And Gutenberg Lived Here: Pokemon Go. Away.

One of my relatives is Pokemon mad.

Which I assume, from the little bit of reading I did on it,

has something to do with Californian culture

and Japanese cartoons.

Nuff said.

What I didn’t figure on,

especially in these days of news programs filled with violence and killings,

Brexit,

and, in general, unbelievably stupid and niveauless US election candidates,

was that someone would take the chance at this time

to develop a game where you upload an app to tell you where to go,

(boy, would I like to have the rights to develop the app to tell a few companies where to go)

Sorry.

So this manga thing, is that apparently the company that markets Pokemon

has linked something to navigation, or maybe it is google maps,

and it tells you where in your town to walk

(get more exercise)

while listening to sort of kids cartoon style music

and taking pictures of you with Pokemons.

And meeting up with team members,

and collecting things called Pokemon balls,

or visiting Pokemon shops,

set up for the purpose,

to buy Pokemon merchandise.

The entire town is wired.

Blue toothed?

And you can even chase by car,

if you take someone as navigator,

officially called a Pokemon catcher.

The idea is fun, team spirit, more exercise…

Unfortunately,

in the true spirit of the age of no one has any peace and quiet any more,

or the right to do what they want with their lives,

the Pokemon people,

at least in the town where my relatives live,

sort of um “forgot” to ask  the local business people,

ie fitness studios, frozen yoghurt shops,

whether they wanted their shop,

or in one case, a famous museum,

to be a hot-point for Pokemon pictures.

What I found, when I checked, was

oops, we sort of targeted you.

Now don’t be a bad sport

and sell or give out our Pokemon balls and merchandise for us.

(one frozen yoghurt shop put up a sign, Pokemon balls to customers only-  this is considered in bad taste.)

And as for the museum,

it bothered me a lot-

hey, I’m old school-

to look at a beautiful botanical garden,

and a gallery with exhibitions of real art

coated with Pokemon.

(And Pokemon seekers)

The thing is, I can remember a trip to a botanical garden,

at Easter,

where all the kids got to hunt Easter eggs,

on the basis of donations requested to pay for it

and to help keep up the gardens.

It was a normal part of civic duty.

And a whole lot of fun.

And then everyone went for a guided walk

to look at the Easter flowers.

I still treasure that memory.

Now we have Pokemon balls.

And the worst things,

from my stand point,

is all the beauty in the world

the kids today aren’t seeing.

Anyone else ever spend an afternoon with relatives picking just the perfect fall leaf,

in just the right colors,

and putting it up in your room until it finally fell to dust

just about the time the new spring shoots

and first leaves appeared on the trees?

Oh, and the worst about this whole story,

since I’m one of the ones that follows the news from where I was raised,

is that three robbers in my old home town area,

completely abnormal lunatics,

used guns,

and the Pokemon app,

to target people to rob at gunpoint.

And since this is happening for real,

in a Pokemon world,

I really don’t know whether to be sad for everyone involved,

that yes, of course,

or angry that this is how far we have come with our stupid avoidance of reality in order to live in a plastic manga world,

which makes us targets for the mentally ill,

or just make dumb jokes about Pokemon balls.

So I don’t have to think about life in Orwell’s 1984.

Yup, I think the dumb jokes.

Stay tuned.

P.S. Since this Pokemon thing has now gone nova, the Gutenberger, actually the Gutenberger in a small factory and warehouse suburb,

have also started chasing small manga critters.

My only  consolation being, that the server here is so overloaded that no one can play from six at night to seven in the morning.

It must be the wonder-working Catholic church in their town.

copyright Dunnasead.co 2016