Random Movie Club

You really owe it to yourself to read Rich Nathanson’s write-ups of movies:


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Havin’ My Babay

duncan @ five minutes

duncan @ five minutes

This past August 1, 2009 at 10:45am, my son, Duncan Huxley Cameron was born.

Not only is he quite a bit bigger now than he is in that photo, his ability to melt me with a look, has increased.

We are raising him as rationally as possible. Obviously, he’ll make his own decisions about how to interact with his world, but we’ll tell the truth as we see it and let it go. There’s plenty of woo out there for him to encounter and deal with on his own, so we don’t need to burden him with more at home. It’s going to be intersting as, even before he was born, people I consider rational were saying really weird and irrational things.

It makes sense, I suppose. There’s so much about having a child that is completely out of ones control that, like the rest of life, we tend to look for patterns to apply to random things. Here in the west, where we have an abundance of food and nutrition, once you’re out of the first trimester of pregnancy, if you’re not behaving like an idiot, your kid is probably going to come out just fine.

But… because that stuff is out of our control, people start making up rules to follow. Sure, some of ‘em might make sense and actually keep you healthy, but, again… as long as you’re not being an idiot, that kid is going to come out and, most likely, come out fine.

Childbirth as an Extreme Sport
Extreme Sports came about because of great medicine and the boredom of practice. Back in “ye oldene tymes” no one, except for inventors, had the time or inclination to go hang gliding because a) broken bones meant death or worse, suffering and disfigurement for the rest of one’s life and 2) life already had enough fucking terror, what with everyone dying because of disease and war.

Here in the future, if you survive a hang gliding crash and break your legs and crack your spine, the worst part is your drunken friends driving you to the hospital in the back of the 4-Runner. After that, it’s 6 weeks off of work, Fentanyl Patches and 150,000 hits on YouTube. As far as skill goes, it’s a matter of being able to buy the gear. The wealthier you are, the more three day weekends you can spend hang-gliding and the better gear you can buy. You can’t buy the skill that comes spending 4 hours a day doing boring tennis drills for your entire youth.

So, like extreme sports, unless there is a rare complication, the sheer terror of having a child is gone. Western Infant mortality rates are extremely low and mothers dying in childbirth is almost non-existent so, to shake things up, we make it exciting by having a kid at home or with people beating drums or standing up in the shower or in a hot tub with your family there or in a dumpster behind chuck e. cheese. If something goes wrong, you’re a quick ambulance drive away from the hospital and all is well.

(A side note… We had our son at Cedars Sinai here in L.A. Our hippie friends told us that it’s a bad place to have a child because they have such a high record of emergency births. We aksed (yes, aksed) the doctor about it and she said the emergencies were mainly home deliveries gone haywire and since Cedars has the best Natal Intensive Care Unit, the botched home births are rushed to Cedars.)

“Pitocin is Evil!!!”
Because we wanted to feel like we were “doing something”, the bride and I went to a Lamaze class. I made it through the three hours without having an episode. I’m not sure why; perhaps it’s the extreme sports thing, but we encountered quite a bit of anti-science bias associated with having a baby. The point of the Lamaze method is to have the baby “naturally”. Since we’re living in the future and having the baby at a hospital “natural” really just means “without an epidural”. This is fine, if that’s how you roll, but there was no reason for it. The instructor hinted, quite strongly, that it’s better for the baby if it’s “natural”, but wouldn’t come out and say as much (because it’s not true). She made the claim that medical students today aren’t shown “natural” child births. When I questioned her about this; pressing her for a source for her claim, she said she learned the med student facts from “articles”. The larger subtext was that women who chose to receive epidurals were less woman than those who went without because they weren’t completely experiencing the delivery. Not only that, it is, somehow, better for the child if it’s “natural”.

Yep, after a full term of pregnancy what’s really going to have an affect on junior is that final few hours.

We were told “don’t let them give her any drugs!!!” a couple of times. One of the drugs that the bride was given was Pitocin, a drug that induces labor.

Back in the “good old days” one of the many ways a woman could die in childbirth was bleeding to death after being ripped open by a too large baby.

Duncan was full term and ready to come out, but the bride’s body wasn’t ready to let him go. Instead of waiting another two weeks and getting a Caesarian, or worse, a drip of Pitocin induced labor and we were on our way. (Before you say “body knows best”, aks yourself if cancer is the body knowing best?)

When you google Pitocin, the very first result is an anti-science web page, childbirth.org. It’s so sad. It looks official, but it’s just some anti-science people picking and choosing their facts and scaring people.

