IF you are like most of us and you check your myspace at least 2 times a day then you may find these relatable and funny. Myspace creates an alternate universe and I thought I would try and highlight these in a series of video shorts call Signs You may be addicted to Myspace. If you like them, please leave a comment or become a friend at www.myspace.com/gonzcast.

Switchfoot's Awakening blazes through the radio of my brothers car and almost propels us to our 90 mile and hour speed in between my old home town of Hesperia California, where we just stopped in to see Grandma Manina, who made us a traditional Cuban dish that we all had too much of, and Las Vegas our next stop. We will be driving for about 19 straight hours just like we did two days ago to get here from the Northwest. Stops for food and gas are all we get, we alternate sleeping and driving. I am a night owl who has an extraordinary almost super-human ability (I would say) to stay awake. On the trip here I took the leg of the trip that started at 11:30pm and started 50 miles north of Sacramento and lasted 7 hours until we reached LA at 6:30am, which was the final leg. So now I sit in the back seat, my brother driving and my dad in the passenger seat as we drive home on our very first, and possibly last road trip together ever. Family vacations growing up aside this is our first trip as adults, just the three of us on the open road.

It took a sad situation to make it happen, the death of my grandmother Bea. She was 84 when she passed last Monday. I had just gotten back from a trip to LA where I was casting for new project I am working on. I got the call and knew I was coming back again. It's so like my dad to seize the moment and suggest a road trip. We all decided that it would be a great opportunity to spend some time together and test out my brother's new Volkswagen rabbit. It's done really well so far. It's a nice little car and while I wouldn't recommend a 4 person road trip in it, 3 seems to work just right. I assure you 3 men in a small car has also wiped out any trace of the new car smell, but there is a new car smell if you will.

My grandma was living in Phoenix when she died. She lived most of her life in LA where all of us are from. She had chosen to live with my Aunt in Phoenix as opposed to with my mom in Seattle. It had been a while since any of us had seen her, so when she died it was hard to really know how to process it. I have many memories of her growing up and visiting her apartment where she would buy us Entenmann's chocolate donuts, which are still my favorite to this day in the category of store bought donuts. She used to read us lots of stories from Readers Digest and we would watch the Price is Right, which for some reason seemed to come on more often at her house then anywhere else in the world.

We moved a lot when I was a kid, and although we always lived somewhere in Southern California it was not always that close to either of my grandmothers. So at times we would see them quite a bit and at times we wouldn't, but when I graduated from High School we moved to the Northwest, so visiting the grand-parents become and annual event, as my own family grew with my own wife and children, it became less and less than that. It makes you wonder if this lifestyle we have adopted of moving from city to city and state to state for jobs and supposed opportunity, for a bit more cash is really worth it. It separates children from grandchildren, and fathers from sons and you add divorce and it really gets interesting. Nobody stays in one place anymore. So even though there is this idea that this is your grandmother, she becomes almost a distant stranger who you know little about.

You try and send pictures of the kids and make a call when you can, but our lives have become so hectic that we seldom have the time to think about, or acknowledge anyone who doesn't live in our immediate zip code. We do however make new families from friends and we build new communities of people around us, who support us, but it's not family, it's not our blood, our genes: our friends don't have our nose.

The funeral was an interesting event, we were there to mourn for our grandmother and celebrate her life, and at the same time we all realized this is the only time we will see some of these family members for a long time. So you want to try and use these opportunities to catch up, to see what everyone is doing because you know you may not see them again until the next funeral. Funerals have a way of making you think about life. When you realize that at the end of it all you will be put in a box and covered in dirt it can be a bit depressing. You have one shot at this thing, and while it seems so confusing, you can't spend your life being confused or before you know it you will be six feet under and done.

Being at my grandmothers funeral I also realized that the older you get most likely the smaller amount of people you will have at your funeral. No matter how many friends you have going through this life, if you get to an age where you outlive your friends and family members you may die alone. My grandmother did not die alone, she had family and friends who came to pay their respects and celebrate who she was, I wonder if it was how she would have pictured her funeral, I wonder if my funeral will be how I would picture it? I wonder if most people picture their funerals? I wonder if my kids will live in a place where my grand kids haven't seen me in years? I wonder if my friends will still be alive and live anywhere near where I have passed and be able to make it to the event?

