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A New Post!

I basically need this picture so I can link to it elsewhere. It all has to do with my obsession for Lost. This is going to be the mother of all (recent) blog posts because I promised you the story of the Valentine's Day Surprise, plus I just finished an eight-page sociology paper that I want to share with you all. And besides, it's been a heck of a while. But first, for your reading pleasure, I'll also include a transcript of a conversation that went down in my film class the other day and had me rollin'.

Girl [interrupting teacher]: Wait a minute! Didn't you say we were going to have a special guest this week!?
Teacher: Oh, you mean like we had the other week when we talked to a real cinematographer who worked on the set of CSI?
Girl: No! I mean, didn't you say you were going to have someone in here to observe your teaching, and we were supposed to make really good comments and make you look good?
Teacher [turning to the gentleman sitting next to her]: Heh heh, yeah, I kinda prepped them that you were coming last week, kind of as a joke, and kind of so they would be prepared.

[beat]

Girl: Oh. This is a really great class.

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So a few days before Valentine's Day this year, I decided to make some enchiladas (I make really good sour-cream-based enchiladas, based loosely on my mother's recipe). As I was at the supermarket purchasing the ingredients, mostly on a caprice I decided to buy some red food coloring and make special Valentine's enchiladas. Valentine's Day Surprise, I would call it. As I mixed tons of food coloring in with the filling, my roommates expressed their disapproval. I can't blame them; It really did look more like a Jell-o salad than anything one would want in his spicy Mexican food. But if I think something is funny enough, you can't stop me from doing it.

The Valentine's Day Surprise was a huge success! Meaning that I thought it was delicious AND hilarious, while no one else would really touch it. Over the next couple of days I ate tons of that stuff, as well as making other special Valentine's treats, like Valentine's coconut juice, Valentine's milk, etc. Man, I think I am funny.

Of course, none of that was at the forefront of my mind on February 14th when I was staring, in complete shock, at the bloody stool in the toilet in the college's men's room. My thoughts went kinda like this:

"Oh. Crap. I am broken. How far up my digestive tract am I bleeding? That is so much blood! Aaaaaaa! Do I need to take this to a doctor? How am I going to get that out of there!? Maybe there is a plastic bag in here like lining the trash or something. But then what? Do I go to the rest of my classes? Can I just carry that thing around with me in my backpack? Surely people will smell that, even through a plastic bag. Maybe I should call one of my roommates. Should I even be standing up? What could have caused this!?"

At which point I remembered the Valentine's Day.

Surprise!
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In case you are trying to call me, don't. My phone's battery died. And then I broke it. And then I lost it. It's pretty much the Rasputin of phones. And if you left me a message at any point in the last three weeks, I don't hate you (probably); I just never got it. Some day when I have recovered from the financial crisis I like to call "tuition," I will get a new phone.
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Finally, here is the paper I wrote today. It's mostly a book report for my sociology class. I find this stuff to be terribly interesting.

Analysis of “Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism”

Michael LaFeber was wise to chooses Michael Jordan and the Nike Corporation as his subjects for his book, “Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism.” First of all, because attaching the name “Michael Jordan” to the title of his book (and subsequently telling Jordan’s life story throughout) was guaranteed to sell more copies of the book, thus getting his message about a new global economy to more people. Secondly, because Jordan’s story really does align well with the history of this new economy. Jordan’s career falls somewhere between example and metaphor of American culture and technology and their effect on the world. Finally, this book is about power. It is about a powerful man, who represents a powerful nation. The central argument of the book seems to be that America’s ability to change the world is massive, and that we as American citizens must now wield that power responsibly.

The first chapter of the book (pp. 27-48) is all about basketball. This chapter details the history of basketball, its inclusion of blacks in professional leagues, and the beginnings of capitalist endeavors to make a profit from the sport. Also discussed is the subject of Michael Jordan’s home life in North Carolina and his college years of playing basketball. LaFeber uses this chapter to set the stage for the broader economic and political topics that will be discussed later, as well as to ease the reader into a long-range sociological way of thinking about things that we 21^st-century Americans take for granted.

Chapter two contains an interesting section entitled “Enter the Transnational Corporation.” Here we are introduced to Nike, a company that is American, but somehow has more than half of its employees, as well as more than half of its sales, abroad. (p. 55) The idea of a corporation dealing internationally is not a new one, LaFeber informs us, but the idea of the new transnational corporations of the 1980s differed from that of their predecessors in a few major ways. These new corporations no longer relied primarily on American markets while dabbling in foreign markets, they traded less in goods than in ideas and designs and knowledge, they relied extensively on foreign labor, they committed huge amounts of capital to overseas advertising, and most importantly, they were able to transcend national barriers and therefore were immune to many of the governmental restrictions formerly placed upon corporations. (pp. 54-56)

Later in this chapter we learn of the history and impact of satellite communication technology on the world. Wealthy and powerful men such as Walter Murdoch and Ted Turner created enormous cable networks that would cross international lines that could bring the same news and entertainment (and naturally advertisement) to people all around the world (p. 71). Turner, we learn, banned the word “foreign” from his broadcasts on all stations, preferring to think of his network as global instead (p. 72). The fact that satellite television preceded the internet might help to explain the idea that America’s culture became so pervasive on the world scene; after all, the most important difference between the two is that the internet allows two-way communication, whereas satellite television allowed what America was broadcasting to be seen by the world without allowing for a response from the world back to America. According to a statistic from the book, 80 percent of European television programs came from the United States, whereas only one percent of American shows originated somewhere besides the U.S. (p 110).

The one-way nature of this exchange is supported by more statistics in chapter three. Here, LaFeber concedes that Europe and Japan did indeed supply the American market with many of their goods (mostly in the form of electronics, vehicles, and high fashion), but he is quick to point out that “(t)he $2 billion or so of high-fashion exports into the United States were dwarfed by the many billions of revenue generated overseas by Nike, McDonald’s, and Disney.” (p. 81, emphasis added)

LaFeber interweaves these facts about the early effects of huge American corporations on the world (along with the first intimations we see of resistance from a foreign nation, France) with stories of Michael Jordan’s growing athletic success and national stardom.

