On Friday night, Craig and I got to see Sigur Rós at UC Berkeley’s Greek Theater. It’s an outdoor venue and rain was in the forecast. I hoped it would hold off, but I never could have expected what actually happened.

We stayed dry for the entire show and were thankful, and the band came out to do a final song for the encore: Untitled 8 (aka Popplagið). One of their most popular songs, and definitely one of the grandest and most epic songs I’ve ever heard. As the song started to build to its climax, a mist started to form over the crowd, and as the song progressed the rain began to pour harder and harder.

Watch this video that someone got of the song. It’s hard to see the rain in the video, but when the crowd starts to cheer a couple minutes in, that’s when it started to come down.

Craig said I looked happier than I’ve been in a long time in those few minutes. It’s true. I might sound like a complete sap, but it was one of the most worshipful, beautiful moments in my life thus far. I still get goosebumps thinking about it.

Tonight is the night I see Radiohead. (And Liars!) It’s also the night I get to hang out with Leah and commemorate what would be the birthday of JD Rhea. We’ll both have goosebumps and tears for more reasons than can be counted.

The best part of all this, aside from having the potential to be the most memorable night in recent years, is that there’s a rumor buzzing that video of the show is going to be broadcast online. That means that, by next week, I’ll be able to find a professionally-shot video of the most significant concert I’ve ever attended that I’ll be able to keep forever. Now that’s cool.

If you care to get a play-by-play, you can be watching my Twitter for updates.

This is shaping up to be a wonderful day.

June is here. It’s the busy time of year. Graduations, going-away parties, weddings, vacations. No time for posting on blogs that nobody reads anyway.

May went by in a blur, leaving me just enough time to reminisce about music I used to love (Killswitch Engage, The Used, Eels, Death Cab For Cutie) and wish for half a minute that I had good music taste during the 90s (Pavement, Oasis, The Magnetic Fields). Then I went with Matt down to Irvine last weekend to experience the face melting metal of Iron Maiden and Anthrax live. It’s impressive that old guys are still capable of tearing it up like that.

1. Jimmy Eat World - “Here It Goes” (Chase This Light)
2. Hammock - “City in the Dust on My Window” (Maybe They Will Sing For Us Tomorrow)
3. 16 Horsepower - “Splinters” (Live: March 2001)
4. Eels - “Railroad Man” (Blinking Lights and Other Revelations)
5. Eels - “The Other Shoe” (Blinking Lights and Other Revelations)
6. Killswitch Engage - “Take This Oath” (The End of Heartache)
7. The Used - “Let It Bleed” (In Love and Death)
8. Death Cab For Cutie - “Transatlanticism” (Transatlanticism)
9. Duffy - “Mercy” (Rockferry)
10. Moving Mountains - “Grow On, Grow Up, Grow Out” (Pneuma)
11. The Appleseed Cast - “The Clock and the Storm” (Peregrine)
12. Pavement - “Unfair” (Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain)
13. Oasis - “Champagne Supernova” (What’s The Story, Morning Glory?)
14. The Magnetic Fields - “Busby Berkeley Dreams” (69 Love Songs)
15. Bon Iver - “Skinny Love” (For Emma, Forever Ago)
16. Iron Maiden - “Run to the Hills” (Number of the Beast)
17. Anthrax - “Madhouse” (Spreading the Disease)

I’ve become a bootleg fiend as of late. I got a whole bunch of Coachella recordings, other random shows I was at and a few I wish I was at. Maybe I should start posting a few samples for your enjoyment. I’m at the brink of filling up my laptop’s hard drive. It’s about time for a new computer anyway.

You probably won’t hear much more from me this month (as if that were unusual). I’m road-tripping to Colorado to see the fam for a week, and then I’ll be start cleaning and packing to prepare to move into a new place that I just confirmed late last night. Exciting times. Peace.

May? What happened to April? I guess I’ve been busy or something.

April was a month of playing artists on repeat: Bon Iver; Jimmy Eat World; Foals; Does It Offend You, Yeah?; Portishead; Grizzly Bear. There was also some Coachella reminiscing and a healthy scoop of bitterness towards Western evangelical culture (check out the Chris Thile song), but those are rants for another time.

