Pete Rollins

a few of us caught up with pete rollins in philly on his north american tour of his second book.

an unscripted moment with pete rollins.

for me, pete is fresh oxygen to the conversation. he thinks thoughts that i wouldn't get to on my own - and communicates them in unassuming stories & jokes that allows someone (like me) - without any background in the who's-who of philosophical names and concepts (i.e. jargon) - to grasp the idea.

the visual image i have of what pete does is - he reaches up and grabs three or five thoughts - questions their normal relationships - and rewires them... usually with some kind of inverter or polarity flipper thrown in. a lot of people are good at asking questions. i think pete is creating the first recognizable forms in postmodern theology.

i rode up and back to philly with a guy who is pretty new to our community, yo vince!, and turns out he is way hipper than me (e.g. he had some mars volta with him). so we were able to talk about some of the more eclectic voices in music.

one of the most popular of those eclectic voices for which we both share an affinity, is the gifted guitarist pat metheny (including his ubiquitous 'first circle' album). pat's keyboardist, lyle mays has been the biggest influence on my playing - in that he has given me permission to not have to play a lot of notes - and just let the sound do what it does.

anyway, pat metheny found his very unique voice early on - no one sounds like him - he's just incredibly distinctive. turns out no one else should try to sound like him either. when they do - it doesn't result in much of anything, and just pisses people off.

i think the moral of the story is probably, have confidence enough to speak with your own voice, and don't try to be one of the cool kids - 'cause you ain't foolin nobody.