June 27th, 2008 by Hoopleton

As the weather gets warmer the days begin to draw shorter and more and more things seem to occupy our time.

Abandon the women and children, they’ll only slow you down.

And we work. And we play.

I was riding my bicycle through the lanes of a cemetery yesterday. The air was hot and humid. The sun was relentless. I rode up to the community mausoleum and took down a generous helping of cold water from out of the bottle I had stored in my messenger bag. As I stood there the wind picked up and for a moment I felt the caress of the air fill me. A whisper drifted from the tombstones and upto my ear.

“Oh my, oh my,” it seemed to say.

In the entire expanse of the universe we are just a spec of dust. We are so fragile. We are so tiny. Our history and our cultures are completely insignificant. Our little blue planet hardly deserving a signpost on the intergalactic map. The matter of which we and the stars of the cosmos are made of accounting for barely six percent of all that there is in creation. Trillions of years of time, and we account for not even a blink.

If only you could all stop killing eachother for a goddamn minute then maybe you’d realize just how pathetic you all really are!

And we work. And we play.

I took a walk today as the rain began to fall. I imagined floodwaters roaring up the street and hundreds of lawn chairs floating by while helpless people scaled up the sides of apartment buildings. Life saving rafts for thousands of rats.

It’s so interesting to be alive. Now. In this moment. Here in the United States. How incredible would it be if the Mayans were actually right and the world was going to come to an end in just under 1637 days? Can you imagine human beings actually being right about something like that? Can you imagine the religious implications? Can you imagine the odds? The chances of being born at all are incredibly miniscule. And to be born on the brink of apocalypse? To actually witness it?

Not that you would know. You’d have to ask yourself if it’s the world ending or just you.

“Oh my, oh my,” it seemed to say. “Oh my, oh my.”

So little time. So much to do.

June 20th, 2008 by Hoopleton

I hate people, but not for the reasons that you may think.

Yes, most of the human population is terribly uneducated and ridiculously unreasonable. Yes, most are incredibly selfish and shortsighted. Yes, most people are dull. Yes, there’s far too many of us in the world.

But this is not why I hate people.

It’s always been hard for me to make friends. It’s always been hard for me to start a conversation without the benefit of a sense of domination. Without my ego riding high.

I hate people because in their faces I see a billion stories I will never read. I see a billion lives I will never lead. I see countless experiences that I will never have. They are everywhere around me. I see them on the train and on the street. I see them everywhere. They swarm around me. They haunt me.

Why was I born to this family? Why was I born to this life? Why in this place? Why in this time? Why was I born at all?

I’m a writer who can’t stop writing. Despite the pain of it. Despite the agony of it. Despite the loneliness of it. I write.

Four unpublished, completed novels and a fifth on the way. Another dozen that I started. All different experiences. All different lives. And yet all with the same voice channeled by the same mind.

I don’t think I’ll ever get married. I don’t think I’ll ever have kids. I can see myself being eternally bored.

I hate people because in them I see all of my faults and all of my aspirations. I see everything I could have been and never wanted to be. The only way I know how to express it is to write. To put to paper the things I see and the things I’ve learned. And in this process I know full well that I may be forgotten. Just another voice in an endless chorus praying that I’ll be heard. Such is the lesson of history.

I hate people because I have so much hope for what humanity can one day be and what it hasn’t been till now. Because I see that in myself every second of every single day.

I hate people because I realize that birth is the ultimate injustice. Because we don’t get to choose.

June 18th, 2008 by Hoopleton

John McCain proposed lifting the ban on offshore drilling on Tuesday, as a measure to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil. He said to the group of Houston oilmen that ” many do not have the luxury of waiting on the far-off plans of futurists and politicians.”

But of course McCain’s plan, supported almost immediately afterwards by still President Bush (in fact, POTUS will ask Congress to lift the ban this week), wouldn’t solve the energy crises over night. In fact offshore drilling is exactly the type of far-off plan McCain decries. If that wasn’t bad enough, drilling for oil off coastal waters is only a short-term fix at best. Oil is running out, and the demands of the developing world will only increase.

This isn’t even addressing the environmental concerns or why offshore drilling was banned in the first place. In 1969 a blowout at a Union Oil platform off the coast of California dumped over 3 million gallons of crude into the ocean. The resulting catastrophe not only polluted the beaches of Santa Barbara for years after, but created such a wide-ranging ecological crises that the event is often seen as the birth of the modern American environmental movement.

