The Court Jester

Can't tell you how much I love Jimmy Fallon right now. His opening to the Emmys was nothing short of brilliant. Loved it. Loved it. Check it out below...

And then there was his "show in memoriam" moment, which was so funny, that later, when Jewel started her song which was the 'actual' in memorium moment, I thought to myself, "I wonder if this is a parody too?"

I don't know why I love a comedian who excels in parody songs. I guess I'll never know. Anyway, here is his send up of 24, Law and Order, and LOST. Good stuff. Enjoy!

Last night I went to see RUN RUN RUN, an alternative indie rock band, play at the Empty Bottle in Chicago. I know of this band because its lead singer and chief songwriter, Xandr Smith, is a friend of mine dating all the way back to kindergarten. We have known each other for many years! In high school we were in a band together, and in college we toured coffee shops in Los Angeles as a sort of Simon and Garfunkel acoustic group.

It was great to see him, and his band was great! I got to hear about their recent adventures, which were fascinating. Apparently, they had an opportunity to tour Russia with a Russian band called Mumiy Troll. (Mumiy Troll was there last night as well.) As you might expect, if this is the first time you've heard of RUN RUN RUN, well, you're not alone. Breaking into the mainstream of pop culture can be complicated and difficult. But here they are, touring alongside this fairly well known Russian band, and playing these packed stadiums with thousands and thousands of people there going crazy. Pretty surreal for them.

RUN RUN RUN is coming back to Chicago on September 15, at Schubas. You can check out their music here, and below you'll see some highlights from their Russian tour. My friend is the one rocking the 'stache circa 80s Oates...

A couple of noteworthy music news items:

Bob Dylan is staging a concert in San Francisco, and the tickets are being sold at $60 each, at the door only, cash only, one per customer, and when you buy it you must enter the venue. Take that Ticketmaster, Stub Hub, and everyone else who uses ticket vending as a profit venture...

Pink Floyd's post "Dark Side of the Moon" catalogue is now "out of print", because their deal with EMI expired in July. This means that you can't buy "The Wall" anywhere, unless the CD has already been printed, as it is also pulled from iTunes. It's sure to be rectified soon, I just find it odd that in the age of digital, the concept of "out of print" lives on...

This morning I golfed with a Buddhist. I rarely golf, and I rarely find myself hanging out with people who aren't Christians. Mark Dwyer has started a Missional Community through three different golf courses in the Suburbs here. And today, I played the "Divine Back Nine", and met a cool dude who can golf, and who is a Buddhist. Very cool to be providing a way to connect with others through a common interest. I hope he teaches me about how to golf - he's good! And I hope I get a chance to teach him about Jesus - 'cause he's good! Great job Mark for casting a vision and inviting and including everyone.

That is all.

LORD SPICE, the video we made a while ago for our Big Idea at Community Christian, got a little bump in the youtube viewings when it was found and "tweeted", and "retweeted", and then posted on Matthew Paul Turner's blog, "Jesus Needs New PR." Here's his post. Pretty cool, though I don't understand why so many Christians get bent out of shape when it comes to parody.

Parody is one of the best ways to engage an audience that doesn't trust you. Now, of course, it goes without saying that bad parody is worse than no parody, so you have to strive to do it well. But let's face it: most pre-Christians walking into our environments don't think that we can relate - they don't trust us. When they see something like Lord Spice, something that takes a water cooler topic and spins it, then there is a chance that they would think, "hey, I guess they're not as square and outdated as I imagined before I walked in here."

And of course, they might not like it at all. But that's the risk you take. And all art creation is a risk - even parody. Check out Lord Spice below, in case you haven't yet. And thanks for reading the blog!

Context is everything. If you saw the video below, for this movie called "Serenity Now", you might think that it was another thriller in the long line of attempts to shock us with stories of murder, secrecy, villainy, etc. But since most of you know that the source material is from one of the great situation comedies of all time, it instead makes you laugh.

Well, at least it makes me laugh. When you force a change, a point of view reversal, there is potential for comedy. This idea takes two things that are familiar, and reverses their context, for comedic effect. There are a few other mashups in this series, all are very funny. Check em out. Enjoy!

