The Wounded Mosquito

Juggling Chainsaws: The Official 2011 Post-Christmas Letter

2012-01-08T14:44:00.000-07:00

Dear friends, family, and random people who think I might still post to this blog from time to time,

In 2010, I posted to this blog 62 times. In 2011, I posted 17 times. Plus I haven't posted to my photo blog since April. Let's just say things have been a bit busy, and sometimes I feel like a circus performer who's trying to juggle one too many chainsaws.

In order to at least partially address this lack of activity, I have chosen to present my Post-Christmas Letter as a photo essay. Here's to the hope that I do a better job of honoring my obligation to report my every move to the all-powerful internets in 2012.

Without further ado, here is the Official 2011 Post-Christmas ~~Letter~~ Photo Essay:

In January I dragged my camera down to Utah County to shoot the Velour Music Gallery's 5th Anniversary Concert. Over the course of the evening I shot several acts, including Jennifer Blosil, The Neighbors, The Vibrant Sound, and The Imagine Dragons (pictured). It was one of the most exhaustive concert shoots I've been involved with, though because of the jam-packed crowd, I pretty much spent the entire evening camped out in one spot on the left side of the stage.

At the end of that month I became an uncle for the first time. My parents and I arrived at the hospital about fifteen minutes after my sister gave birth to my niece, and I caught this shot of her yawning as my mom and dad adjusted her small hospital-issued beanie. It was the first of many photos I would take of my niece through the coming year.

I took more than 1,000 shots during my first visit to the Holi Festival of Colors, held at the Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork, Utah last March. While there are other pictures I took that were better composed, sharper, or captured the iconic "face covered in colored chalk" images the festival is known for, I kind of prefer this image, taken at the first chalk throw of the morning. The expression on the face of the guy in the middle, skin still unsullied but not for long, just kind of says it all for me.

The flip side of the Holi Festival would have to be this image, taken just before the Sunday morning session of April's LDS General Conference in Downtown Salt Lake City. I usually like to go down and shoot at least one session a year, because the vast crowds of attendees and the homegrown street preachers usually make for some interesting juxtaposition. But this image, augmented by a brief snowstorm that only lasted for about five minutes, put everything else I shot that morning to shame. I wound up submitting it to the State Fair later in the summer, and wound up taking First Place in my division and a Judge's Choice Award. The photo is currently on a statewide tour with the Utah Arts Council.

Shooting in low-light has yielded some of my most frustrating and my most creative work. In April I tagged along with a couple of friends who were providing DJ services for a local youth dance, and spent the evening trying to find a way to get enough light into a scene to capture the mood of the event, while still catching enough sharpness to make the event recognizable. This image above is what I came up with. For the full effect, imagine this song playing in the background.

During that same month I photographed a benefit concert by ENZ and Heather's Headache for The Children's Home Society up at the Fort Douglas Post Theater on the University of Utah Campus. Initially I liked this photo because of the contrast of the sharpness of the bass player's right hand versus the motion blur of his left. But then I realized that by cutting his head out of the frame, I had unintentionally made a comment about the anonymity of bass players in general, and I liked it even more.

Thanks to an effort throughout the year to lose some weight and get into better shape, I came very close to participating in this event instead of shooting it. In fact, shooting the Race For the Cure was one of many events that made me wonder if I was missing out on all the fun by shooting events instead of participating in them directly. This in part led to me running my first 5K later that year, at the Undead Run in October at the Utah State Fairgrounds. As for this particular photo, I like it mainly for the juxtaposition of the super-intense runner at left, the moderately intense runners in the middle, and the nonchalant walkers on the far right. To me, that spectrum embodies the spirit of all benefit athletic contests.

Throughout the year I did a number of portrait shoots, but few were as fun as the shoot I did with longtime friend and collaborator Randall "Cheetahman" Pinson, out near the Great Saltair on the shores of The Great Salt Lake. The graffiti-covered train car and abandoned power station on the muddy shores of the lake have been used for so many portrait shoots that they've almost become a local cliche, but on this afternoon Cheetahman and I got a lot more by just using dramatic lighting.

Early in July, I tagged along with Cheetahman for his annual trip to Seattle for his Amazon.com vendors convention, and spent a few days taking in the sights of the Pacific Northwest (one shot I missed was the parade of naked bicycle riders who rode past my window at the Hard Rock Cafe one afternoon--you're welcome). This is one of my favorite shots from the trip, of one the locals taking a break on a Sunday afternoon at Seattle's Gasworks Park. As you might notice, it is not raining. In two trips to Seattle (covering about eight days of total visitation), I have experienced about fifteen minutes of rainfall.

For a city celebrated for bringing the world the music of Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana, one of the shameful shortcomings of our first trip to Seattle in the summer of 2010 was that Cheetahman and I failed to take in any live music. This year we remedied that issue by dropping by The Crocodile, a celebrated local club in the downtown area, to see Eternal Fair and Allen Stone (pictured). If this man ever becomes famous for setting his guitar on fire, marrying the crazed lead singer of an all-girl grunge band, or meets an untimely death at age 27 (I certainly hope not), I will be able to claim that I saw him perform "way back when."

In between out-of-state trips, I dragged the telephoto over to Main Street in Bountiful one Friday night to shoot the annual Days of '47 Parade, commemorating the arrival of the Mormon Pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley. The Bountiful City parade is a step down from the "official" parade in downtown Salt Lake, but still offers plenty of camera fodder. This shot of a lonely hobo clown making his way down the road just represents a special kind of comic isolation, I think. Of course, I've never been a volunteer hobo clown at a middle-america Pioneer Day parade, so what do I know?

July was a busy month. With my Seattle trip and Pioneer Day responsibilities behind me, I took off for my second home in Chicago to spend a week taking immersion courses in sketch comedy and improvisation at Second City. While there I decided to confront another fear by waltzing out onto one of the new glass-enclosed "sky ledges" that jut out from the Skydeck of the former Sears Tower (now Willis Tower) 100+ stories in the air. As apprehensive as I was to revisit my shortcomings in improvisational comedy, stepping out onto this ledge without holding onto anything but my camera was even more nerve-wracking.

The second night of my stay in Chicago, I dropped by Buddy Guy's Legends, one of the city's premier blues clubs, and enjoyed a cameo performance by the club's namesake. I got several shots of Buddy singing front and center with the band, but this shot of him smiling as he walked offstage under the blue lights of the club is the one I like best.

I don't know that this or any of the other shots I got during a pair of lightning storms in August will ever grace anyone's list of "great bad weather pictures," but it was fun to get out and get my first official lightning images. I'll also never forget standing out on the side of the road in West Kaysville, holding an umbrella over my camera in a rainstorm, wondering if I was about to get electrocuted for my troubles.

In all the years I've visited Yellowstone National Park, I've never made it into the park early enough to see the sunrise until this past August. Thanks to the persuasions of my roommate Paul, we got an early jump one morning and managed to see a side of the park I'd never experienced: the steam and mists of a supervolcano floating up and over the rivers and streams of the park in a haunting and beautiful way. At one point we pulled off to the side of the road and spent some time shooting as the sun came up over a mountain horizon and blended its light with the steam coming off the river. Fun, fun stuff. Even if I had to lose a little sleep to catch it.

There may not be any new photos of this event next year, because after photographing my friends participating in the annual Dirty Dash 5/10K run in Midway, Utah, I think I'd rather get in on the action myself. The object of this event is to get as muddy as humanly possible, as evidenced by the vast thirty-yard long, two-foot deep pool of mud and grime that participants have to wade, swim, or dive through in order to reach the finish line. I got this shot a little earlier along the route, as my friend Ben Baker chose to enjoy a little headfirst slide time and give me a facial expression that sums up the experience as well as anything I could write here.

Another shot that I love in spite of its technical shortcomings. After a cold night touring the Halloween-themed "Garden at Night" event at Salt Lake's Red Butte Gardens, I joined my sister, brother-in-law, and inverted niece for an impromptu family photo session. Just know that I could have made this post an entire album of shots of my niece, but didn't. You couldn't have blamed me if I did.

If there's a shot that embodies the spirit of the "Menace to Society" theme of this blog, it is this one. For the last few years, my birthday has become a convenient excuse to lure my longtime married friends from the comfort and responsibilities of their domesticated lives and make them spend time with their last, lonely single buddy (at least that's the excuse they give their wives). This year, after a hearty steak dinner at Texas Roadhouse, I drove across the street to Bountiful Bowl with a few friends to roll a couple of games and take a few pictures.

Early 2011 saw an excess of snow and rain, causing a lot of speculation from people who remembered the infamous "Floods of '83" that saw State Street turn into a river through downtown Salt Lake City. That summer was memorable for the volunteer effort to repairing flood damages and sandbag to prevent further problems. But while those floods never returned in 2011, this past year will be more remembered for the volunteer efforts that followed a hurricane-force windstorm that blew through Davis County on the first of December, leaving thousands of uprooted trees, overturned semi trucks and scattered debris in its wake. The following Sunday, church was canceled throughout the county as locals mobilized to get rid of the debris in fear of a follow-up windstorm that fortunately never came. To me and everyone else who was there, the word "Army" on this woman's sweatshirt says it all.

Once the debris was cleared, it was time to get back to more traditional December activities, like the annual Christmas lights display at Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City. One evening I drove over straight from work, bundled up in the hopes of averting the icy cold of the previous year that left my fingers so numb I could barely click the shutter on my camera. Thankfully, this year's expedition was a lot warmer than in previous years, so I was able to take my time trying to find a creative interpretation of the iconic lights display that surrounds the Salt Lake Temple. It was a great way to cap off a great year.

Of course, there was plenty that happened this past year that I didn't manage to catch on camera. One particularly vivid memory took place happened late one Saturday evening in December, at a cold pizza joint off 700 East and 400 South in Salt Lake.

For the previous hour I had been sitting with a dozen friends at a remote table in the restaurant, working on a pizza named after a heart condition that was so big its box obscured our entire table. By about 10:30 pm the pizza was finished, and most of the people had left, presumably to seek medication and repent of their sins. Only myself and two friends remained. One was Chidsey, a longtime friend who also directs video operations for the NBA's Utah Jazz. The other was Darrin, who mans one of Chidsey's video cameras on the court, and has developed a modest following as "that camera guy who does the techno-dance to warm up the crowd before player introductions."

As the clock made its way towards 11 pm, Darrin was neck-deep in an impassioned rant, describing to us in incisive, unforgettable detail why we should never, ever ever watch the cinematic atrocity that is "Alien: Ressurection" (which of course made us want to see the film that much more). Chidsey was hanging on his every word, determined to turn Darrin's talent-laden rage into a series of hilarious YouTube film critiques that would net us millions. I just sat back under the cold neon glow of the ceiling lights, the blackness of the city night outside the window, wondering why the manager had chosen to pump house music through the PA, and marveling how as a single Mormon guy in my thirties, camped out in a crappy pizza dive on a Saturday night, I could be as happy as I was.

Happy (belated) New Year, everyone. Hope 2012 is a great one.

A Rare Endorsement

2011-11-07T08:36:00.001-07:00

Like many people, most of the time I step into a voting booth I’m lucky if I recognize more than 25% of the names listed in front of me. Once I get beyond any high-profile races, I'm left to a series of hopefully educated guesses, crossing my fingers that I'm not voting in the apocalypse out of ignorance.

But this year is different. This year I know someone on the ballot. It's just too bad I can't actually vote for him.

Bountiful’s 2011 city council race has six candidates fighting forthree spots, and one of them is my longtime friend Micah Day. I’m not usually the kind of person to go public with my political views, but usually I haven't played pickup basketball with the people listed on the ballot, either. Besides, since city council candidates don't have to declare a party affiliation, I can still claim political neutrality.

I’ve known Micah Day for several years, and over thecourse of numerous lunch visits to Red Iguana, casual conversations, and the aforementioned basketball games, I’ve always noted howhe carried a natural interest in civic issues. Long before he expressed anyinterest in running for office, Micah demonstrated an investment in what wasgoing on around him at a local level. While I was more interested in talkingabout how the Jazz were going to stay in playoff contention (Micah was an eventmanager at the Delta Center for several years), he would often shift thediscussion to some local issue he’d read in the paper or heard while attendinga local city council meeting.

It would be easy to say Micah would be an excellent city councilman because of his management experience (nowadays he's managing events at the Conference Center downtown), his ethical candor, or the fact that he looks good in a tie, but its that sincere, natural civic interest that does it for me. That's why when he told me at lunch a few months back that he was thinking of running for office, my first reaction was, "yeah, that totally make sense."

Since I'm currently living in Farmington, Micah won't actually be on my ballot, but that doesn't change the fact that he has my support. Micah Day will make an excellent city councilman. He’s notrunning out of ego, or because he craves a small chunk of localized politicalpower. He’s not running because he feels entitled to the position. He’s runningbecause he genuinely cares about making Bountiful the best city it can be.Bountiful City residents would be wise to note that on Tuesday.

The Birthday List, Item #7: Lose 20 Pounds

2011-10-28T09:17:00.000-06:00

I never thought the day would come that would see me excited about losing weight. I never thought the day would come where I would ever need to lose weight. Thanks to a chance moment at Gold's Gym earlier this year, both of those days have arrived.

Last February, in the middle of another half-cocked workout that was light on lifting, lighter on cardio, and heavy on people-watching, I stepped on an electronic scale and stared long and hard at the reading. According to the little digital readout, I was heavier than I had ever weighed, and in spite of five years of workouts, it was clear that the weight I was putting on was not the good kind. I was five pounds shy of a sobering threshold I did not want to cross.

It was the culmination of a long work in progress. Around the time I turned 30, my previously reliable metabolism decided to shut down, and I gained 20 pounds in about the time it took to say "Del Taco Tuesdays." Since then, I'd often noted that while in generally good shape, I could probably lose fifteen pounds or so. Six months later I would note that I could probably stand to lose twenty pounds. I would often make such notations after finishing my second hamburger at Maddox, or in the middle of another sad showing at a pickup basketball game.

But after that moment last February, my good intentions finally became tangible action. As the winter transitioned into spring, I started going to the gym an extra time or two every week. And when I was there, I started lifting less and running more.* I tried to stop eating dinner so late, and when I did eat, I tried to cut back on my portions. I didn't make a single drastic move, like cutting out sugar or starting P90x. I just made minor adjustments to what I was already doing. And within a couple of months, I had lost over ten pounds.

At that point, I decided to make a goal out of my efforts. An even twenty sounded good, and by mid-summer, I was within about five pounds of my goal. I was wary of the month of July, since I would be spending time in Seattle and Chicago eating foods that wouldn't help my cause. But thanks to my hotel fitness centers, I returned from the Windy City within striking distance of the finish line.

A week or so into August, I walked downstairs from another cardio session, hopped on the scale, and smiled at a readout that was exactly 20 pounds less than my February high. Other people have lost far more, and accomplished far better, but it was good to know that I had set a goal and followed through. It's nice to think that in that stretch I lost the pound-for-pound equivalent of:

6 bowling pins
My desktop computer
Two frozen Ted Williams heads
160 copies of Lionel Ritchie's breakthrough eponymous solo album on CD
Two turntables and a microphone
$400 worth of beef jerky
My nine month old niece

Of course, since then I've faced a different kind of problem: none of my old clothes fit. But I think most would agree that running up a tab buying clothes because you finally got in shape is a pretty good problem to have.

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*The people-watching remained heavy. I mean seriously, Wilford Brimley and Admiral Ackbar work out at my gym. The constant comedy is too omnipresent for a mere mortal like me to turn away.

Mormon FAQ

2011-10-12T13:34:00.000-06:00

Between the Book of Mormon Musical and the presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, Mormons have been in the news a lot lately. I find this very interesting because, well, I’m a Mormon. With all this publicity, I thought it might be a good idea to post an introductory FAQ page on my church, just in case anyone I know who isn’t LDS is interested in hearing about the church from an actual Mormon. I emphasize the word “introductory” because there are a ton of different issues I could address, and frankly, I don’t want to take the time to write about all of them if only five people are going to read this post. If you read through this and do have additional questions, say, about the LDS view on the doctrine of Faith vs. Works, or why people in Utah can’t drive for crap, feel free to comment, and we can either hash it out there, or I can put together Mormon FAQ Volume II.

That being said, I want to stress that while I am a fully active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, this blog doesn’t officially represent the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you want a more canonical set of answers to your questions, visit http://www.lds.org/, or better yet, read the official Articles of Faith. This is merely my attempt to put a practical voice to some commonly asked questions.

1. Are Mormons Christians?

The short answer is yes. That’s why the church is called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The reason I think this comes into dispute is because we don’t subscribe to the concept of the Trinity, IE, that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the same guy. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten of the Father, and the Savior and Redeemer of the World, but that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are separate and distinct beings (See the baptism of Christ for a Biblical example).

2. Are Mormons a cult?

When someone gets in trouble for calling some group a cult, they usually hide behind some clinical definition that refers to a group of people who are dedicated to a peculiar set of beliefs, or in our case, a group that doesn’t subscribe to their own definition of “historical Christianity.” But let’s be honest, that’s not why people call Mormons a cult. They’re doing it because when most people hear the word cult, they think of deception, human sacrifice, and Ozzy Ozbourne albums. In short, they’re trying to associate a group they dislike with something that will make that group as unappealing as possible. So in that sense, the answer is no: Mormons are not a cult. And frankly, Ozzy’s stuff was a lot better before he left Black Sabbath.

3. Why can’t I go inside the temple?

Because you’re not a Mormon. The key issue here is the difference between the words “sacred” and “secret.” The temple is a sacred place for Mormons, and even we have to be living a high level of devotion to go inside. But whenever you tell someone you can’t go someplace, or tell them what goes on inside, people assume the worst. Think of the “Unnecessary Censorship” bit Jimmy Kimmel used to do. We don’t talk about what goes on in the temple because what goes on is between you and God. But rest assured, no one is sacrificing virgins or juggling squirrels behind the recommend desk.

4. How come you guys have so many wives?

We don’t. Mormons discontinued the practice of polygamy back in the 1890’s, which means people who make jokes about it are hitting material that hasn’t been fresh in nearly 125 years. The people who practice polygamy today are spin-off sects that broke off around that time.

5. What’s with the magic underwear?

A married man wears a wedding band to remind him of the promise he’s made to his wife. Presumably, it helps to keep him out of harm’s way. Faithful Mormons wear the temple garment to remind them of the promise they’ve made with the Lord to be faithful to him. Therefore, presumably it helps to keep us out of harm’s way. It’s kind of His way of saying, “if you remember Me, I’ve got your back.”

6. Why do you all have to be Republicans?

We don’t, unless we want to get elected to public office in Utah. Mormons just tend to gravitate towards a more conservative ideology, because our moral compass tends to gravitate towards a more conservative ideology. But you can be a Democrat and be a Mormon.

7. How come you don’t like the Bible?

Mormons like the Bible just fine. But we also like the Book of Mormon. The central idea here is our understanding of the nature of scripture. The Bible wasn’t gift-wrapped and air mailed from Heaven with an autographed “See y’all in 2012!” dedication on the inside cover*. It’s a collection of inspired manuscripts that were assembled into a single volume around 325AD. Mormons believe the Word of God is the Word of God, whether it comes through the Gospel of Luke, a prophet who lived in the ancient Americas (IE, the Book of Mormon), or through modern day prophets like the ones that spoke to us in our semi-annual General Conference earlier this month. In short, if God has something to say, it’s not up to us to put limitations on when or where He says it.

8. So do you really believe that story about John Smith and the gold plates, then?

Yes, I do. If you described a jet airliner to a European serf in the Middle Ages, would it sound kind of implausible? You can make any story sound ridiculous if you twist it the right way. But if you take the time to understand the big picture, suddenly it doesn’t sound so crazy.

The thing you need to understand here is that God gets the Big Picture (He wouldn’t be God if He didn’t, right?). He knew that years after the time of Christ, there would be all sorts of different churches disputing the meaning of the same book (The Bible). Therefore, he directed his children in the Americas to write down the tenets of the Gospel as well, and they carved them onto golden plates, so they wouldn’t wear out over time. These plates were hidden in upstate New York, and that’s what JOSEPH Smith translated into the Book of Mormon. Now, there’s still all the stuff about angelic visitation, but let’s be honest: if you believe that kind of thing was possible in Biblical times, why wouldn’t it be possible in the 1800’s? And if you don’t believe that kind of thing was possible in Biblical times, then why are you asking?

9. Why do you guys keep insisting that you are the only true church?

This one always confuses me. If you think about it logically, shouldn’t everyone believe their church is the only true church? But that’s beside the point. The unstated assumption here is that if Mormons say we’re the only true church, then we must believe that all other churches suck and are only good for a one-way ticket to the Bowels of Hell, and that’s completely ridiculous and untrue. Mormons believe that our church is the modern restoration of the original church Christ established when he lived on Earth. But there are tons of good people doing tons of good things in other churches, and I’m not even referring exclusively to Christian churches, either. I also know a lot of non-religious people who are great people, too. What Mormons are offering is a transition from good to better, not from bad to good. Unless your church tells you drink poison Kool-aid and hop on spaceships. Then maybe your church really does suck.

10. Do you really think you’re all going to become gods?

Mormons believe they are going to become gods in the same way a five-year-old believes that he will grow up to be just like his dad. We believe that all mankind are spiritual children of our Father in Heaven. Thus, when we “grow up,” we will be like our dad, and do the kind of stuff He does. But He will always be our Dad, just like my dad will always be my dad.

* * *

Again, I don’t mean for this to be any kind of official declaration of Mormon beliefs. There are much more authoritative sources out there. Heck, I don’t even mean for this to be an endorsement of Mitt Romney, in spite of his impressive hair. I just know that people hear a lot of crazy things about my church, and I’d rather they get their answers from a real Mormon. Hopefully, if any of you had any questions, this helped. If not, make a comment or something.

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*For the record, Mormons don’t believe the world is going to end in 2012. This was a joke.

The Birthday List, Item #6: Sing in Public

2011-10-11T15:12:00.001-06:00

When it comes to singing in public, my resume is short and checkered. It begins with an ill-fated tryout for my fifth grade musical, when I gave a horrid rendition of some long-forgotten tune about five feet from the accusing eyes of my grade school crush. Then there was the time I was all set to sing lead for my band Thunderlips when we were going to headline the ill-fated 32nd Ward Toga Party of 2001. A well-timed lightning bolt put an end to that effort. Later that fall, when I did manage to sing lead for the band (during a brief set we played out of our guitarist and bass player's garage), I barely had my voice back before I was dumped by my would-be girlfriend of the time.

