The Magic of the Stage

About a week ago, while I was at dress rehearsal, one of the cast members, an 11-year-old girl, sat down at my make-up table and asked, “Why do you do make-up?”
My answer to her was, “Because I can’t sing or dance.”
While there is a certain amount of truth to my answer to her, it didn’t quite do justice to the real reason as to why I love doing stage makeup.

I’m currently reading a book titled “Wyrd Sisters” by Terry Pratchett. If you’re not familiar with Pratchett’s work, he’s kind of like J.R.R. Tolkien on crack. His work is very strange, very funny, and at times… very poignant.
The book centers around 3 witches, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick, who meddle in the affairs of a kingdom… anyway… The story has a lot to do with the theater, which the witches (especially Granny Weatherwax) don’t really understand. Here’s my point… it’s all contained in one paragraph from the book.

“The theater worried her. It had a magic of its own, one that didn’t belong to her, one that wasn’t in her control. It changed the world, and said things were otherwise than they were. And it was worse than that. It was magic that didn’t belong to magical people. It was commanded by ordinary people, who didn’t know the rules. They altered the world because it sounded better.”

I think that… that is why I love doing what I do. It’s worth some of the expense to me to work in Community Theater so that I can partake of some of that… magic. Every night this week, I’ve been able to transform a mailman into an ill-tempered farm hand. No… that’s not true. The actor does the transforming… I just get to help get him started on his journey.

Maybe that’s what the makeup artist does, he takes ordinary people, and gets them started changing. He’s the catalyst… one of the “Spell Components.” Dipping into his bag of tricks, like the witch in Snow White, to transform the actor from the ordinary to the extraordinary… from one form to another.

So that should have been my answer to this young actor. Why do I do stage makeup? Because I want to partake of the magic that is the stage, even though I can’t sing or dance. I’ll just be the wizard behind the curtain.

Marian Call

Marian Call is a singer who does... well... geek music.
My wife and I are going to see her next month... if you'd like to go... email me and I'll give you the website address.
Anyway, I found one of my favorite songs of hers on YouTube.
It's not a great recording... but you should like it.

A Pox on MacCool's Public House

Most of you who know me, know that I am overly hip to my Celtic heritage. Psychotically hip to it in point of fact. Over the top… you might say. If you put a Celtic knot on something, anything… Mac & Cheese… I’ll buy it, or want to buy it, because it’s “celtic.” When we were at the Renaissance Faire in California, I was introduced to natural resin incense by my cousin, I love incense… and I really love this natural stuff… but I almost bought one called “Celtic Blend,” not because I loved the smell… because I didn’t, but because it was “Celtic Blend.”
So with a minimum of effort, any place billing itself as Celtic, Irish, or Scottish, can pretty much win my loyalty, and I’ll return again and again, and get others to do the same.
Which brings us to MacCool’s Public House at The District in South Jordan, Utah. This place advertises itself as an Irish Family Restaurant. So when I was sitting in the Megaplex Theater, and saw their advertisement while waiting for “Wolverine” to start, I thought “great, we’ll stop in and try it.”
I think that because they serve Guinness and have a very few Irish-ish foods on the menu, they get to call themselves an Irish themed restaurant.
Let me tell you of my experience, and see if I’m over reacting.

