ST. LOUIS (CNNMoney.com) — They came by truck, by van and even by taxi.

But they all came for the deals.

Hordes of shoppers descended upon Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, on Friday in hopes of securing some of the early deals of the holiday shopping season.

Here in the Midwest, items such as large plasma and HDTVs, $3 slow cookers, and laptops priced at under $200 were among the most highly sought after items at one local Wal-Mart.

“It was a rush to get to everything,” said St. Louis resident Gracie Moore, who, with the help of her sister, managed to nab two 50-inch Sanyo plasma TVs and a cart filled with other holiday goodies. (The scene at a New Jersey Best Buy)

Unlike years past when shoppers queued up the night before in order to be the first one in the store, Wal-Mart said it would offer extended hours at many of its non-24 hour locations this year to accommodate post-Thanksgiving shoppers.

The move was also viewed as a response to last year’s tragedy at a Wal-Mart store in Valley Stream, N.Y. A temporary employee at the store was trampled to death as thousands of people rushed through the doors at the open.

“At this time we are not aware of any injuries or property damage related to Wal-Mart’s execution of its crowd management plan for Black Friday,” said Eric F. Phillips, the communications director for the district attorney of Nassau County, N.Y., where last year’s incident took place.

While Wal-Mart’s control plans helped manage the opening frenzy at one local Wal-Mart, customers there still struggled to find parking spots and even shopping carts. Others complained about the checkout lines. (Black Friday crowds eager to spend)

“You just have to wait,” said Kris Bedel, a local resident who arrived several hours before many of the so-called “doorbuster” deals were made available.

A Wal-Mart store in Upland, Calif was forced to shut it’s doors after shoppers got a bit too rowdy. “We’ve heard of a few scuffles among customers, but overall it has been a very safe event,” a Wal-Mart spokesman said.

Like many other retailers, Wal-Mart has been pulling out all the stops this holiday season to get consumers into its stores and spending again.

0:00 /2:45Zhu Zhu’s hot!//

In the most recent quarter, the company reported a decline in sales at its stores open at least a year, often considered a key measure of a merchant’s performance.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer also warned of softer sales during the final three months of the year, which include the critically important holiday shopping season.

A company spokeswoman contacted Friday it was too early to provide any assessment of how sales at its stores were faring. Typically the company does not reveal overall holiday sales figures until it publishes its fourth-quarter results.

The National Retail Federation (NRF), the industry’s largest trade group, expects holiday sales nationwide to decline 1% versus a 3.4% drop in holiday sales the previous year. 

こんばんわー。

こまちさんが紹介されていたMNK*さんのニットワンピを買ってきました。なるほど、可愛い！

Hair:.:[ Tiny Bird ]:. Girl Anachronism – Caramel(11/27 Friday50L$)
Dress:Knit High-necked Dress(Choco)**nikukyu**
Tights:*Kookie* Tartan Leggings(Pink)
Boots:*Kookie* Pomski Coffee Candy Boots

あんまりゴチャゴチャしないでみた。というか途中から訳ワカランようになって腕が寒そうなことに＠＠

編集でリボンの色ピンクにしたのに全然分かんないし！

髪の毛は昨日のFriday50L$のTiny Birdのものです。

さっき確認に行ったらまだあったんで、気になった方はお早めに～。

髪もいくつか買ったけどこれが一番お気に入り。でっかいリボン！

話変わってまたちょっと「お洒落」って何だろうとか考えてきてるばななです。

なんかね、最近シンプル志向に走りつつあります。めんどくさいだけという説もある。

難しいなー。

Key Terms

*Trend Topics or #TT*- basically when something is tweeted about alot it becomes a trend topic…they can also look like this- #iknowulikeme when you text and call me every half hour on the hour…lol

You can create trend topics and hope that most of your followers hop onto your trend…there also a ranking of whats most the most trending topic

*Retweet-RT*- this is basically re-posting someone else’s tweet on its own or adding your reply or comment

*Follow Friday*-#FF- Every Friday everyone posts the usernames of everyone they want ever one to follow…basically it’s a promotion day to gain more followers

*Music Monday-#MM*- You tweet what you are listening to all day…(personally I don’t do this but its a trend topic every monday)

*Twit Stats*- Twitter keeps record of how many people are following you, how many people you are following and how many tweets you’ve made

*Direct Message*- basically sending a private message instead of something that would appear on your or the recipients time line…

Now an abridged version of who to follow:

@myfabulouslife- F_A_B_OLOUS…his trend topics always go to number one and are mad funny!!

