Activity

Dying some day, Duck football

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Portland’s nationally-renowned Voodoo Doughnuts in an Autzen Stadium trashbin with Coors, Bud Light, Solo cups, Sprite cans, water bottles.

Being in a like-minded crowd of 59,000 people is exhilarating experience, at times. It’s also relaxing. And often boring. There are high-priced snacks, increasingly-elaborate fanfare (some effective, sometimes *THUD*).

I’ve following one team over 30 years: University of Oregon Ducks football. I scarcely follow any other sport. Off-field scandals? Love ’em. The primary way I know athlete names. Terrell Owen’s working out on his driveway before the press, pouting about his contract with the Philadelphia Eagles like Achilles sulking in his tent was one of the best moments of the 21st century so far. Take up my Sunday watching pro football? Nah. Baseball? Okay in person, if the concessions and company are good. On t.v.? Will never stop to watch. Viewed about two innings of the Giants World Series last year. Soccer, ehm fútböl? Get the fuck out of here!

Women’s tennis? Raising an eyebrow. Go on: who’s playing? Don’t recognize the names. Have photos? What do their grunts sound like? Well, okay. Skootch the kids out of the room, daddy’s going to a dark place… Winter Olympics? Okay. Especially figure skating if prepped sufficiently by profiles of the personalities and psychodrama (networks usually oblige). I’m on Team Johnny Weir, bitches. Track & field? Sure. I grew up in Track City. I love watching that stuff, but never make an appointment or know when the events are. Still laughing at Tyson Gay’s knack for 100% sensible, elegant answers. Reporter speaks with him SECONDS after he sprinted his heart out, mind and body super-charged. Gay’s answer “I ran fast this time. Need to run faster next time.” Not said with a smile. That’s all he can muster, reporter, don’t make a face at the camera BECAUSE HE JUST CHALLENGED THE LIMITS OF HUMAN CAPACITY, you fool! NBA? Interest waned as did the Trailblazers in the early 90s and the names of the players changed from the Super Nintendo NBA Jams game I knew VERY well. Secret code to play as Bill Clinton & Al Gore, FTW!

Being in a mass of people is great food for thought, or un-thought. At times I scan the crowd and think: “How many here were singing to Tenacious D, Sly Stone, Rufus Wainwright, listening to Gore Vidal, liberal radio, Harold Bloom, Anne Sexton en route here?” First, I snort derisively, then I realize statistically, LOTS of people were engaged in some, maybe ALL of those very things, many even deeper & sillier. I like that realization. I like de-smugging myself.

Like in the various works of Holy Writ, our sky god continues to concern himself with taking sides in petty tribal squabbles.I first went to a University of Oregon football game in 1978 or so. The team stunk. In 1980 the Oregon Ducks went 6 wins, three losses, and two ties and the city of Eugene was elated. There was talk of bronzing the entire team before those kids could graduate. Grimly set them for all time atop a hideous concrete fountain on Willamette Street & Broadway. Happily, this was not done and the young men were allowed to lead full lives and not grimly expire, asphyxiated and scalded by molten metal. Reggie Ogburn, your heroism game after game, win or loss, kept possibly hundreds of people in Lane County from killing themselves.

Stadium capacity then was 44,000. 45,000 with standing room-only. Attendance was typically 20K – 30K. My memory of every game involves dreary rain, ponchos, and a pageant of losing game after game. There must have been dry days. They don’t stick as much. Developing a ritual about figuring out in the rain when to eat the frozen Carnation chocolate malt with its sometimes non-splntering wood spoon. My dad at the time was a faculty member, and we typically sat in the corner at sections 34-35.

Later in the early 80s, my brother and I sat in the sponsor seats. Mom remarried and her new husband’s family was a longtime donor to Oregon athletics. Sponsor seats meant seat backs, a roof with heaters, shorter concession lines, being tweens then teens among the Duck football upper-crust (not too snooty). A taste of the aristocratic life, its sweetness now turned acrid as I write frequently of class struggles nowadays.

