Promoting Arts & Entertainment for the Hometown

Fr. Aaron spoke with Clay Dempsey, the Director for Art & Entertainment for the city of Dothan, Alabama. Clay shared about his work history and duties coordinating A&E for the City of Dothan. They talked about the various different types of acts and performers that have come to Dothan, and what future performances will find an appreciative audience. Smaller towns face distinct challenges for brining attractions and Clay spoke frankly about how to make the hometown an entertainment destination. Clay and Fr. Aaron related over their mutual enjoyment of various arts such as comedy, rodeos and movies, discussing how people of faith interact with them. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, everyone. Today I had the pleasure of talking with Clay Dempsey, who is the director for Arts and Entertainment for the city of Dothan, Alabama. Now, we had a great conversation talking about the venues that he's in charge of, the acts that he needs to attract and manage while they come to the Dothan Opera House and to our civic center. What are the logistics and personnel that he needs to surround himself with? But we really started having a good time where we talked about the different types of acts that we both enjoy, that we enjoy ourselves, that we want to attract to, that we'd he'd like to attract to the local area. And she had a shared love of different types of venues, be it um the rodeo, whether music venues, comedy, or even especially movies. And we want to attract like a film festival in this area too. Anyway, I'm fascinated by his job and the what he has to attract good uh attractions and entertainment to the local area. But I suspect we'll be able to talk even more in the future over our shared love for different media. Anyway, we we had a great time uh relating over this. I hope you'll join us for this journey. So hey, thank you for coming and talking to me. I mean, I'll start here, but uh just um before you just jump in, we've gotten a chance to interact a little bit, but I'm we're starting to have people that actually listen to this and maybe are curious as to what in the world is a priest talking to and who are they talking to? And it's so funny because I'm finding really wonderful people around Dothan who are willing to talk to me about non-churchy topics. That's been my goal, you know, because people talk inside baseball. There's plenty of other podcasters dealing with theology, church history. Um, there's our our uh our own diocese has some podcast guys, they like to talk theology, church history, and things like this. I'm like, great, that's awesome. For me, I'm I'm about the outsider conversations, the ones where people of faith ought to be engaging with the rest of the world, but oftentimes they're retreating into you ever see them ever see the movie M. M. Night Shamelans The Village. I have. Right? That was like one of his four good ones, I think. Yeah. And before, I don't know what happened to him, but that was like one of the signs signs is the top. Yeah, or signs sixth cents was the original.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Oh my bad, my bad. Unbreakable's the top.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Um well, right? That was the four, right? Yeah. So signs, unbreakable, sixth cents, and the village. Yeah. By the village, I think everyone was really used to his surprise endings, formula. And his formula, and so it's like it wasn't so everyone's looking for that. And unfortunately, he kind of like was a victim of his own success in that regard. But when I think about the village, uh it still is a profound story that I would assign to students at University of Houston because they needed to kind of appreciate or have a mythology to kind of help them appreciate how it is that in North America, anyway, pockets of Christianity retreated from the world and just kind of like pulled back and created their own subculture. Okay. And so you saw this over the course of the 20th century, where this trauma of kind of like buttoning up against you know the modern era, finding that you know, the scope of monkey trial is like, oh my gosh, we sound like idiots now, and because we can't talk to someone scientifically or whatever. And so they kind of retreat from the sun the world to create their own subculture. And the sh the village kind of encapsulates that in some way. And but that subculture wounds up having its own education system, its own um set of assumptions, its own way of looking at the world, uh, you know, a strong sense of in-group and out-group. And it created its own set of you know, created its own body work concerning the arts. Okay. And it's just bad most of the time. It really did. And so what happens is it created an entirely set of separate set of standards regarding to you know Christian music and Christian movies and things like this. And you would say, after a while, you go, okay, I get it. You're trying to appeal to a specific audience. But that audience is so uncritical that now it's like, well, the thing that distinguishes you know Christian music, Christian media of different types is that a thing for which there's no standards because people are just gonna accept it anyway because it's some supposedly faith-based.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Right, I gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

And so it and so I'm thinking, in my view, that was the wrong view. That was the wrong way to go. People of faith ought to be uh people of faith ought to be interacting with the arts, not creating their own separate village of of separate art. Well, I mean, we're all the same. Exactly, right, right. Exactly. So that's my you know, kind of my launching spiel, a little bit like that. But so tell us what you do for the city of Dothan.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

I am the performing arts director for City of Dothan. Okay, I um I manage the the opera house at Center Park, downtown, um, a lot of downtown events, um, bring in shows, um, entertainment. Yeah, that's pretty much what I do.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

So and well, and before the was that position, were you doing that position before the Dothan Opera House was refurbished?

SPEAKER_01 5:31

No, I have um I've been with the city since March of 23. Okay, been director since or acting director, April of 23, and then um appointed to director October of 23. Okay. So three and a half years before there, I was at a place down the road called um the crossing at Big Creek, ran a lot of entertainment there, had a lot of big concerts post-COVID. They got the huge amphitheater outside, right? Because we had to work uh post-COVID in 21 because Live Nation really couldn't do uh concerts. Um down there we could do concerts, so we had some big ones, 7,000, 5,000, 4,000. So that really, I mean, I hate to say it this way, but but COVID kind of helped my career. Before then, I worked for the Philadelphia Film Festival for a few years. Um, I've lived in Atlanta, worked for some some clubs. Um, I mean, I've always kind of been around it. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Yeah. Um, so at um this it's called that venue is called the Crossings. Crossing at Big Creek. The Crossing at Big Creek. Yeah, I drove through there. Um they they had you know my wife's always wanted to try various different restaurants, you know, uh in different restaurants, and we heard that they served food there. Let's go try it. It's pretty basic. Uh what the what's but it was okay. It was good. It's good. But it's adjacent to the um to the casino.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Yeah, it's good. Those those guys down there are trying a lot, you know. I I have an admiration for them because they really gave me a I mean, they they gave this here, you know, see what you can do with this.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

And it's actually a really cool spot. I mean, it's got like this set of cabins that are down there. It looks like people make make it a vacation spot.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

There's a lot of good vision behind it, you know. I hate they go through so many struggles that they do. Um, you know, maybe one day it turns into a tourist destination with gambling. I mean, you know, you know, everybody should make up their own mind what they want to do. Right. But um, there's some really good vision, and so there's some really there's some guys down there in charge that that really believe in it and they've been with it for a while. So I want to see them, you know, eventually, you know, something great happen for them. It'd be awesome. Yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

So um, so the so the Dothan Opera House re is refurbished. Is that running concurrent with your position being created? Or did that position uh exist already?

