Dirty Cricket

The Seven Day Itch

2009-04-03T15:07:00.002-05:00

Check out the new promo site for our latest film Sunday Morning or The Seven Day Itch

here's the teaser:

What's been going on...

2009-03-25T09:53:00.003-05:00

Hello friends and neighbors,

It's been a while so I figured I'd give you an update on what's going on in the world of Dirty Cricket.

Recently we've been shooting a new film called Sunday Morning or The Seven Day Itch. Look for more info on that in the coming months both here and on the film's main site. But shooting went well and I'll have photos and all that junk up soon enough.

We just launched two new sites Run and Gun Shows and Mouldy Bred. Run and Gun is a series of impromptu concerts with local bands in various Chicago locals. Check out this video of Derek Porter our inaugural video:

There will be plenty more where that came from.

Mouldy Bred is a short story site featuring my own writing and other writers in the future. Check it out our first story The Day of the Meat and look for more in the future.

Stay tuned for more updates as they happen, if you're interested in joining us on Facebook we'd love to have you.

Also, you can check out our Flickr stream here (not much now, but more will come)

Stay subscribed for further updates!

Awwww, thanks Yahoo!

2008-10-21T14:49:00.001-05:00

So nice of them to put this headline in such a polite way.

Some E Cards

2008-08-13T16:12:00.004-05:00

If you haven't been to this website, I recommend checking it out - www.someecards.com PRI-tay funny. Anywho, you can create your own e-cards on there now. Here's a few that I created.

Dogs are smarter than babies

2008-08-13T11:14:00.000-05:00

This makes me laugh and cry at the same time. Laughing at a stupid baby, while at the same time crying for humanity.

Dog Smarter Than Baby - Watch more free videos

Pig-Monkey

2008-07-28T20:58:00.000-05:00

Ananova - Piglet with monkey's face: "."

Here's a little something to look at before bed.

The Lake

2008-07-24T20:01:00.004-05:00

It was winter; or maybe it was spring but it was still winter in Chicago. The phone rang and Dahlia’s eyelids fluttered open. She reached out and pounded on her alarm clock but the ringing persisted. She couldn’t feel the fingers on her left hand, which could’ve been a result of either the cold or of sleeping with her arm crushed beneath her body – she couldn’t tell. The phone was still ringing. Dahlia fumbled around her bedside table knocking three pencils, a plate and The Grapes of Wrath onto the floor.

“Hello?”

Dahlia stretched as she listened to the voice on the other end of the phone. She wiggled one toe out from under her comforter and pressed it against the radiator at the foot of her bed. It felt like the aluminum siding of the shed behind her grandmother’s house in December; something else to call Melvin about.

Dahlia cleared her throat, “Are you sure you’re shitting blood or is your asshole just bleeding?”

“Which would be worse?” came the voice on the other end of the phone.

Dahlia sat up and yawned, “I dunno,” she tucked the phone between her ear and her shoulder and pulled the covers up around her, “It depends. If you’re shitting blood, you’ve probably got an ulcer or some fucked up intestinal virus, if your asshole’s just bleeding then you should think about what activities you’ve engaged in recently that might’ve caused that.”

“What if the activities that might’ve caused my anus to tear are the same activities that are so stressful they’re probably causing an ulcer?”

“Then you’re probably shitting blood through your bleeding asshole,” Dahlia leaned forward and pulled up the blinds.

“Have I told you how charming you are?”

Dahlia shrugged and slumped back against her headboard, “You’re the one who called to talk about your bloody fucking asshole, Asshole.”

Dahlia looked down at her alarm clock; 5:45. A soft blue whisper of sunrise was creeping through the two-foot gap between her building and the building next door, the building that in another hour a demolition crew would arrive with sledgehammers and sandblasters to finish leveling. The building where Mrs. Hernandez’s window used to be level with Dahlia’s and she would watch her through the blinds, vacuuming to The Supremes, doing her best Diana Ross for no one.

“Audrey? Why are you up so early?” Dahlia half-whined into the phone.

“I haven’t gone to bed yet.”

“Wow, usually no one notices their asshole bleeding until they’ve slept it off and sobered up. Mozel tov.”

“So, you don’t think I need call an ambulance then?”

“No.”

“Okay. Goodnight.”

Dahlia closed her phone and set it back on the bedside table. Coffee would be necessary.

The air outside was thin and cold in that way where simply inhaling caused the saliva coating your esophagus to crystallize and Dahlia tried not to choke. Ice crackled under her boots and cars rumbled down Clark Street as they passed her, their headlights glowing in the dissipating darkness.

Café Toulouse was almost deserted; the morning rush never really began until seven. A nervous, teenage cashier stood behind the counter, tapping his fingers against the pastry case.

Dahlia pulled a crumpled ten-dollar bill out of her pocket and set it on the counter, “Café au lait and a cranberry scone?” she told him.

The teenager nodded but didn’t make eye contact. He rang up Dahlia’s order, took the ten and gave her change, “I’ll bring it out,” he said, disappearing behind the espresso machine.

Dahlia slid into a booth next to the window. Yesterday’s Sun Times lay on the table, ruffled, but intact. Dahlia put her elbow on the table and rested her chin in the palm of her hand. She flipped through the classifieds. There was an apartment listing circled in blue marker that read, “Lakeview steal! 2 Bedrooms 1 Bath, laundry onsite, heat included, vintage charm. Only $900/mo! Belmont and Central Park.” Dahlia smiled, she knew what vintage charm meant and she knew that Belmont and Central Park, even by the loosest of definitions, wasn’t Lakeview. She shuffled the paper and pulled out the local section.

“Body pulled from Lake Michigan identified as Northwestern student”

Fucking retards, Dahlia thought as she skimmed the article. Every year some drunk asshole decides to skinny-dip in that glacial fucking mass and every year, someone gets insta-hypothermia and drowns.

The teenage cashier appeared with Dahlia’s breakfast and set it gingerly on the table.

Dahlia looked up, “Thanks.”

The cashier blushed and went back to his post behind the register.

Northwestern students are supposed to be smart too, Dahlia thought, turning back to the article.

“The body was identified this morning as that of 25-year-old Jacob Muzakowski of Park Ridge, IL,” Dahlia put the paper down.

She’d picked Jacob Muzakowski because he’d seemed so harmless. Because he was from Park Ridge and not from Skokie like everyone else she knew. They were fourteen and sitting alone in the pantry of the rec. center where Emily Feldman’s bat mitzvah reception was going on. Downstairs they could hear the incessant beat of the Macarena. They talked giddily about school, the teachers they hated, how they both secretly thought Daniel Polinski’s older brother’s punk rock band was cool, and then Dahlia had kissed him. Jacob was so shocked he didn’t even bother to open his mouth and she had to force her tongue between his petrified lips. Moments later he realized what was happening and kissed her back.

Out of breath and tugging awkwardly at each other’s clothes, Dahlia and Jacob lay down on the pantry floor. It was lit by a singular, naked light-bulb and the tile was sticky and cold, like the floor of a movie theater.

“I’ve only made out once before,” Jacob said.

“Twice,” Dahlia paused, “But they were both Mike Rosenbaum.”

Jacob propped himself up against a shelf stocked with pine-sol and boxes of trash-bags, “So, is he your boyfriend then?”

Dahlia crossed her legs and tucked her hair behind her ears, “No. He broke up with me because I wouldn’t let him get to second base.”

Jacob nodded still catching his breath, “I don’t need to go to second base. I like first base,” he said.

Dahlia smiled and leaned forward. She kissed him again. She didn’t even know what second base was and, in retrospect she was pretty sure she overshot it a little, but she liked Jacob Muzakowski and she’d already decided it would be him, so she unbuckled his belt and blew him. Dahlia had never even attempted such a thing before and the act was appropriately clumsy. Jacob came almost instantly and it was the first time Dahlia felt that taste, something between clam-chowder and Clorox, in the back of her throat.

Jacob pinky-swore he’d never tell a soul and the two left the pantry in shifts so it would look less conspicuous when they reappeared downstairs.

Of course, the next day Jacob told his best friend, Jeff Adler, what had happened and by the end of the week the entire freshman class knew. Dahlia ignored Jacob at school and refused to come to the phone when he called her house after that. He spent the rest of the year slipping notes into her locker, begging for forgiveness, but Dahlia threw most of them away without opening them. When school started back up in the fall Jacob had a new girlfriend and the entire incident seemed forgotten.

Senior year, just before graduation, Jacob asked Dahlia on a date and she politely refused. He called a few times that summer but Dahlia never called back. Graduation was the last time she saw him.

A few months ago Dahlia’s mother had called to make sure she was eating and mentioned that she’d run into Jacob’s mother at Target.

“She asked about you, Honey,” Dahlia’s mother said, “She said Jacob was at Northwestern now, working on his law degree.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She asked for your number so I lied and said you were having phone trouble, it never seemed like you cared much for him. Should I have given it to her? I’m sure I can look her up.”

“No, Ma. I don’t really want Jacob Muzakowski to call me.”

“That’s what I thought. He was always such a strange boy,” Dahlia’s mother said.

Dahlia thought about how her mother would recount this conversation now that Jacob was dead. She’d claim she’d always liked him and that she’d encouraged Dahlia to call him. Whatever.

Dahlia suddenly wasn’t hungry. She pushed her plate away and stood up.

Stupid fucking asshole, Dahlia thought as she walked home with her hands in her pockets. The sun was up now and the underbellies of the clouds had all turned pink. The ice on the pavement was melting and she shuffled her feet not to slip.

The construction crew had arrived and the jack-hammering had begun. Melvin was waving his hands out of the garden apartment window and yelling, “No construction until nine on Saturdays! I already told you mother-fucking cock-sucker mother-fuckers!”

Dahlia pushed her whole body against the door to her building to open it. She dragged her feet up the stairs to the fourth floor, unwrapping her scarf as she went. She unlocked her door, tossed her scarf onto the sofa and sat down on the side of her bed. She picked up her phone, flipped it open and dialed Audrey.

Audrey picked up after the fifth ring, “Didn’t I say I was going to bed?” she asked groggily.

Dahlia sighed, “Did you know they found Jacob Muzakowski’s body in Lake Michigan yesterday?”

There was a long pause. Audrey coughed, “Really? Didn’t you blow that guy when we were like, twelve, and then deny it?”

Dahlia flopped down on her back and stared up at the peeling, once-white paint on her ceiling, “Yeah. Something like that.”

“Well allow me now to congratulate you,” Audrey said, “You’re the only person I know who’s blown a dead guy.”

“Thanks.” Dahlia hung up.

She thought about calling her mother but decided against it. She looked out the window and thought about Mrs. Hernandez and hoped that wherever she lived now she still vacuumed to The Supremes. She thought about Jacob’s painstakingly hand-scrawled letters and what they might have said. She wished she’d bothered to open them.

Batman the Musical

2008-07-20T08:01:00.002-05:00

I think somewhere, Danny Elfman is smiling.

The Electric Pickle of God

2008-07-20T07:06:00.003-05:00

Here's a very well meaning man making a very misconceived metaphor.

You know, I don't want to dog on this guy too much (lie) but I do think its funny how Christians and sometimes others, will take anything thrown at them and use it as a metaphor for the power/love/greatness of God/Jesus/Faith. I'm not too in the business of bashing other people's religion since my religion is mostly full of self defiling and lacks any sort of Sabbath or reverence of the kind, so I'm use to a bit of bashing myself, but I just want to put a general pointer out there. If you're going to commit yourself to a particular metaphor (i.e. light given off my electrified pickle equals power of God) then you have to accept the various metaphors that are drawn from the same set up.

A few examples -

One you're electrocuting a pickle. And since in this metaphor the pickle is suppose to be me, well that equals bad right off the bat. I think its a good rule of thumb that if your metaphoric representation of your subject has to endure something painful then its not a good metaphor.

Second, in order to see the light properly you have to turn the lights off (I know you could see it at the end, but I didn't set up the experiment). So, in order to properly see the metaphoric light of God in the metaphoric Christian, you have to turn the metaphoric lights off? Wait what are the lights metaphors for? That'll keep you guessing.

Third, sort of an addendum to one and two, but did you see the smoke and the juice pouring out of the pickle? Again, if God causes smoke and discolored juice to come out of the holes he jabbed me with I don't think I want anything to do with it. And maybe this is why he turned off the lights?

Fourth, the king I think really, in a set-up where we have been accepting your ridiculous metaphor you end by telling us "Don't try this at home". Sure I know you mean don't go sticking pickles in electric sockets, but I can't help but get the feeling that you mean, "Don't try and show off the love of God at home". And I'm like, "What? Isn't that why you just fried that tasty accessory to a sandwich? Aren't I suppose to want to try this at home?!"

Okay I know, its just a metaphor, but these are powerful things. And when you have some well meaning soul out there attempting to "put things in a way the kids on the youtube can understand" you end up with ridiculous things like electrocuting a pickle. Of course its not as bad as the banana or the peanut butter.

Things I Should Throw Out: Clippings From The Eighties at Bostworld

2008-07-14T09:10:00.001-05:00

Things I Should Throw Out: Clippings From The Eighties at Bostworld

There are some great ones in here....check out, "Councilman Asks Feds to Execute Drug Users" and...best Family Circus ever...

Dirty Cricket Episode 8

2008-07-11T16:23:00.001-05:00

This is the final episode of season 1. It's been fun, we're still batting around the idea of doing a second season. We'll see what happens. Be sure to let us know what you think of the show so far.

The Dirty Cricket Show Episode 8 from Jeph Porter on Vimeo.

White Trash Wedding

2008-07-11T16:17:00.003-05:00

While we're on the subject (see post below). I can't quite figure if the groom is retarded or just one of those unfortunate folks who happen to be born next to a soy bean factory. I love the duality that is implied in this piece...fat and thin is like yin and yang...okay no.

The last shot is guaranteed to make you feel wrong inside.

Futuristic Brunch

2008-07-11T15:15:00.001-05:00

"This isn't even real food! Why can't you cook it all day long?"

Splitsville for Arnold

2008-07-11T11:05:00.008-05:00

There clearly is no summer lovin' in Tinseltown. Thankfully, AOL has made yet another time-wasting slideshow that highlights newly split, separated, and divorced A-listers ALL the way down to C-listers-turned-bottom-rung-of-society lowlifes. My favorite slide features Gary Coleman and estranged wife Shannon Price.

Times must be rough for Gary. Poor lil' feller can't even score a suit from Men's Wearhouse to look presentable in a courtroom, much less one that's televised for miserable housewives who down anti-depressants and bottles of wine on a nightly basis. At least the lilac-colored shirt looks cleanly pressed, but something tells me he's wearing white socks and black Sketchers.

Gary "stomps on the floor" when he's angry. WOW! Way to put those Sketchers to good use. Can't blame him, though, since he's irrelevant to 99.99% of humanity, and his insecure wife won't even listen to him. But, if he was screaming at my boobs all day, I'd probably tune him out, too.

