After landing in Utah on a Sunday
Notes from day one of my week-long stay in Salt Lake City.
New Thing: I created a section of my Substack called “Field Notes” where I’ll post transcriptions of journal entries I’ve written while visiting some place new. This is the first of those. Upcoming trips? Motorcycle ride to the grasslands of Oklahoma. Two-weeks solo in Italy. I hope you’ll stay tuned.
June 26, 2022
Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
In Utah! Something about spending a whole day traveling by plane makes me feel tired, old, degenerate-ish, like I spent the day plowing a field, even though I’ve done absolutely nothing. In old-man-that-just-plowed-a-field fashion, I’m at a bar, drinking beer, waiting on enough chicken wings to feed two people, maybe three.
~
My uber driver is a DJ! Super cool. DJing is something I’ve been practicing and learning and loving. He has been doing it since the 80s, so full-on OG. We talked music. He gave me some tips and some tracks to listen to. We geeked out about the Amapiano genre, a new-to-America sound originating in Africa. I told him to check out one of my favorite hip-hop DJ sets, DJ Koco’s Boiler Room performance on YouTube. He dug it and even identified some of the tracks for me, like “Trans Europe Express” by Kraftwerk. Thanks, Universe.
~
On the TV above the liquor bottles, a fight broke out, a brawl, between the Seattle Mariners and the Anaheim Angels. As I watched thinking how much like little boys the players looked fighting like that, and how bad a look it was for grown men to be brawling not only in front of a crowded stadium but on national TV, a guy behind me noticed the fight and screamed, “Hell yeah!”
~
Sometimes I feel extremely sociable. Other times, not at all. Right now it’s sociable. I think traveling to a new place does that to a person.
~
It’s interesting to think that when you go to a bar in Salt Lake City, especially on a Sunday, you are effectively declaring yourself part of a minority community. That is, not Mormon.
~
In case that last note created any doubt, I want to say for the record, I’ve got nothing against Mormons. Nothing at all. Nothing more than I have against any religion, which is, I repeat, nothing at all. As a kid, some of my best friends were Mormon. The Wright kids. Dallon. Denton. Kira. Anja. Aubrey. Their parents were great, too. Their mom, Marianne, made a killer chicken salad, grape, and almond mixture that she would stuff into pita bread. It was the thing to have after a long day swimming in their pool or doing front-flips on their trampoline. I went to church with them once. Their dad, David, was one of the “elders” within the church, so he was up on the stage, which I realize now is kind of interesting — a stage, not an altar. I sat next to Marianne. She scratched my back through my thin dress shirt for the whole service. She scratched her kids’ backs too, at least the ones within reach. I guess it was a thing they did during church. Whatever it was, it was fantastic. Their dad sadly passed away from cancer a few years later. He couldn’t have been but 50. After that, they moved back to Salt Lake City. Word is, they still live here. I wonder how they are. I hope good. Religion aside, it’s pretty cool that a group of people have been able to basically retreat to and seize a part of their world all their own. Of course, there are other people here. But the subculture of Mormonism is centered in a few sprawling cities here in Utah. That sounds rather peaceful, safe, and happy if you’re a member of that group.
~
Unless he is a heavy drinker and daily bar-goer, no man is ever happy when his girl announces she got a job as a bartender. It makes him reflect on his conduct at bars in the past. The reflections, in this new light, are no longer good ones.
~
It’s hot, 90 something, but it feels excellent. I wandered down the street and ended up at a big, grassy park. In the distance, huge mountains. They are still snowcapped despite the heat. They tower above the city on all sides of it. This is what it must feel like to be an ant who crawled his way into the middle of a cereal bowl. Good to know. It’s nice to be around mountains and hills again. At the park, I found a tree. I’m laying in its shade. I dozed off here for a while. The heat, but also the mountains, and also the fatigue of travel, sent me easily into that light sleep. As I closed my eyes and drifted into that middle state between dreaming and not dreaming, I imagined the mountains were cradling me, lulling me to sleep, just like a baby.