Finding Happiness in Los Angeles

by Oliver Markus Malloy

  And even if banning guns won't remove all guns, but only most guns, it will still drastically reduce gun-related deaths. 300 million guns kill way more people than 300 guns.

  Convicted felons can't buy guns. You know how they get their guns? They steal yours. Or the felon asks one of his buddies to buy the gun for him. But if his buddy can't buy guns either, the felon won't get it either. Just like in England or Australia or everywhere else.

  If you explain why heroin is bad for you, an unbiased person will listen and agree. But a heroin addict will hate you, because in his eyes you just became his enemy.

  If you explain why guns are bad for you, an unbiased person will listen and agree. But a gun addict will hate you, because in his eyes you just became his enemy.

  Trump is white trash. He belongs on Jerry Springer. Most of us liberals can't figure out why you Trump voters are under his spell.

  But I think it's obvious:

  He is a diabolical master-manipulator, just like the crackwhores in my stories. He is a slimy snake oil salesman, who knows how to give people the dopamine kicks they crave.

  He knows that every time he says something vaguely religious, the so-called "Christian" right-wing fanatics get dopamine kicks. And that's how they become addicted to him and every bit of the verbal diarrhea that comes out of his shithole.

  And he does the same thing to racists. He gives them the racist dopamine kick they crave. And the gun nuts. He keeps giving all of them a constant stream of dopamine kicks by hitting their big red dopamine buttons: religion, racism, patriotism, and guns. The drugs they're addicted to.

  Trump's most fanatic addicts will never admit that he is anything less than the Second Coming of Christ. Because it is much easier to brainwash someone into being a zealot than it is to make a zealot realize he has been brainwashed. Just like it's much easier to turn someone into an addict, than to convince an addict to get clean.

  If you explain why Trump is bad for you, an unbiased person will listen and agree. But a Trump voter will hate you, because in his eyes you just became his enemy.

  Scientists are desperately searching for the one short and elegant unified theory that will explain all the mysteries of the Universe.

  I think I just discovered the unified theory that explains the human condition: We're all addicted to dopamine kicks! We're all constantly doing extremely stupid things because we're all addicted to something, like money or love or likes or fake outrage or religion or patriotism or guns or sex.

  And we're all willing to do irrational and self-destructive things to get it. We've been doing this for thousands of years. In all of human history, every stupid thing that has ever been done, was part of a raging, throbbing, leg-humping, masturbating quest for dopamine kicks.

  Fun Fact: You know who invented the term Fake News? Not Trump. It was Hitler. Look it up. Hitler loved to describe any newspaper that exposed him for what he was as Lügenpresse, which is German for Fake News.

  And you know what else?

  The Nazis weren't socialists, like right-wing propaganda outlets always claim.

  They're lying to you.

  The National Socialists were right-wing Christian extremist nationalists who hated liberals, intellectuals, socialists and communists. Or in short: Jews. And on their belt buckles, German soldiers had engraved: "God is with us."

  Using the word socialism in their name was a trick. Because everyone liked socialism. Socialism was a good thing. You know, sharing is caring. What would Jesus do?

  So the Nazis ripped off the word to make themselves sound better. Like North Korea. They call themselves a democratic republic. But we all know that they're not.

  Yeah, the Nazis did the same thing.

  You know who the socialists were in Nazi Germany?

  The Jews.

  Jews in Nazi Germany were socialists, liberals, lefties, communists, intellectuals, scientists, journalists, actors and college professors.

  Any of this ring a bell?

  If you hate them, you have been brainwashed by the same diabolic manipulation, that the Nazi leadership used to fool their citizens.

  History books are written by the winners. If the Native Americans had won, the Founding Fathers would today be known as mass murdering invaders. If Nazi Germany had won World War 2, Hitler would today be known as the Founding Father of United Europe.

  Nowadays the Nazis are portrayed as one-dimensional caricatures of evil: Why did they do bad things? Because they were evil! Hitler was Darth Vader!

  But the truth is, most Nazi soldiers weren't soulless, robot-like, evil stormtroopers. They were just regular people. They were being manipulated. Hitler was a snake oil salesman. A diabolical master-manipulator. He knew exactly how to push people's big red dopamine button: patriotism.

  Every time he said something that sounded patriotic, the crowds at his speeches went wild for it, because it made them feel good. Talking about how great their own country was gave them a big dopamine kick.

  Nazi foot soldiers thought of themselves as good Christian patriots, while committing atrocities. But they didn't look at what they did as atrocities. They thought they were fighting for their own survival. They had been told that their way of life was under attack.

  Most of them honestly believed they were the good guys, protecting their homeland against barbarian invaders. Most Nazi soldiers believed they were fighting for freedom against anti-German forces who had conspired against them.

  Pretty much exactly the same thing that poor white Republicans believe today.

