Tyler's Oddities

A Certain Bromance

2011-12-05T17:57:00.000-07:00

I’d always been mystified as to why combat veterans rarely talk about their experiences in war. Veterans that had been psychologically affected by what they heard and saw should benefit by speaking about it, right? Call it catharsis. Those that weren’t adversely affected should love talking about the incredible, intense things they did and witnessed. No? NO.

With all due respect to veterans, I think I get it. On a much smaller level I finally get it.

A number of months ago I made a lofty goal to run a half marathon. 13.1 miles. It had been many years since I’d traded my sneakers for slippers and tennis balls for hot pockets. The last time I did anything active I was 40 lbs lighter and George W edged Al Gore thanks to the hanging chad. I was going from 0 to 60, but I was going dammit. I was determined. I talked my good friend Steve into running it with me and we started our training.

I was humbled quickly. I didn’t have proper respect for the process and the process brought me to my knees. I tried running two miles my first time out. I walked the final three quarters and could hardly move for several days afterward. But I quickly repented, invested in some gear, and started again. Slowly. Three weeks into training, a second friend decided to join Steve and me. Jayd laced up.

My sister Ashley has always said “everyone that runs a marathon has a story.” You don’t simply say, “Sure, I’ll run 13-26 miles. Sounds like fun.” Because it’s not.. Important, yes. Invigorating, yes. But fun? No. It hurts. It’s exhausting. Shins splint, toe nails turn black and fall off, blisters form, groins chafe, nipples bleed. The process is punishing. But the payoff is pure. You learn things about yourself during training. You push yourself beyond your perceived limits and find strength you never knew you had. Some mornings you have to literally force yourself outside, just to hobble through three miles of hell.

When race day arrived we all felt ready. We’d handled our final long run with ease, banging out 11.5 and feeling good afterward. We weaved our way through the 35,000 people participating in the San Antonio Rock ‘n Roll events and found our corrals. It was an odd morning…abnormally warm and balmy, but overcast. The throng of people was overwhelming. It was shoulder to shoulder as we waited for the gun. And then we were OFF.

I was immediately frustrated by the sheer mass of runners, walkers, and waddlers. Everyone was pacing dramatically slower than their corrals represented and I was constantly dodging slower runners. There was a ton of lateral movement as I cut around, through, and sometimes over the cattle. I ran up hills, on curbs, over sidewalks, on grass. I bumped into people. It was literally impossible to pick a lane and establish a rhythm. There were just too many freaking people.

Jayd and I ran together (within 10 yards of one another) for the first eight miles. I hydrated at mile five and dropped a few shot bloks at mile seven. I saw Jayd grab some water at mile six.

At mile eight, Jayd started to pull away. In training I was typically 15-30 seconds per mile faster than Jayd, so I maintained the pace that I was able to manage, figuring Jayd would eventually flame out. He didn’t. He continued to weave and dodge obstacles and limping fat people at an impressive pace and at mile 10 I decided I needed to kick it up a notch. No way was I going to allow this guy to finish before me.

I caught up to him at about 10.5 and made some snide comment like, “hey dude, I’ll give you $10 if you carry me the rest of the way.” He didn’t respond. Jayd was in a zone. He was focused and he meant business. After a few hundred yards of running together, Jayd pulled away yet again. “No way” I thought to myself. But I was really feeling it now in my legs and I had no ability to keep up with him. I fell back and ran at my own pace. At 11.75 I started to see bright bursts of light. The sun had been out for 30 minutes and the combination of extreme fatigue, 97% humidity, and 80 degree temperature was besting my Spaniard. I knew I was in trouble. I stopped and rested against a metal fence separating the halfers from the marathoners. When the bright lights stopped, I walked until mile 12 and started running again. I was determined to finish this race running. And I did! I finished with a somewhat disappointing time of 2:19.

After I got my munchies and fluids I worked my way through the craziness to get my stuff at gear check. There were a number of missed texts, one of which informing me that Jayd had collapsed just after 13.0 and was hauled off in a stretcher.

WHAT?! No way. With 1/10 of a mile left, Jayd went down. He was rushed to the hospital. And it was serious.

He was admitted with a temperature of 106 and a heart rate of 170. He was not responding and had had seizures. We got a call from his wife, Tauni, telling us to get to the hospital ASAP. Jayd needed a blessing.

I am an elder in my church, and with that title comes certain responsibilities and authority. One of which is to administer to the sick and afflicted through the laying on of hands, otherwise known as “a blessing.” I sprinted from the parking lot to the ER

I’ll never forget what I saw when they drew that curtain. There lay Jayd, stark naked minus a small towel to hide his junk, with wires and electrodes all over his body. He was a sickly pale yellow color and his arms and legs were bound with leather restraints. I was looking at someone that appeared to be on death’s door. That is no exaggeration. I was petrified.

I have a lot of respect for Jayd’s wife, Tauni. She is a very “collected” person. Quite analytical, never emotional, and very understated. But she is intense. Not in an overt, frightening way. It’s subtle and small. But very real. When I looked at Tauni she was straight-faced and stoic. She was somehow managing the situation with quiet grace, but her intensity was still there. She told me she’d been asking doctor-after-doctor and nurse-after-nurse if he was going to be “ok.” Naturally she got no straight answers…just “medispeak.” I get it of course. No medical professional is going to go out on a limb and say, “suuuuure honey, he’ll be just fine” when there’s a solid chance that he’s brain-dead at best. After a brief rundown of what was going on there was a moment of silence. She looked at me and asked, “Ty, he’s going to be ok, right?”

I didn’t know what to say. The God’s truth is that I did not think he was going to be ok. How could anyone think that pasty, yellow man hooked up to all the machines could possibly be ok? But Tauni’s typically intense, smoldering eyes had a hint of panic in them. So I said, “Yes Tauni. He’s going to be ok.” I didn’t believe it, but I felt I had to roll the dice and say it. I could actually see a physical change in her posture and a softening in her face. It was as if she just needed to hear it from someone….anyone. She looked stronger. I felt good.

I positioned myself behind Jayd’s bed and took a few deep breaths. I was terrified. It was hard to swallow. Just as I was timidly placing my shaking hands on his head, a nurse walked in and looked at me like I was a mafia hit man about to ice an informant with a pillow. Tauni assured her that I was going to give him a blessing. After casting me a sideways glance she reluctantly left.

The circumstance was not ideal for performing a priesthood ordinance. The ER was bustling with runners and other odd folk that day. There was the sound of curtains being drawn/closed and loud voices. Machines were blipping and beeping like an epic game of multiplayer Pac man. But I was confident that I could filter out any distraction and blaze a trail for divine inspiration. I was wrong.

When my hands met Jayd’s head I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. I felt no inspiration. I had no vibe…positive or negative. The floodgates of Heaven were not opening….and I was scared. I needed some time to gather my thoughts, so I took it. My mind raced while I paused. What do I do now?! I didn’t want to put off any kind of negative energy. That was the last thing Tauni needed at this point in time. Finally I decided to start with simply citing the things I know about Jayd and building on those things.

I let Jayd know that his Father in Heaven loves him. I know that’s true. I believe that with all my heart. I am confident that God loves all His children. I told Jayd that his family loves him and needs him. And they do. He is a stellar father and a genuinely great person. I confidently spoke to Jayd’s great faith and how that faith is what would make him whole. If there’s one thing we know from the Bible it is that people were healed through a combination of Christ’s power and their faith. Whatever Jayd’s spiritual shortcomings may be, faith is not one of them. We’ve had many conversations over the past couple of years that have had religious undertones, and Jayd is legit. He is a believer. He is a man of faith.

Then it came time for me to flex my own paltry faith and go out on my own brittle limb. Without any specific divine direction, I blessed Jayd with a peaceful mind and a still heart. I asked God, and blessed Jayd, that he would wake up quickly. I prayed for the doctors and nurses to perform their duties with inspiration and intelligence. And finally I told Jayd that one day soon we would be able to look back on this experience and laugh. Because that’s what Jayd and I do. We banter and laugh. Then I quietly ended my blessing and removed my hands.

I stayed in Jayd’s curtained space for about 15 minutes speaking with Tauni. During that time he woke up a handful of times as we visited, but there was nothing behind his eyes. I believe his basic primal instincts were taking over. All he knew was that he was in a bad situation and his body was restrained. Every ounce of energy he had was being routed to his need to get out of those restraints. I was dumbfounded at how STRONG he was as Tauni and I tried to get him back onto the bed. After a few of these fits I elected to go wait outside and leave the two of them alone.

The only place I could find to sit was in the hallway just outside the ER waiting area. I was sitting, collecting my thoughts, analyzing what I’d just witnessed when a woman in her early fifties approached me with what appeared to be her husband and two grown children. “Excuse me, could you tell me where I could get some information?” she asked. “Information about what?” “About one of the runners that would have been brought here from the marathon.” “Oh, you can just go ask at the ER desk around the corner.” She thanked me and they casually walked around the corner. About two minutes later, a hospital staff member brought them back to where I was and knocked on the door directly in front of me. The door opened and the family went inside. And then came the screams. I’ll never, ever forget the sound of those screams. Their runner, a 32-year old super-fit military man, collapsed after he finished and was rushed to this hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. DEAD.

As we got the vans situated to get Tauni’s kids home so she could stay in San Antonio my cell phone rang. It was Tauni. “Jayd just woke up” she said. WHAT?! It had been less than an hour since the blessing and he was already awake. She told me the first words that came out of his mouth were “I know who you are.” The next words were “Did I finish the race?”

After myriad tests and scans and probes and who-knows-what, the mystified doctors discharged Jayd after four days in the hospital, two of which were spent in ICU. He’s home now, with a new lease on life.

I think about this experience a lot. Many times daily. For a few solid days it haunted my thoughts, even while I slept. Words cannot do justice to what I heard and saw in that San Antonio ER on November 13th, 2011. And this is why I identify (on a microscopic level) with the combat vet. It’s a useless story to tell to someone that wasn’t there. You may get it on some level. You might have even gone through a similarly traumatic experience in your life. But you weren’t there. It’s the ultimate “guess you had to be there” scenario. You didn’t see the horrors or hear the screams. It was a singularly unique experience to you and the people you fought with. Those are the only people that truly “get it.” I can see through the hollow nods and vacant “wow”s that I get from people I tell the story to. It’s a story worth telling and it needs to be told, but I bloody-well hate telling it.

I’m very grateful. The honest truth is that I don’t know what I would have done if something had happened to Jayd. He’s a crucial friend that I value and admire tremendously. Kind of like Art Garfunkel’s harmonies. The world is better with him in it. It’s a bromance. I’m stoked to have him back.

My magic blessing worked you know. His mind was calmed, his heart was stilled, he woke up quickly, and now we’re able to look back on the experience with some degree of whimsy. No jokes yet. But they’ll come. It’s just a matter of time. And that’s ok. Time we have.

(Left to Right) Ty, Jayd, Steve

18% Gay

2011-06-22T12:03:00.000-06:00

I hope everyone sees this for what it is. Satire. Stereotypes will abound and, hopefully, so will the chortles. We need to be able to laugh at ourselves.

I believe that you are either born gay, or born straight. That’s a controversial opinion, given my theological and political circles, but I believe it nonetheless. That said, I believe that straight dudes are at least a little gay and gay guys are partially straight.

The following is a list of 30 yes/no questions with assigned point values. Straight folks tally your princess points. To my gay homies, count up your butch points. Ask yourselves each question and find out how gay you are. Or straight. Sorry for excluding you ladies, but I’m simply not qualified to make any list from a female perspective. I’ve placed an asterisk next to my own princess points.

Princess Points

Can you tell the difference between yellow and “sunflower?” +1*

Have you seen Cats more than once? +2*

Do you maintain your cuticles? +1

Do you apply Chap Stick on a regular basis? +1

Have you ever watched Dirty Dancing by yourself, or without a female present? +5*

Have you ever read Little Women or Pride and Prejudice? +2

Do you know who Jerome Robbins is? +2*

Can you identify Bob Fosse choreography? +2*

Did you cry at any time during Steel Magnolias? +1*

Have you ever paid more than $300 for eyeglass frames or sunglasses? +1*

Can you bake any pastry or bread item without the help of a recipe? +2*

Have you ever made freezer jam alone or with another guy? +3

Do you apply lotion every day? +1

Do you own a Liza Minnelli album? +5

Do you tweeze your eyebrows? +2 (Extreme uni-brows are exempt)

Do you consider a scarf an “accessory?” +2

Does your belt buckle have to match your watch? +2

Have you ever watched a bodybuilding competition? +3

Have you ever worn a cravat? +5

Do you watch “Real Housewives of _____?” +2

Can you name at least 4 of the men chosen as “The Bachelor?” +1*

Have you ever filed your feet? +1

Do you think Matthew McConaughey is a good actor? +5

Can you properly fold a napkin? +1

Can you tell the difference between a dessert fork, dinner fork, and salad fork? +1*

Do you check a bag for a trip of three days or less? +1

Do you own a dinner jacket? +3

Do you shave your chest? +1

Do you pay more than $17 for a haircut? +1

Have you ever bought furniture at Pottery Barn? +2

Butch Points

Do you ever tear your toenails instead of clipping them? +1

Have you ever worn brown shoes with a black belt? +3

Do you own less than 3 pair of black shoes? +2

Do you deer hunt? +2

Do you fish? +1

Do you own any garment made by Carhartt? +3

Do you drive a truck that runs on diesel fuel? +2

Would you like a BBQ-scented Yankee Candle burning regularly in your home? +1

Do you think the Blue Collar Comedy Tour is funny? +1

Do you follow NASCAR? +3

Have you ever worn a bolo tie? +1

Do you own duck waders? +2

Do you have chums attached to your sunglasses? +1

Can you change the oil in your own car? +1

Do you snort and swallow instead of blowing your nose? +2

Do you own an official jersey of your favorite NFL, NBA, or Baseball team? +2

Do you like Charles Bronson movies? +3

Can you wear a shirt in public that has an obvious stain on it? +1

Do you insist on grilling over charcoal? +1

Do you own and fill a “ghetto mug” with a beverage from a service station? +1

Would you shop at K-Mart with coupons? +3

Can you name 3 John Wayne movies? +2

Would you skin and gut an animal that someone else killed? +5

Do you know what “hitting for the cycle” means? +3

Do you play violent shooter-type video games? +2

Can you name two albums by Rush? +2

Have you arm-wrestled more than 5 times in your life? +1

Do you own more than two different types of hammers? +2

Do you polish off a T Bone steak by picking it up with your hands and gnawing the remaining meat off the bone? +4

Have you ever served a store-bought cheese ball? +1

Add it up folks. Report!

The Slow Death of Innocence

2010-11-22T07:11:00.000-07:00

I believe that children are born innocent. Completely innocent. I also believe that as they grow up, that innocence is slowly and methodically destroyed until they die cynical and bitter. The culprit? Knowledge. Knowledge is to innocence, what water is to rock. A seemingly-innocent, yet corrosive element that leaves nothing but destruction in its wake. They both contribute to creation, yet they both destroy ruthlessly and without prejudice.

As children grow up they are introduced to various experiences and facts about life that shake their little cores. A child will never be the same after he kills his first animal. I don’t mean snails or worms or spiders, but actual relatable animals. Like a bird or a squirrel. Some may enjoy it. Others may be horrified by it. But regardless, that kid will never…ever be the same after extinguishing that life. A little bit of innocence dies.

Similarly, kids are never the same after they learn the truth about Mr. Claus, P. Rabbit, and leprechauns. Those are beautiful, magical things that add an element of happiness and fantasy to life. The destruction of those fantasies can be brutal for some and perfectly logical and normal for others. Yet in either case, knowledge kills the magic and innocence dies.

Chief among such learning experiences is the true nature of birds and bees.

My 8-year old came to me a number of months ago after taking a bath and said, “Dad, what are my balls for?” Naturally my answer was, “they’re for warming your hands on the sideline while the defense is on the field.” His quizzical look let me know he didn’t know what a sideline was, or a defense for that matter, but I shrugged it off with the standard, “I’ll tell you when you’re older.” A few months later the question came again. This time “go ask your mother” bought some time and gave temporary relief. VERY temporary. Minutes later he was right back at it. “I’ll tell you when you’re older. Like 22.” I knew this could only go on so long. Finally, weeks after he came at me again, “Dad, what are my balls for? It’s my body and it’s my right to know.” How in the holy freaking hell can a 9-year-old be that wise in his question phrasing? Is he really mature enough to have this conversation? So I tested the water… “Buddy, tell me what you know about how babies are made.” I was fully expecting an answer like “Well dad, everyone knows that rays of magic sunshine mix with unicorn laughter to make the baby and then the flamingo delivers it to mommy’s tummy.” Which is only half wrong, since there IS magic and there IS laughter involved in the baby-making process. Unfortunately, his answer was smart and linear and logical. Completely wrong, but quite clear and a plausible alternative for the actual method. Bloody hell. He was ready…

Yeah, well I wasn't. Dude is in third grade! If he could just hold on for two more years then I could allow the government to teach him courtesy of the “maturation program” and I could just pick up the pieces with a dry and scientific Q&A. What are we paying these useless teachers for anyhow? With any real luck I could put it off until 8^th grade when he gets to watch that revolting video in health class with the detailed description of an erection, complete with thermal imagery. I’ll never forget the afterbirth from that video. Talk about death to innocence.

Alas, it was not to be. It was time. One calm, sunny day coming home from the grocery store, Talmage and I had “the talk.” I have to give him credit. He was pretty calm, albeit shocked. He was having a hard time grasping the fact that it could go there and cause that to happen. I held nothing back. We covered all aspects of “Teh Seks.” The physical. The emotional. The spiritual. I was very detailed in my description and positive in my delivery. We covered parameters and rules. We talked about the importance of it in God’s plan. I have no delusions….that innocence is dead, and that’s a healthy chunk of innocence, but the damage was minimal. It was a clean cut, not the gruesome tear that it could have been.

My favorite of his myriad questions was,“Dad, how long do you have to sex for?” "Well bud, if you’re lucky about 12 seconds. But sometimes it can take hours.” “Ooooo, gross.” Just wait young buddy. Just wait.

Revenge of the Nerds

2010-10-13T01:07:00.001-06:00

Online social networking has been a fascinating and highly entertaining experience for me for a variety of reasons. First, it’s interactive. It isn’t “read only.” I can actually speak with or share things with people I know. Or knew. Or figure I should know since we share 85 friends but can’t remember who the hell they actually are. Secondly, it exposes people’s nuances, intricacies, weaknesses, and talents. I never knew I had so many friends that were brilliant artists, gifted writers, angry activists, and political soapboxers. I know who is grammatically challenged. Some have aged well. Others have done something to piss off Father Time. I have a bone to pick with that grey-bearded bastard.

More than anything, though, I think online networking gives insight into the nature of karma and/or the chaotic, natural flow of life. Let’s face it….we are all pinballs in the wizard’s game, knocked hither, thither, and yon. Where we end up is pure chance. Or luck. Or is it? Is there some element of karma involved? Are hard work, perseverance, and difficult patience through formative years rewarded with glory, riches, and love later in life? On the other side, have the cruel and indifferent been punished with misery and woe?

Throughout time there have been legendary battles between fierce rivals. Palestine and Israel. Green Bay and Minnesota. Fire and Rain. Cake and Pie. Age and Cher. Plastic Surgery and Kenny Rogers. Hippies and Metalheads. Jocks and Nerds. Some rage on, i.e. Palestine and Israel. Others have been tragically but emphatically decided, i.e. poor Kenny Rogers. And lately the Jocks suffered a crushing blow, much like Kenny’s face, which ended their war. The Nerds have prevailed, courtesy of Fantasy Football.

Look, I’m a sports guy. I’ve played several sports and was pretty decent at a few of them, so I can identify with the jocks. I’ve also bumped pocket protectors with the nerds. Hell, I have hundreds Phish concerts on CD, meticulously labeled and cataloged chronologically on Japanese-only compact discs, stored such that no man or child could possibly reach or damage them. I played EverQuest for years, spending hours of my day as Rutherforrd Gnarlyarmour….barbarian warrior in Norrath. THAT is nerdy. But, my friends, nothing I have ever done in my life on earth has been as nerdy as playing fantasy football this year.

My neighbor Jeb invited me to play Fanasy Football with him and some of his friends. I was loathe to do it, but I saw myself slowly (through little fault of my own) becoming “that guy”….the one that always has an excuse to not participate in anything he’s invited to do. I like Jeb so I reluctantly agreed. How involved could it be, right? I just get a few players and let them rack up points for playing well. No? HELL-tutha-no.

I knew I was in trouble when I went to Jeb’s brother’s house for “draft day” and we sat around in a group of 12 with spreadsheets and expert forecasts as to who would be the best players to pick. We went through 16 individual rounds of a draft. By pick #9 or so I’d had it. My butt was sore from sitting and I had no clue who the remaining players were. We rushed through the last hour, taking the total to THREE, and finally finished the draft.

That was the easy part.

There’s no sitting on your laurels in fantasy football. Each week you have to look at projections, compare stats, and manage your lineup. There are complex algorithms involved in calculating points after a performance. (Catches+Receiving Yards) – Dropped Balls / Yards After Contact x Touchdowns. Or some nonsense.

Did you see that, jocks? I just said “calculating” and “algorithm” in a paragraph that is talking about YOU. You all have triumphantly BECOME the NERDS!

Memo to FF-playing jocks. You are nerdy. Professional cup stackers think you are nerds. Anime manga collectors wouldn’t be seen with you in public. Star Trek conventions would ban you from the premises. You can retire the jersey and don the hammer pants because you are nerds. Sheldon Cooper is jealous. And he can build Tesla Coils and speak KLINGON. And I don’t want to hear, “it’s not even the same dude, we’re talking about sports!” No you’re not. You’re talking about MATH. True football fans are the ones that lock themselves in their man caves and violently cheer for their team to beat the bloody hell out of whoever dares line up across the ball from them. They don’t cheer for Brett Favre to throw touchdowns just because he is on their fantasy team. They know he’s a filthy loser and want him to throw countless interceptions before having his knee folded back by Julius Peppers. Hoping enemy players do well goes against the grain of logic and is foreign to the lifeblood of the true sports fan. Bottom line, the word “fantasy” should clue you in that you are in nerd territory. Do you know what lives in fantasy? Hobbits. Dragons. Unicorns. Spiderman. The Easter Bunny. Beautiful women in fur bikinis that fan you with palm fronds and grill a mean steak. And YOU if you think you are anything but a nerd. A true fantasy team would have Juggernaut at tailback, Legolas and The Flash at receiver, a Minotaur kicker, Darth Vader at tight end, an offensive line of Golems, and Moses under center.

The circle is now complete.

Nerds-1 \\\///Jocks-DONE

Why the Fear?

2010-09-07T02:21:00.001-06:00

For someone that professes political ambiguity and general indifference, I sure do write about politics a lot. As stated in other posts, I’m largely confused and torn politically. I consider myself a conservative and I consider myself a liberal but I don’t consider myself a moderate…if that’s even possible. Maybe it’s just easier to incessantly bitch about things when you’re that uncommitted. And I guess it’s a general feeling of helplessness and disdain that motivates me to think and write politically. And right now I feel both.

I’ve been overly sensitive to Facebook Prophets as of late. Those soap-boxers that use FB as a vehicle to vilify Obama or Glenn Beck. Thank God for the “hide” function. I’m routinely astounded at how narrow-minded and silly people can be. Obama is not the anti-Christ. Beck is not the hate-mongering harbinger of death. Liberals have an agenda and they use media to promote it, i.e. Bill Maher and John Stewart (who is brilliant by the way.) Conservatives also use media to promote their agenda, i.e. Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. Each side can be valid and each side can go full retard. What hurts me is the chaos that is created by such clashing. It is dark and it is ugly. We Americans have lost respect for the system and its offices and I blame the partisan media.

Yesterday my two boys brought home permission forms from school, demanding parental consent for them to watch an upcoming presidential address to American students on the importance of education. You actually had to sign it to allow your child to participate. Not to decline it, but to allow it. In other words, the district’s default position was to keep the kids away from the address unless otherwise stated by their parents. I was dumbfounded.

I cannot believe we have come to live in such a fearful society. What in the hell are we afraid of? Do we think that Obama is going to use this opportunity to brainwash our children into supporting gay marriage or immigration reform? Is he going to subliminally command them to kill the prime minister of Malaysia? Why the fear?!

When I was a child I was taught that the president of the United States of America held an important, almost sacred office. Not because it was Regan, but because he was the leader of the free world. The office stood for freedom and justice. Not the man. The OFFICE. Regan had issues. Bush had issues. Clinton had issues. The other Bush had issues. Obama has issues. But he holds the most important office on the planet and it is our duty to listen to what he has to say, then use our God-given judgment to discern what we believe to be right or wrong, true or false. I believe that he, at his core, stands for freedom and justice…just as Regan did. I am not an Obama guy. Some of his ideas scare me. But I believe his intentions and motivations with regards to my children’s education are pure.

Bottom line, this is an address on the importance of education. I don’t care if it’s the president, Glenn Beck, or Charles freaking Manson speaking. Any help in strengthening the importance of education in the minds of my children is quite welcome. It doesn't matter if the office is held by a democrat, republican, libertarian, or whig. My children will grow up to respect that office and hopefully aspire to it.

Come Fly the Not-So-Friendly Skies

2010-08-29T19:57:00.007-06:00

I caught this story in USA Today where over 2,000 airline passengers were polled to see if they would prefer a “family section” on flights. Nearly 60% said yes. In addition, 20% said they would prefer child-free flights. The survey came on the heels of a law suit filed by a 67-year-old American that sued an Australian airline after a 3-year-old child screamed on her flight causing pain in her ear.

To be fair, most of the 60% that favored family sections or kidless flights didn’t have children of their own, so there is some disconnect and lack of empathy there. But I don’t care. They are all idiots.

Have these people never been around children? Unless they are People Under the Stairs or haters of innocence and purity, I don’t understand how these tools could want to ban families from flying. Or quarantine them. Can a crying baby be obnoxious? Certainly. But so can you elitist bastards with your noise-cancelling headphones and iPads. I realize that you are a “business professional” and that you work exceptionally hard, but you are not working any harder than the dad that busted ass for three years to afford the magical Disneyland vacation for his young family. Not everyone works to luxuriate in snooty opulence, sipping red wine and stroking lap dogs while listening to Haydn. That child’s trip from point A to point B is every bit as valid as yours. You can deal with a little discomfort for a few hours. And if you are flying Southwest then you are exposing even more of your idiocy. Southwest is a bus in the sky. The only thing missing are livestock and chickens milling about the passengers to have a complete third-world charter.

What a silly survey. It doesn’t even make business sense to do such a thing. The airline industry lives and dies by ticket sales. There is no chance in hell they would risk losing seat sales by blocking off designated areas for families or children.

Designated areas. Doesn’t that just sound terrible? It screams of segregation to me. Hey…I know…let’s designate areas for fat people like Taco Cabana Lady. Do they know how horrible it is to sit next to someone whose lard is spilling 10” over the armrest? Trust me, I know. People glare at me when they see they drew the short straw with a seat adjacent to mine. Let’s stick anyone over 250 lbs. in the back of the plane. In fact, if you are over three bills then you aren’t allowed onboard, period. And Asian people smell funny, so let’s have an Asian section too. And old people annoy the hell out of me. They had their time to fly when they were young and actually WORTH something. But that ship has sailed Get your mothballed turtle asses back home and watch your programs in your wicker furniture-filled, wood-paneled parlors.

Now I believe that people should exercise common sense and human courtesy. I believe that families with small children should move toward the back of the airplane as a courtesy to other travelers. I believe they should try very hard to keep them quiet and calm. I also believe that very young children should not sit in first class. That is one area where business travelers can pay a premium to fly in peace. If you want to offer designated seating for families with discounted pricing or kidless sections at added premiums, then fine. That could be an option. However, I do NOT believe that anyone has the right to demand where people sit. Rosa Parks wasn’t down. Why would I be?

Fine Dining....at Taco Cabana?!

2010-08-28T12:51:00.004-06:00

I recently took my family to Taco Cabana here in Austin. On a side note, I believe it is physically impossible to NOT sing “Her name was Lola….” when driving past The Cabana. It was our first time through the Cabana doors and I was kind of excited. I figured I knew what I was getting myself into. This was not atmospheric Mexican food with waiters, menus, and glass cups. Nor was this Ghetto Mex, i.e. authentic Mexican grub served big, fast, and cheap. This was full-on fast food Mexican…a direct competitor with Taco Bell. It would be perfect for the kids and a pleasant change from a typical border run…outside the bun.

The décor was quite cute. The tables were decorated with different beer logos and each had an umbrella overhead. The menu was interesting and inventive and the family fajitas immediately drew my attention. There is a full salsa bar dedicated to different types of sauces, jalapenos, and various condiments. I ordered our food, we found our tables, and started setting up camp. Only two other tables in the entire restaurant were taken. There was an older, fat couple at one table and what appeared to be a father and teenage son at another.

I have a two-year-old daughter. She is equal parts diva, princess, and mermaid. She has attitude oozing from her body and the most emotive little personality you’d ever see in a munchkin so lovely. When she speaks, you hear. You might not listen, but I guaran-ass-tee you that you’ll hear her. It’s impossible not to. She’s got this little high-pitched squeal that will sound angry or happy, depending on the situation. She was excited to be at The Cabana and she wanted the world to know.

Less than 10 minutes (and 3 squeals) into our meal I noticed that the fat old lady at the other table had managed to rise to her bulbous feet to make her way over to our table. I just assumed she was going to compliment us on our darling little children that were so full of energy and excitement. Quite the contrary. About five feet from our table, as she approached, she cupped her puffy hands to her ears and hissed “she is too loud.” Sherri was dumbfounded. “I’m sorry, this is a public restaurant” Sherri said. “Yes, but she doesn’t need to scream” replied the wrinkled mass of flesh. Then Sherri and I started in on her at the same time. “She’s a CHILD.” “She’s only TWO.” “This is TACO CABANA.” Defeated and dejected, The Jelly Thing turned and waddled back to her table. Her husband hung his head and said nothing…probably dreaming of his “happy place” where he was married to a woman that didn’t require him to grease her down and toss a Twinkie through the door to get her in the house.

