This Jason Russell, the auteur behind the Kony2012 viral video who had an unfortunate manic episode on Friday, reminds me, for some reason, of Timothy Treadwell, the doomed star of Werner Herzog's documentary Grizzly Man:
Treadwell was a failed Hollywood actor who changed his life by moving to the wilds of Alaska and hanging out with grizzly bears, all the while strenuously publicizing himself. But he had a pretty good time, until (spoiler alert!) a grizzly devoured Timothy and his new girlfriend.
Of interest:
ReplyDeleteEx-Army has a nice post up on the politics behind 'Kony 2012'.
Black-on-Black savagery is not supposed to be part of any 'SWPL' narrative. Similarily, the Congressional Black Caucus was said to be strongly against aid to the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994, because "it would make Blacks look bad".
"Jason Russell is an ideal postmodern White man"
ReplyDelete--John Haw, Alternative Right
Nothing says that humans always have to be on the top of the food chain.
ReplyDeleteBecause both were unsuccessful, not terribly bright guys who wanted fame and probably would have been happy being reality TV hosts but who instead became famous through a political or scientific issue that they were ill-equipped to handle.
ReplyDeleteBoth were racist. Treadwell failed to respect the ancient treaty between the native people and the bears, while the Kony 2012 guy used too many White faces.
ReplyDeleteBecause of our advanced civilization, most humans have become largely separated from nature, so that they have little understanding of how nature really works. Add to that the constant anthropomorphizing of dangerous animals by Disney and other entertainment media. The result? Humans that believe the magical fantasy that "they're just like us." -- all God's creatures are the same -- wild animals are cute and cuddly, and that if you love them, they'll love you back.
ReplyDeleteAu contraire. Most wild animals are primarily interested in eating and mating, and they don't give a damn if you are a "kind" and "good" person or not.
http://www.firstpost.com/world/more-bombers-than-baniyas-why-army-dominates-in-pak-189134.html
ReplyDeletehttp://www.firstpost.com/world/more-bombers-than-baniyas-why-army-dominates-in-pak-189134.html
ReplyDeleteHere's more video of his naked meltdown, this time from up close:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tmz.com/2012/03/18/jason-russell-video-naked-meltdown-kony
"In this new video, Russell can be heard ranting to himself, dropping F-bombs, clapping to no one in particular, and shouting about the devil."
I think he's an Evangelical Christian actually. I was surprised because he seems too SWPL to be an Evangelical, but perhaps there is some overlap now.
He travels to Africa a lot. He might have caught some pathogen.
ReplyDeleteBoth the bear guy and the narrator in the Kony 2012 video sound REALLY gay. Compare their voices to old-time narrators of the 50's, or how even most guys speak today. BUT both the bear guy and the Kony 2012 guy are straight, which is interesting.
ReplyDeleteOT but of interest - Oxbridge economics don on his students :
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/joris-luyendijk-banking-blog/2012/mar/16/voices-of-finance-oxbridge-professor-economics
"There are roughly two categories of students now. There are the English-born students from working-class immigrant backgrounds who have gotten noticed in their state schools because of superior maths skills. And there's the rest.
"The cliche of upper-class people populating the colleges of Oxbridge is outdated. I may have one or two from Eton or Harrow, maximum. The white students are upper middle class, middle class, working class … Some come from private schools, others from really good state schools.
"We will ask students, why economics? The English-born Asian and Chinese ones appear pretty programmed. They don't admit directly to wanting to go into finance. They will tell me that they won't mind being a teacher, 'give something back', work against world poverty … The truth is that their parents will throw them out of the window if they do that. They are expected to make it in the City and increase their parents' status in the community. Many hopes are pinned on them and they know that.
"The rest seem genuinely interested in the field, when I get them in the first year"
Don't feed the bears.
ReplyDeleteSee the fifth picture from the top:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2116184/Kony-2012-video-director-Jason-Russell-arrested-drunk-performing-sex-act-public.html
My brother's girlfriend said the exact same thing to me, yesterday.
ReplyDeleteThey're both closeted homosexuals...
ReplyDeletetruly extraordinary men do truly unusual things.
