Check out this event: Copa releases the ’Copa Canon’ @ Exit/In Tonight!
Category: Music

Hosted By: Rory White
When: Friday Aug 22, 2008
at 8:00 PM
Where Exit/In
2208 Elliston Place
Nashville, Tennessee|43 37203
United States
Description:
This much is true--this very rare and special Copa show will be much cooler with you, and will be less cool without you!  If you can come, call a friend and leave with something to talk about for the rest of your life! Its more than music!  Free mustaches for everyone.  $8 at the door, $10 with CD.  You will not be bored :)
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Check out this event: Copa with Sam Ashworth+Penguin at Rutledge
Category: Music

Hosted By: Rory White
When: Wednesday Mar 26, 2008
at 8:00 PM
Where: The Rutledge
410 4th Avenue South
Nashville, Tennessee|43 37204
United States
Description:
Rory White

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Check out this event: Copa at Rutledge with Sam Ashworth and Penguin
Category: Music

Gospel Cigar Rock at Rutledge :-(o

COPA

SAM ASHWORTH

PENGUIN

One week from tonight--It would be a high honor to us if you were to attend. We’ll do our best to give you something to talk about :)

Hosted By: Rory White
When: Wednesday Mar 26, 2008
at 8:00 PM
Where: The Rutledge
410 4th Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37201
United States
Description:
An absolutely unforgettable, completely hummable collection of songs from Sam Ashworth precludes the onslaught of Gospel Cigar Rock from Copa, a first time show at the Rutledge, one of Nashville’s very best sounding venues surrounded with free parking all around. Penguin is sure to end the night with charisma and pizzaz! Rutledge is an 18+ Venue.
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7:01 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Check out this event: Cameron Conant’s Book Release Party

Hosted By: Rory White
When: Wednesday Sep 12, 2007
at 7:00 PM
Where: Curb Cafe
1900 Belmont Ave
Nashville, TN 37212
United States
Description:
Rory White

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My Portfolio of People

This is a selection of my photos that I have taken of friends and for hire. Thanks to everyone who has been a star in my work. Thank you very much.

1:25 PM - 9 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Superman, and the Misuse of Things From Another World for Diabolical Means
Current mood: amused
Category: Life

I saw Superman this very evening, which impregnated my mind with a multitude of thoughts, since the movie really isn't about Superman alone, but it is a multifaceted analogy.

My first thoughts, while inside the theater still watching the film, were of surprise.  I had forgotten how much of the man of steel I have aspired to be, and had underestimated the impact of the character/idea of Superman and how it helped mold me.  Somehow, it was always a no brainer that I wanted to be the one who would save a train full of passengers whose ride is on a most certain course or destruction.  My opposition would be the culprit who caused the trains unfortunate misadventure.  I would play one side or the other-and anything inbetween wasn't considered as a possibility.  I would imagine, while sitting in church on Sunday morning, a crazy person barging through the back doors with a machine gun blazing.  I would jump over the pews while everyone else in the sanctuary would cower in fear.  I would then thrust my 80-pound body into the side of the machine-gunner and knock him to the ground, eventually placing him in a submission hold until I was congratulated by the rest of the church-goers.  I would then catch the eye of the really cute girl who I had only seen once or twice before, who would all of a sudden take notice of my actions and make herself personally known to me.  I would then carve out a slice of my celeb time to give her proper attention-but not too much.  Its a sign of weakness to cave in completely.  Superman.

I then realized that I despise Lois.  She likes Superman, but doesn't give a rat's arse about Clarke.  That really challenges the idea of her being likeable.  At that point, she begins to embody the snobby self-absorbed girl that all the guys had the hots for and all the other girls hated in high school.  Interestingly, she is involved with a new man in this movie, who's character name I cannot remember.  I will call him Dick.

At the time of Superman's return, she is in a very functional relationship with Dick raising a very stoned-looking boy.  If you haven't seen Superman yet, but plan to see it with a virgin mind, then don't read the next sentence.  Superman was a AWOL, so a proper man took the place of Superman and is trying to raise Lois's child (who happens to be Superman's child) thinking that it is his own little boy.  Please note that Dick is human, and therefore cannot compete on the level of the man in tights.

I was struck at how I felt like Dick in the latter part of my marriage.  In the movie, Lois keeps having moments out on the high-rise porch with Superman.  She is in love with him, and he takes her to places that the Dick cannot.  When she comes back inside from being with the man in tights (mind you she only likes the Superman side, not the Clarke side) she has a disconnected, aloof sense to her speech and demeanor.  Dick has a very difficult time getting inside of Lois at this point, and becomes very frustrated.  I often felt this way after my wife was away praying to Jesus-who she loved very much.  I could sense her disappointment when she realized that she was stuck with me and not with the long-bearded man in heavily worn leather sandals and robe-y looking clothes that she had been spending her 'alone' time with.  Lois's disappointment was very familiar to me.

When Superman saves Lois, Dick, and their boy from the sinking boat, Dick shows proper respect and even some admiration towards the man of steel.  Dick knows that Lois has been won over by Superman, but recognizes that he still has a role to play.  He just has to come to terms with the reality that he will never be all that Lois wants.  He can never be her Superman.  He will just be Dick, somewhat satisfying for her but not completely.  I have felt like Dick.  I love Jesus.  My wife loved Jesus, too, and it was confirmed by him (her own words) that she should leave me to be in obedience to him.  Hmm.  In the end of the movie, Superman realized his place is not with Lois, but to keep working at saving the world instead.  He flies off into space to close the movie, and Lois goes back to Dick and the young super boy.

