Unconventional Thinking vs. Conventional Facts

December 5, 2016November 1, 2024 Rilaly2 Comments

Raymond Skiles was a dumb guy. We both were. A dumb guy can be a state of mind in most cases as opposed to a quantitative or qualitative characteristic. The first question dumb guys ask themselves is what are you going to do about it? Raymond and I both spent our early adult years trying to educate ourselves, in various ways, to try to catch up to those who were more engaged in school. We shared so many characteristics at one point in our lives that some called us similar, but in our quest for more knowledge, we fell prey to some bizarre ideas. At one point on the timeline, however, differences emerged.

These differences that emerged can be explained in one simple scenario. If a used car salesman, skilled in the art of persuasion, approached us, we would both enter into that transaction believing that we were now smart enough to outdo a used car salesman at his game. Over time, I learned that I was not that man. There were no specific incidents that led to clarity in this arena, but I eventually realized that I wasn’t half as bright or crafty as I thought I was. I realized that while I might now know more than the average person does about James Joyce, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the history of United States Presidents that knowledge doesn’t do me any good the moment a guy in polyester leapt out from behind his balloons saying, “What do I have to do to get you into a car today?” I developed a technique that works for me. I run away.

Raymond Skiles, on the other hand, knew a thing or two about the techniques used car salesmen employed on unsuspecting customers. By reading alternative websites that warn potential clients about the tactics used car salesmen employ, Raymond thought he knew them, and that he could use that knowledge to defeat them at their game. “You just have to know who they are,” he once informed me. “Once you know what he eats for breakfast, who he calls his family, and if he’s stepping out on his wife, you got him where he lives.”

Whereas I recognized the limits of my intelligence the moment I set foot on a car lot, Raymond considered it a challenge and a mark of his intelligence to outdo the salesman on his home turf. I might overestimate the craftiness of the average used car salesman, but if they are half as skilled in the art of persuasion as I fear they are, they will learn who Raymond is and flip the focus of their negotiations to an arena Raymond finds more pleasing. They might even compliment the knowledge Raymond has accumulated on their industry. They might then take a more honest and direct approach in their negotiations with him, and Raymond might end up paying more for the car than he intended.

The time I spent with Raymond Skiles before and after our divergence taught me a number of things about the differences between unconventional thinking and following traditional or conventional norms, but the most prominent was that unconventional thinking is far more seductive. The purveyors of unconventional information seduce us with the idea that they have different knowledge, as it pertains to having more knowledge than those who did more with their traditional education in school than “dumb guys” did. The seeds of this seduction sprout among “dumb guys” when we decide that anyone who believes what “they tell you” is a sucker.

When we hear conventional knowledge, we consider the source and frame it accordingly, and then we fact check it. When we hear unconventional ideas, however, we have an instinctive, emotional attachment to them. Some part of us wants these ideas to be so true that we put our skepticism aside to embrace them, another part of us believes that unconventional knowledge is the result of healthy skepticism and therefore thoroughly vetted.

Former dumb guys learn over time, and through trial and error, that we must make a concerted effort to avoid falling prey to the allure of unconventional information. We want to have more knowledge, even if it is different and relatively inconsequential, but as we all know quantity does not always equal quality. There are only so many facts on a given issue, and most of them fall into constructs that are comparatively boring. Alternative, unconventional avenues are so intriguing and sexy because they make us feel intelligent for arriving at a take on an issue that our peers haven’t considered before.

We’ve all witnessed the effect this can have on people. “Where did you hear that?” they ask us, after we drop what they consider a surprising amount of intellect on them, or “I’ve never heard that before.” The tone of their voice, and the slight bit of awe on their face, can prove so intoxicating to dumb guys who didn’t do well in school that we spend the rest of our lives chasing that dragon. Surprising information also allows purveyors of unconventional information to dismiss much of the traditional knowledge our peers attained. Some of these arguments are worth pursuing, but in my experience, most of them provide nothing more than provocative distractions and obfuscations from the core argument.

Finding out, later, that many of my intoxicating, alternative theories, based on unconventional information were wrong, provided another break between Raymond’s way of thinking and mine, and I began placing more importance on being correct over provocative. Conventional information, reported by conventional outlets, is not always true either of course, but in my experience, their batting average is far superior to the alternative outlets. Some don’t put as much value in this results-oriented approach, and they tend to place greater value in avoiding the word naïve, a label they attach to suckers who believe everything “they tell you”.

In our discussions on a wide variety of topics, Raymond and I also found many differences between how we arrive at a conclusion. We both seek primary source information, corroborating evidence, and perhaps some opinion pieces to bolster our conclusions. At some point, however, I am “easily satisfied” with my findings, whereas Raymond digs deeper. Raymond can feel when the subject is a piece is crud, and Raymond knows how a piece of crud thinks. He seeks explanations that detail the piece of crud’s motives in a way Raymond can understand. In Raymond’s search for absolute objectivity, he accidentally trips over a critical line between objectivity and subjectivity. He finds subjective speculation regarding the motives of the piece of crud that fit with his theories on the subject in question, and he uses them to develop theories that end up mostly autobiographical.

