A quick for-the-hell-of-it trip. Just needed badly to break from the norm.

GPS tracking powered by InstaMapper.com

And damnit, InstaMapper.com and the associated iPhone app are quite simply the shit.

Let it be known that a soirée at the barn in late May is being considered. Let word ring ’round the social circles, “What, ho! Joey is tossing out the word of another social event of the year at his barn! Spread the word!”

Let it be known.

Here’s an email I sent to a few coworkers the other day. True story.

Doing some research on a piece I’ll be playing soon, I found this:

“Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. The opera is famous for its Dance of the Seven Veils. It is now better known for the more shocking final scene where Salome makes necrophilic love to the severed head of John the Baptist.”

This piece is to air Monday, the day after Easter. Would it be inappropriate of me to mention this fascinating little nugget of info?

And “Necrophilic Love” is for sure going to be the name of my band when I start one.

Good fun, at what cost? - Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster: “Have you ever lied, stolen or committed adultery within your heart?”

Hmm, where I have I heard this before?

This time it’s directed at whoever is running the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster blog, which focuses largely on the hate mail it receives. What blows my mind, first of all, is that anyone can take the site seriously, and secondly, that they get all worked up and waste the time writing hate mail.

But thank god they do. It makes for some inspiring reading:

Jesus will have no mercy on you fuckers and you will be stuck on earth during the apocacalypes.

Jesus and the F word in the same sentence. It’s brilliant I tell you.

And:

is the church a joke? i mean seriously, FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER?? no offense, but what kind of a god is that? and he has bigger balls than our god?? …
-cassie

And he’s got noodles too.

The brief background: A documentary was made dealing with 2 Amish families excommunicated from the church. The BBC wanted to do an interview with two of the main guys in the film, Ephraim and Jesse, and so BBC arranged for the guys to come to our station to do an ISDN interview (like a cd quality phone call). I merely facilitated this and thus got to sit in the room for the whole thing.

The interview was fascinating; these guys essentially got kicked out of the church for breaking what seem like arbitrary rules. Mostly, they wanted to be able to hold bible study groups which, for whatever reason, is strictly forbidden in Amish culture. But at any rate.

The interview ended, and Eprhaim and Jesse asked me what I thought about the interview. I told them what I thought, that it was really interesting. They asked if there was anything I didn’t understand (the interviewer seemed to have a hard time grasping a certain issue), and I sort of reiterated what I thought the point was they were trying to make. This inevitably led to a really good discussion on their view of the Amish church and its hypocrisies. Really interesting stuff.

I stood up to subtly signal that I had to get back to work on some other things, when of course the inevitable question popped:

“So Joe, can I ask you a question?” I knew exactly what it was. And I thought to myself, “This could be a fun conversation, as long as it doesn’t take too long.” So I replied, “Sure.”

“Where are you with God?” Jesse asked me. I gave the usual open-ended agnostic answer. And unfortunately, I don’t recall a lot of specifics from this conversation, except being grilled on which of the ten commandments I’d broken and how by even breaking one of them, I was very much going to hell unless I sought forgiveness.

I do remember Ephraim was deploying a metaphor to teach me about how Jesus stepped in to bear the burden of our sins. He described a courtroom in which a criminal was about to be sentenced to death (a penalty I don’t believe in anyway) when Jesus comes to the rescue and says he will take the punishment.

I’m not unfamiliar with this concept. But the interesting thing to me was to consider the idea that someone needed to step in to take the punishment. Or rather, backing up a step further, I don’t like the idea that such harsh punishment (hell) was being used to punish extremely fallible human beings, beings created by (supposedly) God himself.

This I think is quite possibly my biggest hang-up: Assuming God is omnipotent, he purposely created some people to be hell-bound. I can’t help but imagine a kid toying with insects, squashing some, sparing others, based on a whim.

And to be sure, these Amish guys were full believers in hell and deathly afraid of it. And they were afraid for me, which always gives me the awww-that’s-nice-but-really-not-necessary feeling. But I did appreciate it. These guys, while we argue about salvation, give a very genuine shit about me, as I’ve found to be the case with a number of the religious people that seem to find me. Which is nice, and I let it at that.

And of course they asked if they could pray for me. And unlike the Eat’n'Park experience, we were still in the sound-proof studio, away from where anyone could hear or see us, so I said yes, and that I’d appreciate it but that I wouldn’t participate with them.

Striking similarities to the Eat’n'Park incident: Eprhaim prayed while Jesse did the hand motions and amens. I noticed this immediately. Imagine, if you will, the absurdity of the scene. Me, two moved-by-the-spirit Amish guys and a recording studio. And imagine also that this is just the latest in a string of situations in which I become the prayer subject for some very earnest Christians. I wish someone would photograph these occasions so I could put together a photo collage.

I’m beginning to accept that this will continue to happen. I just wish I could schedule these meetings into iCal on my iPhone. Like if a reminder could pop up: “Get Prayed For - 3:30pm - Studio 3″. “Ah shit,” I’ll say. Then, “Oh well,” and stroll with resignation towards my salvation.

