Today

This morning Jonathan was in my room. Because he lives here! His and Ryan's lease on the Beechwood house ran out this past weekend, so they moved out (Ryan to his new apartment, awaiting Christa his love) and now my room isn't all sparse and clean :-) Though it wasn't terribly clean before, anyway. Looks like he'll be working and job hunting a lot.

I gassed up at Sheetz on the way to NOVA this afternoon and it cost $40, but I only had 377 miles. Usually I can get 415 or so if I push the "E." Such is the price of the fast driving this past weekend. More on that later. For now, gaze at the beauty of my car!!!

This was taken on a Sunday night when Daniel and I stopped at one of our secret cool West Mifflin places that we know about and watched the sunset. And took this sweet picture as well.

J
P
B

y
a
y
!

That all was June 4th, a long time ago. But I saw the pictures on my iPod today and thought of it again.




So, about the fast driving this weekend. First off, we discuss WHAT I was driving.

<<< Secondly, we will discuss where we went. We went to Akron. Akron is where these people are. --->

Thirdly, we will discuss why we went. We went because the person on the right, plus the sister of the person on the left, plus a third person (Emily) were having their grad party. The triple threat. The party was Friday at 6pm, so we left around 3 in the afternoon from our house. It was a very well-put-together party, meaning the food was tasty and fitting, there were good places to stand around and talk, there was a field for games, and there was a purposeful time of acknowledging the reason for the party and honoring the graduees (heehee, new word!).

After hanging around till the bitter end (as always), my crew and I went to Steak 'n' Shake with 8 other peoples. We got shakes and a few got food (mm, chili mac), and had a relaxed and abundant time of enjoying each others' company and laughing a lot. It was there that I took the picture of the lovely ladies above. It was my second experience of "giggly Christin." :-)

Hah. Fool you are for thinking that that was the end of the night! We may have gotten back to the Hoffman's at 1:30am, but we weren't done. We hung out in this place

<<<

and watched "Signs" till 4am or so. Then I went to bed like the golden child I am while the other crazies played nintendo till 6.

Saturday morning I gradually pulled myself awake, and eventually decided that it would indeed be a good idea to go to guitar center for awhile before departing for Pittsburgh in time to get home to drive Mom and Matt to Carolyn's wedding. So we all got up, got dressed, packed up and headed out. And guitar center was closed! So we ate at McDonalds (which ended up being quite good IMO) till it opened at 10. We checked out acoustics and drums and a funky electric guitar there, rushed over to Lentine's to examine the bass amp Steve wants to buy, and then Matt, Justin and I headed out, 20-minutes past DDT (Desired Departure Time).


While I drove very fast and listened to Imogen Heep (the perfect music for the occasion), these guys did what you see them doing here.
When I was done with Heep I busted out Bon Jovi, which failed to wake the passengers. So we powered on, and then I started wondering where the 79 exit was. I had missed it, in a moment of distraction apparently, and now we were set for 20 miles of concrete medians, turnpike tolls, and 30 minutes extra travel time tacked onto a journey that was already late. I was quite ticked at that and tore us along at 90 or so 'till I saw a break in the median and yanked to a stop in the emergency pull-over. We ripped around Jason Bourne style and blasted back, cruising through the EZ-pass lane since I didn't know what to do with my toll ticket, being, as I was, unaccountably pointed in the opposite direction. So I was pretty much high on adrenaline, even as my mileage was low on sweetness. And nobody really woke up except Matt for awhile. I guess I was the "designated driver," sleeping last night while they partied :-) The hiccup on the turnpike completely nixed the appreciable time I had saved by doing 80 the whole time. Drat, and other words expressing my frustration at that waste.

Anyway, the crazy driving wasn't over. Mom, Matt and I were going to Carolyn Trunzo's wedding so Matt needed his suit, so I had to drive him to his house, and we only had 20 minutes. So I drove the fastest I ever have on urban streets and had an awesome time, sliding back into our driveway exactly 15 minutes after backing out. We made it to the wedding in non-destructively-late time, and proceeded to greet those around and watch the hitchin'.

That night was crazy because they had a DJ and after dinner he got everybody dancing. At first I groaned and anticipated an uncomfortable evening of forced physical merriment, but people actually just had fun with it, so I found myself out on the dance floor with the Caldwells, Rishels, Bates, Hertzogs, and even Mike and Chrissy Heymann. And Mom! Yes indeed, she was swingin' with the best of us. First time I've done something like that with church folks, and it was fun. I got SO sweaty...oy. It was fun chilling that much with Matt. Reminiscent of Youth Camp days of old :-)

So, that was the weekend. Sunday I played electric guitar as the main instrument, through the 70's Fender 75 awesome tube amp I just bought and will likely return 'cause I don't have as much money as I thought I did and I have $1000 of car insurance to pay and a trip to Japan in January. Then the Pirates game with Nate and Ken, which ended up being enjoyable despite choking humidity and then a 2-hour rain delay. Our seats were under cover, so we got to sit and watch one of the heaviest downpours I've ever seen. It went on and on, raining so hard for a few minutes once that we couldn't see a lick of downtown. The Buccos went on to win with an RBI in the 10th, which was SWEET. Then Ken made pan-cooked peppers, onions, shrooms and beef round for dinner. Good food. He's a good cook for the health-unconscious :-)

Today I worked 6 hours after class and a design group meeting. Good work. Listened to Bob Dylan's radio show on XM on the way back, which was cool. I could listen to that forever: a very knowledgeable and experienced music legend introducing and explaining eclectic, century-spanning songs.

Sorry, I'm probably losing your attention 'cause there no more pictures. So here. This is from Daniel's and my crazy Friday night two weeks ago. First we saw MI:3 with Nick Schuch and frolicked about the parking lot whilst pounding fourth gratuitious bass from my newfound subwoofer. Nick periodically stopped, faced the theater, cupped his hands and yelled with all his might "WE'RE AWESOME! WE'RE SOOO AWESOME!!!" :-)

Then Daniel and I tried and failed to compose a tenable plan to spend more of the evening with friends. So we took a virgin (to me) route to South Side and listened to Star Trek music, which utilizes the sub as little else has since.

At this point in the John Behrens Multimedia Blog Experience we ask that you click this link and allow the music to load in another window before reading further. Thank you from everyone here at the JBMBE team.

We pulled over into Station Square on our way 'cause we saw that Gin Blossoms were playing there, but we missed their show, so instead we walked on down past the sounds of loud music and loud people at the clubs, down to where the fence between the people and the railroad tracks ran out and we found ourselves under the gloom of the Liberty Bridge, in a concrete dump area for some industrial company. Then commenced a majorly sweet time of scrambling down to the river shore and wading about and watching the city and getting showered on. Then we wandered around the stuff by the tracks under the bridge, taking sweet pictures and being awed by the eerie stillness, the drifting sounds of the living city, and the movie-esque lighting. The temperature and humidity were utterly neutral, so it didn't feel like we were outside. What a time! Unique and unforgettable, and totally weird and sweet.

And THEN we continued on to South Side and got Gyros, sitting in the little restaurant amidst the mildly raucous Friday night college crowd watching the succulent lamb roasting before us and the employees spending their friday night slapping together gyros, dealing with drunks and grilling stuff. I'd put more pictures in, but photos.blogger.com is being belligerant and stupid, as computers so often are. Anyway, that Friday night was sweet, and there are more crazy and cool pictures from it.

I've changed my pocket arrangement, which is one of those little things that actually affects you many times each day. Rather than keys in my right pocket, wallet in my left and cell phone clipped to my belt, I'm going with keys in the back right pocket, wallet right, and uncased cell phone left. Carmex goes with the wallet when I bring it, mints and gum go with the cell phone usually. It works pretty nicely 'cause the keys are out of the rear pocket when I'm in the car, which is went stuff gets irritating back there. I like having the phone out of the case, too. Much slimmer and easier to use.

Ken's here for a few days. He flew in from Denver for one of his best friends Bill's wedding in Grove City. He leaves tomorrow morning. He is an interesting person, and basically thinks that the only life that has much meaning or respectability is living out on a ranch hours from the nearest appreciable town :-) He loves mountains like I love music and people. He might be going to Bolivia this fall for a month-long trip.

I have two WHOLE weeks of free time between summer and fall semesters, which I'm pumped for. I was hoping to do some big crazy trip, but Japan in the January (Lord willing) will take care of that, so I'm settling for dividing it up between Akron and here, and maybe Chicago. Work some extra days, remix some Pure Boss songs maybe, record stuff of my own...the possibilities are endless!

