Phase One Down. Soon, Monkeys.
I’m releasing a new song, Kingdom Coming, in phases. Because I’m a nerd. I’m experimenting to see how many downloads each phase gets. I want to know what works to get the word out and exactly how well. Again, I’m a nerd. I’m making bar graphs. I’m OK with this.
For phase one, I let you guys who read my blog know about the free download. I posted about it and I put a little widget over there to the right for you to grab and spread around. A couple thousand downloads resulted from phase one’s first week thanks to BooMama, BigMama, Bush and several other B word bloggers who spread the word from my blog to theirs. Muchas gracias.
For phase two my friend (and genius) Ben Stewart built a web page where Kingdom Coming can be downloaded: shaungroves.com/freemusic It has a simple(ish) address so, for example, folks on the radio could mention it if they felt so inclined. For example. Hypothetically. Also, in phase two a lot of people I (barely) know will get an e-mail from me about that page.
Phase three, monkeys with tiny crowns and tiny scepters released into public places handing out tiny business cards with shaungroves.com/freemusic on them.
Phase four, celebrity endorsements.
Phase five, infomercial and a bonus bottle of car wax if you DOWNLOAD NOW!!!
Phase six, a viral music video starring those monkeys and celebrities.
Like I said, it’s all very experimental and scientific like.
If you haven’t downloaded the free tune, click that widget over on the right or head over to shaungroves.com/freemusic
And please, pass it on. Thank you in advance.
Beyond Beyond Kind
Last night a sang a few songs and then spoke at a church service full of twenty-somethings. You know the type: veins full of kool-aid and Ramen noodles, part-time jobs, splitting rent with a couple or four room mates. Not exactly folks who consider themselves to have more than enough.
There were 130 of them. 33 of them sponsored children.
I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: This generation just after mine is very interested in doing something about what they believe. Whether it’s a belief in a political process or candidate, belief in science, belief in God - these people don’t separate belief and action the way my generation and I do so easily.
All we have to do is give them proof that this action or that works, actually brings about the change they’re after, and they take it.
I’ve never seen any room of Baby Boomers or Gen-Xers do what a room of twenty-somethings did last night...and does almost every time I speak to one.
To put this in perspective, at an average Christian concert full of mostly youth groups and middle aged women, 5% or fewer of the crowd will sponsor a child when given the opportunity. And that’s an incredible response really, with all the opportunities these folks have to give every day, that they would choose Compassion is beyond kind. But twenty-somethings somehow, for some reason, go beyond beyond kind. And they do it routinely, in my experience.
Somebody smarter than me, explain the cause of this phenomenon without belittling other generations in the process.
Thanks to everyone at Rhythm for releasing so many kids from poverty last night.
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The podcast of last night is now available at Rhythm’s site.
She Busted His What?
"Penelope busted Gresham’s ball,” said the oldest.
“What? She did what?”
“She busted his ball,” she repeated with that why-did-anyone-leave-you-in-charge tone she sometimes speaks in when mom takes off and leaves me in charge.
“Say that again.”
“She. Busted. His. Ball.” And the hand went to her hip.
And my hand went to my mouth to stifle the laughter.
And then I took a picture.
And my children still have no idea why their father was so amused by Gresham’s misfortune. But they will. Or Gresham will. When he’s about twelve.
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Speaking of busted. I had a guy come out to the house to make sure our heater was working. Seems like it runs non-stop and our gas bills last year were enormous.
An hour after he arrived I was told, “You’re not gonna like what I have to tell ya.”
Nossir, I didn’t. I didn’t like it at all. What he had to tell me was that our heater, because it had rusted through in places, was pumping carbon monoxide into our house. Well, that explains the dead plants, head aches and possibly the princess’ rampage against Gresham’s ball.
After a second opinion, I got to spend a lot of money on a new heating and cooling thingy. And it’s possible I paid too much on account of my not being all that knowledgeable about home repairs. You may have guessed that by my calling this deal I just spent thousands on a heating and cooling thingy.
