A Lesson from Running (Part 2)

Back in March, I ran in The Shamrock Run in Hammond, LA.  It was a beautiful day and a fun race.  While I did not set any personal records, I did learn a valuable lesson... the hard way.

There were about 7 or 8 real runners who blew by me within the first half mile, and I would not see them again.  There were about three of us who were far outpacing the rest of the pack, but too slow to catch the leaders.  I trailed a 27-year-old by about 100 feet for most of the race.  As we were less than a mile from the finish line, I kept pushing myself and kept focusing on his shirt up ahead.

Then it happened.  I realized that he was stopping (obviously confused) to ask one of the race workers a question.  As I approached, it was clear to me that he had missed a turn, and was off-track.  I kept running ahead and asked another couple of race workers where I should go, and they were clueless about where I had been or where I should go.  By this time, the younger guy I had been following was beside me, and we decided to just run toward the finish line.  We were both very frustrated by the time we crossed the finish line and were nearly disqualified until we explained what happened to the race official.

The lesson is very simple:  Be careful about who you are following.

Amber Waves by Bill Mallonee (Review)

Amber Waves is a solid alt-country effort by Bill Mallonee along with his former bandmates Jacob Bradley and Kevin Heuer.  The album, produced on a shoe-string budget, is a haunting yet hopeful collection of tight melodies and honest narratives.  Musically, Amber Waves acts as a photo album of past efforts by Vigilantes of Love.  "Break in the Clouds" and "To the Nines" recall the Struggleville sound, others like "What You Take and What You Leave Behind" sound like they were part of the Blister Soul sessions, and "Pillow of Stars," "Walking Disaster," and "Once Your Heart Gets Broken" reflect both Audible Sigh and Summershine.

Bill's lyrical work is still going strong.  For example, he opens the second track "To the Nines," with the line: "Well the rain and the wind/ they're at it again/Quarrelling lovers/Better run for cover/Yeah the rivers will rise/No one's surprised/You're gonna get baptized/One way or another."

The album is very up-tempo.  Of the 13 tracks (one is repeated for a total of 14), only "Yeah Yeah Yeah (I've got faith like butterfly wings)," "Long Since Gone" and "Into God Knows What" are slower, introspective and primarily acoustic.

Personally, I find the highlight of the album to be the Byrdseque "Walking Disaster"-- both musically and lyrically.  The jangly Rickenbacker, the driving bass, and the snare rolls move this three minute pop song from the chute to the finish line coming up for air.  In fact, there's hardly time to consider the brilliant lyrical pictures that Bill paints.  For instance, he draws a seedy picture of our depraved humanity with the following: "You stand and you make your confession/ in the suit of old clothes that you stole/ Offering your vain protestations/doused heavily in cheap cologne." He follows that in the chorus with the hopeful truth: "And the river of love, she still rolls on / Long time after the well has run dry."  Which seems to be more than a fitting reflection on Bill's career.  The ever elusive fame and glory (as well as a decent living) keep coming up dry, but he continues to roll on with his musings and melodies on struggles, faith and redemption.

If you are a VoL fan, this is a must have.  If you're new to Bill's work, click on http://billmalloneemusic.bandcamp.com/album/amber-waves and give it a listen.

Setting the Stage for a Review of Amber Waves by Bill Mallonee

It was April, 1995.  I had read something in a magazine about a little band from Athens, GA called Vigilantes of Love, and I was curious.  I stopped in at The Compact Disc Store on Jefferson in Baton Rouge, which was the best chance of spotting a hard to find disc if Paradise Records didn't have it. Not only did the Compact Disc store have it, but they had a wonderful policy of allowing the customer to open and listen to a cd without any obligation to buy.  So, I slipped the headphones on and after the initial silence, heard the opening riff of "Blister Soul." Within three weeks, the disc was beyond heavy rotation-- it dominated my listening, and my friends were already tired of hearing me speak of VoL.

Bill Mallonee & co. kept the albums coming, and I kept trying to find them.  The band got tighter, the songs more accessible, and I was certain this little band from Athens was going to break into mainstream notoriety.

Then the three strikes hit the mitt.

First, in 1999, Audible Sigh, an alt-country masterpiece with production by Buddy Miller and BGVs by Julie Miller and Emmylou Harris was set for release through Pioneer Music Group. A fair amount of publicity was in place, and it looked like this would be the album to break VoL into a wider audience.

It didn't happen.  Pioneer Music Group folded holding the rights to Audible Sigh.
Strike one!

The next two years found the band touring heavily and trying to find a label that would launch the record.  Ironically, the album would find three different launch pads... all met with little more than an audible sigh.  Neither True Tunes nor Compass Records could muster enough interest to ensure much of a listening audience.  Frustration increased for Bill and his road-weary band of players.

The next two strikes to hit the leather are somewhat cloudy in my mind as far as which occurred first. Regardless, they both were devastating to the march up the hill of commercial success.
The band was touring in England ('Cross the Big Pond) and after a show, they were robbed.  Not only did they lose their equipment, but one of the guys was threatened with a syringe. Four guys living on a shoe-string, losing the tools of their trade, and asking "what if..." about the incident with the needle... Strike two!

