Live from Lowell Street Studios, downtown Des Moines. You are Live from the Path. And thank you for joining us. It is a balmy Monday night here in the Lowell Street Studios in downtown Des Moines. And you are listening to Live from the Path. What's up? You're listening to Live from the Path. My name is Ben Foost, Des Moines Amplified.com. Thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it. We got, let's see, what's our record for the last two shows? We were able to salvage two weeks ago. Last week was hit and miss. Yeah, this is what I'm going to put hit and miss on it.

Is there a percentage point on hit and miss? 40%. 40% hit. I'm going home run. You're going home run? Absolutely. Why? It's July 4th. You know, Dan, you're wearing a very calming shirt today. I just thought about that. Just before the music started, I thought, well, man, it's like a solid color.

I don't know what happened. I'm disappointed in myself. I'm sure there's a sofa somewhere thanking you for an extended stay. They make plain sofas. I liked your Hawaiian shirts. I thought those were coming back. They've never left. I know. That's what I'm saying. I kind of wish I was on Hawaiian shirts tonight. If I went and known you weren't wearing one, I probably wouldn't even come in tonight. Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry.

See, we're already starting down. Sorry, guys. That's all right. That's where that 40% came from, is this type of atmosphere. You guys got to carry it. So, anyway, thanks so much for being here tonight. We have, coming up on the show, we're going to talk about, and we might hit this the first hour, but maybe in the second hour, we're going to talk a little bit about our understanding of grace, God's grace and what that means to us, and probably how it attaches to Christian judgment, which I think is another important thing due to our misunderstanding of grace. So, we'll talk about that a little bit, our YouTube question of the week, which isn't going to be a ton of play. So, if you could run out to the YouTube and look up our Live from the Path videos and the Live from the Path channel.

I would think at least Matt would do that for us. Yeah. Thanks, Matt. No problem. I got your back. Okay. Plenty of questions. No, it's too late. The first question is… It's been there for weeks.

Yeah, it's my first question is, how do I get to that link? It's on the… It's just on YouTube, that's it? Yep. Go to YouTube, and you can search for Live from the Path. See, I started with questions. There you go. People know that. They should just know that. Yep. And what's… It's just Live from the Path, just videos of Live from the Path, right? Yeah. Is that all it is? Just you guys just talking and yapping it up all?

It's this. All right. Okay. Perfect, then. All right. Well, good. See, now they know. We're making some progress here. All right. So, we'll talk about that, and then we had… There was one other thing that… Mike? Nope. Where are you? What do you mean? You're over there. You're like jamming to music that doesn't exist.

I'm working something up. Are there voices singing? You got a band going on? I got stories, but I rigged two of them up on the way here, and then I've forgotten them completely. I did that earlier today. Talk amongst yourselves for a minute. I'm getting them. All right. Well, I felt a little stupid coming in tonight. You look…

Never mind. Sorry. That's not a shocker. I know. I know. That's not a shocker. It's a shirt. Exactly. It is a shirt. Yes. No. I was driving in tonight, and I know that sometimes people… Because I've done this before, too. Like, where you put the left… Like, somebody's driving down. Like, you're behind them, but they have the left turning signal on, and they won't turn it off. It keeps going.

I didn't know why this guy was doing it in front of me, and I realized, you know, this guy's an idiot. I was getting upset with it and everything else. I thought he kept… He's going to take a left, but he never did. But actually, what he was trying to do to me was the fact that I had my left turning signal on the entire time. He's thinking this idiot behind me. Yeah. Because he didn't know what I was doing. Is he going around me? Is he going… That was me. Yeah. That was probably you. Yes. That's awesome.

That's my story for the night right now. That's really good. Yeah. So I didn't start off on a good note. I was hoping that story would take a little more time. Yeah. Well, another frustration today, too. You want to talk about… If you don't mind me just venting a little bit here. No, no. Go ahead. Because I've got plenty of vents right now. I'm not… Go ahead.

You know, my wife, every once in a while, she likes me to go to the grocery store and pick something up every once in a while. I'm banned from the grocery store by my wife. That's good, actually, because I wish that was the case, and I'm working on that right now. But the thing I hate is that they always ask for the one thing that I can never find in a grocery store. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I hate that. With some obscure brand name, and there's like four shelves of something, you're going,

I don't see it. Yes, but they don't label it. Yeah. That's a problem. So I can't remember what else. I mean, I can't remember what it was or what the brand was or whatever, but she sent me for these little… Like today, she gave me a whole grocery list and everything else. So I went there, and it probably took me a good hour, hour and a half to probably find the four or five things that she wanted. Oh, I've done that. Yeah, it's easy to get my stuff. I'm like, okay, this, that, no problem, that.

Absolutely not. And I'll have a list. I'll say, I need specifics, because it'll be like… Right. Give me the aisle. Give me the location within the aisle. You can't say bread. There's like 1,400 kinds of breads. Oh, yeah. And you can't say tomato sauce, because… Which one is it, right? Exactly. Right at night. Exactly. I go home and everything else, and apparently I got the wrong canned

vegetable or fruits or whatever it was. So I don't know why I'm even sent to do these. Well, here's… I'm going to fail. Here's what you do. She's setting me up to fail. Here's how you get… Calm down, calm down. Here's how you get banned from the store. Because this is what I've done. She'll send me to the store to buy… This was like two,

three years ago. I'm not allowed to the store since. But she'll be like, hey, we need to pick up some diapers. I got to take some notes here. I say, I'll go grab stuff. She goes, well, you're at the store. Do shopping for the week. So I show up, and I start looking into these items. I look at the diaper aisle, and I'm like, well, I want to check up on the wife, make sure she's getting the right thing here. So I read through all… I'm looking at the packaging, and I'm easily influenced by advertisements. And I think… This one's super absorbing.