A crew is coming out to the house tomorrow morning to install it. I’ll be on my way to Virginia to speak at a church service for young adults. Now that’s something I know a little bit about. I know, for instance, that the ball story is not a good one to lead with but one to keep at the ready in case the crowd turns out to be all twelve year-old boys and I’m in desperate need of “relevance.”
Catching Up And Hitting The Road
I’ve been putting my Compassion Bloggers job ahead of my soft rock star job lately. So, my site hasn’t exactly been up to date for a couple or five weeks. My apologies. I am catching up this morning before heading out of town tomorrow.
I know there are tens of you dying to know where I’ll be this weekend so, heads up, the Tour Page has been updated...sort of. I have this weekend’s shows up anyway.
Check it out and come say howdy if I’m going to be in your neck of the woods.
Thanks for your patience. (That means you, Nancy.)
It’s A Crisis. Oh, Look, An iPhone!
A saw a few minutes of news last night while dining at the mall to celebrate my niece’s half birthday. (God forbid a television not be on at all times in all places.) A smart looking guy in a suit used the words “economic crisis” more times a minute than a thirteen year-old says “like.”
You’ve been hearing about it too, I’m sure. How couldn’t you? After all, you’re a consumer and according to the smart guy in the suit your confidence is at an all-time low. To prove it he said Home Depot’s revenues dropped by a third this quarter. And then there’s the auto industry crisis, mortgage crisis, airline crisis and on and on. Everyday the economic crisis, we’re told, gives Americans one more wallop to the wallet. We, we’re told, are having some major financial problems.
But iPhones are selling like, um, iPhones. And so are Apple computers - now accounting for 25% of all money spent on computers in the U.S. And they aren’t cheap. I know. I’m using one right now.
And most of us - wouldn’t you say? - are still buying soft drinks, snack food, texting plans, cable, vitamin water, and lots of other stuff that’s hardly essential too. We’re not exactly living like people in the midst of an “economic crisis.”
And this got me thinking way too deeply to reconcile this contradiction. And I thought about this theory of change I heard once. The theory goes that people are most likely to change their behavior if the consequences of doing so (or not doing so) are believed to be eminent. I won’t stop smoking unless I’m convinced I’ll die very soon if I don’t. I’ll stay late for work if I’m certain I’ll get the promotion I’m up for if I do. Maybe, I thought, if we really believed we weren’t going to pay the bills this month, and that would mean losing our house, we’d back away from the Oreos and iPhones. So, we’re just not convinced the consequences of our spending are eminent, I thought.
And that was way too deep. Seth Godin, the marketer, has me thinking the more probable reason for our continued spending during this “economic crisis” is much simpler, but no less profound. He writes:
Marketers taught well-fed consumers to want to eat more than we needed, and consumers responded by spending more and getting fat in the process.
Marketers taught us to amplify our wants, since needs aren’t a particularly profitable niche for them. Isn’t it interesting that we don’t even have a word for these marketing-induced non-needs? No word for sold-hungry or sold-lonely…
...Think you could live without the $1800 a year you spend on cell phone service and $1200 a year you spend on cable TV? Of course you can. You did ten years ago. But now, that high-speed, always-on connection to the rest of the world is so associated with your basic need of connection that you can’t easily divorce the two.
Ouch. I like my theory better. But that doesn’t make Seth wrong. Read his whole post. It’s well worth a minute of your life. And it might help you stay away from the Oreos and get those bills paid this month.
Shane Reminded Me
I just had lunch with Shane Wilson, recording and mix engineer for Derek Webb, David Crowder Band, Wes Cunningham and even me. He mixed my latest song, Kingdom Coming, and we met up today so he could hand off the master copies and buy me a burrito. Mmm, burritos.
 I didn’t want to be a dork and take his picture so this one of Rick Rubin will have to do. It’s pretty dang close. Shane’s got a little more gray in his beard and his glasses aren’t quite so dark, but he’s got the same basic guy-who-lives-under-a-bridge-and-comes-out-only-to-make-rock-n-roll-and-eat-burritos vibe.
