Moments of Clarity. I Mean Stupidity.

A random sampling of our day-to-day. Well, not random, because I chose the stories. And what I thought were the most note-worthy ones. So not random at all. But a sampling nonetheless.

(1) Television

We went 6-7 months without T.V. Don't get me wrong.... We have a T.V. We have a DVD player. We have a cable cord. It's just that we don't pay for cable or whatever it is that gets us the good stuff....aka Comedy Central and the Travel Channel. Well it was a couple days before 9/11, and since we weren't going to be able to watch any of the good specials on the history channel or any of the others that had good specials commemorating that day, I decided to have a netflix movie sent in time so that we would have something. It's called September 11. I'll discuss that movie in the 3rd bullet point of this blog.
After talking to some friends in the ward, we found out that they were planning on watching a 9/11 special and we were invited to watch it with them. So we postponed our movie plan, because this was much better. As things turned out, plans fell through for various reasons, but one of the girls informed us that even without paying for cable, we still would be able to watch it on our own T.V., that we did indeed have a very few, select channels at our disposal. The moment we came home from church, Mary found the cable cord. A cable cord that just so happened to already be connected to the T.V., and all we had to do was take the other end and connect it to the wall, about 1 inch away from the back of the T.V., and directly behind it. Something neither of us thought to even try, since we weren't paying for any sort of cable. Lo and behold, moving pictures appeared on our old television.
We started flipping and realized that we have access to our favorite shows...House, Survivor, Modern Family, So You Think You Can Dance (not applicable now that the season is over...but a couple months ago!!!)...etc. We also love The Daily Show as well as The Colbert Report, but no surprise we don't have Comedy Central. Which we just watch online. As we did our other favs, but now we don't have to wait till whenever the website posts the video for the others anymore!

Point of the story? We went 6-7 months of watching just netflix, redbox, and all my 10 seasons of Friends on loop....because we were too stupid to plug the cable cord into the wall. We were both in such shock the first 30 minutes. Like jaws to the ground in disbelief.

(2) Interactive Cinematic Experiences

Anyone seen Contagion yet?

Not a bad movie. But I didn't love it as much as I thought I would. But I'm still so glad we went, because we had quite the experience as a member of the audience that night. It's important to note that the back row of the theater is apparently not just a place where rebellious teenagers can get into each others pants, but also the place to go for people who want to make themselves at home. So, me and Mary naturally prefer the back row of the theater (if it's stadium seating) because we have found that we can whisper comments to each other, and not feel bad, because apparently nobody up there ever has any sense of manners since we have learned that up there everyone talks. Not loud and obnoxious, but just more so than say...the coveted row with the bar where you can put your feet up. And pretty much every single time, somebody up there says or does something weird (again, not talking about the sexually charged teenagers who are also up there feeling each other up). This show, my friends, was particularly entertaining. The highlights:

You probably all know by now that this movie is about an epidemic. Or pandemic? I don't know. Basically a virus traveling at lightning speeds being transmitted around the globe. Ok so there's a part where I think someone is going through and naming all the major cities that have been affected, and Salt Lake City was one of them. Take a moment to recall that me and Mary live in Salt Lake. Ok actually Holladay....but that's just outside of the city, only like 10-15 minutes, so same diff. Well it was so funny because the second the words "Salt Lake City" slipped out of the actor's mouth, the whole audience started fidgeting and murmuring and gasping and being really weird. Amongst all the fright, a handful of people decided to be silly and force a few crackly, sickly-sounding coughs. People gasped some more. And then, the rowdy bunch of girls sitting on the back row with us yelled (and I really mean yelled) out

"WE'RE ALL DEAD!!!!!!!!!!"

And then the whole theater busted out laughing. And this was as the movie continued to roll, and we were probably missing vital information to the plot, but nobody cared because it was the most ridiculous movie experience I think anyone there had ever had.Story not over.

Not 10 minutes later, I see what I thought was a cloud of smoke coming from a few rows down. I looked at Mary and asked if she saw the smoke too. She looked at me like was going as crazy as the rest of our fellow audience members. Right then, she cocked her head to the side without a confused look on her face, and I turned my head to see what she was staring at, and sure enough, more smoke. And it was coming from a human. And then we saw it. Some guy was totally smoking a joint in the theater! No, not even just a normal cigarette.....but weed!! And he had no shame, didn't even try to hide it! The funniest part was that nobody cared enough to tell on him, and everyone let him get his high on right there in the middle of the theater. Just makes me wonder how often he gets away with that, considering he was brave enough to light up without even trying to hide it. Although I'm not sure how he would have hidden it, so there probably was no sense in even trying.