SPEAKER_01 7:33

It um the position existed already. Like I came in as an event manager. Okay. Um, so the opera house, I did two events before uh before they renovated it. I did a beauty pageant, which I've never seen one before. I come from a touring world and it's very, very different for me. Um, and then we did Jimmy Vaughn, and um then we shut it down for a year and a half and renovated. Um I did know the first time I walked into the opera house, um, you can look around and tell it's a special venue, and it was kind of underutilized. And you know, I firmly believe that's one of the it's one of the best, you know, live music venues or comedy or any kind of event in the southeast, especially now since they've renovated it.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

We've been there for a few events so far, and it's really neat inside. And so how do you determine whether or not you need the opera house or the civic center for an event?

SPEAKER_01 8:23

For it's usually up to a promoter. Like we don't we the only things we buy and we and we um and we program a hundred percent is the stuff at the park. Um the rest of the stuff we have are relationships with promoters, and they kind of know there's a you know, there there's a there's a kind of a you kind of know who's gonna sell tickets, and then you know, if there's an artist and he's fifteen thousand to eighteen thousand for a show, then that's probably an opera house show, but you need it to sell out. If someone's over that, you want to bring it to the civic center. But they don't all these artists and agents know how much they're worth. Okay. Some of the shows we have at the Civic Center, you know, they're $150,000 to $200,000 just for the artist. And the agents, like, they know they're gonna sell tickets when they come here. We're working on one today that I I can't announce what it is, but it's he'll sell 3,000 tickets, so they want to bring it.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Well, I for my in terms of guests here, we had Jordan Stanley came and uh did uh was we had a conversation. It's probably everyone commented that sounded like the most fun I'd had in a long time.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Yeah. Jordan's a fun person. We're we're we're going to dinner with her tonight for her, you know, she wants to go to a going away dinner because she's about to go on the road.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

She's a riot, and also and she's going on tour, right? Yes. So you know, getting her launch here in Dothan, and then gets picked up and discovered, and now she's got this whole calendar of events.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

It's up to her now.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

So that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Up to her. Like, you want to go go do it? Jordan, you got a talent. I've I've told her this for you know a year.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Go do it. Go get it. Well, and she even started uh an open mic night, uh I think on Foster Street, right? She did.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

And I think somebody saw that she was going on tour because now they have an open mic night down the road. So somebody else saw it happen to her and they're gonna do their own thing now, too. So it's it's it's great to see, you know, it's great to see people in Dothan trying to do stuff or just stepping out and doing stuff.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Right. So um when you're booking artists, though, I mean, do you have to um do you just book anyone who's who's curious, or do you have to make an assessment as to whether or not that would play well in this community?

SPEAKER_01 10:16

It's usually the promoters usually know. Okay. Um then but you also run into some new promoters and you try to give them guidance and sometimes they don't listen. Um that's a whole different world. Um But we just have, you know, we just keep a calendar and it's a lot like freight. Like it's it's you know, as as try to explain to somebody how a show happens. So a promoter will call you and say, What do you have on these dates? And they'll be they could be a week of dates, they could be two weeks of dates, and then they put holds in, what's called holds on those dates. And if it's if they're the only one on that date, that's a first hold, and then it goes to a second hold if it's a second person or third person. So then what they do with those dates, they've called all these other venues, and they all have this, you know, what's available on those dates. All right. Then it's like freight. Then they start trying to set the tour on routes, and it's usually about a six-hour gap in between venues. So usually that I mean that's that's how it happens. You just have to be available and you have to um you have to negotiate. Like you have to be, you have to know where your bottom is and and where you're trying to go with the money. Interesting. Yeah, and you base that off how many, then it becomes down to me. You base it on how many tickets I think we'll get in this market.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

So, I mean, in terms of when the art uh promoters and artists that are coming to Dothan, um, you know, I guess because it's a small town southeast Alabama, some might have assumptions about you're going to be um uh just booking, say, country music stars. Yeah, right. But that but that is that a safe assumption. I mean, is there going to be you know there's going to be other genres, other other styles that are coming?

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Rock music does good here. Um, we've tried some um soul and RB, not quite there yet, but we'll try that again, you know. Um I mean, there's all kind of stuff, you know. I th I think I think, you know, for me, one of the things I want to bring is is is Dothan's first touring Broadway production. Okay. I think we're gonna be there next year.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

We've had we've had some interesting what you've seen. I haven't been to you know quite a bit that I see advertised, but we've had some interesting ones that uh some performances that I thought that would have been cool to go to. There we they had one that was a can the candlelight um, these things are pretty, they're calming. Yeah, I had uh well I for what with for some reason I had one of those earlier this year, but I had to give those tickets to the to a parishioner. But uh they those those look wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Oh, they're there's they're calming. I mean, they're they're they're good shows.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Really? Yeah, they're good shows. So but but uh now Jordan was booked, and you have a lot more comedy acts coming.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

We do. There's some more comedy acts coming. Um we have a big one coming in February. Again, I some of this stuff I can't talk about like the first quarter, but the first quarter next year, I mean, it's massive. It almost and I'll say this, like I've been I've been humbled, you know, I get humbled daily by the by this stuff. Um came in, I used to look at the calendar and go, oh, this, I don't understand what's going on here. Like there's nothing coming. You've been getting two shows. Now we look at the calendar and we get a little bit of anxiety. Like, how are we gonna spread the team out, make sure nobody's tired? Like, what are we gonna do to pull this off? Because there's times where we're gonna be running both venues, you know, have 3,000 over here, another 600 over here. And it's you know, I got a good team around me. This the city's let me um City has allowed me a platform to really build a good team. I inherited some good people, and then we've added some good people. We got a strong team that's kind of they believe in what we're doing. Um, you know, Dothan's that's market, you know, the civic center's been around 50 years, so the market's been here 50 years, but in a way, it was kind of underutilized, and we're kind of defining the market right now. So there's some stuff we're doing, some you know, that we're it's not gonna work, so we're learning that it won't work, and then we just won't do it again. Or if it's halfway there, we'll tighten it up and try it one more time.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Okay. Um is the civic center kind of reaching the its lifespan, or I mean, I don't know. That's that's all it's all subjective. Uh yeah, I wasn't sure because you don't know how long a structure someone is wants to keep it. I don't know what if its lifespan, you said it's been 50 years.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

