Courtesy of Miz UV.

I love editing. I edit all the time.There's one writer I prefer to edit on a regular basis.

I find his stuff engaging, witty, all of that good shit, but in need of reigning in a bit. On occasion. Just a little. Bit.

He's that me guy.

Sometimes, what he writes in a comment isn't quite what he meant to say, but I catch that for him. I tweak it a little before I let him hit that "post" button.

Sometimes, what he writes is a little too off-the-cuff. I make sure I take the knee-jerk out for him.

On occasion, he's even responding in anger. Well, there may be a right to. I try to temper his words for him nonetheless.

Sometimes, I can even hold up a post. Especially the long ones, or the ones that my writer starts when he's drunk. Like this one.

I work pretty quickly, too. He just lets me look it over before it's sent. That's all.

I'll fix spelling and grammar. I'll take his foot out of his mouth. I'll make sure that what he writes is what he means to say, and that it speaks diplomatically. I'll make sure all the premises are in the right order and that the conclusion is logical. I'll read the text he's responding to to make sure I think he's interpreted it correctly. I'll double check the whole thing.

I help save him embarrassment. I help him stay out of fights. Mostly, I just keep him from looking like an illiterate buffoon. His typing is for shit.

Best of all, I work for free.

It really is amazing that more people don't use me.

1- What time did all this happen? (Oddly enough, car theft is illegal 24/7.)

2- Do you have GPS installed in your truck? (This has what do do with running the old people off the road??)

3- Were there children in the car?  (Do you think that if there were children in the car with the crack dealer, the D.A. or the testifying officer might have mentioned that?)

4- Was it snowing at the time? (Does clear weather make it less reckless to drive east on the westbound side of a six-lane highway?)

5- Was there any testimony besides the confession that implicates the target? (WHAAAAT???)

6- Is there a reason you didn't charge him with....(conspiracy, intent to distribute, child endangerment, etc.)  (Why yes, there probably is!)

7- Did you test him for DWI? (Well now that you've mentioned it, I'm sure he'll think of it next time.)

8- What was the argument about? (Really, it's the stabbing that matters, isn't it?)

9- Were there any open containers in the car? (I think they might have mentioned that, as well. They like to press charges.)

10- Could he have broken into the room with the children? (I'm sure he could have, but he didn't, so let's not waste time trying to charge him with it, 'kay?)

11- Do you rent the apartment where you were assaulted? (Yes, this question came from a real estate agent. Let's do our prospecting somewhere else, shall we?)

12- Did you see where the blood on his shirt was coming from? (Well, * just going out on a limb here *, but perhaps it came from the bullet hole in his chest?)

13- Can I take this call? (In the middle of hearing testimony? I can't imagine why that would be a problem. Let's just stay on the record, shall we?)

1- I hate wearing shoes and socks, and will only do so outside.

2- When I'm sleeping, I must have one foot sticking out of the covers unless it is very cold or Billie is attacking my toes.

3- I play music when I go to sleep, and usually it's a bootleg I've never heard before. I can do that every day if I wish. Then I have to listen to the end of it later, because I fall asleep in the middle.

4- I once put saurkraut on a list of 13 things I would never eat, but I like it now.

5- I still hate bananas. I'm certain I always will.

6- I have 11 gallons of melomel ( mead made with fruit) in my kitchen ready to be bottled.

7- My hair goes halfway down my back.

8- I was almost in a Kim Basinger film, but an astute stagehand got me the fuck out of the way.

9- I can't eat when I first get up. I have to be up a while first. I can drink coffee or tea imediately, however.

10- I have double jointed fingers than can bend in ways that make other people uncomfortable.

First, you can scroll down a little and taunt the Asshole of the Month. If you have already taunted him once, you may taunt him a second time.

Next, come and see Nat and I, while we discuss the oldest items in our record collections. What dusty old grooves do YOU still have hanging about?

 

 

 

Well, it looks like it isn't just us Americans anymore.

 

Of course, since it's only happened there once, people can just dismiss it as an isolated event. Until next time, anyway.

 

After that, people will stop asking "What's wrong with those Americans?" They'll be asking "What's wrong with all of us?" It won't just be about Euro culture vs. American culture anymore. It'll be about why violence - cold, poorly directed violence - seems to be the only answer for so many people these days.

 

Maybe, at that point, some semblance of an answer can be arrived at. We can hope for sooner rather than later. We're not likely to get it, but we can hope.

There has been a lot of hubbub and an occasional brouhaha about music downloading in years past, and especially recently. From a single mom being fined over $200,000 for victimizing helpless billionaires to the recent shutdown of a popular BT site, the industry has been cracking down. People are getting scared, and wondering just how big an infraction needs to be to appear on the radar.

In some cases it seems they must be huge, where in others you have to wonder. Sites with far more traffic than the one that was shut down still thrive, while guys like Prince seem willing to draw a very hard line. But then again, Prince is an asshole.

