Talent Doesn’t Make a Good Band…

Talent is probably less than half of what goes into making a band sound good.  Now, honest evaluation of where you and your band mates are on the talent spectrum is very important.  Believing you are talented when you are not is a death sentence for a band.  This most often manifests itself in vocalists.  I’ve been an accompanist in several bands whose vocalists thought they were awesome (or at least good enough) when in reality, their pitch was flatter than Kansas or sharper than a serpent’s tooth…or both, alternating.  I may not be able to sing, but I know what good vocals sound like and I know how harmony works.  Hundreds (thousands?) of people show up to stand in front of Steven Tyler and two other people I don’t care about and sing because they think they are awesome and millions (tens of millions?) of people at home pull their shoulders up to their ears while sucking air through closed teeth in full-on cringe mode.  Honestly, this shows up in guitar players and other musicians, too, it is just usually most glaring in vocalists.

I was once playing Immigrant Song with a guitarist, and he kept playing doo-doo-doo-doo-da-doo instead of adoo-doodoo-da-doo.  Listen and sing along, you’ll understand.  It was driving me crazy.  He thought he was awesome and nailing it, and my head was exploding with held-back sarcasm, “You seriously can’t tell that what you are playing is wrong?  I get that the notes are the same, but Richard Marx’s Right Here Waiting for You and Black Eyed Peas’ Where is the Love (and about 100 other songs) have the same chords, too, but they are not the same.  Chords do not a song make.”  He kept up his crazy pattern, and I left, eyes still bulging.

Really?  You think you’re awesome?  Be honest with yourself.  Look, I play bass pretty well and I play guitar passably, but I won’t be playing any Primus songs or Van Halen songs.  I’m just not that good.  Sure, I know how to keep a really, really basic beat on a drum set, but my honest evaluation?  On drums, I’m somewhere between sucks and would-rather-be-deaf-than-listen-to-Matt-drum.

So, honesty about where you are is probably the number one imporant thing.  The second most important thing in making a band sound good is playing to your strengths.  It is highly unlikely that everyone in the band is at the exact same talent level.  It is even more unlikely that your perspectives on song-writing are the same.  Someone in the band grew up focused on lyrics and melodies while another focused on the infrastructure.  Use that knowledge.  Don’t have you infrastructure guy sitting with a notepad writing lyrics and melodies (unless he recently went through a horrible break-up and you are an emo, pop, rawk, rock n’ roll, angry-girl [awesome bass line BTW]or really any other type of band, in which case, give that boy a pen and paper).  So, you just learned guitar last month?  Your strength is not going to be imitating Protest the Hero, but you could probably play some stuff by The Ramones.  Be honest about your strengths and weaknesses and leverage your strengths while avoiding your weaknesses.

Third, eliminate weaknesses.  Here is where talent comes in.  Regardless of your talent, if you are truly honest about where your strengths lie and you play to them, you can sound good.  But eventually, you need to start using your knowledge of strengths and weaknesses to improve and you do this by learning more things, getting better at the old things or finding personnel to fill the holes.  Be intentional, and remember, before any of this, you have to be honest about where you are.

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I was talking to my brother-in-law earlier this month.  He manages a small team of consultants that work embedded in a very large organization.  Because the team is small, they all have to be multi-talented, and yet, there are still sometimes holes.  To fill the weaknesses, he (and his staff) learns new things and when the budget allows, they hire new people.  I know a few IT people that use Microsoft’s SharePoint to interface with various programs, but just knowing SharePoint leaves weaknesses, so they have to hire people with SharePoint skills AND SAP skills (or something like that)…but they need candidates to be honest so they can create the right combination of skills.  Like in a band, the ensemble is what wins.

At Revolution, while we all factor pretty high on Leadership personality traits on personality tests, our individual methods and experiences are complementary.  My weaknesses in church history are supplemented by my friends and colleagues bible-college educations.  My weaknesses in empathy are softened by Josh’s strength in that area.  I am obsessed with analysis, planning and contingencies.  I am obsessed with using what is at hand to make something excellent.  I am obsessed with learning to recognize the Holy Spirit.  Those are my strengths (amongst others…including an effortless awesomeness…right?).

