The End of Sum

This Saturday, November 13th, Sum of One will play our last show at the Everett Theatre in Middletown, DE. I want to take a moment to reflect on what this band has meant to me.

This band has been a part of my life for just short of 9 years. I joined when I was 13 years old. We recorded our first single when I was 14, then recorded two albums when I was 15/16 and 20. I was in middle school when I joined, and played with the band through 4 years of high school and 4 years of college. The experience I gained in playing with a live band, for audiences ranging from 2 to 2,000 (but normally in the 40-50 range), and recording two albums, has been amazing, especially from such a young age. This group of people have obviously had a profound impact on my life as I grew up with them. Ray, Ryan and John are honestly like family to me (and Terra too of course...my sister). My emotions are extremely mixed in that regard, but at the same time, we all felt that it was time to move on and put this thing to bed while we could still be proud of it. The road ahead is a promising one. I hope to be involved with music for my entire life. I hope to move out of Delaware, possibly to Nashville or New York. I worry that the end of Sum of One will be the end of my performing life, and that without Ray calling every week to make sure we come to the show, I will lose some motivation to play. I have so much appreciation for all Ray has done in managing the band; we've given him crap for the frequent phone calls, but without them who knows what would happen? I will continue to play drums at City Church of Wilmington, and will be on the lookout for future projects to be a part of.

I sincerely hope that all of our friends and family will join us for this very special night of celebrating the past 9 years.

Crump

Wonder and Worship

At the end of the day, when I am lying in bed and I know the chances of any of our theology being exactly right are a milliion to one, I need to know that God has things figured out, that if my math is wrong we are still going to be okay. And wonder is that feeling we get when we let go of our silly answers, our mapped out rules that we want God to follow. I don't think there is any better worship than wonder.

- From Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller

Bush part II

Yesterday, our president made a speech, in which he introduced a new policy called "Preventative Detention," in which we are allowed to indefinitely detain individuals that our Government deems dangerous, or "likely engage in violent acts in the future."

This is the same President who, just months ago, was calling for the closure of Gitmo, and then followed through with procedures to begin closing it.

Maybe he misunderstood...most Americans (mostly Democrats, Independents, and level-headed Republicans) wanted Gitmo closed because it is simply AGAINST the rule of law (a term that Obama used frequently in his speech to criticize the Bush Administration) to detain an individual indefinitely without a trial...not because the terrorists get to live in a sweet Cuban resort.

And he has the balls to give this speech right in front of the Constitution...proverbial middle fingers in the air.

The fact that this has become a partisan issue (so many Democrats who criticized Bush are jumping on board now that Obama is behind it) is sickening, as well as the fact that he has the nerve to criticize Bush in this same speech.

Read what Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald have to say about it here.
And here is MSNBC's (pretty biased, I must admit) coverage of the speech. (I'm sure a few more seconds of searching will get you the actual full speech, if you can stomach it.)

Well I called this one before the election...

It looks like the Obama Administration is already rethinking the deadline for withdrawl from Iraq.
(via The Daily Dish)
I truly feel bad for those who even partially based their vote for Obama on withdrawl. In my mind there are two stances on the Iraq situation. You either say that we shouldn't leave Iraq until they can fully defend themselves without our help. This won't be in Obama's first term, and probably not even in the next decade. So now taking that stance is saying that it is ok to indefinately occupy another country...aka empirialism. Doesn't seem very American does it? The other stance is to set an ACTUAL deadline for withdrawl, and plan for the blowback that will occur sooner than later. I admit, this sucks pretty bad too, but in my opinion it is a step in the right direction. It is a message to the world that we made a mistake that we intend not to make again.
I had hoped Obama realized this, but I'm afraid he hasn't. Hopefully (as Ive said before) I'm wrong.

Open Doors

All my friends are forward-thinking,
getting hitched and quitting drinking.
And I can feel them pulling away as
I'm resigned to stay the same

And you can't even begin to know
How many times I've told myself "I told you so."
And you can't even begin to believe
There's so many bridges engulfed in flames behind me.

The new death cab ep is so great. Sad lyrics set to happy music. You should listen.

Pity, take pity on me.
Cause I'm not half the man that I should be.
Always turning to run
From the people I should not be afraid of.

.

And when my mirror speaks it never minces words
Because these eyes don't shine half as bright
As they used to and they haven't for quite some time.

Because I'm a man who hides from all that binds
And a mess of fading lines
And there's a tangled thread inside my head
With nothing on either end.

I always fall in love with an open door
With a horizon on an endless sea
As I look around the ones who were standing right in front of me.

Domestic Abuse w/ a Twist

Funny stuff from the people at What Would Tyler Durden Do? - My source for all Hollywood Gossip.

Important Things

So I just watched Demetri Martin's new show "Important Things with Demetri Martin," and it was great. He's probably my favorite standup comedian out there right now, but I was afraid that the skits and stuff would just be stupid. (some of them were) But overall it was a great show...I'd choose it over the crap thats been coming out of SNL world any day of the week.
Go check it out on YouTube before they take it down.




















My dog has no legs, yet we still need a leash.

This is the worlds biggest Big Mac, in the Big Mac museum, in some McDonalds in Indiana. I was sad to realize it was made of plastic.