All of these thoughts make me miss my wife and kids who were not able to make the trip. It makes me miss the friends I love at home who have become a family to me. It makes me want to keep building relationships even though I often have thoughts that I waste too much time on people and need to focus more on building my career. After all what is a career? At the same time what are people? People are everything, relationships are the life blood we all long for, but how much time will I invest into relationships that may end by a sudden job change or need to move to a new city? What if I give and give and in the end I'm abandoned? What If I take and take and in the end I'm abandoned? What if I can't figure out what's important before it's too late, and why does it seems to get more confusing instead of less as time goes on?

We're about an hour outside of Vegas now and there is nothing but desert. It's flat and desolate and has a different kind of beauty than the Northwest. There are dry mountains in the background and even drier hills of sand in the foreground. There is no life to be had here, it is merely a road that people use to get back and forth from Las Vegas, mostly lifeless, even the people in the cars seem lifeless as if they know somewhere deep inside them they were not meant to spend this much time out of the short time here on earth in their cars. Most of them no doubt feel like prisoners like we all do, to their job, to money, to the system, a system that is broken and has no justice left, a system that chews us up and spits us out, as it grows even fiercer and more overwhelming. It will gulp us all up in its mouth and will chew and crunch until we are broken and bruised, until our hearts our hard and we have no idea why we live here anymore. It will grind away until we can't remember why we live for the next generation. It digests all of our hope and optimism all of our dreams and selflessness, and it belches us out fully addicted and selfish, and hopeless. It excretes confusion and false hopes until we have nothing left.

I think of my own fight for life, I'm not young anymore, I grow weary and I can't often find the strength to fight like I once did. Is there hope to get that fight back or has the fight passed me by? Have I let too much of the disease in? The disease of doubt and self-pity, self-examination so that I have become useless and numb to those around me? Can I find the point where it all changed and go back and change the course? Or do I have to start from here and fight through the brokenness, if I do is there an even greater hope that I will find? How come spiritual cliché's like "Trust God" or "Have Faith" or "Pray Harder" don't seem to offer consolation to me anymore?

It was good to see my family. It was a quick rendezvous, maybe it eased some of the guilt that comes with not staying in touch, maybe we have all come to the realization that we should build new communities of people around us, unrelated, but bound together just the same, in love and service to one another.

What can a death say about how we live our life? How can the feelings we feel at this time translate into something real? When the feelings go away will we back in the race again with blinders on until the next relative dies?

I know this, I'm thankful to my grandmother; in particular I have 3 reasons - my children, Rachael, Riley and Jaden. She got to be a great grandmother, and she will live on forever, we all live on forever, we all leave a legacy, that should be motivation enough to figure this thing out, to do what Christ said and love others more than ourselves, to understand that there is a way that seems wise to a man that leads to death, and like Michael Cain says to Nicholas Cage in the Weatherman, that the hard way and the right way are usually the same way.

As a side note to this entire entry if you have not yet listened to John Reuben's Word of Mouth you are missing out.

Well now my brother and my Dad are arguing about the fastest way to get back home. It's pretty interesting to listen to; I myself have directile dysfunction (a term that describes my inability to find places on a map) and try to stay out of arguments that involve how to get places. The argument has turned a bit hostile but It will even out again I think, now there is an argument about when we actually crossed into Nevada. Well I can't really think straight and if anyone is still reading this I would be surprised. What a week it's been, funerals, road trips, and the meaning of life.

Just in case you haven't seen or heard of the show, that is the idea. An undercover officer will pretend she is a 13-year old girl and talk to older men online in chat rooms. She will engage the suspect in some very inappropriate sexual dialogue before finally inviting him to her place of residence for sex. When the man shows up he is told by a very young looking female police officer to wait in the house while she goes and gets ready. The next thing that happens is Chris Hansen walking through the door asking the man why he is there. Blindsided the men react in many different ways, all of them have no idea the police are waiting outside to arrest them the moment they walk out the door.

