The Economy and Starving Bands

A few noteworthy things that define the “now” for Eric Owyoung:

1) He is gagging on his own flem through sleepless nights from a cold which he reluctantly smuggled into the country from London last week.

2) He has just signed a rent contract to move the studio and house to Encinitas, CA (2 miles from the beach!)…no, I’m not putting my address on the web.

3) He has been experimenting in Photoshop and realizing how powerfully subtle color changes evoke emotion (I took the above photo in Chicago on tour)

4) He has been lagging on the daily blogs as a result of the above items

HOW A WAR AFFECTS A BAND

Other news pertaining to the band is that we have had to cancel 2 shows that we were supposed to fly to. Reason? War, economic recession, and a starving music industry has raised plane-fares to the point where flying to play concerts is a financial suicide for a band like ours. Everyone in the economy is hurting. After extreme raises in gas prices, airlines are not only responding with higher fares but are also beginning to charge up to $100 for anything more than one checked bag! So even if we COULD get there, we can’t bring our instruments. Anyone want to pay us to do a lip sync?

MORE BAD MUSIC, MORE FREE MUSIC

I used the phrase “starving music industry” very carefully. It is not a dying industry. Music is probably more alive than it has ever been in history. More music, more places in the existence of mankind since Adam and Eve. With it comes a few problems:

ONE: More music means not just more good music but more BAD music. There are too many bands and artists to choose from now. Anyone can make a CD now, just turn on the Macbook and away you go. With everyone and their little brother making music, what makes us stop and listen when so much of it is crap?

TWO: More music today also means more free music. In the days of vinyl records and good pot (don’t worry, I wasn’t born yet), people either bought a record or didn’t have music. There was no ipod, internet, or burned CD’s. WALMART and freebies have lowered the value of music. What is a song worth today…a few cents?

Do I blame people for giving away their music? Not at all, you have to if you want to make it. Future of Forestry will do it to at this next album release in one form or another. It’s one of the most efficient ways of getting music out there and gaining fans. Do I like wondering if the band is going to make it? Do I like paying hundreds of dollars in gas to get the band van to the gig only to sell a few CD’s (while I stand there at the CD table and listen to the 2 teenage girls argue about who gets the burned copy)? Do I like knowing that my record budgets are falling below a quarter of what it really takes to make a great CD?

I’d tell you to go out and support your local musicians by buying all their CD’s and T-shirts and going to their concerts. But the economy tells me that you are in the same place. That it is costing you $15 in gas to get you to work, just so you can spend the first 2 hours working for free. I had to move my car out of the driveway yesterday, so I put the car in neutral and physically pushed it instead of turning the car on. Yes, I’m trading a few pulled leg muscles for a few cents. So I won’t tell you how to spend your money other than to say, “Put it where it counts.” Life is fickle…this economy, this country and its future is unknown. Be wise with what you have, and be bold in your faith to put your money where your heart is!

Enough lecturing, I’m the worst person to offer any kind of financial advice…see ya.

Pray for Spencer and his family's loss

It’s been a difficult few days, especially for Spencer and his family. Although we have been playing gigs with Spencer, we have been silent about the hardships he has been going through out of respect to him and his family as they mourn. Five days have gone by now since his good friend Joe has passed away suddenly. Joe was like family, the very close boyfriend to sister Rachel for the past 4 years. Please pray for Spencer and his family as they continue to mourn and process such a sudden death. I asked Spence if he knew what happened, and he said that Joe had a history of epilepsy. This is the only explanation.

Life, Death, Last moments

What can explain death? It's so naturally a part of life, but far too un-natural. Especially when you don't get to say good-bye. When someone dies, the last memory you had together or the interaction we had with them is so important to us. Those last few glances, words, touches. I saw Joe last time at a concert we played here in San Diego, and the interaction was very wonderful in fact. We talked about music, about its meaning and importance and depth. He had a beautiful smile and such warmth in his face and words. He and his sister Jamie were there attentatively and seemed so beautiful together. The three of us stood and talked with connecting eyes and appreciative words. I felt like Joe and his sister genuinely connected to the music we did last night, and I so much appreciated them in that moment. We hugged, turned, and parted. How ironic are those small moments that pass so quickly, so tritely. If I had known that was the last time to see him, what would i say? I think most of me is glad that i didn't know. It was a graceful and peaceful way to connect, and then to say good-bye.

My acquaintance to Joe is pale to the light and love that Spencer, Spencer’s sister, and Joe’s family had with him. I asked Spencer what his last moments were like. He shared with a smile some of the warm and fun moments hanging out. One of which stood out in my mind was Spencer’s drum and guitar home duo created on a whim. Spencer was warming up or practicing some drum strokes and Joe decided to join in on an acoustic. Somehow, the fiasco ended up being a mariachi-fest. Knowing Spencer it came likely came with falsetto “yawlps” of all sorts and gestures. I know too that Joe and his girlfriend (Spence’s sister) spent a very good part of the last year together traveling the United States and South America. We actually saw them as our band tour and their “couple tour” crossed paths in Chicago this year. As sad and tragic as it is, what better way then to spend the last year of your life traveling the world with the one whom you love most.

