remix

There is sooooo much amazing music out there and soooo many talented people and soooo much of it is findable because of the web. It feels almost impossible to keep track of it all.

Real World Records has a really cool thing associated with one of their websites. You can download the raw files of a number of their recordings which can then be manipulated, mixed, and posted as "new" work on the website. A few years ago they had a competition to remix Peter Gabriel's "Shock the Monkey." The last few days I've been listening to a number of the remixes again. Some are just amazing.

Here is a link to the original video of Peter Gabriel's recording of the song in case you need a reminder of what it sounds like (sorry youtube won't allow me to embed the video).

and here is one of my favorite remixes... "The Ballad of Enos" Remix by Loveshadow



Pretty amazing isn't it?

fledglings 2

The fledglings died. It struck me more than I expected.

The other morning I went out back and found them in the corner. One was dead and the other curled up next to it. I removed the dead body and put it in a hollow spot in the church park. A few hours later the second had died.

The parents continued to watch over their bodies fr the rest of the day and whenever anyone approached they would scold. Even now, a few days later, they still yell at me when I go out the back door.

bummer

I had a friend who did street ministry. Kevin heard every possible story from someone wanting help that you can imagine. His rule was simple - verify, verify, verify. If the story was true, then he helped.

Verify, verify, verify is a good rule for the Internet too. Whenever I get those chain e-mails, I always check them out and then send an e-mail to the sender telling them the truth.

Unfortunately, I haven't been quite as careful about youtube videos etc... evidently the Wii Wii post below was an April Fools joke. Still funny but not real... so if you were planning to purchase Super Pii Pii Brothers, you'll have to wait for someone else to release it.

Wii Wii

We have a saying in our house regarding boy's bathrooms - "boys are happy if they hit something." In large degree that is true for men as well, just check out any gas station's men's room and you'll see what I mean.

It took a Japanese company to look at the technology of the Wii and those facts... and come up with a game...



unbelievable

Fledglings

Crows amaze me. They build strong communities, care for one another, even look after one another's young, form monogamous pairs, and they are committed parents. We have a nest in one of the palm trees in our back yard and on Monday a fledgling fell from the nest. It wasn't injured and quickly made its way into the bougainvillea at the corner of our patio.

We talked to some wildlife people who told us this is a common occurrence at this time of their life cycle and that as long as the fledgling was not injured, the parents would feed it until it was large enough to fly. They also protect it. Walk out our back door and immediately they begin to scold you. Before we knew what would happen, I put on some leather gloves and picked the fledgling up. The entire murder gather in the trees around our back yard - at least 20 crows - all yelling at me to leave the young one alone. When I put him back in the bougainvillea, all left except the parents.

Tuesday morning when I went for my daily walk, the parents followed me, yelling all of the time, for three blocks and then returned to watch over the young crow.

This morning a second fledgling fell from the nest so now we have two young crows in our back yard. It is noisy, but fun to watch them and wait with their parents until they take to the sky.

McCain and Iraq

These words are from a foreign policy speech given by John McCain

By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced. Civil war has been prevented; militias disbanded; the Iraqi Security Force is professional and competent; al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated; and the Government of Iraq is capable of imposing its authority in every province of Iraq and defending the integrity of its borders. The United States maintains a military presence there, but a much smaller one, and it does not play a direct combat role.

While some of the goals seem wonderful, others are either ridiculous or just wrong. Even if you agree with all of the goals, the rest of the speech gives no indication of any new initiatives to get there. Essentially, he wants to continue the Bush policies in Iraq but somehow will achieve these radically different. It reminds me of the old definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over again, hoping to get different results.

My only hope is that the American public doesn't elect this man... doing the same thing over yet again, hoping to get different results.

The ants suffer

There is an African aphorism... "when elephants fight, it is the ants who suffer."

All too often we have forgotten the ants in the mess we have caused in Iraq. The government uses words like "collateral damage" to describe the deaths of civilians and never even began counting them let alone stopped counting. We rarely see images or hear stories of the civilians, mostly too poor to escape, left behind. Of course, every dead child is the seeds of an entire family of terrorists yearning for revenge.

In an air attack on Sadr City, 2 year old Ali Hussein was injured as his house fell in on him. He died at the hospital.



The Washington Post published this photo and was castigated by some readers for showing an "anti-war" image and for publishing a photo in poor taste. As Helen Thomas reminded us in her column, "so is war."

obsessing

Guitar players can obsess over the smallest details. We worry about which strings will sound best. We are subject to arguments over which cable will transmit the sound best from the guitar to the amp and sometimes are willing to spend hundreds of dollars on each facet of the tone chain. We argue about what type of transistor sounds best in which position in an amplifier. Some of us seek out NOS tubes like junkies looking for a fix. Acoustic players argue over the sound characteristics of different woods and whether currently available Brazilian rosewood sounds as good as wood that was available years ago. One amazing guitarist, Eric Johnson, even claims to be able to hear the difference of different brands of 9 volt batteries in his effects boxes. (Listen to him play - I'm not going to argue!)

