And So He Goes...

I want to clear the air that ESPN has once again turned into a fog that Beijing coal miners wouldn't walk into regarding our beloved Commander-in-Chief, Brett Favre. Everybody at our most trusted sports news network, save one man, Rick Reilly, has gotten this whole thing so wrong that I'm more irritated with them than I am with Favre (Jay Glazer of Fox Sports and Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have been pretty close to the mark as well. Also check out ColdHardFootballFacts.com). Here is the way I'm convinced this went down and the things that the Packers can't say:

Favre has been terrible for years not only in the post-season but really in any big game where either a playoff berth is on the line or he's up against another Hall of Fame caliber QB. This was fine by then head coach and eventual GM Mike Sherman because our head coach and GM at the time was Mike Sherman.

Enter Ted Thompson.

Here's a guy who seems to live in a delusion known as 'objectivity'. It wasn't until this whole mess reached a boiling point that the scales, shaped like little #4 jerseys, fell off my eyes. Thompson never bothered to put them on. He was sporting a pair of something else. He saw Brett's post-season record for what is was and decided he was never going to win a championship with this guy. As a Favre loving Packer fan (still am really, just an all-grown-up one) I remember the knots in my gut going into any big game, not knowing which Brett would be taking snaps. It was never a question of if he was going to throw the ball to the other team or even how many times he would do it. The question was, "Is he going to throw the pick at a game-altering time and lose the game for us or at just an 'inconsequential' time?" (for those of you who need a little help, or perhaps with the scales still firmly in place, this is a ridiculous question). If there is one stat that you can absolutely count on in the NFL, it's that 81% of the time the team with the fewest turnovers wins. Just ask the post-season Rams of '02, the post-season Falcons of '03, the post-season Eagles of '04, the post-season Vikings of '05, a dozen various NFL teams that played us in the following '05 regular season, half of the teams that played us in '06, and finally in 2008 (following what might be Favre's best season ever), Corey Webster. Everyone else will tell you, "Oh, that's just Brett being Brett. Did you see that other throw he made?! Who else could have made that throw?!" Thompson doesn't see things that way. In other words, he's a good GM.

Thompson and Favre probably never got along. Most likely because Favre insisted on playing General Manager and because this causes problems when someone else is already getting paid to that. Thompson got rid of Darren Sharper (S), Ryan Longwell (K), Marco Rivera (RG), Mike Wahle (OG), Ahman Green (RB), fired Mike Sherman and refused to hire Steve Mariucci or sign Randy Moss (WR), all to Favre's dismay. He didn't like Thompson's decision making, although he seemed to like going 13-3 with, "The most talented team [he had] ever been on".

Brett Favre then retires, sensing that he's not wanted anymore. After years of team paralyzing off-season deliberation this finally puts him over the edge. It is what Thompson had wanted all along. Just go away peacefully and let us 'move on'. The Packers draft two more quarterbacks and it's over. The curtain closes and Brett bows to more accolades than any player in sports history had ever received.

Enter Brett Favre.

The Packers would have let Brett come back for another year, but he didn't want to. They would have let him come back again, but he didn't want to. They would have let him come back yet again, but he didn't want to. So they moved on to Aaron Rodgers, their first round draft pick in '05 who has practiced extensively with the team and knows the system they run very well. Quarterbacks are hard to come by in the NFL and with Rodgers and two more hopefuls on the roster there will never be a better time to make the transition.

And now, of course, Brett wants back. The key here isn't that they think Rodgers is a better QB than Favre. It's the timing. If Brett comes back for - who knows - another year (?) and Rodgers splits when his contract is up, the Pack will be left starting Brian Bhrom, a rookie without the preparation that has been put into Rodgers. The switch has to be made now.

Maybe Rodgers doesn't have what it takes, but Favre doesn't for sure. He's a brilliant player and more fun to watch than anyone I've ever seen. He's still my favorite athlete ever (why do we have favorite athletes?) and I'm going to brag to my kids that I got to watch him play, but what good is 13-3 (or 16-0, for you folks out east) if you don't win in the post-season? Favre use to be clutch. He's not anymore. Let's hope Rodgers is.

When Brett marched back into training camp to go head to head with the organization in what he likely thought would be the clash of the titans, Jim Rome called it a TKO for Favre. He had forced Thompson's hand. Brett wins.

Brett is now practicing with a 4-12 team outside our conference and the Packers still get to benefit from Favre's ability, receiving higher draft picks the better he does. Game-set-match, Thompson.

Five Bassists and a Guitarist Walk Into a Bar...