Found this online quiz

2008-07-11T10:46:00.004-05:00

Man. This one's a real nail biter - and it's tough too because, really, they are all my type. We've got:

- A black man
- A wash up A lister
- Some dude I've never heard of
- An "actor" that specifically was created by hollywood to embody the phrase, Douchebag.

I seriously think "the rock" is a robot. Someone in hollywood currently has the remote control to him and the in ear monitor for voice commands. Which gets me wondering..........I bet it's either Jerry Bruckheimer or Paul Verhoeven (director of the hits, Starship Troopers, Robocop, Total Recall, Oh! and Showgirls. He must be obsessed with robots and women. Which would explain his creation of Dwayne 'the rock' Johnson).

They're living vicariously through his "mussly" arms and huge biceps - because those guys are such dorks that the only thing that gets them off is explosions - or "Sploshions" as they call them.

The best part about this picture is the section in the lower right where it says, "See results without voting". I think i'll opt for that.

I honestly didn't see the results until just now..... Which makes me think that Jerry and Paul are monitoring the results of this quiz as well...

Now i'm really starting to wonder if they would have included Mario on this quiz what the results would have been.

God....................................the rock IS pretty hot.....Who in their right mind doesn't want an absurdly ripped version of Tiger Woods.

Saving Money does Payoff

2008-07-10T14:31:00.004-05:00

Some lady in Munster, IN deposited two $1000 bills just like the above and got a call from the bank telling her to come get them. Turns out they aren't fake, just really old. Which means that even though it says $1000 its really worth about a shit ton more.

The rare but legitimate bills are from 1934 and are each worth around $4,500.

Lucky bitch.

I'm going to wait about fifty years and take my cup full of pennies to the bank and see if the value has increased any. I think that's a good retirement plan.

couple more ounces and I'll pay off that student loan...in a thousand years when the word penny is only a word used by sages and scholars. (via Chicagoist)

Finally, a Hybrid for the Country Club Set

2008-07-10T12:50:00.018-05:00

I love the "Finally" aspect of this.

To be honest, I was sitting around and let out a huge sigh of relief when I saw this headline. I myself have been in the market to spend money on an expensive hybrid, while i'm already really crunching just to save money on gas. Would I bitch about my hefty car bill? Or about the 10 or so MPG I was saving on my gas fill ups? Now not only can I help save the environment, I can finally chat with people of a similar caliber at the local country club. Heck, maybe even convince them to trade in all their Range Rovers for one. I guess it's just for really rich people, who actually could give a shit about the gas prices, but want to appear environmentally conscious.

In a world where gas is being treated like dry land in Waterworld, the Lexus 450h is an island of its own.

Killer reference here

Somewhere, Al Gore is smiling. But so might be Danica Patrick.

Yeah, my guess is that she's pretty concerned with the mass amount of pollution those Indy cars contribute, so this is a good thing.

So if Danica Patrick (I went to high school with her and that's my claim to fame) was car shopping, would she go for an expensive luxury hybrid that is maybe a little quicker than the competition? Or would she just go for something fast with a big engine? Judging purely as a stereotype, I would think the latter. Just me.

High point of this article you ask? At the very end it calls out this correction in case you were wondering:

Correction, June 26, 2008: The article originally stated that owners of a Lexus GS 450h living in California could get a Clean Air Vehicle decal that would allow them free metered parking. The car does qualify as a super-low-emission vehicle, but the state of California has given away all 85,000 stickers that it allotted, so they are no longer available.

Damnit!! As if people who are driving around a Lexus need an extra privilege or don't have the spare change sitting around to feed a meter. My company doesn't reimburse me enough in free lunches or gas mileage to worry about such a mundane thing as filling a meter. I'm no longer sold. Go fug yourself, Lexus. (via Slate)

San Fransico Wants to Take A Shit On G-Dub

2008-07-10T10:44:00.001-05:00

Leave it up to the liberal homosexual loving folks of San Francisco to do something so outlandish as this.

In November, alongside casting their ballot for the next president, the people of San Francisco will also vote on a measure to rename one of the city's largest sewage works the George W Bush Sewage Plant, to provide a "fitting monument" to the outgoing commander-in-chief's achievements.

Amazing. But Umaar pointed out the best quote, at the end:

However, Mr McConnell claimed to have only noticed two forms of opposition during his campaign so far. "First, we get people who say they just want to forget George Bush's presidency," he said. "Second, we hear from those who say that sewage plants perform a valuable public service and, as such, it does not make sense to name one after George Bush."

True indeed. (via The Independent)

Googled

2008-07-09T14:44:00.000-05:00

Wired News - AP News

Google just launched a 3-D chat/social networking site akin to Second Life called Lively. Right now there isn't a mac version so I can't dive in like I normally would with ridiculous time wasting devices like this. But it looks interesting. Let's hope they can break the Second Life curse and actually get someone to give a shit about it other than the cyber sex.

So if pretending to be someone else and having a fake good time are the kind of thing that excite you, then check it out.

Architecture out of Control

2008-07-08T12:42:00.003-05:00

Is it just me or is it annoying when people show off fancy new concept buildings? I mean its not that the buildings suck or anything its just that they are teases. Architects like to flaunt all these cool ideas that seem born of a sci-fi novel and claim that they will change the way we live, work, eat, shit and fart. But how come all I see going up are buildings that look like this:

Yet again, another example of why life is one big disappointment. It's kind of like seeing a hottie on MySpace and then meeting her in person. Doesn't always live up to expectations. Oh well, I'm going to go drive my BMW M1 Hommage.

Binny Hin...Let the Bodies hit the Floor

2008-07-08T12:36:00.001-05:00

Amazing...simply amazing

http://view.break.com/532172 - Watch more free videos

I hate to continually rip into Yahoo's editorials. Well..........no I don't.

2008-07-08T11:43:00.003-05:00

America's Best Places to Raise a Family - Yahoo! Real Estate

I don't really think I need Yahoo to tell me where to live my life. Nor do I need them to explain the simple fact that when you live in a county (or "township" if you will), that barely hits the dozen mark in population, you're going to have low crime per capita. Oooooooooh......no one ever told me that big city means big crime, more people, higher cost of living, more job opportunity.

Well, it's decided. I'm going to move to Noblesville, IN because Steve Schwartz and his wife told me so.

Just 15 miles north of downtown Indianapolis, they sell fishing equipment and rent canoes to locals like Indianapolis Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri and former Formula One racer Derek Daly.

"It's the best of the best," says the 47-year-old Schwartz, also a Hamilton County councilman, referring to the area and its quaint hamlets, low crime and desirable cost of living. "It's a great place to raise your family. It's safe, it's fun, it's affordable and it's growing."

I love small town minds sometimes. I wonder what his idea of "growing" is. Also, my idea of selling fishing equipment and renting canoes is now thwarted because of their family. What else is there for me to do now? I think I will either open a corner store or wrangle hookers.

I'm sure you're wondering what rounds out the top 5?

Ozaukee County, Wis., and Johnson County, Kan. came in second and third.

But what about 4th. Of course the article doesn't go into that.

I think I'll just go back to my depressing, high cost of living, in the city. You'll probably see me hanging weights from my genitals in an alley.

-cB

Bill Nye the Science Guy...whipping the shit out of Larry King

2008-07-07T21:30:00.000-05:00

So I know it's lame...but isn't it funny to see a childhood icon talk to a walking corpse who doesn't seem to understand anything?

I thought so anyway.

Squirell eats a ritz cracker to - Huey Lewis, "If This is It"

2008-07-07T11:46:00.001-05:00

It's a tough call. Whoever made this video is a genius, but at the same regard I think... "What a fucking loser". Maybe it's because I wanted to be the one who made this video.

Squirell eats a ritz cracker to Huey Lewis If This is It - Watch more free videos

Local man Does Something Pointlessly Stupid

2008-07-06T14:35:00.002-05:00

Oregon Man Flies His Balloon Powered Chair Out of State

So every once in a while you hear these stories about people doing something that at first glance you think should be considered amazing. But then if you really think about it your brain does one of those things that looks like an old Charlie Chaplin move, where you walk out a door thinking there is more floor but its just open and you fall down to the ground. I don't know if you followed that metaphor or not but basically I'm saying this doesn't make sense.

A 48-year-old gas station owner from Bend, Oregon triumphed Saturday on his third attempt in making a 235-mile (378km) ride in a lawn chair rigged with helium-filled party balloons. Kent Couch flied across the Oregon desert to the nearby state of Idaho in a trip that lasted around nine hours.
"Things just look different from up there. You've moving so slowly. The best thing is the peace, the serenity," Couch said before getting into his chair on Saturday.

Beside the blow pipe and air gun he took a pole to pull in balloons, a parachute, some GPS equipment and some boiled eggs, jerky and chocolate.

I love that his name is Kevin Couch, how is that even a real last name? They say he dropped $6,000 on his rig, so he could hang out in the sky eating some jerky and chocolate. Damn this guy does have a point though. I mean what have I done with my life? I'll tell you what I haven't done...I haven't crossed state lines by way of helium balloon rigged arm chair. I'll tell you who has, Kevin fucking Couch.

Christina Aguilera - Dog or Baby?

2008-07-03T11:25:00.002-05:00

So...........................I dont get it. Yahoo! has sucessfully led me to yet another useless article from their homepage on - "Why Christina Aguilera is happy she was never caught on camera partying, because now she has a new baby"

Wait... what about that time she was doing all that burlesque shit? Or the time she changed her name to Xtina? I don't really even know how to pronounce that. My Guess is it's alot like x-mas, but I always used the X because I didn't believe in Jesus. Now I'm even more confused? Since my name is Chris, would I just be X? Or would I be Christ?

Regardless, the article talks about her new baby, but she's holding a dog - "I hate working out...I have to mentally push myself through it. I get very whiny, saying things like 'I can't do it!' I can't deal with having someone barking at me." ........................So why do you have a dog? And is the dog your baby? I still don't get. Is she black or white?

-cB

The Dirty Cricket Show Episode 7

2008-06-20T15:57:00.001-05:00

Click to Play

Baby Eaters

Low on ideas Jeph let's Dane take the show into his tender hands

More random thoughts.

2008-06-18T16:36:00.003-05:00

I like to describe the way foods taste by taking a noun that is not a food and adding the letter “y” to the end of it. For example, “This gin tastes quite piney” or “This egg salad tastes quite molestery.”

People are opposed to condoms for strange reasons, but mine may be the oddest. I fear males may evolve to have condom like foreskins. It would make circumcision mandatory; because it would be impossible urinate, much less reproduce, with a foreskin condom penis.

I am bothered when pedestrians who are walking in the middle of the street wave you on as to say, “You have my permission to drive around me.” The last time this happened the pedestrian was the walkin’, smokin’, lawn mowin’ retard of my neighborhood. I’m sure yours has one too. He stopped and waved me on while standing in front of my drive way. I clearly had my turn signal on. I wonder if this developmentally disabled man had finally given up on life. For you see, this was the first time I had seen him smoking. Maybe he was waving me on in a gesture that said, “I’m calling it quits. Just run me over!” Of course at the slow velocity one goes when turning into an uphill, narrow driveway it would not have been enough to kill him. So, the lesson of this story is if you try to convince someone out of suicide don’t say, “Even a retard can kill themselves. You’re taking the easy way out.” Not true I say, not true.

I was in a restaurant the other day and this woman kept on wantonly using the word retarded as an adjective. This flagrant use of the word retarded might offend some people. People often will say, “Hey, you shouldn’t just use the word retarded like that. I’m very offended because someone in my family had developemental disabilities. My (insert relative) was retarded.” Unfortunately this isn’t the case with all people though. However, I found away around that. “You shouldn’t say retarded. My president is retarded.”

Addressing me by an old nickname I don’t remember going by such as “creepy” then proceeding to tell me you’re getting drunk because you’re so happy you just got out of prison after serving a 14 month sentence for assaulting the dude with a deadly weapon who fucked your mom one week after your dad’s funeral is a sure fire way to be dropped from my buddy list. God, I hope that guy doesn’t read this.

No one past the age of 10 says the word pussycat earnestly. If they do say pussycat they’re just looking for an excuse to say pussy. So, really, no mature human being says the word pussycat.

I think Asian women can be attractive. However, women who are obviously of European descent, but somehow look Asian creep me the fuck out.

I want to set up a camp that would be like a fat camp, but only for kids with ADD, ADHD, and just general problems paying attention. There would be activities for the children to help them to learn to focus. However, for the life of me I can’t think of what to call the place but a concentration camp. I shared these thoughts with a couple of married friends. One of my friends got upset. She wasn’t offended, but she said she had already had a similar idea for a T-shirt. The front would say, “Adolf’s Fat Camp” and the back would read, “Lose the weight… Concentrate!”

One day I joined match.com because it was 5 in the morning. I was tired of watching videos on the net and didn’t want to go to the same 3 websites I visit over and over again. I was bored so I thought, “What the hell… why not?” One of the things you do for the website for your profile is put a headline next to your picture. My headline now is a Groucho Marx quote which Woody Allen quoted in the beginning of one of his movies. I had to change it after my original caption of, “Who wants a whoopin’?” was rejected.

On a scale from 1 to 5 with 1 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree I would give the statement “I would like to raise the Rensis Likert from dead for the sole purpose of murdering him again,” a 6. Seriously… that guy was an asshole.

Why is it, do you think, that other countries aren't having the same problems with illegal Mexican immigrants? It's just further proof that America is the greatest country in the world. Some geographers and cartographers may tell you there are different reasons for the influx of these illegals, but I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion of those particular professions loyalties to our country. Why do we need maps of other places that aren’t America anyway?

I call people who only go to church at Christmas egg-nog-stics… and sinners.

I find that telemarketers and Evangelical Christians are very similar to telemarketers. We live in a nation that is fully aware with the basic teachngs of Christianity for the most part. When Evangelical Christians try to convert you they’re either trying to sell you shit that don’t want or already have.

I love to piss, but I hate to shit. Pissing is like a little vacation, but shitting is like extra work that you don’t get paid for.

I know Karate is a noun, but I love when it is used as a verb. Like if someone were to say, “I go to drug stores and wait for old ladies to pick up their prescriptions. When they step up to me I Karate their bitch asses!”

Upon exiting work one day I noticed all my co-workers cars wouldn’t start due the cold winter weather. I have never had this problem even though my car is older than most of my co-workers’ cars. I think it’s because I pretend that my car has friends and family and I have threatened their lives if my car happens to fuck up on me. My car has never failed me. Ah, the power of positive thinking. The one exception is my computer. I know why. No matter how much shit you threaten your computer with it knows a lot more dirty secrets about you then you do about it. Your computer has you by the balls.