"Let Go, Luke..."

That has been my parting word in conference opportunities, usually talking to church staffers who are wanting to go (or have already gone) multisite, and are looking to us for guidance.

Most of the time, I am talking about control. The biggest learning for anyone who is looking to reproduce anything exponentially (and for us, seeking to Help People Find Their Way Back to God and reproduce leaders and campuses to get us there) is that you have to let go of what you think you have the ability to control.

And boy do I have to learn that one now. It seems like every jar o'stuff that I'm "in charge of" over here at Community is being prodded, kicked, investigated, and lots and lots of changes are being proposed.

The problem is, that it's not me who is recommending the changes. It's other people. And that is my current lesson with control. I need to "Let Go, Luke" and give others the opportunity to shape the conversation, to make the decisions.

Why? Because true reproducing involves trust, and letting go. Otherwise, you're not really letting go - you're pretending. I don't want to be a pretender. I want to let go.

So I guess what I'm saying is, I've got to start taking my own advice.

And by my own advice, of course, I mean Obi-Wan Kenobi's.

I'm very excited about the STORY conference this year. I met Ben Arment a few years ago and loved his passion for the creative class. Last year my brother Elic and I had an opportunity to be a part of many brainstorming sessions leading up to the event, and participated onstage through some comedic bits that helped pay tribute to the sponsors who made the thing happen. In addition, our church's theatre company (Epic Theatre) provided actors who strolled the downtown Aurora area as conference-goers were entering and getting registered. (in fact, a great photo was taken of our boys last year, and it was used in this year's promotional packet - I'll post it here at the end of my post)
This year, the conference moves from Aurora to Chicago - at Park Community Church's fantastic (and relatively new) space. It's going to be great! The speakers are incredible, and very inspiring to the creatives out there trying to tell the one great story in imaginative ways. Here's the list of Speakers:

Dan Allender - best-selling author, professor at Mars Hill Graduate School
Charlie Todd - creator of Improv Everywhere in New York City
Princess Zulu - AIDS victim from infancy, advocate for the oppressed
Jason Fried - founder of 37Signals, creator of Basecamp, author of Rework
John Sowers - president of Donald Miller's The Mentoring Project
Shauna Niequist - former creative director at Mars Hill, author of Bittersweet
David Hodges - formerly of the band Evanescence, award-winning songwriter
Leonard Sweet - futurist, author of 40 books, professor at Drew University
David McFadzean - creator of Home Improvement, producer of Roseanne
Richard Walter - accomplished screenwriter and professor of film at UCLA
Sean Gladding - member of Communality, a new monastic community
Andrew Klavan - author of True Crime (Clint Eastwood) and numerous novels
Gary Dorsey - founder of Pixel Peach Studio in Austin, TX
Chuck Swindoll - best-selling author, pastor (appearing via hologram)
Music by Vicky Beeching, Kari Jobe and Carlos Whittaker

And... I just finished a phone call with Ben, and Elic and I are in the process of figuring out a really cool way to contribute to the theme through a performance piece. I'm hoping it will all come together - would hate to not do something creative at a creatives conference!

Sign up today, while there's still early bird pricing! You can do that by clicking here.

Okay - well, it's been a while since posts - I went to Cancun with my lovely wife - some pics are surfacing on Facebook (if you're my friend - boom!) - anyway, took this week to get back into the swing of things. Not sure I'm there yet, but lacking any other inspiration for posting, I have decided to let you know about this new website. This is for LOST fans.

If you are a LOST fan, you either loved or hated the "answer" to the question "what was the sideways timeline?" Well, this guy hated it, and has begun to re-edit the Season 6 episodes by removing the sideways timeline completely. He's done three episodes so far. Pretty interesting.

You can check it out here. Enjoy, if you feel that you must!

Well, I don't consider myself an expert, but allow me a moment to spend some time waxing philosophical about the television show LOST. I thoroughly enjoyed the finale, and I'd like to try to explain why.

