Saturday, February 25, 2006

Rotten's Response


Johnny Rotten


Maarts, from The Vinegar Stroke posted the following note from John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten of the seminal punk band the Sex Pistols) on the Castaways forum and I thought it was worth posting here. It is, as soon becomes evident in reading the thing, Lydon's response to the news that the Pistols had been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Enjoy:



Bravo, Mr. Lydon. Seriously.
The Sex Pistols always disdained the whole system that makes such affairs as the R&RHoF possible and it would be the pinnacle of hypocrisy for them to attend and pretend that they were somehow honored to be inducted.
They've already made their statement, and in doing so they left their mark in an indelible manner not seen since the likes of the Beatles and the Velvet Underground...I mean, I won't even attempt to count the number of bands who were influenced by the Pistols or encouraged by them to pick up an instrument and start a band; even if it were only Joy Division and REM they would have deserved immense respect, but those two groups are just the tip of the iceberg of acts who have acknowledged them as influences.
And I think it's classy of Rotten to make his point in a note as opposed to showing up and making some grand nose-thumbing statement during the ceremony, which would have been controversial and legendary but would also be "working within the system" (using the R&RHoF as the venue would give publicity to the whole establishment, publicity that the Sex Pistols, already legendary and not a working band anymore, certainly don't need).

Friday, February 24, 2006

Last Night's Dream

In the dream my father and I are driving to the record store to pick up my brother, Charles. We've just been to the barber shop and both of us have new haircuts (his hidden beneath the Stetson hat he always wore). We're having a wonderful time together, such a time as I can't remember us sharing since I was a very young child, and indeed, I AM a lot younger in the dream.
We stop at the record store and he stays in the car while I run in to fetch my brother.
I find him and we look around for a few minutes at all the new albums before we leave.
On the way out Charles notices my haircut and mentions it to me. "You got your top chopped, didn't you?"
"Yeah," I reply, "Dad and I both did".
And so we get to the car, Charles climbing into the back seat, and in the back of my mind I'm thinking how odd it is that he's not fussing about "having to ride in back". I'd always thought of him as "Daddy's boy", they had always been so close, and I figured he'd want to sit up there with him. But he let me get in the front seat with no hassle and I thought that was swell of him, because I did want to continue riding shotgun with dad.
Charles and I got into the car at about the same time and he reached up and gave our father a hug and told him he loved him. I felt a tremendous wave of affection for him, too, and thoughts went through my mind of how a couple of years earlier he had died, but somehow, maybe a miracle, maybe a medical marvel, he had come back to life...but this was not like those stories you hear about doctors saving a person whose heart has stopped for a few minutes. No, my dad had been dead long enough for me to have very vivid memories of what it was like to live in the world without him, the loss and the grief still fresh in my mind. But there he was, sitting behind the wheel, waiting for us to get settled into the car, with that sweet familiar smile breaking out on his face when Charled told him that he loved him. He looked over at me and I felt a wave of love pass over me like a tsunami tide. I had to tell him something and I wasn't about to let it slide.
"Dad, I just want you to know that every single day I thank God for giving you back to us..."
He looked me in the eye and I could not read the expression in his face. No matter. I savored it for a moment as the realization slowly dawned on me that people don't get such second chances after they're dead and in the ground so...
this...
must...
be...
a...
dream.
I woke up into the real world where over 6 years had passed since I last saw my father alive. The dream was so realistic it almost broke my heart to leave it behind to waking life.
I have had similar dreams periodically over the course of the last few years. Some took frightening turns and some, like this one, were comforting. In all of them I come to the point where I realize that it's impossible for us to be together because he's passed on and I'm still in the land of the living. That's usually the point where I wake up.
I don't know what the dreams mean, and I can't say that I really want to know. They're bittersweet for me, but I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.
Maybe I'm naive but I've always thought that pleasant dreams were a glimpse of heaven, that sleep was a portal to another reality every bit as real as the one we inhabit, that such dreams are meant to be a source of hope for eternity.
As such, it is nice to see my dad and be with him in this manner as often as I'm blessed with these particular dreams. As I grow older and get closer to the day when we will be reunited I find that I can appreciate the dream as a reminder of how things once were. As such the waking and the realization of the difference between dream and reality are not as heart-breaking as they once were.
For whatever reason I'm reminded of what Jesus said, "With God all things are possible". In His sovereignty He has ordained laws of nature that, for our own good, place limits on human experience that demand terms like "possible" and "impossible". In the world of the spirit, however, there are no limits. Dreams take place in the world of the spirit where there are no limits.
I don't really know what the point of all this is...except that I miss my dad and I thank the Lord for giving me these dreams of him to tide me over until the day I leave this world and stand with all of my departed loved ones before our Saviour, together singing His praises and worshipping Him, celebrating with thanksgiving all the good things that come from Him...

