#gorn? fuck em

[spirkbitch]

snw could be so good if they just accepted their role as a prequel

[lenin-it-to-win-it]

(cursed) lyrics below the cut

[Verse 1]

I make first contact But I always cum last Warp drive 69 I hit and quit fast

On a five year mission And it's searching for the clitoris On every single species I got on my checklist

I'm always fiending For sex with an alien I'll take what I can get Honey, Romulan or Mexican

Fucked a Klingon once Got my dick infected She said "Violate this pussy Like the Prime Directive"

I was like "Hell yeah, When you put it that way!" And that's how my ass Wound up in the sickbay

Bones wasn't happy But that man never is I only see him smile When he's tasting Spock's jizz

The hate sex goes stupid Arguments get 'em hard They snatch each other's weaves Look like Jean-Luc Picard

I'm like, "Gentlemen, please, Can we calm down a hair?" Then they both give me head In the captain's chair.

[Chorus]

To boldly hoe Like no man has hoed before To boldly hoe Drop my clothes down to the floor

To boldly hoe Captain of the Enterprise To boldly hoe Pussies drip when I enter thighs

[Verse 2]

Photon torpedo shaft Hairy balls like tribbles Bite marks on my chest Cuz my nipples get nibbles

My tits are so lit And my booty's so fine I can make you act a fool In every timeline

I'm talking TOS, AOS, Take me to your home address Tear my panties, make a mess Am I horny? Take a guess

My big fat ass Could make a Vulcan act illogical Put my dick up to their lips They'll lick it like a popsicle

But with a G-string on Spock plays me like a lute He spread my asscheeks wide Like a Vulcan salute

That man got me pregnant Now we're buying a cradle His dad's heart stopped Like on the Journey to Babel

Now that I'm a father I gotta learn and grow I've got better things to do Than to boldly hoe

[Chorus]

To boldly hoe Like no man has hoed before To boldly hoe But I've got a family to care for

To boldly hoe Captain of the Enterprise To boldly hoe I learned that love is the real prize

[Spoken interlude]

Spock: Captain, have you considered the logic of having a space abortion? Kirk: Mr. Spock, you're a genius! We're so back!

[Bridge]

No more responsibility To get trapped in I'll run this bridge Cuz I'm the motherfucking captain

I'll go down on T'Pau I'll make porn with the Gorn I'll slay on the mic Like I slay the unborn

The baby shower's canceled So save your congrats There's only one thing I wanna do now and that's--

[Chorus]

To boldly hoe Like no man has hoed before To boldly hoe Blast loads until my balls are sore

To boldly hoe Captain of the Enterprise To boldly hoe I'll smile when that fetus dies!

[simptasia]

people looking down on the horror genre is exactly why for years i thought the saw franchise was just mindless torture gorn. until i watched ‘em and not only did it turn out good, these movies are like some dramatic soap opera with complex continuity, twists and turns, and editing that fucks

and gorn

[thelaststarship]

strange new worlds is totally gonna make the gorn look like this and it’s gonna be fucking sick

[ceasarslegion]

There are so many things about this image i like. He cut out every member of the TOS crew individually instead of getting a group shot and put himself front and center. A couple of mirrorverse guys are just chilling behind them. The ground is made up of like, 3 .PNGs of tribbles copied 500 times. The shitty kids birthday party 55 balloons. The disc section of the original Enterprise is just there in front of them when he put every other major ship and DS9 in the background. The Gorn has the same energy as the had to do it to em meme. It's all cut out in photoshop so sloppily that you can see the wildly different image resolutions and the weird blue border around them.

And he fucking watermarked his twitter into it

[worfs-fabulous-hair]

Star trek the original series spoilers !

Also sorry to anyone who doesn't like that I'm pretty much spamming the star trek tag with my posts, I am but a sickly person with to much time on my hands.

Series I'm currently on : TOS

Episodes watched: 01x18 - 01x20

Episode names:

Arena

Tomorrow is Yesterday

Court Martial

Thoughts:

Arena

The entire landing party have the monologue of " why can't I just have one nice thing " when they find out that outpost has been destroyed

Oof the red shirt already died and it's been less than 5 minutes

Jim almost gets blown up by the small bombs that are being thrown at them and the way he falls afterwards is hilarious

Your telling me this man has been severely injured since yesterday afternoon but will conveniently die half an hour of you finding him if you can't get him to sick bay

Oh Jesus Christ what kind of canon bombs do star fleet just keep around that to that shit

