I Did Not Understand the Way it Worked

You know, I have judged Hillary Clinton too harshly. Maybe this “redistribution of wealth” business isn’t such a bad idea.

Hillary and her husband are overweight White Anglo Saxon Protestants with millions in the bank, and they earn millions every year. And they’re nearly eligible to collect Social Security and get free medical care. But Hillary went way into debt, financing her failed Presidential campaign, and she wants shoeless, toothless Democrats on welfare to take the money they earn collecting cans and selling blood, and send it to her. Even though she will still be rich whether they send money or not.

I can’t see anything wrong with that! Poor people should do everything they can to make a rich old white lady and her even richer old white husband MORE RICH. As a conservative, I think it makes complete sense. Conservatives love redistribution of wealth, as long as it goes in the direction Hillary suggests. If I had realized I could be a Democrat and support robbing the poor to pay the rich, I would have signed up years ago.

Is there any law that says I can’t ask the poor to send me money, too? I mean, I’m not a politician or a TV evangelist, but I have needs, just like everybody else. Shouldn’t I have a mansion in Chappaqua, just like Bill and Hillsy? Of course I should. And if you’re poor, you’re never going to have anything anyway, so if you send twenty or thirty bucks to me, it won’t make your life any worse.

I’m more deserving than Hillary. She’s way richer than I am! Studies have shown that the gap between her net worth and my net worth gets bigger every year. Is that fair? Hell no. Redistribute a little of that wealth in my direction, to relieve this disgraceful inequity. In return, I promise to donate two percent of all net proceeds to Donald Trump.

That’s NET, now. Not gross. Whatever I have left over after I get done shopping.

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Moxie, the queen gun-totin’ capitalist of the world, has beat me to the idea. Go send her Paypal bucks just because she wants them.

It’s on a Sandisk Card in Silicon Valley

For a few years, a question has been rolling around in my mind. I’ve been wondering what would happen when CGI got so good audiences were no longer able to distinguish animated characters from actors. Think about it. Why would you pay an aging, grey, saggy George Clooney 20 million dollars to make a movie, when for a fraction of the price, you could get a perpetually toned and tanned CGI character who is never late to the set, doesn’t go to rehab, and doesn’t have to be insured?

We just saw another Indiana Jones movie hit the silver screen. It was pretty bad, but it made money anyway, and because Harrison Ford looked old even when he was young, the 27-year hiatus didn’t completely ruin his credibility. But clearly, the movie’s makers would have had more and better options had he not aged. And think about James Bond. Sean Connery was fired because he looked awful in Diamonds are Forever. Then we suffered through Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton. It wasn’t until Pierce Brosnan was hired that the series became watchable again. What if they had had a CGI Bond on a hard drive somewhere? Forty years of top-quality Bond, without interruption. Something to think about.

Enter Emily. Have you seen her? She’s completely artificial. And she’s hot. She’s a pretty young actress who will never wrinkle or go gray, and she was created by a company called Image Metrics. You can see her here.

Emily never gets sick. She never sleeps. Her body is amazing. She doesn’t charge extra for nudity. She can dance. She can play any instrument. She can fly; no wires. If she can be taught to act–not that lofty a goal–she’ll be superior to 95% of Hollywood’s flesh and blood actresses. She may never have the charisma of a top-flight actress, but then neither does Angelina Jolie. Whose naked body was recently replaced by that of a CGI character, in Beowulf. She’s a nice-looking woman, but she never saw the day she could compare to the body the nerds made for her.

Men won’t care if male actors are replaced. That’s how men are. We’re not threatened by idealized role models. In fact, we prefer them. Feminists, however, will howl like never before, when Emily’s descendants start populating movie screens. Their tiny waists and perfect breasts will draw shrieks of rage from female liberals everywhere. If you think they were mad when Barbie was nine inches tall and came in a box, wait until she starts making movies. Wait until spoiled actresses find themselves competing with teams of mostly-male programmers. And what if they’re outsourced Indian programmers, who work for twenty bucks a day? Oh, man.

In a fairly short time, movies with completely realistic all-CGI casts will be within our reach. It won’t happen next week, but it won’t take twenty years, either. What’s going to happen to SAG? How are you going to force studios to pay extras and supporting cast members well, when they can be replaced with sprites? In long shots, it has already been done, many times. They did it in Titanic, which is an old movie now. In a few years, they’ll be able to do it for every character in a movie. Think of all the black, red-shirted ensigns who got vaporized on Star Trek. In the future, those guys will be clip art.

