Santa Parade 2023

A new Christmas season has brought with it a new Santa parade, this year being our ward's fourth annual event. By popular demand, JB and I were asked to reprise our roles as Mrs. and Santa Claus, respectively. With wonderful memories of last year's parade still at the forefront in our minds, we eagerly accepted the opportunity and considered it a great privilege.

Last year, breathing through the fake beard caused my glasses to fog up frequently, making it difficult for me to see people up close for a majority of our time on the float. Hence, I prepared this year's parade by growing out my beard following Halloween. JB then helped me out earlier on this evening by applying costume paint before the parade, giving me a bona fide white Santa beard.

It was another very cold December night, but at least we had chairs next to each other this time and could snuggle up together for some warmth.

Once again, this experience was not unlike being treated like a celebrity. Not only did several ward members come out of their homes to wave at us, but also several others not of our ward—people who happened to be driving by—pulled over and took their kids over to our float to take pictures with us. Three very anxious kids even hand-delivered letters to Santa ... which we will answer in the next few days.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Paco Reviews: "Top Gun: Maverick"

JB and I had tickets to see Top Gun: Maverick on Memorial Day. But then the Killer Martian Death Flu came along for us both, and we ended up spending our holiday weekend feeling awful.

But life goes on! Today, I present for you a review of Top Gun: Maverick, the long-awaited sequel to 1986's Top Gun, which we finally saw this week on $6 Tuesday. I was 10 years old when the first movie came out, and over the years, I've learned that women around me tend to salivate if you merely mention the words Top Gun and/or Tom Cruise. They looooove that movie. A lot.

Admittedly, the first movie had some cool parts. It was a bona fide slice of the '80s and of all of the burly masculinity associated with that decade, from Tom Cruise's and Val Kilmer's shirtless sand volleyball match to the derpy love song by the band Berlin (which somehow, someway actually won an Academy Award for Best Song ... I can't explain how), to Tom's soprano-ish voice warbling through "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" to Anthony Edwards actually having hair and a mustache before he went on to being a doctor on "ER" and lost all that hair in a tragic blow drying accident (I honestly don't know; I didn't watch the first couple of seasons).

Anyhow, this Top Gun sequel brings us back, 36 years after the original. Maverick is still a dangerous dude and keeps pulling his renegade tricks. When he's not soaring through the skies, he's still speeding around on the roads on his motorcycle, not wearing a helmet. He's still just a captain in the Navy because of his insubordinate attitude, but the guy can still fly planes. His girlfriend from the first movie went back to being Amish and is nowhere to be found in this one.

Maverick is now a teacher at Top Gun, instructing 12 of the country's best pilots on  preparing for a dangerous mission (you might even call it an "Impossible" Mission ... ba-dum-ching!) against a menacing foreign adversary developing long-range weapons.

With me so far? Only things (surprise!) don't go well at first. There are attitude and teamwork problems to be solved. Will they unite under Maverick's daring leadership to do what needs to be done?

It's worth the price of admission to find out. I give mad respect to Tom Cruise for performing many of his own stunts, which he does throughout this movie, too. Visually, it's wonderful to watch on the big screen. And in addition, I found the film to be refreshingly patriotic and uplifting—sadly, a rarity these days. There are no political points to be scored nor agendas; the plot revolves around Americans working together to do one of the things America does best, which is to make the world safe(r) for democracy.

Paco's rating: 6 out of 10 (I gave the original 4 out of 10.)

The Good: Tom Cruise has found Dick Clark's Fountain of Youth, because he basically never ages. Val Kilmer, who is currently going through some severe health challenges in real life, is great in a brief scene as the only other cast member to return for the sequel. Jennifer Connelly is also very good in a supporting appearance.

The Bad: Not too much, really. I can't think of any major flaws at the moment.

The Ugly: some profanity, including 1 F-bomb, and a sex scene. It's rated PG-13 for those reasons and for scenes of action/peril. Yes, I deduct points for tomfoolery between unmarried people; Paco's rating scale is one of both family-friendly content and quality. (Without the aforementioned scene, it would be an 8 or 9.)

"Churches Which Are Built Up, and Not unto the Lord"

As I mentioned in a post last week, I've been reading the Book of Mormon again. And, in the process, I'm finding some pretty great things.

In chapter 2 Nephi 28:3, Nephi prophesies about the things he writes coming forth in a day in which there would be "churches which are built up, and not unto the Lord" (emphasis added). These churches would spread "false and vain and foolish doctrines" (2 Nephi 28:9). A few chapters after this, Nephi laments, "I am left to mourn because of the unbelief, and the wickedness, and the ignorance, and the stiffneckedness of men; for they will not search knowledge, nor understand great knowledge, when it is given to them in plainness, even as plain as word can be" (2 Nephi 32:7).

I feel Nephi's pain. I look around at a world that has built up churches "not unto the Lord" everywhere; churches to science; churches that champion the natural man rather than the humble disciple, where personal responsibility and consequences are shirked; and even churches that worship celebrities, sports, and other hobbies or schools of thought. I've found that even those who claim to be agnostic or atheist are, for the most part, still religious about other ideas or things.

