being Relient K.

When I was introduced Relient K, I enjoyed their music, but I didn’t think they’d make such a big impression on the landscape of pop-rock music. They were a band that made music about the Thundercats, sappy high school crushes, and Seventeen Magazine. It just didn’t seem like the meaningful, developed subject matter that artists need to make the necessary impact on the scene to stick around for very long.

In all honesty, Relient K had lost my interest since their sophomore album “The Anatomy of Tongue in Cheek.” I can’t begin to tell you my thoughts on “MmHmm,” “Two Lefts Don’t Make a Right…But Three Do,” or the “Apathetic EP.” I don’t have an opinion because I didn’t listen to a single track from any of the three. I’m not going to spout off opinions on a subject that I have absolutely no information about. I was born at night, but not last night, thank you very much!

Let’s just say my interest has been re-reached its zenith with the newest installment from the boys from Canton, OH. As special as that sounds (thanks Rachel), I don’t know how else to describe it. “Five Score and Seven Years Ago” has been billed by the band as “by far, our best effort to date” (RelientK.com). And are they ever right. With the exception of one track – “Faking My Own Suicide,” which sounds like a bad audition on Nashville Star – the album is absolutely stellar. The rawness of the pure emotion laid into each of the tracks is evident, and listeners can really relate to what Matt Thiessen and company bring to the table.

“Bite My Tongue,” “Come Right Out and Say It,” and “I Need You” are easily the best of the bunch, but that’s really like saying the top five picks of the 1996 NBA Draft were the best of that class. (That was, of course, the same year Kobe Bryant was drafted 13^th overall, two-time MVP Steve Nash was selected at 15, and perennial All-Star Jermaine O’Neal was picked at 17.) This is just a great album – one that will be in the rotation for a long time coming for sure. Consider that your recommendation.

It’s one that is definitely worth the trip to the retail store, the visit to iTunes, or however you feel most comfortable in the flotation of your watercraft.

(Ok, consider that your recommendation.)

"A City by the Light Divided"

There are a couple of things that I wanted to write about, but I couldn’t decide on one for this post. So, I decided to make this like an actual blog and write mini-blurbs about a couple different topics.

And we’re off…

- James Cameron believes beyond any shadow of a doubt that he has located the tomb of Jesus. He also claims that within this tomb, he has discovered factual evidence that Jesus was married and fathered a child.

Here’s my only issue: It took over 2000 years for someone to finally “prove” that Jesus was married and fathered a child, yet doctors still can’t figure out who the father of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby is? Does anyone else find something incredibly fishy about this?

And if Cameron is using carbon dating, he has a lot more problems than he realizes. In my high school physics class, my teacher (Mr. Walter Snow – greatest pound-for-pound teacher I’ve ever met… That just doesn’t sound right outside of boxing) gave a carbon-dating demonstration and basically destroyed any theory or “fact” resulting from carbon dating. Using a bone from a recently deceased frog, he used the carbon dating procedure and established that the bone was over 1,500 years old. 1,500 years?!? This was from a frog he found outside the school that had been run over that morning. So, even though carbon dating is the most inaccurate form of research, scientists and archaeologists continue to use it. It doesn’t make sense.

- Michelle Tafoya of ESPN interviewed Steve Nash at the end of the Lakers-Suns game yesterday afternoon, opening the airwaves for Nash – defending two-time league MVP and all-around likable guy – to spout off about his problems. Tafoya gave him his first half shooting statistics (2 for 11) followed by his second half shooting statistics (7 for 10) and asked him what was wrong in the first half. Nash then proceeded to explain that he was dealing with diarrhea prior to the game and that was probably what was wrong with him. “Oh, it’s brunch in Hawaii. I probably should’ve kept that to myself,” Nash continued.

Hilarious. Nash is not only the best point guard since Magic and in the conversation for top 3 all time, but to top it off, he’s a down to earth person. He’s a real guy, with real problems just like you and me.