Monday, February 20, 2006

David Crowder Band: A Collision

Took the day off of work, not wanting to drive 25 miles on slick, icy roads, so I'm sitting here in front of the compter listening to...



...and when it's done I'll push play again...I might as well push the "repeat" button, cuz I may want to hear it all day.
I mentioned in the RS.com Castaways forum that this is the most sonically rich "Christian" album I've ever heard...After hearing it a couple of times I have to revise that statement: A Collision is one of the most sonically rich albums I have ever heard...forget the labels.
Please, if you love inventive, original music, don't let the fact that this is music for and about God dissuade you from checking it out.

From the
band's website:

here is a snapshot of a small number of things that toppled into one another, resulting in our latest cd ­ a collision:

a book from the early 60's, neils bohr's model of the atom, the arabic numeral 3, the arabic numeral 4, a television show on the rural farm delivery network, cancer, a tsunami in east asia, the eschatology of bluegrass, an episode of columbo, country music legend/historian marty stuart, a jacket, a bomb, the barn behind my house, a conversation with a very intelligent acquaintance of mine who is currently finishing up phd work in super string theory, and who happened to mention, in very whimsical tone, one sunny texas afternoon, that we were, and i quote, "walking around in the sky." he said, while pointing to nothing in particular, "you see, there is the ground and there is the sky and we are somewhere in between. we're walking around in it. our feet are on the ground but..."

themes: an eschatological statement regarding death, mortality, good and evil, the second coming, the raising of the dead, oppression, deliverance, hope, bluegrass music, hiroshima, springtime, the quiet waiting that comes just before the loudest sound ever


Personal shout-out to my brother Charles (and anyone else with discerning taste in music):
BUY THIS ALBUM NOW!
You will thank me...

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Bono's Prayer Breakfast Remarks

I've long been a fan of U2...one day maybe I'll tell you how I clasped Bono's hand while standing in the front row of a concert they gave in 1983...and even though his methods have been unorthodox, I respect Bono's commitment to worthwhile charitable causes and his outspoken activism in the fight against poverty, AIDS and other societal demons.

The following is a transcript of his remarks at the recent National Prayer Breakfast, which I offer for your entertainment and enlightenment...

Thank you.

Mr. President, First Lady, King Abdullah, Other heads of State, Members of Congress, distinguished guests…

Please join me in praying that I don’t say something we’ll all regret.

That was for the FCC.

If you’re wondering what I’m doing here, at a prayer breakfast, well, so am I. I’m certainly not here as a man of the cloth, unless that cloth is leather. It’s certainly not because I’m a rock star. Which leaves one possible explanation: I’m here because I’ve got a messianic complex.

Yes, it’s true. And for anyone who knows me, it’s hardly a revelation.

Well, I’m the first to admit that there’s something unnatural… something unseemly… about rock stars mounting the pulpit and preaching at presidents, and then disappearing to their villas in the South of France. Talk about a fish out of water. It was weird enough when Jesse Helms showed up at a U2 concert… but this is really weird, isn’t it?

You know, one of the things I love about this country is its separation of church and state. Although I have to say: in inviting me here, both church and state have been separated from something else completely: their mind. .

Mr. President, are you sure about this?

It’s very humbling and I will try to keep my homily brief. But be warned—I’m Irish.

I’d like to talk about the laws of man, here in this city where those laws are written. And I’d like to talk about higher laws. It would be great to assume that the one serves the other; that the laws of man serve these higher laws… but of course, they don’t always. And I presume that, in a sense, is why you’re here.

I presume the reason for this gathering is that all of us here—Muslims, Jews, Christians—all are searching our souls for how to better serve our family, our community, our nation, our God.

I know I am. Searching, I mean. And that, I suppose, is what led me here, too.

Yes, it’s odd, having a rock star here—but maybe it’s odder for me than for you. You see, I avoided religious people most of my life. Maybe it had something to do with having a father who was Protestant and a mother who was Catholic in a country where the line between the two was, quite literally, a battle line. Where the line between church and state was… well, a little blurry, and hard to see.

