Why can't we have cars that go "ee-oo-ee-oo?"

Above: a typical police car--wait, oh,
my mistake. But you see what I mean?

I've long held that American police cars are too...I don't know, what's the word? Aggressive? I don't mean the people who drive them, which is an entirely different conversation (I think?), I mean the actual cars. They're usually this glossy black (sometimes black and white), and they've got the big metal pushbar things for ramming vehicles off the road, and is it me or do the headlights look angry? Like they're squinting down the barrel of a magnum ready to forget how due process works. 

Pictured: an actual police car...or
possibly a Deception. Who can say?

I know it's an incredibly dangerous job, and I suppose the logic here is to project an air of "don't fuck with us" but the police are law enforcement. Emphasis law. I'm not myself a cop, so take my unsolicited opinions for what they are, which is to say the armchair musings of someone whose only credentials are internet access. But I can't be alone in thinking that the vibe should be "protect and serve" and not, I don't know, "seek and destroy?" Right? They shouldn't look like the bad guys.

Police cars in a lot of other countries look like what they are: a public service. No battering ram, no Punisher Skull stickers. Just the kind of help you hope shows up when you're driving home from a pub, fall off your bike, and need some help fishing it out of the Amstel River. 

"Ee-oo-ee-oo-ee-oo"

-a helpful foreign police car

Kind of? But like, even more work.

Alright, now brace yourself while the uninformed opinion of someone on the internet goes from "here's what I think" to "you know what they should do?" Ready? Here goes: I guess what I'm getting at is that repairing the image of police in America, which is going to take a lot of work--like, a lot of work--but step one, as dumb as it sounds, has got to be rebranding, right? Ok, no, it actually needs to start with accountability, training, and community outreach, but step four or five: rebranding. 

Not even Star Fox 64. Original "what am
I even looking at?" Super NES graphics. 

And do you know what's not helping? Coming up to the walking embodiment of everything wrong with capitalism, and noted right-wing nutter Elon Musk and his dumb space trucks. Because that's what's happening with the introduction of Cybertruck police vehicles in Irvine, CA. Yes, the truck that looks like it's rendered in Star Fox graphics. And I guarantee you that the reason boil down to some dude in charge of requisitions thinks Cybertrucks are badass, bro. Fine, whatever. Dumb, but they've got to have police cars, I guess. But this? According to the Irvine Police Department, the choice of a Cybertruck is for "community engagement." 

Which, I don't even know what that means. But at a hundred thousand dollars of money--yup, that's how much this is costing taxpayers in Irvine--I can't help but feel like (and in fact, I did the math here) they could have had four, yes four, regular police cars. And you know, the public's trust. Instead, they bought the truck that you can't get wet.

Does it though? Does it look like it's ready for serious action?

Today I learned where Mt. Denali isn't.

I don't love, and I can't imagine I'm alone on this, big pickup trucks. Not like, the kind of trucks people use when they work in construction or are contractors or whatever. I mean the pointless, gigantic, luxury nonsense that MAGA people use to try and run over protestors. Legally. Because red states have lost their minds.

Above: Like this. Also, the black and white flag with a blue stripe isn't the flag
and kind of feels contrary to the unity the actual flag is supposed to represent.

Above: some French stereotype,
seen here, judging us.

But this isn't one of my impotent rants about how we may well be plunging into an authoritarian dystopia because the electoral college is an outmoded relic of the eighteenth century that only serves to--sorry, I was spiraling out there. Where was I? Right: trucks. Big, preposterous trucks that only exist because somewhere in our shared national past we mistook mass for desirability. I think it's the same faulty logic that gives us an un realistic and internationally ridiculed sense of portion size. Bigger is, our reasoning goes, necessarily better. And that's why we all have to suck in our guts when we try to get out of our cars next to some Dodge Ram wedged into the compact space next to us.

"S'up brah? What happened, did
the dealership run out of big trucks?"

-a burn I hope to deploy one day

I mention this because I witnessed what I thought may have been a prank or some kind of glitch in the matrix the other day. It was, at first glance, a truck. A big, black GMC pickup like any number of the ones I see every day that fill me with such bitterness at the sheer compensational extravagance, but then it occurred to me as it passed behind another truck that the proportions were all wrong. It was easily fifty percent larger than the already massive pick-up it was passing behind. Like, the windows of the GMC were fully above the roof of the other truck.

It was just comically, unnecessarily, big. Big for the sake of being big. Remember the first time we see Darth Vader's Super Star Destroyer when it pulls into orbit above Hoth and it just eclipses the other Star Destroyers? 