Michael Jordan and the head of Nike, Phil Knight, both benefited enormously from the new global communications and economy that were in place by the 1990s. Knight had found that it was lucrative for him to move his business to where there were fewer regulations imposed on employers. The first Nikes were manufactured in Japan in the 1960s, but with the boom in communications technology on the 1970s and 80s, Knight saw that “production could be done nearly anywhere.” (p. 103) As Japan became more successful and started endowing its workers with more rights, LaFeber reasons, it became more profitable for Knight to move production of his merchandise to other Asian countries, starting in Korea, Indonesia, and Viet Nam, and landing eventually in China. (p. 104). A Reebok official referred to this constant movement (in which his company also engaged) as “chasing wages around the globe,” and admitted that “[t]here has to be a better way.” (p. 155)

Sadly, these new Asian sources of labor were beneficial to Nike precisely because they exploited the workers. According to U.S. women’s groups, the “Indonesian, Vietnamese, and Chinese workers… suffer from inadequate wages, corporal punishment, forced overtime, and/or sexual harassment.” (p. 144) 90 percent of the workers in Vietnam were “women who worked twelve-hour days [and many] reportedly fainted from exhaustion and malnutrition (p. 148). Adding to the ethical problems of manufacturing in impoverished China was the 1989 killing by the communist Chinese government of “large numbers” of dissenters, which caused Congress to restrict trade with the nation. Fortunately for Nike and other transnational corporations, President Bush vetoed this restriction. (p. 105)

Not only did new communications technology supply new, cheaper sources of labor, but it also provided entirely new pools of consumers. Unfortunately, many of these target groups were unable to afford the products with which advertising aimed at them tantalized them. Reports surfaced of inner-city children selling drugs or even killing each other in order to obtain the Michael Jordan Nikes they had no licit means of acquiring (p. 91).

At the same time as these more negative aspects of the Nike company were coming to light, Michael Jordan experienced a succession of setbacks to his image. He was at the center of scandals that focused on his gambling, his association with shady characters, and his refusal to wear Adidas paraphernalia in front of the world at the Olympics (pp. 96-101). As Jordan felt his privacy diminishing, and in the wake of his father’s murder, he retired briefly from the National Basketball association (pp. 121). In the interim, he played professional baseball, though his statistics weren’t very impressive.

During all of this (the exploitation of Asian laborers, the advertising targeted at poor black audiences to whom Nike nor Jordan reached out, and Jordan’s personal tragedies and shortcomings), the media and technologies that had once elevated Jordan and Nike to their global statuses turned on them. LaFeber describes a “Faustian bargain” that they had made with the media: they had put themselves under the world’s microscope in order to make money, but were stuck under the microscope when there were certain aspects of their existence that they would prefer to have remained unexamined (p. 115). Sales of Nike products, as well as sales of other Jordan-endorsed products, continued to climb, but Jordan and Nike had to pay “a price for being dependent on the new media.” (p. 153)

As Nike and Jordan grew rich off of other countries, those countries began to show signs of change. Sneakers hit the runways in Paris fashion shows (p. 109), South African street gangs “called themselves ‘The Young Americans’ and the ‘JFKs,’” (p. 138) while McDonald’s (another Jordan endorsement) shut down German, Austrian, and Swiss street vendors (p.140) and reached the point where it was feeding “one percent of the world’s population each day.” (p. 156). This cultural influence America and its corporations was having on the world is what is called “soft power,” soft because it’s consensual and not a forced influence like military might or political maneuvering (p. 109). One is not to believe that the word “soft” implies that the power is weak; American soft power had a very real effect on other nations, “not only chang[ing] buying habits in a society, but modify[ing] the composition of the society itself.” (p. 157)

This could be a good thing. One could cite the new existence of a small middle class in China as an example if U.S. democracy beginning to have a positive influence in a foreign market. The fact that American goods were not forced upon other nations, but rather traded (p. 156), highlights a major difference between this new “cultural imperialism” and the old traditional “imperialism” against which the Americans fought in the Revolutionary War.

The problem, as the world saw it, is the same as with capitalism here in the United States: he who has more capital begins with an advantage (p. 164). And on the global scale, this means the U.S. The United States had the upper hand on capital and the new technology because at the end of the Cold War, it had “adjusted to the post 1970’s technology and Communism had not.” (p.162).

The final chapter of the book focuses on the effects of the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11^th, 2001, on the global economy. Interestingly, the terrorists, who were fighting against the overreaching arm of American cultural, economic, and military influence, were able to accumulate power and perform their terrorist acts only by using the very communications technologies that had been used to spread that American influence in the first place (pp. 166, 181). Osama bin Laden was, in a way, the anti-Jordan, while his shadowy terrorist alliances became the anti-Nike. Bin Laden used his popularity in the Islamic world and the power of satellite television to sell people on his political ideals, while Al Qaeda took advantage of the same border-blurring transnationalism that Nike and other American Corporations had been enjoying for a few decades now (p. 173).

Also interesting is the way in which America’s vision of a peacefully globalized economy was hobbled at the same time Jordan’s career was ended due to knee injuries (p. 171). The spread of the American economy into other countries had flourished at the exact time that Jordan’s career and fame had, and in 2001 and 2002, both felt the effects of having driven too hard and too fast.

America by this point was so engrained in the cultures and economies around the world that when it suffered from a major technology crash during the years on either side of the terrorist attacks, it ended up hurting other countries (those which relied upon American purchasing power to pay for the goods they produced) even more (p. 172). The American government’s reaction to the terrorist attacks had similarly devastating effects overseas. For example, new government sanctions against immigration “prevented the movement of cheap, or highly specialized, labor from one country to another.” (p.173)

The September 11^th attacks had other sociological effects on the world, as well. The American government hired an advertiser to try to sell American democratic and capitalistic values to Islamic nations (p. 182). It also began to attempt to censor the news media with regard to the war in Afghanistan that ensued after September 11^th (p. 183).

