Traditioooooooon! Tradition!
Greetings to one and all. Today is yet another Tuesday and, as is tradition, I give unto you another wonderful Issue of my Newsletter. Topics to be discussed today: the Egg Toss of Doom, my continued dominion over all fantasy sports, throwing a little hissy fit on the Back Nine, yet another plea to publicly unite the Loyalest of A-Towners, the greatest hits of Elder A-Town, an unexpected guest blog, and the next best thing to walking straight into a brick wall. On we go!
Today is Tradition Tuesday at "Signs of the Times," which means I'll be discussing one of the most important things in the history of the world: tradition. Tradition is an basic, foundational element of society as we know it. We, as humans, are creatures of habit. Or at least that's what they say. We form habits and those habits are passed down to our posterity from generation to generation. Let us pause this day and reflect upon those traditions that made me the way that I am today: an OCD, past-his-prime DJ who once made an hour-and-a-half-long documentary about professional wrestling.
Stylish hats, gentlemen.
One tradition that my family has is an Easter egg hunt with my dad's side of the family. It was a huge deal when I was a youngster. Now that I'm A-Town, I usually just go collect a handful of eggs without physically exerting myself to an unnecessary extent and let the little ones go nuts. One thing that I have not outgrown, however, is the fabled Egg Toss. Everyone pairs up with a teammate, takes a hard-boiled egg, and tosses it back and forth. With each successful toss, the partners take a step back and toss again. My sister, Amy, and I have had a few amazing showings in the Toss, spanning back to 2008, my first Easter home from my mission. This year, Amy went with Cody and Austin came with me. We were doing quite well as the field narrowed down. A toss, a catch, a step back. Further and further back - and not a crack in the shell whatsoever! We were lobbing the egg nearly the entire length of the back yard when my throw hit an electrical wire running high above the lawn, cracking the egg and ending our game. There was one egg left over, so Austin nabbed it and we went for record distance. Throwing the egg further than ever before, we continued exchanging tosses. We were reaching the danger zone at this point. A crack in the shell was imminent. Austin threw the egg with all his might. It was a little over my head, so I turned and began to run like a center fielder. I could almost reach it. I leaped, reaching up with my right arm to make the snag. The egg bounced off my hand and into the bushes. And then my body came to a violent halt. I had run myself into the railing of the garden patio situated in the back corner of the yard. Pain went shooting up my thigh and elbow as I got banged up pretty good. It was one of those times like when you fall backwards off of your chair or crash on your bike when you have to get up and act like you did it on purpose, you know? The bruise on my leg is bigger than ever... but it was almost worth it. If I could have grabbed that egg, it would have been glorious. It would have been even better than a 20 minutes earlier when I threw Austin a cinnamon bunny as he ran a 10-yard fly route and caught it in his mouth. That was a thing of beauty. My relatives won't admit, but we know they were watching.
It was worth the pain.
I have a tradition of dominating in fantasy sports. This year is no different. My two fantasy basketball teams are in the championships. My ESPN team has dominated the entire season, earning the number one seed in my conference (number two overall) and we bulldozed a path straight to the top, facing off this week against the number one overall seed. I think we can take 'em. After Monday night, my Jive City Monarchs were leading, 122-45. I went into the Yahoo! playoffs as the lowly six seed (out of the top six teams), but I knocked off the number three and number two teams in succession, setting me up as the ultimate underdog in the championship game against the number one seed. We're losing right now so we'll need to finish strong if we want to bring the trophy back home where it belongs in Jive City, U.S.A., but you can never underestimate the Monarchs. They shall reign triumphant at long last!
One of the most time-honored traditions in American sports is the Masters. I don't like golf, but I guess it's kind of a big deal. Anyhoo, as I was over hanging out with my grandparents the other day, my grandma suggested that I blog about Tiger Woods' little meltdown on national TV. The guy is a punk. Never really liked him, never really will. He's a great golfer (or used to be, anyway), but one of the things I have never liked about him is his incredibly short temper. I didn't see it, but after a few particularly rough shots, Tiger spouted off a fit of profanity and started tossing his golf clubs like a little baby. I don't know how the rest of you feel, but I don't feel bad for Tiger at all. He's rich and famous and can do pretty much whatever he wants for the rest of his life, so when he goes out to play golf (something the rest of us do for leisure and without pay) and he has a couple bad swings, he throws a little fit? Are you serious? I have very little sympathy for celebrities in almost any given circumstance, so seeing somebody throw a temper tantrum like this just doesn't sit well with me. I suppose we haven't done a Boo Box segment in a while and, while we're at it, I suppose it would be fitting to throw in the bonehead from MSNBC who was bashing on Mitt Romney and Mormonism last week. If you want a better bashing on that guy than I could ever possibly put together in words, talk to my home dawg, Michael Brunson. Are we ready? Everybody together now - BOOOOOO!!
