Shake and Shake and Shake you...

With a soul so blue, it's indigo, and on a night like tonight, where festivities run hot, I've been given a great chance to see just what life could be...

With breasts spilling out and beer flowing and passing around, I decide to venture into typical fun as per my co-workers. The girls were dressed in corset excuses for costumes, the guys dressed as everything, most with twice to three times more clothes on than the girls. The scent of mild cigarettes hung in the air. Music playing so loud that it denoted urgency.

And I feel worse now than I did before, with any form of happiness seduced into the air like all those carcinogens. There was no fun at that party, there's no fun at any party: just bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Just a bunch of cunts, standing around and drinking their clothes off.

When people ask me what I do and I say, "nothing really...I mean, I live a very mundane life..." I know I'm better off as I am than as they are because as they are just isn't who I am.

But, then again, who am I?

Evan

It seems that I've come into my awkward phase, only this time it's social. Sure, I was once awkward-looking, in Jr. High, as I grew into my skin and grew taller, etc, but now it seems like I have no skin or new skin...socially...

I used to get along splendidly with everyone, until things like alcohol and sex came into the mix. Then, I realized that I didn't want to be an idiot and do those types of things. They make people stupid and it bothers me. Alot. Especially when most girls my age are into that kind of thing and that leaves me out to dry, because I am, of course, on the finite hunt for love. It will come, but I don't her to be a drunkard.

But then the coin flips. And on that side are the Christians. Those that are so conservative that I have to shackle myself up so as not offend them, because I want a good image. It's frustrating because I'm awkward everyone now.

But that's just how it goes, I guess... It'll one day end, I know, but at the same time, I'm young and I'm supposed to be living it up. How, when "living it up" seems to be a decision between locking myself up tight and opening myself all the way open. I want drinkers who don't drink, Christians who aren't christian. As in, I want people who are moral yet aren't completely and utterly offended by the word "fuck." I want people who are sober thinkers, not drunk contortionists or pious closemindedness.

And that type of medium doesn't seem to exist. I feel like a cunt when I don't accept someone's offer for a beer, and I feel like a cunt when I go to a good party. How does it then want to be?

That light is God.

She was caught up in the Christ of my past. And why would I want to regress?

--
Jeremy Enigk and Aaron Weiss, together, on O Porcupine, is bliss. When Enigk goes all crazy screaming and Weiss calmly states, "I never gathered figs from a thorny branch, I never picked a grapefruit from the bramble bush and for the past five, almost six years now, you know you haven't once looked at me with kindness in your eyes. And you say Judas is a brother of mine? But sister in our darkness a light shines! And all i ever want to say for the rest of my life is how that light is God, and though I've been mistan on this or that point, that light is nevertheless God."

It's like a euphoria that comes near the end of a steam train of an album, as weak as it is. Brother Sister is definitely not as good or as engaging or as rocking as Catch for us the Foxes, but it does get the point across: mewithoutYou is happy. I dunno, though, having only one, maybe two songs, that equate to the slam-dance-fest of Foxes is a little disappointing. And the guitar part repetition gets annoying. It's a weak album, as if they're creating a facsimile or copy or something of a mewithoutYou album, like they're just getting their feet wet, like this is only the prelude to their next album that will be full blown ape-shit insane.

But having Enigk and Weiss on one track makes all the bunk. Because they're my favorites. And they're together.

--

Evangelism ain't my thang. Discipleship and connection is.

The Calling of Ezekiel.

All the science, all the biology, is well and fine, dear. Yes. It's all nice.

But does it explain the soul? That epitome, that apex so far down and so far up that its existence is as crucial as the heart's?

The soul is, definitely, different. The Heart, it is real, tangible, on all those charts--and then it is transformed into a metaphor for valor and bravery, etc. The mind, too, is that pudding inside our head that controls everything we do--and then is transformed into a metaphor for our thoughts and our will-to-do.

But the soul! Oh! It is metaphor through and through for it cannot be caught and biopsied. It cannot be seen in any of its forms for they are all metaphysical, they are all beyond science. The soul's of man are what make God exist.

For God is beyond science.

The Souls of man are what prove God exists.

God exists because he is my soul.

