V for VendetTrump

Anyone else remember the graphic novel "V for Vendetta?" No? Just me. Okay, how about the movie? Yes? Most everybody because Natalie Portman + Hugo Weaving = amazeballs? Rad. Okay, so: V for Vendetta.

Y'all remember the plot? Spoiler Alert:
The government starts conducting experiments on people to create a super bio-weapon which, under the leadership of a few select wealthy businessmen who are invested in the pharmaceutical company carrying out the experiments, it then unleashes on three sites within the country itself. One man appears who galvanizes the nation using the fear created by the outbreak and death toll to turn the national fear into national rancor, which he directs at Muslims, blacks, gays, and anyone "undesirable;" using his omni-directional hatred of anyone "other" to fly his banner of "I'm the only one who can save you from this terrible threat!" He's elected amidst the crackdown on those said groups, he creates a new title for himself, and suddenly - nay, miraculously - a cure for the virus is "discovered" and he saves the day (spoiler alert 2: the company making the virus also made the vaccine. WHAAAAAT? And that man, the one now running the country, was the ringleader of the whole thing. WHAAAAAAT? It was so he could take over the country. And be in charge. And kill anyone in his way. I know, it's complicated...). Then he turns the nation into a totalitarian state with curfews and secret police and people being disappeared day and night.

Okay so CAN WE TAKE A SECOND to look at the rhetoric being used at the Republican National Convention this week?

Barak Obama is a Muslim and ergo a terrorist who has deliberately weakened the country. We need to build a wall between us and Mexico to keep illegal immigrants out because they are systematically murdering our citizens. Hilary Clinton caused the Benghazi attack and, therefore, is personally responsible for American deaths... it goes on.

So, looking just one layer deeper than Melania's blatant plagiarizing (sorry, that's unfair. Melania's speechwriter's blatant plagiarizing. Let's give credit where credit is due. That lady doesn't say one word unless someone else has already composed the sentence for her), one layer deeper than the fact that Soap Opera stars and underwear models are the ones championing this presumptive nominee, one layer deeper than the fact that, with a 70%+ disapproval rating among ALL women, Trump has turned to using personal stories of mothers whose sons have been killed by illegal immigrants to prove he has an empathetic side... looking one layer deeper than all of that, what is the resounding camp slogan?

Not: Make America Great Again.

Not: Make America Safe Again.

Not: Hilary for Prison.

Not even: Build The Wall.

But: YOU, fellow white, male American... YOU and YOUR CHILDREN are under attack. Your values and rights to indignation are under attack. Your very SAFETY is under attack by TERRORISTS, and those terrorists are called Muslim... are called Mexican... are called LGBTQ... are called OTHER. And I, DONALD TRUMP, AM THE ONLY MAN WHO CAN SAVE YOU FROM THEM.

Know who else (not from a graphic novel / film franchise) gained a leadership position by turning the national unrest and fear loose on one particular group who he subsequently systematically blamed for all the trouble in the nation, rounded up, and murdered?

(If you don't, please don't vote, mkay?)

I'm not saying that we should just have wide-open borders for anyone to come walking in. But are we feudal China? (No, seriously, are we? I can't tell anymore.)

I'm not saying that Clinton has the best track record of foreign relations, national accountability, or personal moral grounding (because, wait for it, she doesn't).

I'm not saying that this country doesn't have problems (#Dallas #BLM #BatonRouge...).

But what Trump and his camp stand for is not our SAFETY.
It is not our SECURITY.
It is not our MORALS.
It is not our Police, our citizens, or our fellow man, woman, and child.

What Trump and his camp stand for is VIOLENCE.
It is HATRED.
It is FEAR.

And by promoting an atmosphere of "fear of the other," he has turned too many in our nation toward "hatred of the other because they're obviously the ones to blame."

And frankly, as Yoda (and Sun Tzu's Art of War and the Buddha) said: Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.

Trump is rallying fear, anger, and hate. He has actively incited and promoted violence at his rallies. He continues to blame anyone he fears for any problem our country faces, regardless of logic or empirical evidence. He is unscientific, he has no experience in a political arena, and he has proven himself to be nothing but a frightened, quivering, short-fingered, spray-tanned, vain little boy who happens to finally have a giant bat made of gold that he will gladly swing at anyone and everyone who he perceives has ever picked on him.

He's the schoolyard loser who got big one summer and has turned to maliciously seeking vengeance on anyone in his sights.

He believes we should ban Muslims from entering the country. Do you think his racism and bans will stop there?

