Catholic Radio (click to download)

“Avoid all forms of self-rejection.” – Henri Nouwen

I recently heard from a friend of mine, a friend whom I hadn’t spoken to in what seemed like ages but was realistically only a couple of years, and I was blown away with the remote changes that had rippled through his life.  

He had decided to stop drinking, and even though I had never perceived his drinking to be a problem, it was obvious that it had been, and that he had successfully escaped this particular part of his life, and was better of for it.  

He said the money he was saving in aspirin alone was nearly enough to fill his gas tank.

I thought about that for a minute.  And I sighed, and laughed a little, and pondered upon what the little things do to us and in us and outside of us. No more drinking means no more hangovers means no more aspirin means 30 more dollars a month. Perhaps it’s only when we can draw diagrams like this that we can actually witness ourselves becoming fuller, becoming more pronounced and at-peace versions of ourselves.

***

One time, when I lived in Los Angeles, someone said something to me while we were eating breakfast that made me so mad and hurt and sick inside that I skipped both lunch and dinner so I wouldn’t have to see those people again, and spent the entire day writing in my journal and drinking straight from several bottles of Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider.  In short, I became a nonfunctioning, nonalcoholic wino.

***

I hung up with my friend and that was it.  But I think about the diagrams in my life that demonstrate my unwillingness to be self-destructive or sad or angry or self-doubting.  I think it looks something like this: No more self-loathing means no more obsessing over what other people say means no more doubting the gifts God has given me means fully living life.

(Maybe this isn’t as small a change as I made it sound – “no more self-loathing” is a tall order)

(Or maybe it’s just making the choice to listen to what Mr Henri Nouwen called “the inner voice of love”)

(I don’t know)

***

When we’ve been gone for 20 years
They won’t remember what I did tonight
That I sat down with this old guitar
And struggled with the words to make this right
That I stared down all the chaos
And I dared myself to make my life lines straight
That I never hated anyone, but I hated this

And here I go - God forgive my sins because
I just don’t know why I’m buzzing like a 
Catholic radio, humming with the pulse of untouched snow

So read me like the Gospel
And hear the things I say and what I won’t
The odd suspicious pauses
Where you wait for me to finish but I don’t
Read me like an open book
Underline the words that mean the most
And free me of the ghosts that I have haunting me

Love is perfect, undefiled
But only when it’s wasted on the dirty and the wild

When I’ve been dead for centuries
They won’t remember what I did tonight
That I whispered up a psalm to you
And shook my head and just shut off the light
That I slept for several hours
And woke up and just started it again
Like a man who’s playing chicken with his enemies

***

A few weeks ago, someone said something directed at me that was unkind and hurtful and served no purpose, and I got over the initial shock within an hour or so.  I rededicated myself to praying for this person, and I went and got coffee with perhaps one of the only people I know who has the same job as I do within the same context, and I vented, and he vented, and we felt better.  Then I went home and drank a beer on the back porch and wrote this song and inhaled deeply, because I am living life and life more abundantly.

If ever people who knew me 10 years ago want to know if I’ve changed, I’m not going to point to the house Amy and I bought and fixed up, or the job I am now holding down (a job that, 10 years ago, I would’ve lost almost immediately) or the group of people who call me their friend.  I’m going to point to this song as proof that I can function in the face of self-doubt.

Downhill From Here (click to download!)

Here is God’s honest truth, presented with no lace curtains or glitter – we are actively trying to memorize the world, so to speak; every step we take, every journey we embark on, big or small, is another test, another chance for our minds to read and swallow the details of an ever-shifting, ever-expanding world.

We memorize everything, whether we realize we’re doing it or not.  We take note of where two freeway lanes merge into one, which red lights take the longest, where the sun is the most extreme.  We learn which people are the friendliest, what to say to whom, how to get what we want from the people we need things from.  It’s not just us falling into patterns – it’s us scripting our lives, running down call sheets of props and actors.  Every day is another pass through a world that we are, in essence, mastering.

***

It only took an hour
To forget your face and name
I had you in my crosshairs
But never really aimed

I’ll memorize the earth now
The people that I meet
The signals that I’m sending
To my hands and to my feet

But it’s all downhill from here (my synapses firing like an antique gun)
My vision seemed so clear (but I was on the verge of losing everyone)
But oh that feeling of love so near
It’s all downhill from here

You cherish all the stories
Of people you don’t know
The inner strength and patience
Of strangers you’ve been shown

But quietly we’re waiting
For a sign that things have changed
And that we haven’t been forgotten
In the history we claim

***

Rachel and I sat down with our friend Trisha Madsen (sister to previous guest Tyler) and worked through some tricky three-part harmonies.  There’s not a lot to say about this song, because it’s small, and I like it when songs are self-contained and small, when they’re easy to fold up and put away and pull out at a minute’s notice.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s OK for songs to be long and complicated; they can tell stories and carve out narratives and become big, near-unmanageable parts of us.  But sometimes, songs can be tiny little snapshots of a fleeting thought - they can be sketches of our inner life.  They can take place over three minutes, leave as quick as they came, and still make us smile, make us think, make us feel.

