Lex de Azevedo on Mormon Stories

[Hagoth]

Did anyone listen to John Dehlin's interview with Lex de Asevedo?

It was really interesting on many levels. First of all his life story is pretty entertaining, but some of the doctrinal discussion was interesting too. He seems to be a very conservative Mormon with sprinkles of very non-traditional ideas. For one thing, he said that when he needs a blessing he goes to his wife for it.

The thing that I found most interesting was some insights it gave me about the thought processes of people who are solidly converted to the church but consider themselves progressive. For instance, he said that he thinks the words "only true church" should be stricken from the Mormon vocabulary. Ten points for that, but then John pushed him to clarify. Are other churches true? Well, they have some truth. Is a Catholic or Baptist baptism valid? No. Are the LDS church leaders in SLC the only men on earth with the keys to saving ordinances? Yes. So really, what he's saying is that we should believe that we are the only true church but we shouldn't actually say it out loud because he realizes how offensive it is. This is the kind of corner believing members are backed into. No matter how much rainbow you want to feel, if you dig deep enough the colors get stripped down to just black and white.

Another thing I liked about him was that he doesn't condemn his children who have left the church (6 out of 9) but acknowledges that everyone's life is a valid learning experience regardless of where it leads them. At least that's what he seemed to be saying.

[Godislove]

I listened to it.

Although I can't remember specifics, I walked away thinking that he must of chosen to believe.

I loved how open he was about issues and that it comes down to love.

I also found it funny he didn't love "Saturdays Warrior".

[GoodBoy]

So really, what he's saying is that we should believe that we are the only true church but we shouldn't actually say it out loud because he realizes how offensive it is. This is the kind of corner believing members are backed into. No matter how much rainbow you want to feel, if you dig deep enough the colors get stripped down to just black and white.

Great observation!

[Ghost]

I listened to this on a few weeks ago and found it entertaining. I liked the story of him joking with Michael Jackson about their respective religions.

I always find the Mormon Stories interviews with people on the more faithful side fascinating. Everyone seems to have a unique combination of the traditional and the heterodox.

[Corsair]

As a child I was in one of those stakes that put on "Saturday's Warrior". It was a big event, at least inside my mind. My mother played Mrs. Flinders.

The interview was very interesting for all of the reasons that others have stated. Brother de Azevedo had an interesting life and is as faithful to the LDS church as he can be, but still holds some progressive ideas that are not well publicized. He was refreshing to hear, but his story was not so compelling as to make me reevaluate my beliefs.

[Raylan Givens]

He always seemed shy about Saturday's Warrior. I would see him at a store I worked at. I eventually talked to him and said he did nice work with him compositions and of course Saturdays Warrior. He was nice and thanked me, but I sensed a wince at Saturdays Warrior.

I just thought it was funny because he had bleached hair and tons of trendy Abercrombie on (this was about 10 years ago). Not too many guys in their 60's wearing that gear.

The thing he can't deny is his feelings and experiences, I can respect that. I have some of those experiences, so I still get the tug on occasion.

[Hagoth]

There was a hilariously uncomfortable moment when Lex was talking about Islam and how evil you would have to be to decapitate someone and Dehlin said, "You mean like Nephi?"

Also kind of funny was how obviously enamored John is with Saturday's Warrior. He seemed a bit starstruck.

[moksha]

There was a hilariously uncomfortable moment when Lex was talking about Islam and how evil you would have to be to decapitate someone and Dehlin said, "You mean like Nephi?"

This would have to be listed among the most memorable lines in all podcasting.

[wtfluff]

Oh my, that was L _ O _ N _ G. (As usual with Mormon Stories...) It literally took me a few days to get through it.

It brought back a lot of memories. I think Saturday's Warrior was kind of the soundtrack of my life before I discovered rock music. (It's all been downhill from there.) Quite interesting how Lex seems a bit embarrassed about much of Saturday's Warrior. His comment about Pop Music and Morality seemed like he was embarrassed about that too; I wish they had discussed it a bit more. That stupid book had a bit of an impact on my life too, but I'd dare bet that he wrote it mostly based on his feelings (like most of that interview was based on) and not much of it was really factual either. Well, I actually know that a lot of the book wasn't factual, but it would have been nice to hear him admit it.

I was also struck by his constant use of the word "knowledge" I do not think "knowledge" means what Lex thinks it means...

[Ghost]

Kind of a tangent, but here is a deleted scene from the movie version of Saturday's Warrior, for anyone who has not seen it and might find it interesting:

https://youtu.be/Jp86mQX127M

[blazerb]

Kind of a tangent, but here is a deleted scene from the movie version of Saturday's Warrior, for anyone who has not seen it and might find it interesting:

https://youtu.be/Jp86mQX127M

I wondered why this song was not in the movie. Saturday's Warrior was one of the records our family listened to when I was pretty young. I was an adult when I realized that all my favorite songs were sung by the wicked people: Zero Population, Summer of Fair Weather, the cool parts of that medley number. Voices is pretty creepy, but in a fun way.

