Let it Snow?

Call me Crazy... but I don't think my neighbors' Rooftops have been white all year long.

It's Time for a Break

Here I come San Antonio...

The Saints are Coming

This is incredible.

I'm Outdated...

It's true.

I just bought a new MacBook (Apple's latest computer) about a month and a half ago. Guess what?

They just came out with a new one.

Man, technology moves too fast for me.

On the bright side, I was told I could be a good Gryffindor.

PS3's and Hip Hop... and Harry Potter

***I just have to say it...     

I think my roommate is genius.

The dude spent a day and a half in line waiting to buy the small shipment of Playstation 3's that they were selling at Wal-Mart tonight at midnight. He was the first in line. He bought it at it's stock price, and is selling it on ebay for a bagillion dollars because they aren't sending out another shipment of PS3's until March and there are these ridiculously videogame-obsessed people who are willing to pay thousands of dollars for one of these things.

Originally, I thought everyone was kidding with me when they told me where Rance was (for some odd reason, I thought he was just spending the night elsewhere... though now that I think about it, I'm not sure where he would spend the night elsewhere). Needless to say, I didn't really think he was at Wal-Mart for a day and a half waiting in line. Speak of which, get this... a dude paid $1500 for the #2 spot in line right behind Rance.

Unbelieveable... I wish I would of thought of that, fo sho.


***On Another Note... Hip Hop was amazing tonight (awesome discussion with nearly 50-60 people), and the authors Alex Gee and John Teter (at least one of them for sure) will be visiting ACU sometime in February so put it in your planners everyone.

***And speaking of Hip Hop people, David Chisholm seems to be very excited that Harry Potter has released their newest movie poster. I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty friggin excited too. I wish I could go to Hogwarts.

On Being a Brother's/Sister's Keeper

People aren't as bad as I make them out to be. I know this in my mind, but yet I feel otherwise.

What I mean is this... So many people tell me "Oh, that person is terrible." and likewise, I tell others, "Well, if you think they're terrible, then you don't know this person here." And so on and so on, the vicious cycle keeps repeating itself. One person is portrayed as evil and the other is good. Now, I don't mean to say that anyone truly means to be a jerk in saying these types of things about this or that person, rather they are just expressing their personal grievances, which is perfectly fine, so long as it is not understood as an absolute about that person. In all honesty, I think that there is truth to a lot of those statements or else they might not exist.However, this is the problem with this...

There is one particular guy who I do not have respect for. I wonder how much he is actually like the way that I portray him to be, or whether or not I have influenced him to be like that because I've constructed that sort of meaning for him. In other words, I wonder if I have shaped any bit of him to be like that because of my initial dislike of him. Ultimately, he will pick and choose who he is, but if enough people are constructing that meaning (shaping that meaning) about who he is, then his options from which to choose who he is becomes somewhat limited. And thus, a system has been put in place to where that one person becomes evil and the others, who are constructing meaning for that one person, become good. In a way, a sort of dialectic is put into play to where I can shape meaning not only for others, but for myself. I set others up to be somewhat evil, and in comparing myself to them, I become somewhat good.

This is a vicious cycle. Because sure someone may do bad to you, but on the other hand you have to wonder they are bad all of the time, in the times when they are not around you. You cannot help but wonder whether when they were young if they dreamed of doing the things that hurt you. I highly doubt that they did, but sometimes I wonder if we create monsters. If we induce their painful behaviour that seems to get on everyone's last nerve or that just crawls under some people's skin.

I am thinking about how Jesus would've approached these types of people.

I can't say he'd approach them in any specific way, but I know something for sure...

He would've done it very differently, and I imagine that person wouldn't be like I've influenced him to be.

Sigur Ros and Hip Hop

       I cannot tell you how young I feel right now. Not young like I'm 60 looking back on my life, but how much like a kid I feel. I feel like a young boy who still has his brown bowl haircut and freckled nose, not yet with glasses, but wishing for sure that one day he would need them because, believe it or not, they were cool in his eyes. It's this music that's doing it to me.

       David Chisholm showed me this Sigur Ros video for the song "Hoppipolla" and now anytime I listen to it, I feel like closing my eyes, kicking back, and living in the life of that kid who use to go to Brauchle Elementary.

