Since 1994, I’ve been a Kevin Smith junkie. Something about the gloriously foul words that flew from his characters’ mouths spoke to a yearning in my soul to say whatever the fuck I want. As Smith went through the normal progression of life (marriage, kids, success, failure, etc), so did his audience. I always just seemed to be at a place in my life where his work informed my own. I even paid homage to “Mallrats” in my first flick with a fun little animated blueprint sequence a la Jay and Silent Bob. I’ve followed (and written about) his career, to include the very beginnings of his new venture.

Back in early 2007, Smith was looking for a way to more consistently hang out with his good friend and producing partner Scott Mosier. The duo decided to get together on a weekly basis, to record their conversations and release them as a podcast, merely as a way to hold themselves accountable for some man-on-man time (I mean that in a non-sexual way, but really, these two should just get it over with). People – including me – listened and the show, called “SModcast,” became the top podcast on iTunes.

Flash forward three years, and Smith had added several more podcasts, hosted by him and others in his Askewniverse. Some were short series, but there was a core of 7 broadcasts, one released each day of the week. Sponsors came in (“came” being the operative word here, as the first sponsor was “Fleshlight”… you can look that one up on your own) to offset costs and make the network profitable. Meanwhile, Smith made the heartfelt revelation that he was enjoying podcasting more than making films. He’s said that “Hit Somebody,” a film based on a song written for Warren Zevon by “Tuesdays with Morrie” author Mitch Albom, would be the last film he’d direct, for at least a while. He needed a break from the movies.

Then, as with most successful entrepreneurial ventures in America, it occurred to Smith that he could do what he loves, make a little dough, and perhaps make a run at building his own empire. With a core audience of fans to build on, and nearly 1.8 million Twitter followers, Smith knows that if he builds it, at least a bunch of us will come (many times a day if we engage his newer sponsors like Adam and Eve, but again, you’re on your own there). So, on a Smodcast from February, exactly 4 years after starting with what was a way to make sure he could hang out with a friend for an hour every week, Smith announced that he was launching SModcast Internet Radio, or S.I.R. for short. The technology had caught up with the idea of internet radio, with S.I.R. available to stream to your phone or other mobile device. You can listen wherever you are in the world. A new business was created.

That, my friends, is capitalism in America. In “Michael Moore Hates America” I interviewed a young guy in Flint, MI who loved coffee… in his car, he had books on coffee, magazines about coffee, loads of material on different coffee beans around the world. He created his own unique roasts and gave them rock-n-roll-based names, then sold them at the local farmers market. He said to me, “Figure out what you love to do, and then find a way to make money by it.” Those words have stuck with me as I’ve built my own business over the years. This is what Kevin Smith has done with S.I.R.

Not only has he created a new business, but it will have an impact others. Advertisers have a new, inexpensive outlet to appeal to a very specific demographic, and they will surely benefit from the new audience. That’s how a free-market economy works.

Look, Kevin Smith has made lots of money doing something a lot of people dream of. He had more resources and name recognition than most people. It was easier for him – especially in this economy, under leadership that doesn’t seem to give a shit about free markets nor a clue about how jobs are created – to make the leap to a new career with a new business than it is for most. But S.I.R. is a shining example of what’s possible if you’re willing to do what it takes to live the dreams you dream.

The father of Wayne Gretzky (the near-mythological hockey player Smith quotes frequently) once said, “Don’t be where the puck is, be where the puck is going to be.” It seems to me that the future of America will rely on a bunch of us figuring that out and being ahead of the puck. There are a million excuses to keep chasing it around the rink, but that’s not what has made this the greatest nation on earth. So, if you’ve been laid off, or you’re unhappy with your gig, take some time to find what you love. Pursue it. Simply make it “become.” Kevin Smith has done that with S.I.R.

Two years ago, on a cloudy and cold Saturday morning, I met a guy in a K-Mart parking lot to hand him the cash in exchange for the goods. We nervously approached each other, after he arrived in his beat up ’89 Grand Am. I gave him the money and he gave me my fix… enough to keep my girlfriend Jamie and me happy for a few weeks. After I checked each “Smallville: Season 4” DVD for scratches, the deal was done. I headed home and we watched five episodes that day.

For me, the show has always been about young Clark Kent’s ascension to greatness. He knows, and the show explores, that he was delivered to Earth to rescue mankind from its own frailties. In fact, “Smallville” added a piece of mythology to the story: that his father Jor-El of Krypton specifically chose the town of Smallville, Kansas, right in the heart of the United States of America because his dense molecular structure could help the world (via Clark’s learned perspective as the adopted son of middle-Americans who would teach him morality) to regain moral balance.

