Risen Magazine

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vol 4 • iss 1 – jan - feb 07

Bil Zelman Mike Shinoda Jennie Finch Pigeon John Hana Beaman Sylvester Stallone

Underoath Robert Randolph

The Pursuit of Happyness

Chemica l Romance

My

Conquering the World

jan/feb 2007

Features 16 My Chemical Romance: Conquering the World

MCR needed just one record to conquer rock stardom. Now, two years later, they are returning to conquer the world.

24 Jennie Finch: Fast Pitch Jennie Finch is one of those people you could love to hate. She’s gorgeous, an Olympic gold medalist, married to a professional baseball player, and can throw a softball 71 mph.

Problem is, Jennie Finch is impossible to dislike.

30 Robert Randolph: On the Narrow Road Judging from his smile, it has been a joyous ride for Robert Randolph to move from a childhood in the House of God Pentecostal Church in Orange, New Jersey, to being named as one of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time

by Rolling Stone. When he took his licks outside the sanctuary, it was the folks in the nightclubs that began wiggling their hips, waving their hankies, and shouting hallelujah.

36 Underoath: Lion’s Den Not since the Apostle Paul approached Mars Hill, boldly proclaiming news of “The Unknown God” to a potentially hostile group of polytheists, has anyone seemed so dangerously out of place as Underoath on the Vans Warped Tour.

42 Hana Beaman: Your World Awaits Snowboarder Hana Beaman sits atop the TransWorld Rider’s Poll. She is one part control freak and one part daredevil when it comes to getting airborne off mounds of snow. Although she has broken her collarbone and hates getting concussions, it doesn’t seem to stop her. You gotta love that.

46 Pigeon John: Room to Live Pigeon John believes in living honestly when people are watching, living righteously when people are not watching, and creating bomb hip-hop. That’s a tall order, but he’s counting on some divine inspiration.

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Departments EXPRESSIONS 50 Mike Shinoda: The Work Speaks For Itself Most likely, you’ve heard Mike Shinoda’s rhymes for Linkin Park and Fort Minor, but have you seen his graphic art? Check it out.

54 Bil Zelman: Never Been to a Pep Rally

Photographer Bil Zelman was pretty disruptive when he was a kid.

“I’ve been to jail enough times to realize that not everything I put my hand to is good,” he admits. These days, his hands are on his cameras. And that’s all good.

SCREEN 64 DVD Reviews

Jeffrey Overstreet recommends some of the movies that you may have overlooked and shouldn’t have.

SOUND 66 CD Reviews

RISEN lays out the low-down on a stack of new musical offerings.

UP TO SPEED 68 Daniel Dae Kim, Ladies of The Office, and Lupe Fiasco Those who have been featured in RISEN are on the move.

Find out where they are headed.

END NOTE 70 Sylvester Stallone: Sly Goes One More Round

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january/february:Contributors EDITORIAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF :: Steve Beard MANAGING EDITOR :: Regina Goodman FOUNDING EDITOR :: Chris Ahrens COPY EDITOR :: Dane Wilkins CONTRIBUTING WRITERS :: Corey Moss, Scott Schulte, Jeffrey Overstreet, Jared Cohen, Jessie Duquette, Thaddeus Christian

ART

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ART DIRECTOR :: Rob Springer PHOTO EDITOR :: Bob Stevens CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS :: Tyler Shields, Estevan Oriol, Lou Mora, Steve Moors, Blaine Franger, Landon Finch, Chapman Baehler, John Shear PHOTO STAFF :: James Smith, Todd Casey, Alyse Gylfe ILLUSTRATION :: Zela WEB/MULTIMEDIA :: Andrew Harrill

FASHION

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FASHION EDITOR :: Mona Van Cleve CONTRIBUTING STYLISTS :: Davia Matson, Matthew Estrada, Chris Vanek

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PUBLISHER :: Michael Sherman ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER :: Dan Alpern ACCOUNTING :: Cynthia Beth RISEN Magazine is a subsidiary of RISEN Media, LLC. The views expressed by the subjects interviewed in RISEN Magazine are not necessarily those shared by the staff or publishers of RISEN Media, LLC.

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All interviews are recorded live and exclusively for use

by RISEN Magazine. Interviews remain the sole property of RISEN Media, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this magazine may be reproduced without the written consent of RISEN Media, LLC. PRINTED :: USA

7 1. Lou Mora - Photographer Hana Beaman (page 42)

3. Scott Schulte - Writer Jenny Finch (page 24)

6. Corey Moss - Writer My Chemical Romance (page 16)

Hana is truly was one of the easiest going people anyone could ever have the pleasure of working with. She lives what seems to be an amazing life, being able to travel the world, snowboard, and hang with friends. We should all be so lucky.

Scott Schulte has interviewed some of today’s biggest names including Michael Jordan, Derek Jeter, and Garth Brooks. A native of Milford, Connecticut, Schulte and his two sons (16, 11) reside in Bountiful, Utah.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you can’t really deny My Chemical Romance are the most exciting thing going on in rock right now. I’ve interviewed them before, but this time they really seemed to come from a great place. They’re honest, hardworking guys who deserve their success.

2. Blaine Franger - Photographer Underoath (page 36) Underoath is the definition of adrenaline rush. When they got onstage the crowd went nuts.

Underoath was jumping around everywhere, which made it near impossible to get good photos, especially at night! I did manage to get a few good ones though.

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4. Estevan Oriol - Photographer Pigeon John (page 46) It’s always cool to shoot the guys that are fresh to the game like Pigeon John.

5. Tyler Shields - Photographer My Chemical Romance (page 16) Biggest band in the world, a huge magic box, three models, and The Magic Castle on Halloween. It would take me five pages to scratch the surface of what this day was like, but I will say the My Chemical Romance boys are amazing to work with and leave it at that...

7. Steve Moors - Photographer Robert Randolph (page 30) Fun afternoon! Great stories! Really nice guy! Oh, and if you see him, tell him he left his yellow shirt at my studio.

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RISEN Media, LLC 11772 Sorrento Valley Rd., Suite 152 San Diego, CA 92121 Tel. 858.481.5650 • Fax: 858.481.5660 info@risenmagazine.com Copyright © 2007 “RISEN” is a Trademark of RISEN Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Cover My Chemical Romance :: Tyler Shields Cover Underoath :: Blaine Franger

january/february:Letter From The Editor

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got no daddy.’ I made a decision at 5 years old that when I had children, my children would know who their father was.”

Although the times were desperate, Gardner honored his vow. They bathed in public restrooms, stood in long lines at soup kitchens, and were often turned down at shelters that admitted only single men or women with children.

The film takes you through Gardner’s daily routine of making sure his son was dropped off at day care, while attempting to sell medical equipment during the spare moments he was not training to become a stockbroker. He had to leave his training courses early to pick up his son and stand in line at the shelter in hopes of getting a bunk.

Pushing his son in a stroller, Gardner became a common sight in the neighborhood. He attracted the attention of local prostitutes who admired his steadfastness for taking care of his boy. They would give his son $5 bills. “If it were not for those ladies of the evening giving that child $5,” recalls Gardner, “there would be times I could not have fed him.”

Essential to Gardner’s eventual success was the ministry of the Reverend Cecil Williams and Glide Memorial United Methodist Church. “Without Glide, there is no Chris Gardner,” he often says.

Glide was the only shelter that would allow a man with his child.

“Baby steps count, too, as long as you’re going forward,” Williams used to preach. It seems simplistic, but it carried Gardner through many difficult situations. “Rolling my child through the streets of San Francisco in his stroller, up the hills and down the hills and through the rain, I just kept saying to myself, ‘baby steps count too.’”

Gardner’s story is the kind that inspires us at RISEN. It’s about second, third, and fourth chances. It’s about scrambling to make ends meet and finding peace in the house of God. It’s about refusing to roll over and play dead. It’s about commitment, redemption, failure, and success. It’s about barricading a bathroom door

in a public restroom to provide a safe place for your son to sleep. It’s the kind of story that garners the attention of ladies of the night and men of the cloth.

The Pursuit of Happyness is about pursuing a dream—the subject matter that we are so curious about in RISEN interviews. That is why we ask our subjects about their faith, fears, inspiration, and failures. We want to know why artists, actors, athletes, and musicians keep getting up and doing what they do. Chris Gardner grabbed inspiration from church services, the generosity of street walkers, and even the thankful heart of his son.

After a year on the street, they finally found a place to live. One night the electricity was cut off (Gardner owed $18) and he had to bathe his son by candlelight. Gardner told me that he was at his lowest emotional point. “I didn’t know whether I was going to quit, crack, or cry,” he recalled. “And I’m washing this baby—this 2-year-old kid—and he picks up on this. And he says to me, ‘Papa, you know what? You’re a good papa.’ At 2 years old.

That was all I needed to keep going forward.”

Gardner went forward and became a very successful businessman—and remained a good dad, long after his humiliating bout with desperation was over. In the midst of his trials, he never lost his commitment to fatherhood, his faith in God, or his vision for a better tomorrow—even if he had to live on the streets to reexamine those virtues.

photo: Kenny Wilson

Chris Gardner is a powerful, wealthy, and inspiring man who is accustomed to calling the shots. With his cleanly shaved head, million-dollar smile, and extra-fly designer suits, he commands attention when he enters the room. Gardner landed a sizeable advance for his autobiography, The Pursuit of Happyness, and Will Smith portrays him in the recently released film about his life.

Life’s good for Gardner; but it wasn’t always that way.

Living in San Francisco in the early 1980s, Gardner became a single father of a 2-year-old son. His car had been impounded, the IRS was barking about back taxes, and he was barely able to keep his head above water selling medical equipment. Through some disastrous circumstances, Gardner and his young son got kicked out of their apartment and began sleeping at cheap hotels, in flop houses, and even on the streets.

The film successfully ushers you into the emotional exasperation of being completely broke—selling plasma and hitting up your friends for the few dollars you loaned them six months previous. In one wrenching scene, Gardner and his son sleep in the restroom of a subway station.

Holding his son as he barricades the door for protection, Gardner sheds the tears of a man trying to do the right thing.

In recreating the scene more than twenty years later, Gardner accompanied Will Smith to the very restroom where he had taken refuge with his son. “When I walked into that bathroom with Chris and stood there, I got it,” recalls Smith. “I understood. And then after that to actually shoot the scene…with my real son on my lap, it’s no acting necessary.”

What Smith comprehended was Gardner’s spirit to do whatever he must to change his life and create a brighter future for his son. “I attribute that commitment to my child to [my] growing up without a father” Gardner told me, “and having a stepfather who was fond of reminding me of every opportunity he got, ‘I ain’t your daddy. You ain’t

Steve Beard Editor in Chief

My

Chemical Romance Writer: Corey Moss Photographer: Tyler Shields Styling: Mathew Estrada Hair and Makeup: Chris Vanek

l

ike the Gallaghers and the Robinsons before them, the Way brothers have gone from sharing a bedroom to sharing room at the top of the rock charts. Unlike the brothers behind Oasis and the Black Crowes, however, My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way and bassist Mikey Way have always actually liked each other.

“We’re like best friends in the entire world,” Mikey explains. “We have this bond that’s kind of crazy. We always have people asking if we get in fights. The bottom line is we probably get in one fight a year and it’s never that bad. It’s like a miniargument.”

With their other “brothers” at their side— drummer Bob Bryar and guitarists Ray Toro and Frank Iero—the Ways needed just one record to conquer rock stardom. Now, two years later, My Chemical Romance are returning to conquer the world.

Interviewed exclusively for RISEN Magazine in Los Angeles.

JAN / FEB 2007 - Feature 17

RISEN Magazine: You’ve said The Black Parade was a difficult album to make. How so?

Gerard Way: I think it was very difficult because we set our goals very high and we didn’t simply want to follow up Revenge. We knew we wanted to reinvent ourselves and we knew in a lot of ways we needed to pull off our skin. I think that’s what made it so hard because there was no tragic event, there was no one thing that spawned the record, like Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge [which was largely about the death of their grandmother]. So we had to look inside ourselves for the record, and I think whenever you look inside yourself, you find a lot of ugly stuff. It becomes very hard. It’s almost like surgery every day for six months.

Mikey Way: It’s kind of like you’re a wet rag and you’re squeezing, so that’s going to get to anybody. Look what happened, though. We made probably the best album of our careers.

time. The last record was almost totally kind of fictional, except for the track “Helena” which is very honest and pure, very much about a real thing. [The Black Parade] looks at death from a very realistic standpoint.

