This is the Babylon Bee Interview Show. Editor-in-chief Kyle Man and creative director Ethan Nicolle talk to Drew Dyck about whether criminals are real, being saved from a life of stealing deodorant, and invading Canada. Drew is an acquisitions editor at Moody Publishers and a contributing editor at CTPastors.com, a Christianity Today publication for church leaders. He's the author of Your Future Self Will Thank You: Secrets to Self-Control from the Bible and Brain Science, Yawning at Tigers: You Can't Tame God, So Stop Trying, and Generation Ex-Christian: Why Young Adults Are Leaving the Church…and how to Bring Them Back. Topics Discussed Sending your book ideas to Drew Arguing with people on Twitter about abolishing the police and whether criminals are a thing Spicing up your testimony by stealing deodorant Milk in a bag The weirdest thing about Canada Portland is stuck in the 90s/Portlandia On the difference between a beat poet and a slam poet When bookstores were a thing Christian stores bestselling "Jesus junk" Where ANTIFA will set up their gulags God isn't safe but he's good, like Aslan Self-control in everything but buying Drew's books Mental illness in the church Remembering the Emerging Church movement What's better: fur babies or actual babies Writers retreats never help On not psychologizing your opponents The Ten Questions To watch or listen to the full length podcast, become a paid subscriber at https://babylonbee.com/plans
I just have to say that I object strenuously to your use of the word hilarious.
Hard-hitting questions.
What do you think about feminism?
Do you like it?
Taking you to the cutting edge of truth.
Yeah, well, Last Jedi is one of the worst movies ever made, and it was very clear that Brian Johnson doesn't like Star Wars.
Kyle pulls no punches.
I want to ask how you're able to sleep at night.
Ethan brings bone-shattering common sense from the top rope.
If I may, how double dare you?
This is the Babylon Bee interview show.
Hello, everybody.
Welcome to the Babylon B Interview Show.
I'm Kyle Mann.
I'm Ethan Nicole.
And we're joined today by a person who's verified on Twitter.
Blue Check.
A blue check.
Oh, man.
We're so excited to talk to a blue check.
I'm a blue check, too.
You are.
Do you guys just want to talk and I'll like bring you coffee?
Except for there was a period where everybody was getting blue checks.
Yeah.
And you just missed the boat.
I missed the boat.
It was a gold rush.
Yeah.
Yeah, the blue check gold rush.
The blue rush.
You got to be careful, though, with the blue checks because most of us are real celebrities, but there are some people that are just regular Joes that managed somehow to get a blue check.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, watch out for those people.
Discernment.
Yeah.
Watch out for those folks.
Speaking of things, you got to watch out for and be careful about.
Our guest name is Drew.
His last name, in some circles, it's not a word you should say, depending how you use it.
We're going to have to bleep it throughout the internet.
This is Drew Dick.
Yeah.
So we have to bleep that?
Drew Flowerbet.
It's weird because if it's a name, it's totally fine.
It's not weird to say it, but then it's, yeah, it's all context is everything, I guess.
Context is everything, guys.
And okay, yes, it has Y. C-K.
D-Y, he's got the Y, which is kind of cool.
And some people, most people, they look at it, they just eyeball it and they say Dyke, and I roll with it.
I'm cool with it.
Okay.
But it's actually pronounced Dick.
And either way, I had a rough childhood.
Okay.
Either way, I had a rough childhood.
It builds character, though.
So I'm glad my son is now going to have to deal with that.
We were doing our research and we noticed that you named your son Athanasius.
Right?
Which sounds like it sounds like an adjective.
What?
Like he's quite an Athanasius person.
Yeah, no.
If you add the last name, it sounds like an insult, right?
He's such an Athanasius.
What an Athanasius.
I'll use that on him when he's in trouble, okay?
I almost wanted to come with a bunch of names for your kids for you, but it's just too, it would be too obscene.
You're right.
You can't do anything adjectival.
That's when you get into problems.
Like, I won't even go there.
I'm athanacious at the end of it.
That just sounds like pernicious, you know?
That's a big name.
It's a big name.
Part of the reason I named him that was to fulfill a personal fantasy.
Like, if he's ever in an argument with someone, you can just kind of go, I'm Athanasius.
It's kind of an argument ender.
So Athanasius, okay, I don't know if you guys, did you go to seminary?
Maybe not.
He went to Park, kind of, did.
Right?
I dropped it.
I'm a Bible college dropout.
Okay.
Well, then you should know, though.
If you've done a little church history, Athanasius, fourth century saint, big deal.
Council Nicaea gets up, argues for the divinity of Christ.
A stubborn dude, but was Orthodox or at least came the position he espoused on Christ's nature came to be what the church embraced as orthodoxy.
So I'm reading about this guy in seminary and I'm like, man, if I ever have a son, I got to name him Athanasius.
And that was like way, way before we had Athanasius.
But then when he came and I kind of worked on my wife for a few years, I warmed her up to the idea.
My wife, I don't know if we could get there.
It's a mouthful, but she went for it.
And it's perfect.
Yeah, I wanted to name my kid Adeniram after Adoniram Judson.
And my wife was, yeah, and it was just nope.
Nope.
So I tried what you tried.
I wanted to name my son Peter, which is pretty simple, but she was not having.
She didn't go for Peter.
