The God Delusion

Author: Richard Dawkins

No other book in the history of my "reading career" (is reading a career?) has given me as much trouble as The God Delusion. It took me TWO MONTHS to read this 374-page bastard. For someone who can normally knock out a 500-pager in roughly a week, this sort of plodding progress is inexcuseable. I do have an excuse though, and it has nothing to do with the book's heavy-duty subject matter. It's Dawkins' heavy-handed writing style that tripped me up. Despite the fact that he is a world-respected scientist, no one has ever bothered to tell him about "economy of language". He frequently uses twelve words where two or three would be sufficient. In fact, a friend of mine dubbed this book "The Language Delusion" after I read her a couple typical paragraphs.

While I could sit here all day and talk about the stylistic shortcomings of this book, I would never dispute the sociological importance of it. Dawkins (like John Lennon before him) imagines a world without religion. A world in which people subscribe to higher ideals of evolution, Darwinian natural selection and the logical order of a living, breathing planet. He argues (and rightly so) that religion in all of it's guises has done the human race much more harm than good.

Setting out to disprove what Dawkins calls "the God hypothesis" is no easy task. Critics have often fired back with the old "okay, so you can't prove the exsistence of God, but you can't disprove his exsistence either" arguement. Well, based on this sort of logic Dawkins claims we can't disprove the flying spaghetti monster or bigfoot either. What we can do is make an educated assumption based on all the evidence. Or in the case of God, the lack of evidence.

I just can't in good conscious recommend this book, despite its important underlying message. From a purely literary standpoint, it's a bloody mess. It's tough to get into and even tougher to get out of. So unless you enjoy being beaten to death with verbosity, I'd pass on The God Delusion. Go read something a little more accessible, like a thesis on theoretical quantum physics or something.

Score: 5/12 monkeys

Quick Link...Blog Carnival

Thanks Kelly Bejelly for hosting the recent Finance Blog Carnival and including a link to my post on the Stephen Lewis Foundation. Hopefully this will help raise a little awareness and perhaps even a dollar or two for this extremely worthwhile cause.

If you haven't checked out the carnival yet, what the hell are you waiting for?!?! There are some excellent submissions by some great bloggers. Besides, it's not like you have anything better to do. I know, I know.."The porn's not going to watch itself." Don't worry, it will still be there when you get back.

Saturday Musings: February 3, Me 0

Karma (noun): Hinduism, Buddhism. action, seen as bringing upon oneself inevitable results, good or bad, either in this life or in a reincarnation.

I've been a very bad person. Perhaps in a previous life I was some sort of murderous felon or despotic dictator. How else to explain the ass-kicking I have recieved by fate this past three weeks? Karma is a bitch....Here's an accounting:

Week one: Bad Breakup. Unexpected loss of a great relationship.

Week two: Dog breaks leg. Surgeon unable to repair it. Amputation. I am now the proud owner of three-legged dog.

Week three: My Mom (I do have one, contrary to popular opinion) is involved in nasty car accident. Jeep is destroyed. She's okay, but looks and feels as if she just went three rounds with Tito Ortiz.

I realize that fate is a cruel mistress who normally doesn't parcel these things out in small, manageable portions, but this is the karmic equivalent of "shock and awe". Okay....I surrender! No need for a ground offensive! I never actually had any WMD's, but that never stopped anyone before....Why would I be immune?

I'm gonna go lend a hand at the homeless shelter now. Maybe on my way down there I'll stumble over the cure for cancer or something. Anything to convince Karma that I'm not the guy it's looking for. I'm even going to skip the usual insult to my readers that I would normally end my post with....See, look....No insult! Pansy. Damnit! I couldn't help myself. Okay Karma, bring it on! What else ya' got!?!?!

A Life-Saving Investment

It's tax season, and if you are anything like me (I feel sorry for you) you will be getting a little extra cash from your friendly neighborhood federal government. Have you figured out what you are going to do with all the sketchy bucks you earned by claiming "Tom's Cats Adult Entertainment" as a business expense? Might I make a suggestion? It won't hurt a bit, it could save some lives and it might help balance your karma after all the outrageous lies you just submitted in the name of "charitable donations".

