Vigilante or Artist?

Gotham city has always fascinated me. It is a singularity in the comic book world. Most comic book heroes involve some person who is either born with or given superhuman abilities and then uses those to fight against evil which is also superhuman in some manner. Most comic books are the story of those who are above us somehow, untouchable. The people involved  are the set pieces, and they deal with superheroes and supervillains as we deal with floods and tornados.  There is no point in getting angry with immutable forces of nature.  One can only clean up after as well as possible and move on.
Batman is the exception to this rule. I think of Superman and I think it is impossible fantasy, but the only thing preventing a character like Batman from existing in reality is someone with the money and force of will and psychotic obsession with justice.  What is more amazing than Batman's existence in that universe is the way that the entire city of Gotham responds to these heroes and villains. They are by and large not super human.  They are just wearing ridiculous outfits and using clever gadgets.  They could be stopped.  It is as though the citizens collectively decide one day that these costumed vigilantes and criminals represent some form of art and they simply allow these fights to be carried out. How else can it be categorized other than performance art? The ordinary police deal with ordinary crimes and these costumed people fight only with one another.  There is always the threat of massive violence or catastrophe that never happens, if you read the comics. Maybe that's why everyone just allows them to continue. It's their entertainment, kind of like a soap opera. There are always threats but as long as nothing dramatically bad happens everyone just kind of goes along with it. Crime and justice as performance art, and maybe a tourist attraction as well?  Heck, I'd go.

Pineapple Express Lane to Hell

So who puts pineapple on a supreme pizza anyway (Winco I'm looking at you)?  I know this is going to sound controversial and maybe a little bit racist but pineapple has no place in and amongst the other toppings. Pineapple needs to be a segregated topping.  If ever there was a form of segregation that needed to endure it is pizza topping segregation.   If that piece of pineapple on my supreme pizza slice was the Rosa Parks of pineapple, trying to break through barriers into a more equal role, I guess that makes me David freaking Duke because I hated it with a passion. Besides it's not racist, its fruitist and that's socially acceptable, as long as you're talking about literal fruits. I'm not saying pineapple can't be on pizza at all, or that pineapple doesn't get to come into the kitchen, all I'm saying is that when pineapple is on a pizza it better be very clear that it is a pineapple pizza.  Maybe ham can come to the party, too.  It doesn't get to be messing around mixing with all the other toppings and hiding under the bell pepper. That's just not right. I mean, what's next? If we don't draw the line on pineapple then who knows what other ingredients are going to sneak into the pizza? Next thing you know someone's sticking duck on a pizza. Then it will be Philly cheese steak, peanut butter, and ice cream, and then one day someone will walk into a Pizza Hut and they're going to ask for a pizza, and when asked what they want, they'll say how about pizza and the universe will implode and an alternate universe will spring into being in which pizza never existed. The end. Boom!

I'm a bit behind on my blogging.  I've wanted to do this blog for a little while but now is as good a time as any.  Because apparently, February is the time to debut new redneck shows.  I don't know what it is about redneck reality TV stars, whether it's their, charm, or their wit, or perhaps it is watching grown men do for a living what junior high boys tend to draw in their notebooks.  "Look this is me fighting an alligator!"  "Look I'm cutting down trees with the giant chainsaw attached to a tractor!"  "This is a drawing of me catching catfish bigger than me with my bare hands!"  While some of the stars she shows seem like fun, interesting, otherwise reasonable human beings; the ones seem to make the best TV are the ones you wouldn't want to meet on a dare.  Hick TV is fascinating in the same way that an ant farm is fascinating.  I don't want to meet the ants, I don't want to get to know them, I just want to watch them do whatever they would do completely oblivious to my presence.  The vast majority of these shows scoop up a bunch of rednecks and mud and press them firmly between two plates of glass and bring them into your home nicely sealed and framed, ready for observation.

The ranks of these redneck gawk fests only continue to grow.  I have lost count of the number of Cajun and/or Southern themed reality TV shows there are on basic cable alone.  But two channels rise above their competitors as the king and queen of southern fried weirdness.  The History Channel and the Discovery Channel should really change their names.  Perhaps it could be called the Cajun history Channel and Discover the Deep South.  Where I must give them some credit, however, is the fact that they aim for the most part to invest much more in their characters… mostly.  They do tend to find out much more about the individuals and their story before trotting out the spectacle that is their weird job or obsession.  And I can't stop watching.

The tone of this blog may be somewhat judgmental.  But it is only judgmental in the way that smoker is judgmental about what ingredients may been put into his cigarettes while he buys another case.  In fact, I have to thank the History Channel.  They have done such an excellent job of turning life-and-death situations and weird cultures and values into entertainment with good production value that I don't feel like the piece of crap rubbernecking gawker that I am.  I really, really am.  Thank you history Channel for taking the horrible roadside accident and putting up tasteful stage lighting and velvet seats and handing me a little card that says no one died so that I can feel just fine staring until my eyeballs fall out.

