Monday, August 29, 2011

Waffles on the Back of the Bus

    Greetings from the shores of long beach, "where Latino's, blacks, and whites mix about as well all oil, water, lead." I am here with my parents for their thirty-third anniversary (don't ask me why they took their son on their anniversary, but they did) and if there is one thing that I have noticed it is the fact long beach is most certainly not a racially friendly zone. The attitudes exhibited by one race to the other is reminiscent of a Mississippi town during the late fifties. For instance, my parents decided that it would be in their best interest if they went to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles for their anniversary. Roscoes is an excellent choice for any occasion, including an anniversary lunch. I swear to anyone Roscoe's is the best food ever to be tasted by mankind. For the most part and in all but one of their five locations waitresses are respectable and kind to white gentry like ourselves. However, Long Beach was a different story. We entered into the house of fried chicken and waffles only to be snarled at. We were directed the most uncomfortable of seating. My father wanted to move but I decided that it was important for us to experience just the slightest bit of what our waitresses fore fathers and foremothers experienced on a day to day basis. Indeed it could be stated that if Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles were a nineteen fifties bus we would most definitely be on the back of it. What we had over the people of Birmingham and the deep south was the fact that no matter what happened  at the end of our visit we would overcome and eat a delicious stack of waffles draped with syrup, butter, and the likes.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Secondary Thoughts of Carola


                                                             
                After allowing my wild emotions to rue for a couple of days I find it rather important to speak concerning a conversation I had with the Well endowed and I dare say busty hair dresser named Carola. As I stated in the blog previous to this one Carola was a hairdresser and as such she was confined to a life of being single and for the most part being miserable. Carola, was not an exception to this rule of thumb that happens to be correct. By the age of eighteen Carola had had a child and missed out on many of the standard aspects of a adolscents life (namely getting plastered to the point of no return and watching the fifty worst music video countdown on VH1 rather than studying for a college test). However, while talking to my newly acquired friend carola I decided to ask the fateful question that gains the same response every time no matter who I ask. “Carola” I stated, “what is it like having children?”--- Without fail anyone who ask always states “Oh it’s the hardest thing that I have ever done but it’s the best thing in the world.”  My dear friend answered in a similar fashion. She loved her children and wouldn’t give them up for the world. Of course it was hard and she feels bad for not having the standard lets get drunk lifestyle commonly associated with the college life, but she still wouldn’t do it any other way. I was proud of her at that point. Yet she did not stop there. Carola looked at me right in the eyes and then stated, “You know boyfriends, husbands, girlfriends, and wives, they all go, but your children are always with you.”
                For a few moments I allowed that comment to pass through me without thoroughly examining it. I was expecting the senseless, useless, but appreciative banter intrinsic with the canned question that I ask, yet this certainly was none of that. She had stated something quite poignant but at the same time quite pathetic. Here this forty-one year old woman was, who was about as good looking as a normal forty-one year old could look without the aid of plastic surgery, stating the profound and sad statement that boyfriends and husbands always leave. I suppose the years of abusive and emotional experiences had worn the tred of Carola’s romantic beliefs to nothing.  Here this woman stood convincing herself that love was simply a fairy tale. That no matter what was to happen in this life it could not be attained. The comment was sad and nihilistic in nature.  Sorrow entered my heart.
                It is at times like these where I am glad that I choose to live a moral life. It is times like these I am grateful for the chance I have to listen to the words of a modern prophet. I am thankful for a family that has taught me that my life has a purpose. I am thankful for parents who displayed love to one another throughout my entire life. I am forever indebted to them and my religion, because they have taught me the truth. They have taught me that love is achievable and my hardships and follies with the opposite sex eventually will turn around and I will find someone who I can be content with. I will be with someone who will not come and go as they please.   
               
                Until the whistle blows (thank you Christobel Jake Balsar for that little diddy. I promise this will be the only time I will close a letter like this).

