JHUS Staging

Category: JH Videos

  • US Education is Broken (2009)

    [embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpmVCFCoWt4[/embedyt]

    I’ve been saying for a long time that the education system in our country is broken.  It was never in tip top condition, but it was headed the right direction through most of the fifties through the seventies.

    Then with the rise of the Reagan era, public education started being propagandized as a burdensome cost on society, rather than an obligation of self-interest.

    This is another of the videos I cut in Winters, CA, in June of 2009.  Again, you’ll find some themes that I’d already been pounding on for decades when this video was shot, and I continue to press today.  This is how I was thinking about it in 2009 – how do you think it compares to the things I’ve said more recently?  Do you think it holds up to reality now? I notice that the way I framed the video, starting off with criticism of “liberalism” and “political correctness,” isn’t necessarily the same as I would now – the points are valid but misdirected, and the labels themselves have a very different sort of valence in 2022 than they did in 2009.

  • MTV Rant (2009)

     

    This is one of the first video rants I ever cut  It’s very rough and honestly kind of sucks in retrospect – the subject isn’t of any great value (oooh, mtv doesn’t play enough music, standup comedians didn’t get enough mileage out of that by 1902 or anything).  Still, it’s unquestionably me and my attitude, and of course by this point, in 2009, I’d been in and out of working in the wrestling business and the theater already, so cutting a promo wasn’t hard.

    I miss my hair 😛

    This was shot in Winters, California in June, 2009, on a VHS-C camcorder.  I don’t believe I have the original footage anymore; I haven’t gone looking for it since I lost everything in Salt Lake City in 2018, but it may have ended up on the hard drive I lost then.

    That shirt is my favorite and has its own funny story that I’ll tell some other time.  It was a gift from my daughter when she was in high school.  The irony that B&B is not, in fact, music is not lost on me.

  • America’s Drug Problem Part 1 (2011)

    This video and post were originally published in 2011. Please note that the domain names mentioned, lowgenius.net and 40yearoldfreshman.com, are no longer active. Special thanks to my nephew James for the camera work!

    Hi, everyone.  JH here, taking on a big issue that has had a major impact on my life all my life:  America’s Drug Problem.

    The videos speak largely for themselves, but I wanted to clear up a few things pre-emptively.

    • I am not endorsing, condoning, or approving of the use of drugs, legal or illegal.  I am only imparting information that I think is important for people who choose this behavior to be aware of.  One of the key side effects of our entirely broken approach to drugs education is the dangerous equivalence of drugs which are physically addictive, and drugs which are not physically addictive, and I think this false equivalence is a root cause of much of the “hard” drug abuse in western culture today.
    • I blew a line and described a neuroreceptor as a “brain cell.”  A neuroreceptor is part of a brain cell, and by leaving those two words – “part of” – out, there’s a risk of confusion.  I corrected this in the transcript, but I just don’t have the resources or patience to go re-shoot an entire three-part video just for the sake of two words.
    • Yes, I’m aware that the wind noise is irritating.  I’ve done my best to eliminate it in post-production, but there’s only so much you can do.  You can view a transcript on-screen using the close-captioning button, or simply read along below.
    • This is the first of three videos dealing with this subject, and I strongly recommend you watch them all.  Our problems understanding the risks and differences between the drugs we’re on is only one small part of a very large problem.

    Transcript:

    Hey there folks, John Henry, LowGenius.Net, 40yearoldfreshman.com.

    This country has a drug problem.  We actually have three drug problems, and I want to discuss them, because there’s a lot of bullshit that goes around, everybody talks all kinds of mad shit, this and that, everybody’s got their agenda, everybody’s got something to  say about it and everybody thinks this and thinks that and it’s all this conflicting information.

    So, the first problem that we have, with drugs in America is that there are people that are on drugs in America…now, it’s not something that I’m proud of, or even that I really like to discuss, but it needs to be said:  I spent about thirteen years of my life wrapped up in hard drugs I know what it’s about, I know what the lifestyle’s about, I know how it works.

