Several years ago I was sitting in a restaurant downtown. There were no prophetic utterances of ‘revolution’ or but my friend was expressing fears regarding Islamist control of Egypt. ‘What, exactly, are you worried about?’ I would ask. The Hijab. Alcohol was a second issue. My counter at the time was that if the government / leadership was actually honest, then the amount of good they could accomplish would by far exceed what I considered the mild inconveniences involved. If the Brotherhood would swoop in, I argued, run a non-corrupt, honest government, and actually channel the country’s resources to create better standards of living for millions now deprived of it several stages down along Maslow’s Pyramid – then who the hell am I to complain if I can’t have a drink? But, of course, that’s simplistic. It’s just as easy to...
You’ve had too many Yesterdays, and it’s been 14 Years since you’ve heard anything good – meanwhile, Anything Goes. You’ve taken the Nighttrain straight from a Breakdown into a Coma, and you’ve been feeling Estranged from Paradise City, and all you feel like during this very un-Civil War is that you just want to scream ‘Don’t Damn Me‘ – but the time IS come, the moment is NOW, and Dr. Pepper owes all of America a free drink. Chinese Democracy is here. It’s been a long time coming for Guns N’ Roses fans – over 16 years ago – the band left us with the Use Your Illusion albums and since then it’s been a rough ride. If you’ve been following the people involved, itching to hear something, anything – that FEELS like Guns N’ Roses then you’ve probably been sorely disappointed....
As a listener – as audience – I am driven towards media that I like. I am infotropic, so to speak. Some data, some information, some inherent artistic or intellectual order manifests to me through songs, books, movies, and various other forms of media. Wanting this information is as basic to my spiritual/intellectual/cultural self as water is to my biological. In that sense, it feels like more than a want, it feels like a morally justifiable right. I want to pay for the stuff I like, in fact – proud to pay for it when it’s easy to, and when the compensation requested is within my budget. However, it seems that withholding the data, on condition of compensation is somehow contrary to the essence of information itself, to a moral imperative inherent in information – to the very fact that information seems to want to spread. It is self-reproducing. As a...
I remember hearing this song ages ago – lately I downloaded it again, just for kicks – I’d missed the chorus. This time, I actually paid attention to the rest of the lyrics…well worth quoting in full: Here we go againHere we go go goTo the temple of consumptionGet your gear and start to spendHere we go go go with total dedication Here we go againHere we go go goTo the temple of consumptionGet your gear and start to spendHere we goHere we go Here we go As some sort of prototype I serve to be – you see tomorrow’s dream has never been part of me – consume today and leave the rest behind you – tomorrow’s a surprise party buy a ticket too faster livin’ faster live as fast as you’re able – eat the food while it’s still hot on the table – spend if you can the greens are burning in your pocket – if you...