Mr. Romney Evans 

Monday, August 22, 2011

A Day at the Spa

                Greetings from Redlands California, “where the only people that remain are the people that you never wanted to see” I believe with the exception of Orem, Utah this statement is true for most places. Four years after high school Redlands’ once lively social scene is now a skeleton. I am left to associate with my brother his friends. The last functioning organ of my own personal Redlands interaction is about to move Ireland and so after this there will be no reason to return.
                With this being stated I am really enjoying my stay here in Redlands. While I have been here for only two days it has been two days of rest and recuperation. This morning I decided that I wanted to go to a hair salon to get my hair cut. This is partially due to the fact that Redlands, a town of 60,000 people has over six hundred hair salons and so there is bound to be one that is good. I happened to walk into to a salon called The Wild Hair.  Today was Monday and so it was the only salon in the downtown area that was open. When I arrived I asked if they were taking walk-ins and luckily for me there was a cancelation recently and so I would be seeing Carola. Yes her name was the name of a car. I was immediately called back and when I met Carola, I noticed one thing in particular. We will just state that Carola was perhaps next to some woman I met in Vegas the most well endowed woman that these eyes had ever before done known. 
                Carola began to cut my hair and I sat and wondered how on earth she was able to manage cutting my hair without falling over. She was middle aged. Her hair was dark and her eyes were blue. Remanance of once beautiful women still remained. At the present moment she still looked good, but you could tell that she was past her prime. 
So Carola and I began to talk. Now it is at this moment I will give reason 3,534 of why you should not be a hair dresser. Every hairdresser has the crappiest things of all time happen to her. Without fail, if you become a hair dresser you will end up penniless, with child, and abandoned by your spouse. I dare anyone outside of Provo, Utah to go to a hair salon and talk to a hair stylist who is not single and has two children. If you find one I will purchase you a Salisbury steak.  Hair stylists are the gypsys of the work force. They always are persecuted no matter where they are or what time they are in.
                Carola by no means was an exception to this time honored tradition. I will recite the story that she told me word for word. Carola has two children one who is twenty three and one who is thirteen. She is currently raising her twenty three year olds daughter. When I heard this was I surprised? No. Shocked? No. Saddened? Yes.
But not as saddened by what she would tell me next. 

I asked why she was raising her granddaughter.

 She then proceeded to tell me.


A week prior to her daughters marriage, her soon to be husband experienced a fall and ended up as a quadriplegic.  Wait there is more… Love prevailed and so for the first year and a half of the marriage the daughter loved her man unequivocally, bowel movements and all. He smoked medical marijuana and who could blame him. She got pregnant (don’t ask me how) Then, he left her. I will say that again. A quadriplegic unable to control his bowls left a fully functioning woman. For who? For what? I will tell you. He left his good wife for the love of another paraplegic. I am not even kidding. 
After the walking out, or should I say the rolling out, of her husband the twenty year old shacked up with a drug lord who has two other girl friends. So shes now living with a drug lord. The mother is now taking care of the baby.   
I don’t know what was more interesting the fact the story that she told me or the fact that she had the equivalent of thirty pound weights attached to her chest and was still managing to cut my hair.
After washing my hair out my new friend Carola gave me a head massage and then said if I really wanted a relaxing time I should go on down to the Chinese foot massage place next to the downtown Cantonese restaurant and get a full body massage for twenty five dollars.   So I did.
 I arrived at the foot message place and began to talk to the Vietnamese workers. I always try to do so but to no avail. The place was shady to say the least. It was adorned with pictures from the dollar store, small bamboo trees and of course the golden cat that waves to the paying customer. I then proceeded behind the rice paper thin divider to a bigger room. There were cracks in the floors and in the walls. I sat down on a comfortable chair. A middle aged man that I named Ling gave me a towel and began to soak my feet in water.  I looked to my left and saw that there was a back room covered up by curtains. There is no doubt that this place doubled as a Vietnamese prostitution ring, but who cares when your getting an hour long deep tissue massage. I felt bad for taking advantage of Ling who undoubtedly was being paid minimum wage for this job.  However, I appeased my guilty conscience by thinking to myself in comparison to the working in the rice patty fields that ling worked in prior to coming to the states this is probably a pretty easy job.  My mind for the rest of the hour long massage was occupied by trying to imagine the life of Ling prior to moving to the U.S., the probability of ling and his family living in a one bedroom home in San Bernadino, and the interesting flight that Ling must have taken to make it to the U.S.
Thus ended my very interesting day of relaxation.  