  There is no war on Christmas. Nobody is trying to take Christmas away from you. You only think Christmas is under attack, because you're being fed lies so that you feel outraged and threatened, and hate liberals.

  By the way, have you ever asked yourself what a Christmas tree has to do with Jesus?

  Absolutely nothing.

  Most Christian holidays were Pagan holidays first. Christmas trees and Easter eggs have absolutely nothing to do with Jesus. They are Pagan symbols. Christianity is thinly disguised Paganism.

  Worshipping a cross is no different than worshipping a tree, a rock, or the stars.

  We live in this bubble of ignorance. Most people know nothing about history, or the historical context of the traditions they still follow today. People do things without knowing why they're doing them.

  I know you poor white Republicans honestly believe that the United Nations and all those globalists who keep talking about "one world" are out to get you. But they're not really out to get you. The United Nations are simply a manifestation of the idea that all humans, no matter where on earth they happen to live, are brothers and sisters.

  You know, like what Jesus preached.

  By the way, the first verse of the Nazi anthem started out with "Germany above all else." It was their version of "America first."

  Germany still uses that anthem today, but nobody sings the first verse anymore. It's taboo, because it sounds too fascist. Nowadays Germans only sing the third verse: "Unity and justice and freedom."

  Because Germany is a very liberal country, and unity, justice and freedom are the top three liberal ideals.

  Like I said: If you're one of those Republicans who think liberals are bad people who're out to get you, you have been brainwashed by master-manipulators.

  I know you don't want to believe that, but I think deep down you're starting to realize that it might be true.

  MY FRIEND THE ASTROLOGY ADDICT

  "The great intellectual cancer of our times: conspiracy theories."

  Gary Weiss

  "Americans are, as Americans, the most self-conscious people in the world, and the most addicted to the belief that the other nations of the earth are in a conspiracy."

  Henry James

  "Anyone who knows how difficult it is to keep a secret among three men - particularly if they are married - knows how absurd is the idea of a worldwide secret conspiracy consciously controlling all mankind by its financial power; in real,
clear analysis."

  Oswald Mosley

  "Ken Lay, the disgraced former chairman of Enron, found a way to escape his legal problems: He died after being convicted of fraud and conspiracy charges." Robert Kiyosaki

  When I was about 12 years old, and still lived in Germany, a married couple from America moved in next door. They were US Air Force pilots, living off-base. They were the coolest grown-ups I had ever met! They wore mirrored aviator sunglasses, and olive green jumpsuits. They looked like Tom Cruise in Top Gun.

  They looked like action heroes, but they acted like big kids! They chewed bubble gum and ate muffins and pancakes for breakfast. Cake for breakfast!! They were so unlike boring, serious, uptight German grown-ups.

  Their names were Danny and Lisa. They were the first Americans I ever met, and the reason why I fell in love with America.

  Lisa was Danny's second wife. Danny had a son, Brian, with his first wife.

  Brian lived with his mom in North Carolina, but he got to spend his summer vacations with his dad and Lisa in Europe. That's how Brian and I met. He just showed up one day. He was about a year or two younger than me.

  I had just started to learn English in school, but I wasn't good at it yet. I knew just enough to communicate with Brian, even if it required lots of gesturing and pointing at stuff. We became best friends, and we had sleepovers. We both loved Star Wars and collected action figures.

  At the end of the summer, Brian had to go back to his mom in North Carolina. But I knew he was coming back next year. He was my reason to learn English. We wrote each other letters and planned great adventures for the next summer.

  When he came back again the following year to visit his dad, my English was a lot better and we could actually talk to each other.

  Brian was amazed: "How did you learn to speak English so well?"

  "Maaagic!" I laughed and waved my hands in the air.

  The A-Team, Married with Children, Airwolf, and Knight Rider helped too. As a young kid in the 80s, I thought those TV shows were the most awesome thing since the invention of chocolate. But they didn't air on German TV yet. Only on Dutch TV. Luckily I lived very close to the Dutch border, so I could receive Dutch TV channels.

  In Germany, every foreign film and everything on TV is dubbed in German. They're really good at it. But in Holland they don't dub. They just write Dutch subtitles underneath. So while watching American TV shows, I learned how to understand English. And how to read Dutch. It's not that different from German. Actually all three of them are Germanic languages with a lot of similarities.

  One day I was staying over at his house again. We played Monopoly with his step-mom Lisa that night. We were talking about our favorite movies. When it was my turn, I told them my favorite movie was called The Fuck.

  Crickets.

  Suddenly it got very quiet in the living room. They both just stared at me. Then Lisa asked: "Your favorite movie is what?"

  "The Fuck. It's an awesome movie!" I explained. "There's these zombie pirates who attack a small town and..."

  Lisa and Brian laughed. Then Lisa told me that my favorite movie was called The Fog and I was pronouncing it wrong.