It was like that, except instead of being tasked with routing out
the rebel base they were, I don't know, going to Safeway or something.

Pictured: the actual moon, seen here
with Apollo Astronaut Eugene Cernan
for scale. Note how unimpressive it is. 

Sure, it's possible that my instinctual loathing for the mentality that equates size with value, perhaps magnified the scale of the thing. Like how when the moon appears particularly large and impressive so you snap a picture of it only to be underwhelmed by reality of it. But I'm not sure that's it. After all, the truck, which I later learned is called a Sierra Denali is named after a mountain range and a mountain. The manufacturer absolutely wants to emphasize its largeness. And their tenuous grasp of geography as Mt. Denali is in the Alaskan Range and not the Sierras.* Yes, I had to look that up, but it took me like, a second. What's GM's excuse? Look, I know I sound like I'm railing against something that's none of my business. This is America, you can drive whatever you want. And that's true. But I have to ask, why does this person need  to take up so much space? 

What is so lacking in their life that they needed the biggest, most absurd luxury pick-up ninety-thousand dollars can buy? Huh? What's that? Yes. Ninety-thousand dollars. Of money. Ninety-thousand dollars to tell the world that you don't distinguish between self-worth and ownership. Harsh? Yeah, but that truck was like, really dumb.

For some perspective, I saw a cybertruck in the wild the day before
I saw the Denali and it's not the overpriced truck I'm complaining about.

*yeah, I know "sierra" is Spanish for mountain range and not necessarily the Sierras in California, but I don't think GM knows that and the target audience for this thing kind of feels like the "speak 'merican!" crowd anyway, so I stand by what I said. Also, sorry, I'm only getting to get saltier as the election gets closer.

Cincinnatus, but with aviators

Well, fingers crossed. So after the debate, the assassination attempt, and the weirdly fawning coverage of MAGA-CON 2024, the Democratic Party finally has everyone's attention.

Pictured: the President announcing his decision on X of all places.

"As a matter of fact, I do."

-the winner of the 

most votes in 2020

If you haven't heard, and of course you have, you don't live in a cave--wait, you don't live in a cave, do you? I'm not cave shaming, I swear. Anyway, President Biden is stepping out of the presidential race and has endorsed the Vice President, Kamala Harris, and I'm ambivalent. I mean, I hope Harris wins the nomination and everything, I'm just getting that feeling all progressives gets when they're waiting for something to come out of nowhere and punch us in the face. You know what I mean. 

Above: Former President Trump
speaking at the RNC last week. 

Anyway, I hope you'll join me in crossing my fingers for the next month that everyone just gets behind Harris. Or somebody else. But I mean, just get behind Harris. You know? We need to not look like buffoons right now. The thing the right seems to be really good at is that ability to put aside their differences and get behind a single person. Sure, that person is a literal criminal and the biggest threat to democracy since the Emperor from Star Wars, but still, someone. 

Wow, remember when he was just a celebrity
cameo and not the guy who's openly running
for dictator? The 90's, amiright?

I'm not mad Biden's stepping aside, but still though. It doesn't feel great. I mean, it sucks but the entire conversation after the debate was about how poorly he did and not about how the gameshow host just burbled out patently untrue nonsense the whole time. It didn't help that after that, that kid took a shot at the former star of Home Alone 2, the media kept running the fist raised photo, instead of the one that makes him look like a confused seventy-eight year old man who'd just taken a teleprompter to the ear.

It's not fair, but I suppose politics aren't really about what's fair. And the election isn't about one guy. And now instead of being the guy who kept pressing on in the face of everyone telling him it was time to hand it off, he's the guy that listened and did right thing. At least, we hope it's the right thing. It is, right?

Ok everybody, let's not screw this up.

Today in shouting at Jimmy Panetta:

I just want to be super clear on one point: I'm not pro-genocide. You'd think that outside of say Slobodan Milosevic, most people shouldn't have to say that, but here we are. I say this because over the weekend, I helped out at a pro-democracy event and was accused, personally, of supporting mass-murder. And I take issue with this.

Would a mass-murdering monster post a picture of puppies? No. I rest my case.

Pictured: former President Biff Tannen is all
the evidence we need that it can happen here.

The event in question was part of a nation-wide staged reading of an updated version of Sinclair Lewis's play, "It Can't Happen Here." It posits a scenario in which a populist wins the Presidential election and becomes a dictator. It's, you know, topical. Invited to read the piece were some local figures in the arts and progressive politics including Santa Cruz mayor Fred Keeley, and Congressman Jimmy Panetta. Which, great, right? 