This man just yelling "why " at Jim fully expecting a real response , and is not taking " I don't know why do you think I'm asking you questions" as an answer

" I don't think that we should do that James " Spock never calls him James you know it's serious now

The ship their chasing full stops without warning Jim goes " oh yeah boy we got 'em " and then has the audacity to be surprised when the same thing happens to the enterprise

Also I almost go flying when my parents hit the breaks hard in a car I'd assume that with a full stop from warp seven everyone on the ship would go flying from one end of whatever room they're in to the other

More disembodied God like beings fucking with the enterprise

Yo it's the lizard guy , I know this episode now, last time I saw it I was like 10

Slowly and over dramatic punches , kicks and throwing of objects and the other person

The gorn after hearing Jim complement him through the devices they were given :

Kirk's out here pulling some elaborate tom and Jerry shit

So is the lizard boi apparently

Jim just shoved a hand into a pile of dust he found and then stuck it in his mouth another thing that star fleet officers need to stop doing

The ship now has a live feed, the disembodied God like beings also told them " ya boi is losing prepare him a funeral "

The ship crew is commentating on what Jim is doing like people do with shows and horror movies like "turn around bitch "

I think Jim's making a bomb

Space Twink shows up when Jim decides not to kill the gorn

Like -

Space Twink (this was one of the disembodied God like beings)

Now their suddenly across the galaxy from where they were and the episode ends there with them on their way back to the outpost from the beginning

Other episodes under the cut

Tomorrow is Yesterday

1960s air force , if they went back to the past in this episode then I want to know how many times these guys end up going back in time

Yup they got shot into the past

They kidnapped an air force pilot

Every time they find military people they always go see a woman officer and lose their minds , it's so funny to me

" we might have to kill this man , he knows to much "

An all woman planet sounds dope , they also apparently changed the computer to be extremely affectionate and giggle every once and a while

Imagine getting kidnapped from people from the future and when you tell them that them taking you may change the course of history they hit you with a " they didn't make any significant contributions in their life"

The pilot tried to escape , Jim knocked him out

" you did nothing significant but your son who hasn't been born yet on the other hand "

My favorite past time , breaking into government buildings in order to steal documents . (For all legal purposes this is a joke )

" hand me your belts "

This man's fucking face when he gets beamed aboard cause he took one of the communicators , and his stance with the gun is the best

(it won't rotate help )

More fights between Kirk and air force officers , he whole ass threw them in a corner and then frog jumped on them

Jim has been arrested and is being questioned

While pointing the end of a phaser that was just set to kill towards their face " what is this thing what happens if we push these buttons "

They've been betrayed by the man that they kidnapped

He's been rekidnapped

We're going straight into the sun baby

The air force officers have been unkidnapped and don't remember anything

They are back to their proper time

Court Martial

We're supposed to believe that this woman who looks like she's in her 30s is a teenage girl that is the daughter of the singular crew member to die during the last mission

Also her costume looks cool but just not on her if that makes sense

So they think that Kirk wanted this guy to purposely die ???

I know that captain Kirk is being accused of purposeful negligence resulting in death because of possible grudges but he's being really theatric in everything he's saying

You show up to court and it's your ex girlfriend trying to prove your guilty

Spock master of sass

I like how everyone in star fleet has serial numbers

Surveillance footage

"see this man that was not looking down at the buttons pressed the button that was right next to the button he wanted to press , see he did it on purpose !"

The guy is going to be alive and this is all going to be some big plot huh ?

Spock plays chess with the computer and realizes that there is a bug in the computer

I was right ! This guy faked his own death because he hated Jim that much

Yeah he looks as creepy as I thought he would

Imagine holding a grudge against someone for over 10 years cause someone pointed out that you made a mistake that could have killed everyone around you

Kirk once again wrestling someone with torn clothing

"I messed up the engine you're all going to die " "your daughter is on board the ship " " oh shit let's fix this bitch "

Everyone pretending not to be staring at Jim having a moment with his ex girlfriend

[mirrorfalls]

Lego Liveblogs ST: TOS, part 18 (of who-the-hell-knows-how-many?)

The Squire of Gothos - another one I know a little of by reputation. Allegedly the antagonist is just going to be a retread of the Talosians with 150% more mustache-twirling evil, but who knows, assumptions are made to be broken...

