This Week With KJ

While Pile On was struggling with the pestilence, I am sure many of you were wondering why KJ was not picking up the blogging and commenting slack. It is a fair question. I have been quite busy lately, even with my new brain's help. On Tuesday, I flew Delta to Salt Lake City, Utah. This was a surprisingly little city. It had a beautiful horizon on all sides. Mountains galore.

I had heard that a strange cult controlled much of the culture in the area. I saw several signs of this. First, there was a strange propensity to friendliness that surpassed even the generally superior culture and friendliness of the southeastern United States. Even though the people I was running into were largely in the service industry, they were extremely friendly even for that crowd. They all acted like the Aunt that wants to feed you right after you ate at Grandma's.




Second, I was forced to part with personal financial funds ($2) to join some private club for 90 days before a restaurant would serve me a fine Kentucky bourbon. This strange, certainly anti-Christian behavior made my spine shiver. Of course, I wanted the bourbon, so pray that I do not die in the next 90 days while my soul belongs to this strange cult.

You are probably wondering if I saw some of the sites, like the great skiing mountains, the Mormon Tabernacle choir, the Mormon Temple, or the University of Utah Utes Football stadium. Well, yes, I did drive past the football stadium 6 times in 3 days as it was between my sleeping hotel and my deposition taking hotel. Other than that, I didn't see much except the airport and the top of the moutains in the distance.

After returning to more familiar surroundings, I spent Saturday night getting down with lots of extremely white people at the James McMurtry concert. The man writes great songs, though his web site only anti-Bush song "We Can't Make It Here" was a real mood buster in the middle of the show. I got over though (I did suggest he play that song with a violin instead of a guitar).



With only about 150 people at the bar room "concert" it was cool to stand within 5 feet of the man for most of the show. I then ripped a concert poster off the wall and had McMurtry and his entire band sign it after the show. You don't get that kind of access at the arena shows. Of course, those people have lots more fans and cost more than $15 per ticket.

Well, I'm back in town, and my schedule is a little more normal for the next 10 days or so. I will try not to be a stranger, but don't expect that sicky nice SLC, Utah attitude, either.