Chronicles of Cow Country High IV

Time past the way it always does. I wasn’t making any friends at school but I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything, given my options.

I tried joking around with the kids in my classes but none of the rules I thought I knew seemed to apply here. Figuring out what was “cool” at Cow Country High was like playing some hick version of Three Card Monte. The gag was on me. I didn’t know anything about “Yeah, we drive a BMW… a Big Mormon Wagon, HUH, HUH, HUH.” It was a little early for me to be dancing close with a girl and have someone say, “Leave room between you for the Book of Mormon” and then come back with, “There’s room between us for the Book of Mormon… on CD. HUH, HUH, HUH.” And I certainly didn’t know about calling people a “Renob.” But if I knew then the things I know now, I totally could have ruled at that school. The question is: Would I have wanted to?

There were only a handful of teachers at the school. Every teacher seemed to wear at least three hats, which is ironic being as hats are not allowed in any school in Utah (The exception being: if you are a girl you may wear a hat on school grounds because “it’s part of the outfit.” Technically, once you add a hat to ANYTHING you may be wearing, male or female, doesn’t it automatically become PART OF THE OUTFIT? Just another incomprehensible thing I SHOULD have understood before I arrived at the school, I guess.) By “three hats” I mean to say: my Algebra teacher was my Health teacher was my Driver’s Education teacher and so on.

The school principal was my English teacher. The first thing he did was assign us to write a story about anything. From February on, I spent most of my time focusing on writing that story. I will post the story on the web soon for your reading pleasure if I can find my copy of it. But another thing the principal did was to break the class into groups to prepare for an oral report on “What do I see myself doing five years from now?”

I was in a group with a “super-senior,” which is someone who should have graduated already but has failed to do so. Let us call him Donny Osmond because he hails from the quintessential Mormon family. How many Osmonds can you fit in the cab of a pickup truck? I think the answer will always be “at least one more.” It’s always a party when you have a big family.

Anyhow, to help him prepare, I asked Donny what his plans were for the next five years. He told me, “Well, I plan to graduate high school and then go on a mission and then probably go to college.”

I was still ignorant to what Mormons were all about at the time, so I had to ask, “What do you mean you’re going to ‘go on a mission’? You’re going to join the marines and go on a mission, like Chuck Norris/Delta Force?”

And that gave us something to talk about for the next ten minutes; about how he was going to feed Jesus’ sheep. And he got up and told the class his one sentence just like he told me and they didn’t have any questions at all.

Almost right after Donny was done, his younger sister Marie got up in front of the class and outlined her own plans for the next five years: “I’m going to graduate high school and then get married and have lots of babies; Twelve of them.”

To me, it sounded like the girl was hot to trot. He’s a little bit Country, she’s a little bit Rock n’ Roll. But again, the one sentence came across as normal to everyone else so I wasn’t about to risk opening my big mouth.

Being friendless wasn’t bothering me, but one day my step-dad came to me and said, “There’s a kid next door named Beanpolio who is about your age. You guys should go do something together.” I asked, “Does he seem pretty cool?” My step-dad said, “Well. He wears glasses and he kind of walks like he’s got a stick up his butt… but he seems alright.”

I appreciate my step-dad for his upfront, yet diplomatic, assessments of people.

It seems like Beanpolio talked to me first and we ended up taking some inner-tubes into the mountains to slide down some hills and build some snow caves under a vivid blue sky and accommodating winter sun. There was a mountain field with a deep stream meandering every which way and it created a fantastic canyon of steep jumbled snow drifts leading down to the icy waters. The canyon was curvy and beautiful enough that we couldn’t resist riding to the bottom on our tubes.

The ride was short and sweet and we were still smiling and laughing as we stared up the steep walls around us wondering how in the devil we were ever going to get out from there. There was a split moment when we really thought we were in trouble but we just kept talking and laughing and trying to scale the granular walls and we crawled out without any need to worry. However, we both decided a second ride down would be unwise.

Beanpolio also invited me to play volleyball with the adults of our town on Wednesday nights. I showed up nearly every week. I think he showed up about two times. But I got to know people around town so it was okay. And at school, nothing seemed to change. Beanpolio would say hello to me occasionally but he rarely associated with me to the degree that anyone might mistake us for friends.

One thing about school: the kids, like myself, from the east side of the lake (primarily, the boys) seemed to be lumped together as “the usual suspects” for anything that went awry at the school. At this time, there weren’t that many boys from the east side so a couple of boys named Geppetto and Sven seemed to take the fall for everything. “The janitor is missing his keys. Get Geppetto and Sven in here!”

One day, I was talking to Beanpolio and somehow we got talking about emergency services like 911. I told him that there were other emergency phone numbers like 611 for other purposes but he did not believe me. So what did he do but pick up the payphone in the school hallway and dial that number just to prove me wrong. When a lady answered (who was probably the 911 operator as well) Beanpolio freaked out and handed the phone to me. I took the phone and said to the lady, “Beanpolio wants your body.” And then I hung up. Then we fled the area.

Moments later I heard a page over the school intercom, “Geppetto and Sven! Please come to the office!” Apparently, I had not attracted their suspicion yet. This was my freebie. I never heard anything else about the prank call. You should also note that the school was small enough that when they paged someone to the front office, they did so only by their first name. There were only one or two exceptions to this, like when TWO guys were named Beanpolio, but I will do you a favor and assign every one a different alias.

There was another teacher who was the King of the Cowboys. Let us call him The Dook. Of course he taught several completely unrelated classes. He also owned a ranch, wore Wrangler Jeans and Brushpopper shirts and hid his chew behind his shiny hubcap of a belt buckle. He was also the assistant to the assistant principal; third in line to the reins of the school. Beanpolio also pointed out to me the thirteen year old girl who tended his children so extensively that she had her own room at his house. Beanpolio said that he was banging that girl like crazy. You have to earn a name like The Dook. He wasn’t a diamond but he made the rough sparkle and shine. Tin can shine. It just needs to be rubbed a lot.

In the high elevations of Utah you should expect to be buried in snow. One day we got to school and a solid blanket of snow was dropping on us from dark clouds overhead. Kids started throwing snowballs at each other and some of the more aggressive kids brought a few snowballs into the school. Someone threw a snowball at Beanpolio. He picked up the broken pieces and tried to press them into something that would pass as a snowball. When he raised the snowchunk to throw it, the stern voice of The Dook came rumbling down the halls, “Beanpolio! Don’t you dare throw that snowball!”

A sheepish grin spread across Beanpolio’s face and for a second he acted as though he might throw the snow at The Dook himself. The Dook said, “Do it and die. Beanpolio.” And then The Dook confidently turned his back on us and started to walk away. I used facial movements to tell Beanpolio, “Throw it at him!”

Beanpolio’s face shook with fear. There was no time for dawdling. I grabbed the chunk of snow from Beanpolio’s hand and hurled it at The Dook. The snow hit him in the center of his salt and pepper head.

The Dook’s voice grew louder than ever, “BEANPOLIO!!!”

Beanpolio was squirming in his shoes, “I didn’t do it!”

The Dook demanded to know, “WHO DID?”

Every finger in the front lobby of the school (the common’s area, as they call it) pointed damningly at me, including the finger of Beanpolio. I had never felt such betrayal. Is there no code among kids in Utah, aside from “do what you’re told or at least make it appear that way?” I turned to my unreliable pupils and pathetically cried, “What is wrong with you people?”

The Dook walked over and grabbed the back of my neck. He shoved me outside beneath the dark clouds and the falling snow. I didn’t fight him. This was my first time in trouble at the school. I wanted to see what he would do.

He took me to a snow bank and pushed my face into the white powder. Then he let go and walked back into the school. And as a rotten teen, I had to have the last word. I popped back into the school with a smiling dripping face. I said, “I can’t believe how GOOD that felt. That was REFRESHING!”

I guess I said it for my own sake. I knew all of the minds inside were sour. But maybe sour was all the rage at Cow Country High.

Lessons Of The Day On The Blackboard Night Seem To Be Erased And The Beacon Has No Light

Fine, you guys win. I will graciously lose this round of "The Quiet Game." I haven't been busy at all. There's just been absolutely nothing I've wanted to say. Why do people talk so much? Can't we just sit here quietly and still be comfortable with eachother? Well then, I will talk and you just sit there and listen.

Here's something:

Some kids play video games but this is how my wife discovered our son the other day. She just walked in the room and there he was... attaining enlightenment. I should teach him the family chant: O'whatanassIam. He's probably sitting there with his thoughts about how if he can't have an opposable toe then he should at least be able to have a spur on his heel like an emu (like he complained to me the other day). Or he's thinking about how Santa jipped him out of that parachute and hang-glider that he specifically asked for on two separate Christmas lists.


I finally went snowboarding on the big boy slopes on Friday. It was frostbite temperatures with scattered tree stumps and LOTS of rocks but everyone seems to have agreed that it was the best day to be on the slopes this season. I also went on Snowbird's "Magic Carpet," a 600 ft treadmill through the peak to the backside trails. It's pretty much just what it sounds like. Coffee is available inside.

I came up with a million dollar idea while I was there:

You can usually tell who the poor people or college kids are at the ski resorts. They are the people who look like they got all of their gear at a yard sale. But people with money buy such high tech gadgets and pre-coordinated ensembles that they look like they are up on the slopes fighting crime or something.