The only thing that ever kept me thinking I might have the chops for a lead vocal (aside from my genetic connection to my sister, an accomplished opera-style vocal minor at Weber State University) was a brief but memorable performance at the Blue Chicago--my favorite Windy City blues club--almost fifteen years ago. Ever since I warbled my way through a single stanza of "Baby Meet Me with Your Black Drawers On," I had always wondered if I could really pull off a legit bluesy lead vocal for a whole song. Or any lead vocal, really.

Thanks to a dual show at the Layton Amphitheater last month, I finally got my answer. And that answer was: yeah, pretty much. Halfway through my blues band's set, I stepped down from my drum riser, passed off my sticks to our normal lead singer, put on my beloved leather fringe jacket, and sang a little Neil Diamond for the dedicated crowd. I didn't blow anyone away, or make my bandmates think I should take over permanently on lead vocals while we look for a new drummer, but I didn't embarass myself, and when I watched the video recording of the set later that night, I didn't recoil in horror and destroy the footage in desperation. I got the job done, plain and simple.

As fun as the actual performance was, the best part of the experience was talking to people after the show and noting how much it seemed to surprise them. Outside of the band itself, only one or two people knew the switch was coming, and so my take on "You Got to Me" was a complete surprise to nearly everyone. As a band, one of our main concerns going into the show was that we didn't offer a repetitive experience to what they'd seen in previous performances. Shaking things up with something as simple as me taking over lead vocals helped to accomplish that goal. And on a personal level, it was a lot of fun to see the reaction of friends and family to me doing something they wouldn't expect me to do. I think that idea--the idea of pushing yourself into challenging and unfamiliar situations--is at the heart of this whole list I've been ticking away at for the last few months.

Last summer I stepped out of my comfort zone and played the drums on a stage that was out of my league, but I felt good about it because I tried. It's a lot nicer to do the same thing and find out that it isn't out of your league after all.

Top 10 reasons to be at the Layton Amphitheater this Friday

2011-09-14T08:45:00.000-06:00

This Friday at 8PM, The Daniel Davis Band will be making its triumphant return to the Layton Amphitheater, where we made our public debut one year ago. In an astounding coincidence, our opening band will be Prospect Mali, who I've been playing with since last spring. If it isn't already obvious enough, here are the top ten reasons you should come see the show this weekend:

1. It's free.
2. We will be playing mostly new stuff, not the same songs you heard last year, though still many songs that you know and love and sing softly into the ears of your loved ones in the wee hours of the night.
3. The Layton Amphitheater is a great venue, and not in a, "the musician always has to complement the venue" kind of way. It has high-quality seating plus a big expanse of grass for if you want to do the "concert on a blanket" thing, a very nice sound system, and an upgraded LED light system.
4. It's free.
5. This year we're playing on Friday night instead of Thursday, which means you can't blow it off because of work or school, and you can use it for a date night, an activity for the whole family, or an incognito meeting for your underground survivalist group.
6. There is a definite possibility that Weird Al Yankovic will make an appearance.
7. Two words: It's free.
8. Our bass player has promised to wear pants for every song this year.
9. Two more words: Fog Machine.
10. Seriously, IT'S FREE.

Hope to see you Friday.

The Birthday List, Item #5: Read the Constitution

2011-09-12T07:57:00.000-06:00

When I was in the sixth grade, we celebrated the 200th Anniversary of the drafting of the US Constitution by memorizing the classic "We are the People" preamble. In the fall of 1994, I took American National Government at the University of Utah, and enjoyed the course so much I briefly* considered the option of being a Political Science major. Five years ago, on my first (and so far only) trip to Washington DC, I dropped by the National Archives to see the original manuscripts of the Constitution, as well as the Declaration of Independence.

On the way out, I bought a snow globe commemorating the day Elvis met Nixon.

Somehow, in all that time, I never actually sat down and read the Constitution. Not very patriotic of me. But this birthday list thing seemed like an ideal opportunity to remedy that problem, so one afternoon in late July, I googled "US Constitution" and wound up on the government-run "Charters of Freedom" website, where I read the Constitution transcript in full.

What I came away with was surprising. Surprising in that I was pretty familiar with most everything I read. No big shocks, no, "wait a minute, there's a LAW against that?" moments. I may not be the most studied student of US History, but I was already familiar with the setup of the three branches of government, so what I was most surprised by was how simple the Constitution is.

And maybe that's what is so great about it.

It also occurred to me that the Constitution is probably a lot like a groundbreaking movie (if you'll excuse the tacky pop culture allusion). For example, it's widely accepted that the first real movie car chase took place in the 1968 Steve McQueen film "Bullitt," as McQueen chases some bad guys through the streets of San Francisco in a green Mustang GT. It's a pretty cool scene, but 40 years of car chases in the time since have kind of upped the ante a bit, so anyone raised on, say, the car chases from the Bourne movies are going to look and "Bullitt" and go, "hey, that's lame." (They might also go, "hey, why does Steve McQueen keep driving past that same Volkswagen Bug over and over?", but that's off topic.)

What I'm trying to say is that I think the Constitution is one of those things that's easier to appreciate if you put it in the context of its time. Growing up as a lifetime beneficiary of the document's principles make it a lot harder to comprehend what life was like before it was around, or what life would be if I had grown up without it. Like so many of life's great blessings, it's easy to take it for granted.

*Briefly = About 30 seconds

The Birthday List, Item #4: Eat at the Sweet Home Chicago Pizzeria

2011-08-25T11:57:00.000-06:00

One of the great things about heading out to Chicago last month was that I had multiple opportunities to enjoy the Windy City's signature deep dish pizza. The pizza out there is so good it ruins you for everything else.

There are a lot of places outside of the Midwest that try to sell you on the idea that they serve "Chicago-style" pizza, but in most cases, they aren't even close. The problem is most people assume the only difference between Chicago pizza and regular pizza is that the former is really thick. But there's more to it than that. Chicago deep-dish is deep because it's designed more like a pie than a flat slab of dough with toppings. The crust is also flakier, more of a pastry than a chewy dough, and it really isn't all that thick. In addition, you put the tomato sauce on the top of the pizza instead of in-between the crust and the cheese. In short, this is Chicago deep dish pizza, courtesy of a picture I took the night I dropped by the Giordano's at 7th North and Rush Street:

Now, while eating genuine Chicago deep-dish pizza was certainly a trip priority, it wasn't an official Birthday List item. But eating at the Sweet Home Chicago Pizzeria was. And why?

Because the Sweet Home Chicago Pizzeria is located in Draper, Utah.

I first heard about the Pizzeria several months ago, and in spite of my initial skepticism, retained a curiosity for the place based on its website photos, which seemed to depict real Chicago-style pizza. As I was putting my list together, it was obvious that the time for a visit had come. The prospect of finding genuine Chicago deep dish pizza so close to home was too tempting a possibility to ignore.

So late last week I teamed up with Brad, one of my old Chi-town mission buddies, to go put this place to the test. We were both kind of nervous to go, especially when on the way we decided to call ahead and see if they could start our order ahead of time. Authentic deep dish pizza takes about forty-five minutes to bake properly, and we didn't want to abuse the time restrictions of our lunch hour, but the girl on the phone told us that they didn't take call-in orders. She also told us that wouldn't be a problem, though, because since things weren't super busy they could probably get us our pizza in about thirty minutes.

Hmm...

On the plus side, the price of a small pizza was only $8.99, so we figured at least we wouldn't be out too much money if the pizza stunk. So Brad and I kept on driving south on I-15 and eventually pulled into a nice new-looking establishment at the east end of a commercial development in Draper.

A half-hour later, they gave us this:

(insert sigh of relief)

They got the crust right, and they got the sauce right. Some of the ingredients didn't leave me singing songs of culinary joy, but overall, the Sweet Home Chicago Pizzeria earned its name. Granted, looking out the windows and seeing the Wasatch Mountains instead of the classic architecture of Chicago's Loop was a little strange. The Pizzeria will never quite take the place of sitting in the basement of Pizza Due at a candle-lit table at 1AM, but it will fill the void better than any of the trendy joints in Salt Lake that specialize in cracker-thin pizza-type-objects sprinkled with pesto.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

To each his own, but as for me and my family, we will choose Chicago-style...every time.

The Birthday List, Item #3: Play the Drums at Buddy Guy's*

2011-08-24T22:29:00.000-06:00

Some of the best advice I have ever been given was to seek out frightening situations and take risks in life. So when I saw that a landmark Chicago blues club would be hosting an open jam night while I was in town last month, I knew I had to participate.

I already figured that at some point in the week I would drop by Buddy Guy's Legends to hear some great music take some great pictures. Founded by one of Chicago's most beloved bluesmen, the club was only a couple of blocks from where I was staying at the south end of the Loop, and I knew from previous experience that the place would deliver. But now the question became: could I?

According to the club's website, open jam night would feature volunteer musicians who were welcome to drop by and sign up to play for free. You just had to bring your own instrument and sign your life away at the door in exchange for a waived cover charge and a chance at public humiliation. At least that's what the bouncer told me when I signed my name on the list and took a seat near the left side of the stage.

The first half of the night was filled by The Jimmy Burns Band, who played a regular set with Eric "Guitar" Davis on lead axe. I took a bunch of pictures and enjoyed some great blues music, all the while wondering if I would take the stage myself by the end of the night. My nerves jumped a level when at the tail end of the opening set, Buddy Guy himself showed up to sing a few tunes. Somehow I kept my composure, thinking, "well, if I'm going to humiliate myself, I may as well humiliate myself in front of the best."

After Buddy's cameo, the night shifted to open jam mode. Only the jam wasn't quite as open as I'd expected. Instead of a bunch of random musicians improvising, the MC kept calling up people who seemed very familiar with each other, and very rehearsed. In fact, the songs they played sounded more polished than the songs my band had been playing after months of practice. I started to get the sense that I was out of my league.

But hey, I couldn't back out now, right?

As the evening drew on, and more seasoned musicians took their turns wowing the increasingly intoxicated audience, I began to wonder if anyone would even call my unknown name off the sign-up list, or whether I should even hang around to find out. Even Buddy had already left for the night. Maybe signing up and hanging around for four hours would be enough of a frightening experience by itself?

Wrong. I had to go the distance.

So I did what any rational, level-headed underqualified drummer would do: I approached the MC and talked my way onto the stage. At the moment of truth, I found myself sitting at a foreign drum kit, surrounded by unfamiliar musicians, staring into the bright lights and smoky haze of one of Chicago's most celebrated blues clubs. On a far wall, a row of guitars autographed by the likes of Jimmy Reed and Eric Clapton hung silently. I clutched the souvenir DW sticks I had bought earlier in the day at the local House of Blues and tried to smile, praying I would pick up on the beat quick enough to avoid total humiliation.

I got in unscathed for the first number--a solid 4/4 beat--and even managed to recover when one of the souvenir sticks slipped out of my hands and rolled around on top of the kit before I grabbed it again. When the song ended, I looked around nervously, but no one was glaring at me or waving me off stage, so I stuck around.

In retrospect, that probably would have been a good time to sign off.

Song #2 was more of a 2/4 beat, at least that's what I thought. From the looks I started to get from the other guys, I might have been wrong on that one. Still, no one ran me off at the end of the song, and the crowd was still cheering and dancing, so I figured I was OK.

The wheels came off on song #3. For the life of me, I had no idea what beat to lay down at the beginning of the song, so there was a good 10-second stretch at the beginning where I tried to tap my way in and generally made a mess of things. Finally the bass player looked at me and started mouthing the count, which I would have appreciated more if not for the condescending manner of his delivery, and I finally got off the ground. At the end of the song, the MC walked up and offered an awkward handshake. It was time to step down.

As I walked offstage, I passed through a gathering of musicians, none of whom so much as made eye contact with me. No one said anything, but they didn't need to. I lingered for a moment, awkwardly wanting some moment of closure with someone around me, even if it was only to apologize for not being up to the standard of the rest of the guys. But no one came up, and the band was already into its next song, so I just turned and walked out the door.

Two hours later, I was still sitting up wide awake in my room, trying to make sense of what I had just done. I took the risk, I faced the fear, so why did I feel so terrible? I wondered if I should ever pick up the drumsticks again, let alone show my face in Buddy Guy's club in the next two decades. I wondered what would have happened if Buddy was still there when I played...would he have pulled me off the stage by my ear, enraged that I had defiled the quality of his precious club? Or would he have offered the closure I sought as I stood offstage afterward, putting his arm around me like a knowing grandparent and telling me to keep at it?

Over the next few days, the shock wore off and I started to get a little perspective on what I had done. Clearly I wasn't ready for the big time, but there was no doubt in my mind that I had done the "right" thing by getting up on stage. Maybe I didn't bring the house down, but I definitely made a memory for the ages.

Besides, as time goes by, the stories of the failures are a lot more fun to tell than the stories of the triumphs. And eventually they all blend together anyway.

---

*This is a great example of the "living document" nature of The List. When I was brainstorming ideas for the original list, I knew I would be spending some time in Chicago this summer, so I thought "photograph a Chicago blues band" might be a logical option. But since technically I already had taken some pictures of a Chicago blues band (back in 2008), I wound up placing this option on my back-up list. However, about 36 hours after arriving in Chicago last month, it was time to make a change.

The Birthday List, Item #2: Change a Diaper

2011-08-11T09:04:00.000-06:00

I should probably make it clear that while a lot of the items on The List are meant to be fun, others are exclusively designed to challenge my comfort zones. That's why when I decided to put my list together, I knew from the beginning that it was time to face my fears.

It was finally time to change a diaper.

Up until my sister made me an uncle last January, my sum total experience with babies primarily came through watching movies like "Raising Arizona" and "Three Men and a Baby." Whenever my friends would have kids, I would always give them a buffer zone of a few weeks before I'd bother them, and when I eventually did, I might be called on to hold the kid long enough for them to take a picture, but that was about it.

I have loved being an uncle, though. Aside from providing an endless assortment of smiles and expressions for Facebook, my niece is a constant source of perspective whenever I find myself getting too annoyed at whatever is bothering me that day, like the stock market, the dating scene, or the Jazz season going down in inexplicable flames.

At the same time, that perspective told me that the time would come when I wouldn't have the luxury of being an arm's-length uncle. When it's not your kid, it's easy to pass the baby on when it starts crying or smelling like something dangerous and unnatural. But I knew that wouldn't last forever, so I volunteered to take one for the team.

Out of respect for my readers, and especially the niece who will be able to read this one day, I won't go into detail about the experience itself. Let's just say I was happy to have my sister there to coach and take over when the train derailed briefly. Luckily, my niece still seemed to like me after it was all over, and that was all I was really worried about. We're still tight, at least until she inevitably grows hair and leaves me behind for all the cool kids. And who knows, maybe she'll respect my wisdom and advice a little more now that I've established myself as the power holder in the relationship. I mean, once you've wiped someone's bum, you're the boss, right?

Right?

(insert chorus of parents laughing all across the interwebs)

I guess I should enjoy being an arm's-length uncle while I can.

The Birthday List, Item #1: Visit Bruce Lee's Grave

2011-08-07T10:24:00.002-06:00

I don't know what it is about celebrity death, or celebrity grave sites, that is so fascinating. Chuck Klosterman wrote a book about a mega-road trip he took to visit the death sites of various rock and roll heroes, and the title of Rolling Stone author Neil Strauss's book "Everybody Loves You When You're Dead" speaks for itself. Maybe it's because we typically see celebrities as otherworldly creatures, images on a TV screen or voices on the radio, and standing next to their gravestones reminds us that they were actual human beings. Maybe we're just weird.

When I was an LDS missionary in Chicago, I was excited to learn that Al Capone's grave was in a cemetery across the street from the chapel where we held our mission leadership meetings. There was probably no more iconic Chicago "celebrity" than Capone, so after every meeting, a few of us would head over to see the grave and take pictures. This led to the curious image of a half-dozen guys in dark suits standing somberly over the grave of a deceased mafioso.

Last summer, on my first visit to Seattle, I made a point to visit the Jimi Hendrix memorial. Whereas Capone's marker was little more than a flat nondescript chunk of cement, the Hendrix Memorial was the centerpiece of the entire cemetery. I guess you can take a lot of messages from that.

I had already arranged a return visit to Seattle before I compiled my Birthday List, so I thought I should try to come up with an item or two that I could take care of while I was in town. Having already visited the Hendrix memorial, it seemed logical that I should visit the grave site of another Seattle music icon, Kurt Cobain. Trouble is, Cobain doesn't have one. He was cremated. You can go see the house where he committed suicide back in the 90's, but that seemed a little too macabre to justify. Besides, I found a better option.

Bruce Lee has been a fascinating character to me ever since I saw his bio pic "Dragon" when I was a teenager. While I've never been a huge fan of martial arts films, I was very interested in how Lee was able to discipline himself into such a finely-tuned butt-whooping machine. Plus, unlike the images created by a lot of Hollywood behind-the-scenes tell-all's, he seemed like a genuinely good guy. From time to time I'll wonder what would happen if I just set aside all my favorite junk foods for six months and did some hard-core training. I certainly wouldn't be Lee, but his example does suggest a little of what the human body is truly capable of. It's a topic that becomes more and more relevant after you cross the line into your 30's.

Anyway, Lee is buried in north Seattle (his wife's hometown), and on a Sunday afternoon in early July I zipped up there with The Cheetahman (another example of what the human body is capable of, if you're referring to Guess boots and cheetah-print speedos) to check it out. He's actually buried next to his son, Brandon, who died in a film set accident two months before "Dragon" was released (Bruce died at 32, his son at 28).

The grave site was a little crowded that day, so I didn't linger for a lot of quiet contemplation. In a way, I almost felt under-qualified to be there, since I wasn't as familiar with his film resume the way I was familiar with, say, Jimi Hendrix's recording career. On the few occasions I have dropped by to see the grave of someone famous, I've noticed there's always a moment where you quickly transition from a kind of laid-back "hey, I'm going to go see so-and-so's grave!" to a somber realization that you are visiting the final resting place of a real human being. Two-dimensional celebrity becomes three-dimensional reality, and at that point you lose interest in the nature of the person's death and think more about what they were in life. So I just took a couple of pictures and tried to maintain some semblance of an air of respect. Maybe it's true that everybody loves you when you're dead, but unlike Capone, Bruce Lee seems like someone who deserved to be loved when he was still around.

It's kind of like a bucket list...without the death thing.

2011-08-04T22:48:00.001-06:00

A few years ago, just before my sister turned 25, she made a list of 25 things to do before her birthday. This list covered a whole range of items, from framing a picture to skydiving. I think the whole point, aside from finding a way to "seize the day" more often, was to turn her birthday from an, "I'm getting older and I can't stop it!" kind of thing, to a "If I'm going down, I'm going down in a blaze of glory!" type of thing.

At least that's what I got out of it.

So I've got a birthday coming up in a couple months, and to be honest, I'm not entirely thrilled about it. But instead of wallow in self-indulgent sorrow, I'm going to follow my sister's lead and turn the lemons of advancing age into the lemonade of a life well-lived.

A few thoughts on the nature of a good birthday list:

1. It should include items that fall into one of three categories: stuff I've never done before, stuff I haven't done in a long time, and stuff I should be doing more often. No point in listing crap I'm already doing.

2. Given the time frame, you can't include too many "large" items on the list (like skydiving). List items don't have to be huge and/or expensive to be meaningful, though there should be at least a couple of starred events to look forward to.

3. List items are not set in stone. You have to be careful not to use this as an excuse, but the reality is that sometimes life takes turns, and we all know about the best laid plans of mice and men. My sister had to change a few items on the fly, but it wasn't always because of a failed opportunity. Sometimes something better came along.

I actually put together my final list at the beginning of July (I've chosen not to post it here for a variety of reasons), and I already have a few items crossed off. My noble intention is to do a different post on each completed item between now and October's deadline.

Wish me luck.

Rest in Peace, Club 32

2011-04-29T07:42:00.002-06:00

This weekend a substantial part of my past will cease to exist. As of May 1st, the Era of Student Wards will come to an end, and the last remnants of the University of Utah 32nd Ward will be scattered to the four winds.

At least, I think it will happened this weekend. It might have been last weekend. Truth is, I haven't attended the 32nd Ward in nearly two and a half years. Hard to believe it's been that long.

Even harder to believe it's been almost thirteen years since the first time I walked into a U32 meeting. Back then Clinton was President, Stockton and Malone were still running the pick-and-roll downtown, and I had hair (a lot of it, actually). There were three different buildings on the current University Institute property, which along with some schedule confusion, meant it took me three weeks before I finally found an actual U32 meeting.

Once I finally did, I attended with BretO and Mr. Mac's grandson (AKA, "The Other Josh") for about six months until Jared Parker was brought on as Bishop in the spring of 1999. And that was the beginning of the Glory Years of the U32.

Over the next ten years I was in and out of the ward several times, ducking out for a couple years when I went to grad school in Logan, or for stretches when I lived in areas covered by other wards. When I started at "Club 32," the ward boundaries covered all of Davis County, the Rose Park area, Capitol Hill, and even the Brigham Apartments downtown. But starting in '99, people started coming in so fast that the ward was eventually whittled down to a narrow sliver of the North Bountiful/South Centerville area. If that doesn't stand as a testament to the quality of the place, nothing does.

It's hard to narrow the list of memories when you've spent so much time in a ward like that (especially when you have to omit the dating-related ones for fear of litigation). But here are a few that stick out for me:

· 1999: A few ward friends and I gather in BretO's backyard to film a music video for the Stake Film Festival. Our electric cover of "If You Could Hie to Kolob" wins "Best Soundtrack" at the festival, but the YouTube response isn't quite as kind.

· 2001: In a profound abuse of power, I use my calling as U32 Elder's Quorum President to organize the Ward Toga Party, where I plan to debut my new band, The Atomic Thunderlips Traveling Ministry. A half-hour into the event, lightning strikes a nearby transformer, cutting power to the church for the evening.