Painting by Michael Wilson

Deeper “Superman” mythology aside, the narrative of “Smallville” is light and airy. It deals with the very-heavy-at-the-time-but-not-really-consequential stuff we all dealt with as teenagers. My favorite shot from all 10 seasons is from Season 2 – a solitary shot of Clark, alone in his barn-loft hangout. He had just been watching through his telescope as Lana Lang reconciles with her boyfriend (who Clark used his superpowers to save, denying himself the chance to win the girl). He is alone and sad in his power, and hangs his head… cut to black. That inner struggle makes the show worthwhile. It has also, at times, been a bit like the teeny-bopper-rock-pop my daughter listens to, and that I genuinely, genuinely enjoy.

Go to hell. So what if I like autotuned vocals and melodic guitar riffs over manufactured drum tracks that have been Focus-Group tested by Nickelodeon and Disney and that tie into their programming?

The show spent its nine seasons arcing through both Clark’s internal struggle and Superman mythology. It’s done a better job than not of both adding to and borrowing from the existing canon. Tom Welling has proven to be a perfect casting choice from Day 1, bringing a beautiful humanity to the Kryptonian savior (I’d rather he play Supes in the upcoming WB/Zack Snyder reboot, but since Snyder is the most badassed director of comics-turned-flicks on earth, I trust his judgment). It has also inspired a devout following of people who know right from wrong, and who believe you should do whatever you can to help people remain free to pursue their own happiness. After nine seasons, it was time to wind down the show.

And now, the point.

This may sound trite, but Season 10 has hurt my feelings. Vic Holtreman wrote a good piece wondering about the direction earlier this season. He thought maybe he was imagining the left turn. He wasn’t. It seems that the writers have decided that all forces for good are liberal and all forces for evil are conservative. It’s not subtle, but overt, on the nose, and at times, abusive. The writers – Don Whitehead, Holly Henderson, Jordan Hawley, Genevieve Sparling, Al Septien & Turi Meyer in particular – have used their positions as stewards of one of our most beloved mythologies to put forward their personal politics, at the expense of the show’s fans and frankly, at the expense of the narrative.

Make no mistake, there are politics in the DC Universe. For example, Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) has always been a limousine liberal. And when Kevin Smith brought him back to life a few years ago in the comics, sans money or limos, he was still a hardcore lefty. And Batman has always seemed a gruff law-and-order conservative. All of which is okay. People ARE, after all, political.

But what the writers have done this year, aside from stealing lines from Star Wars (not cool and referential, just stolen lines from lazy writers), is more about injecting politics where none are necessary. Was it necessary for one of the season’s early villains to be a Glenn Beck clone or for Lois to tell Black Canary “I hate to rain on your tea party, but…”? Or to paint a conservative character as not understanding life’s nuances, until she suddenly “repents” and becomes a liberal who now gets that the world is not cast in black and white (because obviously Neanderthal conservatives have no ability to understand nuance)? And is it necessary, or even accurate to create a branch of government (run strictly by hardcore conservative characters with eyepatches) hell-bent on enslaving the show’s heroes in an overt reference to immigration reform (after all, liberals WANT government to run things, don’t they?)? And how did Ma Kent become an Al Franken-esque US Senator who chants “No more HATE (the word liberal folks use to describe any disagreement with anything they say)!” after she and Jonathan spent the early seasons struggling and refusing government subsidies to keep the Kent farm alive, while teaching Clark about self-reliance? There’s an example from nearly every episode.

Recent iterations of Superman, including the sadly disappointing “Superman Returns” and this season of “Smallville” have eschewed “the American Way” leaving Superman to stand only for “Truth” and “Justice.” The idea, I suppose, is to make the Man of Steel a savior for all the world, for the sake of being the savior for all the world. What the people behind this shift in mythology fail to understand is that Superman serves humanity BECAUSE of “the American Way,” not in spite of it.

Superman, from his early beginnings, was always the light of the world because of his upbringing in a modest, Midwestern, and indeed, American family. His virtues are uniquely American and his actions are framed within that context. To shelve that aspect of the character is to transform what we’ve (my 2 year-old son included) always known about him, and through him, ourselves. I don’t want that knowledge to change, either in Superman’s story or in our own national self-reflection.  We are the shining city on the hill, and Superman is the mythological representation of that glorious sight.

In an upcoming comic book reboot, DC is planning to make young Clark Kent kind of a whiny loser, rather than a young kid conflicted about the struggle between being able to do anything he wants and doing the right thing. That the company wants to take the iconic character in that direction saddens me, but Superman’s young life can be reinterpreted as time goes on, I suppose. I only hope that the writers will remain faithful to the self-reliant morality that Clark’s adoptive parents inspired within him.

