Feed: The Movie, Or, An Argument For Vegetarianism And Celibacy
While I was in the middle of writing two articles for Less Than Credulous, my writing and thoughts were interrupted by casual movie watching with a piece that had my jaw on the floor, and my eyes unable to move from the screen no matter how much common sense would have wanted otherwise. If you are brave or need to satiate your morbidly (this adjective will be used in conjunction with another word later on in this article) curious side, then continue. If you are squeamish and disturbed by human nature, then I ask that you read something informative, enlightening, and more down to Earth (Shane's articles are very good for this).
The movie is entitled “Feed,” directed by Brett Leonard (the writer of “The Lawnmower Man” movie script), and tells a tale of on-line gambling, serial murders, and relationships – all done through the filter of what some might label sexual deviance. Before the film even started (as my fiancée and myself had just tucked in for a night of dinner and a movie), a disclaimer popped up on the screen to state that while the story and characters may be fictional, the events are based on stories about acts between consenting adults (this is when I tried to hurry up with what I was eating because I had a funny feeling that the wild ride was about to begin).
I expected dark humor. I was wrong. In fact, this movie deviates a lot from the formula of serial murder thrillers in that there really isn't much seen of the protocol and investigation followed by authorities; there is no sense of suspense or urgency; but (and this really struck me) there was a lot of camera time spent with the killer and his (unwitting) victim.
“Feed” is mostly about relationships of control. It explores the consent given between people in dominant and submissive roles, and even (much to my surprise) touched on how the person “in control” must invest in, and take care of, the object of his/her affection (there was a brief correlation with a scene of a police raid on a couple who were performing an at similar to a startling article from a few years ago).
Now let's get to the meat and potatoes of this movie. Detective Philip Jackson is part of an Australian police force, and his job is to hunt down sexual predators and illegal (mostly on-line) sexual activity. While searching for a new crime to be investigated, he finds the site geared toward “feeders” and “gainers.” For those of you new to these terms, or for those that never let a drunken friend use their computer, The former (feeders) take great delight in doing just what their name implies: shoving food in people's mouths and watching them eat. The latter (gainers) are the recipients of such action, and relish in eating and gaining weight.
Det. Phil finds that the physical location of these streaming videos, and, breaking all the rules like the maverick he is, takes a flight to Toledo, Ohio to stop this nefarious act. One wonders at this point what everyday actions are now considered pornographic.
Thus far, I'm being very tame in my description. I've left out the details of the German cannibalism scene (that is not a knackwurst in the pan). I've not gone into detail about our morbidly obese (see, I told you) 600 lb. webcam babe, dressed in lingerie, and getting very excited at the mountains of cheeseburgers getting crammed into her mouth; nor am I going into great detail about her screams of ecstasy when the host of the show (our killer) hoists her off of the bed and she realizes she's reached her new weight goal (kind of the opposite of any weight goal you may have set for yourself at the gym, or the goal you “let slip” after New Year's). If you want the visuals, watch the movie for yourself, because I've already been on this wonderful adventure, and some things just don't translate to words. Just keep in mind, you cannot unsee things.
To get back to the story, Phil tracks down our killer, and finds that his “sex” site (on a personal note, sex would have been the least offensive thing in this movie – which is probably why they didn't include it) is taking bets; not on how much camera babe Dierdre will be super-sized, but on when she'll die. Phil breaks into the killer's home (formerly his mother's – yes, they went the route of using the convention of “mother issues” to explain this maniac's motives and sexual depravity), to discover bags containing the parts of former victims.
While this is occurring, our lipo-killer (Michael) is preparing a final feast for his objet d'amour. It is a gruel of weight-gain powder and (what is heavily implied to be) the rendered fat of one of his former victims, all lovingly force-fed through a funnel and into Dierdre.
At this point, the detective bursts in, and tries to expose Michael for what he really is. Dierdre, however, is confused, and doesn't understand why this Australian stranger with a gun would be trying to disrupt what was (and has been) a very consensual and sensual experience between two adults. Of course, the end goal being a slow and heavy homicide was tacked on so that there could be conflict and resolution (which in itself took a very unexpected twist). I will not spoil the ending for you (unlike what I've probably done to your next meal), in order to get you to watch this fairly underrated movie.
All said and done, I wanted to say this was a good movie. It broke away from a lot of the usual formulas, and (again) apart from the whole “killing” thing, it provoked the questions of what is obscene, and what rights, if any, anyone has to judge what consenting people do in private or on-line.
The lines repeated throughout this movie are “You are what you eat,” and “Consumption is evolution.” You will think twice after seeing this film about what you do and eat, and how it is perceived by yourself and society. While I do not have a rating system in play for my own movie reviews, the best I can do is recommend this movie on an empty stomach.
