I’m taking my leave from Seattle tomorrow (today?) for Oregon where we’ll be spending some much-needed time away with family and friends. The itinerary includes Christmas Day with Janece’s family in Coos Bay, a trip down to Brookings to meet one of my Trivekta partners who I’ve been working with for over 2 years and never met in person, and then back up to Portland to connect with my parents, sisters and husbands, grandparents and the rest of the clan. We get to show off Amira for the first time to many of these folks, and I know they’re going to flip. She’s even better in person than she is in the pics…

I may not have Net access (he says, twitching), so I’m not sure whether or not I’ll post again before the new year.

Merry Christmas and a beautiful start to 2005 to all of you!

…just happened to be the “sender” of one of the (way too) many spams I recieved today. I really liked it. After all, aren’t all of us theologians — professional or armchair — just compost theologians in the end analysis?

“For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.” ~ Psalm 103:14

I guess the odds in the old adage about a million monkeys on a million typewriters accidentally creating a work of Shakespeare aren’t really all that huge when you think about it. After all, a million spam mails generated by a whole bunch of spam programs run by spam monkeys generated this:

The devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape.
mevacor
buy mevacor
A kind Of excellent dumb discourse.

~ Found on Geekward Ho

And there’s more here and here and here and here.

Janece was digging through some stuff in our storage closet today and dug out a blast from the past — my senior picture from high school. I found it amusing, and thought I’d post an Inexorable March Of Time photo comparison to marvel at my own aging process. The photo on the left is the senior pic, age 17, and the photo on the right is me this summer at my grandpa Robertson’s funeral, age 33.

Of course, the hair is the first thing you’ll notice. I had a decent mop of naturally curly hair that I moussed into submission in high school in accordance with the best 80′s hair care tradition. Male pattern baldness set in about 25-27 or so with a vengeance. I went the “I wanna still be cool by looking like a bouncer” direction and now keep it shaved. Moving on you’ll notice the switch from the perky young Christian boy suit to the jaded liberal costume of the simple black mock turtleneck. Also note the glasses. I took mine off for the senior pic, but they were huge turtleshell brown goggle jobs that gave me an air of perpetual dork. The new ones are my attempt to come off like a Saatchi+Saatchi art director. Still not sure if it’s working. As for the chin hair, it was nostalgic to actually get a look at my chin. Having a “chin squirrel” in some form or another since college about 13 yrs ago had me forget what the damn thing looked like.

Personally, what caught my eye was the smile. Notice how bouncy and exuberant the 17-yr-old version is? I was struck how my current smile, while not at full volume, kinda looks like it got run over by a truck a few times — sorta crushed and wrinkly. Could be the extra weight in my cheeks squinching it a bit, but I suspect that it’s at least a little bit related to that process of sitting on your exuberance and self-expression for so long that you forget how to really open up and let the world have it. Gonna have to work on that…

For a few more check out another pic of me with my unbelievably cute daughter at my wife’s online casa…

I was thinking the other day about how little mercy I have for those around me — how little patience I have for those who I deem slow to “catch on”. This list includes, but is not limited to: my wife who after 11 yrs of marriage still can’t just “get” me in a satisfactory manner, my baby who won’t stop crying on cue, my dumb-wad Dalmation who after years of attempted training still barks annoyingly loud at the cats running around upstairs even though they’ve done it every night for 6 stinking years, my in-laws who aren’t anything at all like my own family and therefore wierd, my coach who still doesn’t get how helpless I am to do anything noteworthy, the Christian church for not being able to pull together a solid theological structure that I feel 100% good about, the Americans who re-elected Bush, anybody else that doesn’t sync up with my long and complicated list of acceptable social interactions and behaviours within a “reasonable” amount of time, and of course the biggest culprit of all — me, who I secretly suspect of being the world’s least capable human being with almost no possibility of measuring up, being successful or, heaven forbid, cool.

