“Excuse me,” he said, “what do you mean?”

The sign was silent.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but what do you mean?”

“Who, me?” asked the sign.

“Yes, what do you mean?”

“Oh, I didn’t say anything.” replied the sign.

The tourist stood for a second before he understood.  The other tourist was quicker.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“Well,” replied the sign, “it’s a beautiful day and I like to feel the breeze past my post.”

“No, no!” she said.  “Why are you here as oppossed to anywhere else?  What made it necessary for you to be here?”

The sign pondered this for a while.  “Those are some pretty deep questions.  What are you, missionaries?  Because I’m not interested in converting…”

“No!” said the first tourist.  “We’re not from around here.  We came for a visit.”

“I don’t get very many visitors.” said the sign.

“Not you, the country!  We wanted to see the country.”

“Oh.  You don’t have to rub it in.”

The tourists sighed in exasperation. “Look,” one said, “what is your job?”

“Don’t really have one.”

“What’s your purpose?”

“Well, me, personally, I just try to live life to its fullest, you know?”

The tourist started tapping her feet impatiently.  “What do you say?”

“About what?”

“WHAT… IS… WRITTEN… ON… YOU?”

“Oh, is that what you mean!?” exclaimed the sign.

“YES!” said the tourists.

“I don’t know.”

The tourists stood baffled for a moment.  “You don’t know?”

“I can’t read.” said the sign.

From deep inside the mind of the tourists, a small cracking sound could be heard.  Their eyes stared blankly out for a second, then blinked.  They turned to each other, exhaled, and relaxed.

“Alright,” he said, “that’s fine.”

“Sorry I couldn’t be more help.” said the sign.

The tourist ignored him.  “Come on, Silvia, let’s just head this way.  I think the hotel might be over this hill.”

“That way?” asked the sign.  “I wouldn’t go that way.”

She sighed. “I could use a rest.  When we get there, let’s just order some room service.  I’m exhausted.”

The tourists walked past the sign.

“I really mean it, you shouldn’t walk over there.” said the sign again, yelling in order to be heard. “It’s not safe!”

“Does the hotel have cable?” asked one tourist.  As the other was about to answer, their foot pressed down unto a loose patch of soil.  Before they could reply, the flash of light, sound and earth enveloped them.  The pain was hot, heavy, and quick.  In that way, the mine was generous.  Their bodies were torn, but their souls had left after only an instant.

The sign was silent for a few minutes.  Sadness rose up from deep in its post, but it stood still and let its emotions pass their course.  There was also guilt, but the sign tried to push this from its mind.

“There was nothing else I could do.” said the sign. “I tried to warn them.”

“How are you feeling?” asks Jamie Lee Curtis?

“Pretty good,” responds the every-woman, “except that I’ve had these problems lately staying regular…”

According to this commercial that I saw while spending time with my parents this past holiday season, Jamie Lee Curtis has launched herself to the streets in order to combat the epidemic of irregular and “sluggish” bowel movements.  Using the power of yogurt.  At least, it must be an epidemic, seeing as how you can’t bump into Jamie Lee Curtis on the street without wanting to tell her about your intestinal track.

What I love most about this commercial is that it’s shot “reality” style.  The camera person, the boom mike operator, the crew in general are characters in the foreground. The woman is stopped on her way from something to do something else, and reacts with amazement that Jamie Lee Curtis just stopped by to talk to her.  Jamie Lee Curtis introduces herself, and explains to this completely random person what’s she’s doing with the camera crew.  Then they proceed to have an unemotional conversation about something no normal human being would bring up to a total stranger.

I know you understand by this point, but I have to point it out for the sake of clarity, that this commercial was staged.  It’s obviously staged.  However, they still decided to shoot it in a manner that brings to mind real people and real situations.  I feel like I’m seeing more and more of this.  Previously embarrassing issues are being presented as normal, natural topics in our commercials.  If this trend continues, what will be the effects on our society?

I can imagine a world 50 years in the future, in which our children talk with their friends in coffee shops about how they haven’t been feeling very regular lately, and that it’s really been killing their hemorrhoids.  As people get bored, they’ll switch the topic of conversation to which nose hair removal tools they like best, how their periods have been much heavier this month, and how Valtrex has been working really well for them, but they’re thinking about switching to a generic medication.  Our children could grow up in a world in which any issue that can be sold to will be normalized through the kind of advertising in yogurt commercials.  Honestly, that doesn’t seem so bad.