When we got there, the place was half empty, and in the reception area there was one other couple who were waiting for a couple of other people to arrive, this seemed to confuse the hostess, because she kept looking at us as if she was wondering if it was ok to seat us since the other couple was there first. So we finally get taken to our table by Stacey, who, we would come to find out, was also out server. Now, did I mention that the place was half empty, because she takes us to this strange little, wobbly table near the emergency exit, doesn’t ask if the table will be ok for us, but does ask if we would like drinks… before we get seated… and well before she gives us the menus.
Now, my lovely bride likes those flavored lemonades that everyone seems to have, and so she asks our serving wench whether or not they have them. Instead of saying “No ma’am we don’t, but can I suggest… blank…” she snarkingly (is that a word?) snarkingly says “This isn’t Chilis, ma’am.” At that point, I should have complained to the manager and high tailed it to Chilis… but no… I was in an Irish place, and I was bound and determined to like it. So then we sit down at our wobbly little table and she gives us our menus. We order some calamari (is that Irish?), and I get the salmon chowder, while my wife orders the grilled salmon. At this point, Stacy disappears for the rest of the night. We did see her wandering around, but never wondering near to our table, well that is until she delivered the bill… but I’ll get to that in due time.
The calamari comes, by someone we’ve never seen before… obviously, not our server… and it was hot, tasteless and rubbery. I know, you're saying… it’s squid! It’s supposed to be rubbery. Well, no it’s not… I’ve had calamari in plenty of places, where it was cooked right. Now the one saving grace to MacCool’s version, is its dipping sauce, which tastes suspiciously like the dipping oil at Iggies… I’m just saying.
Then, our food comes, flopped onto the table by still another person we have never seen… still not Stacey, who seems to be trapped by a group of nice, yet empty, tables on the other side of the room from our crappy little table. So now, this latest mystery server, literally drops the food onto our table, and without saying a word… leaves.
Still wanting to like this place with every fiber of my celtic being, I dig in to my salmon chowder… which is the fishiest tasting thing I have ever put in my mouth.
Now you’re saying “It’s Salmon! It’s supposed to taste fishy.” No. I’ve had salmon at a lot of places, including hole in the wall taco stands, and this is the first “fishy” tasting salmon I have ever eaten. It was so bad, I began to avoid the salmon in the chowder and would just eat the potatoes and soda bread. My wife said that she liked her salmon, but that it wasn’t the best she’d ever had.
But I still didn’t complain to the manager because I was still determined to like this blemish on the Irish heart.
So now, after we had eaten, Stacey reappears with our bill. No offer’s for dessert… not that we would have ordered one, but still. She just drops the bill on the table and leaves. We pay and leave. It wasn’t until I was out in the parking lot that I began to get mad. Here I was trying to like this place… giving it every chance in the world, and all it gave me was a bad taste in my mouth and heartburn.
I was so angry that on Monday, I did something I never do, I wrote a letter to the manager of MacCool’s telling him just what I told you… so far, I’ve heard nothing back… and expect not to.
I will never go back, and advise you to do the same.
A Pox on MacCool’s… the most Un-Cool place around.

Chilis anyone?

Go ahead... call it a skirt... I double dog dare you.

Just a small snippet of news:
Found at: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520454,00.html

“WEST HAVEN, Utah — The principal of a Utah middle school has been asked to apologize for forcing a kilt-wearing student to change his clothes.
Weber School District spokesman Nate Taggart says Craig Jessop has been asked to extend an apology to 14-year-old student Gavin McFarland of Hooper after the school official's comments Wednesday.
Gavin says he wore the kilt twice in the past two weeks to Rocky Mountain Junior High as a prop for an art project. Jessop told the boy that the outfit could be misconstrued as cross-dressing.
Taggart says the district recognizes the kilt as an expression of the boy's Scottish heritage and that the kilt was not inappropriate.
Kilts are traditional Scottish apparel generally worn by men for formal or special occasions.”

Or we wear 'em whenever we bloody well feel like it!

I think that principal should be sent to cultural sensitivity training… The guy’s a know-nothing who needs to be fed a haggis and have cabers thrown at him.
He’s probably French…

And now a little song.

Karma, Vortexes and other things they don’t teach in Sunday School

It wasn’t long ago that I began to believe in karma. As a Mormon, I was taught that it was impossible for the cosmos to align against an individual… and then I met Dan. He and I worked in the same office. He wasn’t a very nice guy, and I started to notice a pattern. If we ordered lunch as an office… his was always the one that got messed up. Wheat bread instead of white, pork instead of chicken…
“I ordered 12 lunches, why did we only get 11?”
“Who’s is missing?”
“Dan’s…”

If a computer was going to get kicked off the network, it was almost always his. Things he would order from the Internet would almost always come in wrong. Medical billing with the insurance company would get messed up in some way. He was always on the phone trying to straighten things out… and was never, ever nice about it.
Then I realized… he’s throwing out bad vibes into the cosmos and bad vibes are heaping up upon him. It’s karma, man… Karma.

