body piercing saved my life

Today, I finished reading Body Piercing Saved My Life, inside the phenomenon of christian rock ... and loved it. It's been awhile since I read a book as fascinating and as interesting to me, probably because the author Andrew Beaujon combines two of my favorite topics: pop-cultural criticism and the strange, irritating and mystifyingly profitable evangelical christian culture that I grew up in. More than anything I've read recently, this book, without intending to (Beaujon is an avowed non-believer) sheds more light on the struggle of being "in the world but not of it" by profiling such a diverse group of Christian and post-christian artists. Fascinatingly, none of those profiled renounce their faith in Jesus, only in a church and industry that has gotten away (or was never near) from it's ultimate purpose, most of them would likely never agree on what the purpose of "christian" art is to begin with. Much more on that book in the future ...

This weekend, friday night specifically, we were in a hotel room watching tv and happened to watch America's Next Great Band. Unfortunately, I found that I could not tear my eyes away from the train-wreck spectacle of terrible bands parading across the nevada desert. Johnny Reznik? Way too nice. However accidental the viewing was, I hate to say it but we'll probably watch every week. And...yes, most of the bands were crap but not The Muggs!