the world is bright and beautiful

being believed in is the most wonderful feeling. there is a guy named Jason Cross who besides having dabbled in just about every musical venture a man could dabble, is a fantastic photographer. Some of his work can be seen via the promo shots he took for Cameron At Bay. Irregardless, he truly believes in our band. He thinks we’re great, and tells people we’re great. He believes we can “make it.” And knowing that he believes in us makes me believe in us. Just like being with Ricci, knowing that she believes me to be capable of great things makes me feel capable of infinite greatness. How much more then knowing that God, our God, the God of everything who made everything…to think that He Himself thinks us valuable, believes in us…what could possibly be impossible now to believe in a God who believes in us? To me that is the power of belief, but in a roundabout sort of way.

Tonight I have “War All The Time” by Thursday in my headphones. In talking with Ricci tonight I realize how poor my musical habits have become. I never really listen to music anymore, listen with good headphones, perfect EQ, volume set just right so that all of the intricacies and subtleties can hit your ears…recorded music is just such an amazing thing. I’m excited to be back “inside” of an album that impacted me a lot when I first got it and hearing the things that really hit me way back when. I still maintain that this is a fantastic album, and that you haven’t really heard a piece of music until you’ve heard it with the volume up and a really good set of speakers/headphones producing everything you’re meant to hear. I love.

Ricci and I are drinking Coke Blak and playing Super Mario 64. Happy Memorial Day Weekend!!!

I’ve just returned from a late showing of “At Worlds End,” and it is hard to put into words just how excruciating this experience was. Actually, how excruciating it would have been had the movie not been at times hilariously awful. But where to begin? At the beginning.

First we are introduced to one of the film’s seemingly countless new characters, who is supposed to be of great importance to some important Court, yet will be as poorly directed and flat/undeveloped as the rest of the last-minute new characters we will meet on this journey. Begin series of endless attempts at plot development, fueled by countless turns of “You double crossed us while we were double crossing him before he could double cross you for double crossing him in the past? I can’t believe that! You double crosser! I mean, you’re my best friend and I love you.” It’s like the script was a chemically unbalanced 13-year old girl. No, a PREGNANT, chemically unbalanced 13-year old girl. The only thing the story seemed to be able to make up its mind on was making sure that the two best actors in it, Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom, get as much dialogue and screentime as possible.

Did you feel my sarcasm? Who on earth okayed this script? What was that meeting like?

“Allright, we’ve got loads of serious, dramatic dialogue to be delivered. Now, we could give it over to Geoffrey Rush and Johnny Depp, two of the most extraordinary talents Hollywood has ever seen OR we could hand it off to the ol’ Knightley/Bloom combo.”

“Well, other jackass writer/producer/directer, I’ve gotta go Knightley on this one.”

“Just what I was thinking, my friend. Throw in plenty of Bloom and it can’t fail.”

WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? You manage to sucker Johnny Depp AND Geoffrey Rush into playing fantastic characters inside a god-awful pile of drivel called a script, and you pass up the one chance you have of making a good movie by letting Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley speak? Only Disney could make a movie with Depp and Rush together awful.

And then a monkey gets fired out of a cannon. Yep. Monkey and a cannon. Now, I’m still not sure which was worse, watching the monkey get fired out of a cannon or hearing the baboons in the theatre laugh and applaud for the monkey. It could be a toss up. Either way, I’m left imagining this scenario: Somewhere, a few years back, a writer sits waiting his turn at a pitch meeting. In his hands is an absolutely stunning script for Pirates 3: At Worlds End. It features tremendous dialogue from Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush, a linear, sensical plot with only a few huge and unexpected twists, and the perfect ending to the trilogy. He’s holding Pirate gold, as it were, in his hands. But just as he opens his mouth to deliver the magic, the door bursts open, and in rushes Keira Knightley with a low-cut tank top, Orlando Bloom looking like he’s shooting the middle of GQ, and “random dickweed writer guy,” who happens to look like Chris Farley. The trio are extatic:

“We’ve got it,” the Farley dickweed says.

“Knightley, Bloom, monkey in a cannon.”

The room is silent, stunned at the brilliant idea they’ve just heard. An executive responds, “Throw in 50 million worth of CGI to give us 3 seconds of 200-foot cleavage, and we can start shooting this travesty.”

And then the guy who wrote the good version of Pirates 3 buries it in his backyard and dissappears into the Appalachian mountains. This is how I feel having seen the actual version of Pirates 3. Like somewhere out there, somewhere in the Appalachians perhaps, there is a good version of Pirates 3 that doesn’t rely on hokey sight gags, endless CGI, and grrrl power a la Knightley. But I want to gnash my teeth because I know that version will never be made because the baboons are all settling for monkeys, cannons, and Orlando Bloom.

Hollywood needs to be held accountable.

I’ve finally started writing. Last April while on tour with The Furnace we passed time by sharing our dreams over the PA system inside our bus. Mine? To write a play based on the music of The Killers. Now, I realize that this sounds like obsessive fan BS, but believe me, there is nothing I want to create more than a full-fledged show featuring Killers music. There are so many stories in their albums, between Hot Fuss’s murder-in-Las-Vegas to Sam’s Town’s tales of desperation, heartache, dreams of grandeur and fully requited love. Today I’ve written down my first wave of ideas, and if it kills me I swear I’m going to write this thing through to the end. Look for me on a marquee someday.

please go on iTunes and download the track “Hide and Seek” by imogen heap. press play. now you can hear what I’m listening to as I write this, and understand my mood better. I feel very relaxed and peaceful right now. I walked from my apartment down to Enchanted Grounds to escape the boredom I didn’t realize came from not having a car for a day. I’m enjoying some wonderfully fresh and clean coffee, listening to beautiful music, and waiting (hopefully) to be picked up by my lovely girlfriend. is there more?

today was a good day. I got to make Ricci breakfast, play Pokemon Snap with her, have at least one remarkable and beautiful conversation with her, drive her around, drink coffee at the Tattered Cover, and yes, even kiss her. We then destroyed our poor stomachs with Cheetos, Ruffles, and Pepsi “Summertime Mix,” which tastes like Gummi Bears (always finishing with the White ones.) Then we ate some real dinner and watched a little of Spinal Tap. All this to say that being in love and having a best friend are good things, but finding out that the person you love is your best friend is nothing shy of breathtaking.