As I write this, I sit in my office, with one wall adorned by a framed Superman poster. The Man Of Tomorrow is stretching out his fist, propelling himself to flight, off to battle the dark powers that confront mankind. In the poster, he is fighting for truth, justice, and indeed, the American way. That poster has followed me for 10 years, and it has, at times comforted me, reminding me that we must all live into our destinies. We must battle the desire to seek vengeance and do good in the world (certainly, Superman could snap Lex Luthor’s neck like a twig, yet he always turns the “greatest criminal mind in history” over to the authorities to be tried by a jury of his peers). Superman is what we all aspire to be, even though none of us can truly fly.

I want Superman to remain a patriotic symbol of aspiration. He reminds us that we, as Americans, stand for honesty, determination, charity, industry and self-reliance. I hope that before this season of Smallville ends, its writers remember that.

First, I see no problem with Moore suing the Weinsteins. If Moore’s audit showed irregularities, he should go after the dough. As someone who’s seen this very issue first hand, I can tell you that it is extraordinarily painful to see someone else spending your money on a big, expensive lunch, while smiling at you from across the table. Moore sued, they’ll likely settle, nobody will be happy, and in their unhappiness, they’ll all know they got a good deal.

But Mike Moore (and to some extent, the Weinsteins) has made a living espousing socialism and communism, wherein the government divvies up the money. You don’t like the result? Well, you can go fuck yourself, because you ain’t suin’ the government. And if you do, your monthly bag of government rice might come with a little hole in the bottom that allowed half of it to leak out during transit.

And that juxtaposition is what we in fly-over country most dislike about Hollywood. While we dig the music and the shallow celebrities we follow on TMZ and provide the bulk of the ticket receipts for the flicks, it’s the juxtaposition of big, rich guys using the system we espouse – where courts ARE one of the few Constitutional functions of government to help settle such disputes, and where we think Mike, Bob and Harvey should be able to make ungodly amounts of money and spend it however the hell they want – versus the ideology of slavish socialism they wish to inflict on those of us who can’t fly to Cannes on a private jet at any given moment.

It’s not just hypocritical (as my friend Penn says of hypocrites: “If someone does one thing and says another, it only doubles their chances of being half right”), but I think it’s immoral. It’s immoral to literally strive and campaign for your fellow Americans to lose their rights to do the things you have done to take yourself from being unemployed in Davison, Michigan to a “multi, multi-millionaire” (and let’s give Moore credit, he IS a self-made “multi, multi-millionaire”).

America can remain the place where you can say anything you want and even make a boatload of money doing it. We’re creative and innovate and brilliant. Sadly, now that he has everything he could want in life, Moore wishes to cast a cold, gray cloud of sadness over the shining city on the hill, so that no others may discover its wonderment.

And while the rest of us try to scrape by, Moore still wants his movie check.

Back in 2003, at about the same time I was getting my hand pretty far up fame’s skirt (just before her dad walked in the room and kicked my ass), I found Discovery and Pilgrim Entertainment’s “American Chopper,” a reality show about the Teutuls, a family of rough-and-tumble men who own Orange County Choppers (Orange County, NY… not CA). They build some of the most beautiful custom choppers on the road, but the appeal of the show is that, because we’re dealing with a father and his sons, they fight. A lot.

The show featured a classic battle between an overbearing, strict father and a creative son with a penchant for showing up late to work. As Paul Teutul, Sr. pushed Paul Jr. to adhere to the company rules, Paul Jr. pushed for more creative and business freedom, and the show that made it possible for them to grow into a full-on motorcycle factory brought fame and fortune for both, their egos and bank accounts grew exponentially. 

But because these are real men, who take challenges to their egos and masculinity seriously, the show ended with a fiery argument, with the father firing the son (along with a big chair, a few garbage cans and a bunch of tools being thrown with the force of a 103 cubic-inch V-twin at full throttle). 

Discovery couldn’t make a show without both men and canceled the show after its long run. Then Paul Tuetul, Sr. sued his son for a million dollars in stock options, vowing to crush his progeny beneath the weight of the litigation. You would think that a bad economy (the principals acknowledge that OCC has been losing money), the loss of the company’s creative force and the stress of a legal fight amongst family members would bring calamity. But these aren’t well-coiffed, manicured, metrosexual Hollywood reality TV stars we’re dealing with. They’re real men who build badass machines. 

But Paul Jr. didn’t give up. He did what most creative entrepreneurs did. He started his own company, “Paul Jr. Designs.” And he got the band back together, hiring back some of the show’s early “characters” (I don’t know what else to call them), with whom he had creative chemistry. And he got to work, putting in crazy hours and building bikes. 

