That time America was thwarted by rain.

So like, nobody buys it, right? The story about the rain making his teleprompter say that thing about the-oh, wait. Maybe you don't know what I'm talking about. Maybe in an effort to avoid high blood-pressure and pre-mature signs of aging, you've detached yourself from the news and didn't see anything about Trump's dumb Salute to America speech. I can respect that.

Trump's $2.4 million message to America: The future
belongs to us...which, has...has he not seen Cabaret? 

America: 154 years without a Civil War.
Thanks President Trump!

Besides, I didn't watch it either. Although I did read about how it was, as times the President has opened his burger hole, less divisive than one would expect. Which, I mean, does he want a cookie? He's the President. How much have we lowered the bar for him that anything short of calling on supporters to storm DNC headquarters is him being unifying? Anyway, in addition to not mocking the disabled or threatening nuclear annihilation, he also said some stupid nonsense about how during the Revolutionary War the army:

"manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do, and at Fort McHenry, under the rocket's red glare, it had nothing but victory."

-The guy most of us didn't vote for,

but is somehow the President

Our only hope is that the people who voted for him see
what a horrible mistake it was, and make better choices.
So yeah, it's all riding on these people getting smarter...

Once again our great nation is brought to
its knees by rain. If only there was some
way to counter its unstoppable power.

Cool. But actually the revolutionaries 100% suffered defeats during the war. Like, it was a war. Sure, we ultimately came out on top in what's increasingly looking like a mistake but-oh, the airport thing. Yeah, that goes beyond his usual fake-patriotic drivel and is just gibberish. But surely there must be a reasonable explanation for his...I'd say lapse, but he's kind of always like this. Well, whatever it is, it's not what he says it was, which is equipment failure. Yeah. He said the rain did it.

Pictured: The President, expertly looking
at a teleprompter in the rain. Even though
that's like, a really hard thing to do. 

"I knew the speech very well so I was able to do it without a teleprompter. And it was actually hard to look at anyway because of the rain."

-The President to reporters wearing expressions 

of bland pity at his presumption of their stupidity

Oh. Oohhhh. I see, so the rain caused the teleprompter to malfunction in a such a way that rather than simply shorting out or something, it re-wrote his speech to include an embarrassing gaffe.

You just had to run on your ability
to form coherent sentences...

Also he totally knew the speech you guys. So well that he didn't need that teleprompter anyway. Also, also the rain made it super-hard to see, but he could anyway, because he's really good at reading teleprompters in the rain. Which is a super-useful skill for a President to have. In fact, I'm sure if Hillary Clinton had only run on her in-the-rain-teleprompter reading ability she'd be the President. You know, instead of just the person most of us voted for-huh? Yes, I do harp on that a lot. Doesn't mean it's not true.

Just let me...let me get this straight. It's not that he was just ill-prepared or that he didn't run his speech past his staff, it's that he's a victim of a real-life Maximum Overdrive.

Pictured: Maximum Overdrive, a film about machines
coming to life and murdering people. A plot we're being asked
to accept is more plausible than Trump being bad at speeches.

Happy uh...whatever...

Anyone else not feeling super patriotic this Fourth? You know, what with our country's rapid and almost eager descent into autocracy? Because I'm not.

Pictured: A TV celebrity humping the flag so many have fought and died for.

What? Yes they are.
By definition they are.

Now that concentration camps are a thing again, Nazi's are back, the South is careening towards Gilead, I'm just not sure I can muster up the 'ol 4th of July spirit. Oh, and today is Donald Trump's preposterous 'Salute to America' where he's about to waste millions of dollars violating the Hatch Act in some misguided and insane attempt to feel adequate. Maybe heavy drinking will help? Or...not. I guess then I'd just have a hangover and Trump will still be the President.

"Looks like ol'dubya's off the hook."

-Former worst President,

George W. Bush

And yeah, I know it's ok to love America and still think the President is the biggest, dumbest shitheel to ever eke out an electoral college win, but I'm not sure Donald Trump is the only thing wrong with us right now. He's the biggest, golf-playingest, sexual assault-iest symbol of our many problems, but he's just that. A symbol. Or I guess symptom is the better word. A symptom of the virulent, drug-resistant divisiveness we picked up from either Fox News, Russian internet trolls or both. We're still waiting for the lab results.

