The House of Hunt

I feel as if some huge apology is in order, if only for the impossibly small chance that Reese, Jeff the Girl, Micah, or any of the other members of the now-defunct Five Iron Frenzy posse were ever to come across the House and realize that their group had been left off the music tally that I posted a few days back. I just noticed that Senor Rouse was inspired my idea and in perusing his list, I was quickly made aware of my oversight.

This is especially disturbing given the fact that Nathan and I have had multiple bonding-type conversations over our love of FIF. For someone who’s not aware of FIF or their music/ministry, the depths of what they mean to folks like Nathan and me will probably not be understood. While they existed as a group, FIF managed to craft fantastic music that was equal parts creative, touching, hilarious, affirming, and challenging. Within the span of one album, you would encounter topics such as divorce, American mistreatment of Indians, the wonders of Canada, traveling in a stinky van, and our desperate need of Jesus. And in person, they were humble, approachable and loving.

So I share all that to say that it is time to rectify my mistake. My music collection proudly features 161 tracks of FIF goodness, adding up to a delicious 8.6 hours and putting them between Stavesacre and U2 in the overall list.

A few other edits to that initial list: In the days since posting it, I’ve tracked down a few more Foo Fighters songs (b-sides mostly) and it’s bumped their position up a few notches. I now have 161 tracks/11 hours of FF tune-age, which places them between Queens of the Stone Age and The Beatles.

I should also point out that, for the most part, the totals are only made up of studio recording. If there are any live recordings in the mix, they’re ones that have been officially released. That’s not because I hate live bootleg albums, but I just usually don’t care for them.

Finally, given the fact that a number of people have never heard of UNKLE, I’ll probably do a post soon focusing exclusively on them. It’ll probably be the second segment in my long-form music review series. Get excited.

Foo Fighters have done it again. Their latest record is one solid piece of musicianship, putting all of their various styles on full display. If you checked out their last studio album, In Your Honor, you know that Dave and Co. tried flexing their muscles acoustically. The first disc of that double album featured the rockers, whilst the second featured the not-so-rockers. It was a great experiment that was met with mixed reactions. Yours truly loved it, but a number of critics and fans felt that it was too long, too much, etc…the typical comments that are unleashed whenever a band tries doing a multi-part record.

Echoes… takes all of those aspirations and boils it down to one 12-track album this time around. Rather than splitting the acoustic and rock, Foo Fighters have fused them together, often within the same song. One of my favorite cuts, “Let It Die,” starts out as gentle as a kitten and ends with Dave screaming his throat out with the best of them. A number of the other songs also play a lot with dynamics, creating a terrific soundscape across the whole record. This is definitely an album that plays better listened to all the way through, from start to finish. There are a few songs that will work fine as stand-alone singles (namely the already-released “The Pretender”), but again, the overall dynamics of the album are fantastic taken in their entirety.

The biggest criticism of this album will probably be that it doesn’t rock hard enough. Granted, I absolutely love their earliest work. The Colour And The Shape will probably always be my favorite record (and one of the best rock albums ever), but I’m not interested in having them simply rehash their past. Echoes… does a terrific job of showcasing the headbangers while moving forward with some beautiful acoustic and even Americana flourishes. It’s a solid piece of work and I can’t wait to see the guys flesh some of these songs out live next week. Highly recommended.

Old Indy Jones? Check.

Skeletal girlfriend from some random show I never watched? Check.

Super-excited plaid-claid Disney employee (who strangely resembles Jake Gyllenhaal) giving an amazingly stiff thumbs-up? Triple hell-yes check.

Another title for this entry might be “Customer Service or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Papa John’s Pizza.”

I am, by most accounts, a fairly simple man. I like my movies loud, my music louder, and my milk and cereal cold. I’m also a pretty laid back individual. I realize that I have my own issues with anger and such, but generally speaking, it takes a lot to get me riled. Well this past week, Bank of American managed to do it…and in a wonderfully bizarre example of poetic timing, Papa John’s came along to soothe the savage beast.