I saw such a keenly-garbed warrior under the Baldy Express pressing his crotch against a pine tree. I knew what he was doing, he was peeing on that tree just like the scrappy poor people do. He tried to assure me that there was a terrorist chipmunk in that camouflaging conifer and that he was simply trying to "bring him down" but no... that scuba guy was peeing on that tree.

But the man is one of our affluent elite. He shouldn't have to tolerate me and my ah-ah-ah-ing as he pees into the watershed. He should be able to pee when and where he pleases.

My Invention: Snowpants with a built-in catheter. For the teenaged rebels, we can make a version with a flourescent green, external "bladder." It will look very high tech.

Here's another thing:

It's a nerd. It's so plain. It's.... my alter-ego, mild-mannered Emmett. Able to barf up an example of exemplary customer service in a single heave. All of his weaknesses still sound like strengths.

I got a hair cut to go to a job interview. Here is a picture of me even as I type this. In the middle of the night. After a long night of work. I wasn't staring at the floor to pose for the picture... that's just what I do while I'm awake in the wee hours, trying to stave off another day of awesome responsibility and lame errands. We're out of milk, again?

I feel like punching myself.



When I got to work, my boss freaked out. "Holy cow, Emmett! Your hair doesn't look like Lord Farquaad anymore!" And everybody and their dog always wants to know "Why? Why did you cut it?"

When my bosses asked me why, I said, "So you would give me a promotion." And somebody chimed in, "A haircut won't get you that. You're supposed to bring knee pads if you want a promotion."

After being asked "why" a ton of times I finally started saying things like, "Do the words 'head lice' mean anything to you?" But the biggest laugh of all was when somebody asked me and I said, "I'm just trying to look respectable."

It's not that funny, Muthaf***ers.

My bosses probably suspect that I am looking for another job. I went to a 3 hour interview today. I think it went well. I say that, but when I walked out those managers were probably slapping the table with laughter, "How many times did that guy say Um? Did you see his black socks with his brown shirt?" We'll see how it goes.

And I will miss the mofos if I get it. It's such a stress-free job. No more drag racing the bumper cars. No more guitar with Chad or playing basketball on breaks. When the hours went nuts at Christmas Chad and I stopped bringing our guitars. It was just too much of a hassle. They guys talked me into playing a game of basketball and I've been playing every night ever since.

They call me Kareem Abdul Jabbar. I only make a basket every now and again but my defense is good. I stuff people and block passes all the time. It's a crowd pleaser. There is a huge tongan guy that plays every once in a while. He's like Shaq except he sucks. It takes him three shots from a foot away to get the ball in the hoop. The guys like to make me guard him because I'm one of the taller people at work but the guy outweighs me by at least 60 pounds. All I can do is put my arm against his chest and shove him away from the basket so somebody else can have a chance at a rebound.

The best thing about playing basketball at work is: The big boss plays with us. I respect the guy for that. How many people have the luxury of taking a shot at their boss EVERY DAY? I've seen my boss with two busted lips and a black eye already.

It is a dead end job but I actually enjoy it. But if I can get a better job than I'll have to take it. Such is life, I guess.

Chronicles of Cow Country High III

The days started calmly at Cow Country High for my brother and I. We both had long hair inspired more by bands like Guns N’ Roses and Nirvana than by a figure like Crazy Horse. At first impression, I’m sure we looked like scary girls with caveman posture but we soon jumped columns to just plain Wild Injuns.

People at the school were excited for our arrival because we represented the 97th and 98th souls in the student body from 7th grade through 12th. It was so close to 100 that the town was ready to burst or something. I was a little upset because they were making me repeat a World History class that I had already taken for the sake of being with my lame sophomore class. The U.S. History class I was SUPPOSED to be taking was the single credit I needed to finish high school in a three year period, but apparently you only learn U.S. History as an 8th grader in Cow Country.

*This is by Utah standards. Much more schooling is required in California to be accepted into a University of California school. Mormons have setup the public school system in a manner that students can miss an hour of “public” education each day to attend a nearby mormon seminary class during regular class time. To adjust for this, students in Utah take a semester less of Physical Education, a year less of English, etc. than students in California are required to take for college acceptance.

Another thing that really upset me was that this was the semester that I was supposed to attend Driver’s Education in California, but Cow Country High only taught Driver’s Ed during the fall, meaning I would have to wait for my Junior year to get my license. You can imagine my dismay as someone who formerly hitchhiked to school and currently traveled over 40 miles, one way, to get an education.

I also find it puzzling that we rode a bus over an amazing engineering feat (the dam), past a destroyed ecosystem and the newly created one that replaced it, through a complex mountain range that had pyramidal, glacier cut peaks on one side and weathered rounded peaks being pushed up from underneath on the other end with a river cutting right through the high mountains instead of traveling around them, past numerous geologic wonders where the horizon would whip its head back until it was vertical like an ocean wave made of layer upon layer of sandstone, past historic ranches, past moose and bobcats and bighorn sheep, in the opposite direction of the biggest quarry of dinosaur bones in the entire country… to a cinderblock box… with windows too high to see through… in a field of sagebrush… to learn stuff. But what do I know? Maybe a class of deflated spirits and row upon row of dead eyes is a better learning environment for bright young minds yearning to blossom.

People are strange but these people were stranger. Instead of drug deals in the halls like my previous school had, it was:

“My dad wants to know if you have any hay for sale? Really? How much alfalfa is in that hay?”

The first locker room banter I heard was:

“You’re not a man until you’ve pulled a calf. Well, I haven’t pulled a calf but I watched my dad do it.” (“Pulling a calf” being a reference to putting your arm inside a cow’s womb and pulling the baby out.)

In P.E. we played basketball. In the entire class, excluding myself, there was one… ONE single guy who could do a lay up or jump shot without landing flat on his face. When the first couple of guys tossed up the ball and proceeded to eat the floor, I thought it was funny. When they all did it, I thought it was a practical joke on the new guy. When they all ran to the one guy who could plant his feet and make the ball hit the rim to ask him his technique it was unbelievable. I still can’t believe it. Friends were the main reason I never “tried out” for the basketball team, but another haunting feeling was the embarrassment I would feel sitting on the bench while these clowns were out bumbling around the basketball court during the basketball season. If you are thinking to yourself: If you can do a lay up and a jump shot without falling then you would surely make the first string… then please adjust your thinking. This was a small town. The people come to see their kids play, not some wild injun making a mockery of the sport with his long hair and all.

Outside was frigid winter, but inside they all looked like California Girls. Every girl seemed to be tall and blond and they wore shorts and t-shirts regardless of the season. The heaters must have been on at full blast. If the Special Ed teacher was on our bus, bundled in her thick winter coat with her window down on a morning that made chunks of ice form in your showered hair, I guess the girls would just pile into a seat and huddle for warmth.

There was a girl who was not normal in the sense that she was not blond and she stared at you like a bird about to pluck up a worm. She stared and stared. You could stare right back and she wouldn’t flinch. She would lock onto you for minutes at a time. We came to call her Mental Woman.

On one of my first bus rides to school we were deep in the snow covered forest and I saw a peculiar spot in the snowy terrain. I turned to anyone who might hear me and asked, “Is there a pond out there, underneath that snow?”

Mental Woman cocked her head towards me. Her stare penetrated me like a knobby elbow. She squawked the word, “DUH!”

Yes. Duh on me, everyone. I forgot to look out of the window with my x-ray snow goggles. The new guy is an idiot, pass it on.

I will tell you that I probably looked funny so that I can make light of my fellow students without rebuke. First, I was an Indian with long hair – like something out of a cartoon. I was also hitting a growth spurt and all of my pants were too short for me. I probably also wore a steady facial expression of “What universe am I in?”

Most of the other boys in the school wore cowboy boots and painted on Wrangler jeans. Sometimes the jeans had a ring worn in the back pocket from a can of Skoal but most of the guys had stolen their grandmother’s silver platter and were using it as a belt buckle; they hid their can-o-chaw behind their gleaming waist shields. Learning names was made easier because many of the guys had their names punched into their leather belts. “Okay, that guy’s name is Dewey.” (I wish I could tell his last name, too.))

The shirts varied from Brooks & Dunn to something with a cow skull and the slogan “Hooked on an 8 second ride.” If a guy was feeling fancy he would wear a “Brushpopper” shirt, which is a button up shirt with colors brighter than any rainbow and patterns inspired by the tread on a new set of Uniroyal tires. Even as I was running to find a garbage can to throw up into after being taken off guard, girls would compliment the boys on their Brushpopper shirts, “Nice shirt, is it new?”

I saw a textbook owned by Lucifer, but let’s call her Lucy. She had written on her book: Gomez is a sex machine. I call him Gomez because, I discovered later, the “sex machine” looked nearly identical to a 15 year old Gomez Adams, of the family Adams. He had the mustache and everything.

Seeing all of this, I figured it wouldn’t take long before the girls found me to be a breath of fresh air but it turns out I felt stifled and alien for quite some time.

Relax, I can tell you all about that movie and The Wheel of Time

Here was my conversation tonight with the partially brain damaged guy at work:

Me: "So how was that date you had last night?"

Zack Morris with a lobotomy: "Well, I put my hand on her arm and that was okay so I put my other arm around her shoulder and that was okay so I put my hand on her collarbone and then she tensed up. She said, 'Don't move your hand ANY LOWER, Zack Morris with a lobotomy.' And then she just acted like all she cared about was watching the movie."

Me: "Do you always try to put your hand down a girl's shirt on the first date?"