Then it was rejoining the hoi polloi on wood bleachers, slats occasionally cracked into jab-friendly fragments. The benches had some kind of fungus underneath I scraped off with my fingers then pressed into an ashy residue in my palms when nervous during games. I was often nervous during games.

I’ve had season tickets as an adult for about 14 years now. I share seats that have been in the family for about 30 years, two seats next to two long-time family friends.

In all that time, I’ve not learned the names of the people around us save for the family friends.

I like witnessing the passage of time, football season after season — the changes for these familiar strangers. What have their paths been like? Reflecting back on my path when that person was pregnant, that other person started bringing his kids, now teenagers? What happened to those people too old to attend the last few years?

I like the excitement of the game in progress, and the adrenaline rush evoking similar games with different kids on the field. A long while ago, I realized I will make myself hoarse within minutes if I start vocalizing. I have mastered a LOUD CLAP. Fear the Clap! Ehm, need to work on that motto.

Before each game, embarrassingly, the Duck arrives on a loud motorcycle. On this September 17, 2011 game, crowd control prepares for an on-field herding of cattle. Disappointingly, no livestock other than us ever emerged.For a writing project, in 2002 I wrote a chapter that summed up my memories & feelings about Duck football within the framework, play-by-play, of a 1998 game between Oregon and Stanford (Ducks won, by a LOT). Check it out. That chapter starts on page 10.

I LIKE the territorial pride of our middle section that stretches from one 45 yard line to the other. Reliably each year, a student, an arriviste, will turn in disgust at our not standing up and shouting from our diaphragms at every possible play. He will turn and look up to the crowd and lament to us and to the lords and ladies and hermaphrodites who oversee our travails: “Come ON! Get UP you guys! Let’s go Ducks! Let’s go Ducks!” As he sits back down, disheartened the bulk of humanity simply does not care to the extent he does, a quiet chuckle ripples among us veterans. Kid, we’ll burn out if we do that. Our pace is generational, not the 4-5 years you’ll be around to get a degree. We will exhort the team when needed. Also, we’re not as drunk as you are.

Oregon v. Auburn at the 2011 National Championship game, decided by an Auburn field goal in the last 3 seconds. The post-game commentary was hugely about how Oregon could never have beaten Auburn. That’s why I fucking hate sports commentators

Activity, Art, Parenting, Poetry

Football, kids, Anne Sexton, Nintendo DS

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Driving home from attending a college football game, I traveled with my kids, who had spent the day with a set of grandparents, back to our home city. My daughter was asleep in the backseat, iPod touch probably still playing. My son was playing a word game on his Nintendo DSi XL. I had finished with listening to the football post-game show on the radio, and had switched to an iPod playlist of authors reading their own work. To the sound of Anne Sexton reading poems on the car stereo, my son asked me questions about his game.

Had there been a transcript of one particular point, it would have read like this:

Oh, darling! Born in that sweet birthday suit
and having owned it and known it for so long,
now you must watch high noon enter–

[Son: “Papa, what’s a word for a food that needs sauce?” Me: “Barbecue, maybe?”]

noon, that ghost hour.
Oh, funny little girl–this one under a blueberry sky,

[Son: “It doesn’t work.” Me: “How about spaghetti?” Son: “How do you spell ‘spaghetti’?” Me: “S-p-a-g-h-e-t-t-i.” Son: “That works!”]

this one! How can I say that I’ve known
just what you know and just where you are?

It’s not a strange place, this odd home

[Son: “Papa, how do you spell ‘weight’?” Me: “Like in, heavy?” Son: “Yes.” Me: “W-e-i-g-h-t.”]

where your face sits in my hand
so full of distance,
so full of its immediate fever.

