Hooked on the Brothers (and Sisters)

The '90s TV program "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show," designed to cash in on the popular video game franchise, featured a theme song that included killer lyrics such as these:

"We're the Mario Brothers, and plumbing's our game
We 're not like the others who get all the fame
If yo' sink is in trouble y'can call us on the double,
We're faster than the others, you'll be hooked on the brothers!

The show was, well, terrible. Worst of all was the choreography for "Do the Mario," featured during the closing credits and sung/danced by Captain Lou Albano, aka Mario.

It didn't make any of us like the video games any less, but it did make us all cringe a great deal.

Anyhow, my topic today revolves around being "hooked on the brothers"—or, rather, the brethren (and sisters) who lead and guide the Church in these latter days. They're amazing, valiant, strong, inspired, and exemplary people, and I enjoyed so many of their talks from this weekend's biannual general conference.

I am hooked on the brothers (and sisters).

Speaking of the sisters, did you know that the still-relatively new general women's meeting is now considered to be the first session of a six-session general conference?

True story.

This conference was also the first at which speakers were invited to give their talks in their native languages, and we ended up with Conference Center sermons delivered in Cantonese, Portuguese, and Spanish.

It's wonderful to be reassured twice a year like this that, as Elder Bednar taught, "Absolute truth exists in a world that increasingly disdains and dismisses absolutes."

Success

Week #10 on the Island of Misfit Toys: The wife of one of the counselors in our bishopric taught today's combined, fifth-Sunday lesson. Because, as we've all been hearing repeatedly for the past week, women have no real authority to teach and don't have a voice, nor can they really do anything at all significant in the Church.

No, seriously, I'm not going to get into that topic today.

This was an inspired lesson about "success" and the choices/behaviors/habits that will lead us to real, lasting success.

She began her lesson by passing out pieces of blank paper and asking us to write down specific actions or goals that would lead us to success. I began rather tongue-in-cheekily, jotting down a list that included:

- Getting 100 likes on a Facebook status

- The Jazz making a smart draft pick at #5

- USA winning the men's World Cup, or at very least not getting terribly, embarrassingly beaten by Belgium Tuesday

- Burning down the South and then doing baptisms for the dead

- Eating bacon

- Climbing atop the Rameumptom to thump your chest, and then shouting out to the world exactly why you and your kin and your entourage are better than everyone else. Use good grammar, and give specific examples.

- Having muscles and a jeep. Or a Mini Cooper. I won't judge.

- A six-figure salary. Or more!

- Owning your own mansion, fully staffed with a butler, maid, masseuse, personal trainer, jester, llamas, and other servants/pets (what's the difference, really?) you can apply the strap to mercilessly whenever you feel like it.

 - Beating everyone else at Mario Kart

By the world's standards, that's a pretty good list. Well, the world's standards, as usual, are wrong.

I also wrote a list of "real" reasons, which included:

- Keeping the commandments

- Being Christlike

 - Building up, rather than tearing down, others. True success is a win-win proposition whereas, according to the world, you must lose and I must win in order to be successful.

- Peace of conscience/mind

- Perspective

- Serving others

- Family

- Saying "please" and "thank you." A lot. Because some of the most miserable people I know are also some of the most ungrateful.

- Friends/being a friend, without regard to another's creed, religion, beliefs, sexual orientation, etc.

- Finding joy in the journey

- Magnifying my talents/callings

- Tender mercies of the Lord

I like the second list better. Also, I put "eating bacon" over on the second list.

Angry Tunes

By definition, one word to describe the Angry White Loner is angry. Without that particular adjective, or the words white or loner, you've got no Angry White Loner. And that would certainly be a doggone shame.

Those who know me, however, know that the term Angry White Loner is something of a misnomer. Unless I'm stuck in traffic and I'm late for a very important date. Or I'm playing Halo with friends and I'm on what you might call a "dying spree." Or I'm mailing my tax payment in to the federal government (which is actually only a few days away now).

But no, not Bruce Banner/Hulk angry. Or Michael Douglas in the movie Falling Down angry. Or Katie Kaboom angry. (Anybody out there remember Katie from "Animaniacs"?)

Other than those instances, though, the phrase, as I originally mentioned in my very first post over a year ago, is actually based on a character I am wont to play in an improv game we call "Press Conference."

Speaking of improv, I really enjoyed tonight's troupe workshop. I always enjoy our troupe workshops, though tonight's was especially fun, because it was a music-centric workshop. Performing improvised music is both one of the most challenging and the most rewarding parts of performing live improv. If you've been to one of our performances, then you know from firsthand experience what I mean. If you haven't been to one of our performances—I've been appearing with this group for six years now, for heaven's sake—well, why are we still friends?

Just kidding about that last part. Only partly.

I was given the emotion "anger" in a new singing game that we learned. When it was my turn to sing, this came out:

"Sitting in my room alone, I'm listening to Evanescence;
My woman's left me, yeah, she's the queen of putrescence!"

Sometimes, you surprise even yourself!

Dave Barry refers to heavy metal music as "music to slaughter cattle by." All of the bands/songs in "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Angry White Boy Polka" also fit in the category. Even one of my favorite classical music pieces, Edvard Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King," I would say, fits the bill.

Basically, anything you could punch-dance to, like Andy Samberg in Hot Rod or Kevin Bacon in Footloose, might very well be "angry" music.

What's your favorite piece of angry music? Post them in the comments section. Or don't. Whatever floats your boat.

Be nice about it! Not angry.