1. Grizzly Bear - “Alligator (Choir Version)” (Friend EP)
2. Does It Offend You, Yeah? - “Let’s Make Out” (You Have No Idea What You’re Getting Yourself Into)
3. Jimmy Eat World - “Firefight” (Chase This Light)
4. Grizzly Bear - “Little Brother (Electric)” (Friend EP)
5. Foals - “Two Steps, Twice” (Antidotes)
6. Does It Offend You, Yeah? - “We Are Rockstars” (You Have No Idea What You’re Getting Yourself Into)
7. Jimmy Eat World - “Kill” (Futures)
8. Bon Iver - “Skinny Love” (For Emma, Forever Ago)
9. Bon Iver - “re: Stacks” (For Emma, Forever Ago)
10. Chris Thile - “The Believer” (Deceiver)
11. mewithoutYou - “The Sun and the Moon” (Brother, Sister)
12. Bon Iver - “The Wolves (Act I and II)” (For Emma, Forever Ago)
13. Vampire Weekend - “Mansard Roof” (Vampire Weekend)
14. Portishead - “Machine Gun” (Third)
15. International Superheroes of Hardcore - “Dirty Mouth” (Tip Of The Iceberg/Takin’ It Ova!)
16. Man Man - “The Ballad of Butter Beans” (Rabbit Habits)
17. Les Savy Fav - “The Sweat Descends” (Inches)

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to working 24/7 and getting the life sucked out of me by tactless people that I still try hard to love.

I’m probably going to upset someone with this. That’s not the goal. I only want to explain why I don’t regret one bit that I voluntarily skipped John Piper’s Desiring God conference this last weekend.

Does “You shall have no other gods before me” ring a bell?

I love a lot of musicians. They are very important to me, and I hold many of them in very high esteem. But when I see them live, I do my very best to not treat them as anything more than the human they are. He or she may have created something greater than I can or said something that inspired me more than I can describe, but the minute I say “[insert musician] is amazing” instead of “[insert musician] creates amazing music,” I know I’m in trouble.

I feel the same should hold true of those that put so much value into prominent Christians, maybe even more so. Certainly it’s nice to see that people have so much respect for a man that clearly has devoted his life to understanding the Gospel. My concern is more with the fact that the “Don’t Waste Your Life” conference was dubbed “the Piper conference” within days of its announcement. (I had to go to his site to look up the official name.)

A rule of thumb I’d like to propose: if the person teaching the conference/writing the book/speaking the sermon/leading the worship is being held in higher regard than the content he or she is presenting, it’s time to question priorities. For as much buzz as I heard about the event, before and after, I still don’t know what it was about beyond what its official name tells me. That to me is a bad sign.

The irony is painful

I heard a lot of talk about how this “could be a once in a lifetime chance” coming from everyone from friends to respected pastors. A once in a lifetime chance for what? To spend your hard-earned money and two days of your time watching a guy speak out of the Bible you read every day, only to find that he puts the recordings on his website less than 48 hours later for free? It hurts me to wonder at the man hours that were spent to put this all together. There is pain in seeing the irony that so many “wasted” their time and money to see someone in person who could have saved thousands of hours and dollars by speaking his message into a microphone and putting it online.

I apologize for being so brash. Being so entrenched in Christian culture has only made me jaded and I don’t think that’s the way it was meant to be. I just can’t help it when the contradictions are so glaring.

I’m not going to hold firmly to my statements, though: show cases of truly changed lives of those that attended the conference or tell me where my thinking has gone wrong. Please. It hurts to tear down my own people so I don’t want to be doing so unnecessarily.

I’m probably apologizing to myself more than anything, but I hate that it’s taking me so long to get my songs written. Too much going on, and now I’ve got this ear infection that I’ve been using to excuse myself from getting things done for almost a week now. It’s a valid excuse because I really am having a hard time focusing on things, especially in the musical realm.