  She explained that fuck is a bad word in English, and what it means. And that I should never say it. I was embarrassed. I must have sounded like a little perv.

  Brian and I spent three summers together. Then Danny and Lisa were reassigned to a military base in Florida. They had to leave Europe. I was sad because it meant saying good bye. I loved Danny and Lisa. Would I ever see them again? I cried when I had to say good bye to Brian. He was my best friend.

  Two years later, Brian visited me in Germany. We were teenagers, and now we both were into video games. I gave him a bunch of the games my hacking group had cracked.

  We lost touch after that. Over a decade later, while I was living in New York, I decided to search for him online. I found him on Facebook. He was still living in North Carolina, near his mom. He had gone to college and became a financial advisor at a big bank.

  We emailed back and forth for a bit and told each other how great it was to reconnect. Then I called him. I was excited to talk to him again after so many years.

  But he was distracted. The whole time we were on the phone, he was playing World of Warcraft. He couldn't even take a break long enough to focus on talking to me, his long-lost brother from another mother.

  Turns out he was totally addicted to World of Warcraft.

  Just like my ex-wife Donna's new boyfriend Gary, the retired cop with Parkinson's. I told you about him in the previous book. Well, Brian wasn't quite as bad as Gary, but still.

  Brian and I talked on the phone a few more times after that first call. And pretty much all he ever wanted to talk about was World of Warcraft.

  Brian's father Danny had died recently. After that, Brian quit his job at the bank and stayed home, while his wife went to work.

  He said he quit his job as financial advisor, because he was sick and tired of lying to people. He said the bank forced him to recommend bad mutual funds to retirees. There were much better ones out there, but his boss forced him to recommend the shitty mutual funds that had been issued by the bank they worked for, because it maximized their profits.

  The bank didn't care that the retirees were being ripped off by being told to invest their life savings in shitty funds. They just cared about their own bottom line. Kinda like the pharmaceutical industry, that pushes opioid painkillers on people and they don't care that people get addicted and their lives are ruined. Or like the NRA, who doesn't care how many people die, as long as they get to make billions of dollars from gun sales.

  I'm sure all that did play a role in Brian's decision to quit his job at the bank. He was a good, decent guy. I knew he wouldn't voluntarily rip off old people.

  But I think the real reason why he quit was because his father's death was such a shock to him. Something in him broke.

  He didn't know how to deal with his father's death, so he tried to find a coping mechanism. That's why he hid in the alternate reality of World of Warcraft, where he was a brave warrior, and everything was going his way. Slaying dragons and finding gold gave him the dopamine kicks he craved. It made him happy. So he spent more and more time inside the fantasy world of the game, instead of the real world. That's how he got addicted to it.

  Every time we talked on the phone, all he wanted to talk about was the game. It made him feel good to tell me about his accomplishments. How he slayed a whole horde of Orcs. How much gold he found. The upgraded armor he wore. His mighty sword! The potions he carried and how effective they were. How much the other players respected him. He was getting his dopamine kicks in a fantasy world, instead of the real world.

  We kinda lost touch again for a while and reconnected a few years later.

  He still liked to play that game, but he didn't seem so obsessed with it anymore. Now he was obsessed with conspiracy theories and astrology.

  Every time I talked to him, he had these crazy theories about freemasons and aliens and UFOs.

  Don't get me wrong. I'm convinced there are aliens out there somewhere. It's practically a given. The universe is infinitely big. There are billions of suns out there, with even more planets. It's ridiculous to think that our tiny little blue marble is the only planet with life on it.

  It would be a giant waste of real estate if all the other trillions of planets out there were all empty, and God just made them for our amusement, so we'd see little twinkly white dots when we look up at the night sky.

  But I'm not so sure if aliens have ever really made it to earth. The universe is huge, and the distances between planets are incredibly big. If there is no such thing as faster-than-light travel, then it would take a spaceship thousands of years to reach us from the nearest inhabited planet.

  That's how long the light takes to get to us from those far away planets. The light travels thousands or even millions of years, before we finally see it as a little white dot in our sky.

&
nbsp; I want to believe that aliens are out there. I want to believe the abduction stories you hear on daytime talk shows. But I just find it odd that the aliens are so obsessed with anal probing trailer park rednecks. That's why I find those stories a little difficult to believe.

  I think if and when aliens make contact with us, there will be no denying it. It will be all over CNN and every other news station all over the world. There'll be live footage of a spaceship hovering over a major city. And millions of eye witnesses. It will be a spectacle like the O.J. Simpson car chase, times a hundred.

  I hope I'll get to see that in my lifetime. It will change everything. I wanna see an alien give a press conference. I wanna see documentaries on National Geographic or The Learning Channel, about alien history and languages. When aliens finally make contact, it'll be bigger than Shark Week.