50 years. No, I do I do say like in the late 70s, they they definitely weren't thinking about guest experience. No, right. They weren't thinking about comfort and ADA and things like that. So, yes, um, it has reached his lifespan on those types of things. Okay. And I do think, you know, and and I don't I'm not 100% sure what's gonna happen with that building, but I do think that you know, some thought has to be put into what Dothan is before we do anything. You know, we we don't we don't have mountains, we don't have lakes, we don't have beaches. So what we have here is experience and how we all treat one another. Okay. So the same thing needs to fold over into whatever kind of venue we go to. Okay, it needs to provide a superb guest and artist experience and that'll make things want to come back and make people want to come to Dothan and come to a show because it's it'd be different than going to a show in Pensacola, different than going to a show in Berkeley. It's an experience all the way around, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Because if someone's going to something, say in you know Pensacola or or at you know another place, that oftentimes that that venue is that that concert whatever is part of a larger experience as well. You know, the person is going to a concert or some something in Pensacola and they're also going to the beach. Yep. Or a person's doing this, they're experiencing that area. And you're I didn't think about that. It's it raises the question, how can Dothan be part of a kind of a an ensemble experience for somebody?

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Yeah, yeah, like you, you know, you know you're gonna come to Dothan, you're gonna get treated nice and have something different. And there's, you know, um hopefully by then, you know, um everything downtown, there's more restaurants and there's more independently owned things, and it's just a whole experience.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

So since I've been here, I moved here at the beginning of uh 24. Uh no, wait, 25. It's 26 now. Jeez. It's 26. Um, so I moved here at the beginning of last year. And I think that I don't think that whole um what's the name of the park that's right there? Porter Park. Porter Park. I don't think that had all been completed uh when I first came.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Open now, we opened that thing up August of last year. So we're right.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Yeah. And so, but since then, I've seen a lot of you know, concerts, outdoor concerts there, other things that occurred. Is that a fall under your umbrella as well?

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Yeah, that's us. So um the park to me is my my favorite venue right now because what's what's great about it to me is not just the music we're bringing out there, because we're bringing some good acts out there, and people should pay attention because some of these acts we're bringing. A year from now, you're gonna be one of these people that said, Oh, they came to do and I was there. You really weren't, because I I can see the 500 people that are showing up. But um it's the community that you're seeing get created there. People are coming, kids are playing, people from all demographics are coming out there, and they're sharing this time together and they're making, you know, there's they're having these shared spaces and experience. Right. And I think that's what's been missing, you know, especially from from our area. And then, too, you couple in what COVID did to us all and put us all kind of locked us up even more. Right. We're six years after, and we're all starting to finally get out and reconnect with one another.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

So so what what we do with the park is you know, we try to sell it, it's community. That's that's that's the byproduct of the park.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

That's well, that is kind of the nostalgia hometown experience that many have lamented for almost 20 years. Yeah, and yeah, I mean, there's a COVID is our favorite uh um horse to dead horse to be.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

It was the excuse for years.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Oh gosh, and some and sometimes it's difficult to find the silver linings on that because it it really was uh quite a culture shift, yes, um, in terms of the way in which people, you know, just I oftentimes say um things like COVID are very helpful for exposing the fragility of civilization, yes, because you didn't realize how quickly all a lot of those assumptions you have about everyday life can just go away. Yeah. And then and even assumptions about neighbors pointing each other fingers and so forth, and all that neighborliness went away quickly, too.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Oh, yeah. And it's it's weird too. In the entertainment world, we all know, like every one of us knows that March 14th, 2020, was the day everything shut down. Events, everything got canceled. That was the last day of events, and you know, because it felt like our lives, like, is this gonna come back? Nobody knows what this is. Um, what are we gonna do now? Um it was a strange time when you think back on it, especially for us in the entertainment world. My my event manager and I, that's when him and I became really kind of close because he worked for a production company. We kind of knew each other and we would talk to each other every day about what's gonna happen. What are you doing for the future in case this don't come back? Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Yeah. Well, I had a I had a favorite venue. When I lived in Houston, Texas, I had a favorite venue. There is called the Redneck Country Club. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

And really see you at the Redneck Country Club.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Oh, no, no, see, yeah, uh that that's really that's really really nice to say. You need to take that back. Um, I I I was now it's funny because I did have moved, lived in a lot of large towns, but I grew was born and raised in a very small town way up in northern California near the mountains. Okay. And so that's why Dothan feels like coming home, because that's the last time I lived in a small town. After that, it was you know, Seattle, Dallas, Houston, Orlando, it was like these huge cities. But now when I come here and go, ah, that's how it feels like to go home in a sense. But when I lived in Houston, though, um, I one of my favorite venues was called the Redneck Country Club. It was uh owned and it was owned by a local um it was a local talk show host that he was still is on the radio there. Um, but he had all sorts of different businesses that he'd gotten into, and one of which was he wanted to create the this venue, a concert venue, but it was also like a kind of like a uh mature and well-behaved honky tonk in a sense, um, where you know older folks could go and just kind of enjoy themselves. And it's not necessarily your full Patrick Schwazy Roadhouse, you know, experience. Right. But uh he created this venue, and I actually went to a lot of concerts there. Uh took my daughter to a KISS tribute band there. It was funny because she saw this and kind of went, Dad, you this was your childhood. How did you survive this? And like, because I was always I was that parents like you know, headbanging while the kid while the child's going, This is too loud. But anyway, um Redneck Country Club doesn't exist anymore because COVID shut down all of their concerts, and then the uh owner had to pay back all the deposits for all those bands that were now not coming in and broke them. I mean, broke the business. He's still on the radio. Um, but nevertheless, it went away. Well, and that's that's something for which I was just so disappointed because that's where my wife and I actually had our wedding reception. This high, you know, high you know, Anglo Anglo-Catholic Mass we have for uh for our wedding, and then go right over to the Redneck Country Club. So, you know, which is just because they in the lobby right outside, you know, in their porch, they had the replica of the General Lee and the and the um uh smoking the band at Trans Am. You know, so you that's where you want to have your wedding pictures, of course.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Like you were in Tennessee, but California, yeah. I mean, or Texas. That's what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Well, uh, since then I've discovered that one of my favorite places in town is Cowboys.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