And I had multiple meetings named after somebody.
Yeah, no, she's very particular about what she wants.
All the names she wanted were very, very feminine-sounding boy names.
Like, I'm trying to think of, they almost sounded like feminine Sarah Palin names like thisle and branch.
I don't know.
So we finally got, we landed on Calvin, which was fine because Calvin, it's cool.
Whoa.
But it was Calvin.
And that's super manly.
He doesn't know anything about John Calvin, though.
This is Calvin.
Calvin Hobbes.
Oh, Calvin and Hobbes.
He has a great grandfather named Calvin, so we also say that it's because of that, even though we don't know.
Yeah, you've never met him.
I mean, Calvin from Calvin Hobbes was named after John Calvin.
So still, indirectly.
Of course.
Yeah, I learned something new every day.
I had no idea.
So Drew Dick is the giggle every time.
Drew Richard.
You're going to have a bunch of flashbacks from high school.
Richard with a Y. I'm going to be sobbing by the end of this.
Go ahead.
You can add a little yeah to it.
It's like, Drew is Dayak, actually.
Dayak.
He's an acquisitions editor at Moody Publishers, which means you should send him all of your great book pitches, right?
Yes.
So what's your email address?
Please, I have such a shortage of people who say they want to write a book.
No, I'm teasing.
Actually, I'm totally wide open to ideas.
But it is funny because, you know, it's like, what's the old joke?
Someone said that every journalist has a book in him and that's the perfect place for it to stay.
That's kind of true of most people.
But hey, listen, it can happen.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Getting sent.
Hey, want to read my book?
You got to really pick up.
These are my favorite.
What do you do?
Yeah, I guess you get a pitch, right?
Yeah.
That's what I get a lot.
People say, Drew, I want to write a book.
I'm like, awesome.
You know, what's the idea?
They tell me the idea, and I'm like, okay, you know, write a proposal.
That's the next step.
Okay.
You got to write a proposal, as you guys know.
And they're like, no, I'm not really into writing proposals.
I was like, okay, well, you could just write the book on spec.
That is on the speculation that it might get published.
They're like, I'm not really a writer either.
I want you to write it.
Yeah.
With me.
Anyway.
A little pet.
I get that as an illustrator.
I get that all the time.
People think, hey, I have an idea for a book.
I want to write it.
You could draw it.
For free.
Yeah, you get free all the time.
Yeah, I get the, you should make a joke about worship leaders.
Yeah.
I get a joke for you.
Thanks.
That hasn't been done.
You should look into that.
Yeah, but it's just not even, it's not even the fully formed joke.
It's just Democrats.
And you're like, oh, thanks.
I hadn't thought of that.
So you're a writer of books.
You are known for your most recent book is Your Future Self Will Thank You.
Secrets to Self-Control from the Bible and Brain Science, which are self-contradictory.
I mean, the Bible and science.
You can't put those in the same sentence.
Yawning them together, man.
Yeah.
Yawning at tigers.
You can't tame God, so stop trying.
And then Generation X Christian, Why Young Adults Are Leaving the Church and How to Bring Them Back.
So you are a wealth of topics that we could talk about here.
We also went through your Twitter, just did a deep dive in your Twitter.
Oh.
Yeah.
Exactly.
It gets pretty dark the deeper you dive.
So like recently, you were, you know, this lady, Diana Expletive Anderson said, Here's the thing I'm noticing a lot of people skeptical about the abolition of police.
A lot of them ask, Well, how are you going to keep people safe from criminals then?
I want to talk about the idea of a criminal.
And she makes this argument that the criminal is not a real thing or it's an other or like she gets very social justice professor about the word criminal.
And then, so you said, uh, you guys said, Yeah, there's criminals.
Yeah, this idea things are getting crazy talking about abolishing the police and pretending criminals don't exist.
What do you think?
Man, is that true in Portland?
Oh, dude.
Yeah, I'm 15 minutes from Portland.
Okay, okay, where?
And here.
Address.
Yeah.
I'm from the area.
Now, this is the problem.
Okay, I'm going to come clean.
I actually live in Vancouver, Washington.
Oh, see, I used to live in Vancouver right off of Chekhov or whatever.
Checklovov.
Check.
Okay.
Sounds like that, right?
It's Chekhov.
Yes, yes.
I don't know how to check out myself.
Yeah, it's a really, it's weird.
The letters are in a weird order.
They don't make sense.
Sorry, continue.
But no, as you know, it's really confusing, right?
When you tell people where you live, they're like, oh, smaller than Vancouver, Canada, right?
Right.
The cool Vancouver.
This is not the cool Vancouver.
And now I live in Ontario, California.
It's weird.
Oh, Ontario CA, even.
Yeah.
It's really cool.
Another Canadian confusion.
So anyway, yeah, but the weird thing is it's in a different state than Portland, but it's like we're like 15 minutes from downtown.
It's right over the bridge, yeah.
So yeah, it's more like a suburb of Oregon, for sure.
Yeah, right.
And you kind of are a suburb of Portland anyway.
But yeah, back to that tweet, you know, I think I was respectful.
Maybe not.
Maybe not quite as woke as Diane, that professor there.
But yeah, okay, so we've had the unfortunate experience recently of having this like halfway house.
I'm not kidding, for like convicted pedophiles, like two blocks from our house, two and a half blocks from our house.