Those autobiographical details helped me explain the anatomy of Raymond’s thought process, and why he didn’t follow me down the more traditional trail. Raymond was born and raised with three sisters. For reasons endemic to her own upbringing, his mother always believed the girl. His dad was a generally passive man who generally deferred to the mother when the dysfunction of the day arose, in part because she broke him down for “always believing the boy”. Raymond’s father went along to get along, and he basically left Raymond to fend for himself. Though Raymond grew up saying he was telling the truth 100% of the time, the law of averages suggest that he had to be right some of the times. Nobody believed him. This not only led Raymond to the lifelong notion that everyone was against him and plotting against him, as his sisters were, daily, but it led the adult Raymond Skiles to not only question every authority figure in his life, but think they were against him. Knowing this didn’t necessarily lead me to sympathize with Raymond, but it did help me understand his mindset better.

Alien Information

Police officers, working a beat, have a modus operandi (M.O.) they bring to their job, “Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.” This is the ideal mindset for a law enforcement official to have when investigating suspected criminal matters. Is this M.O. ideal for a consumer of news, an employee who learns information regarding their employer, or a friend listening to another friend tell a story?

A high profile media personality once suggested that skepticism of the press undermines their authority, but the vaunted role the press plays in our republic should require them to combat constant, intense scrutiny, skepticism, and cynicism that makes them uncomfortable. Members of the media should conduct themselves in a manner that welcomes that from their audience and defeats it with a performance that leads to a solid record they can point to whenever anyone questions them. Wouldn’t members of the media say the same thing about the subjects they cover?

There is a tipping point, however, when a healthy sense of skepticism creeps into a form of cynicism that believes “none of what I hear and half of what I see.” Such cynicism opens holes in the thought process that invites other information to fill it.

As someone with an incurable passion for the wide spectrum of thought regarding human behavior, and a peculiar crush on the extreme, I have had a number of friends introduce me to a wide array of alternative ideas. They introduce me to various definitions of human psychology through astrology, numerology, and witchcraft. Raymond Skiles introduced me to the idea that aliens from other planets could teach us a lot about ourselves.

Raymond provided me with a collection of transmitted (or transmuted) messages that these superior beings sent to us. As I read through the information he found, I found that the theme of these messages was that the bullet points of my philosophy were wrong. I found them somewhat humorous, but before I could entirely dismiss them, I learned that Raymond considered these messages proof that I was wrong. Although he didn’t say this exactly, the import of his responses was that he could not understand how I could argue against statements made by superior life forms.

The first question this skeptic would love to ask authors of human psychology, by way of alien scripture, is why do we assume that aliens from another planet are of a superior intellect? The collective thought, in certain quarters of human authority, suggests that not only is there intelligent life out there, but they’re more intelligent than earthlings can conceive. Even though we have no concrete proof that life exists outside our planet, at this point in our explorations of space, it would be foolish to think that the only lifeforms in the vast universe are those that live on Earth. If other lifeforms exist, however, we don’t know what form they take. (We assume they are humanoid in form and that they’re here for our water, but if they’re intelligent beyond our comprehension why haven’t they been able to develop a synthetic substitute for water, or an artificial way to preserve or increase their supply?) We also don’t know what concerns alien life forms have, or how they think, but we assume that all creatures share the same concerns. The one crucial nugget of information missing in these theories is that we know less than nothing about aliens. If we had some substantial proof that they exist, we could say we know nothing about them, but we don’t even know if they exist yet. With that in mind, any theories of alien intellectual superiority can only be rooted in the human inferiority complex.

What would be the point of worshiping a deity who had a level of intelligence equal to our own, and what would be the point of reporting on the transmissions from space if the aliens were not of a superior intellect who could teach us a lot about our way of life? My takeaway from this friend’s collection of transmitted (or transmuted) messages was that most of the alien transmissions, submitted for the reader’s pleasure, have an agenda that suspiciously aligns with the author of the work.

The next time an alien transmits a message that suggests humans are of equal or superior intellect, “We are in awe of the capabilities of your iPhone, and we have not found a way of replicating that technology in our labs,” will be the first time I take an alien transmission seriously. The next time an alien transmits a message that has something to do with a compliment regarding human technology in agricultural techniques, “We find the techniques developed by Monsanto awe-inspiring”, will be the first time I re-read an author’s interpretation of an alien transmission. One would think that a complex being would know that the best way to persuade another being is to surround their criticisms with some compliments. Even if they have no emotions, in the manner most sci-fi movies depict them, it would only be logical for them to suggest that our life form managed to get some things right. What readers receive from aliens, instead, are warnings about our dystopian nature that suspiciously align with human politics.

What If?

“Your problem is you have no room for if,” Raymond told me one day. “Numerous wonderful and beautiful people have brought us where we are today by asking if questions, but you put a big old lid on if and lock it up.”

“I’ve cleared an entire warehouse out for if,” I said. “Give me an if! How about I give you an if?” I continued. “What if I told you that there was incontrovertible proof that your favorite conspiracy theory was wrong? Let’s say they discovered previously unknown security tape that showed your favorite victim of the justice system pulling the trigger. I’m not saying he’s guilty, but have you ever considered that mind-blowing prospect before?”

The ifs and what ifs of unconventional information are so interesting that it’s challenging to read them and say, “That’s just wrong.” We pursue their angles, the speculative ideas regarding motive, and the idea that the purveyor of such knowledge is fighting against the man, or the status quo. Concerned parties watching such scenarios play out, might want to caution someone like Raymond from relying too much on these alternative sources of information. We might want to tell him that doing so could lead him to being vulnerable to half-truths and greater confusion.

