2009 Words of Wisdom #2

If you have been off coffee for a while then it is NOT a good idea to start your day by guzzling a Grande Pike Place at Starbucks....it's so good at the time but you will regret it in about 45 minutes.  Great Googley...it's like I ate breakfast in Haiti.  

1989: Outstanding Achievement in Hairstyling for a Series

I've worked all afternoon on the set list for United, a student led ministry at Wofford college that is radical.  It has been an awesome time of worship the past three weeks - lots of people singing very very loud (loudy?  who knows) to a God they love.  It has been cool.  

I feel like an athlete right before a game...i am ready to go...sitting here is driving me bonkers.  The funny thing is it starts at 9:15.  That's pm.  We get done @ 10:30 or 11.  Silly college kids.  I have to be up at 5:45 to get the kids ready for school, wait a minute I dont have any kids.  Anyway, I am an old man.  I am posing as a cool college person but you can't fake it.  When I reference Vanilla Ice songs and scenes from Quantum Leap they know I am not hip.  (did anybody watch Quantum Leap?  Best show EVER).  

Anyway, here is some news:  I am shopping around for a producer to work with on a worship CD.  I just got an email from a big time guy in Nashville saying no and I am fine with that.  I wished he would've said yes but I know that God is going to work out ever single detail of this process.....for me to get sad or mad would be silly.  All I want to do is get out of the way and let God move.  I feel a strong call on my life to lead worship and I think the songs we have written are great.  All we need is a producer who sees potential in us and isn't afraid to work with some nerds from Spartanburg (not exactly the Mecca of music).  

So, when you pray, please pray for me and my friends in the band to listen to God.  Pray that we will move when God wants to move.  Not a second before or after.  And if every single door is closed then we will now that now is not the time.  But we will not stop until we have done everything humanly possible to record an album.

Also - if you know anyone in Nashville or you yourself happen to be a producer of worship music, please let me know.  I am kinda excited about seeing what God is going to do.  

 

Write This Down

Man, i'll tell you something...a 4 hour nap sounds great at the time (as does eating 6 Reese Peanut Butter Eggs for breakfast) but now that it's 12:12 am and I'm bouncing off the walls I think I should limit myself to 30 minutes next time. I have a 7 am meeting tomorrow...I am in trouble.    

You Never Know the Demographic

There is a weird phenomenon currently occurring.  Two phenomenons to be exact.  

1.  My band has a huge toddler following.  Seriously.  Everywhere I go I hear "my little Jeffy only asks for Mr Josh everytime we're in the car".  I am not kidding.  This happens tons.  My 2 year old nephew goes crazy if my Cd isn't playing every single second.  It's going to be super weird if we play at the Bi-Lo Center one day and I look out to a sea of 20,000 toddlers.  Can you imagine?

2.  My blog is read only by Moms.  No ones else reads this except 25-35 year old moms.  How random is that?  Moms love my blog.  Girls I don't even know come up to me and talk about the blog and just as I'm about to ask said girl what her sign is I look behind her and see 2 kids sitting in a stroller wearing "josh ridings" t-shirts and singing "I Cry Out".  

Seriously?

I am watching U2 on Letterman right now, as I did last night, and I have one question....Are they joking?  You know what I think they are doing?  I think they wrote these songs in about 10 minutes as a joke to see if we'd fall for it.  And guess what, we ARE falling for it.  

Bono said, "hey, Edge, I'm bored...let's do something.  Should we go to Wal-Mart?  No, no...let's write a joke album and market it like crazy and see if people will be brainwashed like on that last terrible album we put out."  

The Edge:  "Sure.  I can put the reverby janglys on everything, you wear a scarf, those other 2 guys in the band will do nothing and we'll get a road named after us in New York."

In other news about ugly, dumb things that people are falling for all over the world - I was at Wofford today and saw 300 pairs of Uggs boots in about 11 seconds.  They are the stupidest shoes ever.  They are ugly and if you wear them you look like you belong in a mental institution.  But I don't blame you....you are just a victim of great marketing.  