***

If you haven’t been afforded the time to listen to the EP, which we are very proud of, then you’re in luck: it’s streaming over at http://anonymousrecordings.com/northerndistrict, and can be purchased on iTunes right this minute.

Holy Ground (w/ Tyler Madsen) - click to download!

And the book says, “We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us!”

***

Because I am a being of such extraordinary habit, because I am profoundly stuck in my ways like a tire in a rut of dirt road, because I laugh too loud and say bad words occasionally and lose my temper at other drivers; because of all this, I know that the prospect of personal change is a loose, ever-changing, ever-shifting concept.  A concept  that I can’t wrangle, that I can’t get my hands around; a concept that stands in direct opposition to my habits, to the person I am, to the sum total of near-30 years that is represented every time I open my mouth or answer an e-mail.

Every year, on December 31st, with a past year still clanging about in my synapses, I drink champagne and toast the arrival of something new, something different.  I shift my gaze upward, to a cold sky charged with the unknown, and say, to myself, something along the lines of…

this year’s going to be different.

***

I didn’t do that this year.  I stayed at a cabin with dear friends and band mates, and read the entirety of Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent, and reflected on the last year, and let the realization wash over me like an unexpected rogue wave: this was a pretty good year.

Good things happened this year.  I began an employment shift that took me from “playing dodgeball with petulant pre-teens” to “being a paid part of a creative musical community”. I rode a blue and gold train from Anchorage to Seward, Alaska with a woman who I can’t believe I ever tricked into marrying me.  I bought and renovated a house, put paint on the walls and doors on the hinges, and through it, rediscovered the joy of community, as countless friends poured through our doors and contributed to making this house our home.

I finished the Northern District EP (more on that later).  I saw friends and loved ones healed of emotional turmoil.  I connected with a mentor who poured life and direction into me.  I got rid of some addictions, embraced a certain kind of sobriety that opened up the truth of Christ to me, and met some people who reminded me of Me From Three Years Ago.

In short, 2009 was Sacred Ground to me.  I kept my figurative shoes off for most of it, and approached each month like it was a burning bush.

***

Take your shoes off; this is holy ground
Like a windmill, let it spin you ‘round
So in step with the breath of heaven
We might not come down
So take your shoes off; this is holy ground

This is holy ground…

In the middle of our darkest night
My parents woke me with the bedroom light
Said “pack your stuff up, keep your mouth shut
Leave it all behind”
In the middle of our darkest night

Leave your shoes in a pile by the door
Leave your shoes in a pile by the door
Leave your shoes in a pile by the door
We’ll be with each other in a pile by the door

A pile by the door…

I was nervous; I was 22
You slept for four months in my living room
And I waited, oh so patient
For your lips to move
When I was nervous, and I was 22

***

The point is, I will not be making resolutions this year.  There is an inward change taking place, and it’s subtler and smaller than anything I could describe.  Like the Honorable Thomas Merton said, “My only desire is to give myself completely to the action of this infinite love Who is God, Who demands to transform me into Himself secretly, darkly, in simplicity, in a way that has no drama about it and is infinitely beyond everything spectacular and astonishing, so is its significance and power.”

***

For this recording, the part of “Rachel Higuera” was played by Tyler Madsen; hopefully R. Higuera will understand.

We sat in my living room and talked about the year, and wrote this together, and tried hard to keep our distance from the tiny Macbook mic, so as to avoid the sum parts of our voices shorting out the entire operation.  Like moths to a flame, we found ourselves subconsciously drawing nearer and nearer to the computer; we were like directionless helicopters, hovering and hollering into something considerably smaller than ourselves.

***

Let’s talk about this EP, which is now streaming, as we speak, over at http://anonymousrecordings.com/northerndistrict.  It will be available in digital form within a week or two; the lovely, handmade physical copies are available, for $5, at our shows and by contacting us through the magical medium of Facebook.

Be blessed, practice grace, banish cynicism, and show love in all situations.

Train Just Passed (Click to download!)

What I want to share with you today is something I am extremely proud of.

***

In June of 2008, I was in transition.  My previous musical outlet was beginning to collapse in on itself, and I was writing songs that felt unfamiliar to me.  My friend Cameron sensed that in me, and being the good man that he is, urged me to follow that path - to begin a new project, to let the dark territory of these new songs see air and sunlight, and to not be afraid to take a chance on something new.

We began to make a record that winter.  We started it in the living room of the house his brother shared with this guy, and we finished it in a small closet under the stairs in his mother’s house.  In the course of that one year, life happened: I began a new job, bought a house, started this blog.  We wrote a song for Daughtry that I’m still not 100% sure wasn’t a joke; we also began a friendship and a musical partnership that I’m blessed to be a part of.

