Lazy Fair City

[Brant Gaede]

So am I but few know it.

--Brant

we few, we happy few

[Brant Gaede]

The thread where everybody has driven everybody away.

--Brant

nobody is left

[Selene]

Did something of note happen on this thread?

[Jonathan]

Did something of note happen on this thread?

Yes, something did happen on this thread. It got a hell of a lot more attention, interest, and impassioned participation than most other threads. To those of us who are interested in observing and studying the psychology and tactics -- and humorlessness -- of Rand-fantasy-influenced posing and pretending from over-inflated egos, this thread has been a gold mine.

And the thread is not quite completely finished yet. I'm too busy at the moment, but, since "Wolf DeVoon" has revealed that his real name is Alan von Altendorf, I plan on accepting his invitation that I "bring it," at least in regard to the specifics of the cases where he attempted to smear me as telling insane falsehoods about him when I was doing nothing but reporting factual reality.

I'll try to keep it short, sweet, and fun. This is, after all, a humor thread, and despite all of the dour sourpusses showing up to nag and scold me about my laughing at just another Objectivish puffy poseur, I'm not going to let them drag me down into their prim, humorless world and stifle my laughter.

J

[Brant Gaede]

You can't say much for the ruins.

[Brant Gaede]

Jonathan is the backbone of this thread. He's the same on all threads. He's the vivisectionist of Objectivism and just about all else. You can't say it's not productive. You can say the procedure is not funny and wonder at his laughter. Objectivism plus or minus comes down to how it is accepted and used.

--Brant

needs work

there's no need to get on the table and get cut open for examination, but all taken out will be put back in and you get to sew yourself back up and stagger home dragging your IV behind you with hahaha, chortle, snort! in your ears

[Jonathan]

One of the most interesting things about this thread is the uninterestedness in, or severe discomfort with, justice, especially from those who want to establish "rule of law," or maybe even "Objectively rational law," in hoped-for anarchist or minarchist societies. Let's just look the other way at fraud and massive con jobs, but let's get very, very upset about the rudeness and impropriety of someone in an online forum laughing at another poster's exaggerations and lame self-aggrandizement.

J

[moralist]

Jonathan writes:

I'll try to keep it short, sweet, and fun...

[Peter]

Jonathan wondered about Objectivish puffy poseurs, and coincidentally, I am reading a Patrick O’Brian historical drama set in the early 1800’s. The English word they used for that sort, sounds sort of French. It is Pouffe. Historically that may signify a foppish, upper class, sexually ambiguous, strutting peacock. To achieve that image using only typed letters is an achievement.

Jonathan wrote about this thread: To those of us who are interested in observing and studying the psychology and tactics -- and humorlessness -- of Rand-fantasy-influenced posing and pretending from over-inflated egos, this thread has been a gold mine.
end quote

Now that observation does deserve being in the humor section but it also has a dash for the Psychology Forum. Too many of us who are Objectivists salt and pepper our posts with a type of self important seriousness that would be regrettable in Ayn Rand and laughable in anyone else. Mea culpa. I have occasionally unfriended, and ignored, or thought out loud when I should have kept my emotional mouth shut.
Peter

[Wolf DeVoon]

deleted

[Brant Gaede]

Your real name, Wolf, sounds like something for other boys in jr high school, maybe in high school, but not adults, to make fun of.

Ayn Rand wrote little about constitutional things--almost nothing.

Wolf sounds stronger than Alan, but I think you're stronger as Alan--a subjective impression if there ever was one. It doesn't matter that you're still using a pen name as long as you avoid a pen identity. It's a little weakening for you're going inside a character you created (if that's what you're doing [i dunno]).

--Brant

impressive c.v.

the head of Disney when you worked there was my brother's father-n-law, E. Cardon Walker

[Peter]

I have always liked the Star Trek Mr. Spock Randian Objectivist over the condemning, damning, and shunning Objectivist. Is the shunning Objectivist a second hander? I prefer the line, “I don’t think about you Mr. Tooey,” or “Fascinating,” when we find someone or something kind of morally off. Those phrases are better than, “You dirty rat. I hate you! Be gone, vermin.” Even saying someone is repugnant means you have had an emotional reaction to evil even if the evil is trivial. It is better to be dispassionate when you are walking down the street or nearly bumping into someone’s grocery cart, or meeting them at the Objectivist Living Latte Café.

