I think I need a pre-cornerstone post. This is because I always have a very long post-cornerstone post and I'd like to give it some build-up this time.

My bipolar has been generally better, although I'm still snappish and bitchy. However, at the moment I'm acting as if I were not on any medication. I'm very much in a manic state, which I think is needed to prepare for C-Stone. I just hope a depressive state doesn't hit while I'm there. If one does, Heather won't arrive until Friday to help me through it. I get there Tuesday.

I'll be meeting-up with my friend from JBU, Ben Immink. A few other JBU grads may show-up, too, but they will be his friends, not really mine.

Since I have an Earliest Access ticket, and since I plan to arrive and get in line REALLY early (especially if I'm manic), I think, I hope, I'll get in soon enough to grab a sweet spot with shade and good access to the Johnnies and other campsite perks. I also hope that the C-Stone HyVee store is open so I can replenish the ice in the cooler.


Shows I WILL NOT miss unless there is a tornado AND an earthquake:

The Myriad - Their new album is amazing. Their show last year was solid, and I think they could have only gotten better.

Emery - They were, hands down, the best show I saw last year, plus their album topped my best of 2004 list (see mid-march post). I may throw my voice out at this one.

Slow Coming Day - I am desperate for them to come out with a new album. They MUST have new material and I NEED to hear it.

MeWithoutYou - They are not always good on a big stage, but this year I plan to get real close or die trying. Plus, now I'll know all of the new songs. Last time I saw them, I did not.

Project 86 - no explanation necessary.

Mute Math - I've heard their live show kicks the album's ass. If that's truly the case, I may orgasm.

Brandtson - They are always outstanding and their last album was their best. This year they have an hour+ long set. After 7 CD's it's about damn time!

The Evan Anthem - Their first album broke my heart (in a good, emorock way) two years after it came out. A new CD is due in July. There's really no question of orgasming at this one - I'll have extra shorts along.

Still Remains - They were great last year with mediocre material. The new album has rocked my world for almost two months. There will be gallons of sweat.

Symphony in Peril - The new album could have been better (seemed like either they rushed some of the writing, or one of their songwriters sucks), but it's still pretty good. And, suddenly, they now have the vocalist from Narcissus, which changes everything!

The Showdown - Think Tourniquet meets Living Sacrifice, and be in awe. Bruce Fitzhugh of LS even produced their CD.


Shows I will probably miss due to conflicts and really wish I could see:

Disciple - No, really. Sure, they always put on a great show, but they've finally put out an album with good, fresh, progressive material. It's like they woke up and said, "Hey, this time lets not write the same old crap that we've been rehashing for years."

As I Lay Dying or Ballydowse(reunion show) - A hideous conflict. I still haven't made a descision on this one yet. Either way, I'll feel guilty about missing the one I didn't choose.

The Violet Burning - If I were 35, I would SO be there.

Anam Cara - Their stuff sounds VERY good, but I haven't heard enough, and I don't know the quality of their live show.

Life in Your Way or Nodes of Ranvier - It will all depend on how I feel at the moment, but again, I'll probably feel bad about the one I missed (and it'll probably be Life in Your Way).

Andy Hunter midnight rave at the Main Stage - I can't believe I'm going to miss this. The C-Stone schedualers are EVIL!

Starflyer 59 - Some day. Some day.

Bill Mallonee or Anberlin - It depends on how Heather feels. We got to see half of Bill Mallonee's set last year. He played some old stuff, including Welcome to Struggleville and even Love Cocoon! If we do Anberlin, I'll just have to hold on to that memory for this year.

Extol - The new stuff sounds more up my alley, not as left-brain-technic-thrash, but Headnoise is a much better show.

Over the Rhine - Again, if I were 35 I would SO be there.