Are you kidding me? Had this woman actually complained about my daughter’s shrill-but-happy sounds interfering with her joyous snarfing of $9.00 worth of barely mediocre burrito? Memo to Hog Lady: If you are interested in a romantic, quiet dinner with your unfortunate mate, do NOT roll into the Taco FREAKING Cabana. Taco Cabana is not a haunt for the Austin elite. You will find children. You will find teenagers. You will find the occasional transient that scored a few bucks under the viaduct. But you will also find mass quantities of beans, meat, and cheese (for pennies), so I can understand why you would want to squeeze yourself in there. Just adjust your expectations, mkay?

Caller ID - The Bane of Initiative and Propriety

2010-08-24T00:34:00.002-06:00

I believe that Caller ID is to blame for the general laziness of society. In fact, I think you can basically follow the (de)evolution of telephone technology for a brilliant timeline into the world's descent into pitiful lethargy.

"Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you." Those were the first words uttered electrically by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. The full history of telephone technology is lengthy and terribly tedious reading, so we'll skip ahead to the 1950s to begin our slippery timeline of laziness. In the 1950s, telephones were heavy. They were bulky. They sat down in a specific, permanent spot and took up obnoxious amounts of space. They were generally located near a desk or a countertop, where messages could easily be written.

When the phone rang, it actually rang. I mean there was a sound emanating from the thing that sounded like an actual bell ringing. When the phone rang you had to answer it to know who was calling on the other line. It was a complete mystery...until you picked up. It could be a bill collector or it could be old Ed McMahon with Publisher's Clearing house informing you that you'd won the million. And yes, Ed was old...even in the 50s.

Further, most telephone lines belonged to multiple families. You could pick up the receiver to make a phone call and your neighbor could be rapping on the phone with a friend. I'm sure it made for lovely eavesdropping.

Dialing a phone number in the 1950s took an eternity to accomplish. There were no magic buttons to push. You had to stick your finger in the hole on the rotary dial that corresponded with the desired number and you had to spin the wheel clockwise....then wait while the wheel "click-click-clickity-clicked" counter-clockwise to its original position. Luckily there were fewer numbers to dial back then. My dad's phone number was simply 2596 when he was a lad.

The 1960s
Toward the end of the 1950s, wall-mounted telephones were invented. They were slimmed down, reworked versions of the same device...just designed to hang on a wall. This did nothing more than clear desk space. You were still forced to rise, walk, pick up, and speak into the receiver.

In 1964 the world was introduced to the "Touch Tone" telephone. No more annoying time-waster of a dial to turn. Now you simply had to push a button for the number you wanted, easily shaving 15 seconds from your dialing! People got a little bit lazier.

While phone units continued to get smaller and lighter, no other real advances were made in telephone technology.

The 1970s
Technology held firm in the 70s. A "Picturephone" was released where video was transmitted (a snapshot every 2 seconds) but it went over like a lead balloon. It was bulky and insanely expensive.

More than anything else, the 1970s were about STYLE. Phones were manufactured in all sorts of groovy shapes and far out colors. Want a translucent phone that glows next to your lava lamp? No problem. One that mounts in the center of your black light poster? No sweat. The sound changed too! You could get a cool robotic, electric sounding ring instead of the actual bell.

In 1973, a company called Motorola invented the first cellular portable telephone to be commercialized. The technology had existed and had been used by the military and such, but this was the first time said technology was released for commercial consumption. It was a true beast of a machine, but it could be carried with you and used anywhere you received cell reception.

The 1980s
This is the decade where things started to really change and the descent into laziness went supersonic.

Right around 1980 the first cordless phone hit the market. All of a sudden, you didn't need to get up from the couch to walk to the wall or the telephone desk to answer the phone. You could fire it up right in the middle of MASH without missing a witty Hawkeye line or Klinger outfit. Granted, the 27MHz frequency and limited range made it sound like you were standing in the eye of a hurricane, but quality was a fair trade-off for the massive amounts of energy saved from having to rise to your feet and walk across the room. The low frequency, however, made it so that people that were talking on cordless phones in the same vicinity could hear each other and even speak to each other. This was more annoying to the phone company than to the consumer. People were able to have free 3-way calling adventures. Free is bad. In 1986, a cordless phone with a 49 MHz frequency was released to combat the 3-way calling issue.

In 1984, a market trial for a new device was held by Bell Atlantic in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. For the past 15 years, technology was being developed to allow identification information from the call originator to be transmitted and displayed to the recipient. This was the effective birth of "Caller ID." And the death of American initiative. Based on this market trial and others in the late 1980s, Caller ID became a mainstream hit and massive revenue stream for all major telecommunications companies by the mid-1990s. Suddenly it was possible to pick and choose which calls you wanted to answer based on who was calling. People, again, got a little bit lazier.

Constant advancements were also made to cellular technology. Networks were expanded and devices were improved, getting smaller and more powerful.

The 1990s
Cordless phones owned the 90s. In 1990 a 900 MHz phone was released, allowing you to go further from the base unit than ever before while speaking with a newfound clarity. Further advancements were made in 1994, 1996, and finally in 1998 with the release of a 2.4 GHz phone. Now you could walk around the freaking block on a non-cellular telephone with corded-phone clarity.

In 1995, Type II Caller ID was released and spread to the masses. This new technology allowed you to actually see caller information while you were already on the telephone. Caller ID displays were now being built onto actual cordless handsets, eliminating the need for older Caller ID boxes. Now you can screen and ignore calls without walking to look at the box. Another foot into the lazy river of laziness.

Cellular technology continued to improve. Now we have devices that are not just functional telephones, but also planners, calendars, and small computers.

The 2000s - Today
Having a telephone device entirely independent of wires or "bases" apparently wasn't enough. In 2001, the first "bluetooth" headset was released, allowing the user to actually speak on a cellular telephone without holding the damned thing to his ear.

Cellular technology is no longer its own technology...it's simply a small piece in a larger unit that we now call iPhones, Androids, and Blackberries.

Many American families have absolutely no need for "land line" telephones due to the cost-effectiveness and pervasiveness of mobile phones, but advancements are still made to said land lines.

Commonly, people consider advancements in technology to be improvements to life. Things get smaller, cheaper, smarter, faster, and more available. Technology allows professionals to be more "plugged in." But there is always a side effect.

In the 1950s people were compelled to answer their phone to know who was calling. People were forced to deal with salespeople or talk to that pesky mother in law that has nothing but evil to speak. They had to confront those annoyances head on, and I guarantee that lessons were learned in the process. Today I don't need to move a muscle to know who is calling. I don't even need to move my eyeballs. I barely have to pause my DVR to read the name and number of the person calling which is now displayed on the freaking television screen that I can't peel myself away from, courtesy of AT&T U-Verse. If my eyeballs are too tired then I need but listen to the ridiculous "Microsoft Sam"ish voice emanating from my 5-handset 6 GHz landline unit that tells me who is calling. I can literally and completely ignore you without expending a single joul of energy.

Is that healthy? No. Is there any bleed-through effect in life? I think so. Just like ignoring your annoying-ass phone call, I find it too easy to ignore those other annoyances in life. We're a lazy people and I'm your chief. Prime offender. I know people that won't answer or return phone calls. "If you want to talk to me, text me." How 'tarded is that?

Cell phones and mobile devices have thrown propriety completely out the door. I see people texting and even talking on cell phones during movies. I see Lobots wearing bluetooth headsets in church. I see idiots texting behind the wheel. I see women speeding through school zones talking on their phones. I even have kids that play around with iPhone apps during Sunday School lessons, oblivious to the fact that an adult is trying to teach them about baby Jesus. I can't imagine how hard it is to be a teacher in this day and age. These devices have made lazy, disrespectful lamers of kids and adults alike.

Technology has made it all-too-easy to avoid building real relationships. We are becoming robotic. In my last job I was able to manage accounts as a salesperson without ever having to meet or speak to someone. From initial contact to RFP to completed sale to daily management, I could handle everything from a Blackberry without even using it is a phone. Is that a good way to build a relationship?

So, in a personal effort to DO more and CRY less, I'm going to take the following action:

- I will answer the phone when it rings, regardless of who is calling.
- I will make an effort to not look at Caller ID or listen to Sam.
- I will leave the phone in the kitchen and go to it when it rings.

Will this instantly make me a die-hard go-getter in life? Probably not. Will it make me less of a lazy sofa-dweller? I sure as hell hope so. Those stairs are murder.

Back in the Saddle Again

2010-08-19T14:26:00.008-06:00

I bought an Aerosmith CD when I was 15 years old at the behest of a youth leader I had named Doug Havens. I had and have always admired Doug and he was the first person I ever knew whose passion poured out of him like liquid hot magma when he talked about music. It was an early compilation of "greatest hits" with standards like "Walk This Way", "Dream On", and "Sweet Emotion." The real gem on that album was a track called "Kings and Queens." And there was one track that was utter rubbish called "Back in the Saddle Again." Unfortunate as it may be, that's the song that is permalooping in my head right now as I write this post. It's been a long time since I've written, but I'm determined to be back in the saddle again. I'm committing to write at least one post per week. And in my 30-something wisdom I've discovered that I really dislike Aerosmith. Sorry Doug.

To catch up, here are 10 things I've thought about the past few months....blitzkrieg style:

1) Prop 8 was overturned in California. I'm a conservative former Utahn who belongs to a strict Christian faith whose stance is clear and firm on the matter. But I have friends that I love very much and it is very important to me that they are afforded the same rights, freedoms, and understanding as a committed gay couple that Sherri and I likely take for granted as married folk. The rest is semantics. Openness, tolerance, and education never hurt anyone and I don't understand why we fear it.

2) The most effective tool for educating against (or curing) intolerance is watching and re-watching West Side Story. We learn that hatred and misunderstanding can easily be defeated with Sondheim lyrics and Jerome Robbins choreography.

3) Brett Favre finally retired. Buuuahahahaha! I'll believe that when I see, nay FEEL, his stone cold corpse in his coffin. Even then I'd say there's a 70% chance that he'll rise from the dead to demand his starting position back because death, much like life, just isn't the same without football. But hey...he's not MY freaking problem anymore. When he wore green he was a hero of mine, and I'm sure he will be again someday. But as long as he wears purple he is the enemy and I wish him nothing but pain and sorrow.

4) I'm not designed to live alone. Sherri and the kids flew the coop to Utah for a 4-week vacation with friends and family and I joined them for the final 10 days, but there were 18 days when I was home alone. At first I was stoked. I just knew that the first few days would be bachelor heaven where I could consume all the wife-disapproved food, beverages, and movies I ever wanted. In reality it was a nightmare. The first night I started talking to myself while preparing my nachos. I realized I was in trouble when I actually answered myself. I did nothing productive and blew through 4 bags of tortilla chips, 20 avocados, 5 rotisserie chickens, and an entire block of cheese in the blink of an eye. I missed my fam.

5) Texas is home. While I enjoyed my time in Utah and loved seeing my friends and family, I was not devastated to leave.

6) "Bachelor Pad" is great television. Finally we have an honest portrayal of Bachelorette and Bachelor rejects. It exposes the stupidity, deceit, vanity, insecurity, and general ridiculousness that The Bachelor sweeps under the rug in an effort to make us believe in the "legitimate" prospect of finding love on the show. And as far as I'm concerned, Weatherman should have his own show.

7) Reality TV talent competitions learned a lesson with Sanjaya from his season on American Idol. If you believe the producers of billion dollar shows like AI, SYTYCD, and AGT truly allow America to choose its favorite contestants to advance then I'm sending Tommy to hit you in the head with a tack hammer because YOU ARE A RETARD. These shows are big business. Viewership is king. Lineups are carefully selected and protected to secure key demographics. Winners are chosen by producers, not voted for by you and me in our living rooms.

8) Dr. Laura is throwing in the towel after who-knows-how-many centuries of verbally abusing people on the radio. Now I think the good doctor has some fine ideas and some wonderful advice, especially for relationships, but her no-nonsense delivery of said advice is a poorly-constructed shill for her true sadistic need to flog people over public radio. Memo to Laura: you can NOT drop an N-Bomb on the radio. You certainly can't do it multiple times in the same segment. You will get crucified every time. And please don't say that by leaving you are exercising your first amendment rights to free speech. How about an innate commitment to common freaking sense. If you drop that bomb on the air there will be outcries of hate, there will be offense, and there will be consequences. There are some terms that even the constitution can't protect against, and "ni**er" is one of them. Just don't say it. Good riddance.

9) Firefly was a brilliant TV series. It is a crime that it was cancelled after a single season. At least we got Nathan Fillion from it. "Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog" alone is worth the Firefly sacrifice I guess.

10) Did you know that the little sprite from iCarly makes $180k per episode? She's like 10, and she rakes in more dough in 30 minutes than I can sweat for in years. It's appropriate though. That show is brilliant. It's like Glee for kids.

That does it for now. I've already got an idea for my next post, so stay tuned. I'm back in the saddle again. Sans leopard print jumpsuit.

Hailstorm - House Band of Valhalla

2010-05-12T18:11:00.006-06:00

And somewhere…in some mead hall in the highest citadel of Asgard, the great Odin smiled.

Three years ago I bought a drum set. I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps it was my mini-midlife crisis splurge. Maybe I was subconsciously angry with my wife and thought I’d exact my revenge through assaults of thundering sonic blasts. Or maybe, just maybe, I hadn’t quite yet given up that pipe dream of being a rock star.

When I moved to Texas I had a fleeting encounter with reality. “What the hell am I going to do with a drum set in TEXAS?!” I didn’t know anyone here to jam with. I couldn’t fit it on the moving truck. And I doubted there would be a place for it in my new home. My wife loathed the thing and I could really use some “points” since I was displacing her from all that she held dear. I allowed my heart to be reasoned by my head and I quickly sold it for peanuts.

Weeks into my stay in Texas I was introduced to Jayd…a dude that shares my passion for sonic bliss and puts me to shame in knowledge of the note. He plays guitar. Then I meet Josh…another music fan. He plays anything that can make sound. Next is Steve, another guy cut from the proper musical cloth that is also quickly mastering the bass. Then Barry….guitar. And Randy….guitar and wicked vocals. All that was missing was a drummer. CURSE YOU, HEAD! I should always follow my freaking overly sensitive bleeding heart.

Sometime in April, Jayd was approached to put a band together for a church activity. It was the second “Swapapalooza” festival and would be “Hailstorm’s” second time taking the stage as musical entertainment. Let me expound a bit on those two terms:

“Swapapalooza” is a neighborhood swap. Thanks to overly creative minds like my friend and colleague Ben Martin’s, some further clarity is required here. There is no fish bowl at the door with a note taped to it with the word "KEYS" scrawled on the note. No random-wild-unabashed-monkeysex going on at THIS church function. Rather, this swap is more like a giant free garage sale or swap meet. Thanks to yet another friend and colleague, Roger Church, the details of the event require some delicate explanation. For instance, “Swapapalooza is where people in the neighborhood bring all their used unwanted crap to the event and people can trade for other people’s used unwanted crap, saving a trip to Good Will.” After hearing that explanation, Roger’s suggestion was to change the title from “Swapapalooza” to "Screw the Needy." A better explanation would have been, “Swapapalooza is an opportunity for local families and children to exchange gently used necessities or longed-for luxuries that they would otherwise be unable to justify.” I digress.

“Hailstorm” is the name of the band, thus titled since its debut came on the heels of the gnarly Austin hail storm of last year.

Jayd obliged and came to me, asking if I would be willing to pound the skins for the band. But alas, I had no drum set. Freaking head. Incredibly, Josh had been in negotiations to trade some gear for a drum set and we were simply days from having the kit in hand. We started to noodle through ideas for a setlist, and when the kit arrived we met to jam.

It was quite remarkable how quickly we gelled. I felt a bit overwhelmed, not having an instrument at home to practice on, but I listened to the songs and imagined in my head what it would be like to play them. After 5 rehearsals, Hailstorm was ready to take the stage.

We fully embraced the Norse feel of the band’s name and appropriately adopted rad stage names. Ranvald, Magnus, Thor, Stiv, Lars, and Juror #5. Jayd and I designed a logo and we all made tee shirts for the gig. Some of our groupies wore similar tees.

I’ve never had more fun in my entire life.

This experience was less about sound and more about style. We never took ourselves seriously but were all proud with what we accomplished. We played 15 songs in our set, covering everything from Beatles to Weezer to Michael Jackson.

Let's Go from Tyler Pearson on Vimeo.

The crowd and groupies loved it and I’m confident that Hailstorm will once again be called upon to gently rock the house, sending praises to Tyr and to Thor and to Loki. Odin the wise shall smile once again.

Duggars and Degeneri and Dogs. Oh my....

2010-04-03T10:09:00.010-06:00

Sherri wants to be a Duggar. A what, you ask? A Duggar can be any one of the 21 stars of the hit TLC program “19 Kinds and Counting” featuring the Duggar Family. There’s Jim Bob and Michelle, then a whole slew of kids named J____. Josie, Joe Jack, Jarvis, Jezebel, Jiminy Cricket, etc. I hate the show. I detest it. Since I love my wife (and value my life) I won’t share my full opinion with you, other than to say that I wish they’d stop squeezing out kids and start acting responsibly. When your mindless procreation starts producing 1 lb. babies it’s time to stop. And they’re running out of J names. I’m starting a petition to change the name of the show to “19 Kids and Satisfied.”

I want to be a Chapman. Have you seen “Dog the Bounty Hunter?” This dude is like a bastardized hybrid of Geronimo and Thor. “Dog” Duane Chapman, together with his team, busts fugitives that jump their bond or fail to appear in court in the states of Hawaii and Colorado. The cat is bizarre. He is a former soldier for a motorcycle gang who was convicted on a murder 1 charge in his early 20s. After doing two years, he turned to the life of bail bondsman and has been wtfpwning bad guys’ souls ever since.

I love the show and the guy, faults notwithstanding. First off he smokes 6 packs of cigarettes per day. Let’s do some math. There are 20 cigarettes in a pack. That’s 120 cigarettes a day. Let’s assume he’s an ambitious man and is awake from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. That is 16 hours per day where he could potentially be smoking. There are 60 minutes in an hour, so he is awake 840 minutes per day. The number of minutes awake divided by the number of cigarettes available in six packs is seven. Dog Chapman smokes one cigarette every 7 minutes for 14 hours straight. Every day. No wonder his skin is bright freaking red. The smoke has got to be trying to escape through the pores of his skin.

More math. A pack of brand name cigarettes in Austin is about $6.95 per pack. Hawaii is generally more expensive than anywhere else on the planet, so let’s bump that to $7.50 including sales tax. Six packs per day at $7.50 per pack is $45 per day, $315 per week, $1260 per month. No wonder Dog is so ferocious when hunting down fugitives. He’s got an entire mortgage caught up in poison that he huffs into his lungs.

But I can look past the chimney and lobster-red skin. Behind those rad Oakleys is a soft, compassionate, trusting dude that genuinely cares about the people he puts in jail. “Find ‘em and Fix ‘em” is his motto. He and his team regularly pray together in a circle before and/or after a hunt, and I like that. He is also an obvious family man. His interactions with his wife and kids are sweet and entirely genuine. He had one major screw up with the racial slur thing, but he owned it and apologized like a true man. No written statements, no publicists. Just Dog on camera humbly begging the forgiveness of an entire racial community at every opportunity. He actually met with leaders of that community and received their blessing to keep his show on the air.

The characters are compelling and strong, the message is clear and concise, and there’s nothing more entertaining than watching a 5’8” bulldog of a Norse Cherokee kicking doors down with 4” heeled, gold-capped boots, screaming “on the floor mother &%$ker!”

American Idol is slipping. Simon Cowell looks incredibly annoyed, clearly showing that he wants off the show. All three judges that matter are constantly contradicting themselves, telling the contestants to be original and inventive, yet crucifying them when they try. Degeneres has NO business giving any criticism on anything remotely related to music. Memo to Ellen: If you want to comment on their hair, or their shoes, or their showmanship, then please…by all means, do. But in all matters of the sonic wave, you need to stfu and keep your unqualified opinions to yourself. Until you establish your merit in that industry you should just sit there and be funny. You are to AI what Dennis Miller was to MNF…a sideshow. A distraction. A clown to failingly entertain during awkward silences after qualified men speak. And you’re not doing enough of that, either. Stop trying to be serious. No one takes you seriously. Start being funny.

And what the hell happened to Seacrest? He used to walk that thin line between geekily awkward and refreshingly cool. Now he’s neither. His jokes are bad and his mannerisms are odd. Back to the radio you go son. I say we bring back the Dunkleman, or give the gig to Conan. He’s probably bored.

Bruce Lee vs. Eazy E

2010-02-20T10:22:00.009-07:00

Did you ever see Office Space? It’s a classic film of wit and irony. One of my favorite characters is that of Michael Bolton…an IT guy at Initech that had the misfortune of being named, well, ...Michael Bolton. The real irony is that he loves hard core gangster rap music. A snow white nerdy IT guy named Michael Bolton that jams Ghetto Rap in his ride. I feel compelled to cut in some Office Space dialogue:

Samir: No one in this country can ever pronounce my name right. It's not that hard: Na-ee-ana-jaad. Nayanajaad.
Michael Bolton: Yeah, well at least your name isn't Michael Bolton.
Samir: You know there's nothing wrong with that name.
Michael Bolton: There was nothing wrong with it... until that no-talent ass clown became famous and started winning Grammys.
Samir: Hmm... well why don't you just go by Mike instead of Michael?
Michael Bolton: No way! Why should I change? He's the one who sucks.

My own personal irony is that I was, once upon a time, that guy. The snow white nerdy/preppie kid rocking a white IZOD sweater with my cuordoroy shorts, listening to Dre in my car.

I went through a rap phase. I’m not sure if I really ever bought into it. I certainly never looked like it, but that’s largely because I detest people that dress their scene and kind of always have. I tried it to an extent in my Grateful Dead days, but I always felt like I was betraying myself. There’s just simply no need for the marriage of image and music. Anyhow, I thumped with the best of ‘em. And this was pre-“hip hop.” This was RAP baby.

So the question I ask myself today is this. Did I dig rap because my friends did and I wanted to fit in or did I genuinely like it? And what does “like it” mean? It’s not necessarily musical. I suppose it’s lyrically intricate but I wouldn’t call it lyrically “pleasing.” Ultimately I think that I like(d) rap because of the emotional effect that it has on my soul. It’s the only redeeming quality that I can find. It made me “feel” something. What I felt was generally angry or intense or rebellious, but teenagers need that kind of thing. The follow-up question is whether or not the emotional response is right or wrong, good or bad.

I was a junior in high school and right in the thick of my rap phase. Cypress Hill, Snoop, Dr. Dre, and Eazy E were taking turns in rotation in my Discman. I knew my parents (staunch and strict) wouldn’t approve of the music (which I guess answers question #2 in a sense) so I hid the CDs in a cupboard in my bedroom. My sleuthy mother naturally found them and took me to task.

“Ty, what are these CDs that say ‘Explicit Lyrics?’”
“Oh, uh yeah, mom *ahem* those are Lance’s. I’m just holding them for him.”
*soul-probing stare through my eyes with her Manson lamps*
“I want them out of my house right now. Take them to Lance’s house and I don’t ever want to see them again. Does Lance’s mother know he listens to that? Is Lance a good kid? Does Lance do drugs? Does Lance believe in Jesus?”

Talk about your all-time under-the-bus-chuckings. Sorry Hud.

So, I took them back to Lance’s…i.e. a much better, impossibly hard to find hiding place in my room.

It was a Friday afternoon and my fingernails had been bitten down to bleeders. It was parent-teacher conference. I was toast and I knew it. This time, my old man was going…and he was taking me with him. I had to deal with the embarrassment of having all those other parents there sans kids staring at me like a leprous midget at a Lakers tryout. That’s in addition to the agony of sitting through Mr. Player telling my dad that he hasn’t seen me in his class for 10 days or Duignan hadn’t seen an assignment turned in all quarter. I was hosed. The minutes seemed like hours….the hours, years. I was so distracted (still biting my nails) that I failed to notice my old man slip a CD in his Clarion system as we pulled out of the driveway.

At first I didn’t recognize the low bass of Eazy-E’s “Real Mutha__ckin’ Gs” piping through dad’s surprisingly strong stock speakers at unnaturally high volume. I did, however, catch on when I heard Eazy’s harsh whisper of “Ahhhhhh, real mutha__ckin’ Gs.” My hand, quick as lightning, shot for the eject button. My old man, faster than lightning, slapped my hand away. I tried again. My hand, again, was knocked harmlessly away. My father was Bruce-freaking-Lee, instinctually blocking my attempts to get at that eject button as if he saw my moves long before I even thought of them, one after the other.

By now we were at the first verse, “Hey yo docta’ here’s another proper track and it’s phat, watch the sniper…time to pay the piper…” My spirit sunk. Dad, however, slid back in his seat like an OG homie, body cocked a bit to the side with his left wrist casually on the wheel, bobbing his head along with the beat, thwarting my maneuvers for the eject button with his other hand like Neo. I was fully panic-stricken at this point. “Don’t touch that button, beotch. This is good $hiz!” We drove along, bumping The Eaze for at least 2 minutes…dad bangin’ in the drivers seat. I was crying at this point. I tried one last time to get the disc out of the player and this time he let me pass his guard, pulling the car over as I took the disc and broke it in half. Silently he handed me the other discs that my bloodhound mother had unearthed. I snapped each of them in turn.

“Ty, what are you doing listening to this music? This is terrible music. It’s offensive and wrong.” I quietly cried. “Please stop listening to it. Never bring it into our home again. Deal?” “Deal”, I squeaked. “Ok. Let’s go to your school.”

Now parent teacher conference didn’t seem like such a big deal. It was trivial when compared to bumping Eazy E together with your sainted father. When we returned from the meetings, he and my mother went through all of my CDs and confiscated those that they thought had the remotest potential of being “evil.” To their credit, they previewed each of them and actually returned a few. That said, I still lost copies of “Porno for Pyros” (I’m sure they didn’t want me mixed up in either of those two things) and my “Meat Puppets – Too High to Die” album, which was totally lame because it was the furthest thing from offensive.

Naturally, I bought replacement copies of all those discs and still own them today.

I guess that if I had to be completely honest with myself, true to my soul, I wouldn’t be able to look you in the eye and say that Eazy E or Dre or Snoop or Cypress Hill is good to listen to. It’s probably offensive to the spirit and creates negative energy. I generally try to steer clear of complete and total honesty with self though. I dig the spice of life and brutal personal honesty creates blandness. It’s not an ignorance is bliss thing. It’s more of a “drink a Pepsi and try not to think about it” thing. Without rap, we’d have never been given Public Enemy’s “Fear of a Black Planet” and Vanilla’s “To the Extreme” which are both works of poetic genius. Art gets a free pass. Usually.

But most importantly, I need to tap into my inner Michael Bolton from time to time.

"Lester" Changed My Life

2010-01-31T23:08:00.004-07:00

I'm a fan of good literature. Nothing fluxes my capacitor like a well-written essay, clever poem, or insightful novel. I've read a few things in my short tenure on earth that have changed my life. The first was "Of Mice and Men" which I read when I was 13. I cried and cried and cried some more. The next was "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" which I read when I was 18. There have been a few things I've picked up over the years that have impacted me for better or worse, unless you subscribe to the "there's no such thing as a bad experience" ideology, which I typically do. Unless the experience is ultra-painful. I recently read "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy which will haunt me for the rest of my life. I'd still recommend it to anyone and everyone.

But tonight I had the absolute life-altering pleasure of reading Shel Silverstein to my boys before bed. I love this author. He gave us "The Giving Tree" and "Uncle Shelby's ABZs", which is likely the sharpest, most disturbed satire ever written. But tonight, while reading from "Where the Sidewalk Ends" I stumbled across "Lester."

Lester, by Shel Silverstein

Lester was given a magic wish
By the goblin who lives in the banyan tree,
And with his wish he wished for two more wishes-
So now instead of just one wish, he cleverly had three.
And with each one of these
He simply wished for three more wishes,
Which gave him three old wishes, plus nine new.
And with each of these twelve
He slyly wished for three more wishes,
Which added up to forty-six -- or is it fifty-two?
Well anyway, he used each wish
To wish for wishes 'til he had
Five billion, seven million, eighteen thousand thirty-four.
And then he spread them on the ground
And clapped his hands and danced around
And skipped and sang, and then sat down
And wished for more.
And more...and more...they multiplied
While other people smiled and cried
And loved and reached and touched and felt.
Lester sat amid his wealth
Stacked mountain-high like stacks of gold,
Sat and counted -- and grew old.
And then one Thursday night they found him
Dead -- with his wishes piled around him.
And they counted the lot and found that not
A single one was missing.
All shiny and new -- here, take a few
And think of Lester as you do.
In a world of apples and kisses and shoes
He wasted his wishes on wishing.

Ladies and gents, don't be a Lester. I know too many of them. There are Lesters that I love very much. I find it fascinating that Silverstein uses apples, kisses, and shoes to represent important things that were missed in Lester's world. On the surface they seem so simple, but how profound they are! I'll take a good, sweet, crisp apple over a Texas T-Bone any day. And there is nothing lovelier than daddy kisses from my children.

Wishes, to me, are symbolic as well. How many of us focus so much energy on our work, school, or other projects that we fail to bask in the glow of life? I believe the story here is also partly that we should avoid things that dominate our time, control our thoughts, and overpoweringly influence our decisions. There is more than one dimension...don't be one-dimensional. As the great Harry Chapin sang, "There are so many colors in the rainbow, so many colors in the morning sun, so many colors in the flower, and I see every one."

Shel Silverstein, you were the ultimate dreamer. An icon for wayward-thinking fools and bards like me. Thank you for sharing your mind.

