oregon, and other wests

here's some video of our trip out west:



Ryan

"The Stuff You Own Ends Up Owning You"

So the blog activity slowed suddenly just as it was getting off the ground. Well, that's partially due to the fact that, last Tuesday, my entire roof almost got off the ground. In other words, my closet exploded.

I just had just arrived for a day of playing music at EPCOT, when I received a call from my wife, telling me there was an explosion, she had to put out a fire on our back porch, and the fire department had just shown up. So i turned around and drove home as speed-limit consciously as I could (trying to stay consistent with my previous post, but pushing it a little, you understand). The video shows what I came home to:

The kicker is -- Christi had been studying on the porch a little over an hour before the door blew off the closet and right through the table and chair where she had been sitting. It was a hot day here in Florida that day, and fortunately she became uncomfortable.

I think that's as good a place as any to stop and meditate - "fortunately, she became uncomfortable." I mean - what if it was a beautiful day outside, just the right temperature, cool breeze blowing, comfortable? Thank goodness we don't always get what we want.

It's been an amazing two weeks. I might even go as far as calling it a blessing. In fact, yes. That what it was.

I've heard people say stuff like this before. I've never understood it before now. How can losing things be a blessing?

The blessing was in contrast to the anguish I "should" have been feeling, at the hassle of the loss, the time it will take to rebuild, having no AC for a week. But this shadiness gets burned away by a brighter light: How many people called, emailed, instant messaged me, from my church especially, saying "Thank goodness everyone is all right! Anything I can do to help?" It's amazing.

I don't want to go too deep except to say that I think I'm actually thankful for all this - two weeks out, we have no hot water. I've learned to enjoy the cold showers. I've been trying to keep that feeling of being surrounded by love and all-too-often-unseen blessings raging in my life.

I'm thankful for the peace I've had through all of this. Like it's no big deal that my house almost burned down. Maybe I'm getting older? Maybe getting older isn't so bad.

saturday morning Simon

every once in a while i'll be posting musical influences and discoveries on this blog, recorded from my turntable into my laptop (if you're interested in hearing more like this, check out my blog the thickness of the ghost).

in the modern re-writing of music history by critics and bloggers Paul Simon is all too often passed over or glossed over, too big to see clearly with his massive catalog of hits. however, there's a period of Paul Simon's creative history that i feel goes musically and lyrically deeper than any other, and that's the three albums he made right after parting ways with Garfunkel. the best of those three is his first solo album ever, his self-titled "Paul Simon".

on "Paul Simon" he strips himself down, using minimal or no percussion, and despite bringing in some interesting instruments (bass harmonica? what the heck?) he relies mainly on his acoustic guitar, crafting beautifully intimate songs about the struggles of current relationships, drugs, and just living life.

this track, "Peace Like A River", is one of my favorites. the guitar solo in it's off-kilter rhythm and classical style is unmatched, and the simpleness of the lyrics and melody work as good as anything he's ever done. sorry about the scratchiness - i've listened to this album probably more than a few hundred times:

the mythical island of floating garbage

My friend Jeanne is letting me cut and paste the following entry from her facebook note. Apparently there is a garbage dump approximately the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean. I had never heard of this before and I was appalled that something on such a large scale proportion has not received the media attention it deserves. (But then, what does?)

Here is her entry on this alleged island of floating garbage:

While I was on a whale watching cruise in Puget Sound this week, the wildlife specialist gave several beautiful speeches on preserving our planet. The Pacific NW seems to be much more in tune with being 'green.' Sure, that's a huge generalization, but I find it to be rather true.

Separate recycling bins for plastics, papers, bags, etc line the street. Riding the public transportation is now trendy because of high gas prices and the vehicular harm to the environment. People constantly discussing their appreciation of the environment. I'm sure there are many other examples that I was not able to see.

So, back to Kwasi, the naturalist on our boat. He discussed the necessity of being careful not to lose anything overboard, even accidentally. He referred to the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch."

Call me ignorant, but I had no idea what he was talking about. He went on to say that due to the currents and circulations of the ocean, there are different areas where the garbage thrown into our waters collects. Apparently, there is one location between California and Hawaii that is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or the north pacific gyre. He mentioned that it was larger than Texas and very thick as well.

I was skeptical. The current theory sounded reasonable, but the pure AMOUNT of trash he was discussing seemed... outrageous, exaggerated. Hyperbole?

