"Piracy?! Did I forget to take off my Eyepatch?"

I keep hearing about these young people getting charged with "Copyright Piracy" of music available online, and I don't get it.

First off, in my mind, the people that actually create the music that we purchase at bloated prices from large stores with minimal variety have no say in getting any more out of me after I pay for their CD. What do these guys care, anyway? They don't make more than a maximum of 1 Dollar off of each record they sell! It's their Corporate Pimp Daddies in the suits that make all the money off of their work. When I buy a CD containing maybe 3 to 4 with a max of 5 decent songs on it out of an average of maybe 18 to 20 songs, I'll do whatever the fuck I want with it's contents. The moment that you stop churning out mediocre music and start producing original compositions with meaningful lyrics and content, you can argue your rights all day long. But for now, shut the fuck up! Stop all the whining, and get back on the road, where you make all the real money anyway.

Us, you know, the normal people? We work our asses off at jobs we hate, for incredibly low pay in order to entertain ourselves for an all too brief moment with your music, that, more often than not... sucks. Your rights to the royalties are yours, but there is no way that you can get mad at someone for liking your music so much that they would buy a computer, pay for internet service, go online, find a site that holds the files of your music, and spend two hours waiting for a song to be downloaded on a 56K dial-up internet connection. These people love your music so much that they're willing to break the law to get a hold of it... and you punish them?! What the hell is wrong with you?!

And have you ever noticed that the people who get caught breaking these "Anti-Piracy" Laws live in the middle of nowhere? Three guys in Singapore not that far back, a girl in Montana... why are you guys wasting your time arresting them? What, was that teenage girl the Montana underworld mafia Queenpin of bootleg CD's?! Aren't there enough drug dealers, serial rapists and violent street-gangs to keep you busy? Well, maybe not in Montana... it's not exactly the entertainment capital of the world.

I have a great deal of respect for musicians, so I don't make bootleg copies for people. I'll occasionally make a mix-tape CD as a sampler, but I don't sell them... I trade 'em like baseball cards. I like to think that I'm exposing someone to something that they may not buy themselves, and in Underground Hiphop, you don't find out about new artists by going to the local Best Buy and looking through their piles of 50 Cent and Kanye West CD's... you go the closest big city and start diggin' in the crates for future classics. Ameoba's or Fat Beats in L.A. are perfect examples of that kind of old-school record store, and there should be more... but the corporations have assimilated that individuality like the Borg.

There was once a time, in the early-to-mid-nineties, that Target had an actual Hiphop section, did you know that? Now go in there and try to find anything that you would actually be able to listen to... you'd be there for hours, and still not find anything that wouldn't turn into either a drink coaster or frisbee after two listens. I must admit that I'm a Hiphop purist, but I'm not a snob... I'll listen to a CD to see if it's good or not. For instance, I have a friend named Zack who's affiliated with a local Underground Hiphop group called "Life For The Better", and he introduced me to all the great stuff that those guys have been putting out. Cleen and Offbeat are my favorites, but that doesn't mean that BenYomen, Banana 9 or the others aren't worth listening to... in fact, that kind of originality and variety of verbal skills is very similar in many ways to the early Wu-Tang Clan records; where everybody was unique and original... unlike, say... G-Unit.

The point of all this is simple: Stop complaining that people are interested in trying to get your music for free, kick those three hot chicks out of your bed, order your room-service-delivered-over-priced Bangers and Mash and wash it down with some Southern Comfort... you ass!

"Life, The Funny Version..."

You go to bed with just enough time set aside that you'll get the recommended 8 hours of sleep. However, you end up tossing and turning so much that you feel like a Salmon hurtling itself up a stream. And just as you fall to sleep, you find that you have to pee... urgently. So, you walk into your bathroom and sit on the toilet, figuring that sitting down will take less energy. But you end up squirting yourself on the back of your legs by accident through the gap between the rim of the toilet and the bottom of the toilet seat. You're trying not to get pissed (no pun intended) at yourself for having that last cup of water four hours ago while you wipe off the back of your legs with some toilet paper and flush the toilet.

Hopping back into bed, you notice something... the toilet didn't make that final "Glug, Glug, Glug" sound that it normally does after you've flushed... and you hear the calming, soothing sounds of a country creek, but you don't own a Bose system with the "Sounds of Nature" CD. You roll over to get a look at the Bathroom, but you turned the light off. So you get up again, walk over to the door and feel a Squish as you get close to the door frame... Crap.

You look back at your alarm clock: 12:00 AM... just enough time to get in maybe 6 hours of sleep in before you have to get up and go to work. Working as quickly as possible, you take off the lid to the water tank and notice that there isn't any water in it, so you hold up the plunger arm until it fills back up, and the water stops running out of your toilet. Then you use the plunger and furiously plunge for a minute or two until the water goes back down the drain like it's supposed to.