If The Lion King taught us anything it's
that we have to stand up against the
ideologues. And that hyenas are bad.

Not everyone onstage or in the room necessarily agrees on everything, but we can all get onboard with the message of the play, right? Like, we're all against fascism? And yet I had to escort five people out of the performance because they stood up and shouted at the readers. Not because they like fascism, but because they have issues with the Congressman and the Mayor. Most of them were relatively cooperative when asked to leave, and I'm sure the boos and jeers of the other two-hundred and fifty attendees helped, but c'mon. I mean, C'mon.

"Mwhrhrhr?"
"Mrrrmrm. Mrrhhrhww!"

I'm not going to get into specifics, partly because they were all wearing KN95's and it was really hard to understand them, and party because I don't want to mischaracterize their beliefs. Just know that my beef isn't with the protestor's cause, it's with the screaming. And the drums. And the megaphone held to the back door of the theatre so that the largely sixty-five and up crowd were struggling to hear the reading. And not for nothing, but I heard from a number of the attendees who said they agree with the protestors, but felt they were making them look bad. 

"Ok, from the top and remember: you're all
complicit in genocide. And a one, and a two..."

I don't want to tell people how to protest, but there's such a thing as preaching to the choir. In fact, they're such a thing as shrieking through a megaphone at the choir so loud and so incoherently that the choir packs up and converts to secular humanism. And I mean, we were putting on an event with the goal of getting people to take action. It might not have been the specific action that these folks wanted, but the world is a garbage fire and we don't need to be at each other's throats. 

I guess what I'm saying is boo. Boooooo. As I escorted one of the protestors out, one of their friends asked how rattled Jimmy Panetta was, which, he wasn't. At all. This kind of thing happens to him all the time and he simply doesn't let it bother him.

Pictured: Congressman Jimmy Panetta seen here being unperturbed.
Which is exactly how he was the entire evening, so great work everybody.

It's only a racket when liberals do it.

Ok, so money is either speech or it isn't. I mention this because noted supervillian, Elon Musk is evidently planning to sue companies who bailed on Twitter when he took over and started platforming actual Nazis.

Remember when the worst thing he'd done with his Twitter acquisition
 was just to ignore zoning laws? Man, those were the days...

And other times people pretend Trader Joe's
isn't suing to end organized labor forever.

Sorry, that's not fair. I shouldn't just dismiss people as Nazis because they espouse a white nationalist, white supremacist, fascist worldview. I should dismiss them as fucking Nazis--that's right, I did a swear, but I mean, Nazis. Anyway, when Musk took over Twitter, gave it its objectively terrible rebranding and started to re-platform the worst people in the world, companies understandably said no thank you, and stopped advertising on the rapidly-cooling corpse of the social media site. It's called boycotting and sometimes it even works.

Remember that time he built a truck
that couldn't get wet? Yeah, that was great.

But, according to Musk, it's a racket when businesses choose not to work with a company they find objectionable:

"X has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott racket."

-The guy that bought Twitter

so he could let Nazi's back on

What? He said he plans to be a dictator
and has blond hair: Butterscotch Hitler.

And now he's threatening to sue, so I guess what I'm asking is why is an advertiser boycott a racket, but the world's richest man buys a social media site because he doesn't like that they banned Butterscotch Hitler for repeatedly violating their rules, it's not? Unless--hey, you don't suppose that Elon Musk just thinks that the rules don't apply to him. But where would someone who grew up super-rich thanks to his family's emerald mines, get the idea that he was somehow better than everybody else and that--oh, right, the life of wealth and privilege. 

Under normal circumstances, I'd say this is nothing to worry about. After all, suing businesses for not advertising on your dumb website isn't a crime. But then the thin veneer of civilization has been wearing away recently what with the recent decision by a bunch of judges that president's have immunity for pretty much anything. So maybe worry?

Pictured: the six Supreme Court Justices who came down on the side
of "the President is basically a king." And three of them were appointed by
a guy most Americans didn't vote for who, incidentally, was the king in question.

But what has James Dean done for us lately?

Finally, a use for AI technology: necromancy. Not like, dark arts necromancy, more like end-stage capitalism necro-actually, yeah, dark arts necromancy.

Pictured: Capitalism.

