Wedding Blitz:
On October 1st, I made it my goal to achieve something for my upcoming wedding every day of the month. Although I didn’t necessarily achieve my goal, I came dang near close – and most importantly, was able to take a lot of stress off of my fiancé’s shoulders in the process. Is everything completed? Not yet, but we’re closer than ever; we’re both beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The ultimate goal is to have nearly everything wrapped up by Thanksgiving, which means I’ve got at least another month of wedding blitzing ahead of me. Only forty-two days till the wedding… bring it on!
Songs of the Grotesque and Arabesque – The Album:
As a youth minister, a yearly-Halloween party for the kids is a must; candy and costumes, what’s not to like? Of course, the soundtrack for these gatherings is of utmost importance – this year, we played an album containing such hits as Michael Jackson’s Thriller, The Monster Mash and Purple People Eater. There are lots of Halloween-inspired albums floating around out there, which got me thinking, what would Songs of the Grotesque and Arabesque look like in a similar format? Below is the track list, including the songs I’ve shared on my blog this month and a few more I never got around to writing about… all carefully selected from my pantheon of creepy music. Were this available in stores, I know I’d have to pick it up – but I’m sure I missed a few, what songs should be added? (Click on the title to take a listen).
See ya next month, with a much less creepy challenge!
Wedding Blitz:
My wedding band came in the mail the other day. And although I really like it, I have to admit, I was a little bummed when I slipped it on my finger and I didn’t disappear. Although its not keeping up its end of the bargain, I think I’ll keep referring to it as “my precious” anyway – it’s such a pretty little thing.
Songs of the Grotesque and Arabesque: In 1977, NASA launched Voyager I and II, a pair of unmanned spacecraft whose original mission was to explore Jupiter and Saturn. These space probes, however, would not be returning home. To this day, thirty-five years later, they continue their journey into the farthest reaches of space, sending information back to earth from over 11 billion miles away. This summer, NASA announced that they believe the Voyagers to be approaching interstellar space, the first man-made objects to leave our solar system. (This video documents that trip, and will blow your mind.) Because the Voyagers would be going farther than any spacecraft before (or after it), each one contains a golden record filled with the sights and sounds of Earth – pictures of nature and human DNA, music from Beethoven and Chuck Berry, and diagrams of mathematical and scientific equations. The records were designed as a combination time capsule/interstellar-welcome-message to any alien or future human civilizations capable of recovering either of the Voyager probes. And just in case they don’t have phonographs in the far reaches of space, the cover of these recordings pictorially explains how to play them, while also offering details for locating Earth (lets hope they come in peace). If one earthbound band owns the market on the macabre – the otherworldly, the paranoid, the foreboding – it’d have to be Radiohead. They sound like nothing else on this planet. In fact, if the roles were switched, and an alien civilization were sending us a golden record through the vast darkness of the cosmos, I’m pretty convinced we’d throw it on our record player and something akin to Radiohead would come out. Their music is ethereal, otherworldly, and their lyrics, well, can be just down right strange. Take a sample from their song Kid A, in which songwriter and vocalist Thom Yorke sings “we’ve got heads on sticks / you’ve got ventriloquists/ standing in the shadows at the end of my bed / the rats and children follow me out of town / the rats and children follow me out of their homes.” Anyway ever claiming to know anything about what Thom Yorke is singing about is a liar. Radiohead’s combination of shattering sound barriers and cryptic lyrics make them the perfect fit for a late-October night at home. But I couldn’t pick just any song – no, to fully get the Radiohead experience, you have to ingest a whole album. So below are two of my favorites (and creepiest) – listen to them with the lights out, and I guarantee you’ll be looking over your shoulder before long.
Released in 2000, Kid A is my favorite album by Radiohead – and pretty dang weird
The madness continues with Radiohead's latest album, released in February 2011, The King of Limbs.