OK, enough brain-digging for now. Hopefully you, future John, are now caught up to some degree with your life right now. In general you are quite happy, though you wonder how long you can continue to be so in the absence of devotions. You're cutting down on music a bit to try to feed your mind more with God and His word. You're in a period of relative contentment with your social status and relationships, and you're feeling rather worried about Pure Boss, which seems to be drifting apart. You also don't know what you'll be doing after you graduate, and you don't want to work on job hunting. Boo. You've been playing a lot of electric guitar and are getting decent at it, though most riffs have been way overplayed.

Good night, fair future friend! Oh yeah, you need a haircut right now, too. Arg.

--Clear Ambassador

Been awhile, eh ol' boy?

Hi! Sorry I haven't been writing much lately. As in, at all. I dunno quite what's up--I just don't feel like taking the time to write about the sweet stuff that has happened. I usually feel an urge to document it so the memories are not lost, and often to complete my enjoyment of the events by recounting and recapping them. Not so for the last few weeks. I still need to write about the sweet Friday night of wading in the river and wandering around cement dumps with no shirt on and getting a gyro at 1:30am on Carson Street. And geez, Heather's mad sweet grad party last Sunday, and the whole wonderful weekend just passed. Hm. We'll see. Ultimately, I think it would be worthwhile to press through this dip in motivation to continue to document what happens, and more importantly, what I and others are like. I usually look on my past self, even of a year ago, with snooty contempt at how simple-minded and uncool I used to be. Hopefully the writings of this blog are preserving the very self-aware and thinking person that I am. It's nice to learn as you go, though.

So, there you go. Mike, you have a long-awaited RSS download from my blog. Now VISIT IT! Danmybro is sweet and Akron and Pure Boss are rather faded out at the moment. I graduate in December, Nate and I Lord willing go to Japan, and then real life starts. Or so they say. I'm still skeptical.

Beck, Imogen Heap, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Chemical Brothers, "Lifehouse" album, trance music and movie scores are all new cool music things. Care groups are just announced and mine still seems too good to be true. I wonder who I'll marry and when. I wonder if I should keep the Fender 75 amp I just bought. I can't believe a new nut for my old Strat cost NINETY-ONE dollars. *disbelieving exclamation of disgust and contempt* I haven't had devotions in weeks, yet somehow remain solvent spiritually, at least in some ways. I really wonder what will coalesce as normal once Daniel, Justin, Heather and Jess leave for college. I pretty much look forward to visting them at their colleges, especially Daniel and Jess. I can still hardly believe it's true that Jonathan is moving in with us in a week! Joy! In some ways I feel really smart and wise and intuitive. Like, it was unthinkingly obvious to me that the distortion section of the Fender 75 was patched in line after the clean section, not an independent channel. But that was like a big discovery for people who wrote reviews about it. I'm working harder at work now that I have a clear goal and a strong sense of necessity for the task at hand (EDNA). Classes feel mostly superfluous. I have hardly played an acoustic guitar for weeks, and I'm likin' it. There is a great weight of work to be done to bring my solo album to reality, but I keep pleasantly inching towards that goal. Imogen Heap is flat out beautiful-sounding. Daisy is flat out cute. Mom and Dad are care group leaders again! Yay for Dad's great gifts to be turned once again to the benefit of a group of people. I hope they appreciate the service they are already beginning to receive (Dad spent basically all evening working VERY hard on calling people, setting up meeting time and place, and planning our first get-together, and we just got the new assignments today!). My iTunes is fixed so I can once again rip CD's!

OK, I think I've vented and rambled enough. I closed my eyes and thought for about 10 seconds and nothing came to mind to say, so we'll leave it.

Mine is indeed a confounding cup of tea to drink, yet not unpleasant.

--Clear Ambassador

Muuuusic

I continue to be amazed at my ability to appreciate music. I say that so blatantly because I used to be very UNlike that, and I don't know what's changed, so I can't really take any credit for it. I just listened to Muddy Waters a bunch and enjoyed it (especially "Floyd's Guitar Blues," all 7 minutes of it), and now I find myself rocking my head to Led Zepplin - a band I used to despise. I've even enjoyed the light doses of Kenny Chesny and Jimmy Buffet that Daniel has played. The biggest surprise has been Bread. They're a soft rock/pop 70's group like the Carpenters, and I was expecting to be repulsed by their music as I was by Todd Rundgren. But I found myself loving it and listening to it over and over. Crazy!

Basically, for the last month or two, whatever music I've played I have thoroughly enjoyed (unless I'm too distracted to pay it reasonable attention). It's tricky, though, 'cause I'm gettin' my brain all swimming with music and it's crowding out God and spiritual things which I should be remembering, praying about, and acting upon. So, I'm trying to tone it down. But it's hard, 'cause I want to suck in as much as I can while this capacity for appreciation and education lasts. Oh well. In the end, nobody really gives a sneeze if I know what made Led Zepplin's music so great....except me. And in all seriousness, that's the opinion I care most about. Everybody else can think I'm an idiot and I honestly won't care, but if I feel like I look like an idiot, I'll cringe at the memory of it for days (even years, with a couple incidents).

All of which is to say, Music is sweet and I'm too full of myself. Now you can go back to your lives as you once knew them.

--John B

Baby Bluuue

Hooray! I recorded a new song this afternoon. Hooray because I finally got down to work and took an idea to completion.

After watching and Eric Clapton blues DVD with Nate I was inspired, and after diddling around for awhile came up with the main riff that constitutes this song. I spent around 4 hours playing it downstairs till I got it just about right, and then a bit more time mastering it with Ozone. I'd be very interested to hear how it hits you on your first listen, since I've lost nearly all objectivity from hearing it about 50 times.

Enjoy!

Baby Blue

--Clear Ambassador

##THUMP THUMP##

Once again, I'm writing about a minor occurence before I've journaled last weekend's trip to Akron, or hey, what about Youth Camp? Anyway, I wanna talk about my new suboofer!

Steve found it for me at his neighbor's garage sale. After some brand checking and haggling we settled on $150 for the huge dual 12" sub and a 1000-watt Boss amp. Great price considering either one of those by themselves could cost $200 or $300. So he got it, and I bided my time to finally achieve the dream I'd had for about a year.

Last weekend Steve and I spent the last half of Saturday, and the first half hour of Sunday, installing the woofer in my car. I was quite miffed by the EIGHTY-FIVE dollars required to buy the wiring and converter needed to install it, but oh well--it's still way cheaper than buying it new. I gained a whole new view of my car as we pulled off interior panels, found speaker wiring, pulled out the glovebox, and jimmied wires behind panels and under carpets. It was cool to actually do stuff on my car, which till now has been an untouchable machine. The coolest part ended up coming out of my greatest fear: the mysterious blue wire. I couldn't find any wires from the back of my factory stereo, and you need a remote activation wire (the blue one) to tell the amp to turn on when you turn your stereo on. Bummer. But we talked to a guy at Best Buy and he said it was just a wire from the battery, so we looped the wire we'd already run through a SWITCH in the DASHBOARD. Yes: I can turn the sub on and off at will with a slick-looking, solidly-installed switch down by the hood release. Sweet!

My first day with my new booming friend was rather unsettling. It was woofier and muddier than I had remembered Steve's being, and I feared that the money I had invested would turn into a let-down. But I worked with the settings on the amp, and my expectations began to adjust. The point really isn't to have the hairs on your arms vibrating, though that's fun at times. The point is that you can get great representation of the bass end of the music you listen to. So I adjusted levels and crossover points, and I've got it now to where the balance is good, and it's basically sweetly-kicking low end. I'm enjoying it more and more with every mile I drive. Also, some songs work well with it, and others just have badly-mixed low ends that turn to car-rattling hum and mud. Other songs, though....mmmmm

So, I like it! It's sweet, and I'll keep tweaking it to get it perfect. It feels weird to pull up to a stoplight and realize that if I don't turn it down, I'll be one of those sub-thumping jerks in the eyes of everyone around me. Strange feeling. But when I'm rolling down the road, a song is starting up, and when the kick drum comes in the car is filled with a sweet thud, it's pretty delightful!

I'm happy with it :-)

==Clear A==

Yooth Kamp

Well, I guess it's time to write about Youth Camp. It's always daunting to commence journaling such a long and eventful time, which is why I haven't yet.