ZMWAL: "It was our second date. I kissed her like six times on our first date."

Me: "You like this girl so much you thought you should do that?" (ZMWAL is a very churchy mormon who only wants to marry a teenaged virgin mormon cheerleader. And he only wants it REALLY BAD. The girl he was on a date with is a 36 year old widow.)

ZMWAL: "It was dark in the movie theater... so it was romantic. I couldn't help it."

Me: "What movie were you watching?"

ZMWAL: "It was that "aliens" movie."

Me: "Aliens with Sigourney Weaver?"

ZMWAL: "Yeah, I think so."

Me: "I thought you were at a movie theater. I can't think of ANY movies that are out right now with aliens in them. Was it a NEW movie?"

ZMWAL: "Yes. It's a new movie. It has like... pterodactyls in it..."

Me: "I can't think of what movie that could be."

LATER IN THE EVENING

Me: "So I took my kids to see that Eragon movie today..."

ZMWAL: "ERAGON! THAT'S THE MOVIE WE SAW ON OUR DATE LASTNIGHT. I thought it was good."

Aliens? Pterodactyls? Oh, Zack.

Yes, the family went to see Eragon today. It was good for a kids' movie. I think people give the movie A LOT of credit to make comparisons to other notable films like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars.

If the movie was a rip off of anything then it was a rip off of "Xena: Warrior Princess." It feels like you are watching the best episode of Xena ever made. Again, I liked the movie just fine. It was just sort of cheesy with stylish peasants with dirt smudges in all the right places. Everybody is wearing an even coat of make up and has straight white teeth. If you are looking for big breasts, you will not find them in the movie, but you can probably see some on the men sitting around you in the audience. My wife and I noticed that we had the only kids in the entire theater when we saw it.

The kids liked the movie a lot. One good thing about this movie: IT WASN'T 3 HOURS LONG, which I think is important to kids. It had characters that were just-scary-enough instead of the usual ogres that look like they will tear your head off with all your vital internal throat tubes dangling and dripping blood.

This movie shows some progress to the LOTR trilogy: Lord of the Rings depicts a diverse world of white hobbits, white elves, white dwarves, etc. and Eragon takes it a step further by having a character played by a black guy. He doesn't even die. Truly ground breaking stuff in the world of fantasy.

There were similarities to the keystone fantasy stories but they didn't bother me. I know a lot my friends really like those "Wheel of Time" fantasy books and those reach an offensive level of plagiarism.

I've discovered that wikipedia has some very good "Cliffnote" versions of the Wheel of Time books that even throw in bits and pieces of information like "Yes, the author admits the entire beginning of the story is a take off of Lord of the Rings" and "Yes, most of you will probably know this part of the story better as 'excalibur' or 'The Sword in the Stone'." With the condensed versions, I can speed past all of the parts that bug me and get acknowledgement of copy cat writing.

If you like the books then read them till your heart is content. Remember that your driver's license will probably be expired when you finish the series. Or do like me and save yourself about 10,000 pages of reading with the condensed versions.

I didn't want to get spit all over me

I've had silly musical plans for my significant other for a long time. When I was younger, I wanted to give this person a harp for the obvious implication AND because harps are cool. But harps are also expensive and require a lot of room for storage, so that hasn't happened.

I also asked my wife if she would do me the honor of singing "These boots were made for walkin'" with us if I was ever to get a band together. But she just said she didn't have the singing range for that song. And then Jessica Simpson redid the song for the Duke Boy movie and that was pretty much that.

But last night I received a ukulele as a Christmas present from my brother-in-law. When I opened it up, I became very happy and looked to my wife. The first thing I said was, "NOW, we can sing that song together just like they do in "The Jerk." This has also been a longstanding musical fantasy of mine. I haven't talked to her about learning the trumpet solo yet... maybe after I learn the ukulele part myself.

I found out how to tune a ukulele (very strange, 3rd string, 2nd string, 4th string, 1st string) and learned some basic chords. I have a natural impulse to go all Greenday on the thing and I continuously have to repeat to myself, "Think Hawaii." I don't think there is any such thing as a power chord for a ukulele but I'm sure one could be invented.

I was thinking my son could learn to play the ukulele but the chords are a little tough. The C and D major are the same finger pattern as the ever-dreaded F chord that causes so many people to give up the guitar.

But it is my goal to learn the song "Tonight you belong to me." Coincidentally, another blogger I read recently posted the bit from The Jerk on his site. So it makes me feel like I'm stealing but I don't care, because as much as he may like the movie, I know the song still means more to me and I would like for you all to see it. It doesn't appear that Steve Martin is actually playing (though, given his banjo skills, I'm sure he could) but Bernadette Peters performance is a bit more convincing.

Cow Country High (II)

If I had moved to the sagebrush plains of The Great Basin, I don’t think that I could have handled the change in landscape, but moving to the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area was sort of like stepping through the wardrobe into Narnia. The first time we skirted around the frozen blue reservoir through the crimson rock formations with their white caps of snow, I knew that if any of my previous friends had had any interest in nature they surely would have liked this place. Water was in abundance and we were nestled up against the tree-covered north face of the Uintah Mountains.

We lived in a town of about 300 residents called Dutch John. The town is like four blocks of suburbia cut out from a regular city and plopped down in the high mountains. The town was formed during the construction of the Flaming Gorge Dam. In order to live in the town, you had to be an employee of the United States Government (it has since been privatized and is now open to anyone who cares to live there).

The reservoir is the heart of Daggett County. On the east side of the lake is Dutch John, rich in red rocks and evergreen juniper trees with their squat bodies and stringy bark. On the west side of the lake is Manila, the county seat. Manila is in sagebrush land with homegrown hicks and three paved roads, including the two highways that meet in the town. I have always described Manila as a glorified trailer park. They have a couple of gas stations, a restaurant or two, a church, an “old” school with a “new” school next door and rodeo grounds.

My parents told me that my future school laid behind the rodeo grounds. There was no football field, just the big wooden bleachers and a sign that said, “Cow Country High.” I was soon to learn that tourists were not the only ones who got trapped in this burg.

My parents allowed me to stay home for a couple of weeks to get adjusted. I also had a cold and I was downing a lot of Nyquil. I spent most of my time laying in bed, watching PBS, listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and reading Robotech in novel form. In the dark days of winter with a foot or so of snow in the yard, it was comfortable, but soon to be shaken up by my return to school.

Chronicles of Cow Country High (I)

At 15 years old, I was isolated on my grandpa’s mountain. So far out that we had 1.5 television channels and no telephone service nor 220 volts to run a clothes dryer. There wasn’t much to do but explore the woods and the river and get ahead on my Algebra II homework. I had friends but didn’t get to see them except during school hours. My mother didn’t like them because they were into drugs.

I went to school on the Indian reservation. In this school, there were more drug dealers than there were potential customers. I think the main thing that saved me from drugs was that by the time I would have even considered doing drugs, most of my friends were already trying to quit doing drugs. My friends also considered me “the responsible one” whom they could one day call to bail them out of jail. For the sake of not wasting that one hypothetical phone call, they discouraged me from jumping into the mess they were in, even while they were lighting up.

My sister was eager for a better life so she moved out the moment she turned 18, even before graduation. My mother and stepfather made money by fighting forest fires and they were gone for weeks at a time. My brother and I were expected to go to school despite the great distance and lack of transportation. It was recommended that we hitch-hike to the bus stop but we usually ended up walking the 4 mile route instead during dawn and dusk. It was frustrating to successfully make it to school and then meet my friends excitement, “Hey, let’s all ditch class today!”

When my mother told me she got a new job in Utah, I saw it as a chance to act out. I stopped doing all of my schoolwork but nobody seemed to notice except the teachers. And when they would say things in front of the class like, “Emmett! You haven’t turned in an assignment all week. I ALREADY have you marked down to a B!” It was usually met with laughter from my fellow pupils, “Can I have a B, too?”

Until we moved, I spent most of the school day in the library playing “Oregon Trail” on the computer. Uh oh, Tornado Bob has Typhoid Fever! Oh well, let’s go hunting.

Needless to say, my lackluster life was pretty lifeless.

My parents expressed concern about moving into Mormon country. I had never heard of Mormons. Not even the famed Tabernacle Choir. I asked, “What’s wrong with Mormons?” My stepfather told me, “People just think of them as… you know… goody two shoes.” That was the nice description. People my age seemed to focus on the “multiple wives” aspect of the religion. So Mormons were into orgies? Each to his own, I guess. And it was a total mindblower that Mormons were the ones behind all of those commercials brought to you by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (You can just call them LDS). I wasn’t worried about it.

During a cold and wet January, we loaded up a U-Haul truck to find out what so many people were running from when they were told to, “Go West, Young Man!” My parents were driving a Toyota truck and it seemed like I spent most of my time riding with grandpa in the U-Haul. Yep… riding with grandpa. In a U-Haul. 45 miles per hour. Maximum speed. Across Nevada. Waiting for grandpa to start a conversation was like waiting for the next ice age. Anytime now, a glacier will be sliding through this valley. Anytime now. Any… time… n’zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

How long was I asleep? Ugh, it’s still Nevada. Is there a glacier in the valley? Nope. Just grandpa behind the stearing wheel, like a petrified log. And then we drove through Utah. And over the corner of Wyoming to a place called Flaming Gorge.