My friend was smoking outside a bar one night and a homeless lady tried to bum a cigarette off him. He lied and said he did not have another cigarette. This is one case where lying is the polite thing to do instead of saying, “I have 3 left, but they’re mine so go away.” People always try to bum cigarettes on the street, but that never happens with anything else. “Hey, that a nice ham sandwich there. You think I can bum one off you?”

There is a local shopping plaza that you will often be approached by drunks for spare change with sob stories. They need money for gas or something is their excuse. I plan to keep a bottle of Jack Daniels in my car for now on. “I don’t have any spare change, but here’s a bottle of bourbon. Maybe you can sell it.”

The Dirty Cricket Show Episode 6

2008-05-26T15:17:00.001-05:00

Click to Play

Rocket Man

After his near death experience Justin decides he wants to take the show in a new direction.

Visit <a href="http://show.dirtycricket.net/">DirtyCricket{dot}net</a>for more!

The Dirty Cricket Show Episode 5

2008-04-12T15:57:00.001-05:00

Click to Play

P Offering

After last weeks success Dane offers Justin a peace offering while Justin is looking for a P offering of a different kind

Visit DirtyCricket{dot}netfor more!

04 Two Guys

2008-03-26T15:17:00.001-05:00

Click to Play

Justin is put off by the introduction of a new cast member but Dane does all he can to assure him that he's willing to go the distance, no matter what Justin throws at him.

Visit DirtyCricket{dot}netfor more!

The Dirty Cricket Show Episode 3

2008-03-18T23:23:00.001-05:00

Click to Play

Enter Dane Stage Left

Dane Lewandowski auditions for Jeph and tries to cox him into giving him a spot on the show, while Justin has a hard time keeping his things in order.

Visit DirtyCricket{dot}netfor more!

The Dirty Cricket Show ep02

2008-03-14T21:43:00.001-05:00

Click to Play

Whilst surfing the tubes Justin happens upon a little known fact that Jeph takes in strides.

Unsolicited plug for urbandictionary.com

Visit DirtyCricket{dot}net for more!

The Dirty Cricket Show Episode 1

2008-03-11T00:37:00.001-05:00

Click to Play

Justin is fed up with the direction of the show and makes some suggestions to Jeph, which he doesn't take to well. Will this be the start of something beautiful for the guys at Dirty Cricket? Visit for more!

The Dirty Cricket Show - Promo

2008-03-02T14:06:00.001-06:00

Click to Play

The New and Improved Dirty Cricket Show

Coming Soon - er than you think.

Staring - Justin Howard, Jeph Porter and Dane Lewandowski.

check www.dirtycricket.net for updates!

or just subscribe!

DirtyCricket ep#6

2008-02-24T18:24:00.001-06:00

Click to Play

Justin visits Berwyn IL and the famous car spindle and chats with Maggie Ragaisis of savethespindle.com about Berwyn's "Mount Rushmore"

Sometimes He Doesn't Need Midgets

2008-01-21T22:49:00.001-06:00

DirtyCricket Episode 5

2008-01-12T18:05:00.001-06:00

Click to Play

Guest host, Dane Lewandowski walks you through everything you need to know about Rudy Giuliani!

DirtyCricket ep04 Christmas Special!

2007-12-22T16:12:00.001-06:00

Click to Play

Hello good people. Here's a happy holiday to you from Justin and the rest of us. I hope you find enjoyment in our enjoyment of this season.

Also we won't be back until next year...so see you then.

DirtyCricket ep04 Christmas Special!

2007-12-22T13:25:00.001-06:00

Click to Play

Our fourth episode folks, a very special Christmas with Justin Howard

We'll be taking a Holiday break so look for us after the new year, thanks for watching!

DirtyCricket ep03 Week of 12.9.2007

2007-12-10T13:13:00.001-06:00

Click to Play

The second and final installment of Dying for Immortality. Jeph visit's the cryonic's institute in Clinton Township Michigan. Stay tuned for more next week.

I Think We're Suppose to Celebrate

2007-12-05T11:29:00.000-06:00

This is our 101st post, so we've reached some kind of mile stone here. Yay!

On another note, its a sad day for me. I know that I am truly growing up. I deleted the first blog I ever started checking from my Google Reader. Crooks and Liars.com let me ode to you:

No, never mind.

Anyway, Crooks and Liars was the first blog I started checking, and the first blog that got me into all this blog stuff, back when I was a young high strung college pup, furious about what I thought was injustice in our political system. And it was, politicians are evil crooks and lying liars. But after years of reading about their hi jinx and getting out raged and annoyed it started to dawn on me that politics is always going to be full of crooks and liars, you're never going to cleans the system by blogging about it, and no amount of activism is going to change things, short of a revolution.

Over the years I started checking blogs that actually made me smile and laugh and every time I would see something on Crooks and Liars I would shun it and probably click "mark all as read" instead of sift through the tons of post that would accumulated during a day.

So today, I removed it. I had waited to do it out of sentimental value, but it just wasn't worth it. I figure that my Reader should be full of things I want to read not things I want to delete.

So happy 100 post! I hope you've found the things on this blog enjoyable. I will try and keep that up.

DirtyCricket ep02 Week of 12/2/2007

2007-12-02T19:44:00.001-06:00

Click to Play

This week, Justin shows the first part of a documentary by Jeph Porter

Electroshock is Green Tea for the Soul

2007-11-21T23:09:00.000-06:00

As a connoisseur of journalism, I spend much of my time reading nonsense. With that in mind, you should probably check out what is my new most favoritest news story ever. It is such a good story, my superlatives got away from me there.

I think I enjoy this story so much because of certain phrases I refer to as flags. Flags are words that help you skim through news stories because you already know what the words mean, and they are words that you don't see often enough to cause you to ignore them.

Today's flags are:

truth-serum injection
Satan worshippers
brainwashed
Arkansas

Now that I review that list, I am starting to get a little bit worried. I'm almost certain that this exact thing occurred in my rejected screenplay for the next Jason Bourne movie.

DirtyCricket ep01 Week of 11/19/2007

2007-11-21T21:15:00.001-06:00

Click to Play

The first episode of The DirtyCricket Show with Justin Howard.

Who are we?

Happy Thanksgiving

The WGA strike

Douche fuck of the week

What to look forward to!

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

2007-11-17T15:56:00.000-06:00

Josh Staman is our man with the movie news...or something. Now he's out in L.A. rolling with the big folks, or not with the WGA thing going on. But anyway here's a movie he watched.

Josh Staman
Los Angeles Nov 16th 2007
Calling Sidney Lumet’s BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD the most overrated movie of the year isn’t entirely apropos, and those words linger on my tongue, bitter like horseradish. It’s not because it isn’t, but because in all honesty – IT AIN’T A MOVIE! It’s a screenwriting exercise that a sophomore collegiate won’t shut up about: because it wrote itself; because it’s so hardcore; because Quentin might jump back and forth in time, but this one’s about real people with real problems, man! It was written by a “Kelly Masterson” and although the script is certainly competent in its…(how shall I put this?)…getting-a-very-good-grade-in-Screenwriting II-ness, I would bet money that Kelly is a dude. This is conjecture and unnecessary in reviewing the film, but BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD reeks of either coked-up “hardcore”-fanboy or mouth-breathing cinephiliac collegiate who just can’t let that one script go.

Well, good for Kelly! Not only have “his” dreams been realized and “his” script is off the ground, but with Sidney Lumet attached! And Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, Rosemary Harris, and Michael Shannon no less! And – again, if that wasn’t enough for Kelly “Bomber!” Masterson (we all used to call “him” Bomber. It’s a story.) – the critics cannot get enough of this put-on. Well, the party ends now; I can honestly say were BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD not an inexplicably overrated crime saga to begin with, I doubt I would’ve seen more than the faintest of recommendatory virtues in the finished product had I gone in fresh.

To start with the good: Philip Seymour Hoffman is quite good in a limited role that plays like a miasma of pseudo-Mametian indulgences that the man knows exactly what to do with. Potentially even better is Ethan Hawke with a sparse role that comes very close to barely existing (witness his final moments in the film, or, rather, don’t) and turns it into a winning turn of amiable loserdom. And while I wouldn’t call anything Sidney Lumet does in this film revelatory, the man knows how to bring out the best in his performers, especially in Albert Finney, who isn’t so much good as a living actor (he’s not) but AMAZING for a dead one; and let it be said, the man can cover a scene well and compensate for textural shortcomings so much that the film almost appears to be about something. Let it be said that although shot on the Genesis, the camera used for SUPERMAN RETURNS and the best-looking digital features around, the movie looks like ass.

And then there’s Marisa Tomei…

…’s boobies. We’ve been waiting quite some time for this…how shall I put this?...boobies, and it’s a tribute to her acting talent (and boobies!) that she comes across as a completely organic, interesting character despite being given nothing to do by Bomber, as she simultaneously and inexplicably beds brothers Hoffman and Hawke, of which I have nothing on that genetic discrepancy. The very first shot in the film is a graphic and mundane view of sex and humanity, and Hoffman takes her from behind and we watch the ordeal play out as Hoffman watches himself, and then they recoil in post-coital bliss…and the damn thing, while repugnant, almost works. She gives off a glow in this film and a pinch of arsenic and vinegar in even the pithiest off-glances and one-liners.

And yet she, and really everyone, is let down by the drab, detached script that is so needlessly convoluted, derived from contrivance, and pedestrian in span that those involved requested – nay! – DEMANDED the use of “Flutter Editing” to piece the damn thing together. Flutter Editing: last refuge of the tripped-out, that you may recall from EASY RIDER, and NOWHERE EVER AGAIN UNTIL RIGHT FUCKING NOW! If Flutter Editing is what is needed to piece your movie together, it’s time to start free associative writing on a napkin outside a Coffee Bean with your double-shot. Who knows? You might end up with something that is heartfelt, true, and honest…unlike BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD.

And then there's this guy....

2007-11-16T15:11:00.000-06:00

While noodling around for videos for my last post (I won't link to it, it's literally just below this one(okay fine)), I found this video:

I think this man makes a very compelling argument, a compelling argument for euthanasia and eugenics.

Don't be Afraid of Dinosaurs! AKA Let the WGA have their way!

2007-11-16T14:07:00.001-06:00

So the big news I guess going around the circles I choose to pay attention to is the Writer's Guild of America's strike against the studios. The forecast is all doom and gloom (No more Heroes! Whatever, I stopped watching that show last season, I'm way too good for it now.).

But really, the effects can already be seen. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have both stopped airing new episodes, as well as Late night television such as Conan O'Brian. This I will say for most of my demograph, is truly devastating. Here's a quick summary of the issues:

Basically writer's want to be paid for the work they do. Hard to disagree with that. Of course I don't know the studio's side of it, but my preconceived leanings tell me that they are just trying to squeeze and pinch every dollar they can out of their products, because they're a, you know, business. But then again, this is why unions exist. So I lend my full ideological support to the WGA and its members, which means beyond blogging about it I'll probably tell some people at a party that I support the WGA whilst reciting the above video to make me look cool and maybe get laid.

But the part that really interest me about this whole thing is the very thing which the debate centers around, the prominence of online media. The writers are sensing a shift in the distribution of content much like writers did when the television was new and are trying to align themselves in a position of not getting screwed over again. But at the same time its not just the medium that is changing, its the very nature of ownership that is changing.

While I support the writers (have I said that enough to be cool?), I think what they are doing is just bracing for a fall. They represent big media, with lots of money and production value put into their content. But if you saw Transformers, or any other Michael Bay/Jerry Bruckheimer/whomever movie you know that money plus a talent for making things look pretty, is not equal to good content.

YouTube and other such sites have told us that you can make something entertaining to watch (and something that can generate revenue) with hardly any money and it doesn't have to look pretty, sans unions and sans studios.

Creative Commons licensing has also shook up the idea of what can be done with media. Now under a CCL someone can share another's work and post it online with the same CCL and there wouldn't be any way of paying the creator for that. So in a CC environment a writer would get paid for the original incarnation of the work and any subsequent varieties produced by the source of the work and that would be all. But if that work is downloaded and spread virally, mashed up with other videos or simply shown to a large group of people (subject to the CCL terms of course) then the writer won't be making any money off it. There would be no one to regulate that, and that doesn't even matter. Content is generating revenue without regulation or restriction. The natural flow of ideas is supporting that very same stream of creativity. Seems like it would make sense right?

And you can tell that the WGA members a bursting at the seems with creativity and suffering under the lack of a medium to express it in currently by the small crop of independent videos they are making.

"Not the Daily Show"
From the writers of the Daily Show

Videologblog from the writers of the Colbert Report

I think there will always be a place for big media content, after all we all like to see well produced shows that have the money to attract talented writers/actors/directors/producers/the whole lot to create some of the best content out there. But if the studios won't pay the writers someone will! And the Internet is the haps baby that's not going to change save apocalyptic meltdown of society. And there's money to be made, as the above Daily Show video shows. In reality the studios need to be begging the writers to come back with open arms full of cash money. They are brining themselves closer to death with this old world attempt to control.

I often think of the quote from Jurassic Park by Malcolm where he says something about life finding a way and then he's right and the dinosaurs switch sexes and star breeding. Well creativity is like the dinosaurs, and studios and regulations are like the scientist trying to regulate. Life will find a way.

Darfur!

2007-11-16T00:38:00.000-06:00

How Can We Raise Awareness In Darfur Of How Much We're Doing For Them?

what a great way to raise awareness...and the ending is priceless

Working out the kinks on a Sunny Afternoon

2007-11-14T15:45:00.000-06:00

I'm trying a new thing here...up top you'll see a showplayer for DirtyCricket.tv which is basically just a collection of my work that you can watch from the page. The blog will stay and so will most things, but I'm moving towards something here. Speaking of Kinks...

Flying Cars!

2007-11-14T11:08:00.000-06:00

Mean Automakers Dash Nation's Hope For Flying Cars

I just knew they where trying to stop it!

Hrm...

2007-11-13T15:58:00.000-06:00

According the the Blog Readability Test, it takes a High School education to understand this blog.

wicked right?

Irving Renquist - Ghost Hunter

2007-11-07T11:38:00.000-06:00

The age of internet entertainment is obviously upon us. I've been looking and waiting for someone to take a hold of this new medium and actually use it for its full potential. Why should TV be the only place where episodic fictional shows are? Granted there have been few already, but they lack compelling stories, or quality production, all the things that make TV shows so good.

Well now there is Irving Renquist, Ghost Hunter. A show put together by what appears to be some people from a Chicago suburb (hometown proud!). They have had two episodes so far, and I've watched both with excitement and anticipation. What they are doing is making what I have seen as the first attempt at a genuine show with investable characters. And that I commend, if only for the effort.

However I don't feel that Renquist represents where iTainment can go. This show still suffers under the burden of being a low budget production. The acting and the writing seem to take second place to their graphic and music department. Not enough time is invested in the development of the stories and the actual production of the show. This is of course why TV shows look better because they can afford to pay the best people out there to make their shows look good. And that has always been the problem with low budget productions. Not only does your project suffer from an inability to acquire very talented people but it also suffers under the concept of having a writer/director/producer who has to split his/her time between too many task.

