When you think of Las Vegas, you think of garish lights, smoky casinos, and mid-priced whores. But Las Vegas is so much more than that. It is also unreasonable heat, big-haired trailer trash and over-hyped shows featuring fey, tiger-loving magicians, creepy French acrobats or men who are painted blue.

But it is ALSO so much more than THAT. My friend Pants (names have been changed) and his family live in Vegas, so to me, the place also means good friends and happy memories. I got to visit the Pants family recently, to see a community theater production of Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Indians” in which Pants and Mrs. Pants are starring. You go to Vegas for the glitz and glamour; I go for the crappy community theater and In-N-Out Burgers.

Now, for several years, I wrote reviews of the local theater productions for a newspaper in Utah Valley whose name escapes me now. Some of these shows were very good, but many were not, and many more were “good” only if you qualified it with “… for community theater,” which is just a polite way of saying they were bad. Some shows were merely mediocre; others were so bad that the theaters were plagued by the reanimated corpses of the playwrights, stomping through the lobbies and dressing rooms, demanding vengeance. I once saw the enraged specter of Stephen Sondheim haunting a production office, and he’s NOT EVEN DEAD.

My point is, since being relieved of the reviewing duty some time ago, I have not frequented community theater. I’ve seen the occasional show, but mostly my theater choices have been in the professional arena. I figure if I’m going to pay money to see something, it might as well be something good, and something that does not contain the word “Dreamcoat” in its title. Community theater is fine for some folks, but I saw too much of it — 400 shows in six years — to be able to appreciate a play anymore simply because everyone remembered their lines and none of the scenery fell over.

But with the Pantses headlining a show, and with our mutual friend Luscious Malone flying in to see it, too, how could I pass up a trip to the Skankiest City on Earth?! I thought maybe the production, being staged in Las Vegas (albeit rather far from the Strip), would feature dancing girls or magic tricks or one-time celebrities telling filthy jokes to audiences full of drunk gamblers.

Imagine my disappointment.

I had not seen “Ten Little Indians” before, but I had seen “The Mousetrap,” and they are the same play. Agatha Christie had a hit with “Indians” in the 1940s, so she apparently just changed the characters’ names and called it “The Mousetrap.” (Neil Simon has done the same thing numerous times, all based on his original show, “Jewish People Yelling.”) “Ten Little Indians” and “The Mousetrap” both feature strangers invited to a remote mansion on a dark and stormy night, whereupon they are murdered one at a time, and the killer is someone … IN THIS ROOM! “The Mousetrap” has always been called “The Mousetrap,” but “Ten Little Indians” was originally called “Ten Little N******,” “n*****” being what the British called people from India in those days. (How a nation of snaggle-toothed inbreds gets off slurring other races is beyond me.)

Anyway, the production of “Ten Little Indians” in which my friends are the stars is extremely funny, which is unfortunate, given that it is not a comedy. It is bad even by community theater standards, even by the standards of a person who is dumb and who loves terrible things. The Pantses acquit themselves well enough, being possessed of a modicum of common sense and talent, and a few of their castmates seem to be familiar with the basics of acting (e.g., they’ve read the script at least once, they don’t scream everything they say). But the bulk of the show is dull and overacted, often laughably so, and Luscious Malone and I did indeed laugh on several occasions, which might have bothered the people around us, except that they were too busy talking the whole time to notice.

I was somewhat comforted to discover that community theater is essentially the same wherever you go, or that it’s at least the same in Las Vegas as it is in Utah. The actors are committed but often clueless, the audience buys tickets and then gabs through the performance, and then both cast and viewer claim to have had a great time. The cast of “Ten Little Indians” appeared in the lobby afterward to greet audience members, which many theaters in Utah do and which is exactly the thing to do if you want to ensure that no one ever mistakes you for a professional theater company.

Of course, the goal of community theater isn’t to fool people into thinking they’re on Broadway. The goal is to give regular folks a chance to perform, and to provide comfortable, homey entertainment to the masses. At that level, most community theater succeeds, and far be it from me to say it should have loftier goals.

That said, would it have killed them to include just ONE Elvis impersonator? I think not.

(Note: This column is about Michael Moore’s upcoming visit to Utah, which is a very volatile topic. I will attempt to discuss all of the pertinent issues in a rational and mature manner. However, I will probably also make a lot of fat jokes. I regret this in advance.)

Utah Valley State College has booked liberal filmmaker Michael Moore to speak on campus next month, thus inviting far more attention than the hilarious almost-a-university is capable of handling. At times like this, I can almost hear the “Dukes of Hazzard” narrator:

“Well, friends, looks like ol’ UVSC has got itself into a pickle again. Shoot, when will those boys ever learn?”

Thanks, “Dukes of Hazzard” narrator. You can go back to being dead now.

Moore’s visit to Orem is controversial for a number of reasons. First, he is a known Bush-hater and an accused America-hater, and Orem is, for want of a better term, Bush country. Second, the student government spent its speaking budget for the entire year — some $50,000 — on this one speaker, and that doesn’t even include the catering costs. Third, everything that everyone does in Utah Valley is controversial in some way, because nobody ever wants anybody to do anything other than what they themselves would do.

Now that the student government has made the commitment, UVSC authorities are scrambling to put a good spin on it, all the while cursing themselves for letting students — UVSC students, at that! — be in charge of booking speakers. (Apparently, last year’s visit from SpongeBob SquarePants taught them nothing.) Seeking to placate the angry conservative masses of Utah Valley, UVSC eventually booked conservative commentator Sean Hannity to speak on campus a week before Moore arrives, to provide “balance,” though Hannity has some catching up to do if he really wants to balance Michael Moore. (That was a fat joke, by the way.)

Much of the uproar surrounding Moore’s visit is predictable and dismissable: He’s soooo left-wing, and soooo argumentative, we don’t want him in our community, blah blah blah whine whine whine. But one of the purposes of college — even a daycare center college like UVSC — is to expose students to new ideas, to make them consider points of view that are different from their own. Above all, college is supposed to mean sitting through boring lectures by people you don’t like. What’s the problem here?

A slightly better argument against Moore’s visit, though one I still disagree with, is that the $50,000 came from student fees, and why should students (or their parents, more likely) have to pay for a speech they don’t want, and one that so violently contradicts their political views? Well, boo-hoo, you big babies. I’d guess about 90 percent of any given student’s fees go to things he or she doesn’t need or want. The art majors’ fees help build the science building, and the art majors will never enter it. Everyone pays for athletic equipment, but not everyone uses it. You pay the salary of the “provost,” but what does a “provost” even DO?

Look at it this way: One semester’s tuition at UVSC is about $1,000. That means only 50 students actually paid for Michael Moore to visit, and with 30,000 students total, odds are, you weren’t one of them.

I don’t think the controversy should be over spending $50,000 on a speaker. I think the controversy should be over the fact that Moore apparently believes he is WORTH $50,000. (Sean Hannity charges $100,000 for his speeches, though he waived the fee for this appearance. Um, yeah. Hey, I charge $100,000 for my public appearances, too, just so you know. But sometimes I waive the fee, cuz I’m cool like that. But I totally charge $100,000 normally.)

Do you suppose Moore will dress nicely, or shave his big sweaty face when he shows up to address UVSC for $50,000? No, he’ll probably look like he always does, like one of those sweepstakes winners you see on TV who were caught off-guard by the Prize Patrol van. He always looks like he didn’t know he was going to be out in public that day, like he only wore his grubbies because he thought he would just be out working in the yard, and then somehow he accidentally wound up at the Academy Awards. I swear, he makes Peter Jackson look like Cary Grant.

Anyway, the money’s spent, and Moore is coming, and you can’t stop it. That doesn’t prevent people from trying, though, and if I owned a hat, it would be off to anyone who feels strongly enough about an issue, even a futile one, to get involved. For example, there is a UVSC senior named Sean Vreeland, a soldier who fought in Afghanistan last year, who told The Salt Lake Tribune, “For this uneducated, sophomoric-level guy, this fascist coming to speak to these students … the priorities are definitely skewed.”

Now, it only takes a dictionary and a modicum of common sense to know Michael Moore is not a “fascist.” I’m pretty sure he is NOT in favor of having a dictator, nor does he think America ought to have policies reflecting belligerent nationalism and racism. In fact, those are the things he accuses Bush of, and you know how he feels about Bush. But, you know, sometimes the newspaper reporter is asking you questions, and you have to say SOMETHING, and so you just use the first negative-sounding word that comes to mind. I suspect that’s what happened to Sean Vreeland.

