“Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land.” That’s what the Genesis 19:24-25 tells us that happened when human beings deviated too much from saintliness in the ancient times. As a result, since then, Sodom and Gomorrah have been associated with sexual debauchery and by extension to all sinful activities that the human denizens of this planet can come up with.
  

      But on 2008 AD God has to be already pretty upset with us. Actually, by ancient standards I think HE has to be pretty pissed off. Let’s be honest, we have way surpassed Sodom and Gomorrah excesses in all conceivable ways. And not just in two cities. No, this time we extended the pinnacle of sinfulness into a global scale. Think of anything that’s explicitly forbidden by the heavens…and I can tell you for sure it’s on somewhere today on a daily basis. The last spill from that cup? Katy Perry and her song “I kissed a girl”. Homofobic anyone? Femalehood assertiveness maybe? Besides the song’s melody which I find pretty awesome, we have here a clear example of our modern times. Is it decadence, which I am sure all the puritanical bible- totters will rush to label or just that human race is finally becoming a grown up baby?
  

      Not only homosexuality is no longer repressed in our society, but we reached the point where it is actually becoming the latest craze to be sampled. After kissing a girl, “the taste of her cherry chop-stick” Perry tells us, made her feel good, not only good but in power and of course this doesn’t mean a hoot to her per se “Don’t mean I am in love tonight” she continues singing after openly confessing “It felt so wrong, it felt so right”. Did you had a chance to watch the video on YouTube? It’s awesome.
   

Maybe I’ve been living in my puritanical shell for too much time, but I sense another pre and post milestone in public deviance here. Here we have a successful commercial song that encourages us to go gay. Mmmm, grande, like the Italians would say. “But a lesbian kiss doesn’t mean to be gay necessarily” lots of people might be inclined to claim. Well, according to a social study done a couple of years ago, it’s not what you say but what you do. Incidentally, that study found that men performing occasional homosexual acts considered themselves ‘straight’.
   

    But wait, there is more. Woody Allen, l’enfant terrible of the U.S., just got in the bandwagon of the homosexually bonanza. Did you had a chance to watch Vicky Cristina Barcelona? With their three-some thematic I am sure French will love it –which probably is the required catalyst for foreign movies to get successful in Europe. But the transgression won’t stop there. Penelope, check. Scarlett, check. Developing photography both alone at night, check. Go, go, go watch it!
  

      Sorry for that detour, guys, I have to regain focus. Ok, so in the end, what Katy Perry song is actually telling us is that we reached that point where sexuality is actually blind, like Mrs. Justice, and is out there for you to go try it.
  

    But this time, in a twist with ancient times, God won’t punish us for it. There is not going to be a rain of brimstone or anything celestial going on. But how we know that? Well, we know it… first, because it didn’t happen inspire of what’s going on. And second, we know it because if in any case sulfur rains or whatever catastrophe happens –which, by the way it is happening constantly around the world- it will have a known cause. The supposed “punishment” won’t be out-of-nowhere and therefore won’t be closely associated with heaven’s chastisement. No, the times were sodomy and sinfulness triggered sulfur rainbows are gone forever. We have our brightest century awaiting ahead. Enjoy it.

Take a look at what I am talking about:

Delicious, uh?

No pics allowed

Pim thought of a gun show as a museum-like experience: “They are going to show us Civil War guns, give lectures, give us flyers, rigth?”. Well, not exactly. This made apparent that the intensity of what was awaiting us wasn’t still obvious. As we approached the main entrance, the first signs of what a gun show is all about in yankeeland started dripping like oil from a leaky carburator. How to describe it? It’s  a mixture of an eerie feeling with one spoon reality and three of absurdity. Nowhere else in the world I think you can see people leaving the premises of a shopping place joyfully with a sense of accomplishment in their faces and carrying a shopping cart with two semi-automatic rifles, three handguns and thirty boxes of ammo. If you dare to stare at them, their face expressions tells it all: “You see my guns, right? I made a killing of a shop!”. But the grip with reality left Pim uneasy: “David, was that real?”. “Of course, what you think, people come here to buy chocolate tortes?”.

