I am listening to a radio show on KCRW when I should be packing, about Michael Penn, who in my mind has shared the same little honeycomb of an information cell block as Michael W. Smith- and wrongfully so. He is an excellent songwriter that reminds me of George Harrison. He also scored the Comedians of Comedy. bonus points. Thats when this book came rushing back to me.
Anyway. Michael W. Smith is also a musician(Christian) who thrived largely in the 80's, but at some point fell hard to drugs,sex, sin, and even rock and roll. This made him a good candidate to write a book for teens. Or so my mom thought so. I read this and reread this for a good couple weeks. I would read it at the kitchen table and just put it in front of my face so that my family couldn't read my expression from the sometimes overboard descriptions he went on in discouraging young readers from becoming sex-addicted drug-users.
2 comments:
I had no idea that MWS went astray. He, along with the likes of Steve Taylor and Petra, are locked in a sort of late 80s memory box for me. I always considered Mr. Smith to be one of the tame ones, too. Weird.
Your story about his book reminded me of a guy our church brought in to talk to the youth group I was in. He was an ex-Hell's Angel and basically talked about how the wrong choices in life can lead you into drugs and gangs and murder. I think the church got a little more than they expected because his slide show was full of grisly murder scenes that he would skip through pretty fast. The fact that the photos flashing for a split second only served to burn the images into my brain. The slides he skipped over are the only ones I still remember.
That seems like no accident that the slides were kept in the reel. I am sure it has led you to just say no alot.
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