As I escorted the Amish gentlemen to the door, they handed me $1,000,000. It was that fake million dollar bill that has some writing on it about Jesus or something. I laughed. As we passed by a very hurried Scott Gilbert they offered him one as well. Scott kept moving and in a voice that says, ‘Ohhhh no, I’m not falling for that old trick,’ he said, “Uhh, no why don’t you go give one to Mitzi instead?” which of course would be hysterical if you worked where I do and know Mitzi.

Anyhow. Here’s something from the documentary on YouTube that Ephraim directed me to. (Yeah, he knew about YouTube.) He’s the dude straddling the calf.

…and I looked out into this canyon and it frightened me with its indifference; it had watched countless years go by, blankly tolerated our marvelling and our tragedies. The way you can lay on your back and look at a night sky that dominates your view and destroys your bearings, this canyon sucked me into its space and made me so scared and yet complacent at how small I was and how idiotically trivial my problems were. This was existence; her dying and my living were just quick, curious flickers against its stoic face.

The best phrase to describe my feelings today.

And yes, there was some giddiness that snuck out.

Click for a closer look at the analysis.

I thought I’d go to bed early last night. And as is the case living in a barn in the woods, one hears things fall from trees and land on the barn roof, followed by a “shhh” noise as whatever fell slides off the roof and onto the ground. As it was rather windy last night, I grew increasingly concerned about what might happen if a tree fell on the barn. And literally a few minutes later…

A tree fell right up against the barn and my truck (which was parked there last night):

The damage to the truck isn’t a big deal to me; some scratches and dents. The one barn door looks a bit askew, and some outside device relating to the heater in the barn looks a bit bent, but I think everything survived. This is what’s considered an act of God I suppose. Merry Christmas.

I remember my initial, split-second thoughts as the tree was falling and right after it fell included:

“Damn…damn that’s pretty close.”

“What a coincidence, I was just thinking about this.”

“I should get out of bed.”

Looking outside today I made note of other trees that look like potential offenders and might talk to my dad about getting rid of them; a lot of them are mostly dead even in the summer, so this would benefit both parties (me and the woods).

Needless to say, I scurried over to the safety of the house last night and slept.

I truly am speechless. How do they spot me?

I held the door for them at Eat’n'Park tonight. After we all enter into the waiting area, brown-haired and somewhat attractive Woman #1 notices my Woodward hoodie and asks me if that’s that skateboarding place. I say yes, and that I worked there a few summers ago. I go on to tell her about the studio we built and all the kiddies who came in and played and who I jammed with. However I did leave out how miserable I was by the end of the summer. And she thought that was really cool.

I thought that was the end of the conversation as a small lull ensued, but Woman #2 who looked vaguely familiar suddenly moves in closer to me with an intent and serious look and almost whispers what to me sounds like, “Do I know you?”, and I look at her, and then I look up with a confused expression. As I’m wracking my brain for who she might be, looking at the Eat’n'Park ceiling, what I thought I heard, “Do I know you”, slowly melts into another phrase and it occurs to me that I think she might’ve actually said something else.

“Excuse me?” I look back down at her.

“Can we pray for you?” she asks.

I look at brown-haired-somewhat-attractive Woman #1 and I think she repeats the question, same intent look. I’m in a decent mood and say, “Sure, that’d be nice.” They both step closer to me, and it’s then that it dawns on idiot me that they meant right now, right here, at Eat’n'Park. My initial quick assumption was that they would tackle this task in their own spare time, like maybe on Saturday when they were bored or something. Not when we were hungry and waiting to be seated. But I should’ve known; strange religious women love to pray for me in very public places.

As they move closer I say, “But I won’t pray with you,” already preparing to state my atheistic tendencies. But Woman #1 says, “That’s ok. Hold out your hands.” I do. She puts hers on top of mine. And might I remind you again that we are standing in the lobby of friggin’ Eat’n'Park as this is happening. But I’m in a strangely decent mood and tolerate this with a slight smile.

So she begins, very quietly, praying for me. I don’t remember much of what she said, something about praying that God gives me more songs to write and other stuff about music. I mostly remember peripherally looking at the door hoping that no one else walked in, looking towards the people already eating and hoping they weren’t watching, and also looking over at the waitresses behind the counter who were wondering aloud if we were waiting to be seated.

I also notice that brown-haired-somewhat-attractive Woman #1 has her arms out, palms up and is doing the prayer-equivalent of what lil Jon does in rap songs; that is, punctuating everything that’s said with some sort of affirmation. Whereas lil Jon screams “OK” and “WHAT?”, Woman #1 is, with closed eyes and outstretched hands, whispering “Praise be to Jesus” and “Hear our prayers Jesus”.

As I so often do, I mentally leave my body and hover above the scene and imagine what this must look like. And looking down on this little improvised prayer session, I cringe and quickly fly back into my body.

The praying finally reaches a dramatic end when Woman #2, the one with her hands on mine almost shudders, says, “Mmmmmmm”, and then looks up wide-eyed and with a big smile.

“God has something new coming to you.”

I say the first thing that comes to mind: “I’m excited.” I remember that Christmas is coming up and imagine getting the pub-style table I want for the barn, and then I quickly admonish myself for confusing Jesus and Santa Clause.

They smile. I smile. I wish them a good night and they do the same. Then I make my way at a power-walk pace to the bathroom wondering if my not really believing in God voids that offer of a new thing coming to me, like a coupon from a company that never existed.