LaFeber points out that not all of the effects of the new globalization are negative. One huge benefit appears to be the fact that as women in developing nations are made more aware of international issues, they have slowed their birth rate, leading analysts to believe that the once-impending crisis of an ever-expanding population has now been averted, as it looks like the world’s population might level off at 9 billion, instead of passing the 10 billion mark and continuing indefinitely. (p. 184). LaFeber claims that due to the new technology, “women were watching satellite television, [and] learning about small families and contraceptive devices from western television programs….” (p. 184) “U.S. expansion and profits,” he asserts, “were neither naturally good nor naturally evil.” (p 186)

The book ends on an embittered note, contrasting Jordan, who has unprecedented international clout but has never taken a public political or social stance, with black baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson, who in the 1940s inspired blacks across national lines with message of human rights (p. 188). LaFeber’s message here is clear: A powerful entity, such as Michael Jordan, or, through metaphor, The United States of America (which in actuality means each of us, the American people) has a responsibility to make sure that its considerable power, which is by nature neutral, is used responsibly. Jordan and Nike could have reached out to the inner-city youth, to the impoverished blacks of America, or to the practically enslaved workers in Nike’s overseas factories. The same technology that has created such an imbalance in the world market has also been used to educate and liberate people and to do an incredible amount of good. But if we Americans are not careful and respectful with the enormous influence this book proves we indeed wield, we have the potential to do an incredible amount of harm.

P.S. Thanks for all the feedback on the previous post! I love you guys! You inspire me to write more often.

P.P.S. I kinda came out to my entire Sunday School/bishopric & wives dating panel on Sunday. It was... great? More next time? Maybe.

God's Country

Evan and I got the same e-mail, only with our names switched, on Myspace from the train we worked on over the summer. Someone has made a profile for it, apparently. The e-mail wasn't very nice, and I'm guessing someone saw our blog posts. It said:

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It sounds like you had an experience on board the train. Could it be that you really weren't a server or could it be that you were scared to go out on the train without Evan. Oh my bad, you are Mormon and could not possibly be gay. And we know if you had those kind of feelings you can go to school to learn how not to be gay.
Such a shame you and you 'friends' find it necessary to trash the vehicle that allowed you to make as much money as you did. Good riddance to you and your kind and if you ever get the yen to come back to Alaska, DON'T! We don't like opinionated, rude, or weak people up in here in God's Country.

KARMA IS A BITCH..............................

All Aboard!

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Well, anyone who remembers my days as a writer for the 100 Hour board knows that I don't take that kind of attitude without responding tenfold. I really did try to tone it down, but that one sure got my hackles up. Here, then is my response:

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I have to make some assumptions about your meaning here because some of your statements lack lucidity. Could it be that I wasn't really a server? I assume you mean that maybe I wasn't cut out to be a server. Because I definitely was a server on that train. And I for sure was a very successful server in the job I had before I ever went to Alaska. Yes, I could have put up with more crap from you and made more money than YOU could make elsewhere, but I actually have open doors in my life. You go ahead and keep that job. You're just like a guest on Jerry Springe who is going to go back home to her abusive husband because in all actuality she's probably too white-trash to get a decent man. Me? I'm outta there. Why put up with all that crap when I could be making as much money in a decent working environment? Now don't think I wasn't making a lot of money up there. It's just that so much of it was being taken by dishonest management. That was coupled with the fact that I had to pay hundreds of dollars in order to provide a doctor's note before returning to work, even though I never once called in sick to work. Your office mismanaged so many things it just wasn't worth it to me to even try. I worked my butt off to make the customers happy in that job, and my customers loved me. My fellow servers gave me positive feedback. My managers had (and still have, obviously) no idea who I am or what I am capable of or what I am worth.

Your ad hominem attack on my religion surely doesn't hold the kick for me that you seem to hope it would. You seem to try to insult me by calling me gay, and then you turn around and insult me for being Mormon because of Mormons' stances on gays. Sounds like you had a negative experience with Mormons or homosexuality or both somewhere along the way, and for that I'm sorry. But most of the Mormons and gays I know (which is more than you know in both categories) are good and happy people who are just trying to do the best they can. I don't know about this school you're talking about to teach gays to be straight, but it sounds to me like no wilder a claim than the idea that people could come up to Alaska for the summer and have a good time earning lots of money on the McKinley Explorer.

Interesting that you don't say who you are. Your name on Myspace is "All," and I'm guessing your last name is "Aboard." Cute. I'm guessing you're in management, because you are actually defending that God-awful company. It says you're a panhandler, so I'm guessing you actually live in Alaska. It says you're 99 years old, so that points to Lorelle, but on the other hand, you sound a bit drunk, so maybe it's Kim. If this is Matt, I'm sorry. I felt you were the only person in management at that company who did a good job, and my attacks on the company were never meant to be aimed at you. Then again, it says you are fat and male, which makes me think of that one fat guy who worked in the office and was engaged to the little chirpy but sweet girl. I think it was John, maybe? Yeah, I could see John using words like "yen" and using sarcasm as a primary defense mechanism. It's probably better for you that I never find out which one you are, because for an employer to say those things about Mormons and homosexuals is clearly illegal.

Anyway, I've moved on with my life. Sorry you're stuck up there and this misery has to continue to be your existence, but I'm actually in a really good place right now. I love my job and I'm going to school and the other day in class when the teacher brought up having to work for incompetents, it actually took me a few minutes before my Holland America experience came to mind. I take that as a good sign.

