For my ward's FHE activity last night, we went to the Church History Museum downtown in Salt Lake, which seems like it could use some new exhibits, I didn't really see anything new since I was there at least a year or two ago. But in wandering through the exhibits on each of the presidents of the church, they had this Time magazine cover featuring then-Secretary of Agriculture, Ezra Taft Benson:
It's hard to see in this image, but the date was April 1953, 56 years ago. The quote below the cover image is "No real American wants to be subsidized." I don't know if that reflects the public sentiment at the time, or just President Benson encouraging people to take responsibility for their actions. Either way, it seemed like an especially poignant thought in today's world where it seems like many Americans are asking "Where's my bailout?"
Last night, a couple of friends and I braved threats of storminess and cold to go check out Girl Talk and Lupe Fiasco outside of the Student Union up at the U. First of all, so grateful that the weather held and after raining/snowing all day it finally stopped for the duration of the time we were out there. Yes, it was a little chilly, but thankfully I wasn't drenched by the end of the night.
Eric and BJ during Girl Talk's set.
Now some of you are probably asking, "Who is/are Girl Talk and Lupe Fiasco?" Well, Girl Talk opened the show, and what he does is mash up other people's music on his laptop and dance around. I know it sounds kinda weird, and I guess it kinda is, but it's fun and we had a great time groovin'. When he first came out, we were like, "Is that him?" He was shorter than I imagined, and it's just him up there with his laptop on a table. Most of his shows you'll see him surrounded in a mass of people while he does his thing. Last night, there were only a select few allowed up on stage who apparently had some kind of backstage passes. Anyway, he played for around 40 minutes and then bid us farewell. Probably my favorite part was the mashup of "Whoomp There It Is" and "In a Big Country" which also appears on the Feed the Animals album.
Update: Here's a video of the Whoomp/In a Big Country Mash-up
Me and Eric in between shows.
Lupe Fiasco is a more traditional hip-hop artist, who has been featured on a Kanye West song or two, and has had a few hit singles himself. He brought a DJ and also had someone playing live drums, which was cool. It was sometimes hard to pick up which song he was singing, because he often did them over different beats than what they're over on the albums. He also often only sang a verse or two rather than the whole song. Probably my favorite parts of his set were when he did the first verse of "Little Weapon", "Go-Go Gadget Flow", and when he closed the show with "Daydream". I took several videos with my camera and if I can get them online I'll try to post a couple here. The audio quality is only so-so, due to the thumping bass that seemed to overwhelm my little camera mic.
I know it's not Wednesday, and I also know I haven't blogged much lately. Lots of good things going on, and a few not so good. Trying to focus on the good for now. Anyway, for some reason I've been wanting to watch this video that I saw a while back and thought I'd share. This is cold-war era footage of Russian dancers throwing down some sick dance moves. ABDC would be lucky to have guys of this caliber on.
P.S. Despite a cold and stormy forecast, I'm still looking forward to tomorrow night's Lupe Fiasco & Girl Talk concert at the U. Anyone else going?