After cleaning all the water off of the bathroom floor, all the while glad that all you did was pee, of course, you look at the Alarm Clock and see that it's 12:37 AM; no six hours of sleep for you... or is there? Deciding that you don't need a shower, Breakfast or a good tooth-brushing, you set the Alarm for 6:40 AM, set your work clothes out for quicker preparation in the morning and concoct a story about why you were late to work before drifting off into blissful unconsciousness. Your dreams star Kelsey Grammer and Suzanne Lucci playing Chinese Checkers, for some reason.

Errrk!! Errrk!! Errrk!! You roll over and turn off the Alarm... 6:40 AM and it feels like you haven't even slept five minutes. You sit up and know that the first thing that you need to do is brush your teeth, or at least your tongue... your mouth tastes like you were sucking on an ass-flavored Jolly Rancher all night long. You go over to the bathroom and turn on the lights, noticing that you need to shave... damn. You turn on the hot water in your sink and splash your face; your eyes are blood shot. You shave and brush your teeth; wishing that you could take a shower to help you wake up more.

After getting dressed you head towards the front door, longingly looking at your coffee-maker wishing that you could have a blast of hot caffeine to assist you on your one-hour commute to your job, but there's no time. Closing and locking the front door you head down to the parking area in your complex and open your car door, remembering that you left your work ID badge to get into your office building next to the phone. Upstairs. Cursing at yourself, you sprint back to your apartment, unlock the door, run inside, grab your badge, re-lock the front door and jump back into your car.

Pulling out of the complex, you notice that you're out of gas... and punch the steering wheel. As you pull into the gas station, you notice that the price for a gallon of gas has gone down ten cents... and that everyone else in town wants a piece of that same low gas price. You attempt to pull in front of a wide variety of different gas pumps, but are constantly cut-off by the Stunt Drivers Union Local 103. After about ten attempts, you finally get a pump to use, swipe your card in the machine and wait for approval. "Please see cash register inside" blinks on the screen with an obnoxious beeping in the background, so you go inside.

Upon opening the front door, you see a line of people so long waiting for their turn to pay for their over-priced coffee that you'd think that they were in line for "Revenge of the Sith" tickets. Pissed off, you get a cup of hot coffee, get in line and wait. When you finally get up to the counter, the mouth-breather manning the register asks you what you need. You take out your Credit Card and say, "The machine outside said that I needed to see the person behind the register, so here I am." and hand the person the card. The person behind the register looks at the card and tells you, "This card is expired, sir... is there anything else I can help you with?" You say no, pay your 50 cents for the coffee and walk back to your car.

Walking back to the cash machine outside, you take out your last 20 dollar bill and put it into the machine... grumbling, "What difference does it make if the card is new or old, I still have money in my account!" You put your cup of coffee on the roof of the car while you pump the gas. You're all ready to go, so you get back into your car and face the gauntlet of nonsense that is getting out of the parking lot with everyone honking their horns and pointing at you, with you yelling and honking back at them. As you pause at the exit, you get ready to make a right turn into traffic and burst out into the lane as quick as you can... noticing that there is a brown stream of liquid pouring down the right side of the car. You chuckle to yourself out of frustration, saying, "Damn, the coffee... no wonder everyone was honking at me!" and turn onto the on-ramp of the freeway.

Traffic is slow... real slow. It's always slow this time of morning, but this is really slow... at least now you have a legitimate reason for being late. It takes an hour and 45 minutes to get to work... but as you pull into the parking lot, you notice that there aren't that many cars. You park and walk inside, swiping your card as you go, and eventually you get to your cubical and log-in to the Office Network. You go over to the coffee machine and finally get your first, much needed, cup of the day. You look at your e-mail inbox and find only one new e-mail... and it's from yesterday. You remember that you left 30 minutes early the day before, and that you may have missed it, so you open it. and it says:


To: All Employees
Re: Friday, November 11
Date: Thursday, November 10, 2005 2:30 PM

Due to the recent rise in the deaths of our American Servicemen/women, we will be taking Friday off in observance of Veterans Day and to spend time with our families and remember our fallen brothers and sisters. There will be a service being held at Our Sister of the Iron Underwear tomorrow, for all who are interested.

Have a great weekend,

-The Management


You spill your coffee in your lap, cursing and resisting the urge to punch out the screen, being that the screen is worth more than two months of your salary. You check your cell phone to see one message waiting from a co-worker... from yesterday afternoon. You listen to the message,

"Hey, man it's Tom at I.T.... the boss told me to call all of the employees that weren't answering their office phones and let them know that we aren't going to be working tomorrow in observance of Veterans Day. Have a great weekend, man... and hey, give me a call if you don't have anything planned. I'm having a Cook-Out in the back yard... well, anyway, I guess I'll talk to you later man. Bye!"

You close your cell and put it back in your pocket.

Now what was the lesson of today's segment, boys and girls? Don't be lazy... check your messages!

I hope everyone had a great Veterans Day weekend...