Meet Stephen Lewis, the former UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. His term in this position ended at the end of 2006, but his amazing grassroots work continues. That's him in the video above, giving the final address at the XVI International Conference on AIDS in Toronto last year. I had the opportunity to see him speak in December at a benefit called "Under an African Sky". It was a moving, eloquent presentation from one of the most driven, passionate and commited African emissarys in the world.

This year, instead of flushing your tax-return dollars down the giant toilet of corporate greed, consider making a donation to the Stephen Lewis Foundation. Here is a link to get you started...

http://www.stephenlewisfoundation.org/

What are you waiting for? Click the link! Feel good about yourself for a change! Tell your friends! Don't worry, I'm sure you will still have plenty of money left over for your degenerate gambling and your mail-order bride. This might not make you a better person, but it's a step in the right direction.....You've got to try something!

The Prestige

the prestige

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Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine

The word "magician" has become synonamous with cheap Vegas-style lounge acts and glorified street performers. However, there was a time, not so long ago when magicians were the rockstars of their day. They were macho bad-asses who twisted the laws of science in front of captive audiences and occasionally died for their craft.

The Prestige pulls this era out of it's hat and evokes a dark, puzzle-box narrative that will feel familiar to fans of Nolan's other recent film Batman Begins. Jackman and Bale play up and coming magicians who's professional and deeply personal feud has driven them both to the very limits of sanity.

The film's tagline: "Are you watching closely" should tell you all you need to know about the cleverly designed twists and subtle misdirection present here. Nolan does a fantastic job of manipulating the audience, making the whole thing feel like an elaborate two-hour magic trick.

My only complaint is that no one gets mauled by a white tiger. I mean, how can you have a movie about magicians without one single, tiger mauling?!?! So much for realism.

Score: 9/12 monkeys

I'm growing my hair back. Right. Now.

I'm posting this under duress. In fact, someone has a gun to my head right now, yelling: "Write monkey-boy! Write!".

Well, there you go....Are you happy now? My blog is now 50% uglier. This space had so much potential, but now it features this useless pseudo-celebrity and her disturbing baldness.

Is Britney Spears the first person in the history of the universe to ever shave her head? Well, based on the nauseating amount of attention the media has been giving this "story", I'd have to say yes. Yes she is. Will this prompt millions of angst-riddled teenage girls to do the same? Probably not. Why not? Well, none of them give a shit about Britney Spears any more. There is hope for the youth of today after all. Now we just need to break the news to Britney's agents and publicity people. Hopefully she will go away for good and I never have to pollute this page with pictures of her again.

I think it will be a nice change for her though. Paris Hilton won't have to hold her hair the next time she vomits up all the vodka, painkillers and enchilladas after a long night of child neglect. Ah, that Britney...Always thinkin'....

Saturday Musings

"But you should never be embarrassed by your trouble with living.
Because it is the ones with the sorest throats, Laura, who have done the most singing."

-Bright Eyes
"Laura Laurent"

Sometimes when you are not paying attention, you trip over some truth. You pick yourself up, brush off the dirt from the road and look at it. It seems a little out of place, a little wrong. You pick it up but it doesn't quite fit in any of your pockets so you carry it around for a while. It gets heavy, and awkward and you begin to think that it belongs to someone else. So you throw it away. Let some other poor sucker deal with it.

You trip over it again a little ways down the road.

Perhaps the problem is not this ill-fitting truth at all, but the road you are travelling down. Try a different road and see what happens.

Welcome to Saturday musings...A new addition to Infinite Monkeys. It's a little piece of my own brand of zen philosophy every week. Stop on by and if I'm not suffering too badly from a hangover, I'll throw up a new one. There you go, your weekends won't suck anymore. You're welcome.

Here's a little Bright Eyes to set the mood.....Why? Because I just can't get enough of Conor Oberst's musical poetry, and that means you can't either. Right?

Rescue Me

Starring/Written/Produced by: Denis Leary and some other guys.