And I got three little kids.
Okay.
And so part of me was like, you know, when I'm thinking about all this stuff, like defund the police, if it means like abolish the police, doesn't sit super well with me.
And I got to admit, I'm kind of thinking of this house down the road, right?
And this person's like, yeah, there's no such thing as a criminal.
It's just, it's just people who, you know, might get desperate or have some needs.
And she's acting like it's all kind of explaining it away.
And I think there are, like, for the people that do like a petty crime or something.
Hey, listen, I get that.
I got arrested as a teenager for stealing deodorant.
Okay.
So it's a weird story.
But anyway, wait, wait, no, no, no, no.
Okay, we got to pause.
So what?
Okay.
What state of your life were you in that you needed to steal deodorant?
And like, what kind of teen steals deodorant?
You're like, getting ready to put your arm around.
Like, my kid just turned 12 and we're trying to get him to wear a deodorant.
And then we're trying to get him to steal deodorant.
We're just trying to get it to actually use it.
So it's like, what kind of teen wants deodorant?
Don't deprive them.
Take your time.
Take your time and tell this cool story.
Oh, man.
Yeah.
This is, I was 16.
So it's not like I was like tiny, tiny.
Like, okay, so it was no good.
But this is Canada or was it?
This was in Canada.
This was in West Edmonton Mall, one of the biggest malls in the world.
And I was just a bad kid.
I got no excuses.
And here's the thing.
My parents, I mean, there was deodorant in their house.
I wasn't raised in a deodorant-free house, but I wanted this fancy deodorant.
I think it was like polo deodorant or something.
Well, in Canada.
Dodorant comes in bags.
Yeah, it's made from this made out of commirres or, you know, delivered by dog sled to my igloo.
Yeah.
But I got impatient.
So I went and I and I grabbed it.
Actually, another friend of mine had stolen something else and was already outside the store.
And these guys that were like undercover, they look kind of like you guys, you know, the beard and stuff.
They, you know, floor walkers.
They were mounting wearing the big hat and sitting on a horse.
That would be a better story.
They rode in on horses and just nabbed me.
Were they still super nice about it, even though you're a convicted criminal?
Not really.
Not really.
This kind of defies the Canadian stereotypes because they were pretty rude.
Left me feeling a little hurt.
But anyway, yeah, I cupped and stuffed, man.
It was a good lesson.
But here's the thing.
I was most, I wasn't even scared of the cops.
Like, I was kind of joking around with them.
But I was just scared of my parents because they're going to call my dad.
You know, I'm like terrified.
I'm sitting in this cell for like three hours.
And yeah, it scared me straight.
Okay.
So that was a weird rabbit trail.
But all to say, listen, criminals, people who get convicted of crimes, I'm all about redemption.
But there is real evil in the world.
Unpopular view, I know.
And while I, and I know everyone is waiting with bated breath for the social justice opinions of a super white Canadian, but I am all about affirming that black lives matter.
But when it comes to abolishing the police, I need some convincing.
Seems a little far.
Yeah.
It seems like a bit of an overreach.
It seems like it might result in the purge.
It's like an emotional decision.
Yes.
Take two weeks on it, breathe, breathe.
Just take some time.
Think about it.
I feel like you need to tell that deodorant story every time you tell your testimony.
You give your testimony, but you should embellish it.
You should embellish it a little bit.
Tackled me.
You know what?
I don't know why I never do because I've always complained that my testimony sucks because I was a pastor's kid and I became a Christian at five and all that stuff, right?
But I've got it right there.
Yeah.
The deodorant arrest.
That was a fork in the road.
You could have become a black market deodorant seller.
Yeah.
Developer.
Yeah, we're trying to help you.
If you're trying to think of stealing deodorant today, I want you to turn to Christ right now.
Don't go down that road.
That's a life that smells horrible.
It smells pretty good, but in the end, it's bad.
But it's rotten inside.
Yeah.
So, I mean, I think your books would sell better.
Like, your bio would look a lot cooler, like out of a life of crime on the streets.
And then you just, there was a recent, so this lady is interviewing this other lady.
The one lady's a news lady.
The other lady wants to abolish the police.
She's serious about this.
And so the news lady says, what happens if someone's breaking my house?
I need to call the police.
And the other lady goes, you kind of need to check your privilege because.
Yeah.
But what does that do?
Yeah.
Oh, you check your privilege.
You realize that.
Oh, privilege stink.
It's fine.
It's fine.
Privilege meter.
They need to have it on the wait, on the call waiting when you call in 911.
Yeah.
You still have the cops, but have the privilege wait time.
If you've checked your privilege, press one.
You know, and then as long as you have, you can call it a private sector.
You do a survey before you get to the operator.
You do a survey of all your privileges, and then they will make you wait longer if you have higher privilege.
And they could at least do that.
Something.
You know what?
We're overlooking a lot of privileges, like hot privilege, for instance.
Hot privilege.
I know.
Yeah, for people like me that are more attractive than the rest of the population.
We've benefited from that for years.
Well, and then guys, no one's called us on it.
The big fat guys make all the like Kyle's a good looking guy, but sitting next to me, I make him look really good.
So he has like double privilege when he's around me.
There's double negative, double negative.
Full head of hair privilege.
That's another disgusting privilege.
Because I don't know if you can see here, I'm cutting back pretty good.
