Loading ...As any insomniac, cokehead, chronic drunk, or really boring vampire could tell you, late night informercials are the best entertainment value for the dollar. Considering that they are not only free, but in most cases actually cost you money, that may not be saying much. So we tend to think of them as scams; beautiful lies just there to bilk us out of our hard-earned money, so that men with expensive teeth can purchase tacky landscaping for their McMansions. But that’s not always the truth – not for Vince Offer anyway: A man who, along with Slap Chops and ShamWows, is also hawking freedom from cultish rule, and long-awated justice for those suffering at the hands of religious oppression .
Though his name seems to suggest that he was pre-destined for late-night gadget-whoring, Vince Offer was not always an Infomercial Adonis. He began his career as a comedy writer, (and if the reviews are to be believed, an exceptionally shitty one,) whose first endeavour was authoring, directing and starring in a film called Underground Comedy Movie, a hackish sketch comedy collection that, when released, immediately Tanked like it had a wounded Healer to protect.
But that’s not the whole story: See, at the time, Vince was a recent convert to Scientology (for those of you unfamiliar with group, Scientology is like a secret club where celebrity Sci-fi nerds go to suck off each other’s massive egos,) and he was counting on the support of the church to back his film. The Church of Scientology, being in favor of all things horrible, of course agreed to back Vince’s terrible comedy film and provided him with all the assistance he needed, like funds, and access to massive celebrities like… Slash and… Joey Buttafucco.
Okay, so maybe "celebrities" is the wrong term here.
They provided him with "marginally recognizable people that had nothing else going for them." That’s better.
But when it was far too late to turn back, they suddenly decided that they didn’t actually want to invest in a sub-par Kentucky Fried Movie rip-off, and promptly left Vince hanging with the bill. Now, nobody likes getting dumped – be it from a girlfriend, a job, or a made-up religion that hates free will – but if that was all that happened, Vince would’ve probably just moved on.
But no, far from content to leave it at simple neglect, the Church of Scientology actively pursued criminal charges against Vince for general tastelessness and lack of tact…in the Court of Scientology.
That’s right! They made up their own judicial system, too!
And apparently it’s one that both tries and convicts you for crimes of personality. This is another indicator that your "religion" is probably not too legit: Catholicism doesn’t courtmarshall you for telling shitty jokes, and Christianity doesn’t give a dishonorable discharge for picking your teeth in public, but Scientology will go all out – mock trial, jury and all – to bring you up on charges of sucking at comedy. As I’m sure you can guess, Vince was found guilty and sentenced. His workers abandoned him, his assigned PR firm switched gears from promoting him to bashing him, and all of his money disappeared like Fanta at a Futbol game.
But Vince wasn’t broken, he just started again in a different direction. He started selling towels at a local flea market, and it turned out that his bizarre, surreal, confrontational nature inexplicably led to the perfect sales pitch. Apparently, incoherent rambling, faulty logic, and feigned rage are really effective at hawking linens. So effective, in fact, that Vince became an informercial idol overnight. Now he has an even bigger success on his hands than the ShamWow! He’s begun selling a food processing gadget called the Slap Chop, with which he is slapping, chopping and dick-joking (his tag-line is “you’re gonna love my nuts!”) his way to a fortune.
So, what? It’s tacky landscaping time for another bleach-blonde attention whore, right? Not at all! This is the part where Vince’s tale strays from the norm:
He’s currently using all of the proceeds from his many ventures to fund his own personal war against Scientology!
He knows first-hand what it’s like to have his life ripped away by a maniacal cult just because he was briefly gullible enough to believe that spaceships were more awesome than free will.
Is this vendetta fueled by vengeance, charity, or just psychosis? Somehow all three?
Does it matter?
Scientology does severe damage to ordinary (if somewhat impressionable) people; Vince does damage to Scientology. Regardless of his motive, you have to respect the sheer balls of a man who is attempting to tear down a faulty – but nonetheless international and extremely influential – religion armed only with the ability to slap vegetables apart into tiny cubes, and soak up unreasonable amounts of liquid with glorified carpet foam.
And if you have to respect his balls, then in a sense, Vince was right all along:
Read more from Robert at his own site, I Fight Robots