Then there were three.  2001 saw VoL scale down to a three-man outfit--tighter than a new snare drum-- and take on a new sound.  Summershine (somehow in the face of all the adversity) was the happiest sounding release yet.  It was Beatles meet the Byrds, with jangly Rickenbacker, driving power-pop bass, and snare rolls.  "Surely," I thought, "this will be the one."  Compass Records had set a release date for this happy-go-lucky batch of British-invasion-sounding love songs: September,  2001.

9/11/01... Strike three!

Within a few months, VoL dissolved, and Bill embarked on a solo career.  While Bill continued releasing quality music at a break-neck pace (just take a look at his discography: http://volsounds.com/index.php/discography), it seemed to be a frustrated effort.  It was as if Audible Sigh and Summershine were the summit, and somewhere just beyond, the wheels began to fail the wagon.  Bill courageously marched forward, determined to write, record and tour as much as possible.  Somewhere around 2004-2005, Bill's marriage failed, he re-married and continued to record and tour (coffee shops, churches, house shows, etc.). Nearly ten years later, and Bill is still at it.  He releases 3-4 EPs per year, sometime with an additional studio album.  He has received numerous nods as a songwriter, but his commercial success has failed to produce a blip on the radar.

Two Kinds of Critical (Part 2)

The second meaning of critical is what most people tend to associate with the word-- that is, a critical spirit. A critical spirit is one that tears down without any desire to build up or make better, stronger or more beautiful.  Over-exposure to a critical spirit is what makes most people resistant to any type of critique.  They feel that evaluation or analysis of a behavior, performance or idea is a direct (and negative) reflection on who they are.  For many, this conjures painful memories of encounters with someone's critical spirit.

A critical spirit is a dangerous force.  Exhibiting it is perhaps one of the easiest habits to develop, and one of the hardest to break.

How do I know if I am thinking critically or exhibiting a critical spirit?  Is there some way I can perform a self-examination?  Perhaps.  I suggest the following as a test:

Typically, a critical spirit engages in ad hominem attacks. This means the focus is the person-- not the idea or action. We often see the ad hominem attack in political campaigns and debates.  But what about in everyday life?  Do you find yourself going beyond analyzing someone's idea or action, to the point that nothing that person does can be good enough for your approval?

Is your critical thinking being used to build up the other person, or are you analyzing in an attempt to discredit or embarrass others?

Remember, critical thinking is valuable and much needed; a critical spirit is destructive.
Choose wisely!

Why Water?

We have been drinking water with meals almost exclusively at our home for several years. Here are three reasons that you and your family should consider doing the same:

1) It's good for you! In fact, it's the most healthy thing you can drink.
2) It trains you and your children to enjoy water, so if you are blessed with the opportunity to eat at a restaurant, you will choose water with your meal. If you do not, you will likely pay an extra $2.00 per family member.
3) You will no longer fuss over spills at the table.  What's easier to clean than water?

It works for us! What do you think?

Two Kinds of Critical (part 1)

I saw an interesting bumper sticker last week.  It read: “Critical Thinking—the other national deficit.” I laughed to myself, and thought, “how true.” Yesterday, I was thinking about critical thinking and its evil twin: critical spirit.  I’m going to do my best to distinguish between the two.

Critical thinking is a cognitive skill that is found in most three and four-year-old children. It is nurtured through an often undervalued trait called curiosity.  As curiosity does its thing, the brain searches for ways to satisfy the desire.  In modern education circles, this is when the individual begins climbing the rungs of Bloom’s taxonomy past comprehension and upward to application, analysis, evaluation, and synthesis.  In Classical education, this is a move into the upper parts of the trivium—beyond the grammar to dialectic and rhetoric.

Whatever we call it, critical thinking is the ability to observe an event, knowledge or information and process it as if one were dismantling the parts of an object.  During the process, a person may find a more creative way to present information, she may find something about the process that needs tweaking, or he may decide that it could not be done any better.  We often call this process: critique.

More on this in my next post…

The Yearling (A Book Review)

Like many people my age, I have been familiar with The Yearling for most of my life; however, I had never taken the time to read it.  A few months ago, I heard Andrew Peterson make mention of the novel in several of the songs on his new album, so I decided to give it a try.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ classic work is often thought of as a children’s book or even adolescent literature.  While it is something that will appeal to a child or young adult, the overarching themes of the book are certainly most appreciated by adults.  There are some exciting hunts and humorous scenes that will be enjoyed by all ages, but these are mere brush strokes of the artist, painting a larger portrait.  The portrait is complete at the end of the novel when we listen in on a man-to-man talk between the father, Penny Baxter, and the son, Jody.  We hear explicit statements about the hard life that Rawlings has illustrated so well throughout the novel.

We further see the struggle of parenthood—of knowing how much to shelter a child and how much to push him toward adulthood.  Jody Baxter has been sheltered by his father, and perhaps, this has made the passage so difficult.

Rawlings presents in a very subtle way, a parallel to the return of the prodigal son parable.  She gives us the emotions and thoughts of a young man struggling with his place and his role in life.  She gives us the most simple, yet profound, sentence in the novel:  “He was wanted.”  This sweet realization stands equal with the ring, the robe and the fatted calf of the biblical story.

I sense that many of my generation are wrestling with the disappointing truth that the vast majority of us have been raised as consumers, without much training in productivity or self-sufficiency.  Getting a glimpse into the world of the Baxters makes me aware of how easy our everyday lives are compared to that of our ancestors. Theirs was a simpler life, but more difficult than we can imagine.  It was a life that demanded wisdom, prudence, strength, and trust—a life from which we can learn much.