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Hello folks,

This one is mostly for those of you who follow on Tumblr or via RSS. Thanks in part to our Patreon patrons, we've moved over to a new site hosted on Squarespace. Here's the URL http://www.disembodiedbeard.com. Note the ".com." Before too long the .net address will re-direct there. Perhaps our tumblr will become something new as well? Cross that bridge when we come to it. Thanks for all of your support.

Music Monday: Clearest Blue

Check out the entire Music Monday series here.

2 November, 2015

By Mark

Tell me, tell me you’ll meet me Tell me, tell me you’ll keep me Tell me, tell me you’ll meet me Will you meet me more than halfway up?

So asks Lauren Mayberry before the beat explodes into something joyful and driving on “Clearest Blue.” The track has moved to the top/favorite spot for me, eclipsing the rest of CHVRCHES’ recent album Every Open Eye. It’s a great album, so that’s saying something. It’s exactly the kind of song I’ve been hoping to hear from them since first coming across the single “Recover” from their first album. I adore that song, but I knew it was only a glimpse of what CHVRCHES was capable of.

The Scottish trio is on point here. On fleek, the kids might still be saying. That’s all there is to it. Hearing a band unlock something you believed to be there the whole time is a special thing. It’s what those of us who hunt for new bands and new sounds crave. It’s quite drug-like. The music for “Clearest Blue” is thickly and richly layered, but not overly so. It’s just what the lyrics require, something forceful to carry these small, whispered pleas that grow and grow before peaking in a beautiful expression of loving need.

It’s a generic human problem to have trouble asking for what soothes our vulnerabilities. First because it means admitting a weakness in the first place, second because it means accepting the unfortunate possibility that we do not get what we ask for. Which is painful and sad and humbling. This is the reality the first verse gets at: “Light is all over us, like it always was. Shaped by the clearest blue, but it’s not enough. It’s not enough.” A relationship worth exploring starts out in lovely illumination, bathed in clarity borne out of the hopes of two persons. But, CHVRCHES reminds us, that’s not enough.

More than light and beauty and lovely thoughts, we need to be met halfway. Make no mistake, the meeting halfway is messy. It’s not without its own beauty, but it’s far from the romantic notions we’re so often taught to value above all else. This meeting halfway, and keeping halfway, is the stuff of commitment beyond romance. It’s the foundation of partnership, of truly seeing the other as “thou,” Buber might say. What begins as shining, illuminated relationship with someone is (or can be, rather) the origin of partnership. And there is no partnership without the naked and exposed asking for it.

Which is why when you can communicate that way of asking for love and the hope bound up in doing so, spread over what can only be described as a sick beat and soaring synthesizers, you’re gonna end up with a damn good song.

#bymark #musicmonday

Eureka? Eurekairos!

30 October, 2015

By Mark and Logan

Previous — Next

Original art for this comic is avaiable in our store.

This is the final comic in a series done in conjunction with St. Andrew United Methdodist Church’s Wildflower service. They are doing a great sermon series on doubt, and asked us to cook up a few comics related to the theme for each week. Find the entire series here.

Mark also offers commissions. Get in touch: disembodiedbeard at gmail.com

Each original is a hand-drawn, hand-lettered creation drawn on acid free Strathmore Bristol Vellum or 400 Series Mixed Media paper using Micron and Copic pens. Originals are black-and-white, and frame up beautifully, communicating an air of quiet dignity.

#comic #wildflower

Assaulting the Disobedient

28 October, 2015

By Mark

I taught 4th grade at a rough inner-city school for a year. Plagued by the effects of poverty, racism, and the caste system that is our broken education structure, this elementary school held kids prone to a wide range of social, economic, and mental issues. I quit after that first year for a lot of reasons, but none of them were “because I didn’t want to work with the kids.” In fact, that’s the reason I want to go back one day, when I’m more educated and better trained. You may read that and think, “Well you had a really positive experience with those kids at least.” That’s partially true. But mostly WRONG. WRONG. I shed tears, felt beaten down, and questioned everything about my abilities and motivations for nine months straight. I loved those kids by the end, but they didn’t make it easy most days. They acted on their ADHD, their ODD, their hunger, their anger, and their fear. Daily. They were obstinate. They were obnoxious. But I wanted to teach them. Which is why, with the exception of holding children in a gripped hug to break up fights, I never laid a negative hand on them.

The recent case of a South Carolina police officer assigned to a school assaulting a disobedient student is disgusting. And, typical of the internet and its role to give equal voice to the stupid and intelligent alike, there’s a ton of defense for the officer. The girl wasn’t listening, they say. If you don’t want the consequences, do what the authority figure tells you, they say. She played a role in her assault, they say. It’s really her fault when you think about it, they say.

