Being Bad, Looking Good

Why are the bad guys always so much cooler than the good guys?

I mean, was this a conscious decision?
Did the big shots from the TV and toy industries get together one day and decide "OK, good guys should look weak and gay, and bad guys have to be slick, and have the coolest weapons, vehicles and accessories."

Was this a meticulously-constructed global conspiracy to ensure that the easily impressionable kids of the 80’s would be drawn to the dark side (no pun intended. Notice there’s no capital letters?) and dream of growing up to be the next arch-nemesis of the universe?

Let's recap:

Luke / Vader
He’s a shy farm boy. And Vader, well...he's VADER.

Commander Cobra / G.I. Joe
If you can wear a solid metal mask and still live after 5 minutes, you're pretty cool in my book.

Optimus Prime / Megatron
One's a truck. The other's a badass gun. 'Nuff said.

Inspector Gadget / Dr. Claw
Two words for you: Metal. Spikes ...with a side order of evil kitty.

Skeletor / He-man
One's un-dead. The other looks like a Village People casting session reject.

Shredder / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
In their defense, I do have to say they loved pizza.

Venger, from ‘Dungeons & Dragons’
Only one horn, but still way cooler than any of those kids.

Mumm-Ra / Lion-O
OK, this is a close one. The Sword of Omens did give 'sight beyond sight', after all.

The thing, though, is that by some incredibly unlikely twist of fate, the cool, slick bad guys with the coolest weapons and vehicles and accessories somehow always ended up losing.

Which leads me to believe that maybe there was something more to those conspirators' plan.

Something bigger:
To show us 80's kids how cool a bad guy could be, to make us long for it baaaad, only to tear all those illusions up by having the good guys win.

See, they were working the psyche.

In those days, it was up to the TV and toy industry big shots to play ‘Supernanny’ and subconsciously embed the moral of the story into our heads:
Doesn't matter what you have, how slick you are or how flashy you live.
The other guy, who doesn’t have the cool car, or the cool house, or the hot girlfriend(s), he's the one who, by some incredibly unlikely twist of fate, will come out on top in the end.

So be a good boy.

-G-

Quisiera estar junto a ti, quisiera ser un planeta. Girando a tu alrededor, tú borrarías mis huellas...

Quisiera estar junto a ti
Quisiera ser un planeta
Girando a tu alrededor
Tú borrarías mis huellas

Porque tú eres la estrella de mi corazón
Surcando el cielo de nuestro amor
Me gusta mirar tu cara graciosa cuando bebes limón

Para poder olvidar
Alguna pena muy grande
Te besaré en espiral
Cuando no mire nadie

Oigo tantas mentiras y tanta canción
Que me hacen reír con mi risa infantil
Y me hacen pensar
Qué vida tan tonta y qué grande es tu amor

Quisiera estar junto a ti
Quisiera ser un planeta
Girando a tu alrededor
Tú borrarías mis huellas

Porque tú eres la estrella de mi corazón
Surcando el cielo de nuestro amor
Me gusta mirar tu cara graciosa cuando bebes limón

In The Blink of an Eye

For all the talk, all that’s been said about humankind’s greatness, our boundless brilliance, we are nothing.

We’ve become blinded by our own ingenuity, drunk with power, at awe at our quantum leaps in technology: from the discovery of fire... to stone tools... to the Bronze Age... to putting a man on the moon…wiring and then ‘wirelessling’ the planet to shrink distances down to zero.

Vacuum-sealing ourselves in a self-designed microcosm of concrete and glass, we’ve completely detached ourselves from the rest of nature, so content in our undisputed reign at the top of the food chain, our animal instincts shriveled to nothing.

We've forgotten how small we really are.
Nothing even minimally close to what we believe.
Look in the mirror.
We’re soft. And frail.
Nothing in the infinity of the universe.

Once each one of us becomes aware of just how limited our existence is, and puts into perspective the very few things that really matter, the best we can do is to try to make the best of the little time we have here.

-G-

Take me out tonight where there's music and there's people and they're young and alive

Take me out tonight
Where there's music and there's people
And they're young and alive
Driving in your car
I never never want to go home
Because I haven't got one
Anymore

Take me out tonight
Because I want to see people and I
Want to see life
Driving in your car
Oh, please don't drop me home
Because it's not my home, it's their home
And I'm welcome no more

And if a double-decker bus
Crashes into us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten-ton truck
Kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine

Take me out tonight
Take me anywhere, I don't care
I don't care, I don't care
And in the darkened underpass
I thought oh God, my chance has come at last
(but then a strange fear gripped me and I just couldn't ask)

Take me out tonight
Oh, take me anywhere, I don't care
I don't care, I don't care
Driving in your car
I never never want to go home
Because I haven't got one
Oh, I haven't got one

And if a double-decker bus
Crashes into us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten-ton truck
Kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine

Oh, there is a light and it never goes out
There is a light and it never goes out
There is a light and it never goes out...

Love is The Answer...

Love is the answer.
But while you're waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty interesting questions.
-Woody Allen-

Truer words were never spoken, Mr. Allen.
Some never find the answer, raise questions as they may.
I suppose when you 'raise the right question' to the right person, at the right time, at the right place, you get The Answer.
Otherwise it remains just a 'question raised'.

Then again, there's also those inquiring minds who want to avoid The Answer altogether, just keep raising questions.
Maybe even the same question again and again, if they like it enough (you know what I mean).
No Answer, but they can find solace in some knowledge... carnal knowledge.