I haven't enumerated my reasons for not sticking with the job here in this e-mail, because I am assuming you already saw my blog post. However, in case you missed it, here it is:
http://smurfyourself.blogspot.com/2007/07/alaskan-adventure-hooray.html

You don't like opinionated, rude, or weak people in Alaska? No wonder you all seemed to hate each other. I don't even know if it's worth it to point out that that last statement of yours was opinionated AND rude, because you seem to have very weak reasoning powers.

I don't understand why you would say "Karma's a bitch" to someone who has moved on and is infinitely happier than he was when you knew him. That statement would seem to apply more to someone who is miserable and treats others like crap who is stuck returning year after year to a miserable job that treats him like crap. If Karma is such a bitch, maybe it should get a job as a manager at the McKinley Explorer after Lorelle keels over or Kim gets thrown in the drunk tank. Neither of which will happen too soon.

--Robbie Pierce

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Next time: My Valentine's Day surprise!

Pismeeyawf

One of the eskimos at work has to write a list of everything that pisses her off. I told her I'd do the same, so here goes, in no particular order:

1. Ann Coulter
2. People throwing snowballs at me
3. Holland America cruiselines
4. Deaf culture
5. That particular aspect of Mormon culture that leads us to believe that men are responsible for women's righteousness
6. cops
7. dollar coins
8. cheating in board games
9. uses different parts of speech in a list
10. pregnant women drinking
11. racism (when you're not joking)
12. potato bugs (the Jerusalem Cricket)

Well, that's about it. I guess I'm not a very angry person. At least not compared to the girls at work. Oh, speaking of which,

13. getting kicked in the nuts by a stupid angry girl right before she rips my shirt.

My Year in a Nut's Hell

2007 began for me with an ethereal stop into a cozy English pub to ask for directions. It was called The Pelican Inn, and everyone inside was really drunk and really British and slightly helpful. Eventually we gave up on our destination, as the roads were all washed out. But Evan and I couldn't help but shake the feeling that if we went back looking for The Pelican Inn in the daytime instead of on a spooky, foggy morning on New Year's Day, it just wouldn't be there. Especially because we weren't even in England. We were in the woods in Sausalito, CA. That's kind of how I feel about this whole year. In ten years when I look back, I don't know what I'll have filed away in my brain for 2007. So here's my attempt to cement proof I even did this year before it vanishes into the mist.

So. By the holiday.

New Years was spent camping in the Redwoods, my favorite place on earth, with Evan, Justin, and Wiggle. It rained the whole time and was freezing and beautiful.
On Valentine's Day I took the girl I've loved for years to dinner. She told me I "get" her. Then she told me about this other guy, and when it comes to who actually gets her, it's him. I don't get it.
Saint Patrick's Day was spent at Los Hermanos, peddling yucky "Mexican"food to a bunch of grouchy old Mormons who don't believe in tipping or wearing green.
On Easter I bore my testimony in church.
Mother's Day was spent getting ready to go camping and to Disneyland with my mom and step-dad and 5-year-old sister.
My Father's-Day phone call was cut short because dad was at work at Home Depot, and I was at in my apartment in a scary Eskimo ghetto.
Independence Day was a let-down, since it doesn't ever get dark enough for fireworks in Fairbanks, AK in July, and I ended up on a plane most of the day anyway. The company barbecue consisted of hot dogs, to which I'm allergic, so we went and ate pizza in a bar.
Pioneer Day started out on a plane as well, on the way back after giving up on that horrible job. We opted out on fireworks and went to see Hairspray with Caitie and her mom. It was wonderful, and we saw fireworks from the freeway on the way home anyway.
Halloween was spent at my new job at a school for euphemismed girls. I didn't get to dress up as Urkel, as I had planned.
Thanksgiving was also my birthday, and I had to work, but my friends did Thanksgiving dinner with me at Tara's house before I had to go to work. Wills made a Turkey, and Evan dressed up in full pilgrim regalia for the occasion. Jordan lured me unwitting into a reenactment of the first Thanksgiving by stealing the food off my plate, even though I was the one who cooked it. The when I stabbed him with my silverware in an attempt to steal it back, he made me sit in the corner, which was referred to as "Oklahoma." That night the girl I took out on Valentine's Day told me she was still interested in me and was considering leaving her boyfriend for me.
I got to play Santa for Maggie, since she and Rusty and the folks were in town again for Christmas. Then off to a 14-hour shift at work, during which that same girl let me know that she had chosen to stay with the other guy. Bummer.

Most of the big events in my life fall on holidays. But lots of other stuff happens, too.

2007 was the year that:

My dad's second divorce was finalized. He celebrated by going out with his new ex (Darla II: The Meltdown, as opposed to the woman he left mom for, who was named Darla I: A New Hope) and getting drunk or worse and not showing up to Home Depot for over a week. He lost his job and his apartment and now lives with a maid named Rosa, we believe. He's gone dark ever since he was supposed to show up at the rehab center in Healdsberg where he was during my mission.

I learned a traditional Eskimo greeting: "Hey! Can I have two dollars?" I would fend off the throng of Eskimo beggars by beating them to the punch and asking them for two dollars before they had a chance to ask me.

I bought the most expensive thing I've ever owned: a Nikon D40 camera for $650 in Alaska. That's more than my computer ($300 including the scanner/printer) and my car (another $300) combined. Got some great pictures with the camera, and I have them all backed up on the computer now.

Our house was broken into and burgled. Burglarized. Whatever. I just know it wasn't "robbed" because the biotch ladycop on the phone gave me such a hard time about reporting the wrong crime. Anyway, someone took all of our stuff out of the house last week while we were all asleep. The take: Jordan's iPod, Aarons record player, speakers, and record collection, the apartment DVD player, and my Nikon D40 camera and my computer. Bummer. The cops only dust for fingerprints if there has been a homicide, apparently, which begs the question, "who do I have to kill to get the police to do their job around here?" I had even dusted everything the morning previous. Oh well, when did the police ever help anybody?