One of the sad things about Hollywood is that writers, who are chiefly responsible for all the magic, are cheated and underpaid. Stars, who are usually fungible, are overpaid. Will that situation continue to exist? In a hundred years, it may be possible to replace a writer with a machine. But actors are going to have real electronic competition much sooner.

Another question: how liberal will Hollywood be, if the population of performers is dramatically reduced? Imagine Hollywood without its hordes of far-left fringe nuts. Hollywood’s politics would be dictated by management. Are the executives, directors, and producers as uniformly liberal as the actors? I wonder.

Here’s a funny thing to consider. Using CGI actors is incredibly green. They don’t fly in private jets. They don’t ride in limos. They don’t have giant portable homes on wheels, the way real actors do, to keep them happy between takes. They can do many types of scenes without expensive, carbon-intensive sets. Why, it would be immoral to continue using real actors. It would be an environmental atrocity. Like Barbra Streisand’s house. Think of all the mansions that would no longer need to exist!

I’m all for CGI. Anything that takes power and money away from venal, toxic people is fine by me. Now if they start replacing audiences with CGI characters, all bets are off. Then I’ll be concerned.

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Here’s a link to the real Emily’s site.

Capoeira Guy Lacks CHI

Seems like the older a person is, the more likely he is to forward funny material to you via email.

Here’s one my dad forwarded today:

But I Think Baldilocks is Real Worried About her Bills

As you know, Baldilocks created a nonprofit and put up a site to benefit the Senator Obama Kogelo Secondary School, in Kenya. That’s the school Obama said he would help, but did not. Well, she just got herself interviewed in LA Weekly. Go take a look.

Possible Solution

I’m blogging a lot because my plans to do repairs and stuff today are being disrupted by rain. And laziness. Here I go again.

I have exciting news for Floridians who are suffering with ghost ants. These things are tiny; maybe a millimeter long. They have white rear ends. Not really white; more of a light beige. They can’t be kept out. Once you have them, they’re hell to get rid of. And they’re extremely annoying.

I have been fighting these things for what seems like eternity. None of the products sold locally are worth a damn. Yesterday I realized I had the answer. The Internet. When I’m in trouble because I don’t have information I need, only the Internet can provide it.

I found an article from New Zealand, of all places. It said that ghost ants were easily wiped out with a mixture of sucrose syrup and boric acid. They eat it, carry it home, feed it to their queen, and die.

I have sucrose! I have boric acid!

Last night I made a mixture, guessing at the 1% concentration the article suggested. I smeared it on the wall, in an area the ants have turned into a highway. Sure enough, the ants glommed around it and ate it up.

I poured about half a cup of this stuff on the ground, outside the kitchen. There are nests out there. I’m hoping they’ll suck it up and kill themselves. I may smear it on the wall by the bushes.

If your house is clean, ghost ants are easier to control. But due to an old plumbing issue, my ants have access to a large supply of old grease, inside the exterior wall. It will take them a thousand years to eat it all, and it can’t be cleaned out. So it’s poison or nothing.

One frustrating thing about ghost ants is that they eat different things at different times of year. Maybe that’s because worker ants are always female; you know how women are. Sometimes the ants like sugar, and sometimes they like grease or protein. Luckily, they’re in sugar mode this week.

I don’t know if this will kill them or not, but they are damn sure eating it.

Fay Takes her Toll

It was thoughtless of me to make fun of KILLER STORM Fay. Although I wasn’t harmed, others suffered terribly. I am ashamed of my selfish viewpoint.

If you want to do your part to end the suffering caused by global warming, stop by Babalublog today and click the Paypal tip jar. No one should have to be alone, facing a situation like this.

Rubber Gorilla Suit = Ticket to National TV Exposure

It seems like the news these days contains one shocking story after another. Now, unbelievably, they are telling us that the frozen bigfoot found by two highly reputable North Georgia men who wear baseball caps when talking to the press, is a fake. I really can’t believe it. I was totally convinced.

No I wasn’t. I said it was a fraud days ago, basing my conclusion purely on my knowledge of human nature. The sad thing about this is that if, by some miracle, an actual bigfoot turned out to exist, no one would pay any attention.