Stylish hat, gentleman.
And on a final note about sports traditions, America's national pastime is baseball. Well, it's recently come to my attention that none of my friends like baseball at all. Whether this is a reflection on them as un-American or not is really up in the air at this point, but I won't pass judgment yet. Yes, it's hard to get into, the season is incredibly long (too long, in my opinion), and it's a slow-moving game, but I want to go to a game, dang it! I was thinking about going to opening night at Spring Mobile Ballpark in Salt Lake City this Friday, but, so far, only one person has expressed any interest, other than me. So... if any of you - and I mean ANY of you (excluding anonymous blog stalkers) - want to go, let me know. We'll get a group together and take ourselves out to the proverbial ball game. Don't make me create a Facebook event. And don't make me go alone. I'll do it, people. I'll do it! (I just found a sweet deal for tickets on Facebook. Buy a ticket to Friday's game and get a free ticket to any other game of your choice from April 14 - May 14. I'm in. Who's coming?)
The aforementioned Michael Brunson - long time Subscriber, one-time guest blogger - suggested that I share a story from my mission. I suppose you'd call LDS missions a tradition in my family. We've all gone and we've got Cody on the way in a couple years. I loved my mission, so I won't be apologizing in preface to this story like it seems customary to do in church. No apologies necessary. But which story should I tell? The one where Elder Martin and I spent my first Fourth of July chugging IBC cream soda and marching around the apartment waving flags and singing the National Anthem? The time that the wind in Raeford was blowing so hard that it cracked the hinge to our glass front door and we thought burglars were trying to get in? Should I talk about the missionary musical that my companion and I made about Elder Nephi Lehi Johnson? The time that we taught a personal record 50 lessons in one week and Elder Barker (my English companion) gave an entire door approach and the First Vision in Spanish? The time that we literally (honestly) found an entire family that would eventually get baptized at the final door we knocked on in the final building of an apartment complex? Ah, so many stories to tell! But here is one of my favorites: My companion and I were tracting out a small trailer park in Red Springs, NC, one afternoon. We had a couple interesting encounters with drunkards that day. I loved talking to drunk people. They were just so funny. Sometimes I'd give them a hard time to see just how drunk they really were. The first of these two encounters involved a guy sauntering down the dirt road. He seemed to be pretty intoxicated. But we wanted to talk to him. We wanted to talk to everybody. Immediately, I could tell it wasn't going to end well with this fellow. He was friendly, but barely competent. I quickly asked him if he'd ever talked to people like us before or if he'd heard of Joseph Smith. "Jose Smith??" he asked? "Oh yeah," he said - but in Spanish, obviously. "I know him! I know Jose Smith! I read his book!" I paused... "The Book of Mormon?" I asked, as many people often mistakenly think that Joseph Smith wrote The Book of Mormon. "No, no! His other book!" I wasn't sure what he was referring to, as The Book of Mormon is normally the only book associated with the first prophet of this dispensation. "It was the..." he continued. "The uh... the 'Pearl of [Something]', I think." "The... Pearl of Great Price?!" "Yes, yes! The Pearl of Great Price! I've read that book!" Needless to say, I was shocked. Nobody knows about The Pearl of Great Price. Sometimes members don't even know what it is. But this drunk guy had allegedly read it. We followed up that surprising little conversation by knocking on a few more trailers, including one with a man who was clearly in no shape to do anything, other than take a nap on his couch. He looked like a total slouch and we could practically smell the alcohol on him. Additionally, he had a beer in his hand. We wouldn't waste too much time with this chap. "We came to invite you to church!" I told the man. "No, no, no, no, no... I don't go to church." "Why not?" "I don't have time for it." "It's only three hours on Sunday. You'd have plenty of time during the rest of the week. Do you want to come? We can come pick you up." (I offered knowing full well that he'd say no, but I figured it couldn't hurt.) "No! If I went to church, there wouldn't be enough time... to... drink... BEER!... It's like water from the sun!" We thanked him for the time, told him to stop drinking, and continued on our way. Ah, those were some good times. I wish I could go back.
