God is a weak man’s salvation.

A while back a good friend got me a coffee table book full of bathroom graffiti. Everything from the profane to the profound was compiled in this giant collection of colorful photographs, and the above quote appeared amongst some of the more profound.

On the surface it’s immediately offensive to anyone calling himself a Christian. But if one thinks about that statement for a moment, it speaks the Gospel as briefly as one possibly could: We are weak men and God is our salvation. I don’t think it could be put more humbly.

There’s no way to know if the person who scrawled that comment on a bathroom wall was aware of its double meaning, but the irony of a statement that is both extremely proud and extremely humble makes me smile.

Be afraid not to try.

Thank you, Ryan Adams.

The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Blink

A decent, boiled-down pop psychology book that basically comes down to that point. We trust our judgment and critical thinking skills too much based on the endless supply of information at our disposal, then forget that the time investment required to understand that information is where the best, instinctive discernment comes from.

At least that’s what I got out of it.

A few years ago when I started to work out a Christian epistemology and a Christian concept of culture, many people considered what I was doing suspect. They felt that because I was interested in intellectual answers I must not be biblical. But this attitude represents a real poverty. It fails to understand that if Christianity is really true, then it involves the whole man, including his intellect and creativeness. Christianity is not just “dogmatically” true or “doctrinally” true. Rather, it is true to what is there, true in the whole area of the whole man in all of life.

The ancients were afraid that if they went to the end of the earth they would fall off and be consumed by dragons. But once we understand that Christianity is true to what is there, true to the ultimate environment — the infinite, personal God who is really there — then our minds are freed. We can pursue any question and can be sure that we will not fall off the end of the earth. Such an attitude will give our Christianity a strength that it often does not seem to have at the present time.

Francis Schaeffer, Art and the Bible

A very short book that has done more to help me get perspective on faith, art and life in general than almost anything else in recent memory.

Has the Church — or more specifically, evangelical Christian culture — perpetuated the idea that challenging norms and asking “dangerous” questions is a bad thing? To me that’s what it feels like, but I could be wrong.

Found this quote via The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning:

Why am I afraid to dance, I who love music and rhythm and grace and song and laughter? Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and the beauty of flesh and the living colors of the earth and sky and sea? Why am I afraid to love, I who love love?

Eugene O’Neill, The Great God Brown

For me, the question becomes: Why am I afraid to take risks that are required to continue on a path to where I want to be and, quite possibly, where God wants me to be? Lord, help me to put myself on the line when it’s easier to be comfortable.

I miss Ze Frank’s daily videos. He recently reposted this video about Valentine’s Day on his blog and I reminisced about The Show and how he seemed to make sense of things and articulate — with humor, no less — better than anyone I’d ever seen:

Having a holiday where you’re supposed to feel loved, though, is kinda tough, you know? It’s hard to do under pressure. It’s like “Have a great idea” day, or uh… “Pee! Right now!” day.

If you think about it, saying “I love you” on Valentine’s Day means less than it does on pretty much any other day of the year. It’s like there’s inflation on the currency of romance or something. If you say “I love you” on February 14th it’s kind of like walking into a doctor’s office and when he asks what’s wrong saying “I’m sick” and then handing him a balloon that says “He’s sick!” He’s gonna ask for symptoms. “Do you feel nauseous? Are you having trouble sleeping?” And if you don’t have any symptoms you probably shouldn’t be in the doctor’s office.

Maybe that’s what’s missing from Valentine’s Day: a choice. It could be like the relationship apocalypse, a once-a-year judgment day where couples could decide whether they want to stay or leave without any hard feelings. For months in advance people would be giving each other massages and chocolates and flowers, all in anticipation of getting that little card back with a check mark next to “yes” or “no.”

Happy (early) Valentine’s Day. Do something nice for someone whether you have a “someone” or not.

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.

What would a music blog be without the obligatory “best of” lists to finish out the year? We all know how they go: pick a random number between five and five hundred and start counting down. And make sure to justify the list with a nice little explanation for each pick, even though 90% of the people reading your blog are going to leave comments of “you forgot so-and-so” and “<band name> doesn’t deserve to be number seven, number twelve is obviously much better.”

So, with that said, get ready for some lists. I’m breaking my own rule, though, and not explaining my picks. Reason being: I have no readers, so no one will be leaving the aforementioned annoying comments. Not to mention my list is right so there is no use in arguing.

Anyway, yes… I’m finishing up my lists right now and will post them soon.

I know I’ve paid respect to CBGB before, but an off-hand comment that I read today that the club’s “glory days are long gone” made me really wonder about the effect that the closure will have on the music industry.

The press have made a big deal out of it, musicians have lobbied to keep their doors open, but how much will the closing actually affect? Not much, really. The club played a huge part in laying the groundwork for a lot of amazing music, but as the article pointed out, it’s well past its prime. For the past ten years, the club’s influence has been mostly in black and white t-shirts (most of which were probably bought by pretentious name-droppers at non-CBGB locations). The degrees of separation between most of today’s favorite bands and the venue are probably two or more as far as influences go.

My point is, it’s sad to see a music history landmark go, but it’s done its job. CBGB & OMFUG, the place, is no longer as important as the mindset that it helped create. The club’s closure is most comparable to the breaking up of an important band that hasn’t had any significant release in years.

Having never been there, I myself can’t actually miss it. All I can do is be thankful for the mindset.

Anyone who has been a fan of Radiohead for the duration of at least two albums knows that surprise is standard. And considering that a great number of Radiohead fans are the cynical, always-a-step-ahead-of-the-rest, music snob type, they (er… we) know to be prepared for something new out of Radiohead every time. Or in other words, we’re prepared to not act surprised when Radiohead surprises us.

But I have to admit that Radiohead surprised even me when I recently found out that they are blogging about the recording process of their forthcoming album. For a band that holds so many secrets and markets on their own mystery, writing a publicly-accessible blog seemed very out of place for them.

Whatever the case may be, though, their blog, Dead Air Space, is amazing. Thom Yorke remains curious and mysterious as always, writing cryptic entries about Lord knows what exactly (and yet often being straightforward, also a surprise), Jonny proving his obsession with all things music (his most recent entry discusses how his latest listening project has been nothing but dub and reggae for the last six months), Colin and Phil posting pretty much nothing but random pictures of each other, and Ed… well, Ed hasn’t posted a thing, which doesn’t really surprise me considering he always seems to be the least prominent member of the band.

I personally always find band blogs interesting. The dynamic of a band is a curious and often entertaining thing, and Radiohead is, of course, no exception. In fact, I would even go so far as to say it is the the best of all band blogs I’ve read, maybe even among the best of all blogs, generally speaking. Although on the latter I may be a bit biased.