I’m learning history and practicing empathy (practice makes perfect…that’s probably something that should also have gone in the band section above).

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Talent doesn’t make a good band or team.  In fact some bands with super talented people are really annoying (in my opinion, of course).  That’s for another post…

Check this out, and Peace until next week.

Keyboards and Pianos are (sometimes) Super Annoying

Remember how I didn’t, but then I did, like lady singers?  Piano and keyboard is like that, too.  This may come as a shock (but it shouldn’t).  Keyboard, especially, has often offended me.  Ugly bell/piano/reverb-laced garbage has overpowered many a song (especially in churches), and it has left me with a bad taste in my mouth.  Then, there are the piano bands like Coldplay that while in reality are probably far less pretentious than the bands you’ve never heard of that I listen to, always leave me with a “Ugh, who do these dudes think they are?” taste in my mouth (seriously, that song The Scientist is so boring).  That’s not a pretty taste.  Christian band leaders (not necessarily the ones you hear on radio, but the ones you hear Sunday morning…but not my friend Kevin Brungard…he had a severe dislike of the ivories) love keyboards, and their sound engineers love them more.  My band-mates and I would not-so-affectionately refer to the mix at churches as Christ-innitus (get it?  Christ + Tinnitus…I know, I’m a genius).  The syndrome is characterized by creating a mix with very little bass, tons of acoustic guitar and bell/piano/reverb keyboard and vocals that float so far above everything else you’d need a ladder to get from the guitars to the vocals.  If there are drums, the drummer is the poor victim of constantly berating to play his/her inherently loud instrument more quietly or consider investing in v-drums (ugh…I just threw up in my mouth).

Well, it turns out that not all keyboard is bad, and piano, used properly can actually enhance a song.  It requires balance.  David Crowder Band (Christian Band) used synth with pinache and excellence on their Church Music record.  Jack’s Mannequin (not a Christian Band) utilizes piano in a way that doesn’t make me want to choke.  A myriad of “bands” have taken up the call to make keys/synths relevant in a post-80s kind of way, and some are succeeding; just ask Kenny Camacho for a copy of his 2011 Best Of Music playlist.  And success comes down to this:  balance.  

I’m not saying things between the guitars and the keys and the bass and drums need to be equal, but they need to work together.  If the keys are the star, then let them star.  If the guitars are the star, then turn the freaking keys down, dude (and please, for the love of Pete, turn down the vocals and stop harassing my drummer during sound check for your “coffee house” where you don’t even have coffee).  Pianists, please, don’t hold the sustain pedal the whole show.  In rock music, choppy piano can be cool, man, and if you’re in a band with other instruments, getting off the sustain will give them some room.  

Let’s face it, keys deserve the chance to shine a little bit.  Even the biggest nerds (especially when the keyboardist is male) in any given band should get some face time.  (I’m teasing…………sort of).

Anyway, the thing that makes keys work is balance and planning.  Balance is a result of planning.  Planning is not saying, “Hey, there’s a keyboardist: everyone needs to hear that like whoa.”  Sometimes, they don’t.  Sometimes, keys is just the support structure.

It may be hard to believe, but this blog was inspired by Kenny’s mix and my friend Jody’s sermon Sunday.  He talked about generosity, balance, life and money.  I feel like I’m always walking the tight rope of balance in my finances.  My body wants to buy this gym membership, that Kala U-Bass, the banjo I saw on Craigslist, and a minivan for my wife.  My brain fights hard against these urges.  

So hard, all the time, every day…stupid Internet and your promises of “great” payment plans. (I don’t actually take them up on their offers, but ooooooooh I want to).

Anyway, keep your life in balance.  Keep your checkbook balanced.  Make a plan for keyboards if you plan on using them.  Don’t just crank ‘em cause they’re there….

