I realize that I am in something of a heightened emotional state right now, and my moods have been more dramatic in some usually innocuous situations. Whether I’m driving in my car, in a social setting with music pumping in, or working with a little Spotify in the background, a soundtrack has been developing in my heart and mind over the past month or so. I’m confident that these songs will become a part of my personal history, working in the future to hearken me back to right now.

Without further ado, I’d like to give you a peek into my soul, and share with you my music of this moment:

One of my top bands, Foxy Shazam, offered a recommendation for a zombie-filled music video on Halloween (Disclaimer- the video is a strong PG-13). As far as I can tell, Our Vinyl Vows is a California band that no one (other than Foxy) has never heard of before. They seem to be a typical post-punk, guitar-driven, three-chord band, bitching to whomever will listen, about whatever seems to be wrong with the world. But after listening to their only studio album (You, Me, and Einstein) for a couple of months, the common thread seems to be a prolonged dealing with breakups and heartbreaks.

To hear this guy sing, you would think that he’s never had a healthy relationship in his life. While it seemed a little odd to have song after song of danceable break-up music, I had to give the singer props for being honest about his (remarkably consistent) emotional state. Here’s a taste of his lyrical melancholy:

Home is where you make it
but I didn’t make it fast enough
You always talked about it
but I never thought you’d leave
Oh how dare you call it home
you made a mess of things
and now you’re on your way
like that’s the only solution
Pack up and go but
leave all your baggage behind

~ From: Just The Tip ~

For a band that nobody has ever heard of, they do have a nice little music video (geez, I sound SO condescending) for the appropriately titled ballad for the dumped: “Gone”.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kind of fun for a break-up song, right? It’s appropriateness for my own life didn’t quite hit me until after being dumped myself, but I did have some fun dancing to song with my kids over the last few weeks.

Speaking of fun, that’s my other top band right now. Seriously, their name is Fun. Their website is www.ournameisfun.com. You may have actually heard of this group, what with their recent immortalization on Glee and all. But if you haven’t, please familiarize yourself and give them a listen.

Fun. is coming out with a new album in February, but they’ve already released a few tracks through YouTube. This track particularly rings true to me right now (other than the whole preoccupation with death thing).

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ll put one foot, in front of the other one.
I don’t need a new love,
just a better place to die.

Yeah, it sounds dark and all, but not defeated. That’s the part that I really connect with. Keep walking, keep moving. It’s not time for something new, but something new will be found someday. I need to hear that. I need to believe that. And so I do.

Finally, a new sound in my playlist is from a band named Grouplove. This was a radio song that just happened to hit me in just the right place at just the right time. I’ve been wrestling with my self-esteem and manhood as of late, and the opening of this track traveled straight through my eardrums into my core-being.

I am a man, man, man, man
Up, up in the air
And I run around, round, round, round
this down town and act like I don’t care.
So when you see me flying by the planet’s moon,
You don’t need to explain if everything’s changed
Just know I’m just like you.

Just a few bars later, I get treated to this lovely bit of poetry:

And suddenly a light appears inside my brain
And I think of my ways,
I think of my days
and know that I have changed.

When I explain my divorce to people, they sympathize with me, but only to a certain extent. Really, to say that I have changed is an understatement of significant magnitude. The person that I am today is widely different from the one whom my wife fell in love with over a decade ago. Can I really blame my wife for anything? I’m the one who went from Christian minister to secular humanist. It’s on me. I get it. But it still hurts to let go…

The video for this song may be the most haunting that I’ve experienced in years.

Click here to view the embedded video.

His death sentence was seemingly stayed, only to be a delay of the inevitable. Wishful thinking leads him to a frolic in the fields and a late night in a tent (grouplove, indeed). But death came nonetheless.

Can I draw any conclusions from this?

Nope. It’s a music video. It’s somebody else’s story. It’s somebody else’s truth. It doesn’t have to me mine.

And so it isn’t.

Bonus:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I have no reason for liking this other than the fact that I always wanted to be a drummer and his skills are of the mad variety.

Long live music.

