From the Pathway Studios in Johnston proper, you are Live from the Path. You're listening to Live from the Path. Did you say, I don't know why you're listening to Live from the Path? I've got to get Bob Ross off there. He shows up every week. I know, it's kind of the deal. He's gone. Why does that happen? We used him when we were casting the 12 disciples. That's right. Peter. Not Peter.

Peter. No. Not Peter. Bob Ross wasn't Peter, was he? Yeah, he was my Peter. No doubt. He was the guy that I was going to cast to play Peter. Was that not a good one? You fellas don't think this is good. It was more the phrase. It could have been something else. It was the phrasing.

Oh, whoops. Hey, Bob. I'm not even going to repeat it. It just wasn't a good idea. That's all I'm saying. All right. You're listening to an upright radio program called Live from the Path. We're about honest faith, fierce grace, donkeys, and sometimes Bob Ross. I can't do anything about that. But we're very fortunate. You guys have beandered into a wonderful show. That's certainly going on the highlight reel.

Oh, man. Jeff Arendale and company are in studio today. Jeff, it's good to see you. Yeah, it's good to be back. Boy. You know, here's the deal. Jeff has been on the show more than anybody else. Oh, really? He's our most requested guest by me. I say, who do we want? I say, let's get here. How many times would he be on there?

Three? Third. Yeah, this will be three. Yeah. That's impressive. You guys must have a lot of people. You know, our ratings aren't getting much better, Jeff. Maybe I need to be on more. We call you. Once you got that record deal, we started referring to you as coattails. Hopefully, we can just kind of ride you up the ladder. Yeah, you better get to it, man.

We're sinking. Did you hear the opening of the show? We're having a hard time. That's top notch. So anyway, Jeff's here with Matt, Matt, and Steven rocking behind. And we were doing just a sound check a little bit earlier. And boy, it's spicy in here. Yeah. It's going to be wild hot. It was good. You can't control the donkey fire. So I think that's good.

That means good. I think that's good. Okay. If you don't talk like that on the radio, they think you're just a regular dude and don't deserve a radio show, you've got to spice it up with flowery language so people think that you earned a microphone. Yeah. That guy's legitimate to own a microphone like that. You can buy this stuff anywhere, Jeff. People don't know that. These are webcams and cheap mics. You've got to put on a show.

So we're going to catch up with Jeff and see what's going on. He's got an album a-coming. It's a-coming. Yeah. Around the mountain. I am hoping. I'm pulling. I'm taking bets for summer. That's when I'm taking bets. Now, is that going to be available on iTunes? Hope to. Don't know yet for sure.

I just want to get it out. It just needs to get out the gate. Okay. Yeah. I hear you. It's like the gout. You can live with it and deal with it on your own, but it's terrible. People just need to know about it. Right. That's what I'm saying. Right. Jeff Herod knows how much like the gout.

Yeah. Yeah. That's for terrible commercials, by the way. That didn't come out right. The third and final time. Thank you for having Jeff Herod. So, we're going to catch up with Jeff. We're going to hear some tunes, and then we're also going to do some Secular vs. Solomon. Oh, really? Yeah. I've got some Secular vs. Solomon lined up. No doubt.

This is America's fastest growing internet game show, where I give you a proverb, and you tell me whether it's a secular proverb or whether it's from King Solomon. And if it's secular, you've got to tell me of what country it has or ethnic group has originated from. Secular vs. Solomon. They should totally … I'm like the king of this game. They call me Solomon's brother outside of this circle when I walk in. It's kind of long. They don't say … They don't refer to me very often. I've never heard it. I mean, Solomon's brother. I mean, come on.

It just takes forever to say. So, yeah. We'll do some Secular vs. Solomon. We're going to hand out some advice. We do some Iron Sharpens Iron. Here's what I thought for our Iron Sharpens Iron segment. So, it was Dear Life from the Path. We basically steal people who write into Dear Abby and give them better advice than we think Abby has done. But to give it a … And hopefully, we're answering from a … Abby doesn't always answer from a Jesus worldview. So, we're going to … We try to see if we can provide some …

Some decent biblical counsel. Yeah. Good idea. But we … Dear Life from the Path is just cheating because they really didn't write to us. So, I think we're changing the segment to Iron Sharpens Iron. And here's what I've come … Here's what I want for the opening, right? Is I want to … Kind of like a big battle royale opening. So, it's kind of black screen. You see an anvil come down. It goes iron. And then ding.

And then another one comes down. Verse iron. And then it goes ding. And then they come together and they kind of ram. You know what I'm talking about? They ram together. And then one guy … That doesn't sound sharp. No, no, no. Hold on. It can't explode, Aarindale. Oh, okay.

So, anyway. Anvil ding. Anvil ding. Iron ding. And then it goes, ow, man. What are you going to do that for? Like, one of the iron … The anvils is hurt. Well, I can't laugh at it now when I see it because you done told me the plot. Hey, man. How come you're running into me like that? Iron sharpens iron. Yeah, we should have discussed this privately.

I don't know. I don't know if this is the thing, like you're saying. Something about it. Anyway, so we're going to do Iron sharpens iron. Jeff Herndale. Yes. So, I am really excited about this album. I know. Me too. And so, they're working on it. They're putting the finishing touches on. Yeah, what are they doing to it?