It's been worse during the quarantine.
It's kind of reached this new disturbing phase where it's not only receding, but kind of thinning a little bit.
You're going to get that like Donald Trump paint line.
I'm just paint line.
The paint line.
It with the hairspray.
There's a guy who's done a pretty good job of hiding the recession.
But it's just good to remember.
Some of us are going to be dealing with two recessions here.
So check your full hair privilege.
So what I'm hearing you say here, I don't want to put words in your mouth, is back the blue, thin blue line.
Do you have the American flag with the blue line in it tattooed on your body somewhere?
Dude, well, I have divided loyalties here.
Okay.
So I am, I'm a, well, am I technically a dual citizen?
I don't know.
I didn't have to.
I became an American citizen, okay?
But I didn't have to do anything dramatic like, you know, spit on a picture of the queen.
I probably would have just to get in, but I still have my Canadian identity deep within me.
But I've been down here like 19 years now.
I moved down in my early 20s.
And so I feel like I'm getting pretty Americanized.
When I go back home, my friends are like, they say I sound like a southern politician, which always hurts a little bit.
What was the question?
Oh, the police.
So, yeah, I mean, I'm being from Canada, man.
I'm like, I'm not going to be a little bit communist.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love the Mounties.
But I don't know.
I just haven't moved as quick as the general opinion wanting to abolish the police.
And I'm a bit of a stick in the mud.
Maybe I'm just getting old and grumpy.
But I kind of like the idea of being able to call the police, even with all my privilege when someone's breaking into my house.
So what's the weirdest thing about Canada?
Oh, like all the rumors we hear.
I mean, you got Tim Hortons, you got the milk in a bag.
Timmy's, Timmy's.
My school's been doing milk in a bag.
Oh, they hang out food because of COVID.
Like you can just go get freed lunches.
And then my wife just shows up at home with all these plastic bags full of like it's a bag with just milk in it.
Well, it's a giant bag, and then inside is a bunch of sacks of like milk bladders.
Yes.
It's gross.
I don't know what it is.
It's milk in a bag growing up.
It's grosser than drinking milk from a bag.
Milk in a bag.
I think it's better probably in a bag.
I just, wow, I'd forgotten all about that.
Okay.
I don't know what to say about the weird thing in Canada, though.
Yeah, because Canada, here's the weirdest thing, actually, is that it's a lot like the States.
So when I tell people I grew up in Canada, they're like, oh man, like, did they have cars up there?
Like, you know, they really think I like hunted polar bears and lived in an igloo.
And I have a lot of fun with it.
You know, I do make up stories, but, you know, it's pretty boring.
It's just, it's kind of like down here, except colder.
And the people are like more polite.
I will say that, but it's kind of a surface thing because Canadians are judging you in their heart.
You know, they'll be nice to your face, but then we'll be like, yeah, and then we'll talk about you after.
So just be careful.
And I've told people, you know, I've got my anchor babies now down here, so I'm not going anywhere.
And I've told everyone they're watching the wrong border.
We need to build a wall on the northern border because that's the real threat.
People like me coming down, stealing jobs, taking your natural resources.
Why don't people come that way?
Like, you know, that really want to get in.
Just boat up there, then come down that way.
There you go.
It's a porous border, man.
Yeah.
That's the way to do it.
I just drifted down.
Yeah.
I went to Canada once, no, twice.
But I got for comics.
I did the Calgary Comic Convention, which is an awesome convention.
Whoa.
That's next level murdery.
Awesome.
They took us to a friend of mine that's from Canada.
They like, we would show up at their house.
He'd ask me for my hat size.
So they did this thing called the white hat ceremony.
Are you familiar with that?
No.
Okay.
I thought that was like a big thing in Canada.
Are you making this up?
No, it's real.
Me and Doug Tenaple, like they walk in, this whole family is all around us.
Like, I have like 30 people, and they're all super nice.
They got sweaters.
They're all very Canadian.
You know, the house looks like a cabin or whatever.
And they do this whole ceremony where they talk through like the history of the Calgary and like the white hat and what it means.
And then they like, they walk out and they have these nice, crisp, new white cowboy hats and they place them on our heads.
Wow.
It felt like a scene in a movie.
It was like really.
It's like you're being knighted.
Yeah.
I grew up an hour and a half from Calgary and I don't even know this.
I think you got punked.
I mean, the stampede's a big deal.
Yeah, I'm curious.
So then I felt really weird.
Doug wears cowboy hats sometimes.
I had never worn one in my life.
I felt like I was wearing a costume.
Like I felt ridiculous, but out of respect, I was supposed to wear it and walk around wearing it.
And then people walk by and go, you know, see me and they go, you got white-hatted, huh?
They were probably just messing with you.
Yeah, this is totally.
You got punked, man.
If you're listening and you're from Calgary or have any familiarity, let me know.
I need confirmation of this.
Yeah, so it's like when you go to Hawaii and you get the lay.
The lay.
The lay, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, right off the plane.
Right off the plane.
So being in Portland, I have some Portland questions for you.
Oh, I'd like to discuss Portland.
So we're both from there.
I'm actually from, I don't know if you know the coast of Oregon.
I'm from like Little Town, like Coos Bay area.
Oh, yeah, sure.
That's where I'm really from.
This is my roots.