I'm just so glad that it all happened, and it's kind of hard to convey just how funny it was if you weren't there, but please trust me......It was hysterical.

(3) Our 9/11 Movie

I remember a year ago in my Jewish History class, my teacher showed us parts of the movie called September 11. It's a really cool concept for a 9/11 movie. Stolen directly from it's IMBD site:  the movie is about the effects of the 9/11 terrorist attacks are told from different points of view around the world. Eleven directors from 11 countries each contribute an 11-minute short reflecting on the events of 11 September 2001. It's really neat. Except here's what happened.

In class we only saw the French short and the Israeli short. Our teacher did not activate the subtitles, leading me to believe that there were no subtitles. I thought it was like one of those artsy fartsy things where we had to just soak in the body language and scenery and passion and that the dialogue wasn't important, was really only distraction. Well I should know by now that I am not artsy fartsy and am not so great at interpreting artsy fartsy things. He kind of let us know the gist of what was going on though. So I remembered that movie, and had it come in time for 9/11.
We watched it the day after....without the subtitles (thinking they did not exist). Well we watched a full hour before calling it quits. We watched the French segment (which was also in sign language). We watched the Iranian segment (I've studied Farsi, but I sure as heck didn't study enough yet to be able to understand). We watched the Bosnia-Herzegovina segment. We watched the Burkina-Faso segment. We watched the United Kingdom segment (yay English!....except it was narrated by a Chilean, talking about one of America's fine moments of orchestrating the destruction of political achievements of foreign governments -Allende, also on 9/11 - because heaven forbid we don't choke and strangle and control every single government in the entire world). We watched the Egypt segment (yay Arabic! Too bad it's been over 2 years since I've spoken it and SUCK now, and picked up some of the story, but also missed really important parts).
ANYWAY.....We watched, like I said, an hour of these foreign languages, trying to figure out what was going on. Finally I googled the movie and found an synopsis for each short, which is obviously the only way any of it made sense to us. Go figure. We stoppped at an hour and decided to finish the rest the next day because Mary was tired. On the menu page, I played around and found myself at an option for English subtitles. 

WTF?!?!?! 

     

I was shaking in rage. Anger at our my stupidity. I was so upset, I just went ahead and sent the movie back in the next day, and decided that I would try watching it again next year, when I hopefully will have cooled off enough by then to start the movie over from the beginning, and this time understand what is happening.

And that concludes this segment of The lives of Mary and Michelle. 

Lupe Fiassssssco

I am sleepy, so this is probably littered with typos and grammatical erros. And DEFINITELY full of tangents. Sue me. (<---remember when that phrase was cool? In the 90s, was it?)

Every summer in SLC, there are free concerts put on in Pioneer Park. They're usually your typical little hipster indie bands and the park is crawling with hipster/indie little people. Well I happen to share a music interest with these little people, just not so much their awful fashion sense nor their emo outlook on life. So anyway there was a really great line-up this summer, including the Decemberists, Explosions in the Sky, Bright Eyes, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, etc. The final show was Lupe Fiasco....not so much in the same genre of music as the others, but wonderful nonetheless.

Don't remember who Lupe Fiasco is? Well certainly you remember his hit Superstar a few years ago? Can't embed the video, sorry. Anyway, I'm not going to lie, this is one of only 2 songs of his that I know. The other I actually heard performed on the Colbert Report when he was promoting his new album not long ago. It's just your typical celebrity pretending that they care about social justice and so they have someone write lyrics for them on topics that they actually know NOTHING ABOUT. Nevertheless, they are topics on which I do happen to know a thing or two. And topics that I am fairly passionate about. So I will accept Lupe Fiasco's "effort" at social justice, even if it is probably mostly just to sell records. Because even if Lupe Fiasco might not understand the situations that he's singing about, I do. And ALL I FREAKING WANT in this world is a job where I can contribute my knowledge and effort at bettering this corner of the world. Even if that's next to impossible. I would please like my chance to at least try. Anywayyyys, lyric sampling of his song "Words I Never Said":

"...Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn't say sh*t

That's why I ain't vote for him, next one either

I'm part of the problem, my problem is I'm peaceful

And I believe in the people...