Currently, it's in the final mastering stage. And apparently, there was a delay because of … You encode some security into your recordings and there were some problems with that, is what I heard. So, well, I really hope it's getting close, though. Yeah, man. It's been a while. They're trying to get more money out of Aarindale. Yeah. They're trying to … They're going to get it all put together. They're saying, look, we'd really like to sell this thing, but we're going to need you to give up 10 more percent of your royalties. Yeah.

Because that's the thing. They probably think it rocks. And they're probably trying to figure out how to get … So, they don't have to take Jeff. Yeah. And then 350 bucks under the table. Yeah. That's what they need, Jeff. And a sandwich. And we're going to put a different looking guy on the front. It'll be the best thing ever. Ding.

So, let's talk about this. Let's talk about this album. Do you have a particular vision for what you wanted to accomplish in the studio? Basically, it was a … All these songs are a gift. One of my prayers has always been that God would, first of all, use me somehow, but that he would also just use these songs in a way that would magnify or glorify him in a big way, in a way that was not just me sitting in the bed or on the bed and just playing them to myself. But that people can worship too. There's worship songs on there. There's songs of encouragement and such. So, does that kind of make sense?

It does. It does. Is Race … Did Race make the album? Race made the album. So, here's the deal. There's one of my favorite tunes performed here on Life in the Path was Jeff was in there performing Race. And I really dig on that tune. And in fact, I've considered using it on a couple of occasions on some video stuff. Feel free. I was hoping you would say yes. I've never really done that yet.

You've already been. They don't give things away for free like that. You're going to have to start stepping into the big bowl class. You have to charge like a club sandwich or something like we talked about. Claim that he's going to have to talk to your management and then just pull him aside later and say, okay. I'll talk to Steven. He handles the duties. Well, cool. So, I tell you what. Let's get right into it. Let's hear something.

Tell me a little bit about Let Us Sing. Let Us Sing is just a song written out of a psalm talking about, you know, it's just an opportunity to come and worship the Lord. He's the one that has made everything and he's the one that's in control and he's the one that's therefore worthy of our worship, worthy of bowing down before him. Excellent. Well, I tell you what. Let's listen to it now. This is Jeff. How do I refer to everybody? Is it Jeff Arendale? Do you guys have a moniker for the band?

Well, it kind of changes if it's Jeff and the Two Mats band and Steve then, I think. It's got kind of a ring to it. Don't talk to Arendale's management. He's obviously terrible. That's a pretty rough looking t-shirt. I'll take an extra, extra, extra large, please. That's all we got. We're going to put all these names on here. How about Jeff Arendale and Solomon's brother? That's better. This is Jeff Arendale and the Angry Hippo band playing Let Us Sing. All right.

Let's do it again. Sure you do. Yeah. You can go back to the chorus. Well, that's a spicy one. I like that. You know what my favorite part was? What is it? His is the sea because he made it. What was that word? Is that what it was? That's right.

In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him, and the sea is his, for he made it. Yeah. I like that. The sea is mine. Why? Because I made it. Yeah. That's pretty definitive. Every once in a while, when you put God in the perspective, like, I made it. You know, an argument that people have with God is they have some kind of secret argument. Like, I don't know if I buy that.

I don't know if I buy that. But if you were to take it and put it on an actual worldly man-to-man argument, like, that's my sandwich. No, it ain't. Why not? Because I made it. You know what I'm saying? That's pretty straightforward. I like that. I didn't mean to minimize it down to the sandwich, but certainly. No, no. It was classic.

It's got some… I think Dan's right. You could listen to that all day. Yeah, you could. I just come on out. Oh, man. It sounds like it's going to stop soon. That'd be good, though. That's a bummer. That sounds like good motorcycle riding music, Dan. I almost got it out today. Tomorrow.

73. 73. I suppose I should pay my insurance on it. No, that's not necessary. No. Spend your money on the Arendelle CD. It's coming out shortly. Yeah, it'll be coming out. I'm taking bets on summer. I'm going to totally bootleg it off this program. Let me ask you this. Is it wrong to be a bookie on Christian albums?

What do you mean, like, take wagers on when the Arendelle album comes out? Is that wrong? Do it like a birth. You know, the over-under. Like a birth. I say… You take wagers on birth? Yeah. All the time. You might need to see somebody about that. Yeah, that's all I do, really. That's the sign we fund the music.

That's the sign of an addiction there. Got five bucks. That kid's going to be here at 28. Five bucks. Hey, you pregnant? Come here. Let me feel your belly. I'm a professional. It's kind of creepy. Hey, you're listening live from the path. That was Jeff Arendelle, the Polar Bear Express, and otherwise known as Matt, Matt, and Steven. You can find more about Jeff at jeffarendelle.com.

There you can get his blog postings. Yeah. And also, I encourage you to sign up for the… or subscribe to the newsletter, too, because that's a great way to find out where we're playing and when the CD will be coming out and et cetera, et cetera. Now, what you got for live gigs coming up here in the near future? We are playing on Saturday night, actually, at the Green Grounds in Valley Junction. I don't think it's a new place, but I think it's new for bands. Yeah. And it's been like maybe the last three or four weeks. They've just kind of gotten started with featuring Christian bands on Saturday night. That's sweet. Yeah. Now, is it everybody?

