March 2005


Misc31 Mar 2005 07:29 pm

Got me some culture! I went to class with Jewel tonight, for the first hour anyway. Her Appreciation of Fine Arts teacher is a young Romanian opera singer, and tonight he gave a little recital. She had asked if I could come. He’s a pretty good tenor.

He talked about head voice and falsetto a little bit, I would have like to discuss it with him as I have also done some study in the area. It reminded me of when I used to take voice lessons from an opera singer. Made me want to do it again.

The class talked too much.

There was a professional-looking middle aged black man sitting in front of me. At the beginning of class he took a bottle of Pibb Xtra and dumped a pack of peanuts in it. Man it looked disgusting.

Some other people saw it and asked what in the world he was doing. He said it was a Mississippi tradition. You could eat and drink at once. The field hands didn’t used to have much time to eat.

Gag.

Music31 Mar 2005 02:54 pm

I love barbershop quartet music. Right now I’m listening to the Barbershop Harmony Society’s Live365 (click link to go listen) internet radio station. There were just playing Power Play singing “Love at Home.” Yes, the very same “Love at Home” in your ancient church hymnal. Done very nicely too, a tasteful barbershop arrangement that you’d most likely appreciate even if you didn’t like barbershop.

Power Play is a unique quartet. They’re a dad, two sons, and a nephew. They competed in the barbershop contest system for years and years, qualifying for internationals many times. They finally won the whole thing and took home the gold in ’03. Good quartet.

Anyway, speaking of this barbershop Live365 station, it’s a great one. A good mix of older stuff and newer stuff, mostly quartets but they play a few choruses too. A lot of old Bluegrass Student Union music too! Very cool. And if someone wants to buy me BSU’s “Legacy,” I surely would appreciate it.

And now we have Michigan Jake, ’01 champions, with their “Bill Bailey” montage! Doing it as ’60’s style to ’80’s rap, then back to Bach. Great song! It’s off their latest CD, “How Rhythm Was Born,” which I’d also love to have. Maybe I need to start a wish list on ITF.

I think I might start doing some barbershop themed posts. I’ve got a story or two I could tell. I wonder if I’m allowed to tell them though!

Speaking of which, here is the last barbershop quartet I was in, Razorburn.

Razorburn forever.

ITF Business&Personal29 Mar 2005 11:11 pm

Well. I recently submitted myself to the harsh, thorough, and unflinching scrutiny of an independent and unbiased interview board. All for the purpose of providing some background on myself to the followers of this site.

So who is behind ITF anyway?

My name is Tom. My staff, interns, and I are completely responsible for the content and day to day operations of ITF. We are solely supported (at this point) by generous donations from our constituents. We are looking in to getting some corporate sponsors, but that hasn’t happened yet.

What’s with the Iced Tea obsession?

I like to drink iced tea. I like it a lot. I drink tons of it. Occasionally a whole gallon in less than 24 hours. And that’s not sharing any with the ITF staff. I didn’t grow up in a location known for it’s tea-drinking (Oregon), so I’m especially blessed to have been given the gift of love for iced tea. My Dad is from Nebraska, and that’s a definite tea-drinking area. He taught my Mom to like it, so we often drank it as a family when I was but a child.

Do you have a special way you prepare iced tea, perhaps a method officially endorsed by Iced Tea Forever?

Yes, I do, right here in this previous post.

So why the blog? Didn’t you used to say that your calling was to comment on blogs, not blog yourself?

Yes. But my calling changed. I still comment a lot, but maybe not as much as I used to. I feel a new calling, a calling to offer an antidote to all the deep blogs out there. A calling to offer an alternative! So many blogs are burdened down with such deep philosophies and copious intellectuallness, staggering along beneath their own weight of pompous pontifications. I was called to offer lightweight insight especially geared towards the common man!

I bring fresh and useful brilliancy in the form of everything from recipes to music reviews to entertainment to pictures of all kinds to product reviews to random thoughts to poetical masterpieces to miscellaneous audio files to relevant commentary on the things you care about!

Why do you like to bash Indiana? Do you have genuine feelings of hostility towards the fine state (with the asinine nickname) of your residence?

No, of course not. I actually view Indiana with a benevolent fondness. It’s just fun to ridicule a little bit, there’s so much fodder! The weather, the nickname, the backwardsness, the winters, the awful drivers, Notre Dame, the potholes, the summers, non-open-faced sloppy joes, the flat landscape, the mud, the animosity towards Daylight Savings Time.

But I like Indiana, really I do.

What is the Indiana State Motto?

Welcome to Amish Country — Don’t Step in Our Exhaust!

What brought you to leave Utopia (Oregon) and brave the idiosyncrasies of Indiana?

Aha. What do you think? Most people get it in the first guess.

When are you getting married?

June 25! You’re all invited.

Where do you work?

Like you really care. Here. Otherwise referred to as the Den of Iniquity.

