songs you can listen too

Finding good music can be a hard task. I know some people don’t even try to find new music anymore. They’ll listen to the radio and that’s it. That’s not bad, but I’ve always been one to seek new music. I’ve been this way since I discovered music. I was a little older when I did. I was fifteen when I bought my first cd, Sugar Ray’s Floored. I have to say I’ve come a long way since then. One problem I know a lot of Mormons have is finding good music without curse words. I for one don’t care very much about this. I like a good curse word here and there. Okay if you ask my wife she’d say I curse worse than a sailor at times. It’s true. I’ve tried to cut it out. I did okay on my mission. I was able to cut it out in front of people.

I degrees, I do that a lot in my blogs. I was talking about music. I have many different ideas for music, but I want to talk about one person right now, Vanessa Carlton. I’m not sure if people know her. I know she has been on the radio and on MTV when they use to play music videos. I just picked up her new album from my local library and it is beautiful. Rabbits on the Run is just a wonderful album. Vanessa plays the piano and sings. She has a gift that is amazing. If you are looking for a pop star with a beautiful voice and great skills Vanessa Carlton has it all. She is an artist that I would say any Mormon could listen too. I wouldn’t even turn her music off if my parents came into my house. Trust me I have a lot of music I wouldn’t listen to with my parents, but isn’t that true about each generation? You listen to music your parents wouldn’t listen too.

Here are some of my favorite songs by Vanessa, White Houses. If you listen to the lyrics it’s not very innocent, but the piano piece is amazing. She talks about some very mature subjects in a very upbeat way.

A Thousand Miles was Vanessa first I knew by her. It’s a sweet little song. If you were listening to music in 2000 you should know this song. It was everywhere. It reminded me a lot of the Proclaimers 500 Miles. The music video on this song is very cool too. I like the idea of traveling the world on a piano keyboard. Plus she’s wearing armbands.

Vanessa’s new song Carousel is also good. It has that upbeat feeling. I hope to get to listen to this song for years to come.

wordless wednesday - beauty

who i am - blink 182

Blink 182's new album Neighborhoods came out today. As many people know I'm a huge Blink 182 fan. A little over a year ago I wrote an essay about how they affect my life. This essay is very much about me and what I think of Blink 182. I hope you enjoy.

It’s a balmy eighty degrees on a late Sunday night in September. The air is stale with a hint of body odor whiffing through the room. The television is blaring as four newly married couples start to play Guitar Hero. I hold the mic close to my dry pinkish slightly chapped lips. The sweat is starting to bead up on my forehead as I wait for the song start to play. Allison’s guitar riff starts firsts on the television. Red, green, green red, yellow. I jump up a foot in the air my legs bending a little in true punk rock fashion as I yell in to the mic, “Take your pants off!” a classic rebel cry for Mark Hoppis and Tom Delong. These are not the words to the song that just started on the television. I don’t care the lyrics haven’t started yet I’m primed to rock out as if this was my last night on earth. I’m just buzzing hearing that opening riff on the guitar played on my television. I’m no longer a twenty-eight year-old unemployed loser playing Guitar Hero in his living room to escape reality, but a dorky fifteen year-old.

There are very few things and moments in a person’s life that they can point to and say this has changed my life forever. I no longer want to be my old self, but a new person. This one song, this one band helped form my personality, the essence of who I have become over the last fourteen years. I can name a few different things that have done this in my life, but there is one thing that is so defining that it changed the course of my life: Blink 182. No other band had more influence on me as a teen. One song changed my life from dork to punk. Not the 70’s Clash punk or the 2000’s emo, but a true 90’s short-haired pop punk band. The only kind of punk I have ever wanted to be. To this day I would say I’m still a 90’s pop punker just waiting for the next Blink 182 album, which is coming.

When I was fifteen I wasn’t actively searching for anything to change me. I was happy listening to Sugar Ray’s album Floored. I was happy with my crappy hair cut with the part on the side when I put a pound of gel in it. I was happy sitting in my house being just what my parents wanted me to be. But I wasn’t happy; I just didn’t know it yet. How can you know you’re not happy when you’ve never experienced anything? How can you know you’re happy when you’ve never really had great joy? My home just got cable television a few months earlier. Before that we only had PBS in the house. I was experiencing MTV for the first time; it still played a couple music videos at this time. Not all the time, but at least enough to find new music. Music I would have never been exposed to without it. I remember hearing “Dammit” for the first time on MTV.