So I'll go there with my in my clericals like this with my pipe and sit out there in Cowboys and just kind of watching, listening to music and watching the line dancing. Well, people come and talk. Of course. Yeah. No, it's fantastic. I mean, it's like, you know, so I just people, my wife's like, You want you're going to Cowboys tonight? It's like, yeah, I'll be back in a little bit. She's like, that's fine. And so I just go out there, like I have my pipe there. I'm so glad they could still let you smoke inside. And so I'll go there with my pipe, and yes, people will start conversations. Like, what in the world? I'm like, How you doing? And so it's just great. You should get Billy from Cowboys in here to talk to you.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Billy? He's the guy that books all the music out there again. Oh, that'd be fantastic. Interesting guy.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Great. Well, it's funny because my parishion We were like, Father, you're going to Cowboys? I said, Well, it sounds like an awesome place. And they all weren't quite sure what my strategy was because they said they in their mind, they had it in their head that there's, like I said, this Patrick Swayze Roadhouse experience. It's not what I saw at all. Uh when I got there, it was like, you know, from every age uh bracket, from the older couple that is just there to have their night out and they're dancing together, to the young kids that are, you know, just old enough to possibly be there. And but it was all everyone in between. But I just saw it extremely well behaved and you know, just a pleasant arrangement.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

It's a Dothan institution. That place has been open over 50 years. Really? Like it's a well it's fantastic. It's um the old wrestlers. Like I had Rick Flair. That was the first show I brought to Dothan was Rick Flair, just a a talking with Rick Flair. You hear him talking, meet and greet. All he would talk about is Cowboys in the 70s. Like he he still remember where it was. Um it's gotta be one of the longest. I mean, this local business is yeah, still still, you know, still surviving.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Oh, I like it. I really do. And I really and I like all the different um types of events that you can have there. Um, I remember at the Redneck Country Club back in Houston. My wife, my wife's from the Philippines. And so when I'm when I'm when she comes here and I say, I'm going to introduce you to as much redneck as I could possibly can. And so for Cinco de Mayo, we went to the Redneck Country Club for Mexican lucha-lire, Mexican mass grass. I'd go to that. And she's like, What am I watching? I would go to that. That's how it's fantastic. I was absolutely in my zone. So I had been Jones and for that kind of kind of entertainment for quite some time. And then Ozark at their at Ozark at their um uh their their gathering or their civic center had uh lucha libre midget mask wrestling. Did you go to that? Absolutely. I was all over that business. It was fantastic. And of course, and the thing is, of course, and my wife says she's like, I'll go with you, but the but the the trade-off is we can't be in exactly the front row. I don't want to be like right, you know, right in the front row, right next to the ring. We can be ringside, but not in the front row. Right. I'm like, okay, that's a fair compromise. Well, it turns out that she dodged a bullet on that one because frequently they were throwing each other out of the ring, landing in the lap of people that were in the front row. I mean, that's a good experience. I know. I felt like I missed out on that, but I I know that that would have been a rough ride home if she if if one of them, one of the wrestlers had landed in her lap.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

I charge double for those front seats. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

So, but uh uh but people at the church were like, what in the world, Father? I said, Oh no, I'm shoring up my redneck bonafides wherever I can. So because you're just I spent too much time living in big cities, and so I I'm behind in a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

No, go have fun. It's here, go embrace the culture.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Oh, yeah. Well, the other thing I love here is that you know, rodeos, rodeos are some of my favorite culture, you know, my favorite um experiences altogether. Uh the Ozark Rodeo, we enjoy that very much. And then, of course, Landmark Park and uh the Peanut Festival as well.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Those are great you know, so did you ever go to the Houston Rodeo? Did you go to that? Oh, yeah, absolutely. So you've been to like the the the rodeo.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Oh, I know. Yeah, but no, I know I knew that that one was huge, but where I grew up going to the Shest County Mountain Road, uh Shest County Rodeo at my hometown in Reading, California. And that's more closer to our size here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

But um I have um so when I'm not with this city, um, a lot of stuff I learned down there on concerts. I learned I have a close friend, he owns a promotion called Bulls Bands of Barrels. Okay, so it's it's a big deal, but he he took um all the good parts of the rodeo, the the fast pace, high energy. So you got um bull riding, bull fighting, barrel racing, this high energy all the way through. Okay. Um pyrotechnic. I mean, it's it's a big deal. And then he he couples it with a concert at the end. So pretty much every country artist this big has come through there. Um, he's got his finger on the pulse with these artists. Right. Now they're in, you know, they're now in there some pretty massive venues now. They they they've been out to Fort Worth for the finals a couple times. Um, they do about 23 shows a year. So not this weekend, but next, I'll be with them in Mississippi just because I need to go take a trip with all the people that I, you know, all the people I'm kind of close to. But it's just a different kind of especially behind the scenes, it's a different kind of kind of animal.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

In Florida, we would go to the Silver Spurs rodeo all the time. I mean, and this gets a little nerdy for me, but one of my one of the reasons why I have such an affection for that because I don't want to get too weird about this, but there's actually a theology to watching what I call cooperation with nature. This creation cooperation that you see between rider and horse this way, those animals they rightly call them equestrian athletes there. Like we're watching out for our equestrian athletes because that that rider is not commanding that horse, they're cooperating with them.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Um there's certain events where that's more obvious than others, especially like uh team roping or um or calf or um or calf roping, where that horse has to keep that to keep it really tight on the calf so he can tie the legs. And so you see the way the animal, they're cooperating with this animal. And so there's almost a sense in which that peers back into ancient literature, or peers back into the ancient, most ancient texts of the Bible into Genesis, where you're like, this is where you have creation kind of like moving, you know, not kind of trying to command creation, but dominion, what dominion means, you whatever that means. But we're in that moment, we mean dominion means a command cooperation to accomplish the things you need to do. And you really see that uh we don't really have any sort of events in our society that celebrates that like rodeos.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Okay. I'm gonna look at it different now.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

