Pres. Ronald Reagan - 1981 Christmas address

Bo Staff Technique

Expert Village

Jim Croce sampler

Speedball Trucker



Bad, Bad Leroy Brown



Roller Derby Queen



I Got a Name



Operator

Taekwondo Taeguk Il Jang and Palgwe Il Jang

This set of videos was filmed in part at Gyeongbokgung, Seoul. I have the English edition of these disks.



I am hoping to return to South Korea and hope that I will have the chance to learn the palgwe as well as the taeguk. I have a yellow belt, but have no problem starting again with a white belt. I earned the belt in March 2007, and has been a very long time since I had a sabomnim to instruct me in the correct path I am to walk as I progress in Taekwondo.

Kristine Sa sampler

Hallelujah - cover of the Leonard Cohen classic



A Song of Faith (original demo)



Nobody - acoustic demo



Lonely Asylum

Geommu - Korean Sword Dance - Hwang Jin-i (2006)

from Hwang Jin-i - Korean drama starring Ha Ji-won

Lord Christopher Monckton

Counting Crows sampler

A Murder of One

"I walk along the hillside in the summer 'neath the sunshine, I am feathered by the moonlight falling down on me"



Colorblind

"I am colorblind... coffee black and egg white... pull me out from inside... I am ready, I am ready, I am ready I am...."



Recovering the Satellites

"she sees shooting stars and comet's tails... she's got the heavens in her eyes...."



Mrs. Potter's Lullaby

"if dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts... you can never escape, you can only move south down the coast"

My Turn (How Chuck Norris Came to Be)

kick step kick step kick step
breathe in... breathe in... breathe in
kick step kick step kick step
breathe... breathe... breathe
kick....kick...kick...kick...

kick SLAP kick SLAP kick SLAP
breathe... breathe... breathe
kick SLAP kick SLAP kick SLAP
breathe breathe breathe
kick... kick... kick... kick...

around around around again
kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step
breathe breathe breathe
kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step
breathebreathebreathe
kick...kick...kick...kick...

in the heat of the moment
bare feet write poems in the sky
kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP kick
breathebreathebreathe
a heart beats in time
but I don't hear my heart beating
my breath whistles in my ears
in the heat of the moment
kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step
around the heat of the moment goes

and comes again and again and again
kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step
tunnel vision
only my target I see
kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step
no time to breathe
grasp the moment gasp for breath
cling to life when the heart doesn't beat
kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step
the heat of the moment drips away
one sweat drop at a time
kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step
over and over and over and over again
kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step

I saw it in the movies
I saw it on TV
this is the way
Chuck Norris came to be
now its my turn

kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step

kick SLAP step kick SLAP step kick SLAP step

kick step kick step kick step kick step

breathe....

While My Guitar Gently Weeps - Jake Shimabukuro

Bill "Superfoot" Wallace v. Joe Lewis (kick boxing exhibition fight)

Way of the Dragon - Bruce Lee v. Chuck Norris

Ki

Chinese medicine is a fascinating thing. For over five thousand years they have passed on this incredible knowledge of the human body. How they got the information is something I don't know, but when I try to apply what I do know about the human body and the electro-chemical process used to keep it alive, well, parts of it do make sense to me. I wish there was an easy way to explain it.

First, let me point out that I am a Christian. I am a member of the Seventh-day Adventist church. One aspect of my church's ministry concerns physical health. While we teach vegetarianism as a healthy lifestyle, there are a lot of us who do eat animals. A study conducted a number of years ago showed that vegetarians live on average seven years longer than people who eat animal foods.

I have lived in Asia for nearly four years. I've experienced Thai massage, and it is incredible.

Now to tie these three things together.

The human body runs on an electro-chemical process. The body does generate its own electrical power. I think that this is what is refered to as ki/qui energy. Using a term I first heard when I joined the SDA church, it is the "spark of life."

In college biology class, we took a knife and cut a small section of a leaf and put it under a microscope. I observed a stoma, a small waterway if you will, that was processing water to the rest of the leaf. Even though it was cut off from the rest of the plant, this small part of the leaf was still alive. It had the ki energy or spark of life in it. The proteins in the plant are still living.

When an animal is killed, the life in the animal ceases to exist. The electro-chemical process ends. When we eat the animal, we eat dead protein. When we eat vegetables, we eat living protein. Living protein is better for our bodies than dead protein. The living protein helps keep the electro-chemical process going, while dead protein slows it down. As a biblical philosopher once asked, what does the living have to do with the dead? They are not compatible.