"Monetizing the dead since 2024"

-ElevenLabs actual slogan*

I'm referring, of course, to this startup--of course it's a start up--ElevenLabs. Which is two words shoved together with and intercaps L because branding. Necromancy is the practice of communicating with the dead, usually for the purpose of predicting the future, and that's not precisely what the company's digital grave-robbing is meant for. Instead you could use it to, I don't know, pretend Judy Garland is wishing your dad a happy birthday or that James Dean is the co-host of your conspiracy podcast. 

"Is that like, the sausage guy?"

-teens

And if that sounds gross, don't worry, the startup has already paid the cash-starved descendants of the dead celebrities in question. Want to complain on YouTube that Disney has gone woke and ruined Star Wars? Why not do it as Burt Reynolds? Or, why not have Sir Lawrence Olivier record the audio version of your Harry Potter Fan fiction? He's British, right? The possibilities are endless! And problematic. And kind of dumb? Is there still a lot of Smokey and the Bandit brand awareness? Is James Dean still trending?

"Well, I wasn't doing anything with grandma's 
voice, and I kinda needed a new yacht so..."

-Some famous person's grandkid

Do the kids even still say trending? Did they ever? Doesn't matter, I guess what I'm saying is that while it's nice and legal, that doesn't mean it's ok. Sure, they got Judy Garland or whoever's grandkids to sign off of this, but that's not the same thing as the person themselves. I mean, can these AI generated voices could say whatever the customer wants? Like, anything? I'm not kidding about the creepy podcast thing. The website contains some vague mention of making sure that "laws are respected" but there isn't a specific law against making a dead celebrity read your flat earth manifesto, so...

Deceased celebrities can't give their consent to their vocal likeness being used. And maybe this is just my natural aversion to startups, AI, and the bleak, hyper capitalist dystopia we find ourselves living in, but the whole things seems wrong and gross. Although I suppose if AI is going to be taking people's jobs, at least it's just taking jobs from dead people.

"Sure it's seventy-five square feet, but this is still LA.
Do you have any idea what the rent is on this place?"

-Judy Garland's ghost

*ok, no it's not, but I mean, might as well be, right?

Two hours I'd like back, please

I think we should call it the Cranston-verse
after the actor's ten minutes of screen time.

I mean, I could have just turned the movie off and yet I didn't. I sat through all one hundred and fifty-five minutes of Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire and I have some thoughts. Fewer than when I started watching, but still, some thoughts. Oh, and this isn't a review. Watch it, don't watch it. That's your business. I'm just telling you how I spent the last two hours. Anyway, let's start with the obvious: how does one pronounce the title? Is it Godzilla ecks Kong? It's definitely not Godzilla ten Kong as there are only five entries in this particular series of U.S. produced kaiju movies, un-creatively called the "Monsterverse."

 

The real new empire is the friendships
Kong and Godzilla made along the way.

Traditionally, Godzilla versus other monsters like he's bringing a case against them, but in this movie they're on the same side. Mostly. They have a kind of "two cops from different worlds assigned to the same case who have to overcome their dislike for one another in order to work together." Together in a New Empire? I guess? There are no empires, new or otherwise mentioned in the movie, so I suspect someone just thought it sounded cool.

It's tough keeping kids away from
bad influences:alcohol, smoking, kaiju.

They were incorrect, but that doesn't mean it was a bad movie. It was, but I blame movies in general. And by movies I'm just talking about the big, splashy, CG-heavy genre films that are just about explosions and quips. This thing made me feel nothing at any point. There was a subplot about a mother and her daughter, and the daughter is the last surviving member of a tribe who can communicate with King Kong via sign language, but that took a back seat to the hollow earth lore. Yeah, you heard me. 

Above: poppycock.

The last couple Cranston-verse movies have leaned heavily into the long debunked theory--I mean, is it a theory if someone just made it up?--that the earth is hollow and contains a long lost prehistoric world. I'm pretty sure the real-world version of this hokum has some racist overtones, like, Hitler was into it because he thought the ündergründ--or whatever he called it--was populated by aryans or something, but the one in the movie is mercifully just full of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs with ice ray breath, who are ridden by a villainous giant ape king. Ludicrous? Perhaps, but I'll take it over Nazis.

From left, Godzilla, Gigan,
Kirkland-brand Ultraman, and Megalon.

And this isn't the first time a Godzilla movie has dipped into lost civilizations. Godzilla vs. Megalon had him battle a giant cockroach with drills for hands summoned by the toga-clad inhabitants of Seatopia. My point is Godzilla movies have always been bananas. So if it sounds like I'm trashing this one, please understand that I knew full well what I was getting into. I knew this one was going to be far closer to the Godzilla X Cockroach lunacy than the thoughtful meditation on grief and trauma that was Godzilla Minus One.