Also my car broke down. Been getting rides from some great friends, including Ryan and Evan, foremost.

I came up with a surefire new weight-loss method: poop more. An easy way to ensure it works is to get food poisoning by eating a chicken burrito at Beto's at 2:00 a.m.

I got all enrolled for school and will soon be taking classes at UVSC,which will soon be UVU, and hopefully will soon have a film program. For now I'm a Behavioral Science Major.

I finally got my Utah driver license and registered to vote as a Republican. Glade says that makes me an official Utahn now. Before you get your hopes up, Mom, I just registered as a republican to help swing the primaries in favor of Ron Paul. A little party crashing, if you will. Soon as March rolls around, I'm back out.

Evan and the gang and I finished our film, Lords a-Larping. Episodes two and three are slightly stalled in the works, but will come eventually, have no fear.

I was invited to be in the musical program, Joseph Smith: The Prophet. We recorded a DVD and a CD. Wonderful testimony builder, that.

I watched my two best friends as one started to drift away from the church and the other started swimming toward it. I love those guys.

I went to see Wicked in L.A. with Evan, Ronnie, and Sheri, and fell in love all over again with the ocean. I also went to Vegas with Glade and Evan, and again with Evan and Tara.

I was called as FHE committee chair in my ward, which is the second time I've had that calling in this ward. Also I don't like it, but whatever.

I've started to actually enjoy reading the Book of Mormon. Weird.

I've also started receiving notices about my ten year class reunion this May, which has me a bit freaked out. I need to hurry and do something with my life.

Anyway, that's my life this year. Obviously, other stuff happened, but that's what I'm going to look back and remember. Some happy, some sad. Mostly anti-climactic, I feel. Lots of build-up to something awful. Lots of fizzling out. But I also feel fresh hope on the horizon, like the first spring breeze. I'm happy, healthy, and I feel an energy I have missed for a while now. Things are going to move forward, whichever way that is from here.

Finally, a more philosophical note. Sometimes in this life, we are carried along. Sometimes we are led. Other times we are given directions, and have to walk about on our own. And sometimes we're merely released into the wild, to see which way we'll go. Our path is tortuous, and is meant to be. Usually, as we're coming around a bend, we make the mistake of thinking that in the direction in which we're currently headed lies our final destination. "That's where I'm headed," we think, "and so it must be where I'll end up." But the twists and turns are leading us somewhere unexpected. Coming up over a hill usually reveals only more hills. If your final destination were whatever you could see from here, you might as well stop right now, because that hill and this don't really differ so much. But we move forward based on the faith that beyond all the hills there is a beautiful blue lagoon, people waiting to greet us with drinks in hand, a peaceful end to the journey. So for now we trudge along and find beauty in what we have. We know that just because the road bends south toward the barren dessert, or north toward the frozen forest, it doesn't mean that that's where we're going to end our journey. Unless we stop walking halfway through....

If you zoom out far enough from the rainbow, you might see that it's just a sheen of oil leaking from under your broken-down '93 Ford Tempo, into a mucky puddle of stagnant water that has been ever growing these last six weeks of relentless dismal rain. That's when you squint your eyes and just look at the rainbow, and give thanks to God that He showed you this infinitesimal beauty in the midst of a vastly grey and dreary world.

Thankfulness III

Thanksgiving again, and here's my list:

Carrots (great in Jell-O)
My friends (including the best roommates a guy could ask for)
Costa Vida, Bajio, and Cafe Rio
An excellent job, doing things I love and actually care about
That I'm not as old as my family all thought I was this morning
Thanksgiving dinner with good people
That I punched a girl in the nose at work today, and totally got away with it.
That for the first time in my life, I have a car, a cell phone, a job, and a bank account all at once.
Beautiful sad music.
The stars, and that they shine here at any time of year.
Red maple trees.
My family, I guess, even after today's insult.
Communication
My mission
The ending of the harry potter series.
That it really hasn't snowed here yet.
Long-lost friends, found again
Utah (I never thought I'd say it either)
My ward. Seriously, I love those guys.
My computer and my mp3 player
Past parental indiscretions.
The movies, music, and games I got for Birthgiving (Gravy's term for half birthday half Thanksgiving)
Clouds
The mighty ocean
The fact that there are still so many wonderful things to discover.
Ron Paul
Antiseptics
My one dimple
The candle factory
As in years past, that I'm not an Eskimo (Though after having lived in Alaska, I really really mean it now).
Five-hour phone conversations in the middle of the night.
Bees.
That I'll be starting school again in January.
Our movie we made, and everyone in it, and that the sequel will be done before too long.
The Holy Ghost.
My kind and off-beat bishop.
Tobler chocolate oranges.
IHOP and my favorite waiter
That I'm not a woman.
This whole amazing life.

I'm filled with a lot of love tonight. I'll see you.

--Robbie

America's Hundred Wost:

So while I was digging through my blog archives searching for the Thankfulness lists I'll be using when I post on my birthday, I came across the list I did entitled "America's 100 Best." I had a lot of fun listing my favorite two things from each of a hundred different categories I made up out of my mind. I liked it so much, I decided to make that list's antithesis. I now give you "America's Hundred Worst:"

