From America with Ambivalence

Don't worry gay athletes, the Russian government won't necessarily throw you in a gulag for being gay. Now, shut up and slalom. Yup, Russian authorities have agreed to slightly reword the Olympic Truce with for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. What the hell is the Olympic Truce? I'm glad I pretended you asked, because I looked it up.

I also looked up Winter Olympics and Sochi. It turns out there's another, even
less interesting version of the Olympics that happens in winter. Who knew? Oh, and I think
Sochi is some sort of Russian beverage. Probably made with vodka.

"I'll still stab you, just later..."

A couple thousand years ago when the Olympics were attended by naked people from different, sometimes warring Greek city states, everybody agreed to a truce so that nobody got 300'ed on the way to the games. Then nobody gave a shit about the Olympics from 393 to 1896 when the games were revived as a way to foster peace between the nations, which totally worked. This brings us to 1998 when the modern Olympics revived the tradition. It carries exactly no force of law whatsoever, but it makes everybody feel good.

Above: An elderly Satanist
in a wheelchair?* Welcome.
Gay people? Not so much.

Everybody that is, except gay people who were noticeably left out this time. A draft of the Russian Truce contained wording about how the games would be inclusive towards 'people of different age, sex, physical capacity, religion and social status' with a big damn uncomfortable pause where most reasonable nations would say 'sexual orientation.' Given Russia's recent and dickish attitude towards their own LGBT community this was kind of an issue with gay athletes and visitors wondering if they'll be fined or arrested for the vaguely defined crime of spreading gay propaganda. But, not to worry, like I said, the Russian government has relented and agreed to alter the wording to make sure it "promotes social inclusion without discrimination of any kind." So, um...hooray? I guess?


Do they want a medal? Well, obviously, but here I'm referring to a figurative medal. So they've generously agreed to not prosecute gay Olympians and tourists for the crime of being gay in Russia. Great. Now what about the millions of LGBT Russians who have to put up with this bullshit every day? If anything, suspending the anti-gay laws makes it worse.

"Welcome foreign homosexuals! While you disgust me, I hope you enjoy the games."

-Russian President Vladamir Putin,

wearing a goddamn shirt for once

Russian police hitting protesters with
sticks...you know, for the children.
Way to go guys, way to go.

You know and I know that the legislation is fundamentally unfair, but by relaxing it for the Olympics, isn't the government openly acknowledging that it was passed for purely political reasons? I mean, the stated rational was that the laws were put in place to protect children, but if that's true, how can they just be put aside for the games? Do they only care about the children so long as it doesn't hurt tourism? Holy shit comrades, either gay people are a danger to Russia's kids or they're not.

Look, I had no intention of watching the winter Olympics in the first place, but if anyone asks, I'm boycotting them along with whatever Russian-made good or services I regularly enjoy...which is to say, none. Man, this is going to be the easiest political statement ever.

Sure they gave us Chekov and the hilarious nuclear wessels scene in Star Trek IV,
(it's the one with the whales) but what has Russia done for us recently?

*what? She could be a satanist. You don't know...

J. K. Rowling and the License to Print Money

Un-adapted Potter books? Holy shit!
Grab a Macbook and meet me at Starbucks!

Brace yourselves everybody, I just read some earth-shattering news. Warner Brothers is going to let a first-time screenwriter take a whack at one of the studio's biggest movie franchises. Which one? Harry Goddamn Potter. Yup, there's going to be new Potter-verse films. Not sequels per-se, but stories set in the same fictional world and based upon J. K. Rowling's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Sort of the Frasier to Harry Potter's Cheers. I'm sure your first question is: what and the where to what then?


Yeah, I had to look this up too. It was an in-universe textbook mentioned in the Harry Potter series which Rowling later fleshed out and published as a real book. It's very meta. And before you call her out for slapping together a cheap cash-in on her popular novel, you should probably know that she donates 80% of the book's cover price to Comic Relief, a children's charity. Bet you feel like a jerk now, don't you?

It was similar to how H. P. Lovecraft published copies of the Necronomicon, written
in human blood and bound in human skin. You know, for the children.

How do you think they came up
with Star Trek Into Darkness?

Alright, so who is this untested screenwriter into whose hands Warner Brothers has entrusted their financial future? Is it some promising film student? Or maybe some kind of script-writing savant? Perhaps they've assembled a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters. Nope. It's J. K. Rowling. I guess when you've written a book series that outsells the Bible and its many sequels, movie studios are willing to let you give it a whack.

