Senya Maximov came into my life through the Fulbright program at Missouri Southern. After I shared the only three Russian words I knew (da, spoceba, vodka), and after he shared perfect British English, shared language led to shared life. Joplin felt like Senya’s new home. Though he wanted to stay, his visa expired. I scheduled an interview at this new coffee joint on second and main called Cooper’s—they made a great pulled chicken sandwich, a rather unexpected virtue for a coffee shop. Senya popped open his kettle chips and I flipped on my recorder.
For twenty-six years Senya lived in Russia. “I grew up in Moscow,” he said, “and it’s a huge city. I was born in the Soviet Union.” He remembers enormous lines for loaves of bread, bone-bare shelves in shops and waiting necessities. “You’d come to a shop and one shelf, there would be like… chicken. And on another shelf, there would happen to be soda. So everyone would be buying soda and stand in line for it. Your neighbor would come home and say, ‘Hey! There’s fish today!’ And you would rush to the shop and try to get the fish before all the other people.” Continue reading →
At eight I asked my father if I could bench press, but he refused. “Not till you’re thirteen. Your bones gotta develop.” But I was eight and a bony eight at that. I grew slower than my peers with little to show for my weaknesses. I’ve wondered if no form of vigorous exercise existed for children…
Similar weakness might have come for Paul Comstedt had he rejected gymnastics at age four. He grew up in Airborne Gymnastics and Dance in Colorado, a gym boasting twelve-hundred athletes and twenty-five thousand square feet. (Average gyms use nine-thousand square feet). Infused with jazz, hip-hop and ballet (technique class), Paul prepared to brave the Midwest Regional Ballet later in life. They asked him to take the lead of Swan Lakethis summer.
Paul managed his first girl’s gymnastics team in high school, a gig for spotting and coaching. He yearned to work with youth and considered counseling. Gymnastics facilitated mentoring relationships distinct from other crafts, requiring deep trust and time commitment from the athlete. Many gymnastics coaches train the same athlete from age four to eighteen, and if the athletes chooses to work for that coach, their relationship crests twenty years. Add coach intentionality plus perfect full-body training to the mix, and gymnasts mature faster. There’s a reason USA Gymnastics says Begin here, go anywhere. Before he was twenty, Paul knew his path. Continue reading →
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 20,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
As a team, we’ve already raised over $96,000 for world poverty relief!
Every year, hyper-nerds ban together with Patrick Rothfuss to provide better solutions to worldwide poverty, lifting people above the poverty bracket and giving them a chance for a future.
Pat matches 50% of whatever we donate AND creates a sort of lottery by which donors win many many prizes – prizes like complete firefly seasons, signed copies of the guild, HUNDREDS of books, readings by Neil Gaiman, etc. All that at his site.
We here at literating talk about more than fantastic worlds. We try and work through issues in our own world like generosity, greed and poverty. Well here’s the chance to shine, people. I set us a goal with the Worldbuilders team of $500. Having never hosted this before, I have no idea if that’s too small or big, so let’s just meet the goal and then I’ll raise the bar! Tweet, retweet, whatever – but get the word out and donate! Let’s give a Happy New Year to people in need.
We partner with Heifer international. Here’s the basics:
After listening to the propaganda streaming out of FOX, CNN, MSNBC and other national media, I got the impression that OWS was a violent group of rag-tag aimless children that put up some tents in a park. But why take their word for it? I went on a search for myself…
Nonviolent - Occupy George stamps infographics on one dollar bills to raise awareness about the political influence of the wealthy 1%. It’s illegal – it defaces federal currency – but nonviolent. No reports of physical harm coming from this site.
Goal-Oriented – “Money talks, but not loud enough for the 99%. By circulating dollar bills stamped with fact-based infographics, Occupy George informs the public of America’s daunting economic disparity one bill at a time. Because money knowledge is power.”
Seems like a clear goal to me, not some aimless kids throwing maltovs.
Public - “LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The intent behind Occupy George is not to render any money unfit to be reissued, and in fact the hope is that all stamped money will circulate as much as possible, passing knowledge to all those who come across the bills.” Aside from offering a rebuttal to the defacing claim, this shows how broad they hope to get. Continue reading →
DISCLAIMER: This is an interview with a friend and should be read as such. For professional investing advice, please consult your personal financial advisor. This interview should in no way be construed as professional investing advice for your personal portfolio. You are responsible for your own money, not me or Greg Hull.
Last time, Greg and Charlie and I got into the nitty-gritty of options. These week we wrap up the essentials like a diaper.
LS: Are there any other guidelines that are really important? Like what if a stock drops really low? What if it loses a lot of value?
GH: You have to have an exit strategy, obviously. If a company declares bankruptcy, you’re losing your entire stock, everything you invested in it. Doesn’t happen very often, but that’s why you do your research and buy companies with solid financials.
LS: It’s not like they got bought out and you got paid. . . something.
GH: Right. It’s like you get $0.00 for your investment, which would suck and has happened. But that’s do to lack of research. That’s never do to a surprise in a company.
LS: What about Enron?
GH: That was just illegal. [laughs.]
LS: [laughs.]
GH: That was just illegal. And I still think it’s due to lack of research because that comes down to researching leadership, not just bad financials ‘cause they hid the financials. That comes through research in leadership, finding out who the C.E.O. is, who the board of directors are, what their histories are – things like that.
LS: How do you do that?
GH: A lot of it’s public knowledge. Any board of directors, any C.E.O.s – all of them are public knowledge, you can find them on the internet.
GH: Yeah. You can find a lot on Wikipedia. You can find a lot on the company’s home page. Just go to the company’s web page.
LS: What’s. . . obviously the company’s not gonna be like “Hey our guy who runs this company? He’s really sucky.”
GH: [laughs.] Right.
LS: “He’s terrible. He totally wrecked his marriage and blew up five government buildings and got arrested for smuggling queludes.”
GH: [laughs.] Right. But the internet a web of knowledge.
LS: This is true.
GH: Google—
LS: Well I just didn’t know if their were any kind of red flags or smoke alarms that say “Hey, Charlie’s been smuggling drugs!”
GH: [laughs.]
CA: [laughs.]
GH: A good indication is what they’re doing with their own stock of the company. Any time an insider (CEO, CFO, whatever) – any time someone inside the company goes to do anything with their stock, they have to file with the SEC. They have to disclose it before they do it. A good indicator of the company’s strength is what the insiders are doing with their stocks. If the insiders are buying up stock, it’s a good sign. If they’re selling off stock, it’s not a good sign. It’s not just a sale here or there. It’s mass sales. Large quantities of stocks. Things that are abnormal for someone inside the company to do. Things like that. Other things you could do is to look at their employment history. Where have they worked before and what was that company like? Is that company still in business? Is it thriving? Is it doing well? If you see that the CEO of Enron, for example, has run multiple other companies into the ground, it’s usually not a good thing. You can find information that way. If a company goes bankrupt and your invested in it, it’s usually because of lack of research, not because of a surprise in the company.
LS: Right. And that’ll affect the whole market too. Even people invested in 401k, their 401k will be affected by that, right?