The aforementioned Michael Brunson - long time Subscriber, one-time guest blogger - suggested that I share a story from my mission. I suppose you'd call LDS missions a tradition in my family. We've all gone and we've got Cody on the way in a couple years. I loved my mission, so I won't be apologizing in preface to this story like it seems customary to do in church. No apologies necessary. But which story should I tell? The one where Elder Martin and I spent my first Fourth of July chugging IBC cream soda and marching around the apartment waving flags and singing the National Anthem? The time that the wind in Raeford was blowing so hard that it cracked the hinge to our glass front door and we thought burglars were trying to get in? Should I talk about the missionary musical that my companion and I made about Elder Nephi Lehi Johnson? The time that we taught a personal record 50 lessons in one week and Elder Barker (my English companion) gave an entire door approach and the First Vision in Spanish? The time that we literally (honestly) found an entire family that would eventually get baptized at the final door we knocked on in the final building of an apartment complex? Ah, so many stories to tell! But here is one of my favorites: My companion and I were tracting out a small trailer park in Red Springs, NC, one afternoon. We had a couple interesting encounters with drunkards that day. I loved talking to drunk people. They were just so funny. Sometimes I'd give them a hard time to see just how drunk they really were. The first of these two encounters involved a guy sauntering down the dirt road. He seemed to be pretty intoxicated. But we wanted to talk to him. We wanted to talk to everybody. Immediately, I could tell it wasn't going to end well with this fellow. He was friendly, but barely competent. I quickly asked him if he'd ever talked to people like us before or if he'd heard of Joseph Smith. "Jose Smith??" he asked? "Oh yeah," he said - but in Spanish, obviously. "I know him! I know Jose Smith! I read his book!" I paused... "The Book of Mormon?" I asked, as many people often mistakenly think that Joseph Smith wrote The Book of Mormon. "No, no! His other book!" I wasn't sure what he was referring to, as The Book of Mormon is normally the only book associated with the first prophet of this dispensation. "It was the..." he continued. "The uh... the 'Pearl of [Something]', I think." "The... Pearl of Great Price?!" "Yes, yes! The Pearl of Great Price! I've read that book!" Needless to say, I was shocked. Nobody knows about The Pearl of Great Price. Sometimes members don't even know what it is. But this drunk guy had allegedly read it. We followed up that surprising little conversation by knocking on a few more trailers, including one with a man who was clearly in no shape to do anything, other than take a nap on his couch. He looked like a total slouch and we could practically smell the alcohol on him. Additionally, he had a beer in his hand. We wouldn't waste too much time with this chap. "We came to invite you to church!" I told the man. "No, no, no, no, no... I don't go to church." "Why not?" "I don't have time for it." "It's only three hours on Sunday. You'd have plenty of time during the rest of the week. Do you want to come? We can come pick you up." (I offered knowing full well that he'd say no, but I figured it couldn't hurt.) "No! If I went to church, there wouldn't be enough time... to... drink... BEER!... It's like water from the sun!" We thanked him for the time, told him to stop drinking, and continued on our way. Ah, those were some good times. I wish I could go back.
You know it to be true.
**QUESTION TIME!!**
Q. "Hey A-Town,What happened to the Webisodes? #SotT"
- @totally_psyched
A. That's a great Question! Well, I liked doing them, but when I quickly realized that nobody cared about them and stopped watching them almost altogether, I stopped making them... which is really a shame, because, as I think I've mentioned, I was planning on hosting my own Hunger Games with Cody one of these days. Oh well. Thanks for asking, anyway.
I left a little cliffhanger last week as I wrapped up the Newsletter saying that I was going to have the most famous person (other than myself) to ever have contributed to "Signs of the Times" guest blog this week. Well... Let's just say... it didn't happen. This person says they'll do it in the future, but I won't make any promises right now. It would have been awesome, but their position as guest blogger has been indefinitely suspended. Sadness. Would have been great. There is some good news, though, and it's two-fold. Firstly, my good friend, Jared Anderson, has volunteered to guest blog from the tropical island of Hawaii in two weeks. That's SIIIIICK! (Hope it gets better. Joke.) But yes. Jared will be blogging from his temporary island home on April 24 and I can't wait to see what he has to say. Unfortunately, I'll have to. Secondly, I have tracked down a lovely little guest blogger for today's Issue. I assume that it will be good. If not, ooh... there will be heck to pay. Anyway, here it is. Enjoy this week's guest blogger and her boundless wisdom. Take it away, Amos.
Greetings subscribers of A-Town’s blog! You may be wondering, why is A-Town’s sister blogging this week? Well, I have a tale to tell. I came home from Snow College this past weekend for Easter. I was just hanging out at home on Sunday and I started walking up some stairs. While I was headed upstairs I heard A-Town say that the guest blogger fell through for this week. Right after that, my loving mother asked, “Why don’t you have Amy blog?” With that, I became the guest blogger. I’m fine with it, though. These things happen when you’re related to a celebrity.