Is everybody in? Steven can't make it. He's got some sort of classical recital or something, so… No kidding. Yeah. I'm sure Jesus will be there, too. Tell them to come to the show. They want to hear you play. So how long is the set at the Green Grounds? The performance goes from 7 until 9. Now, let me ask you this, Jeff. So I've been in bands, and usually we end up in booze bands and stuff, so we end up playing bars and stuff, and they give you…

I end up drinking, like, free, really watered-down soda. That's what happens at the bar. Do they give you things at a coffee shop? Do you get some kind of tab or something? It depends on where you go. I think we got, what, a drink. We played at a place a couple of weeks ago, and we got a drink. They have really good food there, too. I don't know if the Green Grounds has food or not. But we also played at Smokey Row about a month or so ago. The one off MLK? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Just a hip-happening sort of place. I like it in there. Yeah. It's nice in there. I always think about going. I drive by and think, I should go in there. You should go in there. I have one, actually, in my hometown of where I currently live in the Pleasantville, which is like a small town, right? But they put a Smokey Row right in it.

I think it started there. Oh. And I think they distributed from that area. No kidding? Yeah. Yeah. You were by the original. Wow. The coffee's fantastic. Hey, Dan. Did Mike tell you he almost set his place on fire? He did not.

Oh. So here's the mistake, right? Well, it went the other way. So I have like eight, eight and a half acres, you know? And so I get home early on Friday, and my wife's picking up the kids from school. And I thought, well, if I get home early, you know, before she leaves to go get the kids, I'll go get the kids. That'd be fun. If not, I'm going to set that burn pile on fire. I've really been wanting to get that thing done. So I take a bunch of diesel fuel and pour it all over the place and fire it right up. That was the start when the story started going downhill.

Okay. So the piles are burning. I'm like, score. This is really going well, you know? And then the grass starts to catch on fire. I'm like, well, that ain't great. And so I try to start stamping it out, and then it starts getting the best of me. And so I thought, I'm going to go get a bucket or something and get some water. By the time I come out with a bucket, it's left. So it gets to be, I went in to go get the bucket of water. I've got about half filled up. I come charging out, and it's got like an acre down.

It's burned an acre. I'm like, I'm going to have to call the fire. This is going to be really embarrassing, you know? And so I called my wife, and she was kind of doofs around. You know, I called her. She was just having a fun, lighthearted afternoon. I said, the phone rang. She picked it up. She goes, kind of making fun of her own ringtone like I normally do, and I'm not upset that the place is on fire. I said, all right, all right, all right, hold on now. Where are you at?

Why, what did you do? I might have set the place on fire. How far away are you? Well, I'm at the school. I said, well, that's too far away to help me make a good decision. I'm going to call the police. I'll see you. Then I have the phone, call the fire department. And it was the coolest thing I've ever seen. I love living in the town that we moved to. It's a small town. And they send out these four wild men in half-rigged-up fire trucks.

And the guy goes bowling by my house, sees the fire, goes ball-hawing in the field, like does some kind of hand pump, and then drives around spraying it with a hose, hanging out his door. They got the fire truck stuck back in the field, so they pulled him out with a chain. There was some hooting going on. Somebody said, just one of them. I wasn't all of them, but one of them goes, whoo, while he was turning around and putting the fire out. Like it's a rodeo? Yeah. They couldn't have been any happier. The guy was leaving.

I said, well, that's kind of embarrassing, man, but I really appreciate you coming out. And he's like, yeah, it's all right. I just got off work. I get to go play. You know what? I said, I just got off work and started a fire. It's a match made in heaven. Yeah. What are you doing next Friday? I got like eight more acres. And then the guy said, actually, he goes, well, we'll come out and burn this whole thing if you want us to.

I said, free? He said, oh, yeah. I said, I'll call you up. Sounds like a good time. I'll get some marshmallows and a go-kart. We'll just follow this thing around. Yeah, so that was kind of embarrassing. Have any of you guys ever been involved in a fire? No. Have you ever had to call the fire department? No. I would almost be embarrassed to call the fire department.

Well, now, Jeff, I was. Jeff is implying you should be ashamed of yourself. Here's what I did. And so the embarrassing part is, it's getting out of control, right? When the acre has gone, I'm like, oh, man. And so I start to pray. And I start praying ridiculous things. I'm like, Lord, I know this might be a bit forward, but do you think rain would be out of the question? I'm sitting there thinking, I'm like, I don't want to, you know, I'm not asking for anything great here, but it's like completely sunny skies. I'm like, if you could just make it rain, like right in this area.

So the police department does not come out. That would be great. And then I waited a second. I'm like, all right, you're right. This is ridiculous. Okay. I'll call the fire department. I'm like, what, is strong wind the other direction? No, no, no. I'll call him. I'll call him. You know, I'm like, this is terrible.

I mean, I'm peeing my pants. I'm really nervous. Like, it's going, I mean, it's going like Smokey the Bear crazy. It's going like toward your house? No, it's going the other way. Well, that's good. Yeah. So you don't want an opposite wind? No, no. Well, I was hoping the opposite wind would confuse it and then put it out. Send it toward my house. Here's what I said.

I said, Lord, you will be done. I said, I really was. I was praying. I'm like, you know, I'm about to poop my pants here. You just do what you want. I'm going to try to do the right thing and I'll just let this go. And so it actually kind of settled down a little bit. If it had gotten another three, four minutes before they got there, it would have gotten to the tall weeds and it had been in the neighbor's yard within, I mean, two minutes. It had been gone. And so he didn't send rain, but I'm certainly, certainly, he helped me. Then was your wife proud of you for calling the fire department?