He believes we should build a wall around our border with Mexico. Do you actually think that will do anything except escalate an already volatile situation (with a fence, there's violence. A wall is a bigger fence. This is Newtonian. Every action and all that)?

He believes that Hilary should be in prison for lying. WHAT THE F$%^ WAS HE DOING WITH TRUMP UNIVERSITY?

This man is a menace. He is not a leader. He is a dictator, a tyrant, and a danger to the safety of every American and every person on the planet.

Just... one last little thing to think about: You know how nuclear fallout doesn't actually go away? And how wind can carry it? And how if a nuke goes off at location X, location Y, Z, R, and Q will all be affected over time?

Do we really want a man who has bankrupted his companies with fatally dangerous gambles in charge of the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet?

(Sure, that's hyperbolic, but so is everything else about him. So why shouldn't we be concerned?)

#IdkNotTrumpTho

Pokémon Go-And-Do-Something-Productive-With-This-Game, America.

After a little more than a week of Pokémon Go’s existence, I think it’s time for a brief recap of my experience so far.

Let’s, for a moment, put aside the sporadic reports of teenagers riding their bikes into curbs or walking into traffic and ending up hospitalized. Let’s, for a moment, turn away from the two grown-ass human beings who broke through a fence to climb onto a cliffside marked as unstable and unsafe in order to catch a Pokémon only to fall around 80 and 50 feet respectively down said cliff. Let’s even, briefly, disregard the story of the ex-serviceman who drove his brother’s car into a tree while chasing a Lapras. Let’s set that all aside, just for a moment, and take a look at just my experience with this game.

So, the Facebook posts started rolling in about Pokémon Go (about which I knew practically nothing before downloading it). I clicked-on my WiFi and downloaded the app. The Sign-Up screen loaded and I got chills.

My childhood came flooding back to me. Opening those small, square presents on Christmas or birthday mornings… Seeing that red or blue or, better yet, yellow beneath the wrapping paper… Those little brown instruction manuals, at whose sight I still get a tingle of elation… All of it came back in a tidal wave of childlike (childish? Maybe) excitement. I pressed the “Login with Google” button, inputted my email address and password, and was prompted to create my username.

I typed, pressed “Done,” my chest tight with anticipation…

Error.

Oh. Okay. Well I’ll just try my name.

Error.

How about this one?

Error.

Um… old AIM screen name?

Error.

Old email address from when I was eleven?

Error.

For fuck’s sake, a string of random letters and numbers?

Error.

Oh fuck this.

So I gave up for the rest of that day.

The next day, I returned, determined to gain the app’s approval (REALLY starting to feel like I was back in middle school again). I typed one in…

Name not available.

YAY! NOT AN ERROR! So I tried one I KNEW would work…

Name not available.

WHO THE FUCK ELSE EVEN KNOWS THE WORD “ZYGODACTYL” AND WHY ARE THEY ALREADY USING IT, THIS GAME HAS BEEN OUT FOR 36 HOURS!! Fine. Add some numbers to the end (just like AIM. Ah, AIM...)…

Welcome!

I’M IN! OH HOLY SHITSNACKS I’M IN! And then came the warning screen that everyone’s been talking about…

“Remember to be alert at all times. Stay aware of your surroundings.”

And having laughed at the notion of Americans (or Canadians, or anyone else, but especially Americans) heeding any kind of warning regarding their own or other peoples’ bodily safety, I was in. I was now, officially, in real life, a Pokémon trainer! (Just like the 10-year-old children who wandered off into the woods alone with the blessing of their mothers in the cartoon show!)

Now came unanticipated hurdle number two… How the fuck do I use this game?

After unwittingly catching a Sandshrew and a Doduo, I did what any self-respecting adult of the Millennial generation would do: I consulted Google.

GOOGLE! HELP! HOW DO I POKÉMON?!

Google patiently explained to me how to find, catch, and battle my little monsters and I was off.

Now at this point, being me, I immediately became bored.

Let me explain: I hate walking places. It’s too slow. I like being outside, I like that it’s some form of exercise, I LOVE not being in a car, but it is so goddamn SLOW. So I figured, well hey, why not just run? So, like Gump, I just started running.

Now here’s where the true beauty of this game revealed itself to me. I can sprint pretty fast. And my average miles while running are sub-8’s. So I rapidly determined that I could use this game as interval training; running as hard as I can for as long as it takes for a critter to appear in my area, then stopping in some shade, respectfully stepping off the sidewalk or running path, capturing the little bastard, then getting back to sprinting. Tracking these runs, so far, I’m splitting 4:something’s while sprinting interspersed with stationary rest breaks and it’s great! I’m already, in this last week, running more than I probably ever have in my life. So bully for Pokémon Go on that front.