RM: Is there a certain faith that you follow?

GW: I basically believe in a higher power, I believe in something bigger than us.

So I kind of cling on to that for sanity reasons. I have a lot of faith in myself, a lot of faith in my guys, and a lot of faith in something larger than us. I don’t put a lot of stock in people that I meet, though.

[

We’ve had such a desire since childhood to bring back that sort of pageantry to rock or that theater that had been missing.

RM: So it’s possible to make a concept album that is also personal?

GW: All the great ones, I feel, were personal. The best example of that is Pink Floyd’s The Wall, where it’s this story about this rock star guy named Pink and it’s obviously not about this guy Pink, it’s about Roger Waters. I’ve heard concept records that are just straight works of fiction and I find them to be very hollow. I don’t think people get anything out of that. I think, if anything, they’ll get some kind of metaphor out of some kind of element of the story, but I think it works quite well to have it really be personal and yet tell a story. And the more I live with the record, I think it’s blatantly personal.

RM: Then why mask it at all?

GW: I mean, really, the basic answer to that is it’s just a lot of fun.

RM: And there’s nothing wrong with that.

GW: The biggest compliment I get from people is they listen to it and say, “This record’s fun as hell to listen to and actually live in and it sounds like you guys were having fun when you made it.” We’ve had such a desire since childhood to bring back that sort of pageantry to rock or that theater that had been missing.

It had just gone away because I think after Bowie had done it, it had been cheapened by so many bands. After Pink Floyd’s The Wall phenomena, there hasn’t been anything like that, and I think it’s a shame that people haven’t even attempted it. I also think it’s something much more interesting to relate to, cuz really when you boil it down, no one wants to hear about my problems. I don’t! That’s not what makes the band special. We weren’t going to sing about being famous or successful. Nobody wants to hear that.

RM: Like Revenge, this record also has several references to death.

GW: I think it stems from a childhood reaction to death. One being of fear, one that was instilled in me from the Catholic Church, one I grew to resent. And that’s not to say I have a beef with religion at all, cuz I respect people that have faith. I have faith, but as far as my experience with the Catholic Church growing up, I was made to fear things and it stuck with me and never went away. It never had a good effect on me. I became deathobsessed. But the one thing I’ll say about this record: Even though we are dealing with death again, it’s a much different way than last

]

RM: What about the afterlife?

MW: I would like to believe something happens; otherwise it’s a really scary thought. We have to be here for a reason because too many things add up, you know. They can’t all be coincidence.

GW: I totally think it’s like the movies. I think it would have to be. I think it’s really corny with lots of fake trees. Like really fake clouds, it’s probably really bizarre and I kind of see it totally as almost like a sitcom. That song “Dead,” I think the lines in that song are almost like a response to that feeling of what heaven is like.

RM: Have you ever had a near-death experience?

MW: When we were shooting the “Ghost of You” video we almost drowned in the middle of the ocean. My life flashed before my eyes. Basically we were on a hidden boat, you know like in Saving Private Ryan, those metal boats with a trap door in the front. Somebody’s bright idea was to drop the hatch while we were in the middle of the ocean, and the water filled up the boat and the boat started to capsize while we were on the boat and water came up to my neck.

And I had 100 pounds of gear on.

GW: I actually haven’t.

RM: But it’s something you fear.

GW: When we set out to make the record, [producer] Rob Cavallo had given us a very important piece of advice, which was to find the thing that you’re afraid of the most and that’s what you have to sing about. And the record has its own evolution, when you listen to it, it seems at first, yes I’m afraid of death, we’re afraid of death, but the more you get into the record you realize I’m actually afraid of living. I think more people are afraid of living than they realize.

They’re not actually afraid of death, they’re afraid to live their lives how they want and do what they want and be who they really are. I think that is the ultimate fear that I had, so that’s the fear that I addressed.

RM: A lot of artists who write a lot about life and death had a dark childhood.

MW: It was more later on that that stuff happened to us, the drug addiction and the alcoholism and the deaths in the family. In the early days [of My Chemical Romance] it was self-destructive and then we just…grew up, basically. We just got rid of all that stuff before the band got popular.

RM: Tell me about recording the song “Cancer.”

GW: It was very cathartic, but very painful. It was supposed to be. It’s actually an empowering song, I feel. There was a thought process behind why it’s called “Cancer.” It could’ve easily been called “The Hardest Part” or something, but the subject is so brutal and it’s so heavy, you can’t pull punches with the title JAN / FEB 2007 - Feature 19

even. I think the title actually is as important to the song as the lyrics and the music. It automatically puts something on the song. Yes, cancer’s affected me, it affects everyone. I don’t know one person that hasn’t really been affected by it. It’s obviously a very strong metaphor for something else, but at the same time it is being very upfront. It is what it is. It’s my favorite track on the record.

MW: That’s the song where the first time we played it, we got a reaction from the crowd that was like, whoa, they look like they all just got punched in the chest.

RM: Is it inspired by anything in particular?

GW: I had a sense on the record, while making it, I felt very desperate, very distraught. In a lot of ways I had a feeling of a terminal condition. I

[

beginning to be who we are, to say the things we wanted to say, do the things we wanted to do. And the lyrics connect to them because they come from the place of an outsider and a lot of our fans are outsiders.

And also there’s a whole world there. When you think of My Chemical Romance, you don’t just think of a band that’s up there wearing t-shirts and jeans and just getting up on stage playing some songs and saying goodnight. You think of an entire mythological world.

MW: When the record starting taking off, we were getting all these offers like, “We’re going to bring this to pop stations.” And we were like, “We’re not ready for that yet.” We didn’t have a global message quite yet. We kind of played for our fans and luckily other people caught on. I think this time around we have more to say and I think we are going to say it and I think people are going to listen.

]

I think perfect happiness is having a clean

RM: What’s the global message?

MW: The global message is stand up, believe in yourself, and don’t take anyone’s crap. Instead of worrying about what you didn’t do, start doing it. It’s like the last song on the record, “Famous Last Words,” it says just that. “I’m not afraid to keep on living/ I’m not afraid to walk this world alone.”

soul, a clear conscience. A lot of that comes out of living your life as a good person, felt kind of like time was running out, very desperate, occasionally paranoid. It just came out very naturally.

RM: Musically, the song “Mama” is a huge departure for My Chemical Romance. Is it exciting when something like that happens, or a little bit scary?

GW: If it’s scary at all, that’s what makes it so exciting. It was extremely exciting. We knew we had done something we had never done and we had creatively raised the bar for ourselves, and we then knew that we had to ditch a lot of songs. It was scary in that regard, to say this record is something much different now. It’s not going to be the follow-up. It’s going to be the record we would’ve made three records down the line from the last record.

MW: And Liza Minnelli is on the song, and we’re all big fans of hers.

RM: Tell me about starting the record with a song called “The End”?

GW: It’s the end in a lot of ways. It’s the end of this person’s life. This record has a very strong sense of resignation from a lot of things, a lot of places we had come from or a lot of things we were inadvertently pigeonholed to that we were never a part of. That track is the end of everything people had thought about the band. It really right away closes the chapter and you almost at that point don’t even recall Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, if you’re a fan. And if you’re not a fan and you’ve never really heard of the band other than what you’ve seen on TV, then you’re like, I didn’t know this is what the band really sounded like. So the idea was to start at the end because that’s really where it starts.

RM: There is a strong Queen influence on the album. What would Freddie Mercury think of The Black Parade?

GW: I think he would really truly love it. To me, he’s my favorite frontman of all time, he’s my biggest inspiration. Not just for his vocal ability, his songwriting ability, but the fact that he was who he was. He was so selfexpressive. He was very unashamed to be what he was. I think that he would find this record to be such a form of self-expression that he would really appreciate it. In a lot of ways, from my end of it, this is a tribute to him.

RM: My Chemical Romance fans are so loyal, almost obsessive.

Why is that?

GW: Because we are really honest. We had a lot of courage in the

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RM: Eddie Vedder went into a deep depression after one of his obsessed fans drove their car into his house. Do you worry about things like that?

GW: It’s a fear that you have, especially with a band that deals so much with fiction and mythology and worlds that don’t exist, people could end up living in those places in their heads too much and develop relationships in their heads that they have with you that don’t exist. But I don’t know how I would deal with that if it did happen.

RM: Gerard, you suffered a nervous breakdown early on in the band. Did you ever fear you were going back down that path making The Black Parade?

GW: I wasn’t worried about relapsing into drug addiction or drinking or anything like that. I was concerned about getting tremendously depressed again, but I wasn’t concerned about getting suicidal again. I had been through so much hard stuff, I was like, well, it’s never going to get that bad again. I had been through death, I had been through addiction, I had been through everything that is really hard to go through, and I came out of that. So I really could have faced anything at that point.

RM: Do you cry when you are going through something like that?

GW: No. I was raised by my dad and he is not a crier and it got inadvertently projected on to me. So I don’t cry a lot, which means that I also hold in a lot, unfortunately. So I talk quite a bit to my guys to avoid breakdowns. But I just kind of stare at a ceiling if I get depressed. I don’t really cry.

RM: What’s your idea of perfect happiness?

GW: I think perfect happiness is having a clean soul, a clear conscience. A lot of that comes out of living your life as a good person, as good as you can, and realizing that you will make mistakes and it’s not the end of the world and you are just human.

I think it all starts with what’s inside your head. I don’t think anything else can provide happiness to you but what’s inside your head.

My Chemical Romance’s latest CD, The Black Parade, is available in record stores and online.

Jennie Finch Writer: Scott Schulte

Photographer: Landon Finch

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ennie Finch is one of those people you could love to hate. Olympic gold medalist, named one of People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People, past model for the coveted Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, married to wh pitcher Casey Daigle, and pitches a softball at 71 mph. And as a brand new mother of a Arizona Diamondback beautiful baby boy, Finch may very well have it all. Problem is, Jennie Finch is impossible to dislike.

As I met her for the first time at the 2005 ESPY Awards, she wasn’t hiding from the public behind an entourage.

Rather, with her teammates—Dr. Dot Richardson, Lisa Hernandez, and others—Finch chose to hang out in the media dinner room, laughing, smiling, sharing stories, and listening intently to everyone she met.

I sat down at the table, next to Finch, and in a few minutes of conversation, I could tell that she was no ordinary world-class model and sports star. Instead of the inane me-me-me babble one might expect from someone who has it all, she wanted to talk about my family and what I did as a writer; it was Finch’s genuine interest in others that captivated me (OK, the blonde hair and blue eyes didn’t hurt, either). So when we finally did this interview, it didn’t take place at a studio, softball field, or in her Tucson, Arizona, home. Rather, we spoke as she and husband Casey strolled through a local mall looking for clothes for their new son, Ace Shane Daigle. A first, for sure.

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Interviewed exclusively for RISEN Magazine in Tucson, Arizona.

RISEN Magazine: You, of course, are an Olympic gold medalist, and your husband plays for the Arizona Diamondbacks. What would you think if Ace decides sports are not for him?

Jennie Finch: I think it would be a little strange since both families are so into athletics and it’s such a big part of our lives. But the important thing about being a positive parent is to let your child grow into what he or she wants to be, to find and cultivate their dreams and let them find their own path in their lives.

wh

RM: With the two high-demand and high-profile careers, how is it managing both careers?

new insight into how he works and how miraculous he is. I would just think, God, you are so real. You are amazing to allow me to have this great experience of motherhood. I’ve seen throughout my career how a lot of professional athletes and movie stars live in the world and how empty they still feel. For me, there is no true happiness in worldly things. The Lord is the center of my life and I feel bad when I see others with that emptiness, and people who are searching to fill this gap in their lives because I know that gap can be filled with the love of

I work hard to keep my eyes on the true prize in lifeliving for Jesus Christ and his glory-and not living for the worldly things like the fame or the money.

JF: Our relationship has been this way from the beginning. We met when I was a senior in college and I had the Olympics and he had his training with Arizona, so we haven’t experienced anything other than this. It’s a real part of our lives.

RM: With being two recognizable athletes, do you ever just want to be left alone?

JF: It’s nice that people appreciate what we do. We would never be rude to people who want to talk or get an autograph and share in our lives, but we also enjoy our privacy and we’ve learned how to make that part of our life happen. During the off-season we travel, we spend a lot of time with our immediate families and close friends. We go places where people don’t recognize us. But we’re not complaining.

We’ve been very blessed and taking time for others is a small thing when you think about all we’ve been able to do in our lives.

