Forged in the Fires of Mordor

Forged in the fires of Mordor
O' ring of power,
You crux of the Great War;---
The meaning of World War I
Is found in your coercion.

Kings seeking to be Power,
To bring forth the blackened age
Of industry's might,
To burn what's green
And make what's violet
The color of ash.

The Sauron was crushed
By the Somme, and other such evil.
The Orcs were the raping Huns,
As war marched from the green
And battlefields turned blackened under war.
Yes, the meaning of World War I
Was Green in conflict with Black;---
The Green grasses, and the auburn rivers
Turned into ashen mud and oleaginous ducts.

It's the meaning I have never seen
Who a man like Tolkien
Suffering under the same sicknesses as me
Needed a meaning to the war he witnessed.
A war no man understands,
Nor rhyme or reason.
All he could see,---
The war was Green against Black;---
Nature against Industry
Sauron against the little Shirefolk of Hobbits
The Germans against peace loving Englishmen
Who did not wish to fight in a war.
Men who did not want adventure,
But adventure was forced upon them.

That is why The Lord of the Rings
Are the novels containing the meaning of World War I.

An Analysis of “Hey Look Ma I Made It” Lyrics by Panic at the Disco

The reason I like this song is multifaceted. I had just heard it on the Radio not too long ago, and the music video is not good because it ruins the musical shade on the meaning. It's just, not capturing the song the way I see it.

It's unrepentant. It's the modern age, unrepentant. It's not sarcastic; it rather basks in the glory of sin. It's saying, "I did this, and I'm not going to say sorry."

And in doing that, it shows how desperate our civilization is, making the point that the Music Video doesn't have to; rather, the music video is too moral bearing and not journalistic enough. The song as it is naturally makes its point---shaded by an unrepentant beat, an unrepentant soul, an unrepentant sinner praying in the golden cathedral for the faithless.

It's upbeat, about screwing over the other guy in order to get where you are going. And "It's ok." The song doesn't need to bear a moral weight. All of our songs are like this. They just say, "Screw it, I'm going to be bad." And I like it because it's honest. It's easy to know how messed up it is. The writer of this song is obviously unrepentant about being successful---"If you lose, boo-hoo." Panic at the Disco does a good rendition of it, but secretly, like a few Johnny Cash songs I know, they probably didn't write it. Johnny always wrote his songs, but surprisingly was the talent behind a lot of our most famous grooves, and you'd never know it.

The ethos of the song is unrepentant, and the pathos is too overbearing. It's just flagrant, spiteful, not angry, just flagrant. And I LOVE IT! Because I feel like everyone I know is like this. I feel like our whole society has to be this way in order to make end's meat. I love it because it captures exactly how I feel about modern society. And, journalistically---that being a style without the moral expressly stated---it makes sense in our modern ethos to have a song like this.

Halsey did a good job in a few of her poems at doing this, but it's too dank and depressing. It's not glorious enough. It's not that glorious future that you get if you just say "F____ off" to everything, and then go on living your life not caring about how it affects the people you love.

And then "Hey look ma I made it!" He's singing the chorus to his mother, who is probably seething and chomping at the bit to just smack that boy across the behind. Not because he made it, but because he compromised all of his virtue doing it. It's beautiful, how "Ma, look at me! I'm successful!" and Ma is looking back at him, seeing whatever revelry had to be done to get there. She's thinking, "I'd rather you be poor and a rat, being honest, than to be successful screwing over everyone who ever loved you."

And that is our modern age. I love this song because it just captures it without any hesitation. There isn't a beat missed, there isn't a groove missed, that doesn't say, "Hey look Ma I made it!" The puppet didn't need to be there, because this isn't a puppet. This is not a puppet at all. This is an unrepentant, flagrant, "Hey look ma I made it!"

