Author: Joel M.

Bent back with tact

Okay, I’ve already tried on two occasions to blog and both times I messed up on my computer and ended up deleting the whole posts. Nobody is more frustrated than I am when this happens. I lifted my chair high above my head and, roaring the battlecry of the Badger Lords of Salamandastron, cried “Eulaliaaaaaaa!” and hurled it through my window blinds. It shattered the window and that was that.

Well now I have more pressing matters to attend to so all of you should heed the advice of Pax 217: “Now we feel the split and my blood well it hurts, but not gonna get you down or to make it any worse, ‘cuz you know and I know what we need has been given, the hopes and strenth to talk about our livin’, We’re given the rhythm and He gave me a write, A praise to sing a gift to bring to extol on high, A seven day miracle that keeps me so hyped y’all”

~Joel

Go and write no more!

I don’t even know what to say except that I am stinking done with my papers that were hanging like a sword by a spider’s thread over my head for a while and I’m never never never going to procrastinate that badly on a paper ever again 🙂 … sometimes I wish that I had a smiley that had horrible bags under his eyes… he’d be a funny smilie and I could email him to everyone…. and then he’d flip them off!

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo- aw crap… I have to work at 6am tomorrow. Well who cares! God is good and I’m going to be the most chipper person at Panera tomorrow!

I’ll start posting more better stuff soon I promise b/c now I have the time to… wheee!

Joel is done.

Hello old friend

It’s been a while

How’ve you been

All things must end

But did you know what that meant?

The birds fly south

The summer sets

The lights go out

Leaves on the ground

Autumn Walker

You just walked out

Man it’s fall guys. I just realized this and it kind of makes me excited, while simultaneously I don’t really relish cold weather. But guess what? Winter is when you find out what you’re made of. It’s easy when things are sunny and warm but when the clouds crowd around and when the wind blows and snow falls can you still praise and can you still love?

sorry I’m in an “emo” mood. I’d wear my heart on my amp if I had one 🙂

La la la

Joel

A legend… that never died.

Yeehoo! I just discovered that today is the day when Bubba HoTep plays up in Detriot! And not only that, but the man-god of B movies, Bruce Campbell himself will be introducing this film!

I want to go so stinking badly!!!!!

I have $4 though, and that is all for the whole week that I have so…

Pray for me whoever reads this before 5pm… cuz that’s when I’d have to leave for the movie.


Sing the bells, bells, bells, bells

Bells, bells, bells, bells

Bells of Notre Dame

Happy Birthday Roo! Oh wait, it’s already Thursday… well then: Happy Belated Birthday Roo!



God help the outcasts

Hungry from birth

Show them the mercy

They don’t find on earth

God help my people

We look to You still

God help the outcasts

Or nobody will

Nothing has a calming effect like a good warm rice bag… mmmmmmm.

It was a good good night… good good night… good good night.

Goodnight all. Pleasant dreamings to you all.

Silence

Music seems to be a theme of the last few posts I’ve made (music and pooetry I guess) and so I figure why not add another post and follow it up with an explanation that will reveal nothing?

They won’t see

The fire you have lit inside of me

They look up to the stars

And wonder where you might be

They look up without realizing

That they’re standing right there in the palm of your hand

I can’t explain or understand

I just love you

It’s common knowledge

That you’ve been dead for a while

It’s well known that the cross is only a burden

With pains and trials

But then again how come my shoes are so light

How come I can walk for miles

And still just love you

So I think I’ll stay

Caught up in silent prayer

I believe in silence

Our hearts speak the same word

So why don’t we just walk along

The shoreline with a silent song

Cause I believe in silence

Our hearts speak the same word

We have to prove

That our love is real over and over again

But let them think what they want

I know it will never end

Because I know where it began

And my heart still heart still pounds twice as fast

Whenever you walk by

Cause I still love you

So I think I’ll stay…

Well at least the title of the song exemplifies that I haven’t blogged in, oh, just two days. But it feels like a lot longer because a lot of awesome work that God has (praise him lots!) been continuing to do in my life whether I liked it or not. I guess one thing that has really begun to manifest itself in the past few weeks and especially in the past few days is the fact that God is responding to a prayer I’d begun praying probably about a month or two ago. I basically prayed that God would do whatever it took to call me out of myself and into being His disciple. And it is stinking happening! Woooooooo! I mean, it’s not like it’s been easy at all already… but it’s been way easier than simply existing, remaining, plodding on in no direction which certainly I’ve not been doing but at time in the past year I’ve felt very much STUCK. Kind of cornered and trapped and just resigned to a horrible sucky existence of trying to get by on worldly means and never really being able too. Part of that had to do with “Joel’s Curse” my little affectionate name for my curse of losing money to all sorts of random disasters. I got so wrapped up in self-pity that I overlooked the work that God was doing in my life. But even though I may have been a meloncholy little whiner he still hammered away and kept ripping out the walls that were in the way in me, so that he could build his temple. Yeah, and that hurts but it is awesome. So I look forward to continued rennovations to come for the rest of my life! Woooo! Isn’t THAT exciting? Actually it is waaaay waaaay cool and like I said before I can’t praise Him enough for it.

Eph. 4:11-16

Okay so all of that might have only made sense to a few of you but it’s what is happening to me so I’m gonna share it!

Time to head on out to Bible study and thence onward to be drawn by Roo! 😉

Joel

Please do not read this!

I’m excited today.

I’m excited for obvious reasons 😉

I’m so excited that I’m going to shatter the moment with a bit of what I call “Pooetry.” Here goes!

