can sample? or, what the hell, people?
So a couple of nights ago, the younger male members of my modern family (read: mafia) went wandering around Waikiki. What had started out as a bad night (they unfortunately missed a concert) which was somewhat remedied by a healthy serving of alcohol (among other things) turned ridiculously and absolutely rotten when, mere blocks away from home, they got mobbed. Legit mob hysteria: twenty guys rushed out of nowhere to join the ten already harassing my two sons and their three friends. The combination of my mafia's drunken state and the thirty strangers' boredom (one of the nastier side effects of youth, good god) led to a very confused scuffle. All because some high schooler asked the lose-lose question, 'Can sample your skateboard?' Despite the chaos (imagine: two-score young men on the sidewalk exchanging blows, 5-to-1), traffic continued to crawl on by. Even when the police showed up (some of the punks still lingering, hypnotized like horse flies by the blue lights perhaps), those lovely men in uniform asked the equally lose-lose question, 'What do you expect us to do about it?'
Hearing this from my youngest mafia son, I was surreally reminded of A Clockwork Orange. The kids, the drivers, the cops. What makes people think that violence is okay or normal or inevitable? Sure, humans are essentially beasts. But you'd think there'd be some way more positive and productive to harness, or at least divert, our animalistic impulses than initiating and/or watching and/or shrugging off pointless fights between strangers. Or have we simply come full circle? Are we ready to live in caves again? I have no objections, so long as I get the bigger club and flint stone.
Hearing this from my youngest mafia son, I was surreally reminded of A Clockwork Orange. The kids, the drivers, the cops. What makes people think that violence is okay or normal or inevitable? Sure, humans are essentially beasts. But you'd think there'd be some way more positive and productive to harness, or at least divert, our animalistic impulses than initiating and/or watching and/or shrugging off pointless fights between strangers. Or have we simply come full circle? Are we ready to live in caves again? I have no objections, so long as I get the bigger club and flint stone.