Not the year in review.

Today happens to be December 31, 2005 but I don't have any intention here on my blog to do a summary look back on the events of the past 365 days. Just like I didn't contemplate the meaning of Christmas here or touch much on other major holidays over this past year. Others have done a much better job at that and I've been putting my creative energies into different efforts.

There are two projects that are most on my mind lately. One is a presentation I'm giving at IGE next Thursday on contemporary expressions of "protest music." Awhile back, I was listening to my #1 Billboard Hot 100 Hits collection when the song "War" by Edwin Starr came up. It's a famous antiwar song that reached the top position back in 1971 and has been something of a classic ever since. I thought the song was great when I was just a ten-year-old kid - about the funkiest, gutsiest music I'd ever heard at the time - and I still love hearing it today. I thought to myself, "what are the chances that a song like this would enjoy similar success in 2005?" We have a war going on, a controversial and costly conflict that the public is largely growing weary of. But there's not a lot of political consciousness present in the top hits of today.

So I gave the topic some further thought and figured I would do well to research and compile some of the protest songs that are being produced today but fall into other, less commercially prominent niches in the pop music spectrum. The notion was brought to fruition when I was asked to select a topic for our monthly "IGE Talks" meeting. We've generally covered topics that I'd describe as "heavier" (our last talk focused on the contemporary relevance of Rousseau's concept of "the social contract.") So I thought it could be fun to have a music-listening party, so to speak.

That's put me on a hunt for a generously eclectic sampling of what today's musicians and singers have to say. I'm still putting my playlist together, and I'm inviting others to bring their own favorites to the talk as well. Then we'll videotape the meeting and put it on local public access TV. I was down at the Community Media Center yesterday after I left work to tape a Public Service Announcement for the event, actually.

The other creative project I'm working on is a more advanced training in LSCI (Life Space Crisis Intervention.) I've been re-reading the textbook, watching videos and preparing some role play exercises for this in-service that will be held on January 17.

I'm beginning to get a real sense of "lightening burdens" and an energized enthusiasm for my upcoming change of roles at Wedgwood. I have a sense of adventure about my job again - even the unpredictability and still-unclear details of just how I will be spending each week or what my schedule will look like brings me a welcome thrill. Even though I'm well-known around the agency, I see this new position as a chance to reshape my persona at work and to bring forward some ideas and aspects to my personality that my previous role didn't allow. I think, though, that at least for awhile, the new job is going to have a controlling effect on my leisure time reading and computer habits, as I will often be steering my attention toward material that may have some relevance to the training tasks that I seek to master. I've already been reading a lot of psychologically-oriented books when I'm just looking to curl up on the couch. That will probably continue and that's OK. I will also keep tabs on other streams of thought since even the best clinical training has to be multi-disciplinary, but I am seriously interested in becoming more skilled and resourceful in this area of staff development.

So what else is going on... Well, I read a quote in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago when they ran an article on the return of countless thousands of students to their homes during the college semester breaks. A woman said "It is always very nice when they come home for the holidays. And it is always very nice when they go back to school." I laughed when I read that for I recognized the truth in both halves of her statement! I am ready to resume the semi-empty nest lifestyle that Julie, Derek, (sometimes) Brandon and I got into this past fall. Nothing against Curt and Lys personally, of course - it's just that the house seems cramped and overly busy when everyone's around. Mainly the basement computer area, which is a big mess, with stacks of CD's, DVD's, videos, papers, books, digicams, Creative Memories albums and supplies, cables running all across tables and floors and big office chairs blocking egress between the long tables set up to hold all four of the PCs we have networked into our broadband internet connection. It's all of our fault, we're kind of slobs who would rather spend time doing our various computer things than spend it cleaning up and organizing the chaos - if we just stare at the screen, we can fairly successfully block out the clutter from our peripheral vision. But when it's all four of us going, each with our respective soundtracks either playing at a muted level, or one person's prevailing after the others have grudgingly gone to silence, backed by the ever-present humming of computer fans... the effect can be unavoidably claustrophobic, which has a cramping effect on my own ability to creatively respond to the complex ideas and subtle sophistication that so often comes to me in the various emails I receive.

I look forward to having a little more mental space to work in after all this holiday stuff is really and truly over with.

Family Portrait!

Here it is, the Blakeslee Family Christmas Picture for 2005!

Resignation Letter

My upcoming job change is becoming more official by the moment. I just posted the following letter to a group of my co-workers. I got a little sentimental going through the agency address book, deciding who I would include in my list of "significant people" who would receive the note. I didn't want to just post an "Everybody" message...

December 26, 2005

Dear colleagues at Wedgwood,

As you may know or will soon discover, I am near the time when I will be resigning from my duties as the Supervisor of the Delta Home. My intention is to put more focus on my role in Wedgwood’s Staff Development Department, where I seek to continue enhancing the abilities of our employees and other professionals who provide treatment to youth. One important step that I will be taking in pursuit of this objective is to begin working in a collaborative role with team leaders, picking up shifts in different Wedgwood homes, maintaining a “trainer’s perspective” while also increasing my familiarity with the unique characteristics of our various programs and their clients.

I am very excited to begin this next step of my career at Wedgwood and deeply grateful to the administrators who have endorsed my vision for bringing training into the homes in a new way and giving me this chance to build stronger connections with staff by working alongside them with the kids. Currently, my plan is to phase out of the Delta Supervisor role by the end of January. In the next few weeks, I anticipate that I’ll be contacting PA’s, Home Supervisors and Assistant Supervisors to develop plans for me to pick up shifts and consult with them on various training or treatment needs where my experience can be of benefit to their programs. My hope is that this will be a creative and encouraging experience for us all, and I look forward to sharpening my own insights as to how we can better meet the needs of our clients and staff through effective training and putting good ideas into practice.

I also want to take this moment to express my thanks and appreciation to all of my current and former co-workers who have made my experience at Wedgwood such a fulfilling and positively challenging part of my life. The last twelve years that I’ve worked as the Delta (Parramore) supervisor in particular have left a deep impression upon me of just how richly God blesses this agency with gracious, dedicated and compassionate people who put God’s love into action. I’m glad to know that, Lord willing, I have many more positive experiences awaiting me as I move into a new kind of relationship with the wonderful people who have joined together at Wedgwood Christian Services!

With much affection, and in Christ’s service,

Dave Blakeslee

Big News (subjectively speaking.)

I have been preoccupied with a lot of activities and tasks lately. Hey, it's Christmas Eve, smack dab in that time of year when "being busy" is pretty much expected of everybody, so I don't think I have too much explaining to do. But I do have a little moment of calm here, without obligation, before things kick into high gear around the house, so let me take some time to talk about a change coming up in my life pretty soon.

Within the next month or so, I'm going to stop being the Supervisor of the Delta Home at Wedgwood Christian Services.

I'll still work for Wedgwood, and I'm going to stay in the role of Assistant Coordinator for Staff Development that I've been doing 20 hours per week for the past 15 months or so. The other hours will be spent working as a combination trainer/youth treatment specialist, directly in any of the 11 homes that Wedgwood operates, giving me a chance to work more closely alongside the staff in our other programs, allowing my voice to speak from a broader perspective when it comes to the work we do with our clients (abused and neglected children with a wide range of behavioral and mental health problems.)

This move has been on my mind for a few weeks now, and much longer than that conceptually. I've been the Delta Supervisor (Delta is a secure residential girls program) for over 12 years and each of those years have been filled with a lot of drama, emotional heaviness of various sorts and a lot of inspiring, gratifying and occasionally heroic dedication demonstrated by all of us who have chosen to commit a portion of our lives working with these needy kids. The experience has made a big impact on my life and how I see the world and the people who live in it. Throughout these years, I and my co-workers have worked very hard to address the needs and challenges of an inherently unstable situation (12 or 13 emotionally impaired girls living 24/7 under one roof, often against their will, with all the relational dysfunctions one could imagine thrown into the mix.) For the Supervisor of such a program, there's a certain ownership and "buck stops here" attitude that is consistently required to stay effective and respected by everyone who depends on the person in that role. I've spent over a dozen years in that position, and now it is almost time for me to step out for a bit of fresh air.