@RevRunWisdom- Who’s house?! Runs House?!the most inspirational and retweeted person on twitter…motivating messages are tweeted daily

@necolebitchie- the queen of urban blogs, in her words ” Life’s a b*tch, so I just blog that muthaf**ka”

@Tyrese4Real- Also a tweeter of inspirational and motivating messages…always down to share his life lessons…

@Shontelle_Layne- Bajan Invasion *POW* SNM..lol #Licky

@Jeremih- Am I the only one who thinks he is a delectable specimen of a man…and his tweets leave me even more mesmerized…

@SongByrdTM- I mean how would you live with out a play by play of my swaggerific quirky lifestyle….IM OUT!!

things i actually did today:

• dogsat
• watched tv
• talked to tim <3
• watched movies
• ate leftovers
• packed my suitcase
• played wii
• picked off my nail polish

Thanksgiving was pretty great. Of course you have to drink twice as much to make up for eating with your alcohol but I persevered.

[GA 2.15] Aqueduct – The Suggestion Box by sdoodle

おはようございます。

今回のFriday50L$は凄かったですねー＠＠全参加店舗ってことでとにかく回るのが大変でした。

案の定結構買ってしまって、SSに載せきれませんでした＞＜

そしてすでにSL落ちたから商品名も分からないっていうね･･･髪の毛とボトムとカバンとスキンを購入です。

他にもスカートやらレギンスやアクセと色々買いました♪ブーツは今回見送りです･･･。

最近ブーツ買いすぎかなーと。ベルトも可愛かったけど今回は見送りです＞＜

てか毎回Friday50L$のコーデは全部ごちゃ混ぜになっておかしな感じになるｗｗ

あとダイヤさんに回ってる時お会いできました！ブログにも何度かコメントいただいてて、一度お会いしたいなぁと

思ってたんで嬉しかったです^^でも重くてまともに会話できなくて残念～。また会えるといいなぁ。

というかLB待ちとかでブログで拝見させてもらってる方にお会い出来て凄い嬉しいんですけど

なんせ口下手なもんで何話せばいいのか分かんないんですよね。多分ほとんどの人には殺伐とした印象しか

与えてないんだろうなーとｗ声掛けてもらって嬉しいのに、上手く話せない自分が嫌だー。

ということで、今回のFriday50L$は大量でした！！

今日の夕方ごろ、またコーデ紹介しまーす^^

It was actually a mediocre Friday as I was bored stiff at work. All my American friends were still giving thanks today so I had no one to chat with this afternoon. I’m quite used to not much chat in the mornings but all day and two days worth – that was tough. Thank the Lord (the Jedi Lord that is) for the virtual chatrooms at work. At least it will make me look forward to Monday and catching up on news of turkey and pumpkin pies.

I’m just so glad that it is Friday evening and the weekend. That means no alarms going off in the morning and hopefully a good day for my mental health. I’m hoping to get my sewing machine out tomorrow as well and do at least 30 minutes of sewing – something different to the mundane life that is work. I suppose this weekend will be a good time to start the Christmas present wrapping – hmm, we will see, maybe it is a bit soon for that. Happy Friday!

So, today’s, like, Black Friday. Everyone is, like, so crazy about all the sales and stuff. I kind of wanted to, like, go to Old Navy ’cause if you, like, buy at least, like, twenty dollars worth of stuff you can get, like, Lego Rock Band. I wanted the game but, like, the store opened at, like, 3 AM and by, like, 4 there wouldn’t be anymore games and I’m not, like, waking up earlier than 9 on a day that I don’t have any, like, school. I was like searching the web for, like, inexpensive handbags and I, like, saw this site where this girl made handbags out of, like, duct tape. It was pretty cool and stuff. She had really pretty colors. I might get one but I’m not sure if she’d ship it. If anybody wants to, like, check this out it’s http://www.creativeclutches.kk5.org/. I really don’t think this helps this girl ’cause nobody really, like, reads my blog but whatever. The bags are, like, $0.50 or $1.00 so I could, like, afford it in less than a week’s allowance and stuff. Oh Emfrea Kingjee!

Hey what’s it like in the 21st century with your internet and all? Posted from the past with a tin can and a piece of fucking string.

