Moroni & Family's TV Experience

Rainbow Summer - 1998

2011-08-24T10:01:00.001-07:00

I figured I would post some of my other writings onto my blog page. This is an attempt I made at amateur journalism back in 1998...

Springerville. A sleepy town nestled on the foothills of eastern Arizona’s White Mountains. Summer settles lazily on Round Valley as the locals prepare for another busy season. Since environmental concerns ended the logging industry, the community has relied more on tourists coming for the campgrounds, trails, game and fish provided by nearby Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, the largest stand of ponderosa pines in the world. However, no one is prepared for this summer’s largest group of summer visitors - the Rainbow Family.

On June 16, 1998, I was filling up at the local gas station when the first fleet of VW buses arrives, spilling out the motley cargo of hippies adorned with dread locks, hemp strands and patches. Their skin is dark with grime, and that smell - a pungent mixture of sandalwood incense, marijuana, and body odor - soon fills the whole town as dozens of flowered school buses dominate the traffic. The gas attendant stares in disbelief or horror as the bare-footed bunch enter the convenience store.

This is not a summer the residents of Springerville are likely to forget as the Rainbow Family, a loose conglomeration of hippies from all walks of life, converges on a pre-selected site in the forest high in the mountains, west of town. This is the beginning of their national gathering, culminating on the 4th of July, and annual event since it’s inception in Colorado in 1972; the Family seeks out a different location each year where they can gather in the woods for meditation, prayer, and festivities. Essentially, it’s the largest pot party in the continental Unites States, and many Springerville residents remember the last time the Family chose the White Mountains back in 1979. Let’s just say that this is not what you would call a happy reunion. Many residents are in a state of alarm as the crowds arrive, and I found myself wedged between a group of people that I found harmless, if not inviting, and the community that I serve.

Remembering the 1979 gathering, Donna, a 30 year-old native states, “There was this guy in a hammock set up in the back of a pickup, and he was riding around town, totally naked.”

These are the types of memories the townsfolk have of the Rainbows. The major difference between the two events, however, is that in ‘79 only 3,000 showed up. This year, the number is expected to exceed 25, 000, nearly triple the populations of Springerville and it’s sister-city Eagar combined.

The White Mountains host a small hub of predominately Mormon communities and have remained bastions of the untamed West - pines, rolling mountains, lakes, rivers. The area typically draws week-enders coming up from Phoenix to escape the blistering, desert heat. In more recent years, the area is acquiring a light spiritual flavor, accented perhaps by the reverence the Apaches hold for these gentle, verdant peaks. Or maybe it can be attributed to the attention brought by Snowflake resident Travis Walton’s book “Fire in the Sky” that recounts his UFO abduction, and the film bearing the same title. Or perhaps it is because Sedona, Arizona’s New Age haven has become too much like Santa Fe, too commercialized. No one is certain why. Whatever the case, many people from all over the States - Christian fundamentalists and New Agers alike - have felt impelled to move here with little or no reason.

I was one of those people, always fancying myself as the bohemian type. At an idealistic 19, in tie-dyed splendor, I had trekked to Sedona, imagining that the summer of ‘89 was the summer of ‘69. Then, in 1995, married with children, I left city life behind - the crime, the pollution and chaos to settle a 40-acre homestead on the western slopes of the White Mountains, an area about which I knew next to nothing. All I knew is that I wanted a place where my children could grow up free from fear in clean air and with clean water.

My idealism was nearly shattered that first night when a strong wind came sweeping over the Mogollon Rim, and I tired to sleep in vain as our small single-wide rocked in rhythm to my mantra, “What the hell am I doing here?”

Legend has it that the Mormon pioneers had no intention of inhabiting this harsh wilderness but decided to rest until the wind abated.

We certainly felt like pioneers as we accustomed ourselves to our surroundings. So far off the grid, it would take a small fortune to bring electricity to our home, so we use candles for more than just ambiance. Cold winters, mud, hot summers, hurricane-speed winds. Anyone would call us crazy.

But these mountains bring a change over a person. Electricity became a luxury, not a necessity. Hobbies and gardening fill the vacuum left by television. You even start looking like a Rainbow.

I eventually began to work as a social worker for a local welfare agency.

We first heard news of the gathering late in April as my wife and I sat down to dine in a restaurant in nearby Show Low. Our waitress, a bright-eyed, 19 year-old named Erin asked our names.

“Cool hippie names, “ she squealed.

This struck us as funny, because our names, especially mine, are so obviously Mormon. Maybe it was the beard or my wife’s long hair.

“Are you going to the Rainbow Gathering this year in Springerville?” she asked.

Within three weeks, scouts for the Rainbow Family were hiking all over the area looking for a suitable location - secluded yet accessible, with enough space and water to accommodate thousands.

Instantly, the community flew into a hysteria. Town councils and community meetings were called to see what measures could be taken to prevent the Family from coming. Joint efforts were made between city government, local Forest Service representatives, Apache County Sheriff Department, Highway Patrol and local businesses to decide on how to handle the problem. The consensus was that the community could not handle that many people. Especially with such an undesirable element bringing such activity as drug-abuse, “spanging”, shop-lifting, loitering, indecent exposure and a whole host of other problems.

In short, the community made it very clear - the Rainbows are not welcome here!

Not everyone was so negative. One local paper quoted County Sheriff Art Lee remembering the 1979 gathering where he states that the Family left not so much as a cigarette butt upon vacating the site.

Nevertheless, hysteria augmented when on June 14, the Rainbow Family’s website posted the official location of this year’s event - a meadow south of Carnero Lake by Green’s Peak, elevation 9000 feet. The festivities would commence on June 28 and last until July 10.

Within hours, a special Forest Service task force pulled into town and presented themselves to the other organizations monitoring the gathering. They estimated that there would be an ecological strain on the forest created by the sheer numbers. They issued an official warning to the shanti sena - or Family elders - to vacate the area. The elders responded that they would not leave. There was even a question about the main water source near Carnero Lake - a privately owned spring that was being used by the kitchens in camp. Of course, the idea of the ownership of water is foreign to the Family. Local officials warned that if necessary, the National Guard would be called in, but ultimately everyone was forced to admit - the Rainbows are coming.

Within hours, flocks of hippies poured into the area from holding camps in Tuscon and Flagstaff where they had been awaiting confirmation of the gathering site.

Soon every conversation in town was filled with murmured stories as the locals came into contact with the Rainbow people. These stories seemed to take on mythic proportions. In other words, it was the same story told over and over again with only minor variations. I heard the stories a million times told by sober-faced residents recounting the evils committed by the foul hippies.

A hippie took a shit on the floor in the McDonald’s bathroom. Or was it Arby’s? A woman urinated all over the produce in Safeway so they’d have to throw it away, and she proceeded to the dumpster to claim it. Or was it the eggs at Circle K? A Rainbow was cited for bathing naked in someone’s flower garden. Or was it the lawn of the LDS church?

I later shared these stories with Rainbow friends who howled with laughter.

“Like I would eat food with piss on it,” says Steve from California.

As the sole welfare worker in Springerville, my office was soon flooded with people applying for public assistance. Many people were enraged that these homeless people could come in and apply for benefits and be eligible, but I always argued that food stamps were better than shoplifting. Besides, a five-gallon pot of lentil soup can only feed so many, and that is all that the Rainbow kitchens served. I did find myself torn, however, between state regulations and an element within the government that endeavored to prevent me from administering federal aid programs to the Rainbows. Professionally, I tried not to treat them any different than any other clientele, but I definitely received some pressure from some higher-ups to discriminate against them and use means in my power to deny them services. Fortunately, I had a good supervisor with an open mind. State officials had contacted social service agencies in Oregon, the state that hosted the Family last year, to obtain advice on how to handle the problem. We were told, “Make it as hard on them as you can. If you make it easy, you’ll only encourage them.”

In a sense, they were right. My caseload doubled, then tripled until I was overwhelmed. In desperation, I had to call in back-up social workers from near-by St. Johns, and we all created a public assistance assembly line with longhaired hippies passing through. At one point, with a dozen applicants in the lobby, one tall girl, with thick blond hair matted to her skull, grinned, “Are you the cool guy who’s giving away food stamps?”

I snapped, “Is that what you all are saying up there? If you’re going to spread anything, why don’t you tell people to go to Show Low? They’re fully staffed and better equipped to handle this many people. Here it’s just me!”

Little did I know that the Rainbows have a communication network that rivals that of the military. The very next day, my caseload dropped down to manageable levels. One man even stopped into my office to say, “There was a busload coming in to see you, but I sent them to Show Low.”

In my dealings, I found them to be kind, polite and friendly, and I became very skeptical of the stories that the locals had been spreading about them. In fact, some had used our bathroom to clean themselves, and afterwards a Rainbow named Shawn mopped our bathroom, leaving it much cleaner than it had been before they had used it, much to the surprise of my supervisor. She remarked, “That young man doesn’t know how much he tickled me.”

As the 4th of July approached, many locals like myself received much unwanted attention from those around us who mistakened us as Rainbows. Tony, my brother from Utah, walked into a parts store wearing loose clothing and huarachis and drew harsh looks.

My office became a microcosm of the gathering as Rainbows crowded around the front of my office to apply for services. One afternoon, a highway patrolman pulled up and got out to question many of the hippies standing around the doorway. Since I represent the state of Arizona in my office, I decided that it would be good PR to go forward and introduce myself. I approached the officer. He stood like an icon of masculinity with his cropped, gold hair and mirrored sunglasses. I extended my hand and introduced myself, along with my job title.

He crossed his thick arms and stared at my hand in disgust. “I don’t shake hands with you people.” He put his hand on his pistol butt and said, “That’s my gun hand. And I only use it if I’m going to shoot someone.”

I went weak in the knees. Here I’m in charge, and he thinks I’m a damn Rainbow. With shaking hands, I produced my ID badge to which he offered no apology. He just turned and strode to his cruiser, and the dust kicked up as he drove off. I turned to a nearby Rainbow.

“Did you see that?” I stammered. “Is this the way you all get treated?”

“Yeah, brother,” he grinned. “All the time. I don’t know why they’ve brought so many cops into this town. We’re no threat to anyone. The most we’d do is throw flowers at them.”

Feeling like I had been threatened, I called my supervisor. She laughed it off, “I think that you should think about this one, Moroni.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Maybe you should wear your beads only on the weekends,” she said in reference to a strand that I frequently wear.

As I drove home that night, I looked thoughtfully at the dirt road that wound up to Green’s Peak. It seemed that the drums were calling me. There were police cruisers parked at every intersection. Police from other parts of the state were put on special detail here in Springerville, much to the annoyance of many locals. Having a near perfect record, I got 4 tickets in two months. One local complained to one of the many news crews in town, “The Rainbows haven’t given us any problems. It’s all the damn cops!”

One morning, Raven, a tall, willowy limbed beauty with pierced lips and tongue, came into my office. She told me that they had been listening in on the police ban that morning. They had nearly called in the riot police because of an incident where a mounted officer had accosted a Rainbow. The hippie slapped the horse’s behind, and the horse reared, throwing the officer to the ground. When the policeman tried to take the fellow into custody, he found himself surrounded by thousands of angry hippies.

I, myself, crossed the line from observer to participant on Saturday, June 20. On weekends, my wife Martha and I usually dress down a little more than usual. We stopped at the local supermarket to pick up diapers, and I pulled out my checkbook. The cashier remarked coldly, “Is that a local check?”

I was angry, “Yes. I live here. I work here.”

She sniffed. “Well, I don’t know you.”

In the car, I turned to my wife and spat out an expletive, “She thought we were Rainbows!”

Then, after a moment, “Do you want to go to the Gathering?”

Soon, we were speeding up a thin, dirt road, gaining altitude into the pines and aspens. The road opened up into a meadow, and there it was.

Now, I’ve been in foreign countries and have experienced culture shock. But nothing prepared me for that mountain. It was a different world.

We passed the first car, and the occupants flashed us a peace sign. There was almost an animal quality about them. Mud caked their faces, and they seemed inhuman. Different from the rest of us. I had always considered myself the bohemian type, but I now realize that I never had been. This was the genuine article - the real thing. There were several buses parked in the woods, and this man with a beer in his hand stepped out in front of the car.

“Park over there,” his breathed reeked of booze. “Be careful not to run over the flowers.”

This is the infamous A Camp - “A” as in alcohol. The actual gathering is actually divided up into several sub-camps. No alcohol is allowed past A Camp, and it is notorious for it’s wilder denizens and drunken brawls. According to tradition, A Camp serves as a smoke screen for the spiritual interior of the gathering.

“Oh well,” he concedes after we barter for a better parking space with him. “Go on to Bus Village.

Bus Village is a lively camp with tents set up around the vehicles. People spread their blankets under shady trees and smoke pot or trade goods. In Bus Village, I ran into Sparrow, one of my clients, who insists on showing me his tent full of food.

“I just want to thank you what you did for me, man,” he hugged me as I prepared to leave.

I began wondering if maybe this was a conflict of interest for me to be up here. I nodded, “Thank the state of Arizona.”

He took me to a pot of a boiling green substance.

“You may not know this, but in Babylon I was a chef,” he stirred vigorously. “Cream of cilantro soup! Want some?”

We declined politely, and continued up the trail to Rainbow Village.

On the other side of the meadow is Welcome Home, which served as the information center for the whole group. There, one man with more dreads than actual body shook his head, “Bus Village is for old school. You should go to Granola Funk Express. We’re more theatrically minded. We’re even building a stage.”

After walking almost a mile down a rocky trail, we came to Main Circle, a large flower-freckled, grassy meadow. It’s still only Seed Camp, so only about 2,000 have gathered thus far. Most people are lounging on the grass smoking grass, but some are seriously working. Two teen-age girls are five feet underground, digging latrines, many others are setting up ramadas using stray timber, still others are laying PVC pipe from the spring to provide water for the kitchens. One man, who assisted in building the bridges across the creek, fiercely protects it from those who would wade through the cool waters.

“Pwotect the water!” he shouts in a voice that sounds like Elmer Fudd. “You’ll wuin the moss! Use the bwidges!”

Some are carefully removing patches of sod to make fire pits. The Forest Service has issued a fire alert, banning campfires except in the kitchen areas and restricting smoking to designated areas. People gather around the kitchens with bowls of hot soup; the kitchens usually serve a lot of soup. The Hare Krishna camp down the meadow is popular, because every night they serve a four course meal of vegetarian fare. After everyone eats, some return to work, others strike up an infectious rhythm on the drums.

There are many other camps. Kiddy Village offers activities and story telling for the children. A tall rainbow-colored flag marks Lost Tribe. Kenny Mac is bare-footed and wears a smile of genuine affection when he sees me.

“I was a medic in the Army for two years. Now I travel around with C.A.L.M. Camp and learn about herbs and medicine.”

C.A.L.M. is the first aid center, and they have mainly had complaints about people suffering from the altitude. One young man fell off a cliff and broke his leg. The healers at C.A.L.M. set his leg and put a cast on it. A bearded man runs into camp waving his walkie-talkie.

“Gigi just gave birth to a boy!” he shouts happily.

Down one path, my wife and I stumble across a co-ed shower strung up through the branches of a tree. Several happy, nude people bathed beneath the spray of water, gasping at the cold. It should have been arousing to see so much naked flesh pressed together, but there is a curious lack of sexuality about it. I noticed that, in the melee of sleek limbs, long hair and white buttocks, it was difficult to tell the difference between male and female.

I left Seed Camp with a couple of impressions. There was a lack of social distinction with the Rainbows. Most of the homeless had hitchhiked to Carnero Lake. Some drove in battered buses. Some arrived in Mercedes, but everyone looked equal on the meadow. I was also distraught by the lack of work ethic. Only a few were working, and most were lost in indolent bliss. But I guess this is a party. A big marijuana party. I saw less spirituality than I had expected and more partying. But maybe there is some Dionysian spirituality afoot here.

On the night of July 3, many take a vow of silence and agree not to speak for half a day. The morning of July 4, approximately 30,000 people gathered in the meadow for a period of silence, meditation and prayer to the unknown god, Mother Earth, Jesus, Buddha, whatever deity suits you. At noon, the silence was broke by a thousand voices humming, “OOOOHHHHHMMMMMM!” Then the drums began a steady throb in synchronicity with the heartbeat of the world. There was a procession and dancing. The dance continued until the evening when the sky rumbled and the first rain in two months poured down on the gathering. In joy, people raised their hands to the sky as the waves of rain poured down on them.

“We have been praying for rain!” shouts one woman.

At sunset, the colored arch of a rainbow hung in the sky. Later, the nearly full moon peered at the crowd through the dissipating clouds. To the Family, the 4th of July is a high point in the cycle of the earth, coinciding with the solstice. It is the best time to conceive, which often sparks lurid tales among the locals, who imagine a sexual free-for-all up on the mountain, the wild abandon of an orgy. (Which it is not.)

Raven offers a coy smile, “This is our covenant time.”

Within three days, people start to clear the area as quickly as they arrived. Orbit and Freedom, both girls wearing smiles of satisfaction on their faces, reflect on the gathering as they hitchhike to Utah. They are anticipating the smaller regional gatherings that will occur throughout the year.

“There’s even a talk of an all-sister gathering,” Freedom’s eyes sparkle behind her tortoise-shell glasses. “Can you imagine the energy there?”

Turtle hitches to Oklahoma. He is bitter about this year’s gathering.

“The cops sucked, the locals were rude, and there are nothing but ‘drainbows’ up on the mountain,” he fumes. “The Family is packing up and leaving the drainbows to do whatever the fuck they want.”

One girl from the Warriors of Light whines, “I don’t know why the locals don’t like us. We brought them this rain!”

I had to resist from telling her that the Arizona monsoon season starts on the 4th of July. You can almost set your calendar by it.

On July 11, I take my wife and kids back up to the gathering. My 4 year-old girl is excited to see them make rainbows. I’m about to correct her and tell her that the Rainbows really don’t make rainbows, but then I refrain myself. Already the camp is nearly empty. Only a few people are left for what is called ‘clean-up’. When we look at the meadow, I am shocked. The grass is trampled and looks bare, but already they are working at re-seeding the meadow. One man siphons water from a puddle back into the creek. Many others are collecting garbage and putting them in neat piles, the recyclable materials separate from the other garbage. No one is idle; everyone is working.

Enjoying the cool rush of air through the pine trees, my family and I stroll down the trail. An elder meets us on the trail; a man referred to as Grandfather. He looks like Gandalf the wizard, with a flowing, white beard and carrying a staff. Rather than directing his attention at my wife or me, he greets my children.

“Good morning, children,” his voice is soft. He presses his hands together and bows very low to them. Then he continues down the path.

This taught me more about the Rainbow Family than anything else did. He demonstrated a respect for all life and for the innocence of youth. Perhaps there is a marked lack of dogma among the Family, but they all desire a better world for us to live in. Certainly, that is a desire common to all mankind.

Lake, a man in his fifties, says, “I left a three bedroom, two bath home in California. I just walked away from it, and I live with no stress. You had better be careful or you might find yourself on the road with us soon.”

Others are just seeking experience. Raven tells me, “I’m not going to be a Rainbow all of my life. I want to go to school someday. This is something that I want to do with my life for now.”

As soon as they came, they are gone. The streets are empty, the townsfolk settle back into their circadian rhythms. Two days later, DEA performed the biggest drug bust in the history of Apache County - on local residents. So it was ourselves we had to fear - not the Rainbow people. It was as if the government was telling us, We couldn’t stop the Rainbows from using drugs, but we certainly won’t tolerate it from you.

On the last day, I sat in my cubicle, going through my paperwork, when, in the lobby, a dozen voices shouted in unison, “THANK YOU!!!!! WE LOVE YOU!!!!!”

I ran out into the lobby only to see a VW bus pulling out of the lot and turn out of town, fading into the distance.

There are already speculations about next year’s gathering. Some say Montana. Some say Wisconsin. As I drove home that evening, I wondered if, next June, I would hit the road.

Keeping Sour

2011-08-20T06:17:00.000-07:00

So no sooner did I get a chance to look at the transcript on NPR's website, that I noticed that there were already comments on it. Especially from one person going under the name "Keeping Sweet".

"How is Mr. Jessop supporting his 11 children, given that he has been out of work for quite some time according to his own blog ? Do they require government assistance ? Should the taxpayers be paying for children he cannot afford ? A reporter mentioned that Mr.Jessop's wives who were featured in a television special lived in squalor in trailers, and his daughter does not want "the lifestyle" she was raised in - that speaks volumes... Show us a polygamous arrangement wherein the first wife is delighted and she has been in the lifestyle for over 10 yrs., the family is self supporting, and the female children want the lifestyle too. I am thinking that there are not too many polygamous families like that."

*sigh* Here we go, yet again.

1) Where have I ever said on my blog that I have been out of work for some time? It is true that I have fallen on tough times, with some health issues. But I work here and there, whenever I can.

2) I am a taxpayer. I have been all of my life.

3) The reporter mentioned that we were in ONE trailer. My family now lives in two. I am constantly trying to improve our living conditions to make our lives more comfortable. I think I have done a pretty, damn good job.

4) My kids are happy and well-adjusted. They eat well. They are clothed well. They are clean. They are getting a public education. Any one who has watched any TV segment can see that clearly. They are well-loved and well-cared for.

5) My daughter is NOT having my beliefs forced down her throat. THAT speaks volumes.

6) Martha has been the first wife in a plural marriage for over twelve years. Ask her if she is happy! I am willing to bet that she will say yes. In fact, she has had several times to defend her choice in front of the public many, many times. I know many wives who are pleased with their situation. I know many other plural families that are happy in their situation.

And finally... This person with the name "Keeping Sweet" (an FLDS catchphrase) knows all about my blog and posts about it within hours of the radio broadcast? That is a little creepy... THAT is what speaks volumes!

Can anyone say "anti"????

First of all, the name "Keeping Sweet" shows that they have affiliation of some sort with the FLDS. I am not associated with the FLDS. The Warren Jeffs trail/ travesty is as alien to me as it is to the rest of the public.

To me, this seems like some very misdirected, meth-addled rage and vitriol.

I have been telling people on some of my forums that hate groups against polygamists are very real. I call them "hate groups", because that is what they are founded upon - hate. Race hate groups use racial slurs and stereotypes. Hate groups against lifestyle groups like homosexuals use unscientific rhetoric and false assumptions to bash gays. No one listens to them or gives them credibility. So tell me - why is it that so many in the media gives credence and audience to the anti-polygamist hate groups? These hate groups make unsubstantiated claims like "polygamy is inherently abusive", and "all polygamist men are control freaks", or "all polygamist women are unhappy", or "all polygamists are on welfare", etc. These are NEGATIVE STEREOTYPES. You might as well say something like, "All Mexicans are lazy." (I am Mexican, btw.)

And yet they go onto the news networks and spout this discriminatory, inflammatory garbage, and people listen to them.

Why? Because Mormon polygamists are one of the last minority groups that is okay to HATE.

And like every hate group, they have their insidious modus operandi. They sling mud and shit and try to discredit polygamists through lies, exaggeration and slander. They create fake personas on social media networks, pretending to be "friends", but really try to gather information. If they are discovered, they make false accusations.

It would be one thing if they were AGAINST polygamy, but wanted to bring their grievances to the table and have dialogue with the polygamists. But they don't. Safety Net has invited the anti-polygamists to their meetings between polygamists and government agencies to try to resolve problems. The antis NEVER accept. Why? Because the government wants to have dialogue with the polygamists. And that is unacceptable to them.

The antis never want to admit that there are normal, good and honest people that live polygamy. They never want to admit that there are some who don't fit their stereotype. They want to paint us all the same. And they want nothing more than to see us all destroyed, our children taken away from us, and polygamy wiped off the face of the earth.

They want nothing short of ethnic cleansing...

Fascism is alive and well today. And it is "keeping sweet".

The Link to My NPR Interview...

2011-08-20T06:11:00.001-07:00

So yesterday, my segment on "Faith Matters" aired on NPR. You can read the transcript or listen to the broadcast here. I am pleased with how it turned out.

NPR: Tell Me More

2011-08-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

I have not been blogging lately. Mainly because issues have come up in my life that have made me question how I do my blog, why I do my blog, if I should do my blog, etc. I will be talking about some of these matters later.

I will start my story here:

Last week, I was in Missoula, Montana. Even though every year, I have health issues, I had tried - FOR MYSELF - to see if I could do the fair circuit again. I took every precaution and preparation that I could to prevent health issues from cropping up. After a few weeks in Montana, the sore opened up on the bottom of my foot.

One evening, after taking my shoe off, and finding my sock soaked in my own blood, and seeing the tiny hole that was tunneling into my foot, I threw in the towel. I have to admit that I am now limited in what I can do. I decided to fly home in order to heal.

The next morning, I got an email from Sarah at NPR in Washington DC. They were doing a segment on their program "Tell Me More". The segment is called "Faith Matters". The whole purpose of the show is to address minority groups that are commonly misrepresented in society. "Faith Matters" takes it a step further and addresses religious groups. My segment would - of course - deal with polygamy in America.

I set up a pre-interview on the phone with Sarah, and, early one morning from our campground, we spoke. I found her to be very respectful and polite.

I posted Facebook about it that day. I got a positive response. Some people joked that I am not boring enough to be on NPR. I beg to differ.

Sarah also called and spoke briefly to my wives about it. But I basically decided to do it. I was booking my flight home due to health reasons anyway.

When they called to confirm the interview, they said that it would be me and a plural wife that would also be interviewed.

"This isn't going to be like a point-counterpoint interview is it?" I asked. "Kind of like Nancy Grace?"

She assured me that it was not. They wanted to give polygamists a chance to speak for themselves, especially in light of "Sister Wives" and the notorious Warren Jeffs trial.

"Well, who is the wife being interviewed?" I asked. "It really is a small community, so I might actually know who it is."

"For confidentiality issues, I really can't say," Sarah told me.

That night, I got an email from Julie, from Wisconsin.

"I am the other person being interviewed!" she said.

I was relieved. At least it was someone I know. Well, (I know her online, at least. She is on many of the forums that I belong to, including being one of my Facebook friends.

So yesterday, she booked me into a local radio station in Show Low, AZ (KQAZ). I walked into the radio station at the appointed time. All the employees at the station looked up at me as the "NPR guest" walked in. Andrew, the engineer, got me set up in one of the booths. He is a recent transplant, just having moved from Kansas City. I have no clue if he knew who or what I am. But he sure got an earful very soon.

They linked us up through the interview - me in Show Low, Arizona. Julie in Milwaukee. And the host, Tony Cox, in Washington, DC. After walking us through some technical issues. (For my part, all I had to do was say, "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers" twice while they adjusted my mic volume.)

Then without much preamble, Tony Cox launched into our interview. It was a little daunting. I think I prefer having a camera in my face. Wearing the headphones, you can hear every little nuance and flaw of your voice, repeated right back in your ear. I didn't like it. Listening to yourself swallow nervously for millions of people.

Julie did beautifully. She truly did represent. She was eloquent, pleasant and confident. I think I came across as nervous and stupid.