RM: What do you do to avoid the burnout of sports?

JF: We don’t talk about baseball or softball much. I mean we’ll discuss it when we’ve just finished a workout, but then it’s over. We do a lot of other things. Since we travel so much, we really enjoy just being home together, cooking together, or maybe going out to a relaxing dinner. We love to golf and that’s relaxing.

RM: You are known for your Christian beliefs and values. How have those beliefs helped you in the different aspects of your life?

JF: It’s pretty basic, really. Jesus Christ is my Savior and I know he was born and died and rose again so we all, including me, can be forgiven for our sins. He is amazing. I think my pregnancy gave me a

Jesus Christ. I always had my faith as my backbone. I work hard to keep my eyes on the true prize in life—living for Jesus Christ and his glory—and not living for the worldly things like the fame or the money.

RM: Do you try to share that message of Jesus Christ with people?

JF: Absolutely. I always want to share the message of Jesus Christ with people. Hopefully people will see God’s love in my eyes. I tend to try to please everyone and that can be difficult, so I stay focused on pleasing God because if he is my number one fan, I’ll be fine.

RM: You are in a unique situation in that you are a great athlete, but you also have the looks to be a full-time model if you chose to. How is to be seen as a sex symbol?

JF: It’s very weird. But I do enjoy it. My dad always says I’m a girly girl and he’s right. I’ve been able to do modeling and I enjoy getting all dressed up, getting to pick out my clothes, getting my hair done, and my makeup done. It’s all fun stuff that a lot of girls love to do from an early age.

RM: With the modeling, have you had to put your foot down and set up clear boundaries as to what you will and will not do?

JF: Yes. I’ve turned down several popular magazines because their standards are different than mine. I’ve done this for several reasons.

First, there are just things I’m not going to do and publications I am not going to align myself with. Then there’s my family. I’ve been raised to JAN / FEB 2007 - Feature 27

We make each move carefully. We use

our families, our faith, and one another when we make decisions...

avoid certain situations and to live according to strict guidelines of moral standards that I firmly believe in. Then, there are the little girls out there who do look to people like me as a role model, and I don’t want to do anything that would give little girls the wrong ideas as to what is and is not appropriate behavior.

RM: With Casey being a professional athlete, he must go through similar situations. Do you work together on deciding what products to endorse and align yourselves with?

JF: Absolutely. We take that very seriously. Anything that is going to be attached to us is extremely important. We make each move carefully.

We use our families, our faith, and one another when we make decisions as to what we’ll do and what products we’ll associate with.

RM: You are currently featured in a Gatorade commercial with the likes of Derek Jeter, Kevin Garnett, Dwyane Wade, and Peyton Manning. How was that experience and how did it help the exposure for women’s softball?

JF: It was great. It was an incredible honor to just be in a commercial with those other great athletes. It was real exciting because the idea of being in a Gatorade commercial itself is amazing. Those are the commercials I used to watch as a kid and then I was chosen to be in one. I loved the story line and the idea of turning all of us into kids just playing in the backyard. I mean that’s really what sports is all about.

We’re all just kids’ at heart playing kids games.

RM: When did you realize you had a special gift for softball?

JF: I think when I was 12. I was on a team that had finished second in the nation. It was weird to know I had been a big part of something that was that good. From there, I just worked very hard and stayed focused on achieving everything I could with my talents as a softball player.

RM: You made the U.S. National team just six weeks after the birth of your son. How did you manage to get yourself in worldclass condition in such a short period of time?

JF: I was blessed with great support throughout the pregnancy which enabled me to stay in shape during that time. I knew I had to be on the field within six weeks of my son’s birth, so that kept me motivated.

I stayed in close contact with my doctors and I was able to lift weights up to the 8th month of the pregnancy. I ran every day through six months and then walked six miles a day. I walked six miles the day before the delivery. I’m also only 25, so I had age on my side. I also have family members with me as I travel. I need people to help with my son, but we have made the choice to not hire outside help, but to utilize our family members so our son grows up around those people who are related to him. It’s something we’ve been blessed with. He

already has quite a scrapbook because he hasn’t left my side since he was born, so there’s been lots of traveling for this little guy.

RM: Every person I have talked to about you says the same thing about you: “She’s so nice, so approachable.” How have you been able to keep your head when so many premiere athletes today don’t do that?

JF: Well, first, thank you. I have always been taught and I personally believe that we’re all people and we’re all equal, just with different talents and abilities. I also have a great husband and extended family and they help keep me grounded. I don’t like confrontation. I don’t like having enemies. I like getting along with people.

RM: That’s interesting. How are you able to be a world-class athlete with that mind-set?

JF: I am a fierce competitor. I want to win. I don’t like to be in a room with people I’m competing against, but then there’s the outside world.

I leave my competitiveness on the field, and when I go out into the rest of the world, I want to be nice to people. It’s just as important as winning any softball game.

RM: Do you plan on being a stay-at-home mom or do you expect to keep working professionally outside the home?

JF: I want to keep working outside the home as long as I can.

Obviously, motherhood is my most important job, and Ace will play heavily into my decisions. I play professional softball with the Chicago Bandits and I’m having fun. I also do work as a sportscaster with ESPN. Hopefully, I can bring Ace with me and continue doing those other things, but as with all my decisions, it will be based on family, faith, and then my sport. So we’ll just have to wait and see how things pan out.

RM: When you look back on your life, what’s your greatest triumph?

JF: Aside from my wedding day and now becoming a mother, it would have to be winning the gold medal at the Athens Olympics. I’d dreamed of wearing the USA uniform for so long, and to have my family there and play alongside my hero and role model, Lisa Hernandez, was just amazing.

RM: What do think your future holds?

JF: I don’t know for sure. Hopefully, staying active, having some more kids, doing clinics, traveling, and enjoying all aspects of my life as an athlete and mother and wife.

Jennie Finch currently pitches for the Chicago Bandits of the National Pro Fastpitch Softball League. For more information, visit www.chicagobandits.com JAN / FEB 2007 - Feature 29

Writer: Chris Ahrens / Photographer:Steve Moors

have known the name of sacred steel virtuoso Robert Randolph for a while now. Still, I often inadvertently refer to him as Robert Johnson, the crossroads blues innovator, somehow in my mind confusing those set apart by three-quarters of a century. There are obvious similarities, including identical first names. Both are African American men who at a young age brought new musical art forms to the public. But there are differences between them, one of the greatest being that Johnson reportedly sold his soul to the devil while Randolph unabashedly plays church songs for bar patrons who find themselves hypnotically singing along with a pint in their hands, swaying as if they were in a junkyard choir.

I am seated alone in a dressing room when the 24-year-old saunters in, yawns, puts forth one of the two most talented hands in rock music, shakes conventionally, eats a few strawberries from the bowl set before him, sits down, and begins speaking. He has a lot on his mind, much of which will be left on the stage tonight. He carries the weight of being the latest big talent to come out of the church, joining a long list of others from Ray Charles to R. Kelly who have taken similar routes and, perhaps, fallen short of the Great Commission.

Because of his deep musical and spiritual roots, Robert Randolph has the distance to view fame in one direction and salvation in another. He chooses a third alternative, the most difficult of paths, signaling the way to both fame and salvation. This is a narrow road and few find it.

Exclusively interviewed for RISEN Magazine at the Hollywood House of Blues.

RISEN Magazine: You’re a long way from the Church of God … I get the feeling that’s a rather strict denomination.

Robert Randolph: Yeah, in some ways. Many of the old guys who grew up playing there had to deal with a lot. I wanted to play like some of them. Not only did I want to play like them, I wanted to be better. I wanted to stretch out a little more.

RM: I don’t know if he said it or not, but there’s a quote attributed to David Bowie that rock ’n’ roll is the devil’s music.

RR: Music is just different, different styles. You can sing about something in a rock form, Gospel, jazz, or R&B. Rock is just a certain sound. It’s all in what they’re singing about; nothing is the devil’s music, unless you’re singing about the devil.

RM: Clarence Fountain of the Blind Boys of Alabama said he was in the studio when a man offered him and Sam Cooke contracts to play rock ’n’ roll. He believes that Cooke taking the offer led to his death, while his keeping on with Gospel sustained him.

RR: You never know what God has in store for other people. The fact that Sam Cooke was here for a short amount of time … nobody can say if the Lord took him away from here because of that. He is heavily influential to so many people. God might have said, Okay, that’s enough for you here. It’s not because he left the church; I don’t believe that. What do you say about the guy who lives only to be 50?

What do you say about the guy that lives to be 120? What do you say about the kid who dies at birth?

RM: On one of your records you say, if you’re not going to clap or stomp your feet, get out of here.

RR: That’s the mentality, man. I love for people to come out, have a good time, and release all of the things that surround them during the day.

Even for us, we don’t get to go to church as much as we used to. What I try to give to people is the church/Gospel vibe, that uplifting vibe.

That’s what we wanted to do with this record.

We wanted our producers to know that we wanted to reach excellence and do something on a popular level and on a mainstream level, but still get people to celebrate life while we’re on this earth, to share those things with somebody else.

all in what they’re singing about; It’snothing is the devil’s music, unless you’re singing about the devil.

RM: Were any of the more conservative church members concerned that you would stray when you pursued success beyond the church?

RR: Yeah, a lot of the people I grew up in church with are concerned about us going out and playing. What church people sometimes think is that if we’re not around them, we’re going to be constantly around drugs and so many different things. But we try to take all these songs I grew up with in church, like “Jesus Is Just All Right” and “Deliver Me.” That is something I learned in the church that I can give to people. It’s the Gospel message with a rock vibe, rock edge, rock sound. We call it “rockspell.” Recording this record, talking to people like Eric Clapton and Carlos Santana—really getting to hang with them, sit down just like we’re talking now—we were able to talk life stories about where they are now, not where they were twenty years ago. Back then somebody would stick a needle in their arm, or snort blow, all those different things. They understand spirituality now. Their advice to me was, make sure and write songs you believe in.

RM: There’s got to be a lot of temptation for a rock musician, but I would think that even beyond sex and drugs, pride is the biggest one.

RR: For me it’s not really an ego thing. The more busy you become … sometimes people do have big egos, [laughs] but sometimes you become so busy while becoming a star and while becoming appreciated by a lot of people … there comes a point where … and I can only imagine what it’s like for a Dave Matthews or Prince or Clapton. For me, I don’t really see the ego thing. I don’t really get into it like that … I came from church and you know what you’ve been taught, what life brings us and what God can bring us and the talent that God has given us. To be able to sing and play and share it with people, that’s always with me.

RM: Do you think all music is spiritual?

RR: In some ways, yes it is. But it depends on what spirit you’re lookin’ for. [Laughs] There’re a lot of different spirits out there. Are you looking for good spirits or bad spirits; what do you want to fuel? If you’re depressed about something and you want to come out of it, you want to look for something that’s gonna help you get into a good spirit.

RM: I believe that if the church went outside of itself, it will find that they don’t have as many enemies as they might think.

RR: I’m glad we have an opportunity to do what we do, because … as much as you learn in church, when you get out of it and go to other places, it will get you to tweak your message a lot of times. I tell that to preachers and people I grew up with in church. What do they have to say to the Europeans, the Indians, the Africans?

RM: I saw a video years ago saying that Alice Cooper channeled his name from a 17th Century witch. I had the opportunity to sit down with him after that and he was a solid Christian and laughed when I told him the story, which he had heard many times before.

RR: You never know until you really get to know people. At the end of the day God is the judge.

RM: A lot of your major influences had major drug problems or are no longer with us: Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Sly Stone …

RR: I never really listened to Sly Stone until a few years ago, not heavily, anyway. We all heard Sly’s songs, but when I got a videotape, what he talked about was the same thing I already knew. Thirty, forty years ago he talked about hearing certain sounds in church, and taking those sounds and getting out of the church, take that spiritual kind of party vibe … of course he got mixed up in other things, and that happens. People ask Sly Stone where he came from and he says he came from a church down in Michigan and people say, “What, we never heard of that kind of church,” and they want to go down and see it. They hear about pedal steel being in church and they want to go see it.

RM: Is your home church entertaining?

RR: Oh yeah, big time. Like they have a sort of Blues Brothers attitude. It’s a great church and it’s just fun. Even now, you go and you feel good. Church should make you feel good.

RM: Many churches seem to specialize in making people feel bad.

