- Sep 22, 2013
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Urban crime films such as Maniac Cop, Cobra, and Sin City are very popular in this modern age of traffic-related intrigue, which is probably why there are so many pedestrian vigilantism-daydream themed comic book adapted films such as The Dark Knight and Iron Man being made in Hollywood (USA) now.
Here's a vigilantism-fantasy short-story I wrote (probably my final one!) about an 'urban crusade' memoir, inspired by the urbanization-dissection film City Hall.
I wonder how the Trump Administration will massage urban commerce in this new century...
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I was born to two wealthy parents from royal families in Albania. They named me Harvey Deniskhan when we moved to the United States after a terrible civil war in Albania. My father became an alcoholic and was very abusive to me and my mother while I was just a boy. We were living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and I had dreams of someday studying at the University of Pennsylvania (a very prestigious 'Ivy League' school). My mother Dreena was very supportive and nurturing (and terrific at home-made meals) and would provide me the right spiritual inspiration every Thanksgiving with her magical Albanian-American meals (but even my mother would sometimes get depressed about my father's alcoholism).
I studied very very hard to honor my family, and I was admitted into the University of Pennsylvania where I studied Psychology. I intended to write a book about the connection between urban culture and criminal psychology, but in my third year of college I travelled to Moscow on a foreign-studies program where I encountered the 'mean streets' of post-USSR Russia. I realized that part of the 'drama' of modern urban development is the actual 'experience' of living in a commerce and traffic-complicated place such as Moscow (or New York or Amsterdam or Tokyo!). I met a beautiful Russian woman there (Katarina Pokov) who was a member of the Moscow Ballet, and we became engaged. I didn't know then that Katarina was secretly part of the Russian mafia.
When I went back to America to complete my college degree, I found a newfound interest in 'vigilantism.' How I could apply my studies in psychology to better understand the 'threads' of urban crime and urban corruption became more important to me than a prestigious job or formal research work at a think tank or lab. Nevertheless, I obtained a teaching position at the Psychology Department at Penn State University, and the school gave me and my mom a very nice apartment after my father passed away (due to natural causes). I doubled as a teacher by day and a masked vigilante named 'Batman' by night. My mother was oblivious to all this, and no one else (including Katarina who now lived on-and-off with me and my mother) knew either. I intended to marry Katarina someday soon and settle down and have children with her.
As Batman, I would prowl the city streets of Philadelphia every Saturday night looking for vandals, trouble-makers, criminal gang elements, and take note of crime syndicate and mafia activity (as well as drug-trafficking). I used my rope-gun, tear-gas mini-grenades, handcuffs, and electric stun-gun to thwart a thug attacking a couple (trying to seal their wallets), members of two gangs fighting in an alley, a mafia leader peddling cocaine to nightclub-goers walking to their car, and a crime syndicate member of the rising ominous group The Black Mask named Night-Slasher who was trying to kill two cops in a parked car. The press labelled me as the 'mysterious eccentric angel' of Philadelphia. I was very happy with my work as Batman, and my academic work at the Psychology Department at Penn State University was not compromised in any way. I planned to marry Katrina the next summer under the encouragement of my mother (now 70 years-old).
Things took a turn for the worse that autumn, however. One member of Black Mask, named 'Leatherface' was terrorizing homeless people by waiving a chainsaw (which he stole from a hardware store) in front of sleeping homeless people in alleys. This maniac never turned his chainsaw on (so police patrols could not hear him), but he literally gave the poor homeless people terrible goosebumps, and I realized this character was a true 'American psycho.' Apparently, Leatherface was the nephew of the leader of Black Mask who was 'rearing' him to take the reins of the crime syndicate someday. Black Mask was involved in an elaborate opium-smuggling operation between Philadelphia, New York, and Moscow, so I decided to return to Russia to analyze its labyrinth.
It was in Moscow that I met a corrupt and vile woman named 'Baroness' who had ties to Leatherface and Black Mask in Philadelphia (and New York). Baroness was the official head of the Russian mafia operation coordinating the opium-ring with Black Mask. Baroness designed a special 'propaganda suit' (costume) for herself and a glass-mask for Leatherface and intended to present the opium-ring as an 'international terrorism organization.' It was also in Moscow where I met the American movie star Tom Cruise who was for some reason moonlighting as a 'pseudo-vigilante' on nights (how bizarre!). We discovered each other and realized we were both pursuing Baroness and the opium-ring associated with Leatherface/Black Mask. Cruise was dressed in an identity-concealing 'costume' (just like me) and called himself 'Green Lantern' (since he carried an ultra-bright torch-light which he used to blind criminals before calling police for help).
"Why are you interested in crime?" Lantern asked me, to which I replied, "I'm interested in the 'sanity' of metropolis." "Why are you interested in crime?" I asked Lantern, to which he replied, "Well, Batman, I want to make more movies representative of real-world problems and that requires 'street-research'!" The Batman-Lantern duo was impressive, I thought, and we uncovered vital clues that helped us evaluate the opium labyrinth between Baroness and Leatherface. I realized that urban crime was just as much about sin as it was about motivation (which made me wonder if Lantern/Cruise had other 'socialite allies' doing 'pedestrianism research' with him!). I wondered to myself that if I had a son with Katrina (my future wife), would he become a brooding vigilante like me? When I discovered Katrina had ties to the Russian mafia (and to Baroness!) everything changed, and I would always wonder, "Did the city change human consciousness, or did Lantern and I start to change urban bureaucracy?"