The good news (from my perspective at least) is that I'm not entirely leaving the task itself behind. I still believe that I have a lot to offer my agency and co-workers and the youth we have accepted into our care, and my hope is that stepping out of some of the supervisor's responsibilities will enable me to focus more of the coaching/skill building aspects of that job that I have always enjoyed the most. I am looking forward, with great anticipation, to this next phase of my career. It is nice to be able to think of 2006 as a year with newness and change already built into my appointment calendar!

The Wilhelm Scream

I just discovered this. It's both interesting and funny. There's a movie sound effect called "the Wilhelm Scream" that has been used in Hollywood movies for the past fifty years or so. It is heard in the new "King Kong" movie as well, which I'll be seeing tomorrow afternoon.

Here is a short QuickTime clip that compiles most if not all of the scream's uses over the years, not including the just-released Peter Jackson epic.

Aerosmith Rocks.

I have seen the band Aerosmith probably five or six times in my life. Up until this past weekend, all of those concerts had taken place in the late 1970's or early 80's, back when the band was in their prime. The first time I saw them was when they were touring in support of their classic "Toys in the Attic" album, when "Walk This Way" and "Sweet Emotion" were radio hits. Then it seems like I saw them just about every year after that for awhile, up until just before their "Night in the Ruts" album was released and the band went into a serious decline that didn't really end until they revived their fortunes in the early 1990's. At that time, it seemed almost surprising that Aerosmith had found a way to survive, but they've since gone on to become a rock institution, and can lay a pretty legitimate claim to being the most successful American hard rock band ever, in terms of endurance and high-profile output, commercial sales, etc. Probably not the most influential or inspirational, but major players in the industry and a durable, reliable road show all the same.

So it was with great anticipation and curiousity that I entered the Van Andel Arena this past Saturday to work my concession stand gig and oh, by the way, listen to and steal an occasional peek at the show. Most of us were pretty pumped up and happy to be there, and I would say in retrospect that this was one of the more memorable nights of many I've spent at the arena, mostly because of my own personal interest and memory associations with the band. With such a long career and an extensive catalog of hits bridging chunks of four decades now, I was fascinated to know just what songs the band would haul out for a show in Grand Rapids.

The big surprise for me was just how weighted their program was with cuts from their first four albums ("Aerosmith," "Get Your Wings," "Toys in the Attic" and "Rocks.") These four albums are the foundation upon which all their later success rests, and they are really good ones in the overall history of rock music. After that, their albums became much more hit or miss, though I am speaking from personal bias here of course. There are probably a lot of younger people who would have not enjoyed this show if they just came to hear songs like "Janie's Got a Gun," "Love in an Elevator" or "Pink," all hits within the last 10-12 years, none of which were performed that night. Instead, they relied a lot on the old classics, including some album cuts that I thought would have been relegated to after hours jam sesssions. If I mention tunes like "Seasons of Whither" or "Last Child," would you remember them? I know them quite well, of course, but I grew up on that stuff. I don't think they really got the airplay that their later, neglected hits got, but that's what the band chose to play. I don't even think they played "Angel," but I might have missed that one. They did play "Crying" and "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing," the theme from the bombastic "Armageddon" movie that starred Bruce Willis and singer Steven Tyler's daughter Liv. But they were early-in-the-set numbers and didn't really soar to the extent that even I expected them to.

Their performance was what I would described as "polished raunch," something different than the truly sloppy and sometimes pathetic raunch that they brought on stage with them in the late 70's, when the band's drug and alcohol habits mirrored those of most of their audience. In those days, we (band and audience alike) were all so toasted at the time that it didn't make much difference how out of tune or off-tempo the band was. Though we didn't like having to wait for over an hour before the band finally got on stage to play, which was a more common occurrence it seemed, back in the day, than it is nowadays with a much more efficient, professional and sanitized showbiz operation that manages the details and gets everything rolling like clockwork.

Last Saturday was ample proof that Aerosmith has cleaned up their act just enough to get their graying, high paying fanbase home on time before they have to pay the babysitter overtime, but not so much that we don't get that invigorating thrill of waltzing in the gutter with some pleasingly sleazy fellas who know how to blast out a thunderous, rumbling mash-up of powerchords and full-throated yowls. They opened with a cover of the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" (It seems like Beatle covers are safe bets for big time rockers nowadays... U2 covered four of their songs, plus a John Lennon number at their recent concert in Cleveland! All part of Bono's "Man of the Year" award campaign, seems to me...) I got to see and hear them perform a great variety of hard rockin' tracks that made me smile and nod and occasionally stomp in appreciation of what their music meant to me in days gone by. Joe Perry even did a Jimmy Page imitation with a feedback-screeching freakout session on the theramin!

Still, I never really got the sense that they were careening into no-holds-barred, go for the gusto, seat of their pants risk-taking on stage. Now it all seems like just a big ol' business, but I still appreciate the band for hanging in there and keeping that train a-rollin' all night long for well over thirty years now.

Peace Team Action in Toledo OH

My friend Mark and some others from the Michigan Peace Team went to Toledo a couple weekends ago to defuse violence that was likely to be provoked by a group of white supremacists (Neo-Nazis) who held a rally in a primarily black neighborhood. A couple months earlier, the same group held a march where large riots broke out, leading to some injuries and property destruction. I was invited to be part of this Peace Team action but had personal obligations that prevented me from going there on that Saturday.

Here are links to a newspaper account and some photos of the event.

Driving, driving and then more driving.

I have been on the road a lot the past few days. On Thursday I drove to Spring Arbor to pick Curt up for his winter break. I like these road trips - for the chance to just cruise the highway listening to music on the way there, then for a nice time of 1:1 conversation with my son. The winter weather slowed things down a bit but not too bad really.

Yesterday I had to leave work in the middle of the day to get my daughter back to her dorm (she came home on Thursday night, actually, but had to go straight to her job so all of her stuff - clothes and computer, mainly - was still in her room.) She had no time to pack during the previous week, overwhelmed as she was by art projects and final exams, so I had to help her lump everything into plastic totes. While I was there, I encountered the sad dilemma of another student whose car got stuck in the snow. She had backed out of a driveway but somehow slid off the pavement, onto a lawn, and her tires were now spinning, with no traction. I asked her if she needed a shove to get out but I learned that this would not help her. A few things made it even worse. One, her keys were locked in the car. Two, her engine was running. Three, her car was in Drive, so that if her tires actually did get traction, the car would strike the building. I didn't ask her how she got into that predicament. But she was on the phone to some people who could help, so I left it at that.

Today I've been driving around town doing Christmas shopping. The mall rush. What a mess. I have nothing very original or enlightening to say about it - if you are an American suburbanite, or ever have been, you know the drill. But I got a few necessary purchases out of the way. Julie and I have agreed to take it very easy on each other as far as gifts are concerned. Like maybe only spending about $30 each. I really feel like I have what I need so I don't see the point of extravagant obligatory big ticket items. So that is fine with me.

Now I'm about to return to Van Andel Arena to work the Aerosmith/Lenny Kravitz concert. That will definitely get some prominent coverage here soon, but tomorrow looks to be a busy day with family Christmas party and such to attend. But I'll be back here soon enough, I'm sure.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

I am a couple of days late with this, but I did say I was going to post a review of some sort about the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Unfortunately, I simply don't really have a whole lot that I feel like saying about it. I would suggest that if you are interested in learning more about TSO, visit their website or purchase one of their recordings. I only got to see some snippets of the actual performance - I could have stopped to watch more because they shut down our concession stand pretty early (the band was going to come out and sign autographs after the performance and they chose to set up the tables directly in front of our counter, so we got to pack up earlier than everyone else!)

But to be honest, I had already gotten the gist of what they do and it had been a long day (I worked both shows) so I passed up the chance to see a killer light show and hear some rockin' out versions of classic Christmas tunes. There you have it! Here are a few more comments that I will copy'n'paste from an email I wrote to my sister when she asked me how I liked it (she's a fan, not a fanatic, but she figured I would dig this kind of thing...):

"I thought the TSO was pretty cool - I wasn't 'awestruck' but then I didn't get to watch the whole program without interruption. I saw a bit of the lasers but mostly what I saw was just the conventional (though still quite impressive) lighting rig. And it was always from off to the side, not straight on so I didn't get the full effect.

