02.24.06 - ember gig

yes, that's right, I said ember. true, they're the ones that beat us for first place in the controversial Crash Competition. but hey, they're good guys with great tunes.

they called me wednesday afternoon and asked me to play with them in California friday night. so I learned all 5 of their songs in 48 hours, we practiced the whole set once as a full band and we played!

it was for a good cause too - the silver ring thing is put on by the same folks who did true love waits (which Jodi did for me - woo hoo!). silver ring thing needed a band and called ember. ember needed a guitarist and called me. now look who's back in the 'circle of trust.'

this is a photo of the bass king, jonathan at border patrol (which was set up on the AZ-CA border for some reason), where we encountered a dog with a sense of smell so keen that it could smell imaginary drugs in our vehicle. after a stern lecture from border patrol, we emptied our pockets and they searched our packed vehicle for... whatever the dog smelled, and came up with nothing. i swear, we don't "puff the magic dragon" (last Meet the Parents reference, I promise)....

kinda blurry, but it says "Rockstars, $2.00" - more like a dime a dozen :p

laughing babies

bet you can't not smile when you watch this.

doctrine quiz

here are my results. I don't entirely agree with tests like this. and I wanted to challenge lots of the questions in this quiz. but here goes....

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this. Emergent/Postmodern 71% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 57% Neo orthodox 54% Classical Liberal 50% Fundamentalist 43% Modern Liberal 43% Roman Catholic 39% Charismatic/Pentecostal 36% Reformed Evangelical 32% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

spider story

David: an earth-loving person who has great care and concern for pretty much all creation.

Jodi: a self-proclaimed arachnophobe with a particular aversion to spiders.

on saturday morning, Jodi saw a spider and freaked. she asked us to get rid of it (she's usually yell "kill it", but she, for the moment, was being respectful of David's wishes). instead of assisting the two of them with their conflicting feelings and with removing said spider, I decided to sit back and see what unfolded.

the situation escalated when the spider began to crawl onto Jodi's suitcase. David was trying to divert the spider with Jodi's shoe. He was yelling "don't kill it" over Jodi's shrieks.

ultimately, Jodi, creeped out and controlled by her fear alone, took matters into her own hands. in a single motion, she grabbed her shoe from David and swatted the spider to a mush while shoving David and stepping on his foot in the process. I think David was more upset about his foot than the spider.

maybe you had to be there....

album review by... Ken?

hey y'all. check out this killer review of my record on ken's blog. flattery will get you everywhere, my friend.

4 gigs :: 5 days

saturday :: 02.11.06 - we had a blast at GJs for our second visit in a year. also of significant entertainment value: white folks clapping and trying to dance to the amazing hip hop that is vocab malone (see previous post).

sunday :: 02.12.06 - the Rock Church invited us back to lead a little worship. josh and I did the acoustic thing and he brought his cajon drum (no relation to the cajones). this thing is sick - it's a box josh sits on with a sound hole on the side. when he hits or kicks it in different areas, it makes different tones. it even has a snare inside for a high end "twap" sound. and josh plays it like a pro. gotta get this thing on record somehow.

tuesday :: 02.14.06 - Chi Alpha asked us to play/worship for their "cafe" at the Quo Vadis bookstore. more acoustic adventures - and the sound system worked this time - woo hoo! of note is the fact that wahba completely forgot the second half of our worship set. we were supposed to do 4 songs and I asked everyone to sit down after only doing two. what's that all about? though confused, everyone covered for me quite gracefully. a decent V-day was had by all.

wednesday :: 02.15.06 - tonight we jet back to grace chapel (the mothership of foursquare churches in these parts) to do a little worship at YFT, their youth group. maybe we'll see the guy who put an apple sticker on his PC laptop to make it look like an iMac....

02.11.06 @ GJs in tucson

last night we got to play GJs coffeehouse in tucson again. we co-headlined the show with phoenix's finest hip-hop artist, vocab malone and his collaborator, quest.


vocab sat in with us on "tug on my heart" and "ancient of days". it was totally un-rehearsed and loose - and vocab nailed it! he also threw down some tight spoken word (gotta get that on a recording, bro!). here are some more pictures....

the ladies.

kurt.

carl.

me.

toby from TCC.

more vocab and quest....

jodi wigs out

this weekend, jodi dragged me and some of our friends out to the phoenix art detour with the specific purpose of getting a wig. i guess they're not as expensive as she thought they'd be (and way less expensive than a color/cut with "jessica" - which is fine with me). here are some photos from devious wigs....

the Farrah Fawcett/Jessica Simpson....

and finally, here's the one she settled on. it's sorta like vivian's wig from pretty woman....

we win!

yes, I said "we"! birth and 22 years living in a town is enough to justify some ownership. especially when the town is Pittsburgh, and your home team just won the Super Bowl!

many other things to blog about, but tonight, we thank the good Lord for liking our team more....

bobby's emergent adventure

hey y'all. my friend bobby brewer has a great blog. he's another smart one involved in the emergent conversation. the only smart thing he has left to do is invite a certain Egyptian worship leader onto his radio show with him....

the dryness

as of today, phoenix has not seen any trace of rain for 105 days. it's the longest drought in recorded history for our county. yet there has been no warning/ban on washing vehicles, watering our lawn, or conserving water in any way. would you excuse me, I'm getting a little thirsty....