I think if you say yeah, when I go with them, we'll see a little bit differently now. It's a cooperation with creation, it's something that's like almost like Tolkien-esque in a sense. Okay. That's really earthy. And um you're where you're not you're not in clashing competition with creation, you're in cooperating with it. Right. And so that's one of the reasons why I really like it. Makes sense. I know, especially the smaller the the better. Um, I mean, Houston livestock show and rodeo is great. That's massive, massive. I loved it. That's fun, but the smaller ones are really where you're really you're right up close to everything. You can see everything that has to take place. And um, I we really liked it. We went to the what the thing about the one at Landmark Park is that all those bleachers had been kind of put up really quickly. And so there were we were sat there kind of the entire time, kind of tense, going, is this thing gonna hold us all up?

SPEAKER_01 28:53

No, I get I get a good seat. Like I've never been to a uh this is the only kind of rodeo I've ever been to, so I'm I'm used to like the high end, but I get right on the gate. Like I can watch, but oh yeah, when the bull gets too close, like I do know to, you know, let's move on out for a second.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

I went I went to a family reunion um a couple of years back, and uh it was out in uh Tucson, Arizona, and it was at one of the it was at a working ranch, but every you the it was a resort, so everyone could sit by the pool or they can go mountain biking, they could do go spa day or whatever. I signed up for every horseback riding lesson that I could, and just because I'd never enjoyed that. I'd never been able to do that on my own, and I absolutely loved it. And what I found really quickly is that because I've also rode a motorcycle for many years, too, and I miss my bike. I want to get another bike sometime soon. But uh I just learned that a horse is not a motorcycle.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

I could have told you that.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Well, no, because motorcycle doesn't have a mood, right? It's not living, no, no. I mean, well, it doesn't get an attitude. A motorcycle doesn't get an attitude, right? You know, it doesn't get kind of like decide whether it likes you or not. Right. You know, I mean, and this animal's so much larger than you, you yeah, you has to you have to decide it has to decide it's going to cooperate with you, otherwise, you really are not able to make it do what you what it doesn't want to do. And in fact, it could do something you don't want it to do, running off some place. Exactly right. And so that's you it becomes almost uh it becomes a partner, really. And so from those two lessons, I developed a whole different appreciation.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

That's awesome. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Uh so that's why you know we do I we have ad parishioners and people exposed to people that will raise horses or be on ranches and farms, and I just admire them so much. My wife says that I'm a she she's like, You're a little snobby in terms of your redneckness. I'm like, how does that work? Tell me. She's like, because you've now gone to the point where you're the closer to the earth someone is, the more you actually put them up on more further on this pedestal. Right. I'm like, well, because they have we get that term, horse sense. Horse sense. You know, they have a little appreciation for the how creation goes because so much of life has to do with things that don't change for you, regardless of how you'd like them to.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Can't will it.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

I know exactly right. Yes, um, so um what have you got? What has been this, you know, since you've had taken on this role, what have been some of your biggest um triumphs? You're like, oh my gosh, we got this person in. It was a logistical nightmare, but we pulled it off.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

I think you know, for me it changed when I when I first got there. I think it changes daily. When I when I first arrived, you know, I wanted to bring some big shows and just get it started. Um and then, you know, my first thing there was was Kevin Hart. I mean, that was there were two shows with Kevin Hart. That was the first thing I brought to Dothan. And it's kind of horrifying because you um, and I did that through my promoter friend with Live Nation, like he really set me up for success. Or could have been failure, it could have been the only thing I ever got had it gone wrong. Because it's a it's a team there that that wasn't used to it, it still had paper tickets, they had no clear bagpost, so they weren't winding people. And I had three like four weeks to put all this in place, like really just shift gears, and we had to shift gears fast. And I think it was a blessing, you know, from God because we did have to go. There was no baby stepping, like we had to change all this fast. Yeah, we're gonna do this, we got to get through all this fast. And um, then that opened up the door for there's all kinds of stuff. But as you know, I got to year two, I realized my scope is not just bringing these big shows, but it's also working with the local arts groups to make sure that I can help provide what I can to help them succeed. Yeah, and now it is shifted where we're doing all these things, but we're also now we're we're we're in a grant program now, or not a grant program, we're in a program now of with one of other 20 cities in the country where they're gonna come in, they're gonna do a study and try to try to teach us how to set up music as a as an ecosystem in Dothan. Really? So we're we're in that, and then I got us in a documentary film um thing called South Arts Tour of Independent Filmmakers. So there's gonna be six documentary films starting in September. This will be September, October, November, um, March, April, May. And these guys will come in with their film, and the films will be five bucks, and you come watch it, and they do a QA afterwards. So we're we're starting to set ourselves up or trying to set ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Like a like a Southeast, well, like a Wiregrass Sundance Femfo. Yeah, kind of film.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

Like some of these movies, or two of them got picked up by HBO, so like they are some really good documents. Oh, nice. So we're doing that, we're trying to, you know, um use the park to create a music scene. And I don't know, there's a lot of stuff that we we got going on right now. I got my hands in that. I just want to see us. I'm trying to do things that you know, you may not see the benefit for 10 years, which is cool. Or you may not see the benefit like during my time as as you know, the leader down there, but we're setting up some strong foundations, it's gonna be really hard to roll back.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

I there's an analogy that I use that uh I sell you you have to plant trees. Trees, yeah. And I qualify that by saying, at my house, I've planted a bunch of trees about this tall. And my wife's like, that's not going to provide shade for at least 10 years. I'm like, I know, that's what you're investing in the future for.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

You ever think about that? Like when you drive past a pecan orchard, like how far in advance did these family have to plant this pecan orchard? Right. Like they never saw it in their lifetime.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

Right. Yeah. No, you you do. You have to plant trees metaphorically, of planting something now that you may know only may be a benefit to your children or grandchildren. Yep. That's the that's probably one of the chief human characteristics that humans are able to see the future uh by the thing by doing something now that is beyond the immediate vision.