This Youth Camp was fundamentally different from every other one I've been to. YC has always been a *magical* time, with seemingly endless days filled with nonstop interaction with special people, crazy activities, fun food and mindset-shifting spiritual input and application. This YC showed the toll of my increasing age and familiarity with extrapittsburghian friends as the whole thing seemed a bit more ordinary and the days slipped by quickly. It was seriously no more special to hang out with Craig than with Justin, and I felt like I hardly had any time to hang out anyway. Plus there is a teeming crowd of newcomers to the youth scene who I don't know. Last year I was somewhat of a celebrity during youth camp, bombing people with skittles from the cherrypicker bucket, putting together the Star Wars parody intro for the whole roasted pig Thursday night, playing on the worship team, writing a big letter to Captain Midnight that won our cabin the award for cleanest on Friday, and knowing most of the folks around. Plus I literally was taken from despairing spiritual dryness to glowing experience of God and joy. Pretty much impossible to top that :-)

So, given that there wasn't pixy dust, what was there? How do I want to remember this youth camp in the years to come? What were those days like?

Well, it started off by tossing some frisbees outside a pavilion in South Park as youth and parents arrived and pizza and pop awaited us on the tables. We ate and talked, and then left promptly at 12:30, obeying Mr. Pierson's firm orders. I rode with Mom, Katie Caldwell and Gabrielle Martin, and our van took a long time getting there. It was about 3:00 when we arrived. I wandered around saying hi and trying to find Joe Ryer, the head of YC, to find out what he wanted me to do. Direction didn't really come until the parents meeting at 4, when we got the low-down from Joe and got to sign up to help with games. I picked Belly Bumper Basket Ball (yay, Belly Bumpers were back!) Thursday and Noodle Sockey (best game ever!) Friday. Then the confusion trying to find out when worship practice was, who was going, who I could ride with, and how I could get in now and set up my electric guitar stuff. All those questions were answered, all those tasks accomplished, and so a few hours later I jumped to the front of the dinner line, grabbed a burger, ate with a few folks, and then headed over to Penn Run (the big gym-type place where the main meetings were held and all the guys slept) for practice. Though I was joyously honored to play guitar on the youth camp worship team (pretty much the funnest time you'll ever have in a worship band), I realized by the end that it did take a toll on my time with people. That and refereeing. I ate my lunches and dinners quick and early and was out practicing with the band or preparing for games while everybody else was eating, getting cabin inspection reports, and talking. By no means an unequal tradeoff, but a tradeoff nonetheless.

Worship was great, though I found out afterwards that the EQ was crummy on my guitar so nobody could really hear it. Oh well. People kept saying how great of a time it looked like I was having up there, and those that I asked said it helped them worship, so that's cool. It was a great time. The theme of YC was basically refreshing the gospel and such for kids who have grown up Christian, as probably 95% of YC'ers have. The messages really didn't have a bit impact on me, though they were certainly refreshing to hear. In fact, on Thursday night I couldn't stand it anymore, as the glorious truths of the Gospel being spoken by Stephen just bounced off my ears, and seemed to be bouncing off everybody's ears. I went back into the dark kitchen and prayed for the last half of the sermon, just crying out to God to open our hearts to these amazing truths that we've gotten so accustomed to hearing. That was the spiritual highlight of YC. That and David's message about the battle against sin and Mr. Altrogge's message about needing to use the riches God's given us. Those were sweet messages. The Altrogges are a ridiculously sweet family :-)

SO. Wednesday night, playing, message, then playing basketball and such and eventually setting up my bedding by Daniel, Craig, Nick and others, brushing my teeth in the men's room, and sleeping fitfully on the unyeilding concrete floor.

Thursday and Friday were similar: up, dress, pack up stuff, ride to the camp, go to prayer meeting a little late (highly populated this year), breakfast (as in, verb), chill briefly, then hit the morning session in the main room at New Horizons. There were team devotions after the session, in which I participated on Thursday. Friday I got Noodle Sockey ready. Then lunch (first in line, first to leave) and reffing games all afternoon. As I stood by the field and made calls and watched people play hard I felt the lack of getting hot and sweaty and tired with the teams doing the games. Ah, to be a team leader! Anyway, I was happy to help out. On Friday it rained substantially, and we kept right on playing, and that was sweet even though I got rather chilly. Yay for getting soaked and not caring! That afternoon I killed 3 Dr.Peppers as I stood by the goal and made calls and entertained the goalies. Mmm, that was some of the best Dr.P I've ever had.

After the afternoon (afterafternoon?) it was time for a shower. However, you see, I did not know that my first day, so I brought no additional clothing. Augh, I still cringe at the memory of besmirching my newfound cleanliness with the soiled clothes of the sweaty afternoon. *Jibbly*. But Friday I was one day older and one day wiser, so I brought a second set of clothes. Yay! Then dinner, then practice, then session, then sleep. So passed Thursday and Friday. Oh yeah - Friday morning I got up real early but missed the car Justin and some others rode in, so I sat at a picnic table in the pavilion outside Penn Run and read the Bible and prayed--a rather strange but pretty nice time of devotions. Ah, if only I did stuff like that in normal life. Ah yes, and Friday night we had skits! The theme was "youth camp games that didn't make the cut" (best theme ever!), and they had to include an adult. Steve claimed me for Code Red, so I had fun planning it out with them and practicing it. It ended up going really well, and was the best skit of the evening, as judged by the...judges. Yeah. Skits were sweet, and they always bring teams together in cool ways. Ah yes, and Mr. Altrogge danced a bunch in his skit, in addition to the amazing air guitar he performed before his sermon. Like I said--Altrogges...ridiculously sweet :-)

Saturday we got to sleep in a bit more, and there was no session after breakfast. Rather, we had the lengthy awards ceremony/thanking people who put this together. Code Red won, baby! I felt like they were my team, so I was happy to hand out the big chocolate bars that constituted the immortal prize won by their supremacy. Then it was clean-up time, which I pretty much didn't participate in because it was all pretty much done by the time I got out the building (ooh, droppin' dat gangsta speak on y'all!). 'S cool--there was lots of help and lots of time. I loaded up on half-price snack trailer snacks, gave big Nate a Dr.P before he headed out, signed a few people's books, and then we congregated to feed upon lunch vittles. Mm mm, more processed, white, high-carb, low-vitamin American food! Then the good-byes, more book-writing, though I didn't sign very many, and then heading out. Mom and Dad had come up Friday morning, so we rode in the van with them and Mike Q. All Pittsburghers stopped at THE MEADOWS, an ice-cream place that you simply cannot not stop at when your around Indiana, *tsk*, which was cool. The ice-cream really was good, too--a great balance of creaminess and iceiness. Then we split up and headed home, and I drifted in and out of sleep as the others talked about YC. I apparently slept solid for awhile, and the awakening occured hazily and gradually, so I was rather weirded out when we were heading up the hill to the house. But it was all good, the sleep was sweet, and it was really nice to have Mike along for the drive. He's a good egg. And he reads this blog, so that makes him a double good egg. Yeah Mike, you double-egg goody! ?? oy.

Anyway, I think this YC post is done. I'll probably read it over in awhile and add more stuff that I forgot, but for now it's out there, and dat's coo', and i'ma check out Daniel's pictures from our crazy night out on the town (another post for another day). It's freakin' 4:15am man!!

Good night. YC was fun, and I need to remember the sermons and not let them fade. I've been given amazing riches in my life, my upbringing, my salvation, and my situation. Do I view them as belonging to Someone else? Am I just twiddling them away? What should I do with them? Such should be my serious considerations. Lord, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven, I pray.

--Clear Ambassador (That's actually just me, John)

Pledging Allegiance

[I'm working in the youth camp post, don't worry.]

Part of Mom's "4th of July Patriotic Program" for the late afternoon/evening of said holiday was all of us standing out on the front patio and saying the pledge of allegiance as we faced the flag hanging outside our door. This physical ritual stirred me to actually consider the words I was speaking as I held my right hand over my heart. I don't want to go on and on about this, attempting to extract deep indicting meaning from an epiphanaical personal experience, but I do think it is interesting, beneficial, and a bit shocking to think of what you're saying and doing when you pledge your allegiance to the flag.

Committing yourself to this nation is not a meaningless patriotic apple pie starry-eyed anachronistic ritual. As I said those words I thought of all the things I despise in America--all the goverment officials, offices, practices and problems I have hated and despaired over, all the things that rankle me in the great swarming creature that is the goverment of the United States. I was pledging allegiance to that.
I was promising to support and ally myself with that one ship in the global sea. So much of geopolitics is taken for granted in my mind that country borders seem more like relics of the past that happen to be how we distribute the colors in our World Atlases. However, even as communications technology and force-fed cultural appreciation make the globe seem like one big college campus, there is a kernel of a NATION that remains, and I held my hand over my heart, faced the flag that represents that nation, and pledged my allegiance to it.
It's not as drastically and personally applicable as a marraige vow, but philosophically, it's no less serious. And it sobered me as the words came out of my mouth. Think of them not as pre-existing words like a poem or a saying, but rather speak them as though you yourself were saying them from your own mind and mindset:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States of America
And to the republic for which it stands
One nation under God
Indivisible
With liberty and justice for all.

