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Archive for December, 2008
Podcast for December 31, 2008 — Reviewing The Review Of The Year In Review
Dec 31st
This is the final podcast for 2008, mostly because I’ve pretty much run out of 2008 in which to pod. Or cast, for that matter.
You can listen to it here, or if you have iTunes subscribe to it here. The RSS feed is here.
I haven’t finished the song graphics yet — I’ll update the post when they’re completed – but here’s the transcript for this edition. As always, please let me know what you think, and thanks.
And welcome to the yearend edition of the Diecast Dude’s (Mostly) NASCAR Positively Persnickety Podcast. It is Wednesday December the thirtieth-first, 2008, and in this episode I’ll be reviewing what’s transpired during the past twelve months in various areas. First up, let’s take a look back at the year that was in NASCAR.
2008 was a troubled year in stock car land. The new car was for the most part a miserable failure in terms of producing quality racing. The Big Three among drivers, namely Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, and Tony Stewart had two points race wins between them. About the only truly memorable race moment was Carl Edwards’ kamikaze blast up the track at Kansas in a desperation move to try and snatch a win away from Jimmie Johnson. It didn’t work, which pretty much sums up the entire year.
Certainly Johnson deserves far more acclaim than he has received for winning his third straight championship. However, given that California calm excites very few people his accomplishment has barely raised an eyebrow. Add to this how the present economic crisis has cast a deep shadow over the entire sport, and I’m wondering what is in store for NASCAR next year.
What I’m most hoping for from a personal standpoint is to enjoy the sport more. This year it felt more like a burden than a blessing, trying to follow everything in minutia and either report or comment on same. I’ve already discussed in depth the subject of why I left SportBlogs Network and went back to being independent, so there’s no need to go through it all again outside of offering a thumbnail sketch of how I felt it pressed on my heart that I needed to get back to the mix of ministry, musings and mirth that while usually about NASCAR didn’t always reside there. That said, there was another consideration that went into my decision I haven’t mentioned.
Blogging is an occasionally odd exercise. There’s a camaraderie among those of us who commit thoughts to digital paper, notes penned with magnetic ink to be neatly filed away on an otherwise anonymous server somewhere where they patiently lie in wait for others to ruffle through the pages, seeking whatever it may be they are in pursuit of. Sometimes the camaraderie is flinty at best, competing ideals and competition for the most readers spilling over into enmity. Or ennui. Perhaps both. However, even in such cases far more often than not there is a coming together when someone or something threatens one of us. It’s how we do things in the blogosphere.
How much greater this is when there is genuine affection. You often hear social pseudo-pundits sneer at the concept of what to them are words on the Internet bearing no genuine connection between author and reader somehow conveying any genuine heart and soul. They don’t know what they’re talking about. The medium isn’t always the message. Blogging facilitates communication. It doesn’t strain or strangle that which is authentic.
It can also be a reminder of cold reality. There is no immunity in cyberspace. People change. They move away, not so much physically but emotionally, mentally, spiritually. Relationships go sour. Friendships end.
Sometimes people log off forever.
It took a lot of the wind out of my NASCAR blogging sails when Southern Cindi passed away. It took even more when a friend, also one of my fellow Jeff Gordon fans, took ill earlier this year and then stopped communicating with me. I don’t know if this was due to her being miffed at me for whatever reason or because she’s no longer able to write. In either case, her absence along with Southern Cindi’s have drained a lot of the joy out of NASCAR blogging for me.
I hope I get it back in 2009. Because I’ve come to realize how much I miss being Diecast Dude at least once a day. Hopefully he’s waiting to be re-energized. Hopefully.
Shifting gears — no pun intended — let’s take a look back at the year that was in IRL.
Yes, Danica finally won a race. Granted, it was on a fuel mileage gamble. But she still won, much to Bob Margolis’ displeasure. I hope during the 2009 season she wins at least one race outright if for no other reason than to watch Margolis either completely ignore it or write another sulking, pouting festival of frustration over being shown up for all the times he’s slagged on the driver of the #7 Motorola car.
Meanwhile, Scott Dixon with his combination of driving skill and a personality that makes oatmeal seem dynamic won the championship. Still, it was good to see Indy cars back together with only one league. Hopefully the IRL can build on this and start working on regaining the place of prominence it once knew in the American sports landscape.
And we move on.
I finally finished the writing portion of the new book this year, and am currently in the dreaded proofreading portion of the proceedings. I wouldn’t say it’s editing as much as tidying, but as you can imagine with four hundred plus pages leaning heavily on lengthy quotes, there’s a lot of tidying.
My prayer is the book will help people rediscover their heart for God even as I did through becoming reacquainted with the music I once loved so much. No one’s going to get rich off of this, but if I can help bring people back together with Jesus that will be a payment far bigger than even one of J.K. Rowling’s royalty checks.
Not that I’d mind getting one of those, of course!