But that’s just history, and one most people probably wouldn’t remember anyway.

Offshore drilling only encourages the possibility of environmental disaster. More oil only means more fossil fuels to burn and an acceleration of already apocalyptic global climate change.

Offshore drilling is not the answer. The development of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge is not the answer. All the oil in the world is not the answer.

What’s truly amazing to me is that the solution to the current oil crises is so simplistic that it boggles the mind that our political leaders haven’t seen it. And it’s maybe because our current political leaders lack the greatness to see it.

All that the world needs, all that world craves, is a challenge. If the President of the United States were to announce that America’s new goal was to be completely free of fossil fuels by the end of the next decade, not only would oil prices fall by fifty percent within a week, but we’d finally be on our way to true national security and energy sustainability. All it would take would be good old-fashioned American know-how and maybe the creation of a National Energy Independence Administration, though the name is certainly negotiable. But above all it would take leadership.

Kennedy challenged us to go to the moon, a task that seemed impossible, but one we accomplished with heroism and tenacity. Why can’t we do the same now, not to travel to another world, but to save the one we have?

Bush is an oilman. I doubt he could even conceive of a world without Texas tea. It’s now clearer than ever that John McCain is equally shortsighted. Maybe someone else can lead…

June 14th, 2008 by Hoopleton

The disappointing thing about John McCain is that ever since he’s become the Republican nominee, he’s become a Republican. He’s taken radically right positions on all matter of social issues. He’s tethered himself to a pro-War agenda disregarding any other options. He’s become the antithesis of what made him such a dynamic Senator. No longer can he be rightly called an independent or critic of the party to which he belongs. No longer can he be called a maverick.

The Republican platform, adopted recently in the great state of Texas and more than likely to be adopted by the RNC at the convention calls for an end to affirmative action, the complete and total opposition to gay rights and gay marriage, the overturning of the legal right to chose, the nation-wide implementation of intelligent design to be taught in the science courses of public schools and a declaration of illegal immigrants as criminals, no exceptions.

This is the Republican Party. This is the party of John McCain.

How is this filth, this intolerance, the platform of one the two parties of the United States of America? How has a radical fringe element taken control of the party of Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan? And yes it’s a fringe, certain pools of the population in the south and Midwest not withstanding, can anyone honestly say that these issues are at the forefront of most Americans’ minds? Can anyone claim they are American? How has the party of Lincoln, a party dedicated to fiscal responsibility, individual freedom and small government turned into a hawkish juggernaught obsessed with legislating fundamentalist religious and racist ideas into the laws of the state?

Honestly, what white American has suffered from affirmative action? What white American has not had a full range of opportunities at hand? One needs only to look at the African American population to realize that affirmative action is hardly the road to undeserved prosperity that the radicals paint it to be. How many African Americans are in prison today compared to whites? How many African Americans are below the poverty line?

How can a Republican party that claims to want to restore Christian values want to make gay Americans into second-class citizens? From what I remember Christ taught to love thy neighbor no matter what. From my understanding of the teaching of the New Testament, Jesus wouldn’t have been pro-War, pro-gun, pro-intolerance or pro-death penalty.

How is it that the small government party wants to force schools to teach religiously inspired materials in classes devoted to science and the process of testing and hypothesis? How is it that a small government party wants to restrict and oversee the reproductive options of women? What about in cases of rape? What about in cases of incest? No, says the Republican Party. No amendments, no exceptions.

If the American people choose John McCain and his party this November, and turn away from a mandate of change, then the principals on which we were founded and have strived to live upto for the last two hundred years will be forever shattered, will crumble into dust. The United States of America, a land built by immigrants, a country of opportunity and perpetual change, would have announced to the world the last gasp of its decline.

I liked and respected John McCain, until, that is, he became a Republican, and chose to represent all that is most vile and dark in this land of the free.

June 10th, 2008 by Hoopleton

Robert Colin Dawson was born on a canoe on the Columbia River, two feet from the Oregon shore. With their son still three months away, the expectant parents had decided on a last wilderness hike. It was thirty minutes into the canoe ride that Robert’s mother went into labor. Before they could get back on shore, out popped their new baby boy. When the doctors and the media arrived he was quickly examined, weighed, tested and rushed off in his mother’s arms to Bridgeport Hospital, just outside Portland. When all the tests came back, the doctors marveled. He was absolutely perfect.