So here’s where it gets interesting. On this first day of testing the proverbial waters, I started jogging around the neighborhood, feeling out this system of sprints and poké-stops. It was within my first solid hour of gameplay when I took a residential street to nab a little extra shade on my way back to my apartment, when a car came by me that sounded like quite the ruckus.

Rolling by slowly, the person in the passenger seat was having one hell of a party. Screaming, banging the top of the car, hand waving out the window, struggling against the driver’s hand that was holding onto her- wait, what?

I watched and listened as this car rolls past me and I could clearly make out that this driver, a male, was fighting to keep a grip on his passenger, a female, who was banging the roof of the car with one hand, struggling against the driver with the other, and shouting, very clearly, “help help somebody help me.”

I freeze. Like a damn closeup shot in some NBC procedural I freeze and try to process what is happening as fast as I can. Before I know what I’m doing, my fingers are dialing 9-1-1 and I’m walking, ever faster, toward the car which has now been stopped at a stop sign for far too long, the driver obviously unable to drive while also restraining the woman in the car with him.

I make out a few letters and numbers of the license plate as I get closer while the hold-system on the phone tells me that an operator will be with me shortly-

“9-1-1 what is your emergency?”

And the car takes off. Fast.

So, so do I.

I am sprinting faster than my body can handle, tearing around corners to keep this car in sight.

I’m panting into the phone, explaining the situation, my mind racing even faster than my legs so my mouth can clearly elucidate the current maneuvers I’m taking, my location, direction, intersection, condition, and observations.

A car is approaching me perpendicularly as the attacker’s car makes a right onto the main road. I pump my free hand at the oncoming vehicle who stops well behind the crosswalk to let me cut through the road. (To that mysterious driver, thank you, by the way.)

I haul ass as the assailant and victim make another right back into the residentials around a blind corner and then a wave of terror suddenly hits me.

What if this guy has a gun?

What if this guy has spotted me (which I’m sure he has by now), and has pulled around this shrubbed-up corner, stopped the car, turned around out of his window, and is just waiting for me to come running around so he can end me?

What if I’m literally running into a trap?

I freeze at the corner, continuing to describe the situation to the 9-1-1 operator, and creep around the shrubs staying as tactically hidden as possible.

They’re gone.

I finish the best description I can muster for the operator. She asks if I want to leave my information. I decline as I have nothing left to offer. She thanks me for my call and hangs up.

I sit in the dirt under a tree in the shade and pant. My entire body is shaking, my heart is pounding like it wants out, my mind is racing, and all I can think is, “god I hope I was fast enough.”

I stand up, brush myself off, open up the stupid little pocket monster game because what the hell else am I going to do on my way back to my apartment otherwise, and I start jogging.

Not a minute later I hear the familiar thump-thump-thump-thump-thump of helicopter rotors as an LAPD chopper beings to circle the neighborhood directly over where I’d last seen the car. I stare at it for a few seconds and hope.

So yeah, this game is dumb. It’s asinine, juvenile, and potentially dangerous when played irresponsibly. But you know what? It’s also fun. It is getting some of the pastiest-ass motherfuckers I’ve ever seen in my life outside, into the sunshine, walking around instead of sitting on the couch playing Minecraft or WoW or some other bullshit, expensive game. And if one or two incidences can occur in which a player actually IS remembering to stay alert at all times and paying attention to his or her surroundings, like the two ex-servicemen who were playing in a park and reported a man who was sexually assaulting a child, only to discover, when this assailant was arrested, that said assailant had a warrant out for his arrest for murder, then so-poké-be it. 

I’m gonna keep on playing.

Am I going to use up every spare second of my time to wander around in circles like a senile golden retriever trying to lie down? Probably not, no. But am I periodically going to take a break from writing or editing or whatever else I’m doing to, instead of just looking at something ELSE on the same screen, go outside, maybe to a park I’ve never been to before (like how I discovered Barnsdall Park and the copious Dratini occupying it), and perhaps make some new friends as a result of this weird little game (like the trio I met outside the porn store / strip club the other night)? Yeah. Yeah, I am.

And in the meantime, can we all “remember to stay alert at all times” and “pay attention to [our] surroundings?” Hell yes we can. And if used responsibly, if not played while driving or biking or skateboarding or hover boarding (for fuck’s sake), if used with awareness, maybe more positive than negative CAN come out of this odd little game.

So you know what, world?

I am a Pokémon trainer.

Now if you’ll excuse me…

I gotta catch em all.