* Wow, this guy cuts to the chase. Can’t even wait for them to actually land on his planet. * Someone seems to like the Captain’s chair. * “Atmosphere exactly the same as ours”? That stuff about toxic storms and volcanos were just faulty readings, then? * Aw, you were doing so well, episode! Why go and remind me of The Man Trap? * ... well, this is just lame. Batman was doing better Sci-Fi Paralysis than this! * On the bright side, I see my concerns about the titular Squire were unfounded. He’s distinct from all the other Untrustworthy Advanced Aliens we’ve seen so far, in that he likes humans... for all the wrong reasons. There’s something infectiously likable about him. ** Yes, even when he’s being racist, Failing Biology Forever (“Do you know that [humans are] one of the few predator species that preys even on itself?”) disintegrating stuff for kicks, and teleporting Kirk into the middle of a volcanic hellscape. *** Speaking of which, glad we got the atmosphere bit, ahem, cleared up. * The Spock-Scotty dynamic’s a lot gloomier here than it was in The Galileo Seven. Lost your faith after the two casualties on Taurus, Mr. Scott? * Kirk, a little deception would probably help you here. Why not just tell him that if he lets you go, soon enough there’ll be another ship passing along? * “WoMeN?” * Very nice, Spock. ** But a wasted effort, since we’re not even at the second ad break yet. * And now they’re fighting over Kirk. Charming, charming... * Y’know, that’d be one fun Redshirt death: didn’t get out of the Captain’s chair in time. * I know it’s bottom-of-the-barrel lazy on the face of it, but I kinda like how he drags them all back to his chateau with zero and effects and zero cue - just a big smash-cut to emphasize nobody on the bridge got any warning. * And hey, Uhura gets to come along for a change! What shenanigans will she- ** Uhhh. Moving on... ** (The dates might not match up exactly, but I get the feeling this was the exact moment Nichelle Nichols decided she was Done and had to get begged back by Martin Luther King of all people.) * Now this is what I like from my Trek: the heroes logically piecing together a way to outmaneuver their Godlike adversary- ** -that just happens to need Kirk to pick a fight with him and hope he won’t respond with instant vaporization! ** [Yadda yadda yadda Hamilton joke here] * But seriously, this is just grounded enough that it comes off as a genuine gamble instead of a harebrained non-plan that only works because of the heroes’ Plot Armor. Historically speaking, most pistol duels were chest-beating bits to show you cared enough about something to theoretically risk your life; the ones where the duelists actually hated each other enough to kill were a minority. ** That said wouldn’t it have been Dope if the Squire was into late-20th/early-21st century Earth culture instead and insisted on Another Kind of Dueling * Sadly, we’ve got a whole ‘nother act to go, so Kirk’s stunt was, by and large, in vain. * Calling it now: they’re gonna pull a Corbomite Maneuver and say the entire planet is essentially the Squire’s ship. * Oh Jesus, three court plots in four episodes? ** Oh, it’s over. Phew. * Kirk’s next trick: convince the sociopathic (demi)godlike alien to hunt him and him alone for sport! Well, they can’t all be winners - but this is legitimately the most selfless thing he’s done so far, so he gets full Hero Points. * Well, I see we’re skipping any attempt at cat-and-mouse. Fine, go straight to the resolution. How’s Kirk gonna get himself out of- ** For fuck’s sake. *** We’re recycling the “his parents come to pick him up” resolution? Really? **** For one shining second, I’d actually hoped this was Spock and Uhura projecting their voices down behind some cheap effects and just pretending to be his parents. It might not have worked in the long run, but it might’ve at least bought ‘em time to beam Kirk back up... **** But no. Another Deus ex machina and ‘hur hur hur Spock’s such an inhuman weirdo!’ carries the day.

Inna final analysis, it’s part The Cage, part Shore Leave, part Charlie X - and winds up being leaps and bounds more enjoyable than any of them, even if it does stumble and faceplant at the finish line. A lot of that is up to the Squire’s actor William Campbell, whose playful malice would be right at home in ‘66 Gotham, but purely at a script level this is a nothing-makes-sense plot done right. The setting’s rules and tone are constantly shifting, but there’s a steady enough sense of rising action that you trust it’s going somewhere.

Pity the destination couldn’t live up to the journey, but hey - that’s showbiz.

Next: Release... the Gorn.

[ashnadir]

alessafalling‌:

“So fucking slow.” she agrees under her breath, not appreciating the reminder. No matter what he said however she had already decided not to snap at Iann. She’d been in the middle of a in house fight during her first venture into these pockets. She refused to be to be stupid enough to fight with her only ally. 

Essie watched with apprehension as the guard creatures tore into their meal. Looking away when it got too gross for her stomach to handle. Pressing her lips together and instead looking at the side of Ianns face, trying to focus on the shape of his ear to settle herself. 

