black and white

These are my sister and brother-in-law's dogs: Pony (black) and Bear (white). They're crazy.

the band name is...

courier

thank you

for the anonymous, you know who you are. thank you.

electronic contact

electronic contact
has me sick to my stomach

with twenty six letters
i can change the world

but with one look
you can change me

from the inside out
to the furthest places

from here to where
everything's real

i long for all that is human
laughing, breathing

crying when it hurts
but loving through it all

with twenty six letters
i can change the world

but with one look
you can change me

pyromarketing

Author Greg Stielstra is launching our PyroMarketing video today at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association in Washington, D.C.



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opposite of bing crosby

Tonight we returned to Oak Crest.

Ted and the others were happy to see us; he even brought his brother and sister-in-law along. Lois played Christmas Carols on the keyboard for us, and we screeched them out as best we could. One of the women we talked to last time brought the pictures she promised to show us of her driving trucks.

David was there, too.

We met David a year ago, and the first time we talked, he told me how he landed in Japan just days after the bomb went off. He spent the majority of his time in the service pulling the lever that released jets off the carrier.

Tonight, he leaned over and said, “I used to sing opposite of Bing Crosby.” I perked up in my chair. “Really?” I replied with excitement.

“Yeah. He sang well, and I sang opposite.”

field trip

yesterday afternoon i dropped my laptop onto the floor. while it was falling, everything moved in slow motion, like a bad dream where you can't run any faster.

i became powerless.

the ac adapter head broke off into the computer, but we pulled it out with pliers this morning.

i headed into best buy, where they told me i should've bought the warranty back in july. "good luck," the geek squad member said to me. great.

as i went to look for a replacement, a guy was holding his fallen adapter in hand like a dead octopus. "you too, huh?" i said as i walked in the aisle. "yeah, it sucks, man," he said.

together, we stared at a rack full of adapters and mourned the inflated prices ($100+), then i told him i was going to go online to find a better deal ($54, delivered overnight), but he had college exams to study for tonight so he had to buy one now.

"that sucks, man. good luck," i said.

then i went to the mall. i hadn't been to a mall since the day we landed in london and our hostel room was hot like a finnish sauna ("sow-na"), but there was no lake or pool or snow to cool off in, so we mustered enough strength to search for suitable ac.

at the mall, a woman stopped me and tried to sell me hand lotion or something that smelled really good for my "lady." i told her i don't have a lady right now and that on top of not having a lady, my family wasn't buying christmas presents this year.

she didn't really believe me and i probably should've let her finish her sales pitch, but i told her i wasn't lying and i was only in the mall because i dropped my laptop and i lifted up my bag from radio shack to prove it and...

we say we're not buying christmas presents, but i got an email from my mom last week, who still enjoys giving us presents from santa, though we're all over twenty. when my brother found out that santa wasn't real (apologies to any believers out there), my sister and i conned him into pretending he still believed for a year or two longer so we could get the good presents.

santa packages always come in brightly colored cartoonish wrapping paper with all capital letters. santa never got us socks, he'd usually pull through with tecmo super bowl or a new tv or a breadmaker that we used once and decided it was easier to just buy bread.

what's funny, is that this year, all i really need is some new socks.

the right tools

this morning, i tried clearing the thick, half-melted ice from our stairs with an axe.

we discovered the axe hanging above our coat closet when we moved here in august. i thought it was odd that we had one, but i proudly show most guests when i give them a tour.

first, i scraped the loose snow off with my hillbilly gore-tex books and hands, then went to work with the steel. the axe wasn't really working properly as a shovel, and after a minute of hacking, i wondered how many neighbors were watching this display.

i glanced across the street in lust at the neighbor's shovel.

it was propped on their house, metal and rusty, a good shovel that's proved itself capable of handling a decade or more of frosty michigan winters. this shovel would make any plastic shovel feel insignificant. i decided that if i knew the neighbors across the street, it probably wouldn't be a big deal if i went and asked them to use their shovel. but then i thought better of it, since they just saw me come out of my house to spend 25 minutes clearing the snow and ice off my car that's been idle for two weeks. then i hauled a bunch of garbage out of my car into the house and came back outside with an axe to clear the ice off my stairs.

then i remembered how odd they must think i am already, from their perspective, i rarely leave the house and a strange car comes here every morning at various times. some of them know me from the potluck they had in the middle of the street last summer. we stopped by and ate some casseroles and listened to an older lady talk about her yoga class and assured them we weren't huge party-animals and we left. i imagine what they think we're doing some days when we haul heavy gray boxes and black bags and pvc piping and boards with wheels out to our cars and drive away. then i wonder if they can hear the band playing on wednesday nights, but dan says they can't and that's what's sweet about renting a whole house. i wonder if the newspapr guy thinks i'm even alive or just crazy or lazy when a week's worth of newspapers stack up on the front porch.

maybe i should just talk to them. or maybe i should buy a shovel.

sufjan christmas streams

http://www.asthmatickitty.com/suf_xmas/suf_xmas.php

sing it, ray

Last night Dan and I ventured to Detroit Rock City to see Ray LaMontagne (pronounced “La Mon Tang”). If you don’t know Ray, go to (www.myspace.com/raylamontagne) and listen to “Three More Days” and “Trouble.” Then purchase a CD; you’ll have no regrets.

When the lights dimmed inside the Scottish Rite Cathedral, a woman quietly walked on stage, grabbed an acoustic guitar and started picking a hauntingly beautiful tune. She was “Tristan Prettyman from San Diego,” who used to make pizzas but now travels the globe singing surfer music.

