Many thanks to the Secret Gift Giver

 

Creating a well-known movie title

 Imaginary conversation from long ago in the Groovy 70s…

 [We hear the sound effects that happen when going back in time. Heavy on the guitar wah wah. A somewhat blurry scene comes into focus.]

 …I said to him, “Bruce, if you take the same basic principles you’ve been using in the 3-inch punch and transfer them to a ONE-inch punch, I think you’ll have something pretty darned special…and pretty powerful, too!”

 He thought for a moment, looking out into the distance and absent-mindedly broke a large brick with his pinky finger. Then nodded his head with a radiant smile saying, “Oh yeah…”

 And we both busted out laughing.

 But then he turned to me and I could tell something was bothering him. He became very serious and, with a look of disappointment, said, “Dan, I feel like this whole martial arts thing just isn’t working out for me. I can’t get it to break in a big way.”

 I said, “Bruce, what you need to do is re-title this new film you’ve been working on.” At that moment, I reached up without looking and caught, in mid-air, a sharp arrow someone at the school shot at us from a hiding place.

 He said, “But all the execs at the movie company think ‘Enter the Muscular Guy with No Shirt’ is a phenomenal title. It seems to score well with focus groups and many of the folks at my dentist’s office.”

 I held up my hand and with a wry grin suggested, “Go with this instead, my friend: ‘Enter The Dragon.’”

 “Dragon?!? …Really?” There was a long pause. “Dragon?”

 “Yes, Dragon!”

 I could see there was some skepticism but he said, “Alright, I don’t know about this…but I’ll give it a try. Hmm, Enter the Dragon!”

 As we got up and walked out the door, the students at the dojo saw our silhouettes, in the setting sun, become smaller and smaller until they vanished out of sight.

And this concludes another fun “Behind the Scenes” story about creating well-known movie titles.

Yia Yia Palooza and My Bruce Lee Present

At Yia Yia Palooza, this evening, I enjoyed the singing, the joke-telling, the dancing, the outstanding story-telling and the “all in” commitment of the worship team’s version of 12 Days of Christmas. (This version of the 12 Days of Christmas was fun, hilarious and just a tiny bit puzzling all at the same time. It was surely the most entertaining version of the song I’ve seen.)

But one of my favorite moments of the night came after the program was over and Faith walked up to me holding out a gift bag.

I said, “What is this?”

She said, “It’s for you.”

“For me?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s a Christmas present.”

I reached into the bag with curiosity and pulled out a Bruce Lee figurine collector’s item.

“This is AWESOME!!!” I cried out in joy. That’s right, joy! Just like we’ve been talking about at church for the past few weeks.

Ahhh… the magic of Christmas.

T.H.E. Cat Is A Real TV Show... I'm Not Crazy, After All!

As a young adult, when I would get into conversations with others about TV shows that we watched as children, I mentioned a show titled “T.H.E. Cat.”  Invariably I would be met with blank stares, looks of concern, lots of deep sighs and comments like this:  “I don’t remember that one, Dan.  Perhaps it’s time for you to take some medication, huh?”

In fact, I almost started to think that maybe I did, somehow, make up memories of watching the show and it never really existed in the first place.  (After all, I made up those memories of Bruce Lee and I going to ninja school together.)

But then came the Internet and all of the world’s most obscure information was now just a few keystrokes away.  With great joy—and a touch of relief—I discovered that a TV show titled “T.H.E. Cat” did, in fact, exist! 

YES!!!!  I didn’t make it up, after all!

T.H.E. Cat aired on NBC during the 1966-1967 television season.  The star of the series was Robert Loggia.  There are clips from the show that can be viewed on YouTube.

You say, “For crying out loud, so what, Dan?  Who cares?  Why are you even writing about this?!?”

Here’s why:  There is a section on each person’s Facebook page, which lists favorite TV shows and I’m fairly certain I am the ONLY person, of the hundreds of millions of Facebook users, who lists T.H.E. Cat as a favorite TV show. 