Some of us spend huge amounts of money and even more time researching these little details to get our tone just right. Of course, that is time that isn't spent practicing or making music.

DC Guitar Journal has a wonderful post about this with the photo below from the circuit board of a Blackstone Mosfet Overdrive (a great sounding overdrive pedal that I don't own). Jon Blackstone evidently got it right...



stop obsessing and play some music. got that right

housing

The southern part of Santa Barbara county is one of the least affordable places to purchase a home in the United States. The median income is around $69K while the median house price is now down to about $1.1 million. Do the math. The history of the community and the patterns of ownership are complicated but the future is clear. The middle class is rapidly disappearing. Both the private and the public sector have difficulty getting employees because folk cannot afford to live here.

Add to that the fact that Santa Barbara is relatively cut off in every direction. To the south is ocean. There is one road north that goes across the Santa Ynez Mountains. In the valley, there are a number of small towns but the commute across the pass is treacherous and it takes about 45 minutes to get to the closest towns. To the east, there is also one road - the 101. Housing is spotty heading along the coast to Ventura (about 25 miles from Santa Barbara) and traffic is horrendous - remember, one road and much of it is two lanes in either direction. Many workers in the SB area commute from Ventura, Oxnard (the next town to the southeast), and further along this highway. Take 101 west along the coast and then north and the nearest town is Buellton, about 30 miles away with Lompoc about 50 and Santa Maria about 60. Fewer people commute from this direction and there is virtually no development for 30 miles so traffic is very reasonable and prices are more affordable, getting cheaper the further away you travel from Santa Barbara.

Churches in Santa Barbara without parsonages have had a terrible time attracting pastors. Those with parsonages (like Cambridge Drive) can attract pastors but often they don't stay long term. The loss of potential to build equity and the increased taxes that come when one doesn't have a mortgage make their tenures short.

We have lived in a parsonage the last 5.5 years and it has been a good experience. The house is very nice. We enjoy our neighbors. The church folk have been wonderful. Still every year, we have bristled at the size of our taxes, especially as we have watched those dollars fund the war in Iraq. And every year we wonder how not owning property would effect our retirement years. We have looked at the rare "workforce" housing projects in Santa Barbara - projects with restrictions on price, appreciation, and income of the owners. We haven't qualified for any that have opened up while we have been here. Even if we had, there are lotteries for the limited spots.

Recently we learned of some new projects in Buellton and we placed an offer on a condo in a project called Vintage Walk. The prices are still ridiculous compared to much of the country, we'd be giving ourselves a 30 mile commute (+9 more for Cheryl), moving into a smaller space with fewer amenities, and we'd live in a different community than where I do my ministry. The up side is that we could begin to build some equity and if the urban plan for Buellton takes place, we'd be in the middle of a very quaint little walking village. We'd stay put a lot longer than otherwise. Plus... Buellton is in the wine country. Remember Sideways? The condo we've made an offer on is about 3 blocks or so from the motel they stayed in.

Just what we needed to add more stress to our lives and more expense at the same time we're planning a wedding for Alexis. Still it feels good and right. I just heard that our offer has been accepted. We just need to hear back from the mortgage people and forward we go!

Oh Tay!

One of my favorite blogs is Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish. Today he had this video up and it brought back such wonderful memories and made me laugh so here it is for my readers...

Singing part 2

Hey! I sang a bit this morning as I walked... but I did feel self-conscious.

see this post for more.

Seder

Last night the
Interfaith Initiative of Santa Barbara sponsored an interfaith Seder at the Congregation B'nai B'rith. It was a wonderful interfaith event with representatives from the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Baha'i, Buddhist, and Hindu faiths participating. Readings from each tradition were part of the celebration.

It was a wonderful reflection of what we can become as we respect each other's religions and look to the truth that each tradition brings to our common table. The calls for liberation for all people were clear and meaningful. I know that "Jerusalem" was seen as a symbol for a place of peace and "Egypt" was symbolic of oppressors. At the same time, I kept thinking of the Muslim participants and wondering how they reacted to the multiple statements about Egypt and the calls - "next year in Jerusalem." I wondered whether they saw the choice of symbols as being a bit too close to home.

At that point, I was saddened as I was reminded how others of any variety of faiths use similar events to draw lines, excluding one another, or even worse, as calls to violence. Far too many religious festivals build walls rather than bridges.