I'm not knocking Irving Renquist, I like what they are doing, but I do feel it needs a bit more work before it could be considered a serious contender in the world of iTainment. Clean up the sound and the picture so it can be watched comfortability on any computer and for god's sake trim some of that annoying baggage off the story. At points I half expect Irving and his new girlfriend Dotty to start fucking on camera with all the faux sexual tension they spew, that seem stolen from a porn script. To much sex and not enough ghost hunting!

I'll keep watching though, before long I might get hooked.

Almanac of the Ordinary, 11/6/2007

2007-11-06T14:39:00.000-06:00

hopefully this will be a regular feature on the site. Nathalie is an old friend and I like her style.

Lost-n-Found (What Dreams May Come): 3LE, while digging through so many unpacked boxes in this fresh air Rocky Mountain abode so far from Chicago now, came upon a rather large package of half-finished letters, never sent yet well-intended, knowing they would be properly finished and sent as soon as 3LE's life resembled less of an out-of-box arrangement and more like a neatly stacked, retro-finished, jig saw puzzle style of wall art filled with drawers of trinkets and knick knacks neatly organized.

Needless to say, 3LE is still wearing threadbare and tattered articles of clothing simply because, and for no other reason than that the many boxes labeled "sewing" are at the bottom of so many 6' tall stacks of unpacked miscellany. It would behoove 3LE to go to the store for the countless time in recent years and purchase a simple spool of black thread and a small package of needles (knowing begrudgingly all the while that 3LE has, in numerous boxes, similar little baggies of one or two spools of thread and appropriate needles from just such occasions in the past).

Upon opening the rather large package containing, to her surprise,unfinished, unsent letters, 3LE flipped through a small wire-bound book of entries meant for a dear friend in the year of 2005, the cover on which was scratched an animal vaguely resembling a Dave Larson comic and titled, for this reason, by 3LE, "The (moose) Sessions 2005".

Entry: Monday. February 28. 2005

"...it's snowing out...no, it's raining out...well...actually, it's snaining...it's snaining cats and dogs. Today I really, really miss trees and good earth. Today I don't want buildings or trains or garbage...I want muddy puddles down a soft gravel road...I want clean smell...I want quiet with a slight chance of noise...I want a small house with a small garden , one car, and a bigger lawn. I want a pot on the stove and someone to share the benefits with me. I want a room full of scratch drawings, some of them not mine. I want someone else's paintings on my walls, someone else's shoes by my door...my own room full of junk...milk in the fridge, coffee on the table, chocolate chips in the freezer. I want a hose winding through the grass...tree berries scattered on the wet sidewalk in the back. I want banana spiders in the evergreens during Summer...woodsmoke in the Fall. (I want to not be on a train while writing this). ...(I want the batteries in my discman not to have gone dead just now)...I want my job to be well done...actually...I want my job to be done at all...I want my right foot to fit in my shoe like my left one does...comfortably...(I want you here...for my sake)...I want my coffee to not be sticky on the outside... ... I want something funny...right now...(I want you to be here with me)...I want the next stop to be Roosevelt ("This is Washington")...I want someone to challenge me...I want this pen always (Uniball Vision Exact Fine)...I want a breath of fresh air...(I want you here with me)."

...

What have you lost? More importantly, what have you found?

...(Gally, I suspect the whole bundle will come your way soon...well, soon enough...eeeeeeeh)

(In the fabric of time: 1966: 1st entire lineup televised in color (NBC), 1962: Saudi Arabia proclaims abolishing slavery, 1962 (also): Nixon tells press he won't be available to kick around any more, 1943: Stalin says: "The issue of German fascism is lost", 1942: Nazis execute 12,000 Minsk ghetto Jews, 1941: Einsatz group kills 15,000 Jews of Rovno Ukraine, 1941 (also): Japanese fleet readies assault on Pearl Harbor, 1936: RCA displays TV for press, 1923: Col Jacob Schick patents 1st electric shaver, 1923(also): U.S.S.R. adopts experimental calendar, with 5-day "weeks", 1918: Republic of Poland proclaimed, 1917: New York state allows women to vote, 1850: 1st Hawaiian fire engine, 1676: King Carlos II of Spain becomes of age (at 15), 1572: Supernova is observed in constellation known as Cassiopeia, 355: Emperor Constantine II crowns cousin Julianus keizer of Britain)

Tomorrow: moon phase: waning gibbous

The webs are weaving...

2007-11-01T15:22:00.000-05:00

My internet's been down at home for a few days, and I've been freelancing at this photo studio, which means actual work and not any of this sitting on a computer all day and getting paid for it. This studio does catalog photography and that means I've been packing and unpacking lots and lots of furniture all day, and then repacking it the next day. Now I'm a skinny guy, so lifting and pushing and building aren't really in my job description. But I'm not complaining, its been good for me.

What is happening though, is my web skills have been slimming. As you can see I uploaded a music video Derek and I made for his band A Toothless Life, but when you click on it, it's too big. Awesome right? Well I'm going to try and fix that. I've got some ideas for things....it will work out.

In the meantime I'm making some money and working hard, always a good thing. And trying and trying and trying to get this new project off the ground.

Here, watch this.

A Toothless Life - Back Stage Boogie Band - Dir. Jeph Porter

2007-10-29T02:31:00.001-05:00

Click to Play

A Toothless Life

The Ways I'm Going Blind

Back Stage Boogie Band

Dir. Jeph Porter

Why does this excite me?

2007-10-28T20:14:00.000-05:00

Because it's the first step in the creation of a death ray! I knew those scientist couldn't be trusted! You heard it here first!

Web 2.0 - the movie

2007-10-26T11:00:00.000-05:00

The Machine is Us/ing Us

more here

Happy Halloween!

2007-10-25T09:45:00.000-05:00

What is everyone going to be? I haven't decided.

Here's a skull you can make for yourself.

Clean 'dem dishes...

2007-10-23T16:22:00.000-05:00

A while pack I did a post featuring my friend Lauren Adams and her photography. And while checking my Google Reader (which if you haven't used, it is amazing) I saw that she kindly linked to my other blog The Strange Case. So I figured I'd do her one back and write something up on her page.

DirtyDishes... is a look into the everyday life and mind of Lauren. See her sleep, drive, and work and find out what she likes to do from day to day. She's pretty good at keeping it updated so if your hankering for some voyeurism this should do the job. I honestly think I see her more online then I do in real life. But at least its something.

Anyway, check it out, subscribe to it and keep up to date. She needs to figure out how to allow comments though because some of these things are just begging for it.

Reptiles on the loose!

2007-10-23T16:16:00.001-05:00

Probably one of the funniest things ever. Amazing what people will believe if they want to.

I don't know about you, but I find it kind of hard to see anything. If you can see it or not, the title of this video is: "George Bush Senior: Confirmed Reptilian Humanoid" (my emphases). Man if all the evidence is as rock solid as this, we're in a shit ton of trouble.

btw I'm working on a new project that's going to tackle things like this, so I'm probably going to be posting some of the more choice items I find in my research.

New Homepage

2007-10-20T09:05:00.000-05:00

So if you pop over to dirtycricket.net you can see a new homepage I put up.

This is the start of "the portal" if you will. From there you can access this blog and what will be the press kits for various films of mine. I'm going to be adding more features as time goes on, so keep an eye out.

p.s. click the boat

2012 stuff

2007-10-19T17:31:00.000-05:00

I have a friend who interviewed Daniel Pinchbeck for a documentary he is working on. The impression he left me with was that all the book selling and stuff went to his head and now he's sort of a douche. But then again I would be too if a bunch of hippies liked my book.

Atlas Shrugged a book in review

2007-10-17T12:39:00.000-05:00

So I finally made it through the brick that is Atlas Shrugged. And after one thousand one hundred and sixty eight pages in my centennial edition I’m wondering how I feel about it all.

I read The Fountainhead at the end of this summer and I was so floored by the philosophy set down in that book that I wanted to continue it into Atlas Shrugged. And it does continue as Ayn Rand herself says on the first page of the book:

“To all readers who discovered The Fountainhead and asked me many questions about the wider application of its ideas, I want to say that I am answering these questions in the present novel and that The Fountainhead was only an overture to Atlas Shrugged.”

Beautiful, an overture, I love music. And I did discover The Fountainhead and I was asking “many questions about the wider application of its ideas”! How could I go wrong with Atlas Shrugged?

Well I think the problem is, I don’t like her “wider applications.” See to me The Fountainhead was and is much more philosophical in nature and Atlas Shrugged is much more political and economical, hence the application. Just like Marx was a philosopher and Lenin and Stalin where politicians, the same can be said of these two books; my apologies however for using a communist analogy when discussing the works of Ayn Rand.

Because if you are not familiar with Rand you should know that she hates Communism. I suspect this has a lot to do with her being born in Russia in 1905 during those revolutionary years that lead to the cold war Russia we all know and love. And seeing what that particular form of Communism did to Russia, her homeland, I’m sure no one can blame her for taking such a disliking to it. But I think that is a very important part of the narrative of her life that one must consider when interpreting the ideas she lays down in Atlas Shrugged.

The overall message being summed up in the oath the central characters take:

“I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

But women, they can do whatever the hell they want.

And that is the basics of her philosophy that she introduces in The Fountainhead and “applies” in Atlas Shrugged. She is a champion of the ego and a believer in selfishness. Not that one should take as much as one can for oneself, but rather that one should take pride in ones work and one should not compromise for anything but the fulfillment of ones desires.

After reading The Fountainhead my first question was: Wasn’t Hitler fulfilling his desires? Aren’t people that rob and steal attempting to fulfill a desire to rob and steal? Where is the line? Well Atlas Shrugged has the answers, apparently.

The application of her philosophy is nothing more then controlled Fascism. She paints a picture of strong almost god-like characters who are above and beyond the normal person, or “second-raters” or “looters” as she chooses to call them, and they adhere to a code of conduct that includes such rules as: No violence is to be used unless used against them first (Which is so horribly broken at the end of Atlas Shrugged when one of the characters kills an innocent man, his only crime being that he is a victim of society and thus in Rand’s point of view not worthy of his life). Two, no one should “give” anyone anything without proper value exchange (i.e. cold hard cash). And there are a few of other loose ideas they claim to follow, but of course can be broken whenever their superior intellect sees fit to change the rules. So basically you have Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and a bit of current U.S. politics tossed into a room and told they can’t kill anyone unless they have a really good reason. And of course Hitler says the Jews are breaking the economy and starts killing them, Mussolini says something similar and starts killing poor people and The White House just shoots the first brown person is sees and claims they had a bomb.

In short Rand is painting the exact opposite of Socialism, which we all know is Fascism, that’s why the German’s and the Russian’s didn’t get along during WWII. But once you’re knee deep in Atlas Shrugged it doesn’t appear that way, thus making it very effective propaganda. I’m no friend of stupid people or people that don’t want to work or think for themselves and just want to steal other people’s money, but at the same time she makes me feel like I should go knock on the door of Exxon Mobil and cuddle up with their CEO and tell him I still love him.

The thing that makes her arguments so strong in fact is the major flaw of her work. These god-like characters she presents do not exist, no matter how hard she tries to tell you that they do.

“I trust that no one will tell me that men such as I write about don’t exist. That this book has been written, and published, is my proof that they do”

What? A bunch of dedicated industrialist who are out there producing their little heads off with no concern whatsoever of anyone else but themselves published this book, even helped you write it? If these people do exist what the hell do they care if your book gets published or not? What the hell do they care if your message gets spread or not?

“My personal life,” says Ayn Rand, “is a postscript to my novels; it consists of the sentence: ‘And I mean it.’ I have always lived by the philosophy I present in my books – and it has worked for me, as it works for my characters. The concretes differ, the abstractions are the same.”

And this is the second paradox that I find in Ayn Rand’s work, of which she hasn’t provided an answer yet. If her philosophy states that we should only be concerned with our own selfish desires and do nothing to compromise that how then does she explain her desire to spread her message to the masses? I understand she got money in exchange for it, but in exchange for what an abstract idea? That’s hardly metal or rock like her characters exchange.

I find it interesting that she only have one abstract artist in all of her books that is portrayed in a good light. Most are seen as sniveling intellects who talk out of their asses as a way of getting out of doing real hard labor. The one respectable artist is a composer who claims that he only gives concerts for people who truly appreciate his music, as if that is the value he exchanges, well that and a lump of gold. But is he endowed with some super human power to be able to detect who is appreciating his music and who isn’t?

Answer: yes.

Or worse, are industrialist AKA rich people the only people worthy of hearing beautiful music?

Answer: yes.

Never mind the idea that art inspires people to action or inspires them to a level they never through possible before they experienced that piece of art. O wait, that’s the fucking reason she wrote the God Damn books! She wrote the books and the following non-fiction ones, and spent eighteen years traveling around promoting her philosophy for second raters, for the looters, for the very people her philosophy teaches us to hate in an effort to inspire them.

That’s very nice of her but it’s an important contradiction to point out.

When I first read The Fountainhead, I was inspired by the possibility of my own greatness. A flame was reignited in me that had begun to dwindle. I felt the power in believing in my own ability to feel power. And to me that is the single greatest lesson to be taught by Ayn Rand. The point of the rant above and the lesson I learned in Atlas Shrugged is that Ayn Rand is not a god-like person as much as she wishes. The point is, no one is. And you can’t expect people to be that perfect or you fall into the same trap religion falls into.

Man is not a god, and if he thinks he is that is arrogance and it will lead to destruction. I have said here before that I believe man has the potential to be great and I still believe that, but it is important to remember that we are still on that path and until we get there we shouldn’t act as if we are there.

Atlas Shrugged, presents the idea that man is god, well some of us anyway, and that everyone else should submit to these god-men. I disagree. There is value in helping your fellow humans. The value is the overall wellbeing of mankind. However Rand's philosophy provides a check on that by reminding us that there is a difference between helping and giving. Are we helping the genocide in Darfur by giving them aid that is just stolen by the mercenaries? Or would we be helping them if we sent in troops and stopped the slaughter? Right now I feel like we are ignoring them because we adhere to closely to Rand’s philosophy. Our interests are in Middle East oil, so that’s why we are there. Although I can’t help but wonder what Rand’s take would be on the Bush administration. Would it not be of benefit to look beyond the here and now and help our fellow humans?

Just like any philosophy it should be considered with the plethora of other philosophies that one can read and digest into their own personal philosophy. And in a way, Rand’s philosophy supports this, almost a philosophy of philosophy in the idea that one should form ones own world view of selfish interest to ones own desires. What if you selfishly want to help your friends? What if it is your desire to give your money to the poor and needy? Rand would probably claim you are lying to yourself, but how would she really know?