    There’s something that a lot of people don’t understand about drugs and drugs addiction, and that’s…that there are two different types of addiction.  There’s a physical or physiological addiction that has a physical component, there’s also psychological addiction.

    Now you can be psychologically addicted to anything that you use or abuse in an unhealthy manner, whether it’s, you know, sex or reading books or playing video games or World of Warcraft or Facebook or whatever, you can be addicted in that sense to anything.

    Physiological, physical, addiction is a little bit different.  With physical addiction there are certain drugs that actually change the shape of the neuroreceptors in your brain.  For those of you who don’t know what a neuroreceptor is, it’s (part of a) brain cell, the neuroreceptor is basically a mouth on that brain cell that eats nutrients. And it’s shaped in a certain way so the nutrients fit into it and it seeks those out, and that’s what causes hunger and on and on.

    So:  drugs that are physically addictive change your body to believe that that drug is a necessary substance for life, like food and water.  That is why physical addiction can be so very compelling, because on a primal level the addict believes and behave just as they would if they were starving, okay? That’s physical addiction, that’s the nasty shit, that’s the bad shit.  That’s what I went through for 13 years when I was doing hard drugs.

    Physically addicting drugs are your methamphetamines; cocaine-based substances; opiates – heroin, morphine, oxycontin. A lot of prescription drugs, especially painkillers, mood elevators, and anti-depressants have a physically addictive component – not all of them, and I don’t have a comprehensive list of which ones are which, but keep your eyes open.

    Those are physically addictive things, they WILL hook you.  Crack cocaine.

    Alcohol is physically addictive.  There was a study done in the early ’80s where an anthropologist looked at the brains of dead skid row bums, dead alcoholics, and the brains of alcoholics had changed in precisely the same ways and were even generating some of the same substances as the brains of people who had died of heroin overdoses after long-term addictions. So what I’m trying to tell you is that these things are very much the same, and people don’t realize it.  Nicotine, cigarettes, is another one – physically addictive.  It hooks your body, it doesn’t just hook your mind.  Now…marijuana?  Not physically addictive. Magic mushrooms, not physically addictive.  LSD?  Not physically addictive, as far as anyone’s ever proven or shown.

    Speaking from my own experience, those drugs are not physically addictive.  I’ve done them all.  I’ve also done drugs that were physically addictive, and I know what addiction feels like.  It’s a different thing.  If somebody who is a heavy pot smoker runs out of pot, doesn’t have any way to get any more…they might be bitchy for a couple of days, you know?  But they get over it, life goes on, blah blah blah whatever.  Somebody addicted to cocaine runs out, and they break into your house and steal your television set.  That’s the difference between psychological and physical addictions.  That’s not to say that psychological addiction cant be as profound as physical addiction, but it’s much more rare.

    So.  I’m certainly not going to recommend that anybody go do anything illegal or abuse any kind of drugs, but even if you’re going to take drugs therapeutically and legally for pain or whatever, be aware.  Be aware of the risk of physical addiction.  Ask your doctor, is this drug physically, physiologically addictive.  Do the best you can to avoid the ones that are.

    That’s our first problem, is the fact that people are using drugs and they don’t fully understand what the risks are of each individual drug and what the differences are between each individual drug.  The next video, we’re going to talk the second problem – which is the way we educate ourselves, each other, and our children about drugs.

    Thanks for watching.  I’m John Henry, Lowgenius.Net.  Remember to share, like, comment, drop by my blog @ lowgenius.net and 40yearoldfreshman.com, spread it around, I need all the traffic I can get, thanks very much.

  • Cutting Education Funding Is Wrong (2011)

    Another of those subjects that just refuses to go away because the fascists we’ve allowed to take part in our government know that keeping us stupid is their best weapon.

    The sound quality on this really stinks, I’m afraid, and I don’t know why. Unfortunately all the source video has been lost to the inevitable costs of poverty, but if it’s that tough to hear feel free to DM me via FB or Twitter and I’ll go ahead and transcribe it here.

