Danny ChaiI got really sick last night. I think it was the pumpkin pie, but I had the worst stomach pain I’ve ever had in my entire life. I also vomited twice and had nasty diarrhea 4 times.
So around 3 or 4 is when I vomited. I couldn’t sleep for an hour after first throwing up because my stomach hurt so bad. I didn’t get it all out, obviously. It was a nice orangish color. Anyway, an hour later I threw up again. It’s the first time I’ve thrown up since I think 1986. I’m not joking. The last time I remember throwing up was in 4th grade. But I may have forgotten.
A few hours later (around 7?) I had intense stomach pains again, and this time I had the nastiest diarrhea ever. It was absolute liquid and the color of dark mud, and it turned the water in the toilet totally dark. It was so disgusting. And I went so much I was afraid I was gonna overflow the toilet, so I had to flush several times in the middle. It was easily the most disgusting thing my body has ever produced.
Anyway, I feel pretty bad right now. And CS 140 is due in 28 hours. Ugh.
Anyway, I hate Don Moen. I used to love him, and then I realized he’s an old white guy with absolutely no soul and the amazing ability to suck all energy and, dare I say it, spirit from worship. Ok, that’s a little harsh, but he just got way worse as time went on. You may not know the history of Integrity’s Hosanna! but the praise leaders were given just a line, sometimes not mentioned at all. Once they started mentioning the praise leader, the big 2 starting out were Don Moen and Ron Kenoly. While Ron Kenoly went on to an illustrious career, Don Moen pretty much floundered, I think. The only reason why they let him keep making the occassional CD is because he’s like one of the presidents of the company or something.
Anyway, nowadays the worship leaders are always featured. Like He Will Save You, with Bob Fitts. It wasn’t always that way.
Anyway, I turned against Don Moen when I first learned of Shout To The Lord. Of course, no one sings it anymore because it was sung to death, but when it first came out, it was a pretty cool song, with a dope modulation. So I find out, wait a second… I have a CD with this song on it! It’s a Don Moen CD! Oh my goodness. I want everyone to try and find this CD as an example of what not to do in praise. That is, let old white guys with zero soul lead it. It’s the most sterilized, energy sucking, bad song ever. I still get chills.
It’s weird to talk this way about worship music huh? I’m a weirdo. I know one of my friends gets angry when I say that this particular worship song sucks, or whatever, since we’re essentially criticizing their expression of love to God. Well I’m sorry. But if they had heretical lyrics, or just bad lyrics, it would be good and right to criticize. I think it’s justified to criticize music also. Jieun once went to this Vineyard worship conference and it was interesting. They had like a songwriting seminar and the guy there basically said why most of the songs they brought sucked. It’s ok to say that. It should spur you on to do better for God, and not produce crap.
I guess the question is whether it’s OK to criticize something that someone else is doing “for God.” What do you think? If someone whose talents are obviously not in writing repeatedly tries to write great novels “for God,” shouldn’t we criticize? I don’t know, that’s my take. Maybe I’m just trying to justify my need to criticize bad praise music.
At any rate, I was reading this post in rec.music.christian – wait, side note. There was an advertisement on this newsgroup for a Christian casino. It listed a website, but I haven’t been able to connect so I don’t know if it’s bogus. But I hope it is.
Anyway, this post on r.m.c. was from this Vineyard guy reviewing the latest Vineyard CD. He said somthing interesting to me. Basically his point was no one cares about Vineyard anymore. That’s pretty much true. Think about it. What was the most recent Vineyard song you learned? How about the one before that? There are maybe a couple that are sung – Come Now Is The Time To Worship, Reign In Me, maybe You Are In Control (although I’m the only advocate of this wonderful, wonderful song). But it’s nothing like it used to be, like early-mid 90s, when every CD, everyone that was into praise got it and immediately introduced all of the songs.
Of course, one reason for this decline is that Vineyard only puts on one good song per CD now. Less if there are no Scott Underwood songs.
At any rate, Vineyard’s time has apparently passed, as happened to Hosanna before it, and Maranatha before that. All of these, in their prime, I mean, a lot of songs came out of it and were sung by a lot of people. Then people moved on to something else. They each still contributed songs to the common canon, but their heydays were finished. I guess it happened to Vineyard now, since no one cares when a new Vineyard comes out anymore.
So what’s taken it’s place? Australians and Englishmen, apparently. I don’t even know anymore. KCPC is quite frankly very out of touch with what’s going on in worship today, so it’s hard to tell. But that’s the impression I would get from that Passion “conference/concert/movement.” I don’t really have a point, I’m just rambling but I think it’s interesting.”
Even more interesting to me is that although we’re in a worship boom, meaning everyone seems to be into worship now, there’s a WoW worship, tons of new worship labels, artists and groups are coming out, we aren’t getting many more good songs that everyone sings. Isn’t that weird? But again, I’m so far removed from the worship scene that I have no idea what I’m talking about.
In case you haven’t already been able to tell, I don’t even have time to sleep, much less write to my page. But I’ll make time for these brief thoughts, all in response to David Hong.
Of course the announcers on K-LOVE are positive. Have you ever heard a non-positive DJ period? One who goes, “whoa, that song we just played sucked.” Of course not. These are people paid to say stuff like “Coming up next, more great music from Michael Bolton, Kenny G and Wilson Phillips.” They obviously don’t mean it, but it’s their job.
Next thing, it totally annoys me that Dave can’t recognize what a diminished chord is. Now, I realize not everyone can distinguish diminished chords from other funky chords. Like when I was much younger, it was a little hard to tell a diminished from an augmented. Fair enough. And even now I have trouble distinguishing pure diminished 7th chords with half diminished 7ths. It’s hard.
But Dave can’t tell a diminished chord from a simple MAJOR chord. He has referred to many chords as diminished that are nothing more than major chords. For example, saying Eugenie played diminished chords during special praise, and talking about the diminished chord in Sonic Flood’s “In The Secret.” Both of these examples were the same thing, a major 3rd (probably a B in both songs), not a diminished. It’s just a simple major chord! Are you that tone deaf? Anyway, it annoys me when people demonstrate their ignorance when criticizing something.
Another reason to question David’s tonal capability is the fact that I personally like both Thankful and Run To You. Get over Derek’s voice all right? It’s a good song, great lyrics, good music. Lots of energy. As for Twila Paris, I like it. Not everyone can be into Twila Paris, I know, but I am, because she’s good at what she’s supposed to do. As for this song, Charlie Peacock produced it and there are (for the careful listener, not the chimpish pretender) cool little touches that I like, just ever so slightly spicing up Twila Paris.
Also, I absolutely hate Point of Grace. They have produced exactly one good song ever – Circle of Friends, and it was good because it was toned down and simplified. Almost everything they do is high on the histrionics. Instrumentation, vocals, even the lyrics. Ack they are so cheesy it drives me absolutely crazy. My hope is that they make enough money to live the rest of their lives and then leave forever.
Did anyone ever see when John Tesh went on Jay Leno? It was great. John Tesh is a good sport, and he assembled a montage of all the clips where Jay Leno made fun of John Tesh and/or his music. It was long. It was hilarious. And Jay was just totally uncomfortable, but John was totally comfortable. Just a random thought.
Final thing – Gary Chapman’s thoughts on Amy and Vince Gill appeared in numerous newspapers and shows recently, including the SJ Mercury, where I read it. Basically he said it was false that him and Amy were always in trouble. Secondly, her and Vince were inappropriate from the beginning. He puts it like, anyone with two brain cells could figure that out. Slammed her pretty hard. Interesting. And terribly sad.