SPEAKER_02 34:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

And you're like, okay, I can see uh the benefit of this beyond the horizon, even but it's not the it's not certainly not immediate.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

Yeah, and I like to, you know, I like to do that with the people around me too. If I see, you know, I'm always thinking about succession, yeah. That looks like, even though I'm you know, I'm just 50, like I'm not going anywhere, but I like to look, you know, 10 years down, 10 years down, and see who else you can bring up and and and build and put into the same way with Jordan, like Jordan's a friend of ours, but there's probably seven or eight in Dothan who have talent or they had an idea and they came up and I mean we'll partner with them. If this if it's a fleshed out idea and this is just really what you need, is some, you know, you know, space to try to springboard, we don't mind partnering with that. It's only backfired on me one time, so I mean we'll keep doing. So I was having a talk with my wife the other night about you know, when things do backfire like that, you can't ever get jaded where you don't want to give other people an opportunity. Like that's just a bad spot to be in. And so that that's that's the goal right now. So there's folks that I mean, there's talented people in Dothan that we want to, but it's gonna take everybody to get us on the map, so you have to help these people out.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

So did Kevin Hart draw a pretty good crowd?

SPEAKER_01 35:49

Two sought-out shows. Okay. We had to flip it in an hour.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

Oh wow, yeah. Well, yeah, I'm curious about that because it's really interesting. Um, I saw Jordan's uh show and she she's very specific about having a clean set. Very that's hard. Yeah, Kevin Hart's Kevin Hart.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Yeah, it's not a clean set, you know.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

Um uh you know, and but and that's and it's really interesting. I don't I I understand why some people are just not attracted to some humor because how the thing is communicated is really going to be this can be sensitive to them. I get that, but I think it also the job of the comedian is to is is to produce a level of discomfort.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

He's saying the things that you can't that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

They're they're supposed to find the taboo, they're supposed to, they're supposed to push it and find that. Um every now and then I find myself scrolling and if if I'm guilty of killing time and the feed comes up on my phone, uh Kill Tony.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Um I watch a lot of Kill Tony. Um are you are you current with Kill Tony?

SPEAKER_00 36:49

Uh not not just yet.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

No, I mean Pat O'Neill? Pat O'Neill. He's a Kill Tony regular. Okay. You should look like he's on a he's on another level of uh oh the clown sir, Edward Pickles, I think he's on a different level. Like right?

SPEAKER_00 37:04

I mean Kill Tony, I will I can I when I'm scrolling, that's that's what I ended up on too. Well, and the thing is we went through kind of a weird five years or weird five or ten years where um it seemed like uh comedy was a little endangered uh as the the the problems facing our our society weren't had little to do with the color of skin and more to more with the thickness of it. Yep. Cancel culture. Right, exactly right. Yeah, and you know, just people the offense was so easy, and you wondered whether comedy was gonna be in this endangered thing, right? And so now you're seeing some resurgence, uh kind of a resurgence of that. Um, but I I do admire Jordan for being you know being you know keeping a clean set. She had um she had a couple of um people that were before her that were kind of pushing that edge.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

You gotta push the edge. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Find out where it is, yeah. And so, but still that's very difficult because um you know because you you are you know you are placing conscious restrictions on where you need to go, right? Um, and all the while kind of finding the uncomfortable thing that everyone's gonna laugh, either laugh loudly about or uncomfortably about.

SPEAKER_01 38:13

Especially for a new comedian. Like she's gone to a couple open mics, and I think she was kind of shocked that um when she came back and she told me that I was trying to explain to her a lot of new comedians when they're coming up, they haven't learned stuff, and this is just um I don't know anything about comedy, I've just seen a lot of it. Right. Um, people just cuss for no other reason. There's no context in your in your there's no reason for you to to say those words or talk about that subject. You just think it adds to the joke, and it really don't. You just haven't honed in your craft yet.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, well, I know. I and I I after a while, I mean, I spend so much time with firefighters, law enforcement, and so forth, and a lot of Marines, um, that I just after a while your mind filters out quite a bit. Yeah. Um and you might even pick up on some of that. I was I served at a church in uh Orlando and the priest said, uh, Father and you spend a lot of time with uh with uh at fire stations. I said, Yes, I do. And he goes, Yeah, we know. I'm like, oh, sorry. Yeah, oops. But those type of but having that type of talent though, and being able to uh meet uh uh be able to appeal to an audience who has a uh you know, like for Jordan's uh audience, they can go to that uh go that performance and be confident they're not going to have to explain something uncomfortably to their child later on when they're going home. There's a very specific market for that. Yeah. I'm glad. I just so long as I remember in the in the 90s, there was uh no, no, no, it was the nineties, it was the 80s, 80s and 90s, where there was a uh a group of like Christian comedians, they're all trying to kind of like make a splash, and they were all you know, they're all plagiarizing Bill Cosby.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

Because that was the only real, you know, now it was only clean comic at the time.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

Yeah, and so you're like, so it was it was actually they struggled with originality uh by you by still trying to appeal to a very you know small niche. That's a hard space to work in. It really is. And so I that's why I know for me, my when we when I heard about open mic, and um I thought, oh, that sounds fun. And my wife said, Don't you even dare. Just try it. Don't you, don't you dare. Did you get up? No, I didn't. But she's like, she said, I'm very frightened because you'll because once you get the first laugh, then they'll get that's the dopamine hit. And you'll gonna you'll wanna kind of keep going. Next thing you know, you've told a joke like, oh shoot, I wish I could have that back. I didn't know I didn't have permission to tell that story.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

It's a joke where you're only you're laughing. That's what you don't want. Yeah, that's what you don't want.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

Yeah, yeah. Oh, I know. So I have to always I always do have to make sure that uh if I'm do telling a a story that really you know plays well, um either A, it's oh I'm it's self-deprecating. Um, so it doesn't really doesn't put down anyone who I currently know, or if it's an embarrassing story about someone who I'm not in contact with anymore.

unknown 41:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 41:03

No, it makes sense. I always go back to yourself.

SPEAKER_00 41:05

All right, oh yeah, that's well, that's an easy target. Yeah, yeah, easy target.