Anyway, let’s see. What else happened this year. Oh yeah, there was that election thing.
My fervent, genuine prayer is that I’m completely wrong about Barack Obama. I pray that he’s not an elitist empty suit who thinks he knows what’s best for everyone and everything but in reality offers nothing but the recycled leftist junk that simultaneously offers addle-pated blather about evening things out for the poor which led to the subprime mortgage mess that has brought our economy crashing down while also failing to confront the genuinely evil in this world with the only viable method for doing so, namely destruction, that led to Bin Laden and variations thereof being able to carry out September 11th and other terrorist attacks. I pray he has the capability to genuinely lead. I pray he will do so wisely. Like I said, I pray that I’m wrong about him. Completely wrong. Because if I’m not, we’ve got problems.
I also pray that in some fashion Goldfish And Clowns serves as a conduit of the idea that none of us can afford the luxury of ideological differences being used as an instrument of hatred. During the campaign, whenever I’d make a comment about Obama or Jeremiah Wright or whoever — and I could get quite testy about it, I admit, although hopefully I never made it a personal deal — inevitably I’d get numerous comments about how John McCain and/or Sarah Palin were utterly unqualified for the highest office in the land and Lucifer incarnate to boot. And that was all I was hearing from the other side of the political fence. So I said okay. You’ve all gone to great lengths to tell me why McCain shouldn’t be President and Palin shouldn’t be Vice President. So tell me why, based on experience, policy and demonstrated leadership capability Obama should be President. And you know, I never got a single response laying out a case for Obama. Against McCain and Palin, oh you betcha. But actually for Obama? Actually detailing why he was the one for the job? Nothing. Not a thing. Not once.
It’s easy to tear down, to assault, to insult. It’s not so easy to build a case for something or someone. But it’s something we must do. That, and making sure we do the right thing by reaching out across the aisle regardless of how it’s received.
I hope you’ll indulge me if I quote from one of my recent posts:
The ranting raving outraged histrionics act has long since worn out its welcome. Instead of knee jerk reactions, we should be on our knees praying for wisdom with which to refute arguments against what and why we believe. The calm measured response and the logically laid out proposal go much farther as far as persuading others to at least consider our words than all the vein-popping venom we can spit at the opposition.
It would also help tremendously if we were more open about our faith. As mentioned above, we need to be articulating not only what we believe politically, but why. The whole Gospel – the need for repentance, the availability of salvation, the joy of life in Christ, the call to serve – should be part of our daily vocabulary. We also need to live out that about which we speak out. The posing and preening “look at me – SQUEE!” attitude needs to be permanently dismissed pronto. We must stop turning the blogosphere into an excuse for the latest chapter of the mutual admiration society. What have we done that’s genuinely worth admiring? Self-serving isn’t service. We need to get over ourselves by abandoning class distinction and embracing each other regardless of social or site visit standing.
We need to adopt the four tenets of the blogging evangel:
* The ability to broadcast ones opinion neither elevates nor validates said opinion;
* Blog from and for the heart, not the bank account;
* Answer your e-mail every time all the time;
* Never become what you profess to oppose.
If we do these things, we’re doing the right things for the right reasons.
The world, although it would never admit as much, needs us. Christ needs us to do His work and spread His word. To sum it up, we need to git’r done. So let’s do this thing. Starting now.
Starting right now.
And right now is the conclusion of this podcast. Take care, everyone, and we’ll get together again next time — next year!
We Have Order (In A Fashion, Anyway)
Dec 30th
One of the unanticipated challenges I’ve faced while putting together the book has been in what order the chapters should run. I didn’t want to do some kind of pecking order. An alphabetical arrangement would have been easy, but it seemed a bit trite somehow. What to do?
Wait — I’ve got it! Enter everyone’s name into a spreadsheet, add a corresponding ascending list of numbers, then randomize the numbers. Which has been done.
So without further ado, presented here for the first time is the book’s running order of chapters:
Terry Taylor
Joe Taylor
Sim Wilson
Jim Wisner
Nancyjo Mann
Glenn Holland
Mike Stand
Derri Daugherty
Marie McGilvray
Steve Taylor
Chris Duke
Caesar Kalinowski
Kris Klingensmith
John McNamara
Mike Roe
Jeff Crandall
Dawn Wisner-Johnson
Jim Nicholson
Bill Walden
Steve Hindalong
Dan Hohulin
Gary Olson
Mick Donner
Kemper Crabb
Steve Crumbacher
Sean Doty
And now, back to proofreading and editing and all that fun stuff.
That’s My Story (And I’ve Been Stuck By It)
Dec 29th
While the immediate reaction to yet another real life story committed to print, in this case the romance amidst the Holocaust tale of Herman Rosenblat, being demonstrated to be a real lie is “another member of the club — Oprah’s book of the month club, among others,” it and its predecessors do tell a tale that’s anything but fiction.