Activity, Music, Pop Culture

“Silent Lucidity” messed up my bowels

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In 1990, I fixated on how much I hated “Silent Lucidity”, the hit single by sensitive prog rock band Queensrÿche. When I really hated something in pop culture, I would delve deep to get agonizingly precise about WHY and HOW. This pathology led to a two-year obsession with Danzig. I can’t hear more than a few bars of Danzig without laughing. My buddy V, who got similarly obsessed, can get us going with quoting a Danzig grunt or mumble.

“Silent Lucidity” sounds like a Pink Floyd parody. I never liked Pink Floyd. Oh, those guys are fine as people, grateful to Dave Gilmour for bringing Kate Bush into the light, Roger Waters seems a decent bloke, and so sad about Syd Barrett, but in college people got so preciousssss about Pink Floyd, often while mocking my preference for Prince. Thus, Pink Floyd, the collective entity, has earned a karmic “kiss my grits”. Yes, I am all about pop culture vendettas.

BEHOLD this video. Be AWED how the lead singer dude looks into the camera, peering into YOU achingly, seeking solace, wanting to guide you in turn! LISTEN how “lucidity” is turned into five syllables, possibly seven, eight, infinite syllables extending to a fourth dimension! “As I lay next to you, in silent loo-sid-uh-tee-hee.”

So, my masochistic button in ’90 was pushed and I HAD to buy the cassette single (what’s that? Kids, they sucked, but that’s all we had after the Walkman revolution. Don’t worry about it.) of “Silent Lucidity”. This jihad followed my having just sold my car, my dear ’65 Buick Skylark Gran Sport, red, vanity plate “DANTE” (because it took me to hell and back, har-har). I persuaded my friend V to drive to the shopping mall. He agreed, but only if we went to Dairy Queen with out friend visiting from out of town, G, to eat Blizzards afterward. This was a fateful decision.

Bought the cassette single, we ingested Blizzards (gross! why were we girlfriendless?) and I got home. With ceremony, as my friend & roommate B was out, I put the cassette into my Walkman, and sat on the toilet.

I had felt a little flushed in the head eating the Blizzard. As the music played, it was clear digestion was not going well. Song went on, discomfort churned to disgust and I was at the mercy of some satanic gumbo gurgling in my intestines that couldn’t decide whether to evacuate & slither down through me to sewer pipes in a path back to hell, or wreak more horror by roiling within my mortal innards.

Composed myself enough to collapse into bed. The next morning I was running a 102 degree temperature and still had the runs. After sharing how ill I was, my roommate B did not register my ailment, and instead shared how he took exception to an obnoxious message I left for him on our answering machine (what’s an answering machine? Again, kids: don’t worry. You have inherited a better world). At that moment, I was not capable of interpersonal subtleties/apologies/analysis. I was fending for the integrity of soul and body, because of Queensrÿche, which had infiltrated and violated me from my very center.

So now I LOATHE the song. In fact, I didn’t even listen to the song or watch the video when posting it above. PTSD has etched the whole thing, and etched it deep.

And what is up with the ümlaüt in their name? If anÿone can provide an answer I’d be grateful.

Art, Music, Opera, Writing

Waiting on Elizabeth’s portrait

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Upon my arrival, I can tell from her raspy greeting they had been singing at the studio piano then likely singing a capella instead of being at task for this interminable sitting. The walls seem to pulsate with absorbed melodies and laughter. If I put my fingers on the plaster, would they palpate vibrations?

Her mother started this project with Sargent. An expense, as he is known to be slow. But she wanted her daughter portrayed as she was when engaged. Prima del matrimonio. Who knows what I, as the mid-tier career soldier, might do to diminish her daughter? She will tell my children “Your mother was a great beauty.” with a grand gesture toward the portrait.

I am not a fool. I see an aspect of Elsie coming through. Sargent’s warm regard in wanting her. I lean over his shoulder and note the blush and exaggerated care given to her lips. As I loom he is silent, not from bravery but a worry a tremble in his voice may reveal too much. Famous as he is, he is still vulnerable and must fear a bad report. Yet he knows I will not pounce upon his work. His creation will outlast this room and my review. His desire imbues her portrait and becomes what she exudes for him. I have earned and sustained my higher station, but my victories on the field and maneuvers in this scene may not last as long as this portrait. His strategy is longer.