SPEAKER_01 41:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Guys, because God will never allow me to take myself too seriously. Right. It seems like it, there's always this moment where I'm just about the point where I do take myself pretty seriously, and he swoops in and goes, Oh, that will not do at all. This you're gonna need to fall on your face in some particular fashion just to kind of keep things at equilibrium. So, but now do you any um any big projects coming up that you're excited about? I mean, we got a lot um that you can't talk about.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

Yeah, I just can't talk about a lot of it right now. You know, we have shows on sale now at DothamCivic Center.com org and dothanoperhouse.com. Um, we are working on some things that's gonna surprise some people um that we have, but also, you know, in September, September 3, 10, 17, 24. So we're part of the Levit AMP concert series where we got in a grant, art in public places, is is the curator of the amp um of the of the grant. So there's gonna be free concerts at the park, food truck every Thursday night in September. Um, food trucks start serving at 5 30. And first one is a uh Indie Rock Soul show, the next one is a RB jazz show. Then we got two alt-country shows. So it's gonna be a good nice it's a good mix. So, you know, we want people to come out and experience community, even if you don't like these bands or you don't like the style of music, come out and see what the park is and come out and make some new friends and just hang out with it.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

We came up for Mark's Chestnut at the um at the Dolphin Opera House. Yeah, that was a pretty show. That's a good show for the Opera House. Fantastic. Really enjoyed that.

SPEAKER_01 42:33

Show for the Opera House.

SPEAKER_00 42:34

Yeah. Um, so the the parades that go through at Dothan, do you have a hand in any of those? Used to have a hand in Mardi Gras a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

Okay. Um, but you know, with my with my job at the city, it is a it's a that line with kept getting blurred. So instead of me being frustrated with it's easier for me just to go work on it from the city side, as opposed to, you know, if I'm out asking for money for Mardi Gras, then people have for sponsorships, then people blur that with the city of Dothan. They start calling up the city of Dothan, wanting to register afloat, and you have to tell them that's not really me. But uh I used to do um sponsorships, um vendors, some entertainment, some other things. There's there's there's there's a lot of guys in Mardi Gras, and I will say that there was um three to four really behind the scenes that kind of just catapulted this thing up. There's you know, some of them are still there, and now they have a strong foundation where they should just keep running.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

All right. What would you well, I mean, what what types of acts would you like to see more of in this area? I mean, I know you got the huge there is the the when you're out at the the the crossings at by Crossing at Big Creek. The crossing at Big Creek, the big amphitheater there. Um there's that's not what we have here with the Dothan Opera House and Civic Center. But but uh are there are there other acts that you would like to see? Um, well, we don't those promoters haven't contacted us yet, but we'd like to see X, you know, XYZ because we think there's a market for it.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

I mean, I think I think we're kind of getting there now. I think we've done pretty much everything we've we've done, you know, we've done rock, we've done country, um, we've done some ballet, like we've done comedy. I think now that the the numbers are kind of there when we weren't there. So I don't know how much more we'll get. I'd like to see some bigger shows, some some some outdoor shows. You know, the Peanut Festival has an amphitheater out there too that holds about 7,000.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

I can see someone using Rip Hughes Stadium for that.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

The AstroTurf. So you gotta buy stuff called DuraDeck to go AstroTurf and that Durideck is not only expensive, it is labor-intensive to put in. It weighs about 60 pounds a sheet. Oh my goodness. Okay. Yeah, but that's what they use on golf courses. Like get it smooth, you pick it up. Um yeah, and the AstroTurf, you still have to replace the grass if it was real grass. Right. Yep. Well, that I was just wondering about that. I mean, you could do a concert in the field. Like you could, you know, you could yeah, it's you just gotta have the money in the and I'd also like to see um some things happen at the farm center, like it needs to some things need to have to do that. After that's been refurbished. Yeah. Somebody needs to just go over there and do a concert and show it can be done. Yeah. I mean, don't don't be mad at me if you don't make your money back, but just go try it, to show it can be done.

SPEAKER_00 45:09

Yeah. So I mean, for us, I mean I my hope is that to see more it to see uh you know the those arts really kind of thrive and grow. Um, you know, the the a society when we were when comedy was being kind of under attack for a time, a lot of us lamented that uh that was a that was they were somewhat of the canary in the cold mine that that artists don't have the ability to really you know exp you know express the emotions and angst and aspirations and myths of the society. And so where's that going? Now I'm encouraged to see more of these artists come back and especially with you know comedy and other type of music genres. And so um that's why I'd like to, but I also want to see people engage that and interact with it and see how they can, you know, mine it for all of it's worth. Right. Um especially I'm excited about what you're saying about the that film festival.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

Yeah, that's great. So I I I have a I I love film. Um I I'm thinking back now about you know, I could think about uh the what the effects 9-11 had some of the had ramifications on the global horror industry. Like I used to work for a film festival program, horror movies. So foreign horror films, there's a gap there from about 2003 to probably about 2010 where they really got psychological and they got violent, and not just violent for the sake of violence, like it really something happened, and you could tell it was the way the world shifted. So I don't know what's gonna, you know.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Kind of nihilistic. Very yeah, yes. Once upon a time, slasher films used to be morality tales.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

That's why that's why you get the final girl.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

Yeah, uh, don't go go to a park and hook up. Exactly right, right. Because that's where you get exactly these got really, especially there, there's the there's a especially the French movies got really really out there. They're rough, they're rough. I can remember one coming out. I mean, it still sticks in my mind. It's called More Tears. So the whole point was pushing people as close as death so they'll see God and then talk about that experience right before they die. And it's a really rough movie to watch, but it's came out and it's critically acclaimed, but it is a rough watch.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

There are horror films that were profound for me, yeah, that you that that stick with you as and almost get incorporated into the way in which you again have a conversation with about faith. Um, I'm I gotta be careful because if I say if I say a film here, people are like, is Father Aaron recommending the following movie? Like, no, no, don't do that. I'm not recommending anything. I just say that I saw a thing and this is what I got out of it. But um uh Lawrence Fishburne, Event Horizon. That's a good movie. It's a great movie.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

It's almost a perfect movie.

SPEAKER_00 47:52

And almost there's a redemption arc there. I mean, there's almost like you could you could extract from that a Christian message in a sense. Uh this idea of the you know, the the the ship that goes to hell comes back and brings it back with him. And then, of course, he winds up having he's the one who has to sacrifice himself and go to hell on everybody else's behalf. Yeah. And be but you go through a lot to get there. Go through a lot. Exactly, right. A lot of people don't watch that movie twice. Oh, no, no, that's just not.