Pray for Spencer, his family, and Joe’s family. Love and be loved. Life is too fragile to do otherwise.

If You Find Her - Artists, Beauty Within

I’m home again. Sick and coughing but home. And today, I get to play a concert in my own backyard. My backyard consists of the entire coast beaches of north county San Diego, and today at 5, we’ll be playing the Spirit West Coast festival in Del Mar. My backyard is bigger than your backyard.

“Being” a creative “being”

Last night we played our first concert with a guitarist Sean Cimino (come see him with us today in San Diego and tomorrow in Santa Ana). He’s really got some great tones and some serious finesse to his style. I always find it fascinating when a guitar player really puts HIMSELF into his guitar. Its more than notes, more than rifs, more than tones. Rather, it is a reflection of a creative being inside; something ebbing, throbbing, pulsing inside…life.


When I was in England to witness my new baby Nephew being born, I had some great opportunities to feel a moving life-form inside the womb. It was quite surreal actually. There was a conflict in my brain as I tried to comprehend what was happening. There was this totally stretched out belly, tight and ready to explode. With my hands on the surface, I felt these strange movements, parts inside, something mysterious brewing. My brain tried to wrap around the truth that this was no alien. It is a human being, a person, a “someone” with a personality, a destiny, a life ahead of him sitting in there comfortable and patient, existing in the world but behind some layers of skin.

I see artists this way. Like Sean is a creative musician, my wife is an artist as well. She sketches and paints in ways that bring my attention to a deep and complex nature inside of her. When I see her art, the impact is so strong in fact, that it really allures me. Her art is a statement that something beneath the layers of her own skin (beautiful in itself) is a being that sees and knows beauty in a way that makes beauty her own…she becomes it. This kind of beauty is far beyond the Hollywood plastic faces we are offered scattered across the glossy magazine racks. This kind of beauty is treasure beneath the surface (ok, it doesn’t hurt when the surface is quite pleasing too).

If You Find Her

This kind of beauty is beneath the surface of all of us. The culture we have created does little to beckon that beauty to come out. The song I wrote, “If you find her” is about pursuing the beauty within the girl who has become my wife:

She won’t falter easy
She’ll be careful, she’ll be coy
But still she paints her heart
Among the musings of a boy
If you find her,
Tell her that I love her
If she hears you
Ask her heart to come
At the break of morning
The day awaits her when she sleeps
Deep inside her dreams is all
Beauty that she keeps

Pursue and be pursued. There is beauty inside of us because there is God inside of us. A musician like Sean has found a way of expressing that. My wife has found a way of expressing that. Even still they are learning and shaping that expression. What makes it beautiful is that it is purely them. Honest, pure, untainted with the world’s expectations of what SHOULD be played on a guitar or what SHOULD be painted on a canvas. Their creative beauty has been pursued and drawn out over time, like the infant inside waiting to be born.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons…” (Rom. 8:22)

(Original Artwork by Joseph Kraft)

My Video Game Addiction (not really)

It is my last full day in England today. I must say there have been a few unexpected events. Baby Nahum (who was born just a few days ago) ended up in the hospital with a blood infection. It has been a tough week for everyone. Thankfully, after some painful tests and treatments, baby Nahum will come home today. Tam and I have stayed at the house to take care of the three other kids most of the week. Towards the end, I got sick too. So with everything happening unexpectedly and getting sick, I ended up spending a good amount of hours playing Nintendo.

I’m glad I don’t own a Nintendo. I started to get an idea of how it might ruin my life. I got an idea of what video game addiction could be like. I can’t lie though, I had a good time. My game of choice here was 007 Nightfire. I like the whole agent thing.

Tam’s dad once mentioned the kind of drug dose video gaming can be and it really made me aware of how video games can relate to other addictions. In my video game, the end goal was to finish each level. This often took me hours (which I know I’m pretty slow at compared to a lot of kids out there). But in the minutes that filled those hours, I had one amazing kill after another. That felt great since I could usually get hit a good number of times but my bullets seemed to have a much more biased effect on my enemy. All along in the game, I am told that I am stronger, better, faster, and just plain cooler. Sweet.

Endorphins are the natural chemical released in your brain to give the sensation of pleasure. Although happiness and joy are related to the emotion, I think pleasure is the best description since it is more of a momentary state of being. Endorphins are released in natural ways like exercising. I usually feel great after a good fast walk, and I ALWAYS feel great after a good surf. Endorphins are also released when you sneeze. Ever feel a little ditzy after a good sneeze? When you’re feeling down, just grab a pepper shaker and sneeze till you can’t sneeze anymore. That ought to give you a good buzz. Many drugs out there are focused on getting endorphins to release un-naturally. The problem is that every time you do the drugs to get endorphine-released or “high” your normal state of equilibrium is lower than before. The end result is that eventually you need to get high in order to just feel normal.