I really don't know what to think about most of America, internally or externally, but I've pledged her my allegiance, and however that shakes out in the future, I've committed to that.

--Clear Ambassador

Good Time

Well, I'm in the middle of a good time right now. I've had meaningful devotions I think every day this week, even if only a few minutes in Philippians. I worked out three times, yesterday being a very enjoyable time of doing whatever I wanted, working myself without nasty strain. Wednesday evening I FINALLY, FINALLY wrote great words to a song I've had written for a year, and recorded almost all the vocals beautifully, to match the perfect, scintillating guitar already recorded. The song is beautiful, in every way. This morning I aced (from my point of view) a Reactive Process Engineering exam, but more importantly, I buckled down and worked for hours and hours studying for it Wednesday and Thursday. I just ran up 10 flights of stairs (22 steps per flight) to get to this computer lab to print off four great articles I found for the kinetics design project I've been dreading but made myself work on after the exam this morning. I just ate a containerful of delicious mexican-ish bean/rice/meat stuff that perfectly met the gnawing hunger that developed as I researched in the library. Do you have any idea what that feels like for me? I actually DID things that needed to be done. They were hard. They were dreary to anticipate. But I did them, and wasn't a baby about that. The sickening cloud of disapproval that usually presses on me from undone tasks is lifted, at least in this area. I HAVE worked out. My body feels somewhat solid. I DID study long and hard. I used my recording equipment. I had quiet times, and they really meant something!

Yesterday I actually took purposeful joy in being saved, even after a depressing and difficult session of studying for a hopeless-feeling exam. Today I came across a verse (more like really fully noticed and noted it) that I call my verse, because it clearly and plainly prescribes treatment for my plaguing pride and self-centerness, particularly regarding interactions with others. I wrote it down on a bookmark in my bible like this (the underlines are just spacers. Disregard them):

Let nothing be done
through selfish
______ambition
or ____conceit,
but in lowliness of
_____mind
let each esteem
others better than
himself.
Phil 2:3

It's pretty clear what to do: If I'm doing something for selfish ambition, DON'T DO IT. If I'm doing it through selfish ambition, DO IT DIFFERENTLY.

I'm sure these are just more words bouncing off your head like most spiritual writing bounces off my head (especially from other people's blogs), but they actually soaked through my skull as I read them today, and they mean something to me. Not a grand amazing new meaning, just their actual, simple word meaning. If my mind could be opened and I could read scripture, in one hour I'm sure my life would be forever changed, and my brain would probably explode.

I'm going to finish this post, grab the articles I just printed, and go lay on the grass in the sun for 30 minutes and then catch a bus home.

I write this to document what it feels like here at the peak. I feel like my life is measuring up to the markers. Past experience predicts a horrible trough on the horizon--failing catastrophically in anger or some other sin, ditching devotions, skipping working out, or even just wasting my time over the weekend--but I'm not so sure that has to happen, though I doubt I can stay at this peak indefinitely. Should I? Is this what life lived rightly, apart from external circumstances, should be like? Is it wrong to feel wrong when I'm not living like this? Is my life on the way up, or is this just another few-day peak before I descend to the misty swamp where I normally walk? Should I expect to "be on the way up" at all?

I do think I've come one step closer to rejoicing in being saved, no matter what's going on or what's coming up.

--Clear Ambassador

What do I do?

I was gone from home for twelve hours today. As I glanced at the clock and realized this while unpacking my stuff just now I thought, "where was I?" "What was I doing?" "This was a day of my life, a day like many, and it's mostly gone. Where did it go?" So, here's where it went:

I drove to Pitt at 8:45am, getting to class 10 minutes late. I slept through appreciable portions of the 30-minute short class, borne down under the unexpectedly strong post-Youth Camp tiredness. Jenna and I knocked out two problems of homework #6 before her class at 11, and then I went back to the car to refill the meter. Ditched my backpack, jogged to the Peterson, and worked out while listening to the first sermon in the series "Man with a Maiden," from Covenant Life Church.

After working out I had a little time left on my meter and a lot of hunger for meaty food, so I got cash, got a gyro, and got a 44-oz Mountain Dew with shots of Blue Raspberry flavoring. So good! Then the drive to NOVA, waiting for an alarm to clear so I could get in, and then 4 hours of work finishing up the SARA 313 report that's due July 1st. It's finished.

I debated it and almost just went home, but time with Jonathan is hard to come by, so I drove to the House of Hughes (which only took 40 minutes!) and had pizza and Sam Adams with Nate, Ryan and Jonathan. We had good times joking around, listening to "Hot Fuss" by The Killers, and jamming with 3 guitars while Ryan studied. I left after a good string of improv at 8:45pm.

Now it's 9:30, I'm writing this after checking my email and MySpace, the iPod is updated, it's too hot to wear a shirt 'cause we turned the AC off, and now is the time to finish up my evening, decide if I want to finish the U2 DVD before my quiet time (or after), and not stay up excessively late.

We're all sitting around the living room. Daniel's feet are in my face as he rests them on one of the little tables and sits on the big couch opposite me. I'm hunched over my laptop, which is on the other little table. Mom has been sitting in the huggle chair by the computer and Dad just moved from that computer to the other huggle chair. A fly is buzzing around periodically, the kitchen fan is sending spinning shadows across the ceiling, and I feel like every inch of my skin has an indelible layer of heat and sweat swimming over it. Oh for some moving air to disturb this humidity! We're a family. It's cool to be together on nights like this when it's not FAMILY NIGHT, it's just night, and we're a family, all in the house at the same time, in the same room. I want a haircut again.

--Clear Ambassador

Stuff About Me

This is my 101st blog post! That seems like a lot.

Stuff about me that will hopefully represent some corners of myself at this time for my future self and all of posterity who will be clambering to know about me:

Phrase I came up with about myself and used a few times and now am purposefully not using so as to not overuse it: social sensibilities

Current most over-used, banal phrase: good times

Thing I should be doing: eating appreciable breakfasts

Thing I really should be doing: working out

Thing I really really should be doing: having devotions every day

Current weight: 143.2 lbs. Down 2 pounds from before Youth Camp

Current injuries/bodily nonidealities:
- worn away middle finger nail on my left hand, from playing guitar. The skin under the nail is torn from playing so hard, too.
- double-split thumbnail on my left hand, from blocking a frisbee throw today
- messed-up tendon inside my left knee from something today, perhaps an unexpected skid on the wet frisbee field or standing with it locked for too long sometime
- Believe it or not, clearly visible marks on my left leg, one from the ice skates on New Year's Eve, and one all the way from my collossal shin smash into the Hoffman's backyard stage in September of last year. Geez. Can my body heal itself?
- zits on my back
- Skinniness (Is he joking? Is he not?)

Song running through my head at this moment: bass line from "Playboy Mansion" from U2's album Pop. Interspersed with "But if god will send his angels" from the song by that name.

Currently anticipating: Being involved with the youth at PChOP

Currently enjoying memories of: Leading worship at church this morning and adding to the post youth camp discussion after frisbee this afternoon.

Way I've changed within the last year: I've become much more flippant and [over]familiar in my writing and in talking with people

Most recent purchase: Subwoofer and amp for my car for $150 from a garage sale (mediated by Steve in Akron)

Profound thought: real life sucks. I'm not cut out for it.

Current flippant wish: That I didn't have to go to school or work tomorrow

Current deeper wish: That I wasn't the kind of man who wished he didn't have to go to school or work tomorrow

Current most not-looked-forward-to item: Working on the design project for Reactive Process Engineering

To-do this week: Learn the material for the RPE test Friday and have quiet times

Time to stop writing and go to bed: now

Ah, how I love thinking about myself, analyzing my performance, potential, motives and place in my surroundings, and likewise analyzing others around me. I reckon I look pretty self-involved, or full of myself, to others. Hm. I dislike people like that who I know (I can think of two right now). So do people dislike me like that? If not, how undeservedly kind of them! I would hate myself if I could duplicate myself and have the other one of me not be me.

Mr. Pierson is the coolest pastor and guy ever.

I'm totally clean and perfect before God right now.

