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being-worthy · 5 years ago

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The Last of Us Part II – Adding my two cents to the game

Just so we’re clear, let’s establish a few things first:

MAJOR TLOU II SPOILERS AHEAD!!

I also spoiled myself ahead because I needed to know what would happen to Joel and Ellie… and the ending as well.

I’ve played the first one. I liked how it ended and totally support the ending!

I haven’t played the 2nd part but I’m watching the playthrough on YouTube in small doses. My heart can’t take much of it at once lol (and being poor and paying of debt for a loved one is no fun because I don’t have much money to spend on myself).

Right now, I’m at the part where Joel goes with Ellie to the museum for her birthday – it’s so cute and fatherly and my heart can’t take how bittersweet this is …

The 2nd part was rushed and has some bugs that could’ve been avoided, whether you like it or not. That’s a fact and we’re here for the facts not the truth (if you want the truth join a philosophy course).

The parts with Abby are too long, more than what they should’ve been and her vengeance is 💩.

English is not being my first language but I do my best (that’s all I can do).

I’m listening to Bryan Adams and Richard Max while writing this because I’m still not over Joel…

You may voice your opinion but remember this is my space! Be respectful at all times and absolute no hate here!

The first part ended with Joel bringing an unconscious Ellie to the hospital where the last Fireflies are, she almost drowned and he had to perform CPR on her. He’s rendered unconscious too and wakes up on a hospital bed with Marlene and Ethan (the guy who hit Joel in the head with the butt of his rifle) in the room.

That’s when he starts asking where Ellie is and Marlene informs him that she’s not his problem anymore and being prepped for surgery. Here, we need to note the following things: Marlene had sworn to Ellie’s mother to protect and to keep her from harm’s way but TAKES the decision to practically sentence her to death and yeah, she gives a speech that it’s not easy for her either yada yada yada but it’s all bs. The reason why is because:

a) making a decision refers more to the process and is something that takes time, while taking a decision is the act of deciding something that happens in an instant. Ultimately, Marlene decides for HER!! What about ‘my body, my decision’? Or in this case ‘her body, her decision’? It doesn’t matter if it’s related to an abortion or having your skull opened, the same principle should be applied!

She even says to Joel ‘because this isn’t about me. Or even her. There is no other choice here’. – Firstly, there’s always another choice! Secondly, Joel replies to her saying ‘yeah, you keep telling yourself that bullshit’ and he’s right, it’s total and utter bullshit. Even later on, when he’s carrying Ellie into the parking lot (I believe it was a parking lot), he tells her ‘that ain’t for you to decide’. Again, he’s right. It isn’t Marlene’s decision nor his but Ellie is still unconscious, so what do you want to do? Let them butcher her open? He crossed with her through half the country and ended up caring profoundly for her – she became like a daughter to him. He doesn’t have an on and off switch to turn off his feelings towards Ellie. Moreover, do tell me, if you’d like a doctor or someone else TAKE such a decision for you, instead of waiting for you to wake up and then tell you about the procedure and what this will entail. I get freaking furious whenever someone takes a decision for me or without asking me first.

b) Neither she nor the doctor wait for Ellie to regain consciousness and since she’s unconscious, they see it as the perfect importunity to just go ahead and rummage in her brain to see if there’s something that could help them developing a vaccine or a cure.

c) That’s another thing. They had zero guarantees, not even a 0.1 percentage of probability that they’d find something – nothing, nada, zilch. Just a hunch and maybe in an apocalyptic world for some people this might be enough but then why not wait until she wakes up and tell her ‘we don’t know for sure if your immunity will help us finding a cure or a vaccine. So that’s why we need to open your skull and see what makes you immune which ultimately, will kill you’ (in some nicer words though lol). Because they know she might not fully agree with it and they give a sh*t about what she thinks/wants and have that narrow military/cult mindset of ‘a sacrifice for the greater good’ and/or wouldn’t care either way because she’s a kid. I’m no fan of sacrificing one or a dozen people to save billions. If we can’t save them all or at least try our damn hardest, then we’re doing something terribly wrong! Also, she’s a freaking kid!! She hasn’t seen much and has her whole life ahead, doesn’t matter if it’s in the apocalypse. The thought that they’re willing to sacrifice her, a kid, without batting an eye shows me that all Fireflies are terrorists.

d) Now to the doctor (the one with the scalpel) – according to the internet this guy was Abby’s father and his murder was why she tortured and slaughtered Joel. First things first, every doctor has to take on a Hippocratic oath. There are many different variations but they all come from an old one that states the following:

… I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.