    What’s interesting about this video to me is that it inadvertently documents one of those “things I never do,” in this case working with Eric Byler and a group of fellow students who eventually called ourselves “Michigan’s Future” (clearly reflective of my traditionally-aged colleagues!) at Western Michigan University to get a resolution passed by the local city council that they would refuse to enforce any attempt at creating an Arizona-style “show your papers” law. I’m pretty bad about documenting the things I do; in this case it turns out that I did, and totally forgot. You also see legendary Kalamazoo city council member Don Cooney speaking at a pro-education rally, among other things; Don turns up again in a documentary I did about the Occupy movement.

  • Land Of The Lost (2009/2011)

    This is where a lot of things started for me. In 2009 I was invited by some “friends” to move to California. Turned out they were expecting me to service the lady of the house, which I was not really up for. When said lady carved my name into her chest, it was time to go. I’ve never told that part of the story until now.

    This video was recorded while I was on the streets in Woodland, CA in 2009, and originally published in 2011. It’s fair to say I’ve never really recovered, and as I write this in 2023 find myself again on the streets. It’s not easy to watch, but the folks who care about that sort of thing aren’t reading this site anyway.

  • Stop Wasting Food! (2011)

    Back in 2011 I cut this video about the massive food waste that happens particularly in developed nations. This was the description of the video at the time:

    Each day in this country millions of people go hungry while corporate food service throws out tons and tons of perfectly good food with excuses like “we will get sued” and “it will take away from our sales if we give this food away.” I’m calling bullshit, and challenging corporate food service to step up and do the right thing. Please join me; they will respond to public pressure, if there’s enough of it.

    Now, twelve years later, we still haven’t really addressed this problem very well, but movement has happened including the French government mandating waste reduction and distribution efficiency regulations. Just like it says in that last sentence, “please join me; they will respond to public pressure if there’s enough of it.” Hardly surprising that the earliest meaningful movement we have seen on this issue is in France, one of the world’s more infamous sources of social change via public pressure.

  • South Haven, MI, Jan 2011

    This is the kind of work I’d be doing, aside from the political-social stuff, if I lived in a world where I could do everything I wanted. There are so many wonderful, beautiful little pockets of the world that I’ve been fortunate enough to see, and I’d love to share them with you.

    In this video, we take a brief look at South Haven, Michigan – a beach resort town – in the middle of winter, with a bit of historical background and information. Just for fun. (Note: Although this is titled “Part 1,” I haven’t the slightest idea where parts 2-x may have ended up.)

  • Conspiracies: The Truth Is Not “Out There”

    (This is a curated combination of two different related pieces; the video, “See Oh En Spiracy,” and this article which originally appeared at https://web.archive.org/web/20100816230908/http://www.lowgenius.net/post/2010/08/15/The-Truth-Which-Is-NOT-e2809cOut-Theree2809d.aspx. A few minor edits have been made; the only substantive change is the addition of information relating to “Heinlein’s/Hanlon’s Razor.”)

    We as a nation have become seduced by conspiracies. The latest: That BP is actually showing a *second* well in the gulf on their cameras, because the first is still leaking and they don’t want us to know.

    Bullshit. We have to stop passing on bullshit information like this when there are important things we can be doing that actually matter and will make a difference to our ultimate survival.

    “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” Known variously as “Hanlon’s Razor” and “Heinlein’s Razor,” this basic idea forms a solid line between healthy skeptic and frothing whackjob. (On the ambiguity of sourcing; I first read the phrase, in precisely this working, in Heinlein’s “Time Enough For Love,” published in 1973; the Wiki article that insists on attributing the phrase to Robert J. Hanlon cites his first publication in 1980. While in fairness it must be said that the basic formulation is at least a couple of centuries old, if the choice is between Hanlon and Heinlein, Heinlein clearly gets the nod.)

    – The wells in question are less than 250 feet from each other. Not “miles” as has often been asserted.

