April 2010
2 posts
Catholic Radio (Let It Go Let It Go LET IT GO)
“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...
February 2010
2 posts
Downhill From Here (I'll Memorize the Earth Now)
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...
January 2010
2 posts
Holy Ground (So This Is The New Year)
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,...
December 2009
4 posts
Train Just Passed (Or: You Can Leave Your Coat On...
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...
Message From the First Mate (click to download)
Message From the First Mate (Short but Sweet, Or:...
“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...
November 2009
4 posts
Concrete Kiss (click to download)
Concrete Kiss (The Present Will Become the Past)...
The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid. - J.D. Salinger
***
This song came at the end of a long, purposeful battle of wills against myself - it was bloody, and hard-fought, and at times I was absolutely positive I was going to lose, but I did this, and I fought the good fight, and a song...
To Be Alone With You (click to download)
This is...
To Be Alone With You (On "Figuring it All Out")
maybe the price we pay for having it all “figured out”
is the knowledge that action is not only expected, but demanded
the knowledge that we, now full with that apple we plucked from the Tree
have got to find some fig leaves around here somewhere, because
there are just some parts of us that we are not
going to be putting on display
***
We were cold; and then we...
October 2009
6 posts
We Don’t Need Our Arms Anymore (click to...
We Don't Need Our Arms Anymore (Tell the Story,...
“The point of a story can penetrate far deeper than the point of any bullet.” - Lawrence Nault
***
Anyone who knows me knows how much I love telling stories. I’ll retell plots of entire movies, describe my day to wide-eyed near-strangers over hissing cups of coffee, and reenact entire random conversations for those unfortunate enough to get stuck in conversations with me.
This is...
The Protestant (Click to Download)
The Protestant (Oh It Was A Four Star Night At A...
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. - 1 Corinthians 13:11
***
I didn’t want to grow up, but I had to.
That’s the case with everyone, or at least everyone I know - we were all plunged, feet-first, into this sort-of pretend adulthood that trembled and glowed with artificiality. We learned...
Jesus Shall Reign (written by Isaac Watts; arr. by...
Jesus Shall Reign (A Little Context Is Needed,...
A little context is needed, please.
***
I have found myself, on more than one occasion, thinking that thought. A little context is needed, please.
I’m in Tujunga, CA, and I’m desperately looking for a cup of coffee, and I find a tiny coffee shop located in between a meat market and an Irish bar, and I walk in, and I quickly see that I am one of two people in the coffee shop. The other is a...
September 2009
8 posts
Crash of the Century (Click to download)
Crash of the Century (The Story of Henry and...
Henry picks up Liza.
Liza is wearing blue. Henry finds this distasteful, but says nothing.
Henry drives to the restaurant.
The restaurant is downtown. The drive to the restaurant takes exactly twelve minutes and two seconds.
During the drive, Liza takes special note of Henry’s fingernails, which are not in disarray and appear to be clipped.
Henry finds Liza’s insistent gazing at his hands...
City Knives
City Knives (Del Masterson Lives On, If Only In...
City Knives (Download here)
An Ordered, Yet Detailed, Itemized List of the Personal Effects Left Behind By One Del Masterson, Aged 90, Inventoried By the Staff of Pine Bluff Retirement Villa
- Twenty (20) napkins, each bearing the insignia of a restaurant that Subject had (presumably) dined at, or perhaps, at least, had loitered in the lobby of;
- One (1) stack of graying, chapped photographs,...
Baby, I’m A Black Cloud
Baby, I'm A Black Cloud (I'm Also A Radio, A Tree,...
Baby, I’m A Black Cloud (download here)
(To your untrained eyes, I appear foreboding, dangerous. I make you feel uneasy. You shield your eyes, you point me out to those around you, and you bemoan my sudden, unanounced appearance in the sky. Yet you could not survive without what I have stored within me. I mean no harm, no ill will. I exist only to replenish the cracked earth; you have...
Mason-Dixon Line
Mason-Dixon Line (Letter to an Ex-Girlfriend Whom...
Mason-Dixon Line (click to download)
(author’s note: Reading and comprehension of this depends on the acceptance of a few key facts, some of which have been altered from reality. One: There was nothing ever nobler then my attempt to save you from a life of mediocrity. Two: We will never die, not ever, no we won’t.)
