10 Years and Counting...

I almost forgot my anniversary.

As of this semester, it has been ten years since I taught my first English composition class. Not ten years of consecutive classes, or semesters, or school years, even--I took two years off to work full-time in television--but ten years since the whole thing started. Ten years since I first walked down into room 006 on the basement level of the Utah State University Communication Disorders Building, stood in front of twenty-five aspiring college freshmen and announced, "I'm Josh, and I'll be your instructor this semester."

It's been about ten and a half years since Professor Melodie Graulich convinced me I could even consider doing something so bold. The previous spring I walked into her office in the Ray B. West building to discuss the prospects of my entering USU's graduate program in American Studies. But as we sat there amid her stacks of papers and books, the spring sunshine streaming through big picture windows and illuminating her collection of Native American art on the office walls, the conversation took an unexpected turn.

"You'll want to apply for a graduate instructorship, right?" she asked.

I paused, not entirely sure what she meant.

"You'll teach English 1010 for the department," she said, "and you'll get a stipend to help with your tuition and housing."

I wasn't sure what a "stipend" was.

"Um," I started, "I'm not sure I'm qualified to teach English."

"Oh, I'm sure you're fine," she smiled. "We've got a program to train all our instructors. You'll come up about a week before the semester starts. You'll be fine."

Six months later, two weeks into my first semester and a week after I'd decided to ditch the shirt-and-tie routine, I sat on a table in front of two dozen empty desks, only minutes after my afternoon class had been dismissed. I had already stumbled through a half-dozen class sessions and collected the first assignment, and so far none of my students had caught on and exposed me for the clueless rookie I was. It was at that quiet moment that it dawned on me: I was a college English teacher.

That thought still makes me smile today.

Ground Zero may have taken place in the basement of the Comm Disorders building, but that was hardly the strangest place I've had to teach. In the last decade, I've taught in portables, a library reading room, a strip mall, computer labs, biology labs, an athletic center, and even a couple of fire stations. I've also taught in actual traditional classrooms in the actual English department buildings, but those have been the exception rather than the rule. Composition teachers are a nomadic lot; you teach where they tell you to.

I'm not sure how many students I've had in that time, or how many classes I've taught. I know I've graded hundreds of papers, if not thousands, and I've written a handful of recommendation letters, too. On a couple of occasions I've even written to judges to ask that my students be allowed to finish my course before returning to jail. Actually, thanks to advances in broadcast education, some of my students have been current inmates, and those guys were some of the best students I've ever taught.

I don't know if I'll still be doing this ten years from now. No idea if I'll continue the academic journey or wander off into some other uncharted career territory. When I was working in television, I knew that eventually I'd teach again, and I'd be surprised if it didn't remain some part of my career in the coming years. But even if it doesn't, it will always stand as evidence that sometimes with a little faith, you can do something you don't think you're qualified for.

I've had a lot of fun learning that lesson.

Some Recent Work...

Let's be honest: my blog posting in the last few months has been spotty, at best. But while I haven't been too busy on the blog, I have been writing elsewhere. To try to even things out a bit, I thought I'd share a few links to some recent film review work I've done:

Click here to read a review of "Moonrise Kingdom," the latest from Wes Anderson.

This link will take you to my review of "Premium Rush," which made me feel like a cranky old man while I was writing it.

Both of the previous reviews were published in the Deseret News. I also reviewed the new "Total Recall" through my Deseret News contacts, but it was published on a new website called OK.com that has been developed as a sort of interactive viewing guide for parents and such. You can access that review through the "Total Recall" movie page, or through my own critic profile.

Just in case anyone thought I haven't been pulling my weight lately...

Where Have You Gone, Mr. Winegar?

I'm convinced that 95% of kids who grew up in south Davis County in the 1990's either wound up working at the Lagoon amusement park or Dick's Market, a small-town grocery in Centerville. Halfway through my junior year at Viewmont High School I joined the latter group, and for the next 21 months I strapped on a red apron for twenty hours a week, starting at the bargain-basement rate of $3.65 an hour.

It was a love-hate relationship.

On the one hand, bagging groceries was everything you would expect from a job at the age of sixteen: weekend-killing hours, sub-minimum wage pay, and the general sense that you were cut out for better things even though you didn't have an ounce of legitimate work experience.

At the same time, several of my longest and most cherished friendships were born in the crucible that was Dick's Market. Even if we weren't suffering as much as we liked to think, those long hours of bagging groceries and coming up with creative ways to avoid bagging groceries led to a camaraderie that has lasted for years after we stopped strapping on those dumb aprons.

Love it or hate it, Dick's Market was a culture unto itself, complete with class divisions, rivalries, romances, and its own distinct vernacular. We had our own basketball league (DMBA), led by our sport-goggled manager Craig Meads, that met to do battle on holiday mornings when the store was closed, where I channeled my pro-basketball dreams with guys like Mark Farmer and the Mikkelsen and Peterson brothers. We had the annual bagging contest, won by people who worked a lot harder at their job than I did. We had the case lot sale, Lagoon Day, and over everything, we had the myth of the big man himself, Dick Winegar, who I never actually saw in the flesh.

