The Ayn Rand Curse

(Today we'll take a well-deserved breather from reason.)

Don't fuck with The Fountainhead. Ever since the movie Dirty Dancing smeared The Fountainhead in 1987, the cast and crew of the former has been dying premature deaths. The curse has been observed before, but to my knowledge, its cause has never before been identified.

Let's keep track of the cast here:

Max Cantor (Robbie Gould) died of heroin overdose in 1991, aged 32.

Cantor's character was the one that mischaracterized The Fountainhead as a Nietzschean affair that teaches "Some people count, some people don't." Coincidence that he was the first to die?

Anyway, the Dirty Dancing curse didn't stop there. For the curse, guilt by association is sufficient for a death sentence.

Jack Weston (Max Kellerman) died of lymphoma in 1996, aged 71.

Jerry Orbach (Jake Houseman) died of prostate cancer in 2004, aged 69.

Patrick Swayze (Johnny Castle) died of pancreatic cancer in 2009, aged 57.

In 2010, Jennifer Grey (Frances "Baby" Houseman) survived a bout with thyroid cancer only because she happened to get a medical checkup for Dancing with the Stars.

Director Emile Ardolino died of complications from AIDS in 1993, aged 50.

Executive producer Steven Reuther died in 2010, aged 58.

The studio, Vestron, went bankrupt in 1990.

Honorable mentions:

Charles Coles (Tito Suarez) died in 1992, aged 81.

Paula Trueman (Mrs. Schumacher) died in 1994, aged 93.

Alvin Myerovich (Mr. Schumacher) died in 1996, aged 89.

However, those can't be called premature deaths, given their ages.

Ayn Rand herself had died of heart failure in 1982, after a bout with lung cancer years before. Is it a coincidence that so many of the curse's victims died of cancer?

In any event, thanks to the curse and the fact that its origin has now been discovered, you can pretend you can cheat death by simply not insulting The Fountainhead while keeping your bad habits, like smoking.

Are you a believer in the curse now?

Year of the Yat

(With apologies to Al Stewart.)

On a morning from a Wyler movie
In a city where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Henry Fonda
Contemplating a mime

She comes out of that fun in a soaked dress sweating
Like the water cooler on the train
Don't bother asking for explanations
She'll just tell you that she came
In the year of the yat

She doesn't give you time for questions
As she locks up your arm in hers
And you follow till your sense of which direction
Completely disappears

Midst the disrepair down near Congo Square
There's a hidden door she leads you to
These days, she says, I feel my life
Just like the river running through
The year of the yat

Why she looks at you so cruelly?
And her eyes shine like the moon in Dupre
She comes with gumbo and etouffee
So you take her, to find what's waiting inside
The year of the yat

Well, morning comes and you're still with her
And the boat and the Yankees are gone
And you've thrown away your choice and lost your ticket
So you have to stay on

But the drumbeat strains of the night remain
In the rhythm of the new-born day
You know sometime you're bound to leave her
But for now you're going to stay
In the year of the yat
Year of the yat

Leaving It As I Found It

"I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It's yours."

— Sign left by Ellis Wyatt at the foot of the burning hill of Wyatt Oil in Atlas Shrugged.

The moon bats claim Wyatt did not in fact leave it as he found it. He extracted some oil and left a major conflagration that was not there when he found it.

(I suspect the new left would probably worry more about how the oil spill will impact those poor birds and fishes, and less about the property damage, as the old left would when Ayn Rand wrote this.)

Yet Wyatt spent his money and part of his life on the oil field, money and time that no one will refund him.

So your point was, moon bats? Thought so.

Quote of the Day

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

— Ferris Bueller

Atlas Shrugged: Part 2 Exclusive Trailer

Apparently certain people were right to worry that if a certain movie bombs, certain other people will laugh all the way to the bank.

Quote of the Day

"I did have a test today. That wasn't bullshit. It's on European socialism. I mean, really, what's the point? I'm not European, I don't plan on being European, so who gives a crap if they're socialist? They could be fascist anarchists — that still wouldn't change the fact that I don't own a car. Not that I condone fascism, or any ism for that matter. Isms in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an ism — he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon: 'I don't believe in Beatles — I just believe in me.' A good point there. Of course, he was the Walrus. I could be the Walrus — I'd still have to bum rides off of people."

— Ferris Bueller

Wikipedia City Slickers

"The episode makes frequent references to dialogue gaffes in the film, such as Luther Strickland referring to his farm as a 'walnut ranch,' and the gas attendant's pronunciation of 'homicidal' and 'fromokaidal.' "

Them there damn city slickers ain't got no clue nohow. Can't talk shop about no walnut ranching until you've broken in your first walnut.

Ornery little bastards. Have your both hands full just staying in the saddle.

I still remember my first walnut rodeo back in '86. The dust, the sweat, and the blood.

Was that little fucker or me in the end. He broke my leg; I broke hisn.

Had to shoot him. Did you ever try shooting a walnut bucking on three legs?

Emptied a whole mag of .45 ACP at him. Was all over the corral, that fucker.

Government should have bombed Wikipedia long ago. Little bastard commie compadres of that pinko traitor Assange.

