What did you say?

Of the MANY comic book movie tropes, the most annoying and laughable to me is always the battlefield banter between enemies. 

I'm not talking about our heroes or villains talking amongst themselves, plotting, planning. 

No, I'm talking about when opposing sides talk to each other in the midst of battle. How many times has Spider-Man or Deadpool cracked wise while they're exchanging blows with the villains? The idea that anything could be heard over the din of battle. But the variant of that which is even more ridiculous is the opposing sides stopping the fight to pontificate to the other. Whether our heroes attempt to appeal to the villain's better side or the antagonists threaten to kill our defenders or worse yet, start monologuing. Lay out their entire evil plan to bide the heroes more time to execute their last-ditch effort to save the city/world/universe. 

And the most absurd to even those are the normal speaking voices despite standing hundreds of yards apart. Have you tried to have a normal conversation with someone standing a football field away from you?  

As much as I love the 3rd act of Endgame, it's also the WORST at battlefield conversations. The battle between the Triad vs Thanos and somehow they vary between a few feet away to suddenly being at least a quarter mile away from one another. That scene when it's just Cap and Thanos, Thanos somehow knocked Cap hundreds of yards away and then in a voice barely above a whisper tells Cap he's going to reduce the universe to atoms before summoning his army to assemble behind him. And there's Cap waaaaayyyyy off in the distance, all by his lonesome. 🤦‍♂️ I know he's got super hearing but holy fuck, come on, I don't think he heard you without shouting. 

I will say that as much as I didn't really care for Shazam, they skewered that trope perfectly when Dr. Sivana starts to monologue and Shazam yells back at him, "What?! What'd you say?! I can't hear you, you're like a mile away!" And they cut to the wide shot and you see Dr. Sivana wayyyyy off in the distance. 

Adventures in Online Dating - RPV

 It was a friend's recent post about Performative Receiving that actually prompted/reminded me about this girl I went out on a couple of dates with.  Honestly, I had forgotten about her mostly because we only went out a couple of times and both of those times, she was seemingly lost in thought during most of our dates.  

As the title states, this was another Adventure in Online Dating and RPV is because this girl, and I keep using the term 'girl' despite the fact that she was my age when we first met.  I would assume she's still my age but I digress.  Anyway, this girl and I met online, I forget which website or app, but it was soon after I had moved out to Huntington Beach.  And let me tell you something that I hadn't really thought much of but man, once I moved to HB, my dating life EXPLODED!  It was kind of ridiculous how many girls I dated/hooked up with/scratched that itch with those first few years I lived in HB.  I guess a single dude in his late 30s living in his own place(no roomies!) was a big draw for the ladies at the time.  And I took advantage of it as best I could.  Anywho, I met this girl and she was from Rancho Palos Verdes, RPV.  And for those who aren't familiar, RPV tends to be a little more hoity-toity, upscale neighborhood along the coast in LA county.  She did drive a BMW SUV so she was doing fairly well, financially speaking.  But she was also newly single.  And by newly single, I'm talking she was divorced within the past 6-months.  That whole "freshly divorced and making up for lost time" mentality was in full effect.  She was now a single mother of a teenager and using the dating sites to get her groove back.  

We originally chatted for a bit and she sort of dropped off for a few days, ghosted.  Didn't think much of it since it happens ALL the time but she was back and eager to meet up when she returned about a week or so later.  Dinner at some place in Hermosa Beach and then a walk along the pier.  But the entire time after dinner, she was distant.  Seemingly not into the rest of the date.  I walked her back to her car and we kissed goodnight.  She wasn't really into chatting much after that so I figured that was that.  No harm, no foul.  And when she dropped out of the dating website again, I took it in stride.  

Then maybe a couple of weeks later, she was back.  We talked a bit again and this time I got her to meet up with me and some friends at 80s karaoke at Alex's Bar in Long Beach.  Yes, Mr. Mister Miyagi, if you remember them.  Are they still even around?  They were fun but I stopped following them after their shows at Alex's got ridiculously packed.  First couple of times I saw them were cool but then the bar was starting to get nuts to butts crowded and getting on the list to sing was next to impossible unless you signed up as soon as they set out the list.  Which is ironic because I saw them perform once at The Gaslamp and NOBODY was there.  I think I went up to sing 3 times and when my name came up a 4th time, I said, "Pass!"  Their lead singer even bought me a shot just because I was willing to go up so many times.  But I'm straying from the story.  