Vreeland soon became the de facto leader of the anti-Moore movement at UVSC, being quoted in several news outlets. He had this very smart thing to say on Channel 4 in Salt Lake City:

“Controversy is not what we need at a public university. He’s going to bring no educational value to UVSC…. Michael Moore’s views are based on untruths and lies and are anti-government.”

OK, first of all, UVSC isn’t a public university, it’s a public college, and it’s only barely one of those. More to the point, controversy is defined as “a dispute, especially a public one, between sides holding opposing views.” Isn’t that exactly what IS needed at an institution of higher learning? How are you going to learn anything useful without hearing all sides of it? (There is little controversy in advanced math. Also, advanced math is not useful. You see my point.)

Whether Michael Moore’s films are “based on untruths and lies” (what, BOTH?!) is open for discussion, of course. I doubt he’s “anti-government,” though he may be opposed to the current administration of our government. “Anti-government” is sort of the opposite of “fascist,” though, so he’s definitely not both.

At any rate, Vreeland has launched a Web site, www.RecallUVSC.org, whose aims are twofold: prevent Michael Moore from appearing at UVSC (even if it means forfeiting the $50,000), and remove from office the student government leaders who booked him.

I think this is adorable. Pretending it matters who your student council representatives are! Practicing all these grown-up things like “petitions” and “recall elections”! I say kudos! (Not often, but sometimes.) Why, one day these kids will be out in the real world, maybe even dealing with real politics, and they’ll be able to say they’ve had a dry run. It’s like when law students have moot court, or when journalism students write for school newspapers. What they’re doing doesn’t really matter, but it’s good practice to act like it does. So again, kudos!

The Michael Moore appearance is sold out, so I probably won’t be in attendance, though I am curious to hear what his presentation is like. Does he just yell a lot? Does he tell jokes? Is his breathing labored? Is there choreography? If you go, please report back on the proceedings, and let me know whether UVSC can get itself out of this li’l predicament without losin’ a tire or wakin’ up Roscoe.

My new addiction to bubblegum came as the result of my new addiction to flautas. So I’ve been pretty busy, obviously.

I ate at a lot of restaurants this summer. This was partly because many of them are within walking distance of my new apartment, and partly because I don’t like to cook, and partly because I want to be poor for the rest of my life. One of them was Cafe Pierpont, which, despite its pretentious name, is actually just a Mexican restaurant. I had eaten there once before with a friend, and our dinner was interrupted by a Mexican fellow who played the guitar and sang songs. He asked if there was any particular song we wanted to hear, and before I could say, “No, please don’t sing anything, for the love of all that is good,” my friend said, “Anything you like!” So then he started singing and playing, and my friend and I had to just sit there and listen because, ironically, it would have been rude for us to interrupt his singing with our talking, even though he had interrupted our talking with his singing in the first place.

Anyway, I tried Cafe Pierpont again this summer, and a marvelous series of events transpired. First, the guitarista was nowhere to be seen. Then, I told the waitress I was considering the chimichanga and was debating between beef and chicken. She said that if I’m a chicken fan, I ought to get the flautas.

“Oh? Why is that?” I asked, taken aback by the presumptuousness of the hired help.

She said, “Because they’re pretty much the same thing, except they have chunks of chicken, whereas the chimichanga has shredded chicken.”

Now, I’m generally afraid of new things, and I’m usually a chimichanga man, as discussed in chapter 8 of my autobiography, “I’m Usually A Chimichanga Man.” But if the flauta was essentially the same thing as the chimichanga except with better chicken, then I stood to lose nothing by trying it. “Yes!” I declared. “I will have the flautas!”

And have the flautas I did. Oh, my friends, I wish you could have tasted them. Maybe you have been to Cafe Pierpont in Salt Lake City and have tried them. If not, sell everything you own, buy a ticket and get here immediately. (They close at 10.) The flauta is chicken, cheese and sour cream all rolled up inside a flour tortilla, which is then deep-fried (deep-fried!). They bring you two of them, each bursting with flauta goodness, too much to eat in one sitting, so you have to take one home to have at midnight when you’re watching that day’s episode of “Jeopardy!” that TiVo recorded for you (assuming you are me). The flautas are flautastic!

I returned to Cafe Pierpont the next day to have more flautas, and several more times in the subsequent weeks. I was in love with the flautas. The flautas loved me, too, though the oppressive laws of our state prohibited us from being joined together legally as man and flauta. Still, our time together was bliss.

Here’s where the bubblegum comes in. At Cafe Pierpont, instead of having a bowl of mints for patrons to take on their way out, there’s a big barrel of bubblegum. I don’t know why. Maybe they figure their food is so powerful that mints would be useless against it, so they gave up and put out something that tastes good instead. Whatever the reason, they’ve got this tub of Dubble Bubble there. When I was a kid, you could buy a piece of this at the Circle K for 3 cents, and then it went up to 5 cents. Today, with inflation, it’s probably $20. Anyhow, it’s free at Cafe Pierpont, so I started grabbing a handful every time I was there.

The thing is, I was never a regular bubblegum chewer. I love the flavor, but I hate the effort: all that chewing and chewing and chewing and never actually getting to EAT anything. It feels so futile, not to mention fatiguing. If they could come up with a bread or a meat that tasted like bubblegum but that you actually got to eat, I’d be all over it.

Since the Dubble Bubble was free for the taking, I took some and instinctively popped a piece in my mouth. The flavor was as good as I remembered it, and the enjoyment of blowing bubbles — one of the least dignified things you can do with your mouth in public, I’m aware — was still a treat. I found myself chewing a piece now and then at home, as I worked at my computer. It was free, so no big deal, right?

A couple weeks later, I was at a grocery store and happened to see a package of 10 pieces of Bazooka Joe for sale near the register. The price was 69 cents, or 6.9 cents per piece, which is only slightly more than the 5 cents it cost when I was a kid. I figured what they heck, I’ll go ahead and buy some. Who’s it gonna hurt?

Now, Bazooka Joe is not as good as Dubble Bubble. It is grittier and is wrapped in really dumb comics. These comics are the least funny things in the world, even less funny than Jay Leno or birth defects. The list goes like this:

Least Funny Things in the World:
1. Bazooka Joe comics
2. birth defects
3. Jay Leno
4. your mom dying
5. Al Franken
6. one-legged puppies
7. award-show jokes
8. Bob Hope (pre-death)
9. Bob Hope (post-death)
10. your dad dying

Nonetheless, I bought the Bazooka Joe and began chewing it when I didn’t have any Cafe Pierpont-subsidized Dubble Bubble on hand. That is when I realized I was addicted, when I actually BOUGHT some bubblegum, and when I began chewing it even though I didn’t really enjoy it anymore.

That is where we stand now. I crave flautas constantly and I chew gum whenever I’m sitting at my desk. Why can’t I ever get addicted to something healthy, like exercise, or bathing? Why must it be things that are deep-fried or sugary? Or better yet, deep-fried AND sugary? Hey, why can’t they roll the flautas in cinnamon and sugar? IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?!

Just like the character of Frasier moved to Seattle after “Cheers” ended and the character of Joey moved to L.A. after “Friends” ended, the character of me moved to Salt Lake City after my sitcom ended. The new show, “Eric and the City,” finds me in a new apartment with a new roommate who is NOT a psychotic Argentine. Market research determined viewers found the old roommate, Raoul, too unsettling, so we’ve attempted to replace him with a normal person, or at least one who doesn’t leave raw meat sitting uncovered in the refrigerator.

The new guy is named Greg. Since he had never been to Utah before moving here a few weeks ago, it has been my duty to help him get used to local customs, which provides ample opportunity for wackiness. We often have conversations where he says things like “So … people here just MAKE UP names for their babies?,” or “So … you just mix ketchup and mayonnaise together?”

The latter refers to fry sauce, of course, Utah’s one major contribution to the culinary arts. Greg is from Boston, where fry sauce has not yet made major inroads. In fact, it would seem fry sauce has barely spread beyond the borders of Utah, either figuratively or literally.

I don’t know why this is. It’s the perfect dipping sauce, creamy like mayonnaise but zesty like ketchup. People who visit Utah and find it in various dining establishments always rave about it — yet they apparently don’t take word of it back to their homelands. Far be it from me to give suggestions to the LDS Church, but would it hurt to have its enormous and efficient world-wide missionary force start mentioning the good news of fry sauce in its discussions? It was invented in Utah, so it must have been a Mormon who did it. I’m just sayin’.

So I introduced Greg to the wonders of fry sauce in one episode of “Eric and the City,” and I tried to explain Salt Lake’s grid system (where all the streets have numbers and geographic directions rather than, you know, names) in another. And meanwhile, he has tried to help me understand the culture of an East Coast non-Mormon.