GH: Yeah. It’s gonna be a broad. . . when the banking industry – or when the airline industry (a good example) when the airline industry. . . Delta Airlines was a good airline during that time, but its stock still dropped. It was affected by the rest of the market. Its financials were good. Its leadership was solid. I made lots of money on Delta during the airline crises. But the rest of the industry was going down, so it brought panic and greed into the market and people started to sell off Delta as well. This is good for me. I just bought more of it because I already did the research on Delta. I knew the other airlines weren’t doing well, but because the industry as a whole was going down, it brough Delta under attack and undervalued it to where when all the smoke cleared, it was the only one still standing strong and it actually made profits in the company. It was actually a really good time for me. That research that you do can find those kinds of stocks. To get back to your original question, you have to get an exit strategy. There are two types of people in the buy-and-hold strategy. The first type are the diehard buy-and-hold strategists. This is what Warren Buffet does. He WILL NOT sell a stock. Period. If he’s done his research and thinks it’s a good company, he will hold onto it ‘till the day he dies. Okay? Whether it’s up or down or whatever. Doesn’t matter if it loses 10% of the value or 80% of the value.
LS: So how does he make money?
GH: He makes money through diversification and through price adjusting. When it goes down and is down 80% — if I buy a stock at $100 and then I buy that stock at $50 and I buy 100 shares of each price, my average cost is only $75. If the stock ever gets back up to $100, I’ve actually made money on all my shares because of the stock I bought at $50. It’s dollar-cost averaging, is what it’s called. By buying the stock at a lower price, you actually gain value on all the shares you bought at a higher value. That’s the diehard buy-and-hold strategy: never ever get rid of your stock.
Another strategy is once a stock loses a certain amount of value to where you can make more money taking that money and putting it somewhere else to regain the value of the loses, it might be better to do that. If a stock is $100 and it drops to $70, okay?
LS: 30% down.
GH: 30% drop in the investment, I look at it and go “Can I take that $70 and put it somewhere else to gain that 30% back faster than waiting on the company to come back up 30%?” That comes back to research. What’s the volatility of the stock? Is it known to make large swings in its history to be able to go up or down 30%? Things like that. If it is, that’s something you want to consider – stay in the stock until it makes one of those upswings. You know it’s a solid company. You know that its financials and leadership and public relations are strong. You undervalued it at $100 – how much more undervalued will it be at $70! That type of thing. But if I can take that $70 and turn around and make a 10% rate of return in a month and recoup my losses in a few months? Verses waiting six months to a year to wait for the stock to come back while staying in it, it’s a better move for me to put my money somewhere else than it is to wait for the company. Those two things are a debate between investors. Both of them are good strategies. Both are solid strategies.
LS: Buying when it’s down and. . .
GH: Buying when it’s down or moving. It’s just a matter of personal conviction or personal preference and how confident you are in your research and your ability to do research. If you have done your research well in the company you’re staying in? Stay in it. If you’re comfortable doing research on another company and you think you can do better by moving your money? Move your money. That’s just a preference and how comfortable you feel with your own research.
LS: Does some of that come through conference calls and things like that?
GH: Yeah. Anybody who wants to do research in a stock can find a plethora of information on the web. One of the greatest things I find is that anyone who owns one share of stock can call into a conference call and just listen and find out what the inner workings of the company is. You can talk to the CEO of the company and ask what he’s doing. Anybody who’s doing research for the company should find out when the next conference call is, listen into that conference call and try to get a feel for what’s going on. The internet is a plethora of information, but any time you can hear the words of the CEO himself, you can kinda get a vision for where the company is going.
DISCLAIMER: This is an interview with a friend and should be read as such. For professional investing advice, please consult your personal financial advisor. This interview should in no way be construed as professional investing advice for your personal portfolio. You are responsible for your own money, not me or Greg Hull.
Last time, Greg and Charlie and I chatted about the fruit of stock options, of exponentially increasing your earnings from average income and Charlie called us communists.
GH: You have the ability to buy and sell your options at a given price – whatever price somebody agrees on. I can buy my stock at a given price or I can sell my stock at a given price. These are options. For example, if I buy a stock at $10, Lance, but I don’t want to sell it till at least $12.50 and you come along and say, “Yeah, I’ll buy it at $12.50.” I say, “Okay, I’ll sell it to you at $12.50, but you have to give me a dollar for every share. That means I can only sell it to you, and only at $12.50.” The stock jumps, goes to $15. You’re like, “Greg? I wanna buy your stock.” Okay. I sell it to you at $12.50. You’ve just spent $13.50 on a stock that’s now worth $15. You’ve made money. I’ve now made $13.50 on a stock I paid $10 for. I’ve made money. It’s a win-win.
Here’s the other side. . .
LS: [laughs.]
GH: I buy the stock for $10 and I say I’ll sell it to you for $12.50. You pay me $1 to hold onto it, but now the stock that’s $10 only goes to $11, okay? It’s not at $12.50, so why would you want to buy it at $12.50 when you could buy it for $11? So you don’t buy it from me. You let the option expire because it only lasts for thirty days – that agreement we have only lasts for thirty days. You let it expire, and I get to keep my stock. You’re out a dollar, but I made a dollar. It’s still win-win for me. I made a dollar. The stock goes up, I make money because I made money on the stock price as well as the options. Stock stays the same, doesn’t go anywhere, I still make money because of the option and made a percentage return now. Stock goes down, not only have I leveraged my stock from selling the option, but I also have upside potential because of the dividend. I wait it out and make money. I now have a strategy that makes me money whether the stock goes up, down or stays the same.
LS: Now what’s the downside? Surely there’s a way to lose money. . .
GH: The only way to lose money is to sell the stock.
LS: Okay.
GH: If you buy a stock at $10 and it sells at $7.50,
LS: And I sell the $7.50 call?
GH: And you sell the $7.50 option, then you get called out at $7.50, you’ve lost $2.50 because they called you out. They have the right to do that. If you continue to sell the $10 and wait for the dividend, there’s no way to lose money because you own the stock.
LS: You gotta own a lot to do that.
GH: A hundred shares of any stock.
LS: Well. . . I mean like with commission.
GH: Umm. . .
LS: That starts eating into the potentiality. . . like if it’s $7.50 call, that’s only $750 on a 100-share bundle, so a good option’s what? 10 cents? 20 cents?
GH: I try and strive for 5% on the option. I’ll pull the trigger at 5%. On a $7.50 stock, you’re looking at about 37 cents, 38 cents. On 100 shares that’s $37, so commissions are gonna eat that up. Starting out with $750 isn’t gonna make that money. I tell people to generally start with a bout $5,000. That’s the point when you can actually start to see a good return on your investment. You can diversify into two, three stocks and still be comfortable. Having one stock puts all your eggs in that basket.
LS: Right.
GH: Whatever that stock does, that’s what your portfolio does. If you can spread it out over two or three stocks, you have a lot more security. Taking several positions is better than having it all in one. Yeah, I try and spread it out and I tell people Continue reading →
DISCLAIMER: This is an interview with a friend and should be read as such. For professional investing advice, please consult your personal financial advisor. This interview should in no way be construed as professional investing advice for your personal portfolio. You are responsible for your own money, not me or Greg Hull.
Last time, Greg and Charlie and I chatted about the fruitless pursuit known as “mutual funds,” the tech boom and the value of doing your own research. We also introduced Charlie to the internets, but that’s neither here nor there…
LS: So. . .
