STRANGE VISITOR Pt. 1

Today, I was listening to Tom Lykis who questioned why we keep rehashing an “old and tired” story like Superman. Of course, being a shock jock, he pushed the extreme. Usually, it’s not so apparent as it was with this topic. But, amongst the drivel, he did ask a pertinent question: Is Superman still relevant in today’s world, post 9-11?

Lykis made the comparison that Superman made sense in the 1940’s, when all you had to worry about were gangsters and madmen with guns, but in a world where planes are crash into buildings in the new day sun the concept is dated.

I have to admit, the man makes a point. The more the fantastic becomes reality, the more we need a superhero, the more blatant their non-existence becomes. Compared to Bin Laden’s crew, is the Joker that big a deal? It all goes back to questioning the nature of heroism. Are these heroes truly heroic? Are they making the big choices, or reliving past glories over and over again? Sure, stories are updated. Just recently, Brain Azzarello had Superman going into a Middle East type place and taking away all the guns, which led to a series of other actions that resulted in the same point: Superman can’t intercede all the time or risk making things worse. But, is the real? How many times have we read that story, or watched it in a Superman cartoon?

How long can superheroes refrain from involving themselves in real life events? Asking that question, and thinking of how most comic reader are adult men in their thirties and up, and how they prefer their books be frozen in time without development or maturity – people still bitch about Superman and Spider-Man getting married – I pondered if comics would never truly crossover to a younger readership because they aren’t real enough to interest the younger generations. Surely, the themes are timeless and the characters mythic, but the stories are limited. It’s as if the characters are begging to grow, but they’re kept in place by fearful parents afraid of the worst.

SNIKT!

What’s the point of confronting someone when you can’t take it to the ultimate conclusion?

I was in the drive-thru of a fast food joint when a lady who came in from another entrance cut me off. I pull out of line, park my car, and walk to hers with a pissed off look. I ask her if she saw me, and she asks if I saw her. She claims to have been waiting since before I showed up, but I looked and saw no one. What could I do? Nothing, but tell her she was wrong and walk away. I would have liked to drag her form the car and beat the shit out of her, but I couldn’t because I’d end up in jail.

That’s when I learned there’s no point in facing conflict. What would be the point of threatening a person if you can’t follow through? It’s like children standing toe to toe, each daring the other to throw the first punch, because they know that person is the one who will get the brunt of the punishment for fighting.

At my job, a service tech fails to deliver the equipment I ordered. I call him and ask what’s going on and he claims to never have received it. It’s done in such an arrogant manner that I want to respond aggressively but can’t. I have to work with this person, and what if I’m wrong. What if the printer broke or ran out of ink? How stupid would I look charging someone with laziness? As I’m trying to decide what to do, he just cuts in and tells me to re-send the infogram. I want to beat his head in, but what would be the point if it leads to my termination?

All my life I’ve avoided conflict, and now that I feel I have the strength to fight for myself, there’s nothing I can do. I remember when I was young, very young, I was living in Hawthorne and there were two black girls who I would play with, but one day they turned violent (a common trait amongst African American women). I was in a standoff - them pushing me to take action and fight, and my own fear. I don’t remember why I was afraid. It may have been because they were girls. Or, maybe I was afraid of losing. My mother was watching this whole thing from the bedroom window and she called me indoors to chew me out for letting girls push me around. She worked me into such a bother – and my fear of her outweighed my fear of them – that I tore out the house and back to the two girls who were waiting for me. I was ready to fight, and they were already bored. Still, I pushed it, accepting their open invitation to a brawl. They backed down, but they’d gotten what they wanted. They proved their superiority.

After that I wouldn’t back down from fights, but would lose them before anything could happen. To me, it was all about visuals. The look of anger in a person’s eyes. The clenched fists. The body quivering with anger so powerful they begin to cry from it all. I tried to immolate movies I had seen where the hero made this grand stance, but it never worked. Instead of striking fear into my enemies, I was a big crybaby. The final result also mattered to me, but no one else. As long as I was on my feet, I didn’t lose. In high school, I was fighting this one student who I had a “friendship” with; that is to say, we weren’t friends at all. We were “play fighting”, but soon emotions took over and it became very real. My first act was to start kicking, using what I’d learned from Doc. He made me refrain from kicking, and stick to arm strikes. Neither one of us got a winning blow, but he did push me back. Just then, two other boys who I knew showed up. They cheered us on, and I thought they were with me, but then the started cheering for my opponent. Why? He hadn’t knocked me down. If anything, it was a stalemate. Why root for him?