                Have you ever noticed that people say “I read somewhere” when what they really mean is “at some point I heard someone say something interesting and I am about to lay claim to it myself without actually having done any of the research or fact checking.”  It’s just an abbreviation, I guess.  I say this with as little mockery as I can because, while I may not have invented this practice, I regularly pirate the intellectual property of whoever did.  It’s like I can’t stop myself.  It’s just so easy to say that I read something somewhere than to go into an actual explanation of what I heard on which quasi-educational channel (future blog topic by the way) or from which person and when.  I’ll be honest, if my brain were a computer, it would be a little shy of ram.  By the time I got through the complete introduction of where it is I got a given interesting tidbit, I’d forget the tidbit. Plus, who wants to sit through all that for a five second factoid about earwax or the psychology of honey bees.  It’s just easier to have a social convention that you can tell a lie if there’s intriguing trivia on the way.  It does make me feel bad for people who really do spend a lot of time reading so much interesting bits of informational flotsam that they can’t quite remember which one went where.  They utter that infamous phrase and their audience rolls their eyes as if to say “yeah right pants-o flame-o! just gimme the brain candy!”  and that is what those trivial facts are. Non-nutritious sweets.  No one was ever so impressed with party-trivia to change their vocation or goals in life.  “You’ll never guess what some guy at the church social told me about octopus eye-balls and their ratio to their body mass! I’m not wasting another second of my life on IT, I’m becoming a marine biologist!”  You see what I mean about losing my train of thought? Where was i?

                Dreams!  So I said all that to tell you this.  Someone told me they “read somewhere” that half of all people dream in black and white.  Then I realized that I’d never met anyone who dreamt in black and white.  Then I read somewhere (roll your eyes all you want I actually read it) that the study behind that piece of information was done at a time when we were transitioning from black and white to color TV as a nation and the ratio was about even.  So people dreamt what they saw.  That makes complete sense as most of my dreams have mouse pointers and consist of montages of guys getting kicked in the crotch, laughing babies, super cute kittens, and star wars fan films.  My normal dreams also have annoying banner ads for more pornish versions of those dreams.  I avoid those…mostly.  Give me a break. Every once in a while my id crawls out with the impulse control of a 3-year old peaking over the edge of the desk and grabbing the mouse CLICKCLICKCLICKETY.  Those are the days that I wish that my dreams had filtering software.  I’ve been having another series of dreams involving what I watch lately about rednecks, alligators, and space jesus.  More on that next time.

prayer requests

Don’t feel much like arguing today.  I was on the way home from the hospital visiting my grandpa. He’s stable and resting, they’re doing tests, he might have a staph infection.  So I decide to stop and get food at the drive thru, and this young man is there.  He wasn’t the typical guy with a cardboard sign, if fact he was startlingly honest. He told me that he had just got out prison a little while back and he was just hoping to get food and a room and maybe get high. I figured I could handle the food part since I was in the drive thru anyway.  I got the combo meal he said sounded good and talked a little with him.  I’ll be honest; part of my mind was still back at the emergency room and also with my grandmother at home.  That might be part of the reason it took a little while for the conversation to sink in, for me to process what had just been said.  He told me that he lost everything:  his job, his fiancé, her family’s support, everything he cared about.  He said that he wanted to feel anything but what he was feeling just then even if it was only for a few hours.  His despair hit me hard.  He was just done with it, ready to stop caring at all what happens next. Screw it, I quit.  There wasn’t a thing I could do for him but give him some food and a couple bucks.  I didn’t know anyone hiring, and I certainly didn’t know any drug dealers.  I remember saying a few words about things getting better with time, but it sounded lame in retrospect. I remember thinking that I need to pray for this guy, but I didn’t tell him. I remember when I’ve been in bad situations, I felt less alone knowing someone was praying for me.  I’ve been kicking myself for not telling him I would pray for him, or even offering to pray with him right then.  Sometimes it’s enough to know someone else is paying even a little attention. I am angry with myself for not thinking to offer that to him.  But I will be praying.  If you think of it, if you could pray for this guy too I’d appreciate it. I’m ashamed to admit I don’t even know his name.

  Also my grandpa could use your prayers. He is comfortable and resting, but they are still doing tests and they may need to operate.

Epicly wimpy

"what if I fail? what if i'm not good enough? why was i cursed with these powers and this physique? do i really want mind bendingly awesome super powers? what if this outfit makes my butt look fat? what if mark jenkins from home-room doesn't like me as much as i like him? oh-my-gawd i could just die!"

when did super heroes become 13 year old girls? I just watched the green lantern and ryan reynolds spends the whole thing as a self obsessed, emotionally immature, morally ambivalent flake, and then in the last 5 minutes he decided that he was a hero after all. it was like the end of the wizard of oz. "lion: you had the courage you needed the whole time, and you Van Wild- uh, er, i mean green lantern: you had character and integrity all along.

i know that movie makers feel like they need to show the human-conflicted side of heroes so people can connect, but here's the thing. that is a hard thing to do and they are really bad at it. dark knight hit it pretty well, but then again all of the emotional issues were only there in bruce wayne and not batman. batman just showed up and took care of business.

most of the time when superheroes show their badly written, soft, squishy, emo-teen emotionality it's like my parents trying to discuss they're sex life with me. ew. no. why. stop it now.

Funerals are like being in a waiting room when you see someone called back. Some people want to talk about nothing but what's coming: how good the doctor is, what they are going to be healed of, why they chose this doctor, how long they have been here waiting. Others want to talk about anything but where they are and why: how about the weather, how about them (insert local sports team here), the weather has sure been nice, i'm going to get something to drink, you want anything? And some just tend to everyone else: are you nervous, hungry, thirsty concerned, need fresh magazines (i'm stretching the analogy i know). Then an atheist wanders in and asks how long the wait is for a table because he's really hungry and he heard this restaurant was great.