Idaho Falls Idol

The most hopeless state of pure boredom may very well be the BYU-Idaho 7 week break. A period of no classes between Spring and Fall Semesters where most students go home and try to land some type of temporary job. The students who are left in the ghost town have to get creative in order to avoid having their brain turn to mush.

It was on such a night that Wayne, Thome, Tyler and I discovered karaoke night at the PepperTree Lounge. Countless memories have followed in the smoky bar as we hang out with middle-aged (Wayne's label for people in their mid-30's) Idahoans looking for a good time.

My personal favorite involved a "piss drunk" (in his own words) gentlemen who I met in the men's room who considered it normal to converse with me as we both did our business in separate urinals. To everyone's surprise, this drunkard spontaneously joined on stage to form a duet in the middle of my rendition of 1980's rock ballad originally performed by Journey.

Another great night was when the hottest girl in the whole bar (which isn't saying much) openly expressed her interest in our own Wayne Bass (boomer sooner!) while she was on a date with some other dude. With the skills this guy's got, who can blame her?



Our most recent trip to the PepperTree was possibly the most memorable, as it was Wayne's last day in Rexburg (until next year) and Myke's first appearance. While none of us drank anything in the bar besides a shared pitcher of Coke, we decided it was not the best idea to attach the BYU-Idaho label to us in a bar. So Wayne decided that if anyone asked where we were from and what we were doing in Idaho, we'd respond that we played for the Chukars. (Eastern Idaho's best and only minor league baseball team) We came up with positions and everything.

We had our chance when a middle-aged (by real standards, not just Wayne's) woman who was sober enough to understand the humor of our presence and our performance came and started chatting with us. The scary thing for me was how easily I was able to come up with impromptu lies and deliver them convincingly when she threw us questions we weren't ready for.

Has dishonesty become a skill for me? I prefer to think of it as good acting. I think I was blessed with a skill that I've never tried to develop. If you don't believe me, ask Sac about the awkward encounter at Subway last March. The girl involved in it said she started feeling bad about the whole thing when it wasn't even real. I've never taken an acting class, maybe I should pursue this a little more. I wonder if Carl Weathers is available to coach me?

On a side note, here are more videos from our magical night of music:

The Adventures of Frodo Baggins and Samkon Gado

I've always liked music. The 1st "real show" (non-local bands) I went to was the Vans Warped Tour in 1999. The lineup included Blink 182, Eminem, Less Than Jake, Black Eyed Peas, Pennywise, Dropkick Murphys, Ice-T, Bouncing Souls, The Living End, a side stage band called Jimmy Eat World, and many others.

I went to 4 more Warped Tours after that with some other shows sprinkled in for fun during the other 11 months of the year. After graduating high school I decided that concerts weren't really my thing so much any more and that I'd probably go to only 1 or 2 a year.

I'm not one to dedicate much time to discovering new musicians on my own, I just have other things I'd prefer to do with my free time. However, I love it when people take the time to make me a copy of an album they enjoy and let me listen to it on my own.

It's because of these efforts by sharing friends (and my sudden desire to leave town every chance I get) that I went to not 1, not 2, but 3 different shows last week!

I'm not going to give an account of how awesome the shows were because it's been done. If you're curious check out the Nov. 15 post here:

http://benkeamy.blogspot.com/2008/11/weekend-of-epic-proportions.html

and the Nov. 18 post here:

http://justchecktheblog.blogspot.com/

The point of this post is to tell of my encounter with 2 of my favorite hobbitses.

Frodo Baggins

and his faithful sidekick Samkon Gado.

Now I've taken a particular interest in Samwise Gamgee because I drafted him in the 3rd round of the I Phelta Thi Fantasy Football draft after Team Boo snagged Sam's mate Frodo 1 pick before me. http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f1/113064

Gandalf went in the 1st round between Dumbledore and Merlin, wizards are ultimately more valuable than hobbits. The Pahoran Stars took Han Solo in the 7th round based on his solid performance last year, which I think was a dumb move since space pilots rarely lead the league in consecutive years, and it's possible to pick up someone just as valuable in the last round, but whatevs.