I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly, I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness, I will guard my life and my art.

I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favour of such men as are engaged in this work.

Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.

… If I fulfil this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honoured with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.

The doctor doesn’t keep her from harm or injustice, he isn’t even there for her well-being, only to see how her brain ticks. So, that immense violation of his oath doesn’t make him a doctor anymore but a BUTCHER and don’t come to me with ‘but it’s the apocalypse or it’s for the greater good blah blah blah’, then how better are we compared to rapists and people who murder out of fun? If we throw our principles out of the window just because it’s the apocalypse and/or it’s for the greater good, then with all due respect we all should just go ahead and jump from a building and burn in hell.

e) I got to the part where Joel and Ellie went to the museum for her birthday and at the end there’s a graffiti that says ‘liars’ with the fireflies’ symbol above. Even at the end, their own members saw that they Fireflies were only a bunch full of hot air and nothing else. They ended up being terrorists and forgot what they once stood and fought for.

So, taking all this into consideration - who wouldn’t have saved her? And yes, Joel saves her out of selfishness, so what? True, that he didn’t tell her the truth either, but can you resent him for this? He’d have to tell her that Marlene betrayed her, betrayed her trust and her mother’s trust in her and was willing to let her die and let her body being violated (rape is not the only way to violate someone’s body – FYI). This would have impacted Ellie’s state of mind too. She’d have ended up resenting Marlene and the Fireflies or worse. She had gone through so much already and didn’t need more on her plate. So, he spared her that betrayal and resentment.

Now let’s talk a bit more about Joel. Joel is no saint or hero but no villain either. He’s just a man who was willing to doom the whole already-damned world to protect the girl he adopted. He does what he needs in order to survive but within some reason and hasn’t lost his humanity (it’s just deeply hidden in him), he’s a person trying to survive. He tortures people - yes, but only to get information and makes sure to end them quickly afterwards. I agree that one of the main things you’ve to do during such times, is to adapt or you’ll die or worse. In the 1st part he’s rough, tough, strong, stubborn, resilient, experienced in the world he lives in and wary of strangers (just remember that scene on the highway with the stranger pretending to be hurt and Joel knew from the moment he saw him that it was a trap), someone you don’t want to mess with, etc. On the other hand, there’s this other side of him where he teaches Ellie to swim, tries to joke with her, to play the guitar, takes her to beautiful places, he takes her to a museum with dinosaurs and stuff from space, that proves he’s capable for carrying deeply for someone, in this case Ellie, and don’t get me started on the gift he gives her when they’re in the space capsule (!!), and so on. Ellie and Joel have this great dynamic. Then in the 2nd part, they made him to be so trustworthy toward a young unknown girl, tells her even their REAL names, like he literally says ‘my name’s Joel and that’s my brother Tommy. We live further down’. Dude, why don’t you just go walking around with a banner around your neck stating who you are to the whole freaking world. At some point he even said the name of their home (Jackson)!’ - WHAT THE HOLY F*CK?! He even offered her to go with them and take her to their home and give her supplies. Then, even BLINDLY and WITHOUT ANY WARINESS follows her to a place with an unknown sized group, where he and Tommy don’t know anyone - HOLY FREAKING HELL?! It’s not like it could be a trap, I mean it’s completely normal that there are many survivors camping up in the mountains in the middle of a snow blizzard, it’s the perfect season for doing that ¬¬. We’re living in times were everyone is kind to each other… I just don’t get it. This behaviour change is too radical and old habits die hard, especially ones acquired and used for decades!! That’s a big flaw from Naughty Dog regarding Joel. They portrayed him as someone stupid (sorry Joel but it’s true), sloppy, too soft, etc. He’s older and fatherlier with Ellie all fine and good, but he’d still be very cautious toward outsiders, particularly when they outnumber him!! It’s true that at some point we’ll have to be more trustworthy toward others in order to try and reestablish society or something close to it but you’d still be wary and wouldn’t take them right to your home first thing!! I had also into consideration that they were being chased by a horde of runners and clickers and their options where limited but still!

In some games the death of an important and primary character is sometimes essential. TLOU II is one of them because this was necessary for Ellie to grown and learn more about herself, the world she lives in, among others but Joel deserved way better than what he got! I feel for Tommy too, he didn’t deserve to split up with Maria or lose an eye but I believe the reason as to why he became obsessed with avenging Joel was because he already thinks he failed him in the past already, either when Sarah died, or when he joined the Fireflies and Joel wasn’t happy about it, or when they blindly trusted Abby and her friends.