Focusing back in when he looked at her she gives him an incredulous look. “Why am I always the distraction? What happens when they catch me and I’m too weak to fight em off?” she snaps almost angrily, cringing at herself and flattening her body against the wall for a moment. “This is an awful plan.” she says weakly unfurling her wings despite her words.

“If I get eaten you follow the return address on those books and you tell my dad in person.” she says to Iann seriously. She raises a hand and pushes Ianns shoulder to indicate to him into the space behind where the door will swing open, her face pale but set in stone. She might be annoyed but she was also very definitely scared. “This is an awful idea.” she mutters again before standing up fully and battering the door window with her small fist yanking the thing open.

“Fresh meat?!” No matter her resolve, somehow her words came out as if it were a question. As soon as their crusty eyes turned in her direction she was off like a shot.

It was horrendous.  Iann was no stranger to gore; often being the cause of gory results himself, but he could justify it in clinical terms.  What he did was in the name of research, or investigation, or the process of knowing, or good old-fashioned harvesting for trade or re-sale.  Gore that was based on carnal or mindless wanton destruction, that was vicious and cruel and either took delight in it or couldn’t care less either way - that still chilled Iann to the bone.  He saw it often enough, but he’d never be desensitized to it.

Still, he couldn’t help giving Essie a sweaty crooked grin when she protested about being the distraction.  Clearly it wasn’t the first time for her.  “It’s a pecking order,” he said, not exactly trying to lighten the mood but at least trying to bring some irreverence into the grim situation. “Usually I’m the bait because everyone else is stronger or more powerful than me.  But you’re lighter and cuter.  And cute things always make the best distractions.”

He tapped her rifle.  “You’re handy with it, I’m sure you’ll manage.”  The monsters looked quite lumbering, reminding Iann absurdly of an old episode of the original Star Trek.  The gorn, clumsily swinging at Captain Kirk.  

Nodding, Iann gave her a salute of acknowledgement.  “Your pops could probably kick my ass to Timbuktu - so do me a solid and don’t die, huh?”  

He scarpered to the edge of the cubicle’s perimeter, keeping himself out of sight when Essie caught their attention in the most marvelous way.  If she was wearing a skirt and dancing a hula, she couldn’t have grabbed their attention any better.  

With a monstrous roar, drool and viscous blood dripping from their powerful jaws, the ‘guards’ clambered after Essie, their heavy footsteps echoing down the hall.  Iann squeezed into the cubicle quickly and looked around.  The gate controls looked partially destroyed, and the intercom was ripped out of its casing.  Paper didn’t seem to exist in this world; instead everything was written on what looked like onion-skin-plastic, like cloudy old transparencies used in school projectors.  Not that it mattered; the language written on it was indecipherable.

“C’mon, floor plan, floor plan!  There’s gotta be one--”  And finally he found it, covered in what looked like blood and pus.  Or piss.  God; Iann hoped it was pus, as he mopped it off with his handkerchief.

In the meantime, as Essie flew to distract the guards, Avi sudden’y appeared in front of her and pointed firmly upwards - into an open ventilation shaft.  He looked stern, urgent, and he nimbly hopped up into it himself.

in-prisoned || essie & iann

[radioleary-blog]

Donald Trump vs. Herbert Hoover vs. Back to The Future Part III

Okay, he’s the worst ever. President Trump is the worst President we’ve ever had, in my lifetime at least. To find a President that could even compete with Trump for the title of worst President ever, you’d have to get in a time-traveling Delorean and go back about a century. But I wouldn’t recommend you do that, some say that time-traveling in a car powered by a flux capacitor can possibly lead to Parkinson’s disease, especially if you do it for three movies. But the evidence for that is...shaky. Hey, why did those ‘Back To The Future’ films successively get so much worse? Couldn’t producer Robert Zemeckis just get in the Delorean and go forward in time to read the godawful reviews? If only Biff Tannen had stolen a movie guide instead of a sports almanac, he could have saved Universal Studios the 40 million dollars it spent making ‘Back To The Future Part III’. Wow, what a disaster! You know, I recently saw an ad for some network TV show where a team of intrepid multi-culti adventurers go back in time to save the Hindenburg from exploding, but I think ‘Back To The Future III’ may have been the bigger disaster. Yes, the Hindenburg was terrible, sure, but it all happened pretty quick. Whereas ‘Back To The Future III’ has a running time of two hours! Two hours of watching Teen Wolf and the stoner from Taxi yuk it up in the old West. “Oh, the inanity!”