RR: Yeah, yeah. You go to church to seek help. There’s a scripture that says, Jesus is my doctor. It’s not really a scripture, but …

RM: Jimi Hendrix said he wanted to make music that sounded like the heavens were opening; what would you like to accomplish with your music?

RR: Man, that’s about as perfect as you could say it. I want to give people something for this day and age. It may be different than Sly or Prince or Stevie. That was some of the stuff we grew up on. A lot of young kids, African American kids, don’t know what that good side, that spiritual side can do and how it can influence people twenty or thirty years down the line. We’re in a big hip-hop world, where a lot of it is about gangs and drugs and sluts. It forces the mind of a kid to do things they shouldn’t be doin’.

So hopefully I can—being young and African American—reach out with energy to so many other people.

everyone will be rapping, just like rock ’n’ roll is everywhere now. But people need to be original. Let it be something you really believe in, that’s the same thing Clapton told me. Write something truthful. If you feel there’s something God gave you, do it. I never want to be a sellout, but when you hear that one song, you know that one that will sell units … There’s nothing wrong with that.

RM: “Going in the Right Direction” is that kind of song.

RR: That was a gift, yeah. That was an old song my mother wrote in church, years ago. I took it and stretched it out a little bit. I want people who would think, Oh church, no, no, don’t preach to me, to be singing a song they wouldn’t otherwise sing.

RM: Have you ever experienced a miracle?

writing songs, performing them, Sandittingseeingdown,a great reaction from people.

That’s something God gives you.

RM: What are your dreams?

RR: To be in the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame and not be broke. I want to be in good health and be in the Hall of Fame. That’s what it’s about, that means you really accomplished, you touched more people than you can imagine. That’s like the Ph.D. of music.

You’re done.

RM: What causes you to grow as a musician?

RR: Being humble, being open-minded, being able to work with different people and being in a right mind.

RM: When you see a young woman doing something nasty on the dance floor and you know …

RR: You gotta get in or you gotta get out. That’s it. You gotta be in the right mind. You gotta know what you’ve been taught.

RM: Do you have any scriptures that sustain you?

RR: “Without God I can do nothing.” “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” It’s all about faith.

RM: I had a friend who was dying of cancer at 21 years old. He was listening to a Stevie Wonder song and he said, “God speaks through Stevie.” These guys had never met each other and yet Stevie Wonder helped him to the other side.

RR: Yeah, yeah. About three weeks ago I was walking out of a restaurant in Nashville and a guy was walking in. He just hugged me, man, and he said, “I’m a huge fan and I just got out of jail. What helped me get out was my friend sending me one of your CDs. I heard ‘Going in the Right Direction’ and that led me down another path. I just want to hug you and thank you for helping me get my life together.” Experiences like that are more important than sellin’ a million records.

RR: Oh yeah. Once when I was about 19, going to work, working the third shift I fell asleep behind the wheel, going uphill. The car turned over, caught on fire, and I woke up and jumped out. Had I been goin’ downhill, you wouldn’t be talking to me today. That was a time when I was young and I had been partying. My father had gone out of town.

RM: Is there a lot of pressure being a minister’s kid?

RR: Not really pressure, but you’re hidden from a lot of things. I try to tell parents in church not to cut their kids off from society, that it will hurt them more. You want to teach them the difference between right and wrong. That’s why a lot of kids rebel. A lot of them end up being victims through not knowin’. I try to show them the other side of it.

RM: Excessive use of drugs and alcohol seems to tame people, not make them wild, as many people think.

RR: Everything is bad for you if you do too much of it. Some things are more harsh to your body. In the Old Testament, they were into herbs for healing. I’m heavily into herbs now. You hear about people dying from pain killers.

RM: One of the saddest things to me in the African American community is a diet that kills so many people.

RR: Yeah, I come from a huge diabetic family. I’ve grown up in the church where they pray, “Lord help us,” but they’re killin’ themselves, eatin’ so much fried chicken and greasy stuff; you are doing the same thing the alcoholic is doin’ down the street. [Laughs] You’re eating that food and it puts you in that daze, where you gotta lay down. I got my parents into it now, herbs, natural teas, natural medicine.

RM: What’s the most fun thing for you?

RR: Sitting down, writing songs, performing them, and seeing a great reaction from people. That’s something God gives you.

RM: Where do you see yourself in 10,000 years?

RR: Hopefully in heaven, a place that I see with everybody dancin’ and singin’, and shoutin’ and everybody’s hanging out, having a good natural time. We’re gonna try to get there tonight, but we ain’t in heaven yet.

RM: What do you think of rap?

RR: A lot of it is good and a lot of it is bad. I think in thirty years

Robert Randolph & The Family Band’s latest CD, Colorblind, is available in record stores and online.

36 :RISEN MAGAZINE

Writer: Chris AhrensPhotos: Blaine Franger JAN / FEB 2007 - Feature 37

s

omebody’s messing with me—trying to get me to crack by sending me out to Coors Amphitheater to be immersed in a pit of inescapable electronically amplified noise on a day that will send a few hundred thousand pilgrims home from air conditioned theaters, wondering at inconvenient truths while an equal number rock their way through this, the hottest summer in recorded history. Back at headquarters they know my feelings about this overstuffed squirrel cage.

They know my thoughts on the hoards that spend beach time and allowance money, losing mid-range tones and middle-class values in seconds, along with their voices by trying to get their heroes’ attention from a few football fields away. But there I was, just as ordered, at the Vans Warped Tour in San Diego, California, and with 57 laps around the sun, the oldest person in line to see what most would consider a contradiction in terms, a Christian hardcore band. You may know them as Underoath.

Now, I’m not siding with those Christian conservatives who equate rock concerts with witch burning and pagan rituals, but I would be less surprised seeing a statue of Aphrodite than I would a right-side-up crucifix on stage. I reach for a water bottle and within minutes realize that my mounting paranoia is merely the result of heat and dehydration.

Then, as my mind clears it occurs to me that not since the Apostle Paul approached Mars Hill, boldly proclaiming news of “The Unknown God” to a potentially hostile group of polytheists, has anyone but Underoath seemed so dangerously out of place. But we like musical acts that seem out of place, don’t we? Observe the woman who calls herself Madonna and judge for yourself.

After being jerked from one gate to the next and eventually being denied entrance to the lion’s den for lack of proper credentials, I hit my cell phone and reschedule my time with the band. Eventually, I spoke with Spencer Chamberlain, Grant Brandell, and Aaron Gillespie of Underoath. Turns out, they’re not uncomfortable standing near the jaws of the hungry beasts at all. In fact, they rather seem to enjoy it.

Interviewed exclusively for RISEN Magazine in Pomona, California.

RM: Has there been any resistance to your music?

GB: Yes, like anything people try to do, there’s always that.

RM: Do your beliefs help or hinder you in being around people with contrary worldviews?

SC: I hope that our beliefs help us be nonjudgmental.

RM: Some people will come only for the music and not the message, so how do you react to seeing drunken people in your audience?

SC: Like anywhere else, some people get drunk, some don’t.

RM: Is there Satanism in rock ’n’ roll?

RISEN Magazine: You guys are blatantly Christian. Are nonChristians respectful of your beliefs?

Spencer Chamberlain: We accept people and so they accept us. A lot of people will ask us to pray for them. The way we live our lives, we try to be good people. Everyone screws up, and of course we get a little…When you believe in something strongly, you live it to the best of your abilities. Obviously we’re not God, but we do try to set a good example.

RM: Do you feel pressure because you’re a Christian band?

Grant Brandell: There is some pressure, but we’re not perfect. We have struggles and we keep each other accountable. Sometimes people will put us under a microscope and with that comes more responsibility. So we try to be the best dudes we can be and keep each other accountable.

38 :RISEN MAGAZINE

SC: Sure, I think so.

GB: The only time I saw anything like that was years ago. But I think that Satanism was their gimmick. I don’t know what they were called, but they were kind of nerdy, geeky dudes. They marched around with banners that had burning pentagrams on them.

RM: You guys don’t look like church kids; and it would be pretty easy for you to be misunderstood; so how does the church treat you?

Aaron Gillespie: Being on the road, we don’t have a home church, but the church we left behind was very supportive of us.

RM: Do you feel your values come across in your music?

SC: I feel our faith is communicated.

RM: It seems guys in rock bands have more chances to stumble than the average guy. How do you deal with sexual temptations?

SC: I’m not that kind of guy. Even if I wasn’t a Christian, I don’t think that would ever happen to me.

GB: If you don’t go looking for it, it’s generally not a problem. But if you go looking, you can find trouble. But it’s not like there’re naked girls waiting for us backstage. You learn to avoid certain situations over the years.

RM: You must get your fair share of groupies. Are they a temptation?

AG: No, I’m never tempted by groupies.

RM: What tempts you?

AG: I’m just tempted by life, the same things as anyone else.

RM: How do you keep yourself in check?

GB: Yes, I feel God’s pleasure when I play music. I can’t say I feel it in every show, but sometimes I do and sometimes I believe our music is straight-up worship. Obviously you have good and bad days, like anything else in life.

AG: Between the members of the band, we keep ourselves grounded. I realize that all of this could be over in a year. This band is not my identity, but I do feel this is where God has me.

SC: Playing live is the best thing ever. Sometimes I feel the presence of God really strongly when I’m on stage, but I also sense Him in the stuff I see each day and the things I go through. God inspires my everyday life.

RM: You hear thousands of people shouting your name. Certainly there’s a temptation to think you’re better than other people.

RM: Do you read a lot of Scripture?

SC: That’s everything I stand against. We’re not special or cool. I’m the same dude I was five years ago. How cool am I? That’s ridiculous.

RM: What are your motives for doing music?

GB: It’s not something done for fame, not at all, and it’s more of a blessing than any of us ever thought it would be. We’re Christians and we love playing music. That’s the biggest thing in our lives. Fame is such a funny word to me. People ask me what it’s like being famous, but when I’m not playing I’m like anyone else. I may be playing video games with my friends or something. So fame never comes up in my thinking. I think that all the members of the band try to be as humble as possible. I try never acting like I’m something more than what I am.

We’re just like any other kids who come to our shows, but we have been so blessed. If anyone in the band acts egotistical even for a second, the rest of us will keep them in check. We’re very good friends in that way. We’ve all been best friends for about three years.

AG: I’m not as disciplined as I should be. If I can discipline my human and disgusting flesh to read a Proverb a day, that’s good.

RM: How do you feel you’re doing, representing Christ as a musician?

AG: I don’t feel I do a good job of it. I’m a terrible person. None of us are capable of putting on Christ one hundred percent.

RM: What do you hope to do in the future?

SC: To keep writing music and playing shows; that’s all I really want in life.

RM: Where do you see yourself in 10,000 years?

AG: Hopefully in heaven. Yeah, hopefully I won’t live to be 10,000 years old.

RM: What keeps you humble?

SC: Knowing myself and realizing that I’m far from perfect.

RM: Do you think the band can do a good show, even on nights when they’re not feeling it?

SC: If the band’s not feeling it, the crowd won’t feel it either.

RM: There was a movie called Chariots of Fire and the main character said he felt God’s pleasure when he ran. Do you feel God’s pleasure when you play music?

Underoath’s new CD, Define the Great Line, is available in record stores and online.

JAN / FEB 2007 - Feature 41

Professional snowboarder Hana Beaman arrives at my door, still wet from a surf session on her longboard. She looks happy and athletic as she introduces herself, walks in, and takes a seat. Her mannerisms are not those of an Olympic gold medalist, but instead resemble those of a humble surfer new to the area, asking directions to the best surf spots. Maybe that’s because she lives in the moment and right now, hundreds of miles and a season away from snow, she is thinking of surf. Talking about surfing, which has been my sport for the past four and a half decades, puts me at a distinct advantage. Now, if we were to talk snowboarding, the sport that sent her to the top of the TransWorld Rider’s Poll this year, things would be a little different. Or so I thought. But when the conversation shifted from salt water to frozen water, she remained happy and humble.

Oh, and you can add humorous and friendly to that.

Interviewed exclusively for RISEN Magazine in Cardiff by the Sea, California.

RISEN Magazine: Where did you grow up?

Hana Beaman: I was born in Santa Barbara but I grew up in Big Bear.

RM: Did you surf before you snowboarded?

HB: No, I’m a beginner at surfing. I’ve surfed the last two years and fallen in love with it. I went to Oceanside yesterday and got pounded, took my board in my nose. I was all mad. [Laughs] RM: The term boarding is used often to describe surfing, snowboarding, and skating. Do you think there’s a meeting of the cultures?