AND PLEASE TURN THE VOCALS DOWN OR BRING THE BAND UP TO MEET THEM AND ALSO BE POLITE TO DRUMMERS.

Drums Make Songs

I don’t care what you think.  Drums make songs.  Tom DeLonge popularized the drone note and heavy vocal reverb in pop-punk with Blink182′s later records and on Box Car Racer’s, and the sound is special and distinctive.  However, if you listen a little closer, the thing that sets a lot of these songs apart is the phenomenal drumming from Travis Barker.  Need evidence?  Listen to Tiny Voices (Box Car Racer) and Not Now (Blink 182).  Check out If You Want To (Travis Barker ft. Lupe Fiasco).  So much of the tension of a song is defined by the beat.  If those songs had truly straight-forward punk drum beats, the songs wouldn’t be as good.  While I haven’t listened to Blink in a long time, I do frequently listen to the Box Car Racer record on my drives, and I’m frequently impressed by Travis Barker’s playing.  Yeah, I’m impressed by some of the hardcore/metal drummers out there, particularly Matt Greiner from August Burns Red, but I need some sort of groove to really get it, and most metal drummers don’t groove.  The first drummer that really made a song for me was Chad Sexton (311), but now, when I start really digging into a song, the first thing I go to is the drums.

The trick is not making it a distraction.  This is an issue with bass players, too.  Subtle but excellent bass parts make songs, even when they are super-complex, but it’s easy for drummers and bassists to transcend from foundation to distraction.  We in the rhythm section make the song but can easily turn it into a busy mess.

While the public-facing action of an organization, like vocals or a guitar solo, often define the public image of that organization, it’s the rhythm section (planning and vision) that holds up that image.  It’s the foundation upon which it is built.  And like in music, the foundation can be lacking or it can be so overdone that it is a distraction.  It can hinder by not providing enough support or it can hinder by slowing things down or getting in the way.  Revolution is figuring this out day by day.  Our public perception (to non-churchgoers) is Sunday morning and events like Feed 500, Feed 40K, trips to Haiti, etc., but each of those things is buttressed by vision and planning.  I think we do a pretty good job, but sometimes things are overplanned and made cumbersome through meetings and meetings and meetings and meetings and sometimes things are underplanned and a little too seat-of-our-pants for comfort.  Our rhythm section sometimes mistakes itself for lead guitar.

The funny thing, is that throughout my life, I’ve been the rhythm section.  I play bass.  For a long time, I was incapable of making a song muddy with bass, but as I get older, I get better, and now, I can really jack things up.  In Ligonier, while rehearsing a worship song, Chip said, “Dude, just chill.”  I wanted to say, “Bite me, I’m good and I want people to know it.”  Except…that’s not my job (and ultimately it doesn’t tell listeners I’m good, it tells them I’m selfish).  So, I chilled out.  In my career, I’m a planner.  I always have been.  I help develop processes and systems that allow the company to execute more quickly and with higher quality and greater reproducability.  In church, at Common Ground and Revolution, I’m the rhythm section.  I relish the opportunity to plan…not necessarily crazy brainstorming (though that can be fun), but more like, “How do we do this as simply and as awesomely as possible?”  And I’m always learning how to better at playing rhythm.

Are you in the rhythm section?  Is your bass playing or drumming making things muddy and cumbersome?  Is it leaving gaps and holes?

