The Regal Seagull, Utah's #1 News Source

I'd like to take a moment for some shameless self-promotion. I write for a new Utah news publication called The Regal Seagull. It focuses on Utah-related culture, events, and politics. If you care about me or about orphans who have had to fight through life the hard way, pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps (bootstrap bootstrap), battling hunger, hatred, and loneliness, then you will please take a quick second to jump over to RegalSeagull.com and check it out. As I write this, the site isn't completely finished, but it's functional enough to navigate, and it doesn't look half bad.

More blogs to come in the future, but in the meantime, please visit RegalSeagull.com. Or die. Don't worry, it's just a metaphor. For death.

Young Chap, part 2: Rear entry at the Trapp Door

I know what you're thinking: Not another "Hasen's gay bar adventures" post. Well, what did you expect? Huh? Another boring lecture about air pollution? Or maybe more b-ball action? Well, too bad. It's gay bar story time. If you don't like it, go read this blog instead: http://katielovie.blogspot.com. Still here? Ok, let's get started. Once again I was invited to the gay bar. This time it was to the Trapp Door to watch Miss Gay Utah relinquish her crown. The night consisted of different drag queens going up on stage, dressed like the girl from katielovie.blogspot.com, and lip-syncing to songs like Strangers in the Night and some gay-oriented parody of Barbie Girl. The set ended with Miss Gay Utah getting up and knocking the crowd out with some well-choreographed dance to a european-sounding song with a beat that would make Dick Cheney want to dance. If he wasn't a robot. An evil robot dressed in the skin of some poor human farmer that he murdered just to "get in his pants" (that isn't a sex joke, it's a robot crawling into a dead human's skin joke).

After the show, staff cleared the tables and chairs and an enjoyable night at the theater soon became a thrashing throbbing dance-a-thonic supersonic beat-bustin' melee of night children dancing to survive. Bodies spun and leapt, sweat rained from every direction, people yelped as they thrust their bodies into Michael Jackson moves that would have impressed even the King of Pop himself (for those of you born after 1991, MJ is the King of Pop, not Bono--while I'm in parenthesis, if any of you have had enough, you are welcome to visit this blog instead: http://luhmanfamily.blogspot.com, or this one: http://hardwaredelpc.blogspot.com/). I must say, it's been years since I was so infected with the dance dengue fever. I lost myself. Soul left body and I became the music, the energy, the sweat. Gender took a back seat to passion and everyone was immediately beautiful--dancing because they didn't know what else to do, didn't know if there was anything else. In that moment, dancing became breathing became life.

That's when my pants split. Yup, wiiiiiiide open. My legs were spread wide--someone had just finished diving under them and disappearing into the pulsating crowd--and I lunged down to slap the ground with both hands. As I came up, I thrust my derriere straight back, intending to follow with my upper body in a slithery motion. In that instant of perfect fluid motion--I'm telling you, I was like hot water--I felt, and heard, the seat of my pants totally tear from tippety top to buttocksy bottom. It felt as if the record player came to a screeching halt. I stood straight up, wide-eyed, drop-jawed, no longer a mass of flowing liquid energy twisting through the crowd like a ribbon, but now a rigid tinman with unbending knees or elbows, terrified and confused, reeling in shock. As I froze, the room spun around me. Eternities passed in a second. And then, from somewhere deep within my unmoving corpse, came a voice. I could barely hear it the first time, didn't understand what it said. But then it got louder: "Dance" it told me. I couldn't move. "Dance" it said again, this time bolder. I was still frozen. But then something happened. Deep in my stomach I felt something churning--like an ocean in turmoil. Its intense warmth began to spread up into my chest, and down into my loins. Then it filled my throat, my shoulders, my thighs. In one final surge the ocean of energy filled my entire body and the voice screamed a third time: "DANCE!" I instantly exploded into a hurricane of flame and ecstacy, shaking it like it has never been shook before. I became a sudden Lord of the Dance, a moving work of art, a celestial body unconfined by lesser laws of physics. And I danced.