The line “Robert Colin Dawson, Miracle Boy” appeared in the Oregonian, the Portland Press, and several accredited medical journals. Despite being born three months premature, Robert was perfect. Perfect physically, perfect mentally, and perfectly healthy in every way. They called him the miracle boy.

Age 6…

–Hey Miracle Boy! Hey Miracle Boy! What the fuck, don’t you hear me you miracle creep! What the fuck is the matter with you? Miracle Boy! Come here or I’ll sock the shit out of you!

–Yes uncle.

–What the fuck took you so long! You piece of shit! What the fuck took you so long you fucking miracle brat! Get the fuck out of here! I don’t want to see you now!

–You called me.

–Little Miracle Boy thinks he’s all smart doesn’t he? Fuck you, you little piece of shit! You think you’re smarter than me? Do yah? You shit eater! Miracle Boy my ass! You piece of shit! So what if I called you? Huh? So fucking what?

–Should I go?

–Yeah ass wipe, go home to your dead father and mother! Go suck on their rotting tits for a while you little piece of shit! You killed them, you brat! I’ll call the police on you, I’ll turn you in! I’ll do it right now I swear to God!

–Please don’t uncle!

–You want to spend the rest of your fucking pathetic life in prison! You want to die in the electric chair! You fucking piece of shit! You murderer! I shouldn’t protect you anymore you little asshole! I shouldn’t hide you anymore! Fucking little Miracle Boy thinks he’s better than me! Piece of shit!

–I’m sorry! I’m sorry!

–Fucken little shit! Drop your pants you little shit! Drop your fucken pants! I don’t want to wait when I call you you little shit! I want you to come running! Little bastard! Fucken murderer!

Age 8…

–I said come here!

–I don’t want to anymore!

–You better come here NOW you little faggot! You better get over here right now you little shit! Give your fucking aunt a kiss or I’ll kick your jaw out of your face you little shit! Get over here! NOW!

–NO!

–You ungrateful little fuck! You think I care about keeping you? You think I like you eating my food? I think I’ll give you over to the fucking cops! I think I’ll call the fucking cops on you! You little shit!

–NO!

–I should put you out like I put out the dog! I’ll hit you upside your head with a shovel and bury you in the fucking yard! You little shit! Come here and give your aunt a kiss or I’ll bury you just like I did the dog! You think the cops will do anything to me? You think they’ll care that I killed a little shit-eating faggot who murdered his parents? They’ll reward me! They’ll thank me! COME HERE! I won’t tell you again!

–She’s not my aunt!

–That’s it! That’s it! I’m calling the cops! I’m calling the police to drag you away!

–No, no! I’ll come, I’ll be good.

Age 10…

–Open your mouth.

–It hurts.

–Open your mouth!

–But it hurts.

–I won’t tell you again!

–Okay, okay.

–Good boy, good boy.

Age 13…

–Son, my name is Officer Garrett. Son, can you hear me? We’ve been looking for you for a long time.

–I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do it!

–Son, you didn’t do anything wrong.

–I’m sorry.

–Son, your parents have wanted you back for a long time. Son, can you hear me? They’ve been looking for you for years. Son, can you hear me?

–I’m sorry.

–It’s not your fault. What that man did to you was not your fault. Son, can you hear me? I hear they used to call you the miracle boy?

–Where’s my uncle?

–That man wasn’t your uncle son. Can you hear me? He wasn’t your uncle. Your parents have been looking for you for a long time. Do you remember your parents? Son, can you hear me? It’s all right to cry. It’s all right. It wasn’t your fault. Your parents want to see you, they want to take you home.

–I’m sorry.

–It’s not your fault son. Son, can you hear me? It’s not your fault. Your parents are happy to have you safe. They want to see you. Do you want to see your parents? Son can you hear me?

Age 18…

–Sit down Rob.

–Thanks Dr. Austin.

–How are you feeling today?

–Oh, pretty good today, I’m doing pretty good.

–Have you had any thoughts of suicide since last we talked?

–No Dr. Austin, I’m doing pretty good.

–How about the nightmares?

–A few. One or two. But I’m feeling pretty good.

–I hear you’re starting school again.

–My parents idea. They thought I should go. I think it’s a good idea.

–You sound like you’re not too sure.

