alyMichael Lee is a true Reinassance Man, a study in seemingly impossible extremes in khakis and a polo.

He is equally at home penning poetry or swinging hard pre-flop with pocket jacks. He could give you a concise history of Middle Earth, or a concise history of Jazz Music, or, if that stretch of the 15 north of Barstow is just dragging on and on, a brief overview on quantum mechanics. Need an MD who can also give the band a little refresher on Supply Side Economics? Mike’s your man.

Michael A. Lee was raised in a small, backwoods hamlet named Camarillo, California. For those of you unfamiliar with words en espanol, allow me to inform you that it should be pronounced CAM-AH-REE-OH. Mike lived in Camarillo before it got isself all botoxed up into a full blown suburban yuppie wasteland. He lived there when it still smelled like cow poop and you could shoot raccoon from the back porch of your double-wide without the neighbors complaining. This was, unfortunately inadequate preparation for life in the untamed wilderness of Burbank.

As a young lad, he was a Bassoon-Slinging Boy Scout, and he had an imaginary Viking friend named Bjorn who accompanied him on his long and dangerous journey to the firey precipice of Mt. Nerdington. After graduating from Camahreeoh High School, Mike attended Azusa Pacific University, where he studied music theory and advanced bassoonery. In this rare photo from Mike’s private collection, you can see Mike on the upper right, proudly displaying his first true love, in all its honky, reedy glory. When time allowed, he also dabbled in piano playing. He has somehow, in recent years, schnookered his alma mater into giving him a “job”, where he “teaches classes.”

While he was an undergrad, he met someone who turned out to be a very special someone in his life; a person with whom he would share long, wistful looks, longing silences, walks upon moonlit beaches, and eventually, his bed.

That person, of course, was me.

Yes, Mike and I spent two consecutive summers making beautiful music and playing a spirited game of “Who Wants to be a Bigger, More Arrogant Prick,” as we traversed the country in a van (down by the river) with the APU logo on it’s side. On a side note, only Aly is qualified to determine who won our hotly contested, umm… contest, as she is the only remaining living impartial eyewitness. I remain confident that this guy came in third, with this guy finishing just out of medal contention. I do know for sure. that Mike still owes me five dollars from that one Starbucks run in Chicago that one time.

Oh yeah… while he was at APU, Mike also met this Gretchen person whom he schnookered into sharing a home and making children with him. Most who know Mike remain unsure of how, exactly, he pulled that off, but are glad he did.

In the many, many years (Mike is now weeks to the dark side of thirty) since those fleeting days of carefree youth, he has somehow found time to work with a dizzying array of musical talent, build a marriage, geek out at The Village, start a family, wreck a Saturn, start a blog, start another blog, schnooker Talbot Seminary out of a Master’s Degree, continue to swing hard pre-flop with pocket jacks, steal his friends precious time away by insisting on presenting them with asinine yet irrestible websites, and just be a generally stellar, if nerdy, human being.

His ideal Jeopardy Categories would be:

1) Bassoon-Playing Worship Leaders and The Women Who Love Them

2) Things That are Better When They’re Black ($200 question : What is coffee?. $800 question : What are bass players?)

3) Before and After (Elvish version only)

4) Hot Ladies of Scripture

5) Tracking, Baiting, and Trapping the Canadian White-Tailed Fundie

6) Republicans Named Dick

7) 1,001 Ways to Entertain a Congregation During a Tech Malfunction

8) Long, Important Sounding Words

(bio written by Chad)

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