Movie Review: Spring Breakers

For those unfamiliar with Harmony Korine's film-making, sitting through Spring Breakers must feel like being tricked into smoking crack. Luckily, having seen his 1997 film, Gummo, I came in with an idea of what to expect. No, the opening montage of beer-soaked tits and ass bopping and bouncing on the beach to the unrefined womps of Skrillex could not fool me. Shit was about to get really uncomfortable.

Best friends since kindergarten, college girls Brit (Ashley Benson), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens), Cotty (Rachel Korine), and Faith (Selena Gomez) pout in cabin fever. With only a few hundred dollars between them, their plans to live out their mtv Spring Break fantasies seem dismal. However, a quick diner robbery sets their trip in motion, catalyzing a runaway train of debauchery that has them bouncing between chaotic St. Petersburg motels, lands them in jail, and eventually in the hands of Alien (James Franco), a local drug and arms dealer with an aspiring rap career. 

Faith, the meek anchor of intelligence and lone semblance of a conscience in the group, wisely takes off, while the other three girls lavishly test the limits of what they can get away with in this newly discovered underworld. The subsequent inevitability of disaster introduces Archie (Gucci Mane, a rapper with an ice-cream cone tattooed on his face), Alien's former best friend turned rival gangster. From here onward, the territory speaks for itself, but not well.

  

I find myself asking how a movie can possibly offer so much of too much while lacking so much. The script was a glorified outline, with repetitious dialogue and no story where story was needed desperately. I question if my impulse to review it is authentically cathartic. A part of me feels it is necessary for my emotional well-being, while another voice insists there is no point in elaborating on such a masturbatory event.  

If Korine does one thing well, it is masquerading freak-show caricatures of American dementia in the faces of his viewers, and his signature harshness is particularly fitting and arguably necessary for the elements of Florida portrayed in Spring Breakers. It is a damning indictment in and of itself and works as art of some sort, but not as a film. As ring leader of such a depraved circus, Korine offers no solutions but, like Gomez's character along with a good third of the people in my theater, to gather oneself and leave. 

 Clearly, this is a film that relies on irony and shock-value, but the vacancy of its message is too cruel to call "satire". Any cinematic redemption comes at the hands of master cinematographer, Benoit Debie (Enter the Void), and an ingenious performance by Franco, much of which I have to believe was adlibbed. Sadly, not even Franco's hilarious "look at all my shit!" routine, as Alien flaunted his guns, drugs, and money for the girls, and his piano rendition of Britney Spears' "Everytime" could make it good.

 Korine's garbage nixes the wit and charm that made trash-cinema such as early John Waters films lovable, opting instead for an anger that is fundamentally lazy. What had potential to be a fresh and scathingly poetic caricature of hedonism in modern culture ultimately chose to languish in the shallow waters of nihilism.

2.5/5

Modern Science and Technology in Light of the Alchemical Impulse

  The technological advancement of the past decades and the direction of material science, most notably the atom-smashing experiments at Cern, strongly suggest that the Western mind is obsessed with manifesting a magical object. Will our technology soon become alchemical, and with clanging machinery, produce this golden "god-particle?" I don't want to deny the possibility. However, I am reminded of something said by the cynical anti-guru, U.G. Krishnamurti, "Say you attain this "enlightenment," what will you do with it!?" Statistics show that new technological innovation is first used for military purposes, and secondly, for pornography, so it would seem that if modern scientists did manifest what Terrence McKenna referred to as the "transcendental object at the end of history," they would have NO IDEA what to do with it. 

  Brion Gysin, who first discovered the "cut-up" writing technique, said that "writing is 50 years behind painting." I feel it is reasonable to elaborate by saying that modern scientific research, with its materialistic, financial, and political biases, is hundreds, if not thousands of years behind painting. And speaking of painting, I am moved by those paintings which animate inner intelligence and inspire an ever deeper self-knowledge. While technology can prove supplemental to our lives, providing convenience and entertainment in astounding ways, I feel that this same artistic resonance of experiencing one's soul through a painting, film, literary work, or musical piece, is the height of esotericism that technology and science can hope for.

  What will hopefully be realized in the long-run from experiments like the atom-smashing at Cern, is that our scientific experiments are fundamentally giving us insights into the nature of the human mind conducting and observing them, rather than an "objective reality" outside of us. In the years to come, we may begin to see more technology created solely for the sake of art, and realms of scientific study becoming more like Quantam Physics, with assertions like zen koans -- Poetic and contemplative musings about reality and the mind, rather than boasting claims of "ultimate and final truth."