In my classroom, I was the authority. Usually an island of it, given the ineffective administration downstairs. But never did I use physical force on a student to demonstrate or defend that authority. It didn’t matter that they were 4th graders; I would have looked at teens with the same regard. I’ve also worked with teens, and while they are developmentally young adults, they’re children in ways, too. Impulsive, stubborn, often straight-up jerks. And when they were jerks? Nope, still didn’t sling them across the room. I’m a big guy, so it’s not out of the question, either.

Despite my adult identity as a left-wing socialist commie nut job, I grew up in a moderately conservative household (politically and religiously) where spanking was a legit method of short-term punishment. And maybe because of the way my parents went about it, I don’t have the immediate negative reaction to spanking that many of my friends do. Good parents do the best they can with the information they have. Given that many voices in the psychological/sociological world that now say spanking teaches the wrong lessons, I probably won’t spank my future children. But I sure don’t begrudge my parents for the quick pop on the back of the leg I often got. Why?

Because a spanking and abuse look different to anyone with a lick of sense. And because the physical act, which quickly halted my bad behavior, wasn’t the lesson in and of itself. The lesson ALWAYS came after. My parents talked to me. They explained which choices I should have made, and they let me know that they were keeping watch to make sure I made them. They taught me. Especially by the time I was a teenager, I was guided by words and reasoned lessons. That’s how my parents led me into adulthood. I’m busted, but that's not their fault. They did a great job.

Teaching how to be is the point. The real point. Teaching kids the information wrapped up in a liberal arts education is secondary. But if you’re teaching correctly, you are molding young people to be good adult people. You do it knowing that the stupidity they exhibit as still-forming persons won’t be there forever if you show them the proper way to grow and learn about and from the world around them.

This is the role anyone has who works with children. Whether you lead the classroom, take calls at the front desk, or patrol the halls as a police officer, you are there to teach. And violence does not teach, at least not the lessons you think. Violence teaches violence, never compassion. Violence erodes trust. You think any of the kids in that classroom we see in the video are going to trust the next school officer? Or the one patrolling their street? Trust in leadership and authority figures isn’t maintained through an iron hand. If you believe that, I hope you don’t have kids. If you do, I hope you rethink how you parent them.

Did I ever want to fling a kid I worked with? Yeah. The frustration those who work closely with children feel is real. Would I have ever done it? Hell no. Children and teens are volatile, but they’re also rather easily influenced. Talking to them like they’re a person goes a long way. Most situations can be deescalated just by talking. I remember one day when a 5th grader got mad at being assigned detention. He tore apart the office, throwing papers everywhere and knocking over a chair. He started to leave the school grounds. I was nearby, and, being a male and also of size to match up to this rather tall young boy, the principal asked me to do something. In fifteen minutes, we were back in the office where he was sitting quietly and apologizing. Why? Because I talked to the kid. I asked the right questions. I said the right things. He responded to the humanity I showed him. And of course there are situations, as there were in my school, where the threat of violence a student poses, to herself or others, warrants physical restraint. But restraint is not assault. Proper restraining holds do not harm. You’d never confuse them for assault.

Our children are not in our care to be criminalized. They are there to be taught real lessons by trained and patient adults. And if you’re not a trained and patient adult, like the just-fired officer in this case, you should never have an authority role with children. Or any authority role that deals with everyday people. Helping humans become better humans is a goal we can all share, and we can all take practical steps to do it correctly. It just takes time and information. But who am I kidding? Who in America wants actual information or will devote the actual time to get it? At the very least, “the adults in our schools” would be nice.

#bymark

Music Monday: Hard To Be

Check out the entire Music Monday series here.

26 October, 2015

By Mark

Not many people can use a song to cut right to the heart of theological mistrust and the ensuing existential crisis like David Bazan. Not many people can cut to the heart of it in any other way, either.

I was fortunate enough to see David perform at a house show in Nashville a few years back. It was a bit awkward, crowding into the living room of a stranger, but the intimacy that flowed from the songs we were gathered to hear conquered that fairly quickly.

I, like a ton of people, knew of Bazan first through Pedro the Lion. But—and this is a big friggin’ secret, so shut your mouth about it—I was only casually interested in PtL’s catalog, finding a few songs I loved but not being so keen on the rest. Which is strange, as I see myself then as the target audience for those records.