Most martial arts do come from a Buddhist religious tradition. From what I have read, even Buddha was a vegetarian, and taught it to his followers. Most Buddhists I have met since coming to Thailand do eat meat and drink alcohol, and I find this disappointing. Makes it hard for me to find places where I can have a good meal.

The brain and the nervous system run on this electro-chemical process, and the various nerve clusters throughout the body act like junctions or terminals or routers for the electrical impulses that control the five senses. While getting a Thai foot massage, the therapist touched a sensitive part of my foot. She told me that I snore. She also touched another part of my foot and told me something else that was true about me. Granted, most men do snore. But there are also a lot of people who do not. Fifty-fify chance of getting it right. Two for two, however, piques curiosity. Should have gone for seven out of seven, since the foot has a lot of nerve endings that are wired in with other nerve endings, so there is more that our feet can tell us if we paid attention. and took better care of them. The methods of Chinese medicine and Thai massage are designed to keep the nervous system "clean" and operating smoothly. Massage helps work out some of the kinks, not just for muscles, but for the nerves and pressure points, as well.

The breathing exercises associated with ki are important. If we breathed better, we would have less problems with our respiratory system. We do not breathe deep enough. We do not use the muscles in our diaphrams, so we do not get enough air deep enough into our bodies. People who sing or are publi speakers understand the importance of this. Speaking from the diaphram increases our projection of voice, and also prevents sore throats that are brought on from shallow breathing.

So yes, ki is important.

Taoist magic uses ki energy, but that is the stuff of the video games and movies. I think the Force of Star Wars borrows much from this concept. The ki was not meant to do magic tricks, but when it is allowed to do what it is designed to do, it will give us a long life. My Christian belief says that God is the giver of life, and the ki is a gift from God. We should not abuse it, but we should take care of it as such. We have heard that the body is a temple. The best way I can explain this is to compare it to the Old Testament temple in the wilderness used by the Hebrews. At night there was a glow that came from the holy of holies, the dwelling place of God's glory among His people. I see the ki energy in my body in the same way. My body is a temple, and the electro-chemical spark of life is God in me. It does not make me God, but it does make me His child. And the power He gives me is not to be abused.

This is a point of view. I'll probably make changes to it as I continue to grow as a Christian and as a martial artist. For me, this makes sense, and if it doesn't make sense to you, that is okay. We have different life experiences to draw upon, and different ways of saying the same thing. It makes life interesting, and shows that we have much, much more to learn as we grow as human beings.

Clare de Lune - Debussy

From a remastered film. It would have been a part of the original Fantasia, but was deleted.

Toccata and Fuge in D Minor - Mozart

Very cool.



Very cool, indeed.

Firefly Opening Theme Song

Chasing Cars - (cover of Snow Patrol song) - thebathroomgirl

I met Cherry at a place called The Garden in Chiang Mai, Thailand. She has a wonderful voice, and I love her guitar style. I have never heard the original version of "Chasing Cars," but she does an excellent job with it.

Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Lee interview

Iris - Goo Goo Dolls

Take My Hand - Dido

The Hard Line

I try to have a unique view of the world. I don’t like the black and white view of the world, with cut and dried good and evil being the norm. It oversimplifies morality and has a hard line that is too easily straddled or crossed over. Innocence or guilt, good or evil, right or wrong. Hardcore law with no flexibility built into it. Under grace. Under law. Your choice on where to live your life.

What I see in life is a little bit of good in the evil we do, as well as a little bit of evil in the good we do. Every action is a shade of grey, darkness and lightness determined by the intention of the human heart. Unfortunately, the most pure heart in the lives of men is still tarnished by the lightest shade of grey, so much so that there are no men in this world with a pure heart.

I am not a god. If offered, I would hope that I would turn down the position. I know myself too well, and I know that I would somehow screw something up in ways too grand to be imagined. Bruce Almighy, the Jim Carey movie with Morgan Freeman playing God, shows what happens when infinite cosmic power is used for selfish gain, and without infinite wisdom and self-control, let alone the infinite love, required to wield the power effectively in the service of others.

I am a human being, so much smaller than God or any other deity that has at one time been worshipped and adored. I am thankful that I am not Buddha, or that I am not Rama, Shiva, or any other incarnation of some other deity. I do not hold out my hand and speak the magic words, Let there be light, and then watch light magically appear in my hand. I do not go out into the back yard and carve a humanoid shape into the soil and then attempt to breathe life into it. I am good at creating monsters, but they are only figments of my own imagination. There are worse creatures in the world than H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulu. My monsters would freak out Cthulu.