On the other hand, they’ll also be wearing pounds of make-up, gallons of cologne, and will obsess over their weight and diet plans while stuffing their face with fried chicken taco burgers.

In the future, thanks to commercials, I imagine a world where embarrassing issues are accepted as normal and normal behavior is turned neurotic and self deprecating.

Or you can just watch everything on Netflix, like I do.  Jamie Lee Curtis doesn’t bother me anymore.

Right as you enter Disneyland, partially hidden away to the side is the Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln experience.  Adjacent to the glowing signs, music, and constant parades of Main Street, I hadn’t noticed it until recently.  We, being great fans of the great emancipator, decided to give it a whirl, since the line at Star Tours was still more than an hour long.

I was hoping that it would be kind of like the Jungle Cruise.  Perhaps someone would talk to us about the history of Lincoln, then shout “Oh no! Watch out, it’s John Wilkes Booth!”  Then they would produce a pistol, shoot a blank, and exclaim “Wow, that was a close one.”  It was not like that.

As we sat down, the doors closed and a great amber wave of patriotic music washed o’er us.  Not one, not two, but three curtains opened, revealing another curtain with a huge moving portrait.  A bodiless narrator described to us the promise of a nation, the heartbreak of its separation, and the powerful man who took his freakishly long arms and pulled that nation back together.  A humble country boy, who chopped wood since he was an infant and left school after only a year of study, and who later moved to the city to study law and eventually enter into politics.

The curtains fell, and I was moved to tears.  Not in an actual sense, but in the sense that someone typing “LOL” is laughing out loud.  On the inside.

But then, before I was able to gain my composure, the curtains lifted again to reveal the body of Lincoln himself, sitting in his chair, looking out at us.  The music rose once again, and so did he.  Robo-Lincoln lifted himself from his chair, waved his arms, and spoke to us from the annals of history, pausing briefly at points to read notes from the card he held in his hand.

I think the only way to properly describe this experience is that I attended to church of Lincoln, and I was converted.  If I was tossed a young immigrant boy, and given only an afternoon to teach him what it is to be an American, I would take him to Disneyland to see Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.  From inside, he would learn what patriotism is, and outside, he would learn what crass consumerism is.

As a side note, I hadn’t realized until it was shouted out by a special needs person during the performance that yesterday was Lincoln’s birthday.  I’m glad I could attend this ceremony on the day of his birth, and I hope, where-ever his soul may rest, that he knows his cybernetic doppelganger army continues his message.

In Chess, the point of the game is to take out the opposing player’s King.  The player has a variety of pieces at their disposal, each with a different move set, but the main objective is to move these pieces in such a way as to lock the king in a perfect death trap.  In Checkers, the point of the game is to take out all of the opposing player’s pieces.  Though the player can “King” a piece, all pieces have equal value in keeping the player in the game.

This distinction creates a political metaphor.  Chess is a game of Monarchy, and Checkers is a democracy.  In Chess, the King piece, though not very powerful, is the deciding factor of the game.  Knights, Bishops and even the Queen may be sacrificed in moves only to bring the destruction of the rival King closer to fruition.  This theme of sacrifice continues through to the pawns: successfully moving a pawn all the way across the board allows you to exchange that pawn for one of your previously taken pieces.  This exchange, at least in my personal history of playing Chess, is never spoken of as a promotion or upgrade, but rather as a sacrifice or trade.  The pawn does not become Queen, he takes her place and reinforces the theme of hierarchy among the pieces.

In Checkers the pieces are all equal.  They all move the same and all have the same value when lost.  When a checker piece moves to the other side of the board, it is not traded or sacrificed.  Instead, it is “King”‘d, given more power to roam across the board with greater freedom.  There is a since that this new piece is the same piece as before, only more powerful.  Though it is more useful, it is no more important in the sense that if it is lost the game is not.  The theme of equality is continued in that every piece could possibly become “King”‘d.  Pieces are rewarded based on their personal merits and accomplishments.  That every piece can make it is the American Dream.