When we try to caution them, however, they tell us that they’ve done massive amounts of research on this subject, and they say, “Most people don’t know the truth. I know I didn’t,” as Raymond does before launching into one of his speculative theories. There are enough outlets of information out there now to feed the confirmation bias of any researcher. Decent writers have ideas about the world, some are insightful and meaningful, some are not. Writers gifted in the art of persuasion learn how to manipulate their readers into believe they arrived at the idea themselves. The idea becomes theirs to the point that they develop a level of personal intimacy for it.

Once they arrive at the point that the idea is theirs, they evaluate “their” ideas in a manner similar to the approach a fan takes to an athlete. If a fan “knows” that an athlete is a quality player on the fan’s team, they develop a special bond with that athlete that is difficult to shake. Even if that athlete proves to underperform for years, that fan’s relationship will continue. Disciples of alternative knowledge have a similar relationship to purveyors of such information, as they often fail to focus on results in a similar manner. How many of their favorite outlets provide straight, verifiable points that pass peer review? How many of them can point to a verifiable track record of their assertions, as opposed to providing the anecdotal evidence that they promote? How many of their messages devolve into speculation regarding motives that no one can refute? How many of us are skeptical enough of the information that seems so right it has to be true?

Those of us who ascribed to unconventional thoughts at one point in our lives began to spot these plot holes for what they were, and we came to the uncomfortable conclusion that just because the information we hear is unconventional, alternative, and “what your father doesn’t want you to know” does not mean that they’re correct.

I no longer buy a book of unconventional thinking, or befriend an unconventional thinker, with the hope of having them change my mind on a subject. If their ideas persuade me to change my mind, that’s gravy, but I have learned that such thoughts are often best used to challenge my current worldview, and/or bolster my arguments as I attempt to defeat them. I do not then write this with the intent of changing anyone else’s mind. I do enjoy, however, taking the conventional standpoint and melding it with the unconventional to arrive at what I consider a hybrid of the truth, until I can use that to arrive at the truth.

FOBF: The Fear of Being Foolish

Most people hate being wrong, but we have to be willing to concede that we’re going to be wrong some of the times. What we cannot abide is the idea that we might be wrong so often that somebody will consider us a fool. How many rhetorical devices, tactics, and persuasive techniques have we developed over the years to avoid being called a fool? One thing we know is that people who believe in nouns (people, places, and things) are more vulnerable to this charge, and we seek foolproof status. Due to the fact that most alternative thoughts are rarely shown to be substantially incorrect, unconventional thinkers are shielded against ever being called a fool. On the off chance that they are incorrect, they might make slight adjustments in their presentation to incorporate the newfound facts, but most of them just move on.

“They just move on?” we asked Raymond after he told us about all of the conspiracy theories his parents believed in.

“They do,” he said with a smile. “They just move on to the next one.”

“So, when the rest of us are proven wrong, we have to deal with the ramifications that come our way, but when your parents are wrong, they just move onto the next conspiracy theory? How do they do that?”

“They just do,” Raymond said.

Raymond informed us that when the millennium neared, his parents were prophets of doom. They could be seen handing out pamphlets and grain pellets at their church. They believed something would happen on 9/9/99, and when it didn’t, they moved onto the millennium scare. When nothing scary happened on 1/1/2000, they suggested that we all miscalculated the Aztec calendar, and that the day of doom awaited us sometime in the near future. He said they listed a specific date, based on specific criteria, but he didn’t remember the exact date, because he knew they would just move on after that date passed. He knew they would just move onto the next date of doom to some day in the all too near future.

We knew how much Raymond loved his parents, so it was a little surprising to see him lay them out like that, but we figured that it was the “if you think I’m crazy, you should hear my parents” defense. We’ve all faced similar but different charges, but we never found introducing an exaggeration of this sort to thwart a characterization particularly effective. The listener might think, maybe you’re not as crazy as your parents, but you’re still crazy.

We also associate crazy with wrong. There are exceptions of course, as the misunderstood genius stereotype suggests, but more often than not we associate crazy with the type of mind that has a fundamental misunderstanding with how the system works. If this association holds water, perhaps Raymond was saying, “if you think I’m wrong, you should hear how wrong my parents were”. My statements and predictions are a little nebulous in nature, he may have said to draw the distinctions, but my parents were certifiably wrong, and after being so wrong so many times, they plot-pointed out the next date of doom, passing out pamphlets and grain pellets.

We don’t know what drives common, every day people to partake in doom-saying, but it probably has something to do with the idea that the track record of alternative, unconventional information is somehow immune to criticism. It is foolproof, because the alternative is believing in what the ever elusive “they” tell you.

If in the course of Raymond’s parents trying to warn us about a current date of doom in the all too near future, we were to call them out on their track record, they might turn the tables on us, “How can you be so sure that it won’t happen this time?”

We can’t be sure, of course, because we are insecure beings who falter in the face of certitude. We’ve also watched too many movies where no one believed the sexy actor who knew something no one else in the production did, and we don’t want to be the overweight, unattractive character actor who didn’t believe them. They frame their questions in a probing, “Who do you think you are?” manner that asks us how many times we’ve been wrong before, and if we’re willing to wager that we know more about this than their list of experts do.