Actually, they would. People will believe almost anything, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Most American women still believe in socialism, especially when the male candidate promoting it is cute. Conservative men see the state as a bumbling, meddlesome, thieving nanny. Women see it as a rich husband who doesn’t hog the remote or expect sex.

College graduates in New York still play three-card Monte, a decades-old game which only exists for the purpose of ripping suckers off. Intelligent individuals all over the country still pay total strangers in rusty trucks to put “spare blacktop from another job” on their driveways. Somewhere a man with a high-school education, wearing a stolen white lab coat, is selling laetrile to cancer patients. And half of the the American population believes global warming exists, even as thermometers tell us the world is cooling. Would most Americans believe a good bigfoot story? Hell, yes. And some of us would even be willing to vote for him. Look at Ron Paul’s numbers.

There is no bigfoot. There is no yeti. There is no Loch Ness monster. We aren’t being visited by aliens. There is no karate master on earth who can break a thick hardwood board, across the grain, with any part of his body; they break thin softwood boards along the grain. It is impossible to bend a spoon with your mind. Chi is a myth. Nothing that happens in the Bermuda Triangle is any weirder than the stuff that happens everywhere else. WD40 is not made from fish oil. And Social Security is a Ponzi scheme that will eventually have to be reformed by slashing benefits to the bone.

John Kennedy did not read 2000 words per minute. Nothing interesting is going on at Area 51. The thing that crashed at Roswell really was a weather balloon. Elvish is spoken only by human nerds, because there are no elves. We will never find life on Mars. There are no alligators living in sewers, except for those that were flushed during the last five minutes and which are in the process of drowning. Transcendental meditation is a crock. Hurricane Andrew did not kill hundreds of people, and there are no government freezers full of bodies. We don’t have enough arable land to grow sufficient corn to end the energy crisis. Finally, Oprah is not a genius; she is merely a skilled, moderately bright panderer and possibly the luckiest woman who ever lived.

Now you won’t have to watch Penn and Teller or Mythbusters for a solid three months.

Life is so full of truly weird and extraordinary things; why do we have to make up lies in order to be amazed? Here’s an example. I own a parrot who can tell when I think something is funny, even when I’m in another room and I’m not speaking. When I get an urge to laugh, Marvin laughs first. That’s more impressive to me than John Kennedy pretending to read 40 newspapers every morning. Or whatever the number was. And I’m not stupid enough to believe it makes Marv a psychic. Obviously, there is some clue he picks up on, which I can’t perceive. Like the clue that tells him he’s over something expensive, so it’s time to drop a watery deuce.

For that matter, the experiences that have confirmed God’s existence to me are more impressive than, say, a hairy Israeli pretending to bend spoons on the Merv Griffin Show. Maybe our sick thirst for the bizarre is a consequence of rejecting God. People who believe see more than enough weird things to make them happy.

I kind of miss the Amazing Kreskin. He did all sorts of wonderful tricks, admitting the entire time that it was all BS. Penn and Teller ought to send him ten percent of their income; he invented their shtick.

At least one of the bigfoot grifters is going to be fired from his job. That’s a good thing. He’s a cop, and what did he just do? He faked evidence. In front of the entire country. Imagine him on a witness stand in a criminal case.

DEFENSE ATTORNEY: So Officer Jim Bob. You say you found my client’s .357 next to the body, with his fingerprints all over it.

OFFICER JIM BOB: Yep.

DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Here’s a photo you took at the crime scene. What do you see in the lower left corner?

OFFICER JIM BOB: A leprechaun holding a unicorn horn.

JUDGE: Bailiff, pimpslap that man.

I appreciate you reading this, and I know you thought it was funny. How do I know? I asked Marv.

Storm Refuses to Die

I am fed up with Tropical Mutant Storm Fay. First of all, who spells “Faye” without an E? Second, although it caused me very little trouble (and this is what really matters), it’s trying to reintensify while over land. This is against the rules.

Say a prayer that it dries up and dies. Don’t let Al Gore win.

Brave Citizen Journalist Survives Edge of Tropical Storm

I write you today from the belly of the beast. I was supposed to experience tropical storm conditions this morning, but so far, it has been breezy with a few drops of rain.

I’m thrilled. I truly did not look forward to driving around town looking for my garbage cans, or to spending nights stuck to a wet mattress, waiting for the power to go back on.

The phone works. The Internet works. The TV cable works. The power is okay for the most part, but it flickers from time to time. I guess something is being blown against some vital electrical thing somewhere in the neighborhood. It’s not a big deal. Here, we often have power outages even in good weather. God bless the public utilities and their monopolies.