The decision was somehow difficult for Rowling who told the Mirror (it's a newspaper in the U.K. She's not like talking to her own reflection or anything):

Overcome with emotion, the author wiped
away a tear with the Magna Carta
and then bought Romania.

"It all started when Warner Bros. came to me with the suggestion of turning 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' into a film. I thought it was a fun idea, but the idea of seeing...[the book]...realized by another writer was difficult. Having lived so long in my fictional universe, I feel very protective of it..."

-J. K. Rowling on how she grudgingly 

agreed to become even richer

Perhaps my good friend
The Queen can convince you...

Hmm...actually, I suspect it all started when somebody at the studio drove a truckload of money up to Rowling's door, but that's neither here nor there. The premise of the new film seems pretty sound compared to say, squeezing three movies out of The Hobbit (no, I'm not over it) and as I've mentioned before, I actually kind of like her and her stupid addictive Harry Potter books. So let's face it, she's got my ten bucks.

No. Just no. Look, we love you J. K. but that's just pushing
your-wait, really? They're making that into a series?

Unhappy Campers

No, I can't start a campfire, but I do know
which Boss to fight first in Mega Man 2. 

I should probably begin by making it clear that scouting was never really my thing. I was in to it for a couple of months before I realized that it was taking valuable time away from playing video games and not going outside. I have friends who remember it fondly and that's awesome. I'm sure they gained valuable life skills like knot tying and lying about who really built their pinewood derby car, but to me it always felt like some kind of lame wilderness survival club that combined the fun of responsibility with the excitement of community service and no electricity.

Anyway, in the interest of fairness, you should keep my personal bias in mind while I rant about this. It's a story about a bunch of ex-Boy Scout members who started their own Christian knock-off scouting group called Trail Life USA.

Above: Guitar Praise. It's a Guitar Hero clone that replaces actual music with Christian rock,
and a perfect example of how Christians totally ruin a good thing. See also: The Roman Empire.

Just clicking on their website
 is itself a rugged adventure of
character building and leadership.

I know what you're thinking: aren't the Boy Scouts of America already kind of a religious? Yes, they certainly are. Most of the troops are sponsored by churches, and the Boy Scout oath is chock full o' The Lord. So what's Trail Life USA's beef? Isn't the BSA Jesusy enough? Well, remember when the Scouts decided to join the rest of us in the 21st century and lifted its ban on LGBT members? The sore losers of that debate were so butthurt (do people still say 'butthurt?') that they decided to quit and form their own totally not gay, all-male, outdoor bonding group. Oh, but don't worry, gay people are welcome to join...sort of. Wai-wuh? Yeah, that clear fluid leaking from your ear? That's perfectly normal when the logic center of your brain liquefies.

Pictured: a typical Boy Scout meeting
now that the organization has reversed
its policy regarding gay members.

Despite being the wholesome, non-hellbound alternative to the den of moral depravity that is now the Boy Scouts of America, Trail Life USA is also open to LGBT members, as long as they're not, you know, all in-your-face about it.

"If a young man has a same-sex attraction he would not be turned away in the program, but he's not going to be allowed to kind of openly flaunt it and carry a rainbow flag,"

-John Stemberger, Trail Life USA

I say if you're going to be irrational
homophobes, go for the gold.

Man, I don't want to tell these people how to run their no queers allowed club, but it seems to me that Rule #1 would be no queers allowed. Like, is it just me or is this grudging, conditional acceptance of gays somehow worse than outright exclusion? Gay kids can join as long as they don't openly flaunt it and carry a rainbow flag? What the shit is that? Are the real Boy Scouts now facing an epidemic of gay scout flag waving? Can the other kids not hear themselves imitate bird calls over the deafening sound of gay? 

And what's with Stemberger's phrase 'has a same-sex attraction?' He makes it sound like a thing you have for a little while, and then it goes away. Like a bad cold, or acne. 

"Are you two sure you don't want to give it a couple days? See if it clears up? 
I think there's a cream you can-no? ...Alright, I now pronounce you gay married."

Yeah, that's the one. 

Look, like I said before, I don't actually give a shit about scouting. I think it's a sexist relic of the 19-'aughts and kids are better off playing Xbox, or if they must go outside, one of those games with a ball everyone seems to enjoy...the foot-ball or something? You know, the one with the net. But if you do have to wander around the woods with some jerk in a neckerchief, at least go with an organization that welcomes everybody, even if it did take them years of internal debate (and the threat of lawsuits) to get over their hang-ups.

Sure, Trail Life USA is technically open to (albeit reluctantly) LGBT membership, but it only exists because its founders wanted to ensure that no one had to share a kayak with a gay kid. That's just a shitty attitude. Isn't there a merit badge for being decent human beings?