By way of reminder, Kristi and I began watching the show only this January, starting with the first four seasons on DVD through checking them out at our local library. We finished up with season five on Hulu around the time of season six's seventh episode. We tried to pace ourselves, but by the time we were caught up in "real time" (a concept that doesn't exist in the world of LOST), we had to wait like everyone else for the last several episodes.

First of all, it is sooooo much more satisfying to have watched LOST "all at once." The show plays like a greek tragedy, or a series of them - long and involved with many different characters focused around a common theme. No one actually wants to watch greek tragedies anymore, so the only place they play are at universities under the guise of "education." I participated in a few in college - I remember the Orestia trilogy being staged at University of Arizona, and how in total it was around nine hours of theater devoted to telling one story - and if you weren't really into theatre, it could be painful. Fortunately for me, at that time, I was so totally into theatre...

In theatre, there are other examples less old. Horton Foote completed a nine play cycle called "The Orphans Home Cycle" that recently was staged in New York as an epic "come and see all of them over a weekend" experience. So this kind of storytelling is not new. The fact that it was successful, on television, that part... is new.

LOST asks you to simply be comfortable with some science fiction-style truths about the world of the play (or in this case, the Island.) It will be true, that there will be a monster that no one really knows about. There are whispers in the jungle. There are people who speak to the dead. And the creators decided to use that world to be a metaphor for the way in which each of these characters were relationally and spiritually lost. Each of them had different things to learn, which they did, in one way or another, on the island.

Those who saw the finale and felt jipped about not getting some more specific answers about some of those science fiction truths, well, I think they're missing the point. The paths that these characters were on were not designed to explain particulars of plot: they were there to explore the texture of their characters and the conflicts in which they found themselves. That's great drama. This wasn't a jungle version of the game Clue, where we all find out in the end what the mystery is, and whodunnit. The mystery (the island) was the setting: the characters accepted the mystery and made decisions that revealed character.

And I loved it. I would encourage anyone who has not taken in a single episode to check out your local library or netflix or hulu, and give it a chance. At 44 minutes an episode (sans commercials), it goes by pretty fast. And even the seasons where Losties "gave up" - they go by fast, and episodes that weren't great don't get dwelled on, because you simple go to the menu and click onto the next one.

One final thought: I am a firm believer that all good stories have their origins in THE STORY, and this show is no exception. Many connections were obvious, but others were subtle. Nonetheless, God is working in our lives, even in our pop culture lives, and THE STORY was told through these creatives as they told the story of these characters and this island. It was cool to watch.

Well okay then. American Idol is wrapping up, and I'm going to stick with it to the end with some ramblings. Not sure if the format will allow me to even change my mind since there are so many reprises. But my daughter is planning on voting and isn't sure who to vote for, so I guess this night is important to someone. Here goes, and as always, I comment before I hear the judges:

Lee - "The Boxer" - Love the song, of course. A little mellow to start, but solid.

Crystal - "Me and Bobby McGee" - This accomplished what Lee was hoping for as an first song, better because it picked up at the end - ironic that both songs contained "la-da-da-da" lyrics.

Lee - "Everybody Hurts" - great pick for a song, but he may be in trouble - felt like this wasn't quite in the pocket - it was emotional and good in general, but wasn't quite there.

Crystal - "Black Velvet" - wow, this song isn't a parody of itself yet? Hard to take it seriously after hearing all the AI first rounders destroy it. That being said, she did great. I love her voice.

Lee - "Beautiful Day" - okay, so this will be his single, and I guess their getting away from the AI original song? Also, who picked it? Anyway, he did well - but it's odd - he gets to the emotional core, and then he just stops and stays at that place too long, so it ends up not quite elevating. He's a shoo in for second place, I'm sayin'.

Crystal - "Up to the Mountain" - Very good. She should win. So glad I heard that song instead of a generic song trying to generate the same emotion through cliche after cliche.

Looking forward to tomorrow night, hoping that the spectacle machine is in full effect! (also hoping that they don't go too goofy with the Simon sendoff) Enjoy!