We were told that Pitocin keeps the mother from producing milk. Once the bride had the epidural she was able to calm down, as she didn’t realize how freaked out she was. It was only a matter of minutes after the Pitocin kicked in until she began pushing. Duncan was born within the hour. The bride was breast-feeding almost immediately. So much for the horror stories.

(I know, personal experience is one of the worst ways to come to an understanding of how the world works. I’m just saying that our experience with Pitocin and the epidoodle was aces! )

The bride is a genius. She made the point that people now use bleeding edge science to get pregnant; in vitro pregnancies are so common now, and that is, rightfully, considered a beautiful and excellent thing. BUT, using science for the delivery cheapens the experience. If someone is of the mind that “nature knows best” then why take the shortcut around nature and go in vitro? Hmm?!?!

Genius, I tell you. Genius.

Infants as Unemployment Insurance
Since the turn of the century (I love saying that!) I was fortunate enough to have a nice career doing voice overs for radio and television. I began the century writing front end code at an online games web site. I also helped a friend develop a web service, Tightcircle.com, which he later patented and sold to an “unnamed company in Mountain View, California”. My main income was voice overs and I would, occasionally supplement it by doing web work.

About two years ago, the voice overs began slowing down. Thanks to strikes and technology, fewer people were needed to do voice overs. Finally, the work seems to have dried up almost completely. I had been averaging a couple of gigs a month. At this point, I haven’t had a VO gig since early 2008.

Once we discovered the bride was with child, I began looking for web work in earnest. Thanks to technology, I found myself a bit behind the curve as far as front-end coding goes. I’ve been on all the tech job boards for years so I started scouring those and other resources and by January of this year started sending out at least 2 resumes a day and doing tutorials online on the stuff I’d missed.

Our plan had been that by the time the bride finished her latest editing gig, I would either have some foot back in showbiz or a web coding gig. Unfortunately, that wasn’t happening and it began getting hairy.

I kept hearing “babies bring luck” and it only pissed me off more. What is the method? How does it work? Gravity? Hmm. The week before Duncan was born, I received two job offers. Some poor soul on MyFaceSpaceBook wrote “babies bring luck!!!” and I kinda/sort jumped down her throat. See… by saying that not only are you simply being an idiot, unaware of confirmation bias, you are discounting the work I did to get those jobs. If a baby is born every minute, wouldn’t there be more “luck” in the world? I can’t even begin to start deconstructing this…. The week before he was born, I had to put a new radiator in my car. Lucky? As Linus Van Pelt often said: Aaargh!

Pisces Virgo Rising is a very good siiiiignnnnnn
Racism is just lazy. Instead of investigating cultural differences, racism just lays down blanket statements about large groups of people. The only criteria is how they were born. Not who they are. People are different through their cultures, but it’s more about geography than biology. But, even then, I realllly hate it. It makes me so sad when I hear someone describe themselves based on their race. “I’m Italian, I can’t help being jealous!” Well, you were raised to think that. It has nothing to do with you being Italian, except everyone you know who is Italian has told you that you can’t help but be jealous. There are lots of Italians who aren’t. I bet there are Italians at swingers clubs.

The worst manifestation of racism is astrology. Because of the date and time of your birth, you are endowed with personality traits that are inescapable.

I think this is so maddening to me because I’m a Taurus.

duncan and the bride at just around one minute

duncan y bride @ one minute

But seriously… This country was created so we can be free. We are free to try to do whatever we want and be whoever we want. We are free to choose our own identity and make our own lives and yet people voluntarily yoke themselves with zodiac signs, shrug and say “I can’t help that I’m clumsy, I’m a gemini”.

Obviously, you are absolutely free to do this in this free country. You’re totally free to hamstring yourself or create excuses based on your deep misunderstanding of the gravitational effects of the planets. Please don’t do it to my son. Please don’t tell him how he is before he can walk. Please don’t make up your mind how he is before he can walk. Let him find out who he is and how he is. It’s going to take a long time and, this is important: it will change. Duncan may start out shy and become an extrovert, but let’s not keep him one way by telling him it’s preordained. It may be. But it’s not because of the moon and jupiter. As William Shakespeare wrote: “I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.” (Edmund has a great deconstruction of astrology in King Lear.)

There are so many real mysteries and phenomenon, both explained and unexplained, associated with infants. When does he begin recognizing us? Is he thinking abstractly? How does language happen? The nature/nurture question. All of those things. They are fascinating, vexing and beautiful. Why throw crap in there like ass-trology, babies bringing luck and anti-science? I loved him before he was born. Isn’t that enough?