· 2002: During a heartfelt testimony, I accuse my roommate Bob Morley of being one of the Three Nephites. Ever the humble disciple, Bob immediately approaches the pulpit and follows my rant with an emphatic denial.

· 2004: While still in grad school at USU, I swing down to Salt Lake one weekend and decide to drop by the U32's Fast and Testimony meeting. About three testimonies in, a girl gets up and rants for ten minutes about the hod-rodding jerk she was racing up 4th South on the way there, and how the intensely frustrating experience was a testimony to her of God's infinite love. Pretty funny considering she was describing my car.

· 2007: In a sleep-deprived stupor brought on by my new graveyard shift job at KJZZ, I expose my sister and roommate's just-blossoming courtship during yet another rambling, incoherent testimony. They wind up getting married, so everything's cool.

· 2008: In the deadly silence of an empty gym while U32 members contemplatively take the sacrament, Nathan Lyon gets a text message. No big deal, except that Nathan's text notification is an especially loud audio clip of our President proclaiming, "My name is George W. Bush, and I approve this message."

Actually, if there was one thing that embodied the best spirit of those U32 years, it was the annual St. George temple trip. Just after school let out, as people were moving home for the summer, about 70+ ward members would caravan down to St. George for an overnighter that featured hiking, picnicing, and a morning session at the St. George temple. Usually, a dozen or so people would go down a night early, and make the event last a little longer. Those were usually the people who would make up the heart of the ward for the coming summer. Of all the activities and all the memories I have of the ward, those trips were probably my favorite. I was always bummed that the tradition only lasted those first few years.

As it all draws to a close, I’ve been hearing a lot of lamentations, but I think the big shift is being a bit overblown. Maybe that's just easy to say two years after I've already walked away. At the same time, from my perspective, I can see that not a whole lot is really changing. People will still have singles wards to go to; they'll just find them locally instead of dragging up to campus every Sunday morning. In a way, the whole thing feels like an elaborate plan to help young single adults save on gas money. Nothing wrong with that.

I always laugh whenever I go to a summer testimony meeting in Island Park and listen to people bear their testimonies of their ward. There's a fine line between appreciating something and giving it undue reverence. Ultimately the U32 was great because of the people who were in it, and the spirit that united them. The place definitely had its warts—trust me, in ten years I saw lots of them—but overall it brought out the best in a lot of people.

That's why it isn't so sad the ward is being disbanded. Those same people are just going to do their thing somewhere else. Sometimes you just gotta move on.

Important New Dating Terminology

2011-02-08T17:09:00.001-07:00

I've been dating for a long time. If my first date were a child, he would be dating. And he wouldn't be having a good time, because he was kind of a disaster.

In spite of my vast experience, I still learn new things about dating all the time. Like new words. Here are some new dating-related terms I've encountered in recent weeks:

Underdated (Adj.)

My friend Melanie coined this term at a group excursion to the Red Iguana 2 a couple months back. Derived from the word underrated, "underdated" refers to a man or woman who is comparatively inactive on the dating scene in spite of obvious qualifications, such as looks, personality, or the ability to read minds.

Here's how you would use the term underdated...

...in describing a man:

"Darryl has a great sense of humor and owns his own home, yet he hasn't had a steady girlfriend since the beginning of the Obama Administration. He is totally underdated."

...in describing a woman:

"Bernice graduated from law school with a 3.9 GPA and has a smile that lights up the room, yet she only goes on dates every month or two because she reminds people of Jodie Foster. She is underdated."

The second example offers a clue as to the reason for the underdated condition, but in most cases this reason is not readily obvious. It is a condition that is frequently unexplained, like being a libertarian.

Bro'd Out (Adj.)

This expression came up about a month ago while hanging with some of the guys (probably because we are all underdated). The expression "Bro'd Out" refers to a girl who has officially crossed over into "one of the guys" territory to such a degree that would make it impossible to view her in a dating context. After some discussion, we ultimately concluded that to become "Bro'd Out" is an involuntary, subconscious act that would be bad news to the subject in question. Indeed, it is especially tragic because it often results from an effort that was intended to have the opposite effect.

Here's how you would use "Bro'd Out" in a sentence:

"Wanda always greets me with a fist bump and calls me by my last name. She can also bench press me, and proves it uncomfortably often. She is officially Bro'd Out.''

Dating Coach (Noun)

Recently my former singles ward organized an activity that featured a "Dating Coach" When I asked about the event, I was told that the Dating Coach was something of a modern equivalent to an etiquette coach, who would teach boys and girls how to treat each other on dates and stuff.

Here is how you would use the term "Dating Coach" in a sentence:

"Last weekend my ward hosted a fireside with a Dating Coach, and I didn't learn anything."

While that's nice and all, I would be more excited to employ the services of someone a little truer to the title. To me, a real Dating Coach would actually go on your dates with you, watching from the sidelines, calling in plays, and screaming at me when I dropped passes. Someone who would be along for the ride and give me in-the-moment advice. Kind of like if Jerry Sloan and Will Smith's character from "Hitch" mated.

This is how my version of a "Dating Coach" would be used in a sentence:

"I went into my third date with Teela sitting on a comfortable 2-0 record, and though I was able to maintain a lively conversation at dinner and build a comfortable lead, I misread her signal during the movie and blew a chance to hold her hand. Luckily my Dating Coach was there to chew me out before the start of the fourth quarter, and as I dropped Teela off I noticed my coach hiding in the bushes nearby, tapping his shoulder with three extended fingers (the signal for "doorstep kiss"). So I executed a perfect crossover dribble and drove hard to the hoop for a clear-path layup plus the foul, scoring a three-point play and preserving my undefeated season."

Sweet Dreams, #457

2011-01-19T11:02:00.000-07:00

This morning I had another one of those dreams where I'm serving a second mission. In this one, I'm out on a remote Iowa highway, desperately clinging to the hood of a speeding rust-covered pickup truck while some hillbilly tries to kill me...and I only have fifteen minutes before my next teaching appointment. Missions are awesome.

Twisted Vibrations

2011-01-17T22:06:00.000-07:00

First they told me that the dinosaurs were really birds. Then they said Pluto wasn't a planet anymore.

Now they're telling me I'm a Virgo instead of a Scorpio.

In this case, "they" is some astronomer in Minnesota who says the Earth's alignment with the constellations isn't what we thought it was. And not only are we about a month off our "true" Zodiac sign, but we also seem to have left out a 13th sign, which you pretty much can't pronounce without dropping the F-bomb.

This wouldn't bother me except for the fact that I always thought I had the coolest of the Zodiac signs. Scorpio. The scorpion. I thought that was pretty cool. You know what my symbol is now?

The Virgin.

That is not cool.

So now I'm stuck trying to adapt to my new identity. I used to be driven by passion and power, but now I'm a sensitive soul who just wants to love and be loved in return. No more listening to AC/DC and Led Zeppelin before getting ready to bust heads on the basketball court; now it's all about quiet Barry Manilow tunes and free verse poetry about pine needles and crap. At least that's what Athena Starwoman says.

I really wonder what Whoopi Goldberg thinks about all this.

The 2010 Book List

2011-01-04T23:34:00.001-07:00

I've often heard that if you want to be a better writer, you need to read. A lot. I've heard that statement often, but I've rarely followed it.

I don't know exactly why, but last year I read a lot more books than usual. Probably not as many as I should have, but enough that I haven't had the time or motivation to write reviews for them all. But even if I may not have enough time to review them, but I do have enough time to list them. I'll include a quick take on each, but you can pretty much assume that I recommend each.

High Fidelity, Nick Hornby. Fictional story about a 30-something music store owner who doesn't know what to do with the rest of his life (inspired the movie with John Cusack).
Wishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher. Memoir of Carrie "Princess Leia" Fisher.
Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs, Dave Barry. Dave's chronology of bad pop songs; perfect airplane read.
The Road, Cormac McCarthy. Post-apocalyptic fiction about a man and his son; don't read if you're depressed.
Fargo Rock City, Chuck Klosterman. Pop culture essayist Klosterman's memoir of growing up as a metal head in rural North Dakota.
The Dude Abides, Cathleen Falsani. Non-fiction analysis of the religious themes behind each of the films of Joel and Ethan Coen.
Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell. Non-fiction/sort-of self-help book on the true nature of success.
He is I Say, David Wild. Biography of Mr. Neil Diamond by a longtime writer for Rolling Stone magazine.
The Breaks of the Game, David Halberstam. Non-fiction portrait of the late 1970's NBA as seen through the 1977 Portland Trailblazers.
Sports from Hell, Rick Reilly. The longtime SI (and now ESPN) columnist researches outlandish sports from around the world.
Humor in School is Serious Business, B. Lee Hurren. Educational text about the value of using humor in the classroom.
U.S.S. Enterprise Owner's Workshop Manual, Ben Robinson and Marcus Riley. Technical manual outlining the various systems and functions of every version of the iconic Star Trek starship.
Bigfoot: I Not Dead, Graham Roumieu. Fictional autobiography written from the perspective of the legendary Sasquatch.
127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Aron Ralston. Memoir of an avid outdoorsman who cuts his own arm off to survive a canyoneering accident.
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, Max Brooks. Super-dense documentary-style fiction about the Zombie Apocalypse.

Now that I look back at that list I'm not all that impressed. In my head I read about twice as many books as I have listed here. I will try better in the coming year. In fact, if you have any recommendations, feel free to comment.

The Official 2010 Post-Christmas Letter!

2011-01-02T12:05:00.000-07:00

Dear friends, family members, and various law enforcement agencies who have requested that I provide viable alibis for specified dates in the month of June,

Now that the holidays are officially past us, it is time for that precious moment when I attempt to recap my year in a finely-crafted way that subtly balances humility and appreciation for the little things with blatant 21st Century self-promotion. Just for fun, I'm writing it in exciting multiple-choice exam form! Good luck!

1. In April I pulled a practical joke on my loyal readers by:

A. Pretending to quit the blog business

B. Going on a date

C. Changing my name to a symbol

D. Coming out as a die-hard country music fan

2. In August, I made a solo road pilgrimage to what important landmark from the film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind?"
A. Devil's Slide
B. Devil's Tower
C. Devil's Haircut
D. What's with all the Devil references?

3. In October, I finally got back in print, writing for which Salt Lake area newspaper?
A. The Salt Lake Tribune
B. The Deseret News
C. The Daily Planet
D. The Davis County Clipper

4. In February, I concluded a run that netted how many speeding tickets in six months?
A. 2
B. 3
C. 4
D. 5

5. In November, I interviewed what Country Music superstar from the 1990s?
A. Billy Ray Cyrus
B. Garth Brooks
C. Collin Raye
D. Vanilla Ice

6. In January, I saw what Utah Jazz backup point guard defeat LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers with a last-second three point shot?
A. Sundiata Gaines
B. Delaney Rudd
C. Magic Johnson
D. Abe Vigoda

7. Last summer I visited the grave of what Seattle-area celebrity?

A. Kurt Cobain

B. Jimi Hendrix

C. Xavier McDaniel

D. Abe Vigoda

8. In April I switched my morning wake-up station from Oldies 94.1 to Arrow 103.5 because:
A. 94.1 never played my favorite songs anymore
B. The female co-host only wanted to give reality TV updates
C. The female co-host had a stone-cold-serious visit with her personal psychic on-air
D. All of the above

9. This month I will become _____________ for the first time?
A. an uncle
B. debt-free
C. a homeowner
D. humble

10. The best piece of evidence from 2010 that suggests I am movin' on up in the world is:
A. I finally embraced sophisticated adult food like sushi.
B. I finally bought a smart phone in December.
C. I finally upgraded my Jazz season tickets in December and "got out of the ghetto," as one of my students put it.
D. All of the above

In spite of its ups and downs and multiple speeding tickets, I'd have to say I'm pretty grateful for 2010, and looking forward to 2011. As a final send-off, here's a clip I came across on one of those nerd blogs I love so much.

Here's hoping that 2011 gives you plenty of chances to laugh...

The iTunes Top 10

2010-12-19T23:09:00.000-07:00

Of all of the phenomena in my life that fascinate me to no end, one that continues to beguile me is how the top 10 "most played" songs on my iTunes account don't even close to resembling the list I would make if I were to compile my top 10 favorite songs of all-time.

This could be the result of one or more of the following factors:

Magical elves are messing with my hard drive and changing my stats so they can mess with my mind.
The top-played list only represents my listening activity over the last four years since I bought my current computer (the top two songs on my previous computer were "Jungle Boogie" by Kool & the Gang and "Northern Sky" by Nick Drake). It would obviously be a far different list if it could track my listening statistics back to the fourth grade.
Elton John is messing with my hard drive and changing my stats so he can mess with my mind.
The iTunes account only represents songs played through iTunes and my iPod, and leaves out CD's I've listened to repeatedly on long, lonely drives when I was contemplating the meaning of my life (such as the James Brown Christmas Album).
Just because a song is one of my all-time favorites, that doesn't mean I want to listen to it all the time. Some songs need to be saved for special occasions (such as "Let's Make Christmas Mean Something This Year," off the James Brown Christmas Album).
No one is messing with my hard drive; the truth is the following songs ARE my all-time favorites, and I only THINK my favorite music is my favorite music.

10. (tie) "Let's Stay Together," Al Green, and "Razzmatazz," Pulp

"Let's Stay Together" was one of those songs that was familiar but ignored until I heard it in the background during "Pulp Fiction." Then I saw Al sing it at Red Butte Gardens and it became an all-time favorite. The Pulp track is miles from R&B, but the building crescendo into the final chorus is a killer.

9. "Walk Like a Zombie," The Horrorpops

I found this one while compiling a special zombie-themed CD mix for my sister's birthday a few years ago. I actually had the chance to see these guys at the Avalon two years ago for fifteen bucks, but passed for reasons I can't remember.

8. "How You Like Me Now," The Heavy

The first time I heard this song--in a Kia commercial, of all places--I swore it was a remix of an old James Brown track. Turns out the lead singer of this British band is just JB reincarnated. Just a dirty, nasty bit of badness, this track.

7. "Hold You in My Arms," Ray LaMontagne

The lead track on my sister's wedding video, it's been one of my all-time favorites ever since. Luckily I had the good sense to attend Ray's concert when he came out to The Great Saltair two years ago.

6. "Tiny Dancer," Elton John

Yep, the "Almost Famous" song. First heard it at a time in my life when I really need it. About a year ago I picked up a DVD compilation of performances from a show called "The Old Grey Whistle Test" that features Sir Elton playing this solo on his piano. Great stuff.

5. "Good Days Bad Days," Kaiser Chiefs

One of many songs I discovered by mining the soundtrack of TV's "Chuck." If that show ever goes off the air, iTunes should sue for future lost revenues.

4. "All the Young Dudes," Mott the Hoople

I had the chorus to this song stuck in my head for about four years before a late-night Time Life infomercial finally let me put a name to it. Four years is a long time to have an unnamed tune stuck in your head, man. A long, long time.

3. "Stuttering," Ben's Brother

Probably the best use of a stutter in a pop song since Roger Daltrey stammered his way through "My Generation" for The Who back in the 60's. Don't think this song will carry the same weight in the long run, but it's got a chorus hook that will melt your brain.

2. "Oh Me Oh My (I'm a Fool for You)," Aretha Franklin

Every once in a while I try to decide whether my all-time favorite female singer is Aretha Franklin or Janis Joplin. According to iTunes, it's Aretha. My only beef with this song is the studio version ends right as The Queen of Soul is taking off. Real Shame.

1. "Her Mystery Not of High Heels and Eye Shadow," Jonathan Richman

My first and so far only visit to Kilby Court was to see this guy, and it still stands as one of my all-time favorite shows. The renowned Godfather of Punk (and in my opinion, EMO, though in a good way), Jonathan Richman is an acquired taste that is well worth acquiring. Trust me.

* * *

So I don't know...maybe this list is closer to my all-time top 10 than I thought. I definitely like all of those songs. Maybe they represent something I can't articulate consciously. Isn't that kind of what music is about anyway?

(Incidentally, if any of you clicked on that James Brown Christmas link, I hope you listened to the whole track. Trust me, you need to listen to the whole track.)

New Tron Review Online

2010-12-17T09:39:00.000-07:00

My new review for "Tron: Legacy" is online at the Deseret News website:

"Tron: Legacy is a Stylish Update"

According to Rotten Tomatoes, I seem to be in the minority among critics. But Roger Ebert agrees with me, at least.

School of Rock

2010-12-12T23:23:00.000-07:00

A little over a year ago, some of my longtime high school friends and I put together a band to perform at a charter school out in North Salt Lake. We called ourselves The Guitar Heroes in order to send the kids the message that if they learn to play real instruments instead of fake ones (read: Guitar Hero and Rock Band accessories), you can rock and roll for real. The set was a big success, and the gym full of jumping, screaming elementary ed kids instantly became one of my favorite audiences.

My current band Groove Theorem has been on a bit of a hiatus lately, so a little over a week ago, I hooked up with BretO and Cheetahman again to play a few more tunes for the K-6 crowd. For this year's performance, we wanted to raise the stakes. We picked up an additional guitarist, put together a four song set instead of three, and even wore suits for the gig. We also added an extended Kanye-Disco Coda to the one song that remained from the previous year's set: Neil Diamond's "America."

Just like last year, playing for the kids proved to be a revelation. For one thing, eight-year-olds aren't the harshest of rock critics, so you are able to relax and have a lot of fun (which was good, because my drum kit refused to stay anchored and was shifting around on my risers the whole show). But what was more fun was watching the kids' faces while we played. Some jumped and screamed, others just sat and stared. It was clear that some of the kids knew the drill, and others were getting their first dose of real Rock and Roll.

Though our message was the same, this year we went with the name Thunderlips, a derivation of a previous name The Cheetahman and I had used a few years ago with another band (The Atomic Thunderlips Traveling Ministry). We may have to go back to that full name, though, after Cheetahman informed me that another band in Cleveland is already on MySpace under that name. Either way, it was pretty cool to have 300 kids chanting "Thun-der-lips! Thun-der-lips!" at the beginning of the show.

I can't remember the first time I was introduced to Rock and Roll. I remember discovering my mom's Beatles albums in our basement when I was in the fourth grade, and I remember seeing ZZ-Top at the Delta Center when I was eighteen. But I know for a fact that I never had a band come play at Tolman Elementary School, even a bunch of amateurs like us. Those kids are totally lucky.

But I think we were luckier for getting to play for them.

New Deseret News / Mormon Times Articles Online

2010-12-10T10:43:00.001-07:00

My newest articles for the Deseret News have been posted online. One, a book review for a U.S.S. Enterprise Owners Manual, ran last weekend. The other just ran for Mormon Times, a subsidiary of the D-News. That article is a review of a new book about using humor in education. Shouldn't be too hard to understand my interest in either assignment.

Odoriferous Emanations

2010-11-28T13:45:00.001-07:00

The time has come for another major life decision. After over twelve years of use, my one bottle of cologne has finally run out, and the time has come to find a new one.

Back in the summer of 1998, I went out with a girl from Sandy and wound up wandering around the Southtowne Mall. I have no idea how this happened, but I do remember passing through the perfume/cologne section of some department store, at which point my date mentioned that she liked Polo Sport. You can pretty much fill in the rest from here.

Anyhow, that bottle of Polo lasted me a long time (Too long? Do these things even expire?), but now I need to find another option. This is a tricky challenge, because most perfumes and colognes smell exactly the same to me. I don't know if it's because I'm a guy or because I have an underdeveloped sense of smell, but unless something smells really, really good (tacos, the ocean, victory), or really, really bad (tuna fish), I won't notice it.

So help me out. What should I buy next? Make your suggestion count; if I pick it up, it's gotta last me at least a decade.

Bruce and Me

2010-11-22T09:37:00.000-07:00

OK, so it's official: I look like Bruce Willis. I've always wanted to think I looked like Bruce Willis (at least since I started shaving my head), but I never felt justified in making the claim on my own. I needed external confirmation. You can't pick your own nickname, and you can't pick your own celebrity doppelganger. These are the very pillars of civilized society.

So who offered me this external confirmation of which I speak? 1990's country star Collin Raye, that's who. Last week after one of his recent concerts at the Desert Star Playhouse in Murray, I was hanging out with Mr. Raye backstage* discussing the extended piano/guitar solo at the end of the early 1970's Derek and the Dominos hit "Layla" when he interjected the following:

"Has anyone ever told you you look just like Bruce Willis?"

Doppelganger confirmed.

That was Wednesday night. On Saturday, I was out in North Salt Lake at a clubhouse party when my buddy Tyler and I chose to approach a girl who looked a lot like Meg Ryan. That resemblance, in fact, was our method of breaking the ice with her. Then Tyler continued the game:

"So what famous person does my friend here look like?" (indicating me)

"Bruce Willis," she said, without skipping a beat.

So there you go. Two unrelated confirmations that I look like one of the baddest action heroes to ever grace the silver screen (or the small screen, I might add; I've been a big fan of Bruce ever since his "Moonlighting" days). Truth be told, my sister has maintained my resemblance to Mr. Willis for several years now, but I always dismissed it because she is legally and genetically obligated to make me feel good about myself.

But Collin Raye and Meg Ryan aren't.

Yippie Ki-Yay.

---

*A future post will clarify the circumstances of this exchange, but for now I will just sit back and let it fester in your totally-blown minds.

Movies for Music Fans

2010-11-08T21:36:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has read more than a half dozen posts on this blog, sat through a semester of one of my English classes, or talked to me at a party for more than ten minutes knows that music and movies are two things that are near and dear to my heart (almost as dear as hard shell tacos). And while there are plenty of movies out there with great soundtracks, the ones that really get through to me are the ones that are about those soundtracks.

Here is a list of seven great movies for people who love music:

A Hard Day's Night (1964)

The plot: Pretty simple, really. At the height of Beatlemania, John, Paul, George and Ringo arrive in town for a day's worth of press conferences, TV tapings, and a live concert, dodging rabid fans, sophisticated press agents and local police along the way.

The music: Some of the best of the early Beatle catalog, including "Can't Buy Me Love," "If I Fell," and "All My Loving," among others.