====
Here's a vigilantism-fantasy short-story I wrote (probably my final one!) about an 'urban crusade' memoir, inspired by the urbanization-dissection film City Hall.
I wonder how the Trump Administration will massage urban commerce in this new century...
====
I was born to two wealthy parents from royal families in Albania. They named me Harvey Deniskhan when we moved to the United States after a terrible civil war in Albania. My father became an alcoholic and was very abusive to me and my mother while I was just a boy. We were living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and I had dreams of someday studying at the University of Pennsylvania (a very prestigious 'Ivy League' school). My mother Dreena was very supportive and nurturing (and terrific at home-made meals) and would provide me the right spiritual inspiration every Thanksgiving with her magical Albanian-American meals (but even my mother would sometimes get depressed about my father's alcoholism).
I studied very very hard to honor my family, and I was admitted into the University of Pennsylvania where I studied Psychology. I intended to write a book about the connection between urban culture and criminal psychology, but in my third year of college I travelled to Moscow on a foreign-studies program where I encountered the 'mean streets' of post-USSR Russia. I realized that part of the 'drama' of modern urban development is the actual 'experience' of living in a commerce and traffic-complicated place such as Moscow (or New York or Amsterdam or Tokyo!). I met a beautiful Russian woman there (Katarina Pokov) who was a member of the Moscow Ballet, and we became engaged. I didn't know then that Katarina was secretly part of the Russian mafia.
When I went back to America to complete my college degree, I found a newfound interest in 'vigilantism.' How I could apply my studies in psychology to better understand the 'threads' of urban crime and urban corruption became more important to me than a prestigious job or formal research work at a think tank or lab. Nevertheless, I obtained a teaching position at the Psychology Department at Penn State University, and the school gave me and my mom a very nice apartment after my father passed away (due to natural causes). I doubled as a teacher by day and a masked vigilante named 'Batman' by night. My mother was oblivious to all this, and no one else (including Katarina who now lived on-and-off with me and my mother) knew either. I intended to marry Katarina someday soon and settle down and have children with her.
As Batman, I would prowl the city streets of Philadelphia every Saturday night looking for vandals, trouble-makers, criminal gang elements, and take note of crime syndicate and mafia activity (as well as drug-trafficking). I used my rope-gun, tear-gas mini-grenades, handcuffs, and electric stun-gun to thwart a thug attacking a couple (trying to seal their wallets), members of two gangs fighting in an alley, a mafia leader peddling cocaine to nightclub-goers walking to their car, and a crime syndicate member of the rising ominous group The Black Mask named Night-Slasher who was trying to kill two cops in a parked car. The press labelled me as the 'mysterious eccentric angel' of Philadelphia. I was very happy with my work as Batman, and my academic work at the Psychology Department at Penn State University was not compromised in any way. I planned to marry Katrina the next summer under the encouragement of my mother (now 70 years-old).
Things took a turn for the worse that autumn, however. One member of Black Mask, named 'Leatherface' was terrorizing homeless people by waiving a chainsaw (which he stole from a hardware store) in front of sleeping homeless people in alleys. This maniac never turned his chainsaw on (so police patrols could not hear him), but he literally gave the poor homeless people terrible goosebumps, and I realized this character was a true 'American psycho.' Apparently, Leatherface was the nephew of the leader of Black Mask who was 'rearing' him to take the reins of the crime syndicate someday. Black Mask was involved in an elaborate opium-smuggling operation between Philadelphia, New York, and Moscow, so I decided to return to Russia to analyze its labyrinth.
It was in Moscow that I met a corrupt and vile woman named 'Baroness' who had ties to Leatherface and Black Mask in Philadelphia (and New York). Baroness was the official head of the Russian mafia operation coordinating the opium-ring with Black Mask. Baroness designed a special 'propaganda suit' (costume) for herself and a glass-mask for Leatherface and intended to present the opium-ring as an 'international terrorism organization.' It was also in Moscow where I met the American movie star Tom Cruise who was for some reason moonlighting as a 'pseudo-vigilante' on nights (how bizarre!). We discovered each other and realized we were both pursuing Baroness and the opium-ring associated with Leatherface/Black Mask. Cruise was dressed in an identity-concealing 'costume' (just like me) and called himself 'Green Lantern' (since he carried an ultra-bright torch-light which he used to blind criminals before calling police for help).
"Why are you interested in crime?" Lantern asked me, to which I replied, "I'm interested in the 'sanity' of metropolis." "Why are you interested in crime?" I asked Lantern, to which he replied, "Well, Batman, I want to make more movies representative of real-world problems and that requires 'street-research'!" The Batman-Lantern duo was impressive, I thought, and we uncovered vital clues that helped us evaluate the opium labyrinth between Baroness and Leatherface. I realized that urban crime was just as much about sin as it was about motivation (which made me wonder if Lantern/Cruise had other 'socialite allies' doing 'pedestrianism research' with him!). I wondered to myself that if I had a son with Katrina (my future wife), would he become a brooding vigilante like me? When I discovered Katrina had ties to the Russian mafia (and to Baroness!) everything changed, and I would always wonder, "Did the city change human consciousness, or did Lantern and I start to change urban bureaucracy?"
====
