Switchfoot and the Art of the Bridge

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a love for the band Switchfoot. Their music, the interaction they have with the fans, the words that Jon Foreman writes, the whole enchilada. I became a fan when the album “The Beautiful Letdown” was in stores, so that would make it about 2003 or so, and since then I have purchased every album they put out, as well as any solo project that Jon has produced. I have seen them in concert several times and love every moment that I’m there.

Their song lyrics are honest and they hit home with the realities of life. It is no stretch for me to say that “Hello Hurricane” was an album that helped ground me during the most difficult time of my entire life. I could see the trouble on the horizon. It was headed my way and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Landfall hit and it was horrific. And after the storm had passed, there was clean up to do, but clean up is something only done by people who had survived the catastrophe more or less intact. And I had survived.

And in my clean up effort, the album “Vice Verses” had some key songs that helped me communicate where I was at. Emotionally. Physically. Spiritually.

Many of the songs the band sings come to a head. Everything leads up to a bridge, and in that bridge, Jon sings something profound. The entire song has prepared you for it, and the bridge is the application of what they are trying to convey to you. Read without context, the lyrics of the bridge may not make as much sense, and if that is the case my best advice is to listen to the entire song a few times. Everything sung before and after the bridge makes sense in light of the bridge.

http://switchfoot.com/home-for-now-a-break/

Recently, Switchfoot has announced a well-deserved hiatus from touring. They’ve been busy for 20 years, and I don’t blame them one bit for taking a break. If they never produce another record, their career as a band will not lack for anything. If they do return, which I do expect eventually, I have no doubt that the new music will be awesome.

I am adding a new category to my blog. That category is “Switchfoot Bridges” for lack of a more interesting name. I’ll try and remember to name the posts with the song name and include the album name as well. So if you see a post entitled “Needle in a Haystack Life” or “The War Inside” please don’t get all concerned for me. I’m just remembering the discovery of songs that spoke to me as few others have.

“Your wounds are where the light shines through.”

Buh-Bye YouTube Red. Facebook is on notice.

I’ve been a YouTube Red subscriber for years now. Ad-free videos, YouTube original content (which were pretty lame, to be honest), YouTube Music, and so on. It cost a little something each month, but in exchange, I had a wealth of information and entertainment in front of me. I could learn about sports, a diverse range of political ideas, woodworking tips, sermons, product reviews, marksmanship concepts, apologetics, concerts, cooking and more. YouTube has been established as the dominant medium of informational video on the Internet. My $9.99 a month was given in exchange for a world of uninterrupted content.

But that world is just not worth it any longer. YouTube has been constricting certain viewpoints that don’t march in lockstep with the social engineers of Google. This goes for thoughtful channels such as PragerU, who is actually suing YouTube for censorship beyond the contractual agreement they had entered into. This goes for other channels I have enjoyed like Apologia, which is actively spreading the gospel and opposing societal problems such abortion and the distortion of biblical marriage, have received strikes against them for thinking and speaking in ways that are not in complete agreement with Google. To be clear, I am not looking for a service that checks all of my boxes. I am looking for a service that isn’t actively unchecking them.

Not that long ago, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and others were actively protesting the end of Net Neutrality. They had claimed that this Neutrality ending would result in unfair data speeds and in people being censored by those evil ISP’s. But now YouTube is demonetizing their content creators, removing their videos without recourse, and shutting down channels that they disagree with, regardless of the number of fans of those channels. They are the ones censoring their own partners. And I have heard from people who I follow on both Twitter and Facebook who say that the companies are refusing to allow them to advertise on their networks because they disagree with their stance in one way or another.

I don’t know what else to call this, but hypocrisy.

So what am I to do? I have all these DIY honey-do projects lined up and YouTube has been my main source of inspiration to learn the concepts. And I have learned other skills by watching people do them. Should I call a government bureaucrat and demand that they step in?

Only if I want to be a hypocrite myself.

You see, I want to be consistent. I don’t want the government to force someone to bake a cake in celebration of an event that they disagree with. I don’t want the government to force someone to affirm a behavior that repulses them. I don’t believe that a Hilal deli should be forced to serve pork products either. And I don’t believe government should be asked to force YouTube to accept any video outside their existing contracts.  If I were to ask government to get involved in determining what First Amendment rights YouTube has, I would be ceding too much power to a government comprised of extremely polarized viewpoints.

I won’t ask any member of government to advocate for the channels I enjoy. What I will do is voice my displeasure at the constriction of free speech by cancelling the membership that had once benefited my experience with YouTube. This doesn’t mean I can’t watch YouTube videos. It does mean that I would rather deal with interruptions, advertisements, loss of services, and other annoyances than offer up my monthly tribute to the virtual monopoly of video on the Internet.

Trying out wine for the first time

Dayna has expressed an interest in trying out wine. Since I have VERY limited knowledge of wine, we discussed it and decided to try some red wines. I love shopping at Trader Joe’s, their Kenya coffee is the bomb, and they also have a decent (I think) wine assortment. Most notably, they have Three Buck Chuck. So if we don’t like a wine, we’re not out too much money.

I did some investigative research, which means I Googled it, and the top wines in that category I purchased were Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon. $6 for two bottles. We’d have a few evenings of wine tasting, probably with chocolate or cheese or something like that. We would feel sophisticated and romantic. We’d find out what the big deal is!