All in all, while he wasn't as spectacular as Joshua James, I thought Samkon gave a solid performance. I think some people decided he must be terrible before they saw him because he was on American Idol and is therefore not "Indian Rock" enough. I'm not saying I loved the guy or anything, but I do have a soft spot for anyone brave enough to cover Nelly and Marvin Gaye in the same song.

I completed my music junkie week (which started and ended on Tuesday) performing live at a happening venue in Idaho Falls with Wayne C. Bass, Myke, Sac and Thome. I'll blog more about that once the videos are up on YouTube.

Welcome to My 1st Blog Ever!

Hey, everybody! I wanted in on the blogging world, so here it is my 1st post on my 1st blog! I wanted this to be good, so I'm posting some words that Sac thinks could be my best ever.

Personally I think his long-term memory is failing. Back in the Fall of '06 I was one of the most entertaining facebookers anyone knew. Fall of '07 wasn't bad for me either, since then I've gotten extremely bored of facebook and see it as an evil temptation I can't quite resist yet for fear of losing communication. The quality of my comments on that networking site have grown few and far between.

I'm hoping that soon none of my relationships will hinge on facebook and I will be able to avoid it as well as I've stayed away from MySpace my entire life.

Little known fact about yours truly, I'm color blind. It's true, I can't see race. Which is why I'm so confused on this whole "1st black president" issue.
1- I know some of you youngsters don't remember the 90's as well as those of us who are in our mid 20's, but back when Nirvana and Pearl Jam ruled the airwaves, it was common knowledge that William Jefferson Clinton was the 1st black president.
Why did Bill Clinton lose this title? I'm guessing it's because he married a white woman. Again, I can't see race, but I know that Hillary is white because people have talked about how this election could be historic because we could have a woman president OR a black president. No one said we could have a woman president AND a black president. This leads me to the following conclusions:
A) Barack Obama is not a woman
B) Hillary Clinton is not black
2- Why did they replace President Clinton as the first black president with someone who is not even all the way black? I know that Morgan Freeman, Samuel L. Jackson, Denzel Washington, and the great Will Smith are all black because of the roles they've played in movies. I know Barack Obama is only half black because he's spoken publicly about his white mother.
3- Nearly 2 years ago two African American men became the 1st black NFL head coaches to lead their teams to the Super Bowl. One of these coaches was asked "How far have we come to have not one, but two African American head coaches in the Super Bowl?" His response was "Maybe the fact that this is even a story is evidence that we haven't come far enough." He then said that story shouldn't be about race, but coaching style. That both teams had successful seasons led by Christian coaches who weren't dictators in the locker room. The same principle applies to our current situation in politics. Race is still enough of an issue that the first black man to do any thing significant is always going to be seen as a big deal.

That's why the media has been showing giant congregations of black people celebrating. That's why they've been interviewing African American pastors. That's why they kept showing shots of Jesse Jackson in the crowd crying while Barack was giving his acceptance speech. (Despite the reverend's comment months earlier that he would like to cut Obama's nuts off for calling out black fathers who abandon their children)Yes race is still an issue, more so than age. If John McCain was elected do you think they would show congregations of old people celebrating in nursing homes and assisted living centers? Do you think they would show shots of Tom Widdison and Wayne Bass (omg, they're like sooo old) in the crowd crying as President-elect McCain gave his acceptance speech?

*Note: This post is in response to an opinion of a respected contemporary that was posted on November 6, you can find it here: http://justchecktheblog.blogspot.com/

The BEST Halloween Ever!

Zach and I were going to be wrestlers for Halloween and arrive at the same parties separately and then see each other and start fighting in the middle of the dance floor.
Unfortunately, our singlets never arrived and we were left without costumes on Halloween day. We considered our resources and decided the best we could do was a tribute to Heath Ledger (R.I.P.) and that Jake dude from October Sky and Bubble Boy. Two of the manliest men this side of Wayne Bass.
The result was an All Hollow's Eve in which the entire city of Rexburg (at least the BYU-Idaho portion) lived in fear. Not of zombies, werewolves, vampires, and college girls dressed in skanky pirate costumes, but of cowboys attacking them in crosswalks, parking lots, and public sidewalks.
These ruff n tuff ranch hands didn't say many words, but they often gave loud hollers of "shoot," and "yeeee-haw" as they invaded the personal space of many innocent bystanders and danced to music that no one could hear.
Oh how I love Halloween.