What kid growing up didn't want to be a big, strong, heroic firefighter? Running into burning buildings, kicking down doors, throwing frightened women and children over your shoulder, scooping up the family pet, then running out again into the undying gratitude of your adoring public. Sounds great right? Well, I've never actually done any fire fightin' myself, but I get the feeling that the stories told in this FX original series are much closer to the reality of this dangerous profession than any childhood fantasy.

This is New York, post 9/11. Six years after the events of that fateful day the ubiquitous "never forget" bumper stickers, t-shirts and hats fill the city. Plastered onto the cars, torsos and heads of people who were miles away from ground zero when the towers came crashing down. For the firefighters who were there, however, "forgetting" isn't an option, it is something they do temporarily with lots of whiskey and the comaraderie of the their brothers in arms.

Broken homes, broken spirits and broken lives. These characters hide behind macho bravado and the fickle status of "hero" in order to get back on that truck one more time, get out alive one more time and perhaps find some kind of salvation at the end of it all. The dead haunt them (literally in the case of Leary's character) and the fires they extinguish serve as a fitting metaphor for the fires inside themselves that they can never hope to put out.

Check out a couple episodes of Rescue Me, then come back and tell me you still dream of being a firefighter. If you can, then you are made out of stronger stuff than I.

Score: 10/12 monkeys

Community Matters

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Bobby Griffin and his Bestest Blog of All Time for the recent exposure I've recieved from his fabulous blog. Also, Cathy and her Rant's and Ramblin's for hosting this past Valentine's Day carnival and including a link to my twisted thoughts on this pseudo-holiday.

The more perceptive among you have probably figured out that the past few days have been rough ones for me. In times like this it is the little things that make a difference, and being a part of this wonderful virtual community has lifted me up in a small but tangible way.

We now return you to your regular, scheduled Infinite Monkey programming. I hope you have enjoyed all this weepy, setimental crap. Don't get used to it. Just because I'm in touch with my "feminine" side doesn't mean that I can't kick your ass. Now go run away and tell your mommy. Or I'll tell her for you, after I nudge her awake and she makes me breakfast.

A Crack in Everything

"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in."

-Anthem
Leonard Cohen

I post this with a great deal of trepidaton. Why? Because it's about me. The format of Infinite Monkeys dictates that I do not let you people into my head in any signifiicant way.

It's dark in there. Filled with voices.

Recently however, a tiny crack has appeared in my armor, letting in a little ray of light. This is what it has illuminated:

Sometimes the things we love the most are the things that unwind us. We give away so much of ourselves in this life, but life is an insatiable beast and once in a while, it asks for a little bit more. It asks for something that we hold onto so tightly, that one little thing that we thought we could keep, that tiny little, shiny thing. That one pure thing. We cry, kick and scream at the injustice of it all, but in the end we give it away. And it's absence leaves a hole that can never be filled.

Two days ago, this very thing was demanded of me. I placed it on the altar of sacrifice and it was gone. I hid a little piece of it inside my heart, though. A piece that no insatiable beast can ever take away. Here is what I kept:

That image of you, framed in a kitchen doorway playing your guitar as if I wasn't even there.
That secret half-smile at a joke only you understood.
That moment of levity in the midst of an African benefit.
That passion, conviction and uniqueness of vision that exsits in your art.
That tiny little, shiny thing that I will never explain. Because no one would understand.

For what it is worth: Happy Valentine's Day. This tiny little crack that lets in the light is a gift. I will never give it away. Not in this lifetime. Not in the next.

Five Valentine's Day Gifts that Keep on Givin'

Is it just me, or is Valentine's day starting to look more and more like Christmas? Advertisers and retailers love to use the ever-popular "guilt leverage" to make us think that if we don't get Valentine's Day "right" we will die sad and alone. This of course translates to huge sales of flowers, chocolates and frilly pink teddy bears in our one-day attempt to make up for 364 days of insensitive psychological abuse.

This year, show someone you REALLY love them by getting them any one (or all) of these gifts that keep on giving. Face it, you're going to die sad and alone eventually, no amount of flowers and chocolates is gonna' change that....