Come to my walnut ranch and wrestle some bull nuts before you spread un-American stories about hardworking, taxpaying, god-fearing country folks. You go take yourself a leaf out of Sarah Palin's books. Never seen a cowgirl shoot them nuts quite like she does, no, sir.

'Cept maybe Dick Cheney. And before I had her books read out to me, we never had any toilet paper on the ranch nohow.

Cool Atlas Shrugged Trailer

(HT to Joshua Zader.)

(Should rather be called a freight car than a trailer, 'cause the movie's not about trucking.)



Boy, am I glad they updated this one. With 1950s buildings, trains, and cars, the movie would not only have been uncool, but unwatchable. The plot theme is grim and dystopian enough, and this way there's at least some eye candy to make it bearable.

I don't care shit about the ass pull with the airline bankruptcies. It pales in comparison with the train wreck the alternative would have been.

For all the fan boys who disagree, go read that 1,000+ page doorstopper over and over until you turn into Officer Barbrady. :P

Oh, and it's us who move the world.* Welcome to the twenty-first century.

You could take the Twenty-First Century Limited to get here. But that's another story entirely.

* "Although the nominative case is traditionally required after the verb 'to be', even careful speakers say 'it is me' (or him, her, etc.) rather than 'it is I' in informal contexts."

— Collins English Dictionary

Usage Note:

Traditional grammar requires the nominative form of the pronoun in the predicate of the verb be: It is I (not me); That must be they (not them), and so forth. Nearly every speaker of Modern English finds this rule difficult to follow. Even if everyone could follow it, in informal contexts the nominative pronoun often sounds pedantic and even ridiculous, especially when the verb is contracted, as in It's we. But constructions like It is me have been condemned in the classroom and in writing handbooks for so long that there seems little likelihood that they will ever be entirely acceptable in formal writing. The traditional rule creates additional problems when the pronoun following be also functions as the object of a verb or preposition in a relative clause, as in It is not them/they that we have in mind when we talk about "crime in the streets" nowadays, where the plural pronoun serves as both the predicate of is and the object of have. In this example, 57 percent of the Usage Panel prefers the nominative form they, 33 percent prefer the objective them, and 10 percent accept both versions. Writers can usually revise their sentences to avoid this problem: They are not the ones we have in mind, We have someone else in mind, and so on.

Put that in your pipes and smoke it, grammar nazis.

No grammar for you! Come back one year!

Oh, That's How Obama Does It

In case you're wondering, the movie is The Ghost Breakers and yes, Bob Hope really said it. It's not dubbed or anything.

BTW, there used to be another line, "America has got Bob Hope, Stevie Wonder, and Johnny Cash; [insert socialist slave state as applicable] has got no hope, no wonder, no cash.

With the ballooning deficit and two of them dead (and the same year, too) I'm beginning to wonder…

God forbid that anything happens to Stevie Wonder.

Because even with Hopenchange in the White House (or more precisely, particularly with Hopenchange in the White House), America needs some sort of a wonder to get hope and cash back.

Quote of the Day

"To travel in silence — by a long and circuitous route — to brave the arrows of misfortune — and fear neither noose nor fire — to play the greatest of all games — and win, foregoing no expense — is to mock the vicissitudes of fate — and gain at last the key — that will unlock the ninth gate."

— Boris Balkan, The Ninth Gate.

Eco-Terrorists Declare War on Mankind!

It is in vain, dude, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!

(Hat tip to John Stossel.)



So that's how All Gore got his name!

If you never understood why they're not properly called "greens" (though they sure vegetate) or "environmentalists," but eco-terrorists, or why Ayn Rand correctly identified them as anti-man, now you have proof from the horses' asses' mouths.

Apparently, we threaten the eco-terrorists' existence by breathing, using power, and stuff, or at least they're deluded enough to believe that:

"What to do with those people, who are together threatening everybody's existence on this planet? Clearly we don't really think they should be blown up, that's just a joke for the mini-movie, but maybe a little amputating would be a good place to start?" jokes 10:10 founder and stupid film maker Franny Armstrong.

They must have amputated her brain…

Well, if the eco-terrorists want a civil war, they can get it. We'll win it hands down.

After all, they can't use jetfighters (emissions), tanks (depleted uranium), or even lowly handguns (lead pollution). OK, eco-terrorists, draw your sticks and stones, and make my day.

(As for that half-assed apology, you can shove it next to your head. One false move, and I amputate the shortest appendage of your unwashed hippie body.)

Update:

So what's the result of their stupidity?

Currently boycotting Gillian Anderson. Boycotting Richard Curtis, too, though I never heard of that limey fucktard.

Planning to fly somewhere, in spite of the airport nazis. Does anyone know what airline has the best fleet in terms of emissions? Anyone still have 707s or Concordes? :P

No Guns for Negroes

So 100% of videos agree — even fat Southern sheriffs think twice before they assault armed blacks. If what fat Southern sheriffs do can be called thinking.

Funny Nazi

Reason and Liberty Central congratulates Christoph Waltz on winning the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for playing Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds. No one ever deserved that Oscar more. Hardly any villain in movie history ever was that witty and charming while being that evil (and a nazi at that).