Dumb guys, like Raymond and I, fell prey to believing far too many alternative, unconventional, and conspiracy theories were so relieved to read some psychologists write that we must all make a concerted effort to avoid falling prey to this type of seduction, because it suggests that we’re all susceptible to their siren call. Our grades in school haunt us to this day, and we will use any excuse we can find to declare that we’re not as dumb as we thought we were. When someone comes along and basically writes up a siren call that is so alluring that we must proactively keep our susceptibility in the “off” position, it lends credence to the “shame on you for fooling me” portion of the idiom. As long as we remain in that “off” position long enough to prevent the shame of it doubling back on us in the future. Though the psychologists’ conclusions do not absolve us of the idea that we once believed a wide variety of crazy theories and loony conspiracy theories, we do find some comfort in numbers.

Maintaining this “off” position is not easy, and it is not our intent to suggest that we woke up one day deciding that we were no longer going to believe alternative ideas loaded with unconventional information that can lead to conspiracy theories. It isn’t any easier for us to avoid their interesting and thought-provoking theories, but we put forth constant and diligent effort to defeat our susceptibility in this arena. Tune out, turn off, and defeat is the credo we use anytime we encounter sexy, enticing pieces that lead to emotional reactions. Current and future stories such as those are as difficult to ignore as all the previous ones were, but after mentally charting all of their hypothetical guesses, based on alternative thinking that many considered unconventional, we were finally able to break the leash.

Norm Macdonald Could’ve Saved the World

November 16, 2016February 8, 2024 RilalyLeave a comment

There was something different about Norman Gene Macdonald (Norm). He was funny, but there are a bunch of different flavors of funny. Norm was the type of funny we might only see once to thirty-four times before we die. Stick with me here for just a second, and four-thousand words. There have been a bunch of guys who tried to save the world, and we all gathered together to listen to them. We followed their prescriptions for a better world, and where did that get us? Some of them cured stuff, technologized stuff, and said some profound things to change things temporarily, but after they died we all went back to the world they lived in. So, what if we tried something so unusual that it changed us. I’m always on the lookout for something different, and why aren’t you? Nobody says they’re the same as everyone else. Everyone says they’re different, but they’re all different in the same ways. “I’m different! I don’t know listen to the man or nothing.” Who’s the man, I don’t know, but the band Anthrax says he puts you in detention. Norm had no authority, and he didn’t want it, so why should we give him the keys to the castle? Well, we’ve tried everything else, and nothing has worked so far. Why wouldn’t we try something different? Just to see if it works. I watched, read, and listened to Norm a lot, and I thought he was so different that he might just be the type who could’ve saved the world.

Norm wasn’t that guy of course. He was a type who’d much rather go boozing and gambling when he wasn’t on a stage. He had that self-destructive gene that seems imprinted in his type, but what if he wasn’t? What if he was the type who could analyze us, undress us, and leave us feeling so naked with a few words that left us laughing our socks off, and we felt so foolish in our certitude and convictions that we changed just a little bit?

In our modern geopolitical world, with all of our political ideas and ideals, we’re just certain that we’re right and they’re wrong. We’re the most advanced people in the world, because we’ve learned. What have we learned? Who are the they that were better than? Other countries, other parties, other people, or the past? We might not be better than present tense people, but we’re definitely better than the past. Ok, but didn’t they think the same thing when they were in their present? They were as certain as we are that they they were better than people from the past, and they probably were, but they didn’t account for us, the people of the future. We’re the people of the future, but we think we’re the people of the present, and we are, but are we so right on, right now, that people in our future won’t think they’re superior to us, mocking us, and deriding us for our convictions? They won’t, because we have science, and we know our science. The past had gaps in their knowledge, and we filled it. We think we’ve filled those gaps so well and so thoroughly that people of the future won’t have anything to fill. “What are you going to fill?” we ask. “It’s already full.” Norm didn’t just fill the bad gaps that ignorant people believe, he filled the gaps of the good stuff that we love, want to believe, and we need to believe for our own superiority, or if he didn’t fill those gaps, he asked us to ask ourselves if it was at all possible that we might still have gaps in our understanding that future man might come along and fill and ask us why we were so stupid that we thought there weren’t any gaps. Then, there’s that truly humiliating question everyone hates and no one wants to hear, questions that make us question everything we hold dear, what if we, the people of the present turn out to be wrong about all the this and that’s that are so decided that we don’t even consider them this and that’s anymore?

What if we missed our chance at a real game changer, because we were looking for some charismatic type who wanted things. If you have a guy who wants things, you know him, because he’s a lot like you, because you want things too. Norm didn’t appear to want anything more than to sit around and think things. Was he lazy, and did he lack ambition? Yes. He had no material desires, he didn’t do much to foster what could’ve been a better career, and he didn’t openly wish for a happy death. He basically said once we’re all dead no one is going to remember us, “So, who cares if you do things or don’t do things.” People might be sad for a while after we die, because it will be a tragic thing, and they might bring up some of the things you did and didn’t do, but after a while your name will not come up as often as it once did, until no one remembers that you were ever here. So, enjoy your life, and do and don’t do what you want.