Perhaps violence is just another thing I see differently than anyone else. Some would say that modern warfare technology is to save lives, but I see it as man dehumanizing it. Making it easier to kill someone from a distance because we lack the courage, strength, and reason to look someone in their eyes before taking their soul. War is deterrent for violence, but we’ve taken the bite out of it. Soldiers understand this, but they aren’t the ones making policy. And then, there are those who just don’t get it.

So, why do anything? Why get in someone’s face? Why defend your rights? Ultimately, what does it matter, unless you’re willing to take the risk of losing everything? People think the law protects them, but it doesn’t. The law doesn’t promote justice; it’s a set of rules, that’s all. Its purpose is maintaining order, nothing more. A person can treat you like shit, but as long as you don’t hit them, it’s order. Why do you think a person is presumed innocent? If not for that rule, you could lynch a known criminal in the streets. Of course, being human, we’d fuck that up and kill someone wrongfully accused.

What hope is there in the meantime for people like me? People who want to stand up for ourselves, but can’t? What can we do for justice?

Absolutely nothing. Just accepted that in this life, we are cowards. We are the weak. Our weakness is our lives, what we have, what we’re afraid to lose. If a man has something to lose, he can be controlled. Strength is not caring and sacrificing everything, and I’m not that strong. A lot of people aren’t.

STANDING LIMP AND TO THE LEFT

This past Saturday I was able to see X-Men: The Last Stand, and my feelings on it are very similar to binging on junk food. The day of, eating twenty dollars in candy bars, ice cream, and sodas seems like a good idea and brings you a lot of pleasure. The next day, however, is another story. Especially, after you see yourself in the mirror. You realize that twenty could have gone towards other things. Things that will be around much longer than the food your crapping into your toilet and you learn the lesson that food, ultimately, is a waste of money.

That’s how I feel about the “last X-Men movie.”

Leading into the holiday weekend, I was excited. I even risked my good standing at work to request the day off in short notice, just to see the picture with my family. And, as I sat there, it was great. I laughed. I cried. Most of all, I wished for a better story than what I was watching. I agree with the critics who wrote too much story was crammed into too short a picture, but that’s not what bugged me. It was the lack of character depth, development, and the decision to completely delete Marsden’s Scott Summers.

I’m not speaking as a comic book fundamentalist. I don’t care about costumes, story changes, or that characters died who still live on the two dimensional page. I’m writing about the material itself and the two movies that came before.

While I’m not a Bryan Singer fan – I think having the new Superman movie begin where the others left off lacks creativity and automatically sets up comparisons to the original, an American classic – I do think he was an essential part of brining the X-Men to the screen. Bryan Singer was able to combine action with character development. More than that, he was able to divide it amongst multiple characters, which brought an emotional element to the story, something to be expected from the director of The Usual Suspects.

Just looking at Brett Ratner’s filmography proves that he doesn’t work that way. He can do action, but not character, or vice versa. Never has he successfully accomplished both simultaneously, and if you hold up Rush Hour as proof otherweise, keep in mind there was only two charaters. Further, it seems he eliminated those characters that demanded drama in order to push the action. I always felt Singer purposefully ignored elements that are X-Men staples simply because they would take away from the characters themselves, and turn the movie into a bubblegum special effects flick. Things like Sentinels and the Danger Room were cut out of both movies, and now we see why. After all, where would they go? How would they fit in the story? Which is most important, showing a battle with giant robots or developing relationships and exploring motivations? Plus, Singer admitted to not having the money to do either one justice.

Ratner blew through all of that and not only proved why Singer opted out of them, but made me wonder what he would have done as I was watching the film. I knew I was in for it when the movie began with a Danger Room scene that had Wolverine and Storm training new members Kitty Pryde, Iceman, and Colossus against… a robotic head. REMEMBER: If you can’t do it justice, don’t do it at all.