Buon giorno!

Obama Care Kills

Ever wondered what socialized medicine would look like? If the disasters in Limeystan and Canuckistan aren't enough, there was one country that totally socialized medicine: the Soviet Union. Here's what it looked like:



Peed skills. Skeed pills. Speed kills. And so does Obama Care.

Please, Obama, stop caring. It hurts less.

Brüno Will Brew No Tempest in a Teapot

You know that cliché about that freight train carrying a couple thousand tons of iron ore, pulled by four locomotives, bearing down on a Japanese subcompact car? You know, something that's in no way a pretty sight, but you keep looking anyway, for its sick entertainment value?

That's Brüno for you. You might as well skip this movie if it's not too late and you watched it already. (In case you've been living on the moon, the movie chronicles the misadventures of the eponymous gay, Austrian fashion reporter, embodied by Sacha "Borat" Baron Cohen.)

There's nothing good about that movie: I didn't expect a plot, but even the "acting," costumes, and mock German dialogue are too silly and over the top to be entertaining or credible to anybody but maybe to Palinesque hillbillies. You only keep watching and laughing at the reactions of allegedly real people that have to bear the brunt of this shit load of bad taste. (Whatever they paid that medium wasn't nearly enough.)

Unfortunately (?), nothing much happens. If there's one thing you can learn from this movie it's that these days even the worst kinds of people are more tolerant and less violent than I would have thought.

Or am I the only one who's not in on the joke here? I can't shake the feeling that those "real" people were mostly actors. Those references to Milli Vanilli must be Cohen's way of thumbing his nose at his credulous viewers.

It's hard to believe that that homophobic (mostly) white trash from Alabama and beyond let themselves get hit on and provoked by "Brüno" without killing him. But if that footage is genuine, it's fair to say that some day soon Cohen will probably get himself killed for his antics.

Whatever laughs you get out of Brüno are certainly too few to justify the movie's spreading of silly homophobic stereotypes. Dude, not funny.

Dryworld

The times, they are changing: With global warming theory ever more discredited by the day and the lack of sunspots threatening to bring about a new ice age, even liberal Hollywood is changing its tune:

Universal Pictures proudly presents Kevin Costner's new prophetic picture: Dryworld.

Starring Kevin Costner as the Nomad, a lone maverick with humps and camel toe who roams the endless deserts of earth after the complete freezing of its oceans into glaciers and polar icecaps due to runaway global cooling. Wending his way between the few remaining freshwater oases, he must lead his small band of starving misfits to the last body of seawater, the mythical Wetland of the Mariana Trench, where fishing is still possible.

Latest news: The movie's budget passed the billion-dollar mark this week.

Sheriff Grayson Rides Again

Authorities in the South Carolina county where Michael Phelps was photographed smoking from a marijuana pipe have been arresting people…

[Defense attorney] McCulloch said [:] "It seems to me that Richland County has a host of its own crime problems much more serious than a kid featured in a photograph with a bong in his hand."

[Sheriff] Lott has said Phelps should not get a break because of his fame. [Defense attorney] Harpootlian said that he believes police are being overzealous.

"I find it amazing the justification is they don't want to treat him any differently just because he is a celebrity, and he is being treated far differently than any other Joe Blow who might have smoked marijuana four or five months ago."

Apparently, the South Carolina "justice" system was accurately portrayed in There's Something About Mary?

Actually, life is stranger than fiction here, as the jackbooted thugs in There's Something About Mary were investigating a real murder, and not just some cottaging, as Ted thought. But in real life South Carolina, that murderous hitchhiker would have gotten away scot-free, as real life cops there are busy prosecuting victimless crimes.

How to Lay a Bond Girl

In For Your Eyes Only, Bibi Dahl (Lynn-Holly Johnson) shoots down Julian Glover's character, Aris Kristatos, "I know what you want. But you're too old for me. I'm splitting."

Glover was 46. (But graying and balding, in case you don't remember the movie.)

A few scenes before, she had nearly raped James Bond. Roger Moore was 54.

The moral: Youthful looks conquer all.

Conservatives Don't Know Their Own

Looks like conservatives are their own worst enemies. They don't need any liberal slant in the media to get perceived as losers: Their lack of marketing savvy is enough.

A conservative blog asks: What are the best conservative movies of the past 25 years?

Answers list the usual suspects from Red Dawn to The Chronicles of Narnia, but with the precision of a Texas sharpshooter, miss the one paramount conservative movie. The movie that shows conservatives not as priggish, retarded fundies, but as outgoing, enterprising go-getters. The movie that put the fun back into fundie. A movie based on real events. In short, the best movie of recent years: Who's Nailin' Paylin?

Carey Lowell Is Too Beautiful

"Was this the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium?" — Christopher Marlowe

Too beautiful to dock a ship, that is. To put into perspective my statement to the effect that only blondes are beautiful, consider Carey Lowell.

There's scientific evidence that though brunette, she is beautiful. As Pam Bouvier, the main Bond girl from the last real Bond movie, License to Kill, she crashes the WaveKrest into a dock. That proves that she lacks the ugliness of one millinegahelen required to dock a ship.