- Zuffa, the parent company of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, does not give out numbers of pay-per-view audiences for their nationally televised events. However, if Saturday night was any indication, the UFC is on a campaign to take over the country. UFC 68: The Uprising was held in Columbus, OH Saturday night and featured fights involving the current Heavyweight champion and three former champions in their respective weight classes. It was easily the most star-studded even in UFC history. 19,000 fans packed the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, and thousands upon thousands more watched via pay-per-view. Yet this sport is continually deemed as “barbaric, ruthless, tasteless, and savage.”

Why the UFC and other such leagues are looked on as “barbaric” is a little funny to me. In truth, it is no more barbaric than football, boxing or wrestling. In the history of UFC there have not been any accounted deaths brought on by action in the octagon. On the other hand, in the WWE there have been at least 3 deaths accounted for due to in-ring performances. Owen Hart died as he fell from a wire making his entrance. Eddie Guerrero died due to heart failure because of drug and alcohol abuse. (How many different ways can you spell steroids?) Same with Davey Smith – aka the British Bulldog. And Hulk Hogan can’t even walk because of all the abuse he’s taken over the years.

And someone please ask Tommy Hearns if he could go back, would he rather be hit 45 times with a padded glove or one time with a glove with minimal padding, be knocked out and the fight be over. I can guarantee he would rather have the one-punch knockout on his resume than the brain damage he has suffered due to the number of hits taken to the head over the year. Yet boxing is a gentlemen’s game, and MMA (mixed martial arts) is a bunch of cavemen hitting each other with clubs.

In all honestly, the UFC is actually safer than the NFL. Would you rather be hit and know it was coming (as you would in the UFC) or have to catch a pass across the middle and not see someone like John Lynch or Ronnie Lott come and bury you in the field. There have been many more cases of concussions, neck and back injuries, and sport-induced wounds in the NFL than there are in MMA.

But just as the sins of Tank Johnson, Pacman Jones and Brett Favre are overlooked, the fact that MMA is a sport on the rise and is no more brutal than any other sport is disregarded because of closed-minded thinking on the part of the average American.

"Chroma"

So Chroma is a Greek word meaning saturation. Just thought I’d throw that out there.

And the definition for saturation is “a state of maximum impregnation” and “complete infiltration.” If you find that as interesting as I do, then we’re on the same page.

You might have noticed that all of the titles of my posts have been album names from various musical artists. From the first post to the most recent I have used the titles of albums by Blindside, StrongArm, Five Iron Frenzy, Gym Class Heroes, Muse, Anberlin and Dogwood, respectively. And Chroma is the title of Cartel’s latest album. Although I have gone in alphabetical order (I don’t count indefinite articles as “real words”) I always have an idea of what I’m going to write about after I decide which album title to use. It’s a God-speaking-through-mysterious-avenues type of situation. Before I saw the word Chroma, I had no idea what to write about as I sat down to the keyboard. But, as soon as I saw it – without even knowing what it meant – it came to me.

God called each of His creations to be fruitful. We interpret the context He used with Adam and Eve to mean by reproducing and having children. But if you look throughout the Word, God is constantly talking about being fruitful. The fig tree, “go and make disciples,” the parable of the talents. And I know I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: People mistakenly quote God without truly understanding what He is saying. I heard someone once say that people who don’t know God do not have the capability to understand His Word, regardless of their education. You can go to seminary, learn Greek, Hebrew and Armenian, and read all the research books written about the Bible, but if you don’t know the Author, you will never know what He really means. That’s why I don’t understand the concept of book clubs getting together to try and figure out what the author means. It can only live up to be meaningless analysis of an incorrect assumption. Once in a blue moon can someone accurately decipher an author’s feelings and meaning, and even then, it’s merely luck.

Yet people try to do it with God constantly. We sit down with our Bibles and our concordances, map books, Greek-to-Hebrew-back-to-Greek dictionaries, reference books, and sermon notes and we try to figure out God. All the while, God is looking for someone to simply come to Him. He didn’t say “Figure out the Kingdom of God, and all things will be added unto thee,” or “try to figure me out, and you will find me.” On the contrary, He said “Seek.”

