Recent Updates Hide threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

• 

  Those Oblivious Record Labels, or, OK, Go!

  Jed Culbertson 2:22 pm on March 6, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: music, okgo

  If you’ve been sleeping for the past few days, then you haven’t been one of the almost five million people to date to see this video:

  which is an alternate version of this video (embedding disabled).

  Now that that’s behind us, let’s speak of this disabled embedding. The front-man of OkGo wrote this sobering account of the latest processes used by their record company, EMI. It’s a good read if you’re into the process of the making of music. In short, the very thing that made OkGo a success for the company is now being restricted, to the detriment of not only the band, but the company. They’re consistently shooting themselves in the foot.

  I haven’t professionally recorded anything (close, though, anyone remember Made Fresh Daily?), but I can imagine I would really think twice about signing with a huge label. It’s the same reason I’ve never considered trying out for American Idol. (Besides the fact that I’m insecure and probably would get ripped apart) I don’t want to give away any and all creative input for some cash and Fox exposure. NBC, maybe, but not Fox.

  So, kudos to OkGo for being able to still find ways to do amazing pieces of art in this current music landscape. Also, killer song.

   

  Reply Click here to cancel reply.

  Name (required)

  Email (required)

  Web Site

   
• 

  Calling Names

  Jed Culbertson 9:13 pm on February 14, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: politics

  At some point, it came to my awareness that the #1 bestselling book on Amazon was A Patriot’s History of the United States. Apparently Glenn Beck had mentioned it on his show. (Incidentally, Beck is out with a recent book of his own.)

  I will admit that my knowledge of the affairs of the American people is not quite as full as I’d like. I went to the book’s website to get some background as I considered picking it up. It was there that I read a blog post highlighting the changes that are currently happening in the country to bring about a more Republican-friendly landscape.

  Within that post was a reference to Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, only he was called Arlen “Sphinctor”, which apparently is a rather renowned nickname of his.

  Although many people use this name, that it was used in conjunction with this book immediately turned me off on the prospect of reading it. I would hope that a history book would relate history to me, not an opinionated work of fiction that promotes the biased views of a pundit. I am not saying that the book is guilty of this, only that the connection to this kind of tactic is unfortunate.

  The Bible directs us to obey our leaders and pray for them. I think I would find it harder to genuinely pray for someone’s wellbeing if I was slandering or libeling them when my head wasn’t bowed.

   
• 

  A Global Epidemic

  Jed Culbertson 10:11 pm on January 23, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: kenya (9)

  Being on staff at a church, I experience emotions ranging from apathy to frustration when it come to punctuality. It seems that a lot of people are late. It happens on Sunday morning. It happens on Wednesday night. It happens.

  I wondered why this was so and why it was so bad. Then I went to Kenya. At each church service on Sunday morning that I attended, I couldn’t help but notice the same problem.

  It seems that wherever you are in the world, a lot of people are late.

  In my life, I try to respect other people’s time by being on time; and conversely, grant mercy to other that are late in meeting me. In reality, this doesn’t always work as well as I’d like, but it’s what I would aspire to.

  There’s an old saying from someone very wise that goes, “On time is when I get there.” Or maybe it was just a bumper sticker. Either way, that seems to be the rationale.

   
• 

  Macedonian Call

  Jed Culbertson 10:01 pm on January 23, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: kenya (9)

  On our first Sunday in Kenya, Dr. Wellington Mutiso, the preacher at Athi River Baptist Church was effusive in his appreciation for our having come. He said that we had heard their “Macedonian Call.”

  Not being well versed on Acts 16, I had to look it up to become familiar with what the Macedonian Call was.

  Simply, Paul had sought the Lord as to where he could go to preach the Gospel. God had shut several doors, and it seems Paul was a bit impatient. At last, he saw in a vision a Macedonian person who beseeched him to “Come over and help us.” He took it as divine revelation and traveled at once to Philippi, a Macedonian city.

  It seems the people of Athi River had called, and were looking for someone to come help them.

  I have thought many times whether the money used to transport people to the other side of the world for a week wouldn’t have been better spent on supplies that are needed there. A transoceanic flight is quite the opposite of ‘cheap.’ In some areas, the plane ticket’s price could feed a person for years.

  I was struck, then, when Dr. Mutiso acknowledge that “we do recognize that it is very costly to come from North America into Africa. The airfares are greater than going to these other continents. But may the Lord bless you; even for the money that you have spent to come to us at such a time as this.”

  That put it into perspective for me; that presence is as important as presents.

  Sarah and I support a young girl named Nancy, who lives in Kenya, though it is many kilometers from where we are staying here. I did not seriously consider trying to find a time to visit her while I was so relatively close. Now I regret that decision; and should I be blessed to come here again, I won’t make that mistake.

   
• 

  Phantom Ring

  Jed Culbertson 5:31 pm on January 20, 2010 | 1 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: kenya (9)

  On my first day in Athi River, I left my cell phone in my hotel room. I had turned off the wireless on it, and you’d be amazed at the battery life. I haven’t charged it in four days, and the charge is only half gone. We’re using it in the room for an alarm.

  So, I was standing outside of the church and I thought I heard it ringing. As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve had the same ringer for over a year now and am psychologically tuned to it. Every now and then I will hear my phone ring even when it doesn’t. At least once per day, I will reach down and look at my phone, certain it had sounded, only to see a dark ring.

  It has not happened since that first day and I wonder if I am being weaned off that supposed lifeline.

  In America, the sound and substance is deafening. Here in Africa, people will stop and sit by the road and just think. No earphones hanging down. No Blackberry at the ready. No rush to get home for 24, coupled with the comfort of knowing that if they make it home late, it will be waiting on their DVR.