You probably don’t even remember the movie. That's understandable, it’s a normal human response to block out cinematic traumas like that. To access those repressed bad-movie memories you’d need years of psychotherapy and hypnotic regression. Or basic cable. First of all, who would take a time machine and go back to the Old West? Nobody in their right mind, that’s who. Not even Dr. Who. It was about as bad a place and time as there was. All you could get in the Old West was syphilis or a gunshot wound. The Old West was even worse than Kanye West, he’d probably only give you one of those things.

If you could time travel to the far off future, why would you go back and watch a prospector fall down an abandoned mineshaft? You can watch Leonardo da Vinci paint the Mona Lisa, or you could go watch two drunk cowboys shoot each other for cheating at cards. Actually, that still happens quite often. No time travel necessary, just a bus ticket to Reno.

That’s why I don’t get this Westworld. That’s the place you want to re-create and populate with robots? I could think of dozens of better robot theme parks. Here’s one, how about Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion circa 1974? Hanging out with James Caan, a metric ton of cocaine, and every aspiring centerfold on the west coast sounds like a lot more fun than sitting in the middle of a train robbery shoot-out. Where am I, Chicago? But that’s just me, I guess.  Want another great robot idea? How about a robot theme park of the cast of Seinfeld. That would be awesome! I would so go, we’d all go! And they’d all be there, not just Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine, but everybody. Mr. Pitt. Tim Watley. Jackie Chiles, Lloyd Braun, Kenny Bania, and of course, Uncle Leo. The bubble boy and Izzy Mandelbaum. “Mandelbaum! Mandelbaum!” Let me know when they build it and I will date the robot Sue Ellen Mischke, the bra-less woman who caused a car accident. She may not be real, but they’re spectacular! Serenity now!

But I digress.

As I was saying, no one would time travel to the Old West.

If somebody actually had a time machine, the conversation would go something like this: “Hey, I have this time machine, and it’s all gassed up with bananas peels and deadly radiation or whatever the hell it runs on, where do you think we should go?”

“We can go anywhere in time? How about we check out a Jimi Hendrix concert! Let’s go see Jimi’s legendary set at Woodstock! Or the Fillmore East, 1970, that’s maybe his best concert ever! C’mon! Hendrix!! Either that or maybe we go back in time and check out Jesus! I’d be cool with that, too, either Jesus or Jimi Hendrix! Which one do you want to go see?”

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’m worthy to be in the presence of God. So let’s go see Jesus.”

The amazing things you could see with a time machine would blow your mind. You could go see the Great Pyramids of Giza when they were brand new, and still under warrantee. Back when they still had that new Pyramid smell. The Pyramids don’t smell so good today, now the place really Sphynx. That joke never gets old, right? Don’t Tut-Tut me. It’s like they say, mo’ mummy mo’ problems.

You could go back and see who built Stonehenge...the Druids? The Picts? Or was Stonehenge a natural formation, like the face on Mars, and Mount Rushmore.

You could go back in time to see the dinosaurs just before the comet hit, and watch them climb into their dinosaur space-ships and fly off to populate other worlds. The dinosaurs that stayed behind were either wiped out or forced to live underground, until they were discovered by Marshall, Will, and Holly on Saturday mornings in the Land of The Lost.

The spacefaring dinosaurs, over millions of years, eventually became the Gorn, a very tough race of outer-space reptilians. But they got their lizard asses kicked in about 40 minutes by Captain James Tiberius Kirk, and single-handedly. You can say what you want about William Shatner being a complete diva and an asshole to work with, but the man kicked ass and saved the galaxy about a hundred times, and he did it all without a raccoon. As far as I’m concerned, Captain Kirk earned the right to cut scenes from the other cast members just to pad his own lines. Live long and fuck ‘em.

But I digress. I really, really digressed.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, this damn Back to The Future III, it’s kind of haunting me, how bad this movie is. It’s a shame the time-travelers from that TV show couldn’t go back in time and save the time-traveler’s movie franchise. And what is it with time-travel being so popular on television all of a sudden? When did that happen? On TV right now, there is the time-travel show I was talking about, NBC’s Travelers. Also, Fox has Making History, Hulu has 11.22.63, The CW has Legends of Tomorrow, Syfy has 12 Monkeys, and Comedy Central has Time Traveling Bong. And I already mentioned BBC’s Dr. Who. That’s a whole lot of time travel goin’ on! There’s no way there’s enough time in the day for a person to watch all these time-travel shows, you’d actually need to use a time machine to see them all. Or a DVR, I guess.