You get the picture. It’s a pretty dehabilitating, irritating and bleak landscape to live in when the mood takes hold of me. As the Good Book says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall recieve mercy”. Not really comforting considering how good I am at giving out mercy. Where did I get this internal taskmaster that robs me of my joy and pleasure in my wife, daughter, dogs, coach, friends, family, music, etc. etc. and foolishly longs for a world filled with Paul clones while denying how horrifying dull that would be? Truthfully, I don’t know. I’ve actually never thought to take the time to contemplate it until just several days ago. I’ve decided to tuck the question back in my creative subconcious where it can start to root around and grow and uncover what’s there.

I just realized that it’s been over a week since I last posted. It ain’t because nothing’s been going through my head, or that nothing’s going on. I’m tempted to say that it’s because I “didn’t have any time”, but I know that my coach Dana would slap my hand and call me naughty. She’d say time is never the issue — it’s the commitment that’s the issue. I’m still sorting that out, I guess. I’ve been trying to figure out how to run my business, work on the three startup businesses I’m a part of, write and produce a worship album, and be a decent husband and father. I get to feeling like I have 36 hours worth of stuff to do every day that I’m trying to fit into 24 hours. It’s all great stuff, and I love everything I’m doing — truly — but I can’t figure out how to get it all done. My impeccability muscles are still not very strong, especially when it comes to steadily and committedly re-creating my life in the way I want it to be.

But at least I’ve gotten as far as to realize that I do love everything I’m doing — at least most of the time. And with time and practice, I know I’ll get better at opening the way for what I want to become real — the weight loss, the wealth, the reconfiguring of my life, the connections with friends and family.

It’s called The Mind Is A Hawk and I found it here while surfing around trying to stir up some traffic via Blog Explosion.

Fascinating article on Salon.com about a team of 20-something Christian missionaries working in Ibiza, Spain — one of the party capitals of the world. From the article:

You would expect the typical evangelical Christian to be horrified by Ibiza. But the 24-7 Prayer missionaries aren’t your typical evangelicals. They tend to be pierced and tattooed, antiwar and pro-fair trade, and the minute they get off prayer duty, they put on halter tops and body glitter and wristbands and go clubbing until noon the next day. They might even have a drink or two. They don’t do drugs — which alone sets them apart from most ravers. Most eschew premarital sex, although they try not be judgmental about others’ sexual behavior. Like all missionaries, they want to be down with the people whom they’re preaching to, but in the case of 24-7, they’re not faking it. The primary difference between the average Ibiza clubber and a 24-7 missionary is what gets them off. “To know that the God who made the heavens and the earth loves me and wants to know me — that’s an amazing high that lasts much more than a few hours,” says Bruce Gardiner-Crehan, 25, a 24-7 missionary with the beatific countenance of a Caravaggio apostle. As members of a generation that came of age with house music, the 24-7 Prayer team finds it a lot easier to commune with God while dancing at a rave than while kneeling in a church, listening to an organist drone on.

The rest of the article is here. You may need to be a member to read it, unfortunately, but it’s worth a shot.

By the way, consider getting a subscription to Salon.com. Smart writing, great political reporting, and they have one of my favorite liberal Christians — Anne Lamott — as a regular contributor (not to mention Camile Paglia and Arianna Huffington, who aren’t Christians but are excellent human beings anyway).

I’m writing a worship album that I’m planning to have completed and released by the end of May. It’s exciting and confronting all at the same time.

For one thing, worship music isn’t like any other kind of music I know. It’s purpose is not to be a self-expression of the writer/artist as much as it is a tool the writer gives their Christian community to use as a means to meditate on truths of the faith, praise and commune with God, invite those who are seeking truth to consider the Christian way, and strengthen the relationships between believers. The best worship music is simple enough for any person to sing, whether or not they are musical, and yet complex enough to retain interest and insight over multiple repetitions. It’s a pretty unique form.

