Time Management

Sucks. Or, at least, I suck at it. I used to be pretty decent at it, but my world has become a clutterbomb as of late and you know those times when you have so much to do that you don't do any of it? 

Yeah. 

I'm eating a salad from McDonalds. Surprisingly, they have good salads. Southwest Crispy Chicken baby. 

Yeah. 

Veil Arms just confirmed August Burns Red for ... April 30th, I believe? Last time they were here, over 600 kids came out. I swear, that band exploded since I first heard them... and I don't really foresee them getting any smaller so we'll see how this one goes. 

I'm going to play a worship night at Joshua's Vineyard this Saturday - day after tomorrow, I guess. Doing an Easter poem that I wrote for another church that didn't end up using it. I still have to memorize it. Guess I'll do that tonight. Hopefully it goes over well. 

The Heavy Tour is running relatively smoothly, which is something I'm happy about. (Knock on wood.)

I'm not really incredibly interesting today, but I felt like writing something down - to remember it, anyway. If I don't write I don't remember anything. 

What is there to remember about today, again? 

My lip rings hurt a lot...

I think that if they don't heal soon, I will take them out. This sucks. I don't want to take them out, but I don't want them to be ugly and gross and infected for the rest of my life, either. I tried to play this harmonica part that I learned for my set, and I can't do it 'cause my freaking snakebites hurt to bad. 

Me and my grand ideas. 

A good friend of mine is in town from - where is he in town from? I forget, but he's in town anyway and we're all supposed to hang out. I'm excited for that - hoping it doesn't turn into a huge party-sesh, but stoked to see him (and the rest of my friends, for that matter) nonetheless. 

I'm happy to be done with the week. My plan for the weekend is - make my mom and sister a birthday present. I don't have money for rent, let alone money for presents. It's a humbling feeling, not being able to get your own family presents for their birthday. Then again - I suppose it's pretty privileged feeling being an American that expects presents for a day of the year, too. (Which isn't to get myself off the hook - but I figure having food and roofs is a pretty cool thing.)

Now I just sound like an insensitive jerk. I think a lot of my words have been coming out nice and crappy lately - due to stress or irritability or whatever else. 

Sorry, world.

Sorry, God. 

Anyway - Flyleaf is playing in the background at the shop I'm sitting in. I go back and forth on these guys but they have an entertaining live performance, and Lacey Mosley wears those hot sunflower hippie dress things and spins in circles and is beautiful. 

I'm excited to play next week. That will be fun. Just finished reading The Heroin Diaries. That was crazy. 

I've had this chorus in my head all day:

I CAN SEE A LIGHT THAT IS COMING

FOR THOSE THAT HOLD ON

AND THERE WILL BE AN END TO THESE TROUBLES

BUT UNTIL THAT DAY COMES

STILL I WILL PRAISE YOU

God has to stretch you...

... in order for you to grow strong. 

Being stretched sucks. The strength at the end of the stretching rocks, but the fatigue is hard to get through. These last couple of months have bee godawful, but I feel that the Lord is preparing me, us, whoever, for something beautiful at the end of this tunnel. I was getting some work done at Heart & Soul on Tuesday (go get work done there), and Ericksen was talking to me about how it's when times are at their darkest that the brightest light shines. It's been a dark tunnel for the last couple of months. Pay has been... eh... nonexistent and work has been busier than it's ever been and I've been struggling with how to balance personal life and work life and am just now finding a thin red line to mark the barrier of what was becoming a dangerous schedule without any separation whatsoever. 

I wrote this song for the occasion:

MY GOD IS ONLY AS BIG AS I LET HIM BE

and I am not gonna limit my God with my disbelief

My God has always, always taken care of me

and I am not gonna limit my God with uncertainty

I DON'T HAVE MUCH!

(but it might amount to a mustard seed)

I pray for miracles (and then I breathe...)