Just check these things out:

The slowly clockwise spinning area now includes something known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, sometimes divided into the Western Pacific Garbage Patch and the Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch. The western one floats between Japan and Hawaii; the eastern one floats between Hawaii and California. Both move around, changing locations with the currents. The two patches are connected by a thin current stretching 6,000 miles and called the Subtropical Conergence Zone. The patches' sizes vary on how thick you think the garbage has to be to qualify as the patches' border, but each are conservatively the size of Texas.
(http://www.literaryescorts.com/?act=non-fiction&item=514)

An audio piece from NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15713260

Something from Greenpeace:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/oceans/pollution/trash-vortex

MOST IMPORTANTLY, watch some of these vids:
http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1485308505

To be frank, I've never been one to really take into consideration long-term effects of my living. I'd love to blame someone else for this, but truly, it's my own fault for ignorance.

This is disgusting. I have to think about this more. How do I make a difference? Other than the obvious, recycling. What is the point of being too extreme? To be conservative in my purchasing of plastic - is it realistic?

Lost In Translation

I love film! But I watch very few. The other guys in the band probably out watch me 20 to 1. So when I pick a movie it had better be amazing. The thing that makes movies the highest art form (in my opinion) is that they are the combination of so many other art forms; acting, cinematography, writing, and music among them. Occasionally a film will get all of it right.

I recently saw "Lost In Translation". I know I'm a few years behind! But it worked on so many levels for me. One way was the way it invoked an atmosphere, a mood. You really felt Charlotte's displacement and growing realization that her inability to understand Tokyo was parallel to her growing sense of isolation in her marriage. And there was one scene that captured it perfectly in fifty seconds and without words. I'm going to post it below. If you haven't seen the film it will have little impact with just the briefest context I put it in.

But for me, when I saw this scene it was an amazing experience, and a lot of that was because the music that is underscoring it perfectly captures the whole feel and reflects the inner dialog that Charlotte must be having. It's "Tommib" by Squarepusher, and as a song it is nothing, but paired here with picture and in the context of the movie it has impact.

For me it put me back to a day in the Lakeview Hotel in Nanchang, China. Looking out over this completely foreign place I knew my world was changing in ways that I couldn't quite grasp but I knew it would be different from then on. That's the power of good film.

So my question for you is, what film scene has made an indelible impression on you? What has gotten under your skin after you've watched and won't leave your mind? What scene is the perfect marriage of picture, words, and music?

sometimes i write poems. here is one.

"reflection"

sleepless, alone

a thought stirs

disembodied

a faceless dread

a nameless fear

blurred and indistinct

finding traction in silence

in solitude

earlier today

i fiddled and twisted the plastic straw

it cracked and split

torn asunder by boredom, by idleness

by a distracted mind

why so destructive?

i peered hard into the darkness

willing and straining

to see as you do

to feel as you do

but all i caught was a glimpse

of the grotesque

leering back at me

with a casual sneer

and i realize

in numbness

as i peer through

that in the mirror

the looking-glass

and the clouded puddle

steeped in southern rain

the reflection is mine.

and beholding

the Beautiful, the Terrible

a ruinous Truth

i give and i strive

to bleed and pour out

to sharpen my will

to fill out my senses

to bring heart and mind

into one accord

and where fear may reign

bring Love subversive

to dissolve

and bear away the dross

where waves and particles and molecules

collide

interacting, shaping

and changing the composition

and the very fabric

of you

of me

and colors, once indistinct and imperfect

sharpen and blend and swirl

until everything is new

and whole

and full

and all reflects You.

Feeling insecure? Lift your right foot.

I was driving on I-4 the other day, attempting to go the speed limit. Something I'm admittedly not used to - until recently, when I realized that you can increase your fuel efficiency up to 20% just by reducing the RPM's of the engine. In other words, by going more slowly.

I could elaborate, but the following is pretty much self-explanatory.

Music in Real Life

On my blog, gregorious thoughts, I've been using music in very practical ways recently. Music has really been helping me process through things and be comforted. Sometimes people (including myself) can see music as an exercise in the abstract, getting away from the physical, attempting to interact with stuff we can't see. But music can never be severed from its physicality- at the very least, it's an art form that exists and deals with time, not unlike our existence.

