Michael Goldsmith (1951–2009)

In April I began an internship for BYU Magazine. Besides writing blurbs, editing copy, and playing the occasional game of ping-pong in the basement of the University Press Building, I’ve had the opportunity to write stories about some pretty incredible people. Michael Goldsmith, a professor at BYU’s law school, was one of them. He died on Sunday after valiantly fighting amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, for more than three years.

His achievements in the final year of his life were remarkable by any standard. In his ever-declining condition he continued to set an example of strength and hope for his family and his students. He rallied Major League Baseball around the fight against his fatal disease, leading to the largest single ALS awareness event since Gehrig retired from baseball seventy years ago. Here’s my story about Professor Goldsmith that ran in the most recent issue of the magazine. Despite the amateur writing, the read is worth your time.

The little interaction I had with Goldsmith reinforced two things in my mind. First, it is possible to be poised and gracious even when life’s challenges provide reasons to be bitter and nasty. In our interviews, Goldsmith was always patient and deliberate. A true master of his craft until the end, the ailing attorney took pains to use precise grammar and correct spelling in his emails to me. Every time I heard from him I was amazed that he—a man toeing the threshold of death—was taking the time to cooperate with a student writing yet another story about him. That’s the kind of decency I aspire to have.

Michael Goldsmith and his son, Austen, honor Lou Gehrig and other ALS victims at a pre-game ceremony in Yankee Stadium on July 4, 2009.

Second, life is short. It’s fragile. Any one of a thousand disasters could permanently alter or even end my life or the life of a loved one at any moment. That’s what makes me so grateful for the plan that God has created for us. Not only has He granted each of us a mortal life on Earth in which we can learn from our mistakes, but He has given us unique talents and opportunities for helping others. He created us so that we could experience joy. Professor Goldsmith may not have shared the faith of the Latter-day Saints in the nominal sense—he was Jewish—but he represented the teachings of Jesus Christ well. He loved his family, and he was proud of his accomplishments. Even though he suffered terribly at the end of his life, he found recourse in devoting himself to causes larger than himself.

ALS has no cure. The disorder causes muscle weakness and atrophy throughout the body, killing most patients within five years of diagnosis.

Read more about ALS at the following websites:

The ALS Association

MDA/ Augie’s Quest

ALS Therapy Development Institute

Project ALS

Maybe the little boy in the row behind us said it the best: “Is it over yet? I want to leave.” The movie was only forty minutes in.

For the screen adaptation of a book that makes kids want to stay a while in its pages, that’s not a good sign. And if Spike Jonze’s take on Maurice Sendak’s 1963 classic bored the daylights out of kids, it tormented their parents. For over ninety minutes, uninteresting action sequences filled the gaps between dialogue that was more irritating than plot-moving. For a while, I had myself convinced that something resembling a plot would materialize from the patheticness unfolding before me. I was wrong.

Yep, a lot of us were thoroughly bamboozled by this live-action butchering of the beloved WTs. But guess who wasn’t duped. Guess who was in on this all along: Emo types. You know, the scrawny ones with campy clothes and ironic-looking hair cuts. The ones who all wear the same size jeans, regardless their age or gender. The ones who old people and I think are probably gay. Yes, those emo types, of which Spike Jonze is a perfect specimen.

They loved this movie because it combined their two favorite things: artsy-ness (not just art) and passive aggressiveness. When the male WT protagonist, Carol (subtle gender-confusion anyone?), takes Max to his secret hideout, I was hoping we would get to see something cool. Or at least something that would take the plot from abstraction to action. Instead we saw a trippy model city that Carol had built with masterful detail, even down to the smiling carvings of WT’s in the streets. Beautiful, yes. Exciting, no. Plot-enhancing, sort of; Carol destroys the city later in the movie out of sheer, inexplicable angst. And he wasn’t the only one dealing with mood swings. Every one of the WTs was prone to hurt feelings and even more prone to talking about them at length. How many little kids dream of magical worlds where the monsters are emotional wrecks? About as many as enjoyed this movie.

Where the Wild Things Are had all the ingredients of a family friendly comedy—an adventurous kid and monsters, what more do you need?—but Jonze just didn’t deliver. He spent too much time arranging for the music of queer indie artists to waft through misty woods and not enough time taking a 338 word book and making it a movie with a plot.

Spike Jonze imitating the hygiene habits of a Wild Thing, hopefully not setting a trend for his emo followers.

Then the night changed.  Some dude—we’ll call him the Little Drummer Boy—appeared out of nowhere, spawned, I imagined, by the same villain who inspires people to yak on their cell phones in public places. He had arrived without my noticing him and had sat on the bench nearest me. Clad in short shorts and a tank top, my vertically-challenged neighbor (he couldn’t have been 5’5″)  looked ready either to run a marathon or to impersonate Richard Simmons. But in fact he did neither; he drummed. What did this rogue temple-grounds percussionist pound on? Whatever he could reach. Starting with thigh-smacking, he progressively built a rhythm that segued into street-light–tapping and culminated with bench thumping. It’s difficult to use a solid slab of concrete as a drum, but this dude laid down some beats.