To illustrate Norm’s point further, I saw a picture of my great-great grandfather. I didn’t even know he existed. I sort of knew that he had to exist, because for me to exist, he had to exist, but I saw a man who very loosely reminded me of former president James Garfield. I saw another great-great grandfather on the other side, who looked like Abraham Lincoln, people apparently told him he resembled Lincoln on a daily basis (sans the beard). Other than fancying the notion that I might be a descendent of two former presidents (imagine how much better my story would be if that were the case, or how comparatively depressing), I thought about how my great-great grandchildren wouldn’t exist if I didn’t exist. “I’m responsible for your existence!” You think they’ll be grateful? If they see a picture of me, they might “huh!” me and toss me aside to look at pictures of people they do know. (If they even notice a picture of me in a cloud of millions of unlabeled iPhone pictures.*Note to self: Label your photos.)

Not a Wonderful Guy

Norm didn’t write Based on a True Story: A Memoir to further his career. He wanted to write a book, and he wanted to get loads of money for it, but career advancement was about as far from a goal as it could be. What was his primary goal? What’s the primary goal of any celebrity writing a memoir? They want you to think they were one hell of a good fella or female throughout their life. 99.9% of Hollywood, political, etc, memoirs drift around various definitions of ‘wasn’t I wonderful?’ Some are direct. They’ll tell you about that time they donated to charity, interactions they had that lead you to believe they had wonderful intentions, or how comparatively awful everyone else around them was. Reading through good, old Norm’s book, we get the idea that Norm didn’t care about any of that. His closest friends, peers, and cultural commentators will tell you that the only thing Norm cared about was being funny. He didn’t care about money or fame, everyone writes that in their book, so you’ll find them wonderful, but in a strange, almost unsettling way we think Norm didn’t care about any of that. He cared about being funny. He didn’t care if you thought he was funny, as long as it was funny. Most of his friends and peers label Norm a comedian’s comedian, which in my estimation means he strove for comedic purity. How does an artist near the point of purity, at least internally? We ask those in the craft that who are pursuing the same thing. It might sound elitist, and it is, but if our goals in life revolve around making the best horseshoe known to man, we might not care what our customers, the laypeople, think, if those in our field of expertise consider those horseshoes the best they’ve ever seen.

Most artists use the memoir as a vehicle to promote their career, or their image, and the idea that while they may appear to be a little quirky to the naked eye, deep in their heart, they want you to know they are actually a very wonderful person. No matter how apathetic, somewhat cruel, and insensitive an author of such material is, the unspoken rule of such comedy is that the author breaks down the fourth wall, in some manner, to let you in on the joke and in on idea that they’re actually pretty nice and very wonderful people who care. Norm Macdonald, the character that he has created for this book, and all of the layers in between, does not seem to care that you get any of that. Most authors that approach a style similar to the book, qualify their motivations for doing what they did with follow ups that redound to the benefit of the author. Norm Macdonald does not appear to care why the reader bought his book, about their outlook on him, or if that reader feels good about themselves, and their world, when they finish the book.

Norm’s Untimely Timelessness: There are no timely elements in this book. Norm Macdonald appears to feel no need to convince us that he is actually very smart, savvy, or anything more than he is. There are no subtle approaches to timely or timeless notions that inform the audience that Norm is compassionate, empathetic, or nuanced. Norm was one of the few celebrities that did not care to tell you what he thinks about pressing or non-pressing matters of the day, and I’m not really sure he cared what he thought either.

Norm was Always an Old Man

Norm was an old soul. He probably sounded old when he was very young. (How many modern books, Based on a True Story: A Memoir, invoke the word “Hoosegow”?) Norm’s dad was old when Norm entered into the world, so Norm spent most of his youth in the company of old men who knew manual labor for the majority of their lives. Norm surely went through the stages of rebellion we all go through to unshackle himself from parental influence to form an individual identity. He probably mocked his old man in various ways, and he surely rejected the old man’s ways of thinking for a time, but by the time we met him, circa aged thirty-one, he came back around to his Hoosegow talk. A more insecure comedian and cultural commentator might try to sound more hip, cutting edge, and nouveau to appeal to the audience. Norm’s voice employed an old man, old world influence that served to intrigue rather than confuse. If the reader is the type that needs some sort of qualifier, or apology, for the somewhat cruel, and insensitive scenes, takes, and reactions that occur throughout this book, it can be found somewhere in the kind, pleasing Midwestern sounding voice that Norm, and his ghost writer Charlie Manson, employed.

I knew nothing of Macdonald’s upbringing, prior to the reading of this book, and I didn’t care about it either. After reading the initial chapters of this book, however, I found myself relating to the rhythms and lexicon Norm learned from the old, hired hands he knew growing up. His dad, my dad, and their friends were old, no-nonsense men that had an old world, no-excuses, masculine structure to their being that is too often lacking in today’s culture. The locale of Macdonald’s rearing was far different than mine as it turned out, but the details of his maturation were so similar to mine that I was surprised to learn we didn’t grow up the exact same time and place. This could be as a result of Norm’s better-than-expected ability to relate to the reader, or his ghost writer’s ability to translate Norm’s thoughts into a book that I found my voice in. The ghost writer is renamed Charlie Manson for the purpose of this book (not that Charlie Manson, the other one.)

