#I am fully actually smoking a joint planning to play DAI right now but close enough | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jordanlahey · 4 years ago

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Hey! I saw you were in the mood for some lost boys requests? If it's okay, could you do something where the boys meet a mermaid? I can just imagine Paul thinking he's smoked too much and the disbelief 😂😂😂

I can imagine that too, poor Paul 🥺😂

The sun was starting to set in Santa Carla and the boys were ready to start their night of drinking and causing mayhem. They always head to the boardwalk for their nightly feast, picking out any broad that some much as gives them a second glance or maybe a group of drunken teens down by the beach, just whatever takes their fancy.

They settle on a group at the beach that was more secluded than the rest near the rocky caves which was close to home anyway. They had finished their meal and decided not to let the fire go to waste, Dwayne and David threw the body’s of the unfortunate teens in the burning fire while Paul joins Marko and sits himself on a rock deciding its the best time to get high.

Little did they know they were being watched surely David felt they were being watched but he couldn’t see anyone walking around he didn’t bother to check the water. You were watching them closely, they were strange humans to you feeding off the same species as far as you know. One of them in particular kept looking around sometimes in your direction he had platinum blonde hair that was spiked at the top and long at the bottom, everytime he did look your way you’d dunk back under the water the noise disguised as the waves hitting the near by rocks.

You see the same four boys every so often sometimes you catch a glimpse of them near the carnival when your watching the other humans have fun. They piqued you’re interest all of them holding some sort of mystery especially the tall dark haired one. You contemplated making your presence known to them but you weren’t sure of what to do or say. “Hi I’ve been watching you for like along time” you thing in your head.

At this point you had taken your attention away from them as you thought of your plan unbeknownst to you, you were now being watched.

“Ahem.” You squealed and sank under the water it wasn’t a great hiding spot since they could still see you. You looked at them through the water and it was the boys you were gawking at, you lifted your head outta the water. “Do you need a hand there sweetheart?” The platform blonde asked, flashing you a smile, you shook your head you weren’t in any danger but you looked completely human to them.

You looked passed them at the fire that was starting to die down, they couldn’t possibly throw you in there too.

“I’m not going to be the next one thrown in there am I?” The boys exchanged looks almost like they were communicating with each other without speaking.

“How much did you see?” The boy with curly hair asked and you brought yourself closer to the rock, leaning in it.

“Were they bad? You tore into them like animals. Is that what all humans do?” You asked looking at them curiously. They chuckled, you had a funny way of talking to them.

“Why don’t you come up we can talk.” Your eyes widened with more curiosity and you drifted to the rock next you that was close enough to them and hoisted yourself up onto it. All the boys stared at you, sure you were topless, your hair long enough to cover your breast but the shimmery blue tail is what really caught their attention.

The messy blonde started slapping the brunette’s shoulder and pointing to your tail. “I haven’t smoked that much right!? You guys see that!?” He was borderline freaking out if his own mind began playing tricks on him.

“Nah man, I see it too.” The curly blonde said, they were all a little surprised. Never in their entire lives have they seen or met a mermaid in person they’ve heard stories but they believed them to be a load of cock and bull. They eat their words now.

“Never seen a mermaid before? Wow you’re missing out!” You chimed living your tail above water to show them fully.

“Your kidding, you gotta be.” Paul looked at his joint and threw it on the ground, he doesn’t want to smoke again right now. You giggled at his reaction it was adorable.

“I’m surprised he isn’t more concerned that a girl is shirtless in front of him.” David spoke to Dwayne and he let a smirk tug and his lips.

“It’s very real feel it!” He leaned down to touch it when Marko pushed him in face first into the water they all burst into laughter as Paul pushed himself back up he was ready to have Marko in a headlock. You looked at them so confusingly.

“They do this often. Wait till Paul is less high and he’ll actually believe you.” Dwayne told you and you nodded.