What they do, they do extremely well. The musicianship and showmanship are very professional, it's all well-paced... It sounds like there's a narrative story that runs throughout the program which I couldn't listen to closely enough to follow. Having seen TSO "for free," I'm not sure that I'd spend the big bucks for tickets now but all in all, I think I understand what makes them so popular. They are Christmas-y without being cliche' or overly traditional. There's a bit of that rockin' edge to their music to keep things lively and fresh for a lot of the audience, without going to extremes either (they slow it down and remember the spiritual message of Christmas as well.)

So those are a few of my thoughts on TSO!"

A few Christmas Tree pics.

Last night our family put up our Christmas tree - just four of us since Brandon was at work and Curt is away at college. Here are a few snapshots of the event.


We always start off with a little egg nog toast.


Alyssa and Julie going at it. I like that we have a big "Peace" star at the top and front of the tree.


The (partial) family portrait.

That's about all I have time for - soon I'll be off to work two shows of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra at theVan Andel Arena - it will make for a long day, but should be pretty cool. Review to be posted tonight or tomorrow!

The Narnia movie.

About an hour ago, I got back from seeing "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." It was a benefit/sneak preview for the film which opens nationwide tomorrow night.

I don't have anything exceptionally brilliant to say about the movie, but I did enjoy it. I knew the story fairly well, having read it out loud to my kids years ago as well as watching the BBC production on video a couple of times or more. So I went there primarily to soak up the spectacle, gauge how many alterations they made to the original story in order to create a safe-bet commercial blockbuster, and get a sense of just how much of a cultural impact the film is likely to make as it tries to appeal to both the fervent Christian base of support (stemming from the story's origin in the writings of C.S. Lewis and the obvious allegorical parallels to the gospel story of Jesus) and the broader audience of fantasy film fans who just like high-quality escapist fare with awesome special effects, cool battle scenes and immersive imaginary worlds to explore.

Overall, I think the film succeeds quite well in its main objectives - it is faithful to the original book, overall, with some key adjustments for today's audience; Christians in the audience will appreciate the themes of sacrifice, redemption and resurrection that are delivered in unmistakable illustrations; and the visuals and unfolding story line provide movie watchers with a steadily developing stream of fascinating images, set pieces, characters, action sequences, all mixed with an appealing blend of humor, jump scenes and well-paced transitions that keep things moving and sufficiently satisfy our curiosity as to what the various corners of Narnia look and feel like. There aren't any major liberties or appalling deletions that I picked up on, though I am aware of some significant streamlining of the plot lines and simplification of the characters, especially Edmund, who is not quite as complex or pernicious in the movie as I remember him being in the book. The innovation most likely to bother Lewis purists is the humungous battle scene at the end of the movie, an obvious ploy to appeal to the numerous Lord of the Rings fans who thrilled at the more elaborate (and gritty) sequences that were staged in The Two Towers and Return of the King. In the book, the whole battle was over and done with in roughly a page, but that would never do in 2005! So for those who dig that sort of thing, and I do, we get to see the whole sword-brandishing, battle-crying ("For Narnia... and for ASLAAAANNN!!!" - you get the drift), stampede-clashing, hacking, slicing, crashing and battering frenzy. Still, it's hard not to see these scenes as a bit derivative and even dependent on the LOTR precedent.

But there are some differences. I especially enjoyed the classic mythological bestiary that ran throughout the film. Lewis populated his world with most of the great European and pagan critters - fauns, centaurs, minotaurs, griffins, cyclopes, giants and many many others, and they are all featured quite clearly in various scenes, all mingling together in a colorful panoply that makes one wish that there really was a world where such fantastic creatures could run free and do the things we see them do in this film.

The acting and characterizations were pretty much stock and predictable, which is not a bad thing, but don't go in expecting to see some seriously engaging or emotive performances from any of the players. The kids do a fine enough job with each of their assigned archetypes, and the same could be said of the adult supporting cast as well as the Narnian creatures. The talking animals work, more or less, to my satisfaction at least. But that depends on the viewer just setting aside whatever objections he or she might have about animals' jaws simply not being able to move the way we see on screen.

What to make of the story I'll leave up to the viewer - to me, there wasn't a lot of drama or surprise or pathos - I knew Aslan's and everyone else's fate from the get-go so there was a bit of stepping through the motions involved with getting us through the plot. There's not much of the "go for broke" sensation that comes from watching the more audacious and therefore memorable movies I've seen over the years. This is a Disney production after all, which these days implies a certain formulaic quality that simply has to be recognized as their preferred way of doing business with the movie-going public.

Having said that, I thought the whole thing was pretty well executed and I'd say that most of us left feeling satisfied, but not necessarily overwhelmed or astonished. And I'm OK with that - I don't think that the Narnia series has anywhere near the reach of films like LOTR or even the Matrix or Star Wars, to name a few other epics. And since I've never seen any of the Harry Potter movies, I can't really compare this to that. So for tonight, this is what I have to say about the Narnia film: Go check it out, it's definitely worthwhile if you are intrigued by fantasy epics, Christian allegories or well-wrought depictions of classical mythological ideas and images.

Now off to IMDB to see what others had to say!

Google Talk

Now that I have a microphone attached to my computer, I went and installed the GoogleTalk software that my Gmail account has been pitching at me for the past several days or so, maybe longer but I just noticed. (I am pretty successful at tuning out the Google ads that sidebar my emails and it does make me wonder just how Google makes so much money - besides selling shares of stock at $400 per... but then again I don't really fathom how big bucks flow so freely in any case, humble social worker armchair philosopher type dude that I am.)

So no sooner had I installed it than I found out that my cyberpal David R. Block was on-line. He and I had a nice chat, where he was telling me about a big ice storm they're having in Texas and how it's messing up their freeways and he described this huge five-decker freeway overpass conglomeration just to the northeast of downtown Dallas, near where he lives, and from there it was on to the HighFive webcam but it was dark and rainy so I couldn't see much of the aforementioned overpass, which led us to get on to GoogleMaps where he navigated me to a satellite photo of his neighborhood in the northern suburb of Carrollton, which was pretty cool.
Unfortunately my own neighborhood does not show up in very high res on GoogleMaps which makes no sense to me because it's not like I'm in this remote uncivilized outback. Nor do I live in some high-risk security zone where there's a good reason to forbid would-be terrorists or invaders a clear blueprint for how to do damage to nearby structures. I don't know what's up with that.

But anyway, I like how GoogleTalk works, it was fun listening to David's Texas accent and feeling a bit of connection with him in real time. If anyone else is interested in chatting with me over the computer, download the software and look me up. My Google ID is easy:

blakeslee@gmail.com

More late nite bloggin'

I'm honestly trying to be more consistent with my on-line journaling, so here I am, up after midnite, pecking out my thoughts for a few people (and myself) who read this thing from time to time. It was a busy day for me, what do you expect? I won't get into work stuff except to say that I was sitting in my office wrapping up my duties for the day when suddenly a chair got tossed into it by a very angry girl who really had no reason to be angry at me yet she was. I just happened to walk on to the unit after dealing with some other heavy business with my supervisor and another colleague at the very moment that aforementioned angry girl was having an emotional meltdown triggered by some dispute with her therapist that I still don't really have any idea what it's all about. But anyway, there I am sitting with my door open and I hear the girl say something about wanting to throw a chair at me so at least I was somewhat prepared but then a minute or so passed without any follow through on her threat so I begin to let myself relax a bit, but not too much, and then crash clatter clang in comes the chair, a plastic and metal one, lightweight and stackable as chairs go, capable of doing damage but it never came within a few feet of me. So I spring up and ask her just what is the problem (this is several minutes after I had already tried to explain to her that I really had no idea of what was upsetting and she verbally blew up at me and told me not to talk to her so I realized she was not in a place to listen to me so I let other staff deal with her which was fine with me because I really didn't have any particular need to get into this matter with her at the moment anyway) but her only response to my question re: "what's the problem" was that throwing the chair made her feel better and then she went into a semi-coherent rant about some implied insults toward her family and boyfriend that she read into some comments made by her therapist.

So I checked in with the other staff on duty and we were all in agreement that it would be fine for me to go home for the day and let them sort it out.

