Why I Don’t Believe in Anything Anymore
Examples of man’s inhumanity to man:
Dateline NBC: To Catch a Predator — I saw a promo for this last week and recorded it this week. In it, a Dateline crew runs a sting operation using the internet to lure would-be pedos to a house where they believe they will have sex with a 13 year old girl; instead they come face-to-face with a Dateline reporter. They look like a deer in the headlights, and there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then they are led away by local law enforcement, to be booked and jailed.
Why I can’t stop watching: Because it’s real, or at least the sudden emotional torment these wanna-be pedos show is real. Some guys try to play it off cool but start blubbering as soon as they’re in cuffs. Other guys completely break down as soon as the Dateline guy shows up. “Please shoot me now,” says one.
What I wonder is: How come they don’t blur out the guys’ faces? On COPS they blurred out the perps’ faces all the time. Did these guys sign releases afterwards? How could that be possible?
Also: Though there is ample evidence to prosecute these guys (the Dateline people in conjunction with a watchdog group submit the sexy chat logs to the cops as evidence), does airing their indentities on national television constitute cruel and unusual extra punishment? I’m sure these sting operations are going on all the time, but the added bonus of being on prime time TV for the few and unlucky is an extra kick in the teeth. I’m thinking especially of the “well-respected San Francisco physician” to be featured on next week’s program. Being pinched for child molestation is devastating to a person and their family, but being on TV is a nuclear blast.
Finally: I keep watching and I keep feeling dirtier and dirtier, yet I can’t stop. Am I reveling in schadenfreude? I’m like the guy laughing at a poor sucker locked in a pillory. Dateline NBC is like the guy selling rotten tomatoes to throw at him.
Last night at a party Hieu says, “You gotta check out this thing called Felony Fights on YouTube. It’s sick. These guys, they fight and they’re like, WHAM WHAM WHAM! Elbow to the head! And they’re all bleeding and — face COVERED IN BLOOD… It’s sick!”
I checked it out, and that is a perfectly accurate description of what it is.
It’s a gonzo video series that they sell on tape (and use YouTube for marketing) where rough neck types bare-knuckle fight each other on camera.
Here’s one with a one-sided pummeling that’s so bad (elbows and a flying knee to the head) that the dude lies on the ground groaning for three minutes. He has trouble breathing. He doesn’t know where he is, and when he finally gets up he looks lost and broken. Seriously fucked up.
Our basic human nature will never change. We love sex and violence, and we love seeing people punished for wanting both. We love winners and losers.
Maybe I shouldn’t say “we”, because I’m sure there are soccer moms and born-agains who would disagree and say that they don’t belong to the collective. But somewhere deep down inside each of us is that animal that still sees every struggle as life-or-death, and still thinks it has to fight tooth and nail. It comes out when you get cut off in traffic or when you are frustrated by the mini-boss of a video game.
And finally, that animal has learned to edit video and make it look pretty tight.
To bring us back to baseline, here is a puppy:
One Sad Dog
Every morning when I wake up there’s a dog upstairs who starts crying because his owner has left for work. I think this dog wails and cries all day because when I get back he is still at it.
The dog’s owner knows he is coming back. I know the dog’s owner is coming back. The only one who isn’t aware that his owner is coming back is the dog himself. And he’s either too dumb to realize this, or too caught up in his own sadness.
So his miserable existence continues, every day and all day long.
Cruel by Nature
A very nice short interview here with David Attenborough on nature and creationism:
Metaphor Vs. Truth
Recommended Reading: An excellent Rolling Stone article here on Scientology.
One thing that the article mentions is the super secret OT-III creation story (as dramatized on South Park) involving DC-8 looking spacecraft, volcanoes, and trillions of alien life forms.
What I’m thinking is that, taken as a metaphor, this creation story is just as strange and valid as the creation stories of any other religion. So if you take it as a metaphor and use its concepts to better your life, what’s the problem?