Every so often the boys would visit you before they go back to the cave and Paul finally believes that your a real mermaid after like the 4th meeting he even refused to smoke that day so he knew that his brothers weren’t fucking with his mind.

#the lost boys x reader #the lost boys #paul x reader #the lost boys imagine #the lost boys (1987)#the lost boys fanfiction #david x reader #dwayne x reader #marko x reader

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atouchofgreen · 3 years ago

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Weed & Mental Health (adolescent)

Mom and Dad,

In the recent months I have experienced cognitive decline that I attribute to my use of weed cartridges. I started smoking weed cartridges when I was in my senior year of high school, and became addicted. I hated it but for some reason I couldn't stop I smoked daily. Although I took month long breaks often, I continued to smoke in college during my first 2 years. Towards the second semester of sophomore year, I used legal delta 8 carts instead of delta 9 carts. The only negative aspect of using up to my sophomore year was my lack of motivation and any minute cognitive changes went away following abstinence. I should have quit or asked for help. In high-school I asked for help by leaving my stash on the laundry machine and gave a singular puff to mom one time (she thought it was an e-cigg though). In highschool in my AP Chemistry class, I saw a kid at the end of class do a hit from a similar weed cart in front of his friends. It would have been so easy for him to get caught, he was standing up giggling with his back turned but the teacher was on the computer and didn't notice. I recognized then that this kid was so alone with his addiction that he did it in front of his friends at school out of pain and solidarity. He had an expressionless face most of the day and seemed distraught, I knew from the grapevine he smoked a lot. He was like me, addicted, and did a hit in school subconsciously screaming for help. After class I asked coach Jacobs his thoughts on using weed. He said, sitting on his computer desk chair with his hands behind his head, " I think after 25 half a joint does the same damage as having a martini, but before then its really bad for you physically, mentally, and your development as a human being. You should wait until after your brain is fully developed to try anything." I remembered this for the rest of my life. I didnt have the courage to directly ask for help but I needed it and should have asked anyone. I couldn't quit it although I should have had the courage to do so. I tried quitting many times but I was too far down the drain mentally. But now, I am scared for myself. I quit completely following moving jethin in because I was noticing cognitive decline in myself. It was terrible. One morning, I woke up and nothing entered my brain its like I was a zombie. That is why I quit. I hoped I would regain my functionality like before, but to no avail. My iq seems to have dropped 10 points at least. My short term memory has regressed so much that learning new information is difficult for me. Reading is harder and to recall something takes me much longer than before. I have a harder time making long term plans and imagining things. I had a hard time with understanding and expressing English as well though this has been improving. My mind is nothing like it was before. Now, my memory, pattern recognition, recall, imagination, has diminished to a much lower degree. I was fine last year and the year before that, my mental health and cognition were good, but recently it seems like a switch turned off for me. When I walk in the world I don't absorb information the same. I don't abstractify what I am seeing as easily, and my short term memory is really shot. Its like I'm just walking in the world blind deaf and dumb. I am scared I won't be able to pass my classes even though compared to highschool these classes are an absolute breeze relatively speaking to when my brain was sober. I can't do quick calculations anymore and I am acutely aware that my senses are just senses. Seeing touching hearing are just that, I can't calculate the same way i used to to create a coherent experience of what's going on around me. I don't have appreciation for life anymore. I am telling you all of this now because i have really experienced cognitive decline and I am extremely depressed, unhappy, and anxious. I am afraid that my prefrontal cortex and hippocampus is permanently damaged. Weirdly, I've had a dull ache in my head ever since I've quit, in the middle and front of my brain, that's been getting slightly better with time. The slight discomfort or pain is always there its terrible. It also gets better temporarily when I cry, meditate, or sleep for an extended period. I hope that after a few months this dull pain would subside and my mental capabilities would return. Even my dreams are less complex and have less emotion. All of this is what I talked to that therapist about. It's not like I am sad ALL of the time, but a lot of it. But I am pretty sure my mind will never be what it was before. I experienced life to its fullest extent while I was not using any drugs, and now