That's how Ethan tests if you're really from Oregon.
If you're from Oregon, you know where that is.
If you're not.
Ethan goes, Coos Bay.
And he like looks.
Yeah, he looked right into my soul.
Right in your soul.
He passed the test.
How accurate would you say is the show Portlandia?
Okay, you know what's funny is that Portlanders hate it, right?
They're like, oh, that's so off.
And they got mad about it.
I don't know if you saw the articles.
They loved it at first.
Yeah, and they didn't even get mad at how accurate it was.
They started to realize the bookstore in there.
I forget what it is.
Yeah, anyway, that bookstore that it was based on was like, they're not welcome here.
They're not going to film here anymore.
I think it's a red on this counter.
Called In Other Words Bookstores is the real name of it, if I'm remembering correctly.
And I'm telling you, Portlandia, man, they nailed it.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Like, I'm not a native Portlander, but I finished my college at Portland State, lived downtown for years.
And I remember taking, I forget what the class was, but it was like, you know, some kind of feministic class.
And they mandated that we get our books from that bookstore.
Oh, really?
Yeah, yeah.
So I've been in that bookstore and man, they nailed it.
It's hilarious.
You got to laugh at it.
I mean, come on.
But Portlanders can't really, it's hard to laugh.
That's what impressed me about it because I thought, because I assume the comedians making it are liberal.
And I always feel like people on the left have a much harder time making fun of themselves.
Sure.
It seems like.
And so I was really impressed by it because they nailed it in this way that it's like, wow, a show that the left and right can laugh at together.
Yeah.
That's making fun of the left.
Like there's plenty of stuff where they're making fun of the right that we can laugh together at because I think I've no, it just seems like people that are more conservative have a better ability.
We already get made fun of so much we have to laugh.
And we admit our weirdness, right?
Yeah, we admit it's weird.
The whole arc thing and just everything in the Bible is weird.
But yeah, they have they're much more sacred about their faith.
Yeah.
No, that's the show is pretty accurate in my opinion.
I've seen a couple of episodes.
Yeah.
Okay.
I just make he's never seen anything.
So I was making it.
Well, I'm not allowed.
I wasn't allowed to watch it.
Yeah.
I had a grown up by then.
I probably wasn't.
Yeah.
What?
But my mom.
How old are you?
Like 17 or something?
Come on.
My mom still calls me and says, What are you watching right now?
What are you watching?
You're not allowed to watch that.
Listen to the spit taking it.
Actually, that is true in a way because my parents mooch off my Netflix account.
Oh, they check your history.
So they always see the recents.
So you're trading one sin for another on that one.
That's accountability right there, man.
Holy cow.
If you're stealing from Netflix, even though you're watching wholesome.
Well, my parents are stealing from Netflix.
Yeah.
I'm an accomplice, maybe.
Yeah, you're an accomplice.
So have you ever joined one of these Antifa riots?
Like just.
Yeah, that's what I was wondering.
Because if Portland abolishes the police, you guys don't have a lot to worry because you have a strong antifa contingent.
So I was kind of wondering about that.
I think they'll protect us.
They'll protect us.
And they're okay with violence too.
So they're too worried.
Like they're probably totally fine with everything that's happened, just as long as it's in the right direction.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah.
And I think they're the ones that are really wreaking havoc down there from what I've seen.
Anyway, you can kind of tell.
They have a uniform.
It's like the black.
They're all skinny.
Yeah, super skinny.
Which I'm kind of jealous of.
Yeah.
They're all thin.
Most of them, the dudes, anyway.
They're one or the other, right?
There's some pretty heavy antifa.
You're right now that I'm thinking about it.
There's not a lot of bulky.
Yeah, you got to choose, though.
There's no like just people in the overweight category.
Right.
You got to be obese or super thin, it seems.
Anyway, and they got the uniform.
You can kind of tell because it's like the face mask and they're usually the people kind of lobbing the cocktails or the vegan coconut milkshakes.
Here's my thing about the riots.
Okay.
So I get it, especially if it's like kind of there's something baked in about an objection to capitalism.
Okay.
But here's what you can't do in my opinion.
So downtown Portland, they looted the Louis Vuitton store and the Apple store.
Now, if you would do that and you grab all the Louis Vuitton bags and all the Apple products, heap them up Joker style in Pioneer Place and burn them.
I get it.
I get it.
Okay.
Then that's a real objection to capitalism.
What if you bring them to the homeless?
Okay, even that.
But when you pocket them or hawk them online, your critique of capitalism rings a little hollow.
Not to judge.
My brother, whose wife has a thing for Louis Vuitton bags, he's got this thing that alerts him on an app called Offer Up if there's one for sale.
And he'll usually get like a ding every week or so.
After the riots, he got like 29 dings the next day.
Oh man, they could do stings.
Yeah, they could.
Anyway, that's your Netflix show that you wanted to do.
We had an idea for a Netflix show where you analyze.
I had an idea.
You analyze all the videos of the looters and you try to hunt them down and trap them with like every episode.
You're like, we're going to find the guy that stole that bag on this video.
It'll never fly.
No one cares.
Yeah.
That was the worry.
It'd be fun.
We were hoping if the tides turned in like a year or two and people got mad about this again, then we could do it.
You ever hang out?
You ever hang out with the blue-legged jazz guy?