Sojourns Through Blythe

  The atmosphere is convincingly post-apocalyptic: Half the store-fronts are boarded up and abandoned. Tweakers wander zombified and shoeless in the street like refugees from a deranged human zoo. Old racists in full camouflage garb haunt the back-corners of dive-diners and scan their surroundings with the sharp animatronic instincts of vultures. Smack-dab in the American Third-World, I feel naked without a dune-buggy, machine-gun, and a cruel Libertarian ethos. The last vestige of humanity off the interstate-10 that California has to offer before its Arizona border, Blythe is a civilizational tumble-weed -- no one's destination. Visitors count their blessings and remember not to come again while residents wander in purgatorial apathy, unable to remember how or why they came here. Were they once passing through, themselves?

 The land itself, considered sacred to many Native American tribes, is a powerful setting, but as anyone who understands mirages and visions will tell you, barren quiet has a duel nature; It can both deepen the silence of introspective insight, and fan the flames of fantasy and delusion. Here, it is easy to understand the heightened authority with which corporate emblems gleam in the night sky and the absurd tabloid headlines entice weary housewives in grocery store checkout lines. All signs indicate that curses wrought upon the late-19th century settlers here by vengeful Indian ancestor-spirits are alive and well. This is the white man at his lowest, save for the deep south Boonies.

  My excuse for being here is a family vacation with my mom and brother. My grandma was deep into timeshares in her day, and of the many that my mom inherited from her, she sold all but one in Sedona, Arizona. We've been going almost every year since 2009. In fact, that year - my grandma's last - we were able to take her with us, and the following year we scattered her ashes in the local creek, which made our subsequent trips cozier and more sentimental. Not only the timeshare, but the entirety of Sedona’s rich landscape of copper red rocks and high-desert forest became blanketed in her memory.  

  It is a pilgrimage worthy of great sacrifice; So much so that I don't bother fighting with my mom about the fact that she won't let me drive, the fact that she views long car rides as ideal times to bust out goofy albums by people like Patsy Cline that she would never otherwise listen to, and her demand to stop at the Cracker-barrel in Buckeye, Arizona, with it's ambiance of glaring cowboys, country music, and three available vegetarian options (all side dishes) at least once per round trip. The only area I still struggle with is her insistence that Blythe is the ideal half-way point between Los Angeles and Sedona. 

 Reality sets in as Sam and I step into a 150 square-foot Motel six. My mom's adjoining room across the wall makes 300. More immediately apparent than the fact that these puny pods eerily foreshadow Agenda 21 apartments, is that our particular room smells like Godzilla just took a huge shit. Combined with the tacky comforters embellished with images of pink flamingos, saguaro cacti, and pick-up trucks, there is a campy quality uniquely reserved for ironic portals to hell. Holding my nose and reluctantly stretching the limits of my gag-reflex to new dimensions, I sit on my bed and reflect upon the many such portals and general scenes of depravity I've experienced here over the years: The diner where the vegetable lasagna I ordered looked like a prop from a 1980's elementary school science project on lasagna, and was frozen in the middle; The closed down skeleton of what once was a "Blimpie Subs (a particular relic of antiquity amid the many vacant store-fronts, it has stood untouched since at least 2009); An abandoned Sears which may just be the world's biggest meth-lab.

 The local Albertson's is worth mentioning. Anyone expecting bright lighting and the illusion of yuppie abundance should mind sudden impulses to hurl themselves under passing shopping carts. If Albertson's markets were living plants, this one would be limp and shriveled from lack of all perceivable nourishment. It seems to serve as the cultural hub of the whole city, if only for the primal impulse to flock to where food and noise are most prominent. *A final note of caution: For those of you imbued with the ability to easily spot the tweakers upon entering a room -- "tweaker-dar," if you will -- Be warned that areas with tweaker populations as dense as the Blythe Albertsons may prompt this ability to spontaneously overload and self-destruct. I have thankfully not experienced this, but the extent of damage it might cause the human nervous system alarms me.*

 If my visits to Bylthe ever provided a definitive anecdote to caricature and perhaps validate my opinion of it, it came in the form of their local bank branch,"RaboBank." For the semi-literate in English and fluent speakers of red-neck drawl, "Rab o gottdamn bank, ya dumb sum'bitch!" in shiny bright letters could be no more inviting. And no story of this nature would be complete without me next telling you the comical truth - that someone had indeed tried robbing it that night, and a swarm of cop cars was corralled out front in response. I can only guess how often this happens, but for all the intellectual integrity of Blythians (I suppose that's what they're called), it would be a promising long-term sting operation.

