Sweet Carol Line

A few years back my friend and yours, Brett Merritt, emailed me a link to this video. (I think it counted as his Christmas present to me and to the entire world that year.) It stars Brett and some various and sundry friends of mine from college. I find it delightful. You’ll notice it has over 6,000 hits. What you won’t notice is that approximately 4,692 of those are from my family alone. We watch it regularly around this here festive and most wonderful time of the year. So thank you, Brett Merritt. Thank you for your creativenessocity. (P.S. If I have to pick a favorite part, it’s the ending, starring my friends and yours, The Clarks. You can read my tribute to them by clicking here.)

Simple Gratitude

Thanksgiving Day and the day after were two of my most favorite days this entire year. It wasn’t just because we had pie for breakfast. It wasn’t just because we had pie for lunch. It wasn’t just because we had pie for dinner. But I’m not going to lie to you, that was certainly a big part of it.

These were two days of stillness.

We ate. We slept. We got out Christmas decorations and leisurely hung stuff up. We watched Christmas movies. We ate some more. We wore clothes for lounging. We played games. We answered to nobody. There were no demands or expectations. There were no distractions. There were no emergencies. There was laughter and giddiness. There were stories and movie quotes. There was peacefulness and assurance.

There was simplicity.

That’s what I was grateful for this year.

Five Ways Death Will Never Conquer Me

I hesitate to be so conceivably morose, yea, perchance even a bit macabre (pronounced mack-uh-bree), but I can think of no more opportune time than the day before Halloween to present to you my list of The Top 5 Ways I Do NOT Want to Die. ‘Tis the season!

1. Shark Attack. Perhaps this is the most disconcerting to me, because I have it on pretty good authority that this is exactly how I am going to die. And by “good authority,” I am of course referring to “unfounded and irrational fear.” You can read about my feelings (i.e.: fear and loathing) regarding sharks by clicking here. And in case you are wondering whether or not I am more afraid of being ripped to shreds by a shark, or swallowed whole, it is the latter. Because in order to be swallowed whole, that mother has got to be pretty big. And it’s the size of the beast that frightens me most.

2. Being at the top of the Sears Tower (or Willis Tower), leaning up against the glass to look below, and having the glass break and falling through the glass. Truth be known, this could never actually happen to me. Because leaning against the glass alone would give me a heart attack, and thus, falling to my death would be, as Rick Springfield so eloquently put it in his hit single Jesse’s Girl, a mute point.

3. Having a magic trick go horribly wrong and being sawed in half. Couldn’t happen you say? Or could it happen SO easily that your head is spinning like a top!? Insane, am I?! Or am I SO sane that I just blew your mind?! Impossible, is it? Or is it SO possible, that your world is crashing down around you?!

4. Being outside the space ship and having the cord snap and floating silently away into outer space. For this reason, David Bowie’s Space Oddity and Peter Schilling’s Major Tom straight-up freak me right the heck out.

5. On the toilet. This is really more about location than anything. And I trace this trepidation back to the stories surrounding the death of one Mr. Elvis Aaron Presley. What a shame. How do you recover from that? Turns out you can’t, because guess what – you dead. And I suppose that’s what I don’t like about it. When you die, your mortal body is expired. But your legacy lives on. But not if you die on the toilet. You’ll have to have two funerals – one for you and one for your dignity. Doesn’t matter if you invented penicillin, birthed Oprah, or sold 18 ka-billion records. You will be remembered for one thing. Number 2.

Is there a way I would prefer to die – other than the old cliché of “in my sleep?” I suppose death by overeating of ice cream would be acceptable. “His body just couldn’t handle that much lactose. We did all we could. He felt no pain. Look at him smiling.”

It Was a Dark and Creepy Noite

The season is upon us. Long shadows, short days. Our vision plays tricks on our minds. We even give way to superstitions of which we would otherwise pay no-never-mind. It’s Halloween, my friends. And if you have only recently found this little blog of mine, you should know that I traditionally take this opportunity to regale readers with a foreboding tale or two from my own life.

For past stories, you may click … here. If you … dare. Bwa-ha. BwahahahahahahaHA!

In 1992 I was serving a mission for the LDS Church. I had been called to teach and preach and work as missionaries do in the western European country of Portugal. I had been in the country long enough to learn by my own experience that the language was beautiful, the food delectable, the countryside to be like an oil canvas painting, and the people to be warm, opinionated…and intermittently…highly superstitious.

I saw things (and people) on my mission that were, frankly, inexplicable. I often chalked it up to A) being in a foreign land, B) having daily contact with hordes of people, and C) an unhallowed hand trying to disrupt missionary work. But for this particular yarn, I focus solely on the peculiar and dangerous nature of an eccentric, country peasant.

