the green room:

biz markie + sampling + stolen teachings part V

I remember hearing once that Dane Cook steals his bits from George Carlin.  I'm not sure how true that is; but i imagine this happens consistently in the world of stand up.  So I asked my friend, Joe Anderson to share his thoughts on the subject.  You can learn more about him at www.thecomedyproject.com

So a friend of mine made a REALLY popular video on YouTube spoofing David Blaine's Street Magic. Some of it is really funny and the choreography of the video shoot is maybe even more impressive - timing camera moves so that it looks like a car disappears and reappears. Then Carlos Mencia did a spoof of Criss Angel's Mind Freak and Mencia, who has already taken a lot of heat for supposedly stealing jokes, has been lambasted for this, his latest atrocity. But after watching them both and even having a bias toward my friend's video...I don't think it's that big of a deal. Both basically make the same joke, which is the obvious joke to make, the exact same joke I made the very first time I saw David Blaine's real program. I just never made the video.

It happens in the movies all the time. All the sudden there will be multiple asteroid movies, or animated movies about bugs, or serial killer movies, or movies about strong willed teachers who are going to seriously take on their struggling but inevitably awesome group of kids.

There are themes and stories and jokes and observations and characters that are fairly universal, so when they show up in multiple places, it doesn't really surprise me or offend me.

Now Carlos perhaps most famously and others, in my opinion, probably are actually stealing other people's material in some cases and there is no disputing the level of impropriety. However I never assume that first. Parallel thinking is more often the plausible explanation.

I read the exchange Steve had with another pastor about Steve "lifting" some of Rob Bell's material and was annoyed by the event much in the same way I was annoyed with Carlos Mencia being accused of stealing a joke about building a wall at the U.S./Mexican border. Once again, the joke was good...but obvious. Kind of the essential joke which was to be made about the situation involving the possibility of Mexican workers helping to build the wall.

I'm a big fan of Steve's teachings and in all honesty, an even bigger fan of Rob's if for no other reason than I've been exposed to so much more of it but I'm also a fan of the people Rob "steals" from. Now Rob makes a very concerted effort to cite his references and Steve does too. Neither of them want to take credit for something they didn't create but there's also value in hearing or reading something, wrestling with it, working with it and then mining it for gold that can be repurposed and repackaged. It's a grey area and when people act like it's black and white...accusations fly.

In the mid to late 1800s, Gustav Theodor Fechner was developing something that would end up being called Psychophysics which was entirely based on the theory that...DRUM ROLL..."everything is spiritual".

:)

I'm sure that wasn't the first time that phrase and more importantly that idea was brought up as something essential and vital and life changing but whether Rob absorbed it while reading about, for pleasure, an obscure German doctor (not necessarily unlikely with Rob) or even if he believes he coined the phrase...it doesn't seem to really matter because to be blunt - it's not groundbreaking. It's just a concise way of saying something complex. Just happens to also be something it's good to be reminded of at least every hundred years or so.

And I do think intent matters. Without devious or malicious motives...things turn grey.

I have a joke I tell sometimes about how at the beginning of church one sunday, we were invited to meet people around us and shake hands and tell people "I'm glad you're here." I offered my hand to the guy in the row ahead of me who offered his fist...ya know...to "fist bump" me.

That alone caught me off guard. I mean, I really don't like fist bumping anyway and I was pretty sure I didn't want to do it at church. But more importantly, I had already put my hand out. I had clearly established that we would be SHAKING hands. So now I was supposed to convert? At church? So, I ended up looking him in the eye, saying "I'm glad you're here" and I shook his fist.

One day after the very first time I told that joke I saw a Demetri Martin special where he told a joke about a relatively similar situation. I knew he hadn't stolen my joke because I think I would've noticed him at my show and I hadn't stolen his because I'd never seen that bit before. The simple fact is that situation was not unique. It's relatively universal as our hand gesture salutations evolve. We both had different takes on it but there were definitely similarities.

When you have pastors, all human, all with human brains and all using the same book as the "umbrella text", the idea that there would be no overlapping of sermons would be more unbelievable than the fact that there is. When you have comedians, all human, all with human brains and human experiences you can expect some of the same things to happen to some of them. Hopefully, because we humans are all at least a little bit unique, the way we describe them and deliver the words will allow different versions of similar stories to coexist.

Finally, if something is knowingly repurposed(let's say "stolen" for effect), it's significance in the "whole" is perhaps the most important to me.

