The WWE fan meet and greet experience brought to you by Cricket Wireless

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite being a shitty wrestling fan these days, one of the things that I still like to try to do is meeting wrestling talent, and when possible getting signed 8x10s because one day I’ll have a personal space again where I can frame and hang them, and just in general, getting autographed photos is one of those things that if I don’t get them if the opportunity is there, I’ll inevitably end up regret not doing so later on down the line.

That being said, The Algorithm fed me intel about a free meet and greet that was happening in the Metro Atlanta area, where Alexa Bliss and Penta were going to be appearing at a Cricket Wireless location out in Norcross.  I don’t hide the fact that I am a fan of Alexa Bliss, and I’ve grown to appreciate Penta more and more throughout the years, so I thought to myself that this was one that I was interested in, but probably not likely to do, because of being a dad, as well as the fact that I’d heard that these meet and greet experiences, especially the free ones, typically require fans to arrive in ungodly early amounts of time, in order to ensure not getting cut off.

But then as the weekend approached, grandma took the girls and suddenly I really had nothing stopping me from attempting to brave the experience and see if I could get autographs from a prime Alexa Bliss and Penta.  The idea of waking up in the middle of the night and then have to go wait 5-6 hours didn’t seem at all that appealing at first, but the fact of the matter was that it’s not that I wouldn’t really be able to do what I’d probably have end up doing in the first place, which was dicking around on my phone, being lazy, doing Duolingo, etc.  I would however be forfeiting an extremely rare opportunity to turn the alarms off on my phone and sleep in, but again, going back to the thought of potential regret, I would’ve been disappointed to pass up on Alexa Bliss, and Penta to a degree, in circumstances where I could’ve been available.

So I made the decision to go for it, got an 8x10s of each to try and get signed, and I got my ass up at 3:45 am, with the intention of getting to Norcross as early as possible and hope that I would be far up enough in the line to where I wouldn’t be cut off, and had a chance to get autographs.

I got to the shopping plaza right around 4:30, and I came prepared based on the intel of netizens who have detailed their experiences; lawn chair, a snack, and a water bottle, despite the fact that I really didn’t want to figure out what to do if nature struck over the six hours I had to kill.  From what it looked like, I was unfortunately not early enough to be the front of the line, but it only looked like there were like 40 or so people in advance of me, so I knew I would probably be good enough to stay and wait; my biggest fear was making the trek out there, only to discover the line was already wrapped around the building, and then be immediately defeated, but at least I’d be able to go back to sleep, but I was pleased knowing that I was possibly okay.

Honestly, the waiting wasn’t really that bad.  I did my Duolingo, did my Wordle and Connections and a crossword puzzle on my phone, and caught up on the previous night’s Week 1 College Football scores, feeling disappointment in Virginia Tech for allowing VMI to actually get on the board with a field goal in spite of hanging 70 points on them, and fascination at the masterclass of gaslighting done by the NCAA and Michigan to justify allowing Michigan to get a second, and ultimately successful chance to avoid the upset despite the fact that the clock struck zero but that’s possibly a post for another time.

I made a single-serving friend with the person next to me, whom I figured out the bathroom problem, by offering to get them a Red Bull while I jetted off to the nearby QT to take care of business since we still had like 4 hours to go, and we chatted wrestling and it helped chew up a lot of time.

However, it’s when the sun started to rise and the schedule event time neared did things start to progressively go from dubious, to hairy, to dishearteningly deflating, and frankly this post probably doesn’t happen if everything were as perfectly successful as I’d hope they would be.

When it was the darkness of the 4-5-6 am hour of the morning, the temperature wasn’t bad at all, but once that sun started coming up, the heat started to rise, and the impatience of the constantly growing line started to emerge.  All the while, Cricket employees would at first just be checking in, but the manager of the place would get on the megaphone to go over some of the expected rules of the event.

At first, they pissed off a lot of people by saying that there would only be one autograph per party, so all the people who wanted to get both Alexa and Penta to sign something now had to pick; it was an easy choice for me, and I was at least satisfied knowing that I could still get Alexa’s autograph, since I didn’t know I would really have a shot at it, coming into the event.

Then, they stated that photographs would be limited to a single group picture, meaning no individual pics with Alexa and individuals with Penta.  Presumably also, entire groups had to go in at once, and no family pic, and then pervy dad alone with Alexa pic in the same group.

With each successive announcement, there would be some grumbles, none more than from this one party of like 9 in front of me that brought like the whole fuckin’ family, including the kids and presumably a grandma with a cane, and I often ask myself why I’m such a fan of something that also has such downtrodden rednecks as superfans of it as well but that would be overly judgmental of me.  I had an idea of bringing the girls to meet Alexa with me, with their tag blets, since Alexa is a multi-time holder of those specific blets, but I definitely wouldn’t have wanted them to wait 6-7 hours like I ended up doing, and I’m surprised but not surprised at the families who actually did have their kids do such.