Overall I think there are very valuable lessons to be learned from Rand and her books. I for one have learned many lessons that have and are going to profoundly affect the way I live my life. But just like anything else it should be considered critically and you shouldn’t live by it just for Ayn Rand’s sake, I don’t think she’d like that anyway.

Amazing

2007-10-11T09:56:00.000-05:00

O the possibilities....

Sand Beast!

Video Sto

2007-10-09T17:55:00.001-05:00

I just posted a bunch more videos. You can access them all now by clicking at the links up above right under the header image. I hope that makes everything a lot better. let me know what you think.

A Most Ambitious Experiment

2007-10-09T17:40:00.000-05:00

A Most Ambitious Experiment
2004

Written and Directed by Jeph Porter
Based on the short story of the same name by Mike Krath

Wife - Nora Lahey
Husband - Mike Fagin
Police Officer - Colin Durbin (voiced by Jamison Acker)
Banker - Jim Speers
Banker's Assistant - Chris Blough

Shot by Ryan Speers
Production Design - Andy Patch
Grip/PA - Adam Kolegas
Sound - Jamison Acker

One of the first things I did at Columbia.

Singularity

2007-10-09T17:35:00.000-05:00

Singularity
2003

Written and Directed by Jeronimo and Jeph

Jeph Porter - George
Ali Barnes - Girl

Filmed in the Fox Hole attic in Decatur, among various other places.

If you're interested you can buy the novelist version of this movie over at Andrew's page. Its quite a different take on the concept, but worth the read.

ElevenNineFortySeven

2007-10-09T17:32:00.000-05:00

ElevenNineFortySeven
2002

Written and Directed by Jeronimo and Jeph

Jeph Porter - Stranger 1
Andrew Johner - Stranger 2

It get's a whole lot stranger then that

Meet George

2007-10-09T17:28:00.000-05:00

Meet George
2003

Written and Directed by Jeronimo and Jeph

Jeph Porter - George
Andrew Johner - Friend/Alien
Mary Bhnkey - Mother
Brandon Williams - Father
Rachelle Diggs - Alien

An early piece I did with Andrew while he was drugged up after surgery.

Video

2007-10-09T17:18:00.000-05:00

2002
ElevenNineFortySeven

2003
Singularity
Meet George
Stanley's Day

2004
A Most Ambitious Experiment

2005
The Oldest Bottle

2006
The Kitchen Trilogy - Part I - TOld U So!
The Kitchen Trilogy - Part II - The Cat's in the Box
The Kitchen Trilogy - Part III - Take a Bullet

Doing some updates...

2007-10-09T11:31:00.000-05:00

I'm trying to make this blog a little more comprehensive so you'll have to deal with some seemingly out of context post. They are just things that will go in the top bar eventually and they need to be on here so they can be linked to.

Also, I'm finishing up a music video for my brother's band A Toothless Life. Look for that in a few days.

And still working on a million other things. They Young Philosopher, Limbo, Avatar and a press pack for The Oldest Bottle.

Hopefully I'll have some more stuff up here soon.

Late Night Links

2007-10-07T21:22:00.000-05:00

New York Times: A Nation of Christian's is not a Christian Nation

David Sedaris on French health care.

Atheist on the Rise!

China's Great firewall turns it attention to RSS

Scientist may have found the appendix's purpose

A short and boring story…A brief history of Dirty Cricket

2007-10-06T17:09:00.000-05:00

The Past

Often times people ask me where I got the name Dirty Cricket. And I respond, “it’s a short and boring story”. At least that’s how it started.

Way back in the mid-nineties my long time friend Andrew Johner and I had been making short stop motion animation movies; one day we were making a particularly epic film that required credits! This involved recording a Power Point display with the camcorder propped up on a pile of books. In all those early years (5?) we never once managed to get a tripod or a working battery for Andrew’s parents High8 camera, thus tethering us to the longest extension cords we could find and within range of a table or chair to set the camera on. Anyhow in typing the credits I went to write down the name of our production company and I turned to Andrew and said, “We need a production company name” and Andrew touched by a muse, or perhaps recalling some collection of word he had heard said, “How about Dirty Cricket?” I nodded my head and said, “Okay.” And that is the origin of Dirty Cricket.

The name anyway

As time went on I moved away from Decatur, IL and went to Columbia College Chicago to study filmmaking. Every effort that I did there was a Dirty Cricket film in whatever incarnation it turned out to be. Many of those are here on this site and there are still more that will be put on here.

The biggest advancement in Dirty Cricket however came in 2004 when my freshmen year roommate Jamison Acker and I decided we wanted to make a feature film. I wrote the script with a few close friends and we amassed a group of people that where willing to help us make it happen. Under the newly established Dirty Cricket Films LLC we planned a fundraiser, “Cricket Fest” and mailed out over 500 letters and request for donations. The party happened and we raised over $5000 in profit. It was a startling success.

However, after the momentum of the party things began to dwindle. People who had more pressing things dropped out of the effort and as script problems delayed everyone the idea of a small group of sophomore college students producing a massive post-apocalyptic feature length film became truly daunting until finally I was the last one left. And eventually I too saw the folly of such a rush and gave it up.

The lessons learned however, made the whole thing worth it. And in a certain way that was my goal in stimulating this event. I knew that if anything where to be done it had to be forced and I, as I often do, chose the hardest path. My father didn’t tell me many things when I was growing up but the one thing he did say was “Aim high” illustrating the idea that if you aim high and if you miss your mark you will still fall higher then if you had aimed low. So with this in mind I advanced the unimaginable idea of producing what would otherwise be a multimillion-dollar film. I convinced myself it could be done and I’m pretty sure I convinced several other people it could be done as well. And there was a lot of let down when we fell.

The following spring however we produced The Oldest Bottle with the funds raised from Cricket Fest and that was also a success both in production and post-production (all though it took well over a year to finish). And it wasn’t until recently that Jamison and I decided not to renew our LCC and Dirty Cricket as an official corporation vanished.

The Present

What Dirty Cricket eventually became was what Andrew, Jamison and I where already doing. We were creating and experimenting with art. And that is still what drives Dirty Cricket to this day. Andrew, or Jeronimo as he later went by, and I did produce a few more projects up until very recently, the last of which being Stanley’s Day and if the opportunity arises to work together again I would gladly take it. Jamison and I are still partners and we have big plans for the future of Dirty Cricket.

The Future

This website is the first step in what I see as the future of Dirty Cricket. With the ever-increasing power of Internet media I foresee a day when the web is the primary source of film and entertainment. I want to put the tools that are emerging and already is good use in the hands of Dirty Cricket.

Would Ayn Rand Tip?

2007-10-06T14:44:00.000-05:00

I've been reading Atlas Shrugged right on the heels of finishing The Fountainhead, which is an amazing book that really reaffirmed a lot of things I think I always thought about life but didn't know it. (if that makes sense) And being so shaken by it I quickly picked up Atlas Shrugged, well slowly; its a pretty hefty book rounding out at about 1400 pages. However I'm not as impressed with it as I was with the Fountainhead. Atlas is much more about politics then it is about philosophy. Of course politics is a form of philosophy, but it isn't the same and I think it cheapens whatever was so powerful about The Fountainhead. But that's a tangent I don't want to go on, mostly because I've still got about 300 pages left to read and I don't want to condemn the book just yet. But I do have some thoughts after burning a thousand pages so far.

Would Ayn Rand tip? I thought about this the other day as I wrote down a small tip on my credit card receipt and thought briefly about what it meant. Rand stresses the notion that it is important to never give anything. Everything must be exchanged for compensation. And yes, a tip is in gratitude for service, but isn't the waitress getting a pay check? I'm not paying her directly for her service, that's what the business does. And some say that it is expected for you to tip because the waitress doesn't make enough money to live on her check alone. But why is that my responsibility. I'm already paying the owner money for the food and service why do I need to give this waitress anymore?

Now before I look like a dick I want to say, I do tip. I think its important because waiters and waitresses do get paid shit for the most part and rely on their tips for a lot of things. Which is sad, because its almost got to the point some places where waitresses literally don't make minimum wage and instead get a tip share that makes up the rest; putting the burden of half of their check on us. But even in a perfect world its right to tip and that is exactly my point which leads me to my main issue with Ayn Rand's philosophy on this level.

Last night I spent an amazing evening with some friends, two I have known for years and two that I had just met that evening. We went to the new people's house and I experienced some of the best hospitality I have ever experienced. They made us food, showed us their art, listened to things that mattered to us (and where actually interested) and played a game of cards with us. I left with such an amazing feeling, that I haven't felt in a long time. And it struck me that whatever is at the heart of that feeling is what Rand is missing. We could live in a society where everything is exchanged for value and perhaps things would proceed more smoothly, however I think there is value in giving. There is selfishness in selflessness. And one step further, there is no such thing as selflessness.

Rand seems to advocate a cold world where the only human interaction is the exchange of money (and lots and lots of sex, which no one seems to pay for ironically). Sure she talks about other forms of value, often in cryptic passages that probably lead to her books being mammoth. But she makes no bones about the fact that their must be an exchange and paints those who don't engage in that as "looters" or "second raters". Well I will argue that she is wrong based on the fact that we can't help being selfish. If someone is looting from you or not fulfilling their potential its because thats what they want to do, maybe not consciously and maybe at the manipulation of someone else but there is a choice that has to be made there and they are doing the choosing.

So, we've selfishly decided that its right to tip, and that its right to give food to your company because we are exchanging something of value, good company. And perhaps that's what Rand's trying to say but I feel like it gets clouded by the hard economic stance she takes in Atlas.

Again, I haven't read Atlas Shrugged all the way through yet, so there is a good chance she'll still surprise me, I'll let you know.

Q: How Do You Get Liberal States To Turn Republican?

2007-10-03T17:49:00.000-05:00

A: George W Bush.

This article is very intriguing, and I will be researching more when I get the chance.

The Potential Man (cross post)

2007-10-02T21:40:00.000-05:00

This was origionlly posted at The Strange Case my other Blog that focuses on the nature of belief.

A couple of weeks ago Nathan and I had lunch at Small Bar on Division. It was a warm Sunday afternoon and we met for a fellowship. The purpose was not to discuss religion or God, but being that this was the first time we had seen each other since the start of this blog it was an inevitable topic.

I don’t remember the specifics of a lot of our conversation because most of it was a slow dance down to the point of contention in our belief systems. I believe it sprang from a discussion about Nathan’s post on science and my response. Which was more or less defining the aims of science verses the aims of religion. And it is my flaw to unfairly associate belief in a higher power (God) with religion. I don’t know if I see it as a flaw though, because in my point of view the two are inseparable, a veritable chicken and the egg. But other’s will tell you, Nathan perhaps, that they can be taken apart. And that point of contention eventually lead us down an interesting path, at least from my point of view.

As you do when talking abstract philosophy you tend to walk on stilts that look ridiculous to anyone not in the conversation so I hope that by diving into this you can follow.

We where talking about what the idea of God does for humankind. And I’m going to obviously rely on my impressions and ideas mostly because I honestly can’t remember much of Nathan’s. Sorry buddy but I’m more important to me then you are. Anyway, he can fill in the gaps in the comments. Okay, enough wasted time here I go.

In my opinion the purpose of God (one of perhaps, I have a lot longer to live so this list might grow) is to provide an example of good for humans to live up to. An almighty Father, both vengeful and just who practices unconditional love but simultaneously holds a hard line for the rules is the general picture of God I was taught to believe in. Of course this is the “character of God”, as Nathan calls it and not the God of the Bible, which in that case this description is sugar coated, and can be contradicted by actually reading the Bible, but then again that’s by opinion. So the character of God is the perfect example we should all strive for.

And I agree, depending on your definition of the character of God. I was telling Nathan, as I’ve told other people, and alluded to in previous comments, that I can have a conversation with a believer such as Nathan and understand their concepts as long as I view the word god as the power within me that allows me to experience the character of god. (Note the lower case) And that is a lot of reasons why this blog exist. I recognize similar feelings and experience without God that many ascribe to God. Thus leading me to think there is something else at work there.

And that’s where my head was as I sat over a pizza that that stupid ignorant Christian Nathan so kindly bought and shared with me in a time when I was broke and hungry. And it made me think, what is it that I am living for? I’ve long given up on the idea of a meaning to life, but should I rethink that?

The meaning of life is a term that expects and answer from an outside point of view I think. It almost demands a deity to hand us a card as in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, and read the answer like a talk show host would. I would argue it is the desire to transfer responsibility that springs this way of thinking. But science and reason has told us that every experience is derived from the mind, so why not the meaning of life? So it dawned on me that the meaning of life is for us to choose. That’s why there can be no one answer, and why the giant computer in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy chose 42. Isn’t it just like a machine to chose a number? And on that note, the question is probably up to us as well, but I’ll let the philosophical implications of that go for now.

But moving even beyond that we talked further about God as the ultimate good example. And the crux of our difference in opinion was exposed. See Nathan accepts that a Father God created us and watches us with love and awe. And we as his children are to be like him and to serve him. In a nutshell anyway, sorry if the mushy language mucks it up. And I believe that that ultimate good example is our own potential as individuals and as a species. I argued that by having the examples of history we can project our potential into the future and thus live our present lives to bring about the best possible version of that. Nathan however argues that it is necessary to have a separate God and thus a solid definition of good, and as a result evil. But I would go further and say that our definition of good has never been solid. In fact if you take the Ten Commandments I’m sure you can find examples in cultures around the world where each one is consider the antonym of the stated law in the Bible. (Wouldn’t that be a fun challenge?)

And even if it can be shown to be universally accepted as wrong to covet your neighbors donkey it still doesn’t diminish the fact that morality is created by community. How many times have we seen small groups commit strange acts that seem perfectly normal to them?

Now in theory the idea of an unfixed good is a good idea (is it? Ha!). But this goes back to the basics, no evidence for a God has been shown. I, and others like me, cannot rely on lack of evidence. But can a Christian really even claim an unfixed God? Hasn’t the morality of God changed over time? Even by rejecting the dogma of religion and forming your own individual view of God aren’t you shifting the morality of God? The same God that the majority would claim to this day was sending all homosexuals to hell? It is very clear that the morality of God is changing with our times. That’s why women can wear pants!

So overall, my point is the potential of humankind being our beacon in the distance. And at various times in history the ship we have sailed towards the beacon is the ship of God and religion. But as we get closer to the point in the distance we need to realize that that ship is ours and the point of light is not the kingdom of God, but our own kingdom here on Earth.

Did you follow that analogy? Well I want to say it again anyway. I think it can be shown that everyone strives for the potential of humankind even if they claim that they are striving to be like God. The harm comes in when people sacrifice what’s best for a fictional God over what’s best for humankind. It leads to stagnation and back peddling. The power of the mind to create, explore, love and express ideas is not the product of God but the product of our minds.