I was only asked three questions:

1) Are there any negative aspects to plural marriages?

2) How many children do you have?

3) Do you want your children to follow in your foot steps?

Listen tomorrow to "Tell Me More" on NPR to find out how I answered! As soon as I have the online link, I will post it.

I think all in all, the NPR staff were very friendly, professional and respectful. They treated us and the topic with dignity.

After it was all over, Tony Cox was concerned. "Did we treat this topic in a way your were comfortable with?" he asked me.

It is nice to have people actually concerned with how they treat you...

The Blues Polygamist: Feedback about "Enquete Exclusive: Polygamie"

2011-06-05T06:02:00.000-07:00

So it has been interesting reading the feedback from last week's "Enquete Exclusive".

Before I had a chance to see the show, I looked at some of the forums about the program. They were heated discussions about the Muslim problem in France. They scarcely even talked about the Mormon issue. In fact, any mention of Mormons was cursory. It got to the point where I thought that perhaps my family didn't have any significant part in the program.

Then I found all the tweets...

I just have to say - what do people do in this world? I live off grid, so I really don't know. Do people sit in front of the TV with laptops and talk about what they are watching? It sounds like many people need to get out of the house more.

The discussion forums - whereas they were argumentative - at least had some substance. The tweets were much baser. Not intelligent. Off the cuff remarks. And very mean-spirited. Which shows me that the French are not that much different from Americans. The comments were the same.

Every now and then, I get a perverse desire to punish myself by going to my YouTube clip. People still comment on it often all these years later. After tens of thousands of views and several hundred comments, I can still count on one hand the positive comments. There is the inevitable Christian who pontificates on how wrong polygamy is and that God hates it, even though the Bible is replete with God's prophets who were polygamous. But mostly it is the people who say how fat, ugly and creepy I am. And how did I ever get two women to marry me? Poor women! They must be brainwashed to marry such a fat, ugly person...

LOL! Well, guess what? I have to look in the mirror every day. I see how fat I am. I'm no Brad Pitt. And I have NO CLUE why my wives would want to be with me, much less stay with me. It mystifies me. And it frustrates me that - whatever message that I am trying to get across - is drowned by the fat. No one can hear what I am saying, because all they see is blubber.

It reminds me of that scene from "The Producers": "FAAAAT!!!!! FAAAAAT!!!! FAT, FAT, FATTY!" lol!

Anyway, the French comments were not much different. I won't even talk about the vulgar comments. But they seemed to clue in on everything. Many people commented on Martha's glasses, they made fun of the cooking - they even wondered if the cat that they showed was polygamous, too!

There were several comments about how I live with no electricity, and yet how is it that I have a Blackberry? Come on! I'm not Amish! There were people that criticized me for wanting to read before I go to bed. Okay, I get that one. I thought that was a stupid thing for me to talk about.

The funniest comment was, "How is it that this man has two wives when George Clooney doesn't even have one?"

Then several people started calling me "The Blues Polygamist". I didn't really understand that. Maybe it was the soul patch. But I like it. Maybe I should keep that moniker. "Moroni Jessop the Blues Polygamist."

A French scholar named Chrystal Vanel blogged a very interesting review of the show. He mentioned my family a bit. Keep in mind that it is translated from French:

"Besides the fundamentalist Mormon members of theU.S. fundamentalist church, the report mentions the "Mormons independent." No doubt the journalists, who already at the beginning of the story could not tell the full name of the U.S. Mormon church majority did they speak of "fundamentalist Mormons independents" who live their religion out of any group, any institution.

"Journalists we have therefore Moroni, who lives with his two wives and his children in Arizona, and we say it is the "first time an independent fundamentalist opens the door of his house." Well no, this is not the first time that Moroni opens its doors to television cameras, as evidenced by his blog:Moroni & Family's TV Experience ( http://moroni-family.blogspot.com/ ). In addition, the television channel France 2 we had already shown an independent fundamentalist Mormon family (with whom I spent a month in Utah / Arizona) during a report of Special Envoy in the late 1990s. And the M6 itself had presented an independent fundamentalist Mormon family in the exclusive investigative report on the Mormons (November 28, 2010).

"Moroni's second wife testified that polygamy is for her lifestyle choice freely without any constraint, since it is not from a polygamous family."

There was an excellent blog written by a French Mormon that I suggest you read here.

All in all, I am pleased with the results of the program. If I can reach one or two - and change their opinion about Mormon polygamy - then they can talk about how fat I am all they want! I hope you will all keep reading!

Enquête Exclusive : Polygamie – Au coeur de l’interdit - MY REVIEW!!

2011-06-04T08:37:00.000-07:00

So the TV program that featured our family - "Enquete Exclusive" - aired on M6 in France last Sunday, on May 29th.

I didn't think that I would have a chance to watch it. I found it on M6's website, but there were permission issues. You can't watch it unless you are actually in France. But the other night, I actually found a couple of websites that actually aired the entire program. My heart started beating when I clinked on the link and saw the view from the top of our hill. Then I saw myself on TV, speaking (in English) to my kids with a French voice overdubbing me.

The show starts out with a man in Quebec, and his two wives. It showed them posing in bed, wearing cutesy pajamas. There wasn't much substance to their segment beyond, "Hey, look at us! We are polygamists, wearing matching pajamas, in the same bed! Woo hoo!"

Then they showed traveled back to France (with a small segment in Morocco) to discuss the polygamy problem among the Muslim population. It wasn't very positive, overshadowed with ominous music that sounded like something out of Dexter. They discussed Muslim men taking wives without telling the other wife, Muslim men abandoning other wives, Muslim men having wives in two different countries, Muslims taking advantage of welfare and public housing, etc. It was very negative. They showed many crying Muslim wives with their faces blurred out, telling of the difficulties of living polygamy. They had a couple of angry relatives, talking about how wrong polygamy is.

While I'm watching this, I understand that these women are suffering. I think that abuse is likely to be present in any culture where women become chattel, become property, where they have little to no say in their domestic lives. However, it was evident that the tone of this TV show was negative. I was wondering how they were going to tie in our family to this tragedy.

The show then moved over to Colorado City, Arizona. (So they DID visit another location!) They talked about the FLDS, about the raid of the YFZ Ranch in Texas, about Warren Jeffs and his imprisonment, about arranged marriages, etc. They showed Ted driving through the town, filming cars filled with local goon squad members following them through the streets (like they would do to any car with a camera in it.) Their visit included visiting a disaffected, former member by the name of Holmes who took them on a bus tour through the city. They stopped and talked to some random people and asked them if they loved their prophet, or some such question, to which they answered that they did. An old man in his garage was accosted, and he threatened to call the police.

I admit. I am not a huge fan of the FLDS. But this segment was a little sensationalized, and obviously it did not promote plural marriage in an encouraging light, either. I was starting to worry about whether this was going to be a hatchet job.

Then I saw some different scenery shots that I recognized as close to my house. Fortunately, the music changed, sounding less like "Twin Peaks" and more like "7th Heaven". Then the camera shows me walking between houses. My first thought was, "OMG, am I really that fat?" Ha ha. The second thought, they showed trailers and a big barn that I recognize, but that are NOT part of our religious community. They needed some good stock footage, I guess.

They introduced me as an independent Mormon fundamentalist (true) who doesn't recognize Warren Jeffs as his prophet (very true), and doesn't believe in arranged and/ or underage marriages (very, VERY true). They mention that I have studied in Europe, and then they have me introduce both of my wives, and their respective children (minus Sophie) - in very basic French.

The narrator says that we live the way we do as fugitives, as pariahs, and that is why we live the way we do without electricity. I guess maybe we do, but I never really considered myself a fugitive.

It is mentioned that this is the first time that an independent Mormon fundamentalist has opened his doors to the media. LOL! Well, that is not exactly true. I am certainly not the first polygamist who has had cameras in his home. This is not even the first time that I have had the media in my home. BUT... It is the first time that I have had the French media in my home, so that is what they must have meant!

They talk a little bit about how hard it is to find jobs in such a desert region, but that Temple - an "assistante maternelle" - provides the salary that sustains the family. Temple is interviewed and talks about how no one forced her into this relationship, that she consented to it. She comes from a family that does not practice polygamy, and that she is happy.

Martha talked a little bit about the theology of plural marriage, but it was kind of hard to focus on anything but her glasses. At that time, her glasses had broken, and we hadn't had the chance to do anything about it yet. Her glasses were dangling from her face. Poor Martha...

Oh, and they did feature Christian chopping wood - just as I hoped he would!

I have to say, I was really proud of my kids. They did an interview with them as they walked between houses. They were exuberant and happy, all of them trying to answer Ted's questions about growing up in such a large family at once. They were truly the centerpiece of this segment. They even showed me having a staged class with the kids about plural marriage. They all answered beautifully. Sara talked about a wife having more than one husband as cheating. I laughed at that. Aidan gave a beautiful answer about the purpose of plural marriage. I can't say enough how proud I was.

After the "class", they show the kids running out to play on the swings. The next part made me laugh so hard. My six year-old son Alex can't read yet. He just graduated from kindergarten. He found a copy of a tiny New Testament. He carried this book around with him everywhere. They filmed him on the playset, reading from this book while on the swing. And the narrator says something like, "And even while they play, Moroni's kids find time to study from the Book of Mormon."

Alex probably was doing it this as an affectation, trying to show the cameras that he can read, when in fact he cannot. But it was so funny that this is the way that they interpreted it. I loved it.

While I am pushing my kids on the swing, I talk - very tongue-in-cheek - about Mormons taking over the world, not by the sword, but by procreation, thus making the whole world Mormon. Even though I was joking, I am sure that some took this very seriously.

The next scene shows Martha and Temple making dinner while I sit at the table, looking at my Blackberry. They something about me supervising. Not true. I know nothing about cooking, so how could I supervise? But I am wearing this impatient look on my face. Probably because I am hungry! After Aidan offers a prayer, we have dinner, and they conduct interviews with the three of us.

After dinner, they film me walking between houses, talking about the challenges of living plural marriage. I don't like this part, mainly because I think I sound stupid while I talk.

The next day they interviewed us while we were standing by our car. I talk a little bit about the differences in each relationship. Martha talks about the need to sacrifice in order to make it work. Then the program ends.

I'm not sure how my segment was congruous when juxtaposed with the Muslim problem. I don't see how they are similar, except that we have polygamy in common. I don't even see how we can be compared to the FLDS. But I must say that - in spite of it being a negative show about polygamy - our segment was very positive. I am very pleased how it turned out. Ted Anspach and M6 treated us with dignity and respect, and I want to thank them for their honest portrayal of our family..

Our Show in France!!!

2011-06-01T00:04:00.000-07:00

Watch it while you can here!

Forgot to Mention...

2011-05-17T14:47:00.001-07:00

I forgot to mention, when I posted about the conversation with my daughter Sophie, the reason she was upset - they had aired our program on TLC again in January. Apparently, for the second year running, TLC plays it on New Year's Day.

Also, it had been aired in Australia a couple of times last year...

Cougar Town

2011-05-17T11:45:00.000-07:00

Over fifteen years ago, I first laid my eyes on our property, I fell in love. Grassy rangeland surrounded by mountain peaks. Immense, blue skies crisscrossed with contrails. Being on top of a plateau, it felt like I was in the center of a perfect circle. The feeling of safety was overwhelming. I knew that this is where I wanted to live.

Every now and then, we get reminders that we don't live in the big city. We live in the wilderness. The occasional rattlesnake under the porch. Plenty of prairie dogs. Bald eagles in the trees by the lake. Herds of pronghorn. I even once saw a badger. And coyotes. Lots and lots of coyotes. Not only do they serenade us at night, but our cat population suffers because of it. Cats have a lifespan of about one and a half years at my place.

Once, a few years ago, the kids were playing outside, and a black bear ran down the hill not more than fifty feet away from them. They ran into the house, screaming. Martha got into the van and chased that black bear for about a mile. Poor bear.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that - back in December, 2009 - we had a mountain lion sighting only yards away from my house. No one was home, but all the dogs were barking, including my indoor dog Cookie. My sister stepped outside to investigate just in time to see a mountain lion run up the hill, clearing a juniper tree in a single bound.

After this, I became a bit obsessed with this. It was a reminder that WE are the intruders. We are in the wilderness, in their terrain. I forbade my kids to play outside alone and at dusk. If kids had to go out early in the morning to do chores, they always went out in pairs. I read every documented cougar attack in the last twenty years. They are vicious animals and opportunists. And they are creatures of habit, returning back to the same locations frequently.

I was very worried about my children. At nights, sometimes Cookie would awaken us with her barks. When there is a stranger coming to our house, she has a certain bark. Late at night, this bark was different. It was a little... frightened. At nights, when I would go out to the faucet to fill water containers, I could swear that I could feel something watching me. It was probably paranoia.

It took us several months to kind of relax.

My six year-old son Alex is kind of a loner. He loves to play alone. His favorite game is to put on a backpack, grab his toy rifle and run up the hill. He will run around up there all day playing Army guy. He is determined that, when he grows up, he is enlisting in the Army. Temple, his mother, is very worried about this behavior.

"I don't want him to join the military!" she says. "We need to discourage him!"

I laughed about this. "EVERY six year-old guy dreams about being an Army guy. I did! There's nothing wrong about that."

So I took aside Alex and asked him why he wanted to join the Army.

"To serve my country," he told me. Can't argue with that.

"Who are you going to fight?" I asked.

"The Japanese," he answered.

Whoops. I guess I've been watching too many war movies.

But I would love to be sitting on the couch, looking out the window and seeing Alex - his little, plastic cradles in his arms - running up the hill with determination. He would stay up there all day, if we let him.

At the end of March, Alex started to have nightmares every night about animals attacking him. Bears, wolves, etc. He would wake up terrified, asking to get into bed with his mother. Then one night, in his dream, he was attacked by wolf, and suddenly the wolf turned

into a mountain lion. Then the next night, the dream was about a mountain lion, and the night after that.

I was out of town, but Temple was at home with company staying over. One quiet afternoon, our guest was looking out the front room window - just in time to see the unmistakable body and tail of a mountain lion slip over the rocks of the hill - just thirty yards from our swing set. The swing set where our kids had been playing just about an hour earlier.

That was our second mountain lion sighting in the last year. That's enough. I decided to call Arizona Game & Fish. First of all, they wouldn't take my testimony. So I had to get my guest - who was here from California - to call Game & Fish to give a first-person account.

I thought that my report would get lost in a sea of paperwork. But surprisingly, Game & Fish called me that afternoon. They would be sending a local hunter to scout our property. The reason that they took my report seriously - our sighting was during the day. Most mountain lions keep out of sight during the day, only venturing out at night.

The next day, a pickup pulled up, and the hunter showed up. He sent his teenage son up the hill to scout things out. They found some tracks, but it was windy. They couldn't tell for sure if those tracks were made by a mountain lion.

He told us that the cats usually range about fifty miles and always come back to the same places at the most once a month. There was a particularly troublesome, old female that they had problems with occasionally. He instructed me to call him if it snowed at all, no matter how late. The snow would give them the advantage in tracking it.

After he left, he spoke to my brother. He expressed doubt that any mountain lion would be in the area.

"There's no water source," the hunter told my brother. "Mountain lions only go to where there is water."

"But there is a regular water source!" I said. "Our well."

Our water tank has no shut-off valve, so the excess water always go out of the overflow, making a constant pool of water next to the tank. There is always standing water about one hundred yards from our house. We always have problems with cattle stopping by to drink. Perfect for a mountain lion.

My brother called the hunter, and he came back and posted motion sensor cameras around the well.

That night, we got a skiff of snow. I immediately called the hunter. He said that they would start the hunt at 2AM that night. There had been a mountain lion sighting at a ranch several miles south of us.

His dogs got a scent of the mountain lion and gave chase for quite a while. They treed a female and two cubs. The cubs were already quite large, big enough to run from the dogs. Once up the tree, the female fell out, and the dogs roughed her up a bit. They collared the female and let her go. From all appearances, she seemed like a good mother, and the hunter didn't think that she posed any threats to humans.

But he said there were two problems - 1) The pronghorn were fawning, which brings the cats down from the peaks. 2) There were several males in the area, trying to kill her cubs to bring her into estrus. The threat came from them. He advised us to resume being cautious.

The tree where they caught the lioness and her cubs was only three miles from my house, near a cinder quarry owned by my in-laws. I am posting a photo. The dark spot at the base of the mountain is the quarry where she was caught.

I've lived here fifteen years. And I don't think the cats are new to the area. I think that they've been here all along. We just weren't aware of them.

In the weeks since this happened, we haven't heard from the hunter. One night, I noticed headlights up on the hill. I was recovering from surgery, so I couldn't go run up the hill. So I called the hunter. It was him, retrieving his game cam. The photos turned up several cows and some crows, but no lions. He reset the cameras to see if anything shows up.

It has now been about a month since the sighting. All in all, I think my kids are safer here than in the city. But still... Every night, when I step outside to turn off the generator/ inverter, there are only yards of black night separating me from the spot where the cougar was sighted. I can't keep but wondering - how often do these cats come back to my place? And how quickly could it cross the darkness before I am even aware it is there?

Polygamie: Au coeur de l'interdit

2011-05-17T10:52:00.000-07:00

So, M6 is broadcasting their show on polygamy. Here is the link.

The translation is as follows:

Issue of Sunday, May 29, 2011 10:45 p.m.

Polygamy: the heart of the forbidden

Jean-François, and Karine installed with Annie, wants to marry civilly his two companions. But in Canada, the country where he resides in France as elsewhere, polygamy is prohibited by law. So he joined a group attempting to change the legislation. In France, polygamy for more than 20 000 families. In some municipalities, mayors confess powerless against the complexity of this phenomenon often mixing religion and privacy, which sometimes masks fraud to child benefit. At Nimes, master Aoudia Khadija was commissioned by the three polygamous wife of a Moroccan. None of these women knew she would share her husband. So, between Morocco and France, they seek to bring him to justice.

There is no mention of my family. I am wondering if they edited us out, not interesting enough? LOL

What I Did For Love...

2011-05-16T06:53:00.000-07:00

After the French film crew left, they said that they were driving to Utah to film some stock footage of the Mormon temple, etc., and then flying home. It crossed my mind that they were going to film other polygamist families, like Dawn Porter had gone to Centennial Park after our house. Again, with the reticence. I wouldn't have cared if they were filming someone else. In fact, I would have made suggestions for them.

Even though Ted Anspach asked all the questions, he would not be featured at all in the upcoming documentary about my family. The segment would be called "Enquete Exclusive", and the TV personality who would be speaking about us is a man named Bernard de La Villardiere. You can check out the website here. As far as I know, they have not yet aired our segment. Ted said that it would be sometime in May. But I have tried to contact Ted and have received no reponse.

In the days that followed, I thought about the whole experience. It was much more pleasant, and we were treated with dignity. However, I am not naive to think that every experience will be like this. The media is fickle. Even though these French journalists were so NICE, there is someone I grew up with who lived several year in France and Belgium. He told me that I would be stupid to trust any French journalist.

As evidenced in my previous blogs, I couldn't help but compare it to the experience with Dawn Porter, doing the shows for British TV, TLC and History Channel. When I really think about it, the questions that both film crews asked were kind of the same.

But more importantly, my answers were kind of the same. The more I thought about it, it was kind of redundant. My response are always the same, on TV, and on the several online forums that I belong to.

It's like this - my dad used to say that he never liked taking college courses by the same professor. It only took one semester to clue in on all of the professors beliefs, platforms and stances. If you took another class with the same professor, you got just more of the same.

And that's what this felt like. More of the same. With the trouble involved in putting yourself and your family out there, on camera, it just didn't seem worth it anymore. I've said all that I can say in this forum. It's time to find another way to express myself.

Several days after the shoot, Martha took the kids to Sunday School. I wasn't feeling that well, so I was asleep on the couch. Martha was also going to pick up my daughter Sophie from her grandmother's house to spend the day with the family. I got a phone call from Martha. Sophie didn't want to come home, too much homework, or something like that.

"You're the parent," I said. "Make her come home."

A little while later, my nap was interrupted when Martha and Sophie came in, arguing loudly. I was irritated at being woken up in such a manner. But Sophie demanded to speak to us immediately.

The issue was not about having to come home. The issue was that we went in front of the cameras again.

"You're doing it just to get another wife," my daughter accused me.

That couldn't be more untrue. With my health and financial issues, I can't imagine any woman who would want to come into my family. Doing the interviews was NOT about adding to my family.

"Do you remember when your aunt Sarine sent the media after us, and they made up lies and tried to get me and the family involved in all their filth?" I told her. "I lay awake many nights after that, after the raid in Texas, just worried about that something was going to happen, that someone was going to take away the kids. There were people out there that were saying things about me, saying things that weren't true.

"I realized that if I did not speak up for myself, other people would speak for me. I needed to show them that I would not shut up, that I would not just sit by and take it. THAT is the ONLY reason that I went in front of the cameras. I'm not going to just sit idly by. Now people know that I am not afraid to say something about it. There is not any bullshit that they can pull without me speaking up, without me blogging about it."

"You don't understand, dad," Sophie said. "You're going to get the kids taken away. There are people out there who want to take away the kids. There are people out there who are just looking for any excuse to do it."

The thought that crossed my mind was that people - adults - had been speaking to my daughter at school. There are always do-gooders out there who might try to "rescue" her. I asked her to clarify, but she stayed away from giving a clear answer.

"And I will fight them," I said. "I will never stop fighting. I can't."

The truth is - I love Sophie. I love her more than she will ever know, and I would never force her into this lifestyle. There is nothing that I want more for her than to be happy. I love all of my children that way.

And it pisses me off - because Sophie is right. There are people out there who would take them away from me forever. How messed up is that? We are a happy family. We are well-adjusted. Why would anyone care enough to even bother with us?

But that is my reason - as much as even Mormon fundamentalists criticize us. I will fight for my rights. And I will go in front of the cameras again and again if it keeps us safe.

Thanks for all the kind words about my blog. There is much more to say, so I hope you will tune in.

French TV - Last Day of Filming

2011-05-15T22:12:00.000-07:00

A few days before the crew arrived, I broke silence and told the kids about the shoot. It went something like this:

"Kids, do you remember when Hank came and filmed you, and you were on TV?"

A collective "Yeah!"

"Well, would you like to do it again?"

Enthusiastic "Yeah!"

"Well, guess what? In a couple of days, we have some special visitors coming..."

When I broke the news to my oldest daughter, Sophie, of course, she declined. I learned my lesson last time. I shouldn't force my kids to do something like this. Or should I?

Conveniently, the older kids had events going on the weekend of the shoot. There was a basketball game on Friday (the first day of the shoot). My oldest son Christian plays basketball, and Sophie cheers. On Saturday (the final day of shooting), Sophie had some activity in town. But Christian didn't.

Generally, on days they get back late from school activities, they will go to their grandmother's house in town, and I will go pick them up the next day.

Early on Saturday morning, I went to go pick up Christian. I briefly told him how the shoot was going, how cool the crew was. There were a few minutes of awkward silence, and then Christian spoke.

"Dad, do I have to be there when they are filming?"

I thought about it for a moment. "I will tell you the same thing I told Sophie the last time. If you can give me one good reason that you don't want to do it, I will let you skip out. So what's your reason?"

He fumbled for an answer. "I just don't want to."

"That's not a good enough reason, son," I told him. "You have to be there. But I will tell you again the same thing I told Sophie. You can stay out of the way - except when it's time for us to be together."

I pulled up to the house, expecting to find the French film crew to be there. Instead, I found my landlord. Typical. For the most part, we had kept the presence of our guests somewhat inconspicuous. Now I was going to have to explain to my landlord why we had cameras running around his property. Immediately, I went over and knocked on his door. He was fine with it.

In fact, as soon as the crew got there, Frank went and set the camera up on the hill and started taking scenery shots. My landlord went up and started talking to them, pointing out that he descended from French Huguenots.

Before the elusive Christian could slip away, I suggested to Ted that they should film Christian chopping some wood. So I conscripted Christian to chop some wood, and the cameras were rolling. I couldn't help myself. I stood aside, snickering. I joked with him later that some young, hot, French chick would see this tall, strapping young man swinging the ax, and ask, "Who ees zees Amereekan boy?"

Then I let Christian slip away and he was absent the rest of the day, doing his own thing - probably PSP.

The whole family remained outside after Christian cut the wood. The cameras kept running. The children were playing at our little playground, and my wives and I were leaning against the car while they asked us questions.

Again, they were very respectful questions, and I was very proud of the girls. I must say, I was't very proud of myself. I didn't say any stupid shit like I did with Dawn Porter. But I'm in a weird place spiritually right now. Everyone goes through spiritual highs, and everyone goes through spiritual lows. Even if it might be bad timing, I was going through one of the spiritual lows.

Most of it stems from trying to adjust to having our families divided into two houses (and we talked about that on camera). I felt that some of my answers were a little dry and empty. Not disingenuous. It's just hard to be upbeat about something as all-encompassing as plural marriage when you are not feeling like you are doing a good job at it. I was right in the middle of

a huge adjustment, and I was expected to say loads of positive things about it.

So my girls - great job! Me - hmph.

Next, they wanted to film my kids and I in a religious discussion. We all retired into the spare bedroom, and I asked my kids questions about their religion. I was also proud of my kids.

During a break, I happened to put the History Channel episode on the DVD for them. When they saw the bit about me standing at my dad's grave, they immediately wanted to mimic that. So again, I went out to the family cemetery plot with cameras. Except that my extended family was cluing in a little bit to what I was doing and many came out to look. I was a little bit uncomfortable, so we ended that.

So many of these interviews were in French. I had been practicing my French. Since Frank hardly spoke English, many of my conversations with him were in French. I seemed to do fine. Ted and Frank were very respectful in the way I spoke French. They didn't treat me like I was a dumb foreigner. They spoke to me in the vernacular they spoke with each other. Sometimes I had to struggle to keep up with them.

But something strange happened. When they turned on the cameras, I started struggling with my French. I don't know if it was psychological. I was having a hard time expressing myself, or remembering certain words. So I would often revert back to English to get my point across. Instead of Spanglish, it was Frenglish?

As the sun set, we had one of those beautiful Arizona sunsets. They took advantage of this by filming me walk in between the houses. The kind of displaced feeling a polygamist feels in going between homes kind of intrigued them, and they wanted to explore that. I talked about the paradox of the Principle - that in having more wives, a polygamist actually feels at times... more lonely.

The girls had gone through much detail to prepare a Mexican meal - enchiladas, frijoles, and Spanish rice. We expected that they would film us eating, but Frank and Ted put aside the cameras and came and ate with us.

Temple later remarked, "That was the difference between Dawn's crew and the French crew. Ted and Frank actually wanted to get to know us as people."

The previous crew didn't want to eat with us. Once when they were shooting the breeze at their van, I went out to socialize with them, and they all got quiet. Once of the producers took me aside and said that it wasn't quite kosher for us to associate with the crew too much, because we were the subjects. When the shoot was done, they planned a big dinner in Show Low. I hinted that maybe Martha, Temple and I might want to go, but they shot that idea down.