Most Christian worship music I’ve heard is very listenable and accessible, but also cliched both in theme and lyrics, and music. The worst examples tend to use standard catch-phrases like “God, yer great — at the cross I wait — you saved my soul — and made me whole”, etc. coupled with major chords, very few changes, extremely simple structures, and no surprising musical phrases. The performers are usually husky-voiced, earnest sounding crooners in the U2-minor-league vein (you’d never catch a Jeremey Enigk style singer on a worship album) and the musical vibe is almost always a rootsy acoustic rock sound. Nothing wrong with any of that, I suppose, but if that’s the only option out there after decades of worship music being written, then I figure it’s time for something new.

So, I want to write something new. I had some success at a church I was at a few years ago with taking a slightly different tack. Here’s a sample (lyrics/mp3) and here’s another (lyrics/mp3) and here’s another (lyrics/mp3). But those efforts, while still listenable, are sounding dated. I’ve been wanting to take it to the next level for myself as a songwriter and still make the music accessible to people who want to use it in their worship services. My commitment is to create an album that is moody, artsy, very produced and beautifully jagged — in the style of Radiohead or Pink Floyd or Martina Topley-Bird or Daniel Lanois or Bjork: something completely left-field for the Christian music industry.

I’ve been working hard at it. I have a few new songs, and I like the general lyrical content, but I’m rusty at this. I haven’t led worship or really darkened the door of a Protestant church for 4+ years. I’ve recently started to tour some local churches that are trying new approaches to the worship service, but so far I’ve felt pretty out of place and haven’t heard an opening for the kind of stuff I’m doing. I’ve also been playing with some friends of mine that I played worship music with back in the day to try my new material live and maybe even lead a few services at local churches that are interested.

Tonight was our second practice. What a trainwreck. I didn’t have the chord sheets ready for the bass player, and I felt like all thumbs on my guitar and effects. The two new songs I wrote had some good elements, but they were disjointed, too complex and not simple and catchy. There were a few highlights in the material we tried, but it was a slog for most of the night. Granted it was only the second time we’ve played together in 6 years or something, but it was like hooking back up with an old girlfriend for a make-out session — awkward, bumping noses, not sure if they still like that thing you used to do with your lips, not sure where it’s appropriate to put your hands, etc.

BUT, it was also energizing in a strange way. On my walk with Tova tonight, my head was buzzing with ways to take the best bits from what wasn’t working and re-create some new approaches. The pain of the session was unpleasant, but it got me out of my echo chamber I’ve been writing in and let me hear the music like other musicians would hear it. Ouchy, but instructive. In a strange masochistic way, I’m inspired. (I’m a Capricorn — there’s nothing we like better than a long painful slog. ) The same thing happens in my web design sometimes. The first design or two I do will be hokey and rehashed pablum, but I get them out of my system and sometimes discover elements in the process that I go on to use in a way that produces great results — if I stick with it. I’ve not broken through yet to what I want, but I’m starting to see possibilities for ways to get there.

One more from me tonight before pressing on with pre-bed tasks:

Got a compliment email from Designing The Coast, one of the partnerships I’m in (which is also ending before 2005). Getting kudos from out of the blue is a great energy boost, especially when I’m under the gun and hard at work like I was tonight. Here’s the post:

Wow…!

I just wanted to say while scanning through all the different coastal websites I always know when I see one of your guys websites.

Your design team really rocks.

I run my own website with NWcoast.com. I don’t think I have ever seen any websites that were so nicely done as yours.. Anyway, keep up the great work – and kudos..

Best Regards,

David Nelsen, NWcoast.com

Thank you for taking the time, David. Hopefully I was able to shuttle a few folks your way. And speaking of nicely done sites, I’ve seriously got to do something about this ugly-ass WordPress default site design. It’s getting depressing…

For any of you that check in sem-frequently, you’ll notice that the last 5 weeks have been completely barren of any resembling a political comment. My last post was a farewell to Kerry The Shoulda-Been-Prez.

