Mormon humor

Last weekend I made my way down to Provo, Utah because I’m in a relationship and that means you do things that you don’t actually want to do. Genny’s company, AtTask, had their annual Christmas party, where the promises of a free dinner, raffle prizes, a drink or two and maybe even a NCMO were enough to convince me to attend.

For those of you unfamiliar with Provo, the town is… unique to say the best. Provo is located ~45 minutes south of Salt Lake City in Utah County, home of BYU and some interesting policies. Although Salt Lake City is predominantly seen as Mormon (LDS) from an outside perspective, Salt Lake honestly has nothing on Utah County. Now, don’t get me wrong, The LDS religion is one of my favorite religions that there is. The people are friendly, welcoming, and (usually) fun to be around. A bit more politically correct than I tend to be, but really just always nicer than most. That being said, as a lab mate of mine put it, if you put enough of one group of people together, whether it be exercise physiologists or just a bunch of Mormons, you’re going to get some pretty unique results which aren’t representative of the individuals themselves. The business Christmas party was a tremendous example of this. 

The night started off with a well-timed execution of our arrival, seamlessly transitioning from a glass of wine to putting our raffle tickets in for some prizes to an actually pretty delicious dinner. We sat with Steve, and his son Chase (both LDS, which will come in to play later). The conversation was pretty great for meeting some strangers, whom I normally don’t do well with, but overall fun people and Chase was one of the only other guys in the entire room of 400 around our age. Then, suddenly and without warning, the evening’s “entertainment” began.

Jayson Hewitt was given a tremendous introduction, highly heralded as a great friend of some schmucskie and a guy the company has been trying to book for years. Lucky for us, this year they snagged him, but the only details we were given was that he was “entertainment.” A bit puzzled by what he actually did, the first thing that Mr. Hewitt said in front of the microphone was “I see a lot of people here who are balding, and a lot of people here who are not balding” to which I immediately turned to Genny and said “Well, at least we found out that he’s not a comedian.”

Oh, how wrong I was.

Mr. Hewitt continued his act, which included songs that he put parodies on by switching a word or two, and/or making them slightly clever with his own spin. He actually had a pretty good singing voice, but his songs weren’t funny. A few songs later with really awkward transitions, he began his stand up comedy routine which may have been the worst stand up I’d ever seen in my life. He preached to the crowd about how having 4 kids was hard (no shit?), and about how being a dad was hard and it makes him tired. He really nailed the point home that he was Mormon too, having jokes about prayer and the Heavenly Father. For 45 minutes.

I didn’t laugh a single time. I don’t think Genny did either. I look at Steve and Chase, and those guys are in tears they’re laughing so hard. In fact, the whole room was laughing (the whole room was mostly LDS), and they were laughing nearly the entire time at things that weren’t funny. Now, I know the humor was targeted towards the middle aged LDS families, but the jokes were still awful. There was no edge to them. Everything was set up so that no one could even take the joke the wrong way, and doing impressions of other singers does not translate to humor.

I returned to lab the following week to talk to my lab mate (Jayson Gifford) about what I had witnessed, to which he said “ Oh, Mormon humor is the worst!”

Take it from both of us, it really is. This was the 2^nd to worst piece of live entertainment I’d ever seen in my life

If you don’t believe me, here’s a YouTube of Jayson Hewitt’s performance.  Please try to make it through the whole thing. 

Youtube.

Wait. Am I cool again?

Heyooooo blog update.

I apologize to my loyal readers, as my blog posts have been in high demand and I simply have not found the time to fulfill your needs in these passing moments. Well, that's not actually true, but ever since Dan's blog made a comeback, I felt mine should too, and I have some great updates. Where to start? Let's bring it on back to the summer of 2014.

As of August 2014, I've officially finished my first year of graduate school and currently in to my second. The year capped off with a study collaboration with a group from France, and man oh man did I put some ridiculous hours in to that one. Nobody wants to hear how hard I worked over the summer, that's just part of the Ph.D., but afterwards is where the real cool life updates begin.

Come September I had pretty much burnt out on lab and desperately needed a break. I never took more than an afternoon off in about 8 months, and decided that a week away from it all would be best. However, instead of getting away from it all, I decided Salt Lake's own back yard would be fun to play and relax in, and I had my first ever "stay-cation," which consisted of hiking, napping, biking and nothing. It was absolutely fantastic. 

In hindsight, the week off from lab was exactly what I needed, but I ended up getting much more time off in the near future.

Below is just a short list of things that happened all within just over 2 months (Oct/Nov/early Dec)

I went to the University of Missouri to spend time with a really great professor who helped me kickstart one of my Masters projects.

I went to Palo Alto to hang out with Dan, Nick and Leo, watch some volleyball and ride bicycles

My parents came to visit and play in the mountains with me as well

And then I went to see my all time favorite band (The Foo Fighters) play in a semi-private venue with around ~1000 people in Seattle.

Wait. Back up. How did that last one happen? So my girlfriend's sister and brother in law waited in line for 5 hours immediately after hearing that the tickets went on sale, and both her and I went to Seattle for Thanksgiving to see them and (coincidentally), the concert. That's pretty straightforward, right? Maybe a little clarification is in order.

To the surprise of literally every single person I've ever talked to, including my mom who legitimately thought I was gay for Dan at one point (I am a little, but I digress), I am currently in a relationship. Genny, the aforementioned girl, and I have been seeing each other for ~4 months, and I have literally 0 clue as to what I'm doing.  She's really been the catalyst to all of these cool things that in my life lately, including:

Hike Mt. Timpanogos, the 2nd highest peak in Utah

Wear kick ass couples costumes

Go to Seattle for Thanksgiving to hang with her sister and brother in law (who are absolutely amazing people). 

And as of this past weekend, go back to Palo Alto/Santa Clara for the Ducks/Arizona Pac 12 game per her christmas gift to me. See Dan's recap of the trip: here

It's really been an insane few months. Being in a relationship, living an actual life outside of school and staying busy with lab and projects has been fantastic. My mind is in a better place by not entirely focusing on school, and I'm out doing cool things that I wouldn't have done by myself before.  Compared to even this summer, my life has completely turned around for the better, and I really don't think I could ask for a better person be spending it with. It's pretty neat.