Happy Friday All! Please forgive me for putting the blog up so late. Between the tryptophan hangover, all the cooking, cleaning and shopping I’ve done in the last 72 hours, I am running on fumes, so you can blame Thanksgiving  and Black Friday for that! I dont have much to say about the randomly selected videos I’m posting up today because, well, I’m still not fully functioning right now, lol. Today, I present to you a handful of songs some may have never heard or haven’t heard in a long time, from Boyz II Men, Changing Faces, Chi Ali, MC Breed, Nona Gaye. Just a few notes to add on the artists for today FYI. Changing Faces is making a coming back—don’t know how that come back will go, but they are, lol. Chi Ali is the little brother of Dres from the 90’s rap group “Blacksheep” (who has been featured on a past FF blog), rapper MC Breed (real name Eric Breed) passed away last year at almost this very date (11.22.08) and Nona Gaye is the daughter of the legendary singer Marvin Gaye. So if you didn’t know, now ya know. Please enjoy these songs, comment, vote and suggest. Have a blessed weekend!

*Exits outta the firescape*

Boyz II Men – Please Don’t Go (1993)

Changing Faces – G.H.E.T.T.O.U.T. (1997)

Chi Ali – Age Ain’t Nothin But A Number (1992)

MC Breed -  Ain’t No Future In Yo Frontin’ (1993)

Nona Gaye – The Things That We All Do For Love (1993)

i’m going to make a million of these owls. maybe a few more toadstools too.

i tried to leave less space between stitches with the toadstool and the purple owl. it takes a lot more time and more stitches, but i think the outcome is worth it. it’s more pro.

i’m happy it’s kind of christmastime because this means i can listen to bright eyes’ christmas album many times a day and not feel awkward. are there any other modern christmas cds i need to download?

So today I decided, instead of going out and shrieking in horror at the irrepressible hordes of inconsiderate Black Friday folks starting my Christmas shopping, I would sit inside and get some stuff done that I’ve been meaning to get done (ie, putting little twinkly lights in my fake ficus tree; dusting the tops of the cable box and DVD player; watering the plants; watching the concerts I’ve DVR-ed lately [KT Tunstall is amazing]).  W and E2 are coming over in a few minutes, and we have very lofty plans to … play video games.  E2 is indefatigable and kicks our butts up and down the street in Star Wars: Episode III.  She plays a terrifying Lord Vader.

In other news, had a good day with the Mother and the G-parents yesterday (Hi, Grandma and Grandpa!  Thanks again for dinner!).  Train ride back into the city was much better than the train ride home on Wednesday (where your friendly blogger had to stand from Market East all the way to Ambler before a seat opened up).

Have to give a presentation on what a genetic counselor does for our Intro to Nursing course tomorrow — we have a little something fun cooked up for the class; I’ll let you know how it goes.  So now the big decision for the afternoon is:

1. Should I play General Grievous or Obi-Wan?
2. Pizza or Royal Tavern for dinner tonight with W and E2?

Hope you all are having a great Thanksgiving weekend!

So Black Friday is here. Choppin’ up sales, we’re offering 25% off all our online shop items! T-shirts at their REG. $21.00 are now on SALE $15.75
ALL t-shirts in our online shop are anywhere from $10-15! Sale also includes crewneck sweaters, $5 fat bracelets, and much more.
Hurry now, sale starts today and ends Sunday night (29th).

-Edwin

In which the Omphaloskeptic Concludes the Ramblings Embarked Upon in the Previous Installment

[Note: Originally I thought I would post this over the course of three days.  Instead it's turned out that this second post will contain the remainder of the piece.  I know there are some real Kerouac and Thompson fans out there.  Any comments, objections or shrieks of incredulity would be gratefully accepted.  Also, I'm having fits trying to get my footnotes to work properly when I import sections of the original document.  Yesterday, despite my best efforts, it was impossible to click on a note to jump to the citation and vice versa.  The same holds true for today with the added difficulty that for some reason my footnoting has reset and the notes appear after my Works Cited and Works consulted lists.  It's Friday, there's a cold beer in my fridge and I'm not going screw around with footnotes and formatting any longer.  If that bothers you then you are even more pedantic than I am and that's no good thing, trust me.  You do, however, have my admiration.]

The possibility that Dean is somehow too American, that he has an all-consuming faith in core American values signified by the myths he is associated with emerges as key to any proper understanding of his holy idiocy on its own and as a critique of a wider American community. While it is true that, in the eyes of the law and many of his fellow citizens Dean is a criminal he cannot be dismissed as merely a malicious thief with a taste fast cars, tea and Benzedrine. Instead readers are told that “his ‘criminality’ was not something that sulked and sneered; it was a wild yea-saying overburst of American joy; it was Western, the west wind, an ode from the Plains, something new, long prophesied, long a-coming (he only stole cars for joy rides).”¹ Paradoxically Dean’s long awaited embodiment of American joy, his exercise of personal freedom, is precisely what renders him a criminal, it is the key to both his saintliness and his clownish imbecility. In other words Dean is simply too American for most other Americans to be comfortable with.

