Is This a Good Thing or a Bad Thing?

So, last night, we're all gathered downstairs and we're getting ready to play "Apples to Apples". This is a fun family card/word game. But Jacob is freaking out. He's literally screaming. He doesn't want to play this game. We try to convince him, because he's had a great time playing it before.

Finally we get him calmed enough to tell us why he doesn't want to play it.

"It has a swear word in it!" He says through his tears.

Jodi and I look at each other. We can't remember any word on any of the cards that can be construed as a swear word. We tell him it's OK.

"NO! NO! It has SWEARING!"

Finally, we get him calmed down, and in the end we have a great time playing a completely cuss-word-free game.

But that experience kinda haunted me. I got to wondering if my son's reaction to swearing is good or bad. His brother does it, too. He'll shut off the TV sometimes if he hears a word that he thinks is "bad" or if it's "too violent". And frankly, his threshold for both is pretty low. "Stupid" is a swear word in their book.

On the one hand, I think it's great that they want to keep clean and pure. I want to applaud that. On the other hand, if they go on screaming crusades everytime someone around them lets loose a string of colorful language, they're going to live very lonely lives.

What's a parent to do? It's just so *%^$#!! confusing...


MRKH
Mark Hansen
http://markhansenmusic.com

The Songs of Zion

Matt Whitney, Plan Be Music

I gotta just tell you the story of how I got to know Matt.

He and I were involved in the LDSmusicians email group, and we also worked together planning the LDS Independent Music Festival a couple of years. For one of those years (or maybe two), we actually put together a band. The first year, we called it a "project" because we knew that if we ever called it a band or gave it a name, it would end up in a horrible breakup with ugly litigation. Because that's how ALL "bands" end, right? So, we were quite adamant about NOT calling it a band.

It had Matt on keys, vocals (incredible vocals), and songwriting, John Newman on horns, songwriting, keys, arranging, and other miscellaneous things that we needed. Morey Day played the drums, and I played bass, guitar, and sang (thought not as well as Matt).

We were a twisted eclectic band. We did everything in a kind of weird way, because we all came from such diverse styles. John was our jazz, I was the rocker, Matt was the showman, and Morey was just along for the ride, playing just about anything we could throw at him. That first year at the fest, we did a few of John's tunes, one of mine, and a couple of Matt's. The hightlight, however, was this fast, funky jazz version of Book of Mormon Stories. We called it, "BookaMo". I can still remember it.

At one point we did actually get a gig in a park and at that point we decided that we had progressed beyond "project" and that we needed a name. One suggestion was "Matthew, Mark, Morey, and John". Another, since John, Morey, and I were all pretty stout, and Matt, being in the military, was in great shape, was to call us "Slim and the Fatboys". We figured that our schtick could have been that we would all argue over who was actually slim.

In the end, because our sound was so eclectic, and because our rehearsals always seemed to degenrate into silliness, we settled on the name, "Random Tangent".

In the end, we did split up. Matt went to Iraq, then to the east coast. John went back to school nights, and we just couldn't keep it together. Fortunately, it wasn't an ugly breakup. We're all still friends, and no one has even mentioned suing anyone.

In the intervening years, we've all progressed in our music in our own way. Matt, in particular, has just put up a website with a couple of tunes on it. He is an amazing writer, an amazing pianist, and an amazing vocalist. The big reason I find him most amazing is that he doesn't sound anything at all like all of the other Mormon pianist/singer/songwriters. His style is more show-y, with a cynical, yet heartfelt edge to his testimony that has been painfully honed by the sharpening stone of reality. When the scriptures talk about the sword that cuts the joints and the marrow, they're talking about his tunes.

Unfortunately, the ones of his that I like the best are not available for free download. But the ones that are there are certainly worth checking out.

C'mon, Matt! What about DC Tonight? :-)

MRKH
Mark Hansen
http://markhansenmusic.com/

Christmas Decorations at Our House

After 21+ years of marriage, you tend to gather some stuff. Lots of stuff. Some stuff is cool. Some stuff is pointless. Some stuff has accumulated, and nobody seems to know where it even came from.

But what's especially cool is some of the Christmas decorations we've gathered. One tradition we have had, ever since we started having kids is to buy one new ornament for each member of the family each year. That family member gets to choose it, and it should have something to do with the events of that year in that person's life.

So, the year that Jacob loved watching the Spiderman movie over and over and over, he got a spiderman ornament. Another year, Brendon just was wild over Pokemon, so he get a little pikachu in a pokeball (If you don't understand that, you probably don't have young kids). One year, I got a little metal electric guitar. Another year, I had been really into Magic cards, so I hung one on the tree. It was a 3/3 white angel. Get it? An angel? On a Christmas tree?

Oh, well, I thought it was clever...

When Jacob was first born, on Christmas Day, he was left in the hospital. So, that year, we got him a little teddy bear Christmas decoration with his suitcases packed.

The fun of this tradition comes as we start setting up the tree. It never fails to turn my thoughts back and my memories loose.

And among our other Christmas decorations with history is the tree itself. It's a big one, artificial, and was given to us by Jodi's mom and stepdad. It's become even that much more special now that Jodi's mom has passed on. We've also got this beautiful pearlish glazed ceramic nativity set that we made when Jodi's mom still had her porcelain doll shop open.

What are some of your original Christmas traditions?


MRKH
Mark Hansen
http://markhansenmusic.com