For Old Times' Sake

After recently attending my latest high school reunion - like many events last few years, delayed and rescheduled due to the pandemic - two important lessons were realized. One, there is plenty yet to learn about your dearest, closest friends you may have known for decades. Two, we can haunt and torment ourselves for years with lamentable experiences and corrosive sentiments from our past that no one cares to recall or even remembers. Leaving behind the chaos and uncertainty that has consumed the world felt nice as we reminisced and reconnected. Seemed like cherished olden days that night without having missed a beat, if only for a moment.

What is particular, yet certainly not solely unique, to my graduating class is the diversity and camaraderie among us that has existed since at least junior high school if not beyond. That youthful period is when the majority of our extended friendships, and loves, ignited that still persist and thrive today. This is not to say that we exist in a vacuum without internal stratification. While each of us might have our specific groups, there always has been a consistent and harmonious intermingling, as personally experienced and observed, beyond those confines without prejudice of demographic or status.

Considering the multiverse idea, there are infinite possibilities for the unfolding of events and our lives. Theoretically, it also means you might not exist in at least one of them - a curiously fascinating idea, no matter how fortunate or unfortunate. We may take our ‘presence’ for granted with social media that has given us an unprecedented opportunity to engage with others without being physically present - as the world discovered and adapted to during the pandemic. Yet, like anything in life, there are limits to this modern social interaction that give a higher valuation to personal, face-to-face engagement.

A lesson for humanity in general, but I leave that to you to learn accordingly.

In 1922, the world was experiencing the early throes of the Jazz Age/Roaring Twenties that developed out of the devastating ashes of “the war to end all wars.” Given the decade’s cultural and social dynamism, the French called the period Années folles (“Crazy Years”) - a fitting, if not apropos, moniker that so far could be applied to the 2020s as well for its comparable shifts and upheavals of the status quo. Perhaps 100 years from now, another generation will reflect on not only their own time but also look back on this one. Wondering what it was all about, possibly seeking inspiration and guidance from its context in relation to their own circumstance.

What legacy is left to them, and the future that it will usher, is already decided even if it is yet to be written. As the calendar again turns from another year to the next, let us give them one to commemorate rather than one to deplore.

©2022 Steve Sagarra

Hollaback Twirl

For a recent movie/television writer position with a leading entertainment website, I was asked to briefly write about my favorite movie franchise. The following was my response, as well as submitting several previous blog posts as additional relevant writing samples.

To quote Brodie Bruce in Mallrats, "wow, that is a good question. Difficult, though; what does one gauge his response on?" A comic book showdown of Avengers vs Justice League? A scifi battle of Star Trek vs Star Wars? A well-tailored and lethally equipped James Bond vs all of them? Swinging in to take the top spot is Batman, specifically Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy. While Tim Burton's 1989 film starring Michael Keaton succeeds in bringing to life the altruistic yet cavalier playboy Bruce Wayne and his gritty world's greatest detective alter ego for the first time, it cannot escape the campiness that defined the character for decades. Especially in the ensuing sequels, and, unfortunately, in hindsight. Nolan's version starring Christian Bale embraces the former while avoiding the latter - particularly in the definitive second film The Dark Knight, which quite possibly is one of the all-time finest movies ever produced - that elevates the cinematic superhero to new heights. Where it begins in the first movie, the Nolanverse rises to the occasion in the third and final act to create an enduring legacy.

Believe that to be a decent and efficient answer; yet, I never heard from them about the writer job. While applicants and new hires might be ghosting in today's job market, it is an all-too-common, widespread issue with potential employers as well.

©2022 Steve Sagarra

Random Thoughts: The Sequel, Perspectives Too

Belief in such things as hope and fate are for the young. To stay young is to still believe in them, despite inclinations to the contrary.

Fun celebrity names to say: Benedict Cumberbatch; Imogen Poots; Engelbert Humperdinck; Zooey Deschanel; Randolph Mantooth.

The year is 2022. Everyone knows by now, or at least they should, that websites use cookies (unfortunately, not the freshly warm, delicious kind). Please quit asking us to accept them, and default either to none or only necessary ones, if you must, for conditions of proper website operation.

We are living in an era of unprecedented access to knowledge and information at the literal blink of an eye - the downside being an equal amount of distracting inaccuracies and outright falsities. Perhaps future generations actually will comprehend, and not be misled by, all that is seen in that blink.

Dogfight football might be Hollywood make believe in Top Gun: Maverick, but it actually makes sense for real-world application. Illustrating the simultaneous offensive and defensive aspects of aerial combat, one always must be aware of both when engaging enemy forces - otherwise, your body will quite probably bounce a check.

When does transubstantiation occur between “chips and salsa” and nachos? Is it the initial act of spreading chips about all at once, or does change only happen upon pouring ingredients over them rather than dipping? (Could this also possibly explain the phenomena of seeing Jesus on chips?)

Ventriloquists are simply talking out loud to themselves by other means. Audiences must suspend that understanding.