The power flickering has brought one issue to light. My battery backup has had it. It used to keep my computer going for quite some time after an outage started. Now it gives up after a few seconds, and that’s the end of my session. I guess it’s three or four years old. Time for a new one. Luckily I have a spare. It’s not big enough to make me totally happy, but it will do until I make it to Best Buy.

I can’t tell you how many times the backup has saved me. Before I got a battery, I lost document after document. It amazes me that Florida Power & Light gets away with the level of service they provide. They have to be destroying electronics and appliances at a very high rate.

I guess I’ll get another king-size backup. They keep computers running, and you can also charge them before a hurricane and use them to power small items.

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Thanks for the comments suggesting I replace the battery instead of the whole UPS. Saved me 60 bucks.

The spare UPS I’m using is going to take forever to charge, so I won’t be able to make much use of the PC today. If it could keep the system going for 2 minutes, I’d be fine, but I guess it will take a while to reach that state.

Disappointing as a Drowning CGI Polar Bear

Looks like Tropical Storm Fay is crapping out. The eye is moving over Key West now, and judging from TV coverage, no one cares. The forecasters now think it’s very unlikely to become a hurricane. This storm is about as close to me as it will ever get, and right now there is a 10 mile per hour breeze and a light drizzle. Thank God for answered prayers. Al Gore doesn’t control the weather after all.

Judging from the satellite loop, it’s moving WNW now, which is nice for South Florida, but we really need it to come ashore if we want it to die, and there ain’t much land in the direction in which it’s heading. But I guess the weather guys know what’s what. Maybe it’s looking for Ward Brewer, up in Pensacola. Hurricanes love him.

The forecast for Miami says the wind will top out late tonight, at around 34 miles per hour. Hard to believe. The storm is actually getting farther away. I know these things aren’t completely symmetrical, but it would be pretty weird for the wind to extend that much farther out to the east than it does to the northeast. They predicted 21 miles per hour for this afternoon, and the actual speed is 7. Excuse me; 6.

I hope things don’t get rough. I have this sudden craving for chocolate, and I don’t have any on hand.

Dodgeball

Here is how approaching hurricanes work. It’s morning. It’s not raining. You get ready to go help your dad secure his boat at the marina. The rain starts. You secure the boat in the rain. You go home and sit in front of your computer. Then the rain stops.

File this for future use.

Death, Destruction, and Shrieking TV Weathertwinks

Fay is out to get me. I made fun of it last week when it was supposedly a dissipating “invest,” and just to spite me, it has turned into a tropical storm, and last night it even made a sudden turn to the north, taking it closer to Miami. It LUNGED at me.

It’s very clear that this is all about me. I don’t care. I remain defiant. Al Gore is a kook. Global warming is a scam. I refuse to put up shutters. I am not buying a ridiculous generator.

It’s actually a good thing, the jog to the north. It means Fay will hit Florida sooner, away from a major city, and it will go over land and dissipate on its way north.

I pity the chronic stoners and federal fugitives fine people who live in the Keys. They don’t seem too worried about storm surge, but they still have to deal with evacuations and so on, and Key West is going to get fracased up about 2 1/2 months before tourist season.

It amazes me how the TV people love to scare us. Today I saw a warning: “TORNADOES POSSIBLE IN SOUTH FLORIDA.” Uh…tornadoes are ALWAYS possible when a tropical cyclone goes by. Hello?

Looks like we’re not going to get much lightning. That’s good. When the winds are below hurricane strength, they don’t have much effect on our primitive Florida Power & Light power grid. It’s the lightning that gets you. It melts the duct tape holding the system together. So it’s pretty unlikely that I’ll lose my precious few remaining prime steaks.

The weather people are freaking out, as usual. What they’re really saying is, “PAY US MORE AND STOP THINKING OF US AS THE RODEO CLOWNS OF TV JOURNALISM.” Weathermen tend to be gay; maybe that contributes to the drama. I saw some local guy today talking about HIGH WINDS AND TORRENTIAL RAIN. I can see out a window right now. The sky is a little grey, it is not raining, and the air is absolutely calm. Let’s check the marine forecast. Seas 4 to 6 feet. You can actually take a boat out in that, although the lightweights would heave over the side. Seas like that are pretty much normal in the winter. Tonight they’re supposed to peak at 9-11 feet, which is not very impressive. To give you an idea of what 4 to 6 is like here, my rule is that I won’t fish if the forecast goes past 2 to 4 unless there’s a tournament on.