I wish that I could be more than a Dick.  I wish that I was ALL good and could perform incredibly righteous acts like blow out raging fires with ice-breath.  Unfortunately I cannot-and I am not all good.  I am trying to get better from wherever I happen to be, but I am still just a Dick.

8:27 PM - 4 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

My Secret Agent Assignments-The Post Divorce Quest for Wutoodo
Current mood: artistic
Category: printing photos and building a book Life

So I have time on my hands, but on my mind I have been heavily occupied with a list of post divorce to-dos.  I am divorced.  What an ugly word.  With that statement I release a load of 'face' and pride and pretense.  I had always imagined myself a stalwart survivor--someone who breaks through like the heroes in the movies do, but the end of my marriage story wasn't tidy.  It was very awkward.  When the hopes to reconcile were extinguished,  I had to let go of the idea of 'breaking through.'  That was when I took on my first assignment.

The whole assignment idea comes from being lost.  I asked God what I needed to work on, because I felt like such a mess.  The first lesson was resignation.  Its really something stolen from the 12 steppers, who are my new heroes.  I had to accept that there is a person that I cannot change--that she was my wife.  I had to resign from trying to shape her and let her be what she was going to become and my only power was to pray for her.  So I started to pray for her, even though she had become my enemy.  I call it an assignment because like any assignment, it's not accomplished at the outset.  Learning to pray for her was back-asswords for me.  I was taken to court for things that were really out of the world and had to shell out thousands on dollars to keep my name clean.  It was like taking a trip to the twilight zone--the very girl who I had wed 4 years prior was on the stand before a judge spilling out accusations against me.  I was supposed to pray for her. 

I learned to do it--mouth first.  Later my heart would follow.

That was February.

March's assignement was joy.  I was supposed to have joy even though the circumstances were truly bogus with the divorce.  I remember how negative my mouth was in my conversations, and I started to feel like I needed to shut it.  So I took on the assignment of not cutting her down in any way whatsoever with my tongue.  I am still working on that assignment, and it is only rarely now that I talk the trash on her behalf.

April's assignment was to release self-loathing.  I was raised in good churches and youth groups that I am fond of, but I have a very intense personality.  When it came to applying the tenants of my faith, I have a history of being very strict with myself.  The results are:  (1) that I haven't done a lot of stupid things with bad consequences, (2) that I developed a sense of desert, (3) and I have an underdeveloped sense of grace.  The lack of grace goes for myself, too, and unfortunately anyone who nestles to close to me.  I learned that that whole idea of loving yourself before you love others is important because if you don't love yourself, when another comes in close the result may not be what they were expecting.  My ex-wife probably found that the hard way--that instead of finding more grace, things got more stringent.  I am a hard personality and very disciplined in what I believe.  I am embarrassed to reflect on how over-the-top I have been at the expense of other people.  When people saw me in the past being so hardcore, they would clam up-not at ease with being themselves, rather, that they needed a second face to present in order to keep from hearing my spin on this or that issue that they may be dealing with.  I learned that people don't always want an answer.  They may not be ready for an answer.  They just need an ear and some grace and time.

Learning not to loathe myself for having faults has gone a long way in helping me to love other people.  It doesn't mean that I have given up the fight to improve, but I don't have the mood swing that comes from screwing up.

I don't know if May's assigment is any different than April's.  Hmmm.

June's assignment:  compartment destruction.  I have created compartments within myself for the practice of sin.  I have other compartments where I am an absolute lamb.  My job this month is to introduce the two compartments to each other, and not live in alternate realities, rather, mix the two together and try to sift out the bad.  In theory it sounds good.  In practice it requires people who aren't afraid of talking about real life, real problems and addictions and temptations, etc.  I am fortunate to live in a place where there seem to be a bunch of people just like me, and when I mention what goes on underneath my skin, in my mind, and so on, I find an eager audience that is dealing with similar issues.  No more compartments.  What's there is there and has to be dealt with.  No more harboring poisonous things.

I am not out of June yet.

Cheers.

Rory   

8:51 PM - 5 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Quinn on his Birthday

I'm a Crrrrrraaaaaazzzyyyyy guy!

11:42 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

My Space Inception

So the folks in the know keep telling me that myspace is the place...so out from my hermit hole where paying bills and trying to get the most perfect art together has kept me for 5 years and into the myspace, where I am not sure what can happen. The hope is to get 'it' right before age grabs my goat--so the music goes on. I hope this serves as a connecting point for my band and myself to reach a larger audience than just the bartender and my loyal next door neighbor. I will feed our best works to this site for a good time--all responses are welcome. All recommendations and referrals are like sweet nectar.

The Copacabana album will be fully mastered and then I don't know what will happen with it. It is a beast of over 2 years of age-trying to find an audience somehow. We are in the studio again working on 4 new songs with a heavy dance feel. Very big and groovy, more fun than I've ever let myself have with music. It is the best work of my life-as it should be along with every new work.

Thanks aireline for bringing me on as myspacefriend.

Cheers,
Rory

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