Oh, he's gone, man.
Oh, he's not in Portland anymore?
No, Don?
Don Miller.
Don Miller, yeah.
I'm acting like we're best friends.
I met him once.
Old Donnie.
Old Donnie.
Donny Justice.
Yeah.
Don Miller.
Yeah, because he was Mr. Portland.
You know what I mean?
The blue-like jazz thing.
So when I live there, sorry, I'm interrupting you.
I don't know.
This is a Mr. Portland Don Miller story.
This was a question so that he could tell you a story.
No, it just came.
I remembered it.
It's funny.
What's that church?
There's a black church, but it got taken over by white people in Portland.
You know what I'm talking about?
Completely taken over.
Like, it's just like they had like a story.
That's the one.
Margot.
I didn't know that.
It started out really like this soulful black church, then it just got like became the hipster white zone.
Okay.
But I went there a little bit.
I was part of the hipsters.
So when I was on my Don Miller binge, I was reading all his books.
I went to that church and then I heard people talking behind me like and they're like blah blah, blah and like from their conversation I was like sounds like they're talking to Don Miller about Don Miller's books and I turn around he was sitting directly behind me.
Wow, I was like I literally just finished reading every one of your books right now.
Just, and that's a big, slobbering fanboy yeah, total fanboy.
And he's just like cool, he's a nice.
Okay, are you ready?
You wanted to tell your story.
I get to tell my blue like jazz story, do you guys?
Okay, so I'm sitting in um a restaurant, Horse Brass Pub.
Yeah, that's how I was.
That was gonna be my joke.
Did you guys hang out at the Horse Brass Pub?
Right okay so, and I'm with my wife.
You guys want coffee or anything?
Kyle's like.
If you've ever read the book, he talks about the Horse Brass Pub a bunch in the book.
It was a huge book when it came out, all right, and we know that it's disowned by the right.
It's because it's too liberal, but that's right still.
Something like this guy and the young kids won't know what we're talking about, but anyway, so I'm sitting in the Horse Brass Pub with grace and, as you might remember, in Blue Like Jazz, he talks about his friend Tony the beat poet.
Tony the beat poet, okay.
So I'm sitting there, I'm looking at this dude.
He's like wearing a what's the right word a fedora, maybe he's smoking a pipe and stuff like that.
I say to Grace, I'm like that dude looks like Tony the Beat poet from Blue Like Jazz.
Just from my description, from the description, that's how good the writing was, I guess.
Okay so.
And she's like well, go ask him.
I'm like no, I'm not gonna do that.
I mean it's, it's a, it's a long shot as it is.
And she's like I'll go talk to him and I'll.
I said I'll go outside, so she goes over.
Yeah, I didn't want to be around for that.
Um, and she's braver than me.
Guess who it is, Tony the Beat poet, Tony the Beat Paul Tony yeah, that was my first.
Guy's real name is Tony Kriz, who's a buddy of mine now, although I haven't seen him in a while.
But anyway, that's, that's how sharp my eye was.
I spotted him at the Horse Brass pub.
What's the difference between a beat poet and a slam poet?
Oh, I think a slam poet's maybe a little angrier, so it's like a beat poet just jabbing you.
A slam poet is suplexing.
No yeah, beat poet's like you're you're, you're kind of Kerouakian, where you're just like you're not angry, you're just beat observing.
I guess I don't know what would be the next level of anger, like after slam poet, like a nuke poet or something.
Yeah, like savage murder poet, bomb poet, bomb poet.
Skin you alive, gut you and burn you poet.
So i've got a great Blue Like Jazz story.
Oh man, are you gonna tell us about?
I used to work around the fire.
I used to work on a story uh, Family Christian Store, that was my first job and um, and we sold the book Blue Like Jazz.
Okay, that's the story, that's it.
Okay, that's all.
I got some controversy in there, something I wasn't ready for, that punchline also and they're gone now.
Right, those stores yeah, did you kind of drive it into the ground or was that was me, part of a bigger trend?
Maybe that was me, maybe it was Blue Like Jazz.
I do have a lot of fun stories from the Family Christian Store that we need to do sometimes because okay well, just tell me this, what actually sold?
What sold the most?
Yeah, it's all all the uh.
Is it the Jesus junk?
All the Jesus junk.
What does that mean?
Just like the uh, you know, like a little Jesus mug, the decorations, like the cross decorations, like a cute little Jesus hugging a cane or something yeah, that kind of stuff wow, that stuff sells the best.
And then um yeah, just just inspirational books, devotional you probably know what sells.
Yeah no, i've seen it like from the retail side, though.
I mean, like you know on the ground what people are buying.
Yeah, that's all that sells really, although I mean it doesn't nothing sells anymore, because Business.
Yeah.
I remember bookstores.
I'll tell my kids.
Yeah.
I'll tell our kids about bookstores one day.
Speaking of bookstores, have you ever been at Powell's and you're looking for like a theology book or a Christian book or maybe something a little more political and you're just scared?
You're just scared someone's going to see what you're picking out.
Oh, yeah.
They're going to get it.
I wear a phone.
I'm going to go ahead and get you alive right there because you're in Portland.
Yep.
It's like being kind of like a team section.
Yeah, you pretend to walk over to the like feminist basket weaving and then you sneak back over to Chesterton.
Yeah.