I don't know if proud would be the look on her face when she came. The children were happy to see the fire department. And I kept trying to walk around to each one of them because there's like four or five and I'm like, can I help? And they went, you know, like this, you idiot. You've done enough. But then like the head fire guy's like, yeah, this happens all the time. I'm like, I'm sorry, fellas. It's really pretty embarrassing. And he'll go, hey, I was going to set my burn pile on fire too. I didn't realize it was that dry. I said, friend, today's not the day.

Yeah, unless you've got some buddies like you guys who want to come out and put the fire out. I'd skip it. He'd go, yeah, cool enough. So I don't know. It was a very cool experience to meet the fire department because I otherwise wouldn't have known him. But on the other hand, very embarrassing. Call 911 and say, I think I've set my yard on fire. Can you set someone out? That is kind of rough. I don't think I've ever had to call the law for anything.

I've had to call my mom fell down our basement stairs once. That's not really funny. That sounds bad. Yeah, it does sound bad. There's only like four stairs, but it was enough that it actually broke her leg. It's a terrible story, Dan. It's a terrible story. Dan, I remember this one time. Mom totally fell down and broke her leg. But I mean, it was here in town. And I mean, everybody showed up. There was like two fire trucks, two ambulances, the police.

And then they started asking me all these questions. I'm like, wait a minute. I see where this is going. You know, they're not as sly as they think. You know, like they always start to ask leading questions. You're not going to figure out you're a suspect. So have you been drinking? I didn't fall down. Are you angry? I don't know. Have you beat your mother before? She's my mom.

How long have you been beating your wife? I feel like this conversation is taking a turn for the words. She's the one hurting. Talk to her, please. This is the last time I'm calling you. So, Chad, I guess throwing out to you guys. Have you ever had to call the fire department? I'm just interested to know how many people have had an interaction with the fire department. So maybe think on that and let me know. While you're thinking on that, let's get to another tune. Tell me a little bit about Most High. Most High is just a song that's intended to honor Christ and what he did

and the fact that we don't need any, really, anything else or anyone else other than him. So it's a little bit different. It's a song that actually was written with another person, which I don't usually do that very well. I don't know why. Jeff does not play well with it. They want to take the song one direction. I want to go the other. But Adam Jones, a guy that goes to our church. Matter of fact, his father is a pastor at our church. And he came up with this really cool opening riff. And then I said, hey, can I turn that into a song? He said, sure.

And then I came back and finished the song. That doesn't sound like a collaboration. More like a theft. Hey, can I stew that for my very own? I mean, a polite theft. But challenging his name. Oh, absolutely. All right. Well, cool. This is Most High. You are listening to Live from the Path with Jeff Arendale and the Funky Bunch. You had on high to show a sound.

If you sacrifice, wash the feet of all the others. Scolder when we needed a talk to the sickness of another. Opened up our eyes when you told the truth. You told the truth. You sacrifice to live. It's possible to be born twice. I don't need any other. Keep in for myself. No more running from anybody. We thank you. A round type of tune. Like daily living.

Here's what I want to do. Here's my daily living music. In. I kind of wish they had like a CD. Yeah, it's a killer teaser. You know what I'm saying? I come in and I'm like, I really like these tunes. And then I try to buy them and give you money and you won't take it. Man. That's okay. I really like that one. I do too.

I like the stop. I like the breakdown and the vocals. I don't know. There's a lot to it. I really enjoy it. It's one. It reminds me. So last week, Chris Day was in the studio and he had, man, I forget the name of the tune. But one of those tunes was just one where the chorus just kind of soars, you know, like you can find yourself, whether you stink at singing or not, you can just join into that thing and let it ride. And that most high is part of that.

Like, I mean, you can just, you don't feel, you don't feel like you have to perform it for it to sound awesome. Because the chorus itself just kind of rocks. So you see some other guys rocking out and you just can kind of join in under the radar and sail with it. It's, I like it. I joined in at the end. I didn't sing very loud, but I did. Yeah. And that happens when Aarindale comes in. I think last time we joined in on the race and we had to edit ourselves out before we posted it.

It was kind of embarrassing. A little bit. Oh, man. Hey, so what are your, do you have any plans around like the release of the album? You're going to have a party? I hope so. Out of Mike's Farm? Yeah. Yeah. We could burn a field or something. Save a couple of acres for the event. I'll burn it before you get there.

And it'll be all ready. Honey, I'm cleaning up the yard, right? Hey, Jeff's coming over. Clean the place up. No, I hope to do that. You know, I started making plans early in the fall for that. But things fell through. So, no, just not quite sure what. You know, I've got an awesome church family. Some of these guys are part of that church family. And so, we may do something there if they'll have us. Or, you know, we're making some connections in the community, too, as far as in these coffee

houses. Can we broadcast from your CD release party? Oh, I'd love that. Boy, that would be sweet. Would that be awkward if the church said no? Yeah. I don't think they will. I know, but just pretend for a minute. Okay. It would be awkward. The scenario is much funnier if you act like they did. Okay.

All right, Jeff. Try it out. Hold on a second. Let me make sure I've got the cameras in the right places here. No, that's not right. Hey, man. Where's Mike? Hey, it's Mike. Hold on. Okay, there you go. Okay, Jeff. Mike is a representative of the church.