Namely, the going price for fifteen minutes.
We live in a world possessing an alarmingly high number of people who can and will do anything to get noticed. From the gangbanger self-convinced they won’t be the one to die as they take the life of a rival for the defense of their worthless street corner to the dork with a toy light saber on YouTube, so many seek the world’s attention no matter the cost to themselves or others. Look at me. Just look at me. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll perform whatever trick you want. But please, look at me!
Because if you look at me, I am somebody.
The truth, the honest truth, is everyone is someone regardless of whether anyone is looking. This isn’t the everyone’s-special blather of faded flower child philosophy where no one bears the mark of Cain and every wrongdoing is explained away via situational ethics plus other excuses. Everyone is someone in the eyes of a loving, bloodied Savior Who declared the measure of our individual value by being nailed to a cross and left to die.
For many, that’s not enough.
There’s no spotlight at the foot of the cross. There’s no glory, no honor, no prestige, no power, no fame. No one looks at you when you’re kneeling. No one pays attention to you when you become humble before the Lord. No one at all. So the belief goes that says it is far better to be known as one that generates heat than one bowing before the Light of the world.
And so we embellish our résumé or weave an entirely new one, cloth drawn from our vivid imagination with not a scrap coming from reality. We feign outrage while striving to initiate outrage ourselves, writing and saying and doing that which comes not from heartfelt conviction but rather a careful calculation engineered to push the greatest number of buttons. We are like dogs in a single breed show, doing our best to get ahead by being the ideal among the identical. Never mind how in the end it gains us nothing. We want it all, and we want it now.
When will we, or will we, learn that making fiction of our lives does nothing but attempt to rearrange dust? Our life stories are written in the book of life, and no amount of yarn spinning on our part or behalf will change a single letter on one of its pages. Our life stories are already remarkable, made so not only by dint of being created by God in His image but also by the ability to love. No words from the most fiercely creative writing can do justice to this. No acclaim can so much as pretend to equal this which is the greatest of all. Why, then, do we strive for temporal glory at the expense of honesty? Nothing is hidden in this world. In time all will be revealed. Far better to be uncovered as one who by the world’s standards was unknown. Yet in love, they were a brilliant, shining star.
One that shines way longer than fifteen minutes.
[video http://www.diecast-dude.com/gac/Kids_In_The_Way_-_Fiction.flv nolink]
Uninvited Guest
Dec 28th
Picking up from yesterday:
The Oakland A’s are the red-headed stepchild of San Francisco Bay Area sports when it comes to local media attention. Never mind how during their stay in the “other” city by the bay they’ve accomplished a feat never achieved by the Giants. Namely, win something. Four world championships, six American League pennants and fourteen American League West division championships as compared to zero world championships, three National League pennants and six National League West division championships. While contemplating the above, please note the Giants started playing in San Francisco ten years before the A’s came to Oakland. Nevertheless, when the Giants sneeze every newspaper and radio station in these parts reaches for a facial tissue and makes it a banner headline. The A’s could trade the entire team for the Yankees’ current roster plus cash along with moving Wrigley Field next to Lake Merritt and still be buried on page nine of an eight-page sports section.
Yet none of this genuinely matters to me. The A’s are my team.
Which leads to the point of yesterday and today’s illustration.
Those among us who believe are very much the Oakland A’s of this world. We’re not the glamor boys. We don’t get the pretty new toys to play with, or in the Giants’ case in as is the case with their ballpark as compared to Oakland’s. We don’t get the big bucks. We don’t get the attention. We don’t get the world’s love. We’re the uninvited guest.
Which is exactly as it should be.
We’re supposed to be these things. In fact, if we’re not these things we’re not doing what we’re supposed to be doing. It’s our calling, our obligation to go about our business regardless of whether it’s deemed appropriate or convenient or desired by others.
We do the work of loving and caring for others regardless. The world crows whenever a hypocrite or stumbler appears in our midst. We make no effort to hide these, acknowledging we all fail in some fashion every day. Yet even as the world screams about the many among us who attempt to make us a joke, we hold dear the many, many more never admitted to by the world whose lives are founded in actively lived out love. They make those clinging to self-created myths when it comes to believers as an excuse for avoiding the truth about what we believe victims of their own joke.
We light the candles and say the prayers and smile in the face of hostile reaction. We quietly, sadly chuckle at the hatred and anger thrown up on us by those who blame a God they don’t believe in for the ill fortunes of their existence, never seeing the fatal flaw in believing He should directly intercede on their behalf to prevent grief by directing how others live. Yet simultaneously, they insist their life is theirs and theirs alone to live as they see fit and how dare anyone on heaven or earth interject themselves into the manner with which they conduct their affairs.