So now… I’m starting to believe in vortexes. Little localized events that suck other events to it.
My family and I like to go to renaissance faires and festivals. It’s a thing… I know. Anyway, we’ve been planning to go to Ren Fest in Ogden for about 6 months. and thought that we would be able to choose either of the weekends… that was the case up until last Saturday. Then things started heaping up… dance practice, yard cleanup at Grandma’s, birthday parties, funerals… STOP THE INSANITY!
All on the same weekend!?! Are you kidding me?

I’m telling you folks, there are vortexes in this world, and they center on times that are very important to you and your family…
Believe it.

The Bards

For those of you who follow my little blog... I am so sorry for my lack of posts.
And even though I have no time to spill the nothingness that is my mind onto this page, I do want to give you something...
And so, I give you the Brobdingnagian Bards... Gee, I hope I spelled that right.

Loss of Geek Cred

I guess it’s time to turn in my geek card ‘cause last night I totally lost geek credit.
So there I was, playing on the floor with my beautiful little niece and my brother-in-law says, “Oh, did you hear that David Arneson died?” He may as well have said, “did you know that Freddy Fleeflicker just died” because I had no fracking idea who David Arneson was.
My first instinct was to say, “Oh that’s to bad” and totally lie, but no… I said “I don’t know who that is.”
Save versus Intelligence because I lost geek cred by the shovel full in an instant.

Yes, sadly David Arneson was the co-creator of that wonderful game: D&D, and the guy credited with the idea of using the d20 for combat.
He and Gary are back together... maybe they'll start a heavenly gaming guild together... I might just have to get in on that.

Yes, I have lost geek cred, but I will gain it back! Somehow… even if I have to join a LARP group… well… maybe I won’t go that far.

Soccer Season is Here!

Yep, you see those clouds over the stadium? They DUMPED on us in about the 75th minute of the game last night.
So yesterday, I turned 40… and to celebrate my down-hill slide into death, my wife bought us tickets to the Real / Columbus game because I love soccer, and I love Real and Columbus, so to see them both play at the same time was a real treat for me. And to see Real tromp Columbus was a very big treat indeed.
And now… my wife is hooked on the game and is really wanting season tickets.
Now my gut says… no. But the Celt in me gives a resounding YAWP in the affirmative.
I think that we’ll pass on the season tickets this season, and just buy some flex passes so that we can take the kiddies.
Ya…

But look at that picture... we had GREAT seats!

Shame on you HBO... Shame on you!

Does the “B” in HBO stand for Bigot? Because I’m sure that the “Big” in Big Love does, indeed, stand for Bigot. In a world where almost nothing is sacred, why is it that HBO thinks that smearing the sacred practices of other people all over the airwaves is acceptable? Last Sunday, HBO broadcasted a sacred LDS temple ceremony on its series Big Love… and I say, a pox on HBO and Playtone! A POX!
There are things in this world that are off limits to the prying eyes of the world, and what the LDS people choose to do in their temples is one of those things.

According to the AP:

“HBO said it did not intend to be disrespectful of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and apologized.”

*Cough* Bull-crap!

"Obviously, it was not our intention to do anything disrespectful to the church, but to those who may be offended, we offer our sincere apology," the premium cable channel said in a statement issued Tuesday.
But the ceremony is an important part of the "Big Love" story line, HBO said.”

Do you know what “But” means? “BUT” means “disregard everything that we just said, because it’s a lie intended to make us feel better about being total bigoted scumbags.”
“Important to the storyline?” My rosy white hindquarters it was “important to the storyline.” Do you know why they did this? They figured that it was a great way to tick off some folk they don’t really like anyway, for a couple of extra points in the ratings. Well congrats HBO… ya did it. And it only cost you your souls… if you had any to begin with.

Later in that AP article, they say that HBO went to great pains, and even hired a consultant, to make sure that it was absolutely accurate.
So, who was their consultant? A Temple President? A Stake President? A General Authority? No! They hired some excommunicated slug with a beef against the Church! Ha! Hey HBO! You got ripped! Hope you didn’t pay him a whole hell of a lot… 30 pieces of silver maybe?

