Anger to the Max

Unless you've been living on another planet, by now you know that the BYU Cougars and the Utah Runnin' Utes played their annual football game over the weekend.

It was a hard-fought contest, as it always is when these two teams meet. The Utes dominated the first and fourth quarters, while the Cougars dominated the second and third quarters. By the end of regulation, the score was tied at 20-20. In overtime, the Cougars edged the Utes 26-23 on Max Hall's touchdown pass to Andrew George.


If losing to BYU weren't offensive enough to Ute fans, Cougar quarterback Max Hall was interviewed afterward and said: "I don't like Utah. In fact, I hate them. I hate everything about them. I hate their program, I hate their fans, I hate everything. . . . I think the whole university, their fans and their organization, is classless. They threw beer on my family and stuff last year, and they did a whole bunch of nasty things, and I don't respect them, and they deserve to lose."

As a result, I have been spending much of the weekend reading comments on Facebook or otherwise hearing war chants from deeply offended Ute fans, calling Max Hall the spawn of Satan and saying that Max needs to die, preferably by being drawn and quartered at the earliest possible moment.


Let's face it; Max Hall is a good person. He got caught up in the heat of the moment and said some stupid things, for which he issued an apology the next day. But did anyone catch the part in which he said that last year Ute fans at Rice-Eccles Stadium were verbally abusive to his family, poured beer on them, and made vulgar and obscene gestures? Did these people ever apologize to the Hall family? Somehow, that seems to get lost in all of the hoopla.


I do not condone what Max said. But I can understand why he would say it.

In 2006, I sat in the stands of Rice-Eccles Stadium at that year's BYU/Utah football game, rooting for the Cougars. Throughout the game, the Ute fans who surrounded my brother and me - from teenagers and college-age attendees to men in their 50s and 60s - were verbually abusive to us and directed a slew of foul language our way. This handful of rowdy fans was definitely "classless"; I have never been treated so poorly as an opposing fan at any sporting event. (The only saving grace of attending that game, in fact, was John Beck's TD pass to Johnny Harline as time expired, capping a 33-31 Cougar victory. You could have heard a pin drop in the once-rowdy Ute cheering section as we filed out of the stands.)

As a closet Cougar fan, I also once worked in the ticket office at several Ute football games. During that period of time, I heard countless negative and classless comments uttered about the Cougars and the BYU organization as a whole.

Again, I don't justify what Max said. But having had a few personal experiences with rude Ute fans myself, I do understand why he said it. Most anyone whose family had been attacked in that manner would feel the same way.

Further, some Ute fans tend to forget that Utah standouts Alex Smith and Morgan Scalley - otherwise good and upstanding people, like Max Hall - each uttered hateful comments about BYU in years past.


My point, and I do have one, is that in the BYU/Utah rivalry, it's a two-way street. Players and fans on both sidelines have said and done dumb things in the heat of the moment. And I'm not saying that BYU fans are innocent of mistreating Ute fans, either; classless acts have occured on both sidelines.

Fortunately, the vast majority of the people I know and am friends with, both those who bleed blue and those who bleed red, would and will never act in this inappropriate manner.

How does that apply to us, then - the so-called "normal" people who go to these games and root at these events? I think what happened to Max Hall's family is an important reminder of the responsibility we all share to stop verbal (and other types of) abuse if and when we see it take place, either by intervening personally or by contacting ushers to have unruly fans booted. There is a greater need for civility and common decency on both sides.

Many Thanks

This was the year for my married siblings to attend their in-laws' Thanksgiving meals - we tend to trade off year after year - so there was no Thanksgiving Day meal at the Plowman household this year.

Instead, my cousin Scott and his family invited my parents, Steve, Becky, and I down to their home in Lehi for a Thanksgiving meal that included Claudia's (Scott's wife) parents, Tony and Margarita, and sister, Elizabeth, along with her family.

With 20-plus mouths to feed, Claudia and the others who brought food and goodies had their work cut out for them. Somehow, our plethora of pickings worked together very nicely, and we all enjoyed a good meal together.



It had been some time since I had seen Tony and Margarita, and it was good to visit with them as well as to dust off my Spanish.

