Mild Disagreements

There seems to be a crossroads of opinion between QBlog and I on the issue of Marx. He seems to think I'm insane while I seem to think he's a nitwit without a spine. Here's the basic flow of the arguement:



Marx
The story of several people and how their lives are affected by an MLM known as Shiek Chic (Quixtar). Those who are active members of the MLM utterly fail in one aspect of their lives or another, while those who raise a brow and take the more rightious path of a blue-collar worker find their soul mates and live happily ever after.

Teri, arguably the most prominant character of the film, is married to a Shiek Chic member, Tom. Their life together is at first uneventful yet joyous. But as the story progresses, Tom becomes more and more unrealistically obsessed, the business becomes more and more unrealistically impossible and Teri becomes more and more understandibly unhappy.

This all changes, however, when Teri gets in a horrible car accident with a man named Shi-er, Steve...I think. Anyway, Steve isn't involved in Shiek Chic and so the accident wasn't his fault, of course. It was the guy in front of him. (don't get me started on the laws of rear-end collision) Steve -knowing fullwell that Teri is married- continues to send her flowers and coo and woo her day by day by day by day. When he finally meets Tom, he doesn't like him just by looking at him. (It's the Shiek Chic look in Tom's eyes, of course. Certainly has nothing to do with jealousy)

Tom eventually sells a car through Shiek Chic which causes his emeralds or diamonds or megas or whatever to make him a spokesman and pay him enough money to retire. Teri, wanting out of this nightmare asks him if he'll leave the business for her. Tom tells her to grow up. Apparently that means "divorce me for someone else," and that's precisely what she does.

The End


Me
The detail is a bit lax in my explanation of the story but you get the gist of it. Janet (the author) takes careful attention to describing every attractive feature of Steve, going out of her way to writes sentences of justification for Teri's lust. In the end, everything ends on a happy note, or at least in the tone of the writing. Teri is happy with her decision and Janet is happy for Teri and Steve. At least, that's how she writes it out. The ending sounds happy and those outside of Mine and -apparantly- Janet's belief structure, might even think so. But I don't think so. Janet says that she's a bonified Christian. That's all well and good, but even the Bible says that if a lustful thought remains only that, it is still adultery in God's eyes.

Janet should know better than to glorify the act simply because she has an axe to grind with Quixtar. Not everybody in the business is bad. As a matter of fact, I'm willing to wage that vast, vast majority aren't. Janet stepped below the boundery of integrity by admiring sinful acts of adultery and deception in her book. For that, I wish the thing were never written. If you want to bash Quixtar in a fictionary book, do it. But don't exhault sin in the process. Janet should be ashamed.

QBlog
You're insane, IBlogO. Just because she wrote it, doesn't mean she endorses it. Why, by that logic, the producers of The Sopranos support gangsterism! Surely you don't believe such a thing. Get a clue!(tm)

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Well, with such a profound approach, who on Earth could argue against that? Well, I could, and so I shall. But let me first say that his logic is sound and on the cover, it would fly. But I look deeper than the cover, much deeper. Nice try.

This logic can be looked at a couple of ways. Either way, however, I still win. Or at the very least Janet doesn't look too good.

First Item Up: The genre. The Sopranos, like The Godfather is a gangster movie about gangsters. Gangsters existed, no really, they did. And just like you can't have a car movie without cars, you can't have a gangster movie without gangsters. The problem herein is that in gangster movies, nobody is painted as the good guy. Everyone is drawn as humans, humans with emotions, feelings, dreams and desires, humans like you and me. It is because of this that we sympathize with one of them, generally the one that is screwed by the others and exacts his revenge. He might even be trying to go at the business "ligitimately." But despite that, he's still a bad guy. We like him because he's real. But he's still overall bad, and if he dies - he was asking for it.

So no, the producers of The Sopranos might not support gangsterism just as they may not support the ganster. This is why the picture of gansterism is never pretty. People die and a lot of times they die in horrible, horrible ways. The producers make sure this is evident and as we watch, though a tiny part of our fantasies may be enticed, we know it isn't the lifestyle for us common folk. Long and the short, they don't endorse gangsterism.

Likewise, Janet does not endorse MLMs like Quixtar. It is for this reason that she paints every aspect in negative light. The products suck. The dialogue is fake - all the time. Nothing is real. Nothing is affordable. Those who succeed at it are empty vessels without fulfillment. They are dishonest and stealing from their downline without any remorse. The business is fake, the people are fake, the dream is fake. That's what she writes because she does not endorse MLMs. She doesn't want you to endorse it either. Is any of what she wrote true? Maybe. Certainly not on a global level and certainly not as dominating as she made it out to be in the entirety of her enovel. The diference between Janet and the Producers of The Sopranos is that the Producers are not lieing. Janet is.

Second Item Up: Teri is the lead character of the book. We're supposed to feel for Teri, just like we're supposed to feel for Scarface. And what better a comparison? Here's a man who built up his empire on lies and deceits. Sure, people screwed him over, that's what people do, but he did the same and in the end, his imperfections were his downfall. Rather than looking into himself for the faults within him, he blamed everyone else and everything else until he had no friends left. Then the baddies came in and blew his chest open with a shotgun.