SPEAKER_01 48:20

I was thinking a minute ago when you were talking about Christian movies. Um, first time I can remember ever being scared at a movie was um at Revival at a little Baptist church when I was probably six, and these movies were called A Thief in the Night.

SPEAKER_00 48:32

They're all about Oh my gosh, Napoleon Dynamite is there playing the drums. You know, as Wish We'd all be. I can remember that.

SPEAKER_01 48:39

I saw them on eBay when I was like 25, and I bought them in this box set. Oh, I got it. And um played it, and I could remember the the guillotine, the balloon going up, like and I realized these movies scarred me. Like, that's the first thing.

SPEAKER_00 48:51

Oh my gosh. No, my sister and I have gone through this, um, uh talked about this a lot too, because I don't know how things are now in our tradition. That's not our eschatology. Um, you know, there's there's that's there's a different way of viewing those texts from the Bible that have a more of a triumphant view of the how the church will have its influence and basically fulfill Christ's commission. Right. Right. So that's already like that better. Right. Um, but there is that branch of there is that branch of Christianity that viewed very much that apocalyptic, that kind of like that, you know, late 20th century apocalyptic view of there's you know, everybody's possibly yanked out, there's an antichrist, there's an Armageddon, all these sort of things. And as a result, a lot of young church kids were traumatized with you know, with notions in movies that it could happen tomorrow. Tomorrow. There's the anti you are you taking the mark of the beast? You might be you might be the victim of the antichrist.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

Sometimes I'll wake up on a Saturday morning and I'll go to the gym and it'll be like 5 30. I won't see a car on the way there. Nobody's gym. And I'm thinking my head sometimes, like, okay, I wasn't as good as I thought it was.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

You were left behind. I was left. I know. Well, no, that's the thing. No, seriously, that was the thing where it's like you that wound up, unfortunately for many, um, there that really was incorporated into kind of like the religious message, was just this intense message of fear. And I, you know, my experience has been that a lot of people reacted to that to be they didn't react to that to take uh they I'm my situation is a little bit unique because I reacted to that by taking a deep dive into theology, church history, and kind of go, wait a second, is that a is that a teaching that's always been around? Right. That but that's not the reaction of most. The reaction of many is they reacted to that sense that that fearful type of like hit you with that, with that, you know, kind of like a pa apocalyptic, you know, traumatic idea by be just re-banding the church altogether. And they left for the faith behind. And it didn't help the fact that these movies came out in a cyclical fashion, predicting the return of Jesus at least once a decade since the 60s.

SPEAKER_01 51:06

And so some people call for it too, and I just don't understand like what you're technically saying you want the world to end, which is crazy to me.

SPEAKER_00 51:14

Yeah, oh I well, anthropologists call that ethnocentric.

SPEAKER_01 51:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 51:17

Where in ethnocentricity is the your culture literally is the center of the universe. God is about to glass the people in Sri Lanka because your election didn't go right. Right. Right?

SPEAKER_01 51:30

Makes perfect sense.

SPEAKER_00 51:31

Your party lost the White House, so those people in Burundi, they're screwed. Yeah. Because this is gonna be a global conflagration, all because your guy didn't win. I mean, they're having a bad day, so we're gonna just everybody else can just be wiped out. Oh, I know. Yeah, I know. Well, and that's and that's why you say I try to be charitable where I can, but in many cases, that eschatology that was shown through those traumatic youth group movies is also tied to geop you know, geopolitical performance in North America. You can track apocalyptic preaching actually in North America to whether a Republican or Democrat was in the off in the White House.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 52:09

So in the 70s, this is Jimmy Carter and you know, the and then uh Helen Lindsey's late great planet Earth book comes out. And so apocalypticism really starts to kind of take hold in the early 70s, and then it has takes kind of like a back, it kind of you know, takes a back seat during the Reagan years because those churches were all acting very triumphant. Oh my goodness, look, we're doing well. And then during the uh during the Clinton 90s, apocalyptic preaching all was on their ascendancy again, and you see this in publishing, and it was on the end caps of all the bookstores.

SPEAKER_01 52:41

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:42

And then during the Bush administration, it kind of you know ebbed uh uh a little bit. And then during the Obama years, it flowed out again. More apocalypticism, more you know, um type of uh traumatic films. I think Nick Nick Cage did his version of Left Behind during that period, too. And you just like so that's where it gets really transparent. We're like, if this is a thing that's always true, why is it so dependent upon our election cycles? Right. And so I don't want to get I wasn't intending you and I need to talk one day off the boat. I mean, you and I could have I wasn't intending to get into that here, but when we're talking about movies and arts, yeah, that's a very powerful tool if you're really trying to like screw up a generation. It is, it is so no uh that's why I do sometimes. I'm people say, Do you watch many Christian movies? And I say, Why no, I'm already a Christian watching movies. Because your I mean, yes, art is subjectively apprehended in a sense, but a Christian no one's a blank slate. So you're you yes, you are subjectively apprehending or receiving the arts, but your subjective your subjectivity is also subject to conditioning, too. And so I always say that a Christian actually has a constituted subject a subjectivity that's constituted around a beloved reality that all good stories point at one story. Right. I used to I actually gave a lecture in Houston um as part of my role with the University of Houston, gave a lecture at a local community event on um uh the the religious films or the gospel in film, and I only used examples of Academy Award-winning films for the last 50 years. And so how because it was demonstrated that how all these critically acclaimed Oscar-winning films are all pointing at aspects of the divine story, and how you just can't help it. You can't if you're telling a good story, you can't help but tell aspects of the story, right? And so people say, Well, I need a good, I need a good, um, I need a good film that kind of communicates the book of Proverbs, like Fargo. Right. And like, huh? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. Sorry, I know you gotta go. But I mean we could just I suspect we could go on for like this for a little bit. Yeah, but uh anyway, thank you so much for coming to me.

SPEAKER_01 55:13

Everything is that story, Star Wars is that story, everything is that do not get me started on that.

SPEAKER_00 55:17

I am an ordained Jedi.