Hello there, YouTube!
You may have noticed that we've merged Ascension Presents channels
as me and Father Mike are currently in the same frame.
—Yes, I am Father Mike and this is Ascension Presents. (Maria laughs)
(Fr. Mike laughs)
—And the occasion is that it is the one year anniversary of Ascension Presents!
So we've very excited about that.
—Yeah, super good.
—So we're sitting on my porch. — Happy anniversary. Anniversary coffee.
—Cheers —Prost. (Clink)
—So in honor of this, it only seemed fitting to have Father Mike come
and sit on my front porch here in West Chester.
All right. (New York accent) How do you like to take your coffee?
—Black, like my clothes. (Maria laughs)
—ba-dum-ch! (Fr. Mike laughs) Bwa-bwah — Yeah, I drink my coffee black now.
But I didn't always drink my coffee black.
In fact, I used to never drink coffee because as a kid I always thought coffee
should taste like hot chocolate because it was hot and dark
and I would taste it and it had no chocolate in it.
It just tasted like dirt surrounded by water, so I didn't like coffee.
— That's upsetting. — Yeah, seriously.
I hated it until my last year of seminary. I said I need to start drinking coffee
because I know what's going to happen. As a priest, I'm gonna go to people's houses
and they're gonna say, "Father, would you like some coffee?"
And I don't want to be the guy who's like, (Maria laughs) "No, no. I don't drink coffee,"
because then— those people, snooty. (Maria laughs)
What happens is we go to pray outside of an abortion clinic on Friday afternoons,
pray a Rosary and then I walk down to the Starbucks and spend the whole night,
just kind of going through the books and stuff and sipping on a caramel macchiato—
was what I would drink. — So a glorified milkshake?
— Whoa my gosh! I'm like, "I like coffee now. This is crazy."
And I will talk to my friends like, "I like coffee now." They're like, "You don't like coffee."
Like, "No, I'm drinking coffee." [They're] like, "You're not drinking coffee.
You're— — Drinking sugar.
— Sugar, exactly. But I thought like, "No, this is coffee," so I started drinking those.
And then we have Caribou Coffee in Minnesota and other places
and they had white chocolate mochas and so I thought, "Well, I'm going to drink white chocolate mochas."
So that was the thing.
And I would meet with students and I probably would have (Maria laughs) anywhere between
one to four white chocolate mochas every day
and so I'm like, "This is good though." —Were you even more wired?
Like you have so much— — I don't remember.
A lot of it just kind of— —You blacked out? (Maria laughs)
— (Fr. Mike laughs) It's a blur. (both laugh)
But I remember thinking like, "But, it's coffee. I think coffee has no calories, right?"
(Maria laughs) I mean I really thought that was the thing.
— Did you put on weight? (Maria laughs)
—No! So OK, but I did—
Those things cost like four dollars a piece. I'm like, "I don't have any money left."
So December 7, 2007.
It's the last day I ever had a white chocolate mocha.
—You remember the date? — The exact date.
—Because? —Because that day...
— It was that traumatizing? — ...I went to Caribou and had a white chocolate mocha.
That night, I thought, "I'm gonna check out CaribouCoffee.com
(Maria laughs) and find out nutrition information
about the white chocolate mocha and I looked it up and I was like, "Oh my gosh. This is crazy!"
I think in a large, like full, there's something like 700 calories in one drink.
And I was having up to four of them. I'm like, "I'm not even hungry."
(Maria laughs) On some days, I would like just, "All I've had is coffee today. I'm not even hungry at all,"
because yeah, I've ingested 2,800 calories
and so then, that was the day. went to coffee, like black coffee.
—Just straight black. There was no transition? —Well, no. I put a lot of Splenda in there.
—Alright, alright. —And a lot of milk.
And now, a couple Lents ago, I said, "No sweetener," and then I just developed a taste for it.
— And here you are. — Yeah, no sweetener. Black, like my clothes.
—You've really come through—so it's a journey.
— I feel like an adult.
—OK, there's a rumor that you tried out for Robin. Is this true? Is this–?
—That is true. I was almost cast as Robin in the movie Batman Forever
Here's how the story went: So my oldest sister, she works in show business.
She works with wardrobe and different things and she came across this open casting call
for the part of Robin in the movie Batman Forever
and she's like, "Oh, you've liked Robin and Batman for your whole life so you should just try it,"
because they had it nationwide.
And so like, "OK, fine." I was like 20 or 21.
