Sometimes I want to follow n' ole Joe's footprints (or would that be his horse's hoofprints?) and hi-tail it out of Dodge. It just gets plain embarassin' to be livin' here in mormondum, and I want to transplant to nyc, ca or maybe even kolob.

WHY?

BECAUSE This is THE Place gives visitors tours of in-your-face bully Brigham Young's Lion House never telling them that he married a mere 55 ladies, and This is THE Place points to their stately granite temple where members can learn of the sacred endowments reserving them a seat in the CK for all eterniy without mentioning the fact that good ole Joe, their founder, plagerized the ceremony from the Masons without their permission.

BECAUSE This is THE Place founder Joseph Smith, Jr. has become known from a popular TV program, South Park, for being able to write a book by starring into his hat at a brown rock. Yep! You heard me right. WRITE A BOOK! Pretty embarrassing. But it does not stop there. Turns out our guy Joe had illusions of a much grander hat---this one actually for the top of his head. A CROWN! You know, like a king wears. What did he want to be king of? Oh, Oh, call on me! I know the answer to that one. Everything----his church, his country, and king of lots and lot of young women (even age 14, 15, and 16) as well as more mature women and married women. But alas, his marriage total fell behind that of Brigham as he only had 33 marriages. Also ole Joe had other slithery skills to teach us, such as how to start your own illegal bank with other people's money, how to organize your own mafia, and most importantly, how to get much-needed-visions right in the nick of time before people caught onto your scam and ran you out of town (at least this worked for him most of the time).

BECAUSE, currently, when you mention This is THE Place Utah (now I'm no way admitting I live here, mind you), someone might say, "Hey, isn't there some kind of weird mormon committee there that spies on people? I'm pretty sure I saw that on TV." Or, "Isn't that THE place where some people lost their lives and were blown up over some lizard forgery the church was trying to buy?" And finally, "How do you live in a place where one church has so much influence and power?"

Yep, sometime I'm definitely from, well, any place but Utah.