I do not have a God’s eye view on the world. Being so close to the human race, I have this tendency to see this crazy shading of blacks and whites and greys mixing together, blending into a dark menagerie of hopelessness. And all that is evil in the world takes the paint brush and does all that it can to smear that which is good with the greyness of its own existence. There is no room for goodness, decency, morality, or law.

The greatest tragedy in all of this is seeing how the word “love” has been corrupted. Love is no longer strong. Love is no longer faithful. Love is no longer patient. Love is no longer kind. Love is no longer truthful. Love no longer casts out fear, but becomes something to fear. Love is not something to die for, but one must kill in the name of love. Love must be eradicated from this world craving the darkness at the expense of the light.

I have listened to the words of conservatives, neoconservatives, right-wingers, left-wingers, and liberals. I have never heard a conservative demand the death of a human being, except for Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and a few other terrorists. From the liberal end of the spectrum I have heard demands for people to be killed, like former Pres. Bush, Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, and the list extends right on down to unborn babies, those vile creatures accidentally conceived during one hot, sweaty moment of passion when there was no love to be found.

The only people I know in politics who have dared use “love” to unite voters were the supporters of the Ron Paul rEVOLution. Evil people from the Left and the Right took out their paintbrushes and painted these people as moonbats or political freaks who believed every conspiracy theory ever designed. The Left is angry at the Right, the Right is angry at the Left, and everyone is angry at Ron Paul.

So much anger, so much hatred, so much fear to spread, so many voices calling for violence to end it all, and so little time to make it happen. By the grace of God the blood people are calling for has not yet been spilled. One day God will step aside and many prayers will be answered as the body count uncontrollably spirals into the depths of the earth. The people calling for blood will one day mingle their blood with the blood of their enemies.

I see shades of grey. God sees things in black and white. This is God’s universe. God makes the rules. God has the right to be a hardliner. His way or no way. His way is love. Evil hates Jesus Christ, and as such it hates God the Father. Sin separates us, God’s children who are in love with evil, from the only deity in this universe that has ever claimed to be our Father.

The only reason why a person burns in the lake of fire at the end of time is because he or she rejected Jesus Christ as the only way to get to the Father. God will not coerce a person into believing in Him. God will not force a person to go to Heaven. God will not twist a person’s arm or break a leg or do anything to a person that will violate the individual’s free choice that He gave to him or to her. God does not bodyslam nonbelievers and then demand repentance. God will not bend to the will of a human being if it means believing in Him. God has already done what is required to save a person. The person has to be willing to be saved on God’s terms, or else that person is lost.

The purpose of the lake of fire is to destroy sin. Sin is the breaking of the law. In our society, we have laws. When you are caught breaking a law, there is a penalty that must be paid. God has His laws, and LOVE is the reason the law exists. To paraphrase Jesus Christ, “Love God… Love others… upon these hang the law and the testimony.” People who reject Jesus Christ reject God. They do not love the Father, so hellfire will burn them until they cease to exist.

One of the things about Jonah that bothers me was his desire to see the people of Nineveh destroyed by fire. The Assyrians were a people ruled by brutally oppressive kings who openly bragged about their war crimes and atrocities. One can read about Ashurbanipal and Sennacharib and find similar attributes in Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot. Jonah knew the reputation of the Assyrians, and he wanted to see God’s judgment poured out on Nineveh. It made him angry when the city repented and he didn’t get to see the fireworks display. On the Left and the Right I see people who are interested in the fireworks of human justice. It is not God’s justice that they seek, but it is their self-righteous judgment against their bogeymen that keeps hatred burning in our world.

I look at the hard line between right and wrong. I see the shades of grey where God’s mercy is painted. God’s paintbrush applies the blood of Jesus Christ to those who know they have sinned and seek to claim their inheritance through Him. They once again claim God as their Father. The snow falling in our world are sinners bowing before Him and seeking an escape from the uncontrolled flames of human passion that knows no mercy. God has a merciful love for us if only we would accept it. The line between black and white, good and evil, right and wrong, is blurred by the mercy I find in God’s heart for us, the love He asks us to accept and to embrace and to share with those who reject Him.

It is called “God’s strange act.” The day comes when fire falls from heaven and hellfire ignites, destroying sin. As sin is consumed, so are the people who loved sin more than they loved God. Their hatred, their self-righteous anger, their brutality are consumed by the flames, and their bodies turn to ash, then they cease to exist. God loves them, and in one final act, He answers their prayers: Dear God, please don’t exist. As each sinner finds eternal rest in the blackness of sleep, God ceases to exist, and so do they. God loves them enough to kiss them good night.

