Hey Friends - I’m slammed so here are two quick links…the Christianity Today concept is going to be semi-regular so keep an eye out for it! And stay tuned for my semi-annual back-of-the-truck book offer!
Post: http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2009/07/church_love_it_dont_leave_it.html
CT: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/july
From my more prolifically-blogging co-author, who finds time to crank out a few thousand words even while welcoming a new son into the world (congrats Kevin!). Here’s an excerpt from my last chapter in the book, entitled “Dear Tristan.”
So I’ve just signed another contract with Moody Publishing for a project called “To Hell With the Devil: 365 Days of Christian Music, from Al Denson to Alice Cooper.” The idea is that I’ll listen to nothing but Christian music (concerts, CD’s, videos) for a whole year. This will be especially challenging for me since I haven’t listened to Christian music since 1991, when I was 15. I’ll also be interviewing artists, industry types, etc. to try to get my mind around the industry.
You may be reading this, and thinking that you either:
a.) Are a burgeoning rock star yourself.
b.) Know people who are.
c.) Know people who work in the Christian Music Industry.
d.) Are someone I’ve heard mention Christian music occasionally.
e.) Know way more about music than I do.
f.) Are friends with someone in Stryper (a longshot, but hey…)
That’s great - keep reading! So here’s what I need:
a.) Music ideas…whoa…where to begin. When I bailed on Christian music the first time I was listening to Stryper and Whitecross. My tastes (I use that term loosely) run toward metal (Metallica, Megadeth, Pantera), rap (50-Cent), Bowie type stuff (Bowie), chick rock (Heart, Patty Smyth), and the occasional sensitive singer/songwriter type (Dave Matthews, John Mayer, etc.). I also like pop music…so…any recommendations?
b.) Interviews…with industry folks who (ideally) have a sense of humor.
What you’ll get:
a.) Mentioned in the book - definitely in the acknowledgements, but probably in the real part too…most of my friends end up becoming characters.
So, absolutely no pressure to contribute anything…but I’m looking forward to lots of laughs on this project and wanted to share it with some friends! My “year” starts July 1 and I’ll be “blogging through” the experience occasionally…sort of like training for a marathon!
Click on over to Deyoung, Restless and Reformed for an excerpt from one of my Why We Love the Church chapters, entitled “Turn the Page: On Getting Off the Road and Getting Back to Church”:
http://www.revkevindeyoung.com/2009/06/perhaps-im-just-sick-of-revolutionaries.html
My column ran today in Baptist Press Sports…check it out: http://bpsports.net/bpcolumn.asp?ID=673
And go here to pre-order some copies of the three books I have releasing this summer/fall: www.tedkluck.com
I’m having a horrible day today, for reasons that have nothing to do with GM’s recent bankruptcy, which I tried, unsuccessfully (because I don’t know anything about any of it), to explain to my wife except to say that “not a whole lot appears to have changed in Lansing except that the government now owns 60 percent of GM.” And if the government is as bad at running GM as much as they are at efficiently collecting on parking tickets in Lansing, I weep for our future. Anyway. Back to my day. It being a terrible day, I explained to my wife before driving to the video store that “probably anything I bring home is going to suck horribly. It will most definitely be the wrong choice.” I was right. I brought home Guy Ritchie’s Rock n’ Rolla which was a total piece of junk.
Rock n’ Rolla. This is, of course, a “Guy Ritchie film” which is the first thing out of anyone’s mouth when they reference this movie (or Snatch, or Lock Stock…). The thing that made Snatch charming is the fact that despite its being filled with all kinds of unintelligible, horrible people, you actually cared about some of them. That’s the problem with Rock n’ Rolla. In addition to the title being stupid, there’s not one likeable character in the whole lot - far be it from me to judge, but they’re just a bunch of good-looking, clever-bantering horrible people. Now, granted, Quentin Tarantino and his cinematic copycat offspring have made a living out of making films about just such horrible people, but methinks the first rule of making films about horrible people is that you have to have at least one or two of them (preferably more) who are likeable (see also: The Godfather, Goodfellas, Boondock Saints). I expected this film to suck (but still be entertaining), thinking it would be “too Guy-Ritchie-ish” but it actually sucked for lots of completely different reasons, including the fact that for a movie about horrible people, there’s lots of talk and very little in the way of fight sequences or action.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. This is the one about the guy who ages backwards and stars Brad Pitt. I liked almost everything about this movie - especially the fact that it didn’t devolve completely into gratuitous heartstring-pulling at the end, which everyone knows is going to be sad. I was almost sure it would do this, and was one of the reasons I waited until now to see it. Whatever technological magic they worked to make Brad Pitt look old and feeble was indeed magical - especially when juxtaposed against the real Brad Pitt, who looked even more magestically-hot by comparison. The middle 45 minutes of the movie, in fact, consisted of a de-facto Pitt fashion show in which the majority of his scenes involved a leather jacket, a motorcycle, and Brad looking a heck of a lot like James Dean. No matter, this was a great movie, and one, like Fight Club, that to me ends up a lot more interesting on screen than it was on the page. It presents a new twist on the Star Crossed Lovers motif, in which the lovers encounter the problems you might expect them to encounter when one of them is aging backwards. It also led me to believe that Brad Pitt usually plays a slightly-tweaked version of himself (note: I don’t know him at all) in most of his movies - a super good-looking, charsimatic guy whose greatest strength (beauty) is also his biggest downfall in that it gets him into bed with many beautiful women, one of whom usually ends up ruining his life.