And what do a Rick Rubin lookalike engineer guy and a soft rock star talk about over burritos? The superiority of tape over digital? The ethics of beat doctoring and vocal tuning? The pros and cons of Van Halen’s three frontmen? The advantages of the wheat tortilla over the corn? Nope.
Kids.
We talked about our kids.
We.
Are.
So.
Un.
Cool.
Thanks for that reminder, Shane. And the burrito.
If Jesus Had A Blog
I wasn’t aware of it until yesterday but, apparently, all that ethical stuff in the bible, especially the parts about not lying about people and the need to accuse people of wrongdoing in private, well, those little rules don’t apply to bloggers. Did you know that? Me neither. But, apparently.
Yesterday, you see, I began my day by reading a blog post in which a Christian accused another Christian (not me, but someone close to me) of something terrible without any proof. And then - and this was quite amazing to read - his readers believed him. With no proof, just words.
But, here’s the thing. Wrong as I think this guy was, I’m not linking to him. I’m not telling you who he is. I’m keeping him safe from your criticism. And I sent him my phone number and asked him to use it. I truly hope he does. I’m optimistic that we can have a nice little adult chat about this whole thing. Perhaps I’ll even offer him a ticket to one of our upcoming Christmas concerts just for hearing me out. I think I’ll do that. Because I think that’s what Jesus would do. Even if He had a blog.
A Helpful Guide To Understanding My Face
There was a marketing meeting about my face years ago. From it, a guy with an actual degree in marketing emerged and informed me that I was “unapproachable looking.”
“We know you’re approachable but you don’t look like it,” he explained. The solution was to dye my hair, shave my beard, use only pictures of me smiling a toothy smile and use Photoshop to blur my cheeks in order to create the illusion that I was much heavier than I actually was (am). Because, as any marketing major will tell you, skinny people are just plain scary to the general buying population. That’s covered in the second semester.
Today, I’m not called “unapproachable.” I don’t have friends with such robust vocabularies. Nope, today I’m mistaken as “serious” and even “angry.” “Are you angry?” someone will say. “You look angry.”
“Yes, I’m angry,” I say. “Very angry at this banana. And at this napkin. Napkins and bananas really tick me off. Quite angry.” Which is my subtle way of saying “Go away now.” And that, I guess, sort of makes me “unapproachable.”
Since so many experience such difficulty deciphering what it is I’m expressing with my face, I’m posting some visual aids that will assist you - the world - in identifying my mood at any given moment.
Here is my angry face:
Here are my other faces:
I hope that helps.
Because Some Folks Just Wouldn’t Have Understood
The timing of our trip to the Dominican Republic was unfortunate. Not because it coincided with an election you maybe have heard about. That’s no big deal. No, it was too dang close to Halloween, which meant my Halloween pictures couldn’t be shared here on my blog until now.
You see, a lot of first-time Shlog readers came around while I was in the Dominican Republic. I mean a lot. Like a few thousand people who’ve never come to these parts before. And, you see, the thing is, if those folks came here last week to read about our trip to the Dominican Republic and saw that just a few days before I was trick-or-treating with a bunch of guys in drag? Well, they might not have understood. But now?
Well, now, of course, they know me first as a guy who took a trip to the third world. It’s fine if they see the guys in drag now. Totally fine. It won’t be an issue I’m sure. It’s all about first impressions being lasting ones and blah blah blah…
So, anyway, here are some guys in drag.
Mind you, this wasn’t a coordinated effort on their part. Nobody called anybody else and said, “Hey, I think I’d like to dress up like a chick for Halloween, you wanna?” No, the frightening truth is these guys made the decision to don women’s clothing completely independent of one another. Completely. Frightening.
