Black Storm Trooper

Someone told me the other day that there was a real man who committed suicide because he was so upset that during the first trailer for the new Star Wars movie, it showed a black Storm Trooper. Such a racist AND fan of Star Wars at the same time, that he killed himself after seeing this. Now.... over the top? Understatement. The most understated understatement of all time. Side note, it must be very hard to be racist and keep liking pop culture. GOT TO be hard. Just about every twelve seconds, you're going to have to throw away something you like. 

'You see this new movie? I loved it.'

'Oh yeah? You changing? It's director by a black guy.'

'Are you KIDDING ME?! Why in the hell did NetFliKKK recommend this to me?! Cancelling THAT subscription!'

Personally, do not care if a Storm Trooper is black or white. My issue? Is why is a Storm Trooper a human at all. Why? What was the point of that? I always assumed the Storm Troopers were mindless bodies just locked into helping the dark side no matter what. Like a zombie. They didn't really choose this, they just have to do it. Now we have to think of a Storm Troopers feelings? We have to think about their thought process in the morning while putting on the white plastic suit?

'You're just gonna go into work today, huh? It's your sons birthday and you're just gonna go into work.'

'Just go into work'. You here yourself? I work for an EMPEROR. You think a emperor who hates all things good is gonna give a Jar Jar's ass about our sons birthday?'

'Well couldn't you switch shifts with someone? Can't you ask Donnie to cover fo...?'

'Donnie was choked from across the room last week for taking an extra five minutes on his lunch break! Donnie is dead! DONNIE IS DEAD!'

'... Look, I know you're under a lot of stress, but please stop yelling.'

'Stressed? Stressed!? Janice... I can't even... Pass me my helmet.'

Why make them real people. More casting options? More roles to toss people into? 

'Hey, I want to put this guy in the movie.'

'All the roles are filled, man. No room.'

'Come ON! Make him one of the faceless drones out there.'

'... Sure, you're friends a faceless drone.'

'And have a scene where he takes his damn helmet off! I owe this friend a HUGE favour.'

Are we supposed to care about Storm Troopers now? When we see a Storm Trooper take a laser beam to the chest and fall into a bottomless pit, are we supposed to feel something?

'No! You can't slash that Storm Trooper in half! He's got a family! It's his sons birthday! I know he's wearing a mask that makes him look like a emotionless killer, but he's a PERSON! The Dark Side doesn't even have a good life insurance plan. There BETTER be a scene in this movie where other Storm Troopers go to his wife's house and telling her about their falling friend and her dead husband.'

Honestly, there are many other characters to care about who have stories that we follow. There is NO reason to make Storm Troopers people. Why not go back and show us that No Heart from the Care Bears was a loving Grand Father who was just trying to make a bear less world for his grand children who are horrified of them? Oh, it turns out that Scar actually donated to a lot of charities for the preservation of rare African birds. Mufasa told him once that was a stupid idea because the money doesn't ACTUALLY get to the birds. So now we're all conflicted. 

At the end of this WHOLE thing, HUGE chance that the man in the Storm Trooper suit in the trailer is NOT a Storm Trooper, but wearing one to break out of some sort of Dark Side Palace. It's a movie anyway. We're just talking.

Twitter @nathanmacintosh

YOU Can OWN A DRUG.

Martin Shkreli seems to be an evil man with a lack of compassion for human beings. I would assume that EVERY thing on earth is dollars and cents to him. Does this make money? Then don't do it. What is the time between helping people versus the money I could make by not helping them? 

'Hey, Martin. Can you pick me up from the airport?'

'Well, technically, yes. Let's see, I live about fifteen miles from the airport, which is thirty to and from, I'll burn about six dollars worth of gas, so I'll charge you seven dollars for the gas and a pick up fee of three dollars. Ten dollars, and I'll leave right now.'

'Martin, I'm your Mother.'

'Yes, and I can't let that get in the way of business. I'm soft on you, next thing I know I'm signing a deal where I'll only make forty million dollars!'

'.... Martin.... I've never been more proud of you! I'm giving you twenty dollars.'

Is the only thing that makes a person this way capitalism? Is that it? Does it have anything to do with parenting? If parenting plays apart, I'm assuming the criminals that made this Martin piece of equipment must have conceived this animal in a bank vault.  Scrooge McDuck style. 

'Oh, Mortimus, I believe my vagina is deferring in anticipation of your NasDaq rising within the confines of my savings account.'

'God, Mafalda, you know I love it when you talk dirty in banking terms.'

'You want to get REALLY dirty, let's talk about me re-mortgaging your portfolio's in my mouth.'

'Jesus Christ! To the vault!'

Some of the greed and such has to come from parents. Right? That smirk fest of a face Martin has got to be the most punchable thing anyone has seen in years. Answers a questions, and smirks. When not answering questions, he has facial twitches of a person who's parents were too busy in a loveless marriage to even touch him.

'Honey, our son is doing that weird anti social again where he...'

