2sparrows

Jon Foreman — Summer EP

This is actually the 4th EP in Jon Foreman’s solo series.  I have become a huge Switchfoot fan over the past couple of years — they are the #1 band in my artist play count now, by a large margin!

This EP is the best of the 4 in the series in my opinion, and I’ve been listening to it a lot the past month or so.  It certainly is the most religious of the four.  Riley and Reece really like “Instead of a Show” and “House of God Forever,” both of which are taken almost straight from the Bible.  “House of God Forever” is Psalm 23.  If I could play guitar and sing, I’d love to sing that one in front of the Church one day!

Check out his myspace page to listen to the tunes.

On that page Foreman has a blog post with the following quote in it:

Lately music has been my compass: it’s neither the map, nor the road but a steady constant that can help me make sense of the both.

Most of the time, the songs that I write are more honest than I am. Sometimes I don’t play certain songs for people because I’m not ready for that sort of honesty.

I don’t write many happy songs, at least not lately. Which is odd because I’m a fairly upbeat guy. So I’ve got a few theories as to why this might be the case

It might be because life wears down on you. And you lose that part of yourself.

Or it could be because the songs are the only place where these types of ideas can find a release- like a dream where your subconscious is trying to tell you something.

Or perhaps I don’t write songs when I’m happy. You know, a celebration requires a few friends and depression requires solitude.

Either way songs have become my way of finding beauty in the midst of chaos and the pain. It’s a way of finding redemption for mistakes and regrets that I have.

I find that incredibly interesting to me personally, as even though I am very content and happy with life, my musical taste does tend to lean towards darker and more melancholy music.  Some examples of this are Avett Brothers (though they have some very uplifting songs too, many have a twinge of sadness/longing in them); Pearl Jam; Leonard Cohen; Counting Crows; Dar Williams; Bob Dylan; etc.  I do find some very uplifting songs from Switchfoot, though, like This is Your Life, The Beautiful Moment, Dare You to Move, etc.

This is from a trip to Lake Placid in 1999.

The Art of Manliness has become one of my favorite blogs.  If you happen to subscribe to my shared items, you will already know that a lot of what I share is from that single blog — because so many posts are so good.  But I know many of you don’t subscribe to what I share (or subscribe at all  :-/),  so I wanted to put in a plug here for the blog itself.

(BTW, if you don’t understand RSS or how to start subscribing to feeds — the new way of the Internet — check out this youtube video.)

Back to the Art of Manliness.  In the “About” section it states:

Why The Art of Manliness?

Generation X and Y is a generation of Lost Boys. We live in a Never-Never-Land where boys stay boys and never become men. More and more males today are putting off college, family, and adult responsibilities in order to play video games and do keg stands. Don’t believe me that today’s man is lost? How about some numbers?

• 2/3 of men in the U.S. are overweight or obese.
• Men only make up 42 percent of U.S. college students.
• The average male carries around $2,369 in credit-card debt.
• Three out of ten drink too much
• A majority of males between the ages of 30 and 18 receive greater financial support from their parents and has more debt than previous generations.
• The average adult man plays video games 7.6 hours per week.

The Art of Manliness is dedicated to helping men uncover what manliness means in the 21st century. What skills and knowledge should a 21st Century man acquire? What traits should they develop?

If you are a Man and don’t subscribe, you should!

I thought this movie was very good.  If you have any interest in recent world history, or how the major religions are woven throughout world history and geo-political situations, it is especially relevant.  It also made me feel very ignorant for when some of the major battles were taking place — in 1988 when I was graduating high school, and I had no clue about much of what this movie was about.  At least I know more now — or at least I hope I do.  And I’m not sure why I didn’t know much then… It certainly wasn’t talked about in high school classes, or if it was, I totally missed it.  Today I hope I am less ignorant, but while I feel I may be a little above the typical American in regards to knowledge of world affairs, I still feel I would be considered ignorant by the rest of the world.

There were a lot of good quotes, some quite funny.  I’ll leave out the ones with high sexual innuendo since this is a family oriented blog. 

• Why is congress saying one thing and doing another?    ->  Tradition Mostly
• I do not understand the energy women have after sex… Dancing around, baking cakes…  (Ok, one w.r.t. sex.)
• You know you are pretty much at rock bottom when you have been told you have character flaws by a man who killed his predecessor in a coup.
• You ain’t James Bond…  -> And you ain’t Thomas Jefferson, so let’s call it even.
• When Charlies said “For the love of Christ” to a Jewish/Israel man — I thought that was pretty funny…

Beyond the above quotes, there were a couple of other items that stood out to me.

1. The Zen Master story of the boy who got a horse for his birthday, and everyone said “that’s great!”  The ZM said “we’ll see.”  The boy later fell off the horse and broke his leg, and everyone said “oh, how terrible!”  And the ZM said “we’ll see.”  Later a war broke out, and the boy could not go because of his leg.  Everyone said “that is great!”  And the ZM said “we’ll see…”
2. In speaking of single malt scotch as the “King of Drinks” according to Robert Lewis Stevenson… I had to look up the poem and read it after seeing it referenced in the movie.  You can find it here. (Good luck unless you are up on your Olde English.. Or is it Olde Scot?)

Finally, the quote at the end from Charlie Wilson himself… Unfortunately, too true. 

These things happened, and they were glorious.  They changed the world… And then we fxxx’ed up the end game.

To see a better “review,” from a much better writer, and a much brighter mind, and to read more insight into this particular quote and to Charlie Wilson himself, see this link.

p.s. It also made me break out Juice Newton’s “Angel of the Morning!”   Which is a scary thought.   A VERY scary thought. :-/

“Marriage is not about finding a person you can live with, it’s about finding the person you can’t live without.”