My home life tonight was basically preoccupied with two activities - one, attending Derek's Christmas band concert, a program that we've been attending for like seven years in a row now, ever since Curt got into Band in 6th grade. It was a nice show, I especially like listening to Derek's work with the jazz band which has a little more swing and zip to it than the full concert orchestra (though they are pretty good too, don't get me wrong.) I had to miss the IGE board meeting tonight which I hate having to do but family comes first and Derek more than deserves my support, you know?

Then after doing a little visiting with our relatives who came for the show, I got on the computer and put together a video (slide show really) for my sister's church Christmas program this Sunday where she took a bunch of pictures of young people re-enacting the birth of Jesus stories from Luke and Matthew and I did the voice over narration of the relevant passages (using Eugene Peterson's "The Message" version of the Bible) and cued the photos to match the audio. Pretty basic but cool, my first project with Windows Movie Maker which is bundled into the XP software. I bought a microphone for the project and now I am intrigued by the idea of doing some audio blogging or maybe even podcasting - the PoMoXian podcast, now there's something that might be fun to play with! We'll see if I can find some time to follow up on that notion! But Debbie says that I'll get paid a hundred dollars for putting this video together, which is plenty good motivation for me!

I'm reading Jaroslav Pelikan's Jesus Through the Centuries lately, as well as Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. Pelikan's book is a historical survey of how Jesus has been interpreted in various ways over the course of Christian history and he seems to have a good, tidy grasp on things. I just finished the chapter on Jesus as "Light of the Gentiles" which describes how ancient Greek apologists found foreshadowings of Christ in the works of Plato, Homer and the Sybilline Oracle. This was not news to me but it is still fascinating to observe the hermeneutical mind at work as it seeks to find evidence to confirm previously held beliefs...

Now it's off to slumber-bye land as we settle into another cold December night here in Michigan.

Pathetic attempt to catch up, too little, definitely too late (at night, that is.)

I let the whole weekend go by without updating this blog. Inexcusable. I just wasn't feeling like writing after a very busy Saturday and a kind-of-dreary Sunday. Today was a tough day at work, dealing with the aftermath of a crappy crisis situation that didn't "have" to happen but it did. Read Juanito's blog (scroll down to entry 338) for the grim details.

But anyway, I did want to say that the Iraq teach-in was a success, a partial success anyway. The turnout was lower than we had hoped but we had some good discussions and I was glad to see some new faces outside of the already-established "peace and social justice" community come to join us. We really wanted more ideological diversity (incl. pro-war voices) but despite numerous invitations, it was mostly academics and us peacenik activist types.

I will post some more links to resources on Iraq once I get ahold of the program that we published. I left my copy at the meeting because I had to leave on short notice to pick up my daughter from work.

OK, it's bedtime, there's plenty more for me to say on a few different topics but that's all for now...

Friday night drive-by blogging

Real quick now. My feedback on the Bullies 2 Buddies conference is that I liked it a lot and I think it gave me something useful to bring back to Wedgwood. Izzy Kalman is the guy who put this material together and his solution to the bullying problem is to help victims of bullying respond in ways that make the bullies less likely to persist in their social aggression. Basically, don't whine or tattle or take what the bully does/says so personally, treat them like a friend rather than an enemy and watch basic principles of human nature go to work. We had a lot of role plays and I got to be a bully who accused Izzy of being gay. It was wierd for me to be in front of this crowd dragging out all the mockery and slurs I could recall (well, not *all* of them!) and watch his response. He's really good but I don't think his techniques are complicated. I know our staff could get it, and I think most of our kids can catch on as well. Best of all, it's based on moral, basic principles like the Golden Rule - actually, there's a lot of "Sermon on the Mount" thinking in what Izzy taught us. So I'll be putting together some trainings based on his material - he gave me express permission to do that when I asked him about it yesterday after the conference ended.

Last night I went to an IGE Talks event built on the idea of Rousseau's "Social Contract." I'm familiar with the phrase but never read what he actually wrote. The format was basically a circle chat with me and four other people. We videotaped the talk and it will air on public access TV later this month. The IGE website has the times if you are a local resident and want to check it out.

Today I went to a chili cook-off fundraiser for lunch at work. Tonight I went to an "Advent Adventure" activity night at church where we had dinner and made a variety of Christmas crafts. Now I'm home and about to go prepare for tomorrow's event, which is a Teach-In on Iraq that will be held at Calvin College. I'm a facilitator and one of the people who planned the event. I think we'll get a good turnout and I will certainly have a lot more to say here about how it went. But now I have to go look over the day's agenda and relax a little, so that's where I'm off to!

Derek's Birthday

Might as well catch up on recent events. I didn't ever get around to recapping the rest of my Thanksgiving weekend, but there wasn't much to report. It was pleasant enough, let me just say that.

Monday, my youngest son Derek turned 16. It was strange having a little family birthday party without any of his siblings around. Two were away at college and one was working at his new job at Steak n' Shake.

Derek is a wonderful son, the kind that would make any parent seriously and sincerely proud. He's a straight A student, he's nice to his peers, he plays saxophone and just got started playing the baritone sax a month ago so that he could help his jazz band. That requires him to be at school at 6:30 am every morning and since the bari sax is so big and heavy, it means Julie and I take turns driving him there. He also just passed some kind of advanced mathematics test and was the ONLY student in the entire school that was able to do so! Next week he will take another test to see just how advanced his skills in that subject really are. Sounds like it's getting out there a bit in the realm of highly abstract math, but he describes it as just making sense to him... We'll see where that leads! But all in all, it is really a blessing and a pleasure to be Derek's dad!

Here are a couple of pictures of the event...

Aunt Debbie cutting off the price tag on Derek's new leather jacket.


Surrounded by his relatives.


With Mom and Dad

Bullies to Buddies

Bullying

I'm going to a conference today on the topic of bullying. It's work related, of course. I'm sponsored by Wedgwood and will consider incorporating some ideas into an in-service that I'd lead for our staff and others interested in the topic.

I'll have a report later today on how it all goes!

"Black Friday" Horror Story

Heavy foot traffic tramples a dozen at local Wal-Marts

Trampled Shoppers Released from Hospital

I have been hearing the term "Black Friday" used a lot this year to describe the post-Thanksgiving shopping rush, so I'm going do my part to keep that meme in circulation. Black Friday used to be the day that the stock market crashed, first in 1929, then more recently in 1987 (which happened while I was in the middle of my epic solo cross-country drive to rejoin my family - then it was Julie, Alyssa and the just-over-two-month-old twins who had moved back to Michigan from California. I was so eager to get back with them that I drove from the state of Wyoming to Grand Rapids non-stop except for gas and food and one short rest break I took just after I crossed the border into Michigan.)

Anyway, the story above mentions customers getting injured in the stampede at Wal-Mart here in Grand Rapids. It has to be read to be believed - wounded consumer handing his VISA card to the store manager to pay for his laptop computer that he's physically unable to retrieve so a newly-befriended fellow shopper grabs the item for him before the victim has to evacuate the battlefield and get medical attention for his injuries.

You can see the video for yourself here, though I don't know how long it will remain on the website: http://video.woodtv.com/

What a disgrace.

Sleepy Snowy Saturday Morning.

I take considerable comfort in knowing that as of now, we are just a little over halfway into the long weekend that Thanksgiving has become for many of us. I'm conscious of a fair number of people who are working it so I don't want to sound too smug, but I really enjoy this time away from the job.

So today is a pleasantly open day - not much of a strong agenda to be concerned about, though there are a few things I gotta get done. Thing is, it's so cold and grey out right now that the natural requirements of the situation are to just bundle up and stay comfortable. A hot beverage will soon be sitting at my side, I'm in my loose warm flannely clothes, two days stubble on my chin, music going on the iTunes (Country Yard by the Vines just finished, now it's Your Loving Flame by Paul McCartney - excellent tunes and tempo for this laid back moment!) - life continues to be good!