Okay, I’m going to stop being preachy, but I can’t help getting excited about my own personal potential and how it contributes to our race. And conversely getting frustrated by snags along the way.

So let me know what you think. Do you agree? Am I way off base? Am I standing on stilts still? Is this just a form of humanist dogma? I don’t know, let me know.

Hrm?

2007-09-30T00:40:00.000-05:00

I haven't had much chance to check into this whole thing so far, but why is it that America (or anyone else, seemingly) isn't intervening in Myanmar? Is it just a followup to the complete void that is Darfur aid, that Bush will gleefully attack who he always wanted to attack before he was even president, but when a situation arises in which it probably WOULD be prudent to do at least SOMETHING, he washes his hands before they even get dirty?

This is partly sarcastic, but partly honestly me wanting some information. I don't even know where to begin to research this.

Stanley's Day

2007-09-29T12:55:00.000-05:00

Not to overload you with videos, but here's another movie I did some time ago called Stanely's Day.

Stanley is an average guy. He has an average apartment and an average girlfriend. But just like all of us have sometimes Stanley's having a bad day. How can it get any worse? How about a dead hooker in your bathtub.

Director's Note:

This is a film I did years ago, the story is a bit tired I think, but overall I'm happy with this film. I want to thank everyone who helped me with this all those years ago when I didn't really know what I was doing, but then again if it weren't for films like this I wouldn't be where I am today. Sorry it took so long, but I hope you can all still enjoy it!

Dirty Cricket Presents

Stanley's Day

A Jeph Porter film

Shot by Andrew Johner

Staring
Dane Lewandowski - Stanley
Leah Arnold - Alexis
Molly O'Conner - Hooker
Aaron Baker - The Landlord
Jeph Porter - driver

Original Music - Bob Besser and Matt Aufrecht

Thanks to
Matt Webb and Rachelle Diggs

The Oldest Bottle

2007-09-28T08:23:00.000-05:00

see it much bigger over at Stage6

Dirty Cricket Presents

A Jeph Porter Film

Staring
Andy Gwyn - Frank
Elliott Fredland - Sam
Jim Volkober - Booby
Frank Platis - Dean
Steven Montague - Brent

Producer by Jamison Acker
Director of Photography Andy Patch
Edited by Alison Swank
Original Music - Derek Porter

O Jesus

2007-09-28T07:14:00.000-05:00

How could this be any more funny?This is how:

This year, "Perverts Without Morals" chose to deliberately mock Jesus Christ, Christians and The Last Supper, by depicting half naked homosexuals, leather men and women as the 12 Apostles, and display sex toys in place of the bread and wine.
A bloody fist can be seen in front of the central figure portraying Jesus Christ, possibly representing the vile sex act of "fisting" - where one's fist is fully inserted into another individual's anal cavity. (emphasis added)

Christ, I love how they have to describe it in detail. I'm sure the author probably knows about these things because he has to do a particular amount of "research" working for the Christian Wire. Just like Pete Townsend was "researching" child porn for a book.

O wait, this may be just as funny.

The first of my older essays.

2007-09-28T02:09:00.001-05:00

I will be posting some old essays here. Many of them I wrote back when I was doing old MLA style so there are two spaces after the periods and shit like that. That's what happens when you learn to type on an IBM. Thanks a shit ton public school. I wrote this one back in late 2000. If you've already read this then do it again. I was copletetely serious about this stuff and all things contained in this essay were well researched and based on fact. I have since lost the references page, but none of this is bullshit... I promise.

Why Things Cannot Be Solved

I figure I got a solution on how to get rid of all the homeless people in America. By my estimation, half of the homeless people in the US are drunken low lives who do not really have the right to live. The other half of this countries homeless population is just people down on their luck. People that got laid off from their job because the CEO of their company decided he wanted a new flashy sports or luxury car and decided laying off a couple hundred workers all across the US would be a quick way to raise the money. So, what do we do about this problem? We set one day aside to give every homeless person in this country of the drunken variety a bottle of heavy booze. Vodka, Everclear, Scotch, it really doesn’t matter what kind. We monitor them and make them drink the entire bottle in one sitting. Hopefully they are woozy, passed out, or maybe even if they and we are lucky, dead. Why would they being dead be luck you may ask? It is because phase two of this plan is to cook them and to force-feed them to the other half of the homeless population. Now we would have half the homeless population we did and they would be all without hunger for two to three days straight. Some skeptics out there might be questioning if this plan would really work. One major hole in my plan people might say is that you could only do it once. Not true is what I say. Ask yourselves this question. If you were forced to eat another human being don’t you think you might develop a drinking problem? I know I might. Therefore, this sets up a cycle. The next year we take all the homeless who have developed a drinking problem from having to eat another human being last year and do the same thing we did to the original drunks the previous year. Follow me on that one?

This plan would work out perfectly except for one problem, the guy who owns the Salvation Army. Many people do not know that there is a sole owner of the Salvation Army. The answer is that if there were homeless people around were no longer around the Salvation Army could not still exist. People just wouldn’t believe there was a purpose for it. The purpose of the Salvation Army is to help the homeless, right? Wrong! The vast majority of the American population thinks that it is a non-profit organization. This is not true!

Do you know the money you drop into buckets around Christmas time? The same ones held by Santas ringing bells that are outside of grocery stores. All the money that is put in to that bucket goes straight to the owner of the Salvation Army. He gets 99% of every penny, nickel, dime, etc. that goes into those buckets. The other 1% goes to the “homeless”. Who are these so-called homeless people who get this 1%? They are workers of the Salvation Army who is fired because they weren’t Santa enough for the owner’s taste. They receive a check from the Salvation Army, which is part of the 1% a year before being fired from the company. People on the inside of this company call the owner of the company the President. Common name for an owner I guess. It has a double meaning though. He is the commander in chief of an army, the Salvation Army. His right hand man is called The General. I think he is like the head of a notorious Polish crime family. Anyway, this guys job is to execute anyone who may do anything that might mean the destruction of the company, i. e. me if I ever put my perfect plan into getting rid of the homeless into effect.

It kind of makes you sick just to think about it doesn’t it? I would really like to stick it to a company like that. Maybe rent a Santa Claus suit, get myself a bell, and stand outside a grocery store around December 25. I would make myself a small profit. I doubt the owner of the company would care enough to send The General after me though. The cops would come after me probably though. Not because I am impersonating a legit charitable organization, but because they’re in on it too. They know what’s going on. They need to protect the Salvation Army because it is a large corporation. That’s what America is all about anymore, is big business.

Do you honestly think they will not let women and other minorities into certain parts of, or even into to begin with, the military because of safety concerns? That just isn’t the case. The reason is your biggest money-spending consumer that buys products from mainstream corporations is a white, upper-middle class male. If you let women or such minorities do certain things when it concerns the military a white, upper-middle class male will start feeling insecure about himself. This will lead him to either one of two paths. One scenario is that he will get depressed because of his insecurity and not perform as well at his job. This results in him getting fired. Because of this, he will not have as much money to spend, and that is not a good thing for the corporations. The other scenario is the that he gets angry, gives this country the middle finger, and leaves it for, let’s say, Japan. Now over in Japan it only takes five American cents to make a pair of Nike’s and it probably only costs one American dollar to buy those shoes over there. Nike is out of $99 because the government says its okay for a woman to participate in combat when a war happens even though it is peacetime now. (Well, it was peacetime when I wrote this so don’t go getting all offended if there is a war happening when you read this.) That is why things such as world peace or an end to hunger cannot be achieved. It’s just not good for business.

Heavyweight Champion of the Dorks!

2007-09-26T01:32:00.000-05:00

Okay, so while I enjoy such things as role playing games, comic books, and other such things I have no where near the proficiency or knowledge of those things to be called an Über geek. So, besides my chronic virginity and still living at the house I grew up with what makes me think I am a bigger dork than most people in the country. I participate in a hobby know as e-wrestling or fantasy wrestling.

It is not like fantasy football where you pick real people that you expect to win. Oh no, you create your own wrestler or character. My character is a superhero type based off a They Might Be Giants song named Particle Man. He is very small. His large sidekick/manager is Universe Man. He is a huge, hairy fellow who dresses in a bondage mask and leather speedo. After you create your character and get accepted to a “federation” or “company” you compete in matches. The way you win matches is by writing role plays or promotional interviews saying how you are better than your opponent and expounding on your characters background or current story or angle he is involved in. To the average professional wrestling fan that I have talked to this hobby sounds asinine and pointless. Of course, the average wrestling fan seems to think reading or writing in your spare time is both asinine and pointless. To the non-fan I can only imagine how ridiculous they think this hobby is. I mean think about it for a second. You are pretending to be someone that is pretending to fight. There are several rules to writing these role plays. One is not to use your opponent in the role play without their permission. Then “owner” of the “company” that you “wrestle” in decides who wins the matches based on your interviews. After he chooses who wins then he writes a wrestling match and posts it on his website.

Prizes for winning matches, besides bragging rights, are title belts. Not real titles mind you, but just the agreement with your peers that you are a champion in the “company” that you belong to. I have won multiple tag belts, a few secondary singles titles, and held the main title for one “company” I was with. Not one of them has meant a shit to me. There are people who are bigger dorks than me. People who think this shit actually matters. People like the player, a person I had just become aware of mind you, who told me he was an “e-wrestling” legend. I have heard of cases where fucking marriages end over e-wrestling. Honest to Christ, if you participate in e-wrestling and are lucky enough to have someone who will have sex with you just quit. To a lesser extent there is a lot of lying, backstabbing, and other underhanded behavior going on this hobby on many players quest to be the best. I find this quest to be ridiculous at best. There is a difference between the best Monopoly player in the world and the best fantasy wrestling in the world. Normal people will actually give a shit if you’re good at Monopoly.

I was quite proud of myself when I pretty much stopped participating in this hobby before the age of nineteen and before age twenty I thought I had quit permanently. Then cut to earlier this year. I finally caved in and accepted that I was living with my mother. You have to understand she’s not home but two days of the week and I only pay for utilities, so it’s a pretty sweet deal. I mean, I’m not going to get an apartment unless it’s in a different city than the one I am currently living in. That’s how I keep on justifying it anyway. Add the adjective spineless to modify the word dork, because that’s indeed what I am.

Before I even started paying for the internet, because I was leaching off of someone else’s connection, my online friends from my past started slowly coaxing me back into the fake, fake sport of fantasy wrestling. I have committed to continue this hobby to the end of December. I sort of enjoy doing this as it forces me to write, but no matter how victories I rack up between now and Christmas I will still feel like a loser.

Now, here is a supplemental extra to the essay above. I have many wrestling promotional interview (promo) including one with a Satanic Easter bunny with a giant Chocolate Jesus. My last promo I was preparing to face off against a tag team called the Sex Symbols. Don’t be surprised when you are confused. Just try to enjoy the non-wrestling related dick jokes. Here is the last wrestling promo I wrote:

(The scene star wipes in. Particle Man is sitting his chair and Universe Man is sitting on his couch. Both are watching apparently watching Tex Avery cartoons as evidenced by the slapsticky sounds coming from the TV. The get a knock on the door and Particle Man leaps up. It is the familiar BACW cameraman, but this time he is accompanied by a young male production assistant. The PA holds a DVD in his hand. Particle Man looks at his disheartened face and sees several mushroom shaped welts and bruises covering the young man’s visage.)

Particle Man: Moses on the mountain! You don’t look so good there young man. What happened to you?

PA: Well, I was walking home from O’Mickey’s Irish Pub the other night. I had only drank a couple of beers—

Particle Man: Meaning two or meaning ten?

PA: I only had two pints I swear. Anyway, I was walking back to my loft and they surrounded me. A few days later they sent me this DVD in the mail. I showed it to the offices of BACW and a few of the wrestlers, but they just laughed and called me names. You’re my last resort Particle Man. I didn’t want to bother you, but I think I need a hero to protect me.

Particle Man: You say they attacked you. Who are they? Was is it the Sex Symbols?

PA: I don’t think it was the Sex Symbols. It was a group of five guys. They were all average sized guys wearing brown and flesh covered robes with cowls that covered there face. They assaulted me with the most absurd weapons, but there were enough of them to do quite a job on me. Look on the marks they left on my face. To tell you the truth I thought I had dreamed the whole thing even with the bruises on my face, but then they sent the video.

Particle Man: What was this absurd weapon or weapons they attacked you with citizen?

PA: Well, they circled me and beat the crap out of me with dildos.

Particle Man: What?!

(Universe Man starts to involuntarily giggle.)

Particle Man: Unholy plastic, prosthetic, phalluses you have got to be kidding me. I mean, I have encountered some weird cases in my day, but this one takes the cake.

Universe Man: Where cake? There going to be cake served today?

Particle Man: If this young man is telling the truth the only thing that is going to be served today is a big bowl of justice Universe Man. So what all this about this video Production Assistant?

PA: My name is Phi--

Particle Man: No need to reveal your secret identity.

PA: Well, it’s very cryptic. Why don’t we just watch it?

(Particle Man takes the DVD from the young PA and they watch it. A figure obfuscated by the shadows speaks in a disguised voice.)

Shadowy figure: I had my minions attack an employee of your company Mr. Batee. There will be more attacks. They will be increasingly more severe based on the position and amount of power the victim holds in your company. I am going to take over your company from the bottom up and rule the wrestling world. I will use the program to subtly indoctrinate the masses so the whole country will worship me for the god that I am. If anyone one of the athletes in BACW thinks they can stop me then they can suffer the same fate as the lowly production assistant by going to the same spot that we pummeled him at midnight any day of the week. Until then, my loyal followers will just have to convert or dispose of any other non-believer that wanders by.

(The video goes to black.)

PA: So do you guys think you can help me?

Universe Man: Yea yea yeah! It’s on like a pot of neck bone.

Particle Man: Sho ya right Universe Man and dat’s the tru-fus, Rufus!

PA: What?

Particle Man: We will put this genital genocide of BACW to a stop citizen PA.

PA: Killer!…

…

(Later that night in spot that the PA directed our heroes too the masked avengers wait bathed in the light of street lamps eagerly awaiting battle. A camera man hides in a nearby alley to catch any potential action… suddenly the two BACW stars are surrounded by eight minions mentioned by the PA. As the PA had told them they are armed with dildos.)

Minions in unison: Bow down and worship our master or we shall leave you dead in the streets! Either way you will be coming back to his temple.

(Universe Man drops to one knee and begins to tremble.)

Minion: A wise decision Universe Man.

Particle Man: He’s not worshipping your master. He’s laughing at your demands you dolt!

(Universe Man drops to the ground and starts laughing hysterically. The minions take advantage of him being down and start pelting him with the plastic pricks. Universe Man stops laughing. The camera man cuts to a near by dumpster when you predicts what is going to happen. Two by two all eight men go flying through the air and into the dumpster. Another figure emerges from the shadows. It is a Chinese man with giant double donga. He twirls it around like he is quite proficient in using it during combat.)