It’s weird; in the open Atlantic off the Bahamas, a couple of hundred miles east of here, six-foot seas are rolly and pleasant. I’ve taken a 13-foot Boston Whaler out in heavy seas off Eleuthera, and I was fine. Here, the peaks of the waves are much closer together, so a six-foot sea will beat you to death.

I’m glad I won’t have a week of interesting hurricane blogging for you. Nothing is worse than losing your electricity in Miami in August. I still remember sitting indoors after Katrina, absolutely motionless, watching one drop of sweat after another drip off the tip of my nose. When Rita came through in October, the small difference in heat and humidity made it seem almost pleasant.

I think the most irritating thing about storms is watching rookie news people fresh from the Northeast interview seasoned Florida residents. These guys are supposed to be the experts, and they clearly know absolutely nothing. “Hurricane Beavis is supposed to pass within 400 miles of Port St. Lucie, yet none of these residents has bothered constructing a bomb shelter or switching to snow tires. Oh, Shep. When will they learn?” They keep badgering people on camera, trying to get them to–I don’t know–do cartwheels or something. You know what? It’s going to rain, and the wind is going to blow. Get over it.

One thing concerns me. Do I have enough homebrew to make it through the crisis? Generally, when a hurricane hits, I put a Corny keg in the same cooler with my food. This time I may be down to a gallon of beer. Talk about poor preparation.

I’m not going to bitch about the storm moving closer. It would be nice for me if it moved west and went up the Gulf, but I don’t want someone else to get a Category 4 so I can avoid a tropical storm. And the last thing we need is wind near our oil rigs. It has no real effect, but the oil speculators don’t care. They would make the most of it.

I have to go do my preparations, which consist of moving a ladder indoors and shoving some potted peppers around. If you don’t hear from me tomorrow, it only means I have been swept up to the land of Oz, where Hillary Clinton will try to poison me with poppies.

China Confiscates Bibles at Airport

Here’s a fine God-related piece of news just ripe for a Sunday blog post. It sounds like bad news, but it may actually be very, very good news. It depends on how the press handles it. The Chinese government has confiscated over 300 Bibles from several Christian missionaries at the Kunming airport!

Why is that good news? Because it exposes the Chicoms for what they are. Totalitarians who deny citizens and visitors their basic human rights.

Don’t get the idea that taking a Bible away isn’t a serious act of oppression. Freedom of religion is one of the most fundamental human rights. It’s not a trifle. Taking it away is just as serious as taking away freedom of expression. Which the Chinese also deny their people. Imagine the hysteria that would erupt if an American policeman confiscated hundreds of Bibles.

Christians aren’t the only ones who spreading this story. The shameless socialists at the Associated Press wrote it up. Here’s a link.

Money quotes:

Bibles are printed under the supervision of the Communist government. The officially atheistic country only allows them to be used in government-sanctioned churches and in some big hotels catering to foreigners.

And:

China faces routine criticism for its human rights violations and its repression of religious freedom. Religious practice is heavily regulated by the Communist Party, with worship allowed only in party-controlled churches, temples and mosques, while those gathering outside face harassment, arrest and terms in labor camps or prison.

Hold a prayer meeting, go to jail. That’s unfettered leftism for you. The elites have decided it is a certainty God does not exist. You are not entitled to make up your own mind. Leftism is such a kind religion; a few people at the top make all the important decisions, preventing ignorant, untrained ordinary citizens from getting things wrong, and taking the heavy weight of autonomy off their liberated shoulders. This is the beautiful gift George Clooney and Barbra Streisand and Al Gore want to give you. Of course, prominent socialists like these would continue living like capitalists, because the left-wing illuminati are special and need power and wealth in order to spread joy and enlightenment.

I’m so glad the Chinese got the Olympics, and that the games are casting a bright spotlight on their sins. The world needs to remember that a few KFCs and Burger Kings do not a democracy make. Maybe a little public shaming will persuade the Chinese to loosen their grip on the church. Why is it such a big threat to them? Christians believe in hard work, obeying the law, patriotism, and paying their taxes. It would be a real blow to the revolution if those things caught on.

