298 i robot?

I've acquired the nickname "Randor2000" up here in Seattle. Miles (guitar player for my band) came up with the name and he says it's because of my geeky, sometimes robot-like qualities...I, uh think that's a compliment.

Anyway, I mention that because around church and at Bible studies I've occasionally been telling people that I'm really looking forward to seeing the upcoming Pixar movie, WALL-E, and when I mentioned it, a lot of people didn't know what I was talking about.

Well recently some of the people from my Bible study took a trip up to Vancouver for a mini-vacatiion. While there, the commercial for WALL-E came on the television and I pointed it out saying, "that's the movie I want to see." And one person responded, "oh, it's about a robot - no wonder you want to see it."

Until that point, I hadn't made that connection, which makes me wonder how much of a robot I actually am.

Computing...computing...computing

Anyway, click here to see the trailers. I highly recommend the Vacuum Vignette - the way the Pixar folks are able to convey emotion and narrative through sounds and subtle mechanical movements (note the way they use WALL-E's "eye brows" and the way WALL-E tilts his head and "squints" his eyes as it makes its exit) is sheer genius.

That little short and all the trailers never fail to put a smile on my face....dear Lord, maybe I am a robot!

297. cultivating "pearls"

So my pastor has a really cool blog which he calls beauty and depravity. This week, as a kind of joke, he put the following exchange between himself and a Quest single woman (QSW) up on his blog:

QSW: What do you call a cute guy at Quest?

Pastor: Huh? Okay...what?

QSW: A visitor...

Pastor: [laughing] That's cold.

And I thought it was hilarious and so did some other people. But then something interesting happened. In the comments section, his innocent post touched off a flurry of discussion centered loosely around the topic of dating. It didn't take long for another QSW (not the one that told the "cute guy" joke) to put up her own blog entry in response which then got referenced in yet another post back on my pastor's blog which also garnered a ton of comments.

It's been quite an interesting and entertaining couple of days in the Quest blogosphere.

And since the topic is dating and relationships and church...well, of course I have to throw my hat in the ring.

Thing is, most of the comments (left by men and women) basically made the point that men should man up, grow some balls, and start asking out some of the amazing single women who call Quest their church home. And for the most part, they're right.

But.

But for some guys it's not that simple.

Take, oh...let's say, me as an example.

In the last few years of high school and the first few years of college, I was involved in a para-church organization that took a pretty hard line stance when it came to dating. Basically, their message was, "don't date because you can't control your emotions and your hormones. If you start dating now you're inevitably going to do something stupid like having unprotected sex (because we're certainly not going to teach you anything about contraception) and you'll probably get your girlfriend pregnant. You're going to stop going to church and fall away from Christ because you're too busy to go with your two minimum wage jobs (the only jobs you could get because you didn't finish high school/college) and so your kid will grow up outside a nice christian home and he/she will hang out with the wrong crowd and start taking drugs which will lead to him/her stealing items from your home which they will pawn off to support their habit. In the end, you'll die a miserable old man who never got to accomplish anything meaningful in life. All because you started dating before you were old enough to handle it."

You think I'm joking about this? Well, yeah, I'm exaggerating a bit but honestly, not by much. During camps and retreats, they'd often have a segment where they'd separate the guys from the girls and they'd give THE TALK, not entirely unlike what I wrote above. And they did more than talk. If a dating couple made the mistake of attending one of these camps, the counselors would do everything they could think of to try to break them up through the course of the retreat. They'd make sure the one couldn't see the other during free time. At every opportunity, the women counselors would talk to the girl and the male counselors would talk to the guy, explaining in no uncertain terms why they were too young and unprepared to be in a relationship. Their tactics were quite effective. Lots of couples either left halfway through camp, unwilling to put up with the bullying tactics, or left camp no longer dating.

Now you might be thinking, that's so screwed up - why did you put up with that kind of teaching? Why did you stay with that group?

Well, yeah, looking back now I can see how screwed up that all was, but at the time I didn't know any better. I mean I wasn't learning about dating and relationships at home. I love my parents and all but I never saw them modeling any kind of healthy interaction, let alone intimacy (despite the eww factor). And back in the day, I wasn't one of the cool, with-it kids. I was one of the nerds back when being a nerd was still a bad thing. No one in my circle of friends knew anything about how to get dates let alone what to say or do if we somehow went on one. So when I started going to these camps and hanging out with these smart, hip christian leaders who talked about how great their marriages were, why wouldn't I listen to what they had to say?