Pitbulls and Me: There's not enough room on my front lawn for both of us.

The other day I got home from work, got out of my car, and started walking towards my front porch, when out of hell or somewhere a Pitbull came charging at me across my front lawn. It was screaming bloody dog-bark murder at me. I saw fire and Dick Cheney in its eyes and would have wet my pants in fear if any of my bodily systems worked. At the last second, instinct kicked in and I shouted, "NO!", with a quick raising of my arms. The sudden motion startled the raging demon-train of dog, causing it to jump back. That bought me just enough time to leap up my stair case and run inside, slamming the door like a bank vault behind me. I leaned back across my door for a moment, catching my breath. After the feeling of pure fear subsided a bit, I was suddenly filled with intense anger, realizing that most likely that dog belonged to someone out there, probably someone who was out there right then. Maybe they even witnessed the whole thing. I assumed they must know the personality of their dog, and I got madder and madder that they would let it outside with other people, including women and children and the elderly and people who seriously believe that G."WTF"B. has done a pretty good job, walking around. That they would recklessly release their weapon of mass destruction in my peaceful neighborhood did upset me so. I opened my door (more like just barely cracked it enough to fit my mouth out) and yelled into the dark night, "Hey! Keep that thing on a leash!" Man, Sugarhouse is a dangerous place.

Prodigious Child

Overdraft Protection

I don’t want to mention any names, but Wells Fargo Bank sucks. I’m signed up for overdraft protection in case I spend more than I have—I mean, does anyone really keep absolute track of all their spending when they always use their debit card? Please, that’s for suckers who still use check books. The problem is that when I do overdraw, the amount comes in from my credit card—all fine and good, that’s the whole point of the thing—but I still get charged around $15 for every overdrawn transaction. And I’m already paying for overdraft protection. So my question to you, Smells Fartgo, is WHERE THE HELL IS THE OVERDRAFT PROTECTION!? I posed the polite question to a banker at the unspecified bank (it’s Wells Fargo) and his response was, “Well at least you’re not paying the $30 fee those without overdraft protection are paying.” I asked another banker at another branch of the same bank which shall go nameless as to not deface any institution’s reputation (it’s Wells Fargo, they suck…I hope every single branch simultaneously burns down, but all the workers safely escape because they are just trying to earn a living, and they are too weak or scared or desperate for cash to tell their evil money-guzzling employer beast to shove it) and he told me the exact thing, almost verbatim. It immediately became apparent that they had been coached by a standardized higher authority on how to deflect potentially hostile questions like mine and quickly divert my attention to another topic, like “Would you like to sign up for a platinum credit card?”

At that moment I leapt across the counter, grabbed Chad by the tie, and shoved the end of his silky neck knot into the paper shredder. He screamed in terror as it pulled his face closer and closer to the spinning blades. Despite his best efforts to escape, his face was pulled in and shredded into tiny strips, leaving a headless teller. I was amazed that he didn’t die, though. At that point I realized that he was a robot. He stood up and went about his teller duties with a mess of blood and wires pouring out the stump where his head used to be.

“No, I don’t want another credit card,” I replied and walked out, vowing to move all of my business to a credit union. “Have a nice day,” I heard Robo-Chad say as the door closed behind me.

An Irish Limerick for St. Patty's Day

Ann and CJ had another awesome party last night. Ann is, dare I say, obsessed with all things Irish. Her family hails from the Isle of Man, and she also loves Lord of the Rings, which was filmed in Ireland. Everyone had to bring a song or poem or story connected to Ireland. I hurriedly wrote and presented this limerick. Beau recited in spoken word the first verse of The Cranberries' Do You Have to Let it Linger. When you get to the singing parts (in italics), you'll need to come up with your own slow and pretty Irish-sounding tune, otherwise you'll lose the effect that the music is supposed to have. Now, without any further ado:

I once knew a man named Farney
Worked double time as a Carney
He painted sheep
To help him sleep
‘n sang songs ‘bout the legend of Blarney

A woman named Jenny O’Swill
Fell near death and stormily ill
Red spots on her face
And all over the place
Made her cry “’f God don’t take me, who will?”

