Turnover

First let me say that I really loved "Love", the Cirque show that the bride and I went to see last weekend. It was brilliant and my opinion on the whole bizarre european acrobats, while eerily spot on, was nonetheless broadened by their beautiful performance. Some of the performers walked about in the audience pre-show and let's just say I was made a little uneasy by their presence. Not only do they "stay in character", you kind of get the sense that these people are always this way; they are their character. It's like the time that I worked at Halloween Haunt at Knott's Berry Farm and noticed that all of my fellow employees were as scary out of costume as in. I often found myself thinking, "Wow, you really are a vampire!"

Now on to a completely different subject...USC Football. They lost today to Oregon State 33-31 and I really am not as upset as I thought I might be. When they lost in the Rose Bowl in January it was like someone had bagged on my momma, punched me in the gut, fired me from my job, and then stole my cd collection only to burn it in a bonfire rather than to marvel at my excellent taste in music, all in one day. It was terrible. I mourned for weeks. Still to this day it hurts, almost 10 months later. I also still remember watching the Cal loss in '03 (USC's last Pac-10 loss prior to today) in a sports bar in Phoenix, because I was there for a convention, which I ditched to watch that heart-wrenching game.

But today is different.

Now of course today wasn't for the national championship like the Rose Bowl vs. Texas. But if the rankings were to be believed, USC was in the hunt for yet another national championship, having been ranked 3rd in the BCS prior to todays game. But I knew better, and have thought that USC was overrated the whole season.

I just have never felt right about this team. There is just something missing, maybe a few things actually. I really don't like them. It is hard for me to say this, but I don't think they are done losing. Of course I recognize that I was spoiled with the previous USC teams that played for 3 straight national championships, but I really don't miss those teams. Pining for the good ol' days is not my issue.

Ultimately it comes down to the quarterback. Football is a team game, but there is no doubt who is the leader of the team; the QB. I can't stand John David Booty, USC's QB. This came as a slow realization. Little by little the confidence I had in Booty after the opening game against Arkansas dwindled as each week he and his team seemed to escape defeat rather than achieve victory. After the Arizona State game two weeks ago, which USC barely won 28-21, no thanks to John David Booty, who had 2 turnovers resulting in 14 points for ASU, I said to myself, "I just don't like John David Booty." And it is safe to say that today's performance (another fumble and interception) didn't improve my view of him.

So what do you do if there is someone you don't like at all leading your favorite sports team? Well the beauty (and the curse) of the college game is that everyone has to run out of eligibility sometime.

Beatles Song of the Week 5.0 and 6.0

So today you get a two for one, or really last week's song and this week's song together.

This is a special edition of BSOTW, because this weekend my bride and I will be seeing the Cirque Du Soleil performance of Love in Sin City! I have to say that the only way I would ever go to a Cirque show would be if it was themed around Beatles music because, quite frankly, European acrobats scare me. In all honesty I am a little apprehensive about the whole thing because there is just something about circus-type performances that rub me the wrong way. There is a reason that the words "circus" and "freak" seem to go together so well. Who knows, maybe I will have a different opinion after the show. However, the fact that the theater was built specifically with this show in mind and that George Martin, the Beatles producer, was involved on the musical side of things, makes me very excited to see it.

Anyway, with all that in mind, my Beatles songs of the week are Golden Slumbers and Carry That Weight. If you are familiar with Abbey Road then you know that these two songs blend in together and essentially form one beautiful piece of music.

I love the lyric from Golden Slumbers:

Golden slumbers fill your eyes
Smiles await you when you rise
Sleep pretty darling, do not cry
and I will sing a lullaby

These are words of comfort and reassurance. Singing lullaby's reminds me of my grandparents, who would sing to my brother and I when we would stay over at their house.

Golden Slumbers then leads into Carry That Weight, which in turn harkens back to You Never Give Me Your Money, creating a musical inclusio for the last run of songs on Abbey Road. Now here is a big if, but imagine if Lennon was never killed and somehow, someway the Beatles decided to do a reuinion tour, or even just one more live performance. And imagine they played live that run of songs from You Never Give Me Your Money to The End.