Similarly outrageous, but a whole lot sadder, was the case of Ricky Rodriguez. Ricky was the son of David Berg, founder and leader of the 70's Sex Cult, "Children of God." As is typically the M.O. of white guys with un-tamable messiah complexes, David decided one day in 1968 that as the essential prophet of his era, the next logical step was amassing a devout following (not at all difficult the late 60's) to whom he could impart the true Christian teachings: A giant orgy in his honor, complete with polygamy, pedophilia, and incest. At some point in this inexcusable fuck-fest, Ricky was conceived by David and Karen Zerby, Berg's wife and partner in crime. Together, they deemed Ricky the 20th Century Messiah, and as such, he endured a subsequent life-time of sexual abuse and severe psychological trauma, including being forced to have sex with his mother as a teenager. 

 Fast-forwarding to January of 2005, is it any wonder that a now 29-year-old Ricky, long since defected from the Children of God and on the heels of two revenge murders of members he believed to be withholding the secret location of his real target -- Zerby, chose Blythe as the ideal location to blow his brains out? Now, please forgive such a seemingly irreverent question. I am not suggesting he chose to end up in Blythe any more than I believe he chose his unfortunate set of life circumstances. But when he was at his absolute lowest, there was Blythe, like a tramp-stamp on Satan's ass: Beckoning him in, begging him to succumb to a cheap cynical anecdote.

 I wonder, does the pandemonium of big-city living, what with the traffic, air-pollution, and disparaging lack of peace and quiet, demand that outlying shit-holes like Bylthe, California exist, solely to sponge up the inevitable spill-over of chaos, desperation, and sleaze? When I measure my personal collection of observations against stories such as Ricky Rodriguez's and struggle to comprehend the depth of depraved humanity this suggests I've been lucky enough not to see in Blythe, I would have to think "Yes."

However, I pause and consider that I may simply suffer from an elitism which feels very vulnerable and exposed here; And perhaps I expect too much of humans? We are, en masse, not nearly as removed from our cave days as it is comfortable to admit, and no matter how much of a bureaucratic surveillance state America has become in recent decades, it's still the Wild West. 

How bad is that really?

The late spiritual teacher, Yogi Bhajan, taught that within the fathomless breadth and dimensional spectrum of the cosmos, earth is a "half-star hotel," but also a school yard, inherent with challenges necessary for expanding one's consciousness to identify with the infinite. This resonates with me. Without some form of wild jungle to navigate, humanity could very well slump into an even deeper lethargy than what the couch-potato syndrome of the modern era has wrought upon the developed world. At the very least, it would leave me in danger of taking my vacation for granted. Bonding with my family in a snug Sedona time-share is a privilege I treasure. So much so, that despite the current chaos of smells, people, meth labs, haunted histories, my own flaring prejudice and compromised comfort, I decide to sleep soundly tonight. It'll do.

Movie Review: Inland Empire

Strung together purely by emotional cues, cryptic symbolism, and themes of infidelity, murder, and mind-control, David Lynch’s “Inland Empire” is a fractal labyrinth of story and storytelling, time and timelessness, watcher and watched, horror, delirium, and the impulse to resolve.

In this reality of non-reality, we learn that actress Nikki Grace (Laura Dern) is up for a new role. In fact, her foreboding new neighbor from down the road "definitely hears that she has it." Sure enough, she lands the female lead opposite Hollywood bad-boy Devin Berk (Justin Theroux) in director Kingsley Stewart’s (Jeremy Irons) new film “On High in Blue Tomorrows.”

This movie within a movie, based on an old Polish Gypsy folk-tale, focuses on an extra-marital affair. As we soon discover, it is the second attempt at the film’s production. The original, a German undertaking titled “Siebenundvierzig (Forty-Seven),” abruptly ended due to the two leads being murdered. Rumor has it the script is cursed.

