Not Taken Far Enough

In the movie Taken, a retired Secret Service agent played by Liam Neeson encounters and handily overcomes inordinate obstacles to rescue his seventeen-year-old daughter kidnapped by Albanian human traffickers while on vacation in Paris. The lurid portrayal of the prostitution ring run by the Albanians and the vengeful torture exacted by Neeson's character are graphically illustrative. Quite frankly, I hated it.

But the regard of disgust and indignation in which I hold the film does not stem solely from its vividness. Rather, it is its raw reality that has me riled up. It was so real. If someone is sufficiently psychotic to invent these types of story lines and situations as mere entertainment, one would think there have to be many more individuals visionary enough to flesh out such schemes in real life. Isn't that usually the debate about violent video games anytime an adolescent killer shocks society with a school shooting? Semi-digression.

I know this situation began as reality first rather than originating as a blockbuster plot. Human trafficking is a very prescient issue forefronting today's worldwide injustices along with global poverty and inequality, etc. etc. So what makes me really angry is that the people who are so aware of these harsh realities consciously choose to invest millions of dollars and hours of their time to make fictional, dramatized accounts for the exclusive purpose of entertaining the American public.

America has come to prioritize and justify, and even glorify, paying already wealthy actors to take part in Hollywood corporations' money-bilking exploits instead of heeding the devastating knowledge and investing those plentiful resources and efforts to find solutions to combat the injustice.

Some argue that in many ways, advocacy is significantly more advantageous than one solitary ring bust or the rescue of a few fortunate victims however high-profile it results to be. I do not necesarily disagree with this claim (but a life saved is a life saved), but do denounce the majority of what Hollywood produces as advocacy. Even documentaries these days are dubious. Taken definitely does not qualify as an effort of information rather I see it is a facade for pure exploitation--Hollywood using this particular issue as a form of "shock and awe" entertainment. It was an intense action flick not meant to charm or romance or humor audiences but rather jolt them just enough to satiate their appetites but suspiciously not so much as to shake them into taking action, because let's face it, that just isn't comfortable and discomfort doesn't sell.

The movie didn't sell anyway (well, relatively. Its box office revenue was still $144,924,285--for a crappy movie!). It received terrible reviews and many viewers (of the few who saw the film) were dissatisfied. But of course, the dissatisfaction stemmed largely because the acting was deemed sub par and the ending anticlimactic, not because its very premises are morally wrong. I'd like to hope that most viewers' instincts cried dirty but chances are, most audiences left with a manifold lasting impression of the lacking resolution and the daughter's appallingly selfish behavior.

Women being brutally kidnapped, drugged, sold, and shamefully displayed for prostitution. Sure, it screams against moral code and common sense and hopefully is disturbing, but I'm betting after the requisite two hours, most went back to their comfortable lives, untouched by those harsh realities. True advocacy is educating people and providing them with information that most importantly, stirs them into productive action. This movie does nothing of the sort. Granted, that likely was not ever the intent of the producers.

But why not?

Mojito.

The apartment was trashed. Per usual. Disease-infused blue cushions were strewn about the ironically named living room, seeing as it was hardly ever livable. The dining table with its hideous vinyl yellow-orange tablecloth was filthy with sticky beers stains and other remains from the previous night's questionable activities. Shirtless white trash American boys milled about carelessly trailing ashes from their hand-rolled cigs of hash. Mulleted French disc jockeys came and went. Shrieking German could be heard from a room off the hallway. I casually took a few swigs of vodka alternated with sips of Fanta Limon, and then we were off.

The grafittied alleys echoed as the group tromped toward el estacio de sants, empty sound ricocheting off cobblestone and sheet metal. The metro station was no less eery. Dark. Deserted. Dank. Desperate.

The next few hours followed like a drunken stupor as our ragtag group wandered from city limit to city limit, club to club. Rejected at one for R's proletariat Converses. Bounced out of the other for being all around declasse. Scorned of entry at the next due to the dazed Dutchman, unfortunately ours, loping wildly about in a wasted frenzy. Our haggard bundle of grumbling frustrations finally stumbled on a building pulsing with a hypnotizing techno salsa beat. Giant black pillars of bouncers allowed us entrance with payment.

Thick smoke tinged by black light clouded the air, if you could even call it that. Rounds and rounds of salt, tequila, and lime cycled until everything was a hazy, heady mess. Sickened by the grinding chaos that presumed dance and the hard evidence being recorded in excess (I hope those photos burn in hell), I fought my way to the edge of the room. The fruits of my retreat: a stained cushion much like the ones we called furniture back at the flat. Dubious but I took it. I watched the group pair off. Two by two they backed into a corner up against the wall, sauntered to the bar for another round, descended on the leggy blonde Swedes.

I sat alone and tried to picture the world, the life I left behind. Sunshine yellow air, sandy beaches, a surfer boy. Buried in a throbbing crowd of inebriation six thousand miles away, I clung to the fading image of crashing waves and perfect sunsets. Suffocated by resurfaced memories and abandoned by the distracted group, I stumbled outside, choking on the crisp night air.

Four thirty am. No cell phone. No money. No working metro. No bus station nearby. No clue where in the city I had ended up. No idea how to get home.