This one says, dry or longer. I say, hey, well, why don't we get in this one? Well, yeah. That could last a good two weeks right there. Well, the thing of it is, is that she's done the homework into this thing. And so she knows what these things cost already. You got the one with the pretty yellow… Yeah. So I buy whatever, 100 bucks worth of groceries. She usually spends 60, is what she spends. I spend 100, and I think… I bring it in. I'm like, look what I got. I'm all excited about it. I'm like, I've picked up some soda, and I got the diapers that we needed.

She goes, those diapers were $14.79. I said, I haven't even given the receipt yet. She goes, I already looked into them. Those aren't the diapers we buy. And so I overspent by, I mean, almost double our food budget for the week. And so I'm not allowed to go to the store anymore. And sometimes I think I'd really like to go, and then sometimes I think, man, I'm glad I don't have to go to the store anymore. You should have kept that out for your book. What book? The book you're going to write. Yeah, the book, right. I think we should write a book on that. How to avoid getting out

of… How to never go shopping and be a hero. How to never go shopping. Yeah, there you go. I like that. Hmm. Yeah. I got chapter one down. There's chapter one. You can kind of develop that a little bit. Into what? I don't know. A story. It's a book. That's the whole story. That's it. Well, I got an idea. You needed better than that. No, hold on. Hold on. I went. I can't go anymore. That's it. That's it. What they need right now, though, they don't need like Walmart greeters, I've decided. You know, we're done with that. I mean, number one, I never feel like more, you know, welcomed when they're there anyways. I always

have. I'm kind of naive, I guess. That makes one of us. Kind of gullible. Oh, wow. I'm glad I'm here. They really like me. No, I think they need people at the front. I mean, just for men. Only for men. Because, again, we're the ones who have no clue what's going on. So I want a gentleman or a lady to stay in the front of the store. As soon as I walk in and say, by the way, what do you need? I'll tell you exactly where it's at. That's what I want. As soon as I walk into every single grocery store. Did you break? Is that your own personal pen? No, I'm going to break it here shortly. Put it down. Just put it down. I'm going to take possession of it. Just in case you get riled up and break it. We're just going to set that down on the table. And we're going

to take away the Mountain Dew. I'm very happy I got riled up about the whole Dairy Queen thing. You have a reputation. Ever since then, ever since I've gone to Dairy Queen now in Altoona, I've never had a problem getting what I want. That is the power of life from the past. Okay, now, people always say the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And I say the squeaky wheel gets pizza with dirty garbage toppings off it when they go to pizza. Yeah, that's true. I always say the squeaky wheel gets replaced. Yeah, or ignored. I don't respond well to squeak. No. I was like, well, if it's squeaky, obviously it's broken. Because there's nothing wrong with me. Oh, it worked. Oh, it worked. That's why I go to the drive-thrus so they can't see me. I hate drive-thrus. I'm not going to the front counter because

they might recognize me or something like that. Drive-thrus are only good if you have a – I'm going to do number three, Diet Coke. If you have anything special, it doesn't work. It doesn't happen. They mess it up every time. Or they can't hear you. Or they're taking the order when they're going to the bathroom because they've got to have this time thing down. And by the time they get to the register, they say, oh, what did you want? It's like, why did you ask me? Because I had that 14 special, minus pickle, extra mayo, plus mustard, whatever. Oh, yeah. Every single one of my family members have to have special things on their food. I can't tell you how many times I've done U-turns. I just say, give me number three. Oh, yeah. I can't tell you how many U-turns I've done.

Just coming back to say, okay, this is completely not what I ordered right now. This is supposed to be plain and you put everything on it. Yeah, onions. I can't stand onions. I mean, I will seriously gag, I will barf. I like it all. That's my problem. You can see. I actually had really good service at the Euclid Hardee's the other day. We stopped there after church. I love Hardee's. And we stopped in and whatever. Like, they give you the fountain pop, you know, where you fill your own pop, you know? Yeah. But it's cheaper than this, by the way. Yeah. And more. Yeah. If we want to talk about how you make bad decisions, we can hit that in another 15 minutes or so. I'll just call my wife up. I can get her on the phone as well. Get her on the chat. She's on number five right now,

as a matter of fact. She goes, we don't have, we need more than two hours. All right. But they, uh, uh, like the, you know, you fill your own pop and we were sitting down eating or whatever. And the, and the, the lady that served us come by and she goes, can I get you guys a refill? You know? And I thought, well, this is odd. You know, they don't serve refills here. She's actually going to take the cup that I filled up and then put more food in it, more, more drinking. I'm like, it was, it was, it was really good service. Like I was totally amazed. I filled out a card. I never filled out the comic card. Yeah. And it says, you know, leave us your phone number because we want to fix what's wrong. And I'm like, man, if I write a good one, can I have free stuff too? You know,

like do they only give free stuff to people that are angry? I did the same thing at the Hardee's in Pleasant Hill before it shut down. I stopped by to get cinnamon raisin biscuits, uh, biscuits at like six 30. And they said they were out. And so I got on, I got on the old, uh, intranet and said, I did this a blah, blah, blah. You were out of this a blah, blah, blah. Uh, and they sent me like a coupons for 12 free cinnamon raisin biscuits. And I thought, man, I'm just going to start, you know, writing random restaurants and putting a big stink and they're gonna start giving me free stuff. That's a good point. It shouldn't be that way. They should,