Great Pleasures

One of the great pleasures I encounter each week is my Saturday download. It’s the day I hook up my iPhone and download my nutty podcasts. My current favorite is Skeptoid, which is described by Brian Dunning, the host as “…a weekly science podcast dedicated to furthering knowledge by blasting away the widespread pseudosciences that infect popular culture.” He’s done a couple of really great episodes about “organic” food and locally grown produce, but the most incendiary has got to be Sarah Palin is not stupid.

The Palin episode of Skeptoid points out how those of us who pride ourselves for being critical thinkers have to remember to refrain from ad hominem attacks, especially against those who have different beliefs than ours. It’s great stuff.

My other favorite, which I may have mentioned here, is the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Steven Novella and his brothers, Jay, Bob along with Even Bernstein and one of several “skepchicks”, Rebecca, are the skeptic superfriends. Each week, they sit around and wax poetic about things skeptical. I was interviewed by them last week at TAM7, which is a true honor. Steven Novella has got to be the busiest man in the world. He blogs daily at Science Based Medicine as well as his own, Neurologica blog. Plus, he’s a neurosurgeon and does legwork for the Skeptics Guide podcast. The man is smart. Crazy smart.

I also listen to three tech podcasts: the Zend php framework, Ruby on Rails & JQuery. It sounds a lot like English. I’m pretty sure it’s English.

There’s also a guy who decided to read all of the Robert Ingersoll writings. Great. Nutty.

I put the new ones in the “Sleep” playlist and listen to that as I fall asleep. By the end of the week, from waking up in the middle of the night, etc., I’m pretty sure I’ve heard everything.

Fascinating, isn’t it?

I’m going to write about TAM7 real soon. No, really.

Sick of Pigs aka Swine Flu

I can’t take credit for the “two minutes of hate” meme; that honor belongs to Mr. Orwell.

I can take some credit for spreading it around recently and I was very happy when my friend, Colin, called me with the understanding that this Swine Flu nonsense is simply Two Minutes of Hate.

Speaking of Two Minutes of Hate: Someone on FaceSpaceBook commented that the swine flu fear is just a ploy by those “evil pharmaceutical companies” to sell more drugs. I suggested he do us all a favor and stop taking medicine. Here’s hoping I’m unfriended or whatever it is that people like that do.

Speaking of death, I wonder if that god that danny gans believed in could figure out who he was doing impressions of.

Started a temp gig yesterday at a big entertainment company. Y’know… It’s those content management systems that keep us all employed. If it weren’t for the CMS, I’d have finished the gig today. As it is, I’m probably there another three weeks. Maybe more.

d’Anconia’s money speech

Hot damn!!!

I wish that I had read this when I was making good money.

Hot damn. This is good stuff.

Were I king of the world, I would pay a theater company full of libertarians (hahahahahahaha) a million dollars to spend a year workshopping the book into a stage production. It would be as long or longer than Nicholas Nickleby.

Or… a summer mini-series on HBO or Showtime. It would change the world.

Or people would laugh at it because it is so beautifully moral and idealistic.

When I read her stuff I feel like such an asshole. Her faith in the potential of humans. The way she demands one to be the best version of themselves.

Man.

When I listen to this book and read these passages again, my brain is infected by the assholes who sneer at her. I might have been one of them a long time ago.

You go, Ayn Rand. You go and you rock it.

Apparently, Atlas Shrugged is selling like gangbusters now. People are snatching it up. We are hungry for this purity. The cynicism of what’s going on in government is heartbreaking.

It seems like watching the end of the Titanic rise out of the sea right before it disappears forever.

tonight’s rhetorical question

What if there were a vaccine for autism? What would the anti-vax people do?

Glenn Beck thing

When I was younger and liked music, specifically when I was a nut about King’s X & Genesis, I used to play a thought experiment with myself. I would listen to a song on the radio and say to myself “Okay, if King’s X were playing that song, would you still think it sucked?” and, suddenly, I’d turn up the volume on a Depeche Mode song.

It works the other way, too. “If this wasn’t on Trick of the Tail, would you turn it off?” It’s why I stopped enjoying Genesis, actually. I can’t dance, indeed.

It’s one of the reasons I think I’m able to keep myself honest with other stuff in my life, too. I think it’s a good tool for a skeptic to have. But it can be a bit alienating.

A friend of mine who used to be a bigshot in politics said “Rush Limbaugh is right 80% of the time. The problem is, no one knows what that 80% is… most importantly: Rush Limbaugh.”

I used to listen to Limbaugh before the 2000 election to balance out the crap I was getting from, well, everywhere else but stopped when he completely went hypocrite after his Vicodin addiction. He could have been really wonderful and used his experience to talk about the folly of the insane war on drugs. Instead, he just spouted bull-poo.