We answer “how can you believe in a good and perfect God when there’s such evil in the world” with “how can we not believe in a good and perfect God when there’s also good in the world.” How can humanity with its propensity for evil also do that which is good? How can this selfsame humanity with its ability for hatred also love? You cannot have both coming from the same source. Written on humanity’s heart is the signature of its Creator calling it to reunite with the author of love Who is God, for God is love.
The world says how can humanity be created by God in His image yet be held accountable for its wrongdoing. We say how can humanity not be created by God in His image when He has provided the means to be absolved of its wrongdoing. If we were not created in His image, why would He care to this degree?
The world says how can a loving God condemn anyone to eternal torment. We say how can there not be a loving God when He willingly endured human agony on a level unimaginable and physically died so we might have a path to eternal blessing. No one has to go to hell. Heaven is available to all who reach out to Christ. He has made this possible. We are the ones who turn our backs on Him. Not the other way around.
The world says how can you identify with that ragtag team. We say how can we not.
Yeah, I’m an A’s fan.
Wouldn’t have it any other way.
P.S. Speaking of the uninvited guest…
[video http://www.diecast-dude.com/gac/Marillion_Uninvited_guest.flv "Uninvited Guest" -- Marillion nolink]
Where’s The Love For The A’s?
Dec 27th
No, I’m not turning GAC into a sports blog. After all, didn’t I say yesterday I’m not a sports blogger? However, bear with me for a bit on this one. It’s one of those “using sports as an analogy for something else” kind of posts.
Earlier this evening, I along with 43,000 or so of my closest most personal friends crammed into AT&T Park in San Francisco, home of the baseball Giants, to watch the Emerald Bowl college football bowl game between Cal and the University of Miami. Cal won 24-17 (GO BEARS!!!).
AT&T was built strictly as a baseball stadium, so in order to place a football field there it’s necessary to have it hard up against the third base/left field side of the stands, so much so there’s no room on the sidelines there for a team which translates into both teams’ benches being on the same side of the field. Cozy, to say the least. Also, a row of temporary stands are set up behind the players, this stretching across right field and into the first base side of the infield. It gives something of a weird high school football field charm to the proceedings.
When used for its given purpose, AT&T has a claustrophobic appeal. If feeling like you’re right on top of the action is your thing, this is your ballpark. The small amount of land available for its construction necessitated tight quarters throughout. I’ve been to a few Giants games there, and every time a foul ball is headed toward the stands no matter its direction there’s a certain amount of fear for ones life due to their being insufficient space for the thing to appreciably slow down.
Note how I said a few Giants games, this despite my amply demonstrated sports fanaticism. That’s because despite being a San Francisco Bay Area native I’m not a Giants fan. Used to be, but this ended during the tenures of first Will Clark and later Barry Bonds. No, my baseball-beating heart belongs to the Oakland A’s. Which can be quite the challenge.
The A’s play in a stadium that should be named the Big Ugly for that is the most charitable description possible of the place. It’s one of those concrete circles baseball/football places built in the ’60s and ’70s when municipalities en masse got this notion about how much money they could save having one stadium for two sports. Most all said municipalities spent the ’80s and ’90s building new baseball-only and football-only facilities after discovering a place built for both was in fact perfectly suitable for neither. Notice the word “most.” The only cities yet to grasp this slice of reality are Oakland, which as an aside is next door to Berkeley, and Miami. An amusing coincidence given which two football teams played tonight… in a baseball-only park.
In addition to playing their home games in a miserable place to see a baseball game, the A’s suffer with other issues unknown by the Giants and their fans. Oakland has one of the lowest revenue streams in the major leagues, thus rendering the team unable to either pursue high-priced free agents or in most cases keep its own top-tier donners of the green and gold, instead trading them before they leave the team via free agency for less expensive prospects whom should they pan out… lather rise repeat. While the A’s hope to fix this in four to five years with a new ballpark, the building of same is hardly guaranteed. In fact, we who are A’s fans usually have a rather anxious eye on the sports page not solely for game outcomes and/or player stats but to see if either current ownership or some megabucks out of towner with the civic backing to build a new stadium will give cause for the A’s to leave the Bay Area.
Another element is how when it comes to pecking order of local media attention the Giants receive the lion’s share of the love while the A’s are often regarded as little more than an afterthought. I’ll pick up on that — and actually get to the point I’m illustrating with all this — in tomorrow’s post.
Never Alone
Dec 26th
(This is cross-posted from my NASCAR blog.)
Hope DW doesn’t find me starting this post by reprinting his column from a couple of days ago
You know folks, I have had my ups and downs in life, my racing, my marriage, my businesses – pretty much in everything I have ever done. One of the things I learned over the years is that I had to surround myself with people that tell me “I can” and not people who tell me “I can’t.”
I learned pretty quickly that I didn’t want to be around people who constantly give you reasons why you can’t do something. I like being around people that say, “Well, it might be difficult, but let’s see if we can figure out a way to get it done.” So I learned in my career that I performed at a higher level by being around people that encouraged me and gave me hope. You’ve heard it before, but it’s still true – without hope, we have nothing.