ReplyDeleteTake a look at today's Los Angeles times - featured article on Nick Berggruen - self made HBD billionaire
One mystery Americans or white people do not understand about Africa, is the power of the occult and voodoo. When I look at this video, I see nothing more than a man who has been thrown a curse by Kony and his supporters so that he can turn into a crazy person. This happens everyday in Africa; people throwing curse on their enemies through voodoo and other matters. You go to Africa, there are crazy people walking the street and doing the exact same thing this man is doing - and most of them are not because they are mentally unstable but because a voodoo curse has been thrown on them by someone who hates them or is jealous of their success.
ReplyDelete--From TMZ site
I think the meltdown occurred because the man became a super christian, acquired a wife and kid, and a well publicized cause, to try to distract himself from the fact that he's essentially gayer than a thanksgiving dinner.
ReplyDeleteI think his hallucinations accelerated the meltdown. That is, it's hard to behave normally when everything you try to relate to looks like a penis.
They also both seem like they might be latent homosexuals.
ReplyDeleteWell, as long as one isn't reminded of the doomed star in Herzog's "Fitzcarraldo", it's all good.
ReplyDeleteNo, the only way Russell would truly be like Treadwell was if he went to Africa and got eaten himself.
ReplyDeleteThe closest literary analogue I can think of would be that Hollywood actor and global warming activist in Crichton's novel State of Fear who goes to the Solomon Islands to spy on the heroes on behalf of his eco-terrorist commissars...and ends up as dinner for cannibals.
@shawn Both the bear guy and the narrator in the Kony 2012 video sound REALLY gay.
ReplyDeleteI am 46. White males seem to either try to talk like rappers or gays. Very little in between.
"Hi, I'm here with one of my favorite bears, Mr. Chocolate. Hi, Mr. Chocolate!"
ReplyDeleteAmazing he lived as long as he did.
While white liberals are focused on Uganda's past, Ugandans themselves are focused on the future.
ReplyDeleteNo, the only way Russell would truly be like Treadwell was if he went to Africa and got eaten himself.
ReplyDeleteOr had voodoo done him from Africa.
Voodoo is just another word for poisoning. Thats all Voodoo is. See Heskith Pritchard's 1900 book on Haiti (he spelled it Hayti) available (for now) on Google Books concerning his journey across Haiti and his observations there. He liked the Haitian people -- poor villagers with nothing but a sheet offered them their beds and slept on the ground. But he had scathing things to say about them, particularly their practice of Voodoo which was West African, and nothing more than poisoning.
ReplyDeleteRe the gayness in modern entertainment man's voices, well yes. I am astonished at how gay sounding most guys in entertainment sound, to that I chalk up the sway gays have because its female focused. The gay population though generally wealthy is what, 5% of America? Women love the gays though and that sway leaves them out of touch with most men who don't look or sound like this Russell guy.
Maybe wagging his wiener down Main Street was just...
ReplyDelete... an idea whose time had come.
Gilbert Pinfold.
But he had a pretty good time, until (spoiler alert!) a grizzly devoured Timothy and his new girlfriend.
ReplyDeleteWho could possibly have forseen such an outcome?
Anybody else thinking of "The Africans" while reading about its history and current state?
ReplyDeleteOf course this will end with Mr. Russell being eaten.
Don't you people ever get tired of not being Steve Sailer?
ReplyDeleteFirst there was Bono. Now, there's Boner.
ReplyDeleteFirst there was Geldoff. Hopefully, next will be Gelded.
Also reminds me of John Lennon in the early 70s when he was into Give Peace a Chance and that stuff.
ReplyDeleteBack then, the message was 'we white people are killers, so let's leave the wonderful people of color alone'.
Now, the message is 'we decent white folks must kill lots of bad blacks to save the good ones.'
All we are saying... is give it a rest.
OT, Steve,
ReplyDeleteDo you believe the Gender Challenge Bonus will be applied at the next Olympics?
"Or had voodoo done him from Africa."
ReplyDeleteThat's not possible. Voodoo is not good for more than 10 - 15 miles, depending on atmospheric conditions, sunspots, etc. Any farther out of range than that and you get the incidents like pin placed in the doll's ass producing breast milk flow in the subject or, say, doll dropped off the roof causing the subject to have tourette's syndrome (lot's of screwage like this would happen).
I think maybe you're thinking of "hoodoo", not "voodoo" or maybe LORAN, most of which has been decommisioned (the LORAN, not the hoodoo).