There are certainly times in my life where I find that music, more than many other arts or interests, is more practical. Recently for me music as a practical piece of life has played a very soothing and comforting role. My wife and I have been going through some real junk (not between each other, but a situation we are both in), and I've found there were some pieces of music I was really yearning for. Something that not only met me where I was, but gave me hints of something else. There are plenty of pieces I could listen to that would encourage my state of depression and just leave me there. And sometimes that's a good thing. There are also plenty of pieces that could stir up my hot feelings of anger and leave me there, and that could be a good thing, too. But there are a few pieces that don't just leave me or encourage my current state, but give a sense of peace within turmoil or serenity within exasperation. These are a few of the pieces I've been longing to hear recently.

Bach: Mein Jesu Was Fuer Seelenweh (Bwv 487) arr. by Leopold Stokowski

The translation is, "My Jesus Oh What Anguish" and has been a favorite Bach piece of mine for years. There are grinding tensions and gravity-less melodies. I love it.


Mein Jesu Was Fuer Seelenweh

Barber: Agnus Dei by the Choir of New College, Oxford.

This is Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings set to the text, Agnus Dei, Lamb of God. Again, the tensions feel real as do the lightness of the whole piece. I feel that life is like a vapor after listening to this, and the text is so fitting.


Agnus Dei

Bach: Passacaglia And Fugue In C Minor (Bwv 582) arr. by Leopold Stokowski


Similar to Bonhoeffer's use of theme and variations in the Christian life, I feel a strength in this piece from Bach. The major theme goes barreling on, sometimes heavy and deep, sometimes high, and the variations and contra-melodies simultaneously played upon the theme give me a sense of how we interact with God (variations, contra-melodies) and how God moves in our lives (in time and with a forward force that cannot be stopped). There is great comfort for me in this piece.


Passacaglia And Fugue

Miles Davis: Blue in Green from Kind of Blue


This is a great example of musical space and also reminds me of the necessity of space in life. There is not an immediate response to the call, or an immediate reward to the promise. We all live in a kind of quasi-getting-the-reward-and-not-getting-the-reward. There is a piece now, but its fullness has not come. Miles' and Coltrane's lines are genius, and there may not be any one more influential piece for the world of jazz.


Blue in Green

Our (American) Town

China, Afghanistan, England, Tanzania, Germany, Japan, Mali, France, Austria, Turkey... just some of the countries that members of the OaKs have visited. Later this week I will add Russia and then Romania. I love to travel oversees, especially when it's for work and I get to participate in the culture not as a tourist, but as someone with a job to do with coworkers in the country. You really get a better perspective on daily life there.

But as much as I enjoy that, I also love traveling in the U.S.. So far I've been to 45 states. I just returned from 3 weeks on the road and nearly 3,500 miles of driving. Very few were on the interstate. I'm a route 66 kind of guy. I especially love meandering through the old south: Smithville, Georgia; Mt. Airy, North Carolina. Or the coal towns of West Virginia. I like the small bays and inlets of Maine and Maryland. The Pacific Northwest is beautiful but the rural places there are different and don't have the same kind of nostalgia for me.

When you get on the rural routes you see people on their porches, old shops barely holding on. You don't see many cars. And every 20 minutes you have to slow down to 35 and take a breather as you coast into another town and maybe stop at the one streetlight. You arrive a bit later but you're relaxed and you have the feeling you've been somewhere, taken a journey. As Tennessee gave way to Georgia and there wasn't a car ahead or behind I stretched out in the driver's seat and thought it felt a bit like flying first class, you just feel you have room, no cars and trucks pressing in at all sides.

When I was little I remember a commercial by Kodak on TV . I must have been 9 or 10 and I remember the images of a guy on a motorcycle traveling through a small town on a misty morning, kids waiting for the school bus, golden leaves in the fall, and the lyrics beginning, "setting off to find America..." And I felt somehow that I wanted to do that, even at 10, to find America.

I like the right soundtrack too when I'm on the road. Not country, but real Americana. The one track that captures it perfectly for me is Mary Chapin Carpenter's "I Am A Town".


I'm the pines behind the graveyard, and the cool beneath their shade, where the boys have left their beer cans
I am weeds between the graves.

My porches sag and lean with old black men and children
Their sleep is filled with dreams, I never can fulfill them
I am a town.

I am a church beside the highway where the ditches never drain
I'm a Baptist like my daddy, and Jesus knows my name
I am memory and stillness, I am lonely in old age; I am not your destination
I am clinging to my ways
I am a town.

This live version is slowed down somewhat from an already slow tune, but the playing and the arrangement are beautiful, just like the places they evoke.