--Clear Ambassador

YC in 14 hours

Well, I didn't think I'd be saying this for years and years, but

I FOUND A GREY HAIR IN MY BEARD!

Kinda scary. I dunno. Maybe it's just blond. Maybe I'm part Californian! Switchfoot, here I come!!

Youth Camp is tomorrow, and I've packed nothing but my electric guitar gear. And I'm very tired and would like nothing better right now than to just lean over a little further, slip off my headphones and collapse into oblivion. What hurts is that knowledge that, as I keep fighting to keep myself going, I'm denying my body rest it desparately needs. My joints have been getting irritable, which happens when I start accruing a long-term sleep deficit. I've already only *barely* written the final paper for Short Stories. Good thing this isn't Kafka, or I'd be SO dead. *shudder*. As it is, I think this paper wanders, misses some key points, and is raggedy when it could be tight and punchy. But those things haven't been harped on by Kate, our grad student teacher, and I think she'll like what I've written. *sigh* It hurts to let this paper go like this, but it hurts worse to think of the work it would take to make it solid. Low standards....what can I say?

That's pretty much it. Who cares about all the long-term things I'm unsure of, the grinding miserable ignorance that surfaced in Reactive Process Engineering this morning, all the many aspects of YC coming up, all the other million things I could devote pages to if I chose to. All I care about right now is getting my packing done and going to sleep. Shower tonight or in the morning? How am I going to do it in the morning? Get up in time, shower, drop off my paper before transport, and hoof it back home in time. Oh well. I will pack, I will sleep, and I will make it work, whatever happens. I wish I had the control to wake up when I need to. It would make my life fantastically better. How bitterly funny that so much of my life ends up hanging on when I am able to force myself to go to bed and when I can make myself wake up. Sleep. It cripples humanity by design. Reminds us that we're not gods. Sometimes I wish I was one, though :-/

Peace,

--Clear Ambassador

Prayer Request

OK, so, I'ma gonna set the stage for a nice before and after picture of Youth Camp. Below I have pasted the contents of an email I sent to my men's group from church asking for prayer for YC. I've been feeling quite desperately inable to carry myself in a Christ-like mannar at YC, and this represents my concerns. In 5 days we'll see what God has done!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Hey guys!

I'd like to ask for your prayers for myself for Youth Camp. I always deal with trying to impress everybody, being self-centered, and getting caught up in hanging out and forgetting to be purposeful and godly in what I do and say, and YC threatens to take that propensity to cataclysmic heights (or depths). I've been praying a lot and feeling my vulnerability and weakness in that area.
In particular, I'm feeling sharply the need to reach out to new people, people I don't know well and may not even like much. I would much appreciate your prayers for God to supernaturally help me keep that in mind in the whirl of youth camp--something I have no capacity to do myself. My other main prayer has been for God to kill my pride. Not just *not indulge it* or *help me be whatever*, but to just KILL it and glorify Himself, whatever that may look like. Especially as I'll be the only non-LOLC'er on the worship team, playing electric guitar no less. Arg, I tremble for my stupid ego.

Thanks! I feel weak, but I know God can do great things ('cause He has in the past), and I'm always confident He has no problem glorifying Himself and getting me out of the picture :-)

Hope y'all have a good time being at not Youth Camp!

--JPB

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I'm also feeling the need for God's help as I prepare to lead corporate worship for the first time ever at PChOP this Sunday, a few hours after returning from YC. So, we'll see what He does there, too!

It's nice to know I can throw all this stuff into God's hands and not worry that it will turn out bad. In fact, it's like going grocery shopping with Grandparents--you get cooler stuff than you expect, and they're not on a budget :-)

Peace in the East, love from above, and sleep in the deep,

--Clear Ambassador
(actually, I need to get pinstripes for my toms)

*Squeak Squeak*

I'm so excited and happy! I brought my studio headphones upstairs to listen to some music on my laptop. These are headphones so brutally honest they almost don't sound good. It's like looking at a landscape with glasses on when you've got astigmatism.

So, so, I was listening to Phil Keaggy, an' it was a spanish guitar song, an' I heard his bench squeak in the background!!! There, in a world-class recording, perfect-sounding, jumping out of the headphones into my ears, he shifted his heine and his bench squeaked as he ripped off unearthly cascades of beautiful nylon-stringed notes. YAY! These are indeed real recordings of real people actually playing this stuff! Professional recordings are so good I wonder sometimes.

--CA

Hmmm... according to Steve Hoffman

Ok, so I'm randomly blogging on John's site for no apparent reason, but seeing as how I'm the only person who ever reads these things, it shouldn't make too many waves in the real world. Ha! Burn! For those of you wondering "who the hexigon is Steve Hoffman," no i'm not some strange hippie who hacked into a random blogg spot. Coincidentaly enough I am a friend of John's, and he does know I'm doing this. John and I met a couple years ago when he he first came to Akron to record a couple songs for his christmas album in my brother's studio. Our corprate musical genius fused and flouished one fatefull night producing a techno rap featuring the voices of yoda, gollum JarJarBinks, and Obi-Wan-Kenobi. *Sigh* the chemistry... So then me and my buddy Brian got him in our band Pure Boss... which you may have noticed, he writes quite a bit about.
So enough about John, let's talk about me :) i guess i'll add a profile like you would on some lame web site, 6'3", long brown hair, brown eyes, and quite cute... oh yeah and naturally-pouty lips. I am single and looking for a wife. I'll just throw that out there, lolz!

Stephen has apparently given up, and is now reclined in a chair hugging a guitar and mumbling about his wife hunt. So I shall end his post by remarking that few people I have ever been privelidged to know have the ability to both listen well and talk to keep a conversation going that he has. I'm grateful to be his brother, even if he is vain about his tan :-)

--Clear Ambassador and the Drum Stick [that would be Steve]

Sayanora Stephanie

Last night I said good-bye to one of those people who defy the short time you've known them. The Mittelmans have been coming to our church for about a year now, and for maybe half a year Jess's best friend Steph has been coming to church and church events. I didn't know either of them at all until a couple months ago when I started hanging out with Daniel again after a crazy blur of Akron stuff.

One night the four of us hit up Taco Bell to try the new Ultimate Chalupa and ended up on Mud Mountain, the ridge behind Wal-Mart overlooking the tonka truck playground and miles of shopping centers in which we live our suburban lives. The moniker derives from the copious, clinging mud that had formed from the day of rain preceding our adventure. Much of it still resides in my car :-/

Two weekends ago the fab four went to a Pirates game on a Friday evening. We got dinner at the food booths for the art festival, which was way cool. There was a good chance of rain that night, and it did indeed fall. And naturally, because we had buy-one-get-one-free coupons we got nicer seats...which were out from under the overhang. We braved four innings in the rain, eventually getting so thoroughly soaked that wetness and rain became irrelevant in the face of the memories being manufactured. Jess was getting over a post-NA cold, though, so we retired to cover for the fifth inning and then left. The game was called after the sixth inning with some abysmal score like 7 nothing enemies. The girls were great sports, though, which I appreciate. We slogged back to my car where I cranked the heat and distributed my two dry jackets. Biblical masculinity scores again! To cap the night off we went to The Cheesecake Factory at South Side Works and had some rich desserts and good fellowship. Quite a night :-)

Tomorrow Steph leaves to spend the summer with her Mom in New Jersey, from where she will leave for college in the fall. So I got Daniel to get some folks together for a good-bye get-together at Applebee's last night. Justin, Luke, Anna, Heather, Matt, Nick, Danmybro, Jess, Steph and I overfilled our booth and entertained ourselves with great joviality and consumption of food and use of cameras. When at last the longsuffering employees asked us to leave we headed to Mud Mountain, dry this time, and had a nice time praying for Steph while we surveyed the spotty lit-up world below us and contemplated the precipitious drop by which we stood. Then hanging around being silly and taking pictures on the great plane of Wal-Mart's side parking lot, and at last we parted our ways. Nick came back to our house and stayed the night, which was fun and gave a pedestrian Wednesday night the feel of a summer weekend. Too bad I had to get up at 7:52 and give a presentation at 9.

So, bye Steph! Thanks for entering in whole-heartedly into the life of Providence Church, and for following God in an honest and real way. *droning voice* Once again I shall pronounce over thee the blessing of the Aaronic priesthood for the children of Israel:

The Lord bless you and keep you
The Lord make His face shine upon you
And be gracious to you
And give you peace.
















See ya 'round the net!

--Clear Ambassador

PHNWD

Praise His Name With Dancing

It's more than a moniker, and this weekend I got to experience the apex of the yearly cycle of its existence: the June show.