Despite my sitting eight feet away from him, the Little Drummer Boy may have had no idea I was there. He played his solo in a  frenzy, punctuating some of his beats with swooping head nods. I couldn’t believe it. Was this guy really rocking out in the shadow of the temple? My peaceful moment interrupted, I quickly became annoyed by the LDB. I resented him partially for his tactlessness but mainly for his ability to enjoy himself at my expense. “This is an outrage,” I told myself as I silently passed scathing judgments on the drummer.  I stewed in my anger. The drumming continued, and the sky darkened.

Then a moment of revelation arrived; the contrast between the glowing white temple and the night sky suddenly became starker than the contrast between what had been my reverie and the drumming. Staring at the high temple walls, I realized that I had allowed someone else’s actions to decide what I thought and how I felt. The drummer, lost in his own communion with the infinite, was edified by his surroundings and at peace with himself. And I was a wreck. Just at the moment all this dawned on me, the drumming stopped and the LDB walked abruptly away. He had been there no longer than three minutes.

Too quiet then. I went home.

The Provo, Utah Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The text:

We did it, America! We sent a message to the world! We changed the course of history! Insert additional platitudes here! Over the past eighteen months, Barack Obama directed one of the most passionate and far-reaching grassroots movements in American history. He appealed to people in a remarkable variety of demographics, garnering massive support even in the reddest states. In short, he swept millions off their feet and to the polls. And, amazingly, he did it all without a shred of personal accountability.

After Obama edged out Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary elections, he complained that the media was becoming too nosy. For the first time in his campaign, he had to answer tough questions about things like—gasp—what he would do if he were elected. Obama also had to face the fact that his longtime spiritual mentor was a racist lunatic, that one of his old cronies was a famous terrorist, and that a man named Joseph Wurzelbacher had dared ask about taxes on the campaign trail. Lest Obama falter under a barrage of objective questioning, the media came to his rescue. By gradually turning down the dial of journalistic scrutiny, they made Obama untouchable.

Apparently this image has subliminally flashed in millions of American televisions for months.

Rhetoric has long been a staple of political campaigns. But Obama’s political machine, with help from the shamelessly biased mass media, took fluff production to a new level. Obama-centered special interest stories and photo-ops have flooded every form of media for months. Major news outlets led by The New York Times and CNN suspended even the pretext of objectivity long ago. As they worshipped the inexperienced Senator from Illinois, the media created and marketed something bigger than Obama and bigger, really, than any silhouette to grace America’s political horizon in decades. They created a concept. And the smiling embodiment of that concept took the oath of office yesterday. The question then is not who is Barack Obama but what is he?

If I had a one word limit for this definition, I would stick with the one at the base of those ubiquitous red, white and blue Obama paintings: hope. As demonstrated by the millions of freezing spectators packed into the National Mall yesterday, people really believe in Barack Obama. They love him for his fulfillment of Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream and his against-all-odds rise to power. They admire him for his intelligence and self-assurance. And, most importantly, they see him as a long overdue political savior. Thanks to sleek media packaging, people see in Barack Obama what they wish they could see in themselves—an individual capable of making everything right.

In a sense, we owe a great debt to the media’s blatant obsequiousness. Without their crafty creation of America’s most powerful idol, our country would probably still be mired in political malaise. The Obama campaign, fueled by the giddy media, really did save America, but not from a single one of the disasters facing us. Obama and his fawning support system saved us from our own deep apathy toward and mistrust of the government. Because of Barack Obama, Americans—especially young Americans—care about democracy again, and that’s a great thing. But few realize that we may be sacrificing our best interest, the true aim of democracy, for a renewed interest in politics. In other words, Obama got us out of the red in terms of meaningful political activity, but there is no indication at all that he will lead us into the black.

I like Barack Obama. He’s inspiring and cool. He wants a playoff system for college football. But I am very worried that millions of us have been royally duped, championing a new American superhero without knowing who is really behind the mask. Eventually, the fact that Obama never had to certify his qualifications could come back to haunt us. The pragmatic tide of “objective” reporting will almost certainly turn against him sooner than later, and a lot of people could be very disappointed. But for now I hope we all support President Obama through thick and thin, a patriotic courtesy rarely extended to our last president. I also hope we can capitalize on changing times by democratically choosing what we really want.

The explanation:

I really do like Barack Obama, a point that was overlooked by those who rebutted my viewpoint. Obama brings a refreshing suaveness to an office that has needed it badly. More importantly, he has helped us to care about politics again, at least on the highest level. I hope that the rekindled spirit of civic involvement burns long enough for us Americans to actively choose our local and state government leaders as well. After all, it is from our neighborhood councils and state legislatures that our nation’s leaders are selected. Congress saw record lows in approval ratings in the past two years, but Congressional reelection rates are as high as ever. If we really want change, if we really have hope, we’ll get involved in local politics. We’ll learn about candidates, form intelligent opinions, and exercise our sacred right to vote on every level. Presidential elections come every four years, trailing clouds of hype. But opportunities to be civically involved present themselves every day. We should take advantage of these opportunities. It’s the Obama way.