Debt Free
Budget like a power house (in envelopes if you have to)
GH: Yeah that’s a simple way, that’s a simple budgeting system that everyone can do.
LS: Yeah. That’s what we do.
GH: Everybody can do that.
LS: Yea. It’s like “Awww crap! There’s no money in the envelope! I wanna spend more!”
“Well you can’t!”
GH: [laughs.]
LS: “There’s nothing there!”
GH: [laughs.] That’s right. You can’t steal from one envelope to go to the other. It just doesn’t work.
LS: Yeah, and if you have to you need to reorder your envelopes. Okay. So I’m just s’posed ta buy stocks and let ‘em ride?
GH: What you do in the market. . . basically you’re doing research on companies for the buy-and-hold strategy, it’s what Warren Buffet does. You find companies that have strong financial security, have good leadership and have good public relations. After those three things you find companies that have all those things and are undervalued for what they should be. Okay?
LS: That’s good.
GH: If you find a company that has those three things, but are overpriced, you’re not gonna make any money on them.
LS: Like Netflix (NFLX) right now?
GH: Yeah. You find a company that is undervalued from what it should be – if it’s lower than its market competitors. Say I have a stock that is exactly the same as another company: the financials, the leadership, the public relations, but one’s $20 and the other is $10, why would I not choose the one at $10?
LS: Like WPRT ten months ago.
GH: Right. It’s a good company, but it’s undervalued for what it should be. You buy into those companies and you hold them. Forever. You don’t sell them. There’s no point in selling them because you’ve found that they’re good companies and you’ve found them at a good price. So you buy ‘em and hold onto ‘em. If the stock goes down from where you bought it at, that’s a good thing. It’s on sale. If you get a little extra money, you can buy more of it and lower your price. But if it goes up over the course of twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years, you make money. Buy-and-hold strategy – this is what Warren Buffet does. I’ve taken that and modified it a little bit. I still do buy-and-hold strategy, but I only do it with stocks that pay a dividend, companies that re-distribute the wealth back to their investors as kind of a thank-you for investing in our stock.
CA: Sounds like communism.
LS: Alright!
GH: [laughs.] Communism from Jesus.
LS: G.K. Chesterton called that distributionism. Wrote a little article called Utopia of Users which made fun of capitalism.
GH: [laughs.] So yeah, if a $10 stock pays a $0.10 dividend, you buy the stock at $10 and it pays you $0.10 a share just for owning the stock.
LS: Okay. So I’m getting money and I reinvest it in the stock?
GH: Yeah, or you just have cash on hand for something else.
LS: Is it better to do DRIP or just keep the cash?
GH: It depends. Depends on what you want to do. If you’re wanting to grow your investments as fast as possible, reinvesting it is the best option. But if you’re wanting to make income out of it, if you’re gonna be pulling that out, it’s better to get it out because you’re going to be doing it for other things. Sometimes it’s better to leave the cash out for down times where you can buy in for lower prices.
LS: Keep cash on hand?
GH: Always. Always keep cash on hand. Jesus is King, but cash is really good.
LS: So we have this stock and it’s paying us dividends and Charlie’s making money like a fiend every three months or four months…
GH: The good thing about dividends is you make money no matter what. There’s only three things a stock can do. Go up. Go down. Stay the same.
LS: Oooooh. Oh man.
GH: It can’t go slantways or sideways or other ways.
LS: Dere’s rain’a comin’ up sun’tines e’en from’a ground up to deh sky.
GH: [laughs.] And any other ways you can think of. Only three things. Up. Down. Stays the same. The goal is to make money regardless.
LS: Oh! Woah ho ho!
GH: [laughs.] So it goes up, you make money – obviously. It goes down, you still make money ‘cause the dividend’s going to pay you every three months no matter what the price of the stock is.
LS: Okay.
GH: Okay?
LS: Don’t panic if it goes down?
GH: Yeah, don’t panic. It could go down for awhile, but it will come back. The point’s to hold the stock for thirty, forty, fifty years anyway. Not to buy and sell every single month. So you’ve already found a stock that you like at a price that you like, so if it goes down, that just means it’s a better price. If you get money, you can get more. You don’t jump out just because it’s down. There are two things that can kill your investment: greed and panic.
LS: Hmmm. We’ve certainly had enough of both in the past two years.
GH: [laughs.]
LS: Kramer was callin’ it the It’s Just Emotion Taking Me Over market:
GH: Yeah. The whole point is to take emotion out of it. The two worst emotions are greed and panic. But once you have your dividend-paying stocks, you have the ability to trade options. A lot of people think stock options in a corporate sense.
LS: Yeah, that’s the only way I ever heard of it.
GH: Right. In the corporate world, you work for a company and they give you stock options which means in your retirement account, you can buy company stock at a lower price.
LS: Right.
GH: Right? Essentially it’s the same thing, but with a perk. You have the ability to buy and sell your options at a given price – whatever price somebody agrees on. I can buy my stock at a given price or I can sell my stock at a given price. These are options. For example, if I buy a stock at $10, Lance, but I don’t want to sell it till at least $12.50 and you come along and say, “Yeah, I’ll buy it at $12.50.” I say, “Okay, I’ll sell it to you at $12.50, but you have to give me a dollar for every share. That means I can only sell it to you, and only at $12.50.” The stock jumps, goes to $15. You’re like, “Greg? I wanna buy your stock.” Okay. I sell it to you at $12.50. You’ve just spent $13.50 on a stock that’s now worth $15. You’ve made money. I’ve now made $13.50 on a stock I paid $10 for. I’ve made money. It’s a win-win.
DISCLAIMER: This is an interview with a friend and should be read as such. For professional investing advice, please consult your personal financial advisor. This interview should in no way be construed as professional investing advice for your personal portfolio. You are responsible for your own money, not me or Greg Hull.
Last time, Greg and Charlie and I chatted about the fruitless pursuit known as “mutual funds” and about the necessity for people to be educated in more effective forms of investing…
Lance Schaubert: It really has to do with stopping, pulling back and critically thinking and reflecting on what’s going on in the market as opposed to giving it over to someone else.
GH: Right. You can’t just throw darts at a dart board with stock symbols on it and hope to make money.
LS: [laughs.]
GH: That was in the nineties.
LS: Tech boom?
GH: We’re not in those days.
LS: “What’s this symbol MSFT? I think I’ll throw some dollars at it. See what happens.”
GH: [giggles.]
LS: “AAPL? What’s that?”
GH: [laughs.] GOOG?
LS: [laughs.]
GH: “They just search stuff on the internet, they can’t make any money!”
LS: [laughs.]
GH: [laughs.]
Charlie Arnold: What’s the internet?
LS: Ask Al Gore. Practically, if a poor man wants to put some money back, or someone raised in a poor home, or someone raised in a low-to-low-middle class home and they actually want to break this cycle, they’ve got a Paradise Falls jar on their writer’s desk and their throwing quarters into it [wipes away elephant tears. sniffles.] Like this friend I have, what does this look like for them?
GH: Well the first step to any financial plan is being out of debt.
LS: [laughs.]
GH: Zero debt.
LS: Zero?
GH: You’ll hear people say that there’s good debt and bad debt. There is no good debt and bad debt, there’s just debt. Period. Being out of debt is one of the best ways to become financially independent. Now there are two times in your life where you can get cheap debt and I would recommend taking advantage of that. Those two times are in school, because the government gives you cheap money to go to school.