Before I start with Abby, we need to establish something else first: revenge is about retaliation; justice is about restoring balance. The motive of revenge has mostly to do with expressing rage, hatred, or spite. It’s a protest or payback, and its foremost intent is to harm. And because it’s so impassioned, it’s typically disproportionate to the original injury—meaning that it usually can’t be viewed as just. The punishment may fit the crime, but it’s often an exaggerated response to another’s perceived offense. Nevertheless, I do believe that justice comes from vengeance but that type of justice only breeds more vengeance, and this is what Abby essentially does, avenge her father (even though I believe he lost his way and became unscrupulous) and ends up being capable to live with herself with little to no trouble after what she did to Joel, after repeatedly hitting him over and over and over again with a golf club, and forcing Ellie to watch the last bit. Abby and a bunch of others, who were also aware of her secretive plans, travel thousands of miles just to find Joel and brutalise him and massacre him. That scene was really brutal. But at some point both Abby and Ellie have to realise that vengeance is not the answer and if everyone keeps coming back seeking vengeance, then they’ll move around in a vicious circle until someone decides to forgive because killing like this not only hurts themselves, but also those they love and love them.

I don’t see the WLF as a whole as someone who deserves sympathy. They’re quite similar to the Fireflies who maybe at some point had noble goals (or almost) but ended up strayed from their path. They loot and kill everyone they see, no questions asked (much like the police these days in our world), even if they’re just passing by and aren’t affiliated to any group and just want to survive.

The ending of TLOU II couldn’t have been better. Ellie was happy with Dina and the baby but deep down she knew she didn’t close the chapter with Joel’s murder. Abby, and knew that at some point, she’d have to revisit that part to close it entirely. Her leaving with Tommy was the right decision, even if Dina wouldn’t/couldn’t fully understand why and I feel sad for Maria too but I strongly believe that she’ll return - whether or not Dina will wait for her is another story.

This is all I’ve to add. I’ve been sitting her for about 5+ hours writing this because I wanted to put my perspective of this masterpiece out there and show people that the game is still great.

Let me know your thoughts!!

#the last of us #the last of us 2 #tlou #tlou2 #tlou2 spoilers #tlou joel #tlou ellie #the last of us 2 spoilers #joel miller #ellie williams #tlou abby

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tessatechaitea · 5 years ago

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Scarab #6

I don't know what's happening on this cover but I definitely have a new sexual fetish.

This comic book stars a raccoon. Rating: A+.

Most of the weird dialogue in this comic book probably comes from John Smith's high school notepads full of terrible poetry. I mean, this part about winter isn't too bad! I kind of like it. It's almost as if William Carlos Williams and H.P. Lovecraft were caught in a Star Trek transporter malfunction where their minds were melded but they had to overcome the horror of their new two-dicked physical existence to continue writing poetry. I knew John Smith was English from his previous work on 2000 A.D. and other British comic book periodicals but then he uses the phrase "Chinese whispers" in this issue and I think, "If I hadn't already known he was English from his previous work on 2000 A.D. and other British comic book periodicals, I'd now know he was English by his use of the phrase 'Chinese whispers.'" Here are some of the ideas John Smith throws into a two-page account of Scarab's recent adventures that he couldn't bother writing into full scripts but wanted everybody to know he thought up anyway: a television at the Waldorf haunted by the 20th Century, a pervert breaking the spirits of kids with his Zoo of Shame, The Phantom Barber stealing scalps from runway models, the world's sexiest man raped by Tarot cards, and the Electric Fetus Machine which manifests as a large organ whose music foments rebellion in fetuses. Is this how the British writers took over DC's adult comic books? By occluding our minds with so much random and weird pseudo-philosophical garbage that we couldn't think straight? Sure, I guess an Electric Fetus Machine sounds like a way better story than Batman beating The Riddler near to death. But is there really any substance there? I suppose there could be if the idea were fleshed out and some kind of theme built around the idea of fetuses rebelling. Maybe all of these ideas John Smith throws out are just a game of Chinese whispers where he takes, say, a story by John Barth from Lost in the Funhouse about the thoughts of a sperm considering how the race toward life is pointless and, maybe, they should all just give up, and he turns it into the Electric Fetus Machine so that when I read it, I don't instantly think, "Isn't this a John Barth story?" Instead, I think, "That's a better sounding story than the one where the guy is raped by the Three of Wands!"

Meanwhile, Scarab spends his downtime watching Eleanor turn into a Dr. Seuss tree. Or a mushroom cloud (because remember the theme established by the beginning quote and title?!).