Look, Republicans are by and large old and
love Chic-fil-A. I think we can take'em.

Of course, there's plenty of blame to go around. It's not just the GOP's fault. I mean, it's mostly the GOP's fault, but we're the ones who didn't take to the streets with pitchforks and torches when Mitch McConnell stole Obama's last Supreme Court pick, or when our archaic electoral system designed to make rural states feel appreciated put a buffoon in office with three million fewer votes than a qualified candidate. And we're still a year or so away from being able to do anything about it.

And even then the aforementioned conservative-packed Supreme Court just handed gerrymandering fans carte blanch to draw district lines any way they please so even if we again vote for someone else, the outsized voting power of the MAGA-hat wearing goon demographic might just condemn us to another four years of America's worst reality show. So I don't know, happy Fourth of July. I guess.

"What are you talking about? Your vote counts, I'm just
making sure it doesn't matter. There's a difference."

-Speaker Mitch McConnell, a guy

who can somehow sleep at night

I guess not everybody loves a parade...

Pictured: a real hullabaloo.

I'm conflicted. Well, sure, aren't we all? But I'm conflicted about a specific thing. I went to SF Pride yesterday which is weird because it involved me driving San Francisco. Which I hate. Driving to San Francisco, not the city itself. Although I am a little conflicted about that too, not just the gentrification thing, although that's a big part of it, but the rigmarole that is trying to find a parking space there. It's all a lot of malarkey if you ask me. God, when did I become this person? Huh? Right...where was I? Pride.

I did get this blurry shot of
Kamala Harris...'s car. 

I saw the parade, well I saw the backs of people's heads and got the vague impression that there was a parade beyond. I could see the tops of wigs and hear the thumping bass, so I'm fairly confident that it was the Pride parade. What? I got there late. Anyway, while my friends and I were watching, it ground to a halt. Which is, you know, not how parades traditionally work. And it stayed stopped for like an hour. An hour! Can you believe it? Since we live in the future the answer has an internet search away and the news said that protesters were blocking the route.

Oh shit! Thought I. And my mind immediately conjured up images of MAGA hat goons, or anti-choice sign wavers or Proud Boys or some such nonsense but it was none of these things. Wait, do I owe them an apology?

No. Of course I don't. These are garbage people espousing garbage. If anything,
they should be apologizing to the rest of us. Also, that guy in the middle should
be running a craft brewery or selling razor kits on a podcast or something..

"We here at Wells Fargo celebrate your
 diversity or whatever. So do you want
 to open a checking account? Or what?"

-Wells Fargo

For lo, the protestors, it turned out, were pro-pride parade. They just had some issues with who was there. Yup, they were a protest double whammy. They'd blocked the street in opposition to both corporate participation in the parade and police presence at the parade. Pick one, right? Ok, but why those two things? Well, corporate participation is obvious. Corporations aren't there because they support the LGBTQ+ community. They're cold unfeeling gestalt entities whose sole raison d'être is the accumulation of returns for their shareholders.

So I'm with the protesters there, but police? I mean, the police are there to protect us from the unstable people Republicans keep insisting should have access to assault rifles. What's their beef with police?

Oh, right.

I know it's not all cops, we're talking
about a systemic problem with-look,
here's a cop reading to kids. Happy?

Yeah, that's my privilege. As in the kind I need to get better at checking. To me cops have historically been people who write me a ticket or someone we call when there's a shoplifter at work. I mean, they don't do anything about it, but they've never pulled a gun on me. So I'm neutral on cops? But for an alarmingly increasing number of Americans, that's not the case what with all the police shootings and areforgoddamnserious acquittals for said shootings. For a lot of people police interactions are negative at best, potentially fatal at worst.

Ok, that's a little better.

Also, there's a kind of uncomfortable irony that comes along with a police presence at an event that marks the Stonewall Riots. According to SF Gate one of the be-megaphoned protestors said:

"The system of policing upholds white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, gender binaries and capitalist rule..."

