Skeletons in Your iPod Closet

If you don’t have an iPod, you can still relate to this post. All you have to do, whenever you read the word “iPod,” is substitute the phrase “collection of recorded music in some other format, such as CD’s, vinyl, or heaven forbid, cassettes.” That’s a pretty long phrase to have to keep saying to yourself however, so you may want to go ahead and get an iPod or similar device. It’s totally your call.

Anyway, you and I have skeletons in our iPod closet.

I have over 2000 songs on my iPod, and I can actually hold up to about 10,000. That’s what the Apple people tell me, anyway. And my song collection is pretty eclectic – I have stuff from pretty much every decade since the 1920′s. Maybe even the 19-teens.

A lot of my music is there because I need it for my work as a school teacher. That’s another way of saying “I have a lot of dumb kids songs on my iPod.” In the previous sentence, “dumb” refers to the songs, not the kids.

So if you were to look through my iPod and see some of the weird stuff in there, you might be tempted to think I’m not very cool. But I am, though. I have a lot of pretty new cool stuff on there. Some of the pretty new cool stuff comes from being kind of cool myself, and some of it comes from having a cool daughter who helps me find music, and some of it comes from having cool friends who know a lot about music. If you’re going to have good music on your iPod (here’s one of those places where you’ll need to substitute that phrase we talked about earlier), you really need to make sure your circle of friends includes people who know about music you don’t know about, to keep your collection fresh.

However – there are skeletons in my iPod closet. I’m talking about songs that 1) aren’t that cool, and 2) aren’t on the iPod because I need them for school, and 3) are on the iPod because there’s a small dorky part of my brain that likes those lame songs.

I’m not going to tell you what those songs are, because I don’t need you judging me. But you have them, too. Come on, admit it. You like songs that are just plain bad, horrible songs. Songs that make you want to minimize your window if someone walks by when you have iTunes open on your computer. Songs that make you want to rename your iPod with someone else’s name, so in case you accidentally leave it someplace people won’t find it and figure out it’s yours.

So all I’m trying say is – embrace your iPod skeletons. Embrace the dorky-song-lover within you. Just don’t tell anyone about those songs, especially me, because I’ll laugh at you. Happy listening.

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Twelve Days… Don’t Skip Any Verses

A few of my private piano students have autism, and one of them had his lesson today. This guy has come far in the past few years, from struggling to make any sense of the music at all (much less be able to sit still), to actually reading the notes on the page, and memorizing a heck of a lot of music. Meeting with him is one of the high points of my week. Today he wanted to show me he had figured out how to play “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” So of course, I wanted him to go for it.

It’s impossible to make too many sweeping generalizations of kids who struggle with autism. It can manifest itself in various ways, and while the two autistic kids I teach have some similarities in their behavior, they have many more differences. But having been around many autistic kids the past several years, one thing I have noticed as a common thread – once an idea has been put into motion, they’re not going to change their minds easily. They’ll see it through to the end. Even if that means playing twelve verses of a song, all exactly the same way, very slowly. You see where this is going, right?

So a few verses into the song, which took a while, I said, “Hey that’s great – why don’t we jump ahead to the 12th verse?” And he said, without looking up, “No.”

A few more verses in (long enough to get to the Five Golden Rings part): “This is so awesome. Wanna jump ahead to the 12th verse?” “No.”

A little farther (which at this speed, seemed about a half hour later):  ”I think I lost count – we’re on the 12th verse now, right? (see what I tried to do there?)”  ”No.”

We eventually got to the end. We struggled a long time to get to the end of that song. And I don’t just mean today. Those twelve verses today represented a few years of struggle, growth and achievement. I guess you probably shouldn’t skip any of that stuff.

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Merry Christmas Merry Christmas Merry Christmas Merry Christmas

   Occasionally, you might run into people who don’t want to hear you say “Merry Christmas.” By “occasionally,” I mean pretty much every stinkin’ day. There will always be people who get bent because A) it’s not their holiday, or B) it might be their holiday, but they don’t want to offend people who don’t celebrate the holiday.

The people in the “B” category are the ones who annoy me the most.

Well, I always want to be considerate of other people’s feelings, as dumb as they may be. So I’ve decided to never say “Happy Birthday” to anyone from  now on. Because you never know – while I’m saying “Happy Birthday” to someone, someone else might be in the room and it might not be that person’s birthday, and that might cause them to feel bad. I never want to cause people to feel bad, no matter how dumb the reason.

So for birthday greetings from now on, I’m going to say something meaningless and generic like “Have a nice day,” or “Greetings,” or maybe “Happy Generic Celebration, for Whatever It Is You Might Be Celebrating Today, if In Fact You Are Celebrating.” I think that last one especially has some zing to it.

MERRY CHRISTMAS MERRY CHRISTMAS MERRY CHRISTMAS MERRY CHRISTMAS MERRY CHRISTMAS MERRY CHRISTMAS MERRY CHRISTMAS MERRY CHRISTMAS MERRY CHRISTMAS MERRY CHRISTMAS MERRY CHRISTMAS MERRY CHRISTMAS MERRY CHRISTMAS MERRY CHRISTMAS MERRY CHRISTMAS MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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My Political Insight, Part I

The writing team here at charleysblog has gotten together recently and after a lengthy discussion of what to write about next, we have settled upon a series of political blogs. With a writing team consisting of one person, these kinds of decisions can be made fairly quickly. So, here is the first installment in a multipart series entitled “My Political Insight.” I have no idea how many parts there will be – I’ll probably go until I run out of political insight. And maybe even a little after that, much like the candidates themselves.