It had also been about six months since I had seen Scott, Claudia, or their kids, and it was good to catch up with them. Steve and I both noted that 14-year-old Ashlyne and 12-year-old Meikayla had seemingly grown up by leaps and bounds during that time. Chantel just turned 19 years old and is in the process of finishing her first semester at UVU in Orem, and Eden is now a senior at Lehi High and continues to act in school productions and make excellent Lego-animated films on the side.

Ten-year-old Madison also challenged me to my first-ever game of Stratego and proceeded to mop the floor with me in that game.


Following the meal, Steve, Becky, and I stayed around for a few extra hours to play other board games with our cousins, including Sequence, Apples to Apples, and Imaginiff.

It was a long and busy Thanksgiving Day today, but I always consider time spent with family as time well spent. And that may the thing for which I am most grateful right now.

FHE Dance Party '09, Take Two

It was another great family home evening and another enjoyable ward dance tonight.

There was no theme this time, although cha-cha, waltz, and Lindy hop instruction was included, and new ward member Kyle handled the D.J. duties very capably. That left me free to "Y.M.C.A.," "Electric Slide," disco hustle, and otherwise boogie to my heart's content for basically the entire three hours.


Heck, we even ended the evening by doing the "Macarena" together. It had been several years. I found that the rumor is true - you can perform the actions to "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" in tune with the song.

I am already aching and sore from tonight's festivities, but it was well worth it. Good times were had by all.

RSL Wins the Cup!

This past weekend, our very own professional soccer team, Real Salt Lake, edged Landon Donovan, David Beckham, Posh Spice, and the Los Angeles Galaxy in penalty kicks following a 1-1 tie in regulation and overtime to win their first-ever Major League Soccer cup.

It was quite the amazing accomplishment, especially when you consider that RSL had a sub-.500 record during the regular season of play and that teams from our state, well, rarely win things like these - ever. RSL was an underdog in pretty much every sense of the word. If you listened to the ESPN commentators, they were basically rooting for L.A. to win, too.

Assuming you live in another galaxy, of course, this would be a news flash.

Taking home the championship to Utah is rather cool stuff, I must say. Having spent many years playing soccer while I was growing up, I have been a fan of the sport for a long time. Having also spent a couple of years working part-time in the Real Salt Lake ticket office when the team still played at Rice-Eccles Stadium, I have basically been an RSL fan since they became an expansion team five seasons ago.

Now, if only the Jazz could get on board this championship thing. . . .

"Shredder Buys a Shredder"

Here is a very funny short video recently posted to YouTube by Jeff Krammer, brother of my Improvables colleague Scott. It pretty well speaks for itself, especially if you are a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan:

Improvables on YouTube: November 13, 2009

Here are three of the latest Improvables videos uploaded to YouTube, games that were played during last week's Friday the 13th show at Rodgers Memorial Theatre: "Musical Hot Spot," "Accents," and "The Dating Game." I was the M.C. of this show, which featured Bryan, Johnny, Keenan, Michael, Parker, and Shannon.

Great Balls of Fire!

Late last night or early this morning, depending on how you look at things, I was working on the computer when crash! bam! alakazam! a very bright light shined in the sky to the west, lighting up everything I could see outside of my window for about two or three seconds, after which everything went dark again.

My initial thought was that another refinery in Woods Cross had exploded. That was followed by a thought - and it was not an altogether unpleasant one - that Las Vegas had been incinerated by a nuclear explosion and that Harrison Ford would soon come bouncing down my street in a lead-lined refrigerator.

Then, this morning, I learned that what I saw was actually caused by a meteor that landed somewhere in the western desert of Utah or the eastern desert of Nevada.

By now, this is old news if you live here along the Wasatch Front, but for the benefit of any readers outside of that sphere - assuming I still have any - it was pretty dang cool.

Cold Dogs and Warm Hearts

For last night's family home evening activity, a handful of members of my ward and I braved very cold temperatures and ventured up into Mueller Park Canyon in east Bountiful to build a bonfire, cook s'mores and hot dogs, and drink hot chocolate.