I beg and scream for signs and wonders - 

and then my heart keeps its beat

You've got to go through the fire to be refined 

and there's a huge sense of helplessness in a hopeless time

I am Yours, and You are mine

(and we are one in a kind)

SO SANG THE BIRDS AND THE BEES

when I was not strong enough to sing anything

And if you care and provide for the least of these

then how much more do you care for me?

I DON'T HAVE MUCH

BUT IT MIGHT AMOUNT TO A MUSTARD SEED

And I have seen you move mountains

and command the winds and waves of the seas 

on a whim much smaller than me!

Singing:

GOD IS BIGGER THAN THE AIR I BREATHE! 

THE WORLD WILL LEAVE! 

AND GOD WILL SAVE THE DAY

AND ALL WILL SING...

MY GLORIOUS!

My Glorious!

So, yeah... one of these days I want to collaborate with a worship band - maybe like, The Glorious Unseen or something - and write a spoken-word-combined-with-worship-CD. I wonder how far out of an idea that is?

I wonder if they'd be down for it? I don't know. 

Anyway. There's that. I've got to get back to work. Just wanted to give an update and let you know I love ya. 

Levi

Okay so you're right, I straight up suck...

... at updating this blog. How many months have gone by since the last post? I actually forgot about this because I have two millions other things that I do and, in case you're wondering, no - I don't have a life anymore because I work too much.

Anyway, a friend of mine from California wrote me one day and said that she actually reads the things I post on here and that I should write again, and then I forgot again and now I just remembered. So, if there is anyone else that read this a while ago and wanted to know the exciting life of Levi... I apologize, because to be honest I'm probably not going to get to it now, either. But it's not incredibly exciting... it's just incredibly busy.

Doing the VA thing and booking a tour with In the Midst of Lions right now, and it's ridiculously stressful to me because I still have eight days to fill and the tour starts in three weeks and that's no good, but the Lord will provide and I believe it will be a good thing, in the long run.

I've taken the last month and a half off to work on my poetry project, and haven't accomplished one single iota of anything substantial whatsoever. But now I'm playing a "comeback show" on April 1st and I'm supposed to have new material and merch and whatever else and I doubt I'll have any of it. So I'm going to lock myself away and try to write some new stuff before that. Hopefully the Lord will be kind to me and provide inspiration.

I am poor. Very poor. In fact I am so poor that I really afford just about nothing at all right now, but I believe that the Lord will provide for that, too.

At least I'm relying on him, eh? Amen.

So yeah. I've been listening to a lot of new music that I've been discovering these days, which is pretty exciting.

Syrens.
The Great Commission.
Arsonists Get All The Girls.
Fallstar.
The Overseer.
Paul Blaunt.
Lil Wayne.
Kanye West.
Nose Whistler.
Stars Go Dim.
In The Midst of Lions.
All Or Nothing.
Wrench in the Works.
Lust Control.
Last Fifteen.
Dead Hours.

And there are a lot of other things that I would like to list that I can't remember which is somewhat frustrating, honestly.

But I love you. And I appreciate you who even know that I write in this thing, albeit however seldom it is.

After The Wake

So I know that I'm still not exactly great at updating this thing, but I do still have a lot to write about The Wake Tour, and now that I've procrastinated, it's not going to be nearly as cool or detailed as I originally intended, but whatever. 

It was amazing, to say the least. I don't know how many people follow me on here, but if you do, and you went, you know what I'm talking about. 

Sleeping Giant and The Glorious Unseen rocked my world, and Chad's prayer and encouragement gave me perspective into a faith in God that I may have not realized before that weekend. 

We started out in Dallas. Drove through the night and didn't get enough sleep and didn't do much of anything healthy, actually, but I had a lot of sunflower seeds and Mountain Dew and Coffee and pretzels, and I'm still alive, so I suppose that's a testament to the miraculous nature of God who allows me to survive on crap the majority of the time.

The bills were packed. Maybe a little too packed. Alright, yeah, they were too packed. But it was a good opportunity for the artists to be able to play with the bands they love, and regardless of the stress involved with those of us who put it on, it was a blessing for most, to be sure. 