Thus the games establish themselves as disparate ideas.  Chess is about sacrificing lower pieces for reward or for the sake of higher ones.  It’s about a caste system that decides how you move and who you can attack.  Checkers is a populist meritocracy with each piece working together to take down the enemy, and each having equal chance to be rewarded with status, but all being equal in terms of their right to live.

And Chinese Checkers, well… that’s just a crazy mess.

and I immediately thought of this:

And so I wonder… could a biopic be in the works?

As a kid, I didn’t look past the surface of the game. I saw fun characters and a tough difficulty curve. As an adult, the game (and its successors) holds a strong place in my heart. However, as an adult, I can also take more than a passing glance at the game and read it like I would read anything else. After some consideration, what I see now is much darker than what I saw as a kid. Street Fighter II is a dystopian game. It presents us with a version of our world’s own conflicts in such a way that destroys the hope of resolution.

The basis of this theory is in the characters. Street Fighter II has always been the target of jokes due to the bizarre design of its characters. Mostly this leads to mock (or sometimes real) cries of racism. Dhalsim is an Indian who, due to his diligent practice of yoga, can stretch his limbs and breath fire. He wears little but a loincloth, body-paint and a necklace of skulls (despite being described as a pacifist). Zangief is a huge Russian wrestler who practices by wrestling bears. Guile is an American military officer with an American flag tattoo and a ridiculous flat-top hair style. Blanka is a literal jungle monster from Brazil.

The commonality between all the fighters is the link between their nationality and their description. Stereotypes of culture and race are used to separate each one of the fighters from each other. Their differences are magnified by their outfits, personality, and even their special moves. Some seem not to be human, others might not be human at all.

In the original Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry used a similar technique with a much different purpose. Roddenberry’s vision was of a multicultural crew that worked together to solve the problems their ship encountered as it explored the universe. Though the crew had their differences, those differences were used to magnify the core shared experience of being human. It helped pull the characters together. In Street Fighter II, these differences are used to tear them apart.

The purpose of Street Fighter II is to progress in an international fighting tournament until you can reach the boss, M. Bison. M. Bison is a Hitler figure, his character is defined as an evil dictator bent on world domination. Through his illegal activities, Bison poses a threat to all of the characters in the game, as well as to each specifically. Despite this, the characters choose to participate in the tournament and fight each other, rather than band together. Each places their own specific goal above the needs of the others and thus make their attempt alone. Unlike Star Trek, there is no teamwork, only competition.

This quickly dissolves into an allegory for our own world. The characters, by being such grotesque caricatures, show us as a species that can only see the differences between ourselves, our nations, and not our similarities. Despite having similar goals, we are unable to work together as we cannot put aside our personal desires. Though evil may be vanquished, it is only due to the gains of the victor, and not through the search of peace or justice. When one gets their way, it means the others have failed.

Street Fighter II is a comment on nationalism, war and conflict. The protagonists, though they do good in their own victory, remain alien to each other. They revel in their differences, which is perhaps a good thing, but choose to ignore their commonalities. In this world there is no understanding. Strength takes all.

The news junk seems to be included to sweeten up the advertising medicine. Without out, I don’t think you’re average office drone would stand for a video screen of commercials on their way in and out of the office. However, as the advertisers understood this purpose, they put in the minimal amount of effort to make it seem useful.

For example, every now and then the screen displays a USA Today top headline. However, since you only get the headline and none of the accompanying text, you will sometimes leave with less information than you started with. For example, something like “Newest Polls in the Republican Race,” or “More Problems for Oil Companies.”

The elevator also attempts some form of user interaction. Workers can submit their office views to an email address for the chance to be featured on the elevator screen. Tweets from successful business people you’ve never heard of will also appear giving you advice about “taking the bull by the horns” or whatever. It will also teach you vocabulary words that are either synonyms for more commonly used words or that are completely useless in normal conversation. The other day it defined “lagniappe.” I know what “lagniappe” means, because I am from Louisiana. No one else needs to know what “lagniappe” means, as no one will ever need to user it.

The reason I was thinking about the elevator today is that it is now showing some kind of dieting tips that don’t make any sense. The one I saw as I was leaving advised that, by drinking only 4 ounces of wine each night instead of 8, you could save 117 calories each day, or over 42000 a year! That’s a great idea! I just have to remember to have my wine glasses re-volumed this weekend. I’ll have to convert those figures as well, since all my current glassware is metric.