10:30 rolls around, and nobody’s seen any limo or luxury SUVs to indicate that the stars of the appearance were there and ready to go, and as if he knew what everyone was thinking, manager announces to everyone that the talent is “en route,” eliciting more bitching and moaning, specifically from the party of 9 rednecks in front of me.  I’d learned from stories of other Cricket appearances, that talent tardiness does tend to occur fairly regularly, and as disappointing as that is, it’s a free event, that alone right there gives all associated pretty much all the leeway in the world to do whatever the fuck they want to.

Probably around 11 is when two black SUVs arrive, and it’s obvious that the talent has arrived.  But the meet and greet doesn’t happen immediately, and the sun is up and blazing, and people are getting ornery at why things aren’t starting and the line not moving.  Nosier people than me who meandered up to the front to peep inside the store were reporting that Alexa and Penta were doing photos and autographs with the employees first, inciting even more angst from those in line.

And then the shit really hits the fan, when manager announces to the crowd, that neither Alexa or Penta will be doing any autographs, and that it’s just meet and photos only.  Maybe the first 10-15 parties got autographs, and those who were coming out of the store were clearly getting way more than a single article per, and combined with the employees who got to bogart talent time in advance of all the people, now everyone started getting pissed.

Party of 9 were basically screaming NO! NO! and loudly proclaiming their protest at the news of no autographs.  It’s clear they brought the whole family, thinking they would walk away with a Kay-Bee Toys worth of signed crap, and progressively complained more and more throughout the morning about the escalation of policy.

I felt the gut punch of disappointment at the revelation that I wasn’t going to get either of my photos signed, much less from Alexa, and it was agreed that the general mood of the whole event deflated tremendously from everyone in line, many of whom had been waiting as long, if not more than I had at this point, who were going to be going home empty handed.

But again, this was a free event, and nobody asked anyone to wait 6-7 hours for this, and they owed nobody anything, since they were not getting paid.  The manager, exasperated by the sudden rage, hilariously got on his mic to remind everyone that this event was being done by their generosity.

Obviously, seeing as how I’d already burned seven hours, I wasn’t going to leave without at least meeting Alexa and Penta, so I stuck around and got my ten seconds to shake their hands, and get a few rapid-fire shots on my phone as evidence that I did get to meet them.

Also to ask Alexa who her favorite Disney princess was because my daughters wanted to know (they didn’t, but it was a good conversation starter that made her stop and think) – she said Elsa.  

Needless to say, I’m not mad, just disappointed, in the whole experience.  I’m glad I got to meet two talents I like, but like many, I’m extremely disappointed in not being able to have a keepsake in the form of an autograph from it.  I’d rather have had the auto and no photo, than the other way around, but as many have documented these events being, it truly was a cattle call to churn people in and out of line as quick as humanly possible.

Again, as it was a free event, there’s a very low ceiling to how actually mad people are really allowed to be at it, and its rapid-fire changing of policy during it, and as is often the case, I’d frankly rather pay money for a guaranteed meet and autograph, and had Alexa Bliss done a paid appearance in advance of Saturday Sunday Night’s Main Event, I probably would have done it.

I take the whole experience as a valuable educational lesson learned, in the end.  Hearing how they were and experiencing it for myself weren’t far apart, and although it didn’t cost me much in terms of money, it had a massive time cost, to which that time is so precious to me, that I’m not willing to go through with this kind of thing again in the future.

I wish I could be a police officer for one working day, vol. 2

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I had this thought whilst driving into the office, but then I couldn’t help but wonder if I had written about it before.  It definitely sounded like a topic or a title that I would’ve used before, and lo and behold, it turns out that my instincts were correct, and nearly thirteen years to the day, I did in fact write about how I wished that I could be a cop, for just a single day.

Well, that clearly hasn’t changed, except the impetus for this iteration of wanting to be a cop for a day isn’t so much about HOV violators and turn lane-cutters, as much as it was spurned on by the fact that I drive past multiple schools on my commute to the office now and I’m amazed at how many people completely disregard school zone speed limits, as well as how often I see people whipping U-turns in clearly marked No U-turn intersections with impunity, and I would like to see such circumstances be rectified, even if I had to fantasize about doing it myself.

So there’s not really much else to elaborate on.  I pass multiple schools on my way to and from the office, and depending on the time in which I walk out the door, I might hit one of them, or I might hit both of them, but the only times in which I hit neither of them is when I’m late.

As a law-abiding citizen, and a parent, I slow my ass down to the 25 mph limit, sometimes 27 when I’m feeling anxious about the time, like a reckless daredevil, but it chaps my ass when in my rear view mirror, I see a car(s) in the adjacent lane closing the gap between us, sometimes overtaking me, and/or choads who tailgate me as if I’m choosing to adhere to the law to spite them, before they whip around me, in the middle of a school zone.