Recently a high profile member of a local city government was caught in this act and later committed suicide. This is the episode that I was reading about and the comments were very split on the matter, some Americans praised the show for its efforts, others commented that the show caused this man's death. The general idea is that you have a couple of different opinions, either the show is great and the guys are getting what they deserved or the show is entrapment and is using these men to get ratings and entertain people. Very few of the respondents addressed the core of the issue. Why is this happening? Why are so many men, from all walks of life falling into this trap? Some speculated that this was just natural, that for centuries older men have found younger women attractive, that in fact can be proven biblically. Some tried to say that this should be treated as an illness, and others were more than happy to see these "pervs" (a word that was thrown around a lot on the forum) get what they deserve.

There is some truth in all of these comments, but I couldn't help but think how amazingly ignorant and obtuse we as a culture have become when we can't understand that the very network that is praised for catching these predators is part of the force that is creating the predators. The best comment was from someone who pointed out that during the show To Catch a Predator there was an advertisement for the TV show Friday Night Lights which regularly shows teens engaging in sexual behavior as do many other shows on television. Now granted, this is teens with teens, but don't you think this is a bit of a double standard? Don't you think that our culture has sexualized teens to the point that adults would find them attractive? This is proven over and over again when female middle school teachers are having sex with their young male students and all of these men are continually entrapped on Dateline's show.

I still remember when Britney Spears debuted her video for "Hit Me Baby One More Time on MTV. This was the start of the recent surge in the sexualization of teens, I was very much over 18 when this video debuted and was shocked to learn that Spears was only 17 in the video that has her in a very skimpy sexed up catholic school girl outfit dancing through the halls, singing hit me baby one more time. Besides the argument of what hit me baby one more time actually means, it was clear that they were using sex to sell Spears records. It was also clear that any men and not just "pervs" would find Spears attractive in this video. That after all was the intention, to make her attractive to young men, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that there is not much of a difference in what a 17 year old and 27 year old male will find attractive. Granted, a 27 year old should have more control over his impulses and thoughts, but it could be argued that the more our culture sexualizes teens the harder that will become. Since Spears' first album the trend has continued with a long line of former Disney Channel and Nickelodeon stars getting all grown up right before they turn 18 or shortly after and become the sex objects for a generation that grew up watching their more wholesome fair. Even as Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen hosted Saturday night live 4 months before their eighteenth birthday they closed the show saying, "we're legal in 4 months!" acknowledging the fact that many men over the age of 18 found there recently sexed up image attractive. How is that acceptable on the very network that claims they want to stop the problem? If NBC really wanted to catch a predator, I would think they'd also want to take off any programming that would promote the development of a predator mentality.

So is this NBC's fault? No not completely, really it's all of our faults. Someone is buying what these companies that are creating movies, music, and TV shows with sexed up teens are selling. If we, as a culture weren't it wouldn't continue to be created. As a parent of three kids and someone who spends a significant amount of time with teens, it's amazing to me how much freedom young people have to watch, listen and consume on TV and the Internet. Where are the parents of the teen girl or boy who is in the sex chat room in the first place? While it is true that young people are more susceptible to being lied to, enticed, and manipulated, there has to be some responsibility placed on parents who aren't aware of the kind of sites their kids are visiting. Where is the father who is telling his daughter not to post those kinds of pictures on Myspace? Kids will be kids, and they will sneak things past their parents, but parents who aren't afraid to step in and actually know what is going on in their teens life would solve much of the problem. Predators can only get to vulnerable prey. So why are our kids so vulnerable?

The reality is that there is no easy answer to this problem; it's one that we as a culture have all contributed to. Dateline's show is at the same time sensational and relevant, it is as much for ratings as it is to "help" society, and as long as people keep watching it, it will continue. The problem with these men and women who continue to take advantage of minors who do not have the proper parental guidance to know any better, is both a sickness and an element of the fall, as it is perpetuated by a culture that continues to celebrate teen sexuality.