"Latoya", the Craigslist Pest

2010-01-28T21:45:00.002-07:00

My wife worked for a short period of time as a server at Joe Morley’s BBQ in Salt Lake City. She enjoyed it for the most part and came away from it with a new-found respect and sympathy for servers everywhere. She now insists on tipping well for fine service. She also, however, has zero tolerance for BAD service and has no problem speaking to a manager or tipping accordingly.

Similarly, I have a soft spot for door-to-door salespeople and even telemarketers. Are they annoying? Lord yes. Would the world be better off without them? I think so. Would I like to tell them to go die in a fire when they call at 9:00 at night when Maidie is screaming with an ear infection and the boys are fighting bed time, or the doorbell rings at 11:00 on a Saturday morning when I actually get some time to be with the fam? You bet your sweet ass I would. But I won’t. At the end of it all, these people are just doing their jobs. I wish they’d have chosen different career paths, but I know what it’s like to talk to a stranger and face the prospect of harsh, cold rejection. So I patiently listen, kindly smile, and politely decline. Until a few weeks ago.

It was a Tuesday…the day after we all arrived to Austin to make our new home. The place was a disaster with boxes and furniture strewn every which way. The doorbell rang at about 4:00 and we were greeted by a darling little African American gal with a huge pearly smile and energy visibly crackling all around her. My wife answered the door first, and based on the enthusiastic conversation at the door I assumed it would be a new neighbor welcoming us to the neighborhood. Nope. It was Latoya.

I had no idea what she wanted. She wasn’t holding anything in her hand that would suggest she was selling something. In fact, when I came to the door she actually said that Sherri had ordered her for me on Craig’s List. No lie. She must use that one as an ice breaker, but the rim shot was pretty distant and faint with us.

She did let us know early on though that she was indeed a sales person. She was quite effective in her speech. She was warm, happy, and eloquent. She looked us both in the eye and held herself with poise and dignity. She let us know that she was part of an inner city organization and she was going door to door trying to better her situation, not through donation but through hard work and dedication. She wanted to avoid the welfare route and preferred to provide for her two babies through more dignified means. I instantly knew that I would probably buy whatever she was selling….if she’d ever get to the point.

Before she got there, however, she stopped to ask us how we would rate her so far on a scale from 1 to 10. I instantly recognized it as an interesting method for inserting a hook. This Latoya chick was good. She was in the middle of a lengthy, detailed, well-crafted pitch that would set us up for the kill. I mean, how can I NOT buy this lady’s wares after I’ve given her a full 10 on her presentation?

I was growing impatient though. We’d been at the door nearly 5 minutes and I still had no idea what Latoya was pushing. In my 14 years of sales experience (two of which were door to door) I learned that if I didn’t come correct early on in the process I was cooked. So I interrupted her. “Latoya, is it? This is all great information, but I really don’t understand what it is you are doing here.” At this point in time she reached behind her and pulled out a rolled up folder from somewhere. At first I thought it was a magic trick, producing something from thin air, but then I realized it must have been rolled up and stuck in the waist of her jeans.

They were magazine subscriptions. I was bombarded with imagery of Orlando Jones in Office Space and the Dateline specials warning us about these people. I felt a little betrayed, but I wasn’t ready to pull the plug just yet on Latoya. But before she would show us the magazines she was offering, she insisted on us seeing a multi-page list of people in the neighborhood that had bought from her and had left comments as to how wonderful she was. I was growing tired. I didn’t really want Latoya’s junk anymore.

Finally she got around to the magazines. She didn’t carry anything I wanted but did have some kids magazines available…for $40. It was just too much. “Latoya, you’ve done a fine job, but I don’t think there’s anything in there that we would want.”

All of a sudden, sweet/kind/poised Latoya got less sweet, kind, and poised. “Obviously I haven’t done my job sir. This isn’t about magazines. I’m selling myself here, as a person that wants to better her situation for her children.” She suggested I buy the magazines and give them as gifts. Or just throw them away. Suddenly I’m not tired. Now I’m annoyed. “Latoya, you can’t expect people to buy products they don’t want or can’t use simply because they like you.” She was astounded. “It’s not about the magazines sir; it’s about you investing in my future.”

Look, I’ve sold some shyte products. I was a sales consultant at QWEST…the most unholy and evil organization in the history of commerce. But I’ve never once asked someone to buy my crap because I’m a likeable guy. I can’t imagine walking into an insurance office and saying, “Folks, it isn’t about the glass. It doesn’t matter that you don’t want it, can’t use it, or you get a better deal elsewhere. It’s about investing in my financial well-being.” They’d laugh in my face and send me out the door…Texas style, at gunpoint.

It is the responsibility of a salesperson to SELL HER PRODUCTS. If I am handed an ignited lunch sack full of cow dung to sell, then it is my job to sell the features and benefits of flaming bull shit. “Sir, it can keep you warm if you are stranded on the side of the road in a blizzard.” “Ma’am, this burning sack of crap will keep coyotes away from your children at night.” It was Latoya’s responsibility to address my concerns and resolve them. She could have gone into detail about the product. She could have commented on how Texas cuisine is uber fattening and it’s only a matter of time before I lose my chiseled abs, hence my need for Muscle Madness Magazine or Healthy Living. Or compliment me on my nonexistent fashion sense and suggest I roll with GQ. She could have used humor or flattery. But instead she went to the forget-the-product-and-buy-ME card. I was livid.

Latoya, the only differences between you and the guy on the corner of Burnet is that he has the decency to not bother me at home and he’s never stuck a folder in my face that he pulled from the crack of his ass. At least that guy is honest. He’s not holding a sign that says, “Screw the magazines. Invest in my future.” His “Visions of a Cheeseburger” sign is infinitely more inventive and dignified than your lameassedness. Either start selling legitimate products to the public, redesign your magazine scam to be more product-driven, or continue to sell yourself…without the magazines. I suggest 6th street for that.

Things I Miss (And Don't) About Utah. A List.

2009-12-05T10:44:00.006-07:00

I was rather surprised at my feelings when my plane touched down last week in Salt Lake City on my trip "home" for Thanksgiving. I didn't feel like I was going home. I felt, rather, that I was visiting family away from home. It gave cause to reflect on why I would feel that way. I've since been doing an inventory on the things I miss, and don't, about Utah:

I miss the mountains. Not only are they beautiful and I wish that I'd spent time in them, but they are also my reference point for knowing where the hell I am at any given time. I could be bludgeoned with a tire iron, hauled into some remote field, and left for dead, and I'd still know exactly where I was, based on my relative position to the mountains. In Austin I have no clue where I am. Ever. If it weren't for my Garmin I'd be lost and starved by now. Incidentally I've named my Garmin "Stella." It makes sense that when she leads me astray or can't acquire satellites that I yell "STELLLAAAAAAAA!" It's poetic.

I miss seasons. In Utah we have four very distinct seasons. Hot dry summers, brisk beautiful autumns, butt cold snowy winters, and breezy lovely springs. In Austin we have insufferably hot summers and eight months of something else.

I don't miss shoveling snow.

I don't miss the religious separation of classes. This exists whether we understand it or not, whether we choose it or not. On some level, subconscious or conscious, there is a theological and societal wedge placed between the LDS and the non. I have done my best to bridge that gap and dissolve that line, and I consider myself an open-minded believer, but there will always be residual thoughts. "I wonder what that guy sipping the wine at Carver's story is. Was he born Momo? What changed?" In Texas I never ever EVER think along those lines. It is refreshing and healthy. I am elated that my kids will have an opportunity to grow up in this environment. I most definitely do not miss the religious zealots that alienate good people based on their beliefs or lack of conviction. Similarly I do not miss the narrow-minded, hard-hearted, jaded folk that form negative feelings and actions for an entire religion based on a handful of bad experiences with said zealots. If I followed that approach and formed opinions based on the way I've been treated outside the Momo-bubble, I'd hate half the free world by now.

I miss our monthly dinners and game nights with Spencer and Shane. Lots of laughs, great friends, and I can now braid a scarf with style.

I miss having my family and good friends no more than 30 minutes away at any given time. They are support when I'm sad, cheerleaders when I succeed, advisors when I'm conflicted, and always there to love me.

To a much lesser degree, however, I feel it important that I am not close to them....for a time. I am counting on this experience of distance being vital to the happiness and closeness of my immediate family. When your cheerleaders, advisors, and supporters are thousands of miles away, you are forced to create new solutions...hopefully within your own immediate family and newfound friends. I really believe this.

I don't miss The Holy War.

I miss going to concerts with my short-lived show group. We saw some incredible shows...Wilco and Ray Lamontagne were my highlights. The weekly Gallivan shows were always fun and something to look forward to.

I don't miss the crowds at the Gallivan shows. Whether it be the many thousands of preteen girls onsite to catch that one moderately decent song Iron and Wine had on the Twilight soundtrack, or the throngs of drunken frat boys looking for something to do besides shoot pool or watch MMA, that blessed event has gotten completely out of control. Three years ago I'd take my kids and we would dance on the lawn while the bands played. Now you can't even SEE the lawn, let alone sit or dance on it. People are crammed into that space like twitchy sardines too big for their aluminum prison. They either need to start charging at the gate or move venue. Or, my personal favorite, they should have a 10 question survey about the band(s) playing that night at the gate. If you pass with 70% or better then you can go in. Otherwise you fail and are sent to the E Centre to see Poison and Styx.

I miss a road and highway system that makes sense. Salt Lake's grid system is brilliantly designed. That's something we take for granted. It might not be the most creative system in the country, but it's sure logical. This Austin system of parralel freeways, tollways, and feeder roads, is a living nightmare.

I miss Utah traffic. Comparitively speaking, it is NOT traffic. It's a few cars on a dirt road. Try the parking lot Austinites know as I-35 at 3:00 in the afternoon. It's actually a great time to get some emails done.

I don't miss Utah drivers. In SLC, being cut off or not signaling before a turn is nigh unto an act of treason against the crown. All those drivers think they have a halo of 20 feet considered "safe space" around their car. Anyone that breeches that space is a mother %&@*ing piece of $[-]1T and deserves to be drawn and quartered in public along with their entire family. Circumstances mean nothing. There could be a woman giving birth in the back seat, or an undercover FBI agent chasing the spawn of Jack the Ripper, but if that safe space is invaded, you can count on some bald-headed dude with a goatee in a Hurley hoodie getting out of his '96 F-150 ready to beat your ass with a crowbar. Or at least throwt a bird and an F Bomb.

In Austin, people understand that the road is a matter of survival of the fittest. It's a Top Gun dog fight. It's like the Drow of Menzoberranzan and their unspoken code of treachery and deceit. All that matters is you don't get caught assassinating competing Drow families in the Underdark. Otherwise all bets are off. Just like the streets of Austin...deft maneuvers and jockeying of position is applauded. Just as long as you don't kill anyone or wreck the ride.

Mostly I miss my wife and kids. Ultimately home is where they are. If they are in Utah, then that's my home. If they are on Mars, let me be Martian. But I can't wait for December 27th when they can finally be here with me in Austin and we can make our home here.

I am grateful to the great state of Utah for giving me so much over the past three decades. By and large it is a lovely place to be. But I am also thrilled at the opportunity to make new memories and have new adventures in the great state of Texas. I guess life itself is an adventure, cliche as that might sound. Might as well embrace it.

Kindergarten Cop is on TV. Time to go.

Does Max Hall have Jake Abs? Secret...

2009-12-03T19:20:00.008-07:00

Hanging out at the Fleabag Hotel in Austin, watching Rush Hour 2 which was barely watchable the first time but manages to maintain its value with lines like "I will bitch slap you back to Africa" and "Do I look like Chicken George to YOU?!"

Speaking of movies, I saw New Moon with Sherri last night. I think I finally understand why so many women insist on loving these terrible movies. I call it the Langdon Factor. Angels and Demons was a brilliant book. It's one of the very few novels that I physically could NOT put down. I bought it at the SLC airport and read it nonstop through to Atlanta. I read it in the cab to the hotel. And I continued reading in the hotel room without changing clothes or unpacking until 10:00 p.m. when I finally finished. Then I talked to everyone I met about how incredible this book was. Imagine my dismay when I tried to watch this pathetic piece of HollycArp on the big screen. It is unwatchable. The acting is terrible and the plot is uninteresting. I didn't make it halfway through before turning it off. I realize now that Robert Langdon is a character that can't justly be played in a standard length screen production. The plot line, with all its intricacies, cannot be translated to film without sucking.

This is the problem with the Twilight films. It is a series of novels that, for whatever crazed reason, is beloved by romantic women everywhere. But the movies are epic failures. I sincerely hope that the novels were good....and I'm willing to finally concede that point if they indeed were well written. Call it mercy. Because the movies are terrible. Back out the cool wolves and the Italian Vampire Lords scene and all you have is a poorly-acted emodrama with chiseled Jake abs and lines like "you breathing is all I need" from a fiercely annoying Edward that should have kept his abs hidden. Homey, take some advice from an abless brother. If you ain't got it...don't flaunt it. So, ladies, consider this concession a small victory. The books might have been good but the movies are not.

Secret Deodorant may be PH balanced for a woman but that stuff is absolutely strong enough for a man. I forgot my Speed Stick in Austin and had to resort to the only thing available when I joined my bride and kids in SLC. Sherri's lovely floral Secret stick. I applied it in the morning then put in 14 hours of unrelenting physical manual labor loading trucks, packing boxes, and hauling furniture. I'm a big dude. I sweat like a big dude. My pits had to look like Richard Simmons' oiled-up body after Sweatin' to the Oldies. After a short and fairly restless sleep, I hit the shower the following morning only to find that Sherri's Secret was still fully intact and clinging to my caves like spackle. So I didn't reapply. I let it roll for day two of rigorous man work. The following morning I found the same result. Secret Spackle was still alive and well. I'm actually considering switching. I'll sluff off the fresh floral scent as a new fabric softener or something. It will be my little Secret.

Words cannot express how glad I am to be out of Utah and away from "The Holy War." BYU and U of U fans are intolerably annoying. I can't stand it anymore.

Memo to Utah fans. You are not the only people in the state of Utah that are entitled to your level of hate and vitriol. Your animosity and hate is astounding. It is ridiculous. It is childish and stupid. Let it go. If you refuse to let it go, then you should allow other people the same hate without getting monumentally butthurt over others' comments, i.e. Max Hall. Did he get carried away with his comments? Yes. Was he genuinely disgusted and hurt? Yes. Did he have cause to be pissed? Yes. Should he have STFU and let the scoreboard do his talking? Yes. But all that aside, he has just as much right to speak as you do...ambassador of the school or not. To refresh our minds and re-open the wounds, here it is:

The only Ute fans that have any room to be pissed are those that are actually open-minded enough to not loathe BYU. I challenge you to find me 10 such fans. Like Bigfoot and the Easterfreaking Bunny...they don't exist. If you think it and believe it, so can Max Hall.

Memo to BYU fans. Your program is tired and your team is boring. Your road is not the higher road. Any insinuation, lighthearted or not, that yours is "the Lord's team" is inappropriate drivel. There is no divine call to play for, or cheer for, the Cougars. Any hint that Utes are beer-swilling Babylonian pigs, therefore your team is the higher team, is nonsense. There's just as much boozing, partying and rabble rousing at Helm's Deep (thanks Dylan) as there is in SLC...except you people hide it in shame. Get it through your heads....God does not care about BYU winning or losing. He is a Texas fan. Hook 'em.

Rivalries are good. They are healthy. Hate isn't. But if you're going to hate, let the other side hate back.

Dead Animals and Football

2009-10-30T16:14:00.010-06:00

This week I visited one of my Farmers Insurance agents. Farmers is generally pro-Safelite. We have a corporate program with them and treat their policy holders like greek gods. I was hired to replace an area sales manager that had been covering his area for just shy of 30 years and was very well-liked. When I met this particular agent's staff, they were quite sad that their old rep wasn't around anymore. After some friendly banter that lessened the tension, the girl at the front said "well as long as you like huntin' fishin' and football, you'll do just fine" in her mild Texas drawl.

Uh oh.

I get the feeling that I'm not dealing with people that can discuss the artistic brilliance of Wade Robson's contemporary piece from Wednesday. Likely no debate as to which traveling cast of Wicked is best. Maybe we can swap intricate theories about the Dharma Initiative and the Shepherds' connection to The Others. No? HELL-tutha-NO.

Football
I'm a sports guy. I dig football. I admit, I've slacked a little on my college football prowess, but that's mostly because I'm so bloody fed up with the lunatic fans in Utah and their retarded Holy War. But I've historically been able to rap with the best about conferences, BCS absurdity, and all other general specifics pertaining to the pigskin. I'm even MORE dangerous in the pro arena. I know my Packers and I have a general grasp of what's going on in the NFL.

But I pale in comparison to these Texans. Everyone in this city (and I assume state), whether man woman or child, knows football. Not just if their team won on Saturday, or even what conference stats were, but they know everything that happened on gameday. They know who won and lost and what implications they had on their beloved Longhorns and the BCS race in general. They know current stats and glorious facts from the days or yore when they were playing in leather helmets. There are Longhorn propa-promo items everywhere. Every other house has a burnt orange flag flying and there are Longhorns logos everywhere. These people LOVE their football. Age and gender mean nothing. Everyone knows it. They live it.

Hunting
I hate it. I can't do it. It's not so much an ethical issue for me as an issue of complete boredom and lack of respect for the "sport." Please...for the love of the bearded holy One on high, do not tell me that hunting is sport. It is not. Unless you are strapping on a loincloth, fashioning your own recurve and arrows from saplings with a Rambo knife, and stalking your prey in the wild, you are not impressive. You are killing animals with a freaking rocket launcher that is better suited for hunting dragons. Go kill those. If you can ice an elk from 1500 yards across a ravine from the back of your truck, you are not impressive. If you are speaking to ducks in their native tongue through a device you bought for $30 at Gart's, luring it to your masterfully camouflaged "blind" with an exact replica of the duck's likely-dead wife, you are not impressive. Anyone that actually pays to hunt "game" that is stocked or placed on a stamp of land for the sole purpose of being clipped by YOU is beyond unimpressive. Before long you'll be able to luxuriously waste animals from the comfort of your own home, courtesy of XBOX's new "REAL Big Game Hunter." If you want to impress me, wax your animals with a sling. Or a rope. Or your bare hands. Wrestle a bear or a gator. That's manly.

BE HONEST. Call it what it is. You like to kill crap. It's bloodlust. You get a rush by snuffing the life from animals. It is instinctual. The thrill of the kill is still engrained in most humans from thousands of years of surviving in nature. We don't all love it, but you hunters do. I will accept any reasonable explanation for traditional hunting. Like the meat? Fine. Environmentally conscious population control? Cool. Revenge for the tragic goring death of your great grandfather at the horns of a crazed buffalo? Groovy. You can even quote the bible and tell me that God put animals here for the benefit of man and we're just fulfilling our end of the covenant and thanking Hod for His bountiful gifts by capping beasts. Just don't say it's for the sport. It's insulting.

Fishing
"It's ok to eat fish, 'cause they don't have any feelings." - Kurt Cobain, "Something in the Way."

I've fished, but I've never liked it. There's nothing more disturbing than yanking a swallowed hook from a writhing trout's stomach to find that your power bait has been joined by the fish's liver and spleen. I know, I know...I'm doing it wrong. I should be fly fishing. And a TRUE fisher"man" will hook the fish by the lip where there are no nerve endings AND ultimately releases the fish anyhow so....no harm done.

Ok, let's follow that line of logic. Assuming you are actually qualified to instruct on the anatomy of Salvelinus Fontinalis, and fish indeed cannot feel the barb of the hook, I'm pretty sure the fish doesn't enjoy the sensation of being ripped from its aquatic home. Nemo endures many agonizing long seconds or minutes of fighting against this unseen, PAINLESS, force slowly pulling it from the sanctuary of liquid bliss, to be pulled into suffocating weightlessness and blinding light, handled and measured by a hideous pink beast, then tossed back into the depths. Only for it to happen again and again and again until someone mercifully bashes it over the head with a screwdriver and eats it for breakfast. I know the fishie's brain can't be that big, but I can't bring myself to believe that it just randomly swims around and occasionally gets caught, enjoys the ride, then forgets about it when it's tossed back in. These are Nemos. Not Dorys.

Let me be clear. I don't have issues with people that hunt or fish. Once that animal is dead I'll gut it, cook it, and eat it. I just don't enjoy the process of getting it to that point and I don't agree with 90% of the ideas of people that do.

This limits my ability to connect to these Texas folk. I complimented someone today on their "antlers" that were hung on the wall of the office of a very nice lady in her mid 40s. I was pretty sure I shouldn't call them a "rack" or a "set" given the situation, so I went with antlers. I was immediately exposed as A) a yankee, and B) a non-hunter because they are not antlers. They are HORNS. I refrained from informing her that horns are found in cars and on unicorns.

So I need to become a hunter, fisher, and football fanatic. I'm in sales. Pretending is part of my job.

The Homeless Hotel

2009-10-24T15:38:00.008-06:00

Austin Texas is notorious for its climate. Wicked hot summers, lovely springs/autumns, and mild winters. Due to the agreeable temperatures, Austin has a relatively high homeless population per capita. Nothing like the problems in Los Angeles and Vegas, but there are still many people here with no place to hang their hats. I proudly count myself among them.

I'm trying to sell my home in Utah, but until I do I am on my own...quite literally. My family can't join me in TX until the house sells in Utah and I can't be in a house here because I still freaking have one there. Before leaving the Beehive State, I jumped on Craigslist to try and find a place to crash for a month or two while everything processed. I quickly learned that it was impossible to button anything up because I was still physically in Utah and no one would commit to hold any available rooms for someone that wouldn't be in Texas for three weeks and STILL could cancel at any time. So I had to get to Austin and hope for the best.

The only available room I could find that didn't require a 3+ month lease, contain multiple evil allergenic "kitties", or have giddy college girls running in and out of it, was in an old nursing home that had been converted into a "commune." $550 per month (all bills paid) gets you a room with a shared bathroom and communal kitchen/living room. I figured, "what the hell...I can sack up and handle anything for a month", so I made the call and scheduled the tour.

I entered the ancient building and was greeted with the mixed scent of ammonia and dying skin cells wafting through the halls. The floor was hard polished tile similar to what you see in old hospitals or elementary school gymnasiums. There were three hallways with four doorways on each side; an old 10-speed rusted bicycle parked outside each door. The "front desk" had several faded 8x10 signs with random rules and one large poster that said "POSSESSORS OF ILLEGAL DRUGS WILL BE EVICTED."

The tour began in the communal "living" room, which more closely resembled a "dying room" where old people would go to slowly extinguish their inner light playing cribbage. There were several folders attached to the wall with everyone's name on a folder. It was explained that this was the "chore wall" and that tenants rotated a different chore each week. Chores ranged from cleaning stove tops to emptying garbage to scraping bong resin from the landlady's 4-foot hookah. On queue, a clearly insane homeless-looking girl walked past carrying a basket full of cleaning supplies, most likely the source of the ammonia potpourri, muttering something about laser beams and llamas. There was a 19" television with "extended cable" on a table and several armchairs that had to have been holdovers from the now-defunct nursing home. They still smelled like tapioca pudding and prunes.

The kitchen was small for a communal facility and the fridge contained two dozen ziplock bags with tenant names scrawled on them in sharpie. This way Moonlight didn't mistake her string cheese with Buck's yogurt. An older gentleman was wiping down the cutting boards and greeted me with a huge grin and a nod. Nice lad. I think he was proud of his tooth.

The general tour ended at that point and I was escorted to my room. I instantly knew which one it was. It was the only door sans 10-speed.

The room was huge. I think it was where they caged and tortured unruly geriatrics in the 60s. The floor was the same glistening tile and the walls were cinder block, shabbily painted a light custard hue. A painted pipe ran the length of the room, right in the center of the ceiling, hanging down 18". I'm sure with time I would get used to the incessant "zzzzzzzzzzzzzz" sound of hot water coursing through the tube. My bathroom-mate was clearly female; cotton balls and toiletries were strewn from hell to breakfast.

There ended the tour. I wanted to take pictures of the entire facility because A) no one would believe my tale, and B) I'm sure the authorities were looking for most of these people. But I didn't dare. I was afraid that Tami (the landlady) would set The Gimp loose and I'd be relying on Butch to rescue me with a Samurai Sword. I thanked her for her time, walked out of the building, sprinted to Zed's chopper, and tore off into the sunset. Homeless. Again.

I found a pretty good deal on a room at an extended stay hotel. I have my own little kitchen and a full-sized fridge for my hot pockets and corn dogs. I have my own bathroom and the luxury of slinging my own sundries all over the place. I quickly made friends with Stephanie at the front desk and the manager, Kenny. He's an Oklahoma fan but a nice guy nonetheless. I have free Wi-Fi access so I can work and blog to my little heart's content.

Remember Rambo II? If you don't you should hang your head in shame all the way to Blockbuster. Essentially John Rambo is pardoned from prison to go to Vietnam and photograph old POW camps that were believed to be vacant. He was chosen because he was once a POW in the camp. When he arrives he learns that the camp is NOT vacant and instead houses a couple dozen ragged and filthy Americans that have been there for decades. He isn't able to rescue them at that point, but returns in all his glistening glory with a compound bow and a vengeful heart.

One day I'll return to the Homeless Hotel and free the victims languishing in squalor inside. I've been there before. And they need a Rambo.

Apocalyptic Burger

2009-10-22T16:41:00.021-06:00

I am a Texan.

Last month I accepted a job as an Area Sales Manager for Safelite Auto Glass...in Austin Texas. After the obligatory double-take and softly-whispered "wow" you will likely nod your head and say, "Gotta go where the work is." I'd be lying if I said that was the entire reason. Fact: The economy right now is a mother bugger. Fact: Jobs in Utah are sparse. Fact: I am psyched, stoked, thrilled, and elated with the adventure and opportunity with Safelite in Texas.

I flew in to San Antonio on Sunday and met my new boss. Erik was a standout offensive lineman at Texas Tech in the mid 90s and played one year of professional ball for Da Bears. A shoulder injury ended his football career and he has been with Safelite ever since. We get along well. We have similar senses of humor, identical tastes in nerd-lit, and we share a passion for good food.

Texas has presented a number of first impressions, which I'll undoubtedly share in detail in subsequent posts, but this particular piece will deal entirely with the Texan obsession with spicy food. These people put hot sauce or peppers on everything. And I mean everything. I swear I saw a little blonde chick eating an ice cream cone smothered with jalapenos.

We ate at a magnificent Mexican joint Monday night called La Fogata. The atmosphere was lovely and the food was incredible. The waiter made guacamole right there at our table and dressed it with a few odd-looking green peppers on top. Erik unceremoniously slapped one on top of his nacho and shoved it in his mouth...

"You ought to try one of those little peppers there Ty. Awesome smokey flavor to it."
"Yeah right boss, I'm not an idiot. If I want smokey flavor I'll go eat a briscuit."
"Seriously, it's not bad. Really good."

After some goading by the ladies at the table I gave in and cut off a piece that was roughly the size of a dime, put it on a chip, and threw it down. I shall attempt to describe the sensation below.

It felt like my entire face had caught fire. It felt like someone had hit me over the head with a scalding hot frying pan full of battery acid. It felt like someone had tried to repair my right molars with a soldering iron. It felt like someone had played Toby Keith music at full volume from a Bose woofer pressed against my head. It hurt.

However, this was my first business dinner with my new colleagues. I couldn't scream like a teenage girl that woke up lying next to Leatherface on a a waterbed filled with pepper spray, which was precisely what I wanted to do. I had to sit there and muster a "man, that's hot." I must have been a bit more transparent than I'd hoped because the waiter quickly brought me a pint of milk and a pitcher of water. It was a Serrano pepper. And it was vile.

There is a burger joint in San Antonio called Chunky's. Its notorious "Four Horsemen Burger" was featured on Man vs. Food and is one of the spiciest things you can eat in all of North America. One can only assume that the four horsemen in the title are referencing the Bible's book of Revelations and the four horsemen of the apocalypse that are commissioned by God to wreak havoc on the world in an apocalyptic vision. The four horsemen are Conquest, War, Famine, and finally Death. Chunky's apocalyptic Four Horsemen burger features jalapenos, serrano peppers, habanero peppers, and the dreaded "ghost chile" which I can only assume mirrors Death from Revelations.

Chiles and hot sauces are measured by something called The Scoville Scale and are rated based on "scoville units." The actual human sensation of "heat" caused from such foods is a result of a chemical compund called capsaicin and the Scoville Scale measures the concentration of that chemical. The following diagram illustrates the comparison of a ghost chile to a jalapeno pepper.

Folks, that shows us that a ghost chile is 400x hotter than a jalapeno. To put that into perspective, a full-strength power line is 44,000 volts which is exactly 400x stronger than a standard wall socket. Anyone that has been hit by 110 volts from a wall socket knows that it sucks. It hurts a little bit and certainly doesn't tickle. It's the exact equivalent to ingesting a jalapeno. It sucks. It hurts a little and doesn't tickle. While a wall socket will shock and hurt you, a power line will instantly disintegrate your entire physical being into undetectable matter. Which is exactly what a ghost chile would do to your freaking mouth.

When it came down to it, Erik wasn't up to the Four Horsemen challenge. He was calculated and noticeably concerned. I mean, Chunky's requires anyone that attempts that burger to eat it with rubber gloves. Rubbing your eyes with a finger that touched that chile would instantly Stevie Wonder your ass. They did, however, have something called "the ghost burger" which was a small step down from the insanity of the four horsemen. It had ghost chiles cooked in and reeked of pure evil. The following is a series of photos showing Erik's journey in conquering the ghost:

Pure Evil

The Attack

Initial Reaction

KABOOM! Bridget decided she'd take a crack at it, throwing down a small bite:

Which ended badly...

So why would anyone attempt something as naturally and inherently RETARDED as The Four Horsemen? If you finish... it's free. And we Texans will do anything for free food.

