Tuesday, March 4, 2008

RIP Larry Norman, other thoughts, celebration, fresno

I really enjoy The Grind, it’s a pleasant place to get some work done and decompress a little. Here, one can enjoy free Wi-Fi, drink decent coffee and even chat with friendly baristas. Only problem is, I took my headphones off momentarily and am now hearing Phil Collins dreadful “I Can’t Dance.” On another humorous note, when I misspelled ‘barisstas’, my spell checker suggested ‘barristers’ … maybe someone’s trying to tell me something about my habit of sharing RIAA-registered material with … my wife. Which is totally protected, so I’m good. I don’t really feel like using complete sentences today--anyhow.

This past Thursday, we had our second celebration at Northpark and it was a phenomenal success, no thanks to me. I have to give credit to God, all of our leaders and my wife, especially. Five minutes before it was to begin I was still trying to get the computer plugged in to the projector and the sound set up and was sweating profusely. Regardless, we had over 70 people turn up and it was mostly a big, noisy party but we also sang together and prayed and all around were able to celebrate the transformational changes that God is bringing to our groups and lives. I have some poor quality video footage that I’m currently trying to upload. I keep losing the connection…

Last week I had the privilege of meeting the Rev Dave Wainscott, who pastors a local church plant and who was has a phenomenal blog that you should check out … Dave also has more applications on his facebook account than anyone I know … I also don’t know of anyone else who can get theology, pop culture, politics and movies into the same sentence.

Here’s a funny blog that sort of relates to my soccer post from yesterday, but rest assured, I like stuff that white people like but I also really do like soccer. http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/03/03/80-the-idea-of-soccer/

My friend Joel Lang and I discovered Larry Norman’s Only Visiting This Planet on vinyl (I think, I suppose it could have been the 1990 CD reissue but I’m pretty sure it was the actual LP) and promptly dubbed it to tape in 1993. I must have listened to that record 500 times at least. Funny thing was, the other side of the 90 minute cassette (it was type II chrome=better quality) had Six Feet Deep, the hardcore geniuses who would later form Brandston. Norman would never make another album as good as that one but it was highly influential on both my budding 13-year old music taste and on the nagging feeling that the Christian faith should somehow not be confined to a Christian Bookstore Ghetto but actually be something that was lived out in the “normal” world. At the time, the “normal” world was something of a mystery to me as I had mostly known only the WWJD subculture. It was with great sadness that I read about Norman’s death last week, knowing that he was both a brilliant artist and an enigmatic, sometimes troubled man. Having seen David Di Sabatino’s documentary about Lonnie Frisbee, I look forward to his treatment of the Larry Norman story and hope for some more insight into this fascinating Christian/artist (which is different from Christian Artist, I think). I also am SO thrilled to learn that Norman was collaborating with Frank Black (The Pixies) and Isaac Brock (Modest Mouse) on a new album. Apparently, I’m not the only one who thought “Six O’Clock News” was ridiculously cool. Especially, the sample of the flight attendant.


celebration b rough footage

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