And just go, I'm just researching these crazy Christians to see what's going on.
No, man, I love Powell's.
Okay, so for people that don't know what Powell's is, city of books.
It's like a whole city block of books, best bookstore in the world.
I lived for years, like a few blocks from Powell's, and it was my second home, and I didn't have any money.
So I'd go like read like a quarter of a book in the coffee shop and then I'd hide it in the sci-fi section or something and then go back and find it and keep reading it.
It was pretty cool.
Wow, that's robbery.
Big fan.
Yeah, you should add it.
I'm part of the problem.
You should add that to your testimony.
Exactly.
And this is the real shameful thing I still do.
This is awful.
I feel like a serial killer, but I'll be in like Barnes and Noble and I'll find a book and it's like $400.
And then I'm like, bring up my phone, go on amazon.com.
And I was doing that one time, and one of the workers comes up and asks me if he could help me.
And I just about jumped out of my skin because I wouldn't get caught.
Yeah.
Oh, that's hilarious.
I feel bad about it, though.
My dad used to do that without shame.
Like he would tell me this was his, he would do it at Circuit City because the Circuit City nearest had great sales staff.
So he'd walk in and he'd tell me, I will go to Circuit City to get all the information about the latest computer and then I will leave and go buy it online.
Isn't there like some Jewish rule that you can't do that?
Well, my dad's not Jewish.
Yeah, but I just know Dennis Preger is always going on about how that kind of stuff.
Oh, he is.
You don't go into a store to shop, but don't buy anything.
He always does that.
He's like 85, though, or something.
Yeah, he's old-fashioned.
Yeah.
I think that's old school.
Let's see.
When Antifa forms their first concentration camps, where will they be located, do you think, in Portland?
What area?
And what old building will they convert into a concentration camp?
I've given this a lot of thought.
Yeah.
I think that'd be base camp for them, Pals.
Because they're not going to need most of those books, right?
They just need like Communist Manifesto and maybe some.
And you can burn some of them.
Some beat poetry.
Yeah, Philip K. Dick, whatever.
What do they read on it?
They read Vonnegut.
Lots of Vonnegut.
I'm not up on their reading list.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Maybe they'll go after the Pearl District.
It's that's, I mean, I don't know.
Like back in the day, the Pearl District was like where all the artists hung out and the lofts were super cheap.
And now it's just like freakishly expensive.
So if there's a place that needs to, you know, needs a reckoning, I guess the Pearl District is due.
I'm just bitter because I can't afford a $2 million loft.
So, Drew, you've written three books, but I feel like that accomplishment, three, three books, is that right?
That is correct.
Yep.
I'm counting them all right now.
Three.
I feel like, though, like as an acquisitions editor, that's a little hollow of an accomplishment because you can just be like, oh, yeah, this bitch.
This is a good one.
That's a good one.
Yeah.
Stamp it and then you just stamp it like approved.
It's like, let's give this guy a huge advance.
He's a rock star.
Yeah, totally.
That's exactly how it worked.
It was awesome.
Yeah.
You could probably pull that off with like a pen name or something.
You just send it in.
They're like, just a minute, Drew, who is this guy?
Andrew Van Dyke.
It's Andrew Van Dyke.
Who's this D Dyak?
Yeah.
You know, so the way it worked, and it's a little weird, I admit, because I'm kind of burning the publishing candle at both ends, right?
Because my day job, I acquire books, and then once in a blue moon, because three isn't very many, and I'll space them out five years or something, which is a bad idea because everyone except your mom forgets your writer in that interim.
But anyway, so, but it was this kind of weird thing where I'm like to my boss, I go, hey, I want to write a book.
I'd love to do it with Moody.
How does this work?
And so then I had to like recuse myself from the meetings.
It was really dramatic.
And thankfully, they pulled the trigger on it.
Would have been awkward to get rejected, but I would have gotten over it.
But yeah, the rest is history, as they say.
Nice.
Nice indeed.
Yeah, you had the one book about tigers.
You can't tame God, so stop trying.
What are some of your favorite ways people have tamed God?
Okay, well, first of all.
Is it about tigers?
This is the thing.
I got a ton of weird tiger-themed paraphernalia gifts after writing that book.
I did a book called Bears Want to Kill You.
I get nothing but bear gifts.
Isn't that amazing?
I got tiger socks.
I got like a picture of a tiger, a t-shirt with a tiger on it.
But yes, the book has nothing to do with tigers.
Sad.
But yeah, I mean, it was one of those books that I feel like, you know, I was passionate about the topic because basically my contention was as evangelicals, we kind of tend to neglect God's scarier aspects and holiness.
You know, we're all about God's love.
It's like, oh man, yeah.
God loves me so much.
And that's all awesome and true and stuff.
But I feel like we kind of collapse the holiness side of the equation.
So that was my contention in that.
And I admit it was a bit of like started as this like theological axe to grind after sitting in so many church services and singing songs that could be sung to God or a girl and feeling like there was some kind of corrective needed.
Yeah.
Anyway, so that was kind of the theme behind that.
But yeah, a lot of tiger gifts too.
So then you wrote a book on self-control.
And like, yes.
But shouldn't people exercise self-control and not buy your book?
What if they struggle like I told you?
Get in and purchase the book.
And then after that, you will develop the requisite self-control to resist future superfluous purchases.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, but what if you read another book?