...Now you can say it ain't our fault if we never heard it
But if we know better than we probably deserve it
Jihad is not a holy war, wheres that in the worship?
Murdering is not Islam!

And you are not observant 

And you are not a muslim 

Israel don't take my side cause look how far you've pushed them 

Walk with me into the ghetto, this where all the Kush went 

Complain about the liquor store but what you drinking liquor for? 

Complain about the gloom but when'd you pick a broom up? 

Just listening to Pac ain't gone make it stop 

A rebel in your thoughts, ain't gon make it halt 

If you don't become an actor you'll never be a factor..."

But really, you should watch and listen to the whole thing. Those lines just happen to be my favorites. You mean the lines defending Defending Islam? And Palestinians? And finding fault in current Israeli policy? My favorite parts?? Nooooo not Michelle ;-)

AS FOR the evening........We met up with my good friend Joel and his gorgeous super cute lady friend, well....significant other? I'm not sure of their exact romantic title. So I'll leave it at that, since I'm going to post this blog to their Facebook page so they can read it, and I don't want anyone feeling uncomfortable about me sticking an awkward label on them that maybe doesn't apply. Is that right, Joel and Kinsi? :-)

We met up for dinner at a place that I can't remember the name. It wasn't bad at all, just apparently not memorable since I can't recall the name. Then we sat on the grass and chatted for a bit, since this was the first time since I'd seen Joel since he came back from his internship in JORDAN!!! So jealous. Anyway. Some douchebag decided he no longer wanted whatever it was that he was eating, it involved beans that much I know, and threw it on the ground. This was a good distance away from us, but somehow the beans and juices landed on me and Joel. We both thought we felt raindrops. Then Kinsi and Mary informed us that the cold liquid we felt was, in fact, beans and bean juices. Some even landed in Joel's hair. The tragic moment:

Please tell me that you can see the bean juice hanging out in Joel's hair. It was much more obvious, the camera just didn't quite capture it right.

Our primitive attempts to clean ourselves with grass.

We're smiling, but I'm actually quite distressed at that particular moment.

Also, when we were walking into the park through security, we saw a girl whose boobs were coming out of the sides her shirt. She was wearing no bra, and her perky ladies kept sneaking out to say hello to the world. Like a t-shirt cut into a tank top, but the arm holes went aaaalll the way down to her hips almost. Am I painting the picture for you? A large, gappy tank top t-shirt thing, boobs coming via the building exits on the right and the left. It just wasn't even cute. Surprise surprise, public nudity not so attractive.

It took forever to for Lupe Fiasco to finally perform, and there were like 800 million people. Well 37,000 was the count that I heard that night. I'm not sure what the confirmed number actually was. And I'm pretty sure that 36,996 of those people (that number reflects that the absence of the 4 of us) were blowing 2nd hand weed smoke directly into my face. Oh well, it's my excuse for *accidentally* getting high without actually having been naughty and smoked it myself ;-) I'M KIDDING MOM!! Eh, sort of....

Ok so I didn't get high. But probably only because it was an outdoor setting, as opposed to be closed in a small space. Hot boxing is the official term for that, so I was recently told.

Anywayyyy we were not too terribly far from the stage but not close either. Through the determination of Joel and Kinsi, WE GOT SO FREAKIN CLOSE TO THE STAGE! And had I not wimped out, we seriously probably would have made it right up next to it. But oh my holy crap, being caged in by all those drunk smelly sweaty people was a nightmare. SO FUN. But also SO SCARY. I was stupid and kept my hair down, straightened it and everything. Well it kept getting caught in between the sweaty skin of random people and my head was getting yanked around every which direction. And my feet were soon numb after 36,999 people stomped on them. The whole night. As nightmare-ish as that may sound, it was so much worse. But also, totally worth it. Such a blast. I just eventually really just could not breathe anymore, so we tried to make our way out of the maze. Which turned out to be much more difficult than I imagined. Eventually we made our way out. And as soon as we left the crowd, I wished we hadn't. But that was only because I could breathe again and had already forgotten the misery of gasping for air.  The other Pioneer Park concerts were so chill. Based on my previous experience, I did not adequately prepare, in regard to my attire and my hair. Buuuut....all in all, it was a grand time.

