I'm Just An Old Pair of Speakers

Dahlquist DQ-10

My common sense is telling me not to write this blog post. Blogging is a little bit like sending an email: one should wait and count to 10 before it's sent. Because once it is out there...it is out there. But what the heck! I am still feeling the funk and mentally processing the difference between the truth and the lies. And it is all because of the speakers that I love: My Dahlquist DDA 1T's!

I had a conversation with my wife earlier today about selling a three speaker arrangement that I have had for years, but is currently not being used. I have been a fan of Dalquist speakers since the middle 70s and used to drool at the end of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer's “Lucky Man” when played on a pair of DQ 10s. The rumble of the 20 cycle note and the air around the synthesizer is just pure bliss. So my wife said something that stuck me like a knife earlier today. I have a paid of Dahlquist DDA 1Ts that tower beside a Pinnacle monster sub-woofer. It's Nirvana for the ear drums. She said that because those are so old, they aren't worth anything. I retorted that those three are a $2,000 system that are extremely valuable because you can't get them anymore. I don't know why I put them up there with the treasures of Tutankhamen and the Mona Lisa as far as value goes. Maybe because they have given me so many years of pure audio pleasure. Maybe because in my mind they are still new. But the reality is that they are simply old speakers that were great in their time, but now have been passed up by a new generation of trendy, cool, hip, happening speakers. The new stuff is flashy and valuable to this Ipad generation, but they sound like crap. And this alt/bro generation has neither the time nor the inclination to value what is older.

Pinnacle Sub-woofers will punch you in the chest

 I went online to see what they are worth to try to prove a point to my wife. But as usual, she is right. I can't even find them anywhere. I did find a discussion thread where old geezers reminisced about audio equipment from the bygone days of yore. It made me feel like I was at a D-Day Invasion reunion. I remember when Tom Holman was a real guy, and not just a big THX roaring in at the start of a movie. Saul Marantz, Amar Bose, Paul Klipsch, and Henry Kloss all had active parts in the R&D of their companies. Now they are just logos on some venture capital Korean consortium that uses their name for marketing recognition. And today it dawned on me that I am old at 52. I look at myself with the same eyes that I see my Dahlquist speakers. And I see beauty, ability, and technical perfection. But the world sees me as something that might not even get an opening bid on Ebay. I thought I wasn't supposed to be worthless until my seventies. What I see as career “prototypes” the world sees as failures. What I espouse as “Edison's 1,000 ways how not to make a light bulb” the world sees as career instability. I'm such a loser!

Paul Klipsch

Then I pulled a David at Ziklag and started looking at ages. Abraham was 75 when God told to leave Haran. Harland Sanders started KFC with his first social security check at age 65. Noah was 500 when he started building the ark. I even shook my head in amazement as I watched a Bob Proctor video yesterday. He admitted that he was 77. He is amazing. So that gives me hope.

I, like my speakers, put the air around the strings of Beethoven's 7th that contribute to it's melancholy tone. But I live in a world that wants to blare Snoop Dogg at ear bleeding levels. Like my sub-woofer, I hold my auditory integrity during the cannon shots of Tchaikovsky's “1812 Overture”. But I live in a world that wants it's speakers to be hidden while they jack cars in “Grand Theft Auto San Andreas” on their 3D televisions. I secretly want others to see the value in me. But I know that the younger, better looking, smarter, more tech savvy uber-man is what the world is attracted to. So I'll finish this day with gratitude that I am still in the game. Solomon did say that a live dog is better than a dead lion. And an old speaker that will give me goosebumps during “Braveheart” is better to me than a new and fresh e-speaker.

Anthony Weiner is the Anti-Antichrist!

Anthony Weiner's resignation officially takes place at midnight tonight. In case you have no idea who I am talking about, he is the congressman who was busted for tweeting pictures of himself to a myriad of woman. And although I didn't see the Full Monty versions of his macho offerings, (who would want to) the ones I saw of him flexing in the mirror in the gym were pathetic enough.

I wish I could "unsee" this.

Notice I didn't say that Weiner was the antichrist. I said that he was the “anti-antichrist”. He is the exact opposite of the coming world ruler who will be blessed by Satan himself and be given power to rule the world for three and a half years. That is if you believe the prophets Daniel and John the Disciple. Both of them had much to say about “the man of sin” and his trusty sidekick known as the false prophet. They will bring quite a show to planet earth right before the return of Jesus. We know from John that Michael himself gets to kick the crap out of all those who decide to follow them, and he gets to throw both of them into the lake of fire.

“And the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who did mighty miracles on behalf of the beast—miracles that deceived all who had accepted the mark of the beast and who worshiped his statue. Both the beast and his false prophet were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur.” Revelation 19:20 NLT

Ouch! And check out what happens to then one who anointed them both:

“And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” Revelation 20:10 KJV

There is “forever”, which is a pretty long time. But these folks get a double portion of torment: forever and ever.