Six dollars turned out to be the mandatory fee for the entrance, and when I asked pretty thrilled “Can we take pictures?”-hoping for a Chuck Norris-style pose- those two middle-aged women inside the reception booth threw me a cold shower: “It’s not possible to take pictures from the Devil” they answered. Well, they really didn’t answered that, but you get the point. Photos were not going to be permitted inside the show.

Which makes you think exactly why not? After all, all these gun lovers and N.R.A.s like to con us that guns, in the U.S. of A., are alike potatoes or corn, basicaly a slight variation of the same farm products that this nation dispatches. But then, one is left wondering, what makes guns and sniper rifles so special, not allowing pictures to spread their beauty? Would a grocery market forbit to take pictures of their tomatoes and cabbages? Of course not! But of course, we know guns will never attain grocery status anytime soon.

So, as we entered the show, we got into business pretty fast: tables and tables packed with all types of handguns on display gave us the first welcome. Of course this was followed rapidly by shotguns and more shotguns, and by rifles and more rifles, but those were still some meters away.

Moreover, this hierarchy mattered little at first, because after a few steps I just went blind. Sort of. The first sensation this massive amount of weaponry produced on me –where is Pim? Ah, she still behind me- was disorientation. Plain disorientation. “Where to look? Is this real? No, no, is this reeeeeally real? Should I run?” are some of the questions my brain scrambled.

 I felt lost point blank and I would say I acquired a sort of gun-blindness, as if my eyes, lost swimming around so many agents of distilled dead couldn’t integrate what they properly saw. As if my brain, shocked by so many unusual and un-daily items felt disturbed “I am going to survive after this?”.

But a couple of minutes later everything returned to normalcy: “Ok, how much is this one?” I asked “Oh, excellent choice, Browning high powered…practical, $736”. “And this other?” “Oh, even better, caliber 50”. Ok, translation for the profane: that “caliber 50”, basically a Smith & Wesson model 500, is a gun capable of piercing First World War tanks. Yeah, ready for the trenches guys, we are in business here! But before any transaction could proceed, I had to place the million dollar question. That scary question that you can’t find on google right away. That question that even Cha Cha deflects to answer and even cops aren’t sure about or they will answer a “No” by default.

The tank shredder S&W 500

The critical question is “Can foreingers buy guns in the U.S.?”

“Yes, yes, yes!”. The gun seller answered my question as if Billy the Kid drawing his gun, and he even put the tank-piercing driller right away in my hand as if saying “Buy it, damn it!”

“Are you sure?” I was still doubtful. “Absolutely, look” And he popped out a form. “Here and here, do you have legal status?” “Of course!” I answered “Ok, then... then I just need three months of yout utility bills, sign here, and this gun is yours…Take it, it’s yours!”. Wow, so easy uh? It felt like rejecting a candy bar. But that’s how it happened. Looks like one can buy guns in the U.S. even if not a citizen. By this standards, guns are like potatoes. Great discovery, great deal. But wait, there’s more: “Look at this Pim, AK-47s!” “No,  not exactly” one of the bystanders corrected me as if I just stated New York is a river in Africa. “Oh, excuse me, I’m a noobie in these issues. What is it  then?” “Oh, the arm…the arm is shorter, it’s a handgun version” he pinpointed. At this point, closeness had settled in between us and the guy felt entitled to kept going “This AK-47 handgun version also makes better muzzling, better grip, better recoil…you know, when you shoot to the ground Groa Groa Groa Groaaaaa!!” Holly shit, this fella is nuts, let’s get the hell out of here! I thought immediately. Wearing glasses, middle aged and chubby, the guy just represented in the air the effect of unloading a cartridge on the ground. The explosions he represented looked like an experimental new way to plant seeds without a plow!