Songs made by drums/percussion:

I Can See for Miles by The Who
Ants Marching by Dave Matthews Band
When the Levee Breaks by Led Zeppelin
But For Those Who Fear My Name by The Welcome Wagon
Hunting for Witches by Bloc Party

In the comments, add some of your own…

Songs made by bass:

My Generation by The Who
Penny Lane by The Beatles
Journey to the End of East Bay by Rancid
Super Bon Bon by Soul Coughing
What is Hip by Tower of Power

In the comments, add some of your own…

Just Shut Up…and Love

People just need to chill out and shut up.  Listen to the way we talk.  We’re so tied up in what is going on “out there” that we don’t take the time to enjoy what is already here.  I’m not just talking about keeping up with the Joneses, though, Lord knows those damned Joneses occupy a lot of brain space that could be used for enjoying the here and now.  I’m also talking about being up in peoples’ business and worrying about what they are doing and how they are acting…and not in a good way.  Sometimes it’s good to be in peoples business and do life together.  It’s good when their business is your concern only insofar as much as you care for them…for them.  Not care for them based on how their business impacts you.

Something I’m learning through long conversations on the hoods of cars after movies or awkward summer-camp gigs (long story), is that when you’re doing relationships right, it’s not about you.  When you are part of a relationship and doing it absolutely perfectly, then it’s not. about. you.  It’s about them.  So shut up about how it makes you feel and start thinking about how it makes THEM feel.

So, you’re working your butt off for them.  So, you’re not getting to do the things you want to do because they aren’t helping you.  So, What?  So that person isn’t as respectful as you want them to be.  So that person doesn’t behave the way you’d have them behave.  So what?  What are you doing for them?  How are you serving them, really?  How are you loving them?  Is your relationship just about bartering in-kind services, emotions, etc?  Are you serving them only so that your side of the “What have you done for me” scale stays more heavily weighted than theirs and you can feel better about yourself that way?  Is that even love?

You know what’s great?  If you’re fully involved in a relationship, and you’re making the relationship all about the other person and committing to dying to yourself, and the are doing the same thing, then a ha! suddenly things are pretty great for everyone.  But when they aren’t dying to themselves and making things about you, are you going to get all wound up in knots with a martyr complex or withdrawal your love in a passive-aggressive way to remind them that they should be focused on you?  Or are you just going to continue to love them?  If you’re making it all about them, truly, should it even matter what or if they reciprocate?

A lot of self-righteous readers are reading this and self-righteously listing all the times they’ve been the martyr and loved someone when they didn’t get it back in return.  Well, you self-righteous idiots (points finger at self), that is not martyrdom, that is accounting.  You’re building up a stockpile of “at least I’m better than thems” to fall back on when you feel like being an a-hole.  The martyrs are those who continue to love no. matter. what. even when they are not loved in return and they still consider the account settled.  They don’t have a stockpile of “at least I’m better thans” and truly, they don’t expect love in return.  Sure, it’s nice to get it, but that is not their job.  That is not our job.  Our job is simply to love.  It is not to love and expect love.

I’m not saying ignore problems or issues.  I’m not saying we should not resolve things, but when we address things from the stance of “woe is me”, then we are failing.  We should want people to love not because it is better for us, but because we truly, honestly believe it is better for them.  Who can say they believe that?  I do sometimes but at times, I don’t.  Yet, I fight to grasp that truth and hold it’s slippery little tail in my grip.  We need to stop gossipping.  We need to let go of our bitterness.  We need to look around us and love those we see and be glad in what we do have and thank God for the love we have received; most especially His.

Dreadlocks, Smile, Guitar…Learning From Observing

This is the second of what I hope will be a series of observations of people I see in and around my building at work.  Some will be purely observations, like yesterday.  Some will include some insight, like today.

 

I only ever see you in the early morning; generally before 7:00 AM.  Sometimes, when I pull into the parking lot off Rutland, you’re pushing a trash container between the garbage receptacles that surround the lot along the ridiculous, curving paths of sidewalk.  Why are the curving?  You could go off-road with your container and make your trip less time-consuming.  I cut across the grass every day, unless the building manager is looking.  I’m not sure why I don’t do it when he’s there.  There are no signs forbidding grass-walking.