The tip from this morning concerned condiments. “You can save 100 calories by eating hummus instead of peanut butter.” In what situation is hummus a proper replacement for peanut butter? I don’t want a hummus and jelly sandwich, and I can’t really imagine kindergarteners eating celery with hummus and raisins spread on it (though I also can’t imagine kindergarteners eating normal Ants on a Log).

Though I’m really not attempting much, I’m starting to recognize just how difficult it is to do the things you’d like to do instead of just the things you have to do and the things you enjoy doing.

This reminds me of the way I used to always put off things in high school. I remember then that I had dreams of sitting down and writing out a book or a series of stories, or of working on some other kind of project. Because I would spend the day at school, I told myself “I’ll wait until summer vacation.” During vacation, I figured, I could have the whole day to devote to one task, and thus really concentrate on it. When the summer came, I would hang out with my friends, watch tv, play videogames, and perhaps work on a few small creative endeavors, but I never pushed myself to do the things I said I would do. It was too easy to enjoy the moment.

Now that I look back on that, I don’t think that was wrong. I treasure the time I wasted in high school. That’s one of the few points in your life that you can spend goofing off and having fun, and I’m glad I took advantage. Instead, what I think I got wrong was my attitude. I never tried to squeeze in the things I wanted to accomplish if there was something else that had to be done.

I’m trying now, but it does force me to push some things back. It forces me to make half-assed posts like this one when I’m trying to get something creative done every other day. I’m hoping that, as I get used to it, these things will come easier.

Well, cheers.

After we checked out and just as we were walking towards the exit, lights started to dance above a small booth near the fruits and vegetables. A voice over the loudspeakers announced “We will be having a brief demonstration with a free gift in just a moment, please gather around for a free gift and a brief demonstration.” Lauren looked at me, and I at her, and we both knew right then that we had nothing better to do, so we took our bags and headed towards the demonstration booth where we could get our free prize.

The woman in the booth was dirty blonde with tanned and stretched skin. Her makeup darkened the area around her eyes and gave the whites a piercing effect. “Gather around, everybody. I can’t start unless you’re all gathered around tight.” Lauren and I stood to the left of the booth, first row to this little show. I could look down and see the woman’s supplies, which included a bucket filled partially with water, and which also contained a crude shark carved out of a zucchini.

The woman knew her priorities, and so the first thing she demonstrated was our free prize: a small plastic piece of junk you could jam into fruit. The plastic bit could be jammed into an apple at both ends in order to remove the core, or could be slapped into a grape fruit, turning it into an instant juice dispenser. Though it looked like it would melt in the dishwasher before you even turned the dishwasher on, it is apparently a tool used in many restaurants and will cost you six or seven dollars in a restaurant supply store. We were asked to hang on to our plastic bits with the explanation that it would prove later on that we had been there for the entire show, and thus would be eligible for a special free prize that would be given out later. I had my doubts, but cartoon reruns weren’t going anywhere so Lauren and I stayed for the main show.

“Does anyone here remember the Ginsu knife?”

Oh boy.

“If you do, you may know that the Ginsu knife hasn’t been on the market for something like 10 years. So, what do you think happened to it?”

Well, due to its statue as a pop-culture item of ridicule, it probably resides in the same junk pile as all the other made-for-tv junk sold in the eighties, like the portable smokeless ashtray and the pocket fisherman.

“Well, the makers of the Ginsu knife, the company I represent, took some time to improve on the original design and release a brand new knife with a brand new name: the Chefmaster II!”

In other words, the company waited until enough people forgot about their previous rip-off and then changed their name to avoid suspicion. I’m not exactly sure why you would tell us that outright as a plus.

The tight-faced woman then held up the Chefmaster II like she was holding a delicate and powerful samurai sword, pulling it gently from its sleeve. She sliced a tomato. She sawed at the head of a hammer. She hacked at a piece of wood. She also showed us the zucchini shark and a little potato-carrot-bellpepper island she had made for it.

“You know how hard it is to make kids eat their vegetables. With the chefmaster II and our food decoration secrets book, you can make vegetables fun!”

