By way of introduction my name is Rich Seng and I am the founder of Cherry Bomb.
The story of the Free CD and the Free DVD is really unimpressive, but I wish to tell it here simply because in past interviews writers always seem to get some portion of the facts wrong. But I guess I also want to tell the story so that the reader understands how the Free CD and the Free DVD are a natural extension of my life's experiences.
It all goes back to 1990 when I was a sophomore in high school at St. Francis de Sales in Toledo, Ohio. St. Francis was an all-boys Catholic school, and there I started to have conversations with a classmate named Mark Bickle after I overheard him singing "Love that Muddy Water" by the Standells. That was an oldies song, and all my life up to that point I thought I was the only kid who preferred 50's and 60's music to contemporary rock. Mark told me that he played guitar, and during our junior year, he told me about his new band "The Sprags," and invited me to come out to one of their practices.
I joined Mark to see them practice — and behold — it changed my life. I immediately fell in love with their music and became friends with the other members of the band, Scott Hunt and Dusty Whitman. Their music was so inspiring to me — and they were in love with the same rock and roll as I — but they were making it new all over again.
After attending a few more practices, the band offered me the position of manager, where it would be my job to get them gigs and to handle the promotion. I eagerly took on the job, but soon discovered that in the music business there were many layers of resistance. I couldn't get the band gigs at the local bars because no one knew who they were, and I couldn't get them a following because there were no venues willing to give them a break. I also tried getting The Sprags airplay on the local radio stations, but again was turned down as I soon learned that corporate radio had a tight and exclusive relationship with the record labels — at least — that was the case in the early 1990's.
Nevertheless, furthering The Sprags became my mission. I was totally obsessed as I fired-off multiple promotional ideas — only to have them all shot down one after the other. I wanted the world to delight in the experience of their music as much as I had, but in looking back I can really see how I must have appeared to my friends, family and the band. The more I hyped up The Sprags the less convincing I became to their cause. And when all you deal in is hype, with little results, people soon tune-out everything you say.
In the fall of 1992 I left Toledo to attend Miami University. Mark Bickle also left Toledo — and The Sprags disbanded. During my freshman year I soaked up a lot of Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan, but I still couldn't get The Sprags off my mind. In January of 1993 Scott and Dusty came down from Toledo, and Mark Bickle came up from Clemson University in South Carolina. We had a little weekend reunion in my dorm — it was a blast —; and it laid the groundwork for the Sprags to reunite that spring — and for me to resume being their manager.
After spending the summer in Toledo and helping The Sprags get shows, I returned to Miami. As a first order of business I approached the local clubs to see if I could get the band a gig. But again, like with the Toledo bars, the club owners wouldn't showcase an unknown band, especially at Miami, where the majority of bands were Grateful Dead noodlers. This then made me think of producing a compilation CD of local Miami bands where I could feature The Sprags and hopefully build-up their local following.
The undertaking was enormous — and I remember lying in bed looking up at the ceiling of my dorm. I was wrestling with the idea of whether I could make it happen when all of a sudden I simply said, "yes." Saying that changed everything, and even though I didn't know who would be on it, who would record it, where it would be recorded, and how I'd pay for it, I believed it would happen, and truly, I did it all for The Sprags.
The disc came out in April of 1994 and The Sprags had the first song. I had them record their song "Subtle Rock 'N' Roll" which in part was about how as their manager I was just a "Rich boy with time on my hands going out and fittin' mold" and how at one point I must have said that "My dad could buy [The Sprags] a little rock 'n' roll with some stock that he sold." I wanted them to record that song because it spoke to how the band didn't respect me, and how on some level I was dealing with that irony.
But through the process of making that first compilation, I acquired the skills to produce The Sprags' first album two months later, "Neighborhood Sounds," for which, incidentally, my dad sold stock to finance. By the way, during the first semester of my junior year I got The Sprags several shows at Miami. I even illegally entered them into a local "Battle of the Bands" competition. They rolled into town from Toledo, played their set, and left with the $500 first place prize. That was a beautiful day.
For my junior year at Miami I wasn't sure if I could make a second "Music of Miami" compilation CD. I paid for the first disc by getting the bands to chip in, and by getting the student organization Miami Marketing Enterprises to cover the rest. But I didn't want to go that route again. So while trying to think of a solution, I hit upon the idea of selling advertising in the CD booklet. This would cover the production costs, and in turn, every disc I sold would be pure profit. I then drew up a little proposal and went to all of the college shops. I showed them the disc I made the previous year to let them know I knew what I was doing — and I sold all of the ads to cover the production costs. It worked.