Why the lack of poly-ticks? I think I’m burnt out. I was glued to political blogs and predictions and rants for several solid months before the election. This year’s results were a major blowout to everything I was reading, and a major blow to my own expectations and hopes. I needed time off to give it a rest and to see how things shake out with the Democratic Party leadership, Bush’s cabinet selection and plans for his second term, and the general mood and surge of the American public as best I could read it.

I may start posting political stuff here and there again, depending on my mood. Until then, I figure that it’s just as useful an exercise for me to do some thinking and writing about myself and my life in other arenas. IF you’re really pining for good political reads on both sides of the spectrum, give these blogs a whirl:

Daily Kos
Atrios
The Corner
Andrew Sullivan
Talking Points Memo
Chrenkoff
Political Wire

This all goes back to practicing impeccability in my life — basically making promises and keeping them to the letter as a practiced way of being a powerful person. Part of that practice I’ve taken on is exercising faithfully every day. As of today, I’ve only missed two nights in 3+ weeks (pretty extraordinary given my usual track record) and I’m planning on continuing.

Tonight in Seattle it’s raining like a mother, and since it was also 12am when I started, I decided to do our elliptical trainer instead of my usual 3 mi. walk. It must be the resistance I’m adding to the elliptical, but that thing kicks my ass. My usual walk is 1hr and even though I’ve worked up a sweat, I’m not hurting by any stretch. But a half hour on the elliptical, and I feel like someone substituted playdoh for my muscles and I barely have enough oxygen to run through the rest of my minimal strength excercises (70 pushups, 30 squats, 45 core strength reps, and some tri-pushups). Tonights stats, according to the elliptical’s tracker:

33:20 min
1.48 mi
285 cal burned
90.5 fat cal burned

Half my usual time and distance, and I’m limp as a porn star’s noodle with no fluffer in sight. I even had to channel my inner junior high gym coach: “C’mon you fat weenies! Two more repetitions! You have to make it for two more repetitions!”

I was feeling pretty good about doing it, tho, until I realized that the 2 servings of M&Ms I ate were about 345 calories. Makes a man think….

Just had an interesting exchange with a friend of mine. She sent me a link from Newsweek saying that most Americans believe the Virgin Birth is literally true, and saying that it was hard for her to believe that so many people still think Jesus was born from a virgin. I told her that it’s been a Christian doctrine for centuries and given the number of Judeo-Christian believers in America, it’s not surprising. And then I told her that I believe it to be true, as well, which caught her attention. This was all over IM, but here’s a condensed version of my responses:

I believe in the Virgin Birth. The deal here is that you first have to believe Christ’s own claims about his unique nature and relationship to God, and the resurrection, etc. If you believe those, it’s not a far stretch to believe in a virgin birth. If God in the form of Christ did live among us, it’s not an extraordinary thing to think that it happened via a virgin birth. In fact, it makes sense that extra-natural things would be happening around an event like that. Also, I think the narrative is internally consistent in a literary way. There’s not the usual far-out kinds of things you’d get in other mythologies such as all of the cherry trees in the area bursting into bloom simultaneously or something like that.

Then she asked me about evolution. (Apparently that’s the new litmus test for whether or not you’re “rationally” religious?) I told her that it’s the best working theory we have to date, but that it’s not a bullet-proof theory by any stretch. That’s as far as we got on that topic, and then she asked me how I decided what to believe on my own vs. what I was taught. I replied:

I’m making that choice everyday, same as you. Everyday I decide all over again, doubting what I believe. Some days I believe more than others. Faith is a dynamic process. It’s a daily choice, and it’s informed by all kinds of things — scientific, spiritual, artistic, mystical, logical, emotional. To say “I believe in and will follow Jesus” is an on-going choice that grows and changes form and perspective throughout your life.

For those who weren’t raised around religion like I was, it’s hard to understand why religious people believe sometimes, especially when what they believe seems ignorant or fantastical or illogical. But the fact is, as humans we all believe. Belief is happening all the time. Anyone who’s in a relationship is a believer. Love, especially the truest and deepest kind, is something that is completely without rational basis. You believe you are loved and you love, not in an abstract sense of the word belief, but in a gut-level way that informs everything you do and feel. And yet, if someone asked you to prove that you loved someone, what could you say? You’ve left the realm of science and are in the realm of fervency and passion and faith.