Dick's was an institution, and just over a week ago that institution pulled up its stakes and moved north.

By the time my parents moved to Bountiful when I was four, Dick's Market had already anchored the east end of Pages Lane for thirteen years, only a block from my house. The proximity offered easy access for my dad, who is legally blind and can't drive, and for the residents of the nearby Meadows, a retirement complex that sent a procession of little old ladies scampering back and forth along 400 east as they made the trek to Dick's for their groceries. It was a far cry from those urban neighborhoods where you could live your whole life within 100 yards of your front door, but Dick's was still the classic neighborhood grocery store. Working there almost felt like a rite of passage.

On July 18th, Dick's relocated a couple of miles up the road to Parrish Lane, taking over for the Fresh Market that was owned by the same parent company (Dick's was purchased by the Associated Foods chain back in 2002). While I don't know the exact circumstances, I've heard that ownership was unable to make the necessary expansions to the Pages Lane building to keep it competitive. Of course, now it gets to compete with the Target and Wal-Mart across the street.

Either way, Dick's is gone. Vacated for slightly more spacious pastures. Cleared out of the building that served as the backdrop for my high school years. Cleared out of the aisles where Justin Knighton and Heather Hayward met as baggers and left as man and wife. Cleared out of the front end of the store where Ben Stoneman and I would lasso each other with imaginary disco ropes, not far from the check stands where I used to kill time talking with Mike Bohman and Emily Scharffs and Steve Nelson. Cleared out of the bakery where I'd wander over with Brian Smith to see the bakery chick with the eyes that made "Time of the Season" start playing in our heads. Cleared out of the dry ice bin where Bret Ostler introduced himself by offering to buy all my old Star Wars toys. I hated that job, but it was one of the best jobs I ever had.

It felt a little bit like a betrayal, but I stopped by the new store last weekend. Wal-Mart was out of Otter Pops, and well, when I want my Otter Pops, I want my Otter Pops. There were all kinds of welcome signs, and a few familiar faces (I don't know how they handled the staff overlap between Dick's and the old Fresh Market...do I want to know?). It looked OK, but it felt like the next step in a corporate progression that started long ago. The self-checkout stands were nice.

My best hope is that the remnants of the old Winegar's clan will decide to reopen the place as a non-Associated Foods entity. My biggest worry is that someone will try to turn it into another fitness center. Or just leave it empty, like so many of the properties along Pages Lane.

To capture the moment, I swung by the old building Monday night to take its picture with a camera that probably cost more than I made the entire time I worked there. The credit union is still open, and so is the Ace Hardware, so the kids from Bangerter's farm will still have a place to go blow their weekly wages on candy. Maybe there's still hope that someone will step in and fire up the burners at that once-famous bakery.

Just as long as they hire girls with pretty eyes.

Orange Shag

Last weekend I helped my dad and brother-in-law pull 100 square feet of orange shag carpet out of a tiny room in my parents' basement as an old poster of Pierce Brosnan looked on. It felt like ending a chapter in my life. Several chapters, actually.

Growing up, there were five rooms in my parents' house that featured genuine 1970's shag carpeting. Downstairs in the TV room we had a bright red shag that strangely matched the dark brown wood paneling on the walls. I sat on the red shag next to my new friend Steve the day my family moved in when I was four. We watched a re-run of "Gilligan's Island." Now Steve is married with five daughters and a little boy.

Upstairs in the living room we had a bizarre multi-colored shag carpet, a combination of brown and orange and yellow that was remarkably adept at hiding the scars and stains of its high mileage. I think my parents actually kind of miss that one.

Two bedrooms were also equipped with shag: a yellowish shag in my sister's room, and a lavender shag in my parents'. The yellow shag was the first to go--many years ago my parents pulled it up to reveal a nice hardwood floor. The master bedroom was re-carpeted at the same time the living room shag was replaced.

The last holdout was that tiny room in the basement. For years it was referred to as the "toy room," because that was where my sister and I kept all our toys. That was where I lingered late into the evening one Friday night when I was eight, reading and drawing and waiting for the inevitable moment when my parents would realize I was up way past my bedtime and cast me upstairs to my doom. That moment never came, and I discovered that weekends were my opportunity to live out my true nature as a night owl.

Not long after that big event my parents moved their stereo into the toy room, and it became known as the "music room." With that large wooden cabinet in place against the east wall, flanked by those ancient speakers, I was ready to have one of the transcendent moments of my youth, when I squatted down on that shag carpet as a wide-eyed fourth grader and created my first mix tape out of my mom's Beatles albums.

I must have had a hundred sleepovers on that orange shag, and built a thousand forts on its weave. Most of the posters--like Pierce in his open-shirted Remington Steele glory--are still on the walls, and the south wall is still covered in that strange reflective wallpaper textured with those thin yellow and white stripes. But the orange shag is gone, shipped off to that magical home furnishings heaven where all non-ironic icons of the 1970's go to sing praises to Sherwood Schwartz and the Six-Million Dollar Man.