–No, it’ll be good.

–Your parents and I just want to know what you want Rob.

–I want to go to school.

–Are you excited?

–Yeah, sure.

–Are you scared?

–I’m fine.

–You can still see me, we can still talk.

–I know, I know.

–What’s wrong Rob?

–I just…

–What’s wrong?

–I’m just…ahhh…

–It wasn’t your fault.

–I know.

–It wasn’t your fault.

–I…

–It wasn’t your fault.

Age 25…

–How you doing Shaker? They got you working days now? How are the kids? How’s the wife? I bet she likes having you home nights. Know what I mean? How you doing?

–What we got here?

–Stomach full of painkillers and a bullet to the head. Guess he was the thorough type. Not too bright though. EMTs who found him said he also had a collection of razors laid out. Not too bright. Don’t know when he was planning to use them. Dumb kids. See ‘em all the time.

–Definitely suicide huh?

–I don’t know who’s dumber, the kids that overkill or the kids who try and try but can’t succeed. Know what I mean? Shit Shaker, of course it’s suicide. Gunshot is self-afflicted and no signs that he was forced to take the pills. Guess it was too slow for ‘em. Dumb kids don’t realize how fast it all flies by anyway. They lose a girlfriend, fail a class and boom, bullet to the head.

–Well, wrap ‘em up and clean him up. His parents are coming to identify the body.

–Eh, come over for a drink on Saturday. The kid is having her eighth on Sunday. Plenty of screaming kids and vodka. What’d you say?

They called him the miracle boy. His name was Robert Colin Dawson, and they called him the miracle boy.

June 5th, 2008 by Hoopleton

We’re all just trying to get by. Despite the roadblocks of space and time we navigate the maze of life forever in the pursuit of happiness. Whatever that happiness may be. Most of us don’t want conflict, living is hard enough. But invariably conflict finds us, sometimes it’s hard to follow the map, accidents may and do happen.

On hot, lazy days I find myself lying in the sun, eyes closed and body relaxed. I try to figure myself out. I try to define what it is I want. Each day I seem to veer from the gloom of pessimism to the brilliance of hope. I constantly struggle between misanthropy and love of my fellow man. I’ll imagine the people I’ve hated and the people I’ve kissed. I’ll try and focus on how the sum of my decisions have defined me throughout the course of almost three decades and some 1.3 billion beats of my heart. I try to figure out where to go next.

What does it mean to live now? Why were we born where we were, when we were and who we were? How can anyone of us try and grasp the full scope of what it is to be human? A man could never really know what life is like as a woman. An American could never know what it’s like to be an Iraqi. How could anyone truly know a place without spending a lifetime there? How could anyone know their home if they never leave? Life is a lottery and is wisdom to be the grand prize?

Maybe we all need to spend our lives traveling, a world population of nomads, never settling, living just for the next destination till we have crisscrossed the map. Wherever we fall that’s where we’ll be buried, free from the stigma of nationality, from the shackles of borders. I could imagine a world where Westerners weren’t afraid to backpack across the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. Where Africans weren’t restricted by income from sitting on the Spanish Steps. I’d like to live in a world where everyone had the same choices.

But I’m still not sure if free will exists. Our brains operate in a universe where the future is predefined. Our religions dictate gods who are omnipotent and rule on the pretext of a great plan. Time seems to cycle. We seem all alone. Our existence, even in the best of terms, seems absolutely meaningless. We are billions and billions of living, thinking beings who throughout our short history aim mainly at being forgotten.

What are our tribulations? Are we judged simply by the mundane expressions of daily living, or do we each face a test? Do we even matter enough to be tested? Does only the darkness of the womb await us?

So I lie in the grass and I let the sun warm me and I consider my part. I try to make sense of who I am and why I was given this particular life. Why this life? I try to avoid conflict. I struggle between darkness and light. I try and place myself in the minds of people living on the other side of the globe. I try and accept that fate might guide me. But what I know, all I know, is that we’re all just trying to get by, and for what I can’t even begin to answer.

June 4th, 2008 by Hoopleton

As everyone knows by now Barack Obama has seemingly become the first black man to secure the nomination of a major party to run for President of the United States. As everyone also knows, as of now, Hillary Clinton has yet to concede or make any decision whatsoever regarding her own part in this agonizingly long process. Even given my cynical, profoundly pessimistic nature, I can’t conceive of her being able to hijack what seems like certainty. So the big question I am left with is what do we do with her now?