For example, Greg does not have the word “stuff” in his vocabulary. Instead, he has the word “s***.” He tosses “s***” around very casually, in sentences such as, “I’ve been here two weeks, and I’m still unpacking my s***,” and “No, this seat’s not taken, let me just move my s***.” Normally, I dislike that word a lot, but I’ve discovered it doesn’t bother me so much when it’s used non-swearingly. The best usage came when I told him about Josh Hartnett’s unsettling unibrow in “Wicker Park,” and Greg said, “Geez, someone should have told him to pluck that s***.”

(Note: I assume Greg does have “stuff” in his vocabulary when used as a verb. That is, I’m pretty sure he would say, “We need to stuff the turkey for Thanksgiving” rather than “We need to s*** the turkey for Thanksgiving.” But I’ll let you know for sure in November.)

Why would someone leave a perfectly good girlfriend in Boston and move alone to Salt Lake City? Greg has done it because he’s working with Utah Opera’s outreach program, wherein he and a troupe of singers go around to schools and make kids listen to opera, possibly as punishment.

(You’d think, now that I’m 30 years old and have actually had several positive opera experiences, that I would stop making jokes about opera being unenjoyable. But you’d be wrong.)

Some episodes of “Eric and the City” will probably focus on Greg and his opera troupe. For example, there was the incident last week when they told the kids they could ask questions after the performance, and a third-grader raised his hand and asked, “I like stoplights.” I foresee that appearing on T-shirts and fan-based Web sites.

Does Greg practice his singing in the apartment? Because that would definitely make for some comedy, especially if I were trying to sleep, or trying to read, or trying to not hear opera. Unfortunately for the purposes of humor, Greg does not practice in the apartment, though I have occasionally heard bursts of it as he putters around the house, the way Raoul used to randomly mutter Spanish swear words. I wonder sometimes what became of Raoul after he moved out. I’ll have to watch his spin-off, “Don’t Cry for Me Because I’m Dumb and Crazy, Argentina,” to find out.

If you have ever loved someone, you know that sometimes you have to be straight with that person and say, “Hey, person I love, I love you, but you’re being a jackass.” (If you have not ever loved someone, then take my word for it.)

So understand that this column is written out of love for X96, Salt Lake’s finest radio station, the one with the best DJs and the only one with a morning show that can be listened to by humans without incurring brain damage.

X96, you’re being a jackass.

It saddens me to hear your constant promos painting yourself as some hardcore rule-breakin’ alternative radio station. Why? Because you ARE a hardcore rule-breakin’ alternative radio station. But there’s nothing less “alternative”? than going around telling everyone how alternative you are. You actually get cool points deducted for that, not added.

Bragging ruins everything. Who’s the least funny person you know? Probably someone who’s always talking about how funny he is. You don’t want to be put in that category, X96. You don’t deserve it.

Every time you feature a “Deep X Cut” (i.e., an album cut), it’s accompanied by the DJ saying, “We don’t only play the singles. We play whatever the hell we want.”? So shut up and play it, then. We know it’s cool that you play songs that have not been released as singles. But nothing sucks the coolness out of something like talking about how cool it is.

And you do oversell it sometimes, too, my beloved X96. Like the promo that says, “You’re listening to Corey O’Brien. No wonder you’re hearing music that would get most DJs fired.”?

OK, first of all, I suspect Corey O’Brien, like every other DJ, plays what’s on the playlist in front of him. Which means if anyone got fired, it would be the program director, not the DJ. Second of all, that particular blurb becomes meaningless when it’s followed by the fourth daily airing of “Somebody Told Me”? by the Killers. It didn’t get Corey fired when he played it the other times, nor have the other stations that play it constantly had to dismiss any employees because of it. So I think he’s probably safe.

Or this one: “You never know what Artie Fufkin will play next!” That’s true. But chances are good it’s by Nine Inch Nails.

My favorite: “Sure, the record companies tell us what to play. We tell them to SHOVE IT!”? In other words: “Sure, the record company wanted us to play that new Green Day song 11 times a day. They begged us. They said, ‘Please, overplay this new song so everyone will be sick of it before the album even comes out!’ And we said, “Shove it, record company! If we play this song 11 times a day — and believe us, we will — it will be because we WANT to, not because you told us to! Take that, The Man!'”?

I love you, X96. I love daytime DJ Artie Fufkin with a passion that is just this side of sexual and that occasionally crosses over. I adore the Radio from Hell show. I like the silly contests that mock other stations’ silly contests, like the one where listeners had to guess what was being smashed in the sound effect, and whatever they guessed, the DJ said they were right. But I get embarrassed for you when you play up your coolness so desperately. Relax, dude. Just be yourself and people will like you.

While at the library, I noticed a book called “Mr. Peabody’s Apples,” written by Madonna. At first I assumed it was a dirty book, since it was written by Madonna and since it was called “Mr. Peabody’s Apples.” But upon immediate and fervent perusal, I discovered it was a children’s book, rather charmingly illustrated and telling a story about why you shouldn’t gossip. I wanted to tell Madonna that if she wouldn’t behave like such a freak, maybe people wouldn’t gossip about her, but maybe she wasn’t thinking of herself when she wrote it. Still, it seems odd that the main character was named Fladonna.

Just kidding. Anyway, Madonna is the latest in a dazzling parade of celebrities who have turned to writing children’s books as a means of expressing their creativity and fostering their burning desire to be extremely wealthy. Sometimes the books are pure whimsy and imagination, with no connection to real incidents, as when Dom Deluise wrote “Charlie the Caterpillar.” Other times, they are autobiographical, as when Dr. Seuss wrote “The Cat in the Hat.”

Look at some of the celebrities who have written children’s books: Carly Simon (“Amy the Dancing Bear”), Jerry Seinfeld (“Halloween”), Billy Crystal (“I Already Knew I Love You”), Prince Charles (“The Old Man of Lochnagar”), and Spike Lee (“Please, Baby, Please,” in which an energetic toddler is begged to please go back to sleep — not whatever you were thinking, perv).

It made me think of a cheap and easy comedy bit, where I would name celebrities and then make up titles for children’s books they might write. I think it might go something like this:

Paris Hilton: “Alice’s Adventures in Underpants”

But then I couldn’t think of any more.

Children’s books have changed somewhat since I was a child. I note that among the current popular titles, which I am not making up, are “Walter the Farting Dog” and “The Day My Butt Went Psycho.” (My friend Randy observed that he could write a book called “The Day My Butt Went Psycho,” based on his gastrointestinal experiences as a missionary in Argentina, but the stories would all end “… and then I had to burn the pants.”) Some of the other popular children’s books involve a character named Harry Potter, who is no Encyclopedia Brown, I can tell you!

I have to assume that writing children’s stories is easy, or else celebrities wouldn’t be doing it. I got a taste of it recently when I was visiting my friends Monty and Claire at just the time their children were going to bed. Their kids are Miles, age 6, who is smart and sedate, and Owen, age 4, who acts like he has bees in his head and the bees are crazy. They also have baby Phoebe, 18 months, who was conceived, tragically, when Monty and Claire were living in England, which means the dozen teeth she has now are probably all she’s getting.

Anyway, Miles and Owen wanted Uncle Eric to tell them a bedtime story, and I happily obliged. Claire told me they like their bedtime stories to center around pirates and, if possible, bubble gum. These seemed like reasonable demands; Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote “The Scarlet Letter” under precisely the same strictures. And if I’m not as able a storyteller as Nathaniel Hawthorne, then I don’t know what I am.

So I wove a fanciful tale of how three children named Miles, Owen and Phoebe were on a ship that was boarded by pirates, who turned out to be nice pirates who merely wanted help digging up treasure. I got a big laugh when I said this:

“So Miles said ‘OK’ and Owen said ‘OK’ and Phoebe didn’t say anything, because she can’t talk.”

BIG LAUGH, I tell you. Huge laughter from Miles and Owen. If I could write a stage show centered around that line, and fill the audience with 6- and 4-year-olds, I would kill every night.

The climax of the story was when the pirates and the children found the treasure, dug it up, and opened the chest to reveal — surprise! — bubble gum. This shocking turn of events delighted my audience as thoroughly as if I’d walked in and announced it was raining Spaghetti-O’s. They were giddy with amusement, as if they’d had NO IDEA bubble gum would enter the framework of the story, even though they’d heard their mother tell me up front that it should.