One never has any indication of the accumulation of “junk” and other miscellany over the years until packing it up for a move. Yet, it is difficult to part with any due to its significance no matter how minor - each item a reminder, time capsule, etc.

Veterans - especially disabled and homeless - always should take precedence over illegal immigrants; the former defended the country, while the latter invade it. Throughout history, an imbalance in this equation has never ended well for any sovereign nation-state leading to its collapse.

Know what you believe, and believe what you know. Yet, true awareness is not knowing what you do not believe, and not believing what you do not know.

©2022 Steve Sagarra

Rock 'n' Rollerball A Go-Go

In honor of the late James Caan, I recently rewatched the 1970s cult classic Rollerball. Largely panned upon its initial release, it nonetheless offers an intriguing and evocative story with themes never realized when first viewed way back in my youth. Multinational corporate state vs. individuality - no one is above the former, under the auspices of the titular game, and anyone attempting to upend that status quo must be eliminated. Elitists manipulate the mass populace by presenting and supporting a false utopia, using distractions in the form of violent entertainment to reinforce that illusion for their own gain. Controlled, centralized knowledge that has been altered and skewed in favor of the corporate agenda, and routinely inaccessible to the masses - particularly to those individuals who might cause trouble.

 

Does any of this sound vaguely familiar? While the fictional story may take place in an alternate “futuristic” 2018, it easily could be placed in our current present-day 2020s. Who truly runs the world, and, as such, society as a whole? Corporations like Apple, Google, Microsoft, to name a few, whose services are used on a regular basis. Who has manipulated and distracted the masses these past few years, especially during the pandemic? Elitists - from business leaders in board rooms to politicos in halls of government - in their delusional utopian bubbles, far away from the daily realities of average citizens. Who has attempted to control and withhold valuable knowledge from the masses? Social justice activists like historical revisionists, media censors and anyone else involved in the ongoing cancel culture onslaught.

Millions of people throughout the world have lost everything and suffered greatly because of these circumstances. A vicious cycle that has and will continue if nothing is done to further thwart it. Are you awake yet? Or, are you still waiting, in vain hope, for someone else like Jonathan E. to agitate and challenge this real-life Huxley/Orwellian nightmare?

©2022 Steve Sagarra

Rashômon 2: Election Bogeyman

Despite the melodramatic grandstanding and hyperventilating rhetoric from Democrats and other leftists, the so-called January 6th “insurrection” barely merits any mention other than to highlight the political charade and lunacy represented by the subsequent witch hunt. The partisan-led Congressional inquest to “restore our values” and “save our democracy” is nothing more than a distraction; characterized as a judicious review of events and participants, the wasteful investigation is the fleeting gasp of a political party assuredly facing electorate backlash not only this year but two years hence. Rational voters in “flyover country” understand this and, as typical, have more pressing concerns than what politicos attempting to cling to power deem priority in the D.C. swamp. Yet, if a claim, especially an accusatory one, is sufficiently repeated and supported by any convincing assertion, with even only a minority of people believing, then it morphs into a kind of self-fulfilling truth - whether or not based on any substantive certainty or validity.

That is what Democrats are counting on, a tactic they continually use when it serves their narrative - from proper pronouns to gun control, and everything in between.

At present, the Biden administration and its disastrous record on every issue and policy - from the economy to international relations - increasingly represents a more legitimate threat to our constitutional republic than anything concerning its predecessor. With this in mind, I offer a list of events - while not exhaustive or limited - that indisputably represent some of the “darkest days” in American history:

1)  U.S. Civil War
2)  Abraham Lincoln assassination
3)  Pearl Harbor attack
4)  September 11th attack
5)  John F. Kennedy assassination
6)  Martin Luther King Jr. assassination
7)  The Great Depression
8)  War of 1812
9)  James Garfield assassination
10) William McKinley assassination

“A lie told often enough becomes the truth” and “repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth” are two maxims attributed, respectively, to Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin and Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Ironically, there is no concrete evidence that either actually ever expressed these exact sentiments - although both undoubtedly would agree and take credit in the scope of their own fanatical ideologies. Read into that however you wish concerning the events and participants of January 6th, as well as for the hypocritical purveyors of supposed moral indignation and righteousness charged with investigating it. In the D.C. swamp, the truth often gets drowned out by the lies in order to preserve an agenda - a feature, not a glitch.

©2022 Steve Sagarra

A Tolerable Measure of Inconvenient Free Expression

“When men exercise their reason coolly and freely on a variety of distinct questions, they inevitably fall into different opinions on some of them. When they are governed by a common passion, their opinions, if they are to be called, will be the same.”
-Alexander Hamilton

Anyone else tired of having to have an opinion about everyone and everything under the sun? An especially contradictory proposition for a (former) opinion columnist, it nonetheless is ridiculous if not exhausting - frankly, even more so during the last few years. Simply attempting to stay informed among the ever-changing landscape of the news cycle, let alone forming and then expressing one's opinion concerning it, can be enough of a multiverse of madness at times. Seemingly no topic is off limits or goes unscathed in this post-rationality era of perpetual hyperventilation and outrage.