Discovery Channel decided to get back to work producing the show as “Senior vs. Junior” with a film crew at each company. We see the teams each build custom motorcycles, but we get a bigger glimpse into the psyche of real men at war with each other, despite their familial ties and long partnership. It’s an interesting study for entrepreneurs and one we rarely see played out so honestly in our popular entertainment culture. 

Senior obsesses over ways to inflict pain on his son, makes flimsy and nonsensical arguments about how his son betrayed him, all while suing to take ownership of Junior’s 20% ownership in OCC for, get this, $0. His integrity devolves over the course of the season, as he’s driven not by a love of craft or a simple desire for success, but to hurt a competitor. It’s the very thing that people dislike about big business. 

Junior is showing us what’s right with an entrepreneurial America, where people who are willing to take risks under tremendous pressure and who are willing to put in the effort, can pick themselves up and build something big and powerful. Maybe he can do it better faster and cheaper. Or maybe it’s his vision for his own success that will allow him to overtake OCC. Maybe he’ll fail, but I’m rooting for him. His is a story most of us who have struggled to build a business, or get a film made, or overcome some obstacle know very well. 

TV, and especially reality TV is full of pussified girlie-men who lie, cheat and cry about how miserable they are. American Chopper: Senior vs. Junior gives us a glimpse into the lives of real men, in genuine and often painful conflict and competition. They, through their successes and failures, mistakes and decisions, teach us what it’s like to put everything on the line. Most importantly, they remind us that in America, it is still your actions that show the world the best and worst of what you are.

Acid attack

In case you, unlike me, have a life and stuff to do on Friday nights, let me recap the premise of the show. It follows a group of eco-terrorists (led by Paul Watson, a vegan wanted for sinking alleged whaling ships while they were in harbor under repairs – bravery, if ever there was an example – who has called for human population control, and who was so extreme he was tossed out of Greenpeace), as they throw butyric acid, smoke bombs and fire projectiles at Japanese whalers (yes, they are indeed whalers), and attempt to sink their vessels in the freezing Antarctic waters, perhaps killing their crews. The “Sea Shepherds” as they call themselves (a name that calls to mind peaceful days on green hills, rather than the violence the group openly embraces), also constantly devise ways to destroy the props or engines of the Japanese vessels, stranding the crewmen, and I presume, to leaving them to die. That’s it. I think we’re supposed to root for these guys, given the narrative arc of the show.

One of the most highlighted personalities on the show is Pete Bethune, a wealthy New Zealander who got his start searching for oil in Libya (irony) and spending his vacations hunting and fishing (more irony). Pete is constantly talking about ways to destroy the Japanese vessels and, in one episode started a fire on one of the Sea Shepard ships building a high-powered oxygen torch to cut through the Japanese propellers. The season finale is all about Pete Bethune. 

Tonight, you’ll see that Pete (after lots of big talk and aborted attempts) finally manages to board a Japanese vessel to make a citizen’s arrest of its captain. Pete was then obviously detained, and then charged, tried and convicted of several crimes in Japan, including assault, for throwing butyric acid at the whalers, burning their faces with the corrosive chemical. He was deported to New Zealand on a suspended sentence. But I’m sure he’ll be back at it soon. The fame “Whale Wars” has brought him seems intoxicating, and he plays the “maverick” role well.

On Friday nights, I don’t root for the Sea Shepherds. I root for the whalers. I’m guessing whale meat tastes awful, I’m not for ruining whale populations, and my son loves all four “Free Willy” movies. I’m not really pro-whaling. But when I see these Sea Shepard douchebags, who presumably never worked in the real world after getting their Feminist Studies degrees from Berkeley, attack other human beings with an endgame that can ONLY be assumed to be death for those people, I want evil punished. And the Sea Shepherds are evil.

But they’re not the only evil people involved. If the premise of the show doesn’t make your head spin, wait until you try to comprehend the following: Bob Barker, the former host of “The Price is Right” partly finances the group. He gave them $5 million and they named one of their illegal pirate vessels after him. Yep, the Bob Barker is the name of one of the ships that the terrorists operate from. Yikes, right? Also, Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter who used to dangle his child-star daughter in front of hungry crocs, before he was stabbed in the heart and killed by one of the gentle creatures of the ocean for trespassing, has a ship named after him.

So you have a game-show-host-sponsored group of terrorists bent on killing people, led by a fugitive (having been convicted in absentia in Norway, Watson is on the lam) who thinks whales shouldn’t be killed, but the human population should be controlled.

I watch every week.

