news

it's been a busy weekend.

monday is the launch of the first issue of the other journal with me as the creative writing editor, so i spent all of saturday editing content and assisting my editor-in-chief and managing editor. monday is my second day of class (a fun yet grueling 3 hour affair), so after church, i spent sunday reading, hating the NFL, and doing homework. monday is the return of my continentally-estranged s.o.; i didn't really have to do anything to prepare for this, but it hopefully means that i'll be busy on tuesday.

yikes, i'm going to be worn out.

also, i'm probably headed to oregon this week: my grandpa passed away early saturday morning, and the memorial service will probably be this week. we sang a song in church today about christ's death and resurrection, and i had to stop singing because i was a little choked up. if you're a 17 point scale loyalist, my grandpa's the one that i've been posting interview segments from. i don't know what i think about adding more interview segments at the moment. in the meantime, here's a song that i've posted before, which somehow seems to fit how i feel right now:

http://www.roachmusic.com/music/AJ_Roach-Grandaddy.mp3

my grandpa certainly never "ran whiskey" but i really like that last verse; i think it communicates what people thought of my grandpa. he was an amazing man:

granddady passed away on his birthday,
just a couple ---- of a century ----.
everybody was ---- just to help him celebrate,
and we all cried when he didn't wake up.
mama' gave me a black and white picture framed
of the man in his funeral clothes.
had to hold five or six separate services,
and everybody in the county must have showed.
john, you're gonna shine like silver.
yeah, you're gonna' hear such a beautiful grievous sound
when you're floating over them jordan river,
and we lay your earthly body down.

ah, i love that verse.

(by the way "----" means that i'm not sure what singer says, not that i think he's swearing!)

random blog updates

in october of 2006 i announced my attempts at an amateur career in photography. well, it's taken me half a year, but i finally made $100!

in december of 2005 i deemed death cab for cutie's "what sarah said" my favorite sad song. in that month, "what sarah said" also happened to top my charts in the death related rock genre. now, unfortunately for death cab, their piano-based elegy has been supplanted by a.j. roach's "grandaddy" (this link passes directly through the artist's site; no pesky video). incidentally, "what sarah said" is still my favorite sad song about death that can be twisted into an interesting metaphor for baptism.

also, i'm really proud of the internet tonight. i'm not a fan of the official "what sarah said" video, so i was searching for something a bit more palpable. i wasn't too successful, but i did find about a dozen how-to videos related to the piano score. generally speaking, i tend to consider the internet a vast impersonal resource for information and time-wasting. if i were to personify the internet, i might describe ms. web as a nasty vindictive nerd, but tonight she was something of a musical saint, generously spreading the gift of music-making throughout the four corners of the globe. way to go!

andrew david. "the look of an istock photographer" somewhere in guatemala.