Hipster is not a Dirty Word

After many years of trying to fly under the radar as a hipster, and by this I mean hiding my secret yearning to be hip by pretending to simply not care about anything, I am coming clean.... I love the Hipster! Let me ask you something, who wouldn't want to hang out with this????????
I know I do!
The irony in all of this, is that now hipster has become the ultimate insult. If you want to get a group of white people riled up, just drop the H-bomb and bear witness to the indignation that occurs. I now once again have found my timing to be impeccable. My next trick will be joining twitter in twenty years.

But for now, enjoy this preview of the sequal to STUFF WHITE PEOPLE LIKE, it is delicious.

SUFJAN

My wife and I and friends took the trek down to Denver this past Tuesday to enjoy the loveliness that is Sufjan Stevens. He played at the Paramount, a small cozy seated theatre in Denver in the heart of the 16th street mall. The excitement and beards were in the air and good old Sufjan did not disappoint. He appeared on stage with his shiny moon pants, angel wings, tape on his arms, and kicked right into a kick drum, electric guitar laced version of seven swans. The band consisted of two drummers, 2 keyboards, horns, guitars, and 2 back up dancers dressed in alien atire (awesome!).



From then on, it was all songs from the new albums. I wasn't quite sure what the new songs were going to sound like live, or how they would even be performed, but HOLY CRAP as soon as he broke into Too Much I was hooked. The new songs just straight up rock live, they are fun, upbeat, and cause your head to uncontrollably bob along with your feet. It appeared that Sufjan had been freed, and it was infectious, you could feel it in the air and in everything he did. He danced with reckless abandon, like he was drunk at a wedding, he explained what he was thinking with this new album and the freedom he felt from throwing away his old shtick. The Highlight was the 30 minute rendition of Impossible Soul, that included Autotuning (which was so incredibly cool live), The entire crowd standing up and dancing, and Sufjan finishing it off dancing with a costume monkey head.
So All of that to say, the concert was amazing, Go See him now!

I've been thinking a lot about music and how intertwined it is to our memories, how everyone person has unique experiences tied to specific songs, and hearing those songs takes you back to them. Well Sufjan has now been around long enough for this to occur to me. I stumbled upon Michigan during a bit of a rough patch, a confused, slightly angry, and very emo college kid. 6 years ago, my friends and I piled into a van and drove straight to Denver to see Sufjan at the bluebird theatre. It was a trip laced with aderol and completely random and ridiculous conversations while driving at 5 o clock in the morning.




Later I met my wife, and we passed back and forth mix cd's filled with Sufjan as we got to know each other. We danced in the car with him, and later got to see him in Austin. Eventually we got married, and my wife walked down the aisle to Vito's Ordination. And now, 5 years later, I got to see him again in Denver, coming full circle as it were. And it's really cool to look back 5 years and see that much in music.

Memory Lane

This morning, I was doing my usual get ready for the day stuff while listening to my shuffle when I had an old break up song come on. And I literally went back in time a few years.... To a simpler time; when I drove a gas leaking jeep, sold out and cut my hair, and was a lost confused guy (that last one may still hold true). It was amazing how one song by a certain Third Eye Blind could have so much associated with it. Oh the power of the break up song, are there any songs that hold more memories and weight?? I'm not sure. Irregardless, it's always good when you can look back and laugh at yourself, is there anything more ridiculous than emo Julian?
And so all of this got me thinking about break up songs and albums and how everyone has one song or one particular album that's an audio time portal. Mine easily is Third Eye Blind's self titled CD, holy crap its a break up album on steroids..... So without further ado it's time for some depressing break up songs from youtube!

The song that got this whole thing rolling...

The Daily News

I am tired today. I almost fell asleep in a meeting, I think my laptop computer screen is giving my face a fluorescent tan, and I have spent the last week drinking water out of a plastic keg cup because I am too lazy to find my nalgene. Needless to say, It's an ugly state of affairs over here, although I am wearing a polo shirt at the moment, which is fairly classy......... So now I will leave you with a few interesting news articles and a great Simpsons quote....."How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?"

American Religion Test:
This didn't strike me as too surprising.

A Boy and A Bicycle:
By far my favorite read, very very cool stuff.

And Finally, you can stream Sufjan's new album on NPR here
I haven't been able to give it as good a listen as I would like, but from what I've heard so far it is quite lovely!

The Little Things

Life is never easy right? There are a million forces pulling you in a million different directions; There's work and salary, and making a living; paying for things, iphones, facebook, fantasy football, life decisions, dinner dates, lunches, God and the list goes on and on. And if you're not careful, you lose yourself in all of it and lose sight of nothing other than your circumstances. And that is where last week found me. I am a frustrated graduate that is looking for work in a career that I have fallen out of love with, and so with all of the job searching/career change searching everything else was lost and I got sucked into the void that is feeling sorry for yourself.... I became Eeeyore. Which is not good. When your circumstances take over, you're not really living anymore, just sort of wallowing through life, and you lose all of those little things that make life so good. This is what I did all
least week, and it was awful. But not this week my friends! This is the week of gratitude.