—–

But I want it to get better. I think I have a good story arc that would boost the Animal Planet’s highest-rated show even further into the stratosphere. The Japanese should hire a crew of mercenaries to hunt down and sink these ne’er-do-wells. If Watson and his crazy followers think military tactics are acceptable, then let there be military tactics. Since Watson rams and destroys vessels (then marks his “kills” on the hull of his ship, just like most fighter pilots in combat), let’s find some people who want to play the game and turn them loose. The TV crews on board should be left to their own devices. That would be fun.

Another twist would be to ship in some Somali pirates and tell them that the Sea Shepherd ships are carrying infidels and $100 million in untraceable gold bullion. They’d board those ships faster than Al Gore at the annual Masseuse Association Caribbean Cruise. Once on board, they can demand ransom from the wacky group, thereby burning up its resources. This would make for a nice outreach program with Somalia, and maybe even help stem the tide of actual piracy in the Gulf of Aden (since we’re handing them ready-made targets and money).

And lest you think that I’m actually supporting an attack on American vessels (and, according to maritime law, sovereign American territory), let me reassure you. The ship is (or maybe “was”) registered in Togo. After discovering that the Sea Shepherds were attacking vessels on the open water, even Togo decided to forgo the fees and pulled the ship’s registration in February. The Sea Shepherds claim that their ships are now registered in the Netherlands, but nobody is really sure.

“Whale Wars” is good, entertaining TV. But I haven’t run into anyone (not even my liberal friends) who think the Sea Shepherds are on the right side of things. Everyone I’ve talked to thinks they’re really stupid. And really mean. And significantly dangerous. I bet the Animal Planet thinks that they’re creating folk heroes of these idiots. And they are, in a way. But not for the reasons they think.

We, the audience, are fascinated by people who can’t see the illogic and immorality of harming humans because of some childish fantasy about “saving the planet.” We’re interested in people who, no matter how crazy or evil, do things without conscience. We watch shows about serial killers. And we watch these so-called whale warriors. It’s all the same.

Adam McKay, the director of films like “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” and “Stepbrothers” and I have been entrenched in a Twitter-based back and forth for months. An epic battle where only one man can be left standing. It’s like “Highlander.” There can be only one.

Or not.

Adam and I have been involved in what I can only describe as the most respectful and short-phrased debate about what we want our country to be that I’ve ever seen, let alone participated in. We’ve referenced everything from the Teapot Dome scandal to the Roman Empire to the original “Battlestar Galactica.” And that was just today. Since noon.

Adam is a hardcore lefty with wacky-crazy-nutty beliefs about corporate corruption and big-government solutions. He’s demonstrably wrong about practically everything. His ideas are destructive to our Republic. His view of America directly contradicts what the Founders envisioned when they laid out the rules for what this nation would be. And yet I like him. A lot.

See, those of us who consider ourselves to be political animals frequently forget that the people we’re arguing against are also people. And while the recent SCOTUS decision doesn’t do anything close to turning corporations into people, we should remember that those with whom we disagree are not nameless, faceless entities that revel in evil and wish to destroy the world.

@Ghostpanther, as he’s known in the Twitter world, is my favorite kind of liberal. Unapologetic. True to his convictions. Knows that his ideas are contrary to the Constitution. But he studies history and facts and just sees it all differently than I do. He’s a good man with bad ideas.

I have to say something now that might be painful to people who know me personally. But it needs to be said to place this article in context. The thing is, the vast majority of liberals I know are just uninformed, ignorant or stupid. They believe what they believe because they haven’t learned enough, thought through enough, or experienced enough. Or they want people to like them. They see a genuine problem and say “someone should do something” without concern for the results when “someone” turns out to be the monopoly on force we know as government and that it takes money from other people at gunpoint.

This is relevant, because I have almost no respect for those liberals when it comes to their political ideology. Their opinions don’t matter, because they’re not based on an understanding of facts and history in combination with experience. They’re usually based on whatever fucktard “issue” is being covered most at TMZ or “Entertainment Tonight” at the time.

But this Adam McKay guy is different. He’s the kind of liberal I like to hang out with (there are about 4 in my personal life) because he understands that his ideas, if brought to fruition, would result in a different United States of America than we’ve always known. He just doesn’t care, because HIS America is better than OUR America.

He’s wrong, of course. But this is what we’re supposed to do. We’re supposed to disagree and struggle and rumble until the wee hours. We’re supposed to fight like crazy and win in the Arena of Ideas. We are supposed to be able to yell FUCK YOU! across the room or web and still be able to talk politely about stuff later. We’re supposed to hate the people we love, and I love Adam McKay as a fellow American. But, of course, I hate him. He’s wrong, you know.