Vanilla Ice and The Verve wouldn't have been sued for sampling Queen and the Rolling Stones respectively if the sample wasn't by far the most memorable and significant part of their songs. I'm sure Vanilla Ice and The Verve also used some words that have been used in other people's songs but that wasn't at issue because their re-use was expected and insignificant and unrelated to their use in other people's songs.

That's my take. On taking.

biz markie + sampling + stolen teachings part IV

 

Happy New Year!

 

I asked Matt Laidlaw, Mars Hill's high school pastor to share his thoughts.  Matt has studied in Jerusalem and has offered countless insights into helping me and many others see the text in it's proper context.

 

I Don’t Care

 

This discussion is interesting, both intellectually and philosophically, but if I’m really honest, at the end of the day, I don’t find it to be especially meaningful, helpful, or practical. More to the point: I have a hard time caring about it.  That said, I’m throwing in my two cents (maybe a few more than two) about this issue because Steve Carter is my friend and he asked me to.  There’s not much I wouldn’t do for a friend like Steve (he’s also my boss).  For him, I’d even consider writing another Matt-ifesto.  So here we go.

 

I really do enjoy teaching in all types of forms and varieties, but I don’t consider myself a teacher in the same way that many who are participating in this conversation might and therefore fear I’m a bit out of my league.  I’ve done a lot of teaching in several different mediums and settings.  I’ve taken a variety of classes, written a lot of papers, and done a fair amount of research.  I will therefore be coming at this from an angle that might be different from those of you who are preaching or teaching every week in front of large congregations or youth groups.  Please be aware of this as you consider my perspective.

 

I never really considered how important conversations about citing resources or stealing teachings are in ministry or academia until my time spent studying in

Israel

.  When taking a class in

Jerusalem

, our professor, Rabbi Moshe, gave an entire lecture on how American students don’t know how to write research papers because they don’t know the difference between legitimate and illegitimate sources, and even if they do, they don’t know how to cite them correctly.  He ended his rant by saying, “Be sure to spend extra time on your works cited page.  As the rabbis say, whenever you give proper credit to someone else for their work you’re speeding-up the coming of the messiah.”  I was floored by this statement and after class asked Rabbi Moshe where I could find this quotation in Jewish literature.  He humbly replied, “I don’t know.”

 

You can imagine how the impact of his rant decreased after this ironic and awkward interaction.  Trust was broken and integrity was tarnished because Rabbi Moshe couldn’t cite the source he was using to make his point, and therefore the power of his point was lost.

 

What’s More Troubling

 

What’s more troubling to me than the debate about stolen teachings is that it’s truly a reflection of what teaching and teachings have become in many of our congregations.  One of my mentors recently told me, “Matt, even though teaching your leaders and students is less important than 90% of the rest of your job, it’s the 10% that people will judge your success on.”  Many people will equate my success as a pastor with the quality of my teaching.  Can any of you relate to this?

 

Sipping coffee outside the sanctuary, in the car on the drive home, and around the Sunday dinner table, what are our congregants discussing? 

“What did you think of the teaching this morning?” 

“Did you like what pastor so and so had to say?”

“Did you think her jokes were funny?”

“Did you agree with his points?”

We feel trapped by the pressure to either a) perform well for the congregation, or b) serve as the negative topic of discussion at supper.  How many of us have complained about this before?  At times we feel that our teachings have become nothing more than a product to be consumed, and nothing could be more troubling to us.

 

But as pastors our hands aren’t clean.  We’re fueling the consumerist feeding frenzy that is experienced on Sunday mornings across the

America

.  As soon as our teachings become intellectual property, products to be purchased online, or chapter three of a future book that people who already heard the sermon will pay to read, we give our congregations the right to become consumers.  As soon as our teachings become pre-packaged talks to be given in multiple venues, opportunities to generate supplemental income, or the avenue through which an individual personality steers the course of a community, we sell our souls to the paying customers.  So our conversations about stealing content, teachings, and ideas are the next step down the wrong path that our views of teaching have been traveling for years.

 

Blah, Blah, Blah-g-ing

 

Some of us like to hear the sound of our own voice.  Some people like to see the look of our own typed words.  Deep down we all want to think and feel as if our insight and ideas are worth hearing.  For some of us in our darkest moments, this is why we’re energized by teaching.  For others of us, this is why we blog.  As innocent and helpful as blogging might seem on the surface, isn’t it also a dangerous venture?