With children being this easy to please, it’s no wonder so many professional entertainers have tried it. Adults are fickle and hard to amuse, but kids sure aren’t. They also don’t judge you — they don’t care if you’re a stinky whore, Madonna, the way I do — they just listen to your story, and if it has pirates and bubble gum (or their equivalents), they respond enthusiastically. Which is why from now on, “Snide Remarks” will consist solely of knock-knock jokes and pictures of monkeys on rollerskates. GET USED TO IT!

Ah, the county fair! What’s more American than a county fair, brimming with local color, down-home entertainment and unsettling odors? The county fair — poor white-trash cousin to the state fair — has been at the forefront of my mind recently as I found it necessary to visit five different ones within the space of nine days. Please note that I do not recommend this, no matter how much you like corndogs.

I wasn’t there for the love of corndogs — though heaven help me, I do love corndogs — but because I was playing piano with a band called The Quinn Brothers. This band consists of two (2) Quinn brothers and me and occasionally a drummer, though we have learned not to rely on that. We play upbeat rock-ish sort of songs, comparable maybe to the Barenaked Ladies in terms of style and tone and physical unattractiveness.

The Quinn who gets things done, Ben, decided that he and his brother who just likes to have fun, Tom, should take their guitars and their songs and form a band around them. Many of their songs are indeed clever and/or catchy; certainly the public has embraced much worse music than theirs, probably even in the last 24 hours. And so Ben and Tom recruited me to play piano, thus both creating and fulfilling my dream of being a rock star.

In an attempt to rock as much of the free world as possible while retaining as little of our dignity as possible, Ben booked us “gigs” (that’s what rock stars call them, “gigs”) at five county fairs all over Utah. Now, we didn’t get any of the good counties, like Salt Lake County or Utah County, but B-list districts such as Tooele, Morgan, Sevier, Summit and San Juan. In every instance, I visited a town I’d never been to before and traveled to parts of the state I’d only seen on maps or sped past on the interstate. Having seen them up close, I now feel a little differently toward these small towns that I once looked down on. Now, I don’t even want to pass them on the interstate. I want to stay as far from them as possible. We’re talking about towns where the leading causes of death are getting gored by rodeo bulls, and rickets.

But I kid the tiny villages! There’s something charming about rural counties and their old-fashioned, everybody-having-a-good-time, let’s-have-some-ice-cream-and-look-at-the-hogs fairs. The folks who go seem to be simple, decent people who don’t let society tell them how to dress or cut their hair or pronounce words. At each fair, I noticed at least one person with a limb missing, and I have to assume those limbs were lost not due to carelessness, the way big-city folk lose their limbs, but in the process of doing humble, extremely dangerous labor somewhere.

Each of the fairs we visited was different, but only slightly, and the entertainment was all about the same. We even noticed some of the same names on the schedule from place to place, indicating we were not alone in our attempt to find fame via the county-fair circuit. The thing is, a county fair is not conducive to demonstrating any type of real talent. People who can really sing or really play an instrument probably need to be in an auditorium, not on a rickety makeshift stage under a tent in front of audiences who are only vaguely interested in you and who are, if you’ll pardon the generalization, well over 1,000 years old.

There are sometimes non-senior citizens watching the fairs’ entertainment, but our experience was that they were always there to see the next act, not us. The next act was usually one of those show choir ensembles where 14-year-old girls in tight-fitting spangly outfits dance cheesily while belting out medleys of showtunes. To me, there is almost nothing funnier in all the world than these groups. I kid you not, I could watch them all day. There are always two or three girls who can sing and dance very well, but they are surrounded by girls who can do neither but who are still young enough to be permitted to indulge in fantasies that are destined not to come true. You can’t tell a 14-year-old girl that she’s too chubby to be a dancer and too nasal to be a singer. You let her try anyway, and let her perform at the county fair in front of her parents and all the other girls’ parents, and hope she loses interest before she gets to the age where she would NEED to be told to knock it off.

Something we saw only at the San Juan County Fair (in Monticello, in the far southeastern corner of the state) was a man called Toot Toot the Karaoke Clown. Toot Toot is a portly gentleman who is also a clown who sets up a karaoke system at a booth so fair-goers can croon between mouthfuls of churros. Toot Toot himself does no actual performing; he merely aids and abets those who wish to.

I am not certain what drives a man to become a karaoke clown, given that everyone hates karaoke and everyone also hates clowns. Did Toot Toot sit in his mobile home thinking, “I don’t just want to be something people hate; I want to be TWO things people hate”? What other combinations did he consider before arriving at karaoke clown? Tax-collector mime? Redheaded Nazi? Telemarketer John Mayer? The mind reels at the possibilities.

As for us, we were received by our audiences with only mild hostility. Many audience members seemed to be old and angry, and we did our part to advance both conditions. Whether we embark next year on another county fair tour depends on how famous we get between now and then, and whether the fairs consent to our demand for free corndogs. What’s rock stardom without perks?

Sweet Odin’s raven! It’s time for the 15th semi-annual bi-monthly edition of “Ask Eric Stuff,” a weekly feature wherein people ask Eric stuff and he answers them, at least once every six months.

If you want to submit your own questions as possible fodder, send them here. Please note that due to the volume of the questions submitted, Eric’s neighbors have been complaining, especially when he reads them late at night.

Dear Eric: I have been working out a lot lately. How much muscle mass should I put on before I can start shaving my chest? — Muscle-bound in Montana
Dear Muscle: However much it takes for you to become gay.

Dear Eric: Who should I vote for in 2004? — Third Party Curious
Dear Three-Part: Ah, don’t worry about it. 2004 is still a long way off.

Dear Eric: I’m always the one to clean the bathroom in our apartment. Even if I don’t do it for a really long time, my roommates never clean in there. How can I get them to do their share of bathroom cleaning? — The Maid in Apt. 114
Arrr, Maidy: If you stop using the bathroom, it won’t matter to you that it’s messy. Start using the kitchen sink for your bathroom necessities, and when a roommate questions the practice, tell her it was the only clean receptacle in the apartment. If you need to pee on her directly to get the point across, well, I would not try to dissuade you.

Dear Eric: Really, what is a “logarithm,” and why are they used? — Hate Higher Math
Dear High: A logarithm is what lumber mills use to make sure the logs are entering the factory at a steady rate. I don’t know what it has to do with math, except maybe some of the logs will be made into pencils.

Dear Eric: Whatever happened to Jared, the Subway commercial guy? — Sabrina from Savage
Dear Savagery: He’s just released a documentary where he eats at Subway three times a day for 30 days, causing him to gradually become an irritating commercial spokesman.

Dear Eric: Several years ago, I dropped out of BYU before graduating. I am now contemplating getting a General Education degree via Independent Study. Should I do it, and would it be worth anything in the job market? — Got My MRS Instead
Dear MRS: Thinking of going back to school, eh? It’s only been “several years,” and already your children are grown, your house is immaculate and your husband doesn’t need dinner on the table when he comes home? Please share your housewifery techniques with the rest of the good sisters who read this column, for I’m sure they would be delighted to know them!

Dear Eric: How do I get my new little kitty to stop clawing his way up the couch? He’s starting to wreck it. — Frayed Nerves and Couch
Dear Frayedy Cat: Animal experts have long known the way to get cats to stop clawing things. First, you need to catch him in the act. When you do, hold him gently but firmly by the neck in your right hand. Then, with your left hand, pull his head off.

Dear Eric: Is it OK to have blond hair and really dark eyebrows? — Bottle Blonde
Dear Blondie: Only if you are a hyena.

Dear Eric: Why don’t books have ratings like movies do? I find it hard to tell which books have inappropriate content. — Righteous in Raleigh
Dear Raleigh and Truly: It’s easy to tell which books have inappropriate content. Just start reading one. When you come to a swear word, STOP! It’s inappropriate.

Dear Eric: My baby won’t stop crying when I put her to bed. How do I get her to go to sleep quietly? — Deaf in Salt Lake
Dear Deafy: Just a wee bit of liquor, such as wine or sherry, placed carefully on the tongue, will make you forget about that screaming baby, if you drink enough of it.

Dear Eric: If bats are blind, why do they have eyes? — Curious in My Chair
Dear Curio: If no one wants to date ugly people, why do they have phone numbers? Seriously, I’m asking. Why? Do you know?

Dear Eric: Did anyone ever tell you that you look a lot like Clay Aiken? — Kristen
Dear “Kristen”: No, but that’s probably because I DON’T. Judge for yourself:

Clay Aiken

Eric D. Snider

I recently moved to Salt Lake City after living in Provo and Orem for nine years. You can imagine the thrill when my paperwork was approved and I received my exit visa. It would be the start of a new life for me!