Obsessed and MADD

2009-09-23T11:53:00.005-06:00

It's fairly well-established that I am a music freak. You know that ringing that you get in your ear from time to time that no one else can hear? The high-pitched constant squeal? Have you noticed how you get used to the sound and when it finally stops, you lift your head and look around like something's just not right? Like something is MISSING? That's how I feel when there is no music playing. Something is just not right. Something is missing. I have no understanding for people that can drive in a car without music playing. Circumstance is irrelevant. Road trip, quick errand to Wal-Mart, or funeral procession, music should be playing in a car. I further struggle with the common definition of "background" music. If we're in a car, the music is most certainly NOT in my background. More often than not our conversation is wasted and you sound like the parents on Peanuts, "wa wawa wawawawa."

My obsession for music unfortunately has a negative impact on the music itself. I micro-manage my music. I will go through fits of obsession for a particular band or song. I listened to nothing but Simon and Garfunkel for 18 months in junior high school. I had all 59 studio-released songs committed to memory and I would sit at a computer and type the lyrics. I bet I still have 30ish S&G songs memorized. The unfortunate, but inevitable, result of such an obsession is the certain death of "overplay." It's the "All Star" factor. You know, that Smashmouth song that was played every 5th song about a decade ago and further exploited by the Shrek soundtrack? That song now initiates an instant gag reflex when I hear it. Many other incredible songs have suffered the same fate.

Also, I suffer from Musical Attention Deficit Disorder, aka MADD. I make compilation CDs of MP3s to listen to in the car, but I rarely get 30 seconds into a song without skipping on to the next one. It's like a Plen-T pack of Juicy Fruit gum. A stick of Juicy Fruit loses its flavor inside of 3 minutes, so the obvious solution is to spit it out and crush another piece. Within an hour, the entire pack of gum is gone and largely wasted. This is what happens to my brilliant compilation discs.

There are, however, a very select few songs that have withstood both my obsession and my MADD disease. This post pays homage to these incredible tracks. The following is a list of the songs, in no particular order. If they pop up on a compilation of mine, or even occasionally on the radio (yeah right) I would never EVER feel the need to hit SKIP. Each can be listened to by left-clicking or downloaded by right-clicking and saving. Enjoy.

1. Mr. Wendel by Arrested Development
2. I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous by Frank Turner
3. Woke Up New by The Mountain Goats
4. No One's Gonna Love You by Band of Horses
5. Between the Bars by Elliott Smith
6. Naked as We Came by Iron and Wine
7. Lounge (Closing Time) by Modest Mouse
8. Hallelujah by Martin Sexton
9. Where do the Children Play by Cat Stevens
10. Don't Think Twice It's Alright by Bob Dylan
11. On Fire by Mofro
12. The Crane Wife #3 by The Decemberists
13. Imaginary Bars by Great Lake Swimmers
14. The Price of a Cup of Tea by Belle and Sebastian
15. Blues Run the Game by Jackson C. Frank (S&G version)
16. Fresh Feeling by Eels
17. 1972 by Josh Rouse
18. Blonde on Blonde by Nada Surf
19. Blood Red Blood by Voxtrot

Prepare to FIGHT, Heathen!

2009-09-01T15:00:00.006-06:00

I’ve been in one fist fight in my entire life. I was in 6th grade.

I had just returned home from a brutal day of math Olympics in Mr. Draper's class (8s times tables are a bugger) and was relaxing at home with a root beer in one hand and a Dorito in the other watching Duck Tales. It was blissful. Mid-chomp, my younger sister Ashley came stumbling into the house, wet and muddy with blood trickling down her knees. Through her sobs I was able to understand that a junior high school boy was picking on younger kids and had pushed her into the canal. That’s all I needed to hear. Always a champion for the victim, I bounded out of the house and sprinted up to the canal. Sure enough, there he was. A gigantor of a scruffy lad tossing kids around and laughing. It was on.

Television had taught me a number of constant and finite truths about the universe: A) Good guys never lose. B) The hero gets the girl. C) It never takes more than one bullet to kill a bad guy. D) He-Man is the MASTER of the Universe, GI Joe is the GREATEST American Hero, and Thundercats HO. Finally E) When you punch the bad guy, the bad guy falls down unconscious. Why, then, did my unsuspected right hook draw the faintest trace of blood and not even phase this 8th-grade villain? I’m the good guy! He smiled, chased me down, and proceeded to annihilate my face and body with vicious fists and elbows.

That experience as a youngling taught me something that I have never forgotten. Temper + anger =/= competent fighter. I may be able to talk big and even look imposing if I keep eating hot pockets and stick out my chest a little, but the truth of the matter is that I couldn’t fight my way through a wet napkin with a samurai sword. I prefer music trivia challenges and vocabulary contests to prove the bigger man. You might be able to work me in the ring, but I can say the alphabet backwards faster than you can say it forward. A duel you say?! Fine! My weapon of choice is the Guitar Hero III Les Paul and the field of battle is Cult of Personality, cretin!

I’m no fighter, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t fight. I’ll throw down in fisticuffs for the right cause. Oh yes, I will fight you…..for any of the following causes:

1) If you interrupt me during Duck Tales I will fight you.

2) John Denver is not a country singer. He is a folk GOD. If you say otherwise I will fight you.

3) My mother may be a dance teacher, but that doesn’t mean my SONS will dance. Not until they are 18 and use it as a tool to improve their football skills or get chicks. If you try and put my boy in dance lessons I will fight you.

4) The holocaust happened. If you believe otherwise I will fight you.

5) I love my faith and respect the sacred things of others. If you belittle me or my belief system I will fight you. I recently learned the hard way, allowing someone in a position of power over me to jeer at my religion for 21 months. Never again will that happen. Pearls and swine.

6) If you mess with my family I will fight you. If you wrong my children I will gut you like a fish.

7) If you don’t like Neil Diamond I will fight you. I can understand distaste for ANY of my other favorite artists. Not everyone will enjoy Phish or Devendra Banhart or The Decemberists or Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos, and there are valid reasons for not liking them. Simply put, there is NO earthly reason that anyone would dislike Neil. Young and old, male or female, black or white, Neil’s music represents everything good and pure and fun in the universe.

8) If you are a Minnesota Vikings fan I will fight you. I hope Favre has his knee folded back by a golden helmet.

That’s pretty much it. If I can resolve conflict with grammar or video games then I will always opt for those more peaceable means. But if any of the above eight circumstances happen, and Rock Band isn’t available nor Webster’s Dictionary, then the gloves shall come off. I may be beaten, bloodied, and bruised, but I will at least bleed for the cause and my place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Victim of the Economy

2009-07-31T16:22:00.004-06:00

I lost my job last Friday. More on that in a minute.

Prior to the last year or so I associated the term “recession” with hair and gums. That’s all I knew. People would comment on my “receding” hairline which, believe it or not, has always been like that. I was just blessed with an abnormally long and shiny forehead. My dentist told me he saw some “recession” in my gums. This is due to my vigorous brushing habit. I’d use a chisel and a blowtorch if I could because there’s nothing worse in this life than hairy teeth.

Our economy is in a recession. What does that mean? If I apply my own definition of the word to the state of the economy, it means that our financial and market stability are gradually being eaten away by something else. My hair is being eaten away by forehead. My gums are being eaten away by plastic brush bristles. Erego something is eating away at the economy.

I could do some research, which I’m prone to do, and come up with some textbook answers and explanations, but I refuse to allow this blog to become a book report or badly written poli-sci project for college. Instead, I’ll use my own abstract and oft-obtuse line of reasoning and logic to list what I believe the causes of the recession to be.

1) Dishonesty. This nasty bastard rears its ugly head in every nook and in every cranny of our world. No function of society is immune. Politicians, corporations, lenders, leaders, and the common public are all prone to being dishonest. Government and Corporate America (assuming they are mutually exclusive) have profited from our ignorance in criminal fashion, *cough* sub-prime loans *cough.*

2) Fear. Our government is terrified of the unknown. Instead of allowing the indomitable spirit of man to rise and pick itself up by the bootstraps, as it always has, government has decided to involve itself by spending money that it simply does not have. We, in turn, fear the future (also unknown) and bury our funds in the proverbial ground. This is not stimulating to the economy. It is digging a hole that will be hard-pressed to fill.

3)Ignorance. This does not just apply to the current state of the economy. Ignorance has no justification in this country. We are not a tribal people without access to knowledge. We are Americans and we have a duty to inform ourselves. Ignorance extends to race, religion, lifestyle, socio-economic status, medical condition, and method of thought. The informed do not necessarily have to agree with one another, but by God we should all understand one another. Ignorance runs rampant in finance and government. The less we know about our financial power and limitation, the further we will slip into recession and despair.

I think it is that simple. At least it is that simple in my brain. The causes are basic but they are fundamental and they lead to dim situations like unemployment and national deficit.

Unfortunately I am now a casualty of the recession. I am a salesman by trade…a choice that I made because I love to be around people. The poor economy has affected most industries and the food service industry is no exception. Our US sales were down 20% and I was the greenest on the sales team by 6 years. Could I have done things differently during my time with that company? Yes. I’m sure I could have. Would it have saved me from the dull axe of unemployment? I don’t think so.

I am not writing this post looking for pity, though words of encouragement are always welcome. I won’t lie. I’m scared. I have three small children and the bride of my dreams that I want nothing more than to provide for. But the broad purpose of this post is driven by the hope for a spark of opportunity. I am consistently surprised at how many possum readers are out there. I know you don’t comment, which is perfectly fine, but I know there are some of you out there. And many of our are undoubtedly connected.

If any of you have someone in your network of influence that is looking to hire an experienced salesman/marketer with strong presentation skills and a decent grasp on the written word, I would be honored if you would recommend me. If you would like me to send you a resume, please shoot me an email at pearsontye@gmail.com and I will gladly pass it along.

My spirit may be discouraged but my soul feels hope. Not just for my situation but for the future of our economy and, by default, our country. The step past recession is depression. There is no need to define that word. It is dark and it is ugly and I want no part of it. No, my bet is placed on Teddy Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena whose place shall never be with cold and timid souls. This is America. I am proud to count myself as one of her people. And I am confident that there will be glorious days ahead.

Care for a Healthy Hotdog?

2009-07-16T11:11:00.007-06:00

A couple of weeks ago I had the fantastical experience of meeting a fictitious character I created in one of my first ever blog posts in actual real live flesh and bone. It was like a scene out of Inkheart (not a bad flick by the way) where an author gets to see the physical manifestation of an emotional creation of his imagination. My ink-seed, however, was not a tortured soul from a faraway kingdom with magical powers that allowed him to conjure and control flame whilst battling the evil Shadow and searching for his beloved family. No, no, no. I met the creepy Armenian hotdog vendor.

I have nothing against Armenians. In fact, I’ve met a handful of tremendous people from that heritage and actually from that country (*wink* Hi Zabel *wink*.) But the creepy hotdog vendor in my mind’s eye had Armenian features. Dark and brooding with a forest of thick black hair and matching eyebrows. Think of a much older, thinner, creepier Serj Tankian with less teeth and a top hat.

I was representing my company at the annual School Nutrition Association food show in Las Vegas two weeks ago. While never an overly productive show, it is far and away the best people-watching experience of the year. It still boggles my mind how registered dieticians whose sole purpose in life is to analyze and recommend healthy, nutritious food for consumption, can weigh 380 lbs. and look like they swallowed three small goats, a vat of yogurt, and a down pillow. There’s no way I could take such a person seriously. Do you allow a dentist with crooked, rotting teeth to work on your grill? I am fascinated as I watch the stampeding herd of giddy hippos waddling from booth to booth, gorging their maws with fat and sugar, collecting several bags worth of swag and snacks “for the plane trip home”, aka the hotel later that night. I’m certainly in no place to criticize. I’m not paid to be a nutritionist either.

I digress.

I had the unique once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have the Armenian fruit of my imaginative loins in the booth space right next to me selling “healthy hotdogs” from a small cart emitting green steam, covered by a tiny black and red umbrella. His name was John and he was about 5’8” tall, in his 50s, with thick black hair trimmed short, two big bushy black eyebrows with about 5/32” separation between them, and an upturned lopsided nose that allowed me to see into his skull from one nostril. He wore Tommy Bahama tropical shirts tucked into too-tight Dockers that seemed to contain all his fat, as if he squeezed his upper body like a tube of toothpaste toward his pelvis and quickly cinched his belt to keep it all in one odd compact bubble. But I didn’t care. I was a proud figurative father.

Now, let’s address the concept of “healthy hotdogs.” Like hot snowballs, large midgets, unicorns, and free lunches, healthy hotdogs just don’t exist. What makes it healthy? Do you change the ratio of sphincters and lips from 3:1 to 6:1? Do you substitute bovine reproductive organs with healthier turkey parts? One universal constant is that hotdogs are magical because we specifically DO NOT think about what is in them. The knowledge of the existence of a healthy hotdog causes me to dangerously dwell. “Healthy? What makes it healthy? And if it’s healthy, does that mean my beloved Bar-S dogs are UNhealthy? What would make it unhealthy? I wonder what’s in a hotdog. I always assumed it was grade A top choice beef. No? You mean it’s got lips and butts and bone and eyeballs and fecal matter and hair and ears and….lips and butts?! OH THE HUMANITY!” Then I crawl in the fetal position and scrub my tongue with a wire brush. Some things in life just shouldn’t be scrutinized. We don’t ask who created God. Likewise we should not question what hotdogs are made of and just enjoy their juicy goodness in blissful ignorance.

Further, the bastard son of my twisted mind was unwittingly advertising his hotdogs as being healthy when HE was causing them not to be. He wore the same plastic gloves through three days of show. He would grab the healthy dog, cut it up, serve it to the fat dieticians, and then scratch his head, handle papers, and eat cookies before grabbing another dog for his next victim. I actually watched him violently sneeze into both gloved hands, then wheel around and ask the crowd “anyone care for a healthy hotdog?” He never once changed gloves.

But I don’t care. Like any loving father, I can look past my Armenian man’s faults. He may look like a poorly drawn cartoon character and have no knowledge of restaurant etiquette, but he’s my boy. And I love him for who he is…not what he isn’t.

The Smiley

2009-07-15T10:53:00.005-06:00

The internet has revolutionized communication through the introduction of The Smiley.

When I was a kid, profanity was entirely verboten. But let’s face it…the cool kids swore. They also wore rad Iron Maiden shirts and had cool combs in their back pockets. Maybe some Vuarnet sunglasses and a thin porn-stache gracing their upper lips. And such colorful language! These people could string together phrases that were full of creativity, emotion, and blissfully beautiful filth. I so wanted to be that guy…it wasn’t long before I found a loophole.

I realized that if I were repeating or “quoting” someone or something else, then the responsibility for whatever had been said was not my own. The blame fell squarely on the shoulders of the original offender. You don’t throw the messenger boy out the window of the castle tower for delivering the severed head of your defeated nephew. No no…the messenger boy goes on his merry way, then you summon conscripts from Ireland and seduce the treacherous Robert the Bruce to deliver William Wallace’s heart on a platter. So I became a messenger boy with a license to offend.

As long as I prefaced my profanity with “QUOTE” and closed it with “UNQUOTE”, anything I said was perfectly fine. An example: David just kicked my new soccer ball over the fence at the park and into the canal. “QUOTE! David, you effing worthless piece of shift. Why don’t you….(insert bizarre string of magnificent expletives here) UNQUOTE!” It was beautiful. Full of filth and flawed logic. I could hang with the profanest of the profane with zero accountability.

The Smiley today has essentially the same function as The Quote. One can rattle off the most offensive and insulting sentence in chat, email, or text, but the presence of a Smiley in many of its myriad forms makes the sentence completely innocuous…even funny or complimentary. A commenter on this blog could post “You’re an idiot” at the end of one of my posts and I would be sad. “You’re an idiot ;)” however is perfectly fine and totally welcome. That sly little wink at the end really just means, “ha ha silly boy, you are so funny.” Likewise, “You are the worst writer in the world and your opinion is total cArp =P” is actually denoting sarcasm because of the little guy with the tongue sticking out. That offensive sentence is actually a COMPLIMENT!

Naturally, The Smiley is so overused (like the exclamation point) that its true power is rapidly being lost. Its intent is fuzzy. What if the sarcastic smiley winker dude was actually placed sarcastically, intending for the hateful sentence to actually be sincere, mocking me with its little punctuation features?

Fear The Grammar Nazi

2009-05-21T15:08:00.004-06:00

I am a Grammar Nazi. I have issues with spelling and punctuation as well, but poor grammar makes me want to hurl baby rabbits from tall buildings. I can’t help myself. I wasn’t born this way, but a relentless corrective father and competitive siblings molded and beat me into the hardcore zealot that I am today. In all my years in sports and music, in all competition of every kind, from Pinewood Derby to piano quartets to all star baseball championships, I have never tasted victory so sweet as catching my old man in a grammatical blunder. It is seraphic nectar.

Vocabulary was also a big thing around the house. If you wanted to impress dad, you paid less attention to home runs, goals, or buzzer-beaters. Instead, you would casually drop “indolent” instead of lazy, “odoriferous” in place of smelly, or the word “dilatory” in conversation.

With age has come intolerance. Things that merely drew a haughty snicker years ago actually bother the hell out of me today. If you want to agitate me, hammer me with a double negative. If you want to really draw my wrath, add an apostrophe to the possessive “its.” If you want me to wildly thrash around as if possessed by the unholy, pestiferous Satan himself, improperly use personal pronouns in conversation. I see celebrities, journalists, orators, anchorpeople, religious leaders, and politicians screw this one up every single day. It is inexcusable.

I fully understand that my rigid stance puts a great and spacious target on my own back. The haughtier they are, the harder they fall. I’m sure I make grammatical errors from time to time and I accept that. So if you see it, call it. I can take the heat. Though I'll cry while I burn.

There are ridiculously simple rules for sentences involving personal pronouns, i.e. him, he, she, her, I, me, etc. Any time a phrase contains two or more people, where one or more is a personal pronoun, simply extract all but one subject and repeat the sentence. Here are is an example:

“Would you like to catch a movie with David and me?” or “Would you like to catch a movie with David and I?”

Oftentimes people automatically assume that “David and I” is correct. Somehow the personal pronoun “me” has become the pronoun parriah. The easiest way to determine which is correct is to back David out of the phrase:

“Would you like to catch a movie with me?” or “Would you like to catch a movie with I?” Sounds stupid, doesn’t it? The obvious answer is “me”, therefore the correct sentence is “Would you like to catch a movie with David and me?”

Another easy rule involving personal prounouns is "finish the sentence." For example:

"Brutus is way fatter than him." or "Brutus is way fatter than he."

Just further finish the sentence. Which sounds better? "Brutus is way fatter than him is." or "Brutus is way fatter than he is." Duh.

These rules work for all instances of sentences involving personal pronouns. One other fairly hard fast rule is that any sentence where “I” or “me” is present with another personal pronoun or name, “I” or “me” comes last. “David, Heather, and I” or “Heather, David, and me.” FEW exceptions.

Naturally, all of you possum readers are brilliant and grammatically gifted, so this doesn’t apply to you at all. But I call upon you to be crusaders for light and justice. It is time to rise against the ignorant or well-intentioned cretins. Spread the word. Feed the sheep. Set the donkey wheel back on its axis. Save the cheerleader, save the world. Together we can make a difference. Amen.

Lobot the Lame

2009-04-27T20:53:00.006-06:00

There are certain products sold to the public that have one singular appropriate use. For example, fanny packs are for hiking. End of story, goodbye. There is no other appropriate circumstance for rocking a fanny pack. I don’t care if it is the most convenient place to store your crap; wearing a fanny pack anywhere but on a mountain trail is not only a bullet to the brain of fashion, but a crime against humanity worthy of Nuremberg tribunals. If you wear a fanny pack in public, you are a loser.

My detest for fanny packers has given way lately to the increasingly alarming populous of idiots and their Bluetooth headsets. Like the fanny pack, the Bluetooth accessory has one singularly appropriate purpose…keeping drivers from killing people. The End. Unless you are operating a vehicle, hands-free cell phone gadgets make you a lameass wannabe Lobot.

I am a child of the 80s. Like any other human male child of the 80s with the faintest trace of a beating American heart, I am a Star Wars fan. Other than all things Biblical, never has there been a more epic and gripping saga than that told by the first three…err, second three Star Wars films. The trilogy is a microcosm of life. It gracefully touches on themes of faith, love, hate, and hope. The relationships are enormous and the characters are the strongest ever written. Han Solo! Luke Skywalker! Ben Kenobi! Yoda! Chewy! LOBOT!

You know, Lobot…the mute half-cyborg assistant to Cloud City’s administrator Lando Calrissian and unsung hero of The Empire Strikes Back? He had that really cool bald head and walked like a broom was crammed 29” up his “dang-near-killed-‘um.” Raddest of all was the ginormous Bluetooth headset permanently drilled into his cranium that constantly and directly linked his brain to the entire city’s mainframe!

There’s a reason why we 80s kids have never heard the phrase, “hey, no fair! You always get to be Lobot!” when playing Star Wars in the basement with pool cues and cardboard tubes as light sabers. It’s because Lobot was lame and we didn’t even know who he was. Everyone wants to be Han Solo because he’s the ultimate badass, in any galaxy. No one wants to be Lobot. According to Star Wars lore, his name is “a corruption of ‘lobotomy’.” Who the hell wants to be THAT guy?

You Bluetooth abusers are all Lobots. Nobody wants to BE YOU. There is no reason to have your cell phone strapped to your face. Sure, you can eat barbecued possum more efficiently and you can bowl, drink beer, AND talk on the phone at the same time. And you’re still a retard. I have seen Lobots everywhere. I see them at grocery stores, restaurants, shopping malls, street corners. I’ve seen 14-year-old Lobots on skateboards. I saw a Lobot at Sam’s Club carrying a bulk pack of Ramen Noodles talking about his off-shore accounts. What kind of millionaire yuppie buys the cheapest food item known to man at the cheapest bulk store in the most impoverished area of the Salt Lake Valley?

There is even a 78-year-old Lobot in my Sunday church congregation. I mean seriously, if you get a phone call in the middle of the holy sacrament, are you going to answer it? Memo to all Church-Service-Lobots: I’m relatively confident that God doesn’t communicate via Bluetooth. The omnipotent and omniscient Alpha and Omega doesn’t need freaking cell towers to carry his digitized voice. When God wants to speak to you he’ll go Moses, lighting shrubbery on fire and aging you 40 years. No headset required.

Lobots of the world, do us all a favor and keep your Bluetooth in the car where it belongs. The glowing blue plastic thingy protruding from your ear does not make you cool. It does not make you important. It does not make you rich. It simply reveals your lameness to the masses.

Do Exploited Children Make Good Snipers?

2009-04-07T10:39:00.011-06:00

Writer’s Block sucks. The combination of a world devoid of anything interesting, personal apathy, and complete indifference, has made for a relatively long and painful dry spell on the blog. But something surfaced last week that finally made me think. I mean really think.

Many of you may have seen the following advertisement for quit.org. The little boy is an actor, but the producers of the ad say the tears are real, having simulated the depicted scenario:

The commercial has sparked an intense debate. On the one hand, how dare someone exploit a 3 ½-year-old CHILD in order to make a social statement for a health crusade? On the other hand, the emotional response caused by the ad has effectively flooded the quit-smoking help line with phone calls from touched would-be quitters. Do the means justify the end? Is the momentary despair and terror in a helpless child a small price to pay for “saving lives?”

It has taken me several days to form my own opinion. I’ve had a Wrestlemania worthy of pay-per-view going on in my brain. I was disturbed by the ad…but is that necessarily a bad thing? I don’t think the point of the ad was to make people feel pink and tingly inside. We were supposed to be disturbed. It all boiled down to one thing for me…what are the long-term effects on the child? Was he truly exploited? Will this experience damage his psyche and turn him into a trench coat-wearing college campus sniper? Ultimately I came to the conclusion that if those 10 seconds of desperation could possibly harm the child long-term, converting him to a deranged sociopath, then I’d have made Charlie Manson seem like Mr. Rogers YEARS AGO.

01) My mother used to leave me in the car for extended periods of time while she went shopping for groceries or crafts. No shooting spree. It beat the hell out of actually having to spend any time inside Jobber’s Odd Lot.
02) I was forced to wear a frilly white shirt, purple satin knickers, and makeup as I portrayed Anna’s son in a church production of The King and I. No shooting spree.
03) I was locked out of the house for extended periods of time in the summer, drinking from garden hoses and eating fruit from trees. No shooting spree.
04) I had to do “the worm” across the stage at one of my mother’s dance concerts in front of 1500 people. No spree.
05) I’ve unwillingly performed countless piano pieces for total strangers in churches, hotel lobbies, living rooms, and shopping malls. No sniper spree.
06) I was in a commercial for an auto glass company hitting a baseball through a 1978 OldsmoBuick’s windshield. This commercial portraying, at worst, vandalistic deviant behavior or, at best, a really crappy batter, didn’t turn me into a lunatic psychopath. No shooting spree.
07) My mother made me wear clothing that matched, or at least complimented, my sisters’ matching dresses for holidays or vacations. No shooting spree.
08) I had to ride a unicycle in the Magna parade behind a boat blasting Beach Boys music wearing royal blue rayon short shorts, red and white striped tube socks, boat shoes, and a white tank top. Again…no shooting spree.
09) I’ve been forgotten, or at least picked up very…very late, at various camps, clinics, and lessons as a child. No kill count.
10) I was paraded in front of politicians, business associates, or social connections, dressed in completely silly attire, and I still didn’t kill anybody.

Bottom line…this kid is going to be fine. He may remember his 10 seconds of tears, just as keenly as I remember my gay purple satin knickers, but his discomfort is not going to negatively affect his development as a child, his character as an adult, or his career as a criminal. In fact, it might just make him stronger. Or at least more funny.

So, memo to all the lunatics and zealots crying BAD FORM! Children are being exploited everywhere. If you laughed at a single episode of Webster then you supported the exploitation of a child. If you’ve ever submitted a photo to a “cutest kid contest” then you are exploiting. If your issue is with exploitation, then get over yourselves because it goes on everywhere. If your beef is with the effect of the 10-second separation from his mother on his young psyche, then you are an idiot. That kid, like children everywhere, will have COUNTLESS experiences in his young years where there are tears, fear, anxiety, shame, and sadness. And he will bounce back. Kids are resilient. He’ll be fine. And he never had to wear tube socks in a parade.

Teen Pregnancies / Bear Attacks

2009-03-20T16:55:00.006-06:00

I caught this article a couple of days ago and I realized something. If teenagers would look at sex the same way they look at hungry angry bears, there wouldn’t be nearly as much teen pregnancy in our fair nation.

For the unfamiliar, bears are nasty. Some facts about bears:

1) Bears weigh between 400 and 3,000 lbs.
2) The average bear stands 14’ tall.
3) Bears can outrun a Ford Focus.
4) Bears can climb trees. The trees are not safe.
5) Bears eat beets.
6) When not eating beets, bears eat people.
7) A bear can devour a fully-grown man in less than 60 seconds.
8) A bear can tear a person’s head off, just with its growl.
9) The bear is the only member of the Animal Kingdom that stands a chance toe to toe vs. Chuck Norris.
10) 80% of statistics are made up on the spot.

Given these terrifying facts, would you knowingly put yourself in any geographic area remotely close to bears? Hopping in the sack with a hormone-enraged teenage boy is like plucking snout hairs from a starving grizzly bear. It’s just a matter of time before the bear gets annoyed and eats your face, just as it’s only a matter of time before the chick in the sack has a fetus to feed.

“But we use protection!” Would you nuzzle up to a rabid bear in a medieval suit of armor? Eventually the bear will discover the weaknesses in the steel and will exploit them. Or what about an equipment malfunction where the leather strap holding your breastplate up snaps, exposing your ribs. Or what if the wily bear patiently waits for you to take your helmet off for a quick breath of fresh air then swallows your head? Not dissimilar to the myriad things that can go wrong with “protection” when rocking the back seat of a Chevy Malibu.

Adolescent sexed-up males cannot be trusted. Dressing overly sexy at a frat kegger is like wearing a pot roast hat to the bear exhibit at the zoo. Dancing with any form of sexy grinding friction at a club is like crawling into a momma bear’s den and smacking her little bear cub babies around. You will die painfully and quickly. Even showing yourself in public carries some sort of risk to the debauchery of morally depraved dudes.

No, young hotties, the only way to keep yourselves safe is to just never leave your house. I’m not familiar with many stories of elderly people in Hoboken being munched by bears while showering in the locked, windowless bathrooms of their 4th story apartments. If you want to avoid the vicious bite of the brutal bear, don’t put yourself in any situation with the remotest infinitesimal possibility of seeing one. If you want to preserve and protect your young virgin womb from the would-be ravaging of filthy piggish neanderboys, don’t put yourselves in any situation with the remotest infinitesimal possibility of being loved up by one.

Just as sure as bears are dangerous, men are pigs. All of us.

Trampoline Face

2009-03-17T11:35:00.001-06:00

Sherri and I discovered a fascinating natural scientific phenomenon a few days ago that we plan on submitting to the World Science Foundation or possibly Nobel. The phenomenon is the affect that gravity has on facial tissue at the lowest possible point of a gnarly trampoline bounce. Imagine the massive strength of the earth's gravitational pull holding onto your jowels like a vice grip as your body hurls upward with incredible force. The effect, known as "Facies Tripudium" or "Trampoline Face" causes the subject to appear to age 80 years or, in some cases, take on physical characteristics of mild retardation.

We present to you Test Subject 1A at the height of his bounce, showing hardly any signs of facial abnormality, excluding teeth of course:

And now Test Subject 1A at the lowest point of his bounce, just as the trampoline springs tighten and the fabric begins to hurl him upward. Note the obvious distortion of facial tissue and possible muscle atrophy:

Test Subject 1A is being constantly monitored for evidence of further, unanticipated effects from the battery of tests. At this point we cannot rule out aggression, laziness, attitude, or hypersensitivity as possible side effects. Inversely, Test Subject 1A could also experience extreme and heightened intelligence, politeness, stunning attractiveness, and general studliness.

We are in the process of planning similar studies with other test subjects. We will keep you informed of our findings. We will also notify everyone when our thesis is published in World Science Weekly and will start another blog documenting our journey to the Nobel Prize, entitled "Going to the Show: Our Journey to the Big House."

