"Mr. Jack" by System of a Down

It could be because I’ve been watching a lot of MSNBC and I’m following Cop Block on Face Book, but it seems to me there are a lot more instances of police brutality than there were before. Some commentators are even calling it the “militarization” of America’s police. Why shouldn’t they call it that? Innocent people are being shot, choked, and beaten to death for minor reasons and the police officers who are committing these heinous crimes are getting paid vacations instead of jail time. The US Department of Justice is truly an oxymoron these days.

With the police getting more brutal these days, is it any surprise in 2002 System of a Down released a song called “Mr. Jack”? You know the one I’m talking about. “Put your hands up, get out of the car! Fuck you, pig!” That’s the one. You can always count on System of a Down to satisfy your musical needs whenever you’re pissed off at those in power. They may be on an indefinite hiatus as of 2005, but their legacies as hardcore liberals aren’t going anywhere.

It’s a good thing that I have “Mr. Jack” on my computer, because police corruption happens to be one of my berserk buttons. In other words, it makes my brain explode with raw anger. My distrust of corrupt cops came at an early stage in my life. Don’t worry, they didn’t beat me or jail me or anything like that. It was the little things that annoyed me the most.

In 2001, a cop called my house wanting to know my father’s phone number or at least some way to get a hold of him. My dad blew some steam off at one of my mom’s friends and was being investigated for it. Of course, I didn’t know my father’s number off the top of my head, so the cop at the other end said, “Not being very helpful, are you?” No, I wasn’t, because I refuse to testify against my own family.

In 2002 on two different occasions, I was walking the streets at night as a way to clear my head of all the drama of living with schizophrenia (though I didn’t know the diagnosis at the time). Both times I got stopped by the police despite never having committed a crime. Apparently, walking the streets at night made me look very suspicious. Oooo!! Street walking! The cops in both scenarios asked me a bunch of questions and patted me down for weapons or drugs, neither of which I had because I’m not a sociopath.

Yes, these are stupid things to be angry at. I’d even dare say they’re small potatoes. But I was a teenager, so blowing things out of proportion wasn’t anything new to me. This is Mr. Anti-Conformist here, I knew everything in those days. Maybe I wasn’t mad at the actions of the cops so much as I was mad at the fact they thought I was a criminal and didn’t trust me. That’s part of why I hate reading news stories about police brutality. It could have happened to me at any time, but it didn’t, and I’m grateful for that.

There are plenty of songs out there that give the middle finger to the police, isn’t that right, NWA? “Mr. Jack” is one that attacks corrupt police instead of the levelheaded ones. Bill Maher said it best: if we had no police, real life would be a lot like “The Purge”. So let’s keep the good ones around and throw the shitty ones in jail. If prisons are supposed to be for-profit these days, then let’s grant the drug users their freedom and replace them with the corrupt cops. Serj Tankian and Daron Malakian are onboard with this. Are you?

What does all of this “Mr. Jack” sentiment mean for my writing? It’s simple: if I want to indulge in a fantasy of getting revenge on the corrupt cops, I have to make it as realistic as possible without sounding psychotic. I’ve made psychotic remarks about the police before and basically made an ass out of myself. My Drama 101 teacher said it best: peaceful intervention is more effectively historically than violent intervention. Isn’t that right, Gandhi? Isn’t that right, Martin Luther King? How about you, John Lennon, do you agree? I definitely have plans to do a revenge against authority novel sometime in the future. In the meantime, I’ve got plenty of short stories in this genre to go in “American Darkness 2: Live In Fear”.

To close off this blog entry, when I say “Put your hands up, get out of the car!”, you say, “Fuck you, pig!”

Put your hands up, get out of the car!

Put your hands up, get out of the car!

Put your hands up, get out of the car!

Put your hands up, get out of the car!

Fuck you, pig!

Fuck you, pig!

Fuck you, pig!

Fuck you, pig!

Put your hands up, get out of the car!

　

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Legally drunk. If it’s legal, what’s the fucking problem? Leave my friend alone, Officer, he’s legally drunk!”

-George Carlin-

"Lonely Day" by System of a Down

As someone who spends his days waiting for rides to the grocery store and figures to come up on my Deviant Art, Good Reads, and Smash Words accounts, I can appreciate how crippling boredom is. “Lonely Day” by System of a Down happens to be about boredom. But to me, it holds a very special meaning. Back in 2006, I had a best friend on Deviant Art named Colleen. The two of us were working on a tandem novel together. I don’t share my workload with anybody, so that said a lot about how much I valued Colleen’s friendship. It was my turn to write a chapter and I chose to do a dream sequence where one of the main characters, Morgan Gat, was at a high school dance. Everybody was dancing in each other’s arms and in some cases making out…except for Morgan. Morgan got all dressed up in fancy clothes, bought a bouquet of flowers, and showered with Axe products. You know who he did this for? Anybody who would pay attention to him. When nobody wanted to dance with him, he got frustrated to the point of boiling hot blood and salty wet tears. He did something that no high schooler should have to do: he went outside and dropkicked the bouquet of flowers into the parking lot. After the flowers covered some distance, Morgan caught up with them again and began double-stomping them until they were ripped to shreds. Everybody stuck-up girl inside that gymnasium did the same thing that night, except with Morgan’s heart. And then there was Colleen’s character in the parking lot. For the life of me, I can’t remember the character’s name, but she did something that touched Morgan’s heart in a profound way. She slow-danced with him to “Lonely Day”. “Such a lonely day should be banned. It’s a day that I can’t stand.” It was the most magical moment that could ever exist between two people. Years later, though, the novel would be scrapped due to inactivity and even further into time, Colleen broke off her friendship with me when she got a new Deviant Art account and blocked mine. What motivated Colleen to hate me all of the sudden, I’ll never know. It must have had something to do with the fact that I would continually call her “Colleen-Pie”. But is that really a reason to break off a beautiful friendship with someone? Thanks to her, “Lonely Day” has a brand new meaning to me. In addition to the boredom I feel at home, I also feel betrayed by Colleen and rightfully so. Even so, I will not let a good storyline go to waste. In my short story queue for the WSS group on Good Reads, I still have the flower kicking gimmick and it’s still going to take place at a high school dance. But this time, we’re going to do it right. It’s going to be one of my masterpieces, with or without Colleen.

　

***TELEVISION QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“This week on Cheaters, John discovers that his barista girlfriend is putting the cream topping on another man’s coffee.”

-Bob Magruder narrating “Cheaters”-