Oh oh OH and before I forget, he gave a shout-out onstage to Muslims and Ramadan! And Mormons! The concert was in August, during Ramadan, so at some point he was giving shout-outs to random groups of people, and it went something like this (just imagine as you read the words that I type here that I'm a really cool black guy yelling this onstage to almost 40,000 ppl): ".....and I want to give a shout out to Muslims, and to Ramadan!!! And to all the Mormons in the audience who shouldn't be here tonight!"

At least I think that's what he said of Mormons. Someone should inform him that Mormons are indeed "allowed" to attend large social gatherings at parks. And "allowed" to listen to music. And "allowed" to combine those two activities. The contact high due to all the weed smoking aspect of the night......probably not exactly smiled upon. Anyway, I just like that he gave a shout out to my two favorite religions! One of which I currently actively practice! The Mormon one, that is. Although, I wish I was cool enough to simultaneously be Muslim, too. Alas, I will just have to try to incorporate the wonderful aspects of Islam into my life, but fall just short in that I accept Jesus as my Savior.....and other pretty important stuff too.

Dinner

Dinner

I would have only posted the picture previous to this one, but I included this one and the next in order to show how the binat behind us apparently thought that this was actually their photo-op. Oh and binat = girls. See, I can remember some Arabic still.....HIRE ME DAMMIT DANGIT.

The distance from the stage when we started. I couldn't get a clear one to save my life because of all the jumping. I was forced to jump as well because otherwise I would have been trampled. And jumping makes it hard to get a clear picture.

This was not zoomed. This was how close we ended up. Yeeeeaaaaahhh. Also the only clear action picture of the evening. Again, the jumping (see above for explanation on the jumping).

I want you to scroll back up, and see the before pictures. And then scroll back down and look at this picture. It's just too bad you didn't see an immediate after picture. This is a good 30-40 minutes of having cooled off. Had the picture been taken directly after, my hair would not have yet dried into those wrinkly wave things, it would have still been dripping wet. As would have been my body, since that is the state it was in. Oh and the sweat of other humans, not my own. Well maybe 10% my own. 90% other human sweat.

Pretend that you can tell that this is sweaty. That was the point of this picture. And can I just take a moment to point out that according to the analytics of this blog, at least 5 random ppl from around the globe have arrived on our blog having google searched words like "sweaty backs" because of Mary's awesome post. How weird huh? Well, apparently that's the way to increase the traffic, so here you have it, world.....another sweaty back picture! .....Although I regret that there are no visible salt deposits on my back as a result of my own sweat.

Proof that my poor feet took a beating. Note that the dirt travels quite a distance up my shins. Further note that all 10 of my toes were flawlessly polished prior to this evening. Even further note that as a result of the incessant stomping on my feet for like 1-2 hours straight, 4 of my toenails no longer have polish, and the polish on the big toe right foot has been chipped. Rough night for my feetsies.

Ten Years

Please no comments on this post, nor on the Facebook link to this post. It's just me thinking out loud, and I kind of don't want input on this one. Thanks :-)

I was in the eighth grade in my Algebra class when I found out. I was young, and didn't understand. By the time I got home from school, my eyes were just glued to the T.V. screen, trying to figure out why on earth these planes flew through these tall buildings. I don't know when exactly I understood that it was an attack on our country from a group of people that severely perverted a beautiful religion that actually preaches peace, charity, tolerance, and hospitality. 

I spent a lot of time today reflecting on how this day should commemorated. I don't personally know anyone who was directly affected by the Twin Tower attacks, so when I watch the special programs on T.V. on what happened that day and my eyes fill with tears, I feel kind of pathetic, like what do I know? I can't possibly understand what these people went through. But, as cheesy as this may sound, I think it makes me emotional because I really am touched by a sense of nationalism, patriotism....both of which can be dangerous when taken to extremes, but absolutely befitting in moderation, I think. 

I also feel like this isn't just a day of remembrance for Americans. That may seem inappropriate, but 372 foreign nationals perished as a result of those 19 monsters. On that day alone. Not including the soldiers we've lost all over the world since then, fighting America's so-called "War on Terror." Don't worry, I won't voice my opposition to that mess right here right now.