Until I receive my $100,000 stimulus check from the government, I’m not listening to any radio or reading any news about anything. Which isn’t completely true, because I sometimes “test the bruise” and listen to talk radio or CNN.com on XM.

And this brings me to the point of all of this:

Except for the fact that he is a complete religious whackadoo nutjob freak, Glenn Beck sure seems like a good egg. He admits in his most recent book (yes, I listened to it) that he’s a complete religious whackadoo nutjob freak because his wife wouldn’t screw him until he became a mormon. (“M” silent). He’s funny, charming and seems to lean heavily Libertarian.

But, then there’s that disconnect of religion and war. Which is where many people split from the Libertarians.

(I guess part of the reason I like him is that I sit firmly in his demographic. I guess that’s no accident, eh?)

Anyway…. at his website, GlennBeck.com, he has the following message leading off his presentation of the 9 principles.

“Do you watch the direction that America is being taken in and feel powerless to stop it?
Do you believe that your voice isn’t loud enough to be heard above the noise anymore?
Do you read the headlines everyday and feel an empty pit in your stomach as if you’re completely alone?

If so, then you’ve fallen for the Wizard of Oz lie. While the voices you hear in the distance may sound intimidating, as if they surround us from all sides the reality is very different. Once you pull the curtain away you realize that there are only a few people pressing the buttons, and their voices are weak. The truth is that they don’t surround us at all.

We surround them.”

You can, as a hippie, believe that michael moore wrote that.
It seems that, unless you are insane, you can read that and completely agree with it.

The problem is who is the “we” that he’s talking about? I think there’s a false dichotomy and it is evident in his 9 principles:

  1. America is good.
  2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.
  3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.
  4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.
  5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.
  6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.
  7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.
  8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.
  9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.

I would rush (hey!) to include myself in the “we surround them” thing, but I don’t have that imaginary friend at the center of my life and I don’t want to be around people who have an imaginary friend at the center of their lives, either.

And that’s where the false dichotomy enters into things. He seems to be saying that things would be better in government or the media or america or whatever “if more people had the jesus at the center of their lives.” Most of the people in America have some sort of god thing at the center of their lives. There is no shortage of churches or breaks for churches or religious proceedings in America. It seems that we’ve got the god thing covered, my friends.

So, I won’t take part in his nutty thing.

But then I think about the Libertarians. Often people are resistant to identifying as Libertarian because of one thing that turns them off about Libertarian principles. Maybe it’s the drug thing, the tax thing, the anti-war thing… it may just be one thing, but it keeps them from voting for or supporting Libertarians. We like to remind them that they don’t agree with everything about the party they’re in now. They don’t agree with the candidate they like about everything, and, when compared, they often have fewer disagreements with Libertarian principles than their current party.

So, I disagree with one simple thing (hey, The Stabilizers… if King’s X had done that song, I would love it!!!) that Glenn Beck has on his list and won’t join.

Well… see… If you read it with an eye skewing religious, then it’s all religious. It’s one of the frustrating things about the Libertarian party. Many Libertarians are super duper religious and use the “get the government off my back” principle to fight for getting their kids in schools that teach creationism and other hogwash. And, you know, I’m fine with people ruining their kids futures by having them learn bullshit, but I’m not fine with my club being overrun by those same people. “Glad you’re happy. Now away with you, please.”

So, I read something like: 5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it. and know that a christard uses that argument to support the death penalty. Or 8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion. is used to perpetuate the “christians are a minority under attack and we need to make our voices heard” myth. If they’re not answering to the government, does that mean they’re answering to their god? Then, they’re going to expect me to answer to their god, ass well… Right?

And there’s the breaking the law (JUDAS PRIEST!!!) thing. Does that mean we support all laws as they are? What about the TSA?

Aaarrggghhhhh….

There are also 12 values, borrowed from the boy scouts it seems, which he believes are paramount to solving our challenges. Honesty, Reverence, Hope, Thrift, Humility, Charity, Sincerity, Moderation, Hard Work, Courage, Personal Responsibility, and Friendship.

When I was in Boy Scouts we were supposed to be “Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean & Reverent.”

I guess I’m just A LONE WOLF!!!!

Butt, enough about me… how about that nutjob who had 8 kids? yowza!

I think I have a problem with groups. Because all of those things can mean such different things to us all.

Should a charity be supported by the government? Is a church a charity? Is a *family* only a man, woman & child? I don’t think so. I know that many disagree.

Maybe I’m paranoid, but I get scared that christians want to replace the structure of government with their own structure, instead of letting it go. Or, maybe I’m just desperate to hear Libertarian ideas on the radio.

