| | farndalealright. lots of amazing stuff to write about...
I'm lying in my bunk on the bus in the "car park" (what we would call a parking lot in the states. again, what's funner? car park or parking lot. caravan park or camp ground. hmmm, I see a pattern here. let's try adding park to something and see if it becomes funner. hey kids wanna go to the library for the afternoon? no way! hey kids wanna go to the book park for the afternoon? yeah! of course we all do!) so anyweezle I'm in the very small car park of a very small venue in north western england. please please check out the website. www.thebandroom.co.uk the place is absolutely cute and the surrounding country side is full of beauty and peace. this is one of those times you can write something like that and be completely not embarrased because it's just plain true. we're in farndale I think? I don't know but it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. rolling vallies peppered with cute old little stone houses. it took quite the manuevering to get the bus down here to this place.
our show:
it was sold out. (17.50 pounds a ticket!) great feel. we had a really relaxed set. to the point of deciding which song to play next on the fly which is something we've never done. my back was up against the wall... literally. the stage was tiny. ahh, but it wasn't even a thought because of how amazing this place and these people are. after the gig we set around back stage and got our stuff packed up. there was a girl in an amazing black shirts full of furious flames who had been on the front row and yelled out that she'd rather come see c than bob dylan, who ran into me outside and got me to take the poster for the concert she'd bought into the dressing room for c and all of us band to sign. first autograph of the tour...
anyways blah blah blah backstage sitting around. but then all the sudden we were told that the food was ready and went out into the performance space and there was a big table (two fold out tables put together) with a cool table cloth and a spread of food that made me wet my eyes! (that'd be a funny saying wouldn't it?) oh my gosh... indian food! they had bought it from a place down the road and prepared it in their kitchen and now were presenting it to us. the nahn (sp.?) was amazing. like real deal nahn out of the clay pot. two kinds of curry and rice. by the way, the lights were all down and there were a bunch of candles in the middle of the table. so the band and crew and the organizers all set down to a nice indian meal in some tiny hardly-can-be-called-a-town town somewhere in rural england. man the mixes of cultures in this place are amazin'.
I set next to a guy named mark on my right. mark, for a living, oh builds walls. yep, those picturesque lil' diddies that you see dividing inheritances all over UK country-sides, yep those kinds of walls. with tools, he held up his hands to illustrate the tools he used. wow, that's a man.
and across from me set tim. he was one of the main organizers. he's wise. or at least really smart. no, I'd say wise. after the meal me and our sound guy andy and tim got into a political discussion about how america and the rest of the world. won't get into all of it, but he had a real rational viewpoint. he just felt warm and down to earth. like if I said something like, "it seems hypocritical that we're over in iraq and because of that thousands of innocent people are dying, but yet we do it still eventhough we don't support the killing of innocents obviously and yadda yadda yadda, (don't get caught up on this part please. it's a big long discussion and I don't think I'm actually that dumb sounding if I get the time to explain myself.) anyways, he'd say something like, " yeah I don't think america should be in iraq (and keep in mind everybody over here talks super cool) but the fact is is that saddam was a horrible man and he needed to be ousted." and of course I've heard that all before and all but it's more the spirit with which he talked. he spoke with boldness and wisdom, but not condescention or self-righteousness. he also talked about how that there's basically 3 ways to view holy wars. one is that we're all wrong. two is that one of us is right. 3 is that we're all right, or at least that there's a common point to all of our stuff that's right and we need to concentrate on that rather than the differences that are really honestly not that big of a deal. oh boy have I opened up a can of beans. if you're feeling at all nervous, anxious, or at all put off or offended right now please stop. this is your friend ben writing. he hasn't gone off on some crazy deep end. he's just trying to figure things out as much as he always has. he struggles for the truth, to stay afloat, to like people, to love people to love himself, to press on, to believe, to dream... yes struggles... wow does he struggle sometimes... wow does he struggle eventhough he's on tour playing music in an amazing place... wow aren't there always things to humble us and to break us and teach us and build us up and hurt us and heal us... wow isn't there always God and isn't he always good and right and wise and, well to put it shallowly, but honestly, effective?
on my way out we got to talking some more about just more personal stuff. he told me he's a consultant for management and what-not so I told him about the book I'd recently read that's changed my life. "leadership and self-deception" by the arbinger group. wow. what a book.
we ended on one of those "yeah I feel you... know what you're saying" sort of moments. it's funny. he seems like a good man.
so we sleep here tonight in the car park. I'm glad I'm doing this blog. out here in the middle of nowhere, it makes me think of you. josh and harold and travey and john and joshy and wes. I hope you guys are doing good. |
| | Posted 9/27/2006 1:09 PM - 2 comments
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