that I've been sober for 2 months now and my mind is not returning close to what it was. I still feel like a zombie when exercising, and I develop a deep sense of sadness right after I work out because i recognize my short term memory and mental capability are weakened which makes it hard for me to make good memories and I get anxious about my future. I am pretty emotionless, even fear is hard for me to experience. When I am unhappy, at times I break out into a sob, but because my emotions have dulled probably from the weed, I only start to sob momentarily and then return to a face of stoicism. This makes it hard to achieve catharsis for my sadness and it gets bottled up inside. I don't really mind the mental health difficulties from quitting weed - that can pass over time with proper behavior - but it's the cognitive difficulties that makes me afraid. I am afraid that I will never be able to view the world the same way that I used to before weed. I am afraid that I won't be able to become a doctor unless my brain heals over time. I have read many studies about the use of marijuana during adolescents. Although there is conflicting research, my experience suggests the worst for me - that what I am experiencing may be permanent. I also read that smoking weed during adolescence can delay prefrontal cortex maturation, meaning I would never be able to absorb information and process it the same way ever again. If only I had read the dangers of early marijuana use earlier and understood I would have quit immediately. It is entirely my fault my life is like this now, I was too weak. Both of you have given me everything and helped me the most you could. Especially Dad. Dad, I feel so bad because you have lowered your expectations of me so much. If I hadn't started smoking, I know I would be a completely different person. Mom and Dad, I have been thinking about committing suicide for some time. I've been thinking about it at least once a day actually for a few months. Its not that I think life and the world is terrible and bad, I actually think the opposite. Before smoking I loved life and loved myself. I could feel the world like a thumping heartbeat or a quivering harp playing soulful music. I feel like killing myself because my current and future experiences will be inorganic. My brain structure/chemistry probably changed forever and I don't want to live with this brain anymore. I cant understand everything going on around me thus I can never understand the world the same way like I used to. I feel like i can't learn new things, everything I do now is because I am just accessing what I learned before starting to smoke weed and during freshman and sophomore year of college. My emotions have waned. I can't calculate complex things anymore and put it into context sufficiently. I can't move my body and think strongly at the same time. Right now, meditation and thinking about my long term memory is my only friend. My short term memory is shot which affects my learning and ability to make meaningful experiences or connections. It's like I have pseudodementia though not as bad. The only joy I get is accessing my long term memory and talking long walks in places and with people that used to bring me joy. I loved Turkey so much and the time we spent I go there in my head all of the time. I love Africa, I love India, I loved my friends at swimming and during highschool. But if that's all I am living for I don't know what the point is. I curse myself everyday for making the mistake of smoking weed or not quitting when I could have. I could've become a beautiful person had I continued developing normally. I am so sorry for being a bad son. I am so sorry that you came from India to America to have a child that fucked up like me. I am sorry for the stress this places on both of you. You both did nothing wrong in raising me, I just fucked up. I am sorry for how this may affect your work dad. And I am sorry for being a liability for the family. While I am drowning I don't want you both to drown with me. Maybe I can get a job somewhere or go into the military. At this point cognitively, unless my brain is capable of rewiring itself (maybe that's what the dull persistent ache is in my head) I don't think I can learn the information necessary to safefully treat patients. My therapist said it would take 3-4 months to a year to feel normal again but I don't know what I will do if I can't return to baseline. I used to live with such a thirst for life and understanding but if that doesn't return I feel like I am dragging life down and owe it to my memory of what life was before weed to take my own. Currently my plan is to wait a year and a few months before seriously thinking of committing suicide if I don't heal because the pain I am feeling is so immense. I want to live life FEELING everything organically regardless of what it is. Also my smarts are gone and that gave me tremendous joy. I know what life was like before using weed and I know how it should feel. But I cannot properly life, my sense of self, empathy, and life around me currently. I am walking around blind deaf and dumb I don't know if I want to live this way for the rest of my life. I would have loved to become a doctor.