Wedding Blitz: Miserly. Budget-minded. Cheap. Fiscally-responsible. You can call it what you want, but there’s no way of getting around it: I hate spending money. With the wedding now less than two months away, planning is starting to go into overdrive – and, much to my chagrin, so is the spending. To her credit, my fiancé is doing all she can to cut costs and save money. She’s ordering her flowers wholesale and constructing the bouquets herself; we’re hand making a lot of the decorations; the groomsmen are buying clothes instead of renting overpriced tuxedos. But even with cutting a few corners, weddings are pricey – good thing I’m only doing this once. The one thing I may despise more than spending money is being forced to go clothes shopping. I’m generally a pretty patient guy, but march me up and down aisles of clothes, from one dressing room to another, and something deep within my subconscious snaps – I’ll switch from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde faster than you can say “new chinos.” You can imagine, then, the heart palpitations I felt when, on Saturday, Janie and I headed to the mall to pick up my last piece of my wedding-day attire. Having purchased everything else, all I lacked to complete my wardrobe was the perfect pair of pants. Fully aware of how beastly shopping with me can be, Janie’d already taken a day to move from store to store, scoping out potential pant prospects. All I had to do was show up, find the right size, and swipe the credit card. You’d think it’d be easy. That afternoon was all about trying new things: like going to the mall on a Saturday (not recommended if you value your life and/or sanity); like setting foot in a J. Crew store, which I did for the first time; or trying on a seventy-five dollar pair of pants; or then purchasing said seventy-five dollar pair of pants because your soon-to-be-wife thinks they look good. Most days, every article of clothing on my body (and the money in wallet) wouldn’t exceed seventy-five dollars. For that price, I expected the button to be made out of an elephant tusk and covered in gold filigree. It wasn’t. I checked while in the dressing room. Later that same day, I purchased my wedding band online. This has been a complicated process, to say the least. I knew I wanted a ring made out of tungsten – they’re extremely strong, relatively cheap, and simple. Tungsten, however, just so happens to be one of the world’s most popular conflict minerals – metals and gems mined by forced (oftentimes child) labor and whose profits benefit marauding rebel militias, especially in African countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. As a believer, a follower of Christ hoping and working for the Kingdom, I can’t support a business so closely tied to human rights abuses. That leaves me with two options: purchase a certified conflict-free wedding band or find a used one. Last year, I saw one of my favorite singer-songwriters in concert (full disclosure: its Andrew Peterson). Perhaps it was because I’d just recently gotten engaged, but that night, I was gripped by one of his songs, a little autobiographical ditty called Dancing in the Minefields. In the song, which tells the story of his marriage, Andrew explains, almost in passing, that he and his soon-to-be-wife bought their wedding rings at a pawnshop – this idea floored me (and not because it’s the cheapest option). Following Christ is about redemption, grace, sacrifice and healing; it’s about waiting for the Father to “make all things new,” and joining alongside Him in that work. Marriage is no different. After discussing these thoughts with Janie, we decided to purchase used wedding bands as well. Although we can’t know the backstory of every used wedding band on eBay, its safe to assume that many of them are being sold because the marriage has dissolved, these rings having become nothing more than a painful reminder of deep hurts, broken promises and damaged hearts. What better way to show the world that the Father is a God of redemption and second-chances than by “recycling” these wedding bands, allowing them once more to be brought into holy service, into representing the eternal bond between Christ and the Church, between husband and wife. This is precisely what Christ does, pulling us from the muck and mire of our lives – the bad decisions, rebellion, pride – and instead calling us His beloved. He takes the broken, and makes them whole again; He touches wounded hearts and puts them back together; He makes all things new. Janie and I hope those used wedding bands will serve as a sobering reminder – both of the gravity of our decision to enter into marriage, and of the God of second-chances who is guiding both of us. That used ring should be arriving in the mail any day now. Here’s hoping it fits; I’d hate to have to spend even more money on another one. Songs of the Grotesque and Arabesque: Sufjan Stevens is some kind of genius – a multi-instrumentalist, superb songwriter, and musical prodigy who has produced, from start to finish, some of the best albums of the past decade. Really, you must check him out – I insist. In 2005, he released Come On, Feel the Illinoise, an album of twenty-two (yes, you read that right) songs devoted to the 21st state to join the Union. I know what your thinking, Illinois is the awkward, shy kid of the United States, but trust me, beneath its silent exterior, there’s a lot going on – and this album weaves that state’s tale masterfully. And, as it turns out, Come On, Feel the Illinoise also just so happens to contain not one, but two, of my favorite macabre songs. Since Sufjan’s involved, you count on these tunes being not only creepy, but masterpieces of art as well. First is a song named for, and telling the story of, Illinois’ most infamous serial killer, John Wayne Gacy Jr. Over the course of six years, from 1972-1978, Gacy sexually abused and brutally murdered at least thirty-three teenage boys, hiding many of their bodies in the crawlspace beneath his house. (A few months ago, I referenced this song as part of a blog detailing the difference between western and eastern thought in regards to the goodness of humanity.) Amazingly, Sufjan takes the despicable, seemingly irredeemable tale of a life dedicated to evil, and twists it, producing a song that is heart-wrenching, convicting, even beautiful. A believer, Sufjan uses the story of John Wayne Gacy to teach an important bit of Christian theology – that everyone of us are sinners, from the serial killer to the saint. In what must be one of the bravest instances of “there but for the grace of God, go I”, Sufjan ends the tale of John Wayne Gacy by recognizing his own fallenness: “in my best behavior, I am really just like him / look beneath the floorboards, for the secrets I have hidden.” This song is disturbing, not only for the true tell it recounts, but for how close to home it hits – and that, my friends, makes it truly terrifying.