Try to ignore Scarab's ass in the previous scan. It's phenomenal. If you're training to be a comic book artist, you need to spend a lot of time getting the ass right. And once you do, you'll never get an ass in pants right again because all you have ever learned to draw is a naked ass which readers will know is actually under skin tight Lycra unless the colorist completely shits the bed. The guy in the jar on the cover is a Russian experiment in psychotropic warfare called a Gloryboy. There are three of them and they're some kind of pacifist dream come true. They constantly mutter Vertigo phrases in a tonal frequency that makes normal people vomit and shit themselves. It's the Brown Note theory of winning battles but taken to the Vertigo extreme. Instead of a whomping bass sound system, the noise comes form a naked albino in a jar composed of dream matter. Maybe they're not composed of dream matter. And maybe they're not about pacifism at all. It seems they've been altered and experimented in such a way that they can give voice to "the Scream over Hiroshima!" That sounds pretty bad. It's probably some form of psychic bombardment, comparable to a nuclear blast, which drives everybody in the vicinity completely insane. Or maybe it really will just be a thing that pacifies everybody because have you ever tried to do anything while shitting yourself? I mean other than read the ingredients in your shampoo. And even then, I bet you take your eyes off the bottle for a moment to really be in the moment. As an aside, do women find shitting as enjoyable as men or is it just the fecal matter pressing up against our prostate as it passes that makes a big shit feel so good? The Russians test the Scream Over Hiroshima on London. What it does is project into the minds of everybody who hears it the entire reality of what happened in Hiroshima. It's the truth of war. It's pure horror and death and consequence. It probably also makes everybody shit themselves. But when it's done, they'll all understand, on a physically primal level what war is. And the assumption is that everybody will finally be against it, I guess? I've been on Twitter for many years and the one thing I know is that even physically experiencing the horrors of the bombing of Hiroshima isn't going to change the minds of most idiots. I mean, if you didn't become a vegan pacifist hug machine after hearing Sting's song, "Russians," why would you become one after living the horror of fifty thousand lives snuffed out in an instant?! Some people, you just can't reach. London turns into a burning chaotic mess as everybody flips the fuck out from suddenly experiencing the most painful thing they've ever experienced. Scarab arrives after it's all over and everybody is afraid of him. Surprise! There's nothing he can do. He just observes the mess and meets a psychic who tells him that Eleanor is coming back. And isn't that the most important part of this eight issue story? That Louis the Scarab's love returns to him while the rest of the world falls into death and chaos? Scarab #6 Rating: C. Smith seeded this issue with more story ideas than story. The main story is an idea that really goes nowhere as well. It's a thought experiment. It's a minor philosophical musing. And Scarab doesn't do anything but distract himself from his wife's condition. But it also wasn't uninteresting. So I think that means it's a C? What am I, a high school teacher? I don't know how to grade shit!

#Scarab #Vertigo #DC #DC Comics #John Smith #Scot Eaton #Hiroshima

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kieren-fucking-walker · 7 years ago

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DGHDA fucked me up (in the best way)

Okay, so there’s been something I wanted to say for a little while now in regards to DGHDA that I’ve struggled to put into words. I’m still struggling with that part so I’m hoping this makes sense in some kind of way but I want to say it because it’s something that’s important to me. You all know I’m great at dodging the emotional stuff, but here I am and you’re going to have to bear with me while I try to get this in order, (also I’m going to use too many commas, sorry). I’ll start with this:

Dirk Gently has changed the way I think about things, particularly about myself and the road I’m on right now.

My early twenties have been the time that my brain has decided to dredge up a ton of shit that I have been shoving away into a box in my head for years, and when I say years I mean like, going on eighteen years, maybe even longer, but young children don’t really have the ability to compartmentalise the way I’ve been doing. As you can imagine, the kind of stuff that you start shoving into mental boxes as a kid isn’t fun and I’m not going into any of that right now but I’m sure you all get the idea. It wasn’t good, it was systematic and it really fucked me up. Now, I’ve been to therapy for a lot of things regarding my mental health, anxiety being a major player there, I even trained as a therapist to see if it would help (it didn’t), but whenever someone even vaguely brings up the notion of PTSD I run in the other direction as fast as I can. Mentally, I’m not that fast physically because I haven’t been on a run since I was last made to in High School, it’s whatever. Point is that I’ve been dealing with trauma for a long, long time and I’ve been doing that by ignoring it, bad idea in case you were wondering, because my brain has had enough and has decided to shove me into that space that, quite frankly, terrifies me. I’m a methodical person, I like explanations and dealing with things in a logical way and when I can’t do that I freak the hell out and usually end up sabotaging myself. It’s cyclical behaviour that I’m trying to break.