Every time, as a Nintendo 007 agent, I kill my enemy and I get that quick little endorphin dose…blam! But after awhile of playing I need more just to make me feel normal again, so I gotta grab the big missle launcher…kah-blam! That’s more like it. With all the little blams and kah-blams going off, my little brain is shooting me doses of endorphins. So after I’ve turned the Nintendo off, I’m still thinking about how I need to turn it back on and finish the next level. Its an endless road because if I finish the next level, there’s another level. And if I happen to finish the game, then there’s always another game to conquer.

Kind of like life. Always something else to do, something else to conquer. I’m always the one to get sucked into it all too. This treadmill of working to feel better, then working just to feel normal, then working not to feel totally depressed.

Musicians I believe have a greater tendency toward addictions. I’m addicted to coffee. That is my only addiction that I am proud of (besides my wife of course.) My coffee addiction can be annoying at times such as here in England where tea is more of the staple warm drink. But I love the consistency of one thing in my life that I get to have every morning. With a propensity toward other addictions though, I see a pattern in my life that I know I need to stay clear of.

So now that I’ve written this blog, if I get an Xbox or Nintendo someday, I will have a lot of people mad at me because of this. And most likely I will have either figured out a way of restricting myself, or I will be red-eyed and sore-thumbed from one of the most genius yet ridiculous inventions in the entertainment industry. Since the book publishing industry is bout half of what it used to be as a result of short attention spans and brief internet doses, I think I’ll go read a book now.

Life Learning

I’m here in England still enjoying the presence of my new little Nephew who was born yesterday. The baby just popped out without time for anyone else to show up. Here in England, people usually have their babies at home (as this one was). Hospital births are more for emergency only. So at home, a mid-wife comes and delivers the baby in one of the rooms. In this case, the baby came so fast that Jen and Steve did the delivery on their own before any of us could even get there.

Besides seeing a cute new baby, I’ve been learning a lot about contractions, , colostrum, and placentas (for non-baby owners, the placenta is the pancake-like membrane that feeds the baby inside the womb and later comes out after the birth). Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of the placenta for any of you, but incidentally, the Chinese will eat the placenta as a part of their cultural family birthing process. Why the Chinese insist on eating every un-eatable thing in existence, I’m not sure. Regardless, the placenta is a seriously protein packed morsel, great for a family picnic or special treat to bring for the kids at a baseball game. For those who are thoroughly intrigued, I looked up a placenta recipe on the internet.

To cook, wash excess blood from the placenta. Place it in a steamer over water. Place with it fresh ginger slices, half a lemon and a hot pepper. Steam for 15 minutes, turn, and steam 15 more minutes until no juice comes out when pricked with a fork. (Steam over low heat, it has a tendency to boil over and that's a mess.) The membranes and cord may be cooked with the placenta. It is helpful to turn the placenta to "Schultz," i.e., wrapped inside the membrane when you cook it. It will shrink tremendously, and wrapped in the membranes makes it easy to deal with for the next step. After steaming, slice the placenta in 1/8" strips, similar to making jerky. Slice as thin as possible. Place the strips on a cookie sheet (over aluminum foil if you're squeamish) and place it in an oven on the lowest possible setting for several hours until completely brittle-dry.

Nice…placenta jerky for the road. Ok, so although I am Chinese, the rest of the family here is white-Caucasian, so I didn’t want to be the only one eating.

I hope someday to have children of my own. The experience of even watching from a distance is life-changing. Especially in this case, I think I would feel more of a man to have the experience of being the only one in the room to deliver a baby (not that I would look forward to it actually happening that way). God is constantly preparing us in life just by letting us observe and to learn to love through those experiences.

Thanks for checking in. I will be blogging more frequently when I get back home on the 22nd of May.

England and sleepy

I’ve been in England for a few days now and I’m almost adjusted to the 8 our time difference. Tam and I came here to see a new baby (Tam’s sister's baby) but it appears that the baby wants to stay in her womb for a bit longer than we expected. So we’re here visiting the baby, but the visiting is through layers of skin and an amniotic sac (not to mention depths of amniotic fluid). This in itself is a fascinating thing though. I’ve actually never bonded with an unborn baby before.

But yesterday, courtesy of Tam’s sister Jen, I sang to the kid inside. I introduced several styles of music and ranges. The baby responded most to the lower range stuff (I sang a bit R&B-ish) with some kicks and punches inside. This may have been out of sheer joy and booty dancing OR out of terror because no strange musician at this point has dared to growl directly into Jen’s belly.
It was quite emotional actually. Sometimes, you can feel the whole baby’s back and feel which direction he is in. Anyway, we’re praying daily that the kid actually comes out at some point.