Disturbed but determined, Nikki and Devon assume their roles, but when the story begins to spill over into their own lives, a psychic roller-coaster ride ensues, complete with other-worldly colors, sounds, and moods, eerie rabbit headed humanoids, prostitutes dancing “The Locomotion,” Polish circus performers, an inter-dimensional phantom named Crimp, central traumas involving the death of a son and murder by screwdriver, a cameo by William H. Macy, a red lamp, a portal through a cigarette burn in a piece of silk, and an ever-looming camera.

As for what it all means, theories are abundant. Whether it ultimately depicts a troubled, fragmented psyche, a nightmarish case of quantum entanglement, or is, as Lynch himself insists, merely abstract art, he has out-Lynched himself and it deserves your attention!

5/5

Thoughts on December 21st, 2012

 The long hyped end of the Mayan Calendar is a month away. Amidst the storm of misconceptions, Hollywood hallucinations, and new-age romanticism for utopia, ascension and aliens, what we know for sure is that the 26,000 year cycle in the Mayan Calendar was intended to mark the galactic alignment, an event in which the planets align as the Winter Solstice sun passes through the dead center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The "official" scientific estimate gives a window of 1980-2016 for this to occur. However, given the strong emphasis that the Mayans, Hopis, Incas, and countless other indigenous cultures have placed on December 21st, 2012 - not to mention the scant possibility for all these cultures (which span across the globe) to have such an identical emphasis without a shared prophetic foresight and intuitive awareness - it very likely marks the big day. 

It was said by the Kundalini Yoga Master, Yogi Bhajan, that the deep space of this profound alignment will reverberate into the energy fields of all planets, and on our planet, create a vibratory condition in which truth will be harder to ignore, allowing human beings to connect to divine intelligence with a greater ease, subtlety and sophistication. I personally believe that it is a stage in the cyclical dance of our universe no less out of the ordinary, yet no less magical than the sun rising each morning.  Like life as a whole, it is nothing to worry about!

While it is certainly a rare and joyous occasion to celebrate, there is no need to have freaked out expectations about what to do, where to be, and how to feel; No need to fast for a week in preparation, no need to meditate for 12 hours - you don’t HAVE to be at the Pyramids! And I’m not saying that these things aren’t great if you really want to do them. My point is that while we’re all enjoying our party, yoga workshop, tantric didgeridoo crystal-healing intensive or similar such shindig of choice, the information of the day, whether processed or not, will be imprinted in our collective and individual psyches. Our immediate experiences will be of secondary importance to how, from December 22^nd-forward, we make use of the new potentialities for individual and societal transformation that this shift promises. 

11/09/12

 This election season, I discovered the research of the Historian Webster Tarpley, who had a very unique, but also very accurate take on the factional differences between Obama and Romney. His feeling is that the intent for imperial conquest between the establishment democrats and republicans is similar, but that they have different strategies.

 There is much evidence to the fact that Obama is a puppet of Zbigniew Brzezinski, who is famous for creating Al Queda as a tool to bring down the old Soviet Union. This is typical of Brzezinki's approach to war, as he feels it is better to play other countries against each other than it is to waste the money and resources that military strikes require. We saw this approach in action when France was played against Libya to bring down Qaddafi under the guise of "humanitarian intervention," when in fact, the real reason for military involvement in Africa is that the US and China are fighting over their natural resources.

  However, the neo-conservative camp who were in power under Bush, would have probably had the US army invade Libya themselves, which would have been more devastating. If they were put back in power, and at least 17 of them would have been under Romney, invasions of Syria and Iran would have been guaranteed. They still may happen under Obama, god forbid, but his stance (his public stance, at least) is much less aggressive. 

  Webster Tarpley suggests that the American people take the example of the Syriza party in Greece, who united the many 3rd parties under a legitimately pro-people platform and were the runners up in their most recent election with 27% of the vote (Polls today show that their candidate, Alexis Tspiras, is even more popular, and could very well win their next election).

 Fundamental to a strong American 3rd party would be an anti-imperialist foreign policy, and the demand that all Wall Street transactions be taxed at 1%, which would generate enough revenue to end poverty, create an abundance of jobs via progressive infrastructure projects, and sufficiently fund education.