For Chagall and love









Long Bike Rides











Foggy Cold Mornings

And Warm Coffee in the morning!

Journal Entry

Deep deep down; inside our rhythmic beat we have to feel that we are right and ok. We play in the grey, and draw a line to make sure we're ok. We talk ourselves into it and toe the line. Anything to make our means justified, anything so that we can sleep at night and carry on. Because deep down we know what's wrong, and we know we shouldn't; but if we are right, life carries on. And I think every person believes they are doing the right thing; we will always justify ourselves until reality intervenes.

Tour de Fat

Once a year the lovely brewery that is New Belgium puts on the Tour de Fat. A bicycle parade celebrating the creation of the bicycle, beer, and white adults acting like idiots..... enjoy!

Thursday

Here is a conversation from Tuesday that sums up my graduate school interactions:
Me: "You should have some cookies, we've got a bunch of extras."
Boss: "Why?"

And yes this is pretty much verbatim how it went down, sad but true.
Here are some good time wasters for you to get through Thursday:

NY Times article about a third world peanut butter paste

And My favorite current joke:

Sufjan!!!

Sufjan has come back from his sabbatical with a vengeance. It started with the release of All Delighted People last Friday and then the announcement this week of a new CD; The Age of Adz due October 12th. Sweet Sassy it is nice to have him back, there is no one out there right now that does a better job of songwriting. Whatever the song topic, be it a person, event, place, or emotion he is able to convey them through his lyrics so beautifully without being derivative, corny, or predictable. The song below illustrates that perfectly..... You have to skip ahead to the 11 minute mark, but trust me its worth. This is by far the best song I've heard in months. Enjoy!

Sun Kil Moon- Carry Me Ohio

I can't get enough of this song lately..... and I can't post actual music so YouTube has become my muse.

The Real World

I have been in graduate school for the past 3 years and it is now time to leave the nest. My first year of grad school a veteran grad student compared graduate school, or I guess any form of higher learning, with the stockholm syndrome. At first, you are miserable and hate your kidnappers (school), but as time goes on you forget about your horrible conditions and begin to sympathize with them. I'm realizing that I may have reached this point. I have been yearning to leave for years now and now that my time is finally up I'm a little hesitant. My working situation may be a hell hole, but it is a hell hole that I am familiar with. I know the routine and all the ins and outs, and if I leave.... everything will change and I will have to adapt to something new, which I say boo to. After having said all of that, I think that I'm ready to take the plunge and my employment options line up like this:

Whole Foods (Is it so wrong for me to still dream of being a hipster?)
Coffee Barista (See Whole Foods)
Some sort of random job (probably the most realistic choice)
Community College Professor (Eh? I could do that)
Chemistry Job (Kill me please)
Cool Chemistry Job (Doesn't exist)
And the Final choice: Back to school to do something I really want to do, public health anyone?

We'll see what happens, and now for your reading enjoyment, and A story that only happens in movies.

Here.

Spoon Jam

Some News

I recently injured my right hand attempting to do some white water tubing and the result has made typing rather difficult.... So today we have news links. Here are two stories I found interesting today while procrastinating at work.

Story 1: Higher Ed is a waste of money : as a grad student I find myself a little more interested in this article than I probably should be. The title sums up the article pretty well, and I found myself agreeing with most of it.

Story 2: Anne Rice quits Christianity: I still don't know how I feel about this one, but its definitely interesting. To be honest I find myself sympathizing with her much more than I thought I would. There are people much smarter than me that have said that the church is the greatest stumbling block for christianity, and I guess it certainly rings true in this case.
And now to lighten the mood a funny picture!

Avoiding Work

So i've recently started reading the Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, which is a very heavy read. Right now I'm on page 51 and I've had the book for almost a week now. But either way, I love Dostoevsky, his writing is amazing, and his life is equally as interesting. He was arrested in his twenties and sentenced to death in a Russian prison for his association with government radicals. He was allegedly pardoned from his death sentence as he was lined up to be shot. He finished his sentence, had a radical conversion to Christianity and a gambling problem and wrote some of the best novels ever. Here's my favorite quote from the Brother's Karamazov so far...... "Strive to Love your neighbor actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul." Love It!!

Update

So it has been a little while since anything has been on here, life is a bit busy right now..... so here's whats been keeping me busy in no particular order.