I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays… and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God.

For me, at least, it got in the way. Seeing what religious people, in the name of God, did to my native land… and in this country, seeing God’s second-hand car salesmen on the cable TV channels, offering indulgences for cash… in fact, all over the world, seeing the self-righteousness roll down like a mighty stream from certain corners of the religious establishment…

I must confess, I changed the channel. I wanted my MTV.

Even though I was a believer.

Perhaps because I was a believer.

I was cynical… not about God, but about God’s politics. (There you are, Jim.)

Then, in 1997, a couple of eccentric, septuagenarian British Christians went and ruined my shtick—my reproachfulness. They did it by describing the Millennium, the year 2000, as a Jubilee year, as an opportunity to cancel the chronic debts of the world’s poorest people. They had the audacity to renew the Lord’s call—and were joined by Pope John Paul II, who, from an Irish half-Catholic’s point of view, may have had a more direct line to the Almighty.

‘Jubilee’—why ‘Jubilee’?

What was this year of Jubilee, this year of our Lords favor?

I’d always read the Scriptures, even the obscure stuff. There it was in Leviticus (25:35)…

‘If your brother becomes poor,’ the Scriptures say, ‘and cannot maintain himself… you shall maintain him… You shall not lend him your money at interest, not give him your food for profit.’

It is such an important idea, Jubilee, that Jesus begins his ministry with this. Jesus is a young man, he’s met with the rabbis, impressed everyone, people are talking. The elders say, he’s a clever guy, this Jesus, but he hasn’t done much… yet. He hasn’t spoken in public before…

When he does, is first words are from Isaiah: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,’ he says, ‘because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.’ And Jesus proclaims the year of the Lord’s favour, the year of Jubilee. (Luke 4:18)

What he was really talking about was an era of grace—and we’re still in it.

So fast-forward 2,000 years. That same thought, grace, was made incarnate—in a movement of all kinds of people. It wasn’t a bless-me club… it wasn’t a holy huddle. These religious guys were willing to get out in the streets, get their boots dirty, wave the placards, follow their convictions with actions… making it really hard for people like me to keep their distance. It was amazing. I almost started to like these church people.

But then my cynicism got another helping hand.

It was what Colin Powell, a five-star general, called the greatest W.M.D. of them all: a tiny little virus called A.I.D.S. And the religious community, in large part, missed it. The one’s that didn’t miss it could only see it as divine retribution for bad behaviour. Even on children… Even fastest growing group of HIV infections were married, faithful women.

Aha, there they go again! I thought to myself Judgmentalism is back!

But in truth, I was wrong again. The church was slow but the church got busy on this the leprosy of our age.

Love was on the move.

Mercy was on the move.

God was on the move.

Moving people of all kinds to work with others they had never met, never would have cared to meet… Conservative church groups hanging out with spokesmen for the gay community, all singing off the same hymn sheet on AIDS… Soccer moms and quarterbacks… hip-hop stars and country stars… This is what happens when God gets on the move: crazy stuff happens!

Popes were seen wearing sunglasses!

Jesse Helms was seen with a ghetto blaster!

Crazy stuff. Evidence of the spirit.

It was breathtaking. Literally. It stopped the world in its tracks.

When churches started demonstrating on debt, governments listened—and acted. When churches starting organising, petitioning, and even—that most unholy of acts today, God forbid, lobbying… on AIDS and global health, governments listened—and acted.

I’m here today in all humility to say: you changed minds; you changed policy; you changed the world.

Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives.

Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone.

I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill… I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff… maybe, maybe not… But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house… God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives… God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war… God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. “If you remove the yolk from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom with become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places”

It’s not a coincidence that in the Scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It’s not an accident. That’s a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions. [You know, the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor.] ‘As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.’ (Matthew 25:40). As I say, good news to the poor.

Here’s some good news for the President. After 9-11 we were told America would have no time for the World’s poor. America would be taken up with its own problems of safety. And it’s true these are dangerous times, but America has not drawn the blinds and double-locked the doors.

In fact, you have double aid to Africa. You have tripled funding for global health. Mr. President, your emergency plan for AIDS relief and support for the Global Fund—you and Congress—have put 700,000 people onto life-saving anti-retroviral drugs and provided 8 million bed nets to protect children from malaria.

Outstanding human achievements. Counterintuitive. Historic. Be very, very proud.