I should call and say, look, I thought it was great. And they said, we want you to come back. Yeah. Here's here's 15 coupons. Yeah. I agree with that a hundred percent, but that's not how it is. No, that's very sad. It's true. You want to hear my concept for a sitcom that never got off the ground? Hey, yes, yes, I do. I'm interested. So I thought this would be funny to have like, you know, the guy on the, uh, on the mop sign, you know, when there's water out and they put the little yellow sign out, it says peace over how I don't want it, uh, caution, wet floor. And there's the guy like, whoops, slipping. And then, and then like the guy on the, the dude,

the do not walk guy that does this number. And then, uh, you know, the, the men sign for the bathroom and the ladies, you know, I thought it would be a good show to have a, a, a stories about that guy, like him and his family. And he works as a sign, as a sign model. And his wife works as a sign model and the kids work as sign models. And the whole show is him going to various jobs. I'm going to starch the dress. It's time to do another restroom sign. And so it seems like it would be a funny show. You know, one day he has to go to the, he has to be the caution sticker on the side of a trencher, you know,

where like half his arm gets cut off and it shows moving blades, you know, he's doing industrial work this week and it turns out he just keeps getting mutilated and all this machinery because the caution stickers have to say what would happen, you know? And then some days it's, it's, it's like a, you know, a breeze, you know, doing the bathroom signs pretty easy. The school, the whole family has to go out for the school crossing. Cause then there's a guy and a lady and little kids, you know? I mean, this seems like it would be a very entertaining show. And it's expanded. Cause now they have like on the back of cars,

they'll have like those little figures of like a family. I, you know, I saw those, uh, this week and I thought, what a poor idea. Cause if I was a thief, I would most certainly follow you home. Cause I know exactly how many people live here. They have three children and a dog. You know, I would count you on your way. Okay, good. There goes the, there goes the woman and the dude and the two kids and one of the dogs. That means there's only a cat left. I'm in. What's the cat going to do?

Knock, knock. Here comes your friend on the back of the van. I don't, I, I, you know, it seems kind of self-indulgent to put them stickers on the back of my van and go, I don't know if you were wondering, but this is who I am. I have these many people in my family. Just, just in case you wanted to know. Here's our family photo. If you're going to, if you're going to flip me the bird, you better do it four times.

There's four people in his car and none of them will be ignored. See, I always just thought it was kind of odd that like at some point they'll grow. And then what do you do? I never thought about the evil side. Put a mustache on. Stick man with a little mustache. Apparently they got a mom and a dad and some kind of crazy midget. I don't know. That cat looks like kind of like a dog now.

I like your idea. I think you should run with it. I think you should just make this like a YouTube thing for a while. There you go. That's where things start off with a huge internet phenomenon at that point. Now, you think that about YouTube, but we put stuff on YouTube and it's not really, I mean, we're doing all right. Oh, it's tearing up. It's not taking off like I want.

It's like a million hits right now. As soon as Matt hits with some answers to those questions, that's when we're going to start getting the action. Oh, yeah. I mean, is the way of Hollywood going away? You know, like, cause I look at YouTube and I go, I go every cheese whiz with a video camera. Oh, yeah. He puts himself on YouTube doing, you know, the belly roll that he figured out, you know, or do some kind of talking, you know, you know, show on YouTube.

And I think I'm not doing that. I don't want to be in the same league as these fellas. Well, who's that 12 year old singer dude that they found on YouTube? Yeah. I actually was that. People get discovered on YouTube. Yes, it works. What's his name is? Bieber.

Bieber. There was some Bobber. Bieber? That was your guess? That kind of came out. Please do not go onto YouTube and search Boober. Exactly. There's a lot of things that come up with that. Lots of hits.

Would that be bad? That's kind of cool though. Isn't that the story? He just kind of put his own stuff on YouTube and somebody found him and said, hey, we're going to do something. I don't think I would feel that comfortable with that type of self-glorification. Like, here's me, world, dig on me, you know? Maybe you haven't heard my latest. I just can't imagine people sitting back in the house going,

I wonder what those sign folks are going to do next. You think they'll be on a sign this week? You never know. You never know until you try it. It can happen. I remember I had told somebody. This wasn't fair because this was a particularly gullible person. But I told somebody that, you know, the walk signs, the walk don't walk, right? So this shows the white is the guy walking and the red is the guy not walking.

And I told that somebody in Alabama, a city got sued for using only white, like Caucasian lights. And so they switched to an African American and then no one knew when to walk because the background was also black. Who believed that one? They bought it. Have you guys ever done that? Have you ever told somebody something that is like obviously not true and then just let them run with it for a long, long time? I told my wife that if you crossed railroad tracks at a diagonal, it didn't hurt your tires as bad. She did it for, I mean, 10 years. Like just a couple years ago, I said, that's not true, by the way.

Oh, by the way. I mean, I'd be riding in the car with her and she'd go, whoop. You don't do a crazy diagonal crossing. I let that go on for way too long. I used to do that kind of stuff with my kids. I don't remember anything, but I'd just tell them stuff. My wife's too smart. She just needs that stuff out. Yeah, my wife too.

She's smarter than I am. Are you trying to say that my wife's an idiot? I'm not. Yeah. Wow. That's what he's saying. There's a lot of things we're looking at, like who she married. Sure. There's a lot of evidence right now that we're trying to.