And so I drove down to the Twin Cities, St. Paul-Minneapolis, and they had an open casting call
and then they just kept on having callbacks
and they'd just kept weeding people out— —And you kept getting called back each time?
—Getting called back until they said that, "OK, we're down to the last 12 or last dozen of you
and we're gonna film you all and they had done some filming before
but we are going to film you all and send it to the director
and he's going to decide.
And so, we had to act out this scene.
I was with the casting director, assistant casting director, and this cameraman.
And the scene was like, "This Robin's gonna be like dark and brooding,
not like BAM POW but like really just emotions,
so we just need you to emote a bunch, just a lot of emotion. (Maria laughs)
And you're a teen coming home from work,
coming home from school and you have a fight with your mom," and the casting director is the mom.
So it's all angry, yelling at each other and stuff
but then, it went from yelling and being all mad to I was on my knees on the ground
and she's sitting in this chair, I'm crying and she's crying
and like, "But, Mom—" this and that. So it's all super dramatic.
— Did they tell you to do that or is that just you—? —No, it just like evolved.
We can emote, right? (Fr. Mike laughs)
So she's like, "OK, cut."
And she's crying and then the assistant director is crying and the cameraman is like (sniff), "That was good."
You know, kind of a thing.
And I'm like, "Wow, that was really cool."
And they were like, "That was great. Do you want also audition for another movie we're casting?"
I'm like, "Sure. That'll be great."
And so they said, "OK, this is a movie called Hackers."
And so a cool thing about that, though a) I didn't get cast in either part.
b) the interesting thing about the movie Hackers
is the part that I had auditioned for, the guy who got cast,
ended up having the part opposite Angelina Jolie as his female lead.
He ended up marrying her,
so I could have been the first ex-Mr. Angelina Jolie in the world.
—What an acclaim to fame. Could have been you! — Could have been me. Not only could have been Robin.
I could have been the ex-Mr. Angelina Jolie.
— But here you are ... — But here I am ...
—sitting on this porch, doing far better things. —which is very far better
with the St. Agnes parish cup, which I'm really glad to have.
—Back to the one year anniversary! We should talk about that.
— Happy anniversary.
— I think it's so neat how many countries this has been in.
I was looking today at our global reach. We've got viewers in Afghanistan...
— Yes, seriously — Sudan,
— United Arab Emirates and Ireland and Australia.
There's been some really incredible things about being able to work with you
and work with Ascension Presents
because I've gotten some emails from people that they were just touched by this
and this has been an incredible opportunity to be able to come in people's lives.
There was ... just one example.
I got an email from someone who said that they went to confession for the first time in like 45 years
because they had watched one of the videos and it just touched them ...
— I didn't know that one.
—And they heard about in their parish, they had something for The Year of Mercy
and said, "I need to do this," and they went. And I'm like, "Wha? That's crazy!"
That happened and there's story after story when it comes to that kind of thing.
Or someone who says, "My friends aren't Catholic. My friends aren't Christian, but I directed them to this video
and it totally made sense for them and now they're thinking more and more
about considering the claims of Jesus or the Catholic Church."
I'm like, "What?"
— It's cool, too. There's been ones like, "I'm a hardened atheist. I just subscribed to a Catholic priest."
It's been really cool to see and just some people are like, "I've just binge-watched everything."
"I brought this person, " this person will have all these questions
and they watched like 15 of your videos in a row and now they're in RCIA.
— It's really cool. That's really amazing. — It's cool. You just push submit
and then it, you know, the internet. — And it goes
— The internets! — It's the internet.
So, thank you because you guys make it happen.
So hopefully, there will be more of those stories this time next year.
So obviously today, we're merging channels of Caffeinated Conversations and Father Mike
but subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more and definitely tell your friends about it.
We want to reach as many of you as possible.
And then, there's also, of course, our website, AscensionPresents.com.
So, spread the word and keep following. Anything else?
From all of us here at Ascension Presents, my name is Father Mike. My name is Maria Mitchell.
God bless you, in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.
(Maria laughs) Boom. — Ciao.
(Minnesota accent) Oh gosh! Oh, don't cha know.
So out there in Minnesota, we got some—got a bunch of snow and it came down there.
Do you think that people don't really talk like this up there and not a lot of them do
but occasionally, you know?
(Wisconsin accent) Some of us are your Milwaukee neighbors, where I'm from,
you know it's really similar, don't you know?
So it's a bit of a mix. My pop shot a 30-point buck the other day.
(Fr. Mike laughs) After the Miller game, we went up and had some brewskis.
(Both laughing)
— Of course you did.