If this was U2's first album or if you saw a pair of Uggs at K-mart they'd be in the same category as the hamburger, fries, 2 taco combo at Jack In The Box (yuck! and weird!).  U2 would be opening for Sawyer Brown and Uggs would be given away at local homeless shelters.  Terrible.  

Your comments are like tiny Christmas Presents

I know nothing about technology but I found a little thingy on my blog that said "Comments than need to be monitored"....or something. There were a lot of them - I found comments from last September. Apparently some comments go through and some dont. I have no clue why.

To be completely honest a comment is like a set of fresh sheets...oh man, I love the first night of sleep on clean sheets. They're cool and smell really good (instead of smelling like bad breath) and I just sleep so well that night. That's what a comment on my blog is like. I kinda want to go change my sheets now......nah, too much work.

So to know I had missed that feeling was devastating. Maybe devastating is a little strong. I was mildly unhappy. So, if you comment and it doesnt come through, let me know. Keep them coming. It makes me happy.

(comments are also like the candy bars in your Easter Basket after sitting through an excruciatingly boring and early sunrise service.)

Yay Snow Day!!

So I absolutely had no idea it was going to snow tons in Spartanburg this weekend. But it excites me. I love snow. Even though I'm 27 I still act like a 3rd grader. When school and work was canceled I jumped around and giggled (with my roommates).

We checked the window every few minutes with disappointment until about 6 pm. Around 8 pm we looked outside at the exact moment a huge tree beside my house fell into the power lines and made weird looking fireworks (it was awesome and sad at the same time b/c not having power put a huge damper in our Rock Band tournament....but how many times do you get the chance to see a tree destroy a transformer in person??!).

What do you do when there's a blizzard and you have no power? Walk to Waffle House, duh. The hilarious thing is that people in our neighborhood were locking their car doors as we walked by.....we'd see the lights flash and the locks go down. How funny is that? They thought we were vandals. I wanted to knock on their door and tell them that we were a worship band who just wanted some hash browns. Nothing to worry about.

We discussed over coffee and hot chocolate in the extreme warmth our options....get a free hotel room that was offered by Lewis White (nice guy), drive to my parents house, pay for our own hotel room (yeah right), or go home and light candles and let Willy read some ghost stories to us. Guess what we picked.

Billy Z (Blomby, Blundeul, William, Willy...all the same person) was halfway through his first story and the power came back on. Yay, party time!! It was awesome.

Anywho, we had a spend-the-night-party and slept really late. Then we (Ben, Blomby, Gene, and I) went to see mom at work, which was awesome. We looked dirty and ridiculous and we were being very loud. We got our picture taken by the Passport lady just for fun (a group picture, of course) then walked around pestering all the employees (I mean...who parties at the Post Office?? Me.)

When we came home we had planned on having a Chris Farley marathon, starting with Black Sheep, but that tree that had fallen was still in the road and 3 others had also fallen. My neighbor was out there cutting them up by himself (which is nooooooo fun) so I went to talk to him. I ended up helping him carry and drag everything into nice, orderly piles.

It was cool getting to know my neighbor a little better plus it was cool to do some good 'ol work. I wasn't born in Chesnee for nothing. Plus, I'm a 210 cube....I'm practically made for carrying logs. It was neato helping him (how horrible would your snow day be if you had to cut up and move 4 huge trees by yourself?.....you're supposed to be sledding and pestering people who have Government jobs - haha Mom....I guess you'll get the last laugh on Presidents Day or some other completely fake holiday that you get off).

Anyway, I love Snow Days. They feel fun. Everyone is off and relaxing and happy. PLUS, since this is Spartanburg everything will be closed tomorrow and probably Wednesday even though all the snow is gone and it will be 65 degrees and sunny....I love this town.


note - I did a snow angel in the middle of HWY 29 last night and it was awesome.