ChaoSkeptic

Un chien andalou: Surrealism at its peak.

One of James Randi's most famous debunkings is when he exposed "faith healer" Peter Popoff on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Randi and Alec Jason showed that Popoff was using radio transmissions from his wife who was working the crowd. Popoff went bankrupt shortly after that and went into obscurity for about a decade. But like any good conman he didn't give up the game. He's been doing informercials on BET for several years now and has gotten back into the faith healing business. Recently CFI Canada caught up to him in Toronto and filmed this video:

[SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen or read Fight Club... well, fuck you. It's been out for 12 years (15 for the book). If anything is spoiled by this post it is your own damn fault.] fnord

It has been a long while since I have added anyone to the Discordian pantheon so I believe this is over due. Today I am adding one Tyler Durden to the ever growing list of Discordian saints. I haven't checked to see if anyone else has made him a saint but I am automatically excommunicating them, to be recommunicated at a later date.


Let me tell you a little bit about Tyler Durden...

When you think about it, Tyler Durden is one of the defining characters of our generation. The second best character of the 1990s and easily in the top 20 of the twentieth century. He is the archetype of the Sensei For Scoundrels and Chaotic Neutral. He is Anarchy incarnate. He look like you wanna look, he fuck like you wanna fuck, he's smart, capable and most importantly, he's free in all the ways that you are not. He is the constant reminder that you are not a beautiful or unique snowflake And the strangest part is that he is the imagination of an imagination, a fiction within a fiction. He is probably the most famous imaginary friend besides Mr. Aloysius Snuffleupagus and Blooregard Q. Kazoo. fnord

But more importantly, he is the Disorder in sharp contrast to the Narrator's Order. Together they reflect the Sacred Chao that is eternally struggling within all of us. Fight Club shows us that if you have too much Order in your life you end up with a soul-killing job, being owned by your possessions. But if you have too much Disorder you end up as a domestic terrorist with hamburger for a face.


But that's not to say that Tyler is without his good qualities. He was able to help many fatherless boys become the men they were supposed to be. He saved Marla's life (but that was probably for ulterior motives). And the "Human Sacrifice" scene is one of the best examples of Chaotic Good in modern cinema. fnord

If you want further proof that Tyler is perfect candidate for Discordian saint, just look at Project Mayhem, the terrorist organization that he put together to take down civilization. The committees are Arson, Assault, Mischief, and Misinformation. "Organized Chaos. The Bureaucracy of Anarchy." (Should have one more to make it an even five.) And the frames of porno he spliced into films is a great example of subliminal messaging. fnord

So, I've over-analyzed this too much already. By the power invested in me by the Goddess Eris I declare Tyler Durden to be the Patron Saint of Mayhem and Soap. Be careful invoking this particular saint though. Your survival rate may drop to zero very quickly.

I'll leave you with my favorite scene from the movie. This is a chemical burn:

My personal stance is that puns are never funny. They can be clever but never enough to get a laugh. More often than not they induce a groan instead. That being said, this clip from The Bugle podcast is impressive in a sick and twisted kind of way:

This story fills me with all kinds of conflicting feelings:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

On the one hand, this man, Raymond Zack, chose his fate. He set out to die on his own terms in the waves off of San Francisco and that's just what he did. On the other hand, there is a high possibility he was suffering from a mental illness and could have been helped. But the Coast Guard didn't have the boats. The rescue copter was busy saving someone else. The local fire department was handcuffed by the cruel god Bureaucracy. The rest of the crowd was paralyzed by fear. I hate using the term Kafkaesque but that's exactly what this is. No one is a winner in this situation.

(title of this post is a reference to "Not Waving but Drowning" by Stevie Smith)

Speaking of messed up Christian sex values...



I'm not sure where to even go with this trailer. It seems to be a good example of how Christians fetishize virginity and "purity". As someone in the YouTube comments noted, the guy is more excited about losing his virginity than the fact that he's going to be getting married. This kind of attitude is the cause of some very bad marriages. And it's proof that lack of sex will eventually cause mental disorders.

(Hat tip to Unreasonable Faith, the Friendly Atheist, and Blag Hag. Yes, it took three people posting it before I'd actually watch the trailer.)

This is a selected reading from the audiobook version of the Illuminatus Trilogy:

Yeah, I'm being lazy and making my fifth post in a row with a video. I think this one is worth it though. It's the first part of a news special by British journalist Louis Theroux about the Westboro Baptist Church. WBC, of course, is the hyper-fundamentalist group run by Fred and Shirley Phelps that likes to picket places with signs that say "God Hates Fags". I'm torn about the group personally. I feel that they have a first amendment right to picket in public and hold up whatever hateful slogans that they want. (Their Supreme court case is touched on briefly in this program.) On the other hand, I feel that they are attention whores who are experts at trolling the media. They almost always draw counter-protests that are 10-100 times bigger than they are. If everyone ignored them they would eventually go away.