But it has felt like there has been a theme developing…

I remember Sean Penn getting upset for the Academy Award for Best Actor award a few different times over the years, most notably for his role in I am Sam in 2001. I also remember that he finally won the award in 2008 for the film Milk, so I figured it was probably worth watching. It turns out that the movie is based the true story of the first openly homosexual elected official in the city of San Francisco in the 1970′s. The acting was nothing to get excited about, but I found myself really engaged in the story.

A film about the discrimination of homosexuals? Hmmmmm….

Sometime this summer, I caught part of an interview with Colin Firth on NPR’s Fresh Air mid-day program. It was the type of interview that has you sitting in your car for a few minutes after arriving at your destination, just waiting for something to break your interest free. He was speaking mostly of his motivation and experience in playing the title role in the 2009 film A Single Man. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to see this film for myself, my interest being piqued from the interview. While the cover of the film just shows Firth in the foreground, with a woman nuzzling his neck in the background, I didn’t know what to expect from the movie, other than this character being single, or (gulp) becoming single. This time, it turns out that Firth’s character is a closeted homosexual man, struggling in seeming solitude over the sudden death of his long time boyfriend.

A film about a homosexual man grieving the loss of his lover, with fear of judgement and persecution from society? Hmmmmm… Maybe there is a pattern forming here.

Penn and Teller have a controversial show on Showtime, designed to challenge and frustrate the status quo. They take many cherished and popular ideas and beliefs, examine them, and then finally pronounce them as B.S. One episode recently took the Boy Scouts of America to task for discriminating against homosexuals and atheists. The basic premise of their argument was not that discrimination was never acceptable, just that organizations that are government funded should not do so. It’s a fair point, and one that led me into a nice little debate on Facebook with some Christians who were appalled by President Obama’s choice to appear on the view instead of at the Boy Scouts’ 100th Anniversary Jamboree.

Christians wanting the President to support an organization that openly discriminates against homosexuals? Egads! The stars are beginning to align!

As I scoured the T.V. series shelves for the next season of Penn and Teller’s B.S., I came across an interestingly titled show called One Punk Under God. It’s a six episode reality show, documenting one eventful summer in the life of Jay Bakker, son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. It was a pretty riveting series, with several intriguing and fascinating story lines. In keeping with the theme of my summer, Jay (who is a preacher at a church in Atlanta) is grappling with the issue of homosexuality and the Christian church. If he goes with his heart, and announces a complete acceptance of homosexuals into his church. None of this “love the sinner” language. We’re saying that homosexuality is not a sin. Jay’s apprehension of fallout and the actual fallout are worth the time it takes to watch this show. I highly recommend it. In fact…

God has told me that homosexuality is a beautiful form of love between two people and that the church needs to reconcile it’s beliefs to reflect this! All the signs point to this! It has to be true!

This was confirmed for me when a friend from bible college posted this video by America’s Best Christian, explaining the biblical view of marriage.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I shared it on my Tumblr feed, and it subsequently garnered 300 times more attention than my next highest tumbl. (Really? Neil Patrick Harris posting a self picture with a double rainbow gets no love? If you still don’t know about the double rainbow, click here. Whatever. I digress.) So what if that was only 300 notes? It was a big deal to me.

You know how sometimes it seems like fate/destiny/the universe/God is really trying to get your attention with something by bringing it in front of your face over and over and over again? It almost feels like some sort of invisible hand is trying to give you a “sign” that you are supposed to acknowledge? Well obviously I’ve been having some of that lately, and it all came to a head this week, with the revocation of Proposition 8 in California that had previously banned gay marriages.

Does all of this sound a little fishy?

This is the part where I confess.

I should admit that I don’t believe in these cosmic signs some sort of transcendent meaning. Well, I guess I do believe in the transcendent meaning part, except I believe it to be completely a psychological phenomenon based on the function of the reticular formation of the brain. We give things meaning, and then they seem to jump out of the bombardment of stimuli that we see, hear, and smell as we live our lives. We decide that something is important (even at a subconscious or barely conscious level), and we start to see it everywhere. We make all of this transcend everything else we experience.

If you give a crap about civil rights in general or homosexual rights in particular, your feelers start to tune in to anything and everything that could help to inform or fortify your opinion. At least, that’s what my summer has been filled with. Every summer needs a theme. This is mine. Love who you love, and I will support you.