So here’s my thing. The Church is not calling for boycotts… but I am!
Tom Hanks (exec. Producer) & Bill Pullman… you are both dead to me, your sucky movies will no longer be allowed in my home. Well, no… Bill’s just some dumb actor who doesn’t know his head from a hole in the ground, and who’s trying to keep his job. So until shown otherwise, I’ll keep Bill around, but Tom… I’ve heard what he has to say about Mormons and I think that he’s one first class bigot… so all of Tom’s sucky movies are going away, ya friggin’ gut slug!
HBO… I don’t subscribe to your service… and never will.
I urge my readers (all two of you) to do the same… pull the plug.
Lets show the scumbags who’s really in charge!

Oh, and if you’re LDS and a fan of the show… Shame on you! For shame…

Twilight... Ugh... Just so bad.

Saturday my wife and I went to the dollar-flicks to see Twilight.
Oh man! It wasn’t even worth the dollar I spent. Now, granted, I went into it with the lowest of low expectations, but that movie stunk… on a bun… with a side of fries. I am more convinced now, than I was last week, that Stephenie Meyer has never, in her life, ever read a vampire novel or seen a vampire movie… ever!
Now look, I’m not a purest when it comes to Vamps. I love it when authors can stretch the genre. While Bram Stoker’s vamps had some human qualities, they were, for the most part, mindless killers. Anne Rice made huge leaps toward humanizing the vamps, giving them drive and purpose to their extended lives, even giving them guilt and angst for the deeds they’ve done. The Lost Boys, Blade, Underworld, The Anita Blake Series, Fright Night, The Dresden Files, The Rachel Morgan / The Hollows Series, I am Legend, Salem’s Lot, Vampire$, Buffy the Vampire Slayer… All of these books, movies and what not, stretched the vampire legend just a little further… but Meyer seems to have thrown it all out and started over with a very small amount of knowledge.
Plus... Where were the fangs!
Ok, so while we’re on the subject of fangs. Hello? Makeup people… don’t have a budget? 20 bucks from Vampfangs.com will get you a pretty good set, good enough for that movie, anyway. Also… from what I understand, the “vamps” in this movie were supposed to look like they were cut from marble? So, what was with the clown white? Ben Nye and Kryolan make some really good colors… you can mix ‘em too. But no, they went with this weird powdery clown white. And… they couldn’t cover Edward’s 5 o’clock shadow? Come on! I’m an amateur makeup guy and I noticed that one! In fact, I’d say the vamp makeup was so bad, that when the Cullens were facing off against the three hunter vamps, it looked like the battle of the anemics. “Ok, guys, first group to get dizzy and pass out wins!”

So bad on so many levels!

That whole section where Edward and Bella were running up the side of a mountain, and leaping from tree to tree… Ugh! Where do I start? Years and years ago, my friends and I used to rent this martial arts movie called Shogun’s Ninja. It was filmed 1980 somewhere in Japan, with bad voice over work, people flying from tree to tree, jumping off of cliffs, jumping out of road puddles… the whole bit… It was just so bad that it was good. We would watch this thing and just laugh our butts off… well Shogun’s Ninja had better special effects than that section of Twilight.

It was just so bad. I would be embarrassed to have my name even associated with this movie.

Now, to be fair, I have to admit that there were some sections I liked. The graduation caps on the wall was a clever little idea. The fact that Bella’s smell was like a drug to Edward seems to fall in line with prevailing thought in Vamp fiction, and it was played up very effectively. The would-be rapists… they should have been torn into bloody stains by Edward, but his fight to keep from doing that was very will played.

So there were some small highlights in the story… but to little to late. They just didn’t happen often enough to save the movie from sucking… hard. Or, not sucking… since it was a vampire movie that had no sucking in it. So it stunk… it had great odor.

Do you know what the movie said to me? It was as if the producers and the movie company said, “We’re not going to spend a lot of money on this, so were not going to hire the best because no mater what we put on the screen, the sappy fans are going to love it anyways.”

And I guess that they were right. "Suckers!"