-G-

Part I, or "The Valentine's Hangover"

Have to run, meeting some friends for dinner!

But before I go, I have to go through my yearly post-Valentine routine.

Every mid-February, in the aftermath of Valentine's Day, I try to get the last remnants of it out of my system, pass the consumerist hangover, if you will.

Love.
With a capital 'L'.
Such a heavy weight for such a little word!
That ever-abundant, never-ending source of inspiration/pain/happiness/sorrow/(fill in the blank) that's baffled and inspired philosophers, writers and musicians and been so overloaded with false expectations since the dawn of time that no one can live up to it.

Let's face it.
Love’s not about getting your significant other a box of expensive chocolates, going out to dinner, spending a romantic night together, as Valentine-philes would have you believe.
What's love got to do with that?

No, I'm talking about the bigger picture.
The corny, sappy love Hallmark bathes their cards in.

Love's about having someone to share the good times with and to help through the bad times.
Someone to spend all weekend in bed with on those cold winter months.
To feed hot soup to and tuck into bed when she's sick.
To give a back rub to after a long day of work.
To stand around patiently for hours for while she tries out a new pair of shoes.

Taking in every breath of hers, spending a lifetime memorizing every pore of her.
Someone whose very thought of makes it worth it to wake up in the morning, no matter how screwed up your week may be going.

It's all about that someone who tears down your walls and makes you break all your rules, leaving you so defenseless that you're left no choice but to let them in.
Someone who completes you (thanks, Jerry McGuire).
That missing piece of the puzzle that you never knew was missing until you found.

It's a funny thing, love.
When you're 15, all you care about is chasing all the girls you can and hittin' that!
(Btw kids, more on this later. Check the P.S.)

And all of a sudden, before you know it, you've hit 30.

And overnight, you're slapped straight across the face with the reality of your own fleeting existence (Crap! You're not a kid anymore. Your 20's are gone and you're less than a decade away from 40!)

It's one of those eye-opening, life-changing moments life throws your way now and then. They're few and far between, but those freebies represent a quantum leap into maturity.
Like that moment in elementary when you discover girls don't have cooties and having them around maybe doesn't suck as much as you thought.

Priceless wisdom.

In my case, the last one happened with that 30-something epiphany where you suddenly realize the eventuality of your own existence.
Here one day, gone the next. Time slipping through our fingers, faster every day.

And in that eye-opening you moment, you see it all in crisp, high-definition clarity:

What once meant getting tied-down becomes the most liberating concept.

It's not all about chasing skirts anymore. Maybe what you thought was fun, careless 20-something sex was just an unconscious way of filling that void you didn't know you had.

Maybe the little time you do have left should be spent putting that puzzle together. Finding that missing piece that completes you and makes you a better person.
And if all goes well, you're the piece that completes her puzzle, too.

Don't get me wrong.
That doesn't mean you're going to get your wife-to-be overnight...maybe you never will.
There'll still be the occasional casual hook-up here and there, which might turn into something more, or might not last past the first night, but the possibility of being with 'The One', an idea you never even contemplated, becomes something increasingly feasible.

But I guess that's what growing up does to you.

And I guess that's what love is.

Why then, would you trivialize that with something as empty as Valentine’s Day?

P.S.:
If there are any 15 year-olds reading this, listen to an old man (which you won’t, but I’m gonna tell you anyway):

Ask her out.
She’s just as nervous and insecure as you are.

And trust me, in the immensity of the universe, where we're but dust in the wind, blowing for less than a fraction of a nanosecond in this microscopic speck of dust floating around in the grain of sand that is the sandbox of our galaxy in the infinity of the universe, trust me, it's no biggie whether she says "yes" or "no". You have nothing to lose.

-G-

On Valentine's Day...or 'How I Refuse To Yield To The Commercialization of Love"

I wake up this morning, check my cell phone, and I had a missed call from an unknown number at 07:16 AM.
A secret V-Day admirer ready to confess him/herself (hopefully the latter) after a long night of drinking?
Maybe.
A really awful time to call someone?
Certainly.

...so, here we are again.
14/02.
St. Valentine's Day.
The Big V.
I never got it. Why have a day to celebrate love?
..."Celebrate love"? Nay! More like indulge in supra-consumerism disguised in red.
I don't buy into it (no pun intended).
But come to think of it, the economy nowadays needs all the help it can get, so...

Why not name February 15th "Air We Breathe Day"? It's just as senseless.
Think about it.
We could pack up some air in cute red bubbles for people to give to each other (at let’s say 5 Euros a pop?...the oxygen bubbles would be crimson-colored, at 10 Euros) and you'd see cute couples everywhere taking in extra air every other breath...just because it's there. And that’s what we’d be celebrating.

My point? Everyday is a celebration of love. It's always there. Just like air. Why over-commercialize it once a year? Why not celebrate it all the time? Would your girl be any less surprised waking up to flowers and breakfast in bed on June 13th than February 14th?

And by the way, I hate to deconstruct the myth for you, but did you know there never even was a St. Valentine, per se?

I quote my friends from Wikipedia:

"The day was originally a pagan festival that was renamed after two Early Christian martyrs named Valentine.
Until 1969, the Catholic Church formally recognized eleven Valentine's Days.
The Valentines honored on February 14 are Valentine of Rome (Valentinus presb. m. Romae) and Valentine of Terni (Valentinus ep. Interamnensis m. Romae).
No romantic elements are present in the original early medieval biographies of either of these martyrs.
By the time a Saint Valentine became linked to romance in the fourteenth century, distinctions between Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni were utterly lost.”

-G-