I often get my words confused. I am prone to becoming drunk with the potential power that the right words can provide to the right prose. Communication is all about pictures, and the emotions that those pictures bring to us. If a word creates a certain picture in your mind, and it turns out that you got that word wrong in the first place, it can be quite difficult to amend that picture.

For me, that word is often times: aficionado.

The cause of this confusion is probably due to the contents of the magazine Cigar Aficionado. It’s pages were filled with words like veiny, nutty, full-bodied, and other descriptions of cigars that might as well been written in Icelandic. Because I could not be sure what all of these words referred to to, or even meant, I assumed that one needed to be an expert in order to enjoy such a magazine. With that, I concluded that the word aficionado surely referred to some sort of professional knowledge holder or wise sage (in terms of cigars in this case).

In actuality, aficionado is really just a synonym for fan. Seriously, look it up. No word from Facebook if they considered replacing “Become a fan” with “Become an aficianado” before settling on the “Like” button.

Being an aficionado of LOST

I adore LOST. I ridiculously love it. I’ve shared my love of LOST with so many people, I am practically an evangelist for it. I literally named my daughter Evangeline, not just because she was “good news”, but because I wanted a significant way to acknowledge the impact the show has had on my life (my wife was also smitten with the beauty of the name, but that’s a minor detail).

The pilot episode of the show was eyeball-widening intense; with big-budget, high-quality special effects, terrifying moments of near-death and actual death, convincing pathos in many of the characters, and probably most important of all: plenty of mystery. A giant man-chomping monster, a mysterious radio signal on a loop for 16 years, and a polar bear running through the forest. They were all WTF moments at their head-scratching finest.

But the biggest mystery of pilot, and the one question that was begged by the title itself, was whether or not these people would be found. Would they eventually get off the island?

All of these holes in the story created a huge gravitational pull for me to lean in, to continue watching, and to hope beyond hope that everything would turn out OK. But my hopes were not just fed by the new illumination of the continued narrative each week… my imagination ran wild with possibilities and theories of “the truth”. In those dark places, where certain details of the story had not yet been told, I could hardly stop myself from coming up with reasonable and not-so-reasonable solutions to the puzzle.

When the finale of the third season of the show turned out to be a flash forward, giving us a glimpse into the future, the found question of LOST… was finally answered. The gap in my mind was filled with “the truth”, but somehow I still wanted to know more. I was still leaning in, I was still watching, and I was still hoping that everything would turn out OK. I cared about the characters. I cared about the minutiae. I cared about all of it.

As the show was drawing to a close earlier this year, I felt myself dreading the new gap that was imminently creeping up in my own life: a world without LOST. Gaps and holes are fine, as long as there is a starting point, and a finishing point. Open-ended questions can be maddening and neurosis inducing. Although life before LOST was wonderful and fulfilling, the idea of never hearing that spooky title frame sound left me close to despondent. Beginning a gap that never ends is like a death.

When the show finally did come to a close several weeks ago, a number of people were disappointed. While everything did turn out OK for the main characters, some fans did not appreciate the final 15 minutes, which seemed to imply a sort of do-it-yourself spirituality, in which any and all religious or spiritual belief eventually leads to a self-created place of paradise. Other viewers were stunned by the fact that a large number of questions (holes and gaps) went unanswered. Many of these folks were disappointed to find out that a specific element of the story which was particularly meaningful to them, was ignored or poo-pooed away.

Personally, I was extremely satisfied with the finale. Although I had my own theories along the way, and I had my moments of jubilance when I happened to be “right” with one of my predictions, I was prepared to be happy no matter what. Somewhere along the way, I had given up the reigns to my enjoyment of the show. I consciously relinquished my role as an objective viewer, and became a homer for whatever the writers put in front of my face to enjoy. My love was blind, and I didn’t care where it let me. Whether the gaps were filled or not, my mind was set, and I was determined to enjoy all of it.

So, as future without LOST has now become a present without LOST, you may not be surprised that I don’t believe that it is really over. My mind gave the world of LOST considerable meaning to me, and that same mind cannot let it go. I don’t want to believe that it is over. The endless gap that started at the culmination of the series is unacceptable for me to suffer.