But I digress. Stop me before I digress again. I think this blog is about politics.

Oh yeah, Donald Trump is the worst President ever.

To find another President as bad as Trump, you’d have to go back at least as far Hoover. Herbert Hoover, that is, not J. Edgar Hoover. It’s easy to confuse the two of them, the Hoovers. But where Herbert Hoover liked to address the public, J. Edgar liked to wear a dress in public. And where Herbert Hoover’s dam looked good, J. Edgar looked damn good. But much like the Hoover vacuum cleaner of that era, both of these guys completely sucked.

Was Herbert Hoover worse than Trump? Let’s compare the two men:

Herbert Hoover was orphaned at an early age. He worked hard to found his own business and became a multi-millionaire. Donald Trump? He was born with a silver spoon up his ass and inherited his multi-millionaire dad’s real estate business. He then went on to bankrupt casinos, screw over independent contractors, and force people to humiliate themselves for jobs on national TV. Oh, and he’s good at firing beauty pageant winners if they gain a few pounds, then ridiculing them in the press. Hmm. it’s close, but I think I gotta give round 1 to Hoover.

Herbert Hoover was Stanford-educated, he was an engineer. But Trump must be smarter, after all, he had his own Trump University! And if it was a phony university like the fake news says, tell me how come all those students went on to earn millions of dollars? Oh, that’s right, it was a 25 million dollar class-action lawsuit settlement he paid out to avoid having his orange ass dragged into court. Round 2, Hoover.

Herbert Hoover built Hoover Dam, one of the greatest structural engineering feats in human history. But then again, Donald Trump built a huge pyramid scheme. So, I’d call this round a draw.

Before Herbert Hoover was President,  he was in charge of enormous, complex relief operations in Europe during and after World War I. He served two Presidents as Secretary of Commerce, under both Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge. Before Donald Trump was President? He was in charge of enormous, complex challenges like making Lou Ferrigno and LaToya Jackson make bagels and peddle them on the streets of Manhattan. Trump’s biggest executive decisions were made sitting in a boardroom with Dee Snider, Meatloaf, Joan Rivers, Sinbad, and Dennis Rodman. Who, sadly enough, would make far better cabinet secretaries than the ones he actually chose. Seriously, who do you think has more experience dealing with North Korean ‘weebles-wobble-but-they-don’t-fall-down’ dictator Kim Jong Un: Rex Tillerson or Dennis Rodman? Think about that one. Here’s a hint: it’s the guy with 11,954 rebounds. Dennis Rodman is the only person Trump knows who has actually sat down with ‘Lil Kim’ Jong Un, and he fired him. Now I don’t think I would trust the Worm to handle the North Korea situation by himself, but if he had Jordan, Pippen, and the rest of the 1995 Chicago Bulls with him, we’d have an NBA franchise in Pyongyang by now. And war would have to wait at least through the playoffs. Round 4, Herbert Hoover.

I think we can stop right there. It’s a K.O. at the O.K. corral. Move over, Herbert Hoover, there’s a new worst President in town.

[scottymcgeesterwrites]

My First Time in Los Angeles

This past April, I visited California for the very first time with my girlfriend, Em. It was also her first time there - in short - it was our first time venturing OUT WEST beyond Pennsylvania.

Vacations have always been somewhat of a bum rap for me.

I only ever spent vacations with my parents, and as the years went by and the money became short, we went on fewer and fewer vacations. But even when I went on vacation, my strained relationship with them made the time drag by ever so slowly, especially through their arguments, and I often found myself saying, “God, I need a vacation. Oh, wait.”

Our trip was really a double feature - 4 days in Los Angeles and 3 days in San Francisco. We each had friends from college we wanted to visit, whom we hadn’t seen in years.

The first thing I had in mind was to visit film locations. There was the Griffith’s Observatory, featured in Rebel without a Cause and La La Land. The Bradbury Building at 304 South Broadway, where Blade Runner was filmed. Pacific Park, where Bean was filmed. The Bronson Cave Trail in Griffith’s Park, where the original 1960′s Batcave was filmed. And about 30 miles north of L.A. are some unassuming rock formations in Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park where Captain James T. Kirk battled a Gorn in the Star Trek episode Arena.

                       (Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean in 1997′s Bean)

Unfortunately, from my list I only got to see the Griffith’s Observatory and Pacific Park, but that didn’t mean my time in Los Angels wasn’t what I wanted. Oh, far more than that. My friend Carlos could practically make money as a tour-guide. He live a couple towns over but was familiar with Los Angeles, its subway system, its atmosphere. He took us to the Los Angeles City Hall, where we could see nearly everything, even the Griffith’s Observatory in the distance.