Not that the following has anything to do with anything written here, but it reminds me of the bogus UVA rape story in Rolling Stone Magazine.

Peter

Here are a few edited snips from Town Hall Daily. Feminist Fabricator Lena Dunham Rides Again. Michelle Malkin | Oct 09, 2015: In Hollywood, anything is possible -- if you're a privileged femme fraudster with cover-up pals in all the right (or rather, left) places . . . . Last week, upper-crust Manhattanite actress Lena Dunham dropped in at the Beverly Hills home of billionaire mogul Ron Burkle, who was co-hosting an event with Hanoi Jane Fonda, organized by the Rape Foundation, to honor her longtime friend and HBO "Girls" show producer, Judd Apatow. And then lyin' Lena set about her real task: extolling and remartyring herself . . . . Let me remind you, since the sycophants in Tinseltown media won't: Dunham is a freaky-deaky fabulist and creepy Hollywood sexual deviant . . . . Wham: "Under scrutiny, Dunham's rape story didn't just fall apart; it evaporated into pixie dust . . . . She nursed her self-inflicted wounds by publishing a self-pitying diatribe on liberal website Buzzfeed and posted a prominent Twitter selfie with runny mascara mimicking two black eyes. Let me also remind you that Dunham's best-selling memoir also contained disturbing accounts of her forcing her younger sister to kiss her, masturbating in bed next to her, joking about acting like a "sexual predator," and examining her genitals. When bona fide sexual abuse victims started expressing their disgust . . . Blame the messenger. Wallow in self-pity. Collect awards. Repeat. Delusional "progressive" do-gooders pretend to care about rape victims while indulging a perverted smear merchant who does nothing but disgrace the truth and undermine real rape victims. Hollyweird rides again.
end quote

[william.scherk]

The thread where everybody has driven everybody away.

--Brant

nobody is left

Er,

[Brant Gaede]

The thread where everybody has driven everybody away.

--Brant

nobody is left

Er,

You know I'm having my fun.

[Brant Gaede]

This may sound strange since I like Wolf and don't like Jonathan, but I've always basically been on Jonathan's side in these discussions even though he's a hammer who only seems to see nails. If you don't bottom line out on substance and ideas, Jonathan will take you there. Sorry; that's just the nature of things. Good manners and a token will get you a subway ride in New York City. (I remember when it was a dime [1969].)

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

[This thread] got a hell of a lot more attention, interest, and impassioned participation than most other threads.

The thread has generated an especially low reads/per post number - less than 10.

This is, after all, a humor thread, and despite all of the dour sourpusses showing up to nag and scold me about my laughing at just another Objectivish puffy poseur, I'm not going to let them drag me down into their prim, humorless world and stifle my laughter.

I think that "Objectivish puffy poseur" could take lessons from you in how to hype up self-aggrandizing images of what they're doing.

Jonathan is the backbone of this thread. He's the same on all threads. He's the vivisectionist of Objectivism and just about all else. You can't say it's not productive. You can say the procedure is not funny and wonder at his laughter. Objectivism plus or minus comes down to how it is accepted and used.

Jonathan might be "the backbone" of this thread, but he doesn't post on a high percentage of threads. And I for one can and will say that his activities (these days) are mostly unproductive, an interfering nuisance from the standpoint of substantive discussion. (This hasn't always been the case. Ten years ago I often found Jonathan's contributions especially interesting because of his knowledge of visual arts, but the more he's specialized in his Objectivish-bashing clowning the less of any interest, or of validity, I've come to see in his posts.)

Ellen

[Jonathan]

Twenty years before LFC...