In her cool appraisal of those who evaluate her, the flush of her cheeks, this portrait is Elizabeth as a maiden. As she stands apart from me now, a laugh still in her stance, has she been girlish with him? I do not think she would be so rude as to bite her lip and act less womanly than she is. That may put him off, too. Knowing her power, and knowing it is accentuated by being not yet attained. She is not flighty here, she is strong. She knows and has lived, much by what we have shared. Her mother is not getting the portrait she wanted. That is gratifying.

And I indulge Elsie. No, too patronizing. I endure from others the whispers, asides, occasional daring remark in my presence that Elsie’s avocation and accomplishments as a concert singer are déclassé.

But it fills her. To see her take savor and draw in the air, bosom rising, delay before her note, knowing she could convey so much in her lilting soprano then drop to a feral resonance. Where will she go? Follow her training? Let the spirit take the moment? She is lost and happy and delirious in the suspension of the world and those fixed on her. We are held in thrall. She is happy. Obliged to perform, but the setting is of her choosing. Let them natter on in parties. She feeds from us. I am among those feeling within her and sustaining her. Admiring her as the room does, coveting my own all the more as others covet her. Then, her decision or spirit assented to, the note selected, force sanctioned, she carries us all along again.

And, my hand will be on the upper side of her hips, John, as her hand is posed off her waist. I will hold her there as she’s straddled over me to fix her in place. And her left hand will be set over mine to pin her even more. She will press on me with the assurance and lovely heft you have conveyed so well, John. And before then the palm of her right hand will tend to my need, wrapped with confidence as on the rim of your sitting chair. Yes, Sargent, those hands are daring and skilled and loving and clever and I know you have made a guess that is so, but I see you do not know from experience. You have posed her hands in speculation. I am amused.

This is a painting of allegation, admiration, want, abundance, poise. Her bosom is a marvel. I have seen our child feed there, and I still have desire and feel relief to take refuge and time there. And she lets me. Her soldier is happy there. And I am happy to make her happy.

“We are obliged to leave soon.” I say glancing at the clock on the wall. Strong chance Sargent’s clock is not accurate. Stronger chance any array of clocks he may have here do not corroborate one another.

Mrs. George Swinton (nee Elizabeth
Mrs. George Swinton (nee Elizabeth “‘Elsie” Ebsworth) painted by John Singer Sargent

“What time is it?” Elsie says. Her voice evenly modulated. I do not think Sargent would truly do anything untoward. He tantalizes himself. I look at the nearest clock again.

“It’s 22 past six.” Recital at 8. Reception at 9. Would she wear this ensemble? He paints her in white and coppery pearlish taupe. She stands now in royal blue. He is using her expression and proportions. She will not need a change tonight.

After the recital: praise, and flattery, and as she is flush with regard and expression I shall take her home, and we will bid the help good night then gaze upon our infant son asleep in the cradle then adjourn to our chambers. I will pin her down by her left wrist, leaving her right hand and my left to wander as they please, and I shall take her as she is arrayed now. She will see how what she set in motion by my catching her in this scene in the studio and her later scenes this evening will culminate in the light in my eyes fueled from the swells of desire from the crowds of men and envious women channeled and churning through me and she will be well pleased and sleep soundly and it will be a good morning.

Activity, Eating, Parenting, Reading, Writing

On a ride with my son

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All this week, my daughter was scheduled for Zoo Camp. My son didn’t have anything scheduled.

I had to work, and my mom was willing to have him stay for four days.

Got him back Thursday night, and wasn’t sure what to do. Then decided to cut work and spend Friday with just him.