We live in a time when we don’t have to go to our local temple with a spotless lamb in order to make a sacrifice for the atonement of sin. In that day, only priests who were blameless in the eyes of God were allowed to see Him. Our only connection to God was through the blood of an unblemished being. That’s why Jesus was sacrificed – so that we could have free access to God at any time.

Again, pardon the tangent. It ties into what I’m about to type.

Without the undeniable access to the Creator, we could never know Him. And conversely, He could never know us. Yes, I did write a couple of days ago that God knew us prior to our natural birth, but imagine having a child and immediately having to give that child into the hands of an adopting family whom will take the baby to some far-off, distant land. Though you created that being, you will never truly know who they are or what they will become but by the chance that your paths cross again. Furthermore, without the knowledge of who His people are, God doesn’t get the opportunity to create something within them. A dream. A goal. A destiny.

In order to be in a state of Chroma, you have to know who God is. You can’t soak a sponge unless the sponge is under the water. You can’t fill a glass without the pitcher being directly over top said glass. In the same way, God cannot saturate and impregnate what is not near Him. If you’re not under God, the best hope you have is to catch a few dispersed sprinkles.

And as far as I know, that’s not the same as “a state of maximum impregnation” and “complete infiltration.”

"Building A Better Me"

Disclaimers are usually a dead giveaway for excuses. But I’m going to use one anyways, regardless of what anyone thinks. I am not as shallow as this column could perceive me to be. I am a cultured, intelligent, smart human being, despite the fact that I watch a lot of TV. Or maybe it is because of the fact that I watch a lot of TV. Either way, I’m probably in the minority.

Television was once viewed as a “Hell-evision” by pastors and Christian ministers nationwide. Parishioners across the country were implored to throw their “Hell-evisions” away because they allowed evil into your home and spirit. That was the message being preached for years no matter how incorrect it was. To this day, some churches continue to preach that same message. (The funny thing is, these same pastors and ministers still have a TV in their homes.) But what people fail to understand is it is not what you see and hear that corrupts you; it’s what you do with what you see and hear that corrupts you. The television is no more corrupt than the person you sit next to at work who drinks on the weekend and sleeps with anyone with a job and a car. Just because you work with them doesn’t mean that you’re a sinner, too. It’s the same way with television. If you spend more time in front of the TV than you do in prayer or reading the Word, then it’s not the TVs fault. I believe that’s why we were given free will.

It always drove me crazy when I was a teenager in a Christ-centered youth group and a couple of people always said that “TV was a time-wasting, evil box ran by the devil.” And no, I’m not making that up. I felt condemned sometimes because I owned a TV and I liked to watch it. It’s amazing how Christians can make other people feel about what they do, no matter how truly insignificant. Just because I like to watch Survivor, 24, Heroes and Jericho, does not mean that I’m not a “real Christian.” That’s a ridiculous notion. I have enough willpower to know when enough is enough. I have enough discipline to turn off the tube and spend some time in prayer. But the notion that because I have a TV in my home makes me somehow less of a person is ridiculous.

Wait, I own two.

Oh, the shock and horror.

Anyways, that’s the not the reason I’m writing today. I just got sucked into a little tangent.

The last couple of weeks, I’ve been hooked on a show called 30 Days. It hasn’t been on the air in a year (although I hope a third season is in the works), so I’ve had to resort to downloading the first two seasons to my Zune. And it’s been an enlightening two weeks for me to say the least.

(And by the way, Zunes are amazing. It’s the first thing that Microsoft has copied from Apple and actually improved upon. If you’re in the market for a MP3 player, I highly recommend them.)