LS: Mmmm.
GH: And second is when you own a home, you have cheap money in your home and you can refinance that because money sitting on the foundation of a house doesn’t do anything for you.
GH: And the housing market is usually directly opposite of the stock market. People will panic out of one and jump into the other.
LS: Housing’s up right now?
GH: Housing’s on its way up. The market’s on its way up. Housing is kinda. . .
LS: Better than it was?
GH: It’s better than it was. I don’t see it dropping drastically in the next eight years, but I don’t see it necessarily improving beyond what it’s at now. The one thing they’re not creating any more of is land. So it is a good investment.
LS: Yeah, but they’re thinking about going to Mars. So. . .
GH: [laughs.]
LS: I know NASA closed down, but Space X, you know, they’re gonna start shipping people out to space, dude!
GH: I dunno about you, but I like the Pacific Ocean a little more than the Sea of Tranquility.
LS: [laughs.]
GH: [laughs.]
LS: Oh Reagan.
GH: Yeah. I just think people need to be educated about their finances. For example – just by knowing where your money is going each month will change somebody’s complete financial outlook.
LS: Telling it where to go as opposed to. . .
GH: As opposed to letting it fall out of your hands. One of the simplest ways to budget is the envelope method. You take a whole bunch of envelopes and you write down your bills for the month. You prioritize them based on needs. Then you take your money once you get your paycheck you don’t deposit it in the bank. If you have direct deposit, you go withdraw the cash from the bank. Then you take the physical dollars and fill the envelopes each month. You just progressively fill the envelopes down the priority list and once they’re filled, that’s when you have money left over. That’s when you can do what you want. The first envelopes are always giving and savings. If you don’t give and you don’t save, there’s never going to be enough left over.
LS: That’s what they mean when they say, “pay yourself first” ?
GH: Mmm hmm. Like I said, I don’t need a savings account. Just putting something into savings. And even if it’s $10 or $20 – something is better than nothing to start with. If you can get to the point where you’re putting one, two, three hundred dollars a month, you’ll have the means to where you’ll be financially stable in retirement, in your later years. That will sustain you for the rest of your life.
LS: So savings for emergency fund? Or savings for short term stuff? Or savings for this investing stuff?
GH: Both. All. Yes.
LS: So get out a debt, like Ramsey: Cheetah intensity.
GH: Yeah, Dave Ramsey’s great. I think his financial peace seminars are wonderful to a point. But he stops at the point of getting out of debt. There’s some resources you can find as far as getting out of debt and all that, but there’s not a whole lot he does past the point of being debt-free and having reserves – having an emergency fund.
LS: Right. He talks about life insurance and building a legacy – he calls it “building wealth.” I don’t like those terms. It doesn’t really fly with me, but a legacy for my kids does. He talks about mutual funds.
GH: And that’s one of the things: I think he’s good up until the point of being debt free. After debt freedom, you can find much better information. Mutual funds are not an avenue for building a legacy. Mutual funds are a tool for individuals to be able to sustain themselves in their later years. If you want to build real wealth, you can’t do it through mutual funds. If you want to be able to sustain more than just you and your spouse and maybe your kids, you can’t do it through mutual funds. What you really have to do is to look at larger investments. Do research on your own. Invest in stocks and companies that money managers are doing for you, but doing poorly. Basically a money manager will do the same thing that a bank will do. A banking system basically takes your money, Lance, puts it in an account, says “I’m gonna give you %1 on it,” and then they turn around and invest it to get 12, 15, 25, 30% on it. So they pay you with your own money.
LS: So we’re cutting out the middle man.
GH: Pretty much.
LS: I like that. [laughs.]
GH: [laughs.] It’s like: why should I pay someone to do something for me when I can do it better myself?
LS: It’s kinda like when you learn to change the oil on your car.
GH: Yeah.
LS: You’re like “MMMM! I’m changin’ my OIL!”
GH: I just dropped my car off. It cost me $17 in parts – oil filter, oil. It cost me $22 in labor. It cost me more to have them do it than it does to buy the stuff. That’s ridiculous to me.
DISCLAIMER: This is an interview with a friend and should be read as such. For professional investing advice, please consult your personal financial advisor. This interview should in no way be construed as professional investing advice for your personal portfolio. You are responsible for your own money, not me or Greg Hull.
I sat down at Chipotle with Greg and Charlie (who was just tagging along). I bought a burrito bowl, half asada/half pollo, with BLACK BEANS and a tortilla on the side. They got vegan burrito bowls (hold the cheese, sour cream and meat), which seemed to defeat the purpose:
Lance Schaubert: So how long’ve you been at this finance stuff?
Greg Hull: Since I was about fifteen.
LS: Fifteen years old. We did the math and how many hours did it total up to?
GH: A lot.
LS: Eighteen thousand?
GH: [nods.]
LS: Eighteen thousand hours. So you’re almost an outlier twice over. Take that Malcolm Gladwell.
GH: One sec, just got a comment on my status. [laughs.] “You don’t have to eat vegan to be healthy, ya hippie!” [laughs.]
LS: [laughs.] People are violent against that around here.
GH: It’s funny how bad it can get.
LS: It’s so political and emotional for them.
GH: But yeah, I’ve been doing finance since I was about fifteen. I started because my dad started and started with a book by Wade Cook—
LS: Wade Cook!
GH: –called Stock Market Money Machine and he detailed how to do options, covered calls and all that in the book. His strategy was a lot more aggressive than what I am now, but that’s basically what got me started.
LS: So he’s doing 15% calls or what?
GH: He’s doing uncovered calls and all kinds of crazy stuff. His basic mentality was to find rolling stocks, not buy-and-hold stocks, but rolling stocks where the chart would go between certain prices and to ride those until they stop rolling. You could do covered calls. Buy the stock low. Then when it went up, sell it. Then when it goes back down, you won’t get called out on it. So it would be doing this [does THE WAVE with his hand]. Which is a good strategy, but it’s risky. You can lose too much money doing it that way. I I lost too much money doing it that way.
LS: Those are dividend paying stocks?
GH: I mean you can do it with dividend paying stocks too but he was just. . . any stock.
LS: So why not mutual funds?
GH: Mutual funds are the lazy man’s way. Why would I pay someone else to do something poorly when I can do it myself sometimes better?
Charlie Arnold: It’s the American way.
LS: [laughs hard.]
GH: [chuckles. laughs.]
LS: [cackles.] That’s funny. Like the other day at Panera, you got really. . . ticked off at this guy trying to sell this old lady on mutual funds. Why is that a problem?
GH: Because any mutual fund, any person doing mutual funds, will tell you mutual funds are doing well if they average above 12% rate of return. The S&P 500 is kinda the benchmark of investing and the S&P 500 over the last 20-25 years has averaged a 12% rate of return. So that’s kind of a benchmark for people. If you don’t do at least as well as the S&P 500, you could at least throw your money in the S&P 500 and make your money in the S&P 500 and call it good. A lot of times, what you find is people are taking their money and putting it into bonds or mutual funds or whatever and they’re not making a large enough return. They have to at least make 12% to make anything because the average rate of inflation is 4%. So if you have $100 now, a year from now that $100 is only gonna be worth $96 dollars just because of inflation.
LS: Right.