Bands I don't know well and look forward to seeing/hearing for the first time:

Children 18:3

Twelve Gauge Valentine

The Lester Finn Experiment

Flyleaf

The Mint (may not make it if I get sucked into Dead Poetic)

Foreknown

Mortal Treason

Adelaide


Seminars that look good this year (tip of the iceberg really, some are 1 session, some are 6):

Beyond Absolutism, Pluralism, and Relativism - Brian McLaren

Fall in Love and Never Get Up - Tina Herrin

How To Author - Get Published Now - Dave Davidson

Craft and the Writing Process: A Writer's Alchemy - Jill Alexander Essbaum

Writing Through No - Sharon Hersh

Moo Hoo Ha Ha: The Evil Genius of Consumer Culture - Lint Hatcher

The Women's Voice in Song of Solomon - Chelsea Dearamond

A Male Feminist: Self-Hatred or Biblical Ideal? - Jason Van Schooneveld

Why I'm Egalitarian - Tim Vanderpool (as a Complimentarian, I hope to find this challenging)

Rethinking this Thing Called Church: The Emerging Church in the Postmodern World - Brad Culver

Dealing with the Spiritual Darkness in the Subcultures - Trevor Macpherson

. . .

Yeah. That's enough for now. Tomorrow, I have to clean out my parents' garage and see what they've got. Then I'll probably need to go shopping.

I've realized that the HTML on the majority of blogs that have lasted as long as mine, are much better than mine. I guess I'm just lazy.

The next batch of poetry submissions goes out tomorrow; I'm gonna break 60 total.

Cornerstone is coming soon. It is one the most important events of my year, and I can't quite tell you why. But, I know that I felt out-of-place for most of my life, and then I went to Cornerstone, and, despite the heat and the aches and the lack of home comforts, I felt as though I had found a place where I belonged. People like me, from all over the country, people I had previously only hoped existed, were converging in one place! And yet there were more, with their own tastes and reasons for being here, different from mine, and we were all accepted and part of a community! Naturally, C-Stone always has it's share of schmucks and anti-social problem-causer types. But, every year, they are overshadowed by the attiude of love in the majority.

I don't know what those of us who like to dance-mosh are going to do about the fist and foot-throwing "look at me" moshers. It's a stupid, selfish trend. Instead of getting close-to and bouncing-off each other and pulling people in, they're clearing space with their fists and grabbing attention and pushing people away. From genre to genre, music is fluid and ever-changing, and so, I suppose, is audience behavior. I just hope it is moving in a better direction.

I'll never forget the Living Sacrifice midnight show in 2002 where the dance-moshers gravitated to each other, and we formed our own little pit on the side, drawing people into simple movement - feeling the music. It began with me, Heather, and another girl, with just enough space for ourselves. Soon, people to our sides began to move with that rhythmic heaviness that Sacrifice could create so well; so driving and irresistable, seeping into you and not letting go until the final song was over. And eventually, a few songs before the last encore, I turned around to see, unexpectedly and to my profound joy, well over a dozen people in beautiful dance-mosh form stretching-out behind us in an amoeba-like "pit". Goth girls, overweight metalheads, plain-dressed skinny guys. By the time LS played "Reject" (their usual show-closer), we all had increased in frenzy (passion, fervor, movement?), and the guy in front of Heather and I, who had been gradually moving more and more through-out the whole show, came whirling into the rest of us, his digital camera tied to, and gripped in, his hand, and taking random people shots (he had gotten plenty of the band) as he went! Never had I started something so beautiful. And until Heather and I have children, I'm not sure we ever(wrong word? -needed a modfier) will again.

But, maybe thats one of my probems: I hold too much of the present against the standards of the past.

. . .

Apparently, studies have shown that smells (the olfactory sense in general) trigger memories and rememberances (more vague than memories) than any other sense. And there are more smells remind me of Cornerstone Festival than any other time or place. It is so ingrained in my mind, and yet each year is a set of new experiences. This year I need to put more of my own effort into getting as much as I can out of the fest. That means more shows, more diverse shows, more seminars, more diverse seminars, more writing, more doing with less spending, . . . and more preparation!

Preparation. I have been walking 2 - 3 miles per day for several weeks, because I'm gonna be walking 6 - 8 miles per day, plus dancing at some shows, at C-Stone. My legs and back have to be stronger, and, thanks to unemployment, I have been putting-in the time to get there.