Thinking about writing makes me remember the greatest lesson I ever learned about the power of art and creativity, specifically the written word. This lesson comes from the mid-90s horror film “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.” Now, trust me on this one. “New Nightmare” was a really crappy movie that I watched on late night TV when I had the flu or something. It was supposed to be the last entry in the dead-horse that was the “Nightmare On Elm Street” franchise. In it, Freddy Kreuger, clawed maniac extraordinair
is no longer haunting fictional characters. He has somehow left the silver screen and stalks down the cast and crew of the original “Nightmare” movies. All of the actors as well as Wes Craven himself play…themselves, now caught in the middle of the story they had once portrayed. Confused? Yep. So it turns out Freddy is real and he’s going to kill the actors from the movies in which he’s not real but really is…anyways. The point is approaching. There is a remarkably emotional scene in which Wes Craven, thinking himself Freddy’s creator, explains the reason the killer has escaped the screen: So long as movies, books, works of fiction were being made about Freddy Kreuger, the evil that composed him was trapped, powerless in words and on film. The “essence” of Freddy could not escape the pages and reels that contained him. But once the movies were done and no more scripts written, the evil was free to roam, killing and driving people to the edge of reason. Now, this seems like a strange thing to blog about, but old Wes Craven GOT IT RIGHT!!!

In our lives, we all deal with “evils.” Sometimes it is something truly evil, like a recurring sin we feel powerless to. Sometimes it is our own humanity, like the person who can’t control their thoughts or make their brains calm down to let them sleep, the person who’s chest feels tight because of the emotions constricting it. The person who’s brain swims with fear and unsureness. We all have THAT thing inside of us that gnaws at our heads and shallows our breath. But the most beautiful gift God gave us in my opinion is the gift of expression. When we can put down those things, pull them from our heads and trap them on paper, trap them on a canvas, trap them on film or on tape, trap them outside of ourselvs, they become powerless. When we express our inner thoughts and feelings, they no longer have the ability to control us from within. That is why prayer is powerful, why confession saves us. It is the act of putting that inner madness on the outside, in the air and light, that gives us freedom and gives us peace again. I believe that is why God created humans to sing and write and create. It is the idea of expression. It’s what Wes was talking about in New Nightmare. Trapped on film or paper where the world can see, there is no more power in that “evil.” It’s when the evils we face are allowed to live and breathe inside us that we lose ourselves inside our own heads. God, I hope that made sense.

It is rare to find a B-Side that I truly think should’ve been on an album. “Under The Gun” by The Killers is definitely that B-side. I belongs on Hot Fuss, not wallowing in boxed-set obscurity. But alas, at least I’ve got it somewhere. Ah, somewhere. I’m sitting at the Tattered Cover here in H.R., enjoying a delicious roast that tastes chocolaty in all the best ways, and writing about writing.

Today I wrote in my tiger journal for the first time since April 30th. This is a happy and sad occasion for me. I am happy to have written in the tiger journal at all, but sad that it has been 24 days since the last time. I had been in such a good habit of writing in my tiger journal every night, just to put down the day’s events or my current thought. You see, I love my tiger journal. It is called such because it has a large tiger on the front. It is my favorite journal. I love writing in it, and look forward to it. I write everything in my tiger journal, and it has helped me remember how powerful writing is, why I fell in love with writing in the first place. See, when I write in my tiger journal, things happen. When I write about things I’m hopeful for, it makes them real; it generates faith and patience. When I write about things I’m concerned with, it lays them out in order, stops the chaos and lets me take things one-at-a-time. When I write down sins, they are stripped of any power. They are trapped on paper, where they can’t control me or condemn me, where the Spirit of God can move on them, wither them in the light and exposure and take away any chance they have of returning. This is why I love to write, because it takes the things that eat away and consume us on the inside, good or bad, and puts them on the outside, in the light where they can fade or shine, according to God’s plan for them. I am the person who’s mind traps him, clouds with all my worries and fears and doubts and joys and accomplishments and whatevers until my brain races and I can’t sleep. But writing puts all my thoughts where they belong. This is why I love to write. SECOND BLOG COMING!!!

I am listening to the “Thin White Duke” remix of The Killers’ “Mr Brightside,” and it is stunning. The “Duke” threw a 6-4-1-5 progression behind the vocals, a variation on the original, and it gives the song an entirely new dynamic. There is a hightened sense of desperation in the lyrics with each bar starting on the relative minor. I am still so amazed at how, no matter how many strange and bizzare chord progressions artists (and even myself at times) can concoct, nothing pleases my ear or pulls my heart more than 6-4-1-5 or it’s happy cousin, 1-5-6-4. No matter how obscure and abstract music becomes, for me the simplest and most “common” chord progression will always convey more than even the most brilliant substitutions or out-of-key choices. Perhaps this is why I will always love Bleach…