J. Neil Schulman
@ Agorist.com
@ Agorist.com
To tell you the God’s honest truth, if I didn’t know deep in my heart that the rest of you are out of your freaking minds. I’d think I was.
Look, I know I’ve said, written, and done things that are pretty hard to take at face value.
Years ago a cousin of mine — a distinguished neurologist — told my parents my libertarian beliefs indicated a serious need for psychiatric intervention. This cousin was not only a rich doctor who’d expanded his fortune as an inventor and entrepreneur — when we visited him he was living in a Pacific Palisades mansion — but politically he was a communist. Maybe my cousin the doctor was right in thinking I was crazy since I was a flat-broke writer arguing to a wealthy communist the superiority of capitalism.
A lot of people thought I was crazy when I thought that of all the novel manuscripts written, my first novel would get published — in hardcover, no less.
People thought I was crazy when I suggested as far back as 1987 that pretty soon what we call a “book” wouldn’t be made out of nice-smelling paper, ink, and binding; you wouldn’t browse for it at a store; and it would be something you downloaded and either read on a screen or printed out, yourself.
A lot of people thought I was out of my mind when I wrote a book taking seriously the idea that O.J. Simpson didn’t knife to death his ex-wife and the nice Jewish boy who was returning her mother’s forgotten eyeglasses.
Other people thought I was crazy when another of my books seriously suggested that people who don’t own guns are the cause of crime.
I’d spent years and years hanging out with atheists who were certain I was out of my mind when I finally told them I’d had a psychic revelation from God … then I was only slightly more surprised when I found out that even people who tell me they believe in God are for the most part just as convinced that I’m crazy.
But what am I supposed to do with a Bill Maher who makes a documentary showing how nutty people who believe in God are, then turns around and without even a psychic episode to back it up then makes fun of people who don’t share his faith in global warming or expansive government?
How am I to take seriously the sanity of people who believe in God only because they read about God in the Bible — or heard about God from other people who read about God in the Bible … or people who decide God can’t possibly exist because the only people they’ve met who say they believe in God base their beliefs on these sorts of fiftieth-hand rumors?
In my own current business — I made a movie which I’m trying to get into commercial distribution — I constantly run into movie execs who tell me audiences won’t be interested in seeing my movie because I don’t have an “A-list star” in it. Leave out for a moment how insanely famous the star of my movie is from appearing in the #1 cult TV series of all time. When I point out to these geniuses that one of the top-grossing movies at the moment was made for $11,000 and didn’t have a single name actor in it, it doesn’t change their minds. Neither does giving them a list of A-list-star driven movies that tanked. They still won’t consider distributing an indie movie unless it has an “A list” star.
I believe that government doesn’t work, that the Los Angeles Police Department needed to rent a clue in the O.J. Simpson murder trial, and that a more compelling case can be made for the existence of eternal consciousness than for carbon footprints.
It’s a lot of the rest of you who are the crazy ones, pal, and on Day Three of this blog, meet your new bogus shrink.
November 3, 2009 - 2:10 pm
If I didn’t know that everyone else was crazy, I might think you were nuts, too. lol
It seems bizarre that Nichelle isn’t considered A-list. She’s certainly a distinguished actress. Her “Jackie Robinson” moment with William Shatner, the first inter-racial kiss on television, could have been with any white man. Well, any of them on that cast.
Given a universe about fourteen billion light years in extent in every direction the sky has to offer, and given an infinite number of quantum events taking place in that universe so that it branches along narrative threads far too many to number, I find it bizarre that people don’t believe in the existence of eternal consciousness. It seems clear that David Deutsch has had a greater grasp of the fabric of reality than any of the atheists I’ve met.
With peculiar regard to global warming, the evidence is now entirely settled against it. NASA warped the numbers with a Y2K “error” and the tree ring guy picked his five favorite trees to get a “hockey stick.” With 1934 still the warmest year on record, and eleven years without a warming trend – you most certainly cannot count the year NASA copied all 500 weather stations in Russia’s report for September into October – it is hard to imagine how the evil and pernicious authoritarians can keep pulling the wool over so many eyes.
But cooler weather does seem to stimulate wool bearing animals to grow heavier fur, so maybe that’s how they get enough wool to supply their needs. lol
“Rocky Horror Picture Show” and “Plan 9 from Outer Space” continue to make revenues. I’m sure you’ll find a market for “Lady Magdalene’s.”