- Tim

of agriculture and largness of thinking

this is my first post on this blog. i figured i'd write about what's most on my mind these days - thoughts about what i'm meant to be doing, about what my gifts and experience have prepared me for.

before i get into that, some background. i came back from afghanistan to the states in 2005 to try to heal my digestive system (which has taken almost two years to get close to normal) and also to date, and then to marry, my beautiful wife Denise, who i met over there through direct providence. when i came back to the States i tried to figure out what i could do that would build on what i had done and learned over there and ended up finding a job as a social worker, which i've been doing now for two years (as of yesterday - anniversary!). i work with children who have been abused, neglected or abandoned and with families dealing with these same issues. my work is very one-on-one, and can be very intense and emotional at times, even as i have had to steel myself and put up barriers and strong boundaries just to stay sane.

however, when i first came into this job i found myself spending a lot of time drawing back and looking at the bigger picture, looking at the system itself and wondering how it came to be this way (built up slowly over time through reactionary laws designed to fix flaws in the system), seeing the ways it works and doesn't work. that was my first train of thought in Afghanistan was well, and i believe this is where my greatest strength lies - being able to step back outside of the box and to think big, to try to see large things that simply exist as the framework of people's lives. once you get down on the micro level, and get into the system trying to help people, you lose that perspective and it's hard to get it back. don't get me wrong - that micro level is where much of the one-on-one change is done, and where people like mother theresa and paul brand operate, and it's very needed. but i keep having this desire to back up and see what needs to change from the outside.

in pulp fiction there's a character called The Wolf, played by Harvey Keitel. his job is to walk into an impossible situation and think creatively to find a big-picture solution. that's what i've been feeling like i want to become - The Wolf of developing countries.

that takes training. and in Afghanistan i realized my real lack of it. sure i knew some basic things about agriculture, but i was daily up against how little i really knew that was useful to me there. since i've been back in America this desire has been building in me (and in Denise) to go back to school and to train with the idea of becoming that person that can step in and change big things, systemic things. and not just to learn about agriculture, although that is my main focus, but to learn about resource management (of water, land, trees), ecology, economics, and all of the other things that shape a region's livelihood.

over this past year this desire has grown in me, and as i've been looking around there are relatively few schools in the states that can offer this kind of training. Denise and i have started to focus in on one in particular - Oregon State, in Corvallis, Oregon. the horticulture program at Oregon State is unlike most i've found in other schools, in it's big picture focus on sustainability of agriculture, organic ag, integrated pest management (creative use of insects and other plants to manage pests), and resource management. they also have the option to get a Graduate minor in international agricultural development - it's the only school i've found that has that, and OSU faculty has consulted for development in countries like Iran and Egypt.

this is what is heavy on my mind these days, what excites me, what i've been praying about. this is why i've been studying dry GRE prep books on my weekends. this is why i'm starting a Plant Pathology class in august at the distance learning center of the University Of Florida in Apopka. more on this to come...
Ryan

Musings on the two unmentionables - Religion and Politics

Someone might be at the door right now but I’m not answering it. I’m learning to slip down secret passageways of text and just transfer the hidden whisperings in the dark corridors onto the page. I read today that there is nothing I can ever write that will be profound enough for me to stick with forever. That’s both sad and comforting. But mostly comforting, because it frees me from having to produce the masterpiece to end all others. That’s the pressure that keeps a person from the page, the instrument. And that person is me. You know how long I struggled with the first bad review of the OaKs? Truthfully it wasn’t that long - just a couple of weeks, but later there was a follow up interview with that same person, and I happened to mention this struggle during the interview. There were a lot of things said in that interview, but that made it in, while other things - more important things, lke how much he liked our live show now as opposed to back then - did not. We’re all human beings. That’s OK.

But mainly I’m learning how to give myself space to make art or not to make it. Either one. But sooner or later I know I have to say, gently, “OK. Enough is enough. Set up the drums and play.” and then I do and it’s tough for a little bit. But then something happens and the space opens up and I feel magnificent - things get larger. And I look at the clock after 15 minutes and realize that it’s really been an hour. What is that? “Flow” was the hip psychological term for it about 10 years ago. It may even be older than that.

But still, were I to refine this stuff down into something to be published, what would that be? See? That’s the kicker. If I’m never going to write something permanent and deep enough to stay with forever, then what is there to write? Does that mean I just have to settle for less? You cannot ever get away from the The Golden Mean - what Artistotle called the point of moderation (for more on this, go here). The maintaining of this point requires effort. It’s a constant balancing act that asks for vigilance at every step. The myth of Sisyphus . But that’s the temptation, isn’t it? Not to think? To rest in a fixed point that accounts for all effort towards digging beneath the surface, a surface that’s constantly being refilled with dirt from above (and below)?