Then, we see Scott and a poor portrayal of him being tormented by his psychic link with Jean. Not that Marsden did a bad job, but not enough time was devoted to getting the idea accross. I asked myself how many people in the audience hadn’t read the comics to know that Scott and Jean share a psychic connection, since it was never addressed in the movies. Or, how many knew the scene that lasted less than five minutes was representative of Scott’s life over the past few weeks, months, years, or who the hell knows when. The time between Jean's death and the start of the film isn't addressed. I wouldn’t have known any of this if not for reading an interview with Marsden. Then, after a brief, but exciting exchange with Wolverine that reinvigorated my hopes for a well-balanced film, Scott’s off to Alkili Lake. Why? Who the fuck knows.

Scott goes to Alkili Lake where Jean’s voice seems to be the strongest, causing him to attack the water. Why? Who the fuck knows. Jean miraculously returns from the dead in a blinding light, proceeded by a silhouette of her former self, what significance does this have? You guessed it, who the fuck knows? Then, Jean kills Scott. Why? Who the fuck knows why anything is happening at this point, other than because the actor was leaving to work with Singer on Superman.

From that moment, the movie only lives up to half it’s potential because a major driving force of Jean’s character and emotional conflict with Wolverine is gone. This was a chance for James Marsden to shine. In the first movie he’s barely present. In the second movie, even more so, but here he should be the main guy. It’s continuity, not from the books, but the movies. In the first movie, the temptation between Wolverine and Jean is introduced. But, in the second, it’s resolved. Wolverine even closes X2 telling Scott that Jean chose him. So, why would she, or any part of her splitered psyche, want him dead?

I started thinking of other ways they could have gone and how much better the movie would have been if they kept Scott alive. If it’s about the actor, find a new one. Hey, I’m all for finding a new actor if the old one doesn’t work out anymore. They should have found a new actor to play Nightcrawler, or go the extra mile to explain where he disappeared to instead of deleting the character and using his special effect for another teleporting character during the final fight. Oh, don't get me started about them using stock footage and old effects. I counted at least three. If Marsden was too busy, and you don’t want to wait, find a new guy. In the midst of my thoughts, I awoke when I realized in Scott’s absence Wolverine became the emotional focal point. The man who is all about making the hard choices, on paper and film, became the one who couldn't get the job done in time.

The movie then goes into a full gear mutant power fest and eye candy. Everything is so fast, if you’re not careful you’ll miss Professor Xavier getting killed. Not that anyone cares. The audience didn’t give a damn when Professor X bit the dust, literally, and I barely even cared. The only one who did care was Wolverine. That’s right, the bad ass was a ball of tears. The hard ass from the first two movies is gone, and we’re left with Logan, post Dr. Phil. My wife was quick to notice all dry eyes during Xavier's funeral and she spurted "Don't they care?"

I would mention the tragedy that was Angel, but he wasn’t in the movie enough for me to comment on anything, other than saying he wasn’t in the movie enough. Three scenes, approximately ten lines or less, and a character that should have had a huge role is reduced to Toad level. Angel's relationship with his father is the main impitus of the cure story. The charcaters are worthy of a prelude, but nothing afterwards, except setting up the catalyst for the war, which was just a catalyst for Dark Phoenix and a whole bunch of special effects. While we’re on new characters, Beast was cool, but I seem to remember him going from a speaking part to just standing around half way through the picture. Better that, than watching the climactic battle where Kelsey Grammar is strapped to a wire and flung aimlessly at people. Ratner’s idea of gymkata.

Despite being entertaining, X4 wasn’t what was expected from the last two. Many critics still hold up X2 as the best of the three and I agree. X3 is a proper “end” only financially, not creatively. The third installment broke rules established in the first two - wasn’t Trask, a young Caucasian working with Sen. Kelly, killed in the first movie?

Who knows if they’ll be an X4, but with the ending of this movie and the big money numbers, I’d find it hard to believe this is the last we’ve seen. It would be uncharacteristic of Hollywood to just pass on a something, instead of squeezing the life’s blood and picking the bones until everything is gone, then burying it long after it’s rotted in the sun. If they do, I hope Singer comes back. Perhaps his sexual choice gave him an understanding Ratner lacks.

JPG.

CURSED

I can’t say nothing has gone right for me. There are a lot more people suffering worse than me. I know this. I repeat it over and over again, but it doesn’t help. As far as I’m concerned I’m having the worse luck in my life.