    – Several of these videos tie everything back in with “The global banking elite.” This phrase inevitably proves, when one follows the trail of paranoid conspiracy theorism back from the person who utters that phrase to the identity of the “global banking elite,” to be “OMGJOOZ!” This has been so consistent that I don’t bother following the trail anymore when I see this phrase. I know where it’s going – to THE J0000Z THE EVUL JOOOOZ WHO CONTROL EVERYTHING IT’S THE JOOZ THE JOOZ THE JOOOOOOZ ZIONIST ROTHCHILD BILDERBURG CITY BANK OF ENGLAND FREEMASONS UFO’S BLACK HELICOPTERS AND JOOOOOOZ. F’n ridiculous bullshit is what it is.

    – Nobody has managed to explain what purpose there would be to this GREAT BIG CONSPIRACY, nor have they explained how enormous companies with the power and resources to push governments around and demand carte blanche to destroy the planet at will for profit are suddenly so inept that a couple of rednecks and slackers with nothing to do but stare at a live fed of the ocean floor all day can see through their clever ruse…a ruse which is designed to what, convince us there’s no oil spill? If they were going to do that, why not do it two months ago? You know, before everybody started worrying about Armageddon, before BP took a multi-billion-dollar stock hit and destroyed their brand name, before people were pissed off and scared to actually start getting off their asses and thinking about how to reduce their dependence on oil? Because you know, THAT kind of conspiracy would have made sense. This is like a conspiracy to go close the barn door after the horses have escaped.

    This horrendous catastrophe has emphasized, in the strongest terms possible without causing immediate profound loss of life, that we must eliminate our dependence on petroleum.  Not on “foreign oil,” on oil period.  It has shined a bright light on the stark reality that we must find alternatives to petrochemicals, and we must, immediately begin doing everything that we haven’t but should have been to reduce consumption, or these kinds of things will keep happening and building on other things until this planet is no longer suitable for human life.

    People don’t want to deal with that. At ALL. They’d rather ignore it and fiddle while Rome – or Moscow – burns. Tell you the truth, I’d rather myself. I’m sure you would as well – who among us wouldn’t rather have fun than worry about all these heavy issues? I understand and I sympathize…but that attitude is so dangerous and so hypnotizing. You can already see it – the discussion has already begun to shift away from “we must reduce our consumption” to “we must find someone else to blame.”

    Because we don’t want to blame ourselves. If we do that it means we have to give up our comforts and go through the difficulty and expense of learning new habits. It’s almost a really gigantic, society-magnitude manifestation of the suicidal hopelessness response. I’m sure you learn of this in Finland – the danger of being lost out in the cold and thinking “I’ll just lay down for a minute, a nap would be so nice,” and then you wake up with your ass frozen to death.

    I’m afraid that’s what we’re seeing right now in many people, this kind of response. Ignore it and it will go away. Stop thinking about what I have to do to make my little difference and start trying to force the Big Evil Oil Company to solve everything. If we can just be angry enough at them we can make them fix it with their Big Evil Company magic and we’ll still be able to drive our Humvee’s and Escalades in the suburbs, we won’t have to change our own behavior.

    We’re wrong. We will have to change our behavior. If we don’t, we will die. We must stop trying to divert our own attention from the things we need to do to stop abusing this planet.

  • Makin’ Some Noise

    Another one from just before I decided to go to college at age 40. At this point, I was still thinking of myself more as a performer who did political material, than a real political analyst or what have so, and I did a lot of these little videos just as though they were stand-up comedy bits, with a helping of pro wrestling style verisimilitude in the delivery – more “cutting a promo” than “telling a joke.”

    In this short bit, we discuss the idiocy of using traffic noises like sirens or car crashes in audio intended for broadcast on radios people listen to in traffic.

  • Shearing “Sheeple”

    Once upon a time the word “sheeple” was a clever little riposte reflecting the frustration of some parts of our culture with others who seemed to be thoughtless and easily led.

    That time was around the time Hendrix got done playing the Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock, and since then it’s usually more a like a trite contrived attempt at in-group signalling because it generally comes from a fairly well-defined range of the ideological spectrum.

    This is a snarky li’l rant about how lame it is to be saying it fifty years after the last time it meant anything and thinking you’ve just won the game.