A more lighthearted spooky song appears later in the same album, an ode to the ghost towns of Illinois, which Sufjan imagines as zombies coming back from the grave. “We are awakened with the axe / night of the living dead at least,” he begins, before proceeding to the real heartbreak of these lost communities, “I know that nation’s pass, I know they rust at least / they tremble with the nervous thought of having been, at last, forgot.” With lyrics describing the resurrection of these “zombies,” creepy instrumentation and some of the spookiest background vocals you’re likely to hear anywhere, the not-so-subtly named They are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh! is a perfect fit for Songs of the Grotesque and Arabesque.
 Wedding Blitz:
A few days ago, Janie (my-bride-to-be) asked me not to reveal all our “wedding secrets” on this blog. “I want some things to be a surprise,” she said. Of course, I lovingly agreed (I’m such a catch).
The past week has been one of the most stressful and trying that Janie and I’ve ever experienced, but we’ve managed to (mostly) stick to the goal of achieving one thing for the wedding each day. But, I’m not going to write about them all.
To honor the wishes of my fiancé, here’s a brief, cryptic snapshot of the past week of wedding preparation. Get your Sherlock Holmes on, and maybe you can crack the code.
Monday: Created something fun for our wedding reception. Bet you can’t wait!
Tuesday: Failure – nothing achieved.
Wednesday: - Measured and cut pencils with a bread knife.
- Filled a cereal bowl with mashed potatoes.
- Stuck said pencils into mashed potatoes.
(And yes, this did advance our wedding planning)
Thursday: Gathered nearly ¾ of the (reusable) plates and cutlery for our reception
Friday: Order a few things online, finish unpacking at the Maison de Mathis.
Songs of the Grotesque and Arabesque:
Today’s installment of Songs of the Grotesque and Arabesque features two spooktacular songs (see what I did there!) that just happen to be related.
Penned by Stan Jones in 1948, Ghost Riders in the Sky recounts the apocalyptic tale of a cowboy who, while riding one night, unwittingly crosses paths with the spirits of damned cowboys, their punishment to forever chase “the Devil’s herd across the endless skies.” As they pass by, one of the riders calls out the cowboy’s name, offering one last piece of advice, “if you want to save your soul from Hell, riding on our range, then cowboy change your ways today or with us you will ride.”
Over fifty artists have recorded versions of Jones’ cautionary tale, one he based on a story he heard as a young boy. While there are many renderings of this song, one can assume when Johnny Cash records a version that his will become the standard. Case in point, Ghost Riders in the Sky, which Cash recorded for his 1979 release Silver. Embedded below is footage shot live at a concert by the Man in Black in 1987. The creepiness of this song lives on, decades after it was first penned, much like the spirits of those damned cowboys.
In December 1970, the Doors entered the studio to record Riders on the Storm, a song purported to have been inspired by Ghost Riders in the Sky. Little did they know this would be the last song they’d record with front man Jim Morrison, who would pass away a few short months later. The song was released as a single in June of 1971, and entered the Hot 100 list on the day Morrison died, July 3rd 1971.
The song, whose lyrics tell of a “killer on the road” looking to hitchhike, is rumored to have been performed live only once, in New Orleans, just before the cancellation of the Doors’ L.A. Woman Tour. Everything about this song – the sound of real rain and thunder, the electric piano playing of Ray Manzarek, Morrison’s grim lyrics and the history surrounding it – make Riders on the Storm a perfectly creepy concoction, a must-have for any Halloween-inspired playlist.
 Wedding Blitz:
I started to move into my “new” house on Saturday morning. Five days later, I’m nearly finished, finally hauling the bed up late last night. Have I mentioned that moving sucks?
Songs of the Grotesque and Arabesque:
Confession time: Thursday night, I posted a new blog; one I’d been working on for a couple of days. But within minutes of finally getting it up on my site, I had a change of heart, going back and completely deleting it. For the first time in as long as I can remember, what I’d written didn’t sit well with me; I just couldn’t find a peace about the words I’d put down on the page. Not knowing what else to do, I erased that blog before anyone had a chance to read it.