Here, Frank and Ted put business aside and treated us like human beings and ate our food. They also gave every child a gift - coloring books and markers. They had brought us French wine and the like, but one of their bags never made it on their flight.

In other words, this was a very, very pleasant experience, one that we don't regret.

Next time, I will talk a little bit about the fallout from this shoot... there's always fallout...

52 Minutes - First Day of Shooting

2011-05-12T08:20:00.000-07:00

The day before shooting - on Thursday, January 20th - I got a phone call from Ted. They had completed their filming in Quebec and were at the airport, getting ready to fly to Phoenix. From there, they would rent a car, drive to Show Low, Arizona, and check into the Holiday Inn. In the evening, once they got there, they would call me and possibly come for some filming in the evening.

With this news, there was some frantic cleaning done in preparation. But as the evening wore on, it was evident that they would not be coming. Ted's number was a Paris number, and my Verizon account prevents me from making international calls. There were no worries. They probably didn't get in until late.

There was a trip to the grocery store to get food for the weekend. The girls were worried sick about meals. I mean, what do you make for dinner for someone from France?? Where cuisine is an art form?? There were memories of Dawn Porter and her crew turning up their nose at Temple's shepherd's pie recipe. I told them not to worry. Keep it simple. Mexican food is sort of a staple here in the Southwest, so I advised them to do enchiladas, or something.

The next morning, the kids went off to school, and Temple went to work. Martha and I were left at home, alone, waiting for some sort of word.

The previous film crew had been very punctual, showing up at ungodly hours of the morning to start filming. So by 10AM, I hadn't heard from Ted, so I figured something was wrong. Maybe they didn't show up. So I emailed him. No response. I couldn't place a call, but I decided to try texting his number. The text got through. They were in Show Low (35 miles away). They had just got up, were having breakfast and would soon be leaving.

I provided them with directions to my house. Since there is five miles of dirt road, I told them to pull over at a certain point of the highway, text me, and I would meet them.

A while later, I get a local phone call. It was the attendant at the local gas station in Concho.

"Is this Moroni?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied.

"There are a couple of foreign gentlemen here at the gas station, asking if I know you," she said.

I told her that I would be there in fifteen minutes. Apparently, they lost cell service the moment they got to Concho and couldn't call me. I got to the gas station, and they were unmistakable. They looked very "French". There were a couple of local, toothless, bearded mountain men making conversation with them in the parking lot, talking about the weather in Arizona. (We had just had snow earlier in the week.)

I introduced myself. Ted Anspach, the producer/ journalist, spoke English very well. His father is English, and, even though he was raised in France, he spent all of his holidays growing up in England.

When Dawn Porter had come to Arizona, they had contracted their crew locally in Los Angeles. Ted had come with one cameraman

- Frank. Frank has had extensive experience in filming and has traveled all over the world. He has even filmed in the Himalayas. He and Ted had previous experience working with each other doing a piece on AIDS. Frank's English was quite limited. He was quite relieved that I spoke French, and we spoke quite a bit together.

They followed me in their rental to our property. When Ted got out of the car, he looked out across the grassy rangeland and snow-capped mountains that surround our ranch.

"Wow!" exclaimed Ted, as he took it all in. "This is breathtaking! I can just imagine a cowboy riding across the landscape!"

They came in, and I introduced them to Martha. I think I expected them to start filming right away, but they didn't. They sat and talked with us, asking questions.

There were some scheduling conflicts. Temple and the kids were at school, and there was a basketball game scheduled at 1PM for my sons Hiram and Ethan - their final game of the season. It was important that we make it to that game. Earlier Temple and I had discussed the possibility of taking the crew into the game to film. But we weren't sure how that would go over with the school. It could put Temple's job in jeopardy.

I brought this up to Ted. Immediately, he insisted that the priority was that we get to go see the game. He suggested that I contact the school and try to get permission.

So I called the principal at Concho School and ran the scenario by her. She was very polite about it.

"I'm so glad you called me first," she said. "But I'm afraid that I'm going to have to say no. If you were to film, we would have to get permission from every parent of every student involved. It would be too much of a hassle."

"I wouldn't do anything like bringing cameras into the school without getting your permission first," I assured her.

So we drove into Concho for the game. Ted and Frank excused themselves to film some local scenery shots. The arrangement was to meet back at the school at a certain time.

At the school, I met our kids. They were very excited to meet our "special visitors". They remembered the last shoot, and they remembered being put on TV. They were very excited to do it again. (The younger kids, anyway.) The game was really good. Concho was playing some scrappy kids from the White Mountain Apache Reservation. When it came time to meet our French guests outside, the game was still going, so I went out into the parking lot to find them.

They were smoking cigarettes by their car (until they saw the statute posted that Arizona school campuses are smoke free.) I invited them in for the last quarter (with no cameras). It was very noisy, and Concho won by two points in the last few seconds of the game. The crowd went wild. I wonder what our guests thought.

Ted and Frank were swarmed by our kids as I introduced them. (one of my younger kids referred to them as "those guys that speak Spanish".)

We all went home, and the filming started. They filmed as Martha and Temple made dinner. I left them and went up to Temple's house to do my chores, which involved getting the fire going and the generator fired up. At this point in time, we had a generator that would not start under thirty pulls. So it was always a workout - and time consuming - just to get electricity into the house.

When I came back from doing chores, dinner was on the stove cooking, and both of my wives were in front of the cameras - again! And again, I was so proud of them. Ted was asking them about the misconceptions that wives in plural marriage are dumb and brainwashed. The girls answered beautifully. When I walked in, Temple was speaking of the necessity of not relying only on schools to teach your children, but to take a proactive approach in educating your own children. She came across as the intelligent, driven woman that she is. I was very proud of her.

When dinner was done, they filmed the children carrying the pots for dinner up the hill - the 2.45 minute walk to Temple's house, where we would eat. Then they filmed us having dinner.

I hate to constantly compare this encounter with our first experience with Dawn Porter. But I have no other frame of reference. We offered food to Dawn's crew. They turned their noses up at it. It was kind of offensive. They even made references to the food being unhealthy.

Not Ted and Frank.

They sat down to eat with us. Martha made chicken noodle soup (with homemade noodles) and ladled it over mashed potatoes. It is a common meal for us, and very delicious. But we were very pleased that they would even eat with us.

Afterwards, they wanted to film us in some sort of religious service.

My family has some unusual beliefs and practices that makes us stand somewhat apart from other Mormon families. We believe in the Jewish tradition of keeping the Sabbath on Saturday. Most of our community worships on Sunday, and, so to be in harmony with our community, we attend services on Sunday. But our Saturday Sabbath is something we observe as a family.

The way we observe this is to move the tradition of Sunday dinner to Friday and the Mormon tradition of Monday Family Home Evening to Friday. We have the sacrament. And we have a mitzvah, or short lesson. It is not a big deal, but it is the way that we observe the start of the Sabbath. We are not always faithful at doing it this way. Friday nights are the sometimes the worst night to try to get the family together with games, dances, activities, etc. But this is generally how we try to do things.

So they filmed me breaking bread and serving wine (grape juice) to my family and having a brief mitzvah.

After the meeting, they interviewed Martha, Temple and I at the kitchen table, and asked us a series of questions - all of them religious in nature. But they were very polite in the way they asked questions. In other words, they were very insistent that we did not need to answer any questions that made us uncomfortable.

When the interview was over, they excused themselves and went back to their hotel. They arranged to come back at 10:30 the next morning. (What?? Not at 6AM??)

After they left, Martha, Temple and I agreed that this was a MUCH MORE pleasant experience than before. If interviews always went this smoothly, we would never have qualms about doing them.

But there is still tomorrow... which is when I will tell you what happened next...

Preparing For Shoot For French TV

2011-05-11T16:57:00.000-07:00

In November, 2010, I got a phone call from a producer of a company called Ligne de Front in Paris, France. The guy's name was Ted Anspach, and he had been referred to me by Morgane Corbeuil, the French reporter who contacted me in 2009. Yes, the French TV crew that stood me up the DAY BEFORE we were supposed to do a shoot.

He was producing a polygamy segment for a TV show called "52 Minutes" for a French network called m6. This was like their equivalent of America's "60 Minutes". The purpose of the show was to demonstrate polygamous arrangements in a manner that the French are not used to. In France, when they think of polygamy, they immediately think of the Muslim population, and the unpleasant sentiments the French have about having these people in their country. They wanted to demonstrate polygamy in a different light. This included showing a Mormon family.

In an email to me, Ted wrote:

"Your personal experience is very important to us, as I would like to dedicate part of the documentary on plural marriages within the Mormon community.

"As you know better than me, it remains a very sensitive topic to deal with, in both the US and Europe. Therefore, I firmly believe it's important to present plural marriages, in a non judgemental way, so the public will be able to make its own decision on what they should think about it, beyond the usual stigma and prejudice.

"In order to fulfill this challenge, I am looking for a nice American family who could represent and defend plural marriages as a religious right, but a right that needs to stay within the limits of the respect of human beings: A decision made between consenting adults with no kind of pressure whatsoever or husband's domination on the wives.

"As we discussed, I do believe yourself and your family would be the perfect candidates for this testimony. "

It sounded pretty good to me. I immediately said yes, for this reason:

Morgane had already established to me that French journalists do not pay for exclusive interviews, so I had to find some other reason to do this. My reason was my love for France, Belgium and French-speaking people.

For some reason, I was drawn to the French language from the time I was a little boy. I remember being a little boy and going to a grocery store. At the checkout stand, they had a pocket-sized book on how to learn French. Every time I went to the grocery store, I wished that I had enough money to buy it.

As a high school freshman, I dropped out of band. I didn't like the teacher, and the trombone mouthpiece was chilling my teeth. There was no other class available except French. As the band teacher signed my release slip, he sneered, "I tell you what. You come back in one month and tell me just how much you like French!"

By the time I graduated, I had taken all four years of French. Students from Belgium had come to our school, and I had befriended them. (Some of these students still keep in touch.)

In 1988, I went to Belgium as an exchange student for six weeks. It was there that I picked up a knack for the language. For the next six years, I worked with my old high school teacher and her Belgian exchange program until she retired. I worked at Holiday Inn Reservations as a French agent. I taught French for six years for Salt Lake Continuing Education, St. Johns High School and for our fundamentalist Mormon community.

I have always loved French culture and don't tolerate fellow Americans to speak ill of this culture around me.

But over the years, my French has got a little rusty. Where in rural Arizona can I practice my French?

My line of reasoning - there is a REASON that I felt driven to learn French. There has to be. Who better to represent Mormon polygamy to the French than me? Seriously! I had to do this show. So I decided immediately - yes! Then I went to my girls about it.

Morgane had not impressed that I spoke French, not one bit. Ted, on the other hand, was delighted. We set plans for filming in December.

I went home and talked to my wives about it. We collectively agreed not to breathe a word about it until after it was over. The fallout from our last TV shoot was burdensome to us. To this day, we still catch flack from family/ friends for making that decision and bringing the media into our lives. The way we looked at it - they did not NEED to know anything about it. It was - and still is not - Any. Of. Their. Damn. Business. Period.

So we kept it hush hush...

December came, and I had not heard a peep from Ted. I started to get concerned that we were going to get stood up again. In the middle of the month, I got an email. They were going to postpone it until January, 2011. I kind of saw where this was heading. But none of us were going to be broken-hearted if it didn't happen.

Around Christmas, we heard from Ted again. They were definitely coming around January 21 & 22. It was tremendous the freedom that he gave us. He wanted us to come up with our own schedule. They wanted us to be a normal, polygamist family, doing whatever it is we do, and they would merely be observers. This was tremendous freedom compared to our previous experience. But it also put some pressure on us. We are boring people. What can we do to look interesting?

Ted suggested that we plan to go to a rodeo (in January??). "You know the European fantasies of the American way-of-life," he said.

In the days before the shoot, I started to practice French. It was important for me to do as much of the interviews as I could in the French language. I listened to French music, I watched French movies and read aloud from a French Book of Mormon every day. At first my tongue felt like a dead fish flopping around in my mouth. But then the fluency started to return. On days that Temple worked, she would leave the toddler with me. He would look at me in confusion as I rattled away in French to him.

And of course, the cleaning - who wants to show their house looking like a mess on - not national - but international TV?? But I told the girls not to stress about it. No need to get stressed about it. We weren't going to kill ourselves trying to impress anyone with our rural living - especially since TLC flayed us over our living conditions.

A few days before the shoot, I got a phone call from Ted. They were in Quebec, Canada, doing a shoot with a polyamorous family over there. From Canada, they would be flying to Phoenix. From Phoenix, they would be driving to the White Mountains to meet us.

Ted impressed me by asking this question: "Is there anything that is important for you to say? Is there some topic that is important for you to express while we interview you?"

Ted sold me on that question alone. That he would even CARE to ask that...

The day before the shoot, I decided to let the proverbial cat on the bag. I posted on Facebook that we were about to do a film shoot. Boy, was Temple upset with me! But I figured - there was no turning back now.

So on January 20th, we finished the cleaning and waited to go in front of the cameras. yet again. I will talk about our experience tomorrow...

Once in a Lifetime - Same As It Ever Was...

2011-05-10T09:14:00.000-07:00

Sometime in November, I got an email from a production company called Sirens Media. They were looking to do a program on Lifetime Network. They were looking for a family that was in the process of adding another wife to their family. They asked me if I was adding a wife to my family, and, if not, did I know anybody who was getting ready for a polygamous marriage.

Usually, I am polite. So I wrote them back and said that I didn't know of anybody who was adding to their family, and that I didn't have any plans for myself. But if I heard of anybody, I would let them know.

Periodically, those of us in the polygamy world - those of us online, anyway - we will get blanket emails from these production companies. We will even talk about these offers amongst ourselves.

The world is full of rip-offs. It was obvious that Sirens Media - and Lifetime - were ripping off the whole premise of "Sisterwives" on TLC - a man adding a plural wife to his family. (But then "Sisterwives" is riding the wake of "Big Love". So everyone is a copycat, and no one is original. Except me.)

This time, my buddy - whom I will call Poly-Austin DH (or DH for short) - answered the call. My buddy lives in the Midwest and was getting ready to add two wives to his family. Essentially, the show was going to be about marriage, and they were going to follow twelve scenarios featuring unconventional marriage situations. DH adding two wives to his family, and their family would take up one segment of their series.

I had already been talking to DH about traveling to the Midwest to see him and his family for a while. This show would be the perfect opportunity for me to travel out. DH asked if I would be the one to perform the marriages. I told him that I would be honored.

There was one issue - the Mormon wedding ceremony, which we call "Sealing" is a sacred ceremony to us. It is part of our temple endowment. All of our temple ceremonies are secret. We do them in privacy. We don't discuss them. And we CERTAINLY don't perform them in front of TV cameras.

In the old days, back in the days when the FBI and the Mormon Church were trying to root out all polygamists, you didn't know who was married to who. You may know that Sister So-And-So was married, but you might not know to whom. And you certainly would not know where they were married, when they were married, or who performed the sealing. Sealing is very sacred.

In my mind, to perform a sealing ceremony in front of the cameras was something that crossed a line for me. I may be willing to say or do just about anything on TV, but performing a sealing is not one of the them. Right away, DH and I agreed on that. We decided that I would perform a tailored married ceremony in front of the cameras, and a sealing off camera.

So we set a date to film in January. In the meantime, I spoke to the producers about it. Around this time, I was contacted by producers from France. (I will speak about this in my next post.) They were travelling all the way from Europe, and their filming schedule conflicted with my trip to the Midwest. But the prospect of filming me perform a plural marriage was something that appealed to them. The French crew wanted to join in the Midwest to film DH's wedding as well. I ran this by Sirens Media, and, of course, they shot down that idea.

The week before I was supposed to travel to the Midwest, I started to get somewhat nervous. I wasn't feeling well. My legs were still swollen; I had a bleeding ulcer on the bottom of my foot. Me being gone was putting pressure on my girls, and I had a lot to do around the house to prepare for MY film shoot the new week. The thought of traveling on a plane while I felt horrible and tired didn't sound fun.

I took all of these anxieties and realized that I did not feel good about going on this shoot. Even though it was a few days before I was supposed to go, I called DH. I told him that I would not be coming to perform his marriage. He was understanding. I sent an email to the producers. In desperation, they tried to call and make me a better deal. (By the way, they would be paying me nothing - just my plane ticket.)

I felt so much better when I decided not to go.

In considering how to help them, I had a moment of inspiration. There is a Christian preacher in the Southwest that I know of who believes in polygamy. I suggested him as a replacement. It turns out that they already had him slated as my replacement. It shows me that my inspiration was true. Within a few days, he was on my plane to the Midwest to perform the weddings.

I'm not sure how it went, but the wives kind of intimated to me that things didn't go as well as they had hoped.

For instance, in their contract, they were not to be paid until AFTER the program aired on Lifetime. That is such crap! I guess that Sirens Media are a bunch of cheapskates. When we did filming with Dawn Porter, Incubator handed us a check upon the completion of filming.

On top of that, the preacher - they paid his airfare and hotel, but nothing for food. He posted on Facebook that he had to raise money just to be able to eat. Again, what cheapskates! They don't pay him for his time and expect him to feed himself? I'm kind of glad that I didn't do it, even though I am a media whore.

Tomorrow, I will talk about the show we did for French TV....

PS Sirens Media called me about a month ago asking me if I knew ANOTHER family getting ready to enter plural marriage...

A Tale of Two Houses, Part 3

2011-05-07T07:18:00.000-07:00

I heard a maxim from a polygamist years ago. Really, it was so long ago, that I really don't even remember who told it to me, but I remember what he said about his wives and housing them:

"I keep them together until they are begging to be split apart, and then I keep them apart until they are begging to be brought back together."

So suddenly, I found myself flitting between two houses. When we all lived in the same trailer, it was one thing. I didn't have a room of my own. Now it was like I didn't have a house of my own. When I got back from the fair circuit in October, I had been living out of my bags for three months. I just kind of kept living out of my bags.

It really proved to be a challenge.

I have always mentioned that the most difficult time of living plural marriage was the first year. I didn't know what I was doing, but - whatever I was doing - it seemed to always piss of one, or both, of them. I couldn't do anything right. Then after a year, it seemed to get - well, not easy - but doable.

Splitting my family up has proved to be just as challenging. I moved back to that place where I don't know what I am doing, but whatever I am doing is making a lot of people upset.

First of all - dinners. Every wife has always taken care of breakfast and lunch for her own children. And usually the girls rotate cooking nights, where they cook enough food for the entire family and we all sit down together. When Temple works during the school year, and since she is the only one in the family that has a real job, she doesn't cook dinners. Martha does the cooking. And when the school year ends, we go back to each wife trading cooking nights.

(Some of you might be wondering why I don't cook. Trust me. I wouldn't want to inflict that kind of masochism on my family.)

I always felt very strongly that having dinners together was a crucial part of maintaining unity in our family. That was one of my observations when we lived in a United Order. The sense of community, the sense of family was there when we ate our meals together in a common area. Then some women began to complain about the cooking and cleanup, and the United Order stopped eating together and ate in their separate homes. In my mind, that was the decline of the order. There was never the same sense of togetherness after that.

Based on that experience, I knew that, if I was going to hold the family together, we would need to still eat a common dinner together as one family. No matter how inconvenient, I resolved to abide by this rule.

Little did I know that my resolve would be tested...

Already, I was seeing the results of this division in my family. There is a tradition in my extended family that we have a potluck at my mother's house every Sunday. Every family is supposed to bring a dish. One Sunday, Martha made a casserole for the potluck. When Temple showed up for the potluck, one of Martha's preteen sons noticed that Temple arrived without a dish, he made a snide remark, "Where is YOUR dish?"

What this statement showed me was that - even though I was working hard to maintain our identity as ONE family - there were some in my family that were viewing us as separate.

To keep that identity, I was finding that I had to work constantly. For instance, on my nights with Temple, some of my kids with Martha would walk the 2.34 minutes between houses to come up to Temple's place to either see me or visit with Temple's kids. Temple would always get annoyed when they showed up and order them to go back to their house.

Now, I understood Temple's reasons. She is fastidious. She is squeaky-clean. She maintains order in the house in almost an OCD fashion. (Many of our arguments involve where I put my dirty clothes or discard my shoes.) Temple didn't want the kids to come into her clean house and dirty it up. That's understandable. But it started to feel like Temple never wanted the other kids over at her house.

I had to put my foot down. If I was going to be living in two separate houses, if I was going to be away from my kids 50% of the time, I needed to have an open-door policy. My kids should be able to see their dad whenever they want, no matter which house he is in. So I put my foot down with Temple about my kids coming to see me. In fact, for a while, I had to put my foot down every time the kids came over. It has improved lately. But Temple will still emit a snort whenever one of Martha's kids walks in the door.

So, dinners.... Martha would cook the dinners, and bring the food over to Temple's much larger dining room. That's where we would eat dinners together. But Temple would complain about the mess. Kids spilling food and not cleaning up after themselves. People using her dishes and then not washing them. Or if they did wash them, not washing them to her standards. And Martha started complaining about cooking food at her house, and then having to make arrangements to have that food transported to Temple's house.

So I had BOTH wives not liking the arrangement. BOTH wives wanting to have meals separate from each other. And there I am, knowing what the result will be. It makes me tremendously sad and heavy-hearted.

Yes, there are benefits to having two houses. More space. Not as much chaos. But at what price? I have to honestly say that I DO NOT LIKE having my family in two, separate houses. I dream about having the means to obtain one, large house that can accommodate all of my family.

As of this date, we still eat together. I would like to say that there is a happy ending, but plural marriage is a daily struggle. It is not all sweetness and light. It is a constant, uphill battle. Some days you win, some days you lose. I am a man who loves his family with all of his heart and only wants us to be together.

Anyway, there is much more to discuss - including more TV experiences, which I will discuss later. Have a great day!

A Tale of Two Houses, Part 2

2011-05-06T07:50:00.000-07:00

So our neighbors sold their land. They were a polygamist family that had a lot with three houses, one for each wife. The new owner - not really an active Mormon - was there often making improvements. But - as he lived out of state - he wasn't there often enough. During his absence, he had discovered tire tracks coming down Cinder Mountain, right up to his house, and his property ransacked. Several other secondary homes had been robbed, also. So he asked us if we would consider moving into one of the homes in exchange for keeping an eye on the place.

The benefit was that the house he was referring to was very close to my house. (I timed it. It takes exactly 2.34 minutes to walk between houses.) The solution was to move one of my wives (with her respective kids) into the new house, and keep the other wife in our existing trailer. But the question was - which one?

Individually, my wives approached me, expressing a desire to be the one to move into the new home.

Martha pointed out that the house was bigger, and that she had more children. She also pointed out that she had lived longer in our beat-up, old trailer than anyone else.

Temple pointed out that - unlike Martha - she had never been able to move into her own place. She had been the one to move into Martha's house. She didn't even have her own bedroom when she first married me. We had hung up sheets, partitioning off the living room just so thatshe could have her own space. (Eventually the curtains became walls.)

No pressure....

To make matters worse, my extended family started to get themselves involved. Some family members actually went to Martha and told her that SHE deserved to have the new house. Some of them went to my CHILDREN and planted in their ears that they should have the chance to move into the new house. I couldn't believe that people were interfering this way! Like it was any of their business.

But that is something I have learned - when you live plural marriage, everyone becomes an armchair judge on how you handle your marriages. You fall under a kind of scrutiny, and everyone is a critic.

So I set out trying to make a careful decision.

I examined each house. The house we lived in had smaller living room, but larger bedrooms. The new house had smaller bedrooms, but a larger living area. Where would the space be better used?

Again, it was housekeeping that made my decision for me.

I don't mean to speak indelicately or to say anything negative about my wives. But I have one wife who is fastidious and clean (when it comes to keeping house). And I have another wife who is more messy and very prone to let cleaning chores accumulate, a bit of a pack rat, as it were. One wife keeps her bedroom immaculate. The other wife - let's just say that I have to clear the bed off in order to get in and sleep.

That doesn't mean that I love any wife less. It's just that every woman is different, every woman has her own idea on how things should be done. Luckily, the common areas - the kitchen, dining room, living room and bathroom - were kept clean by both wives.

But I had to consider - this new house did not belong to us. It belonged to someone else. I had to consider that it was expected that there would be some upkeep involved in living there. Whoever lived there would have to keep it clean and not trash the place. I had to pick the wife who was most likely to keep it clean.

And so I picked Temple.

Martha was upset at first. We had a few heated discussions in private, and then I took both wives aside and had it out. I told them, "This is a win/ win situation for everyone. We get exactly what we prayed for - more space. And we don't even have to pay for it! Temple gets to move into the new place, and Martha gets to expand in the old house."

Each wife would get something they had not had in a while - a room to themselves. And I could finally provide to my teenage daughter Sophie something she had never had - a room without her brothers. I was excited about this.

And as we started to make arrangements, Martha started to get excited, too.

But immediately people started to judge us. My extended family and other in our community started to talk about me behind my back, that I was favoring Temple over Martha. It was very frustrating for me to have these rumors float back to me. They didn't understand the reason or the logic behind my decision.

And my logic has proved sound. Temple keeps the new place spotless. And the messiness of Martha's room has expanded into the common areas. But I'm jumping ahead of myself...

As we prepared to make the move, some of the kids expressed disfavor about the whole situation. Some of Martha's kids expressed resentment that it was Temple - not their mother - moving into the new place. And my son with Temple, Aidan, who is 8 years-old, burst into tears when we broke the news to him.

He insisted that it was going to be his MOTHER that be would be moving, NOT him. He would stay with his other brothers and sisters and live with Martha.

Even though she had earlier expressed a desire to move, Temple came to me in private.

"I'm no longer in favor of splitting up the family," she said. "I'm afraid of what's going to happen to the family."

I brought up these concerns to Martha, but she was already determined and anticipating the new space.

It was around this time last year that I had to leave for the summer on the fair circuit. It was also around this time that Temple's seasonal job at the school gave her the summer off. I wasn't there, but Temple put all her time into getting the new place ready. She deep-cleaned, sanded, painted. She put a lot of work into it.

Around the end of August, I came home for a few days. It had already been several weeks since Temple had moved up to the new house on the hill. In my absence, my family had already split up and were living apart. It was weird coming home.

The new house was still in the process of being renovated, so all of the bedrooms were empty. She had a mattress on the living room floor, and that's where she and I and the kids slept. It was a strange feeling.

Then I went back on the road until October. When I came back, Temple had finished the renovation. She had done all that work by herself, with no help from anybody else. What I found was a home. Temple and I had something that we had never had in our married life - a place to ourselves.

But it came with its challenges.

I have always said that the hardest part of plural marriage was the first year, getting used to it. I found that adjusting to having two families in two separate homes was just as bad as adjusting to living the Principle.

But I am going to save that for Part 3...

A Tale of Two Houses, Part 1

2011-05-05T14:04:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest changes that occurred in our family was that we split up into two houses. After eleven years of living in the same house, we divided up the family. I still have mixed feelings about it.