I like our modern music for this reason, but I would like to see something more sentimental. I'm getting tired of the whole, "I'm bad and I'm not going to care about it." Because it's getting boring. I'm tired of hearing songs accusing the listener of all their hidden sins, or on the flip, encouraging people to be bitter and petty. I'm tired of it. And with this song, I think we've captured it all, the portrait Halsey couldn't paint. The portrait that a lot of singers and songwriters couldn't. "I'm having fun, therefore I don't care about who I hurt." Halsey comes at a close second, but this song by Panic at the Disco really just grooves it. Other songs are singing about women wearing blades in their bras, and how they can fight a man. But this song just grooves, and seethes with this generation of America. It is the alter call of American civilization. "Hey look Ma I made it! And if you lose, boo-hoo."

Panic at the Disco. "Hey Look Ma I Made It". Pray For the Wicked. Fueled By Ramen, DCD2, 2019. Radio.

The Inspiration for My Myth of Subang

In Dragon Ball Super Goku becomes what they call a “God”. I stopped relating to him. Because he became callous, and only wanted to fight. He stopped being the sort of hero I looked up to, and became something more than what he ought to have.

So, I knew Dragon Ball was inspired by the Myth of the Monkey King. So, I did my own myth, where Goku was Subang—the same name. And Goku becomes “Thor.” That is, an embodiment of men going too far.

Because I think the metaphor needed drawn out. I think Akira went too far with his portrayal of Goku. And, to be honest, he stopped being a good guy. He started being kind of like a Loki type figure. Just the way he gambled the whole entire universe on his lust for battle was disturbing to me. He no longer was a protector, but became, sort of, the embodiment of everything I’m despising at the current rate.

Goku in GT, although not as celebrated, I could relate to. The formula was there. Goku was fighting villains, and it followed the kind of formula I would expect for the DB franchise. Goku becomes some what of a folk legend, rather than saying he’s a deity. But, Goku in Super becomes a deity, and I can only say that after becoming such, he’s significantly changed in personality. He’s become more reckless, more haphazard, and he’s become a shell of his old character. GT preserved his character, and made him serious. Super has changed Goku’s character into something I can’t relate to. In fact, I relate to Vegeta more, now, because it seems he’s the more likely of the two to be a good guy. And he is the good guy, now. I mean, Vegeta has some kind of reverence toward life, which Goku has now abandoned. Which is interesting, I think.

Though, I don’t like the Super Saiyan God form because it’s not only blasphemous, it’s stupid. Because DB was absent of a religious context. There was no doubt that DB’s atheism was one of the things that made the franchise worth watching. Because it neither posited itself beyond the scope of itself, nor did it irritate the religious views of its audiences. It was something politically and religiously neutral. And then they go one step beyond, into the realm of godhood with the characters, which now I feel disquieted watching it. It’s no longer a story about a man defending helpless people, but is now a quasi religion.

So, I took the series of Dragon Ball and made this story. And the reason why I did was because I do know that Akira had drawn influence from the myth of the Monkey King. I’ve never read that myth, but simply watched a notable martial arts movie, and Dragon Ball, and of course Jacky Chan Adventures to really get this myth off the ground.

And of course Akira means “Light”, so Aarin, the Nethanim that is defeated by Subang, is Akira’s Nethanim, to guard him against this path he went with his story. Which, Subang is meant in this myth simply to tell Akira not to take Goku to this level. Though he did, I just want Goku to maybe be something other than an object of worship because I think it corrupted the Character of Goku, and the series in a lot of ways. The series was not religious, and all of its lore was in the realm of fantasy. Now it went into the realm of religion, and if going there, I think it’s best that we take a step back and understand how dangerous that is. Of course, he wouldn’t be the first to do so. But, now it’s coming into mainstream culture, and I don’t think this is a good thing.

Because God does exist, and I would hope that the myth I created could warn people about the ascent into “godhood.” That, the overbearing metaphor in this story is how the pursuit of powers beyond your scope can corrupt you, and it has corrupted one of our most beloved characters by making him less than what he was. And I think this is the danger of this pursuit. And of course Nethanim are guardians of the mind. They aren’t real, unless you count the person who invents them. The author is the Nethanim. The person on the page is simply his metaphor to defeat the evil. And in this case, the evil is Goku… and I never thought that would be the case.