October 23, 2010

Breaking The Rules

Hey.

Now, I'm sure some of you know that I'm not a very religious person. I went to church as a kid, but only because my parents made me. I got confirmed, for my mom. I don't have a problem with religion, it's just not really for me. I'm more of a spiritual person, than a religious one.

'My' church is one of the more liberal ones. They let you interpret things as you want, not how some 70 year old white man does. I've met the ministers, and they are very loving, caring, and accepting people. One of them is a lesbian, another gay, and for a time there was a trans-gender as well. For the most part they were welcomed with open arms. Of course, the religious media had a few things to say, but fuck them.

Anyways, my mom was telling me about a sermon from the 10th, by one of the gay ministers. She said it was really heartfelt and emotional. And according to my grandfather, the first time he remembers a minister getting a standing ovation after a sermon.

So obviously I was intrigued. I was able to read it online, and I must say, I am blown away. I can't believe these words are coming from a man of God, spoken at a church. Granted, there is some bible content thrown in, but still, I am truly amazed.

So I ask of you, religious or not, to give it a read. It will only take 10-20 minutes of your time, but the impact will last forever.


Breaking The Rules

It's in PDF, so you might need Adobe, if you don't already.

Or if you prefer, you can listen to an mp3 file.

MP3


I listened while I read, which I would recommend, because not only does he phrase things slightly different, it allows you to get a deeper impact of what is being said. You can hear the emotion in his voice.

Do as you wish, but I would highly suggest checking it out.

Hope you are well.

143

_Kevin

October 21, 2010

Start Wearing Purple

Hey guys.

So today was the 'wear purple to remember the young souls who committed suicide' day. I forgot about it originally, and then remembered about halfway through the day. I got my hair cut about midday, and when I was in the shower getting the hair off myself, I remembered. So when I got out, I grabbed my 'Start Wearing Purple' t-shirt. It's for the band Gogol Bordello, but I thought it was the perfect shirt for today. Not only is it a vibrant purple, it tells people to wear purple too.

I'm not sure if my mom knew about the purple day, but when she saw me come out of my room with the shirt on, a small smile popped onto her face for a few seconds. Could have been nothing, or the fact that she thinks the shirt (and song) is funny, or maybe she knew what it was for, and was proud. Either way, I thought it was cool.

A while later, I was hanging out with Aaron at the BP, and a younger lady, probably 23 or so, came in to prepay some gas. She saw my shirt, and the first thing she said was, 'high five for wearing purple!' and gave me a high five. Thought that was pretty sweet. I'm pretty sure Aaron didn't know about the day, so he just laughed when he noticed it was a Gogol shirt. Oh well.

I hope today has had some effect on society, and people will finally start to realize that something needs to be done about the bullying. Not just against gay kids, but bullying in general. To quote a Bad Religion song:

'You might not think there's any wisdom in a fucked up punk rock song. But the way it is cannot persist for long, a brutal sun is rising on our sick horizon. It's in the way we live our lives, exactly like the double edge of a cold familiar knife.'

Anyways, I don't want to rant at you guys. You all know things need to change, so why tell you what you already know?

I hope everyone is well.

143

_Kevin

What else?



Oh, and Rowan, you're a bastard for stealing my song!

October 18, 2010

Fruity Loops

Hey guys.

There is hardly anything going on in my life right now worth mentioning, which kinda sucks.

I had a migraine earlier tonight, so I took some Excedrin for it. Got rid of the migraine, but the problem is that the caffeine keeps me up. So here I am at 5:30 in the morning, and not tired. So what am I to do? Make music.

I decided to be more like DJ this time, and do it all myself, instead of with the band. So I checked out the free demo of Fruitly Loops, spent some time figuring it out, and make a beat. Then decided it would sound better with some guitar, and it kind of escalated from there. Not my best work, but it was fun doing it differently. Hope you guys enjoy!



143

_Kevin

October 8, 2010

Now Entering (The) Kiester

Hey guys.

So the funeral was last week, but I decided not to go. Just wasn't feeling up to it. But I'm starting to do better with the whole situation, which is good.

Anyways. Last Friday Aaron and I went to go buy him another car. He thought it would be nice to have a winter car, so his current car will last longer. Whatever, it's his money. So he found a Honda CRX down in Kiester, MN, which is about 120 miles from where we live. The car looked great in the ad, so off we went.

Since we were going to the middle of nowhere, we were smart and told our parents where we were going, what we were doing, and when we thought we would be back, just in case something bad happened. There have been a fair amount of stories in the paper about people being killed when they meet people on Craigslist.

The farther we drove, the more worried we got, because everything just disappeared. We were about 5 miles north of the Iowa border. Finally we pulled into a small, little town with a sign saying "Welcome To Kiester" (And yes, it is pronounced like keister.) So we knew we were there. After having a few laughs over the name, we called up the guy to tell him we were there.

A couple minutes later he pulled up, and we followed him to his house. He seemed like a decent guy, but I was still a little on edge. We pull onto this random dirt road off of the highway and start driving through corn fields. At this point, I actually started to get a little scared, not knowing where the hell we were going. I had my knife in my pocket, but didn't think it would do much. But it's always nice to have some sort of protection.

As we came over a hill, we saw his house and pulled over. He and his friend went and pulled the CRX out of the garage, and then we started the business of looking/buying a car. Aaron and I both have a good amount of experience in this field, since we are always buying and selling cars.

So we went to town looking the car over, and asking questions. The car wasn't as nice as it appeared in the ad, but still nice enough. So Aaron decided to buy it. They haggled on the price a bit, and then we drove off into the sunset (actually, into the rain that was headed our way). Aaron drove his Civic while I drove the CRX back to the cities. Pretty boring drive, since the radio in the car didn't work, but we got home without any problems.

After saying goodbye to Aaron, I jumped into my truck and drove home. I went up to the BP the next day to see him, and he had driven the Civic to work. I was a little confused, but figured it was because he hadn't changed the title yet. So I went inside to see what was up, and he told me he wanted to sell the CRX already. My jaw dropped, and I just looked at him with a 'what the fuck?' expression on my face. He said he didn't really need two cars, and it was a mistake to buy it. I was a little annoyed because of everything we had gone through the day before, so I told him to give it a week and then see how he feels. So far he still wants to sell it, but we'll see.

That's about all the exciting stuff going on right now. Tomorrow Aaron and I are going to take our dogs down to the river to play around for a while, which will be fun. Erik is off to the cabin for the weekend, and my mom is going out of town with some friends, so it'll just be me and my dad for the weekend. On Monday I'm going to the cabin with my mom, for the official last time of the year, since they close it up next weekend.

Been spending a lot of time lately writing and working on new songs. It's been helping me deal with everything that's going on lately. I brought the song 'Dixie' to the band today and they liked it, so we're going to work that into a song. Now I just have to come up with some good music to go with it. I have a couple of ideas, but I'm not happy with them yet. I just need some inspiration.

Well I've rambled on long enough for one night. Hope you all are well!

143

_Kevin