Reading Banned Books

I am so proud of my daughter! She’s just awesome! Yesterday at school, in her English (now called “Language Arts”) class they were talking about censorship, and the banning of books. She told me that she was surprised at how many of her friends and classmates believe that schools and libraries should ban books that have “objectionable” content. As she said “Sex and stuff in them.”
So I asked her, “What do you think?”
She said, “I don’t think they should ban any book, you just shouldn’t read the bad ones.”
I tell you, I could not have been more happy if I’d have won the publisher’s clearinghouse while saving a family of ducks from a burning barn.
I said, “ You’re right, did you know that Dr. Suess has a book on the list of banned books?”
“What? Why?” She asked… almost screamed.
“Yep,” I said, “Back in the 80’s, some school thought that The Lorax went against their local values.”
It was actually 1989 in Northern California, they said that it preached against the logging industry, a major industry in that area, and so like all good Nazi’s they banned it.
So, then I explained that Huckleberry Finn, The Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Outsiders, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Little House on the Prairie, James and the Giant Peach, Where’s Waldo … even the Bible have all been banned, in the United States, at one time or another, in one place or another. Strangest of all happened in 1992 when a school (Venado Middle School) in Irvine, California censored Fahrenheit 451, a book about the dangers of censorship, by blacking out all of the “objectionable” words (as if Ray Bradbury uses a whole lot of ‘em). It took action on the part of parents and the media to get this one set right.
Now look, I’m not one of those people that believes that Penthouse Magazine belongs in our public libraries because of an absolute freedom of the press. They have their place… that place is at the bottom of a dumpster (in my opinion) rather than on a library shelf… but they have a place non-the-less. Because of the first amendment, I will not infringe, or have others infringe, upon the rights of people to publish whatever they feel is worthwhile. I’ll just have to teach my children to seek out books that are beautiful, lovely, of good report, and praiseworthy.
And that, my friends, is the only true and good form of censorship. It begins at our own front door and encompasses the walls of our homes. Let no government, large or small, tell you what you can or cannot read, to do so is to place shackles on your mind.
I am very proud to say that many of the books on the banned book lists of the American Library Association are on my book shelves at home, and that my daughter and I have read many of them, because many, many of them have great and worthwhile messages despite having “that word” in them.

Finally, I wish to add a quote from one of my favorite authors:

"And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles. So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries."

-Kurt Vonnegut in A Man Without a Country

I don't think that A Man Without a Country has been banned anywhere yet, but it does have "that word" in it. ;)

Yesterday's Men

So, yesterday, Obama signed the “stimulus bill," and the stock markets across the world excitedly responded by dropping hundreds of points. So, in honor of this groundbreaking piece of… legislation, I give you a song by Celtic Thunder. A group I really didn’t like when I first heard them, but I have grown to really like. I think that this song will gain more meaning as the year wears on…

Stage Makeup... The Update

So the makeup job is coming along. Thursday, I had my first chance to put all of my color, practice and plans together on to the faces of two of the actors. I had budgeted 20 minutes per actor, and it took 35 without doing their hands or hair color. So, I’m going to have to budget several hours for all 30 something actors I have to do. One… the character “Gaston,” I have to do face and arms, from the fingers to shoulder, so I’ll need another 40 minutes for him as well.
The good thing is that most of the actors only need base, eye, and lip color, so that won’t take too long.
I’m really enjoying this little experience; it’s quite a change from doing a haunted house or the kids on Halloween. I hope I get to do more in the future.

Tribute to John Williams

I know I've been doing alot of videos lately, but this one is just cool.

Picturing the Past

Ok, so those of you who are “computer savvy” will think that I’m a little slow on the uptake, but you have to remember that I’m an English Major, which is shorthand for “useless.” You know, when you declare your major in college, they really need to have a mandatory disclaimer.
I (the undersigned) do hereby understand that by declaring to be an English Major, I do hereby accept the following:
* I understand that my degree is not worth the paper it’s printed on, and while it does have fancy lettering, correct spelling, and uses proper grammar, you may as well hang it over the toilet for all the good it’s going to do you.
* I understand that my degree will mandate that I use the pronoun “whom” even though the rest of the English speaking world hasn’t used it since the early 1940’s.
* Learn this phrase “Would you like fries with your burger.”
* Learn this phrase “Hey, it is a real degree!”