Pictures made possible by my lovable Nikon P510. The zoom on it is amazing and has been the envy of all my friends (penis envy - zoom envy). 

We even stumbled upon an enlightening talk on affordable housing development. While we wandered around Los Angeles City Hall, we noticed many nicely-dressed people gathering. Even though we felt out of place - post-graduate 20-somethings haggard from walking in the sun all day long - nobody gave us weird looks. We slipped into the crowd inside the main hall and listened to a talk some guy gave about why people in Los Angeles hate poor people.

Seriously.

For those of you unfamiliar with the homeless problem, Los Angeles has a huge one. It’s notorious for having the most homeless people, Skid Row in particular. Carlos told me that it’s nothing to be afraid of though - it’s just smelly and disgusting - and the homeless people only fight among themselves if they ever fight.

Part of the reason for Los Angeles’ dragging homeless issue is that nobody wants affordable housing to be built in their backyards and neighborhoods. They believe in this stigma that homeless people bring violence, drugs and crime. In reality, they need mental aide and a place to live. But people keep voting no. And so the homeless continue to fill the streets.

Well.

Fuck.

While my memories of L.A. are grounded, I remember feeling as if I wasn’t really there, and yet active at the same time. An engaging observer. I felt it most when Carlos, Em and I sifted through the crowd of the affordable housing presentation. Nobody bat an eye at us despite us dressed so differently. I felt like I was in an episode of Doctor Who where The Doctor takes his companions to witness some fantastic historical event and few people are paying attention to them.

After that, Carlos took us to Little Tokyo, where I gushed with nerdiness at finding trading cards from JRPGs like Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Xilia.

Carlos is an interesting individual - unconventional but very fun. Many people back in college thought he was too crazy but I could deal with crazy. He had an idea to buy 32 oz. bottles of Asahi beer and hide them in these funny, wool socks he bought. He drank with Em and as our shopping progressed, Carlos became Carlos to the third power. He binged on shopping for anime, and his favorite is Eureka Seven.

“Dude,” he said aloud, holding the special edition box set. “I love this. It’s a great romance. Oh, man, I’m a sucker for romances like this. This boy, the main character right, he’s young and full of semen. You know what I mean?”

That day was probably the best time I ever had on a vacation. My parents were a practically non-existent thought somewhere in the back of my head. I didn’t have two pairs of eyes judging me. I could be myself, experience a new place the way I wanted.

Los Angeles Nightlife (and meeting a celebrity)

Em’s friend told us a couple places where we could have a good time. Well, the place we hung out one night was appropriately called Good Times at Davey Wayne’s. We waited in line in some alleyway with this annoying jagoff of a bouncer who literally looked like Jared Leto. Maybe he was Jared Leto now that I think about it. I don’t know. He really looked like Jared Leto - he had the white Jesus thing going on. Maybe he was a nice guy, I thought, until he was completely enamored with this one girl who cut in line. She flirted with him for five seconds and he let her in.

The one thing that struck me immediately upon entering Good Times at Davey Wayne’s was not the hipster, 70′s theme, but the fact that people were actually dancing. Like really dancing. Not the grinding shit East Coasters do everywhere, nor the awkward wedding dances where old people try to be hip. It was seriously the best time I ever had clubbing.

When I prepared for Los Angeles, I bought a small green notebook. I’m very anal about my notebooks. Each notebook is color-coded based on the topic. This slim green notebook is reserved for autographs. I chose green because it’s the color of envy, which is usually how you feel about celebrities.

I imagined at first that running into even mildly famous people would be a frequent occurrence in Los Angeles. But right before we left for L.A., I read someone’s post about how it’s not at all like that. Regardless, I brought the book with me.

When we were at Good Times at Davey Wayne’s, my ears caught a particular voice that struck me. I knew I heard that voice somewhere. I honed in on it and saw this blond girl and her friends. I immediately recognized the famous YouTuber Meghan McCarthy.

I told Em about it but I wasn’t 100% sure. Yet Meghan has a distinctive voice she’s known for and I was sure about the voice. Em approached her anyway and lo and behold - she was Meghan McCarthy. 

So I got my very first celebrity autograph!

And I was also an idiot for not remembering to take a picture. To be fair, our phones were in a constant state of dying during our vacation from all the picture-taking. I almost didn’t get any pictures of the Griffith’s Observatory. Both our phones AND my camera died. I got really bummed out - but then - I remembered I was carrying my Nintendo 3DS! It takes low-res pictures but - hey - better than nothing.