Big Love - No Big Thang

2009-03-16T10:35:00.007-06:00

I typically avoid religion-themed pieces like the plague, but...

Most of the free world by now knows that the HBO series “Big Love”, a show about a fundamentalist polygamous “Mormon” family, aired scenes depicting highly sacred and allegedly secretive ceremonies that are performed within the walls of the temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS.) The LDS community is wigging. I’m here to tell you not to. There’s no sense in it. As a fiercely proud and loyal active member of the LDS church, I find it comical that our ranks are calling for boycotts and shouting at the evil HBO network with skinny fists raised like antennas to heaven.

1) This is nothing new. The church has been persecuted since its inception. Have we forgotten that it was freaking legal to shoot and KILL Mormons in Missouri until only a few years ago? The spirits of our beloved late brethren and sisters that have been expelled from homes, tarred and feathered, publicly humiliated, spat upon, raped, and even murdered, are shaking their heads in disbelief that we are making such a fuss over a television show. How would Joseph Smith react to this unbearable debacle? He’d smile, wink, smack your shoulder, and tell you not to fret.

2) It is OUR responsibility to keep our beliefs sacred. We cannot control what other people do, say, think, or show on television. Just because it is known, does not make it less sacred and special. Maybe less secret; but certainly not less sacred.

3) Big Love relied upon information given from FORMER members of the LDS faith for their show. No temple-worthy, current member of the church would ever give specifics of temple ceremonies. The entire show is suspect and cannot be viewed as accurate. I used to be a boy scout. You don’t see me teaching knot-tying clinics. I pity the fool that would rely on one of my knots.

4) By many accounts from what I’ve read, and I’ve read a lot, the scenes from the temple ceremony added absolutely nothing to the plot of the show, essentially negating the producers’ claim that it was integral to the episode. Let’s use our brains here. A spade is a spade. This blatant disregard for and disrespect of sacred LDS temple rites is nothing more than a hate-filled act of vengeance for “the church’s” involvement in the passing of Proposition 8 in California. Both producers/creators of the show, Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer, are openly gay and likely have a bone to pick with those that supported Prop 8. That is fine. I have no problem with a response to those involved with the passing of the proposition. Unfortunately, they have decided to exact revenge by disquieting LDS folk globally, many of which (like me) don’t exactly share the general LDS opinion on gay marriage.

Mr. Olsen and Mr. Scheffer, I feel sorry for you. I feel pity and I feel compassion. Your lives must be full of sorrow and pain. I sincerely hope that you find some form of happiness in your lives. But please know that your desperate attempts to make us hurt as you hurt are fruitless. They are empty. They are feeble uppercuts to the mighty stone jaw of the happy, informed, secure membership of the LDS faith. Your kung fu is not strong. Your voodoo is powerless. Your bark has no bite and your smoke has no fire. Try as you may, you will not bring us down. You point the finger and wag the tongue, accusing the world of “hate” when it benefits you, but you are blind to your own hateful actions of intolerance.

I love the temple. I respect and revere it. Please know that there is nothing you can do to tarnish its spirit. You can tag its walls, infiltrate its halls, sacrifice farm animals, urinate on the couches, swing like monkeys from the chandeliers, finger paint lewd images on the carpet, flood the toilets, and tear it apart stone-by-stone and brick-by-brick. I’ll be bummed about it, but not hurt. So bring it on. Bring the pain. Because you’ve got nothing. You’ve brought a plastic butter knife to a bazooka battle. And I pity you both.

I have gazed into the bowels of hell and they eat Olive Garden

2009-03-06T15:07:00.006-07:00

I learned an important lesson this past weekend. Just because something is free doesn’t mean you should actually take, or in this case, ingest it. If you were walking down the corridors of the mall and saw a kiosk that said “free kicks to the groin”, would you allow your nards to be pummeled simply because the service was gratis? If you saw a bin full of “Liberace Plays Barry Manilow” 8-track tapes at Wal-Mart with a red sign that said “FREE”, would you take one, even though you don’t own an 8-track player and any machine you borrowed would spontaneously melt and explode from embarrassment at having housed something so heinous?

We are in the throes of a brutal recession flirting with full depression status. I had a $25 gift card to Olive Garden that I “won” (a debatable term) at my company’s Christmas party. Sherri and I needed a night out. Friday night + babysitter + $25 for food = CHEAP DATE. I knowingly compromised my standards, bit the shotgun shell, took an imaginary shot of make-believe scotch, and departed for Olive Garden. We showed up around 7:00 and there was barely a place to stand. The hostess said the wait was 70 minutes. Are you bloody freaking kidding me?! People actually WAIT for this place? I quickly mastered my nerves and allowed my highly logical Pearson brain to take over, rationalizing the fact that 70 minutes in Restaurantland actually meant 30 minutes in the real world. 67 minutes later we were seated.

Next to the county fair and Wal-Mart on a Saturday, Olive Garden provides the best people-watching experience known to mankind. We saw squirrely-looking prom dates, jaded lesbians, hood-rat gangstas, and a woman whose obnoxious knockers were being contained by a polyester stretchy shirt four sizes too small. I swear if that behem’ho had twisted to one side at the wrong angle, one of those monsters would have sprung out with wicked force, knocking her (or any bystander within three feet) unconscious. Oddly enough, I don’t think the freak show waiting in the lobby would have even noticed. Just another night at Olive Garden for them.

Why my aversion to Olive Garden? Because it is trash. It is terrible food. Granted, I lived in Italy for two years and am a little pickier toward Italian cuisine, but not overly so. Their processed sauces and mushy pastas are just BAD. You will find better Italian food at Fazzolis, Pizza Hut, and in Chef Boyardee cans. Do these people not know there is a Macaroni Grill right across the freaking street that actually serves good Italian food for roughly the same price?!

By the time we were seated I was already angry. Angry that I had to wait 67 minutes for inevitably bad food. Angry that I had to watch knocker-lady bounce and flit around the freak show lobby. And angry that we were seated next to the family with the autistic redheaded heavy girl that yelled out “basagna classico!” every 90 seconds and continuously asked for crackers for her soup.

When the waitress asked us for our order I said, “I really don’t like this restaurant, but it’s been years since I’ve been here. What would you recommend that might change my opinion?” I don’t remember what she offered partially due to her bad answer, but mostly due to the high-pitched squeal of the steam pouring out of my ears. I knew my only hope was to order the most bizarre thing possible, with potent cheeses or sauces, hoping to mask the overall gnarliness of Olive Garden food. I went with the Steak Gorgonzola-Alfredo. And, naturally, I hated it. I ate the steak off the top and went Doberman on the salad and breadsticks.

The moral to this story is twofold. Free does not necessarily mean good. And, most importantly, Olive Garden sucks. That is all. Boom goes the dynamite.

Inappropriate Adjectives - Andrew Bird is Retarded

2009-02-27T16:33:00.008-07:00

Marty: Whoa, wait a minute. Doc, are you telling me that my mother has got the hots for me?
Doc: Precisely.
Marty: Whoa, this is heavy.
Doc: There's that word again - heavy. Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the Earth's gravitational pull?

Have you ever wondered how certain, often inappropriate, adjectives found their way into colloquial English? For example “bad”, as in “dude, that is one bad lookin’ sofa.” English would suggest that the sofa is ugly. Or uncomfortable. Or even malevolent. But we know that term actually means the sofa is good. Bad = good. Or how about “cool?” At what point did something of a lower temperature become good? Have you ever eaten cool meat loaf? It’s anything but good. And how can “cool” and “hot” be interchangeable? “Have you seen Mike’s new Ferrari? That car is hot.” Or is it cool? Logic suggests that it can’t be both. And you can’t physically measure something’s coldness anyhow since temperature is calculated by heat, implying that a state of “coolness” is simply a partial absence of heat.

Nowadays the Ferrari would be “sick.” But sick isn’t interchangeable with “gross.” Apparently the hot/cool rule doesn’t apply to nausea. Skilled athletes can be “filthy” or “nasty.” So, to be clear, I’m to understand that poor hygiene is considered good in sports? I played ball with Italians that smelled like week-old onions and carcass farms, definitely putting them in the filthy/nasty categories, but they sucked monkey butt at basketball. Maybe the filthy/nasty rule only works in America. Lame Europeans.

Speaking of lame, when did the word “gay” all of a sudden mean “lame” and when did “lame” score pariah status? Stephen Hawking can’t walk, but I’m pretty sure he’d work me at a spelling contest. And I have some alternate-lifestyle friends that likely take offense to “gay” meaning something negative, especially after the word used to mean HAPPY.

And how about “sweet?” How do you know your gorgeous new LCD television is sweet? Did you freaking lick it? Oh, maybe you mean the OTHER kind of sweet…like it massaged your shoulders and gave you a hug after remembering your birthday.

As odd as these words are, I use them often and heavily. Gnarly, rad, sweet, hot, smokin’, rockin’, wicked, hard, badass, insane, filthy, uber, and wild are all WIN.

The mother of all inappropriate adjectives, likely the most offensive, and naturally my personal favorite is “retarded.” Meaning so good that it’s beyond insane. It’s beyond filthy nastiness and wicked uber gnarlihood. It’s so awesome that it’s RETARDED. Example? Sure. “Wednesday night’s Andrew Bird concert was off the charts. I mean, the way he uses digital loops and sonic layering is utterly retarded.” See following video…

Ostensible Parenting

2009-02-25T12:55:00.009-07:00

Parents are failing their children on an epic scale. A guitar hero buddy of mine in Cincinnati wrote a stellar blog piece about a year ago that detailed how “helicopter parents” are sheltering their kids from rejection and disappointment. Clearly that’s setting the stage for monumental disaster later in that child’s life when he realizes that the world is not made of sunshine and dancing unicorn dust. Girl Scout cookies don’t magically sell themselves and you actually have to try out for basketball teams. I’m no expert on parenting, but I’m a decent observer. And what I observe is ugly.

Many parents expect the public school system to raise their children. My brother in law is a counselor at a middle school in southern Utah. He has shared numerous stories of how parents refuse to take accountability for their misbehaving children and expect the school to handle the discipline and reform…as long as it doesn’t hurt little Timmy’s feelings. Parents also expect the school system to create intelligent, witty, creative, courteous kids that naturally turn into successful and motivated adults. News flash…the public school system is in place to ASSIST in the education of children. It is YOUR responsibility to actually teach and raise your kids. The system is there to provide proven and effective methods to present information to young people by adults that are knowledgeable and skilled communicators. Parents are there to make damn sure their kids understand the information given or, better yet, instill a hunger to MASTER the subject matter and have fun doing it. Schools don’t create scholars. Schools don’t make CEOs, professors, and presidents. Parents do.

I was sickened when I read this article today about New Mexico parents failing to pay their school lunch tab. Children whose parents are behind are being given a plain cheese sandwich, some fruit, and some milk instead of being given normal lunch like the kids whose parents are current. I need to bullet my points here, otherwise I’ll ramble:

1) I understand that times are hard. The recession blows.

2) It’s gut-wrenching for me to envision a sweet, timid 1st grader, like my son, being physically pulled from the lunch line and handed a white sack with a stale cheese sandwich and a mushy apple inside while his peers point and laugh. White sack = poor kid. That is the kind of public ridicule that will instantly and forever damage that kid’s self image. His peers will always remember him as one of the “white-baggers” from 1st grade, just like Chas remembers me for my crappy shoes that slid all over the basketball court…25 years ago.

3) It is pathetic that parents don’t have to share in their children’s shame. Shielding yourselves with your own kids is disgusting, intended or not.

4) It is commendable that the school district is trying to make sure that each child has something to eat for lunch. The system might be flawed and not well planned, but the effort is there. Hunger is a verb that most all of us will never fully know. Being hungry is one thing…hunger is quite another. It motivates people to steal and kill. Hunger sucks, and I applaud the district for fighting it.

5) It is commendable that the school system is holding parents accountable and not allowing them to get everything for nothing.

6) It is sad that this ^^ comes at the expense of children.

The school system is on track to lose $300,000 this year on unpaid student lunch bills alone. That is six times the amount in 2006. In order to cover the debt, the schools will have to pull from other departments in the budget since not even the federal lunch program money given, from OUR tax dollars, can cover. So all students will suffer from the inability and ineptitude of bad parents.

I fully understand that there is poverty in the world and that parents are struggling to feed their kids. My “bad parents” claim might seem harsh. I counter that with the following question. If your child were NOT in school and were home for the summer, would you expect him to starve or would you find a way, no matter how creative, to feed him? Easy. You’d feed the kid. Now, take that same creativity, throw it in a lunch box and send it to school with the boy.

In my opinion the solution is simple. Completely do away with school lunch programs. I sell cookies to school districts and buying groups all over the country. It is astounding how much time, effort, and MONEY is put into child nutrition. That shouldn’t be their job! You don’t need a cookie that has no fat or sugar and tastes like cardboard. What you need is to tell Timmy to turn off the Playstation, get off his lardass, and mix in some kickball.

It is not the school’s responsibility to teach, raise, discipline, AND feed our children. By doing away with the program you put all children on a level playing field. If all the kids are bringing white sacks to school, no one will care if one houses a cheese sandwich or a cheesesteak. The sack itself is the equalizer. When kids “forget” their lunch, call the parents. If it persists, call in the cavalry. Get DCFS involved. For the truly willing and CARING, there are programs out there to make sure your kids don’t go hungry. The public school system, however, is NOT one of those programs.

Disgusted With the Media

2009-02-12T11:55:00.007-07:00

I first caught glimpse of the power and influence of the media during the Columbine shootings. I was home on the couch watching the news when the switch to live coverage happened. I was floored at how quickly and deftly the media could maneuver coverage and gather information. It all was unfolding real time right in front of my eyes. What really struck me during the aftermath was how some information was accurate and some was not. Some reports were dreadfully wrong. Regardless of accuracy, I learned that what I am told on the news I believe whole-heartedly. I learned that my assumption was that the news was objective and the media reported proven facts only, stripped of bias and haze. Since then I have gradually learned and adapted my understanding to what it is today: The media is a circus that is interested in one thing and one thing only. Viewership. Right and wrong mean nothing. The story is everything. Below are three recent monumental media failures:

1) Nadya Suleman. This woman should be arrested and tried for neglect rather than paraded all over the media. She is unemployed. She has been living on now-exhausted student loans allegedly totaled at $50,000. She is in school pursuing a career in social work. And she unethically had SIX embryos transplanted instead of the typical maximum of 2-3. She now has 14 children to raise by herself in a two-bedroom apartment with no income, no husband/partner, and $459 per month for food stamps. Her infinite medical bills will inevitably be taken care of through taxpayer funds, not to mention her cost of living.

The sickening thing is that the media blitz is likely falling in line with her diabolical plan. She wants attention. She wants money. And the media will lap it up and shell out the dough. Ann Curry’s interview made me sick, overstressing the point that NBC was NOT paying Suleman for the interview. Memo to Ann: She doesn’t care. Your show/network/interview was nothing more than a launching pad to put Suleman in the crosshairs of countless programs and periodicals that WILL pay top dollar for her story and photos. You have enabled and promoted her scheme of profiting from her neglected children. This is no “John and Kate Plus Eight” or “18 Kids and Counting.” Those kids were born into legitimate families that love and support them without taxpayer funds. They were responsible and ethical decisions. Without the media attention, Nadya Suleman would be forced to do the right thing…place those children in the care of families that have the ABILITY to love and care for them. Shameful.

2) Pregnant man. How ridiculous. My beef with this deal has nothing to do with moral and ethical dilemmas surrounding sexual orientation, civil unions, or gay marriage. My personal opinions on those subjects are just that…personal. And they probably aren’t popular with either side of the issue. My problem with this story is from a medical or physiological viewpoint. THIS IS NOT A MAN. It is a woman in a wicked-clever and highly expensive man suit. Gender is not a state of mind. Gender is not misplaced or improperly assigned. You are born with the equipment that you have and that characterizes you as male or female. Penis=male. Vagina=female. You can have parts lopped off or surgically attached, but you are still the woman or man you were before the alteration. If you are a man attracted to other men, that’s fine. If you are a woman attracted to other women, that’s great. But you can’t whack off your wiener, take some estrogen, and magically become a woman. It is a costume. That is all. So, memo to “Pregnant (wo)Man”:

womb + ovaries + vajaja = WOMAN

The media has made this far more interesting than it really is. This is a lesbian woman in a man costume that had a baby. Pretty bland really. I'm also pissed that her beard is better than mine.

3) Michael Phelps. This dude is a stud. He is a national hero (if you subscribe to Olympic athletes as heroes.) He eats 12,000 calories a day and has an upper body that has to be greased down with Crisco to get him through doorways. And guess what world…HE’S A KID. It is unfair that we force young national figures to live by pristine adult standards. I can think of very few examples of young people that miss their childhood/teenage/young adult years that end up ok. Just look at teen actors.

Michael Phelps hit the bong. Who the hell cares? Punishing a kid for something he did at a party five months prior to the 4x6 photo that some jealous tool posted and leaked to the media is a waste of time and taxpayer money. I’m pretty sure that if I posted a picture of myself hoisting an apple bong over my head to Flickr, Facebook, and this blog, I would get ZERO legal heat. It’s unfair that Michael Phelps is being focused so hard. The young man already did the right thing by sacking up and publicly apologizing for poor judgment and irresponsible behavior. Let the kid go. He's actually losing sponsors over this. He deserves better treatment after having brought so much pride to an entire nation. Is Phelps a role model? Yes. Do kids look to him as an example? Yes. Is marijuana illegal? Yes. Should it be punishable by law? Yes. Should Phelps receive excess heat because of his public status and role model position? Absolutely not. The law should apply to all people equally, with equal ferocity and callousness. And Phelps is receiving undue ferocity and callousness from the law, pushed relentlessly by the media.

The media has no moral compass. There is no right or wrong to them. Only stories. They do not report fact. They do not pursue truth. They sell information, often swayed and always spun. There is no social responsibility with the media anymore. It is corporate-sponsored propaganda. The unfortunate reality is that we, the intelligent audience, have to exercise our best judgment when being fed information, wading through the spam to get to the guts of the message, because the media is certainly not going to course correct and actually report with a conscience.

Life Lessons, Courtesy of Deseret Industries

2009-02-04T16:48:00.004-07:00

I saw “Yes Man” a couple weeks ago. It was a pretty funny movie with flashes of brilliance; the “Dead Carl” scene where the fly lands on Carl’s opened eye was gut busting. But most important was the message behind the movie. Saying “yes” to random opportunities, when presented, can open doors to neat experiences. I had one such experience the day after seeing the film.

I typically avoid service assignments. My excuses for not being available to help at the pasta factory, dairy plant, cannery, or DI are as numerous as the sands of the sea. But for some reason, when I got the call Saturday morning to help at Deseret Industries, I said, “Sure. I’ll be there.” I spent two and a half hours wearing the fashionable blue volunteer apron at the West Jordan DI and learned some interesting things, some of which were life-changing epiphanies. Instead of working out on the docks as presumed, I was inside the facility moving newly priced items to staging areas where they were sorted and moved to the sales floor.

1) The DI smells like the DI simply because it’s the DI. That combination of decaying flesh, dirt, and 1960s upholstery cannot be pinned on any one cause. It is the Alpha and the Omega of odors. There is no beginning and there is no end. It just “IS.” It always has been and always will be.

2) There is no Geppetto. There is no cobbler with tiny spectacles and a leather apron in a cedar-lined corner workshop that builds ornate wooden clocks and fixes broken furniture on the side. Don’t make the same mistake I’ve historically made when considering things to donate. If it is missing hardware or is “only slightly broken”, don’t freaking take it in. There is no Geppetto there that will just “throw a few nails in it” and have it magically ready for sale. If it is garbage to you then it is likely garbage to them. I was dumbfounded at how much money, equipment, time, and energy was wasted on throwing out lazy peoples’ trash. Deseret Industries =/= LANDFILL.

3) The complex process for evaluating items and assigning prices is a dude with a ponytail named Channon and a pricing gun. Random item 1A is dropped off at the dock. 1A is brought in by dock personnel to a spacious area inside the bay doors. Channon inspects 1A to see if it is sellable or trash. If trash, he takes it to one of the several highly expensive compactors. If sellable, Channon mulls it over in his head and says, “hmmm, skis…pretty good shape, bindings are there, $15 should do it.” Then he slaps on a tag and loads it onto a cart. That’s the entire process.

4) Deseret Industries employees are really nice, normal people. They are not Children of the Corn, recovering drug addicts, or circus folk. There are a few special needs people and they do fabulously. It was a pleasure to work among them. I learned things from Channon that I’ll never forget.

5) I need to put down the XBOX controller and get my ass on the treadmill…maybe mix in some free weights. Those 2.5 hours pwnt my soul.

My final lesson came courtesy of Channon himself. At one point I asked him if he’s seen some pretty awesome stuff come in through his staging area. He said there have been dressers with drawers full of jewelry, either forgotten or intentionally left. When antiques or heirlooms or electronics or oddball items that may be collectable or of high value come in, the DI employee is to take the item to a special area and a manager for closer inspection. Channon sees this as a true test of a person’s character. How easy would it be to slip that cameo broach into your pocket? Or the diamond tennis bracelet into your sock? Then Channon said, “It didn’t take me long to realize that everything in the world is junk. All this around me is old junk. Stuff you buy in stores is new junk. And the instant you buy new junk it becomes old junk. And eventually I’ll see it here.”

I think that is an awesome, character-building lesson. We work so hard and stress so much about acquiring stuff. Toys, clothes, jewelry, music, electronics, and furniture. But when it’s all said and done, it’s all just junk. None of it can come with us when we bite our respective bullets. What I CAN take with me is my knowledge, my memories, and my intelligence. I’m going to try and focus more on developing those things, instead of scoring the junk. After I get my home theater system, new pimp van, and Vespa of course.

Shame in Victory

2009-01-28T14:51:00.008-07:00

“This is the one”, I thought to myself. We’d been at it two hours. It was raining hard now and the sun was dipping further and further behind the mountains to the west. My shoes were soaked. My knees were scraped and bleeding. I analyzed my surroundings and stared hard into the eyes of my opponent. My Goliath. He towered over me, even as he crouched at the ready. “He’ll be expecting a juke”, I mused, “and this time I’ll take it right at him.” I smirked as I ran through the process in my head. This was the one. It had to be the one. I don’t think I could take much more abuse and failure. My body and spirit couldn’t handle it. My muscles tensed as I prepared my assault. I was David. My stone, a soccer ball. And Goliath was going down.

I sprang. My heart pounded as I dribbled the ball ever nearer to my nemesis. He deftly bounced from side to side as I approached, chest heaving, lips curled into a snarl. I faked a juke to the left. He took the bait. I instantly popped the ball back to the right with the outside of my foot and barreled straight into Goliath’s former position. “Hahaha!” I shouted, “I got y-UGH!” My entire body was suddenly thrown from its feet and flung into the chain link fence to my right, sending shocks of pain through my right shoulder. Goliath was big, but he was nimble. He had caught my left hip just as I was passing and drove me into the fence. The ball lay motionless on the grass.

Goliath casually picked the ball up and rolled it back to its starting spot. “You were saying?” he said flatly. Emotionless and cool. I began to sob. The rainwater on my cheeks gave way to saline tears. I wanted to go home. I wanted this to end. I wanted nothing more than to get past my enemy so I could finally go in the house and get dry. Goliath must have sensed my despair and somehow found compassion in its monstrous black heart. “That’s probably good for tonight. Your mother has times table flash cards for you still. This is 3rd grade now…math can be a bugger.” “Ok dad”, I whimpered. He put his arm around me as we walked toward the house. “I thought you had me on that last one buddy. Good move.” He tousled my hair. I smiled through my tear-filled eyes. I was happy.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have never ever, in the history of my life, beaten my father at any reasonable sport. I have no memory of my dad taking it easy on me. None. Even at basketball, my strongest sport, my old man found ways to win. He has had multiple knee surgeries and enough ankle sprains to turn his tendons into snot inside his shoe, but the man is a competitor. He is a beast. Since I was old enough to touch a ball or hold a racket, my father has not once allowed me to win. And I’ve tried every avenue imaginable to beat him.

Our last tennis match was in 1996. I was 19 and about to leave for Europe for 2 years. Somehow, deep inside, I knew this would be the last time we would face each other. Dad was 51 years old and was running out of cartilage. I’d planned the match for weeks. I knew his weaknesses were his knees and I planned to exploit my advantage to its fullest. I ran him like a dog. Up to the net, back to the base line, side to side. Cut shots, lobs, dink serves, overheads. Somehow the bulldog managed to chase most of them down. His plan was simple…just hit the ball back to me and eventually I’d break down mentally and beat myself. His plan worked of course. He took me 4-6 7-5 6-4 in the most grueling, filthy tennis match ever played. When we were done his knees were swollen to the size of cantaloupes and I had a blister on my thumb larger than a quarter. We barely made it out of the building, but we hobbled out smiling.

Oddly enough I’m grateful for it. I am grateful that I was taught to compete. I was taught to apply myself 100% in every contest, whether it be a championship basketball game or a contest to see how many ping-pong balls I could consecutively throw into a glass jar. I am by no means as competitive as my father. I’m not sure anyone is. But I am grateful for the example I was shown. But even my father, as rabid a competitor as he is, would think that the story linked here is atrocious and foul.

A high school girl’s basketball team beat their opponent 100-0 last week. If you are thinking this happens all the time, you are wrong. NFL teams running up the score can’t be compared. The U of U doing onside kicks in the 4th quarter of play while already destroying its opponent isn’t remotely the same. These were not two teams on a level playing field. These were not two teams that belonged in the same sporting universe. The victim here has a grand total of 20 girls in its school…not necessarily a large pool to select talent from. This school is specifically for kids with learning disabilities like dyslexia and ADHD. The offending school deployed a full-court press for all but the final 4 minutes of play, essentially rocking a 45-minute layup drill. The victim school got a grand total of seven shots off. TOTAL.

The coach responsible for the blowout was almost immediately fired and the small Christian high school issued a formal apology and forfeit of the game. I think that is fair and appropriate. The coach, however, defends his decision and says the game was played with honor. I couldn’t disagree more. There is nothing honorable in blowing out a team of disabled girls by a score of 100-0. It is shameful and should be an embarrassment that follows him the rest of his life.

I hope the young ladies involved have learned a valuable lesson. There is a time for competition and there is a time for compassion, and they CAN coexist in the same contest. It is why 2nd, 3rd, and 4th stringers are brought into games. There is an aspect of sportsmanship that has nothing to do with aggressiveness and tenacity. It involves respect and fairness. I will always be grateful to my philistine father. He taught me to be a badass AND a gentleman on the court. Sometimes the gentleman surfaces slowly, or not at all, but I know he’s lurking and he’s always there to make me feel stupid when I act like an idiot.

Would You Have Invested?

2009-01-23T15:10:00.005-07:00

No, it’s not The Allman Brothers Band. No, it’s not a collective mug shot of convicted pedophiles and sex offenders. No, it’s not the Kentucky State House of Representatives. This is a group photo of Microsoft Corporation taken December 1978. There were 11 members. You’ll likely recognize the squirrely kid on the bottom left. This was taken just prior to its first ever $1 million sales year. Not long before this photo was taken, the corporation was faced with a difficult dilemma…find a way to scrape together $7,000 to cover pay some outstanding notes or go belly up and close its doors. They borrowed the money. Within months after taking this photo, all 11 members moved to Washington State to launch their new office campus where they would eventually change the world, one PC at a time.

So now the question: If this misfit brigade had marched into your company’s conference room looking like Jim Henson and Charlie Manson and had given a 15-minute pitch via overhead projector about personal computers shaping the future, looking for venture capitalists, would you have invested? I think not. You’d have covered your groin with one hand and called security with the other. But can you imagine what your life would be like now if you HAD invested?

The Facts: Microsoft went public in 1986. Initial Public Offering (IPO) shares went for $21.00 per share. Since its IPO, Microsoft stock has split 9 times. If you had bought ONE share on March 13, 1986, you would now have 288 split-adjusted shares. ONE share bought in 1986 would be worth $4,976.64 today. ONE share bought in 1986 and sold in 2000 when Microsoft stock was at its peak would have been worth $17,280.00. Just imagine if you had invested $10,000 at IPO. Sold today you would have $2.4 million and sold in 2000 you would have $8.2 million. InFREAKINGsane.

How many times have we made decisions related to business, education, investments, purchases, trust, or confidence based on the messenger’s appearance? If Microsoft had entered the building in nicely pressed suits, beardless and well groomed, would they have attracted more investors? YES. The instant I have to board a plane for a food show or client meeting, you can bet your sweet ass that I’ll be clean-shaven and fauxhawkless. But is that fair? Does my hair, scruffy beard, hoodie, and flip-flops make me a less effective salesman and communicator? Two quick stories…

One early-marriage anniversary I booked a room at Little America for Sherri and myself. I’d heard it was a very nice hotel, but I quite frankly didn’t think much of it from the outside. This is not the GRAND America mind you, but the old Little America. Part of the anniversary included a dinner at the Little America restaurant. This was clearly fine dining, even if the building didn’t suggest it. The house salad was an entire, uncut wedge of lettuce with a variety of odd trimmings and foofery. I’d never had to cut a salad with a knife before. While we ate I noticed an old man going from table to table speaking with the patrons, apparently panhandling. He was wearing a bizarre combination of clothing. Blue polyester pants…the kind that has no belt loops, just the button strap across the front. Terribly battered old-man pleather shoes that neither laced nor latched. And a lime green sweater that was so thin at the elbows and shoulders you could see his yellowing white shirt underneath. Eventually he got to our table…

Transient: What a lovely couple. How are you young folks doing tonight?
Me: Fine, thanks.
Transient: Enjoying your meal?
Me: Yeah it’s pretty good
My Head: This old freaker smells like rotting flesh and mothballs.
Transient: That’s wonderful. Well, my name is Earl Holding and I own this hotel. Please enjoy your stay and your dinner and feel free to notify me should you need anything at all.
Me: Um, ok.
My Head: Impossible.