I just don't know what to do anymore, I don't want to kill myself and I don't think I will have the balls to frankly but that saddens me even more if I can't feel or process what I am experiencing for the rest of my life. Life is too short to waste, any life really even if I'm dumber than what I used to be. I think of people who are paralyzed, people who have cancer, who have nobody left to care for them, people who are homeless and have physical ailments. They don't give up, but their minds are still natural. I am young and the only reason I am thinking of this is because I don't want to go the rest of my life with derealization of the world around me. I don't want to live the rest of my life blind deaf and dumb. No new experiences since the latter parts of my weed addiction have given me any meaning in life compared to what I had learned before smoking weed. I am grateful I got to experience and learn the meaning of life from my perspective and others when I was younger, thank you for that. I love you both so much. I am sorry and don't worry I am not going to kill myself its just that I am angry with myself, angry with my cognitive decline, and angry that I can't experience what life ought to be currently. I am hoping for better in the future though. I just thought you should know.

Love, Your son

Before Weed:

I am telling you this because I am scared for myself although it may be too late. Before I tell you what I've been going through, I want to tell you about my life experience up until junior year of highschool. Although I wasn't exactly extremely smart from your perspectives, I was acutely aware of my surroundings. In school I was more focused on how things were organized and what every single person in the room was thinking and what their plans were rather then what they were teaching. It's like my brain was calculating 20 things at once and i was living existentially all the time. I was incredibly happy just to be alive. I could recall the exact positions of people and things around me, what I was thinking, and the sutle muscle movements of people over a reasonable amount of time. I used to know what people were going to say before they said them, and know someone's personality outlook on life, habits mentality etc. just by watching for 10 seconds to an incredible degree of accuracy. The longer a person was in my focus I learned more about them exponentially. I could learn things very well and had a memory based on the things that I was focused on that was so precise and better than almost everyone I had ever met. People in high school who knew me well knew this and would be shocked how i could know things about them. Some things like sexuality and gender insecurities, presence of autism/ Asperger's as a child, family life back home, and who liked who, I could tell about people after observing them for a little. I had respect from people at school and some teachers because they knew what I could learn about a situation or people just by being in the same room. I could learn new words in the blink of an eye if I heard it just once, I was constantly calculating. With dad, I could not learn what he tried to teach me though just because I was so scared of him that my focus wasn't there and panic was always set in I was scared to be beat frankly (i wasn't scared of the pain but just scared what it meant which was hard for me to fully realize because I would slightly repress the memories and I don't like to do that). But it's from him I learned how to analyze people and the world. But he is one of the only people I've ever met where I could not track his mind to a satisfying degree. For most people I would now what they were thinking, what they were incubating in the back of their head, and their current plan of action in a glance by looking at the eyes and body. I could not do this with dad because his mind is faster than mine it was too hard to keep up. He has mind palaces that are so structured and he can jump around his mind so easily I couldn't keep up with the mind palaces he created and how he navigates them. It was harder for me to do this with people who had a very high iq but I would practice everyday and would cherish analyzing introverts for practice. I walked on a street with a hundred people I would make an observation about each of them and could later recall exactly what I saw and what I was thinking. My kinesthetic sense was very good so physical distances was easy for me to calculate and remember. I truly believed that before starting weed I would become a doctor because all my strengths coincided with it. This ability, although most ppl might be able to do it, peaked for me right before starting weed. I was very much in tune with spirituality and enjoyed reading storybooks, meditation, and socializing. I was never focused on myself but what was around me, I kept my thoughts and feelings in a box in my mind to help me learn as I recorded what others were doing and thinking. I had balls - I asked out girls in highschool, and honestly wasn't afraid of much because both of you enabled me to experience life by taking me everywhere.