Since much of the value of LOST during it’s run was subjective and self-created (like the postmortem paradise of the finale), why can’t I manufacture my own hope for the narrative to continue?

So that’s what I’m going to do. When the DVD and Blu-ray come out with special features that fill in the gaps, know that I will be elated. When the new, interactive internet story begins, know that I will be giddily following along. And if none of this ever happens, and it truly is over, know that I still believe that it was all worth it.

I may not be an expert, but I am an aficionado.

Are you?

I’ll see you in another life, brotha.

This probably had a lot to do with the fact that the events of the film take place during about 18 hours of story time, and the cast was filled with over a dozen recognizable actors.  There’s only so much screen time to be shared, and the slices of that pie were close to paper-thin.  Star power?  Yes.  Rewatchability (Or even watchability)?  No.  The film was as disposable as the popcorn we shared together.

One of the myriad of love stories presented in the film was of an aging professional football player dealing with a freshly broken romantic relationship, and the prospect of his retirement from the game being a source of public debate.  During a press conference that he calls to squelch rumors about his career, he also announces (**SPOILER ALERT**) that he is gay.

The capacity filled theatre giggled a little, and continued to watch the film.

By the end of the movie, as all of the love stories are being wrapped up with happy endings, the quarterback’s ex-flame walks in, and it is revealed that it is none other than the dashing Bradley Cooper’s character.

A surprising number of people in the theatre groaned audibly.  There were a number of “ewww”s and “yuck”s from those around me.  I remember a woman behind me to my right saying: “That’s just wrong.”  I realize that this is a midwestern city, but I really did not expect that amount of… (is homophobia the right word here?) whatever it was.

It wasn’t a couple with different skin colors, although I’m sure that would have gotten a similar reaction 50 years ago.  It wasn’t a couple with an extreme age difference.  It was two men.  And it grossed out most of the theatre.

I was shocked at how much it bothered me.  My sense of justice was violated.  I felt simultaneously sorry for those in the theatre who related to the same sex couple and angry at those who sneered at them.  A month later, my strongest memory of that movie is the feeling that I had as the crowed showed their collective displeasure in the “sin” displayed before them.

I’m not sure what I can do to help the cause of the gays and lesbians who face discrimination and disgust from the world.  Perhaps the world doesn’t owe them anything.  I’m not sure if this is a civil rights issue, or a human rights issue.  I just know that I felt stirred to do something.

Instead of just tolerating relationships between homosexual couples, I now actively support those who choose to let their lives be filled with love.  If you have an idea of how I can particularly support you, please let me know.

It’s hard not to love this story and the people involved in it.

I got on the Garth Brooks bandwagon late, after Chris Gaines and even after his retirement from touring.  Never one for country music, I had assumed that I would need a ten gallon hat or a ten pound belt-buckle in order to experience some toe-tapping, knee-slapping, or even heart-melting at the sound of his voice.  He finally got me good with the closing track of the Dennis Quaid/Jim Caviezel father/son movie Frequency in 2000.  I remember the sitting in the theater by myself, after all my friends had left, just profoundly moved by the words and music that I was listening to.  Here is video on Youtube that someone put together with the song and some pictures of inspiration:

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s not that I wasn’t aware of Garth’s popularity.  Kim had always made it very clear to me that he was a superstar, and not just in the world of country music.  In fact, he has sold more records than any other solo-artist in history.  That’s no small feat for a singer who’s genre is often included in statements like “I like all kinds of music, except for ________.”

Las Vegas is not exactly a hotbed for country music.  How many young banjo pickers head to Sin City for a shot to play for the throngs of country music fans there?  To get signed to play in Vegas for five years, you must transcend the genre.  Garth Brooks seems to do just that.

So, what does he have that makes him so relatable, connectable, personable, and charming?  Maybe if we knew his secret, he would cease to be what he has come to be for so many people: a real icon.