The moment: Early in the film, while the Fab Four are hanging out in the dining car of the train they are using to make their next gig, Paul wanders over to flirt with a couple of school girls. It would just be another charming throwaway moment if one of the school girls wasn't Patty Boyd, future wife of both George Harrison and Eric Clapton, and the woman who inspired the song's "Something" and "Layla." That must have been some cameo.

Almost Famous (2000)

The plot: I've always thought of this movie as the film equivalent of "The Wonder Years," if Kevin Arnold was an aspiring music journalist who wound up on tour with a 2nd tier rock band in the early 1970's. Instead of chasing Winnie Cooper, this Kevin (William Miller, played by local SLC product Patrick Fugit) winds up falling for a semi-mythic groupie named Penny Lane (Kate Hudson.)

The music: The movie is a semi-autobiographical account of how director Cameron Crowe got his start at Rolling Stone, so the film is jammed with music from pretty much every act from the early '70's: Bowie, Zeppelin, Hendrix, and an unforgettable sequence with Elton John's "Tiny Dancer."

The moment: William Miller may be on tour with a real rock band, but he's still an outsider. When things go bad late in the film and William has no one else to turn to, he calls up his mentor, Creem Magazine editor Lester Bangs (played by Philip Seymour Hoffmann), and the resulting conversation says it all.

The Blues Brothers (1980)

The plot: Two black-suited ex-cons reform their old R&B band when God inspires them to raise the money to save the Chicago orphanage they were raised in from imminent foreclosure. Along they way they battle local police, neo-nazis, Indiana rednecks, and Carrie Fisher.

The music: The music in this film is the template for a working knowledge of soul music. Not only do James Brown, Aretha Franklin and John Lee Hooker play on the soundtrack, they also show up in cameos throughout the film. This movie is ground zero for my music appreciation.

The moment: After looming in the background like the angel of death for two hours, Carrie Fisher finally tracks down our heroes in a dank sewer. When he finally takes off his sunglasses for the first and only time in the film, you know why John Belushi was one of the greatest comedians to ever hit the screen.

The Commitments (1991)

The plot: A rogue group of working class Irish misfits from Dublin band together to save soul music and figure out what on earth those lyrics to "Whiter Shade of Pale" really mean. The perfect movie for any white suburban kid who was raised on Motown and James Brown.

The music: Do-it-yourself covers of soul standards from Aretha Franklin to Wilson Pickett.

The moment: The drummer wants to kill the lead singer. The sax player thinks he's a jazz soloist. The trumpet player has turned all three backup singers against each other. The manager has a price on his head from the loan shark he used to score the band's equipment. And outside, Wilson Pickett may or may not be on his way to jam after he finished a gig of his own. In the middle of everything, the band gathers on stage for one last rally before the lights go out, delivering a cover of Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness" that explains just what soul music is all about.

High Fidelity (1998)

The plot: John Cusack's Robb is a thirtysomething record store owner who is going nowhere. When his longtime girlfriend leaves him (for a New Age Tim Robbins), Robb revisits the girls of his past in order to make sense of his future, wondering if he is miserable because he listens to pop music or if he listens to pop music because he is miserable. Based on Nick Hornby's novel of the same name.

The music: "High Fidelity" is set in the 90's, but it's about a record collector, so the soundtrack covers ground as diverse as The Velvet Underground, Marvin Gaye, and the Stiff Little Fingers.

The moment: When Robb finally concedes to attend the local debut of his manic employee Barry (Jack Black)'s new band, he expects the worst of garage rock. What he gets is something entirely different.

Pirate Radio (2009)

The plot: At the peak of the British Invasion, the only way Britons could listen to rock and roll on the radio was to dial in to a pirate broadcast from a ship anchored somewhere off the mainland. "Pirate Radio" is a fictionalized account of one of those ships, told through the eyes of a prep school dropout who is sent to the ship to meet his long unidentified father.

The music: Set in 1966, the movie features the best of The Who, The Stones, The Kinks, and tons of other British Invasion greats.

The moment: When one of the DJ's steals the girl of his dreams, Carl (the dropout) finds himself in familiar rough waters. When two members of the crew try to cheer him up, you realize that the movie is about a lot more than music.

That Thing You Do (1996)

The plot: The prototype tale of a one-hit wonder set in the excitement of the early 1960's. When amateur drummer Guy Patterson (Tom Everett Scott) joins a local band called, yes, "The Wonders," their catchy hit takes them from small-town Pennsylvania to the top of the national charts, then leaves them alone at the peak with no way down.

The music: Unlike most of the other movies on this list, the music in "That Thing You Do" is all original, penned to mimic early 1960's styles, and it is remarkably effective in doing so.

The moment: When the band inevitably splits, leaving Guy at the recording studio with no one to play with, he runs into his Jazz, drummer Del Paxton, who passes on some advice that has pretty much defined my amateur musical career.

Honorable Mention: American Graffiti (1973)

The plot: Before George Lucas made "Star Wars," he directed this relatively low-budget film that follows the hijinks of a group of friends on the last night of summer in 1962. Even though it's not about a specific musical topic, the period soundtrack is omnipresent throughout the film, mostly channeled through the radio broadcast of famous DJ "Wolfman" Jack that the characters always seem to have playing on their radios.

The music: Set in 1962, "American Graffiti's" soundtrack covers the best of early rock and roll, right up to the days before the Beatles hit. Del Shannon, Bill Haley, Buddy Holly...they're all here.

The moment: In one of the most contemplative scenes in the movie, Richard Dreyfuss' character Curt actually drops in on The Wolfman because he wants to drop off a dedication to the elusive blond he's been chasing for the whole movie. Growing up, my favorite scene was Curt's initiation into the local Pharoah gang, but as I get older this encounter with The Wolfman takes the number one spot.

Back in Print

2010-10-29T10:07:00.000-06:00

From time to time, you may have a new option for reading my inane, pop-culture laced ramblings. I've signed on as a freelancer for the Deseret News.

Here's my first offering. It's (surprise) a list of recommended Halloween songs. It also appears in this morning's print edition, which means it's technically my first appearance in print in about six years.

Let the good times roll.

Why I Love Movies

2010-10-18T00:04:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure where I got the idea (or the motivation) to do this, but over the last couple of weeks I've been putting together a highlight reel of some of my favorite movie clips. Like I said, I'm not sure why I did it, but I do know that it's been a lot of fun to see so many of my favorite moments in close succession. I'm sure you'll recognize a lot of these clips, but if any seem unfamiliar, let me know and I'll tell you where to find them. Even if you don't recognize them, I'm sure that half a dozen of these will make you smile, if not more.

Just so you know, there is a touch of PG/PG-13 level language in a few of the clips.

Paper Wars

2010-10-06T20:46:00.001-06:00

Just found this through blastr.com, one of those geeky sites I check out now and then:

Carrie Fisher is the Center of the Universe

2010-09-30T07:57:00.000-06:00

Last week I dropped by the Davis County Library to check out some new reading material, and picked up a copy of Carrie Fisher's recent memoir, "Wishful Drinking." It was a pretty eye-opening account of a woman born to a pair of 1950's Hollywood celebrities who went on to deal with substance abuse, manic depression, and the eternal burden of an iron bikini.

I finished the book by the end of the day. The next day, her celebrity father died.

I don't think there was a connection.

What was even stranger, though, was realizing just how central a role Carrie Fisher has played in my pop culture universe:

1. Carrie Fisher played Princess Leia in "Star Wars."

The first "Star Wars" film came out six months after I was born, and I spent the first ten years of my life wanting to be Han Solo when I grew up. While I never quite developed the same crush on Princess Leia as some of my fellow peer-nerds, that infamous gold bikini from "Return of the Jedi" might explain why I never went through that early childhood phase where boys think girls have cooties. Not that it helped any.

2. Carrie Fisher played John Belushi's estranged ex-fiancee in "The Blues Brothers."

If "Star Wars" is the keystone of my appreciation of science fiction, "The Blues Brothers" is the keystone of my appreciation for comedy. When I was a kid, "The Blues Brothers" was that cool movie on cable where they have a car chase in a mall. In high school, it became the foundation for my deep appreciation for soul and blues music. By the time I left on an LDS mission to Chicago, the film had a flat-out divine import. A mission from God, indeed.

3. Carrie Fisher was married to Paul Simon.

Before "The Blues Brothers" solidified my R&B roots, my parents raised me on a steady diet of Motown and Simon & Garfunkel. To this day, "Mrs. Robinson" instantly links me to memories of our family Honda weaving through Douglas Fir trees in Yellowstone National Park, even though the song itself was written in Greenwich Village, New York. I still maintain that Paul Simon is the greatest songwriter of the late 20th Century (even though he truly needed Garfunkel to bring his best stuff to fruition). Carrie Fisher would probably agree with me.

Moreover, Ms. Fisher is an accomplished writer (four other novels to date) and stage performer (the memoir was adapted from a live comic performance she used to do...or may still do. I don't know, the book came out two years ago.) With all those different interests, Carrie Fisher, like Steve Martin and Woody Allen, is nothing more than a considerably more successful version of me.

(uncomfortable silence...)

Yep, that pretty much says it.

Further On Up the Road: 2010 Epic Summer Film

2010-09-29T16:14:00.001-06:00

For anyone who wasn't able to make it out to Sugarhouse Park last weekend, here is my submission for the 2010 Epic Summer Film Festival, "Further On Up the Road:"

Unlike my previous Epic Summer submissions, I didn't go for the mockumentary this time. This piece is more an attempt to tie together the different interests I was pursuing over the summer, and pull out some kind of common theme. Near as I can tell, the common theme was Rock and Roll. From the band I played in to the bands I photographed to the road trips I took, music seemed to play a dominant role in the experience, much more so than humor, anyway.

A number of people thought I should have identified all the locations in the photos and video clips in the film. Since I didn't, I'll list some of them below:

Arches National Park
Canyonlands National Park
Seattle, Washington
The Jimi Hendrix Memorial, Washington
Sturgis, South Dakota
Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming
Mount Rushmore National Monument, South Dakota
Cody, Wyoming
Quake Lake, Montana
Antelope Island, Utah
The Layton City Amphitheater
The Bountiful Days of '47 Parade
Yellowstone National Park

If anyone has a specific question about any of the images or clips, feel free to leave a comment.

A KISS Conversion?

2010-09-29T10:10:00.000-06:00

Some of my favorite moments in life are the ones you never see coming. Not that they are particularly great or wonderful, just that they are so far from anything you expected when you woke up that morning.

I have a new moment for the list.

Last Wednesday night, about 10:30PM, I was standing with my buddy Chidsey on the west end of Rio Tinto Stadium in section 17 under a full moon as KISS blasted out the chords to "God Gave Rock and Roll to You" on a brilliantly-lit stage fifty yards away.

This moment is improbable for several reasons, including:

1. I am not a KISS fan.
2. As recently as 4:37PM that afternoon, I had no knowledge of KISS's plans to play a concert in Sandy, Utah that evening (let alone any intention of attending).

Yet, the moment came together. Somebody gave Chidsey a couple of extra tickets to the concert, and Chidsey gave me a call at the precise moment when spending an evening watching four middle-aged men in stage makeup rock out to a collection of innuendo-driven 1970's anthems like "Love Gun" sounded like a perfect idea.

So after two hours and 20 tracks of exposure to the full KISS experience, I still can't quite call myself a fan, much less a full-fledged member of the KISS Army. But I have a much better idea of why the Army digs them so much. Why they get dressed up to go to their concerts. Why they go crazy when the automated stage lifts the drummer's kit forty feet in the air and shoots steam out the bottom to make it look like it's about to blast off into the stratosphere.

Something about those old guys in eight-inch platform boots is pretty fun. Something about them bringing some veterans on stage to present an oversized donation check, then leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance while guitarist Tommy Thayer waves a fifteen-foot American flag is kind of cool. And something about lead singer and "Star Child" Paul Stanley repeatedly referencing the band's new album "Sonic Boom" and how you can get it exclusively at Walmart reminds me that even though we all like to take rock and roll seriously, we really shouldn't. Especially when a harness lifts 61-year-old Gene Simmons to the top of the stage scaffolding so he can spit blood and play his axe-shaped bass guitar at us from fifty feet in the air.

Almost, thou persuadest me to be a KISS fan...

I'm still not much of a fan of KISS's music. But last night I became a big fan of the KISS Experience.

Epic Summer: Deleted Sequence

2010-09-17T12:17:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow night I will be participating in my fourth Epic Summer Film Festival up in Sugarhouse Park. It's an annual event where a bunch of laid-back folks hang out and watch amateur films about outdoor adventure and humanitarian efforts. Very cool vibe. A buddy of mine turned me on to the event four years ago after we hiked The Subway together, and I've been a participant in the festival ever since.

This year's submission, "Further On Up the Road," is probably the most "epic" of my films so far, in this case attempting to capture the events of an entire season instead of a single hike or road trip. Even so, at the end of the editing day, some pieces don't quite fit into the final product. One of my favorite things about the summer season is making fresh salsa, and I put the following sequence together in the hopes of working it into the film.

As much as I love fresh salsa, I couldn't find a good way to work this footage into the final film logically. But I don't want it to go to waste, and I'm kind of bummed about summer being over, so here you go. If you love fresh salsa, it is kind of fun to watch.

Promote Giant Squid Awareness!

2010-09-08T08:21:00.000-06:00

Last night I had a dream that I was attacked by a giant squid that was in my refrigerator. The details are kind of sketchy--where's an "Inception"-like architect when you need one?--but I seem to remember the squid was left over from a sequence in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" that Steven Spielberg planned but never filmed. There was also some kind of connection to Sam Elliot playing a truck driver.

On a related note, my band is making its debut performance tonight at the Layton Amphitheater. I plan to check the place for hidden squid before I take the stage.

That is all.

Countdown to the Debut

2010-08-31T11:04:00.000-06:00

I'm getting kind of excited. My new band Groove Theorem is playing the Layton Amphitheater next week on the night of September 8th (a Wednesday). The show is free, and we're going to be joined by my good buddy Paul Timothy. Here's a taste of what we've been working up for the show:

Hopefully the neighbors won't complain too much...

Scott Pilgrim's Fabulous Light Cycle Voyage

2010-08-30T09:20:00.002-06:00

Other than knocking out an occasional Tetris game on my outdated cell phone, I'm not what you would call a gamer. The only substantial game I've ever passed was the original "Super Mario Bro.'s" back in junior high, and the closest I've ever come to joining a LAN party is playing the plastic drums in "Rock Band." Yet I've recently seen two movies that feature video game themes as a critical part of their stories:

"Scott Pilgrim vs. the World"

I was a little nervous going into my viewing of "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World." The one preview I had seen suggested the film was going to be a bit heavy on the EMO hipster side, but in the aftermath of Pilgrim's epic battle, the only EMO quality of the film that really bothered me was the 75-pound beanie-wearing doofus sitting in front of me who kept texting through the movie.

"Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" is about a lot of things, but mostly it's about a kid who meets the girl of his dreams, then has to fight his way through a series of her "Evil Ex's" in order to date her. These fights are illustrated through the use of a video game metaphor. Each battle is presented like a fight from "Mortal Kombat," with animated point totals that pop up whenever he finishes off an opponent. Even as a non-gamer, I still think the device is the most astute true-to-life aspect of the entire film. When the dust clears, the dating game definitely feels like a battle, and along those lines, more like boxing than chess.

In spite of its branding as a box office bomb, I really enjoyed the movie. It definitely leans on the 18-22 side of the audience spectrum, but not so much that I felt completely alienated (or nauseated). Instead, the creativity of the film inspired me, and the heart of the story connected to themes and feelings that were universal, even if they were universally painful. The Beck and T-Rex-fueled soundtrack is great, which shouldn't be a surprise once you learn that the film was directed by the same guy who did "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz." Plus this movie marks the first time in memory that I've ever found myself attracted to a girl with blue, green, or purple hair.

I guess there's a first time for everything.

"Tron"

The first and only time I had seen "Tron" was at the Davis Drive-In when I was a little kid. After re-watching it last week--in anticipation of the re-boot/sequel coming out later this year--I know why. "Tron" is a cool movie, but it sails over the head of a five-year-old.

As simply as I can put it, "Tron" bounces back and forth between the "real world" and the "virtual world," where computer programs are personified by characters in neon suits who run around CGI-generated environments trying to battle a huge evil program (Master Control Program--MCP) that wants to take over the "real world" as well. At the end of the first act, Jeff Bridges gets assimilated into the virtual world, where he teams up with the programs to fight the MCP.

It makes sense to me now, but there's no way I would have grasped this as a little kid, let alone appreciated its foresight. But now that I do, I'm excited to see "Tron: Legacy" this December, and not just because the GGI is going to be so much better. Special effects aside, the philosophical concept of the original film was pioneering in its exploration of "Matrix"-like virtual reality, and it's especially interesting to note the religious metaphors and parallels that are present. Namely, the "real world" programmers are called "users" by their personified programs in the virtual world, and one of the primary philosophical battles in the virtual world centers on the debate as to whether the "users" even exist. One could even take the metaphor a step further when you realize that Jeff Bridges plays a Christ-like role in the film, as the one "user" who enters the digital world on behalf of the programs. Pretty heady stuff for Disney.

But if that's too out there, just see the new movie for the light cycles. They look way cool.

The Wounded Mosquito Productions Internship!

2010-08-24T10:00:00.001-06:00

This week, across the country, hundreds of millions of bright-eyed youngsters are starting a brand-new semester of college, in many cases, for the first time. But in these days of intense competition and uncertain economic climate changes, a degree will only take you so far, and many employers are looking for something extra in prospective employees. That is why, in the proud tradition of Dunder Mifflin and Kramerica Industries, Wounded Mosquito Productions has decided to offer its first-ever official internship* for the Fall 2010 semester.

Description

The Wounded Mosquito Internship will give one successful candidate a variety of genuine, real-world professional experiences, including (but not limited to) the vast world of modern media, the behind-the-curtain world of modern academia, and the ever-changing tasty world of local culinary establishments. The intern will function side-by-side with the company President and CEO to execute and maintain the high quality standards of Wounded Mosquito Productions. (Specific high quality standards of Wounded Mosquito Productions subject to change).

Specific responsibilities include:

Waking President/CEO up in morning
Preparing breakfast for President/CEO (or lunch, depending on circumstance)
Texting friends/associates of President/CEO to make social plans for weekend
Surfing Internet to look for ideas/clients for President/CEO
Grading English papers for the President/CEO while he does other stuff
Running the iPod while driving to shoots with President/CEO
Attending functions with President/CEO, such as Jazz games and afternoon matinees
Driving company vehicle if President/CEO is way pooped after a long day
Assisting the President/CEO with important scientific experiments, like testing new salsa or smoothie recipes
Remembering stuff that President/CEO often forgets, like turning off the stove before leaving the house

Minimum Qualifications

The selected candidate must:

Speak/write/recognize English
Be high school graduate, or thereabouts
Be able to cook pretty well
Be able to write stuff fast in case President/CEO starts getting lots of ideas really quick
Be able to drive a manual transmission
Have a clean driving record, or at least a cleaner one than President/CEO
Be able to understand satire

Preferred Qualifications

The ideal candidate will be:

Female
Single
Into cool stuff, like music and food
Smart with a cool personality...and hot, too
A former athletic trainer (President/CEO needs to lose about 15-20 pounds)
Not way taller than President/CEO
Willing to put up with President/CEO's eccentric-genius habits

Additional Details

This is an unpaid internship, and Wounded Mosquito Productions does not offer college credit, at least any that would be accepted by an accredited institution. (At the same time, candidate does not need to be enrolled at an accredited institution to qualify for internship. Candidate can be in massage therapy school, for example). Company will provide successful candidate with her own parking space. At the conclusion of the internship, candidate will receive autographed certificate of completion and photo with President/CEO. They may go out to dinner or something, too.

Instructions

If you are interested in applying for this position, please send a resume and head shot to intern_thing@woundedmosquito.com. A representative of Wounded Mosquito Productions will contact you if the President/CEO wants to bring you in for an interview, or just meet you downtown to grab a burger or something. President/CEO may decide to bring on multiple candidates depending on professional and social needs.

---

*Satire.

Defending Ray

2010-08-18T09:33:00.000-06:00

Three years ago my sister and I drove a thousand miles to Comic-Con to meet Ray Bradbury. His work was that important to us...plus, at 87 years old, we worried that if we missed our chance he might not be around to give us another opportunity.

Three years later, Ray is still alive and well, and back in the news. Just shy of his 90th birthday, Bradbury is none too pleased with modern technology. Specifically, he hates the Internet, Kindle, Big Government, and thinks we should go back to the Moon (and on to Mars). People have been giving him grief for his apparent techno-phobia, especially because his phrasing of terms (IE, referring to "Internets" instead of "Internet") makes him come off like a senile old crank. But I think his critics are missing the point of his message.

Ray Bradbury may not have a perfect technological understanding of the things he is criticizing, but 90 years old or not, I think he still gets it. In spite of the futuristic, sci-fi element of much of his work (he defines himself as a fantasy writer, for the record), Bradbury's stories have always found their greatest strength in their humanity. And for all the obvious advantages that modern technology affords us, over-reliance on it can take a heavy toll on that humanity. Bradbury understands this, and I think this is why he says the things he says.

Digital technology can open wonderful doors of imagination, whether it comes in the form of a camera or a blog or a software program, but it also lets us be lazy if we want to. You don't have to be a great photographer to take good-looking photographs, and you don't have to be a great web designer to drop some text into a template and hit "publish."

Cell phones and text messaging can be great for staying in contact with friends, but all too often I see groups of friends ignoring each other while they text the friends that aren't there. Facebook and other social media allow us to reconnect with friends we've lost touch with over the years, but trolling someone's profile page and making occasional comments on their vacation photos doesn't create a depth of relationship. It just suggests its presence.

I thought it was interesting that this summer's biggest movie is built around a question about our perception of reality. "Inception" has plenty of cool special effects and an open-ended plot that keeps you guessing, but the film resonates with me because it points the finger at one of the central issues of our time: are we using technology to make genuine connections with the people around us, or are we letting it alienate us even further by using it to create our own personal cocoons of perceived reality?

Ray Bradbury made his career writing about Martians and dinosaurs, but he can also demonstrate the simple profundity of sitting on a deck with a cold drink while the sounds of nature connect you to the meaning of life. He champions the genuine article over the synthetic, and in the sci-fi/fantasy genre, he's not alone. When he rants that we have "too many Internets," I think that's what he's afraid we're losing.