What does this have to do with Dirk Gently? Here’s where I think you’re all going to start thinking I’m a bit weird, but hang in there. It’s less as what it has to do with Dirk Gently the show, but Dirk Gently the character, because let's face it, Dirk has a shit ton of issues he’s not dealing with very well at all. It’s something I latched on to in S1, but more so in S2 which if you’ve seen it you’ll understand why. One thing that becomes pretty impossible to ignore is that Dirk is dealing with trauma. Terrible things have happened to him and it obviously is something that’s difficult to deal with, but what strikes me most about Dirk is that while awful things have happened to him, he’s good and he’s kind and he doesn’t want to hurt anyone else. This is important.

This is important because for the longest time I didn’t even want to admit the trauma was there, let alone make a move to deal with it, all because of one simple message that you may not even know is consistently hammered home unless it affects you. That message is that trauma makes you a bad person. We hear it over and over again, that if you’re hurt you become a person who hurts others. It’s in the people who will excuse their own abuse because they were abused, like repeating a pattern of behaviour is something you can’t fight and having hands turned to you will inevitably turn your hand to someone else. It’s in every villains backstory that they had a sad and tragic childhood which explains and even sometimes excuses their behaviour. It’s in the way anger at what happened to you is seen as a bad thing, as proof that you’re going to do bad things. It’s in this constant ongoing rhetoric that anyone who has been traumatised will come out the other side spitting acid and wanting to watch the world burn, or that they’ll lock themselves away from anything and everyone and just live in their trauma forever. The options you’re given are violence, tragedy or death. Like one, multiple or ongoing traumatic incidents aren’t enough for you to have to live with but now it will take everything from you instead and you will become a person who incites trauma. I don’t want to be a bad person. I don’t want to hurt anyone. Every time I say or do something I have to run it over in my head to make sure I’m not being that trauma survivor who is hurting people without realising. I’m scared of being forced into hurting other people by this box of things I shoved away and filled to bursting over the years.

But Dirk Gently is none of those things. He isn’t bad and he isn’t violent, he isn’t out to hurt others even though some people would argue he has reason to. More important than that even is that this is the way he’s chosen to be. He may not have had a choice as to how that trauma affected him but he has a choice in how he responds to it, how much control it has over him as a person. It made him kind.

I want to be kind.

I want to have a choice as to what kind of person I’ll be despite the shit. Because trauma is shit, and it continues to be shit long after the events themselves have been left behind. It’s raw and cruel and unflinching, it hurts you and messes with your head and lies to you, it’s unrelenting and exhausting and violent. It makes you think that no matter what you do, you’ll be all of those things as well. But you won’t. You don’t have to be. Nobody has ever told me that before now, I’ve never seen it in a way I can relate to before.

“But he’s a fictional character!” Does it matter? Does it really matter where that message comes from? We’ve used stories to convey messages since before we even had a recognisable spoken language. We’ve used them for morals and fear and comfort, laughter and strength and hope, we’ve been doing that literally forever and I don’t see why the impact of that message would be taken away because now it isn’t told around an open fire as an epic poem, or discussed in some high brow literature class. The medium doesn’t matter, that’s kind of the beauty of art, you can send a message and tell a story with just about anything if you do it right. The characters may be fictional, but the messages aren’t, the impact isn’t. That shit is real, and it’s the kind of thing that people may not even know they’re doing when they make these things but that doesn’t lessen the impact of it at all.

I had a breakdown the other day, a good one, one I needed to have. The realisation that I can be traumatised and good, hurt and kind, that I don’t have to let any of that take away my choice as to who I want to be and who I can be may have been a long time coming, but this was the last push to get me to recognise that it isn’t just true for other people, it’s true for me too. It made me cry and I’m not a crier, but I felt a lot better for it.

Dirk Gently may not be real, but I am. He’s taught me to be brave, to not let any of the shit that comes before stop you from doing things in the present. That you can carry trauma with you but not let it weigh you down. I know that to some of you this will sound stupid, trust me I’ve heard “it’s just a story” since I learned how to read books and would constantly be found sobbing over the pages in the corner of the library, but anything can change you if you open yourself up to it. I had been desperate for something to make me feel like I wasn’t destined to be the next person who turns their own pain into violence, and I found it.

There’s a strength to being kind that you’ll never understand unless you’ve had to fight so hard to be that way. If you want to be the full stop in that cycle then you can be if you choose it. I’m choosing it. I’m really, really, really fucking scared by that, but I’m doing it anyway. Dirk Gently taught me that.