#weedsmokers #stoned weed #weed addict #legal weed

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baby-harrington · 5 years ago

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long distance - john bender

requested by @untold-heart, I hope you like it!

- you first spoke to bender through a mutual friend

- she’d moved from your hometown to shermer, where she met him

- before she left, you exchanged phone numbers so you could still talk, despite her living a while away

- you called as much as possible

- and sometimes she was accompanied by a new friend, john bender

- she let you speak to him too whenever he was there, in case you were to meet him when you visited

- he was confused at first

- some random girl talking down the phone whilst he was trying to smoke a joint with your friend

- after a few conversations though he decided he liked you enough to give you his number

- this resulted in some awkward at first phone calls that turned into late night conversations and expensive phone bills for your parents

- which bender advised should not happen again because his dad would get extremely pissed

- but you stayed as long as possible

- as long as it wasn’t longer than about half an hour, you were fine

- once the awkward side of your friendship was over you seemed to get really close to one another

- like able to share your darkest secrets close

- you found comfort in each other

- even though you’d only ever spoken over the phone

- he had seen you only once before, but that was in a polaroid photo you’d sent for him when you mailed some old magazines to your friend

- he kept that photo in his wallet wherever he went after that

- and the night he recieved it, he asked you out

- he saw the one picture of you and decided he needed to be more than friends

- despite never seeing him, you knew he was special after all the times you’d opened up to one another

- you could have been making a huge mistake, like he could have been ugly as hell

- but thankfully your friend assured you he was attractive and your type

- even though there was distance separating you, you managed to keep a steady relationship

- you called and talked whenever you could and knew pretty much everything about each other

- you’d had some great dirty phone calls too, which were an added bonus

- bender couldn’t help himself sometimes and thankfully you were down for it too

- obviously he’s great at it

- you had to make do with something, I suppose!

- when you got the call from your friend inviting you over you jumped at the chance

- you could finally meet john and see him and hold him and love him properly!

- she had found out that he had gotten detention the day after you were arriving and thought it would be a great idea if you showed up pretending to be a student

- you were sceptical, obviously

- who’d wanna pretend to have detention?

- but your feelings for bender outweighed the negatives and you decided to go for it

- you arrived on schedule and your friend showed you around a little, pointing out the school to you on your walk

- the two of you got takeaway too on the way home and discussed the plan over the food

- “so, I’m thinking that I should drive you there and walk you inside. like, I’ll pretend I’m just coming to visit bender before detention starts but then you can follow me in and surprise him.”

- “okay, that sounds good. then I just stay there for the rest of detention and you’ll pick me up?”

- “exactly! god, he’s gonna be so surpised!”

- you went to bed that night anxious but excited, ready to finally see him after all this time

- the next morning, you dressed in the outfit you wore in the polaroid photo, to make yourself instantly recognisable

- and as planned, you drove to the school ready to face detention

- “he’ll probably be here by now, there’s only a couple minutes til it starts.” your friend said as you got out the car

- your hands were shaking and your heart was beating a thousand times a second

- you approached the school, then weaved the corridors towards the library

- your friend told you to wait outside and to knock in a minute or two

- “you should knock and ask: ‘is this the room for detention?’ and then come in and he’ll totally freak!”

- so you played along, letting her go inside and chat for a moment before tentatively knocking

- you poked your head round the door to get a first glance at him before opening it fully

- he was in the middle of talking to your friend, leaned back in his seat lazily

- “hey, am I in the right place for detention?” you asked, not able to hold back your wide smile as john’s eyes looked up to your voice then lit up like sparks

- he was just as attractive as your friend had described, and absolutely perfect

- his face was totally bewildered

- he couldn’t believe you were standing in front of him

- “y/n?” he managed to say, slowly getting up from his seat

- “surprise!” your friend said and jumped up too, coming to wrap her arm around your shoulder

- “you’re really here?” bender said with a shaky breath

- “I’m here, john. I’m real!”