This is how it went down:

Most plural families we know live in separate houses. But this is something that we were always against. I can't tell you how many families I know where the children barely consider their siblings from a different mother their actual brother or sister.

Imagine that you are a man with five wives. Each one lives in a separate house on different ends of town. Your twenty children are interspersed between these five houses. Your children barely see each other, so they don't develop that bond between each other that family should have. When they see their siblings, it's more like seeing their cousins.

On top of that, the husband must divide his time between these households. That means that the wives don't see him every day. That means that the children are raised without their father, for the most part.

This scenario is typical in Mormon plural marriage. And it was not something that I wanted for my family.

I wanted the children from both wives to grow up together as brothers and sisters. Moreover, I wanted to see my children every night and spend time with them.

I was fortunate enough that Martha and Temple both felt the same way. So we have lived in the same dwelling for eleven years.

Sadly, that dwelling is a trailer (as has been shown on TV). We have made do the best that we can with what we have. With only three bedrooms, the wives each had their own room with the children interspersed in between.

For years, this worked for us - especially since we only had a few, small children when we entered the Principle. But small children soon become teenagers, and teens definitely take up more room. I began to receive complaints from my wives about the cramped space - mainly in the cooking and cleaning area. The kitchen and dining room were too small to accommodate all of us. And I had two wives with very different ideas of keeping house.

My father once advised me that - to keep fairness - I should be the one to create cleaning schedules. But I always felt that my wives are big girls and can arrange their own schedule. They don't need me to monitor them, to become their taskmaster, and treat them like children. No, not for me!

And yet, the housekeeping was a big source of tension. In fact, it was THE biggest source of contention in my family.

Martha and Temple had always got along. They still do. But for the first time in my marriage, their relationship was becoming strained. They argued more. They complained more about who was supposed to do cooking or cleanup, whose kids got into what snacks, which kid made which mess. It was becoming bothersome.

So we prayed for larger space. Literally. We offered a prayer to God, and asked Him to grant us larger and better living arrangements. We were amazed at how quickly we were answered.

If any of you saw the show we did on History Channel, you might remember that we did part of the filming up on the hill next to our house, and our neighbor came up and started shouting at us, demanding that we leave?

Well, those neighbors left. They vacated their homes and sold their property. They sold the property and moved out of state.

Meanwhile, we got to know the new property owners - a very nice couple, who also live out of state. Because they live out of state, they are not always on their property to take care of things. As a result, they experienced a series of burglaries.

We live in a very rural part of Arizona. There are plenty of meth labs, and, along with that, plenty of meth addicts who raid empty houses. (The largest real estate market in our region are secondary homes.)

Our neighbors had several houses on their property, and someone kicked in the door and stole virtually everything, including a brand new washer and dryer. They became concerned about more burglaries, and so they asked if we would actually move into one of their houses in exchange for keeping an eye on the place, watering the trees, etc.

It was obviously a very good deal. We went up to look at the house. It was kind of a wreck, and needed alot of work. There were three bedrooms - not very big, just like in our trailer. But there was a large living space. Fairly big kitchen and dining room, and a big living room.

BOTH wives immediately started to campaign to move into the house. Not only that, my extended family started politicing about which wife should move into the house.

My father taught me something about plural marriage a long time ago. He said, "At some point, you will have to make a decision that will make one, or both, wives mad at you. In this case, you must make the choice that is fair."

Tune in tomorrow, and I will tell you what I did. In the meantime, ask yourself: what would you do??

I'M BAAAAAAACK (This time, it's for real)

2011-05-04T14:15:00.000-07:00

My biggest handicap in having a blog last year was that I had no computer. My laptop had descended to computer hell, and any computer time I was able to get was devoted to that great sucker of time – Facebook.

Upon receiving my tax return this year, I made it a priority to get a new laptop. In fact, we made this momentous occasion an excuse for a mini family vacation. We braved a harrowing drive through blizzard conditions in a fifteen-passenger van down to Phoenix, where my kids played in the pool for a couple of days (even though it was February). I was able to walk out of Best Buy with a shiny new laptop (and my bank was calling me minutes later in the parking lot, making sure that it was indeed the frugal me making the purchase.)

So anyway, I got the computer. My blog should have been immediately forthcoming, but it wasn’t. Apathy set in. It’s not that I don’t have anything to talk about. I have TONS to talk about, as anyone who knows me can testify. There has been a lot that has happened in my family. I will take each day to get everyone up to speed.

I will start first with my health…

HEALTH UPDATE:

The main reason I have had a hard time keeping up with my blog is my health. It is hard time writing when you never feel good.

I came back from the fair circuit last October with swollen legs and a diabetic ulcer on my foot. I thought that once I got off my feet, it would heal. I waited and waited. It didn’t heal. I changed the bandages on my foot a couple of times a day. It bled frequently and started to smell in a way that bothered me.

During this time, I did go to the doctor often. He prescribed me a silver/ sulfur compound that burn patients put on their wounds. It seemed to help a little, but not much. He also put me on several rounds of antibiotics. In fact, I have been on antibiotics consistently for the last ten months, none of it helping.

Finally, I consulted a different doctor. Upon inspecting my sore, he immediately set to cutting away the dead tissue with a scalpel. (I didn’t feel a thing.) He also gave me a special shoe that takes weight off of the foot. My foot started healing within days, until it is now nothing more than a callous on the bottom of my foot.

Two weeks ago, I had laser surgery on the varicose veins of my right foot.

They didn’t put me under, they just gave me a valium, and made me watch as they inserted a tube into my vein. What an unusual experience that was – to feel a tube sliding up your leg, from your ankle all the way to your groin. Then they inserted a wire into my veins with a laser at the end. As they pulled the wire out of my leg, it collapsed the veins. It only took an hour, and I walked out of the clinic. I just felt a little sore. But three days later, I became incredibly sore, with ugly purple bruises on my leg. I am really sore and still recovering from this, but I am also hoping that this procedure improves the quality of my life.

Next month, I see a specialist, an endocrinologist. It turns out that I am insulin resistant, and hopefully these visits will be for the better.

I am doing all this for my family. My health has took a few serious turns in the last couple of the years. I am not stupid. I know how my body feels, and I can see the writing on the wall. If I don’t do something about it now, I will be dead in ten years. Probably less. I look at my children and my wives. It would be a sore burden to not have me around.

I have two wives and eleven children. I can think of nothing worse than to leave them alone to fend for themselves.

I don’t do much around the house. I kind of sit around, nursing my pain like an invalid. Lately, I feel kind of useless. But at least I am alive and present for my children. I hope to keep it that way.

Anyway, more news tomorrow…

Nancy Grace Belches Her Opinion On Polygamy

2010-10-26T13:27:00.000-07:00

On the flip side, check out this article:

So legal expert Nancy Grace thinks that Kody Brown, and his wives, from TLC's "Sister Wives" should all go to jail in her article entitled "Nancy Grace on 'Sister Wives Investigation: 'Kody Should Go To Jail!'"...

"The law is the law — bigamy is a 3rd degree felony in Utah. Those participating in the crime face a maximum of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. But most likely, Utah will turn a blind eye, as usual."

and...

"When you don’t know a horse, look at his track record. Even with the family taunting authorities on national TV, it’s unlikely Utah will prosecute although clearly, they should!"

There's a nazi in every bunch...

Dr. Kat Talks About Polygamy

2010-10-26T12:43:00.000-07:00

Check out this article here.

Dr. Kat is a well-known and respected sex and marriage therapist whom I have known for about 21 years. In this article, she discusses the Brown Family and their show "Sister Wives" on TLC.

Read the whole article! She does talk about me a little bit:

"I grew up in an area with alot of Mormons. I knew of one family who got excommunicated from the church because they followed the early Mormon tenants of plural marriage. I was very good friends with one of the sons. In the midst of discussing bands and art and generally hanging out like most teens and young adults do, we discussed with how one day the plight of Mormon polygamists would not only make an interesting television show but how it might help those of us busy just trying to keep one relationship working, understand and become more accepting of the concept. After all, these are just people trying to follow their belief system, provide for their families and love their partners."

I just have to comment a bit on Dr. Kat. I met her in high school when she was the quintessential, blond cheerleader-type. After getting her phone number and talking on the phone a few times, I quickly came to realize that she was (and is) one of the smartest people I know. Her open-mindedness was refreshing. She was one of the few people that I could talk to about absolutely anything. She shared my tastes in music. We liked the same kind of movies. (I have a specific memory of going to see David Lynch's "Wild At Heart" with her.)

Dr. Kat was open-minded enough that she was one of the first people that listened to me as I confessed my belief in plural marriage. She didn't shoot me down or act shocked. She accepted me for who I am. In fact, she was one of the first people I called when I announced that I was getting married to my first wife, Martha, and she joked, "Oooh, maybe I could be your second wife!"

It has been great to see her career grow as a sex therapist, and I have followed her advice columns and websites for years. I am really luck to have such diverse friends, and I feel very blessed to have a friend like Dr. Kat.

She also mentions in her article:

"I mean what we are protecting here? Whether it is to deny individuals the right to a civil marriage based on sexual orientation or because we think there is something lascivious about multiple wives, or the subjugation of women through this model (we can debate that at another time), the powers that be seem to spend alot of time trying to force the rest of us to do what they think is right. I can think of a few times in history when that didn’t turn out so well.

"I’d like to think that we as a culture are evolving and that we can expand our definition of marriage to include all that are consensual, loving and healthy for those who are engaged in them. Frankly, evolution is not as linear a process as we once thought. Sometimes we end up chasing our own tails or take two steps back to gain one forward. It is a painful process for all of us.

Ultimately, what is good for you may not be good for me and that’s OK. Mutual respect for one another makes more sense than trying to dictate who and how we love. That being said, maybe plural marriage and gay marriage movement should join forces?"

I have always said that gay marriage and plural marriage are strange bedfellows. (Platonic bedfellows, okay? LOL) But it appears that we are in the same boat. And if there were other metaphors, I would use them as well. The older I get - I realize that I don't want anyone telling me what I can or ought to do in my own home, in my own bedroom and with whom. Why would anyone else NOT want the same right? Society, government, church - NO ONE - has the right to tell us how to live our lives - gay, straight, polygamist, monogamist, etc.

And that is my opinion. I will fight for my rights, and I will fight for yours. Have a good day. :)

Fair Circuit 2010 - Montana

2010-10-11T07:39:00.000-07:00

The first place we set up was in Bozeman. The event went without incident, except that we were able to see some old friends (Jess & Brett).

In Colorado, I had bought some cheap $12 shoes, and once we got to Montana, the shoes had caused me a big, nasty blister on the bottom of my right foot. To make matters worse, my legs started to swell again. It was kind of a tough time. I was thinking that I must have a blood clot again. So one night, after we closed down the booth, I went to the hospital, and they checked me out - no blood clot! Just swelling caused by the vericose veins. It was a relief.

From Bozeman, we packed up and went to the Montana State Fair in Great Falls. There were some friends that I hoped to see there from last year. But no such luck. But we did meet some new friends.

One guy named Jason (a dead-ringer for Matt Damon) came out of his tent one morning to find me dressing my foot. The blister had popped, leaving an open sore on my foot. My feet were still swollen, and my toes were turning purple.

"I've been in the Marine Corps and been on a lot of hikes," Jason said. "But that is the worst foot sore I have ever seen. You need to get that checked out."

In truth, his words were an answer to prayers. I had just hobbled over to the common showers on the fair grounds and looked at my foot while I showered. While I limped back to our campsite, I knew something was not right and prayed inn my mind to God to know what to do. It was only a few minutes later that Jason had said what he did.

It was harder to admit that I needed help. I have this machismo thing where I have to be productive. I can't be holding people up due to my personal ailments.

So I waited until we got to Missoula before I went to the ER. The ER doctor stopped listening to me the minute he found out that I was diabetic. Basically, all that was happening to me was my own fault, he told me, because I wasn't taking care of myself and I pretty much deserved what I got. But he did prescribe me antibiotics that helped with the infection.

The whole rest of the trip, I suffered from swollen legs, but I started learning to deal with it. In spite of the health issues, I enjoyed my time in Montana.

We did tons of orders for medical marijuana farmers. Last year, we had seen several signs for medical marijuana clinics. This year, the stoner culture in Montana had visibly grown. We did custom t-shirts or hats for several marijuana farmers. We even got several offers to trade for marijuana, which actually seemed tempting until the next event occurred.

I got a phone call from the lady that manages my storage unit back in Arizona. She said that deputies had shown up with a warrant, had cut the lock to my unit, and had found marijuana in my unit. I was frantic. I had no idea how that could have possibly happened. I tried calling Apache County Sheriff, but they weren't answering. It felt like I was being framed for something. I strained my mind to try to figure out what could have happened.

I finally deduced - last year I had stored some things belonging to the daughter of a friend in my storage unit. It must have belonged to her. When the sheriff called me, that's exactly what happened. They had already figured it out themselves.

I took it as a sign from God. If I had been tempted to accept marijuana - and I was - there was a good reason not to take it home. I don't want to ever do anything to risk losing my kids.

Medical marijuana farmers gave us some of the best business. The next best customers we had were roller derby girls. This sport has become quite popular, and we sold many shirts and hats to this crowd - to the Hellgate Girls in Missoula, and to the Flathead Roller Derby Team. I tel you - these girls are bad ass! But they are all very cool, and I wish I could have knocked back a few beers with them.

From Missoula, we went to Kalispell. Then after six weeks, we headed home. It is always good to go home, but it was also good to see friends. (Special shout out to Wayne, Playboy T, Loki, the whole crew at Roll the Cage from Montana Department of Transportation. You guys make these trips worth it!)

Sister Wives on TLC

2010-10-11T07:05:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I was actually able to watch the new show "Sister Wives" on TLC, which was a rare treat as I don't have TV at home. I liked it! It did stir up some feelings and memories though, of what it's like to have cameras shoved in your face round the clock.

As a side note, in the past several months, there have been reruns of the show that we did with Dawn Porter on TLC as well as reruns of the show we did on History Channel. But I think it's funny the times that they choose to air them - both of them on Super Bowl Sunday and both of them again during the NBA Playoffs. LOL! The times when everyone will be watching something else. Our ratings were that bad that TLC dusts off our program whenever they have no audience.

But that's neither here nor there...

I remember that they originally pitched the Dawn Porter show at us to be a reality series. Can you imagine? The drab polygamists in the desert with the bright flower Dawn Porter in the middle.... for a whole season?? *shudder* Other production companies pitched series to us - Pink Sneakers, BBC in the UK...

I just can't imagine the stress of having the cameras on us 24/7.

And truth be told, after having watched "Sister Wives" on TLC, I really think that the family on the show - the Kody Brown family - is a much better family for this kind of show. They are very photogenic - Kody looks like he belongs on the Olympic snow team. They are well-adjusted and very smiley.

But most of all, they have a nice house. It's hard to put a good image on something when you are living in a trailer in the desert.

I have never met Kody Brown, even though we used to belong polygamous congregation back in the '90s. My brother-in-law says that I did meet Kody two years ago at the Utah State Fair, but I really don't remember.

But still, it's weird the connections that we have, even though we haven't met.

His wife Meri is a sister to one of my sisters-in-law. But I've never met her. I knew Christine back when we were young and single. I used to have a crush on her sister. But I haven't seen her in over fifteen years. The prospective wife Robyn is a distant cousin of my wife Martha. But I've never met her. When I was sick last year and missed working the Utah State Fair, one of my replacements was Moriah, Meri's daughter.

After watching last night's episode, I think that they are a great family, and I admire them alot. Especially Kody. It was like I looked at him as he addressed certain issues, and I knew what he was thinking. Because I have been there. Like the issue with one wife having fertility issues and being jealous of the other wife having children. I have been there. And I think Kody is handling everything beautifully.

So now, I hear that Utah is investigating the Kody Brown family for potential prosecution. And it breaks my heart. In response to that, I hear other fundamentalist Mormons say, "Well, it serves them right. What did they think would happen going in front of the media? They brought it on themselves!"

And that attitude breaks my heart even more. Somebody has to put themselves out there if we are ever going to make a difference, ever going to be heard. Somebody has to take the risk.

Kody Brown is making a difference for all of us. He is risking himself for all polygamists out there. I don't know if you'll read this, Kody. I'm sure that you are not like me and have better things to do with your time than scan the Internet for things said about you. But I want to say, thank you, Kody, for putting it on the line for me and my family.

Fair Circuit 2010 - Colorado

2010-10-10T08:32:00.000-07:00

In the middle of July, I quit my job with the Census Bureau (it was going to end in a week anyway), kissed my family goodbye, and was soon driving as a passenger in a truck hauling airbrush equipment. As the red rocks of Gallup, New Mexico slid past us, I had a sense of excitement. Going on the road on the fair circuit is always an adventure.

I don't really want to talk much about what I do for my brother-in-law, or about his business, because, well, it's his business, and I want to give him as much privacy as possible. But the funnest part of this job is seeing different parts of the country, but most especially meeting new people. I love meeting new people. It makes it all worth it.

No sooner did we get onto the Navajo Nation that we got pulled over by reservation cops - heavily armed, decked out in ski masks, Kevlar and heavily armed. They took my brother-in-law out behind the trailer and interrogated him, leaving me to sit in the truck by myself.

Eventually one of the masked officers joined me and made conversation with me. He looked really intimidating. But he was friendly. He explained that he was masked, because he was an undercover officer and didn't want anyone to recognize him. He said that the Reservation had become a major corridor for drugs coming up from Mexico, and that our vehicle hauling a trailer was just the sort of vehicle used to transport drugs. Our stories must have jived, because they let us go.

Soon we were on our way, crawling up the Rocky Mountains. We drove past Telluride and its beautiful rocky peaks. By nighttime, we came down into the Gunnison Valley, where our fair was going to be. We had decided to do things on the cheap this year, so we went commando and pitched a tent in the parking lot, slept a while, and tore it down before anyone could notice.

While in Colorado, I noticed that my sock was bloody every night. I couldn't figure out why. I noticed that I had a small hole in the bottom of my sock. It freaked me out - a diabetic ulcer. I had heard about them. Now I finally had one. I dressed it, cleaned it and bandaged it. But to no avail - it kept getting worse.

One evening, as I looked at the ragged hole in my foot, I decided on a whim to reach into my shoe. There was a staple sticking through my shoe. I had been steppingon a staple all this time and didn't feel it. It was a relief to know that the staple had caused the hole in my foot, not diabetes. It was alarming that I had been stepping on this staple and hadn't felt it.

I tossed the shoes and bought a pair of Wal-Mart specials.

The one person I should mention meeting in Colorado was Jersey. How can I mention our adventure in Colorado without mentioning Jersey? He was called Jersey, well, because he is a New Jersey native who went on a snowboarding trip to Colorado at age 19 and just never went back. He was totally laid back, and yet totally hooked on conspiracy theories.

When I met him, he was asking local political candidates what they were going to do about the chemtrail problem. He got us to look up at the sky, and I had to admit - there were some pretty strange contrail patterns in the sky. He insisted that it was some sort of government conspiracy to poison our air and kill us all.

Jersey was the coolest guy we met. He was very interesting. At the end of the fair, he offered to put us up at his cabin, which was up in the mountains above Crested Butte. We followed him up these winding roads straight up the mountain. We passed cabins with snow cats in front of them. I later asked him how he got out to get food in the winter. He told me that used a snowmobile.

We got to his cabin - which was like something out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre with its decor and atmosphere. What his cabin was - was a stoner's paradise. He broke out a bong and proceeded to fill the cabin with its aroma. Now, I am no stranger to pot. But I haven't smoked it since I was in college - and that was twenty years ago. I was really tempted, but I declined.

This seemed to set the mood for our whole trip.

Jersey grilled burgers for us on his porch that stood 16 feet off the ground, overlooking the moonlit Rockies. It was a magical night. We huddled around his laptop, watching conspiracy videos on YouTube, then we went off to bed. I slept in his loft, accessible only by ladder.

The next morning, we said goodbye to Jersey. he directed us down a dirt road that would take us quickly to the Interstate, swearing it would cut about 1.5 hours off our trip. It was one of the most beautiful drives I have been on. I will forever be haunted by the sunlight cresting those mountain tops. If I die today, I will forever praise God for letting me see such beauty. We saw deer, and we had to stop the car for several minutes while an enormous sheep herd passed us.

Soon, we were on pavement, and we headed north across Wyoming (which was more desolate than I imagined). By nightfall, we were in Cody, Wyoming. We could not find any motel with vacancy. We couldn't even find a campground with vacancy. So we pushed on to Billings, Montana.

We decided to go rebel again and picth our tent in a rest area. That went fine until the sprinklers went off at 6AM, drenching us. That was how our Montana adventure started. I will write bout Montana tomorrow...

Surgery & Census

2010-10-09T08:43:00.000-07:00

So the event that had most impact on me this year was the DVT (blood clot in my left leg). They gave me some really sexy compression stockings that really made me feel like a woman and had me on meds.

When none of these worked and it became evident that the clot was travelling up my leg, they decided to try the "aggressive treatment", as they termed it. This involved an outpatient procedure of sticking a wire through my vein, breaking up the clot, and sucking it out. Then they would go through my groin (ouch!), install a filter in my vein that would prevent any clots from travelling to my heart or lungs.

I was really nervous about this procedure. Seven years previous, I had a procedure that had required me to be put out. When I came out of the procedure, I was trying to be funny with the nurses. Temple said that my version of "funny" was really vulgar. As a result, I have a deep phobia of - not surgery - but anesthesia.

The doctors assured me that I would be awake and able to function during the procedure.

"Will I be coherent?" I asked.

"Yes, but you won't care," they answered.

They rolled me into the room, administered the anesthesia, and it was kind of pleasant. I just kind of kicked back and made chit-chat with the surgeons. I even napped a while, snoring softly. When they wheeled me back into the recovery room, Martha was waiting for me. I made morew chit-chat with the nurse. I talked a little bit about Temple. Later, Martha told me, "I can't believe that you talked about Temple!"

I told her, "I never mentioned who Temple was, though."

Recovery was a slow process. My legs were still swollen and stiff. I had a enormous, purple bruise on my inner thigh where they had inserted the screen. But I started to get better.

Two weeks after my surgery, I got a phone call from Census Bureau, offering me a job. Since I had no other prospects (a hotel job in Tennesse had fallen through), I accepted. I had done three of the four major phases of the Census 2000, ao I kind of knew what to expect. Training proved that the job was basically the same as I remembered it.

Basically, I loved the job. Imagine cruising down dirt roads through Arizona's beautiful backcountry - Greer, Springerville, Eagar, Vernon, St. Johns and Concho. These are the areas I worked. It was totally enjoyable - except for a few things.

Being a Census Bureau employee during the Obama Administration was much different than ten years ago. People treated you like you were Obama himself knocking at your door. People did not want to cooperate, refused to answer questions, slammed doors in your face, told you how much they hated the government. One worker even received death threats.

And when these people refused to cooperate, the Bureau would send you out to them again.

At one point, a Census representative from D.C. came out to Arizona, and she was going to be riding with a worker. My supervisor put her with me.

"I want you to take her down the roughest roads possible," he said. "I want you to find the meanest people and possibly have a gun pulled on you. I want you to show her what it is we deal with out here."

So they put the Census Rep with me. She was a smart, pretty twentysomething right out of college. I bounced her around down 20 miles of dirt road to a homestead I had found. I was sure the people did not want to be found. It turned out the people were friendly.

The only problem with working Census not money. I got paid well. The mileage reimbursement was also good. But I beat the heck up outof my car. Those dirt roads were not kind on a sedan. My car went into the shop twice - once with a punctured transmission pan, and again with a damaged fuel pump. I think I'm still paying for car issues that originate with my stint with Census Bureau.

I worked for the Bureau until July. I quit when it was time to go on the fair circuit again, which is what I will write about tomorrow...

Blog - Out of Hiatus

2010-10-08T08:33:00.000-07:00

Hi, welcome back. I've decided to bring my blog out of hiatus.

The reason it was gone - I've had computer problems. My laptop finally bit the proverbial dust and went into that light from whence laptops return no more. I have always been very particular about how I blog. It must be on my own computer. It is like some OCD thing - like mystical writers who can only write with a certain pen, I can only blog with my own computer.

But I don't have a computer - which was really frustrating, because there is so much to write about right now, in my personal life, and in the world of polygamy. Over the next several days, I will try to play catch-up.

And I will not be using my own computer. I will use the public librarym other people's PCs... anything and everything used to do to get things done in the days before I had my own laptop. (I even wrote a novel on my lunch breaks, using my emploer's equipment.)

Good to be back, and talk atcha soon!

January Snow Days, Part II

2010-02-26T07:55:00.001-08:00

Continuing with the story of our snowy weather last month…

So Tony’s and my expedition through the snow to get supplies in town was ill-fated. Three miles from home, and a mile and a half from the highway (plus another four miles into town), the truck got stuck in a snow bank.

Tony tried to dig his truck out, but beneath the snow was a scum of fresh mud from the rains that came before the snow. His tires spun fruitlessly, and we knew that there was no way out.

We made the decision to walk home, based on an arrangement that my younger brother Lehi would get Tony’s other 4x4 vehicle and meet us as we walked towards home. The fact that someone would meet us at least half way was comforting.

For the first ten minutes, the walk was easy. We walked in the truck’s tire tracks. But the wind shortly blew snow over ruts, and we were trudging through knee deep snow.

This was very strenuous activity for me. I had not done much physical activity since I was diagnosed with a blood clot in my leg last August. In fact, as my heart rate shot up and I got short of breath, I started wondering how all of this physical activity was going to affect my clot.

A few minutes after we started walking, the sun dipped below the horizon, and the cold settled in. I had to stop and pant every few steps, and soon Tony was ahead of me. As it grew dark, we got a phone call from my brother Lehi. He had got the other vehicle running, but he got stuck on a half a mile away from our house.

It sunk in – there was no one coming for us. I would have to walk all the way home in the dark, in the snow. Tony disappeared over the horizon, and I was alone. Exhaustion was starting to overwhelm me. It is one thing to walk three miles. It is quite another to walk that far in over two feet of snow.

I felt like stopping to rest, but the cold would start seeping into me every time I stopped. I knew that if I stopped, I would freeze to death, so I pushed on.

One of the most frustrating moments was when my oldest brother called to see how I was doing. I told him that I was tired, but pushing on. He wished me luck and then hung up. To me, it felt like someone telling me, “I hope you make it.”

My hands were numb. I couldn’t feel my feet, and there were a few minutes where I started to actually get worried. I started to pray out loud.

I followed the trail that Tony blazed. He left the road and began to cut across a large meadow that would take us more directly to our house. On the horizon, I could see the flicker of headlights where my brother Lehi was stuck. I started to walk towards that point of light. A fog rolled in, and soon I couldn’t see the headlights. I couldn’t see anything. I was walking blind through the snow. I kept heading in the same direction, and soon I could see the headlights again. But there was this weird phenomenon where it seemed that no matter how much I walked, the headlights seemed to be getting further and further away.