I think that is true for motorcycles, right? Like aren't you supposed to cross the diagonal on motorcycles? I always go straight. Anything you go diagonal, you get a little more surface area. Yeah, that's right. I don't think you want to go parallel with the road track. Say you're driving on it. I don't know. I just stop.

That seems appropriate. That's what I do. I hear a whistle. Let me stop and investigate. Regardless of whistle or not, I just parked the car. I don't feel like this is the time to speed up. I don't look at yellow lights as my time to speed up. I just kind of look at, you know, I heed to the warning. I did a funeral of a guy once that was highly intoxicated, and it's early in the morning, and he's driving.

I mean, it's the proverbial, his truck stalls on a railroad track, and he hears a train coming. I see this on TV all the time. This is the real deal. And you know what to do. Get out. He gets out of a truck, and he starts running on the second set of tracks, which is where the train was. Oh, no. Oh, that's terrible. The truck was not touched, and I did his funeral a few days later, and that was pretty sad.

I mean, it was… Should I not laugh there? I know. Was it a closed casket? That's a tough one. Sorry. I didn't realize that. Actually, it was not. I expected it.

They can fix a lot of… Right. They have ways. But is that what the deal is? I have to wait until I'm dead before they can straighten me out? It's a lot cheaper than plastic surgery. He's looked better than he's ever looked. Little putty. Look at him.

But that was pretty sad. You know, and of course, he lost his judgment, because he was intoxicated, and you get disoriented. You're like, man, I got out of here quick, and… I really saved myself this time. Go to the white light. Ooh. That was a bad, bad choice. Wow. For the record, the chat has checked it out, and Lasagna says it's best to cross railroad tracks

at 90 degrees, because railroad tracks often cross country roads at an angle. This means on country roads, you should slow down and drive across the road at an angle so that you cross the railroad tracks straight on. Well, that wasn't too much of a fault. Well, so you should catch them straight on, but to do that, you have to do it at an angle, because they tend to cross country roads at an angle. Just stop. Yeah. I don't know why we're complicating this.

Why would you stop? Yeah. I would stop. You can't stop at every railroad crossing. Everything else, you go over it really slowly and everything else. Even if the arms aren't down or no red lights. I just might as well stop. Just check it out and make sure everything's cool. That's what I would do.

I'm just saying. I'm just being safe. That's just what I do, okay? That's not safe. You're going to cause an accident by stopping unnecessarily. I'm stopping and looking around to see if there's a train coming. It's a 50 mile per hour speed limit, and you're… There's a train coming. You go like this.

You look straight up. I agree. Unless you're driving a school bus, this is completely unnecessary. You're the guy. You're the guy that everyone's mad at. What is the deal? There's no train coming. And he left his left turn signal on. You go right in front, put it in a parking goal.

He gave an example for the rest of us to follow. Is he going to turn? Is he going to stop? What's he going to do? Who is this guy? I think he's intoxicated. He's getting out of his car. He works for the MTA. Get out of his way.

You've seen those rigs, those trucks that have the train wheels on them? And then they kind of… I couldn't… How about one of those? Yeah, they're cool. I saw one on the road trucks. I'm like, how does he get back on a regular road? And it kind of… It's like they go up.

Yeah, it's like the DeLorean from the future. It doesn't like, whoo. It doesn't like 90 degree down, but it kind of goes, whoo. And that bar kind of comes down from the top like a winch, and then pushes the whole thing up. And then it goes down, and now you're back on the tires. It's the coolest thing I've ever seen. Yeah, yeah. Because I thought…

I saw it, and I'm like, how does this work? And then I thought, don't look it up. Let's see what idea you come up with, and see if they came up with the same thing. That's good. And then I did, and they were always smarter than me, because that's not what I come up with. It might involve some kind of weird pistons. A little inflatable. I mean, it was ridiculous.

I thought, I'm at least as smart as the guy that's come up with this. Mistake. I am not as smart as that man. Oops. Wow. You've been listening to Live from the Path on Des Moines Amplified.com. Just a reminder of the ways to get a hold of us. You can certainly hop on the chat. If you're watching and you're not, log in to the chat.

I would highly recommend it. There's, I don't know, maybe 20 to 25% of the show that goes on the chat. And if you don't feel comfortable participating, I understand that. But you can log in and honestly, you don't have to use your correct name. And there's a lot of stuff going on about the show that's on that chat. So if you go to the front of Des Moines Amplified.com and you click watch and participate, it's not going to out you and say, you know, Bill Donaldson is now on. Everybody look. You can sign in on whatever name you want.

So I highly recommend participating in the chat. Also, if you want to call, we don't have, we don't have a telephone that goes directly into the studio, but you can Skype in. The Skype name is Des Moines Amplified, all one word. And you can give us a call on Skype and we'll answer it. And we'll be glad to talk to you on the air. You're going to have to watch your language. If you have the video, if you're at your computer and you've got the video conferencing, we can pick that up too.

So, you know, feel free to give us a call in. And beyond that, during the week or after the show, you can catch us on livefromthepath.org. You can watch archived… Did you just drink my… Hey, did you just drink my tea? Nope. Wait. Yeah, I did. Hold on.

There's a delay on the video. I can… Yes, you certainly did. There it was. Hey, what's going on in the chat anyways? I want to know what's going on. Because I can't see nothing over here. No, I know that. What questions are they asking?