This comes clearer no more than in an election year, but honestly, that’s what makes the United States of America such a great country. The naysayers may come forth and challenge “what’s so great about it,” citing a long history of civil and human rights abuses, a struggling economy, political corruption, natural disasters, personal issues, etc.” Fine. But the USA is great not so much for it’s realities as for it’s potentials. At the same time, it is in all the more danger of losing it’s greatness. Again the re-surfacing of The Golden Mean -- in the mean, there is the constant danger of slipping down either side of the mountain. Toward excess or deficiency. Towards excess = the far right of overzealousness, manifest destiny and radical nationalism of all kinds. Towards deficiency = anarchy, lackadaisical attitude, defeatism, poverty, nihilism. Surprisingly enough, we go in both directions in this country. I don’t think you can link either side to a particular political faction (e.g. conservatism or liberalism) but I do think you can diagnose the entire culture under one or the other, and link both back to the same symptom - unwillingness to do the work of thinking.

Thomas Jefferson knew how important it was for a democracy to remain vigilant, else it slip into sleep. He said “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” Why is it that so much great literature is produced under totalitarian regimes, or constant threat of death, excommunication, oppression, etc.? Perhaps because there is a definite monolith to fight against. In such cases, the enemy (e.g. oppression) is an easily spotted object, and when the enemy is easy to spot, it is easy to write about or against.

But what plagues us today is all the more frightening - an enemy that cannot be seen, an enemy that seems like it’s not even there. An enemy that is not just outside us but within ourselves: Complacency. That is the real danger. That is the enemy for which we should be ticking color-coded terror threat levels across the bottom of the evening news stations. It was complacency that produced 9/11 from a security standpoint - all sides agree on this. And complacency continues to produce economic downturn and political corruption within our own borders. For as we choose to sleep in the face of the enemy, the enemy grows stronger.

As long as we feel that the production of strictly-conservative minded businessmen is more important than the production of strong minds no matter what the political or economic outcome, we will continue to undermine our own self-proclaimed goal of political sovereignty, family values, and historical greatness, in terms of the legacy we leave to future generations. None of this is worth speaking of if we turn to the founding principles of this nation only in word but not in spirit. And what is this spirit?

It surprises me that so much of Christian culture, especially fundamentalist Christian culture, is based solely on a literal interpretation of Old Testament Biblical law. I say “old,” because a fundamental aspect of New Testament thinking is precisely that - active thinking. Think of how Christ questioned the Pharisees before the multitudes. Think of how they would rather kill him than engage him in an honest debate and how they nailed him to a tree rather than concede that he might be offering something worth thinking about with regard to the interpretation of Scripture. And what about the atheist? It’s the same thing. To me, any blanket declaration about the definite state of a thing based on the lack of evidence to the contrary is still nothing more than a conjecture. Pharisee and Atheist stand together in their unwillingness to put forth the energy to ride with principle, to disengage the particular declarations of his or her individual perspective, and to ride the entanglement of the concepts out to their undeniably unpacked conclusions.

With the connections between religion and politics now both asserted and debated more than ever, it’s important to return to the notion of patriotism and re-examine it. What is it? Is it a simple unquestioning deference to the rule of law? Or is it an unmerciful challenge to the authority of the day? I think it’s neither. I think it’s the constant vigilance of a maintained balance, which is why the work being done by thinkers like George Lakoff is so important. The mental framing of political debates is something that works beneath the surface so much that it’s never even raised as an issue in the media.

I’ve often railed out against artists who do not use their highly influential positions for anything other than touting some new fashion line or shocking the public with another scandal. Not that I’m perfect or anything. But I think the media is in the same boat whenever they just pick up whatever concept they find lying on the ground just after its being thrown over the White House (or some other) fence, and drop it into a report without taking the time to sit down and unravel the implications embedded within the concept.

We’re talking about phenomenology here. We’re talking about the reinvigoration of this philosophical movement, that was weighed down so much by the very systematic ontologies it was invoked to unravel, that it sank to the bottom of the ocean of thought under the weight of it’s own examination, to rest with the other shipwrecks on the floor of the sea of philosophical tradition. What are you doing, FOX News? Yes. They come right out with it. They are biased, and try to mask the fact by calling themselves "fair and balanced." Is this anything new? It is usually the thief that is the first to say “You can trust me.” It is the quack who makes the strongest assertions as to the probability of your being cured by his treatment, especially the expensive ones. And, as throughout history, the cream of the intellectually dull rise to the top, and tune in night after night without questioning, or even searching the other stations for a comparative view. Whatever happened to the rule of consulting multiple sources that we all learned when writing our papers in middle school?

