11/21/2024
I only wish BIG Sean Madigan was still around so we cold discuss this!
Sorry for this obnoxiously long post, but this is for people who keep asking!
Responding to Tom Bleecker’s “Response” & Ducking of Evidence
Before I get started - it’s been reported to me that Mr. Bleecker deletes most comments on his video that don’t agree with him. This fact argues my points perfectly. Please post your comments that got deleted here! Also, sorry for the length of this, but I want this to be a one and done. I don't find this topic interesting now that he has tacitly conceded he's holding an empty sack as far as evidence goes. - Alex Richter
Thanks for your patience in my response to Mr. Bleecker’s weaving and winding video about my series of critical videos on his book Unsettled Matters. Unfortunately, it seems that Mr. Bleecker did not actually watch them, nor did he watch my response video in which I discussed his strange email to me which included bizarre homophobic remarks against my co-host Dre, the manliest co-host of any New York-based Kung Fu podcast. His video does not warrant a response video from me, and I think people who have seen it can understand why (perhaps with the exception of ONE point which I will mention in this post). FFS, by the end of the video he was talking about OJ Simpson. How incoherent and off-topic can Bleecker get just to avoid showing his evidence?
In the video, Mr. Bleecker implies that he doesn’t need to reveal his sources. Well Mr. Bleecker, if you don’t want to reveal your sources, do not be surprised when people don’t believe you just because you believe you’re a swell guy. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and we don’t even have ordinary circumstantial evidence from Mr. Bleecker on some of the wild stuff he asserts about his good buddy Bruce Lee. His concession that he doesn't need to show his evidence/sources is a concession that he has lost defending any proposition in a debate.
Mr. Bleecker did EXACTLY what I said he would do in my response video (which preceded his video). Mr. Bleecker will often conflate and misdirect any attempts to see his great evidence. If you dear reader, have evidence of a great claim and you write about it, why on Earth would you get defensive if someone asks you for your evidence? If you had the evidence you would just show it. Even if your interlocutor disagreed with you in the end, at least you could say you had evidence supporting your claim. But his reactions to criticism are not the reactions one would expect if the evidence was on his side. It is the thin-skinned response of someone who may know they are intentionally trying to defame someone and/or dupe the public. This is not the response of someone confident in his claims.
The only element Mr. Bleecker tried to defend was his relationship with Bruce Lee. Of all the claims, this is the one I concede that he probably did know Bruce Lee as an acquaintance but not as the close friend of six years Bleecker claims. There are other far more relevant claims (Bruce’s being a triad, the cortisone "abuse", the steroid allegation, the kidney problems etc.) that he ignores. Also, being Bruce's friend (if it were true) would not bestow Mr. Bleecker with omnipotence on Bruce’s childhood, private affairs, medical diagnoses, etc ESPECIALLY when so much of what Bleecker says goes against public and private records now available to most Bruce Lee fans. Think of anyone you may have been friends with for a few years (and that is being charitable), and wonder if such a short term friend would be the best candidate to write your biography.
As I said multiple times, this isn’t about defending Bruce as a saint. He wasn’t, and Bruce was the one to admit that (see Ted Thomas interview). But Bruce not being a saint doesn’t mean one can just write whatever they want that’s negative and it must be true. Name someone with NO missteps in their life and I will show you someone who never tried.
Mr. Bleecker did what he often does whenever people are critical of the claims and assertions he made in his book - he tries to attack them personally. One thing I must say because it seemed to be the main point of Tom’s video: Tom claimed I posted something on his Facebook regarding politics and candidates for a recent election. This is so laughable because Mr. Bleecker shows yet again that he is incapable of the following:
1. He can’t accept any criticism of his work without attacking the person who criticized his work. I made fun of him in my videos, I’ll admit that - but I was transparent about mocking his “methods” and I openly said he could make fun of me… as long as he actually addressed what I said, which he didn't. Let’s get real here - Mr. Bleecker published a video in which he seemed to believe a psychic in 1982 channelled Bruce and Bruce said his killer was Chong E Itsu and perhaps Fung Kioto - both obviously made up “Asian” names that mix Chinese and Japanese. I’m sorry but, how seriously are we supposed to take Tom? It's one thing if he believes this nonsense BUT still provides evidence of the claims in his book. As it turns out Tom does not provide evidence for his claims AND he believes in charlatans selling psychic readings.
2. He didn’t do his research - it’s clear he didn’t watch my video in which I asked for specific evidence for specific claims and said he’d probably just try to make it about “him and me” (which he did). This alone shows his low bar for seriousness in research. He doesn't even watch the videos he's responding to.
3. He did screw up the timeline of events AGAIN, which he often does. He claimed my video was an attack for personal reasons, citing some FB posts which were made months after I recorded the videos. Anyone who has seen my 3-part series may remember that we discussed they were recorded before my August 2024 trip to Hong Kong. Bleecker doesn’t do timelines well because he doesn’t seem to engage with anything that goes against his narrative. So to say my videos recorded in August were a response to comments on Facebook in October tells you what you need to know about Bleecker's detective work.
As for this point about my video being due to some political stuff regarding candidates (point 3) in a recent election. I made two comments on two posts Bleecker made on his Facebook. I did not “post” on his page, but Bleecker shows yet again his usual Boomer-style understanding of social media doesn’t seem to get the difference between commenting and posting. Here are the nature of my two comments, which if you are friends with him on Facebook you can read yourself. Don’t take my word for it.
In the first post (around October) he wrote that he felt the news was slanted towards a certain candidate to which I commented that he could follow a news aggregator like Ground News to see both sides of a story and where his blind spots might me. Nothing controversial there. If Bleecker takes a call to read both sides of any argument as an attack, I invite the reader to think about what that says about Bleecker. Avoiding viewpoints we disagree with is not the sign of a fair and balanced mindset.
The second FB post he made that I commented on was a bit more fiery, although I actually responded to a comment on that post made by someone else (not Mr. Bleecker). Someone had commented that a certain candidate said something outrageous (that clearly looked like manufactured outrage - pretending something was implied that wasn’t) until I pointed out that it would take that candidate some time to reach the level of saying something as disgusting (and verifiable) as it being OK to grab another gender by the ge****ls. I then said that defenders of a certain candidate seem to give a pass on that candidates statements. You may like a candidate, but you can’t argue a verifiable fact. I’m just talking facts, not narrative. If someone said something, they said it. You can argue what it means or if you care, but being thin-skinned about the fact someone said something... what does that tell you?
One comment about a news aggregator, one comment to someone who commented on his post... months AFTER I pre-recorded my Unsettled Matters episodes. On both comments Tom didn't respond so I'm not sure where he thought I would have the desire to get a time machine to go back to August and make videos about him. It's not like we were going "back and forth".
Even if I personally didn't like Tom, disagreed with him politically, thought he was (insert whatever), that says nothing about whether his claims are true or my right to question them. Tom thinks the genetic fallacy is a correct line of argumentation rather than what it really is - a fallacious line of argumentation.
That’s all I have to say about that.
The Alex Genius