But at the same time I thought of selling ads to cover the costs, I also thought of what would happen if I sold more in advertising than the total costs, and then have all the discs be given away for free through the businesses that advertised. Sure, I would make less money than if I sold the discs, but at the same time, the Free CD would emerge as a publication that could really be an effective way for bands to build their followings. Now all of this was in the days before the internet and just at the cusp of when CD replication prices started to fall. So certainly, everything seemed perfect. That spring break, instead of going on some college trip, I went home to Toledo and visited all of the clubs and record stores where I used to go and promote The Sprags. In five days I sold $4000 in advertising to pay for the "Music of Toledo" Free CD. It was a success.
That summer I dropped out of college and moved to Chicago. I came with the expectation of revolutionizing the music scene. I didn't know a soul except my brother who had moved out three months before me. I started attending shows and meeting bands — and at the same time I went out to meet local business owners. For two years in Chicago I made four local "Music of Chicago" Free CDs. It was mildly successful, but it took so long getting everything organized. I became despondent, and in that, I somehow made myself available to God. I remember sometimes saying this prayer before going to sleep: "God, if you exist, show me, and bring me in line with your will."
After several months of this, and after a string of chance encounters with Christians who possessed in their eyes some sort of happiness I didn't have, I felt the desire to start going to Church, and if there's one thing about my personality — when I do something — I do it 100%. So, in December of 1996, like a good Catholic boy, before going to Church after a seven year absence, I went to Confession. It was there in the old—school confessional, being fully sincere to the priest in recounting my sins, that my physical body was overcome with an electric, invigorating sensation. It is a hard to explain — like the feeling of how your arm feels when it falls asleep — but there is no feeling of pain — and instead of pins and needles coming down on you, it feels more like pins and needles shooting out of you. And instead of your arm feeling cold and flaccid, you feel warmth and in total possession of your movement.
When this sensation started to build within me, for a moment I was scared, but then I somehow figured out that this was God's way of saying he was real and that what I was doing was good. My chest seemed fuller — as if it was filled with warm air pushing out in all directions, and after the priest gave me my penance of ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Mary's, I went into the pews. There, the fire-like electric sensation continued to build and flow through me like heavy waves of indescribable peace and good humor. It made me quietly laugh and cry at the same time. But even more interesting — my hands — they felt like flamethrowers. I remember holding them up to the lights on the rafters to see if I could see the flames that I was feeling. I didn't see anything, but I was reminded of the Bible story where God called Elijah to service. Elijah said no because his habit of cursing made him unworthy, but God sent an angel with a burning coal from heaven to be placed on Elijah's tongue. The coal from heaven then burned off Elijah's desire to swear. In the same way, I felt like God was taking away — burning off — many unhealthy habits in my life to prepare me for a greater mission.
In the year that followed I closed down my record label (Simon Seng Records) and started preaching to friends and bands in Chicago about their need to repent and convert. Furthermore, I felt like I should explore becoming a priest, so I went back to Miami University for one semester to finish off my business degree. With that under my belt I applied to the Diocese of Toledo for affiliation as a seminarian. This process took one year, where in the meantime I moved back home with my parents and attended the University of Toledo for courses in Philosophy and Theology.
In the fall of 1999 I entered seminary at St. Meinrad's School of Theology in southern Indiana. I was under the instruction of Benedictine monks — and they were all pretty old school — with the black hooded robes and the life of sacrifice. My days were filled with fellowship, meditation, and study. It was a great experience.
After completing my first year I went home for two weeks before being sent to Creighton University for a summer at the Institute of Priestly Formation. On the day I returned to Toledo I called up a friend from Miami University to join me for Shabbat services at a Messianic Jewish synagogue. These folks are otherwise known as "Jews for Jesus" and I wanted to go to convert these newborn Christians to Catholicism. But there, I met a very beautiful girl from White Russia (Belarus). Her name was Irina but I inadvertently knick named her Treblinka as I was mimicking the sound of her voice (Russian girls sound like kittens purring). In didn't occur to me until later that Treblinka was the name of a Nazi concentration camp. Somehow the name was stuck in my mind from research I performed weeks earlier on a theology paper arguing against Pope Pius the 12th's canonization (the pope allowed several hundred Catholic priests to wear the German uniform as chaplains). But yeah, she looked at me like I was everything — and made me feel so many things I had forgotten how to feel. We had so much fun those two weeks — and all the while I was trying my best to not give into the feelings I was having for her. It was torture. So many times we would go out for walks. I couldn't hold her hand unless we were praying so I made sure we prayed a lot. It was so sweet and innocent.
