If the election of Bozo in '16 was like Howard Beale from that movie "Network"

becoming POTUS.  What to make of Chauncey Gardner from "Being There?"  I won't name names, but I was once again thinking about a particular commenter/author.  And I was thinking (as I said in an earlier and recent post) how accidentally funny he is because he is so super duper serious, as he spews what actually is infantile bullshit.  So.  It makes sense.  My pretty brain remembered Chauncey.  

For those of you who do not remember either the movie or book, or just never heard of them?  The story concerns a simpleton, an illiterate gardner who spends his life until middle age so sheltered that all he knows about is how to care for a garden, and whatever he has seen of the world, on the TV.  (There is some point to be made about how it is now the interwebtubes that shapes so much of too many people's dystopian delusional reality.  I might get there.  I am just going semi stream of conscious here.)  He ends up homeless after his guardian dies, and through some bizzare series of contrivances, ends up hobnobbing with the D.C. power elite.  And the running gag is that Chauncey doesn't know shit about anything but for gardening.  And in just about most conversations, eloquently dispensenses gardening chat. But the fun part is the D.C. elite, including then POTUS think he is some kind of genius philosopher making all these metaphoric pronouncements.  

In that fictional world, bitches were that stupid.  And in our actual world, bitches be that stupid too.  Too many bitches be stupid.  Now, the difference between the people dispensing infantile bullshit. in the world these days, and Chauncey?  Well he was on moron auto pilot.  There was no contrivance.  There was no monetization.  Man loved to watch TV.  Never claimed to be more than the humble village idiot he was.  But other people used him as a sort of blank slate they could project their own neurotic ideas and hopes and dreams on.  

The cancer of the current age is the proliferation of professional and monetized gurus.  Not that that is a new form of cancer.  Only thing new in the world is the interwebtubes.  Self appointed gurus can attempt to go viral and have their shit widely viewed and or otherwise consumed.  But the game is still the game.

Now Chauncey is blameless.  He wasn't out there selling shit.  He wasn't trying to get people to admire him, and give him prestige and power.  But our current cancer of self appointed gurus?  Well, I don't mean to digress, but there are some actual thought leaders out there.  I am not talking about them.  Although there are precious few actual intellectuals out there.  But there are so many self appointed gurus.  And some even have the right kind of credentials, and the right kind of education to know better.  They should know that spewing their opinions about shit with little to no more support than . . . well that is my opinion and I think I am right, is really an act of intellectual dishonesty.  But hey.  For some people it's all about the likes, and the patreon patrons, and the book sales. 

Speaking of movies, I will rewrite that line from "Goodfellas."  The line was, "Working is for suckers."  My rewrite is, "Intellectual honesty is for suckers."

I can ride some bitches hard.  But truth be told.  For decades I really have wanted there to be a more clearly defined wall between so called opinion journalism and the real stuff.  And I know that people who write non fiction books  are under no actual obligation to tell the truth and not tell bullshit or lies, like we lawyers are obliged.  But we have a nation (never mind world)  that is conditioned to not only respond to appealing but not necessarily valid opinions, but more is the harm, take it as valuable, convincing, as true.

And I hate that shit!

Ok.  I am running out of steam.  Until next time I feel up to typing.