- he ran right up and grabbed you, spinning you round and round in his arms and holding so tight you were almost starved for air

- “I can’t believe you’re here”

- “neither can I, honestly. I’m just glad I get to be here with you” you smiled as he released you

- “how long are you here?”

- “well, for starters I’m in detention all day! but I’m here for the break”

- he stared down at your in utter amazement, still not quite able to believe you actually existed and were standing right in front of him

- just to make sure, he leaned down and kissed you passionately, making up for all the kisses you could have had if you’d been closer

- you didn’t want to leave shermer after that!

#john bender #john bender x reader #john bender imagine #the breakfast club #the breakfast club x reader #the breakfast club imagine #imagine #request

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radioleary-blog · 6 years ago

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Burning Flags and Hosing Native Americans

11/30/16

"Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag," Trump wrote this week, after a college student in New Hampshire burned a flag to protest the election, "if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!"

This from the guy who called for registering Muslims and imprisoning his political opponents. “If these people don’t like things the way they are, they shouldn’t burn the flag, they should do what I did, and burn the Constitution!” Trump said, “You think I could get away with all the crazy shit I have planned for this country if I just burned a flag? No way, I’d be in a prison cell right next to Hillary. So the Constitution had to go. You say flag burning is protected by the First Amendment? Let’s get rid of it. Shoot the First Amendment with a gun from the Second Amendment. A Bill of Rights? They sold you a bill of goods! It’s a Bill of Wrongs, folks, that’s all it was. A Bill of Wrongs.”

Trump released his statement through what has become the official White House press briefing source: Twitter. Oh, he loves his Twitter. Probably because 140 characters is just about the upper limit of his attention span. And 140 characters is the perfect length for saying something stupid, and saying it loud. With a lot of exclamation points!!! Trump loves Twitter because he knows he never has to provide details or logically support his arguments in 140 characters. Of course, he couldn’t support most of his bullshit with logic if he spent ten years writing them into a Russian novel. Hmm, I wonder, what would the title be of a Russian novel written by Donald J. Trump? “The Gulag Mara Lago” ? “One Day in the Life of Ivanka Denisovich” ? “Abortion: Crime and Punishment” ? “War and Pussy” ? Actually, Napoleon plays a prominent role in “War and Peace”, and Trump reminds me a lot like Napoleon. Except Napoleon’s hand is always thrust into his shirt, whereas Trump’s hand is usually thrust into a woman’s pants.

And Trump’s other hand is always on Twitter. And since he’s limited to 140 characters, the Donald doesn’t even have to demonstrate he understands the issues he’s tweeting about. Trump somehow manages to always tweet with the same grandiose level of outrage, bluster and threatening huffy-ness on absolutely any topic, especially when he has no clue what the fuck he’s talking about. Just try him, on any topic:

@surrealDonaldTrump: “Quantum Theory? It’s a hoax invented by the Australians! Scott Bakula is a great actor!! Why no Oscar, academy? Shame!!

@surrealDonaldTrump: “Picasso and Cubism? There must be penalties for (so-called) artists who support Fidel Castro’s ideas! Cubism!! And only 90 miles from our shores!

@surrealDonaldTrump: “Handel’s Messiah at the Met? No gingerbread house! No scene where Handel and Gretel get cooked in the witch’s oven? The Met got it wrong!! Boring - cut funding!!

Of course, what he’d really like to do is get the whole Constitution down to 140 characters or less:

@surrealDonaldTrump: “We/ people -perfect union, just perfect!! More guns- 2 Corinthians. lower corporate tax rate!! No illegal alienable rights- a selfie evidently: life, liberty, etc.”