My 2010 Road Trip By the Numbers

2010-08-17T10:51:00.000-06:00

1,800: Approximate mileage of the entire road trip, starting in Bountiful, north to Yellowstone, east to Devils Tower (and then Mount Rushmore), south to Nebraska, and west on I-80 to home.

583: Photos taken on the trip.

867: Number of dead bug bodies that are still blasted across the front of my car.

30+: Gas mileage for the trip.

6: States I covered during the trip, including Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, and thanks to my GPS, Nebraska.

3: Fridge magnets I picked up to commemorate the trip.

2: National Parks I drove through (Yellowstone and Wind Cave).

5: Times I wondered if I should have ordered two burgers instead of just one at Maddox on the way up, because they're just so darn good.

15: Mph rate posted on the new speed limit signs along the dirt road by my family cabin.

1: Batch of fresh salsa I made at the family cabin, officially kicking off the fresh salsa season.

1,000: Number of people in attendance at the Island Park Ward sacrament meeting.

650: Pound-weight of the boulder my friends and I rolled into Quake Lake on Sunday afternoon because we got bored with skipping rocks.

1.5: Rainbows that showed up at Devils Tower the evening I arrived.

.42 Percentage of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" that I watched on my laptop inside the borrowed tent I had set up in the dark in a $12 camping spot under the tower while a windstorm tried to blow me away.

9: Deer I encountered at 5:45AM while driving in for some sunrise shots of Devils Tower.

17,000: Bikers I encountered on highways between Devils Tower, Wyoming and Custer, South Dakota, thanks to the annual biker rally in Sturgis which was taking place the same week.

17,000+: Bikers I encountered while cruising the main drag in Sturgis, which is located just off I-90 in-between Devils Tower and Mount Rushmore.

18: Length of the horns (in inches) that were sticking out of the helmet of one of the swarm of bikers that visited Mount Rushmore with me.

7: Times I encountered the Biker Mama of My Dreams at the Mount Rushmore Gift Shop, but failed to speak to hear out of fear that she would stick me with a shiv.

117: Extra miles tacked onto the total trip because my GPS told me to go south into Nebraska after Mount Rushmore instead of cut diagonally across Wyoming like the Google Maps thing suggested.

75: Times I had to hit the brakes, deactivate my cruise control and drop 20MPH because a clump of semis were trying to pass each other and blocking both highway lanes.

8: Times AT&T dropped my call home along I-80 while my parents were trying to help me research room prices for Wyoming motels.

0: Dead bodies under my motel bed in Rawlins, Wyoming. (If you'd been there, you'd have been excited, too.)

7: Times I wondered whether I should make an extra spin north to Maddox once I emerged from I-84 just south of Ogden before completing the journey home, because their burgers are just so darn good.

Double Rainbow at Devils Tower

2010-08-12T09:05:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I finished a road trip that covered 1,800 miles through six states in six days. Along the way I stayed a night at Devils Tower in northeastern Wyoming, and just before I arrived, I caught this off the highway.

I dropped the sound for the first several seconds because a Marvin Gaye song was playing on the car stereo in the background, and YouTube sends me these threatening e-mails whenever I post something that has external music on it. You know, because YouTube is a champion of copyright honesty.

The Siren Calls Again...

2010-08-06T11:49:00.000-06:00

This means something.

The Dream Lives...

2010-07-27T10:19:00.000-06:00

Yeah, so remember that piece I wrote a while back about all of my one-gig stands with different garage bands? Remember how I told you about the newest one that actually had some potential to go somewhere?

It never really went anywhere.

But that's just the bad news. The good news is I'm in another band, and this time we really have a chance to go somewhere! Honest! A few months ago my buddy Dan (the guy standing up in this clip) recruited me into a blues band he was forming. I joined up, we started playing with these two guys Matt and Chris up in Kaysville (the source of all true blues), my buddy Dustin invited us to open for his band at a bar called The Fifth in Bountiful, the Fifth dumped us all for a radio promotion, Chris left for law school, we picked up a new bass player named Ryan, named ourselves Groove Theorem, and decided to rent out the Layton Amphitheater and put on our own gig in September.

So...

On Wednesday night, September 8th, at the Layton Amphitheater, Groove Theorem will make their public debut, with special guest Paul Timothy (the guy sitting down in this clip). The performance is free of charge (the rental would have cost us twice as much if we had sold tickets, which didn't seem promising being our first gig and all), and will wrap up before 9PM, so you really don't have any excuses to miss it. It's a perfect way to cap off your summer, or just continue the epic Labor Day Party you have been riding for 72 hours.

See you there.

An Open Letter to LeBron James

2010-07-21T09:27:00.002-06:00

Dear LeBron,

I just wanted to write and say thank-you for the last two weeks. No, seriously. Summer is typically a sports wasteland for me. I'm not a baseball guy, not a tennis guy, and definitely not a golf guy. The World Cup is OK, and football is still a ways off. So it was nice to have a constant stream of NBA-related news on ESPN. And from what I can tell, that stream isn't about to dry up anytime soon.

What's even better is that the Jazz got in on the big show, too. I never figured you'd consider making Salt Lake City ground zero for your magic kingdom, but I was excited that Kevin O'Connor got Big Al Jefferson and Raja "Clothesline" Bell into Jazz uniforms. For a while there I thought the only Utah moves were going to be all of our unrestricted guys signing with the Bulls.

Speaking of which, if you had to leave Cleveland, why didn't you pick Chicago? I think we can all understand why New York or New Jersey were dubious options (not to mention the career-ending decapitation/ACL tear that awaited you in Clipper-Land), but between Miami and Chicago, it seems to me that The Windy City held a lot more long-term potential. Really, why wouldn't you want to play with this guy?

I get it if you just want to be able to play with your best friends. It's your career; why wouldn't you want to spend it in the most enjoyable environment? But that's where things get confusing. Do you want to win titles and play with your friends, or do you want to be the Greatest Player of Post-Jordan Times? Because going to Miami suggests the former, and leaving through a live TV special suggests the latter.

That's why the last two weeks has been so interesting for me. It would be easy to just brush you off as another ego-maniac pro athlete, but there are too many angles to your story to dismiss it. The Hometown Betrayal angle. The Superfriends angle. The Greatest Teammate vs. Greatest Player angle. In the blink of an eye you went from beloved hero to Public Enemy #1. You turned the Heat into the East Coast Lakers. You made Kobe likable. At least MJ waited until his Hall of Fame speech to poop all over his legacy. And now he's turned on you, too.

But don't get me wrong; aside from the way you treated my mom's hometown, I'd have to say that overall I'm pretty happy with what you brought to the table this summer. And I can honestly say that I can't wait for next season.

Give my best to the boys.

Love,

Josh

A Few Thoughts on Lawn Care

2010-07-08T06:57:00.000-06:00

I hear a lot of the same questions over and over again...

Where do you get your ideas?
Are you on drugs?
Do you want me to call the police?

Another one came up recently at the Yogurt Stop in Bountiful. A dozen of us were innocently enjoying our custom made pay-by-the-ounce desserts when a girl in the group sent the conversation onto a random tangent:

"Is it OK for girls to ask guys out on dates?"

About half the guys in the group grumbled slightly, and the other half shook our heads. Then came an empty awkward silence that said far more than anything we could have verbalized.

When it comes to dating, I often feel like a third-world dictator. I only have a fleeting grasp on a small corner of a very big world, but I will cling desperately to that corner until I am assassinated. I can't choose which girls will respond to my interest, but at least I can choose who to invite.

This may sound sexist in our modern world, and maybe it is, but the simple truth is that if I am interested in someone, I will ask them out. If I'm not, I won't.

Now, there are alternatives, especially if like most girls you are convinced that the only reason the man in your sights hasn't asked you out is because he is too shy to pull the trigger. If you want to encourage interest, speak to him in public situations. Laugh at his lame jokes. Follow his blog. Better yet, invite him to a party or some kind of group activity. Just don't cut his grass. If you ask him out, he'll think, "hey, isn't that my job? I feel like I am being metaphorically kicked in my man parts." And an empty awkward silence will follow.

We don't want to get kicked in our man parts. We just want to rule Cuba in peace.

A Kiss that Fell Short of Greatness

2010-07-03T10:02:00.000-06:00

Call it an impulse buy.

Last night--technically really early this morning--after a rare viewing of "Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey," I downloaded a Kiss song. Not a make-out song, a Kiss song. Meaning the band. Kiss.

It was the first time I've ever downloaded a Kiss song.

See, in spite of their stature among the icons of late 1970's/early 1980's Classic Rock--an era I have mined repeatedly--I've never been much of a Kiss fan. Mostly because I expected more from them.

Allow me to explain:

My first exposure to Kiss came during a family trip to Cleveland, Ohio when I was somewhere in the neighborhood of five years old. My mom's side of the family lives out there, and while hanging out with my cousin Jamie (who was about twelve years old, if I remember right) I discovered half a dozen Kiss albums in his bedroom.

The album covers astounded me. If the makeup and costumes and overall evil appearance of the albums was any indicator, the music should have come straight from the bowels of Hell itself. It was almost scary. It was also kind of cool.

My cousin never actually played the albums for me, though. We were too preoccupied with his Atari. Instead, I went on to have my Beatles phase in elementary school, and my unfortunate pop phase in junior high, before cementing my Classic Rock roots in high school. I picked up a CD compilation of Classic Rock hits because I desperately wanted a copy of "Sunshine of Your Love," and the disc also happened to have a Kiss track: "Rock and Roll All Nite."

I wasn't impressed. I thought Kiss would have produced the darkest, edgiest music ever, but instead I got this bizarre power-pop rock that kind of felt like it would have been better suited for a Broadway stage. It turns out Kiss was a lot more Butt Rock than Classic Rock. More Motley Crue than Led Zeppelin. Too bad.

I do have to give them credit for the costumes, though. They definitely took Bowie to the next level. And given that my first exposure to them came at the same time "Star Wars" was shaping my young mind, it's safe to say that Kiss may have played a small part in the formation of my lifelong interest in the visual arts. I just didn't dig the actual product that much.

So why did I download "God Gave Rock and Roll To You" last night? I don't know. For the same reason I downloaded "Pour Some Sugar On Me" or "Rock and Roll Heaven" by the Righteous Brothers. Music serves a lot of different purposes. Sometimes corny 80's rock anthems just sound right.

Bill and Ted would probably agree.

Tornado Delay

2010-07-02T09:33:00.000-06:00

I have no idea what this commentator is saying, but it's probably something along the lines of, "this is awesome. This is way awesome."

Bona Fide

2010-07-01T10:12:00.001-06:00

It's official. Next January I am going to be an uncle. A real one.

Beast Wench is having a kid.

Up until now, I have happily served as an auxiliary uncle to several of my close friends' children, with mixed results. I'm not sure all of them really know who I am. But in January, all that will end. My sister--my only sibling--will have a baby, and I will finally be bona-fide.

Coming from a small family, this is a big deal. Most of my friends have been aunts or uncles for a long time now.* I have a lot of important life experience to pass on, and it will be nice to finally have someone around who is genetically obligated to listen to me. While my sister and brother-in-law labor to provide food and shelter for their newborn, I will be there to cover the important stuff. Namely, to make sure the child grows up a devoted follower of the Utah Jazz, and that he/she sees "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" at a young age, long before the kids at school ruin the experience by doing all the best lines in bad British accents. I'll be there to block the influence of country music, and to let the glory of Tom Jones shine in.

It's gonna be a blast.

---

*Yes, I realize that most of my friends have also moved on to give birth to their own children, but from what I can tell, being an uncle is the better gig. It's kind of like being Vice President: your name is on the ticket, you share in the glory and the prestige, but you really don't have to do anything.

The Streak

2010-06-27T21:57:00.001-06:00

On the night of June 27th, 1998, I sat in a fifth-wheel trailer in Island Park, Idaho, scribbling in a black ten-dollar hard-bound journal from Deseret Book. I'd finished my first year of school at the University of Utah after returning from Chicago, and had just arrived at the family place outside Yellowstone for the first time since before I'd left.

Twelve years later, I still haven't missed a daily entry.

As much money as I've spent on camera lenses, computer equipment, and retro Air Jordan's, there is nothing as valuable to me as the ten journals I've filled in the last dozen years. It's cool to think that I could go back to any day from that period and tell you exactly what I was doing. All too often in life we worry about the things we haven't done, but journals are a nice way to remember what we have enjoyed.

Here are a dozen examples from the last twelve years:

Met George Lucas, Ray Bradbury, and Luke Skywalker.
Taught English composition to firefighters in South Jordan.
Got paid fifty bucks to be a bouncer at a Saltair young adult dance.
Been a Best Man twice.
Totaled a 1964 Mustang.
Saw James Brown in concert.
Saw Sammy Sosa hit a home run at Wrigley Field.
Ate a raw Habanero pepper.
Finally scored a goal in an official rec league soccer game (that wasn't for the other team).
Won a fresh salsa competition and a chili cook-off.
Sang lead for a real Chicago blues band at The Blue Chicago.
Got mugged in The French Quarter.

Here are twelve things I'd like to accomplish in the next dozen years (assuming civilization is not wiped out by a zombie/robot apocalypse first):

Watch a movie at either The Spud Drive-In outside Driggs, Idaho or The Sky-Vu Drive-In south of Monroe, Wisconsin.
Become an uncle.
Get a book published.
Buy another Mustang.
Visit the old Tatooine set from the original "Star Wars" shoot in Tunisia.
Lose enough weight to fit the medium sized "Elvis meets Nixon" t-shirt gathering dust in my dresser.
Sit courtside for a Jazz game...in the Finals! (Brother's gotta dream, right?)
Have someone throw their underwear at me while playing drums onstage.
Reach 100 "followers" on this dumb blog (this is a hint).
Get Natalie Portman's phone number.
Convince people to finally start referring to my friend Bill as "Dr. Thunder."
Bench press 300 lbs.

Sweet Dreams, #176

2010-06-24T08:40:00.000-06:00

Some of my dreams are one-hit wonders, like the one where I was Clint Eastwood or the one where I was popping wheelies in a Mitsubishi Eclipse with Salma Hayek. Others are recurring, like the ones where I'm driving cars with no brakes or running over hippies with a double-decker bus.

One such recurring dream has me serving a second mission. It's always a nightmare, which is strange, because I distinctly remember enjoying my mission. Maybe it's because serving a second mission would suggest that I screwed up on the first one.

Here is what I wrote in a notebook after one recent "second mission" dream:

"...I wake up on couch in the living room of a host family during some sort of a mission transfer. One of the family's sons has a friend who is completely tattooed and is constantly texting with some kind of a fake tail that has been surgically attached at his left hip. When I wake up I am covered in travel bottles of NyQuil and disappointed that I am on a second mission (and less than one month in). As I lay on the couch I notice that the family has these little gnome house servants who are sneaking around my stuff stealing items (like disposable contact lenses). When I confront them about this, one says, 'puck you.' I think I may be in the middle of a transfer to the office with another missionary (it's his disposable contact)."

I don't know what the part at the end means. Actually, I don't know what the whole thing means. If any of you have any ideas, feel free to share.

Look out, you rock and rollers...

2010-06-21T09:50:00.000-06:00

Last weekend I bought three pairs of ankle socks.

This will come as a shock to people familiar with my notorious stubborn streak, because I don't like ankle socks. I haven't had any since at least junior high. It might have something to do with Shawn Kemp.

So why did I finally cave in? Three reasons:

Everyone at my gym wears ankle socks.
As far as body parts go, my calves aren't so bad.
Dr. Death.

Dr. Death is this guy at my gym who wears black all the time. Tank top, jeans, military boots. All black. He also cusses a lot.

But one day I noticed that Dr. Death wasn't wearing his military boots anymore. He was wearing high-tops. Still black.

I didn't ask why he made the change. I've never had a conversation with Dr. Death. What was important was that he had MADE the change.

Dr. Death can change.

People can change.

I can change.

Rocky was right.

Radio Doesn't Suck

2010-06-17T09:20:00.001-06:00

I am happy to report that my new relationship is going quite well. It was over two months ago that I terminated my long-term association with KODJ 94.1, and so far the guys on Arrow 103.5 have yet to do any serious analysis of "Dancing with the Stars" or bring on their personal psychic mediums.

In fact, speaking of cosmic coincidences, it turns out I already have a history with my new morning show. Jon Carter, one of the hosts, also used to do the morning show for Z-93, which was my classic rock show of choice back in high school before the station went country. Familiar voices can be nice sometimes.

I actually met Carter a few years ago, though I didn't know it at the time. I was standing in line outside The Depot waiting to get into the Steve Winwood concert with elBreto and The Other Josh when these two guys asked me if I wanted a free t-shirt. I said yes, because you know, free t-shirt. Then this other guy in line asked if I wanted to get a picture with the selfless souls who were out clothing the naked. I said OK.

Later I learned one of the t-shirt guys was Carter.

That's right, kids: radio doesn't suck.

---

PS: About six months later I was wearing the free shirt at a ward Scripture Study activity one Sunday night when Elder David Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles showed up. He didn't say anything, but I could tell he was relieved that the youth of the Church was staying true to its media roots.

Komið þið sæl, Suckas!

2010-06-17T08:52:00.000-06:00

I had a dream last night that I wanted to fly to Reykjavík, Iceland, but I couldn't because the plane ticket was six thousand dollars. So this afternoon I checked online, and it turns out the ticket is only $4400. So there you go.

The Ultimate Power Lunch

2010-06-11T08:54:00.000-06:00

Last night was the first session of the summer English course I'm teaching for SLCC. Since the classes cap out at twenty-five students, I can afford to do a little getting-to-know-you stuff on the first night. Instead of just have everyone go around and tell the class their name, hometown and major, I try to stir the pot a little differently: I pair them up and ask them to identify three things:

If you could go to lunch anywhere in the world, where would it be, whether it's a specific restaurant or a general location.
If you could choose two people, living or dead, real or fictional, to join you, who would they be?
Finally, what music would be playing in the background? (Regardless of the location)

The results are always varied and interesting. The food and music choices provide great fodder for discussion, but the question I find most interesting is who they want with them. A lot of people pick out favorite celebrities, but many go with family members.

Last semester one of my students decided he'd want to have lunch with Jesus Christ and Richard Dawkins, author of "The God Delusion." For obvious reasons, this would be a confrontation I would love to see, even if the argument itself would be pretty much negated by the arrival of the participants. Instead, I'd love to see the Savior sit down with Darryl Dawkins, AKA "Chocolate Thunder," the ex-NBA power forward who was famous for naming his dunks, shattering backboards, and telling people he came from the planet Lovetron. That would be sweet.

Usually once we've made it around the class, someone asks me what my choices would be. My response is different every time, but usually comes down to something like eating Giordano's pizza in Chicago with James Brown and Don King while listening to The Clash.

So...who would you choose?

The Blind Date Paradox

2010-06-09T10:01:00.001-06:00

I don't know how many blind dates I've been on over the years. More than some, a lot less than others. But one thing remains constant: I have never been on a repeat with any of them.

That being said, I can say with gratitude that I have been on only a few BAD blind dates. I do not have the nightmare stories so many of my female friends can recite chapter and verse as if Freddy Kreuger just dropped them off at the doorstep. The majority of my blind date experiences have been of the mid-range, "nice girl but no spark" variety, not the "this person is a psychopath; why is he/she licking the glove compartment?" variety.

Maybe that's why in spite of my track record, I still have to keep considering these opportunities. At the age of thirteen I saw the Utah Jazz overcome an 8-point deficit to the Chicago Bulls with 40 seconds left in regulation, so I don't have a history of giving up on hopeless causes.

Plus my parents met on one.

One reason so many blind dates don't work is that the people arranging them don't do a lot of homework on the people they're setting up. They tend to minimize things, thinking "Guy X has a sense of humor. So does this single girl I know. Bingo!" Or in my case, age becomes the magical ingredient. "Josh is in his 30's. So is this single girl I know. Bingo!" As if I won't have anything in common with a 25-year-old.

To be honest, the biggest problem with blind dates is a little axiom that everyone knows but tries to ignore: if there is no physical attraction, the game is over. It can take a dozen dates to figure out if someone matches my personality (recovering night owl) or shares my values (road trips and homemade salsa), but I can tell within 2.17 seconds whether I want to kiss her.

I've tried to lay down the law with blind dates. I've tried to persuade my would-be matchmaker to invite us both to the same party, and see if we hit it off naturally. I've tried to get them to ask themselves honestly, "would Josh ask this girl out on his own?" I've tried to mandate that the dates are kept to one-hour quick-release power lunches at sniper-proof public locations that don't require tips, or that the person propositioning me provide a photograph beforehand. But none of those strategies ever really work. How do you in good conscience look at a photograph of a real live human being, then look at your well-meaning friend (who may be related to this person), and say "no thanks?" You can't. Instead you mumble some excuse, crack a joke to get them off-topic, or tell them you'll let them know if you're interested (knowing you'll never get back to them). Or you just suck it up, go on the date, and try to be as much of a gentleman as humanly possible, because you know that even if you aren't interested in the girl in the least, you would never forgive yourself if you knew you had hurt her feelings.

...and the cycle continues.

On the way home from almost every one of my blind dates, I think the same thing: "Josh, you just need to man up and ask out the girls you're interested in." If that's what comes out of it, then maybe blind dates aren't such a bad thing.

White Stuff

2010-06-07T09:25:00.000-06:00

There are two perspectives one may take on my eating habits. The first is that they are horrible, reprehensible, and borderline unforgivable. The second is that they are a lot better than they used to be.

Prior to my mission, my culinary pickiness was as distinctive a personality characteristic as my knack for drawing and my obsession with Star Wars. There were about four foods I liked, and I wouldn't touch anything outside that list with a fifty-foot spork. But after two years of obligatory dinner appointments with local member families and potential church investigators I feared to offend, I at least learned to muscle down a number of foods I deplored. I still didn't like them, but I could usually slide my disapproval under the nose of the unsuspecting host.

