sally says hi

songs that have changed my life

i love making mix cds, and i'm making this one for our school psychologist. these are the songs that have had the most impact on my life. a lot of them are depressing, but that's when i needed them most.

in autobiographical order:

1. dave matthews band "#41"
this song was the favorite of a girl i was crazy about in high school. her name was pam and i was definitely more into her than she was into me. it was one of the first dave songs i learned to play on guitar. we ended up working with the same amazing group of kids years later, and now we both teach special ed. the song speaks to me cause he's saying "i don't want to, but i've got to break things off." that's always so hard and i got so sick of it that i haven't committed to anything in about 2 years.

2. third eye blind "motorcycle drive-by"
it's a pretty song. i don't really relate to it on a personal level that much, but i definitely wore it out. this is another one that helped me learn to play guitar.

3. jump, little children "cathedrals"
i got into jump in the beginning of high school, but was never old enough to see their shows. this song blows my mind because jay clifford is such a wordsmith and can create such amazing visual images through words and music.

4. caedmon's call "somewhere north"
i always gravitated to the songs derek webb wrote for them because they were mostly about girls and girl problems. i get so much raw emotion when i hear/play this song.

5. bebo norman "where the angels sleep"
this is the recovering player's anthem. it's fit my life so many times it's scary.

6. oleander "how could i?"
this song hit me hard at the end of my longest relationship. it's the thought of "how in the world could i have expected to make her happy when my life was such a mess?"

7. incubus "i miss you"
when my longest relationship ended, it ended over the phone. i was camping with the family and had never felt so miserable in my life. i had 2 cds with me, and this song stayed on repeat. i left the camping trip early to move in with adam and cried all the way home.

8. lifehouse "everything"
i remember how excited i was to discover Christian music that spoke so strongly to me. jason wade did that. the line "how can i stand here with you and not be moved by you?" is one of the best lines in Christian music ever. on a trip to nashville about 5 years ago, i was climbing monteagle in the middle of a storm. when i reached the peak of the mountain, the sun broke through the clouds as the song got to the explosion in the chorus. there've been a few moments in my life when i felt like God was speaking directly to me, and that was one. i need to write a song about monteagle, because it's definitely a special place to me, and i'm sure it will continue to be as i drive between nashville and home.

9. shane barnard "take my love"
another huge song in my life. it's just saying "God, i'm not doing well on my own, take away all the distractions."

10. jeff buckley "lover, you should have come over"
no other song tells my life like it is. it's all the frustration and pain and selfishness and everything else that goes along with failing relationships and knowing it's your fault. i think every guy who's ever loved can relate to this song.

11. mindy smith "one moment more"
she wrote this about her mom dying of cancer. when i was first getting into her, i was dating a girl whose mom died when she was younger, and i cried every time i heard this song for about a month. mindy smith's voice does something to me. her new album comes out 10/10 and i can't wait.

12. u2 "sometimes you can't make it on your own"
it's about his dad, and i can definitely relate to having a relationship like that with my dad.

i wonder which songs will be next...

i want that back

so i get in what i like to call "movie moods" when i've just seen a movie that i really get into. went and saw "last kiss" this afternoon with cianna and suzie (well, i never actually talked to suzie (i don't know that i looked at her), but she was there. i guess i was pretty uncomfortable. anyway, this song is in response to the movie, john mayer's new album, and being forced to finally grow up.

"i want that back"
listen at: http://www.purevolume.com/jasondean

we were all brave once
but that was so long ago
with our feet on the handlebars
we'd fly down the open road

we were all stupid once
we all had college days
spent tangled on a twin bed
never wanting it to go away

cause i want that back
just take my hands off the wheel
remind myself just how good it feels
yeah i want that back
find the child inside me
so i'll never let go of dreams

we were all free once
with nothing but time
before we got scared to be seen dancing
or knew the rejection that came with life

we were all young once
we saw with innocent eyes
it was so easy to be trusting
and we never saw through the lies

God's way of saying "get renters insurance"

so i woke up this morning, and went through my usual routine. when i turned on the hot water to shave, it got hot faster than it ever had before, and in no time was hot enough to do damage (it'd never been this hot before, i could usually tolerate it). so i adjusted, and barely used any hot to wash my face. in the shower i had to use a lot larger percentage of cold to stand it. i tried to come up with as many reasons why this could be happening as possible. (such as, maybe someone else shares a water heater with me and they didn't get a shower this morning... wait, does that mean i'm paying the power bill on it?) so when i got out i opened the closet that houses the indoor part of the ac/heat and water heater. it smells horrible, like hot plastic and metal. i figured the thermostat was broken and it was working overtime to try to heat this water. so i turned it off at the breaker and called maintenance on the way to work. when i got home, this was sitting right outside my front door:


that smell was melting (maybe burning) plastic on the thermostat. any mechanically inclined folks know why it would do this? needless to say, i'm gonna do everything in my power to get a break at work long enough to get renters insurance, and hopefully come home early enough to sign all the paperwork. sorry, mom, your nagging didn't scare me as much as this. hopefully by the time you read this i've got insurance.

