Poetry at Living Faith United Methodist in Toledo

Hello everyone. I hope you've had a good week since my last update.

I went up to Tama this week to do a poetry show for a Methodist church up there. I opened for the Headin' Home Gospel quartet -

This is a really grainy photo taken with my trusty camera phone. Headin' Home is a great gospel group, and they do a wonderful job of getting the crowd riled up for great music.

This show was an offshoot of the Old Time Gospel Show that I do for John Finical. John was at the show since Tama is his hometown, and I got to meet his wife Karen for the first time and see his new house.

The real highlight for the show, for me, was the fact that Karen told me a great story about a car accident that happened right in front of their old house that involved two teenagers, a bull, a semi, and three DOT trucks. Trust me, this story was a classic! And it will soon be in repertoire of poems as soon as I get some time to work on it. I'll make sure to post here first.

Something else interesting that happened . . . I do a poem called "The Squirrel" in which I detail an experience of almost hitting a squirrel on the road after some wild driving. Well, on the way to the show, I saw a big turtle crossing the road in the other lane, and my first thought was to stop and snap a picture of it so that I could post it on the blog for all those of you who constantly complain that I'm a bit too boring here.

How a picture of a turtle would liven things up, I don't know. But that was my initial thought for you the loyal reader.

Anyway, as I began to slow down, a pickup coming from the other direction just demolished the poor little guy right before my eyes. Needless to say, I didn't stop for the picture. I figure that if any of you really want to see him, I can now just give you directions. But if I change my mind about the photo, I guess I know where to find him.

I've also been asked to be a little better at posting my schedule of performances. Don't forget that you can always see where I'm gonna be by checking out our ministry webpage in the "On the Road Again" section at http://happythedog.com/OntheRoadAgain.html.

But here's a quick list:

September 8th - Men's Retreat in South Dakota

September 20th - Poetry show at Friendship Village in Pella.

September26th - See You at the Pole Rally in Sioux Falls, SD

September 27th - Chapel and Old Testament Bible Class at Sioux Falls Christian High School

September 29-Oct 1 - Canada for a retreat

October 6th - Poetry for the DOC Church in North English

October 23-28 - Canada for a retreat

November 5-8 - Sheybogan, WI Christian High School

Till next time,

Jason

A Tour Through the What Cheer Opera House With a Camera Phone . . .

I did another Old Time Gospel Show this past weekend for my favorite Old Time Gospel crowd at the What Cheer, IA Opera House. Seriously, this is one of the best crowds a guy could ever have. A true dream audience. They cheer, they clap, they laugh, they even hoot and holler, and occasionally stomp a foot or two.

Plus the opera house has tons of great history. For instance:

This is one of the two backstage doors to the theater. It's about a foot and a half wide, and twelve feet high. I was told by two separate people that it's in the Guinness Book of World for the tallest, thinnest stage door. Now, I looked it up on the official site, and I couldn't find it after searching for "stage", "door", "tallest", "thinnest", "skinniest", "What Cheer", or "Iowa" - but none-the-less, it is a fun door to squeeze through.

This is a pic of the stage from the balcony. My camera phone does it no justice, but here it is. The building is air conditoned very well, although it is about ten degrees warmer up in the balcony.

The backstage walls are covered with lots of great autographed photos of all the famous musicians and entertainers that have performed on the stage in the past:

A few of the notables including:

Hank Williams Jr.

Guy Lombardo . . . (there were actually about seven different Lombardo's with pictures up. This family went into conducting in a big way, and they apparently all jumped on Guy's enormous coat tails.)

They also have posters all up around the auditorium like this one . . .

. . . of the Glenn Miller Orchestra (under the direction of Jimmy Henderson!)

. . . and this one of Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra . . .

. . . and of course the Chairman of the Board, Jr. . . .

. . . and then ya got your Kitty Wells - who I know solely through name, and of course her prominent mention in the song Me and Paul by Willie Nelson . . .