He’s 11, and signs are accruing that puberty encroaches. Height increasing. Closes the door to his room a lot. More guarded about changing his clothes, bathing, growing sense of privacy.

We dropped his sister off at Zoo Camp, then strolled around the Zoo for several hours. I gave him the map and let him navigate. We weren’t in a hurry.

We boarded the Zoo Train (I hadn’t been on for a decade or so) and I noticed dark hairs on his legs. I said (quietly) “You’re growing up. Your leg hairs are darker.” “Not as dark as yours” “You’re getting there, though. It’s good to see you growing up.” He smiled. We talked about growing up and being able to drive, and going to college, and other milestones only 5-7 years away.

See the bag of green candy? Sour Skittles. He was MISERLY with them. I only got four, once he gave me three. A second time, one. He worked on that regular-size bag for about two hours. Hope he holds to that Golden Mean.

From the Zoo we went downtown. I let him pick lunch (noodles), and we went for ice cream. We read for about an hour and a half in the library (Me – reading on an artwork to write about, J – Fellowship of the Ring). Then he wanted to see if there were books on martial arts. I made him ask at the information desk and he was directed to a shelf of them. After about 20 minutes of browsing, he picked one. Checked it out, we were on our way.

Outside of the library, he asked me what sixth, seventh, and eighth grades were like for me. I told him they were tough for almost everybody. Puberty, confusion, frustration, kids getting more concerned about the body changes and new feelings, and not as attuned to the feelings and needs of others. I also mentioned around 6th grade is when my parents divorced. He listened thoughtfully. I told him he would someday go through those body and feeling changes, and I said I hoped he would come to us with any questions. “I will probably come to you, ” he said, “as it’ll be about boy and man changes.”

Took the light rail back to the Zoo, then sat in the cafeteria and read some more. All four of us met there after my daughter’s Zoo Camp was finished.

Throughout the day, he ran his arm around mine and we walked together arm-in-arm. He said “I don’t feel like holding your hand much anymore, but I do feel like doing this.” I nodded, absorbing the moments.

Later at night, he was speaking with his mom about cell phones. One of his friends recently got one. He wants one, too. “Other kids in class have them, too.” My wife asked: “Do you want one for talking with them?” “No, only my friends.” “Don’t you mean the kids in your class?” “No, I’m not friends with EVERYone in my class.”

Then she discovered he was only friends with the boys in his class. She observed: “That will probably change.”

“Yeah.” He guessed around age 13 he would use the phone to talk with girls. Then around 17 he would be old enough to drive, and then use his phone and car to go pick the girls up.

My man.

Activity, Poetry, Writing

Remembering stones

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Sculpture on NW Lovejoy portraying the I-405 Fremont Bridge.

I like to walk long distances,

Stones in my pockets, and subpockets.

I know them each by how they clack and scrape.

Other, smarter, faster people shed stones from choice or shoddy pockets.

I like the feel of them crammed, how they complain or chatter.

Each step of mine heavier, a fall forward, foot pressed to ground to stop the fall, stomp, stand up.

It says “I am here”.

Step and fall and stomp and stand and stronger.

Though sometimes I just up and run for the fuck of it.

Politics

Defining Rick Santorum, a frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter

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Rick Santorum would like you to know he is not gay nor a dog rapist, and in no way is a hateful git who deserves the years and years of internet mockery he had coming to him.Doing my part to shore up the 8 year campaign to define (via Google) the gay-bashing, pent-up, milquetoast ninny Rick Santorum.

DEFINITION: SANTORUM

Pronunciation: san-TOR-um
Function: noun
Etymology: Savage Love – 05/29/03 [Great post, worth reading – Ed.]

1. The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.

2. Former Senator Rick Santorum

This effort has worked for years, and still holds so strong that Santorum complains about it all the time. Google “Santorum”, gangsta!

