A filmmaker and playwright, Brian Flemming is the director of "Nothing So Strange," a feature-length faux documentary about the assassination of Bill Gates, and the co-creator "Bat Boy: The Musical." He blogs a lot about a variety of topics.
You may have noticed a decline in my blogging frequency of late.
I've been enjoying a vacation from the internet -- no blogging, no web surfing, very little email. I have almost entirely eliminated my news media consumption and have been turning down interview requests.
Since most of my blogging has been news commentary and publicity whoring, I've had little to blog about. I spend every day working on a project that will be secret for at least another year, so I can't blog about that, either.
In fact, it seems I have nothing to blog about except the fact that I have nothing to blog about.
I'll check in again in a few months to let you know that I still have nothing to blog about.
It happens far too often. When a minister Christ-markets at a wedding, I find it somewhat tolerable. At least the instigators of the wedding have apparently agreed to let their ceremony become a false statement about how Jesus is soooo important to their lives and will be right there in the bed as they consummate their marriage. It's their ceremony, and if they want to launch their marriage with a big fat lie, well, they certainly aren't the first to go that route.
(I have been to exactly one wedding where the pastor's representation of the importance of Jesus in the couple's lives resembled the actual importance of Jesus in the couple's lives. This was so remarkable that the pastor felt compelled to point out to the audience that he really wasn't bullshitting this time, like he usually does. I remember squirming as he came as close to saying "These two are actually virgins!" as he could.)
But at a funeral, where the subject of the ceremony is dead and therefore largely defenseless, the hucksterism of pastors is less tolerable. Especially if the deceased would have found the pastor's words inappropriate, it almost seems like we in the audience have an obligation to interrupt the salesman and get the ceremony on the right track. Should be we really be expected to stand by as this helpless dead person is misrepresented as a sniveling coward who is desperately trying to get in good with God at the last minute and get that ticket to heaven? Is decorum really a good enough reason to let that happen?
Hey pastors: You have a nice little scam going. Many families, who you catch at their most vulnerable and irrational, feel that they need to hire you to usher their loved ones' souls into Heaven, just in case it exists. So you get a nice bit of cash and get to make yourself the totally undeserved center of attention as you pose as an authority on the matter of death. Those of us who see through your bullshit will tolerate a little bit of hocus-pocus; we realize it's all theater. But don't push it. You may have noticed that we godless are getting more vocal lately. So we're less likely to stand by as you turn our friend's death into an infomercial for your product. Do you really want a reputation as the preacher who can't maintain order at a funeral?
It's not unusual at all for early cuts of a film to "temp in" commercial music tracks. Sometimes those tracks end up being licensed for the commercial release of the film, sometimes they're replaced with cheaper songs, sometimes the film's composer just imitates them in a non-actionable way.
Nothing So Strange screened noncommercially a couple times with Rage Against The Machine's "Bombtrack" under the opening scene while I tried to get the rights. (Didn't happen. Communists, my ass.) Festivals look the other way at this kind of thing, and it's smart for labels and bands to do the same -- there's no money lost, and if the film gets picked up, then there might actually be money to license the track properly for commercial release. It's really not a big deal to screen a film privately/semi-privately/noncommercially with temp music on the soundtrack. Most of the time, nobody will care.
But you have to be completely idiotic to try to release a film commercially using uncleared music by John Lennon and The Killers. A commercial theatrical release is not a gray area. Damages can be claimed by the copyright owner. Easily. You have to license music for a theatrical release or any other commercial release. I'm pretty sure Yoko Ono and The Killers have lawyers, and I doubt they're afraid to use them.
Fair-use exceptions are possible*, but if the Expelled producers simply used "Imagine" and "All These Things That I've Done" to underscore the emotion of the film's images, which appears to be the case, well, that's not fair use. It's just...use. That's how all movies use music. Fair-use exceptions have to be, you know, exceptional.
These clowns really can't do anything right. Everywhere you look they're screwing up, lying about it, screwing up the lies, and then pretending it all didn't happen. It's a lesson in how not to release a movie to an audience that includes any intelligent people.
Oh, right. Never mind.
But there is a bright side to this. If Yoko sues, it's conceivable that she could win a judgment greater than the entire box-office take of Expelled. That's how absolutely brain-dead and reckless these asshats are. Yoko can sue them for what she would have made them pay originally -- and I'll bet that amount is a lot, possibly in the millions -- plus more for doing it without permission. Plus other stuff. I mean, these guys are screwed.
If I had invested in Expelled or its production company, I'd be getting myself a nasty litigation attorney right now, too. Because this is some world-class incompetence. Of course, I'd also be asking myself why I trusted my money to people who think that the book of Genesis is a scientific theory.
*One fair-use exception possibility would be if you made a movie claiming that the song "Imagine" caused the Holocaust. In this case, you couldn't expect to get permission from the song's copyright owner, but you might need to play parts of the song to illustrate your criticism. This use would not be a normal use of a song in a movie. It would be exceptional. You would at least have an argument from which to start. By the way, you're freaking insane.
Maryland. According to its website, Catholic university Mount St. Mary's "is built on four pillars - faith, discovery, leadership and community." Fortunately, they were able to knock down the first pillar and put on a production of Bat Boy. Actress Megan Crampton (Shelley) gives the audience fair warning:
"People coming to see Bat Boy should probably be aware that this isn't your traditional musical like West Side Story or Oklahoma. As long as they don't mind a crazy West Virginian town that goes haywire over the discovery of a bat boy, and a twisted love story that exposes them to an animal orgy in Act Two, then they should have a good ol' time."
