Iced Tea Forever

Didn’t I just recently write about this?!

It turns out that Chester’s implications were right! Clark Howard says so anyway, though he doesn’t like it.

Recently I had the occasion to attend a church business meeting. My, how I do not enjoy them. And this one lasted longer than most. I was starting to lose control. I began slouching, then hunching over, twisting this way and that, sitting up, yawning, and wished I had brought my book.

I had brought a pen for ballot-casting purposes, and it turned out to be a lifesaver. I had a sheaf of handouts, so I culled a piece of paper from the stack and attacked it with my pen.

And now you get to enjoy another one of my rare artistic masterpieces.

I’m not sure how to begin analyzing this work of art. I’m fairly confident, however, that the violence of the piece is the fruit of my frustration that night.

You’ll notice that one of the men fleeing from the impending carnage is labeled with the name “Justin.” One of the youth guys showed up that night with a shaved head, so I thought adding a bald dude was a nice touch. This shows how your current environment and surroundings influences your art.

Speaking of bald dudes, here’s a shot of him and his dubious companions after their hair-razing experience. My goodness, I do have a knack for photo-realism in my sketchings.

Notice the exquisitely complex shadings which enhance the perspectives and lend a certain elegance and mystique to the portrait. Shading techniques such as these contribute a varying scale of dimensions, bringing the subject to life in such a degree as to make it jump right off the canvas!

If you closely inspect the residential structure depicted in the illustration, you may notice that the contractor evidently threw away his level and plumbline when he built it. What does this say to you? To me, it speaks of hidden good in tragedy. There usually is some small measure of good to be found in unfortunate circumstance. For instance, judging by the leaning of the structure this may by now have been a rundown shack, a ramshackle cabin needing to be dozed anyway. Perhaps now the owner could collect insurance for its destruction.

Or the crookedness could just be an aspect that lent character and personality to the home. A sentimental idiosyncrasy that warmed the hearts of the residents. In that case, I don’t know what good could come from such misfortune.

The obvious Biblical theme in this masterpiece takes one by surprise, as it’s one that seems to be generally overlooked by today’s artists. There were giants in the land. There is a huge vacuum in this theme, just waiting to be filled.

All the sophisticated artistic techniques I used on this piece really have but one goal; to convey emotion. And I must admit with all humility that I knocked this one out of the park. There’s an underlying homespun warmness enveloping the aura of this drawing, despite the terror and panic that seem to predominate. The stately tree speaks of solidarity and steadfastness, the subjects in desperate motion speak of physical fitness, the giant speaks of domination and domineering overpowerment, the skewed structure speaks of laziness and shoddy workmanship and the worthwhileness of being diligent in quality craftsmanship, and so on. The list is endless.

But you can’t be over-analytical and reduce the interpretation of art to a science. It’s a matter of the heart — what does this work say to you? How does it move your inner being? There’s no denying the evocative emotion that it captures, so how does it move your spirit?

There’s an answer for everyone.

Well I tell you what, today is my birthday and I’ve never looked, felt, or been this old before. My own mortality is staring me in the face. It certainly makes you look back and reconsider your life. Why did I work so hard? Why didn’t I take another helping of meat? Life is too short to sacrifice your happiness on things that profiteth little!!

According to my younger sister, I am very old. When the thought struck me a few days ago, I called her up and happily told her she was almost 30. She said, “At least I’ll be 30 and SKINNY!” Somehow I think there was a hidden meaning there, but I haven’t figured it out yet.

After all, I’m not fat. Here, just look at this picture of me:

And those pants used to fit!

Back to the accusation of being old, at church last Sunday an elderly lady asked me how old I was going to be. I told her 32. She has a birthday too this week, and she said, “Well, I’m going to be 84!”

So see, maybe I do have a few good days left.

Actually, I didn’t work that hard and I did take that second helping of meat.

Ok ok, that third helping.

(Not necessarily in any order)

Church Business Meeting
ITF – The Neck
ITF – The Head
A Cappella – Setting a Few Things Straight
Quote of the Day
The Apogee Band
The Albino Batmobile
A New Release from AHQ

Roger Payne died last Tuesday. He was a barbershop arranger, competition judge, and tenor in the quartet Reveille.

Reveille was a comedy quartet, and they had some pretty wild schticks (check out the picture from their pirate set via the previous link). This summer on the webcast we saw them do a psycho dentist act where they forced their baritone back in a chair and the lead went to work on him with a cordless drill and I don’t remember what all, it was pretty crazy. My 5 year old nephew Cody wanted to watch it again and again.

AHQ’s connection with Roger is that he arranged Go Tell it on the Mountain (mp3 on that page). I had been looking for a barbershop chart for us to do, and I found it off of his arrangement list. I’m a little fuzzy on the details anymore, but I think I sent off for a preview and we really liked it and ended up buying it.

Great chart, a kick in the pants to sing. We got a lot of mileage out of it too.

We didn’t like the intro though, so I wrote my own. I sent Roger an email about it to ask him what he thought, if he was ok with that. He graciously responded that he fully supported a group’s creativity and right to make a chart their own. He was a good guy.