“How Can We Survive If Love Has Become An Act of Rebellion”

Or “Why Can’t We Be Friends”

Or “We get by with a little help from our friends”

Or “Break my heart for what breaks yours”

Or go listen to “Best of Friends” from “The Fox and The Hound.”

Don’t be mad, this isn’t super political. I’m truly looking for unity

We’re about 10 years into this weird societal trend where everyone’s so tensed up like the Red Dude from “Inside Out” and I really just wish everyone could take a huge deep breath and relax a little. I have a million and one theories on WHY we’re so tense and angry. Ready?

1 - Provocation: I’m a recovering pot stirrer. I love to toss out a passive aggressive comment and see what happens. Playing devil’s advocate can be super fun. It’s a terrible, toxic trait of mine that I’ve tried to harness lately. In conversations with Kylee, we’ve talked about the intention behind provocation or how a joke comes across. Did I make a joke that was cutting to someone else? Was my comment intended to make someone else feel bad about themselves? That sucks! There’s so many people online that exist just to provoke. Their intention is to illicit a specific response from an audience just to gain more clicks, views, re-posts, etc. There’s a certain Christian metal account that posted something so unfortunate recently that the only logical explanation was provocation. Even if something is “funny” to you but YOU know it could be hurtful to someone else, maybe don’t post it. I don’t know. It’s been on my mind a lot. Feigning anger towards something just to get a response from someone else seems super odd. And yes, I’m basically describing all of social media so maybe the answer is destroying all social media haha. 

2 - Staunch conviction at the sake of empathy: I really really don’t want to talk about politics, but it seems to happen a lot in regards to politics. How many families do you know that can barely speak to each other because they can’t NOT talk politics. Like for reals, there’s almost zero reason to bring up politics when talking about the NFL. If I ask you if you watched the Super Bowl, I’m not asking about your political beliefs. If I mention where I live (San Diego babbbbby), I’m not opening up the door to some jab about how you feel about politics. I mentioned the freakin’ Silver Surfer to someone a while back and got a misogynistic reply about the Shalla-Bal character being in the most recent movie instead of Norrin Rad. Both heralds of Galactus. Both Silver Surfer. I’m not sure why or how Shalla-Bal being in FF: First Steps is hurtful to your masculinity but go talk about it with your therapist, not me. Ok ok ok focus - staunch conviction over empathy… we’ve straight up lost the ability to just be cooooool. Just go with the flow. LETS ALL CHILL A LITTLE BIT. OKAY? 

3 - Short memories: We’ve forgotten a lot of really important things. Ready? In Star Wars, Darth Vader is a child murdering, fascist who is trying to kill as many people as possible so his emperor can rule the galaxy: BAD GUY. In Mad Max: Fury Road, Immortan Joe enslaves women and keeps precious resources (water) away from his people: BAD GUY. In Indiana Jones, the Nazis are the BAD GUYS. In Hellboy, the nazi’s are the BAD GUYS. In Children of Men, the government who puts people in cages and suppresses the rights of the people are the BAD GUYS. In Captain America, the nazi’s are the BAD GUYS. Recency bias but in Blink Twice, the dudes who have an island where they take women and do bad things… those guys are BAD. In Inglorious Basterds, the nazi’s are the BAD GUYS. In Django Unchained, the racist slave owners are the BAD GUYS. 

Okay? 

4 - Music is life. But also, back in like… 2001/2, I used to set up the ping pong table in my parents garage so one side was straight up and I could practice against myself (so dumb and lonely) and I’d listen to these pirated CD’s I’d burn off Napster. You have Korn Freak On A Leash and Tool and Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park. It was then in 8th grade at age 13 that I came to the profound conclusion that Kid Rock was objectively terrible. And his songs sucked butt. And realized that if one of his music videos popped up on TRL and my mom came around the corner, they were definitely too inappropriate to keep on the TV so you had to smash that previous channel button real quick. 

Bah wit a bah, amirite?

5 - Ignore everything I’ve said. Choose joy. Choose love. Your life will be better for it.

Frick, I try to keep these things short. Can we just try to be cool? Can we remember that God calls us all to love your neighbor as yourself. (Editor: When I typed God… it autocorrected to Godseyes). 

Movies and TV: A Night in the Seventh Kingdom rules. The ending of episode 4 was pure hype. Protect Dunk and Egg at all costs. Maybe better than the show is Egg’s press tour where he calls the Dunk dude out for singing too much Backstreet Boys and admits that he doesn’t like swearing. 

Johnny Video Game Corner: Vectorman

I have fond memories of watching my oldest brother play this game on the Sega Genesis so I associate it with him. Always thought it was too tough for me (younger brother complex I guess?) but tackling it now, I sped through the short 16 levels. My favorite thing about this game is the backstory is literally WALL-E, except it stays on earth. One of the robots goes nuts, controls all the cleaning robots, and plans to destroy the humans when they return. If you can track this game down, it’s a fun action platformer with a banger soundtrack.

Band Shows/Concerts/ Whatever

Monday, March 16 at The Wayfarer in Costa Mesa - Dinerboy, Blindwolf, ’92 and The Undertaking! (Tickets soon)

Saturday, April 11 at The Green Turtle in Whittier, CA - NIV, The Undertaking!, Meadows, XZNZO, Closer (tickets soon)

Sunday, April 12 at Roadies Brewery in Vista, CA - NIV, The Undertaking!, Meadows and St. Didacus (tickets soon)

*editors note: i tried to upload the flier but it won’t let me.

Okay, Goodbye

With Love and Courage,

the great grandson of two dutch immigrants (who is married to the grand daughter of a puerto rican immigrant)

SONG OF THE WEEK