When my wife and I first planned to get married we had big plans to take off across the country with just the clothes on our backs.

Hit the Cali coast and live in our van… only leaving the beach to bake cookies for the homeless or something…

Of course… three kids and two testicles later… I’ve yet to see the Pacific.

But if I close my eyes when Permalight is playing… I can almost feel the waves just barely hitting the soles of my feet…

the sand between my fingers…

the sun on my forhead…

And as Rogue Wave sings… The future isn’t what it used to be...

I can’t help but feel a weird mix of emotion at the hopefulness we once had… how our plans have been about as foiled as they could be…

and how happy I am in my current future.

It hasn’t been easy… and one thing I  know for certain is that it never will be…

Somehow though… I’m reminded every day of the suffering from which my pain has saved me.

Both the music and the writing on this record reveal the conflict within the band’s journey (as we saw in the documentary D-Tour) moving them forward after celebrating Pat’s new kidney and mourning their loss of Evan Farrell.

Always distinct, the band moves into even newer territory on this album…

While “Good Morning (the Future)” was playing the other day, my wife found herself surprised to be enjoying a song by “that one super-lame band.”

“This isn’t Owl City” I replied, “It’s Rogue Wave.”

“Oh… no wonder.”

Maybe one day we’ll actually make it to the west coast…

and even though I’m learning to stop and ask directions… by then we’ll have definitely taken the scenic route to arrive at our future.

Then we can swim out past the breakers and watch the world die.

I heard a funny story on NPR’s On the Media this week…

Apparently a guy named Robert Ekas is suing his local police department, claiming his multiple moving violations are bogus and only issued because he is (apparently) committed to giving the police the finger.

Brooke Gladstone’s conversation with Ira Robbins about free speech, public obscenities and flag burning was funny and interesting.

A case that seems kind of silly is actually kind of a big deal…

What do you think? do we have a right to “salute” the police in whichever way we feel appropriate? (whether they deserve it or not?)

If so, do you believe it an important way to excercise your first amendment rights?

Listen for yourself, or read the transcript here.

Disclaimer: I’m thankful for Traverse City police and I’d never call them pigs… it just makes the illustration funnier.

Then I became rather obsessed with her after reading Real Sex and hearing her various lectures/podcasts on that book that were floating around the interweb.

I finally finished reading Mudhouse Sabbath, and though it took a little more concentrated effort on my part than Real Sex or Girl Meets God, it was still incredibly insightful and offered more of Lauren’s unique perspective on how Christians have either lost touch with our Jewish heritage or in some cases adapted certain traditions.

While Girl Meets God unveiled the connectedness between the Judaism of Lauren’s youth and her new-found Christian faith by way of comparing the holidays over her years of conversion, Mudhouse Sabbath compares eleven Jewish customs and how they have found a place—in one way or another—in her life as a Christian.

Her chapter on prayer was (like its Girl Meets God counterpart) was especially challenging to me, and the section on food was great…

To consider how food connects us to God… where our food comes from, what God might think of our food, etc.

Really each chapter was perfectly concise and had just enough oomph to make you stop and consider.

While many of those Old Testament traditions have found a place in some way in western Christianity, it was her chapter on mourning that seemed to stand out as something in particular that we as Christian-ized westerners seem to have no construct.

We may succeed sometimes as a community supporting those widowed within the few week following their losses…

but then what?

And what do we as mourners do when those around us are encouraging us to “get it together?”

To celebrate our loved one’s death?

yet we’re immobilized with fear and pain and anguish.

Lauren describes the Jewish tradition for mourning, which divides the entire year for the widowed into particular phases for mourning.

Each one has its own instructions for the community and the mourner.