Chinese Man: You have disgraced my ancient fertility religion and now you must die. Hiyaaaa!

(Particle Man and the man with the double donga spring into action. The Chinese Man swings at the gut of Particle Man and our hero hits asphalt. Universe Man goes to console his boss.)

Particle Man: It is okay Universe Man. Connie Dong is going down. All the way down to China town, baby.

(Particle Man kips up. He charges the minion and slides in between the Chinese man’s legs. He grabs both ends of the double donga and ties it around the phallus worshipper’s neck. Still holding onto the penile bow staff tied around the minion’s neck Particle Man delivers a devastating double knee back breaker. Particle Man somersaults backwards to his feet and Universe Man holds the minion down.)

Particle Man: Now are you going to tell us where your master is or am I going to have to let my friend here turn your face into Chop Suey?

…

…

(The BACW cameraman sneaks into the location given by the minion wearing one of the robes he stole from the men in the dumpster. He has a small handheld camera he uses to capture the action. The temple is lush and decorated in a vaguely Eastern style. There are three steps leading up to a throne. The throne is turned around on a swivel so the man sitting in it can not be seen. On both sides of the throne two monolithic stone phalluses are erected. Two dozen robed minions bow to the throne in a pit below the stairs… Then a large crash as the dynamic duo of BACW bursts through the door. A voice calls out from the throne in an unknown language.)

Particle Man: Now Universe Man! Now!

(The camera man quickly tosses off his robe. Universe Man pulls three pellets out of his trunks and throws them to the ground. The pellets explode and smoke fills the room. The sounds of combat can be heard through the fog after the two heroes rush in. Minutes later the smoke clears and Universe Man throws the final body on the pile that Particle Man stands atop of. Particle Man poses and calls out the man on the throne.)

Particle Man: Give up now or go down like all of your minions.

(The throne turns around. A man in what can only be described as a giant dick costume stands up.)

Villain: You had no problems with my followers, but I do not fall so easily. You were supposed to do battle with a team known as The Sex Symbols, but you won’t make it that far for tonight you face the only Sex Symbol that matters. You face the man god! You face… The Dickhead!

Universe Man: Oh, so that why his head look like Darth Vader helmet in shadows.

(The Dickhead waddles up to Universe Man and sissy slaps him on the arm. Universe Man pushes The Dickhead to the ground. The Dickhead rolls around on the ground like a turtle. Universe Man also falls to the ground because he is laughing so hard.)

The Dickhead: When I get out of this suit you’re next Particle Man.

Particle Man: A rather unconventional way of disposing of my sidekick, but it worked. Your mere absurdity took my friend out of commission.

(The Dickhead rolls out of the giant dick costume. He is still wearing a dick helmet, but on his body he a flesh colored spandex body suit. He runs to one of the statues behind his throne and tosses Particle Man a sword. The Dickhead then goes the statue on his right and gets out what appears to be a two foot long vibrator. The Dickhead presses a button on the vibrator and metal spikes pop out. He then turns a knob at the bottom of it and it the weapon begins to vibrate making a whirring sound not unlike a light saber.)

The Dickhead: On guard!

Particle Man: Touche’, douche!

(The villain runs straight towards our hero. Particle tosses his sword aside. The Dickhead swings his giant spiked sex toy at Particle Man, but the masked man just steps aside and executes a drop toe hold. The Dickhead falls atop his own vile creation and begins to shake violently as the spikes penetrate his chest. Particle Man comes to the rescue of The Dickhead before he is fatally wounded. Particle Man helps the villain to his feet. Universe Man gets up as well and pulls some handcuffs out of his trunks. With the villain cuffed the heroes head out the door. The cameraman walks with them.)

Particle Man: We’ll just leave this villain in a phone booth for the authorities to pick up. He was a formidable opponent, if not in combat but in his ability to attract followers to do his bidding. We have defeated this walking sex symbol fairly easily. I have a feeling disposing of JD Hart--

Universe Man: More like JD Fart…

Particle Man: Alright… you’ve had your fill of sophomoric humor today, chum. That’s quite enough.

Universe Man: Sorry.

Particle Man: Apology accepted… as I was saying JD and Sean Peters are certainly better at combat than this villain and his cult, but I think they should be able to dispose of just as easily. It might take a little more time, but the challenge level will be the same.

Universe Man: Of course it take more time. Me think beating up two giant dick would take twice the time as defeating one.

Particle Man: I like the logic you’re using. Well said Universe Man. Well said!

(Star wipe to black.)

Random Thoughts I've had over the years.

2007-09-26T01:22:00.000-05:00

I'm thinking most religions teach that murder has to be more pleasurable than sex. If you pleasure yourself some say you might go to hell for it someday. If you commit suicide you go lots of people say you go straight to hell.

I'm a professional wrestling fan so in the early hours of the morning before leaving work when I'm just there to sit alone and ponder I think of other things that may be pretend or "a work" just to take money away from people. I wonder when the Pope is going to break kayfabe.

Oh what a tangled web we weave! By we I mean the spider and I. Well, I guess I didn't do any of the weaving, but I supervised so I'm just as responsible. Like I said though, it's a tangled web, so it won't do. We've tried to untangle it, but it just ain't gonna happen folks. So I'm going to cut it with scissors. The spider won't have a home then, and knowing him he won't want to weave a new web. Perhaps he can just get a studio apartment. Those are pretty cheap.

Is there such a thing as something that is obviously ambiguous? If so I would think that everything that was ambiguous would be an obvious manner my next question would be if there was anything that would be ambiguously ambiguous?

There's this song by a group called Divinyls. Are maybe Dinvinyls is a person. I don't know. Anyway, there/her most famous song was "I Touch Myself". I always thought it'd be cool if some angsty group or singer covered the song but replaced the word touch with cut.

I would never tell anybody they were ugly. I don't think I would any way. Maybe if they were so ugly that it pissed me off. That, or if someone was really smug about their ugliness.

I saw this picture of sheep brains once. They were all brown. I wonder if my brains are brown like that. I'm guessing probably not. They're probably gray like my heart. If you eat too many organ meats they say that you can get gout. I wish unicorns existed. You could hunt them. Can you imagine the profit from the horn? Can you imagine the joy on a child's face when he gets to ride one? Better yet, can you imagine the melancholly look on the parents' faces when they realize that they just paid $50 so little Jonny could ride a unicorn. I would like to eat a unicorn. I wouldn't eat a horse, but a unicorn is special.

Do you know where chicken McNuggets come from? I'll tell you. The Grimace (who is shaped like a giant McNugget) and Birdie (a chicken) had sex. She laid her eggs, but when they hatched the children were already dead because the genes didn't mix. They were little, dead, grimace shaped chickens. They were born dead and ready to fry.

I woke up after a nap. Immediately after waking up a question came to me. "Where do scones go to heaven?" Scones, as in the fancy cookies some people enjoy with coffee. Heaven, in my mind, would be the place where God and the angels live. Also, as in the place where people who are arbitrarily deemed good go when they die in Judeo-Christian and the Muslim faiths. I immediately dismissed the question as nonsense and told myself that scones don't go to heaven. The question continued to bother me though. It was not the question itself, but the earnest manner in which I had asked the question that unsettled me. Seconds after asking the question I realized how silly it was, but the moment I had asked it I was completely serious. After I had answered the question it still kept echoing in my mind with the same genuineness it had when I first woke up. It was like part of my mind would not let go of the question. There was part of me that would not allow the question to be dismissed as foolishness. I thought this must be how crazy people feel all the time. I got up, drank a little water, and decided to write this. Part of me is still a little bothered as I finish this. The lesson is not to drink 4 cups of coffee and then force yourself to go to sleep. It is, or was, July 1, 2006. It is, or was, 3:02 in the afternoon and I am, or was, done writing.

I'm getting some money in a class action law suit. About six months ago I was at this monster truck show. They charged us for the whole seat when they knew damn well we would only be using the edge. The edge is about 1/4 of a seat legally. The tickets were $20 so a bunch of people are getting at least $15 back. Who knows what kind of money we'll get for emotional damages. I mean, I just can't trust another Monster Truck show again. Usually they scream something about charging you for the whole seat when you'll only be using the edge, but this time they forgot to put that in any of the advertisements for the show. Some guy thought he was a smart ass for calling them on their shit, but apparently we have a case.

You know how couples are registered at Target for weddings? I was thinking about picking a couple I didn't know, buy some sfuff from their list, and then keeping the appliances for myself so they wouldn't get it. It would be something to think about if I ever bought a house.

Science vs Psychosis

2007-09-25T17:52:00.000-05:00

I was flipping through the channels and caught the Catholic channel. They were interviewing a guy who wrote a book about Catholic responses to scientific issues.
The writer was not a scientist.
All I could really watch without blood coming out of my nose was a bit about "the fallacy of the atom model." Science has determined that atoms are comprised largely of empty space. The writer's argument was that this can't be true, because you obviously can't have matter made of empty space. Obviously.
This reminds me of an event a couple months ago, in which I witnessed a Fox News segment in which they interviewed a weatherman who was giving arguments against global warming. Here, I use the word "weatherman" to differentiate from a "meteorologist."
One is a scientist. The other is a guy that comes on the news for ten minutes a day.
This would be like having a game show host talking about economics.
Stop it.

Tom Tomorrow

2007-09-22T16:42:00.000-05:00

Going along with my last post about MoveOn.org...

(Click to see the full comic)

New Guy

2007-09-21T12:07:00.001-05:00

Justin Howard, or as you might know him...Justin Howard.

I like to not limit myself on my perspectives in life because upon doing so you tend to pigeon hole yourself into a corner of agreement. Where everywhere you turn you see the answer you are looking for. So in an ever increasing attempt to provide prospective I've invited Justin to be a participating author on Dirty Cricket because he tends to lean a little further right on most issues then I do. He is a self proclaimed Republican and I am a self proclaimed "not a Republican". We get along fairly well in real life so it will be interesting to see what happens in cyberspace...besides the obvious virtual sex.

O well, enjoy!

Bad Ad

2007-09-20T16:46:00.000-05:00

There is something very disturbing about this to me.

Today, the Senate voted 72-25 to approve Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-TX) bill criticizing MoveOn.org’s Gen. David Petraeus ad in the New York Times. The “sense of the Senate” resolution “strongly” condemns the “personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus.”

What kind of country do we live in where an advertisement can command the condemnation of the United States Congress? I don't know what I was thinking but I was under the impression that we lived in a country where one of the rights we hold more important than any other right is the right of free speech. Maybe, just maybe MoveOn.org did go to far with their ad, but that it is not for congress to proclaim an opinion on.

How does this not rattle every American to their core? We have witnessed shockingly partisan judgments passed down from the hill, even after the democrat's "take over". How can anyone still have any semblance of hope that our system is still run by the people? It makes me sad to see this country in this state, but its even more sad to think that it's been this way for a long time.

Just recently, two laws that should by the very nature of what America is, have been passed, yet they where defeated? The Webb Amendment to the Iraq supplement bill, which would make sure that soldiers get equal time back home as they spend in Iraq. And the restoration of Habeas Corpus, a fundamental right that is in the constitution, that was suspended by the Bush Administration.

"The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it."

- Article 1, Section 9, United States Constitution

Are we under invasion? No, we are invading. Is their a rebellion? Not yet.

I would say how much more is it going to take before we break this system apart, but obviously that isn't going to happen.

Santa!

2007-09-13T14:31:00.001-05:00

A Tiny Revolution has a nice piece sort of along the lines of my rant about Bill O'Rielly

The Strange Case

2007-09-13T09:37:00.000-05:00

I started a new side blog with my good buddy Nathan Retzer. We lived together last year and frequently had several conversation on religion and the politics of such. Being an atheist I found it very refreshing to talk to someone that is a Christian and not want to strangle them after five minutes of talk. We thought it would be a nice idea to publicize our little conversations, or at least provide a place where two view points can be equally represented. Stop by and check it out if you're interested. As of now its just going to be a collection of links to atheist/skeptical ideas, and hopefully Nathan will get on the ball and start posting some stuff. I am the one with a part-time job and not going to school, so its a little unfair.

Check it

P.S. we called it The Strange Case, ala The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde...get it?

ha

69th Skeptic Circle

2007-09-13T09:34:00.001-05:00

Unscrewing the Inscrutable has it this time.

If you're unfamiliar with this, its a collection of some of the best essays on the internet. Skeptically minded that is.

Check it out.

Surviving God

2007-09-12T17:12:00.000-05:00

I’m pretty sure everyone wants to believe in God in some form or another, even if it’s just a strong sense of belonging or purpose. But I find myself among the ranks of those who have a practical mind and cannot find a place to fit God. All the main points are clearly laid out in many books by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. See Ben’s recent post about it.

But I don’t want to go into the practical side of it, because I’ve already conceived myself that there is no God, at least no evidence for the God of the Bible, or the Torah or the Koran or any other holy book on this planet. The fact is those are all made up by a lot of (sometimes) well meaning people just trying to make life a little easier, or get themselves a little ahead in a time when those sort of things could fly. But they can’t now. And I’m sorry to be harsh, but if you still believe that when you die you will be ushered to the pearly gates of heaven where God waits to give you all the luxuries you never had on Earth, you’re in for a surprise.

But then again if you really do believe that, then you probably think I’m in for a surprise.

But that’s really the point of contention here, and kind of what I’ve got on my mind. Faith. I know people, including the pope himself, who believe science and all its wonderful discoveries to be true and accurate and still believe in God. See they always want to take science one step further. Those of a religious mind view scientist as lost children with a candle in the dark who are just shy of seeing God. If they would only shine there light just a little further God would become apparent.

But we keep shinning and shinning and still no God, God of the gaps, if you will. The point is, if you already believe God exist then you’re going to see him in everything. But if you don’t then you won’t see him in anything. Most scientists like to comply with Ockham’s razor, the idea that if there is no evidence for something then don’t make it up. Especially when there are perfectly reasonable answers available. And even if there aren’t you still shouldn’t just make stuff up.

The problem of course is people aren’t comfortable with the idea of lack of knowledge. And that’s reasonable because if you don’t know something you’re vulnerable to that unknown something. I’m pretty sure most things we do in our life come down to that one fundamental desire – to survive.

Freud said it was sex, but sex is just an attempt to survive, beyond you granted, and into the next generation but it is survival. People have always invented things to better insure their survival, houses, cloths, refrigerators guns and religion. But where as the former provide physical forms of survival religion falls into the same category as government and politics; the Elk’s Club and the YMCA. An institution created to give stability to life. Our religious institutions provide a peace of mind to people who are worried about where their next meal is going to come from, or whether or not they are going to get sick and die. Is it a coincidence that we are one of the most religiously zealous countries and at the same time the only country in the civilized world that doesn’t have nationalized health care? If the government isn’t going to take care of us who is? God? Do you think it’s a coincidence that the Axis of evil contains some of the poorest nations on Earth? Religion gives people hope, people that have hope in nothing else.