I've spoken about this once or twice in my Trolling the Underground posts. When you're in the underground, the copyright on those specific recordings is not being asserted, thus no loss can be claimed. The sites protect themselves by not allowing any artists who ask that their music not be allowed, and by not allowing any torrent that contains commercially available material. That means that if you wish to offer Zappa's Berlin show from Feb. 15, 1978, you'd better cut out the jams that made it onto the Sheik Yerbouti album.

Now, 98% of my downloading is from such sites, but the other 2% has made me think.

A lot of it is scans of old comic books from the 30s to the 80s. I've had the opportunity to read things I've only heard about before, the chance to completely read things I'd only read part of before, and a chance to re-read some things in a fashion more convenient than dragging them out of whatever box they may be in. Oddly enough, downloading decades-old comics is the only thing I've gotten a warning about. It made me laugh. I'm allowed to sell old comics at a profit. I have an X-Men comic I bought for 40 cents back in high school, I could probably get about $50 for it now, perfectly legal. I didn't write, draw, edit, or publish it, but I can sell it for a huge profit and it's all mine. But I can't share those same stories for free? Please.

As for the music, yes, I can see the point in many cases, which is one reason I favor the underground. However, I can see many reasons why the "pity-the-poor-artist" approach has failed to work (which of course leads us to the courts). For one, we know that it usually isn't the artist (whackadoos like Prince excepted) who are protecting their profits, but the record companies. They never dreamed that the people who pay the bills would ever get their hands on digital technology, and they're freaked. People understand that the musicians are the poster kids, in most cases, and little more.




Many don't buy claims of "intellectual property theft", either. I bought Dark Side of the Moon on LP when I was in high school, and wore it out. Literally. You could put on side one and hear side two, it was so worn. I then bought another. Then I bought the gold plated CD when it came out. Now, I obviously don't need to download Dark Side (though I do still download live versions) , but if I did I would not feel that I was stealing it. I paid for this intellectual property three times! Likewise, if I replace an album I bought on LP with a download, I don't feel like I'm stealing the music. I'm just not paying more than double what I paid for the music in the first place just to have it digitized. I have, in fact, done it the latter way more than the former, so I certainly won't feel too bad.

Then there was the copy of Floyd's A Momentary Lapse of Reason CD that I got from a used bin. The packaging was correct, and the CD itself was stamped with the correct information, but the music was not Pink Floyd. It was closer to Cletus Cornshucker and the Shitkickers. The store refused to take it back because it was a cut-out, which I had not noticed before. Well, if it is legal to sell defective CDs and refuse to take them back, I'm not going to feel bad for downloading the music I thought I was buying in the first place.

I think they also make an error in assuming that every download is a lost sale. We all make purchasing decisions, and many are on a graded scale. I may be willing to pay $30 for a Peter Gabriel import that was not domestically released, but only willing to pay $10 at the most for a Ramones disc. Some things I wouldn't listen to for free. I think a lot of downloads are things that people would be willing to try out for free, but wouldn't buy. This might be because they are not familiar with it. If they like it, they may pass it around, and that can actually work out for an artist, they way it did for the Grateful Dead. Ironically enough, these are the situations where the artist really does have a point. However, these beginning artists might want to consider the fact that while some people are hearing their music for free, many would not have taken the time at all otherwise, and this can help their word-of-mouth further on down the road.

Many people try to find a way to buy directly from the artist and eliminate the "music biz" middleman, but I'm picky there. Is the artist who is thus eliminating the middleman giving his audience a break? Many times I see the artist charging me the same for a direct purchase as I would pay at Border's. Well, screw the artist then, that's just taking the extra for yourself. In other words, gouging. If I'm going to pay the same price anyway, I'll remember that truckers and retail workers have kids too and give them a cut of the pie. Dealing directly with the poor, starving artist is not necessarily better than dealing with the big, mean corporation.

And the fact that CDs have only gone up a couple dollars since 1987 tells a lot of us that we've been getting gouged all along. Especially now that CDs are being re-issued with a lot of bonus tracks that they had room for in the first place. It's easier not to care about playing fair with an industry that you feel jacked around by, is it not? If that gas pump starts dispensing $1.00 gallons right when you get there, you're not going to go tell the clerk, you're going to fill up and run home to get the other car.

And the main reason people fail to sympathize? We heard it all before twenty years ago when the record industry wanted to take away our Maxells. They survived just fine, it seems, against their own dire predictions.




I'm not here to defend anyone, mind you. Like I said, I stick to the underground for a reason, most of the time. It just strikes me that this issue is nowhere near as cut and dry as many like to think, especially when it comes to intellectual rights on properties that you already purchased in another form.

I also stick to the underground because I find the landscape far more interesting, but that's me. Nothing can suck the creative juice out of a body of music faster or more completely than a good record company.

Whatever way your pleasure tends, be careful. There's plenty of safe stuff to do - I am at this moment downloading a Yes concert that I saw at Alpine Valley in 1984. But there are dragons out there for those who get greedy and don't take a moment to think about what they're doing.