Here we go again

I struggled for a little while with my motivations for keeping up this whole "blog" thing. I almost cancelled thing, thinking that possibly I was simply writing for attention. But I decided against it, since I like to think of this as more of a writing exercise to keep for writing tools sharp. I love people commenting and starting a little dialogue, but I will continue to write even if no one reads it.
Now on to today's agenda.
First of all, for those of you who don't know, Pat Todd sucks. What kind of person casts aspersions via internet comments?
Yes Pat, the irony was intended.

Second, I have a love affair with the deep South. I do not claim to be a Southerner. I'm a Texan, and there is a difference. But I love the South all the same, though I'm not sure why. Faulkner, Percy, Welty, Hurston, Flannery O'Connor, Toole, Joel Chandler Harris...you name it. I love them. I love Skynard and the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. I remember how disheartened I was when I found out that CCR came out of California. They don't have bayous in Cali. All this brings us to my new music love, the Cold War Kids (whom I will refer to as CWK).

Very few musical acts can pull off narrative music. It is a difficult thing to tell a story accompanied by music that captures the tone and syntax. Ryan Adams and Patty Griffin get it sometimes. I appreciate the Decembrists, but I've never really been able to get into them. CWK come out of California like CCR. And they spin tales predominately set in the South. And they do it well. And I don't care that they are from California. In fact, if they were from the South I dont' think they would be able to create their frenetic, spastic, spontaneously precise sound. I don't usually fall in love with bands that are so rangy and unmelodic, but I love the CWK's "Robbers and Cowards." You get a very percussive, driven beat laced with jazz, ragtime, gospel, folky blues, and just plain raucous distortion.

There are very few albums I've found that seem to take you to a place and put you there just be listening to it. The songs, in a concise few minutes each, build characters. It's literary music. Listen to it. Love it.
I hope this Friday afternoon finds all of you well.

Jordan

Good things

I've been thinking lately about the good and bad things in life. The good things: a good cup or pint, the people in your life who are "as good as the spring itself," the smell of leather, the sound of rain on the roof, the clarity that comes after a day of hard work. The list goes on.
The bad things: conflicting interests, humidity, futility, reality TV, most music played on the radio, dependency (on unwholesome things.) The list goes on.

But the best thing in life is purpose - knowing where you stand, what you stand for, what you stand on, what you understand, and what you stand under. But I know anyone who knows all of these things. Even if you do have a conrete idea, it is more of a concrete block, which you spend the rest of your life chipping and cracking to define it more clearly. And if you're like me you have the curse of finding this process very fascinating. And I want nothing more than to have this concrete block reach its final form, but I also don't want that because then what else would I do with my life?

I love what I do every day, that is with the exception of working at Cheddar's. I love sifting through all the literature of God and man and religion and morality. And all these things are ultimately important and applicable and yet much of it is very specific and true or not, relatively insignificant. What would I do with all the answers? Would I help other people understand things that helped them to live better, fuller, lives? Would I feel like I knew more than everyone else? It's all very important and very amusing. People are funny. Life is funny. There my aphorism of life.