Trump is the first Twitter President, but he’s also the first internet troll President, and that’s what’s scary; that a man who is always so angry and eager to get into a Twitter war is now able to get us all into a very real war just as fast, and just as furious. The fast and the furious, or maybe the fascist and the furious. What keeps me up until 3 AM? Worrying about what the hell Donald Trump is up to at 3 AM! He gets up at 3 AM not because he thought of something brilliant to say that couldn’t wait till morning, but because he has to pee twenty times a night. He’s not having a “Eureka!” moment, he’s having a “urea” moment. Because no matter how rich and powerful he is, he’s still an old man, with an old man’s prostate and bladder that are just about as worn-out and unworkable as his economic policies. And both his bladder and his economic plan rely entirely too much on a “trickle down” theory that never, ever provides any relief.

So he wakes up every night in the middle of the night, mad at the world and fully capable of any act of irrationality on Twitter. And now, on the world stage. I’m afraid I’m going to wake up one morning and find out we’ve been at war with China for five hours already. I can see the Joint Chiefs of Staff pleading with him, urging him not to go to war, “Mr. President, we can’t risk a nuclear confrontation, it’s madness! The stakes are too high!” To which Trump replies, “Wrong, General, my steaks are very reasonably priced! Believe me. Very high quality steaks.”

Then our military leaders would be begging him to stop the war. “Please Mr. President, there are 1.2 billion Chinese with a standing army of 200 million men! Our troops are being decimated! We told you hours ago to give the order to retreat! If we are to survive as a nation, you must give the order to retreat!” To which Trump replies, “Wait, you said ‘retreat’? My bad. I thought you said ‘retweet’!”

“But seriously, General, we should retweet. We can still win this on social media.”

Hosing Native Americans

I’m deeply disturbed by what’s going on with the DAPL. To us that stands for Dakota Access PipeLine, but to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, it stands for Damn Americans Plundering Land.

Now I’m a big fan of oil, a really big fan. Fossil fuels? Love them so damn much. They keep me from freezing to death every winter, when New York state turns into the planet Hoth from ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ for five months. More like ‘The Empire State’s Back: A No Hope.’ And even those giant Imperial Walker “AT-ATs” moved a hell of a lot faster than Northway traffic in winter.

So I love oil. I loved dinosaurs as a kid, and now that they’re fossil fuel, I love ‘em even more when they’re driving my ass around in my car. So I understand why we usually look the other way while the robber barons take the land to take the oil, and play the villain in this never-ending Western horse-opera that keeps our lights on. We usually don’t really care that there’s never a Lone Ranger to ride to the rescue and shoot the gun out the villains hand, we’re willing to let the good guys lose if it keeps our cell phones charged. And hey, how the hell did the Lone Ranger always manage to have a non-violent resolution to every conflict...by using guns? I don’t think he ever killed anybody, but he was always shooting and waving those guns around like a guy with flashlights on a runway waving in a 747. It probably was less of a moral stance than the fact that silver bullets were ridiculously expensive. But this really painted an unrealistic expectation for an entire generation of TV-watching kids; that hostile confrontations are more likely to be resolved peacefully once you break out the guns. Everything will be just fine! What could possibly go wrong with teaching kids that random gunfire solves most problems?

And The A-Team? They were an even worse example, they fired guns all day long and nobody ever got hurt. Every episode, the A-Team ended up in a ten minute shoot-out with machine guns at close range, and they still never managed to successfully shoot somebody. These guys were supposed to be ex-military? What branch, the Kiss Army? They must have fired ten million rounds of ammunition over five seasons, but they never managed to kill a single goddam bad guy. Not even accidentally. You’d think someone would at least get hurt tripping over the mountains of spent cartridges. No one ever got seriously wounded or maimed, either. Never a realistic depiction of the awful consequences of close-quarter machine gun fire on the human body. Never a bad guy laying there screaming at the end of the episode, writhing in a spreading pool of blood, desperately trying to cram his intestines back into his body as the A-Team smoke cigars and high-five each other in a freeze-frame over the closing credits. No, when the show was cancelled the body count was still zero. No wonder these guys were kicked out of the military, they were just wasting valuable ammo and helicopter fuel! I guess B.A. stood for Bad Aim. Was it poor eyesight? I think maybe they called them The A-Team because that was the only letter they could read at the top of the eye chart.