These days I'm still pretty picky. I don't think I will ever embrace tuna fish or macaroni and cheese, no matter who I have to impress. Just can't do it. I also despise most all forms of white sauces. Ranch dressing, clam chowder, sour cream, mayonnaise, stuff like that. I don't know why it is I don't like white sauces, anymore than I can explain why the sound of Country Music makes me feel violent inside. Mayonnaise just seems like a perfect way to ruin any sandwich, and ranch dressing strikes me as the kind of thing you embrace once you lose the ability to detect flavor in general, kind of like how old guys get into golf because they can't play basketball anymore.*

But in spite of my irrational hatred of white sauces, recent weeks have seen a narrow crack of daylight in my infantile wall of obstinance. Against all odds, I have come to embrace horseradish.

I think it happened at a restaurant some time back where I ordered a shrimp cocktail, and somehow got some horseradish on my shrimp along with the cocktail sauce. The result delivered quite a kick, and I was instantly converted to the condiment. I was so impressed, in fact, that the last time I went to Dick's Market to buy cocktail sauce, I also snagged a little bottle of horseradish to help fuel the fire.

It may not mean much, and I'm guessing a painful slap of reality is probably still waiting for the moment I'm forced to adapt to the menu of married life, but for now I feel happy with my progress, and I'm sure my family is, too. In fact, I'd like to think that somewhere my paternal grandmother is smiling down at me as I sit on the couch at 1AM eating a horseradish-enhanced shrimp cocktail and watching downloaded episodes of "Chuck." If that doesn't do the trick, I'm sure she'll crack a smile once my firstborn decides he hates tacos.

---

*I am dreading this day. I simply can't embrace any sport that doesn't allow heckling.

Hate Restored

2010-06-04T08:26:00.000-06:00

Maybe I knew the Jazz weren’t going to beat LA in the playoffs this year. Maybe my years of experience teaching argument have taught me to recognize both sides of an issue. Maybe I’m just growing up, and not letting silly things like pro basketball get to me anymore. Whatever the reason, I was surprised this spring to realize that I don’t hate the Los Angeles Lakers as much as I used to.

With all due respect to the wise, charitable Josh that’s fighting to emerge, this epiphany didn’t sit very well with me. I’ve invested a lot of time and energy in my Laker hatred over the years, and I can’t discard it without a fight. So during Game One of the Finals last night, I made a pro-con list to figure out if what I was feeling was legitimate or just an aberration:

Reasons to Like the Lakers

1. Jack Nicholson: The Lakers are notorious for bandwagon celebrity fans, but I can’t count Nicholson as one of them. “The Cuckoo Man” has been a courtside season ticket holder since before I was born. He’s legit.

2. Kobe’s 3-Ball: I don’t like Kobe Bryant, but I do respect his abilities. He's got one shot where he’s somewhere outside the three-point arc, with a defender right on top of him. Suddenly he explodes into the air and fires a line drive three-ball at the hoop that swishes with such authority it’s like a punch to the face. It’s a shot of pure defiance. I kind of like it.

3. Kurt Rambis: My Laker hatred traces back to 1988, when the Jazz took LA to seven games in the second round of the 87-88 playoffs. But even back then, I had to like their scrappy backup forward, with his Buddy Holly glasses and post-hippie homeless man haircut. Who wouldn’t?

Reasons to Hate the Lakers

1. Yellow Home Uniforms: Everyone in the NBA wears white uniforms when they play home games, except the Lakers, who wear yellow. Yellow. Seriously.

2. Bandwagon Celebrity Fans: Laker home crowds are the NBA’s answer to the Large and Spacious Building from the Book of Mormon. And the obligatory “celebrities in the crowd” montage? Nauseating.

3. Phil Jackson: Captain Smug...Captain Smug.

4. The Black Mamba: Sorry, you can’t give yourself your own nickname. Especially when you do stuff like this.

5. Derek Fisher: I wish nothing but the best for his kid, but every time Fisher hits another deep three against the Jazz, he personifies everything that sucks about cheering for a small market team.

6. Sasha Vujacic: I don’t know Sasha Vujacic. I have never met Sasha Vujacic. All I know is that whenever I see Sasha Vujacic, I want to slap him. Hard.

7. Utah Laker Fans: I don’t have a problem with transplanted Californians who bring their love of LA basketball to Utah. I do have a problem with native Utahns who latch onto LA because it’s easy, then buy tickets to Jazz-Laker games and gloat about all the championships they played zero part in.

8. Pau Gasol, Gary Payton and Karl Malone: Hey, remember that time the Jazz traded a lottery bust, some no-names and a couple of crap picks for one of the top power forwards in the league? You remember that other time when those two future Hall of Famer’s signed modest contracts with the Jazz so they could make one last run for a title? Yeah, me neither.

OK, that feels better. Hatred restored. Let the games resume.

Hot Fun in the Summertime

2010-06-01T10:19:00.000-06:00

Had the iPod on shuffle play on the way in to work this morning. As I entered the construction zone on I-15 in North Salt Lake in a mild downpour, this song came up in the playlist.

I thought it was appropriate.

Happy June, everyone.

Big Brother and the Social Media Company

2010-05-27T09:26:00.000-06:00

A week or so back I got a call from The Cheetahman.

"Brian committed Facebook Suicide," he said solemnly.

I had already discussed that possibility with our mutual friend as we took down a pre-playoff game meal at the Gateway Food Court Taco Time a week previous, so his decision to cancel his Facebook account didn't take me by surprise. But I was intrigued by The Cheetahman's new term for the act. As prevalent as our online dependence has become in recent years, pulling the plug on a social media network has become tantamount to throwing yourself under a virtual bus.

Brian's not my first friend to say "no mas" to Facebook. Several members of my virtual network have gone off the grid over the last year or two, some multiple times. The reasons are varied. Some just never use the sites and cancel their accounts as a matter of spring cleaning. Others use them far too much, and cancel in an effort to reclaim a healthy lifestyle. A few cite moral reasons, pointing to instances where hooking up with an old flame virtually led to a hookup in the real world, which would be fine if the parties involved didn't already have their own spouses and families.

I tend to see Facebook, and most technology, as an enabler. It gives you a convenient way to follow through on an impulse you already have. For me, Facebook is a way to stay connected, to maintain my real-world relationships, and even to promote some of my creative efforts like photography and this blog. It's my online Rolodex. But I think it enables my social anxieties, too. Nowadays when I meet a girl at a party, I'm a lot more inclined to just add her on Facebook than to man up and get her phone number. Like text messaging, social media is often just another virtual wall we use to avoid the fear of actual face-to-face human interaction.

While I'm still single, I'll probably stick with Facebook, at least until the next big thing makes it obsolete. Because whether I like it or not, the only way to get invited to real-life parties is to stay connected to that virtual singles scene. But I still wonder if I wouldn't be better off jumping into the Great Beyond without my digital parachute.

Billions and Billions Served

2010-05-18T09:38:00.000-06:00

Last night I was talking to a buddy of mine about what ward he should attend. Like me, he's a post-31 member of the Geriatric Cleansing crowd. He's attended one singles ward faithfully for several months, but because of some strict gatekeepers, he hasn't been able to get his records in. So he doesn't know whether to go to a home ward for a while, start the process over with another singles ward, or hold out hope that the gatekeepers lighten up a bit. None of the options feel quite like they fit.

I told him that sometimes I wish wards were more like McDonald's franchises. You scope out an area of opportunity, put in your application, make a marketing pitch, and carve out your own little niche of fast food heaven.

Of course, that's probably how the Apostasy started.

Weary Witness

2010-05-14T09:12:00.001-06:00

This morning I feel for the city of Cleveland. LeBron James, not so much.

Not that I have anything against James. On the contrary, aside from last summer's little Nike cover-up, I think Mr. We Are All Witnesses is one of the better guys in the league. You know, because I'm so close with so many of them.

No, I feel for Cleveland because of personal ties. My mom grew up in Cleveland, and I've been a witness to a lot of their disappointments over the years. The closest thing I had to a hometown pro football team growing up was the Browns, and I had to live through The Drive, The Fumble, The Blowout (the less-remembered third time in four years the hated Broncos beat Cleveland in the AFC Championship before promptly pooping their pants in the Super Bowl).

I remember Art Modell moving the team in the mid-90's, then winning a Super Bowl with a guy who may-or-may-not have been involved in a double-homicide. (For comparison, imagine if Larry Miller had moved the Jazz to Florida in 2005, only if the team had been here since 1947. Oh yeah, then if they'd won a title last year as the Jacksonville Junebugs.)

I also had to hear all the jokes about "The Mistake By The Lake," even though I couldn't figure out why a city that was home to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, The Pro Football Hall of Fame (an hour south in Canton), three major pro franchises with passionate fan bases, and even a wealth of historic culture (Kirtland, Ohio and the Amish) could be seen as such a boring place.

With that in mind, the Cavs' collapse falls right in line with unfortunate tradition. Sometimes I feel like Cleveland and Salt Lake are sister cities. But I can take solace in the fact that the Jazz weren't supposed to beat the Lakers, that we were down two starters, and that we swept them first anyway (see: 1998). The Cavs were supposed to win, though. For years now, LeBron James' impending free agency and the national media have held Cleveland hostage like a head cheerleader dating a band geek.

The band geek deserves better.

The Glue

2010-05-10T09:00:00.000-06:00

A few years ago, one of my former student ward bishops asked me to put together a ward reunion. I was more than happy to oblige; those had been good times. So I put together a crack squad of U32 veterans, gathered a few hundred e-mail addresses, and made it happen.

The night of the event, I found myself sitting on one of those trademark folding cultural hall chairs at one of those trademark folding cultural hall tables, catching up with one of several friends who had long ago left the singles ward scene to get married and start having kids.

At one point in the conversation, my good friend, in all seriousness, asked if I didn't just weep openly because I was still single after all these years. I told him I didn't, and the conversation shifted to the fact that I had spearheaded the effort to coordinate the evening's event (an effort I was second-guessing at the time). At that precise moment, my friend labeled me with one of the most adept nicknames I've ever been given, and probably the one I resent the most:

"Man," he said, "You're THE GLUE."

I'm sure he meant it as a compliment, and I tried to take it that way. Over time, however, it hasn't been a label I have truly embraced. One of the sad realities about marriage is that the people who pull it off don't put much of a high priority on staying in touch with old friends. If you want to stay connected with certain people, most of the time you have to be the one to take the initiative. You have to be The Glue.

Most of the time.

Not all the time, though. Sometimes you have friends who make an effort to keep ties, and sometimes, those friends get married to wives who foster that effort. Today, the day after Mother's Day, I'd like to thank those wives.

Sometimes being The Glue is a pain in The Gluteus Maximus. It's nice to get some help from time to time.

Friday Morning

2010-05-07T10:16:00.001-06:00

This morning as I lay sprawled in bed, trying to summon the strength to overcome last night's 3AM bedtime due to a rare midnight movie event (the premier of "Iron Man 2," AKA, "Ex-80's Heartthrob's Shoot CGI Lasers at Each Other Inside Illogically Lightweight Iron Suits"), my new wake-up radio station demonstrated our culture's increasingly conflicted understanding of what constitutes Classic Rock by airing the Def Leppard classic "Love Bites," which far and away held the record for the song most frequently cited in on the dedication page of the Charger Chapter by 8th Grade students of Centerville Junior High back in 1989 (in spite of the soft-rock juggernaut that was Richard "Right Here Waiting" Marx), and I was once again reminded of A. How old I am; B. How far we have come as a culture (IE, dedicating songs to each other in the school newspaper vs. text messaging pictures of our naughty bits); and C... well, I think C was supposed to be the crack about Def Leppard not being a Classic Rock band, but I already mentioned that, and I can't think of anything else to plug in here that will round out a suitable trio of options, let alone a traditional third-item zinger, because my mind is a tad loaded down from the final English 1010 papers I still need to grade, the wedding video I need to finish, the date/companion I still need to get for tomorrow's Jazz-Laker playoff game, the challenge of getting my surround system to Kaysville tonight for a birthday party in spite of the fact that I don't have a truck, the run to Guitar Center I need to make to buy some new tom-tom heads and maybe brushes before tomorrow morning's practice with my brand-new (and still unnamed) blues band (which will be preceded by me dropping off my Honda to get some brake work done so the wheel stops shaking whenever I decelerate from 80mph), and whatever else I've pushed back into my subconscious while I sit here trying to pump out a convoluted blog entry that has no real focus other than to keep up a consistent post rate and maybe offer the novelty of an entire post that consists of a single sentence.

The Secret Weapon

2010-05-05T08:36:00.001-06:00

A few years ago, I noticed a peculiar phenomenon during a season of church basketball. I'd usually arrive early for my own scheduled game, and would spend about a half hour scouting out the teams playing in front of me. One of those teams featured a player I can only describe as, well, a "secret weapon."

The Secret Weapon was a handicapped kid that was all of about five feet tall. I'm not sure what his exact ailment was, but whatever it was, it was enough to effectively put him in "do not guard" territory. Partially because everyone assumed the kid couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, but mostly because anyone who dared to take advantage of him would surely be viewed as the very Spawn of Hell. For the most part, The Secret Weapon was given carte blanche, and allowed to roam free.

I remember the first time I saw The Secret Weapon in action. He only handled the ball a couple of times, and it seemed like his heart was bounding out of his chest on each of them. Once, with his man giving him an obligatory ten-foot cushion, he decided to chuck up a long three-pointer. When it went in, you would have thought Rudy just got his sack for Notre Dame. Even my cold, competitive heart warmed a little bit, and I felt grateful that I was on hand to witness what was surely a very special moment.

Over the next few weeks, however, I realized that The Secret Weapon was having a "very special moment" two or three times a game. His shooting percentage wasn't all that great, but it was a lot better than you would expect, and he was good for 6-to-9 points a game that the other team couldn't defend. It was the perfect scam.

When my team played him, it was the same deal. We couldn't guard him honestly, because we didn't want to get beat up after the game. So we'd hang back, and he'd inevitably hit two or three long balls, and each time the crowd would celebrate like he'd been waiting his whole life to hit that shot.

But I knew better...and I couldn't do a thing about it.

I don't know what to take from this experience. I don't know what it means in the grander scheme of things. The underdog in me loves it, and the competitor in me feels like I just can't win. I don't know...maybe I'm just desperate to come up with something that will help the Jazz beat the Lakers.

The Birds and the Bugs

2010-05-03T10:00:00.000-06:00

This past weekend I was pondering another of life's critical questions. Namely, should flipping the bird only be reserved for people in respectable cars?

Allow me to explain...

Saturday afternoon I was making my way north along I-15 on the way to the baptism of my auxiliary niece Sophie. As is usually the case, I was in the fast lane. Somewhere between Farmington and Kaysville, I happened upon a bright yellow Volkswagen Bug. I didn't honk, I didn't shine my brights, and I didn't tailgate either. Yet within seven seconds, my presence was acknowledged by the silhouette of an arm, which shot up from the front seat, emphatically flipping me the bird.

A few seconds later, Miss VW pulled over into the middle lane, and as I passed her, she flipped me off again, this time with such gusto that she obviously imagined her forearm was some kind of military-grade artillery, fully capable of blowing me off the road with the sheer will of her passion.

There have been many occasions in life where I have let other drivers get under my skin. Yet this woman couldn't do it. The situation was too absurd. Too comic. Here she was, packed into this blobbish-looking bright yellow car, trying her best to assert her profane highway authority while driving something that looked like it should have been piloted by Spongebob Squarepants.

So again, I ask: should flipping the bird only be reserved for people in respectable cars?

My Bachelor Party Manifesto

2010-04-29T09:00:00.000-06:00

I figured out a long time ago that when it comes to marriage plans, mine will be a voice of support, and not of decision. No matter how much I'd like to see my future wedding reception take the form of a massive toga party with music, dancing, and a dozen Weber gas grills, I know that I'll probably be outvoted.

I'm fine with that.

As long as I get a good Bachelor Party.

Long experience, however, had suggested this may be no easy task. With standard features like strippers, alcohol, and stolen zoo animals off the table, many faithful Mormon grooms-to-be default to lame gatherings that would barely pass for elementary school birthday parties. A group of guys goes out to dinner, maybe goes bowling, and at some point in the evening someone breaks out a cheetah print speedo he got the nerve to score at Blue Boutique. And that's if there's a Bachelor Party at all.

When my time comes, I will go out in style. There will be food. There will be firearms. And at the rate I'm going, there will probably be Medicaid claims.

I have caught fleeting glimpses of greatness in the past. There were the parties years ago that featured full-court dunk ball games behind J.A. Taylor Elementary School. There was my old roommate Brandon, who brought his henchmen down to San Diego for an evening of BBQ and a viewing of "Hot Rod" before getting sealed the next day. Then there was the event I attended last weekend, where the simple idea of a roast was transformed into a multi-media extravaganza, complete with slide shows, films, and enough incriminating poop stories to turn you off camping for the rest of your life.

When the time comes to cap off my life as a Menace to Society, I want to shoot guns. I want to play football. I want to have gluttonous taco eating competitions. I want to strap a life-size effigy of myself to a handmade raft, float it out onto the Great Salt Lake, and fire flaming arrows at it for a proper Viking Funeral. And I want to do the whole thing in a rented jumpsuit that would make Elvis proud. Is that too much to ask?

I realize I may be getting my cart in front of my horse here. Like I said, by the time I actually have to plan a Bachelor Party, I may have to call ahead to make sure the rec room at my assisted living facility is available. But even then, we can have wheelchair jousting duels, cream corn fights, and high-stakes Bingo.

I refuse to budge on this. This dream will not die.

They're Coming...

2010-04-27T09:20:00.000-06:00

I still haven't decided if this is good news or bad news.

Barbacoa is coming to Bountiful.

Last week an old friend dropped me a line on Facebook that brought tears to my eyes: the old Hogi Yogi off 500 South is about to become the newest franchise of my favorite Mexican chain. I already frequent the Salt Lake establishments once a week--usually the one on 9th and 9th across the street from the Tower Theater. But now my spicy pork burrito bowl is only five minutes away.

Last weekend I drove by to confirm the news. I had no reason to doubt my friend, and a quick stop at the company Web site confirmed the new location at 500 South. But I had to see it with my own eyes.

It's true.

Barbacoa is coming to Bountiful.

I still haven't decided if this is good news or bad news.

Living the Portable Life

2010-04-26T08:22:00.001-06:00

A few years ago I helped a girl move out of her apartment. I figured that as a one-bedroom, it would be a quick job. Many hours and many boxes later, it wasn't. Aside from the numerous boxes of shoes--not shoe boxes, mind you; boxes full of shoes--the item that stood out in my mind was the 36 x 12 x 8 inch box exclusively devoted to smelly candles. That morning I added another item to my dating "red flag" list.

Last week I helped my old home teaching companion move out of his central Bountiful rambler. He's married with three kids, and a pretty down-to-earth guy. Yet I was amazed to watch as his belongings were carted out into the front yard. Here was a humble family, completely non-materialistic by modern Davis County standards, and yet the sheer volume of their belongings felt overwhelming. I was reminded of how portable my life really is.

I've moved seven times since I finished grad school six years ago, and none of those moves needed a U-Haul. Mostly that's because I hardly have any furniture (see: $500 bean bag), and partially because I still suffer from that special single person's disease that leads you to store a lot of stuff at your parents' house.

Maybe it's just my transient Mormon heritage, or it could be this romantic notion I have of living on the open road, but I kind of like the idea of being able to pick up and move with a minimum of effort. Don't get me wrong; I have plenty of "stuff." I just don't like the idea of having to make multiple U-Haul trips to get it from place to place.

The ultimate manifestation of this lifestyle came in Chicago, when at any given time I had to be ready to move all my earthly belongings--including a rather awkward and cumbersome mountain bike--with a single Ford Escort Wagon. But even that situation had loopholes. If I really wanted to keep something that wasn't going to make it to my next area, I just shipped it home before transfers.

As I watched my old ward friend move last week, his belongings looked like the physical manifestation of the metaphorical anchor of his life. He was rooted. Domesticated. I've always assumed that I've wanted those roots, but after years of pop-culture driven idealism when it comes to things like marriage and family, I think I'm becoming more aware of the magnitude of such commitments. And yet while I'm wary of these roots, I think some of them may be taking hold without my knowing.

It's sobering, man...even I own a couple of those stinky candles.

11 Reasons I am NOT a Pimp-o-Matic Mega-Stud

2010-04-23T08:30:00.000-06:00

After my previous post, one of my faithful readers suggested I might consider the flip-side of my Marryability argument. I don't know, in the interest of humility or honesty or something. Well, never let it be said I don't value the input of my readers. Last time I gave you the reasons I am a catch. Here are the reasons you might have to release:

1. I am not a homeowner. When the zombie apocalypse hits, we will not be holed up in the basement with all of our food storage. Chances are we will hit the highway Mad Max style, gunning down Z's at 80mph and fighting road battles for precious, precious gasoline. Besides, after you've participated in enough Saturday morning Elder's Quorum moves, you realize the best kind of life is the kind that is portable.

2. I never eat at the table. For some reason, I have to be watching something or reading something while I'm eating. I'm not sure this explains why you can often find me eating shrimp cocktails on the couch downstairs at 1AM while watching downloaded episodes of "Fringe," but it's a start.

3. I refuse to use emoticons. This one goes for dumb acronyms, too. Six months ago a girl rejected me via text, and the last line of her message was seriously "Best of luck 2 U." I felt like I was getting dumped by MC Hammer. Yes, emoticons and hip acronyms may help the interpretation of your tone (IE, sarcasm), but honestly, if you're a decent writer, that shouldn't be a problem.

4. I hate country music. Let me rephrase that: I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate country music. This will not change.

5. I hate minivans and SUV's. I love to drive, and I'm hard pressed to think of two vehicles that negate that passion more, whether you're behind their wheels or just stuck behind them on a long road. Yet these are the vehicles you need once your family passes a certain threshold. I honestly think I'd rather drive a school bus.

6. I own a $500 Bean Bag. It sounds better if you know that it has a retail value of $1,100. But not much. And if you think that's bad, you should hear how much my camera lenses cost.

7. I am a nerd. Maybe the video game thing isn't a problem for me, but my inner geek was branded the minute I jumped in my car and set out for Comic-Con 2007. Or the minute I approached George Lucas in a Chicago mall. Or...well, pretty much since this happened.