It’s alright to tell me what you think about me, I won’t try to argue or hold it against you. I know that you’re leaving you must have your reasons. The season is calling, your pictures are falling down.

Those first words sung by Mark Hoppis with three cords played by Tom Delong was a spiritual awaking for me. No longer did I have to listen to Top 40 crap on the radio. No longer did I have to be nice and pretend I liked everyone. No longer did I have to have a lame 50’s-style haircut that never worked with my hair. No longer did I have to try and discover who I was. No longer did I have to wonder if the Spice Girls were the best girl group on the earth, a debate that never mattered in the first place. I was a punk. This song was about girls and how they screw up your life, which I knew nothing about, but Mark and Tom were going to be my teachers for the rest of my life. I need some teachers, because the rest of pop music told me to find a girl that likes Breakfast at Tiffany’s and that was enough. I had no clue what that meant, but why would pop music lie? I just needed to find this amazing restaurant and I would have women. Oh Top 40, how you lie to me. There is no restaurant at Tiffany’s; it’s just an overhyped movie from the 60’s that girls love.

The transformation wasn’t overnight, no transformation can be that fast. I had to go down to the record store and find this new band, Blink 182. I only saw this music video once before I searched it out. This was before youtube, before bands were on the world wide web. Searching took time and effort; it was like you were Indiana Jones looking for the Holy Grail. You could ask the guy at the record store, but there was never a guarantee that he knew the band you wanted. They usually only cared about the obscure Indie Rock that was coming out. I had to go old school and search Karma for the CD. I found it. I was able to remember enough to actually find it in a large CD store. This new discovery was amazing, not just for me but anyone who would know me post-“Dammit.” Over time I grew out my sideburns, the classic 90’s sideburns that everyone was sporting. You can tell which guys lived through the 90’s as a teen because most of them still sport the sideburns. I decided to cut my hair short on the sides and a little longer on top. Then my hair went straight up a year later. I’m no early adopter, but I was one of the very first kids in my school to sport that look. All of a sudden people started to notice me in the halls. I wasn’t a nobody anymore, I was a cool kid. Okay I wasn’t a cool kid, but people stopped making fun of me. My pants got huge, and I learned the white guy dance from The Offspring’s Pretty “Fly for a White Guy” music video.

Discovering yourself shouldn’t be as easy as finding a silly Blink 182 song on MTV. Everyone knows who Blink 182 is now. They sing that song “All the Small Things.” When I discovered “Dammit,” I was alone in a crazy world. It would be about a year before any of my friends were listening to “All the Small Things.” Bands have weaved in and out of my life. Blink 182 has not left me. The only time I stopped buying Blink 182’s CDs was when they decided to stop making new music.

At one point in my fourteen year love of Blink 182 people started to think they were lame, in fact at many times of my life I run across this. For some reason people think Indie Rock is where is should be. They don’t care about pop punk. They don’t want to listen to happy upbeat tunes about boys losing girls and trying to figure out how to get them. Yet that is what life is all about. You are either trying to get a girl or trying to figure out how to get over them. My teachers Mark and Tom taught me this. It doesn’t matter if you’re married either. You are still just trying to win your wife over every night, at least I am. Why do you think so many marriages go south? It’s because they don’t listen to Mark and Tom about love. If you take it for granted you lose it. Now that’s a true punk belief.

To this day if I hear “Dammit” or any Blink 182 song I have to stop for a second and punk out. If it’s the car I just nod my head. If I’m walking when it come on my ipod, then maybe a little dance move right there on the street. The best is when I can rock out to the entire song. I can scream at the top of my lungs for the entire song. I can jump up and down and be a maniac, because I know I’m a punk. I’m no longer that dork with lame tight jeans and a bad haircut.

It’s happened once again, I’ll turn to a friend someone that understands, she screwed the master plan. But everybody is gone and I’ve been here for too long to face this on my own. Well I guess this is growing up.

Well I guess this is growing up.