I've made myself a promise that the next time I go, I'm going to bring a black and white photo of myself that looks really old, and try to slip it into the ranks of great peformers from the past.

So yeah, it's a pretty spectacular theater when you've got such a great crowd. My twenty minute set of poetry went over really well once again. I got to perform right after this guy:

. . . Joe Shetler - a Swiss, Mennonite, guitar and mandolin playing yodeler. He's good. This is the third time I've gotten to do a show with him, and he's always a fun guy to follow. He got to introduce me this time, and it went a little something like this -

"Okay, so up next is Jason Taylor. He's a youth director and Christian speaker. He's a comedian, and he is also . . . a comedian!"

And so, that's about it for this week. This coming weekend, I'm back in Toledo, IA for another poetry show. Then I have a couple weeks off as we kickoff all of our youth events here in Pella before I head out again for a men's retreat in South Dakota with Jonah's Wale.

But before we go, here's one more snap of a sticker on a backstage door from What Cheer . . .

. . . Lest we forget . . .

Till next time,

Jason

Salt Lake City / Minneapolis / Pella

Lots to update this week. I've been away on a couple trips, so my computer time has suffered greatly.

Went to Salt Lake City two weekends ago to emcee, speak, and do improv at Youth Unlimited's Convention. There were about 900 high schoolers from all across the U.S. and Canada that came together at the University of Utah to worship and attend seminars.

I had a blast. Happy the Dog was there in full force as Dawn was the woman behind the scenes for all the main stages, and Troy was leading Jonah's Wale in some late night worship.

Emceeing was probably the highlight for me as we got really goofy. Troy and I, along with improv-er Steve Hydeen did a rousing rendition of "Ring of Fire" complete with Steve's amazing trumpet playing.

I also climbed a mountain. . .

This is Steve and I at the top of it. You can't really get a sense of height from that picture, but this one's a little better . . .

This is Steve looking out over Salt Lake City. Again, my camera phone really doesn't do it justice. It took us a big hour to get to the top, and another hour and a half to get down. Shouldn't getting down be faster? Yes, it should. But cosidering that we took a really scary way down, combined with the fact that we kept stopping to make silly camera phone videos, we got a little distracted.

Steve's in possesion of the videos now, and since he's more technically literate than I am, someday there might be a youtube link here to view them.

After SLC, I got to fly home for a couple days and spend some time with Andrea and Carson. Best friend from high school and college, Nathan Kinkaid, swung through for a short visit before he and his family move to Australia. That's right . . . Australia. Hmmm. We tried to go get a margarita at El Charro's here in Pella, but they were having some minor difficulties with their service that night, so we went out to a really fancy grill on the south side.

Then it was off to Power Connection in Minneapolis where I was emceeing again, and doing some improv with Steve Hydeen for about 1000 middle schoolers. If I didn't mention it already, Steve is a professional improv-er out of Omaha, Nebraska with 88improv. We occasionally have the chance to get together and do improv shows and seminars. We also occasionally have the chance to get together and do this . . .

. . . hug giant, rusty, iron turtle sculputres. This was at Bethel College where the event was held. It looked to me like a tetnus shot waiting to happen. But Steve just couldn't resist 'rasslin the big guy into submission.

Finally I came home and got some much needed R and R with Andrea and Carson. Things at home held up well without me, although I sorely missed my wife and little guy.

Last night, the Morgan Valley Social Club hit the Third Reformed Church here in Pella for a Pillar's party. The Pillars are the senior group at the church and we did about forty minutes of music and poetry for them.

I had a blast, as a poetry show was just what I need to wind down from a week and a half on the road. Kyle was in his best form as he alternated hymns with Johnny and Willie tunes, and the crowd really seemed to go with us.

Is that all? Not by a long shot, but I'm trying to keep this post short so you'll come back and read again some time. I'll try to update more later on all the hijinks and hilarity that insued as I did things like lose my luggage at the airport, have my banjo fail to pass security, wear another man's clothes for a day, and scare the pants off a pantsless Troy Kooima as he was getting ready one morning.

Till next time,

Jason