8. I have a diminished vertical leap. All great athletes have to adapt their games late in their careers. Karl Malone developed a jump shot. Michael Jordan did underwear commercials with Kevin Bacon. I used to be a short speedy guy who could catch you from behind on fast breaks. Now I'm a short slightly more built guy who just pushes you out of the way.

9. I am physically incapable of tanning. This has made certain recreational pursuits like boating problematic. I'm kind of like that assassin guy in DaVinci Code, only without the quiet moments of naked self-flagellation.

10. I like who I am. There's a prevalent idea out there that suggests every girl gets married with the intention of molding her husband into the man she wants him to be. I have caught glimpses of this on different dates over the years, and it did not go over well. I like who I am. I like my Velvet Elvis paintings. I know I have weaknesses, and I am working on them. But let me repeat: I like who I am.

11. I am a stubborn, defiant, competitive SOB who follows his gut and doesn't like to be nagged. In other words, I am a man.

11 Reasons I am a Pimp-o-Matic Mega-Stud

2010-04-19T09:19:00.013-06:00

Last week Roommate #51 posted an essay on the concept of what he calls "Marryability," or a measure of how marriage-worthy a guy or girl is. It has caused me some deep introspection. Over the years, I have been described as "a tough match," "intimidating," and "having a perfectly shaped head," so in this age of shameless self-promotion, I thought it might be worth my time to assemble a brief hit list of my own marriage resume highlights:

1. I own my own blender. I even use it, too. Just to make virgin margaritas, but that's got to count for something.

2. I've got that "opening doors" thing nailed. This one has already been well-documented. I can handle doorknobs, push/pull setups, automatic doors, and most types of windows.

3. I shave my head. Sure, you could say that male-pattern baldness is a negative, but I say it's a much bigger negative to the guys who live in comb-over denial. Besides, as we discussed earlier, I have a perfectly shaped head.

4. I have season tickets to the Utah Jazz. That's right, baby: 41 pre-paid date nights a year! Just make sure to bring your own oxygen mask and an extra layer; the air gets a little thin in the upper bowl. On the flip side, the odds of seeing a fistfight are way higher.

5. I have a weakness for certain RomCom's. Keep in mind, there's a big difference between Romantic Comedies and Chick Flicks (which are still a no-no), but thanks to a Big Brother Complex* I developed for John Cusack many years ago, I can usually be talked into a periodic RomCom, especially if it stars some super-fly hot mama like Meg Ryan or Kate Beckinsale.

6. I have cool scars. Chicks don't dig sissy-boys, they dig scars. Because nothing says "sexy" like evidence of past lacerations.

7. I own my own business. Sure, I may have only created it for tax reasons, and yeah, maybe I named it after a Monty Python sketch, but seriously, I own my own business. That's cool, right?

8. I am not into video games. I have plenty of free time to talk to you and make out and stuff.

9. I have a reasonable bench-press. I won't be impressing anyone at the NFL combine, but I hear the basic threshold is the ability to bench your own body weight, and I've got that kicked by a long shot. Especially if you believe that I weigh 115 pounds.

10. I am handy with a shotgun, and know all the best ways to deal with zombies. Of course, it helps if they are the size of clay pigeons and operate at a distance of 25-50 yards.

11. I play the drums. Playing the drums is a lot of fun, but as the foundational element of the band, you often feel left out of the creative loop. On the other hand, once I heard that drummers make good lovers, so there you go.

...so, why are there 11 highlights instead of a clean 10? Because guys with marryability don't conform to the cultural conventions of a shallow society (or the rules of grammar). Ladies, if you really want to score a Pimp-o-Matic Mega-Stud, you have to be ready to dial the volume up to 11.

----

*Meaning "John Cusack is the big brother I never had," not, "I think John Cusack is watching my every move."

The Social Troll

2010-04-16T08:13:00.001-06:00

Pop quiz: What is the significance of the number 51 in my life?

A. Moving violations on my driving record.
B. Times I casually reference my one-gig stint in a Neil Diamond cover band (annual).
C. Roommates I have had outside my immediate family.
D. The number of girls I have kissed (annual).

To date, the correct answer is C, though if my recent pace holds up, the answer will be A in about five years. B could be correct if I actually worked the numbers, and I will remain silent on option D.

It's a little sobering to think about; I've had more than fifty roommates in my adult life.

Well, sort of my adult life. I'm counting the dozen or so who I either served with or shared apartments with during my mission in Chicago, and while they certainly count as roommate experiences, I'm not sure I would really call my state of mind "adult" for that period of time, and I have plenty of pictures to prove it.

Still, regardless of the category, you have to admit that 51 is a pretty substantial number. You could read it a lot of ways. You could say it's a good thing, because I've never gotten into a fist fight with any of them (though I did get close for a stretch in Freeport, Illinois). Or you could say it's a bad thing, since I've never lived with the same roommate for more than a year and a half. I don't know; is that a bad thing?

Crunch the numbers a little further, and you find that my personal record for simultaneous roommates is eight, during my third semester of grad school at Utah State (pictured, and yes, that's Peter Breinholt...it's kind of a long story). And of my eight non-mission residences, four of them had me sleeping in basement bedrooms (five if you count the time I spent watching old "X-Files" episodes in the unfinished basement of my Woods Cross place).

Add it up, and I guess that makes me some kind of social troll. I'm not sure what that does to my marryability index, but then again, "marryability" seems to be in the eye of the beholder.

So are moving violations, apparently.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do: An Open Letter to KODJ

2010-04-12T08:46:00.002-06:00

Dear KODJ,

Sometimes when an old relationship gets stagnant, you just have to cut the cord. I had been waking up to your station for more than ten years, but as of last week, I can't take it any more.

It probably started when you began to phase the "oldies" out of your playlist and shift the format from 50's and 60's to 70's and 80's. I love a lot of stuff from the 70's and 80's, but nowadays it feels like anything pre-Beatles has been rendered obsolete.

It got worse when your female co-host decided to spend generous portions of every morning broadcast talking about the latest happenings on "The Bachelor," "Dancing With the Stars," and "American Idol." I know a lot of people like reality TV, but I am definitely not one of them. Especially when there is so much better television out there.

But the morning your host decided to have her personal psychic call in to the show to do a segment (without an ounce of self-awareness or irony, I might mention)...that's when I decided I couldn't take it anymore.

You lost me, 94.1...you just lost me.

This morning I woke up to a new show on 103.5. They used to be the Classic Rock foil to your Oldies, but now you guys pretty much play the same stuff. There weren't any reality TV updates, though. No psychics, either. Just some awkward transitions between Billy Joel and Def Leppard songs, with a little banter in-between. It's not what I would call a perfect new relationship, but for now it will do. I have to wake up to something.

Just so you understand, I don't expect everyone to mirror my own taste. I've known I've been in the minority around here ever since Z-93 sold its soul to Country back when I was in high school. I just figure that if I'm going to leave, you might as well know why.

So long, KODJ. We had some good times, we really did. Breaking up really is hard to do. Neil Sedaka wrote a song about that. He's not on the radio anymore.

Take it easy,

The Professor

The Undead

2010-04-08T09:27:00.000-06:00

I've been teaching English composition for well over six years now, and in that time, there is an inevitable transition in every semester where I go from grading "fun" papers to grading "serious" papers. This is the moment where instead of writing personal narratives, reviews, or process analysis papers, my students have to compose the dreaded research paper, and make some kind of argument about an issue that brings in outside sources.

Without fail, students who have written papers about summer vacations and romantic comedies suddenly default to harsh and bitter topics like abortion, stem cell research, and drug legalization. Valid topics for sure, and often well-written at that, but topics that seem to lack a bit of the life and zest that previous papers carried.

In the days that run up to the due date, I plead with my students to broaden their academic vistas and not feel tied to such hardcore issues, but then the dreaded day arrives, and I face a pile of epic sermons on the weightier issues of the day. Every time I immediately resolve to provide my next batch of students with more examples and one-on-one counsel to help them find something to write about that they might not have considered. For their sake...and for mine.

That's why mornings like today are so satisfying. Once I couldn't stand the inane radio ramblings of my usual morning show any longer, I dragged myself out of bed, determined to grade at least two argument papers before heading off to the day job...and promptly graded two papers on the impending zombie apocalypse.

Now that's the way you start a Thursday.

The Professor's Book Club: Outliers

2010-04-07T09:58:00.001-06:00

For someone who claims he wants to be a writer when he grows up (all April Fool's gags aside), I do a painfully small amount of reading. However, I have managed to muscle through a few titles recently, and I thought I'd pass them along.

The most notable book I've read so far in 2010 is a book by Malcolm Gladwell called Outliers. Outliers is Gladwell's attempt to redefine the way we understand success in modern times, or more specifically, the way we understand the genesis of success. I'm usually not the kind of guy who reads "success" books, at least of the Tony Robbins or Og Mandino variety, but Gladwell illustrates his points by examining the lives of pop culture figures like Bill Gates and The Beatles, so it's easier for schlubs like me to pay attention. Plus the author boasts a killer electric afro (Obligatory Hendrix Perm?), which means I will hang on his every word.

The result is very complex and well worth reading, but it basically boils down to the idea that there is no single source we can point to when answering why certain people succeed in life and others don't. IQ, talent, and class advantages all factor in, but even when all those things are equal there are still other seemingly fate-determined elements that put one person in the right place at the right time (thus creating the group of titular Outliers), while leaving someone else in complete anonymity. Bill Gates was an incredibly gifted child, but if he hadn't gained almost unheard access to a computer terminal when he was in his early teens (and been born at the precise time that would land him in that spot in the first place), he never would have become the man we read about. In that sense, the book might better be titled Timing.

This is all well and good, but what the book doesn't address is the assumption it makes about the definition of success itself. What of the people who weren't born at the right time, or given the unique opportunities or blessed with the astounding talents of the Outliers? Are we doomed to mediocrity and unfulfilled lives? Perhaps Gladwell felt it was a given that for the sake of his discussion, we would only be addressing those in our society who achieved greatness in terms of fame and fortune, but the idea I found surfacing most often throughout the read was that if worldly success was only partially dependent on factors we could control, we probably shouldn't use it as an absolute benchmark for our own personal happiness.

I'm guessing Gladwell would probably agree.

A Greeting

2010-04-02T09:09:00.001-06:00

Come on, guys...go check the first letter of each sentence in that last post. Highly unoriginal, I know. But you have to admit that I could no sooner quit writing than I could chew off my own leg. (Chewing would be physically impossible. I could, if necessary, saw off my leg if given the proper utensil.) And I'm especially not going to quit writing because a couple of publishers shot me down. Keep in mind, I've been dating since 1992.

The Wounded Mosquito is not going anywhere.

It's true that I've been painfully slack in posting lately, an error I hope to address soon. Let's just say I've had a lot of stuff going on. Since late January I've essentially been working one full-time day job and teaching two night classes, which means my free time has become a lot more infrequent and valuable. Plus I'm still trying to decide whether to continue this blog as an extension of my old USU column (the original intent) vs. writing posts that are shorter and more frequent (the advice I get from anyone who knows anything about creating a blog with a successful following).

It would seem that, as per usual, I am struggling with a commitment issue. Kind of puts a different spin on that 1992 stat.

A Farewell

2010-04-01T09:24:00.004-06:00

After almost a month with no posts, you had to see this coming. Part of me is really sad to have come to this decision, but it feels like the right thing. Recently I’ve encountered a number of setbacks in my writing pursuits, both through this blog as well as through a manuscript I’ve been circulating among some local publishers. I got my hopes up for a while, but as the rejections kept coming, it forced me to take a long, hard look at where I am in life.

Life, it seems, is taking me in a different direction.

For the foreseeable future, I am officially closing up shop on the Wounded Mosquito, if not on my writing efforts in general. Optimism is a good thing, but as they say, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the essence of insanity. Of course, I couldn’t say goodbye without saying thank you to the few loyal readers who have supported me through my efforts, either through following this blog, reading over my manuscripts, or merely offering encouragement as I tried to build a steady audience. Loyalty is an incredible virtue, one that far too few possess these days.

So long, suckas.

Never Underestimate the Power of the Beard

2010-03-05T15:19:00.000-07:00

Just a little something to start your weekend off right...

Poetry Slammed

2010-02-26T09:14:00.000-07:00

A while back I attended my first Poetry Slam. I've never been much of a poet--typically I leave that department to my sister--but I didn't have anything else interesting going on that night, and thought the opportunity might prove intriguing. I debated the idea of bringing some pre-written material, but ultimately decided that if everyone else was going to be composing on the spot, then I probably should too.

So here are the two "poems" I penned at the event, in all their raw, unadulterated glory. For the first round, everyone wrote down a Valentines-related topic down on a blank piece of paper and circulated them around the room. The topic I drew was "Gondola Ride in Venice," which I promptly distorted into more of a "Gondola Ride in the Venitian Casino in Vegas" theme:

floating the canal, we three
the gondola dude, my love, and me
fifteen dollars well spent
nirvana...ooh baby

the Venitian looking so alive
shoppers staring as we ride
my love grabs my right arm
"nirvana," she coos..."ooh baby"

hard to believe, hard to conceive,
that we only met three hours prior
down at the Bellagio
playing keno...ooh baby

our driver, the gondola dude, he smells
of apricot, apples and fine cheese
his shift ends at ten
lobster buffet...ooh baby

i can't remember how i got here
my last memories so hazy
surviving the quantum mind probe
alien abduction...ooh baby

the romantic ride so near its end
elvis looks down from nearby rail
you the man, the king he sneers
chapel 'o love...ooh baby

The first poem was received well, but I felt it was a little too formal, so for the next round I tried to go for something a little more stream-of-consciousness spontaneity, more appropriate for a beat-poet poetry slam forum. I named it after something I found on the inside cover of a nearby children's book.

Platt & Munk Publishers, New York, New York

super fly monk man
out on the town
cruisin for chicks baby
boo-ya diddly-doo sha-wow wow
dull dank night is cool yo
monk man shuffles his feet
funkadelic show boatin free floatin easy strokin
no room tonight for hatin'
sucka mc's debatin'
super fly monk man ain't waitin'
hit the club yo do some disco
whip out his banjo kick some tae-bo
ladies faint by the dozens, rollin bass lines smooth techno jumbo
monk man gotta go-go
eat some sushi rolls hot and spicy tempura paradise
can't get saki on the dance floor gonna fly like rocky head out like a baby
make like a tree and leave leave
late night strollin monk man ain't foolin groovin to the bongo beat beat
tight pants be shiny smooth rattlesnake scales ouch if you go wrong way baby
hair be slick back duck tail droppin curly fro hoppin
pimpin kicks smackin sidewalk slappin cerulean blue
2 am coming still no ladies showing gotta step it up to the rhythm rhythm
yeah.
yeah
lights reflecting street signs directing posh super fly would you like to take a ride in my hovercraft?
super fly monk man out on the town
ain't no love in Boise tonight

For some reason, this second poem was voted best of the night, largely because my recitation reminded people of Vanilla Ice. So I don't know whether to take it as a compliment or not. All I know is that Walt Whitman is probably spinning in his grave.

Rise of the Machines

2010-02-10T14:00:00.000-07:00

John Connor was right. The machines are taking over.

Last weekend my roommate/landlord/male model bought an iRobot 110 Dirt Dog Workshop Robot, a wonderful little machine that looks kind of like R2-D2, only if the Godlike animated foot from Monty Python stepped on him and left him to scurry around in circles vacuuming dirt off concrete floors.

This is not the first iRobot product to join the Visser Household. In fact, the addition of the Dirt Dog officially bringing our Robots vs. Humans tally to the following:

House Cleaning Robots: 3
Humans: 2

We now have three different robots that are specifically designed to clean our floors. The original iRobot Roomba handles the general vacuum duties, the Scooba mops the kitchen, and the Dirt Dog has been assigned to the garage. (And it's only a matter of time until we strap jousts to them and start an illegal iRobot-fighting ring.)

To my knowledge, none of these things display sentient Artificial Intelligence, though John does insist on addressing them with male pronouns like "he" and "him." When you factor in the dishwasher, the microwave, and the 50-inch flatscreen downstairs that is networked into John's computer, you understand why I recently suggested that I am living at the zenith of my bachelor existence.

The whole thing reminds me of the stark contrast between what I always thought the future would look like and the way it turned out. By the time I showed up on the scene back in the late 70's, it was pretty obvious that the bleak future of George Orwell's 1984 wasn't going to hit the nail on its dystopian head in time for its titular calendar year, but there was still time to make Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 a bulls-eye. If we made it to the Moon by 1969, sending a spaceship all the way to Jupiter to contact a giant Hershey bar by 2001 seemed well within reason. But we didn't. And nine years later, as we enter 2010--which, ironically, is the name of Clarke's follow-up novel--we've only gotten as far as sending expensive Roombas to Mars.

Based on what I saw in old episodes of "Star Trek" and in the "Back to the Future" movies, I always assumed the future held three promises: flying sports cars, body suits, and little slots in walls that magically made any kind of food you wanted. We haven't managed any of that, either, but the simple fact that you are reading this blog post on your laptop/desktop/iPhone via a wireless streaming network connection in-between downloading illegal digital music files and watching bootleg clips of the Super Bowl in HD on YouTube is a healthy reminder of we have accomplished.

The world of the present is a far cry from what we knew only a decade ago, and I think that if we looked at it honestly, we'd realize that like the Bushmen in "The Gods Must Be Crazy," we've turned the Coke bottles of technology from luxuries into necessities.

Last Friday morning as I was sitting in my shared cubicle, waiting for my computer to fire up, it occurred to me that everything I did for my day job was entirely dependent on the operational status of that PC. It was a sobering thought, especially when you consider what sitting around all day will do to your Ch'i, not to mention your backside. Almost on cue, the office shared drive went out that afternoon, and everyone bailed out early.

I don't bring this up to condemn technology as much as to raise an eyebrow to our dependence on it. Technology is a wonderful thing, but it might be smart to loosen the tether every once in a while. My sister and brother-in-law are getting ready to give up restaurant dining for Lent. They aren't Catholic; they just like a good idea when they see it. I'm not Catholic either, but maybe I could pull out the old Dyson vacuum a few times in the next month.

...or I could just let the Roomba do it. I wouldn't want him to feel like he wasn't needed.

Pet Peeves and the Philosophy of Car Door Chivalry

2010-02-02T13:46:00.000-07:00

Sunday night I found myself in Layton shooting the bull with a dozen girls and my friend Collin. The discussion seemed to center around two topics:

1. The proper use of apostrophes with regard to possessives.
2. Dating gripes.

The first topic spun from the subject of text messaging, which was surprising since I didn't think anyone bothered with grammar when it came to text messaging. The second came up, I think, because the twelve girls thought it would be fun to put the two guys on the spot. Everyone started bringing up their biggest dating pet peeves, and within no time, we were knee deep in an analysis of that old dating stand-by: door etiquette.

I'm not talking about doorstep etiquette. I'm talking about opening car doors etiquette. Maybe it's because I've been dating since the Clinton Administration, but I still find it astounding that when the opportunity presents itself to dig deep into the innate conflicts between the genders, people can't get past this dumb little hitch. Personally, I'd be much more interested in discerning the answers to more pressing issues, such as:

1. How do you ask a girl out in her place of business?
2. How do you tell the difference between "Playing hard to get" and "She's waiting for you to just go away?"
3. What is Evangeline Lilly's phone number?

But no. We're still stuck on, "should you open the door for her to get out of the car, or just to get in?"

Here, let me solve the mystery: If you get out of the car and she's still sitting there, go open that door, too.

End of story.

Eventually the discussion wrapped back into a more general conversation about dating pet peeves, which I failed to enter officially, partly because I don't harbor a lot of "on the date" pet peeves. Most of my gripes are based in the before and after stage of the date, and that's a topic for another, more bitter post.

The other reason I didn't pipe up is because last night's discussion involved a lot of talking back and forth across the room and yelling and mini-conversations and random tangents, and in those situations, I'm a lot more likely to sit back and enjoy the ride...then write about it the next day. But for those who were curious...

Josh's Top Three "On the Date" Pet Peeves:

1. Introductions

When you go on a date in Salt Lake City, you stand a better-than-average chance of running into someone you know over the course of the evening. When you do, the courteous thing is to introduce your date to your friend. The non-courteous thing to do is stand there and talk to your friend for a really, really long time while your nameless date stands there twiddling his/her thumbs. (Just for the record, even if you do introduce your date, you still shouldn't carry on the conversation for longer than, say, 30 seconds.)

2. Conversation Blinders

As a guy, I enjoy the luxury of being the one to initiate the majority of my dates. This means I usually go into an evening assured that I'll be able to hold a decent conversation and have a good time, and most of the time, I do. However, two of my most disappointing dates happened because in spite of a wealth of common interests, the girl I took out was only interested in talking about herself the whole night. Whenever I tried to chime in with any parallel experience I'd had that might augment her monologue, you'd have thought I'd just suggested she get a gym membership or stop eating chocolate. Seriously, the vibe was tangible. On the more recent of those two dates, I physically had a headache by the end of the night.

3. The Side Hug

Most of the time I'm not the kind of guy to push the physical side of the relationship. I know that sometimes it happens quicker than others. But I also understand that giving someone a hug with both arms does not constitute an amorous relationship of any legally binding degree. Now, if you're holding a purse and some leftovers in one hand when the inevitable Doorstep Scene occurs, that's one thing. But if after a month of dating you're still acting like you have nerve damage in half your body, the message you're sending is that I'm a walking meal ticket, and not much more.

* * *

The funny thing about those dating vent sessions is I never know how to take them. As we sat there and listened to all the other girls share their horror stories the other night, Collin and I couldn't decide whether we should feel satisfied or depressed. On the one hand, we knew that there were guys out there who were screwing up a lot worse than we were. But at the same time, we were still single. I mean, if we were showing up on doorsteps an hour late with bad BO, frothing at the mouth and expecting our dates to pay for a quick run to Arby's, at least we'd have a reason for the resulting rejections.

We knew one thing though: We had the door thing down. And that has to count for something.