GH: Your buying power on your $100 is going down by 4% every year. If you don’t make at least 4% every year, you’re losing money.
LS: So if someone’s putting back 500 bucks a month, it really doesn’t matter if it’s in savings.
GH: Right. Because that 500 bucks a month is losing 4% each year or 3% if you’ve got a really good savings account that gives you 1%.
LS: So even after the best case scenario on these 3% bonds, they’re still losing $60 on $6,000 a year.
GH: Right, in buying power. Not necessarily losing it as much as not being able to buy as much with it.
LS: Well yeah. But that’s still losing.
GH: Right.
LS: If a Cheerios box is. . . well it’s only 60% full of Cheerios now, and—
GH: [laughs.]
LS: chips. I hate chips. Chip bags three gallons tall and—
GH: [laughs.]
LS: open it up and there’s like five chips in it, friggin Santitas and Mission and Doritos.
GH: [laughs.] Yeah, in essence with a mutual fund – most mutual funds aren’t even generating a 12% rate of return.
LS: Aren’t?
GH: Aren’t. That’s why the benchmark is 12%. You’re a phenomenal money manager if you can make 12% rate of return. You’re considered great. When I tell people I could do twelve percent in one month they laugh.
LS: [laughs.]
GH: You know?
LS: I used to.
GH: It’s a matter of perspective. The wealthy are paying somebody to make them wealthier.
LS: Right.
GH: But they know what they’re doing with their money. They just don’t have the time to do it themselves. When a wealthy person hires a money manager and the money manager doesn’t do well, they know exactly why. They can do all those things themself, but they just don’t have the time. They could hire somebody to do it for them because it’ll save them time.
The poor hire a money manager because they don’t know what they’re doing. He can do whatever he wants. If he only generates you 12% annually, he’s phenominal because you couldn’t do it yourself. But if you educate yourself and you know what you’re doing, then a 12% rate of return is ridiculous.
LS: So it really has to do with stopping, pulling back and critically thinking and reflecting on what’s going on in the market as opposed to giving it over to someone else.
In part five, we wrestled through the problems of interpreting symbolism in film. This shorter conclusion to the Film Analyst ATE works through the idea of the new American hero in film. (We also praise demolition engineers who get paid to blow $#!! up).
Doug Welch: “See? You didn’t bring anything to the movie, did you?”
Lance Schaubert: [laughs.] You don’t have a kit.
DW: A kit. A film kit. No, but I think that’s the criticism. Bring something to the film. What are you bringing to the film? Be aware of that.
LS: How you’re intereacting with that.
DW: Yeah, how you’re interacting. Not to say that it’s never good to say, “What I’m bringing to this film is wanting to see things blow up. That’s what I’m bringing to the film. For my own sake. My own soul.”
LS: “I love demolition engineers.”
DW: Yeah, I wanna cathartic experience in that way.
LS: [laughs.]
DW: I’m not putting anything on this, I’m just saying…
LS: [laughs.]
DW: Just something to entertain me for two hours. You know, I love movies that do that. I cite Brunell and then I watched Red the other day with Bruce Willis and John Malcovitch blowin’ stuff up.
LS: Shoot bullets at rockets.
DW: It’s, I think there is something there. It’s sort of the anit-
LS: Anti-action movie.
DW: Well, it’s the anti-In Time movie. Everybody in that film is twenty-five, or whatever, and here’s Red and everybody’s in their fifties.
LS: Seventies.
DW: They’re all retired and people still gettin’ it done. You know? You show up and here’s Ernest Borgnine and you’re supposed to say, “Holy Cow! That’s Ernest Borgnine! I thought he was dead!” No! He’s not dead! He’s still gettin’ it DONE!
LS: [laughs histerically.]
DW: That’s what he’s doin’!
LS: [throws back head and belts out deep laughter.]
DW: That’s what’s you’re supposed to say. That’s what you’re supposed to bring. Okay. You know what? Richard Dreyvus! Who knew he was still making films?! Well, he’s not making movies anymore, but he’s making this. That’s what you’re supposed to say, I think. No. You know what? These old guys are still makin’ it happen. Bruce Willis can be in a fight scene with Carl Erdman.
LS: And do well.
DW: And do well. He’s winning. Kind of. He’s… there’s a funny plot point or piece of dialog where they’re fighting and he’s got him in this hold. “Did so-and-so train you?”
“Yeah, so-and-so trained me.”
“Well I trained him.”
LS: [laughs.]
DW: So he’s his spiritual grandpa, showin’ him how it’s done. Which, I don’t know if there’s been a better action hero in this generation than Bruce Willis. He does the wounded hobbling through.
LS: Perseverance.
DW: Yeah, perseverance. Hobbling through. There’s not to many guys better than how he does that.
LS: Glass. Floor.
DW: Yeah. “Shoot the glass.” Yeah, how he does that barefoot, bloodied.
LS: Falling down the stairs. One guy breaks his neck and he doesn’t.
DW: That’s his picture of America. I got laughed at when I said Die Hard is a picture of American exceptionalism over against Japanese technocracy and European faux-elitism, which is actually a desire for money.
LS: Really?
DW: Yeah, I believe that. He’s John Wayne for us.
LS: Oh yeah.
DW: He’s not American exceptionalism as the tallest guy and kills everybody, although Willis does kill everybody.
LS: But he is on the frontier and he is—
DW: Right, and he gets, he gets—
LS: The crap kicked out of him.
DW: The crap kicked out of him.
LS: All the time.
DW: He’s not John Wayne where he escapes without any harm done. You see all his scars. That’s the difference between pre-Vietnam American films and post-Vietnam American films. Who is the American hero? He’s scarred. He’s beaten up. He’s been through a lot. It’s not just post-World War Two. Of course I like those movies too. They’re so devoid of subtlety. Here’s John Wayne, “Okay. Whatever.” Bang! “You’re done.” People wish we went back to that. We can’t. That’s not our world anymore.
LS: It isn’t.
DW: It isn’t.
LS: Can’t get in a fight and come out lookin’ clean.
DW: Not in this world anymore. We’re not in a newspaper world anymore where they can just sort of push the casualties to the back page where nobody notices. This is T.V. Thought that was interesting. Hmmm. Red. Don’t think the filmmakers put that much thought into Red. I dunno. They might have. It’s possible.
LS: That’d be really cool.
DW: You’re right. It would be really cool if they did. If they said, “You know what? This is who we are, really. We’re not Justin Timberlake. We’re not Will Smith.” He’s been…
LS: He’s evolved.
DW: He has a little bit. You’re right. You’re right.
LS: I’m mean Fresh Prince to I Am Legend.
DW: Right. Sure. You’re right. Some of that is soooo deliberate. He’s more corporate than most.
LS: That’s true.
DW: Intentionally protecting a brand more than most. “Okay, I need to do this kind of movie next.”
LS: Like Handcock.
DW: Well, very famously he and his agent once went over a list of the highest grossing films and said, “Okay, what’s the common thread? Well, they’re action-based. They’re science fiction. They’ve got aliens. Okay.” Independence Day, Men in Black came right out of those kind of conversations.
LS: Really?
DW: Oh yeah.
LS: Wow.
DW: I think they’re getting back to basics. I think they’re doing Men in Black III. Well…
LS: Well, I mean, Tommy Lee Jones. He can still kick it.