1969 assistant editor, typographer and cub reporter for Kaleidoscope

https://en.wikipedia...ope_(newspaper)

1973 mayoral campaign for Paul Soglin, radio spots, TV, print

http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/host.madison.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/7/e1/7e1a2cc0-6a15-11e0-a3c6-001cc4c002e0/4daccc5990be2.preview-1024.jpg?resize=620%2C702

Hmmm. You helped a commie statist get elected to office? Were you not yet a government-hater and anarchist philosopher of law yet at that time?

1978 seminar presentation at Villanova, sponsored by Lou Milione

http://articles.philly.com/1988-10-05/news/26273720_1_booster-first-president-sansom

The above is about what I figured. Seminar presentation.

1980 screenplay Maya Samurai for producer K.L. Scott, vehicle for Benny Urquidez

Benny parlayed the buzz, co-starred in Force Five http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082399/

Huh? you lost me there. Are you saying that you wrote a screenplay called "Maya Samurai" for a producer (whom no one has ever heard of?), but the project was never finished, but the mere "buzz" of the existence of the attempted "vehicle for Benny Urquidez" landed him a job on some other third-rate movie?

1980 two feature articles for Media+Methods on using video in the classroom

http://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/25/nyregion/the-most-exciting-magazine-in-education-in-memoriam.html

So, basically, you were writing for an industrial publication.

Does any of the above work survive? Where might we see samples of it?

...all of it paid professional writing, before I was 30 years old, while doing design work and graphics for Kimberly-Clark, Black & Decker, Nationwide, and a passel of smaller accounts.

Oops, there's the name-dropping again while maybe(?) leaving out some potentially less attractive details. You seem to think that whom you worked for, and how big and recognizable their names are, is the only thing that's important, where identifying specifically what you did for them needs to be quickly brushed over in very vague terms. That's not what normal CVs look like. In fact, the opposite is true. Your method of listing your accomplishments is the type of thing that sends up red flags in HR departments. What type of design work and graphics did you do for Kimberly-Clark, Black & Decker, Nationwide? Did you create/originate their national corporate identity packages, logos, brochures, product designs and packaging, print advertising, television commercials, etc.? Or was the work that you did for them something other than at that high level? Where might we see some of this graphics work that you created? I'd assume that anyone working for big names like that would be proud to show their portfolio.

$125,000 career earnings to date as a writer, and made considerably more than that as a film editor and director.

Oops, left out the details again! What types of film projects? Specifically which genres? Were they purely art films, or local news programs, or industrial training videos, or what?

Between projects I worked as a union stagehand, IATSE and NABET, three episodes of Golden Girls, a Beach Boys concert, ESPN boxing, David Copperfield, and mixed FOH for an opera. I was at Disney for a year, mastered 80 films on 4:2:2, if you know what that is and what kind of complex task it is to pan-scan transfer a widescreen movie to tape, remix it, color correct, caption, etc. I designed a video factory in Holland, choreographed and shot music videos all over the world, and for a time was one of the leading experts in 3D television and 3D film projection.

Okay. Great. Now that sounds realistic.

(Btw, my understanding is that most directors think of pan-scan as desecrating their work. It's like taking a crap on their artistry.)

I've worked on all six continents.

And? What relevance does that have to anything? Vermeer may have never traveled more than 50 miles from Delft. So what?

Had Downing Street and NATO security clearance, wrote video scripts for British Telecom, Federal Express, UK government under Thatcher, two for IBM and a dozen more for small businesses in England, Australia, and California.

Oops, you left out the most important details again. Specifically what type of video scripts? What were the projects? How were they used? Where were they shown?

But, more importantly, why were you writing scripts for the UK government, when your puppet personality "Wolf DeVoon" is a self-praising, self-quoting anarchist who expresses rage about the very existence of any type of state, and who calls government leaders "psychopaths" and evil rights abusers? Why would someone who presents himself here as a radical, heroic opponent of states/governments and as a brilliant anarchist legal scholar have a history of cuddling up so closely with Downing Street and NATO as to have security clearance?

Collaborated on imaging systems at CalTech and Lockheed, made a short film at Lucas, and talked my way into Kubrick's mansion in St. Albans.