My pal Dan Waters has a movie opening tonight in L.A. And I just happen to have a free pair of tickets for any show this weekend.
The movie's called Sex and Death 101, and it will make you laugh. It also reunites Dan, who wrote Heathers, with Winona Ryder.
I can assure you that it has both sex and death in it. And Winona figures into both.
If you're in L.A. and you want the free tickets, just be the first one to email me with the subject line "I love sex and death!" (Update: They're gone.)
People who say religion is useless clearly haven't discovered that it makes an excellent butt for a joke.
In case you didn't catch the drama in real time, yesterday the front page of this blog was taken over by my performance of Kris Kristofferson's classic tale of self-hatred and redemption, "Why Me Lord":
And who out there was April-Fooled by this apparent announcement of Brian Flemming's new love affair with Jesus?
Well, not any of my godless friends, thank God. Most called or emailed with sarcastic congratulations. Apparently very few even thought that I thought they'd be fooled. They didn't see it as that kind of joke -- they saw it more like I was playing Opposite Day than trying to fool anybody.
But certain people were indeed fooled. Do you have to wonder who they were?
Some Christians apparently found it completely plausible that a declared atheist would suddenly be overtaken by wonder-working power. I made many unlikely friends yesterday during my walk with Jesus. Here's a typical email (per usual for this blog, I don't reveal the identities of non-public Christians who email me):
Now this time, please find the TRUE all powerful, all-loving, ever-merciful, all-wise Jesus who knows how to save those he died for, not the Jesus that loses almost all He paid for.
No, I don't understand it, either. I didn't understand most of yesterday's Christian email. But I felt the love.
The Jesus juice didn't only spurt into my email inbox, however. Journalist Peter Chattaway, a Christianity Today film writer, joyously trumpeted my conversion on his blog as soon as he saw the video. However, I'm not sure we'll ever know the exact wording of his original blog post. Hours after he posted it, when he realized he'd been had, Chattaway deleted his entry and posted this message in its place:
I hate April Fool's Day. But if what I posted in this space before turns out to have been genuine, I'll post it back.
Alteration of the record to suppress embarrassing facts? Peter Chattaway clearly has studied the techniques of early Christian historians.
It was Chattaway's commenters who got him up to speed. This is my favorite comment:
Nope. I'm sorry, but fervent atheists do not announce their conversion to Christianity by putting a video of them singing an earnest hymn on their website with no other explanation. On the other hand, fervent atheists playing April Fools Jokes would absolutely announce their conversion to Christianity with a video of them singing an earnest hymn on their website with no other explanation.
Yep. That's exactly what we fervent atheists would do! (It's nice to be characterized accurately for a change.) At first Chattaway argued against the skeptics on behalf of his first impression, but he eventually conceded that he was probably fooled.
You're not alone, Peter.
Early this morning I posted a new video with a message for the credulous:
So why is it that many Christians were fooled by my conversion while atheists were not? I'd guess the cause lurks in a mistaken assumption made by every Christian: That religion is powerful.
It isn't.
Religious dogma loses its power the moment you start to think about it. That's why it's extremely rare for a declared atheist to become a Christian*. You reason your way to a declaration of atheism, and once you do it's virtually impossible to pull enough of a mind-fark on yourself to believe that God writes books, as Sam Harris puts it, or that people really do rise from the dead and fly into the air, as I like to put it.
It's like trying to believe in Santa Claus again. It doesn't happen. And atheists know it -- which is why they knew instantly that my "conversion" was a skit.
The only prominent atheist scalp that Christian warriors have hanging from their belts is that of Antony Flew. The Christian opportunists who descended upon the literally defenseless Flew and manipulated a slight "conversion" story out of this mentally compromised old man demonstrate just how hard it is to convert a declared atheist. You have to wait until they can't think straight anymore and trick them into signing a document they haven't read.
I suppose a case could be made that I'm as bad as those evangelical exploiters, fooling Christians here on this blog yesterday for my own amusement. And I'd love to hear a Christian make the case that his religious beliefs are the equivalent of losing brain cells. I would disagree. The two are similar in their effects, admittedly. But the Christian bears a tad more responsibility for his deficiencies, considering that they are self-imposed.
*People who rarely ever thought about religion, then convert to one and look back and say, "I guess I was an atheist back then" don't count. Most people who were just "no religion" before they got religion would not actually have called themselves atheists back in their no-religion days. "Agnostic" or "spiritual but not religious" or "[fill in religion of parents], I guess" would have been more likely labels if they were pressed to offer one. "Atheist" just sounds too scary to someone who's never thought it through. A publicly declared atheist, on the other hand, has applied enough thought to the matter to accept the label without fear. And it's these people who are practically immune from conversion. Julia Sweeney, after going through a painstaking process of testing claims and evaluating results, isn't going to suddenly say, "You know what? Jesus did turn water into wine, because an ancient book says so." Declared Christians becoming declared atheists? Happens every day. Declared atheists turning Christian? Not so much. That's why Christian evangelists despise atheism far more than Christianity's theistic rivals. They know atheism means goodbye. (See: Europe.)
UPDATE: For the record, the morning of April 1 I did send out an email directing readers to an important announcement on my weblog, and Chattaway received this notification. One indignant respondent believes that fact mitigates Chattaway's gullibility, so I didn't want to fail to mention it.
UPDATE 2: The original blog entry that Chattaway attempted to conceal is here. Thanks to self-described "web geek" Adrian Hayter for the detective work.
My pal Dan Waters has a movie opening tonight in L.A. And I just happen to have a free pair of tickets for any show this weekend. 