But it’s all good. I don’t think that Adam McKay is evil. I presume that while he disagrees with me (he’s wrong), he doesn’t think I’m evil. And while we’ve never met and we’re not friends, I respect Adam McKay for his crazy liberalism and for his willingness to fight for it. This is the arena of ideas, and I hope we keep battling it out like Highlander. A famous, rich, limousine-liberal movie director and a broke-ass, hardly-known, right-wingnut movie director going at it for months on end. What could be better and worse for America?

To follow the best and worst of American political discourse, hit up @ghostpanther and @Wilson_Michael

After I made “Michael Moore Hates America,” I spent several years (and still occasionally) doing interviews for the press on movie stuff. They’d always call me, because, you know, I’m a crazy, angry right-wing nut job and I’d made the only “conservative” documentary any of them had ever heard of. Something controversial would happen in the world of cinema, my phone would ring for a few days and then I’d go back to my life. In one episode, I received a call from the CBC. They wanted to know if I could do a satellite interview with them on an evening news talk show. The topic was the about-to-be-released film “Death of a President” where President George W. Bush was digitally assassinated.

The producer asked me if I could go on and talk about how outrageous it was that the filmmakers would do this. I said, “Well, I’ll go on if you like, but you should know that I don’t find it at all outrageous.” There was a long pause. “You don’t?” she asked. “Nope,” I responded. “I’m a filmmaker. I’m an artist. I would never, ever tell another artist what they should or shouldn’t create. I mean, look, President Bush is still in office and it’s probably not a great idea to do it with a sitting president. But more importantly, he’s married and he has kids. And regardless of whether he’s loved or reviled, he’s still a human being and not a fictional character. So from that perspective, I think it’s kind of mean. But I’d never tell an artist to not create something for any reason.”

“Well,” said the producer, clearly disappointed, “we’re really looking for someone who’s outraged.”

“Good luck finding your outrage,” I said, before exchanging pleasantries and hanging up.

And that, dear readers is almost everything that’s wrong with the world.

Rather than inviting intelligent people to simply talk about stuff they know about and who have expertise they might be able to share with the audience, we live in a world where feigned outrage and an inability to say “I might be wrong and you might be right” has resulted in our loss of focus on what this, the greatest nation the world has ever known, was supposed to be… an arena of ideas.

I’m a hardcore libertarian. I read the Founders and feel like they’d be utterly stunned at the power the federal government has slowly and surely obtained. Some of my very close friends think that’s pure silliness, and we talk about it and hash it out and yell at each other. And after I win the debate, we all feel like we’ve learned something. But they’re right too. They just picked the wrong nation to want socialism in.

I also happen to have a deep respect for Glenn Beck, both for his talent and skill in fusing entertainment and enlightenment, for his deep concern for our nation and where we’re headed, but also because of something deeply personal that our mutual friend was nice enough to convey my thanks for. Not to be opaque, but suffice it to say that Glenn has talked about something that has had a profound impact on my life, beyond politics.

Should The Onion have wished death on Glenn Beck? Probably not, because no matter how much you might hate him, he’s still a guy with a family and feelings. By most accounts, Glenn’s a nice guy (though he admits to having been an asshole in the past, but so do I). I’ve never heard him trash an individual outside of discussing what they’ve said publicly (Van Jones comes to mind), which is certainly fair game in the business of politics. I’ve never heard him step outside of the political and attack a person’s family or religion (unless the context directly informs the politics… i.e. Jeremiah Wright). Yet people hate him with a white-hot passion for speaking truth to power, so much so that he has private security and receives real, honest-to-goodness death threats on a daily basis. That’s a terrible thing, whether the threats are against Glenn or Michael Moore.

But more important than whether the Onion was mean to Glenn is why Nolte asked me to write this piece in the first place, which is that he’s a smart enough guy to know I’m not outraged and that I look at things a little differently, especially when it comes to entertainment. He knew that rather than the sniping that might come from our side, it might be more fun to have a conversation. Glenn Beck probably isn’t outraged (as an entertainer, I bet he might even think it funny). And maybe you shouldn’t be either. We probably shouldn’t get fired up and angry over little things that have no real impact on our world. The Onion doesn’t matter because they can’t tax or enslave me, and if I don’t like their work, I can always choose to not click in their direction. We could also simply counter it with really funny shit that hammers their guys. But mostly, I think we should save our energy for the big fights that mean something, like our struggle to remain free in an increasingly oppressive and parental America.

Tomorrow, if he chooses, Glenn will climb behind that microphone and speak truth to power again. Because, after all, the answer to bad speech is more speech.