However this special does do a good job of humanizing them. For the most part Louis Theroux let's them speak their minds and occasionally probes them with questions. He disagrees with him but doesn't yell at them, which is what almost everyone else would be tempted to do. Most of the interviews are with the younger female members, and several female members that have left the group.

The eeriest part of the whole special is that I actually understood the Christianese that the members were using. While growing up I attended Methodist, Baptist, and Pentecostal churches. The fire-and-brimstone I heard back then isn't radically different from the stuff coming out of Shirley and her daughters' mouths. Yes, they are on the very very far end of the bell curve but they share more in common with your everyday fundamental, Sola Scriptura Calvinist than they do with me. (If you look very closely you will see a TULIP poster behind Fred while he is preaching.)

The thesis that Louis is trying to pull out of the special is that the WBC group is losing members because their religious beliefs are robbing them of their humanity. The girls are not able to date, the boys aren't allowed to have friends outside of the family, the parents aren't allowed to talk to their children once they are exiled from the church. Strangely none of them seem to be angry or intentionally hateful. Their language is toxic but never venomous. The memes of their religion have taken over their minds and they don't even realize what is coming out of their mouth anymore.

Even weirder is that the Evaporative Cooling of Group Beliefs effect does not seem to be in play here. I think Fred's beliefs were so out there to begin with that "cooling" them even further doesn't nothing at all.




I'll just embed part one and link to the rest:

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Ladies and Gentlemen, Rejoice! For today officially signals the beginning of spring (forget that noise about the equinoxes). Yes, today is the official start of baseball season in the United States. For the foreign people in the audience, baseball is a little like Cricket but the pitchers are more likely to throw at your head, there are four bases to run to, and hitting it over the fence is extremely good.

I've always felt that baseball is the sport of choice for the goddess Eris. Mainly because there are so many statistics involved. I know that sounds boring to most people who don't know their OPS from their WAR or their ERA+ from their WHIP. But baseball is so interesting because of sample size.

Baseball season is ridiculously long. It starts today, the last day of March, and won't be over until last out of the World Series sometime in October. During that time every single team will play 162 games (plus playoff games). Every starting player will see around 4 or 5 plate appearances during each of those games. There will be roughly 120 pitches thrown during those contests. On each pitch, almost anything can happen. A liner back to the pitcher. A dribbler to short. A monster 400 foot homerun. A weak foul ball to the third base side. A bean ball placed in the third rib of the batter. Each at bat is a paragraph. Each pitch is a sentence.

There are so many games each season that odd outliers start to crop up. Teams will score 20 runs in a game. Players will hit 4 home runs in a game. Guys will go on 30 game hitting streaks. Relief pitchers will hit three run homers in their first major league at bat. Second basemen will pull off unassisted triple plays. And yes, at some point you will have a pitcher throw a no-hitter while high on LSD.



Baseball is exciting because the possibilities are endless and ever new season is a blank canvas just waiting for something strange to happen. So get the lawn mowed, pop open a beer, and let's play ball.

Can't talk now. I'm going to be listening to the new Radiohead album for the next 72 hours.




I'm not sure, but it looks like Thom is wearing jeggings.

It is February 12th once again, which means we get to celebrate one of the greatest scientific minds of the last 200 years, Charles Darwin. I don't really feel motivated to say anything that I haven't already said before. Instead this year instead of making fun of Creationists I thought I'd share a couple of videos of religious leaders who have no problems with evolution.

First up, an orthodox Christian priest who says that people who try to read Genesis literally are dancing with unicorns.



And here is a great interview with Rev. Michael Dowd, author of "Thank God for Evolution":

Let us all rise and open our Discordian Hymnal to Page #034 "Pablo Picasso" by The Modern Lovers.

I'm not to sure who Paul Crik is but he sure seems to have life figured out. Here he shares with us the only three phrases you need to get through life.

Exactly 4 years ago, the single funniest event in our lifetime occurred.




That's right. On this day, the promoters of Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters created an all out terror panic in Boston simply by putting up some promotional Lite Brites that the police mistook for IEDs.

Wikipedia article.

What followed during the aftermath was the best press conference ever!



WE SHALL NEVER FORGOT THIS MOST SACRED OF DAYS WHEN A MAJOR AMERICAN CITY WAS SHUTDOWN BY AN ADVERTISEMENT FOR A CARTOON MOVIE!!!

Jesus Camp is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing about a charismatic summer camp, where children spend their summers learning and practicing their "prophetic gifts" and being taught that they can "take back America for Christ." According to the distributor, it "doesn't come with any prepackaged point of view" and tries to be "an honest and impartial depiction of one faction of the evangelical Christian community".