No, but apparently they do give one for achieving a lunar orbit.
Incidentally, if you ever see a scout sporting one of these, go
ahead and punch them in the face for being a goddamned liar.

Pat Robertson: Expert on the AIDS

So how much crazier does Pat Robertson have to get before someone fits him for a straight jacket and tin foil hat and hauls him off the set of his show? I only ask because during the 'Ask a Paranoid Televangelist' segment, Pat basically accused every HIV positive person in San Francisco of intentionally infecting others just for the hell of it.

Above: Ironically, the fact that Pat Robertson still has a TV show is the best
evidence Atheists have that the universe is a cold, empty expanse devoid of meaning.

Those sparks flying out of
Katy Parry's breasts? AIDS. 

It started with a viewer who volunteered to drive her church's bus but later found out that one of her passengers was HIV positive. Since most 700 Club viewers are pretty sure you can get the AIDS from watching Katy Perry videos, 'Mary' was convinced that if she got into an accident, this guy's blood would squidge its way out of him and seek out her arteries like that alien oil stuff from the X-Files. Because of this totally rational fear, she stopped going to church entirely.

Statistically, only one in 20 people
will get AIDS from a church bus.

Pat, of course, starts off with his usual bullshit about the secret gay cabal that rules America from a smoke-filled boardroom deep under the Castro District, but then concludes that driving an HIV positive person to church isn't quite as dangerous as say, having unprotected anal intercourse with him, which wasn't really on the table anyway. Here's an excerpt from the show:

Pat: "You didn't catch anything, so keep going to church and praise The Lord. You got any thoughts on that one?"

Pat's semi-rational co-host: "You know, I think you were doing a good thing by transporting this man, I have known many people with AIDS and have never felt fearful of a scenario like this. I guess even if you'd had a car accident...I mean-" 

This woman could tell us that leprechauns steal her thoughts at night and
that the moon is made of oatmeal and she'd still be the sanest person on the 700 Club.

Sensing that his co-host was making too much sense, Pat decides chimes in with some serious, 'round-the-bend space-lunacy, and I warn you, this is bonkers, even for him, so like, sit down.

Yeah, if one were to quantify Robertson's crazy in terms of
Christopher Lloyd characters, this one would be like 7 or 8 Judge Dooms.

Here goes:

Now available in grape, strawberry
and AIDS, they're positively delicious!

Pat: "You know what they do in San Francisco? Some of the gay community, they want to get people, so if they've got the stuff (referring to HIV), they'll have a ring, you shake hands, and the ring's got a little thing where you cut your finger."

Pat's semi-rational co-host: "Really?"

Pat: "Yeah really, it's that kind of vicious stuff that'd be the equivalent of murder..."

"AIDS for everyone!"

-The Gay Community,

according to Robertson

Holy shit. I mean, just, holy shit. According to the article, CBN (Robertson's network) has cut the comments from the video, and Robertson himself has issued an apology...well, it's not so much an apology as it is a statement defending his remarks and explaining how we misunderstood him: 

"I regret that my remarks had been misunderstood, but this often happens because people do not listen to the context of remarks which are being said."

-Pat Robertson,

on why we're all idiots

You see, when he said that the gay community was infecting people with secret AIDS rings what he really meant to say was that the gay community was infecting people with secret AIDS rings. See the difference? It's all about context. Thanks for clearing that up, Pat.

Pictured: Pat's AIDS ring comment going unchallenged by everyone in the goddamn room.
For real, anyone want to step in here? Camera guy? Producers? Anyone? No?

Let's disregard our evolutionary imperatives!

Pictured: Evolutionary winners
wisely fleeing from fire.

Nope, I'm not dead, I just went to Burning Man again. If you've never been and only know about it from stories on the internet you probably think it's nothing more than a giant drug-fueled orgy in the sands of the Nevada Desert, but this is completely untrue. It happens in a dry lake bed, so there is no sand. Here're some links to my previous attempts (2010, 2011, and 2012) to share with you why I and 50-70 thousand like-minded individuals swear off internet connections and toilets with running water for an entire week in order to get dangerously close to fire in stark defiance of whatever evolutionary imperative keeps other animals running safely away from it. It's quite a thing.

Here's this year's Man, standing atop a giant flying saucer.
Spoiler alert: it doesn't end well for him.

What? It's like research...