God is a hardliner. All He wants is for us to be on His side of the line, where His banner over us is LOVE. What’s wrong with that?

5x5 Songs that Focus Me on Jesus Christ

These songs opened my eyes to many points of view, and even helped ask questions and through them I found answers.

At age 7 I was baptized into the Southern Baptist denomination. In 1972 my parents divorced, and in 1973 we moved from Ohio to Kentucky. My mom took us to Baptist churches, and my dad returned to the Lutheran church he grew up in. It was on during a visitation that Dad played for us the soundtrack to Jesus Christ Superstar. Ted Neely played the part of Jesus. When the movie was broadcast on television, my mom and I watched it.

After I became a Seventh-day Adventist, I watched the movie on A&E. I accepted the fact that the humanity of Christ was presented in the presentation, but the divinity question wasn't presented. I understand this, I accept this, and from this I have a better understanding of His humanity. "Simon Zealotes/Poor Jerusalem" is about as hard-hitting as it can be, and I see a lot of the contemporary Christian church standing in the place of the downtrodden Jews under Rome. In the recent version of the stage production that was released on DVD, the crowd lead by Simon the Zealot pushes Christ to become a military leader and to lead the fight to crush Rome. Jesus has feed large crowds of people. He has raised people from the dead. In the eyes of this rebel army, there is power and glory and victory over their oppressors. People encourage Christ to take up arms against Rome. One person tries to give Him an M-16. Another tries to give Him and MP-5 submachine gun. At every turn, the crowd shouts "power and glory forever and ever..... Amen!" In their hands are weapons of destruction. These people are willing to die for Christ, for if they die, they know He has the power to bring them back to life and fight again against their oppressors. The road before them is long and hard, but Christ can make bread for them to eat on the way. They are ready to follow Him into hell because they know it will lead to victory over the despised Romans.

Christ tells the crowd that they don't know what power is, they don't know what glory is. They have heard of the miracles, but they missed out on the lessons of love and compassion He was trying to teach them. Jesus was not interested in building an earthy kingdom. I look at what Rome became when the Bishop of Rome took on the mantle of both secular and religious powers. The earthly kingdom that Christ rejected was born, and the atrocities committed in the name of Christ as a result show how far the human race has fallen from true power and glory. Jesus wept over poor Jerusalem, foreseeing the destruction that Rome would bring upon that ancient city. He mourned for the dead, knowing that because the people had rejected the prophets, and now they rejected Him, the fullness of their sin would be paid for in blood. Those who heeded Jesus' warning from that day left Jerusalem before the final onslaught by Rome was unleashed. It is no wonder Jesus wept that day.

I see the Christian church today making the same mistake the Jews made during that time. It saddens me to hear someone on the radio addressing a Christian audience to stockpile weapons, ammunition, and food, and to prepare for whatever happens next as the Luciferians prepare for the day of Satan's personation of Jesus Christ. I see too much blood being shed in the months ahead when something finally snaps. I think on that day in Jerusalem, Jesus wept for us, as well. We don't know what power is. We don't know what glory is.

The album The Trumpet of Jesus was the last record Russ Taff recorded with The Imperials. The title cut, "The Trumpet of Jesus," impacted me with a lyric that I have never forgotten, and I would say it comes to mind at least once a day. "Hate only hears what it can, but love can hear it all." There is a lot of hate in this world. People don't want to hear other people's problems because they got too much they are dealing with in their own lives. People are watching out for "number one," and a lot of hurt and heartache boil over into some pretty tense situations. Hate hears what it can. "What did you say about me?" Love hears it all, and offers a shoulder for people to cry on. Love can handle the drama that hate pushes aside. No one wants to listen. No one wants to love. No wonder there is so much hatred and drama in our lives. We don't want to hear anything more about it. That is the difference between a Christian who walks the walk and talks the talk, and the rest of the world. A Christian will listen. Everyone else turns up the volume of their iPods and walk on by.

Larry Norman, often credited as the father of Christian rock, wrote a song that is simple enough. He looked at Christ through some very interesting lenses, and gave us the song, "Outlaw." He paints Jesus as an outlaw, a poet, a politician, a sorcerer, and yet his conclusion is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who came to be a servant and to free us from sin. It is a very poignant song that, when I close my eyes, allows me to see in Christ His humanity and His divinity. The images that come to mind will take me to the point of tears.

