TRAVEL TRIP: SLC day two

SALT LAKE CITY

Friday, April 16, 2010. Day Two aka Escape From Space Jesus in Pleasantville.

This is exactly what I opened my eyes to on Friday morning. I'm living in a boudoir.

Unlike any other travel trips, I was completely unprepared and unplanned. I usually have suggested places to visit written on scraps of bus transfers, addresses written all over my hands, a city street map scribbled onto a plane ticket. It was already 9am and I had yet to figure out where the animatronic Mormon pioneer museum was. I put on Sly's Fresh album and typed into Google "tacky tourist traps of Northern Utah."

I had a long, long day ahead of me......

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Jesse's wife took me to The Beehive Tea Room for lunch. It's hard to describe the atmosphere, no, wait, it's hard for me to describe the atmosphere. Remember the time period in the Shining when Jack Nicholson would go back and become the hotel owner at a fancy ballroom party? Ok, so it's that with dainty tomato sandwiches and cherry rose tea in little white teacups. I can imagine the type of girls with good girl bangs and full skirts that go below their knee to love the hell out of this place, but my intentionally sloppy makeup and shorty shorts were like a stark contrast. Oh wellsies, it's still a cute place to eat :)

This was later that day at the Mormon church bathroom, which was paid for by the practitioners of the LDS church. This means I peed on someone's donation... add it to the list.

Afterward, we went to Victoria's Secret (not my choice) and I noticed how many blond and red heads live here. It's awesome ... not. Blond children are creepy and untrustworthy (according to my Children of the Corn dvd). After Victoria Secret, J.W. dropped me off at Temple Square because I'm a glutton for awkwardly gawking at other people's fantastical cultures.

So, if you don't know what Temple Square is, I'll tell you: for an outsider, it's a walled off compound in the height of downtown Salt Lake City. It takes up a city block and includes an incredibly large Mormon Temple, smaller temple, visitors centers and conference halls. It's plainly obvious that way way waaaaaaaaaaay too much money has been poured into this place. But, for people who believe in it, it's a place for your heavenly thoughts to jizz all over Jesus. Also, there is a Jesus floating in space in one of the visitors centers. See below:

His beard/chin area effectively is a 70's muff.

This is one of the buildings you may NOT tour unless you are a Mormon.

I was told that I'd be assaulted by Mormon volunteers asking if I had Jesus in my heart or whatever, but that never happened BECAUSE I AM SMART. If you act sulky and weird, of course the army of religious goody two shoes will approach you with their space Jesus pamphlet, so every time someone started walking up to me I'd smile like crazy and ask them how their day was and they'd walk away. Sometimes I'd throw in a "god bless you, my child." I am ridiculous, but that's why you love me... or at least, that's why I love me :)

Joseph Smith sort of looks like the principal from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Did you know he, meaning the principal from FBDO, was arrested for possession of child pornography and employing a minor to pose in pornographic photos?

I have to say, visiting the LDS religious mecca is not better nor worse than visiting anyone's ridiculous space Jesus/spaghetti monster/virgin de Guadalupe monuments. It's like being the only non-follower in any large group of fanatics. You want to make fun of everything and roll your eyes a million times, but ultimately you will be the only one doing it. I was, again, the little salmon jumping against the current.

Probably the thing that bothered me the most, which admittedly is not much of a complaint anyway, was how many empty smiles were directed at me. I have a feeling that the LDS church practitioners are told that an angel gets laid every time you smile at a stranger......... and that sucks. If someone is smiling at me, I want it to be a real elicit response to a real elicit stimuli.

It feel just as good to enjoy flowers and nature without bringing a space Jesus into it.

See that bride and groom? They're made of sugar and spice and everything nice.

Afterward, I was in search for beer, strippers, hip kids, gang fights, anything to get the pious taste out of my mouth.

I followed a couple kids who looked like the h-word that rhymes with pipsters to a street side cafe and turns out they were meeting up with their church group?! You cannot imagine the disappointment that weighed down my body afterward.

I sat in a park and watched a group of middle-aged people get really drunk and stumble around, which surprisingly (...not) made me feel even worse. I know every city is composed of multitudes of varying types of people, but at that point it seemed like you were either disgustingly religious or disgustingly alcoholic. Homesickness weighed down on me and I sat on the park bench crying under my sunglasses. It was weird. I was really just lost in a mob of extreme personalities and they all abrasively wore on me.

Later that night, I dragged myself a fancy Italian restaurant with Jesse, J.W. and 12 or 15 of their friends. I sat next to someone's trophy girlfriend who had fried blond hair and a french fry-sized waist. We talked about coke, fake tits and Portland. It was the best conversation I'd had since I arrived.

OH, P.S. This was also the night I went to the hot tub house party with sincerely attractive snowboarders, but since I showed up around midnight, I'm going to include that in TRAVEL DAY THREE :)