Sure, there were times in my career when I just about ran out of hope. Those are the times when my wife Stevie, who has been my biggest fan, encourager and cheerleader for 39 years, would step in and say, “DW, you can do this. We just need a plan.”
So in some of our darkest hours, we would get out and read through our Bible and find scriptures that would apply to the obstacle we were facing at the time. That’s actually how she began putting scriptures in my racecar every Sunday. They were scriptures of encouragement. Like I have mentioned to you before, starting back in 1994 in Daytona after Neil Bonnett was killed, Dale Earnhardt wanted scriptures to put in his car every Sunday from Stevie, too.
Lake Speed, myself, Bobby Hillin and some of the other early members of Motor Racing Outreach always had a signal. We would hold our hand in a shape of a cup and hold it up. If you hold your cup up, then the Lord could fill it with his blessings. Naturally, if you held your cup sideways or upside down, then the Lord couldn’t bless you.
There are scriptures that always seemed to pull it together for me in difficult times. One of the scriptures is in Ecclesiastes. It talks about when times are looking really bad. It’s easy to watch the news every night and hear about the wars, foreclosures, layoffs, etc. It’s pretty grim out there right now. The scripture says, “Two people can accomplish more than twice as much as one. They get a better return for their labor. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But people who are alone, when they fall, they are in real trouble.”
So I learned that in my most difficult times I needed a good support system. I needed my wife, family and friends around me. I needed Christian friends that I could rely on. They were normally older men that I could call for advice or a kind word of encouragement like my father-in-law, my dad, Bill France and yes, even Dale Sr. at times. There would be times when we both would be struggling so we would have these conversations and encourage each other.
Our oldest daughter was born in 1987. I wanted to set a good example for her and I never wanted her to see her father drink. So I gave up beer, wine and alcohol of any kind. You know what? I quickly learned I could live without all of it. Looking back, some of the worst decisions I ever made were when alcohol was involved. There’s another scripture in the Bible in Proverbs that talks about the perils of drinking. I read Proverbs every day. There are 31 Proverbs so I can read one every day of the month. I read them over and over again. I never get tired of reading them, and they always seem to be applicable to something that may be going on in my life at the time.
So words of encouragement, hope, faith, love, family – when things are going bad, like the name of this story – always choose right. That’s the main thing. Yes, if you look around you see things look pretty bleak. But if you have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, then you can endure and get through anything. Trust me, it’s made a difference in my life and many of my friends’ lives.
If you read about Job in the Bible, you’ll read that he lost everything he had, but he never lost his faith. The Lord rewards those that are steadfast and true. I know its tough, especially with the holidays here, but my message to you is don’t give up. Hang around with good people. Hang around with good people that love you. Take advice from people who have experience and know what they are talking about.
One of my good buddies who is a football coach once told me, “DW, if I am going to take advice, its going to be from someone that has accomplished something.” So remember that. Be encouraged with the fact that even though we go through tough times, it just makes us stronger. Tough times really develop our character and we find out who we really are and what we stand for.
My Christmas wish for my racing community is that despite how bleak it looks right now, that in a very short period of time the economy will turn around and in fact, and this period of hardship will make us all stronger. It will make us better. It will cause us to rely on each other more and on the Lord and when you do that, he will never let you down. Take it from me, I know that from my own experience. It’s easy to find people who tell you that you can’t do something, but always find the people who encourage you and tell you that you can.
You are never alone when you have family and friends supporting and encouraging you and when you have your faith. God Bless and Merry Christmas!
I’ve really struggled with what to do about this blog for many months. I left SBN because I felt the need to get back to being me, tangents and all, like I was before I left here to do Restrictor Plate This. Yet since making that decision I’ve hardly been here at all.
It reminds me of the surgery I had in 2006. I had come down with a vicious case of carpal tunnel, yet although I’m right-handed it was affecting my left hand. Why? I was born with ulnar nerve entrapment in my left arm, specifically the elbow, and my decades of playing guitar and attempting to compensate for the lack of strength in my left hand by squeezing tighter had taken its toll. For a few years before the surgery I had pretty much stopped playing for different reasons, and when I tried to pick up the guitar in 2005 I found that without the constant playing of decades at least partially alleviating the nerve problems what little strength I possessed had deteriorated to the point where I no longer had sufficient strength to press a single string down to the fret. Actually, that was the least of my concerns. My hand was constantly both numb and in pain — an oxymoron, I know, but that was the case — so I finally asked my doctor about it. I still remember the shocked expression on the face of the specialist he sent me to, a veteran of not a few decades in the field, who after barely a couple of preliminary tests looked at me and said, “This is one of the worst cases of carpal tunnel I’ve ever seen.” She finished the tests, wrote up the results and sent me off to a neurological surgeon who discussed the options. Carpal tunnel surgery to be sure. My elbow? Well, that was up to me. I could live with it if I wanted to. The carpal tunnel surgery would relieve the pain and numbness. All the elbow surgery would do should I opt for it would probably increase the hand strength. Not necessary for normal activities. My call.