We manage to lose him by sneaking in between some other ammunition tables and bulletproof vests and I refound my little friend S&W 500 standing next to a Desert Eagle, that gun that you use in Counter Strike when low on money. Well in reality, the Desert Eagle looks like it can send any part of your body to the grilling barbeque with a single shot. And it weights a helluva heck. Looking so similar to the S&W 500’s piercing capabilities,  I couldn’t kept it but ask the seller: “Which one has bigger caliber?”. Somehow I missed the point. Of course, not all the sellers around here are going to be as friendly as the previously “Buy-it-damn-it”, so this one bluntly replied me: “What is it written here?” Making me feel stupid for having dared to ask something that should be obvious. Clearly, this guy was not in a Billy-the-Kid mood for selling, so I just excused myself: “Oh, I am sorry, I am just a little twit that never practices on Sundays” and I left.

Besides the killing machines on display, this gun show also featured its bona-fide mini-zoo. It’s easy to spot all kind of people on it, mainly confined to low standards of life. This includes white and trailer trash, which are abundant in every meter, every stand. Maybe they can’t buy new pants or a decent shirt, but their gun allocation money is always unfazed. One also can find disabled people willing to potentially disable other people by means of guns: well chairs and mobile oxygen tanks are commonplace. Of course missing a leg or an arm puts you in a disadvantage facing a reckless criminal, maybe that’s why so many amputated people also showed off their willingness to compensate their loss of flesh with a gain in deadly lead.

But another interesting trait of this show sipped through the gun holsters and army caps. Very few blacks, very few asians and very few woman. And besides Pim, no asian women. Ok, maybe that’s because this place is a God forgotten corner of Ohio, or maybe it’s because something else. Something that we suspect: Mr. Racism and Mr. White Supremacy? After an hour straddling across the place, Pim started feeling unconfortable. She noticed the staring and the checking. Yeah, maybe this is the first time all this weirdos have seen a asian woman in 3D. Or maybe it’s because Pim noticed there is only a cop “protecting” this place. Well, I don’t see the need for more, it’s like walking among plutonium, who would dare to use it without melting himself?

Finally, if you ever go to a gun show, don’t ever understimate the rapacious feeling that’s going to build on you. So many guns, so easy to acquire them, it’s not difficult to not feel compelled to buy one in the end. The “What if” thought is the main culprit behind. “What if I surprise a robber in my house?” “What if somebody assaults the bank while I’m on it?”.”What if, what if?” Lots of “What ifs” which are the covert motor behind this business. But this “What if” has to be preceded by the “I have to”, which is what the sellers wants you to ignore. To stop a bank robber “I have to know how to shoot”. To stop a grocery mugger “I have to carry the gun first”, etc. “Oh, look at this small one” –a double barreledl Derringer- Pim tells me “It looks so cute and it would fit so well in my purse…and it’s just $246”. Even myself I am susceptible to the 1911 models. Come on, every man has his model, and people in this business know this. So, after a little of restraining myself, the mind starts giving in “Should I buy one? Mmm…looks so cute, perfect to show my friends: look, look my new baby!”. Yeah, the feeling starts to become so irrisistible, but luckily my videogamer mind comes to the rescue: “Ok David, what you prefer, a $750-computer or a $750 handgun?”. Clearly, with Starcraft 2 around the corner I have no choice but to give in. “Pim, let’s go, we have seen enough”.

At first sight, the film seems oriented to children –and actually it is- but if wathced by a broader audience, the underlying movie telltale comparison with a religious convergence seems inescapable.

Think about it. For Christians, Whosville’s mayor is clearly Christ while Horton is God. For buddhists, Whoville’s mayor could perfectly be Buddha, while Horton could be Nirvana. Even the cloverfield scene, where Horton searches desperately his speck-associated clover is a bona fide graphic imagery of what for buddhists represents searching for Nirvana: akin searching a needle in an ocean!