'Don't you 'HONEY' me! Really? You're going to HONEY me? In this show marriage? We've been living a lie for years!'

'Four years ago you had my portfolios in your mouth, now you're telling me this is all a fake.'

'You know it is, Mortimus! YOU KNOW IT IS! I put your unkept portfolios in my mouth so that I, Mafalda, would have a portfolio of my own.'

'... Are we still talking about my balls?'

'Don't you SWEAR in this house!'

That twitch is either years and years of parents screaming at each other, never given you any credit for anything that you do. Or, you were picked on. Kept feelings inside and now they try to jump through your face. Do I know anything? No. These are just thoughts and opinions. But those expressions are SOMETHING. They are not just 'who he is'. They are from something, somewhere. Instead of looking at these things though, for Martin it was the ultimate money chase. Just get out there, get money, and THAT will solve it all. All questions can be answered with an account.

'You okay?'

'I got money.'

'You sad?'

'I got money.'

'You feel fulfilled in life?'

'My bank is fulfilled.'

Great, Martin, you have a ton of money. Good job. Every think about not having the characteristics of a fly, though? Ever think that your unholy bullshit smirk is enough in a lot of circles to get your head tossed through a window? Ever talk to someone, see that they have become really uncomfortable with how your eyes hard blink for zero reason and think, 'Huh, maybe I should work on my social skills.' There are plenty of things money can't buy, one being the ability to talk to other humans who aren't rich strang-ies. 

It's interesting that someone can buy a company and deal with people who are very much unlike them. A rich person is not selling to other rich people. They are selling to the most in need. Selling to people they wouldn't even have met at one of their power lunches. Never. They've never truly come into contact with each other, but now, one is selling to the other. 

Rappers talk about the money they have, but they ain't buying the rights to drugs. For all the rappers who say they make millions selling cocaine, NONE of them have the money to buy the rights to it. 

'Yo, I'm looking for a bump.'

'Well, you've clearly never boughten drugs before, and clearly I shouldn't be selling them, but cool. All the coke comes through Young Jeezy now, and you have to buy it AND all of his mixtapes.'

'Okay. How much?'

'Coke is free. Mixtapes are a thousand each.'

'Christ! I don't have that kind of money!'

'Well, hit the bricks, bud. We're done.'

And yes, I know you can't buy the rights to cocaine because it's illegal, but technically, you could own the rights to it. It's a little bit bloodier of a process then just being a hedge fund manager and 'earning' the money the 'legal' way, but still, rappers ain't even CLOSE to a thirty two year old hedge fund manager. He is described as a former hedge fund manager. Former! At 32, already retired from a job I'm assuming is basically sitting in a room and being paid an unbelievable amount of money. 

'How much did you make today?'

'Well, I took the day off. So, two hundred grand?'

'Yikes. Rough one, huh?'

Yes, the man has a lot of money. Some people look at money as being the only thing that counts from a person. If you have a ton of money, no matter who you are and what you do, some people will still look at you like a hero. 

'That guy sucks.'

'Well, he's a super duper ba buper billionaire da da da luper naire. He's great.' 

That means DICK. Making a ton of money doesn't make you smart, creative, interesting, talented, or a good person. You're talented at making money. You're smart at investing. Good. Does NOT mean what you put into the world is good. That it does not. 

Yes, Martin is not the only person or company on the planet robbing and destroying things. There are plenty more, but many of them we do not have a face for them. It's just a logo that we should be avoiding. This one? HAS a face. We've seen it. We've heard it defend itself with 'profits' and 'to further help patients.' Please. We've seen this face, and reacted. People get mad at many companies for many great reasons, but if each of them had a inhuman creature tweeting back at their concerns? We might have a different view of all of them. 

Twitter @nathanmacintosh

Steve Jobs Movies.

I am writing this on an Apple product. During the writing of this, I checked the other Apple product I have multiple times. For texts, for Instagram likes, even for Facebook after I checked Facebook on this Apple product and thought, 'Huh, THIS one has nothing, but maybe Facebook on my other Apple product does.' Even though I write this on an Apple product while every three seconds checking my other Apple product, I'm not a huge fan of the man that created these: Sir Steve Jobs. Señor Steve had the ideas for these products I'm assuming while sweating out the demons on a river boat in the Amazon after being bit by a poisonous spider.

"Steve... how are you doing? You've been out the last couple of days. You feeling better?'

'I.... had a vision. A vision... about advances in technology.... that would stop people from looking each other in the face again..... destroy languages as we know them and leave them as only abbreviations.... censor what people type by changing say 'fuck' to 'duck', and 'yell' to 'tell'.... and... the best part... is the vision was of the same product done in four different ways.... a laptop, a phone, a bigger, more useless thing that's half way between phone and laptop, and a watch... to really take people's money.....'

'Holy Christ. That's horrifying.'

'Yes.... I'm going to get to work on it when I get better.... What are you doing with that pillow?!'

'I can't have this happen!'

