Of Sales and Switchfoot

There's absolutely no way to say this without bragging. That being said, I want to take you back to last weekend, when my friends and I went to go volunteer at the Revolve Tour. ACC requires you to log fifteen (I think it's fifteen. I'm not sure) volunteer hours per semester, and, while it's not very closely monitored, they still seriously expect you to do it, and if you're a serious student, you will try to fulfill those requirements to the best of your ability. Anyway. Back to the story (and it's a pretty awesome story, mind you).

I went to the Revolve Tour, and spent all night Friday and all day Saturday selling books, t-shirts, and other pointlessly overpriced souvenirs. The story gets better, I promise. All weekend, there was a booth across the hall from us with a woman from the Gospel Music Channel and at the end of the last session, I went over to her, because she had this poster of three girls--black, Hispanic, and white--standing in front of a drawing that made them look like they had angel wings.

We started talking, and she was surprised to find out that my friends and I had chosen to spend our Saturday volunteering and even MORE surprised to find out that we lived in East Point, literally minutes away from Gospel Music Channel's headquarters. She asked if we'd be interested in doing some volunteer work at her office, specifically mentioning a taping they were having Thursday night. "I need volunteers," she said, "to run errands for me and to make sure the studio audience is content and not riotous. Oh, and if we don't have enough audience members, we might ask you to sit in on the taping." We still needed some volunteer hours, and so my friend Jessica and I agreed to go over and help her out.

You're all very smart, and I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. After Jess and I ran errands and corralled audience members, we were allowed to sit in (for FREE, mind you) on the taping of a Switchfoot concert, to be played on the Gospel Music Channel on November 27. If you happen to watch it, you very well might see me and Jessica (I'm wearing a blue t-shirt and a black cardigan. Fourth row back, on stage right) on national television.

Interesting Things About My First Live Television Taping, A List

1) They only sang twelve songs.... but we heard them all twice. Some of them were played three times.

2) This was apparently to make sure they had enough film to cut and paste all of the different angles into the final production.

3) We spent thirty minutes taping Jon Foreman taking his jacket off for the camera.

4) .... And then putting it back on.

5) Live television? No such thing. It was still really awesome, though.

At one point, I could have reached out and touched Jon Foreman. I felt like the bleeding woman and Jesus, from the Bible. ..... Or not.

Moral of the story? Sometimes when you set out to do good for other people (i.e volunteering at Revolve) you can get rewarded in a majorly unplanned way (free Switchfoot concert). Secondary moral of the story? Switchfoot is awesome.

Video of the blogpost: Is there any doubt that it's Switchfoot? This is a song off their latest album, entitled Hello Hurricane, which I will most definitely be acquiring. The song is Mess of Me, which speaks to my human condition at the moment. Rock on, Switchfoot, rock on.