PHNWD is the dance company run by Mrs. Hoffman, my "second Mom." Dancing classes fill a large portion of a normal week in the Hoffman household, and every year the 140 or so students from all the ages and styles taught put on a grand, God-glorifying show, which over the years has become a respectable community event, and a profound experience for many. Dancing that wholeheartedly and wholebodily worships God is starvingly rare. Most "Christian" dance companies are like most "Christian" bands--doing what the world does, just skipping the nasty stuff and throwing the Jesus word in. Mrs. Hoffman and her girls work through each piece painstakingly to express, through the medium of moving bodies, God's goodness and our response to it. It is quite interesting for me to watch the shows (I've seen last year's June rehearsal and Christmas show) and think of how they think in dance like I think in music. This year I went to both performances (Saturday eve and Sunday aft), and really enjoyed them. The pointe dances especially were beautiful, and many of the pieces accentuated their music in a way nothing else really can. The "togetherness" of the dancers wasn't always great, which bothers my mind, but almost all the time I still enjoyed and appreciated the choreography, and several times I really got lost in the beauty of sweeping sleeves, shimmering skirts, and the visual spectacle of people moving together, seeming to flow as one expressive unit to the music and truths coming out of the house speakers.

Yes, this was an unusual trip to Akron. Shannon rode there and back with me, and I barely saw Brian at all. I didn't eat a single meal at home, and I didn't eat a single meal with less than two other people. But I didn't have a part to play in either the technical or performance aspects of the show, so there were strange dead spaces in the days. In some ways I ditched Steve-O, but in other ways we had great times together.

It occured to my sense of the future, round about the Ohio Turnpike exit toll, that I didn't really know where to go in Akron when we got there. Rehearsal had emptied the Hoffman's house, but it was ending soon so there was no point in going to Central Hower. Craig wanted to get together with folks for dinner and a movie, but we weren't sure yet who could come. We ended up going straight to the Murphy's, meeting Criag there, and going with their girls and him to Applebee's for a late dinner. And picking up Emily randomly on the way there as we passed her house. Gotta love Akron :-) Why doesn't that ever happen in Pittsburgh? After Applebee's we met Steve and Craig steered us to a "secret" park tucked behind a shopping area. We guarded the women from dogs and other threats, I climbed a tall fence and ripped my shorts, we swung on the swings, and at last got back in the cars, Jess so tired I'm sure anyone would have thought her inebriated.

That night Steve and I ate Sundaes in his van and looked through the PHNWD yearly booklet to make Mom #2 happy. Then I drifted into awakefulness at 4am, face down on the livingroom carpet, disoriented to see Mrs. Hoffman still at the laptop with the lights on, and my conacts dry and my teeth unbrushed. Serendipitious sleep is sweet. I made my bed in the den, brushed, kicked Steve awake and told him he should go to his real bed, and then proceeded to disappear into dreams of dance shows and strange things until 12:30pm. Wonderful.

On Saturday Steve, Mike and I painted a bunch of baskets for the show (long sad story involving 31 hand-made baskets being thrown out), ate at Taco Bell while they dried, and dropped them and Mike off at the high school. Then Stephen and I had a couple hours to kill, since he was off work that day. So we plunked around on guitars, worked out some kickin' dual-acoustic stuff for his New York song, and recorded bass for "Hit the Wall." Other than one F# instead of an A it's perfect, and heck, I never knew it was supposed to be an A there anyway! When you put Contemplative Afterthought into your CD player, the bass you hear on "Hit the Wall" will be what Steve played that afternoon, standing in Mike's crowded room by the big studio board, with the tape machine whirring, the window open, and me singing and air-guitaring along with the drum track pounding out of the monitors.

We got to the 7:30 show a few minutes late (as we arrive to everything we attend together), so I texted Heather in the dark to find out where they were sitting. Hezz, Furkins, Domenica and Tim had driven up from Pittsburgh to see the show, which I think is way cool of them. Steve and I entertained ourselves with whispered comments, inbetween which I watched, contemplated on, evaluated and enjoyed the performances. Then the long period of hanging around, hugging happy dancers in bridal gowns (The theme of the show was the bride of Christ), talking to Pittsburgh people and watching them talk to Akron people, and trying to figure out what we're doing after the show.

Eventually the evening found Steve and me, Craig, Micah and Shannon seated around an umbrella-d table outside the Rally's by the University of Akron campus, munching on burgers, talking, and laughing hysterically. It was the trip of Craig. He was pretty much everywhere I was, and his laughter, his sure-footed stories and recollections, and his encyclopedic knowledge of movies and music provided most of the entertainment. The double barbecue bacon burger was good, and the Mr. Pibb was everything cold, carbonated, sweet and oh-so-quenching soda can be. It was warm enough to be outside and not be cold, which is one of the best things ever. Being outside at night is, well, WHAT A NIGHT-ish.

At home Steve and I lolled around for a very long time working on songs, as documented LIVE in my previous blog post. All the skin-tingling action of that night captured in the text of a humble blog entry. PHEW! That night we got to sleep at 4. Ouch. I hate not getting much sleep. But that night was a great time with music and Steve--a killer comination :-)

Church was pretty good--John Joyce on Evangelism, Dave Walters on banging drums, Richard Murphy on high-voiced piano-led worship, Scott Thompson on skilled chorusy guitar, and my own Steve-O on the bass that makes it all sound complete. Oh, and a bank of female vocalists. But, ya know, they're just *vocalists*. :-P It was Jim's birthday, plus 11 people are graduating this year, so we had fun celebrating and honoring and joking with those folks. Then lunch at Chipoltle with Steve and Craig. Mmmm, burrito. But when all that steak and rice and beans and delish salsa hit my stomach the night's lack of sleep hit me like a bag of sand, and I felt like collapsing. So Steve and I went home and recorded guitar for "Hit the Wall" (NOT the guitar you will hear when you pop Contemplative Afterthought into your CD player) and got Berries and Cream Dr.Peppers on the way to the show at 3 :-)

This time I watched most of the show standing in the back, from which vantage point I could see and appreciate the whole stage and the whole audience, as well as the behind-the-scenes action of dancers coming in to watch a number or congregating for the occasional entrance from the back of the auditorium. It was a good show, especially because the live choir really belted it out. They sang from their bowels! From their bowels! (hilariously appropriate Homestar Runner reference). I really got caught up into many of the dances, and enjoyed the show a lot.

Then much much time wandering around masses of people, wondering what to do, talking to people I knew, and wishing the stinkin' line to the chocolate fountain would get shorter. The Hertzogs came to the show, so I got to catch up with them, which was a treat. Finally most attendees (and dancers) had cleared out, and we got down to the business of tearing everything down and packing it into cars and the U-haul. What a staple of my social life--setting up or tearing down things with people. Church, moves, events, band practices and shows... it's a peculiar context for fellowship, one I like a lot. You have things to do with yourself, and the snatches of conversation and joking you get as you heft stuff around and ask what to carry next are like Jelly Bellies--small and tasty.

Eventually, with undue confusion, I ended up in my car with Jess and Shannon, leading the way to the Montrose Don Pablo's. Don Pablo's! That long-gone staple of Behrens family celebrations. When I walked in and the ceiling opened up and I felt like I was in a courtyard in Mexico I felt strangely at home. Dinner that night was with Craig, Shannon and three giddy-tired dancers :-P Jess, Jen and Christin were indeed giddy, but the show was over and they had nothing Monday, so we just sat and ate and joked and laughed a lot and abode. Abided? Whatever. Irrelevant. It was nice, even though I felt (and was) outstaged by Craig. He's good for me--reminds me of my own ultimate social cloddiness and the fact that I have indeed only known these Akronites for a year or two. It was fun to laugh a lot, but even funner to watch Craig laugh, and then Christin, and then Jen, and then all of them laughing at eachother laughing :-)

Once the remaining third of my chimi de oro was safely ensconsed in a sheet-molded polystyrene foam container normalcy would have expected Shannon and I to return to the Hoffman's, pack my stuff in the car and return to our city. But I don't go to Akron for normalcy, and I don't usually remember normalcy years afterward with a warm glow in my heart. So all of us piled into our cars and drove to the Hoffman's to pick up some acoustic guitars and sing worship songs together. But then Mrs. H arrived so we talked and unloaded her car. And then the caravan from Central Hower arrived, and at Jess's prodding I stuck my head in the car loaded with Craig, Steve, Jen, Shannon and Christin and said how 'bout we unload us some serious U-haul? So we did, and it was very good. Good to heft heavy things, good to joke and talk while doing stuff, and mostly good to shorten a long night of work for Scott, Mike, Micah and Steve. We had that puppy unloaded in about 30 minutes :-)