I think that is one of the problems with contemporary music today, Christian or otherwise. Nothing touches us anymore. We don't think, we don't feel, we are just lost in the beat and the drone of meaningless drivel. I think we lost our minds back in the '90s, and by the end of 2010 I think we will have lost our hearts. We are losing ourselves, but we aren't losing ourselves in love.

Rich Mullins had this talent for painting pictures with his lyrics. "Calling out Your Name" and "The Color Green" both explode in colorful images of a creation that can only lead a receptive heart to praise God. Driving around Odessa, Texas in a breaking down Pinto, I listened to Mullins on the tape deck and sang along with him these wonderful gifts he shared in the years before his death in 1997. He understood nature, and from nature he learned much about the Savior's love for us. How could he not sing praises to his King?

I went through a phase at the end of the 1980s where I explored Christian metal. The band Messiah Prophet spent a lot of time in my audiocassette player. There were two songs by MP that I couldn't get enough of. One song began with this simple acoustic guitar intro, then blows up in your face like a Claymore mine. "Battlescars." It isn't about combat in the world. It is about the war we fight with self, the internal battle between doing what we know is right and resisting the evil that dwells in our hearts. It is about putting on the nature of Christ, and it ain't easy. It is a war, and we do get scarred by it.

I can't speak about the effects music has on people. I only know how music affects me. There is some music that drives me nuts. There is some music I can relax to. It is hard to find good, solid Christian music that helps me relax. I've listened to "Adventist-approved" music and all I hear in my head is a ticking time bomb. It pushes all the wrong buttons in me. Thing is, I'm into the lyrics of a song. What is the message of the lyrics? Turning my back on contemporary pop music is easy. They got nothing to say. However, they got a lot to hide behind the drum machine.

Before I discovered Messiah Prophet, there was Styper. Say what you will about those guys, they knew how to turn their guitars inside out and make them sound good in the process. Michael Sweet recorded one of my favorite songs titled "Real" after the band broke up. It is a song of encouragement, strength, and a reminder of just how real Jesus Christ was, is and always will be.

My song of confession is “Worlds Apart” by Jars of Clay. The two-fold meaning shows how far from the truth of God we live our lives, as well as serves as a plea to God to take apart the worlds of our own creation so that we can experience the world God is preparing for us. The life I live on earth is not the life I want to live, and the world in which I live is not the world I want to live in. The Bible is not for people who want to continue living in this world, but is for people who desire to live forever in the atmosphere of heaven. In order for me to live in the atmosphere of heaven, then my world must be taken apart. I am worlds apart from my God, and it is my prayer that I might be closer to Him. Jesus Christ takes my world apart, and He brings me closer to the world I want to live in.

The first Christian music video I saw that touched me was “Most of All” by Glenn Kaiser. I emailed him and asked him about this song. He told me it was based on his personal conversion experience. I listen to a lot of music. Some of it is just entertainment, lacking depth, lacking meaning, lacking anything that connects with me. This song is personal. It connects with me. Kaiser sings it like he believes it because it happened to him. It is his story. This song is about me, too.

I’ve been an SDA for nearly 19 years. I refer to it as my “long, strange journey.” I’ve been places I never thought I would go, and seen things that only appeared to me in dreams or in movies. I never thought that I would preach a sermon in Korea one day, and then two weeks later preach a sermon in Thailand. I don’t belong here, and I say that based on the poverty in which I grew up. God brought me here. I could never have gotten here myself. When I look back on my long, strange journey, I see my mistakes, my errors, my sins, the lessons God wanted to teach me and haven’t quite sunk in yet. I wish I could go back to the day I was baptized and could walk again this path and apply the lessons I learned, or was on the verge of learning. I wish I could start all over again this walk with Jesus.

I hear Peter and Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar watching from a distance as Christ carries the cross to the place of the skull where He will be crucified. Peter has denied Christ three times, hurling curses at the people questioning him just before the cock crows at sunrise. Mary is still figuring things out about Jesus, the Man who spared her from a stoning and whom she anointed with her tears and her hair. They both are on the edge of a mystery, on the verge of understanding it, and yet, they miss it. They ask that question that I have asked a few times myself: “Can’t We Start All Over Again?” So close to the answer, and yet so far that it frustrates me.

No, we can’t go back to the beginning. But yes, we can start fresh from where we are now. There is still hope for us to get it right before the end. Jesus has faith in us. We will do greater things than He did, but only if we believe in Him.

ten songs:
Simon Zealotes/Poor Jerusalem
The Trumpet of Jesus
The Outlaw
Calling out Your Name
The Color Green
Battlescars
Real
Worlds Apart
Most of All
Can’t We Start All Over Again