And science and faith aren’t incompatible. Science tells us that something can be two things at the same time (light is a particle and a wave) and that our perception and expectation has as much to do with physical outcome as anything else (Schrodinger’s cat & quantum physics). Scientists believed in evolution long before they were able to begin putting together the pieces to explain it. Belief leads to a certain view of the world, and that view leads to action. Sometimes that belief can lead you awry, but belief always opens up the door to possibility and action.

To make it personal: For a Christian, a “Christ follower”, the faith starts with something really simple — a man, someone who lived and spoke and died in an outrageous way. And at the most base level, we believe him and we love him and we want to be like him. And that belief has opened up a view on the world that leads us on to new exploration and discovery of our own hearts, the hearts of others and heart of God.

Just surfed over to Dave Navarro’s blog via the excellent and amazing Brooks Blog (you are a photo master, man — beautiful work). I ran across this answer to some fan mail:

3. How did you beat this horrible dark monster?

In all honesty and sincerity, I let God into my life. Let Him run the show for a while. Easier than it sounds, in fact, running things on my own was obviously not working and when I turned it over, it got WAY easier.

I’m assuming the “dark monster” was drugs or something like that? Anyone else have any news on this?

We have lift-off. I did one more round of designs, and we settled on this logo:

Here’s a variation on the 2D logo to give it a more 3D kind of feel, and there another version at the Trivekta website:

Next up, a real website that’s more than a “coming soon” page… I’m excited about this collaboration. I think this company is going to make strides in 2005.

Speaking of songs, I thought I’d post the lyrics to the song I played for my voice coach.

A little background: I grew up in a cult-level fundamentalist church in Utah in the 70′s that got really weird. My parents, bless ‘em, courageously yanked themselves and us out of there when I was in 6th grade or so, but the experience left my older brother pretty scarred. Anyway, my younger sister got contacted by one of the girls in the church that we’d grown up with named Priscella. My sister said that her life and world is still tied up with the remnant of the church that’s still hobbling along, and it’s this tiny and wierd little half-life of semi-arranged marriage and out-of-wedlock childbearing and guilt-ridden or angry oratories from the pulpit, etc. etc. The only pleasure this girl gets is from playing her violin — a small gleam of something transcendant in the middle of a claustrophic stifling life. Anyway, these lyrics were my take on the conversation with my sister and seeing a picture of this girl and reading a letter she wrote to my sister…

Priscella

Mostly in-between the lines, I saw your straight and narrow writing
I saw your picture, the ghost of a wallflower beneath flourescent lighting
The fear you learned raised dust beneath your eyes
Your smile looked like you were trying
So the “river of life” dried up
Does water flow when you’re crying?

It’s getting cold and dark inside the circle
Your little world revolves around a dying star
Your family photographs aren’t faded
They just caught you looking out

You learned to play the violin and it flew you away
But shadowlands don’t echo sound
Your tiny wings could not escape the atmosphere
Sheltering the clotting ground

It’s getting cold and dark inside the circle
Your little world revolves around a dying star
Your family photographs aren’t faded
They just caught you looking out

Gravity — it’s a clever trap
When nothing else is standing
Maybe you could feel your way
If you scream (and follow the echo)

I finally set up and went to my first voice lesson Thursday. The coach’s name is Susan Carr and she’s in the Queen Anne area of Seattle (206-281-8194 if you’re interested). Her customer list says she’s worked with singers from bands like Alien Ant Farm, Drowning Pool, Alice In Chains, Sunny Day Real Estate and The Presidents Of The USA, to name a few. Broad spectrum of bands and vocal sounds, which caught my eye. Here’s a quick recap for those of you who haven’t taken a voice lesson and, like me, want to know what it’s all about:

(Read the rest of this entry…)

Listening to Martina Topley-Bird’s “Anything” right now. Frickin’ amazing. She did the backup vocals for Tricky on my favorite album of his called “Maxinquaye“. If you have the extra $$, buy it. Apparently, there’s a U.S. release and a British release that has extra songs on it. Unfortunately, we couldn’t wait and got the US version, but it would be cool to hear the extra material.

