This Is An Adventure
...
A feeling of amazing peace and sobriety enters my being
whenever I drive into the town of Guelph. Maybe it is a
place that, now, as a married man, is linked to a chunk of
my independence and personal freedom. I remember the
days of being able to get out of bed whenever I wanted to,
maybe making coffee, maybe not, and going for an early
morning walk down Alma St. There are a few places, and
streets in particular, in this town that actually encapsulate
alot of personal feeling about God. Many hours walking
while praying were spent in this city, and it is a place where
I really made my faith personal as well as, and more
importantly, where God became real and personal to me.
Life is alot different these days, but in some ways it's a
good different and in some ways it's a bad different. It's
all about finding the middle ground between the highs and
lows and dwelling there. I also remember that Guelph was a
place of vast insecurity and indecision for me, and it's not like
that baggage is gone because I still feel those things alot.
But at the end of the day, I guess we all need to ask ourselves
'if it had to end today, and I died in my sleep tonite, would I
be happy with how things have turned out?'
The answer is something we all must wrestle with, because
in some ways, it's all we've got.
For me, the answer is most definitely yes.
Well, HELL, I'm just gonna blog for the goshdarn
heck of it! No one is really into commenting these days,
but that's alright, I like to spew my thoughts like the
intestinal refuse within me when I sit down to go
ca-ca on the toidy.
Thoughts on Music: Because What Else is There?
What is happening to the world of pop (and by that I
mean 'popular') music? It is crumbling to the very core
all around me. I caught a glimpse of the Muchmusic
Awards the other night and who else was performing but
Ashlee Simpson, and I don't know man...It MUST have
been a joke on her part because NO ONE CAN SING AS
HORRIBLY OFF KEY AS SHE DID AND BE SERIOUS
ABOUT IT!! Good GAD! ...It doesn't really deserve my
time and energy in venting. She sucks. Pop Music sucks.
Radio Stations are either Rap, Country, or OLD BORING,
TIRED ROCK based (i.e. that's my personal shout out to
Chez 106.1 FM of Ottawa. Newsflash: Woodstock was a
long, LONG time ago, and there's no going back there.
Give it up. Acid washed jeans are no longer fashionable.
When will they realize that Pink Floyd is only a steady diet
of burnouts and wastes-of-space?)
But maybe all this kerfuffle is necessary in a re-building of
the pop world. Maybe this crumbling to the core is the beginning
of something new, something serious, something real.
It's time for a new scene. And I really want to lead the charge
with my brother on bass, a guitar/everything man from
Halifax, a few other all-positions players and a drummer
from Montreal. But I'm nowhere NEAR pig-headed enough
to think I'm gonna make any damn difference. As Regis
Philbin says, 'I'm only one man' and it's true. I need your
help, folks. I need belief and faith that it can change. That
it won't always be this bad. Thoughts? Ideas?
So very tired. Wouldn't it be nice if we were all in the above place?
Yes, yes it would. Had a great time hangin with
Jonnyboy recently. I guess no one cared for my
Foos review. Oh well. I want to leave work for
a long time. This job is stifling all that is me. But
so it goes and youre F-ed and you hate the job, love
the paycheque.
Well, s'all for now chumps. C-day approaches.
Cold beer is like an oasis in my desert of life.
BLOG-REVIEWFOO FIGHTERSIn Your Honour
All i can say is...wow.
Bow and kneel before masters of modern rock.
This is the best album of this style of music, in my knowledge, to come out in 5 years.
That's a bold statement, yes, but take me up on it.
A full disc of hypercreative, hooky metal rock from the mind of Grohl is fused with
a more sentimental side of him (that is often only glimpsed) on an entire second disc of original, acoustic material. Everyone from John Paul Jones to Norah Jones
are guest contributors to this musical montage that
is more ambitious than anything the Foos have done to date.
Walking to work the other day, and listening to my
new Foo acquisition, the title track (In Your Honour)
rattled me to the core and actually gave me chills. The tune of
the guitar riff sounds like something Radiohead would
play on a cheap casio keyboard, but never on guitar with
such serious, in-depth questioning lyrics rooting it.
You get the feeling that Dave Grohl really howled these
thoughts at the heavens, by himself on a dark night,
and left them there to hang in the evening air, and that
whoever he's singing about is not just a friend or
acquaintance, but a massive part of his being that is
both a blessing and a curse.
IN YOUR HONOUR
can you hear me?
hear me screaming
breaking in the muted sky
this thunder heart
like bombs beating
echoing a thousand miles
mine is yours and yours is mine
there is no divide
in your honour, i would die tonight
mine is yours and yours is mine
i will sacrifice
in your honour, i would die tonight
for to you feel alive
can you feel me?
feel me breathing
one last breath before i close my eyes
this offeringfor receiving
deliver me into the other side
Rough NightsJUST to let everyone know, these past few weeks have been hard for me for some reason. everything from panic attacks in the middle of the night where im dreaming of having a heart attack to just worrying a whole hell of a lot about nothing. i've been prayin more and spewing my thoughts at God so that's good, overall, but my situation is weird. I'll try to explain:
It's like I get caught in a flurry of worry (no rhyme intended there) all of a sudden, and can't shake loose of it. I have so many good things, an amazing out-of-this-world girl with me, a cheap apartment, a job i can handle and that brings home bacon, but yet I get this nagging worry that 'something is gonna go wrong' or that 'im going to die'. i don't know. just being honest.