But here’s the bad news. From charity to justice, the good news is yet to come. There’s is much more to do. There’s a gigantic chasm between the scale of the emergency and the scale of the response.

And finally, it’s not about charity after all, is it? It’s about justice.

Let me repeat that: It’s not about charity, it’s about justice.

And that’s too bad.

Because you’re good at charity. Americans, like the Irish, are good at it. We like to give, and we give a lot, even those who can’t afford it.

But justice is a higher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment.

6,500 Africans are still dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug store. This is not about charity, this is about Justice and Equality.

Because there's no way we can look at what’s happening in Africa and, if we're honest, conclude that deep down, we really accept that Africans are equal to us. Anywhere else in the world, we wouldn’t accept it. Look at what happened in South East Asia with the Tsunami. 150, 000 lives lost to that misnomer of all misnomers, “mother nature”. In Africa, 150,000 lives are lost every month. A tsunami every month. And it’s a completely avoidable catastrophe.

It’s annoying but justice and equality are mates. Aren’t they? Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain.

You know, think of those Jewish sheep-herders going to meet the Pharaoh, mud on their shoes, and the Pharaoh says, “Equal?” A preposterous idea: rich and poor are equal? And they say, “Yeah, ‘equal,’ that’s what it says here in this book. We’re all made in the image of God.”

And eventually the Pharaoh says, “OK, I can accept that. I can accept the Jews—but not the blacks.”

“Not the women. Not the gays. Not the Irish. No way, man.”

So on we go with our journey of equality.

On we go in the pursuit of justice.

We hear that call in the ONE Campaign, a growing movement of more than two million Americans… left and right together… united in the belief that where you live should no longer determine whether you live.

We hear that call even more powerfully today, as we mourn the loss of Coretta Scott King—mother of a movement for equality, one that changed the world but is only just getting started. These issues are as alive as they ever were; they just change shape and cross the seas.

Preventing the poorest of the poor from selling their products while we sing the virtues of the free market… that’s a justice issue. Holding children to ransom for the debts of their grandparents… That’s a justice issue. Withholding life-saving medicines out of deference to the Office of Patents… that’s a justice issue.

And while the law is what we say it is, God is not silent on the subject.

That’s why I say there’s the law of the land… and then there is a higher standard. There’s the law of the land, and we can hire experts to write them so they benefit us, so the laws say it’s OK to protect our agriculture but it’s not OK for African farmers to do the same, to earn a living?

As the laws of man are written, that’s what they say.

God will not accept that.

Mine won’t, at least. Will yours?

[pause]

I close this morning on … very… thin… ice.

This is a dangerous idea I’ve put on the table: my God vs. your God, their God vs. our God… vs. no God. It is very easy, in these times, to see religion as a force for division rather than unity.

And this is a town—Washington—that knows something of division.

But the reason I am here, and the reason I keep coming back to Washington, is because this is a town that is proving it can come together on behalf of what the Scriptures call the least of these.

This is not a Republican idea. It is not a Democratic idea. It is not even, with all due respect, an American idea. Nor it is unique to any one faith.

Do to others as you would have them do to you.’ (Luke 6:30) Jesus says that.

‘Righteousness is this: that one should… give away wealth out of love for Him to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and the beggars and for the emancipation of the captives.’ The Koran says that. (2.177)

Thus sayeth the Lord: ‘Bring the homeless poor into the house, when you see the naked, cover him, then your light will break out like the dawn and your recovery will speedily spring fourth, then your Lord will be your rear guard.’ The jewish scripture says that. Isaiah 58 again.

That is a powerful incentive: ‘The Lord will watch your back.’ Sounds like a good deal to me, right now.

A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord’s blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it… I have a family, please look after them… I have this crazy idea…

And this wise man said: stop.

He said, stop asking God to bless what you’re doing.

Get involved in what God is doing—because it’s already blessed.

Well, God, as I said, is with the poor. That, I believe, is what God is doing.

And that is what He’s calling us to do.

I was amazed when I first got to this country and I learned how much some churchgoers tithe. Up to ten percent of the family budget. Well, how does that compare the federal budget, the budget for the entire American family? How much of that goes to the poorest people in the world? Less than one percent.

Mr. President, Congress, people of faith, people of America:

I want to suggest to you today that you see the flow of effective foreign assistance as tithing…. Which, to be truly meaningful, will mean an additional one percent of the federal budget tithed to the poor.