Norm on Sex

Norm enjoyed talking about sex, but he did so in a manner that is almost 180 degrees different from any cultural commentator. He talked about sex as if it were nothing more than a stage in life, as opposed to the customary way we have of referring to it as if it is life. He talked about the routine elements of sexual actions, and he talked about the routine immaturity of the act. In an online collection of his jokes, he talked about having sex in his youth, and how he grew out of it to some degree.

“I don’t care for sex. I find it an embarrassing, dull exercise. I prefer sports, where you can win.”

Even though Norm submitted his unique take on not enjoying sexual activity, he admitted to being human in this regard:

“This is the amount of time you think about sex: every once in a while. The problem becomes, when you think about it, it’s all you can think about. It encompasses your whole brain. You’re like a werewolf or something. Usually you’re a civilized human being, but then every couple of days, you’re like “Arrrgh.” Then you’ve got to close the blinds.”

As for the routine nature of it, Norm suggested that he, like all of us, tried to shake the routine of sexual activity up and try something different every once in a while:

“Sex couldn’t be simpler. I think there’s only like five things you can do in the whole thing. You ever think you invented a sixth? Then later you go, “Ah, in all humility, I guess that was pretty close to number five.”

“My wife dresses up like a nurse; then, I dress up like a nurse, also. And then, we don’t even have sex, either. We just sit behind this huge, semicircular wooden desk and get annoyed when people buzz us for juice.”

The bits above are funny, but they don’t really cut to the heart of Norm’s unique, refreshing views on sex in the manner Norm opened up about it on a transcript from a talk show:

“I find sex very repetitive and dull and kind of pointless.” Norm said he finds it a childish desire which he’s spiritually outgrown. I find sex to be a very filthy act in the sense of being shameful. Sex is an activity we don’t do in public due to its intrinsic shamefulness.” He quotes scripture saying, “When you’re a boy, you do boy things. I know most people are children for their whole life, and [sex is] a way of having fun.”

The Out-Joke

When the cavemen drained all of the comedic value out of punching each other in the face, an enterprising young caveman comedian probably tried violating his tribe’s taboo by punching women in the face. And before you say jokes like that only attract troglodytes, remember that was Mujmuj Kandar-Smith’s key demographic. Once they moved past those jokes, and the jokes about the limbs they lost in their Sabertooth Tiger hunts, they probably turned to self-effacing humor. The key to really good self-effacing humor is that it allows us to laugh at ourselves through the vulnerability of the comedian, yet most standup comedians are not of such strong constitutions that they can handle an audience laughing at them, so they cloak it in a type of humor that asks us to laugh with him, as opposed to at him. They’re letting the audience in on the joke. It’s the “aren’t I silly, aren’t we all just silly” approach that carefully approaches their foibles in a way in which we can all laugh at ourselves, so that we’re not just laughing at the comedian. Norm perfected the art of not allowing the audience in, so that the audience uncomfortably enjoys laughing at Norm. Norm didn’t invent this form of comedy, of course, as his most immediate predecessors might be David Letterman, Andy Kaufman, Chris Elliot, and perhaps Will Farrell. Yet, Norm may have even carved out his own niche in this niche in this form of comedy with his old timey lexicon that led us to believe we were laughing at our dad, our grandpa, or our predecessors. We also know that his social commentary was delivered in a tongue-in-cheek manner. In the character Norm developed, onstage and off (with this book) the reader is not so sure if it’s all good. The narrative of Based on a True Story: A Memoir leads the reader to feel sorry for the character, while laughing at his naiveté, and his inability to abide by social norms.

Norm was a Savant

Norm Macdonald didn’t do well with some basic simplicities of life. He never learned how to drive. Some, who knew him well, said that he had some difficulties with what we might consider normal human interaction, or he wasn’t gifted in this arena. When he failed to understand the consequences of his actions, some assigned motives to his actions. Others, those who knew him best, said that was just Norm. Yet, his peers suggest he might have been a comedic savant, or an individual with detailed knowledge in some specialized field. Norm was a brilliant satirist, a gifted jokester, and well-read history buff, but it appears that he was missing some ability to make links. He made a joke one time, on Adam Carolla’s podcast that he ate Count Chocula for dinner and generally had the diet of a seven-year-old child. Was it intentional, whimsical, or did he have such tunnel vision that he failed to understand some of the complexities to keep up with the rest of us. I wouldn’t say I know a truth, of course, but there is evidence of a complex understanding of the greater things in life, in the mind of Norm Macdonald, coupled with an almost child-like naïveté in matters we consider simple.

Norm was Different

Monty Python had a slogan that prefaced much of their material, “And now for something completely different.” For those of us who pine for something different, this book contains stories, reactions, and anecdotes that I have to imagine most authors, and almost all celebrities do their best to avoid. I have a sneaking suspicion that Macdonald’s public relations people asked him to include the “Based on” words to the title of his book. I have a sneaking suspicion that Norm wouldn’t mind it one bit if the reader believed this was the true story of Norm Macdonald’s life. Something tells me that his people, friends, associates, and business partners cautioned him to bolster the doubt regarding the material, because too many people might believe it’s his true story, and that this book may do some damage to his career.