It was never my intention that I, a California-raised lad, become a Utahn at all, much less a resident of Utah County. But that’s where BYU was, and where my post-graduation job was, and so Utah County became my home. Most of my college friends moved away to exciting locales such as Portland and Tampa, but I remained, hamstrung by the need for gainful, full-time employment.

Well, eff that. When the job ended, I had no reason to stay in the barren, nerdy wasteland of Utah Valley, so I moved here to your fine city — make that OUR fine city — known among hip individuals as The SLC. I have been to places that were more cosmopolitan, more culturally rich and more exciting than The SLC, but compared to the sleepy tranquility of Orem, Salt Lake is a crack-fueled 24-hour rock-star party with hookers.

I noted first that The SLC has crazy people wandering its streets. Honest-to-goodness actual CRAZY people. In Utah Valley, they are all either locked up or elected, and in either case kept away from the general public.

We also have smokers up here. Down south, you had to stand outside Denny’s if you wanted to meet a smoker. I don’t smoke, and I don’t like being around people when they are smoking, but somehow the fact that smokers are present excites me, as it reminds me of the fascinating diversity of truly huge cities like Austin and Spokane.

I have also, while walking the streets of The SLC, encountered African-Americans.

I am also smitten with The SLC’s downtown, where I live. I know there has been much hand-wringing about the supposed demise of downtown, and I suppose the many deserted, hobo-occupied buildings indicate it’s not as thriving as it once was. But I like it. I’m within walking distance of the library, two movie theaters, dozens of restaurants, and, when I feel like gazing at items I cannot possibly afford to buy, the Gateway. It’s not New York, but it might be Knoxville or Boulder.

Of course, though I have left Utah Valley never to return, I must admit even the most desolate, taste-forsaken places have their advantages. I have come up with two ways that The UV beats The SLC:

1) The Carl’s Jr. near my home in Orem was very good about asking, “Ketchup or fry sauce?” when handing over your order at the drive-thru window. The one in The SLC doesn’t do this, and twice I have driven away without remembering to request fry sauce and have had to either double back or curse Carl and his progeny as I drive home sauceless and forlorn.

2) Ninety-five percent of the people in Utah Valley are LDS, which makes it easy: You can assume pretty much everyone you encounter is Mormon, and speak accordingly. In The SLC, the numbers are about evenly mixed, which means it’s a crapshoot whether terms like “patriarchal blessing” and “ignernt” can be used effectively in communication. It’s also a crapshoot whether you can get away with words like “crapshoot.”

But on the whole, The SLC beats the unflattering knee-length shorts off Utah Valley in every conceivable way. It may not be THE place, but it’s certainly A place. And now it’s my place.

An Alaska man is on trial for his life because he allegedly watched the movie “Road Trip.” Now, I’m sure you’ll agree that while “Road Trip” was a bad movie, viewing it should not be a capital offense. So why the extreme reaction? Are the laws in Alaska so much more strict than they are here in the United States? Not at all: The man was watching “Road Trip” while he was driving, and prosecutors say it’s what caused the car accident that killed two people.

When I saw “Road Trip” in 2000, I said to myself, “This movie is so bad, I’ll bet one day it kills someone.” I hate to be right all the time, but here we are. Prosecutors say 29-year-old Erwin Petterson was watching the film on his dashboard DVD player — he also has a PlayStation 2 and a sweet CD system in his pickup truck — while driving from Kenai to Anchorage in October 2002. They say his distraction, no doubt from staring at the screen agape in horror at the movie’s unfathomable lack of comedy, led to a crash in which the occupants of another vehicle were killed. (Petterson was not seriously injured, though he is, sadly, still a tool who drives a pickup truck with a DVD player and a PS2 in it.)

The trial, which began last week, is the first of its kind in America or Alaska. Common sense dictates that more toys and gadgets in automobiles will mean more distraction, and that’s why DVD players are usually installed either so they’re only visible from the back seat, or, if they’re in the front, so they only work if the car is in park. (Why you would want to sit in a parked car and watch a movie on a tiny screen is beyond me.) But if you install the system yourself, those precautions are easily bypassed. (Well, “easily” in the sense that if you’re capable of installing the thing at all, you’re probably capable of bypassing the safety measures. I doubt I, personally, could install anything in a car, being barely capable of even driving one.)

Petterson is part of a rising trend wherein people spend fabulous sums of money to equip their vehicles with all manner of bling and gewgaws and frou-frou. I can’t relate to this. If I ever owned a really nice car, or put a lot of time and expense into turning an average car into something cool, I would never drive it. I’d be afraid of wrecking it, or having it vandalized. It’s the same philosophy that prevents me from ever spending more than about $30 for shoes: Why pay a fortune for something you’re just going to WALK on?

But devotion to cars is a common trait among men who are not me. I see it often in parking lots, where people straddle two spaces because their car is soooo much more precious than the rest of ours that they can’t run the risk of it getting scratched or dinged, which would surely happen if they let other cars park near it. Well guess what, Hector? You take your car out in public, you take the chance that something will happen to it. That’s the danger of living in a world that contains other people. If you don’t want to assume that risk, then leave the car in the garage — or better yet, find something more worthwhile to obsess over than the condition of your car. You know, like maybe ANYTHING. At the very least, quit hogging two spots. I often fire bullets into those cars, even if I don’t need the spot.

As with most cultural trends that I don’t like, MTV is doing its part to make it worse. The network has a show called “Pimp My Ride,” a sort of makeover show in which people’s beat-up cars are given the royal treatment and emerge, er, pimped.

(“Pimp” is an interesting word, by the way. It’s always been a noun, of course, as well as an intransitive verb, as in, “Dave acquires most of his income via pimping.” But at some point in the past few years, it became a transitive verb as well, meaning in addition to just pimping, now you can also pimp something, like a car, or even a “ride,” which is what the kids call cars nowadays.)

“Pimp My Ride” is a silly, harmless show, hosted by a person called Xzibit, who was a rapper before he chose to devote his life to ride-pimping. Xzibit and a team of ride-pimpers review the applications sent in by urban males with unpimped rides and select the rides most in need of pimping. (I am trying to say “pimp” and “ride” as often as they say them on the show, but believe me, I’m not even close.) Then they take the ride back to ride-pimping headquarters, fix whatever’s actually wrong with it, and then add luxury items like PlayStations, DVD players, waterbeds, dishwashers, barbecues, laundromats, and massage parlors — anything they think the average urban male might need in his ride. Of course, the average urban male’s ride is likely to be stolen, especially if it’s been pimped, but that is none of Xzibit’s concern.

I suppose the ride-pimping trend, both MTV-assisted and independently done, will continue as our society becomes increasingly mobile. Fifteen years ago, it was a pretentious luxury to have a phone in your car; now, you’re pretentious if you brag about NOT having a cell phone. No one is home anymore; everyone is always out. So it makes a certain kind of sense to have the amenities of home lodged in your automobile. But where will it end? How many Alaskans have to die before stricter safety measures are enforced? And why doesn’t “Road Trip” come with a warning label?

There’s too much nudity in this country. (Public nudity, I mean. On private nudity, I have no opinion.) You can’t turn on a football game (not that I would) without seeing a former pop star flashing her knockers at the world, and the movies are rife with female stars — many of them underage! — acting all hoochy and skankified. Maybe the Puritans got it right when, after a council of elders weighed the alternatives and examined the temptations being let loose on society, they made women illegal.

No, maybe that takes it too far. I come from a modest sort of upbringing, though, where you don’t go around showing the neighbors your business, although when I was about 6, I did go outside and play while wearing only my new Underoos (Superman variety), because I didn’t realize they were underwear, I thought they were a costume. But I was young, and I needed the money, or something.

My point is, my attitudes on the subject are apparently more old-fashioned than some. After Janet Jackson unleashed her aged bazoom, there was an uproar from conservative folks who were outraged that such a thing would happen during a Super Bowl halftime show, which has generally been a beacon of, if not “taste,” exactly, at least clothedness. But now the pendulum has swung the other way. Commentators are saying we overreacted, and that the FCC oughtn’t levy fines against the stations that broadcast the indecency, and that we shouldn’t be so uptight.

Look at the Europeans, they say. The Europeans are very casual about nudity, and their societies run just fine. But the Europeans are also very casual about bathing, and I don’t see America rushing to emulate that.

Of course, I’m uncomfortable with a lot of things in public. Even mild public displays of affection strike me as odd. When I see a couple walking down the street and the man has his arm around the woman, I think, “Why? Are you afraid she’s going to escape?” It always looks like a kidnapping to me.