Whenever these scenarios occur, the first thing my mind is screaming is, where the fuck are the police, to pull over and ticket these cocksuckers and get some easy money out of it?  It’s evident that people speed and ignore the limit because they’ve been able to get away with it for so long, and I know America hates Flock cameras and any sort of unmanned surveillance, but the two schools in my county in which I pass, has neither school zone cameras or any sort of law enforcement actively monitoring the school zones, and it’s aggravating to me that so many people shit on the law and get away with it so frequently.

Next, right at the turn into my office, is a double lane left turn, with a clearly marked no U-turn sign at it.  I always take the inside turn lane, because unlike 75% of the people turning into my office park, I don’t need to make the immediate right that causes occasional road rage incidents, and I’d rather take the scenic route and get to the same destination 20 seconds later, without having to contest and go over some gnarly speed bumps in the process.

However, in spite of the no U-turn sign, pretty much every single morning, at least one car whips the U-ey anyway, and naturally there’s no recourse for it.  An officer would have multiple tickets from this intersection alone, because there’s a convenient parking lot at the corner of this intersection where it would be easy to sit in wait and just start issuing tickets, but again, none are ever around, and often times I almost rear-end some U-turning asshole, because they have to stamp their brakes extra hard in preparation for an illegal U, instead of just cruising into a left turn entry.

So once again, this is where I wish I could be a cop for a day, and seeing as how Zootopia didn’t released until three years after my first volume of this topic, I would 2,000% be just like Judy Hopps, and issue 200 tickets before noon if I were.  I would just take my little meter maid cart doing circuits in the loop I see in my head, where I’d go bust a school zone speeder, go ticket an illegal U-turner, back to the school zone, another ticket, then back to the no U-turn intersection, another ticket, and so on and so on.

I don’t want to deal with any serious business police work.  No detective work, no investigating violent crimes.  Just actual, meter maid work, being the scum-sucking cop accused of generating revenue for the county.  That’s what I want to do, and troll the roads with the law, while creating teachable moments all across the county.

A New Level of disappointment

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

First of all, I’m a big fan of Austin Creed and Kofi, formerly known as Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston and The New Day.  They are incredible workers, seem like amazingly positive personalities, and in the few lucky interactions I’ve had with Creed at past Dragon-cons, he’s always been chill.

When the WWE basically forced them to quit, I was definitely and immediately on the side of Creed and Kofi, because they were clearly being disrespected, insulted, and getting the rawest of deals.  And I use the accusation that they were forced to quit, because that’s precisely what a company is trying to do to an employee(s) when they demand that they take a paycut allegedly between 50-75%, lest they be released from their contracts and it makes me wonder why the fuck contracts exist if they can be treated like at-will employment, and it continues to feed my general resentment of the whole progression of TKO owning the WWE and how in spite of his horrific history, thinking Vince McMahon still had his superior attributes when it came to running a professional wrestling promotion.

Obviously, everyone knew that they were far from finished as far as their careers were concerned, and that it was not an if, but when, they were going to migrate over to AEW.  There was never any question, no hypothetical going to Japan for a shake, even though Austin Creed is a giant nerdy weeb-type who would probably love it out there, no pulling a Karrion Kross or Matt Cardona and going the route of indies, in case the E would ever want to scoop them back up on a moment’s notice.  They were going to end up in AEW, and the only question was, when?

Well when had arrived, and they were unveiled as Swerve Strickland’s (not-so) mystery partners at their All-In show in London, and as is often times the case for most former E talent who make a splashy arrival in AEW, they immediately were given gold, in the form of winning the AEW Trios Championship.

As is often times the case, I do think the formula is a little overused, trite and a little eye-roll-ey, but at the same time I know these guys are human beings and their livelihoods are partially tied to their on-screen successes, so I’m still happy that they’re given some shots of Nitro upon arrival.

But in spite of my general love for the performers, I can’t help but feel disappointment in the package that they are presented as in AEW, and I’m very curious to know which party had the lion’s share of responsibility for going in the direction they went, between Creed & Kofi and Tony Khan.

“The New Level,” just makes me kind of cringe and disappointment face meme just reading it.  It seems like really low-hanging fruit to swap out a word in their old name, but otherwise keep the general presentation and the brand exactly as their prior iteration.

See, this is why I want to know who was in the driver’s seat when it came to their AEW branding, because it will help me gauge how much I feel like I can criticize, because if this were all Creed and Kofi’s doing, I just feel not mad just disappointed, but if it were primarily at the behest of Tony Khan, it’s I knew it, that fucking money mark dork.