On Wednesday morning as I reported to work, the snow had been already begun falling as the meteorologists told us it would throughout the rest of the weekend. Within 15 minutes of my arrival I was involved in a restraint with an angry client who, for reasons I won't attempt to explain here, didn't want to allow us to have our team meeting while she was back on the unit and not in school. She's a strong and violent girl, and she really got worked up, to the point where she was throwing desks and making explicit verbal threats to us. All very irrational and unprovoked, let me assure you - we don't abuse or harrass our kids at Wedgwood - they have explosive tempers prior to coming our way and we work very diligently and specifically to verbally de-escalate them, it's just that sometimes they don't want to engage with us on that level. In fact, she was saying "What do I have to do to get restrained? I want to be restrained!" prior to our second physical intervention with her. She's a big girl and it usually takes three people to safely manage her. Anyway, I've gone into way more detail than I like on that, but I won't delete it... Just let it flow and go from here.

So after that, work settled down quite a bit - the girl we'd restrained turned it around and did much better as the day went on, and we got about our business of sending about half of our group on to visits they had planned with family members or others. Busy but routine for what we do. Then it came time to leave and I was pleased at the prospect of four days off!

We had a pretty ordinary and according-to-script Thanksgiving Day around my home. Julie and Alyssa did most of the food prep, and Julie's mom came over for dinner at mid-day. We had about as traditional a menu as I could imagine and it was all very tasty and satisfying.



I glanced in a few times to see that the Lions were getting pounded in their Thanksgiving Day game, glad that Roy Williams, a wide receiver on my fantasy football team, caught a touchdown and irked at myself for choosing to not play the Falcons defense since they did a great job with sacks, turnovers and points allowed - I would have gotten 14 points from them and I need all the help I can get in this weekend's matchup with the Redondo Roughriders (my team is the Wyoming Tumbleweeds) - I'm 7-4 with a good shot at the playoffs but I'd like to finish in the top 4, not just qualify, so it's important that I win these next two weeks or at least one of them. Hmmm, I suspect that I may be losing your attention here...

Later our family went over to my mom's and we had another big spread of food laid out before us, including five different quiches, salads, hor d'ouevres, desserts, pies, wine... even though I only sampled here and there I left feeling stuffed.

Yesterday I spent the morning catching up on emails and ripping CDs into my computer. I'm still working on rebuilding my library from the computer crash of October, and even with my 48X CD-R drive I still have not gotten everything in my own collection back on to the harddrive. But I'm pretty close. I'm also trying to be more selective in what I slap on there compared to my last collection. I'd like to make each song worth listening to if I put the whole list on Random Shuffle, so I'm deleting stuff that bores me and not getting too concerned with having to archive the entire history of Western Pop Music since 1955 on my computer.

I took Alyssa out around noon in a feeble attempt to cash in on some of the Incredible Bargains advertised in the papers on Thursday but the ones that caught our eye were all sold out. That's OK, I had no interest in sacrificing the pleasantness of a slow and gradual entry into the outside world for the sake of saving fifty bucks or so. The sales clerks I talked to at CompUSA and even Office Depot could only shake their heads in resignation at the evidence of Total Depravity that they witnessed that morning. But we did do a little shopping. I got a CD that my brother-in-law had asked for the night before, and just in time too, because we had plans to join him for dinner that night in celebration of his birthday!

So that's what we did last night - dinner at the Grand Rapids Brewing Company, which is a good restaurant but was very slow last night - strange for a Friday night, but this is not your usual Friday night, I suppose. Here's a picture of him and his gifts - we got him the "Sorcerer" DVD (suspense thriller from 1977, William Friedkin's first post-"Exorcist" film, excellent soundtrack by Tangerine Dream) and the "Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs" CD by Marty Robbins that Ed had mentioned just the night before.



My youngest son Derek's birthday is Monday, so we have some shopping to do today. He's asking for accessories and games for his Nintendo DS system, so that's probably gonna be what he gets! He's a great son - getting all A's or A+'s in school, making life pretty hassle free for his mom and dad, just finishing up his drivers training classes, which will make for some interesting decisions as we try to determine just how much snow and icy conditions he's ready to deal with in the months ahead as he gets his hours in...

OK, time to send this off and go get that cup of coffee.

New Toy.

Sandisk - 256MB Digital Audio MP3 Player (Red) - SDMX1-256-A18 - Home Electronics - MP3 Players

I just got one of these today in the mail, so I've been enjoying myself, at last truly joining the portable mp3 trend. It's a nice little unit, small, utilizing flash memory so there's no hard drive to crash. Only takes one AAA battery, holds somewhere between 60 - 120 songs, and it only takes seconds to delete all the old stuff and upload new stuff. I am very happy to have music that I can take with me, bounce around and not have to worry about it skipping. This is all very common and familiar to anyone who's owned an iPod or some similar device, and I've listened to my son Curt's iPod too, but now I have mine, with my music (I loaded Chemical Brothers "Push the Button" and Spiritualized "Let it Come Down" for starters, no particular reason why except that they are both sonically rich albums in their own distinct ways.)

So not much time for emailing and blogging tonight, 'til now. Curt is back in town (from college), I helped make apple sauce tonight, Julie baked a couple of pies, the holiday is almost here and I'm genuinely feeling thankful for life in all it's thorny complexity, anxiety and on-going lack of clear resolution. Life is good.

Antiwar Sermon Brings IRS Warning - Los Angeles Times

Antiwar Sermon Brings IRS Warning - Los Angeles Times

It may well be the case that the IRS is looking into some of the conservative, pro-Republican activity going on in countless churches across the country, but this investigation looks to me like a form of political harrassment aimed at a church that took a provocative anti-war stance and is now feeling the heat from aggravated government officials.

WMJPC mentioned in the local paper.

Buddhist communities lend strength to lost nation

The West Michigan Justice and Peace Coalition, with which I'm affiliated through IGE and numerous friendships, got a mention in yesterday's Religion section of the Grand Rapids Press. So I'm trying another "Blog This" link to see if I can connect readers directly to that article without copying it and pasting it here.

Snow claims young lives

Snow claims young lives

A sad story...

This report is especially poignant to me because my youngest son Derek is currently going through drivers training, he's 15, he's in 10th grade... I'm empathizing pretty heavily with what the mom must be going through... Though I have to wonder what in the world made it so important for a kid that new to driving to go out on the road on the first snowy day of the year and a heavy storm at that. The conditions were terrible for everyone and I saw several accidents in my travels around town on Wednesday. I know for a fact that Derek is simply not going to be driving in such circumstances until probably next winter at the earliest!

Shaking the Foundation of Faith

Shaking the Foundation of Faith - New York Times

This column gave me some amusement so I thought I'd pass it along. It deals with the spiritual interpretation of an earthquake that occurred in New England back in the 18th century. Draws some parallels to the on-going creation/evolution debate that's taking place in various school districts as religious activists try to get "intelligent design" concepts into the curriculum.

I don't intend to post it as a mockery of religious believers though - I'm not pointing at the people who see divine portents in natural phenomenon as objects of derision. I just find it remarkable how differently people interpret the same phenomena and I think it's always important for us to hold our own conclusions somewhat tentatively because in the process of deciding "what is really going on" it's likely that we are excluding perspectives and interpretations that could shed light on the significance of ordinary events.

Weather Hazards for Grand Rapids, MI

Weather Hazards for Grand Rapids, MI

IT'S BAA-AACK!

Just seems like it was a short while ago that I was complaining on this very blog about the misery inflicted by a big dump of snow we had here this past March. I guess it wasn't that long ago, now that I think of it. But just a couple days ago I was saying how pleasant this year's autumn had been, that we were into double digit dates in November and still wearing short sleeves, enjoying more sunshine than we might ordinarily expect, and so on.

That all changed today.

Snow fell, it's accumulating and it won't be melting away anytime all that soon. Probably not through the weekend at least. Wow, what a transition to get used to again, bundling up, wind whipping freezy blasts upon exposed skin, pulling out the thicker shirts and maybe even sweaters?!?! I'm not ready for that yet - kind of like holding out from having to turn on the furnace for as long as you can. You just don't want to go there until it can no longer be avoided.

In other news, I'm done with trainings for a little while now, feeling relieved and happy to have gotten through them all. I can go focus more of my attention on my beloved Delta home and see what I can do to help lighten the load that our needy and mixed up girls put on themselves and the people around them. So that's what I'll be doing for the rest of this work week!

Still running the gauntlet.