At any rate, it is clear the nation is becoming more libertine than I’m comfortable with. And it’s not that I’m embarrassed by certain body parts, or find them “dirty” or whatever. It’s more that I think women ought to have more respect for themselves than to go dressing all trashy. It’s not the flesh that bothers me, but the mindset that wants to expose it all the time. Have we objectified women so thoroughly that the only way they can find self-esteem is to objectify themselves?

There has recently been a rash of dirty-old-man-ism in the media as guys have eagerly counted down the days until their favorite underage actresses turn 18. I’m not sure why it is more acceptable for a 35-year-old man to lust after an 18-year-old actress than a 17-year-old one — to actually go out with, yes, because there are laws to consider, but to lust after, what’s the difference? Not like her being 18 suddenly means she wants to date a greasy Internet loser who is twice her age.

MaryKate&Ashley Olsen and Lindsay Lohan are the most recent objects of this creepy affection, all three of them having turned 18 within the past several months to the cheers of many men much older than they. Yet all three girls also appeared, while still 17, in movies in which they dressed provocatively and behaved sexily — the Olsen twins in “New York Minute,” and Lohan in “Mean Girls.” Luckily, no one saw “New York Minute,” not even the people who made it, not even the projectionists in the theaters that showed it. The film was so bad that on some prints, instead of the movie, all you could see was 90 minutes of Satan sitting in a hot tub. But “Mean Girls” was good, and people did see it, and Lohan was in the public eye quite a bit with premieres and interviews and such, and is it fair to condemn men for ogling her when she appears dressed like this?

Chest in Show

Bustin’ Loose

It Was the Breast of Times

Exhibit DD

These pictures were all taken when Lohan was still 17, mind you. The double standard isn’t fair: It’s creepy for men to fantasize about underage girls, but the underage girls dress as if they want men to fantasize about them.

And it’s not just celebrities, of course. If you spend as much time as I do hanging out at shopping malls and high school parking lots, you’ll see teenagers dressed in all manner of hoocheous clothing, including the most unfortunate trend of the past five years, the low-rise jeans. These things look good on maybe 1 percent of the population, but they’re pretty much all the stores sell at the moment, as you know if you spend as much time in the women’s clothing section as I do. You can’t buy non-low-rise; you have to buy the low-rise and show everyone your hip bones (or, in most cases, the plenteous flesh that covers them, squeezed so it oozes over the top of the jeans like melted marshmallow out of a s’more).

So it’s an epidemic of skankiness — a skankidemic, if you will — and I wonder how long it will last. To comport oneself with dignity is not viewed as something to aspire to in the modern age. We are informal and irony-laden: Anyone behaving with class MUST be putting on airs and must therefore be mocked. So you gots to act cool and casual and let it all hang out, yo. But maybe the pendulum will swing the other way. Maybe in 10 years it will become fashionable to cover one’s body completely, head to toe, shoulder to wrist. Maybe the new image of hotness will be the nun look. Maybe nudity will become boring, and covering everything up will be scandalous. I mean, probably not, but maybe. That would rock.

It was a windy, humid summer evening in July when I drove into my apartment complex and nearly struck a goose. I don’t mean that metaphorically, as in, “Eugene’s date was so offensive that when I caught a whiff of her, I nearly struck a goose.” I mean there was an actual goose, wandering around the parking lot, all long-necked and stiff-legged, waddling like Charlie Chaplin in a diaper. (I don’t mean the goose was in a diaper. I mean the goose waddled the way Charlie Chaplin would if he, Charlie Chaplin, were in a diaper.)

The goose’s presence was unusual because there are no bodies of water close enough to the apartments for her to have meandered over from home. We do have a swimming pool, but I doubt its high levels of chlorine and pee would make it conducive to sustaining waterfowl. So whence came this goose?

I parked my car and walked over toward her — I must assume she was female, for if she was male, she was technically a gander, not a goose, and I don’t want to say “gander” for a whole column — desiring to better learn her intentions and origins. Her neck was very long, and green in color, with a skinny head at the end of it — a Canada goose if I’d ever seen one, which I had not. All told, the bird was a little over two feet tall, and did not seem at all surprised to find herself walking along a busy downtown sidewalk (for now she had exited the parking lot and was moving street-ward). She was not threatening passersby, nor running about frantically. She was just walking around, looking around, like a tourist.

It was then I began to realize that we were not dealing with one of your smarter members of the goose family, as this particular specimen was entirely unafraid of cars. She moseyed out into the street, sort of zigzagging, her head lolling around as she took in the sights, the way three or four women who were friends might stroll casually down a city sidewalk, except she was in the street, and she was alone, and she was a goose. Cars were braking to let her pass, or swerving around her, or honking at her, which is a bad idea, because honking will just confuse a goose. (You have no idea what your horn is saying in goose language. For all you know, you’re insulting the goose’s mother.) One man had to stop his vehicle altogether because the goose was now in his lane — waddling with the flow of traffic, yes, but at a speed of approximately 1 mph, which was a good deal slower than the man wanted to go. He left his car in the middle of the road so he could chase the goose out of his path, and he pursued her for half a block before she finally deviated from the painted lines and made for the curb. Meanwhile, the man’s abandoned car was causing its own havoc with traffic; between a goose and a man who ditches his automobile so he can chase one, I don’t know who’s smarter.

The question was, why didn’t she fly away? Was she hurt? She didn’t appear to be, and she gave no indication of being in pain. I’m no goose doctor, but I would think an injured bird would nurse its wound, or favor one wing, or squawk a lot, or spurt blood, or something. Our subject was walking funny, but I think it’s just how geese walk. It was a little goose-step sort of maneuver, and I must say, it always looked scarier when Hitler’s SS did it. A fellow bystander said he’d seen her fly into the complex a little while earlier anyway. So it was apparently by choice that she was walking and not flying.

But we didn’t want her to get hit by a car, and in the post-dusk hours, this was becoming increasingly likely. In addition, she was wandering the streets of Salt Lake City, in Utah, a state where people hunt animals the way you or I go to the supermarket. I was surprised she didn’t already have shotgun holes in her.

By now she had crossed the street again and was approaching P.F. Chang’s China-Time Bistro and Good-Eatery. A Chinese restaurant seemed like a bad place for a live goose to hang out. Goose is not on their menu, but I wouldn’t blame them for adding it if the opportunity waddled right up to them and honked, “Eat me.” Clearly, something had to be done about this goose, and fast.

As luck would have it, one of the valets at P.F. Chang’s, unencumbered by diners who will actually pay to have someone park their cars for them, had enough free time and presence of mind to begin chasing the goose. His intent soon became clear: If he cornered the goose, she would have no alternative but to fly away, and once airborne, she would be safe, and would perhaps remember where it was she’d been heading in the first place.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the valet had experience in goose-pursuit, for it was only a matter of moments before he had successfully forced this one into the air. She flew quite capably and even beautifully, soaring up, up, up above the city street and toward freedom. A block later, she landed and started walking around again, sight-seeing as before.

I felt much better about the situation now, which was good, because I was tired of the goose and wanted to go home. We had established that the goose COULD fly, and simply didn’t want to. Gallivanting through a metropolitan area isn’t what geese are supposed to do, but as long as it was her decision, who am I to question? What am I, the goose police? No sir. After all, are we not all geese sometimes, remaining earthbound when we ought to be soaring, taking the easy route instead of the harder, more rewarding one? Do we not sometimes need the bored valet of experience to rouse us from our complacency and urge us toward our full potential? I daresay we do, my friends. That goose is us. Which will make it really weird when someone eats her.

Thanks to further advancements in Qwest’s ongoing commitment to incompetence, I was recently without DSL service for three days. Qwest’s explanation for the disruption was, “we r dum we dont no how 2 do stuf cuz we are 2 stupd lololololol w00t!,” followed by a fart noise. And that was after I asked to speak to a supervisor.

Having no service for three days meant I had to find other means of acquiring my news, entertainment and arguments. Like the pioneers of yesteryear, I had to dig up an old dial-up account I still had access to and try to make that suffice while I hunkered down for the long, wintery weekend, which actually occurred in the summertime.

Dial-up is not an acceptable alternative for someone used to high-speed Internet, however. It feels unbearably slow. It’s like driving a lightning-fast Porsche one day, and the next day, having a really slow Internet connection. (I am not good with analogies without Web assistance.) Believing in this case that it was better to go hungry than to eat lousy, worm-infested dial-up, I quickly abandoned it and resigned myself to enduring the weekend without Internet access at all.

