VIDEO: Bad Religion's Greg Graffin at Harvard

This week in the fishwrap, James Parker interviews Bad Religion's Greg Graffin and Harvard's humanist chaplain, Greg Epstein, en route to digging into the farce that is Ben Stein's Expelled. As it happens, Graffin was on hand last week to collect a "lifetime achievement award" in Humanism from Epstein's organization, and we toddled along with our camera to bring you some clips. No one missed the irony that the event was held at Harvard's gorgeous Memorial Church (Bad Religion? A bunch of God-denying humanists? In a chapel?), and there were times when we thought they spake a bit much. (Graffin was seen glancing at his watch during Epstein's 20-minute-plus introduction, but following that particular marathon, Graffin then went on to deliver a nearly-half-hour lecture of his own, before settling in at the mic to sing a few songs. We included the full take of "Live Again," just after a representative clip from Graffin's address, in which he talks about his philosophies of performance and education.

Graffin: super-nice dude, by the way. He brought family with him, including his dad, but as far as we could tell arrived on foot, by himself. In fact, we bumped into him on our way in and completely didn't recognize him -- the blazer, maybe, or the hairline, or fact that as he slipped in through the back door with a hot beverage, he stopped and introduced himself by saying, simply, "Hi, I'm Greg."

Afterwards, we spent about 30 minutes deconstructing the audience Q&A with Daniel Brockman, who was far wittier than we can summon right now. Perhaps we'll get him to weigh in on it at some point. There were three video cameras at the church; the one belonging to WGBH had sound issues, as did the one belonging to the documentary film crew, so ours may end up being the best footage extant, unless someone brought a camera phone.

READ: Springtime for Darwin: What Ben Stein, Bad Religion, and a physics professor from Quincy can tell you about where you came from. By James Parker.