I stood on that dim street corner attempting to make the most use of the light slivers from a solitary street lamp ten feet away. A shiver slid up my spine as a breeze rustled my silky shirt and lonesome stragglers stumbled lustily by, thinking everything of my unfortunately coincidental happenstance. A car sped by honking and catcalling as I hesitated on the sidewalk. Finally, a taxi slowed enough to notice my frantic wave. Carrer Bonaventura Polles porfa. He had no idea where the hell that was. After five long minutes of searching on a wrinkled map with no sign of recognition, I sighed resignedly. Just take me to the train station. I was anxious for the night to end.

The familiar hub loomed outside, and I hastily handed the driver the few crumpled bills and probably too many coins I had pulled earlier from a rando ATM a few blocks of wandering from the club. Still two miles to go before home. I lurked past abandoned construction sites, brushed past the grafitti faces and tin shed doors once more. This time the only echoes were that of my footsteps. I wound my keys around my finger, my eyes cautiously darting around, ready to strike if attacked. Made a right, made a right, took a left. Fumbled with a stubborn lock, wrestled a metal gate. Exhaustion crept up a slippery flight of stairs, and then finally, relief at long last crumpled onto the mold-encased bed.

Ode to Oregon

We were driving along the coast, heading back to campus after our first date (well, pseudo-date since neither of us would admit it was one until much later), and I specifically recall the conversation in which we shared our dreams for the future. I wanted to book it to Latin America as soon as possible and work with street children. B was looking to go into investment banking and live in Oregon. I remember thinking, We have a problem...

I could never live in Oregon. Ew.


Dear Oregon,

My deepest apologies. I rescind those hastily made judgments of long ago. This is me eating my words.

Time and life, they change things. This past weekend, pretty much all that ran through my head was, "I would love to live here." Perhaps it was the lush shades of deep green everywhere that surrounded me in a perpetual canopy of serene tranquility. Or the rocky caves that bring you right under a sparkling waterfall. Or the rain and moody climate that become almost romantic when you spend most of your waking days in a scorching inland city of brown and dust. Or maybe it is the fresh nigiri the size of my cell phone that melts divinely on my tongue just long enough to savor yet leave me craving more. Or the warmth of strangers who smile and send jolly greetings simply because I passed them on the street. Or the enigma of a chic city downtown that somehow manages to remain relaxed and unhurried. Or Powell's palace of a bookstore and its delightful 8oz. cappuccinos. Or a basketball team and free chalupas every time they win at the Rose Garden.

I confess your eighty-seven feet of snow this past winter and I are still working out our differences. Winding up an icy road while holding our breaths for fear that the slightest exhalation will send us veering into on-coming traffic is not quite how I picture an ideal death, but I suppose snowball fights, frozen skate parks, and snuggles under a warm blanket when the weather outside is frightful are otherwise worth it.

And I will concede, you make some really delicious doughnuts and to be honest, that's about all the convincing I need. Until we meet again.

Warmest Regards,
Lo

Quente.

It is 8:06pm, and I'm wearing thin plaid pajama boxers and zero sleeves. My window is wide open, the fan is set on the highest, most violent setting, and yet here am I, generously glazed in a salty film, soaking through all the layers I have not. The photographs that normally march in ordered lines on my wall curl and peel haphazardly off their blighted blue background. The really unlucky ones lie in a defeated, mangled heap. My plastic green cup of water fresh from the fridge has instantly boiled to lukewarm. The box of chocolate treats I quietly snuck upstairs has morphed into one huge rectangular pool of liquid brown. My bangs and baby hairs cling frantically to my damp forehead. My cheek tickles as a rogue drop escapes, winding a rivulet. My red-framed glasses slide down the slippery bridge of my freckled nose every too many seconds. Pushing them back into position is an effort more futile than shoveling snow in a blizzard. Snow. Ah, lovely, lovely snow...




It's hot.

Chris Tomlin was on to something.

Loneliness is a strange thing. On Friday nights and all day Saturdays, I despise it with a passion as I lie listlessly on my bed having exhausted every activity that could possibly make the legs of time reluctantly put one foot in front of the other. I become desperately repulsed with claustrophobia of too much space and too much of my own glaring solitary presence. But then when I find myself in the overwhelming, puzzling midst of a crowd, every nerve and instinct in my body retracts, consciously choosing, frantically clinging, to loneliness. In my extreme introversion, I revert to an isolation that is to a point flat out rude. I bluntly reject advances, notices, the very things I so recklessly crave when I am trapped at home and all the world out carousing and caressing their company.

What gives. It's been a rough and tumble of a month, and God has been teaching me a paradoxical number on self-sufficiency and dependency, humbling my infatuation with attention. Well, sort of. I simultaneously lust after it and am repulsed by it, tangled in a weary web of discontent. It is an empty feeling. But dramatics aside, I am conscious that this is God drawing me, the reluctant, prideful child, to Him because He knows what I really need. To rest in His presence when I am on my own, to bask in His unconditional love when I'm drowning in the hoi polloi, and above all, to realize that Jesus is who I need and He is more than enough.

More than enough.

When everything falls away, He is still standing there, waiting, ready to overwhelm me with all my heart cries out for. It is a stark reminder of the finite limits of humanity. Everyone will fail or fall short at some point, as I myself have surely proven to the world. But Jesus--He is perfection, He is the wholeness of extroversion, the satisfaction of introversion, and He is constant. His love is steady and it does not flicker in the face of disgust or desire or moral quagmire. He is truly everything my heart needs, and more than ever, I am learning that He is more than enough.