Yes, sometimes in the movies you see people apply voodoo protocols over intercontinental ranges, but this is typical Hollywood bullshit. Like cold fusion, it only works within a few zip-code area, and during certain phases of the moon, and on certain idiots in Africa that'll believe any kind of crap you tell 'em.
Come on guys; I know y'all know this stuff.
Good catch, Steve. I see the similarities as well.
ReplyDeleteMy wife's closest cousin has lived in Alaska for 20 years now, and she tells me that the general attitude towards Treadwell amongst the natives and long-time residents was identical to that of the bush pilot in the trailer, namely, he didn't know what the he'll he was doing and "he got what he deserved".
The key difference between Treadwell and Russell (besides the fact that the latter's suicidal spiral occurred in a major metropolitan area, where intervention was likely, as opposed to a desolate wilderness where the only witnesses are interested primarily in your potential as a source of protein) is that Russell has some talent as a filmmaker. If you haven't watched the Kony 2012 video, do so. It's quite effectively done.
So much so that my two daughters (15 and 12) were caught up in the crusade, as were quite a few of their friends. Fortunately my elder girl's natural skepticism kicked in, particularly after she and I had a chance to talk about the issues it raised (of course her dad's line of work - television - has inculcated her to hold all mass media with justifiable suspicion.) At any rate, she greeted the news of Russell's breakdown with a world-weary shrug.
Of course, her cynical reaction might have had something to do with the reference article I provided her, where I had first encountered the name Joseph Kony. She already has the makings of a good HBDer, this might just drag her over the edge.
@ Anonymous 2:27 PM
ReplyDeletetruly extraordinary men do truly unusual things.
Take a look at today's Los Angeles times - featured article on Nick Berggruen - self made HBD billionaire.
Nicolas Berggruen's grandfather was Alexander Moissi, the most famous and at the same time the highest paid stage actor of his time.
His father, Picasso's art dealer Heinz Berggruen, left his art collection in a generous gesture to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.
(for a mere $200M stipend)
Didn't such a modest inheritance somewhat stymie his *self-making*?
Das raciss
ReplyDeleteTimothy Treadwell may have been gay, closeted or otherwise, but he definitely was no sissy.
ReplyDeleteWhile white liberals are focused on Uganda's past, Ugandans themselves are focused on the future. --C. v. C.
ReplyDeleteYeah, they want a moon base to which to send their Hindus and homos. "Transportation", they called it in the old days.
Basically way OT but has anybody else seen the promo for Bob Goldthwait's new movie? It looks like the nutroots/MSNBC version of "Falling Down"
ReplyDeleteInteresting factoid - the bears with which he cavorted were actually coastal brown bears not true mountain grizzly bears, which are a bit smaller but more aggressive. So perhaps in the end his dreams came true and he came face to face with a mountain grizzly. A shame for him and especially his girlfriend.
ReplyDeleteOT, maybe.
ReplyDeleteLast week, 3 soldiers were shot dead in south France.
Did you hear about it?
A shooter with a similar weapon and modus operandi has done it again today.
Will you -and the rest of the world- ignore it, this time?
First there was Bono. Now, there's Boner.
ReplyDeleteFirst there was Geldoff. Hopefully, next will be Gelded.
Brilliant.
That's not possible. Voodoo is not good for more than 10 - 15 miles, depending on atmospheric conditions
ReplyDeleteBut what about using homeless black people as voodoo relays?
Timothy Treadwell is one of the reasons that most Hollywood actors today are Jewish, British, Irish, Canadians and Australians. Americans males seems to becoming more mentally unstable each passig year.
ReplyDeleteBlack people cause white people to do the strangest things.
ReplyDelete"Don't you people ever get tired of not being Steve Sailer?"
ReplyDeleteDon't you ever get tired of being you?
I get tired of just seeing your name and realizing that once again, the moderator's notion of whimsical is not only antithetical but inimical to mine.
"I think he's an Evangelical Christian actually. I was surprised because he seems too SWPL to be an Evangelical, but perhaps there is some overlap now."
ReplyDeleteThere definitely is. My nephew is a college freshman evangelical and his girlfriend spends a good chunk of her vacation time doing mission work in the third world. They dress like that annoying Tom's Shoes guy and are worried about the down-trodden. Leah Ann Tuhoy is the local cause-celeb among evangelicals, and she is pushing Christians to out-compassion the liberals.