- From the Art of Manliness blog

I raced this back in 2006, but missed it last year for some reason.  Again, it was my 1st race in a long long time.   Other than orienteering, I have not done any other kind of racing at all since 2006.   In addition, this was probably only the 2nd or 3rd time I’ve ridden real single track since I raced this same race in 2006!  Granted, I do get some fire roads in now and then, but that is not the same thing.  And the part of me that got the most tired was my hands and wrists.  They are not used to having to hold on so tight like you do on single track!  Luckily, Lake Crabtree is probably the easiest single track around.

This race starts with a very short sprint of no more than 50 yards on a road to get to the single track, so there is not a lot of time to spread out.  I decided to start in the middle of the pack to avoid the more aggressive riders that are there win, but try to get in front of any of the slower riders.   I was pretty much spot on, as I had to pass a few earlier on, but also got passed a little.  Within 10-15 minutes, we were all spread out, and passing/getting passed wasn’t too much of a concern the rest of the way.

About 3/4’s of the way through the 1st lap, I thought I would probably fall apart on the 2nd lap, as my legs were pretty dead.  (They had felt a little dead before I started, and my upper body was sore from yard work the day before — brush hogging with a push mower!).  But while I slowed down a little on the 2nd lap at 39 minutes vs. 36 minutes, I never fell apart as I feared.  The results show I was 13th out of 22, so note quite middle of the pack. :-/  I was never a super fast mountain biker anyway.

One final note.   I did not see that this race was set for 7/20 until around July 1st, so I only rode my bike5 or 6 times in preperation, and only once or twice in the months prior to that!  So I should really have expected to do much better.  I do see there is another race on 8/24 at Harris Lake, so I will try to get out and do that.

I’ve been thinking of starting a “Monday Music” post, and had a few albums/songs/ep’s all ready to go, when something happened this weekend that definitely needs a post, and fits in good as the 1st in this new series.

There is a small local band called the McKenzie Brothers that we have seen at Kelly’s parents favorite hang out, May Street Market.   Rick had given me their “friends and family” CD a while back, and Riley and Reece had enjoyed “Banana Pudding.”  And one time when we had seen them, they sang a new song called “The Haw River Stomp” which was great for us, because we live near that very river, and now Riley and Reece know to lift their feet and say “haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwww” every time we drive over it.

You can hear a couple of their songs here:

http://www.purevolume.com/themckenziebrothersband

Well we went to a little party at the Rondello’s, and there was Robbie Mckenzie.  I made the mistake of telling Riley that he was the man who sang “Banana Pudding.”  Once I did that, it was over!  All she wanted was for him to sing it.  Over and over and over.  And over.  And over again.  And again.  (I think you get the idea!)

Robbie had her read pretty quickly when he said she was “high maintenance all the way!”  And he was a really good sport about it and sang that and other songs for her, and took the time to throw her into the lake several times.  He is a fun guy to be around!

Here is a picture of them together:

Later, Dominque and Robbie sang “Banana Pudding” for us:

And finally…  Right now, “Ob-la-di Ob-la-da” happens to be Riley’s favorite song.  So she asked Robbie “are you the man who sings ob-la-di ob-la-da?”   And he treated Riley and Reece to that as well:

Turns out they have two albums on itunes here, and one album on Amazon here.  If you like what you hear on Pure Volume, check them out on itunes or amazon!

This photo is from our Appalachian Trail hike back in April.  This is an actual tree we spotted along the way.  What does it look like to you?

We went up to Seven Devils/Banner Elk, and Reece kept saying “Climb Big Mountain!” You really have to hear it in his voice and with his emphasis and accents to appreciate how emphatic he was.

Well, we did a lot of things (photos all posted here), but on the last day we finally got a hike in, and here is Reece, climbing his big mountain:

This is certainly a movie I would not have seen, based on the violence in trailer, if it had not won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2008.  I do try to see all the Best Picture movies, so, despite my initial thoughts from the trailer, I watched it.  Now, The Departed, which is also very violent and which won in 2007, was, at least to me, a much better movie.  This one had a ton of gratuitous violence.  The Departed was similar, but for some reason, the violence there seemed more warranted, and I can’t quite put my finger on why.  Maybe organized crime vs. something so random as depicted in No Country for Old Men?  That’s my only guess at this point.  Also, the storyline didn’t catch me as much as The Departed…

(Now, I do agree that Javier Bardem was probably deserving of Best Actor in a Supporting Role (though I have not seen all of the nominee’s).)

The movie did have some good lines, or some thought provoking views/philosophies here and there, but overall, I was not that impressed with it.

I do have a few quotes…

• paraphrase:  “after kids stop saying sir and m’am, the rest falls quickly”  [on the violence and sensless behavior of the day -- and this was in the 70's! ]
• maybe not quite exact:  “even in the conflict between man and steer, the issue is not certain…”
• “Whatcha got ain’t nothin new. This country’s hard on people, you can’t stop what’s coming, it ain’t all waiting on you. That’s vanity.”
• at the end of the movie, on dreams Josh Brolin had:

Alright then.  Two of ‘em. Both had my father in ‘em . It’s peculiar. I’m older now then he ever was by twenty years. So in a sense he’s the younger man. Anyway, first one I don’t remember to well but it was about meeting him in town somewhere, he’s gonna give me some money. I think I lost it. The second one, it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin’ through the mountains of a night. Goin’ through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin’. Never said nothin’ goin’ by. He just rode on past… and he had his blanket wrapped around him and his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin’ fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. ‘Bout the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin’ on ahead and he was fixin’ to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold, and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up.

• “I’m looking for what’s coming…”   Response was “no one ever sees that!”