DEAR JOHN

I will allow myself to open an introspective parenthesis, which may in effect never be closed, thematic shackles be damned. The world is said to be our oyster and yet it is equally common to infer that there are no such things as one-man armies. St. Paul campers and Wall Street lingerers are dismissed as misguided and ultimately pointless attempts at challenging the established order. The alternative lies in adhering to and pursuing the status quo, guaranteed to provide happiness in all its manifestations, liquid and material assets combined, with a probable bonus of female/male companionship. We define ourselves through the infinite amount of variables that exist in our surroundings at the microcosmic levels of society, through the cultural idiosyncrasies infused in us with each waking breath to the tune our mothers hum while indulging your culinary favorites, the time your dad told you he couldn’t ride that bike for you, the Batman costume you wore on your 3rd Halloween that made you feel you could own the world (and got you the most impressive candy score on the block). As these moments shape our persona, thus do we form our opinions regarding the global happenings communicated to us through newspapers, television or the town crier. As mirrors reflecting what the world provides us with: a system seemingly unshakeable in its unwaverability, one which no doubt leaves many fulfilled but inexhorably so much more morally, mentally and physically destitute, we hold little power over world-shaping events, and are tailored to accept this lack of leverage. My choices for Presidential primary candidates should not be limited to whom CNN has chosen to invite to their admittedly highly entertaining debates. However, the focal point should reside more in analyzing the alternatives one can have beyond joining ‘the 99%’.

I have, for the better part of my time since having achieved puberty, been utterly disappointed with what ‘Life’ has brought to the negotiating table. My unwillingness to ‘take a deal, that is to conform to a given track, a luxury many cannot afford and one that does not make me remarkable in the least, has had the foreseeable consequence of trailing my peers. The refusal to adhere is one that bears obligatory reprimand. Regardless, I will be donning my newly fitted Batman suit, so as to fabricate my own creations. Even Bruce Wayne, though, has to play by the rules in order to play dark knight by night.

STAY-AT-HOME WAR VETS

Video Games That Bring Afghanistan Home – NYTimes

This is Razor, over, I’ve switched off my phone and locked my door so as to avoid any uninvited interruptions, over. For the next 6-8 hours, until I pass out from exhaustion or until I run out of food and soda or until I get Carpal Tunnel, I will be engaging the evil freedom-hating scum who seek the destruction of America and its righteous values, because they hate life. After impolitely turning down my mom’s offer of more dessert, I slide into the “War-Recliner” and I am suddenly immersed in patriotism and fully prepared to do battle with the help of cutting-edge technology, otherwise known as the Playstation 3 Home Entertainment System. I am dropped just outside Najaf where I will be charged with wiping out the endlessly re-generated Iraqi insurgents. I am armed with my friendly M-16 equipped with the trusty ACOG scope, an M1911 pistol, 2 frag grenades, 2 flash grenades, 2 M18A1 Claymores, an RPG-7 to wreak haphazard havoc and a butcher knife, all of which do not slow me down in the least. I advance with caution, crouching or in prone position, but before long my advanced ADD beckons me to make a run for it. I locate an enemy wandering aimlessly, line up my visor with his free-world hating face and BOOM! Head shot! I just acquired 100 points for my country. With the help of my bluetooth headset, I let the inanimate opponent know just how superior I am to him and just how inferior he is to me. I take a swig of “Sunny D”, adjust my headset and I am back on the prowl. I detect a terrorist through the second-floor window of an abandoned house. He sees me. I recalibrate my index finger around the L2 button and take 3 bullets to the heart for my foolishness…grenades are thrown with the R2 button. I intercept a communiqué from the enemy labeling me a ‘fag’ and sounding oddly British for an Iraqi. I re-materialize on the battlefield without a scratch, because I have been sent here by God. 563 kills and 345 deaths later, it is time to return to the barracks. I have done my part for my country today in resisting the hate-mongers and spreading the virtues of the West, enough for the time being at least. I must get my soldier’s rest. Besides, I get cranky if I haven’t had my 10 hours of sleep.

Video games have always been a popular target for criticism, mostly from stay-at-home moms and conservatives with too much time on their hands. The exclusion of video games in the determination of an art form based apparently solely on the audience it targets seems flimsy in its hypothesis. With technological advancements though does come a more arresting plateau of realism, and subsequently, the violent actions one “partakes” in hold more weight in today’s games. In the capitalistic corners of the world however, as the video game industry has ballooned to the point that some analysts have actually labeled it “recession-proof”, whatever is profitable supersedes all moral and ethical ambiguities. Whether video games offer a more inclusive experience and therefore a conceivably more troubling one than that of a movie is debatable, but like explicit content on a music record or offensive material in a book it really just depends on the audience and one simply cannot censor creativity based solely on the potential sensitivity of some. The vast majority have the ability to discern the imaginary from reality, even though one cannot negate our influenceable nature to the characters we encounter on paper or on the silver screen.

The scapegoat for much controversy has been the war genre of video games, supposedly because it aims to reproduce historical events over the course of which actual soldiers gave their lives. Apart from the obvious susceptibility toward the subject of the families who have lost relatives in the conflicts, it is a tasteless feature of the genre that, from the comfort of their homes, stoners and children alike are virtually re-enacting the contemporary actions of their country, razing the homes of civilians in precarious situations thousands of miles away. The Iraq War being conspicuously illegal as well as unfounded, “Operation Iraqi Freedom: The Game” probably is just salt in the wound. It is a fiscally sound industry, however, so maybe Nintendo will replace Halliburton for the next war and send the US to spread democracy in Iran in order to release the hotly anticipated “Ahmadinejad Strikes Back”.

Note-worthy: “During one of the game’s levels, as the Rangers approach the Shah-i-Kot Valley in a helicopter, one of them describes the flight’s “main course” as “all-you-can-eat Taliban” and adds, “Hope you like foreign foods.””

RAPPERS REACH OUT

At Rock the Bells, Snoop and Wu-Tang Clan – NYTimes

In a consolidated community effort to readjust the bravado bar to its rightfully elevated level, gangster rappers (and Lauryn Hill) both old(er) and young united for a common cause: a better world where begins “a new age for the cop killers”, we can “smoke weed every day”, one’s only worry need only be “how many hos [next year] will I be banging”, and where “Wu-Tang Clan [still] ain’t nothing to fuck with”. The thousands in attendance were receptive, singing along to every lyric in the midst of drinking $8 Magic Hats and producing what may have seemed like an alarming cloud of polluting smoke from the mainland. The three headliners (Tribe Called Quest, Wu-Tang Clan, Snoop Dogg) each performed their classic outings in their entirety, all of which were released over a 3-week span in November of 1993, right around the time the white suburban population realized just how cool it really was to “fuck the police” and thus jumped on the bandwagon.

Demonstrating that hip-hop hasn’t produced any proper headliners since the turn of the century, it was the “old school” which managed to draw a huge crowd to Governor’s Island. It was true love for the rebel art form that attracted attention to the main stage, while the smaller-in-scope “Paid Dues” stage, where underground and semi-underground acts such as Jedi Mind Tricks all performed for the true rap aficionados, captivated a smaller yet eager mob. Misogyny and gang warfare were in the air and everyone in attendance seemed to be begging for more. After over twelve hours of non-stop concert, with sore backs, weak knees and their heads in the clouds, rap fanatics left the show knowing “the rhyme gets rougher as the rhyme goes on”, and the hour-long line for the ferry home was nothing but rough.