It’s not that they fall low on my priority reading list. That spot is reserved for books like Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and Shackleton’s South, both of which will probably take me months to complete. But, I emphasize, I will complete them. My school books, on the other hand, constantly vie with one another for first priority. Each of them seems so important and so pressing that I struggle to commit to any of them. In the end, I read far less than I wanted to or should have.

Why do I not simply buckle down and make time for each of my readings? Let’s break this down National Geographic style. If my books were prey susceptible to attack in a remote African plain, they would be adept at running around in tight circles until the predator eventually lost both the ability to distinguish between them and the desire to attack at all. Instead that predator would probably watch sports. It’s the zebra-stripe effect. Or whatever they call it.

Like assigned readings, zebras seem quite interesting. Then they get moving real fast, and you suddenly want to throw up.

Taking a page from the predator v. zebra playbook, I am trying a new approach this semester. I have already identified some of the easier readings in various classes. By isolating them from their syllabi and picking them off early in the semester, I hope to be less disoriented and burned out when I get to the bulkier stuff later on. But I’m honest with myself, and I know that at some point I’m going to need a while to digest. And that’s when I’m going to fall behind, kissing goodbye a lot of cash for untapped paragraphs.

Here’s my point: professors who assign hefty readings may actually be risking the intellectual starvation of their students. Here’s my suggestion: every professor should assign 1 (one) text that best reflects the important concepts in his or her class. A reasonable reading schedule complemented by suggestions or questions for understanding the text would make real, right learning much likelier. Some professors already do this. Maybe they remember their own frantic scrambles to cover hundreds of pages of dense, often barely germane text in a few shorts days. Or maybe they simply don’t need nine textbooks on the same subject to cover one topic. But until all professors figure this out, I’m destined to have $400 textbook semesters with few returns besides more incentive to watch SportsCenter and probably a handful of cheaply earned A minuses.

Last spring, after a winter of egregious squeakage, I decided it was time to take a stand: I waged all-out war with my own car door. All this really entailed was me spending the better part of an afternoon dinking around with a set of wrenches and, for a while, a crowbar before admitting my total ineptitude. So I drove to HonK’s $1.05 store—only the best for the Luminasty—and bought some silicone lubricant in a handy spray can. My new weapon gave me the edge. I was able to muzzle squeakage for the rest of the spring.

In the summer the Luminasty’s offending member is mostly docile. But on the occasional cool night, rogue squeaks remind me that the door banshee lurks unvanquished. That’s why I decided to leave my trusty orange can of lubricant in the backseat last summer. And as the summer goes, lazy days turned into weeks and months. I gradually forgot about squeakage and never even noticed that the lubricant had disappeared. Then, on the fourth of July, my greatest ally in the door war turned on me. At some point, the can had lodged itself under the Luminasty’s front passenger seat. When a friend adjusted the seat for more leg room on our way to see fireworks, the can was punctured. Within moments, we were all inhaling a potent, disturbingly pleasant odor. An argument about its source ensued, but it quickly dawned on me that a new chapter in the squeakage saga was unfolding.

It has taken months, but I have finally rebuilt trust in HonK’s brand silicone spray. And in the end, that’s all that really matters. Happy squeakage season!

Will Smith after seeing Hancock.

Hancockamamy

If you’re looking for a convenient way to trade $9.50 for lousy humor and ill-conceived plot twists, look no further: Hancock is for some reason still available at a theater near you. Yep, it was that bad. But don’t think I hated this movie. In fact, I’ve compiled a list of reasons why this film deserves at least one viewing (I recommend the dollar theater on half-off Tuesday).

1) What Hancock lacked in good writing was entirely made up for by my favorite clichés. Everyone loves when a hero rescues an attractive woman and, in the middle of a crossfire, painstakingly assures her that any physical contact is “not sexual or anything like that.” Also, a heavily CGI’d tornado-turned-snowstorm in the middle of LA is fun in any movie, especially when it bears only token relationship to the plot.

2) The character development was phenomenal! I’m so tired of movies that force me to infer things about characters’ personalities and pasts. Hancock made things so easy; by interspersing mindless action sequences with shameless plot-moving narratives, the director satiated my demand for violence and spared me the pesky task of thinking.

3) Nothing makes a potentially family-friendly movie more appealing than loading it with gratuitous profanity. Hancock‘s script would have fallen flat if not for its brilliant use of a**hole every 15 seconds. Especially enjoyable were the two instances of children letting it fly. Kids these days—always keeping us on our toes!

4) Copping out of a somewhat interesting story by inventing a jarring, bizarre plot twist is a tactic that rivals the “dream sequence” bit for cinematic ingenuity. Those of you who love reading the first half of one book and finding how it ends by reading the second half of another book will love Hancock.

5) What better way for Will Smith to debut as a super hero than as Hancock—a surly, uninspiring drunkard with a sailor’s mouth and zero wit. Before I saw Hancock, I was concerned that Smith’s innate humor and famous artistic license might steal the show. Luckily Hancock‘s visionary director was able to stifle Smith’s charm, focusing instead on the film’s important theme.

Whatever that might be.

See The Dark Knight. More on this after some sleep.