The same can be said for talk radio. As many compare Limbaugh’s unprecedented new $390 million Talk Radio contract, and find it nearly impossible to take their eyes off the dollar amount. Another talk show host, Michael Savage, went in a slightly different direction. “But I thought the economy was in danger! I thought media was struggling. Where did all this money come from?” Sadly, it seems, there is a easy answer -- it is the price of convenience that Americans are willing to pay - the convenience of not thinking. Of being able to turn on the radio and receive a free political vocabulary, fresh from the mouth of a man with absolutely no experience in the holding of a public office.

I wonder what kind of constitution we would have if the thinkers who met in those un-air conditioned rooms in Boston for hours on end would have walked in each day solely with heads full of ideas from some guy at a podium in the public square, a man spouting nothing but conjectures, hasty generalizations, false dichotomies, and straw-man versions of the political positions he happens not to like.

Is there any coincidence that right-wing talk radio is so much more prevalent than Progressive radio, and that the right-wing position is the one that favors big business and is favored by those with large amounts of political ad monetary capital? It is advertising that makes the information available, and made the $400 million contract happen, and it is advertising paid for by major broadcast media corporations, for people with money. Just the other day Limbaugh was talking about how the reason Talk Radio is doing so well in his case is because "Conservatives buy stuff." And they buy stuff because they have money. And they have money because that is what they prefer. That’s where they place their focus. That’s the manifestation of their creative energy in action in the land of the free. And I do not argue against the fact that buying things and keeping the economy alive is a good thing. But at what cost?

It used to be a mantra in this country, especially in the South in the 90s - “buy American!” I used to laugh at this - I used to counter this mantra with another in question form -- when Americans start making cars that compete with the value, reliability, and innovation of the Japanese, I’ll be the first person that goes down to the car lot to pick me up a new automobile. We should have been the ones to invent the hybrid. We should have been the ones to develop green technology and energy independence. But our excessive pride - a pride devoid of honest humility - has kept this torch from our hands. We fell into the very “symbolism over substance” that Limbaugh has made his mantra against the so-called "left" for the past 15 years.

Why am I picking on Limbaugh? For the same reason that I’ve called out the rich and famous with microphones in front of their faces and nothing important to tell us, for the same reason I’ve decried the media editors who squander their potential for the uplifting of their country on a daily and hourly basis - Mr Limbaugh, you have so much potential to dig deeper - to make your “Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies” a true institute of higher learning. But as long as you continue to seek out new audience members to expand your listening base, you can only go so deep, before they will find themselves as LOST as the audience of the show with that same name are when they try to jump in on Season 4 without knowing the backstory. You speak of the dumbing down of America that is taking place in our educational system, but have no idea that it is you yourself who is contributing to the dumbing down of the very Conservatism you champion. You are it, Mr Limbaugh. The torch is in your hands. Will you run with it, taking this light into new territory? Or will you shine the light in the same place, on your hill, standing still, with your audience ever growing around you, wanting more, yet unaware that there is anything more to be had?

Anyhow - that's what I was thinking about this morning.

Matthew

Welcome to our new blog

Hello, friends.

The purpose of this new blog is simple: we are musicians in a band called The OaKs, but there is more to us than just our instruments. We've been told by many people that the diverse musical instruments and influences in The OaKs result in a sound or sonic texture that has rarely if ever been heard before. That's nice of them to say. But it's not that simple.

Music is not devoid of personality, awareness, history, or the individual manifestation that is the person who makes it. Put six of these manifestations in the same room, and something interesting may or may not happen. Fortunately, as far as we're concerned, there's a chemistry here.

To get back behind this chemistry, to lift the curtain, so to speak, we offer you this blog space. It will consist of individual contributions from each member of the OaKs, and it will often delve into areas that may even be considered "controversial" by some. Corny as it may sound, and hackneyed as it is, realize that the views expressed in this blog space do not necessarily reflect the views of The OaKs as a whole, an organization, a movement, a philosophy, an alternative reality, or whatever other moniker you may fancy to lay upon it, nor those of its listeners, supporters, or critics.

Comments, discussion, arguments, and, most of all, thoughts - are all welcome. Thanks!

Sincerely,

Matthew Antolick -
The OaKs