Arguing

I had an interesting discussion in my Spanish class the other day. We had read an act of a play called, "Estudio en Blanco y Negro" (A Study in White and Black). The short version of this little act starts out with a man coming to a park with benches and a marble statue of a general on a horse. He yells out, "White!" Another man in the park hears him and yells, "Black!" This is the start of an argument between the two on whether it's black or white. They even started throwing punches!

Soon, a young couple enjoying some alone time in the park get corraled in to the discussion. The girlfriend, when asked, answered, "white." The boyfriend disagreed and said "Black." That started them off in an argument over who was right and who was wrong. They realized shortly into their argument that they were getting angry over nothing. The boyfriend points out, though, that if his girlfriend had just agreed with him, they wouldn't have argued. She in turn becomes upset at the notion and gets angrier. By then, the two men who started it all changed topics and conversed over where the other lived and so on and so forth. Sooner or later, all four were back to yelling at each other. The scene ends as a third man enters the park and yells, "Yellow" multiple times.

I came away from this drama some what perplexed. To what were they referring as black or white? Why were they getting so overworked about it? Was the issue over whether the unidentified object was black, white or yellow, or was there something deeper? As a class, we addressed some of these questions and through the discussion, I became aware of my idiosyncracies in arguing. My teacher asked what was the stupidest thing we had ever argued and with whom. It took me awhile to think of anything. I thought of some of my arguments with Melody Anderson, a good friend of mine, and with my mother, but the subject matter eluded me.

I realized that it was safe to say that most of my arguments were stupid. Not that I'm stupid, but I choose my battles poorly. My dad has quite a philosophy on this. He has told me on numerous occasions, "You can win the battle, but lose the war." Also, he has cautioned me about whether or not that was the hill I wanted to die on.

I guess the bottom line is: I want to be right. I don't care if it's over whether hot pizza tastes better than cold pizza or if my mother sounded critical or not. But I have to ask myself: is it worth it to be right? In my pursuit of rightness, what do I lose? Many a times, my dad has told me that people don't care what you know unless they know that you care. So it really doesn't matter whether or not I'm right and the other person is wrong. Okay, now that that's understood, can I actually follow through with it?

Here's a funny Monty Python video about arguing and some other stuff:

Pros and cons of the rally week

As many might know, the Sturgis motorcycle rally dominated my life for about seven days. That means a week of corruption, debauchery and lawlessness that has caused me to have to soak my retinas for double the time that they were exposed to all of the above.

Case in point.

But, there were some other cool things that I rather enjoyed being introduced to: the wonderful world of custom bikes.
But, there's only so much of bikes that you can take if you really don't know anything about them. However, there were other things to catch the eye:
I'm trying to mimic his face. It didn't work.
Cool dude, huh?

Then of course, you get to go to really cool things, such as Kenny Chesney. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I've realized on dream I've put on my list of things to do before I die: see the most beautiful man on the planet.
Okay, so not the best of quality, but I loved it.

Here's what I wrote on the Rapid City Journal's Sturgis Street Blog (They have since revamped that section and anything before 2013 is gone):

By Sarah Beu

I have the proof right here, folks. Elvis Presley is not dead, but alive and well as a patron of the Sturgis motorcycle rally.

See! There he is! He ran off before I could speak to him. But if I could, I think I would be tongue tied anyway. Oh well. Maybe next time.

In the magical carnival for adults called the rally, kids aren't few or far between. But there is a spot of innocence saved just for them at Woodland Park. It's called the Kidz Zone and it's pretty neat. There's a clown and face painting and inflatables and all sorts of neat things. I wish I were a bit younger and then I would have joined right in the races up the inflatables and gotten my face painted. Hmm, maybe I should have done that anyway.

Okay, that looks like way more fun than downtown Sturgis.

Chaplain Curtis Hubbell said that when he came to Sturgis 11 years ago, he saw a lot of kids being held "captive by their parents" and didn't have anything to do. So Hubbell came up with a positive alternative for kids. The park has a great buffer zone from the wild and crazy things going on in Sturgis.

For everyone who has walked up and down those streets and stood up for hours at a time: Go home and soak your feet! I stopped for about half an hour and just watched the footwear of people walking by. Mostly boots and flip flops. But I did see one woman barefoot. Wow, that's gutsier than getting a tattoo.

Here are some others I thought were interesting:

Pretty snazzy, although a bit blurry.

Pretty pointy, eh?

Those are cool!

Well, folks, let this be a word of warning - treat those feet well. And if not - soak 'em!

By Sarah Beu

I've been dreaming of Kenny Chesney since I first heard the anthem, "She thinks my tractor's sexy" in high school. I never thought I would see him in his first-ever visit to Sturgis, S.D. I even performed a mini concert in my car with a cd of his greatest hits. Lo and behold, my dream came true.

The road to Glencoe took longer than normal and my quarter of a tank was spent creeping along the highway. I thought I would be too late to watch the fun entry Kenny would make on stage. I needn't have worried, since he started later because of the million cars yet behind me. I settled for a close up range toward the right of the stage, with the help of some local crew members and waited patiently for the singer to come on stage. He didn't disappoint.

I sang along, as did everyone else to some of his oldies, "She's a Big Star," and "I Go Back," to name a couple. Then, halfway through, he invited a couple of guys who I don't even know come and sing. That's when Kenny started letting me down. What happened to singing songs that are signature Kenny Chesney? I didn't come all this way just to hear some guy named "Skinny Bob" to sing some song I don't even know. By that time, I had to leave. As I trudged up the hill, I glanced back one last time and sighed. Guess he'll just have to stay in my dreams and in my radio.

But to me, he'll always be beautiful!