Every year on the anniversary of Duke Steve's death, we see pictures of him in magazines, always with the same expression. Maybe he's looking at us leaning on a hand. Maybe he's looking down at his hands, with  a 'I created earth' feel on his face. Maybe he's doing nothing but looking, right into our souls, saying, 'The thing I made is in your pocket, huh? It's in yo girls pocket too!' No matter the look, we can be sure about one thing. He will be wearing a black turtleneck. Ol' Capitano Steve ALWAYS wore a black turtleneck. Why? Because that's what geniuses do. A genius is apparently SO genius-y that they have no time to change. They will just buy the same thing a hundred times, to get to the real work. If you do this and are not smart, we would call you an insane maniac that needs to talk to someone with a psychology degree about this.

'Have you seen Jeff?"

'Yeah. He just bought seven of the same pair of pants.'

'... Do you think we should tell the cops that we might know who beheaded that woman in the park?'

'OH yeah.'

We just decided at one point that that's the mark of a genius. Wearing the same damn thing every day and creating makes you a hero. What if they're a smart person who's also disgusting? We only SEE the pictures of Steve Jobs. If we could SMELL them, maybe we'd have a different opinion of this man. 

'Yeah, I photographed Colonel Jobs a few times, and let me tell you, I used a LONG lens. I mean, the man smelled as old and dusty as an iPod Nano. Guy had the aroma of an IOS crash. Just DIRTY. El Steve-O should have made a shower head that let's you check your texts. Maybe then he'd hit the shower at least ONCE. I just tossed my iPad at him for him to sign. Was NOT going to get close to him.'

This Summer, Hollywood is doing it again. Hollywood has decided that Spiderman and Doctor Jobs are the same. They each need a movie made about them every two years. Another movie about Lieutenant Jobs is on it's way. ANOTHER movie about a man who's story has not changed. ANOTHER movie where Staff Sargent Steve creates Apple. ANOTHER movie where Count Jobs yells at people and says, 'It can be done!' while he goes through his closet for the SAME DAMN TURTLENECK.

'Get it done! I don't care! Now, where's my turtleneck?'

'Sir... you're wearing it.'

SLAP

'Don't you EVER talk to me like that. This is my 'yell at people who work for me and maybe slap them when they get out of line' turtleneck. I need my 'the confidence to call the employees who work in my stores 'geniuses' turtleneck. Can you help with that, DENNIS? No? Then take your shit to Microsoft!'

Who in the world was asking for another movie about this man? WHO? Where are you?! WHERE! Do you have sex with your iPhone? Do you take your iPad in the shower with you? Were other movies about Professor Jobs the first movies you had seen once you were released from that dungeon where you had been held against your will since '68?

'I was underground for forty years. I survived by drinking fish heads and eating water, only to FINALLY be released and find out that you're supposed to EAT the fish heads and DRINK the water. What do you want from me? I was thrown in a pit at two months old! Anyway, first thing I saw after the sun destroyed my eyes, was a poster for a 'movie', about a 'man', who created a 'product.' I just learned all these words. It really spoke to me, so I would love it if more movies about this man could be made.' 

People make fun of Rocky movies sometimes because there are so many. Rocky movies have been being made since 1977 though. Lot of time. There are soon to be seven Rocky movies, but in each movie, there is a new story. Rocky gets a chance to fight the world champ, Rocky fights him again and wins. Rocky is carried for years and fights a man he can't beat, then does it. Rocky goes to Russia and beats that animal. Rocky loses all his money and trains a man who then fights him outside a bar. Rocky loses his wife, and fights a man in his fifties because of a computer fight. And coming up, Rocky trains the son of the world champ that he fought in the beginning. Nurse Jobs? Same story every time.

'Made a computer, talked to people. Made an iPod, yelled at people. Made a phone, died. This Summer, watch it ALL again, for the first time.'

How many are they going to make? The last one didn't capture the essence of First Officer Jobs?People were upset that Ashton played Vice President Steve? Good. Get every actor in Hollywood to play Emperor Steve. Let's see all the nuances. 'Nicholson's Jobs. Tina Fey REALLY explores his eye movements.' One day there'll be three movies in the same theatre at the same time about him.

'Going to see the Steve Jobs movie.'

'Which one? Starring Johnny Depp or Michael Cera?'

'Neither. Jason Statham.'

'Ooooooh. Nice. Heard they get to the bottom of Deputy Jobs's workout routine in that one.'

No matter how many they make, they will NEVER tell some other sides of Apple. The head of a company screaming at someone, 'But if we pay Americans to make the stuff, we'll have to pay them more money!', and, 'But if we charged for the stuff  based on the prices we actually pay people to make the stuff, we wouldn't make as many billions of dollars!' That one won't be made. 

They'll keep making the one we apparently want. The tortured genius who was angry with people around him but for the greater good of humanity. The hero who made black turtlenecks a sexy piece of equipment. The one. The only. Dolphin Trainer Steve Jobs.

twitter @nathanmacintosh