You ask him whether you can use your building. Hey, if it's all right. If the CD's coming out, we'd love to use the facility for a release party. How about it? You know, Jeff, I don't think that's going to work out for us. Really? Yeah. I'm going to have to ask you to leave. You call security, please? There's a tithe on your way out. You got to go. And if you could leave the opening for most tithe at the door.

That'll belong to you. You know, we – That didn't go well at all. We have to broadcast from the bathroom. The opening – actually, we didn't do the actual opening there because I didn't get permission beforehand. So the real opening, you know, will be different. So it's okay. I mean – It's more electric. There's even more to it. We didn't even get the pirated version? We didn't get the downtown.

No. We got the east side. Okay. Bummer. So – Quick tick down from eBay. Tell me about the – what's the feel of the album? Because, I mean, it's a pretty energetic vibe just kind of here with the acoustic guitars and stuff. Is that kind of the vibe of the album or do you – No, no, no, no, no. This – it was amazing in the studio. They got – I had five Nashville musicians.

And if you've ever been around people like that, oh, my goodness. Do they have a beard? No, no beards. Clean shaven. Old guys. I mean, like me. I don't know if that's going to work, yeah. Well, I'm going on the road with them. But the drummer, he's the drummer for Vince Gill. Oh, cool. He travels with Vince Gill. No kidding.

And also, who's Vince Gill married to? Amy Grant. Oh, okay. I think he's played some things. I've seen him on YouTube and stuff like that. Go to Vince Gill.com or whatever and you'll see. I don't want to break this to you, but you can see us on YouTube. Oh, yeah. They put anybody on there. That's true. Yeah, but we're not in front of 75,000 people at Crossroads and he's actually done. No, that's true.

You remember that time I found that video of that guy playing that Bob Seger tune? What is it? I don't know. There was some Bob Seger tune out there and some guy played it on his stereo and recorded himself on YouTube. Drum and to it. Drum and to it on his drum set with the stereo roll. And I thought, you know. I'm sure Billy's watching right now and he doesn't appreciate that. That was him. That's how he got to start. No, so it's full instrumentation.

We did the instruments in a day and did those on a Saturday and then started putting the vocals down after that and then brought in a backing vocal person. Later. Is it a dude or a lady? A dude. A dude. Looks like a lady, but no. One of those, eh? Those are the best kind of dudes. That's why I stay away from Nashville. No, no, no, no, no. That's just what happens down there.

It was my new friend Lee Gibson. He's a budding Nashville country singer star type person. So he was recruited to put the… So you're in good company down there, Jeff. Well, I think so. I mean, they were good. They were good. They made me sound really good. Not as good as these guys. We did those guys. Can we get a ringer? That comes in and talks well.

That's true. We should talk to Billy and Lee. Come up here and do the show in our place. They seem to be pretty solid. I agree. I don't know. I'm excited. You know, I did send you an early cut. I heard it. What's the CD called? Not Here For Me. Yeah.

So anytime you want to… I can play that? You can play that. Okay. We'll do that next week. Okay. We'll play the Not Here For Me cut because it's good. It's solid. Yeah, well, thanks. And it's not… That's not mastered. That's blah, blah, blah, blah.

All that kind of stuff. But it's pretty good. Yeah. I think it's solid. So we're shooting for… Again, I'm taking running bets on summer of 2012 for the release. Is it Not Here For Me? Not Here For Me is the title. Not Here For Me is the title of the album. Now, did you do the cover shots? You got yourself in some fancy poses? No, because…

I don't know. I kind of had a problem doing that. You know, I'm trying to be a little bit more… I don't know. The humble thing. It just didn't seem right. What did they do? Did they try to put you in an A shirt or something? Did you stand on a rock? What was the… A! No, no, no, no, no, no.

What was the set? Okay, so here's the deal. Got a local guy who does that kind of stuff here. It lives on the north side and came up with a really cool design. It's kind of… It's out there on… I think it's on my Facebook. We'll see if we can find it. Yeah, and it's kind of a… I don't know. I don't know if it's a graveyard or a nursing home yard or what. It's uplifting, sure.

But there is a… There's like a fall picture with kind of an orange tree with light coming down from the heavens and it's kind of dark behind it. And so it's like, you know, the light of God shining down. I'm not here for me. And the tree is doing what it's supposed to do in the fall. Leaves are falling off, making a mess, not starting things on fire. Yeah, it's a metaphor on a level. All right, hold on a second. Yeah, there it is. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Yeah. You know, actually, that's a clever marketing strategy anyway because they usually say that, like, if you put your own face on it and they don't know you, then they won't look at it. And so people will generally do that. If they look at a CD of an unknown artist and they see somebody's face on there, they're like, I don't recognize that guy. And they just assume that, you know, if they don't know him already, they don't need to know him. Right. And so, yeah, that's pretty slick. Are you making posters?

I haven't thought about that. It's going to cost you outrageous amounts of money just to make one poster for me. You should certainly do it and then sign it and send it in. We'd like to put it up on the wall. Oh, cool. And then we'll spray paint your CD gold. It's got gold. Look, it's still wet, though. As soon as people succeed, they stop coming on the show. That's true. We've got to get them before. Oh, I wouldn't do that.