Two Thousand Sux

It is a new year and the odds are favorable for improvement over those just past. We got that ambulance bill at the beginning of December and a few days before new years our furnace died. I called some heater-guys and told myself that I would have to inspect everything if they recommended replacing the entire furnace. But I was standing right by as the guy pulled out the circuit board. It looked like something that Ethan would make at school using construction paper and macaroni shells. There was a big black scorch mark on the board and the wiring harness was melted. They said that the board, alone, was $1300 and they would need to replace that to get it running so they could begin to determine where the water running through the machine was coming from.

We ended up buying a whole new furnace. It cost $5001. The guy said there was no way he would take off that $1. I said, "Well, could you throw in a free duct-cleaning?" I didn't realize that duct cleaning is a $1500 service and when he told me, I said, "Well, it doesn't cost anything to ask." And he said, "Actually, it does. I'm writing that down, right here." Funny how a $5001 day at work fires up your sense of humor. Before we signed, he told us he told us that we could take our time deciding and that he wasn't going to pressure us. I said, "You won't pressure us but Winter outside on the doorstep will." It was 20 degrees that night. We won't start paying for a couple of weeks but I am still willing to save 2007 by calling the heater issue a 2006 problem.

The best thing I can think of about 2006 is that after all of our deductions and my sketchy work year, our reportable income will be below the poverty level. Cha-ching! Tax Return, Yo! It might even be up around three, possibly four, figures. 2005 was probably the highest grossing year of my life and now I follow it up with a 2006 wage that a high school drop-out could achieve.

It was a hard summer with work, selling a house, work, buying a house, work, moving, work, buying a car, and work. And let's not forget the car accident I was in. Now I've been T-boned from the left AND the right. My spine should be back where it belongs.

I haven't had a vacation since 2003 unless you count unemployment, during which time I mostly visited Job Service. But I am planning a vacation for this spring; my job is lenient and mismanaged enough that I should be able to take some unpaid time off. Oh yeah, January 1 of 2007 was the official day I decided I was too sexy for company health insurance. $400 per month for the pleasure of paying 40% of costs to keep the doctors we have had since before our kids were born. Thanks, but no thanks. It makes me feel elite. It didn't meet my high standards of SAVING ME MONEY SOMEHOW.

Now that I have "relaxed" at a job that doesn't give a damn about what I do, I will start looking into a real job. Possibly, even into going to school again just to prove that I am hard-headed enough to keep pounding it against the wall until either the wall yields or I fall down dead.

I would list the good things about 2006 but when I think about them... it turns out they are all just things that I miss to myself while I'm working. Here is a good sign though: I have received movie passes for my birthday in August and more for Christmas. I have been trying to use them since August but I get shotdown everytime. But tonight we went out and (finally) saw "Blood Diamond." It is pretty rough and tough but a very good movie at the same time. I think it is good for the world and I encourage people to watch it if you care about anything that goes on beyond the edge of the suburbs. I hope Leonardo wins an Oscar for it.

I have never been into New Year's Resolutions. Possibly because I have never smoked or been overweight. But this year I think I shall resolve to write about my experience of moving to Utah, making friends and surviving a totally f***ed up school. "Lindsay-Weaver" posted an EXCELLENT representation of this experience when her son tried to forge a teacher's note but it seems to have been removed. WHY, Lindsay-Weaver?

I have thought of telling these tales for years but have never felt I had the right approach but, again, I am tired of waiting around for life to happen. So here it comes, perfect or not.

Hot N' Grody

If I had to choose ONE WORD to describe the pizza I ate for lunch it would NEVER be "supreme." Can't the FDA ban manufacturers from using this type of word on things like frozen pizza?

How NOT to Build a Log Raft

When I was younger and lived on my grandpa's mountain I spent a lot of time by myself. At one point I decided to craft a raft out of logs and spend a day floating down the river just as Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn would have done. I figured that when I reached the fork in the river where the lumber mill stood (that replaced the village of my mother's ancestors) that I could ditch the logs on the riverbank and make the eight mile walk back to the house.

As I did not possess my own chainsaw, I took an axe out into the woods and chopped down three or four trees of about 50-60 feet tall (if you decide to try this, you need to be careful not to let the tree "hop" off its stump and crush you). I chopped the trees into equal lengths and dragged them half a mile to the river.

Because I couldn't wait to test it out, I lashed together about six of the logs and tossed them into the river. I attempted to ride the logs. Very soon, I realized that even if I had fifty logs strung together side by side that they still would not float above the surface of the water.

To make the typical log raft that you see throughout your life in television cartoons would result in a boat that could technically float but would also leave the riders waterlogged for the duration of the voyage. The log raft idea is crap. It no does work. You are much better off using a cheap rubber raft from the big box dealer near you. Otherwise you might want to make a raft like the one in Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown comprised of a wooden deck on top of four rubber intertubes.

Consider this Friendly Advice from someone who has wasted a lot of time and trees and who gets a bitter feeling every time he sees a cartoon raft made of logs bobbing buoyantly, high and dry, down some skyblue waterway.

How to Build a Catapult

I don't know how long ago it was, but I can remember when I used to be wild and spirited and carefree. I used to have a crazy voice in the depths of my being telling me to do things like "make goals" or "try new things." I used to think I should get out there and be somebody. Take chances. Live a little.

There is some shadow of that person still inside of me and it drives me accomplish things. I am actually quite proud of myself even for the few and small things I am able to get done with the little time I seem to have. One thing that I did as a teenager was to build my own catapult.



Building a catapult just seemed like something I should be able to do. I had seen catapults on TV where the weapon is simply a teeter-totter with a large boulder on one side but that didn't seem good enough. In fairness, a catapult called a "Trebuchet" was basically a teeter-totter with a bucket on one side that could be filled with rocks. The arm of the Trebuchet also had a sling-like device to throw the projectile and the Trebuchet is considered superior to nearly all other forms of catapult from midieval times.

Anyhow, I wanted an easy-to-build catapult with some oomph to it. I asked my step-father if he knew how to build such a contraption and it turned out that he did.

Before I give you an idea of how to build your own catapult I feel I should probably put in a disclaimer that the use of the catapult is your own responsibility and that you are at fault for any damage or harm that may be caused by your project. If you are looking to hurl plague-infested corpses into the fortress of your enemies, I suppose it might be possible but mostly I am demonstrating how to build a machine to just toss stuff across your yard.



This is a bird's eye view of the machine. The brown rectangle is a simple frame. The purple thing is the arm used to toss your cookies or whatever. The black bar is built higher than the mainframe and the red spot is where the arm strikes the bar, stops, and lets fly your sapphire bullet.

The green thing is a loop of rope that is strung through two holes drilled in the mainframe. The blue sticks are blue sticks but you can choose whatever color you like on your actual catapult. The loop of rope goes around the blue sticks and you twist and twist and twist the sticks toward the front of the catapult until the rope is very tight. The purple arm is also inside of the looped rope. After a lot of twisting, there is a lot of tension on the rope and the rope wants to untwist itself really bad. This is what causes the arm to fly up. When you pull the purple arm down, you effectively twist the rope even more and increase the tension and when you let it go it relieves a little of the tension and subsequently makes your garbage your neighbor's problem.

There you have it. Your own seige engine. I just think people should do more things just to see if they can.

A Flaming Mass of Oil and Gas

I'm actually quite serious about wanting a chain saw. I would use it for good and justice and to perform the best of deeds.

There have been some great people in the history of the world but wouldn't they have been better if only they had been accompanied by a Husqvarna? Just imagine these scenarios:

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. --- "I have a dream... did I say 'a dream?' I meant, I have a chainsaw. And this saw will bring down burning crosses. This saw will open school doors to colored children. And you can bet your ass I'll sit anywhere I want on a city bus..."

Ghandi --- "I've got 4 horses and a flurry of metal teeth that say I'M RESISTING, bii-aaatch. I'm not going to swing them at you. I'm just saying that if you come at me and your skull happens to split in two... well, maybe you should have looked where you were going."

Jesus --- "Locusts and leprosy will seem like a walk in the park compared to this thing I'm calling The-Middle-Finger-of-God. Now repent my little sheepies."

Grandpa, Tell Me About The Good Old Days

I am really behind on my blogging so I'm not going to wait around for this post to come together perfectly. My mother will be disappointed that I did not get all of the details and I am disappointed that I don't have pictures to post with it.

Months ago, I asked my mother about the ranch where her side of the family all congregates during holidays like Easter and how that plot of land came to be in the family. The answer she gave shows the duality of my checkered heritage.

I am roughly half Indian. My father is not quite full Indian. My mother is not recognized as Indian at all. There is a big political mess behind the Indian pedigrees. First, there are thousands and thousands of people who are indigenous to the land of North America but who are not recognized as "Indian" because, frankly, the government doesn't want to deal with it. To recognize all people who link their origins back to this homeland of ours would be expensive and a hassle of paperwork. Therefore, everyone seems to be fine in saying that these native north american people are not actually Indians. It's fine for most people but when people try to make laws where you MUST BE a FEDERALLY RECOGNIZED Indian to practice something like a religious ceremony involving peyote, that is the point where I say it sucks. Not because I support the idea of using peyote, but because I am against the basic idea of saying "These native people over here have been blessed with the sacred approval of the white overlords and hold certain rights while these native people over here have not been given the sacred approval of the overlords and will not be given those rights... because we don't want to deal with paperwork or admit any further that we totally jacked these people." It is more government laziness or flat-out refusal to deal with an issue.