For the love of all things pure and holy in the world, that was Earl HOLDING. The man that owns ski resorts, hotels, and SINCLAIR OIL. He’s the 59th richest man in the world according to Forbes, clocking in at just over $4.2 billion in net worth. And I thought he was a homeless man begging for spare change or a bite of my lettuce wedge? Earl Holding looked like a bum but lives like a king.

I did college the hard way. Instead of hammering it out when I was young I decided to play computer games ‘til 2:00 a.m. then sleep in my car instead of going to class. After many years of anguish and regret I finally got it done at age 29 courtesy of University of Phoenix. I unfortunately needed a humanities credit and settled for a Western Religions class. “Oh great”, I thought, “another godless philosophy nut to tell me my entire belief system is a farce.” My fears were confirmed the first night of class when I walked in and saw the instructor for the first time, sprawled on one chair with his feet kicked up on another. He was wearing very old corduroy pants and an olive green/burgundy plaid shirt. He had wavy parted hair down to his shoulders and a fairly rad Jesus beard. His style was actually fine by me, but the dude was wearing a Dallas Cowboys coat…so I knew he was pure evil.

The department head visited our class that night and welcomed us all. He issued a challenge. At the end of the five-week course we were to place our bets as to what religion the instructor actually was. Early on I thought it would be some Zen like eastern religion like Baha’i or Buddhist. Maybe Sai Baba. But as the class progressed I realized he was probably Christian and my mind finally settled on “non-denominational Christian.” It’s free, it’s easy, it’s positive, and it’s Christian. Two things were certain about this guy…all faiths were fair game. He respected and poked fun at all churches equally. And he was a fabulous teacher. Besides teaching he also worked as the chaplain to hospice and the draper prison, working specifically with death row and gang unit inmates. His stories were fascinating.

When the big final night arrived we were all anxious to get through our final exam and presentations so we could finally learn the identity of our unmasked but bearded stranger. People started randomly shouting out religions, “Methodist! Lutheran! Jewish! Atheist! Christian! Buddhist!” etc. He chuckled with each one and wrote them all on the board. After about 60 seconds of wrong guesses, someone in a back corner snickered and yelled out, “LDS!” “Ahhhhhhh”, the instructor replied, and wrote the letters L – D – S in big block letters on the board and circled it. He confirmed that he is indeed LDS and gave us a quick 60-second reason, essentially a testimony, of why he belongs to this church. Several mouths were agape. Here is a man that has dedicated his entire life to the study of Theology and Ethics in Theology. He studied in the Middle East, Cambridge, and exclusive US universities. And after twelve years of academic scrutiny this man had come to the same conclusion about faith that I had…minus all the study and dissection. This bearded hippie Cowboy fan was a dedicated and loving member of one of the most conservative, strict organized religions in the world. His name is Matt Fellows and he bore a strong, educated, enlightened witness to the truth of things that fellow academics routinely tear apart and curse as false.

I learned two interesting things from those experiences:

1) Books can’t be judged by their covers. As cliché as that may sound, it is completely true. A faded sweater doth not a pauper make, nor a Cowboys Coat a villain.
2) Books are judged by their covers. Everyone does it. It’s not fair. It’s ignorant and narrow-minded. But it’s true.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression, and first impressions are sometimes all it takes in a professional environment to make or break you. Earl Holding can afford to look like the Fisher King. I can’t. As sad as it may be, I need to keep up pretenses. I need to look like a million bucks until I MAKE my million bucks so I can finally dress and groom how I want to.

And what of the Microsoft Misfits? Collectively they built a $279 billion empire and changed the world.

Ryan Seacrest - 100 Million Percent Suspect

2009-01-15T11:46:00.004-07:00

American Idol is a guilty pleasure. I’m a self-admitted music snob, but there’s something about Idol that draws me in. I’ve loved watching young passionate people from all different walks of life put their lives on hold and risk public scrutiny and nationally televised rejection for a shot at the top. I love me some Idol.

I’ve been extremely entertained so far with the new season. The added judge, Kara, is a welcome change. Paula isn’t lit out of her gourd on muscle relaxers…yet. And the editing has been brilliant. By far the best use of humor, effects, and music out of all AI seasons to date. But what the hell is the deal with Seacrest?

Stuff Magazine calls Seacrest “the American poster boy for metrosexuality.” So how then do we explain the outfit featured Tuesday night? If that is the future of fashion then I’m resigning myself to full frumptitude here and now. Dude looked like every IT guy I’ve ever worked with, plaid green shirt tucked into very ill-fitting blue jeans.

There’s always been media speculation as to whether or not Ryan Seacrest is gay. For some that may be as silly a question as whether or not Richard Simmons putts from the rough. If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. But I think Seacrest fears what an outing would do to his career. He has never publicly said that he is gay. But I don’t think he has to. Bikini Girl spared him that effort on Tuesday night when she stalked and kissed him.

Let’s be honest…bikini girl isn’t ugly. I’m a happily married man with an eye single to the glory of my smokin’ hot bride, but bikini girl isn’t exactly impossible to look at. Judging by Seacrest’s face, however, you’d think that a leprous boil-covered three-eyed alien life-sucker was stalking his way to wrap its tentacles around his grill and impregnate him with an evil seed that would result in the destruction of humankind. The dude actually back-peddled. The actual kiss was incredibly awkward. In fact, the only more awkward kiss caught on film was between Michael Scott and Oscar in accounting. Memo to Seacrest: I fully understand that you may be gay. I fully understand that you may be acting like a metrosexual man that still digs chicks, and that act may be hard. But you’ve got to sell it better than that my man! When a hot chick in a small bikini wants to kiss you on national television, sack up and pretend you enjoy it. Imagine it’s Rupert Everett or Daniel Craig or Brian Dunkelman’s lips you are sucking on.

There is one other thing that has always driven me nuts on American Idol. These judges have no understanding of math and the practical application of percentages. You just can’t have more than 100% of something. If you put a strawberry rhubarb pie (my favorite) in front of my face and tell me to eat it, the absolute best I can manage is to eat every single atom of the pie, or 100%. I can’t manage 120% of the pie. I can’t magically conjure more pie than what is in front of me, no matter how badly I want to. And trust me….I want to. So when big dawg Randy Jackson says, “duuuude dawg, you can blow! Absolutely on this guy, 100 million percent. Good lookin’ out dude, welcome to Hollywoooood!” he’s really just showing that he’s an idiot. If you absolutely loved dawg and dawg had zero room to impress you further, then you could only be 100% in favor of the guy moving to the next round of competition. Not 200%. Not 6000%. And certainly not "a hundred million %." To illustrate my point, here are two of my favorite first auditions of all time on Idol. I’m a sucker for hippie blues:

Bad Randy (@3:00)

Good Randy (@1:37)

Sorry to disappoint you coach, but you can stop flipping out and chewing on my bleeding ass. I can’t give you the 150% you’re screaming for. There is no such thing as >100%. End of discussion, period. Laws of potential and kinetic energy dictate that my potential energy and motion will eventually translate to a measurement that equals 100%. It is physically freaking impossible for me to give you more than that potential when converted to action. It’s time for a new phraseology here…one that doesn’t involve math. Let’s use quantities of fruit.

*AI contestant auditions and kills it*
Randy: Wow, I didn’t expect that.
Paula: Yeah, that was really *twitch* awesome.
Simon: I thought it was really ratha’ karaoke if I’m being ‘onest.
Paula: Simon, you’re such a *twitch* rude jerk.
Simon: Enough, let’s get on with it shall we, I’m going to ‘ave to say no.
Paula: Whatever, I think you’ve got talent and a really nice tone to your voice. And I like you. You have a very *twitch* special aura. I say yes. Randy?
Randy: I say absolutely, 100 million satchels of bananas baby, welcome to Hollywooood!

Two Thoughts at 4:20

2009-01-12T17:17:00.006-07:00

Facebook has murdered the exclamation point. How many of those buggers do you think you need to slap onto the end of a sentence to make us understand that you REALLY mean what you are saying? Half the time it looks like a freaking bar code and I half expect to see a price at the end, i.e. “Josephine McSquiggly is having a super fun day!!!!iii!!!III!!!!!iiiI!, $19.95.” Sometimes there are several sentences on the wall post or status update that all end with an exclamation point. “Hey Tyler! Great to see you! You look so svelte!!! Are you working out?!!! Wicked beard! Facebook is so sweet!! Well, busy day! Gotta run!!! YAY!!!!” When I read that I picture that little squirrel from Over the Hedge that is so full of energy or caffeine that he can’t control himself. I see someone physically shaking and cutting himself, crying and laughing hysterically while he attempts to get his emotion onto the screen. Memo to Facebookers everywhere: There is no need to go postal with punctuation. Periods are fine. Commas are good. And a SINGLE exclamation point lets me know that your sentence means business.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I saw Gran Torino with a very good friend. It was likely one of the best 5 movies I’ve ever seen…lifetime, but that’s not really what I want to talk about. Nearly 1 minute before show time, a man and his wife quickly walk into the theater and sit down to watch the show. Incidentally this man is a public figure, an acquaintance of my friend, and holds a leadership position in their mutual LDS ward. Additionally this person is allegedly “preachy” and not terribly friendly. Big deal? No, not really. But the following day at the beginning of Sunday’s priesthood section, the guy stands up and says, “My wife and I went to a movie last night. We saw 'Marley and Me.' Pretty sad…the dog dies. But I’d recommend it.” Then sits down. Doubleyou-Tea-EFF.

To be fair I’ll list out the possibilities as I see them, followed with my own opinion:

1) Dude and wife go to Gran Torino. It’s not important whether they did or didn’t expect standard Clint Eastwood profanity and brilliance. At some point they walk out of the theater due to content and see Marley and Me instead.
2) Dude and wife go to Gran Torino. Even though we don’t notice it, they recognize my friend. They walk out of the picture at some point and see Marley and Me. Dude decides to make it known in church so my friend knows he didn’t sit through the entire picture and left on principle.
3) Dude and wife go to Gran Torino. They did or did not like it, but watched the whole thing. They never see my friend. Afterward, they decide to also see Marley and Me. Dude announces it in church because he genuinely enjoyed it and is recommending it.
4) Dude and wife go to Gran Torino, fully understanding what they were getting into. They never see my friend but possibly bump into other members of the flock. Or perhaps he makes a blanket statement in church because he doesn’t want anyone that may have seen him at Gateway to know he’d just seen a flawlessly awesome Eastwood movie replete with language and racial slurs.

My friend has his own opinion but also insists that I consider all possibilities. However, I heavily lean toward #4 due to the fact that Dude is “preachy”, unfriendly, and never ever talks about unchurchy things in church. The announcement was completely bizarre and totally out of his character. So why the lie? The encounter sparked a fascinating debate that I would like to touch on here and now.

Question: Why do people do the things they do in our local society/culture, and why do they feel they need to hide or lie about their behaviors or unpopular decisions? Does it come down to the individual’s choice, character, behavior, and history? Or is it a general societal pressure and guilt engrained by the culture itself?

Let’s take Dude as an example. He is married with a family. He is a public figure, easily recognizable by many people. He holds a leadership position in a religious organization that openly frowns on many activities and behaviors, including watching Gran Torino.

Assuming the worst for Dude, why does he feel that he needs to lie about going to the movie? Is it because as a public figure he feels that he needs to maintain a certain persona? Is it in his character to do one thing, and then hide it out of shame? Does the shame come from something particular within his self? Is dishonesty and sneakiness just part of his persona? Or was all of that learned and influenced by our strict, conservative, social system?

Let’s face it…there are many people in our Utah communities that are held to very specific and aggressive standards that, to the majority of the civilized world, are ridiculous and unreasonable. From very young ages we are taught to not do X X X X X and Y and Z and if any of those things are done then there is a very specific acknowledgment and penance process. The intent is to shape people to become obedient, worthy people full of principle and character. But once those people become adults, and start to make decisions as responsible grown-ups, shouldn’t the stigma surrounding choices and consequences change? Ultimately there is really only ONE person to answer to when all decisions are made and all is said and done. The judgments and opinions of others really don’t mean anything.

I don’t necessarily think those two options are mutually exclusive. But I can honestly say that I am so grateful to be comfortable in my skin and open with my decisions and actions. I am who I am. I do what I do and watch what I watch. I would have ZERO issue discussing Gran Torino with the bishop and I’d happily burn him my favorite Phish songs or pirated copy of Twilight. SHOULD I have watched the movie? Perhaps not. But it was an adult decision that I own and don’t hide from. I have no problem with folks telling me I shouldn’t have seen it…that’s their decision and their perspective and I highly respect it. I would hope for mutual acceptance and respect, but I don’t necessarily need it.

I can’t imagine living a life of lingering shame and constant secrecy.

Discuss…

I Finally Know What I Want to Be When I Grow Up. Clive J. Romney.

2009-01-07T16:03:00.005-07:00

“All I wanted was to sing to God. He gave me that longing... and then made me mute. Why? Tell me that. If He didn't want me to praise him with music, why implant the desire? Like a lust in my body! And then deny me the talent?“

- Antonio Salieri from Amadeus

Remember those aptitude tests you take in junior high and high school? You’re given an extensive set of multiple-choice questions that address how you handle certain situations:

“When working in a team setting, do you:”
A) Insist on leading
B) Prefer leading
C) Avoid leadership
D) Tell the team to “get bent” and hit Hardees.

We were always instructed to take these tests seriously and to answer honestly. And I did. I really applied myself to the test and made sure I didn’t mark answers for the kind of person I WANTED to be, but the kind of person that I WAS. Little wonder why, after completing the test, out of all of the possible careers to suggest, I was to consider a profession as a Circus Performer or Professional Athlete. Not a lot of money in the carnie game and I hear the field for pro athletes is pretty small.

Point of fact, there are two things that I really wanted to be when I grew up, regardless of what any aptitude test might say. A musician or a history teacher. Unfortunately I never saw either of them through, but I’m lucky enough to still dabble in music as a hobby and I still get to teach on Sundays. And I teach my kids. Like last week I got to teach Talmage that dwarves are real and they are grown in farms and plucked out of the earth by their beards like carrots. I’m fairly content in my professional life, but I still secretly envy those that had the courage to be teachers or the crazed will and determination to pursue music.

I had the absolute joy and privilege of meeting one Clive J. Romney last week at a “wrap” party for a Christmas production Sherri was involved in called “Echoes of Christmas.” I was sitting at a table going Doberman on a bowl of tasty ribs when Mr. Romney came over and said hello to Sherri and we were introduced. I already knew about Clive. I knew he had written all the original music for the production. I knew he was originally from Hunter and that he had a studio in his home. After a brief introduction and exchange of pleasantries I smile at him and said, “Mr. Romney, sir, you are living my dream.” Instead of politely nodding and saying something like “well, it’s been a great profession and I’m fortunate to do something I love”, he smiled right back at me, sat himself down next to my sauce-covered space and said “tell me about that!” I was totally off guard. He didn’t make the conversation about him; he wanted to make it about me, notwithstanding the half rib hanging from my mouth and barbeque sauce all over my paws.

So I dove in. I told him how music is the driving force in my life. How my mind goes blank when music is absent. If I’m in a car, there has to be music on or I get terribly uncomfortable. “That’s lovely dear, but could you please shut up…Jim Croce is on.” I told him how I studied piano as a lad and how I had many opportunities to use it and love it, and how I’d always wanted to play drums and guitar but never really had that option due to my mother…The Piano Nazi. I told him about my love of old jazz and improvisational barrier-breaking musical art.

His story was very similar to mine. He started playing stringed instruments and some keyboard as a young man and enjoyed it, but didn’t quite LIVE for it yet, until he and some others performed at a church function and heard a sound that forever changed him…applause. For me it was the attention from sweet hot chicks, but in both cases it was a manifestation of approval and appreciation for what we had created and shared.

I made the mistake of calling folk music “minimalist” and basic. He retorted by escorting my wife and me into a side room and demonstrating on his guitar how a simple folk melody can be transformed into a lovely and intricate piece of music.

We talked about music theory and basics of composition. We discussed boundaries and tendencies of scales and how our expectation allows for incredible improvisation, tempting the human ear with one expectation then taking the piece in an entirely different direction, “cheating” the ear. We talked about the depth, warmth, color, and emotion of music. I had rarely been given an opportunity to talk about something so important to me on such a deep level. I had found a kindred spirit.

Clive played in folk groups. He is proficient at guitar, bass, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, and holds his own at the keyboard. He played the drums all through school. And he is now a highly regarded and phenomenally talented arranger and composer of music.

I learned some brilliant things from our conversation:

A) You don’t need to be a prophet or an idiot savant to compose music. There isn’t necessarily “dictation from God.” Sometimes it just takes work and time. And there is nothing wrong with taking the ideas of others and applying them to your own work.
B) I’m not too old to make myself a musician.
C) Just because I’ve chosen a different path in life does not mean that I can’t still apply serious musical work to my path. A musician doesn’t have to work on music for music’s sake. I can create music and apply it to the life that I have. I can write songs about cookies, kids, or dwarf farms.
D) My obsessive passion for music is ok. I’m not alone.

My conversation with Clive Romney was one of those defining moments in life. Call it epiphanic. Awesome…I just invented another word. Clive gave me some names of brilliant musicians that teach music composition privately. I think I’m going to give it a go.

No more Salieri for me. I am Mozart.

Heavenly Grace (In 1080p)

2008-12-31T09:57:00.010-07:00

There are countless reasons why I was attracted to my wife, Sherri. She’s rockin’ hot. She has exquisite taste in Neil Diamond albums. She bakes a mean taco-casserole-thingy I lovingly call “Cheese Surprise.” And she’s full of redheaded spunk. Somewhere, I won’t say exactly where, on the list was the fact that she owned an off-the-hook TV and stereo system that I stood to inherit the instant I said “I do.” Included was a beautiful Sony 27” television, a 25-disc CD changer, very nice Pioneer speakers, and a beefy receiver. She bought the thing, which I shall now refer to as “The Behemoth”, in 1996. It was quite high end for its time and had to have cost close to $2000. It has served us well.

As time went by, technologies changed. Music was now being downloaded from the “World Wide Web” in a magical mystical format called mp3. In just 45 minutes I could download a whole song from this weird Internet page called “Napster.” I could then record those mp3 things on a CD with something called a “CD burner” in just 30 minutes time! Blank CDs only cost about $2.00 per disc and each recording would only fail once or twice. From start to finish we were simply looking at 10 hours of download time (which I could do while I slept) and 66 minutes of burn time, accounting for bad burns. And the CD only cost $6.00, including the failed attempts, which I so wittily called “coasters” (yarharhar!) The clear winner over the 10 minute drive and $12.99 at the record store. Right?

Time continued to pass, technology continued to improve, and equipment started to adapt. MP3 players, particularly iPods, made CD players obsolete. BOSE released speakers that were roughly 1/100th the size of our speakers and put out 10x the sound and 20x the clarity. Chips got smaller and so did the boxes that housed them. The Behemoth was fast becoming an outdated piece of machinery, much like the computers from the 60s that took up several rooms of space to house. Now my cell phone has more kung fu than those monsters.

A few years ago I saw my first plasma television and instantly thought, “where the hell is the rest of the TV?” I just saw a screen. Kind of like in the movie “Mannequin” when Kim Cattrall hears a stereo for the first time and says, “where do you hide the musicians?” I wanted to know where they were hiding the wizard that was making the screen glow. And it was brilliant! So clear. And this was just the beginning. Televisions were getting bigger and smaller at the same time. They are now at a point where you simply hang your TV on the wall, like a painting. I walked away from that television much like Wayne from his Fender Stratocaster, “you will be mine. Oh yes….you will be mine.” It was just a matter of time.

But our beloved Behemoth was an ox. For 12 years that sucker has plugged along. Sure, the inputs on the front were totally shorted out, the Reds were so bright that my retinas have been burned from my eyeballs, and it makes a terrifying “CLUNK” sound when you turn it on, but it still works. And as long as that TV works there will be no reason to replace it.

But then technology took another turn. The digital and HD ages started creating situations that were difficult for The Behemoth to survive, much less adapt to. Firstly, there was the announcement that all television broadcasts were going digital and older televisions would either need to be upgraded or buy a converter box that would allow the TV to get the signal. Secondly, media was being released at much higher quality levels that were designed for updated television sets. Try playing an XBOX game like Fable 2 or Banjo 3 on a 27” standard television. You need a freaking magnifying glass just to read the prompts.

I built up the courage and pleaded my case to my bride. It went over like a lead balloon. We talked about it and joked about it for close to a year. I begged and Sherri laughed. I’m sure it was cute to see me groveling and whimpering on the floor like a beaten cocker spaniel. However, during this stage of the game, all of our friends and most of our family had upgraded their TV sets and Sherri got to see them firsthand. And she was impressed. My position was strengthening.

This Christmas the planets aligned. The combination of some paltry inheritance money and Christmas cash from the parentals and Granny B set the stage for victory. Magically out of the blue left-field from nowhere, Sherri said “go buy your TV.” All she saw were scorch marks from my feet. I was gone…on my way to Circuit City.

The recession has not been kind to Circuit City. It is the most recent Old Yeller of the electronics industry…rabid and doomed. They’ve already filed bankruptcy and stores are being systematically shut down nationwide. So naturally this was a great time to take advantage. I was dead-set on a particular TV, a 46” Samsung. They didn’t have any in stock. In fact they had very little in stock, period. This was the day after Christmas and inventory was going out like crazy. While I was talking with the sales guy, someone brought a TV back that they got for Christmas. There was nothing wrong with it…it was just smaller than what they’d wanted. It was a 46” Sony and the sales rep asked if I’d consider it. We brought it out, fired it up, and looked at it next to the Samsung. I was well pleased. He knocked $200.00 off the price, wrapped it up in cellophane, and we loaded it up. Since then the unit has gone up $700.00 in price. I scored. Chalk it up to planet alignment yet again.

There is only one adjective appropriate when describing my experience watching my TV. Orgasmic. And I’ll no longer call it “The TV.” It deserves better than that. I shall henceforth call her “Grace.” Watching up-converted DVDs on Grace is heavenly. Experiencing 360 games on Grace is second only to sweet-sweet love. I am terrified to see how my body responds to Blue Ray on Grace, so I’m not even going to tempt that fate until I’ve learned to control myself during regular DVD viewing and XBOX games.

Grace is finally mine. And by the grace of Grace go I.

Please Pass the Crow

2008-12-29T09:47:00.005-07:00

Opinions are like vacuum cleaners. Most everyone has one and all of them suck. One of the many radities of blogging is the ability to slather my opinion on myriad topics all over the screen with very little accountability and hardly any occasion to defend my stance. I can also invent wicked new words like “radities.”

When I was in 6th grade my sister came running into the house after school sobbing. She was wet, dirty, bloodied and bruised. She said a jr. high school boy had roughed her up and thrown her in the canal as she walked home from school. I darted out of the house and sprinted up to the canal. There he was, with a henchman, picking on more kids. He was noticeably older than I. And bigger. I got in his face, and he got back in mine. Without warning I threw my best Clubber Lang right hook, square in his mouth. I’d never punched anyone before, but I’d seen enough action movies to know that when you punched someone in the face they fell down unconscious and your hand never hurt. Oddly, this 14-year-old heathen barely flinched and my hand felt like I’d crushed it with a pin roller. He simply raised his left hand to his lips, wiped the trickle of blood, and smirked. His eyes narrowed in anger. Mine widened in terror. I pivoted and ran as fast as I could the opposite way. He caught me of course and proceeded to ground-n-pound my cranium.

Blogging is similar to my experience confronting the bully. I can take my potshots, share my oft-bizzare and totally inappropriate opinion, then turn and run…hoping the informed reader doesn’t catch me and beat me down with silly things like facts, dates, and proof. But in the rare occasion that such a thing would happen, or an event occurs that proves me wrong, I’m boy-man enough to sack up and admit my error. So today I come before you, a humble faux-hawked, bearded boy-man, admitting that I was wrong.

Some months ago I posted this opinion piece out of frustration. For those that don’t want to read or re-read it, I was venting about Utah being a red state and how completely FUTILE it is to vote democrat (for president) in the land of the beehive. I then ranted about how cause crusaders waste their effort. For example, a person that lives a vegan lifestyle due to animal cruelty is a complete and total joke. My choosing to not buy the T-bone already packed in cellophane on the butcher’s shelf is not going to save the life of that cow. It is dead. And one person’s effort to affect that industry is laughable. You cannot change the system. End of story, period, goodbye.

I stand corrected.

Last week I caught this story about a University of Utah student named Tim DeChristopher that single-handedly defeated the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in southern Utah. The guy waltzed into an auction of oil and gas drilling leases and picked up a paddle. He raised the bidding paddle as often as he could, purchasing 22,000 acres of land with absolutely no intention or ability to pay. Further, he effectively drove up the prices by bidding so that other entities paid up to three times the reasonable price for the land. Eventually, the fuzz caught on and federal agents removed DeChristopher from the bidding room.

There are a few serious issues now for the BLM. Like any government agency, there is a tremendous amount of red tape to clear up and policy to follow. There is no “mulligan” here. They can’t just say, “ok, well now that the punk kid is gone, let’s start over.” There are also winning bidders that don’t want to run the risk of losing their bids. By the time the red tape clears and the dust settles, the Obama administration will be in power…and that land just isn’t going to come back up for sale. These people want that land for drilling, and if they have to pay inflated prices…so be it. As geologist Jason Blake so eloquently stated in the New York Times article, “they were hosed.”

Listen, I’m no environmentalist. I’m not saying that I don’t love and appreciate the environment, because I do. But I’m not convinced that saving land near preserved areas is more important than independence from foreign oil. I’d LOVE alternative energy sources, but drilling is technology and equipment that we already have in place. Funding terrorism through Middle East oil is evil, and I want to get away from that.

I have got to give much love and respect to Tim DeChristopher, even though I don’t necessarily agree with his philosophy. As evidenced by this television interview, he is clearly well spoken, intelligent, and informed. He completely understood what he was doing and is fully willing to take on whatever action the system takes. It looks like he has an imposing legal team ready to defend him pro bono and it has been rumored that environmentalist groups may come to his side and actually purchase the land that he bought at auction, clearing him from any personal financial responsibility. This guy is a hero to environmentalists. He’s not MY hero per se, but he has emphatically proven me wrong. It is clearly possible for a single voice to be heard when the speaker is smart, persistent, and a little devious.

Well-played young man. Well-played indeed.

"Sink or Swim!" sayeth the Pirates of Cydonia

2008-12-22T11:19:00.008-07:00

Hi, my name is Wounded Possum…and I am a pirate. YAAARRRR! Like it or hate it, I’m an avid rabid downloader. So let’s first address the elephant in the room and lay out the ethical dilemma behind music piracy:

True or False? Piracy = Theft
My answer? False, as illustrated in the diagram shown below.

Not only do I feel that piracy is not theft, but I believe music file sharing is the ultimate free advertising tool available to all artists…everywhere. A) It is no secret that the large majority of revenue from CD sales is never seen by artists and instead is gobbled up by record companies. Lyle Lovett has never seen a single red cent from an album sale through his Universal record deal inked out in 1985 (link). Those that DO actually profit from record sales see very little cash. B) There are several studies that show that record sales have greatly benefitted from The Piracy Era. The graphs shown here illustrate incredible spikes in album sales in the late 90s and early 00s, in the absolute height of the download age. Side note…I’ve never managed to win this argument against designers or artists. Their views on “intellectual property” are entirely different than anyone else’s. So if you are in this camp…I’m sorry.

After the initial boom and mass hysteria brought on by Napster and other early P2P file sharing services, the music industry panicked. Instead of indentifying the wave of the future, waxing its board, and hanging 10 straight to Profitsville, it decided to defiantly wade into the sea, beat its head against swells, and try to sue the wave. The mass foot-stamping chaos created by the music industry, and a VERY select few musicians, resembled a three-year-old rich kid going full-on Smeagol on the living room floor because his toy truck was Hasbro and not Tonka. It’s still a freaking truck…the source might be different, but the trucks are equally rad.

We, the people, saw the tantrum and reacted. Instead of using P2P as a new vehicle to preview and find music, we decided to snub the record label suits and pirate their product en masse. And by “we” I mean “I.” Bottom line, if I want to support an artist directly I’ll buy a ticket to their show. Or if it’s an indie artist on an indie label I’ll absolutely buy the disc. Indie labels take care of their people. A good percentage of my favorite bands are all taper-friendly anyhow and fully dig the digital revolution.

“Come and gather ‘round people wherever you roam and admit that the waters around you have grown, and accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you is worth savin’, then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone, for the times they are a-changin’.” -- Bob Dylan

Everyone was slow to change, but those that have are reaping the benefits. iTunes, Amazon.com, Last.FM, Pandora, Napster, and shrewd individual musicians have all adopted ways to help experience music inexpensively or free. The times are a-changin’, and only the quick and open-minded will stay afloat.

I found this article today on Comcast.net news that addresses a new industry shift, thanks to the Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises. It’s no secret…I’m a gamer and a fake-plastic-instrument junkie. Last May I was in Chicago for the National Restaurant Association food show. This is the “who’s who” for any self-respecting industry player in the food business. Coca Cola had a ginormous booth with a couple dozen sales reps floating in the area, handing out frosty beverages. Additionally, they had set up a 50ish” flat screen television and an XBOX 360 with Guitar Hero. I walked past the booth and saw two fellow industry professionals battling out to “School’s Out” on medium difficulty and they were tanking. Hard. “Bong, bing, dang, crash, bonk.” Note after note. So I weaseled my way up toward the front of the small crowd that had formed and watched. As the song ended, one of the suits handed me the guitar and said, “Give it a shot, it’s kind of fun.” “Ok, I’ll give it a try.” I fired up “Knights of Cydonia” on expert difficulty and shredded my way to a 5-star, 94% finish. By the time the song was over I had a gallery of spectators that would rival Tiger Woods putting for the win on the 18th at Augusta. I handed the controller back to the guy, whose jaw was to his knees, “what, do you play this for a LIVING?” “Nope. I have a 6-year old kid that plays.” And I walked away.