But it was Cursed Branches that did me in. David released Cursed Branches in 2009, and I haven’t been the same since hearing it. “Hard To Be” opens the record, and gives us the most concise, relatable, and sound theodicy (as something that both exists and affects) I’ve heard before or since. It’s a capsule of lost belief, which, when taken by the listener, gives us words for the red-pill journey away from the matrix we trusted for so long.

To be clear, I’d already gone through the shattering of my faith before I heard the swirling, looping notes and driving piano that kick off “Hard To Be.” I’d been through the anguish, and the questioning, and the bargaining, and the rest of grief. I had mourned my life as a religious person. I thought I was done with it.

And then I was in divinity school. Whoops. I watched as fellow students crumbled, finding textual nuance and biblical scholarship too much for their literalness. Amidst this shaky scene, David released his album and I had a soundtrack for the crises unfolding around me. I also had a soundtrack for my slow restacking of blocks, my painful and laborious walk to a new understanding of what religious life meant to me, and what I meant to it.

I was aware that I’d “swung my tassel to the left side of my cap, knowing after graduation there would be no going back.” And yet I wanted to go back. I walked back to the rubble, and I decided to rebuild. And I am still rebuilding. And I’m still listening to David and letting him sing me through it.

#bymark #musicmonday

How Much a Dollar Cost

24 October, 2015

By Logan

Kendrick Lamar:

He looked at me and said, "Your potential is bittersweet"

I looked at him and said, "Every nickel is mines to keep"

He looked at me and said, "Know the truth, it'll set you free

You're lookin' at the Messiah, the son of Jehovah, the higher power

The choir that spoke the word, the Holy Spirit

The nerve of Nazareth, and I'll tell you just how much a dollar cost

The price of having a spot in Heaven, embrace your loss, I am God"

#bylogan #random

Ethics

23 October, 2015

By Mark and Logan

Previous — Next

Original art for this comic is avaiable in our store.

Today’s comic is part of a special series done in conjunction with St. Andrew United Methdodist Church's Wildflower service. They are doing a great sermon series on doubt, and asked us to cook up a few comics related to the theme for each week. In addition to this comic, Night Night, and So Complicated we’ll publish one more comic in the series next week. Enjoy!

Mark also offers commissions. Get in touch: disembodiedbeard at gmail.com

p>Each original is a hand-drawn, hand-lettered creation drawn on acid free Strathmore Bristol Vellum or 400 Series Mixed Media paper using Micron and Copic pens. Originals are black-and-white, and frame up beautifully, communicating an air of quiet dignity.

#comic #wildflower

Patreon: Check it Out

21 October, 2015

By Logan

Check it out. We launched a Patreon page. Whassat? It's a deal where we ask people who read Disembodied Beard to support us with cash money on the reals. It's like Kickstarter or Indiegogo or whatever where people beg for money, but on an ongoing basis.

This website and all the sweet stuff we do will always be free. The Internet is free. That's like the point of an Internet, yo. But money helps, you know?

In its current iteration Disembodied Beard has only been going since February of 2015 when Matt posted his first drank. That's less than a year! Before that Mark started posting in April 2013. We've been adding stuff all the time: comics, podcasts, drinks, weird things Logan does, etc. We wanna do more. And we will! But some support will help us make that happen. "Help us grow the Beard," as we say. That's why Patreon.

Three sweet people have already pledged enough to support the podcast.1 They're giving WAY more than I expected. Like 200 to 500 more percents than I expected people to give.

We're asking for a dollar. One dollar a month for all the sweet posts we post. $12/year. Install an adblocker on your phone and feed the Beard a dollar. Won't you help us grow this Beard?

Be a Patreon of the arts.

Seriously, THANK YOU. Like, what? Amazing. ↩︎

#bylogan #patreon

Music Monday: Sons & Daughters

Check out the entire Music Monday series here.

19 October, 2015

By Mark

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me what song made me instantly think “fall” (the season, not the theological concept, in which case my answer would’ve been decidedly different. Tool's "Schism," maybe?). I told her that what first came to mind was “Sons & Daughters” by The Decemberists. And then I was very clear that I couldn’t say why. It’s not about fall; there’s no mention of bright leaves, or crisp air, or apples, or pumpkins, or any such thing.

Maybe it’s the way Colin Meloy says “cinnamon” and “aluminum.” Maybe it’s the melodic backbone of Jenny Conlee’s accordion. I’m just not sure.

But I was in the North Carolina high country last week, and as the bright oranges and reds exploded into being over the few days of my trip, I kept finding myself murmuring the lyric “hear all the bombs fade away” as each day the last rays of setting sun lit up the changing, shifting valley below, fully alive in its temporary dying. And I was happy and sad for it, just like last year, just like next year.