On the drive to Creighton University, which is in Omaha Nebraska, I wanted to crash my car so that I would have to be rushed home and she would get to take care of me. After I told this to my spiritual director he said that if he was this girl's older brother he would not let me get within 100 feet of her. He said that my conscious self was out of touch with my feelings — and that I needed to integrate the two — which was great advice. But in defense of my repressed self, when you take on a duty (like becoming a priest), you have to sublimate sexual feelings. Some people on the celibate path are able to do this successfully, and others aren't. In the end, I discerned I'm better suited for marriage. Furthermore, on an almost secret, unconscious level entering the seminary was an escape from the depression I had over not being an overnight success when I first moved to Chicago in 1995. If I had been, I probably would have never found Jesus, so to speak.
After Creighton that summer I left the seminary and moved back to Toledo. Things between Treblinka and I didn't work like I hoped, so I moved back to Chicago to see if I could possibly make it as an advertising copywriter. I entered the Chicago Portfolio School in January of 2001. The environment was the opposite from where I had just come, but I found that the two disciplines share in common the need for self-knowledge. Christianity encourages people to understand their humanity, likewise, copy writing focuses on finding and playing off of simple human truths with which we can all relate.
I worked on my portfolio for several months, but jobs in the industry started drying up, especially after September 11. Instead, I focused my energy on writing and recording an album for this new girl I was completely obsessed with. I fell in love with her the day I met her and she had no idea of the extent to which I was investing my time and energy. After I finished writing these torch songs, I called my old friend Scott Hunt from The Sprags and he produced my album in his studio in Toledo. (If you want to hear a few songs, or maybe buy my album, visit the Subscription page.)
When I returned from Toledo I was able to spend an evening with my muse. We were hanging out at my apartment and she was sitting on the edge of my bed. I pulled out my guitar and asked if I could play her some of the songs I had written for her. She said yes, and as I was playing her my songs, she saw how much I loved her and her eyes changed to "yes." It was the greatest accomplishment of my life — to win her love — and for the time we dated I was the happiest man on earth. But before I delve into how things turned out, I want to also make a mention of my roommate in Chicago.
His name was John E. Gilun. He was 88 years old when I met him randomly through the "Roommate Wanted" section of the Chicago Reader. He was old, smelly and wrinkly, but he had such a spirit about him. He told me about his life — how he had survived internment in a Nazi labor camp, how he knew 12 languages, how he had a Ph.D in Catholic Theology and a Masters in Psychology, and how he even passed on to a Jewish Lithuanian baker a fake baptismal certificate so he could escape capture by the Nazis. He was a very virtuous, educated and spiritual person — and as we continued talking, I was convinced that the opportunity to live with John was a great and intended gift.
I moved in the next week and it was like I never left seminary — like I was still on track with my religious formation. We constantly discussed philosophy and the meaning of God and Christ. It was amazing — and his perspective was completely opposite of my hyper-conservative leanings from before. I was his last student — and I believe his being there for me was pre-ordained by God.
Another topic we frequently discussed was the Palestinian / Israeli conflict. I came to Chicago thinking that Palestinians simply needed to realize that the Jews were God's "Chosen People" and that the world had to understand that the land — the Promised Land — belonged to the Jews. The Hebrew Scriptures can support this claim — and when these verses of domination fall on the ears of a predominately Christian America — little objection is ever offered. However, John used these very scriptures to teach me how God operates on a level of virtue, not on a level of tribalism, and how modern day Israel has strayed from the higher path to one of greed, hypocrisy, fear and oppression. And still, he also taught me how these struggles within Judaism are metaphors for the struggles and choices we all face every day as individuals. He died on January 1st, 2004.
I take the lessons of John Gilun with me as I produce issues of the Cherry Bomb Free DVD. I hope for it to grow so that one day, month after month, millions of average Americans — millions of average American voters — can be exposed to short films that humanize the Palestinians and reveal the agenda behind Israel's occupation and annexation of Palestine. In my estimation it is so sad to see the people who had endured the Holocaust project their agony unto a peaceful people — and to provoke them to wrath. Yet still, I will also always show an equal amount of films from the Israeli point of view. My goal is to convert the status quo — and the best way to do this is to be sincere and fair.
