Cheese Balls

This last week was nuts.  I spent last weekend playing a 10 hour jazzathon for Justin's Arts West school.  Mostly his students played, but I still got to play quite a bit.  Several of his students were amazing, especially a pianist named Kelin who is already playing at a professional level.  Jeff, the vocal instructor, did most of the emceeing and was hilarious with his jokes and improvised songs.  He had these special introduction songs for his vocalists that included backup singers/dancers that were amazing.  I got to play All the Things You Are with Ryan and Sanden and we did two a cappella choruses that were really great.  Sanden joked that I have a good sound despite the fact that I studied with Watkins.  He likes to tease Watkins.

Hopefully Arts West doesn't go under.  The things they're doing are incredible, but they're having a lot of trouble with their finances and it's taking an obvious tole on Justin and his family.  I would love to go teach for them, but I'm not sure it would last, or I'd get paid, or if they even have a spot for me.  Maybe I could just live with them and be their housekeeper?  They could use the help.

We tried coming back Sunday but had to turn back because of a storm, so we didn't get back until Monday, which set my theory class back a day.  I don't know how I'm going to fit everything in this semester.  Ryan and I talked a lot about the ear training program and how it needs some major overhauling.

We also had a good conversation about how classes need a good balance of "what" information and "why" that information is applicable.  In other words, because information for the sake of information is pointless, the teacher needs to provide at least one view on how to apply that information to your life and why it's important.  If for no other reason, it needs to be pointed out how the information enriches life and makes us grateful by making us more aware of our surroundings and our relationship with them.  However, some teachers (especially at BYU-I) spend too much time philosophizing about their own gospel filtered ideas toward the subject and don't relay enough of the regular information you would expect to get in such a course at any other school.  It's not the responsibility of the teacher to provide a comprehensive approach to how I apply the information, just point out a possible approach.  Ultimately it's the student's responsibility to decide how it should be applied.  We also talked about the ongoing controversial issue of what defines jazz music.  Of course we still didn't find the answer, but we threw out the idea that music is always changing, but we only get a new major style of music when a lot of changes happen at about the same time.  We also talked about how members of the church are misinterpreting the "good, better, best" idea.  We are applying it to situations in which things are not good, better, or best, but just DIFFERENT.  It's possible to have two different approaches to something without one being better than the other.  The good, better, best thing tends to create arrogance and extremism when it's misinterpreted.  We talked about a lot of things that were very enlightening that I can't remember right now.  Hopefully they'll be brought to my remembrance when the time is right.

A couple of weeks ago I got in a slump for several reasons.  I had a friend who didn't have to be my friend at the time give me a late night call and I had one of the most meaningful conversations on the topic of religion that I've ever had.  If you ever read this, thank you J.  This last week I had a great time visiting J at her flower shop.  I respect people that respect the beauty of living things.  That night we were going to watch my new movie Children of Heaven by Majid Majidi which I highly recommend to anyone.  However, in a strange twist of extremely awkward events our plans changed and I was completely thrown for a loop.  The night ended on a somber tone.  It was one of those nights I wish I could rewrite.

