Still Puzzled...

Allow me to recommend www.relevantmagazine.com [go there now]. What a great resource, what an entertaining read. Snippets:

Ever wonder how the U.S. military is getting Saddam Hussein supporters to cough up valuable information? They're playing them heavy metal music and children's songs. According to a U.S. sergeant interviewed by Newsweek magazine, Iraqi prisoners have never before heard the crashing rhythms, churning guitars and growling vocals common in metal, and it affects them like Chinese water torture. Songs of choice include Metallica's "Enter Sandman" and Drowning Pool's "Bodies." Also effective is the chirpy, sing-song quality of kiddy tunes, specifically the theme to "Sesame Street" and the music of Barney ...

File this under “who cares?” limpbizkit (that’s how it’s punctuated now) frontman Fred Durst recently announced the band’s new album will release September 2nd. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? If limpbizkit releases an album and no one buys it, will they finally stop making music? ...

I love the self-awareness and the slightly sardonic bent found within these pages. The mag's title is total truf: Relevant. That's it. I love things -- magazines, bands, artists and art of any kind -- that fill a void. Relevant does that, and no, I'm actually not paid by the mag... yet. Now that I'm pondering a switch of major [gasp!] in the fall, I think this is the my new mag of choice for which to write, if I can't create my own publication straight out of the gates [wishful thinking]. Many thanks to Erin Beneker for sharing this publication's existence with me, and if you're not a regular patron of her stuff at www.bennytown.blogspot.com, consider this your brotherly push in that direction.

Back to the subject of music, which is one of my gargantuan loves in life. Random musings:

I was quite stoked to hear an acoustic version of "Take Me Away" -- the latest underrated single from Lifehouse -- on Tuesday nite's season finale of Smallville [another guiltless pleasure of mine]. What song doesn't sound great -- if not better -- acoustic? I'm hardpressed to find one, so please feel free to indulge me. All I can draw up is Smashing Pumpkins' cover of "Landslide," and that just because of Billy Corgan's ingratiating whine. Back to Lifehouse [Life as a House?]: despite past radio overplay and subsequent backlash surrounding "Hanging By A Moment" [a great, great song when you hear it once a month], this is a good band. And, yes, I do own both of the band's albums.

Little-known facts: Lifehouse, formerly known as Blyss, started out as a worship band for a youth group in Malibu, Cali, at a church called Vineyard. That church is also responsible for birthing Kendall Payne's music into the world. If you haven't heard of her, you have now... download "Closer To Myself," "Scratch" and "It's Not the Time," for starters. Back to Lifehouse: Singer Jason Wade is the son of divorced missionaries. Indeed, he belts a throaty baritone that admittedly can be a bit annoying time to time and unabashedly rips off Eddie Vedder. That much I'll concede. But download his solo acoustic ditty "You Belong To Me" from the Shrek soundtrack, and you will not be disappointed. I included that track on "JP's Mellow Mix" [take one] that I handed out to a few ladies, and it simply made them swoon. Like ribbed sweaters, curly hair and the ability to dance, the song is a ladykiller.

I'm so ready for the new downhere record, entitled So Much For Substitutes, to drop June 10; not heard of this band? Think straightup Canuck rock. downhere is one of the more underrated bands I know of, and lead singer Marc Martel's voice is next to none... well, probably next to Sinatra, Bono and Chris Cornell, but that's about it. When this band played live in Warsaw's Central Park [not what you're thinking] last summer, I was pleasantly surprised. downhere's cover of U2's "Beautiful Day" was ultra-inspiring. Marc and the singer from Remy Zero are the best at channeling Bono's strong, soaring vocals. The band's set was tight and way too short, but after the music faded, the guys were so, uh, down-to-earth at their Mandated Table of Paraphernalia. I have to say this is the last great thing I remember coming out of America Junior up there. [Lord knows the people skills of customs officers at the border hit all the wrong notes.]

Heads up, Traverse City: A few great [or infamous, or both] summer concerts will be coming to my June-July-August home in Michigan. Hello, Norah Jones. G'day, Ben Folds and Hootie. Also making appearances: Chicago, Huey Lewis & The News, Peter Paul and Mary, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Judging by the summer lineup, I'm guessing the average age in Traverse City is 49.

And the Bloggie for Longest Personal Entry to Date goes to me. I could write for hours about anything and everything associated with music, and I've nearly done so. Life is a song, and mine is yet to be sung. I love music.

the stillness in your eyes
convinces me that I
I don't know a thing
and I've been around the world, and I
I've tasted all the wines
a half a billion times
came sickened to your shores
you showed me what this life is for

I wanna dance with you

Never mind the end of that previous post about how much I was enjoying the musical selection at this high school. K-Ci and Jo-Jo's "All My Life" just came on the WCHS radio show now. That was going to be my wedding song until my cousin Chris opted to make it his own in his 1999 nuptials. The track's tainted now. Hmm, what then?... perhaps Jagged Edge's "Let's Get Married?" [remix, of course]. Speaking of such things ['cause I know how many people right now really like to talk about marriage and kids!], my other cousin Josh, now a drummer in the Army, decided about two years ago to knock up some girl and bestowed the name Ethan on their son. That was definitely to be my second son's name [after lil' Toby Scott]. Now both my wedding song and my second-born's name have been pilfered. What next, my wife? Hah, long as I don't have one -- nor anything going on that even begins to resemble getting there -- she can't be taken! Take that... haters.

Man, I feel weird, a bit delerious. And for some reason, these kids I'm subbing for are in love with me. I'm thinking the two things aren't independent of each other.

Coming once again from within the walls of high school [to the tune of the IU fight song: "Oh Warsaw High..."]. Today: English 9 and 11 and a block of art also. I'm so versatile! These art kids are such posers... they want to be bad for me and are falling so short. What's up, patience... boo and yah. Thankfully, not having a prep period today means getting a pay bump up... THAT's a crazypraise as I'm strapped for bones and fear I will likely need to get new brakes and roters on the Black Bomber before heading to Traverse City. I'm feeling random today. Things are normal then - check!

I hope I along with some of my friends and everyone going anywhere this summer -- and those staying in Muncie or home -- experience healing and WANT healing this summer in and from different struggles in their lives. I believe God is in the biznass of gracefully giving healing and renewal to those who desire it and pursue Him for it. I believe right now He is in the process of glorifying Himself through our faith in Him being proven. This is shown through perseverance and, yes, struggle. I'm glad I'm struggling. It means I'm alive. If I wasn't, I think I'd be more than slightly freaked. I'd like to adapt a Hebrews 10:34 mentality: I know that I myself have better and lasting possessions than anything that can be confiscated from me on this earth. Yeah, I'ma claim that promise right now. In the words of Clive Staples, err, C.S. Lewis [my favorite author], "Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind." I'm leaning on the promise of those better things ahead, invisible as they are.

I introduced four friends from home to Homestar the other nite [www.homestarrunner.com, for the uneducated]. The new email was el lame-o sadly, so we then of course had to view FratBoy [proper name "Theme Party"] email as well, especially because my friend Rob is in SAE at Bucknell U. and we got a big kick out of that. Man, first Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" played, now Louis Armstrong is coming on the school radio station in that throaty voice of his, singing "What a wonderful world." And in this moment, I am happy.