Do you have any health problems?

Like you REALLY care! Yes. I have a sleeping disorder and an eating disorder.

Once I begin either activity I am unable to stop.

What’s with all these so-called “Poetic Masterpieces?”

I am one of the rare males who has dug down deep and carefully connected with his emotional being. Hence, I have the ability to write emotionally moving deep poetry. Not wanting to stifle this gift, I publish the occasional poetic masterpiece on ITF for the edification and enlightenment of the readership.

Where is your tongue when you are feverishly composing a typical brilliant post?

Such as this one? Usually jammed firmly in my cheek.

Misc28 Mar 2005 04:00 pm

Here’s a great pic my friend Stanny sent me in February. He took it back in my homeland.

Music27 Mar 2005 05:39 pm

Weekends are usually a pretty sorry time to listen to the radio. All the good talk shows are off, the southern gospel shows are over, the only thing on is goofy weekend stuff. So coming home this afternoon I was listening to WFRN (CCM radio) and lo and behold, we dipped way back in the archives for 2nd Chapter of Acts singing Keith Green’s “Easter Song!” Wow. Now why can’t they play stuff like that more often?

Then a few commercials and here we have David Phelps’ “End of the Beginning!” Yeah! Now why can’t they play that kind of stuff more often? Your run-of-the-mill CCM music of today is so boring it’s pathetic. You listen and think, ok, what about this song/music is interesting, unique, or attention-grabbing? 98% of the time the answer is “nothing.” Yawn.

Speaking of David Phelps, he’s about the cream of the crop in today’s CCM. Great songs, powerhouse voice, good stuff. Best tenor the Gaither Vocal Band ever had too. I’m a big fan, even though he is a tenor! Jewel likes him too.

[edit]

Thanks to EG for the tip, go here and you can hear 2nd Chapter singing the Easter Song.

[/edit]

Music26 Mar 2005 12:52 pm

I’m a rabid a cappella quartet freak. I like all kinds. I just came across a file I saved a while ago but forgot about, here is a great resource for some free Wayne Hooper arrangements. They’re mostly hymn-type songs, some real Wayne classics in there.

http://www.vop.com/wayne/

You quartets download those pdf’s and have at it. Oh that there were much more of this stuff on the internet.

Wayne Hooper of course is long-time genius arranger for the King’s Heralds. AHQ has recorded at least 5 of his songs over the years.

Misc25 Mar 2005 11:03 pm

I did something last night on the way home that I haven’t done in years.

Hit a possum! Yeah!

THUMPTHWACK!!!

Reminded me of the good old days in my frivolous youth when I primarily viewed my car as a weapon in the grand quest of varmit slaughter.

There’s a lot more varmit-squashing opportunity in Utopia than here. I think this is the first time I’ve even really had the opportunity to hit something since I moved here.

And with my Camaro you didn’t have to worry too much about hitting the varmit with a tire, the car was so low that hitting it anywhere would take care of business.

Family24 Mar 2005 08:26 pm

A little while after I moved from Utopia to IN, I received an email from a small cousin. Kaelin would have been about 4 years old at the time, so her Mom translated.

Tom
ragotGft tcvgvcy ft gtfvtv YTVGTVVVVUCCFC UYCFTVTC TCYCCRTRDR GXGXDCXCGXCGZ \\G YBELUIOXZQ

X,GFFFJXFTXFTX RTFTXRTXTXLLLLL LMNPOINHHB HJBBV LHHHHXZ

Tom,
You should come back and marry her sometime. (I think the “her” in the preceeding sentence refers to Jewel.)

We miss you around here. Can you please come back? Because I can’t remember what you look like. This is from Kaelin. I never saw Jewel before. That’s all.

Then a few months later I received another one!

Tommy,
There are three reasons why you should come out to Oregon. One reason is because I want to hear you sing out here. The next reason is because I want to hear you sing at church. The next reason is so that you can preach at church and things like that.

ggibohkffju8b u8gh8 bn87jg bcgvgc dcas xcda szaecstaxs dfzazas xadzxad afaxzddadh bfhjvc hjgvgknjhfdhcfrcr drytcrhtcyrctcftygrtuyr gytruf y grfuyufgyrfg urfugfruftr yutryurf yturtgfyt jrv ght vgvhrrg hjbv gbsees:) JGGUBV PENCIL-WENCIL EFK BGF KB BFHJKCDHJGFCGF

Kaelin

Trust me, the requests for my preaching are few and far between!

Misc24 Mar 2005 02:45 pm

I need to post something new so I can get all that bitterness and vitriol in the last post moving down the page. This should be a happy place, a fun place to visit! Not a place that makes you mad and depressed because I can’t stand classic rock.

It should be a place of sunshine and pleasant expressions, a place that makes you feel like you’re sitting on the porch with a glass of iced tea enjoying the spring breeze. A place where you know the women are pleased, the men are sensitive, and all the children are well-behaved.

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