1: Classical Composer: Debussy (Chopin)
2: Muppet: Elmo (Wayne)
3: Game Show: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (The Price is Right)
4: Vegetable: Capers (green beans)
5: Candy Bar: Take 5 (PB Maxx)
6: Sitcom: Everybody Loves Raymond (Wings)
7: Movie: Master of Disguise (The Miracle of Birth)
8: Food: Capers (lasagna)
9: Superhero: Spawn (Blade)
10: Number: 5,280 (pi)
11: Color: Grey (puce)
12: Foreign Country: The Philippines (Georgia)
13: Band: The All-American Rejects (Boy Meets Girl)
14: Smurf: Smurfette (Vanity)
15: Burger: Sonic (Wendy's)
16: Magazine: Maxim (The Watchtower)
17: Book: Haunted (Fascinating Womanhood)
18: Asian: The bad guy on Season 2 of Prisonbreak (Imelda Marcos)
19: Crime: Child Molestation (Police brutality)
20: Season: Spring (Winter)
21: Elvis Song: Blue Christmas (Jailhouse Rock)
22: Musical Instrument: Bagpipes (Slide Whistle)
23: Insect: Potato Bug (W.A.S.P.)
24: Spice Girl: Sporty (Scary)
25: Provo Location: BRG (the mall)
26: Stephen King Novel: Delores Claiborne (Cujo)
27: Restaurant: Los Hermanos (Red Lobster)
28: Place: Hell (Salt lake City)
29: Gem: Citrine (Amethyst)
30: Famous Lesbian: Rosie O'Donnell (K.T. Lang)
31: Video Game: Golden Eye (The Sims)
32: Comic Strip: For Better or for Worse (Ally Oop)
33: Letter: U (Y)
34: Bird: Stellar Jay (Crow)
35: Natural Disaster: Blizzard (Avalanche)
36: Mouse: Ratatouille (The Country Mouse)
37: Disease: Alzheimer's (Progeria)
38: Political Party: Republicans (Constitution Party)
39: Painting: Anything abstract (Jesus at the Well of Bethesda)
40: American Novel: Haunted (The Andromeda Strain)
41: Musical: Cats (Grease)
42: Tree: Really, how can you hate a tree? (Ficus)
43: Baseball Team: Tigers (Yankees)
44: Ice Cream Flavor: Peppermint (Peanut Butter)
45: Landmark: The St. Louis Arch (Hole in the Rock)
46: Merit Badge: Citizenship in the Nation (Fingerprinting)
47: Language: ASL (French)
48: Dinosaur: Plesiosaur (Brontosaurus)
49: Disney Movie: Mulan (The Aristocats)
50: Spice: Anise (tarragon)
51: TV Show: The O'Reilly Factor (Teletubbies)
52: Pet: Tarantula (Cat)
53: Female Vocalist: Janis Joplin (The Dixie Chicks)
54: Continent: Antarctica (Asia)
55: Cereal: Meuslix (Peanut Butter Crunch)
56: Fast Food: Taco del Mar (Pita Pit)
57: Weather: Snow (Sleet)
58: Hair Care Product: Shampoo that burns you (Aquanet)
59: President: W (Nixon)
60: Dr. Seuss Book: Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! (The Cat in the Hat Comes Back)
61: Word: Potential (funner)
62: Sexual Position: Haha just kidding again (Congress of the Crow)
63: Old Person: Lorelle in Alaska (My maternal grandfather, who's dead)
64: Harry Potter Character: Fenrir Greyback (Grawp)
65: Weapon: Guns (the A bomb)
66: Thing to Eat: Poop (Razor Blades)
67: Classic Rock Band: Rolling Stones (Heart)
68: Animal: Spiders (naked mole rats)
69: Fruit: Pumpkin (Gooseberry)
70: SNL Alum: Chris Farley (Will Ferrell)
71: Root Beer: Barq's (Dad's)
72: Curse Word: C Word (SH Word)
73: Flower: Broccoli (Rose)
74: Sport: Basketball (Lacrosse)
75: Greek God: Ares (Iris)
76: Board Game: Monopoly (Yatzee)
77: Beatles Song: Paperback Writer (Imagine)
78: Hymn: Come All ye Sons of God (I am a Child of God)
79: Jelly Belly: Cappuccino (Licorice)
80: Punctuation Mark: Slash (Ampersand)
81: Bone: Patella (T-12)
82: Car: Hearst (Oscar Meyer Weinermobile)
83: Soup: Clam Chowder (Cream of Shrimp)
84: Black: Will Smiff (Anita Hill)
85: Cologne: Anything in a bottle shaped like a pheasant (Axe)
86: Comedic Movie: Master of Disguise (Jackass)
87: Card Game: Slapjack (Egyptian Rat Screw)
88: Job: Janitor (Assistant Crack Whore)
89: Category So Far: Tree (Bone)
90: Holiday: Take your Daughter to Work Day (Veteran's Day)
91: Marsupial: 'Possum (Wombat)
92: Organ: Rectum (Nose)
93: Football Player: Terrell Owens (Bo Jackson)
94: Jam: Apricot pineapple (Mint)
95: Appliance: Cuisinart (Toaster)
96: Fish: Moray Eel (Great White)
97: Meat: Fish (Pate)
98: Soda: Grape (Anything Chilean)
99: Tool: Bone saw (auger)
100: Actress: Angelina Jolie (Mary Tyler Moore)

Decorated

An original poem for this holiday season:


Decorated
Cut down in the forest
Only a stump remaining
Dragged back home to Mom
Lower limbs trimmed away
Propped up
Dressed nicely
For all to see
Sapped of life
Adorned with ornaments
Filled with memories
Family gathered
Gifts given
Speeches made
Tribute paid
Then dried out
Hauled out
Left on the curb
Purpose served
Alone
Forgotten
The War Hero
Decorated



Happy Veterans Day, everybody.

Scholarship Essays

Essay #1:
Please write a brief biographical sketch about yourself.
Limit your response to 300 words.

Mom had four boys by the time she turned 24. Dad worked awful hours in the stench of a tannery to support us and put himself through nursing school. She had joined the LDS church while living in foster homes; he was the youngest son of a single Mexican immigrant mother. Both ignited in their children a love of learning and virtue. Dad rid the house of its television, insisted his boys say “yes” instead of “yeah,” and taught us the names of every bone in the body. Mom ran a daycare from the modest duplex, took the kids on weekly educational fieldtrips, and shopped at garage sales for the best surprise we knew of: armfuls of used books.