Thirty something business professionals play video games. Guitar Hero is the new squash.

Musicians are now starting to greatly benefit from the fake plastic rocker (FPR) games. That article, again linked here, suggests some incredible statistics:

• Many songs' sales have more than doubled after release in one of the games through individual download sales.
• Bands control revenue, NOT labels, due to image likeness and licensing deals that apply to FPRs.
• FPR sales more than doubled this year, $1.9 billion in 12 months.
• Aerosmith made more money off the June release of "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith" than either of its last two albums.
• EXPOSURE is huge.
• Artists from Nirvana to the Red Hot Chili Peppers have seen sales of their music more than double after being released on the games.
• FPRs protect artists that release music straight to the games. You actually have to buy the music through the console instead of ripping and burning.
• Users have downloaded game-playable songs more than 55 million times, some free but most around $1.99 each, since the games launched, and new titles come out each week.
• Promoters have brought the game into the real world with a "Rock Band Live" concert tour. Concert tracking magazine Pollstar said 2,900 fans paid $25 to $36 each to rock the Event Center at San Jose State.

A fine display of change and ingenuity. The music industry has almost fully completed its shift from CDs to more interesting and accessible forms of product dissemination. The waters have grown. There will be many-a-sunken stone, but those that have started swimmin’ will remain dry, popular, and rich.

Top 10 Albums of 2008

2008-12-18T14:11:00.003-07:00

Holy Freaking CARP (intentionally misspelled) that last post was long...

My friend Scott and brother Derall recently made their list of the best 10 albums released in 2008, subsequently hitting me up to post mine. I made up a list, with my own twist, and posted it to Facebook. I'd like to now post it here so you all can see what this music snob is listening to currently. I'd also like to draw attention from the verbose epic post of yesterday. So...copied and pasted from Facebook, with links to download respective songs:

===================

Derall and Scott, the pressure is unbearable. Quite frankly, I don’t have much of a clue what was released in 2008. I don’t really stay on top of new releases and instead prefer to find my music through The Bible or friend recommendations. So here is my list of new music TO ME in 2008. Some of it was found all by my lonesome, and some was referred by Derall and Paul. But in any case, here is my top 10 list of albums for 2008:

10) Marching Band – Spark Large
Released this year, Marching Band suggests a combination of Belle and Sebastian rhythms and Kings of Convenience voices. At times very catchy, eclectic instrumentation, and fun vocals. Sometimes reminds me of The Shins. Check out Gorgeous Behavior.

9) Neil Diamond – 12 Songs
If you don’t like Neil Diamond, you have no soul. Scientific fact. This album was recommended to me a few years back and I just never got around to giving it a listen until this year. This is Neil stripped down and raw. All acoustic and very bare. Reminds me of late Johnny Cash, where all hype and image were gone and all that was left was music in the soul. Rick Rubin is a god. Oh Mary FTW.

8) M. Ward – The Transfiguration of Vincent
Yes I know, I’m slow to catch the M. Ward train. I’d been trying for a year or so with Post War and Transistor Radio, but nothing grabbed me. I couldn’t tell if I was supposed to be impressed with guitar or vocals. Or both. Turned out to be neither. But the light finally came on this year with Transfiguration of Vincent, courtesy of the track Let's Dance. Minimalism at its finest.

7) Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha
My favorite Bird track is actually “MX Missiles”, but this album just has to be given a nod for its aggressive eccentricities. Not typical Bird in my opinion. Very much outside the box. I love the violin touch in Spare-Ohs.

6) Martin Sexton – Live Wide Open
My first exposure to Sexton was from a live version of “I Thought I Knew Ya” courtesy of www.archive.org, aka The Llama. Blues rock at its finest, and Martin has got some serious vocal range. Hallelujah FTW.

5) Bishop Allen – The Broken String
This is where the list gets brutal, like Sophie’s Choice of which child to keep and which to send to the gas chamber. This band is awesome. I got to see them live at Kilby Court and had a great time at the show. Very upbeat and great instrumentation, i.e. ukalele, steel guitar, marimba, xylophone, and those little piano things where you blow into one end with your mouth and press the keys with your fingers. Rain is a great example of he BA hook.

4) Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
Another band I got to see live this year. Many great things require some effort to appreciate, and Fleet Foxes took some effort for me. The recording clearly tries to evoke a baroque feel, so the instruments sound muted…but the harmonies are incredible. I mean retarded good. Several killer tracks to choose from here, but I’m going to go with Ragged Wood as my fav.

3) Great Lake Swimmers – Bodies and Minds
Unbelievable group here. Gorgeous vocals and very simple-but-lovely musicianship. Sometimes minimalist, but always pretty. I missed seeing these guys at Kilby this year and I may never forgive myself. Imaginary Bars wins as my favorite track from this particular album, but I’m including a link to their video for Rocky Spine from the album Ongiara simply for its hilarity and bass player's beard.

2) The Mountain Goats – Get Lonely / The Sunset Tree
I just can’t choose between these two albums, so I won’t. This very nearly made my #1 on the list. Brilliant, descriptive, quirky lyrics mixed with an odd voice that I just “get.” Almost always acoustic, usually odd, and typically stripped down, this band tells stories. Woke up New and Pale Green Things from their respective albums are songs I will NEVER tire of.

1) Band of Horses – Cease to Begin
One of the best tips I’ve ever had in the history of my musical lifetime was to check these guys out. Thanks Derall! I have no specifics or particulars. This is just a joy-filled sonic experience. Melodies and musicality. Each and every track is worth hearing and I’ve never once skipped a song when listening to this album. The best album in my word in 2008. I could make a strong case for “Detlef Schrempf” as my favorite from the album, but No One’s Gonna Love You is the track that really grabbed me first. I love the persistent little electric pulse throughout the song.

P. Tyler Pearson vs. Clarinerd85

2008-12-17T15:33:00.005-07:00

I stumbled upon a topic in the Amazon forums entitled “From a rookie music teacher: How do I get kids interested in more diverse music?” I thought it was an awesome topic but I found something in the original post to be a bit aggressive and controversial. It has since been edited. The original post, with edits, is found below:

Hello Amazon! This is my very first post in the forums, so I would like to take a moment to tell you a little about myself. I have just finished my internship for music education, and I will begin working at a K-8 school teaching elementary music and 6th grade music appreciation in January.

During my internship I worked at a high school for 8 weeks, and when teaching music appreciation, I had kids bring in their own music to share and occasionally tried to introduce them to something new. (A couple of kids also dared bring in something different, like Black Violin and Celtic Woman.) Everything was met with sarcasm, rudeness, closed-mindedness, and comments such as "Oh God" and "Why do we have to listen to this s***?"

Does anyone have any ideas on how to get 12-18-year-olds to open their minds and listen to music other than what is familiar to them?

[EDIT #2] Well, this has been fun. I guess in the future I need to be more careful about making a controversial statement. I left the original statement alone so people who want to follow the conversation, can. I seriously thought about deleting it though...

[EDIT #3] Controversial statement deleted! I am now in the process of studying the educational value and cultural significance of rap/hip-hop/urban music and how to expand upon it. I want to sincerely thank all of the people who have contributed to the discussion. Looking forward to hearing more of your ideas.

The controversial comment in Edit #3 was, “The music they brought in, by the way, was at least 90% rap and hip-hop. I'm sorry, but that isn't really music. Anyone can turn on a synthesizer and talk in rhythm. About the only true musical qualities that stuff has is beat and rhythm.”

My reply was on the 4th page of the thread, several people before me replied and took offense to the comment about hip-hop. I left that topic largely alone at this point, but wanted to share my ideas pertaining to the original question:

What an awesome thread. I am a huge believer in "good music" and I detest the argument that "music is relative, and if I like it that makes it good to ME." That is complete and total hogwash. There are very specific components of music that make it "good."

I will not get involved in the rap debate, but I will say this... Kids are drawn to to music with intense rhythms and beats because of the way it makes them FEEL. The reason your students are unable to explain the music they listen to is because they aren't paying any attention to it. They only know how the overall piece makes them feel and that's all they care about.

From a very young age I started to dissect music. I was listening to Simon and Garfunkel, Grateful Dead, and The Who. Ever since I have appreciated music on three different levels.

1) Musicality. Just WHAT is going on here? I listen for the bass line, rhythm patterns, and odd guitar work. I try and identify just what instruments are being played. Key changes, mood shifts, different tempos, atonal qualities.
2) Lyrics. Is there poetic value to what I'm listening to? Is the artist speaking metaphorically? What kind of emotion and social message might be behind what I'm hearing?
3) Vibe. Let's face it, music makes you feel things. What kind of mood or vibe is being put across here? Am I supposed to feel angry, aware, sad, or excited?

My suggestion is this, allow your students to dissect music. Bring in something somewhat challenging, but not impossible. For lyrical quality have them check out Dylan, Seeger, Cat Stevens. Play "Where do the Children Play" and divide the class into groups to come up with what they think the message of the piece is? For musicality allow them to listen to Peart or Ginger Baker or Gene Kruppa or Buddy Rich on the drums, Clapton or Page or Metheney or Charlie Hunter on guitar, Flea or Claypoole or Sting on the bass. There is some great video showing these master musicians at work as well. Encourage them to identify the various aspects that make that song what it is. Analyze the lyrics and the musicality of what they hear. Put on some Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young to showcase how the voice as an instrument and how vocal instruments can blend.

Then afterward, have them present THEIR music in the same light. Encourage them to pick out what is great lyrically about Lil' Wayne. What about the rhythm and beat is INTERESTING. Because there most definitely is a degree of perspective when it comes to music. They will most definitely have a different perspective and a whole new agenda when listening to music they've been hearing for years. And rap can be great. Public Enemy's "Fear of a Black Planet" shares a social message just as strong as Dylan's "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan." You and I might not get the message as clearly as others, but the political value is there. Chuck D has been hailed by myriad critics as being one of the greatest lyricists of modern times.

There was no reply from Clarinerd to my response. She must have missed it. After my post, many many more rap-lovers joined the fray, making some incredibly intelligent statements about why rap and hip-hop genres are most certainly “real music.” Clarinerd85 wouldn’t budge though. She made point after point about why rap is not music, but started to contradict herself in many places. I’m not a rapper, but I had to get involved. She was being incredibly closed-minded. I probably got a little too heated myself:

Clarinerd 85, Clearly you are very polite and articulate. You obviously know the music theory that has been taught to you. But it is also clear that "academia" has polluted your perspective as it has so many other bright minds. Just because you don't understand something does not give you the right to discount it. You are so quick to discount an entire genre of music that you just...don't...understand. I don't understand or care for country music, but I have the decency to not broadly label it as bad music. You have been contradicting yourself throughout this entire thread.

"Thanks Theresa. I hope to have them understand that as well, but even with people in this forum it's hard to get them to think outside the box a little bit. But I don't give up easily. :)" Hello pot, I'm kettle.

You openly dismiss a widely accepted genre of MUSIC as *not* being music, yet don't understand why people rush to defend it. You cite the fact that rap can be done without music as being a characteristic that makes it *not* music. Yet you have stated in this long and now-painful thread that the voice is an instrument. You wouldn't tell me that barbershop is *not* music because there is no backing music. And please don't say that "rap is different because there is no musicality to the voice, it's just spoken word." There are other genres of music that incorporate monotone patterns that you would defend to the death as being music.

There are avant garde, experimental artists that are TAUGHT at the collegiate level as being musicians that give no regard to rule or structure, yet that extreme end of the spectrum is no doubt accepted by you. So what then is wrong with the minimalist nature of rap? I learned of an experimental musician in college whose famous piece involved walking out to a piano, letting the pages of sheet music fall to the floor, bowing to the audience, and leaving the stage. That is taught in college. As music.

And let's be fair and responsible here. You are not saying that you don't understand rap music. You CLEARLY stated in your original post that rap music "is not real music." That is insulting to music as an art. Time and again you pull the "you clearly don't understand the point of the question" card, but your lack of regard to a fully legitimate, accepted, often-brilliant form of music has facilitated this justified hi-jacking.

The glaring fact, as I see it, is that until you are able to take your own advice and "think outside the box" you will never be able to reach your students and open them up to new things. You are trolling the Amazon.com forums. Did you think you would just get passive responses and nothing but brilliant golden advice? I'd suggest taking this discussion up with fellow academics who likely share your opinions because it doesn't appear that you are open to others.

She didn’t miss this one. She replied quite quickly:

Tyler, I wish you would have read at least some of the discussion before deciding to pass judgement on me or my alleged non-acceptance or misunderstanding of rap music. I have openly welcomed suggestions for rap music, and have spent the past few days on Imeem looking up songs and artists that people have suggested. I have also admitted -- many times -- that the problem could be I just have not been exposed to good rap music, which is why I wanted people to recommend what they like in the first place. (And you would be able to see that most people have said the Top 40's and commercial rap, which is evidently all I have ever heard, is a bad place to start.) As I told Jason, I am grateful for the links he posted, because I found them very helpful and eye-opening, and I have started keeping a list of songs that I could use in an academic setting (i.e. don't have words or themes that could get me fired). You are sitting here scolding me because you think *I* am the one that is not open-minded, meanwhile I am taking MY time off to do research and hear suggestions from other people on how to improve my already-successful course. What I do NOT appreciate is people telling me I should teach rap to the exclusion of everything else, which is not appropriate and that WOULD be closed-minded. How is that any different from teaching strictly Baroque music? Answer: it's not.

I hate traditional music-appreciation courses just as much as the next person, which is why I am spending time looking for new ideas. That is why I have done things like let my STUDENTS bring in music of their choosing, let THEM decide which artists they would like to research and learn about, and most importantly, let THEM create THEIR OWN music. I even let them bring in Rock Band a couple of times so we could discuss the musical intent behind the video game. Clearly, I am very student-centered. However, I also expect them to let ME teach once in a while. There's nothing wrong with me expecting my kids to expand their listening repertoire, just as there is nothing wrong with you, and others like you, who expect me to learn about rap.

One last thing: You completely took what I said about rap existing outside of music the wrong way. It was meant to be complimentary, not to say that it isn't music if there is no synthesizer in the background. There is something to be said about people who can maintain a beat and rhythm with no help from a machine. But I guess I will have to go back and rewrite that post since it didn't come across that way.

Now Tyler, if you want to offer suggestions to help me, please do. But if you are going to continue making accusations based on one line in a post that was written two days ago, and which I have learned a hell of a lot from since then, please don't reply any more. Besides, if you really think I'm trolling instead of learning, you wouldn't want to encourage me anyway.

The gauntlet had been thrown down. And she misspelled "judgment" which I reacted to like a shark smelling blood:

1) I've read the entire discussion. It started out as an interesting topic with great feedback. And has derailed into a (now) 7-page epic hi-jacking by the angry hip-hop nation, to which I do NOT belong.

2) You are not open-minded. You've repeatedly stated your reasons for claiming that rap is not good music. Hence your constant and repeated contradictions. "Rap isn't music, er maybe I don't know enough about it, er anyone can rap, er I just don't get it, er" on and on and on.

3) You have no sense of accountability in this post. You expect other people to conform to your standards simply because you are the OP. Early on in this discussion, someone got heated in the topic. You came down hard enough to force the poster to tuck tail and apologize. On a public forum! I was embarrassed. You respond to heated criticism with frank, heated, scathing responses. Instead of rewriting muddy thoughts and rationalizing awful broad-stroke stereotypes, you may want to swallow some of your preachy pride and genuinely apologize for offending the rappers on these boards. Or at the very least stop expecting people to behave. On the internet. /boggle

4) I offered my suggestions, see page 4. Many of them. Back when I thought this debacle had value. I can give you no true suggestions for rap to listen to, since I don't listen to it myself. But I don't have the audacity to tell strangers that it's not music...

5) Don't pretend that OP makes you the almighty dictator of what is and isn't said in this topic. You have absolutely ZERO right to tell people to not post. Face it...your research experiment is replete with epic failure. You may want to cut your losses, take the few tidbits of information you found valuable, and move along. For many like myself, the primary purpose of this post has been completely lost to the incredibly high lack of tolerance, understanding, and education of music foreign to you. If you don't want me to post, don't reply to my comments. Rest assured I will always reply to you.

6) I enjoy feeding floundering trolls. *lobs another sheep*

Pwnt. She had to quit at this point, right? That had to have crushed her soul. Not so! Clarinerd has some scrap in her!:

1.) It has been hi-jacked by a few people from the "angry hip-hop nation." Most people, however, have been very helpful, even if they don't agree with my original assessment of rap. I'm sorry those few people have made this painful for you.

2.) I stated originally that I felt rap was not a form of music, and later on put those thoughts into words. Not because I felt like someone should agree with me, but because I wanted people to point out what I was doing wrong. And they did. Clearly I do have a lot of learn about rap, and I am making the effort to do so. Isn't that what is important, even if you didn't agree with my original statement?

3.) I don't expect people to conform to whatever standards you think I am trying to enforce, but I am also not obligated to respond to people who choose to be rude. And if some of my comments come across as scathing, it's because I do not want to be treated that way. You're the one who said I was polite and articulate; now you say I'm scathing? Who's wavering now? :-\

4.) I found your post and reread it, and I appreciate you taking the time to give me suggestions. Just as I appreciate every other person who has given me suggestions to add to my listening repertoire or add to my curriculum. I am sorry that my original statement, which I have said is wrong, still continues to offend you. Really.

5.) I am so sorry that my asking you not to post any more offended you so much. Please feel free to post as much as you want. My "research experiment" has actually been quite helpful. As a result of this thread, I have found new music to introduce to my students, new links between rap and other forms of music, and new ideas to add to my classroom and curriculum. Not to mention it has motivated me to find the educational value of rap for myself as well as my students. That is a lot of information I would have otherwise not had. I'm sorry that my efforts to educate myself about rap music has come across as intolerant to you. I'm glad you will always reply to me... I learn a lot more from people who disagree with me than from people who agree with me.

6.) Bahhhhhhhhhhhh. ;)

Well-played. I have to respect her now. She is holding her own. I can either get vicious now, or back off. I was the only one getting nasty on the board, and I don’t want to look like the bully. So I backed off:

Clarinerd85, I actually really like you. You're smart, well written, passionate about music, and you stick to your guns. I think if we were to meet each other by chance in an airport during a painfully long layover, we'd likely enjoy each others' company. I'm sure we'd talk about music.

A) I'll not lie. This discussion has indeed become painful.

B) Well stated. I understand completely and rescind my previous statements about your closed-mindedness.

C) I think it's perfectly reasonable for a person to be polite, articulate, AND scathing. You've established quite clearly in text that you tend to respond to complimentary replies (within the framework of your expectation) with politeness and grace. You have also shown that when someone comes at you with something less-than-complimentary, outside of your framework, you drop a nice little hammer. I am the exact same way. In your follow up to my second post you implied that I didn't read the discussion, didn't understand what I did read, revealed that you hadn't read (or didn't remember, to be fair) my original reply, and asked me to shut up. Our styles of reaction are similar. When someone drops a hammer on me, I look for a bigger hammer to drop.

D) A clear, concise, and obviously sincere apology. A high-road example of open-mindedness.

E) I'm glad that you are getting good information for your class, because I really truly and completely hope that kids get a good musical education. There is so much more to the art of music than what we hear on the radio. I think you care about the kids and care about their education AND care about music.

F) This response made me grin. I'm a huge fan of smilies. Shows you have a sense of humor.

To sum up, I leave you with this. And I'll only state opinion. I think music is the tie that binds. It is a universal language that touches every soul in one way or another. It is unfair to blanket an entire genre of music as being bad, or even worse, not being real music. To be clear, I don't think you are doing that...but at first I thought you were. My wife is a Celine Dion and Barry Manilow enthusiast. I'd personally rather be kicked repeatedly in the groin by a rabid mountain goat than listen to anything by those two, but I can't label it as being "bad" or "not music." Even William Shatner's albums, which are very very bad, still deserve to be called "real music."

I wish you the best with your class. I'm sure you'll do great. And I'll be looking for Clarinerd85 in airports all over the country.

I could have dragged it out, but it looked like Ms. Clarinerd85 was extending an olive branch of some sort. She edited the original post and many of her more scathing comments to replies. And finally responded thus:

AA.) I'm glad you like me. I like you too. ;)

A.) If you think this is painful, try standing in front of 28 teenagers for the first time and asking them what they want to learn and how. That is a good reason not to let them bring weapons to school...

B.) Thanks.

C.) I didn't remember your original reply, no. But I did reread it, and probably will many more times.

D.) :)

E.) I sincerely and passionately care about all of my students and their education... otherwise I wouldn't put myself in this position to begin with. Thanks for acknowledging that.

F.) :D

FF.) Thanks for sharing. I really do appreciate you taking the time to share your views. See you at the airport.

Here endeth the flame war between P. Tyler Pearson and Clarinerd85. I call it a draw.

Scrooge Ain't Got Nuttin' On Me

2008-12-16T10:43:00.006-07:00

Last year I was completely, totally, and overwhelmingly STOKED for Christmas. I’m not sure why. Ok, that’s a lie. “The family” was getting an XBOX from Santa Claus and “the family” was planning to play Guitar Hero until its fingers bled. I couldn’t wait for Christmas morning to come. I had lights hung on the house by Thanksgiving and both trees were up and decorated before December 1st. I lived off of eggnog and ham. I had Christmas slush every night, a delightful concoction made from various citrusy fruits, Sprite, and bags of sugar. I watched Albert Finney’s “Scrooge”, “Christmas Vacation”, and “Ernest Saves Christmas” several times leading up to Christmas. I actually played Christmas tunes in the car and sang them out loud at work. It was the first holiday season since my young boyhood where I felt that kind of excitement.

How then is it possible for me to be so apathetic this year? The lights never made it on the house and the trees just went up yesterday, only 9 days before the big day. Christmas music on the radio nauseates me. I have no appreciation or patience for the frumpy rhinestoned sweaters the ladies wear at work. I haven’t once said “happy holidays” or “merry Christmas” to a single person. Even the late great Jim Varney, aka Ernest P. Worrell, can’t get me in the spirit.

Here’s an example of my humbuginess in action. My boss is not a big believer in sales team activities, i.e. sales meetings. Incidentally we rarely get a chance to bond together and spend time getting to know one another outside of “cookie talk.” Once a year the boss takes us all out to lunch…at Christmas time. Last week he sent an email asking for suggestions on where to do lunch. My suggestion was Charlie Chow’s and it looked like that was where we were headed. I was thrilled! The morning of lunch day, a co-worker sent out an email that said “In the spirit of Christmas and the time of ‘giving’, I suggest we forego our lunch and donate what we’d have spent to the Utah food bank or local charity. Your thoughts?” My boss responded, “I think that’s a great idea. What do the rest of you think?” My despair drove deeper and deeper, my frustration burned hotter and hotter as I read reply after reply, “What a wonderful idea!” and “I agree completely!” Well I didn’t freaking agree. I was pissed. I couldn’t even bring myself to answer. I didn’t want to lie and I didn’t want to tell the truth. I didn’t give a rat’s @$$ about helping the poor in that moment; I donate money on a monthly basis to help those less fortunate than I, what the HELL do you people do regularly to help feed mouths? Instead, you fair-weather losers want to pay your alms in public for the whole world to see and hijack MY Christmas lunch to support your pathetic façade of giving and charity?! BOGUS! I was hot.

My boss called that afternoon and said, “I never heard back from you on the Christmas lunch.” “That’s because my opinion wouldn’t be popular, boss.” He laughed, “Well tell me what you feel?” So I told him, without all the detail of course. He understood and offered to bring in pizza for us while still making a charitable donation.

This isn’t like me!!! I grew up in a family that always did special things for people at Christmas time. I'm embarrassed that I thought those thoughts and was unwilling to do a really GOOD thing at an important and sensitive time of year. So what's my deal?! I'll venture a few guesses:

1) The death of Sherri’s grandma and subsequent fallout with the world’s biggest SCUMWAD all happened at the end of November when people first start gearing up for the Christmas season. It’s hard to get into the spirit when Sadness and Disgust have pitched tents in your heart.

2) The weather. It felt like September up until this past weekend when we were brutally blasted into mid-January. Bloody cold and icy snow. Compound that with the city of West Jordan’s complete lack of attention to snow removal in my neighborhood. Anger just made camp next to Sadness and Disgust.

3) A fair percentage of the world feels some economic strain during Christmas time and I’ll readily lump myself into that statistic. Paired with a lovely recession bordering on depression, financial stress can create some wicked ugliness. Worry just rolled up in the Winnebago to hang with Anger, Sadness, and Disgust. Sounds like a party.

4) Maidie is just now recovering from her 5th ear infection in 4 months. And she’s only 8 months old. Eric had so many this year that we were forced to put tubes in his ears and remove his Adenoids two weeks ago. We’ve had some seriously sick and grumpy kids the past few weeks, all close to the time of Yule. My company is also moving from a traditional health insurance plan to a high deductible plan with a health savings account; a plan that I don’t fully understand or endorse. Despair and Agitation are now stoking the fire at Camp Apathy.

Sadness, Disgust, Anger, Worry, Despair, and Agitation are all squatting in my apathetic heart. Not a lot of room at camp for Happiness, Joy, Giving, and Seasons-freaking-Greetings. I need a miracle on 34th street or some little girl to evict the squatters with her innocent “every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings” because as I see it now, the angels are having their wings yanked and torn off by bloodthirsty humbugs.

Image Overhaul

2008-12-12T15:23:00.005-07:00

To kick off the new blogging season I've decided to massively overhaul my gnarly imagery, both personally and blogally. I've had a number of readers tell me that my blog was hard to read. Let's face it...stark white text on a dark black background with psychedelic swirlies in the periphery creates a laborious and likely painful reading experience. But I was proud of my layout! I'd created it from scratch and even made my little "Demented Dreamer" logo all by my onesie in Photoshop from a cropped picture of Talmage buried in the leaves. I didn't expect many people other than myself to read the thing and hey...I'm a psychedelic sort of dude. Sometimes I'd just pull up my own blog and stare at it whilst listening to Strawberry Alarm Clock. Now that I know there are actual readers that probably value their eyesight, I've decided to make it much more friendly to the occulars. I've also added a few new touches to the sidebar:

- A picture of The Possum himself.
- A list of blog followers, which at the current time fight in an army of TWO.
- A link to my latest tweet from Twitter.
- A link to the day's Woot. Those of you unfamiliar with Woot, this is something you need to check out. One deal for one day. Sometimes it's complete and total carp (l33tsp34k for "crap") but sometimes it's an incredible buy that sells out in a matter of hours. Once it sells, it's down for the day. This is not an ad! I'm just addicted to Woot and am looking to spread the addiction.

I hope you like the changes to the site.

Further, I've decided to overhaul my own personal physical image. My entire life, for the most part, I've parted my hair. Everyone parted their bloody hair in the '80s and my dad has parted his hair the same way since 1955. There are genetics at work here people. It wouldn't matter what the current hip style may be, no matter how nerdly and ghastly the part may look, if there is hair on my head and it is long enough... I'll part it. It's a force stronger than me, like gravity and love. The brush almost acts on its own, independently of my hand. So yesterday I went to Kristy at Salon di Jon and said "Cut me Mick! Chop this hair so short that a part would be a total impossibility!" And chop she did. When I left I asked her to style it in a groovy fauxhawk so as to get a nice little rise out of Sherri. To my surprise, my lovely bride quite liked the new doo. So I tested it today at work, and lo and behold...The Cookie Chicks dig it. So hey, maybe the hawk can stay.

You also probably wondered what Grizzly Adams was doing on my Blogger page. Well, believe it or not, the manly-looking bearded one is actually me! Every year I try and grow a beard for a few weeks to see if it's any less pathetic than the year before. And every year it isn't. This year it seems to be a little more full than 2007, but it's still not going to win me any Cat Stevens lookalike contests. But I don't care. When people ask about it I just simply say, "it's cold outside" instead of telling them the real reason, which is that I'm secretly and subconsciously trying to piss off my old man. I'd bet a dollar to a doughnut that he shakes his head and snickers the instant he sees me tonight at the dance concert, and at some point during the course of the night will discreetly mention that "appearance is crucial in the business world." Discreet huh? Why don't you just hold me down and go at my face with a weedwacker pop! Ultimately I leave it to you, dear reader, to judge. Sam Beam or Jim Beam?

Final Post, 2008

2008-12-04T15:33:00.002-07:00

For all intents and purposes, this is my last post for the year. I’ve simultaneously been creating a book courtesy of Blurb that will be a collection of blog posts for the year. So instead of blogging based on a calendar year, I’ll create the Tylerean calendar system and make it start and end whenever I bloody well please. That way I’ll have my book before Christmas.