HB: Yeah, I think we’re all kind of lumped into that group of—I don’t want to say extreme—alternative sports. We all have the tradeshows together; we all do the same stuff. It’s cool.

RM: To be at the top of a sport, you need confidence. Sometimes gifted people never go past intermediate.

HB: In order to be the best at your sport you need that confidence and you carry that confidence into other sports. I use surfing more as recreation. I don’t have to push myself as hard as I do in snowboarding and I enjoy it for that.

RM: Does snowboarding ever feel like a job to you?

HB: I have bad days where I think, Why am I out here? But it never feels like a job unless you’re forced to do something you don’t want to do.

Writer: Chris Ahrens Photographer: Lou Mora

RM: Board sports seem to breed an independent counterculture, but when they get expensive, as snowboarding is, the ghetto aspect of the sport gets cut out.

Makeup: Davia Matson JAN / FEB 2007 - Feature 43

HB: Yeah, I think that’s one of the limitations of our sport. You have to buy all the gear, travel there, and buy a lift ticket. I wish it was a little more accessible for people. But where there’s a will there’s a way.

totally supportive. They gave me a ring when I graduated and on the inside, it says, “Your world awaits.”

HB: [Laughs] At that moment you just sort of take whatever is going to happen. In powder it’s not that bad, but when you’re in a park jump and something goes wrong, your heart stops. Tuck and roll.

RM: Do you feel any responsibility to younger people getting into the sport?

HB: I don’t get a lot of people saying, Oh man, you’re the reason I started or anything. I’m kind of off in my own world. I kind of forget that people watch what I do. Sometimes I’ll be like, Oh yeah, you shouldn’t say that word cuz some young girl’s gonna use it.

RM: What’s the worst you’ve ever hurt yourself?

Sometimes I need to watch my mouth.

RM: What goes through your mind when you’re 20 feet in the air and you realize you might land wrong?

HB: I’ve broken my collarbone. All of the injuries are bad, but I hate getting concussions. You have no clue what’s going on. I’m kind of a control freak, but I’ve been fortunate not to have any major injuries.

RM: Would you call yourself a risk taker?

HB: Yup, I’ll be at the top of a jump and not know what’s going to happen, but I’ll be, Oh, well, go for it. [Laughs] RM: Are you like that with everything?

HB: A lot of stuff. In daily life, we’ll drive somewhere. If we see some random surf spot we’ll just go in. My girlfriends and I will go on random trips without hotels or anything.

RM: What scares you?

HB: I would have to say, having something happen where I couldn’t take care of myself. I’m really independent.

RM: What created that independent spirit in you?

HB: I think being an only child. Both my parents have done crazy stuff. They totally believed in me and things I wanted to do: they were 44 :RISEN MAGAZINE

RM: What would you do if you lost everything you have? You’re in Omaha, nobody knows you, and you have ten dollars in your pocket.

HB: I’d probably camp in the forest and figure out what I’m going to do. I’ve often thought that if something happened I’d go into the woods and try to capture squirrels and eat them. [Laughs] RM: Are you comfortable in the woods?

HB: Growing up in Big Bear, my friends and I were always outside.

We had multiple forts in the woods and we’d go out and make arrows and spears and try and catch fish and stuff. I know enough about the woods to probably survive for a while.

RM: What’s the roughest outdoor experience you’ve ever had?

HB: I don’t know if it was ever that rough. We went hiking in the mountains outside of Mammoth, 50 miles outside of Mammoth. It was a good time. I like hanging out and getting dirty. I grew up with all kinds of guy friends around, so we would always be climbing trees, riding bikes, wrestling…

RM: What other things do you pursue?

HB: Right now I’m really into remodeling my house. It’s super cool to have your space feel like the home you want.

me people don’t know, that I don’t even know about myself. [Laughs] RM: How much do you travel?

RM: If you could name five of the greatest moments of your life, what would they be?

HB: I’d have to say that last the Rider’s Poll was one of them. That and the first real wave I caught, where I was actually in control.

HB: I’m home for, maybe, five or six weeks a year. A month or so in the summer and a week in the winter. It depends on how good a job I’m doing. If I’m doing my job well, I’ll never be home. [Laughs]

RM: Does snowboarding ever get territorial?

RM: Is there any resentment between skiers and snowboarders?

RM: Do you feel a responsibility to be happy?

HB: Yeah, and I’m generally happy, but once in a while I’ll start thinking about things too much and get bummed. In my life I get to snowboard. Other people are starving. Sometimes I think I shouldn’t be doing this; I should be over there helping those people.

HB: There are some people that would say so. I think a lot of the older skiers hold resentment, but we have a lot of friends who are skiers.

RM: How do you use low feelings?

HB: They motivate me to better myself and to be better to people.

HB: It can in the backcountry. But people in resorts come from all over the place.

RM: At this point, what would your last words be?

HB: Probably, I love you guys and thanks for being in my life.

RM: Do you have any guiding slogans or books or anything?

HB: Not really. Maybe “carpe diem.” Try to have fun each day, try to do something unique each day.

RM: Are you ever bored?

HB: Being an only child you’re never really bored. Even if I’m in my house I’ll draw or something. Organize, clean, something.

RM: A lot of extreme sports people I know are cautious emotionally.

HB: I’m definitely very introverted. I seem open, but there’s that thick layer that guards the inside of me. It takes a long time for me to be open. I can be a really good friend to somebody and not let them know a lot about me. I can be very emotionally guarded, especially with guys.

RM: What do you think heaven would look like?

HB: I’m more of a reincarnation person.

RM: So what do you think you’d come back as?

HB: I’d like to say I’d come back as a fish or a bird. I think that would be cool.

RM: Would you look at that as an improvement?

HB: I don’t want to say that human beings are the most important animals on this earth. You can probably learn something from being a bird that you couldn’t learn from being human. There’s got to be something more than this one life and a heaven you go to for eternity.

RM: Where do you see yourself in 10,000 years?

HB: I’ll be on some other planet, raising a family. I’ll be my own grandma, reincarnated. [Laughs]

RM: What would people be surprised to know about you?

HB: They might not know that I’m really shy. I exude confidence to people, but I don’t think they know that I’m just putting it out there. I’m the worst person with meeting new people. There’s probably a lot about

Hana Beaman lives in Mammoth Mountain, travels the world, and snowboards almost daily.

JAN / FEB 2007 - Feature 45

Pigeon John

Room to Live Writer: Chris Ahrens Photographer: Estevan Oriol

t

he thin outline of Pigeon John is buried in the cushions of a couch in the waiting room of one of the world’s most famous tattoo artists, Mister Cartoon. Amid photos of 50 Cent, Eminem, Dr. Dre, and other rap legends on the wall, he casually browses magazines, then stands to politely shake hands and introduce himself, displaying no more pomp than if he were Dre’s gardener. The metaphoric first impression is of a man at home with himself, while still searching for his place in the bigger picture. And while he shares much with the ghosts who have occupied this space in the past—talent for one thing—he is not here for the same reasons they were, preferring to keep his arms ink free, his neck and fingers ice free, his clothing plain, his talk straight. In standard issue t-shirt and jeans, he lets his plain wrap style do the rapping. He has a soft, authoritative speaking voice. I like the way he laughs.

Interviewed exclusively for RISEN Magazine at Mister Cartoon’s tattoo parlor in Los Angeles.

RISEN Magazine: So, what’s a good Christian boy like you doing in a place like this?

Pigeon John: [Laughs] Oh, I don’t know, just chillin’ I guess.

RM: You cross over into a lot of different worlds, it seems.

PJ: I just kind of grew up doing shows in both worlds. So I really didn’t know any better. Going to open mics at The Good Life on Crenshaw, and then starting to go to church at around 17, where they were doin’ shows. So I never really drew a line between the two, just kept doin’ both. I’d invite non-church friends to my little church shows and invite church friends to The Good Life. It was the same world to me.

RM: You were influenced by both worlds?

PJ: Heck yeah. Musically and by lifestyle. I like the way a lot of bands in the Christian and secular markets handle themselves on and off the stage. I kind of learn from everybody, whether it’s going out with Blackalicious, seeing how they do, or Matisyahu, seeing how he does. Pretty much learning from the guys I’m out with.

RM: Do people expect something more from you, morally and ethically?

PJ: Yeah, I think so, mostly from the Christian side. Whether it’s drinking, smoking, or talking about girls. It’s a very fine line it seems. I get a lot of e-mails, and they’re mostly earnest, saying, “Hey, I don’t understand why you do things this way.” The questions never seem to stop coming from that side. It’s a hard thing trying to please people, but I try to be reasonable and courteous. I definitely want to do that, but it seems that at some point you have to accept who you are, that God created you this way for a reason.

RM: What is your life’s purpose?

PJ: Well, I think it changes every year. Trying to find my purpose has been a lifelong thing, but I’m finding out it’s not a dead-end. For me, it’s not ever that clear. My purpose right now is to try and make bomb hip-hop music, do the best shows and take over a side of underground hip-hop and just be there and be myself on and off stage. That is the biggest challenge for me, being myself, trying to remain honest. Cuz if I start living two lives, or hiding this side of my

JAN / FEB 2007 - Feature 47

life…Since the beginning I wanted to be honest with my music, so I don’t want anything crazy coming out. My purpose is to live the Gospel when no one’s looking and to do pure music. I want to do the right thing, but a lot of times it’s a struggle. That’s the hardest part for me, just letting God live through me in an honest way.

RM: Who inspires you musically?

PJ: Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest is one of my biggest inspirations from like the older school. Modern day, I love what Outkast is doin’ and specifically Andre 3000. He’s the guy who really scares me, cuz he is doing some fantastic stuff. He’s become what Beck and Prince are. He can do any type of music and whatever he does is hot. It takes time to do that, to get to the point where you’re a musical icon.

you’ve ever seen hands you her hotel key; how do you not go?

PJ: [Laughs] Things like that do happen on the road. What I like to do…I tell the people I tour with before we all go out, no girls in the room. A couple of them are single, so they might get a number here or there. Sometimes it takes a few more minutes to get rid of the key, the number, or whatever. Then I think how it says that candy becomes gravel in the mouth. That feeling and knowing the harm it will cause…a little mixture of that…Me and all the friends grew up without dads, and it’s kind of like we want to do right this time. There’s no excuse, we all fight for doing right, especially when nobody’s looking.

RM: It seems that many people without two parents achieve great things.

Whenever someone comes u this song touched me or p and says helped me, I’m instantly very humble a nd grateful.

Beastie Boys are another, where you start one way and two albums later…now they can do a jazz instrumental record and people go, Yeah, that’s the Beastie Boys. I would love to get to that level.

PJ: I can see that coming out of survival. I think doing music for survival is different than doing it just for fun. No matter the situation, two parents, no parents, there’s always a way to flip it.

RM: For some reason the arts have been seized by darkness over the years. The worst thing anyone can be labeled is “sentimental,” and if you do something happy the critics probably won’t get it...

PJ: Definitely. People need to label a person, nothing wrong with that.

The whole happy rapper…When De La Soul came out they were like the hippies of hip-hop. But I think it’s more challenging to do more positive music. I look up to Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, the Beatles, obviously, Stevie Wonder. It’s harder to write a song that lifts people’s spirits. If you consider doing happy music, the critics at magazines don’t usually feel it. I take it as a challenge. I like to see what everyone else is doing and do exactly the opposite. To me that is the essence of punk rock. It’s way easier to do the norm and follow the stream.

RM: What makes you cry?

PJ: The human condition. When I see it in film, in music…It has a lot to do with God and man, that huge argument, that’s where all the art comes from in my opinion, or that peaceful time, or that breakup. I think that every single human has been through that same thing.

Marilyn Manson being raised by a pastor in a church, it’s so clear.

Everyone goes through the same thing. They think they’re rebellious, but the more they back up, the more they see they’re just one long song thousands of people have sung.

RM: In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, William Faulkner said it was his goal as a writer to lift men’s hearts. Today you could hardly say that without ridicule.

PJ: That’s the bomb, lift men’s hearts. I love doing that. I love to let my personal issues show in the music, so people can relate to the struggle, but also relate to me trying to get beyond the struggle.

RM: What does it feel like when people elevate you beyond who you know you are?

PJ: I love when it’s about the song. It’s your song, it’s my song, it’s everyone’s song. I think of a song like a communal thing. Whenever someone comes up and says this song touched me or helped me, I’m instantly very humble and grateful. Just to imagine that one of my songs belongs to someone else…I feel a responsibility, especially at an allages show. When my friend’s 7-year-old son is sitting there, I instantly want to do right. I naturally snap into line when a kid is around.