Your tailbone-length dreadlocks, when unleashed from the floppy hats you usually wear, flop like dead, dry tentacles as if you had dozens of squids on your head.  You don’t bob your head when you sing; music blaring from the black ear buds always stuffed in your ears.  I’ve never seen you without them, and more often than not, when I’m within a few yards of your journey from trash can to trash can, I can hear the tinny, tiny sound of music just enough to know that you are killing your eardrums but not quite enough to know what you are listening to.  Occasionally, when I’m in the bathroom stall as is my habit when I first get to work, you come in to wash your hands.  Your dedication to hygiene is admirable and probably a really good idea for anyone who works in the trash industry.  When you wash your hands, you sing, and I hate to tell you this, but you are flat.  I can’t even hear the accompanying music, but, dude, you’re off.  The only reason I call it singing is because I don’t have a better word for the sound you make.  But I can tell it makes you happy.  You’re always smiling.

A couple times, as I’ve washed my hands at the far right sink while you utilize the far left one, you’ve said “Good morning, how’s it going?”  Your voice is a solid tenor and thick with the sounds of Jamaica.  The way you smile and the inflection of your voice reminds me of my honeymoon.  Specifically, you look and sound like a trench coat wearing man who approached me near the Nassau pier where fat American tourists get off the cruise ships to buy “Bahamas” t-shirts and miniature spoons.  That guy had a big smile, too, and he asked me if I wanted a Cuban cigar.  Knowing I’d likely be having sex later (hey, it WAS my honeymoon) and not wanting to smell like the bar area at Hard Times Cafe, I declined.  He said no problem, then asked if I wanted to grass.  Assuming he wasn’t talking about stuff to put over the dead spots in my lawn, I again declined.  He asked if I wanted some coke.  I didn’t see any red cans nearby, so I guessed he meant the powdered kind.  I had seen coke one time before briefly (I got out of there real fast), and I had no desire to see it again.  For the third time, I declined.  He asked me if I wanted some smack.  Not wanting the physical kind or the heroin kind, I summarily declined (I think I said something like, “Uh, no. No. Hell no.”) and turned down another street before he could ask me if I wanted to try the next thing up the ladder…which honestly, I’m not even sure that would be.

I don’t think you would offer me drugs.  You look high on life.  When you are leaving around 8:00 AM, I wonder if you are going home or going to another job.  Most days, when you head into the staircase across the hall from my office, you have an electric guitar in a gig back strapped to your back.  You have no idea how much I want to know what kind of guitar a happy guy with amazing dreadlocks plays.  I think you have a cream while Fender Stratocaster.  That’s what I’ve decided.  I’ve even had fantasy conversations in which we talk about music and set up a time to jam.  I picture myself playing thick, steady bass lines as you strum syncopated chords and some friend of yours sings, “Oh Pirates, yes they rob I…”  I don’t have the nerve to talk to you, though, and plus, you walk with giant steps, so I’d have to run to catch you, then speak loud enough to be heard over your headphones.

Sometimes, I’m ashamed about how I trudge through some days.  Like my job and my life are crap.  I’m sure my lips compressed into a thin line speak volumes about my attitude.  Part of me automatically thinks I’m better than you simply because I don’t pick up trash for a living.  But your smile shames me.  You love life.  I talk about loving life.

I’m going to smile and mean it, even when I feel like I’m picking up trash because the joy is in the approach to what you are doing, not in what you are doing.

The Sound of Super Clean Teeth

There are weird sounds in this building’s bathrooms.  The hushed trickle of urine sliding down the back of the urinal.  The cleared throats of men avoiding work in the bathroom stalls.  The periodic ‘ka-shhh’ of sickly sweet smelling air freshener being excreted at timed intervals.  I wonder who thought that over-ripe cherries would be a good smell?  Then, there is the shickita, shickita, shickita of the too-short pants but otherwise very expensively dressed man (except on Fridays when he’s clad in Wranglers, geeky tennis shoes and an outdated-looking polo shirt).  He’s brushing his teeth.

