Thoughts on Turning 50

    

Every once and a while I choose a band or solo artist to explore more and take a deep dive into their discography. This January I decided to get to know more about the Cure. I have been listening to the Cure a lot. They are so good! I kept asking myself why I missed them the first time. Here is the easy answer. It was my own prejudice as a young person. I remember in eighth grade a talent show someone did a lip sync to the Cure's "Lovesong".  At the time I thought that only weirdoes and losers listened to the Cure. I was into heavy metal at that time in my life, and any other form of music I would dismiss as less than great music like Aerosmith, Motley Crue, AC/DC, Metallica, Guns and Roses, Kiss, Whitesnake, etc… Of course, my musical taste changed over time. I grew out of that phase into listening to more diverse music.

            Here was my great mistake as a young person. I missed out on so much because of my narrow view of the world. I believed then that there was something that was "cool". As I turn fifty I realize more and more how uncool I am. My kids tell me this all the time. I am out of step with whatever the latest fads are. However, I think this is a good thing because I now see the truth that we are all geeks (shout out to my college professor who taught this in my politics and religion class).

            There are lots of reasons why I am having a difficult time turning fifty. It seems like something momentous. I suppose it is as simple as I don't know how many years are ahead of me. As a lifelong best friend said to me recently, "I would like to believe that I will retire at 65 and have a nice long life, but we both that is not guaranteed." You get to a certain age and realize that you are as old as your parents, or that more and more of your friends are not in great health. I have actually already lost friends to cancer. No one is given tomorrow. When you are young you simply don't have that perspective, nor should you.

                However, one of the things I want to celebrate this year is that I do have a wider perspective on the world and myself. I don't judge people like I once did. I realize now that I am a weirdo and loser too. I realize that we all are cut from the same human cloth. We are all vulnerable, afraid, and lost. We all seek redemption and sense of where we belong in this crazy world. The older you get the more you come to understand yourself. You come to see that you are not cool and never will be. This allows you to grow in relationships and love others and yourself more.

            The cure on the song "In between days",  they sing, "Yesterday I got so old I felt like I could die / Yesterday I got so old it made me want to cry." It is a song about regret, and about wishing you could take some things back. I wish I could take a lot of things back from my younger days. I wish I was more open-minded at an early age, but I was trying to be cool. The great thing about me now is I know I am not cool at all, and I can simply listen to the music I like or explore different music. I can be open to everyone I meet and love them for who they are, rather than only like the people who are "cool" like me. There are some things about getting old that I don't like. I don't like that I can't eat and drink whatever I want without consequence. I don't like the feeling that my life might be coming to an end. However, there are also some things I am really thankful for. I am thankful for knowing myself better because it helps me accept and love myself. I am thankful that I have a wider perspective on other people, it helps me to accept and love others too. I am thankful for my wife and kids. I am thankful for my family. I am thankful for my friends. I am thankful I get to be a pastor.

                Ultimately I am thankful to be alive and to grow old. I love my life and want it to keep going. I want to continue to explore new music. I want to learn more about the diversity in the world, and hear more stories that make me laugh, cry, and think. If you are reading this I want to thank you for being part of that journey with me. Thanks for putting up with me as I grew and learned more about myself and the world. Thanks for loving me, because when I think back it is your love that has helped me in my life to grow and change. As the Cure sings, "However far away I will always love you / However long I stay I will always love you / Whatever words I say I will always love you." That is what we really are left with at the end of the day the love that we share with one another. Thanks for your love over these 50 years!

 

 

 

50 Songs for 50 Years of Life

 

50 for 50 Years of Life:

 

I wanted to create a soundtrack for my life. These are not necessarily my favorite songs. They are songs that remind me of a certain time of my life. They evoke memories or nostalgia. This is something that I have talked with my friend Mike Fields about creating. I came up with some rules for this list.

  1) Can only use an artist once.

 2) The song had to be released that year. (The last song is the only exception to this rule)

3)   In the first couple of years, I simply picked songs that I liked or that reminded me of something later in life. For example, I will always remember being on a bus in eighth grade on a field trip and people insisting I listen to Hotel California. Killing Me Softly by Roberta Flack was the number one song on the day I was born (March 7, 1973)

4) Only one song per year (I broke this rule on 1978…I have a lot of great memories of both of those songs!)

 

What would your list look like?