Sometimes I think about what it would have been like to see the Beatles live, without European acrobats.

When bands die

It has been too long since I last posted. I still owe you, the faithful reader, a Beatles song for last week and it is coming time to declare one for this week as well. My lack of attention to this blog is not due to apathy but rather just plain ol' busyness. I have a lot of reading for school, which even though it is now 11:43 pm, I should be doing instead of blogging. Man it feels good to be a slacker student again. I will do Carl Jung, who said "Hurry is not of the devil, hurry is the devil", one better by saying "Busy is the devil." I think the two go hand in hand.

Anyway the occasion for my writing is that I have found out that a very good band has broken up. Acceptance, which released an album entitled Phantoms last year, broke up in August, after their lead singer decided to leave the band and get a "real job." Why am I only now finding out about this? Well, because they announced the break up in a blog on their Myspace, and you already know how I feel about that place (if you don't check out the archives!). Myspace has become the source of information distribution for many artists, which I understand because they are "connected" to the fans so easily through their page, but folks like me, who don't have their own Space get left out, because bands are neglecting their standard websites to maintain their Myspace. I'm not kidding. Go to their website. It makes it seem like Phantoms is just now coming out.

So, knowing this, and being tired of wondering when the next Acceptance record was going to come out, I finally checked their Space yesterday and found out the bad news. I wonder what a reasonable mourning process is when a band dies. I really like music, so is it ok for me to be sad about this? I mean truly sad? I really was looking forward to another record from them and now all I have is Phantoms, which will now have this "Man this record is good but I wish I had another Acceptance record" stigma attached to it. I feel the same way with "Till we Have Faces" by Noise Ratchet. There needs to be another Noise Ratchet record after that but no, that's all we get.

Oh well I can always listen to the Beatles. Which reminds me...

Sufjan Stevens at the Wiltern

Monday night my bride and I and two of our friends went to the Wiltern in Los Angeles to see Sufjan Stevens in conert. I literally haven't been the same since. Music really does have the power to change people, and Sufjan's music is very powerful. I'm still deciding if it was the best concert I have ever been to or not, but the fact that I can't decide doesn't mean I think it wasn't as good as it could have been, it just means I have been to a lot of concerts. That makes it hard to choose the best one.

They say "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." That phrase is usually quoted to state that there is no objective way to measure beauty. But at the concert on Monday there was this tangible sense of beauty. I mean it was real. You could not only hear it but you could feel it, touch it. And I got the sense that I wasn't the only one beholding it, that everyone in the room was feeling as beautiful as I was. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but does beauty from time to time take on a form that becomes so overwhelming that everyone has no choice but to behold it?

These are the words that come to my mind when I try to describe the Sufjan Stevens concert.

A couple of my favorite performances from the night...
The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us
The Dress Looks Nice on You
He Woke Me Up Again

Beatles Song of The Week 4.0

Two of Us which is on the album Let It Be.

It's a great driving song with the repeated line "We're on our way home, we're going home."

That's all I have to say about that.

Beauty and Commerce

This is the most beautiful commercial I have seen in a long while. It just gives me the chills when I watch it. The song, which is called Half Acre and is by a band called Hem, is so beautiful and haunting. I love that Liberty Mutual chose to send this beautiful message with their advertising money rather than try to sell me something I don't need in the first place.

Watch the video and then go do something kind for someone else.

I'm a seminarian!

No seminarian isn't one of the signs of the Zodiac (I'm a leo). I started seminary this week at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena and I love it so far. It seems like it will be fairly manageable as far as scheduling and stress and all those time constraint things. I don't have too many assignments in my two courses (Hebrew Prophets and Christian Ethics) but I do have a ton of reading, which is fine by me because I love to read. It just feels good to be learning again. Because I am only going part time I am afraid it will take me a long time to finish. My goal is to finish the degree in less than four years.
I'm sure the ethics class will give me a ton to rant about here on the ol' weblog so stay tuned for my thoughts on Just War Theory, Abortion, Stem-Cell Research, and Immigration, among other fun topics! Also I could get going a Creative Apathy Featured Prophet and switch it up from time to time like the Beatles Song of the Week. Man, isn't seminary fun?!