Pictured: the smoldering remains
of a city of six milli--whoa! Check
out Kong's new bionic hand! Dope!

But where Minus One made every monster attack feel significant and meaningful, New Empire just felt weightless (pun unintended if you've seen the movie). There're several monster fights that destroy cities in this movie, but they're all pretty throw away. Just video-gamey destruction there to fill out the runtime. I mean, the climatic battle presumably killed hundreds of thousands of people in Rio de Janeiro, but I guess we're supposed to cheer when Kong and Godzilla throw the villain ape king (the one with the dinosaur) through a few dozen apartment complexes. 

Above: Godzilla doing less damage
to San Francisco than the tech boom.

I get that the action and visual effects are supposed to be the point here, but I don't know. After Minus One, Shin Godzilla, and even the Cranston-verse movie, the 2014 Godzilla, all of which dealt with the implications of giant monsters battling it out in major population centers, it just makes the characters feel callous and kind of shitty that they don't acknowledge the destruction. And sure, it's probably unfair to compare this summer popcorn 'splosion-fest to the more serious takes on radio-active dinosaur destroys world but it's also an unavoidable comparison. 

Again, I'm not trying to convince you to see or not see this movie. I'm just internetting about a movie I just watched. But if I had to sum it up: New Empire is 100% a part of the campy rubber-suit interpretation of Godzilla, and that's fine, but it's two hours long and spends way too much time lore dumping about hollow earth. And I just need the mass destruction and horror in these movies to either mean something or be stunt performers in foam rubber suits stomping on model cities. Pick a lane, is what I'm saying.

Pictured: Godzilla, a symbol of the dangers of both atomic weapons
and the toll war takes on a culture seen here drop kicking a cockroach.

Today in how old a pretend space wizard is:

Above: heroes.

Amidst an oppressive heatwave, judicial miscarriage that promises to doom this country to a dictator, like an actual dictator, and two ongoing wars, one group of--let's call them heroes--has the courage, nay the fortitude to speak out about the only truly important issue of our times: The Acolyte's reckless disregard for Star Wars canon with the inclusion of Ki-Adi-Mundi in a recent episode, and Star Wars fan site Wookiepedia's blind allegiance to doing the bidding of Kathleen Kennedy and her woke liberal agenda something something indecipherable angry noise.

And by heroes I mean the psychopaths who have been evidently levying death threats at the editors of Wookipedia, the unofficial Star Wars wiki because, yikes.

"Death threats are only illegal when they're official acts."

-The Supreme Court

Above: yeah, the cone head guy who
absolutely nobody cared about until they
decided to be mad about The Acolyte.

Here, allow me to nerdsplain: The Acolyte--which is fine by the way--is set about a hundred years before Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. A recent episode of the series featured an appearance by a younger version of a Jedi called Ki-Ali-Mundi who was introduced in The Phantom Menace. Because Star Wars, Mundi had an elaborate backstory in the pre-Disney Expanded Universe that placed him as something like sixty years old in Episode I, which conflicts with his appearance in The Acolyte.

Pictured: a wiki about made-up things.

Except it doesn't, since Disney made a point of disregarding Expanded Universe continuity with their purchase of Star Wars from George Lucas. So in addition to being a ridiculous thing to threaten wiki editors with murder over--the editors had the temerity to update the wiki to reflect the revised backstory--it's also incorrect. Canon is whatever Disney says it is, and officially new canon supersedes Expanded Universe, now called Legends canon.

The Federation starship Firefly.

But I'm not sure that's, you know, relevant? I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say that there's no edit one can make to any page on Wookiepedia that would warrant a death threat. They could change the Millennium Falcon page to say it runs of dilithium crystals and is bigger on the inside thanks to Time Lord technology, and it still wouldn't make a violent reaction justified. What even is wrong with them? What even is wrong with us as a civilization?

Lots, as evidenced by this week's assertion that Presidents can just straight up murder people if they feel like it. The fact that reasonable people have come out in support of the site and #WeStandWithWookiepedia is trending are small, if bright spots in the otherwise depressing tale of grown-ass adults working themselves into a rabid-foam frenzy over made up nonsense like how old a pretend space wizard is.

If only we could redirect this righteous indignation towards something more constructive.
Like, and I'm just throwing out ideas here, preventing our actual spiral towards totalitarianism?