The Daily Honky Tonk 183rd Edition

The Daily Honky Tonk
183rd Edition
Saturday, April 24, 2010
4:40 AM

Being perfectly honest, I’ve struggled a lot with sleep in my life. As my parents could tell you I stopped taking naps within the first year or so of my life. Tonight I find myself still awake and as I am starting this DHT it is 3:52 AM. Which likely means I will finish between 4:30 and 5:00. Usually my sleep finds me around 1 or 2 when I’m having a really hard time. The funny thing is I don’t even feel really tired right now. I know I’m going to be paying for this for the rest of today but sleep is just not coming. . .so I might as well write.

Moving

To be honest, I’m pretty sure tonight I’m awake because I’m moving. Big changes- they always lead to less sleep . . . Even when I am excited for the change. Starting a new school year, taking a plane somewhere else, at different points in dating, big tests, projects, performances, the night before leaving to be a missionary, before leaving the MTC, before coming home, before going to college. My mind and body tell me a big change is coming and nothing many things are about to change.
I have to admit that my feelings about moving are very bittersweet. I am excited for a change. But I realized that I have come to think of this room and the bed I am sitting on as my own. I’ve come to love all the people who are in my ward. I love them a lot. And it has been sad to see them go, and sad to think of others who I am leaving here. This is life. People move on. But now as I leave, I know that my heart has become attached- something I sometimes fear I don’t actually do with people. My feelings are proving some of my thoughts and assumptions wrong. I still feel for people and yearn for their closeness and the relationships I have with them. And I look ever so much forward to these next few months of adventure.

Big Events

My friend Kjerstine Young (formerly Jackson) just had a little girl, Adelaide. I’m excited for her.
I already mentioned moving.
I know several couples getting married today. Later tonight I’ll go to a wedding reception.
I finished another semester.
The play performances begin in just over a month.
Life is gorgeous in so many ways.

Movie Reviews

So it’s possible that I watch quite a few movies. I love watching movies. I love the music, the acting, the stories, and thought provoking messages.

How to Train Your Dragon
When it comes to thought provoking messages. . .not so much in this movie. When it comes to being good fun entertainment with a nice story “How to Train Your Dragon” is a winner. I’m sure you have seen plenty of dragons- but I bet you haven’t ever thought they looked cute or really wanted to have your own. Wait, I lie. If you read Eragon and the succeeding books you may have wanted a dragon. But you probably never thought of Eragon as cute. Anyway, its a fun movie and appropriate for a family outing.

Julie and Julia
Wow. I don’t think I reviewed The Blind Side- but The Blind Side has become one of my favorite movies of all. Why do I mention this, because I think Julie and Julia was a movie of similar caliber. Granted, I would love to watch The Blind Side over and over again. Julie and Julia, I would probably enjoy watching again in a year or two . ..but if I never got around to it I probably wouldn’t mind. However, it is a beautifully put together film. However, I think the real thing that sells this movie is Meryl Streep. Her acting is incredible in every shape way and form. This is perfect for a date night, or a cooking party with a more mature audience. There is a little bit of language and there are some suggestive scenes but nothing to graphic. Definitely worth a watch :)

The Village
So, tonight I went to a friends birthday party and when I came back I had a few more things that I needed to do to pack and so I put in The Village with the intent of not finishing it. In fact, once I was done packing, I turned it off. After laying in my bed without sleep coming, I decided to finish it. Now, typically I am not a fan of scary movies. They aren’t my thing. The darkness that resides in my heart when I watch one is not something I enjoy in the least bit. But this is actually my second time watching The Village because I love it. Now, the reason I was able to enjoy The Village enough the first time was that somebody explained to me what was happening. Not only was I told the reasons, but there is nothing supernatural in the movie. At the end of the movie there is no unsettling feeling. The only other scary movie that I enjoy is Signs. Interestingly enough, these are both by M. Night Shyalaman.
What intrigues me about Shyalamans films is that he is such a good storyteller. Both Signs and The Village are profound stories. One of the main themes of The Village is dealing with pain and suffering and life. The movie has profound insight to what is good and evil. It considers the extremes at which we might go to protect those that we love. It shows the depths of human care, joy, and sorrow. Shyalamans scripts are genius and beautiful. They discuss topics of faith, doubt, fear, hope, good, evil, and everything that is profound in life. Besides this, it is a movie that continues to unveil meaning upon re-watching.
Like Julie and Julia, this is another movie with incredible acting. The characters are rich. Two of the most interesting characters are a blind girl and a mentally retarded young man. But as a whole, the entirety of the cast does beautifully.
As a final plus, the music from The Village is absolutely gorgeous as it appropriately accompanies a beautiful green 18th Century village. If you are interested in watching and desire not to be scared, I can explain the main parts of the movie. However, it will spoil the movie in some senses. I still enjoyed it even knowing, more so then if I hadn’t. The other part of the movie, which I don’t really like is that there is a stabbing in it. I close my eyes. I don’t recommend this for the young. And I have given you the precautions that I still have.