I usually hit the bathroom the first time around 7:00 AM, and it is mine alone.  It’s nice; quiet, cold and calm.  My rubber-soled shoes are silent on the tiles of the floor.  After two cups of coffee, I return to the room, whose door visible from my desk.  And the tooth brush man is there, too.  Shickita, shickita, shickita.  After lunch, I’m back to make room for one more afternoon coffee before heading home, and more often than not, shickita, shickita, shickita.  Finally, just before heading to my car, I head to the rest-room.  Yep; shickita, shickita, shickita.

There are several work-bathroom-tooth-brushers in our building.  Our bathroom even has little miniature lockers to accomodate the tools of this hobby.  It’s admirable, really, and occasionally, I feel guilty for not adding more dental care routines to my daily life.  But this particular guy, he brushes his teeth more than any person I’ve ever met.

I never see him go into the bathroom, but I see him leaving it several times a day.  I wonder if he brushes his teeth every time he goes in there.  I wonder how white his teeth are.  I never see them unobstructed by brush or frowning lips.  I wonder if he ever gets toothpaste on his black suit.  Always black suits or very dark navy suits.  Always red ties if he’s wearing one.  Pants always just slightly too short.

We’re Similar, You & Me

Last night, as my friends and I were discussing bearing one anothers’ burdens and working up the nerve to really share what our burdens are, it occurred to me that we spend a lot of time looking for how we’re different.  While, in reality, there’s a lot more to find that is the same about us.  All six of us sat scattered about the room, eyes fixed on distant walls, avoiding eye contact, thinking.  It doesn’t bother me (yet) that we don’t bare our wounds to one another with ease.  It doesn’t bother me (yet) that we haven’t stripped off our masks and asked for help with the burdens that are burying us alive sometimes.  And I say ‘yet’ because I know we are moving toward this.  We are finding out that our similarities are more important than our differences and in that truth, we are finding the comfort that will allow us to speak up, make eye contact and carry, collectively, the weights we heft.  And yet, I say ‘yet’ also because if we fail to reach that degree of vulnerability, then I will be bothered that our masked stay fastened.

Because we are more similar than different.  And we’re all fed up, f’ed up, etc.  Every single person is broken, even those that don’t know they are.  What if that thing that props them up and makes them feel complete should fail?

So, why aren’t we spending more time finding common ground?  As Americans, we’ve all grown up holding words like independent and unique on a pedestal while words with similar meanings like foreign, minority, freak, and outsider are laced with negative connotation.  How much pain and hate has been the profits of endeavoring to find and magnify our differences?  Racism, misogyny, Classism, Xenophobia?  I wonder how many of us are more content to be leery of our neighbors based on something as temporal as a political bumper sticker that to try to find similarities.

And what would happen if we started to view the people around us as more similar to us than different?  Would we have more compassion on them?  I think we probably would.  This is the concept behind loving your neighbor as yourself.  You wouldn’t subject yourself to hate or pain.  You wouldn’t want yourself to go through life feeling outcast.  You wouldn’t want yourself to be written off completely based on a single opinion.  You want to feel loved and wanted.  You want to feel a part of something.

I want to stop thinking about myself as different and start thinking about myself as the same.  I was to stop thinking about how different you are than me and start finding the ways we’re the same, and in that, I want to start being real with you.  I want you to share in my brokenness and my victories, and I want to share in yours.

Back to School.

Back to school.

Alright.  Becky and I have decided that its best to just push straight through rather than stutter through classes as I have been.  So, from now until the middle of December of 2012, I will be in classes.  I have five more classes to go to complete my MBA.  Each class is an intense 10 weeks followed by a four week break.  The first of these classes, which concerns financial decision making, starts tomorrow.

I have to ask myself if I’m ready for this.  I have a five-week-old at home (not to mention an almost-four-year-old).  I have standing commitments on Tuesdays, most Thursdays and most Sundays.  I’m not even sure its worth it, sometimes.  Will it really help me advance?  Will it better position me to provide greater peace-of-mind in the financial area for my family?  Is that even something I should think about?  Will I be able to change roles in my company or will I return to the job market eventually?  I like my company, but I don’t want to be a project coordinator for the rest of my life.