The scary part is that every single thing in this movie is 100% true. As far as I know nothing was scripted. This is not a work of satire and there is not a hint of irony involved. The camp in this movie no longer exists but there are tens of thousands of people scattered throughout America that look, think, and act like this. I know, because I've met them before. This is what fundamentalist Christians actually believe. Hopefully you'll still be able to sleep at night after this.




Also: LOL, Ted Haggard!

September 30th has rolled around again. That means that it is time for International Blasphemy Rights Day. This year is different since they added the word "Rights" to the name. That makes things more positive, I suppose. That's not going to stop me from blaspheming everything right and left though. (Fuck your god, whichever one you worship.)

The Center for Inquiry has also been doing a Campaign for Free Expression and had a video contest. They just announced the winner and I thought it was particularly moving:



He's makes an excellent point. The first amendment isn't there to protect popular ideas. They can take care of themselves. The first amendment is meant to protect unpopular, unsavory and yes, even downright hateful ideas. It protects my right to say "fuck all gods" but also protects Fred Phelps, the KKK, holocaust deniers, idiots who want to burn Korans, and even idiots who want to build a mosque in Lower Manhattan. Freedom of speech means that sometimes assholes win, but that is infinitely better than the alternative of allowing the government to squash dissent with impunity. Today is about celebrating the fact that everyone has right to be wrong. If we don't allow others to exercise it then we all lose.

I love Louis CK. I'm man enough in my sexuality to say that. He's easily my favorite stand up comedian right now. That's more than likely because I'm a balding, pudgy middle man with two kids. He has an amazing ability to capture the quiet desperation that most American men seems to shamble through these days. (Plus he's not afraid to get extremely dirty with his jokes.) I'm not quite ready to give him Discordian sainthood yet because he needs to do something amazing to reach that plateau.

Currently he has a hilarious show on FX simply called Louie. It's mostly clips of him doing stand up interspersed with scenes of him dealing with his family and wondering aimlessly around NYC. Brilliant stuff (especially the guest spots by Rickie Gervais as his asshole doctor). If you are in the US you can watch all 13 episodes on Hulu.

I'd especially like to call attention to episode #11: God. In it he flashes back to when he was a Catholic school kid. An evil nun brings in a creepy medical doctor to scare the hell (literally) out of the kids by going into gory detail about the horrors of crucifixion. I didn't go to a Catholic school but I went to enough Good Friday services as a kid to hear the exact same sermon as an impressionable youngster. The episode raises some interesting issues about how religion uses fear and guilt to convert children who don't know any better. There's also a very touching scene with his mother near the end that shows a good example of how skeptics should present religion to their own children. You can check the episode out here:



But if you are outside the US or are reading this post after the video expires then just enjoy this clip from when Louis was on the old Conan show.



Or this clip where he investigates the Catholic Church:



All clips NSFW, obviously.

Let us all rise and open our Discordian Hymnal to Page #033 "F_ck, Sh_t St_ack" by Reggie Watts. (NSFW, obviously)

Ok, now that I've gotten that off my chest... How the hell are you? I have not had much of a chance to blog lately because last Tuesday this happened:

That's right. I am now the proud father of two beautiful children. Little Andrew Lawrence was born on August 17th and weighed a whopping 8 pounds 12 ounces. Everyone is doing fantastic despite missing lots of sleep. (BTW, if you like the shirts that Eris and I are wearing there are some still available on Suu's website)

So yeah, between that and a horrible new work schedule means that I haven't had as much time to blog lately. For some reason my company decided that they wanted to move everyone on second shift to third shift. That means since the start of June I have been working 9 to 5, but not the good version of 9 to 5. On my old schedule I had a good rhythm. I usually got inspiration to blog around 2 or 3 in the morning and the words flowed through me without much thought. Now I'm stuck at work at that time and don't get any free time until I get home at 6 in the morning, completely wore out and unable to think of anything but sleep. At some point I'll have to work out a better routine and start blogging again. Until then here are a couple of quick review of some new albums:



Two artists that I have mentioned here before, George Hrab and Baba Brinkman, have released albums recently. George's is called Trebuchet and is just fantastic. If you want a preview go over to his podcast and listen to episode #170 but you really need to go buy the physical CD from CDBaby.com because the liner notes are very well done. My favorite tracks right now are "Everything Alive Will Die Someday" and "When I Was Your Age" but I have to point out that George halfway fulfilled my request by hiding a couple of bars of Yes's "Heart of the Sunrine" into "Happy Birthday, Baby". Who knew I had that kind of power?

Baba Brinkman  has gone from rapping about evolution to rapping about human nature on his new album aptly titled "The Rap Guide to Human Nature". It's a very smartly done album that covers morality, sexual selection, and evolutionary psychology. It's available as a "name your price" download on his website. Here's a video of his soon to be smash hit single "Short-Term Mating Dance":