Then the search for Brandy, who ended up being right outside the house anyway, and then congregating in the den for worship. That is my forte, and I led us in I dunno how long of singing. I love free worship like that. No song list, no song book, just a bunch of folks singing songs we all know, as though worshipping God was something good to do, even if it's not Sunday morning :-) Then things sort of disintegrated, but I rounded us up for the gospel song, and then Shannon and I headed for heading out in earnest. Good-byes were said, hugs all around (of course. This is Akron, folks), and at about 12:30am I was sitting statically in my seat, not yet tired, but eminently comfortable in darkness and stillness. Eventually sleep started to tug my eyelids down and draw hallucinations in the patterns of light on the highway before me so we hit a rest stop, tanked up, and I got a Vault. It worked, but not without effort. It hurt to not sleep when sleep called so enticingly, and to kill the calling comfort with crass caffeine. Dang, I'm writing good right now! That's why it's 12:15am and I'm letting myself stay away, even though I've been ploddingly tired all day and I have to get up at 7:30 tomorrow. I haven't had a good ol' rip-roarin' good-adjectivin' full chronological account of a trip in awhile. How nice that I have trips to chronicle! I was just thinking earlier how nonchalantly I take these Akron trips now. It's quite a blessing to travel so much that Akron is a second home, I can find my way around on my own, and it feels normal to be surrounded by these special people, randomly grabbing dinner somewhere, stringing the nights and days out, and ultimately sharing God's goodness--the unifying factor that lets there be peace in popularity, meaning in conversation, and comfort when you leave.

Keane is the perfect music to be listening to now, which is why I'm on my second time through the album.

So, the trip was good. When I think of it I think of dancers filling the stage with their swirling dresses, the secret park in the not-cold night, Craig laughing, and a lot of other indistinct fragments of everything I've just written about, none clear enough to add to this list, though I would like to add many of them. It was Akron.

--Clear Ambassador

Tired as Death

It is 2:55am, I'm kneeling on a random green folder filled with papers on the concrete floor of the Hoffman's computer/dance costume room, and I feel as tired as death. Steve and I have been sitting in front of the other computer drowsily mulling over lyrics for "Keep In Touch When You're Gone," a sweet new song of his, trying to get verse two. Here's what we've got so far:

The road branches off
And leads away from home
And now my mind and thoughts
Return to what I've known
You can find me here
Never growing old
Remembering the years
And wishing you were still here

The chorus is kick-butt, but I'll keep it from you for now. I love Stephen's songs. And I love my acoustic guitar playing (most of the time. Actually I despise my stupid scales and runs now. They almost make me sick when I play them).

We get up in a few hours and Steve plays bass and Mike runs sound and then there's the dance show at 3. I keep thinking about the remains of my Taco Bell Dr.Pepper in the fridge and how it's sweet coldness would quench my dull pounding thirst. I'm probably going to go drink some of it, pitch the rest, brush my teeth and go to sleep.

Randy

The first thing I noticed about him was his hat. Then his Dave Harvey-ish beard, which I liked. Together they made him look pretty sharp and cool, even as he inexperiencedly flagged down the bus and labored to make it up the steps, sitting down hard in the row in front of me. He made a little talk with the bus driver, about living in the worst place in Pittsburgh to catch busses--right up Lebanon Road by the bus garage. I agreed internally, and appreciated the fact that someone else realized the irony of this situation. He was trying to find out about where to catch the 56C for another way home, but he wasn't getting much from the bus driver, a big white dude with flashy sunglasses who answered as if talking to himself up in his little bus driver seat. So I broke the stranger's silence and said that you could go down the first right off of Forbes to Second Avenue and catch the 56C there.

He turned around and we talked a bit about the busses. He'd been waiting out there since noon since he didn't know the bus schedule, and I mentioned the loss of the 12:45 bus back in the route cuts of '05. I don't remember how it came up, but pretty soon I learned that he had taught jazz at CMU for eleven years--quite a respectable profession and position. He stopped at one point, after we had entered for sure into conversation, and shook my hand. "I'm Randy, Randy Purcell. Nice to meet you." It was an unusually long handshake--he held on a while after I had stopped shaking.

As we wound down Carson Street in the midafternoon sunshine I was told that the man in front of me was a world-renowned jazz trombonist, that he became a stock broker (back then most people didn't know about taking care of both your left and right brain), and that teaching, playing four nights a week and being a broker had run him into the ground, so now he doesn't do s*** and he's a pretty boring guy. He was the first jazz person to become a member of the Duquense Club, which has consistently been voted the ritziest of the 6000 or so rich people's clubs in America. He lost a couple million in the stock crash of 2002, but he still goes there, and in fact he was just talking with Mrs. Dick, of the construction company, in the workout room there this afternoon. Then he began to talk about his rules for the kids he let play in his jazz band at CMU and how you have to dress as required and he made them follow ten rules and how this one kid showed up in red boots and he threatened to take him outside and kick his [behind]. I had to break off the conversation when we approached Holy Angels, so we shook hands and he said it was nice to meet me, and in the end it just comes down to a good handshake and a smile.

I walked slowly to my car and got in, quite bemused and wondering if anything he had told me was true. Mostly I thought about how he typified the self-centeredness of many old folks. Even as they eagerly seek to correct (or at least bemoan) the wrongs they see in so many others, they drown out all conversation and nearly ignore the one they are talking too. Such were my thoughts as I banked right onto Miller Rd. and saw Randy struggling to walk up our hill.

The part that amused me most and gave me several private smiles as I learned about his crazy good guitarist son on the way up the hill was that he said when I pulled over, "See? All that philosophy paid off--the good comes right back." Apparently getting a ride up the hill was the cosmic reparation for the instruction and "philosophy" he'd given me on the bus ride.

He directed me to his house on Shope, first on the left as you go up the steep little street. We sat in the driveway for a few minutes and he talked vehemently about his crazy **********er guitarist son who was voted best instrumentalist, period, at the Tenessee University where he just got his masters. Then we shook hands again, this one weaker and shorter, and a little cold to the touch, and I drove away as he walked up to the disheveled house.

I enjoyed telling Daniel about the crazy old guy I met, and speculating on whether any of what he said was true. It seemed almost too crazy to be true, riding a bus back from the Duquense Club to a empty-seeming house in West Mifflin, but nothing he told me sounded made up or inconsistent. So I let it ride, and ruminated on how it felt exactly like I'd been thrown into one of the short stories I've been reading in ENGLIT 0325.

Then it got downright fiction-like. I was walking out to the back of the van, parked in the garage, to get another armful of groceries, and wondered who Daniel was talking to. Sure enough, there in the street was Randy. I raised my arms wide and said "Wassup Randy!" like we were best buds, 'cause I knew him and Daniel didn't and that was cool, and he offered me five bucks to drive him to Applebee's. At this point I was up for anything, particularly because you never know how God will use you, so I said sure, and informed Mom that I met a guy on the bus and I'm giving him a ride to Applebee's. "What?"

First he talked about the trees "blown down by lightning" in his back yard. He'd asked his neighbors to take care of them and given one $100 and another who helped $50, and he asked me if I thought that was fair. To which I didn't have a good answer, but that didn't matter because he went on to talk about how they didn't want to take it but he said they could do whatever with it, it wasn't his anymore. "I'm blessed, yes, I've been blessed," for the third time since I'd met him.

Pretty quickly I busted out the question that would settle the veracity of his claims. "You mentioned CD's before. Could you give me any names of ones you've worked on? 'Cause I always enjoy music--jazz and even rock--when I have some background." As I was still finishing the question he started fishing a CD out of his pocket. He had apparently come prepared :-) He sold me his CD for five bucks, so we were squared away for the drive. It was a bunch of unofficial recordings of live performances of his over the years. As he told me about it and I looked in the booklet I realized, quietly and quite happily, that this guy was legit. I was indeed sitting next to a great jazz trombonist who taught at CMU and played and recorded with world-class artists and contributed to several gold and platinum records. The River City Brass Band has a lot of his former students in it.

My cell phone rang and he said something about my girlfriend calling and he didn't want to interfere with my business. But the flip phone had open and shut as I tried to get it off my belt, and it was Mike W calling, so I let it go. I put his CD in as we sat in rush hour traffic 700 feet and five minutes from Applebee's and he talked about his music with the greedy eagerness of old people full of experiences. He still likes music with the enthusiasm of youth. I prepared to tell him about Pure Boss, asking if he just liked jazz, or if he liked some rock too. To which he looked at me and said "Of course I like rock. I'm still alive, you know!" So I pulled Pure Boss's album out of the glovebox and showed it to him. He didn't buy it right then, but he liked that I was in a band.