Buy Sons & Daughters through our iTunes Affiliate program and help support the Beard.

#bymark #musicmonday

So Complicated

16 October, 2015

By Mark and Logan

Previous — Next

Original art for this comic is avaiable in our store.

Today's comic is part of a special series done in conjunction with St. Andrew United Methdodist Chrurch's Wildflower service. They are doing a great sermon series on doubt, and asked us to cook up a few comics related to the theme for each week. In addition to this comic and Night Night, we'll publish two more comics along these lines in the coming weeks. Enjoy!

Mark also offers commissions. Get in touch: disembodiedbeard at gmail.com. Each original is a hand-drawn, hand-lettered creation drawn on acid free Strathmore Bristol Vellum or 400 Series Mixed Media paper using Micron and Copic pens. Originals are black-and-white, and frame up beautifully, communicating an air of quiet dignity.

#comic #wildflower

Music Monday: John Denver

Check out the entire Music Monday series here.

12 October, 2015

By Mark

A friend reminded me this morning that today marks the eighteenth anniversary of John Denver’s death. So a big “thank you” to Dave for the inspiration for this edition of Music Monday.

I’ve been listening to John Denver for as long as I can remember. My parents owned his records (and later his cassettes and CDs), playing them throughout my childhood and instilling in me with the messages John wanted to share. I remember so clearly carefully putting the vinyl down, letting his An Evening with John Denver play while we did Saturday morning chores. John sounded so happy, so free on that album. His joyful “Far out!” never failed to make me smile wide. I wore that record out, and was graciously allowed to take it back to my own home a few years ago.

The first Christmas after I started playing guitar, my mother and I put on Rocky Mountain Christmas, singing “Aspenglow” together as I fumbled my way through the chords. I rarely let the needle move to the next track as we played through it over and over, her patience with my buzzing or accidentally muted strings remarkable.

John had plenty of troubling aspects about his life, notably failed marriages and problems with alcohol. It’s important, ethical even, to remember the flaws of those we remember fondly. But I’ll never forget how John was able to capture my love for nature’s beauty with his music. Before I heard him, I didn’t know someone could connect your deepest comforts and joys to a song. He stood for peace among all things, for fellowship between people and creation, and his music stands as a testament to that.

So thanks for the music, John. I’ll hum “Take Me Home, Country Roads” on my hike today, and I’ll enjoy the changing autumn leaves and clear blue sky with you in mind.

#bymark #musicmonday

Hush Now

9 October, 2015

By Mark and Logan

Previous — Next

Original art for this comic is avaiable in our store. Mark also offers commissions. Get in touch: disembodiedbeard at gmail.com

#comic #guns

To Hell With Civility

7 October, 2015

By Mark

Recently, Matt wrote a piece detailing what he saw as the lack of civility and empathy in the political sphere, the need for it, and the challenges to getting it back. To which I say, “Screw that.”

Not because I think he’s incorrect; I agree with his points and thought they were excellently made. My frustrated response comes out of my own experiences with the troll culture at large. Trolls used to be a phenomenon relegated to the comments sections of the Internet, lurking there to call someone a name when they disagreed, construct a straw-man argument, be nasty for an unrelated reason, etc. The confidence to be an asshole to strangers was based in confidence afforded by anonymity. Did you know it’s super easy to be a jerk to someone when you're not face to face?1

The evidence that the anonymity no longer matters is all around us. Look at Ben Carson and Donald Trump. Just the other day, Ben Carson chided the victims of a mass shooting because they didn’t do enough to stop from dying. Can you imagine somebody letting their idiot flag fly so proudly even just a few years ago? Donald Trump trolls a new group every week, so you can find your own examples there. These are just two. Just two. There are a multitude of other examples to show that civility, while needed and necessary, is a relic of our shared past.

I’m an editor by day. I write and edit web articles, and I moderate the comments that appear beneath them. This is to say that I’m acutely tuned in to how people talk to each other online, even on a site dedicated to faith. Some of it is done under the veil of semi-anonymous profiles, but some isn’t. Like the guy, using his real name, who condescendingly told me to “keep reading and studying” and to “please dig a little deeper before you write your next article” because he “expected better” of me as an editor. I don’t begrudge him his opinion, and—to his credit—he certainly could have been a lot nastier. Still, I think I’d have been happier being called a “libtard” than have someone speak down to me with such pomposity.