So I got back from a little No-Cal tour last week. I really had a great time and I got to play with some pretty awesome musicians. Randy Marshall, a solo bassist from San Francisco invited me out to play with his solo bass consortium, including (left to right up there) Andy Cervantes, John Addy, Jeff Schmidt, me and Randy himself. Not pictured is a wicked little war guitarist from the night before named 'Jimbo' (never caught his last name). I played in San Fran and Modesto with those guys and had a couple of things on my own in Oakland and Roseville (Sacramento).

Between shows Phil Majorins, a close friend of mine and a very cool guy, took me to Berkeley (or as I call it, 'Not Wisconsin') for their world music festival. Bizerkeley is just a very different place. I loved it. Bought Phil an Arvo Part CD.

After the shows were done I had a day to burn so I drove down to Monterey and went scuba diving. My first time diving in the ocean. Pretty cool (literally - 49 degrees cool). Lots of fish, tons of starfish, and a few really messed up looking crabs.

Went whale watching for the first time after that. We must have seen 30 or so humpbacks. Stopped at the Monterey Bay Aquarium for a bit after that. Amazing jellyfish exhibit.

I think God is cool. Got a new tune called 'Monterey'.

PA Shows

I just got back from playing a couple shows in Lancaster, PA, and while it's never fun to be around that many Eagles fans, I really had a blast. I love the Midwest, but she's rough on her musicians, so any time I get to play somewhere else I really look forward to it. Both shows were well attended and I actually made a little money this time around. As my father-in-law would say, "A good time was had by all".

While I was out there I got to reconnect with some old friends. Most of the time I was there I crashed with Tom and Andrea Bailey, who are two of my favorite people in the world. I also got to hang with some musicians I use to tour with way back in the day, Fred Gulliano and Judah Thomas. I also met a very cool musician named Hiram Ring. Looks like I may have made some helpful contacts as well and that I'll probably be out that way again.

Behold, The Man

This Holy Week was one filled with reflection and insight for me. I attended a Good Friday Mass at a Catholic church and was once again reminded of how beautiful (and long) the Mass is. My favorite part is always the congregational reading of the Passion narrative from John. The priest reads Jesus' lines and we, the congregation, are first the Roman cohort that comes with Judas to arrest Jesus and later the mob that demands his crucifixion. There is something very humbling and shameful about being part of a crowd shouting, "Crucify him!" in unison. I think that's the point. Knowing those lines were coming, I found myself dreading them as we worked our way through the story. I'm reminded of the lyrics of the Stuart Townsend song, How Deep the Father's Love for Us, "Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice call out among the scoffers." All the disciples deserted him that night (except maybe for John) and Peter even called a curse down upon himself while denying that he ever knew Jesus, who stands as the only hero, the only one who got anything right that night.

Christ came with a kingdom of peace. The people he came to, while they liked him for a time, ultimately decided to do away with him violently. They chose sides against him politically and went with Caesar. "We have no king but Caesar". Until Jesus, they wanted out from Caesar's grasp. That's what they wanted Messiah to fix. Jesus basically told them that Caesar was irrelevant and had no real power anyway ('Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, but give to God what is God's'; 'You would have no power had it not been given to you by my father'), but that wasn't good enough. They seemed to have disliked Jesus' politics so much that they executed him in Caesar's name.

As Evangelicals, we're always told that the cross is all about judicial atonement. When we place so much emphasis on that alone, the teachings of Christ become secondary to his "real" mission. However, the cross and resurrection of Christ is the culmination of everything Jesus taught us the same way the New Testament is the culmination of everything in the Old (and the the cross and resurrection are the culmination of all that too). When the Jews (when we) rejected Jesus they weren't just rejecting his atonement for their sins, they were rejecting his entire kingdom; his politics (his polis), his ethics, everything that he calls us to be.

Let's get one thing straight: Jesus is a real, legitimate king and his kingdom is a real, legitimate kingdom. We like to spiritualize it, to read the kingdom talk just like the "other" metaphors the New Testament uses for the church - the bride, the flock, the temple, the body - but Christ's kingship and kingdom are a metaphor for nothing. The prophets promised us a king, and God delivered. His kingdom operates differently, drastically so, than worldly kingdoms, but we should expect this. Weakness is preferred to power, foolishness to wisdom, peace to violence, poverty to wealth, suffering to comfort. "My ways are not your ways". All of this, all of it, is right there in the cross and resurrection of Christ. Atonement for sins is just one piece.