Activity, Eating

I like fast food, but am a snob about it. Disney has good fast food

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Scanning recent photos, came across this one of my meal at Pinocchio Village Haus in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World from April. It was late at night, and work stuff (really!) kept me and a buddy occupied and we didn’t enter the park until 6:00 p.m. or so. We scurried around from ride to ride, hitting a bad streak of 3 or 4 rides delayed or broken as we were in line. It’s a Small World broke the streak and was smooth sailing on its brackish waters (WDW’s version SO underwhelming compared to Disneyland’s).

I’m a wuss about needing to eat, so it was unusual to have waited until 9 or so. But I was particular about what I wanted after our leisure stress, psychoemotional reversion to childhood, and hunger: Coke, chicken nuggets, French fries, apple slices. BAM!

Chicken nuggets devoured, ate about half the French fries, drank 1/3 the soda pop (HATE diet, but I can rarely bring myself to consume 12 oz. of pop nowadays. The era of guzzling 44 oz. like a Viking returned from the surface of the sun long past) and all of the apples (are ya proud, mom?). It was tasty and stupid expensive but I loved it and we got outta there and jumped back into the fray and kept rolling through the late hours until park closing.

Yes, I’m getting emotional about this meal. When I bond with something, it’s stronger than steel. I wish there were some necromancy that would allow me to summon this meal once more and eat the fuck out of it.

Not 100% sure I had the ranch dressing with the chicken nuggets, but since it’s only us I’ll go ahead and guess that I did.

Activity, Writing

International internet sex malaise!

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According to Squarespace analytics, a person using Google in India came across this site using the search term “sex feh”. Wonder how much an SEO consultant would have charged for that return. Is that a market worth targeting? Seems grouchy.

Art, Music, Pop Culture, Religion

Why ‘The Book of Mormon’ is frickin’ awesome!

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“It has so many AWESOME parts. You simply won’t believe how much this book can change your life.”

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people.”

— Karl Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right

“Hello. My name is Elder Price, and I would like to share with you the most amazing book.”

— Elder Price, The Book of Mormon

When listening to the Broadway soundtrack (and eventually watching the show: YAY!) to the Tony-sweeping The Book of Mormon, I keep thinking of Marx’s compassionate point preceding the “opiate of the people” line.

The musical gets a LOT of deep digs in at Mormonism, but makes a profound point in its savage satire with complex, catchy, funny, moving songs. People need stories, and will adapt stories to resonate with them, no matter how ridiculous their sources. The more oppressed the people, the deeper the wish-thinking in their collective sigh for a tale to tie it all together.

But first, the dish. Among redonkulous religions, Mormonism is particularly redonkulous. For instance, here’s my post about how Mormons thought blacks were cursed until 1978.

“I’m going to take you back to Blblical times: 1823.”

— Elder Price, The Book of Mormon

Referral form used by Mormon missionaries circa 1993. Yes, my copy.
Referral form used by Mormon missionaries circa 1993. Yes, my copy.

Joseph Smith, the founding “Prophet” of Mormonism, was a multiple-count convicted con-man “money-digger” who charged money to tell people where treasure was buried by using a sham device. The victims would dig where he told him. When they found nothing, the move was to say “Ah! The treasure must have moved, then. But it USED to be here.”

Smith claimed to be directed by an angel named Moroni (!) to dig in a yard in upstate New York, where a series of drilled-hole bound golden plates was buried telling the story of the Mormon people. A tribe of Jews sailed from the Middle East to the Americas and had a bunch of dull-ass adventures and talkity talk. Also, Jesus visited the Americas between the Crucifixion & Ascension. And Eden is in Missouri.

“I believe in 1978 God changed His mind about black people!”

— Elder Price, Book of Mormon

Mormonism was a hobby in my teens & 20s along with my buddy Paul and later on with buddy Fanny. More lore? Dark skinned people were marked because they were cursed, and ineligible to be full Mormons. Jesus and Satan are brothers. Only men are eligible for priesthood (crazy!) but since all men of age are eligible to be priests there is no vow of celibacy (whew!). In the afterlife, the blessed get their own planets (Coo-ol!). In 1978, the Mormon President announced a divine revelation that dark-skinned people could be full Mormons. New demographic for international markets!