Both lived alone, alone, alone
Both lived alone, alone

One day at the Carnival camp
Old Farney lit up his oil lamp
He said with a chuckle
As he tightened his buckle
“With a woman, I’d be a new man”

Sweet Jenny was lyin’ in bed
So white that she could’ve been dead
Her mother came in
Reaking of gin
“I’ll take you to doctor” she said

So she hoisted Jen up on the cart
Grunting away from the start
Wheeled ‘er through town
And spotted a clown
Who was buying a Guiness and tart

“What’s that clown doing here?” Jenny asked
Her mum took a chug from the flask
And replied with a whine
“It’s carnival time,
Now I’ve got to move you, and fast”

And Jenny felt so alone alone
Yes Jenny felt all alone

As they wheeled past the carnival camp
Jenny, she spotted the lamp
And from inside the tent
Came a tune, and it went
Just like this, in the voice of a man:

It went:
The stars they are reminders of
The people of the land
Their flashing is a hand that waves
The sky is like a man

If no one tilts their head to look
The stars they flash in vain
And man is left without a friend
To call him by his name

And man is left without a friend
To call him by his name

Now Jenny, she heard every word
Of the song that was sung like a bird
Tears filled her eyes
And to mother’s surprise
She stood up and walked ‘cross the yard

And sitting alone by the flame
Was a man, and she asked him his name
"I’m Farney, sweet miss”
Then she gave him a kiss
Said “I was sick, now I’m better again”

“There never was doctor nor nurse
Held medicine inside their purse
That healed who was sick
As whole or as quick
As your voice when it sang out in verse”

Sing:
Now time has rolled on like a fog
The days and years have past
And Farney’s love grows more and more
For Jenny, his sweet lass

And Jen loves Farney in return
He saved her in her cart
He healed her sickness with his song
She healed his lonely heart

He healed her sickness with his song
She healed his lonely heart

Basketball

When I was a kid, I used to play basketball obsessively. Every day. In the summer, at least twice a day, sometimes three times a day, sometimes just once but it lasted all day. It was all I ever wanted to do…well, that and try to see down girls’ shirts. I remember my first time playing basketball. I was in the sixth grade and had just transferred to a new school where I hardly knew anybody. I was quickly adopted by the nerds (which is very typical of my life—don’t get me wrong, the nerds are great, it’s just that when you’re in elementary school your worst dream is either to poop your pants in the middle of gym class, or to be a nerd). We went outside for recess and someone had a basketball, so we started playing. I had never played before—I come from Texas where kids play football or just stand around punching each other—but I seemed to pick it up pretty quick. I soon became one of the best players among the nerds. That’s not very hard, because the whole reason they were nerds is because they weren’t very good at playing sports. Some people think the easiest way to climb the social ladder is to be good-looking. Wrong—it’s to be good at sports, at least in elementary school and if you are a boy. In elementary school none of the girls are “hot” yet, and most of the boys and girls look the same anyway, except for hair length. So the way to be a popular boy is to be good at sports.

And another thing—I never considered myself a nerd. I always considered myself cool, but I just had to hang out with the nerds because none of the other cool kids knew that I was cool yet. It was just a matter of time until they found out, and then I would assume my deserved place in the social hierarchy of the public school system. I always felt that I was on the verge of breaking into coolness. I felt that way in 6^th grade, 7^th, and 8^th. By 9^th I realized that I had made it all the way through middle school without getting into the cool group, so I started to give up, but then I went to a new high school in a different area and my “I’m cool, they just don’t know it yet, but when they find out…oh baby” theory came back full force. 10^th, 11^th, and 12^th grades passed with no change in status.

But from 6^th grade all the way through 12^th, basketball was the most important thing in my life. Once I graduated high school and moved away, I no longer hung out with kids that played ball. My new friends were skiers and granolas and hippies and musicians and other non-hoopsters, so I basically dropped my obsession. I had no one to share it with...