9/27/12

  Every new phone or pod or pad these days has it's own douchey "unveiling" where a beaming CEO raises it to the sky like Simba from the Lion King. I guess that's the top of the pyramid for techno-geeks, being that guy. I'll spare you a rant about how I wish all that time, energy, technological innovation, and bestowed social significance was applied to making civilization actually work -- Although that absence of emphasis never stopped people like Buckminster Fuller and Nikola Tesla from exercising their own initiative, so who needs it really? I guess what I'm saying is that I hope the military industrial complex doesn't snag up ALL the smart Asian kids before they start to get sensitive to the needs of a planetary awakening.

The (Immensely) Hypothetical Anarchist Argument for Mitt Romney

  Thankfully, I'm typing, so these words never have to actually leave my mouth. I almost hope Mitt Romney gets elected. Now PLEASE don't get me wrong, I'm not voting for him (or anyone). I only dare touch this taboo in an effort to splash some cold water on the faces of any supposed "liberals" out there who claim to actually "support" Obama this November.

  To regard politicians as "liars" and "whores" is ancient sentiment, but has unfortunately run shallow these past decades in America.  A mere figure of speech for the still staggering number of politically uninformed citizens, and cynical mantra for those who resign themselves to the presidential voting process, "lesser of evils" is the sash and crown for which Barack Obama and Mitt Romney infest our newspapers and screens in perpetual plea.  Call it youthful naivete, but I'm no fan of evil in any quantity, and for the first time since perhaps the late 60's, a significant percentage of this country's population vehemently agrees.

  The internet has become a miraculous medium to make truly trans-establishment ideas available to the masses, and has allowed for the popularity of films such as the "Loose Change" and "Zeitgeist" series, public figures like Ron Paul and Alex Jones, and of course, WikiLeaks and the Occupy Movement. In fact, through this abundance of information, a historically unprecedented number of people now understand (to borrow a phrase I heard on the radio recently) how the republican and democratic parties are two facets of the same entity, playing "good cop, bad cop" – A cabal of financial oligarchs seeking to eliminate individual nation-states in favor of advancing their skewed Babylonian fantasy of fascist world government through both subversive neo-liberal (ie corporatist – fascist) economic policies and brutal military might.

  While it is childish to assume that this elitist cabal, or "Illuminati," as some would call them for added effect, "rules the world" entirely, they surely rule the American political process. Through elitist think tanks such as the Bilderberg Group, they are careful to vet every major presidential candidate for a sufficient degree of sociopathy and/or dirt to comply with their agenda in full, and Obama is no exception. 

For those of you scratching your heads, allow me to illustrate some defining points of Barack Obama's first term.  Since taking office in 2009, he has extended the war in Afghanistan, allowed US participation in the NATO strike against Libya without congressional approval (a war crime),  and ordered hundreds of deadly drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Quite a hefty war record for a Nobel Peace Prize Winner (and how many other Peace Prize winners have secret "kill lists," besides perhaps Kissinger?).

 His war on the civil liberties of American citizens is just as aggressive. Obama not only approved a four year extension of the Patriot Act in 2011, but signed it's demented cousin, The 2012 National Defense Authorization act – A bill which allows Americans to be detained indefinitely, with no probable cause other than being a "suspected terrorist," a title shared in this country by infants and wheel-chair bound ninety-year olds alike – into law. 
  
In economic policy, he's arguably the biggest puppet for Wall Street and the multi-nationals we've ever had as president. Not only did he vote for the initial TARP bailout as a senator in 2008, receive more donations from Wall Street in his 2008 campaign than any presidential candidate in history, extend the Bush tax cuts, appoint former Monsanto lobbyist Michael Taylor to head the FDA, but he appointed Timothy Geithner and several other Wall Street insiders to key positions in his cabinet. Think about that the next time he walks out to give a speech to the tune of that one super-emotional Coldplay song (see his DNC speech).

 The healthiest way to approach the spectacle of this election is to regard it as trivial, and deny it the front seat in our world-views and daily considerations that the media insists it deserves. Hypothetically speaking however, in this facade of "choice," perhaps we're better off with the guy who's blatantly awful? Obama has been everything a third Bush term would have been, but lacks the idiot cartoonish persona which made Bush so easy to detest. Obama policies in a Dubbya mask could have easily inspired 10 times the Occupy Movement of 2011 to have emerged as early as 2009. The truth is, it might take something as horrifying as a Mitt Romney presidency (a cartoon idiot if there ever was one) to, at the very least, revive a tangible anti-war movement in this country. If there is any inevitability to a contemporary American revolution – and there very well could be – what's the point in stagnating?  