So she met up with my friends and I at Alex's and for the record, one of those friends was my regular FWB but she totally gave me the thumbs up on my date.  RPV really was my 'type', if I had one.  She was about my height, curvy in all the right places, something to hold onto, I like to say.  Curly brown hair, cute AF.  Anyway, we were there for a while and when we all broke to leave, RPV followed me back to my place.  Yes, brown chicken, brown cow!  
We got back to my place and we're talking for a little bit, getting comfortable and she starts to explain/semi-apologize for ghosting me before.  Turns out I was right in assuming she met another dude and thought things with him were going in the right direction.  At least that's what she thought until she started giving him a hummer and he started taking pictures.  He hadn't asked, she just saw the camera flashes going off to clue her in.  Classy dude.  

***WARNING***
Some of you might feel a bit uneasy reading the details of what happened next between us but you can stop reading this at any time.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

The reason why the Performative Receiving topic triggered this reminder for me was because once RPV and I started getting intimate, I went to go down on her.  Gotta be honest, that's really something I truly enjoy doing to a girl.  REALLY, truly enjoy.  What can I say, I've got a really talented tongue and it's not just for pictures.  But that's when she started to tense up.  Her body language let me know she was uncomfortable with me going down on her and she told me after a few minutes that the reason was because she hadn't planned on our date going so far, not that she wanted to stop but because she had gone to the gym shortly before meeting us at the bar.  She didn't give herself time to shower.  So the entire time, she's worried she might be giving off a 'not-so-fresh' scent while I was down there.  

Rather than let that kill the mood, I shifted my attention to the rest of her and we continued on, eventually wearing each other out and falling asleep for a few hours.  She woke me up, it must have been after 3 a.m. when she said she had to get home.  She hadn't told her daughter she was going to stay out all night and her daughter had soccer in the morning.  I walked her out to her car, hugged and kissed goodnight, said we'd definitely see each other soon. 
I never heard from her again.  Ghosted a third time.  Never saw her on the dating website either.  

Woke Up

, I'll read through the comments across social media platforms and invariably, someone, often a white male in their late teens to mid-40s will whine about how "woke" comic book movies or entertainment as a whole has gotten. They're so offended that more stories involving people of color and women are ruining their favorite characters and stories. And every time I read one of their complaints, I wish I could reach through the screen and slap some sense into them. 

Then I think about this post that I shared a couple of years ago and wanted to share it here again: I wish I could take credit for these words but the thoughts and sentiments are definitely on my mind often:

X-Men is about civil rights. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get X-Men.

Black Panther is about civil rights. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Black Panther.

Captain America literally fought the Nazis. He is the embodiment of fighting the alt-right. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Captain America.

The Empire in Star Wars is fascist. The Rebel alliance is Anti-Fascist. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Wars.

The Punisher isn’t meant to be a role model for police or armed forces. So much so that the writers of The Punisher made him actively speak out against it in a comic. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get The Punisher.

Deadpool is queer. He’s pansexual. Fact. If you didn’t get that you didn’t get Deadpool.

Star Trek is about equality for all genders, races, and sexualities. As early as the mid-60s it was taking a pro-choice stance and defending women’s right to choose. One of its clearest themes is accepting different cultures and appearances and working together for peace. (It’s also anti-capitalist and pro-vegan). If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Star Trek.

Superman and Supergirl (and a whole host of other superheroes) are immigrants. The stance of those comics is pro-immigration and pro-equality and acceptance. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t get Superman or Supergirl.

Stan Lee said, “Racism and bigotry are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today.” If you’re bigoted or racist, you didn’t get any of the characters Stan Lee created.

The stories we grew up with all taught us to value other people and cultures and to treasure the differences between us. Only villains were xenophobic, or sexist, or racist, or totalitarian. I can’t understand how anyone can have missed that.

If you’re upset that there’s a black Spider-Man, or a black Captain America, or a female Thor, or that Ms. Marvel is Muslim, or that Captain Marvel was pro-feminism, or any of the other things right-wing “fans” say is “stealing their childhood” - you never got it in the first place. The things you claim are now “pandering to the lefties” were never on your side to begin with.

If you consider yourself a fan of these things, but you still think the LGBTQ+ community is too “in your face”, or have a problem with Black Lives Matter, or want to “take the country back from immigrants”, then you’re not really a fan at all.

Geek culture isn’t suddenly left-wing... it always was. You just grew up to be intolerant. You became the villain in the stories you used to love.

Disagree? See yourself out.