My mother gets tired of the goofy racism-within-the-race where people who are more parts Indian think of themselves as better than the people who are less parts Indian. Petty bickering on this matter kind of sounds like the groundbreaking sounds to the building of the great road to inbreeding. How do you STAY Indian and keep your family placed on the tribal rolls if you marry someone, Indian or not, from outside the small tribal community (which, ironically, was a common practice with our ancestors)? The health problems I suffered as a child are thought to stem from an unfortunate genetic combination, which I'm sure would be made better by a dwindling gene pool (That's sarcasm, if you didn't catch it).

Around 1900, the tribal valley was occupied by white soldiers. There was relatively little fighting between my tribe and the soldiers. The Indians were forced to stop speaking their native langauge, stop having their traditional ceremonies, kids weren't even allowed to play the Indian games they grew up playing. The Indians of my tribe were made to dress as white people dress and attend schools like white people did. And I'm sure the heathens were given Christianity.

After a couple of decades, leadership had been passed around from white dude to white dude, and finally a white dude of authority was approached by some college dork with fancy degrees and told that it was important to preserve the culture. And things suddenly swung the other way. The Indians were again encouraged to speak their langauge and teach it to their kids. They were encouraged to have their traditional ceremonies like "The White Deerskin Dance" and "Salmon Runs." Kids were encouraged to play the "stick game" which is much like LaCross with a lot of wrestling. My tribe actually had things very good in comparison to what befell virtually all of the other tribes across this country of ours. I, personally, attribute this luck to the remote location of my tribe and to the great abundance of resources in the area.

In their corner of northern California there are tree covered mountains interlaced with rivers feeding into rivers that wind about and spill into the ocean. Indians of old spread through all the nooks and crannies of the region and that is why most of them are not considered Indians by our great Uncle Sam. If you can't clear things up with maps and clearly drawn borders than the issue just isn't worth dealing with.

My mother and her siblings are currently petitioning the government for Federal Recognition as part of a tribe of Indians who lived a ways upriver from my father's tribe. My mother's ancestors had a big village where two rivers meet. The government has a policy of only recognizing Indians who were included in any of the hundreds of worthless contracts formed between our Great Fathers in Washington and the indigenous peoples of this country BEFORE A CERTAIN YEAR (1914, I beleive). My mother and many others believe that their tribe was included in such a contract and have made several attempts to contact the government about it... but the government doesn't seem to be answering their phone or responding to their mail.

This is a good place for the story to start, I s'pose. In this story, a white man named Charles from Ohio floated down the Mississippi River and into central america. He crossed the isthmus where the Panama Canal would later be constructed and ventured to nothern California in hopes of striking it rich in mining along the rivers in the vicinity of my father's tribe. A law was passed, which essentially made it legal to kill the Indians who lived there. The village where my mother's ancestors lived was leveled. The Indians were killed or run off. The invaders constructed a vast lumber mill on the spot. White men came in with their picks and shovels; panning didn't seem to be effective anymore. They searched all along the waterways for rich stuff.

But, wouldn't you know it? Indians were still lurking about, hiding around in the mountains. And they scared and stole from and pestered the miners to no end. There was nothing to do but form a mob... I mean, a militia. This white man, named Charles, took a break from mining and joined a group of Indian Killers. I believe they called themselves the "California Battalion." These do-gooders rode around and killed any Indian they could find.

In later years, the government had taken all the land from the Indians, except for the parts they deemed "uninhabitable" or land they simply didn't care about (at the time) and all of the Indians were forced at gunpoint to stay on these reservations. Suddenly, the government realized they had more land than they knew what to do with. What else could they do but give it away (to white people)?

So the man named Charles took advantage of The Homestead Act and got himself a good plot of land in the mountains. This plot of land is where my cousins and I would come to canoe in vernal pools and hunt for easter eggs in spring. It is still a tradition with my mother's side of the family.

It turns out that Charles had a nephew who came to take over the ranch when he was grown. The nephew took an Indian wife. His wife is either my great or great, great grandmother (I waited too long to tell this story, I can't remember for sure).

Now about my grandpa: This is the grandpa who died last December. I believe he was one of eight siblings. Most of them were loggers. That is still a family trade. Many of my uncles and cousins are loggers. I asked my mother for a picture of my grandpa and his twin brother showing them successfully cutting down a seqouia redwood tree with a two-man handsaw. Maybe that isn't cool nowadays but, in those days, man knew that nature was out to get us and there was nothing better we could do to spit in nature's face than to dam all of the rivers and cut down all those smug, punk-ass trees. At any of these given family reunions, my uncles and cousins could probably have a hundred acres of land clearcut by sunset.

There was a recent lawsuit where a lot of people were searching to be federally recognized as Indian. My grandpa was among them. The case has taken most of my life to come to an end and it was finally decided in court that my grandfather on my mother's side was Indian. Grandpa snuck in by a hair and much of the decision was based on the fact that he lived on the Indian reservation throughout the time the case was pending. My grandpa's twin brother never has been, nor ever will be, recognized as a "legitimate" Indian.

When the "New" Indians had won their case, the government compensation was to say, "Okay, okay. YOU ARE INDIAN. Go tell Emmett's Indian tribe to share their shit with you." My tribe has to pay the "New" Indians a bunch of money for the government's oversight because they already gave to that charity and they aren't going to give any more.

I asked my mother, "So who actually owns that ranch now?"
She said, "The Government."

Either Grandpa or his father sold the land back to the government and bought the plot of land on a neigboring mountain where my grandpa built the house where he raised his children and where he died in bed. It is the place where I spent much of my youth eating blackberries and running through the woods.

So, my checkered past is this: despite my Indian heritage, despite my pride for my people and my hope for our future, despite my dark skin, eyes and hair, I share blood with an old Indian Killer named Charles who unwittingly passed his land down to an Indian family.

And despite the generalization that Indians are in touch with nature and hold deep respect for the things that live on this great earth, this Indian descends from a line of people committed to cutting down forests to pay the bills. And I, myself, will never feel like I have made my right of passage into manhood until I own my own chainsaw.

Because someday it may be the only thing he looks forward to in life

I finally took Ethan snowboarding on Friday morning. I took him to the Solitude resort when he was 4 years old but he was too scared to ride the ski lift. I had to carry him up the hill on my back and run down the hill beside him as he rode and catch him before he shot into the parking lot.

Last winter, I was too busy to take him and I didn't want that to happen again this year.

Picture info: Saying "Cheese" sort of works. If you need some boarding gear in Salt Lake then visit Broken Board Shop by the Albertsons store near the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon. The girl that owns it is a friend of ours. She's cool and nice. She tried to give me the sweatshirt for free but I told her she should at least make $1 above what it cost her. I'm a tough negotiator.

Here is Ethan eating lunch. Does anyone ever forget their first $9 hotdog?


And here are some short, short videos of Ethan boarding. Apparently, turning on your digital camera in 20 degree weather is like stuffing a handful of snow down someone's shirt while they are asleep. I turned on the camera and tried to take the video but a synthetic voice issued forth from the picture taker, it said, "FAQ this!" and turned itself off. I believe "FAQ this!" is a derogatory remark in the langauge of consumer based electronics. Needless to say, because of the battery's unwillingness to work in the cold, the videos are 1 second and 3 seconds long.






We had a good time. Mostly I just held his hands and pushed his board in the right direction with my board as we rode but in the flatter areas I let him ride by himself. He has really good balance and can reach dangerous speeds, despite his inability to stop himself.

We had to leave early so I could go to work. I said, "We'll come back later." and he said, "Like tomorrow?" He lives to shred now.

Whine with your Christmas Dinner

The other night I ate Christmas dinner with my wife and all of her uncles and cousins and such. My wife's mother's side of the family of is amazingly close and very friendly. It blows me away how my wife can ask, "What is Uncle Bruce's favorite dessert called again?"

And then one of her cousins will pipe up, "If it's that super-chocolaty cake from The DoDo (restaurant) then it is Lundegras." And my wife continues, "Yes, Lundegras. That's right."

Or that my wife thinks to ask, "Did you guys get a new countertop in here? This seems different?" And even though we only visit most of the family at their homes about once a year, they respond, "Yes, that is a new countertop." It astounds me that they are so genuinely caring and interested in eachother.

We ate some ham and potatos. There were tables set up upstairs where a television was playing the movie "Christmas Vacation" but the chairs were all taken so we went down to the basement where more tables were set up and a TV was playing the movie "A Christmas Story." I said, "Yes, I love this movie. I love how TBS plays it 24 hours a day on Christmas Eve."

And one of Eleanor's cousins said, "We were just talking about that." It turned out that, of 8 people in the room, 2 did not like the movie "A Christmas Story." One wife turned on her husband, "How can you not like this movie? Listen to the language." And he pushed the issue further by saying he also didn't care for the movie "Christmas Vacation." His wife told him he had no soul. The other hold-out is the son of a very prominent Utah Car Dealer. He said, "I've just never liked this movie.... ever since I was a little kid." And I said, "That just makes me think that you have a strange association with this movie... That you didn't like something in your childhood and for some reason you are taking it out against this film."

His wife seemed to think it was a funny remark but the guy just shrugged it off. That whole family is great and I had a good time there. We went to Bruce's for dessert. I tried one bite of that cake and now I don't need to eat any more chocolate for a year or two. It was so potent.

But while we were eating dessert, another of my wife's cousins came and sat by us. I don't know what to make of the guy and I think that I say that because all of my instincts tell me... well... that he sucks. He is a nice guy with a good heart and he has never done me any wrong. I think it stems from the fact that his father is very wealthy and that everything is handed to him. That does not make him bad, it's just that he doesn't use these opportunities to their potential.