Your father once said something interesting to me. He took my shoulders in...
August 2009
9 posts
Ivory Owl, Whom I Love Like Brothers →
Port Arthur
Port Arthur (The Siren Call of Distance, or, I...
Port Arthur (download)
As distant prospects please us, but when near We find but desert rocks and fleeting air. - Samuel Garth *** Years ago, I lived in Los Angeles, and when I was done living in Los Angeles, I came back home to the Bay Area. Los Angeles stayed in my bones, however, and I found myself sorely at odds with this end of California. Something about Los Angeles’ smog and...
Let Down
Colin Greenwood/Jonny Greenwood/Ed...
Let Down (Don't Get Sentimental, It Always Ends Up...
Let Down (download)
Time changes perspective, in all things.
You see, I can reevaluate conversations I had earlier today and be able to recognize and identify whole subtexts and emotions attached that I hadn’t caught earlier. What’s really a treat, however, is when it happens on a much larger, grander scale, and it can maybe affect the way you breathe, or do business, or scratch at the world...
Jim Cork Burning
Jim Cork Burning (How Can I Tell Them There's...
Jim Cork Burning (download)
Heads down, ears plugged, still working.
***
I’ve spent the last two months savoring Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem, a fantastic collection of essays pre-dating 1968. The majority of the book deals with Didion’s experiences in California. At this stage in my life, I’ve experienced enough of California that I, quite simply, want in, in on anyone’s working...
Pretty Little Head
Pretty Little Head (Of Lost Concept Records and...
Pretty Little Head (download)
So this one isn’t going to be easy.
***
Some of them are. Most of them are. I’m talking about these blog posts. You see, normally I can pinpoint what I was trying to get across in a particular song, what thread I was pulling at. Sometimes, however, even being that specific is a task onto itself, and I can’t be bothered.
So, can we ditch the formalities and...
July 2009
11 posts
Cadence
Cadence (Are We Tracking?)
Cadence (download)
Recently, I ate Thai food with a long-lost friend and his companion, who may or may not have spoken a word of English, but we smiled politely, and ate chicken satay, and listened to “Beat It” and “PYT” on the restaurant’s stereo.
At one point, my friend was trying to describe a video he had seen of an active windmill breaking, its blades whirring and whirring, faster and...
Arms Length (Be Still and Know...)
Arms Length (download)
It was after I got to Boston that I went into the anechoic chamber at Harvard University…in that silent room, I heard two sounds, one high and one low. Afterward I asked the engineer in charge why, if the room was so silent, I had heard two sounds. He said, “Describe them.” I did. He said, “The high one was your nervous system in operation. The low one was your blood in...
Arms Length
Drink Deep (Circle 'Round the Wagon)
Drink Deep (download)
There’s a scene in Michel Gondry’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” that always punches me in the gut when I see it. As Joel Barrish (played by Jim Carrey) attempts to hide his girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet) away in his memories, he ends up taking her on a guided tour through his childhood. They (and us with them) are transported to a scene from Joel’s past...
Drink Deep
Destiny (Or: A Steno Notepad Littered With First...
Destiny (download)
Our destiny is frequently met in the very paths we take to avoid it. - Jean de La Fontaine
Sometimes songs start with a concept, an over-arching theme that presents itself to us as “worthy”. For me, these occurrences seem few and far between; in fact, I’m jealous of writers who can pick what they want to write about, grab a pen and a guitar, and get cracking. That’s just...
Destiny
Healing Service
Healing Service (Or: We Will Be Made Whole, We...
Healing Service (download)
Here seems as good a place to start as any.
I don’t think I’ve ever (knowingly) written a purely autobiographical song. I’ve taken debris from my life and inserted the appropriate details in opportune places. I’ve written about things I’ve overheard, scraps of conversation I’ve picked up, details I’ve spotted in the periphery. But I’ve never seen the need to force...
A Preface, of Sorts (Or: The Trailers Sucked, but...
I have been writing songs, at a fairly decent clip, for approximately fifteen years now.
I say “fairly decent”, and that can mean just about anything. I’m not consistent, God knows. I can normally average about a song a week. Of course, there are exceptions.
There have been periods in my life where the songs just haven’t come. Dry spells. Days, even weeks, at a time when it feels like I’m...