But we don’t live in a world that is void of hope. Somewhere along the line, perhaps when we started to crawl out of our intellectual shells and view the world for what it really was, God lost his relevance and now he is struggling to survive in a world that doesn’t need him for hope. Preachers lay claim to moral authority and truth based on ancient text. All the while threatening those of us who don’t buy it with hell fire, here on Earth or otherwise. But they have no authority over the truth, truth is created in the minds of men and men are changing their minds.

And the concept of faith is something religion has laid claim too as well. As if having faith exclusively meant having faith in God. Faith is that element of throwing sand in the face of logic and carrying on as a means of survival. It is neither good nor bad, it is a human defense mechanism. I have faith that mankind will abandon religion and come to its full potential someday, without any evidence for this other then circumstantial. And I have this faith because it is what keeps me going. If I lost all hope then I would have no reason to live. But this power of faith comes from me and from my brothers and sisters of the human race. We don’t need God. We can survive him.

The Shock Doctrine

2007-09-12T14:25:00.000-05:00

I love Alfonso Cuarón, director of Children of Men. He teams up here with Naomi Klein to do a short piece promoting her new book The Shock Doctrine. I'm interested and will have to check it out when I get through the mass of paper that is Atlas Shrugged.

SQUANDERED

2007-09-11T21:18:00.000-05:00

Here's a bit of a more sobering reflection on Sept. 11th.

"I flipped on the television this morning and saw a bit of live broadcast of today’s September 11 memorial service. The cameras zoomed in on a weeping woman. I flipped the television off. I respect the grief of those who lost loved ones that day, but as a nation we have forfeited the right to grieve. A moment of great opportunity has passed, and it was utterly squandered."

via The Mahablog. Read the rest here

Who Are We?

2007-09-09T17:39:00.000-05:00

Who are we? This is the question posed by Michael Moore in his latest documentary Sicko (see Ben's review here). Who are we indeed. Who are we to allow people in this country to get sick and not be able to get the treatment for that just because they can't afford it? I'm not a believer in hand outs. When I see a bum on the street I don't give them money; there are plenty of services provided where they can get the help they need. But I do not consider keeping the citizens of your country healthy a hand out.

A lot of people want to portray it that way however. They want you to think that someone who doesn't have health care is someone not working hard enough or is someone who is doing something wrong. And that attitude is stark evil. Since when is it a crime to want to live in a society where everyone is taken care of? Or educated? Since when is it a bad idea to have your citizens be healthy and smart?

Talk about terrorism. America is its own worst enemy. With the best he could muster, Osama Bin Laden killed 3,000 people on 9/11. Now think of all the people that are dead or dying because they couldn't afford heath care or were denied coverage. We are like a giant oak tree sitting atop a hill. Large, beautiful and impressive, but rotting on the inside. When a real storm comes we will not stand. And if that storm never comes we will topple over because our roots can no longer support us.

Under funded, dumbed down education on precipitates the rot, leaving every successive generation less and less equipped to handle the world around them. Instead they are taught that a winner is one who stabs his brother int he back to get ahead. A winner is the man who lies and cheats his way to the top. Quality sacrificed for quantity of sales.

However its not money that has corrupted us. It is the degradation of the mind. Creationist argue that we are losing god and that Darwinism teaches us to behave like animals which is the cause of violence and moral decay. I say it is the opposite. Creationism demands a simple world view, as does Capitalism and corporate profit making. Instead we need to understand that yes, we are animals but because of our evolution we have developed minds capable of love and compassion. We have build cities and technologies that have taken us out of the caves and the dirt and put us on top of the chain of life as this planet's most successful and powerful species. We are more powerful then any other animal could ever hope to be.

Who are we? We are human beings. We belong to each other and to this planet. Do not ever give that up, not to an government, any corporation or any god. We only do ourselves a disservice by harming each other. The human race as a whole is like every human body that makes it up. It has many parts working to their best efficiency; working to attain their specific goals no matter what. But always working for the good of the whole. This is why we must keep each other healthy and educated. Would the heart deny the kidney blood if it were ill? Should we deny a person the right to be healthy because they are poor?

It is not smart for a government to deny these rights to its people. It is like injecting yourself with poison in order to sue the syringe manufacture. America is many things, but in our quest to be on top we have become stupid, from the top to the bottom. Every starving person wants a chance to be on top so he can starve his brothers and sisters the same as he was.

The power of the individual mind working towards the advancement of man has taken us so far in so short a time that it can only get better. Mother nature has passed the torch of natural selection over to us, as her prize achievement putting the power to shape our future directly in our hands.

Who are we? We are responsible.

Religion: Science's Anti-Christ

2007-09-05T12:24:00.000-05:00

So many ask me: Why do you have a problem with what other people think?

Because I might want to get on a bus in Israel someday or, I fear, get on a bus in Chicago in 5 years.

Here's a simple question: Why do we need religion?

Keep in mind that there's a difference between religion and spirituality. Religion is a set of teachings about the truths of both human morality and human history. Spirituality is the word that describes ones relationship with the reality around them.

Unfortunately, many of today's dominant religions rely on these things: Habit, Ritual, Loyalty, Fear and Sense of Purpose. They do not, however, rely on credible science. In fact, most of the religions of today are incompatible with the history of the world as it is constructed from verifiable evidence. Radiometric dating places the earth around 4.5 – 4.7 Billion Years Old while the Judeo-Christian calendar puts it at around 5700 Years, for example.

Of course, modern history has taught us that religion has been a fetter on scientific discovery. Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin, and so on have all been, at one time or another, condemned for their various findings. Not many of us can dispute the significance of their scientific work today, but that begs the question: If their discoveries turned out to be true and the Holy Bible untrue, then does the Bible have any merit at all? Can we cherry-pick which parts of God's perfect word are correct and which are bullshit?

Religion is the opposite of science in so many ways except one: They both make claims about the way the world is. In contradiction, science is a method for learning – an ever changing perception. As new evidence comes to light (and new ways of acquiring it) the view of what is being studied becomes enriched. Religion is a fixed piece of knowledge – the basis of which is contained in (usually) ancient texts. Questioning it (such as in science) can be one of the most egregious offenses. The only thing that gives religion its strength is the social culture dedicated to it.

Oddly enough, however, religious people are more atheist about other faiths of which they do not belong than most atheists are about all faiths.

Also, arguments of the faithful are impossible to debate, because they require no evidence for those faiths to begin with. How does someone argue against a statement like: I just know Jesus was the Messiah. Scientifically minded people are weakened by juvenile arguments, because you'll rarely ever hear them resort to saying the contrary: I just know Jesus was not the Messiah. Scientifically minded people require more evidence than what is available to give such a statement.

Like a drug, religion fills you with a sense of (albeit shallow) fulfillment. The sense of self-righteousness and God-given purpose allows religious followers the privilege of feeling special, larger than life, or even super human. We all know the kind – people who claim to look into the souls of others or feeling "presences" of the dead and so on. They also speak with a sense of entitlement as believers as they claim to know what is impossible to know and that the rest of us aren't as fortunate.

Then they claim that to be the case with scientists – that their arrogance is offensive. I'd like to point out that there's a difference between certainty and arrogance. When someone's job is figuring out the mutations of different viral organisms so vaccines continue to be effective, it would be tough to convince them that their certainty of evolution is false.

So, again, why the need for religion? It's not morality – that's for sure. The moral standards in most of the western holy texts are utterly outdated. Not even the most extreme fundamentalist follows all of the teachings of the Bible.

The purpose of morality is to limit conflict between social creatures. Chimpanzees, for example, have an excellent sense of morality and cooperation among their groups – all without God. Wolves and Coyotes – carnivorous predators - work effectively in social groups. They also share what is hunted. Again: No God. No Jesus. No Muhammad. No nothing.

If we don't need religion to be moral and its teachings of history are incorrect then what is its purpose? On the other hand, the role of religion as an unnecessary social divider is obvious. There are so many divisions between humans – color, sex, nation, class – why cloud the human species with more ridiculous sub-categories?

Now send me your hate mail.

Why Do We Support Bill O'Reilly?

2007-09-04T16:17:00.000-05:00

It seems like a trend in the progressive/ anti-bush/ anti-fox news/etc. blogsphere/ media/ social circles to bash and highlight the absurd things that come out of Bill O’Reilly’s mouth. It’s as if every bias/ ignorant/ raciest comment that he spews forth is somehow a surprise.

And people eat it up. There are whole websites devoted to lambasting him and his ilk for the venom they spit. (Which I refuse to link to)

But all these things are just lending him support by trashing him. My mother always told me that the best way to deal with a bully was to ignore them. Because if this punk was treated like the insignificant piece of shit he is then he wouldn’t be around anymore. Why lower ourselves to his level? Why even mention O'Reilly and Fox News? The question of debate is open of course, but it is proven that a network and a persona like Fox and Bill O are not going to be willing to meet in the middle as a true intelligence would. Their soul intent is to subvert, manipulate and right out lie to further their agenda. It is a mistake to assume that their talking points is only a misguided way of thinking and that with enough understanding an agreement can be made. Two opposite agendas cannot agree because there is no common ground. You cannot lead someone to water that is not looking for water.

Bill O'Reilly is part of the machine that is eating up humanity, but he is only a small part. If you’re car is missing a cylinder you don’t get an oil change and hope it will start in the morning. All of these people, and I’m not going to limit it to Bill O, are results of a system that is set against you. And you’re not going to change that system by scrapping off the fringe elements.

It goes one step further into the shit house. Bill O and Fox exist for the purpose of distraction. The people pulling the strings and putting you in a little box don’t want you to see them. They want you to waste your time getting mad a Bill O'Reilly and Fox News. They want you to be so caught up in saving the world by taking on the big bad News Corp. that when and if you ever win you will be so filled with pride that you will not see that you haven’t put a dent in the machine at all. Or worst, you won’t win because you’re fighting a shadow boxer and you’ll spend you days fighting that until your old and worn out.

I use to get upset when I would see various clips of these people, and I couldn’t understand how people bought it. But it is mostly because we have made them our enemies. Like that school yard bully, we are afraid of them and that gives them power. Instead let us treat them like the insects they are and ignore them. Let them piss and moan about whatever they damn well please and let us shut them up with our silence. They are classic attention hogs and we are giving them what they want. Let’s spend our time on truly meaningful things. Let’s fix our country at the source by talking to each other about things that really matter. Instead of showing your friends the ridiculous clip of Bill O, show them a documentary.Instead of laughing is disbelief at the blatant bias of Fox News, talk with your friends about how you can make the world a better place.

The tools to fix this world are out there, we just need to pick up the right ones.

I Don't Even Play Resident Evil

2007-08-07T20:22:00.000-05:00

But I love silly racial conflict

This is the trailer for the new Resident Evil game. You can watch it, or not.

This incarnation of the franchise takes place in Africa. Apparently, there are some people object to the idea that, were a zombie-virus outbreak occur in Africa, there would be a whole lot of African zombies.

I guess it is racist to posit that Africans live in Africa.

Personally, I see this as the exact opposite of racism. This game is truly a monolith of harmony and diversity of all peoples.

I pledge now that, regardless of your race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation or beliefs, should you become a flesh-hungry zombie, I will shoot you in the face with a shotgun until you stop moving.

I trust you'd do the same for me.

If Irony Could Be Found, It Wouldn't Be Lost On Me

2007-07-30T22:47:00.000-05:00

Apparently, Republicans are afraid of the glowing box that makes the wrrrrrr sound and shows the naughty pictures.

I watched the Democratic YouTube debates. You know what I learned? About the same thing I learned from any other debate: Candidates hate you.

Maybe not you personally. You as an entity. Maybe you personally, I don't know, I haven't asked them. Candidates don't answer the questions you want to know about. They want to read from scripts that will appeal to "their base," whatever that actually means.

The YouTube debate wasn't really as groundbreaking as it should have been, or as revolutionary as some of the pundits might want to think. The people who took the time to create and send in videos should feel slighted. I know I do. I didn't even make a video. I tuned in as an honest-to-goodness American, and I wanted to see what any honest-to-okayness American should be entitled to. I wanted to see someone panic and flip out.

You see, the problem with the YouTube debate is the same problem we have with 'democracy.' I put that in the little quotes because, if you've forgotten your Jr. High civics, we live in a republic, not a democracy. Democracies are rather hard to keep working on a national level, since it'd be pretty hard for 300 million people to coordinate. If we truly lived in a democracy, this is how debates would go:

Citizen: "Ok, I'd like to know what you would do to lessen our reliance on foreign oil."
Candidate: "That's a great question. In order to lessen our reliance on foreign oil, I would propose ((insert program here)), along with ((insert scientific reference here)), as well as ((insert public relations campaign here))."

See, at least we'd get some semblance of an answer, and then it'd be up to us as citizens to decide whether or not we believe them, and then whether or not they can deliver on their word.

But no, this is America, and we can't do it that way. This is the way a similar scene would go:

Citizen: "Tell me, to what extent do you believe the federal government should dictate the rights of homosexuals to acquire civil unions? Should it be left up to individual states?"
Candidate: "That's a great question. Of course, the family is the basic unit of the American society, and today our families are spending entirely too much money on non-renewable resources. I am pushing for an incentive program designed to lessen our-"
Citizen: "Wh.... what are you doing?"
Candidate: "Hm? Can I finish?"
Citizen: "Finish what?"
Candidate: "Telling you about my proposal that will require us to-"
Citizen: "Stop that."
Candidate: "Stop what?"
Citizen: "I asked you about gay marriage, not energy."
Candidate: "Right, but I segued into energy. It's where all my best material is."
Citizen: "We can talk about that later. I'm talking about gay marriage. I'm talking about civil rights, here..."
Candidate: "I'm talking about... uh... our rights... in a civil framework... regarding the usage of fossil fuels and..."
Citizen: "I hate you."
Candidate: "Can I count on your vote?"

**Curtain**

I think any modern and 'new' debate system should allow Americans to get answers to the questions.

Unfortunately, it looks like the Republicans aren't going to give us another bite at the inane apple. Not most of them, anyway. "[...]the CNN team used the device of the third-party video to inject a question that would have embarrassed any anchor posing it." So it's CNN's fault? What if it had been that bastion of Fairness and Balance? I've heard people on FauxNews inject questions that would have embarrassed any rational human posing them.

They report, They decide.

So, another election cycle seems to be coming into view from the horizon, the dust cloud rising from the beat of the hooves of goose-stepping satyrs.

That metaphor really got away from me.

I guess I just expected something new this time around. I think we deserve it. Maybe at the next debates, they can have a panel of ordinary people that have buttons that are connected to electrodes that can shock the bejezuz out of someone that starts blabbering incessantly.

That'd be a hit on YouTube.