No, there is nothing wrong with most hobbies and sports. There's nothing bad about science in and of itself, either. It was by far my least-favorite subject in school, but I got no beef with medicine that cures illnesses of both the body and the mind, or a trip to the planetarium to look up at the stars, and learning about other wonders scientific minds have discovered. The problem, I believe, is when we, like Billy Joel once said, "go to extremes."

I cringe, for example, when I see so-called "science" (cough gender is now supposedly "fluid" and is determined not by chromosomes but is on an ever-evolving spectrum on, didn't you know? cough) making new "discoveries" that surpass basic common sense and that, worst of all, confuse and befuddle the children of God about what their true identities and possibilities are.


As G. K. Chesterton taught: "Unfortunately science is only splendid when it is science. When science becomes religion it becomes superstition."

I did a little fact-checking on Twitter to provide an example of celebrity worship, and I learned that the ever-fascinating mind of Kim Kardashian, to name one of our (sarcasm alert) most fascinating modern thinkers, is followed by more than 52 million people. By contrast, only two million people follow the members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles combined.

It's a strange, bewildering time we live in. Yes, we have a lot of work to do, collectively, to spread the hopeful, wonderful message that the gospel carries with it. Nevertheless, the Lord has shown us the way so that we may see the truth through the lies and learn to discern "things as they really are" (Jacob 4:13).

Through my latest elders quorum teaching assignment a couple of weeks ago, I came across these powerful words from President Gordon B. Hinckley:

"Of course we believe in the cultivation of the mind, but the intellect is not the only source of knowledge. There is a promise, given under the inspiration from the Almighty, set forth in these beautiful words: 'God shall give unto you knowledge by his Holy Spirit, yea, by the unspeakable gift of the Holy Ghost." (D&C 121:26.)

"The humanists who criticize the Lord's work, the so-called intellectualists who demean, speak only from ignorance of spiritual manifestation. They have not heard the voice of the Spirit. They have not heard it because they have not sought after it and prepared themselves to be worthy of it. Then, supposing that knowledge comes only of reasoning and of the workings of the mind, they deny that which comes by the power of the Holy Ghost.

"The things of God are understood by the Spirit of God. That Spirit is real. To those who have experienced its workings, the knowledge so gained is as real as that which is acquired through the operation of the five senses. I testify of this. . . .

"Let us not be trapped by the sophistry of the world, which for the most part is negative and which so often bears sour fruit."

Snozzberries

For those of you living under a rock, actor and comedian Gene Wilder passed away today at age 83.

We're all Gene Wilder fans today. And well we should be. Let me tell you about my favorite moment of his as Willy Wonka in the "good" (nay, great)/non-Tim Burton version of the film.

Willy Wonka, introducing the kids to lickable wallpaper: "The strawberries taste like strawberries, and the snozzberries taste like snozzberries."
Veruca Salt: "Snozzberries? Who ever heard of a snozzberry?"
Willy Wonka (grabbing her mouth and pinching it a bit to hold it open): "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."

What I learned as a kid from this upon multiple viewings of the film (on the Disney Channel, I believe) was that it was OK to be my weird self, to be different, to create, to do things, and to try things. There would always be those like Veruca Salt who would naysay and criticize your creativity; there always have been, and there always will be. But make music and dream dreams regardless.

Through the years, and with myriad results, I've drawn comic books and art; learned foreign languages; written articles, stories, blogs, and books; sung, played, and created music; made my own movies and acted in TV commercials; and performed live theater, both rehearsed and improvised.

I'd rather lick the snozzberries every time.

Ping Pong for Doubles

I follow the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles both in life (or at least I try to) and also on more than one social media format. In addition to putting out some of the best posts/tweets on the Internet, these 15 men are almost as popular as Kim Kardashian, by which I mean, having done some quick math, that they have collectively acquired one-sixteenth the number of her followers.

Earlier this week, Elder D. Todd Christofferson tweeted:

"Others will feel our love and Heavenly Father's love when we remember them. A letter, a text message, or a phone call can be a blessing."

I'm not smart enough to figure out how to take a screen cap and then post the actual tweet here, so I copied the message just now in case you don't also follow Elder Christofferson. But seriously, follow him.

I share that message with you today because it leads me into an addendum to my previous post here on Paco Nation—you know, one of those "extremely lengthy posts" that people who haven't actually read this blog think I post on a regular basis.

As a follow-up to that post: Ladies, we men don't speak your language. We speak a language all our own, in fact, and it's filled with stuff like sports, Star Wars, video games, and action/sci-fi movie terminology. It's an XY chromosome thing, really.

Collectively speaking, we also don't often get the hints that are dropped our way by the female gender and need to be told things directly in case you'd like to get a message across that you might like to do something socially with us. (This is something called flirting.) By the same token, many of us males have faced rejection so many times, especially by the Misfit Toys age, that we frequently cannot tell whether someone we're interested in romantically either shares an interest back or just can't play ping pong.