I’d begun by writing about my year, right out of graduate school, when I moved to Scott County to take a teaching position at the local high school. The combination of a large, rural county and an active winter meant an abundance of snow day school cancellations that year. On one such day, looking to escape the four walls of my apartment, I ventured down the street to a Goodwill store (where all books are always fifty-cents – not even Half-Price Books can beat that deal). That afternoon, I picked up a hardcover copy of Truman Capote’s classic In Cold Blood, the meticulously researched, true tale of a 1959 quadruple murder in Kansas. Interviewing nearly everyone involved in the grisly scene, from the investigators to the accused, Capote pieced together the complete story, from the planning and execution of the crime, to the ensuing investigation, and the subsequent trial and execution of the guilty parties. The storyline was completely engrossing, nearly impossible to put down – but in those still moments, alone in my apartment, when I would remember that that what I was reading was no work of fiction but the true story of two men who needlessly robbed an entire family of their lives, it became exceedingly difficult to continue, to choose to turn the next page. The story was unsettlingly and uncomfortably real.
In Cold Blood is on a short list (along with Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air) of the most haunting books I’ve ever read (and I mean that in the most literal sense possible – I’d stop my reading a few hours before bedtime). Capote’s work served as a segue into what was going to be the fourth song featured as part of my growing Halloween-themed compilation, something I’m calling Songs of the Grotesque and Arabesque. That song, from my favorite Springsteen album, set to music a story similar to the one Capote told, this time the string of senseless murders spanning eight days and leaving eleven people dead. But as I sat with my words two nights ago, the weight of those lost lives, and the broken man who took them, felt heavier and darker than ever before. And while I’m sure my blog wouldn’t have ruffled many (if any) feathers, I felt compelled not to share it with the world. I want to ensure that I always err on the side of light over darkness, to highlight redemption instead of corruption. So that blog’s been returned to my personal files – at least for now.
In contrast to that heavy subject matter, today I’m rolling out something completely different: Songs of the Grotesque and Arabesque, the CCM edition. That’s right – though it may be hard to believe at first, many of the classic Christian bands I grew up with have music that fits perfectly into my Halloween inspired list. Three of my favorites are listed below for your listening pleasure.
Enjoy (cue lightning and thunder).
How the Story Ends – Five Iron Frenzy
The year I graduated from high school, I learned that my all-time favorite band, Five Iron Frenzy, was calling it quits. I was devastated (though much too “cool” to admit it). In October of that year, I drove to Wilmore to see them on their cleverly titled Winners Never Quit farewell tour. Never one to take themselves too seriously, the band’s final album, The End is Near, included a song entitled How the Story Ends, a tongue-in-cheek look back at their history, rife with inside jokes and references to their back catalogue of songs. Is it particularly creepy? Not really. But it does use excerpts from Edgar Allan Poe’s classic The Raven as its backdrop, making it a natural addition to the Songs of the Grotesque and Arabesque.
After a nine-year hiatus, in late 2011, Five Iron announced their plan to reunite, record a new album and go on tour. At that point in time, their Kickstarter campaign – a website which allows supporters to donate monetarily to art projects – was the highest grossing project to date. Five Iron, currently in the process of recording their sixth full-length studio album, refers to themselves now as an “undead band from Denver, Colorado.” In a way, that kind of makes them zombies – reason number two they should be included on Songs of the Grotesque.
Chimes – Project 86
There was a time in high school when I gave hardcore music a serious chance – it didn’t last very long, but one of those bands still gets frequent airtime even now: Project 86. Their sophomore album, Drawing Black Lines, is a masterpiece – and I don’t use that term loosely. Near the middle of that album is the chilling track Chimes. As with all great art, the interpretations vary, but I understand Chimes to be written from the perspective of a demon, enticing a soul to sin, a move which will ultimately lead it to the gates of Hell. The protagonist doesn’t realize the gravity of his mistake until its too late, singer-songwriter Andrew Schwab giving words to the character’s pain as he screams, “You lied to me!” An outstanding song, and a not-so-subtle reminder of the danger of giving-in to temptation.
Dead Indeed – The Deadlines Back in January, when I’d committed to listening to nothing but Christian music for an entire month, I wrote about my love affair for one-and-done Christian-horror-punk band The Deadlines. These guys took Paul’s advice in Romans chapter six to remain “dead to sin, but alive in Christ” to extremes – playing punk music highlighted by a creepy organ, using stage names like Shawn Coffin and Thomas Demise, and writing songs full of graveyards, zombies and vampires. It scared the pants off most of the Christian establishment (the band was forced to edit their album’s cover art before Christian bookstores would carry it – the video below contains the original; this is the cover that ended up in stores). Unfortunately, The Deadlines didn’t last long enough in their horror-rock form to record a follow-up album, leaving The Death and Life of… as their only Christian-horror gift to the world. The entire album could be featured on Songs of the Grotesque and Arabesque, but I’ve managed to narrow it down to one track, the band’s take on Romans 6:11, entitled Dead Indeed.