I think this was a successful virgin year for the blog. I’ve been able to vent, ramble, create, expound, hypothesize, rant, write, and rant. And write. It has been tremendous fun and I hope the wellspring of ideas and oddities doesn’t dry up soon. Thank you all for reading. In parting, I’d like to list some of my favorite comments from various readers over the past year:

===============

“You will greatly increase his chance of successfully becoming a productive member of society by eliminating He-Man from the show list. By the way, you would make a great teacher.” -- Brian (Post: El Destructo)

“You’re totally gay.” -- Paul (Post: Dress Shirt Shopping)

“Wow brother...that is a truly disturbing story. It somehow makes me feel much better about myself though. Thanks.” -- Sister (Post: Rotisserie Chickens and the Lost Ark)

“I have to agree with you. WOULD it matter if we voted Obama? (not that I would in a million years, but Hey---). Look at Mattheson. No one thought he would ever get elected because he was Democrat... or Mayor Rocky.... You're right about LDS and republicans though. My father-in-law once said that (Jason's mom's mom) Grandma Putnam would vote AGAINST Jesus if he ran as a Democrat.” -- Mandy (Post: Little Blue Spruce)

“Wow! I thought I would stop by to take a quick read and was really surprised to find what deep thinker you are. Your wheels must be turning 24/7. Have you always had so much on your mind?” -- Lisa (Post: Decadence Perfected – Redux)

“Come now. My dad wasn't that bad. I think you imagination and time has done something to your memory. Besides, he loves me and wanted to make sure that he did all that he could to protect me. No, I'm not mad/upset that you used your experience with my father on your blog site. I actually think it's very funny - your personal comments on the situation. Just remember this for your daughter(s).” -- Cori (Post: For Fathers of Daughters – Dennis Park at the Plate)

“I think you are being very harsh towards your parents. They are wonderful people who actually still have all of their teeth! Remember, we brought you into this world ... we can take you back out!” -- Dad (Post: Dentist Rant)

“Tyler, I just wanted to tell you that I check out your blog frequently and I think you are a fabulous writer. I can't remember exactly why I looked at your blog the first time, but I was so entertained by your post at that time, that I keep reading. I hope that doesn't bother you. But, for my entertainment purposes, I hope you will continue to use your blog as your creative writing outlet. And just for the record, my favorite post was the one about your junior high school teacher hitting your desk with the his ruler, flipping your math book over, and so on and so forth. You had both Chris & I almost crying we were laughing so hard.” -- Sara (Post: The Blogosphere – Empowerment, Endangerment, Entertainment)

“So....is Clay Aiken the man, or the woman? I'm betting on woman, just look at the picture you posted!!” -- Sherri (Post: Random Thoughts on a Friday)

“Put me down for a dozen Firework scented candles when you get that going.” -- Paul (Post: The Cynic and the Optimist)

“Your blog is always an interesting read, in fact my mom has linked over from my blog to yours and has become a lurker of Tyler's oddities. My dad and I were just talking about Prof. Pausch today. I want to put a little rock climbing wall in the basement and I kind of thought maybe that was too extreme but my dad used the example of Pausch drawing on the walls and said "that's what houses are for." So, I am going to do it!” -- Amy J. (Post: Lift Where You Stand)

“Amen to everything you said there brother. I was teased plenty, maybe because I never even tried the football thing.” -- Jason (Post: Piano – The Ultimate Chick Magnet)

“Tyler, I just read everything you posted about my dad to my sister and my dad right here in the hospital room. I laughed and cried. This is amazing what you have done and I can't thank you enough for your thoughts and your friendship with my dad. Everything you said is true about him and our family. He is a wonderful and good man. Trust me, we have wondered why as well. We are very grateful for every little bit we get each day and continue to pray for his full recovery also. I've never met you but I can tell how much you respect and love my dad. Thank you so much for this blog to pay tribute to him and help us to laugh (and cry). He'll be back, it'll just take some time. Please keep praying for him! THANK YOU AGAIN!!!” -- Jeny (Post: My Friend Levi)

“If Janice Kapp Perry and Michael Mclean should surrender their rights to their music to make it more affordable for you to listen to, why did I just pay 75.00 a ticket to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. As a friend of a musician who spends hours and hours writing music, I believe the little he makes from "high priced" CD sales he well deserves.. and if I want to hear more music from him I have to pay the price or take the chance that he wont produce more music. ggeeeeezzz mormons are cheap.” -- Anonymous (Post: Filthy Lucre)

“Technically, English is getting in your way, not physics. Physics doesn't enter the picture until you have an actual force you want to describe as irresistable or an actual object you want to describe as immovable. :)” -- Jacob (Post: Dead Duck Delivery, Godzilla Snow Havoc, Unstoppable vs. Immovable, and Iocaine Tea)

===============

Passing the Smell Test

2008-11-29T11:06:00.005-07:00

My mother was a clever parenter. As a young kid my mom would lure me outside to play, then quickly go back in the house and lock the doors. I really couldn't ask for more though. I grew up on a full acre of land with fruit trees, swing sets, trampolines, and a tennis court. Every once in a while though I'd get thirsty and knock on the door, "Mom, I'm thirsty!" "The hose is right over there" as she pointed and smiled. Sandwiches and lemonade would be delivered via the doggy door at lunchtime and the doors would open again just in time for dinner. Now that I'm an adult with kids of my own I see her wisdom and brilliance. She gave me the opportunity to explore and have fun while giving her time to get things done in the house without the constant fighting, bickering, and destruction that typically came with me around my sisters.

As I grew older her ingenuity and tenacity evolved. I am convinced that it is completely impossible to pull a fast one on my mother. She claims her "holy ghost tells her stuff." I say no. It's a constant, unrelenting, fierce process of checking homework, reading notes, rifling through drawers, calling parents to check up on me, tailing me to school, and hiring the NSA to keep a satellite bead on me at all times. I always thought the unmarked black van parked outside all my extracuriculars was odd. Personal privacy was a foreign concept. As long as I lived under that roof, my stuff was her stuff and my life was hers.

I distanced myself as a teenager and mom had to reinvent her sleuthiness. Her personal space invasions became more discreet and never confrontational. And she invented "The Smell Test." The nose cannot be fooled. My silver tongue could lead her down many paths of ridiculousness, but a quick whiff would confirm or deny anything I said...

"So where did you go tonight Ty?"
"Oh, this dude named Travis had a party."
"Was it a good party?"
"Of course mom, we played bridge and pin the tail on the donkey and danced to the soundtrack to 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.' Then we sat around and discussed what college courses could best help us accomplish our goals in life and best prepare us for our missions." *gnarly sarcasm*
"Uh huh. Any drugs?"
"No way mom."
"Booze?"
"Oh please."
"Cigarettes?"
"Gross mom, no way."
"Good boy, come give your mother a hug."

Unbeknownst to me, until a later time, this was no ordinary hug. As we embraced she was smelling my clothes for cigarette odor, my neck for lipstick or girl-scent, and breath for liquor. She'd also look intensely at my eyes for unusual redness or high-gloss. How freaking brilliant is that? Sometimes I passed, sometimes I didn't. Sometimes she'd call me on it and sometimes she'd let it go. I appreciate my mother's love and her zeal for my well-being. She let me grow up on my own terms and in my own time. And mom, I promise I'm really close to the whole "growing up" thing.

Last night I got to put The Smell Test into practice for the very first time as a parent.

My youngest boy, Eric, is trouble. He's creative, inventive, destructive, and FUN. And lately he's had some dread fascination with his own urine. He'll whiz on just about anything. Walls, rugs, floors, carpet, etc. Sherri has found urine-soaked paper towels just hanging out on the floor. There is no apparent rhyme or reason to the wayward whizzing. Eric just doesn't want to conform to "The Man's" standards and pee in the toilet when there are so many other creative and fun places to place the stream.

So Thanksgiving night I'm in my office on the piano, laying down the bass and guitar tracks to Bread's "Aubrey" when Talmage starts to holler, "Daaaaad! I neeeed you!" I run out of the office in the direction of the screaming and find my two boys in the bathroom. Eric was standing over the toilet with his manhood in his left hand and the orange cup that had held my refreshing beverage in his right. "Eric, what are you doing buddy?" "Nuttin' dad." "Uh huh, why are you holding that cup?" "I'm not, dad." Eric has a problem with telling the truth, no matter how obvious the lie. "Right...Eric, did you go peepee in dad's cup?" "Nope." The toilet was finishing its flush at this point so there was no evidenciary support that his urine ever made it INTO the bowl. "Eric, give me the cup." All that was left was the remnants of some seemingly carbonated liquid in the bottom. I'd been drinking Mt. Dew, aka "The Nectar of the Gods", which didn't really help my cause in determining just what liquid might be in the cup since Dew and urine look identical. "Eric, tell me the truth right now, did you whiz in dad's cup?" "Nuh uh."

I had three options here. A) Forget about it and just wash the cup out, holding to the idea that igorance is bliss, B) drink what was left and hope for the best, or C) give it a whiff. Clearly B was a bad idea and I quickly tossed it out. I was left with A and C. The blue pill and the red. Would I take the blue pill and go about life as usual, never knowing and never caring about what REALITY was, continuing in a dreamstate of relative happiness unaware of TRUTH? Or would I pop the red pill and see just how far down the rabbit hole goes? I'm a truth guy. I went red. I inserted my schnozz and gave it a nice, big whiff.

We had green bean casserole for Thanksgiving. I was unaware that green beans had a similar effect on urine to that of asparagus. My smell test to the orange pee cup resulted in a fragrance that quite nearly knocked me on my can. It definitely was not the Nectar of the Gods clinging to the bottom of the cup. That was Eric's man scent...and it was strong. I debated washing the cup and sterilizing it so we could use it again, but I realized that was foolhardy...there's no way I could ever see an orange cup again and smell or taste anything other than salty Eric juice. I decided instead to burn the cup to a bubbling lump of molten plastic after exercising the demons from the artifact with my mighty priesthood.

If I'd been using my brain I would have cultivated a sample of the urine and sold it to sports therapists and boxing trainers globally. I guarantee no smelling salt in the universe is as potent as those few drops of Eric pee.

The Heroic Goat, Blades FTW, Dust Mite Madness, and Homeless Sven

2008-11-24T11:10:00.010-07:00

Max Hall is a hero. A win for Utah meant roughly $40 million dollars to the conference, $4 million of which would go to BYU. A win for BYU would kill the deal. So Mad Max, in his infinite wisdom, decided to deliberately throw the ball to red shirts instead of white ones. FIVE TIMES. Then fumble for good measure. And botch handoffs. Seriously, Cougars, what happened to your nards? Did the defense decide to load up on Ambien before the game? Max, my man, what is the deal with your helmet? Can you really see with it pulled down to your chin? You look like a weak, timid, pasty Darth Vader out there. You could have put me at quarterback, Collie at receiver, Unga at tailback, and our accounting department in the rest of the positions and we’d have done as well. Tricia in accounts receivable could have put more pressure on Johnson. Disgraceful.

I think wars should be fought with medieval weaponry. No more guns, tanks, Apaches, anti-aircraft missiles, or big red buttons. Let’s go back to the days of sword and shield, catapults, trebuchets, and archers. Too many people can die in the blink of an eye in this technology age. Let’s bring back the cavalry charge, the battlefield skirmishes, and the expendable French mercenaries. While we’re at it, let’s replace all existing guns in the country with bladed weapons and amend the constitution to have the “right to bear blades.” There would be far fewer hunting accidents and I wouldn’t expect to ever see the headline that reads “8-Year-Old Boy Tragically Killed by Errant Claymore at the Semi-Annual ‘Blade and Buckler’ Show.” It’s a lot harder to conceal a broadsword. Drive-bys would be much harder to pull off. There has to be something cold and impersonal about shooting someone. You have the luxury of distance and emotional disconnect. It’d be a different story if you had to get within 36” inches of the guy and best him with your rapier.

Did you know that 80% of the world’s population suffers NO allergy at all whatsoever? Naturally I have no statistical data to support this claim. In fact I found data that suggests that 54.6% of the US population tests positive to one or more allergens. I’d imagine that once you factor in the Chinese with their dietary standards and magical mystical zen-culture, that global number may drive down to the 20% suggested by my allergist. In any event, I’m malfortunate enough to be in the 1/100th percentile that suffers from EVERY allergy imaginable…year round including, but not limited to, grasses, trees, dust, dogs, cats, and sagebrush. Incidentally I am also allergic to green vegetables and work.

A teacher hands out completed term-end exams to her class. Bobby notices that he got a 75% on his test. This is a bit below his typical mark, but he’s ok with it since it was a gnarly test. He glances over at Sven’s sheet and sees the same 75% inked out in red. He’s a bit baffled. On the rare occasion that Sven is actually in class, he’s inhaling cigarette lighter fumes and trying to breathe fire while the teacher lectures. As Bobby looks around the room he notices that everyone in the class has the same 75% score. They begin to compare sheets and notice that their answers and scores are nowhere near equal, but they all had the same grade. “What’s the deal with this Mrs. Tidwell?” “Well, I averaged out your scores from low to high and came up with a mean score of 75%. This is part of our newly adopted ‘redistribution of grades’ initiative.” Mrs. Tidwell was drilled with over a dozen letters from angry parents.

Further, this anecdote was pulled from this blog:

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In a local restaurant my server had on a “Obama 08″ tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference–just imagine the coincidence.

When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need–the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.

I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I’ve decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.

At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more.

I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.

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Personally, as a homeless “Sven”, I’m all about redistribution of wealth. Bring on the benjamins baby!

Despicable People vs. Deplorable Acts

2008-11-21T09:46:00.006-07:00

I’ve been debating a question for the past several days, both internally within myself and outwardly with other people. In my quest for clarity I’ve had many opinions shared and I’ve seen many different angles that I otherwise would not have seen. Some support my own opinion, and many are in stark contrast. So, this post will be laid out thus: 1) the question, 2) some faux background, and 3) my own personal opinion.

The Question: Is it possible for a good person to do a despicable thing, or does the despicable act make that person despicable? No crime of passion. I’m talking about a carefully crafted, executed, and covered up despicable act.

There is a reason why murder is characterized as the “unpardonable sin.” There is no penance for murder. An important part of penance is restitution and it’s pretty hard to restore life to a dead carcass. When homicides go to trial, motive is intently studied. Was the killer caught up in a moment of passion? Was it self-defense? Were there any circumstances surrounding the event that would take self-control from the killer, like temporary insanity? Or did the perp carefully and meticulously plan the murder, execute it perfectly, then cover it up for several years before apprehension? If the latter, the offender is totally hosed. There is no coming back from that. No amount of weeping, wailing, or teeth gnashing is going to help the guy. Not even God almighty himself, the supreme master of love and compassion, is going to help the guy. I’m sure He still loves him as a son, but that son’s goose is cooked.

My example is nowhere near as grand as a murder. But the facts (as I perceive them) line up similarly. Someone(s) in my life has done a reprehensible thing. It was cold, it was callous, it was clearly planned and well executed, then covered up for four years. The act has caused many people pain, and is nearly impossible to completely repent of. The offender(s) are people I genuinely liked and considered to be good. So, back to the question; does the deplorable act, given its calculated nature, mean the people become deplorable, or are they still good people that have simply made a monumental mistake?

My take? They’re despicable to the core. A good tree cannot bear evil fruit, period, end of story, goodbye. Mistakes are unintended. Poor judgment doesn’t involve malice. Evil deeds create evil people.

Memo to despicable people everywhere. I believe in “Kristian Karma.” I believe there is a supreme being that blesses those that live good, righteous lives and I believe that those that do evil have blessings withheld. Mr. Despicable, I would not trade places with you for anything. Not for half a fortune. You may say that your conscience is clear and you sleep at night, but I know better than that. You feel the darkness in your heart. You see the walls closing in. You hear the echo of a deep, kind, sad voice filled with disappointment. I know your sleep is fitful and your dreams are haunted. You will look over your shoulder for the rest of your days, certain that you hear soft, heavy footsteps. You have failed epically. And I pity you.

Hopefully our creator is as compassionate as we think. You’ll need it. In a time and place other than this, you’ll be able to look some heartbroken people in their eye and explain. I know two big, brown eyes that will be very interested in that explanation. And you owe it to them.

Dead Duck Delivery, Godzilla Snow Havoc, Unstoppable vs. Immovable, and Iocaine Tea.

2008-11-10T15:06:00.009-07:00

I think it would be awesome if a tasty animal would occasionally die of natural causes in my back yard. I don’t have the machismo required to actually go out in the wild and whack the animals myself, but it sure would be neat if they would naturally travel to my back yard to die. I’d also wish they would show up already gutted and plucked/skinned, but I have tough-guy friends that I could probably talk into doing that for me in trade for a case of cookies, and I don’t want to get carried away anyhow. And if I really wanted to shoot for the stars I’d hope to have the dead animal gutted, plucked, filleted, seal-packed, and magically placed in my freezer. But hey, if you shoot for the stars and miss you might just hit the moon. I’d settle for the fresh dead animal.

What in the ever-loving holy hell is wrong with Utah drivers this time of year? People, we live in a state where it snows EVERY FREAKING YEAR. In a matter of months you tardlets have managed to completely forget how to operate an automobile in rain or snow. The first snowfall is as if Godzilla has set upon our city and mass hysteria breaks out. “What is this? *gasp* Oh no. NOOOOOO! Wetness is falling from the sky?! Lord in heaven, let it not be so. AAAAARRRRGGHHHH! God is weeping over our impending deaths! Drive dammit! Drive for your liiiivvveeesss!” And cars start maniacally swerving and spinning out of control. Then magically, one week after the first heavy rain or snowfall, people adapt and start driving normally again. Folks, this phenomenon we call “precipitation” happens every…single…year in our state. The rules and safe-driving practices that applied in January also apply in November. May through October shouldn’t be a sufficient period of time to make you forget what snow is.

Ever since "The Dark Knight" I’ve been giving an awful lot of thought to the concept of The Unstoppable Force and the Immovable Object. By definition, an unstoppable force is just that…unstoppable. Nothing, no matter what, in any circumstance can keep that force from continuing on its path. Likewise, an immovable object is equally impossible to manipulate. No matter what force collides with that object, the object will remain unmoved. So what would happen if the unstoppable force were to meet the immovable object? Would it be an epic battle worthy of Neo and Agent Smith in the final Matrix movie where the shockwave and subsequent fallout of the event would destroy everything in its path? Would the entire Universe collapse onto itself? Would an alternate reality spawn from the epicenter, creating a bizarre yet familiar existence with purple skies, orange seas, and razor-edged cliffs on all sides? Or what if the event were entirely anticlimactic and absolutely nothing happened? This is the kind of spacey concept that can keep me thinking (and drooling) for hours… a force that can’t be stopped meeting an object that can’t be moved. One would have to win, effectively negating the entire existence of the other. Or would it?

I’ve also been thinking a lot about the familiar analogy of the half-full or half-empty glass. We optimists tend to look at the glass as half full. Every cloud has a silver lining. You pessimists see the glass as half empty. Every silver lining has a touch of grey. But how do we know the glass even exists? And what if the glass were full of iocaine powder juice and a large enough swallow would kill you right where you sat? All of a sudden the optimist becomes the pessimist and the pessimist the optimist. Less is more and more is less. But regardless of outlook, pessimist or optimist, never get involved in a land war in Asia and never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

Random Thoughts on Election Day

2008-11-04T16:15:00.008-07:00

I voted today and it was the most anticlimactic experience of my life. For more than two years we as a nation have been upended over this election. I’ve learned there is nothing more divisive than a presidential election. I’ve seen candidates’ religions, ethnicities, families, character, age, judgment, and fashion called into question. Seriously folks…who the holy freaking hell cares about Sara Palin’s wardrobe? I realize John McCain can’t lift his arms past his chest. Yes, I know Obama’s middle name is Hussein. Mitt Romney is a Mormon? Where are his horns then? He must file them down. We’re told to get out and vote because the future of humanity relies on our voice. It is our god-given right and DUTY to vote and American civilization depends on our hitting the polls. The universe will collapse on itself if it doesn’t happen! Yet such a crucial event consists of giving my last name to the guy in the flannel shirt and handlebar moustache, taking my voter card from the lady with the glass eye and floral-print mumu, and touching a computer screen for 90 seconds. The culmination of two years of irrational arguing and mudslinging was a grand total of 4 minutes of my time.

Dell Schanze ran for governor on the Libertarian ticket. Somewhere in the galaxy a star has imploded, a baby seal was clubbed, or an angel had its wings ripped off. This man is hardly fit to BELONG to a society, much less govern one. It's ironic that the only person in the state that craves media attention and photo op moments more than Superdell is our current governor, Huntsman. Bring back Norm Bangerter dammit.

I’ve decided once and for all that I WILL NOT read Twilight. I know I know, ladies, I told you that I would. I bought into your whole, “you can’t bash a book you’ve never read” bit. I figured I would read the book with a highlighter in one holster and a .357 in the other one (in case I actually started to like it) and would call it “research.” This author was being compared to Jane Austen and even Dickens in one discussion I had. But the more I think of it, the more I know that I most certainly do not have to experience something firsthand in order to understand it. I’ve never swallowed shards of broken glass, but I’m pretty sure it would be bad for me. I’ve never lit my head on fire, but I’m relatively confident it would suck. Likewise, I don’t have to read Twilight to know that it is a book for women. It totally misrepresents the true nature of vampires and werewolves and insults their ferocity and hatred for humans. And that freaking Edward is making it impossible for millions of men worldwide to meet the new expectations of their lovers. No, no, no, no. I’m sticking to my guns and moral compass on this one.

All rules are off when driving alone in a car. Propriety and decency mean nothing. A 90-year-old Asian woman just cut you off? Let the bird fly. The more lush and flowery the vocabulary the better. Frustrated? Put in some Tool and bang that head or fire up Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic” and let loose the F bombs. If you’re with someone else, normal societal rules apply and you need to be courteous to your fellow auto drivers with the gentle tones of Karen Carpenter soothing your soul. But when alone, give in to your inner badass.

Taco Bell boycott begins today. I have resolved to not touch my lips to Bell food for one year, starting right now. A very large group of us went there for dinner on Halloween night and the Mexican teenagers running the joint must have wanted to trick us instead of treating. Orders were messed up and the food was terrible. “No duh” you might be saying, but I’m not comparing TB to other (better) GhettoMex restaurants. I’m simply holding them to their own standards. I usually know what to expect when I walk through those doors, but on this particular night they really went out of their way to make our experience suck. Tables were sticky, floors were dirty, chips were uber-stale, meat tasted like cat, etc. Barf.

Filthy Lucre

2008-10-23T11:14:00.005-06:00

I know this post is not going to be a popular one, so feel free to click on that single star or roast me to dust in the comments. Or hate me in your mind and cast hexes from your living room. I’m fully aware that by criticizing a byproduct of the church, miniscule and unimportant as it may be, I’m eliciting strong emotional responses. I ask that you keep in mind that I am an intensely proud member of the LDS faith. I just happen to have a problem with parts of its culture.

Many of you may be familiar with Mormons Exposed, the controversial steamy calendar depicting former LDS missionaries in proselyting gear on one page, and then posing in their waist-up buffness on another. I use the term “former” simply because they are not CURRENT missionaries laboring in the field from 9 to 9 with occasional breaks for lunch, dinner, scripture study, and oiling up their abs for that evening’s photo shoot. I don’t mean to suggest that they are no longer members of the church in perfectly good standing. They’ve simply been released as missionaries.

The calendar is the brainchild of one Chad Hardy, a BYU student at the time of the calendar’s release. He was excommunicated from the church and also had his diploma put on hold from BYU until he is reinstated in good standing, all as a result of the calendar. He allegedly holds no ill will toward the church and feels they did what was best for everyone. He must have really felt strongly about what he was doing.

At this point you may be wondering how this calendar could possibly be considered a “byproduct” of the church. Clearly it’s not.

My own personal opinion is this. Mr. Hardy’s calendar filled with half-naked missionaries is not much of a stretch from Michael McLean’s latest CD on sale at Seagull Book and Tape. The ONLY thing, in my opinion, that makes Hardy’s calendar wrong is how it so closely relates the missionary to the boy toy. In all honesty, the pictures in the calendar are quite tastefully done. Long pants and shirtless…that’s all. I’m 99% positive that there are LDS models all over the world that do work in magazines, possibly swimsuit models. We’ve had Mormon Ms. Utah’s that compete on a national stage in a bathing suit. My studly younger brother has a friend at BYU that is the reigning Mr. Hong Kong. Michael’s parents are 1st generation Chinese and he himself served a mission in Hong Kong. He got to parade around in a Speedo and do choreographed dance steps and martial arts with his pecs and lats flanging for 2 billion raving Chinese folk. Why is that different than some LDS “models” posing for a calendar? In my not-so-humble opinion, IT IS NOT. Again, the only thing that makes the calendar filthy is the close tie to sacred things and the obvious attempt to advertise it as something pure becoming not-so-pure-anymore.

That said, I have a problem with it. I have a problem with ANYONE that abuses the LDS community to make a living. Yes, this is a capitalist country; a place where men are free to increase their wealth using their own wit and power. I believe in free enterprise. I also believe in having access to spiritually uplifting media. I enjoy The Forgotten Carols as much as the next guy. But I don’t think the CD should be sold at $18.00 a pop so Michael McLean can get rich off of my spiritual uplift.

Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; (1 Peter 5:2)

I interpret that passage on a personal level and I see it thus… If you have a talent, a skill, a story, or a thing that can benefit a soul then that talent, skill, story, or thing should be made available to society. I’m not saying that it should be GIVEN away, but it should be made available at low cost. No one should “get gain” from the transaction. Your mind should be ready to “feed the flock of God” which is clearly among us, and your mind should not be racing to figure out how to make a buck off of the flock.

My favorite band is Phish. Part of the magic behind Phish is that they are “taper friendly.” Anyone is encouraged to bring his audio equipment and record a Phish show. That taper can then transfer the data in a high quality digital format to a CD, then make the CD(s) available to the community. There are only two rules. 1) Do NOT encode the data to lossy formats such as MP3. Offenders will have the hands cut off at the wrist and will be shunned as pariahs wherever good music is heard. 2) DO NOT SELL FOR PROFIT. Phish doesn’t care if they make money on the show or not, as long as no one else does.

Something can be done about filthy lucre. The official church organization can easily get involved. There are 13 million members of the church, a good majority of which pays a 10% tithe. That’s a lot of freaking money. If Janice Kapp Perry has a new album that she thinks will spiritually edify, then she could submit the product to the church. The church could then contract with Janice to purchase the product and make it available to members of the church at close-to-cost prices through the church distribution centers. BAM. Instead of selling out Abravanel Hall at $45 per ticket, Kurt Bestor could submit his plan to the church who could then arrange for the show to be given at The Conference Center, free of charge or at $8 per ticket to cover operating costs. That, my friends, is tithing funds well spent.

I don’t know that there is a magic bullet. But I just don’t believe that the gospel message was intended to be sold. Joseph Smith didn’t sell first printings of the Book of Mormon for personal profit. He inflated cost for the sole purpose of growing the church and printing more books. I believe that if The Big Man himself were on the earth today, he would be saddened at the profit centers and weasels that take advantage of the oft-gullible LDS culture. If you have a talent that can improve people spirituality, share it. Don’t sell it. Or the next time my bishop asks me to play that joke of a Fisher Price keyboard in priesthood; I’m putting a Dixie cup on top for tips.

My Friend, Levi

2008-10-17T10:24:00.004-06:00

I work in an office. In fact, my office is very much like The Office. I can basically pin one of my co-workers to the exact position and personality of their Hollywood mirrors. I’d like to think of myself as the Jim of the office. Although everyone else may think I’m our Dwight. I’m probably closer to Andy. Always singing weird obscure songs, speaking in terrible Cockney accents, and sucking up to the boss with sickening effect. But I genuinely enjoy the people I work with.

In my particular wing of the office pre-menopausal women surround me, though I have very few complaints. It makes for incredibly bizarre and fun conversation. It’s a cubicle environment, where my ladies have their spaces brightly decorated with Tim McGraw posters dating back to 2003, various plants, and pictures. I decorate my space with Crystal Light wrappers and sunflower seed husks. Three cubicles down the hall sits my friend Levi.

Levi is one of the more unique people I’ve ever known. He’s exceptionally quiet but sharp as a tack. He rarely joins in office banter, but when he does it is pure gold. For instance, the ladies and I will be swapping stories back and forth all day long while we work on our accounts. We’re salespeople….we’re loud and constant. Levi is clearly within earshot, likely rolling his eyes, but stays silent until the opportune moment. Then at the perfect magical instant, he’ll throw out “that’s because you’re old” or “you shouldn’t eat that…it has a mother AND a face.” His commentary is never consistent, always abstract, and naturally brilliant.

He is also our office’s practical joker. He has put fake spiders in Cheryl’s umbrella. He prints off Hell’s Angels logos and tapes them to Kathy’s biker helmet. He used to make little dialogue bubbles out of post-it notes and would stick them to various McGraw calendars with messages like, “Man these jeans are tight” or “Has anyone seen my hair?”

Levi is exceptionally giving. At least twice a year he arranges for a soft serve ice cream machine from the plant he used to work at to be lent to Cookietree for a few days. He picks up the behemoth himself and secures all kinds of sprinkles and garnishes to make “ice cream week” special.

Levi and I share many things in common. We are both obsessed with music. I burned him a few Phish CDs, which he hated, and he let me borrow a couple of his discs, which I also hated. We both have exploited the public library system for movies and records. We both love pop culture trivia. And we both have owned our own small side businesses, which brings me to the point of this post.

When I got into work last Monday I came with a DVD to give to Levi. It was a documentary shown on VH1 where Dave Matthews and Trey Anastasio (of Phish) went to Africa to play a concert with the legendary “Orchestra Baobab.” He wasn’t in the office yet, which was weird. About an hour later we received a mass email from our CFO notifying us that Levi had fallen 22 feet from a ladder while washing windows in Utah county and was in intensive care. He had broken his back, sustained massive damage to his head, had surgery to remove pressure/swelling/blood clots from his brain, and was still unconscious. I was devastated. We all were. This was one of those occasions where you look to the sky and wonder “why him?” This could not have happened to a better man. The rest of the day went by with a somber tone.

I have been anxiously following Levi’s progress. His good friend Chris, who incidentally found Levi unconscious, also works here at Cookietree and gives us updates. His family has set up a blog to keep all interested informed as to developments and improvements.

I marvel at human resilience and Levi’s iron will. I chuckle when I read about him always trying to disconnect the tubes coming out of his body, or fighting the doctor when he tries to adjust stuff. The man is a fighter. I’m also in awe of the perseverance and positive attitude shown by Levi’s family. It’s hard for me to look at things in the right light. For instance, I hear that Levi is able to lift a finger or say the word “no” and I feel anger and sadness because I am comparing his current state to the Levi that I work with. And that isn’t fair. His family sees every little action as a sign of improvement and a signal of hope.

I also have hope. I hope for a full recovery. I hope to have Levi back here to help me ward off the raving lunatic women in the office who batter me daily like waves against the rocks with giddy laughter and female hygiene talk. But no matter what the degree of recovery ends up being, I am thankful that Levi is alive. I am thankful that he is improving. And I am grateful that I know him. I look forward to seeing that toothy grin again and chatting about Beatles lore and conservative politics. I wish all the best to Levi and his family. You are all in my constant thoughts and daily prayers.