“I want to play guitar again.”
So, after the surgery and the resulting lengthy scar on my arm, you’d figure I’ve have a guitar in my hands pretty much 24/7 the moment the stitches came out, right? Wrong. I’ve seldom played a note since then. Too busy writing was the biggest reason. Not wanting to deal with the memories of how much I wanted to be a full-time musician and how it never came to be also played a part. So even though I could play again, I didn’t. Thought about it, yes. But actually sit down, tune up and make music? Once in a blue moon.
Until last week, when something snapped and the light snapped on about how much I loved doing this so why was I denying myself. I dusted off my guitar — literally — and started the process of getting back to where I could play suitably well enough to make myself happy. I’m never going to give Phil Keaggy anything to worry about, but if I continue to work on it I can at least resume my once held status of being acceptable.
Which leads back to this blog.
I used to have one fantastically terrific time writing this blog, relishing the time spent spinning opinions and commentary and striving toward entertaining folk. Even more than this, I loved talking with the people I met along the way. That gradually went away when I was with SBN. It wasn’t its fault by any means; it was me gradually admitting the truth to myself that I’m not a sports blogger in the generally accepted sense of the word. Sure, I wrote about NASCAR. However, I wasn’t interested in reiterating facts and figures, telling everyone what they already knew. As I said, I wanted to entertain people. I wanted to find people of like mind and heart and soul. This wasn’t happening with RPT. So I quit.
And I haven’t done a blasted thing here since reviving the site.
Hopefully, prayerfully, just as I’ve picked up the guitar again I’ll pick up this blog again. Although a massive cloud of uncertainty hangs over NASCAR at the moment courtesy of the Not So Much Anymore Big Three’s tenuous perch on the edge of oblivion, the sport itself should survive. There will be a season starting next February in Daytona. I certainly hope I’m here writing about it.
Thank you to everyone for their patience and encouragement as I continue to wallow in angst. May I get it together ASAP. And again, thank you. It’s good to know I’m not alone.
Telling Ourselves The Truth
Dec 25th
First and foremost, my prayer for you is that you are enjoying a blessed celebration of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’s birth. Way more important than politics.
Picking up from yesterday, it’s vital we go into the new year and the new administration committed to the truth. It is easy to wave off with a resigned sigh how telling the truth in politics places you in unfortunately rare company, therefore is borderline futility. While this attitude is understandable, it is also not permissible. Declining to be anything but truthful regardless of the reception? Never an option.
Regardless of whether we like it, the fact is we’re not doing the job in terms of effectively communicating our message to the general public. Granted, we enter the fray at a disadvantage. Traditional media is not our friend. While we can crow all we want over declining ad revenue at the New York Times, it and the CNNs of this world remain the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room. It is therefore mandatory, should we desire to make any inroads as far as winning over hearts and minds, that we be as Steve Jobs puts it “insanely great.” And right now this isn’t happening.
The South Park Republican shtick of being crass, crude and conservative doesn’t cut it. Neither does trying to make ripping on the media a career when you’re pulling 99 44/100% of your material from the same media. Demonizing your opponents, be they liberal politicians or bloggers, generates a lot of heat but shines no light. These approaches don’t cut it. They don’t cut it, because if they did cut it we wouldn’t be in the position we’re in, said position consisting primarily of pointing fingers at each other trying to assign blame for the minority status we’re in.
So what will work?
While there aren’t all that many Victor David Hansons among us, a more intelligent approach to how we present ourselves and our positions is more than a little advisable. The ranting raving outraged histrionics act has long since worn out its welcome. Instead of knee jerk reactions, we should be on our knees praying for wisdom with which to refute arguments against what and why we believe. The calm measured response and the logically laid out proposal go much farther as far as persuading others to at least consider our words than all the vein-popping venom we can spit at the opposition.
It would also help tremendously if we were more open about our faith. As mentioned above, we need to be articulating not only what we believe politically, but why. The whole Gospel — the need for repentance, the availability of salvation, the joy of life in Christ, the call to serve — should be part of our daily vocabulary. We also need to live out that about which we speak out. The posing and preening “look at me — SQUEE!” attitude needs to be permanently dismissed pronto. We must stop turning the blogosphere into an excuse for the latest chapter of the mutual admiration society. What have we done that’s genuinely worth admiring? Self-serving isn’t service. We need to get over ourselves by abandoning class distinction and embracing each other regardless of social or site visit standing.
We need to adopt the four tenets of the blogging evangel:
- The ability to broadcast ones opinion neither elevates nor validates said opinion;
- Blog from and for the heart, not the bank account;
- Answer your e-mail every time all the time;
- Never become what you profess to oppose.