If I had no God, if I had no soul, if at the bottom of me, deep down and at the bottom of my wishing well of emotions, down past the mind and heart, if there was merely a great divide, merely air, merely soveirgnty, I would be nothing.

But there is something there--a great love. A great cloud. A great foundation to hold the great weight of all my heart's desires and my mind's worry. It is the resting place of all things that man takes upon itself, it is here that solitude is gained.

God is in my well, and, that far down, we are all the same. We are all connected. The catacombs of my soul stretch out from my barrel of a chest and into you and yours and through and through and through all life still and reviving and working and plowing.

We are all connected. We are all the same. We are all proof that God truly exists.

For if we all love ourselves, and we are all connected, then we are all one, and we all love ourselves so, so well.

Faith and humility.

Death from Above 1979, they're okay..

Christ is the basis of Christianity. The foundational beliefs are: Love God, and loves others. The different denominations of the church take all the minor things like money and science and variable societal things and adhere to them as they see the bible sees fit. That's why we have different Christian churches.

Because every body needs arms and legs and Episcopalians. Hair to pull out, branches to ingraft.

What if the body of Christ has a weave?

Sun and the Moon

Not knowing what to think, I set out on this haberdasher of an essay, contrite and filled with love for all things I've lost.

Who's to say, though, really?

Isn't sleep deprivation a decent type of amphetamine to the writing cortex?

Settle in, think, listen to the music, maybe not the lyrics. The lyrics will deprave your creativity because you will use their words.

Horse piss.

Oh Evan, all these thoughts.

I've figured out that I have a problem with being employed at a place like Best Buy. My problem is that I have to adhere to someone elses method and ideology for eight hours during the day, adhere to someone else's way of thinking, I have to conform and cannot break free whatsoever or else I will get fired. I hate that. I hate capitalism. I hate the fact that the Geek Squad passes off their services as absolutely philanthropic, yet, at the same time, our hands are often tied without cash involved.

Best Buy is run like a casino. There are no clocks. The more money you spend, the faster and easier service will be for you. We had two $300 orders that we hurriedly finished before everyone else because we need to make revenue. Even then, they didn't pick it up that night. Those willing to put down the money will get the service best. Those that are high-rollers will get the free suites and drinks.

And I hate it.

Because I know that this is how all retail is run--with the intent to kill. Kill their pocketbooks. Kill their morality. Blur that line between need and want. Make them think that they need that badass HDTV. Make them think we know what we're doing. It's all bullshit.

And I hate it.

But, then again, it's a job. And they pay me. And we do our services very well when we do them since nobody likes having angry customers. I'd recommend it if you absolutely need it. We'll take care of you.

Horse Piss.

What the hell is with that?

he took my shoulders and he shook my face

Here it is: 12:30 AM, Friday morning. I've got a solid five and a half hours to sleep before another Friday of School til 230 and then work from 3:30 to 10:30. Another 20 hour day away from my home.

And yet I am awake.

And not only awake, but fully clothed and sitting at a computer.

Why, Evan, why?

Because you're worrying your petty little head about pretty significant things that need no worrying (wives and college credits and cash and jobs and my future in general) because God and only God has control and full knowledge of this stuff? Why are you worrying?

Why now when you should be resting yourself for the day to come!

Because rest only comes to those who are content. I am not content. I am not content with solid wages and a solid job. With college. With a life that should be content-worthy. I should be able to, with my current situation, be able to look at my life and say, "That's very good. I am pleased." But, no.

Because, as usual, you are only going to point out and dwell upon the bad and\or the intangible. That's just what you do, Evan. When things are going right, when things are content, things are at their worst because you have more time to thing about everything in the future that can worry you (college credits and getting a wife) when in all reality you have a solid 6 years before these worries should actually set in. If you're 24 and still have no bachelors, then, okay. Worry yourself to death. If you're 24 and without a spouse, worry yourself shitless. I don't care! But, right now, when you can barely grow chest hair? When you're just now newly fascinated with your facial hair? Why the hell are you worrying about this bullshit?

I'll tell you why. I'm worrying about this now because I want it as soon as possible. I want to be seriously involved with someone by 19, and engaged to them by 22. I want to be in seminary by 22 and out by 24. Because by 24, in six years, I want to be complete with all this shit. Because in six years I want life to start. I want to be able to look back on and satirize all this hard work I've pushed through. If I am 24 and single and still working at Best Buy, I will be even more worried. And probably even more suicidal. I want life. I want authorship. I want ownership. I want a condo in Pasadena with a woman whom I am wedded to and who wakes up with me every morning. I'm so tired of starting over and simply wetting my feet with life. By 24, I want to not be wet at the ankles, but drowning at the head! "If I'm goin' down, I'm goin' down parched!"

The Trees of the Field will Clap their Hands

Bureaucracy. Literally "drawer-cracy." All these drawers, all these litigations and forms and legal proceedings just to get to Jesus.

I thought Christian meant "christ-like?" I thought that to be Christ-like was to act like Christ, going to those exiled by society and showing love and self-sacrifice? When did Christian become pious cliques of white kids in suburbia not reaching out, not getting out of their shell but once a year?

You can't show true love to those you've known. It comes in its form to strangers.

Bureaucracy created churches that I just don't feel comfortable at. Bureaucracy created churches with Jesus as an asterisked footnote. Hype for Jesus. "Who the hell is Jesus? I'm here for the free pizza!"

It's so complex, but I know that I'll figure out how I stand on ministry by the time I get into ministry full time.

I'm scared as a Dog but I've got a new song, and I want y'all to sing along....

Between watching David Lynch's Lost Highway, and having a cold, I've hallucinated into clarity all my lust and adulterous feelings. It's emptiness--it's all sadness balled up into a few quick glances and dreams of arreolas and waking up next to one another in the hope of feeling not-so-lonely anymore...

Lust is a loneliness vessel, carrying through the deep and dark all the loneliness we only want to admit subconsciously with glances and thoughts and plans of love and hard-ons and cervices. It is inner-and-outer loneliness contained within our eyes and minds.

But when the story's over, you're still lonely. When the story's completed, you've come back around to tell yourself that you're still alone, you've circled out in front of your face, and back in through the left-ear, with the same old story: you're lonely and adulterous until you've found her.

Her is the one that will finally see that apparition that circles out of your right ear, and she will grab it and consume it, and drag you into her, and you will grab hers and consume it with all your life. And your two adulterous and longing and lonely souls will be one forever.

That's why I'm still a virgin. Why I'm holding off until I marry. I'm only going to go the distance with Her that has my soul within her belly. And when I have hers within my belly. And we are content like wolves...

Comedians

This was the obvious choice to do a mere 5 minutes after my singer choices... Notes on my favorite comedians...

Dave Attell - The grossest and most comedically bigoted person you ever hear grace the stage. His style of shock-humor never ceases to make people laugh in spite of their predispositions of "This is against everything I'm supposed to laugh at, that I believe in..." He will offend you, and then he will make you laugh.

Mitch Hedberg - The King of Wry. His delivery was very deadpan and his jokes about the microbial workings of life were often so true and grounded in common sense that they couldn't help but be funny because you realize the truth that was hidden underneath the whole time. But the bastard had to die. Hooray drugs!

Stephen Colbert - His satire of the hated-Right-Wing of politics is so dead-on that, even though he doesn't do much standup, he deserves to be on this list. His speech at the White House Correspondents' dinner was done Standing Up, so he counts.

Demetri Martin - A new favorite that, like Mitch Hedberg, points out the microbial truths in life, but does it sometimes to guitar and glockenspiel or accompanied by a sketch pad. Very creative and very funny.

People that didn't make the list for going mainstream and suddenly turning to crap: Dane Cook; People that didn't make the list for being far too esoteric: George Lopez.

Singers

A few thoughts on some of my favorite singers...

Bob Dylan - He's versatile, first off. Between Highway 61, Nashville Skyline and Modern Times, his voice has drastically changed. That's pretty cool that he can go with the flow of his life and accomodate his music.

Jeremy Enigk (Sunny Day Real Estate & The Fire Theft) - It's weird, his voice is very intoxicating. It's hypnotic and beckoning. I've had times where I HAVE to listen to SDRE or The Fire Theft because I heard something similar to him or his guest appearance on the new mewithoutYou CD, and suddenly, my soul beckons to hear his flowing emotion...