1. Latte Art...... I was first introduced to this when I started as a volunteer barista at Everyday Joe's. Needless to say I am a bit obsessed. Every latte is a blank canvas. Here is my best creation so far.








2. Ally's camera: See facebook, enough said.
3. Geek Love: This is a book that was given to me from a dear friend of my wife's. It is about a family of circus freaks, but it somehow manages to maintain a very simple human emotion.
4. New Planet Beer- Gluten Free Beer that doesn't suck! Colorado is very good to us.









5. Transference: The latest (semi-old) album from Spoon. Spoon has perfected being Spoon.
6. Teaching: Today I compared a compound to Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Kidman.
7. Oregon Roadtrip: My latest obsession.... Trying to unearth every little nook and cranny that Oregon has to offer and make the best road trip possible out of it..... Here's one thing I can't wait to see.....

Teacher

I just finished my first week as a college professor, yes that is correct, Bill Nye is in full effect. So far I have called a compound bisexual, told the class I'd been drinking, allowed world cup updates to be posted during class, and dropped the eraser too many times to count...... so needless to say, its a circus.......This whole class is the dipping my toe into the proverbial pool that is college level teaching. And it has lead to me putting a lot of pressure on this one experience, as if this is going to decide the rest of my life. At the slightest resistance, I get cold feet and write off teaching as a stupid idea, and then I jump back on board. The hardest part so far has been the role reversal of going from student to teacher. I used to show up to a class, text, draw goofy drawings in my notes and not participate, and now, my students do the same thing to me. Don't they know that I'm trying to help them! Don't they know that this stuff is interesting! I guess I can't really talk when I did the same thing.

World Cup

The world cup starts tomorrow, which is lovely on so many levels..... The USA will hopefully advance past the first round and allow me to get very patriotic and xenophobic at the same time. It's also the first world cup to ever be hosted on the African continent which is HUGE. It's a great opportunity for South Africa to show case it's culture, show that its economically viable, relavent, and a non-third world country.......As w/ all great opportunities a lot of pressure is involved, and South Africa HAS to appear like they have it together. As a result THIS is happening...It's the same thing that happened in Denver when the Democratic National Convention showed up, all of a sudden the homeless disappeared for a while....Why as people do we feel like we have to do this? I know I'm guilty of it all the time. I have to appear that I have everything together, I sweep the ugliness under the rug so nobody knows. Are a few scars and homeless people really that bad?

Haiku

Note prepping all day
Let me rest my head
And rock climb

The Immigration Bill

Here is an article lifted from Everyday Joe's: Immigration Bill

I know that the frenzy about the bill has settled a bit now and that I'm a little late in talking about this, but it took me a long time to really figure out how I feel about this bill.... and I'm not sure I have a definite answer even now. For me, the bill boils down to 2 questions. Is there a law or code that is higher than the United States? and If there is, which code do you follow? And each person has to decide those answers for his or herself.
The kicker for me in all of this is how quick and easy it is to dehumanize a group of people or a culture. These are people, not statistics, whatever ends up happening, it will be happening to people, families, children, men and women, and that scares me a bit. So after all of this here is the one thing I know, we are called to be light and love, and that is better than any law.

My First River Fish

I caught my first river fish flyfishing this weekend, and it was glorious! More fishing to come!

The Weekend Show

This past saturday the lady and I had the pleasure of catching a show at our favorite coffee house/church, Everyday Joe's. Sleeping at Last and Jeremy Larson drove out all the way from midwest to bring their musical goodness, and they did not dissapoint at all. Jeremy Larson opened solo on guitar and piano in tight pants and had the audience's full attention after the first song. Throw in a few subtle faith references and some witty guitar tuning banter and we were sold. Next up was Sleeping at Last who opened up with a ukulele and a beat and never looked back. Their music was beautiful and thoughtful and in between songs you could hear a pin drop as the audience waited eagerly for the next song. If you have some time these fellas are definitely worth a listen..... Also Sleigh bells came out with a new song that is absolutely incredible Enjoy.

Donald Miller

This past Friday the lady and I got the opportunity to hear Donald Miller speak for about two hours. If you ever get the chance to see him, go for it, he is quite the enjoyable, honest, and humble speaker. The talk was a pseudo book tour/talk for the sake of talking talk, and he went over the basics of his new book, a million miles in a thousand years, and went down a few rabbit holes along the way. Without really giving too much away, there were two thoughts he brought up that really stuck with me. The first, is the idea that being saved is the climax, or finale of our story..... That being saved was our big challenge, and now life will be conflict free. I don't believe that, but somehow that undercurrent of thought is with me.... somewhere deep down I've bought into that idea, and now when something goes wrong, I get frustrated cause life's supposed to be easy. The other idea, and this one is a bit of doozy..... is the idea that God does not have a specific black and white plan for our lives, and because we think he does, we end up spending all of our lives searching for it while life passes us by. I'm still not quite sure how I feel about this one, but I know that I certainly have wasted a lot of time waiting.
His new book is quite delicious by the way and is a very good read.