It was mid-summer and I was working in a more rural town called Caldas da Rainha, north of Lisbon and surrounded by a beautiful European landscape of fields and farmlands. We often traveled by train, but were generally on foot. As a leader in this region, I would occasionally travel to outlying areas to work with other missionaries and see how the work was going and what I could do to support them. On this particular occasion I made an overnight trip to Peniche, a charming beachfront town even smaller than Caldas.

It was my first occasion to visit this town, but I knew a couple of the missionaries assigned to Peniche from working together previously in other areas. I happened to be visiting on a night when the missionaries were holding a social activity for some of the church members and other locals that resided there. There were about 17 souls in attendance.

This activity was being held in a cozy gathering room in the home of one of the members. People were still arriving and while the missionaries were paying attention to some last minute details, I took a seat in the informal circle that seemed to be forming around the room. I was reading some scriptures in preparation for the meeting and wasn’t paying too close attention to what was going on…when I overheard an unsettling conversation taking place just within hearing distance from me.

“Tonight. Someone in this room…will die.”

I stopped reading and slowly looked up to my left. There was a portly but strong man in his mid-forties with a big bushy mustache and his right arm in a sling. He was staring straight forward, across the room, but at nobody in particular.

An older, semi-toothless woman with white hair leaned close to him and whispered, “Is it Helena?”

The bushy mustached fellow closed his eyes, slowly nodded once and said, “It has been spoken.”

I casually looked around to see if anybody else had heard these absurd and chilling remarks. Nothing. There was much hustle and bustle and people were socializing and nobody else had heard this menacing, violent threat. Except me.

Now, I don’t mean to brag, but my Portuguese was pretty awesome. (And since I’m bragging, I’ll also tell you that I got pretty tan in the summer, and people often mistook me for being Portuguese. Also, in more bragging news, I could eat my weight in Portuguese pastries.) At any rate, lest you are thinking that my Portuguese was not so great, and I misunderstood the conversation, I will have you know that I most certainly did not.

I watched this man throughout the evening’s activity. He was somber. Perplexing. Normally, such a conversation as I’d overheard would be preposterous. Nobody breathes out such casual intimidations as this. It would seem almost nonsensical. But not here. Not in a small, unsuspecting European town. Not when you’ve regularly been around people whose behavior is not always practical or sensible.

After the gathering had ended, I was visiting with the other missionaries and finally asked them what I had been wondering all night. “Who is Helena?”

“Oh,” said a missionary by the last name of Ebbert, “she was that pretty lady in her early thirties sitting over there (and he pointed to a seat directly across from where Mustache Man had been sitting). She has two young kids, they were sitting by her.”

“Married?” I asked.

“No.”

“Hmm. Do you know why anyone would want to kill her?”

“WHAT?” asked all three missionaries.

“I heard this unfriendly man with a mustache over here quietly and solemnly announce that she was going to die tonight.”

“Ah,” said the missionaries. And then they went on to explain to me how this man had made several advances towards this woman. And oddly, they were all thwarted. I mean, sure, he sounds like a charmer. But I suppose not everyone can be into humorless, violent, death-threateners who stare into space and make pseudo-prophetic statements about the well being of fellow party goers. But I don’t know. I just see those two kids together.

“Would he actually do harm to her?” I asked.

“Oh, I think he could.” And all three of them nodded with conviction.

“Do we need to warn her?”

“We probably should,” said Ebbert. “I’m not really confident how stable this guy is or what he would do. Helena lives by herself, with her two kids…and he knows that.”

It was pretty late in the evening, and all public transportation was shut down for the night as Ebbert and I started to walk to Helena’s house. It was a warm evening, and while there was some moonlight, the empty cobblestone streets of the small town were dim. I felt my hairs stand on end. I had no idea what this man was capable of. I also had no idea of the layout of the town – where he could be hiding, what he could hit me with, and most importantly, if I’d ever be able to eat these delectable Portuguese pastries again, or if I’d be forced to enjoy them intravenously.

The street came to an end at a large, shoulder-high field. On the other side of the field we could see Helena’s apartment building. But Ebbert assured me there was also no quicker way to get to her than through the field. He also assured me that our Psychotic Mustached Friend knew that too…and could be making his own way through this field at the same time as us. A chance meeting? The werewolf movie previews began to run through my mind: An American Missionary in Portugal.

