MZTV 746 - 07/12/2021: Underhanded Smoking Heroes

Here is a piece of inspiration for you: In 2008, during a fellowship trip to Ludington, Michigan, I wrote up a script for my friends Jonathan Smalley and Lars Kvalvaag. It would be a short film to promote four of my books. Everything about this production was last minute. We started filming at the Inn at Ludington with Jonathan and Lars' mom Kathy, then proceeded to Lars' basement a couple blocks away. In my opinion, what happened after that was pretty great.

Yes there was a script, but these boys pretty much winged it. They caught a wave and rode it. The lighting was appropriately eerie. (Well, these guys were playing church leaders after all.) I'm pretty sure that everything went down in one take. When I got home to Ohio and looked at the footage, I knew we had something special. Who knew what would happen with it?

I had generally forgotten about it when Rodney Paris of Texas unearthed it two days ago while preparing Part 1 of "The Sin Series," a collection of audio recordings I made in 1996. In those days, "Underhanded Smoking Heroes" was in two parts. Rodney tagged part one at the end of the first edition of "The Sin Series." I had not seen it in ten years. I watched it and said, "Wow! These guys are good. I've got to get this to a larger audience."

So here it is. Enjoy this short little production played from the heart, and pass the word around. Order the books that changed the lives of the underhanded smoking heroes.

Yours from the peninsula,

Martin Zender
Martin's homepage: https://www.martinzender.com