Paying too much for water
One reason I decided to start LessThanCredulous.com comes from the response to a post I wrote about Dr. Frank's Pet Pain Spray on my personal blog, shanebrady.com. The post wasn't particularly well-written or well researched, but it quickly became my most popular post ever. Last time I looked, it had well over 80 comments. My website comes up for any Google searches for various combinations of "Dr. Frank's Pet Pain Spray". I definitely hit a nerve and it inspired me to write for this new site, on the same topic.
I won't be going into the specifics of Dr. Frank's Pet Pain Spray in this post; I'm saving that for the next one. For now I would like to consider cost of the supposed medicinal substances of homeopathic derivatives. First, let me include a definition of homeopathy (from wikipedia):
Homeopathy (also spelled Homoeopathy or Homœopathy) is a form of alternative medicine, first proposed by German physician Samuel Hahnemann in 1796, that treats patients with heavily diluted preparations which are thought to cause effects similar to the symptoms presented. Homeopathic remedies are prepared by serial dilution with shaking by forceful striking, which homeopaths term "succussion," after each dilution under the assumption that this increases the effect of the treatment. Homeopaths call this process "potentization". Dilution often continues until none of the original substance remains.
Let there be no doubt that what you end up with is simply water. Homeopaths will tell you the same thing. The key, they claim, is that after this process of dilution, the water retains a memory of the original substance. How this happens and why it would be better to use water with memory versus the original substance to begin with is never explained. There is no proof of water memory from a voluminous number of studies too long to list here. Homeopathic solutions are just water.
It's become common to note (derisively) that Americans pay more for bottled water than they do for gasoline no matter how much unrest there is in the Middle East. While tap water is ridiculously cheap, Americans spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 billion a year for bottled water. I did a little research online to come up with some prices that I could pay for water:
- Nestle Waters® Bottled Spring Water - $0.76/L
- Water from Springbrook Springs, Conchord, NY - $1.80/L
- Aquafina - $0.31/L
- Ozarka - $.28/L
- Perrier - $1.79/L
- my tap water - $.002/L
Obviously my tap water is cheaper and with the use of a filter in my fridge, I improve the taste for a fraction of the cost of bottled water. This is well traveled ground. I want to now look at the costs of homeopathic solutions, ie, water.
As an easy example, I started with Dr. Frank's Pet Pain Spray. The best price I could find was $22.98 for a 6 oz bottle, which works out to be $129.52 per liter. For water. Looking at some other popular homeopathic treatments you come up with this:
- Zicam Cold Remedy Oral Mist - $654/L
- SnoreStop Extinguisher - $1589/L
- King Bio Homeopathic Sleep Aid - $2118/L
- Ridgecrest Herbals ClearLungs Liquid - $186/L
- Liddell Laboratories Nicotine Free - $311/L
Do I need to go on? It's pretty obvious the cost of the water in homeopathic treatments is ridiculous. Since there has never been any scientific proof that water has memory, it seems awfully expensive to pay that much for "special" water. However, if I can't change your mind about homeopathy, consider your tap water. It comes into contact with all sorts of substances that are extremely diluted within the water. If you believe in homeopathy, then you should also believe that your tap water has healing properties. It's the "ultimate" homeopathic solution. So if I can convince homeopathic believers of anything, I hope, at a minimum, it's that it's better to just drink your own tap water, than to pay $12 bucks for a 2 oz bottle of distilled water.
My next post will deal with the specifics of Dr. Frank's Pet Pain Spray and why I think it's a waste of money.
Tweets for 2009-08-25
- http://bit.ly/15gO9K Bigfoot in PA or just a mundane misidentification? #bigfoot #
- http://bit.ly/QBxYL Breaking news, "Magic water" doesn't cure AIDS! #
Why I Traded My Dime For Credulity
I came to Less Than Credulous after a sixteen month project with my co-host and co-writer, Shane. When we were younger, we often talked about being able to publish music, our writing, and voice our thoughts with little cost to us, and having a wide reach. In 2008, technology had finally caught up to where our ideals were fifteen to twenty years ago.
What initially started out as collaborative project for the sake of doing something quickly gained a life of its own, and became The Libertarian Dime podcast. Each week, we would tackle topics ranging from taxes to the economy to the elections (it certainly cannot be said that our timing was bad for starting such a venture). We had on great guests, honed our interviewing skills (which I'd never done in a public forum), and garnered a decent following of both new and regular listeners. The fact that (with the exception of one week) I continued with this show was a testament to my lack of laziness (or sanity), and it was something I enjoyed and a project in which I believed.
At the beginning of 2009, our show saw a great boom in popularity and guests. However, after the first quarter, something started to scratch at the back of my brain. I had been spending my waking hours (that weren't with my job and my fiancée, Nicole) thinking about politics and researching for our podcast. After a while, everything could be seen from a libertarian angle, right down to labels on the salad dressing I was using during dinner. News sites and political venues were becoming the equivalent of cable television or a (bad) Bruce Springsteen song. It was getting stale, despite the change we were all promised. However, unlike the current administration, we did move forward.