If we do these things, we’re doing the right things for the right reasons.
The world, although it would never admit as much, needs us. Christ needs us to do His work and spread His word. To sum it up, we need to git’r done. So let’s do this thing. Starting now.
Truth, Inconvenient And Otherwise
Dec 24th
Mrs. Dude and I have a Christmas Eve tradition of going out to a late lunch/early dinner, then to a movie. It’s usually whichever Disney film is currently in the theaters. Today was no exception. The film we saw was Bolt.
The film itself is very good; a definite step up quality-wise from Disney’s other animated films in recent years. It’s not in the same league as WALL·E or the other Pixar movies, but it’s well worth seeing. Try to catch it in a theater showing the 3D version.
Without giving away the plot, one of the film’s main threads is what happens to someone who isn’t told the truth about who and/or what they are. It’s rather like the adage about a person’s perception being their reality, only amplified as in this case there’s no available contrary evidence. You can’t accuse someone of willfully closing their eyes to how life genuinely is when they are deliberately kept uninformed about it.
We live in a world prone to not telling the truth. We don’t tell it to each other, we don’t tell it about each other, and we don’t tell ourselves the truth about ourselves. An illustration of this I’ve mentioned before comes from an interview I once heard with Pete Townshend, guitarist and songwriter for the Who. His comment was that in relationships the woman wants to be told she’s loved and the man wants to be told he is who he thinks he is. Never mind the truth. These are the words we want to hear.
Those of us who believe fight this mindset every day, both when it comes from others and especially when it comes from within. Far too often we see too much of one side and not enough, if any at all, of the other when it comes to how we view ourselves. We either see ourselves as such worthy children of God we give ourselves a free pass on sin because the good we do negates the bad, or we see ourselves as such wretched sinners we lock ourselves away from any notion of being an emissary of Christ’s love because we’re too pathetic to be of any use to Him or anyone else. Obviously these are the extremes. That said, these are the ballparks in which so many of us dwell.
The truth about ourselves is that we are at once both of the above and yet neither. While there is no free pass on misbehavior, there is also the constant, consistent presence of Jesus’ love in our lives and the work of the Spirit in our hearts and minds. Christ not only knows us as we are, He knew us in the eternity before now. He declared us, as we are, worthy of spending the eternity after now with Him, dying in our place and then rising from the dead so this could be so. We honor His sacrifice by imitating Him, living in love and while acknowledging our shortcomings not allowing ourselves to excuse ourselves from always working to do things correctly.
Including telling each other and ourselves the truth.
More on this as it relates to politics in the next post.
Praying For A Way For The Music To Be Again Heard
Dec 24th
Picking up from yesterday:
The Pink Floyds and other members of rock’s mostly retired royalty have no great concerns about their catalog being unavailable. If anything, it’s too available, with so many re-releases of the same album out there even the most devoted fan grows either tired of repurchasing the same music time and again or confused as to the difference between versions. Down popularity’s perceived pecking order ’tis a whole another story. A given artist’s catalog will have gaps with the most popular album or handful of albums readily available, often in more than one version, while other albums will either be available only as a cheaply thrown together bargain bin disc in dire need of remastering or unavailable altogether. Worse yet, the artist’s catalog will be distilled to a “best of” release which manages to miss at minimum a third of said artist’s most popular songs. Oh, you wanted those, and maybe some favorite album tracks as well? Go buy a turntable with a USB output and hope there’s still life left in your played so often the grooves have been worn down vinyl. If you still own it or can find a copy.
While obviously there’s no need to press a CD of every record ever recorded, in our present digital age there’s no excuse for any record company not making everything in their vaults available as MP3s or variations thereof. Taking this one step further, given the ever-growing availability of broadband the argument that online music must be offered in the slimmest file format (i.e. worst sounding) possible has been rendered moot. Yes, when you’re cramming tunes onto an iPod having the songs Smurf size helps, especially given how eleven out of ten times you’ll be listening to said device in a less than optimum acoustic environment. This translates into subtle nuances being a mystery from the get-go as they are swallowed by background noise, rendering whether they’re present in the first place mooter than moot. However, once in the domicile’s concert hall where the only limit on sound is your neighbor’s understanding, having that album near and dear to your heart in CD quality would be nice. Or for that matter, having it period.
And here it gets personal.
Had I the necessary capital, I would immediately set about expanding the ministry to which I have been called, namely reminding and/or informing everyone I come across about my beloved and by God’s grace befriended artists who blazed the trail for today’s Christian alternative rock scene. I’d do this by buying up, begging, borrowing, and where need be stealing back what was stolen from them in the first place every album I could. I’d hunt down the master tapes for every single one until they were either physically in my hands or I had irrefutable proof they sadly no longer exist. Where the latter is the case, I’ll politely inform all parties responsible that when it comes time for an accounting I wouldn’t want to be them trying to explain why they disrespected God’s messengers, language and ministry on His behalf in such a fashion. I’d hire the best magnetic tape repair and restore people available and tell them to have at it. I’d hire top-flight engineers and have them make each album sound the best it can. And I’d set up a nice little online shop so people could buy the albums in either portable player or CD quality, their choice. Oh yes — I’d pay the artists what they’re owed.