She was good. And apparently she surfs, too. Spicy.

Ray carries a mystical presence. With his signature beard and fro, he utters few words. He’d tease the audience like he was going to speak, then he’d just look to his band and start another song. At one point, some Sloppy Joe yelled, “Take your pants off, Ray!” He responded by springing up a middle finger salute, the crowd applauded.

Ray’s voice is soft and raspy, as if he’s stricken with a permanent-cold, but it’s what makes him memorable. When he bellows his signature crescendo, “Ohhh, ohhh,” his knees bend, his voice explodes, the crowd goes bananas.

Ray’s band is tight, both functionally and adjectively: His guitarist is a master of slide, electric, acoustic and classical; the drummer aware and accurate; the female bassist swaying like she was experiencing heaven on earth.

But what I like most about Ray is that he’s a poet; though he doesn’t recycle clichés or care what mainstream culture thinks is music (ahem, MTV & VH1).

In “Burn,” about an ex-lover who has moved on while he remains heartbroken, he writes:

Oh so don't pay no mind
To my watering eyes
Must be something in the air
That I'm breathing

While essentially saying, “Yes, you’ve broken my heart, it has made me cry and I am embarrassed,” he avoids abused country music phrases, and says it “must be something in the air that I’m breathing.” All men can relate. Wow.

Yes’n I try to ignore
All this blood on the floor
It's just this heart on my sleeve that's bleeding

No parsing necessary, this is literary gold.

Oh mama don't walk away
You leave me here bereaving from the words so hard and plain
Saying the love that we had
was just selfish and sad

To see you now with him
is just making me mad
Oh so kiss him again
just to prove to me that you can
and I will stand here
and burn in my skin

In order to fully appreciate this final line, you have to hear Ray sing, “Burn in my skin.” It’s top notch. It’s raw. It’s authentic. It makes your stomach hurt. It’s additional cliché words for cool.

All this to say: Music reaches the unreachable places. It is powerful. It has the power to bring us together or tear us apart. Music is a universal communicator of love, hate and everything in-between. I love music.

laugh a little slower

Today is the first day of "winter." It would be a white lie to say I'm pleased. Every year, on the first day of unofficial "winter," I always question why I live in the land of the Trolls.

To uphold a counterproductive tradition, I vent:

Not only do we receive inadequate amounts of snow to fully enjoy the winter sports of my youth (skiing, snowmobiling, sledding, midget tackle football), Western Michigan happens to be one of the grayest areas of the U.S. during the winter. Give credit to Lake Michigan, I heard, though I don't know exactly why, but I don't blame the big lake, I love her 70 percent of the year.

(As I compose this vent, blue skies appeared outside my window, crushing my always-gray hypothesis, though I will stand my ground, since winter doesn't officially begin until December 22. Canadian Alanis Morrisette would be pleased with this blue-sky irony. I imagine she gets her songwriting inspiration by cutting prime rib with a spoon.)

Additionally, I hypothesize that my migration "Downstate" six years ago molded me into a loyal follower of the Counting Crows, who often sing praises of the color gray, for example: "Gray is my favorite color, I felt so symbolic yesterday, if I knew Picasso, I would buy myself a gray guitar and play, Mr. Jones and me..."

And, in "A Long December," they sing,"I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower, makes you talk a little lower..." "A Long December" is about a relationship meltdown (with a certain Friends' star) rather than crappy weather, but the winter vibe is heavy.

Finally, in the coming months, I'll experience a new kind of winter. I won't have to drive everyday or scrape the ice off the Jetta as often. Most days, I can survive without driving. However, if this morning's battle with the snooze button morphs into a trend, I'm threatened by the thought of turning into a twentysomething winter hermit.

Now, for the soap-box dismount and glimpse of snowy hope:

"Maybe this year will be better than the last." -Counting Crows, "A Long December"

thanksgiving and alternators

Tonight, I drove downtown to visit Tim at the hospital.

Tim is a friend from our community who was in a 4-wheeler accident on Thanksgiving. He shattered some vertebrae in his upper back, but doctors performed successful surgery on Friday and Tim will make a full recovery.

We praise God for Tim’s health and pray for his recovery in the coming months.

Tonight, while attempting to "re-park" my car, it died. I knew last week she was tanking. I recently poured her market value into repairs, and mailed the final loan payment in last week. After years of interest, she was mine.

I didn’t get to see Tim tonight.

I got my first jump from a family exiting the hospital. They left. She died shortly after. I called Andrew, my trusty friend and business partner. He came and jumped her. I made it down the street, then she tanked, again. We jumped it and let it sit while I talked to Tim on the phone. Tim said he'd help but he was in the hospital. We started her up and coasted into the Wealthy Street Market parking lot, where she died. Again.

There, a man informed us we were stupid and were jumping the car for no reason; he told us the alternator was shot. It’s the same thing Tim, the hospital security guard and Andrew all said, too. I think they're right, I’m no mechanic. Cars and I don't click. Undeterred, we continued to jump the car, drive for a few blocks, let it die and repeat.

But we made it. Finally, we arrived at home, bulldozing in the wrong-way on a one-way.

On many nights, things like this would frustrate me. Not tonight. One of these days, I’ll get the alternator fixed, though I won’t lose my mind over broken-down cars, because they’re going to break again. And again. And again. In the big picture, a car has very little value. It’s just another possession. Tonight isn't about an alternator. It's about perspective. It's about thanksgiving.

Tomorrow morning, I will visit Tim, and I will praise God for his life.