 Wedding Blitz: Moving Sucks
No matter how you slice it, moving is horrible – even if it is just one floor. For the past year, I’ve been living underground, in the basement of my church’s parsonage. After my wedding in December, my new wife and I will be moving into the upstairs portion of the house – so for the past week, we’ve take up a second job as professional painters, putting fresh coats on the kitchen, living room, and as of 1:00AM Friday night, the bedroom of our “new” house. The majority of the painting finished, yesterday marked the beginning of the seemingly unending processes of moving, carting the contents of my life up one flight of stairs and around a corner. Seven hours later, and with timely help from a number of friends, I was able to make a sizeable dent in the project. Apply absolutely no math to my current situation, I’d guess that I’m nearly 75% of the way toward being fully moved in. That statistic, of course, doesn’t take into account the hours that will spent unpacking, arranging furniture, and decorating – but all that will come, in good time. Today, however, is Sunday. The Sabbath. No work for me – at least of the moving variety – that will have to resume tomorrow.
My bed, however, hasn’t made the change yet, so I’ll still be spending a few more nights in my subterranean home. After working all day on Saturday, my fiancé remarked that she’s beginning to see a little bit of the light at the end of the tunnel. All the hard work we (ok, mostly she) put into planning this wedding over the past year is starting to pay off – everyday, the to-do list grows shorter. We just might make it. That being said, I’ve still got enough wedding tasks to keep me busy for the next twenty-four days, meaning the first of half of October’s challenge, to accomplish something wedding related every day this month, won’t be accomplished anytime soon.
 Songs of the Grotesque and Arabesque: Why We Need Monsters
I heard an interesting story on the radio the other day. While discussing the recent explosion of “monster” movies for children (Paranorman, Hotel Transylvania, and Frankenweenie to name a few), an NPR movie critic noted just how far the genre’s come since the heyday of the Universal Monster films. In the 1930’s and 40’s, Universal Pictures produced nearly fifty monster movies, including classics like Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Wolfman. I don’t know how else to say it, but when these movies first hit theaters, they scared the crap out of people. It’s rumored, during their original run, that some moviegoers fainted from fright, while others left theaters screaming and in tears. Though tame by today’s standards, these films were considered so frightening that many faced strict censorship battles – the state of Kansas requested 32 scenes from 1931’s Frankenstein be removed, an act that would have reduced the running time of the film by half. If those classic films (and the original stories that inspired them) teach us anything, it’s that monsters weren’t intended to be the stuff of children’s tales.
It’s long been posturized that monsters are nothing more than a physical manifestation of what terrorizes humanity, a face for our fears of the unknown. Frankenstein, while scary in his own right, is only a stand-in for the very real human fear of technology and science, of what knowledge in the wrong hands can achieve. Humanity’s anxiety regarding death and damnation, the great unknown after our lives end, are represented by Dracula, while the Wolfman touches on our apprehension toward all things natural, uncivilized and wild. We could go on like this all day, but the fact of the matter is that these monsters are capable of producing fear in us not only because of how they look or act, but perhaps even more because of what they represent. They are the unknown, the one thing the nearly the whole swath of humanity finds chilling.
Somewhere down the line, however, our monsters have been tamed. In the aforementioned Hotel Transylvania, Dracula, voiced by funnyman Adam Sandler, has become the manager of a resort for ghouls, cracking jokes and getting into mischief instead of terrorizing Romanians. Tim Burton’s Frakenweenie, which opened in theaters this weekend, takes the classic tale of a life reanimated and, this time, applies it to a child’s beloved pooch. Today, our ogres are lovable, perpetually-farting heroes, our vampires are known for their immaculate hair and sparkly skin, and our werewolves have traded in ferocity and bloodlust for six-pack abs and sex appeal. Our monsters just aren’t scary anymore.
To a point, that’s not necessarily a bad thing – what I mean to say is, I don’t want children to live in fear of what goes bump in the night. But for adults, a society without monsters – or more to the point, a society whose monsters aren’t connected to fear – may be symptomatic of a much deeper problem. Frankenstein, Dracula and the rest have been reduced to children’s objects precisely because what they represent – the unknown – is no longer frightening. In fact, in our world of rapid technology, of information at the touch of a button, the unknown is shrinking at an exponential rate. We know more about our planet, our bodies, and the universe that surrounds us than any other generation that’s come before. We’ve explored nearly every square mile of the Earth, named thousand upon thousands of species, and taken modern medicine into the most remote of villages. Our quest to make the unknown known has even driven us off this planet, out to the moon and among the stars. Humanity’s always had an all-encompassing desire to know, and for the first time in our history, technology is allowing us to quench that thirst. The unknown is becoming known, and in the process, our fear of it – our monsters, if you will – are being set on the shelf, safe enough for our children to play with.