And here's another thing. Despite the fact that I now see that their views on dating were fracked up (I've been watching BSG oh hulu), they really did have some solid teaching and discipleship. I learned a lot from them and I might not be the christian I am today were it not for some of the values they instilled in me. I mention this because their being on point in most areas of christianity made it that much harder for me to dismiss their take on dating even if it seemed a bit odd to me.

Now at the same time, as I was growing up, men were being mocked and ridiculed on television, in movies, and certainly in the stand-up comedy routines of female comedians. Take a movie like When Harry Met Sally. Billy Crystal's character is basically a jerk. Not just that, he gives Sally (Meg Ryan) multiple lectures on how men are pigs who only have one thing on their mind when they're around women.

Or take a look at this bit from a song by Jimmy Webb titled, What Does A Woman See In A Man which ends with this bit:

And yet, dreaming of orgies in Vegas or Cannes
He preens and strikes poses Olympian
While she shoulders the cross
And lets him play boss
His nurse and long-suffering Samaritan

He brags about knocking the world on its ass
But oh when the shit hits the fan
She'll bail him out
She's the one with the clout
Only she knows how humankind ever began

Tell me what does a woman see in a man?

(complete lyrics here)

The song came out in the early nineties but in its own hyperbolic way, it kind of captures the man-bad-woman-good vibe that kind of emerged out of the eighties.

I'm sure there are much better examples of what I'm trying to get across which is the idea that I grew up in a time when the habits and attitudes of men were belittled in the media. Oh, and I just remembered a quote from a movie called Mindwalk that went something like, "you men have been in charge for so long and look at what a mess you've made of things. Maybe it's time for women to take the lead."

And one last item before I (finally) get to the point I'm trying to get across.

I suppose I just have the worst luck when it comes to women because despite all the dysfunctional instruction I received, I did manage to start sort of seeing this girl while I was in college. And it was stupendous, thrilling, bountiful and beautiful. It's like we were best friends from the start - we had similar interests, we finished each other's sentences. We felt instantly at ease around the other and found ourselves sharing things even our best friends didn't know.

But.

But we were just friends and when I suggested maybe we be a bit more than friends, she freaked out. She said I was betraying our friendship and she couldn't believe I would want to ruin something so special.

Now let me be clear here that it's not like I was suggesting we begin regular make out sessions in the back of my car. All I wanted was for us to see one another more regularly, to not date other people, to be able to tell our friends that we were seeing each other.

But she didn't want it. Any of it.

Don't ask me to explain. Her friends didn't get it either - they thought we would've made a smashing couple. Everyone saw that she and I seeing one another would have been the obvious, perfect thing. Well, everyone but her.

I'll spare you the gory (and I mean Stephen King/Clive Barker/GWAR gory) details but it went from amazingly beautiful to brutal and ugly almost overnight. I was a mess and she started seeing some guy who everyone thought was obviously wrong for her.

I guess this is all a VERY long, cumbersome way to respond to what some people said in the comments section of my pastor's blog posts which was basically, "hey guys, stop being spineless, safe, and weak and start asking girls out!" To which I respond, "it's not that easy for everyone."

I don't know if it was the batty teaching on dating I got from those camps or the fact that my parents didn't model a healthy relationship for me or if it was all the men-are-bad vibe I was getting from the media or if it was the brutal crash and burn of that early almost-relationship with that girl. I suppose it's all of the above, but add it all up and I guess you can see that dating doesn't come easily to me.

The amount I don't know about dating and relationships could fill a black hole and turn it back into a star again.

In the comments section to one of my pastor's posts I asked why women didn't do some of the initiating. One person responded that women do initiate by putting out signals.

Maybe I've never been signaled, maybe I haven't seen the Rosetta Stone and don't know how to interpret their hieroglyphics. Maybe I have so little confidence in the dating process that I refuse to see them. I mean if a woman came up to me with a sign stuck to her forehead that read, "hey, ask me out," I'd probably think she was just being ironic.

See, it's not like there's a school out there offering degrees in Lloyd Dobler. And yeah, there are books out there like Dating For Dummies and The Mack Within and The Game, but they all basically say the same thing which is "be confident - confidence is attractive." And I'm sure that's true but in the rare occasion that I do try and ask someone out, while my mind is telling me, "I'm the man, I'm a great catch, I'm so money I don't even know it," the thing that comes out of my mouth is, "so...um...don't feel pressured or anything because it's not really a big deal so feel free to say no because you won't hurt my feelings and I hope I'm not putting you in an awkward position because...oh, you know what? I just remembered that I need to buy bread so I'll be going now. Have a nice day."

