Fitzcarraldo by The Frames (video is The Swell Season) – In one recording, Glen introduces the song by saying “This song was written after watching a movie about a man who pulled a ship over a mountain. I think we’ve all got a lot of ships we’re trying to pull over mountains.” In another he describes it as though you’re moving forward and sometimes you hit this invisible wall and so you try to go around it, but you end up go all the way around the world and just end up right back where you started rather than just going through it to begin with.

[Note: Glen Hansard is the leader of both The Frames and The Swell Season. The song was originally released on the The Frames' 1996 album Fitzcarraldo.]

Songs We Wish We’d Written

• Worked
• Hung out with Lincoln and went grocery shopping
• Watched Inception… maybe they should have called it Incredible… Check out my review at TOC

Saturday:

• Drove the Garage Sale tour bus… or Kia
• Took a nap
• Last week we bought a freestanding outdoor swing (like a porch swing). When I took it apart to move it, I realized that it had more rust than I thought, so I bought some paint to touch it up. Well, I realized very quickly that I was going to have to paint the whole thing, which really isn’t as bad as it sounds.
• Took Lincoln to the park in Grapevine to play with his friend Joanna. Had a great time and ran into some other friends there as well.

Sunday:

• Church. I led the singles group and had a great time.
• Nap.
• Worked on the swing.
• Watched a movie, played Playstation, and cleaned house while Katie worked.

Just an observation. I’ve only read 1 proper book this year. The rest has been a few novels, a couple of audiobooks, and a handful of TPBs. It’s about time to get my brain working again.

• Played our final VBS band gig in the morning.
• Hung out with Lincoln in the afternoon.
• Took Lincoln up to the church for Family Fun Night
• Mowed the front lawn.

Saturday:

• Garage saled  in the morning. Found a couple of super cool trucks for Lincoln for $1 each that sold for $15 and $30 new.
• Craigslisted in the afternoon. Got a free Power Wheel, but as yet it does not work.
• Mowed the back lawn.

Sunday:

• Church.
• Classes at church.
• Came home and got sick.

Monday:

• Staying home because I feel awful. Hopefully will bounce back by tomorrow.

Yesterday morning, in our men’s Bible study group, I was informed that the mayor of Coppell (where I work) had died in what was presumably a murder/suicide the night before. This was shocking to all of us because on the 4th of July, we had her here in our worship service where we honored her with a plaque for her service to our community. About 4 weeks before this, she had been on campus along with Chamber of Commerce members giving her annual state of the city address.

We hear stories like this all the time, but this one has been shockingly close to home.

I work in a church, so we see a lot of births, wedding and funerals. Strangely, though, I didn’t see this nearly as much at the previous church I worked at – well, except for the births, there were a lot of those. I think the difference is all about location. That was a very open community and commuter location. This is a very small, secluded community and we are one of the mainstays of the neighborhood.

In less than a year of working here we’ve buried two infants, seen a local middle schooler die tragically, and lost a number of adult parents of our church members. At my previous church, I know that we conducted a couple of funerals in my time there, but they didn’t really seem to effect the whole church or community at large.

After having worked so long on the video that we played the day the mayor was here and participating in the 4th of July parade, I feel a lot more connected to this community and so things like this are just a lot more pronounced, I guess. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few days and weeks as the community processes what has happened and we determine how we can reach out and support those who have been affected.

Songs We Wish We’d Written

So, if you’re intrigued by the weird music that I often reference on here, or you’re looking to discover something new (or old), you should RSS it and shoot me a note whenever you think that I’ve crossed too many genres in a given day. The Random Post button can be fun, too.

Also, if you happen to be a guitarist, I’m selling a few pedals on Craigslist. If you’re interested, email me through Craigslist and mention this post, I might knock off a couple of bucks.

• Afternoon with Lincoln. We went to Walmart, but our mini-cookout got rained out.
• Watched the Waterboy

Saturday:

• Garage Sales
• Nap
• Craigslisting
• Finished watching the Waterboy. Watched the Jake and Vienna interview just out of sheer morbid curiosity.

Sunday:

• Church
• Tried to go buy a sandbox, but the guy didn’t call me back in time.
• Took an awesome nap.
• Hung out with Lincoln and went grocery shopping.

Playing music for VBS all this week.

It’s Thursday, so there’s a new TV Throwdown over at TOC. Today’s topic: an ode to my favorite screenwriter and two of the greatest television programs of the last 20 years that were canceled before their time. Editors Note: I’ve misspelled canceled 3 times in the last 12 hours.