I think I’ve made no secret of the fact that I have a deep disdain for the former first lady. I don’t like the old guard dynastic politics she represents. I don’t like her divisive rhetoric. I don’t like her strategy of perpetual attack and I certainly don’t like her spouse, who as a former President obviously must me considered into the equation. But having said all that, I have to confess that part of me is starting to like the idea of Senator Clinton as the Vice Presidential nominee.

As someone who studied women’s history for the better part of six years and as someone who proudly calls himself a feminist, I do believe sincerely that the time for a woman at the heights of the Executive is lone overdue. I can’t help but think about Alice Paul and the other radical Suffragists who struggled for decades to bring some idea of real equality to these United States. Although I would not vote for a Hillary Presidency, the idea of her as a Veep is something I think I can embrace. The very notion of a black man and a woman running this country is something that would have seemed completely impossible just forty years ago.

I know, history is no real reason for choosing a candidate, but the force of history can certainly be a powerful campaign tool. Still, the questions remain. A woman should be Vice President, even President, but is Hillary the right woman?

One thing that’s undeniable is that Hillary Clinton, even in Barack’s own words, is a formidable opponent. Although she may be entrenched in the system, she certainly knows how to maneuver that system. She is ferocious on the campaign trail. She is unyielding. Certainly her tenacity is one of the reasons she’s been so damned annoying over the last few months. Well, as any scholar of American politics knows well, the Veep candidate is often the attack dog, a position Hillary and her cadre of supporters can fill with little difficulty.

Another thing that’s undeniable is the demographics and number of her support. Barack Obama has won the nomination, but only by the slightest of margins. I am reminded of the 1960 primary campaign between Kennedy and Johnson. JFK may have not liked the Texan, and certainly cringed when LBJ accepted the nomination as Vice President, but for the sake of the general election and the party out of power, the matching was of major necessity.

Yes, there are plenty of reasons why Hillary should not be the Vice Presidential nominee, you don’t need to remind me of them. I often see Bill Clinton in my nightmares. I can already hear the pitter patter of partisan hatchet men on the White House lawn. Barack is certainly not bulletproof. But sometimes better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. And besides, historical precedent may be a bad reason, but it’s definitely an exciting one.

June 3rd, 2008 by Hoopleton

On Monday the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously (a rare and almost unheard of occurrence) to allow countries to send warships into the coastal waters of Somalia to tackle the growing pirate threat that has plagued the trade routes of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Yes, you heard right, pirates. Somalia has not had a functional government since 1991, forcing millions of Somalis into poverty and starvation. The situation in the country, spurred by a raging civil war between a struggling secular government and an Islamic revolutionary insurgency, has been described as one of the worst ongoing humanitarian crises in modern history. Lawlessness and war has allowed for resurgence in piracy, human trafficking (a.k.a. slavery) and a sustained lawless anarchy almost unheard of on the rest of the globe.

The Clinton administration’s withdrawal from Somalia after the infamous Black Hawk incidents in 1993 along with total UN withdrawal in 1995 only exacerbated the situation, effectively allowing Somalia to deteriorate into total chaos and costing the lives of possibly millions of people. The growth of piracy was only one immediate effect.

Interestingly enough the non-permanent members of the UN Security Council only voted for the passage of the Piracy Resolution on the basis that it only applied to Somali waters. What most people don’t realize is that piracy has been increasing worldwide over the last several years. According to the International Maritime Bureau although reported acts of piracy had been going down every year since 2005, there seems to have been a sharp increase in the last two years. Areas most prone to attacks include the coasts of South America, Southern Asia and Africa.

It’s certainly an interesting world we live in. At times it’s hard not to wonder if we seem to be reverting backwards into history. Piracy, kidnapping for ransom and human trafficking, especially in the field of sex servitude are all growing concerns. While the nations of the world and the all-powerful multi-national corporations that dictate global policy are focused on international free-markets the basic ancient compulsions of human nature are allowed to fester and reemerge. In other words, while the rich and mighty plot and scheme on Mount Olympus the poor and powerless increasingly dwell in the forming cracks of the foundation.

What’s next? Mercenary armies guarding the borders of the corrupt Roman Empire?