I have cut down the blogs I read to a relatively short list, but one of my favorites is Rabbi Rami. He has a thoughtful and challenging post on the Passover on his blog that asks some very difficult questions. Head over there, read it, and struggle with the questions he adds to the traditional Seder questions. And let me know what you think.

sing a song

Have you ever thought about how much children sing. When they're playing, when they're concentrating, when they're doing nothing in particular, they often sing. Sometimes it is a song they know. Sometimes it is a song they make up as they go along, but they sing. A lot.

At some point in our culture, people stop singing. I rarely sing. Not in the car. Not in the shower. Not when I'm walking. Not when I'm working. Sometimes I find myself wanting to sing, especially when I'm walking as I often listen to my mp3 player while I walk, but I quickly catch myself and don't. And it isn't because I don't sing well. I was a voice major in college after all. I just don't sing. Adults don't sing much in our culture. And when they do it stands out. Have you ever stopped at alight and looked over at the car next to you, only to see a lone driver singing along to the radio? The first reaction is to laugh as if they are doing something that grown ups don't do. Or in your house, a family member is in the shower and over the sound of the water you hear a song... and you look at another family member and laugh as if it is something childish.

That isn't true everywhere. When we visited India, I noticed adults walking down the street singing. They didn't make up songs like children, but they still sang.

Yesterday, I was listening to NPR and heard a short report about the City of Dimen in China and the Dong people. Singing is central to the way the Dong people communicate. They sing to greet visitors. They sing to tell stories. They sing their history. They sing of the beauty of nature around them whether it is imitating the sounds of the cicadas in the trees or just admiring that beauty. The reporter, Amy Tan says, "There's a lot about being out in the field working and realizing that even though your life is very hard and you're working constantly and it never stops, no matter what the season or the weather, there is this beauty."

Here's a video with a recording of The Cicada Song



In singing, the people are reminded to see the beauty and they add to the beauty. Me? Sometimes I see the beauty. Sometimes I take it for granted. I rarely add to it. In that lack of action, I feel as if I've lost something wonderful. Today, I'm going to try to sing a bit. If you see me, promise not to laugh.

I've Been Tagged

the blogosphere is a funny place. I find amazing information and insights. I also waste time that could be used in constructive ways. Most of all, it widens my community. Sometimes that is through substantive dialogue but sometimes it is in smaller silly ways that I think are still important. Getting tagged is one of those. Bob Cornwall tagged me. I see it as an affirmation of our friendship. Thanks Bob.

The rules are:
1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about himself or herself.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1. Ten years ago I was doing . . .

I was living in Albany, NY and pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church. Emmanuel is a great church and that community was very important in my own formation. A fun piece that was going on 10 years ago was that I was doig a music project with my daughter Alexis. We quickly figured out that people were going to see her, not me, and we became Alexis d.

2. 5 Things on Today's To Do List

attend a luncheon with the Coastal Housing Coalition and meet the new director, Debbie Cox Bultan
finish planning worship for Sunday
rehearse with the church band
spend some quality time with my wife
practice some guitar

3. Things I'd do if I were a billionare

This is a difficult question as I think being wealthy is much more difficult and dangerous than being poor with middle class... in the middle. The first thing I'd do would be a bit selfish... I'd purchase a house here in Santa Barbara. The lion's share of the money would go into a foundation that if I was choosing today, would be used to help leverage change in Santa Barbara to relieve the housing crisis we have here. Other posibilities might be education, musical instruments for poor children... I'd give a significant amount to Juniata College. And to be really selfish, I'd probably pick up a few amazing guitars and amps.

4. 3 Bad Habits

too much time on the web
watch more tv than I should
don't always finish what I start

5. Five Places I've lived

Santa Barbara, CA
Albany, NY
Philadelphia
Three Springs, PA
Wilkinsburg, PA

6. Five Jobs I've had in life:

Pastor
guitar player
radio DJ
garbage collector
deli counter guy

7. Tagged Ones

Fernando Gros
Dave Miller
Jon Reid
Alexis d
Angela Spain<

The Samaritan Woman at the Well

hunger

Often actions have unintended consequences. The Iraq war has driven up oil prices which has pushed the desire for alternative fuels such as ethanol produced from grain. These two trends are major contributors to the rapid rise in food prices around the world as the cost for transporting the food skyrockets and competition for the grain increases as more of it is converted into ethanol rather than used for food. I've read and heard that the amount of grain needed to produce enough ethanol to fill the tank of one American SUV is equal to the amount of grain eaten by one of those poorest people in a year! Yes, it takes a year's food to fill a tank once. In many areas of the world the price of rice, wheat, and corn has doubled in the past few weeks. For me it is an inconvenience. For the poor of the world, many of whom live on a dollar a day, it is a crisis.

This summer the G8 meets and they must include the alleviation of hunger as a priority for the next year. By clicking here you can sign the following petition

President Bush,

The soaring cost of staple foods and the resulting hunger crisis has caused riots from Haiti to Bangladesh, threatens hundreds of thousands of people with starvation and could push one hundred million more people deeper into poverty. Please build on your recent commitment by taking immediate action to:

1) Prioritize issues of global poverty, including the world hunger crisis on the agenda of the G8 Summit this July in Japan.