After what seemed forever, I arrived at the truck. Tony and Lehi were trying to dig it out. I got into the truck and sat down. My muscles were buzzing. My head felt numb, and the warm air from the heater hit my lungs. I started coughing and coughing until I gagged and nearly threw up.

Tony got the car going, and we started for home. We got stuck again, but only one hundred yards away from the house. So I walked home, where I was greeted by Martha, Temple and the worried kids.

They sat me down by the fire and wrapped a blanket around me. I didn’t want the food or hot chocolate that they had prepared. All I wanted was tepid water. I immediately went to bed and fell into a deep sleep. I woke up a couple of hours later, and both of my legs were cramping up very badly. I writhed in pain for a while until the cramps went away.

But the next day, when I woke up, I felt better than I had in months.

That Saturday, my brother-in-law David returned home in his four-wheel drive truck, bringing some of our food with him. He got stuck in almost the same spot that we did and had to walk home.

Sunday was a beautiful, sunny day. The sun glistened off of the white landscape. I made a decision. I had survived the other night. I was tired of being afraid of physical activity due to the blood clot. I don’t know what came over me, but I decided to hike back out to David’s truck and get the food. Temple decided to go with me. So did my children Sophie and Christian. This time we were better equipped. It way daytime, and we took Gatorade with us.

We set off in the tracks that I had made previously. Tony joined up with us, determined to get his truck. I let them get ahead of me. I set my own pace and enjoyed the walk. We made it to David’s truck, and then decided to push on to Tony’s truck. We managed to get unstuck, drove into town, got supplies, but on the return trip, we got stuck again. And had to make the trip back. But I felt good after this walk.

We were snowed in for close to a week, and the kids had to stay home. After the county sent snow plows, we were finally able to get the car out. But then we were forced to stay in Concho for close to another week, because the mud was so horrible that our poor sedan couldn’t make it home.

What a joy it was to finally make it home. And what a joy it was to experience such a snowfall. Still, I will be glad once the summer is here.

Hot For Teacher - Temple Gets a Job

2010-02-25T17:41:00.000-08:00

I have been out of work since I came back from South Carolina at the beginning of December. I can blame the economy. I can also blame my health, since I still suffered from DVT during this time.

Even though it was one of the toughest times economically for us ever, my latino machismo prevented me from asking my wives to look for work. Temple decided on her own to look for work. After applying at several locations, she was asked by the principal of the elementary school to apply for a teacher’s aide position.

First, a word about Temple – since her children have started school, she has been the epitome of a good mom. She helps the kids with their homework. She is very involved with the school. When the kids have issues, she is not afraid to go and talk to the teachers or principal. She is involved with the PTA. (I think there are only four, or so, members.) She will go to school board members to listen in and discuss issues that she feels strongly about.

And I think that she has made an impression on the principal and on the teachers. I believe that there is a stereotype about polygamous mothers – that they are weak, have no thoughts of their own, that they are controlled, suppressed, that they are afraid of government and schools, that they are incapable of handling problems on their own. Temple (and Martha for that matter) has shown that she is not afraid to get involved, and, more importantly, that she is not afraid to express her opinion.

So it came as no surprise that they offered her a job.

Next, a word about the school my kids attend – I have always said that we were blessed to have our kids go there. The whole region where we live is predominantly LDS – except Concho. It is an island of Gentiles in the sea of Mormondom. Our awkward transition from fundamentalist homeschoolers to public school would have been very difficult if we were dealing with a Mormon staff. At the school in Concho, everybody knows. We have kids from different mothers in the same class. Nobody says anything. We get compliments on our kids all the time. In other words, we have felt very welcome, in spite of our non-traditional lifestyle.

That’s not to say that there has not been some awkwardness. I have left Martha and Temple to deal with the school. Sometimes when I go to the school, I get strange looks from the teachers and the staff. I catch them staring at me from the corner of my eye. I know why they are staring at me. I almost feel like if my wives are the ones dealing with the school, they are considered to be more innocuous than me. Throw the husband into the mix, and they feel threatened. I am the dangerous one. I am the alpha male.

So as a result, I try to stay minimally involved when it comes to the school…

So the principal offered Temple a job as a teacher’s aide. This was the perfect job for her. In a situation where she was forced to get a job, there could be no better job than working closely with our children. She took the PARA Professional test, and – even though she was very nervous – she scored high.

She started a couple of weeks ago. Temple’s take-charge attitude and German efficiency has benefited her well. She takes no nonsense from the children and takes pride in what she does.

However, she noticed some peculiar behavior from some of the staff. We know enough to guess that this is because of the rumors of polygamy. But no one has mentioned anything to her, and by and large, everyone has treated her with dignity and respect.

Temple commented that there was one aide who seemed particularly bothered by Temple’s presence at the school. This aide worked in one of my son’s classes. Temple would catch this woman shooting daggers at her, and, on one occasion, Temple tried to strike up a conversation with this woman, and the woman not only refused to answer, but walked the other way. I told Temple to not let it bug her.

On Valentine’s Day, the 2nd Grade class had a party. Both Martha and Temple have children in the class, so both of them attended the party. As they were walking out the door, Martha asked her sisterwife, “Would you like me to take the kids home? Or would you?”

Temple answered, “I would like you to. I’m kind of burned out on the kids at the moment.”

Temple looked up to see that the aide had been party to this discussion. The lady wore such a look of revulsion and disgust. Usually, we don’t flaunt our lifestyle in front of other people. They didn’t say enough to cause a scene. It wasn’t something as obvious as, “Who is Moroni sleeping with tonight?” But it was enough that this lady showed – by nonverbal means – her feelings towards plural marriage, and to us.

Still, I don’t have a problem with that – as long as it remains nonverbal.

The other day, I went to pick up the kids from school, and the first thing that my daughter Sara did was announce that the teacher’s aide had confided in her that my son was misbehaving that day and had been punished for spitting on another student. Sara said that the aide also told her that if that behavior continued that my son would find himself kicked out of school.

Now, as a parent, I believe in discipline. I grew up in the days when teachers would rap me on the head with a ruler when I misbehaved, and I think that it is a shame that this kind of discipline no longer exists in schools. When my kids misbehave, I am glad that they are disciplined and punished for their behavior.

What I did take an issue with is that the aide went to my daughter with a behavioral issue involving my son – and didn’t come to us.

The first thing I did was to reprimand Sara for being such a busybody. I told her that it was none of her business to check on the wellbeing of her brother.

Then in private, I told Temple that she ought to talk to the teacher quietly and let her know that we did not approve of the aide sharing the details with another sibling.

The next day, I got a text from Temple. She told me that she was so upset that we was shaking.

As I suggested, she went to talk to the teacher. The teacher assured her that she would look into it. As Temple was going into the bathroom, the aide in question rounded on Temple and proceeded to chew her out severely. The aide was livid that Temple went over her head to the teacher, and she essentially called Sara a liar.

At one point, the aide said, “I don’t want to get involved with your FAMILY ISSUES!”

Family issues??? What “family issues” could she be referring to? Oh, I guess that we are a plural family. Although she was careful not to say it, she told us that her problem with us is that we are a polygamous family.

Later on, I found out that this woman is LDS – which came as a surprise to me, because she has a latino last name. Generally, most latinos in our area are not Mormon. But I shouldn’t be surprised, because I am a latino AND LDS.

Temple later expressed regret for handling things the way she did, for getting the aide upset. I told her that she did the right thing.

You see, this aide thought that she wasn’t doing anything wrong, because rules of civility, niceness, good manners, etc., don’t apply to polygamists. You can treat them anyway that you want, and it’s okay, because they are despicable. Furthermore, plural wives are weak, submissive, cannot think for themselves, etc. I am sure that it came as quite a surprise to learn that Temple has teeth and is not afraid to bite.

She asked me if she should do anything else, like go to the principal. I told her no. Let it slide. Let them know that they can’t f*** with us and get away with it.

I posted a little bit about it on FaceBook, and my brother asked me, “Were you surprised?”

I responded that – yes! – I am surprised. Every time it happens. I cannot wrap my mind about why this woman would CARE that we are polygamists. It does not hurt her. It does not affect her. Why should she care that there are polygamist children in her school? Or that a plural wife works as an aide at the same school? I cannot comprehend why someone would go out of their way to be mean or nasty or even give us a second thought.

But the reality – there are some that do…

January Snow Days

2010-02-18T15:16:00.000-08:00

Okay, once again, I have been away. Computer problems. Have you ever seen a laptop cord literally fry? Not a pleasant sight. Nor a pleasant smell.

I thought that I would talk a little bit about the weather, which has been unusual. As I type, I am looking out the window on a sunny February day, and the temperature is anticipated to get to a balmy 57 degrees. But January was not so nice…

When we first moved to the ranch, we moved from Mesa, Arizona – which is hot desert summer that experiences snow once a decade. By contrast, our ranch was located at a high elevation, high up on the Colorado Plateau. Our first two winters were harsh, and on several occasions we saw the snow bad enough that they shut down all the mountain passes between Phoenix and our ranch.

I remember that it was a challenge to get to work a couple of times. I bought an old Ford pickup since we live down five miles of dirt road, most of it not maintained. There were times when the snow was deep enough that I thought I would get stuck.

Still, everyone was talking that we were at the start of a twenty-year drought. The truth of this soon became evident. Little Ortega Lake provided me with some spectacular vistas as I drove home, with bald eagles perched in the trees at its shore. It soon dried up. In addition, the snows stopped. Typically, a winter snow brought only a few inches, and it was gone within a day or two. There were some winters where we almost got now snow at all.

The old-timers told stories of bad winters. In 1967, there was a snow storm so bad in Concho that some road engineers got trapped in their truck. Snow buried them, and they ran the heater until they ran out of gas. The only way they were located was that a snow plow saw their tail lights beneath a mound of snow. They were taken to someone’s home in Concho where they recuperated from hypothermia, because the nearest hospital back then was in McNary, almost 60 miles away.

The only evidence we saw of this was a storm in March, 2006. We got three feet of snow. The drifts were up to eight feet high. My younger brother jumped off of the roof of my mother’s house into the drifts, and the huge piles of snow cushioned his fall. The morning after the snow, we had to dig our animals out of the snow. We had to forage for firewood, and we ran out of food within three days. Someone had to hike some food to us.

We realized that we were not prepared for such a storm and spoke of winterizing a little better for the next year. But after a hot summer, it is kind of easy to forget that.

In December, we got about a foot of snow. The only thing that was different about this snow was that, instead of melting in about a day or two, it stuck on the ground for about a month. It was a cold month, only made better by our plumbing freezing up.

JANUARY 19

On January 19, we had snow starting to fall. The radio reports were saying that we would be hit with storm after storm over the next several days. They were saying that we could expect up to three feet of snow. After the dry winters we have experienced, it was easy to react to this with skepticism.

Nonetheless, we decided to prepare. Since we live off the grid, we keep a freezer plugged in at the house of some relatives. Generally, as needed, Martha, Temple or I will stop by the freezer to get food. That evening, we got some food. (It was not enough.) We got some gas for our generator, and then we went home to hunker down. The radio was stating that there was a Winter Storm Advisory for the White Mountains starting at 7PM.

We went home, got the fire going and watched a movie. The sound of the rain pelting our house woke me up that night – rain, not snow. It rained all night.

JANUARY 20

When I got up at 5AM, I noticed that the rain had given way to snow. I turned the radio on and listened for the school closure updates. After a few country songs, the radio announced that the school had closed due to the weather. The kids were jumping up and down for joy. A snow day!

As the morning wore on, the snow kept coming. There several inches on the ground, but that did not stop the garbage truck from plowing down the road for his weekly visit.

I spent the day preparing for taxes, and then watched movies with the kids. No one was venturing outside.

By the evening, the sky had cleared up, and there was no more snow. We watched the sun set in a clear sky. But the radio reports were stating that there was more snow on the way.

JANUARY 21

On Thursday, even though the skies were clear all night, by the time I got up, it was snowing again. The radio announced another snow day. Again, the floorboards were shaking from the kids jumping for joy.

The kids were begging to go outside and play. So out they went, making snow angels and building snowmen. Indoors, the hot cocoa was brewing all day.

I went down to my mother’s house with my kids to get some wood, since we were running low. The snow was already up to my calves, and I discovered that there was slick mud underneath it. The snow had settled on top of the rainwater, making a very mushy situation.

JANUARY 22

Friday morning, the snow was still falling, and the wind kicked in, making drifts that were up to three feet high.

The kids had a blast and started digging tunnels under the drifts and crawling into them.

Our food supplies were running low, and so my brother Tony called me and asked if I wanted to venture out to Concho to get some supplies. At about 4PM, he came and picked me up. The sky was clear. His truck was in 4x4. Even though the road was hidden by the drifts, we started to blaze a trail towards town. He was doing really good. We slipped and slid. The snow bogged us down, but every time we got stuck, he would throw the truck into reverse, and that would do the trick. We would continue down the road.

About three miles down the road, the drifts got incredibly deep, and Tony’s truck came to a stop. Throwing it into reverse did not work. I was not dressed for the cold, wearing only a light jacket and no gloves. So I sat in the truck while Tony took a shovel and tried to dig us out. All to no avail. He even dug some sagebrush out of the snow and put it under the tires to try and give us traction. It did not work.

We sat there for a while. I watched the sun get lower on the horizon. I also watched another storm brewing up from the south. I started thinking of the stories of men getting hypothermia in their trucks – right in the same region I live.

Tony finally admitted we were stuck, and we discussed what to do. We considered walking to the highway about a mile and a half away. But then we would have to try to hitchhike somewhere safe.

Tony called my younger brother and asked him if he could bring Tony’s other 4x4 and meet us. We decided to start walking. We left the truck, and the icy wind cut right through my jacket.

I was really worried. It was three miles to my house – through the snow. I wondered vaguely how this would affect the blood clot in my leg.

I’ll finish the story of our trek home in the next installment…

Strange Rituals: Forbidden Sex transcript

2010-01-19T07:46:00.000-08:00

Last night, I found the transcript for "Strange Rituals: Forbidden Sex." I still have not seen the show, so it was interesting for me to read the transcript. Our segment was sandwiched right in between a segment on incest and tantric sex. It's nice to know that we are in good company. lol

As usual, I was baffled by the journalism. They would copy and paste segments of different parts of our interviews and patch them together in a way that makes us seem incoherrent.

So without further ado, here is the transcript (with my commentarin bold):

>>>NARRATOR: New York, 1820.
A time of intense religious revivalism.
A 14-year old boy by the name of Joseph Smith Jr. was struggling to find a congregation that shared his beliefs.
One day Joseph had a vision in which he came face to face with God, who told him that none of the churches were right for him.

>> JANKOVIAC: In the early 19th century there was a tremendous religious upheaval in America.
The traditional churches were being challenged.

WHO IS JANKOVIAC? RELATED TO WEIRD AL?

>> NARRATOR: Later Joseph records another vision of an angel, Morona, who helps him find sacred scriptures buried in the family farm.
The translation of the texts later becomes the Book of Mormon.
By the time Joseph is 24, he has his own church, a growing congregation ready to believe him and his visions.

>> JANKOVIAC: Somewhere during that time Joseph Smith had a revelation.
He said that in order to be saved, everyone had to take more than one wife.

THIS IS NOT EXACTLTY TRUE. PLURAL MARRIAGE WAS NEVER AN ISSUE OF SALVATION FOR THE SAINTS, BUT OF EXALTATION. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE.

>> NARRATOR: Polygamy, or marriage to multiple spouses simultaneously, has cropped up in several cultures throughout history.
It is still common in Africa and parts of Asia.
Even in the Hebrew bible, Abraham is married to three wives.
But to introduce polygamy as a new divine dictum in mid-19th century America was asking for trouble.

>> JANKOVIAC: Other Christian groups reacted with hostility.
It was proof, for many people, that this really was not God's religion, but the Devil's religion.

>> NARRATOR: In 1844, a posse stormed a jail where Joseph Smith was being held.
He was shot dead as he tried to escape through a window.
He left 33 widows behind, and a large congregation of polygamous families.

>> JANKOVIAC: After the Civil War, the American federal government was so appalled by this practice they thought they had to save Mormon women.

>> NARRATOR: The next prophet, Brigham Young, led the Mormons to a safe, isolated area in Utah, and to safeguard the church from persecution, denounced polygamy.

ALSO NOT TRUE… BRIGHAM YOUNG NEVER DID DENOUNCE POLYGAMY. NEITHER DID HIS SUCCESSOR JOHN TAYLOR. POLYGAMY WAS NOT DONE AWAY WITH UNTIL THE TENURE OF WILFORD WOODRUFF IN 1890. EVEN THEN, IT WAS NOT REALLY DONE AWAY WITH IN THE CHURCH UNTIL 1904.

>> JANKOVIAC: Eventually, by the early 1920s, the next generation of descendants had completely rejected polygamy.
That being said, there were some who went back to these scriptures, and they decided they had an obligation to reintroduce the more perfect form of Mormonism-- fundamental Mormonism.

IN TRUTH, THEY NEVER REALLY DECIDED TO REINTRODUCE IT. THERE WAS NEVER A BREACH IN THE PRACTICE

>> NARRATOR: Today, the remaining fundamentalist Mormons are pushed to the fringes of civilization.
Like here, near Concho, Arizona, 200 miles east of Phoenix.

>> MORONI: Time to get the kids going.
Come on, wake up.
It's time to get ready.
Sophie, it's time to get up.
Wake up.
It's time to go to school.
Come on.
Morning.

>> NARRATOR: Moroni and Martha Jessop have been married for 16 years.
They have seven children.

>> MARTHA: I was 18 when I met Moroni, but he was just my friend.
(laughs) I had no idea that I would fall in love with him.

>> MORONI: Well, Martha and I decided that we would live a plural marriage but, you know, I went through a whole year where I couldn't even bring up the subject to Martha.

>> MARTHA: Polygamy was practiced by the early Mormon prophets.
If you want to go back in history to the Bibletimes, you can see it in the Bible.

>> NARRATOR: Five years into his marriage with Martha, Moroni married Temple.

ACTUALLY 7 YEARS PREVIOUS…

>> MORONI: Good morning, sweetie.
How did you sleep?
We met, two months later we were engaged, two months later we were married.
It was just a whirlwind.
It was just a perfect fit, you know, for our family.
And I said, "Aha! I get it now.
I know how to live this lifestyle."

ACTUALLY THIS WHOLE EXCHANGE IS NOT CONGRUOUS TO ME. THEY ARE MIXING THINGS I SAID WITH DIFFERENT STORIES. IT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE TO ME.

>> TEMPLE: I have a room and she has a room, and he just goes between the two rooms.
He doesn't have a room.

>> MARTHA: We do pretty much stick to every other night.
If one of us is mad at him, a lot of times he'll end up on the couch.

>> TEMPLE: It's not that complex.
There are special circumstances.
If one of us feels like we need him more, then he'll change nights.

>> NARRATOR: The transition into a polygamous marriage was not easy for Martha.

>> MARTHA: Well, I think there is always jealousy because we're human.
I did have insecurities just like any woman.

>> MORONI: I realized, you know, she's going to have a hard time, and be jealous seeing me with this other woman.
And I realized that this was kind of a little life lesson for me, you know, on jealousy.

>> MARTHA: 'Cause I'd had Moroni to myself for a while, I was not sure if he was going to love me or view me the same way as he did before.

>> TEMPLE: I was in love, starry-eyed.
Everything was great.
So I... I mean, that was my adjustment.
And I knew that's what the Heavenly Father wanted for me, so...

>> MARTHA: We have to learn that he still loves us, no matter what.
If he's a good man, he's going to bring his wives into this with love for that wife, but he's not going to love any of us differently.

>> MORONI: Come on, go sit at the table.

(all talking) >> NARRATOR: The Jessops live in a three-bedroom trailer.
They have no running water or electricity.
The nearest town is 15 miles away.

>> TEMPLE: This is Sophie's bed.
Christian's bed.
The bottom bunk is Ethan's.

>> MARTHA: Yeah, it's difficult.
The four older kids share a room, and then we've got kids that are in bedrooms with us.

>> TEMPLE: Well, ultimately, we're responsible for our own kids.

>> MARTHA: But, I mean, there is always helping out with each other.
Sometimes, Temple will come in and dress my baby, or... or sometimes, you know, just...
just different things.

>> TEMPLE: Whatever needs to be done to get out the door.

>> MARTHA: I think that it's fine.
We want our kids to be close.
'Cause I've known families where every mother has their own house, and the kids grow up saying, "That's not my brother," and, "That's not my sister." We don't want that.

>> NARRATOR: In the middle of the desert, the Jessops are kept together with a combination of faith and tradition.

>> MARTHA: If you don't come into this lifestyle saying, "I'm giving my 100% no matter what," it's going to be doomed for failure.

>> NARRATOR: As the family grows, so do its isolation and challenges.
But the Jessops' solution for the future seems to defy logic.

DEFIES LOGIC?? HOW?? I DON’T GET IT!

>> MORONI: My name is Moroni Lopez-Jessop.
Moroni: That I'm mormon.
I'm named after an angel in the Book of Mormon.
Second, Lopez, that I'm Latino.
And Jessop, that I come from a polygamous family.
My father was a very important figure in my life.
And him entering polygamy is hard to describe.
He wound up getting excommunicated from the Mormon church.
After that, the rest of the family was excommunicated.
After that, we basically just associated with other people who believed in polygamy like we did.

AGAIN, SO MUCH WAS CUT OUT OF THIS INTERVIEW THAT IT MAKES NO SENSE TO ME. IT MAKES ME SOUND INCOHERENT.

>> NARRATOR: Nowadays, mainstream Mormons denounce polygamists.
There aren't many groups left for the Jessops to associate with.

>> MARTHA: The biggest disadvantage is how other people look at you.
You feel their animosity toward you.

>> MORONI: There's a culture of paranoia that has cracked into polygamist culture.
It's only in recent years, you know, recent decades that polygamists have been put in prison simply for being polygamous.

>> NARRATOR: Last time the Arizona state troopers went to arrest Mormon fundamentalists for polygamy was in the 1950s.
When the public saw how the children were separated from their parents, the protests forced the law officials to reunite the families.

>> MORONI: Ethan, would you say the blessing, please?

>> ETHAN: Sure.
Dear Kind Heavenly Father, please bless the food, help it to strengthen our body, bless us, keep us safe.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

("Amen" all around) >> NARRATOR: Shunned by other communities, the Jessops find solace in their own faith and family, something Joseph Smith would have been very familiar with.

>> MARTHA: I believe that we can be as God.
Honestly, I believe that God was once like us, and that we can attain what He has.

>> MORONI: Heaven is not just family, but heaven is the presence of both male and female, interconnected inseparably, and so...

>> NARRATOR: The Jessops pay a price for their lifestyle.
Even their neighbors are suspicious of their every move.
Their isolation may be the reason for their decision to increase the size of their family yet again by adding a third wife.

>> MARTHA: We want someone who's going to come in and say, "We love this family for who they are, and we will accept them for who they are, and we want to be part of this family." >>

MORONI: Come on out on the porch.
That's all right.

>> TEMPLE: I think, more than anything, I want her to be willing to give 100% of herself, just as we have, and we will continue to do.

>> MORONI: All right, everybody looking right here.
Stand up straight.
Look at him.

>> TEMPLE: Look over there.
Be still.

>> MARTHA: 'Cause I love Moroni that much, and I believe that a man needs to have more than one wife.
He will become more whole with more wives, and so will I.

>> MORONI: Very nice.

.

More Feedback in 2010

2010-01-04T16:04:00.001-08:00

A few days ago, I didn't think there would be any more feedback from the TLC show. After the re-run on New Year's Eve, I was wrong.

Check out what this lady Cristina said on a message board:

"Comments: I'm watching Forbidden Love: Polygamy as a "re-run" tonight, and I feel so sorry for the "wives" who, at least in comparison to the reporter who is visiting their home, look so plain,tired,worn-out,and as though they have no individualism what-so-ever... This is just a case of a man who is intimidated when tossed into a population of other men...therefore, he creates a sort of "sub-culture" where HE is the one and only male for miles...making him MUCH more appealing! The wives are women who know nothing else but to be followers....ugh...just a shame that these women are missing out on so much LIFE...and the men are being made to feel as though they are much more significant than they REALLY are!"

I shared this with Martha. She shrugged. "We spent all day cleaning for the shoot. And then we had the cameras in our faces from sun-up to sun-down. Of COURSE I looked plain and worn-out."

I also shared it with Temple. As expected, she flared up, "How would they know how we are? They cut out all of oour interviews! And I looked plain?? Did they see the shirt I wore the first day of the shoot? Was it plain? No, it was pretty stylish and colorful. But I don't think they WANTED to show a plural wife looking like that."

On the same message board, there was a message by a guy named Nighthawk that I've known for a while on several discussion groups. He said:

"I had to look this up on Google to find out exactly what everyone is talking about. I have already seen some pieces of it.I have personally corresponded with Moroni, the man who lives out in the desert with his wives. He chose that lifestyle after his family was subject to persecution in various ways. He is a very gentle man and well educated. His wives are also well educated.He and his wives were disappointed in the way Dawn Porter edited and presented her two or three days with them. His wives were especially upset that Ms. Porter failed to include any of their comments about how happy they were with their lives.The History Channel also did a segment on Moroni and his wives, at the same time. It sounds like that show was much more honest about their work.Moroni has written quite a lot about his family's experience participating in this show on his blog. He has also been involved in some other, similar, situations.So, while making your judgments (along with the condemnations I have already read here), you might want to see what the people involved actually had to say."

Both Martha and Temple likes his response. It was nice to be defended after much of the crap that I have seen out there.

Surprisingly, I found an article I had missed written by Dawn Porter on September 28, 2008 for NOW Magazine. Here is an excerpt:

"To me, however, this quest for perfection seemed pointless when the sacrifices you have to make along the way are so painful. I needed to meet a polygamous man. So I traveled hundreds of miles across the desert to meet Moroni Jessop, 46, who lives in a four-bedroom trailer with his wives Martha 42, and temple, 38, and their nine children. I was nervous meeting him face-to-face, but with his baggy jeans and scruffy hair, Moroni happily answered my questions.
Like the previous family, Moroni views polygamy as a way of bettering himself by having more people to love. He insists that it’s improved the way he treats women. Like Ruth, Moroni had a family history of polygamy. He says ‘When I first entered it, I didn’t have a good time. There were so many demands, and both my wives were angry. But, in time, we all just started laughing more and I realized then I was happy. It takes a lot of work and understanding to deal with the concerns of more than one woman.’

"Like the previous family, Moroni views polygamy as a way of bettering himself by having more people to love. He insists that it’s improved the way he treats women. Like Ruth, Moroni had a family history of polygamy. He says ‘When I first entered it, I didn’t have a good time. There were so many demands, and both my wives were angry. But, in time, we all just started laughing more and I realized then I was happy. It takes a lot of work and understanding to deal with the concerns of more than one woman.’