Regardless though, as much AEW wants to (constantly) proclaim that they’re an alternative to the WWE, they sure lean on WWE property when it comes to often times not really changing much about the presentations of former E talents that make the switch.  I get that there’s a small air of deception at trying to hook the less-educated fans that don’t really know the differences in promotions as much as they know of the existence of specific talents, but in this day and age, pro-wrestling fandom is so dedicated by those who follow it, that such a notion doesn’t seem necessary anymore.

I feel as if any time a worker has the opportunity to jump ship, they also have the opportunity to really repackage and restart themselves as performers, and regardless of if it’s AEW to WWE or WWE to AEW, it always seems like a disappointment when they basically end up being the same character, but just under a different name.

Hey, I can (often) be wrong too and sometimes it just works, but there are plenty of characters out there where some degree of change is necessary, it doesn’t happen, and then the same creative walls that handcuffed them in one promotion, just carries over to their new home.

But getting back to The New Level, the fact that such potential change was limited to a single fucking word seems kind of lazy in my opinion, and I feel like someone could have done better, creatively.  Like, if the name weren’t already taken by an eSports franchise, something like Unicorns of Love is just so campy and extra, that I feel like Creed and Kofi could really have some fun with a name like that or similar.  Plus, it keeps the merchandising vein of unicorn shit open to them, and lord knows just how much useless unicorn shit they moved under the E banner.

At the end of the day, it’s just a name, but AEW really relies hard on the grand entrances of incoming talent, because lord knows they have had a tendency to forget about old toys when shiny new ones become available, and although I don’t imagine a lot of former WWE guys mind occasionally getting forgotten in catering, while they enjoy a lesser workload and get paid, some of them never get back on television, save for the occasional too-many-men tag team match.

But as fans of Austin Creed and Kofi the human beings, I want better for them, because I want them to enjoy all the successes they are deserving of, and I look forward to their inevitable clashes against the Young Bucks and Creed’s inevitable showdown with Kenny Omega.

Feeling despair, vol. #1,256

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Recently, my kids have both decided that they really like the lullaby tune playing on their Hatches while they go to sleep.  It’s the sweetest tune that everyone knows, but when I listen to it playing on the monitor coming from both their rooms, it takes me back to the days when they were but little nuggets of babies, and it absolutely melts my heart, reminiscing of those days.  I do not deny the feeling of tears welling up from time to time when I think about it.

I’ve been in a bit of a rut lately, and I’m having a hard time getting out of it.  Times like this, there’s really little else but for me to try to put it down in writing to see if it helps me process and figure things out which sometimes happens when I put it all into actual words.

Also, it’s because I don’t really feel like there’s anyone I can speak with much these days, because everyone is understandably busy with their own lives and matters and everyone’s time is important to them, but it still doesn’t change the fact that I feel so utterly alone these days, but at the same time I’m so absolutely over feeling like I have to be the initiator of every single human interaction, be it with my own parents, my wife, colleagues or anyone else, that lately I just want to be left the fuck alone after all and not have to do absolutely anything.

But I guess that’s really what depression kind of is at the very root of things, feeling down about anything and everything, hoping someone will notice and offer to help out, but subsequently not wanting to deal with other people and their own personalized bullshit, so it’s just this kind of negative swirl in the brain where you think you know what you want until you realize it comes with some variables attached to them, things that you don’t want, so it’s maybe for the best that I’m just left alone, and then it just regurgitates over and over again until it’s time to go to bed and hope that you wake up not feeling so shitty about things.

What it all amounts to is a version of me that’s kind of going through the motions, where the mundane is the easiest part of the day in the sense that I don’t have to think about things too much, because my job is monotonous and obnoxiously busy, but I get to go to the gym there and I don’t know what things would be like for me if I didn’t exercise as much as I do.

I come home and try to make the absolute best of time I have with my kids, reading books, playing with Legos and other building toys, occasionally watching some television together, and both girls are currently in the midst of reading Harry Potter books, and they both seem to really like them, so it’s been a pleasure reading some long-form stories to them on a nightly basis.

They go to bed, begrudgingly, and not without tremendous resistance, and then dad-mode disengages, but then my house is a fucking disaster zone because everyone treats my home like a storage facility where nobody knows how to throw anything away and shit continues to accumulate within my walls, and bringing it up to anyone results in snappy rebuttals and nothing gets done, but I try to do my best at being really the only one who puts forth any fucking effort at straightening the place up, because I no longer have an office or any dedicated space to call my own where I can hide in and decompress, so I’m constantly trying to make the public areas of my home more to my liking, but that eats into the time I have available to me to not be dad.

I feel underappreciated and taken for granted by just about everyone in my life these days, and my kids are the only ones who really get a pass because they’re still just kids and don’t really understand such complexities of human behavior yet.  But whether I’m at home, or at work, I just feel very underappreciated and taken for granted, and it feeds into the perpetual cycle of being down on a daily basis, probably getting worse.