This was going to be problematic. Anytime I have a question, I know our friend the Internet will have the answer, quickly and very often correctly. How was I going to learn anything without access to the Web? Already my mind was teeming with trivial questions, accompanied by panic over not being able to track down the answers. What were the opening lyrics to “Parents Just Don’t Understand” by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince? What is Armenia next to? Is “crystal meth” the same thing as “speed”? What was the name of that guy who was in that movie with the girl who had the thing? Television and human interaction could only distract me for so long before I would NEED to know the answers to these questions.

It’s amazing how quickly the Internet became an integral part of our lives. Just 10 years ago, if you’d read that I was to endure a weekend without “the Internet,” you’d have said, “What’s the Internet? And how am I reading this column if it doesn’t exist?” And thus a time-space paradox would have occurred, and the universe would have ceased to be. That’s how important the Internet is.

My point is, in only a decade, online communication has become as essential to our society as the telephone or profanity. Reuters reports that 75 percent of Americans above the age of 2 who live in homes with phone lines have Internet access. (Infants and hillbillies remain the two toughest demographics to reach.) In Salt Lake City, where I live, even homeless people have Internet access. The public library has computers that are for use not just by library card holders, but by ANYONE. Bums, slackers, terrorists, foreigners, anyone. It is truly a modern era when even hobos can check their e-mail and read The Onion.

The Internet has its beginnings in the 1960s, when computers were complicated, massive machines that occupied entire rooms, much like the late Marlon Brando. It wasn’t until the mid-’90s that the Net came to be used by ordinary people, but when it did, it took off like a rocket. For many Americans — and I understand it is also available to people outside America — it is their primary source of information.

I spent a good part of the weekend being peeved at Qwest, not just for the disruption in service, but for the stingy manner in which they credited my account. Qwest’s DSL is actually powered by MSN, and until recently, MSN handled the tech support and billing (though for convenience’ sake, the charge would appear on your regular Qwest phone bill, next to the standard mysterious telephone charges like “Federal Excise Tax” and “Excised Federal Taxation Tax”). During that time, when there was trouble with the service, I would call MSN and they would usually offer me a month’s free service by way of apology, even if the system was only down for a few hours. I liked that, because I like free stuff, and because I like it when businesses make convincing displays of actually caring about their customers.

Now, though, Qwest has taken over the tech support duties and brought the DSL customer service down to the same level as its telephone customer service, which is to say ain’t nobody happy anymore. The lady I spoke to in the billing department calculated that three days of no service amounted to about three dollars’ worth — but that she would GLADLY credit me a full TEN DOLLARS! She said it like she was the most charitable person ever to walk the earth, like Mother Teresa was a selfish skank who stole from crippled children compared to her, but I wasn’t falling for it: If these were still the MSN days, I’d have gotten a full $30 credit, not to mention massive, slobbering apologies! Massive, I tell you! AND SLOBBERING! And why was she even bringing Mother Teresa into it? That’s not cool.

So I was steamed about the Qwest business, and between being steamed and a few social obligations I had to attend to, the weekend pretty much flew by, albeit in a manner that felt completely disconnected from the world. My newspaper didn’t come or was stolen by a neighbor one of those days, too, so I was cut off from humanity even further.

When I rejoined society on the Internet on Tuesday, I was able to track down the answers to my nagging questions in a matter of seconds: “You know, parents are the same no matter time nor place/They don’t understand that us kids are gonna make some mistakes/So to you all the kids all across the land/There’s no need to argue, parents just don’t understand”; it’s between Turkey and Azerbjaijan, and it has a town called Zod, like the General in “Superman II”; yes; and Jeremy Piven. Life was back to normal — plus, I had a free $10 coming my way! W00t!

One of the problems with living in a democratic nation is that you are occasionally required to care about politics. In totalitarian regimes, you never have to think about it. The government does your voting for you, and as long as you don’t actively oppose whoever wins, they don’t murder you. Less time thinking about politics, more time to watch TV, that’s what I say.

But that’s not how it works in America. This country is run by The People (note: The People, the populace, not People, the magazine), which means The People have to care about what’s happening. Or they at least have to pretend to care so those around them will think they’re good Americans. Of course, if you express the wrong opinion, some people will think you’re a bad American anyway, so sometimes there’s no winning.

We are currently in a period, much to my personal dismay, in which political apathy is not an option. You will care about politics, or you will be perceived by your fellows as a slacker American. It’s an election year, after all, plus we have this quasi-war of dubious popularity on which everyone must state his position, and now there’s this rabble-rousing movie “Fahrenheit 9/11” that has roused, among other rabble, even movie geeks, who now fancy themselves civic-minded political commentators (albeit weaker and pastier than most) (and that’s saying something).

My problem with political discussions is that anyone passionate enough to engage in them seriously is usually also so passionate that they refuse to consider opposing arguments. They don’t really want to “discuss” politics; they want to preach about them, and to convert the listener. And of course the listener, being similarly passionate, is either already converted, or else he’s trying to convert the preacher to HIS side. Everyone wants to talk, but no one wants to listen. It’s like hanging out with actors.

As a decidedly moderate individual (in regards to politics, anyway; where it concerns Oreos, I am fanatical), I am bemused as I watch these discussions take place in person or in Internet forums. Political conversations between myself and like-minded (i.e., dumb) individuals are usually quite tame and misinformed, and it isn’t long before we grow tired of the subject and start discussing Spider-Man instead. But the hardcore political people are something else. They have conversations that are astonishing in their brutality and stubbornness. They generally go like this:

LIBERAL: Everything that every conservative commentator says is a complete lie! They just MAKE STUFF UP!
CONSERVATIVE: You think WE lie?! What about the liberals?! THEY’RE the ones who lie!
LIBERAL: Oh yeah? What about THIS lie you guys told? [Cites some lie.]
CONSERVATIVE: That wasn’t a lie! That was the truth. (Or: We never said that!) You wanna hear a lie, how about THIS one, that the liberals told! [Cites some lie.]
LIBERAL: We never said that! (Or: That wasn’t a lie! That was the truth.)
CONSERVATIVE & LIBERAL: The only reason you think the way you do is that you’re uninformed. If you knew the truth, you’d agree with me.
LIBERAL: You’re an idiot!
CONSERVATIVE: No, YOU’RE an idiot!

And so on. Basically, each side is so convinced his group is right that he assumes anything the other side says is automatically false. Why? Because it’s the other side saying it. Since Al Gore is not the president, liberals say he should have won and Bush stole the election, while conservatives say Bush won it fair and square. If Gore had wound up in the White House after the 2000 election brouhaha, the arguments would be running exactly the other direction now: liberals defending him, and conservatives saying he stole it.

If it had been liberal commentators who said we should invade Iraq, the liberals would have no problem with it. But since it was conservatives who said it, it’s WRONG! Likewise, conservatives would have no problem with, um, whatever ideas the liberals have had lately, if it weren’t for the fact that it was liberals who came up with them. Whatever they are, I mean.

I have to assume this is more or less what the Founding Fathers intended when they slapped together this great nation of ours. Not the narrow-mindedness — though if they didn’t intend that, they might have expected it — but the impassioned discussions and strongly held convictions. We see it even in the Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson in 1776: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness — though if we listened to that blasted conservative John Adams, no man would be able to pursue Happiness unless he had a Government license for Happiness-Pursuit tucked away in his Satchel.”

For people like me, who follow current events but have little interest in politics, who believe it scarcely matters who the president is as long as we have food to eat and places to live, who think Rush Limbaugh is a bombastic fathead and Al Franken is one of the least funny people alive — for us, these are trying times. Try to tell anyone in 2004 that you aren’t interested in political discourse, and they’ll say it’s because you just haven’t found the correct side to be on yet. But in fact, I have looked at all the issues, both sides, read the commentators — and I still don’t care. I have my opinions on who should be allowed to marry whom or abort what or invade where, and I’ll vote for whoever seems to agree with me the most. But I’m not going to expend all my breath and energy ripping apart the ones who disagree, because what good does that do? Any ripping-apart I do will be in the direction of people who occupy two parking spaces at once, or the people who live above me whose only method of communication is screaming. Politics are small potatoes compared to real life.

The sign on the vending machine at the post office says, “Change is given in Susan B. Anthony dollars!,” with the exclamation mark at the end. I don’t know if the punctuation is meant as enthusiasm or as a warning. Do they mean, “Hey! Guess what?! Change is given in SUSAN B. ANTHONY DOLLARS!! Woo-hoo!!!”? Or do they mean, “BE CAREFUL: If you use this machine and require change, you’re going to be stuck with Susan B. Anthony dollars. Just so you know”? (The point is moot anyway, because what the machine ACTUALLY gives you are Sacajawea dollars.)