Christ is in competition with Caesar, and he won. Absolute and utter victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil's ways. God's way - our way - worked, and it's still a better way. When we fail to see this, the best solutions we can come up with are voting and enlisting to try to control history. These, and many other things we do way too much of, are the world's ideas that we've unfortunately adopted. Remember, if God's ways are not our ways, then Jesus doesn't make any more sense to conservatives than he does to liberals, no more sense to Democrats than to Republicans. And if we are to serve Christ rather than Caesar, then that goes for serving America too. In choosing sides against Christ then, whether we choose violence over peace, wealth over poverty, power over weakness, or comfort over the sufferings of Christ, we then join the mob in chanting, "Crucify him!", or said another way, "It was my sins that held hem there." Let us recognize the victory of God over all things and how that victory was accomplished, along with what didn't work for the opposition.

Vicit agnus noster, eum sequamur.

Our Lamb has conquered; him let us follow.

Favre

I was pretty shocked to hear that Favre is retiring today. I was even more surprised to hear that Green Bay not making much of a try at Moss had anything to do with it. You can't listen to ESPN for more than 5 minutes without hearing something about Favre's "sour grapes" and already people are criticizing him for handling this poorly. I'm convinced that Moss did have something to do with his decision, but I'm not so sure that I blame him or that it is "sour grapes". I t seems perfectly understandable to me that, if he is as mentally tired as he says he is, there would be some dream situation that would keep him around a little longer. Favre and Moss have always wanted to play together and for the second straight off-season that has been a possibility. I don't necessarily criticize Thompson for not really going after Moss, though I wish he would have. He's proven that he knows what he's doing. We can be talked into or out of almost anything if the currency is right, and as Favre moves closer to retirement, as his girls get older, as he slowly wears down, as he widens the age gap between him and his teammates, and after he's set every imaginable career passing record that currency get more and more specific. He is in no way "sticking it to the organization" or reacting purely on emotions (as though he hasn't thought this through for several years), he's just doing what we have all been expecting him to do for a long time. He was three points away from the Super Bowl this year, second in the league in yards, and he proved to his critics that he still has what it takes (some bad habits included). He's right that only a Super Bowl win can top that. It's been over a decade since his last one.

At the end of the day I'll always take the league's all time passing leader over a guy with 59 career attempts. And I'm almost as big a Favre fan as I am a Packer fan. We're going to miss him, for sure, but I think this will be good. Quarterbacks are hard to come by (just look around the division) and we think we have our guy in Rodgers. Fitting him into an already proven young team that he's practiced extensively with and into a system he knows very well is NOT a problem by NFL standards. Ask the Bears if they want to trade quarterback problems.

I'll miss watching Brett play every week but I think Packer fans have a lot to look forward to. By the way, the picture up there is one that I took of Favre's last touchdown pass at the NFC title game.

Limited Vocabulary

It's been a while since the record was released so I though I would comment on the concept, title and cover art a bit.

The title, "Limited Vocabulary", comes primarily from the idea that everything we say about God is wrong, even when we're right. God speaks, we listen. He gets us. He tells us what to say about him, but even when we say it, even when we learn it, we still don't get it. If you look around at the church in America right now for about 8 seconds you'll see what I mean. Incidentally, here's your argument for traditional Christian liturgy. It takes a long time to get this stuff right.

The cover of the CD is a picture of the most run down house I've ever seen. I found it when I took a wrong turn in Wausau, WI and had to take a detour to compensate. I came upon a Catholic church with an ARMY attack helicopter on the front lawn...at least that's what it looked like from a distance. Next door to the church was some kind of veterans facility and they actually had the chopper (and a tank). Across the street was the afore mentioned house. I turned around in the driveway to take a picture of the chopper and the church because I liked the irony and was astonished to see current license plates on the cars in back. Someone was living there! I one-handed the shot of the house as I drove away. Just got lucky that it turned out as good as it did.
Here's the commentary: Maybe the poorest guy I've ever seen lives across the street from both the church and the state and nobody's doing a thing for him. There is a communication breakdown in the way we talk about poverty, war, and suffering. No matter how we think of love, it falls apart at exactly the point where we do nothing no matter how much we talk. God speaks and worlds get created. All we have is rhetoric. Our language shapes us more than most things, and getting our language right is crucial, but rhetoric alone helps no one. Without love, without service, words only desensitize us to what we ought to be passionate about. However we just might live on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

"Only say the word and we shall be healed..."

Breaking the Silence

I'm jealous of poets, particularly songwriters.  That's why I'm starting this blog up.  They get to say things that the rest of us get in trouble for and (when it's done right) people rave .  That's the curse of being a good instrumental musician and a miserable lyricist.  As an artist there are all kinds of things you want to say about the world, but you rarely get a chance to say it.  Enter, the blog.  I recognize this isn't the most artistic way to say things, probably anti-artistic, but here it is anyway.  I hope you find something in here that resonates with you.  Leave comments and let's try to dialogue a bit.  More to come...