...Until 2 days ago. Beau and I spontaneously decided to go play with his church basketball team. The team hadn’t won a single game all year. We walked into the gym and saw them. They were a sorry-looking bunch of ragamatags, droopy and beaten down by life’s hardships. Especially one of the guys was really droopy, and he was pretty tall so it made him look even droopier. Beau and I arrived with fresh energy and optimism. We were Tornado and Goose (though we never figured out which one of us was Tornado and which one was Goose), the dynamic duo come to resurrect the dead and breathe the hot and heavy (and slightly beef stewy—I had just eaten dinner before going over there) breath of life into these sweaty, shiny, droopy potato-looking players.

The game was incredible. We juked, we jived, we ran, we slid, we pushed ourselves and our team, we came out after three minutes because we were so tired and out of shape. But when it was all over and we had won, I felt as if a part of me had returned. My love for the game was back. My purpose in life restored. I am a new man, a basketball man. I am Tornado…or Goose, I’m still not sure.

Utter Fear

The bathroom at work doesn't have a lock on it. I use the sit down part of the bathroom at least once a day, usually sometime in the morning before 10:30. I always experience a little bit of difficulty b-moving because I know that any second my boss could come busting through that door and totally see my nevis (to find out more about the nevis, see previous blog entry entitled Give the Young Chap Your Number), which faces the door directly when I'm using the sit down part of the bathroom. Why is there no lock on the door? Is it a simple error from when they built the bathroom and ordered the wrong door handle? Maybe they just assumed there would be a lock on the handle when they purchased it, when indeed there was none. I would file a complaint, but I've already filed a bathroom complaint with this company, so people might start to think I'm obsessed with the bathroom, and that could hurt my move-up-the-ladder potential. If you were a boss and you had an employee that was always filing bathroom complaints, would you consider him first in a long line of other potential employees that weren't always thinking about the bathroom? That's a question I hope none of us are ever faced with, because it's impossible to answer.

Give the Young Chap Your Number

So a good friend of mine from work, we’ll just call him Sterling Silver, has been inviting me to come dancing at Club Try Angles, the local gay bar, for a while now. There are two things you should know about me: 1—I love to dance, and 2—I have a dark birthmark on my right thigh that doctors call a nevis. While the birthmark has nothing to do with this story, the dancing does. I’ve heard on several occasions that there are few better places to dance than a gay bar. The music is always fun, and you don’t have to worry about looking like a sissy in front of other dudes when you start pulling out your spinny moves. An added bonus is that the very fact that you are at the place makes women trust you, no matter if you are gay or straight (which you are probably at least one of those). If a woman trusts you, she will oftentimes approach you and strike up conversation! Can you believe that? I thought that only happened in Imaginaryland!

So my roommate Barnaby and I drove down to Try Angles and I purchased a temporary membership (you have to be a member to go in). As we were going in, I got a text message from Sterling Silver, who we were supposed to meet there, that he wouldn’t be able to make it. So it would just be Barnaby and I swimming in a sea of men. I’m glad we brought our swim suits. We went in and found a small table along the wall and observed for a few minutes. I had to go to the restroom, and when I came back Barnaby was gone. “Your friend went in the other room,” a neighboring table of two huge Polynesian guys informed me. I followed their direction and indeed found my Czech roommate in the billiards room, chatting it up with three young men. I joined the conversation and after a few minutes we were all having a grand old time. But the time to leave had come—we had a pirate poetry party to get to. As I got up to leave, one of the gents we had been hanging out with also stood up, “Hey, do you have a phone?” “Ya.” “Let me get your number.” Inside I froze, though on the outside I was as cool as a jazzman at The Birdhouse. I didn’t know if I should tell him I was straight, if I should give him a fake number, or if I should fake sudden illness and run to the bathroom as I made really loud throw up sounds. Oh, who cares, I thought to myself, just give the young chap your number. You could use some friends in this big new scary city. So I willingly recited my phone number, laughing hysterically inside at the fact that on the numeric keypad my digits spell SO GAY 41. If only my new friend knew.