Look how the Chinese government treats Bibles. They treat them like methadone, which is appropriate, considering Karl Marx’s fatuous “opiate” remark. They print China’s Bibles, and they distribute them. The story says they sanction churches. The other side of that coin is that they prohibit all other churches and pastors. A license isn’t permission for the holder, although it may seem that way. It’s a ban for everyone else. Before the US had driver’s licenses, everyone could drive. Licensing didn’t increase the pool of drivers. It shrank it. And China’s church licensing shrinks the church. That’s the reason China does it. They have turned worship into a prescription drug, used to manage a destructive addiction, and they don’t allow the manufacture of generics.

Evangelism is so important, and I don’t think we do nearly enough of it. I always write about religious charities I’ve found, and it’s always exciting to find a new one I like. But it has been harder to find organizations that evangelize effectively. That is especially sad, in a time when the Internet and cell phones and satellites make it impossible for Muslims and atheists to keep the gospel out of their countries. It used to be that smuggling was required, in order to get religious materials into oppressed hands. Now you can send a single DVD into a socialist country, with an Adobe-format Bible on it, and it can be duplicated millions of times and sent to countless locations, at no cost. There are broadcasts that reach into Muslim and socialist countries. People just need to know how to tune them in. This ought to be evangelism’s most powerful era. Maybe it is; I wouldn’t know how to find out. It’s something we need to support. When it comes to transforming the world, religion is the most powerful force there is. Far stronger than politics.

I’m glad I found out about Open Doors and Secret Believers.

Let’s hope the Chinese continue giving the world horrifying glimpses of their government’s true nature.

Art Imitates Low Life

Today’s Day by Day strip got me thinking. You don’t have to click on the link; I installed Chris’s new robo-banner to your left. Mouse over it, and you get the current strip.

The subject is women in abusive relationships. This is a topic that is close to my heart. Abusive relationships are extremely frustrating for people who care about the victims. Not just because the victims suffer, but because abused women invite, prolong, and revive the abuse. Getting a woman to drop an abuser and cut him out of her life completely–which are the only appropriate things to do–is about as easy as getting someone off crack.

Here are some thing women should know.

1. If you have to walk on eggs around your partner, you are in an abusive relationship.

2. If you think it’s your fault when your partner blows up, you are in an abusive relationship.

3. If you feel like you accomplished something when you come to the end of a day during which your partner has not mistreated you–if a day when you are treated with ordinary kindness and respect seems special–you are in an abusive relationship.

4. If you push friends and relatives away because they complain about the way your partner treats you, you are in an abusive relationship, and you are doing exactly what the abuser wants, and before long, he will be your only social contact.

5. Your abusive partner is not going to change, barring divine intervention in response to a sincere religious conversion on the part of the abuser. You can bet your life that won’t happen.

6. The longer you stay with or even communicate with your abusive partner, the harder it will be to get away.

7. When an abuser begs for forgiveness and swears he’ll change, it’s just his way of getting you back into a situation where he can continue abusing you.

8. If you continue to communicate with the abuser, even as a friend, the abusive relationship is still alive, and you are not completely safe. Removing an abuser from your life is like removing a cancer; you have to get it all out.

Here’s another fact. A partner doesn’t have to touch you to be abusive. If you live with someone who runs you down in order to control you, it’s abuse. And women abuse, too.

If you’re with someone who systematically insults your appearance, your intelligence, your accomplishments, your character, or your lovemaking, you’re in an abusive relationship. It may be more subtle than dragging you around by your hair or choking you, but it’s a different way of achieving the same end.

Here’s something else you need to know. If you persist in “trying to make it work,” the people who care about you will eventually leave you alone and let you descend into hell. That’s what people do with addicts…like you. They withdraw until the addicts get so desperate they sincerely try to help themselves.

You can make little changes in a partner. You may be able to make a husband pick up his socks. You may be able to persuade a woman to stop leaving her makeup all over the bathroom. But you can’t make an abusive partner kind and supportive. You may think your relationship is special, and that other people don’t understand, but it isn’t, and they do. You’re the one who doesn’t understand.

If you want to see a great portrait of abuse, rent What’s Love Got to Do With It. It’s a hundred percent accurate. An abuser punishes his wife when he has problems in business. He will punish his wife for anything that resembles criticism. And he will never believe the relationship is over, because as far as he’s concerned, you’re like part of his body. Like property. He’s just like you; he thinks your relationship is special.

I kind of wish Chris would go back to making fun of Nancy Pelosi.