[Not Buying It]

Barf. Lex de Azevedo. Saturday's Warrior is the worst musical ever written. To be fair, it isn't any more questionable from a LDS doctrine standpoint than your average Sunday School lesson, but there is all kinds of "speculative" doctrine it (although, again, all LDS doctrine is speculative, and looking for any kind of doctrinal consistency in the hot mess that is Mormonism makes zero sense anyway).

But it straight up sucks. The story makes no sense - what makes the bad guy so bad? Because he says "zero population is the answer my friend". That's right, the guy is the epitome of evil because he advocates birth control. And the whole story hinges around Jimmy somehow keeping his baby sister in the pre-existence from being born by - what, I don't even know how he is keeping it from happening, maybe his being so rebellious his parents never have time to have sex or something. And his family seems to be that weird one in the ward nobody wants to be caught dead hanging out with because they are a bunch of socially dysfunctional weirdos (every ward has one or two of them). What a ridiculous story. And don't even get me started on the songs. There is no greater indictment of the smarmy kitschiness of LDS culture than the overwhelming popularity of Saturdays' Warrior.

Mormons don't have the first clue what great art is, all LDS-related art is shallow, phony, and puerile. Give me one example of a play, song, painting, sculpture, book, (or religion, for that matter) that is targeted at the LDS market that isn't. Except Arnold Friberg paintings. Those are awesome. That guy was a freakin' master. He could out-Kincaid Thomas Kincaid.

[RubinHighlander]

Barf. Lex de Azevedo. Saturday's Warrior is the worst musical ever written. To be fair, it isn't any more questionable from a LDS doctrine standpoint than your average Sunday School lesson, but there is all kinds of "speculative" doctrine it (although, again, all LDS doctrine is speculative, and looking for any kind of doctrinal consistency in the hot mess that is Mormonism makes zero sense anyway).

But it straight up sucks. The story makes no sense - what makes the bad guy so bad? Because he says "zero population is the answer my friend". That's right, the guy is the epitome of evil because he advocates birth control. And the whole story hinges around Jimmy somehow keeping his baby sister in the pre-existence from being born by - what, I don't even know how he is keeping it from happening, maybe his being so rebellious his parents never have time to have sex or something. And his family seems to be that weird one in the ward nobody wants to be caught dead hanging out with because they are a bunch of socially dysfunctional weirdos (every ward has one or two of them). What a ridiculous story. And don't even get me started on the songs. There is no greater indictment of the smarmy kitschiness of LDS culture than the overwhelming popularity of Saturdays' Warrior.

Mormons don't have the first clue what great art is, all LDS-related art is shallow, phony, and puerile. Give me one example of a play, song, painting, sculpture, book, (or religion, for that matter) that is targeted at the LDS market that isn't. Except Arnold Friberg paintings. Those are awesome. That guy was a freakin' master. He could out-Kincaid Thomas Kincaid.

Good review NBI! It's a funny thing for me, this musical and all the schmaltzy mormon kitch like it, growing up and all through my TBM life, this stuff was downright unappealing, sometimes offensive and very undesirable to me. When I'd see clips or hear the music it was like an overly produced road show and I hated those! I have never watched all of the play, just seen bits and pieces of it or had comps on my mish that would sometimes play some of the songs. I just could never buy into any of it. My wife's X was one of the dancers, so she and her kids have that connection to it.

[wtfluff]

Barf. Lex de Azevedo. Saturday's Warrior is the worst musical ever written. To be fair, it isn't any more questionable from a LDS doctrine standpoint than your average Sunday School lesson, but there is all kinds of "speculative" doctrine it (although, again, all LDS doctrine is speculative, and looking for any kind of doctrinal consistency in the hot mess that is Mormonism makes zero sense anyway).
...

Good review NBI! ...

Did you guys watch the interview? If I'm remembering it correctly, Lex seems pretty embarrassed about Saturday's Warrior, and a LOT of the stuff he did/wrote during that time-period. He himself basically admits how bad it was "doctrinally", etc.

My beef with him isn't Saturday's Warrior, it's something else he produced during his "time" that messed with a parent and myself.

Funny... I have a friend who is friends with one of the De Azevedo kids. I sooooo want to close that one-degree of separation and have a chat with the De Azevedo kid... "We need to have a chat about your dad!" It would be incredibly awkward, but would give me a chance to work through some of my "childhood trauma" in a sarcastic (and selfish on my part) way.