One more thing on this topic — when I was studying philosophy at the University of Toledo back in 1998, I approached a "Muslim Awareness Booth" in the student union. I got into an argument with about twenty young Muslim men — I was explaining to them that Israel is ordained by God and that the Palestinians at best can only expect to live on the edges of the Promised Land. When I said that to their faces I was preparing to die as a martyr. I looked expecting to see them boiling over, but all I saw was a still and deep sadness. They really felt like they failed to reach me as one human being would touch another. We parted peacefully, and then the next day I got a phone call from one of their student leaders — she had for me a gift — a copy of the Koran.
Okay, back to my dove and how the Free DVD came about. The girl whose heart I won moved me so deeply. I was going to Church at the time — and for so long I imagined courting her hand for marriage as Christian gentleman — but when the opportunity presented itself for me to get physical with her — I went for it — and interestingly enough — the same electrified Spirit that came over me in the Confessional years before was drilling into my conscience. But on that night I told God to go away — and to let me have this woman. I took her — and it felt great — but my faith has been in pieces since. Truly I used to be a sweet thing — with gentle eyes that saw in every person that which made us all equally beautiful to God. But now I am confused, depressed and selfish.
With God not at the center of our relationship I think it was doomed to fail. Now there are a lot of successful relationships that pay no heed to God — and that's what I was going for with my dove — but I guess I wasn't collected enough to pull it off. Religion had affected my equilibrium too much for me to ever go back like it was never there. For the first nine months of our relationship I held a day job as a temp. I hated the work — it was really killing me — but I loved coming home to my dove. She inspired me so much — she really made me feel strong and capable — even to the point of wanting to tackle my old fears that I had failed as a producer of the Free CD.
Soon, I was telling her all of my old stories about producing Free CDs and how I had a ten-year-old idea for applying the same concept to the DVD. I thought of the Free DVD very shortly after I started work on the Free CD. It came while watching a television show about how in the near future everyone would have cell phones, would do office work on the beach and would play movies stored on discs called DVDs that looked identical to CDs.
This stunned me — and I immediately saw the potential — I immediately saw the future - but the technology was still so far off — making DVDs was very expensive and no one owned any of the DVD players. But about a year and a half ago that all changed — and that was when I looked at my dove and told her I wanted to invent a career for myself that matched my skills and would provide for her a nest that we would use to raise our children — so for me — in my classic style - that meant nothing less than creating an entirely new category of media from scratch. And in this, she tried hard to support me.
I started work on the first Free DVD in February of 2003 — and boy was I scared. I called some manufactures to find out what the total cost would be to make 1000 DVD-5s. With that amount in mind (in addition to some other estimated costs) I determined a total amount that I would need to generate through selling twenty, 30-second commercials onto the DVD. At the time I didn't know any filmmakers or DVD authoring specialists. All I knew was that there were hundreds of businesses in Chicago I could keep asking until I sold all of the ads. Coincidentally, I started selling ads that day in March when our U.S. ground forces rolled into Iraq. I was so nervous and out of practice — stuttering and stammering — trying to sell an ad while at the same time trying to explain the Free DVD concept. It was a total disaster. I failed with the first 15 businesses I approached, and was on the verge of giving up when I walked into the World War II Quartermaster Depot on Milwaukee Ave. You have never seen a more happy business owner. America was on the war path in Iraq! I got myself together and pitched him my idea — he loved it — and with that first sale under my belt everything changed. It still took me another month to sell all twenty ads — but I'll never forget that first one.
Soon later I hooked up with Rusty Nails who helped curate the majority of shorts onto the first Cherry Bomb — and I found Thomas Horne — a good friend and gifted producer. I wrote the commercials and together over two days we filmed 11 of the 20 spots (the rest were made by other producers). Thomas then edited the commercials and authored the entire DVD. Another good friend of mine, Oscar Contreras, a gifted art director at Leo Burnett, handled all of the graphic design. The whole thing turned out great except for one thing — my dove left me.
She tried to support and encourage me, and while I tried to not burden her with all of the stress I was going through, I think she began to feel less connected. I wasn't around as much to scratch her back and rest my head on her lap and sing her little made-up songs on the spot. Until I started producing that was our bread and butter, but as I was around less, she started going out more. At the end of August in 2003 she left me — and even though it hurt a lot, I bless the day I met her, and I bless her for helping me get back into producing.
That's about it.