-Someone with a mega phone,

in need of a catchier slogan

Anyway, as I mentioned before, I'm conflicted about this. I have to side with the victims of police brutality, but I would also like to not live in a lawless dystopia. I mean, the obvious question is "So what do we do if we need the police at Pride?" Which, while also the smartass response to all this by like, half of twitter right now, is a valid question when you're not being a dick about it. And I don't know if anyone has the answer. Blocking the parade isn't it, but then 'shut up and get out of the street, there's a parade coming!' is also not the solution to the problem of rampant police brutality. So like I said, conflicted!

Normally I'd be loath to side with people making
the traffic in San Francisco worse but, here we are.

And here's a fun fact, did you know it's illegal to block a parade route? Like, there's a specific law against it. I learned that today as one of the protesters was charged with 'blocking a parade route.' Who knew?

Hell hath no fury like a fanbase scorned.

Above: what I picture
every time I hear the title.

This is an outrage and we will not stand for it. The line must be drawn he-yah. I will not rest until those responsible correct this-huh? What am I talking about? Oh...yeah, probably should explain. So Neon Genesis Evangelion is streaming on Netflix and-right. Further explanation. It's an anime series with a preposterous title about teens who pilot giant robots and battle equally giant mysterious aliens in the year 2015. Which was the future when the show came out in 1995, but is now the past.

Anyway, the important thing is that this is a fondly-remembered anime series that is after years of only being available on DVDs, and before that VHS, finally on streaming and available to the masses. Masses like me who have been curious about what the big deal is, but not so curious as to shell out the forty bucks or whatever to buy it. So I've been watching it and it's good. I like it. Or at least I did until I found out about this.

No, not that the premise of teens piloting giant mechs to save the Earth
from alien invasion is the plot of like half of all anime. Although it is.

"Wait, no it doesn't."

                         -Anyone who saw

                          the show in 1995

Yeah, you didn't click on the link. I'll sum up. Netflix re-dubbed the show with a new voice cast and re-translated some of the lines to remove things like the word 'fuck.' Which, ok, lame. But another change that was made was to alter some lines that established a same-sex romantic interest on the part of one of the characters. In the original translation and I guess, in Japanese, a character called Kowaru, tells Shinji, the protagonist, that he loves him. Like, directly says 'I love you.' But the re-translation now has Kowaru saying 'I like you.' Which is different. Completely different. Well, mostly different.

You see it's kind of the same word in Japanese, but fans maintain that the scene had been previously read as a confession of romantic love and not Kowaru being bro-y. So what gives?

The daunting complexities and nuances of the Japanese language?

Oh, I get it. Sort of like how they
should edit out all the giant robot fights
and let us infer how awesome they'd be.

According to translator Dan Kanemitsu, in his twitter-based defense, he made the change in order to leave the relationship up to the viewers interpretation. Um...ok. Here:

"It is one thing for characters to confess their love. It is quite another thing for the audience to infer affection and leave them guessing...Leaving room for interpretation make (sic) things interesting."

-Dan Kanemitsu, convincing

exactly no one about anything

Yes. It is quite another thing. That's the problem. Hey, does his response remind anyone else of when older people complain about how there's too much sex on TV and in movies? And how much better it was when they just faded to black and left it up to your imagination?

Above: A scene from Game of Thrones offered as
evidence that no, clearly no one thinks it was better when
sex on TV was left to the audience's imagination.

And what, watch Hulu
like some kind of savage?

So Netflix, in 2019, during pride month saw fit to not only alter, but de-gay a cult favorite. Cool guys. And look, like I said, I've never seen Evangelion before now, and if I didn't know this change was made, I wouldn't have noticed. But it feels weird and gross now and I don't want to support this-huh? No, I'm not boycotting Netflix. Let's be realistic here. What I am going to do is stop at seventeen minutes into episode 12 and not hit resume until Netflix re-re-subtitles this scene.

Yup. I'm taking a stand. A subtle, inconsequential stand. And of course they'll fix it, eventually. Not because they have a moral compass mind you, but because we live in an age of internet petitions and twitter screeds and it's usually just easer to give us nerds what we want rather than try and stand up to fan outrage.

"Thank you for calling Netflix, how 
may we acquiesce to your demands?"

-Netflix's customer service operators

...definitely this Boomer though.

Like Neo, except he dodges questions,
is older, more insulting and bad at it.