In fact, you know what?  I’m just going to come right out and boldly put it here in writing:  I’m positive—absolutely positive—I have to be the ONLY person in the entire realm of Facebook who lists “T.H.E. Cat” as a favorite TV show!

Okay, that’s pretty much all I needed to report, at this time.  You may now return to your regularly scheduled online activities.

Studying The Movements of the Praying Mantis

Ancient kung fu masters studied the movements of the praying mantis and incorporated those precise, stealthy, lightning-quick movements into their style of hand to hand combat.

Earlier today I studied those movements, as well, with the help of this fellow you see in the photo… (and an old Shaolin monk who stops by the church on Wednesdays).  If you’re thinking (and you probably are), “Gee, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but for some reason Dan sure seems to look a little bit more like Bruce Lee, these days.”  Now, you know why.

The Fruit of the Spirit -- Audio Podcast

               Click here for audio!

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Is Anyone Else Excited About The Green Hornet? Of Course You Are!

Oh boy, I am excited!!!

Seriously, I am.  You know how a little kid gets excited about Christmas?  That’s what I’m talking about, I’m excited like that.  In fact, Nadia has to keep reminding me every few days that Santa is carefully watching to see who’s a good boy or girl because in my excitement I’m liable to do something foolish or rash.

To explain my excitement I have to go back to the time when I was about 8 or 9 years old.  I forget what year it was, but just for the sake of argument, let’s say 1984.  [Stop laughing, you punks!]  A television show called “The Green Hornet” began airing.  It was awesome!!!  And when I say “awesome”, I mean “like really totally completely awesomely awesome”.  The best part of all was Green Hornet’s sidekick, Kato (played by the legendary Bruce Lee).

I can remember sitting mesmerized, while watching this show.  “Who is this guy?” I thought, unable to take my eyes off the screen.  I was stunned, excited, curious, thrilled, fascinated…all at the same time.  Kato was an expert in kung fu.  I didn’t know the word “kung fu” then but I knew that Kato could move with breathtaking speed, grace, and agility as he easily dispatched any bad guy who dared to get in the way of his lightning-fast fists of fury.

In my mind, I had never seen a character in any TV show or movie as impressive as Kato…ever!  At that point in my life—when I was 8 or 9—if you would have sat down with me and engaged in a careful analysis of characters from literature, film, or theater, and asked, “Which character has emotionally moved you in such a way that it has resulted in the most significant impression upon your young psyche?”  I would have stopped fidgeting with the whoopee cushion that I carried around with me and answered, “Well, that’s easy.  It would be Kato.”  Then I would have stuck my gum to the bottom of your chair.

(You’ll be glad to know that I no longer carry a whoopee cushion around with me.  [Chuckling]  Yep, I’ve long outgrown that kind of humor…and moved on to fake vomit and that pack of gum that sets off an exploding cap when you pull a stick out of the package.  It’s a riot, I’m telling you!  And it’s a big hit at minister’s meetings.  Although, it’s curious that I never get invited back to minister’s meetings a second time.  Hm…oh well.)

Kato was absolutely the coolest!!!  Really.  He was.  And if you don’t agree with me then “you’re a big dummy-head.  So there!!!”

And if you’re thinking some kind of witty comeback, then you know what I say to that?  I say: “I know you are, but what am I?”

[Pretty hard to argue with that one, huh?]

Okay, now that we’ve firmly established my maturity level, I can tell you that I’m excited because a Green Hornet movie is coming out in January of 2011!!!!  Yes, you read that sentence properly, a Green Hornet movie!!!!

Stop.  Relax. Take a deep cleansing breath.  And read those words again:  A GREEN HORNET MOVIE IS COMING OUT IN JANUARY OF 2011!!!!

Whoo Hooooo!!!!

You’re all as excited about this as I am, right?  Of course you are, it would be impossible not to be excited about a Green Hornet movie, after all, gee whiz, you’re only human.