My sister/his mother brought up this "Invisible Children" thing up to me and my girlfriend, and she was stunned at our lack of concern. We commented that it was business as usual for the African continent and that the US and Western nations should stay out of it and should allow them to resolve this matter themselves.
This is what happens when a would-be rock star has no musical talent. Indeed, if Bono or Lennon weren't musically gifted, their pet causes would have been laughable too. Bed In for Peace indeed.
ReplyDeleteOT
ReplyDeleteCould it be black politics isn't as important as it used to be since so many blacks are in the Deep South? Since whites outnumber blacks in the Deep South and vote as a racial bloc, all the electoral votes in the Deep South go to GOP, and so black Democratic votes in the South don't amount to much. They go to waste(unless we were to go from an electoral college system to popular vote system).
In contrast, the surge in Hispanic numbers have tipped the balance in CA and will do so in Texas. This owes largely to massive brown immigration. And so Dems seem to be more energized about politicizing the browns.
There are some northern states with large number of blacks, but most blue states are blue in the north cuz of white liberal vote, and so blacks don't matter so much. Of course, most white liberals prolly prefer to keep blacks in the Deep South. If all those blacks moved up north, it could be white northerners will gradually become more conservative while white southerners will become more liberal.
Anyway, white liberals prolly want browns for another reason: cheap help or HEP. Because of the history of black servitude--as maids and servants even after end of slavery--, white liberals don't feel comfy using blacks in such roles. 'White guilt' thing. So, it's better to hand such lowly servile jobs to short Mexicans. As for blacks, there's either welfare or gubment jobs with nice wages, benefits, and etc.
So, according to the ideal liberal orders, whites are the business elites who pay taxes, blacks are the bureaucratic workers who absorb taxes, and Mexicans are the menial labor who do a lot of shitty work without complaint... unless they're born here and turn into rap music listening fools... in which case more bunch of Mexicans(and other immigrants)must be brought to fill in the menial jobs.
I'm glad sometimes that I pay no attention to pop culture. It means I never have to pay attention to things like Kony 2012, which is apparently very important for some reason. I can't see any way that never having heard of this thing has negatively impacted me.
ReplyDeleteManic episode?
ReplyDeleteOr, you know, drugs.
spain... we want pay movement flamenco flashmobs what silliness
ReplyDelete"But what about using homeless black people as voodoo relays?"
ReplyDeleteYou can't be serious! Don't you know it's all ball bearings nowadays?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm30l8sqlQw
;-)
Maybe these guys are really bisexual and not straight, hence the gay voice?
ReplyDeleteif Bono or Lennon weren't musically gifted, their pet causes would have been laughable too
ReplyDeleteneither were gifted, sweetheart, the culture just sunk to their level.
IN his new film, Not being Steve Sailer, Charlie Kaufman presents the story of Steve Sailer, a middle aged LA resident and cancer survivor who awakens every morning to discover that he has become someone he is not - a Mexican illegal immigrant working in a peanut packing plant, an activist lesbian lawyer undergoing a difficult relationship breakdown, a Likud supporting successful Jewish political columnist - eventually, Steve had to live out the lives of the entire population of LA, experiencing the mundane, hopeless, trivial exigencies of life viewed from a million different viewpoints - all right, it sounds like Quantum Leap, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteSay what you will about Timothy Treadwell, the guy had amazing brass balls.
ReplyDelete"Say what you will about Timothy Treadwell, the guy had amazing brass balls."
ReplyDeletemore like nuts and loose ones too
"Say what you will about Timothy Treadwell, the guy had amazing brass balls."
ReplyDeletebut they lost their bearings
"Say what you will about Timothy Treadwell, the guy had amazing brass balls."
ReplyDeleteThat would be true only if he realized the danger in which he habitually placed himself. There is no indication that he did, until the very last moments of his ridiculous life.
Doctrinaire American anthropologists don't argue that "race does not exit." Rather, there is no biological basis for race -- it is a social construct. It's an absurd position literally on its face.