"So how does he spread himself among his wives? ‘It’s up to me to decide that’ he grins. ‘The women have their own rooms and I try to be fair. Half of my battle is ensuring they both feel loved.’ Now Moroni’s on the hunt for wife number three –he believes a man cannot get to heaven unless he has at least three wives."

Okay, the article is fair, and mostly reflects the content of the show. I have only two objections:

1. The belief that a man must have three wives to attain to the Celestial Kingdom is an old fundamentalist belief. But they did not hear this tidbit from me, because it is not my personal belief. I wouldn't say that in an interview, because I am not sure how I believe in that respect. They just threw that in there to support their fiction that I'm searching for another wife.

2. I'm 46? Martha is 42? Temple is 38?? Heloooo!! Do we look that old?? I'm not sure where they came up with the ages. But at the time of the shoot, I was BARELY 38. Martha was 35, and Temple was 28. Temple is 2 years YOUNGER than Dawn Porter! LOL! Sheesh!

Anyway, I have not found any feedback on the History Channel show yet, but you can bet I will post what I find.

In closing, I will will leave you with my favorite YouTube comment (There are over 145 of them):

"The guy sounds absolutely full of himself. AND he has a nasty pot belly. How on earth is he managing to keep all those women satisfied? Do they just feel they can do no better? I mean, if you've gotta share the guy, at least let him be Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt. Or filthy rich"

History Channel's "Strange Rituals: Forbidden Sex" on TV Last Night; Also the TLC Show

2010-01-01T10:23:00.000-08:00

So it was ironic that I was commenting yesterday on doing the TV show for TLC as a significant part of the last decade. I posted a link to the blog on my Facebook.

Later in the evening, an old friend from high school said they saw me on TV. I was confused and made some inquiries. TLC was showing a Forbidden Love marathon – exactly like they did last New Year, including the episode with my family. Twice.

We were sitting down to a ham dinner for New Year’s Eve when we found out. It was strange to realize that as we were sitting there, people all across the nation were watching us on TV while we ate.

Temple shook her head. “It’s like beating a dead horse!” she said. “How many times can they show that program? They need to come up with some new material.”

My daughter Sophie was out babysitting for the night. We looked at each other. It has only been recently since she has stopped being angry about being on the show (and so prominently featured). What would she think about being on again?

Several of my friends watched the show and commented about it to me. A high school friend said this about it:

“So Holy Hell Moroni - I hid the remote and would not let my husband surf during commercials lest I miss your segment and my husband says "um, you're really into this polygamy show, uuuh, do you want another woman in this house?", with this total look of confusion and a little bit of terror. I laughed soooooo hard, I almost peed myself, so thanks for that :) Guess I forgot to mention that I knew you hehe...”

To make matters more interesting, Temple got a text from her sister-in-law. There was a show called “Strange Rituals: Forbidden Sex” starting on History Channel within a few minutes. In the description of the show, it said (among other things): “In modern Arizona, the Jessop family continues to practice Mormon polygamy, at the constant risk of arrest.”

I knew what this was about. After Dawn left, Pascal – the director – stayed for an extra day, along with the cameraman and the sound guy. When Pascal was asked to shoot the show for Dawn Porter, he had a conflicting project he was working on. The compromise was that he could shoot an extra day worth of footage for a project he was working on for History Channel.

He told me that it would air sometime in January, 2009, and when it didn’t, I thought that the project had died. Apparently not. It aired twice last night as well.

I liked the way that shoot went. I was asked a lot of the same questions, but I felt like I answered them a lot better. It was also a lot more relaxed.

I didn’t get a chance to see it, but I was on the phone with my good friend Becca in Texas while she watched it. I could hear most of it on the phone. For the first segment, they focused on interviewing Martha and Temple. This pleased them, because they were none too pleased when their interviews got cut from the TLC show.

The second segment showed a little bit with me. And then they showed the infamous confrontation between me and my neighbor when he came up the hill and started yelling at me! They blurred out his face, and they kind of put an incorrect spin on it, that he was a neighbor with a chip on his shoulder because we are polygamists.

Becca commented: “BTW, they didn't mention what you told me about the neighbor... just showed him asking what you were doing up there while you walked down the hill reminding him he was actually on your property… *snicker* They blurred out his face and made him seem like a paranoid neighbor in general…”

There was a time when I was embarrassed by this exchange. Now I think it is kind of funny.

I only hope I have a chance to see this show. Just when you think it’s over…

The Past Decade - It's a Wrap!

2009-12-31T12:19:00.000-08:00

New Years is always a time for me to get contemplative. I always make a brief commentary on the previous year in my journal. I thought it would be a good time to do it here:

2000
1. Really my first year in plural marriage, because when the New Year hit (along with its phony Y2K scare) I had only been practicing polygamy for 4 months.
2. So this was really an adjustment year for me.
3. Spent my honeymoon in January in Phoenix with Temple while she miscarried

2001
1. Started getting used to having a plural marriage
2. My daughter Sara born the same day the first Lord of the Rings movie came out. (Hey that was a big deal to me.)

2002
1. My son Aidan was born.
2. My dad died. (Very significant and life-shaping event for me.)
3. I am diagnosed with diabetes. (Another life-shaping event.)

2003
1. Why don’t I remember much of this year?

2004
1. I start feeling driven to defend and discuss plural marriage on the Internet (in place of trying to find wives on the net the previous few years).
2. Siobhan and Alex are born.
3. I travel to Kentucky on a missionary trip – the first of several.
4. I quit my job of 9 years as a social worker with the State of Arizona.
5. I take a construction job in Connecticut.

2005
1. I spend three months working in Connecticut
2. I spend four months working in San Diego.
3. I am laid off in the summer and resort to odd jobs for the rest of the year.
4. I am very active on the Internet.
5. Missionary trips to California, Utah and Missouri

2006
1. Missionary trips to Utah, California, Missouri, Florida, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and New Zealand. Some more than once.
2. There is a sad division in our community.
3. My daughter Jerusha is born.

2007
1. Back to construction – I work most of the year in Tucson, Pittsburgh, and Vegas.
2. I have the most spiritual experience of my life.
3. I am contacted by Incubator TV.

2008
1. I work in Albuquerque for a month
2. I am accosted by Channel 3 in regard to my brother’s divorce.
3. I contact a former member of Incubator TV in regard to how to deal with the media.
4. We negotiate and Dawn Porter comes and films a segment with us in April, 2008.
5. The next day, Texas raids the YFZ Ranch.
6. I start this blog. Lol
7. I travel on the fair circuit at the end of the year.
8. Dawn Porter: The Polygamist’s Wife airs on C4 in the UK in October.
9. The show airs as Forbidden Love: Polygamy on TLC in December.
10. My son Avery is born.

2009
1. I travel to South Carolina and work there for 3 months.
2. My son Israel is born.
3. I spend the summer in Montana on the fair circuit.
4. I develop DVT in my left leg while I am there.
5. I spend a month and a half bedridden.
6. I return to South Carolina to work for a few weeks.

A FEW RECENT DETAILS
1. Temple and I just had our 10 year anniversary – 10 years as a polygamist.
2. Martha and I shared our 17th anniversary.
3. My oldest daughter Sophie just turned 16. Getting old, man!
4. A mountain lion was prowling around our house a few weeks ago. We were gone at the time, but I’m sure it was watching us. The kids now don’t go out alone when playing or doing their chores.
5. I am now wearing special medical compression socks to treat my DVT. They are like pantyhose. Now all I need are heels.

Happy New Year, everyone!

French Reporters & Class Reunions

2009-10-29T18:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, here are a few updates:

LEG

Regrettably, I am still suffering from Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT). I spent the entire month of September in bed with my leg propped up on a pillow. The pain diminished, and the swelling went down. At the beginning of October, thinking that my leg must be better, I ventured out to work at another fair in Willcox, Arizona. The drive alone caused my leg to balloon up again with edema.

That is how the month of October has been. I am feeling much better, but every time I try to get around normally, my leg winds up putting me back to bed. The doctor says that it could take up to six months before I am totally over this. I am spending a lot of time reading. But there is no TV watching, because the generator decided to spit out a valve. There is also no writing, because my laptop was sitting in a corner, collecting dust after taking a dump in Montana.

Thank God for my BlackBerry, otherwise I might have gone insane.

BUT… I did recently repair my computer, which is why I am able to blog on this fine Sunday morning.

CLASS REUNION

Last year, I missed my 20 year class reunion. Ten years previous, I had gone to my reunion where I almost won the “Most Changed” award. (I wasn’t always this fat.) When the 20 year reunion rolled around, I seriously considered going, but there was a fair going on that weekend. I was faced with the choice of: 1. Going to my reunion and spending money, or 2. Working the fair and earning money. Obligation to my family won out over nostalgia.

Several months ago, the Class of 89 announced that, in lieu of a 20 year reunion, they would have a reunion with FIVE classes, encompassing 1985 through 1990. Such an event is unheard of, and only a once in a lifetime event. I promised myself I would go.

I have spent the last several weeks listening to 80s music, looking at old pictures, etc. I have really been looking forward to the reunion. I have really been thinking of those days when I grew up in Casa Grande. It seems as if the young people in that community were very close knit. I have been thinking about the people I knew and associated with. This has been enhanced by my participation on social networks like Facebook. I have recently connected with many old friends there and have pleased that they have not been lost to me in the haze of the decades.

But also, I think I liked myself a bit better back then. Certainly in some ways, I was more of a dumb ass. But I was edgier, more laissez-faire, more devil-may-care. I wasn’t hampered by the mistakes of life. I wasn’t dulled by health issues or tamed by domestic responsibilities. Don’t get me wrong. I am still the same person. But there are a few moments when I look at myself and ask, “What the hell happened?”

So as I prepared for my class reunion, I looked at the few clothes in my closet and wondered what I would wear. My wives speculated which one of them would go. Long had I entertained a fantasy of walking into a reunion with a wife on each arm. But I made it clear to my wives – none of them would go. After having been on TV, I didn’t want to make a spectacle of myself. I would be going alone.

So last night was my reunion. I didn’t go. And here is why…

66 MINUTES

At the end of September, as I lay in bed with my illness, I frequently wondered how in the hell I was going to provide for my family. I couldn’t work. My wife Temple was pounding the pavement, looking for a job. I prayed for an opportunity to come my way.

Then one afternoon, I got a phone call. I looked at the Caller ID to see way more numbers than the standard ten digits. Definitely an international call. I stared at the strange number and wondered whether I should answer it. I decided not to. A minute later, the phone rang again, and I decided to take a chance and answer it.

It was a reporter.

In the days after our show with Dawn Porter, it seemed as if I was being contacted left and right for similar opportunities. A company that produced reality programs wanted to come into our home, another British production company wanted to send a woman to live with us for one month, and someone even pitched me for Survivor. But it has been five months since anyone had contacted me.

I had thought that the proverbial fifteen minutes promised to me by Andy Warhol were over (although Dawn Porter had only given us ten minutes.) It seems I was wrong.

It was a journalist named Morgane from France. She represented a program called “66 Minutes”, and she wanted to come into our home to film us. Already it sounded better than our previous venture. Dawn Porter was a brightly-colored flower set in the middle of the simple peasants. Morgane would not be on camera. It would just be her and her cameraman, and she would ask us questions. But it would not be so much an interview as it would be filming us interacting with each other – such as filming Martha and Temple cooking in the kitchen together.

I told Morgane how the girls would not be keen to do another show, because their interviews had been cut from the previous program. They were still a bit miffed about that.

“Actually, we are more interested in filming them,” she responded. “We want to see this from a woman’s point of view.”

Mmmm. Not bad…

“If you are looking for polygamists where the women wear pioneer dresses and the men wear button-up shirts, then you would be better off going to Centennial Park,” I told them. “There is nothing stereotypical about me or my family. We don’t fit the idea of what people think polygamists look like.”

“Actually, it is our goal to show that there is no stereotype that fits polygamists,” she said. “They are just normal people.”

I am liking this more and more. Now for the coup de grace…

I explain to her how I kind of made my daughter Sophie participate in the last shoot, and that she had had a hard time with it. I understood the desire of a journalist to get the opinion of a teenage girl on the topic of polygamy. As valuable as I think Sophie’s opinion is, I was not going to force her to go through this again.

“I won’t make her do another shoot,” I said. “I am going to let her make the decision.”

“That’s fine,” said Morgane. “She does not have to participate. We can even digitally alter the footage so that it will blur out her face.”

Sounds good.

I took a couple of days to discuss it with the wives. Neither of them was pleased. They did not relish the thought of bringing the media into our home again. But things are tough. We did not get paid much for doing the last show. But we did get paid a little. This was ultimately the factor that made us decide to go ahead with it. It would be nice to get a little chunk of change at the end of October when we have very little in the spare change department.

As I have said before, I am such a whore. Would I drag my family in front of the cameras again for a few shekels? Hell, yes, I would.

I contacted Morgane and let her know that we would do the program. We set the date for Saturday, October 24. I was leaving Friday, October 23 open, because I at least wanted to attend my class reunion.

But we would do things a little bit different. We got such backlash from our friends and family that we decided to NOT tell anybody. It was really painful to experience the derision and disapproval of people close to me. So, in short, I would tell them squat about my plans. The day of the shoot, they would see a strange house parked at my house, but they would not know why until it was all over. It would be “none of their damn business”, as they say.

I’M NOT A WHORE

At the urging of my wives, I shot off an email to Morgane about how much they intended to pay us. It would be nice to have a dollar amount. The response I got was surprising:

“I do not know how it is in US but we never pay for interviews. It is against the principle of journalism, otherwise I pay you and you tell me what I want to hear. So I am sorry but it is not possible.”

At first, I thought she was surely pulling my leg. But I have a couple of friends in Belgium who are journalists. I emailed them, and one of them wrote back and told me this:

“I'm afraid your friend is wrong and that you won't get money for being part of a news story. When we're reporting on a story, we never pay the persons we interview, at least in Belgium and France. There are exception, like in the UK, where they pay to get exclusive interviews, but it's a totally different situation here.”

I went back and gave the girls this news. “I have NO DESIRE to do any show unless there is money involved,” I told them. “I’m not going through any of that unless there is some sort of compensation. We are not doing this show.”

But that night, I was bothered by my response. I couldn’t sleep. I thought about my love for their French language and my love of the French people. Ever since I was a small child, I wanted to learn French. For two dollars, I bought a small booklet on the French language from a grocery store. I took four years of high school French. I went to Belgium as an exchange program, and I volunteered for the same exchange program for six years, taking Belgian students all over Arizona. I taught French for five years for various continuing education programs. I worked for Holiday Inn as a French reservation agent.

What if the whole reason I felt driven to learn French was for this? Who better to represent Mormon polygamy to the French than me??

I emailed Morgane two days later and agreed to have her come into our phone for free.

The next step was to take Sophie aside and tell her our plans. A relative recently had told me that Sophie had mentioned in confidence how much my decision to make her do an interview had hurt her. I would not make her do it again. As predicted, she did not want to participate. So we arranged for her to be somewhere else that day.

THE QUEENS OF CLEAN & THE NO-SHOW

Three days before the shoot, we started cleaning the whole house. We bought supplies. We scrubbed the walls and doors. We organized the shelves. We got on each other’s nerves, because the cleaning was not happening as fast as we would have liked. It became obvious that we were not going to be done on time for the shoot.

So I made a tough decision. I decided not to go to my class reunion the day before the shoot. The plan had been – drive to my reunion and attend the mixer, drive home all night and be ready for the shoot. I did this, because the girls really needed my help with the cleaning. It was a hard decision. I had really been looking forward to the reunion and seeing all my friends. But this was more important.

As the date grew closer, I was concerned that I had not heard from Morgane. So I emailed her. She didn’t respond. I told my wives that the French crew was probably going to be a no show. We were all immensely relieved. But a couple of days before the shoot, I got an email. Everything was on schedule.

The cleaning continued. The day before the shoot, Morgane called me from San Diego. The crew was in the States already. She asked if we could move the interview to Sunday, instead of Saturday. I agreed. Although I was a little annoyed. I could have gone to my class reunion after all. I asked Morgane if we could go over the schedule. When should we expect them? What could we expect? She was actually quite anxious to get off the phone.

“I will email you the details,” she said.

I was starting to get a funny feeling from this response.

Saturday came, and we recruited all the children to finish cleaning. They cut weeds outside and piled them to be burned. They all scrubbed the kitchen down and got their rooms organized.

The whole time, I was motivating them by telling them that we would have some special visitors the next day. I bought some steaks to grill for our company. The cleaning was done by noon, and to reward them, I took them to a picnic at nearby Woodland Lake. As the sun set, I was getting concerned that I had not heard from Morgane. What time were they going to get there?

I finally called Morgane. I was getting really, really frustrated. I wanted my message to say something like this:

“Mais qu’est-ce que tu fous? Ça ne va pas, non! On vous attend en Arizona!”

But it was probably something a lot more polite, knowing me.

I got a call from Morgane an hour later. She cancelled the visit. They were also in the States to do a piece on health care. That story quickly became more important, and her producers wanted her to pay more attention to that one. So they would not be coming. She apologized profusely.

I shared this information with the girls, and we all collectively breathed a sigh of relief. We do care about being a good example. But this is a tough time of the year for us. We are not doing so hot financially. I am out of work with a serious illness. The schedule revolves around getting the kids to and from school. Things just feel a little too chaotic right now.

Still, there is a part of me that really wanted to share this with the French. I really feel like it was a missed opportunity.

And, as I looked at the photos from the class reunion on Facebook, I really feel like I missed out on it all for nothing…

Slow Recovery

2009-09-19T12:58:00.000-07:00

So after I got back from Montana, I spent an entire week on my back, trying to recover from DVT, or having a blood clot in my calf.

I went to the doctor, and he took a blood sample to see how thin my blood is. Then he instructed me to stay off of my leg as much as possible.

Within a couple of days, the swelling went down. It seemed as if the swelling acted as some sort of barrier to the pain. Because as soon as the swelling went down, the pain increased. It was almost more than I could stand. The doctor had instructed me to only take over the counter ibuprofen. I was downing a cummulative 1200mg a day. Also, I was sleeping several times during the day. It seemed like sleep helped with the pain.

A week later, I was not feeling well, but the next event was upon me - the Coconino County Fair in Flagstaff, Arizona for the Labor Day weekend.

I was pleased to see my Muslim friend Ali there. I was also pleased that my friend Joy, whom I have known since high school, allowed me to stay at her home. Having a comfortable bed to go to after work helped.

The fair in Flagstaff was busy (but rainy). I sat behind the booth in a camp chair, with my leg propped on a pillow while I took orders. But leg started swelling up again anyway.

On Sunday, my wives and some of my younger children made the two hour drive to the fair. While I worked, they had a fun time at the fair. We also had a fun time visiting with my friend Joy and her husband, and we took the long drive home the next morning to see some other dear friends in the Verde Valley (and introduced them to Temple for the first time.)

The next day, the swelling had spread up my thigh. It was all the driving. After consulting with my doctor, I made a tough call. I was due to leave the next morning for the Utah State Fair. That was a ten day event. But the weekend in Flagstaff showed me that, even with my leg propped up, my leg was going to swell as long as I worked. The driving was also not good on me. Logic dictated that traveling to Utah was going to make my leg worse, rather than better.

So I opted not to go to Utah.

I don't know if you are aware of what a tough decision this was. Utah State Fair was my last chance in the foreseeable future where I will make any money. The fair season is ending soon. I don't know what I'm going to do after that. Going to Utah, I would have made enough money to take care of our bills for September and some of October. Not going, I won't have any means to pay my bills. At all.

But I knew that my leg was not going to get better unless I stayed down with my leg elevated. So I decided to stay home.

And I have been going stir crazy! I love being with the kids. But all I do is lay in bed, reading. That is fun for about three days. When I want to watch a movie - which is not often, as we are trying to conserve gas for the generator - I have to rely on my own DVD library.

But the most frustrating is not being able to go out and provide for my family. I can assure you - this is anathema to the self worth of a man, not being able to bring home the proverbial bacon. Worse still, Temple has been out looking for work. Because my research has shown that blood clots can take MONTHS to dissolve. And there is a real chance that this could be permanent. In other words, who knows when I will be able to next go out and work?

And there is a part of Temple that resents this, I know. Years ago, there was a couple of months when she was the only one with a job, and the only one working. She has never let me play that down. There is a part of her that understands that I have a life-threatening condition and should not work. But there is another part of her that only sees the lazy bum, unshaven, in the same pajamas for a week, crashed out on the couch...

What woman wants THAT for a husband??

.

Kalispell - Fun With DVT

2009-09-18T19:57:00.000-07:00

The last week in Montana, we drove to Kalispell. What a beautiful drive it is - right up on the Canadian border, close to Glacier National Park. You have to drive around the enormous Flathead Lake to get there. Jagged peaks reflected in the glacial water - it is indeed what most people think of when they imagine Montana.

When we got there, we checked into a hotel. It was nice to sleep in a bed after a month of sleeping in a tent.

But my leg was really bothering me.

Back in Missoula, we had hiked to the "M". The hike had been strenuous for someone out of shape like me. When I got down, my legs were sore from the exertion for several days. After several days, the soreness went away in my right leg. It got progressively worse on my left leg.

The night we arrived in Kalispell, I went to Wal-Mart to get some quarters for laundry. As I stood in line at the customer service desk, my leg was causing me so much pain, I could hardly stand at all.

The next day, we set up our booth at the Northwest Montana Fair, which was a disorganized mess. To make matters worse, the parking was literally a mile away, and every day I limped a mile to the booth, and every night at midnight, I limped back to the car.

I was pleased to find the same Romani that had been our neighbors in Missoula to be our neighbors again in Kalispell. We made the an airbushed banner for their booth. They promised to pay us by feeding us everyday. This is the way they fed us:

"Here, I brought you some yogurts from the breakfast buffet at the hotel where we are staying. There is also some free popcorn in that building right there. Go, and get some!"

It's a good thing we weren't really depending on them.

One morning, Rose, one of the gypsy psychics brought me a gift - a stone egg with remnants of the tag still attached to it.

"I had a vision last night to give this to you. It will bring you good luck and good health. Keep it with you always. I want you to have this."

The following is the story of what happened the day I got the egg that was supposed to bring me good luck:

The pain got so bad that I couldn't stand it. Over the past few days, I had noticed vericose veins popping out on a leg that had never had them before. This same morning, I noticed swelling in my leg, and I could barely walk. Something was wrong. It was more than just soreness from the hike. Something was really wrong, and I knew it.

I talked to my brother in law. He thought I should tough it out. Soreness was good for you. I was sore, because I was out of shape. Soreness meant that I needed to hike more often.

I called my wives. They wanted me to go the ER. I limped to the EMT tent. They told me to go to the ER. I hesitated. Going to the ER, I would abandon my brother in law to the busy crowds by himself.

The fair got out at midnight. I limped back to the truck, exhausted. My wives called me and asked if I was going to the ER. I told her I would go in the morning. All I wanted was a good night's rest. Martha started to chew me out, saying that I needed to go to the ER. So I conceeded.

The doctor ordered a ultrasound. I had deep vein thrombosis (DVT) - a blood clot - in my left calf, and a smaller one in my thigh. They put me on blood thinners right away and told me to see my doctor as soon as I got back to Arizona.

The problem was - there were two more grueling days of the fair. I worked 13 hour days, and hoped that the 6 hours of sleep I was getting would be enough. At night, I would lay in bed, wondering if I would die in the night. After all, that is how my dad died - pulmonary embolism brought on by DVT.

When we finally packed up and left Kalispell, I was filled with a sense of relief. As I felt the warm sunshine on my face and imbibed the tranquil beauty of Flathead Lake one last time, I was happy to be going home. It had been six weeks since I had seen my family, and I felt that I had been through an ordeal. I felt like I could fight this from home.

We stopped in Salt Lake City to stay the night at my sister's house. I was alarmed to see that my foot and leg had swollen to twice its normal size. It looked like I had a Flintstone foot. But I had to keep going, I had to get home. The drive was uncomfortable. I could barely bend my leg as swollen as it was. My toes were tingling, and I kept a pillow propped under my leg.

The problem with getting treatment - I don't have insurance. I haven't had insurance for years. I called my doctor. I had a leftover bill from my hospital visit from last year. I called and tried to schedule an appointment. The receptionist pointed out I still had a bill. I told her that I was aware of this. I was willing to pay half of my bill the next day. She went and talked to the doctor and this was his answer:

"I talked to the doctor, and he is willing to treat you one last time. Then he wants you to get a new doctor. We are dropping you as a patient."

"Even if I pay my billl?" I demaned.

"The doctor feels that it has gone beyond that," she answered. "Do you want to shcedule an appointment?"

"Why?" I responded bitterly. "I need ongoing care. Why would I see him only once. I'll find a new doctor."

The truth is - I know why the doctor dropped me, and so does he. When I was in the hospital last year, we had a little conversation. Don't ask me why I did it. He asked me how many kids I have. I told him, and then I told him how many wives I have. The doctor is LDS, and I literally saw the hate in his eyes after that. He finished treating me, but even as he discharged me, he looked at me with hatred. This was not a case of my delinquent bill, as the receptionist lef me to believe. It was plain discrimination. I know it. And the doctor knows it.

I had my wife call the kids' pediatrician - an old Mormon, cowboy doctor. He agreed to see me.

After two days of traveling, I pulled into my house. It had been raining, as Arizona was in the middle of its monsoon season. So the ground was muddy. This didn't stop my kids from running out to see me. I limped inside, and let the girls put me in bed with pillows propped under my leg. My leg was huge.

I didn't know what was going to happen, but I was happy. If I was going to die, it would be at home and not in Montana.

Tomorrow, I will fill you in with the rest of my little tale...

Zombie Cats - My Time in Missoula

2009-09-17T08:16:00.001-07:00

We left the rolling hills of Great Falls and headed west into the mountains.

Montana is so beautiful with its jagged peaks, pine forests and swollen rivers. It is not a cliche to see people flyfishing in Montana. Fishing enthusiasts are everywhere. A river really does run through Missoula...

After trading a couple of days in a motel for airbrush art, we found a campground where we pitched our tent - Jellystone Park Campground. No lie. It is a theme campground, complete with a wandering employee dressed as Yogi Bear, and a huckleberry ice cream social every night. It was a nice change from camping out on the fairgrounds in Great Falls. At least the bathroom was clean.

The only problem - we had an entire week until the next event, the Western Montana Fair. So we had some time to kill.

Missoula is a very pretty city. Home of Montana State University and the Grizzlies - they love their team. It is also located near the small polygamist community of Pinesdale. We did have an offer from a relative to stay there, but it would have been about an hour commute just to go back and forth. Plus, I am considered kind of an apostate by the people there (who are part of the Apostolic United Brethren.)

Still, I wondered if I would see anyone I knew there from that polygamous community. And at the Wal-Mart in Missoula, I did. I saw a married couple that I knew back in the day, about my age. I chased them down in the bread aisle, saying, "It's me. Moroni Jessop. You haven't seen me in almost twenty years." She was very sweet. He looked very nervous, like he couldn't wait to escape.