As I’m writing this on December 10, 2011, the Republicans are holding yet another debate. This is just one more debate in the approximately 763 debates they apparently have scheduled. I’m not sure of the details of this particular debate, but that’s OK, since I don’t think too many other people are either, or if anyone is actually still watching all these debates. Which brings me to a little bit of advice I’d like to give the Republican candidates, strategists, and other associated people.This is advice that applies to not only wanna-be political leaders, but also teachers, pastors, songwriters, bloggers, and anyone who wants to communicate well…

Words mean more if there are fewer of them.

Of course, I realize you may have already crossed the line into the “we’ve rattled on so much about nothing that no one is listening anymore” category. So this advice may be a little too late for you. However, it doesn’t hurt to give it a little thought anyway, and maybe think about pulling the plug on some of the debates.

 

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Random Stuff to Be Thankful For

In no particular order (that’s part of the meaning of “random”)…     

The iPhone Shazam app  

Coffee

Loving One By One Ministries (by the way, click on the link to the right, go to the “donate” section, and make a donation  toward the construction of their new children’s home. All donations made before Dec. 31 will be matched. This needs to be done right away. Just saying).

Power strips

Jesus

Martin Custom Light Guitar Strings

Dogs

The Lovely Miss Courtney

Paint (hey, try getting by without it, people. Talk about a boring world)

Tide (the laundry detergent)

Tide (the thing the ocean does every day)

Hot Dogs at Costco

Mosaic South Bay

Staples (the store – but not Office Depot. Specifically, emphatically not Office Depot)

People who pay other people (like me) to teach music

Black Converse low-top tennis shoes, with a few years on them

And the list goes on. Be thankful!

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You Need to Know About This Guy

I have a friend named John Torres, and you need to know about him. John’s a very talented singer/songwriter, and his name is a name you’ll soon become very familiar with.

The first time I heard John was at Mosaic’s West L.A. campus (Mosaic is my church). This guy in a white t-shirt and jeans came out on the stage with a guitar, and another guy came with him playing a wooden box. The real name of the wooden box is a “cajon,” but if you’re not familiar with it, it’s just a wooden box. Although it’s a real percussion instrument. But I digress.

John started to play and then he started to sing, and I thought, what the heck. I’m not sure what kind of voice I was expecting to hear, but this voice definitely was something different. Not only a much higher voice than I expected, but a tone that I haven’t heard before.

A few years later I was lucky enough to become John’s friend, and now he and several other people who love music hang out in my living room most Wednesday nights. We eat, laugh at each other, talk about songs we like, and sometimes we actually take out our guitars and play stuff. And when John says, “Hey, I have this new thing I want to show you,” and starts playing a new song that may be literally hours old, I sit there and listen and can’t believe this guy hangs out at my house.

So here’s a video of John Torres. I hope you like  his music, and if you do, check out his website, http://www.myspace.com/johntorresmusic

Then, if you like the video and you like what you see on the website, come and hear John and friends at Mosaic South Bay this Sunday night, November 20. The regular gathering (that’s Mosaic-ese for “church service”) will be at 4pm.  Then John’s concert will begin at 6:30. There will also be a silent auction benefitting The 24 Foundation. You can read more about this Sunday’s event here.

OK, so this is a lot of information. The main thing – just watch John’s video, and I hope you like the music as much as I do. And if you come to see him this weekend, maybe the guy with the box will be there, too.

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Two Ways to Help

Hello blog readers.

Over the next several weeks while you’re making plans and enjoying Thanksgiving and Christmas, chances are you may also be thinking about ways you can give to others who really need the help. I’ve of course written many times on this blog about Loving One By One Ministries (LOBO), and the great work they’re doing in Uganda. You can find out more about LOBO by clicking the link on the right of this page, and you can read about my summer adventures with LOBO by clicking the “Uganda” tab at the top of this blog. Confused yet? Good. Stay with me.

If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you know that I have absolutely no hesitancy at all about asking you to consider LOBO as part of your charitable giving. These people are doing great work, sometimes nearly impossible work, among some of the most hopeless people you’ll ever meet. Between the New Creation Family Home and the New Creation Centre (school), as well as the twice-yearly medical teams, Loving One by One is affecting literally thousands of people per year.

So I want to quickly give you two ways you can help them financially right away. Maybe one need or the other will catch your interest, and you will decide to get involved financially.

1.  Sponsor a Child at New Creation Centre     New Creation Centre is LOBO’s school in Kampala, Uganda. It costs $20 a month to sponsor a student there, and there is currently a big need for more sponsors. The educational system in Uganda is sorely lacking, and the fees to attend public schools are out of reach for most families. So for the bargain price of $20 per month, the students at New Creation Centre are given a high quality education with a strong Christian emphasis, and are prepared to go into their communities and make a difference. 

2.  The Matching Funds Construction Project   From now through the end of December, all donations given toward construction on LOBO’s nine-acre future home will be matched, up to $50,000. I’ve written about this project already, but in a nutshell, LOBO has nine beautiful acres of land, and it’s time to start building on it. The eventual goal is to put their family home, the school, and missionary facilities there.

Both the school sponsorship, and the construction donations, are needed right away. So I’m encouraging you to think about how you’d like to be involved, then click on the Loving One by One link to your right and make it happen. Also, if you’re on my Faceook list, I’ll be posting photos soon of children who need sponsorship.

Thanks! I’ll write more about other fun stuff in a few days.

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