My medium at work is oft-overlooked and not at all taken into consideration by the decision makers of the company who are all so easily distracted by all things shiny and digital, but when the day is over, our retail locations would sure look like shit if they didn’t have people like me who put forth the work to give them any sort of visual identity.  Just this week, I’ve heard colleagues absent-mindedly proclaim their general ignorance for the work that my team and I do, and I’m just like, great, good to know that you’re not as qualified for the job you have despite probably saying you were, good times.

At home, I feel like a glorified housekeeper, seeing as how I’m the one who does the vast majority of any sort of house work, but the difference is that I’m not getting paid to do it, and in fact, my credit card debt is actually only getting worse after an expensive trip to Asia where I’m shouldering the brunt of the financial lift, and any sort of recompense is going to be slow, small, and generally inconsequential to the fact that I’m the one eating the interest on any balances carried over month to month.

Nobody respects my time, which makes me feel like nobody respects me, and with as limited time I have in order to do anything remotely close to being for myself, dwindles with every 5-10 minutes chunk that is burned by my kids not listening, or anyone else just not respecting me or my time.  Almost nothing in the world is a bigger pet peeve than my time getting wasted, I state it as clear as day, and people either ignore it, or consciously choose to not give a fuck, with neither being a particularly respectful decision.

Subsequently, my temper has been short, probably more than usual, because it just feels like nothing is easy, and nothing is really good right now.  The littlest tasks end up going tits up real fast, because wanting to do A, requires B, C and D to happen, but not before you move E, F and G out of the way so that H could be gotten.  I usually snap and curse the sheer amount of unnecessary crap that exists in my house, and my wife just assumes I have anger issues when she, or anyone else doesn’t seem to give a flying fuck enough about my state of being to try and find out what the problems are to see if they could possibly help.

No amount of break, trip or escape would be close to helping me out when I’m in this state of mind, because I know that if I were to be away from my house for even the smallest amount of time means coming home to a disaster zone, which is usually what happens whenever I do go away for like a weekend.  And then it’s usually worse than before I started because now I have to retroactively clean other peoples’ shit, which just ends up being a lose-all scenario.

My wife suggested I come down to a day of Dragon-con this weekend, and I don’t think I could have possibly shot that idea down any faster.  I have no ill-will towards the convention, or any of my friends or acquaintances that are looking forward to going.  But it is not something that I am at all interested in anymore at this juncture in my life, and I definitely am not remotely close to being in a mental state to where I could even fake it for a few hours, even if it means not seeing a lot of people that I think fondly of.

The con is just so different than it used to be, and I understand that that’s a me problem and not the con’s problem, but it’s no longer an event I can go to without an agenda, and wing it.  I used to say about conventions in the past, let the con come to you, but that’s a dated mentality that isn’t valid at conventions today, because everyone comes in with plans, agendas, and schedules, and old fucks like me without are usually left to just aimlessly wander, and hang out and hope to run into people they know, who usually can’t stop for more than a minute because they’ve got shit to do.

I’ve never felt lonelier at an event boasting 50,000+ people than I had at the last two Dragon-cons I’d been to.  I don’t really want to feel that way again any time soon, or spend the $2,000 that usually comes along with room, food, parking and booze.

Mythical wife has a purpose this year, and actual tasks to do, and perhaps that’s something I could consider in the future if I ever felt the itch to ever go back to any convention ever again, but for this year, hard pass on Dragon-con.

Well, I can’t really say that feel that much better putting all of these thoughts down into text.  I don’t think I really have any true takeaways from all this swill that can help me process the depression I’m dealing with right now.  I’m trying to eat better and working in a two-a-day workout, usually some sort of 30-35 minute in the evenings that I’m sacrificing out of my scarce free time, in the sake of improving my health.

But I can appreciate myself in doing it at all, instead of intending on doing it, not doing it, and then getting anxious and upset about not doing it, to which it then becomes an Inception-like layer of angst in which to fuel a future rant.  And I guess that in itself is somewhat of a pyrrhic W, and these days I have to take any wins that I can get.

Justice for Johnny Tran

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Whenever there’s any news story about any carjackings or truck heists on social media, often times I always like to drop a photo comment of Johnny Tran accusing Dom Toretto of narc-ing on him from The Fast and the Furious.  Context notwithstanding, it’s always funny (to me) that it’s just a picture of jacked Rick Yune pointing at jacked Vin Diesel captioned with IT WAS YOU.

Anyway, I was sitting in a boring-ass work meeting when I discreetly did this again while dicking around on my phone, but my mind began to wander about Johnny Tran in general.  And the more I thought about his character, in the grand spectrum of the entire Fast Universe, it occurred to me that not only did the series leave a gargantuan boatload of money on the table for not following up with Johnny Tran and his apparent Triad-like syndicate lurking in the shadows behind him, when the day was over Johnny Tran was one of the least-criminal offenders in the series and that he basically died (spoiler alert) for nothing, and there was absolutely no retribution for his murder.