A healthy life, however, compels us to embrace the unknown – in fact, the most important decisions we’ll ever make require it. Marriage. Friendship. Faith. You can’t venture into any of these knowing the outcome. You must jump, oftentimes without even seeing the bottom – and fear plays a pivotal role in that leap of faith. We need not be paralyzed by our fear of the unknown, but instead be motivated by it to embark into what may appear dark and murky, for the on other side are some of the greatest rewards of humanity – on the other side is light. We need our monsters because of what they represent, because life isn’t safe and shouldn’t be lived that way. We need our monsters so we can look them in face and not back down. We need our monsters to motivate us to embrace the unknown, to wrestle with it, and come out on the other side, recreated and redeemed.
We don’t need a safe, sterile life. We need the unknown. We need our monsters.
In that vein, tonight I celebrate one of my favorite monsters with a dandy rock-and-roll song. Warren Zevon practically made a career out of finding humor in the bleak, crafting music that was at times both funny and morbid – and this tune certainly ranks as one of his best (and most recognizable). Yes, Kid Rock did sample it for his anthem All Summer Long, but please don’t hold that against Mr. Zevon. At times both humorous and frightening, Werewolves of London has been a Halloween staple since its release nearly thirty-five years ago. In 2004, listeners of the English radio station BBC2 rated Werewolves of London as having the best opening line in the history of rock-and-roll. And seriously, what’s not like to about a werewolf that, besides terrorizing the countryside, also enjoys Chinese food and dressing well? He’s the complete package.
 Wedding Blitz: It took over six hours of taping, staring at walls, and smelling paint fumes, but the biggest room in the after-marriage-home of my fiancé and I – the den – is finally complete. With the last stroke of the paintbrush, I nearly broke into song. This song. Seriously. The “fun” (if we can call it that) of painting is fleeting – fifteen minutes, tops. Trust me, I’ve had plenty of time today to come to that conclusion. Remember that short story, The Yellow Wallpaper, in which the lead character, after being forced into bed rest, starts to go crazy after spending days staring at the yellow wallpaper in her room? Replace that wallpaper with paint of the same color and you’ve got a pretty accurate summation of my day. But hey, its worth it – two rooms completely painted in two days. And even better, I’m still batting 1.000 on the first half of my challenge to accomplish something for the wedding (or our life together afterwards) every day this month. If all goes well, tomorrow I’ll move to painting the bedroom – luckily, it’s a much smaller space, and even better, there’s not a trace of yellow in it. But no matter what happens in the morning, I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that I won’t be playing this song.
 Songs of the Grotesque and Arabesque:
One (of the many) problems with horror films today is their abhorrent lack of subtly. Directors no longer want to waste time building a story, placing interesting characters within identifiable situations. They instead want to run head first (no pun intended) to the crazed killer, the sociopath with torturous intent, or the malevolent spirit bent on possession. The problem with those scenarios, though, is that they’re not believable – 99% of the human population will never encounter any of them. The true geniuses of the horror genre – the Hitchcocks and Poes – were instead able to take the ordinary, the everyday, and make it horrifying. Tonight’s spooky song does just that.
Historians have yet to determine who exactly wrote The House of the Rising Sun. (One of its earliest recordings, however, was put to tape by a traveling folklorist during a stopover in Middleboro, Kentucky, in the early 1930’s.) Dozens of artists, including Bob Dylan, had recorded the song by the time Eric Burdon and his band, The Animals, walked into the studio on May 18th, 1964, to put their version onto vinyl. What resulted from that recording session is nothing short of magical. Finished in just one take, the band plays with unmatched fury, the wailing vocals of Burdon only surpassed by an utterly haunting organ line and the narrator’s own sense of hopelessness.
Theories about the meaning of this song are nearly as abundant as artists who’ve covered it. Is the House of the Rising Sun a brothel, a hotel or a jail? Is it written from the perspective of a man or woman? Does the narrator survive? The original songwriter never answered these questions – he or she understood that its the unseen, the questions that never get answered, which are the scariest. It’s the ordinary decision, the one bad choice, that can lead to lives of “sin and misery.” Now there’s a truly terrifying thought.
Wild ideas run in and out of my brain all day long. A few years ago, I decided it’d be an awesome plan to open a theme park based on classic rock and roll songs – and, of course, The Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun” would serve as the backdrop for the park’s haunted house ride.
The only way to appreciate this masterpiece, and all its horrifying wholeness, is with the volume turned up. Give it a play below – and if this song doesn’t send a shiver up your spine, come on over to my house, I’ve got some yellow walls you can stare at.