forty-ford

1, 2, 3

the question is...

can my apartment survive 3 people (brother and his girlfriend are coming up for a wedding) and 3 dogs (i just might exceed the 50 pound or 2 dogs limit this time) for the weekend? i've definitely got a lot of cleaning to do, and will have a lot more to do when they leave!



on another note, some high schoolers did a little video montage of the 3rd grade's egypt day last week. enjoy http://video.wcs.edu/wgegypt

"stop this train"

with the infinite amount of media available to us nowadays, and the specification of information we can choose to subject ourselves to, we have our very own choose-your-own-adventure book at our fingertips. while this has its cons (i wouldn't be surprised if we're all a little more a.d.d. than we used to be) i love the fact that i can find things that speak to me, where i am in life.

two examples: zach braff movies. while i haven't seen last kiss yet, i'm assuming it's garden state 2. what i mean by that is, it's a story about a guy who's figuring out what life on his own is about. college is over, and we're out of the nest and our wings are no longer clipped.

john mayer's the same way. it's great to see him grow and change and figure out life through his music. he's 2 or 3 years older than me, and just when i'm sick of his last album, he comes out with a new one that speaks to me again. his new one is amazing. very chill, but as usual, his lyrics blow my mind and challenge me as a writer. here's the lyrics to my favorite song on the album. it's pretty much what i'm going through.

STOP THIS TRAIN

No I'm not colorblind
I know the world is black and white
I try to keep an open mind
But I just can't sleep on this tonight

Stop this train
I want to get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

Don't know how else to say it
I don't want to see my parents go
One generation's length away
From fighting life out on my own

Stop this train
I want to get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game
To find a way to say that life has just begun

Had a talk with my old man
Said "help me understand"
He said "turn sixty-eight"
"You'll renegotiate"

"Don't stop this train
Don't for a minute change the place you're in
And don't think I couldn't ever understand
I tried my hand
John, honestly, we'll never stop this train"

Once in a while, when it's good
It'll feel like it should
And they're all still around
And you're still safe and sound
And you don't miss a thing
Till you cry when you're driving away in the dark

Singing
Stop this train
I want to get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed its moving in
I know I can't
Cause now I see I'll never stop this train

that will bring us back to doe

and thus ends the first themed string of posts i've ever done for the blog... any ideas for a new theme?

tea, i drink with jam and bread

i have no idea what "la" means

but here's the most embarassing picture of me ever

sew, a needle pulling thread

this is the coolest spider i've ever seen. i took this at night with a telephoto. the next day, he had caught a beatle bigger than him, completely wrapped it up, and ate it. his body doubled in size. now i've got 2 that look just like him out on my little deck at my apartment.

far, a long, long way to run

i wanna go back... that was the most relaxing week of my life

so i was really wanting to go see jay clifford (of jump, little children) last night cause he's one of my favorite songwriters and an incredible musician. well thursday, i hear that one of my kids is bragging about how he's going to dunk me in the dunking booth at pta's family fun night. i can't let my kids down, so i scramble, get the pta lady to fit me into the schedule, and proceed to promote my stint in the dunking booth by getting the kids riled up in their classroom before walking out the door and leaving it up to their teachers to calm them back down.

so the big day arrives and i walk outside to see the booth. it's not some dinky little thing. the bench sits about 3 feet above the water, and the water is about 5 feet deep. i'm a little worried because it doesn't have any water in it. every kid who ever had a green plastic turtle pool in the yard knows you've gotta let that thing sit out in the sun all day before it's comfortable enough to play in. so the school day goes on and there's still no water in it. eventually, a fire truck pulls up, takes out the hose, and starts to fill it up. apparently fire trucks and hydrants don't carry clean water. it was brown and you definitely couldn't see through it at all. but it was warm. (i'm not sure which i'd rather have, warm water or clear water.)

so the first few teachers go and it's a big hit. the first one to go discovers that if you don't stick your feet out, the bench will cut the heck out of the back of your leg. she bandaged it up with a bandana and kept going though. when it's finally my time to go (2 hours into the night) the novelty of it has worn off and the crowd has dwindled. a few of my kids get in line and get to try like 3 or 4 times within the span of a few minutes. folks notice there's not much of a line so they start coming over. apparently a young guy in the booth means it's not just kids anymore. i've got all kinds of folks throwing at me. one dad had a little girl who hit the target, but the ball just bounced back, so he got mad and took it upon himself to dunk me for his daughter. (it was pretty funny, everyone was like "what did that dad have against you?") heidi managed to dunk me on her third and final throw, other teachers i work with weren't so lucky.

i heckled a lot and said "aw, good try" a lot and after what felt like more than 20 minutes it was finally time for our principal to hop up in there. i'm not tenured yet, so i didn't take any throws. instead i went back inside to change, grabbed my free pizza, and headed home.