ReplyDeleteThat would be true only if he realized the danger in which he habitually placed himself. There is no indication that he did, until the very last moments of his ridiculous life.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with this except for the fact that if you watch some of his vids, he goes on at a lot of length about how most people would get killed during their first outing doing what he did. Yeah, it is all boastful ranting, but he knew quite well that it was dangerous, he just didn't seem to care for some reason and had confidence in his abilities.
I'd also submit that this confidence was not without basis - I don't think you get away with this for 13 years on luck alone. And when he did get whacked, it was in an oddball, later than the end of his normal season, when his usual habituated bears had gone into hibernation and unfamiliar bears from the interior had moved into the area.
Like with many things, you get comfortable with a situation, fail to appreciate and adjust accordingly when the operating envelope changes, and disaster ensures. This happens all the time in aviation/maritime activities and it would seem in bear spiritual communing.
This all doesn't mean I think the guy wasn't a wackaloon from the word go, though. But it also doesn't mean that he was like some 3 year old kid walking up to a vicious dog totally unaware of the danger.
@Marlowe: IN his new film, Not being Steve Sailer, Charlie Kaufman presents the story of Steve Sailer a middle aged LA resident and cancer survivor who awakens every morning to discover that he has become someone he is not - a Mexican illegal immigrant working in a peanut packing plant, an activist lesbian lawyer undergoing a difficult relationship breakdown, a Likud supporting successful Jewish political columnist
ReplyDeleteLOL! Sounds like a lot of fun. This could be an ultimate artistic treatment of nature vs nurture. Someone please call Spike Jonze. Oh, and get Christian Bale to play Steve Sailer part.
"I would agree with this except for the fact that if you watch some of his vids, he goes on at a lot of length about how most people would get killed during their first outing doing what he did. Yeah, it is all boastful ranting, but he knew quite well that it was dangerous, he just didn't seem to care for some reason and had confidence in his abilities."
ReplyDeleteI freely admit not watching his video past the "Hi, Mr. Chocolate!" part. But I did read his Wikipedia entry. The guy was a recovering alcoholic and heroin addict. So yes, he "knew quite well that it was dangerous" just like a drunk knows quite well it's dangerous to drink Sterno or a junkie knows quite well it's dangerous to use a dirty needle.
"...he just didn't seem to care for some reason and had confidence in his abilities."
The reason was the trait or traits you'll typically find in addicts. I read recently that researchers have discovered that when drunk, people do in fact realize the consequences of their actions, they just don't care*. What you see as courage and bravado is nothing more than the craziness of a typical drunk and/or junkie. When I lived in a crappy neighborhood with a lot of them, it was not uncommon for them to be hit by cars and killed. This was not because the drivers were careless or the drunks fell into the street. They thought they could walk out in traffic and not get hit. They knew very well the dangers to pedestrians of oncoming vehicular traffic. Like Treadwell, they just didn't care.
And while he may no longer have been drinking or using heroin, he wasn't what recovering addicts and counselors have told me is what it means to be clean and sober. He'd just replaced a couple of addictions with another one. Why do I say that? Because he repeatedly and needlessly put himself in serious and unnecessary danger for no good reason. That's what addicts do.
I don't consider the recklessness of the typical addict to be courageous any more than I would consider the hallucinations of a delirious person to be creative.
Timothy Treadwell
*Damn Google seems to have changed its search function so I can't find a link.
At 3/19/12 7:29 p.m., I wrote, "That would be true[that Treadwell was courageous] only if he realized the danger in which he habitually placed himself."
ReplyDeleteThen at 3/10/12 8:18 a.m., I wrote, "I read recently that researchers have discovered that when drunk, people do in fact realize the consequences of their actions, they just don't care*."
I realized (!) right after I submitted the second comment that it doesn't seem consistent with the first.
I meant that addicts realize in a detached or disengaged sense when something is dangerous. But they don't seem to realize in a normal way that refusing to avoid danger will have real-life, possibly lethal consequences for them. There's some sort of disconnect between their perception of danger and their response to it.
Whether that's the result of long-term chemical abuse or whether people hard-wired not to respond to danger the way the rest of us do are more likely to become long-term chemical abusers, I couldn't say. And how that ties in--if it does--with being an adrenaline junkie, I don't know.
In any case, I still think Treadwell was an addict who'd substituted one high-risk addiction for another, rather than a man courageously seeking to improve the lot of Mr. Chocolate and his other ursine buddies.