Beatles Song of The Week 3.0

I'm gonna go with If I Fell which is on the soundtrack for A Hard Days Night. I picked it because I like the scene in the movie in which the song is played. Ringo is "sulking" about a tv crewman touching his drums and John sings the song to him, while making faces, in order to cheer him up. If you haven't seen A Hard Days Night, you should go rent it and watch it. It's great.

Beatles song of the week-2.0

This week I am gonna go with You Never Give Me Your Money as Beatles Song of the Week. It comes from the album Abbey Road which is such a unique Beatles album. It is hard to get into the album because it such an album of contrasts. For example listen to Something and Maxwell's Silver Hammer back to back. If you didn't know any better you would think it was two very different bands recording these songs. Or maybe more contrasted yet, listen to I Want You (She's So Heavy) and Here Comes the Sun back to back.

Well the reason I picked You Never Give Me Your Money off this album is because it's the moment that the album (finally) settles into a groove. When I hear the simple piano that opens the song I just start feeling like things fall into place and all will be ok with the world. And there is no better theology than the refrain that ends the song: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
All good children go to heaven.

Let's see that one again

Conclusive Video Evidence
Man I hate bad officiating. And in this day and age where every little detail of a sporting event is covered in every possible angle, there is no way soemthing like this should happen. I am a huge USC fan and most of the time I will root for PAC-10 teams in interconference play, as was the case on Saturday in the Oklahoma Oregon game. But PAC-10 officials missing a call like this just makes the conference look bad. Why have instant replay if it doesn't work? I don't know one person who would look at the video evidence and say that #1 Oregon didn't touch the ball before it went 10 yards, and #2 Oregon recovered the kick. And yet someone did look at the video and concluded both of those things. The link above proves that whether they touched the ball or not Oklahoma recovered the kick. How can the officials clear out the pile and then give possession to Oregon when the ball was in the hands of an Oklahoma player?

It really hurts me to write all this, because I hate Oklahoma as much as the next USC fan, but they got robbed.

If I was as much an Oregon fan as I am a USC fan I would be ashamed of that victory.

Beatles song of the week

A new feature here at Creative Apathy... Beatles song of the week! I pick a Beatles song every week and then let you know which one I picked. How cool is that?

By the way, for those of you who didn't already know, the Beatles are my favorite band.

So for the first ever Beatles song of the week selection I choose (drum roll)...Happiness is a Warm Gun. (and the crowd goes wild!)

Happiness is a Warm Gun can be found on disc 1 of the White Album. Part of why I love the Beatles so much is because they were almost like 4 bands in one. When the inner strife started to take it's toll on the band, they began writing and even recording more and more individually. For example the song before Happiness is a Warm Gun on the White Album is While My Guitar Gently Weeps, a distinctively George song. I don't even really think of this song as a Beatles song, I think of it as a George Harrison song that he let The Beatles put their name on. Then Happiness is a Warm Gun is a distinctively John song. It has a darker tone and just feels like John Lennon. Then after Happiness is the distinctively Paul song, Martha My Dear. The song sounds like a show tune with strings, horns, and even the piano at the beginning setting the melody. Ringo's turn doesn't come until 5 songs later on Don't Pass Me By, which like other Beatles songs that Ringo sang lead on (Yellow Submarine, Octopus's Garden etc.) tends to be a little annoying after repeated listens.

Unfortunatley I can't give you a link to itunes so you can download the song or the album and hear it because there isn't any Beatles music on itunes. Just do yourself a favor and buy The White Album and any other Beatles albums you don't own yet. Tune in next week for Beatles Song of the Week version 2.0!

Forever Changed

So many people in New York Town
Eyes wide shut just walkin' around
They woke to life when they heard the sound
Of two rockets bringin' them buildings down

It left them staring at the sky
Pieces of their heart falling from high
Forever changed
Forever changed

Summer's laughter
Winter's sorrow
Find forever in tomorrow's change

Bottle Rocket-Mike Barnet

5 years is a long time.