On the right there is Mr Wizard, hands down the smartest man I’ve ever known. You ask this guy what a brain freeze is and you’ll get a physics based answer, a biology based answer, and the entymology of the words “brain” and “freeze” and you’ll laugh a lot while you’re getting all that. The man is wicked smart. Yet he works for an American car manufacturer. He makes sure they’re obeying all OSHA laws or something, I’m not sure. But I know he’s got nothing to do with their inferior craftsmanship and diving stock prices. Also, because of him I do understand what the Hadron Collider is all about and I know how to make crystal meth. I haven’t, but I now know how. And that’s something.
The guy to the left of me (I’m the one not in drag) is Redneck Neighbor. He repairs fiber optic cables. He drives a truck filled with tools. He owns lots of camouflaged and brown clothing. He served in our nation’s armed forces. He practices archery in his front yard. He is almost always carrying a sidearm. He has a vehicle named “The Beast.” And he’s quite fetching in blue.
The guy on the far left? Well, that’s my brother-in-law Brian. His hand was uncontrollably drawn to Redneck Neighbor’s, er, water balloon. It should be noted at this point that Brian’s hand was not the only one that found it’s way to the water balloons but that his was the only grab caught on camera. Also, Brian’s actions do not in any way represent those of his employer, his friends, family or his nation...for the most part. I’ll let him explain why he wore an orange wig and a Geisha outfit. If he can.
I was a Native American man. Let me say that again. I, a musician and graduate of Baylor University (that was for you, Melanie) was a man for Halloween. And most other days as well.
And that cowgirl was hands down the most attractive woman I had my picture taken with all night.
Held Down By The (Wo)Man
Ladies, help me understand something, please.
You know those magazines in the check-out line at Kroger? They almost always have a famous woman on the cover, and then some sensational headline out beside it? These magazines tell us important life-changing stuff about celebrities, like how bad they look in a swimsuit, how unhappy their marriage is, what their addictions are, how much their purse costs, who their husband is sleeping with, etc. I mean, the kind of information you just can’t live without.
And then there are the blogs dedicated to this same kind of tripe too: Tearing down successful female celebrities, and even successful female bloggers. There’s now an entire genre of printed and on-line materials, an entire industry, built around bringing down high-profile females.
And here’s the kicker. Who’s the audience for this stuff? Who’s shelling out billions annually to read bad things about women? Is it their Male Oppressors? Nope. It’s women. Women - some very much against the objectification of and discrimination against their kind - lap this stuff up. Lap. It. Up.
Help me - a man - understand this stupidity.
Those without Perez Hilton in their feed reader and People Magazine beside the toilet may cast the first stone.
What Happens Now?
Bush has seen poverty. So has Brant. Sophie, Shannon, Anne, Melanie, Mary, David, and Brian too. And they can’t stop talking about it. Because the sights and sounds and smells of it are stuck to our insides like the parasites we brought back with us. But there’s no Cipro to flush the experience of poverty out of us.
Seeing poverty up close is very uncomfortable because it does two things to me every time: It makes me feel things I and my culture try hard to avoid feeling: sadness, guilt, anger, despair, small. And it also makes me need to change. It leaves me wondering about my finances, my priorities, my church, kids, career, theology, politics, neighborhood, diet, time. I always get the nagging feeling, legitimate or not, that perhaps my life needs a little tweaking.
The way I see it we have only four choices when we eturn home to our middle-class (or better) lives with the third world still stuck in our gut.
IGNORE IT:
We can tell ourselves life hasn’t changed. We can tell ourselves we made it home unaffected. We can tell ourselves - and for some broken people this is actually true - that we feel nothing and no response is necessary. There are entire theologies that evolve from this belief that the life of others does not need to bleed over into our own - it’s individualism gone wild. But I believe Martin Luther King, Jr was right when he said injustice anywhere undermines justice everywhere. What I experienced of it “there” is forever part of me “here,” whether I can acknowledge it, feel it, think about it, and deal with it or not. Oddly, folks who choose to ignore what they’ve experienced in the third world, in my experience, think they’re being tough. Ironically, it’s their weakness, their inability to deal with what just happened to them that’s in play.
