Our KKLA Financial Hope Seminar is this Saturday, February 19th, at the Glendale Hilton from 9am–1230pm. It's free but seating is limited, so pre-register at kkla.com.
400-408 – Lazarus Yeghnazar, and his wife Maggie, are the Founders of 222ministries.org (2 Tim 2:2) a ministry to the persecuted Christians in Iran and to Iranian Christians around the world. They are big names in Christianity in the Middle East, from providing television and radio programming, to internet websites and resources, to hosting conferences and equipping secret seminaries. They are good friends with Hormoz Shariat and Joel Rosenberg, and several other guests of my show. Lazarus even got the chance to pray with the American hostages back in 1979. They also produced the wonderful DVD, "The Bible: the Verdict of History" (link)
413-423 – Lazarus Yeghnazar,
428-437 – Lazarus Yeghnazar,
443-452 – Lazarus Yeghnazar,
458-508 – Lynn Edgington founder-president of Eagle Research Associates warns us of the latest scams and rip-offs (eagleresearchassociates.org, 949-837-6078). His new book is out, entitled Robbing You With a Keyboard Instead of a Gun. Today we talk about "cash gifting" that is targeting Christians specifically, e.g. "The Master's Plan." They quote Bible verses, say it goes to "build the Kingdom," etc., all the right stuff, even Title 26 of the Tax Code saying it's legal. The problem is, it is very illegal. The idea is to send cash to four or five people, they will tell you who, and in return a bunch of others will send you cash. For example, you put in $50, you'll get back $200. Lots of Christians are falling for this. Before you get involved with anything that might sound fishy, contact Lynn.
• Lynn is doing a free seminar tomorrow night (THU 2/17) at Saddleback Church in Room 404 from 7-900pm entitled "Robbing You With A Keyboard - Why Your Money Is At Risk and How To Protect It." Click here for more info.
512-523 – Lynn Edgington
528-539 – Mike Broyles, has been pastor of Grace Baptist Church (gracebaptist.org) in Santa Clarita for the past 23 years, but he's stepping down March 31, and will joining the AWANA Lifeline program (awana.org) helping local churches get more involved in Prison Ministry. Mike needs 7 churches in greater LA to partner with him now that Sheriff Lee Baca has opened the doors of the 7 jails in LA. You can contact him through the church.
544-554 – (:49) Achy-Breaky Heart.
(1:12) Cyrus E! Online. (Ashlan Gorse reporting for E! News Now @ 2/15/2011.)
• Daily Mail (1/31/2011) Miley Cyrus voted worst role model for young girls... by young girls themselves.
•• Chris Heath (GQ, March 2011) Mr. Hannah Montana's Achy Broken Heart.
// After the first two seasons he felt things changing. "The business was driving a wedge between us," he says. He tells me that he has never been able to discipline his kids and that he now wonders whether that was a mistake. "How many interviews did I give and say, 'You know what's important between me and Miley is I try to be a friend to my kids'? I said it a lot. And sometimes I would even read other parents might say, 'You don't need to be a friend, you need to be a parent.' Well, I'm the first guy to say to them right now: You were right. I should have been a better parent. I should have said, 'Enough is enough—it's getting dangerous and somebody's going to get hurt.' I should have, but I didn't. Honestly, I didn't know the ball was out of bounds until it was way up in the stands somewhere."//
// "You know what, there's no doubt I did stuff when I was a teenager that I'm sure could have turned out horribly," he agrees. "I've done some stupid crap—I do stupid crap. We all do. But it's different when you sit back and you see it happening to your little girl. I feel like I got to try. It's my daughter. And some of these handlers are perhaps more interested in handling Miley's money than her safety and her career."