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Water Park Experience

So my summer has finally began. I have finally finished with my Teach for America application and with alot of luck next year this time I will be in the buyous of Louisiana or the frozen tundra of Deteriot trying to change the lives of ghetto boys and girls. I really am praying to get into this and your prayers or whatever religious action you do would really be appreaciated on my behalf. However, I am glad the application process is done.
To celebrate I bought a pass of all passes to Seven Peaks Water Park in Provo. It seemed like a good investment at the time but chances are that this will be a seldom used tool. However, after purchasing a Djembe drum for $90 dollars I dont know if it can get any worse. Anyway the one thing I will state about water parks in general is this  
If you look or are pregnant dont wear a bikini.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

I Curse the Day I Went to a Dance Party

I had the misfortune of attending a dance yesterday night. At times previous I would have not experienced my current feelings of disdain for such a venue but times progress and with those times comes the wisdom of experience. After coming to the conclusion that there was nothing else in Provo to do me and my new friend Stetson (an individual who I met a few days before) decided it would be a good idea to go to a dance party being hosted right in back of the Brick Oven parking lot.
There is something inherently wrong with a back alley party but there is something even more inherently wrong with a dance party where the slightest bit of physical contact is condoned and shunned. In short there is something inherently wrong with dance parties in mormondom in general. Mormon dances... They are all the same. No matter what bow and packaging you wrap it in a Mormon dance still is a Mormon dance. Remove the paint theme or Harry potter theme or movie theme from it, the Mormon dance simply has the same types of people doing the same thing. Stereotypes work well for this simply because there always is the same type of people that attend.
At any dance that I have ever been to in Provo there is always a white DJ who is making his best attempt to forget that he is white. This would not be a problem were it not for the fact that he does so at the expense of all those at the party. He himself curses the day that he was born white. He tries his best to cover up the fact he is white by wearing a fitted hat and a tall t but in the end it is a thin disguise for his curse of whiteness. The music that the man plays is exactly what the DJ is, a failed attempt at trying to be hip. For the first little while the parties progression is stopped because of this wretched style of music. However the eventual fact of the matter is that you have dressed up to go to a dance and so you are going to dance. Now if this dance party were to be located anywhere besides Provo with anyone besides Mormons the vast majority of people who lack the motor skills to dance would not be so noticeable. Physical contact between two Individuals would mask the sad fact that the majority of individuals do not know how to dance. However because we are Mormon we do not grind and bump or do anything of the like of it. So you curse the day that you were born without beat or rhythm and attempt to forget the fact that you look like a complete retard trying to cat daddy, stanky leg, tootsie roll, or do the hustle.
This is lack of dance and dance training is the truth for most individuals at the dance party. However this is not true for all people at the dance party. There is always a crowd of talented dancers who happen to be African American standing right outside the mass of people. For some reason however thy are not dancing. The possible saviors of the dance party look on with neglect and disgust as they see all others looking ridiculous while dancing. I soppose they curse the day they moved to Provo and so they just stand on the edge of the dance floor remaining aloof from all interaction.
 Then there are those occasional women of ill repute that despite the social stigma of being a complete whore have managed the dance as seductively as humanly possible. There they dance throwing caution as well as all human decency to the wind and move their bodies in ways that ought not be moved in positions that ought not be had.  They come in all forms. Big, small, tall, round, oblong, skinny. But they always do the same thing they dance as if they were the main attraction at the Larry Flints Hustler Club. They curse the day that pants were made and hope that somehow someway they're cloths will suddenly be removed and they will be left to dance in the stark nude for the whole world to see. By the end of the evening some primordial slime with a  chromosome will approach them and the match made in hell will have found one another. Much to the disgust of all people in the dance party physical contact will not be used sparingly between these two individuals. No I suppose that if all the dance parties in the world were combined there would not be room enough to contain the couples physical contact. They will most certainly make up for the rest of the dance party and will probably end up an unmarried couple with a child within the next year
As the dance party continues the music heats up. "Party Rockers Anthem" has already played twice and the ying yang twins "Get Low" is the next on the menu. It is about this time where dj whiteboy asks the fateful question "yo Provo how y'all feelin?" the crowd responds with a resounding yell that most have considered to be a cry of approval. I, however, disagree. It is a cry of disgust. How dare you white dj. How dare you remind us that we are in Provo, Utah. We are all a group of individuals attempting to forget the fact the we are living in Provo and you have the audacity to remind us we are still in this foresaken helltrap. And so the whole crowd simultaniously curses the day we moved to Provo. And that is why I hate dance parties.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