I remember one time, my wife's little brothers were kind of bragging to me about him. They proudly said, "He's played the guitar for a couple of years but now he says he isn't going to play the guitar anymore because IT IS TOO EASY." To me, that is a completely ridiculous statement. If Jimi Hendrix was to say, "I'm not going to play this guitar anymore because it is too easy." That would be one thing. But for someone who has only played a year or two to say that is like saying, "I'm not going to write novels anymore because Microsoft Word is too easy to use. I no longer strive to make the world's best mac and cheese because the microwave has taken away the challenge of the true culinary art." Copying other peoples songs is easy. But try writing your own song and then compare it to something that Zeppelin or John Lennon wrote and then see if you don't suck somethin' fierce.

Anyway, this cousin likes to be the center of attention. The whole family usually just goes bowling for Christmas but I think this year they wanted to do something that allowed everyone to have a conversation without people yelling at them, "Hey! It's your turn to bowl! C'mon, don't you see the name POO up there on the scorecard? That's you!" Last year, this cousin showed up to bowling in a vintage track suit with a Micheal Bolton shirt and a headband. He rolled a lot of gutter balls and he made sure people noticed.

He is currently working on a PhD in English at one of Utah's finer universities. He also teaches several courses to undergrads. Because after he decided he didn't want to play the guitar anymore, he decided he wanted to be a professor. And he has enough money that he can pretty much do whatever he wants. So we were asking him about teaching and he kept trying to change the subject. My wife said to him, "Emmett likes to write, you should talk about it."

He said, "No. You wouldn't care about anything I write. It's just junk. I know what they want to hear. I think it's stupid but they all tell me it's what they want and then they give me more fellowship money. I mean, the last thing I wrote was about snow globes. I just write whatever crap I want and they like it."

I asked him what classes he teaches. He said he just finished "Introduction to American Literature." I've taken American Literature and I even got a good grade. I asked him what authors he used for the class. He spouted off about five names and I didn't recognize a single one of them. Most of them sounded Russian, but they weren't names like Tolstoy or anything. He said that he didn't really know who they were and that he had never read them. He read them for the first time at the same time his students did and then he says he just acted like he knew everything about it when they discussed it in class.

I have actually read some of his writing. His father is co-owner of a certain "Utah" magazine and his father gave him a job as a writer for this magazine. He wrote about how he and his friends went hiking out in the desert even though people told them it was dangerous; About his friends and their corresponding nick-names; And too much about how his "blasted" GPS unit gave him no end of trouble. It read like a bad high-school essay, akin to a paper on "My First Hunt."

I know that I talk too much about how I do not believe in our education system, especially higher-education, but this guy is the embodiment of my complaint. He has no talent, he doesn't care about what he does, he stands for nothing. And yet, he leads. He teaches. He recieves the accolades. It makes me ill to think that it is such a struggle for me to make arrangements to utilize this supreme path to a better future (school) and to know that this guy is running the show. He makes up the game and doles out the points at his whim, despite the financial costs to the students who show up expecting a real education.

The cousin talked as though he was entertaining us. As though we would laugh at how effortless it all was for him. How it was a big joke on everyone for his amusement and he was allowing us to peek inside his funhouse. But really that talk just confirmed my worst feelings about the "opportunities" people are given in America. Sorry, but I will continue to move furniture and focus on my kids rather than take out loans and jump through hoops to bank my future on these ass-monkeys.

In the background there is a voice in all of our heads saying: Flieswithoutwings is jealous. What horrible jealousy. He's been consumed by the green-eyed monster.

Maybe. Sort of. I can be competitive. I can dream of an easier life. But if I was really jealous and wanted to outdo this boy at his own game then I would probably hassle my own father about becoming co-owner of a small magazine so I could write a montly article and letting me move into his house and eat his food so I can sit around not reading books and not drawing out concepts that should be important to us on a personal level or as people who live together on this world. Just as easily as he, I could make a spectacle of myself without actually having anything to say. I could look a part but not be the part, if that is what I found fulfilling. I don't feel that me and this guy are on the same level. I wouldn't trade what I have for what he has.

I want to love this guy because he is my family and he means no harm but that does not mean that people like him are not central to everything that I think is wrong with our society.

Careful What You Ask For

I mean what I say: You really shouldn't make such requests unless you are sure you want them.

I went to Google "images" and did a search for "dog licking himself" as a model for the man trying to kiss his own butt and not a single picture of an actual dog licking himself appeared. All I can say is that the internet still has a long way to go.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

Josh was in a steady rhythm of scooping up snow and throwing it to his side. He heard swooshing slush as a car in the nearby street slowed to a stop. His neighbor, Steve, lowered the passenger-side window of his car and yelled, "The driveway looks good. When are you going to come to my house and shovel mine?"

"I'll shovel your driveway just as soon as you bend over and kiss your own ass." Said Josh.

This was Steve's moment. He hadn't spent all of those years at the Academy of Modern Contortionism for nothing. He hated shoveling snow.

When you hate the food that comes from a pipe you will turn to drugs to help you sleep

I am buying my mother-in-law a book for Christmas. Barnes and Noble had to special-order it for me last week. The guy told me it would be in on Thursday so I gave them a call that morning. They told me they had until Friday to get it in, so I checked again on Friday morning. They told me that they were still unloading trucks and that it was probably there. So Friday at 3:00 pm I showed up at the store. They said they were STILL unloading and that it might be Monday before I could pick it up. That night I got an email saying I had 3-4 days to pick the book up so I went back on Sunday.

My wife and kids were going to wait in the car. I said, "This SHOULD be fast but it probably won't be." My wife asked, "Why not?" I said, "Because I will go inside and they will say they have the book but they can't find it and then I will have to stand there for half an hour while they try to figure out where it is. Blah, blah, blah." My wife started to get mad at me. She said, "You always do this. You always think something is going to go wrong before you even know. Just go get the book."

I came back out about half an hour later. My wife asked, "Did you get the book?" I said, "No. They said they got their shipment in but the book must not have been with it. They said maybe it would come in on a second part of the same shipment tomorrow and if not then they will have the book overnighted."

After that, my wife was quiet. I knew she was waiting for me to say I was right and she was wrong. Instead I said, "I don't act like this because I'm negative. I act like this because THIS IS MY LIFE. Everyday. Everyday and everything that can give me problems DOES give me problems. I'm not negative, I've just figured out the pattern."

And it is true. At least I just come to expect life this way. Like last weekend when I woke up, my wife always has plans to go places and run errands. So we were heading out to the Honda Odyssey. Huh, the keyless entry doesn't seem to be working. No, it appears the battery in the van is dead. OK, I will just push the van backwards a little bit and jumpstart it. Hmmm, apparently you cannot shift the transmission into neutral when the battery is dead. OK, I will just bring our other car really, really close and jump start it. Now let's just get these jumper cables hooked up. Why is the alarm to the van going off? Maybe it is something with the panic button. No, we've pushed all the lock and unlock buttons available and the alarm keeps blaring. Now who is this? A neighbor?

"COULD YOU TURN THIS ALARM OFF? I SUFFER FROM MIGRAINE HEADACHES AND THIS ALARM CUTS RIGHT THROUGH THE WALLS OF MY HOUSE..."

"That is what I'm trying to do."

"YOU SEE. I SUFFER FROM MIGRAINE HEADACHES AND..."

"I'm trying to turn it off."

All I could do was kill the battery again. The neightbor said "Thanks" and went home. But five minutes later I started the van again and drove through the nieghborhood with the alarm screaming. I drove it behind the elementary school to see if I could get it figured out. I wish I had a manual to the van. Eventually the alarm turned itself off but remained armed so anytime you lock or unlock or open or close a door it would go off again. So I tried to drive it to the Honda dealership with the alarm blaring but the dealership was closed. The alarm turned itself off again. I drove it home and managed to get out of the car without setting the alarm off by getting out through one of the rear doors.

I checked the chatboards online to see if there was a solution. There were a lot of people who had this problem but the only answer seemed to be to take it to the dealership and, even then, people had horror stories about the dealership just basically telling the owners they must be retarded and that it must be their fault. I checked a website that specializes in car alarms and they suggested that there may be a button under the dash that resets the alarm so I went outside to look.

This time, when I used the keyless entry to unlock the car I discovered the alarm had disarmed itself and now the car was normal again. Now that it was 6:00 pm, my day off was ready to begin. Except for the radio. Honda radios disable themselves when the battery supply is cut and you need a special code to reactivate it. When we bought our Honda Civic from the dealer he gave us a sticker with our code on it and said, "PUT THIS SOMEWHERE SAFE. DO NOT PUT IT IN THE GLOVE COMPARTMENT." After a day of driving the van with no stereo I said to my wife, "Look in the glove compartment (of the van) and tell me if there is a sticker with a number in there." "HERE IT IS," she said. Stereo functional again.

This Christmas is killing me because we don't have time to do anything. A couple of nights ago I pulled out some Christmas lights and plugged them in, knowing full well that I don't have the kind of life where you can plug in Christmas lights and expect them to light up. I need two strands of working lights. One strand worked and HALF of the other strand worked. I put them up anyway on the stairs to our porch. Lastnight I went to the store to buy another fully-lit strand to replace the half-lit strand with. The new lights don't turn on at all. I replaced the fuses in the lights and still, nothing. My wife prefers to hang lights with tape but of course they fell down the first night. I tried to put them back up with nails from a picture hanging kit. The nails fell out, too. I got a call today from Barnes and Noble telling me my book was there. I will see if that is true, as soon as I get a chance.