This calendar of bereavement recognizes the slow way that mourning works, the long time it takes a grave to cool, slower and longer than our zip-zoom Internet-and-fast-food society can easily accommodate. Long after your friends and acquaintances have stopped paying attention, after they have forgotten to ask how you are and pray for you and hold your hand, you are still in a place of ebbing sadness. Mourning plateaus gradually, and the diminishing of intensity is both recognized and nurtured by the different spaces the Jewish mourning rituals create—the harrowing shock of aninut, the pain of shiva, the stepping into life and world of shloshim”

I don’t know if I’ll ever adopt this calendar… I’ll probably die before anyone else close to me…

And when I die… I want Wake Up played at my funeral…

and I want it played loud (don’t worry about the old folks)…

and I want everyone to sing along…

and I want my old buddy Luke Meyers to be the songleader…

Wake Up

by Arcade Fire

Somethin’ filled up
my heart with nothin’,
someone told me not to cry.

But now that I’m older,
my heart’s colder,
and I can see that it’s a lie.

Children wake up,
hold your mistake up,
before they turn the summer into dust.

If the children don’t grow up,
our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.
We’re just a million little gods causin’ rain storms turnin’ every good thing to
rust.

I guess we’ll just have to adjust.

With my lightnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am goin’ to be
when the reaper he reaches and touches my hand.

With my lightnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am goin’
With my lightnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am, go-go, where I am

You’d better look out below

The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in [the celebration]. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen. The son said, “look how many years I’ve stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends? Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!”

His father said, “Son, you don’t understand. You’re with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours—but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he’s alive! He was lost, and he’s found!” —Luke 15:28-32 —The Message

The targets of this story [of The Prodigal Son] are not “wayward sinners” but religious people who do everything the Bible requires.

Jesus is pleading not so much with immoral outsiders as with the moral insiders. He wants to show them their blindness, narrowness, and self-righteousness, and how these things are destroying both their own souls and the lives of the people around them. It is a mistake, then, to think that Jesus tells this story primarily to assure younger brothers of his unconditional love.

No, the original listeners were not melted into tears by this story, but rather they were thunderstruck, offended, and infuriated.

Jesus’s purpose is not to warm our hearts but to shatter our categories.

—Tim Keller, The Prodigal God

The scene:

A woman, late in her pregnancy freezes mid-stride to announce to her partner that her water has just broken

(possibly a wisecrack about peeing her pants or another character slipping and falling in the fluid).

The couple race to the hospital barely making it in time to start pushing.

Somehow in the midst of the mother’s bloodcurdling screams and insults at her doofus husband, the doctor has the presence and expertise to recognize… the baby is breech!!

Luckily that doesn’t matter at all and after one more push the couple has a beautiful 2-month-old newborn kicking happily in their arms.

Enter color character for comedic line to alleviate the tension  (this may happen earlier in the timeline, in which case color character opens door to find himself face-to-face with the birth canal… then turns and exits without comment, faints, or leans in for a “better look” suggesting the woman’s gaping crotch sexually exciting) *cue laugh track

Cut to scene of mother at home (looking sexy in her hollywood body) feeding baby her bottle.

Cue soundbite “Awwwwwww”

Roll credits.

To anyone who has ever watched prime-time T.V regularly since its inception this scene should be pretty familiar…

Pretty much any sitcom birthing experience follows this template. (Just replace the “funny” moments with an emergency c-section, rapid baby heart rate, wrapped umbilical cord and you’ve got yourself a 10 p.m. drama slot).

That is why last night’s episode of The Office was so groundbreaking.

Absolutely the first time I’ve ever watched a “delivery” episode without a single eye-roll from my wife.

In fact… she even cheered when Pam stood up for herself to the nurse casually suggesting that she’d give the baby a bottle in the nursery…

YES!

Whoever wrote this thing (IMDB credits Greg Daniels and Charlie Grandy)… you’ll probably never read this, but…

I’m sure it took some guts to stand up to whomever was (I’m willing to bet) insisting on the above tried-and-true format, and I’m really proud of you.

At this very moment I am trying to decide if 10:45 a.m. is too early to bust out leftovers…

This meal is both simple and beautiful, and is guaranteed to knock your socks off.