When I was in college, when I wasn’t obsessing over the next opportunity to play music or the next opportunity to hang out with Becky, I was thinking about graduate school.  I figured I’d get a PhD in some field related to geochemistry.  I’d go on to work for a corporation before retiring and working as a professor at a community college.

Now, I’m 30.  I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Geology and a weird set of professional experiences that range from small company decision making, training and client relationships to church and other non-profit event planning, future planning and volunteer leadership.  What does that prepare me for in the future?  I really have no idea.  You have any ideas?

As I prepare to start researching and writing papers, I find myself asking the same question that has nearly constantly plagued my dreams for the last couple years: Am I doing the right things?

Killing in the name of…justice? (I Oppose Capital Punishment)

Today, Facebook and other social media sites are being flooded with peoples opinions and (sickeningly) jokes about capital punishment.  Normally, I avoid joining the crowd.

This topic makes me so sick, though.  If you haven’t heard or you haven’t figured it out by the tone up to this point, I’m anti-death penalty.  Actually, I’m anti-killing, period.  It is gross to me that our supposedly civilized culture asserts itself through the threat and use of violence.  We look at ourselves as some kind of enlightened culture because we we don’t put people on pikes and we don’t annhilate other cultures in our conquests (actually, I don’t even know if I think that is true).  Guns, bombs, lethal injections.  These are not more civilized than swords, arrows and axes.  They are more efficient.  They allow us to see killing clinically.

This is sort of feeling like a rant.  I assure you that my opinion is not solely based on emotion, though I think it is folly to discount emotion as a factor in decision making.

First, let me state that murder is wrong.  My opposition to capital punishment does not equal sympathy for killers.

Second, our application of the death penalty is not just wrong but even if it were right, we’re doing it wrong.

It does not deter or control crime.  In the mid-90s, a poll of randomly selected police chiefs from this great nation showed that just 1% of respondents felt expanded use of the death penalty would be an effective way to reduce violent crime.  Reducing Drug Abuse and Improving the Economy/Creating Jobs were the top two (accounting for nearly half the respondents) choices for effective ways to reduce violent crime.  The cops don’t even see it as the right method.  How can it deter when only 1 in 33 of people convicted of criminal homicide are sentenced to death?  The odds of not getting the death penalty are pretty good.

Capital Punishment cannot be undone.  You say, “Duh,” but this is significant.  Laws change.  Technology changes.  In 1993, DNA proved Kirk Bloodsworth was not the criminal he was sentenced to death for being.  He was released and eventually awarded $300,000 for wrongful punishment.  In 1995, Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez were acquitted for an abduction, rape and murder of a girl they were sentenced to death for due to DNA evidence.  Police also mishandled their case.  Walter McMillian’s attorney, Bryan Stevenson, found prosecutors had suppressed exculpatory evidence and a prosecution witness had perjured themselves.  Charges were dismissed.  These people were almost killed…KILLED wrongly.

In 1990, Jesse Tafero was executed in Florida.  He and his wife were convicted for killing a state trooper.  In 1992, Tafero’s wife had her conviction vacated by a federal court.  Tafero and his wife were convicted on identical evidence, including a perjured testimony of an ex-convict.  He probably would have been released with his wife…but he had been dead two years at that point.  Can’t undo that.

Wanna know a sick stat (I don’t mean “sick” in the, “Dude, that skateboard ollie was sick,” way)?  Gallup found that 34% of Americans believe an innocent person has been executed and at the same time support capital punishment.  How can that be?  We’re now okay with killing innocent people?  Look around, 1 in 3 of the people around you may think so.

How valuable is life?  All my pro-life friends talk about how valuable it is…so, friends, how valuable is it?

Well, death is expensive.  Capital Punishment cases are more expensive than cases resulting in non-death sentences.  Florida estimates that every execution costs them approximately $3.2 million, which happens to be about six times what it would cost to imprison the same person for life.