As the oldest of the boys, I was the first to finish high school and serve an LDS mission. I served in the frozen southern reaches of Chile, learned Spanish quickly (thanks to Mom’s grammar lessons and Dad’s sangre Mexicano), and spent my mission loving and teaching the Chilean people. When I returned, I attended community college in Napa, California, then moved to Utah to attend BYU. I went to the beginning of a semester of BYU, but found I was financially unprepared and dropped out to earn some money first. I became a waiter, determined to follow Dad’s example by working hard and supporting myself. Within a year I had worked my way to the top of the restaurant’s hierarchy as general manager over two restaurants and almost two hundred employees.

The restaurant job was enjoyable, but my parents’ emphasis on education still burned within like an ember. Hence, I am applying again to BYU, hoping to get my English Language degree so that I might stoke the flame of my education and share its light with future generations.


Essay #2:
Please describe your educational, professional, and other goals. Describe how BYU
will help you achieve them. Limit your response to 300 words.

I have a slightly out-of-focus vision of my future. I’ll describe it to you the best I can. Of course, anything I write here is subject to unforeseeable change, but for now I’m working vigorously toward this vision.

In my future, I will attend BYU and receive a bachelor’s degree in English Language. During my time there I will find a virtuous and patient woman who will consent to marry me in the temple. I will take the appropriate classes to make myself eligible for consideration as an employee for the Church Education System. I will proceed to teach seminary or high school and get my master’s degree in something Englishy. Then I’ll teach Institute, and eventually get my doctorate. Along the way, I plan to continue in my hobby of writing fiction and screenplays. I believe I can work happily for a time as a writer of uplifting, educational, and entertaining programming for television.

Meanwhile, my wife will be bearing (or adopting) many children, and she’ll stay home from the workplace to raise them. It will be a home with plenty of books and education and love. We will live somewhere between San Francisco and Seattle. My wife and I will both serve in a wide variety of church callings, and will dedicate ourselves to living the gospel and teaching it to our children. Eventually I will teach English or linguistics classes at a University. My wife and I will die happy and old. We will have made significant contributions to education. We will have built up the church in our area and raised happy, interesting children. We will not have forgotten that it was at BYU that we first met, and where we began our commitment to learning and higher education.

Or I could go to UVSC, marry a woman with a nose ring and pink hair, get my degree in waste management, and manage a dump in Nevada where I have to work Sundays and my wife has to get a job to supplement my meager income at a convenience store where she meets a flashy man with a motorcycle for whom she eventually leaves me.

(OK, I didn't really put in that last paragraph)

Essay #3:
Please list and/or describe your participation and leadership during the last three
years in extracurricular activities, including performance groups, athletics, cultural
and civic clubs, and church and community service. Limit your response to 300 words.

I am always involved in some project or other. Most recently, I have written, directed, and acted in a series of short films that my roommates and I have been working on, mostly for fun, but also to have in our portfolios. A few years ago, I was a writer for BYU’s Hundred Hour Board—an exclusive question and answer forum that provides answers to students’ questions and allows its answerers to write creatively and do important research—though I wasn’t yet an official BYU student. I enjoy projects where I can write and be creative.

I also find occasion to perform meaningful service through my church callings. During the past few years I have been able to serve as a Family Home Evening group leader, Family Home Evening committee chair, and Sunday School president. These callings have given me the opportunity to plan dinners and activities for groups of 150 students, to prepare spiritual lessons, and to work with and organize the efforts of a variety of different people. I have also used these opportunities to effect service for the greater community, by organizing canned food drives for the needy and starting an annual Christmas toy drive for the children at a local battered women’s shelter.

I love music, and have been a member of Latter-Day Sounds, a traveling fireside choir that shares its testimony through uplifting spiritual music. I was also a member of the choir that performed Rob Gardner’s Joseph Smith the Prophet in Salt Lake City last year.

My employment has given me the opportunity to work with many people who are immigrants from Latin-American countries, and I have made audiotapes and taught lessons to help these wonderful people become proficient in English and learn enough about U.S. history to be able to pass their citizenship tests.

Nurture

“We can’t have you in here with the other girls.”

The other girls shift skittishly, sensing the storm on the horizon.

Ursula sits on her haunches on the chair of her desk with her muscular brown arms folded on top of her black ashy knees, her back pressed uncomfortably against the bars on the window, her forehead and eyes pointed at us as though pure rage might explode out at us. Her neck swivels menacingly; the vituperation continues as the staff members warily close in. “Bitch! I don’t need your fat-ass face in my face! You want something in your face, go get another cheeseburger!” To another: “Just come at me! I’ll rip your titties off!” To the nurse: “You! Black girl! I’ll kill your baby!” The nurse takes a step backward and sideways, trying to shield herself behind some wall or counter or piece of furniture she wishes were there, letting her hands flutter like birds around her distended belly in their search for the most protective place to alight.

“We need you to walk into Investment.”

The girl has become rigid, barely moving. Her breath is an ursine growl. The last thing she says is “You’ll have to take me. And I promise it will be Prob. Lems.” She punctuates each syllable of that final word with another around-the-world sway of her neck. Her eyes lose their focus, and a roar, guttural and startling, emanates from between her clenched teeth and angrily parted lips.

“Get the other girls out of here.”

The other girls leave their desks, their pens, everything. They funnel through the door in an ovine panic, following the staff to safety. They get jammed in the doorway, rammed into each other in their attempts to simultaneously leave quickly to escape harm and linger to witness the melee. A wispy girl, Rachel, is pushed, misses the doorway, and gets hit in her clean teeth by the wall-mounted pencil sharpener. She is swallowed up by the stampede, bleeding slightly from the corner of her mouth, led down the hall, and into a new classroom. The nurse looks sternly at all of them as she pauses pregnantly, then closes the door and gives them new pens. They strain to hear, quiet for the first time all day. The first sentence they can make out is:

“You have until the count of three to walk on your own. You are going either way.”