I’m not sure things were ever civil. Maybe that’s just a view of history tinted by nostalgia. But even if social interactions weren’t more civil, they were at least contained to local spheres through lack of technology. Now we hear what everyone thinks from every corner of the globe, and, in keeping with human form, a ton of it is utter nonsense.

I don’t know the answer. I don’t know what it’ll take for people to return (or get there the first time) to a sense of relationship to the person(s) they’re speaking to. Entering into relationship with someone is usually the best way to not treat them like garbage. That’s the empathy piece Matt was talking about. But until that plays a major role, our corrosive politicking (by which I mean the way we do all things social) will continue to be tiring for me as an individual and exhausting for our culture.

Echoing Matt, I don’t have a ton of hope for some glorious turnaround of these behaviors. This unpleasant way of talking to and relating to one another seems to be the new norm. None of this is to say that we can’t be passionate, that we can’t be bold about saying how we feel or what we believe or what we think needs to be done to take care of people and the world we share. But there has to be a healthier way to do that, right? Because if not, what’s the point of being the body politic at all?

And that’s the crux: maybe this idea of the body politic as a healthy, functioning entity is doomed, and the best we can hope for is some form of hospice care for it. That remains to be seen. In the mean time, I’ll step back, walk in the woods, be silent, and try to cultivate a small bubble of kindness that hopefully spreads to one neighbor, then two, then communally until I don’t feel like saying “to hell with civility” anymore.

Louis CK talked to Conan about that once. ↩︎

#bymark

Podcast: Bear, Please Stop

6 October, 2015

By The Beard

We present this poem with deep gratitude to Mary Maley and her ridiculous video.

Subscribe on iTunes

Bear, Please Stop

Thank you for leaving my kayak alone! I’m going to pepper spray you in the face, that’s what I’m gonna do to you.

Go away! No!

Get away from the kayak! Get away from that kayak! Come here!

Come on! STOP IT, BEAR. STOP IT. BEAR. BEAR. BEAR.

YOU’RE BREAKING IT! YOU’RE BREAKING MY KAYAK! WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT? WHY ARE YOU BREAKING MY KAYAK? WHY ARE YOU BREAKING MY KAYAK?

WHAT AM I GONNA DO? WHY ARE YOU BREAKING MY KAYAK?

STOP IT!

BEAR, STOP THAT. STOP THAT, BEAR. BEAR, STOP!

STOP BREAKING MY KAYAK, PLEASE. PLEASE STOP! GOSH DARN IT. OH, WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT?

Bear, please stop! Please stop, bear!

It’s the end of September, why are you here? You’re supposed to be asleep!

Why are you here?

UHHHHHH! Bear! Bear! Stop that! Stop that! Bear, stop that!

BEARRRRRRR. BEAR, STOP THAT. BEAR, STOP THAT.

Bear, stop that — please stop that, bear! Bear, please stop that, please stop breaking my things. Oh, please stop breaking my things, bear!

Bear! Please stop breaking my things!

It’s not — it’s not even food. It doesn’t even taste good! It’s just plastic!

Bear! Please stop. Please stop, bear! Bear, please stop. Please stop that, bear!

Bear, I don’t — Bear, I’m gonna bear-spray you, please stop!

BEAR. BEAR. BEAR. BEAR.

Bear, please stop!

#podcast

Music Monday: The Funeral

Check out the entire Music Monday series here.

5 October, 2015

By Mark

I’m a big believer in saving music for certain seasons. My favorite few bands get play the whole year round, but plenty have to wait until a certain time of year. The music has to fit the weather. I can’t say exactly why it’s such a big deal for me that it does, but any incongruity just leads to me being bored and switching the album off before the first song is finished.

A band that emerges in the fall and stays strong through winter is Band of Horses, particularly their first album from 2006, Everything All The Time (their second, 2007’s Cease To Begin, takes over the colder it gets).

I had the good fortune to catch their full set a couple weekends back at Pilgrimage Fest. Unsurprisingly, they were solid live, belting big gorgeous sound across the rolling Tennessee horse farm. The weekend started out with intermittent downpours and stayed overcast even after the rain left. But as BoH closed their set, beginning the rolling, tinkling riff of The Funeral, the clouds opened up and stray rays of sunshine struck the stage and crowd. You couldn’t have planned it better.

So I sang along, at times just mouthing the words because the breath would not come. Which was fine, as I was too busy being wrapped up in the joy and sorrow of the anthem to notice.

#bymark #musicmonday

Baby 2: The Siblinging

2 September, 2015

By Mark and Logan

Previous — Next

Original art for this comic is avaiable in our store. Mark also offers commissions. Get in touch: disembodiedbeard at gmail.com

#comic

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