As I coasted to the front of Applebee's he stuck out his hand, before I had stopped, and we shook again. He thanked me again and said he'd buy me a drink, but I probably don't drink. I said I don't mind a drink with the right friends, but I had to go anyway. He said it was nice to meet a nice young man as he closed the door, and then I tugged the clutch and pulled away.

http://flickr.com/search/?q=Randy+Purcell
http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.asp?z=y&CTR=160965

Nope, I didn't make all this up, though I feel like it's read right from a story in "Interpreter of Maladies." How weird and surreal and way cool.

--Clear Ambassador

New Attitude 2006

Ahh, New Attitude :-) It's interesting - my past Na's have been very good times, but I was a fairly lowly tagalong, in the shadow of social greats like Matt Duncan and Eric Grover, feeling mildly left out but still having a great time (I've gotten very good at that over the years). This Na I was smack in the middle of a drastically different set of people. I didn't hang too much with the older singles crowd from Providence (Domenica, Lisa, Joel and Cindy, etc.), but instead I ended up in a core group of me, Daniel, Heather Q and Jess Mittelman, and mixed that up plentifully with the emerging singles scene from Pittsburgh and Akron. I was older than pretty much everybody I hung out with, and the entire conference was suffused with the invigorating enjoyment of hanging out with young people. We wrung those four days of every moment of craziness and experience that we could, for once (for me at least) stringing ourselves out heedlessly on caffeine and disregarding the human body's need for sleep. And I regret nothing but the last two hours of the all-nighter Monday night (Tuesday morning, actually) when everybody went to bed and I felt weird and had nothing to do and it was getting light. When I think of New Attitude I think of Jess Mittelman, Daniel, Heather and Justin, the food court, the circle screens, the weird snappy snare drum sound, the street between the Galt House and the Hyatt, Mike Bullmore, imitation lucky charms, pop cans chilled on the AC vent, and the hazy glow of the streetlights Monday Night.

Spiritually, New Attitude was the gospel Red Bull I had hoped it would be. Josh Harris, Mark Dever and Mike Bullmore laid out the call to applying and understanding the gospel Saturday night and Sunday morn and aft, and Sunday night CJ paced the stage and poured out his heart, bringing us to our knees with his stirring presentation of the gospel itself. He seemed like the Apostle Paul, crying out to us from the storehouse of passion God has given him. Then on Monday we were informed on the Holy Spirit and deeply challenged to evangelism. Josh Harris capped it off Tuesday morning with a summary of what we'd heard and a perfect portrayal of how the devil will try to kill the seeds that had been sown and how we must, in that moment of failure and despair, hold fast to the gospel. Hold fast to the gospel. Hold fast to the GOSPEL.
On Monday afternoon I went to Mike Bullmore's breakout session about feeding on God through prayerful meditation on the Bible. IMO it should have been a keynote session :-) It left me with no excuse to not have regular morning devotions, great expectations for such devotions, and a simple, eminently doable plan for them. Thank you Mike! I'm looking to get up at 7:30am, devote for 30 minutes, and then rush to get ready and head to Pitt. Oh Lord, may I at last gain some measure of success and consistency in this area!
My family group was great. We were small, but they put together the community groups (150 or so people, of whom 15 family groups are formed for personal application and discussion after the sessions) by geographical area, so I knew or had some connection with almost everyone. Our leader was a champ, and our group was solid, and Jocelyn seemed a lot like me which was funny.

Some moments and experiences of interest:

- Catching up with the two PChOP vans on the way down, though we had left 2 hours after them!
- On the elevator ride up to my room immediately upon arrival having a totally random woman say "You're from Pittsburgh, right? [I'm freaking out inside] ..John....Behrens?" She turned out to be Sarah Kearney's Mom whom I'd never truly met before. So bizarre!
- Plunging my head into the swimming pool after wandering around the Beatles festival Saturday afternoon and getting very hot.
- Great conversation with Akron girls over dinner at the food court Saturday night.
- Playing guitar by the street outside the Galt House with Justin, Steve-O and Craig Saturday night, and then retiring to the empty lobby on the 25th floor for drowsy hanging-outage.
- Talking with Justin as our legs got rained on outside the Galt House waiting for the pizza to come for the PChOP pizza dinner Sunday afternoon.
- Going out with some of the older singles from Providence Sunday night and getting, appropriately, bourbon.
- Sitting at the bottom of the cavernous Hyatt between 2:30 and 4:30am Sunday night and writing a song, as I boldly claimed I would as we exited the Calano's room. It ain't a bad song, either. The only people around were hispanic hotel employees and the occasional small group returning from the bars.
- One such lady running over upon hearing the guitar and having me play a song. I pulled out "Blackbird" by the Beatles, and she was smitten. I got $6 for one song! :-) (We only made a total of $4 and some change Saturday night, all four of us!)
- Hanging in the Akron girls' hotel room with a ton of folks for lunch Monday since everything was closed 'cause it was Memorial Day. I had to work hard, but I did get some profitable conversation in :-)
- Swimming with Daniel, Jess, Luke and Matt H Monday afternoon.
- And that most magical of all times, those glorious timeless hours in the humid glow of the orange sodium-vapor lamps surrounding the square block of grass across from the convention center Monday night. I honestly don't even know what time we were there for. I just know that we sat and sang worship songs by the fountains for a long time and then played frisbee for hours in the lovely rectangle of grass. The temperature was perfect--I never once thought of us being outside. It was like that lit up block was our house. We ran barefoot onto the roads to get frisbees, we tore across the grass with our shirts off, we wandered around the fountains, and we sat at the tables and benches talking and playing guitar softly. We're outside? It's 3 in the morning? It's downtown Louisville Kentucky?

There is much more I could detail here, but I will leave it at this, hoping that these skeletal and emotional accounts will spur my memory in the future, and impart to my readers the feel of the conference. It's funny--I can get totally full of the people memories as though I spent the weekend hanging out, or I can get enveloped in the spiritual memories as though I was buffeted by a gale of quality teaching in isolation. But in God's great goodness those two were mutually inclusively present in one radiant weekend. And there I will leave you--gazing at this wonderful loving God who blessed me with such fun and such a merciful buffet of digestable truth, and most of all, who crushed His Son for me. He crushed him. Christ stood there mutilated, hated and beaten with the ferocity that MY perverse sins deserved, alone, with no answer from the Father who turned away from Him. I will never have to know the bottomless anguish Jesus experienced, and right now (and always) there is no obstacle to me freely coming to God, praying to Him, talking to Him, and being loved by Him. Thank you New Attitude, thank you Josh, thank you CJ, thank you GOD!

--Clarified Ambassador

New Attitude Parody

Hey hey!

Well, I still haven't had sufficient temporal freedom to justify the time it will take to write up the New Attitude trip, but I did come up with a parody of "Crooked Teeth" by Death Cab for Cutie. Mostly it came from the line "And kids strung out on homemade speed," which I kept thinking of as "we were kids strung out on lots of caffeine." :-)

The song is on the web HERE, and the words are below. Not everything may make sense, but I think you'll get the idea of the crazy good times and crazy good teachings we got:

It was one hundred degrees as we ran in the dark and played Frisbee
And we just didn’t care, we just stayed up all night
And refused, to stop, to sto – op

And we saw we’d made a horrible call
It’s a holiday, nothing’s open at all
So we hung around in a hotel room
And ate food

‘Cause God gave us some truth for our hearts
The teaching was good, every scriptural part,

‘Cause you can’t do nothing at all
If you don’t hold the gospel strong,
No you can’t do nothing at all
If you don’t hold the gospel strong

Yes, we played on deserted streets,
We were kids strung out on lots of caffeine
We had hotel rooms, but we did not sleep
At all, woo hoo, woo hooooo

And the pop, and the candy and treats
Tasted mighty fine, but they were bad for our teeth
And the elevators were filled with Beatle freaks and guitars

All those dudes came to louvul to speak,
Now the conference is done and they want us to leave..

And you can’t change nothing at all
If you don’t hold the gospel strong,
We’ve got churches, care-groups and songs,
Keep the gospel center and strong

So, there ya go :-) I know I know, I left out the third verse, but whatever. I figured it'd get tiresome, so I kept it succinct. Enjoy, and thank you Lord for New Attitude and for the truth it presented!

--Clear Ambassador