While Janet was lucky in the end, having found her soulmate, after reading this book, I strongly doubt the relationship will last. She'll find something to be ungrateful for, or Steve will show his true colors as a real man and not the perfect romance novel dream guy she thinks he is. He won't be obsessed with Shiek Chic, but by God does he like fantasy football. She'll ditch him for a young chef at a lowly French resteraunt and the cycle will continue. Yes, I'm pulling all of that out of my rear, but hey! It happens all the time, right? And with Teri's characteristics, with her lies and her uncontrollable desire for the immature schoolgirl fantasies, it's more than highly possible.

I got off track, but here's my point: While the Producers may not support Gangsterism, they certainly play off the hero and his actions as sympathetic. I'm not putting it past me that Janet is doing the same. She feels for Teri. She doesn't like Tom and Teri hates the man, both for the same reason: Shiek Chic (Quixtar). Need I go back and point out that everyone involved in the MLM loses? She likes Steve because Steve is handsom and Steve is sweet (although a bit disrespectful to the idea of marriage) and Steve is most deffinately not in Quixtar, I mean Shiek Chic. And she likes the idea of ditching the zero and going with the hero, and by 'She' I mean Janet.

Some Christian.

Qblog wants me to believe that Janet doesn't endorse Teri's actions or the message of the book. He wants me to believe that on no grounds, no evidense to the contrary, simply on the notion that "just because she wrote it, doesn't mean she endorses it." We're talking about cheating on your loser husband, here. It's not like we're hanging men from helicopters.

Look, let's call a spade a spade, please. Let's be adults about this, please. Let's not lie to ourselves, please. Teri did that for the rest of us already. Janet endorses adultery when it is convenient to her cause. When I shared this enovel with my girlfriend, the love of my life who is not an IBO in Quixtar, even she was disgusted with Teri, at the end, and we both discussed the thoughts of the author at length, what the thoughts would have to be to write what she wrote, how she wrote it.

There are more factors in this than I care to go into. Look, my problem was never that Janet mercilessly trashed Quixtar without merit or truth. People do that all the time. My problem is that she axhaults one of the worst sins in the Bible, and to top it off, she comes here and claims she's a Christian. Give me a break.

I don't like pushing my spiritual morals on anyone else, but in the case I don't have to. Janet has no excuse, if she is what she says she is. No excuse at all.

And that's all I have to say. That's all that needs to be said about this. I could say more, but why? I win. Qblog, you lose.

Janet, you're going to have to answer to God.

Who Wants To Be A Blogger?

This isn't what I was really wanting to post on, but what can you do?

If you haven't read on Quixtar Blog, I've been quoted on a certain blog hosted by an author who calls himself "Qrush" to support his claims that Scott Larsen is gay. Now, I'm not going to go into it becuase it doesn't really matter. If you care that much, you can catch it on QBlog's website.

Here's what I'm going to say: I don't know Qrush and I don't know Scott Larson. I don't appreciate QRush using me in the context that he's used me. If he wanted to cite me and my context to support the point I was making, fine. But I don't appreciate this Michael Moore-esque "reporting," especially from someone who takes a dandy to the association with Rush Limbaugh. I don't read QRush much, but from what I have read, his tactics are entirely out of line from his apparent role model.

Rush doesn't attack gays for their homosexuality.
Rush doesn't use the homosexual card where it is irrelevant (ala: he hates Quixtar because he's gay)
Rush doesn't slam everyone who disagrees with him as being a Liberal bonehead or any other derogatory insult.
Rush is far more clever with his derogatory insults.

I don't know QRush and I don't care to. I don't like Larson but that doesn't mean I'm going to bash him for his sexuality, something I neither know anything about nor find relevant. I'm not going to stand by it, either.

There's absolutely nothing I can do in this situation. Freedom of information and all, I put what I said online and when you say something, the moment you say something it's open to scrutiny of any type. If QRush takes it upon himself to quote or misquote me, that's his perogative. But I would appreciate some since of propriety. If QRush is any sense an honorable man as Rush, he'll acknowledge his mistake and correct it, openly and publicly.

Should he decide not to, you have my case here and ultimately that's all that matters.

And while we're on the topic of clearing things up, things I said before about QuixtarBlog might have been taken in the wrong light. I don't have any ill feelings toward QBlog or his website or its content in any way. Though we don't see eye to eye on several things, I find Q to be one of the most respectable Bloggers I know. He is upfront, honest and professional and I appreciate everything he's done. I wouldn't have known about any of this had he not called me, in the first place.

We have discussed the issue of publishing Marks and while I believe his honesty in his explanation, it didn't explain what the book had anything to do with Quixtar. In all truthfulness, and he knows it, it doesn't matter. It's none of my business and he can put whatever he wants on his Blog. It's his Blog. But my case in point still stands. I still think the book is a dishonest and unfair look at IBO's in Quixtar (if that is what it is) and several items of interest the author had clearly taken liberty into translating to her own convenience despite the possible or downright obvious misleadings. That aside, it makes for good fiction, if the ending wasn't so deplorable. I may go into that later, or I may not. There's still that whole Broadway Show I gotta write.