Ever year the event has a theme and this year's was Cargo Cult. What the shit does that mean? Well, a cargo cult, according to my exhaustive and scholarly wikipedia-based research, is an anthropological term for the effect contact with a technologically advanced culture has on a less advanced one. It happened on Star Trek like, every third episode and usually ended with Captain Kirk phasering the Bejezus out of some primitive society's god and leaving them to pick up the pieces of their shattered belief system.

"Prime Directive, schmime smirective, you're worshiping an ancient computer and everything you
believe in is a lie. Now, step aside so I can murder your god and get back to boning alien chicks."

- Captain James 'Space Douche' Kirk

What does any of this have to do with tens of thousands of Burners dressing up like extras from Mad Max and setting art on fire? That's a complicated question, and instead of answering it I'm just going to show you some photos I took.

El-wire, watered down cocktails and fire. Do we really need a reason?

Here we are stopped dead in traffic
26 miles from the gate. 26 miles.
Also pictured: my thumb.

This year seemed super-crowded compared to last and according to the rumors fluttering on the hot dessert breeze, it actually was. Last year's attendance was something like 56,000 which was way lower than the cap of 60,900. This was probably because people were put off by the complicated ticket lottery system. This year had a far simpler ticket distribution system and was supposed to be capped at 68,000, but a random gate person I spoke to said the actual count was closer to 71,000 which could mean that there were counterfeit tickets or stowaways or that 3000 people just snuck in.

Perhaps something like: 'Abraso-Ruff'
or 'Bloodletter' would be more apt. 

Whatever the case, the porta potties are usually a good indicator of attendance and this year they where...what's the word? Heinous. Despite the best efforts of the guys with the vaccu-trucks whose job it is to maintain them, they were heinous, suggesting a volume of usage (i.e. poo) the planners were unprepared for. Speaking of the facilities, I would like to have a word with the good people who do the advertising for Morex™ brand toilet tissue. I'm not sure that it's appropriate to describe 1-ply anything with the phrase 'silky soft.' Ever.

Anyway, I'm not complaining, it was a great burn. I camped with some awesome people who brought, get this: a zipline and a Stargate. Yes, a goddamned Stargate, complete with lights, smoke and sound effects. Yup, I was camping with my people: nerds.

Neeeerrrddds!

Above: Implausible!

There was also some fantastic art this year. The Church Trap (see below) was one of my favorite. Here's its website. When we went to see it there was a line of people waiting to get married in it. It was rad. It was also where I ran in to two friends from my first Burn back in 2010, which in a crowd of 70 thousand people is as statistically unlikely as it sounds. In fact, if you go out with friends at night and get separated you just sort of have to write off ever seeing them again. Maybe forever.

Pictured: A grown-ass man dressed-up like the
monkey from Aladdin pointing at a subtle metaphor.

Behold some more pictures:

Here's a flaming pachinko machine which instead
of fabulous prizes pays out in third-degree burns.

Bo-ring.

Or don't. Whatever.

It's a metal octopus that drives around shooting flames.
Suck on that, every other thing ever. 

If Burning Man had an official sport it would be hooping. Even better than hooping: LED hooping at night.

Rad, huh? Now check out the one on the left.

Yeah, that's a LED hood with programmable patterns.
I don't understand why people even need drugs at this place.

It's not just the Man that burns at Burning Man, most of the art pieces are burnt as well attracting huge crowds who wait for them to burn to the ground so they can leap through the embers.

Oh look, a hot, suffocating conflagration. Can't wait to get closer.

Like, for real. What is wrong with us?

Look at this: the grim specter of fiery death actually appeared to tell us to stay
away from the goddamned fire. Did we listen? No. Of course we fucking didn't.

Of course the reason for the season, The Man, is best part of the whole thing. Tens of thousands gather around the fire perimeter to watch and hope to hell the prevailing winds don't smother us with molten nails and flaming wreckage.

These blurry people are some of my friends waving
laser guns as we set out for the Man on burn night.

Before the Man burns, hundreds of fire performers put on an amazing
show seen here behind that guy's hat. Incidentally, what kind of
fancy dick wears a tall, view-obstructing hat to the fire show?

Fortunately for those of us in the shadow of the hat,
the fire show wraps all the way around the Man.

This performer is either twirling a flaming hula-hoop,
or opening a flaming portal to hell. Either way, it was mint.

The burn starts off with fireworks the likes of which would make
 Gandalf himself drown his mighty beard with tears of inadequacy.

Then comes the 'splosions.

Yeah. It's a thing.

It's right about at this point that we were all hit with the crushing realization that it would be another 365 days until the next burn...well, that and a wave of eyebrow-searing heat.