I ask what kind of communication he and Miley are able to have at the moment. "Good enough to know that it could be a lot better," he says. "I'm scared for her. She's got a lot of people around her that's putting her in a great deal of danger. I know she's 18, but I still feel like as her daddy I'd like to try to help. Take care of her just a little bit, to at least get her out of danger. I want to get her sheltered from the storm. Stop the insanity just for a minute. When you go through what she's been through, it takes a beating on you. And there comes a point where you just got to step back. That's how I ended up out here." He is talking about when he first bought this house in the early '90s. "I stepped back. I was supposed to go and do another world tour. I said no. I canceled my tour...//
// Cyrus shows me pictures of Miley on the same wall, when she would run onstage as an infant, collect the roses. "One more thing about Kurt—Kurt was one of those guys. That's why I'm concerned about Miley. I think that his world was just spinning so fast and he had so many people around him that didn't help him. Like Anna Nicole Smith—you could see that train wreck coming. I was actually trying to reach out to Anna Nicole Smith, because I kept telling Tish and everybody around me, going, 'This is a disaster.' Michael Jackson—I was trying to reach out to Michael Jackson. I knew he had kids, and I was going to invite his kids down to a taping of Hannah—I just felt it would be good for Michael. I don't know why. I met Michael one time at the Grammys. He sat in front of me, in the front row, and a dime rolled out from under and hit my boot—this very boot I've got on—and I reached down and picked up this dime, and looked, he was going through his pockets, and I said, 'Are you looking for this?' 'Thank you.' And he took that dime and put it back in his pocket. I looked at my manager, I just said, 'Why did Michael Jackson have a dime?...' Nobody could tell me."
I point out to him that the examples he's just given—Kurt Cobain, Anna Nicole Smith, Michael Jackson—are all pretty terrifying. Does he really think Miley is in that kind of situation?
"I don't know. I'm her daddy so maybe I'm a little sensitive to it, but now's a real good time to make sure everything's okay. An ounce of prevention's worth a pound of cure." //
558-608 –
// While acclaim and derision were racing his way, his private life was far from uncomplicated. In the spring of 1992, as "Achy Breaky Heart" exploded, two women were pregnant with his children. "Oh, my gosh, it was a mess," he says, "because the truth was I just really knew I loved Tish." The other woman bore him a son, Christopher Cody, that April. Tish bore him a daughter in November, a girl whose name had come to her father during the pregnancy. "I had a vision, a dream. I said, 'My intuition has told me that that little girl, her name should be Destiny Hope Cyrus, because I feel like it's her destiny to bring hope to the world.' " That was what she was christened. Fortunately for her, the name didn't stick. She was an unusually cheerful baby, and her parents instead began to refer to her as "Smiley," a name that, over time, lost its initial letter.
He and Tish married the following year, when she was pregnant with their son, Braison. They would have a third child, their daughter Noah, six years later, and Cyrus would also adopt the two young children, Brandi and Trace, from Tish's previous life. (Cyrus had previously been married in his twenties, but the couple had no children.) //
•• // And then there's God.
"Somewhere along this journey," he says, "both mine and Miley's faith has been shaken. That saddens me the most." When they first came to Hollywood for Hannah Montana, the two of them would drive down the freeway together to the studio each morning, and every day Miley would point out the sign that said
ADOPT-A-HIGHWAY
ATHEISTS UNITED
Just before moving out to Los Angeles, the whole family had been baptized together by their pastor at the People's Church in Franklin, Tennessee. "It was Tish's idea," he remembers. "She said, 'We're going to be under attack, and we have to be strong in our faith and we're all going to be baptized...'" And there, driving to work each day in the City of Angels, was this sign. "A physical sign. It could have easily said 'You will now be attacked by Satan.' 'Entering this industry, you are now on the highway to darkness...'"
Do you really see it in such clearly spiritual terms—that your family was under attack by Satan?
"I think we are right now. No doubt. There's no doubt about it."
And why is that happening?
"It's the way it is. There has always been a battle between good and evil. Always will be. You think, 'This is a chance to make family entertainment, bring families together...' and look what it's turned into."
Hannah Montana probably has brought a lot of families together—just not one...
"Yeah. I know. I know. I know."
And do you see the show as a big part of what has made things not work in your family?
"Oh, it's huge—it destroyed my family. I'll tell you right now—the damn show destroyed my family. And I sit there and go, 'Yeah, you know what? Some gave all.' It is my motto, and guess what? I have to eat that one. I some-gave-all'd it all right. I some-gave-all'd it while everybody else was going to the bank. It's all sad."
Do you wish Hannah Montana had never happened?
"I hate to say it, but yes, I do. Yeah. I'd take it back in a second. For my family to be here and just be everybody okay, safe and sound and happy and normal, would have been fantastic. Heck, yeah. I'd erase it all in a second if I could." //
612-623 – (1:08) Best of Both Worlds, the theme song of Hannah Montana. Calls – Former kids, do you wish your parents had been your parents instead of your buddies? How has their parenting influenced your parenting, meaning, did you learn what not to do? Those of you in the business, what's your advice about dealing with celebrity kids? Do any of you blame Disney, or MLB, or the secular world for being profit motivated?
628-639 – Calls
644-655 – Calls
