Recently I traveled to Salt Lake City for business. It was
an unexpected trip, but we had a disgruntled customer that needed to be dealt
with fast and we needed two people to clean it up. I went, and a colleague from
Northern California joined me on site a little outside of the metro area. As it
happened, things went pretty smoothly and we were able to satisfy the
customer’s needs such that they were no longer a drain on our employer. Because
things went well, we finished early and had a few hours to kill before our
planes left, and we decided to take in a bit of the city.
I’d never been to Salt Lake City, but I’d heard lots of interesting things about it. I’d even done some amateur research on the Mormon religion by reading Jon Krakauer’s book “Under the Banner of Heaven”. There were many, many intriguing points brought up, including how Joseph Smith founded the religion and how Utah came to be its epicenter. Polygamy featured prominently in the description, but on location I certainly wasn’t being judgmental: I imagined other proud American monuments like the Larry “wide stance” Craig Memorial Bathroom in the Minneapolis airport, the Eliot “Emperor’s Club VIP” Spitzer Memorial back East, and the Mark Sanford “never been here” signpost on the Appalachian Trail. Heck, back in the 90s we were debating what the definition of “is” is.
We were very interested in seeing the biggest Mormon thing we could find: The Temple. We hunted for parking near downtown, which was tough, but eventually we found it. The city was spotless, with Joseph Smith this and Deseret News that everywhere. Even though through my travels I’ve found this to be true, I’m always impressed by the variation in our country. We have a common culture and language, but then there are things like this place that are unlike anywhere else in the “good old US and A”, as Borat would put it.
As we approached the temple, we could see people that looked like “official representatives” of the church everywhere in suits, ready to accost you if you got too close. Strangely, when I attempted to make eye contact with them, they turned away. It was really hard to figure out. We continued to look around unassisted and read the plaques below statues of several famous people that I hadn’t read about in the book. We took a few pictures holding Nixon’s victory salute behind the heads (in the Japanese way) of what seemed to be the most important statues, but we were quickly running out of things to do.
Suddenly, we saw a tour group of women with two official representatives guiding them around. “This is…”, we heard one of them say. As you know, I have a deep respect of the religious beliefs of others – not a moral relativism, but rather a solid sense of freedom that is consistent with what it is to be an American. It was in this spirit as a citizen of the world and following the old adage "When in Rome..." that I whispered to my colleague, “Hey, let’s get these women to pretend that they are our wives in a picture. You can have six and I’ll take five. Maybe you can get one of them to slap you – it will be like real life!” My colleague is Chinese and didn’t quite get my suggestion. “You want one of them to be your wife?”, he asked. “No, no,” I responded, “I want the five on the left – you can have the six on the right!”
We had to get things started, so we began to approach, but we could see that the guides began to reduce eye contact, and then turn away completely with their backs facing us. I was uncertain of how to proceed. We hadn’t even proposed anything but they were already rejecting us. Since I’d heard it playing in the parking lot at lunch earlier, I thought of the old NWA rap “Gangsta Gangsta”:
“…So we started lookin’ for the b*#$%es with the big butt
Like her, but she keep cryin’
I got a boyfriend, b*#ch stop lyin’
Dumb a** h%$ker ain’t nuttin’ but a d$ke…”
Although offensive and chauvinistic to an extreme, this seemed completely a propos on many levels – a perfect description of our conundrum. I think you’d agree that we’ve all experienced this sentiment at one time or another: that of the jilted lover. (Obviously this is written from the perspective of a sexist heterosexual man and can feel unfamiliar if you don’t fall into this category; if, for example, you are heterosexual woman, you might alter the rap thus:
“…So we started lookin’ for the men with the large biceps
Like him, but he keep cryin’
I got a boyfriend, I don’t believe you are gay
You are a bad man…”)
Even the Bard himself couldn’t have penned a sonnet that put it so eloquently, and they were none too socially progressive in his day. I was determined not to slide into this mindset. If we were to get the photo with our “wives”, we needed positive thinking.