Would that the shimmering encrusted vowels would drip from your holy tongue

unfolded amber skies that tell a tale of woe yet unbeguiled

by vespertine vinyl scratchings echoed through the night

in the smokey tandem weathered beatings of a sparrow’s flight

through the needles eye the cradled sigh creeping under willow bough

and tender footsteps all but lost in pan’s silhouetted wonderland

a call a nod a fleeting glimpse of raging fires and long lost romance

Just so you know that poem is not meant to be serious or emotional in any way but I just felt like making it because I’m EXCITED!

Believe in all the good things you keep inside

I just got back from a most wonderful concer experience and I have to write about it before I pass out on my bed!

Ahhhhhhhhh…… The Fire Theft. The very name of the band conjures up warm little butterflies of giddy excitement and restless joy builds up within every fiber of my ecstatic being! Okay so maybe perhaps the feeling isn’t quite exactly like that but you get the picture… I’m seriously enamored with the band.

Anyhow like I was saying I just got back from the first concert I have ever seen them play. Now this is an extremely important thing to me because of the fact that The Fire Theft is actually comprised of three members of my favorite all-time band Sunny Day Real Estate, which broke up in the latter part of 2000 if I remember well enough… just shortly after releasing their 4th album and touring the country. I remember finding out that they broke up just mere months into my discovery of the music. Man, it stank. But you knew the band couldn’t die… they had a huge fanbase and even though the band didn’t get along all that well they reformed into The Fire Theft, sans Matt Hoerner…. the lead guitarist and original founder of the group. At any rate they proceeded to deliver a scrinkledeefratlenberger (I don’t know what that word is but it is at least akin to the feeling of intense excitement that I get toward this band) of a show tonight and, well, here is the song-by-song breakdown!!!!

1. Uncle Mountain – woooooo! The concert has begun with an awesome song and I am actually seeing Jeremy Enigk sing waaay better than I thought he would be singing live!

2. Chain – This song isn’t so good as all of the others but it still blew away the audience live. It gets soooo hard at the end and Jeremy was screaming into the mic… very emo. 😉

3. It’s Over – Possibly one of the best songs on the CD, it was equally amazing live but little did I know to be dwarfed significantly by what was to follow.

4. Carry You In My Breath – This song was soooo emo. Justin and Mike were getting glassy-eyed during it and I confess that I was too. It was the first song of the night where I could really read a heartfelt passion just in everything from the lyrics to the way that the band was playing… it was *really* amazing.

5. Hands On You – This song isn’t on the CD but I have a demo version of it so it was quite familiar and catchy at that. It was cool to see Jeremy sing some lyrics I’ve been hard-pressed to figure out “Gotta a new radio now, got it in for the old revelation” something like that.

6. Oceans Apart – This song rocked.

7. Summertime – This song rocked more.

8. Rubber Bands – This song was rocking so hard that I was grinning like a stupid toad. Basically this one is all instrumental except for a 20 second lyric bit at the very end. It was really enjoyable to watch, especially the drummer and the bass guitar, they were going psycho on this one.

9. Houses – A good cool down kind of song to prime us all for the grand finale, Houses is a really nice song to just relax to. “nevermind the world when I’m laying here by the pool, I know they think I’m lazy and believe I need a girl”

10. Waste Time – This song was *very* heartfelt and very awesome. Jeremy changed up a bunch of the lyrics on this one and I wish that I could remember all of it. As it faded out the drums and piano continued to bring us into the last song.

11.Sinatra – More explosive and incredible live than it will ever be to me on the CD, this song lifted me up soooo high. It was at about this interval in the concert that I think I saw Jeremy really worshipping and giving glory to God, at least I’d like to say that since I know that he is a Christian but this song was sooo sincere and incredible and it rocked on and on for a while but I didn’t want it to stop.

Encore: 12. Explain – NO WAY. This song is not a Fire Theft song, it is in fact a song from Enigk’s 1996 Solo project, Return of the Frog Queen, which is an exceptional CD. Mike and I simultaneously decided that this concert was the best ever when we heard the opening to this song.

13. Heaven – “Heaven, are you really waiting outside the door? Never thought I’d hear the words before the roar. Sever, it’s the simple things that are so hard to grasp…. my whole world is falling in love with you… can’t find the road that runs through falling in love with you….”

And with all of that jazz I will now retire!

God bless Jeremy Enigk.

And then there’s Roo…. come home Roo!

Joel

Transatlanticism

Wow.

The new Death Cab For Cutie is amazing… check this out:



the atlantic was born today and i’ll tell you how:

the clouds above opened up and let it out.

i was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere

when the water filled every hole.

and thousands upon thousands made an ocean,

making islands where no island should go.

oh no.

those people were overjoyed; they took to their boats.

i thought it less like a lake and more like a moat.

the rhythm of my footsteps crossing flood lands to your door have been silenced forever more.

the distance is quite simply much too far for me to row

it seems farther than ever before

oh no.

i need you so much closer (x8)

-instrumental break –

i need you so much closer (x4)

so come on, come on (x4)

Well at the time I was in a worship mood and I was hearing this song for the first time and God got to me through it. It all kind of goes back to that Oswald entry I posted just below a few… “Come unto Me.“, no ifs, no ans, no buts…. just come. It’s awesome and it has totally been on my heart since reading that to just be still and come to God. Not to come to him with some kind of burning need for direction or with the expectation that he’s setting me up for something great, but just to come to him and be with him. He is our father after all and what a better way to just revel in his love than to simply come to Him.

Well I’d better get to bed now I napped earlier and got a second wind but I need to get ready for The Fire Theft concert in 14 hours! Yowza!

Genesis 1:28 (awesome, Justin)

Joel