2) At the summit, secure commitments for additional resources for all types of food assistance and increased agricultural productivity in developing countries.

And visit Bread for the World to learn more about the growing hunger crisis.

Obama quote

We've heard and read lots regarding the comments that Obama made that have been characterized as elitist by Hillary Clinton and others. It is important to read them in context. Make of them what you will but at least consider them in a larger context.

So, it depends on where you are, but I think it's fair to say that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the places where people feel most cynical about government. The people are mis-appre...I think they're misunderstanding why the demographics in our, in this contest have broken out as they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to 'white working-class don't wanna work -- don't wanna vote for the black guy.' That's...there were intimations of that in an article in the Sunday New York Times today - kind of implies that it's sort of a race thing.

Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laughter), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter).

But -- so the questions you're most likely to get about me, 'Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What's the concrete thing?' What they wanna hear is -- so, we'll give you talking points about what we're proposing -- close tax loopholes, roll back, you know, the tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama's gonna give tax breaks to middle-class folks and we're gonna provide health care for every American. So we'll go down a series of talking points.

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you'll find is, is that people of every background -- there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you'll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I'd be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you're doing what you're doing.

angry renters

I have to say that I am ambivalent about the housing crisis. I certainly don' want to see folk losing their homes. I know that there were some predatory lending practices going on. I know that the tanking of the economy just made the entire mess worse. And I know that the ripples from the housing crisis effect all of the economy.

Still, nobody forced people to purchase homes that they couldn't afford. People need to be responsible for their decisions... as do financial institutions. Both bet that the market would climb forever and it didn't.

Below is a short video from a group called angry renters that makes a strong argument. I know it is over-simplified and I see many/all of the complexities of the issue. What do you think? Where does responsibility lie and what can/should be done?

tax day

I have to tell you that tax day is not a happy day for us. As a pastor, we pay quarterly paymets so even with the best of planning, we still have to pay a chunk of money. If something didn't work correctly through the year, we pay a chunk for two years. All of that is depressing but there is more. There is a piece of the tax code that I try to ignore for most of the year but when we finally do our income taxes, I am faced with it.

We owned a home in Albany. It was one of the least expensive places to purchase a home and in the 14 years we were there, we saw almost no appreciation in the value. Still, it was a great house and there are other benefits to owning as we later came to appreciate. In California, we live in a parsonage. Owning a home was out of the realm of possibility here because property values are completely out of whack. What we hadn't really figured out though, was that the difference of not having the mortgage payment would cause our taxes to just about double.

Purchase a house and you get to deduct your interest (which just happens to be the biggest part of your house payment for most of the life of the mortgage) and your property taxes and because that pushes you well past the standard deduction, you get to deduct all of your charitable giving too. It ends up essentially being a government subsidy as you hopefully build equity while you are receiving a huge tax break. And the bigger your payment, the bigger the deduction! Rent... and you get none of that. No tax break. No equity. Nada.

So who lives in rental housing? Folk who can't afford to purchase property. So once again the haves get the breaks and the have nots get... fill in the blank.

And I know that was part of the driving force behind many poor folk getting in over their heads in the housing market... they thought that finally they could get their leg up. That just adds to the ambivalence I mentioned in the earlier posting.

Girl Fight

Over the last few days there has been a lot of discussion regarding a group of teenage girls who posted a video on YouTube of the beating of another girl. "Should the parents be held responsible?" "What is happening in our society that kids think this is an appropriate way to solve differences?" "Where they just trying to be 'famous' for their 15 minutes?" "What do we need to do as a society to address this behavior?"

It seems clear to me that the answer begins at the top. We have a president whose first answer to any problem is violence. When he felt that Iraq was a threat or not responding appropriately to international demands, a preemptive strike and a prolonged military occupation was the solution. When he talks about Iran, threats of attack are the norm. When the situation between the Israelis and Palestinians is raised, diplomacy is ruled out with important groups virtually insuring that the violence will continue.

And it doesn't stop with the current president. When John McCain speaks about the situation in Iraq/Iran, he shows a profound misunderstanding of the differences or relationships between the various factions and seems to have little interest in learning those differences. Instead, his default position is to joke, "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" and to assure us that "we will have more wars."

When the default answer for the leaders of our country is to resort to violence, how can we expect anything different from our children? Wouldn't it be wonderful if the default reaction was to have a diplomatic surge rather than a military one? Wouldn't it be wonderful if the first reaction to an enemy was to work to make friends or at least to find areas of common interest rather than saber rattling? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could point to our leaders and say to our children, "look how they solve conflict and follow in their example"?