I reflected on one of my passions: watching CSPAN. A while ago, I’d broken the PBS/NPR all the time habit and branched out into 24/7 unfiltered coverage of our great democracy. But, even I began to find committee hearings a bit dry, only to find nirvana right next door: the deuce (CSPAN2). On this channel, there is much of the same coverage but occasionally there are dramatic profiles of senators, and I remembered one with Orrin Hatch, Senior Senator from Utah. Dressed in a blue suit and a tight-collared shirt with a tie pin, he spoke at length about his career and they showed footage of the presidential debates he’d participated in where the other candidates had played up their modest beginnings by saying that they were all sons of janitors, and he’d bragged “That’s nothing – I was a janitor!” Actually, with this comment he’d addressed all the candidates but one: Steve Forbes. He’d singled out Steve afterwards by saying he was so rich he couldn’t sit on his wallet, to much laughter.
While I’d enjoyed this interview tremendously, the thing that I now realized was that those tight collars with the tie pin that he always wore could hold the key. Utah is the reddest state in the nation, and it was said that those tight collars made one even more conservative, ergo sexier to our potential “wives”. Continuing to free associate, I made an even deeper personal connection with our founders the pilgrims, who were the only people so uptight that the English kicked them out. I was applying “Method” acting to maximize our chances.
We didn’t have tie pins or even shirts with the right collars, but we hadn’t buttoned our shirts top buttons yet and it might be our ace in the hole. “Quick”, I said, “Before the guides turn around!” “You want me to do what?”, asked my colleague, his eyes wide. “Just button your top button and they’ll be swept off their feet!”, I reassured him. “If you want, I’ll throw in a seventh and only take four for myself.” Seeing that I wouldn’t take no for an answer, he nervously shrugged his shoulders and after making the adjustments we began our approach.
Then, without warning, one of the guides turned and looked at us. We were still a few feet off and hadn’t had a chance to say anything out loud to them but at that moment I knew it was the end of the line. She’d seen our type before, or at least mine: an NPR-listening, latte-swilling, Prius-driving, Godless pinko commie. She said, “Excuse me – this is a private tour”, glared at us for a moment, then turned back to the group and continued educating them.
Later, after we’d purchased our drinking membership at a bar downtown (I think it was called Joe S.’s) we reflected on what had happened and concluded that if we’d had the right shirts with the tie pin, things would have gone much better. “Remember”, I told my colleague in my best Knute Rockne as we sipped our Polygamy Porter, “there is always next year!”
I’d never been to Salt Lake City, but I’d heard lots of interesting things about it. I’d even done some amateur research on the Mormon religion by reading Jon Krakauer’s book “Under the Banner of Heaven”. There were many, many intriguing points brought up, including how Joseph Smith founded the religion and how Utah came to be its epicenter. Polygamy featured prominently in the description, but on location I certainly wasn’t being judgmental: I imagined other proud American monuments like the Larry “wide stance” Craig Memorial Bathroom in the Minneapolis airport, the Eliot “Emperor’s Club VIP” Spitzer Memorial back East, and the Mark Sanford “never been here” signpost on the Appalachian Trail. Heck, back in the 90s we were debating what the definition of “is” is.
We were very interested in seeing the biggest Mormon thing we could find: The Temple. We hunted for parking near downtown, which was tough, but eventually we found it. The city was spotless, with Joseph Smith this and Deseret News that everywhere. Even though through my travels I’ve found this to be true, I’m always impressed by the variation in our country. We have a common culture and language, but then there are things like this place that are unlike anywhere else in the “good old US and A”, as Borat would put it.
As we approached the temple, we could see people that looked like “official representatives” of the church everywhere in suits, ready to accost you if you got too close. Strangely, when I attempted to make eye contact with them, they turned away. It was really hard to figure out. We continued to look around unassisted and read the plaques below statues of several famous people that I hadn’t read about in the book. We took a few pictures holding Nixon’s victory salute behind the heads (in the Japanese way) of what seemed to be the most important statues, but we were quickly running out of things to do.
