On the Outside Looking In- Jimmy

On Saturday morning, my friend Jordan and I drove down to LA to go to this Marvel vs. Capcom 3 exhibition. As you can see, we went to the right place on the wrong day; the exhibition is next Saturday. At first we were puzzled and completely baffled. In fact, when we got to the Kim Sing Theater, we looked around, confused. It was only after we looked inside through a crack in the wall that we realized that there was nothing set up. At that time, I checked my phone and took a second look at the above flier. It was at that point that I realized that I had been a complete idiot and misread the flier. I was feeling really bad for having Jordan drive me all the way to LA for nothing when we left. We were in LA with nothing to do, so we decided to grab some lunch and decide from there what we could do with the rest of the day. We went to a nearby Burger King, and that's where we met Jimmy O' Brien (I hope I spelled that right). Jimmy is homeless, and he was standing against the wall of the BK and, Jordan being Jordan, he went right over to Jimmy and started talking to him. We started talking to Jimmy about his life, what had happened to him, and how he had gotten into his situation. I don't remember the whole story, but there was a time when he was a truck driver and could pick any route he wanted because he had a good record with the company. He didn't mention what happened to cost him his job, but he also told us that he hasn't had someone just sit down and talk to him like a normal human being in a looooong time. All in all, we spent the entire time that we were going to spend playing Marvel vs Capcom 3 talking to Jimmy, which was FOUR HOURS. In short, because of his situation, he was on the outside of normal life looking in, even though he had previously been on the inside; the same way we were looking into the theater when we realized we were there at the wrong time. To sum it all up, the moral of the story is this: neglect no one. Everyone deserves to have someone to listen to them. And whether it's a homeless person like Jimmy, or two guys that just got the date wrong on a flier like Jordan and me, always remember: let those that are outsiders in on the party, too.

Open Mic and Other Embarrassments

Don't let the title fool you. Last Tuesday(yes, I know, "last Tuesday"; I've been busy!) when I read my poetry at The Spot's Open Mic Night, I had fun. But I was nervous. But it actually went well; people have told me that I need to continue sharing my poetry, which makes me happy to hear. But anyone who does anything creative loves to hear praise for putting their art on display. Speaking of art, an artist performed at Open Mic Night who pleasantly surprised me. His name is Adrian Watkins, and if you want to hear some good, laid-back music, the link to his MySpace page is here. On a completely unrelated note, three of my female hallmates, Haley, Courtney and Dakota "kidnapped" the guys who live in my suite(and Jake Ford). You may ask what three girls would do after kidnapping six guys. Take them to Denny's of course. And even though I have, at times, thought myself extraneous in this group, I felt very loved. And that's all anyone wants, isn't it?

Islam in America

I've noticed lately that, with the mosque near Ground-Zero no longer being a hot-button issue, no one is talking much about Islam anymore. I also notice that whenever Islam is mentioned, people use the words Muslim and Islam like they were talking about a race or country. Islam isn't a country; it isn't even a conglomerate, it's a belief system that unifies people only insofar as they all believe in it. Because of this, when one says "Islam is an enemy of America" and "Muslim=terrorist", I cringe at the terrible lack of logical thinking.
This widespread American aversion to any type of positive exposure (out-and-out negative portrayal of Muslims is off-limits, because no one wants to "make them mad" for fear of being blown up, and playing Muslims as only slightly misguided in the media tends to turn them into turban-wearing, Mecca-praying, nut jobs who all run convenience stores) of Islam is analogous to the treatment of the Japanese by Americans (and institutional America, even the American government) during WWII. Americans were understandably shocked and devastated by the attacks on Pearl Harbor. It was after that, though, that Americans began to look like complete idiots and put all the Japanese citizens in internment camps, meant to make them easier to watch, just in case one or all of them happened to be Japanese spies (complete Sarcasm Mode on that last part, so don't get all angry). In fact, one of the most trusted magazines in American history, Life, ran an article in their December 1941 issue (the same month in which Pearl Harbor occurred) telling how to discern whether the person that an official emissary of the American government was about to lock away in an internment camp indefinitely was Japanese or Chinese. This had the implication that if they were Chinese, they were completely innocent and were just in the wrong place, at the wrong time (I guess they had never seen or thought of a Chinese spy, before); but if they were Japanese, they were automatically secretly working for an enemy of the United States of America and the freedom for which it stands. Let's not forget that some, if not most, of the people that were taken this way were Japanese in heritage only; not only had they never even been to Japan nor speak Japanese, they didn't identify with the culture at all, instead wanting to blend into American culture.
The same is happening to Muslims today. The word Muslim is thrown around and used as a weapon to get people whipped up into a frenzy so they can stop thinking. When Muslims fly planes into the World Trade Center buildings, that was a horrible day in American history that must be learned from, so that it will never repeat. But, with the mosque becoming an issue, people believed that Islam was celebrating a victory by building a mosque so close to Ground Zero, when we are supposed to believe that because so many died there, it's hallowed ground now. The only problem with getting me to believe that is the fact that there is a strip club 1 street over from where the mosque was supposed to go. I, for one, can't believe that they're telling me that Ground Zero is sacred enough to not have a house of worship put next to it (never mind the fact that I am a devout Christian for a second), but is just mundane enough to have a strip club 2 streets down? Muslims are not trying to take over the world. Well, not all of them are trying to take over the world. The only Muslims trying to take over the world are extremists, who are called such and even called "crazy" by respected Muslim theologians!
So, can we please let the buzzword that is Islam die already, so I can go back to living my life and Muslims can go back to not being blamed for everything? It's starting to get old.