I'd like to see if I wouldn't do that. Maybe I would do that. It's in your best interest. Yeah. Yeah. And we've had people come on here and then like they were going to play something and then like their booking agent watched the first five minutes of the show calls them and says, no, no, no. You're not allowed to play anything on that show. It was really embarrassing. So I'm getting some bad advice from my guy. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. If he says, hey, Sal, go for it. You should move back. That's a man of no discernment. You know, that humble thing reminds me of something, though. It's something I was thinking about this week. Because I recognize in my prayer life that a lot of times I don't like to ask God for stuff. And I think it's because I give the feeling that I'm bossing God around. Right? Like, my prayers are equally, Lord, let me do your will. Also, do my will.

Right? I mean, that's kind of like the balance between when I'm trying to pray. I'm like, I don't want to. I'm afraid to ask for things because I don't want to be telling God what to do. But, like, in principle, if I'm following correctly, my prayer life matches up with God's will. And then things go like they're supposed to. But I think I still have that where I'll be, you know, I'm praying for something like, I don't feel like I'm telling God what to do here. Right. Like, God, send me some rain. Or, if it be in your will, send me some rain. Yeah, but then you've got Jesus saying, you have not because you asked not.

That's what I'm saying. Okay, so I better ask. It's kind of a weird spot. But I think it comes from, let me ask you this. If you ever think of God and we recognize that God is joyful, right? I think a lot of times this picture we got of God is very cartoonish. I like bright light. It just keeps me from trying to put an image to it. But I think I rarely have ever put the inner sense of joy on God and recognize that that is a strong part of his character, right? Like, who is more joyful than God? He is living in perfect trinity and, like, in fellowship and love within himself

and with his creation. Who could be more joyful than God? And I think sometimes I fail to put joy as part of God's character, right? Because I only put part of God's character that involves me. It's a very selfish look of God. Like, disappointment. Rebuke. Fellas, I saw that show. I'm going to talk to Jeff's manager. I know you dragged Jeff and friends into this. But it was just something that came up today that I was thinking, I'm doing a disservice to my understanding of God's character

by not recognizing that it reflects joy. He's a joyful, loving God. Well, if you figure that the fruit of the Spirit means the Spirit in your life, that's the most natural thing that comes out of your life with God controlling it is love and joy and peace and patience. That's obviously part of his character. That's him coming through you. Right. So that totally makes sense. Man, what's taking you so long to figure that out? I don't know. Here's the deal.

If you would have asked me, you know, is God joyful? Is he a God of joy? I would say, oh, yes, definitely. But in practice, like when I'm in prayer or when I'm thinking or reading the Bible and seeing the character of God, I'm afraid that I don't often enough look at his full character, which includes that of a joyful being. I don't know. You're not the only one. Can I borrow a pen? I think you got a great song idea right there. Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. What was that again? It is a mixture of mixedness. It's a mixture of mixedness. How did that first leap go? Yeah. How does that lick? Joyful, yeah. Thirds with a G. Let's see. Joyful, joyful, we adore thee. Yeah, that's solid.

That's going to be solid. No one uses thee anymore. All right. Hey, you're listening live from the path. Did anybody have a fire story? Did anybody call the fire story? No, dude, no one's listening to you at all. Oh, man. The chat is on the lamp tonight. I really wanted someone to tell me a story about something catching on fire. Okay, I do have a minor fire story. Remember that we lived in a house out in Runnels,

and there was like this tornado shelter. Oh, this was a disaster. Like right outside the house. And so like you could walk outside the house, you open those. You've all seen those in old farmhouses, right? They got those two things that goes under, and there's like this cavern down there. It's probably eight foot by six foot, and maybe six to eight feet tall. Well, probably eight foot tall. So we've been throwing junk down there because there wasn't a garbage service, or it took too long to drag it down the gravel driveway. It was a long driveway.

Yeah, so we just tossed a bunch of garbage and stuff down there. But it was terrible because he was attracting rats and stuff, so like something had to be done. So we decided we were going to clean the place out and then set up a fire in there. And so we kind of cleaned the place out and got it like really clean. We thought this would be kind of a cool place to hang out and set a fire, you know, just a couple of pillows hanging around by a fire. So we set this fire, and there's a pipe coming out the top of it. And we were kind of banking on this pipe for the exhaust. And the pipe was clogged pretty seriously. And so this fire wasn't garbage firing and wasn't running for more than three or four minutes. And then it was just hazy, fierce in there.

You couldn't tell anything that was going on. So I'm kind of crawling my way out of this tornado shelter. And Pants, our friend Pants, who was there, I go and I come check on him, and he's like sitting in the fire, like soaking it up. Like it's his natural habitat is to be sitting in the middle of some kind of garbage fire in a tornado cellar in the middle of, you know, Boondoggle, Iowa. And, like, I tell you what, it was the weirdest thing trying to drag that guy out of there. It was just Ben and Pants. I wasn't even involved in this. I was in the house like a regular dude, and they were setting garbage in fire in the storm cellar. And I go out, and Ben comes in looking like he just got done rolling in charcoal. And I said, what is going on out there?

Well, here's what happened, right? And so he was going to explain that they thought the fire wasn't going to be enough, and so they took those, what is it, those kerosene lamps, you know, that people have, the lanterns, set like four of those on fire and stuck them around like survivor style and then lit another garbage fire. And Ben comes in and goes, you've got to help me get Pants out. I said, what happened to him? Did he pass out? No, he just refuses to come out. I said, leave him there. Leave him in there. And so Pants finally comes in like an hour later.