Ok, I didn’t come here to spout off about being an English Major, again.

(Can you recognize an Iamb when you hear one? I can.)

Anyway, I want to tell you what I found.

(I’m a member of the Professional Organization of English Majors on Facebook, by the way.)

I want to tell you what I found! I hate it when the voices start taking over... Sheesh!

I was entering in some names on my PAF program (the genealogy program I use) and saw over on the right side, a little camera. I've only used this program for a couple of years now... So I clicked the camera button. Did you know that you can attach pictures to the people files in PAF? Of course you did, because you studied real stuff in college. So for the last two days, I’ve been adding pictures to my ancestor files and printing out new family group sheets for my book. This is so cool!
It has totally helped my wife and kids to know who some of these people are. The Porter’s aren’t really imaginative when it comes to names, so we have a lot of William’s. My grandpa, his Father, and his Father after that, on and on… I haven’t found the end yet. So when I find something out about William Leeks Porter, Sr., Terri usually has to ask, “Now which one is that?”
Now, when I can’t find a photo, I try to place a picture of their head stone… when I’ve been able to track those down. I think that it’s a perfectly acceptable alternative, but I’m not sure what to do when I can’t find that… I mean, a lot of them are buried in England, or back east, or in the middle of the Atlantic… Maybe I can use other things, just to fill in the blank spot…

“Hey Dad, did you know that Great, Great Grandpa McLeod looked just like Mel Gibson?”

I give you the Racist... Dr. Joseph Lowery

So who thought that this “prayer” was completely inappropriate?
I have to admit, there were some fine sentiments in the prayer, but that stupid, racist, finale! Arrrgh! It overshadowed anything of value he had to say.

*sigh*

What would our country be like if we actually went humbly to our creator, said what was in our hearts, petitioned the all mighty in supplication with heads bowed and hearts open?
I dare you to find anyone in that video that was actually bowing his or her head… I found one… CLINTON!!!
This country is in SO much trouble.
That’s all I can say.

The Poo Song

So I’m riding home on the bus the other day, and my wife calls me to tell me that she’s watching Scrubs and that they are singing about poo, and since I’m reading a Nobel Prize winning book that seems to mention the stuff quite a bit, I thought that I’d share what she saw with you… my readers… my friends.
Enjoy!

A Tale of Two Degrees

The other day, I was talking with one of the engineers in my office, and telling him that my oldest daughter has the opportunity to graduate from High school with an Associate of Science Degree in general studies, but to do that, she’s going to have to take some night school classes at SLCC and probably have to take some classes over summer breaks, which means that she’ll have very little time for summer jobs, or extracurricular activities while she’s in High School.
He asked me if this was something she was willing to do. I said that, yes, she’s willing to do it, but that she’s frightened by the whole idea. It’s a pretty big decision for a 14 year old to be making.
Then he says to me, “You know, she’s a pretty bright girl, she could forget all of the college courses, enjoy High School, get really good grades, and then go to a real school.”
“Real school?” I asked.
“Yah,” he said, glancing up at the two degrees I have hanging over my desk, “ya know, SLCC isn’t a real college, and frankly, an Associate Degree isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”
I ended our conversation at that point, but it got me thinking. I have two degrees, the first is an Associate of Science in Architecture from SLCC, and the other is a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Utah. The AS degree, I paid for out of pocket, so I owe nothing on it. It currently pays my mortgage, feeds and clothes my children, and provides my family with a few of the comforts of life.
The BA degree… well, it pretty much sits on the couch, eats potato chips, and watches cable all day. And… since I still owe a sizable amount on my student loans, the AS degree pays for the BA’s upkeep as well. Last week it started to demand it’s own room and phone line… I don’t want to know whom he plans on calling… Probably some Whitman Wannabe.
So, when I really take a hard look at it, which of my two degrees isn’t worth the paper?
As for my daughter, well, she’s decided that she’s going to take as many college courses as she can and still be able to have some fun while in High School… as it should be.
I think that with congruent classes and AP exams, she should be able to get out of High School with about 30 college credit hours… which in the long run are 30 really cheep credits as compared to paying full college tuition, despite what the engineer in my office thinks.