30 Days was created by Morgan Spurlock, who was nominated for an Oscar® for his documentary Super Size Me, an experiment on what his life would be like if he lived on McDonald’s for a 30 straight days. (I highly recommend this movie. It’s a real eye-opener.) In the same vane, 30 Days follows various people in mirrored opposite ways of life for 30 days so they can see how other people live. In one episode, a conservative Christian man from West Virginia moves to a densely populated Muslim community in Michigan and lives as they live. He had to follow their prayer schedules, eat the same food, dress the same, and participate the same traditions and duties as any given Muslim-American. It gave him the opportunity to witness first hand that, while the beliefs pertaining to God, Allah, Jesus and Mohammed are vastly different, not all Muslims believe in terrorism or destroying America.

The thing that I took from it was that, if anything, Christians could actually learn something from Muslims. Christians are very good at abusing God’s grace by using the excuse – whether consciously or otherwise – that “it’ll be ok, God will forgive me.” Muslims on the other hand are self-disciplined because they try to appease Allah as best they know how.

The Qur’an says that alcohol is off limits, in not so many words, but the Muslims portrayed in this episode did not look for a loophole. They did not let alcohol touch their lips. The Bible says that drinking is not the problem, rather getting drunk. However, I know several Christians that disregard that passage completely because “it is fun,” or “Jesus turned water into wine, so it’s ok,” or “I was too legalistic about it in the past, so I’m just loosening up now.” See what I mean? Christian loopholes.

But all in all, it’s a lack of self-control and an inexistent desire to truly please God.

So I’ve learned a lot by watching TV. Think what you will, but the fact remains that TV isn’t as bad as people have said. It’s actually quite enlightening at times.

"Blueprints for the Black Market"

It’s tough work beginning your own business. Ask me, I know. But the rewards – though they seem distant at the foundation – are tremendous.

Unemployment is no picnic either. Other than having a part-time janitorial position for about 5 months, I’ve been unemployed for 22 months. Usually I don’t put my business out there like that, but for the sake of this post I will. Most people don’t understand the situation I am in trying to look for work, searching for clients, and trying to pay the bills month after month. The unsolicited “advice” that I have received has been a discouragement more than what it should be – encouragement and support. And no, I’m not looking for a handout.

God wants His people to prosper. Immediately, people think of money when they see that word, but prospering is so much more than money. Prospering is to become strong and flourishing – monetarily, emotionally and physically. It’s really not worth it to thrive economically if your unhappy, depressed and you hate your job. Where’s the joy in that?

The thing is I know what I’ve been called to do. People don’t understand that. Think of the parable Jesus told about the three men that were given talents – five, two and one, respectively. The men with five and two invested their talents and doubled what they had been given, while the man with one buried his away for “safe keeping,” only to find that he did wrong and the one he had been given was taken away. Let’s put that in modern terms and use my situation to bring it to better light. God has given me a number of talents – administration, graphic design and desktop publishing, and writing. If I was to take what God has given me and not utilize those talents, I’d be in the same position as the man with one talent. Who’s to say that I wouldn’t lose my creative nature, my gift of writing or my skills of administration? If I don’t use them – according to the parable – wouldn’t they be taken from me and given to someone else? So why then would I put my destiny in jeopardy just so I could flip burgers and make five bucks an hour? It’s a better life to do what you’ve called to and trust God with the finances anyways.

Where there is a God-given vision, there is always provision. God’s plan for me is not to wait tables. It’s for me to wait on Him. And there’s no better place to be.

"Black Holes and Revelations"

I have all the sweet hook-ups.

Last night, I watched Robin Williams’ latest movie Man of the Year. (Yeah, I know it doesn’t come out until next Tuesday. I told you I have all the sweet hook-ups.) Williams plays a political commentator named Tom Dobbs who is much of the same ilk as Jon Stewart or Bill Maher. On the support of some audience members, he decides to throw his hat in the ring as a candidate for the Presidency of the United States. Long story short, Dobbs is elected President because of a programming error in the electronic voting system. After coming to this realization, Dobbs declines to participate in the run-off, but the breath of fresh air he initially provided caused voters to really think about what they were doing when it came to elected public officials.