RM: Okay, you’re in France and the hottest 21-year-old woman 48 :RISEN MAGAZINE

RM: What would you want your final words to be?

PJ: I was never good at jobs. I’d always be losing money, coming up short or selling diamond rings for half off. I was constantly being fired and feeling sad when a phrase came into my mind, Work to eat, eat to live, live to write. This song from a group called The Innocence Mission alluded to a person telling God, I don’t have any gifts and in the song God says, “What are you talking about? The way you garden, raise a kid, teach a science class, or do all those little things are art to God.” They’re as big as Picasso or some great political leader. I think most people work to eat and eat to live and work to eat and they never…

RM: Where do you see yourself in 10,000 years?

PJ: In 10,000 years, dude, swimming through space on a dragon with golden hair, with my family and best friends, going through the universe and we’re having the time of our lives.

Pigeon John’s newest CD, Pigeon John Is Dating Your Sister, is available in record stores and online.

dept:Expressions

Writer: Regina Goodman Illustrations: Mike Shinoda My best friend once said to me, “I think someone or something throws a boulder in your path so huge, you’re forced to go down a different road. And it happens because we believe we’re headed in the right direction, but in reality, the right direction was the other way all along.” I couldn’t help but ponder the roads Mike Shinoda has traveled as I spoke to him about his debut art show. Yes, the same Mike Shinoda whose rhymes you know from Linkin Park and Fort Minor. What?

You didn’t know he was an artist? Neither did I. Both to my surprise and admiration, Mike received his bachelor’s degree in illustration from the notable Art Center College of Design. His education there bore fruit with the album art for Fort Minor’s The Rising Tied. And that piece is part of a series of ten that debuted in a gallery showing last November. Mike told me, “I think it’s so much better to see a piece of art in person than a reproduction of it. When [printers] reproduce a painting, they get them looking really great, but it’s not the same as that original pigment out of the tube, onto a paintbrush, onto canvas. And not to mention the fact that people have only seen the Fort Minor artwork six-by-six-inch, whereas the actual paintings are 24-by-24-inch each.”

In this day and age, when celebrities of all types are branching out—Diddy as an actor, Madonna as an author—it’s likely that Mike Shinoda the graphic artist finds himself minimized by Mike Shinoda the musician. But he dismisses the idea his fans might not take his art seriously, saying, “There’s nothing you can say about that, you know. The work speaks for itself, so all I can do is encourage people to actually look at the paintings. I have a lot more experience with art, as far as time.”

And if you’re wondering how Mike found himself tied to two chart-topping groups, as opposed to his original intent of becoming a graphic artist, he explains, “Up until I graduated from college, I was pretty much focused on going into [graphic design] full-time. This was my dream; this is what I thought I was going to do for a living, forever. And the fact that Linkin Park took off is basically a freak accident, that once it happened, I was thinking, ‘Wow, this definitely changes a lot of things.’”

This then begs the question: does Mike love one art form more than the other? “No, I love them the same. These are two things I’ve done my whole life.

The great thing is that I can do both. The band actually affords me a lot of opportunities to do my art.”

Mike’s boulder didn’t force him down a different road entirely, but instead revealed an alternate route—one that allows him to harmonize the sounds and visuals he was created to express.

Proceeds from Mike Shinoda’s show benefited his scholarship at Art Center College of Design. Linkin Park is currently working on their third studio albumand will headline the Bamboozle Festival with My Chemical Romance this May. 50 :RISEN MAGAZINE

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JAN/FEB 2007 - Department 53

dept:Expressions

Writer: Chris Ahrens Photographer: Bil Zelman

Bil ZElmaN has never been to a PEp rally

I’ve worked with RISEN staff photographer Bil Zelman four times. Each session came complete with its own difficulties: There were 20 minutes allotted to shoot Ozzy Osbourne at his Beverly Hills castle. (The images were so good that the Oz publicity machine purchased them.) This issue’s feature on Invisible Children was shot in a San Diego canyon while the sunlight disappeared. Angels & Airwaves lead man Tom DeLonge was put into a studio setting but photographed with one of Zelman’s old box cameras.

Dennis Martinez, the 1977 world skateboarding champion, sat still in Zelman’s San Diego studio, holding a .44 to his polished head, splitting fame with the pistol for one 500th of a second or so.

In each session Zelman reacted quickly, in an unscripted manner, bringing the sum of his experience into play, capturing more than was apparent to lesser trained eyes and “celebrating the mistakes and those inbetween moments,” as he so eloquently puts it.

Zelman, who believes that a good photographer needs to engage both hemispheres of the brain, credits his scientist father for “teaching me to be meticulous and modeling a great work ethic. He is also the one who pushed the artistic side of me by making me work to be someone other than him.”

Things have since resolved themselves between father and son, but during Bil’s childhood the Zelman home was far from functional, something that sent the 9-year-old kid to his own darkroom, where he developed the photos he was taking. “The darkroom was a safe place for me,” confides Zelman.

No sooner had he turned 16 than Bil left home, learning about the darker side of life, shooting photos and experimenting with dangerous drugs like heroin. “I never went to a pep rally, and I saw things other people didn’t. Still, around 19 years old, something snapped in me and I knew I had to leave that life. I entered school and found that I was about ten years beyond most of the people I was there with. They were taking pictures of cats and people smoking pot, something I left behind when I was about 13. Not many people strive to do anything different.” In school, Bil applied the tools of knowledge and experience to the task of making a living as a photographer. By age 23 he was shooting some of the biggest names in entertainment, including David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys, for magazines like Rolling Stone and Spin.

“I know how to take a photo, and it’s starting to feel too safe,” he confided. “Next, I want to start directing films. Whatever I get into, I devour.

Still, I was a pretty disruptive kid, and I’ve been to jail enough times to realize that not everything I put my hand to is good.” Well, the photos ain’t bad, Bil. Bil Zelman’s book, Isolated Gesture, is due in 2007 from Push Press.

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dept:Screen

Gangs of New York (2002, available on DVD)

The Double Life of Véronique

Chariots of Fire (1981, available on DVD)

(1991, available on DVD)

Martin Scorsese’s The Departed is likely to earn him a great deal of attention and acclaim at Oscar time this year. And it’s about time. From the mean streets of Mean Streets, to the dangerous loneliness of a Taxi Driver, to the bizarre night life of After Hours, to the dizzying dogfights of The Aviator… Scorsese is a masterful director.

He almost won Oscar glory a few years back, in his first project with Leonardo DiCaprio— a film called Gangs of New York. While Gangs is not his greatest work, it is worth seeing for DiCaprio’s determined performance and the ambition of Scorsese’s vision. But best of all, it gives Daniel Day-Lewis, who may be the greatest film actor since Robert De Niro’s glory days, another chance to shine.

Gangs of New York is about an uprising of Irish immigrants against a gang called “Nativists” who seek to drive them out of Civil-War-era New York. DiCaprio plays Amsterdam Vallon, a tough young Irishman who returns to a poor New York neighborhood to avenge the murder of his father, who died defending the rights of Irish immigrants to live in peace on American soil. The murderer was William Cutting (Day-Lewis), also known as “Bill the Butcher,” leader of an immigrant-hating gang.

Vallon’s revenge quest gets complicated when he becomes the Butcher’s apprentice in all things devious and violent. The stakes are raised higher when he falls in love with Jenny Everdeane (Cameron Diaz), a pickpocket and con woman who is dangerously close to the Butcher’s cold, cruel heart.

This story would seem predictable. But when the inevitable confrontation finally arrives, Scorsese pulls the rug out from under us. We realize the film is not about a blood rivalry between two men, but instead about the consequences of the rich turning a blind eye to the poor.

Day-Lewis’s sneering, roaring, monstrous performance steals the show, but the supporting cast is effective as well, featuring John C. Reilly (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby), Henry Thomas (E.T. The Extra Terrestrial), and Brendan Gleeson (Braveheart). These actors sink their teeth into the script with the same enthusiasm they would give to Shakespeare. In fact, the film resembles the sort of bloodstained epic Shakespeare might have written.

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What would you do if you found out you had a twin, a kindred spirit, someone who looked just like you and shared your feelings?

What would you do if you found out that person was born in a different country and is living their life unaware of your existence?

That’s the puzzle facing Véronique in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s masterpiece The Double Life of Véronique, just released in a masterful DVD edition from The Criterion Collection.

Drop-dead gorgeous and exquisitely talented, Irene Jacob plays both of the central characters—Weronika, a sensual soprano living in Poland, and Véronique, a melancholy music teacher living in France. Her performance won her the Best Actress award at Cannes in 1991.

This is the kind of film for people who love to ask questions. The film inspires more and more of them with every viewing. As the two characters explore their differing lives, romances, and mysterious callings, they wrestle with the notion that they are not alone in the world. Why are these two lives so similar? Is one the dream of the other? Are they connected on a spiritual level?

And who is the stranger guiding one of them ever closer to himself? Are we puppets, responding to the manipulative prompts of a controller, or are we free to choose and find our own way to love?

Kieslowski’s most mysterious film is a strange spiritual journey through the enigmas that distinguish one life from another. While the characters face different challenges and fall for different lovers, they are compelled by very similar longings for connection, expression, joy, and love.

Slawomir Idziak’s masterful cinematography transforms the light itself into an active and engaging character. Zbigniew Preisner’s music is what it always is in Kieslowski’s work—an essential piece of the puzzle, crucial to interpretation of the whole film.

To say much more than that about the film would be to risk spoiling some of its myriad surprises. While this is the project that set the stage aesthetically for Kieslowski’s masterful Three Colors trilogy—Blue, White, and Red—it is more mysterious than any of those films. You might even be frustrated by its elusiveness. But two things are almost certain ... you’ll puzzle over it for a good while, and you won’t forget it.

Chariots of Fire, Hugh Hudson’s glorious, spirited film about the challenges of running fast and living with integrity, accomplished one of the grandest upsets in Oscar history.

And it deserved its honors.

Here’s a sports movie with all the exhilaration of unlikely victories, yet it’s fueled by spiritual debate and examples of life lived to the fullest.

These are inspiring true stories of men who did more than run well ... they dedicated themselves to virtue, to faith, and to excellence.

Ben Cross and Ian Charleson are brilliantly convincing as Harold Abrahams, a Jew fighting his own bitterness and the prejudice of others, and Eric Liddell, a Christian torn between his responsibility as a missionary and his responsibility to the gift of running that God gave him.

For Abrahams, the crisis comes when he loses and must learn to swallow his pride. For Liddell, it comes when his Olympic heat is scheduled for a Sunday afternoon, which conflicts with his convictions about resting on the Sabbath.

While it must have been tempting to entangle the two stories, the screenwriters wisely kept the stories separate, without developing any kind of exaggerated rivalry between the two. Thus when they do meet, the moment is realistically fleeting and incidental, and all the more memorable for it.

Hugh Hudson’s film earns its tear-jerking moments. It does not oversimplify or sentimentalize. Most sport movies make the story all about overcoming impossible odds and winning. In this one, running is a metaphor for life.

The way these men run ... and why they run ... tells us volumes about their hearts. Some run for pride, some for God. Some find joy, some find further frustration.

The film benefits from strong supporting performances by Alice Krige (Silent Hill, Star Trek: First Contact) and Ian Holm (Alien, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring), and the great Sir John Gielgud has a small but memorable role as well. Vangelis’s classic synthesizer soundtrack sounds rather dated today, but at the time it was the perfect accompaniment to the swift pace of the film. It seemed to make the lush green highlands of Scotland glow a little brighter and enhance the excitement of the Olympiad crowd.

Chariots of Fire will stick with you, very likely for the rest of your life, and it can be a rewarding, inspiring story for those with eyes to see.

dept:Screen

The Limey (1999, available on DVD)

The Hudsucker Proxy

The Pledge (2001, available on DVD)

(1994, available on DVD)

We see revenge stories on television and the big screen all the time. But in Steven Soderbergh’s The Limey, the formula is just a framework for a much weightier story.

The Limey brings us alongside an enigmatic antihero. Wilson is a guilt-ridden Englishman on a one-man journey to violently avenge the death of his daughter, Jenny, who left him behind on her quest for fame and glory in Los Angeles. In other words, he’s a man who messed up, and to fix it, he’s going to make a bigger mess.