I can't help but ask the question, what has changed in the last five years? It's not the questions that I see every news reporter asking either..."Do you feel safer now than you did 5 years ago?" "Are our airports safer?" "When will Al-Qaeda strike again?"

I think we are missing the point if watching out for our own butts becomes the issue. When you look out for #1, things like humility, forgiveness, and social responsibility tend to take a back seat.

I think Mike Barnet was writing a song of hope...hope that 9/12 and 9/13 and 9/14 and so on would be days of change, in which we as a society looked at ourselves in the mirror, in which we answered the call to stop the cyclical pattern of violence, repaying death with death. I'm not dumb enough to say hope is lost, because along with faith and love, hope always remains.

But 5 years is a long time.

Support Mike Barnet

The "Fantasy" is over

I made a big step in my life today. I cancelled my Yahoo account which was connected to both of my fantasy sports leagues (MLB and NFL). I just got sick of fake sports.

I am a huge sports fan and specifically I love baseball and college football. In both of those sports I have favorite teams, the Dodgers and USC Trojans respectively. Of course on my fantasy baseball team I had 5 or 6 Dodgers and on my fantasy football team I had almost all ex-Trojans. What I found out was fantasy sports has nothing in common with my love of real sports. I couldn't root for my team when I had guys on it that I didn't care for or didn't even like. I mean I actually at one point had two Angels on my baseball team and I can't stand the Angels. I felt like a fraud. It was fantasy at it's worst.

The funny part is all the other guys I played with are going to think I'm an idiot. In baseball my team was in the middle of the playoffs and the football season just started last night. However, I feel so free not having to check my lineup everyday and waste all that time that I could be spending on more important things, like playing video games or watching the Lost season 2 DVD (see post below).

LOST

I am a huge Lost fan. It is easily my favorite show on TV, which isn't saying much because for the most part I despise TV. When a show like Arrested Development gets cancelled but Tyra Banks has two of her own shows, you know something is out of balance in the universe somewhere. I may go into a rant about how much I hate "reality" TV at some point later on, but I just don't have the energy right now.

Anyway, back to Lost. My bride and I went to Best Buy last night to pick up season 2 on DVD and brought it home to start going through some of the bonus features on disc 7. Let me tell you, there is so much awesome stuff on there! One of the main things I love about this show is that there is a conenction between those that are creating the show and the fans of the show. The people making the show recognize the fans and respond to them, rewarding them for their faithful following. This season 2 dvd is just one example of that, with over 8 hours of bonus features all compiled and presented as a "Dharma" orientation film. The Lost Experience ARG (alternate reality game) over the summer and the new airing schedule for season 3, allowing for back to back episodes to air without rerun interuption between are two other ways in which the fans of this brilliant show have been rewarded.

If you have not checked out Lost yet, do yourself a favor and buy season 1 on DVD, but please start from the beginning. Don't try to just start watching from the start of seaosn 3 beginning on October 4th. If you are one of the lucky people who know me, I would be happy to loan you season 1 on DVD.

My very first guitar lesson

Thanks to Bobby for giving me my very first guitar lesson today. My fingers hurt so bad I can barely type write now. I am a Christian male in my late twenties so for me to not know how to play guitar already is like a 6' 10" person never having played basketball. Sure it happens, but rarely.

I will keep you updated on my progress. Perhaps one day in the distant future you will be able to find my music on the internet and enjoy a lazy afternoon while listening to my incredibly awe-inspiring songs of hope, love, and redemption. But please download music legally. We artists gotta eat!

Heaven on Earth

Some ruminations I jotted down on the Kingdom of Heaven. Enjoy!

Heaven on Earth?!

"This, then, is how you should pray:
'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.’”

Matthew 6:9-10

Would Jesus want us to pray for something that is impossible? Is it even within the realm of possibility that God’s kingdom and God’s will would be displayed on earth as it is in heaven? Hasn’t God given up hope on earth? When I look around here on earth, there is no doubt in my mind that for the time being, God has allowed earth and it’s residents to not always perfectly reflect his kingdom and his will. If you think everyone goes around seeking first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, you would be delusional. Of course the Bible assures us that life in God’s kingdom is the best way to live but the combination of pride and free will keeps God’s kingdom from being perfectly displayed on this Terrestrial Ball. But does it have to be this way and will it change any time soon?