Okay, let’s stay calm and remember that overreaction is never helpful.  But let’s make sure we all go out and see the Green Hornet movie.  And let’s hope and pray…I mean, pray really hard…that they found someone really good, someone really cool, someone awesome, someone really exceptional to play Kato.

Iron Man 2 -- Dan's Review

I’ll start this movie review by admitting that I have the taste of a 14 year old boy when it comes to movies.  I like ACTION!  I’m not really interested in great drama with heavy emotion and tear-jerker moments that make a person ponder deep and meaningful questions of life, while Sally Fields makes me feel guilty about some kind of sad issue.  Frankly, I get a fair amount of that every day in my office.  That’s what I’m trying to get a break from, when I go to the movies.  I want Willis or Schwartzenegger to blow some things up, and I want to see some Bruce Lee-type fight scenes with really bad guys getting what’s coming to them.  And then I want to go home thinking about how I would like to beat up some really bad guys, but instead, I’ll have just have ice cream.

Alright then, having made that disclaimer, I liked Iron Man 2.  There was a lot of fun action and the bad guys get it in the end.  Well, come on, what do you expect?  It’s a comic book made into a movie, it’s not a documentary about the ozone layer.  Once again, the “action” and the “bad guys” are just about the right level of movie sophistication for me.

But even though I’m not one to pay particularly strict attention to the artistic nuance of acting, I will say this, Robert Downey, Jr. is an interesting actor.  Maybe I’m subconsciously influenced when I’m watching him act by knowing that he’s had a somewhat troubled life off the screen.  But he just seems to be kind of edgy in a way that makes him interesting to watch.  His character, Tony Stark, Iron Man’s alter ego, is arrogant, witty, a little bit self-destructive, unpredictable, slightly conflicted about his life, irreverent and amusing.  And that comes across in a very engaging and convincing way in the hands of Downey.

For me, it was a couple of hours of fun entertainment…Taylor and Rachel said they liked it, too.  Hey, what do you know?  See? You just got 3 reviews for the price of one!

[ NOTE:  Don’t get the popcorn, the movie’s been over for almost 2 hours and I’m still prying the kernels out of my teeth. ]

Test...How Many?

Approximately one time each week—as part of my push-up work-out—I do a test to determine the maximum number of push-ups I can execute, non-stop, with proper form.  (I know, the level of excitement in my life is frighteningly low.)  I did that test tonight and the number was…..

Drum roll, please…..

Here it is….

I’m not kidding around, now….

Really, this is it…..

Thirty-eight push-ups!  Alright, sure, that’s a heck of a long way from 100 push-ups (the goal).  But when I started this routine I could only do about 20 proper push-ups, so “38” is progress.  I’m getting there.  I started the push-up routine in 1986, so, admittedly, the progress is slow, but, hey, progress is progress, right?

To reward myself for this progress, I’m going to Dairy Queen with Nadia and Rachel in just a few minutes and I’m going to eat a large triple banana split with extra chocolate syrup!  I’ve heard that dark chocolate is actually an extremely healthy food.  It’s loaded with anti-oxidants.  So, this is sort of like a cleansing and purifying ritual for my body.

Yeah…that’s right.  Sure.  Yep, this is like having a special health food concoction.  In the long run, this triple banana split with the extra chocolate syrup will probably BURN calories and cause me to lose weight.  You know what I mean?  In fact, now I’m getting nervous.  I hope this Dairy Queen treat doesn’t cause me to drop too much weight, too quickly.  That wouldn’t be healthy.

I’m glad you are all following this air-tight logic.  Because it makes perfect sense to me.

Okay, that’s my report.  Gotta’ run!

  

[*NOTE:  I’m just kidding, Paul.  We’re not going to Dairy Queen.  Actually, I had a salad for supper tonight.  Really.  I did.  See what a good boy I am?  ….I’ll tell you this, though, it’s amazing how much better lettuce tastes with chocolate syrup.]

That's right, your eyes are not 

deceiving you.  I'm doing one arm

push-ups the way Bruce Lee used

to do them.  Notice how helpful

Jasper is with this type of activity.