For two minutes and forty-five seconds I was a legend of punk rock. I let the eighty degree weather shove it. I didn’t care if I was dehydrated. I belted out “Dammit” for the whole world to hear. I turned away from the television, not needing to see the lyrics, and serenaded my wife as she played the fake guitar. I jumped up and down. If this is growing up, I don’t want to stop. I want to keep going. I want to listen to “Dammit” a hundred thousand more times and remember I can change and be something amazing if I need to. We all can.

national comic book day

It's National Comic Book Day! I've never heard of this holiday, but I do love comics. I would have thought this day was the first Saturday in May which is Free Comic Book Day. I love that day too. Comics are the best and yes, you should be reading them if you are not.

I wanted to talk about five comics I love reading right now. I have a bunch that I love to read. Since I am one for the spandex muscle comics I'll be talking about them. I know that's not every ones cup of tea, but it's mine. I'll try and throw in some other good books too.

1. Invincible by Robert Kirkman. This is the best monthly comic book out there. Invincible follows Mark Grayson on his adventures. The twist and turns of Invincible will totally keep you reading the comic. Mark grows from a high school kid with no powers to one of the most powerful superheroes on Earth. He deals with every day situations and with the morale decisions he has to make as a superhero. Should he kill villains? Should he work for the government, even if they're a little corrupt? His decisions will effect society he lives in. I love the personal drama Mark goes through with his family life. Everything is being thrown left and right as Mark grows up.

2. The Amazing Spider-Man by Dan Slott. I'm a huge Spider-Man fan. I've loved Spider-Man for so many years, I can't count them. The most current story going on in the Amazing Spider-Man in Spider-Island. Normal people are getting spider powers. They can webswing and stick to walls. Mayor Jameson doesn't like this. The world see this as a epidemic. Can Spider-Man protect New York when he's now just like everyone else? Slott has been plotting Spider-Man for about a year now. There has been a lot of changes in the last few years and this Spider-Man is ready for action. For once most things are coming up good for Peter Parker.

3. American Vampire by Scott Snyder and Steven King. This is a new comic I've been reading from Vertigo Comics. I for one thought vampires were played out. Twilight made me feel that way. This comic has no superheroes. I'm not even sure if there's a hero in the book. The vampires in this book are evil. They suck blood and murder humans for fun. They're not about finding love and sparkling. They are about killing. One of the interesting things going on in this book is that each line of vampires has different powers and weakness. The old European vampires are the classics, the ones we all know. The American vampires are new, the story starts with following the first one, Skinner. He is a bad cowboy for the 1800's. Snyder and King both write different sections of the stories and weave the magically evilness of them. If you like good vampire stories this is an excellent one.

4. Gladstone's School for World Conquerors by Mark Andrew Smith. It's the Hogwarts for super villains. That alone should say enough. If you're a super villain you send your kids to this school to learn to use their evil powers and fight superheroes. Or do they? There's an evil mystery behind the school and the super community. What is that secret? This all ages book is amazing. It will grab your attention and make you want more and more.

5. 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente by Wilfred Santiago. If you like baseball this is a great comic. It tell the true story of Roberto Clemente. How he was from Puerto Rico and made it all the way to the majors. It's a great story and I think everyone should read it.

Okay there's five comics I love right now. Now you all need to get up and go find a comic you'll like to read. You can check them out from your local library if you want too. It'll make your life better. Trust me.

car quest

This past week has been a rollercoaster of a week. Our car died last Saturday. It’s still in the shop, waiting for a part to come in. Since our car has been giving us to much trouble lately we’ve decide to start seriously looking for a new car. Unfortunately our budget for a new car is small, but we should hopefully find one. We’ve already had some funny experience this week car shopping.

While looking on the internet we found this sea green ‘04 Honda Civic that looked like a good deal. It had a few miles on it, but you have to except that in our price range. Well over the course of a few days I went over and checked out the car. It looked good, I talked to the guy and it seemed like an okay car. The carfax looked okay on it. There was nothing major on it. So I took Allison a couple of days later to look at (with our schedule it’s hard to get to car dealers at the same time). She looked at it and thought it looked good. The car was her favorite color for a car. We decide to take it for a test drive. After getting the keys we sat down in the Civic. It felt good. There was a little fabric damage, but not much. I went to put my seatbelt on and as I locked it in, it flew back up at me. The driver side seatbelt did not work. Who tries to sell a car that is illegal to drive? Yes, in Indiana they will pull you over and ticket you for not having a seatbelt on. First thing we didn’t like about it. We decided to still see how it ran though. As I pulled out and touched on the brakes, I heard a bit of crunching. Of course, the civic would need brake work. The civic was turning more and into a bad buy. This was making us sad. We both love Honda so much, and to find a relatively new one for a good price was a dream. We thought maybe the Lord was guiding us to our first car purchase together, but no it wasn’t. Oh way does buying such an expensive purchases have to be so hard. So the quest for a new car continues.