The men of the staff close the circle on the animal, hands forward, shuffling apprehensively. It bares its teeth, growls and screams.

“One.”

Its painted claws clatter dangerously on the desktop.

“Two.”

Saliva pools on its lips.

“Three.”

Two men advance, each grabbing a wrist and a shoulder. The moment it is touched, the animal begins to thrash truculently, kicking, gnashing, jerking its strong arms in an attempt to knock the men off balance. They pull it off of the desk, away from the wall, and two of the women grasp at the flailing legs. It bends at the knees, the hips, the neck, trying to free itself. In a surprising move, it yanks its hand inward instead of out toward the attackers, and is able to catch the back of a man’s manacling hand in its teeth.

“She’s biting me!” he caterwauls madly. Several pairs of hands grasp at its nappy head, its strong jaws. The man doesn’t let go of its arm, though fangs are piercing his skin. Blood vessels are mashed between gnashing teeth and the bones in the back of the hand, causing an instant black and purple ring to shine through. He finally manages to pull the hand away, leaving a bite-sized roll of scraped skin in its mouth. It continues to spasm and scream, shaking its head from side to side in order to drench them all in its slobber. They rustle it into Investment, down to the cold pavement floor, and nimble fingers remove its shoes and belt. The nurse reappears with a hypodermic and doctor’s orders. Heavy hands hold its hips and thighs and head. A flash of brown fleshy buttocks lasts just long enough for the injection. They wait.

After a few minutes, the struggling has stopped. The man with the bloody hand has gone to watch the other girls, a wad of paper towels pressed to the wound. The thin girl, Rachel, shaken and jealous, raises a malnourished arm like a tentative twig growing in time lapse. “May I break chair structure and come ask you a question?” she asks sheepishly. He nods his assent, eyes still on the smashed plum that is the back of his hand. The closeness of her small voice seconds later startles him. “I need to isolate. I feel like I’m going to explode.”

“Sit there in the chair in the hallway, facing the wall, and stay where I can see you,” he instructs impassively. Every other hand in the classroom erupts into the air, each straining to peak above the others. A few girls blurt out. “But!” “Me too!” “I can’t!” The man’s glare successfully conveys his unwillingness to tolerate nonsense this day. Most of the hands have sagged back down even before he says, “We’ve all just been through something stressful. Nobody is in trouble here. Please stay on task. You can’t all isolate at once. Rachel, write me a Feelings Paper and come back to your desk.” They settle back into the work of eavesdropping on whatever might be happening in Investment.

“I think we’re okay to let her go and back out of the room.”

They stand up and start slowly for the door. Without warning, it wheels up and around, punches the heavy-set woman in the face, aims a clumsy kick at a man’s knees. The woman throws her hands to her face. The man pulls the knee to his chest, swearing on one leg. There are still enough of them to grab it again and get it into a submissive position. This time they let it go and bolt for the door, which they close. They can hear it growling and panting, slamming its bulk against the other side of the heavy door. The long string of invective resumes. They exchange glances, wishing they could be anywhere else. Anywhere calmer.

“Rachel. It’s been five minutes. You need to rejoin these girls or face a Natural Consequence.” His voice carries out to her in the hallway, but she pretends not to hear. “Rachel!” he says, not more loudly, but more emphatically. She turns her head, and he sees the wet tears on her face and in the chopped bangs that she parts by pushing them to either side of her plastic-rimmed glasses.

“I did it again,” she bleats.

“What did you do?” he asks, as he cautiously stands up.

“I self-harmed,” comes the pathetic response. As he comes around, he sees the electrical outlet on the wall. She has ripped the face off of it, and a shard of the hard plastic is clutched in her slender right fist. He sees the red viscous droplets on the edge of the weapon, continues around her and sees the bright poison red spreading all across her left forearm, seeping out of a six-inch cherry-pie gash in her pale skin, soaking darkly into the leg of her sweat pants, making sticky scarlet elbow prints on the chair. He cries out in alarm, then grabs for his radio. “Code Nine in Classroom Four!”

The ensuing commotion of staff members and radios and paramedics and craning girls is enough to drown out the commotion the beast is making a few rooms down by banging its head against the door until it tires itself out. “I hope you know what you are responsible for today,” comes the bitter voice of the fat staff lady through the little hole in the door of the animal’s cage. Her voice is muffled a bit by the bag of ice she is holding up to one side of her face. “A lot of good people have been hurt trying to help you, but do you care? No. I hope they press charges. I don’t get paid enough to deal with you.” But the animal doesn’t hear her, and really doesn’t care, and sleeps through the rest of the afternoon’s events.

It sleeps through the fat lady’s attempts to sting it with guilt, in order to assuage her own guilt about her size. It sleeps through a man’s testimony to the police as he gingerly favors one knee. Through the police officers’ assurances that the school won’t have to deal with this one anymore, because she’ll spend some time in Juvie and then she’ll be back to her mother’s, if she’s out of prison herself by then; after all, no other school is going to take her after this one. It sleeps through a frail girl getting stitches up her arm and a reward of all the attention she has been craving today. It sleeps through a nurse’s phone call to her supervisor, saying that she just had to get away, and that she might not come back at all, at least not until the baby comes. It sleeps through the gossip that spreads through the school, and its own elevated status as another rebel who showed the staff what was what. “Oh, I bit a staff member once,” they brag and lie. It sleeps through that, too.

It sleeps through a man’s sobs. The man has pulled over to the side of the road, just as the clouds mockingly burst. He wipes the tears off his glasses on his tee shirt with a bandaged hand, amazed by the catharsis that begins to spread through him. But still he sobs and sobs, for himself, for the girls, for the world, forehead on forearms on the steering wheel. The hail bangs unfeelingly against the roof of his battered old car.

Soon, the animal will be returned to the wild. “Untameable,” they’ll say.

God damn the bastards who raped that little girl.