The $1000 ambulance bill, driving home in midnight snowstorms and a TV with a volume button that changes the channel are a nuisance. The little things are driving me batty. Day after day. Every single day. So if you cut me off in traffic and run a red light and slam into my car (for the 3rd time in 5 years) don't be surprised if some crazy bastard wants to hit you. Because being awake is swimming around in a lake of the undead. And the undead are like a bunch of friends who demand constant attention. But thinking of that will hurt my brain and I need my brain for later on. I need to get to work so I can relax with Britney Spears' cha cha while having the crap beat out of me by a bunch of sleeper sofas.

Work is Fun

Why make your kids wait until they are of legal working age to learn a menial task? It is never too early to begin a repetitive stress disorder. Foreshadow your childs bleak future with this hot holiday toy.

Curse Missed Opportunities

Believe it or not, I am sort of picky what I put on my blog. I have a lot of ideas that never make it on here. I think some are too boring or time sensitive. There are many reasons why they don't make it on. Usually it isn't a big deal to me and life goes roaring on. It frequently happens that a few hours after I post something, I think of something that would make my posts better. For instance, on the Unconquered Sun post I wish it said:

And God says, "Well, just as long as there's some killing going on, I guess most of them can live to see another day. (along with) Except for that guy right there! PILLAR OF SALT! ZAP!" But once they are posted I feel like I can't go and change them. It seems like cheating.

Here are a couple of posts I would have liked to have done:

1. They put an eye into the sky and did not tell the people why

One day I went into the basement of our old house and discovered that my kids had collected all of the rubber-duck toys we owned and flocked them all together. It was seriously like being in Alfred Hitchcocks "The Birds" film, just with yellow rubber ducks. The strangest part of all is that WE HAVE NEVER INTENTIONALLY PURCHASED A RUBBER DUCK. Not even one. And there was a swarm of 30 or so ducks in our basement.

The way it works is that businesses slip them in with other things, like a set of baby washcloths or other legitimate baby needs. And just like that you're living in Duck City. It is nothing short of eerie. I meant to take a picture and post it on the blog, then I had this conversation with Eleanor:

Me: "What happened to all of those rubber ducks?"
Eleanor: "I threw them away when we moved."
Me: "Why?"
Eleanor: "Why do you CARE?"
Me: "mumblemumbleBLOGmumble"
Eleanor: "You wanted to put them on your blog?" (rolls her eyes)

I am forming a conspiracy theory that the government is infiltrating the homes of married couples via rubber duck to ensure that there are no men posing as brides nor women posing as grooms, which would result in a successful and legal gay marraige. That will never happen, if the ducks have anything to say about it.

It is my hope that by writing this, I will finally be able to stop thinking about those dumb ducks and how I wish I had snapped that picture.

2. A Tale of Two Carnies

There is a guy at work named Brenden. The first time I ever talked to him is when he and I were assigned to drive around the warehouse and pick up all of the unused forklifts and park them in an out-of-the-way corner. He was driving me from lift to lift. While we were driving he told me:

"I didn't think I was coming to work today. I woke up this morning and thought, 'there is no way I can go in today.' But then it was time for work and I drank a six pack of beer and all of a sudden I thought, 'I can go now.'"

I asked, "You drank a six pack right before you came in today?"

He said, "Yeah."

I wanted to say, "How about you let ME drive then?" But it was late in the shift, so I figured it was worn off by then. Quite the first impression. Brenden often talks about his daughter and his "baby's mama." I say, "Do you live WITH your baby's mama?" Yes. "Do you get along with your baby's mama?" Yes. "Then why don't you just call her your girlfriend?" He says, "Because she dumped me a long time ago. We just barely got back together. I'm not her boyfriend and I never will be."

I said, "Do you think you will marry her someday?" He says, "Yeah. Someday. I'm too young right now." I say, "Just call her your girlfriend."

The other night he was talking about his baby's mama. Someone asked, "Is she hot?" And Brenden said, "She is WAY out of my league." I asked , "Where did you meet her?" And Brenden said, "Do you know The Carnival?" I asked, "Do you mean the State Fair or a County Fair or something like that?" He said, "Yes."

I wanted to joke with him, "Oh, were you a carnie? You lured her in by giving her a free ride on the tilt-a-whirl?" But the story was already unfolding before I could even open my mouth. He was a carnie... and so was she. When you think of them both as carnies... doesn't it make that line about her being out of his league seem as sweet as Romeo and Juliet? You bet your last skee-ball ticket, it does.

And the whole time I've known him, it seems like I knew he was a carnie, just no one had ever said the words. But once someone says that word, things suddenly make sense. In my experience, carnies kind of have a Ron Jeremy quality to them: they aren't good looking but they seem to have a special gleam in their eyes. Like, if they would just jump in the shower and comb their hair and make a couple of trips to the dentist, then their options in life would be limitless. As is, they probably get kicked out of restaurants when they come in to ask to use the restroom.

Anyway, when Brenden told me he and his Baby's Mama were two star-crossed carnies, the thought popped in my head: This blogpost will get me a Pulitzer Prize. Brenden told me how he left home at 16 because he and his stepdad were having daily fistfights and his mother always took the stepdad's side. So he cut out of there and joined the carnival. I asked, "They just let a 16 year old join the carnival and travel all around the country?" He said, "Another carnie took me under his wing.(he didn't use the word 'carnie,' he used the guy's name)" He says he's been to 48 states, which is more than I can say.

When I tried to prod him for a little more of the story, he seemed to get defensive. He said, "Who are you, my counselor?" I gave him an evasive answer, "Do you need counseling?" He said, "I need a ride home tonight." But another one of the mofos lives close to him so they gave him a ride.

After that, I figured maybe he didn't feel comfortable about the whole thing so I decided against grilling him for all of the details and against my Pulitzer Prize winning blogpost. The gossip I put on my blog is stuff that people seem to share openly that I don't figure they would care about me regurgitating.

And to put some finality on it, Brenden got fired tonight. He didn't have the battery secured in his lift and it flew out while he was driving. The batteries weigh over 1000 pounds and can make a big mess of acid if they spill. They told him it was okay but that he would have to take a drug test (common after any accident). He said he wouldn't take a drug test. They told him to get the hell out then. He left.

I really should have known he was carnie by how excited he got when the company gave us each a big case of potatos for Thanksgiving. "I love potatos!" he said. " I eat them every day. EVERY DAY."

But the true story of a boy who runs away and joins the carnival would be interesting to people. It's one of those things people say but never do. If some guy jumped off a bridge just because his friends did and he lived to tell about it, wouldn't you be interested in hearing the details? And he doesn't need to feel bad: I spent years and years in college and yet there we were, moving furniture together. I've got nothing over him except that I can pass a drug test.

Stalk You Forever

This post is about the creepiest childrens' book ever written. It is called "Love You Forever" and it can be find at all finer bookstores.

The story follows a mother and her son through course of their lives following a theme of how the mother likes to hold her son and sing to him while he sleeps. She holds him as an infant, she holds him as a toddler, she holds him during grade-school.

Here she is, getting ready to pounce on her teenaged son.



The story also makes a point of explaining that she doesn't just walk in, she crawls in like a hungry jungle cat. And when her son reaches adulthood and moves to his own place across town, what does mother do?

She straps a ladder to the roof of her car in the middle of the night and breaks into his house. She comes in through the window and if he is fast asleep she picks him up and rocks him back and forth while she sings.


I heard the orginal version of this book ended with the man mistaking his mother for a home-intruder and blasting her with a shotgun but publishing executives thought it would be even more disturbing if the book ended with the son having a daughter of his own and perpetuating the unhealthy behavior.

A must read.

The Unconquered Sun

I have always been a fan of Christmas. All of it. The decorations, the spirit of giving, the excitment of receiving, yes, even the commercialism. It seems like Jesus actually takes a backseat during the holiday and it is difficult to see any correlation between the festivities and the man to whom the holiday is attributed.

But when you look at the history of Christmas things begin to make sense. Basically, that this wintertime celebration of the sun making a comeback was around for hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus and, when Rome made their official switch to Christianity, they just slapped a Jesus sticker on the holiday and called it their own. It wasn't even an arbitrary choice in selecting a birthday for JC, they intentionally went around at the solstice parties and said, "This good time is brought to you by the Son of God."

I was reading sites about Yule and Saturnalia and people gave suggestions about how to make the holiday more as it used to be. Wild ideas like:

Decorate with evergreens, pinecones and mistletoe. Decorate a tree with an emphasis on stars and suns. Decorate with reds, greens and whites. Give presents, preferably candles and dolls (figurines).

Sounds a little out there to me. They actually didn't seem to like killing the trees and bringing them indoors. They liked decorating live trees. That was the symbolism behind the evergreen, I guess: that it was impervious to winter; life, strength, vitality.

It seems like everyone can use a boost at this time of year. I wholly support the idea of celebrating the end of the darkest days of the year and the beginnning the light ones. And why can they still emphasize yule logs and mistletoe but totally play down the holiday tradition of getting it on, joining in with the earth as life is brought to the world again?

So much Christian doom and gloom about how man is so horrible that every time God looks at us he wants to strike us all down and someone like Jesus has to calm him down, "Now now, don't get nuts and kill them. If you must, just kill me, your son." And God says, "Well, just as long as there's some killing going on, I guess most of them can live to see another day."