DW: Heck yeah he can!
LS: Captain America.
DW: Captain America. He was great in Captain America. Yeah. That’s why I like, and why many people liked Captain America, it was devoid of the snark. No. That’s the America that they were in.
LS: But not us. Not anymore. Everything has changed.
__
Thanks for tuning in for this six-part. On the next Ask the Experts, we’ll talk to a financial money manager to demystify stock options!
In part four, Doug Welch and I talked through the appropriate times to notice figures/symbols of Christ in characters and the inappropriate evanglistic uses of film by Christians. We also showed two pictures connecting Wall-E and the Pieta, but that’s neither here nor there…
LS: Two quick ones. We just saw The Help, and it was so good.
DW: Oh yeah?
LS: Yeah. It was solid. I was… like a baby.
DW: Wow.
LS: That was one of the things Tara and I talked about: Can film change people?
DW: Mmmmm. That’s a good question. It’s such an isolated event. You. There. With the film.
LS: For two hours.
DW: Two hours. It’s not conducive to conversation. People have conversations leaving the film, then get in their cars and go.
LS: We don’t have like film clubs where we watch fifteen minutes and…
DW: Right. Right. Break down a scene or something like that. Films have been forces for positive good. Documentaries certainly fit that bill. I would say…
LS: In an exposing sense.
DW: Right. Recently Waiting for Superman or The Lottery have been helpful in understanding what the nature of the problem in the educational system has been. Even An Inconvenient Truth or the Michael Moore films. The Belgium film Rosetta, which is about a young teenage girl who’s put to work, led to perform in employment, rules and laws about employing other people and the standards there. Certainly in a negative sense film changes us. Makes us immune to certain things.
LS: Like desensitized?
DW: Oh sure. Oh yeah. Glorification of violence. I think it already has to be there, but it amplifies whatever started there. Certainly pornography.
LS: Glorification of violence, depreciation of sex.
DW: Yeah. Whatever dehumanizes people. Or whatever, on the positive side, makes us human. Whatever celebrates us. That might change. I think…
LS: That’s something that, in The Help, the constant black on white [clasps hands together.]
DW: Mmmm. Touching.
LS: Lotta touch in that movie.
DW: That’s interesting.
LS: And not touching. There’s a moment, antagonist-protagonist, white and black, and there was no touching. There’s this tense pulse that this bubble has been broken and then you have the little white kids being held all the time and just crying over their things that happen to their “real mothers.”
DW: I think it’s a cumulative effect. I don’t know if it’s like one film that changes everything.
LS: We could even say that about novels.
DW: Sure, I think it’s the same thing. I don’t know if I’ve ever walked out of a movie saying, “I need to make better choices in my life.” Maybe… Maybe once in awhile. You think about…
LS: Schindler’s list.
DW: Yeah. Maybe…
LS: For generousity’s sake.
DW: Maybe. I dunno. I think it’s a cumulative effect. I think it’s… Do you watch films that celebrate what makes us human rather or do you watch films that dehumanize?
LS: The Saw series.
DW: The Saw series yeah or other torture porn. Do we watch films that try to understand who we are or films that just go on with our explosions to delay it? Good question.
LS: In light of what makes us human, what do you think the average person needs to think through next time they see a film that would be helpful for them not just to be a consumer, but to be an active participant, to, the word I’ve been using is “Literate”, to reflect on it. To really process through what was helpful and what wasn’t, which might be different for different people.
DW: I think that’s true. I think the more you can think about how a film is depicting the certain choices a character makes and why they choose certain things and how that relates to you in a way that you can put yourself some way in the movie. How does the director want us to see these characters, this choice, this story, this desire? How many times has a director just by the view of all the tricks at their disposal, been able to create in us a yearning for something we would not want in any other situation. For example, adultery. How often in a film do the circumstances show “oh her husband is a soulless jerk.”
LS: Literally “out of the picture.”
DW: Out of the picture, and he’s really inhumane in some ways. Then there’s the other guy who’s blah-blah-blah and they get together and blah-blah-blah and we celebrate it. I would not be for that in any way, in any means.
LS: Why am I now rooting for it?
DW: Right. Where the criticism comes: why did I become a different person when I watched this when that’s not who I am really? Would I be the kind of person who takes vengeance… Well the film is creating in me the desire to do that. This person needs to die, and I want this person to die. Violently. As violently as possible.
LS: Se7en.
DW: Sure. That’d be one. There’s lots of good examples of that. No chance for redemption. That’s not who I am. So what does that create in me. It’s creating this desire for self, this desire for pleasure above all things. That’s where the criticism helps. What are these choices? Then we critically look at them. How was it that I became this other person watching this film? I would rather they restore this marriage and… that’s not the choice that’s presented before me. This is not choose your own adventure.
LS: Which…[laughs.]
DW: Everybody? If you want her to leave him, then…
LS: [laughs.] Final Destination 3 is. On the DVD.
DW: Is it really? That makes sense that someone would do that on the DVD.
LS: [laughs.]
DW: That’s where you have to think critically and separate yourself from the film. Otherwise it just becomes this desire for sheer mindless consumption. That’s one reason I started my little film journal. It’s not anything important, it’s just making sure that I’m thinking critically through this. What is striking me? Whether it’s angles depicting, editing, imagery, color, score… sometimes score.
LS: Unless it’s Inception, and there’s trumpets in your face.
DW: Even then, it’s just background noise.
LS: [laughs.]
DW: Or the lack of score in some cases. It’s the quiet or the sounds of the city streets. I think that’s it. As a Christian, where is the Gospel here and how does what I have as a believer intersect with the story? How does it deconstruct? How does it change or give me an alternate way of living? I’m not a slave to my passions. I’m not a slave to other people’s expectations or social conventions. These other people trapped in this world and context. I saw a trailer for this new science fiction movie In Time. Did I tell you about this?
LS: You told me about this, yeah.
DW: It’s an interesting trailer. Good trailer. It’s the latest from Andrew Nicole who directed Gattaca.
LS: Oh right.
DW: And a couple of other things. Written some things. But Gattaca’s one of my favorite all-time films. But this film’s an interesting concept: everybody’s as old as you get. Image-wise, here’s this entire film of twenty-five-year-olds. Every actor needs to be able to play twenty-five.
LS: So like twenty-two to twenty-seven.
DW: Well probably… Justin Timberlake, I think, is thirty.
LS: [laughs.]
DW: Olivia Wilde is twenty-seven and plays his mother. Right? So you have this entire film of good-looking twnety-five-year-old people. That’s the context! Now what does that say about culture. What does that say about who we are and who we hope to be? For. Ever. Young. Life as a Calvin Klein commercial or an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog. That’s what this is! I’m hoping with the film it’s: what is the cost of that? Is there hope out of that? What kind of hope do we have out of that? This desire for youth above all things, vitality, life, this kind of life above all things. What am I willing to pay? What am I willing to do to maintain that? That’s an interesting question and I think that’s a great subject, so I have high hopes. I like the trailer. I hope it’s good. Hope Timberlake can act.
LS: If he can, he’s a renaissance man.
DW: He is.
LS: I mean, he already is.
DW: Surprised not to see James Franco in it. He’s the renaissance man.
LS: And he’s the one that’s always critiquing forever young.
DW: Yeah, right. Sort of the James Dean.