FLOAT:
You know people like this I’m sure. In a Christian subculture that demands a sermon start with a good joke, that peddles “Your Best Life Now” and shuns topics that aren’t upbeat and positive more often than not, we’re not a people practiced at going deep for very long. Make us walk through poverty for five days and we’re grabbing every joke, movie, sale, buffet we can find to get us back to the surface as quickly as possible. And we’re apologizing profusely for having ever inconvenienced others by talking about those poor kids like we did. My last day in the Dominican Republic, for example, I was tired of being submerged and serious so I posted a stupid cartoon. It wasn’t even funny but I had to try to get some air. I had to.
DWELL:
A few years ago, after traveling to El Salvador, I came home angry and sad and I stayed that way for months. I didn’t want to feel better. I wanted to punish myself for living such a sheltered life before my trip. I wanted to pay off some debt I felt I had to all those children going to bed hungry, all those people I never cared about or knew about before. I felt guilty for even the smallest amounts of pleasure. Laughing at a joke left me feeling insensitive. Making one was even worse. I felt like I was having fun at a funeral, like I had no business enjoying my life while others were losing theirs. I became repellant and when I spoke about the problems in the third world and asked other people to care too, to do something about it, I was not compelling. If caring meant becoming like me, why would anyone want to do that?
INTEGRATE:
Ignoring keeps us and those in the third world from being made better by our experience. Floating keeps our hardest experiences from growing roots and producing fruit in us for a long time to come. Dwelling makes for some great angsty music and cerebral blog posts but leaves us immobilized. Somehow we need to integrate our experiences in the developing world into our world at home.
I’m slowly getting the hang of this. Five trips to the developing world, and I no longer get angry at my children when they don’t like the gift I brought home or say they’re “starving.” And I actually bought some new shoes the day after I returned this time - with no only a little guilt. Baby steps, right?
I want to be a person who can fearlessly experience poverty and pain, who can be affected by it and still be effective in changing it, see death and live a better and wiser life because of it, see needs and still be grateful for having mine met. I don’t want deny the power of what I experience. I don’t want to stay on the surface away from the dark depths of this world. I don’t want to go all emo, get myself a black wardrobe and never smile again. I want to integrate what I’ve seen into my life forever and be better for it.
You can help me do this by simply praying for me and all the bloggers Compassion has taken to Uganda and the Dominican Republic.
Marlboro Man, A Beauty Queen And The Cuban Assassin
Brian is a gifted man. He’s an organizer, a lover of spread sheets, a great speaker, model father, worshipful listener and he can strip you of your self-esteem with one punchline. Or a hundred. Depending upon his mood.
When I’m around and he has a new audience I’m an easy target. Such was the case in the Dominican Republic. And, lucky for him, I was way too stressed and overworked to fight back. ‘Cause I can bring it if I need to. But there wasn’t enough caffeine in the Dominican Republic to get that part of my brain working right on so little sleep and such restless sleep.
But I’m rested now.
And I have pictures.
I was holding up just fine when Brian was the only one jabbing away at me. I laughed. We laughed. Fun was had by all. And then the sarcasm began to spread - a sure (and twisted) sign that folks have accepted you into their herd, I’d like to think. First, Melanie started roasting me for presumably being a wuss because I’m both a musician and a Baylor grad. Now that I have my wits about me I would like to point out to Melanie that neither is my doing entirely. By his grace God made me more talented than her and gave me a scholarship to a higher institution of learning at which “whoooooop” is not recognized as an actual English word and where musicians are those who play well and not just loudly while standing in a square. (And it was six to one girls to guys at Baylor in those days. Them’s good odds. And there’s no denying the love many of those women had for musicians now is there?)