It’s okay to be changed by things that aren’t real. When you are, you make them real. That’s really the top and bottom of it.

You get to choose to be a good person. You get to fight for that. It doesn’t matter where the drive for that comes from, just that you let it in.

So I guess I’m going to go to therapy and start talking about my emotions with a stranger while I’m trapped in a room with them for an hour or so. I’m about as enthralled by that idea as Farah Black would be, but you know. I can do this. I can at least try to do this. Eff the ineffable and all that, right? Maybe I’ll start a jacket collection. Who am I kidding? I’m gay as fuck, I already have a jacket collection.

It’s going to be interesting, but it’s going to be good.

I’m going to be good.

(PS. My eternal thanks to Samuel Barnett for playing this character with such depth and integrity. I don’t know if this realisation would have struck me so hard in anybody else’s hands, but since I’m never going to know if that’s true or not I’m saying it is and in that case the credit is yours.)

(PPS. Don’t let this emotional outpouring fool you, I maintain my reputation as an irresponsible emotionless fool. Please humour me by pretending you don’t know I cry every time I see a cat.)

#long post #ugh emotions #but you know #important shit #dghda #trauma mention #way too deep guys #I'll get back to the shitposting now #(but seriously don't think you can't choose to be kind)#(it's all up to you)#love you losers #and with that in mind i guess it would be nice if you could #save dirk gently #you know #for the sake of my mental health #dghda meta

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radioleary-blog · 6 years ago

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When Chuck Norris Got Bullied, He Called Evel Knievel

I simply can’t keep up with all the crazy things the Trump administration has been up to this past week. He’s only been President for two weeks and he has caused more protests than we have seen in this country since the ending of the last episode of ‘The Sopranos.’ Seriously, after eight seasons, how dare they just cut to black as the Sopranos are sitting there in a pizza joint? If I wanted to decide for myself what happens to Tony and Carmella, I wouldn’t have paid for eight years of HBO. I’m certainly not paying for HBO because of the incredible selection of the same dozen movies they run over and over again until you know every line of dialogue between John McClane and Hans Gruber. You know what? Rather than invent examples, I’ll just grab the remote and check what’s on HBO right now. I have the whole package (if you know what I mean), so I’m sure there are some real cinematic masterpieces. Let’s see...okay, here we go. ‘The Princess Diaries’, from 2001. ‘The Bonfire of the Vanities,’1990, followed by ‘Problem Child 2’, 1991. Then ‘King Ralph,’ ‘Sixteen Candles,’ ‘Wall Street,’ ‘Blues Brothers 2000,’ ‘Demolition Man,’ ‘Point Break,’ and ‘Panic Room.’ Wow, cancel all my appointments! I know what I’m doing for the next 18 hours! Screw the Superbowl, I’ll be watching Charlie Sheen before Aids, Wesley Snipes before prison, and Jodie Foster before she came out of the panic room closet. And luckily, I have HBO West, so I get to watch them all over again three hours later in case I missed something the first ten times. Are you kidding me? These are all movies I would gladly pay fifty bucks a month to avoid.

This week Trump pulled more crazy stunts than anyone since Evel Knievel built a rocketship to jump over the Snake River Canyon. And we all know how great that turned out. There are parallels between Evel Knievel and Donald Trump, I guess. Trump wants to build an enormous wall in the desert, Evel Knievel built an enormous ramp in the desert. Of course, the ramp was built to get you across a river, and the wall will be built to stop you from getting across a river, but, whatever. When Evel Knievel appeared somewhere, the crowds would all shout “Evel!”, and whenever Trump appears somewhere, the crowds all shout “Evil!” Kind of similar, but again, whatever. People watched in horror as Evel Knievel’s motorcycle crashed during a jump, on a bus, and people listened in horror as Trump was recorded talking about grabbing pussy, on a bus. Both were consummate showmen, both were thin-skinned, angry, and hated critics. Both were constantly feuding with the media even as they fed off it. But Trump’s approval rating is falling faster than Evel’s rocket-motorcycle fell into that canyon. And that’s as close as Evel Knievel ever came to jumping a shark, yet Donald Trump may have already jumped the shark. Evel Knievel survived that crash on September 8, 1974, simply because he was as badass as they get. It takes a lot more than jumping a mile-wide chasm in a homemade steam-powered rocket-motorcycle and plummeting a thousand feet into a river canyon to kill Evel Knievel. He was old school tough. I watched this guy crash, hitting his landing ramp too fast after jumping 13 double-decker busses in Wembley Stadium, and he hit the ground at 70mph, so hard it would make crash-test dummies weep, tumbling on the tarmac like a sweater in the dryer. He broke his pelvis, collarbone, some ribs and vertebrae. And you know what he did? No, of course you don’t, you’re less than a hundred years old. Well, I’ll tell ya what he did. He got up. He got to his feet, broken pelvis and all, and walked over to the microphone and told the crowd he was retiring. He was in shock, and ABC broadcaster Frank Gifford was begging him on-air to let the paramedics put him on a stretcher and in an ambulance, but Evel Knievel just turned and walked off the Wembley field, saying, “I came in walking, I went out walking!” It does not get more badass than that. Evel Knievel makes Clint Eastwood look like Jay Baruchel. He makes Vin Diesel look like Shia LaBeouf. Over his entire career, he spent more than 3 years in a hospital due to traumatic injuries from his jumps! And although Evel Knievel didn’t actually break "every bone in his body," as legend had it, the truth is he suffered 433 broken bones during his career. He is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the survivor of the most bones broken in a lifetime.