I was recently pondering about what the greatest tradition in my life was. I mean, there are so many fun traditions that I have with my family. Just to name a few, we make March Madness brackets and compete against each other, we have the Turkey Bowl, and we do Trans-Christensen Orchestra every year. I finally narrowed it down to just one tradition that applies to last weekend because it was my father’s birthday. The tradition I will be talking about is “Heavy, Heavy Hang Over.”
Typically on a birthday, one family member will take a present and hover it over the birthday person’s head and recite, “Heavy, heavy hang over thy poor head! What do you wish this person with a bump on the head?” First off, I just realized how bad of a rhyme that is - Rhyming "head" with "head"? Who does that? The best part of that whole poem, if you can call it that, is when you say “bump” because at that point, you get to bump the birthday person with their present that you have. In our household, it’s never a bump unless our mom’s doing it because she’s just too nice! It’s more of a whack! Then at the end of the poem, the birthday person gives a wish to whoever whacked them on the head with the gift.
I have two fantastic stories about this tradition. Both of them about A-Town. The first one happened years ago! My younger brother, Cody, was probably 6 or 7 years old at the time. He selected a present to do “Heavy, Heavy Hang Over” with which just so happened to be a metal trumpet mute. Cody, not realizing what the present was, put it over A-Town’s head and started whacking him like crazy. Here’s how it went down: “Heavy, *whack* heavy *whack* hang *whack* over *whack*…” You get the idea. A-Town wasn’t too happy about being hit with a trumpet mute several times, but it makes for a good story. Also, I hear from my sources that the mute was actually dented in this incident.
Years later, it was A-Town’s birthday again! My dad gets up to do “Heavy, Heavy Hang Over” and I think he was trying to switch it up a little because instead of saying ‘thy,’ he said ‘thine.’ My dad ended up saying “Heavy, heavy hang over thine porn head…” A-Town said “MY WHAT?! Dad, my wish for you is a redo!” My dad re-did it and A-Town reached for the gift. My dad asked, “Wait! Where’s my wish?” A-Town said, “I already gave you your wish… Now give me my present!”
Anyway there's my thoughts on the greatest tradition! I wish you all a jubilant Tuesday!
- Amy Christensen
This is my sister.
Thank you, sister. That was a fine job. Well done. There is another tradition I'd like to discuss briefly. It's kind of a strange tradition that not everyone seems to believe in quite the same way that I do. That tradition is a little thing I like to call "walking through open doors." I was visiting a friend at the mall the other day and it was closing time so they started kicking people out and telling us to go home. I made my way up the stairs, fighting through the pain in my bruised leg, and headed for the parking lot. As I prepared to exit the mall via the double set of glass doors, I opened the first door, noticing two ladies in front of me and a woman walking perpendicularly to the entrance, straight toward the large, glass windows. I didn't think much of it at the time until *THUD*! Head-on into the window. (Imagine me making a wide-eyed face of shock.) She quickly came to and snapped out of it. I held the door open for her as she came to her senses. I tried to control my emotions as I hurried across the parking lot... and as soon as I got in my car, I busted up laughing. I laughed the entire way home. In fact, I had a hard time stopping the laughter the other night as I thought about it at the dinner table. I'm sorry. I'm a jerk. And I genuinely do feel bad for the lady... But it was seriously one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life. Had to be there, I'm sure. And, sadly, none of you were there to witness that act of unintentional comedy with me.
The Shoutout of the Week goes to my father, the initiator of many of the Christensen traditions. Another great tradition we have in my family is on Christmas Eve, as the anticipation for the Trans-Christensen Orchestra builds. My dad dons his University of Utah Santa hat and MCs the family program, introducing each family as they present some sort of talent or testimony or... something. He attempts to entertain the extended family between acts, but nobody ever laughs at the jokes he compiles, no matter how clever, witty, or downright cheesy they are. My immediate family and I are always there to obnoxiously acknowledge the humor and egg him on throughout the night. It's a tough crowd. It always is. But we try to help out as much as we can. Keep up the good work, father. Congratulations are in order for your commendable efforts, and I thusly bestow the illustrious Shoutout of the Week upon thine porn head.
Traditionally, this is where I drop the line "That's about it for this week, kiddos," signifying the end of the Issue. So, um, yeah. That's about it. Oh, before I go, here's an update on my quest to become a seminary teacher somewhere down the line - as part of the institute classes I've been taking, I get to go teach a 9th grade seminary class at my old middle school for two weeks from April 30 - May 11. They'll evaluate me at that point and see if I'm any good or not. Then... well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. I guess we'll see what happens at that point. All right. I've got some good stuff planned for next week. Let's see if I can wrangle myself up a good guest blogger. Peace out, homies.
Until next Time,
Move It. Sell It. And Leave the Door Open.
Aaron
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