Side note: I receive emails from Christians talking about how miraculous the survival stories of 9/11 are. A guy lived because it was his day to buy donuts for the office. A guy had to drop his son off at school. Stuff like that and then claiming that it was all part of God's master plan that those people were spared.

I find that very rude and disrespectful to suggest that on 9/11 God saved the people he liked and let the rest burn. Alluding that the people who died deserved it. Don't send me those emails anymore.

Given the history of Christmas, I find it ironic that we grow up hearing the phrase, "Let's all remember the true meaning of Christmas." Apparently, co-opted religious propoganda? From what I have read, it sounds as though celebrating birthdays was highly discouraged by the Christian church in the early days.

It was the end of the harvest. The work was done. It was cold but the solstice gave promise that the sun was coming back. Why not hang the decorations, eat and enjoy the company of your fellow man until then? I think Jesus would want us to have moments like that.

It's True I am a Villain When You Fall Ill

Sorry I am slow to post. I'm just tired and busy and always choking on my own rage. When I did the Yin Yang post I was surprised that someone expressed concern about my Britney Spears comment and the possibility that I was saying that "Moms are ugly."

They are ugly, you know. Who has ever been attracted to their own mother, aside from Siggy Freud? Nobody. Because they are ugly.... ok, so that isn't very convincing and I can't make it convincing because I don't believe it. I love all of my moms.

It could still be argued that pregnancy and childbirth are physically taxing to females and that good mothers shift their priorities to their progeny, leaving less time to primp themselves. People probably don't won't to hear that but it would be hard to argue the contrary. It's not a problem. Just a change in life.

My political response would be that the worst has been assumed of me and if I had been but allowed to finish my Britney comments, the conversation would continued something like:

"Doesn't she have two kids? I thought so. So this picture of Britney's Kootchie is during childbirth, right? Because I would love the chance to bask in her motherly glow during those special moments when her baby first arrives in this world. I am so excited for her, and us, as fans and people who cherish Britney for her fragrances and other socially redeeming qualities."

That perspective can be assumed just as easily as the one where I claim girls turn into trolls as soon as the baby's head crowns.

The long and short is: I just don't care about her. I would prefer not to know things about her at all but I would settle for not having her crotch rubbed in my face when I show up for work. I know. I am a monster with outragous demands. I think she is out of her prime, but it's just an opinion and you don't have to care what I think.

I have made a speech about girls and how they are special before. I think it is funny how younger guys always want to be with girls that do what they do, like "I want a girl who mountain bikes and snowboards and can throw a baseball." Those things are admirable and I'm sure any athletic guy would feel lucky to have those traits in his female friend, but they really aren't very important.

I like a girl who knows all those girly things that I will never know. If my daughter wants to know about makeup or hairdos or what to wear... I really appreciate a perspective different than mine. If I was married to someone just like me, my daughter would probably get advice like, "You need something to where to the prom? Why can't you just wear basketball shorts?" There is an aspect of life that I will always know little about and I hope my children can learn that stuff from my wife. Heaven help my daughter if it ever falls on me to explain the menstrual cycle to her. There are things that I despise but that my wife and kids like and I am happy to be left out of it. I appreciate girls for these things. Even Britney. For her children's sake.

I wish Britney the best in reaching all of her goals.

Celebrity Lookalike (III)

Here is a picture we took today as a potential "Christmas Card" photo. I figured I would take the opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and to honor the request for a side-by-side comparison of me and the celebrities I may or may not resemble:



First up is Dora:

Since I've been taking my guitar to work, people have started calling me "Richie Valens." I'm sure they mean "Lou Diamond Philips as Richie Valens."


A few months ago, one of my bosses came driving up and said, "We were trying to figure out who you look like. We were thinking Keanu Reeves..."

And then at the last second before he drove away, he slammed me, "Either Keanu Reeves or Long Duk Dong."

How can we forget my uncanny resemblence to The Thriller himself? Maybe if I put on some make up? I think it's all in the eyebrows.

I figured I would throw in Joseph Gribble from King of the Hill, just to mix things up.


SO WHO DO YOU THINK I LOOK LIKE MOST?

Yin Yang

Sometimes I get moved by what I see around me and it leads me to begin a statement with the words, "There are two kinds of people in this world..."

(some example endings)

The kind who will squash a fly with their bare hand and the kind who won't.

The kind who will wear a vest and the kind who don't see the point.

People who french-kiss their dogs and those who mock them.

People who will wear two unmatching socks and those who won't.

The kind who will never own a minivan and the kind who can't pass up a generous offer of trade for a very practical, more valuable, reliable minivan, even though they always swore they would never BUY a minivan, because technically they never actually saved up a big pile of money and said, "Yes. I really want to spend this money on a minivan."

You either like Robotech or you hate it. (Nerd stuff: Just before Thanksgiving we were trying to paint the walls in our house. I asked my wife, "Should I put on a movie that we can listen to while we paint?" and she said, "Yeah, just don't play anything that is going to drive me crazy, like Minmay singing (from Robotech)." I said, "You know, Minmay is only in the first season. Season 3 of Robotech is Minmay-free." She said, "But does it still have that whiny-Luke Skywalker voice in it (Rick Hunter season 1 and Rand in season 3)?" I changed the subject, "Is their any other kind of Luke Skywalker?" I put in the live-action version of "Popeye" because it's a musical. My wife freaked out, "I said put in something that isn't annoying and you put in Shelley Duvall as Olive Oil? What is wrong with you?!?!" I quickly changed the DVD to "The Princess Bride" and she said that was perfect.

Regular people who greet you by saying "Hello" or "How was your weekend?" and co-workers who greet you by saying things like, "Hey, Mike the Coordinator has a picture of Britney Spears's kootchie on his cell phone. It's real!" Whatever dude. Doesn't she have two kids?

I'm sure there are hundreds that I am forgetting. Oh well. Do you have any?

Tis the Season

The holidays are eating into my blog-time. I've been spending time in crowded stores but finding little to buy. For a few hours last week I was in a rage about middle-aged nerds that stakeout retail stores to buy up all of the popular toys before parents can so they can resell them at a profit. I looked online but refuse to pay the inflated prices, even if it means my son doesn't get the toys on Christmas.

My son really wants "Ben 10" toys but they are wiped out everywhere. After days of searching, I finally hit the toy store at the right time and found some. I took what I wanted and even left a bunch behind. I probably could have bought them all and made a fast $50 reselling them myself, but that would mean I had become what I hate so I left them for some other desperate parent or friendless nerd.

I even went to the mall in an attempt to find my wife some clothes. Here is a conversation I heard at The Gap:

Customer: "Where can I find that cream-colored shirt up there in your display?"

Store Clerk: "Um... that's not a shirt. It's a bare manequin."

Customer: (After a long awkward pause) Where do you keep your other cream-colored shirts?"

So ladies, the "naked manequin" look is officially IN. Get out there and paint it on.

On Saturday night, I was at work moving mattresses when my boss came up to me and told me my wife was trying to get ahold of me. After a long game of phone tag, I got ahold of my mother-in-law who told my that my wife had taken Ethan to the emergency room at the hospital.

The kids had gone to a Christmas play with my in-laws and when it ended, they said Ethan turned a fantastic shade of green and looked like he was going to throw up. He said he just needed a drink. Moments later his eyes rolled up and he passed out before a very large audience. My wife yelled for someone to call 911 three times before someone actually did. They laid him down. Inspired by the church/Christmas atmosphere, they prayed for him. They said his eyes popped open, but he was still out of it. They tried to give him water but it just dribbled down his chin. He passed out again before the paramedics arrived.

The EMT's checked him out and didn't know what to make of it, so they recommended that he go to the hospital. My wife hadn't actually called me, it was her Aunt Dianne that called. I went to my boss and prepared my plea, "I have already worked 50 hours this week. Would it be okay if I went home early tonight?" He seemed to know the story already, even though he hadn't given me any of the details. He just told me to go.

I hurried to the hospital where I was subjected to the standard "30 minutes of waiting for no good reason" in the lobby before the desk dude finally remembered I was there and let me see my son. When I saw him he was up smiling, laughing and bouncing around. His normal self.

They had done blood tests and an EKG to make sure his heart wasn't going to explode or anything. After another hour or so, the doctors gave us their final diagnosis: "We have no idea what caused him to turn color and pass out. You'll get a bill in the mail." They guessed that maybe he had just sat too long and then stood up too fast. But that doesn't really account for his green complexion.

I really wish I could have rode in the ambulance, being as I have to pay for it. But I do feel fortunate for Ethan's condition: Inconclusion is much better than a terminal conclusion. I asked Ethan what he had eaten and he admitted to eating some dirty snow, but that doesn't seem like enough.

Later, I asked my wife: "Do you think this would have happened if you hadn't gone to the play? Did someone there have noxious breath or anything?"

She said, "I guess it would have happened one way or the other. It was hot at the play but he took off his coat. He sat on Dianne's lap so he could see the play better."

I joked, "Oh, so it was Dianne with the noxious breath."

For the record, Dianne is a very nice lady and I have never known her breath to be anything but pleasant. But Ethan seems normal again so we will have his regular doctor check him out a little and go from there. Maybe Santa will bring me Health Insurance for Christmas, preferably a plan that covers Intermountain Health Care and their affiliated doctors. I've been ever so good this year.