To the Women in our Lives

My wife wasn’t feeling well last night, and I’m afraid that the kids weren’t being much help to her. But it got me thinking about how much our moms and wives do for us. Years ago, I heard a poem about a lanyard that was funny, but also quite poignant, and it really said a lot about the “thanks” we give the women in our lives.

It took some looking, but here it is.

The Lanyard

By Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly

off the blue walls of this room,

moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,

from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,

when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary

where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist

could send one into the past more suddenly—

a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp

by a deep Adirondack lake

learning how to braid long thin plastic strips

into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard

or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,

but that did not keep me from crossing

strand over strand again and again

until I had made a boxy

red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,

and I gave her a lanyard.

She nursed me in many a sick room,

lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,

laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,

and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,

and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.

Here are thousands of meals, she said,

and here is clothing and a good education.

And here is your lanyard, I replied,

which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,

strong legs, bones and teeth,

and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,

and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.

And here, I wish to say to her now,

is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,

but the rueful admission that when she took

the two-tone lanyard from my hand,

I was as sure as a boy could be

that this useless, worthless thing I wove

out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

And so, to my Mom and especially to my wife… nothing I could ever give you will ever make us even.

A Banner Year

My thoughts for the New Year…

Last week, I heard some radio DJ say that he was sure happy that 2008 was over because it really sucked. I was inclined to agree with him until I really took a hard look at 2008. Yes, things have gotten a bit more expensive, but I’m really not as far behind on my bills as I was last year, and that has more to do with my lack of budgeting smarts as it does with the economy.
So what good happened in 2008? My son and I wore kilts to our first Renaissance faire, and I was able to put away enough money to buy my own kilt. We went to Disneyland for the first time in… something like… 5 years. I was able to read, review and interview 4 authors for my blog site… and I’ve got to tell you, that was awesome.

So what do I have to look forward to in 2009?

My wife and I are planning to go to a big Renaissance Faire in Irwindale, California with my cousin and her wife. Then, a couple of weeks later, we’ll take the kids to the Utah Renaissance Faire here in Ogden… Then… The Highland Games at Thanksgiving Point to see the Wicked Tinkers perform.
And after all that… I’ll be running in the Wasatch Back Relay.

This is going to be a great year, despite Obama becoming president, and despite my turning 40.

Hold your head up high, folks. Life is what you make of it…

Goodbye Redheads! We'll Miss You... Not!

A week or so ago, a friend of mine posted on her blog that her son said that redheads were going extinct. She’s a redhead and was very saddened by this news. I told her in a comment, that I was thrilled by the prospect that there will come a day when no child will suffer like we did. I think that I kind of ticked her off a bit, because she asked for an explanation… and here it is…

I’m a redhead.

I’m a red head with everything that goes with it… Freckles, pasty white skin, sensitivity to sunlight, very high IQ… yep, the whole nine yards. But, it would seem, unlike others of my kind, I hold no allegiance to my accursed hue… or even to its very existence.
The Oxford Hair Foundation (I had no idea that there is such a place) figures that since only about 4% of the world’s population exhibits the trait given by a recessive “Red Head” gene (MC1R), that red hair will be gone or very rare by the year 2100.

-Happy Dance-

I, like many Redheads, didn’t go to school as a child… I endured it. Kids are mean; all redheads have their tormenters, mine was named Mark (I shouldn't tell you his last name because he’s a total waste of skin and would track me down…) Tolbert. Yep, not a day went by from Kindergarten through to High School where Mark wasn’t calling me something, laughing at my hair color and freckles, or stuffing me into garbage cans, girls bathrooms, lockers, or -insert small container here-
And he wasn’t the only one; I didn’t have a name in elementary school… I had a color. “Hey Red!” that was what most people called me. I was red, except in summer.
Many redheads will go this beautiful strawberry blond color in summer… not me. I “bleach” into a bright florescent orange that lasts from late June until the end of August. I can’t tell you how many times people come up to me to inform me of my hair color. “Hey you’ve got orange hair!”
“Really!?! You don’t say.”