My last journal entry was about a vivid dream. The last 2 days I’ve been trying to adjust to the time change, so my sleep has been irregular. Have you ever been in and out of sleep and you know you just had a million dreams but you can’t pin-point what they were about? I feel like my mind is processing or detoxifying. Being in a foreign country is an emotional relief. I am taken outside of all of my norms. It’s a chance for my heart and mind to operate in a totally different and new space. I keep waking up and I want to go back to sleep because I KNOW I’m dreaming something good. Its often not like that for me when I am home. Its often the opposite. Like those times you wake up and you feel sad but you don’t have any particular reason. I hate that. Its like you’ve been sitting in this dream-like sadness, then you finally wake up, but the sadness has kinda soaked itself on you and you can’t dry off for a while. The last few days have been the antithesis of that. I feel this relief, this nostalgic happiness when I wake up. I keep thinking, “Dang, I gotta fall asleep and get me some more of that.”

Anyway that’s what my days here are looking like. Waiting for a baby to make his short but laborious (pun intended) journey down the V-canal. (And trying to get used to this time zone while taking sweet little dreamy naps.) Hopefully, at some point I’ll discover what I’m dreaming about.

Beautiful Dream

I had a very impacting dream last night. Tam and I were on some trip or something. We got out of the car and saw before us the most beautiful place I had ever been. It is hard to describe because the power and beauty of the place came more from the emotion of it rather than just the scenery. The sight however, was incredible. It was akin to a tiny village in the Swiss Alps. The background setting was like spring snowcapped mountains or something of that genre. In the foreground were these house-like places. I remember seeing them and just weeping because they felt so warm. They were the most inviting structures (for lack of a better word) that I had ever laid eyes on. As I walked passed there was a single sentiment that I remembered feeling….

“I’ve been here before.”

I kept saying it over and over because I had a lack of words for the feeling. I couldn’t understand why the place was so familiar, why those quaint beautiful homes or buildings were hidden deep within my heart. My brain was telling me this was the first time I had seen them, but my emotions were saying, “Welcome to the place you have always known.”

I hope, I dream, I believe that heaven will be like this. Not some crazy cloud-like strange world that makes us feel alienated and miss being back on earth. I dream that heaven will be a place that is already in our hearts, that we are somehow strangely familiar with. And when we get there, we will just say, “I have been here before.”

C.S Lewis’s poem called The Future of Forestry ends with this line:

So shall a homeless time, though dimly
Catch from afar (for soul is watchful)
A sight of tree-delighted Eden.

Although we have never been to Eden, we have eden-like notions built deep within us. What we know within our souls…what is sublimely good, pure and perfect. In this “homeless time” as we wander through this first life, we still have a dim notion or glimpse of heaven. This is what we long for, this is what pines as deep cries out to deep.

God, may our glimpses of “home” draw nearer as we live and long for You today.

Thanks, my new blog friends

Sorry that its not been too much of a blogging week. The ironic thing about it is that when I take a few days off to rest (which is what i wrote about in the last blog) I also tend to find myself more swamped when i get back.

I wanted to take the opportunity though to say thanks to those who have been reading (as this is a new thing for me). I consider it an honor that you would see my random daily thoughts of value to your day. I also wanted to thank so many of you for the encouragement and the emails. All of your words have put an extra kick in my steps towards writing every day.

Lastly, I want to encourage you to SHARE your thoughts on the comments on myspace or blogger. I know privacy is kind of nice, and I totally respect that. Its just that so many words were said that I really wanted others to see. Especially the feedback I got from the blog that talked about being and orphan (may 3rd blog). So many of you resonated with that. I'm sure there is much more to come on that subject. Incidentally, your comments really affect all of us, and provide insight. I feel I often have little to offer but my honest and vulnerable thoughts. Beyond that, I can claim I know VERY little for certain. Your insights to life and observance of me the little guiney pig are valued.

I went to an art show tonight. My wife attends an art school, and her friend was doing a showing. I was inspired by her honesty. I related to the spilling of her guts in hear creativity. A whole series of pen and ink drawings was done out of the emotional heartache of a broken relationship. Its incredible what kind of therapy art can be. It makes me step back and wonder what kind of creatures God created when He made us. How and why is it we can't just pick up and move on when we are hurt? Instead, we have to do long, laborious, and drawn out things like create entire art exhibits or albums as a result. I can relate to that. Most of Twilight is a reeling from my loss brokenness.

I'm thankful for those like my wife's friend who will brave the waters of vulnerability in the art world. Somehow, it just seems to be the natural eden-state that we came from. Creating because we need to. Not out of success or popularity but because our guts must spill. They will either spill in self-destructive ways or spill in ways that SHOW our feelings of destruction constructively. Pen strokes of pain. Dissonant cries from the chorus in our songs. These are our primal voices weeping to be met and loved and cherished by something, by someone.

To the brokenhearted and longing...may God's peace fall on you tonight.

My World is Fast – How am I Handling It?

