Dear Jon,
Your recent diatribe against guys with guitars grieved my spirit almost as much as a praise song with more than four chords or running out of hair wax. I mean, I don’t, because I stockpile the stuff but, you know, if I did ever run out, I’d be grieved, almost as much as I was reading your unkind words for guys with guitars.
Look, until you’ve walked a mile in our girl jeans you have no right to criticize my kind. Picture this: You’re me. You’re sixteen. Your face is a general plague of pink and red bumps and blotches. The rest of you is the color of dead fish - a milky gray that broadcasts “I. Do. Not. Tan. Well. And may not actually be alive” As for muscles, you’ve got none. As for social skills, you’re Stephen Hawking. As for libido, well, it’s on fire like Michael Jordan at a slamdunk contest. And no, you don’t know who Michael Jordan is really. You just know that dropping his name into conversations with other guys keeps the wedgies to a minimum - and mentioning Mr. Hawking has the opposite effect. Like all boys your age you desperately want girls, any girls, to notice you - but preferably the hot ones because, let’s face it, you’re as deep as a toe nail.
To quote Dennis Hopper in Speed, “What are you gonna do? What. Are. You. Gonna. Do?” Huh, blog boy?
I’ll tell you what I did. I picked up a guitar and became a god. Ok, not a god, not yet, but for three minutes here and there actual females with ovaries and breasts and stuff sat around me with their eyes closed while I knocked out Richard Marx and Chicago tunes - the ones with four chords - the popular ones. And then, in college, I became a god. It was then that I wrote a song for a girl. It was called “Come To Me” and she did. And we made out. And now we have three kids. Oh, and we got married between the making out and the kid making. I promise.
There’s something magical, supernatural even, about the power of the acoustic guitar - about music in general. How else do you explain Rick Ocasek, Billy Joel, Rod Stewart or David Bowie and their powers to attract the fairer sex. That’s something divine. Possibly. So don’t knock it, man. You might find yourself boxing God himself, for I believe HE might just be the one who poured this wooing power into my Yamaha. And into my hair, which also has wooing powers of a similar nature. And my smile. And my clear complexion. And my witty personality and general charm. Ok, so I’m really really hot and awesome these days and I don’t need the acoustic guitar but it has powers none-the-less—powers which rescued me once upon a time from the clutches of dateless proms and game-playing Friday nights and self-loathing and the hard task of actual character development.
Take away the acoustic guitar and I would have been, well, you, I guess - spending hours on-line hurling hate speech at the talented and special and gifted and blessed and just plain awesomer among us.
God bless,
Shaun
I’ll be singing about fruit in the Nashville area next Wednesday night. Otter Creek Church of Christ in Brentwood, Tennessee is hosting a series of concerts/conversations all about what Christians call the “fruit of the Spirit.”
I know a little about fruit. We have peach trees in our backyard. I know they’re peach trees because of what they make: peaches. I know they’re peaches because they’re furry, tart, sweet, pitted, yellow and deep red and light orange. That’s what a peach is.
The bible says that Christians are people attached to God, connected to the Him like fruit on a tree. They grow and live because the Spirit of God flows from the tree through the branches and into the Christian who really, like a peach, can do no growing or maturing on her own. A Christian is the fruit of God, so to speak - what HE makes. And that fruit - a Christian - has certain qualities. Just as certainly as a peach has fuzz, a person connected to God has love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Next Wednesday night I’m supposed to pick one of those attributes and sing songs that have something to do with it. And a preacher guy - a professor of something at a university in town, actually - will be leading a discussion of that attribute and how my music relates to it. No pressure. So between now and then I need to figure out what words like “love” and “kindness” mean as they’re used in this part of the bible.
I have this fear of putting words in God’s mouth. The word “peace,” for instance, can mean “no conflict between individuals” or it can mean “wholeness in all parts.” Big difference. The difference between me singing “Peace Has Broken Out” or “Welcome Home.” The word “gentleness” can mean “bridled, under the control of a master” or it can mean “soft.” So I could sing “White Flag” or “Damage Done.”
And it’s not just about determining which songs I sing; it’s about expressing accurately what a Christian is. That’s a pretty weighty task for a musician (a post for another time). A Christian is not in conflict with anyone else or a Christian is becoming whole or both? A Christian is a slave to God or nice to be around or both?
Show up next Wednesday at Otter Creek Church of Christ to find out if I found any answers...and to bring answers and questions of your own. It’s supposed to be one hour of back-and-forth. See you there.