The conclusion I came to in deciding how to honor those who fell that day is this. I think it's important to realize and commemorate the tragedy that occurred on American soil that took ~2,669 American lives, but it's equally important to simultaneously recognize that we are not the only nationality or religion (Christianity in general) that suffered at the hands of al Qaeda on that day, nor the days preceding...nor the days following. In honoring the heroes of 9/11, I feel an overwhelming sense of patriotism (which is actually quite rare for me these days, to be honest), but more so......an overwhelming sense of empathy and compassion for human suffering in general that occurred that day, and in the days to follow as a direct result of the tragedy of 9/11/2001.

..................................................................................................................

There are a lot of terrible, hateful songs that were written as a result of this day and that have only further damaged the arrogant American image (Toby Keith, anyone??), but there are also some that I think are appropriate tributes. Some songs that I listened to today:

Simon & Garfunkel actually wrote the "Song of Silence" in response to the Kennedy assassination, but today Paul sang it live at Ground Zero.

This isn't a 9/11 tribute, but I still love this song, and listened to it on the way to church actually, haha. It still seemed fitting for the day, somehow. Judge me if you want.

Quotes Mis-Quoted

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Ghandi

So turns out he didn't even say that. Close, but not quite. I thought this article was really interesting. I read a lot of a news, and almost never post articles that I like on the blog. I usually just share what I find worth sharing via Facebook. But this, my friends, is good:   http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/30/opinion/falser-words-were-never-spoken.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

I'm not sure it really matters, because who really cares. I mean, the quotes are inspiring and makes people feel good. Well, I guess it could be a problem if the people we are quoting are still alive and we go around making bumper stickers of these quotes with names attached....legal issue maybe? I don't know. I don't care. It's just interesting to me is all. And I guess maybe it's because I see these lines quoted ALL THE TIME. Makes me chuckle that these people (including myself at times, I'm sure) have no idea that they are guilty of sort of twisting other peoples' words to fit their own ideological feel-good happy world. Who knew?

I'm such a cynic. Forgive me.

Someway Baby, It's a Part of Me, Apart from Me

Excellent book:

Excellent Song:

(Warning: an expletive word that happens to begin with an "F" occurs once in this song at the beginning. I only know that from reading the lyrics. His words kind of slur together so you might not have even noticed it had I not brought it to your attention....listen to this great song anyway though!)

Stunningly beautiful video, too.

I have a couple of stories to share. But those will have to wait. For now these 2 things are on my mind. I finally finished that book shown above (which I highly recommend), and have been listening to Bon Iver tonight as I catch up on 2 weeks worth of NYT headlines. I always feel like I'm floating on a cloud without a worry in the world when I listen to this musical genius man. Which is a nice break from real life where I have 8,485,946,347 things to worry about.....about 99.9% of those worries stemming from my anxiety about my non-existent employment prospects. 

That is all :-)

Happy Anniversary

First off. It says that Mary published this post. No no no. The literary genius behind this is actually Michelle. I use Mary's computer because mine is a p.o.s. and the wi-fi stopped working. I forgot to log in as ME and not Mary. Anyway......

A year ago in August... me, Mary, and our two buddies Jeff and Marcelo took a trip to Las Vegas and California. It seriously was one of, if not THE, most fun road trips I've ever been been on. It was a whirlwind of adventures, and super duper cheap thanks to Jeff's relatives' home in Vegas we stayed at, and Marcelo's relatives' home in California. Also, my car's pretty good gas mileage helped a bit as well :-)

A few pictures of our adventures:

Overpriced Italian Food Restaurant

Millionth try to get the whole tower in the picture. Thanks random drunk Australian guy who somehow was the only person (out of all the other sober people that unsuccessfully tried before him) who knew how to hold and use a simple point and shoot camera.

What do 4 Mormons do in Vegas? Well we certainly won't be drinking or purchasing hookers! So we are super cool and sit on random benches and spend at least an hour of our night taking pictures of our faces.

Big Baby

Bliss. One of my favorite pictures in the whole wide world. I miss this so much.