the most interesting part of the was seeing a parent, introducing myself, and hearing "that's not your teacher is it?" the kid so confidently answered, "yeah, that's mr. dean!" just motivates me to work harder and earn their trust.

poor blue was in the apt for 13 straight hours. he's a trooper. i took him to the dog park today as a reward. he made a little 3 year old's day by playing fetch with him. i should have taken my camera.

me, a name, i call myself

"it's all about the eyes, jb, it's all about the eyes" (c) 2006 jb

jason was convinced that i have game (i have none), so i took it and ran with it and taught him everything i know...
"make eye contact, they feel like you can see into their soul"
"keep your mouth shut, they're the talkers of the species"

i'm sure i threw in some swingers quotes too...
"you start talking about puppy dogs and ice cream, of course it's gonna end up on the friendship tip."

my line for the night...
"you've got a boyfriend, i'm not looking for anything, let's look out for each other."

i made it all up dude, don't try it.

ray, a drop of golden sun

doe, a deer, a female deer

songs from this weekend

http://www.purevolume.com/jasondean

"i can't move on"
i wrote it a few months ago. it's not about any specific relationship, but a collection of emotions i've gone through from a sampling of bad luck and bad decisions.

"you didn't fight"
my old roommate at tech wrote it. we've all been there: you're torn and all it takes is that person saying "let's give this a try" to convince you to make it last, but she doesn't and you regret making the decision in the first place, even if it was the right one.

"everything"
one of my favorite conversations with God. it just happened to be one that both of us knew and felt like recording.

cart at sunset - cades cove

we're together, but it ain't like that -jb

you want a blog? you get a blog.

the freakin’ weekend kicked off with me dropping a sick suzie off at cianna's work so they could leave from there to go to atl with lori. i cleaned my apt and fell asleep watching tv while waiting on my old roommate from tech, jb, to get here. he rode his sweet little triumph bike here from peoria, il to save money on gas.

i feel bad for my neighbors because we stayed up until 5 a.m. sharing songs we had written and just catching up. somewhere in there we got some waffle house, which he doesn't get the luxury of up in yankee land.

saturday morning we watched a little football then decided to go canoeing down the harpeth. we called it my scouting trip so that if i was to take a certain someone down it i could be a smooth operator.

(c) 2006 JB

we were anything but smooth on this trip. i decided it would be fun to take blue along. for the first half he was out of the boat more than he was in it.

(c) 2006 JB

he eventually stayed in the boat with a lot of convincing from my paddle blade. when we stopped for lunch on this little sand bar, he took advantage of the shallow water that other canoes were getting stuck in, and would jump in their boats. we couldn't get him to stay in ours, but he loved jumping in with other people. (fyi, if your dog weighs more than about 40 pounds, do not take him canoeing, because he will flip you.)

"we're together, but it ain't like that" (c) 2006 JB

after the canoe trip it was nap time before we headed to a sports bar to see the tech game. jason and i met up with erin and her boyfriend (yeah, that erin), and lindsey and some of her friends. it was funny seeing how much jason and erin have changed in the 4 or so years since we were all close. i ran into a distant cousin who i hadn't seen in like 15 years. by the power of facebook we still recognized each other.

tech lost in a tight game and so we headed to this place called the flying saucer. silly name, but very cool place. beer snob heaven. i tasted a lot and enjoyed the pretzel i ate. we finally got home around 2.

(c) 2006 JB

sunday was breakfast (at lunch time) at cracker barrel (another southern luxury) followed by a lot more guitar pickin' and singin' and a little bit of recording. you'll hear it on myspace or purevolume soon.

we went to this place called siverado last night. at first i was making fun of the place, but after a while it kinda grew on me and i had a lot of fun. it's this country line dancing bar, except there were all kinds and colors of people there. there were a few break dancing black guys, your cliche cowboys, and everything in between. i definitely didn't try any of the country dancing, but enjoyed myself when the booty shaking music of the past 10 years was played. erin came again as did lindsey's friends (including her boyfriend, logan). he's a ridiculously nice guy who also writes songs (imagine that) so we're gonna get together and play some time.

(C) 2006 JB

reactions from the weekend:

holy cow jason and erin have changed. i don't feel like i'm all that different, but they aren't the same. we all had so much fun hanging out again. when erin left last night she was like "this was good" and i had to agree. we've had so much time to grow and change and to get along again is awesome. she's such a sweet girl and her boyfriend patrick seems like a great guy. he went to lipscomb so he can't be too bad, right?

i can be social. i met so many people this weekend and really enjoyed it. i don't know what my deal is, but when i go into situations (including ones with a ton of potential to be awkward like the past two nights) i expect the worst. this weekend i just went into it to have fun, and that's what i got out of it.

i'm gonna head to work in a little bit and maybe figure out some way to not be so far behind. but then again, i'll always be behind.

happy labor day, r.i.p. steve irwin