Talk like Pirate Day

It’s International Talk like a Pirate Day! This is an important day in our lives. If we don’t go out and talk like pirates then who will? I know I can’t let the boring people win. Rrrrr. If you want to take it one up, you can dress like a pirate too. Shiver my timber that sounds better than Long John’s treasure. My real question is should I be talking like a modern day pirate from Africa or an old school one. My best guess is neither. I should be talking like a movie pirate. Rrrr, matie. Go have some fun on this Monday. I know it might cure my Monday blues. Hi, ho. Hi, ho. It’s a pirates life for me.

Mormon:Facts - 2

Primary, what else is there?

This past Sunday Allison and I took primary off. The primary presidency gave put these cards at the beginning of the year that let you take one Sunday off to go to your regular meetings and they would cover you. It’s one of the nice things they do for you. It was the first time I’ve been to Elder’s quorum and Sunday school since last December. I forgot how nice it was to go. It’s not very often I just get to sit back and listen to intelligent adults talk. I almost never hear a deep discussion on anything, if it’s not between Allison and me. I don’t get out much and work gives me nothing. We don’t hang out with our friends that often, so yeah, this was the first time in a very long time I actually heard the gospel in a class setting.

When I was younger, I hated Sunday school. The teachers were boring and they really never discussed things I didn’t already know. Now, it’s a little different. It’s a hundred times better than being with five-year-olds. It’s still a little boring. Most of the topics are that deep and amazing, but adults have opinions. Opinions that are their own. Opinions that they can clearly state and are passionate about. This is something I’ve been missing. I never voice my opinions in church; I don’t like talking in large groups, so Sunday school will never know what I know.

What I’m getting at here is that I love grown up interaction. I even got to talk to people between classes! I haven’t had time to do that forever. I got to sit next to one of my friends other than my wife. I was able to listen to engaging ideas of the gospel that might challenge me to do some more studying to see if people’s ideas are correct. (Yeah I never take anything at face value at church, doesn’t matter who says.) It was so nice. I miss being out of primary. I miss the little social interaction I use to get at church. Church has lost most of its meaning since they put me in primary. I feel like I’m there to babysit some people’s kids. I feel like I get nothing out of church, especially after seeing what I’ve been missing this past year. I don’t have the social aspect of it or the religious part. It’s a three hour waste of time for me. They need to change how the primary teachers work.

They need to make it possible that each teacher gets one Sunday a month or every two months where they go to their meetings. That’s not too much to ask. If any other primary teacher feels like I do, I’m sorry. It’s not right how the primary program works. I feel like I’m not really part of the ward when I’m in primary. They need to make it possible for people like me able to go to Elders quorum sometimes. It would be nice to meet some people in my quorum.

Mono for a Year

"I once thought I had mono for an entire year. It turned out I was just really bored." - Wayne Campbell

I'm a little bored with my life right now. It's my own fault. I can't motivate myself to do anything really awesome right now. Last year at this time I was drawing comic and working on paintings. I was doing both of these things until a few months ago and then I just stopped. I don't have any great ideas for new comics. Well that's not true. I've got a couple ideas for ED the Business Warrior, but I want to do more than just ED. One thing I want to do is draw a Mormon comic. I've been feeling like this is something I should do for awhile. I've been dabbling with it in my daily sketches. I've done a few Mormon:Facts, but I want to do a story. Then the question is what do I write/draw about? I do not want to do a pioneer story. I think there's to much of that in church literature already, plus I want to appeal to more than just Utah Mormons. I would like to do a story with Mormon characters more than a story about the Mormon faith. That still leaves a huge hole of what do I want to do. I have to really be passionate about it too. If I'm not, I won't finish it. That happens to all my comics I start that are longer than five or six pages. The only comic that has had any story lines over that many pages is ED. It's strange to say this, but ED is my most accomplished comic I've ever drawn. Although I believe my Political Fridays comic is my most viewed comic I've ever done. Being able to see stats are awesome. I just need to find something that will motivate me. Once I'm motivated I should be out of my funk. If it's drawing a Mormon comic that would be cool. If it something else that would be good too.