Wouldn’t it be nice to put that extra $2.66 million per person onto the front lines?  How much drug education could that pay for?  How many jobs could be generated?

Cesare Beccaria in On Crimes and Punishment (1764) said, “The death penalty cannot be useful because of the example of barbarity it gives men.”  Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg said, “The deliberate institutionalized taking of human life by the state is the greatest conceivable degradation to the dignity of the human personality.”

It’s barbaric.  It’s anachronistic.  Our peers in the international community have realized this.  The members of the Council of Europe have agreed to Protocol 6 (1983) for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which abolishes the death penalty in peace times.  Furthermore, they agreed to Protocol 13 (2002), which abolishes the death penalty in all circumstances.  47 members states (including France, Germany, Spain, Russian Federation and the United Kingdom) of the Council of Europe have either abolished the death penalty or placed a moratorium on executions.  No executions have occurred in a member state’s territory since 1997.

As a Christian, I cannot see how you can support the death penalty.  Killing someone, ending their chance to know Christ…this seems unconscionable.  You know how God works?  You are absolutely positive He won’t do something to make His presence undeniable?  Are you comfortable saying, “Well, this criminal has had long enough to find God?”  Or are they not worthy of grace?  Then, I guess you have to ask yourself if you are worthy of grace.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among who we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.  But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  Ephesians 2:1-9

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/front-line-law-enforcement-views-death-penalty

http://www.gallup.com/poll/123638/In-U.S.-Two-Thirds-Continue-Support-Death-Penalty.aspx#

http://www.coe.int/lportal/web/coe-portal/what-we-do/human-rights/death-penalty

http://www.aclu.org/capital-punishment/case-against-death-penalty#1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNzIKoAy2pk (Just because of the title of this blog)

More resources were used that I didn’t capture here, but are generally captured from links in the above.  My apologies.

Absent due to realizing I’m human not hero.

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything.  It’s been a long time since I’ve felt like writing, and even as I write this, I’m not really sure I feel like writing.  There are plenty of events to write about, probably most notably one that started with a 5:00 AM departure from a powerless home to go to a hospital near Baltimore to welcome Rex Xavier Murphy to the world.

He seems to be enjoying it here mostly.  His sister seems to be enjoying having him around.  Yesterday she burped him after I gave him a bottle and it was precious.  I wish I had taken pictures, but I was too content just savoring the moment.

I’m tired, too.  Like real tired.  I never got enough sleep before Rex was born.  I wake up around 5:30, leave for work around 6:00, get home around 4:00, put Ariella to bed around 7:30 and then try to enjoy conversation with my gorgeous wife until I fall asleep, which is ALWAYS later than the 9:30 PM time that would mark a possibility of 8 hours sleep.  Now, I’m both going to bed late and being awoken intermittently throughout the night.  And sometimes, it’s tough.

I feel like with Ariella, I was iron.  I could go forever without sleep.  I stood in the gap as often as possible and let my bride rest.  This time, I find myself drowning sometimes.  I find myself unable to be the hero I was last time.  And it sucks.

I like being the hero.  I like being super involved with my children.  I’ve said before how sad I think it is that so many dads are content to watch their wives do much of the parenting of their young children.

It’s not been easy to reconcile myself to not being a hero.  A lot of time my ego is such that I see only two options: hero and failure.  The third, more realistic, more common option, “human,” is brushed off like the dirt on Jay-Z’s shoulders.

Well, I’m human, I guess.  I’m tired.  I’m sad I’m letting people down just to keep functional.  I’m stressed about school starting up again in October.
I’m worried about stuff, and the tiredness just pricks at the anxiety that runs in my blood and typically successfully address, suppress and ignore.  Sometimes, admitting I’m human reminds me that it’s still coursing through my veins, and reminds me to take up the standard again and live life the best I can and do the best I can.  Even if it’s not heroic.

And that’s why I haven’t felt like writing.