Oh, right…

It was George Santayana who famously said, “those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” But I think Santayana’s adage is mainly misunderstood. For example I can’t conceive of a time when swastika-clad brown shirts could ever again attempt to form a new world order without the bulk of the world’s population racing to arms. History doesn’t repeat itself in literal terms. Even glancing at current events such as the War in Iraq in terms of past conflicts like Vietnam isn’t often wise, as every situation, although usually motivated by the same fundamental tenants, is in the end very different.

The trick to learning from history is not to look to the past to predict what will happen in the future, but to piece together the various clues of the past to see what might happen. With every passing generation we must reassess the various roles and various players and always be wary of the flaws in humanity.

In the big picture sense history does function in cycles. Small countries get eaten up by empires, empires collapse into small countries and the process repeats itself over and over. But paradigms do shift over time. What were pirates and foreign mercenary armies in the past can change in a globalized, technologically united world into the disenfranchised poor and the underpaid employees of corporate entities. What was called a crusade or jihad a thousand years ago can be better viewed as neo-nationalism or burgeoning neo-reformation today.

If the United States follows the trajectory of the Roman Empire it may collapse for some of the same reasons but it certainly won’t collapse in the same way. Foreign barbarians are not clamoring at the gates, but rather the demise of the nation concept could allow for a sort of corporate shift facilitated by the private armies we increasingly allow to dominate our cause. If Islamic terrorists plunge the world into chaos it would not be in response to Western armies seizing the hallowed walls of Jerusalem, but instead a reaction to an internal religious civil war brewing for centuries and fueled by an overdue backlash to modernity. And if pirates once again reassert dominance in the ocean seas, they won’t fly the skull and crossbones or seize gold and silver from Spanish Galleons, but instead hijack ocean liners on their motor boats and kidnap obese Western tourists for ransom in a vain hope to receive their share of the prosperity that they can see dangling so painfully just out of reach.

The one thing I am certain about is that the size of the world seems to have bottomed out, and as many of us find ourselves further and further from the promises of our societies the fissures at our feet are growing at an alarming rate.

June 1st, 2008 by Hoopleton

It’s the month of June and as temperatures finally begin to climb and as headlines pass from natural disasters (among them the strangely high amount of earthquakes) and election coverage (a contest Hillary seems determined to win once Obama is assassinated) back to financial armaggedon, we are left to pause and ponder the beginnings of this cycle.

June is named for the Roman goddess Juno, wife and sister to Jupiter, who in her Greek designation of Hera schemed and plotted against the many indiscretions of her beloved man-god. Juno was the queen of the gods, wife and mother, her role in the Roman state was that of protector and nurturer. She also, ironically enough, guarded over the finances of the empire.

June was considered to be the best time to marry and the best time to enter into business arrangements, which, for the Romans, equated to the same thing. But Juno was a fierce protector of women. Although she was celebrated as the goddess of female genitalia, female sex, midwifery and marriage, she was often depicted armed and ready to do battle. The war of the sexes was firmly in play.

For us today June has many meanings. This is the month that begins summer. It’s the month of vacations and brisk sales in air conditioning units. June hosts Flag Day – best fucking holiday ever! – as well as the time when most American schools close for the long seasonal break. On the sixth is the anniversary of the D-Day landings, on the twenty-first is National Go Skateboarding Day (I’m not even making that one up), on the third Sunday of the month is Father’s Day and around the twenty-eighth is the commemoration of the Stonewall Riots. June also marks the period of the Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, traditionally celebrated by ancient peoples as one of the most sacred times of the year, and since then usurped by Christianity into the feast of St. John.

All things do seem to come back to our ancestors. Today June is still seen as the best month to marry. It certainly seems the best month to find relationships and crawl into love. The race is on and Juno watches over the proceedings with weapon firmly in hand.

So what do we have to look forward to? Other than Flag Day of course?

Knowing the state of the world I’d imagine that more natural disasters aren’t outside the realm of possibility. Thankfully we will see the last days of the Democratic Primaries. But I think that the one thing we can all really look forward to is the happy knowledge that warmth is here again and that winter is a very, very long way off from returning. In the meantime I’m going to spend some time with Indiana Jones. No, not that fucking awful mess of a movie. I’m speaking of course about LEGO Indiana Jones: the Video Game. Believe me when I say that the computer generated LEGO Indiana Jones has much better acting and a kind of realism that the movie seriously lacked.

Okay, okay, I’ll drop it. Happy June.