It started when I lost my home and just got worse from there. From my kids getting sick, which kids will do, to paying over a grand in car maintenance, on a vehicle that isn’t even mine. Its as if I’m overdrawn on my credit of good fortune and fates coming to take payment from my ass.

Today I did something I haven’t done, ever. I locked my keys in my car. Before that, I nicked a chunk of plastic from my $350 Sony PSP just two weeks after exchanging it because the original purchase had dropped pixels. It shouldn’t bother me, but it does. One scratch and I can’t look at it again. All I see is that fucking scratch.

One thing after another…

The first week in my new place and we had a gas leak, water leak, an ant invasion – and these were resilient motherfuckers too – and our water heater has gone out three times in two months. My car has spent a month in the shop, and when I picked it up it had a nail in the tire, no gas, and the check engine light came on only 24hrs post.

There is no end in sight…

My brand new shirts shrunk. My son broke my laptop’s key board, got sick, needed breathing treatments, and my daughter might go from her high GPA school to low GPA Latino school down the block, across from the projects. My allowance has gone from $400 per check to $200, just as gas prices are nearing $4 a gallon. Now I must get a second job.

Did I mention I was kicked out of my home, where I lived for six years. Where my children were born, and we were under rent control? And my own father, who had an apartment we could use, was going to charge me $1100 rent, when all my other siblings live rent-free.

I think I’m going to die.

I’ve had pains in my left arm. My eyelids twitch uncontrollably. I’m tired, angry, and owe my ex-shrink over $200 in missed appointments because I was sick and working.

Monday, April 17th 12:05pm

JPG enters Dr, Shrinker’s office, greets her, and sits in the usual chair.
He breathes heavily.

JPG: I don’t know, Doc. I’m so tired –

SHRINKER: Maybe your tired because of your overdue balance?

JPG: What?

SHRINKER: Have you read your last two invoices?

JPG: No, I thought there was no need. I’m paid up.

SHRINKER: You remember you signed a contract agreeing to pay for missed appointments because I can’t charge the insurance company. So I have to bill you my regular fee.

JPG: What missed appointments?

SHRINKER: There was the time we planned on the phone meeting because you had to work. Then you cancelled because they changed the lunchtime. And, then there was the time you were sick.

JPG (Thinking): She’s charging me because I was sick? What they fuck is this? Am I being hustled? I knew this bitch was crooked – why did I sign that fucking contract! Fuck! I never should have come here. I knew she was fucked when I got here. I should have switched – why didn’t I switch?)

JPG (looking every which way): How much?

SHRINKER: Ninety-six dollars.

Silence.

JPG (Speaking to himself): This was a bad idea.

Silence.

JPG: This is bullshit. You’re bullshit. Therapy is bullshit.

And it went on from there. W eek later, after I cancelled therapy, I was hit again and again. Now I wonder if I made the wrong choice. The only thing keeping me out of that fucking office is pride. And I’m not going back to that uncaring bitch.

I’ve been turned out and tricked. I feel like I’m going through withdrawals. My world is turning to shit and there’s no one who I can talk to. No one with the answers, or can help me find my own solutions. But, then, neither did she. She sat in that fucking chair dozing off, injecting her into my thoughts and meanings. She was my pimp, my mental Iceberg Slim, whop told me what I needed to here. Just enough to keep me on the corner, walking the point, her fine coco butter man-bitch.

I feel like Michael J. Fox at the end of Bright Lights, Big City. I love that movie. Its one of Michael’s best, personifying a decade and preaching the trails of a writer. The protag is Jamie Conway, a boy from Kansas who moves to New York with his young wife to become a writer, and nabs an editing job at a prestigious magazine. His dream is to wrote the next great novel, but he gets sidetracked by drugs and the eighties club scene. His wife, Amanda, played by Phoebe Cates, hits it big as a model and dumps Jamie when she realizes he’s a wash. That’s when the story starts, Jamie’s lost his wife (she’s in Paris on a photo shoot and hasn’t returned), can’t write, avoiding his father on the anniversary of his mother’s death from cancer, and obsessed with articles of a coma baby in The Post. Eventually, he loses his editing job, the last thing he had. Jamie climaxes on cocaine, alcohol, and literally runs away from his brother on the streets of New York. Finally, he learns his wife has returned from Paris and gets to see her. Everything becomes clear to him. His wife and drug supplying, club hopping friend are the same, parasites looking to feed on the dreams of the hopeful until they destroyed them. Jamie is born again. He welcomes thoughts of his mother he avoided for days. He kills off his former self by reading his stylish sunglasses for a loaf of fresh baked bread, just like his mother used to make. The film ends with Jamie sitting on a pier, watching the sun rise behind the Statue of Liberty, thinking: “Take it slow. You have to learn everything all over again, but it’ll be different this time.”