(This blog was written during the course of a tragic scenario of a train worker being struck and killed by a train in LA. Meanwhile, the whole train system got backed up and I was stuck on a seldom moving train for 5 hours)

So here I am at Union Station in Los Angeles. I feel like I am being pulled through some story that has so many lessons along the way. And that everything that is happening is a part of some strange unraveling. Ever feel like you are in a movie?

I had a great time these past 2 days hanging out with my dad. We spent a good part of the day here in Los Angeles where he grew up. Los Angeles exhausts me. I think I might hate Los Angeles. It wasn’t always that way. When I lived in Albuquerque New Mexico, we used to drive 16 hour on I-40 to visit our grandparents and extended family here. I loved it. It was so much bigger, so much brighter, it felt like more important things were happening.

I think that is the way L.A. was designed. By some guy or group who just decided what kind of vibe it should have. They just said, “Hey, let’s make people feel like lesser people unless they look, act, eat, and live like Los Angeles.” I think that’s what exhausts me now. Either I got old all of a sudden, or I just realized that the fast lane really is the tiring one. And “better” only if your definition of “better” comes from the idea of speed and being trendy.

Our world has changed faster than we were ready for. I asked my dad what it was like to grow up in a crazy place like this, but he told me it wasn’t like this. There wasn’t all the traffic, the crowds, and the hysteria. He said that they lived life within the few blocks that they were in. A trip to San Diego would have been a very big deal.

We live in a world now where a trip almost anywhere really isn’t that big of a deal. Communication over vast lands is nothing. As I was here in the station, I sent a text picture from my phone that one of you from New York might have looked at and read just 30 seconds later. We play x-box against strangers in Japan. We have i-chats across the globe. This world has not only shrunk, but our way of going about it feels more like ants scurrying on a burning ant-hill.


(pics from today)

Are you scared like me? Have we gotten ahead of ourselves? Do we know what we are doing? Our world has gotten fast. How are you handling it?

I’m not handling it well. One of my ways of handling it is getting RSI (repeated stress injury) from using the mouse and keyboard too much. The combination between the hours of use and the amount of tension in my wrists creates painful shocks up and down my arms. I’m constantly running, fast and hard. I’m often worrying, usually about things that I can’t fix or change. At the end of the day, the speed, the emails, the shrinking world and my ability to conquer it through the internet never makes me happier. I feel more like a victim than a conqueror.

The concept of rest has been something I’ve been pursuing in the midst of all of this. While my world gets faster, I am trying to slow down. The band name Future of Forestry comes from this concept when C.S Lewis wrote a poem about a world in which all the trees have been cut down and kids who grow up in post-modernity don’t know what a tree is anymore. What I took from it was the question of whether or not we as people will know what rest is. Will we even know HOW to rest as this whole thing develops?

It takes me approximately 24 hours to BEGIN resting. I try to make it a point to take 2 days off in a row. When I do that, my goal is to avoid emails, or discussion about business, or even thoughts of business. As soon as that period of official rest begins, I look like one of those ants who got de-railed from the rest of the line. Quick and chaotic circles. I keep forgetting how I’m supposed to be resting and I begin fighting myself so that I won’t go check my email again. If I give in, I end up working the rest of the rest time. If I persist, something beautiful happens. I begin to start thinking about things I don’t think about. Like wondering how a combustion engine works or how the brain distinguishes color. I start talking to my wife about what I love and what I’m thinking about and interested in. She loves it. By day 2, I am living again. I become more like the child-like explorer that God made me to be. It is my taste of discovery and fulfillment.

The depressing part of this story is that usually by the time I am in that mode, its time to work again. So my total time of true rest then becomes something around 43 minutes and 16 seconds. The rest of the day and a half was spent getting there.

Join the battle with me. C.S Lewis asked us how many trees would be left by the end of modernity. And in a metaphorical way, maybe he is asking how many of us will be left when this digital world has turned everyone into speed zombies. How many of us will have hearts at rest? How many of us will know what its like to sit in the quiet presence of God? Will we be split and fractured by our restless multi-tasking? Or will we find something better to win?

I hate losing. When it comes to competitions, I have always (since child-hood) taken the approach that if I couldn’t win, it isn’t worth entering the race. I entered the race about 10 years ago. About 8 years into it, I realized there were no winners. Just people who looked like they were winning but were exhausted inside. Today, I am fighting to be a part of a different race. One in which the journey to the innermost parts of my heart brings me to the place where God has made his home. The further I journey to that place, the more I discover that He has been waiting there for me. Not in some lofty attainment or achievement. But just waiting there…quietly in the depths of my heart.

Thank You, Father for making your home in my heart. Today, as I sit on this long Amtrak train, I long for home.

Someone who worked for AMTRAK

Someone who worked for AMTRAK was hit and killed by a train. The whole train system is backed up and i`ve been on a train 5hrs.

I`m stuck in l.a. at the train station after a major crash was reported. Guess i won`t be home for dinner tonight.