Do you still need more benchmarks? Tell me, what’s the main problem with religions? That’s something Horton Hears a Who seems to address cleverly: the communication. How to prove to ordinary people you found ‘God’ when only you are the one who can hear his voice? At the same level, how can the Mayor prove to Whosville citizens he found the “truth”? “It’s an elephant in the sky” he proclaims, like when religious prophets deliver us with statements that are difficult to fathom, defying rationality.

Coversely, how can Horton convince his Nools’ jungle fellows the speck contains life, when nobody can hear, see them? Remember the Sour Kangaroo’s doctrine: If it can’t be seen, hear or touched, doesn’t exist! What could she be talking about but religion? If explicit communication could exist in real life as it does in the end in the film, then ‘believing’ should be a tick tack toe game!

But of course we know this doesn’t happen in real life, because in real life only the chosen One has the ability to hear God and nobody else.

At one point, the film also seems to bring attention to a tangent topic: democracy’s fallibility. “What you prefer, a centennial celebration or go underground?” the Council Chairman proclaims to Whosville citizens. That’s just another clever graphic anagram for what sometimes should be done facing a crisis, where the grim choice is the correct one, which is something ordinary people will never abide nor choose by democratic principles.

All in all, the movie I first though was dispatched for children seems to be plagued with smart turns, winks and endless parallelisms with real life for grown ups –hey, could the raw storyline be a product of schizophrenia? Finding out the real truth in it it’s a delighting experience and an entertaining one, one that I surely recommend to all of you.

But now the specialist turn arrived. Finding her place was the first hurdle to overcome. Its criptic positions in the middle of nowhere -thats Ohio, everything's in the middle of nowhere- rendered Mapquest and Googlemap  completely useless. Nothing to say,  I got the right tactical directions only after asking local people. After I managed to get "there there, go there and turn left then right, mmm, no I think it was left? Then go there, that white building there". Of course, in these cases all the buildings are white. Anyways, when I enter the lobby:

“ Is it your first visit?” The receptionist asked me. “Yes” “Oh yeah?! We have a winner here” seemed to be her answer. This meant having to fill 2 forms with the same type of information and then sit and wait. If you can overcome this other excruciating step, man, you are already half way there. Next to this, my little sore is rendered as a tourist attraction.  But ok, for the sake of getting healthy I acceded to get bureocractically-raped.

Then it comes the next stage, the patient room. When I told the nurse my sore went away when I came back to Spain for Christmas, my statement led her to spurt a fun remark. Right, like if I came here to have fun or something. Anyway, the real shtick was soon to come.

When that nurse left –which by the way made me repeat the same amount of information I already repeated twice to the first-line combat receptionists- I was left alone. 2,3,5 minutes went by. Patience now the key.

Then, a knock in the door at the same time it opens and: Splash! The dermatologist appears and she looks like the flamboyant radio host Christ Tucker played in the Fifth element. A female named Neera Agarwal Antal doesn’t go around the bush:

“Hi I am Dr. Agarwal, where’s your sore?” While she takes a look at it, I give her a sort of background history about it: my travel to Spain, my 10-months battle, the different creams etc. My explanations give me the feeling they are a ton of "blablablablabla" to Dr. Agarwal's ears.  Five seconds later and she tells the assitsant nurse “Give him A&D, and referral for Mimycs” Maybe because my face looks like I just saw a patufet -a sort of Catalan goblin- out from a bush, she elaborates a little bit:  “A&D is an OTC drug, you won’t have problems finding one”. Still half-shocked by the speeding diagnostic I just wonder “Are you sure its not a fungus?”  “Unlikely, this is atopy, the environment, is caused by atopic genes bababalarab, balbalbla bubub-ichic” The last word of her explanation splashes one of those incomprehensibly unfathomable medical words. “Give him a schedule in two weeks’. She just missed to say "See you babe!!" And that was it.