The Circle of Jazz

2010-01-20T11:54:00.000-07:00

In twenty-five years of watching the Utah Jazz, few moments have matched the thrill of seeing Sundiata Gaines hit a walk-off three-pointer over King James and his subjects on tail end of his temp contract. It's hard to say where the moment will rank on the all-time list, or even if Yada will still be with the team by the end of the season, but as I stood high in the upper bowl with my dad last Thursday, I knew I had witnessed something special. As of right now, here are my top ten favorite Jazz moments, arranged chronologically:

1986: The McMailman

I will never forget the first time I met Karl Malone. It was during his rookie year at the Highway 89 McDonald's in Bountiful. Karl had been sent out there to sign autographs, and we found him sitting by himself in the corner of the old outdoor Playland, waiting behind a folding table with a stack of glossy black and white photographs. There wasn't a publicity rep or a press agent to be found, just a skinny early version of the Mailman with nothing to do but write "To ____, Karl 'The Mailman' Malone, #32, Utah Jazz" over and over on as many photos as you wanted. It is the memory of Karl I remember the fondest.

1988: Coming of Age

I'd been watching Jazz games off and on for a few years by the time we squared off with the Lakers in the second round of the '87-'88 playoffs, but it was only after that series that I officially became a Jazz fan. It was a classic David vs. Goliath match, and even coach Frank Layden was famously candid about his lack of faith in his team's chances. That's part of what made it so sweet when the stubborn Jazz dragged the series out to a full seven games before finally giving up the ghost. As much as I loved the slow TV pan of the dejected Laker bench during the closing minutes of a Jazz blowout win in Game Six, my favorite memory of the series was packing into the back of a Chevy van with fifteen other guys, crowding around a fuzzy 15-inch television watching the live broadcast of an earlier win during our ward's Fathers and Sons outing in Camp Zarahemla.

1989: The Comeback

Like most people last Thursday, I pretty much figured the game was over once the Jazz trailed by six with just over 30 seconds to play. But I couldn't quite bring myself to leave, because twenty years earlier my dad and I had been in a similar position at the Salt Palace. Back then the Jazz had also fallen into a hole late in a heated contest against a superstar-led squad: Michael Jordan and his pre-title Bulls. With forty seconds to play, the Jazz trailed by eight, and during a time-out the silence of the stunned crowd was broken by a single fan who called out, "you blew it, Jazz!" Forty seconds later, John Stockton hit a driving layup over His Airness for the win.

1991: Coach Rudd

During the two summers following my eighth and ninth grade years, I attended Karl Malone's official basketball camp up at Bountiful High School. For a one-week period, you were teamed up with a dozen other kids your age and run through a series of drills and scrimmages, enjoying a number of guest speakers and even a camp-wide Slam Dunk Contest along the way. Each "team" was assigned a coach, usually someone connected to one of the local universities or some other basketball-related organization. The summer after my ninth grade year, though, I drew Jazz backup point guard Delaney Rudd. Rudd only spent a few seasons in the league, but it was great to spend time with someone who was talented enough to play pro ball, yet humble enough to know how fortunate he was. One afternoon he told us all the story of when he got the call to play for the Jazz, how he was so thrilled he did a back flip on his hotel bed. He's been one of my favorite players ever since.

1992: Triple Overtime

One of the perks of playing in the Junior Jazz basketball league was getting a complimentary ticket to a Jazz game. For the previous three years, while attending Centerville Junior High, I drew tickets to predictable bottom-feeder contests against expansion teams like Miami and Charlotte. But during my first year at Viewmont High, after switching over to the Bountiful league, I nabbed a ticket to this epic clash between the Jazz and the Bulls. Michael Jordan and his buddies were coming off their first title, and it would be another five years before the Jazz would face him in the '97 Finals, but this game offered a glimpse of the battles that were to come.

1998: Utah's Pastime

In the spring of 1998 my mom got a couple of luxury suite tickets to see (insert current name of Salt Lake minor league baseball team here) play a game at (insert current name of ballpark on 13th South here). Since she wasn't a big baseball fan, she gave me the tickets, and I went to the game with a buddy of mine. A couple of innings into the baseball game, the Jazz started Game 5 of their first round series with Houston, and we went inside the suite and started watching the basketball game on the TV. About two-and-a-half hours later, during a late timeout in the Jazz game, we stepped outside to see what was going on in the ballpark. The entire place was empty save for the row of luxury suites, where all the lights were still on from the people who were watching the Jazz game on TV.

2000: The Window Closes

By the spring of 2000, no one wanted to admit it, but the window for a Stockton/Malone title was closing. Shooting Guard Jeff Hornacek in particular was pretty much playing on one leg. When the team went down 2-0 in the second round against Portland, I bought a ticket to Game 3, figuring if the Jazz were going to take one game in the series, it would be that one. I'll never forget the fight that Hornacek put up that night, scoring 24 points almost out of pure defiance, even though he was giving up several inches, pounds and years to the two bruisers Portland was clobbering him with. The Jazz struggled all night, but there was one brief stretch in the third quarter when a little of the old magic came back, and it felt like we might have a chance of pulling out a victory. We wound up losing the game, but I left the arena that night with a profound respect for #14. He retired after that season, and even though John and Karl stuck around for a couple more years, to me the Stockton to Malone Era ended that night at the Delta Center.

2004: The Underdogs

I always figured I'd stop following the NBA once Stockton and Malone retired, but as it turned out, the 2003-04 season was one of my favorite memories as a Jazz fan. The all-knowing media predicted disaster in the wake of Stockton's retirement and Karl's defection to LA, but instead of setting the record for worst team of all time, the '03-04 Jazz finished 42-40 and only barely missed the playoffs. In classic fashion, the rag-tag bunch of misfits, led by a spiky haired Russian named Andrei and a platoon of point guards named Raul, Carlos and Mo fought every game in the knowledge that anything less than their best effort would result in disaster. I went to a handful of games that season thanks to a ticket package we got my dad for Christmas, which also happened to include the game where Karl returned to the Delta Center with a legally-entangled Kobe. I booed them both lustily, of course, and the Jazz won.

2007: The Dancer

After a three-season rebuilding project, the Jazz returned to the playoffs following the 2006-07 season, led by point guard of the future Deron Williams. It was also the first season I was a season ticket holder, having gone in with a couple of co-workers from USU who couldn't say no to the bargain basement deal Larry Miller was offering up in the upper bowl. After a knock-down, drag-out seven game first round series with the Houston Rockets, we welcomed the Golden State Warriors for round two, fresh off eliminating the number one seeded Dallas Mavericks. I missed the classic game when Derek Fisher flew back from New York in time to hit his legendary three-pointer, but I was in attendance for Game 5 when we clinched the series and qualified for the conference finals. As everyone poured into the streets after the victory, the area swarmed with people honking their horns, cheering and carrying on like we'd been liberated from Nazi occupation. As I was walking north on 400 West, I remember one guy who was so overcome with joy that he walked out into the road and stood dancing in the headlights of the bewildered pickup driver who had slammed on his brakes in confusion.

2010: The Yada Game

I'm hesitant to get too carried away in comparing this game to the comeback over the Bulls in '89, because I've been known to be premature in the past. After all, in the wake of seeing "U-571" for the first time, I declared it to be superior to "The Hunt for Red October." But wherever last Thursday's game winds up on the all-time list, there is no doubt that it belongs in the mix. And as fun as it must have been to see on TV, there is no way it could possibly compare to the experience of being there in person. The dramatic swings of being down-12 to being up-13 to watching helplessly as LeBron James steamrolled the home team on behalf of every superstar that you know would never consider playing for the Jazz were completely astounding. And even after personally attending the Jazz-Bulls comeback, it still took a couple of seconds after Sundiata Gaines hit his miracle three and all the confetti and streamers burst from the rafters before I realized that what had happened was all real. Best of all, with my dad there next to me, it made the whole thing feel like it had come full-circle.

---

1997: Riot Gear (Honorable Mention)

Naturally, the more I thought about this list the more memories came to mind. There were a few omissions that were hard to make, and as hard as it is to justify placing another memory of a Jazz loss on my top memories list, it's harder to let this one slip entirely. Sadly, I never got to see Stockton's iconic three over Charles Barkley to send the Jazz to the Finals for the first time, because as irony would have it I was serving as a missionary in Chicago for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1995-97. That made things especially interesting while the Jazz and Bulls were duking it out for the first time, particularly in light of Rodman's noted fondness for Mormons. Though I couldn't see any of the games, I did get a special vantage point for one unique event. The night the Bulls clinched the title in '97, my companion and I were riding our bikes home along 79th Street on Chicago's South Side. The night was eerily quiet, and the only thing moving underneath the silent streetlights were the cops who were gathering on street corners in full riot gear, bracing for the inevitable victory "celebration" that was to come. I think that single image may have defined my experience on the South Side more than any other.

Kindred Spirits

2010-01-15T10:18:00.003-07:00

Imagine that your favorite author wrote ten books over the course of his/her entire career. You've read each one a dozen times, and have multiple dog-eared copies of your favorite titles.

Now imagine that years down the line, well after your chosen author has hung up the quill, you splurge on a special edition anthology that puts all of those books into a single volume. Only after buying it, you find that there are thirteen books in the collection, not ten. Somehow you missed a couple of titles along the way. And these aren't filler titles, either. The new books are just as good as the ones you've been re-reading for the last two decades. That would be pretty cool, right?

That's exactly what happened to me, only it happened with a cartoonist instead of an author. For a well-rounded but admittedly geeky child growing up in 1980's Davis County, "The Far Side" was the ideal comic. Gary Larson's single-panel saga was a perfect storm of zany off-the-wall drawings and oddball intellectual humor. For years I drew inspiration from his work, and even penned my own knock-off comic in high school. Then Larson retired in 1995*, leaving me with a wealth of well-worn Far Side Gallery collections on my shelf as a slapstick reference guide for the ages.

Then a few Christmases back, my parents got me The Complete Far Side, a massive two-volume hardbound collection to replace the paperback Galleries that were decomposing on my shelves. When I heard the set was available, I knew I had to have it. But little did I know that the Galleries I already had only included about two-thirds of the original comics. When I browsed through those hardbound moniliths on Christmas morning and discovered dozens of unfamiliar comics mixed in with my favorites, I was like a little kid who had discovered boogers for the first time.

Last weekend Gary Larson made a cameo appearance on a new episode of "The Simpsons," and reminded me of what an influence my dad has been in my life. See, I only got into "The Far Side" after my dad spent years putting Far Side calendars on his Christmas wish list. As a microbiologist, my lab coat clad dad was an even more ideal audience for Larson than I was. He was one of those guys who always had Far Side comics stuck on his lab door. He was probably also one of the few people who was smart enough to understand all of Larson's jokes.

I think Dad always assumed that his background as a scientist would be passed on to his son. It's probably been sobering for him to see that it was his sense of humor that was passed on instead. That may have been why I had him pose in his lab coat for a portrait I shot for a class assignment, years before photography became anything close to a serious interest for me. Actually, back in the day, my dad was really into photography, too. Guess that's another thing I must have picked up from him.

This weekend is my dad's birthday, and as part of the festivities, last night we swung down to the arena to see the Jazz play LeBron James and the Cavs. That's another of our traditions. We've been going to Jazz games since Stockton hit that layup over Jordan to cap an 8-point 40 second comeback in the Salt Palace. Considering the outcome of last night's game**, I'd say it's a pretty good tradition.

I spend a lot of space on this blog whining about my gripes with life. In the interest of offering a little good old Fox News fair and balanced objectivity, let me just say that I've been spoiled in the parent department.

Happy Birthday, Dad.

---

*1995 was a rough year for comic fans. Within twelve months after Larson called it quits, Bill "Calvin & Hobbes" Watterson and Berkeley "Bloom County/Outland" Breathed followed suit. I seriously don't think I've read the Sunday Comics more than a dozen times since.

**The answer is, "Yes, the Yada Gains Game will get its own post."

The Official 2009 Post-Christmas Letter!

2009-12-30T09:26:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends, Family, Stalkers, and random people who land on my blog after Googling "Why people hate country music,"

Greetings. As several of you know, this is the first official Post Christmas Letter in two years, since there was no entry for 2008. That is because 2008 sucked. I went to a lot of concerts and I went on some cool trips, but I also experienced two major family deaths, got laid off from my job, and was asked to vacate my longtime singles ward, so when late December rolled around, I had no desire to relive all the crapness. But I'm back now, so relax.

Honestly, even though there haven't been any major family deaths this year, 2009 has largely sucked as well. Just not quite as much as 2008. Most of the year has been spent in an existential haze, marveling at the curious chain of events that led me to my current position instead of the future I had so clearly envisioned in 1988: married to Meg Ryan, owner of three Super Bowl rings, fighting crime as a vigilante super-spy on the side.

Here are some of the more notable moments of 2009, organized in convenient month-by-month bullet-point format:

-January: I formally leave the University 32nd Ward to return to the world of traditional family wards, landing in the Bountiful 7th Ward at the end of my street. Everyone is very kind. I hate it. Later in the month I take a quick road trip to Denver, Colorado, where I enjoy a Killers concert with my buddy Fabian, two nannies and Senator Bob Bennett's great nephew.

-February 2009: Thanks to my old KJZZ contacts and my new part-time spot as a Utah Jazz video editor, I shoot a Jazz-Bobcats game from the baseline and put together a game promo that marries Rick Astley to an 18th Century sea battle starring Russell Crowe.

-March 2009: A computer at the gym tells me I have the health of a 43 year old. I also bought a mop. March was kind of a slow month.

-April 2009: VCU rejects my application for the Media, Art and Text Ph.D. program, blaming the economy. A month of daily blog entries fails to increase readership or comment frequency. Vigilante Super-Spy begins to look like a more reasonable career path than professional writer.

-May 2009: I fire an M-16 at a machine gun range in Kaysville.

-June 2009: After nearly two and a half years of parties, group dates, and Zombie Fests, I vacate the 1200 South house in Bountiful, determined to move on in life...and move about a mile away into West Bountiful. I also shoot my first wedding.

-July 2009: When my old roommate Brandon decides to get sealed in San Diego, I decide to turn the event into a mega road trip and spend 10 days on the road, swinging down to San Diego through Vegas, cruising up the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco, then cutting across I-80 to home. Definitely one of the highlights of the year.

-August 2009: I realize that making money would be a good way to curb my depleting bank account, and sign on with Salt Lake Community College to teach my first sections of English 1010 in two years. By the end of the semester I have busted seven students for plagiarism, graded five papers on marijuana legalization, and used clips from "Saturday Night Live," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" to illustrate composition principles. It is good to be back.

-September 2009: I pay a mechanic in Pocatello $400 to fix my alternator on the way to Yellowstone for Labor Day Weekend. Less than a week later Salt Lake City's answer to Ponch and John bust me for speeding on Beck Street on the way to class.

-October 2009: I play in a band for a bunch of 3rd Graders and their surprisingly animated teachers at a charter school in North Salt Lake, and later, thanks to the inspired nature of my immediate family, I get Giordano's Pizza shipped in for my birthday.

-November 2009: During a co-ed pick-up flag football game in Centerville, I get kicked in the chin to the tune of 11 stitches, leaving me with a substantial scar and the unanswered question of why the majority of my sports-related injuries always take place when I make an extra effort to play defense. Later that month, a local publisher rejects my memoir manuscript...blaming the economy.

-December 2009: In the middle of another meaningless browse through Facebook, I discover that my third greenie Elder Joshua Clark--who was hit by three cars in the three months we served together in South Chicago--is alive and well and married with five children...in Australia.

...which brings me here: technically employed, sort-of technically dating, living in West Bountiful with a military software programmer and two robots that perform the majority of our housework. In a sense, it is the zenith of my bachelor existence.

Hope all is well at your end. Here's to 2010.

Josh

Kool Funk

2009-12-28T10:48:00.002-07:00

I think I may have posted this several months ago as part of a larger musical entry, but I came across it again last night while browsing through YouTube, and I think it deserves center stage. A little heat to warm up your week:

I wish I could make this my theme music for whenever I walk in a room. You know, if life were more like the movies and stuff.

Brick-Wall Theory, or "Looking for SSMUB in all the wrong places."

2009-12-28T09:22:00.001-07:00

Some people are happy to go through life ignoring the things they don't understand. Other people analyze the crap out of them...and still don't understand them.

I am one of the latter.

Seventeen years after entering the enigma of the Dating World, I feel about as much in the dark as I did when I started. I've learned that bringing red roses on the first date is a bad idea, and I've figured out that girls aren't all that impressed when you destroy them at bowling, but that's really about it. Often I find that the questions turning over in my mind late into the night are the same ones that left me befuddled and clueless at the height of the Grunge Era.

(Hold on...give me a second while I finish filling out my AARP application and stabbing it through my chest repeatedly.)

OK...in that time I've often tried to make sense of my circumstances, to try to figure out the great mystery that was standing in the way of Ultimate Success. Of course, the definition of "Ultimate Success" has always been a bit of a moving target. In 1992, "Ultimate Success" was Meg Ryan. In 2009, it's more like getting a text response within 24 hours. The game has changed a lot over the years, and in that time, my analytical efforts have tested a lot of theories, and I've harbored a lot of philosophies...

...and none of them really hold water.

One might. I call it "Brick-Wall Theory." Actually, it's more of an observation than a theory. The basic idea is that we all operate on some kind of vast Dating Spectrum, trying to progress though a series of check points ("First Date," "Marriage," "Non-Contractual Making Out," etc.) to advance from one end to the other. But along the way, we keep getting stopped at our own custom brick wall.

For example: over the years, some of my friends have consistently moved from serious relationship to serious relationship. Getting a girlfriend or boyfriend was a matter of routine, but there was always a wall between that serious relationship and the next check point: "Engagment." Others struggled to turn off SportsCenter and actually ask a member of the opposite sex out on a date. Their brick walls lay between "Fundamental Awareness of the Opposite Sex" and "Verbal Contact." Still others have made it past the "Engagement" threshold on multiple occasions, yet have never crossed the "Marriage" barrier. (Keep in mind, "Marriage" is not necessarily the definitive end point of the spectrum. Just ask Tiger Woods.)

For whatever cosmically comic reason, my brick wall lies somewhere between "First Date" and "Consistent Dating." There have been several times I have gone on multiple dates with the same girl, and I've endured my fair share of DTR's*, but the majority of my efforts hit the fan well before anything serious gets going, at least in any official capacity. Sometimes I give the abort code--which gets me accused of being a Serial Dater--and sometimes she does--which gets me accused of chasing "The Wrong Type of Girl." Either way, sometime after the first date with Girl X, one of the following scenarios usually plays out:

1. Josh gets bored and loses interest.
2. Girl X becomes unresponsive to texts, e-mails, voice mails, and/or smoke signals.
3. A national crisis intervenes...then Josh gets bored and loses interest.
4. Josh forces himself to take Girl X out one more time even though deep down he knows he is not interested, subsequently has a miserable time in spite of a fine batch of chile verde from Red Iguana** and an impressive display of European Mormon Folk Art down at the Church Art Museum, and only realizes years later that he should have gone after Girl X's roommate Girl Y instead.

It would be a lot easier to paint myself as a victim if all my efforts over the years had met with universal rejection. Then I could tell myself I was like Thomas Edison, just puttering away at different combinations until he managed to invent the light bulb. The trouble is that Thomas Edison never passed on viable filament options because even though the filament had a really great personality, he just didn't want to make out with it. If marriage was just about finding someone who liked you, we'd all be locked up by 25. But the real goal is to get married to someone that you like who likes you back, and that makes things a little more complicated.

Like I said, I've seen a number of my friends encounter similar obstacles in their efforts, and even though each of them has eventually overcome their own brick walls, few if any can tell you why or how (though most will feign some sense of enlightened perspective). Eventually things just work out, and the spaghetti of love sticks to the wall of commitment where it never did before. Sometimes after years of futility, two people meet at the Halloween Dance and get married before Christmas, and sometimes people just wake up and realize that they've basically been married to their best friend for the last decade, so they officially start dating and happy-happy, joy-joy ensues.

This suggests that success in matters of dating and marriage is largely dependent on the Lord's Timing, and I think that's probably true. The trouble is that misunderstanding this idea can lead to a certain feeling of futility, that no matter how charming you are or how many sketchy blind dates you accept, nothing is going to work until the timing is right. This is especially problematic for Mormon males who are responsible for taking the initiative in the whole process, yet always have people telling them asinine things like, "I found what I was looking for once I stopped looking."

As such a Mormon male I've determined that the whole thing comes down to one central question:

"Am I doing what I am supposed to, only waiting for the inevitable intervention of The Lord's Timing to deliver me from Single Person Purgatory, or am I actively doing something to inhibit the delivery of Spiritually Sanctioned Marital Uber-Bliss?"

Until we get over that wall, I'm not sure any of us will really know the answer.

---

*DTR = Define The Relationship talk. AKA, "The State of the Union Address," AKA, "What Michael Corleone had with Carlo before he had Clemenza strangle him in the car outside."

**Now available in two fine downtown locations!

Merry Cleesemas

2009-12-24T09:46:00.000-07:00

Early this morning, sometime between the moment I reached up to turn off my alarm and the moment where I actually regained consciousness, I dreamed that John Cleese was hanging out in my parents' living room.

I don't remember much of the incident, outside of a couple of minor--yet intriguing--details. I remember that he wore a single gold hoop earring, kind of like a pirate. I also remember that at one point he pulled out a copy of the Bible and sang the 8th Psalm.

Yeah, I know...doesn't make sense to me, either.

What does make sense is that the idea of meeting John Cleese has been knocking around in my subconscious. In the last three years, I have met two of the most important creative muses of my childhood, and if I were to pick a third, it would probably be Cleese. (With honorable mention going to Dan Aykroyd.)

I think most of my regular readers are familiar with Cleese, but for those of you who arrived at my blog from Asia after Googling "Mongolian Death Worm," John Cleese was one of the infamous Monty Python boys, the comedy troupe that brought us "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." They were the Beatles of British Comedy. He also played Nearly Headless Nick in the Harry Potter movies. If Ray Bradbury fostered my love of writing and George Lucas fostered my love of film, Cleese did it for comedy. Heck, I named this blog after a Python sketch.

Actually, maybe his rendition of the 8th Psalm does make sense. As I think about it, Cleese is partially responsible for one of the fondest memories from growing up in the Bountiful 19th Ward, the wonderful day Rob Nish played the Python TV theme on the organ in Sacrament Meeting.

So I guess there is a connection after all. If I ever do get to meet Cleese, I'll have to tell him the story. I'm sure he'd appreciate it.