Randy proceeded to explain that he’s a Hasidic Jew who beat boxes, raps and sings over reggae-influenced music.

Um. Geez. I still can’t get over that description, not to mention the fact that it actually works, and works beautifully.

It was great to see him this close up, and without the aid of anything other than his guitar player. Who didn’t actually play all that much. He was riveting to watch. Charismatic in an extremely quiet, humble, low-key way.

As Stacy and I were walking away from this Sunday morning performance, I said “wow…I just had church with a Hasidic Jew and a bunch of dirty hippies out in the rain at Bonnaroo. How cool!”

Here’s a Jewish kid from White Plains NY who goes to Israel for a semester in Israel, has some kind of religious experience and eventually becomes a Hasidic Jew who now lives in Brooklyn. Not really all that unusual so far. However, since that clearly wasn’t enough, he’s a musician with an absolutely fantastic voice who mixes Reggae influences with beat-boxing, rap and Hazzan-style Jewish Cantor singing. I know, I know, it sounds crazy (improbable…?), but trust me on this one: it’s fantastic. Click here, go listen. This post will be here when you get back.

This photo is from Bonnaroo this summer. It was Sunday morning, and I was frankly a little bit festivalled-out. Those of you who have been to one of these things will know what I mean. I had seen a lot of acts. I had slept fitfully through lesser-known acts playing at 2am to nearly empty tents. It was bloody HOT.

Sunday morning, it had finally cooled off…and was drizzling. Festivals like Bonnaroo are a constant struggle of choices, and Stacy and I had decided we would see Matisyahu at one of the smaller tents. Perhaps the smallest tent. All of the performers with the exception of Tom Petty and Radiohead spent 45 minutes each at this tent whose name I cannot now remember (”purgatory for the not yet arrived” I think is the subtext there). Anyway. It was drizzling, and Matisyahu was late. Or maybe we were early, I’m not sure. All I know is that the available space in front of this performing area was absolutely packed with dirty (I haven’t showered in three days) hippies long before he was scheduled to go on. Shifting left foot, right foot, waiting in the drizzle. For the beat-boxing Hasidic Jew Reggae rockstar from Brooklyn. Oy.

He was introduced. He came on stage. He introduced his guitar player.

He then proceeded to ask for a bottle of juice so he could say a blessing. OK. Says his blessing…morphs into a cantor’s prayer song…morphs into beat boxing…and all of a sudden I’m forgetting where I am.

Come back for another visit, part two is coming later this week.

Here’s a view of the lake from the back of the main building. Check it out:

My friend Donnell had invited us to do the “video recap” for the Cloud Nine retreat. Cloud Nine is an annual retreat that has served Vineyard’s youth groups of the Great Lakes region for the past nine years. The video recap is something that the leaders used to stay up all night on the second night of the retreat piecing together…and then present it in finished form on Sunday morning to 500 highly sugared, caffeinated and sleep deprived teens. Yikes.

Needless to say, the leaders “aren’t getting any younger”, so they needed an alternative to staying up all night. This is where we came in. And, the reason for the title of the post: Cloud Nine 2005 RECOVERY. We needed it. Recovery, that is. Ten total hours of sleep over 48 hours…but the great news is, we delivered a top notch professional result that was well received. Whew!

Here is Donnell speaking to the youth leaders on the first day of the three day retreat:

The retreat uses the following ingredients:
Stir
500 teenagers with
50 youth leaders
lots of loud music
some *slightly* too deep for the room teaching
and a dash of humor

Bake for 48 hours.

The result should be 500 edified teens, hopefully no pregnancies, not too much vandalism, and 50 seriously frazzled adults.

Crowd shot:

Here’s a cool collage I put together – on the first night, there was a girl dancing off to one side of the stage:

Remember, click the smaller picture for a larger version. More to come!

The Baptists with Bullhorns had set up camp *directly* across the street and started gettin’ their collective freak on. Which is really something to see for a bunch of overweight, overdressed, mostly past middle age pasty white guys.

The Baptists with Bullhorns began gettin’ their freak on with a nice set of lovely hymns, which to their great credit, were very nicely sung.

While they sang, they had some clearly bewildered, sure to be scarred for life pre-teen boy anchoring a giant sign with various and sundry accusations plastered thereon. Once the hymns were done, there were a few moments of relative silence, punctuated by various forms of traffic and other street noise, during which I allowed myself the fantasy that perhaps that would be the end of things, and they would kindly pack up their freak and get the freak out of Ann Arbor.

However, such was not to be our lot this night.

I had allowed myself to become so absorbed in my fantasy that the squeal of a poorly handled bullhorn shocked me out of my reverie, which had been for a few precious moments, delight in my Thai Noodle Soup.

As it happens, Daddy (or one of Daddy’s friends) had climbed up onto a planter and begun to ready himself for really gettin’ down with his freak.

Please don’t get me wrong. I actually think that there is probably a time and a place and a proper attitude for street preaching. Call me crazy, that’s ok. These fellers, however, had missed the mark on all counts.

Humility? Absent.
Kindness? Absent.
Evidence of love and care? Absent.
All manner of unjust Accusations? Present. And then some.

It seemed to me that these men were more about being able to boast to their religious friends how they were “really livin’ the gospel, brother”, ‘cuz they were out in the trenches, preachin’ on the street in that haven for sinners, Ann Arbor. You know, that town full of filthy liberals, licentious behavior and sodomites!

For heaven’s sake, the man said that the people down in the cancer ward in the UM hospital were there because of the sin of smoking. (!) Gee whiz man!

He really got whipped up into a frenzy when a couple of gay guys started making out in front of him. He bellowed in his anger and self-righteous apoplectic rage, “God does NOT accept you as YOU are!” Now he’s really got some stories to tell about being down in the trenches, fightin’ the good fight, dontcha know.

It’s a wonder I was able to keep my supper down, I was so upset. I wanted to go up to the man, rip off his bullhorn and throw it onto the roof of Michigan Book and Supply. I wanted to whisper in his ear, “do you have ANY IDEA how much damage you and your little friends are doing? Do you know how long I’ve worked here, forged complex relationships, done practical acts of kindness in love here? And you want to come in here, preaching your peculiar brand of un-Biblical hate so you can have stories to tell your friends? Because, listen pal, you are winning no converts here tonight.”

But I did not do that. Or any of the other multitude of aggressions that came into my head during that time. Perhaps that’s cowardice on my part. Perhaps, if I am gracious with myself, it was turning the other cheek, as Jesus would have wanted.

So.

From those of us who are of like mind, to you in Ann Arbor who have been subjected to this, I apologize, really and truly.

May the end of fundamentalism be near!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0504030319apr03,1,3411133.story?coll=chi-newsopinion-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

Requires annoying registration, but worth it.

Hope you enjoy it.