The Dangers of YouTube

This last week I was asked to speak to the youth of our stake on the subject of maintaining righteous standards in their choices of entertainment. (In the LDS Church, a “stake” is a grouping of several “wards.” A “ward” is a “congregation.” “Youth” is ages 12 to 18 years old. And “righteous standards” is entertainment that is not salacious, graphic, or starring Mickey Rourke.) You can click here for more information. (On the LDS Church, I mean. I won’t pretend to know where to click to find information on Mickey Rourke. But you could probably Google the word “infection” and find him somewhere in there.)

Another bishop in the stake spoke with me, and in an effort to hold the youth’s attention and earn some street cred, we made a short video for YouTube. (It held their attention; but let's be honest, there was never a chance for any “street cred.”)

We showed the YouTube video during the program and set it up as “you never know what kind of outrageous, shocking video you could come across on the Interwebs…”

CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

A Conversation with Roxanna

My delightful and precocious daughter, Roxanna, recently turned six. I adore Roxanna. She doesn’t have much of an internal censor. There are no red lights or even a yield sign between her thoughts and her voice. I used to think it was strictly her age, and that is why she did things like tell complete strangers that they “smelled like rice pudding.” (We’re still not sure if that’s an insult or a compliment. Neither was the person she said it to.)

The other day I was sitting on the couch reading, and Roxanna climbed up next to me. It was uncommonly quiet as the other kids were playing in the backyard. Roxanna picked up my right hand and started playing with my fingers. She seemed content to just be sitting by her dad. I watched her and loved this quiet moment. It was almost emotional.

“Roxanna,” I said, trying not to interrupt the moment. “Will we always be friends?”

“Yes,” she answered, without looking up from my hand.

“What about when you’re 16?” I asked, thinking about the teenage-daughter/father dynamic.

“DAD!” she responded, laughing as if I’d made a “pull-my-finger” joke, and then quietly going back to concentrate on my hand, calmly said, “When I’m 16 you won’t be alive anymore.”

“I won’t?! That’s only in ten years, sweetheart.”

“Well… You’ll be a grandpa for sure by then.”

Evidently in addition to missing a censor, her internal clock is busted. Although I suppose 16 is an entire lifetime away for a 6 year old. It’s two and half times the short amount of living they’ve done. To her it seems like she will never be 16. For me, it breaks my heart how quickly she will be.

But by then, I should have my new product out: Eau Rice Pudding Cologne for Men.

It Was the Worst of Times, It was the Worst of Times...

Have you ever woken up from a dream and thought, “Man, I’m glad that was a dream. That would be a horribly painful, post-apocalyptic reality.” Then you realize you weren’t asleep, but in the middle of your junior high English class, and it was only first period?

My oldest, Abbie, started 7^th grade this year. And it has caused me to reflect on some of the magnificent anxieties that I think traditionally come with entering Junior High. In California, where I grew up got taller and older, junior high meant 7^th and 8^th grade. And you honestly couldn’t pay me enough money to do those two years over. (But you could sure try! Let’s start the bidding!)

I remember feeling like I was treading water in a sea of awkwardness. (Sea of Awkwardness, located just off the coast of Crazy Town.) Nobody seemed emotionally or mentally stable in junior high. It was as if all my classmates were distracted by something else. And it was my observation that it was one of two things: costly fads or raging hormones. Our family didn’t have the money to indulge in fads, and the LDS Church (of which I am a card carrying member) had spoken on the hormone situation, so I spent a great deal of time wondering where I could fit in, and feeling out of place in the interim.

It didn’t help that it was 1983. Do you know what was popular in 1983? (If you guessed “Ken Craig,” you can just guess again.) For the love of muscle t-shirts, it was horrid. Toto’s Rosanna was the Record of the Year, people. RECORD. OF. THE. YEAR. It’s just amazing that we all made it out alive, that’s all I’m saying. No wonder there was the threat of nuclear war in the air. We must have looked so inferior to the Soviets. Anything from the Toto or Little River Band library had to suggest we were weak and ripe for conquering.

In the vein of Mr. Robert Fulghum’s cutesy, banal, new age philosophy book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, (wherein Mr. Fulgham lists such astute musings as Share Everything, Play Fair, Don’t Eat Paste) I would now like to introduce you to my new book, If All I Really Need to Know Was Learned in Junior High, Then We’re All Doomed.

Here are a few of the gems I picked up on whilst treading through that emotional soup bowl that is junior high:

• Sadly, break dancing is not for everyone.
• When you change clothes in the locker room after P.E., make conversation. Don’t make conversation about how you are all in your underwear.
• If you let out a nervous toot during one of your classes, the entire student body will know about it by the next class period. (This did not happen to me directly, but I saw it occur more than once. And I pitied that young man. I pitied him even while I mocked him.)
• When your history teacher decides to show you Gone With the Wind during class, it will take almost two weeks to view it – longer than the actual Civil War.
• It is imperative that you watch Miami Vice or lie about doing so.
• By the time you actually wear down your parents to buy you something that everybody else has, it will no longer be in style. (Parachute Pants, I’m looking in your direction.)
• No matter how musically gifted you are, your band abilities will be straight up disrespected.
• The more Swatch Watches you wear at one time, the higher your cool-credibility.
• It’s never too early to start smoking!
• At a standard junior high dance, in the contest between the overpowering funk of body odor and the not-to-be-underestimated toxic, non-FDA approved scent of Brute cologne (by Faberge), there are no winners. And the gym should be quarantined.
• No matter how tranquil you look on the outside, if a pretty girl comes up and asks you to hold her books while she opens her locker, your body will recognize the signs, rev up, and your voice will crack and somehow waver through three different octaves as you simply say, “Sure.” And then somehow your whole body sweats at once, including the area behind your knees.
• Every single soul who looks overly confident…isn’t.

Somehow Abbie seems immune to these things. As if she is in the suburbs, subletting a nice little place just outside of Crazy Town. I like to think I've inspired in her the quiet confidence of who she is and why she is wonderful; that I've provided opportunities for her to lead, befriend, and communicate with her peers. Plus, I really think those break dancing lessons are going to come in handy.