Got Woody?

My favorite story about Tony Campolo is that he’s been known for informing audiences that 30,000 kids died during the past few hours because of disease and malnutrition and that most people in the room don’t give a shit. He’d then point out that, in fact, most people in the audience were more concerned about his use of the word shit than the 30,000 dead kids. – see wiki for wiki-proof.

I’ve had an accidental Woody Harrelson film festival over the past few weeks.

The festival began here after I pointed to Sans Auto’s discussion of Dr Putnam’s lecture and book “Bowling Alone.” I mentioned I’d soon be watching League of Ordinary Gentlemen. While the movie has very little to do with linking bowling and social decline, it does acknowledge the link by opening with meaningful quotes from Dr Putnum and then President Clinton. Woody’s part in the movie is simply the use of clips from his parts in Kingpin, a movie I havent seen.

Next up was North Country, the film about sexual harassment in northern Minnesota mines. Woody played the good guy lawyer. North Country was produced by Participant Productions, maker of some of the best (most challenging? most socially conscious?) films in recent memory, including: An Inconvenient Truth, Syriana and Fast Food Nation.

Participant believes in the power of media to create great social change. Our goal is to deliver compelling entertainment that will inspire audiences to get involved in the issues that affect us all.

Today I watched Go Further, a movie that might serve to get this blog back to its regularly scheduled programming. The film documents Woody’s west coast lecture tour where he and a handful of others rode bike from Oregon to southern California, ate organically, and lived in the tension of ummm...that laundry list of all that is bad related to the environment. In the opening minutes I thought I was going to be really annoyed by the movie but soon it became palatable and by the end I really liked it.

The best part: I watch my daddy films from the laptop, quietly, not wanting to push this crap on the family. Sometimes The Boys get curious and I either pause the film to avoid inappropriate content or they quickly get bored and walk away. The Boy 8 watched much of this film over my shoulder. He knew what was going on and even wanted to know what’s so bad about corn dogs?

And I wasn’t concerned that he was hearing the word shit.

(I was glad the huffing of the Dust Off part had already passed.)

Part of a very cool Woody Harrelson poem:

Politicians and prostitutes
are comfortable together
I wonder if they talk about the strange change in the weather.

Complete poem here at the Voice Yourself website.