It could be said that a kingdom is a region in which what the king says goes. Therefore, the boundaries of a kingdom would be defined by the obedience of the subjects. If you obey the decrees of the King or represent him and his characteristics, you are probably doing so because you are within his kingdom. You look to the King as your leader, protector and provider. Heaven, no doubt, is a place where everyone knows who is in charge. But how far does God’s kingdom stretch, and is planet earth within the boundaries of the kingdom of God?

The kingdom language of not only the Lord’s Prayer, but of all of scripture gives us a mixed answer. We find in the scriptures tension between the kingdom of God being “already” but “not yet.” John the Baptist main sermon was “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near” and Jesus himself repeated this phrase often, as Matthew 4:17 tells us. The word in Greek which is translated to “near” in English is translated elsewhere in the Bible as “approaching” or “came close”. One gets the sense that this term implies the moment when the two things that are coming near meet, but it just hasn’t happened yet. This “coming near” would suggest there will be a time when, as Rob Bell puts it, “Heaven crashes into earth.” But if Jesus is teaching us to pray that God’s kingdom would come, is it safe to assume that it isn’t as “near” as it could or should be?

What in your life is outside the reign of the kingdom of God?

What in your church is outside the reign of the kingdom of God?

What in your community is outside the reign of the kingdom of God?

What in your school/work is outside the reign of the kingdom of God?

I believe that living as a Christ follower is less about trying to hang on through this life until we make it to our final destination in the sky and more about living in such a way that God’s kingdom becomes more and more evident here on earth. I believe that when Jesus tells us to pray for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven, that he actually expects that to be a reality, that earth could actually be a place in which what God says goes.

God hasn’t given up on earth. He wants earth to be a part of his kingdom. He wants his will to be done here; he wants his people to live in obedience to him here perfectly, just like it is in heaven. There is a day that is approaching, that is in fact very near, in which God’s kingdom will be a perfect reality on earth. Until then let’s not only pray that it would come, let’s live a life that brings it closer still.

And now a word about MySpace

The real reason I even started this blog is because, for one reason or another, I feel like the internet actually has some sort of real communal potential. The MySpace phenomenon can't be denied. In an act of prideful rebellion I deleted my account a few months back and haven't missed it a bit. It just felt like the whole place was one big lie.

However, I do miss the opportunity to express myself that this wild frontier called the interweb affords. It may be a little Doogie Howseresque, but there is a sense of release that I get when I sit at my laptop for a few moments, writing out my thoughts or posting photos, and realizing that this whole mess will be in the etheric plane called cyberspace in a matter of seconds. Whether you stop by or not, it's there.

BTW- I made the modified myspace logo above so if you work in Rupert Murdoch's legal department...I'm the guy you want.

My Bride

I'm not very clever or creative when it comes to saying romantic things but I do recognize romance when I see it, and I feel like I can claim it for my own.

"She's just the girl for me and I want all the world to see we've met." I've Just Seen a Face - The Beatles
"If you weren't real, I would make you up." Honey and the Moon - Joseph Arthur

These are just two of the lines I wish I had written about my wife. She is my joy.

The Mars Volta and Jesus

This is a picture of my favorite tattoo of mine. I originally got the idea from the liner notes of the album by The Mars Volta called "Deloused in the Comatorium". Seeing the picture reminded me of rescue and salvation and specifically it reminded me of the story of Peter's failed attempt to walk on water. He has to call out to Jesus while he is drowning and Jesus saves him.

I have 3 other tattoos that I may or may not post on here later.

There is a first time for everything...

Well here it is...my blog. It's like a web log without the we and the space between the two words. Man think of all the time and energy we have saved ourselves as a society by taking we out. Now there is so much more time to write meaningless blog post's for no one or anyone to read.

You will never get the last two minutes of your life back. But it could have been worse...I could have reinserted the we.