I mean throughout the rest of the series, wars have been started over lesser beefs and conflicts, but somehow in the Fast Universe the story of Johnny Tran is immediately swept under the rug and upon realizing this, I cannot stand for it.

Yes, Johnny Tran wasn’t a squeaky clean boy scout by any means necessary; he liked to roll around with his cousin Lance and his posse in his Honda 2000 or on superbikes, and often seemed to be packing automatic weapons, trying to intimidate opps, but come on, the man was living in Southern California GTA turf war zones, man sometimes has to do what he has to in order to protect himself.

But as the backstory goes, his and Dom’s beef started over “a business deal gone bad” not to mention the fact that Dom had slept with his sister – AKA disrespecting his Family.  Sure, he shot up Brian’s Eclipse and blew it up, but that’s because Dom had neglectfully allowed him and Brian to wander into Tran’s hood, and rules are rules and consequences for breaking them are justifiable.

And then Brian sic’d the feds on Tran and his crew, because the irony was that he was in fact, clouded by Mia and Dom and didn’t want to believe that they were the Civic crew hijacking trucks, and saw them as the best patsies to take the fall.  At this point, Tran had done other than blowing up the Eclipse and some intense coercion to Ted at Harry’s for some SR20 motors a week before Race Wars that should fetch a pretty penny. 

The DVD players that Brian saw in his garage were legit, and the reality was that the only dirt on Tran and his crew were petty weapons charges and some speeding tickets, yet the response to Brian’s bullshit intel were humiliating raids on Little Saigon to bust Lance while he’s just trying to enjoy some pho with his homies, and the feds breaking and entering Johnny Tran’s home to falsely arrest him, culminating with the ultimate indignity for any self-respecting Asian child, getting the taste slapped out of him by their own father.

I mean, watch the clip; Asian dads rarely show urgency or rush any form of punishing, knowing that the anticipation and the wait for punishment is almost as bad as the physical act.  But Johnny Tran’s dad fucking ran to the front door in order to get in that denigrating slap, all while Johnny Tran is being fucking held by the cops. 

I don’t care what anyone else says, Johnny Tran getting shot and murdered is the second worst thing to happen to him, behind getting slapped by his own dad.  The fact that it was completely unwarranted and under false pretenses is irrelevant; had Johnny Tran actually lived, this is irreversible lifetime trauma that wouldn’t ever have gone away, and in fact it’s probably for the best that he died, because this moment right here is the impetus for Johnny Tran to become the villain the franchise wanted to him to become, and he would have overpowered every fucking sheik, corrupt Brazilian, Charlize Theron, Jason Momoa and God’s Eye with the fury of all of communist China* behind him.

*yes I know the character was Vietnamese, but the actor is Korean, driving a Japanese car, may as well muck up the entire Asian pool at this point, not like it hasn’t already been done to this point

Make no mistake, none of this happens if Brian doesn’t narc on Johnny Tran, because he’s too clouded by Mia’s hoo-hah, and it’s actually incredible that retribution doesn’t come more immediately, and that JT doesn’t boil over until everyone’s at Race Wars.

Of course, speaking of Race Wars, this is really the catalyst for the culmination of Johnny Tran’s demise; after Johnny Tran easily defeats Jesse and his shitty Jetta, Jesse should have manned up, handed over the pink slip and everything is finished.  Instead, Jesse reneges on a gentleman’s agreement, flees the desert, forcing Johnny Tran to get up in his master’s face, which led to the accusations that Dom was a narc, triggering him into a violent rage, and looking back at the film, it’s hilarious that of all the different ways that Domonic Toretto is antagonized by other characters throughout the series, it’s accusing him of being a narc that gets him to flip out in such a maniacal manner.

And we all know what happens next; Dom’s crew biffs a hijacking, Vince nearly dies, Brian blows his cover, they all show back up at the Toretto house, where a terrified Jesse shows back up like the pussy we all know he is.  Johnny Tran and his cousin Lance show up and light everyone up, Jesse dies, Brian chases, Dom commits vehicular manslaughter** when he PITs Lance into a ravine, and Brian murders Johnny Tran when he shoots him in the back while he’s trying to flee on his bike, causing him to crash and expire on the streets, right outside of a homeless camp under a bridge.

**An easy plot twist that Lance didn’t die, since Fast characters have demonstrated the ability to survive way worse physical traumas than wiping out off of a cliff, but that just feeds the Johnny Tran (and his family) are victims narrative

It’s astounding to me that in spite of all of the callbacks throughout the entire Fast series, some stretching even harder than the litany of callbacks in Cobra Kai, there isn’t the slightest attempt to reach back to Johnny Tran, or his apparent syndicate of discreet criminals.  I mean Momoa’s flamboyant character is directly related to the events of Fast Five, and when the series pivoted to this Italian Job like heist genre, it’s been Dom’s Family versus, well the rest of the fucking world at this point, but at no point have they even tried to go back to Johnny Tran.

