Every work starts with empty space. Silence. A blank Canvas. How you move through it and what you fill it with are what give it character. The beautiful thing is transformation of perspective. The same thing seen from different angles. The sum is greater than the whole of its parts. Thinking you are looking at one thing and realizing that its something else and you have been looking at it the whole time without really "seeing" it.

What is the point? What is the journey? Where do we start and where do we end up? How do we get there? What is learned along the way?
Every cause has an effect. How do the ingredients make the final meal? Why are certain "recipes" better than others? In terms of all art? What melodies? What progressions? What rhythms and patterns? What words? What images? What moments? I guess this is on my Top 5 list of things to learn; the connection between patterns and feelings. Between sensation, perception, pattern, emotion, and meaning. I know its connected and I want to know how.

Hello to all of you, I am sitting here in Irvine CA at the Uprising festival and today is officially the last day of this 7 week tour we have been on. I love being on tour. It is one of my favorite things about this profession but I am ready to go home and see my family for a bit. Copeland and Relient K and a bunch of our friends are here and I can't think of a better way to end a long tour. My whole family is meeting up for a little vacation in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. September is the perfect time of year to go there. All of the tourist have come and gone. The rates are low. The air is slightly cool but the water is still warm and the waves are swelling because of the impending hurricane season. I am going to do some surfing and reading and writing and eating and resting:) I will also be catching up with some of your awesome comments and dwell on putting together my own lists.
This week was a lot of fun and I have something very exciting to tell you about as soon as I am settled.

If by chance you haven't seen this movie, go watch it now. Does anybody remember the name of his record company? One of the motifs in this story is making lists. John Cusack's character in this film has a Top 5 list for everything you can imagine.
I have always been a goal person. It was carved into my being somehow I guess. Even as a kid I can remember dreaming ahead to this mysterious future that I would have and wondering what it would really be like. I had all sorts of ideas. None of them possessed that cold clear sheen of reality that slaps the taste out of your mouth and puts a knot in your chest and an ulcer in your stomach. They were all soft and fuzzy like first kisses on big silver movie screens that have no concept of screaming kids, mortgage payments, and the impending responsible future and all its glorious tedium.
I used to make lists. My top 5 lists. I had some ridiculous lists. My dreams were ridiculous. Crazy. I was crazy. I had it all planned out. I had ambitions. Nothing was going to stop me.
How then did I actually end up here? How did this happen? How did some Va boy end up living his dream? In a word...naivety. I actually thought it was possible. I actually found people who were willing to band together and trade safety and comfort for the chance to live. The chance to actually live. To really be free. The crazy thing is, it worked.
I had a realization today that if you don't update your lists, you start dying. I forgot my list. For the past several months I have been slowly dying because of a lack of vision. Every day I live is leading me on a path to somewhere. Every step I take is taking me towards an end. The direction I choose to walk is what creates the end result I will come to. Cause and effect.
I want to make a new list. What do I want to do with my life? What is important? What do I want to know about? What do I want to accomplish and to experience before I die? And then, most importantly, what I am I doing to get there?
What are your lists?
1.What are the top 5 things you want to accomplish and experience before you die?
2. What are the top 5 things you want to know a lot about in your lifetime?
And dream as big as you want. Just make it what you really want.

I can never get enough of playing Salt Lake City. I look forward to that show on every tour and tonight was no exception. Thank you to all of you that came out and made this an unforgettable evening for us in mae. We are getting closer to the end of the tour and of course following the tour comes the studio. We are going to be spending most of the rest of the year in LA making a record. There are so many thoughts pouring through my mind tonight. This morning I woke up unexpectedly at 6 AM. We were driving through the Rocky Mountains and I got to watch the sun rise. Zach came out a couple of hours later and said that he was hearing a weird noise. Our driver pulled over to check it out and discovered a flat tire. We couldn't hear it from up front but its a good thing we stopped because it would have caught on fire if we hadn't stopped when we did. Thanks Zach:)

I have finally picked up a copy of the book "Velvet Elvis" by Rob Bell. I am convinced that there are certain times when things are just meant to find you. They simply come across your path in an effortless but obvious way. "Mind of God" was like that for me. "The Secret Message of Jesus" was like that for me. I have a feeling that "Velvet Elvis" will be the same exact thing. First of all thanks to those of you who recommended it to me. One of my favorite parts of being a traveling musician is the sybmbiotic way that we influence each other. I would love to hear your thoughts about this book if you have read it. If you haven't, pick it up and join the fun:) By the way, Lawrence, Kansas was awesome last night. We are in Denver today for an off day and Benji and I will hopefully be finishing up a solid draft of our newest Astorya film project. I can't wait to tell you about it.

Hey all, I wanted to give you heads up on an interview I did with Darren and Paul of Mute Math (the link is at the bottom of this post).
I will be checking in on the lowercasepeople.com boards for a couple of weeks to answer questions and what not. Let me know what you think. I love the guys from Mute Math and they are obviously amazing musicians. If you haven't heard them before, do yourself a favor and check them out at http://www.myspace.com/mutemath.

http://www.lowercasepeople.com/index.php?theIssue=3&theSection=music&theSubSection=feature

So I am sitting here on the bus before our show in Dallas tonight and my thoughts wander back across the past few weeks. Last week I celebrated my 27th birthday in New Orleans. August 29th. The city of New Orleans was celebrating a different birthday. The 29th also belonged to Katrina. It was the one year anniversary of that devastation. That is a lot to carry on your shoulders into a show. There really isn't much room for words in that space that hangs between people who have experienced something like that and those who haven't. I know how hollow and awkward words sound in my ears when someone tries to empathize with me and they just don't understand. I don't ever want to be that guy. I don't want to say something nice and climb back on my bus just to sail to the next town forgetting what it means. I would rather just sit in silence and feel the weight of it. Silence. It is a much heavier sound. Thank you to the people of New Orleans for letting us bring our music to you. Hopefully in that moment you felt hope.