I am in the midst of another busy stretch. It just doesn't seem to stop, but that's the way I set it up for myself I guess. Yesterday was full of meetings and interviews at work, then I spoke and facilitated at the 26th annual meeting of IGE in the evening. That was a very nice event - positively energizing for me and I imagine many others who were there. We have a good group doing worthwhile and important things even if our message and priorities don't often seem to prevail in the political sphere. But I feel motivated to step up my efforts on behalf of IGE.

Today I have to lead our last Trauma Sensitive Treatment training (in the morning) and another Handle-With-Care session at night. How is it that so many events get scheduled for such a compact period of time? I'm paying more attention to this stuff as we set up the schedule for the next year. No more than one training per day please!

OK, that's pretty much it for now. I gotta get going but I'm trying to stay more on top of my blogging in this new "drive by" style, so wish me well and leave comments if you please!

Busyness is Winding Down... Sorta.

A couple posts ago I spelled out the heavy load of tasks that I'm currently working through and I'm pleased to note that not only have I gotten several of them done, they've turned out pretty well. Particularly the long day of training that I had to co-lead yesterday. The comments we got from the audience indicated a high level of satisfaction and that leaves me feeling satisfied too.

Last night I actually got a chance to unwind a bit and just enjoy a night out. Julie and I went to see Calvin College's production of "As You Like It" which was nice and light and entertaining. Nothing too profound to say about it, merely that it was an enjoyable diversion and it is both good and necessary to take one's mind off of responsibilities and things to be accomplished every so often. I've had a bit of a difficult time doing that as of late.

I'm testing a new extension to Firefox that is supposed to make it easier for me to add to my blog so without any further ado I'm gonna hit the Publish button and see what happens. If it works, maybe I'll update this thing more consistently!

Audioslave in Grand Rapids

I had a great day today - took it off of work since I have to do a long training session on Saturday, spent some time at home this morning refining the material that I'll be presenting. Took care of a few tasks that I mentioned in my Too too busy post the other day, that felt good. Like I'm getting a bit more on top of the load rather than having it roll over me.

But the best part came tonight when I had the privilege of working a literature table at an Audioslave concert here in town tonight. It wasn't a Van Andel Arena event - it was held at the DeltaPlex, the same place I saw Pearl Jam in October 2004 in their Rock for Change tour aimed at unseating George Bush as president. (It didn't work entirely, but Kerry did take Michigan at least... and we all know about how the vote was rigged in Ohio, but that's a different subject, innit?)

The West Michigan Justice and Peace Coalition was contacted late last week to see if we would have any interest in setting up a table at the show. If you don't know who Audioslave are, they're comprised of 3/4ths of Rage Against the Machine plus the vocalist Chris Cornell who used to be with Soundgarden. Among fans of heavy rock, Audioslave is something of a "supergroup" similar to old bands like Blind Faith that featured musicians who had earned a lot of fame joining together after their original groups broke up.

So of course I jumped at the chance. It worked out perfectly because I had already arranged to have today off so it presented no conflict for me to go down to the IGE office and collect several stacks of brochures, newsletters, posters and other handouts that we could distribute to the politically enlightened crowd of twenty-somethings (and others) that Audioslave was sure to attract.

Well, maybe "politically enlightened" is not the most accurate way of putting it. Oh, we had enough interest in our stuff to make the effort worthwhile (I would have been happy to be there even if not a single person came to our table, but thankfully that was not the case.) But if we had been selling $30 T-shirts and $55 hoodies, we would have attracted a lot more attention than we did for having stacks of free socially-conscious reading material for the taking. I'm not complaining, just observing how eager so many people are to spend big bucks on alt-rock fashionable body covering but how hesitant they are to peruse ideas that might cut slightly against the grain of what they are accustomed to thinking.

But enough about that - the fact is, we had many fine, satisfying, intriguing conversations with people who were willing to engage us on the issues we represented. Our table covered the following topics: Locally-grown food collectives, environmental preservation, the imminent vote on drilling in ANWR, dealing with military recruiters, the war in Iraq, Chinese oppression of Tibet, fair trade (as opposed to "free trade"), and a number of organizations affiliated with the Coalition that just wanted to publicize their existence, including the Institute for Global Education (IGE.) I talked with people who were mostly sympathetic to my stance on the issues (opposition to war is my big one) but there were a couple of conflictual encounters which could wind up turning into more extended debates if my offer of an email contact is taken up on their end. I'll let you know. One that I'm hoping for is from a veteran of the Iraq war, a young man who took some offense at the slogan we put up on the wall, "War Threatens Democracy." I didn't coin the phrase, but it makes sense to me. He challenged me to convince him of the validity of that statement.

OK, I'm getting sleepy now so I'm going to wrap it up here. I'll say that, musically, Audioslave were excellent. While I will always regret the fact that I never got to see Rage Against the Machine live, I think that Audioslave is a worthy project for the RATM players to be involved with. Chris Cornell is a different type of singer than Zak de la Rocha, but he did a credible job covering Rage's "Sleep Now in the Fire." He's got a powerful, soulful voice that is better for swelling up to strike strong on the long hollers, not so suited to machine-gun paced rapping which is what a lot of the best RATM material demands. Apparently he's known as a somewhat inconsistent live performer whose voice can slip off key or sound shreddy from time to time, but I suppose that's the risk one takes putting the vocal chords to the test night after night as Cornell does. His songs are not all that easy on the throat, I imagine!

As for the instrumental accompaniment, the three players are sheer wizards. Tom Morello is a brilliant pyrotechnic guitarist and the bass/drum combination is funky, tight and flawless. I'm not as familiar with Audioslave's album material as I could have been but I dug their performance and had a fantastic time with my son Brandon, who became interested in activism all of a sudden when I told him it could get us into the concert for free! We were joined by Diane from the Coalition and her daughter Annaflora, who like Brandon is also 18 and a student at Grand Rapids Community College. Brandon took this picture so he's not in it...



But here's one of him feeling kind of geeked to be backstage before the show!

Too too busy.

I'm only writing this because I said I would earlier this morning. I ought to be in bed right now, and shortly will be. Here's what I have going on.

1. Leading a training in LSCI for one of our teams at Wedgwood at 8 am Tuesday morning.
2. Working a peace and social justice literature table at the Audioslave concert in Grand Rapids on Wednesday night, plus gathering all the materials tomorrow and Wednesday for the dozen or so groups that I and a few others will be representing.
3. Preparing for five hours of training that my boss and I will be leading this coming Saturday, including two hours of material that I've developed but haven't yet fully refined to the point I'd like it.
4. Juggling my long-standing duties as a home supervisor for the other half of my job at Wedgwood - a very complex set of responsibilities that I don't have the time to describe now, but trust me, it's a LOAD!
5. Among the tasks of #4, I turned in three resignation letters to Human Resources today from our staff! One full-time and two part-time positions. This is not a sign of people bailing out - they all had valid reasons for changing their roles - two at least will still work on-call - but it's still a big turnover.
6. Financial stuff involving my son who's away at Spring Arbor University.
7. Financial stuff involving another son's car which needs an estimated $1700 in repairs, supposedly.
8. Financial stuff involving my youngest son getting into drivers ed (which he started tonight) and some other significant bills which my weary brain can't even remember at this moment except that it's going to cost a few hundred... oh yeah, a passport for his trip to China next summer.
9. Decision making about taking on the treasurer responsibilities for the high school band boosters group next fall.
10. Decision making about whether this is a good time to go back and get my MSW or not.
11. I have to make a speech at next Monday's IGE meeting (a local peace activist group of which I'm a board member.)
12. Any number of household tasks that should be done before the snow starts falling.
13. Finishing up Wedgwood's Diversity Digest newsletter (which I edit and write for.)

That's 13, a nice crooked number to stop with. I could add a few but that gives a sense of my mental work load. But I will accept it gladly as the fruit of a busy and involved life, thankful for the abilities that I have to do a fairly good job at the many tasks entrusted to me.

And now, a picture of my four children who were all together at our house for about less than an hour of waking time this past weekend, but it did afford me this one chance to get a pick of the four of them together just before Curt (in the cap, eating a tuna roll) and Alyssa headed back to their college dorms...

A pointless post.