I think that is all I want to write about tonight. Hope you enjoy. I’ve enjoyed getting responses back from people. Some I may not have responded to but fully meant to. I’ll have to go back and look. Thanks for reading. Or skimming :)

The Editor,
MARK

The Daily Honky Tonk 182nd Edition

The Daily Honky Tonk
182nd Edition
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
4:25 PM

Two weeks turn around on writing another DHT. I like this much better. It could have to do with the fact that I finished all my finals and don’t start spring classes again till Tuesday. I’m also most of the way packed to move and did a lot of cleaning on my apartment. And I don’t even move out until Saturday. So I think I am in pretty good shape.
Mainly in this email I want to share a few quotes that I found recently and to re-share a piece I wrote back in 2006 that I’m pretty proud of.

Quotes

From a Word A Day by Anu Garg- an interesting quote about effecting change. However, I think that in reality everyone needs to be willing to “be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation”.
Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation. -Susan B. Anthony, reformer and suffragist (1820-1906)

From my Book of Mormon class, a letter that our Professor once received that talks about what Faith really is.
“I worry when we sometimes teach our children that if they have enough faith, God will restore a lost dollar, a lost toy, or a lost school paper to them. What will they think when God does not restore a lost parent or sibling? Do we set them up to fail in their faith? We teach them the belief that faith is enough to get what they most want. When in fact, faith is being willing to trust what God wants, whatever that might be.
“I have spent a lot of time wondering why my faith was not enough to change things. What I have come to understand is, that sometimes it takes more faith to accept things as they are, than it does to change them. I have also come to understand that true faith is trusting God, even when it hurts desperately, even when we don’t feel equal to what is asked of us, even when we don’t seem to receive what we live for, even when we feel so alone, even when we don’t understand. With the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we do not give up, give out, or give in. We endure, we trust with faith that we will someday understand. We strive to love God as Christ did, and to trust in His perfect love for us.”

I love the line in this letter “even when it hurts desperately”. I don’t even know that I’ve hurt desperately, but sometimes my heart has ached for a long time as I have tried to understand something. But its not necessary to understand everything. Nobody does and nobody asks us to.