Real is the best word that I can think of to describe this guy.  He’s been married, had three kids, divorced, remarried, and still lives on a ranch in Oklahoma, instead of a penthouse in New York.  It could be due to the fact that he reached the pinnacle of music greatness, but he’s much more concerned about being a good father than being the king of country music (or anything else for that matter).  But even through his rise to fame, he’s still come across as real.  He’s made plenty of mistakes, and he’s owned up to nearly all of them.

In fact, his Chris Gaines alter-ego failed to launch precisely because it did not seem real enough.  Sure, the pseudo-goth look and the VH1 Behind the Music episode all seemed plausible for a normal star, but just not Garth.  Garth Brooks doesn’t pretend.  At least, that’s what his fans all believe.  For a guy who can sell out five concerts at the Staples Center in L.A. in less than an hour, it was largely considered a failure.  Being released ten years ago, which was ten years after his debut album in 1989, I wonder how the The Life Of Chris Gaines album has aged over this past decade.

With all of that said, it really seems that Garth Brooks has a hold on some sort of thread that connects him to humanity more than someone like Kanye West, at least at this point in Kanye’s career.  It has to be more than his “Aw shucks” humility, although that seems to be part of it.  Perhaps he just knows that he really isn’t substantively different than anyone else in this world.  Just luckier, maybe.  For a guy who can basically print money for charities, by performing a concert or five, that’s a great thing for all of us.

It remains to be seen if Garth can reignite the media fire that he has been standing outside of for so long (sorry, I couldn’t resist), but I’m ready to be on board this time.

Yup.  It’s official.  In an ironic twist of fate to those who have watched Jon drop the ball with his family, Jon Gosselin’s name has now been dropped from the show that he began with his wife and children just a few short years ago.  According to this CNN.com article, the new show will start on November 2, and will be called “Kate Plus 8″.  Oddly enough, TLC and Mr. Gosselin will maintain their “exclusive relationship”, for whatever that’s worth.

I’ve followed this story on my blog for a while, for two main reasons:

First, it was one of the top shows in my DVR stable, only subordinate to LOST.  We had never missed an episode, and I had a genuine rooting interest in their family, just from watching them grow from the comfort of our living room.

Second, I myself have gone through and continue to go through some of the same emotions and actions (including infidelity and divorce) that Jon is in the midst of at this time.  We both were deeply wrapped up in Christian communities where divorce is a sin of the highest order, and marriage is forever, is forever, is forever.  Happiness is at least secondary to commitment, if it is even in the top ten virtues of that sub-culture.  In this way, I felt much closer to Jon because of our kinship in seeking freedom from what seemed to be an oppressive situation: ie marriage.

Kate Gosselin is a strong woman.  This much is clear.  She has handled the situation with a good measure of class and composure, even admitting to some moments of despondence during this ordeal.  She has always been open about her flaws, even being willing to show her post-pregnancy belly on national TV before she was anything close to famous.

Jon, it seems has taken a different turn.  While the news of the demise of their marriage was fresh, many men (and women) wondered why it hadn’t happened sooner.  For all of her good qualities, Kate had a knack of putting Jon down, questioning his parenting skills, and generally treating him like a child.  And all of this on national television and (perhaps more painfully) in front of their children.  You could hardly contain Jon’s smile in the moments of freedom that he experienced on the show.  He seemed to begrudge his commitment to Kate and the effect it was having on his own personal freedom.

But, since their story has become a top headline around the gossip columns and the water coolers, he is much less “devoted dad” and much more “deluded douche-bag”.  Having several girlfriends at once is not admirable, in my opinion, and sleeping with anyone who will have you (including the babysitter and the nanny) sounds more like bondage than emancipation to me.

The truth is, anything can become a ball and chain in our lives, not just the lovely woman that you got on your knee and promised the world to.

I honestly hope for the best for Jon and Kate, and that does not necessarily mean reconciliation.  I was (and continue to be) fortunate enough to have a woman love so deeply and so truly, that my redemption and forgiveness is at hand, even now.  According to the state, we are divorced.  But to those who know and love us, they see what we have been working towards over the last few months.  A reacquisition of the love we had feared lost, and a bright future where dragons are slay-able and mountains are conquerable.

Thank God for my lovely partner and the power in all of us to change our mind.

