I Don't "Shoot My Shot" Because I Don't Want to Give Women the Ick

 

Jessie Gender

 

Why I Don't Believe in Aliens

I don’t want it to seem like I’m breaking a longstanding oath to the Jedi order, because in order to do that, I’d have to acknowledge the slim possibility of Jedi knights being real. I’d have to watch Star Wars and Star Trek like they’re documentaries. I’d have to play Starcraft like I’m reviving Kriegspiel. These things that I’ve mentioned are labeled as science-fiction, keyword there being fiction. If they were nonfiction, our world would be fucked, even more so than it is now in the year 2020 with Corona Virus and governmental tyranny. Okay, so we MIGHT have a Jabba the Hutt look-alike in the oval office right now, but that’s as close to admitting the realness of aliens that you will get from me. That’s right. I can’t believe I have to say this, but I’m going to anyways. My name is Garrison…and I don’t believe in aliens. Never have, never will.

Aliens do make for some interesting creative fuel, I’ll admit. I played the hell out of Starcraft from 2000 to 2001. I slashed the shit out of everyone with the Protoss zealots’ photon blades. I ate space marines alive with the Zerg’s blade-fanged Ultralisk creature. Every piece of fiction I’ve ever written during that time period was basically Starcraft thievery, which I would get defensive about because I didn’t want to get stuck in a frivolous copyright lawsuit. But let’s be real: Zerglings, Ultralisks, Hydralisks, Protoss dragoons, Protoss carriers, Protoss templars, they can only be enjoyed on a fictional basis. If these biological monstrosities existed in the real world, they would ransack the shit out of earth and we’d be completely defenseless. How’s that Space Force working out for you, Mr. President?

I know I’m going to hear the argument somewhere down the line, “Well, Garrison, are you so arrogant that you believe earthlings are the only ones who exist in the universe?” Until I see otherwise, yes, I am. Where are all these lizard people that I keep hearing about? Where are the goopy Martians with their slime-covered bodies and bug eyes? When is Darth Vader going to destroy the world with his Death Star? I don’t see any of these things. I don’t pick up on them with my other senses either. If I can’t sense them in any way, I’m not going to believe in them just because there’s a small chance they MIGHT exist outside of the Milky Way.

I treat extraterrestrial life with the same amount of skepticism that I do religious deities, which is to say I’m an atheist through and through. If I don’t believe God, Allah, or Shiva exist, why would I suddenly believe that aliens exist? Religion and alien culture have the same amount of proof to convince me, which is to say none at all. This is just my take on it, though. If other people want to practice religion or believe in wacky ideas, I’m not going to try and stop them. Me personally? I refuse to believe in something I have no proof exists. And as long as we’re crossing gods and aliens off the list, where’s all the zeal for other fantasy and sci-fi creatures? What about ogres? What about goblins? Or elves? Or dragons? Or big ass tarantulas? How come the people who put so much stock into aliens don’t believe in those things as well? “Are you so arrogant that you believe elves don’t share this world with us?”

Like I said before: aliens should be treated as fictional characters in enjoyable science-fiction. They should not influence politics on any level. We should not have radio show hosts and podcasters spouting conspiracy theories about aliens poisoning our drinking water or shoving rods up our asses. We shouldn’t have conspiracy theories about anything else as well, whether it’s Obama being from Kenya, the earth being flat, pizza shops being safe havens for pedophiles, or COVID-19 being a hoax designed to derail conservatives. The silliness alone seems harmless and can even be explored in filmmaking or story writing, but the minute people start dying in the real world over them, that’s when I have a problem. Hundreds of thousands of people have died from COVID-19 because the public and its politicians aren’t taking it seriously. What does this have to do with aliens? I don’t know, but I bet their existence could be shoehorned into these theories to gain political leverage. It’s happened before and it’ll happen again.

You know what I really love about alien culture? This idea of anal probing, which was made popular by that season one episode of South Park where Cartman gets a metal rod shoved up his ass. Later in the episode, the rod expands into a satellite dish that communicates with extraterrestrials. Please tell me you don’t think South Park is nonfiction. Just laugh at the comedy. Don’t take it too seriously. Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of the show, don’t take life too seriously and they would encourage their audience to follow suit. Nobody’s going to shove a glowing metal rod up your ass. If they do, you’re probably stuck in a BDSM dungeon. Or the pawn shop from Pulp Fiction, one of the two.

I know I’m ranting and raving over here, but I actually have a message to go along with this aggression. If you’re going to believe in something, don’t use that as an excuse to hurt others. You can believe in Jesus all you want, but don’t beat up LGBT members because of it. You can believe in aliens all you want, but don’t use that as an excuse to influence world politics and radicalize already unstable people. Do whatever you want to do as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else.