I just about knocked myself out during my set. I hit myself in the forehead with a big metal trash can lid and Brandi said my face turned pale and my ears wouldn't stop ringing and I think that I died for a minute and somehow kept talking. It was fun though. 

I don't know. I don't know what kind of a point I'm trying to make or how I'm possibly going to be able to explain how much the Spirit moved in The Max that night, but he did, and it was great. The Glorious Unseen played a passionate worship set, and Sleeping Giant, although a different kind of worship, carried the flow on as though there weren't a break at all. To see the way the people moved and the crowd exploded into worship through hardcore music and dancing and ... freakin', I don't know. I don't know.

Tommy from Sleeping Giant explained a lot of the songs, took time to pray in between, told one of the craziest, most heartbreaking/redemptive testimonies I've ever heard. He read a note from Jesus to the kids that basically begged them to love him. He started out by saying that he knew this was gong to sound crazy, but the Lord had given him a message to read to the kids at the show, and it was that Jesus loved them, and said, "please, please, please, please, please, please love me."

Oklahoma was so hectic! Shawn and I went to Wal Mart for the first three hours of the show and asked people to come because the promoter:

a) dropped the ball

b) put on another, bigger show with Plain White T's twenty minutes away

Who does that?

But it was so much fun, and the Lord really worked in the lives of some people there, too. A girl was healed there, and one of the guys that we invited to come from Wal Mart came and was really touched. He just got out of prison, and I told us afterwards that he really appreciated being invited. One of my buddies, Aaron, has been in touch with him and he said he'd was really touched that night. 

I'd have to say that the ABQ show touched me the most, personally. We put a lot of prayer and work into that weekend, and the Veil Arms vision is put over Albuquerque. Shawn and Ashley and Brandi have always had such a heart for the ABQ music scene, and the Lord has been developing one in me, as well. One of my good friends accepted Jesus, and another one re-dedicated his life to the Lord, and it was just awesome. (I know, I know - all the Christianese, sorry.) 

My dad came. He hasn't seen me play in so long. He has horrible back problems, and has been out of work for years. I felt that the Lord put it on my heart that he was going to be healed. 

This didn't happen. But it's okay. I was sad, because I so hoped for it, and felt like it would be okay, and all his pain would finally be gone, but like I said, The Wake helped me develop a trust that I don't know if I ever had in the Lord, and I no longer doubt God's power, even though he didn't choose to use it where I thought he would. 

I mean. I'm not all-trusting-Levi-with-no-doubts, but I'm not as skeptical as I was before. 

And it blessed my dad, too. Tommy freakin' stopped in the middle of their Sleeping Giant set and took like ten minutes to pray for my dad. It was just incredible. A bunch of kids from the audience came over and prayed for him, and then Ben from Glorious, and SG, and Chad all prayed for my dad for about an hour after the show was over, too. It was touched, man. It was great.

Performance-wise, I freakin forgot my set. It was great. I was so distracted by everything going on that I started to do that Oh Captain My Captain poem and I just forgot it in the middle and started laughing about it. And then some dude screamed "what the f###?" in the middle of When I Go To Meet God, and I was scared that my friends were going to beat him up, because they had him all cornered and were threatening him and stuff. Haha. My friends. They mean well. The dude was nice. I probably would have had the same reaction if I'd have walked in to some kid in an orange hat screaming a bunch of crap with no music.

I don't know. It was great. 

Some cool opportunities came up, too. I think Sleeping Giant might put some of my poetry stuff up on their podcast, which is beyond a blessing and an encouragement, that they liked it that much. And I talked to Carlos of this band, Before Their Was Rosalyn, and might go out on the road with them sometime next year. 

I don't want to make anything about me, though. It's weird talking about cool things happening for myself. I feel like I shouldn't or something. It's God. It's not me, it's all God. The fact that my fingers are even moving to type this right now is a gift, and I always want to remember that. 

Highlights:

Micah Dean

Listening to Micah Dean talk about Poema.

Poema.