 Wedding Blitz:
Three days into October’s dual challenges – to assist my fiancé in the finals stages of planning our wedding, and to spread some Halloween cheer by compiling my own custom mix of macabre music (a project I’m calling “Songs of the Grotesque and Arabesque” in honor of my boy, E.A. Poe) – I’ve yet to accomplish anything for my actual wedding ceremony. But don’t be fooled, I haven’t been asleep at the wheel – in fact, I haven’t slept much at all.
The church where I’ve worked for the past year owns a house near the front of its property – I guess you could call it a parsonage, though a pastor hasn’t lived there in quite a while. Originally a two-story home, its since been divided into two apartments – the ground level and the basement. I’ve spent the better part of the last year taking up residence in the subterranean, sunless portion of the house. A few months ago, my fiancé and I received the overwhelmingly good news that, after those wedding bells rings in December, we’ll be able to move into the ground level apartment. Windows! Sunshine! A back porch! What more could a man want? And the best part, it doesn’t cost us a dime. This is a monumental blessing, a godsend in the midst of some of the busiest months of our entire lives. Instead of having to shop around for our first apartment, we’re able to give our attention to other wedding-related tasks.
With the previous occupants of the ground level apartment (which I’m affectionately calling “the nice half of the house”) moved out, Janie and I’ve been busy sorting through color swatches and discussing how to arrange our furniture. With paint finally in hand last night, I set my sights on the kitchen. Unfortunately, it didn’t exactly go according to plan.
Maybe its just me, but I always seem to underestimate the amount of time painting will take. About 10:30 last night, I waltzed into the new apartment confident I’d have the entire kitchen finished before bedtime. Two and a half hours later, I called it a day without even raising a paint roller – it took me that long to get all the painter’s tape applied to the room, the baseboard, the chair rail, the cabinets… the list goes on and on. If I learned anything last nights, it’s that kitchens are awfully complicated rooms.
I may have gone to bed feeling defeated, but, as they say, every sunrise brings with it a new day. With some much appreciated assistance from my lovely fiancé, we finished all the painting in the kitchen this afternoon – in as much time as it took me to lay the tape last night. The picture doesn’t do it justice – the wall above the chair rail is “blonde,” a color that looks like the love child of tan and light yellow, offset by the deep red/burgundy below. While the color of my house will have no affect on my wedding ceremony, making sure my soon-to-be-bride will have a home she loves and feels comfortable in is the first step to what comes after the ceremony – living a common life together. One room down, three to go – tomorrow, I’m setting my sights on the living room.
Songs of the Grotesque and Arabesque: While laying yards of painter’s tape last night, I began a compiling a mental list of all the outstanding grim and ghastly tunes I want to highlight as part of the second half of this month’s challenge. But even with all these great songs filling my head, I didn’t have to think long about which one would be featured first in this month-long, on-going mix-tape of spookiness. One of my all-time favorite bands, the Decemberists, pretty much have the corner on bleak and foreboding tales set to music. Over the course of October, I’ll be offering a number of their songs up as prime examples of how to do macabre music correctly. Tonight’s offering, from their 2006 masterpiece The Crane Wife, is framed as a bedtime story from a parent to a child (albeit one that would seem more at home in a Tim Burton movie) about a murderous band of heathens known as the Shankhill Butchers. “ The Shankhill Butchers ride tonight,” songwriter Colin Meloy begins, “ you better shut your windows tight. They’re sharpening their cleavers and their knives, and drinking all their whisky by the pint.” As the song meanders to the chorus, the parental narrator uses this creepy tale to, among other things, encourage the child to be obedient (“ everybody knows if you don’t mind your mother’s words, a wicked wind will blow your ribbons from your curls.”) and to quickly get to sleep (“ everybody moan, everybody shake, the Shankhill Butchers want to catch you awake.”). Halfway through the song, as the band works in a musical interlude, a tambourine comes to the forefront, its cymbals sounding eerily like chains. What makes this song all the more creepy, however, is the fact that its based in truth – the Shankhill Butchers were a paramilitary gang that terrorized Northern Ireland during the 1970’s (read more here). The Shankhill Butchers may be laid out like a lullaby, but I don’t recommend playing this song before bedtime – even as an adult. But if you dare (and I hope you do), you can listen below. Sleep tight.
 Challenge: To practice sacrificial love by daily assisting my soon-to-be-wife in the work and planning of our wedding and common life together, while sharing my love for morbid and melancholy music with the world.