What type of "imaging system"? Specifically what was your contribution to it? None of these statements of yours mean anything without the details that you're leaving out. Total CV red flags.

After LFC, my writing won 25,000 regular “followers” at Seeking Alpha. Their head of marketing came to visit and ask my advice. Guess why. In 2008, I issued a sell rating on PBR when it traded at $72 (now at $4 and headed for bankruptcy). A business weekly in Abu Dhabi hired me to write a weekly column opposite Krugman that took about an hour a week to draft at a coffee shop, anything I wanted to say about finance, world events, or technology.

Which business weekly? Was it another of your self-published projects where you pretend that you're two different people? Where may we read the columns that you wrote?

The company I head now has an A+ Better Business rating and clients worldwide. We routinely invoice six-figure contracts that take months, not years, to complete.

Great! Good for you! It sounds as if the company that you're talking about is what you actually do for a living. The company is not involved in the arts, no? I think you should be very proud of your success there in that non-arts field.

A couple years ago I took a few months off to do a full-time professional writing gig, at one of the nation's top trade publishers, where among other things, I wrote and produced a video that had to be okayed by George W. Bush, seen by thousands of oil & gas executives at a conference event.

And you allowed that to happen? You, the principled anarchist legal philosopher, submitted your work for the approval of the leader of the statist criminals? Which is the real person, Alan or "Wolf"? Which is just pretend and bluff and bluster? Judging by actions rather than mere words, it appears that Alan/"Wolf" is quite comfortable and cozy with statists, and even proud and boastful of having been granted their approval, permission and security clearance.

Do these people know of the views that "Wolf" expresses about them? Is big, tough, heroic "Wolf" brave enough to tell those thousands of oil and gas executives, and the US, UK and NATO governments about the bluffing, blustering, anarchist bullshit that he slings here? Would he defend, excuse and downplay James Ray Houston's crimes in their presence?

You don't care what's true or false, asshole. All you do is smear shit and laugh like a toddler.

I do care very much about the truth, which is why I've been asking you to clear up contradictions between your words and actions, and to back up your statements with evidence, instead of dropping names and implying that your history was much more than what it was.

Here's the bottom line. I don't give a fuck what you or anyone else thinks.

Oh, I think that you give a very big fuck about what I and others think. I think that you don't want your current business associates, potential clients, and industry peers to know about the pretend ideological bullshit that you're pitching here.

And beyond your current profession, image -- impressing others -- appears to be more important to you than truth and reality.

Here, let's put it this way. In response to my accusation that you use "Wolf" as a sock puppet to praise your own work under your real name, you said, here,

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=15456&p=238480

"Jonathan's bizarre allegation about 'sock puppets' makes me wonder about his mental stability."

Well. Now that you've revealed your real name, and I therefore no longer have to extend the generous courtesy of respecting your wish to hide it, here's one example of your puppetry, in your review of your and your pals' self-published film, London by Night:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B002B1YGZQ?ie=UTF8&redirect=true&ref_=atv_feed_catalog&ref_=imdbref_tt_pv_vi_aiv_1&tag=imdbtag_tt_pv_vi_aiv-20

In that review written by "Wolf," you speak of Alan von Altendorf as if he and "Wolf" were not one and the same person, and you praise yourself, without identifying to the reader that you're talking about yourself.

Now, in the post in which you revealed your real name, you chided me: "It takes a special sort of blank-out to believe what you're doing is proper."

What kind of "blank-out" (man, it's so fun dealing with people who parrot Rand's terminology) does it require to believe that your puppetry is proper? Why pretend like that? Why puff and pose? Isn't it because you give a great big flying fuck what others think of you? So much so that you need to pretend that you're being praised by someone else?