LS: Rebel Without a Cause.
DW: Right. So all of those things at play. In the end, it has to be an action film, so I’m sure it’ll be that. You’ve gotta have these themes and set pieces, but in the end those things don’t matter. What matters is motivation and choice and what options the director gives us as we view this film.
LS: And how far he limits that.
DW: Yeah. As Christians, there’s a third way.
LS: Mmm.
DW: A way to think more critically. A way to think more… I like what Bruggeman says: “We need to act more creatively, more fluidity in culture.”
LS: Being able to move in and out of social groups kinda thing?
DW: Yeah, exactly, which is not I take a step into one and say “this is my approach. Every single time.” Which is what American Family Association and Donald Woleman are saying.
LS: Dobson.
DW: Dobson, yeah. “Our approach to culture is monolithic. You say this word once, you get this many points. Minus this many points. Showed this much skin. You have this sort of political agenda.”
LS: [laughs.]
DW: In the end, they’re captive to their audience.
LS: Donors.
DW: They’re captive to their donors, yeah, captive to their audience. People expect this kind of thing. If they recommend a movie that their audience is offended by…
LS: It’s over.
DW: It’s over, yeah, ministry-wise. Tail wagging the dog there. It’s a different kind of audience and consumer, but imagine if there was a film recommended on the Focus on the Family website and “Oh this is a good film.”
LS: [laughs. giggles.]
DW: It happens to me! That’s why I don’t recommend a lot of films or I’m cautious to who I recommend films to. THIS film! “Yeah, well that had this scene in it.” Yeah, you’re right, I’m a terrible person.
LS: [laughs.]
DW: You should never accept any recommendation I ever make ever again in my life.
LS: I had that the other day. Talked about a film and some guy was like, “REALLY?! You liked that movie?!”
DW: Mallick films especially. I liked New World. It was interesting. Visual. You know?
LS: It was art.
DW: Yeah.
LS: Two-and-a-half-hours of art.
DW: Yeah. Some think it’s so boring. “See? You didn’t bring anything to the movie, did you?”
Last week, The Boy Wonder and that other schmuck in the black suit talked on voiceover, visual show-don’t-tell and the power of good dialog. This week, we dig into the meat: SYMBOLISM!
LS: Something we were talking about, symbolism in general, there’s a picture that was posted of Rothfuss’ Facebook page. This guy said, “I thought of you.” It had concentric circles. On one side it said, “What the author meant.” And over here it said, “What the English teacher though the author meant.”
DW: [laughs.] Oh right.
LS: And there’s this iddy-bitty dialog like: The door, as he walked through the room was blue. “Well the blue represents his inner angst and…” And the author’s like, “No the door was effing blue.”
DW: [laughs.] No. I chose blue because I was…
LS: Because I like the color blue.
DW: Right. I remember going to my grandmother’s house and the door was blue and that always gave me a sense of calm or…
LS: [laughs.]
DW: The principle’s office door was blue and I was in trouble.
LS: So how much of symbolism is intended?
DW: Well…
LS: Can we ever know, or is that… ?
DW: Or is there a shared text with all humanity that even says, “it doesn’t matter whether it’s intentional or not. What’s coming out of you is the shared text that we’re all drawing from. You pulled from it as you created it. Consciously. Unconsciously. Subconsciously. I’m pulling from it as the reader…”
LS: As I interpret it.
DW: As I interpret it. “Well that wasn’t what I…” Well no, but, blue door being one thing… We wrestle with that when it comes to Christ-figures.
LS: That’s kinda what I’m getting at.
DW: The sacrificial hero. Well is that a…
LS: Is it this? [Pulls The Hero with a Thousand Faces off the shelf and sets it on the table.]
DW: Yeah. Is it Campbell? Is it Jesus? Well and some suggest well… is there something created within us as part of Imago Dei or whatever that recognizes the value of sacrifice as a pretext to understanding the Gospel? Yeah. I think so. I do.
LS: The need for a mediator.
DW: Right! Need for a mediator or need for… that self-atonement is never enough.
LS: Like on Seven Pounds.
DW: RIGHT!
LS: [laughs uncontrollably.]
DW: That’s EXACTLY the movie I’m thinking. That’s why I HATE that movie cause it’s flying in the face of all of that. “Oh. Y’can jist kill yerself and give yer body parts away. Make sure you kill yerself with a…” What was it?
LS: A Portuguese man-of-war.
DW: Yeah. A jellyfish. That movie deserved to be spoiled.
LS: [laughing.] As we’re talking—
DW: Yes. That movie deserves spoilers.
LS: [laughs.]
DW: You should thank me.
LS: [laughs.]
DW: For saving you the time and trouble and perhaps money to see this movie. I’m glad I didn’t spend any money on that movie. Somebody brought it over to my house, “Hey! We’re gonna something else.”
“Ugh. Uhkay.”
So I would say, you know I argued about Wall-E being an image of Christ.
LS: Right.
DW: I don’t know if that was intentional of Pixar or not. In fact, I think they were sort of thinking of the Adam and Eve mindset here. In the midst of chaos here is the reunion, but—
LS: If you deal with first Adam…
DW: Right. If you deal with first Adam, you have to deal with second Adam. That’s what. He. Becomes! Eve turns into a mary at some point, you know, the feminine counter-part to whatever Wall-E is doing at that moment. Again, it’s Andrew Stanton. Is he deliberately portraying a…? No. I don’t think so. I think he’s… But I think that’s the text that comes from.
How do you get there? Well, what makes us human. People keep coming back to love. Love. Love. Love.
It’s the Beatles song All You Need is… Love.
LS: [smiles.]
DW: So how do you demonstrate that? Well you demonstrate that through the image of an Adam. That’s where they’re pulling from and that’s where I’m pulling from to interpret that.
LS: So that’s an okay thing to see that?
DW: I think so. You know we say “author’s intended meaning.” Well okay. How much do you trust the author? Is it … … … I admit. It could lead to eisegesis, but I don’t know that eisegesis is always a terrible thing. I mean is it?
LS: Well we certainly can’t jettison our opinions when we’re approaching something.
DW: And everybody does. Everybody brings an opinion, brings something to the party with you. Not that that has to define it anymore than the author’s. I don’t reject author’s intention.
LS: Just that the two dance?
DW: Yeah. Don’t limit it to author’s intention.
LS: Yeah.
DW: Yeah. Exactly. You mean the dance between the two?
LS: Yeah. Reader’s response and author’s intention. It’s-
DW: Yeah. You have to… you have to understand the shared subtext (conscious, unconscious) from which people are drawing this language.
LS: Well is there a point at which it reaches a threshold that like… I know a lot of guys, Christians especially, who get ticked off at other Christians for doing things like Finding God in the Matrix or Finding God in Lord of the Rings or…
DW: Right.
LS: Is there a point at which that reaches a groaning breaking point?
DW: Mmmmmm.
LS: And how do we discern when it’s okay to talk about that or when that’s not okay and we just let art be art? And when does that even… we’re doing that with something that wasn’t actually art, it was just a piece of advertisement and then we become a piece of advertisement?
DW: …and we use advertisement in sermon illustrations.
LS: [laughs.]
DW: I’ve seen people that do that quite a bit. It’s a good question. Well, Looking for God in the Matrix… Well… as long as right next to it you’re Looking for Buddha in the Matrix or…
LS: Right. [laughs.]