 

 

50 for 50 Years of Life:

 

1973 – Killing me softly-Roberta Flack

1974 – Matthew –John Denver

1975 – Shooting Star – Bad Company

I976 – Sick As a Dog - Aerosmith

1977 – Hotel California - Eagles

1978 – Grease Lightening – Grease/ Copacapana  - Barry Manilow

1979 – The Gambler – Kenny Rogers

1980 – Everybody Needs Somebody -Blues Brothers

1981 – Jesse’s Girl – Rick Springfield

1982 – Jack and Diane – John Cougar

1983 – Every Breath You Take – The Police

1984 – Jump – Van Halen

1985 – Home Sweet Home – Motley Crue

1986 – These Dreams – Heart

1987 – Touch of Grey – Grateful Dead

1988 – Every Rose Has It’s thorn - Poison

1989 – If We Never Meet Again – Tommy Cromwell and the Young Rumblers

1990 – Bouncing Round the Room - Phish

1991 – Half the World Away - REM

1992 – No Rain – Blind Melon

1993 – Laid – James

1994 –Better Man – Pearl Jam

1995 – Ironic  - Alanis Morsette

1996 – What I got – Sublime

1997 – The General  - Dispatch

1998 – One Week – Bear Naked Ladies

1999 – Doo Wop that thing – Lauren Hill

2000 – Beautiful Day  - U2

2001 – Last Night – The strokes

2002 -  The Rising – Bruce Springsteen

2003 – Mr. Brightside – The Killers

2004 – American Idiot – Green Day

2005 – Best of You – Foo Fighters

2006 – Satellite – Guster

2007 – 1234 – Feist

2008 – Dogs Days Are Over – Florence and the Machine

2009 – Home – Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

2010 – The Cave – Mumford and Sons

2011 – Born this Way – Lady Gaga

2012 – Ho Hey - Lumineers

2013 – Two of us on the Run – Luscious

2014 – Rip Tide – Vance Joy

2015 – Rescue Me – Amy Helm

2016 – Better Man – Leon Bridges

2017 – Day I Die – The National

2018 – You’re the One – Greta Van Fleet

2019 – California – OAR

2020 – Haven’t been Doing so Well – Frank Turner

2021 – How Dare You Want More - Bleachers

2022- Lost Track – Haim

2023 – Love is All You Need – The Beatles

50 things I learned from the movies

 50 things I learned from the movies

1) “The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.”

2) “Do or do not. There is no try.”

3) “Love doesn't make things nice, it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die. “

4) “Nothing happens to anyone that he is not fitted by nature to bear.”

5) “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

6) “Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.”

7) “There is no tomorrow”

8) “Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.”

9) "Every man dies, but not every man really lives."

10) "Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

11) "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get."

 12) “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

13) “Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.”

14) "All men are sure it never happened to them and all women at one time or other have done it so you do the math."

15) “Great moments are born from great opportunity.”

16) "See, this is our time to dance. It is our way of celebrating life."

17) “Always Do The Right Thing.”

 

18)  “If you hit it right, it's one hell of a life.”

 

19) “The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.”

20) “The Man ruined the ozone, he's burning down the Amazon, and he kidnapped Shamu and put her in a chlorine tank! And there used to be a way to stick it to the Man. It was called rock 'n roll, but guess what, oh no, the Man ruined that, too, with a little thing called MTV!”

 21) “Plastics.”

 

22) “A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.”

 

23) “The sweet is never as sweet without the sour”

 

24) "You can't handle the truth!" 

25) "You're gonna need a bigger boat."

26) "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth."

27) "A boy's best friend is his mother."

28) "These go to eleven."

29) "The Dude abides."

30) “The Things You Own End Up Owning You.”

31) “You see us as you want to see us - in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal.”

32) “It’s not the years it’s the mileage.”

33) “What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music? “

34) “People call those imperfections, but no, that's the good stuff.”

35) "There's More To Life Than A Little Money, You Know.”

36) “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

37) “After all, the wool from the black sheep is just as warm.
”

38) “The needs of the many out way the needs of the few or the one.”

39) “I Guess You Guys Aren’t Ready For That Yet. But Your Kids Are Gonna Love It.”

40)  “You listen, and you take a lesson from the dead. If we don’t come together right now on this hallowed ground, we too will be destroyed, just like they were.”

41) “Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut.”

42) “Everything in the world that happens does not happen to you personally.”

43) “Either They Don't Know...Don't Show...Or Don't Care About What's Going On In The Hood.”

44) “Pinot is thin-skinned, temperamental. It's not a survivor like Cabernet that can grow anywhere and thrive even when neglected. Pinot needs constant care and attention, you know?”

45) “The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.”

46) “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.”

47) “Don't admire people too much. They'll disappoint you sometimes.”

48) “The way to handle a woman

Is to love her...simply love her...”

49) "Love, Actually, Is All Around."

50) “The force be with you!”