Daniel is pretty clear that the reign of the antichrist will be no cake walk. Although he totally runs the show, there will be opposition and rebellion from a couple of different kings. Read Daniel 11. But one thing that is never prophesied to happen is what happened to Anthony Weiner. And that is why I call him (and others) the “anti-antichrist”. Women will not be a factor. Remember how Monica Lewinsky was a distraction and the bane of Bill Clinton's presidency? You can sit and think about how many men have been brought down by illicit relations with women, and lots of powerful names will come to mind. Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, Italian President Silvio Berlusconi, World Bank and IMF president Paul Wolfowitz, and the list goes on and on. As long as there have been men with great power, there have been “femme fatales” who have brought them down. Can you say Samson and Delilah anyone? And the pulpits are full of men like Jimmy Swaggart and Paul Sheppard who have paid great penalties for their lack of self control in the naked woman arena. And not only our generations, David had his Bathsheba, Caligula had his sister, and Jerry Lee Lewis had his underage cousin. But the man of sin will be different.

Spitzer and his physical therapist

“Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all.” Daniel 11:37

Many people believe the wording that he will not regard “the desire of women” to mean that he will not worship nor regard the gods that women like. And there is some merit in that thinking. But I tend to see it another way. If this man is anointed by the Dragon himself, and has only three and a half years to try to send as many people to hell as he can; I don't think he will have the time nor the libido to waste it on trollops. I can't see this man being a horn-dog. Power is his game. Total control is his aim. And as he sets himself up in the “holy of holies” in the Jerusalem temple as god, he won't flex his spiritual muscle to try to win sexual trysts with women who see that kind of thing as an aphrodisiac.

Can you imagine the antichrist tweeting HD pics of his package to someone? Do you see the false prophet calling down fire from heaven with a member of the Swedish Bikini Team on each arm? You can't can you. And neither can I. Where so many great men have had blind spots in the sex area, this man will be rock solid and focused. Luckily he will be replaced by a righteous King who was also tempted in ALL AREAS, yet without sin: Jesus. I'm sure Jesus probably had a cute sister of a cleansed leper literally throw herself at him. Maybe not. But we know that he overcame all that this world had to offer in the way of getting him to stumble. And he marched right over it.

So take hope fellow Christians in the fact that we will someday soon have a righteous King who can not be bribed with boobs nor distracted from integrity by batting eyelashes. And that gives me great hope in the future.

“And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” Revelation 2:12

Will We Speak Hebrew In Heaven?

If you go to Google and type in the word “hallelujah” you will get 29,100,000 returns. That is a very strange phenomenon for a word that is not in the Bible one single time. Yep, that's right; it's not in there. And yet there are almost thirty million mentions of it on the Internet. If you are a Christian, you are probably doubting that it is not in the Bible. So go see for yourself. The first time we even see the two Hebrew words that make up that saying is in Psalm 104:34:

“Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless thou the LORD, O my soul. Praise ye the LORD.”

Those two words that comprise the saying praise the Lord are where we get the saying Hallelujah. But if it isn't in the Bible, where did we get it? And why do so many Christians say it? That answer comes from the New Testament. When John was taking his tour of heaven in the book of Revelation, he heard people saying that word. In fact, lots of people. And he wrote that book in Greek, so the word we see four times in Chapter 19 is “Alleluia”.

Think on that for a minute. While John was in heaven, he saw the multitudes of people saying “praise the Lord” in Hebrew. Now it is possible that everybody in heaven will be speaking Dutch or Spanish, and only occasionally shout out a Hebrew phrase. But I tend to believe that Hebrew will be the predominant language with which we will all praise God. And yet another point of our Hebrew language of the future comes from Revelation 15. Here's what John saw:

“And I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God. They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying: “ Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints! Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. For all nations shall come and worship before You, For Your judgments have been manifested.” Revelation 15:2-4 NKJ

This song of Moses is taken from Exodus 15. And in Deuteronomy 31 he taught it to the next generation:

“So that very day Moses wrote down the words of the song and taught it to the Israelites.” Deuteronomy 31:22 NLV

Guess what language Moses spoke? Hebrew. Guess what language his song is sung in? Hebrew. Guess what language we will probably be speaking in the New Jerusalem according to what John saw? Hebrew. Maybe it is time to get some Rosetta Stone software and get a jump on the crowds.

Also note that the two times that phrasing for hallelujah is used is in relation to the vanquishing of the enemy. In Psalm 104 the sinners and wicked are no more. In Revelation the term is offered up only after the antichrist, false prophet, and wicked are removed from the game. Pretty sweet deal, right? After God takes care of those who are against us, it is only natural for us to bless Him with our thanks and praises.

Although not in the Bible, here is the best secular song with that word in it. So many people have covered that Leonard Cohen song; from country and folk musicians, to rockers like Jon Bon Jovi. It might be because it's great. Or maybe because they have this small part of their spirit that has hope and is already reaching out to the One who made them and inhabits their praises. Either way, God is good all the time. And it is a good thing to praise Him. Here is the version by the great John Cale from the Velvet Underground.