Actually, it's worked out a lot better that we do not have access to the chat. It works out a lot better. Because otherwise, when you ask about what's going on in the chat and then no one's chatting about anything, then we wasted 10 seconds going, what's going on with the chat? Yeah, we're thinking about the chat rather than this… I understand, but I want to know what's going on. I want to know what they're talking about. I want them to chime in and everything. Well, maybe you should bring a laptop.

Well, maybe you should buy me one. We just talked about that for like 15 minutes before the show started. Well, you know, listen, if I wasn't so mad at you for stopping at a railroad track, maybe I would get you one. But your anger erupted at me. I can't help you. I'm sorry. I stop at railroad tracks. The chat says that you pick your nose and eat it.

That's what the chat says. That's what the chat says. That's fine. That's very unfortunate. Prove it. Prove it. It's on YouTube. It's fine. Well, show me this video.

I'll check it out. We'll look at nose picking during the break. I'm sure we've got something worth looking at. That's right. You're guaranteed. Belly rolls and nose picking. There's one guy that doesn't bolt. I put five bucks on it. Five bucks says there's a guy that belly rolls and nose picks.

He's on YouTube. Like both in the same video or at the same time. No, he has to just be the same author. Like he's just flagged it. You see, now I've got a booger in my nose now. I'll be sitting the whole show doing this for the rest of the show. Well, are you still hungry or not? Hungry, no. If you're not hungry, then you've taken care of him.

I'm actually nauseous. I understand completely. Hey, speaking of the YouTube, you got that video of that crazy kazoo man? Oh, yeah. You should break him out during the break. Okay. He's solid. You seen this kazoo man? I don't think so.

You're going to have to watch it instead of going to the can. Because this is a solid video. It's very good. It's just too difficult to play. What? The kazoo? I understand. I was in a drum and bugle corps when I was in fourth grade. We traveled all over the place.

Did these parades and stuff. And I had the little suspender. It was like really dorky uniforms. We had to wear. What do you call it? It's not a band uniform. It's a band uniform. That's what they're called. But it was basically a glorified kazoo.

Sometimes I'd like to have seen your childhood. I have pictures somewhere. I should find that somewhere. I'd like to know what goes on. I want videos. The biggest thing I remember from that is we did this parade. And for whatever reason, I just didn't think we did very well. We got back on the bus. And we're all sitting there.

Everybody's like, oh, this was great. And the director dude gets up there and goes, you guys did a great job. And just under my breath, I'm like, man, we really did horrible. I said something. I don't know what I said. And he just totally called me out in front of the whole bus. And he said, maybe you did horrible or whatever. And I'm like sinking down. I didn't think he heard me.

It was horrible. And I didn't do band after that anymore. I was. What did you play in the band? I was a bugle boy. Were you any good at it? You were. Can you do taps? Yeah.

I had a friend who had a frog die and I did taps for him. We can see that talent next week. Hey. I don't have a bugle anymore. I do. There's one at the ministry center. Really? There is one at the ministry center. A bugle is a trumpet with no vowels and you can do it the same with a trucker.

It's the same as a kazoo almost. I mean, it's a. I saw a. We were watching. There was 4th of July wares on the PBS station. And they were replaying something from Memorial Day that recorded in Kansas City. And it was like a benefit for the troops. And the Kansas City Orchestra was there. And the trumpet guy got up and they were going to do like a ceremonial taps.

And boy, he hosed up the first note. And I thought, how embarrassing. If it's a worldwide broadcast. Well, whatever. Nationwide broadcast. And solo trumpet. It's got to be his big moment. And he did. He did.

He goes. I know what that feels like. Like, he just had a little bit of a chirp right before he fired up. And I thought, that's mega embarrassing. I've done that in almost every situation where I've been required to perform a solo of some kind. Like, we had a band concert when I was in, I don't know, 10th grade or something. I get the big trumpet solo in the middle, you know. I foul it up.

I mean, terrible. It was a compliment. Don't you feel better after you do that though? Oh, no. No. I let everyone down. I always thought like, well, I got that out of my way. No. Now I can shine.

Here's the thing. It's because it keeps happening. Like, people hire me to play piano for their weddings. I'm not. He did this like two months ago. I did it at Pantsy's brother's wedding. He started the wedding march. My only job is to play the wedding march on like two other tunes, you know. It's all in minor chords.

I am not a classically trained piano guy at all, you know. But I can usually figure it out. So I think, yeah, I got this. I practice more on this wedding march than I have in the last 10 years. I mean, I practice for four or five days. I practice this thing. And I hosed it up. And my old band teacher who saw me screwed up at competition 10 years ago happened to be in the audience because she was friends.

And she was disgusted. You're a screw up then. You're a screw up now. No. It was totally embarrassing. And I was mouthy in high school. And so it was my comeuppance that she just happened to be there and see what a ruthless duggerd I've turned myself into being. I can't even play the wedding march.

See? But I guess that tells me never to hire Dan onto something important because he might be using it as an esteem boost. It's like, okay, got that out of the way. As just another notch to knock down something he won't screw up a second time. No, no. I mean, like, I used to, I don't know, back in the day, it was almost like karaoke today. You know, the churches always had these background tapes and you'd sing a special, you know. Oh, yeah.

And I had solos in college. We had our choir stuff. And I'd be, like, just nervous. I was just sweating. Just like, this is going to be horrible, man. I can't believe this is going to be horrible. And the second I'd, like, forget a word or something, all of a sudden I was just like, oh, okay. And then from there it was just good, you know.

It was just, but I had to mess up somewhere or somehow. And then I was, like, relieved because now I can't mess it up anymore. I already did. You know, Dan, you're not real hard on yourself, I'd say. I'm not. You're not kind of got to beat yourself up over some stuff. I think you fear perfection is what you fear. And I've got it. No, no.

It's just so there. It's so easy for me. I think you can do it. It comes with mastery. I once grew up once. Yes. You want low expectations of you. And trust me, you've got it, Dan. Okay?

I did a wedding. You know, the Robin Hoods. What's Bryan Adams' Everything I Do, I Do For You, whatever. Do it for you. Yeah, I was like, oh, it's, like, really high. And I'm like, this is, like, three octaves higher than I'm able to sing. And I'm like, do you really want me to sing this song? It's like a wedding. Like you said, it's a wedding.

It's not like, oh, can you go in my backyard? I don't know if I screwed that up or not, but man, I had practiced that over and over and over again. It was just so high. So you were asked to do that solo at a wedding? At a wedding. And I told him, I said, you realize I'm a preacher, I'm not a singer. Yeah. And what kind of, what did you sing for?

Yeah, really, what kind of two-for-one special are you throwing around with your preacher brochure? By the way, if you're really in a pinch, I guess I can sing a good one. If you're 50-spied, I'll sing you a song. I know Copacabana. I can do both parts. Because, I mean, I've never been, like, a great singer. You know, it's not like, who would ever, no one ever thinks, oh, Dan Hudson, the singer. You know, but I was doing all this stuff all the time.

And maybe nobody else would. I didn't really care. Well, that's how. You got a daughter who can sing. I know. That's how Tom Cruise keeps getting work, you know? I mean. He's a freak. He's not really a good actor, but people keep calling him.

I don't mean that, Tom. He's the first guy that came to mind. I'm sure he's listening. He probably is. He actually subscribed to the YouTube channel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's on there. All right, go with Barry Manilow. They're Dan's back in.

Hey, is there any way you could just pump that into Matt's head full of the owner? And make him think it's going on the whole time? Big Barry Manilow fan, by the way. Big Barry Manilow fan. That would be the best. We're having a serious conversation. Matt's over there doing some kind of jive. Looking at the camera. So the guy was run over by a train.

He's like, this is my favorite part. Yeah, that's him. Yeah, Tom Cruise goes under the handle, Mick the Marvel. He's the guy that's subscribed to the YouTube channel. Exactly. He's the coolest. Yeah. Tom, I really didn't mean that, seriously. I did mean it.

What? I don't know. Whatever we were meaning to him. We were talking about his movies. No. Hey, okay. So that brings up a question. This kind of touches on some stuff that we've talked about before. But the question is the exposure to certain things as movies.

As a person that is trying to follow Christ, it's tough to find a modern day movie that doesn't have fouling language in it. You know it. It has the potential for nudity in it. That type of thing. Is it a personal line as to whether you can handle that or not? Is there a reason to handle it versus just walking away from it and saying it's not my deal? Right. For example, like Schindler's List loaded with nudity.

Mm-hmm. Is it necessary to appropriately tell the story that happened? Is it a story that even needs to be told because of the nudity? You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, they showed it all for depiction of how it actually happened, you know? But they didn't show anybody stopping to go to the bathroom. You know what I mean? It wasn't totally realistic, you know? People read magazines or whatever, you know, sitting around for, otherwise the movie would

be 10 years long. Yeah, yeah. You know? So, you know, when they say, you know, we need this to show the realistic of what happened, you know, is it appropriate then? You know? Any thoughts? Bam. Well, I guess, I mean, they could have taken a couple different routes.

Obviously, they wouldn't show the reality of it. I understood that too. But they also could have done, obviously, different camera angles as well. Exactly. But then again, I mean, it gets into, you know, sometimes I think with movies a lot of times that they can apply stuff to that still puts thoughts in your head. So even though, even with Schindler's List, they could have obviously cut out the nudity or they could have actually, you know, covered it up some way, shape, or form. I still would have known what it was.

And I wouldn't have saw it, but still would have put the image in your head. Well, let me ask you this. With that exact same line of thinking, did Passion of the Christ hold more of a gut check for you than any other, like King of Kings, you know, from back in the day, you know? Oh, it did, absolutely, right. Because of the violence. You know, did it bring that home? You know, is violence more acceptable? Okay.

You know, like, I mean, I'm more okay with it. I don't know why. Like, I'm never offended by any type of violence, you know? But, like, Passion of the Christ would not have been the same if they would have just implied he got lashed with the cat of nine tails. Right, but where I looked from his head up, right. Right. You know, I mean, not as big of a deal, you know? So, you know, is it a double standard we're holding?

You know, when we're talking about the brevity of what our Lord and Savior did, you know, you need to know that. When it comes to the nudity that all the Jews getting, you know, slaughtered, you know, do we need to know that? Well, I think that… Deep question. That's a very deep question. Like, with the violence, we're really the first generation, probably, who… I mean, violence has always been out there.

I mean, we used to have public executions, you know? And now it's like, you hear about it in the paper, oh, some dude got fried in Texas or something, you know? So there are two different things. The nudity thing is, you know, relates to your flesh and your desire and some of the stuff, probably, hopefully not in the context of a Holocaust type of thing. Right. I mean, you're not going, who? Yeah.

No, there's nothing sensual about sinners. Right. Yeah, yeah. Right. But, you know, I remember as a kid, when the TV series, The Holocaust, came out, and there was obviously nudity, but yet, obviously, it didn't show anything because it was on network television. But it sure… I mean, I knew exactly, like, ooh.

I was all freaked out. Man, they made him go naked? You know? Of course, I was a kid. Right. You were worried about the people who filmed the actual movie? Yeah. How awkward. They didn't have a camera.

Then they got shot, and then they fell on someone else naked? That's kind of gross. And, you know, as a child, you don't… You know? But, I mean, like, you know, we get our meat in cellophane packages, you know? I mean, life is violent, you know? And I haven't grown up on a farm where, like, you go out and cut the chicken's head off, and… I don't know.

Well, I don't know. That doesn't seem fair to say that life is violent. Because, I mean, life is violent. People sin. Why is it okay to show the violence and not the sin? Well, who decided the violence was bad? Is that just… I mean, are you just… Talking about it in the relationship of what the movie producers of Association of America

looked at it and said, okay, these are the criteria we're going to judge on whether this is appropriate for young kids, you know? And they included violence, and nudity, and sexual content, and foul language. Because, like, the Bible will talk about modesty, dressing modestly, and not lusting, and things like that. But it doesn't say, okay, we're going to have a public execution, but don't watch. I mean, it was like stonings, and… Well, all right, but I mean, what's the sin? It says not to murder.

It's okay to watch the murder on TV, but not the adultery? Is it okay to go watch it at the town square? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm in. Right. So, like, the violence that is being committed that is a sin seems to be okay to watch, but you couldn't watch someone in the act of adultery.

I'm not even saying it's okay. I'm just saying you're kind of apples to oranges. Well, but from a societal standpoint, it might be apples to oranges, but is it… I mean, the sin is the sin, is it not? Sure. Well, I suppose if your entire goal is to not watch anybody commit a sin, I think you'd probably be sitting in your house looking at a blank wall. But do you intentionally, for entertainment purposes, hand over $10 to watch that sin? I've done that.

Or is that… I mean, but that's the question. The question is more so, like, it seems like there might be a bit of a double standard there. If one's okay, why aren't they both okay? If one's not okay, why aren't they both not okay? What is it about violence that seems more acceptable to the culture than some of the other sins that are depicted in a movie for your entertainment? I think you're talking about, like, acceptable violence. You know, when you're doing a historical thing, it was a violent thing that happened. You know, you're trying to get the idea of, wow, look what these people went through.

That was a horrible death. Yep. Horrible experience in the Holocaust. As opposed to, you know, Rambo ripping someone off and then eating part of their arm or something. You know, that's just purely for entertainment. Was that in the third one? I didn't see the third one. I don't see them because, you know, it's violent. I didn't see the third one.

I think I was praying for people during that one. Okay. You do not need your arm anymore. Then he sewed it back on. That'd be cool if he took the guy's arm and put it on himself. And he had three arms. One's just there for looks. I need another arm. You're next.

People think he has three, but this one's just not doing nothing. It's just flapping in the wind. Well, he could tie his other arm to it. It does everything the one arm does. Why did you hit me in the hip? That was ridiculous. You pushed me in the face in the hip. Three-armed Rambo. But, you know, that's a good question, though, because like Ephesians says,

they get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling, and slander. You know? So it's okay if you're watching it on film. I mean, the point is in your lifestyle, don't go around and, you know, become this violent, angry person. I love you, Matt. Please don't hurt Dan. Oh, he's clicking the pin. Although if he dies, I'd like one of his arms.

I'm going to leave. I'd like an escort to the car. So, yeah, that's a fine line. Where do the arts, you know, imitate life and all that stuff? And life imitates art and, you know, you get yourself lost into it. And I'll admit it. I loved it when the bag, I guess, you know, knocked off at the end usually, you know, and… Whatever a die-hard movie, yeah.

I mean, of course, we just wait for that moment. Yeah. Somebody get thrown off a building, somebody get shot. Absolutely, right. Exactly. I mean, it's not like just before they get the shot, they're saying, oh, by the way, I sided with Satan. So, like, it's some sort of, like, moral victory. This man is dying for no other reason but your entertainment

in this particular movie. Right. I mean, how do you portray the last scene of Samson on Earth when he kills thousands of people, you know, that's pretty violent. Yeah. That'd be pretty nasty, you know. Way nasty. And he brought the temple down. Yeah, yeah.

Columns, columns, blood squishing. Didn't he also kill a thousand or whatever? Oh, the jawbone. Jawbone of a donkey. Yeah, I mean. He demanded water. That's right. I'll never forget that. That was a day.

Dirty Samson. That was Samson 1, right? Well, you couldn't follow the life of David without a censor. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. But then again, if you see a biography of the life of David, I bet they'll show the violence but they won't show the adultery. I mean, you know, it's, I don't know, that's just a question, you know. Well, it seems that we're willing to say, well, violence for historical fact

and really to get us to understand what's going on, we need to see the violence. You can't just say it. However, we don't need to see the adultery. You can just say that it happened. Well, maybe it's because an act that is most appropriately behind closed doors when violence is more welcome out in the workplace. I don't know. I think it comes down to it.

I mean, Roy, a big question is, I mean, is there any acceptable violence? I mean, for example, I mean, like World War II, for example. I mean, we had to go to war. We obviously could not, you know, not getting involved with that. I saw the movie Pearl Harbor. I agree with you. After you saw Pearl Harbor, yeah. Or like, you know, 9-11, things like that. I mean, there's just things where we can't avoid violence.