Considering the huge reach they did for the resurrection of Han, I like to think it would be hilarious if in Fast XV, they pulled the same shit and suddenly Johnny Tran never died after all.  But he, and possibly his cousin Lance, have been laying low in the weeds over the last quarter century, waiting for the best time to strike Dom and the Family.

But considering they haven’t tried at all in 25 years, it’s probably wishful thinking that we’ll ever see Johnny Tran ever again.

In an alternate world, Tran has his own Family, along with Lance and probably a diverse cast of equivalents to Letty, Mia (who Dom fucked), Vince, Jesse and Leon and later on revealed that Ja Rule was the Tej Parker equivalent, DK was his overseas colleague, and maybe like Batista and Clive Owen could have been his Hobbs and Shaw equivalents.

But we’ll never know for sure, because we live in a fucked up unfair world, and Johnny Tran did not get to have his story ever finished much less told. 

Johnny Tran was innocent.  Johnny Tran was murdered.  Johnny Tran was the victim all along.

Justice for Johnny Tran.

Well color me surprised

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

NYP: Civil rights lawsuit accusing numerous prestigious schools of racist anti-Asian bias in their admissions processes moving forward, after (then) teenager with near perfect credentials is rejected from most of them

This is a story that’s pretty much as old as time, where throughout pockets of ‘Murica, there are some crazy smart Asian whiz kids with insane academic stats and accolades, that don’t get into the schools they want to, simply on account of the fact that all these colleges are so overloaded with other Asian whiz kids that they don’t want to accept any more.

It’s an ugly reality that nobody in their right mind wants to admit to, but the undeniable fact of the matter is that schools have quotas of all sorts, and when it comes to the numbers Asian students, it’s probably the one that is always got the most swirl around every single year.

That being said, when I first heard about this particular Asian whiz kid in question last year, I thought dang, sucks to be him, getting bodied by the system, after it turns out that after near perfect SATs and a 4.42 (adjusted) GPA, he was still turned down by 16 out of 18 schools he applied to, getting into just Maryland and UT-Austin, but not Michigan, Cornell, Washington or any of the California state universities.

Yeah, it sucks that he was just the latest victim to the dreaded Asian Curve™, but he was not an isolated case, and he more than likely wouldn’t be the last one to succumb to the sad American reality that Asians’ care for academics and education often times is diluted by institutions’ innate need to appear culturally diversified.

When his Tiger Dad refused to accept it, and went after it legally, I remember thinking yeah good luck with that, because ain’t no way in ‘Murica will they give a second thought to something that happens countless times throughout every single college admissions season.  Don’t get me wrong, I support Tiger Dad’s plight, but like I said, this is something that has been happening since desegregation, and sorry for being nihilistic and thinking change seems impossible.

So like the subject of this post states, color me surprised that it actually is proceeding forward.  This means little in the grand spectrum of things because it does not immediately mean that thousands of Asians have been found officially discriminated against, but I am celebrating the fact that this seems to have taken one more step forward than most  attempts have in the past.  It’s been a year since I found about it, so the legal system is moving at about the expected pace, and hopefully it will emerge again next year with an update, but I imagine at this point, Washington and California will be collating metric tons of bullshit, inaccurate data, and all sorts of subjective intel, all with hopes of overwhelming the legal system with busy work and ultimately getting shit to be thrown out.

But good on Tiger Dad for fighting the good fight.  Change doesn’t happen without people continuing to challenge the system and putting up fights, as fruitless and hopeless as they might seem.  He’s a better dad than I would probably be in a similar situation, but that’s mostly on account of my beliefs that college isn’t a necessary rite of passage for succeeding in life to begin with but that’s besides the point.

The funniest thing is that when the day is over, it really is kind of an emblematic battle, that almost feels like the impetus for the legal action has long been expired, but because it’s picking up steam again, Tiger Dad has decided to make it about all Asians and not just his boy.  Because after the 16 rejections from college, Google knew talent when it saw it, and immediately picked him up as an undrafted free agent and made him a software engineer, where he’s probably already making fuck you money without having student loans, so effectively the Asian whiz kid has already kind of won, and won tremendously in that regard.

It’s clear that Tiger Dad is this guy who legendarily believed:

It’s not enough that I should succeed – others should fail

And despite the fact that his son has effectively already achieved success from a job and earning standpoint, he still demands that others should fail, which is in this case, the college admissions system, spear-headed by Michigan, Cornell, Washington and the State of California.