Nobody will mind if you watch Star Trek: the Original Series and be blown away by the philosophical nature of it. Nobody will mind if you enjoyed all nine episodes of Star Wars instead of just episodes four through six. Nobody will mind if you play Starcraft until your ass is sore from sitting for so long (and not because the Protoss shoved a photon rod up your anus). If we could all just agree to get along and not hurt each other, the world would be a better place. Write that sci-fi novel. Write that lizard man movie script. Put together a videogame about venomous blobs of goo from Jupiter and Saturn. Do what Nickelback did in the song “Million Miles an Hour” and travel through the galaxy after taking that “everlasting pill”. Do what you want and don’t be a dick!

If you have anything you want to add to this conversation, speak now before the UFO comes to my house and pulls me onboard with their tractor beam! Ooo, I know! Why do UFO’s have to be circular disks? Why can’t they be any other shape? How about a cylinder? How about a trapezoid? How about a pyramid? Imagine a pyramid-shaped vessel that could spin in circles like a drill and mine our precious resources from the depths of the planet. Now that’s a hell of a novel prompt! Don’t worry, I’m not trying to stir shit up and make you even more paranoid than you already are. But just imagine the possibilities of a spinning pyramid ship helmed by elven warlocks and dragon necromancers. Imagine that they’re harvesting our oil to fuel an even greater weapon to use against the ogre and Protoss alliance, crushing their oppressors once and for all! Now there’re no excuses for a blank page!

"They Called Us Enemy" by George Takei

BOOK TITLE: They Called Us Enemy

AUTHOR: George Takei

YEAR: 2019

GENRE: Graphic Novel

SUBGENRE: Political Memoir

GRADE: Extra Credit

In 1942, over 120,000 Japanese-Americans were taken away from their homes and placed into dingy prison camps all over the US. They did nothing wrong, but had none of the legal means to prove it to the racist authorities. They were paying for the sins of their home country after the Pearl Harbor bombing. Classic ignorant thinking at its worst: because a small minority of the group committed the crime, the entire group is guilty. George Takei spent most of his tender childhood living under this kind of oppression as he and his family were among the Japanese-American families locked up in internment camps. Reading about this shameful experience through his eyes makes everything that much more heartbreaking. His young mind couldn’t comprehend the ignorance of those in charge. He tried to make sense of the barbed wire enclosures, deplorable conditions, and abusive army guards. Fast forward into adulthood and George Takei does everything in his power as an equal rights activist and Hollywood actor to make sure this terrifying history doesn’t happen again.

This graphic novel is nothing short of a brutally honest look into the politics of fear. Powerful politicians will use their influence and charisma to rile up their supporters into believing that the less fortunate are what’s wrong with this country. We saw it with the Japanese internment in George Takei’s book and we’re seeing it today with the Muslim ban, the family separation policy at the Mexican border, and black people getting harsher treatment from law enforcement than whites. The one thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. But it doesn’t have to be this way. This book has the power to educate its readers. When you familiarize yourself with your fellow world citizens, you’re less likely to judge them. That’s what “They Called Us Enemy” means to me and that’s one of the reasons it’s getting a perfect five out of five stars. The more educated we are, the better off we’ll be. That means leaving behind comfortable bigotry and thinking about what it’s like to be the other guy, which is often a horrifying reality.

But of course, there will always be those contrarians out there who say, “It wasn’t all that bad!” These same people say it about black slavery, they call Mexican border detention centers “Summer Camp”, and they’ll no doubt say it about Japanese internment camps. Having guaranteed living conditions doesn’t mean those conditions are necessarily good. Did I mention the barbed wire fencing around the camps? Did I mention the abusive treatment from the soldiers? What about the fact that George Takei’s family had to live in a horse stall that smelled like rancid feces? What about the infighting among Japanese prisoners who joined the military to prove their patriotism and the prisoners who stayed in the camps to protest? Had enough harsh reality? But wait, there’s one more juicy detail: institutionalization. Some prisoners were so familiar with the routine life of the camps that they couldn’t imagine getting back on their feet in a normal society. Now imagine a child as young as George Takei feeling that way upon leaving the camp. You get to see all of this through the author’s eyes whether you want to or not. It won’t be pleasant, but it’ll be a necessary kick in the butt for the apathetic and fearful.