Hot Guy Saves the Universe

The Angry White Loner and his five-year-old nephew have been hanging out a lot lately, usually by playing video games or with LEGO bricks, or, combining the best of both worlds, playing LEGO-themed video games. Because that's just the kind of awesome uncle the AWL is.

At five years old, my nephew is too young to see The Avengers, which is rated PG-13, and many of the other popular superhero-themed movies now making guys exclaim "Cool!" and women pass out. Through the LEGO Marvel Super Heroes video game, however, I've been introducing him to the likes of Iron Man, Spider-Man, Thor, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and so forth.

A recent conversation with him went like this:

Nephew: Who is that guy?

AWL: The one with the bow and arrows?

Nephew: Yeah.

AWL: His name is Hawkeye.

Nephew: Hot Guy?

AWL: Your mom sure thinks so, yeah.

I Should Be So Lucky

Luck . . .

It seems like it's never on my side. If I drop a piece of buttered toast, and this happens more often than I'd like to admit, it usually lands butter-side down. I also enter my fair share of contests, drawings, and games of chance but never win any.

Until Wednesday, that is. And it happened twice.

On Wednesday afternoon, I checked in for my usual bi-weekly plasma donation appointment, because that's just the kind of giving and chivalrous guy I am, to learn that I had won a random drawing for a $75 Visa gift card to spend on anything I wished.

Wednesday was also, coincidentally, my niece Kylee's 16th birthday, so I used part of the funds on the card to take her out to lunch and to buy her a gift card of her own at the mall. Like I said, giving and chivalrous guy and all that.

Later Wednesday night, some friends and I made our monthly visit to the Nickelmania arcade out in Midvale. I *ahem* used some of the funds from my aforementioned gift card to pay for my entrance fee, as well as a bag full of nickels to spend. Among other classic arcade favorites, I tackled The Simpsons Game as Homer, beating the game alone from start to finish.

Yes, sometimes, the Angry White Loner does things to remind himself about the loner part of his name.

Anyway, I finished off Mr. Burns at about 10:55 p.m., just five minutes prior to closing time at Nickelmania. And I still had a bag of nickels, more than half full, in my possession.

I then moved over to one of the games of chance at said location, one that requires three nickels per turn and which then allows you to push a button to drop a bouncy ball, which lands in one of several open holes and wins you a certain number of tickets. In four minutes' time, I managed to dispense of most of my remaining nickels and won forty or so tickets in the process.

Down to my final two nickels, and needing three nickels to take a final turn, I remembered that I still had an extra nickel in my wallet, and I played one final turn. At 10:59 p.m., just seconds before closing time, the ball bounced into the Monster Jackpot, giving me a whopping 1,260 additional tickets.

My good fortune gave me enough tickets to buy a safe piggy bank gift for my friend Modern-Day Muse, whose birthday also fell on Wednesday. Close to 1,000 other tickets were left over to save for my next visit to Nickelmania. 'Cause there ain't no swag like Nickelmania swag.

All told, I may have used up my decade's-worth quota for good luck in one 24-hour period. If that's the case, then so be it.

I'd rather be lucky than good.

Right or Easy

Admittedly, I am far from being the world's biggest Harry Potter fan. I have read only one of the seven books, and I found some of the movies in the series to be rather unmemorable. Visiting the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Florida and drinking a glass of Butterbeer ranks somewhat low among my idea of an ideal vacation. Perhaps most telling of all, I once took an online Sorting Hat quiz, and it turns out I belong in Slytherin.

Nevertheless, I will be the first to admit that the franchise contains many memorable characters who either join Harry or take the opposite side in the fight between good and evil, and it also contains some profound teachings through them.

One of these is in the fourth book/film, The Goblet of Fire. Following the death of Cedric Diggory, which allowed "actor" Robert Pattinson to go off and star in a far-less memorable movie franchise, Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore tells Harry: “Dark times lie ahead of us, and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.”

As it applies to us muggles, I believe that we are now living in a time in which we face two important choices, and they are certainly choices between what is right and what is easy. The distinction between the two is clear, and the divide will continue to grow as times get even darker.

Remember the friend I posted about here on the Angry White Loner a few months ago—the one who was falling away from his faith and was, not coincidentally, also utterly miserable? The latest Facebook post by this friend, sadly, reflected only more of the same. He now believes that the Christian God is uncaring and unloving. I've offered to help this friend on many occasions and to take him to institute with me, but he refuses to do so and seems to continue to choose to become consumed with vitriol and skepticism.

It's very saddening to watch friends or loved ones fall away from those principles and teachings that would make them truly happy, and unfortunately I've seen it taken place now several times over the years. One of the most disappointing was one of my mission companions, someone who (at that time) once was a positive influence on me and who pushed me to become a better missionary. The saddest part of it all is that these people don't ever seem to end up in a better place but, rather, what Dumbledore would call an "easier" place—one with fewer responsibilities and expectations for themselves but also with less joy and no growth. If there's one who's truly in a better place and I have missed it, I would be happy to be proven wrong. They also, with few exceptions, seem to become the Church's most vile critics and detractors. As President Hinckley once said, "They leave the Church, but they can't leave it alone."

I believe our Heavenly Father truly loves and cares for us and wants to make us happy both temporally and eternally (see Moses 1:39). Sometimes, He has to use tough love to teach us what He wants us to learn, and it's difficult to see so much suffering in a world in which people can be affected so adversely by both other people's choices and natural disasters. But, like any parent, He wants the very best for His children.

That's just the AWL's opinion. And now, off to play LEGO Harry Potter.