Norm was a Closer

Norm’s good friend, Dennis Miller, said, “Always be closing” on a daily basis on his talk-show. As such, “Based on a True Story: A Memoir” is either building to a close throughout the various chapters, or its closing throughout. When it’s not strict to script of the respective story, hilarious anecdotes break the story up so well that one has to gather one’s self and remind themselves where the narrative was heading. The anecdotes appear to be accidental humor in other words. In the beginning of this book, I began highlighting some of the jokes believing that they would be precious jewels that I would have to remember. I do this with all provocative lines and paragraphs, but as I continued throughout the book, I gave up, knowing that when one highlights too often, the portions that are highlighted begin to lose value.

Norm Macdonald was Norm Macdonald

Norm Macdonald does whatever the hell Norm Macdonald wants. Is this a true narrative, Norm not does appear to care what the reader believes one way or another. Is this a readable narrative that involves the time-honored traditions of storytelling, Norm doesn’t appear to care. The storytelling format does have a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas feel to it, but other than that it does not follow the rules of any celebrity memoir that I’ve ever read. He may have informed us of some true facts regarding his upbringing, and the many things that have happened to him along the way, but he doesn’t care if the readers knows the difference, or, apparently, if those distinctions could lead to some damage of his career as an entertainer. As a result, I would say that this is by far the best celebrity memoir I have ever read, but I have the feeling Norm wouldn’t care what one way or another.

Norm Macdonald Could’ve Saved the World

With all of his flaws, and according to friends, family and peers, the flaws were numerous, he probably wouldn’t have been elected a world leader, but how many world leaders are so flawed that their handlers do much of the public affairs and public relations work? He couldn’t have been elected to anything, because he wouldn’t take it serious enough. Yet, in those spare moments when the real Norm Macdonald stepped up to the plate to drop some truly profound nuggets on us, I thought this man is one of the more unusual thinkers I’ve ever heard. He was, by many accounts, the smartest guy in the room who tried to conceal his intelligence for reasons of humility, and he fell prey to the notion that smart people aren’t cool. He didn’t care about that, and he obviously did at the same time. It was so surprising to me that when I heard him talk serious, I wondered if the alternative sides of Norm Macdonald could’ve done something historic if he wasn’t so lazy and apathetic about all the things we consider so serious.

*I’ll refer to Norm Macdonald as Norm throughout this article. It’s not intended as a note of familiarity, though I do feel as if I know him as an audience member, I had no personal ties to him in anyway. I also don’t intend it as a lack of respect, as one would if they took the time to wrote his name in full, or labeled him Mr. Macdonald. I’ll refer to him as Norm throughout this article purely for readability.

Let Me Have Cake

November 10, 2016November 8, 2017 RilalyLeave a comment

An article I read detailed that eating food to sustain life was something of a miracle. For all the things we take for granted, sustained life has to be the most fundamental. Are you sustaining life as you read this? Have you ever considered the idea that food allows you to continue living?

An uncle of mine contracted a muscular degenerative disease at a young age. Throughout the course of his life, this degeneration progressed, until he lost almost all bodily functions. He reached a point, in this degeneration, where he was no longer eating well. He had coughing fits in the course of digestion that caused concern. I saw these coughing fits, hundreds of them, and they were difficult to ignore. The coughing fits caused such concern, to the workers at the care facility where he lived, they determined that my uncle should no longer be fed orally. The determination was that he would be fed through a tube going forward. Uncle John was so crushed by this, he had a lawyer draw up a letter that stated that neither John, nor any of his remaining family members, would hold the care facility liable for anything that happened as a result of oral feeding. But, the letter stated, he wanted to enjoy oral feeding once again. He also threatened to sue the care facility, in that letter, if they did not abide by his wishes. He then said, and this is the heartbreaking part, that “Eating is one of the last joys I have left, and I do not want this taken away from me.”

I had a boring, mindless job at the time. Throughout the course of my time at this job, I rebelled. I talked to whomever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I did the work, and my scores were admirable, but management could not abide by all the talking. I assumed, at one point, that management was either trying to drive me out, or the job had become so awful that I couldn’t maintain the illusion that it was a decent job. I was miserable. I obsessed over those that had no talent, but were living the life I had always wanted to live.

A majority of my co-workers were obese. The first inclination I had was that these people ate the same as everyone else, but they were in a job that involved ten hours of sitting. My next guess was that eating was the only joy they/we had left. I, too, was gaining weight, and I was reaching a point where I didn’t care. I read an article that listed off the heinous deeds of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. One of the accounts detailed that Dahmer opened a hole in his victim’s head and poured acid in. He wanted to kill his victim’s brain, or that part of them that produced such sedition. The purpose was to allow Dahmer to enjoy having relations with them, without having to listen to their complaints. How different, I wondered, is that from the day to day life in my current job? My inability to prove my worth to anyone, much less myself, had landed me in a job where creativity is not appreciated. “Just be happy you have a job,” was the mantra fellow employees scream at the unhappy. “You’re in the greatest country in the history of the world, at what could be its greatest time, and you’re complaining? Just be happy that you can financially sustain life, and shut up.”

Routine has a way of killing the mind. Fear of the unknown has a way of convincing one that they are happy. Or they learn, over time, to just shut up!

