Remember baseball cards?
What the crap happened to them?
Internet…
1999—there was a card shop
hobby shop, comic shop on every corner.
Now? I have to go 5 towns over just to find one.
And it’s small,
Really small,
So small I can’t get by the fat guy in the superman sweater
On my way to the batman rack.
I don’t mind so much, because I know that’s the only
Rack he’s ever going to touch.
But where do you buy cards now?
Target? Walmart?
That’s no fun!
My dad owned a card shop back when
Yu-Gi-Oh Nerds
Starwars Customizable Card kiddos
And Magic The Gathering Gatherers
Would throw away their allowance,
birthday, and Christmas money
In exchange for small pieces of cardboard.
I was never that stupid
I got them for cost!
Cuz my dad owned the store!
I’d buy whole boxes
Sort them out and ran a side business
during my lunch hour!
In elementary school I’d trade them for twinkies
By high school I got cold-hard-cash!
I would convince these kids that a 50 cent
card was worth 5 dollars! And this was before the internet!
What did they know!?
I’d forge autographs to jack up the price
I bought my first car
cause of my clever con-artistry.
And now, my empire has crumbled.
No one wants cards anymore
They want facebook credits
And instant downloads
I can’t get those wholesale!
And even if I could, they’d have no resale value whatsoever.
And you can’t forge an autograph on a fart app for your I-phone.
You’ve ruined my personal economy Internet.
You ruined it!
Now I gotta get a job…

My childhood was filled with the wonder that was
the Mighty Morphing Power Rangers
When the fever of nostalgia for a time long gone hits me
and hits me hard
I find myself indulging in my old VHS tapes,
DVD sets
and searching the Internet to relive the wonder of the early episodes
and I see...

I see the evil villain Rita Repulsa
and I see many a thing wrong with her evil plots.
Why the heck does she only send one monster at a time?
Why does she only attack the one city of angle grove? The one the power rangers live in?
And why does she always make her monsters grow when she should know the Megazord
is just going to spank them?

I see two bullies, Bulk and Skull
who would about as effective as two red hot chili peppers
trying to melt the ice caps if they ever tried to be bullies an actual school.

I see very harmless evil henchmen in the form of the Putti Patrol who never seem to attack anyone other
than the power rangers
and could probably be beaten up by a poodle.
And of course I see no sign of any police or military during any of these conflicts at all.

Breaking the fourth wall, I see and laugh at at the horrible editing, trying to splice together all that stock
footage from the Super Sentai show in Japan,
I see unrealistic action,
I see bad lighting
I see monsters that are OBVIOUSLY puppets,
I see horrible plot-holes,
ridiculous logic,
And the opening credits that happen to be one of my guiltiest pleasures
After all these years I still can't help but get up and dance to.

And yet, I see more...

In every episode
I see an unlikely group of a dancer, a jock, a cheerleader, a geeky brain an exotic overachiever
and later on a bad boy as best friends, in a very politically correct fashion.
And I see them all...working together.
I see them at the Youth Center teaching classes to children
I see them at school, organizing drives to save the environment,
I see them starting multi-cultural food festivals to raise money for playground equipment
I see them designing floats for parades for world peace
I see them working to improve their minds, bodies and spirits, by helping their community,
helping others, and working together for a better tomorrow.

And now,
I look at the shows on television...and I see...
Better and more realistic giant robots
better graphics,
greatly improved fighting choreography
scarier villains with more worthwhile plots
better logic
better video editing
better sets, props, lighting,
with far, far, far
inferior
spirits.
I see none of the somewhat naive yet hopeful encouragement of the 90's to
go out and be part of something better.
No push to help each other, or our communities.
In so many cases, I see no substance at all.

How could we have advanced so far
in every way imaginable
so much since then
and gone completely backwards in the one and only way that really matters?

What happened to the mighty morphing power rangers?
What happened to working together to save the world?
What happened to looking towards the future for a better tomorrow?

What happened?

Ladies,
social direction might dictate,
that I have to hold the door open for you,
might have to pay for you if I took you on a date,
and if you slap me, I'm a baby for whining, but if I slap you it's domestic violence.
And you might get the house and the kids even though you were the one
who wanted the divorce.
But the last laugh is still mine.
Because while we're waiting in court,
and you're bleeding me for every cent I have,
and we take our breaks to go to the bathroom,
your wait--will be an hour long,
and I'll walk right in,
no wait whatsoever,
to the sacred temple of manhood.
You can have the kids,
the house, the car,
and all my money.
But the urinal is mine,
And you will never have it!!