Aaaaaaah SUSHI!

Every Wednesday night I go to Ahh Sushi! for half off sushi rolls. It is awesome. It is the greatest and only city-type activity I know, since I'm fairly new here. Except for dollar fish taco Tuesday at Rubio's. And driving in tons of heavy traffic morning and night during both rush hours. Once I have lived here for a little more time, I will know of more city-type activities, then I will blog about them. Iblog.

But Ahh Sushi! California rolls and Funky Charlie rolls are many dollars off, as are some other things from various areas of the menu. And there are many friends there--mainly because I guilt them into coming. But the important thing is that they come. And they're there. And they feel guilty. The best is when you get the back party room and get to close the sliding paper doors. You go back there with all of your friends and put your legs in the hole under the table (which is just barely too far away from you to feel normal) and feel like you own the place, but you don't. Hiro Nigishama does. No he doesn't. I just made that up because I'm trying to appeal to a Japanese audience but I don't think it's working because my sensei just sent me a text message and told me that I was temporarily banned from his dojo for wearing my "Bruce Lee + Jackie Chan = 2 Gay Japs" t-shirt to karate practice. I haven't missed sushi night since I started going at the very beginning of December, except for one night that I was really sick and actually threw up. Not from nausea, but from coughing so hard that I puked.

Tacos, Temples and God's Wrath

The taco cart "Las Gueras" that sets up in the parking lot at work is the best thing to hit Salt Lake since that tornado that tore through Temple Square a few years back, which was actually the worst thing to hit Salt Lake since the winter of '97/98, which was the best snow we had received since Snow the rapper came through here on his "Informer" tour about 12 or so years ago. If you don't follow, let me approach this in a different way. The Temple Square tornado was God's wrath coming upon us for all the Single's Ward and other Mo-Mo movies we have created. The winter of '97/98 was an incredible snow year. I was working at Snowbird that winter and was stuck up there for 3 days (poor me, poor powder) while the Utah Highway Patrol worked to clear the road up Little Cottonwood Canyon that had been completely covered by several avalanches. One lady that was trapped up there gave birth to a brand new slimy baby. It proves that even life has small miracles every day of every minute. Alisson Kraus was right. Snow is a reggae rapper that had an album called 12 Inches of Snow, referring not to depth of white stuff on the ground, rather the imaginary length of his own manhood. The taco cart outside is the best one I've known in years of taco carting. Absolutely. Rebeka makes these huge quesadillas where she throws a pile of cheese right on the grill, then puts the tortilla on top of it. Then she scoops it all up, puts the spicy meat of your choice inside, then serves it to you in a to-go box with rice, beans, grilled onions, and a roasted pepper. You load it with your preferred combination of toppings (pico de gallo, fresh blended guac, salsa verde or roja, squeezed lime and whatever else). The whole thing costs three bucks even and you can hardly eat it all. Tacos are one solid dollar a piece. She knows you by first name. I can't take this, I'm going out there right now.

Skating Invalid

If I ever break my leg, I won't walk around with regular crutches. I will wear those kid shoes that have wheels in the heels. The crutches I will use will have a rollerblade wheel in each base. The part where my hands go will have brakes that I could squeeze to slow down or stop if I need to. I know it sounds dangerous, but kids go around on those wheelie shoes all the time without getting hurt. I think it is a safe and logical method of rehabilitative transportation, and that's why I'm voting today. And you're not.