I mean, head to toe, black. I mean, just. He's covered in it. He's everything. I mean, and he goes, you should come check this thing out. Unbelievable. I said, Pants, you're sleeping on the floor. Yep. Done. Absolutely done. We didn't get to call the authorities, though. Nah.

Yeah. That was a while of time. All right. Well, hey, let's. Dan, you wish you would have been there. I do. Actually, the only other fire we've been involved in was also at Mike's place. He bought a house and he had like this. It's a hundred year old barn built by a bunch of Amish dudes. Oh, yeah. A really cool barn. But when he bought it, part of the contingency of the loan was that he had to burn this barn down.

Or he had to tear it down because it was a danger to himself and the foxes that lived there. But I tried to, I did some unchristian things here. I tried to get an endangered owl borrowed from somebody so I could put it in the barn and say, hey, there's an endangered owl in the barn. We can't tear it down because I really wanted to keep the barn. And the Lord did not help me out in that aspect once again, which is, I mean, to his glory and benefit, I certainly did not get away with it. But that was my plan. I was certainly going to get an endangered animal and stick it in there. Okay. This is what I'm talking about right here. I set a Taco Bell bathroom on fire. That's the kind of story I'm after. That's what I want to hear about.

Set my parents' bed on fire. Yes. Yes. Two for two. Those are both solid. I agree. That's kind of scary to me, too. I'm for it. I'm going to ask for more information. Yeah. Yeah. So here's what we're going to do.

We're going to fire up another tune from Jeff Anderle and the good guys. And Eskimosas, you're going to have to provide a little bit more detail on this fire in the Taco Bell bathroom. Solid. Okay. Awesome. So Be Alert. That's the name of this tune. That's solid. Tell me about it. Well, this is from Ephesians and also a little bit from Psalm and Psalm again. It's just talking about the fact that Satan is out to devour us all. He wants nothing other than to see us go down.

We're all sinners. We're all capable of that. I certainly am. And you just need to guard your heart. You need to be alert for that kind of stuff. And it's also meant as an encouragement to fear God and just show respect and show love and show awe. And we'll be obedient for him. So sweet. Well, this is Be Alert with Jeff Arendale. You're listening to Live from the Path. See, that one was rocking. See, I shouldn't have said rocking on the other one.

The other ones were like, how can I say it? Moving. They were more rolling. Yeah. That one. Yeah. Rolling. No, Dan, I was going to stop and let you finish out your embarrassment. Go ahead. No, I was just getting started. I don't think you have time. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that's hip. Are all these on the new album? No. Well, that's not available. That is not available. So I don't figure you're missing out on anything. But I'm hoping that they'll get these recorded soon. Are any of them on the new album? Yeah, we're going to do, hopefully if we have time, we'll do one more. We're going to squeeze it in. Yeah, we'll do Strange Place, and that's on the CD. Okay.

So actually, maybe we should just have enough time to kind of get talking into that one and then let us sail out the first hour with it. Hey, you've been listening to Live from the Path. We're on every Monday night from 10 to midnight talking about honest faith, fierce grace, and sometimes donkeys. We're in studio with Jeff Arendale and the Fleeting Few, and you can learn more about Jeff at jeffarendale.com. You can sign up for his blog post. You can sign up for notices about his upcoming shows. That's how I knew he was going to be on tonight. I got a notice today. That said, Jeff's coming in.

Yes, he is. Oh, and then he words befriended me earlier. Are you words befriending? Oh, I love that. I haven't started yet. I've got to get involved. We've been after each other. You know, in the first word that it didn't surprise me, cagey from Ben. I was thinking maybe crafty or, I don't know, scrappy, something like that. I can only deal with the cards I'm dealt there, Dale. When I was good.

I mean, just for a heads up, you did see the reply from the chat on how this is a bathroom fire started, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. I don't want to hear that. All right, hold on. So here we go. Parents' bedroom. I was playing with matches on their bed. It burned me, so I dropped the match. Solid. My parents came home to hear me crying from their bedroom.

They were able to put it out, and nothing happened except for burn holes in the blankets. Okay, solid. Taco Bell. I was sitting there thinking, I wonder if I light the end of the toilet paper on fire, if it will make a ring of fire. It didn't just instantly. It didn't. It just instantly caught the entire roll on fire. It's like a miniature burn pile. I hit panic mode, and well, you may not want to know the rest. That is an awesome story. Tina called me at work once and told me the cat was on fire.

I told her to put it out. That seems like solid advice. I don't like water. I can't. Oh, sweet Moses. I knew it. I knew we'd get some good fire stories. People just need to be teased out a little bit. As soon as you hit 1030, people go nutty with the fire stories. When they show up. Okay, so we were talking about strange places. Oh, Words with Friends.

That's what we were talking about. That's all I had. There ain't nothing more to say. You're terrible. I'm also terrible. No, no, no. I'm very good. Very addicting. Are you addicted? Oh, I usually have about 10 games at a time going on. Yeah. I'm going to go, you know.

Are you cheap, Dan? You look that stuff up online? I do not. That's why sometimes it takes me a while. I'll sit there and look at it. I got nothing. I'll do another one. I'll come back, and all of a sudden, I'll come up with. Here we go. Here's my Words with Friends test on Dan Hudson. Dan Hudson, you used the word HAPS. H-A-P-S.