It is precisely this paradox that is key to the scene from which I have taken the title of this paper and the label I wish to apply to both Moriarty and Duke. Just as Dean and Sal are about to set off on a manic night of kicks in San Francisco before travelling east Sal describes a scene in which Galatea Dunkle criticises Dean for his selfish behaviour. The narrator never denies that Dean is guilty, at this point he is essentially abandoning his pregnant wife, but he reveals that “I suddenly realized that Dean, by virtue of his enormous series of sins, was becoming the Idiot, the Imbecile, the Saint of the lot” adding a short while later “That’s what Dean was, the HOLY GOOF.”² In his refusal to take life too seriously, through his selfish, illegal and often misogynist pursuit of his own freedoms and desires Dean has expanded on the same paradox whereby his exuberant faith in American values rendered him a criminal to the point where it has elevated him to the position of a saint. At this point Dean may have a severely infected thumb, no money or home, and quickly be alienating his former friends but is also at this point that he achieves his full status as the patron saint of the Beat generation appearing and acting in the words of Sal “as though tremendous revelations were pouring into him all the time now, and I am convinced they were, and the others suspected as much and were frightened. He was BEAT – the root, the soul of Beatific.”³ Not only does this passage make clear that Dean’s ragged imbecility and his saintly status combine to render him a Holy Goof possessed of some powerful vision, but it also emphasises the fact that those arrayed against Dean recognise and fear the revelations he may be able to provide them.

While Kerouac’s narrative takes great pains to establish Dean’s credentials as a holy American idiot, Raoul Duke’s similar role in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas may not be as quickly apparent. John Hellman notes of Thompson’s narrative persona in general that “Like a mad seer or a holy fool, this persona can reveal aspects of events not readily apparent to those with normal perception” suggesting the existence of some parallel between the two characters under discussion.⁴ As it turns out, Duke, like Dean emerges as a clownish American saint whose excesses and criminality are inseperable from his belief in and pursuit of certain core values and beliefs. Perhaps due to the first-person narration of Thompson’s book, however, Duke’s status as a Holy Goof does not emerge with the same dramatic force as Dean’s.

Central to any recognition of Duke as a Holy Goof is a scene that occurs in Wild Bill’s Café on the outskirts of Las Vegas as Duke contemplates fleeing town after the Mint 500 motorcycle race and before the Association of District Attorneys drug convention. In what Hellman describes as “a reversal of the traditional Christian revelation and conversion” Duke makes clear that he too occupies a position characterized by paradox.⁵ Contemplating his outrageous behaviour leads Duke to declare his own guilt “Jesus Creeping God! Is there a priest in this tavern? I want to confess! I’m a fucking sinner! Venal, mortal, carnal, major, minor—however you want to call it, Lord . . . I’m guilty.”⁶ Clearly Duke possesses a strong, if paranoid, awareness of his own failings making clear that he has committed a sin from each of five general categories, however he does not stop with this admission. He goes on to ask for God’s intervention to allow him the time he needs to make good his escape commenting: “Which is not really a hell of a lot to ask, Lord, because the final incredible truth is that I am not guilty. All I did was take your gibberish seriously . . . and you see where it got me? My primitive Christian instincts have made me a criminal.”⁷ By insisting on his innocence immediately after acknowledging his guilt Duke makes clear that like Moriarty he occupies a position characterised by paradox. He has done wrong, but only as a result of taking certain precepts and values too seriously in pursuit of what he calls his “primitive Christian instincts.”

Additionally, the absurdist humour of the scene helps to illustrate that Duke’s tricksterish antics are also part and parcel of his status as a holy goof. Just in case the incongruity of looking for a priest in a Vegas bar is too subtle Duke’s final address to the Lord demonstrates the inseparability of his status as both clown and prophet ending as it does in a half-jest: “You better take care of me, Lord . . . because if you don’t you’re going to have me on your hands.”⁸ Given that he threatens God, albeit in partial jest, Duke’s particular saintliness does finally emerge as more menacing than Moriarty’s W.C. Fields virtue, a difference that I suggest is more of degree than of kind. In the eyes of the law and many other Americans neither of these men can be viewed as innocents. Both take their behaviours to such extremes that at one level they render themselves not only foolish but agents who actively invite ridicule and persecution if not prosecution. Meanwhile both narratives, insist that their criminality, clownishness and idiocy renders them special and that they attain the status of Holy Goofs because all their sins stem, paradoxically, from the purist of motives.