Well, for being "back" I haven't done all that much here lately. I am still doing some little tweakings here and there on my computer, and I've been prioritizing other things, but there's something holding me back from blogging. I can feel it, though I'm not sure exactly what it is. Even now, I'm just dropping a few lines without having any particular point or objective or story to tell. Obligatory blogging is what it is. OK, so I've named it. Set that aside.

Really I should just be getting ready for work! I will add more to this later today, I PROMISE! But not now...

I am back.

It's been a couple of weeks of postmodern purgatory for me, friends. As mentioned in my previous post, way back on October 12, my old computer went bad on me and it took me all the way up until yesterday to get a working system put together. GGRRREAAAAARRRRGGGGHHH!!! (There, I let it out, I am almost ready to move on now...)

The delays, obstacles and frustrations I endured to get to this point are too numerous and tedious to recall. Suffice it to say that I've learned a few lessons about why it doesn't pay to go cheap when ordering computer parts and putting the pieces together yourself. I'm on my third motherboard now, my second processor, one of my new 256 MB RAM chips is bad, I'm unable to use my CD-R and DVD-RW drives (which might just be fried from the original computer failure) and I still don't have any sound even though I followed the directions for setting it up perfectly and downloaded the latest drivers from the website as an extra step to get my music back. That's kind of OK, I want to get a decent soundcard anyway so I'll just go ahead and do that soon.

The main point here is just to let you know that I'm ready to resume blogging again. I have never been without a computer during all this - my son has one here at home and I've got plenty of access at work. But the thing that held me back from blogging and emailing as much as I normally do was just that sense of not having my own place to do those things - sitting in someone else's chair or doing that stuff on the job just didn't cut it for me - I could never really settle in and let the thoughts flow from brain to fingertips to keyboard to internet the way I'd like.

But I'm getting there. I still have to get things back to the way they're supposed to be on my fresh, bare, pristine computer. I don't like having to recreate my iTunes collection and I definitely lost a lot of good music that I didn't have backed up, but oh well. It's not like I'm lacking for listening material or anything! And I kind of like having a fresh, clean hard drive which will only have my stuff on it. The old one had a lot of residual programs from my kids that they don't use anymore but kind of lingered on anyway.

Well anyway. So much for that. I have more to say about all this in terms of technical problems I encountered but I won't presume that you're interested in all that unless someone cares to leave a comment. Now I have to get ready for work - but IT IS GOOD TO BE BACK!

And Happy Halloween too. (I guess the picture fits the theme of the day...!)

My Posts Are Gonna Be Scarce For Awhile

I want to let anyone who checks in on this blog regularly know that I don't expect to keep it up as frequently as I have in weeks past. Mainly because I am in the process of putting a new computer system together. Even though I still have home internet access through my son's computer, my own PC is currently in a state of disassembly. Using Brandon's computer is "okay" but it just doesn't feel like my space. My digital camera isn't hooked up, I don't have the same selection of music at my disposal, I'm sitting in somebody else's computer chair... The whole equilibrium is just thrown off. I think most of you should be able to understand my plight.

As for what I'm doing about the lack of my own computer... My Shopping Cart at NewEgg.com has a motherboard, an AMD Sempron 2600+ processor (yeah, I'm on a bit of a tight budget, but I don't need some beastly ol' gaming system anyway) and 512 MB of memory standing by waiting to be ordered so that I can get up and running again. I just have to get a little more information about whether or not the memory I have selected is the best option (two 256 MB chips or one 512 MB?) I have an email into my son Curt, who put the package together for me, to see why he made the choice he did, and once I settle that, I click the button and the shipment will soon be on its way.

Julie and I are also doing some budgetary reconfiguring, which has me looking at alternatives to our current phone/cable TV/internet arrangements. All too tedious to cover in much detail here but significant to our family.

In any case, maybe I will find time and opportunity to post here a bit more - I have been doing some interesting things lately... like another conference on Spirituality and Health at GVSU this afternoon. I didn't take many notes on it this time, but the topic was basically a review of research that demonstrates that regular religious practice has a beneficial effect on lengthening lifespans and reducing rates of remission for a number of diseases and health conditions. The speaker was Dr. Harold Koenig, who seems to have a lot of knowledge and experience in this field.

Here's a link to the magazine that he helps produce: Science and Theology News. Now I have to go and watch the baseball playoffs!

Please Stand By. We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties.

This past Sunday, my computer stopped working properly, so I was unable to post my comments on the Randy Travis concert I worked the previous night. I've also been mostly off-line since then, as I'm now dependent on my son's computer for an internet connection. I've also been busy since Sunday afternoon, returning Curt to Spring Arbor and having a full slate to deal with at work and home yesterday. So that's why I've been quiet.

Quick updates then. It looks like my secondary hard-drive, the one with all my music on it, may be fried. That's pretty dreadful but I'm not feeling much emotion about it. The most important music from that collection is already backed up on CD's, but it does disappoint me to lose so much of what I've downloaded or gotten from the library. Maybe I will just have to be less musically omnivorous once I get my system working again.

The Randy Travis concert wasn't much to speak of. He's a fine traditional country crooner, but he attracts a very sedate crowd and performs at a relatively low volume. We could still hear the music across the way in the concession stand but it didn't fill the space like most other bands do. I also got the impression that his voice is not as strong as it was when he was in his hit-making prime. You know how he has that rich, snappy twang on "Forever and Ever Amen"? Well, it wasn't coming across quite as clearly, even when I snuck in my obligatory peek at the stage (which was moved up to about where center-ice would be so that the crowd he drew wouldn't seem so small.) Maybe he is now moving into that middle-aged phase that country music is able to offer its stars more comfortably than other pop genres. It seemed like he was taking it pretty easy out there - George Strait projected a lot more energy and enthusiasm when I saw him several months ago.

I should also mention that this was a benefit concert for some local homeless ministries: the Mel Trotter and Guiding Light missions, and DeGage, a kind of cafe' for street folks in the lower downtown Heartside district of Grand Rapids. So I respect and appreciate the gesture on Randy's part. He seems like a good, decent guy.

Running About To and Fro

I've put a lot of miles on my Taurus the last couple of days. Yesterday I had to drive down to Spring Arbor to pick up Curt. It's Homecoming Weekend at Wyoming Park High School and Curt thought this would be a good occasion for him to come back home, visit family and friends and just check in on things after being gone for the month of September.

So I had a nice opportunity to leave work early and enjoy a beautiful autumn afternoon cruise down the freeway for a couple of hours. Of course I made significant progress on my "listening to all the #1 songs in a row" project. The focus of yesterday's trip was 1973 and '74.

Here's what I listened to:

Crocodile Rock	Elton John
Killing Me Softly With His Song	Roberta Flack
Love Train	O'Jays
The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia	Vicki Lawrence
Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree	Dawn Featuring Tony Orlando
You Are The Sunshine Of My Life	Stevie Wonder
Frankenstein	The Edgar Winter Group
My Love	Paul McCartney & Wings
Give Me Love - (Give Me Peace On Earth)	George Harrison
Will It Go Round In Circles	Billy Preston
Bad, Bad Leroy Brown	Jim Croce
The Morning After	Maureen McGovern
Touch Me In The Morning	Diana Ross
Brother Louie	Stories
Let's Get It On	Marvin Gaye
Delta Dawn	Helen Reddy
We're An American Band	Grand Funk
Half-Breed	Cher
Angie	The Rolling Stones
Midnight Train To Georgia	Gladys Knight & The Pips
Keep On Truckin' (Part 1)	Eddie Kendricks
Photograph	Ringo Starr
Top Of The World	The Carpenters
The Most Beautiful Girl	Charlie Rich
Time In A Bottle	Jim Croce

The Joker	Steve Miller Band
Show And Tell	Al Wilson
You're Sixteen	Ringo Starr
The Way We Were	Barbra Streisand
Love's Theme	Love Unlimited Orchestra
Seasons In The Sun	Terry Jacks
Dark Lady	Cher
Sunshine On My Shoulders	John Denver
Hooked On A Feeling	Blue Swede
Bennie And The Jets	Elton John
TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)	MFSB featuring The Three Degrees
The Loco-Motion	Grand Funk
The Streak	Ray Stevens
Band On The Run	Paul McCartney & Wings
Billy, Don't Be A Hero	Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods

I have comments and opinions on each song but I will wait to see if anyone's interested before I lay them out here. Just comment on the song of your choice and read what I have to say about it later.