  Even without my cell phone here, I am still plugged in, needless to say as you are reading this as I am still in Africa.

  I recently read an article that parallels these thoughts at Credenda Agenda.

  Sometimes we drown out silence because we truly enjoy things that benefit us, but other times, we distract ourselves simply out of habit. It has become a drug for us that has side effects that I believe phanton rings are among the least adverse.

   
• 

  Hardware Road

  Jed Culbertson 11:11 pm on January 18, 2010 | 1 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: kenya (9)

  In the United States, it is unusual to encounter a small area where a Home Depot and Lowe’s are across the street from each other. Could you imagine them behind side by side?

  I was surprised when, on the way to Athi River First Baptist Church, I saw not two, but seven or eight distinct hardware stores lined up in the same strip building.

  While driving past, a few team members from the former trip informed me that we had frequented the one on the end: Hallelujah Hardware.

  Here in Kenya, apparently it is not unusual to see scenarios where competition must be a drain on a store’s bottom line. I also saw this with furniture shops. I suppose there are furniture districts and hardware districts.

  I do wonder at what point businessmen in America decided it would be a good idea to pay attention to the concept of market saturation. Possibly as they slowly went out of business. Perhaps in Kenya these firms do not go out of business because there are no other businesses to go into.

   
• 

  Excuse Me, How Do I Get To…

  Jed Culbertson 11:01 pm on January 18, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: kenya (9)

  Another tale of our way to Athi River on Sunday starts thusly:

  Our driver leans over to Kerry, sitting the front seat. He leans from right to left, which I am wholly unfamiliar with. Since Kerry had been on the Kenya trip in 2007, it must have been assumed that she knew her way around, which would have been good, because our driver didn’t.

  Here we were, a small band of five white Americans on our way to somewhere without direction. The driver stopped at a service station and asked an attendant the way, and the attendant gave it quickly and we were off.

  It is a bit unnerving, though, when your one connection to an unknown country is himself unaware of the specifics.

  That’s when you realize your faith must be not on a driver, but on One who made the driver.

   
• 

  Assault on the Sense

  Jed Culbertson 10:54 pm on January 18, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: kenya (9)

  We are staying in a suburb of Nairobi called Lavington Green. One of our ministry sites is just down the road in a neighboring city named Kawangware, but the place we’re spending days for the first half of our trip lies an hour down the Mombasa Road. This is Athi River.

  I went to Athi River on Sunday morning for church services, and the drive was more than interesting, which is what I normally would call drives in foreign lands. I hold the most sobering story for another post, but this drive held more than one story.

  As we made our way to Athi River, we began to descend into a small valley to cross a body of water. I am not sure if this was the actual Athi River, or something else, but being the lowest point around, it collected the runoff of anything and everything.

  The scent that accompanied this water was of a class that truly made one’s breath stop. It took a bit of effort to get it started again. I’ve driven through countrysides filled with livestock and stretches of road through paper mill country, but there is something altogether more disturbing about that smell.

  Were I to stay there long enough, perhaps I would grow accustomed to it, as undoubtedly others have. But what is more difficult to get used to is the disease that must accompany the kind of water in that stream.

  Residents of Kenya, and children especially, have an almost unbearable weight of factors against them in this world.

  Christ says in Matthew 11 to “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” We are here to bring that rest to people who so badly need it.

   
• 

  On Sleep

  Jed Culbertson 4:38 am on January 18, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: kenya (9)

  First night prayers were rife with phrases such as “multiply our rest” and “refresh us”. It had been a long day of travel and we had two worship services in the morning that were going to be longer than those to which we were accustomed.

  The prayers were answered; at lest in my case. I did wake up feeling refreshed, and had a wonderful morning of worship. I knew that I was a ticking sleep bomb, though, so I stole away with a team returning to the hotel to grab more rest.

  When I left the team at large, one of my best friends showed a bit of contrived disdain, as he was required to stay on site.

  His comments, however, showed true friendship, because he admonished me not to work, rather to sleep.

  After that, I was ready for a full night of work, and returned to bed around 8:30 the next morning.

  My plan was to awake at 10:30 to get ready to go to the venue to grab video of one of the teams. This was not to be, as I slept through my phone alarm and barely heard the ring of the hotel phone an hour later. Now, I have had the same alarm on my phone for a year now, so I am fairly psychologically attuned to the sound, and it almost always wakes me up. Before today, I would have said that it always wakes me up.

  I suppose that tells us both how tired I really was.

  That’s probably how the trip will go: grab what sleep you can when you can. Pray for our team to know when those times are and to make the most of them.

   
• 

  The Ride Over

  Jed Culbertson 11:28 pm on January 17, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: kenya (9)

  I thought I would be able to get more work done on the long plane rides over. Two seven-hour legs with a four-hour layover. I had anticipated the lack of power in the seats, but I did not plan on being doubled over for the plane rides due to a weird combination of plane and abdominal pressure. It subsided a bit in the layover airport and then just before we touched down in Kenya. Strange; haven’t had it before, and not since.

  The Amsterdam airport was new to me. I don’t think I had seen one that hosted many more international flights than domestic ones. Internet was easy to get, though it cost me €6. I ate an orange for breakfast and some cookies called fijnproevers.

  I did see “This Is It” on the flight OnDemand and was impressed. For all of Michael Jackson’s faults, he was an incredible artist.

  After a day of travel, we landed in Nairobi, a mile-high town, went through customs and made our way to the hotel. A quick check-in and dinner sent us off to bed.