The CVA's

Welcome to the first ever Christian-Version Awards! Because apparently it's totally awesome to imitate what's actually popular in the real world in order to make a buck, I figure it's about time to start doling out awards for those who have either mastered the art or gotten lucky once. Because as Matt at The Church Of No People said: "We don’t try to come up with original thoughts that much.  We’re happy to wait until someone else comes up with an original thought, and then copy it in the name of Jesus."

And now, without further ado, the awards!

Best Imitation Acronym (BIA)

Now, if there's anything Christians like, it's Three-Letter Acronyms (Or TLA's, as I like to call them). Need more people in your NBF? Start a GIG! Four-Letter Acronyms (FLA's), though slightly rarer, are also up there, with the good ol' fashioned WWJD.

But nothing quite compares to stealing a popular secular acronym and putting a Christian spin on it. Want to start an organization that fights to educate people about intelligent design? Call it the Christian Intelligence Agency! Also, make sure to steal the real CIA's logo and put a little twist on it, like a burning bush or something.

Along those lines, I'll give a CVA out to a FLA that is, IMO the BIA.

And the winner is....

International House Of Prayer (IHOP)!!!
Not only is IHOP (the pancake one) suing the IHOP (prayer) for copyright infringement, but it also added to its acronym street-cred by having an entire page on its site devoted to translating commonly-used acronyms they use! Way to go, IHOP!

Best Ke$ha Impersonation
Considering Ke$ha's lyrics, why would Christians ever want to sound like her? Because she's popular, and it's not the sound of the music that matters, but what she says that hurts our virgin little ears oh so very much. Because of that, we NEED to have an alternative so those of us who really want to listen to catchy music like "Tik Tok" can get our fix without being in danger if the rapture were to occur during our little a-listen.

Well good news! We not only have a winner, but Air1 is even giving away a free mp3 of the winner's song along with the description "Sounds like a Christian version of "Tik Tok"!!!!

And without further ado, the winner is...

Melody Joy - Savior

Good job Melody! You successfully broke away from the Latin circuit, into the American CCM circuit like a Christian version of Shakira by making a Christian version of Tik Tok!

Best Mash-Up Potential
Mash-ups are big right now. The first instance I can think of was back in 2004 when MTV released the Jay-Z and Linkin Park crossover album "Collision Course". Basically all you do is find two songs with the same chord progression and verse structure and have your way with it. Most recently, Katy Perry and Ke$ha hired the same exact people to write the same exact song in "California Gurls" and "Tik Tok".

Well this is great news for Christian artists. This gave us the opportunity to not just imitate genres, but outright plagiarize the musical art of pop music, while just slapping on some airy Christiany/positive lyrics on the song. 

Behold, the winner:
Natalie Grant - Human


This perfect storm of imitation is so great it brings a tear to my eye. For those of you who are a bit out of sync with popular music, "Human" has perfect mash-up potential with "Battlefield" by American Idol winner Jordin Sparks. Not only that, but Jordin Sparks actually wrote "Human" for Natalie Grant! They are the exact same song but with alternate lyrics, like how Guns 'n Roses wrote alternate lyrics for "Don't Cry". The "Christian Lyrics" version of the song has a single reference to being "made in His image" and that's about all that's keeping this song off the top-40 charts. To top it off, Jordin Sparks performed the song in the above video with Natalie Grant at the 41st annual Dove Awards. It's as if Jordin Sparks just wanted to remind us all (or maybe herself) that she's still a Christian.

Well, that's it for this installment of the CVA's! Hope to see you next time.

Hey Now, You're an All-Star

Get your game on, go play.

You've just joined a band as a bassist, even though you've never played bass before. You humbly join and put some effort into keeping up with the other band members. Through a little bit of encouragement from the others and overcoming obstacles you start becoming more confident. Then one day, you look back at how far you've come and think to yourself "I've got it now. I can do anything they ask me to." You start thinking you can pluck along with Red Hot Chili Peppers, break into  improv solos, and write your own music. Soon you'll be a local favorite, and if you really want to you could go mainstream and top the Christian billboards, but you won't because only the locals deserve to be graced with your band's sweet sounds. That's just how you roll.

The ice we skate is gettin' pretty thin

What's this? It seems you've stopped practicing! Are you that talented that you can just pick up where you left off and groove again with the band? But you guys haven't met in months! No church has actually asked you to come play a gig, so you ask to join your church's worship band to get your face out there, and prove that you have the skills. Church services don't really lend themselves to your mad skills that you think you have, because it's not about you, it's about God. So you blend in, can easily play along, and you don't really need to practice in order to sound good. You play with the band, which has practice twice a week, meetings once a week, and obviously you're required to attend every church event to show that you're a dedicated member. You're still playing on Sundays though and at band practice though, so at least you're maintaining your skills, right? You prove to yourself and the rest of the world that you can still play by showing up on Sundays and plucking the root to keep up with the music, playing the bare necessities to get by.