Here’s the set-up. Like most young couples, April and I are simply doing the best to make ends meet each month. We’re not destitute by any stretch of the imagination, but we don’t live extravagantly either. We pay our bills, we have a roof over our heads, food on the table, and we go to the moving picture show from time to time.

At any rate, as bills and timing would have it a couple of weeks ago, things got short in the bank account for a mere hour. We had just done some house/baby-sitting for some friends, but the mom got home later than expected and April wasn’t able to deposit the cash until a little after 1am, on her way home. Obviously, bills start posting on midnight, so we can a few things come out that took our account into the negative…but we didn’t know that at the time because the ATM said we had a positive balance: the money from the house-sitting job and then some. But we didn’t figure out until a few days later that the bank went ahead and socked us with three overdraft charges, to the tune of over $100.

Needless to say this hurt and we tried to square it away immediately. April called the BofA corporate office and the woman said there was nothing that they could do. Now April used to work in banking as a personal banker and she said that wasn’t uncommon for them to help out some of their clients by reversing the charges for an overdraft in certain situations. Given the close proximity of our deposit (more than enough to cover the bills), we figured we were in the clear. Were we ever wrong.

I tried to pursue the personal route over the next couple of days, first talking to a relationship banker at the BofA branch near our home. She put me off, saying that I would need to bring in my ATM receipt and that this was something for the bank manager to review. So I came back a few days later to talk to the bank manager and she said that she would have to review the account to see if the computer had already made a decision about the charges. The computer? My account is managed on the whims of a computer? Awesome. Oh and did I mention that the manager got up twice in the 10 minutes that she spared for me to deal with another client outside of her office? I don’t know what it takes to the the undivided attention of BofA branch managers for help, but obviously we don’t have enough money in our account to warrant it.  Once she finally returns, she lets me know that the computer had already made a decision a few days back and that there was nothing she could do to reverse the charges. Nothing. So apparently when April called the corporate office to get help, that call shut down any possible future recourse or action. Unbelievable.

Again, in the scheme of things, I know it’s a little over 100 bucks that we’re talking about here. But I guess $100 is just not enough to rate BofA’s attention. So the moral of the story is to avoid Bank of America, unless you want to get screwed over by impersonal, shoddy customer service.

If you’re still reading at this point, I’m sure you’re wondering where the heck Papa John’s fits into this picture. Well, as it happens, I got home from dealing with Bank of Suck and we had a little certificate in the mail offering us a free PJ’s pizza because they were late on a delivery a few weeks back. And to be honest, April and I had forgotten all about it. Didn’t even give it a second thought when it happened. And yet here’s this small but powerful gesture that our business still matters to them. Take that Bank of America.

Score - Papa John’s Pizza: 1 / Bank of America: -100

As part of my on-going crusade to demonstrate the utter lameness of who I am, I proudly present new research: iPod stats!

I recently decided to do a quick survey of my iPod to ascertain which bands/artists take up the most real estate on ye olde hard drive. Here then are those findings, arbitrarily starting with the bands that had at least 7 hours worth of music and going up from there. Half-assed analysis will follow:

Radiohead: 104 tracks = 7.2 hours
Johnny Cash: 155 tracks = 7.8 hours
Kanye West: 155 tracks = 7.8 hours
Stavesacre: 111 tracks = 8.1 hours
U2: 121 tracks = 9.1 hours
Foo Fighters: 156 tracks = 10.6 hours
MxPx: 247 tracks = 10.6 hours
Beastie Boys: 210 tracks = 10.7 hours
Queens Of The Stone Age: 156 tracks = 10.9 hours
The Beatles: 329 tracks = 14.8 hours
UNKLE: 177 tracks = 22.4 hours

And there you have it. Cash and Kanye tied with exactly the same time length and number of tracks? How bizarre. I was shocked at how much UNKLE music I have. Granted the number of UNKLE tracks pales in comparison to The Beatles, MxPx, or Beastie Boys…but having those long mixtapes helps your cause I suppose. The other thing about the Beatles total is that that doesn’t even represent all of the music of theirs that I own. That’s simply what I’ve loaded on the iPod so far. Maybe a recount will be in order soon.