It’s still a lofty uphill battle, that I don’t really think will amount to much in the end, but it certainly would be amazing to see someone persevere so diligently and unrelentingly to where it got schools to finally throw up their hands and simply admit to the Asian Curve, and make it official.  I wonder how many schools would rather pay to not have to do that, versus those who wouldn’t?

lol, suck it LA

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

TL;DR: Atlanta Braves pitcher Chris Sale pitches complete game shutout to finish sweep of the Dodgers, winning 1-0

These days it’s not often where a baseball game is so good it inspires me to want to write about it, but here we are.

Despite being the worst baseball fan in the world, I know I still care enough about the Braves to where I try not to be on too much social media during games, because I don’t want to be spoiled by the scores of any games in progress.  Long gone are the days where the fate of my mood depends on the wins and losses of the team, but it still brings me ten seconds of disappointment whenever they lose, especially to teams that they probably shouldn’t be losing to, especially when it’s a period of struggle and the offense is not producing, costing Chris Sale a near countless amount of wins despite his prolonged pitching excellence.

I knew enough to know that this current stretch of games that they were in was going to be the gauntlet that would make or break the season, seeing as how their opponents would the first-place Brewers and the first-place Dodgers, with a make-up game also in there against the White Sox who were also in first place at the time of their game. 

Naturally, the Braves would start their last road trip, getting swept by the underwhelming Twins, before going into the stretch of 7 games against first place squads, where they somehow won an ugly affair against the White Sox, before dropping two to the Brewers, salvaging a win in neutral ground Williamsport for the Little League Classic, and it was back home for three straight against the defending champion Dodgers.

Obviously, not much needs to be said about the importance of competing against the big bad evil spending Dodgers, and considering how much the Braves had squandered their division lead, there was a mathematical chance that the Braves could have completely lost the lead outright with a poor performance against Los Angeles.

But because baseball is a mysterious game, not only did the Braves go toe-to-toe with the Dodgers, they fucking swept them, taking all three games, in competitive fashion.  Game 1 was led by the oft-criticized and polarizing Bryce Elder, who turned in his 15th quality start of the season, keeping the Dodgers mostly neutralized for six innings, en route to winning the series opener.

Game 2 was also tighter than a Korean person’s wallet, as the game went into the 9th inning deadlocked at 5-5.  And of all the guys in the world to hit a walk-off winner, it would be the much maligned Kim Ha-Seong, who smacked the critical base hit that would win the game for the Braves, and I’d like to take credit for this happening, because I just recently wrote about his season’s woes, wrote him off as someone who’s MLB career is pretty much over, and the Braves would have been better off eating his salary and cutting him loose in order to preserve his roster spot.

Yeah, this guy just had to be the one to hit a game winner against the big bad Dodgers, that effectively took the series, and put the most hated team in the game on the brink of getting swept.

And then Chris Sale in game 3, pitches an ultimate statement game, going all nine innings in an era where people give standing ovations for starters who can muddle through five.  But Sale goes truly old school, notching the progressively harder to get and rarer CGSHO stat with his truly marvelous 11 strikeout performance, completely dominating the Dodgers.

Sale had been on somewhat of a streak of terrible luck, where he’d been pitching lights out baseball over his last few starts, but because the offense has continuously gone completely inept during those starts, he’s still been tagged with losses on his record.  And as incredible and boner-popping his performance was tonight, the fact of the matter still remains one-run of support is still pitiful, and a guy like Sale absolutely deserves better than the support he’s been getting.

But back to the game, it really was a marvel of a game, because the game effectively ended in the first inning.  After Sale got out of the first with no damage, Drake Baldwin swings at the very first pitch thrown by Yoshinobu Yamamoto, crushes a home run that makes the game 1-0, and then it was pretty much nothing but pitching for the whole rest of the night.

I love 1-0 games like this, because the opponent has all night long thinking, ok all we need is one and it’s a brand new game, but then as the innings progressively advance, there’s less and less time, and suddenly that 1-0 score ends up becoming an mountain that can no longer be surmounted.  But the fact that Baldwin homered on the very first pitch of the game, off of a guy as talented as Yamamoto, this is the shit that I absolutely live for.

When the dust settled, the Braves have completed arguably their most challenging stretch of the season, winning 5/7 games against first-place squads.  It figures that stretching the parameters back further, things look worse, because for whatever reason, the Braves get swept by the fucking Twins, and lose 2/3 to the Diamondbacks, but that’s baseball in a nutshell, and why the games are still played.  The division lead remains intact, and with seven remaining against the chasing Phillies, it’s going to be an interesting race to October.

Regardless, this night stands out, and I can safely say that this is probably going to be the regular season game of the year for Braves Country.  Chris Sale throwing a complete game shutout against the hated Dodgers, statistical anomaly of first pitch homer being the only scoring of the game, and even Kim Ha-Seong got another hit tonight.  As the old saying goes, how can you not be romantic about baseball?