Category Archives: Entertainment

My Package Came!

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My Stryper.com order came today. :)

The buttons are nice, little ones that will look nice on a collar, on a Jean Jacket, etc. One black, one white, with the “classic” Stryper logo.

The T-shirt is nice. Girly Black shirt with the “classic” Stryper logo.

And last but definitely NOT least … Stryper Reborn LP, yes, vinyl. :)

I am not going to open the LP, not at this time, at least. I have the CD and that’s what I’ll continue to listen to for now.

I see on eBay that there are people selling the first press of the Reborn CD. Three tracks were printed out of order … the mistake wasn’t realized until they shipped already. So there are some on the street. I found their new album too late, way over a month too late :”rolleyes: to find one of the first presses.

On eBay they aren’t expensive though. Right now it’s a wait-n-see bit about whether or not to go for one. They are enhanced CD’s though, the one I have is not.

This comes to the point of what I’m doing. Certain books and music I’m starting to become a collector of. Nothing superior or anything. Just good old something I really like.

So that means I need to find good copies of anything I do not have from the past. The biggest thing about it is I need to fund this somehow, and really need to start selling on eBay again. I have sold a few things, way back when, then nothing else. I really have very little of value to sell, so I need money to make money.

I’m glad to see my package has arrived though, I’ve been keeping a keen eye on each day and wishing and hoping … and today finally was the day. :)

Styper Concert in Atlanta

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We got tickets for Stryper’s November 3 concert in Atlanta! The concert is going to be at Earthlink Live, a small venue on Peachtree Street in mid-town. I’m so excited about it. I haven’t been to a concert as such since the 1980′s. I saw Stryper at Disney World, Night of Joy way back when (September 10, 1988, on the Castle Forecourt) I didn’t ever attend a ‘regular’ concert of them though. That WAS a real concert of course, just not a “only them” concert.

The Earthlink Live venue is an 1,100 perfect view seating hall, general admission, therefore, first come with tickets, first seating choice.

We were downtown yesterday to get the tickets and for Frank to pick up something he won from a radio station. We don’t normally go downtown and walk around at all, but had to in order to get to the box office. The children were keenly interested in the streets and buildings and all the noise, traffic, trees, and exaust-smelling air. Russell definitely connected with me: the country is so much quieter and smells better! It’s nicer. It’s alright to go into a city, but not stay longer than you have to. :)

The children aren’t going to the concert. They COULD, it’s an All Ages concert, but we sure aren’t going to fork out the $23 per seat for them. I think Victoria would enjoy it though, more than either of the boys would. She’s almost 7, but still younger than I’d like to go out with her to such an event.

It’ll be Frank and me alone, an odd occurance. It’ll be me in my element, one of my favorite all time groups in an intimate setting … I mean, this is no huge stadium, and not even a large auditorium. 1,100 people are a lot of people, but that’s not bad when you know that most concerts have a larger attendance possibility.

So then, about the concert, Stryper has been around for many years, but not productive in the last 15 (yes, they have done something, but I mean a full blown new album and tour for such) until now. So they are on-tour once again, and I wonder how many seats will be empty at the concert. I have no idea what the Stryper fan-base is around Atlanta. We live many miles from the outskirts of Atlanta, and I don’t know any one personally that listens to Stryper. The only people I really know around here are from Church, and I’ve never had a discussion about Stryper nor heard anyone listening to their music, nor talking about them or their music or lyrics or theology. FWIW

The band is a Christian band, their lyrics are simple and to the point. Critical of them I am not overall. I love Michael Sweet’s voice and the music he writes and how the band puts it’s all together. I love intense music, and overall you find many of those tracks in past recordings. Their new album, Reborn, which I posted about last week, is less simplistic in lyrics and has upped the scale of intensity and gorgeous drums, guitar and base and the melodies and harmonies are so very melancholic in a very bright and hopeful way that just the music alone is medicine to my heart. The lyrics call people to God from every walk of life, despair being one theme, broken, upside-down, and more.Their actual theology differs from mine, seeing as I’m a 5-point calvinist presbyterian (to name just a few labels) and they are involved with Calavary Chapel to the degree of thanking them on their latest album … sure they don’t have the same “end times” view as I do, and any of their arminian lyrics are transparently really calvinistic since they do get the “you must be called” first … that “no one comes to the father lest he be called” sort of thing.

The idea of music is one that pleases people differently. Some like Stryper, I know they do since I see folks online that sure do, and I know I do. Many others aren’t into it, and that’s fine. I really like them though, since they have good hard hitting music that isn’t pretentious, it isn’t screaming, it’s the lyrical sweet voice of Mr. Sweet, belting it out and crooning it out and hitting the high notes inevitably at some point near the end of most songs. I love to sing along … it’s a good workout for my voice.

We shall see how the concert turns out, and I’ll give it a review when the time comes.

Stryper Reborn

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Stryper came out with a new releast mid-August this year, just over a month ago, well a month and a half ago. I wasn’t aware of it until late last week, when I ran into the CD while flipping through CD’s in the S section at Fry’s, actually seeking another band.