In spite of the unseasonably cold temperature, which dropped somewhere into the mid-20s, we nevertheless managed to have a great time together. When you're surrounded by good people, just about anything can be enjoyable at almost any temperature.

At this point, my aforementioned tooth had not yet been fixed - I finally made it to the dentist this morning - so biting into the frozen chocolate of s'mores last night was no simple task.

Not surprisingly, it appeared that we were the only ones up in the canyon on a night like Monday night. In addition to cooking s'mores and hot dogs, the Bishop gave a spiritual thought, and we sang Primary songs.

We are, indeed, a "peculiar people," and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Good times were had by all.

Toothless People

Yesterday afternoon, one of my front teeth became loose and began to wobble and wiggle. Then, earlier today, the tooth simply fell out in my hand as I was brushing my teeth and getting ready for church.

As of tonight, this is how I now look:


To say that the ladies at church today found my smile irresistibly attractive would not only be an understatement; it would also be a lie!

Today's incident was just another one of the many problems I have had with this same tooth over the years. It originally chipped back when I was in the sixth grade and I attempted to run up the slide on the playground at recess; a classmate of mine slid right into me, knocking me off my feet and face forward into the slide. (Whether or not he did it on purpose was a source of controversy for the remainder of the school year.)

A few years later, the tooth chipped again when I bit into a sucker.

Good times, these. Can't wait to go to the dentist this week!

It's Beginning to Sound a Lot like Christmas

Here it is, mid-November, Thanksgiving is still two weeks away, and Christmas music is being played on many of Utah's radio stations - some on a 24/7 basis.

I love Christmas music, and I'm honestly ready to listen to it once the dust from Halloween clears. What I often don't love, however, is the song selection employed by many of these radio stations. It is often, well, boring - for lack of a better word. Every other song seems to be sung by either Céline Dion, Gloria Estefan, or Mariah Carey. As far as putting me to sleep goes, many of these songs work faster than, say, tuning in to C-SPAN or the Home Shopping Network.

I would love to be a radio D.J. for a day and shake up any one of these Christmas song lineups significantly. We all can dream, right?

Because I have nothing better to do today, and due to a discussion I recently had with some friends about the worst or most boring Christmas songs out there, I now present my Top 10 list of the worst Christmas songs:

#10. "All I Want for Christmas Is You," by Mariah Carey It's a Mariah Carey song - need I say more?

#9. "Redneck 12 Days of Christmas," by Jeff Foxworthy This song only serves to give me yet another reason to dislike country music.

#8. "The Little Drummer Boy" I don't doubt the Little Drummer Boy's heart nor his good intentions, but I think a drum is about the last thing a mother would want her newborn baby to hear.

#7. "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town," by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band As a children's song this is harmless, but when Bruce Springsteen tries to make it sound funky, it just comes across as annoying.

#6. "Do They Know It's Christmas," by Band Aid In the mid-'80s, a group of pop and rock singers, including Bono and Phil Collins, got together and formed Band Aid with the intention of raising money for the poor in Africa. However noble that effort was, the result was this song, which at times sounds like a rejected Superman theme.

#5. "Mary, Did You Know?" by Kenny Rogers Everytime I hear this song, I want to scream, Yes, Kenny. She knew! She knew before anybody else!

#4. "O Little Town of Bethlehem," by Bob Dylan "O Little Town of Bethlehem" was one of my favorite Christmas songs until I recently heard Bob Dylan butcher it like no one else could. This one really has to be heard to be believed - it's that bad.

#3. "Feliz Navidad," by Céline Dion If you thought José Feliciano's original version of "Feliz Navidad" was bad, well, Céline Dion's is 100 times worse because of - well, Céline Dion.

#2. "Christmas Shoes," by NewSong Pretty much everyone I've talked to lately is of the consensus that this is a terribly annoying song in spite of its intention of spreading Christmas cheer and goodwill. I don't think anything further needs to be said!

#1. Santa Baby No matter who sings it, be it Madonna or Miss Piggy, this is a dirty, filthy song that sounds like nails on the chalkboard to me and is easily my least-favorite Christmas song ever recorded.