It has ticked me off, currently ticks me off, and always will tick me off how insult is being added to injury by the shoddy treatment these artist’s catalogs have received from the still existing record companies for which they created music. The music is almost universally unavailable in any format. That’s more than wrong. That’s sin. Not some flippant calling something a sin. Real, genuine, it is enthusiastically suggested you repent sin. While I didn’t start this particular fire, I’d love nothing better than to put it out. There are lives to be reclaimed to Christ as well as claimed in the first place. The music facilitates this. My longing is to facilitate making the music available. Period.
Rock royalty is well served in the world of re-releases. It’s time for Christ the King’s rockers to receive the same treatment.
I Hear Music Over My Head, Or At Least I’m Trying To
Dec 23rd
There are certain topics guaranteed to generate a debate that makes the average street riot look like a model of decorum. Global warming — fact or fiction. Gun control. Foreign policy.
CD remasters.
Ever since someone at a record company noticed a large element among those who buy CDs are somewhat passionate about sound quality (shameless self-promotion: Mike Roe of the 77s and Lost Dogs has some excellent observations about this in God’s Not Dead (And Neither Are We), coming in 2009 just as soon as yours truly gets his happy self in gear and finishes editing it… but I digress), the notion that re-releasing something already in the marketplace with the justification of the new version being better in some fashion has run rampant. Remastering is the usual modus operandi, this being the fine art of actually finding the album in question’s original recording in lieu of using that eight-track someone in marketing found at a garage sale from which to press the CD. Did that already? Let’s not forget bonus tracks, this being the industry code for someone having dug up one or more of the following:
- Demos recorded on a Panasonic cassette deck with a microphone draped over the chair;
- Live tracks recorded with the same cassette deck smuggled into a show and the microphone held over the crowd;
- Best of all, songs that were actually recorded for the album in question at that the time weren’t good enough to be included yet today are priceless audio artifacts.
Remixing is currently in vogue, preferably with one or more of the artists who created the music in the first place involved so there’s an air of official blessing to the whole thing. Also popular these days is the collectible packaging concept, usually involving a re-creation of the album cover when first released on vinyl lo those many years ago. This is especially entertaining when lyrics were included in the original release, as nothing beats the fine fun time to be had trying to read something released two or more decades ago now shrunk from twelve inches to five with eyes that had already been released a decade or more before the album first saw the light of day. With no remastering available, alas. New life is available through faith in Christ, but He usually leaves installed all the original parts of whatever body houses the new life.
It’s obvious to all with the noticeable exception of a few suits at assorted labels you could simply release something once, get it right the first time, and be done with it. Ah, but where’s the profit… uh, fun in that? Far, far better to devise yet another way to package Dark Side Of The Moon. I’m waiting for the Chu-Bops version. Actually, I’m waiting for Chu-Bops period to make a comeback, for what would be better to plaster Miley Cyrus’ photo on? You want bubblegum, by gum you’ve got it.
If all this seems silly, it must be noted the passionate pondering by aficionados of upper echelon audio makes the above seem positively 4th street… er, normal. Let any album from days of yore hit the market for the thirty-seventh time, and battle lines are immediately drawn between those praising the new version as either sonic paradise or satanic perversion of one or more previously released versions. Wish I had the time to listen to the same album five times in a row on five different CDs so I could pontificate on which version the brush on a snare drum at 3:47 of track two is more clearly articulated. Then again, most of my music listening these days is done either during my morning commute on Mr. iPhone or in the evening at home on a couple of computer speakers. Chances are good to excellent I’m going to miss something somewhere along the line.
It’s not that I don’t want something I shell out money for to sound as good as possible. Having started buying CDs very early on I have my share of horror stories. The first few years of CD issues might as well have been at the supermarket than the local record shop, for sooner rather than later you’d pick up something with sound more akin to an aluminum pie plate being scooted across the floor than music. I still have more than a few discs mastered at a volume level you’d need to borrow Grand Funk Railroad’s sound system from their heyday in order to hear over a butterfly snoring, with sound thinner than a boyfriend’s alibi when he comes stumbling through the door attempting to mask the scent of another woman’s perfume on his clothes with the flowers he picked up at 3 AM from the local twenty-four hour grocery store. The ultimate example of this is the initial release of Aqualung by Jethro Tull, which not only had both the above in abundance but as an added bonus chopped off the intro of the title track and the last half minute of the closing song.
Unfortunately, there is a far less amusing aspect to the above which will be discussed in the next post.