Employers use fear as a motivation. They convince a person that they’re lucky to have a job, and they instill fear as a motivator. How often have I been informed that I’m meeting the required goals? A number of times, but it’s done in a lethargic manner. They would much rather inform their employees that they’re not, so that they’re motivated to do better. The one that achieves the goal is not the focus of concern, so they fade into the background. They allow their minions to focus on you, and destroy you with hyper critical edicts that chip away at your self-worth. Not only are you in a mindless job that eats away at any creativity that a person may use to prosper in some fashion that they cannot find by themselves, as non-self-starters, but they’re not making the grade.

We were not allowed to speak, in a casual manner, to our co-workers. All conversations were required to be work-related. We were not allowed to email friendly messages to our friends, and our Instant Message system was taken away from us. Food was all we had left, and we were all gaining weight. We were being paid to do this mindless job, and we were using this money to feed ourselves food that was killing us.

When a person sits behind a computer for ten hours a day, four days a week, the clock is a cautious bitch that won’t turn right on red. She drives twenty-to-thirty miles an hour under the speed limit, and we can’t help but notice that the other lane contains free flowing cars, speeding up to prevent entrance. We were in this position as a result of lack of talent, lack of drive, and the inability to take a risk. We felt lucky to have a job in a country that provides ample opportunity for ambitious risk-takers with an idea, but with so much available it’s hard to pick one lane to drive in. The grass is always greener on the other side, of course, but I felt I was planted in a field of weeds that inhibited my own growth. The alternative, of course, is stagnancy.

The complaints that I have/had were all sourced from a first world, privileged background, but I saw those around me grow and prosper, and I reached a point of frustration that probably should’ve led to some counseling. I witnessed firsthand, the end result of frustration so great that one doesn’t want to live anymore, but I have never been suicidal. I’ve always considered alternatives, and what greater alternative is there than change? I would explore my mind for anything and everything that could lead me to happiness. My definition of happiness, I calculated, could be attained. I could live free to explore my mind for every thought I had ever had. It was a privileged, first world avenue, but I had the means to do so. Why wouldn’t I take advantage of it?

People have definitions of the way in which one should conduct their lives. If an individual doesn’t fit those parameters, he is cast out. He is condemned for not living life the way they think he should. How should he live? He made a mistake somewhere around the first thirty years of his life. He sustained life. He entered the workforce with few skills. He developed some. He developed a work ethic. He never called in sick, and after a time, he became more serious, and he was never tardy. Once the latter was managed better, he fell into the background, but he was still employed, gainfully? That’s the question. Was he satisfied? No, he went to another place, and another place, and he discovered a cap on his abilities. He never interviewed well, his public speaking abilities were less than admirable, and he tested poorly. Analysis of his being made him so nervous that he developed a comprehensive form of test anxiety.

His role models, in life, were blue collar workers that did their job, went home, drank too much, and complained about the awful responsibility in life. These were people that focused on his shortcomings. “Where did you come up with that?” was a question they asked the aspiring young minds around them. I have gone back and forth on this relatively innocuous question. At the outset, one has to imagine that such a question arises in an adult mind when the child they’ve known for decades comes to them with a particularly ingenious thought. It has to be a surprise to that old mind to see a younger one outdo them, so one can forgive them for what may cause the young mind to question their base, but it defines that young mind in a manner that suggests that they should remember their station in life.

I’ve witnessed what I can only assume is the opposite of this rearing pattern. I witnessed young, ambitious, and adventurous minds believe in themselves. If they had questions about their abilities to accomplish great things in life, their insecurities paled in comparison to mine. They had such belief in their abilities that when I showed them awe, they swatted my awe away saying that their accomplishment was either not as awe-inspiring as I believed, or that it was but a rung on a ladder to an accomplishment I couldn’t even fathom pursuing.

I considered some of these people so different, I wondered if we were even the same species. How can one put themselves on the line in such a fashion without due consideration put into the fear of failure? They don’t mind the prospect of exposing themselves to ridicule. ‘What if it all comes crumbling down around you?’ I wondered to them. Their answer, in roundabout ways, was that they’d try something else. That wasn’t going to happen, however, for they had belief in themselves. Where does this unbinding faith in one’s self come from? Answer, it’s bred into them. They’re not afraid to try, to risk it all on something that would keep me up at night.

At some point after we spent so much time together, getting drunk and what have you, they ventured out and pursued matters that I didn’t have the confidence to pursue. They were self-starters, and they led, and they accomplished, and I look forward to eating something different in a day. The meal of the day became something to look forward to, nothing more and nothing less than my uncle had to threaten to sue to maintain in his life.

“Let them eat cake,” is an old line, purported to be delivered by the bride of King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, that suggested that the unhappiness of the Frenchman in her empire could by quelled by allowing them to eat something delicious. Some have also interpreted it to be an illustration of Marie Antoinette’s detachment from the common man, based on an idea that if they could not afford bread, to sustain life, they should eat cake. Whether or not she actually delivered that line, the import is that we, peasants, derive pleasure from food. Some of us hate our jobs, our family, and our lives, and if we can just find one semi-pleasurable meal, we can find some measure of happiness. If that single meal doesn’t do it for the talent-less minions that neglected to develop an ambitious plan for life, we can look forward to the next day, and thus not only sustain life, through the miracle of food, but achieve some sort of sensorial pleasure through the routine of it.

Eating to sustain life. Eating for pleasure. Too much pleasure? Too much eating? What else do we have?