Clerks III

Am I crazy, or has Kevin Smith totally given up?

I just took a look at a teaser for his new film, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. It’s funny, but it’s only funny because it’s unbelievably filthy. Any imbecile who can string a few dirty words together can be hilarious. It requires very little talent. Why on earth is a middle-aged man with a whole bunch of movies to his credit still resorting to cheap humor? What kind of legacy is that?

Not every dirty filmmaker lacks talent. Mike Judge made Beavis and Butt-head, which was full of filth and sensationalism. Then he made King of the Hill, which was not only cleaner, but somewhat wholesome. And it was really good. Why isn’t Kevin Smith willing to face the same challenge? My guess: desperation. He made his ensemble movies, which made a little money, and then he made Jersey Girl, which did not. Then he went back to the ensemble. And he made a big speech about how it had nothing to do with having failed and wanting to go back to something safe. But who believes that? Nobody. His audience isn’t completely stupid. Does anyone seriously believe that when he made Jersey Girl, he planned to go back to Jay and Silent Bob? Come on. No way. When he made Jersey Girl, he was looking for a way out. He wanted to prove he could do something new. Any creative person can see that.

He gets really furious when people poke at this sensitive topic, which tells you everything you need to know. I just saw a video where a fan asked him if he was going to move on to new things, and Smith heaped vile insults on him. Smith was exposed, and he didn’t like it.

I think he’s making a big mistake, going back to high school humor. He should have sucked it up after Jersey Girl and tried again. It’s not like he’s poor or old. It wouldn’t have killed him to make a second more or less grown-up film.

Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he doesn’t have what it takes. I’m trying to remember the clean parts of his films, to get an idea of whether he can be funny without going cheap. He wrote a lot of scenes that were smart and clean, but I don’t recall a lot of clean scenes that made me laugh. Okay, I can think of some things. Hooper X was funny.

He may be misgauging his audience very badly. His fans are not young any more. Clerks is fourteen years old, and Smith’s only real successes were 1999’s Dogma and 2006’s Clerks II, and they were not hits. Maybe his aging audience is getting tired of sex and poop jokes, and turning back to these old standbys is the worst thing he can do. I own a copy of Clerks, but if Clerks had been made this year, at my age, I wouldn’t have gone to see it.

Besides, at a certain age, you have to ask yourself if you want to a) make quality movies or b) be the next John Waters.

I think about issues like this a lot, because I’m religious, but I would like to keep on writing humor. I don’t want to suck the fun out of my books. But is that really a risk, for a talented person? No. Far from it. In fact, clean sells, IF it’s clean and funny. If I’m willing to take twice as long to write a page, I can be both, so that’s what I should try to do. It takes more work, but it also demonstrates a higher level of ability.

You want proof that you don’t have to be dirty to be funny and profitable? Here: My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Funnier than anything Kevin Smith has ever done. No filth. No cruelty. You can watch it with your grandmother and your twelve-year-old son. Budget: $5 million. Gross: $368 million, plus. Guess what you would have if you added up the grosses of all of Kevin Smith’s movies. Here’s your answer: less. In fact, that would probably be true if you slashed the 3 and only kept the 6 and the 8. If Nia Vardalos drops dead today, and Kevin Smith continues making movies for thirty years, her lifetime gross will probably still dwarf his, and she has only made one movie to his eight. And if she and Kevin Smith walk into a studio head’s office today at the same time, each claiming to have a fantastic new script in hand, who do you think will get shown in first?

“Kevin, run out and pick up some lunch for us, okay, babe?”

If Dogma was his brainchild, it proves he can come up with a story (unlike his other movies). And we know he can write dialogue. So why keep pandering to brainless, smirking college kids?

It’s pointless for him to continue refusing to admit he’s in a rut. He already admitted he was tired of his old shtick. He admitted it by trying to make a romantic comedy.

You could not drag me to see his new movie. I don’t even care if it’s funny. There are only so many shocking sex and poop jokes you can stand to hear from Kevin Smith. I get it; I get it. It’s two ordinary people looking and acting very serious while they try to make money filming a porno. It’s hilarious when people talk about genitals in a detached and businesslike way. Oh, boy, is that funny. Or at least it was, maybe thirty years ago, when the concept wasn’t completely played out. I’m not paying good money to sit through this mess, and I suspect the overwhelming majority of ticket buyers–even atheists and longtime Kevin Smith fans–will agree with me.