For the last year I've been on the housing market, searching through all sorts of 1950's-era ramblers and quaint cottages for some wood paneling I can call my own. Every time I step inside a new listing, I marvel at the oddities the previous owner has left behind--wallpaper with fairies and race cars, a collection of Mormon pop cassettes still in their shrink wrap, a bound collection of old 45's with a detailed log of artists and titles pasted into its front cover. By the time anyone walks through my parents' house, there probably won't be much left from my era, now that the flooring has all changed over and the walls have been repainted. But maybe we can make sure Pierce is still there to say hi for us.

Forever Young

If someone asked you for their autograph, what would you do? Would you laugh it off, assuming you had been mistaken for someone else? Would you just write your name, or include some kind of thoughtful message? If you included a message, what would it be?

This is the predicament I found myself in last June after playing a brief show for the students of the Legacy Prep charter school in North Salt Lake. On the strength of two previous performances, my band Thunderlips had been recruited to headline the kids' year-end assembly. We played two 20-minute sets, one for the K-3 kids, and another for the 4th through 6th graders.

Immediately after our first set I was approached by a young girl who had ripped her name tag from her desk.

"Can I get your autograph?" she asked, holding out a black marker.

This request would prove to be the first of many. Following our second set, kids from all over the school approached us with their yearbooks, pens and markers in hand, looking for some tangible evidence of what they had just experienced. As I wrote my name on yearbook after yearbook, feeling their awed stares as I scribbled, it was clear they had little understanding of who we really were.

"So do you guys perform, like, all over the world?" asked one kid.

"Um...not quite," I answered.

Whenever I meet a young child, I usually think about Ray Bradbury's experience as a twelve-year-old growing up in northern Illinois. After a mid-summer trip to the circus, the future author of "The Martian Chronicles" and "Dandelion Wine" approached a magician called Mr. Electrico in search of a mentor, and was rewarded with the inspired command to "live forever." Decades of fantasy and science fiction novels followed, all with the irrepressible fervor of youth pressed firmly between their pages.

Perhaps with that idea working deep on our subconscious, the band had decided to end our performance with a ramped-up version of one of the most iconic school dance songs from our youth: Alphaville's "Forever Young." In our previous performances, we'd played Neil Diamond's "America," and not wanting to repeat ourselves, we still wanted to offer up a tune that had a special meaning to us.

For the first part of the set, we rocked our way through a few favorites, like The Hives' "Hate to Say I Told You So" and the Stones' "Jumping Jack Flash." Then Cheetahman took his place at the keyboard and coaxed out the chords that used to trigger slow dance anxiety in our pre-teen hearts all those years ago.

Then, just as the first chorus hit its final note, I hit my crash cymbal and yanked the band into an accelerated beat. Our quickened pace got everyone to stop swaying back and forth and got them jumping up and down instead. Moments later, with the verses and a few choruses behind us, Thunderlips entered extended jam mode, with about half the student body leaping and screaming at our feet. But out a little farther into the gymnasium, the other half of the student body reacted differently, grabbing each other's shoulders and forming a daisy chain that danced and wound around the gym in a huge circle around the video camera I'd set up on a tripod at mid court. It was corny, but as I sat there behind my drum kit jamming away through a song so intrinsically connected to my youth, watching as the kids celebrated their last day of school in the prime of theirs, I felt like I was passing them a torch as the whole cosmos was coming together into harmony.

Of course, maybe that was just Cheetahman's voice modulator.

Later on, when all those kids came up to me looking for my autograph, it didn't seem right to just sign my name on all of their yearbooks. I had to write something else. Something meaningful. Something Ray Bradbury would have told them.

This is what I added:

"Stay young."

The cosmos came into harmony again four days later when the first man who truly inspired me to write passed away at the age of 91. Eight decades after their encounter, through hundreds of stories and thousands of touched hearts, Ray Bradbury had followed Mr. Electrico's instructions to the very end. And maybe thanks to a little performance in a North Salt Lake charter school, I helped to keep his charge alive.



The Thunderlips - Forever Young (Alphaville cover) from ToolBox on Vimeo.

Juggling Chainsaws: The Official 2011 Post-Christmas Letter

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

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 for three 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 the course of numerous lunch visits to Red Iguana, casual conversations, and the aforementioned basketball games, I’ve always noted how he carried a natural interest in civic issues. Long before he expressed any interest in running for office, Micah demonstrated an investment in what was going on around him at a local level. While I was more interested in talking about how the Jazz were going to stay in playoff contention (Micah was an event manager at the Delta Center for several years), he would often shift the discussion to some local issue he’d read in the paper or heard while attending a 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 not running out of ego, or because he craves a small chunk of localized political power. He’s not running because he feels entitled to the position. He’s running because 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

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

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

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

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

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

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*

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.

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*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

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

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.