About Cherry Bomb
The story of the Free CD and the Free DVD is really unimpressive, but I wish to tell it here simply because in past interviews writers always seem to get some portion of the facts wrong. But I guess I also want to tell the story so that the reader understands how the Free CD and the Free DVD are a natural extension of my life's experiences.
It all goes back to 1990 when I was a sophomore in high school at St. Francis de Sales in Toledo, Ohio. St. Francis was an all-boys Catholic school, and there I started to have conversations with a classmate named Mark Bickle after I overheard him singing "Love that Muddy Water" by the Standells. That was an oldies song, and all my life up to that point I thought I was the only kid who preferred 50's and 60's music to contemporary rock. Mark told me that he played guitar, and during our junior year, he told me about his new band "The Sprags," and invited me to come out to one of their practices.
I joined Mark to see them practice — and behold — it changed my life. I immediately fell in love with their music and became friends with the other members of the band, Scott Hunt and Dusty Whitman. Their music was so inspiring to me — and they were in love with the same rock and roll as I — but they were making it new all over again.
After attending a few more practices, the band offered me the position of manager, where it would be my job to get them gigs and to handle the promotion. I eagerly took on the job, but soon discovered that in the music business there were many layers of resistance. I couldn't get the band gigs at the local bars because no one knew who they were, and I couldn't get them a following because there were no venues willing to give them a break. I also tried getting The Sprags airplay on the local radio stations, but again was turned down as I soon learned that corporate radio had a tight and exclusive relationship with the record labels — at least — that was the case in the early 1990's.
Nevertheless, furthering The Sprags became my mission. I was totally obsessed as I fired-off multiple promotional ideas — only to have them all shot down one after the other. I wanted the world to delight in the experience of their music as much as I had, but in looking back I can really see how I must have appeared to my friends, family and the band. The more I hyped up The Sprags the less convincing I became to their cause. And when all you deal in is hype, with little results, people soon tune-out everything you say.
In the fall of 1992 I left Toledo to attend Miami University. Mark Bickle also left Toledo — and The Sprags disbanded. During my freshman year I soaked up a lot of Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan, but I still couldn't get The Sprags off my mind. In January of 1993 Scott and Dusty came down from Toledo, and Mark Bickle came up from Clemson University in South Carolina. We had a little weekend reunion in my dorm — it was a blast —; and it laid the groundwork for the Sprags to reunite that spring — and for me to resume being their manager.
After spending the summer in Toledo and helping The Sprags get shows, I returned to Miami. As a first order of business I approached the local clubs to see if I could get the band a gig. But again, like with the Toledo bars, the club owners wouldn't showcase an unknown band, especially at Miami, where the majority of bands were Grateful Dead noodlers. This then made me think of producing a compilation CD of local Miami bands where I could feature The Sprags and hopefully build-up their local following.
The undertaking was enormous — and I remember lying in bed looking up at the ceiling of my dorm. I was wrestling with the idea of whether I could make it happen when all of a sudden I simply said, "yes." Saying that changed everything, and even though I didn't know who would be on it, who would record it, where it would be recorded, and how I'd pay for it, I believed it would happen, and truly, I did it all for The Sprags.
The disc came out in April of 1994 and The Sprags had the first song. I had them record their song "Subtle Rock 'N' Roll" which in part was about how as their manager I was just a "Rich boy with time on my hands going out and fittin' mold" and how at one point I must have said that "My dad could buy [The Sprags] a little rock 'n' roll with some stock that he sold." I wanted them to record that song because it spoke to how the band didn't respect me, and how on some level I was dealing with that irony.
But through the process of making that first compilation, I acquired the skills to produce The Sprags' first album two months later, "Neighborhood Sounds," for which, incidentally, my dad sold stock to finance. By the way, during the first semester of my junior year I got The Sprags several shows at Miami. I even illegally entered them into a local "Battle of the Bands" competition. They rolled into town from Toledo, played their set, and left with the $500 first place prize. That was a beautiful day.
For my junior year at Miami I wasn't sure if I could make a second "Music of Miami" compilation CD. I paid for the first disc by getting the bands to chip in, and by getting the student organization Miami Marketing Enterprises to cover the rest. But I didn't want to go that route again. So while trying to think of a solution, I hit upon the idea of selling advertising in the CD booklet. This would cover the production costs, and in turn, every disc I sold would be pure profit. I then drew up a little proposal and went to all of the college shops. I showed them the disc I made the previous year to let them know I knew what I was doing — and I sold all of the ads to cover the production costs. It worked.