Look, here's the deal. I don't write all of this because I want people to feel sorry for me. On any given day, I'm 99 percent content and happy and secure as a single man. And even on my most needy days, I'd say I'm still up around the 85-90 percentile. For the most part, I like love being single. My life is simple, my money is my own, I don't have to clear my schedule with anyone. I'm not saying my life is all diamonds and pearls but it's like Jay-Z says, "I got 99 problems but a b#$^# ain't one."

I put my story up to make the point that "man up, grow some balls, stop being a wimp" is pretty empty advice.

I don't know how many men can relate to anything I've shared but I'll bet they don't want to talk about it because who wants to admit that they don't have the first idea about how to date - something eighth graders know how to do? Because how much more unattractive will they feel they are to women by making such an admission?

And so I'll speak for them because I have nothing at stake. I love being single.

(Am I missing out on a beautiful part of what it is to be alive and human? Probably. Am I going to do anything about that? Not right now.)

The most sublime description of the modern dating scene that I've ever heard came from one of my college Political Science teachers (Chad Blair) who said, "some people are getting it, some people aren't." And I'd add that those who aren't are either too ashamed to admit they need help or have no idea where to get help even if they wanted it.

I don't know what the solution for this is. I don't know how to make men better, more whole, more confident. But sometimes the suggestion, "be a man," is about as useful as telling a drowning person, "learn how to swim."

296. keeping the dream alive!

[preface]

So I'm still super busy. This week I've spent the past three nights out of four at our rehearsal studio after work, working on the new Harrison CD that we need to have done before our tour in July.

And truth be told, this is actually the second blog I've written this month. I won't post the first one for reasons you'll read about below and the only reason I've rushed to finish and post this one is because I really want to write a response to this post because I have lots I want to say on the topic.

So this is a bit of an unfinished post (as if my blogs are ever anything but), but stay tuned - another addition to the Dating & Relationships series is forthcoming.

[end preface]


So...um, being busy isn't the only reason I haven't been able to write lately. It's also because the things I wanted to deal with in my writing had to do with people in my band - people whom I care about deeply. I knew I had some difficult things to say and to share about them but of course, the blogging thing is a very public forum and I didn't want to air out dirty laundry where everyone could see.

But that creates a kind of problem for me because the way I think about and deal with problems is by writing about them and often, one of the few things that can motivate me to get to the hard work of writing is you, my readers. So, I came up with what I thought was a brilliant plan. I decided to write out my grievances as a blog entry but to not post it until I showed it to my band and got their permission to put it up.

That did the trick. I opened up the spigots of my sub-conscience and let loose a barrage of bile and accusation.

Now before I go on about what I wrote, let me say that my "method" of writing has to do with having an issue that's unresolved in my mind and working through it by stringing words and ideas together. It's been said that thought is parallel (your mind can process more than one idea at a time) while writing is far more serial (it can basically only deal with one idea at a time). With this band thing, I knew I had a lot of discontent brewing just below the surface, but when I started writing about it, I didn't know, precisely, the source of my frustrations. And so I just began by putting down the first thing that came to mind on the topic and went from there.

It wasn't easy and it certainly wasn't fun which sucked because for the most part, while writing is seldom easy, it is almost always fun (a sick, self-torturturous kind of fun, but fun nevertheless). Dishing out the frustrations I had with my band was like squeezing the puss out of a cyst or boil - it was painful and it was ugly. But it was necessary. And to extend the analogy, once I started squeezing the poison out, I started to feel better.

For the most part, the things I was writing centered around the thought that the source of my frustrations was the feeling that all the hard work I had put (and continue to put) into the band was being taken for granted - I didn't feel appreciated. I laid out example after example of why I felt this way. In the end I wound up with an entry that weighed in at four pages and almost 1,800 words. I finished the last bits of it in the hours before our Saturday rehearsal - I rushed the ending because I wanted to show it to the band and be done with it.

(As an aside, here's some sage, free advice to anyone thinking about sharing their frustrations with friends in written form: don't send the first draft!)

I showed up (late) to rehearsal and told them a bit about how I'd been feeling these last few months and then I told them about the blog entry that I wanted to post and gave them the copies I had printed out. We decided that they would read what I had written and discuss their take on the matter the next day before rehearsal.