Naturally, engagement and discourse are central elements to actively participating in modern society. Such activity only serves to cultivate and advance civilization, with any abandonment of it equally decimating and a hindrance to progress. Of course, one will more than likely opine anyway even when consciously attempting to avoid doing so. Human nature dictates casting our personal beliefs and thoughts into the void, listening either for the echo chamber of acceptance or the deafening chorus of repudiation. Therein lies the current problem with the system, and the consequential devolution of this dynamic - engagement has become enragement, while discourse has become disregard.

Furthermore, censorship and silencing are rampant given the ease with which to do so through the medium of social media. No longer must one produce a counter pamphlet tacked up in the town square or shout down another in the salon. Instead, an online complaint at the click of a button - whether buoyed by any worthy gravitas - with self-anointed arbitrators of “truth” dictates what is allowed in these modern digital squares and salons. Even the most foresighted dystopian prognosticators could not have predicted such a circumstance, nor the propagandists who could only dream of having such means at their disposal.

At the heart of the issue, trustworthiness is key. Without trust, legitimate engagement and discourse by those on opposite sides is futile; no matter how fervent the debate, bipartisanship is hollow if it is not based in honest understanding. Likewise, suppressive tactics allow for only a singular truth, rather than a melded composite agreed upon by such bipartisanship. Believing that all voices should be heard, no matter your own particular viewpoint, is recognized as a necessary component to a healthy and prosperous society. Those who believe otherwise see this as a hindrance to their clearly underhanded agenda, which undoubtedly cannot endure scrutiny.

This is only my opinion, though - you very well, and rightfully so, may have a different one.

©2022 Steve Sagarra

Sorry Charlie, Tricks Are For Squids

“Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness.”
-Thomas Paine

Democrats wish for everyone to forget their past sins including, but certainly not limited to, slavery, lynchings and, especially, their own longstanding history of disenfranchisement. Yet, they also demand that all of us collectively pay the consequences for their guilt, through such means as obfuscation and projection rather than self-flagellation. Question that really needs to be asked - what exactly does your party stand for, President Joe Biden? Denigration, inflation, misinformation, stagnation, victimization, to name a few. With poll numbers lower than any president in recent memory in only their first year in office, it almost seems disrespectful and insulting, even if pertinent, to compare the Biden administration to the last one-term Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. Almost.

Another idea Democrats stand for is fundamental transformation to “save our democracy.” Couched in such language, it subtly reveals their entire misunderstanding of our established system of government for one they want to truly implement. As repeatedly must be reminded, the United States is a constitutional republic and not a democracy. For this reason, they have zero qualms concerning their incessant quest to dismantle certain safeguards (Electoral College, filibuster) aimed at maintaining the former over simple majority, e.g. “mob,” rule that a democracy invites and feared by the Founders. When the French Revolution erupted not long after American independence, those fears were validated by the actions of France’s revolutionary leaders once in power.

In an era of arbitrary pronouns to assign desired non-biological genders, segregation deemed appropriate supposedly to educate about racism and enhance diversity, and burger and chicken joints selling plant-based “burgers” and “chicken,” it is little wonder that the twisting of language is at the forefront to propagandize and mainstream controversial ideas. This has warped the very fabric of society to the point that a majority of individuals have no clue that they are being fooled and sent hurdling into catastrophic folly. In no other instance can this be better illuminated than during the global pandemic, definitions of “immunity” and “vaccinated” changing daily as power over the world’s population broadens and wanes. As George Carlin eloquently stated, echoing Orwell, “government wants to control information and control language because that’s the way you control thought, and basically that’s the game they’re in.”

Recently watching Netflix’s Munich: The Edge of War, the movie unexpectedly, and startlingly, brought current events into prescient focus. A doddering, aloof leader engaging in high-level diplomacy and negotiations with a determined, charismatic one in the attempt to stop the latter’s aggression and avert war - the former naively believing they have the wits to match. One could be forgiven for failing to distinguish between the dealings of Neville Chamberlain and Adolph Hitler with those of Joseph Biden and Vladimir Putin (or any other world leader, for that matter). As has been the situation for decades, inexhaustible threats from hostile adversaries continue to loom throughout the globe. Yet, the gravest danger lies with an American president unable to coherently recite from prepared notes to undemanding questions from a prearranged cadre of reporters, while simultaneously failing to adhere to their sworn Constitutional duties with policies not only undermining national sovereignty but also endangering allies.

An overarching theme in Alan Moore’s influential graphic comic series, Watchmen, is the forewarning to anyone who willingly sacrifices personal responsibility by placing their faith in those entrusted to guard - whether by consensus or self-anointment - the world's fate. To some characters, establishing themselves as god-like saviors, the ends justify the means to rescue humanity from itself; for others, even in the context of an increasingly secular and nihilistic worldview, compromising morals to attain such goals is objectionable if not contradictory. In the end, those who proclaim themselves to be acting for the “greater good,” no matter the unforeseen consequences of their actions, not only must be held accountable but also never allowed to hold such a position again. Failing to do so is nothing less than complicity. 

©2022 Steve Sagarra