When I got back, we went to the Homecoming Parade (pictured above) and then from there we went to the football game, which Park won over the other high school here in Wyoming, which is called Rogers. It was a blowout, 42-14. Park's team is bigger, stronger and deeper than Rogers, who didn't have enough kids on their squad to form a separate offense and defense. So yay for our side.

Then this morning I drove Derek up to Big Rapids, about an hour north of here, for a weekend church youth group retreat at the Cran Hill ranch. Another chance to listen to music, getting into 1975, but I won't bother listing them all now. I'm in a hurry. I have to drop off Brandon at work (Curt's out in Brandon's car socializing for the night), then it's off to Van Andel Arena to work a Randy Travis concert. Full report due tomorrow!

Love "Forever Changes"

If you have never seen this picture before, then it's pretty likely that you've never heard the album that it conceals either. I'm not an expert on the band Love - the only other song of theirs that I know is an earlier single, "7 and 7 Is," which doesn't sound all that much like "Forever Changes." (Though it's a fine enough song on its own merits.)

"Forever Changes" is one of those fairly obscure releases that winds up on a lot of "critic's darling" lists - it never achieved great commercial success, and hasn't even spawned a lot of imitators, probably because the musical blends and styles it captures make it such a unique work of pop music art.

The album was recorded in 1967 in the Los Angeles area. Love were colleagues and even something like rivals of The Doors. The visionary of the band was Arthur Lee, but he didn't write all the songs. There's another guy who deserves credit but I don't recall his name, nor do I feel like going for the CD to get all those details. I am just basically endorsing the album straight up and encouraging you to go out and get a copy to listen to if you think you might like it.

So what does it sound like? It's not wild acid rock or anything like that, though it definitely comes from the psychedelic flower power era. The lyrical imagery and music are not hippy dippy though. There's actually a kind of dark, slightly morbid tone running through the album - I've heard that Arthur Lee had serious premonitions that he was going to die soon - probably this can be ascribed to drug-induced paranoia, and other influences at work in his life. But he's not self-consciously eerie or bizarre like Jim Morrison. The vocals are delivered with delicate calmness, a slight quaver in the voice that communicates passion and an intense "in the moment" presence - the singer is laying out something heavy and personal, without getting hysterical or melodramatic about it.

The musicianship is excellent - this is a band with chops, great timing, solid studio production values, that could bend off trippy multi-tracked guitar solos with the best of them but didn't feel the need to blow out the speakers either. There are sounds of mariachi trumpets, string sections, horns, just all kinds of cool sounds, delicate guitar picking, little haunting tones in the background, compelling time signature changes. All in all, just a masterpiece. A record I never get tired of listening to.

And the song titles! They in and of themselves are delightful! Here they are:

Alone Again Or
A House Is Not A Motel
Andmoreagain
The Daily Planet
Old Man
The Red Telephone (okay, some are mundane, but check these out..!)
Maybe The People Would Be The Times or Between Clark and Hilldale
Live and Let Live
The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This
Bummer In The Summer
You Set the Scene

That last song is my favorite, maybe of all songs that I have on my computer? I don't know, it's hard to pick one. But let me just print the words, see if they connect with you...

Verse 1:
Where are you walking, I've seen you walking
Have you been there before?
Walk down your doorsteps, you'll take some more steps
What did you take them for?
There's a private in my boat and he wears
Pins instead of medals on his coat
There's a chicken in my nest and she won't
Lay until I've given her my best
At her request she asks for nothing
You get nothing in return
If you want she brings you water
If you don't then you will burn

Verse 2:
You go through changes, it may seem strange
Is this what you're put here for?
You think you're happy and you are happy
That's what you're happy for
There's a man who can't decide if he should
Fight for what his father thinks is right
There are people wearing frowns who'll screw you up
But they would rather screw you down
At my request I ask for nothing
You get nothing in return
If you're nice she'll bring me water
If you're not then I will burn

--- part ii (2:20) ---

Verse 1:
This is the time and life that I am living
And I'll face each day with a smile
For the time that I've been given's such a little while
And the things that I must do consist of more than style
There are places that I am going

Verse 2:
This is the only thing that I am sure of
And that's all that lives is gonna die
And there'll always be some people here to wonder why
And for every happy hello, there will be good-bye
There'll be time for you to put yourself on

Verse 3:
Everything I've seen needs rearranging
And for anyone who thinks it's strange
Then you should be the first to want to make this change
And for everyone who thinks that life is just a game
Do you like the part you're playing

Bridge (4:03):
I see your picture
It's in the same old frame
We meet again
You look so lovely
You with the same old smile
Stay for a while
I need you so, oh, oh, oh, oh
And if you take it easy
I'm still teethin'
I wanna love you, but
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

Verse 4:
This is the time and life that I am living
And I'll face each day with a smile
For the time that I've been given's such a little while
And the things that I must do consist of more than style
There'll be time for you to start all over

This is the time and this is the time and
It is time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time...

Probably not the same without the music, but oh let me tell you, once the music gets in you, these words will just light you right up! I'm serious, this is a potent recording. I would love to know if anyone who reads this follows me up on the tip or is already familiar with it?

Here's a much more erudite review, written by a professional who's done his homework, if you want a second opinion.

Nothin' but Number Ones, Oh Yeah!

Last week I used up 46 blank CD-Rs that I've had laying about for several months in a project where I burned every song that has reached the number 1 spot in the Billboard Hot 100 charts since 1955. Technically speaking, the Hot 100 didn't exist until 1958 (Ricky Nelson's "Poor Little Fool" was the first #1) but I went back to 1955 because that's the year that "Rock Around the Clock" charted, and it's also 50 years ago. As was mentioned on this blog last winter, I had assembled these tracks (as well as all the #2's and #3's) and made iTunes playlists that I could listen to if I so chose. But since I don't have an iPod yet and enjoy listening to music in my car, I figured that it would be worth my while to put the collection on disc, especially if (shudder) my hard drive were to crash without me having it all backed up!

I should add here that the CD collection only goes up to the beginning of 2004, Outkast's "The Way You Move." The rest of the songs since then only make up about 41 minutes or so and I want to wait until I get a full CD's worth before I burn it. So I will have to forego the "pleasure" (cough cough) of listening to Terror Squad's "Lean Back" or 50 Cent's "Candy Shop" until probably some time in 2006. It seems like the #1 spot is much harder to break into these days than it used to be up through the 80's and into the 90's, when a new pop standard would be unveiled every couple of weeks or so. Judging from the aesthetic quality of many of today's top hits, I'm not too bothered by the fact that I don't have to download quite so many songs in order to maintain a complete collection.

So I've been listening to the tunes in order in my various drivings-about since sometime last week. As of this afternoon, I'm up to 1970 or so. Sly & the Family Stone's "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" is the last tune I heard. With each single that comes on, I'm trying to really listen closely and figure out what made that particular song the biggest hit in the land in its time, what kind of a mirror the songs hold up to our culture, and of course I could not help but reflect on how much our popular tastes and tolerances have changed over the years. The juxtapositions are amazing to behold as well, for example, the gutter raunch of "Honky Tonk Women" giving way to the bubblegum pop of the Archies' "Sugar Sugar." There's also the joy of experiencing just plain wierd songs like "Witch Doctor" and "Purple People Eater" which indicate the joy and delight that a lot of people apparently felt upon hearing the human voice played back on tape at a high speed. Melodramatic protest songs like Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction" or Zager & Evans' "The Year 2525"... Popular movie and TV themes like "Romeo & Juliet," "To Sir With Love," and anything put out by The Monkees. I just love this stuff! If I had the time, I would like to put together a website offering my unvarnished commentaries on each song. I know that Billboard Magazine already puts out thick books dedicating a page to each #1 song, but they are often more interested in the artists themselves and rarely seem to comment about the cultural significance of the song, the music, the lyrics, etc.

But I am simply too busy and weighed down with more pressing responsibilities to pursue that notion. So this little blog entry is what I can manage for now. But if anyone really wants to get into some extended conversation about Hot 100 #1's in the comment section, I'll do my best to sustain a dialogue!

And if you want to find a list of the #1 hits, here's a link and here's another, choose whichever you like best...