* * * * *

The sign on the shopping cart corral in the parking lot at Albertson’s says, “For your safety and convenience, please return shopping carts here.” In truth, returning the shopping cart to the corral is neither safe nor convenient for me. Not convenient because it means walking farther, and not safe because I’ve been drinking heavily. The MOST convenient thing would be to just leave the cart in the parking lot, like most people do, and that’s not particularly unsafe, either, though it does increase the potential for damage to people’s cars.

But most people don’t think about that stuff. Most people see “for your safety and convenience,” and they think, “Hey, I like things that are safe and convenient! I’m going to do whatever that sign tells me!” If the sign said, “For your safety and convenience, please remove your pants,” people would be halfway unzipped before they realized that didn’t make any sense. I know I would be. (See: I’ve been drinking heavily.)

What Albertson’s MEANS is, “For OUR convenience, please return shopping carts here.” They should make it say that.

* * * * *

The signs on several parking spaces at Golden Corral say, “Reserved for senior citizens.”

This is Golden Corral. Isn’t the whole place reserved for senior citizens?

* * * * *

The sign near the check-out at Wal-Mart says, “For your convenience, tobacco and alcohol is sold only at register #19. Thanks!”

I’m ill-equipped to even address the issue of using “is” when “are” is called for — unless “Tobacco&Alcohol” is a new combo product I don’t know about — let alone to handle the fact that this poorly worded sign is reproduced and placed on every register in the store.

The more important issue is, how does selling cigarettes and beer at only one register make things more convenient for me, the average customer? It benefits me in no way whatsoever. And if I were actually buying tobacco and/or alcohol and/or Tobacco&Alcohol, it would be the very opposite of convenient — inconvenient, that would be — to make me stand in one specific line instead of whichever line I wanted. What if register #19 has the longest line in the entire store, full of dumpy women stuffed into their belly shirts buying baby formula while accompanied by three filthy barefoot children? Then I, as a cigarette or beer purchaser, have been inconvenienced beyond all reason, if I am indeed forced into register #19’s line!

* * * * *

The poster in the doctor’s examining room lists several sexually transmitted diseases and their symptoms. For chlamydia, it says, “burning sensation when you urinate,” followed by the explanatory “(pee).”

It is alarming to think there are individuals capable of having sex and contracting chlamydia who have to be told what “urinate” means.

* * * * *

The billboard says, “Super man,” and it has a picture of Christopher Reeve, who of course fell off a horse and now he can’t walk and that means he’s a hero, or something. Then it says, “Strength. Pass It On.” It is a billboard advertising “Strength.” It does not indicate where a person can obtain this product, however. Is it at stores? Is it online? Where do you get Strength?

Another billboard from the same campaign has a picture of some guy and says, “Climbed Everest. Blind.” This billboard is brought to you by “Vision,” which seems rather cruel, given that it has a picture of a blind guy on it, though I guess maybe he doesn’t know.

But anyway, apparently, this guy climbed Mr. Everest despite being visually impaired. That is a stunning achievement indeed. It caused me to reflect on my own limitations, specifically the fact that if I were his guide up the mountain, I would stop after a couple hours of climbing and say, “Well, here we are at the top! Didn’t take as long as I thought it would!” and then head back down. And that makes me a bad person.

This is the last column I will write from my beloved condo in Orem, Utah. Why? Because I am dying.

No! I kid. I’m alive and well and have at least another five years in me before my body succumbs to the steady barrage of chocolate fudge Pop-Tarts it is forced to absorb. The reason I will no longer be writing from Orem is that I have sold the condo and, by the time you read this, will have moved to an apartment in Salt Lake City.

Out-of-state readers may not recognize the significance in this move, so I will explain it in clear, lucid terms: Orem is in a place called “Utah Valley,” and Utah Valley does a thing called “suck.” Utah Valley is for families and college students, and has little to offer someone who belongs to neither category. I have lived here since 1995, first as a BYU student, then as a professional journalist, and now as neither. I did not generally get along with Utah Valleyans when I attempted to amuse or inform them as a newspaper writer, and my subsequent dealings with them have not inspired any emotion beyond what you would call passing apathy. To me they are like second cousins: nice enough, I suppose, but I feel no strong kinship with them.

Salt Lake City, on the other hand, located 40 miles to the north, is in a whole different valley and is a good deal bigger, hipper, cooler and awesomer. A majority of its citizens AREN’T Mormon, which is a rarity in Utah. And while I am a Mormon, and love the Mormon religion, and even love Mormons in large groups when they are acting in their capacity as Mormons (i.e., at church), I am not fond of them in large groups when they dominate every aspect of everyday life. I like a little variety, a little nuance, a little shocking worldliness every now and then. Sometimes it’s good to see examples of what you don’t believe in to remind you of what you do believe in. Besides, maybe I’ll start drinking beer, and maybe I’ll want to buy it on Sundays. You never know.

Why love a religion and its principles, yet decline to live in a place where 95 percent of the people believe the same way? I dunno. It makes sense to me. I love the ocean, too, but I wouldn’t want to live in it.

Anyway, it’s the SLC for me now, and that meant having to move all my stuff. Moving is one of the few things that everyone in the world can agree on: We hate it. Some people enjoy packing, some people enjoy unpacking, some people might even enjoy lugging boxes onto a U-Haul. But NO ONE enjoys ALL of it. There is always some part of it — for most people, it’s most parts of it — that is loathsome and agonizing.

You think you’ve established a nice existence for yourself, with a lot of comfortable belongings to surround you. Then you move, and you realize your entire life can, in fact, be put into boxes and carried away.

More sobering is when you’re actually lifting and carrying those boxes, and you realize that maybe you do have a lot of belongings after all. In fact, maybe you have TOO MANY belongings, because maybe there are what, A MILLION BOXES HERE?!?

Since I hate moving so much, I felt awkward asking friends to help me. If I were honest, all I’d be able to say is this: “Look, I know how much I hate moving, and I assume you feel the same way. And of course you know that if the situation were reversed, I would find any excuse not to help you. In fact, some of you have moved in the past, and when it happened, I did indeed discover ways of not helping, often going to elaborate lengths. But you knew not to take it personally, because you knew me and you knew my ways. And now I am asking for your help. We both know you are a better person than I am, and now is your chance to prove it.”

Luckily, several friends either had not personally experienced my unwillingness to help them move, or managed to overlook it and help me anyway. One of these was my Fat Brother Jeff, whose familial connection obligated him to help. For some reason, he was wearing shorts that were too big for him, as he has recently lost 40 pounds (only 300 to go!), and so they kept falling down when his hands were occupied with carrying boxes or furniture. We all found great amusement in this, as it was like watching an episode of “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” (Which episode? All of them.)

Another task I had to perform was to evict Raoul (names have been changed), my ill-tempered, absent-minded Argentine roommate. He couldn’t stay in the condo, since I was selling it, and he certainly couldn’t move to the SLC with me, since I don’t like him. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here, that was the gist of it. He moved out while I was out of town a few weeks ago, so I returned to find myself living in a 100 percent Raoul-free environment. Surprisingly, he remembered to leave the door key behind. (I thought for sure he would forget and take it with him.) But, to remind me how scatter-brained he was, he left the toilet running (you have to jiggle the handle) and the sliding glass door open. He had also ordered two pay-per-view films of a questionable nature from DirecTV in my absence, as I discovered upon examining the bill a week later. So Raoul was gone, but his spirit lived on.

This was especially so when I had to clean his bathroom prior to vacating the premises. A normal person would have cleaned his own bathroom before he moved out, and maybe Raoul did address the lavatory in some way that to him meant he had cleaned it. But this is the same man who believes merely wiping the raw meat from his hands with a dishtowel after he has made hamburger patties is the same as “washing” them, so his idea of “cleaning” something is probably different from ours. Maybe he spat on the bathroom floor, rubbed it around with his foot, and called it a dia. My point is, his bathroom was a frightful mess.

The shower, in particular, did not appear to have been cleaned ever, at any point. Somehow the filth replicated itself, because while the shower was only three years old, it was encrusted with at least five years’ worth of dirt. I tried all normal cleansers, but my weapons were useless against it. Finally, with a lot of elbow grease — which I’d been saving in an empty can on the stove every time I cooked elbows — and some heavy-duty industrial-strength cleaning products, I made the shower inhabitable. How long it stays that way is up to the new residents, who, if they are true Utah Valleyans, probably wish I hadn’t said “suck” earlier.