On Friday September 5th I’ll be in Langhorne, Pennsylvania; then in Peoria (in the morning) and Tuscola, Illinois (in the evening) on Sunday September 7th. Our gig in Illinois on Saturday September 6th just canceled due to too much stuff going on in the church already. Bummer.
So, if you’re anywhere between Langhorne, PA and Peoria, IL and you would like to have me play at your church or college FOR FREE on Saturday September 6th and release some kids from poverty, please shoot Ben an e-mail today. Thanks bunches.
My father-in-law planted it and my wife waters it but I wrote the songs that pay for the water and I married the girl who has the father who does the planting so, you can see, obviously, why I call the garden mine. In my garden grows peppers, tomatoes, corn, ochre okra, squash, some herbs of some kind and the largest zucchini in my cul-de-sac and possibly the world. In my garden. Therefore I am a tremendous zucchini farmer.
Some photos to give you some perspective on the size of this zucchini.
The zucchini on a plate with other lesser produce.
The zucchini lounging beside a fifteen inch Macbook Pro.
The zucchini proving it is bigger than a monkey.
And almost bigger than my cat. She’s obese though. The zucchini and I think that should be taken into account.
Also, the zucchini is obviously much larger than the letter “B.”
The zucchini is about the same size as my arm. My left arm. But not my muscled strumming arm (not pictured).
Which would be handy if I ever were to lose an arm. You know, it would be nice to just grow another, just call the father-in-law and buy more water and - presto! - a new arm. That’s useful if I ever lost mine and I wanted a new one and I didn’t want to travel around to churches telling the story of how I lost my arm while standing there in front of the everybody with a new one made out of zucchini. Not sure what I would choose to do if I lost my arm but it’s nice to have options.
I thought the idea of a zucchini arm had merit until halfway through the first round of testing. Even the best zucchini arm, turns out, slows down my typing.
So I think if I lose an arm I’ll fashion a new zucchini arm for myself and I’ll wear that zucchini arm all the time except when I’m touring around telling the inspirational story of how I lost my arm and also when I’m typing. But pretty much the rest of the time my arm will be a zucchini.
“We’ll go in a month,” Becky told Gresham - talking about a trip he’s looking forward to.
“That’s when I have another football camp!!” he yelled - as he does most things. “At football camp coach said in a month was another football camp!”
Football camp, of course, was over more than a month ago and “coach” actually said “in a month” football practice would start, followed by football season. What Gresham didn’t know until now is that he won’t be playing football this year. This is because five year-olds playing football in our town - and their parents - are expected to spend several hours every week on multiple practices and a game and that’s not a commitment we’re willing to make since we have two other kids, a full life already and football isn’t essential to the formation of Gresham’s character, spirit, body or the preservation of society as a whole. Sarcastic? Yes, and true.
Though Becky and I both agreed this was the right decision to make (this year), we both still wonder for a second here and there if it’s the right decision. It could go one of two ways. Either Gresham grows up to appreciate the boundaries we placed on his early athletic career, to be thankful he learned at an early age that his wants do not supersede the family’s needs, etc etc. Or he could end up living inside the dumpster of a sporting goods store someday muttering to himself “In a month...coach said football in month...in a month...coach said...football”
You never know.
I was just talking about this parenting problem with a friend who does not have kids at the moment. I explained that at least fifty times a day I wonder if I make the right parenting decision. Was it the right thing to tell her that, to stop him from doing that, to let her wear that, hear that, to make that rule, to make an exception to that one? Lots of decisions. And they fly by. They’re made in an instant most of the time - no time-out to read a book or phone a friend. I told her I have no idea which decisions will make a lasting impact for good or bad on my kids. And, because kids are people and people are different from each other, the same decision may have no negative impact on one of my kids but may land another one on Dr. Phil.
You never know.
So when I meet grown-ups who can’t stop hating and blaming their parents - unless there was some real abuse or neglect back there in the past - I have a hard time mustering empathy. That’s bad I know, but it’s true. If they don’t have kids I want to tell them to go make some and then come back and talk to me about how bad mom and dad were when their own kids are sixteen and they’ve logged a few thousand bad calls themselves. Having kids of your own is the surest way to forgive your own parents for the small mistakes they made - and a good way to make some of their big mistakes seem all-of-a-sudden small.
But sometimes these whiners have kids of their own and when that’s the case I’m truly amazed that they’re still mad at mom and dad for liking brother more than them, or making them come home at 10, or not letting them date that guy in high school. “Seriously?,” I want to ask. “At least you got to play football.”
I’m gonna go feel guilty now.