Why: In Ephesians 5, Paul commands husbands to “love their wives as Christ loved the Church and gave His life for it.” With wedding planning coming down to the wire, the most effective way for me to practice Paul’s self-sacrificing love is to be more proactive and intentional in assisting my fiancé with all-things wedding. And everybody knows October is the most sinister month on the calendar. What better time to spread some spooky songs around?
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As a long distance runner, I’m all-too-familiar with the “the wall,” that heart-wrenching moment when you find yourself out of breath, low on energy, and ready to just give up. But running is just as much (if not more) about mental strength than physical. There is only one way to respond to the wall – you run right through it, and oftentimes, find your second wind on the other side.
My fiancé and I, after being engaged for over a year, have hit the wedding wall. We’re fatigued, burned out, and just ready to move on. What a glorious day it will be when we don’t have to talk about the wedding, over-plan all its minute details, and stop spending every red cent of our hard earned money. We’re two and a half months away from the day our lives become covenantly bound, and we’ve honestly considered throwing in the towel and just eloping. It’d be easier, cheaper, and most importantly, would put an end to the wedding tornado we’re living in. Every now and then, it seems like the wall will win.
But we’re not down for the count yet. My fiancé and I are every bit as ornery as we are tired. If you’ve already returned your RSVP card, have no fear – you will be able to eat pancakes and eggs after watching us tie the knot. The show, or rather, the wedding, will go on. That dag-on wall won’t be enough to stop us, though its sure come dang-near close.
Although I’ve helped out along the way, my fiancé has carried most of the burden of planning and implementing our wedding. With everyday that passes, her stress levels climb. Its time for me, in order to practice the type of self-sacrificing love that marriage is based upon, to stop being a part-time wedding planner and go into full-time work. So for the month of October (and honestly, probably until the wedding day), my goal is to accomplish one thing each day related to either our wedding or the life we’ll live together afterwards. When we exchange rings on December 15th, we’ll vow to the world that, for the remainder of our lives, we’ll be on the same team. But I’m planning on getting off the bench and into the game much earlier than that. At least for this month, it’s all wedding, all the time. My daily progress will be recorded here, as I post pictures and reflections on the various wedding tasks I dare to undertake.
 Because I’m acutely aware that being a perpetual wedding planner comes off as a bit girly (one must always be concerned with that status of one’s “man card”), the chill wind of October has a second, more sinister “challenge” riding upon it. (Insert lightning and maniacal laughter here.)
It’s probably because I watched too much Scooby Doo and Ghostbusters as a child, but as far as I can remember, I’ve always loved October and Halloween – and that’s also the reason why my teeth are now so full of metal fillings I could conduct electricity (but that’s a different story). My favorite units in elementary and middle school were the one’s based around Halloween, when we got to read stories like “The Devil and Tom Walker” and “The Raven,” and watch grainy, black-and-white versions of Dracula and Frankenstein. When on trips to the public library with my parents, I always ran to the children’s books with an orange witch taped to the spine – the “scary” section – and I think I owned my body weight in Goosebumps books.
Years later, as an adult, I’ve retained that same fondness for the slightly macabre. Don’t get me wrong, I want nothing to do with the current crop of horror films, which are either torture porn (I’m looking at you Saw) or the same tired tale of demonic possession (seriously, how many times can you tell the same story?). Instead of blood and guts, or kids spitting up pea soup, give me a good story – something classic: Hitchock, The Twilight Zone, Edgar Allan Poe. (Last year, to celebrate our two-year anniversary, my fiancé bought me the complete tales and poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Yes, she is awesome. And yes, she’s taken.)
Some of my favorite storytellers are songwriters, so it just makes sense that that same penchant for the slightly twisted exists in my musical tastes as well – songs about crime, serial killers and monsters among my favorites. For a while, this fact slightly bothered me, even to the point that I asked a close friend, “Why do I love outlaw songs so much?” She responded, without a moment’s hesitation, “Because you’re a good cowboy.”
This, of course, would be the perfect segue into a deep conversation about the dual nature of humanity, cleverly represented by the seemingly opposing forces of this months pair of challenges – wedding planning versus spooky music. But the truth of the matter is, I just love the storytelling in these songs, and October is the perfect month to spread that “cheer” around. So while I’m working hard to get ready for my wedding, you can pull up a chair and enjoy a daily helping of my favorite ditties about horse thieves and fiends, shooting people in Reno just to watch them die and burying people under your floorboards. For this challenge, I’ll be borrowing my title from one of Poe’s earliest works – Songs of the Grotesque and Arabesque.
It’s beginning to sound a lot like Halloween. Or was that wedding bells?
Last month's challenge, though rewarding, didn't result in many blogs. But that's no reason to stop now.
The chill wind of October brings with it two very different challenges.
Check for the first blog soon!
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