I have nothing on my calendar for the evening, so I will try to hunker down and get something done. It probably won’t be anything like the last two singer/songwriter type things I’ve done since singing and playing guitar are questionable activities for me at the moment. (although watching Once twice this weekend was very inspiring in that regard). You may end up with some random electronic tweak-out that consists of me trying to figure out how to sound like Radiohead, Burial, Daft Punk or Massive Attack without any equipment other than my laptop.

In other news, with all the downtime I had last week, I was able to get back into Six Feet Under. Consequently, I started to wonder why it was I enjoy the show so much. The pilot was compelling enough to draw me in, but the show as a whole isn’t quite what that first episode made it out to be, and yet I still like it, albeit for different reasons than the pilot.

I realized that it was that the cast is made up of highly (sometimes excessively) rational people, much like myself, so I identify well with all of them. Then these well-developed characters are written into story arcs that have, not even two seasons in, addressed nearly every kind of life situation imaginable: death (obviously), sickness, failed relationships, successful relationships, affairs, parenting, drugs, homosexuality, sexuality in general, faith, money, broken family, business… the list goes on. I don’t know how they’ve managed to elegantly pack in so much in so few episodes, but they have.

So, apparently I am most satisfied with stories that take a cast of deep thinkers and throw everything possible at them, and they come out the other side stronger and wiser for the wear. It seems so simple a realization, but I’m finally starting to understand myself in that regard to the extent that I don’t just get it, but I feel it.

This one is late for good reason. I’ve been sick all week and am just now beginning to see the end. Not only have I been busy resting, watching the entire Freaks & Geeks series, as well as several episodes of Six Feet Under, but the doc I went to looked at my ear, which is highly prone to infection after colds, and said I had a major tear halfway across my ear drum. Closer inspection indicated that wasn’t the case (whew) but neither of the doctors could figure out what was going on. “Cool ear,” one of them told me on his way out. Uhh… thanks?

Anyway, on to the music (which will be slightly garbled to me until I finish this course of double-strength antibiotics). Last month I finally started catching on to This Will Destroy You’s new one, I continued to fall in love with The Snake The Cross The Crown, I saw Ryan Adams live for the first time (yay, bootlegs!) and discovered Modeselektor thanks to Radiohead guest-DJing some BBC radio show I’d never heard of. Enjoy some tunes.

1. This Will Destroy You - “They Move On Tracks of Never-Ending Light” (This Will Destroy You)
2. The Snake The Cross The Crown - “Gypsy Melodies” (Cotton Teeth)
3. M.I.A. - “Hussel” (Kala)
4. The Snake The Cross The Crown - “Maps” (Cotton Teeth)
5. Michael Cera & Ellen Page - “Anyone Else But You” (Juno soundtrack)
6. Sigur Rós - “Hafsól” (Hvarf/Heim)
7. The Magnetic Fields - “California Girls” (Distortion)
8. M.I.A. - “20 Dollar” (Kala)
9. Circa Survive - “In The Morning And Amazing…” (On Letting Go)
10. Ryan Adams - “Shakedown On 9th Street” (Heartbreaker)
11. Collections Of Colonies Of Bees - “Flocks III” (Collections Of Colonies Of Bees)
12. Modeselektor - “The Dark Side Of The Sun (feat. Puppetmastaz)” (Happy Birthday!)
13. Modeselektor - “The White Flash (feat. Thom Yorke)” (Happy Birthday!)
14. Burial - “Prayer” (Burial)
15. Vampire Weekend - “Walcott” (Vampire Weekend)
16. Vampire Weekend - “Oxford Comma” (Vampire Weekend)

Sometimes inspiration is found in the least likely of places. In this case it’s a web comic by someone that sees things in much the same way as I have come to. The only difference is his lack of acknowledgment of God. But then, sometimes I still wonder if or how He exists.

I don’t know if I should feel a sense of comfort or guilt when I admit that I often feel exactly as he does. Either way, it’s plenty to ponder for a Saturday afternoon.

The pater familias is in town this weekend so song #2 will be a few days late (again).

