Next Time, I'll Look Away.

"...Fight of the rights of every man.
I am a real American.
Fight for what's right, fight for your life!

I feel strong about right and wrong..."

It was after dinner on the ride home Friday night when it came on. Spotify has this playlist, Discover Weekly, that I throw on every so often. Anyway, "Real American" by Rick Derringer came on and I immediately thought of Hulk Hogan. The song's kind of ruined for me, sadly, the first thing that I thought of was Hogan's racist remarks. I know that he's only human and that we all make mistakes, but it wasn't an innocent slip of the tongue, I won't get into it but he seems like he regrets it and many people have come to his defense. Still, it was very disappointing to say the least. I mulled over the whole thing on the drive home, I didn't skip the song, but I listened to it with a different perspective.

I wake up this morning, of course I totally forgot about the Buffalo/Jacksonville game, not that it was on my "to watch list", and I start scrolling on my Facebook feed, Coincidentally, I came across this picture and I felt like I had to leave a comment. Is it the worst thing in the world? Absolutely not, but basically I thought that dressing a kid up like Hulk Hogan, not even three months after the whole thing happened, was a little in poor taste. Of course, few people agreed with me.

Before I go on, I want to clarify that I loved the Hulkster. I'm more of a mark than the average person. I've gone to live events, I subscribe to the WWE Network, I've dressed up as wrestlers for Halloween as well. So, this is not coming from a place of hate or elitism. I don't put down wrestling and/or their fans. This is just more of a reaction to how I'm feeling about the world around me right now.

I love America. My love for this country was without a doubt shaped by many things, including GI Joe cartoons, my schooling, movies, comic books, and watching Hulk Hogan come out to save the day. Hogan running in and doing the right thing time and time again, waving the flag while Rick Derringer played in the background. I am a fan, I am a Hulkamaniac, or at least I was.

These days though, I feel more and more like I don't belong or I'm not welcomed. You've got Trump calling my family rapists and murderers, or even worse, supporters of him echoing his thoughts. Or it's how little certain lives are valued, because you know, guns are more important than people of a certain race. Then again maybe it's not guns but sports that are more important, a bunch of people got hurt yesterday, three died, and yet the college football game went on. (and yes, I am aware of the irony in mentioning this since one of the first things I did today was to think about the NFL)

Maybe that's the point, no one's perfect, the NFL is full of domestic abuse cases, murderers, and animal abusers, but is the percentage any higher than the general population? (Some studies show that arrest rates among NFL players are low compared to the national average) Comedians, athletes, entertainers, politicians, they're all human and they're all going to make mistakes. Maybe ours is that we tend to put them on pedestals or expect too much of them.

Still, a large part of Halloween is dressing up as our heroes, and I'm not quite sure that Hulk Hogan fits that description any longer.

Five Photos, Five Days. (Day Two)

After two grueling years of blood, sweat, and tears, my oldest finally graduated last week. 

From preschool.

She was bouncing all over the place and couldn't contain her excitement. At first I thought the whole thing was a bit silly, I mean really, a preschool graduation ceremony? Isn't she going to graduate from Kindergarten in a year?

Well, when I saw how much she was looking forward to getting dressed up and how everyone was making it into an event, I started to change my mind. It's a milestone, not the biggest, but they should be celebrated nonetheless. We had dinner afterwards, hung out in the park, and I got her a gift. It was nice and I'm happy that we got to spend a good day with our family.

Fast-forward a week and now I'm looking at my eighth grade students getting ready for their graduation. I couldn't help but be reminded of my daughters. In only nine years I'll be watching my oldest get ready to go into high school. Goddamn it goes so fast. How is my little girl going to be five this summer? Nine years. It seems like a long time but if the last five have been any indication, it's not going to take too long at all. 

Soak it in.

-Gil