Friday, December 17, 2004

500 Greatest

One of our church members brought me a copy of Rolling Stone magazine yesterday. This particular issues was dedicated to the 500 greatest songs of all time. Truthfully, I could not disagree with much of the list, but I do have a few problems it.

The first MAJOR flaw is that there is not a single Rush song on the list. Come on, they've got a ton of songs that most of us have never heard of, but not one song from one of the biggest selling bands of all time! This is a continuation of some people's animosity toward the Canadian rockers. A few years ago, an executive for the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame stated that Rush would, "never be in the hall of fame." What's the deal? Check out records sales and tour success; How can you leave out Rush? Weezer may the list for goodness sakes, but not Rush!?

Secondly, Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" was named number one. You gotta be kidding me. Every other song in the top ten should have come before Dylan's half-drunk sounding, unintelligible lyrics! How transparent is it that a magazine named 'Rolling Stone' selected a song entitled 'Like A Rolling Stone'? Rolling Stone's number one song is Like a Rolling Stone. Can we all say "Shameless Promotion."

I know it takes a lot of thought and bargaining to come up with such an extensive list. I couldn't do it--at least without much inner turmoil. Instead of trying to come up with a list of 500 songs, I thought I would drop you list of my top ten pop bands/artist of all time in random order.
  • The Beatles
  • The Four Tops
  • The Temptations
  • The Jackson Five/ Michael Jackson
  • Rush
  • Creedence Clearwater Revival
  • U2
  • Sam Cooke
  • Harry Conick Jr.
  • The Doors

What do you think? Send me your list in the comments section.



Wednesday, December 15, 2004

A Little R & R

This week, Rochelle, and I got to spend a few days with her oldest and dearest friend, Rebecca, and her husband, Russ. Russ and Rebecca are traveling across the lower United States to say "goodbye." On January 22, they will leave their lives in the U.S. to spread life in a foreign country--they are becoming missionaries in Thailand!

A few summers ago they spent some time in Thailand with a mission team there, now they are going back to be a part of a tremendous work that shares the love of Jesus in country that is 95% Buddhist; talk about being outnumbered!

Rochelle and I are both excited for them and jealous of them; they are embarking on an adventure of Biblical proportions. Our hope is to be able to cobble enough money together in the next 6 months to go and visit with them.

I want all of you to be praying for Russ and Rebecca. They are wonderful people, who need and deserve your support. If you're not already too drenched from your web surfing, check out their blog: http://russandrebecca.blogspot.com/ In January you will also be able to follow their actions more closely at www.russandrebecca.com Rochelle and I got to see the mock-ups for their site. It's going to be awesome--just like they are.