DW: Looking for Allah in the Matrix I’m sure there’s a Muslim scholar out there that thinks the Matrix is a wonderful metaphor for… you know…
LS: With the dualism?
DW: Yeah. Yeah. I dunno… I wouldn’t be surprised. One of the appeals of The Matrix is that it’s so fluid, worldview-wise. Zustiak would say it make a perfect postmodern myth because it’s drawing from everywhere. It’s got these multi-sensory things to it.
LS: ‘Till Lost came on.
DW: Yeah. I don’t know. Is it The Gospel According to the Simpsons or The Gospel According the to Sopranos or –
LS: [chortles.]
DW: churning out the [snaps twice.]
LS: According to Dexter
DW: I wonder if some of that is self-justification of watching some of that.
LS: Right.
DW: I think what you have to say is it’s not… you’re not pulling from it. Maybe it’s better The Gospel interacting with… I think maybe that’s—
LS: Where are the cross-sections?
DW: Right. Exactly. So I’m not saying even The Gospel According to Harry Potter, I’m saying, “Here’s where the gospel intersects with Harry Potter and where they’re sharing—“
LS: Similar things.
DW: Maybe it nods to, or maybe it points to, or maybe it points to something within us, again, through Imago Dei that is yearning for this. I’m not expecting in watching this to have the Gospel told back to me.
LS: As an evangelistic tool.
DW: As an evangelistic tool. EXACTLY. Which is… you know… God forbid. But for me, as a Christian who has the Gospel, watching these things, interacting with culture, interacting with the poets. Here’s Paul listening to the poets saying, “We are his offspring.” Paul’s like, “Yeah! That’s not bad.”
DW: Yeah, and I can now interact with that with the Gospel, use it in my preaching or not use it in my preaching. That’s what I’m trying to do. It’s not Christianity from culture or Learning About God through the Matrix. Gosh, I hope not. Even Learning About God through Harry Potter…
LS: Yeah, that’s not—
DW: “Well Jesus doesn’t act like Dumbledore here.” Well, he’s not Jesus. He’s Dumbledore.
LS: Yeah.
DW: Okay? Or Gandalf or…
LS: Well Gandalf gets testy… often.
DW: When we push that… whether it’s Superman or Neo or Wall-E or Harry Potter or whoever, when we push that to the breaking point, then we allow things to be change. What I’m wanting to know is how does the Gospel wrestle with Dexter? How does the Gospel wrestle with Lost? How does the Gospel wrestle with Mad Men?
LS: Or The Wire and A Song of Ice and Fire. Very pessimistic.
DW: The Wire, yeah.
LS: Or McCarthy! Like The Road. How do we…
DW: Yeah, you have dueling eschatologies there, so…
LS: Right.
DW: This sort of glimmer of hope: we’re carrying “the fire.” What is that? Is it enough just to survive? At some point, no. The Gospel tells us more than that.
LS: That’s something I’ve always found anemic in some of these Christian ratings sites. They’re always… well part of it’s political. Part of it’s saying, “Well the Day After Tomorrow is just liberal propaganda.”
DW: Well, it’s also a bad movie.
LS: [laughs.]
DW: [laughs hard.]
LS: Yes. But what do we cut away and what do we keep? When do we say, “Okay. You used that as a method to tell the story and use honesty about that character that exists in this reality?” And what do we say, “I’m just gonna leave all of that there and take only this principle or this image?”
DW: And that’s coming back to when you intersect the gospel or whatever… is the blowback from too much of culture and not enough Gospel leads to self-justification.
LS: “It’s okay ‘cause I…”
DW: “Well… that twenty minute sex scene needed to be in that movie because of such and such and I’m—“
LS: [laughs.]
DW: No. There are movies that may be very interesting with the relationship of Gospel next to whatever. But for the life of me, I just can’t for my own conscience, for my own capabilities, I just cannot see it.
LS: That takes me to a place I don’t want to go.
DW: Right. It’s just too dark. One of those would be a movie I’m never going to see is Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, which is basically a context without any sort of God figure and people are doing despicable things to each other. And I don’t know if he’s depicting… There’s a couple who lost a child and they’re just abusing each other because that’s the only way they can express this. The value of seeing that and trying to interact with that culture, is that greater than what effect that movie will have on me in a negative sense?
LS: So that’s the standard.
DW: For me. You can’t, like Donald Wildmon, get there by counting profanity.
LS: [laughs.]
DW: Well…
LS: Molly Weasley.
DW: It makes it more real, certainly. And we don’t live in fantasy land. I read a review about Goodwill Hunting where someone said, “Defend this.” Well, this is South Boston. We don’t talk golly-gee-willikers, oh shoot. That’s just not the way people talk there. If the point of a film is to, within this context, depict this kind of fantastical story – the genius and his trials. The genius coming out of the rubble of South Boston without his baggage. In order to tell that story, we have to tell it in this context and he has to be this kind of character and the context has to be this kind of context and in order to do that we have to use this kind of language, because that’s where they are. If that’s the story I’m going to tell, then that’s what I gotta do.
LS: ‘Cause it’s honest.
DW: It’s honest, yeah. And it’s not glossed over. It’s not white-washed. It doesn’t glorify that. When we start glorifying that, like some films obviously do.
LS: Like make it like… fun. Then there’s the threshold beyond that, like Tarrentino who subverts it.
DW: I guess so.
LS: Like with Kill Bill, pushing the violence within multiple genres within one film to such an extent to say that this is… it does this mamma bear/baby bear thing where… at the end it says, “The mother bear has her kids returned and everything’s right in the wood,” or whatever.
DW: I dunno. I appreciate Tarrentino without really getting him. I think I understood Inglorious Bastards. I think what he wanted to say was, “One of the reasons we won the war is that our film was better than their film.” Our propaganda was better than their propaganda. Our propaganda to go in and save the Jews was better than their propaganda of Defend the White Race Homeland. Because we had Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne and everybody else – Gary Cooper – because we had these depictions of “We’re gonna get in there and win this thing”
LS: Of inglorious bastards.
DW: Inglorious bastards, yeah, we had that… that was better motivation. It the end, that’s the film that wins. So… in that context you can play around with, you know, them killing Hitler and the style of it.
LS: Do you think he was talking of his own career? It almost seemed like he was saying something about the violence in the film itself.
DW: I dunno. That’s a good question. Certainly it seemed self-justifying.
LS: In comparing that to Germany’s films.
DW: Oh. Yeah maybe.
LS: Some people think it’s him showing his cards a little bit and saying, “This is what I’ve been doing with my career. I’ve been saying here’s what violence does in film and here’s where it leads us.”
DW: Hmmm. I don’t know about that.
LS: Like, at the risk of using a philosophical cliché, in a Wittgensteinian way. Of subverting language with language, of pushing it to its extreme.
Senya Maximov came into my life through the Fulbright program at Missouri Southern. After I shared the only three Russian words I knew (da, spoceba, vodka), and after he shared perfect British English, shared language led to shared life. Joplin felt like Senya’s new home. Though he wanted to stay, his visa expired. I scheduled an interview at this new coffee joint on second and main called Cooper’s—they made a great pulled chicken sandwich, a rather unexpected virtue for a coffee shop. Senya popped open his kettle chips and I flipped on my recorder.