We have like 8 million pictures, and Mary even made a book out of them. So please understand that this doesn't even come close to representing our trip. It's just that this post isn't about that trip. So if you'd prefer a post about that trip, then please visit this land: http://app.picaboo.com/WebView/Project.aspx?clientID=f79a1aac9a0a7833aa1a9d083988b2d8&version=38331

Anyway well, it had been entirely wayyyyy too long since spending some good quality time with our boys. I got a text from Marcelo about me and Mary going to a work-related event with him on Saturday August 20, so of course we did, and turned it into an all-day adventure in honor of our One Year Anniversary of our fun-filled 2010 adventure!!!. Sadly, Jeff couldn't make it... :-( WE MISSED YOU JEFF!!!

We decided to see an early showing of a movie around 4ish, so wanted to get dinner (or Linner) before since we knew we would starve to death if we had to wait till afterward. We went to Sawadee since we recently learned that it's pretty much the best Thai food ever in the world. Also, we saw Elder Eyring (sp?) there once, so if a Mormon Apostle thinks it's good....you better bet your bottom dollar it's good.

Well. Apparently, the restaurant doesn't open till 5pm on Saturdays, so we had to do the movie without dinner. Linner. Whatever. Which was a seriously problem, because all 3 of us people in that car get rather cranky when we can't get fed when we are hungry. Something takes over and it's like MUST. EAT. NOW. And we all remembered the incident of needing food driving back home from California and stopping in Vegas again for food....we wanted Cafe Rio but it was harder to find than we thought...and we were about ready to sacrifice one of the four of us and cook them right there on the sidewalk since it was hot enough outside to do so. Yes, we were ready to resort to cannibalism.

We all were almost at that point on this particular day as well, so we stopped at Wendy's for dollar menu items because we really really really needed something to hold us over and there wasn't time for anything else. That line took at least 20 minutes. Insane. And it took everything in me not to leap across the counter and start shoving fries and crispy chicken sandwiches down my throat.

We finally ordered, ate, and left. We eventually made it to the theater just in time. Had some good laughs, then went home to chill. After a bit of relaxing and laziness, we went to Red Mango. Oh oh oh I forgot to mention that earlier that morning we went to the one year anniversary of Eleanor's Bake Shop because our friend's family owns it and OOOHHHH MY HOLY CRAP.......BEST BAKED GOODS EVERRRRRR. But I'm going to move on because I need to dedicate a whole blog post in order to illustrate just how great this place is.

So, to review, me and Mary went to 4 RESTAURANTS that day. Yes, 4, Granted, I just bought a loaf of bread at the bakery, so that didn't really count but still. I did get a free cookie when I walked in. Morsels of joy rather than a cookie, actually.

Funny quotes from the day that I can remember:

Marcelo, in reference to his hunger pains: "Let me tell you what my body is going through right now: I'm losing my vision, I'm nauseous, and I've got that irritating headache right behind both of my eyes."

Right after we left Wendy's the looooong line finally disappeared, which was at a really random time of day, usually really slow:

 Marcelo: "Well, I guess we made it just in time for the Linner rush."

Just after the opening scene of the movie, we're in the back row, and it's really loud from laughter or something. Maybe just dialogue from the movie and or music. I can't remember, but it was not quiet at the moment:

Marcelo whispered to Mary: "Do you have any pain-killers?"

Mary, coincidentally at the same exact time the theater became silent: "HUH? YEAH SURE I HAVE LOTS AND LOTS OF DRUGS!!!"

Those all-caps would lead you to believe that Mary was maybe border-line yelling. You would be correct in that assumption.

So apparently I should have written this post sooner, because that's all I've got. Aaaand I don't think these quotes are funny for anybody except for those who were involved. But oh well. It was good times. The evidence:

Marcelo dropped his lemonade as soon as we were walking back to my car. It was a really sad moment for everyone.

The obligatory anniversary photo. Right as this picture was being taken, I asked (through my teeth since I was trying to maintain my smile) Marcelo if he felt like a pimp. He is a pimp.

Happy Anniversary Marcelo Gomez and Jeffrey Hammond! One year down, many more to come, inshallah!

I want to take one last moment to emphasize that I've actually known Marcelo since I first started working the Olive Garden in 2007, and I'm pretty sure I met Jeff about a year before this trip. The anniversary is commemorating our ridiculously fun and crazy road trip.