A friend of mine recently said, that it's like in this life we live from one addiction to another. We seek out something to numb the pain this life brings and it consumes us if we aren't spiritually awake. I'll give you a perfect example of that. I've never considered smoking glamorous or cool, and I'm not even a big fan of it. I mean, I have smoked socially and occasionally a cigar here and there, but lately I have been thinking about picking it up. Why? Because I am trying to break some other addictions and I need a new one to fill the hole. That may sound funny, and dishonest people will accuse me of all kinds of sinful things because of this. Maybe I am just weak; maybe I am just a beat down shell of a man; but what about the 47 percent of pastors who admitted that pornography was a problem in their own homes in a 2003 Focus on the Family poll on the subject? 47 percent, and it is thought that in most churches these days the percentage of men that have viewed pornography in the last year is around sixty. 80 percent of the guys I have ever known have had some sort of struggle in this area and I myself am not in the exclusive 20 percent club.

There are all kinds of addictions out there, some socially acceptable, some not, some noticeable to people around you and some aren't, some of them will lead to death quicker than others, but they're all various means to the same end. Sure, pornography is an easy one to point out, alcoholism, smoking, and now eating is even being targeted as an addiction. I always find it amusing when an overweight person points the finger at a smoker, and really none of us can point the finger at anyone, even if we are in peak physical condition, even if we don't smoke, drink or cuss, I have this weird feeling that there is something else you are not telling us.

What is it you're not telling us? Could it be an addiction to clothes, TV, lattes, success, movies, music, internet, new cars, work, money, the latest in kitchen accessories? Addictions can come in any form, anything that numbs or provides a form of escape.

I found out recently that I have an addiction to people. I am very much a people person, I like having people around, I like spending time with people. I am not a huge fan of being alone. Sure this comes from insecurities, but it is also because people like me and enjoy being around me. What I have been learning lately is that your greatest strengths will also become your greatest weaknesses. For example, God made me a people person, it is not an accident, but if I take that so far that is starts to become a need, and the feeling I gain from being liked becomes more important than the people I am helping it becomes a problem. People can also become a form of escape. I have a wife and three children. This presents a lot of responsibility; responsibilities that most men realize can feel very overwhelming at times. So what can you do? You can escape to surrounding yourself with people, both real and Myspace, in person and on IM. There is nothing wrong with talking to people, interacting with people, but it can become an escape, a place to run to a new community that has no real weight or responsibilities. It's an easy way to get your emotional needs met (temporarily) and numb yourself to the real world around you.

Addictions are not always how you might think of them. You may think of an addiction as a compulsive action that cannot be controlled, and most think of the big things that I mentioned already, but what about the subtle things that control us or help us numb the pain of real life? What about the romantic comedies?

My wife, like most women, loves a good romantic comedy. The plot is always the same, ultra attractive woman, meets ultra attractive man. They meet, fall in love, one does something dumb, the other reacts with an equally idiotic action. The almost, but not quite as attractive looking friends reason with said main characters and all is well and happiness is attained. What do these stories tell us about love? Nothing. They tell us about infatuation, and women usually walk away from these flicks feeling like they want to be wooed all over again, and want that spark to be reignited that started the relationships they have now been in for 10 years. To be blunt, guys use porn for the same reason. It's an escape; it's a form of reality without well, reality. It's a counterfeit feeling, it's a numbing and dumbing of the senses. These counterfeit means we use to try and relate to reality only bring us further away from it. If we start down the road of numbing and addiction, our emotions will carry us from one unattainable placebo to the next. Struggle should be part of any good relationship, situations don't always have a happy ending, and responsibility is an essential part of anything significant, and people are no better than drugs, cigarettes, money or anything else at filling that void that grows inside us.

Musical inspiration for this blog:

Spoon, The Way We Get By, All American Rejects, It Ends Tonight, Superchick, Stand in the Rain, Jars of Clay, Dead Man Carry Me

Hey check out my interview with Jessie Daniels. She was just turning 19 and was hangin' at her house in Long Island.

We talked about how she started, her Miami vacation with her girlfriends, and what it's like to be starting out in music.

Just log into the Podcast section and enjoy. Download it take it with you send it to a friend. 

Check out my store and you can see how it works there. Besides just selling music that you want and customizing your own store, if you are in an idependent band and have no way to sell your music you can set up a store to do that too.

Would you say that we have a plethora of podcasts?

Take some time and check out the great variety of podcasting going on and let us know what you think.