Me- Just like my Dad

I’m in Simi Valley today hanging with my fam. Its my Dad’s birthday today! Don’t ask me how old he is. Once he passed 50, it didn’t seem to matter. I wonder if it will be that way when I turn 50.

This a picture of me when I was young. I was thinking on bringing this look back. On stage for my next concert. The knee-pads will especially bring character, and the reflective stripes on the helmet would do wonders with the stage lighting.

This is actually a picture of me having a little fun and imagination. I think the idea had something to do with being an astronaut. Notice the cabling between my backpack (respirator) and my….well, leg. Ok, whatever, that’s the beauty of being a kid. You can justify the sense of a chord being attached to your leg somehow.

The outfit I made up largely revolved around my dad. I was born and raised in Albuququerque, New Mexico, and my dad worked as a scientist at Sandia Labs. To save gas and to get exercise, my dad rode his bike to work when he could. I remember him coming home every evening with his super cool white helmet with bright orange reflective stripes. He often wore reflective orange to fend off New Mexico drivers.

I wanted to be my dad. At least what little I knew about him, I wanted to become. At the time, becoming my dad meant wearing orange and a sweet looking helmet. I also knew that my dad was a scientist and that he rode his bike to the lab where he did important scientific stuff. So what that meant for me as I continued to grow as a boy was that I too needed to become a genius science/math guy as well.

It was always quite apparent though that the math thing wasn’t really happening for me. I knew that every time when my dad got frustrated as he was trying to teach me simple algebra. He kept saying something about not being able to add oranges to apples. All I could tell so far was that you could add numbers. But when they threw strange letters at me the goal was no longer about adding, but guessing the answer so you could be finished with homework. As much as I knew math wasn’t my thing, I did try to enjoy the science area. My dad always took me to science museums and observatories. I was fascinated by it all. It was like magic but real.

When I grew to the age where I could do science projects, I was excited to prove myself as Dad’s prodigy by doing the most genius science project any kid had ever done. I prided myself on reading articles that my dad brought home. I can’t say I understood them, but I liked the pictures and diagrams, and most of all I liked how they made me feel smart like my dad. My memorable science project was about the reflection and refraction of light, and I got to use one of the lasers my dad brought home from work. Although the concepts were a bit beyond my age, when one of the judges if I knew what “sine” or “co-sine” was, I told him it was “the opposite of the hippopotonuse” or something. In other words, I did my best to give the best rendition of what my dad was so great at.

I’m pretty bad at math and science in general. The subjects absolutely fascinate me. But when I get too interested and I want to understand, the concepts get kinda jumbled up and start hurting me. Music doesn’t do that. Becoming a musician has been a relief. When I get myself into a pinch with melody or song, I an always find my way out. It is what I not only love, but what comes naturally to me, like science comes to my dad.

My dad and I have grown very close over these last 3 years. For what seemed as a departure in career interests, we have now discovered are similar experiences in life. While he spent his years exploring the properties of light and electrons, I am spending my years exploring the properties of sound and notes. While he was in the lab fooling around with big toys just to see what would happen, I have been recording the clicks from toaster oven to make the new groove to one of my songs. These last few years have been the most important years of our relationship. These are the years in which we revel in what seemed like differences but are actually similarities and bonding experiences. About five years ago, I might have been lucky to talk to my dad once a month over the phone. Yet, for the last few years now, we talk sometimes a few times a day.

It is reflections like these that outshine everything else that goes on my life. How small everything is compared to the people we have to love. How sad it would be to rewind even five years back. In all of my ambition and ministry and searching, I was missing one of the most real and tangible touchstones to true life that I would ever have. Family.

Finding a relationship with my Dad, in many ways has been a pathway to finding who I am. I am realizing my Dad is a lot more than a scientist with a white helmet and orange reflectors. He is a man who deeply and painstaking loves people. He is man who is honest to the core and who hates injustice. He is man who gets obsessed with details and totally focused on something to the point of genius discovery. He is a man who wants in all things to do good and to love God.

These are the things that drive me every day. And through my life’s deep successes and failures to become these things, the desires never-the-less are ingrained in me. I did not understand how important this was. Yet, as we have become everyday friends, I wonder how it was that I missed this for so many years. Maybe I was running from a scientist to become a musician. What I discovered was that the process of exploring the worlds of science and music is the shared experience of being God’s children. I have learned with him of how little we know in this world and how little power we have to control life and its course. I have learned with him the fragility of success whether it be a scientific discovery or a great melody. We are small. Life is big, far too big for us to wrap our arms around. Without God, we are insignificant specks of dust, swimming in complexities. But with God, we are beloved children of Heaven who are given the opportunity to play in His most spell-bounding playground.

Dad, thanks for sharing this experience with me. Happy birthday.

Why do I care how many myspace friends I have?

Flexibility…It is the blessing and curse of being a musician for a living. There are seasons of work and rest, and those seasons are not determined by a 9 to 5 job. Today, I was planning on working cause my wife usually has art school on Saturdays. But after yesterday, I began to realize some things I need to explore. That inner voice that is telling me that there is a higher calling than productivity.