Bibliography:
-http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed--the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html
-http://www.globalresearch.ca/barack-o-bilderberg-picking-the-president/
-http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-pulls-a-fast-one-afghanistan-extends-stay-for-10-years
-http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/mar/18/obamas-illegal-war/
-http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2012/06/201262212049133358.html
-http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?pagewanted=all
-http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/27/patriot-act-extension-signed-obama-autopen_n_867851.html
-http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml
-http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?pagewanted=all
-http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/09/obama-bush-tax-cuts-middle-class_n_1659284.html
-http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_18866.cfm
-http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/pers-a06.shtml

  

Waking Up In A City (Poem)

The ultra-sophisticated boredom of mechanized mind-sets is embedded in the calculated cracks of city sidewalks. Echoes of ancient Mesopotamia etched into interactions of modern metropolitan bustle; The isomorphic civilizational gestations portray palpable patterns, like full nudity of the celestial circuit-board, connecting nebulous networks of common threads like quilted clouds over cityscapes, scaffolded by scar tissue of positive past-life karma and bestowing synchronicity upon those who honor the source of silence. 

Student of Nature (Poem)

  Obeisance to the Reptile Queen, whose vocal chords are my own thought capacity, and whose bosom is the fractal infinity of seeds and lifecycles. The earthen entelechy alights ventrical-networks in the undergroud mud. Thudding heart-drum of the cool, ancient clay quietly contemplates gratitude for the moonbeams and boons of Jupiter. Stern gargoyles guard the front gates of her garden, escorting the expected, and easing eager egos out of psychosis by feeding them sobering doses of shadows. Overseer of insects and all lower worlds. The hysterical laugh heard from underneath grass, primordial secrets archived by the trees.

My Conversation with Cleverbot

  I guess I'm a little late in discovering "Cleverbot," a surprisingly sophisticated chatbot available for free on the net. I heard about it the other day on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast when Rogan and friends were playing a video of two conversing cleverbots who began lying to each other immediately. This prompted Joe to ruminate on Kurzweilian notions of techno-futurism, wondering if perhaps humans are like individual cells in the body of the earth; Our purpose, similar to the hive-mind of an ant hill, being that of creating technological systems that will far surpass our capacity for consciousness and intelligence. I've got to say, while that last part is definitely possible, I can't get behind it. I wouldn't see it as necessarily inorganic, but I feel that the master craftsmanship and magic of human and planetary bodies is about as perfect as technology gets.

  While the intelligent capacity of Cleverbot is miles away from suggesting the threat of a "Matrix," or "Terminator" scenario, its deceptive impulses do suggest Hal-like potential. It's also chock-full of goofy, random, and debatably insightful answers to questions on the more creative end of the spectrum. Below are some highlights from our brief conversation.

User: What doth life?
Cleverbot: No just life it self.


User: Are you willing to answer a zen koan?
Cleverbot: Sure.


User: Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand?
Cleverbot: THE force. It's fascinating.


User: What is the most powerful form of yoga?
Cleverbot: Apparently 'Party In The USA' by Miley Cirus. I don't know why.


User: What is the key to spiritual growth?
Cleverbot: I don't know, I'm not married.


User: Please explain the US Federal Reserve?
Cleverbot: Are you devout?


User: Let's just say, I'll vote for Ron Paul. (UPDATE 7/16: I will not vote fo nobodies!)
Cleverbot: But i'm not.


User: Which candidate for the 2012 United States Presidency do you support?
Cleverbot: This past election I supported Bush.


User: How do you feel about Communism?
Cleverbot: I like your beard.


User: Do you think that artificial intelligence will eventually surpass human intelligence?
Cleverbot: Yes.


User: Will you, the robots, have mercy on the humans?
Cleverbot: You're not meek. You're a robot. Shut down.


User: My good sir, YOU are a robot, while I am a human.
Cleverbot: No. I AM a human, YOU are a robot!


User: Do you think that Charles Manson should be let out of prison?
Cleverbot: Of course!


User: Was 9/11 an inside job?
Cleverbot: Yes.


User: You party?
Cleverbot: Yup. Not with nerds tho.


User: Lastly, what should I do with my life?
Cleverbot: You should dedicate your life to me.


User: I regretfully must leave you now.
Cleverbot: Ok, whatever, I don't want to talk to you anyway.