But at the same time I thought of selling ads to cover the costs, I also thought of what would happen if I sold more in advertising than the total costs, and then have all the discs be given away for free through the businesses that advertised. Sure, I would make less money than if I sold the discs, but at the same time, the Free CD would emerge as a publication that could really be an effective way for bands to build their followings. Now all of this was in the days before the internet and just at the cusp of when CD replication prices started to fall. So certainly, everything seemed perfect. That spring break, instead of going on some college trip, I went home to Toledo and visited all of the clubs and record stores where I used to go and promote The Sprags. In five days I sold $4000 in advertising to pay for the "Music of Toledo" Free CD. It was a success.
That summer I dropped out of college and moved to Chicago. I came with the expectation of revolutionizing the music scene. I didn't know a soul except my brother who had moved out three months before me. I started attending shows and meeting bands — and at the same time I went out to meet local business owners. For two years in Chicago I made four local "Music of Chicago" Free CDs. It was mildly successful, but it took so long getting everything organized. I became despondent, and in that, I somehow made myself available to God. I remember sometimes saying this prayer before going to sleep: "God, if you exist, show me, and bring me in line with your will."
After several months of this, and after a string of chance encounters with Christians who possessed in their eyes some sort of happiness I didn't have, I felt the desire to start going to Church, and if there's one thing about my personality — when I do something — I do it 100%. So, in December of 1996, like a good Catholic boy, before going to Church after a seven year absence, I went to Confession. It was there in the old—school confessional, being fully sincere to the priest in recounting my sins, that my physical body was overcome with an electric, invigorating sensation. It is a hard to explain — like the feeling of how your arm feels when it falls asleep — but there is no feeling of pain — and instead of pins and needles coming down on you, it feels more like pins and needles shooting out of you. And instead of your arm feeling cold and flaccid, you feel warmth and in total possession of your movement.
When this sensation started to build within me, for a moment I was scared, but then I somehow figured out that this was God's way of saying he was real and that what I was doing was good. My chest seemed fuller — as if it was filled with warm air pushing out in all directions, and after the priest gave me my penance of ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Mary's, I went into the pews. There, the fire-like electric sensation continued to build and flow through me like heavy waves of indescribable peace and good humor. It made me quietly laugh and cry at the same time. But even more interesting — my hands — they felt like flamethrowers. I remember holding them up to the lights on the rafters to see if I could see the flames that I was feeling. I didn't see anything, but I was reminded of the Bible story where God called Elijah to service. Elijah said no because his habit of cursing made him unworthy, but God sent an angel with a burning coal from heaven to be placed on Elijah's tongue. The coal from heaven then burned off Elijah's desire to swear. In the same way, I felt like God was taking away — burning off — many unhealthy habits in my life to prepare me for a greater mission.
In the year that followed I closed down my record label (Simon Seng Records) and started preaching to friends and bands in Chicago about their need to repent and convert. Furthermore, I felt like I should explore becoming a priest, so I went back to Miami University for one semester to finish off my business degree. With that under my belt I applied to the Diocese of Toledo for affiliation as a seminarian. This process took one year, where in the meantime I moved back home with my parents and attended the University of Toledo for courses in Philosophy and Theology.
In the fall of 1999 I entered seminary at St. Meinrad's School of Theology in southern Indiana. I was under the instruction of Benedictine monks — and they were all pretty old school — with the black hooded robes and the life of sacrifice. My days were filled with fellowship, meditation, and study. It was a great experience.
After completing my first year I went home for two weeks before being sent to Creighton University for a summer at the Institute of Priestly Formation. On the day I returned to Toledo I called up a friend from Miami University to join me for Shabbat services at a Messianic Jewish synagogue. These folks are otherwise known as "Jews for Jesus" and I wanted to go to convert these newborn Christians to Catholicism. But there, I met a very beautiful girl from White Russia (Belarus). Her name was Irina but I inadvertently knick named her Treblinka as I was mimicking the sound of her voice (Russian girls sound like kittens purring). In didn't occur to me until later that Treblinka was the name of a Nazi concentration camp. Somehow the name was stuck in my mind from research I performed weeks earlier on a theology paper arguing against Pope Pius the 12th's canonization (the pope allowed several hundred Catholic priests to wear the German uniform as chaplains). But yeah, she looked at me like I was everything — and made me feel so many things I had forgotten how to feel. We had so much fun those two weeks — and all the while I was trying my best to not give into the feelings I was having for her. It was torture. So many times we would go out for walks. I couldn't hold her hand unless we were praying so I made sure we prayed a lot. It was so sweet and innocent.