My world's on fire. How about yours?


A popular local band just lost its bass player in a horrific gasoline fight accident and is holding open auditions. You pick up your bass and start coming up with an audition riff. But who are you kidding? You never actually practiced once you gained your unwarranted confidence. You hit a plateau and figured you were good enough to do anything, when there are people who have PhD's in bass performance. Listen to Dream Theater. Can you play like that? Could you ever play that? Then when did you ever think you were good enough to play along with anything? When did you think you were good enough to stop practicing? Not only would you not improve, but you obviously got worse. Yet you still thought you could play bass.

So you have a choice. You can either continue in your mediocrity, quit altogether and stop calling yourself a bass player, or buckle down and build a practice schedule, whilst seeking private lessons (which take place at the same time as worship practice). Which do you choose?

New Mexico ...aaaand my car smells like chile peppers

Santa Fe is a pretty neat place. I checked in at my motel and drove downtown to see St. Francis of Assisi's Basilica. It's a beautiful little cathedral, but mass was going on, so I didn't get to go inside. St. Francis is probably my favorite American saint. I've always enjoyed his prayer, and I have a lot of respect for the Franciscan Order. I think some day I hope to go to a Franciscan monastery.

I wish I had more time to stay in Santa Fe, because it's got a really cool downtown area, focused almost entirely on art galleries. It would be nice to walk through the galleries, discussing the art with someone, but alas, I'm alone on this trip. I'll make a note to come back once someone wants to join me.

I headed over to Los Alamos to check out the place they built the first A-bomb. I toured the Bradbury museum and was just fascinated by the endeavor and intelligence involved in the invention of such a complex weapon. I think some day I would like to read the biography of Oppenheimer, because he just seems like a really interesting guy.

I scooted down to my er...hotel? in Truth or Consequences, which is just a weird place. I think it's just lost all touch with the world as a consequence (doh ho ho!) of never wanting to encounter reality. Every building is some hideous shade of ugly. My er.. "spa" motel (a place with a few big bathtubs) was bright pink. Not a good start, T or C. My GPS had  no clue what was going on because I'm assuming it's just not worth mapping a place like T or C. End of rant.

The only reason I stayed in Truth or Consequences is because I wanted to go to the Hatch Chile Festival (yes, they spell them "chiles"), which was about 40 miles away, but had absolutely no motels. As soon as I checked in at my "room" I drove down to Hatch. I had trouble believing I was going the right direction, but lo and behold, as I was thinking that thought, a sign on the side of the road said "Keep going! You're going the right way!" I parked at a place that was supposedly the Hatch airport and wandered around the fairgrounds trying samples of some of the most amazing salsa I've had in my life. I blew a ton of money in Hatch buying salsa, and other chile commodities. Most amazingly, I found, is that there was no actual chili at the festival, just salsa, sauce, and even chile-scented candles, but no chili. Good news, though! I bought some chiles and will soon experiment with their tasty, tasty goodness in chili. Now I'm driving around with a Ristra of chiles hanging from the coat hangar in my car, which made a park ranger girl laugh uncontrollably when I got to the Painted Desert/Petrified Forest in Arizona...but that's a story for another day.

Road Trip update 3: Colorado

Ok, so I've been in New Mexico for a few days, but I might as well have an update for every state, so here's Colorado.

In all honesty, I didn't like Colorado all that much. I found it to be like a giant Santa Cruz, without the beach. If I had been there on a weekend, I think it would have been more fun, and there would have been more night life to enjoy, but downtown Denver on a Wednesday night isn't all that fun.

I went to the Coors brewery, which was fun. It disappointed me that their best beer I got to taste was the Colorado Native, which is only sold in Colorado. At least it was an interesting tour, although kind of corny. I went from there to the New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, and that was okay, but not as good as some of the microbrews I like back in the bay area. I decided I was done with Colorado beer, and went to Boulder.

It's too bad I got to Boulder in the evening and had to be in New Mexico later that day, because I probably could have enjoyed some hiking trails in the Rockies. Boulder seemed like a college town, which is cool but it was a school night, so I didn't get to see much night life there either.

Maybe some day I'll head back to Colorado for some hiking, maybe even backpacking, but this trip it was sort of a bust.