Exactly what was Jack Tapper expecting from Mike Pence? I ask because I guess he interviewed Mike Pence on State of the Union yesterday and asked him if he thought climate change was a threat. And Pence dodged the shit out of the question. Vice President Pence, probably best known as the homophobic ex-governor of Indiana and as a man so hyper-manly and virile that he cannot allow himself to be left alone with a woman who is not his wife lest he transform into a hormone-driven hurricane of sexual desire (ewww), was never going to give anything approaching an actual answer on this. Ever.

Anyway, Tapper was asking America's number two about how and why on God's formerly green Earth would the Administration roll back the last dangling thread of the Federal regulations standing between us and climatic collapse and Pence launched into some fairly standard right-wing bullshit about how he and the President will 'always follow the science.' Remarkably, he said this with a straight face. We'll follow the science. Yeah, ok. That's what Republicans are famous for, following the science.

Above: an excerpt from a Republican science text.

Remarkably, the predicted impact on
rents in Manhattan will be negligible.

Tapper then pointed out that the science and our own government says that anthropogenic climate change is one hundred percent a problem and asked if Pence agreed which, of course he didn't. Instead he spouted nonsense about clean coal and how Democrats and their kooky Green Deal are going to ruin the economy. And yes, if you're thinking to yourself that the total collapse of human civilization might also have a negative impact on the economy you'd be right, but Pence isn't going to make that connection. Ever.

How come? I don't know, he's got some kind of neurological disorder that allows his brain to disregard objective facts that disagree with his worldview? Maybe he drank the Trump-flavored Kool-Aid (again, ewww)? Or maybe, and this is by far the more cynical and more likely reason: he understands and doesn't care. Doesn't care because he's sixty and rich enough that it simply won't be a problem for him personally. Which brings us back to an earlier point about how Boomers are the worst. Specifically this Boomer:

Pictured: What? He's full of shit and his cognitive dissonance
could lead to the end of civilization. So yeah, the worst.

Yeah, I know, not all Boomers. But still...

I don't know if I found this interesting just because it's an insight into everything wrong with everything or because it reinforces a narrative that makes everything wrong with everything not my fault. Maybe both? Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Pictured: The (self-proclaimed) greatest generation,
seen here winning World War II and setting an impossibly
high bar for their kids. The result? Baby Boomers.

Finally, someone willing to stand up
for straight couples who have kids.

I read this article I read called, get this: "The Boomers Ruined Everything" from The Atlantic...the magazine, not the ocean. And it's written by Lyman Stone whose-and further get this: a Research Fellow with the Institute for Family Studies. And if that sounds like a super-gross conservative think tank, that's because it's a super-gross conservative think tank. You know the kind of group that sits goes around railing about how gay parents adopting children will lead to social upheaval and possibly dancing?

A rational conservative willing to
to cast a critical eye on America.

But I guess that doesn't necessarily mean that Lyman Stone is a right-wing nut job, right?  Like, he could be, and I know this is an increasingly rare phenomenon, a rational conservative whose willing to cast a critical eye upon America? I don't know, and I'm not going to do like, research, but let's just hope he's never written any articles about the upsides of slavery or how Hitler had some good ideas or something. Anyway, in the article Stone argues that Boomers both through their actions and inaction, have made America the low-wage, high-rent plutocratic hellscape that it is.

"I mean how much can a four year
university cost? Five? Six grand?"

-Boomers

Which, yeah, they have and it is. Even if we can't put our fingers on exactly how, I think we all kinda feel that Boomers, that is people born between the end of World War II and the mid-sixties, have basically made America unlivable for for everyone who isn't them. And I think we're all a little sick of them complaining about how kids these days are lazy and super entitled. I mean, it's a little like, 'hey, could you put down that living wage and home ownership before you start harping on millennials?' But is that too easy an answer? Like, is it fair or even accurate to blame an entire generation for another's problems?

I mean, it's not like there's a council of elders somewhere, cackling manically while they pass laws and make policies designed to enrich themselves at the expense not only of succeeding generation but the planet itself.

I...oh, right.

Also, I think it's kind of dumb.