It's incredible.
      

P.S. For those in Abilene, watch Channel 7 on Thursday or Friday at around 6:00pm... On one of those nights, a TV show in Abilene is airing an interview they did with me and some people from Jesus and the Hip Hop Prophets.

Be on the lookout.

The English Blues

How does an Englishman write such good blues? Man, I love Eric Clapton...


Once I lived the life of a millionaire,
Spent all my money, I just did not care.
Took all my friends out for a good time,
Bought bootleg whiskey, champaigne, and wine.


Then I began to fall so low,
Lost all my good friends, I did not have nowhere to go.
I get my hands on a dollar again,
I'm gonna hang on to it till that eagle grins.


'Cause no, no, nobody knows you
When you're down and out.
In your pocket, not one penny,
And as for friends, you don't have any.


When you finally get back up on your feet again,
Everybody wants to be your old long-lost friend.
Said it's might strange, without a doubt,
Nobody knows you when you're down and out.


When you finally get back upon your feet again,
Everybody wants to be your good old long-lost friend.
Said it's mighty strange,
Nobody knows you,
Nobody knows you,
Nobody knows you,
Nobody knows you when you're down and out.

A Dance in the Midnight (An Excerpt)

    THE WOMAN.
    When I was younger, things were so much sweeter. I had a family that was younger, dogs that were younger, and a home that was younger, and with that youth there was an equal innocence, you know? I had 3 older brothers, my mother, and my father all under the same roof adorned with a sort of freshness that all things newer have. They weren't new to everyone else, of course, but to me they were new. Very New. When I think about yesterday, I have this distinct image painted in my mind. Something like the strokes of a softer and finer brush, with more light and less shade. Something marked by warm and lovely pastels that seemed to have been crushed from the leaves of the Tree of Life itself. It sounds fancy and exaggerated, but when I was younger I felt I had life, and I felt my family had it too. Life... If you let that word roll around in your mind long enough, you start to think about being a child and what it was like when you were a little boy or a little girl and for the moment, as brief as it may be, it's as if you really were that gorgeous Esther who used her beauty and charm to save a nation from being murder, or that Moses who stood in that quiet fire of a cave when God whispered to you that you would save his people with the great "I AM" at your side. For just one moment, you can feel that ambience of value and relationships soaking into your skin and into your bones, and it tastes so good, so God-like. Today, however, I hardly have the time to let that old word sit on my mind long enough. And it makes me sad to say this, but remembering it is becoming more difficult and this, I think, is the thing I fear most. Sometimes I remember it, though. I'll be around the house and I'll be doing a chore or I'll see an old friend of mine or of my parent's and I'll feel it again. It's like cleaning out your closet so you can sell some old goods and you run across a limp and dusted doll sitting behind all of your junk. And in the middle of it all you look at that precious doll, just as old as you are, and you feel it again, haunting you and begging you to be that beautiful little girl or heroic young boy who had such vivid and detailed imaginations. But you sell it anyways. Not because you want to, but because you have to so you can survive and eat another meal...
    I'm not quite sure I've meant to say all of this either and I don't know how I've said all of this. I don't know. I guess you begin talking and what you say escapes your mouth so easily, almost like it should have been said long ago. These days, though, I don't pay much attention to anything. I just try and make it to sundown and to the next morning. Morning,.. That word is all I have now.

The Levels

Perhaps one of the most disheartening things in life is to be pigeon-holed as a particular type of person. Because in the instant that you have pigeon-holed someone, you immediately limit their ability to be anything else to you. No longer do they have the opportunity to have levels. A level that you can laugh with them on and a level that your brow can be dense because both of you are deep in thought about something the other has said. This idea of seeing levels in someone, it goes beyond just romantic relationships. It is also in common relationships that people find themselves in everyday. For I love to sit with someone who can allow me to laugh in the first 5 minutes and be angry about something in the following 10.

Perhaps, equally, one of the most beautiful things is when someone looks at you and sees levels. They leave you to be somewhat mysterious, and in doing such, they acknowledge that there is much to you to be understood, much to know that they do not already know.