Wow, I’m sounding really bitter here.

I can’t tell you how badly I would love to shake off this pasty hue of mine and… tan. I, and most redheads, fear the sun. I’ve been trained to hide from the sun by a sense of self-preservation. As a child, I spent summer after summer in a state of constant sunburn. I hate the feeling of sunscreen, and it only partly works for me, so I wear long sleeves and hats with wide brims in summer just so I won’t die of sunburn and skin cancer. I’d love to be able to wear baseball caps, I have some great ones, but the tops of my ears burn. If (when) I die of skin cancer, it will originate on the tops of my ears.
Sitting at this moment, typing on my keyboard, I can look down at the freckled tops of my hands with the almost translucent skin beneath, and think that it is most likely the traits I gained from the redhead gene that will someday lead to my death, and people wonder why the eventual extinction of red hair fills me joy and gladness. And I can’t tell you how happy I am that all 4 of my children don’t have red hair.

I’m sorry, I was going to try to make this a funny -ish entry… but the more I type, the more the truth seems to come to the surface. And the truth, for me, about having red hair is this… everyone, deep down, hates red hair, except old women who seem to think that it’s beautiful; it’s probably because they are loosing their eyesight and bright colors stand out.

Just for your amusement, here are some facts I found about red hair.

Harvard dermatologist Madhu Rathak calls redheads “Three-time losers” because their red pigment is an inadequate filter of sunlight, thus their skin is more susceptible to sunburn, skin cancer, and wrinkling with age.
There are two kinds of redhead, according to Mary Spillane, managing director of British image consultants “Colour Me Beautiful.” There’s the “Autumn” type with hazel eyes, and the “Celtic” type with translucent skin, light eyes, and carrot tops… the so called “Leprechaun redness” with which so many people have trouble.
Redheads have always been though untrustworthy. As a 17th century Frenchman observed, “Judas, it is said, was red haired.”
Superstitions: Having red hair is unlucky; it’s lucky to rub a redhead’s head; bee’s sting redheads more often. The Egyptians regarded redheads as being so unlucky that they had a ceremony in which they burned redheaded maidens alive to wipe out the tint, according to author Claudie De Lys.

Is Barack the Second Coming?

Look, I don’t want to be sacrilegious or anything, especially this close to Christmas, but…
I was walking though a book store last night… because that’s what I do, and I came across the “Obama is God” section, which was filled to capacity with books that spell out the specific god-like qualities that Obama currently has, and all that he will one day possess, i.e. he can’t currently walk on water, but I hear that he’s working on that.

I wonder… when he fails to live up to all the hype, what will happen? Because, I hate to break it to you folks… he may be a child of God… but he isn’t the second coming.

Gypsy on the Bus

The other morning, I was sitting on the bus, and there was a woman singing. She had her iPod going, and was singing along… not well… she was very falsetto and out of tune, but I somehow was able to make out the song… through the laughter of the other passengers around me.
When I got to work I realized that despite the fact that I love Fleetwood Mac, especially those songs sung by Stevie Nicks, I had not heard this song for many, many moons.
So here it is… enjoy.

Bone Marrow Drive

I just found out that there is going to be a Bone Marrow drive on Saturday at RioTinto Stadium. All of the info can be found at http://soccerunitesutah.com/
It appears that Marcia Williams, who is the wife of Andy Williams, who plays for Real Salt Lake, has Leukemia. If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know how this cancer has touched my life and the lives of my family.
I joined the Marrow Donor registry… a long time ago, and was lucky enough to be matched with a 5-year-old little boy (for whom my son, Christian, was named). I gave Bone Marrow on my birthday in 1993.
If you are not on the Marrow Donor registry… here is a great opportunity to get on it.

Thanks

The Knights of Mayhem

These guys joust at the Utah Renaissance Faire every year... looks like their coming back for more this May. You should go... it's lot's o' fun.

Plus... my younger sister and her family won't be there, because they thinks it's dorky... so no one will be there to make fun of you.