He was so tough, when Chuck Norris got bullied, he called Evel Knievel.

But as I say, I’m having trouble just keeping up with all the blunders of the Trump administration this past week, far more than any other President screwed up in their entire first term. I think in the four years Jimmy Carter was President, the worst thing he ever did was one time he went fishing, and he whacked a rabbit that was trying to climb into his canoe. With a paddle, I mean, he didn’t have it whacked like a mob hit. Ah, simpler times, when presidential scandals were as wholesome as fishin’ and whackin’ rabbits with a paddle. Now it’s all about pussy grabbin’, golden showers, and whackin’ something else entirely.

I just can’t write fast enough to keep up. To write down all of Trump’s bullshit this week, I would have to type faster than a court stenographer taking down the testimony of Busta Rhymes being sued by an auctioneer. (For you old people: Busta Rhymes talks really fast. For you young people: auctioneers talk really fast.) I would have to type faster than Stephen King cranking out schlocky horror novels, although I think Trump is a hell of a lot scarier. Like a Stephen King novel, Trump was elected by states populated by the ‘Children of the Corn,’ and now we’re all in ‘Misery.’ In Ronald Reagan's farewell address from the Oval Office, he called America “the shining city on hill”, but after only two weeks of Trump, it’s starting to look more like just ‘The Shining.’ And President Obama’s term in office is over, so just like in ‘The Shining,’ things get really crazy after the black guy retires.

Speaking of horror movies brought to life, his cabinet picks are all being confirmed, and it looks less like the cabinet of a President, and more like ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.’ Rex Tillerson, former CEO of Exxon/Mobil is now the Secretary of State. The State Department is busy preparing for his arrival by making sure all the bathrooms are just as disgustingly filthy as the bathrooms at every Exxon/Mobil gas station. Diplomats received an inter-office memo instructing them not to flush until further notice, and to no longer worry about their aim. To add authenticity, all of the bathrooms will also be kept locked with only one key for the entire building, and the key will be attached to a hubcap from a late-model Buick LeSabre to make sure no one walks off with it.

So what did Trump do this week? Well, at a Black History Month prayer breakfast, Trump seemed to think the famous orator and abolitionist Frederick Douglass was alive and well. Which may come as a shock to his family, seeing as he died in 1895. Well, not his family, so much, but his descendants might be pretty freaked out to know he walks among the living. Frederick Douglass would probably be a very eloquent zombie. He could probably convince you to agree to let him eat your brains as reparations for slavery. I remember his famous quote, “Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, so how’s about you let me eat your brains?” Or this insightful quote they taught us in school, “No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck. Now let me eat your brains, seriously.”

When asked about Douglass, Trump said, “Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice.” Yeah, he’s getting recognized more and more, Mr. President, and you noticed. Nothing gets by you, does it? I think he might just win this season of Celebrity Apprentice, if that scheming Harriet Tubman doesn’t call him out in the boardroom for being a lousy project manager. Harriet Tubman was like the Omarosa of the underground railroad, and putting her face on the twenty-dollar bill will only feed her ego and make her even more insufferable to be around. “Let me get the tip, but all I have are twenties...Anybody got change for a ‘me’?” I wondered how any U.S. President could be quite this stupid, then I realized he must have learned everything he knows about black history from his Education Secretary pick, Betsy DeVos. Now, I’m not saying Betsy DeVos is an idiot and far too unqualified to run our nation’s public schools. I’m not saying it, I’m typing it. She knows nothing about our education system.