Baby

Fallout boy has a song called “Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner,” (I actually don’t even really know what it sounds like, but Amy said it was her favorite one time) but to say “Nobody” is a big assumption and I am going to prove that assumption as false. I, myself put Baby in the corner all the time. In fact, that is where Baby belongs; in the corner. By putting her in the corner I can find her and pick her up again each morning. It’s nice to see Baby in the corner all quiet and pretty. And when I pick her up, she sings. Or, at least it sounds like music to me.
Baby is my acoustic guitar- a Jasmine model by the guitar company Takamine. I found her in a little guitar shop in Urbana, the kind where the guy running the store probably owns and loves it. He was very nice, very helpful in finding a guitar, and was also very knowledgeable about guitars. It didn’t take long before we found the Takamine; it had just come in. Who knew that you could buy such a great friend for one hundred and twenty dollars?
Baby and I can play for hours and often, we do. Until of course, a couple of people in the house get tired of us repeating the same music to make sure we have just the right words and just the right sounds. So Baby and I take a break, knowing we can pick back up right where we left off. It’s rather pleasant to know your friend will be in the same temper it was the last time you left it- even if you are not.
Sometimes I play Baby because I’m sad. Sometimes because I want to get rid of some anger or stress. But most of the time I play Baby because it makes me happy. With no relevance to whether I am sad, angry, or happy- Baby still sings beautiful and clear, even when I cannot.
Some days I just sit with Baby running through the same old stuff. Making sure it stays in my head so I don’t forget it. But then, Baby and I like to explore; try new chord combinations, write new lyrics, and form beginnings of new songs. When Baby and I can’t figure things out, we just walk away to wait a little while.
While waiting I start listening to music. No, not hearing music- listening to it. Breaking it down into components. The voice fluctuates here, but the guitar doesn’t come in till here. Oh! Did you catch what the drum did right there. Genius. Once you take the component apart to see what you do, you can put them back together. I like that. It makes me feel like a little mechanic.
When I was a little kid, I played with Legos all the time. I loved piecing the colored brick together into spaceships of exploration, armies to fight out civil wars, and space wars and wars where Indians, space guys, cowboys, and revolutionaries all fought on the same battleground? I loved building massive cities with buildings two or three bricks high where Lego people became real, ran businesses, and fell in love. This was great, I loved it. But I often wandered and kind of wished in my little heart that I was like the kids who had to tear things up and figure out how they worked; like for example my cousins Russel and Shelvin. But apparently I must have been afraid of the consequences of tearing things up. Because all I ever did was build. And if I couldn’t make it on my own then it wasn’t that important. Sadly, I lack a mechanical understanding of electricity, cars, home repair, etc.; in short, when I grow up, I’ll read the manual. But it wasn’t the same with music.
Music was something I could grasp. We bought a piano for about seventy-five dollars off our close friends the Walkers. Out of tune, with ruined keys, it should have been on the side of the street (which is where it did eventually end up, soaked by rain, sounding awful and sick). But instead my parents bought it with hopes of getting it tuned and repaired (when we finally called to see what the cost would be to repair and tune the piano, they told us it would be better to buy a new one- repair costs would have been prohibitive). After they bought it, that piano sat there in our house- looking pretty?
At the time it was beautiful to me. I kept asking my parents to let me take lessons. Finally, after a year of me pleading for lessons, they found Kevin Wells, a piano teacher from another ward in Roanoke Virginia. So, in fourth grade, I began to unlock the components of the piano, and, in reality, to all music.
I recall flying through the first couple of lesson books, barely able to contain the excitement. Progress, learn more, progress, get better. I was breaking into a beautiful world that was mine to play with. At the time though, I only knew the parts of the music world that others had created. It didn’t matter though, I loved playing others music. Because I could play others music, in a way it became mine.
It wasn’t till shortly before we moved that I started really listening to music. After we moved, music became my constant companion. My new piano teacher, Brother Nakea, studied piano performance at the University of Illinois, and still meets with a professor before performing sets of work by Chopin, Mozart, and Grieg. With this type of apprenticeship and previous learning, my pinao teacher has been able to extend my understanding of music far beyond anything I imagined. He opened my eyes to writing music, to loving the intricacies that the composers put in. Little did I realize when I started piano that one day I would be able to play a group of notes on the piano and tell what scale they came from. Now, I am running through a piece and I’ll stumble through a section. “play that first chord Mark, and name it.” “G# Major 7?” I ask uncertain. “Yes.” “So the G# Major scale is . . .” “Actually, there is no G# Major scale, it’s used for chords, but you write music in A Flat Major.” “Oooooh.” I feel like a little boy again. I get giddy with excitement when I start to see a composer’s patterns. I get even more giddy when I realize how I can apply it to my own music. That little boy desire to tear things apart and build again is realized. I get to ear music apart and piece it back together.
This destructive and constructive phase been coming together for years. Now, things start to fall in line and I can write music. Baby and Piano are extra appendages for building the music. And when I throw my voice on top, even if not the greatest, then I can add an extra layer of music, and of words. Words and music are two of the most powerful influences I know. The feelings they create are quite evident. Music and words can bring the Holy Ghost into a church meeting. They create National pride when large groups of people sing the National anthem together in unison. Music and words are vital to everything we are. They are vital to me.

The Editor,
Mark

The Daily Honky Tonk 181st Edition

The Daily Honky Tonk
181st Edition
April 6, 2010
12:17 AM

I thought I would take a few minutes to respond to the requests of Taryn and Amy and give an update on my life. I’ve started writing again and again, and then I get tired and go to sleep and don’t come back to writing. Or I just write in my journal instead of sending all my thoughts out through the virtual world to your reality.

My life looks like this:
School, Work, Play Practice, Church, Friends, Dating

School
This will be the completion of my third full semester at BYU. I attended Spring Term last year and will do so again, leaving my summer term open to recover for a month or so before I jump into the next Fall Semester.
Highlights of this year in school have been doing a TMA 101 class in which I wrote a play that was performed in front of our class. In January, I got into the English teaching program. During my free time on Campus I tend to live in the library in the Maps section on the Second Floor. Some classes that I have really enjoyed are my Book of Mormon class, Psychology 111 (Intro to Psychology), TMA 101 (Intro to Theater), and English 292 (British Literature). I have not been a fan of my Biology class, but I’ve almost completed my Science Credits.