1. A Burial Plot

Arranging for your lover's eternal resting place shows that you care about more than just how their ass looks in those jeans. It shows that you care about their FUTURE. It also serves as a subtle reminder that they are stuck with you for the rest of their natural life. It might be awkward at first, but trust me, they'll appreciate it eventually. Or else....

2. Cosmetic Surgery

Why waste all that time searching for the perfect mate when you can just build one? You're "imperfect" mate will surely appreciate your efforts to strengthen the relationship. After all, whoever said "True beauty is on the inside" was obviously some hideously deformed circus freak.

3. A Self Portrait



Who wouldn't love a five-foot tall oil painting of yours truly? Best if mounted directly above the bed to remind your main-squeeze of the ultra-sexy beast they have the honor of sleeping beside every night.

*Bonus: The "eyes" make a great place to mount a discreet little webcam for those times when you need blackmail material or evidence of his/her unfaithfulness!

4. A signed copy of your manifesto

Tired of hiding your true feelings? Now's the time to give someone you love access to your deepest, darkest thoughts! It will demonstrate your willingness to be open, honest and direct. It will also implicate somene else in your nefarious plot, so as to take some of the heat off of you when the Feds bust down the door.

5. An STD

The couple that applies medicated ointments togeather STAYS togeather! A gift like this demonstrates your willingness to share. He/She will never forget you. The genital warts will see to that.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Eleanor Rigby

Author: Douglas Coupland

Fans of the Beatles (John, Paul, George and that other guy) will be familiar with the name. Their song about "all the lonely people" inspired this bittersweet story of loss, loneliness and what it means to wake up one morning and realize that the person you are is the only person you will ever be.

Meet Liz Dunn; she's thirty-something, overweight and as far as everyone around her is concerned, completely invisible. Which is just fine by her, thank-you-very-much. After all, she wouldn't want to "inflict her presence" on anyone and make them uncomfortable, right? That is until her son re-enters her life and shakes her faith in the cold comforts of loneliness.

Coupland has the uncanny ability to invoke profound emotion using simple, uncomplicated language. We identify with his characters not because they are larger than life, but because they are small, flawed and fragile....Just like us. When they succeed we cheer, when they fail we flinch and when they die we mourn.

It's not quite as deeply moving as Hey Nostradamus! or as witty and subversive as JPod but it is classic Coupland. My only complaint is this: If you are going to write a book based on a Beatles song, why not "Yellow Submarine"? Just imagine all the zany underwater adventures! Now there's a book I'd like to read! No YOU'RE Immature. No YOU ARE!

Score: 8/12 monkeys

THIS is News?!?!

The recent death of Anna Nicole Smith and the subsequent media feeding frenzy is just one more symptom in this disease of mistaking human tragedy for entertainment news. I'd just like to assure my loyal readers (both of you!) that my idea of "pop-culture" does not include this brand of morbid, ambulance-chasing journalism. Besides, we were all familiar with Anna Nicole and her lifestyle, is her death really newsworthy at all? It's like picking up your local newspaper and seeing this as the headline on the front page: "Having a Lot of Money Can Make You Rich, Experts Say". I think the fact that she lived as long as she did was more worthy of our collective interest than the story of her inevitable death. When did our idea of "entertainment" shift from reading a good book or watching a good movie to this sort of thing anyhow? The lives and deaths of the rich and semi-famous may be fascinating but they ARE NOT NEWS anymore than my death would be a "tragedy" if I took enough methadone to kill an elephant and washed it all down with three bottles of whiskey. I feel sorry for her children and the people that loved her that she left behind. That's it, end of story. She wanted to be Marilyn Monroe....Well, mission accomplished.

Jesus Camp

Jesus Camp

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Directed by: Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady

The media has gone out of its way in the past few years to show us the end result of Islamic fundementalism. I think we can all agree that kids walking into crowded cafe's strapped with explosives is a bad thing. Sadly, this type of reporting has led many of us to paint all Muslims with the same brush. Now, imagine for a moment if you will, what would happen if all Christians were judged based on documentaries like Jesus Camp. Airport security sure wouldn't be a cakewalk anymore would it? Kids aren't routinely blowing themselves up in the name of Jesus....Yet. But don't kid yourself; the battle lines are being drawn as we speak. One thing religious fundementalism teaches very well is how to pledge your undying love to some vague, nebulous idea while at the same time engendering hatred and loathing for those who don't share your beliefs. This type of "us" against "them" indoctrination is brought into sharp focus througout this wonderful documentary.

Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady do an admirable job of presenting the subject matter in an unbiased fashion. However, any rational person is going to recognise this for what it is: A very insidious form of child abuse. Watching these kids regurgitate dogma under the watchful eyes of their parents then collapse, weeping in a religious stupor is a truly horrifying experience. They are given an "education" in social and political issues such as abortion, the war in Iraq and global warming in the same way that Hitler "educated" Germany about the evils of the Jewish people. It makes me sick just thinking about it.

Normally I'd make some tasteless joke right about now. But this shit just makes me too damn angry. So think up your own tasteless joke, you heartless bastard.

Score: 9/12 monkeys

Now THAT's Cold

Where the hell is global warming when we really need it? I've left my car's engine idling for three straight days in the hopes that might speed things along, but the damn polar ice caps are still there and Al Gore is still alive. Come on people! If we're going to crank up mother nature's furnace, let's get to it already! Some of us haven't been outside in three days, and those of us brave enough to attempt it have died of exposure within minutes. Damn you environmental activists! First you take all the fun out of clubbing baby seals, and now this?!?!

Ahem....Sorry about all that. I'm having a hard time maintaining my "happy place" in the face of these unbelievably cold temperatures. It's been somewhere in the neighborhood of -20 degrees celcius here for the past week, and I'm just not built for this crap. There are only so many tea parties a guy can have with his stuffed animal "friends" before cabin fever starts to make dying of frostbite seem like a reasonable alternative.

In the interest of staying sane for one more day, I've decided to put a little Infinite Monkey spin on that frigid, heartless bitch we call Mother Nature. Here are the top five movies in which bone-numbing, knife-in-the-guts COLD has a starring role....

1. Alive (1993)

I don't think anyone will ever forget this based-on-a-true story about what the Uruguayan rugby team had to do to survive after their plane crashed in the Andes. I'm in danger of freezing to death just thinking about it. I'm also a little hungry...Hey Nando, you gonna eat all that?










2. Cliffhanger (1993)

Or as I like to call it: Rambo in the Rockies. Sly had his hands full with an overacting John Lithgow, a mountain full of machine gun weilding bad guys and the need to climb a bunch of stuff. Who needs survival gear? Not Rocky. He just has to flex his rippling muscles to warm up, and if that doesn't do it, he just punches the snowstorm right in the face.







3. Fargo (1996)

The Coen brothers won 2 Oscars for this funny yet unsettling film about a small-town murder and the tenacious, very pregnant policewoman who tracks down the bumbling perpetrators. The nasty Minnesota winter is front and center here, making a little trip headfirst through the ole' woodchipper look downright cozy.




4. March of The Penguins (2005)

I have to be honest here. I don't trust flightless birds. Who do they think they're kidding? I have a sneaking suspicion that they just want us to think they can't fly. That way, when the uprising comes they can take us by surprise. At least we have them trapped in a place where tempratures of -60 degrees celcius are beating them into submission.

I don't recommend watching this movie without a winter parka and lots of whisky. Also, a box of kleenex for when you...ummm...You know, get something in your eye and stuff....

Curse you flightless birds, you've emasculated me again!




5. The Thing (1982)

John Carpenter's horror masterpiece forces us to contemplate a nasty lose-lose situation. A gruesome death at the hands of a slimy, shapeshifting alien thing, or slowly freezing to death in the Antarctic. Personally, I'd take my chances with the alien. I mean, it got it's ass handed to it by Kurt Russell, how bad could it be?

Here's a good rule of thumb: The next time you find a giant alien spacecraft buried beneath the ice, just leave it alone. I have never, and I repeat, NEVER seen anything good come of poking around in there.




That's all I can think of at the moment. My thoughts are getting sluggish...feeling a little sleepy...I think I'll just close my eyes for a minute...You guys go on without me...I'll be fine. Just need. A little. Sleep.

Super-Bowel Sunday

Sunday is a day that has become synonymous with silly rituals. In fact, the word "Sunday" comes from the ancient Mesopotamian word "Suna-Dayik"; a derogatory term used to describe someone who blindly follows a useless tradition without really understanding why. The literal translation is: "Silly follower". If your bullshit alarm is going off at the moment, congratulations. Just remember something: I'm only half-kidding.

This particular Sunday we have one of the greatest silly rituals of all time. A veritable orgy of consumerism, gluttony and drunken debauchery. The most entertaining television programming of the year will be shown in the form of thirty-second commercials. Roughly 30 MILLION pounds of snacks will be shoveled into pie-holes and rinsed down with millions of gallons of beer. A hilarious train wreck of irrelevent entertainers will prance around as we all look away in embarassment during the infamous half-time show. And a bunch of guys will play football or something. Whatever.

The important thing to remember is this: Some overpaid suits actually sat down in a meeting somwhere and collectively decided that we all really, really LOVE Prince.....



Yeah, I know....I thought they were kidding too. Until the end part. I'm gonna go take a handful of tranquilizers and slip into a warm bath. If I'm still breathing, wake me up when all this is over. SUNA-DAYIK!!!

Laugh You Useless Idiots, Laugh!

Sorry about the lack of book reviews lately, I've been fumbling through The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and it's pretty heavy stuff. I've been averaging about one WORD per week, so at this rate you'll see my full review of this remarkably shiny book sometime around the spring of 2036.

In the meantime enjoy this recent press conference courtesy of the two guys busted for hanging "suspicious-looking" promotional material for the new Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie in Boston. Here's the full story in case you missed it. This story is an early frontrunner for my Infinte Monkey Award for The Greatest Thing of the Year (The IMAFTGTOTY for those of you who prefer acronyms. Click on it to see last year's winner). Listening to these idiotic reporters fire questions at these guys made me realize two things:

1) I'm glad I studied print rather than broadcast journalism.

2) The war against terrorism is over and the terrorists have won. They have made us so irrationally afraid of the things that go bump in the night that we have lost our sense of humor. And once we've lost that, we've lost everything.

My hat is off to these rebel gorillas of marketing. Not only did they expose a little post-9/11 social ugliness, they answered some pressing questions about hair. That, my friends, is funny.

The Departed

The Departed - Trailer

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Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Starring: It would be easier to list who ISN'T in it.

It's not very often life grants us a "mulligan" (aka: a "do-over" for the non-golfers out there). How many of us wouldn't love to go back and take another shot at things like prom, the big job interview or that night you convinced your girlfriend that it was better without a condom? Well, thanks to this year's Academy Award nominations, I have had the rare opportunity to see a movie that I missed out on last year, and have been crying myself to sleep over ever since. That movie is, of course, The Departed which is now in limited re-release to build Oscar buzz for its run at the best picture prize.

Scorsese is intimately familiar with this type of filmmaking having given us testosterone-fueled mob epics like Goodfella's, Casino, and most recently, Gangs of New York. The scenes are raw, quick-cut vignettes that form a sort of tapestry of events rather than a straight-forward narrative. I found this method of storytelling a little jarring at first until I realized this was an incredibly effective way to convey the passage of time. It beats the hell out of the old "One year later...." cop-out employed by lesser directors. Bravo Mr. Scorsese! Well played sir.

In a huge ensemble cast that includes Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg, its gotta' be tough for any one performance to outshine the rest. But Leonardo DiCaprio bitch-slaps them all with his brilliant turn as the sunken-eyed, deeply conflicted Billy Costigan. All you Leo haters out there who love to bring up Titanic (which was actually a really GOOD movie, damnit! What the hell is wrong with you people?!?) better get ready to have your misguided opinion changed forever. Leo is all growed-up now and if this movie doesn't validate him as a serious player than nothing will.

The Onion once claimed that Scorsese's next film would be three hours of begging for an Oscar. If by "begging" they mean "deserving" then yeah, I'd say that's EXACTLY what The Departed is.

Score: 10/12 monkeys