[Ghost]

Give me one example of a play, song, painting, sculpture, book, (or religion, for that matter) that is targeted at the LDS market that isn't. Except Arnold Friberg paintings. Those are awesome. That guy was a freakin' master. He could out-Kincaid Thomas Kincaid.

A few years ago, I visited SLC and saw some of the tourist attractions for the first time. This may be common knowledge, but how those paintings came to be was new to me. Apparently the Primary general president at the time commissioned them on her deathbed, selling her property to pay for them ($1000 each).

It would be an interesting challenge to come up with art aimed at Mormon audiences that holds up on its own. But I guess that's not unique to Mormonism. There's a history of mediocre music, movies, and books marketed to other Christian groups as well. We've probably had a NOM thread or two about this at some point.

Of course, it's easy to come up with great art that happens to have Christian (or maybe even Mormon) themes, but that's not quite the same thing.

[blazerb]

Mormons don't have the first clue what great art is, all LDS-related art is shallow, phony, and puerile. Give me one example of a play, song, painting, sculpture, book, (or religion, for that matter) that is targeted at the LDS market that isn't. Except Arnold Friberg paintings. Those are awesome. That guy was a freakin' master. He could out-Kincaid Thomas Kincaid.

I'm not going to speak about paintings and sculptures. I have seen some Mormon ones that I like, but I am not a great connoisseur of fine art.

I think a lot of the problem with the stories that Mormons tell is that there can be no nuance. Bad is bad. Good is good. Everyone has to end up members of the church unless they are hopelessly wicked. Good people who reject the church do not exist in these fictional worlds. When people walk on the bad side and repent, their experiences on the bad side can only teach that they should have been good the whole time. It's annoying.

[Hagoth]

Mormons don't have the first clue what great art is, all LDS-related art is shallow, phony, and puerile. Give me one example of a play, song, painting, sculpture, book, (or religion, for that matter) that is targeted at the LDS market that isn't.

Mahonri M. Young. I guess he didn't produce much art that was Mormon-themed, but he was a great sculptor.

[Hagoth]

Funny... I have a friend who is friends with one of the De Azevedo kids.

We have one of his daughters who is active in our ward. A friend of mine had a tattoo done by another who is not. One of my kids took bass guitar lessons from one of the sons. I'm surrounded!

Lex gives concerts for our ward from time to time using our ward choir as the guinea pigs for his new material, usually Christmas stuff. His daughter and son-in-law are very talented and they have pumped up our ward choir into something to behold. They also do some non-traditional music that wanders beyond the confines of typical Mormon Christmas performances.

[Cnsl1]

I think it's ignorant to say that there isn't any quality Mormon themed art. There's a ton.

You might not like the subject matter, but there are definitely some highly trained and very talented artists who have contributed to the "Mormon Art" genre.

Sculptor Avard Fairbanks.
Artist Arnold Friberg
Singer Alex Boye'
Artist Del Parson
Artist Carl Bloc

Just to get started... And that's just the old white guys, well except for the one young black guy.

The Mormon themed work from those folks could stand on it's own outside the church.

I'm not defending Saturday's Warrior. I thought it was awful too.

And what about that goofy Chinese rendition of the Lamanite Generation between conference sessions in April? That was weird stuff.

[Not Buying It]

I think it's ignorant to say that there isn't any quality Mormon themed art. There's a ton.

You might not like the subject matter, but there are definitely some highly trained and very talented artists who have contributed to the "Mormon Art" genre.

Sculptor Avard Fairbanks.
Artist Arnold Friberg
Singer Alex Boye'
Artist Del Parson
Artist Carl Bloc

Just to get started... And that's just the old white guys, well except for the one young black guy.

The Mormon themed work from those folks could stand on it's own outside the church.

I'm not defending Saturday's Warrior. I thought it was awful too.

And what about that goofy Chinese rendition of the Lamanite Generation between conference sessions in April? That was weird stuff.

I'll grant my statement may have been too extreme, even narrow minded, that's fair. But your list - I already said Arnold Friberg was awesome, I actually wasn't being sarcastic. I'll give you Avard Fairbanks, no question. But Del Parson? Sorry, I disagree on that one, not a fan of his pictures of Christ, but that may just be my opinion.

You don't get to count Carl Bloc. He wasn't Mormon and didn't paint for Mormons, his art wasn't aimed at an LDS market, the LDS Church just co-opted his artwork. Can't speak to Alex Boye' as I am not famliar with his work, his stuff for the LDS market might be awesome for all I know.

But based on your fair criticism, I will amend my statement. There are examples of plays, songs, paintings, sculpture, and books aimed at the LDS market that aren't crud. But well over 90% of it is crud, which is higher than would be predicted by Sturgeon's Law.