What has two thumbs and just finished summer classes?

This guy. It feels good to be done. Whenever I get finished with a semester I just spend about a day doing absolutely whatever the heck I want. this day by no means is an exception to that time honored rule. what is exciting, however, is the fact that I bought a Djembe. You may ask what the heck is a Djembe? thats a good question. its an African drum. I figured that I am trying my very hardest to be a renaissance man and what says renaissance man more than learning the african drums. When I am captured by a tribe of indigenous africans when I am on my safari I believe that this talent of playing the djembe drum will not only safe my skin but also unite a crew of african's and me.  Its gonna be great.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

My Ward

Inspite of the previous postings that I have made I am gonna have to say that I really loved being in my ward. The people there are pretty good.
One thing that I cant stand, however, are bathrooms that have two doors. There is nothing more freightening than going to the bathroom and realizing that you forgot to lock the second door. they should be outlawed.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

66 we're hot chicks

Yesterday I had the privilege of receiving a Facebook invite from a group of girls whose apartment complex I used to live in. they were self titled Apt. 66 "we're hot chicks." (I have actually changed the name of the apartment to protect the names of the guilty). I quickly RSVP'd in the negative. Allow me to tell you why.
 When I arrived in Provo, Ut at that particular apartment complex the only thing that could be stated about the girls who lived in 66 was that they most certainly hot chicks. Never before had Provo ever witnessed such a combination of fly women living under one roof. Some were short, some were tall. One was tan. One was thin and tall. One had voluptuous curves All were blond haired blue eyed goddesses. When I first met these women they were the cats meow. Every guy in the ward had their hearts set on marrying one of the Hot chicks from sixty six. The worst thing about this was that all six members of apartment sixty six knew that they could have whomever they liked...
                And so they had all of us. and we got none of them.
It is interesting to think about those women at that time. My how they were so coveted. It is also interesting to think about the realization that I have come to after being casually associated with these women for an entire year. I would have to say that the progressive snapshots of these women have allowed me to come to a greater realization of what I want out of life and who I want out of life.
 It is also amazing to see what changes in a year. I saw a picture of the tan one on facebook the other day. She was still blond haired and blue eyed, but her skin had changed in the most negative of ways. It appears that coutless sessions with her best friend the tanning bed had changed her skin to the hide of cow. her skin has now been so leathered and worn by the cancerous glow incandescent lightbulbs that she is slightly repulsive.
  Earlier this week I walked behind what appeared to be a survivor of the battan death march. This thing in front of me looked more dead then alive. Her upper arms were now smaller than her lower arms. For all intensive purposes she was a skelton simply covered by a thin layer of skin. I realized that it was the skinny one.
  I ran into the voloptous one a couple of days ago. It appears that her course has taken a much larger and different coarse then that of the skinny one. Her once beautiful curves have vanished and in their stead are stretch marks.
  It is incredible to see how quickly things on the surface fade. It is incredible to think that within the course of a few months, over the span of one year, people can change so drastically in appearance. The hot chicks of sixty six are no more. they are breaking up. Living with one another did a number on all of them. they are moving out of the apartment complex that they were once queens over. I assure you all readers that they will be replaced by a new group of sixty sixers, just as beautiful as these women once were.
 The women of sixty six embody that which is wrong with our society, especially that of mormon society. They were once princesses and now they are paupers in every regard. I saw them again. Me and my friends did...
                 And we had all of them, and they got none of us.        

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Been Through Hell

I have decided that I know the definition of hell. being stuck working with a couple in a bowling alley.