I guess it was late last Winter that I was on Stryper’s website wishing for news of a tour nearby, or some material being recorded. There was something, I’m not sure what, a hint or something, maybe. I don’t recall, only that I stopped going there and thought about it at one point to remind myself to check back sooner than later. Well, I didn’t. I forgot. I have even played the albums I have of theirs on my computer many times over this Summer, no thoughts of them beyond that, for some reason.

So needless to say I was SHOCKED when I found the CD ‘Reborn’. It’s a really neat cover. The music is incredible. If you ever loved Stryper before you must love this CD, I think. I know. I feel it myself. I loved them in the 80′s and never stopped loving their music. They are the only “Christian” band I’ve been able to tolerate, and it isn’t toleration at all for me, I really like them, and their simple lyrics that don’t mince words. The music is complex and wonderful.

Styper\'s Reborn CD cover

Their newest then is new. It’s better than ever, truly. One that is really nice is an updated In God We Trust, titled I.G.W.T. this time around. The overall tone of the album is true about this one too: it’s hard, a bit melancholy, moreso glowingly minor and melodic and heavy hard undertone and overtones all at once. Another familiar song, Amazing Grace … done over Stryper “Reborn” style … really good to hear that updated too. The rest is all new material, delicious as chocolate in any way you like it the most.

Frank is away for a couple of days and may be gone longer than scheduled, so after a flurry of “Stryper Talk” I gave him on the phone today, he said I could get a few things I saw and so I was able to order their new album on Vinyl (!) I’ve been buying older vinyl of groups I like, on eBay lately, and this is even better, a brand new just released Stryper albumn, on VINYL! :) I also ordered a T-shirt and a couple of Stryper buttons.

The other good news is that, if we can get them, Frank agreed to go to their concert in Atlanta in November, actually just one month from today. It’s a small venue and hopefully tickets will be available when he can get there later this week. I saw them long, long ago. I was a young person back then. Now I’m old, of course, they are too ;)

Leave Her to Heaven

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I finally got to go to the used bookstore that’s just a few-ish miles away. We did pick up a few things, but I didn’t find all I was looking for. One book that I did find though, which I had never looked for, is Leave Her to Heaven by Ben Ames Williams, published in 1944. I’ve never read it.

I do have the VHS version of the 1945 film that starred Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, & Jeanne Crain though. I want to get it on DVD, just haven’t run across it ever nor looked on purpose for it. It is one of my all-time old-movie favorites. The film is well done, and won an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color in 1946, and had three other nominations as well.

Leave Her to Heaven catalog card on My Library Thing account.

Inside the book, opposite the first page of the actual story which is on the right, is a quote from Hamlet, which is, of course, Shakespeare:

Leave Her to Heaven

Eragon

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Speaking of good books, as in the last post, the Inheritance Trilogy has this site linked … which looks good, and we are very excited about it, even though we’ve not read the books yet, but since I’m writing about it all today, and my wireless keyboard is going nuts, not working right:

I declare the rest of today, Day after Birthday Recovery and Sinking into Egragon through Literary Portal Day.

Cheerio!

[Update: 9:06pm] I got to read the first chapter and a half, and that’s it. I was constantly interupted at first, when I tried to read the book downstairs, and got nowhere, so I went up to my bed with strict instructions for the children to play with this or that particular thing and let me alone for an hour, so I could sink into my reading for once.

Asa just couldn’t leave me alone, so start, read a sentence, stop. Start, go back and read sentence, read a few paragraphs, stop, start, …. stop. I gave up after that and resolve to read as much as I can tonight. I really did like how it started. I had a bit of trouble with the part I was last reading, it was a bit choppy, dare I say I was prejudiced by my knowledge of whom the person is that wrote it, from reading of the author, and knowing he was younger when he wrote the book, or not. I will say it this way “It reminded me of my own writing when a teen, a bit rough, not said in a clever way, not “knowingly”, not “flowing”, just immaturely written. It was just a small section. It made me uncomfortable, like when I hear someone singing and they go flat or sharp or get mousy sounding, and I know better how to sing what they are singing and I am embarrassed for them. Anyhow, I do like how the book is in general though, and a fresh crack at the book later will be one that has already read that small section and maybe it’ll not be that bad second time through, and I don’t expect the rest of the book to be rough as that piece was. Just to be forthcoming, it’s the part where Eragon gets to town and is in the Butcher shop … it’s the dialogue, the character introductions that ensue … it really reminded me of stories that I wrote when I was a teen, my self-attempts at novel writing that I abandoned.

I abandoned them because I decided I hated dialogue … and felt constrained to write about places that are real, like I couldn’t “invent” my own world to write about. I was held in check by my silly education I’d had up until then, and I despise it grotesquely … I’m mad at myself for letting it get the best of me and keep me from writing more.

Dialogue is hard to write, it takes maturity, I think. So it’s something that grows with a writer as they mature and keep on writing. My education derailed so many of my desires. I’ve toyed with creating my own world and attempting to write novelia again. Hmmm. I’ll see about it after awhile. It’s time to enjoy a young author with a good future. The Inheritance Trilogy is the beginning, readingly wise for me, and eventually for my children.