Like most crime stories, The Limey’s characters are violent and selfish. But Soderbergh likes bad guys. And, as he proved in Out of Sight, he likes drawing them closer to goodness. We see the beginnings of realization, and perhaps even redemption, as Wilson begins to learn how to navigate the labyrinth of Los Angeles, how to deal with rich and famous villains, and what might have happened to his daughter in her last days. (And, in the movie’s funniest sequence, he learns about valet parking.)

Was Jenny murdered in cold blood? What happened when she got involved with a devious record producer? These questions are compelling, but ultimately the film is exploring a deeper question: Did anybody love her and appreciate her the way her father should have?

As Wilson, Terrence Stamp turns in a fantastic performance—sad, funny, and nuanced.

His supporting cast is quirky and hilarious— featuring memorable turns by Luis Guzmán, Lesley Ann Warren, and Peter Fonda.

While the story is really quite simple and could have been told in 30 minutes, Soderbergh knows better. He creatively shuffles the chronology of the scenes so we are forced to figure out how Wilson ended up in this mess. In an inspired flourish, Soderbergh employs footage from an early Stamp film to illustrate Wilson’s memories, and it works beautifully.

American Beauty, Fight Club, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tenenbaums, Broken Flowers, Don’t Come Knocking…it’s interesting that so many films in recent years have depicted father figures who have failed their children. It points to a severe lack of fatherly responsibility in the world today. You have to wonder—is anybody out there getting the message? Are we?

In what must rate as the most spectacular fall in Hollywood history, Waring Hudsucker (Charles Durning), the head of Hudsuck Industries, stands up on the table during a board meeting and throws himself out a skyscraper window.

The company loses its head.

But without missing a beat, Sid Mussburger (Paul Newman in an unprecedented display of cigar-chomping arrogance), the company’s second-in-command, picks up the meeting where Hudsucker left off. His only eulogy is the acknowledgment that “Waring Hudsucker is abstract art on Madison Avenue.” And then he sets about planning how the company can exploit this situation for a profit.

They’ll hire “some jerk,” you see, to be the next president. A puppet-head. A proxy. An idiot.

Stocks will plummet. The board will buy up the stock at street-level prices until they own the whole company, becoming millionaires as Hudsucker Industries rises again.

The boob that they hire is Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins). And what Sid Mussburger doesn’t expect is that Barnes has a plan of his own to save Hudsucker Industries. Barnes, you see, has imagination.

But that’s just the beginning. Will Barnes lose his innocence and become the next cruel and merciless Sid Mussburger?

Even though the Coen Brothers built The Hudsucker Proxy with materials invented by Frank Capra, telling a story of Warm-Hearted Goodness vs. the Establishment, there is no sincerity in the performances. It’s all played for camp, as high as camp can go, recalling comedy classics like The Thin Man and Sullivan’s Travels. So Hudsucker is not a particularly profound film.

But it is hilarious. Hudsucker’s relentlessly inventive style and cinematography, Carter Burwell’s acrobatic score, not to mention the over-the-top performances from Robbins, Newman, and the sensational Jennifer Jason Leigh (who steals the show), make this a feast for the eyes and ears, and a barrel of laughs. It’s the wackiest work from the Coen Brothers since Raising Arizona. The sequence in which Barnes’ Big Idea catches on, well, it’s nothing short of a masterpiece of comic momentum.

And in spite of its outrageousness, there are some moments of genuine warmth and emotion.

The fairy-tale conclusion sends us away with a smile on our faces.

Jack Nicholson, who recently received yet another tidal wave of praise for his work in The Departed, gives one of his best performances in Sean Penn’s The Pledge. He brings a complicated mix of fear and anger to the character of Jerry, an aging cop who just can’t bring himself to quit—even on the night of his retirement party.

When a little girl is found brutalized in the snow, Jerry can’t tear himself away from the investigation, as grisly as it is. He’s getting old and he knows it. But he’s determined to find the girl’s killer, so determined that you might think he’s driven by something deeper and more personal than the cause of justice. In spite of his best efforts, evil still haunts small towns, freeways, and forests. And Jerry can’t live with the fact that he won’t be able to resolve the conflict for good. So, after he breaks the terrible news to the victim’s mother, he’ll go so far as to “swear on his soul’s salvation” that he’ll find the killer.

And when he meets a down-on-her-luck woman (Robin Wright Penn, in a shockingly uncharacteristic role) with a daughter the same age as the victim, he finds himself drawn in by their enormous needs—needs he can’t possibly meet. And as he becomes their guardian and comforter, a plan begins to form in his mind.

Wouldn’t this little girl be the perfect bait for that killer?

Sean Penn is a powerful director, and his patience allows his actors to cultivate marvelous, complicated characters. Supporting turns by Benicio Del Toro, Helen Mirren, Harry Dean Stanton, and especially Vanessa Redgrave are arresting, populating a community of people wrestling with their own fears of death and irrelevance in their own way. Penn cleverly avoids giving us too much information about the killer, so he remains a phantom ... something bigger than just one dysfunctional person.

Against a gorgeous backdrop, The Pledge storms forward with the ponderous steps of a great literary tragedy. Whether Jerry succeeds or not, this movie will leave you wondering where he made his first mistake, and what he might have done along the way to “protect and serve” more responsibly.

Jeffrey Overstreet’s reviews and interviews have appeared in Paste and other publications. His book about finding meaning at the movies, Through a Screen Darkly, will be out next year; the first novel in his fantasy series, Auralia’s Colors, is due in 2007.

JAN/FEB 2007 - Department 65

dept:Sound in others, most people would have trouble doing it as beautifully as Kinsella does. Not only are the songs genuine and heartfelt, they’re simply beautiful. This is one of the five best records of 2006, so go take a listen.

—Jared Cohen

Artist: Kevin Devine Album: Put Your Ghosts to Rest Label: Capitol Records Release: October 17, 2006 Kevin Devine is one of those artists that takes absolutely no time to get used to, and I mean that in the best way possible. Kevin has a soft voice, similar to that of Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie), only more youthful and playful. Much of the record is just guitar and vocals; a combination that seems to work well here though. It never sounds too thin, and it never gets boring. The songs that do feature more full instrumentation are composed well with the other parts complementing, rather than overshadowing, the heart of the song. The record seems very nostalgic, bringing back sentiments of high school summers and lost loves, but doing it all with style and grace. This isn’t the most exciting record of the year, but it’s certainly one of the most accessible independent releases in some time. Expect to see everywhere. Soon.

—Jared Cohen

—Jared Cohen

Artist: Jeremy Enigk Album: World Waits Label: Reincarnate Music Release: October 16, 2006 Jeremy Enigk has an interesting place in modern alternative music. His former band, Sunny Day Real Estate, is one of the few bands responsible for bringing a little-known musical subgenre called “emo” to a mainstream audience. It’s been years since Sunny Day Real Estate called it quits, but Enigk is back to show he hasn’t lost a bit of his talent. Enigk’s first release in ten years is a great collection of sounds, featuring rich instrumentation and reverb-heavy vocals. Enigk’s beautiful voice floats on a cloud above a road paved with shimmering guitars, deep bass, and keyboards.

The sounds on World Waits are as creative, driving, and ethereal as any old fan will remember from Sunny Day Real Estate’s releases. This record is everything fans have been waiting a decade for, and is a perfectly flowing album from beginning to end. Hopefully this marks the return of a Jeremy Enigk who releases beauty like this more often.

—Jared Cohen

Artist: Owen Album: At Home with Owen Label: Polyvinyl Release: November 7, 2006 For those of you unfamiliar with Chicago’s Owen, you’re missing out on one of the most sincere and beautiful songwriters currently performing. Mike Kinsella, Owen’s sole member, is no stranger to the music scene. His brother Tim performs under the name Joan of Arc, and the brothers have released over a dozen records combined since 1997. While simply writing a lot of songs isn’t the greatest of feats, writing songs that are so touching and honest is. The songs of Mike Kinsella hold nothing back. As he sings in “Bad News,” “Whoever you think is watching you dance from across the room, they aren’t / If anything, they feel sorry for you ‘cause you try so hard.” And while anyone can be disappointed

66 :RISEN MAGAZINE

Crane Wife are a bit more poppy than records past, but the band is still able to showcase their creativity and unique sound. The Decemberists have discovered that a band can experiment while still sticking with a sound that really works for them. Some songs on this disc are thin and calm, while others are laden with guitars and electric organ. Either way, the sound comes out sounding completely unforced. While the music may be a bit different, one thing hasn’t changed at all, and that’s the piercing voice of lead singer Colin Meloy.

Meloy hits every word in exactly the right manner and makes sure that no song has a slow point.

Artist: Bracken Album: We Know About the Need Label: Anticon Release: July 11, 2006 You may know Bracken’s Chris Adams as one half of Hood, the lo-fi electronica outfit from the UK cofounded by Adams and his brother Richard.

Bracken is Chris’s solo journey into experimental trip-hop brain scrambling; a jumble of radar blips and record scratches, dizzying and rhythmic keys, and dub flourishes all origami’d into airplanes and ninja stars, then thrown from steel and stone skyscrapers into the night sky by happy teenagers with dayglow nail polish. Drum kits hurl themselves down bottomless flights of stairs and saxes scream like lab animals, while Chris calmly phones in vocals through tin cans and string. It’s haunting and hypnotic, constantly moving, shifting, dropping out completely, then reforming to come at you from every angle, but .

—Jessie Duquette

Artist: The Decemberists Album: The Crane Wife Label: Capitol Release: October 3, 2006 The Decemberists return with what is easily their most complete album to date. While previous records focused more on experimentation and pushing their sound to extremes, The Decemberists seem to have realized what they are; a great rock band. The songs found on The

Artist: Menomena Album: Friend & Foe Label: Barsuk Release: January 23, 2007 Friend & Foe is Menomena’s fourth release, and it’s

dept:Sound unconventional and wonderfully addictive.

Menomena are three handsome chaps from Portland, Oregon, making experimental indie pop: Danny Seim on drums; Justin Harris on bass, sax, and keys; and Brent Knopf on guitars and keys.

The boys share vocal duties that range from school yard sing-song catchiness to triumphant mantras. Pig grunt sax roots around punchy drumbeats and tidy pianos. It’s both light and dark, like any good pop album. Friend & Foe’s cover art is a frantic intestinal scene from the awesome graphic novelist Craig Thompson (Blankets, Carne de Voyage), with spermy monsters and skull-faced bean creatures running amok. Menomena recently made an amicable split from PDX indie label FILMGuerrero and have found a new home on Barsuk Records, which puts them in the company of Death Cab For Cutie, Nada Surf, Mates of State, and They Might Be Giants.

—Jessie Duquette

Artist: Deerhoof Album: Friend Opportunity Label: Kill Rock Stars Release: January 23, 2007 Deerhoof have created the ultimate soundtrack to an interstellar version of Frogger. Or, to look at it under a different light, if Devo, Kermit, and Bjork collectively raised a child, its lullabies would probably resemble something close to Friend Opportunity. With their tenth album, the Bay Area trio bring a hailstorm of bouncy, existential tracks, placing this record solidly in the noise-pop category, if such labels are required. Employing an expansive palette of tones, vibrations, and blips, Deerhoof paint a masterpiece of action and motion; the street-level sound of crosstown traffic. But have no fear, head-bopping radio-pop enthusiasts, Deerhoof haven’t written a verse, chorus, or bridge that will outlast your attention span—they stick solidly to three-minute-or-less songs with enough sugar-sweet sounds to kill a Care Bear. The album peaks with the oddly transcendental tenderness of “Kidz Are So Small,” in which Satomi Matsuzaki joyously proclaims, “If I were a man and you a dog/I’d throw a stick for you.”

—Thaddeus Christian

prevent road-rage and postal-snap; every second is upbeat and well-mannered. It’s like a vision into a utopian world where everyone signals their turns and no one tailgates. It’s peaceful there but lacking in excitement. I think these guys are from the same neighborhood as Mickey Mouse.

—Thaddeus Christian

Artist: The Shins Album: Wincing the Night Away Label: Sup Pop Release: January 23, 2007 On the fast track to the zenith of indie rock fame, The Shins have delivered another crystal-clear collection of shining sixties-pop songs in the tradition of Oasis or The Smiths. Out on Sup Pop, Wincing the Night Away is splitting at the seams with smart mega-pop singles like “Sleeping Lessons” and “Spilt Needles.” Lucid and emotive, the tracks ring out like a church bell, harmonically complex but not cluttered. A few of the songs, like “Turn On Me,” cross the line into downright saccharine, but these syrupy excesses are balanced out by the sparse beauty of melodies like “Black Wave” or “Sea Legs.” Despite their Albuquerque heritage, The Shins make music with the salty-skin feel of a pre-Jaws beach party. You can look forward to hearing their breezy cuts surfside from the fog-sodden fire rings of Santa Cruz to the sun-drenched sands of Sunset Cliffs.