Despite the shortness and quick pacing of the book, you will feel as though you’ve taken an entire US history course in one sitting. Let this be a message to you all. Treat your neighbors with kindness and respect. Treat your inferiors with the same level of understanding and love. If you see an injustice happening, don’t stay quiet. Be the activist you were meant to become. Be a passionate enough voice in this battle for equality that those in power will have no choice but to listen. Let your words haunt them like schizophrenic ghosts. Will this change anything? Let me put it this way: we don’t have a choice but to activate our activism. The world can’t survive without making progressive leaps and bounds. That is the nature of time. Any questions?

Space Jockey

VERSE 1

Let’s go to Mars and drive flying cars

The whole desert planet is all but ours

Don’t worry about the lack of oxygen

Rise from the dead and then walk again

Open armed greeting from the Martians

Sweetheart deal, one hell of a bargain

Never mind that they shoot with ray guns

Or the gravity feels like hauling eight tons

CHORUS

Come on, space jockey! Come on, space jockey!

Dance in the moonlight and play tonsil hockey

Come on, space jockey! Come on, space jockey!

Never mind that this shit is way too damn cocky

VERSE 2

Let’s try to hook up with Faye Valentine

Give her a ring and ask, “Will you be mine?”

Let’s go on adventures with Spike Spiegel

Fly through space like an American eagle

Let’s catch bounty heads, be broke anyways

Just like on earth, same old shit every day

This isn’t all just arrogant wish fulfillment

We’re a fucking team and we always kill it

EXTENDED CHORUS 1

Come on, space jockey! Come on, space jockey!

Dance in the moonlight and play tonsil hockey

Come on, space jockey! Come on, space jockey!

Never mind that this shit is way too damn cocky

See you, space cowboy! See you, space cowboy!

Fill your heart with carbon dioxide and pure joy

May the force be with you, my Jedi knight!

Let’s have a light saber battle on Mars tonight

BILL MAHER QUOTE

Fuck Mars! Make Earth Great Again!

VERSE 3

Burning fossil fuels and killing the planet

Cutting down jungles so the rich can have it

Rinse and repeat on the planet of Mars

Control C, control V, drive flying cars

This ain’t the Jetsons, it’s the real world

On Planet Mars our flag shall not unfurl

It doesn’t take Yoda to figure it out

No such surface will you breathe in and out

EXTENDED CHORUS 2

Live long and prosper, you sons of bitches!

This conspiracy theory leaves me in stitches

I am Groot, motherfuckers! I am Groot!

Space colonization will not bear fruit

I’m Buzz Lightyear! I come in peace!

Then maybe this madness will finally cease

Come on, space jockey! Come on, space jockey!

The atmosphere is dead, the land is rocky

FINAL LYRICS

Fuck Mars! X4

Books Made Into Movies

With this huge abundance of movies based off of books, there always seems to be an active debate going on about faithfulness to the original medium. Whenever something is slightly off-key, fan boys and fan girls fly off the handle and take to Twitter for a war of words. Then again, I’ve also heard arguments about how the director should have some control over the movie seeing as how he’s just as important as the writer. It happens in theater productions all the time. Sometimes the adjustments are agreeable, other times they’re nowhere near negotiable. I remember hearing a story about how the writer for a pornographic movie called Wild Side killed himself because the director changed the script drastically from its original intentions. Suicide because a script was butchered? Well, I’ve always heard about how artists can be insane sometimes. If you ask me for my opinion, I think there should be equal cooperation between writer and director. The director should be asking the writer about the way he wants the movie done and the writer should be flexible about the changes to be made. Writing and filmmaking are two very different mediums and therefore require completely different sets of skills. Wouldn’t you feel better if your project was in the right hands? The trust between two people is ultimately what will drive them to success whether it’s in a business, personal, romantic, or other kind of relationship. But of course, the tendency to dominate the project is ever present in today’s world. Wild Side is an extreme example of what could go wrong with domination. It typically doesn’t result in a suicide, but it can be struggled over in the court systems. If one thing goes wrong, a lawsuit will be ignited. It doesn’t matter who wins the lawsuit or even if it’s thrown out. Even if there’s no settlement to be gained, the money spent on lawyer’s fees and the delaying of the project will grind and wear on the people involved. Is it really worth suing over? We all know it’s not worth killing over as evidenced with Wild Side. If somebody wanted to make a movie out of “Red Blood, White Knuckles, Blue Heart”, I wouldn’t be heartbroken over the choices the director made. I would just be fucking thrilled to know that people care enough about my book to make it into a more relatable medium. Reading is fun, but then again, so are movies. When these schools of thought come together, it should always be a beautiful thing. Nothing more, nothing less.

　

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“People got mad because Barack Obama thought mind-melding was from Star Wars instead of Star Trek. And I say to them, ‘Congratulations, you’re experts in every world except the real one.’”

-Bill Maher-