Today’s journal is a bit of part 2 from the last blog (“who am I as an artist”). By the way, thanks so much to those who wrote some VERY encouraging notes. That meant a lot to me. I often wonder why I’m writing in the blog. I know a lot of it is for myself, just a place to process. Yet to know that what God is putting on my heart might encourage, inspire, or even provoke readers is a purpose in itself. I’ve committed myself to this blog for six months. If you are liking it, please continue to chime in, and tell others about the blog who might relate to them too.




I think everyone has their own version of sanctuary whether they choose to utilize it or not. I think sometimes it is a Church service, and sometimes, it is a walk on the beach (probably not in San Diego in the summer for a guy though…way too much bikkinage to deal with). I think that place may change from season to season. When I went through my divorce years ago, it was Starbucks. It was place to journal and connect to the source. God did a lot of talking, and I was doing a lot of listening. There is not as much noise at places like this. I can just open my MacBook and start typing. Here, God sits next to me (he usually orders green teas) and joins in the conversation.

I wanted to follow up on yesterday’s blog. I feel that it is undone in part because it kind of depressed me. Not necessarily the blog, but the experience of writing it and reflecting on the whole story of the 4 year old artist (if you are new to this blog, you should read the previous one first). Last night, I knew my heart was starving for attention, so today I decided to go here instead of pushing ahead with music and band stuff. A verse from Philippians has been speaking to me.
“…but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” – Phil 3:12

Pressing on. Taking hold. These are great words of action that I need. When going through the “depths” of life, it is those words that insist you keep going and that you keep hoping. Pressing on and taking hold could even be described as pressing IN. So if that’s my part, to press in, then what is “THAT for which Christ Jesus” is taking a hold of me? The verses before it clarify that the “that” is resurrection. A very Churchy word to many of us. For peeps like me, my brain turns off when I hear words like that. I’ve heard it too many times to stop and actually digest what it means. I have to force myself to actually identify what the concept of resurrection really is. Things that come to mind? Life, hope, and existence. The word that really rattles my brain when thinking about this though is INHERITANCE. Think about that word in context of the “that.”

Here I am, in this soul excursion at a tea-house pressing on and taking hold of the INHERITANCE that God has for me. And the only reason why I CAN take hold of inheritance is because has already taken hold of me for that very reason. He takes hold of me to implement inheritance. He has set aside and secured inheritance for ME! What is my inheritance? Being solely His. You and I are forever sons and daughters in the family of God.

I’ve realized the reasons behind much of my worries these days. It is when I forget about my inheritance and begin to act more like an orphan. An orphan has to fend for himself. He has to protect himself, secure his own spot at the table, and compete with others to make sure he doesn’t starve. I can compare this to me getting bummed that the other band or artist out there has more hits on myspace. How silly is that?

For those of you who (like me) actually look at those numbers, a few words. First, the number of “friends” is irrelevant. Bands whose sole purpose is to get “friends” on myspace for status buy “friend adders” which are programs that automatically add friends through automated internet means. You can pay for friends. You can be a nobody band and get thousands of friends this way. Secondly, a more valid way of seeing how many people are going to the site is looking at the total of number of plays each day. That gives you an idea of how many actual people are logging on and playing the music. Thirdly and most importantly, why the heck does any of this matter! When I begin to evaluate my music or someone else’s music this way, that’s when I have truly lost everything that I fight for.

These are some of the things that make a heart sick. There is always a band who has higher number than you. There is always better musicians than you, nicer people than you, bigger houses than yours. This is a fact of life. But when you live with an orphan heart, you actually care a lot about these things.

Pressing on, pressing in, taking hold of inheritance is the only cure to a hearts sickness. Yes, we have at some point been either literally orphaned or spiritually metaphorically orphaned. For me, living with an orphan heart means that I wonder sometimes if God really is fighting for me. I wonder where my significance really comes from. I wonder if He will really pull through when I need Him most. “I have been hurt before, Lord!” Taking hold of inheritance means taking the day today to recognize the need, and to lean into Him a little bit more than yesterday.
“God, help me to take hold of my inheritance. Help me to believe in my value and meaning as an adopted son of yours.”

Who am I as an artist?

Last night was somewhat of a restless night after watching an indie documentary called "My Kid Could Paint That." The documentary is an inside look at the life of a four year old girl named Marla and her family. One day, Marla's dad was painting, and like any other child, Marla asked if she could paint too. What is first unusual about what developed is that her dad began giving her entire tubes of oil or acrylic and large framed canvases. Remember those days being a child when mom and dad handed you $20 bottles of paint, a $75 canvas and said, "Hey, have fun!" Yeah, right.