Driving in a van with my best friends

Eating Denny's (or was it IHOP) at two in the morning and watching Shawn laugh at everything because he's so freakin tired

Sleeping Giant

Glorious Unseen

Chad Johnson

Hanging out with Fallstar. Those guys are some of the kindest dudes ever, and their performance is phenomenal

Watching We Became The Sun - a band that came down from Ohio to do the Dallas and Tulsa dates

Hardcore dancing for the first time in my life during "worship" to Sleeping Giant in ABQ

Seeing the look on my mom's face when she finally understands that you can worship to heavy music

Praying for my dad with a bunch of random people he doesn't know

Eating absolutely nothing healthy whatsoever throughout the course of everything

Meeting people 

Smiling

The Wake

I leave with my Veil Arms family tomorrow for Dallas where we'll start the three-day "The Wake" tour Friday night with The Glorious Unseen, Sleeping Giant, and Chad Johnson. It's weird how bands and people are built up so crazy huge and we're all just people. Sometimes it makes me wonder if fame is weird, you know? Like, it's awesome to give recognition for beautiful work, but when you know people as people instead of people as stars it's a much different perspective. 

I don't really know what I'm trying to say, but regardless, I'm excited and privileged to play with these musicians. 

I've been working non-stop since 9 this mornin' - freakin... reminds me of deadline at HM. 

I am happy to be home. I must admit, I just unpacked my car last night. It's been completely full for these past two weeks and no one could really ride around with me because, well. Yeah. 

I stuffed everything into my friend's closet, and now I'm sleeping on her floor for ... for indefinitely. 

I've been working on writing some new poetry. I can never just sit down and come up with something that I like, though, which is really irritating. I don't know how other people write, but the times that something genius comes to me are the times that I don't have a pen, and then later when I try to remember it - it's a bunch of jumbled crap that I can't remember. It sucks... to be honest... but my goal is to write a new poem by this Sunday and play it at the ABQ Wake date. I guess those of you that come will see if I've been successful.

Love.

Levi.

It has been too long...

Wow. A whole month - even longer - has gone by since I've written anything on this blogging page. I don't know what the happened. I seriously never realize how fast time goes by until it's gone.

Aww... that's such a cute little cliche thing to say. Little Levi. 

Brandi, my girlfriend, set up a free show at Starbucks last night that I played along with some friends and this band - Ives. It was definitely the most fun I've ever had playing a show. It was incredible. She did such a good job setting it up. Seriously, like, 60 people came to the thing. My friend Amanda even brought a firepit and we roasted marshmellows. It was great. 

I met an awesome person named Christopher last night. Seriously, man, if you read this blog, you were the biggest blessing to me. Incredible.

I'm sitting in Satellite right now, listening to some coffee shop mix consisting of Manchester Orchestra, Band of Horses, Bright Eyes, and Death Cab. Yep. Sometime soon I'm planning on setting aside a day to write some new material and start working on my CD.

Life is exciting right now, though. Some cool opportunities have come up for me to be able to play quite a bit, and I'm going to tour with my best friend and his band We Were Born As Ghosts in January... so I'm stoked. 

I miss HM a lot. It sucks. I get pretty bummed out sometimes. That place really had an impact on me, and I probably just consider Doug one of my best friends now. It was a beautiful time, and will be one of my fondest memories without a doubt. 

I'm doing some work for Veil Arms Clothing now... helping out with shows and promotions and bookings and what have you. I'm loving it. I'm so happy that I didn't have to come back to Starbucks. This is where my heart lies, and I'm stoked that the Lord has so blessed me. I seriously don't understand it. It's crazy. I never would have dreamed that he would work things out the way that he has. 

I read a very encouraging verse the other day. It's from 1 Corinthians 3, and it says:

Everything belongs to you: 22 Paul and Apollos and Peter ; the whole world and life and death; the present and the future. Everything belongs to you, 23 and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

That's just really beautiful. I've been thinking about how we are given every spiritual blessing, and about how much potential we have in Christ. It's something that I can't possibly begin to grasp. It just blows my mind. 

God just blows my mind.

The End.