So I guess what it comes down to sometimes, is there an acceptable type of violence? Obviously, we see it all through the Bible. There's constantly fights. There's constantly God helping armies overcome this person or that person over and over again all the time. So exactly what's considered acceptable, what's considered not acceptable. Yeah, where's that line when it becomes too graphic? Right. Well, for example, I mean, you watch even like movies like Boys in the Hood, for example,

or something like that. I mean, that's not, again, that's not acceptable realistically. I mean, obviously, that's something we want to, you know, encourage our youth to do. You know, like when you see it, when there's a problem, well, solve it with a gun. I mean, you know. Yeah. Or, you know, because I mean, that's where, then you start bringing that kind of stuff into the schools. That's where we see some problems.

So, I mean, what types of violence, I guess, is acceptable, and I guess which types of violence is not. Well, it's like the old Westerns. You know, there'd be a gunshot and the guy would go, you know, and he'd fall over. You never saw blood. You didn't see, you know, brain splattered against the wall. It was just like, you just knew, okay, the dude got shot and now he's out. Right. And today is like, they got to have skull fragments and, you know, I mean, it's just.

Especially horror movies. Yeah. They're even worse all the time. Oh, yeah, yeah. The slasher stuff. So, yeah. How do you determine, we haven't answered your question. Yeah. We're just talking about it.

I don't know if there's an easy answer, but one of the things that I think is maybe inherent in the problem is the, sometimes the assumption that I am to consume that art. Like, I am to, like, let's draw and make distinctions about this that I am to, I have to, that I'm going to watch. As opposed to, I guess it's kind of the line to say, maybe not keep, see how close to where the Lord drew the line, I can get to it, but maybe back as far away from it as possible. You know, do I try to filter out the movies? Well, is this, is there too much violence here? What's the violence?

Are there brains? Or is it just like a, you know, was it through 1928? Oh, well, maybe that'll be all right, you know? Or do I just, do you back away from it completely? Yeah. Because I think a lot of times I know you, you, you spend a lot of time trying to make the balance without considering maybe I just should back away from it. And, I mean, that's starting to push on the fringe of, of you're backing away from society to a certain extent, because a lot of what we consume, we consume as a people, you know,

VR, you know, people talk about the latest movie they saw, they'll talk about the popular TV show. And, you know, I'm, I'm not on the perch at all. I, I watch plenty of violent things, you know, I've, I've seen, you know, many a scene in a movie that I, that I shouldn't have. I heard many a swear that I, I probably carried into my life inappropriately because of seeing it somewhere. However, um, I mean, that's the question. We really don't see people bowing away from the art, but is there, is there a way to,

to take that? Um, I don't know. I, I don't know. Like that's where I'm, I'm struggling with. I, I, it seems like it's not necessary to say, I just, I don't watch any movies. Well, I mean, is, is some of, some of that stuff almost, I don't know, I don't want to say necessary to be entertaining, but I mean, I mean, look at some of the stuff that kick out without any of that stuff in there. And you're like, this is, you know, good.

Right. But, but watch my toenails grow. You show back up and you say, but, but Lord, I was, I needed to be entertained. I am to be entertained here. Well, how else would you do for, suggest that I feel my entertainment without watching violence? I don't know. I don't know. Don't nail growing. Go door to door.

Go door to door witnessing. That promises entertainment. Yeah. There's probably some violence. It could be. It could be. Possible nudity. Some very irritated people. And unfortunately, I mean, even with these.

Profanity. I feel bad for these, you know, people are trying to come out with some good, wholesome Christian movies because you don't see a lot of those actually really succeeding as well. Well, mostly because they're dumb. Well, yeah, they are dumb. A lot of times they are poor quality. More cheesy acting. Yeah.

You know, I remember watching the, what's the romantic? Kirk Cameron. Oh, Fireproof. So I remember watching that. I remember the first opening scene. And I remember how, I mean, I think it was the lady talking to her mother or something like that. I remember just how cheesy the one-liner she was saying. It's like, oh my God, I hope this gets a lot better than this, you know?

Yeah. And it did, fortunately. But a lot of times, unfortunately, you know, with these Christian movies, they're just not, you know, I even saw like, what was it? Left Behind. They started, they were going to attempt to make all these movies for the Left Behind series. And I saw the first one. I was just like, this toy didn't engage me at all.

I was like, you know what I mean? Unfortunately, because there wasn't really a lot of violence. There wasn't a lot of action. It seemed like there was a lot of talking. There's a lot of spiritual, which was good. But unfortunately, it just, it's kind of boring. You know, I heard a good story about those, I don't know whether it's funny or not. But there's a bunch of, a bunch of teenage girls that were reading the Left Behind series.

And they all went to a restaurant. And one of them went to the bathroom. And then the rest of them just got up and left the restaurant, completely left all their stuff sitting there, trying to convince them that the Lord had come. And she'd missed it. I thought, that's not funny at all. What a terrible situation to be in. To think the second coming had come while you were in the john. And then all your friends are gone.

Actually, I wrote a, I wrote like a, some fiction thing for college one time. And like the, the principal was a, was a guy who had, or like the lead character had fallen out of his faith and then decided that he was going to, going to finally go back to church. And he, he spent like a long time rumbling through his crap to try to find a Bible. And he runs in there and he sits down in the pew and there's nobody in there and he looks around and he waits and he goes back out and he checks the time on a sign. And then, you know, he's at the right time and sits back down. And, and then that it, it occurs to him that the, the mind of someone who's trying to reconnect with their faith is tends to get pretty fragile.

And he, that's the, he thought, you know, what are the odds that after, you know,