“Responding to reports of infidelities, Kate Gosselin from the reality show Jon and Kate Plus 8, denied that she and her husband were splitting up. Though it is interesting that TLC has two shows on its fall schedule entitled “Jon Plus 4″ and ‘Kate Plus 4.’”

I didn’t believe it at the time, but his words seem strangely prophetic in light of what the family and show are facing now.  Jon and Kate plus 8 returned to the air after a monthlong hiatus this past Monday.

The first of the two back to back episodes was compiled of earlier footage before the two parents had officially separated.  Jon and Kate shared just a couple of scenes together, and did not spend any time on the iconic couch, which has always been their nest for reflection on the episode.  The theme of this episode was the renovation of the kitchen, which was planned for during happier times, and happened to be scheduled for the summer.  While the two had to decide on what features they would have in their brand new custom kitchen (presumably free for them because of the exposure the company would receive), they made it clear that their choices would be for the children, and that they were only thinking about them.

I’ve heard a lot of comments around the web about how the sort of answer “we’re doing what’s best for the kids” is ludicrous based on their decision to separate.  The idea is that the best thing for children is for their parents to be together, no matter what.  It’s a callous point of view in my opinion, and one that is probably not offered by those who are in that situation, or who have gone through a similar situation.  I would like to believe that most parents love their children deeply and honestly do believe that their actions will have a positive effect on their children, in the long run.

In my case, I did not want to set an example of an unhappy marriage with my children.  I figured that if their mother was happier without me, and that I was happier without her, then our kids would understand and be happy for the both of us.  What I did not consider, was that my definition for happiness was something that I came to on my own, whereas my definition for happiness at the beginning of our relationship was something that Kim and I came to together.

As much as I want to believe it, there are very few (if any) things that make everyone happy.  You and I may like ice cream and it may make us happy, but there are a lot of people in the world who do not, for many reasons.  A positive pregnancy test means ecstasy to the couple who has been struggling with infertility for years, but it may shatter the dreams of a teenage girl who is a leader at her church.  Even taken to the extreme of life after death, in its simplest dichotomy, life with God seems like a dreadful time, while others yearn for it now, even while living.

Understanding other people, whether in a relationship with one other person, or within a real community with many people, is not always a first nature behavior.  For many of us, it isn’t even second nature.  During the show, Jon asks Kate if she would like to add a refrigerator under the counter.  She glares at him and asks, snootily,

“No Jon.  Ugh.  What planet do you live on?”

After a couple of beats of awkward silence, the kitchen remodeling designers explain to her that they also believe that it is a good idea and she sheepishly acknowledges that maybe he does live on this planet.  I paused the show, and commented to Kim:

“That was jacked up.  Why does she have to make a comment like that?”

To which Kim replied:

“Because he banged another woman, that’s why!”

“Touche” was the best reply that I could come up with after that.  I love that girl!

For Kim, Jon’s actions seemed to justify Kate’s treatment of him.  I saw Jon’s comment and felt that it was more innocuous and helpful and not deserving of the rebuke that he received from his wife.  Kim and I watched the same scene, but came to two different conclusions on Kate’s behavior.  I don’t know if either of us is “right”, and I don’t want to debate it now.  I just want to point out how both on the show, and in our viewing, we were unable to see the same situation in the same light.

I will say that Kate’s strength has come shining through in all of this.  In the second episode, she struggles with setting up a tent for her children, even as her daughters comment to her that it is something that only a man can do.  I’m sure the thoughts going through her mind about what her husband might be doing at that moment (or whom) instead of setting up that tent, must have been gnawing at her.  She showed incredible grace and poise, eventually acknowledging that she was not an expert at it, but that she would try to do anything for her children that they needed.  I really admired her in that situation.  I hope that Jon did as well.

Half way through the first episode, Kate and the kids hit the beach to be free of the dangerous remodeling in their kitchen.  Jon stayed behind and his absence was felt.  One of the boys drew his name (Dad) in the sand.  The camera caught a wave breaking onto his sand canvas, wiping out what he had made so far.  Kate exclaimed:

“Oh no.  Now we have to start over.”

Maybe so, Kate.  But if Kim and I are an imperfect but earnestly humble example… maybe not.