Yesterday I was asked to help the Simons and the Ryzkas make a movie that they'd been working on.  I was feeling neutral about it when suddenly I got a text from Dave saying that he'd set me up with Ingrid for that night.  Apparently he'd taken it upon himself to try and cheer me up.  Ingrid and I went to the magical crawl space at my house and got our super villain costumes.  Mine consisted of a foam mask of a Christmas Tree, my Taekwondo sparring vest, and my cyborg therapy glove thing I've had since I broke my finger in high school.  Ingrid wore the rest of the sparring gear (which was black), a makeshift black cape, and a penguin mask, and we called her Penguina.  We also found a bag full of balls of newspaper wrapped in tape.  After Navaho tacos at the Ryskas', we went to the snow building.  In the end there were nine of us total, all wearing the most ridiculous costumes imaginable.  The plot was simple.  Four superheroes with crappy powers get set up by a mysterious faceless man (Kevin) by the name of Cheese Big (or Cheese Red, Cheese Bread, Cheese Whiz, etc., depending on who was saying it).  He sicks his four evil henchmen on them, each of whom has to be summoned.  Ingrid and I get summoned while sitting in adjoining bathroom stalls.  I'm reading the newspaper and she's knitting.  The movie culminates in a huge fight scene in the Barrus Concert Hall.  I had to fight John where I used my Cyborg glove to make him hit himself in the face with his balloon hands and then throw him off the stage.  Then, in the coolest camera shot ever, he kicked the glove off my hand which flew thirty feet and broke in two pieces.  In the end, the heroes are looking for the mysterious man who started it all and are in the middle of saying his name, "Cheese...." when the camera zooms in on Kevin's face and he says "....Balls" in the most menacing/goofy way, and that's the end.  We went over to the Ryskas' to which it today and it was amazing, but John is going to edit it this week, including adding background music. It's going to be the next blockbuster fo' sho'.  I came home utterly exhausted last night, but happy.  Thanks Dave for putting it all together.  You're a pal, even if you are slow and hairy.

To all my friends and family, I'm sorry if I've been a stranger.  I'm trying to figure out my life and I've been guilty of becoming very introverted in the process.  I need to get out of myself.  I love you all.

Shave and a hair cut, six bits. But inflation made it 11 dollars. Plus tip.

Well we left for Utah on Tuesday to hang with the fambly.  We were supposed to have this second Christmas on New Years Eve the next day when the nieces and nephews would open presents from the other side of the family, but Janice and Gabe were still getting over something and Rachel suddenly got sick that night, so it didn't work out.  PLUS Gabe and Sophie decided Wednesday morning to make nests out of all this dried spaghetti and sauce which the dogs then devoured, making a big mess, and then somehow they were able to climb way way up to the top of these shelves and get the WD-40 which they used up spraying down the dogs' hair.  Needless to say, they got in a lot of trouble.  

Sarah and I went cross country skiing at Sundance which was fun even though it was really icy. It turned out they closed at 5:00 PM so we were only out there for like an hour and a quarter, and since we paid about $27 apiece to do it, it was kind of the equivalent of going to a really really expensive movie.  We returned to grandma's to clean up and go party and Sarah assured me we could eat at her brother Bob's house.  Sarah's brother Bob and sister Karin and their families were having this big get-together, so there were kids running all over the place shooting people with Nerf-like guns that seem to be getting more and more lethal.  But as for dinner, it turned out to be chips, crackers, salsa, shrimp, and spring rolls.  Sarah's family is really cool, so we had fun.  We took off to pick up Sarah's friend, took the Trax down town, dropped by a hotel where Kurt was playing piano and Sarah's friend Nate was playing bass, walked forever to drop by a little party thrown by some of Sarah's married friends, started a game of Apples to Apples but left ten minutes into it, were wished a "Happy F****** New Year!" by a guy walking down the street by himself with headphones who was twirling these flashing balls on a string, got to our train two minutes late, waited forever for the next train, spent midnight singing Auld Lang Sing on it, swung by the U of U Institute Dance to go to the bathroom, made fun of the guy sitting by himself playing classical music on the piano to get the ladies' attention, drove to the Arts Center and finished the night dancing to techno music for over an hour with an indie crowd while like half the people there came up to Sarah to say hi to her.  And her last boyfriend was there who hates her and didn't say hi even though we were like ten feet away from him the whole time in this kind of small room.  I stayed the night at Sarah's and we made waffles and watched White Christmas the next morning, which to my utter surprise, I had never seen before.  I just figured I had because I can't count the number of times I've been with a group of people and someone says, "Oh let's watch White Christmas!  It's my favorite!"  Then I got picked up in the afternoon and headed back to the Burg.  Given the fact that my New Years usually suck, this one was actually a lot of fun for the adventure of it all.

Then today, this happened...

You can't see it too well, but I shaved half of my mustache and one side of my face so that I would have this spiral starting at my nose and going around my chin and up to my ear.

I could have been a Mennonite.

El producto final.  Hot damn.