Joseph Smith did not allow anyone to see the golden plates he got. He persuaded a neighbor, Martin Harris. to dictate him “translating” the golden plates from behind a suspended blanket. Smith was not even looking directly into the plates, but into magical seer stones set inside of a hat to block out all light. Harris was never allowed to see the plates. It became an obsession for Harris at the expense of maintaining his livelihood. His spouse, the brave Emma Harris, hero for the ages, had enough of this bullshit and swiped away the 116 pages of manuscript and demanded Smith try to reproduce them. No big deal, given he was reading from magical golden tablets still in tact. Right? RIGHT? In pure Imam/Vatican fashion, Smith declared the first manuscript infected by Satan (like the “Satanic Verses” of the Koran) and a new version from OTHER plates, even more pure, was incipient and would be dictated to other writers.

Back to the book. It sucks. It’s boring. It lifts entire sections of The Bible, and clumsily apes the poetry of the King James Bible. But the preface is AMAZING and crazy and ballsy and defensive. Joseph Smith persuading people to sign testimony they saw magical figures beaming in to interact with Joseph Smith. Check it out if you get a chance.

“Did you know that Jesus lived here in the U.S.A.? You can read all about it now. In this nifty book, it’s free, no you don’t have to pay!”

— Elder Young, Book of Mormon

In the 19th century Mormons DESPERATELY wanted to be a separate nation named Deseret that extended from what is now Utah to southern California, Nevada, chunks of Oregon, Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico. Congress threw them land-locked Utah territory instead. Also, polygamy was an important part of doctrine and critical in swelling LDS numbers. Polygamy isn’t as big a deal to my sensibilities now, so long as it’s between adults – when it leads to childbrides, though, send in the rescue teams! But polygamy got shed from Mormon doctrine more than a century ago.

“Eternal life is super fun! And if you let us in we’ll show you how it can be done!”

So, the Book of Mormon compounds a bunch of American crap with shoddy, all-too-human rubbish imagination and bigotry as a Third Testament to the New Testament, itself a collection of contradictions and tamperings by womb-fearing men written generations after the death of Jesus that ends with a petulant smashing of everyone’s toys and eternal torture of those not in the club. And the New Testament compounds the idiocy and superstitions of the Old Testament, a series of Iron Age myths written and edited and re-edited when Man did not know anything about anything. But the Book of Mormon, unlike the Old and New Testament, at LEAST acknowledges geography beyond the Middle East. So, point awarded to Joseph Smith. Still, a mish-mash glopped onto hash that was already on a pile of hash.

“I’m wet with salvation!”

The musical The Book of Mormon mocks a LOT of that, even starting up a FOURTH Testament to compound on Smith’s book with more absurdities. Magical frogs that cure AIDS. Boba Fett as divine instrument of justice. On and on. Each element hilarious and/or heart-wringing. Each of them adapted by a native people in despair and distress. Joseph Smith’s book evangelized by the Mormon missionairies bores them, but frogs that cure AIDS and holy admonitions to not circumcize people (in this case, women)? That resonates with them NOW!

The musical knows Mormons tend to be “really fucking polite to everyone” and plays it for laughs, then finds its heart there. Video below of a HUGE, grim laugh in the first half of the show. “Turn it Off”, a number about ignoring horrors and troubles, including being a closeted gay, by clicking them off, like a light switch. At this point, the two main missionaries, Elder Price (the tallest, handsomest, charismatic and most destined for greatness) and Elder Cunningham (shlubby, prone to making things up), are experiencing culture shock after arriving in a war-torn Uganda village where their fellow Mormons have failed to convert a single person. This number earned the main singer in the number (supporting player Rory O’Malley) a Tony nomination. Official video is not available, but here’s an amateur production that’s charming:

Nikki M James
Nikki M James

Nikki M James has a Tony. She is talented and beautiful. World domination inevitable.After witnessing a violent act by a warlord general, Elder Price begins to doubt his destiny as the next Joseph Smith. His crisis of faith splits him from Elder Cunningham, who must take the lead after being disregarded his whole life. He falls in with a local girl Nabulungi (Nikki M. James, who won a Tony for the role) who is charmed by his imagination and sees him as a way out of the horrors of Uganda to a paradisal land called Sal Tlay Ka Siti. James’s performance of “Sal Tlay Ka Siti” (say it aloud to get the joke) is a turning point that the show will not be completely “Har har!” mockery of its characters. It’s moving, and she does a great job of selling the yearning in a song that ends: “I’m on my way/ Soon life won’t be so shitty./ Now salvation has a name. / Sal Tlay Ka Siti.”

Side note: the actors playing Ugandans have wandering accents, shifting from genero-African-ish to Carribean inflections and, heck, I’m not a dialectitionator. Not gonna go to Uganda to research this point. I’ll drop the pretense.

From the rousing final number: “Who cares what happens when we’re dead? We shouldn’t think that far ahead. The only latter day that matters is tomorrow.”Elder Cunningham flourishes and uses his lying/creativity to adapt and exaggerate and customize stories that resonate with the tribe, as Joseph Smith did. And the people exaggerate the stories even further to suit themselves.

The writers of The Book of Mormon (the dudes who make South Park and the composer behind Avenue Q) have mentioned originally they were going to have Elder Price killed by gunfire, leaving Cunningham completely alone to lead the tribe, as Joseph Smith was fatally shot and left Brigham Young to lead. A severe, intriguing idea. Price does not die (spoiler!) but does go on a divergent path that makes for a richer exploration of ideas about religion, faith, and not needing belief in heavenly reward to work to help people in this realm.

“We are all still Latter-Day-Saints. All of us. Even if we changed some things, or we break the rules, or we have complete doubt that God exists. We can still all work together and make this our paradise planet.”

This guy on staff was really cool about handling people eager to figure out how to get tickets.
This guy on staff was really cool about handling people eager to figure out how to get tickets.

The Book of Mormon is the hottest ticket on Broadway, even before reaping Tonys. I love theater, but had never been to a Broadway show, or New York City, before watching it August 13. I’m not much of a musical afficionado. The few musicals I do know, through film, I know deeply: Singin’ in the Rain, An American in Paris, West Side Story, Grease, and … that may be it. Oh, Purple Rain, but that doesn’t really count. The Les Miserables mania in the late 80s? Pass. Phantom of the Opera? Get the fuck outta here. Wicked? May see it before I die, but wouldn’t recognize a single song.

I dig theater. I’ve seen nearly 100+ productions at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival over the last 25 years, modern and classical productions. And I’m competitive about being the first audience member to clap. An embarrassing trait during classical recitals in the break between one musical movement to another.

But The Book of Mormon? I’d listened to the soundtrack maybe 20 times before seeing the show, and it’s the first time in my life I’ve owned a soundtrack for a currently running Broadway show.

It does skim ONE problem with regarding religion as stories – it’s okay to let other people follow whatever myths they want. But the evangelism, telling other people what to do, is where the true harm comes in. Why can’t people imbued with the Great Cosmic Answer seem content and happy? Why the need to bully others? Not so much a Mormon trait, but a general lamentation about the self-Elected.

Seeing the production, the script and plot points not conveyed by the songs themselves (though the songs do a great job of moving the story) was a great experience. Inspired acting and direction, catchy tunes, fun choreography. Toward the end of the show, I got teary-eyed from being so happy to be there and see the show with great wit and heart. It was fun watching the show with a friend who didn’t know what to expect. And even knowing what to expect, the show exceeded my hopes.

What I’m saying is: the story of The Book of Mormon really resonated with me. And I want to share its story with you.