Murphy Breakdancin' Brown, things have gotten crazy again, haven't they? Seems like over the past few weeks, everywhere you turn, some new form of insanity further fractures this fun house mirror of a culture we have. And of course immediately after, people do what they do best, which is freak all the way out. Like buy a first class bus ticket and ride it all the way to the North Pole so they can get a really fresh panini hand made by Santa's elves, because someone on TV said they stave off cancer kind of freaked out.
This kind of behavior, entertaining as it may be, isn't exactly productive, friends and neighbors. Sure, it gives a bunch of us a good enough reason to go on an old fashioned, rip-roaring, constitutionally forbidden and morally empty witch hunt, which I know we can all support, but in the long run, what's the point? It's this kind of tomfoolery that leads to infinitely stupid national choices, like internment camps, or the continued success of Hot Pockets (those things are gross, and anyone who defends them is wrong. Accept it, and get on with your life.)
Speaking of senseless behavior, here's what I really don't get about what happened in Boston: what exactly made that seem like a good idea? Now look, I understand that running is awful, but that's definitely not a good enough reason. Also, this is a country where we can't even get people to agree that letting everyone have a gun on them at all times is maybe not a great idea. One of our politicians -an elected one, mind you, one our citizens chose to serve our interests- actually said that if babies had guns, they wouldn't get aborted. That's the kind of crazy you're dealing with here. I don't think I need to remind you what kind of idiotic things were said about rape, do I? And you think blowing up some of our stuff and murdering people is going to teach us something? Let me lay this down for you straight, okay? We still have the death penalty here, and many of us take pride in it. We have commercials for our armed forces which make them look like a video game, because video games are cool. We simultaneously try to blame those video games for our violent behavior, and right now the amendment of our constitution that says we can have guns is being more vehemently protected than the one that says we can say and think and worship and write whatever we want. When we think our kids are spending too much time on their iPads, we actually put them in therapy, instead of just taking the stupid thing away and pushing them outside to play with a stick or something. You cannot out crazy us.
And you really think making explosions is going to change anything?
As a wise man once said, "Good luck."
What I do like is how, much as we've done in the past, many of us responded to this by rallying around the heroes that such events often produce, and gain no small of amount of inspiration from them. Once the dust settles, and those who refuse to let go of the initial panic and irrationality have been relegated to the basic cable channels on which they belong, many of us take solace in and appreciate the people who step up when the time comes. They show us that the kind of person so many of us like to believe we are does in fact exist, and that's a pretty important thing to know.
I guess the bottom line for me is that blowing stuff up to prove a point is stupid, especially if the point is that crazy people are crazy. My advice? Have a little fun with it instead. Come up with something silly, and then sell it to the crazy. Like light up sneakers, remember those? How about those jeans with the huge legs, or those ones with the super skinny legs? Think for a second, will you? You oughtta know by now that we're not going anywhere, so if you want to get our attention, do what our most successful people do.
Insist on yelling really stupid things really loud, and then expect everyone to treat you like you deserve a prize. We'll probably elect you.
-John