Another interesting thing is that on your Amazon puppet user page, there's a review of yours about "The History of the Atlas Shrugged Movie Trilogy" that follows your review of "London by Night."

https://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A3A6U7LZQWMCQW/ref=pdp_new_read_full_review_link?ie=UTF8&page=1&sort_by=MostRecentReview#R1O8VW3W2VJJGI

In the review, you spill your bile about the Atlas Shrugged movies, the last of which you hadn't even yet seen: "Multiple attempts to put a deal together in Hollywood, none of which succeeded, forced Aglialoro to round up investors and a revolving door team of B-movie hacks and available TV actors to crank out rushed, low-budget production of the three ill-fated Atlas Shrugged films..."

Heh. Exactly what has been the nature of your expertise in filmmaking? Have you ever risen to the level of working with B-movie hacks after your multiple failed attempts?

And yet you're very upset with me for doing what I do: Accept someone's terms and methods and apply them to them to see how they like the taste of their own medicine.

I came from nowhere and made my way in the world, not the brightest kid, not the bravest, but capable enough to see the achievement in Ayn Rand's work and take it another leg forward in a branch of philosophy she didn't even scratch. Laissez Faire Law and COGIGG have nothing to do with your shithead antics...

You haven't taken anything another leg forward. You're not even operating in the realm of "philosophy of law." There's no philosophy at all to what you do. Rather, you make arbitrary assertions and announce your personal legal preferences, empathies and opinions, none of it backed up by anything, least of all "philosophy."

And you're enraged by questions and criticisms. You throw tantrums, you name-call, you play victim, and you practice all sorts of other distractions. That's not "philosophy." It's anti-philosophy.

I had an 8-picture deal in 1991 backed by Nick Bingham, president of Columbia Tri-Star Europe, KPMG, and the Luxembourg government. Streisand's former hairstylist was running Columbia at the time. He vetoed Nick's $2 million guarantee for TV rights, because “it wasn't enough money to fool around with.” Who ended up looking like a clown? -- me or Jon Peters?

I don't understand. Are you saying that your notion of logic leads you to believe that since Peters was a dipshit in certain ways, it's proof of something good about you?

Anyway, once again you left out all of the relevant details. What type of pictures comprised the "8-picture deal"? What office or capacity would you have held? Were you to produce, write, direct, grip, work as a stagehand, or what? Was it an art project, or was it a series of training videos or something similar?

And, again, what's up with your eagerness to snuggle up to governments? It doesn't sound as if you have any dedication whatsoever to the beliefs that you profess here. Is using government to rob citizens in order to pay "Wolf"/Alan to make 8-picture projects a proper thing to do?

"Blank-out"?

J

[Wolf DeVoon]

I opened your post. As always, you're incapable of distinguishing what's essential and what isn't.

[Jonathan]

Yup, "blank-out," just as I predicted.

Answer the questions. Why is Alan von Altendorf, who is so happy and proud to be working with various governments from around the world and having his cushy, inessential projects funded by their forceful confiscation of others' wealth, posting here as "Wolf DeVoon" and posing as being opposed to their existence? How is such ridiculous phoniness not "essential"?

J

[Brant Gaede]

I hate pan-scan, but without it many movies wouldn't fit on the old TV sets(?). There should no longer be a need for it.

When I was a boy I saw Forbidden Planet in a Waltham, Mass. theater. Three projectors on three screens. I never saw the like again until I saw Napoleon at Radio City Music Hall decades later. Live orchestra.

Anyway, pan-scan is an art form in itself called fuck-up-the-movie-as-little-as-possible. Legitimate work. I guess.

--Brant

[Selene]

A simple tactical sign succeeds...

[Jonathan]

I hate pan-scan, but without it many movies wouldn't fit on the old TV sets(?).

The solution is letterboxing.

Anyway, pan-scan is an art form in itself called fuck-up-the-movie-as-little-as-possible. Legitimate work. I guess.

--Brant

Mutilation is not an art form.

J

[Brant Gaede]

Any movie not made for TV shown on TV is mutilated.

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

Any movie not made for TV shown on TV is mutilated.

--Brant

Most films can't break even without TV and home video (now streaming) revenue. Even the big franchise films like Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Pirates of The Caribbean would have failed without merchandising (action figures, lunch boxes).

[Brant Gaede]

Almost all movies multilate the writiers. And most of those out of necessity.

--Brant