So I was poking around on the Tom Waits website recently (pause, here, to let everyone reflect on how cool I am for mentioning Waits) and thoroughly enjoyed a piece in which in interviews himself. Fun stuff. So I’ve cherry-picked the questions that I thought were interesting, and left out the ones I thought were boring…essentially allowing Tom Waits to interview me while also interviewing himself. Anyway. My answers are below, and in subsequent days I’ll interview other semi-famous bloggers (maybe even the Truly Famous Kevin DeYoung) with the same set of questions. In the process, perhaps I’ll start some good old Evangelical Blog Fights and get back some readers.
Q: What’s the most curious record in your collection?
That’s easy, a self-titled release by Bad English which includes the power ballads “When I See You Smile” and “Price of Love,” as well as some under-the-radar gems including “Tough Times Don’t Last (Lovers Do).” Listening to this record always makes me think of a period of time between, roughly, 1989 and 1993 and that period of time makes me smile. Every time I play these ballads for Kristin I also sing them, resulting in lots of eye-rolling. Other curious records owned: Lisa Loeb, Marty & Elayne at the Dresden. Number of Tom Waits records I own: 0.
Q: List some artists who have shaped your creative life.
George Plimpton, David Foster Wallace, James Dean, JD Salinger, The Onion, Van Halen, Iggy Pop, Jane Austen, Metallica, Wes Anderson, Cameron Crowe, Walter Payton and Brian Bosworth.
Q: What’s hard for you?
Failure, which is a part of everyday life for an author…it’s sort of like being a hitter in baseball - if you hit the ball 4 out of 10 times to the plate you’re considered an unbeliveable success. Bad reviews (see: failure). Losing at anything (see: failure, bad reviews). Mathematics. Practical things, like building things out of wood, putting together toys for my kids, or repairing things. Keeping my car running - taking an old car to the shop is like taking an old person to the doctor…they always find something. Prayer. Waiting in line at restaurants. Waiting for anything. Staying in a good mood during some large family functions. Sleeping through the night.
Q: What’s wrong with the world?
Sin. But I get what you’re really getting at. In this list I would include instant replay (NFL), the BCS dilemma, the fact that you have to have a $500 cable package to watch hockey on television, the length of the NBA playoffs, a disturbing trend that has people tattooing things on their necks, the fact that MMA is now more popular than boxing, and the fact that there are only two kinds of Christian novels (Amish Girls and Spiritual Warfare).
Q: Favorite scenes in movies?
The “have a catch” scene in Field of Dreams; the scene in Friday Night Lights where they’re walking through the tunnel to the song by Refused; the “This car has a dent in it” scene with Dudley in The Royal Tenenbaums; the scene in You’ve Got Mail where Tom Hanks and his dad are mixing martinis on the boat; Tom Hanks rounding the corner to meet Meg - also in You’ve Got Mail; any scene with Lester Bangs in it in Almost Famous; any scene in The Darjeeling Limited involving Francis Whitman’s itenerary; and the bowling scene in Lars and the Real Girl which is one of the most romantic things I’ve ever seen on film.
Q: What is a gentleman?
Q: What would you have liked to see but were born too late for?
Q: What are some sounds you like?
Flashbulbs popping in movies, drums at high school football games, my kids laughing, my wife sneezing, the sound of a football hitting my gloved hands, people laughing at my jokes, newspaper/newsroom sounds in movies, fight bells and then the quiet sound of the fighters’ shoes shuffling on the canvas.