The last shot is the cover The Post with the headline: “Coma Baby Lives.”

I love that fucking movie. And that’s how I feel. I’m Jamie, forced to learn everything all over again. I’m Jim Carroll, fighting the stink of the horse and sewers. Still reaching form basketball dreams. I’m Pony Boy, wishing the word would just accept one another, watching a sunset of gold from a barn window.

I’m JPG, and I’m not dead yet.

Bright Lights Big City
(Reed)

Bright lights, big city
Gone to my baby's head
Bright lights, big city
Gone to my baby's head

I'd tried to tell the woman but she doesn't believe a word I
said
Go light pretty baby... gonna need my help some day
It's all right pretty baby...gonna need my help some day

You're gonna wish you listened to some of those things I said

Go ahead pretty baby
Oh, honey knock yourself out
Go ahead pretty baby
Oh honey knock yourself out

I still love you baby cause you don't know what it's all about

Bright lights, big city
Gone to my baby's head
Bright lights, big city
Gone to my baby's head

AMERICAN ME, NOT YOU.

I had to break away from my regular blog to chime in on the big upset going on today about the “unfair” immigration laws sparking so much protest.

I may not be a very intelligent person. Book smarts and recalling factual information has never been my strength. I’m not going to disguise my prejudices for facts (although, I may walk a very thin line) and embarrass myself, doing damage to my cause. I don’t think I have to, because it doesn’t take an intelligent person to see this debate is nothing, but bullshit thrown back and forth.

Maybe I see the world too often as black and white with not enough grays. I think too many times we use the “gray area” to excuse what we know is wrong. Too many times in the past weeks I heard someone argue points on immigration. I watched several people on the news go on and on about immigration. It was on their signs, t-shirts, and in their speeches. But, the issue isn’t immigration; it's ILLEGAL immigration.

Normally, I wouldn’t give a shit. I was born here, what the fuck do I care about those who aren’t. Save for those occasions at work when a Mexican will automatically assume I speak their language, even though they reside in my country. On those days, I can understand the Minute Men’s approach, and wish I could join them. What has me so up in arms about this issue is the irony of people residing in our country illegally saying what’s fair and unfair. Non-citizens filling our streets, protesting about what’s due them, and what our politicians and citizens can and cannot do.

It’s very simple, if you’re here illegally; you’re a criminal and need to get the fuck out of dodge. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. A lot of people want build up the issue with facts on how American corporations are taking over Mexico and Central America. I heard Yarehli Arizmendi, writer of A Day Without A Mexican, make a big deal about Costco and McDonalds in Mexico.

Is there anywhere on this planet you can’t find a McDonalds? How is that any excuse for people breaking the law? And, again, that’s what it comes down to folks, a whole bunch of people breaking the law and reaping the benefits it took others five, ten, even twenty years to work for legally. Is that fair? Is it justice for people who learned our language and laws bending over for those who don’t give a damn?

As I looked at the big protest in Los Angeles that kept so many hard working citizens from getting to or from their jobs, I was awe-struck by what I saw. A city filled with criminals. People who have no problem breaking the law to get what they want, and those who support them. I became afraid for my family, that we lived in a country that would allow such injustice, and for what - a freshly mowed lawn?

And that brings up something, an excuse that’s far too old to use any longer. It’s the age-old justification that illegals belong here because they do the jobs white Americans won’t. Funny how they completely omit the other ethnicities, isn’t it? White America hasn't done menial labor since indentured servant ceased being a legit job title. Before the gardener’s name was Ferdinand, it was Jackson, and somewhere in-between it was Lee.

