Things start jumping up from the ground

Where once a tree stood windblown beaten between walls of vinyl now grows a beard of baby green

Yard birds

Deeper down

Today, we laid to rest the tree in our front yard. r.i.p.

See the sky about to rain

Those are balloons for a party

Ideas are formulating for some summer lovin. Meanwhile, some screens are being set for printing.

Through the world we walk

Lying down in the cool of luscious greenery felt mighty fine after a hot minute of walking round downtown indy on sunday morning.

Dandy lioness and cub examine the wildlife.

Discussing the relevance of brightly colored head coverings in the twenty first century while dangling by ropes.

Those for whom we walk... this year, the babies of our friends nelson and ana joined nathaniel, lily and hannah.

The marching horrells

Droppin' mad rooibus on ya toybox

Always the reluctant model

Never the reluctant mess-maker

She cleans up nice

Likely burst your lungs

what happened:
-financial peace class #1
-30 push ups for $1 (future supplemental income possibility)
-flying j & the pilots @ university church @ purdue
-deadly consortia melts the face of music (hear for yourself)
-new website - joelrockey(dot)com
-everybody coughing up lungs

coming soon:

-new tee shirts screened by the mustard room
-new wilco album in june/july
-lucinda williams coming to the vogue in june
-remastered beatles in september
-33 and a third party in november

If what i see is true, i could learn to believe

Three nights in a row of graveyard shifts has temporarily set my phasers to funky. I did manage to pull off the greatest april fool's gag ever much to the chagrin of mi madre. Some may have yet to discover the grand ruse. In the meantime, brother jere and i golfed eighteen holes in the driving rain with our pop on his birthday. We stayed rather dry while golfing from the comfort of the folks' living room.

Now, to let you in on one of the greatest finds of the twenty first century:

Pay attention to the fine details. That's a tiny light saber what serves as the zipper.

In unrelated news, i've got to watch 'the dark crystal' before the week is out.

I guess you know the earth is gonna crash into the sun

Welp, my genius of a cousin benjamin has done it again. I really do hope that one day he'll post the entire archives of his amateur film making career. This is his latest offering filmed on location at his sister's birthday gathering. Enjoy. We did. Oh, and keep an eye out for olivia during the instrumental break. She conveys concerned confusion with spot-on accuracy.

Cool babies

So we spent quite a bit of time yesterday avoiding the weather that was apparently crappy. Working on a tee shirt design, drinking a pot of coffee... you know, the usual. Venturing out around 4:30 in the pm to take advantage of half price books' 50% off coupon day, we received a phone call of monstrous celebratory worth from a dear friend.

Also a couple good finds after thumbing through the lps at halvsies':
-david crosby's star-studded first solo album for $3
-guided by voices' 'earthquake glue' for $5.

When you're on a role, why stop?

A particular baby surplus store which is not babies 'r' us took a few bucks from us as well:
-big girl cup (pictured below)

Don't be fooled, it's all for the baby.

She digs early 70's psychedelic folk and lo-fi psychedelic rock.

Cool babies.

Strange but not a stranger.

Shooting 45s into the ether

In conjunction with joelrockey(dot)com, Flying J & The Pilots (featuring myself and a rotating cast of shady characters not limited to ryan, andrew, jason, eddie and john) will be releasing into cyberspace a series of digital 45 rpm records. They are free and they have been written & recorded in no particular order over the past six years. The first release includes 'through & through' on side A and 'home' on side B.

Side A: Through & Through

Written by Joel Rockey © 2008 The Mustard Room

This particular tune draws its inspiration from the analogy of God as a rock – changing yet unchanging, immovable, stable, maintaining integrity, strong, faithful – essentially all that the author is not.

The lyrical content had been bouncing around from journal to journal under the moniker ‘faithful’ for a while before finally settling down in the simple bluesy melody which they now inhabit.

Soon after, in the winter of 2006, the two were quickly married. The song was recorded, uploaded to web pages and performed during just about every live appearance.

The original two track recording was submitted for inclusion on a demo disc compiled and mastered by Evan Harris in the spring of 2008.

Side B: Home

Written by Joel Rockey © 2008 The Mustard Room

Whilst preparing for a study in the gospel of John one Sunday evening circa 2004, I picked up the ole fiddle and strummed a simple tune. Pulling lines from the text of Jesus’ teachings into a whimsical mantra, the composition’s completion came quite quickly. After playing through the tune a couple of times for the folks in our high school youth group, we all joined together in a spirit of peace and harmony. Immediately, we bought the world a Coke and segued effortlessly into chapter 15 of John’s gospel.

It didn’t take long after that for me to begin the recording process in hopes of submitting the track to the Coca-Cola Company for use in a television ad or to the parties responsible for compiling multi-disc collections with titles such as ‘Today’s Ultimate Worship Party Platinum: The Very Best of Modern Worship.’

There were talks of hiring a gospel choir and horn section to punch listeners in the gut, but all that fell through and I got no further than roping in my buddy Ryan Helvie to add some nuanced guitar picking. I finally crossed all the tees and dotted all the eyes in November of 2008.

Download the 45 HERE.

Also, don't forget about this...

Swimsuit issue

Took a short day trip to the county of brown
Jumped in the water and look what i found
Two grey blue eyeballs staring at me
Beneath a tinfoil liquid alchemy

Just a fine and fancy ramble

I can probably count the number of times i've been to the indianapolis zoo in the past twenty years on one hand and half of those times were my brother's wedding. I plan to crush that personal non-accomplishment over the next year with my family holding my hand all the way.

After olivia's visit to the pediatrician where holes were poked in her thighs, she was treated to her very first visit to the zoo thanks to the yearlong membership from her grandparents.

Here's what we saw:

-meerkat wrestling
-lemur rave
-gazelle money shot
-giraffe paparazzi dodging
-rhino lounging
-baboon love
-zebra (not giraffe as a misinformed woman pointed out to her unassuming child)
-walrus opera
-penguin poop
-polar bear phoning it in

We'll be back soon and often after crashing awhile.