I’d recommend it to vegetarians when hosting your carnivorous father-in-law… just don’t tell him it’s meatless…

He’ll be so busy stuffing his face, wiping sweat from his barren cranium and breathing loudly through his nose that he’ll never notice.

Enchilada recipe comes from Martha.

Best Red Enchilada Sauce is made with dried ancho chiles… best sauce ever!

Ok…

So five total posts in the last month…

Besides the fact that I’ve had more urgent responsibilities demanding my time, February in northern Michigan just has a way of sucking any inspiration out of the air…

Well… leave it to some good old-fashioned Canadian hip-hop to bring my cultural olfactory senses back to life.

I’ve been eagerly anticipating this album since k-os (pronounced “chaos”) released his EP Atlantis: Hymns for Disco three years ago. I loved the kind-of genre bending style he brought on Atlantis and the sample from Lean on Me that kicks off the first track on Yes! is a pretty clear warning that I can expect more of the unexpected:

Frustrated Teacher: “Do you have any idea of the chaos you have caused around here? Nobody knows what you’re doing!”

Autocratic Morgan Freeman: “That’s exactly the way I like it!”

Perhaps it is his cross-cultural upbringing that has brought about such commitment to defy convention…

I really don’t know, but I sure do I dig his determination to be different musically and fundamentally within hip-hop culture.

Or, to put it simply…

It’s the perfect hip-hop for super-white dudes like me. (or for just about anyone)

(as made obvious by  “I Wish I Knew Natalie Portman” à la Phantom Planet currently on permanent rotation in my head – and at the top of the Strong Odors related tunes playlist)

“It’s a rabbit eating bacon,” he says.

It is no secret to readers that I’m inspired by music.

I’m not exactly sure what connects me to any particular songs.

When I’m creating something visually I always have to have music playing… sometimes I can even look back at past artwork and know if I had been listening to Smashing Pumpkins or Sigur Ros or Radiohead or Bob Dylan while creating.

There is something about great music that is inspiring… it can’t be just the music itself, because different music inspires different people in different ways.

But when that perfect combination of melodies, harmonies, rhythms, ambient noises, or whatever comes together in a way that connects with me on a spiritual level…

I think it may be one of the top reasons why I believe in God.

UPDATE 3/3/2010

I found out this weekend that my submission to the  Creative Allies for a  ReadyMade Magazine contest is going to be featured in the exhibit at the ReadyMade Party during the SXSW Festival!!

If I’d had more time to enter multiple designs in the contest, I might have had a better shot at winning the Grand Prize… a trip to SXSW and party with the ReadyMade crew…

Would’ve been sweet… just saw this cool mix from NPR today and it’s got me wishing I could go to see some sweet bands like The Antlers, Band of Horses, Japandroids, Matt Pond PA, Rogue Wave, She & Him, and even Churchill will be doing a show there…

Not to mention a crap pile of the most snob-worthy bands so fringe they don’t even exist in real life… I’m sure one of them is probably my favorite band ever… too bad I’ll never know.

You can see all 12 pieces in the exhibit here and check out some close-up detail images of my illustration on my portfolio.

I started paying attention to Wyclef Jean when I spotted Bob Dylan in one of his videos.

I really started paying attention when I heard about his charity and social development programs in Haiti.

Here is one man that cares about Haiti.

He may not be great at business or with personal finances…

His non-profit has definitely had some growing pains.

But he cared when no one else did.

One of the poorest and most desperate nations in the world is just outside the U.S.

It has been there for a long time.

Hurting for a really long time.

Nobody cared.

And though it’s been encouraging and inspiring to see individuals and communities across the U.S. contribute to healing Haiti right now…

It’s sad to realize what it took for us to even begin to care.

Check out Wyclef’s song “President” in the player and don’t forget to stay up-to-date with Strong Odors by becoming a fan on Facebook and following on Twitter.