As many of you who frequent this blog know (and often condemn me for), I believe there is no god. That’s quite different from saying “I don’t believe in God.” When I say I believe there is no god, I mean that in this vast universe (or maybe multiverse) I don’t choose to not believe in a god, but that there is no god to not believe in. There’s a distinction, and I’m very certain where I stand. It’s deeply personal to me, and I don’t really begrudge those who choose to believe that an invisible man lives in the sky. Sometimes people need to believe in something more, I suppose, even if it’s not real. And while I recognize I’m in the minority, and I’m happy to argue religion and god with you, I won’t push my thoughts on you unless you ask. But I wish that Russell Simmons could put aside the idea of God or Allah for a while. It would be more honest and it would certainly help a lot more people.

Simmons, who has said that Allah, working through the Nation of Islam has helped young criminals change their lives for the better, implied last week that God was going to punish America if we didn’t do what President Obama wants us to do. He said that we were under indictment, apparently by an invisible father figure who really likes socialism and doesn’t want anyone to achieve Simmons’ level of success. God, according to Simmons’ ideology, apparently wants us all to be equally miserable. (God actually wants us all dead, given that until we invented science and started figuring out how to extend our lives, we died in our twenties. But that’s another article.) Simmons actually believes that his god, who created all of existence and (as most believers tell me when we discuss the matter) created the whole of the good in the universe, will hurt us if we don’t do what one man in one tiny little whisper of time (cosmically speaking) tells us to do. As someone who thinks religion is mostly primitive superstition and performance theater, I can’t help but be afraid.

If Russell Simmons could put aside what he learned from his “second father” Louis Farrakhan and his nutty superstitions, including a 6 a.m. prayer and meditating in the “zen room” he showed off on “MTV Cribs,” he could really transform peoples’ lives. If he could stop believing that Allah or God or Jesus (Simmons doesn’t publicly define himself by any religion) handed him his beautiful life and recognize that it came from his own hard work, understanding of and ability to cross cultural barriers, tremendous foresight, and perfecting the hustle he developed as a street kid before transforming it into slick, successful and legitimate business practices, he might be able to inspire others to aspire to create the same for themselves. He might also recognize that Allah hasn’t ever helped a single young criminals turn his life around, but rather it was the desire within those young men to aspire to more, to clean up and work hard.

It is only the will of people to make the world better that ever actually makes the world better. It’s not Jesus who sends those checks to the kids Sally Struthers used to parade around on late night TV, it’s you. Moses hasn’t fed anyone in Bangladesh in a long, long time. The Buddha never helped anyone with AIDS, but Penn and Teller have. And it’s not Allah who gives clean water and sanitation to third-world nations, it’s Matt Damon. Batman and Superman aren’t going to save the world and God isn’t going to destroy it. We’ll have to do all of that. And for the most part, we try to do good things for people we love, and sometimes for people we don’t even know, as someone did for me this past week.

Simmons’ apocalyptic statement last week really scares me. It scares me because it discounts mankind as a whole, and places our collective destiny in the non-existent hands of an invisible man who lives in the sky. It scares me even more, however, because it uses and abuses the irrational fear many people have of punishment at the hands of whatever god to push a political agenda that directly contradicts Simmons own life experience and the foundation of a country that gave him the chance to achieve success most of us can’t even imagine. But try to imagine it for a moment: Imagine being able to buy anything in the world you want. Or give as much money as you want to any cause or charity or individual you want. Or to be able to take your children anywhere in the world you want at a moment’s notice. That’s Russell Simmons’ life.

Now imagine you have created all of that through your own hard work and intelligence and you tell people they must believe in an invisible man or face destruction. And then you use the power you have built from less-than-nothing to encourage people to follow a man whose policies would have kept you from achieving what you have worked so hard for and that would condemn those people who you could otherwise inspire to a life where hard work no longer means anything and excellence is a distant memory. Like I said, Russell Simmons confuses me.

We’ve gone back and forth this week, with me writing here at Big Hollywood and you Tweeting responses. The lastest from @GhostPanther came directly to @Wilson_Michael and you asked me a question. I have an answer, but I think there’s a better way to have this conversation. And that’s what this should be… a conversation that takes place within the arena of ideas.

Adam McKay

This is important stuff and I’m fascinated by how two fellow Americans can see the world so differently. We probably both think we believe in freedom and liberty. We likely both think that we should take care of the poor. I know we both believe everyone should get the very best health care possible. How we get there while keeping our nation free is up for debate.

So let’s do it. Let’s have the debate. I challenge you to debate me on health care reform.

You have access to any number of websites, I have Big Hollywood. I suggest we go two rounds. And I’ll even give you the last word. Let’s show everyone that two guys can have a civil, respectful debate. In the end, no one will win and I’m okay with that. But let’s lay out our arguments about how health care should work. Feel free to explore any political or economic areas you wish. Maybe people will learn something.

