dear reader,

hopefully you have heard or will soon hear our new single, “the odd and the even.” we’re pretty happy with it. i’ve been mixing it on and off for a couple weeks, and as always the last few days have been a non-stop push.

but far from resting in the traditional sense, good night states is going to spend this weekend songwriting. dan, trevor and megan are going to work half days today and drive out to nj, where we’ll spend halloween playing music together.

i hope the weekend will be refreshing, if not physically relaxing, and we may even take some time out saturday night to support my father in a concert of no small notoriety (at least locally). i’m pretty excited about this, for many reasons: my parents are so, so supportive of us, and of course my dad has played a large role in my life-long love for and involvement in music; the album that maranatha made in 1971, soon, is something i just couldn’t be more fascinated by, though i think i’ve only listened to it four or five times. it’s just so… real. check it out:

anyway. i’ve got, as usual, a lot to say, about life, music, the truth, and of course politics, but i’ve also got a lot to do today and blogging is only one item on my list regardless of how many or how few topics i tackle in this post.

for now, be not so fearful of this tumultuous time; the panic of 2008 will surely pass (as did the panics of 1857, 1873, 1893, 1907, and 1929–am i forgetting any?), but our ability and obligation as people to choose the right and good never will.

enjoy some candy corn, some “the odd and the even,” and, if you find yourselves in north jersey tomorrow, perhaps some maranatha.

A few weeks ago, I decided that it was finally time to open up a Good Night, States business checking account. Opening business accounts is something that I have some experience with, so I thought it would be a piece of cake.

I stroll into my local National City branch in the late morning (to avoid the lines) and end up waiting for probably 10-15 minutes for the next available customer service representative. Then, I get my shot.

The customer service rep takes me back to her small office with no windows and offers me a seat. I sit down and explain that I need to open a small business checking account. “Simple,” I think. She had a little more trouble than I thought a customer service rep should have, but no big deal, I’m a pretty patient person when it comes to this kind of stuff.

Then she asks me, “What is your business name?” I reply, “Good Night comma States.” She proceeds to type into the computer: “Goodnight, States”. Then I tell her, “No, it’s three words: Good. Night. States.” She writes it out on a bit of paper on her desk a few times, just to make sure she has it correct. “Great,” I think, “this was a bit painful, but it’s worth having things right the first time.”

She then proceeds to shuffle papers around, prints some things off, gets a cell phone call from her son, and has me sign a bunch of forms to finalize the account creation. She then jots another note on a small piece of paper and says that she’s going to have one of the tellers order me checks, free of charge! (This must be to make people feel really important. I mean, FREE CHECKS! How much better can life get?!?)

I leave the branch humming happily to myself because of my free checks and head back to work (a little later than I had hoped).

The end of the next week came and so did my lovely box of FREE checks! I threw them on the table with a pile of other stuff to take upstairs; I had decided to unwrap the goodness later when I got around to doing the band finances. The next day, I get another envelope from my bank. I opened it up and saw that my bank was sweetening the deal; they’d sent me a business credit card with a limit high enough to finish off the rest of my school loans (or purchase another vintage synthesizer)! I drooled over the credit line and took a second look at the card. “Wait a second, the business name says GOOD NIGHT ESTATES!” I looked at the box of checks still on the kitchen table, “The checks say GOOD NIGHT ESTATES, too!”

So, somewhere along the line “Good Night, States” got translated into, “Good Night Estates.” I can understand the mix-up, but I also feel like I am stuck in the middle of a large game of “telephone.”

I finally got around to going back to the bank and asking them to correct their mistake. They had no problem fixing things, though the service associate that helped me with the change scoffed at how this mistake could even happen in the first place.

All in all, I think Good Night Estates would be a great business name for a nice bed and breakfast that is set on and old family estate somewhere in the mid-Atlantic region. Maybe in a few years, I can settle down and start that business!