What does it mean? I don't have to know what they mean. Sometimes I'll just put letters up and see if it works. You, I can't believe it. That's cheap. Well, I only have so many letters. So I, you know, I think about it. I learned with my grandmother, and you had to have the dictionary there. And you, I mean, you didn't get to look through the dictionary, but you had to be able to spell it and know what it meant, or you didn't get to put it down. Yeah, you had some accountability back in the day. I never played it before. I never, ever played it.

Here's the deal. When I was in school, you know, you did like the Iowa Test of Base skills, you know. I did like really high. I do like science, and I have, you know, 98, 99%, 97%. Math, same thing. I did like really high on everything. And I hit vocabulary, it was like 40%. I mean, I was just, I was, I didn't read. And you became a preacher who talks for a living? I forgot I didn't need that stuff. It's English. I speak it every day.

But I was, I've always been horrible with vocabulary. So I really, one of the reasons I did this, I thought it was going to make me at least think. I don't know, I'm lazy, I'm a lazy talker. Yeah, hey, how you doing, cat? You know, I mean, you know, I use big words. And so now I have to sit and think about maybe feline instead of cat, you know what I mean? So that's why I like doing that. You're right. That's pretty uptown. See how I'm really moving forward now? I see. That's from my science class.

See, haps has really, really done well. Haps. Hap means one's luck or lot, an occurrence, happening, or accident. Wait, was that from the Urban Dictionary? No, no, it's legitimate. Dictionary.com entry. Hey, man, what's haps in? Hey, man, what's haps? I can't say that stuff. They use hap as just hap. What's hap? I just hap to be here the other day.

Oh, okay, if it's so hap. No one says it. It's a reasonable dictionary. No, it isn't. It's a legitimate dictionary. It's kind of a… It sounds like we're in a strange land. That's what it sounds like to me. Okay. Origin, 1150 to 1200 Middle English. All right, Ben. Okay.

Every once in a while, I have a word that I think, obviously, this is a real word, and it just won't let me use it. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I'll be like, this is a word? Like Oz. O-Z. Yeah. Yeah, I've tried to use it many times. You're like, no. How many times do I have to tell you? Yeah, I've seen the movie many times. I've heard there's a book, but I've seen the movie. So we're in a word in studio with Jeff Arendale.

Again, jeffarendale.com. Get the notices. Sign up for the blog. You can hear more about Jeff, and free up some time on Friday, Saturday. Saturday. Saturday. Head to Valley Junction and go to Green Grounds. I almost said something different. Green Grounds. They're going to be on, playing a couple-hour set. They may or may not be getting free stuff, so if you want to buy them things, I'm sure that's totally cool.

They'd accept it. Yeah. They'll sell you our t-shirts. Except for Steven. He won't be there, so if you buy him like a sandwich or something, he's just going to go bad. Mail it to him. Take it by the postal service. That's got to be on the ups. Right? It's Jeff Arendale and the Thrifty Bunch. So, strangely, the last time you were here in the studio, we talked about you had gone

to a mission trip in Laos. Yes. And we had inadvertently… It's totally cool. I checked with him. So, I had said, I think the country's firmly known as Laos. I had whatever inferred and given away the country name. You said it outright. Like I wasn't supposed to. No, he said, hey, if you could, it's a sensitive area. Please don't mention the name of the country. So, you went to Laos.

That's exactly what happened. It wasn't an alludement. It was dead on. It wasn't my finest hour. It's just what happens. So, you said this song kind of came out of that experience, right? Yeah. I think I went over there with certainty at the time and really got to get in close and tight in preparation with missionaries that had been there and then getting in tight with the missionaries that were there and then actually going there. And it's third world. It's totally different.

If you can imagine, well, a lot like Ronald's. I mean, you know. Garbage piles. No, no, no. I didn't mean that. Burning garbage heaps. No, but just don't have all the entrapments that we do. Running water and that sort of thing. Went to some villages and performed in villages. And the food is way different. They try to have some American food, but you still might find an octopus eye in your hamburger or something like that.

But wait a minute. This isn't beef. It's a solid effort. But you don't complain. But anyway, it's just helped me to get a perspective on what it must be like for somebody going over there. And you don't just go there for a week if you're going over there to reach an unreached people group. You have to put in time because you have to get indoctrinated in the culture, the language, be able to communicate, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, know the customs and that sort of thing. And it's way different than here.

And it can be hard on a person. It's kind of hard even for two weeks. I bet. Yeah. So this song is Strange Place. Cool. This is Strange Place. We're going to let Jeff kind of play at the hour, and then we'll take a small break and be right back with you. Make sure to check out Jeff at jeffarendale.com to get more information about him. You can also go to Facebook, and you can like Jeff. And he's a tweeter.

He's on the tweeter. That's sweet. Yeah. So you can find Jeff. If you can't, you can just Jeff at Jeff Arendale. That's him. You tweet very often, Jeff? No. I'm just getting… So he's not going to clog your… He's not going to clog your tweet box. What did you say?

Every time I have a CD release. I'll tweet it. Here it comes. So anyway… I'm getting ready to tweet. And I'm going to sell the summertime. You're going to fire it up. Enjoy the song. We'll be back with you after the break. This is Jeff Arendale. Thanks for listening. Live from the Remax Studios in downtown Des Moines.