On the drive to Creighton University, which is in Omaha Nebraska, I wanted to crash my car so that I would have to be rushed home and she would get to take care of me. After I told this to my spiritual director he said that if he was this girl's older brother he would not let me get within 100 feet of her. He said that my conscious self was out of touch with my feelings — and that I needed to integrate the two — which was great advice. But in defense of my repressed self, when you take on a duty (like becoming a priest), you have to sublimate sexual feelings. Some people on the celibate path are able to do this successfully, and others aren't. In the end, I discerned I'm better suited for marriage. Furthermore, on an almost secret, unconscious level entering the seminary was an escape from the depression I had over not being an overnight success when I first moved to Chicago in 1995. If I had been, I probably would have never found Jesus, so to speak.
After Creighton that summer I left the seminary and moved back to Toledo. Things between Treblinka and I didn't work like I hoped, so I moved back to Chicago to see if I could possibly make it as an advertising copywriter. I entered the Chicago Portfolio School in January of 2001. The environment was the opposite from where I had just come, but I found that the two disciplines share in common the need for self-knowledge. Christianity encourages people to understand their humanity, likewise, copy writing focuses on finding and playing off of simple human truths with which we can all relate.
I worked on my portfolio for several months, but jobs in the industry started drying up, especially after September 11. Instead, I focused my energy on writing and recording an album for this new girl I was completely obsessed with. I fell in love with her the day I met her and she had no idea of the extent to which I was investing my time and energy. After I finished writing these torch songs, I called my old friend Scott Hunt from The Sprags and he produced my album in his studio in Toledo. (If you want to hear a few songs, or maybe buy my album, visit the Subscription page.)
When I returned from Toledo I was able to spend an evening with my muse. We were hanging out at my apartment and she was sitting on the edge of my bed. I pulled out my guitar and asked if I could play her some of the songs I had written for her. She said yes, and as I was playing her my songs, she saw how much I loved her and her eyes changed to "yes." It was the greatest accomplishment of my life — to win her love — and for the time we dated I was the happiest man on earth. But before I delve into how things turned out, I want to also make a mention of my roommate in Chicago.
His name was John E. Gilun. He was 88 years old when I met him randomly through the "Roommate Wanted" section of the Chicago Reader. He was old, smelly and wrinkly, but he had such a spirit about him. He told me about his life — how he had survived internment in a Nazi labor camp, how he knew 12 languages, how he had a Ph.D in Catholic Theology and a Masters in Psychology, and how he even passed on to a Jewish Lithuanian baker a fake baptismal certificate so he could escape capture by the Nazis. He was a very virtuous, educated and spiritual person — and as we continued talking, I was convinced that the opportunity to live with John was a great and intended gift.
I moved in the next week and it was like I never left seminary — like I was still on track with my religious formation. We constantly discussed philosophy and the meaning of God and Christ. It was amazing — and his perspective was completely opposite of my hyper-conservative leanings from before. I was his last student — and I believe his being there for me was pre-ordained by God.
Another topic we frequently discussed was the Palestinian / Israeli conflict. I came to Chicago thinking that Palestinians simply needed to realize that the Jews were God's "Chosen People" and that the world had to understand that the land — the Promised Land — belonged to the Jews. The Hebrew Scriptures can support this claim — and when these verses of domination fall on the ears of a predominately Christian America — little objection is ever offered. However, John used these very scriptures to teach me how God operates on a level of virtue, not on a level of tribalism, and how modern day Israel has strayed from the higher path to one of greed, hypocrisy, fear and oppression. And still, he also taught me how these struggles within Judaism are metaphors for the struggles and choices we all face every day as individuals. He died on January 1st, 2004.
I take the lessons of John Gilun with me as I produce issues of the Cherry Bomb Free DVD. I hope for it to grow so that one day, month after month, millions of average Americans — millions of average American voters — can be exposed to short films that humanize the Palestinians and reveal the agenda behind Israel's occupation and annexation of Palestine. In my estimation it is so sad to see the people who had endured the Holocaust project their agony unto a peaceful people — and to provoke them to wrath. Yet still, I will also always show an equal amount of films from the Israeli point of view. My goal is to convert the status quo — and the best way to do this is to be sincere and fair.