We decided we really didn’t want Helena’s death on our consciences, so we plunged into the field. My eyes were furiously darting in front of me, to the sides, over my shoulder – and I would occasionally turn all the way around to make sure it was just my imagination and not real footsteps behind me. Everything felt thick – the field, the air, the night, the silence, the tension. When we actually cleared the field, I felt like I had just cheated death.

We finally knocked on Helena’s apartment door. She opened it and motioned for us to come in, while she finished talking on the phone to her mother. Everything seemed okay. We made nice with the kids, who were in their pajamas, ready for mom to put them to bed, and I was trying to decide how to properly and almost-casually warn Helena to be cautious.

Helena hung up the phone and looked at us with a slightly concerned, puzzled look. I had never officially met her before, so I let Ebbert do the talking.

“Did anybody follow you home?” asked Ebbert in Portuguese, but more importantly, in a horribly awkward way to start any conversation.

“No….” she answered in Portuguese, but more importantly, with great trepidation.

“Oh,” said Ebbert, in Portuguese, but more importantly, far too carelessly, “because this guy at the party – the one with the mustache and his arm in a sling? – well, he said he was going to –”

“EBBERT… please shut up,” I said, cutting him off and breaking proper protocol by being rude and speaking in English in front of the non-English speaking local. “What are you doing? Are you actually going to tell her that somebody is planning to kill her? Why would you say that? Don’t say that. You stop saying words for the rest of tonight.”

But she was already holding both hands to her face and screaming. She had previously had concerns about Mustached Man and wanted him nowhere near her. Now she was threatening to pack, leave for her mom’s, and call the police. (I was hoping she would threaten Ebbert as well, for forgetting to use his brain.)

“Ma’am, he is not going to do anything to you,” I said, practicing my hostage negotiation skills that I would never use again. “He is upset and hurt, but he is not so brazen as to break the law.” (And no, I no longer know the Portuguese word for “brazen.”) I suddenly felt calmer. If this man hadn’t already stormed her, he wasn’t going to. We encouraged her to call the police if it would help her feel better, and we listened to her lock the door behind us as we stepped out.

As we made our way back across the creepy field, I lectured Ebbert on the finer points of “breaking bad and/or scary news to somebody.” Honestly, was he raised by wolves? I suggest he was. Rude wolves, with no sensitivity to delicate matters.

Knowing Helena was safe, I felt less vulnerable somehow. Like, if this guy attacked us on the way back, I would have no choice but to get all crazy up in his mustache grill! But we arrived at the missionaries’ home to find that Mustached Man had actually paid them a visit while we were gone. He had tried to fight one of the other missionaries whom he felt had disrespected him, and in another pseudo-prophetic threat, had given him until 8 a.m. the next morning to take the train out of town. The missionary didn’t seem concerned.

I began to wonder how often this guy threw idle threats around like that. “You’re going to die tonight!” “You have ‘til sunrise to get out of town!” “Walk the plank!” “You can’t handle the truth!” “Show me the money!”

I never saw that man again. I received reports later from the missionaries that he had stopped frequenting any of their activities and kind of kept his distance. I wonder, what drives a man to become so menacing? What alters your perception of reality to a point where you assume there are no consequences for your actions or words? And why do small, European towns seem rife with these people? And why doesn't Las Vegas have any Portuguese bakeries? We just don’t have all the answers to life’s peculiar mysteries, unfortunately.

Stay Classy, Las Vegas

Say what you will about Las Vegas (and contrary to popular belief, what you say about Las Vegas will not stay in Las Vegas), but if you’re saying that it is a city void of culture, tradition, and virtue, then my friend, allow me to unveil an ardent and irrefutable defense.

Exhibit A: Culture. Is your hometown the host of the Liberace Museum, the Atomic Testing Museum, or a nude Cirque du Soleil show? Mm-hmm, I thought not. No culture, indeed.

Exhibit B: Tradition. Las Vegas has a long-standing tradition of freeway billboards that push the envelope of good taste and public decency; hearkening back to at least 1998, when I moved here, but possibly going back even earlier! My favorite? The new Stoney’s North Forty nightclub billboard I get to see everyday on my way home from work. It reads “A New Place to Sin in the Northwest.” Which is not only classy, but a much-needed establishment, as I polled my neighbors and discovered that most of them had run out of places to sin.

And finally, Exhibit C: Virtue. …yeah, I got nuthin’.

But because Las Vegas is such a family-centered city, for the kids, I present to you the Lied Discovery Children’s Museum. A place to encourage young minds, develop an early interest in science, broaden their horizons, and open their eyes to a world of wonder.

Or a world of snot, gas, and acid reflux. You know, either way. Whatever.