Here's an example of what happened. The story thickens with a lot of different controversies that i just couldn't get out of my head last night. Although the film started out with the innocent face of a beautiful young four year old, the journey into a very dark and confusing "art world" brought a reality to the story that was quite unsettling. By 3/4 of the way through the documentary, you are no longer focused on the innocent "paint play" of a child but are thrown into a complex scandal. The question of whether or not the painting is art comes into question. The question of whether or not the child actually did the art all on her own comes into question.

This painting called "Asian Sun" was supposedly done completely by her. But lets be real for a second. Did the 4 year old pick the size of the canvas? Did she choose her dark mustard yellow background first? Did she pick out her complementary colors, lay down the red square first, then drip the white and black as her foreground? Or (if i may be a skeptic) can i say that maybe her dad is stoked that she can sell a painting for $20,000. So he bought the canvases, picked colors he knew would work, washed the canvas with the mustard yellow, brushed in the red square, then put a black tube of paint in one hand, and a white tube in the other, and said, "ok squirt squiggles here...little more black...good...ok now more white...over to the left...no your other left...ok good." Marla's masterpiece.

There is an awkward scene in the movie where Marla keeps asking her dad for "help" and to "tell her if she is done." The parents insist they never have ANY part in her paintings. The documentary climaxes when the interviewer/producer confronts the parents. The scene takes us a bit too far into their lives and into an awkward situation in which it "appears" the husband/father MAY not entirely be truthful with the mom about his involvement.

So "why," you ask do i give a rip about this movie? I'm still trying to figure it out. But i know it strikes a very sensitive nerve in me. I am an artist...one who paints with sounds. My wife is a visual artist. Right now, we are sorting our way through the muck of all the questions about art and music and the industry that is created within our society. Here is an example of a little child, just doing what she was meant to do. Slopping paint like any other child. Yet, her child-like instincts got ripped from her hands and thrown into an industry of elitism and scandal.

I feel for the child. And i feel for the mom who never wanted the whole crazy thing to happen. She believed it shouldn't have. I feel for them because i find myself struggling through the same kind of identity questions. There was once a day when i just liked plunking notes on the piano or strumming chords on a guitar. There was once a day when it was just a fun and curios thing to try and tweak a piece of sound equipment just to see what it would do. Today, my world of making music is much different than a child's. I am a part of an industry. I am a part of the critics who decide what is good music and what is bad. To make things even worse, what i do as an aritst determines how i make a living. If i write a hit song today, that might be the down payment to my first house. If i try to write a hit song but fail to even write anything "good," i essentially do nothing for my career. I might has well have gone to see a movie. These things pain me at times. I wonder what it would have been like to have never gone there. What if Marla was left alone, and just painted freely like all the other kids?

Another chord that was struck was the struggle to understand "what is art" and who the heck decides that. There was a scene in the bonus materials on the dvd that showed a forum being held. An honest man made a comment comparing 2 paintings (much like the 2 that are in this blog). One had an obvious cohesive and mature approach to it while the other looked much more like what any child would do. He was just using his simple eyes and brain to make a very obvious comment. But then this elitist stood up and said, "are you an artist? have you ever painted before? because if you HAD ever painted before, you would understand..." then she went on this tirade explaining why his opinion couldn't be valid because he wasn't a painter.

Imagine a 10 year old comes to me and says, "Hey Forestry guy. I like your music, but i really like Michael Jackson music more because i can dance to it." What if i said, "are you a musician? do you know how to play any instruments? then you can't possibly have a valid opinion about Michael Jackson's music can you?

Although that example is absurd, there is a reality to it that exists in the music industry daily. Marketing decides what is good music or bad music. Rolling stone determines what is cool or not. If I put a blog up that says Radioheads new album is the most mature of all their albums, then a LOT of people who read the blog walk away thinking, "Radiohead's new album is the most mature of all their albums." Labels are a part of the whole complex mess. Others see Future of Forestry as a better band because they are on a major label. Meanwhile, other bands who are just as good or better struggle to get attention.

Like in the art world, the value of music or musicians comes through a strange declaration. If i find a way of convincing people that my concert is worth $50,000, then it is. If i find a way of convincing 500,000 people that my album is better than Coldplay's album, then it is. There are people whose job is to find ways of convincing others of that. It is their job to convince the public that so and so's music is the hottest thing out there and if you don't buy it, you're lacking in coolness and ability to have an opinion.

The whole game makes me want to run and hide. Like Marla, i feel like a child. And although she may have a beautiful talent to slop paint onto a canvas, she IS just a child.

A verse from Ephesians 3:16 has been gnawing at me:

"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith."

It takes strength to find Christ and to have him dwell in us. It takes this inner wholeness and power to find an indwelling peace and faith. The strength or wholeness can't be manufactured. It simply comes from him, and the writer of Ephesians is simply asking for that.

Life is full of days like this in which I really need that prayer of Ephesians. I'm struggling just to know who i am as an artist. I'm struggling to be a child again and to figure out how to do that in an insane music industry of money and popularity. I hope and pray that God give all us the strength to become who we are today.