Anyway, I should probably take this opportunity to explain that I myself am not technically a millennial. I mean, I think I was once. It used to be people who came of age around the new millennium, but then they bumped the cut off date into the mid-eighties and now I like to think of myself as some kind of proto-millennial. Like, I don't know how to use Snapchat, but I'll also never be able to afford a house, so I can relate. Anyway, doesn't matter. The important thing to bear in mind is that we've all been screwed over by the baby boomers.

Which might also say something
about the Cornhusker State.*

Of course, like any good conservative Stone links the generational wealth disparity to government regulations. Regulations Boomers didn't do anything about, but still, regulations. Things like zoning laws and having to have certifications for certain jobs are to blame rather than the lack of rent control and affordable education. But he also points to the fact that America has more people in prison than live in Nebraska as a gross and racially motivated policy designed to make white boomers feel safe. And he calls out American debt as a form of bondage...uh, the social kind, not the kink.

I think regardless of where we fall on the political spectrum-well not regardless, there's are some serious lunatics out there, but most of us let's say, can get behind what Stone's talking about. So I don't know, could this be the beginning of some kind of common ground between left and right? Like, can we all agree that this sucks and that something must be done?

"What are you talking about? Things are super and we're awesome!"

-People who will be able to retire someday

*That's my analogy, not Stone's. Didn't want you to think he was the one being a dick to the State of Nebraska. Speaking of, sorry Nebraska!

Today in Comic Mischief:

Not going to talk about politics today. The President is starting another war and making funny funny jokes about how he might just stay in office forever and for blood pressure reasons we're going to talk about Final Fantasy.

So like, buckle up them nerd belts. Seriously, that's like, super
dangerous. I know you've got like phoenix down or whatever, but still.

Action RPG? Never! You line up and
take turns waggling your sword from
across the screen as God intended.

Yeah, you remember a while back it was announced that there would be a remake of FFVII. That was good news. And then they said it was going to be episodic, meaning it would be released in multiple segments rather than as, you know, a game. That was bad news. Then last week we got a glimpse of how the new battle system works and it looks more action-oriented rather than turn-based like the original game. And that's either good news or bad news depending on how attached you are to classic JRPG combat mechanics.

Tifa was evidently designed by men
who've never seen a human female.

But the latest news is that director Tetsuya Nomura has announced some tweaks and changes from the 1997 version. According to Nomura there's going to be some new enemies, new dialogue and events designed to flesh out the game, and new looks for some of the characters. Especially Tifa whose original character model was maybe a little too 1997. And by that I mean she's sort of what would happen if the abstract concept of straight male puberty designed a polygonal, vaguely person-shaped video game character.

Pictured: people playing micro
transactions wrapped in ads.

But the problematic elements don't end with Lara Croft-era ickiness. Let's talk about the story. For those of you who are grown-ass adults or for whom video games are things you do on your phone while you're waiting in line at the bank, some games, particularly role-playing games, have storylines. They're usually complex and often make little sense, but there's definitely some attempt at a narrative. And sometimes these narratives contain elements that don't age well as is the case with FFVII.

"That's the gay men for you, constantly
forcing straight men to bathe with them."

-SquareEnix

The specific issue here is the Honey Bee Inn. It's a part of the main quest in which the spiky-haired protagonist Cloud has to rescue his childhood friend from sex-slavery in a bath house/brothel by disguising himself as a woman, only to be sexually assaulted by a mob of gay stereotypes. So in addition to making a wacky adventure out of sex trafficking, it's also transphobic and homophobic. Holy shit, right? It's not explicit, the screen just pans up as half a dozen lycra-clad men strip Cloud and force him to bathe with them, but still. Oh, and possibly they give him a hand job. Hard to tell.

Anyway, Nomura admits that this scene wouldn't fly today and so it's getting 'modernized,' whatever that means. Given how many installments they're stretching this out into, it seems like they could probably just cut the Honey Bee Inn as the relic of a less enlightened time, but they didn't ask me. Weirdly when Final Fantasy VII was first released, it was rated T for teen because of comic mischief, mild language and mild animated violence. Which, I'm confused, are non-consensual hand jobs considered comic mischief?

Yeah, Barrett's right. &^#$# that pizza...
and all the &#$^#ing suffering it's caused.