But I digress. Back to the pipeline. So the oil companies dig and bulldoze, raze and deforest, drill, lay pipe and pump. That’s where the oil comes from, and we write it all off as Progress. Although, in all fairness, “drill”, “lay pipe”, and “pump” is also where orgasms come from, so let’s not rush to judgement.

The DAPL is a 1,172-mile, $3.8-billion pipeline, which would transport up to 570,000 barrels of oil a day. It’s nearly finished except for a section scheduled to go under the Missouri River. Native Americans of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe are protesting the pipeline, saying any oil spill will contaminate water sources that serve over 17 million Americans. So last week, authorities attacked the tribe with water cannons in sub-freezing temperatures, which put 17 protesters in the hospital. You think we’ve really advanced as a society? In 400 hundred years of Native American relations, we’ve only gone from intentionally giving them smallpox, to intentionally giving them pneumonia. Slightly less life-threatening, I guess, but not a big improvement. Who knows, maybe in another hundred years we’ll only intentionally give them a head cold. Not a bad one, but one that may cause them to call in sick to work and lay in bed all day catching up on TV.

Authorities defended their use of the water cannons. “We warned them repeatedly,” Morton County Sheriff ‘Buffalo Bill’ said at a press conference, “It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again!” Sheriff Buffalo Bill then tucked his penis between his legs and tweaked his nipples for the remainder of the press briefing.

And do we truly appreciate the sheer fucked-up-edness of using water cannons on people who are protesting to protect water? What Federal Agency was behind this? Did they call in the Bureau of Irony Enforcement? What was the plan, was this psychological warfare, to hose the Native Americans until they say, “You know what? Fuck water. I’m going back to the casino. We have towels there, and our odds of winning are better.”

This is like, say, if there was a protest by PETA, and the police came to break it up by throwing cats at them. “This is a legal order to disperse!” Raawr! “You must leave the area immediately!” Mrowwl! “Sir, the protesters are deploying countermeasures, they have balls of yarn!” “Hmm...get me that big tomcat named Pepper, we’ll see how they like it when he sprays!”

This whole situation shows that we as a people can no longer effectively stop large, powerful corporations like the oil industry from doing whatever the hell they want to us and our land. They determine public policy, and they have lawmakers and law-enforcement to back them up. They aren’t even afraid of lawsuits and litigation from this tribe, and this tribe is called the Sue! Sure, they spell it ‘Sioux’, not ‘Sue’, but everybody knows the Sioux were the most litigious of all the tribes. The Apache were the most renowned warriors, but the Sioux were legendary litigators. Man, they were a formidable legal opponent. Their raiding party would ride silently into settlements under cover of the night, and as the settlers awoke, they would hit them all at once...with subpoenas.They were ruthless; issuing restraining orders, ‘cease and desist’ orders, and injunctions (I think that’s actually where the offensive slur injun comes from; injunction).

Then they would tie them up. In court. For years. Led by the great Sioux warrior, Red Tape. They still talk about the greatest Sioux leader, Chief Council, and his partner in the firm, Running Billable Hours. The Sioux were the tribe that successfully negotiated a class-action settlement against the Iroquois League over faulty tomahawks, and they are the tribe that got the zoning variance for the Grand Canyon. They were also, by most accounts, the nation’s first litigators to use peyote to consult a Spirit Guide during jury selection, but Alan Dershowitz later perfected the technique. It’s sad how little of this you learn in school these days.

But take heart! As I write this, an estimated 2,100 U.S. military veterans were bound for the frozen Standing Rock reservation to aid and support the Sioux and their allies battling the oil baron villains. Maybe I was wrong, it looks like there are a whole hell of a lot of Lone Rangers riding to the rescue. Of course, Tonto was really running the show.

If anyone was offended by any of this, please don’t Sioux me.

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