The Getty

On my last day I visited my old friend Seb - whom I hadn’t seen since my college graduation of ‘12. He already has a wife and a son. The guy’s already living it. He was my college pal since Day 1 of freshman year. We were DJs together for WMNJ at Drew University. Well, he was a DJ, I was really a talk show host. We had always meant to hang out together but life drew us apart.

Seb is an artist. As such, he took us to The Getty - quite possibly the most expansive, beautiful art museum I’ve ever been to. It’s also free (well, except for parking but still). The Getty is nestled up in a mountain, so you take a tram car ride up there.

So overall, what’s L.A. like?

Miami, but on steroids.

And with the movie theme going on.

I’ve been to Miami many times. It’s hot. There are homeless people. Driving sucks. And there are palm trees everywhere.

The driving is atrocious.

People who live there also have this strange aversion to the subway system, which I actually found affordable, easy to use and fast. I guess it’s just overshadowed now by Uber. Another reason why the subway could be overshadowed is that it takes you to mostly touristy areas.

There’s also weed everywhere and nobody cares. Nobody ever cared even when it was illegal. It’s now legal but legislation is taking its jolly old time to figure out how to regulate it and sell it, etc. So you can’t find a store to walk in and get some weed. Still, there are “marijuana doctors” at nearly every corner of every street.

Hollywood Blvd. is equivalent to NYC’s Times Square. Once you start seeing chain restaurants and street performers, you know it’s touristy.

Pacific Park is further away in Santa Monica, next to Venice Beach. If you are from New Jersey or at least familiar with the Jersey Shore, think of Venice Beach as Seaside Heights but on steroids.

(Almost anything in L.A. can be summed up as ‘Like X but on steroids’ - ESPECIALLY the movie theaters. I really wanted to see a movie in the Chinese Theater but we didn’t have the time.)

Pacific Park - to be brutally honest - was not as exciting as Em and I thought it’d be. It’s a tiny little amusement park. The roller coaster is so short that they let you ride twice. While everyone else around us beamed with excitement, we were really spoiled East Coasters having experienced Six Flags with fucking death-defying drops in Nitro, and even the Jersey Shore with all its piers clogged with amusements. Pacific Park is the only amusement park on the West Coast. The reason being, well, earthquakes and erosion.

We could never seem to get a general consensus on how frequent earthquakes occurred. One Uber driver told us once a week, another said once a month, some passerby told us once every couple months. People blatantly contradicted each other - especially since one person said they hadn’t had a major earthquake in decades while another said the last major earthquake was in 2014. People contradicted each other on what public transportation was like. The food. The stores.

But they never contradicted what it was like about each other. Everybody in L.A. is truly trying to be somebody, and I could tell right away when that girl cut us and had Mr. Jared Leto Lookalike flirt with her by asking him to take her phone out of her back pocket. I overheard it all the time when people talked about their comedy acts and meetings with friends to get this film shoot down.

And while I was annoyed by that instance, it’s a far cry from the overall good vibe. Strangers are friendly. Nobody is suspicious of you for anything. There are dozens of “Love trumps hate” signs and the like. When I took a picture of Em in from of Pacific Park, two strangers wanted to get in the picture, which resulted in an amusing progression of photos.

Where did you stay?

An AirBnB. I actually feel horrible because I still haven’t left a review for our hosts, now that I reminded myself.

AirBnB is basically Uber for hotels. It’s getting really famous now. We got a really sweet cheap deal for the time we spent there.

I’ll actually shout out to them - we stayed at the Chaplin Room at Limelight Manor, hosted by Joan & Luis.

It was our first time using AirBnB. Joan’s parents apparently take care of the place. They were sweet and helpful. We were apprehensive at first because we weren’t sure what we could use and what we couldn’t use. Em assumed everything was owned by Joan and Luis. I thought otherwise. The sign clearly says “Put your name on whatever you don’t want other people to use.” There were unmarked bottles of wine. So I drank one. Logical.

We never saw the hosts, only Joan’s parents, who took care of the place like the maids of a hotel would.

The guests at the AirBnB tended to keep to themselves, just like a regular hotel. At first I was weirded out because I always heard people scurry here and there but when I left the room nobody was around.

BONUS ROUND:

On our way to California during the plane ride, Em and I saw these very strange lights as we neared Las Vegas.

Bio-dome? Science facility? Area 51? Aliens?

If anyone knows - feel free to share.

Ciao.