Watching 'The Life Aquatic' calms me down, though, for some reason. I love the character of Steve Zissou portrayed by Bill Murray. He is a man of misplaced passion and fire most of the time but yet in some instances, he's right ontarget. He is a man who pushes himself and everyone around him and places alot of stress on those he loves by doing so, and yet, for one fleeting instant, his companions and family obtain a miniscule glimpse of understanding as to why he is that way, and they're okay with that. That's awesome. That's acceptance.
Isn't that what we all want?
The Passion That Drives Me
Before I commence, let me just state for the record that I am in no way retorting to anyone's thoughts here, and that Dalton I love YOU especially (mostly because you are big, black and cuddly) and this is not a 'diss' on your gay marriage blog.
I guess I have alot of different spheres of friends and family. I have been raised from a farily conservative Christian background but it wasn't until I really made my faith in and relationship with Jesus my own that it meant jack shit. Sorry to say Jesus and then cuss in the same sentence, but I guess that sort of thing doesn't really bother me anymore. For a time, I lived an ultra-conservative lifestyle, being involed with Christian campus groups like IVCF and Campus Crusade, and only really interacting and existing in a bubble. For years, this bubble influenced my thoughts, my perceptions, my dreams, and my interactions with people to an end that I often still regret and look back on with contempt.
But I'll get to the point...promise.
The thing is that I'm sick and tired of hearing about these rants that people spew thoughtlessly against gay marriage or gay people in general from the viewpoint of Christianity. These people have not read the same bible I have and don't really understand Jesus or anything that He came to do. All they are fighting for is a 'moral' objective, rather than a 'spiritual' one. They see something like gay marriage and they think 'these people can't do this. it's just plain wrong' and they picket and they protest and they do their thing. But it's ultimately casting dispersions upon people because of their morals. It's a hang up. It's legalistic. It's systematic. It's bullshit. It's like not letting someone come to worship God on a sunday and blocking that person at the door because they are a smoker, even though they genuinely want to worship the Maker. And again, we go through this cycle of not letting someone in the club because they don't look the part. They drink alot. They smoke. They smoke drugs. They are or claim to be gay. The church is ultimately hung up on appearances rather than the condition of someone's heart. and that is a sad, sad,
SAD thing, folks.
Now as an ironic segue into my own thoughts, I realize that by writing this, I am doing close to the same thing as those people I despise and that is casting dispersions. But I guess I feel like instead of picketing on parliament hill and trying to look astute by inadvertently judging the actions of others, why not do something useful with the time we have? Like volunteering at a soup kitchen or getting involved with the community to show that we care about our surroundings? Don't we understand that the gay community
hates Christians and the church
enough as it is? But no, let's continue to tell people they are not welcome to live the way they do and wonder why more people don't come out to church on sunday.
WAKE UP.
Jesus kept company with all kinds. If we don't do the same, love and accept all people, we are the pharisees. What it comes down to is that people go through all kinds of shit in life and each one of them, if their personal road leads to new life in Christ, must come to God JUST AS THEY ARE, not how
WE want them to be.
Do you think that if we keep protesting the gay community will finally just bend and say 'Oh my! Look at all these protesters! You know something, it really is wrong! Hey people, we are Wrong! What else should we stop doing? Smoking? Drinking? Having sex at all?' Then what value will that have? No value. So what if you get someone to stop being gay or smoking or whatever. They are still gonna be spiritually misled into thinking one needs to have it 'all together' and 'look the part' in order to meet with God. Again, a moral objective, not a spiritual one.
In saying this, I know and love all kinds of people. I've got friends who smoke up on a regular basis and I have friends who work full time in church and camp ministry. I have friends who have more than a few drinks on occasions for celebration (myself included) and I have friends who still celebrate but don't drink alcohol and are personally against it. I have friends who cuss like sailors and friends who frown on swearing and beat themselves up if they say 'frig'. But all my friends, at least the good ones, have heart. They have wrestled with their spirituality and some are on a lit path and some aren't. But that's the stuff that matters to me. All the rest of the afforementioned crap in this paragraph I don't really give two shits about because I love them for who they are...or at least I try.
That was long. But I felt it needed saying. Canada Day is a-comin. Buck, D-Shot, Adnan, Steve, Joel, all are welcome in Ottawa for Sarah's b-day bash and bbq.
MASTER OF PUPPETSIt amazes me how much influence doctors have in this universal realm we call earth. Today I went in to a local clinic for a physical and this flabberjabber doctor, who had some kind of United Kingdom accent (sorry to be so vague, but if you had seen him, you'd understand) spent about a total of 8 mins, pressed REALLY hard on my stomach and reefed on my ribs, then he waddles out of the room and leaves me hanging without a word for like 20 minutes. Then he waddles back in and blurts out 'Ok Matthew, your blood pressure is a little high but everything is good. Come back next week for some blood tests. Maybe it was high because you were nervous about getting a physical so it should be ok. Ok? Thank you.' and leaves again. Great. Thanks alot Dr. Snuggles. Waddle back to your back room and eat another ham sandwich, you no talent waste of space. So other than that, prett regular day. I checked my pulse ten more times today and i averaged between 60 and 65 beats a minute. High blood pressure? I think it may have been because i downed 2 coffees and walked briskly to my appointment. Clowns abound. And here I drown between infamy and effigy. Look those words up on dictionary.com y'all. Anyways, lookin forward to seein Brother Cerebrum FOR C-day and possibly some old school nation's cap crew. Oh dear. Life cycles on.
'done, done, on the the next one'-d.grohl