Our local Children’s Museum was recently featuring Grossology: The Impolite Science of The Human Body. All in the good name of science, of course, the museum took the private, unmentionable taboos of bodily functions, and really brought it down to a level the kids could wrap their minds around. And I think I hear your voices joining mine in a hallelujah chorus as we declare, “It’s about time, Las Vegas! Finally, something to infuse vision and hope into our children! The magic of mucus!”

It’s genius, really. An enlightening indoctrination of the noises and smells of the body that will be sure to take the mystery out of it all; with the result being that the kids will never find jokes about tinkle quite as funny as they once were.

…or will they?

Here are five of my six adorable children, still innocent. Before “culture” gave them the green light to openly maintain casual conversations about boogers and belches.

And may I please introduce you to the game sensation that is sweeping the nation. That's correct - Urine: The Game. Step aside Guitar Hero…there’s a new game in town. And I’m sorry, but if there is a more fascinating/entertaining way to learn about your urethra and where proteins go, then I’d like to see it. I mean, I defy you to find a more enthralling teaching method. Anyone? I didn’t think so.

My heart skipped a beat when I saw my three year old completely captivated as he received a stirring lecture on the finer points of nasal drip from a talking faucet. Bravo, Mr. Faucet. Bra. Vo.

This was almost emotional for me, seeing my little scientist, Connor, gain a firmer understanding of sphincters, and how to make his gas sound hilarious.

And this message was informative, but didn’t offer any definitive conclusion. “Most cultures consider tooting to be a private thing.” MOST? Most cultures? Which cultures do not consider this to be a private thing? Because I think my sons want to relocate to this highbrow neighborhood.



All I can say is: thank goodness for this sign. It really helped avoid a major embarrassment, and a major disaster.

I don’t recall what distinctive area of the body this climbing wall was supposed to represent, but I have to believe it was disgusting on some level. Are those polyps? I don’t know.

Finally, a shot of my 8-year old in a bubble, and some museum employee, taking a cue from the Grossology exhibit, and picking her nose right there in my otherwise adorable photo.

Still think Vegas is merely a vat of tastelessness in the desert? We accept your apology; now good day.

I said good day, sir!

The Dangers of YouTube

This last week I was asked to speak to the youth of our stake on the subject of maintaining righteous standards in their choices of entertainment. (In the LDS Church, a “stake” is a grouping of several “wards.” A “ward” is a “congregation.” “Youth” is ages 12 to 18 years old. And “righteous standards” is entertainment that is not salacious, graphic, or starring Mickey Rourke.) You can click here for more information. (On the LDS Church, I mean. I won’t pretend to know where to click to find information on Mickey Rourke. But you could probably Google the word “infection” and find him somewhere in there.)

Another bishop in the stake spoke with me, and in an effort to hold the youth’s attention and earn some street cred, we made a short video for YouTube. (It held their attention; but let's be honest, there was never a chance for any “street cred.”)

We showed the YouTube video during the program and set it up as “you never know what kind of outrageous, shocking video you could come across on the Interwebs…”

CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

A Conversation with Roxanna

My delightful and precocious daughter, Roxanna, recently turned six. I adore Roxanna. She doesn’t have much of an internal censor. There are no red lights or even a yield sign between her thoughts and her voice. I used to think it was strictly her age, and that is why she did things like tell complete strangers that they “smelled like rice pudding.” (We’re still not sure if that’s an insult or a compliment. Neither was the person she said it to.)

The other day I was sitting on the couch reading, and Roxanna climbed up next to me. It was uncommonly quiet as the other kids were playing in the backyard. Roxanna picked up my right hand and started playing with my fingers. She seemed content to just be sitting by her dad. I watched her and loved this quiet moment. It was almost emotional.

“Roxanna,” I said, trying not to interrupt the moment. “Will we always be friends?”

“Yes,” she answered, without looking up from my hand.

“What about when you’re 16?” I asked, thinking about the teenage-daughter/father dynamic.

“DAD!” she responded, laughing as if I’d made a “pull-my-finger” joke, and then quietly going back to concentrate on my hand, calmly said, “When I’m 16 you won’t be alive anymore.”

“I won’t?! That’s only in ten years, sweetheart.”

“Well… You’ll be a grandpa for sure by then.”

Evidently in addition to missing a censor, her internal clock is busted. Although I suppose 16 is an entire lifetime away for a 6 year old. It’s two and half times the short amount of living they’ve done. To her it seems like she will never be 16. For me, it breaks my heart how quickly she will be.

But by then, I should have my new product out: Eau Rice Pudding Cologne for Men.