So what do you do when you are in Missoula, staying at campgrounds and have no money? You do what everyone else does. You go to the river. We took a nice walk along the banks, watching people kyak.

We also hiked to the "M" on the side of the mountain by the university. A trail zigzags right up the side of a very steep mountain up to the whitewashed letter painted on the slopes. It kicked my ass. I could only make it halfway up. (I'll talk more about this hike in another post.)

We also saw the Missoula Symphony play in Caras Park (for free), and got to see a beautiful hand carved carousel in the middle of the park. We explored a large hippie boutique, and had some of the best burgers I've ever eaten at the Missoula Club.

One night, we decided to go to a punk show at a club called the Palace Lounge. It was three hours of earsplitting screaming, drunken people spraying us with beer and trying to pull us into the mosh pit. As I stood on the edge of the crowd, with my arms folded, I wondered - did moshing always look this stupid when I used to do it as a kid?

The main act was El Zombi Gato, a conglomeration of local artists, most of them as old as myself. They were loud and grating and kind of obnoxious.

The best act was a band called Bird's Mile Home. They were awesome. Punk rock with a cello! Plus, the cello player was hot! The only thing I kept thinking was - why do they not have a record deal? They were that good.

With my ears ringing, we drove back to our tent.

The rains came, and there were several mornings when I woke up to a large puddle around our tent. There were some nights when I stuffed dirty clothes down my sleeping bag to help keep me warm. This is Montana! Why did I not bring a jacket?

When the fair finally started, it was quite busy. We negotiated a spot right by the carnival entrance. It was almost too good of a location. We were so busy, we could barely keep up.

A couple of notable things:

We met an 11 year-old kid named Evan Kirby. This kid is going to be the next Picasso, I swear. He does these images out of slices of duct tape. They are totally off the wall and random. He is going to be famous one day.

Our neighbors were gypsy fortune tellers from Spokane, Washington. We learned a little but about Romani culture, especially their ability to barter and negotiate. They could practically talk us into doing anything for them!

Once the fair was done, we packed up our booth, tore down our tent, left Missoula, left Jellystone Campgrounds and headed for Kalispell for our final event in Montana. Which is what I will write about tomorrow...

So Falls Great Falls...

2009-09-16T12:18:00.001-07:00

Anyway, continuing with my Montana adventures...

After Bozeman, we went to Great Falls. Joe and I took this back road through the mountains. It was spectacular.

My friend Steve said that he always disliked driving to Concho (where I live), because - whereas the drive is spectacular - the destination is kind of mediocre. That is the way I felt about Great Falls. It is flat and grassy. The only interesting feature is the Missouri River that winds through the center of town.

We set up our booth at the Montana State Fairpark, and they let us pitch a tent behind the booth. The first few days of the fair were really slow, but the last few days were pretty busy. It was a ten day event. My daughter Sophie came to visit and stayed with us for the duration of this event.

The most interesting thing about Great Falls were the people, and I will talk about some of them briefly:

Ali - He was also in Bozeman with us. A tall, black man, he had an accent, and so I assumed that he was from some Carribean island. Especially since he sells reggae t-shirts, and such.

I finally asked him, "So where are you from?"

"Senegal," he answered. So we switched to French. He was very surprised to find that I spoke French, and this is how we communicated the rest of the time.

Since his name is "Ali", and since he is probably Muslim, I asked him, "How many wives do you have?"

After a brief hesitation, he held up two fingers.

"Me, too," I answered. Ali found it very odd that an American would live this lifestyle. I really liked Ali and found that I had something in common with him after this.

Brandon - He is a high school student who has taken an avid interest in airbrush art. He owns a local go-kart track, and we spent one evening doing laps. It was great fun. Brandon is a good kid, and he hung around us so much that he became a pleasant fixture.

However, eventually his mother put an end to him hanging around with us. I guess it seemed weird to his mother that a 17 year-old kid was hanging around grown men. We are family men, but still. Maybe she doesn't want him to hang around "artist types", or maybe his mother Googled my name, which would bring up a wealth of personal information. It wouldn't be too hard.

Jessie & Pete - They ran a t-shirt booth called Outlaw Embroidery. Jessie is a great guy with a beard of ZZTop proportions. Pete wears bermuda shorts and a cowboy hat. Since people watching - no, babe watching - is my primary activity at the fairs when things get slow, it was nice to have someone like Pete around, with an eye attuned like mine to aerodynamic beauty.

Tohni - There was actually a tattoo booth at this fair, and Tohni is an apprenticed tattoo artist. She came this close to convincing me to get a tattoo. She is Chippewa Cree and has an innocence about her. Technology is foreign to her, and she is baffled by the cellphone her friends insisted that she buy.

Tohni hung out around us a lot. She went clothes shopping with my daughter Sophie. I never talked to her once about me being a Mormon o a polygamist. Yet she could sense something different about us. She told us repeatedly that she felt like she had known us forever, and that I reminded her of an uncle. She is a great person, and I hope she keeps in touch.

Enrique - Next to our booth, the techno music would pound several times a day, and a short Mexican man with a pony tail would toss spray cans around like Tom Cruise in "Cocktail". He would use his spray cans to whip out space paintings in ten minutes, using crowd-drawing techniques like lighting his paintings on fire. He drew big crowds, but we didn't mind. He got the overspill business.

Enrique was so kind, and he would greet me enthusiastically every time he walked by the booth. It was nice to meet someone so genuine.

The people we met were definitely the highlight of our stay. Camping was alright, not so great. The only shower was half a mile away in the livestock building, and you were lucky if you got in to shower. Because there was only one shower, and all the carnies used it.

So eve though Great Falls is not the prettiest people, I enjoyed being there, because of the people there.

My laptop did crash while I was there. I have yet to fix it.

But tomorrow, I will post about our adventures in Missoula...

.

Montana, the Fair, the Hostel & the Lie

2009-07-22T18:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I told a lie. I told the same lie the day before, and the day before that. It wasn’t a big lie. It was rather a small lie. And it wasn’t really the type of lie that was a falsehood uttered aloud. It was more of a lie of omission.

But let me backtrack, and tell you what I have been up to.

At the end of April, I got laid off, decided to write a book, sat in front of the computer and mostly stared at it. I got a couple of odd jobs, mainly doing construction. Still waiting on payment for those.

But then I got a phone call. My brother-in-law, the airbrush artist, wanted me to go on the road with him to run his airbrush t-shirt stand, which is how I wound up in Montana.

I think it is totally pointless in saying how exquisitely beautiful Montana is with its rivers, pine forests and tall mountains. It would be like saying that water is wet. But we did wind up spending five days at the Gallatin County Fair in Bozeman. We didn’t make many sales. I don’t know if it is the economy, or that Montanans are just not interested in having t-shirts with gangsta script on them.

On a side note… Montana girls… Where else can you find girls who play football, hunt, ski, rope, work on a pig farm and still manage to be crushingly pretty? It reminds me of Temple, who was bucking 100 pound bails of hay when I found her.

The most awesome part about staying in Bozeman was staying at the Bozeman Backpacker’s Hostel. When I heard that we would be staying in a hostel, I was not thrilled. I had had the hostel experience in Europe. Hostels had the reputation of being seedy, alcohol-soaked places.

When we got there, I was pleased to find a beautiful, Victorian house built in the 1890s – its claim to fame, Gary Cooper used to board here as a high school student. We walked up the steps to the front porch, which had several couches littered with exhausted-looking backpackers. Inside was a large kitchen table with other guests. We were directed to sign in, put our money ($20 per bunk) in an envelope, slip it under the door and pick out an available bunk. We walked up the creaky stairs to find a couple of bedrooms with three sets of bunk beds per room.

I was appalled to find all of the rooms filled with people. Appalled, because I have a deep dark secret. I snore. I snore horribly. It can be measured on the Richter scale. I settled down into my bunk, very self-conscious. Every time I felt myself starting to snore, I woke myself up. It didn’t help that the guy in the bed close to me would toss angrily in his bed.

The next evening, after the fair, I was dreading going back to the hostel. But when I walked in, I found a group of people sitting around the table, talking and laughing. There was the owner – a guy named Wayne. He is a charismatic man of Sri Lankan descent from Australia. The man just has an aura about him. He has traveled all over the world, including some extended visits to Africa. There were also a couple of girls from California and Oregon, respectively. And there was a lank Frenchman named Jerome.

That night, as I climbed into my bunk, I apologized to Jerome in advance for any snoring I might do.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I snore, too.”

In the middle of the night, I heard him blurt out, “Révolutionaire!”

A couple of minutes later, he muttered, “Napoléon!”

In the morning, I told Jerome, “You don’t snore. You sleep talk. What were you dreaming about?”

Soon, I came to love staying at the hostel. There was someone new there every day – people from all over the country, and even from other countries. Germany, Japan, New Zealand, etc.

Now we come to the part about the lie…

One morning, I got into a discussion with Erin, a hiker from New York. The fact that she had done religious studies, I brought up that I had been a member of the mainstream Mormon Church, but that I had been excommunicated twenty years ago. I carefully omitted why I had been excommunicated. I just made it seem like I wasn’t Mormon anymore.

Then amazingly, she brought up having read “Under the Banner of Heaven” by Jon Krakauer. What an amazing lead-in to a discussion about my lifestyle. Instead, I made a vague comment about being related to the FLDS. Also true. But I said nothing about me being a polygamist.

Why did I do it? I don’t know. I guess maybe I wanted to enjoy being with people without the stigma of being different. I guess I was probably thinking that if I told people that I am a polygamist, that it would be like a big, black cloud hanging over me wherever I went in the hostel, intruding on every conversation. Which is kind of weird, because I am not ashamed of who I am. I think I was just wanting anonymity.

But maybe even that is a cop-out. Because it is such a vital part of who I am. There is no way that I can divorce myself from that aspect.

But as the visits continued (Nikki, Natalie and Alicia, college students on a road trip, Matt from South Carolina, Aaron from New Zealand, a high school graduate doing a bus trip from Philadelphia, Carlos and David, two Mexicans traveling with their drunken companion) more opportunities came up. I told stories about “my wife”, morphing Martha and Temple into one, homogenous person. I even told them about the TLC show and about the book I am writing, even though I was careful to tell them nothing about what they are about.

So, like I said, a lie. I told them nothing that was untrue. But I really didn’t tell them the truth, either.

The biggest irony was stopping to see my high school French teacher, who lives in Montana, on my way to Great Falls. We sat across each other and chatted for about an hour. Both of us know who and what I am. But none of us said a word.

I supposed that I remedied all of this by providing every person I met with my contact information, including the link to my blog…

In Hiatus...

2009-06-22T08:25:00.001-07:00

I haven't been posting, because I am writing my book....

As time allows, I will give updates. I hope you will continue following my blog...

Moroni
(928) 245-4095

I Will Survive... Another TV Offer

2009-05-06T17:09:00.000-07:00

A dear friend of mine who works in the TV industry contacted me last year to say that she wanted to pitch me to CBS for their reality show “Survivor”. At first, I was like, “Nah, that would be too much.” But the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea.

Mainly for this reason – I could travel to someplace exotic and have someone foot the bill, get eliminated in the first round and come home. Even though I live off the grid with two wives, I don’t think I could handle the rigorous requirements of “Survivor”. I can eat some pretty strange stuff. But I am overweight and out-of-shape in a “big” way, if you know what I mean.

Still, I agreed to let her try to pitch me to the producers.

“You need to start preparing now,” she said. “Start getting in shape.”

So, in the mornings, I started hiking to the top of Cinder Mountain – the highest geological feature in Concho, AZ. I got to the top, panting and sweating a couple of times and then stopped. I don’t know why… Oh yeah, I went to the hospital for diabetes.

Which was another topic I brought up to her. I am a diabetic and insulin-dependent.

“Um, that might be a problem,” she said. “But let’s try anyway. This is the best chance that you will ever have to win a million dollars.”

Which is next to impossible. I know the odds. I play Powerball almost every week.

“And obviously, we will be pitching you based on the fact that you are a polygamist,” she added.

“What? You’re not doing it on the merit of my good looks?” I asked, crestfallen.

I never heard back from her in months, so I figured that it didn’t work out. But then I got a text message from my friend a few nights ago. She told me that she had just pitched me to the producers. The only thing to do was sit back and wait.

Yestderday, I got the results. I am officially… (drum roll)… NOT a candidate for “Survivor”. Apparently, CBS had a problem with the fact that I am a polygamist. They are a “family network”. So… having a flabby, gay man run around on a beach, naked, in the first season was okay. But they have a problem with a polygamist.

Temple asked, “What did they think you would be doing on the camera?”

One can only imagine. But this lifestyle, which one writer termed as “sacred loneliness”, apparently is too much for CBS.

Oh well.

I knew that there would be other opportunities. I only need to have the wisdom to know which is the right one. In response to this, my friend said, “You should have been much farther along by now.”

I told her that I understood that. But my reluctance had to do with people close to me disapproving of what I did. It took the wind out of my sails. It was disheartening that no one saw any value in what I was trying to do.

“Well, maybe you need to work out those issues before you go on,” she suggested.

“The only way I will be able to resolve that issue is to do another one,” I answered. “The maverick in me has to do another one to show them that I am my own person.”

One other thing that we discussed…

She said that she was surprised at how the Dawn Porter show turned out. It was much different than what she thought.

“We gave them enough to make a much more interesting, well-rounded show,” I told her. “It’s just that the other family was much more in line of what people think of as a polygamist family. In fact, I think the only reason that they included any of the interviews with my family was that the man in Centennial Park refused to go in front of the cameras. So they resorted to showing my interview.”

“The producers were looking for a standard family – white, J-Crew, well-adjusted, polygamist family,” she said. “They didn’t want anything too alternative. And let’s face it – you are alternative. You have a history of drug use in your past. The kind of music you listen to. You are waaaaay too alternative.”

So the fact that we are different is – at once – our greatest strength and our greatest detriment. That is funny.

We will see what is at the end of this path….

Next time, photos of the new baby…

Food Porn

2009-04-29T06:07:00.000-07:00

So today is my last day in South Carolina. Tomorrow, I start the long drive home.

Admittedly, it is difficult to be away from home like this. But there is a part of me that enjoys it. One of my favorite TV shows is Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations”. Not only is he one cool mother, but his philosophy in regard to traveling matches mine. He immerses himself into the culture and is not afraid to sample local delicacies.

The thing I like about my job – I am able to stay in a place long enough to get to know a place.

Some construction workers find bliss in leaving their dollars in the garter belt of strippers. I leave by bills on the table of the waitress. Food is my solace.

The pizza and Italian food in Connecticut. The lobster in Massachusetts. The taco stands in Tucson with their Sonoran hot dogs. The buffets in Vegas. DiBella’s subs and Primanti Brothers in Pittsburgh. The greasy goodness of Southern cooking as exemplified in South Carolina’s Lizard’s Thicket.

And when we don’t eat out, we grill. Carne asada, jalapeños roasted on flames and burned fingers from flipping over tortillas by hand.

The pain of being separated from my family assuaged by the sizzling of meat…

Our Time in the South

2009-04-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

THIS BLOG POST WAS WRITTEN BY MY BROTHER TONY ABOUT HIS TIME IN THE SOUTH (WHERE I AM CURRENTLY WORKING WITH HIM.)

The South is a place in America that is rich with history. Within the last seven months, I've had the privilege of working here, and have experienced/witnessed many different things. Above all my memories I'll take with me when I leave is the genuine and heart-felt greeting strangers give one another. I was raised to greet people--even in passing--but to find that when done in the Northeast, people draw back as they pass, cringing with the spoken pleasantry, and frowning as they pass.

I was told by a friend I met, that here, in the South, if one doesn't greet another, then something is wrong with that person.

The beauty of this place is yet another thing I will miss. I have finally found a locale where I'm not incapacitated with allergies. At home in the White Mountains of Arizona, I dread the juniper trees' bi-annual release of pollen. Under a microscope, the pollen has vicious-looking barbs, that within my lung tissue, viciously attach themselves, which leads to an eventual illness, fever, and leaves me just feeling miserable. I'm usually bed-ridden for a couple weeks.

I won't miss the Tiger Mosquitos, and their voracious and aggressive appetite. Or the chiggers. Insect repellent has become a common object among my personal effects.

Each morning I enjoy stopping outdoors, when throwing my trash and listening to the variety of birds that perch upon the branches of the oak, pine, magnolia, birch, willow. Everything is so green out here. Even the vines that reach towards these trees, and envelop the floor, is beautiful. There are squirrels here that have become accustomed to my morning walks to the dumpster and no longer feel threatened by my presence, as they forage for their breakfast.

I also won't miss the mustard barbeque sauce. It's too acidic for my taste, and I always regret having eaten it during the night waking with heartburn.

Easter Saturday (if there is such a day), I was driving back to the hotel after picking up my morning coffee from Circle K and I observed a bearded man with long hair pulling a cross on wheels. I've seen a similar character in the Phoenix valley before, but what struck me profoundly, is that as I passed, he passed a woman hired by Liberty Taxes, dressed in a greened-copper-colored gown, with a crown to match, who smiled from the sidewalk and waved at the passing vehicles, then turned to wave with equal excitement to the man with the roller-cross. I couldn't help but grin and shake my head as I turned onto Chris Drive.

Another thing I shall not miss are the smelly poultry trucks that pass each day--carrying stacks of cages filled with fryers headed towards their demise.

I will miss the cuisine. Southern cooking is within a league of their own. I love cooking vegetables in olive oil, and let them steam with their own moisture, but was thrilled to discover that Southerners cook theirs in pork fat, which lends to an explosion of flavor in every bite. I even was amused by the disclaimer Lizard's Thicket has on their tables--that the vegetables are cooked with animal products.

I'll miss Bojangle's. Some of the best and cheapest chicken I've had from fast-food, as well as the legendary french fries from Checker's. And I'll miss the mac 'n' cheese, that seems to be more of a staple here than grits. It's not like the Kraft variety--it's baked with egg, cheese, butter. The top is browned to a crust, and, wow. Comfort food that really gives one comfort.

I'll miss the balmy weather, and the occasional whiff from the sea. Seeing the Spanish moss hang from the trees in Charleston, and seeing the many historic structures there was a visual delight. I half expected seeing women in hoop-skirts emerging from those homes, with their umbrellas casually perched on their shoulders as we passed by. And the sand at Sullivan's Island--so fine that a gust of wind would stir it onto my lips.

I honestly hope that one day work brings me in this direction again. I'll miss all those with whom I've had the pleasure of meeting, and they will always have a fond place within my heart. If you ever get the opportunity to visit the South--do so. The Carolinas and Georgia are beautiful places to see, but even more,there is an abundance of beautiful places at which to eat.

New Baby

2009-04-22T06:51:00.000-07:00

So, I had a baby boy born to Martha and I on Sunday, April 19, 2009. He was born at 12:10PM in Arizona, and weighed 10 lbs., 5 oz.

The only problem is that I was not there...

The ultrasound said the baby was due March 28th. But the midwife insisted that she was due April 12th.

And I am still working in South Carolina.

We had been waiting on a carpet delivery for the hotel project we are working on, and the first week of April was the Master's Open. So the hotel was sold out and wanted no work during the golf tournament.

What this means... I got laid off for the first week of April. So I took the chance that the baby could come during this time and flew home.

It was a nice visit, but it became evident that Martha had not dropped. So we both knew (from experience) that the baby wouldn't be coming soon.

The project in South Carolina is due to end at the end of April, and I have no work slated after that. So after much discussion, Martha and I decided that the family would be best served if I went back to South Carolina. So I flew back to Columbia.

Sunday morning, April 19, Temple called me. She asked me if I had spoken to Martha. I told her that Martha hadn't called me in a couple of days. Temple told me that the previous night, Martha's water had partially broke. She told me that it wouldn't be that long before the baby would come.

I was in disbelief. "What? Like in a couple of days?"

"No," Temple said. "Today."

A couple of hours later, Martha called me to say that she was starting to feel contractions come on.

I paced the hallways, waiting for the carpet to be installed. The frustration that I was not there, could not be there was beyond belief.

An hour or so later, Temple texted me - the baby was in the birth canal. I texted her back: Let me know.

An hour or so later, she texted back... a photo of a baby boy.

I am amazed. I have not seen him yet, beyond seeing his photo.

Martha is still resting at my mother's house, getting some rest. She is amazing.

Temple is at home, watching Martha's kids (alomg with her own). She is feeding them, helping them with their homework, doing the shopping for 10 other kids, running errands, etc. Temple is also amazing. This is what being a sisterwife is all about.

I can't wait until I go home.... (Next week, I think.)

Bad Economy... Good for Polygamists

2009-04-17T12:05:00.000-07:00

Someone in one of the comments on my last post pointed out that Harry Reid should be worrying about other more important issues - like the economy, etc. Instead he flexes his congressional love-muscle to fret about the existence of polygamists.

Here is more from that article about David "Pendejo" Lujan at ASU:

"The bill soared through the House with bipartisan support but was blocked by former Rep. Eddie Farnsworth on the House Judiciary Committee, who Lujan said had a “difference in philosophy.”

"Farnsworth is no longer in the legislature, but now the budget crisis must be resolved before any representatives or state senators can introduce new bills."

First of all:

1. God bless Eddie Farnsworth! I would kiss you if I didn't have puke breath!
2. That sucks that he is gone.
3. Hurray for budget crisis! Lujan's pendejo bill will have to wait. :(

Creepy Creepy

2009-04-17T08:50:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the lapse. I do repent…

Imagine that you are part of a minority group. Not that hard to imagine. Now imagine that there are certain bigots that are well-placed in government that have an agenda to wipe you and your minority group off the face of the planet – an ethnic cleansing, if you will.

From ASU Webdevil, dated 4/15/09:

http://www.asuwebdevil.com/node/5975

This article covered an anti-polygamy speech given by Arizona Representative David Lujan at ASU. He brought with him Flora “Tweaking Scarecrow” Jessop to vomit lies about the FLDS. (Now, I don’t know the FLDS that well, but even I have a hard time believing her tall tales. Holding babies heads under water to stop them from crying??? Give me a break! Even I know that is bullshit!)

Lujan obviously plans to continue his crusade against polygamists, but he also plans to take his battle to Arizona’s AG office:

“Lujan is the Arizona House of Representatives Minority Leader, and a possible contender for Attorney General in 2010. Additionally, he serves as the staff attorney for Defenders of Children, the first nonprofit organization to open an office in Colorado City“

I swear, if Lujan becomes AG in Arizona, I am moving. I am ashamed that we are both latinos. ¡La tuya, pendejo!

Even creepier… This article in US News yesterday:

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/washington-whispers/2009/4/16/harry-reid-pushes-for-anti-polygamy-task-force.html#

Harry Reid Pushes For Anti-Polygamy Task Force

By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers

He's a Mormon convert and a Nevada lawyer, so nobody has to tell Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that polygamy is illegal. But having multiple spouses continues, especially in splinter Mormon groups, and now he's planning to make it a federal case. Reid says he will push the attorney general to create a task force to stamp out the practice. The Department of Justice is expected to agree. "We have an obligation to help these women and children who are being victimized," Reid says..

No, Harry is not a crusader. Harry is not doing this because he is a Mormon. He is doing this from the goodness of his heart. Bless him. Now my children and I have something to fear in the dark of night.

So Harry Reid is going to “stamp out the practice? Riiiiiight. Harry, you sure have a hairy pair, doncha?? Brigham Young would be shaking his finger out you, naughty boy!

Pink Sneakers Pitch

2009-03-25T19:09:00.000-07:00

For any of you polygs out there who want to tell your story on TV, Pink Sneakers asked me to get the word out. BTW, I can't do this, since I already did a show for TLC:

Hello Mr. Jessop!

It was wonderful speaking with you today. I really appreciate your kindness and willingness to help us out. As I said on the phone, the TLC producers are wondering if you may know of any current polygamists who would be inspired to share their story in hopes of getting their story out there to inspire a more respectful, true light on this matter. We would love to have you involved in the project, interacting with a friend who shares your same beliefs.

I personally have followed this subject for many years, and am hoping that the media call help dismantle the negative stereotypes by demystifying polygamy in a true, beautiful and honest manner. We are planning to do a very different take on this show. We want to give an observational, respectful portrait of those involved in polygamy. We will not have an interviewer; we want to give the subject free reign to show us anything they want, and voice their story in their terms. We want to advocate the importance of freedom of religion and the honor of all kinds of lifestyles.

In a month or so, TLC would send a crew to the participant's house for up to 4 days non-consecutively and document his daily life and story. Our biggest priority is to make sure this show would not negatively impact the participant in any way. Whatever the participant is most comfortable with, is most important to us.

If you have any ideas, feel free to call me at 407-464-2080 ext. 147, or email me at casting@pinksneakers.net. Thank you so much, Mr. Jessop, for your time!

Have a great weekend in South Carolina!

Sincerely Yours,

Kristine

KRISTINE LOREFICE
CASTING NBC, VH1, MTV, BRAVO, TLC
PINK SNEAKERS PRODUCTIONS
1000 COLOUR PLACE, APOPKA, FLORIDA 32703
P: 407.464.2080 ext. 147
WWW.PINKSNEAKERS.NET
WWW.TLC.COM

Aotearoa - Moroni in New Zealand, 2006

2009-03-05T04:11:00.000-08:00

This is a blog post I wrote in 2006 about my trip to New Zealand:

I wrote a little about my trip to New York City last year. In like fashion, I am writing a bit about my trip to New Zealand. Like New York, I was able to see a side of New Zealand that is not “touristy”. My friend Wayne had invited me to New Zealand, because his wife is a Kiwi. In fact, she is Maori. (For those of you who think that New Zealand is either a Caribbean island or part of Australia, the Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand.) As you will see, my New Zealand trip was less Lord of the Rings, than it was Whale Rider.

Wayne, my cousin Jonathan and I left Arizona on July 11th quite early in the morning. We reached Kingman, and from there I drove the rest of the way to Los Angeles while my traveling companions slept. By the time I reached LAX, I had already traveled 11 hours, I was hot, sweaty, and need of a shower, and I was very, very sleepy.

Qantas Airlines is an Australian airline, and our flight took off from Los Angeles for a 12 hour flight to Auckland, sharing our flight with 75 Jewish students on their way to the South Island to ski.

So imagine – already having driven 11 hours, hot, sweaty, sleepy – I now get to spend 12 hours on a plane. The first thing I discovered is the difference between domestic airlines and international airlines. International airlines cram as many seats as close together as possible to be able to squeeze as many people on the flight. Their pursuit for the almighty dollar results in a very uncomfortable seat so close to the seat in front of you that you can’t shift your feet. And it is worse when the person in front of you puts their seat back all the way. The claustrophobia is unimaginable. It is like being sealed in a coffin for 12 hours, except they serve a hot meal. There was no sleep for me. Thank God they had a good selection of entertainment. (I discovered Australian performers such as Bernard Fanning and the Living End in this manner.) I watched movies until my eyes dried up in their sockets.