And just as an aside to my conservative Big Hollywood friends who’ve criticized Adam on this issue, I’d like to point out that he and his colleagues are not entirely unreasonable. As evidence, I’d ask you to just take a peek at this bit about environmental hysteria.

I know that you’re currently directing a film and life must be a little crazy at the moment. I’m respectful of that. So just tweet. Let me know whether or not you accept the challenge and when you can do it. If you can’t do it until January, I’ll wait.  It’ll be just like trying to see a doctor in Canada.

I look forward to the chance to step into the arena of ideas with you.

Take care,

Michael Wilson
@Wilson_Michael

Adam McKay

While Adam McKay has been so good at his job at times that he’s left me rolling on the floor unable to breathe, and I think Ferrell is funny as hell, I am astonished that a self-righteous multimillionaire like McKay would tell you that you have to do something by force that he won’t do by choice.

That is cynicism in its purest form. McKay presumes that people are inherently bad and that they must be forced to do what is “good” or “noble” or “decent.” He presumes that human beings are hardwired to be un-compassionate and uncaring. Cynicism is a lie and it’s easy to convince others to be cynics right along with you. You can go on hating your fellow humans and you can all be miserable together, searching for a villain to direct your hate toward (like a CEO).

In his Tweet, McKay says that my “argument” was “sub-moronic.” What a profound retort. Instead of addressing the issue I raised – which is basically, “Why don’t guys like McKay and Ferrell actually DO something meaningful like buy tens of thousands of uninsured Americans an insurance plan for a year or so, rather than simply bitching about evil insurance executives?” – McKay dismisses me as stupid.

I believe that people are good for the most part – even those nasty CEOs . But I’m so tired of people telling me they’re “fighting” for something they already have the power to change. Adam McKay doesn’t care about poor people needing insurance. If he did, he’d buy them insurance. He’s rich and he could actually do it if he wanted to. What Adam McKay clearly cares about is that people in his social circles THINK he cares about poor people who need insurance.

If he genuinely cares, there is NO EXCUSE for Adam McKay to not go out right now and buy people some health coverage.  I wonder how much he will contribute to the soon-to-be-formed Will Ferrell Health Insurance Trust. I would be so, so proud if my “sub-moronic” argument resulted in guilting a few very rich cynics into buying health insurance for a lot of people who could use it, but I’m guessing he’ll do nothing but Tweet about the crazy libertarian who trashed him in that right-wing Hollywood blog.

Adam McKay, I know you’re reading this, so this is a direct appeal to you. DO SOMETHING THAT HELPS PEOPLE! BUY THEM SOME INSURANCE! Take a measly $500,000 and start with one hundred families in Detroit or LA or Topeka. Buy them a quality plan that pays their medical bills for a year. Then get a few of your friends to do the same thing. If you want to truly help people pay for services, lead by example and change things. And if you’ve already done so, let us know you’re leading by example.

After calling me “sub-moronic,” McKay says that 20,000 people die every year because insurance companies deny their claims. That’s just bullshit. Maybe he is citing the Harvard study that showed a correlation to a higher early death rate among those with no insurance, but I read that study and the authors were very careful to say that it was a matter of people choosing to not go to the doctor because they didn’t want to pay for the services and that there was no causation and it had nothing to do with evil insurance executives denying claims. Adam McKay just pulled that statistic out of nowhere. Why not say insurance executives kill 50 million people every day?

If you want to claim that something is killing people, as you did in your tweet, look no further than government-run health care. Here’s a story that illustrates the point.

Vera Wescott was a single-mother who worked in a factory and sprinted home during her half-hour lunch break to check on her kids during the summers. She had no high-school diploma and late at night after making dinner, cleaning the house and putting the kids to bed, she worked and worked, until she’d earned it. She went on to have a nice quiet life, remarrying a man named John, and the two traveled together, eventually retiring. But as they aged, the two decided to return to Canada so that their health care would be provided for. In the summer of 2004, Vera slipped in her apartment and was taken to a Canadian hospital. While there, they discovered that she had mid-stage, but treatable colon cancer. But because the government of Canada has to “cut waste” (sound familiar?) to have enough money to treat people, Vera was told she would need to wait 6 months for treatment. She was sent to a Convalescent Home near Toronto where she died in September.

I was a pallbearer at Vera’s funeral. She was my grandmother.

In the United States of America, her cancer would have been treated, and the treatment would’ve begun on the day they discovered it regardless of her insurance or ability to pay.

Adam McKay has never had to lower his grandmother’s casket into the earth because the government, acting as the final arbiter of life and death, decided it was time for her to die so that they could worry about someone a little younger or a little more healthy. I don’t expect him to understand.