Here and Now

I went to CMS* again this year. It was, again, a really good conference. Since it was my second year, some of the new-car smell had worn off and I knew more what to expect. I decided this year to catch a couple of the songwriter sessions, in addition to the sessions I went to "for work"**. The songwriter session that I was most stoked about was led by Ian Eskelin . Now, most people at CMS (I assume) had no idea who Ian was...until the Friday night concert when they did a "songwriter in the round" session with like five or six songwriters*** when he introduced himself and said he wrote "This Is The Stuff" with Francesca Battistelli . But I was pretty hyped up before I got to the conference. I had a video Eskelin did called Supersonic Dream Day  - videos of the album of the same name - from when he was just starting out in the industry - here's a sample . Then, a few years later, I caught his band All Star United opening for Third Day with anothe...

I saw this, without comment, on another blog: Think about the truth of this image. Success is a crazy trajectory, with tons of moments where it looks like failure is immanent. I haven't read Steve Jobs' bio yet, but my good friend Ray has been giving me summaries as he's been reading through it and I'm struck by how close amazing breakthroughs are to complete failure and collapse - if not for that "one thing" that "one moment." But that "thing" or "moment" almost always comes out of hundreds - maybe thousands - of hours of blood, sweat and tears and it's probably the really the momentum of the labor, not so much the serendipitous "moment" that pushes an idea, project, technology, whatever into the realm of "success." Then you have to define success ...

The next several - pictures of words...* As always... Maybe not Mr. Lincoln, but pretty good anyway... *So what is a picture of words worth? Huh? How many words is THAT worth? Huh?    Yeah...I went there...

It's a T-shirt Saturday... Yeah...all from the same show...* *Which is crude, rude and totally inappropriate... but these are my people...  I can be SUCH a nerd...

found online I saw this video a while ago, turned on to me by a guy who was all about how we have to "defend the Truth of the Gospel,"* which may or may not be a post for another time. Anyway, Penn Jillette is a one half of the famous comedy duo Penn and Teller who do (does? done did?) shows in Vegas. Penn is apparently well known for being an outspoken athiest** and also well known for doing these kind of video blog posts*** where he rants about...well, whatever. But one day after a show, a guy gave him a Bible. Check this out. The rant isn't what you think it's going to be: Yeah, it's not comfortable looking up his nostrils the whole time, I know... But did you catch the rant? 3:00 in. (Yeah, he doesn't foam at the mouth rant, don't worry, it's safe to click the link, I promise) "And I've always said, you know, that I don't respect people who don't proselytize. I don't respect that at all. If you believe that ther...