We mostly made it through customs okay. I took several food gifts for the people I would be staying with. Ranch dressing apparently is something you can’t find Down Under, so I took several bottles of Hidden Valley Ranch, along with bottles of real salsa. The customs agents took several minutes reading the label on the ranch dressing, trying to determine if it was a verboten dairy product.

The first thing I noticed of Auckland was the weather. My Kiwi friends had been giving me harbingers of doom about the icy, cold New Zealand winters.

Before the trip, I had asked, “Does it snow in Auckland?”

“Na-ooo,” they had answered in their Kiwi accents.

I explained that I had spent an entire New England winter working outdoors with just a light jacket. They insisted I would need a parka.

When I got off the plane it was balmy and cool like a spring day. It was winter in Phoenix. It was so pleasant and green.

My first experience of New Zealand was the food. At 5:30 AM, we stopped by a bakery, and I had my first meat pie. Steak and cheese. In the States, we have chicken pot pies. Crap. Total crap compared to these New Zealand pies. The crust is fresh and flaky, and they are loaded with meat.

Immediately, we were whisked away to a water park called Parakai. I was so exhausted, but determined to beat the jet lag by staying up until bedtime. Diane – my friend’s wife – has a friend named Marilyn who was putting on a BBQ at a water park for the Young Women’s organization of the local LDS Church. So here we were – a bunch of middle-aged guys at a social function for teen girls. Awkward to say the least. The hot spring water was a balm for the exhaustion I was experiencing.

After this, we went to a beautiful beach called Murawai. It is a protected habitat for a bird called the ganett, a bird that migrates between New Zealand and Australia. Then we drove around Auckland to get to know the environs. I could have gone home that evening and seen enough to satisfy me. I was so tired that everything was a blur of driving on the wrong side of the road and an endless succession of roundabouts (or rotaries, where we come from).

We went home for the evening. We stayed in the home of Diane’s father, Samuel. He is a very gentle, old man of Samoan descent. We learned that Auckland is the largest Polynesian center in the world – a conglomeration of Maori and other Pacific Islanders.

The next morning I got my first experience of the Polynesian custom of eating. Samuel served a huge bowl of porridge for breakfast. That would have been enough. But then came the eggs, the bacon, the sausage, the toast, the spaghetti, the boil-up (Polynesian dish of pork and boiled cabbage), and the food will keep coming until you beg them to stop. On the surface this may seem paradise for a big guy like me. But soon my pants stopped fitting right.

We spent the day touring the Auckland Museum, which mainly displays artifacts of island culture. That evening, we had another Kiwi experience – the takeaway. (Or takeout in our vernacular.) Fish and chips. Not the frozen garbage we have in the States. This is fresh, top quality fish breaded and fried, served with a mess of chips (fries), generally wrapped in a newspaper and served with tom-AH-toe sauce. The most common meal I had in New Zealand.

The next day, Saturday, served the entire purpose of our visit. According to Maori custom, a year or so after the death of a loved-one, they purchase the gravestone. The family will gather in the cemetery, cover the new gravestone with a cloth, and then unveil it for the whole family. They call it an “Unveiling”, and it is just a big occasion as the funeral itself. This particular Unveiling was for Diane’s deceased mother.

We met on beautiful memorial grounds in Kelston, and the whole family gathered at the bottom of the hill where the grave was located. Then one of the granddaughters stood at the top of the hill, began shaking her hands to the air and shouting out the Maori song/ chant for welcoming the family.

“Kara nga!” she called. Welcome.

They unveiled the gravestone, complete with a photo of the deceased embedded on the stone. Everyone then said a few words over the grave directly to the deceased as if she were there. Most of it was spoken in Maori.

The banquet after the Unveiling was conducted at a local LDS chapel. The family – most of them not Mormon – were told that they could not smoke on the church grounds, but could smoke out on the curb. So when we pulled up, there were about 50 Maori smoking on the curb.

The meal was purely Polynesian. Roast pig (with the head still attached). Taro root. Boiled bananas. Kumara (sweet potato). Roast pumpkin. Deep fried potatoes. Chop suey. Raw fish in coconut milk and lemon. Curry chicken. It was so, so delicious. But I can see why Polynesians are so heavy, and why they have problems with diabetes. I was so stuffed I could barely walk.

Directly from there, we went to what the Maori call a “Twenty-first”, which is a little like the Mexican quincianera. When a Maori girl or boy turns 21, if they have shown themselves to be responsible, they are given a key to the home. They are given a huge party along with it.

This particular Twenty-first was for Diane’s cousin Adrian. It was held in a marae, or ceremonial Maori longhouse or meeting house. We were not allowed in until invited. Out back, we watched the men cook the hangi, or pig roasted in a pit with hot coals the traditional Polynesian fashion.

The traditional welcome call was sung again, and we entered the marae. We were greeted by a row of young Maori men doing the haka, or war chant. I have to say – I have never seen anything as masculine, as manly as Maori men doing the haka. They beat their chests with their fists. They slap their arms and knees. They roll their eyes. They stick their tongues out, and they shout at the top of their lungs:

Ka mate! Ka mate!
Ka ora! Ka ora!
Ka mate! Ka mate!
Ka ora! Ka ora!

It is death. It is death. It is life. It is life.

Then the feast began.

Keep in mind, I had just come from a feast. It was like Thanksgiving twice in the same day. Hangi. Abalone in curry sauce. Raw oysters. More raw fish. They had to cart me out of there.

The next Monday, along with Wayne, Diane, and their family, I traveled north of Island to the part of New Zealand they call “Northland”. Northland is very rural. Much of it is undeveloped and as rough and raw as when the Maori first came to this land. Whangerei, and up to the Bay of Islands where we toured Waitangi, where a treaty was signed between the Maori and Her Majesty’s representatives, establishing New Zealand as a Maori nation under British rule. We stayed the night at Kaikohe, where we spent the evening bathing in the hot springs at Ngawha and staring up at the Southern Cross, uninhibited by the glow of city lights.

Tuesday, July 18, we went to Motukiore, the ancestral lands of my friend Diane. We stopped by the local marae. I find this custom of the marae to be very compelling – a community center where the village may eat together, meet together, and even enough mattresses and blankets to throw on the floor that the whole village can sleep there. The marae represents the ancestors. We stopped to have a Milo (hot chocolate) with Diane’s Uncle Harry, a Maori elder. He is of the Ahipara tribe, and he complains that those Maori of the south part of the island have never been kind to the Ahipara. They used to come up, capture the Ahipara and eat them. It gives hangi a whole new meaning.

We drove to Cape Reinga, the northern most tip of New Zealand. From there, there is a fantastic view of the Pacific. Exactly 6500 miles from Los Angeles. We stayed a couple of nights with Cousin Willy in the town of Ahipara. He is a single school teacher in that town, a descent guy from the South Island. He put Jonathan and I up in his shed out in the back, just a hundred yards away from the beach. I could hear the surf out back. Our beds were basically two pallets with mattresses on them. It was actually a lot of fun.

While in Ahipara, we went to Ninety-mile Beach, and Jonathan actually went swimming in that cold water. I caught a cold there that lasted for the whole next week. We also looked at some shops where they sell crafts and furniture made from the ancient kaori trees that are buried under the forests of New Zealand. People have made a living digging them up, drying them out and making things out of it. They also dig up the gum from these trees.

On the way home, it seemed like every clerk at every dairy (Kiwi for convenience store) that we stopped at was a cousin of Diane’s. We crossed Hokianga Harbor by ferry, and we stopped by a very large kaori tree, the oldest and largest tree in New Zealand. We drove through quite a bit of what I would call jungle, but the Kiwis call it “bush”.

Back in Auckland, we visited with Diane’s cousin Karen, who is raising money for her blind and deaf brother-in-law to go back for a visit to the Cook Islands. This made the local paper while we were there.

Victor and Neta also invited us to there house for dinner. They are from the small Pacific island of Niue. There are only 1500 people on Niue, and they are all related to each other, descended from a Spanish sailor who shipwrecked there more than a century ago and intermarried with the natives. Although about 40,000 Niueans live in New Zealand. A hurricane swept through the island a few years ago and caused much destruction. The storm wiped about 300 people.

Victor introduced us to a beloved Kiwi tradition – rugby. They have their national team – the All Blacks. And then they have their minor league, which is just as popular. On this particular evening, the All Blacks played South Africa (and won). Before the game, the whole team did their traditional Maori haka for the opposing team. That gets the crowd wild.

On Monday, July 24, the American in our crew – Wayne, Jonathan and I – took a road trip. The rest of the family wanted to stay in Auckland. We drove south the Hamilton. There we visited the Mormon temple, and we stayed the night at a “motor camp”, which is basically a hotel where all you get is a room and a bed, and you have to share the bathroom with everyone else staying there. Hamilton is close to the farm where Hobbiton was located in the Lord of the Rings, so the terrain looked familiar.

The next day, we went to Rotorua, which is a resort community. This area is known for its immense geothermal activity – geysers, hot springs, boiling mud pits. As a result, there are many spas there. We went on a tour of a simulated Maori village called Te Piua, and then we enjoyed ourselves basking in the hot waters of the Polynesian Spa. We heard rumors of mud baths where everyone bathes in the nude. But damn it, I just couldn’t find it! J

We drove on to Lake Taupo, where we stayed the night with Diane’s cousin Yvonne, and her husband Dion. There house is decorated with many paintings and artifacts that have a Native American theme. Jonathan asked Dion, “Why do you have such an interest in Native American lore?”

“Let me show you,” answered Dion. He showed us a painting called Our People Are One, which illustrated the similarities between Native American culture and Maori culture. This was something quite compelling to Jonathan and I, as our Mormon culture teaches us that there is indeed a connection between the Islanders and the Native Americans.

I told Yvonne and Dion what Uncle Harry said about the tribes down south eating the Ahipara. They both laughed about that.

“The Ahipara was the last tribe to stop eating people,” he explained.

Wayne wound up getting sick, and we wound up staying in Taupo for two days. This wound up being the most enjoyable time for me. Dion showed us around his work. He works on Maori trust land, working a farm for there. He raises sheep. But mostly he raises red deer – for meat, but also for their antlers, which are considered aphrodisiac by the Korean and Chinese cultures.

From Taupo, we drove to Mount Manganui for a fantastic view of the Pacific. We stopped in Paeroa, where they bottle the soft drink L&P, “world famous in New Zealand”.

Our final weekend was spent with everyone making us farewell feasts – just in case we didn’t eat quite enough. Our last day, we went to the Avondale flea market where I bought gifts for my whole family, including the bone and jade Maori jewelry that is so well known here. I met a Maori man with the traditional moko – or tattoos – all over his face. “You’re Mexican, ay?” he asked. He was the only person to correctly identify my ethnicity while I was there. I expressed amazement at that.

“I’ve been around,” he smiled.

It was a sad thing indeed to fly home. It was such a moving visit. I will always be haunted by the beauty of New Zealand. But I will also always remember the hospitality and openness of the Maori people. I missed my family, but I will also miss New Zealand for the rest of my days.
There were two things that I wanted to see while in New Zealand – the kiwi bird and the weta (largest insect in the world). I saw both – in captivity.

Moroni in NYC - 2005

2009-03-04T08:31:00.000-08:00

This is a blog post that I wrote in 2005 while I was re-modeling a hotel in Connecticut:

Melissa suggested that I make a writing practice of my trip to New York. So if it interests you, here it is. If it doesn't, utilize that delete key.

So I have been staying in Windsor, Connecticut, just 10 minutes north of Hartford, and a mere 3 hours out of New York City.

My previous New York experience consisted of JFK airport for two long layovers. I never saw the outside of the terminal. So for the 2 months I have been in Connecticut, I tried to devise some method of going to New York.

Something great happened a couple of weeks ago. I met up with Matt & Mary. For those of you who don't know,that is Matt M. Matt and I had been friends in junior high (in 1984), when we were the only two kids in our school who listened to hardcore punk - Black Flag and Dead Kennedys. Matt moved to Texas while we were in high school, and we kept in touch for several years. But I had not seen him in 12 years.

I was a little worried. After all, I had evolved from a little anarchist into a husband and a father, living a life of indolent, domesticated bliss. (Though leave it to me to turn the American dream and the Greco-Roman system of marriage into something purely anti-establishment in my utopian vision of rural living.)

The point is - Matt was always the quintessential post-modernist. He always knew everything about art and music and literature. Matt was always the one who turned me on to great art.

I was worried that the years would not be kind to us. Matt had met Mary and moved to Philly, and by all reports was as cosmopolitan as ever. And I was as rural Arizona hillbilly as I could be. Would we still hit it off?

Well, Matt and Mary came to Hartford, and we hit it off. I felt as if I had known Mary as long as I had known Matt. They are the perfect couple. And that comes from a man who has been married for 12 years. (17 years if you count Temple ;)

We spent a weekend looking for a restaurant all over Holyoke and Springfield, Mass. Matt & Mary have a thing about not eating at chain restaurants – a residual influence from our days when punk was not mainstream. But their sense of principle landed us in a dive that served some of the best Maine lobster I have ever had.

We had a great weekend and came up with a plan for meeting up in New York in two weeks.

So early Saturday morning, the owner of the hotel was kindly driving me from Hartford to New Haven. We had a pleasant visit, but he was flaming gay and the hetero-corner of my mind was wondering why he was so amiably volunteering to drive me to the train station outside Yale.

So I bought my ticket and was on my way. Of course, the area was well-populated from Bridgeport to New Rochelle. The first real hint that you are coming to the city are the high-rise apartments in the Bronx. Then you see Manhattan.

There are so many buildings that my mind refused to accept it. It was nothing like Phoenix. When I first came to Connecticut, I laughed when people referred to it as the country. Connecticut has, if not a metropolitan feel, certainly a suburban one. Definitely more than White Mountains of Arizona, where I have spent the last 10 years.

There were so many buildings that it could not be real. It was like a dream - buildings after buildings of all kinds of architectural styles piled on top of each other in insane layers - an incongruous mix of old and modern. It was like a cut-out from a Monty Python landscape, feverish, random.

I met Matt and Mary at Penn Station, and we walked to the Empire State Building to do the one tourist thing I did the whole time - go to the top. There were incredibly long lines, and I experienced a security guard being a little gruff with me.

Matt explained that people in New York can be a little rude. I told him that I disagreed. New York people are honest and direct. I would rather hang with someone from New York who is rude and says "Fuck" every other word than those of us from the West Coast who are kind and polite, but don't mean it.

From the Empire State Building, we walked 30 or so blocks to the East Village. On the way, we stopped by the Chelsea Hotel. Matt asked me if I knew the significance of it. I told him that I knew that it figured prominently in Leonard Cohen songs where someone "gave him head on a hotel bed". Matt gave me that grin and said it was the favorite place for rock stars to OD on heroin.

On the way to the Lower East Side, we stop and had some Thai food. That was one thing I loved about NYC. There are so many restaurants to choose from. Unlike Arizona. You can literally pick any type of food that you want. And it is all so good.

We went to an arthouse movie theater and went to see "Los Olvidados", a Mexican film from the 1950s directed by Luis Buñel. Matt asked me if I knew who Luis Buñel was. I told him, "Of course. Everybody has seen 'Un Chien Andalou'."

I said that knowing that most people in St Johns, Arizona probably have not.

Plus, the Pixies did that great song about it. "Girly so groovy".

The movie reminded me of the Italian Neo-realism movement, though it had some episodes of Buñel's weirdness.

Later, Matt and Mary were giving me a hard time about how many kids I have. I told them I was going to have at least one more and name him Jaibo, one of the characters in the movie.

We ate at a place in NoHo called Cafe Dante, an Italian pastry shop with photos of patrons like Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro on the wall. The cappuccino was some of the most bitter stuff I have ever had, even with gelatto in it. The pastry was so delicious it was sinful.

We stopped by a couple of record stores. Matt collects vinyl. He is into some of the weirdest shit you have ever seen. He says his favorite is Japanese psychedelic. I asked Mary if he was like that guy in Ghostworld, and she said that he was.

I found a used copy of Dead Can Dance "Spleen and Ideal" for 6 bucks. I hadn't owned that since I still listened to vinyl. Then I got a copy of Descendents "Milo Goes to College". This album has particular significance to me, because I was actually in a punk band in high school that covered one of the songs off this album. I have had fun listening to it. The crap they call punk today is not punk. I mean, how many bands today write lyrics like "Parents - why won't they shut up, parents - they're so fucked up." :)

After Matt spending $200 on vinyl, we started walking back to our hotel - the Gershwin, which is just a couple of blocks north of Washington Square. The Gershwin is a trendy little place established in the 1920s, and is a pop art haven, with original prints decorating everyroom.

After eating a great dinner at a BBQ place, we went back to the hotel and went to sleep. I had walked so much that I had blisters on my feet. On my job, I wear these worn out hiking boots. So the day before I went to NYC, I bought some new shoes. I should have left them at home and brought the damn hiking boots. :) Comfort is definitely better than fashion.

The next day, Matt & Mary asked me if I was up to walking 50 blocks to Midtown. I whined and asked if we could get there by some other means, so we took the subway and got there is 15 minutes.

We went to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa). I am so grateful for that Art Appreciation class in college. :) The fact that I know who Henri Matisse and Jason Pollack were.

It was a pleasant reminder that I am not just some dumb Arizona rancher. That I am not just that guy who is a husband and father and chops wood and hauls water and drives down a dirt road to get home.

I am a guy that knows about modern art and can discuss it intelligently. I am a guy that can fit in in New York. I am a guy that can ask the clerk at the record shop about obscure electronica from the mid 1980s (Cabaret Voltaire) and have him know what I am talking about.

You see, sometimes I need a reminder that I am an okay guy, that I am actually an interesting person. Because when you are immersed in domestic tranquility you tend to forget that.

Anyone who knows me understands that I love my family beyond belief. But being in New York made me wonder what I would be like if my life had been a little bit different.

After the museum, we had the best pizza ever at John's Pizzeria, just off Time Square. It is in this old cathedral, and there is something almost machiavellian about eating pizza under a dome of stained glass. :)

We meandered back to Penn Station and waited for the train. Since we had a couple of hours to kill, we stopped by an Irish pub and I had my first Stella Artois since I had been in Belgium. It tasted almost sweet. But as with all Belgian beers, after a couple I was feeling slightly tipsy.

I slept the whole train ride and pulled into Windsor Locks at about 11PM.

I think that seeing New York this way really changed my outlook on the world and I don't think I will everlook at Phoenix the same again. :) The best thing was definitely Matt and Mary. It is great to have friends like them.

Moroni

Nix on Pink Sneakers

2009-03-01T21:37:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone for their advice.

I decided not to do the US show for the following reasons:

1. I asked the producers to call my wives to discuss the project with them, and they didn't.

2. They posted an advertisement on the Salt Lake Tribune's Plural Life blog ( http://166.70.44.68/blogs/plurallife/ ) and said the following:

"I work for Pink Sneakers Productions and am casting for a TLC Documentary Series on Polygamy. The documentary series for TLC is tentatively titled, “Life Chronicles.” Each episode documents the day-to-day lives of people sharing their amazing life experiences as they face exceptional challenges and cope with unique and sometimes life-altering situations.

"I am wondering if you have any contact information on any ex-polygamists or sister-wives who would be willing to be on this TLC series."

And then someone made the following comment:

"Why wouldn’t she ask for “current” polygamists or sister-wives? It is apparent that she’s doing another plural marriage-bashing documentary."

I realized that this is a good point. They didn't tell me anything about finding "ex-polygamists or sisterwives". When they called me on the phone, they told me that I would have free reign to "tell my own story", which sounded pretty good.

But then look at the other shows they have done. Hulk Hogan??? Not what you would call cred. At least Incubator TV had done some serious programs.

So I think I am going to wait...

To Become a Media Whore, or NOT to Become a Media Whore...

2009-02-26T11:43:00.000-08:00

That IS the question…

So I have always felt that my family has been a good example of plural marriage. We don’t have the big, shiny house. We are also not picture perfect. There are arguments. (Even a few LOUD ones.) But we are generally happy. (Although we are starting to learn that being a parent to a teen is much different than being a teen.) Everyone gets along. Martha loves Temple. Temple loves Martha. And if course everyone loves me.

That is the reason that we did the show to begin with. It works for us. Don’t ask me to tell you how or why it works for us. But it does.

And since we are a good example of plural marriage – and not remotely dysfunctional – I decided to do the show. To be an example to people of how plural marriage works, and that we are all not what people think of when they think of polygamy.

Flora the Tweaking Scarecrow did an article this week in Phoenix’s New Times that featured her scrawny form hidden behind a car door with the message painted on it – “Polygamy is Abuse”. Really. Maybe she should also have other obscenities like “Mexicans Are Lazy”, because such statements are equally false.

But I digress…

After we did the first show, I knew that there would be other offers. Deep down, I knew that I could provide a voice for plural marriage. It is something that I feel driven to do.

In the last couple of weeks, I have been approached by a couple of different production companies – one in the UK and one here in the States – both wanting to do something similar.

I don’t know. I’m hesitant. Not because I am afraid to get my name out there as a polygamist. I have no fears or qualms about that at all.

This whole thing caused embarrassment to my extended family. It roused their deep-rooted paranoia to have the media on the “Land”. Even the people I affiliate with religiously disapprove. There are even some in my family (mostly teen daughters) who are angry with me for doing it.

Usually I don’t give a crap what other people think. But when it’s your peers and your family… you do.

So I have the delightful task of deciding if I want to continue what I am doing, what I am driven to do and piss off or alienate everyone around me. Or kowtow to what everyone thinks I should be doing and stay hidden and safe.

What would you do?

Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk

2009-02-25T14:59:00.000-08:00

Please help this person, who will be participating in Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk. You never know what a difference it can make.

In case the link doesn't work:

http://www.the3day.org/site/TR/Walk/SeattleEvent?px=1693228&pg=personal&fr_id=1300&et=Lob8mzbPtlctF19j3sDpLA..&s_tafId=85002

Our Living Conditions - Conclusion

2009-02-24T15:36:00.000-08:00

In the summer of 2001, I was still working as a social worker for the state of Arizona in St. Johns. My dad came by one day and picked me up for lunch. We went to Corky’s – the one and only burger joint in this small town. He had retired from his government job, and I think he sensed that the end was near for him.

“When I die, the responsibility of seeing that the Family United Order continues is going to fall on your shoulders,” he told me.

I didn’t want to think about it. Who wants to ponder the death of a loved one?

Still, a year later he was gone. He had asked that he be buried on the “Land”, and so we set aside a family cemetery plot within yards of my house and buried my father there.

Scarcely had we lowered his body into the earth that my dad’s “friends” let their true faces show. There were some that said that we were not a “real” United Order, because the only people that belonged were family members – never mind that the Order now had almost 20 people.

There were others that said that – with the death of my father – our Order was left without any who held the “fullness of priesthood”. My father had received his “second anointing” – or he had attained the highest degree of the Mormon hierarchy. Thus he was qualified to preside over a United Order. But now that he was dead, there was no one “qualified” to lead our United Order. Or so it was pointed out to our family.

So the obvious solution to me was, “Fix this then.” My suggestion was to administer the second anointing to me, or one of my brothers, so that our United Order could continue. But that wasn’t the point of other men demonstrating out that our family was leaderless. They pointed out that our family was leaderless… so that they could step in and become the leader.

My father was not a wealthy man, ever in his life. And yet I was amazed that other men coveted what he had – his land, his family, his priesthood calling, etc.

One man brought us a “master plan” that subdivided the Land into streets and plots for houses. This man also proposed to my mother on several occasions. He tried to take us under his wing and mentor us, but became frustrated when my brothers and I resisted his efforts. His words to a couple of my friends were, “The death of Ted Jessop was the best thing to happen to this people. I’m going to go down to Arizona and take the bull by the horns.” The “bull” in this instance being me and my brothers.

People have always done me and my brothers a disservice. My father was a charismatic figure, and so they assumed that my father had such an influence over us that we had no minds of our own. So with my father gone, they thought they could swoop in and replace my dad. They were wrong. My father taught me to think for myself. I shot off a strong letter, telling these men to back off and leave our United Order alone.

But without my father there, the United Order did start to wither. Part of it is my fault. My dad asked me to make sure that it continued. But I got bitter. I got angry that I had bit back my own needs, and what did I have to show for my effort? I was in my thirties with nothing but a rundown trailer, a bunch of broken cars, and ubiquitous credit card debt accompanied by accrued interest.

The United Order came to an end…

Since, I have recognized that I have failed. I realize that it is a part of Mormonism that I am not living, and I would like to live it again. But I always feel constrained, because I know that – because of misconceptions – I lived it incorrectly.

I have a small circle of friends – young men like me in our late thirties or early forties who have been studying United Order. In our studies, we have read authors like Frédéric Bastiat who has shown the purpose of law – to protect us in our freedoms. Nothing more. We realize that the abuse of power has not consumed only our nation’s political leaders, but the leaders of Mormonism as well. The mainstream Church’s leaders are corrupt. But so are the leaders of Mormon fundamentalism who have used their priesthood callings to lord over the lay members, using priesthood ordinances and wives as an incentive to control men. They use the United Order to suck people’s money and land from them. Look at the United Effort of the FLDS – what a joke it was. Look at all the people in Pinesdale, Montana – and other places – who are forced from their homes on priesthood properties because they don’t tow the proverbial party line.

We have also studied Ayn Rand in great detail – particularly her book “Atlas Shrugged” that shows the follies of socialism and the parasitic mentalities it develops. I like Ayn Rand’s philosophies, but I think that the pendulum swung a bit the other way with her. There is no room for charity in her paradigm, and I think that we can all agree that Christ was the perfect example of charity.

So we have come to a conclusion of what the United Order isn’t – it isn’t communism. It isn’t socialism. Freedom – in all of its aspects is tantamount to a prosperous society, and that includes free enterprise. There must be no force, no compulsion, and there must be private ownership.

I still am working on what United Order is. I believe in the Law of Consecration. But how do you implement this without creating a sort of religious fascism? When I have these answers, then I will be ready to live it again. But until then…

So anyway, I draw this little tale to a close about how the reporters found a man with his two wives and many children living in a rundown little trailer out in the middle of nowhere.

Most Enlightening Video I've Seen

2009-02-21T09:41:00.000-08:00

Someone sent a link to me on Facebook. I have long been a fan of the rock group Tool. They are a thinking man's metal group.

This was my response to the video:

This was awesome. I have this Tool album, and it has been one of my favorites. I didn't realize how deliberate all of it is.

I saw an interview with Maynard on TV where he admitted that they studied Templar geometry. Interesting. They are one of the metal bands that is actually into occult philosophy for real, and not just for theatrics.

I guess one can say that all music is mathematical - Pythagoras said so. But it is nice to see musicians that actually use music as, well, a "tool". There are some techno musicians, like BT, that use the same methods.

It makes me laugh at all of the Mormons - some of whom we both know - who say that there is no enlightenment or spirituality in rock music, even metal. I have found strength in even some of the most seemingly satanic metal bands. Well, maybe not Venom, but certainly Tool.

Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS7CZIJVxFY

Now go and enjoy: