The Voice of Reason: A V.I.P. Pass to Enlightenment (17 page)

So there is the list. As promised, all are better than
The Godfather
series. Again,
The Godfather
movies are not terrible, but they certainly don’t deserve their status as great films any more than their mutant, stunted, bastard TV offspring
The Sopranos
deserved its years of praise as a great TV show.
The Sopranos
was, in fact, mediocre at its very best, and excruciating to the point of being unwatchable at its most mannerist. The acting was atrocious, from the top of the cast to the bottom. (Just look at how well they’ve all done since that lame horse of a show was taken out behind the barn and shot. The best any of them have done is a tequila commercial.) Yet this show was anointed as brilliant by the punditocracy at the
New York Times
. It was called groundbreaking, creative, original, and excellent. It was RUBBISH. But like
The Godfather
films, people were told it was good, and instructed to act as though it were a work of art. So if you want to do yourself a favor, and I know that you do, check out my list above. If you want to see good TV, watch
South Park
. There is more clever writing, social commentary, and character development in one twenty-two-minute episode of
South Park
than in a whole season of
The Sopranos
. My favorite
South Park
episode is called “Stanley’s Cup.” It’s bitter, cynical, funny, brilliant. Enjoy.

Oh, right, the lesson … well … do your homework on the things you like and develop
your own
opinion about them. Don’t be enamored with or disenchanted by critics unless you
know
the critic and relate to his perspective. Art is in the eyes of the beholder. Science, on the other hand, is in the eyes of the Lord—so if you get shot and fall down, unless the bullet severed an artery or exploded in your intestines, walk it off.

On Today’s Menu:

Sacred Cow

I know I’ve already touched on this Sacred Cow thing with
The Godfather
movies. But there is another culturally instituted, nonnegotiable concept that has got to go. This one deals with rock-and-roll guitarists.

It seems that we just all have to agree, by dint of the “ascended masters” of all things rock and roll, that Jimi Hendrix was the best without question, or review, or dissent.

And he
wasn’t
.

Was he great? Sure. But he was also sloppy, his control of tone was less than perfect, and he died before he had a chance to register any significant artistic growth or create a massive enough oeuvre so as to enable us to do a comparative analysis with other great guitarists. Essentially, he fired a few shots that hit, and then hid in the weeds by dying. Make no mistake—he was a very, very good guitarist. But the Music Thought Police have declared him the Greatest, and anything other than slavish obedience to that notion constitutes heresy, which must be confronted, attacked, and burned at the stake.

Don’t believe me? Try it for yourself. Bring up the subject with some music-fan friends. Mention the fact that you think Hendrix is a bit overrated, and that in your opinion there are a few guys who were just as good, and perhaps even a few who were better. Watch as they refuse to even consider your opinion, as they ridicule you, and as they question your ability to make such a pronouncement. Listen as they question your motives for making such a statement (including leveling charges of cultural bias and racism), and attack you personally. You may also notice, as I have, that the virulence of the attack is often directly proportional to the attacker’s reputation and status (self-created and self-maintained) as a “liberal” and “free thinker.” You will not be given a chance to bring up contrary evidence (say, by playing “Cowgirl in the Sand” by Neil Young). You will be ganged up on and shouted down by your friends. They will accuse you of ignorance, stupidity, and worse. Individuals like, I don’t know, MMA Color Commentators, who fashion themselves as free-thinking libertarians, will become Lockstep Liberals who stand for freedom, justice, and diversity—
as long as you think like they do
.

Keep this in mind the next time you decide to enter into a conversation with your most “enlightened,” “democratic,” “liberal” friends about just how good anything—from something as silly, subjective, and meaningless as Hendrix was (or wasn’t) to issues like global warming. You might see them a bit differently.

Don’t say Uncle Chael didn’t warn you.

hen I was in college, I studied sociology, which is a sophisticated way of saying I spent five years watching how people become more idiotic as they band together.

I like to refer to this as the “turkey corollary”: as a group grows larger and larger, the group’s average IQ is only as high as the dumbest lump of nerves in the bunch. You could have a roomful of Nobel Prize winners, Mensa members, and ten flawless clones of me, but the moment a halfwit walks in, our collective powers are diminished by the bowl of brain pudding that is violently allergic to reason and common sense. Yes, stupidity
is
contagious.

A fine contemporary example of the turkey corollary at work is the Occupy movement. Don’t get me wrong, I think people should be brave enough to speak up when they see injustice in the world. I just don’t think they should follow the loudest voices (which are usually the dumbest) into some kind of pretend version of homelessness that disturbs honest people’s lives. I am sure that there are some bright people somewhere among the Occupy activists, probably hidden by drum circles and the “concerned” parent dragging her five-year-old child into the opium tent for a “learning experience,” but their critical thinking has been sucked into the black hole of embarrassing incompetence, hacky sacks, and acid trips dominating the movement.

The Occupy movement interests me on an intellectual level. Thousands of unhappy people who wanted something but couldn’t quite articulate it banded together to create a big urban camping party and yelled, hoping that someone in the “one percent” would notice, read their minds, and then give them what they wanted in a gift-wrapped package without any political consequences whatsoever. Why did I ever run for office when there are so many much more brilliant analytical minds in the world? I’ll tell you why, because I know that if I want the government to listen to me, I have to speak like an economist. I can’t just, like, you know, man, I can’t just
think
about how the world is, like, so messed up and stuff. I have to put my thoughts into a coherent message, approach the appropriate agency with my thoughts, and explain why my needs and the government’s needs are compatible.

It has never been quite clear what the movement wants. Apparently, it’s equality, but no one has offered any suggestions for how to accomplish that. People wanted their work to matter, so they quit actually going to work so they could park their butts in a public place. They wanted to create more jobs, and so they railed against companies that employed thousands of people. They wanted redistribution of wealth, but to no reasonable ends. Worst of all, they didn’t bother to think through how they expected these demands to be met because they were more concerned with having other people get the job done for them. They wanted change, but a poem about a tree is not a credible voice, nor is an acoustic-guitar song about peace. Change needs to be quantified, calculated, and weighed against alternatives by people who are neither biased nor lazy.

Here is my point: The Occupy movement hasn’t attracted brilliant people who have real ideas for change; it has attracted the worst elements of the human race to what has amounted to a high-minded excuse for a party. Mask an acid trip and a few sexual-assault cases with civic responsibility, and suddenly all the liberals are behind it. That makes about as much sense as leaving education policy in the hands of Playboy bunnies, who have clearly benefited enormously from learning how to read, write, and tally some numbers.

God help us, the turkey corollary is a more provable law than gravity.

or you kids out there whose idea of “playing a game” means sitting in front of a TV with a controller in your hand, blowing the heads off computer-generated zombies, this chapter title will have little meaning. Those of you a bit more seasoned in the ways of life and have actually played a board game will doubtlessly identify this phrase from the game Monopoly. The thought of this game will probably cast you back to picking up the card that carried this phrase, and from there it may cause you to recall the phrase that immediately preceded it. If you are still with me, then you might even have made the connection between that prior phrase and the desperate relevance it has had in my life. Yes, I just took a very long-winded and roundabout way to get you thinking about three simple, yet highly consequential, words—”Go to jail.”

While working in real estate, the government charged me with money laundering, and I was completely guilty. Before you write me off as a degenerate, let me explain what the problem was. What in God’s name does “money laundering” mean? If I were to come over to your house right now, knock on your front door, and ask you what that term means, would you be able to tell me? Moreover, would you be able to explain how to go about laundering some money? If your answer is yes to both of these questions, and you could show me detailed graphs to better explain the entire process, then you are either a lawyer or a degenerate. Personally, at the time I was charged with this diluted, mysterious offense, I was clueless that I was doing anything wrong.

Let me take you back in time. …

I am twenty-seven years old and I just receive my shiny, brand-new real estate license. Having labored hard to earn it, I start to use it. I get a job and do what all real estate people do. I begin showing, pitching, hustling, selling. I’ve got clients and a boss and co-workers, just like everyone else. It’s going OK. Getting a good, solid reputation. The schedule allows me time to train and coach the kids. When time allows for me to do only one, I coach the kids.