Then it was Marlboro Man‘s turn. I was walking with my friend Keely through a rough neighborhood. I wasn’t her only protection. That needs to be made clear. I’m not delusional. A large large man without a neck named Ivan was the real muscle. I knew this. I am aware that my size alone makes no one feel secure. Yet Marlboro Man just had to point this out to the rest of the group in case there were any doubters. I believe the exact quote had him stating that it was a good thing Ivan was with us because the whole “buck o five of Shaun” sure isn’t going to keep anyone safe. To which I have a witty comeback this morning but will not type it for fear of retribution from a man who regularly “mugs” cows, eats fried calf testicles and bites horse ears for a living. This sort of man, I suspect, might not play nice if provoked and might have enough land to make me “disappear.” But, for the record, I am a buck o forty seven point five. So. There. I’m rubber, you’re glue.
So, yesterday morning, with my self-esteem as thin as my biceps, thanks to a week with many “friends,” I went to the gym with my wife. By “gym” I mean that place full of stay-at-home moms soft rockin’ to Jason Mraz and Kelly Clarkson while stair stepping and ab crunching. The woman who taught our class trains women for pageants. And she kicked my butt. And not just a little bit. In the shower this morning there were large portions of my small body I could not wash because of a lack of cooperation from major muscle groups like my entire chest, both arms, my butt and legs. But I’m gonna kick some tail in the evening gown competition now for sure.
But yesterday, as butt-kicking as it was, was just a warm-up. Tonight, I’ll face the Cuban Assassin for the first time in two weeks.
He will tie an elastic band around me and make me drag him around a room. He will have me hoist a heavy bar over my head and run around the parking lot. He will make me kick things and throw things and I will want to give up. But I won’t. Instead I will envision Brian’s, Melanie’s and Marlboro Man’s faces on that medicine ball and chuck it farther than a medicine ball has ever been chucked. They have given me the eye of the tiger. And if the eye of the tiger is not enough to get me through the day’s workout, well, I plan on bribing the Assassin with a Cuban cigar I bought while in the Dominican Republic.
Another Word
No one’s asking me. I’m just an independent contractor, a part time guy - and a very new one. But I’m not a fan of the word “project” - as in ”Compassion project.”
Words conjure up images for me and those images have everything to do with how I’ve heard words used in the past. In college I spent a week or so in Oakland, serving the people in a neighborhood that contained a government housing project. Bland run-down buildings. Government owned. I spent one afternoon just picking up trash in the project: used condoms, bullet casings, empty dime bags, all kinds of garbage. I spent another day mowing yards. I got hit in the head with a rock that day.
When I hear “project” I think of that place - not a place I’d want to live, not the kind of place I’d walk through alone.
I hung out at Compassion projects all last week in the Dominican Republic, and they’re nothing like Oakland’s. They’re more like my house was on Saturday.
On Saturday, neighborhood kids trickled over to our yard as they do almost every day, pulled toys out of our garage and started playing. They don’t ask anymore. They know we don’t mind. Their parents don’t mind either - they know by now that they’re kids are safe at our place.
Becky brought out a tray of food around noon and they all ate. The chain came off of a kid’s bike and I fixed it while he asked questions about every move I made. Kids drew at an art table in the garage. Boys rode skateboards and scooters down the driveway. Girls played hand games. A couple of them got in a fight and we intervened, made them talk it out. Redneck Neighbor caught me up on his life since I left town. Naturally, God came up in some of the day’s conversations but even when He didn’t, He was there.
If my house was a brick-and-mortar church building, that would be as close to a Compassion project as anything I’ve experience in the U.S. Compassion doesn’t build buildings. So, a project is a local church where local people play with kids, and teach them and make them feel safe and welcomed. The kids are fed and tickled and parents trust that they’re in good hands. And everyone hears about God. But even when they don’t, they know He’s there.
We need a better word for this kind of place at Compassion. Some folks have started calling projects “child development centers.” That works, but it’s so much colder than what I experienced last week. What do you call a place that meets the social, economic, physical and spiritual needs of children? More of us in America should probably call it “home.”
Dominican For Home
I’m sleeping in mine tonight, but still thinking about theirs.
Dominican For Kitchen
Sponsor a child.
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