Betsy DeVos is so stupid, she thinks a ‘scholarship’ is a boat full of smart people.

Betsy DeVos is so stupid, she thinks ‘trigonometry’ is the study of firing guns.

Betsy DeVos is so stupid, she thinks that ‘tuition’ is when a woman gets a hunch about something.

Betsy DeVos is so stupid, she thinks ‘Tufts University’ is where you learn to cut hair.

Betsy DeVos is so stupid, she thinks ‘Tulane University’ is on a highway.

Betsy DeVos is so stupid, she thinks ‘Loyola’ is where they make all those crayons.

Betsy DeVos is so stupid, she thinks a ‘Bachelor of Arts’ is a gay male dancer.

Apart from Trump providing a perfect example of why we actually need Black History Month, he upped the crazy ante at this prayer breakfast when he started ranting about the ratings on his old TV show, from which he was fired for being a racist. "They hired a big, big movie star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to take my place...The ratings went down the tubes. It's been a total disaster...And I want to just pray for Arnold, if we can, for those ratings." WTF? Somebody tell this guy he’s supposed to be worrying about the really big things now, like war, and comets, and aliens, and climate change, and everything else that can possibly go wrong. But instead he is worrying about his old TV show? Snap out of it, man, you’re on a new reality show now, it’s called ‘Celebrity President.’ And this first season sucks. And your ratings are awful. How the hell did we end up with a President who is in bed with Russia but at war with NBC? Franklin Roosevelt will always be remembered for winning the war against the Nazis and the Japanese, and Donald Trump will always be remembered for losing the war against Saturday Night Live. I think it was a racist thing to do, actually, to pray for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ratings at a Black History prayer breakfast instead of any number of African-Americans who lost their lives in the past year. Frankly, I think he brought up Schwarzenegger because he knew the only way he could use the n-word was by putting “Schwarzen” in front of it.

And another scary development, two weeks into Trump's presidency and Republicans have given the mentally ill easier access to guns, as they voted to overturn an Obama administration law that blocked people with mental disorders from buying guns. Wow. Talk about playing to your base.

What else. Oh yeah, he threatened to invade Mexico, probably worth mentioning that. Nothing like a military invasion to teach people to respect borders. I guess his next move will be to annex the Sudetenland.

Strangest of all, Trump somehow managed to get into a fight with one of our staunchest allies, Australia. Australia! How do you manage to piss off Australia? For God’s sake, their national motto is “No Worries.” Trump was upset that President Obama had agreed to take 1,200 refugees that Australia had been detaining. Trump called it the “worst deal ever!” The worst deal ever? I don’t think it really approaches the level of worst deal ever, not even on a personal level. I once paid 60 bucks for an eighth of mediocre weed, and that was in the 1990s! I couldn’t even enjoy it because I paid so much. And because it was shitty weed. The Brown Frown.

Worst deal ever? How about when we bought Manhattan from the Indians for 24 bucks? That’s a pretty bad deal. Is it still okay to say Indians? Probably not, unless you’re talking about motorcycles or Cleveland’s baseball team, so, Native Americans it is. Although, for my own education I looked into this, and some people prefer to be called American Indian over Native American. One Lakota man from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation said recently, "If some Indians want to be called Native Americans or Natives, let them be called that, but I was born an Indian and I shall die an Indian.” That sounds so cool the way he says it. I bet it sounds less impressive when you describe comics that way. “If some Comics want to be called Stand-up Comics or Comedians, let them be called that, but I was born a Hack, and I shall die a Hack.” No, I was wrong, it still sounds pretty cool.

Trump should consider himself very lucky that bad deal went down. Just imagine, if they hadn’t made that bad deal, the Native Americans would have been the real estate developers in Manhattan instead of Donald Trump’s dad. And he never would have gotten rich, and never would have become President. Whoa. It’s a revenge curse! President Trump is our payback for ripping off those Indians! I haven’t seen a revenge curse this bad since Craig T. Nelson built his house on a sacred burial ground in ‘Poltergeist’! Of course, the real difference between Native American real estate developers and Donald Trump is that the Native American casinos don’t go bankrupt.

Hey, here’s a really bad deal, how about all the people who paid to enroll in Trump University? Now that might be the “worst deal ever.” So bad that Trump agreed to pay a 25 million dollar settlement to avoid a trial and charges of fraud. Although, in all fairness to Trump, by paying out that 25 million, he actually did make those students wealthy like he promised, all it took was a class action lawsuit against him. Clever move, Mr. Trump. Bravo.

And that is the week that was.

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