Suddenly, we saw a tour group of women with two official representatives guiding them around. “This is…”, we heard one of them say. As you know, I have a deep respect of the religious beliefs of others – not a moral relativism, but rather a solid sense of freedom that is consistent with what it is to be an American. It was in this spirit as a citizen of the world and following the old adage "When in Rome..." that I whispered to my colleague, “Hey, let’s get these women to pretend that they are our wives in a picture. You can have six and I’ll take five. Maybe you can get one of them to slap you – it will be like real life!” My colleague is Chinese and didn’t quite get my suggestion. “You want one of them to be your wife?”, he asked. “No, no,” I responded, “I want the five on the left – you can have the six on the right!”
We had to get things started, so we began to approach, but we could see that the guides began to reduce eye contact, and then turn away completely with their backs facing us. I was uncertain of how to proceed. We hadn’t even proposed anything but they were already rejecting us. Since I’d heard it playing in the parking lot at lunch earlier, I thought of the old NWA rap “Gangsta Gangsta”:
“…So we started lookin’ for the b*#$%es with the big butt
Like her, but she keep cryin’
I got a boyfriend, b*#ch stop lyin’
Dumb a** h%$ker ain’t nuttin’ but a d$ke…”
Although offensive and chauvinistic to an extreme, this seemed completely a propos on many levels – a perfect description of our conundrum. I think you’d agree that we’ve all experienced this sentiment at one time or another: that of the jilted lover. (Obviously this is written from the perspective of a sexist heterosexual man and can feel unfamiliar if you don’t fall into this category; if, for example, you are heterosexual woman, you might alter the rap thus:
“…So we started lookin’ for the men with the large biceps
Like him, but he keep cryin’
I got a boyfriend, I don’t believe you are gay
You are a bad man…”)
Even the Bard himself couldn’t have penned a sonnet that put it so eloquently, and they were none too socially progressive in his day. I was determined not to slide into this mindset. If we were to get the photo with our “wives”, we needed positive thinking.
I reflected on one of my passions: watching CSPAN. A while ago, I’d broken the PBS/NPR all the time habit and branched out into 24/7 unfiltered coverage of our great democracy. But, even I began to find committee hearings a bit dry, only to find nirvana right next door: the deuce (CSPAN2). On this channel, there is much of the same coverage but occasionally there are dramatic profiles of senators, and I remembered one with Orrin Hatch, Senior Senator from Utah. Dressed in a blue suit and a tight-collared shirt with a tie pin, he spoke at length about his career and they showed footage of the presidential debates he’d participated in where the other candidates had played up their modest beginnings by saying that they were all sons of janitors, and he’d bragged “That’s nothing – I was a janitor!” Actually, with this comment he’d addressed all the candidates but one: Steve Forbes. He’d singled out Steve afterwards by saying he was so rich he couldn’t sit on his wallet, to much laughter.
While I’d enjoyed this interview tremendously, the thing that I now realized was that those tight collars with the tie pin that he always wore could hold the key. Utah is the reddest state in the nation, and it was said that those tight collars made one even more conservative, ergo sexier to our potential “wives”. Continuing to free associate, I made an even deeper personal connection with our founders the pilgrims, who were the only people so uptight that the English kicked them out. I was applying “Method” acting to maximize our chances.
We didn’t have tie pins or even shirts with the right collars, but we hadn’t buttoned our shirts top buttons yet and it might be our ace in the hole. “Quick”, I said, “Before the guides turn around!” “You want me to do what?”, asked my colleague, his eyes wide. “Just button your top button and they’ll be swept off their feet!”, I reassured him. “If you want, I’ll throw in a seventh and only take four for myself.” Seeing that I wouldn’t take no for an answer, he nervously shrugged his shoulders and after making the adjustments we began our approach.
Then, without warning, one of the guides turned and looked at us. We were still a few feet off and hadn’t had a chance to say anything out loud to them but at that moment I knew it was the end of the line. She’d seen our type before, or at least mine: an NPR-listening, latte-swilling, Prius-driving, Godless pinko commie. She said, “Excuse me – this is a private tour”, glared at us for a moment, then turned back to the group and continued educating them.
Later, after we’d purchased our drinking membership at a bar downtown (I think it was called Joe S.’s) we reflected on what had happened and concluded that if we’d had the right shirts with the tie pin, things would have gone much better. “Remember”, I told my colleague in my best Knute Rockne as we sipped our Polygamy Porter, “there is always next year!”