Sufjan Stevens - He sings and he plays the freakin' oboe. That's all you need to know. He's a very talented musician who can write a song about anything and make it sound interesting.

Aaron Weiss (mewithoutYou) - Between [A-->B] Life and Brother, Sister, his voice has softened and become more emotional to reveal his soul. As Bob Dylan's voice accomodates music, the music accomodates Weiss' voice. He can't sing well, but he can convey emotion and write very very poetic songs, so he's up there.

Cedric Bixler-Zavala - So, okay. Amputechture absolutely sucks. Now that that's clear, he's a decent singer who tries too hard sometimes, both musically and ideologically, and who can enlighten you if you try and find out the meanings of some of his songs.

--

So there's only four. Honorable mentions that were knocked off because of their lacking song-writing abilities: Claudio Sanchez (Coheed and Cambria), Davey Havoc (AFI); artists left off for trying to swim in the Mississippi River with clothes on: Jeff Buckley.

A little while back I wrote an essay entitled "The Difference," that highlighted the difference between being Christ-like and being a Christian.

I'll admit, that essay failed you the reader.

It didn't offer the solution, it only implied it.

Here's the solution: We must bridge the gap between the pious and the profane, to accept and realize we are all one, that we are all the same. We are one body (Romans 12), and we are all Saints (Ephesians 1). Love one another. And bridge the gap between striving to be Christ-like and being a Christian. Too many Christians take it lightly.

So Stop Taking it Lightly. Seek God with all your heart. That's the only solution. Then there will be no need for sections of the Church when we are all one body (1 Cor. 12), for we all do our part.

I am your mouth, you are my ear.

Plowing

Existence is based solely on your state of mind.

I do not exist for I am merely a facsimile, a mere bastard copy of God in a human body, caught up within my stupid, idiot sin.

How it is and how it will be

In talking recently with an ex-girlfriend who exuded most of the qualities of a woman I would want to marry (that's all I'm in it for now), I realized something: I've narrowed the pool to damn near puddle. Consider this: I want a girl who's a virgin, who doesn't drink doesn't smoke, is a Christian, takes God seriously. And I'm 18. That's two things: How am I going to find a virgin, even now, unless she's a conservative, pious, bitch. That's what I'm going to end up marrying, what I think is now a pious and conservative bitch.

I'm as liberal and extremist as they come, and I'm going to seemingly be chained to the right in some sort of circular haze.

But wait, Evan, if you exist, then she must exist!

Oh hell, I'm fucked.

I was once the wine.

In my Eng. 101 class we had to read Azar Nafisi's "Reading Lolita in Tehran," which discussed a group of female students who met in a secret classroom to discuss literature in a setting where the can shed their head-coverings and their inhibitions.

In the class, we started to discuss all the freedoms of Americans, and that got me wondering: What is worse, the blatant atrocities of the then Islamic Republic of Iran, or the subversive prejudice hate-and-fear tactics of the American government?

I mean, sure, they're openly persecuted, by the police state and the Islamic Legalism, but not by the people. In America the hate is drilled into the people by the media and suddenly it's no longer the government but the people that are the assholes, the prejudiced. The government plants the seed and it germinates into 1940's German lynchings and Japanese internment camps to perhaps protect them from the hatred of the average American. I can imagine that the average American woman, since "That Fateful Day," has had their level of hatred to both Middle-Easterns and Muslims. But an average Iranian woman hates the government, and they just force it upon their people.

Well? What would you rather have?

Just to pass the time....

I recommend you go out and get the new mewithoutYou CD, if not for the lyrics, than for the music...

It's amazing.

"I'm still waiting to meet a girl like my Mom but who's closer to my age."

Vicarious Atonement

I pray that all things I've said and will say are of You, oh God, oh Father. Keep me whole, keep me as your saint, keep me from blasphemy. I want to teach your message of unity and love, not a worldly partisan view--of vicarious atonement through our prayers and through Christ. As Paul said, all things are from You and through You and to You--and, thus, unity it is. Religion means nothing, You means everything.

May yours be the glory forever, Amen.

Being Christ-like doesn't ordane you Christian, it ordanes you as a better person, seeking better life. Anyone of any religion can attain enlightenment, and, since all things are through God, a man can attain enlightened saint-hood via any religion, any road.

Why does only one religion have to be right?