You don't want to go to the book.
Well, then by then, your self-control will probably be a little weaker and you can capitulate again.
Okay, so obviously, I got tired of people coming up to me and going, Drew, you're a ninja of self-discipline and self-control.
And how do you do it?
Yeah, sure, sure.
Yeah, no, it was kind of the opposite where I was like, okay, I need to grow in this area.
So, which I think, incidentally, the best books.
I'm not saying mine's the best book, but I think the best books come out of that experience of frustration in your life in some regard.
And then you go, I need to change.
I need to be different.
And then you kind of come alongside the reader, hopefully not as an expert that's lecturing them from the Ivory Tower or something, but you're going, hey, listen, I need to grow here too.
This is what I've found.
This is what I've discovered.
Yeah, I feel like I'm really cynical and I see these Christian book titles that are like, how to get control of your life and conquer.
And I'm like, that person's life's probably pretty screwed up.
I don't know.
That's always my first thought.
Not necessarily about your book, just in general.
The book is totally.
Oh, yeah, go ahead.
Go ahead.
Oh, I was just going to say the book is titled From the Bible and Brain Science.
And I was curious, what brain science did you do while you were working on it?
Oh, man, I got a PhD in brain science before writing the book.
No, I, so yeah, I'm not an expert in brain science.
So what I did is I basically just interviewed people who were and like psychologists, sociologists, and some like actually brain science nerds.
And that has been part of the pushback I've gotten, which I totally get.
It's like, oh, just a minute.
Like, why do we need like, why is it important for this topic to understand the brain, right?
Why can't we just read the Bible?
And I don't want to overstate the case because, of course, for millennia, Christians got by fine, not knowing what was going on in our brains, right?
But a lot of it I did find helpful, just kind of to explain some of our lapses when it comes to willpower and temptation.
And I was just struck repeatedly at how like what I was reading about these sociological studies and stuff really just mirrored and affirmed what scripture already says about human nature.
Like for instance, like the studies on willpower.
So about 20 years ago, there's this big study that basically shows that willpower, that is your ability to hold out against temptation or do something really difficult, is a finite resource.
It runs out.
So they did this big experiment where people had to work on this math problem.
But beforehand, they divided the group in two.
One group went in fresh.
The other group had to sit in a room with freshly baked cookies, resisting the cookies before doing the math problem.
And the group that had to resist the cookies first lasted like one-third the time doing the math problem as the other group.
So basically what researchers concluded was there's this thing called willpower.
It's finite.
It's depletable.
And you kind of get weaker as you go.
And as a Christian, of course, I wasn't terribly surprised because I'm like, oh, yeah, of course.
I mean, that's how the Bible describes us as fallen, finite creatures.
Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
I think it's why we're commanded to flee temptation rather than stick around and fight it.
So anyway, things like that, I found there's like a lot of very complementary between what I was reading in the literature on this topic and what the Bible teaches us about it.
So it sounds like you're saying the Bible's not enough.
That's what I'm hearing.
I'm so glad that that was the takeaway from what I said.
I also heard something about cookies, but anytime you write a book, you're basically saying the Bible's not enough, right?
This is true.
Add this to you.
That's true.
That's true.
No, like people.
Look how many books Drew has.
Look at all those Bibles that are not the Bible.
Look at my lack of faith behind me.
Yeah, what percentage of those books are the Bible?
Most of them are Bibles.
Okay.
Don't look too carefully.
Yeah, I was reading a book on confidence.
I was trying to be sneaky and sneak out of the Bible and read a book on confidence that was purely secular.
And this lady in the book, she's a doctor or something.
And she's like, so this is what you do.
You know, it doesn't matter.
Maybe you don't believe in God, but you just got to think of something like your version of what God is.
And then, you know, before you go into the interview, that speech, whatever you're going to do, put it on them.
Just this is yours to worry about, not me.
And then go in and do it.
And it's been scientifically proven that that actually helps people be more confident.
I was like, wait, it's just like being reading the Bible all the time.
You could just use God.
Yeah, you'd be like, think of a concept or something.
If you're not, if you're secular, you know, think of joy.
I put it on joy.
And then, you know, she basically was that.
I just find it fascinating.
There's always psychological things that kind of go right back to stuff straight out of scripture.
Like, yeah, when I was researching for this book, I remember reading one op-ed from an atheist in the New York Times talking about, I forget the title, is something like, should, if I want to develop strength in my willpower, should I start going to church and praying?
Because secular studies are showing that these things actually boost your ability to fight temptation.
And it was good, though, because he interviewed a sociologist who's like, no, that's not how it works.
You can't just pretend you believe it.
It's like, and get the benefits.
You got to be for real.
You should try that Pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Might work.
There you go.
There you go.
With a multiverse God.
Coming up next for Babylon Bee subscribers.
The one thing I was interested in is you talked about having a nervous breakdown while you were at Fuller.
Oh, geez.
They did do a deep dying damn thing.
This is what irritates me, though.
Okay, I love my single friends, but one person I remember was like, you know, I really needed a writing retreat.
So I, you know, did this two-week thing in the woods or something like that.
And I'm like, just a minute, you don't have kids.
Your whole life is a writing retreat.
Yeah.
We think that you said this because you hate God.
Now that you got me thinking about this, I would invade Canada.
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