Work
I still work for BYU Catering. Which I really enjoy doing. I work as a Captain leading out events by instructing other workers how to set up and serve. I’ve always enjoyed the food business. When I was little I wanted to own a restaurant. I don’t want to now, but I love serving people food. I love the variety in this job. Every event is different and I get to meet new people all the time. During the football season Catering kept me for 12-13 hours on Saturdays to drive trucks delivering food and supplies to different food stations around the football stadium. I enjoy the people I work with and like being able to start and complete something each time I work.

Play Practice
I’m just going to say at this point Theater is my obsession. I watch at least one play a week (luckily it’s a free student production) and about a third of the time I see two plays in a week. If I don’t go to a play I attend International Cinema, Divine Comedy( a comedy sketch group on Campus), and LOL (the improv comedy group on campus). Besides having my play produced by my group in TMA 101, I got to be part of a Student Production “I Love Lysistrada” at the beginning of the Winter Semester. Currently, I am in a main stage production called “Mysteries of Monster Grove” that will be playing May 26- June 12. The play is actually based on the concept of a children’s book author who works at BYU. We’ve been writing the play together as a cast. I am cast as Dad, an accountant who has come to monster grove to solve all the money problems. I am also writing a significant portion of the music for the performance on Piano. I love being a part of this project.
Three or Four days ago I was laying around and realized that I am in love. No, not with a girl. I’m in love with theater. I’m going to take a playwriting class in the fall and an acting class in the Spring. One of my life ambitions has become more firmly that I will write a musical.
Besides acting and drama fun on campus, I’ve done a number of little performances with some friends in my ward. My friend Sam and I performed a Mormonized version of Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s On First” skit called “Who’s in the RSP”. We also did a Monty Python skit called “The Four Yorkshiremen”. And now Sam and I are writing the BYU 194th Ward Year in Review – a comedy skit to perform before everyone leaves for the summer. These are the things I love.

Church
Keeps me busy as always. I continue to grow and learn about the Gospel. I keep learning and trying to understand life. Everyday I learn new things and I am more and more greatful for the Spirit and the Atonement. I still enjoy pondering over Gospel topics and their application. I am not as black and white as I was in my youth. And I think I am more of a realist than an idealist. I consider these to be advances that come with a greater understanding of the gospel. I also find that they have benefited the way I interact with and understand people. I continue to strive everyday to know what the Lord wants me to do. I try and listen for the Spirit and act on it. I still feel I have a long way to go in learning charity, humility, and obedience. . .but I’ve become much more appreciative of Christ’s sacrifice and how it gives me strength to become better, and to not feel guilty for every little thing I do wrong.

Friends
I continue to struggle to understand what it means to have a friendship. When I work on forming my friendships I often feel selfish. I feel like I’m not as good at listening to people. I don’t feel like I’m very good at building trust in individuals. And I even find that I have problems letting myself get close to people. Don’t get me wrong. I have LOTS of friends. And I enjoy them. But, I don’t have many very deep relationships. I’ve kind of accepted that. In fact, I’m excited because my friend Sam and I are going to be roommates for the spring summer in one complex and in the fall we are moving to another one . ..which means in the next four months I’ll meet a lot more people. . .which I like. It’s just different than what I really want. Which segues into . .

Dating
When it comes down to it, I think my favorite quote about dating is still one that hung in Amy’s apartment from one of her old roommates “Dating is like communism, it’s a good idea, but the practical application sucks.” It makes me laugh every time I think of it. I’ve struggled to figure anything about dating out. Sam and Phil like to tease me about my dating life. Who is the new girl this week Mark?(Phil) A date for this week, no, Mark has twelve lined up. (Sam) They tease me about it. I really haven’t dated that much. Because I was thinking about it and trying to figure out what I know about dating, I worked to recall every girl I’ve been on a date with. Since turning 16 I could come up with names for about 35 different girls. About 22 of those dates have been since coming to BYU. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad. I date more than most guys I know. But that’s the only way one can figure out. I think my biggest issue is that this is the one thing that I’ve cared about more than almost anything since I was 11 or 12 years old. It’s a perfectionist issue, I have to get it right as I can or something. Every date I go on I learn a little bit something more. I try as hard as I can to make the date good and comfortable and safe for whoever I am out with. I can’t think of a date I haven’t enjoyed. That makes it hard to figure out what I want. Even when I try things out, I still come off confused.
For now I’ll have to keep praying, going out on dates, and trying my best to serve the girls I go on dates with.


Well, that’s all for now folks. I need sleep.
The Editor,
MARK