As a means of drawing my comments to a close I’d like to offer some suggestion of how, perhaps even why, Dean Moriarty and Raoul Duke were created, even remain, as more than loveable rogues. It is significant that both characters embrace the role of Holy Goof; rushing around they actively court trouble and rarely demonstrate any desire or ability to remain inconspicuous let alone what the majority of Americans would call respectable. This is due partly to an impulse that can be traced back to the fools for Christ’s sake that were motivated by thought stemming from Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians arguing that the only way to reveal the folly of the mundane world is to revel in a version of the divine folly that is its superior. As I said at the outset, however, neither Moriarty nor Duke are trying to institute a more thoroughly Christian order in the United States. This does not disqualify them as American versions of the divine seer or Holy Goof however. In fact, given that both are closely associated with certain defining American myths and that both of them court the trouble they do because of a devout faith in what should be the possibilities of life in the United States they emerges as even stronger candidates for the position of Holy American Idiot. By acting as they do both Dean and Duke provide some insight into the greed, superficial uniformity and complacency of the American societies they are both part of and apart from. In this respect it is no accident that both fetishise, and destroy, automobiles. American readers may not be meant to follow either character into the realms of excess through which they move, but in an increasingly materialistic and modernised American world both of these Holy Goofs impulsively pursue their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in a manner that questions who the idiots actually are.

Works Cited

Heller, Dana. “Holy Fools, Secular Saints, and Illiterate Saviours in American Literature and Popular Culture.” CLCWeb: Comparitive Literature and Culture. Ed. Benton Jay Komin 5.3 (2003).<http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol5/iss3> Accessed 24 Nov. 2008.

Hellman, John. Fables of Fact: The New Journalism and New Fiction. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981.

Jack Kerouac, Jack. On the Road. [1957] Penguin Modern Classics. Intro. Ann Charters London: Penguin Books, 2000.

- – -. On the Road:The Original Scroll. Penguin Modern Classics. Ed. Howard Cunnell. London: Penguin Books, 2008.

Llano, Stephen. “The Clown as Social Critic: Kerouac’s Vision.” Clowns, Fools and Picaros: Popular Forms in Theatre, Fiction and Film. Ed David Robb. Amsterdam-New York, 2007.

Saward, John. Perfect Fools: Folly for Christ’s Sake in Catholic and Orthodox Spirituality.

Oxford: OUP, 1980.

Thompson, Hunter S. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream. [1971] Flamingo Modern Classics. London: Flamingo.

Works Consulted

Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Trans. Helene Iswolsky [1965] Bloomington: Indiania UP, 1984.

Billington, Sandra. A Social History of the Fool. Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1984

Cresswell, Tim. “Mobility as Resistance: A Geographical Reading of Kerouac’s ‘On the Road.’” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 18.2 (1993) 249-262. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/622366> Accessed 23 Apr. 2009.

McDowell, Linda. “Off the Road: Alternative Views of Rebellion, Resistance and ‘The Beats’.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 21.2 (1996)412-419. < http://www.jstor.org/stable/622491> Accessed 23 Apr 2009.

Paton, Fiona. “Beyond Bakhtin: Towards a Cultural Stylistics.” College English.63.2 (2000) 166 -193. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/379039> Accessed:23 Apr.2009.

Rycroft, Simon. “Changing Lanes: Textuality off and on the Road” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 21.2 (1996) 425-428. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/622493> Accessed: 23 Apr. 2009.

Seelye, John D. “The American Tramp: A Version of the Picaresque” AmericanQuarterly. 15.4 (1963) 535-553. >http://www.jstor.org/stable/2710972>Accessed 23 Apr. 2009.

Stanford, Raney. “The Return of Trickster: When a Not-A-Hero Is a Hero.” Journal of Popular Culture. 1:3 (1967) 228-242.

Welsford, Enid. The Fool: His Social and Literary History. [1934]. Faber Paper Covered Editions. London: Faber and Faber, 1968.

Williams, Paul V.A. ed. The Fool and the Trickster: Studies in Honour of Enid Welsford. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer Ltd., 1979.