We added Mike Fairman to the cast, who offered a third perspective during our round table discussions, and when we were interviewing guests. This certainly livened things up a bit, but did not change the fact that the state of current events (to use a term I picked up in my political science courses) sucked. I found myself turning to video games and music more than politics and current events.
Whether it was a subconscious decision on Shane's part or if it was intentional, we started to veer from the realm of politics and discuss things such as personal finance, how to get a job in the current market, and even time travel. It was a breath of fresh air. However, while I have always been one for individuality and being able what one wants, I would walk away from our weekly podcast and wonder if The Libertarian Dime (if by name alone) was too restrictive in scope for what Shane and I had talked about doing for a long time.
Shane approached me one night and mentioned stopping The Libertarian Dime (in all fairness, we weren't putting out much written content – just weekly podcasts, which we were finding draining at this point). As much as I knew Shane not to give up on an idea, this was a relief to me. We talked for a while, and came to the conclusion that we weren't quitting per se, just that we had seen The Libertarian Dime through its full life-cycle, and when something that started out as inspiring becomes an obligation, then to continue to do it only diminishes the joy and enthusiasm of those running the project, which in turn ruins the experience for the listeners and readers.
Well, like the mythological phoenix (I only say “mythological” because we haven't disproved its existence...yet), we reinvented ourselves and started Less Than Credulous as a way to take in and write to the larger scope of our ideas and opinions. Sure, we may talk about politics, but this platform will also allow us to write about other topics as well (be it music, the paranormal, video gaming, vegetarianism, or anything that strikes our fancy).
At heart, I've always been (or have fooled myself into believing I am) a better writer than a speaker. I've also never really had the desire to talk about politics every waking hour, when there are myriad other topics to research and discuss. When I think about it, most of my mental energy goes into thinking and researching a concept or subject. Writing about it comes easily, but after that, I want to move on to a new topic, and discuss the previous ones at leisure. Less Than Credulous will allow for that.
Now that this exegesis is coming to a close, expect more (though possibly less prolix) articles from me in the future about, well, who can really say? It depends on what strikes me, but I can guarantee that the topics will be researched before I offer an opinion. Some articles may be informative; some may be snarky; and some may just be random musings on my part. I look forward to writing for Less Than Credulous, and encourage you to read and respond to us!
Is it true that quitters never win and winners never quit?
The title of this post is inspired by the seemingly sudden decision I made with regards to my last internet project, The Libertarian Dime. After sixteen months of podcasting mostly about libertarian politics, I reached my limit. The last few weeks of the show we (we being myself, Jonathan, and Mike) found ourselves talking about everything but politics. The format of the show had begun to feel stale, and I didn't know what to do. Then I thought about it a little more, and realized I had an inkling of what needed to be done, but I didn't want to do it. I couldn't continue to talk about politics.
I emailed my co-hosts as soon as it crystallized in my mind that I needed to quit doing the podcast. Jonathan, who started the podcast with me, messaged me a couple days later and seemed to have independently come to the same conclusion. We were done, we quit, and we moved on. The show was well received by our listeners and guests , but in addition to be burned out, we realized we weren't that popular, and probably would never be that popular.
Were we quitters who couldn't hack it when the going got tough?
I have pondered this a lot since we ended The Dime, and, surprisingly, I have come to the conclusion that "quitting" was the smartest thing we could have done. Creative projects have finite lifespans. If you don't believe me, go back and watch the last 2 seasons of the X-Files. Would anyone fault Chris Carter now if he had decided enough was enough once David Duchovny left the show full time? While The Dime was in no way in the same class of art as the X-Files, we did do some good work, talked with a lot of cool guests and learned a whole lot about interviewing people live (and often without notes). I learned to stop hogging all the airtime (eventually anyway), and Jonathan's two part questions with multiple sub-parts became much tighter as time went on. However, we just didn't find an audience and an audience didn't find us. Alas, between that and burnout we "quit."
I think quitting is underrated. During my twelve years at my current company, there have been two times I wish we had "quit" working on the project I was working on. The first time, we didn't, and I continued on a career death march for another year. The second time, we quit at the perfect time and my sanity was maintained. Quitting was the right thing to do, as it freed up resources and allowed us to take a fresh perspective on the different markets we were trying to succeed in as a company.
I feel the same way about The Dime. Jonathan and I spent a ton of time working on the podcast and didn't have as much time (or any) to focus on writing for the website. The time we spent on the podcast will now be dedication to writing content for LessThanCredulous.com.
LessThanCredulous.com is the first formal project than Jonathan and I have undertaken that will be about writing original content from an investigator's mindset. One thing that I learned while doing the podcast, was that we both had a knack for asking questions that the interviewee hadn't heard of or though of before. We choose to look at this as a positive. We will take this knack and apply it to a broader range of topics. Nothing will be out of bounds, even politics if we can muster the strength. There will be interviews, there will be speculation, there will be humor, there will be Bigfoot I'm sure. I can't wait.
So you see, I didn't quit out of laziness or fear, but because I wanted to do more. I'd say that's a fine reason for quitting.