The rest of that Saturday was odd for me. I wasn't sure how my band would take the things I had written. I didn't pull any punches. When given the choice between taking the direct, hurtful approach and the more subtle, passive approach, I chose the former. I took a bit of time out later in the day to re-read what I had written and I saw that there were things that I should have taken out or at least re-written. But it was too late for that and anyway, I figured maybe it was best that they got the unedited, unfiltered me.

Sunday was interesting. I'll spare you the gory details (sorry to deny your voyeuristic curiosity but that's privileged, band information) but suffice it to say that I was wrong about what I had written. I don't just mean that I said some unfair, hurtful things which I apologized for, I mean the crux of my blog entry was wrong. The source of my frustrations wasn't so much a lack of appreciation - the guys in the band know I put in a ton of work, even if they're not the best at showing it - as it was the feeling that as a band we had lost our fire and passion and drive.

See, here's the thing. I work my ass off for this band and I've invested a lot of my own money into items that benefit the band as a whole - this is on top of money I've put into my own musical gear. I didn't feel pressured to get this equipment - nobody asked me to do it - I did so because I believe in this band. I pour myself into the band because, if you'll allow me a moment of unbridled optimism, I truly believe that we have a chance at being the last monster band of the CD era or the first monster band of the internet era. And by monster, I mean the kind of band that crosses marketing boundaries and finds fans across a wide musical spectrum, the kind of band that people get tired of hearing because we're everywhere, the kind of band that sells out arenas and stadiums, the kind of band that people ape in karaoke bars.

I believe it.

All of it.

And so I work my ass of for this band.

But.

But I can't do it by myself.

The thing that was killing me was not that I felt unappreciated, it was that I felt as if I was the only one left who believed enough in the band enough to sweat and work and sacrifice for it. Maybe it's because the music scene is tougher than we anticipated. Maybe it's because we miss a bit of home. Maybe it's because all our personal differences and conflicts are heightened now that we're in a new environment. Maybe it's all of the above. Whatever the reason, these last few months it seems all the air had been let out of the Harrison balloon and our basket was in danger of running aground. We had lost sight of the prize and were doing just enough to get by.

I was a bit of an asshole in what I wrote about my band. They were gracious in forgiving me for it and the one really good thing (among others) that came out of it was that it reminded all of us that as a band we all have to continue to believe in what we came here for.

We didn't leave the comforts of home and the support of friends to play tiny shows to tiny crowds in tiny parts of Seattle. We left home behind because we believed we could take over the world! At least that's why I did it.

When I look back on my time in this band, I don't want to remember that we came to Seattle and found the scene too hard to break into and so we just played what shows we could and gave up after a couple years. I want to remember that we gave every ounce of ourselves to make it happen and even if we never got to play stadiums or arenas, we gave it our all on every stage that would have us.

As a band, some of us (myself included) had forgotten about that dream, that purpose, that fire and that's why I felt so frustrated at all the work I was doing for the band - because if I'm not doing it to fulfill a dream, then spending hours and hours working on recording, mixing, and editing songs for a new CD is just building the Titanic.

I gave some action items to my band - things that would show me that we still intended to shoot for the stars - simple things like responding to emails and keeping others informed about what we've been working on to make sure we're all on the same page, making sure we're working as a team and not as lone rangers (of which I was the most guilty). I've seen some improvement in these areas, not as much as I'd like but it's a start. And I know that as I'm working on the recording end of things they're working to put together our summer tour - we already have shows lined up in Portland and LA with more prospects dangling in the air.

And the cool thing about working in Seattle is that we've found some really talented individuals who really want to help us:


I really do believe that we can make it, that we can be an unstoppable monster of a band. And the amazing thing is that along the way, we've found some great people who believe in us as well - a savvy manager, a web marketing guru, a dope web designer (new website coming soon), and a photographer talented enough to make the monkeys in our band actually look like rock stars (no small feat, I assure you). And this is in addition to having an amazing videographer who's already shot two amazing music videos for us (see here and here...or here if those links don't work).

We've been blessed with resources that most bands only dream of. On top of this, because of the new avenues that the internet has opened, lots of the old barriers to stardom have come tumbling down. None of the old rules apply anymore - ask any crusty record exec and they'll tell you that they have no idea what their industry will look like five years from now. We are poised on the leading edge of a music marketing revolution. It will be a lot of chaos and a lot of false starts and dead ends. Some bands will get screwed, some will soar. It's going to be a bumpy, turbulent ride but I'm on board for better or for worse. And I'm betting big on better.