1 Kerouac, 2000, 9.

2 Kerouac, 2000, 176.

3 Kerouac, 2000, 177.

4 John, Hellman, Fables of Fact: The New Journalism and New Fiction, (Urban: University of Illinois Press, 1981) 69.

5 Hellman, 80.

6 Thompson, 86.

7 Thomspon, 86-7.

8 Thompson, 87.

PLAN A: Art Fag Fest with No Age, Crocodiles, Dum Dum Girls, Best Coast, Ganglicans, Grass Widow, Pearl Harbor @ San Diego Woman’s Club (5 p.m.) I don’t care who doesn’t like it if I refer to this show as “Scenester Fest 2009.” I mean it with love, because there isn’t a bad band on this bill. Dum Dum Girls and Crocodiles are still making news (see Locals Only section this week) and No Age continue to redefine noise-pop. But, again, it’s definitely worth showing up early for Best Coast (see Nathan Dinsdale’s feature from this week’s issue) and San Fran’s Grass Widow, who combine lo-fi surf-punk with early ‘60s girl-group R&B for what sounds like The Chiffons backed by Man or Astro-man?. PLAN B: Japandi, Snuffaluffagus, Bro Zen @ Che Café If there was such a thing as “poppy instrumental math-rock” then locals Japandi would have the genre thoroughly pigeonholed. They’re not playing tonight, but members of that band are in Miniature Tree so something tells me this is worth checking out. PLAN C: Gizzards, The Rib Cages, Mosquito Bandito @ Soda Bar Fans of Bob Log or Pant Hoots will wanna check out one-man psychobilly boy Mosquito Bandito while Portland’s The Rib Cages are as close as you’ll get to lo-fi hardcore these days. And you can’t really go wrong with the two-chord attack of local punks Gizzards. BACKUP PLAN: Josh Damigo, JT Spangler @ Lestats “Josh Damingo” (as I like to call him) won the San Diego Music Award for “Best Local Recording,” which prompted me to tweet that he “sucks balls.” He was such a good sport about it that I’m recommending his “overcooked-with-a-side-of-cheese” folk to you here. Enjoy.

OTHER COOL STUFF:

“F@#king in the Bushes” @ Whistle Stop–We’re hoping this inaugural Britpop night lasts, especially when the DJs are Rob Moran (of Some Girls fame) and Daniel Sant (the limey singer of Northern Towns, who are also playing earlier in the night). Oasis fans need not apply.

“Lilith” @ Conrad Prebys Music Hall–A new opera from UCSD professor and Guggenheim-award winner Anthony Davis based on Adam’s first wife. Actually sounds pretty cool (read more here).

The Blackout Party, Brawley, Bill Cardinal, Wire Pony  @ The Casbah–If you’re so inclined, you can check out the article I did a couple months back on Blackout Party frontman Brian Holwerda here. Also, you can download their entire new album on their MySpace page.

grampadrew, The Moons, Elysa Everson & Her Gentleman Bastards @ Tin Can Ale House

“Feel The Noise” with DJs Gabe Vega and Saul Q @ U-31

The Aggrolites, Stranger, The Earful, DJ King Cannon @ Belly Up

Normandie, DJ Bad Andy @ Bar Pink

The Chop Tops, The Strikers, Hard Fall Hearts, The Watchmen, Los Duggans @ Radio Room

Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Matt 14:31 (ESV)

When I was learning to drive, one of the most important lessons was to tuck my elbows in when I was looking over my shoulder to merge. The reason was, it’s natural for you to start to turn the direction you’re looking. I had to tuck my elbows in so I would stay going straight until I knew it was safe to change lanes.

It’s the same with our faith. Our faith will always follow our focus. Peter learned that in this story. When he saw Jesus walking on water, he asked Jesus to command him to come and walk with Him. Jesus said "come" and Peter got out of the boat. So far so good.

Peter got a few steps before he started thinking about what he was doing. Did I mention that this was during a storm? When Peter took his eyes off of Christ and started to look at the waves, he started to sink. His faith left Christ, and he was doomed.

Our faith is only as strong as what we are putting it in. We put our faith in what we are focused on with our spiritual eyes. When we are focused on Christ, then we can do anything that He asks. When we shift that focus to something else, then we start to fail. For Peter, Jesus was able to step up and save him, that won’t always be the case for us. It is best if we just keep our focus on Christ, and follow where ever He leads.

Consider This…

Where is your faith focused? Are your spiritual eyes on God or something else?

Pray that God will help you keep your focus on Him so that your faith will stay with Him.