This is a column idea that I’m debuting on this space, which was inspired by the movie Taken in which the Liam Neeson character is always bouncing guys’ heads off the sides of cars. We decided, right then and there, that his Love Language ™ had to be “meaningful physical touch.” The Five Love Languages are an important part of evangelical history, as most of us have probably had to sit through some kind of a “young couples Bible study” in which we had to determine what ours was. It is in that spirit that I’ll be assigning Love Languages to various public figures. Without further ado, here’s the list…more to come later:
The Liam Neeson Character (Brian Mills) in Taken: Meaningful Physical Touch. As mentioned above, Mills really enjoyed doing the thing where the assailant’s head is bounced repeatedly off the hood, or sometimes the roof, of a car. He also utilized a lot of chops to the neck region, telling me that physical touch is really important to him, as opposed to words of affirmation.
Stan Van Gundy, Head Coach, Orlando Magic: Words of Affirmation. How a short, rotund guy with a moustache came to be in charge of five of the most athletically-gifted men on the planet, I’ll never know. Though my idea is that it’s Van Gundy’s carefully-chosen Words of Affirmation.
J.R. Smith, Forward, Denver Nuggets: Words of Affirmation. This one is obvious. For example, I know it’s J.R. Smith’s “Time to Shine” because those words are tattoed, conveniently, right on his neck! If only more people tattooed important things like their defining quotes, words to live by, pictures of family members, and random Chinese letters on their necks, the world would be a better place. Thank you J.R. Smith! (see also: Delonte West, Cavs, re: Important Things Tattoed on Neck)
David Stern, NBA Commissioner: Gift Giving. David Stern would like nothing more than to gift us with a Kobe Bryant/Lebron James NBA Finals, as indicated by the officials repeatedly trying to shaft the Orlando Magic in the waning minutes of last night’s game. In fact, TNT has already decided that if the Nuggets and Magic advance to the finals, the series will just be pre-empted in favor of another screening of Rumble in the Bronx.
The NBA on TNT Talking Heads: Gift Giving. Apparently the NBA Playoffs are so banal and unimportant that Kenny “The Jet” Smith, Chuck Barkley, Reggie Miller et. al. can’t even manage to fill the entire halftime segment with basketball talk, making it necessary to gift one another with customized candy and do this thing with pictures where they superimpose each others’ heads on the bodies of other people. It goes without saying that this would never happen in the NFL Playoffs.
Dear Meter Maids in the City of Lansing,
You’re mean.
Actually, I should probably apologize for using the term “meter maids,” which has, in some sweeping, landmark piece of PC legislation probably been stricken from our vernacular forever. Also, some of you might be men. Anyway.
First, some positives. With unemployment reaching an all-time high, let me congratulate you on having jobs. With much of Lansing unemployed and seemingly every other storefront boarded up, there still appears to be an overabundance of Meter Maids trolling the streets, just waiting to pounce on my wife and her cute, red Pontiac Vibe. They say that government is the only growing business these days, and I believe it.
Take this morning, for example. My wife parked in a downtown parking lot which had, in her estimation, 80 empty spots, and six cars parked in it. She parked there at 6 AM to meet a friend (who was also ticketed) for a jog on the river trail, though to be fair the sign read “No Overnight Parking.” I think what we have here is a question of what constitutes “overnight.” For us, 6 AM is not “overnight,” primarily because we’re adults. When we were in college, 6 AM was overnight. You may be in college, but I doubt it. Also, the sign was really tiny; she estimates about half the size of the small bulletin board in my office (which I know you can’t see, but try to visualize it). And there’s also nothing on that lot (like a big sign or a gate) to indicate that it’s anything but public parking.
(sighs, rubs temples)
Let me remind you that the last ticket she got was for parking an inch over the white line in a crowded parking garage. She’s not parking in handicapped spots, not letting her meters expire, and not driving some massive, Freudian extendo-cab pickup truck whose girth takes up several spots.
What would you do if you were me, City of Lansing Meter Maids? Would you give up on the downtown area completely? Don’t think for a minute that there aren’t plenty of buccolic, nature-y places for my wife to take a jog in the quaint suburb where we reside just west of Lansing.
Downtown needs you, Meter Maids. You are clearly a vibrant part of the downtown scene, and perhaps are the single largest employed people group to be found there. I understand this. Your little modified golf-carts are an enduring part of the fabric of our city, and perhaps one of the largest remaining line items in our city’s budget. I would even be in favor of re-naming the Lansing Lugnuts the Lansing Meter Maids, just as a sort of homage to your prominence downtown.
But hear this: We need you to chill.
Also, hear this: Please leave my wife alone.
Regards,
Ted Kluck
ps - I do want to thank you for the postcard voucher indicating that we were overcharged for a different parking infraction sometime between 2006 and 2009. The $7 voucher is “redeemable for a cash refund” or can be used “to pay a parking ticket.” But as delicious irony would have it, we have to redeem the voucher in person at the Grand Avenue office where we’ll have to pay to park.