First thing to make sure you understand, the “book” seemed to be a 10 page pamphlet. It was going to be one of the free bonuses you get with the knife. Second thing, in what household does this happen:

Kids: Awwww Mom, not vegetables!
Mom: Are you sure? You mean you don’t want… zucchinishark!
Kids: Zucchinishark!? Yay! Now I can’t wait to eat a whole raw zucchini!
Mom: Just save room for raw potato-carrot-bellpepper island!
Kids: Mom, you’re the best!

But wait, there was more! Not only would we get the knife, we would also get a set of 4 steak knives, a small plastic tool that could spiral cut potatoes into chips (which was honestly kind of cool), and the pamphlet, we would also get their special Chef’s knife! The best feature on the Chef’s knife was its serrated blade, which completely destroys the purpose of having a Chef’s knife.

Several people had left at this point, but we had stuck it out. And, as we started to realize, it was for naught. The “Free Prize” she was referring to at the beginning of the show was the Chef’s knife, and you could get it for free… just as long as you spent the $30 on the rest of the crap.

As she finished her final pitch, along with the “You have to act now, I can only give you this offer right now, raise your hands!” I turned to Lauren.

“Should we get them?” she asked. For a moment, she had been taken in by the pitch. The infomercial pitch is a powerful thing, even when done haphazardly such as in the case of the tight-skinned woman.

“We don’t need them.” I replied. “Besides, if she’s selling all that for $30, it’s all worth $30.” With those words, it was like a spell was broken, and Lauren was free.

“Yeah, you’re right. They do look like crappy knives.”

“Steven,” he started, “I have come from the future to ask you a great favor?”
“What’s that?”
“I would like you to learn the guitar.”

That was an interesting proposition.

“Why do you want me to learn the guitar?” I asked. I was planning on wasting the rest of the day away on cookies and Mario Kart, but I was ready to hear him out.

“Well, as I approach the end of my life, I realize that I’ve wasted away a great lot of potential. I spent days like this doing nothing and gaining only the slightest sliver of pleasure from the experience. In moments, I have tasted the fruits of accomplishment, which are so much sweeter than hedonism, but I did not put forth the work to farm that feeling for all I could. I want to change that here and now. Also, I thought it would be pretty cool to be in a rock band.”

“So… I would start learning the guitar, and you…?”
“I would become a rock superstar! Like Jimi Hendrix, or Britney Spears after she started drinking whiskey and dropped the whole ‘pop-idol’ thing.”

I thought about this for a moment.

“What exactly would this take?” I asked.
“Well,” he replied, “I don’t know much about the guitar, but I would guess at least 3 lessons a week, just to get off on the right foot. You should probably practice quite a bit as well.”
“Okay, and what do I get out of this?”
“I’d become a rock star, get lots of money, tour the world, all that stuff.”
“Yeah…” I said, “but what about me?”

This puzzled him. For some reason, he hadn’t quite considered my part of the bargain. Suddenly, another burst of light flashed through the window and an intruder pushed his way into my apartment and into our conversation. It was yet another Steven, this time with a thick gray beard and a platinum robe.

“So what did he say, is he going to do it?” asked Further Future Steve.
“He doesn’t seem into it” said Future Steve.
“Did you tell him about the money and women and stuff?”

“Yes,” I said, “He told me about all that. What’s in it for me?”

“How do you mean?” asked both Future Steve and Further Future Steve in unison. Their coordination was disturbing, as without seeing them it was hard to hear the distinction between their two voices and, as such, they sounded like one person.

“The way I see it, I’m going to do all the hard work. I’m going to start taking lessons, spend the money on the instrument, strings, whatever, and use up my free time on this instead of relaxing after a hard day of work. Then, from all that, YOU get to be a rock star. You don’t have to do anything, you get everything. Is that what you want?”

“Well… I guess we just thought…”

“You thought you’d interrupt Star Trek, that’s what you thought. Now get out of here. I do enough at work without having to work out my future. Maybe, if I’m feeling more inclined, I might try out your guitar-thing later.”

With that, they sighed and left out the front door. I could hear a whirring from outside my window, but amongst the odd noise, I could also just make two voices.

“So, how about you? It’d be nice at least to know how to play?”
“Screw that, what would I get out of it?”

And then they were gone. And I was hit with a sudden urge to get up, put on my shoes, head outside, and go get a Slurpee from the local 7-11. And I did.