Apparently the article states that, like fundamentalist Christians and Muslims, once a Scientologist makes it to OT-III, the creation story has to be accepted as literal truth and not a metaphor. You have to believe in its absolute validity.
So the question is this: Can a metaphor be as powerful and meaningful as the truth? Does something have to be literally true for its meaning to be be valid?
Rick has said that he still likes James Frey’s much attacked book A Million Little Pieces. Even if it’s not true, it still affected him.
I haven’t read it, but I know that before the fiction/autobiography scandal broke out, a lot of people were pretty touched by it. But was it because it had the weight of “the truth” behind it back then? Or was it a good piece of work on its own?
I know that books like Catcher in the Rye, Huck Finn, plays by Neil Simon, Paul Auster novels, these things have touched me profoundly. None of them were “true”, but the meanings of them were.
Were they as powerful as the truth? Yes, because their message was true to me.
Like a much wiser Indian said in one of Sherman Alexie’s short stories, “If it’s fiction, it had better be true.”
Selling America Again
So if you haven’t noticed, I’ve become quite a cinematic Japan-geek lately. I’ve watched more anime in the last few weeks than I ever have before. I’ve been reading about cultural differences and the meanings of certain jokes that get lost on an American audience.
There’s something really cool about experiencing another culture through its entertainment. One thing is that you see life through a different perspective — it lets you know that the world is full of diversity and options. You have a choice in ways to live.
Another thing is that only the very best stuff from Japan makes it over here — the cream of the crop. The very best of any country is bound to have an appeal. Although I’m sure that there’s a whole lot of garbage on Japanese TV that we’ll never have to see, just like the rest of the world never has to know that The Simple Life exists.
So now I have a pretty good understanding of what it must feel like when someone from another country watches Star Wars: A New Hope for the first time. The translations aren’t perfect, but what you’re seeing is just so cool, so different from your everyday life, that it pulls you in. This is the gravity that made Beverly Hills 90210 such a popular show in Russia, and the same force that makes American movies such a popular import worldwide. American culture is powerful.
But now America has taken a hit because of our foriegn policy and our perceived arrogance toward the rest of the world. We are fighting a “war on terror” using military and political means when we should really be using our most potent weapon — American culture.
American culture, as daft and idiotic as it can sometimes be, is at the same time one of our greatest assets. Earlier, Iran was moving toward reform and moderation because teenagers wanted music, jeans and freedom. The greatest threat to Kim Jong-Il’s power is illegal satellite dishes put up by his own population so they can watch foreign television.
We need to defend ourselves, but we also need to let American culture do its work. Keep putting together cool things, things that touch the world.
Yes, American culture is often just about base sexuality and dumb humor, but it also comprises jazz, hip hop, pop cinema, baseball, country music, science fiction and modern technology. At its worst it’s garbage. But at its best it’s about cultural innovation from the clash of cultures coming together in a microcosm of the world. This shit sells itself.
Culture can change the world. Japan went from “We’re coming to fucking kill you” to Kawaii in less than fifty years — from conquest by bayonet and bullet to conquest through Hello Kitty and Nintendo. Germany, same thing — BMW went from building bombers to cars (its blue and white quartered-circle emblem represents spinning propellers). Military power can conquer land but culture is what conquers people.
We’ve gotta pull back — build Starbucks instead of military bases, mobilize Brad Pitt instead of Donald Rumsfeld. ACTIVATE OPRAH!
In the war of cultures, American pop culture will always defeat fundamentalism and totalitarianism anywhere in the world. Why?
Because it’s sexy.
Yes
Sides / It’s 5!
Recommended: Sides!
I saw this in New York a year or two ago and it’s now in L.A. — very funny and highly recommended!
And from “the holy crap this exists?!” section: Buy your own hobbit hole in Oregon.
My Work in Print
Year Zero
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.com
Cowboy Versus Samurai
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.comFor a complete list of books containing my work, please click here.