During the televised debate, Dobbs took over the event with his witty banter regarding foreign policy, politicians who say what people want to hear rather than the truth, and natural fuel production in the U.S. His comedic, yet truthful approach to such crucial issues was an eye-opener, both in the movie and in my own life.

I’ve had a slight appreciation for Robin Williams as a comedian. My problem with him is that he is usually really dirty and his use of inappropriate language is unbearable at times. That’s my problem with most “comedians” nowadays anyways. If you can’t be funny without using foul language or dirty jokes, then you weren’t funny to begin with. Regardless, Williams was great in Good Morning, Vietnam and Aladdin, and in Man of the Year, he was able to act like himself. Most of the time, that’s not a very good thing in Williams’ case, but he held back this time in order to uphold the PG-13 rating.

I’ve always been a person that isn’t moved by the popular ideas. I make my own decisions, follow my beliefs, and live my life based on those decisions and beliefs regardless of the popular opinion. So, since I’ve been of age, I have voted – as I stated in a previous post – according to a candidates character, beliefs and views on important issues, not based on party affiliation. That’s why I so much liked this movie. Dobbs was a candidate that didn’t pussyfoot around the issues. He wasn’t the perfect man – in fact, there was a scene in which he divulges everything he did in the past (from smoking marijuana to looking at pornography to beating up a kid in the 5^th grade) and airs his “dirty laundry” before anyone else had an opportunity to. If you want my opinion – and I sense that you do – I think more people should do this. In addition, Dobbs didn’t spend a dime on Media coverage (i.e. commercials, flyers, etc.) because he said it would mean he would “have to keep promises to political lobbyists because of their contributions regardless of how he felt about the issue.” Smart move.

Although Dobbs (a fictional character) didn’t really win (a fictional election), his unique political tactics – though romanticized at times – were a step in the right direction for this country (both fictional and otherwise).

Here’s to the truth being spoken over the next 20 months. Hopefully.

"As Cruel As School Children"

The most overused and misrepresented word in the history of the English language is “hero.” We attach the word to athletes, entertainers and everyday Joes, regardless of who they really are, what they’re really about, and why they do what they do.

A man is not a hero because he can crush baseballs over 450 feet. He is not a hero because he can rhyme to a hot beat. He is not a hero because he can throw down a 360, two-handed slam off of one foot in a dunk contest. He’s not even a hero because he can accurately portray a true-to-life hero on the silver screen.

But the notion to continue to anoint such characters as heroes is ridiculous.

John Amaechi, the former NBA center who had a five-year career in the league, recently announced that he is gay. And for the last week, Amaechi has been ordained a hero for his courage in coming out of the closet. Courage isn’t exactly the word I would use. Here’s the deal: He waited until years after he was out the league. Plus, he came out the same week he announced a book deal to explicate his life as a gay man in the NBA. So, if the definition of a hero is a money-grubbing man who waits until its most convenient for him, then yes, he is a hero.

Otherwise, I say he’s just a man. And call me a right-wing zealot, a religious nutcase, whatever, but I say he’s just a man with his own problems, just like any other man. But the fact of the matter is homosexuality – no matter how you view it – is immoral. Before you start writing me letters and saying how judgmental I am, hear me out.

Some people contest that homosexuality is a trait passed genetically just like hair color or sex. I’m no scientist, but that may be true. Does that mean that God created homosexuality? No.

As Adam and Eve fell, it caused the entire Earth to be shrouded in sin (read: iniquity). Iniquity simply means twisted. Thus, as each new baby was and is born into the Earth, they are twisted versions of who they were intended to be. In Jeremiah 29:11, God said that He knew us before we entered our mother’s womb. In which God knew us as the perfect being He created us to be. But as we were born into sin, the disfigurement, if you will, turns us into an alternate form. In saying that, do I believe that homosexuality is a genetic trait? Sure. But it is no different a genetic trait than anger, rage, malice, depression or lust. They’re all things that have to be untwisted and restored to what they were actually created to be.

Otherwise, we’ll live incomplete, unfulfilled lives with only ourselves to blame.