The Nothing

Everybody loves the internet. Except really old people, or really rich people that didn't earn their money using computers so they have always paid someone else to use the internet for them, thus never learning, thus never loving. I don't have the internet at home, but that doesn't mean I can't love it. The same does NOT hold true with cell phones. I don't love cell phones, I just use them because since everyone else does, the inconvenience of not having one outweighs not paying $60 a month to talk on the phone. When I started college, we had a land line that we split four or five ways depending on how many roommates we were. We'd each pay like eight bucks a month. There were enough of us holding out, avoiding the mobile revolution, to still feasibly keep the land line. But man cannot outrun machine, and one by one we were overtaken by the rolling charge. Like The Nothing from Neverending Story, which had a scary cover-my-eyes-and-tell-me-when-it's-over wolf scene. By the end of college, EVERYONE had cell phones, so people weren't willing to pay for a land line on top of their cell bill. I still cringe every time I get my phone bill and see how much money I am spending to be able to talk on the phone. But here I am, spending most my lives living in a gangster's paradise. With a cell phone.

Red Recess Warning

On the radio this morning there was a RED burn day warning issued. Don't drive if you don't have to, don't light anything on fire, don't let the kids go out to recess, don't leave your home unless you absolutely have to, and don't do anything without your S.A.R.S. mask.
No recess?! What deep sickness have we spiraled down into to arrive at the point where we prohibit our children from playing outside? That sounds like something from a futuristic movie depicting society as dark and deteriorated, like Terminator or Soylent Green. One of the common signs of failed civilizations (the Anasazi, the Aztecs, Grunge, Roseanne Barr) is that just before their demise they instigated a ban on recess for their kids. And then they fell, and fell hard. We have willingly created a society that produces such harmful chemical air and water pollution that it is unsafe for children to go outside. Yet we somehow aren't spurred to any action towards change. We don't even think we need to change anything. It reminds me of the old The Ten Commandments movie and NASCAR. Not sure why. But I do know that during the chariot race scene in Ben Hur an actor was killed when he crashed in his chariot and was trampled by horses pulling men. Horses pulling men! Can you believe it? Next thing you know we'll have horses giving men pedicures and vice versa.
But back to recess. Kids are too young to stage a protest, even when they are living in a dirty, unhealthy, lung cancer causing environment. They deserve recess, it is in the U.S. Constitution. It's in one of the amendments. "Congress shall make no Law prohibiting the Practise of Recess. Any Action against Recess or the Practise thereof shall be Ceased and Tried by a federal Court of the People." Our actions have acted against recess. We are in direct violation of the Founding Fathers, Democracy in general, and the band Depeche Mode (who has been fighting for recess rights ever since they wrote the greatest mod love song of all time--Somebody, which talks about the world we live in, and life in general, obviously a direct reference to recess). Kids are too young to stage a protest so it is up to us, the beneficiaries of recess. We must unite in one voice, hopefully the beautiful voice of Celine Dion, and let our movie star leaders know that we're not gonna take it. No, we ain't gonna take it. We're not gonna take it anymore. Our kids are more important than us driving everywhere all the time, and they are more important than the weather phenomenon known as inversion that holds the bad air in and lets the good air out. And our kids are more important than other people's kids. So let Lady Liberty wrap us in her arms and breathe the clean fresh breath of democracy into our kids' lungs via mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. She will hear me scream through my megaphone, distorted by smog and smut but loud nonetheless. And maybe she will think I'm crazy just like my last three girlfriends did and their families and my family did. But she'll at least hear me out. And to finish quoting Depeche Mode's Somebody,
She'll hear me out
And won't easily be converted
To my way of thinking
In fact she'll often disagree
But at the end of it all
She will understand me
Aaaahhhhh....

On a Yoga Ball

I've recently started using a yoga ball instead of a chair at work. I thought it could help strengthen my abdomen and back muscles since I was injured in a skiing accident and needed some self-administered rehabilitation. I also thought it could help improve my posture, since I have always had the posture of a mound of Jell-O. I didn't start using it to achieve a higher level of Eastern clarity and eventually have a zen-gasm. Now I find myself slouching all over it like chocolate syrup on vanilla ice cream. But it's bouncy and I can also do this really cool trick where I set the ball in an open path and run and dive at it, rolling all the way across it from my fingertips, down my extended arms, across my straightened body to the tips of tippy-toes. For a brief moment it feels like I am flying. On a yoga ball.