One more thing on this topic — when I was studying philosophy at the University of Toledo back in 1998, I approached a "Muslim Awareness Booth" in the student union. I got into an argument with about twenty young Muslim men — I was explaining to them that Israel is ordained by God and that the Palestinians at best can only expect to live on the edges of the Promised Land. When I said that to their faces I was preparing to die as a martyr. I looked expecting to see them boiling over, but all I saw was a still and deep sadness. They really felt like they failed to reach me as one human being would touch another. We parted peacefully, and then the next day I got a phone call from one of their student leaders — she had for me a gift — a copy of the Koran.
Okay, back to my dove and how the Free DVD came about. The girl whose heart I won moved me so deeply. I was going to Church at the time — and for so long I imagined courting her hand for marriage as Christian gentleman — but when the opportunity presented itself for me to get physical with her — I went for it — and interestingly enough — the same electrified Spirit that came over me in the Confessional years before was drilling into my conscience. But on that night I told God to go away — and to let me have this woman. I took her — and it felt great — but my faith has been in pieces since. Truly I used to be a sweet thing — with gentle eyes that saw in every person that which made us all equally beautiful to God. But now I am confused, depressed and selfish.
With God not at the center of our relationship I think it was doomed to fail. Now there are a lot of successful relationships that pay no heed to God — and that's what I was going for with my dove — but I guess I wasn't collected enough to pull it off. Religion had affected my equilibrium too much for me to ever go back like it was never there. For the first nine months of our relationship I held a day job as a temp. I hated the work — it was really killing me — but I loved coming home to my dove. She inspired me so much — she really made me feel strong and capable — even to the point of wanting to tackle my old fears that I had failed as a producer of the Free CD.
Soon, I was telling her all of my old stories about producing Free CDs and how I had a ten-year-old idea for applying the same concept to the DVD. I thought of the Free DVD very shortly after I started work on the Free CD. It came while watching a television show about how in the near future everyone would have cell phones, would do office work on the beach and would play movies stored on discs called DVDs that looked identical to CDs.
This stunned me — and I immediately saw the potential — I immediately saw the future - but the technology was still so far off — making DVDs was very expensive and no one owned any of the DVD players. But about a year and a half ago that all changed — and that was when I looked at my dove and told her I wanted to invent a career for myself that matched my skills and would provide for her a nest that we would use to raise our children — so for me — in my classic style - that meant nothing less than creating an entirely new category of media from scratch. And in this, she tried hard to support me.
I started work on the first Free DVD in February of 2003 — and boy was I scared. I called some manufactures to find out what the total cost would be to make 1000 DVD-5s. With that amount in mind (in addition to some other estimated costs) I determined a total amount that I would need to generate through selling twenty, 30-second commercials onto the DVD. At the time I didn't know any filmmakers or DVD authoring specialists. All I knew was that there were hundreds of businesses in Chicago I could keep asking until I sold all of the ads. Coincidentally, I started selling ads that day in March when our U.S. ground forces rolled into Iraq. I was so nervous and out of practice — stuttering and stammering — trying to sell an ad while at the same time trying to explain the Free DVD concept. It was a total disaster. I failed with the first 15 businesses I approached, and was on the verge of giving up when I walked into the World War II Quartermaster Depot on Milwaukee Ave. You have never seen a more happy business owner. America was on the war path in Iraq! I got myself together and pitched him my idea — he loved it — and with that first sale under my belt everything changed. It still took me another month to sell all twenty ads — but I'll never forget that first one.
Soon later I hooked up with Rusty Nails who helped curate the majority of shorts onto the first Cherry Bomb — and I found Thomas Horne — a good friend and gifted producer. I wrote the commercials and together over two days we filmed 11 of the 20 spots (the rest were made by other producers). Thomas then edited the commercials and authored the entire DVD. Another good friend of mine, Oscar Contreras, a gifted art director at Leo Burnett, handled all of the graphic design. The whole thing turned out great except for one thing — my dove left me.
She tried to support and encourage me, and while I tried to not burden her with all of the stress I was going through, I think she began to feel less connected. I wasn't around as much to scratch her back and rest my head on her lap and sing her little made-up songs on the spot. Until I started producing that was our bread and butter, but as I was around less, she started going out more. At the end of August in 2003 she left me — and even though it hurt a lot, I bless the day I met her, and I bless her for helping me get back into producing.
That's about it.
About Cherry Bomb
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for a great site design!