—Thaddeus Christian

Artist: The Earlies Album: The Enemy Chorus Label: Secretly Canadian Release: January 23, 2007 The Earlies’ Enemy Chorus is pop music for astronauts; spacey and mechanical soundtracks for voyages through the heavens on rocket ships made from scrap metal, twisted harmonicas, and broken Casio keyboards. And it’s pretty good stuff—in moderation. The Enemy Chorus is The Earlies’ sophomore album and it’s an improvement on previous work, taking their psychedelic jams off on a bad trip and leaving most of the happy-golucky at home. Their main problem has always been singer Brandon Carr, whose vocals range from a humming quality similar to refrigerators and older model computers to an irritating sappiness best left to contemporary Christian radio. It’s both distracting and off-putting, which is a real shame because there’s a lot going on under Carr’s droning; video game keyboards, clean twinkling piano, no fewer than sixteen musicians lending a hand—there’s even sitar on there if you can make it that far into the album.

—Jessie Duquette

Artist: The Broken West Album: I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On Label: Merge Records Release: January 23, 2007 Hailing from LA, The Broken West have perfected the lazy summer day song, perfect for when you have absolutely nothing else to do. Completely mellow and ready for soft-rock radio, I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On is guaranteed not to offend anyone, unless they hate weekends and uplifting pop hits.

Following in the steps of the Goo Goo Dolls and Nickleback, The Broken West operate safely within the confines of A&R radio, absolutely no rocking of the boat whatsoever. My grandmother and my 11-year-old niece appreciate this album equally.

Like Prozac, these songs have been engineered to JAN/FEB 2007 - Department 67

dept:Up to Speed Daniel Dae Kim RISEN Magazine: Do you think there’s a message of redemption in Lost?

Daniel Dae Kim: Absolutely. It’s too prevalent a theme for it not to be on purpose. It’s about coming to terms

with who you are in your own history. Another prevalent theme is “daddy” issues. A lot of the characters have issues with their fathers. Jack Shephard, Locke, Jin, and Kate all have issues with their fathers.

RM: God is often referred to as “Father.” Are the “daddy” issues really God issues?

DDK: Yes. So much in fact that a lot of fans initially thought the island itself was purgatory. However, the

producers tell us that that’s not the case. But the island seems to hold second chances and could definitely be the afterlife.

RM: Does that make you think about life after death?

DDK: It makes me think about the present actually, about what I have today, and makes me very appreciative of my surroundings and all of my blessings at the moment. It makes me aware that these things are temporal, and as a result I’m very appreciative.

Up to Speed: ABC’s Lost celebrates its third year as a nominee for Best Television Series–Drama at the Annual Golden Globe Awards. Also nominated is Evangeline Lilly, who plays fugitive-on-the-run Kate Austen. Seemingly taking a page out of HBO’s book, ABC execs announced a 13-week hiatus of the show, which means new episodes will not air until February. The bold move was in response to viewer complaints that seasons one and two were wrought with repeats.

Lost returns to Wednesday nights at 9:00 p.m. on February 7th.

Ladies of The Office RISEN Magazine: What makes the American version of The Office a success?

Melora Hardin: Well, first of all, I think the writers have done an amazing job of [giving] the show an American

sensibility and injecting American humor into it. Whereas Ricky Gervais was much more dry and sarcastic, Steve is like a quintessential boy next door, petulant...bratty. If you look at sitcoms today, they’re basically populated with men who are bratty boys and ball-buster women. I fill that role and Steve fulfills the petulant child role.

RISEN Magazine: Why do you think people identify with the character of Angela?

Angela Kinsey: I think everybody has worked with an Angela. I worked in corporate America, and I certainly had my person. I was helping decorate for the Christmas party, and I was fussed at because I did the bows wrong. So [Angela is] very relatable to me.

RISEN Magazine: What is your greatest achievement thus far?

Mindy Kaling: Moving to L.A. and not flying home when I was discouraged. When I think about how difficult

it was in the beginning—how lonely I was out here—but I didn’t give up and go home.

Up to Speed: When the winner for the 2006 Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series was revealed as The Office,

viewers almost assuredly were stunned, albeit pleased. The American remake of the successful British sitcom had just finished its first season, and critics’ predictions were that someone else would be taking the Emmy home that night, not the new kid on the block. Steve Carell, the socially inept boss who has a knack for making you blush on his behalf, is nominated for a 2007 Golden Globe for Best Performance in a Musical or Comedy.

The 64th Annual Golden Globe Awards airs Monday, January 15th, at 8:00 p.m. EST.

Lupe Fiasco RISEN Magazine: We spoke with Afeni Shakur a few issues ago, and she thought that hip-hop’s main problem was a fear of learning. Would you agree with that?

Lupe Fiasco: No, I think it’s a lack of honest as opposed to a fear of learning. A lot of rappers are smart; a lot of people are learned. People, even the general consumer, are not as dumb as people might think they are. I had to learn that. But for me, the problem with hip-hop is a lack of honesty and a lack of responsibility.

RM: What do you mean by honesty?

LF: People [in the hip-hop industry] don’t want to say that we’re the problem. Rappers don’t ever want to point

the finger at themselves. Hip-hop never boycotts itself; other people are always boycotting hip-hop. You have to ask yourself why that is. [A lot of] rappers don’t take responsibility for what they’re saying. Some rappers do. They take responsibility for those negative and degrading lyrics, and they know what they’re doing. They’re like, “I’m just trying to get paid, man.” But you’re getting paid at the expense of the minds of hundreds of thousands of little kids that listen to your records and recite them and walk around trying to live like that. And it might eventually lead to their demise because they don’t have security guards. And that is what I think is wrong with hip-hop.

Up to Speed: Putting the finishing touches on Food & Liquor, Atlantic originally slated its release for early 2006 but an Internet leak of an unfinished version pushed the street date to September. Hard times and hard work come with reward, though, as Lupe was recently announced as a three-time Grammy nominee. “Kick, Push” is nominated for Best Rap Song and Best Rap Solo. Food & Liquor is nominated for Best Rap Album.

The 49th Grammy Awards airs on CBS Sunday, February 11th, at 8:00 p.m.

68 :RISEN MAGAZINE

Back issues of RISEN magazine are available for purchase while supplies last at risenmagazine.com.

Writer: Steve Beard Illustration: Zela

I was 12 years old when I first saw Rocky. Thirty years ago, the film made such a deep impression on me that I actually arose early one morning and guzzled the raw egg concoction that Rocky drank while training. Before I could get out the door to jog around the block, I threw up. That was the last time that I sipped from the dreadful cup, but I never forgot the values of the film—persistence, determination, and faith.

The recently released Rocky Balboa is the final installment in one of the most successful film franchises in Hollywood history. Inspired by the Muhammad Ali-Chuck Wepner fight in 1975 and with $106 in the bank, screenwriter and actor Sylvester Stallone created an Academy Awardwinning cultural icon stitched together from blood, sweat, and a black eye. Rocky rose above his circumstances and proved he was not “just another bum from the neighborhood.”

It had nothing to do with winning or losing. It had everything to do with getting back up on your feet after getting punched in the face. The film was a tutorial in respect—for yourself, your opponent, and the opportunities that life presents.

Although he does not take home the championship belt, Rocky walks out of the ring with his pride, reputation, dignity, and honor. He is the classic portrait of the head-held-high underdog.

In each film, Rocky takes on an antagonist such as Thunderlips, Clubber Lang, Ivan Drago, and even Mason “The Line” Dixon. He is always proving to himself that he can still lace up the gloves. When life gets rough, he climbs back in the ring. When his manager dies, he climbs back in.

When his wife falls into a coma, he climbs back in.

When he loses all his money, he climbs back in.

In promoting Rocky Balboa, Stallone has been emphasizing the spiritual journey of his prized character. The opening shot of the original Rocky is a picture of Jesus. Since they were filming in a chapel-turned-gym, the camera slowly moves from the face of Christ to the rafters and finally to Rocky’s face. “As he’s being hit, with the picture in the background, you know that the man was being chosen for a spiritual journey, like I was,” Stallone says. Despite his violent line of work, Rocky was humble, respectful, and self-sacrificing.

Stallone wanted Rocky Balboa to “say something about how I’d been sort of wayward and lost and how would I get on my feet again.” He 70 :RISEN MAGAZINE

wanted Rocky to reflect the kind of dramatic ups and downs that he faced in his own life. Stallone is honest about Hollywood’s seduction.

“It’s a very, very morally weakening situation because you are given the keys to a candy store,” Stallone confesses. “People will say yes to you when you’re wrong. Your morals, and your outlook on life, are corrupted. You actually start to believe your hype. And when that starts to happen, you just want to surround yourself with people who will never tell you the truth and will only tell you what you want to hear.” Stallone confesses that it was when he gave in to these landmines of fame that his career took a downward spiral.

“Everything that I’ve done that has been bad deserved to fail because it had no spiritual message—nothing,” Stallone candidly admits. And he has been in some stinkers. As life often imitates art, Stallone’s career often mirrored his personal life. He admits to giving into “the lackadaisical, irresponsible, immature lifestyle that a lot of stars live.” Having hit rock bottom after the failure of his second marriage and the stagnation of his career, he looked hard for a moral compass and tried to point it in the right direction.

Stallone had been raised in a religious home and attended Catholic schools. “I was taught the faith and went as far as I could with it,” he says.

“Until one day, I got out in the so-called real world and I was presented with temptation. I lost my way and made a lot of bad choices.”

Ironically, his catapulted career proved to be counterproductive in his search for happiness and purpose. “After you’ve been knocked down a few times, and the world has shown you its dark side, you kind of realize that you need light, you need guidance, you need God’s word, you need spiritual help,” he says. “And that’s when your journey will begin.”

Stallone testifies that his faith has given him peace—a valuable commodity in Hollywood. “The more I go to church, and the more I turn myself over to the process of believing in Jesus and listening to his Word and having him guide my hand, I feel as though the pressure is off me now,” he says.

At the same time, Stallone is still making his appeal to relevancy to a new generation. Even though the notion of a 60-year-old man climbing back into the ring for one more fight sounds absurd, one need only see Stallone’s chiseled physique to realize that it might not be a far-flung

stretch of the imagination. He is packing muscle and swinging like a welterweight.

“An artist dies twice, and the second death is the easiest one,” Stallone told the New York Times regarding his career’s ebbs and flows. “The artistic death, the fact that you are no longer pertinent— or that you’re deemed someone whose message or talent has run its course—is a very tough piece of information to swallow.”

I’m not sure he has to worry about that just yet. When Stallone walked out onto the sidelines of Lincoln Financial Field during a recent Monday Night Football game in Philadelphia, the 60,000 fans in the stadium began chanting, “Rocky!

Rocky! Rocky!” His character is etched in the soul of that city. There is an eight-and-a-half foot statue of Rocky outside of the Museum of Art—the site of one of the most memorable scenes in film history.

Who can forget Rocky climbing up the seventytwo steps of the museum and raising his arms victoriously?

When I was a child, my family lived a few blocks from those steps. The site has become such a landmark that Pulitzer-prize-winning reporter Michael Vitez and photographer Tom Gralish produced Rocky Stories: Tales of Love, Hope, and Happiness at America’s Most Famous Steps to chronicle those who climb the steps and strike the Rocky pose. They come from all kind of circumstances: a recovering drug addict, a track team from Belfast, a race car driver, professional wrestling fans from Australia, a struggling actress, a Turkish woman who overcame tremendous odds to attend the Wharton School of Business.

“I discovered many things at the Rocky Steps. People came to propose marriage,” writes Vitez. “Or because Rocky had given them hope and direction during troubled times in their lives.

They came because they had overcome cancer or other trials and felt that they, like the movie character, had surmounted much in life...The steps have become a place where people can bring to life the message of Rocky—that with hard work, faith, and support from people you love, you can accomplish almost anything. People are always happy at the steps. Running up and celebrating at the top offers a tonic to the world’s problems, if only for a moment.”

Not a bad gift. Thanks, Sly.