What do I mean by ping pong, you ask? I use the term here as taught to me by my mission president, Carlos Cuba, years ago. In this sense, ping pong is when you carry on a conversation with or teach a discussion to people by saying something to them, then listening intently while they speak, and then you speak again, and so on, thus taking turns bouncing the ball back and forth over the net, figuratively speaking, as you are both uplifted and edified together.

In the dating scene, then, I see the metaphor of ping pong being played out not with words only but with gestures, too. For example, if one person takes the initiative and asks out someone else, and they both have a great time, then the person who was asked out could—going back to Elder Christofferson's tweet now—send a text to the person who did the asking out as thanks for a fun evening. Letters and phone calls seem to be somewhat passé now, so a text may be your best bet.

From the perspective of a guy who does a majority of the asking out in his own dating experience, I can't tell you how nice it is to get a text like this after a date has concluded. It makes me feel appreciated and helps to dispel some of my insecurities about myself. Better still, if the lady then takes the initiative and strikes up a conversation with me the next time we're in the same room together, be it at church or elsewhere, she is showing that she knows how to play ping pong indeed, and the gesture shows that further interest is there. It makes things easier for both of us going forward. Then, on the following encounter, it's your turn again to start up a conversation, or you might send a text to say you're thinking about her, or whatever; this is how ping pong keeps working. Some kind of positive daily contact is wonderful—to use another mission metaphor.

Likewise, I have felt rather crestfallen on those occasions when a girl I really liked sent me no text message (nor something else akin to it) after a date nor really spoke to me the next time I saw her. On those occasions, a message is sent indirectly, and it reads: she's either not interested or doesn't play ping pong, and I'm not smart enough to know the difference.

When you're interested in a person who either doesn't know how to play ping pong or doesn't want to, well, it turns out to just one person bouncing the ball around, and that gets either boring or frustrating after a while, and you quickly lose interest in the game.

Some of you who are well versed already in ping pong may wonder why I even bring up this topic. Perhaps it is because in my time on the Island of Misfit Toys, I've found a surprising number of those in my dating pool who have not actually been in a committed relationship prior to their 30s. I'm always very floored when I learn this about some of those I've taken out, because these people are in no way unattractive or uninteresting. But nevertheless they exist, and they often are not familiar with the rules of ping pong, and a familiarity with ping pong helps both players to play the game far better than they would if they were not aware of the rules.

And the rules are really pretty simple when you break them down.

To Everything, Turn, Turn, Turn . . .

"And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."
 -Malachi 4:6

A very interesting Facebook post appeared among my notifications last week, from which I learned that, with the touch of just a few buttons, I could learn whom among the members of the Island of Misfit Toys I am related to distantly. It was a very educational and enlightening experience.

Among the members of my very own ward, I have a sixth cousin, an eighth cousin, as well as several ninth, tenth, and eleventh cousins. I have even, years ago, been out on a date with *gasp!* one of my ninth cousins.

Further, this link on FamilySearch also allows you to see which famous politicians, inventors, innovators, writers, singers, etc. are part of your family tree. I was intrigued and delighted to find out that among my many cousins are:

President John Adams (4th cousin, 8 times removed)
Susan B. Anthony (6th cousin, 4 times removed)
President Franklin D. Roosevelt (7th cousin, 2 times removed)...
Thomas Edison (7th cousin, 3 times removed)
The Wright Brothers (7th cousin, 4 times removed)
Buster Keaton (8th cousin, 3 times removed)
Prime Minister Winston Churchill (9th cousin, 5 times removed)
President Thomas Jefferson (9th cousin, 5 times removed)
Walt Disney (9th cousin, 5 times removed)
Amelia Earhart (10th cousin, 3 times removed)
Elvis Presley (13th cousin)

In LDS circles, I have connections to President George Albert Smith (4th cousin), President Brigham Young (6th cousin), Elder Neal A. Maxwell (8th cousin)—and even the Prophet Joseph and Hyrum Smith (8th cousins), to name just a few.

What does this have to do with the above scripture? Well, from my experience, I have felt some sort connection to several of these people in the past few years—several of whom I come to find out are somehow, albeit distantly, part of my family tree.

Last summer, for example, I read John Adams's lengthy-but-very-educational biography and loved it. I have also read and enjoyed biographies of Presidents Young and Smith and of Elder Maxwell in the past few years. For an ongoing work project, I have researched and written biographies/profiles of Anthony, Churchill, Disney, Earhart, Edison, Jefferson, and the Wright brothers. A couple of years ago, I also discovered the silent comedic films of Buster Keaton and became an immediate fan.

In other words, I've been or become interested in many of these people and their exploits somewhat recently. Last week, I came to find out we are connected even more closely than by ideas and ideals. It makes me wonder whether the hearts are already turning and we're not completely aware of it happening. Maybe the same thing is happening to you and you're not quite aware right now just how or why at this moment, but all will be made clear someday.

Could it all be a coincidence? Perhaps.

Then again, perhaps not.