 

In Blog World, our experiences define reality.  Research, resources, and the consultation of others hold little to no value in the eyes of the average Internet surfer or blog reader.  Wisdom and truth are in the eyes of the blogger and the reader, and external verification holds no weight.  Meaning: we really have no idea what truth lies behind the written words, what the real story is, or if the thoughts presented could legitimately hold any water.

 

The nature of blogging allows us to be irresponsible with our ideas and the ideas of others.  We can say anything we want, any time we want, about anything or anybody we want.  There is no authority—not really—holding us accountable if our ideas are ill-conceived, misinformed, or unoriginal.  Blogs run the risk of being nothing more than pooled ignorance, stolen ideas, and vain attempts to prove our talents important and our lives valuable.

 

Blogging allows everyone to become a “writer”.  Not only does this self-proclaimed title carry with it a false sense of worth from a false giver of value; it fuels a destructive and universal self-centeredness.  Now that I am a “writer”, and my “work” is out there for the world to see, I have to keep “writing”.  Now that I’ve created a false audience for my life to be lived in front of, people “need” to know what I’m doing, how I’m feeling, and what I’m thinking all the time. This behavior, whether I find it in myself or in others, must be called what it is: immature, disgusting, and sinful.

 

I wonder how much of this conversation about stolen teachings really comes from that fact that as teachers we find way too much of our identity and validation from our calling.  We search for validation through our teachings and through our words and not getting the-credit-we-think-we-deserve reveals the truth that maybe our motives have been skewed since the beginning. 

 

Let’s Not Forget

 

Let’s not forget that the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.  Let’s not forget there is nothing new under the sun.  Let’s not forget why we all probably got into this gig in the first place.  Let’s not forget that in the beginning, we were all interested in sharing God’s words.

“It's no secret that a conscience can sometimes be a pest
It's no secret ambition bites the nails of success
Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief
All kill their inspiration and sing about their grief”

            (U2 in their song, “The Fly”)

 

We’ve likely not given God the credit he deserves, yet we’re losing sleep over not getting the credit we deserve.  When you’re sitting in your office, or Starbucks, or the library preparing for a teaching and you get an idea, how do you know if it’s an original thought?  How do you know it’s not insight from a podcast you were half listening to while you were half driving home last week?  How do you know it’s not point number three of a sermon you heard six yeas ago?  How do you know that the student you’re mentoring didn’t somehow actually miraculously vocalize the idea to you sometime during the forty minutes you were explaining your next teaching to her?  You don’t know.  There is no way we could possibly know when we’re having an original idea, and for that very reason, we need to free ourselves from the slavery of figuring out which ideas belong to each person.

 

They don’t belong to any person.  They belong to God.  Let’s not forget the giver of life, breath, and everything else.  Let’s not forget our role in this gig.  We’re servants, not special.  We’re co-creators, not creators.

 

I Want To Be The Kind Of Person

 

I want to be the kind of person what can just let it all go.  Six years ago I was sitting in a hotel lobby somewhere in

Turkey

with a group of people whom twelve days earlier I’d never met before.  Together we’d spent nearly two weeks following an insane man up and down mountains and in and around ancient cities.  From sunup to sundown this man inhaled the thin Turkish air and exhaled more biblical knowledge and insight than anyone I’ve ever met.  It was all day, non-stop, all teaching, all the time.  It was one of the most unforgettable moments of my life.

 

In the hotel lobby we shared communion, our favorite memories from the trip, and the challenges we would all have waiting for us when we would arrive home the next day.  When we had come to terms with the fact that our time together had come to an end, the man we’d been following so closely ended the experience with these words, “Everything I taught you on this trip is yours.  I got everything I taught on this trip from someone else.  Please use it in your ministries.  Teach it to the people in your life.  It’s yours.” 

 

I want to be the kind of person who is eager to give credit where credit is due.  I want to be the kind of person who is eager to begin a teaching by saying, “Nothing that will be spoken from my mouth is my own; it’s the fruit of the men and women who’ve allowed me to sit at their feet throughout my life, and the overflow of the wisdom that creates and sustains our universe.”

 

I want to be the kind of person who wastes no emotional energy on not receiving the credit I think that I deserve.  I want to be the kind of person who can sweat and bleed over ideas and content and then freely give it away to others, because deep down I know and want to know it never belonged to me in the first place.