Never Say Die

That's all over the second we ride up Trump's bucket

We have entered a cynical era where no one seemingly gives a shit. We are being progressively inundated with more and more tragedy, not in a land far, far away, but in real upheaval and discomfort right here at home. There are schisms within my own liberal bubble over Israel/Palestine, women’s rights, and LGTBQ+ issues. You know when sides are cannibalizing themselves, we are in real trouble.

Apathy is ruling the day.

Some friends suggest that everyone will swing back into action when the time is right. That’s the hope, yet I know in my heart of hearts that the longer everyday people sit on the sidelines, the more the bizarre and unhealthy becomes normalized.

We will forgive Snoop Dog because we all want a seat at the table of the American Dream, even if we know it is bullshit.

In the meantime, it is the 40th anniversary of the film The Goonies. At times in my life, I’ve been ashamed of my admiration of the 1980s preteen adventure film. It’s too saccharine. Too idealistic. Yet, when I walked into the theater this weekend to see it for the umpteenth hundredth time, I held my head high. The older I’ve gotten, the more and more I’ve embraced my love of this film. I saw it in theaters when I was 13 years old, the same age as the main characters in the movie. It hit at just the right time for me to imagine a world away from my chaotic childhood where I might be whisked off on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure, or at the very least, end up an actor where I could live life in a constant state of pretend.

I gave up my dream of Hollywood stardom long ago, but still, for my 50th birthday, I visited Astoria, Oregon, the town where the movie was filmed, and was delighted to see that it was mercifully unchanged, a literal time capsule of a place I so romanticized in my young mind.

I could see myself living here, right?

At the theater this weekend, when we got to Mikey’s pivotal and teary monologue in the wishing well, I saw something more ominous and urgent in the words I’ve heard him utter a hundred times.

Don't you realize? The next time you see sky, it'll be over another town. The next time you take a test, it'll be in some other school. Our parents, they want the best of stuff for us. But right now, they got to do what's right for them. Because it's their time. Their time! Up there! Down here, it's our time. It's our time down here.

That's all over the second we ride up Troy's bucket.

You know, it would be easier. To forget that the world we are currently living in is an underground shitshow of booby traps and murderous felons lurking around every corner. It would be so easy to give up on our dreams of peace, clean air, a predictable climate, human rights, and equality and just to get in Trump’s bucket—sell-out for safety and security. Move to an isolated Pacific Northwest town, slap on the blinders, and give into my preordained white privilege, coasting out the rest of my days.

Despite the cornball correlations, nobody wants to be the one left alone on the soapbox with an audience of none. Can you imagine how the film would have ended if they had all told Mikey to fuck off and gotten in the bucket, acquiescing to Troy, Troy’s father’s, and the country club set?

Mikey might never have been kissed by an older girl. Chunk might have ended up dead at the hands of the Fratellis. The bad guys would have gotten the gold, and Data might never have won that Academy Award.

So go ahead everyone. Turn off the news of the inauguration. Get lost in your miraculously returned TikTok and scroll your life away. But in the meantime, promise me you won’t get in the bucket. That you won’t turn on your friends and neighbors for having slightly different political agendas. Promise me when the time comes, you won’t take the easy way out, and instead, you’ll take a stand for what’s right.

If not now, when?

Happy MLK Day to all who celebrate.