As Woody Allen said, the heart wants what it wants. So, why are you here?

Why I'm not talking about Houston, followed with how to get free music. Feel free to skip the first.

I feel somewhat reluctant to talk about my business trip to Houston. I'm not certain what the reason for this is - maybe because I don't have the job for certain yet, maybe because I don't want to repeat the same fairly dull stories over and over again. What's most likely is that I'm nervous about everything and I'm just tired of talking about it. Plus, I might be directing some of the people who work for this church to this site to look at videos, so I don't want to say anything that I might regret later. Because that is something I would do, and everyone knows it.

In short, the trip was a success, at least in my mind. I really liked the job, I liked the people, especially John, who might be reading this. Though I really did like John, he took care of me all weekend, drove me around, took me out to eat every meal, and introduced me to his truly lovely family. And I truthfully passionately like the opportunity. It's not just a chance to do what I want for work - it's a chance to just let what submerged talent I have just explode, to really, really, make a difference.

It's also an opportunity to discover that I'm really not very good at this and have everything rather publically fall apart in front of maybe 10,ooo people every week. But at least I would know. And I could always look back at those moments.

That's enough about that for now. Instead, here's a neat little link to check out. Derek Webb - formerly of Caedmon's Call, though I'm sure that he's tired of hearing that qualifier by now - is so impassioned about how he wants his music to impact people, and to start conversations, that he's making the entire album available for download, completely free.

I have mixed feelings about Webb - he's talented, intellectual, a great songwriter and deeply zealous. But he's a little too aware of it, a little more-zealous-than-thou sometimes. I just get that "talking down to the people" tone sometimes. I like him much more in Introspective Mode. Makes it a little easier to get into his shoes and start walking.

posted by Ben Wyman @ 9:19 PM