I was talking with a friend the other day and when I realized the new year was here, I said something along the lines of, “Dang, that means the gym is gonna be crowded for a few weeks.” He asked, “A few weeks?” before the light bulb went on and he laughed and nodded in understanding.

I would say that 95% of the people who resolve to lose weight (the most common of resolutions, I’d imagine) give up by the end of the first month. Or maybe they forget. The problem, as I see it, is that people aren’t planning their goals well. Actually, it’s not just as I see it. Otherwise this whole concept of S.M.A.R.T. goals that so many people talk about wouldn’t exist.

Normally I don’t make resolutions because I know they won’t hold up. But this year, I’m calling them goals, making them S.M.A.R.T. and keeping people updated on them as a means of accountability. I’ll stop yammering. Here they are:

Write and record a song every other week

The point: Increase creative output so I’m practiced and more familiar with the process.

Other details and rules:

• At least half must have lyrics.
• Each song must be at least two minutes long.
• Remixes and mashups are allowed, but they fall under the “no lyrics” category and they must show a reasonable amount of effort on my part.
• I’ll be posting each song online and asking for feedback from you (whoever you are).

Draw something every other week

The point: Again, to increase creative output. Also, to get back in the habit of drawing like I used to when I was younger.

Other details and rules:

• Drawings will be scanned and posted online so I can get your feedback.
• Each drawing must show a significant amount of effort. Nothing half-assed just to meet the goal.
• Many will probably end up being comic-ish because that tends to be my style. I might take some influence from John Campbell, so it could end up being how well I execute the idea more so than how well I draw it.

Read 15 books

Fifteen was an arbitrary number. It just happened to be the number of books that I already own that remain unread which I have a desire to read.

The list:

• G.K. Chesterton - Orthodoxy
• Mark Ferem - Bathroom Graffiti
• Nic Harcourt - Music Lust
• Stephen Colbert - I Am America (And So Can You!)
• Jeff Fischer - Investing Without A Silver Spoon
• Mark Frauenfelder - Rule the Web
• Paul Harrison - All the Clever Words on Pages
• Tosca Lee - Demon: A Memoir
• Hugh Ross - The Creator and the Cosmos
• Malcolm Gladwell - Blink
• O’Reilly - Programming PHP
• The Art and Writing of WFMU
• Haruki Murakami - The Elephant Vanishes
• Daniel J. Levitin - This Is Your Brain On Music
• Francis A. Schaeffer - Art and the Bible

Create a personal, dynamic website

The point: I’ve become curious about the possibility of doing freelance web development and I come up with more and more reasons why my own website (not just a blog) would be useful for me.

Other details and rules:

• Must be developed with PHP and MySQL (technologies I don’t know but would need to know to increase my value and open up more freelance options for me).
• Must include a blog (which means this one will be moving eventually).
• Set up a permanent email address so I never have to change it again.

Get my passport

The point: I intend to travel someday. (One more reason why freelancing is attractive.) I figure having my passport will lower the barrier and encourage me to look into it.

Refurnish my bedroom

The point: All my furniture has been inherited from several places and there was a reason people were getting rid of it. Plus, I can’t stand sleeping on a twin mattress any more. Oh, and having a multi-purpose bookshelf will help me to stay more organized (see my next goal).

Details:

• New bed and mattress (queen, minimum) by April.
• New desk & office chair by August.
• A CD/DVD/book shelf by December.

Organize, clean and throw away stuff

The point: I hate that I have so much stuff. I don’t want it to rule me. I figure the less stuff I have, the easier it will be to organize and keep clean.

Start investing

The point: Putting money into savings is great, but making wise investments that generate more interest is even better. It’s not that scary once you’ve read a book or two about it(the Motley Fool is awesome).

So those are it. It’s probably too much, but I’ve set up a Remember The Milk account to keep my tasks in order so I know exactly what’s up. I’ll also be trying to make regular updates here so that others can be aware of the status of things.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a drawing to finish by the end of the day and plenty of reading to do.

An addendum to yesterday’s rant:

Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.

Miguel de Unamuno