Except for one thing. We were trying out Three Buck Chuck. And either we just aren’t the target market for wines or we were getting what we paid for. I poured two glasses tonight and handed one to Dayna. Her face was something to behold! I took a sip and asked her how she would describe the flavor. Tart? Bitter? Be honest with me.

“I think it tastes like liquid garbage!”

All this to say that we may need some suggestions from others. Preferably for a wine that won’t end up down the kitchen drain.

NFL Playoff Predictions: Wild Card Round

Welcome to the Wild Card Round of the NFL Playoffs, the one week where the home stadium is a true advantage, with the home teams historically winning 75% of the time. With that in mind, here are my predictions.

Titans at Chiefs
I live in Iowa, where you only see the Titans on television if they are playing the Vikings or Packers. Or if they are playing on a Monday or Thursday night. And that’s assuming that I don’t have something more important to do, which is likely because the Titans haven’t impressed me since…

Look for the Chiefs to take this game by at least a touchdown. Arrowhead Stadium will be rocking and Alex Smith with complete a pass that travels more than 10 yards in the air. Yeah, I said it!

Bills at Jaguars
If you didn’t catch what I said earlier, I live in Iowa. We don’t care about either of these two teams, nor do we know a whole lot about them. Except for a few things. The Bills required the help of Andy Dalton of the Cincinnatti Bengals to get into the playoffs in the first place, which doesn’t speak well for their chances to win a playoff game. If Andy Dalton is your Playoffs good luck charm, you’re going to have a bad day.

The Jaguars will win this game convincingly with their top rated defense and middle of the road offense. Total points scored in this game will be kept under 40.

Falcons at Rams
Iowa boy here. Since the Rams left for California, we stopped caring about them. No, it was earlier than that. Since the Rams had Jeff Fisher as their coach we stopped caring about him. But Jeff Fisher is no longer the coach of the Rams and that is why the Rams are hosting a playoff game. Jared Goff is playing well, which you would expect with one of the best running backs in the NFL supporting him. Todd Gurley should win the MVP of the league. And the Rams should win this game.

The Falcons are eager to get the stink of last year’s Super Bowl off of them, but now that Matt Ryan has returned to what he is, an average NFL QB, they will lose a close game. Here me now, believe me later. Matt Ryan will never be in the Super Bowl again.

Panthers at Saints
“To be the man, you have to beat the man.” is a favorite quote by Ric Flair. Ric is a fan of the Panthers, which is nice and all, but the Panthers have been so erratic this year. They could beat the Saints by 20 or they could lose by 20. It’s just a matter of which team decides to show up. The last two times they played the Saints they lost. And I predict that trend will continue with another loss.

Oh, I’m from Iowa. And I really don’t care about any of these teams. The Chiefs have some local support around here, but this is really a Viking state. Mix in a little Packers and Bears and there you have it. Add to this the fact that the NFL is in a 10% slump of viewership, this would be a great weekend to spend time working on that honeydo list. Earn some brownie points for next week when the Vikings, Eagles, Patriots and Steelers enter the mix.

Oh, and #FireRogerGoodell

What Happened Last Night? #alpolitics

  1. Both parties have their lemmings. Those are the people who will vote for your candidate based solely on the R of the D after their name. Nothing, literally nothing, will persuade them otherwise. They are dyed in the wool red or blue. You probably know someone like this. Heck, you very well might be someone like this.
  2. Each voting district has it’s own makeup of lemmings. Most have a greater concentration of one color or another. The colors I refer to are red and blue, so back off SJW’s! This preexisting advantage toward one outcome or another determines red states and blue states, red voting districts and blue voting districts.
  3. Historically, the strategy to win an election is to energize your base so they will appear at the polls, then convince enough unaffiliated people to vote for your candidate to sway the election. At the same time, it is very common to try to deflate your opponent’s base with so-called “dirty politics” which are only dirty in the event that your claims against them are not true.

Still with me? Because I think this will pay off.

Democrats are right to be excited about a victory last night. The ratio of committed red and blue voters is HEAVILLY swayed to the red side in Alabama. The last time this senate seat was “contested” Jeff Sessions won with over 90% of the vote. It helps when the other party doesn’t even show up. I say that because he had no opponent. Nobody in the Democratic party was willing to spend the money to even oppose the Republican in that state.

This means that the red lemmings in Alabama are many, a great percentage. So for Judge Roy Moore to lose in this election, many of the members of this voting block either voted AGAINST their dyed in the wool party, or more likely, they stayed home out of disgust over the accusations against a man they had voted into their state Supreme Court more than once.

So if enough people in a deep red state did not support the red candidate out of their own disgust, moral conviction, etc for a blue candidate to represent them rather than their familiar red, then anyone who says that all red voters are devoid of morality or care for others needs to look to Alabama and stop painting with such a wide brush. There are some people on either side of our divided nation who do not blindly march with their party regardless of the conscience that was placed there by their creator.

And this creator is one who saves sinners, not good people. Did you ever think about that? Christ came to save sinners. If you aren’t a sinner, you have no place with him. That person on the wrong side of the aisle, with the wrong bumper stickers, they may very well be just the sort of person who needs Jesus. There is a divide in our country that ought not be there. Both parties will tell you that the solution is peace through political victory. I tell you that both peace and victory will only come from the Prince of Peace who won the final Victory through his own self-sacrifice.

He has a message for your opponent. He has a message for you. Are you listening?