In this economy, I can think of a lot of people who would love to have some of those cushy jobs cleaning up hotels and mowing lawns. I’m one of them. For years I searched for a third-shift job as a cook or janitor, but couldn’t find one, none that would pay me my due. My mother went to college to study landscaping and pays hundreds of dollars for the license, only to have her clients taken from under her because Felipe will mow the lawn for 75% less. And, that “picking fruit” thing – unless you were forced to come here on a boat to pick the white man’s cotton, bare his rape children, get lynched, burned, bred, and struggle against 500 plus years of oppression that many would debate still exists today, I don’t want to fucking here about how you chose to pick fruit. We cannot forget in all this, these people are making a choice. The white man isn’t smuggling immigrants here illegally to mow lawns. These people are choosing to do it. How can you feel sorry for them, or hold them up as modern martyrs of the system?

I ask you, where’s the struggle? Is it really so difficult to stand on a corner all day, waiting for someone to pay you $50 - $100 a day to paint a house versus doing what it takes to go to school, learn a trade, and become a professional? My experience with these “hard working people” has been they hate to work. They try their hardest to get something for almost nothing. Even the housekeepers at my hospital, whose job it is to clean, don’t want to do their job when it’s required, and look for ways to get out. I don’t have enough fingers or toes to count the times I’ve seen immigrant workers fuck up a simple paint job, then demand full payment. Don’t get me started with the “precious” gardeners who have no idea what they’re doing - asking for money, then spending only fifteen minutes to cut your lawn. Prejudice, racist though it may be, we all know of neighborhoods that have gone to total shit with the increase of Hispanic residence.

It’s hard to feel sorry, or fight for the rights of a people whose rallying cry is: “We’re taking California back one block at a time!”

Is it wrong for this country to have certain rules about whom we let in, and if you don’t fit, we deny entry? Illegal immigrants have this idea that they are somehow deserving to enter this country, when the whole basis of them being here as an illegal proves they’ve done nothing to earn the right. Okay, so you clean some toilets. Is that a legitimate requirement? Robert Heinlein wrote about this subject in Starship Troopers, a science fiction novel turned motion picture, where citizenship had to be earned in the armed forces. Those who lived to become citizens embraced that gift and the responsibility that comes with it. If illegals do anything, it’s proving how unpatriotic they are. They’re deserters. If things are so horrible in Mexico, why don’t they fix it? If there are one people, deserving of special treatments it’s the Native Americans.

That’s right - call me an asshole now, fuckers. Just when you thought I was a racist bastard because I don’t swallow the burrito of bullshit, I hit you with some fucking sympathy for a race of people near extinct. Where’s the protest for the Native Americans who watch as their people are being swallowed up, their lands stolen even today, unless they can build a fucking casino. Where am I going with this? One simple fact, no matter how fucked up it gets, they don’t leave. If any people have a right to immigrate, legal or illegal, it’s the fucking Indians, but here they stay, fighting it out with the white man. The real Americans, the original citizens of these United States where’s their fucking protest march for civil rights?

I know I’m getting carried away with myself. Hell, that whole last paragraph cold be the biggest chunk of bullshit ever. But it angers me, and it should anger everyone, to see such an open and outward display of criminality. It’s really not about who does what for how much money. It’s about the simple founding fact that illegal immigration is against the law, and those who break the law deserve to be deported. If doing so would open a greater number of jobs for the rest of us, then good. That means the rich white people would have to pay more for “menial service”, and isn’t that better? More jobs with better pay for American citizens.

You know, it’ll never happen.

Just like we all thought it was plain to see that Bush Jr. was a monster that shouldn’t get a second term. All us Americans who look for a day when illegals are forced out and we can sow the benefits might as well keep dreaming, because no one has the guts. In the end, it’s all about them. The rich who need their lawns cut, shitholes cleaned, burritos cooked just right, and children raised by anyone but them because their too busy carving up the country on laptops while drinking Pete’s Coffee(not you, Doc).

Isn’t that sad, the course of a nation decided on the number of criminals residing and how many butts they wipe? The irony: many can’t even vote.

I feel sorry for the people, the immigrants, the ingredients of the great melting pot who busted their butts to get to America and did whatever they could to become a citizen. They stood in that fucking line, waved those stupid little flags, and said the egomaniacal pledge, just for the right to be subjected to American bullshit. What does it matter? Who fucking cares?

It was reported that the first soldier to die in the Iraqi war was the son of an undocumented worker. It’s held up as proof of illegals and they’re contribution to this nation. You now what I call it?

Finally paying the price of admission.

JPG.