Overall, I'm gonna have it easy compared to some. Some people spend all they have just to get there and get-in, and they have to survive on bare-bones food and water and stay in their great-uncle's leaky 1950's tent. I have an Earliest Access ticket, plus a budget for spending. I can raid my parent's cabinets, my parent's garage, and Heather and I have a plethora of accumulated camping gear from past cornerstones. Despite our low cash-flow and schedualing difficulties(Cornerstone is the last week of Heather's evil summer course in Latin), we are in pretty good shape.

Time for bed. I have lists to make and walking to do tomorrow.


"Our dreams are often lost, but heaven is not far off." - The Myriad

Blog more, huh? Well, I'm rather adverse to typing more than I must on this dinky insensitive-keyboarded laptop right now. And why am I still using this thing? Because, our desktop has a bad motherboard. My many gigs of music, my non-burned MST3K's, my un-backed-up poems, my CD creation and burning capabilities, my GAMES!: all inaccessable! We've supposedly got someone on the job, but it matters not when I've had to edit/retype poems and type cover letters for over 45 poetry submissions on this stupid tiny keyboard (and yes, I'm cutting and pasting).

Yeah, over 45 submissions to a wide variety of publications (34 of them by snail mail). That's with only 15 poems at an average of 5 poems per submission. And I'm not just throwing stuff out there; I'm trying to customize my submissons to the publication's tastes (my wife can tell you that the Poet's Market [not that its very accurate - always follow up everything online!] has been at my side for weeks). I think the odds are actually in my favor that SOMEONE, with a higher print run than 50, will publish me!

Maybe I'm trying to compensate for something. Or maybe I'm just looking for something to do. Maybe I overanalyze.

Heather and I are coming under serious financial stress. It kind-of snuck-up on us. And, I'm well aware that I am the reason why. She had to talk me out of selling our Cornerstone tickets. It would be the first one I miss in six years. But today, unexpectedly, she got $500 because she wrote the cover story for the most recent John Brown Bulletin. That helped. And, I'm finally getting off my ass and selling our duplicate CD's on ebay. Thats my C-Stone survival money.

Why do you people care about this? Ah, or are you hoping I'll ramble-on about pain and philosophy, my words dripping with pathos and sporatic cussing? Well, if thats the case, tough shit, I hate my life; all is vanity! . . .wait . . . no. My medication is working well enough to keep me more balanced than I have been the past several months. Though it is helping to suppress the mania and channel the A.D.D. into projects, it is not doing much for the depression, but that was always my most dominant trait anyway.



Fine, have it your way.

I'm staring at a huge velvety wall-hanging of dogs playing pool. I've had this thing a VERY long time. I've gone through innumerable changes since I bought this thing at the Cheshire County Fair while in high school, yet I'm still me. "The desire to stay the same is what limits you" - Ghost in the Shell. But, if that is true, then where does identity fit in? Is identity so fluid? Or is identity something that always stays the same (as long as your brain goes undamaged), and that which must change as we grow, is something else entirely? So, how do I know who I am? How do I develop or discover my identity?

After C-Stone I will be looking for a part-time job like a madman. All I'm likely to find is crap, no doubt. But, there is no choice. I have a wife and a house and a dog and a so-called life to keep.

Am I hanging on to things I shouldn't be? One day, will I, like John Cusack's character in Bullets Over Broadway, have to realize and confess that I am NOT an artist (or a poet, or a writer, or whatever)? And if so, will it make me feel more free than ever before, as it did him, or will it devestate me?

I am full of dreams. I don't believe anymore that they could come true, and yet they won't go away. Tenacious little bastards. So I pronounce them pipe dreams; detrimental to my growth and living! Getting angry when I ruminate on them. And they sneak back.

I cannot live in dreams! Especially, when they are so foolish; so unrealistic given my abilities, and the serious lack-thereof. I am NOT "touched by fire," despite what the book of that name says about people with bipolar.

"The distance grows wide between the glory and the dream" - Vigilantes of Love

Did Christ struggle with identity? He didn't begin his ministry until 30. But why should he? Maybe he just knew that he wasn't ready.

Enough. I love you, but if you want more, o anonymous pusher, go through the archives. There's good stuff in there, I think.

I'm gonna go watch the rain.