Zacchaeus Had A Thin Moustache

Show open and July 4th preview

• How do I find the Live From The Path YouTube channel?

The produced intro voiceover opens the show from Lowell Street Studios in downtown Des Moines. Ben introduces himself as Ben Foost of Des Moines Amplified on a Monday night the hosts identify as July 4th. A host teases Dan about his plain shirt and mourns the absence of his Hawaiian shirts. Ben previews the show: a later discussion of God's grace and how it relates to Christian judgment, plus the YouTube question of the week.

The left-turn-signal story

Someone asks after Mike, who appears to be jamming to music that doesn't exist. A host recounts driving behind a car with its left turn signal stuck on and growing annoyed at the driver, only to realize the blinker that was stuck on was his own. The group laughs at the self-own.

Grocery store venting and the diaper ban

The hosts vent about grocery shopping: being sent for obscure brands, taking an hour and a half to find four or five items, and bringing home the wrong canned goods. One host explains how his wife banned him from the grocery store after he overspent on diapers chosen by packaging claims (the $14.79 wrong diapers; $100 spent versus her usual $60). They pitch personal in-store guides for clueless men, debate whether the squeaky wheel gets the grease, complain about drive-thrus, and trade Hardee's stories: good service at the Euclid Hardee's and a dozen free cinnamon-raisin-biscuit coupons from the closed Pleasant Hill Hardee's after complaining online. One host got his way at the Altoona Dairy Queen after the earlier on-air incident.

Sign-model sitcom and family car decals

A host pitches a sitcom about the people inside warning signs: the caution-wet-floor guy, the do-not-walk guy, bathroom-sign and school-crossing families, and a caution-sticker model who keeps getting mutilated on industrial machinery. They riff on family stick-figure car decals as a poor idea, since thieves can count your household, and debate whether Hollywood is dying while YouTube rises.

YouTube fame and Justin Bieber

Talking about being discovered on YouTube, the hosts recall the 12-year-old singer Justin Bieber who was found there. One host says he would feel uncomfortable with that kind of self-glorification. They joke about searching YouTube for 'Boober' and what that would return.

Tall tales and the railroad diagonal lie

The hosts trade stories of telling people things that are obviously untrue and letting them run with it: a false claim that an Alabama city was sued over white-only walk lights, and one host's admission that he told his wife for ten years that crossing railroad tracks at a diagonal was easier on tires before finally confessing. Chat participant Lasagna chimes in with real advice: cross tracks at 90 degrees.

Funeral of the man on the wrong tracks

A host recounts doing the funeral of a highly intoxicated man whose truck stalled on a railroad track early one morning; he got out and started running along the second set of tracks, where the train was actually coming, and was killed while the truck was untouched. The hosts land an awkward beat of jokes about closed caskets and morticians' repairs before sobering up.

Should you stop at every railroad crossing?

The hosts argue over whether to stop at every railroad crossing even with no lights or arms: one insists he always stops and looks, another says that will cause an accident at a 50-mph crossing. They marvel at the highway rigs with retractable train wheels, comparing them to the DeLorean from the future.

Contact info, chat, and the nose-pick bet

Ben plugs audience participation: the Des Moines Amplified chat, where he says 20 to 25 percent of the show happens, Skype call-ins to the name Des Moines Amplified, and the livefromthepath.org archive. The chat accuses a host of picking his nose and eating it on camera; the hosts bet five dollars that someone on YouTube both belly-rolls and nose-picks.

Kazoo man and drum-and-bugle-corps humiliation

A host recommends a 'crazy kazoo man' YouTube video for the break. Another recalls fourth-grade drum and bugle corps in a dorky uniform, when he muttered under his breath that the parade performance was horrible and the director called him out in front of the whole bus; he quit band after that. He played bugle and once performed taps for a friend whose frog died.

Botched solos: taps and the wedding march

The hosts swap stories of botched performances: the Kansas City Orchestra trumpet player who chirped the first note of ceremonial taps on a nationally broadcast Memorial Day benefit for troops, and a host who practiced the wedding march for days before hosing it up at Pantsy's brother's wedding, while his old band teacher, who had also seen him fail a competition years earlier, watched in disgust.

The Robin Hoods wedding and preacher-not-singer

A host describes being asked to sing Bryan Adams' 'Everything I Do (I Do It for You)' at the Robin Hoods' wedding, three octaves above his range, and telling them, 'you realize I'm a preacher, I'm not a singer.' He jokes that no one ever thinks of Dan Hudson as the singer, though Dan's daughter can sing, which leads into Tom Cruise comparisons.

Tom Cruise, Barry Manilow, and Matt's jive

The hosts riff on Tom Cruise as a freak who keeps getting work despite, in their view, not being a good actor, joking that he subscribes to the LFTP YouTube channel under the handle Mick the Marvel. A Barry Manilow sting plays while Matt dances on camera, and the hosts tease him as a big Barry Manilow fan.

The hard question: movies, nudity, and language

• As a Christ-follower, is exposure to movies with foul language or nudity a matter of personal limits, or should you just walk away?

A host poses the episode's hard question: for a person trying to follow Christ, is exposure to movies with foul language and potential nudity a matter of personal limits, or should you just walk away? Schindler's List is the test case: loaded with nudity, but is the nudity necessary to tell the story, and does the story even need telling that way?

Passion of the Christ, Schindler's List, and the double standard

The hosts compare the gut-check of The Passion of the Christ's violence to King of Kings and ask whether Christians hold a double standard: violence seems acceptable to depict while nudity and sexual sin are not. They discuss the Holocaust TV series, quote Ephesians on putting away bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, and slander, and tease Matt about clicking his pen.

Die Hard, three-armed Rambo, and Matt's pen

Between heavy topics, the hosts banter about waiting for the bad guy to get thrown off a building in a Die Hard movie, invent a three-armed Rambo, and joke nervously around Matt clicking his pen, asking for an escort to the car.

Samson, David, and acceptable violence

• Is there an acceptable type of violence?
• Where is the line at which movie violence becomes too graphic?

The hosts ask how a faithful portrayal of Samson could avoid graphic violence: the jawbone of a donkey, the temple columns coming down with blood squishing. They note that a biography of David would show the violence but not the adultery. They debate whether violence is ever acceptable, citing World War II, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11, and contrast old Westerns with their bloodless gunshots against modern horror and slasher gore.

Back away from the art instead of finding the line

One host reframes the question: instead of asking how close to the line they can get, maybe back as far away from it as possible, even if that means backing away from shared culture. Another admits he has watched scenes he should not have and carried swears into his life from movies. They joke that door-to-door witnessing promises entertainment, possibly with violence, nudity, and profanity.

Christian movies are dumb: Fireproof, Left Behind, and the rapture prank

The hosts lament that wholesome Christian movies rarely succeed, mostly because, in their view, the movies are dumb: cheesy acting in Fireproof and a boring Left Behind adaptation. A host tells the story of teenage girls reading the Left Behind series who left a restaurant to convince a friend in the bathroom that the rapture had come and she had missed it.

College fiction about a fragile returning faith

A host begins describing a fiction piece he wrote in college about a man who had fallen out of his faith and decided to return to church: rummaging for a Bible, sitting in an empty pew, and slowly realizing his mind is playing tricks on him. The transcript cuts off mid-story.