The Green Ranger matches my shoes

Happy Independence Day I guess. I'm not the militant type, nor am I the post "woke" statements and make people feel bad about enjoying themselves on certain "holidays" guy BUT celebrating independence day in the "Make America Great Again" era makes me feel some type of way. To each his own though, I'll take the day off from work lol...well, the day off from my regular job. My part time doesn't close but I'll enjoy the time I have today.

There was a time in the early 90s where someone saw there was a void Voltron left that needed to be filled and so they created basically the same show on 3 different networks. VR Troopers, Big Bad Beetle Borgs, and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. The Power Rangers wound up being the ones to stand through the test of time. All 3 had some pretty catchy theme songs. Maybe I'll start attaching videos to some of these because I could save time by just singing them hilariously into a camera lol. Power Rangers was the first of them and even though they were all sort of Voltron knock offs and CLEARY rip offs of one another, we couldn't resist tuning in. It was odd. So, your answer to a successful series is to create basically the same series but not as good because kids like anything that's similar to what they already like. Like when Nintendo put out Game Boy which was games in all black and white and Sega responded with Game Gear which was games in all color. Game Gear was superior by far and the thought was that Nintendo would upgrade Game Boy games to play in color but they couldn't so what they did was make the actual Game Boy console different colors and even though it was the same black and white games, kids flocked to it because they could get the console itself in their favorite color...man, we just loved smoke and mirrors lol smh. Game Boy eventually caught up and today have the top hand held devices played by kids everywhere. Some of those DS things cost as much as the Nintendo Switch *insert rolling eyes emoji* ...back to the Power Rangers though, it ended up being one of those shows you rushed home to watch and it got so big at one point that the network put one of their events on in prime time (the introduction of Lord Zed). Today there are so many different versions of Power Rangers (check your Netflix) that I can't even keep up.

I can't lie, my favorite Power Ranger was the red ranger Jason. He at anywas the original leader of the group and I was the oldest child of 5 so I wanted to be him because his role was similar to mine in real life but I could never really identify with him outside of that. He was just this goody goody character and even as a kid I knew that I'd never be that guy. I have never at any time been without some type of self conflict. All the rangers were like that though to some degree. Of course they tried to include us by making Zach the black ranger a black guy who could dance...I mean, it's not like he could've just been book smart or something to side step a stereotype right? Out here just break dancing in 1993 lol. He was cool but I couldn't get with that. Billy the blue ranger was a white nerd who was good at math and the only math I'm good at is if it has to do with money so that was a no go (plus his zord was a triceratops and I couldn't get with no vegetarian dinosaur to represent me fam, nah). Then as we got further into the series, they introduced Tommy the green ranger.

In a show filled with the most basic karate you've seen since Steven Segal, Tommy was like what Keanu Reeves was to the Matrix in that he was slightly faster and stronger than everyone else. he routinely beat up all 5 other rangers until he became a good guy. The best thing about Tommy for me though was that it was a character I could seriously identify with. He's an overall good dude but constantly battling with good and evil in his mind. Turned out that he was under a spell by Rita Repulsa but it still made me think about how we may try to or want to do or be better but that other voice is always there telling us why we can't. Tommy had no idea that he was under a spell and was just going on about his everyday life not even realizing the influence that was over him. Then in order to break the curse he needed the help of the other rangers as well as his own will to be free. Seems simple but things aren't always as simple as they seem. I know what it's like to have people trying to help you but reject it out of pride or because you don't think anything is wrong. Tommy's character felt more and more familiar as I got older and it became a lesson I've had to continue to learn. Having good intentions doesn't always make everything ok, accepting help does not make you weak, admitting that you need it doesn't make you less of a man, and maturity is knowing that you'll never be perfect but trying your best anyway on an everyday basis. Sure, the other rangers seemed perfect but Tommy was the best (not only because his karate was better) because he played the part of an actual human being. He never was trying to be the same as the other rangers, he was trying to be the best him he could be and that is something that I will always relate to. I could go into how he became the white ranger to add to my point but you can figure it out lol. Also, the green ranger got the Dragon Zord which was DOPE. Random but true

Also I got the glow in the dark, black and green Kyrie 5s because they match the t-shirt (I said it!) really dope. Even though Kyrie is dead to me and the majority of Celtics nation, I still like his shoes lol. I'm calling them the Green Ranger 5s tho *shrugs* BOOM (I only added "BOOM" because it made this one 5600 characters LOL).