i'm a goner

the British want my Mind

The British have invaded my life. This is not a new thing to me; I’ve always liked British things. Some of my favorite bands are English, like Art Brut, The Streets, and The Specials. It has been getting worse and worse since I moved to Bloomington. This past week Allison decided she needed to see the new Doctor Who. Her friends have been talking about the Doctor none stop or something. She’s never seen any Doctor Who before. I watched the new series on and off when it was on SciFi channel. The problem was I just couldn’t get into the show. I’d come in to the show in the middle and be like what is this? I’d watch half an episode and be like this was lame. I warned Allison it might not be good. I know I didn’t really enjoy it that much seeing it that much. Luckily I was wrong. That first season of Doctor Who was awesome. Sure some of the special effects were BBC standard, which wasn’t really good until recently. Now I’m addicted to the Doctor and I need to see season two of the second series.

One show isn’t really enough to say the British have invaded my mind, but it more than that. We started watching Misfits on Hulu. Oh my goodness that show is off the hook. It follows these delinquent youth in community service that accidently get super powers. Do they become super heroes? Some of their powers are totally horrible for saving people. We’ve watched half of the first season and need to finish it still. Then on top of that we started watching The Book Club. That show is really dry and uncomfortable. I enjoy it so much.

For Labor Day we went to the movies. A movie I’ve wanted to see for about four months finally made it to America, Attack the Block. This movie was insane. Not just a little insane, it was full off insane. You had these crazy aliens attacking a small neighborhood in South London. A small street crew has to man up and take them on. The aliens were really well done and the movie was the best alien movie I’ve seen in years. The main reason I wanted to see it was Nick Frost had a small part in the film. He was okay, but the hoodlums made the movie awesome.

That might not seem like a lot of British television and movie, but there more. Tons more that I love. Someday I’ll talk about them too. Yes, I’m talking about The IT Crowd and more.

Dreaming in Nauvoo

Every morning on the way home from work (I come home at 8am) my wife wants to tell me all about her dreams. She has many strange and odd dreams about everything. Many times I have no clue what she’s talking about, but she is talking about her dreams. I don’t remember my dreams very often. I’m not sure why this is. Allison says that men just don’t remember dreams. It has something to do with my biology. I can accept this. The question is if I do remember a dream is it important? Is it really a repressed memory? I don’t know. A while ago I had a dream. I still remember it days later, which makes me wonder if it was real.

My dream takes place when I was a teen, probably around 14 or 15. I was out on a scouting trip; a scouting trip with my Father. We were going canoeing or kayaking. Here’s the weird part we were doing it in Nauvoo. When I think of Nauvoo, I’m not talking about the church part, but the real city part. With buildings and houses people live in. It was really weird, because Nauvoo is on the Mississippi and you don’t go canoeing on the Mississippi. I think I might have been dreaming about the New River in West Virginia and the city of Nauvoo. Both places I’ve been as a Boy Scout.

During the rafting part of the trip my canoe flipped over and I was hurt. My arm might have been broken, but I never found out. My Dad got me out of the river and drove us into Nauvoo. Once we got there he refused to take me to the hospital. Instead he drove me to an Appliance store. I kept asking to go to the hospital, but my Dad said he knew a guy here that would fix me right up. I thought this was weird, considering I don’t think my father would ever deny me medical attention if I was hurt. I sat on a washing machine as I waited for this guy my dad knew.

My dream took an odd turn here. I found some old school Human Torch comics while waiting. I’m talking 1940’s Human Torch comics. This is the android Human Torch from Timely Comics (which later became Marvel Comics). While looking at them I realized they were about me. I was this android and these were stories about me in the 40’s.

The guy finally showed up to look at my arm during this part. He was wearing jean overalls and hat. He looked like a mechanic more than a doctor. He looked at my arm and was like the kid will be fine. Then the dream ended.

So weird and odd. I don’t think I’m the Human Torch or that my Dad refused to take me to the hospital, but what could this dream mean. I’ve been thinking about it for over a week and I have no clue. Maybe it means nothing and I just remember it because it had my Dad in it. I don’t know if I’ll ever really know.