Stewart Lee

A million years ago when I was performing Spam Scam in other countries, I was introduced to Stewart Lee by Paul Provenza.

He helped create “Jerry Springer: The Opera”, which was destined for hugeness over here until christians IN THE UK got upset. Ultimately, Stewart Lee was brought up on charges of BLASPHEMY.

Yes, blasphemy. He has a great joke about that, but I will let you discover it for yourself.

Needless to say, if christians in the UK were upset, imagine what would happen to them here, so it pretty much destroyed any chances for big productions in the U.S.

That is all beside the point of the show. It’s just a bit of background…

When I returned from Montreal, I was raving to everyone who would listen (the bride, really) about Stewart Lee and his show, 90’s Comedian. When you see it, you see what stand-up can be and why someone like Dane Cook gets so much shit. It’s an arena where important and beautiful ideas can be conveyed. I am of the mind that stand ups are the philosophers of our society.

On the other hand, watching his show throws me in to the same sort of sadness that happens while watching a perfect movie like Eternal Sunshine… or Being John Malkovitch. I realize that I’ll never do something that great. (I aspire to that sort of thing… which is why I never get anything done… whole other story.)

I mentioned this to Stewart Lee and, instead of poo-pooing it, he owned it and said that it was the culmination of over 20 years of work. So… without further ado.

The final performance, ever, has been documented on DVD. Get it. At the very least, it’s funny. I mean, there’s that. On the other side of that you’ll see a perfect hour of theater.

http://www.gofasterstripe.com/cgi-bin/website.cgi?page=videofull&id=6

i can’t take it anymore…

Man,

I laid out a bunch of calm and logical points for a friend of mine who had seemed to be listening about why a vote for the obama/mccain ticket is rotten. One of her replies was ranting, spewing hatred for palin. I pointed that out and I’ve attached her reply

I totally get that palin’s religious shit is shit, but the level of intellect among these “intellectuals” is breaking me.

I suppose that they are thinking that there is an acceptable level of religious hogwash. Comparing Obama to Jesus is okay, but the fact that Palin has a principled (yet moronic) view about the bible is bad.

This classism… The idea that one of the reasons she’s an idiot is because she’s from Alaska is disgusting. The population of Alaska “100,000 more than Oklahoma City…” manages to sneer at Oklahoma, too. Why not 100,000 more than Cambridge? It’s buying in to Penn’s point about the attitude that there can’t be any intelligent people between NYC and L.A. All of those stupid, engineers, computer programmers, doctors, lawyers. They’re all retards, but the ones who live from development deal to development deal writing crap that fewer and fewer people care about… well, we’re all geniuses, I tell you. They don’t have masters degrees in Art History and Poetry, they’re just stupid a-holes who work in hospitals and labs. Too bad they’ve never written for Family Guy or had a video on The Jon Stewart Show, the dumbfucks.

I used to talk to friends about this fascinating thought experiment regarding kiddie porn. ( they show murders and rapes on the news and it’s perfectly legal. why is the record of the crime of child molestation illegal?) I stopped because it would devolve into me having to reassure the other person that I was not, in fact, hoping to have some extra special alone time with their kids.

Now I have to reassure people that I’m not a republican, either. It’s gross.

So, she sends me this video of these two people singing a “funny song” about sarah palin. complete with “we’re doomed” and threats to move to canaduh if mccain wins.

I’m done. You guys win.

From: dean’s anonymous friend
Date: October 17, 2008 6:52:28 PM PDT
To: dean cameron
Subject: Fwd: Hey, Sarah Palin

Okay, here are some more reasons.
I’m going to sit down and ponder this question: Why the vehement hatred when it comes to Sarah Palin. I will ponder it in my usual brain vomit way when I have some quiet time to think.
but here’s a good start.

hey sarah palin

Intelligent Design?

This occurred to me this morning. This may have been pointed out before, but I’m slow like that…

Hey, Intelligent Designers… Let me get this straight. You have a difficult time believing something that has been documented over and over and over and over and over, examined with the scientific method over and over and over and over, studied worldwide by literally millions of people, modified, debated and peer reviewed. At least one of these has occurred every day by someone somewhere for almost 100 years. You have a hard time believing that…

But…

You have no problem believing a nearly 2000 year old book filled with conflicting accounts written in obscure languages by different people and then translated by others over a few hundred years that has stories about magic; some of them almost exactly like OTHER really, really old magic story books written by lots of people in obscure languages.

Okay. Okay… Just wanted to make sure I had it right.

Thanks, Occam.

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