I am also surprised by how much U2 music I actually have. Not that I despise the boys from Ireland, I just don’t consider myself a fanboy on the level of say, a Jonathan Martin or a Nathan Rouse.

Finally, it’s also revealing to see which bands didn’t make my random cut-off mark of 7 hours. Among others, Bleach, Further Seems Forever, The Mars Volta, Thrice, Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, Sunny Day Real Estate, Project 86, Switchfoot, Oasis, P.O.D., Deftones, Led Zeppelin didn’t make the cut. Granted, if I had the earlier albums of P.O.D. and a couple of albums that I’m missing from Oasis and Led Zeppelin, all three would have been on the list. I have most of the discography of the other bands, but I guess their lower numbers are due to lower overall output.

And there you have it. Thank you for allowing me to waste your day with musical drivel. It’s sorta like watching the VMAs, only I don’t moan and bitch like Kanye and I’m not wearing a sloppy two-piece like Britney. Aren’t you glad?

I love heavy metal. I love hardcore. Sometimes they meet in beautiful ways, in a partnership reminiscent of Adam and Eve, peanut butter and chocolate, and milk and cereal.

This would be one of those times. Behold, the metal goodness of Dio in his awesome music video “Holy Diver.” And then behold again, the hardcore rockingness of Killswitch Engage, covering “Holy Diver” and providing closure to the saga begun over 20 years ago.

Warning: To those who usually come to the House looking for laughter and frivolity, today’s post might not be for you. This might be full of introspection, deep thought, and pondering. Read at your own risk.

Ah, the deeper questions of life:
“Who am I?”
“How do others view me?”
“What do my friends think of me?”
“What defines me?”
“What am I living for?”

I’ve been going through a lot of these (and other questions) lately, mulling them over, whilst wrestling with God about where my life is going. The ever-insightful Nathan Rouse recently posted some thoughts along these lines and that’s what has spurred me on (in part) to share some of what I’ve been going through…if only for the sake of dialogue.

I’ve been begging God over the past few months for clarity, vision, and direction, both for me and for my life with April. We’ve been discussing everything from missions to freelancing fulltime. We’ve fasted and prayed, and are continuing to do so. Honestly, I’m worn out, but I’m not letting go until I get a clear answer about where He’s leading us next.

At any rate, all of this has lead me to personal reflections along the lines of Nathan’s. I’ve started wondering what my life is being lived for…what defines my existence. And I’m not really sure. I use humor and hyperbolic speech a lot to both amuse and sometimes shock people (and myself) into deeper thought. I am at heart an artist, but I find myself incredibly frustrated at the constraints on my output (time, laziness, technological hurdles, etc). My dreams fight relentlessly against my distractions. My distractions are often the fuel of the fires of my dreams. It’s a weird cycle.

Then there’s my relationships with others. I long to have solid and deep friendships…yet I am also fiercely independent. I have a tendency towards anarchy, wanting to contradict whatever I perceive as being widely accepted and embraced. I realized yesterday that, to a certain extent, I don’t give a damn what people think of me. Which is to say, I do care if it means that someone might be hindered from encountering Jesus through my actions…yet I don’t care because I know that God is bigger than my countless failings. And yet, I am the tool for His using, the pot for His shaping. How does that jive with who I am?

At root, I want my life to matter. I don’t care to conquer the world, but I do want to change hearts. I want to inspire others in the same way that John Williams, Mark Salomon, Dave Grohl, George Lucas, Carl Sandberg, George Gershwin, Quincy Jones, William Blake, Chuck Palahniuk, and countless others have inspired me. I want to love, sacrifice, and bleed the way that April, Mom, Dad, Mom G, Martha, Andrew McKain, Eric Moore, Richard Harrell, and others have loved me. The fire in my bones needs to burn brighter. My immolation will be my completion.