Bay Area born and raised, Allen Mark formed a passion for writing while earning an English Literature degree at UC Santa Cruz. If you ever want to talk about basketball, music, social justice, or literature, definitely hit him up over a cup of coffee or glass of scotch. He can also be found with his thoughts at allenmarkaranas.com and tweeting about absolutely nothing @allenmarkca.
A starry-eyed 10 year old travels down a dirt path, fresh new baseball cap on and electronic device in hand. Suddenly a rustle in the bushes alerts the child, bringing forth a small bird. Reaching for a red and white ball, the child throws it towards the bird, capturing the creature as part of a collection. This was the image displayed onto my television screen every weekday at 3pm back in 1998. At the enthusiastic age of 9, I was immersed into Ash’s fictional Kanto thanks to knockout pairing of the anime series and video games from Nintendo.