MAKE BEN FAIR

Well good ole Mom and Dad are in town to visit. Hey arrived in Waco on thursday afternoon. We went to eat at the new ELITE cafe for dinner. That place is good. anyway, we are going to head to austin on Friday for the day. I have heard a rumor that we will be celebrating my birthday a week early and we are meeting Jamie's folks for dinner. Looking forward to this whole experience because i think i will be receiving my birthday presents a week early! Yea!

I have several things to blog about because i didn't blog on wednesday. Wednesday was a pretty typical day, Kyle and I are putting out fires right and left at UBC. Seems as though people have forgotten that when you go to church somewhere you are suppose to tithe to that church. So basically UBC is broke again. We had an emergency finance team meeting thursday with Tom to discuss how to solve this problem. I want to state on record, " i hate money, i know now why it is the root of all evil" Seems that it can be such a hinderence yet so important to move forward. It is like driving a car with the emergency brake on? or is it? I have know idea what that last statement was about. Wednesday night i played bass at some really lame Youth rally in Waco. I am all for the typical youth rally, but this was for CARENET. They were like, "welcome, we are carenet, if you know anyone that is pregenant, or if you get pregenant, we are here for you" "let's worship together"
I am thinking, why don't you just go ahead and pass out the condoms to these kids, for the love. The good news was, there is no way the kids heard a single word, because they were talking the entire time. I forgot what working with teenagers is like.

Thursday was a good day, like i said my folks are here. We had a leadership team meeting at UBC tonight, it went great. We are going to have MASS again next thursday. I really enjoy Mass at UBC. I have been on the computer at home now for like 2 hours listening to new music. I want to share the MUSIC OF THE DAY: the band is called SOUTH and they are so good. You can listen to all their new songs on their website. It is www.south.uk.net and it is good. I thought i had something else to write about, but i can't remember, so if i think of it well then you will know. For all those who actually take time to read this thing, well you rock! It is really fun to write. have a great weekend. cheers

I would love to say that at 1 in the morning i was in bed like most normal people;however, i am sitting in front of the computer wondering why the bottle of TUMS that i just know i have somewhere in this house is missing. Heartburn is an odd thing. There is no consistancy with it, i never know when i will get it, I haven't had it in awhile, but when it hits, whew! So, i hope that you guys sleep well, i am just going to sit and wait, hoping that may heartburn will go way.

ACL fest was amazing, Saturday was a slow day, not many artist that I cared to see, Harris and I spent the day with Jaime and the girls shopping and such in Austin and then went out to see Bright Eyes and Nickelcreek. After that we went to eat at Papposito's(so good)! Then we headed back to waco. Went to UBC Sunday morning, then headed back for the best day of music the festival has ever offered. We arrived around 3 and heard the second half of GLove and special sauce. I have always been a big fan, he was so good. Then we headed over to see Ben Kweller. I hadn't ever seen Ben Kweller but was blown away, the guy was great, sounded just like the cd. We left there a little early so we could go over and get a close spot for Jack Johnson. I tell you, Jack Johnson has got the chill out music down. He sang so effortlessly yet it seemed so passionate. Unbelievable performance. After jack, we grabbed some food and harry and I went to get a spot for the REM show. At this point it was 6pm. REM didn't start until 8:30pm. But we were wanting to get as close as we could even though there was 80,000plus at the fest.

So we got about to the 10th row way right before this band named "ween" took the stage. Neither one of us had ever heard "ween" but we had heard people talking about them. SO we thought, this can't be that bad. I have never been so wrong in my life. It was the worst music I have ever heard, ever, by far, hands down, nothing ever will be as horrible as this band. They played one note and I knew they were going to suck. Then we realized that we were stuck there for an HOUR!! that's right, if we moved there was no getting back that close, too many people. Ween was like a beavis and butthead band gone bad. They are everything that someone could make fun of rock and roll about, rolled into one band. IF you are familiar with Homestar Runner, it was as if TROGDOR had actually come and performed his theme song.

So it finally ended and we made a dash thru the crowd, pushed some folks around and worked our way to the fourth row just to the right of the lead singer. We couldn't believe how close we were. We waited another hour for REM to start. Then they brought out Lance Armstrong to introduce REM. He did, everyone cheered, and then here comes one of the greatest bands of all time, and man did they rock. Very few performers can completely own a stage the way Michael Stipe does. He worked the crowd, he danced like a nut, he was a rock star and it was awesome. They played some classics and some new stuff. Then they did an encore and it ended with Everybody Hurts, then Nightswimming, and End of the world. UN-Freakin- believable and we were fourth Row. I have some great pictures of the show. Hopefully I can get them posted soon so you can see them. All in all ACL rocked. I will say that next year they should change the name to WEED-FEST. I seriously felt in the minority because I was NOT smoking weed. I knew that Austin was liberal, but that was ridiculous. Can't wait for next year!!

What an unbelievable weekend. Harris and I went down Friday around 1 and made it just in time to see Liz Phair sing her new single and like one other song. She sounds really good live, wish I could have heard more. Then we headed over to see the Mavericks. Does anyone remember the mavericks? They took 4 years off and have a new cd coming out so they are starting to tour again. We were on the front row for that show and it was a blast. They got the honky tonk down. They also had a horn section, more bands should use horn sections. After the Mavericks we went and got some food and listened to two artist that neither of us had heard of but both likely a lot. The first one is a guy that might as well have been Adam from counting crows. We both thought that it was and were like, "what in the world!!" then we went over and saw it was this guy named Joe firsthand. He is a local Austin artist. Very very very good, but very very very much a counting crows cover band. Then we saw this guy named Martin Sexton. Dude, he rocks! The guy was a one man band. He was playing his guitar like a drum, singing other instruments and making it sound like a full band. Check him out for sure. Later that night we went over to see the one, the only, D-wight Yoakom!!!! Harris had know idea what to expect, I had seen Dwight before so I was trying to warn him that when the guy dances, the ladies go crazy. Well, sure enough D-wight danced and the ladies went nuts, and I mean nuts. HE sang so many of his hit songs it was ridiculous. SO much fun. We were on the second row for D-wight. After the festival ended we headed over to IHOP and ate some breakfast and then hit up 6th street. After strolling along 6th street with a minor for an hour, I was like, time to head home. So we drove to Jamie's folks place which on a good day with no traffic is about 15mins away but of course at one in the morning there just happened to be a wreck so we had to back track and it took us 30 mins longer to get home. Needless to say we were so tired. So that was Friday. Mostly country, mostly honky tonk!! Tons of fun!!