Tickets to Man in the Moon are available HERE, and you can get a copy of Eye of Moloch HERE
My job as I see it hasn't been a job in quite some time. I am finally at the point in my life where I don't need the money and I don't, I don't care. I just want to try to do the right thing. And I will tell you that my mind and my body tell me, go away. Just go away. And to go away with my family is tempting beyond anything else. I was offered fame and fortune, prestige and honor and instead I threw that away and now my next temptation, my family. Give your wife, give yourself what you too really want: Time. Time with each other. Time with the kids. Time to watch my daughter's ballet recital without fighting sleep. To not fight sleep on the drive home, try to be awake and just savor every moment on the way home with her and watch her tell the story of every hand gesture and every dance step over and over again. To watch my first grandchild growing inside of my daughter, teach Mary, my oldest, the law stories of history that she loves so and she craves from me so much. To teach my son courage and watch him grow into the man he was born to be, just time. Just take the time. Live in the magic of life. The darkness whispers its lies. But these are not those times. And we are not meant to be just those people. We are meant for so much more. And each of us have a gift that no one else has, and it's our duty to find it and share it in the venue of our lives.
Most of my life I didn't know what my gift was, and I certainly didn't see a purpose behind it if I did. A recent gift of mine in the last ten years has been to be able to see over the horizon just a bit. A watchman at the gate. Many days I have to remind my selves ‑‑ myself of its properties. Because many times it doesn't feel like a gift; it feels more like a curse. But gift it is. And for a long while I didn't know how to couple it with the gift I love. This one I truly love. It is the gift of storyteller. And I got it from my grandfather. Heaven to me, heaven to me will be able to be to sit with my grandfather under a tree with my family and just remember, to study and watch, watch him weave the stories of life for all those to hear and maybe even a few that will really even listen.
My first real attempt as a professional storyteller, I guess, was The Christmas Sweater, the story of faith and redemption. And while it is now in the millions sold category, the story in my life is still being written.
I wrote a new story I haven't told you about over the last holiday season. I hope I'll be able to share it with you Christmas 2014 called The Immortal. It's a story that just may change the way many of us look at the season and its meaning.
Overton Window was my first novel of warning. Millions read and found new insight on the fight for freedom. And now it's followup. The Eye of Moloch is out this week. It's a story I walked on for about four years with a very talented writer named Jack Henderson. Now, Jack is funny because here's a guy that the New York Times, I believe it was, said he was the next Clancy. He's a brilliant, brilliant writer. Every word from him is inspired... until he penned his words to my story without his name on it, the Overton Window. And suddenly writing under my name, he went from a new legend to sudden hack. We laughed privately at the things they said about his writing skill, thinking that it was mine, and then we just buckled down and we went to work on The Eye of Moloch. It's taken us four years because it was a hard story to write and not a lot of people really believed in it except for Kevin and Jack and me. No one will believe it, they told us. It's too unbelievable. The government, intentionally allowing had your border to fall into the hands of drug lords? Americans having to abandon their border property because it's out of control? The media falling in love with an abuser government, only to be abused by those same government officials they have intellectually married and then they go and protect them because they promised that they are not going to abuse them anymore and they'll change? "Nobody is going to believe this." That's what they told us four years ago. The government used the NSA and the surveillance tools to spy on us and then criminalize American citizens that speak out against the corrupt system. And, of course, no one would believe that many government agencies would not only be involved but then would create their own national police force to keep the peace as the world fell into chaos. The ramblings of a madman. Crazy, right? Until last week when this little story that no one believed in became the little engine that could and the story became true, although still a story that not a lot of Americans believe in. Our friends and family, the ones we just can't convince, right?
This summer is an important one for me for many reasons that you will come to understand in the next few months, whether you agree or not and this July I turn a page for my entire company. Many of my own employees don't yet understand where my company is headed, but let me fill them and you in on it. Mercury Radio Arts and the American Dream Labs and TheBlaze boils down to one thing: We're storytellers. Be it news or fiction based in fact, television, film, Internet, TV or radio, whether it's clothing, new high‑tech, or music, I have built a company that is uniquely equipped to use the hard facts and the truths that helped build this country and tell the story of what man has done and what they can yet do to become a beacon of light and hope for all the world to see. It is, I believe, what Walt Disney felt he was supposed to do in the 1950s.and while he was alive, that's exactly what they did. From Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, to Johnny Tremain. And here's the amazing thing: Hollywood hated him for it. It may not seem like it now, but he was an outcast even until the day he died. I intend on picking that outcast torch up, where it has been left unattended for so long. If we as a country and a culture wish to survive, we must tell our story. Hollywood and our educational system is not going to do it, and NASA quite frankly is too busy telling other cultures their stories. So we must do it. And this Fourth of July we begin on a new dynamic style, one that is unique and we have not seen anywhere near this scale anywhere in the world. For three days this summer, we will gather. We will teach, expose, share, help those who are less fortunate, laugh, cry, and inspire. For 72 hours I'm going to invite you, and already have, to join my family to create those memories of hope and courage that I believe none will ever forget. On the final day, June 6th, my first multimedia stage experience debuts in Salt Lake City. It's called the Man in the Moon. And quite honestly, I have poured every remaining dime that I have into this production in the single hope of not making the money back but in the single hope that your child and mine will never look at themselves or our history or the moon the same ever again. It is I believe the single best thing I have ever done and I am blessed to have found even better storytellers than I am, filmmakers, digital artists, visionaries in the art of animatronics, sound and music. And the original music you've been hearing this half‑hour is a taste of the score. The number one question I get in the e‑mail right now is what is the Man in the Moon. Nobody seems to know, and yet 20,000 people have trusted me enough to book a flight and buy a ticket. We are humbled by your trust.
A quick note on the story: It came from an idea I had just before we met at Cowboys Stadium in the final Restoring Love event, born out of frustration as I looked up in prayer and said, how does our story end? No reply, I thought. And just then in my search for the greatest books that should be preserved, I found a very old and dusty book simply entitled the Man in the Moon. The story of the man, his planet, and the country that changed it all. We have never found another copy, but it starts like all good books do: In the beginning. And as I read it sitting on the floor, turning its yellow and brittled pages, the words spoke to me of truth, beauty, and love, magic spilled from its pages. I warn you, as we have set it into production, you may not like the ending too much, for some of it is dark and frightening. But you will find unexpected joy which is true to life. It is the story of our darkest nights and our brightest days. There is still yet a hedge should we choose. There is the story of the Man in the Moon. This is our quest, and the question of our age: Which do you choose? I choose light. I choose to believe again. I choose to inspire, to give courage, to correct truths and do such, in such a way that the memory becomes almost magic as it weaves into the fabric of our children's hearts, where it will remain there as a self‑evident truth until such a time they will need to be called on.
We could go away and plant a small farm for me and my family, or we could tell the stories of truth and believe, again.