Sufjan Tuesday

The Wild Hunt

After months of listening to bootlegged copies of the Tallest Man on Earth I finally purchased his newest CD with eager anticipation. It is smooth, mellow, and bob dylanesque, and while his voice has been described as a cat stuck in a dryer, the man can pen lyrics like nobodies business:

And no I never meant to say these words but yes you ought to know,
That the dark is what I've always been, it will not every go, no it will not ever go

Spoon!

There was a time, be it ever so brief, that I was a musical hipster. Nothing got me going quite like the hot sweaty smell of a jam packed venue filled with skinny hipsters. Last week the wife and I got to take a little stroll down memory lane and head down to see Spoon. The last time I saw spoon I was in the middle of a serious bout with poison ivy. It was a summer concert and I was out in the texas heat in a long sleeve shirt..... But I digress. We arrived early, soaked in the loveliness that is hipster culture, and waited for the openers to get off stage. And then Spoon came out and brought it for a good two hours. They have officially reached full blown rock star status. They are just freaking good musicians, tight pants and all. Highlight of the night was the The Ghost of You Lingers, the studio version of the song does not do it justice at all....... And after the concert, we took the long drive back got home ridiculously late, and went to work..... Growing up is not advantageous to being a hipster.

The Last Supper

Holy week is upon us..... I always have a hard time really feeling the true weight of easter, and all that comes with it. Maybe it's the easter bunny and peeps, I'm not sure..... how do you really feel something that is this big and do it justice? Two things inevitably pop into my head this time of year though...

1. Jesus washed Judas's feet knowing he would betray him.... That is love.... and when I look myself in the mirror, am I washing my wife's feet? My friends? My co-workers? The people I randomly come in contact with? Even the people that make me want to jump off a bridge? The answer is a resounding not really (ok a resounding no).

2. John 13:18 quotes Psalm 41:9 and if you continue to read Psalm 41:10...."But you, O Lord, be gracious to me, and raise me up, that I may repay them!" we are repaid with love and not wrath.

Finally, a little old school music for your listening pleasure.

Dishwalla- Until I Wake Up

Joseph Arthur

I recently decided that I am going to try and write more things down and try and get as much out as I can. As such I figured reading more couldn't hurt my quest. I found this little poem by joseph arthur the other day.....

There is a healing
It comes thru words
Thru people
Thru angels of earth
Sent by him
You wait for the word
The word comes
You ask for help
And help comes
But it is a challenge
And faith is tested
And it may even seem
The whole has been
Abandoned
But you listen to your heart
And it tells you
In spite of appearances
This is not true
You are being led
You are being held
And you are loved beyond
Imagination
And he is walking with you
Thru the valley of the shadow of death
He is walking with you
Thru the bright light
Exposing all to those who see
Thru you
For some reason
Unknown to you
It is important that you rise
It is important that you see past
All dirt and dust
And that you return to who you were
When you were born
Only now
All the poison has turned into gold
And all the damage has turned into strength
And you have the empathy for those who have suffered
For you have suffered as well
Perhaps more perhaps less
But no matter
You have suffered enough
And your love is ready
To embrace the love of the weak
And to embrace the pain of the strong
Your love is ready to rise
Up out of death
And go beyond darkness
Beyond light
Into the heart of the beast in man
And heal
His insanity

Love it!!!!

1. I am going to try and post more
2. You ever have one of those weeks where work plays the grim reaper on your soul? I lost two days this week
3. I just read a story in Genesis of God's people tricking the Cannanites and killing them all when they are sore.... what do you do with that?
4. I had a woman give me attitude in a store today.... I was trying to do something nice for someone, and I all I wanted to do was scream at her..... isn't that the perfect example of duality.
5. Go here and listen to the Tallest Man on Earth. You won't be disappointed.

Well if I ever see the morning
Like a lizard in the spring
I'm gonna run out in the meadow
To catch the silence when it sings

Tallest Man on Earth

Pertinent

I recently went to a Yoga class, which absolutely kicked my butt... we ended with a relaxing meditation where we were supposed to only "focus on what was pertinent right this second, empty your mind". My mind raced for a bit.....work sucks, I just got dumped by Teach for America..... I have no clue what I'm doing with the rest of my life..... I have to finish laundry.... Be a good husband..... I want to hear some music..... And then I stopped, what is pertinent right now? God, that is it. That is all... Ever!

And now Peter Gabriel covering Bon Iver

Here's my life:

Married.......

Costa Rica.....

New Home.....

Waiting for the next step......

But loving the Tallest Man on Earth- King of Spain