This last spring, as we began to look at seriously releasing some of this music, we decided that we needed another voice on it.  That led us to Rachel Higuera, who is prodigious and a friend.  She is now my full-time songwriting partner.

We decided to give it a name, and that name was Northern District.

From the start, it was a product of community.  Many excellent friends were a part of this EP taking shape:  Eric Watson played all the bass tracks in one afternoon, for the price of a couple of tacos; Jonathan Meek played trumpet; Aaron DiMauro, our friend in Texas, played drums and made loops.  Chris Pedro, who has been my support system and closest friend for the past two years, mixed and mastered it.  On one track, you can hear Jason Kleist doing dishes in the background; on another, we put together a small choir of friends to sing, a group that may or may not have included Cameron’s mother.  When I listen back to these six songs, I hear a cloud of people becoming tightly wound together.  I can’t wait to start a new record with this cloud.

***

I wanted you guys to hear this song first, because I began it precisely one year ago to this date, December 28th, 2008.  I was forced to face the remote spaces that are left in our lives when loved ones come and go;  I was enticed by the reliability and presence that a train has, and I spent an afternoon sketching this obsession out.

I played it for Cameron, and we immediately began recording it, and it wasn’t long before it had a certain vibe attached to it.  Whenever anyone came by to visit us, this is the song we’d play for them.

***

I am unaware if Aaron actually strapped chains to his bass drum.  He is a mystery to us.

***

The train just passed
The rails are still warm and the air smells like coal
The train just passed
It left nothing behind but a big train-sized hole

Let the station lights stutter and darken
That train will soon come back to end what it started
Its track is like a figure eight

The train just passed
There’s a black cloud that’s thinning and it tugs at our veins
The train just passed
There’s a catch in our voices that we can not explain

You can leave your coat on the rail of the freighter
It will still be there when you come for it later
Sometimes early, never late

The train just passed
It bought me a beer and it pulled out of town
The train just passed
The bed is still warm and there’s clothes on the ground

You were standing there in my favorite sweater
You said your hands felt cold and you gave me a letter
I’ll save it for the car ride home

***

Northern District’s self-titled EP will be released both digitally and hand-stamped in the middle of January.  There will be a release party, and you’re all invited.  There are six songs on the EP.

Please share this song with your friends and neighbors, and let the good word of Northern District seep into the ground and blossom into something bigger.

(click to download)

Message From the First Mate (click to download)

“I don’t think I speak this language anymore,” James whispered to me as we sat on a city bus;

I had to laugh because I knew exactly what he was talking about

***

Optimism is such a weird sensation, a weird concept; it’s an affirmation that happens within us that says things are going to be amazing, and while there have been times where I’ve felt this weird twinge of expectancy, I’m just not good at positive thinking.

Take this blog, for instance.  I’ve gotten back such amazing feedback, both from people who I’m close with, and complete strangers.  It’s heartening, really - to finally be in a position where I can put my heart and mind towards something, and know I have an audience.  Know that what I’m doing will land somewhere, that it will reach something.  It’s opened up new areas of trust in me, and it’s choked out some of the pessimism that used to cover up my more vulnerable spots.

But I worry that it’s all going to end, that my community will close around me and that I’ll disappear, or I’ll forget to play guitar or how to write words, that I’ll lose all my bearings and inspiration.

***

It’s weird to begin an optimistic song with the words “the ship is going down”.

But I’m thinking of several situations that people close to me have been in, situations that have started out as “disasters”, and slowly been upgraded to “opportunities”.

Let’s start looking at these shipwrecks differently, from new angles and unexposed vantage points.  Let’s sing joyfully about the wreckage we’ve survived.

***

Oh, the ship is going down
The ship is going down
Telegram to the crowd, bring the rescue boat around

Oh, the ship is going down
Clear the clutter from the ground
The important people drown when the ship is going down

And oh, my hands, were made for your hands
And oh, my feet, were made to follow yours
And in the city lights, we’ll be friends
But when the streets disappear, I’ll be even lonelier

Oh the ship is sinking fast
I said the ship is sinking fast
This dream will never last, we’ll be buried by our past

Oh the ship is sinking fast
So run a warning up the mast
And the final cannon blast says the ship is sinking fast

And the devil is tall
The devil is tall
He doesn’t look like me at all but when I shut my mouth he talks

And oh, my mouth, will never speak your name
And oh, my heart will not forget the way you look tonight
And when we reach the shore, we’ll be cabin mates no more
I will tell my kids and wife about the wreckage I survived

***

Normally, I would write more, but there’s not much to write.  Sometimes, you just have to throw songs out there, see if they stick to the (proverbial) wall.

This is the work I remain optimistic about;  this is the effort that I long to see open up into something more.

Good night, world