Driven To Tears

We went to see The Police at Dodger's Stadium last night. It was so great to see the band play together again. (I went to see them on The Ghost in the Machine tour 25 years ago) Anyway, last night was a terrific show.

Personally, I think Stewart stole the show. He hasn't lost a step at all since the "old days". The highlight for me was "Driven To Tears". On that song, he played better than I think I've ever heard him play. I'll even say that one song was worth the night for me. His choices and taste were amazing.

The Foo Fighters preceded The Police, and though there were sound issues, they had a great set. Thanks to LA traffic, we missed Sting's son's band that opened.

Patience Is A Virtue

Many people have been waiting for years for The Police to get around to touring again. For me, it's a bit of a full-circle experience, and a welcome one.

Their drummer, Stewart Copeland, is probably close to the top of most drummers "drummers who influenced me the most" lists. His style of pattern intricacy combined with his wreckless abandon approach is a wonderful melding of percussive goodness. I have enjoyed studying (read 'ripping-off from') his playing over the years.


To make good things even better, the Foo Fighters have agreed to open the show I'm attending in June. Talk about abandon in style! I'm sure that both Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins have both taken pages out of Stewart Copeland's playbook when creating each of their approaches.

Foo Fighters

Being patient has paid off now that The Police are playing again this year. Now, I'll have to just be patient enough again to make it to the show in June. Hope to see you there!

Miscellaneous Happenings

As promised, here's some images from recent days.

Chana's parents, Lynn and Glenda celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary last month. I did a tribute video made up of old pics and family video footage. It was a lot of fun to see extended family and friends that day.


Sky lost both front teeth on our Christmas trip. When the first one came out, he kissed the chicken strip that knocked it out and yelled "money, money, money!" Apparently, the charm of the Tooth Fairy is held only by her ability to fork over the Washingtons.


theCalling got together right after Christmas for a show. We worked hard to get the old material ready. It was a blast, the crowd went wild - well, they said they liked it.



Finally, last night Chana and I went to "An Evening With Lost" at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Almost the entire cast of the show was there, plus the creators (including J.J. Abrams) and producers, and the event was hosted by late night talk-man Jimmy Kimmel. There were no secrets revealed, but there were some good stories told. Obviously, the little digital camera I took is lame. I also need to talk to the guy who's supposed to clean the lens. (go to the link for more info)

Dominic Monaghan

Matthew Fox


More later...

UPDATE 01-31-07 - Some (MUCH better) pics from the Academy site:

Happy New Year

2007 promises to be a remarkable year. There are many exciting projects, both film and music-related, that are going to take off this year, so it might be overwhelming at times too. Chana's novel will be making it's debut as well. At least it won't be boring!

I'll be back soon to talk about these projects, including the reunion concert theCalling put on Dec 29th in Dallas. It was a smash.

For now, I have to kick this cold... :(

Rockin' Spain

The Triibe had a great trip to Spain. The conference was a success, and God changed many lives. We played a total of four times (3 times on Sunday!), and the response seemed really positive. Some people don't know what to do with us - since we're a percussion heavy / spoken-word heavy band, but most others get it and open themselves up to us and our message.

Unfortunately I only have this one picture of us playing. Maybe I'll add more if I receive more. I do have other interesting info from the conference though.

There were many bands at Contra Corriente, one being the UK band Superhero. They are a group of great guys with great hearts, and VERY cool music. Check them out. I believe you can get their music on iTunes.

Keith Wheeler (www.kw.org) is an amazing individual. To promote the gospel, he has carried the cross over 17,000 miles, through more than 160 countries on all seven continents. He was one of the key-note speakers, and he has an incredible story. We had the pleasure of hanging out with him and his wife Cherie a couple of late nights in the town of Huesca. (s.l. weska)


Backing up to the beginning... After flying into Madrid on Friday morning, we proceeded to drive to Huesca, a 3.5 hour drive northeast. We turned the drive into eight hours by stopping for a couple of us to visit as many bathrooms as we could find - sometimes visiting them more than once per stop. Crazy times.

We stopped in a small town called Huerta to visit a Monastery (Monasterio de Santa Maria de Huerta) about half way there. The monks were still living there, though their numbers have decreased by about 500 since the monastery's opening in 1100 AD. Here's some pics from there:


The front gate:



The main sanctuary:



A small portion of the ornate ceiling:


The pipe organ:


One of the court yards:


This is one of the monks. He invited us to a 30 minute prayer-time with all of the monks of the monastery. We didn't know what to do once we got there, but it was really interesting. (L-R: Gyle, Daniel, Mr Monk, and Bob)


This is just a really great self-portrait. Notice how my hat is a tad crooked. Very street.


Spain has a pace all it's own. We gladly adapted to that flow during our drive from Madrid to the conference. It was a nice relaxing time before the non-stop marathon that was the conference. I took this picture in a pub. I just thought these guys would be the perfect extras in a movie.


Triibe plays again in Kansas City in a couple of weeks. I will be joining them for that one too. I'm looking forward to it!