What is one percent?

One percent is not merely a number on a balance sheet.

One percent is the girl in Africa who gets to go to school, thanks to you. One percent is the AIDS patient who gets her medicine, thanks to you. One percent is the African entrepreneur who can start a small family business thanks to you. One percent is not redecorating presidential palaces or money flowing down a rat hole. This one percent is digging waterholes to provide clean water.

One percent is a new partnership with Africa, not paternalism towards Africa, where increased assistance flows toward improved governance and initiatives with proven track records and away from boondoggles and white elephants of every description.

America gives less than one percent now. Were asking for an extra one percent to change the world. to transform millions of lives—but not just that and I say this to the military men now – to transform the way that they see us.

One percent is national security, enlightened economic self interest, and a better safer world rolled into one. Sounds to me that in this town of deals and compromises, one percent is the best bargain around.

These goals—clean water for all; school for every child; medicine for the afflicted, an end to extreme and senseless poverty—these are not just any goals; they are the Millennium Development goals, which this country supports. And they are more than that. They are the Beatitudes for a Globalised World.

Now, I’m very lucky. I don’t have to sit on any budget committees. And I certainly don’t have to sit where you do, Mr. President. I don’t have to make the tough choices.

But I can tell you this:

To give one percent more is right. It’s smart. And it’s blessed.

There is a continent—Africa—being consumed by flames.

I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did—or did not to—to put the fire out in Africa.

History, like God, is watching what we do.

Thank you. Thank you, America, and God bless you all.

Sunday, February 5, 2006

Eclectic Compilation

Just finished burning a CD mix/compilation...an eclectic assortment of concentrated listening. Here's the song list and photos of the albums they are culled from...


Cocteau Twins..."Love's Easy Tears"


Penderecki..."Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima"


Ravi Shankar..."Prabhujee"


Gorecki..."Totus Tuus"


Autechre..."Gelk"


Steve Reich..."Electric Guitar Phase"


Krishna Das..."Om Namo Bhagavate"


John Michael Talbot..."Creed I"

XM Memory List-3rd Installment

Here's the third installment of my ongoing XM Memory List feature. These are the last ten songs that I heard on XM that really impressed me...the ones that make me want to track down the albums they are from and investigate the artists who put them out.
And once again there are only nine songs on the list...this time the reason has to do with pushing the memory button on a station that does not identify individual songs (in this case I happened to be listening to the BBC World Service).

1. Strawbs..."Ghost"
2. Husky Rescue..."Sunset Drive" (Husky Rescue are three for three in these XM Memory Lists...I REALLY need to track down their CD...)
3. Pit Er Pat..."Bird"
4. Brainstorm..."This Must Be Hen..." (incomplete title)
5. Sarah Kelly...Living Hallelujah
6. Faron Young..."Step Aside"
7. Aurra..."Are U Single"
8. Death Cab For Cutie..."Soul Meets Body"
9. Dolly Parton..."Sweet Summer Love"

More Excuses

I haven't been blogging very much lately. My artsy-fartsy Nausea & Bliss blog hasn't been updated since the new year kicked in (and I only did one post there in December '05) and the January '06 archive vault here in the Listening Room is pretty slim pickings...
So what gives?
I think a lot of it is just that I feel the need to get away from the computer for extended periods, and though this has become increasingly difficult to do, I can put a dent in the time spent online by avoiding the good ole Blogger Dashboard. Just a quick check to verify the barren condition of my e-mail account then a short glance at the Castaways boards and my cyberspace experience is manageably condensed.
But then I come around to the point where I realize how much time and energy I've invested in this particular blog...I would like to be able to update it more regularly than I do, but by the same token I don't want to clutter it up with excessively trivial matter posted simply for the sake of consistant updating. Truth is I don't feel like I've really had anything worth sharing lately...that, plus the things that I've had on my mind aren't really the kinds of things that I feel comfortable writing about in this forum.
And so we come to this juncture, where I find myself writing about NOT writing, about how the Muse and Inspiration both have been avoiding me like the plague.
They'll come back around soon enough, no doubt.
So please, don't give up on the Listening Room, dear reader and Blogosphere Jockeys...

PS...I would also like to point out, for no other reason than because I noticed it, that I have never recieved an e-mail response to anything on this blog...
So hey, be the first! My e-mail addy is in the right sidebar...let me know what I could do to improve the blog, whatever you might want to suggest.