BTW, I was kinda disappointed in Tricky’s last album — Vulnerable. Didn’t really have the grab-n-kick power of Maxinquaye, and I thought the cover of Dear God was just plain boring and uninventive. And his new girly singer pal isn’t nearly as gritty and visceral as Martina. But, on the other hand, Tricky did a great job with a guest appearance on Martina’s album. Shouldn’a broke up the band…

Crazy. Didn’t expect the interest in my images. Thanks all for your nice comments. I’ll toss some more in here and there as time goes by.

So, here’s another one. Even though I have my own freelance web business, have some great partners in Brookings, OR, am starting up a new company, and act as the VP of New Media for a search engine optimization company, I still like to take some free time in Photoshop to fool around every now and again. Keeps me limber and interested.

This pic was taken from an idea I had about what an actual totem figure would look like in real life. We always see these really stylized figures on totem poles or on African masks that look interesting but fairly innocuous. I got to thinking that these god figures would actually be pretty terrifying in a lot of instances — humanoid creatures blended in a primitive and primal way with animal features. So, this is my stab at an African mask come to life. I’ve also included the source pics so’s y’all can see where I started from.

This is the only one I’ve done to date — been pretty busy — but I may do more in the future if the urge takes me.

I sketch compulsively when I’m on the phone — doodles, patterns, characters, stuff exploding, etc. Teleconferences are especially productive times, with lots of other people talking and nothing to do but sit and listen unless I’m running the meeting. And even though I have a formal art education, I still find myself drawing comic book style stuff — overly muscled men with guns, metallic doodads, etc. (I’m a huge fan of graphic novels, too: The Sandman series, Lucifer, Preacher, 100 Bullets, Fables, etc.) Anyway, I thought I’d throw some of my stuff out here for visual interest. This blog is a bit on the plain side and could use an image or two that’s not a baby picture… I call this one “Turtle Thug and Friends”.

I worked late into the night last night on the 2nd round of logos for my new company Trivekta. (I know, I know — the link is blank. Ever heard of link popularity improving traffic? Just trying to get a jump start… ) I have a good feeling about these and think one of them will be the finalist, if I can get my partners to agree.

Check out the new logo ideas.

I prefer either the first two logos (17 and 17.25) or the last logo (18). If I had to choose, I think that 17 is the best — more dynamic than 18. The logo has all the elements my partners and I discussed in a more tidy arrangement. The arrows signify lines of force or action, one of the meanings for “vector”. The three boxes represent computer screens which also denotes our three digital capabilities — design, online apps and video production/DVDs. If we ever get a 3D artist on our team, the 3 arrows could easily also represent the XYZ axis of 3D space. And, of course, the lines in the arrow shapes form a rough “T” for Trivekta.

Logo work is fun, but initially frustrating when I’m casting around for ideas and trying to nail down what the company/organization is about. I don’t do enough of them to feel like I have a facility with the process, but I’m usually happy with the result. You can see some of the process I went through in the first round of non-starter design ideas. I like looking at the work of other great graphic designers and seeing the process they went through to refine an idea into the final logo. Makes me feel that it’s OK to do some lame shitty stuff until the better ideas pop out. I have a great book that walks through that process with a bunch of great, well-known logos, but I’m too lazy to look it up right now. If I get a flood of requests, I’ll look it up, but until then… Nyah nyah.

You can check out some other logo work I’ve done here:

• Preferred Consumer (logo characters throughout, as well as design)
• Safe Haven Group
• Damah Film Festival
• Electroglyph (my portfolio site, 4+ yrs old and needing an update)

I’ll add more later if I think of them…