2003-05-25 - 6:10 p.m.

i'm calling bullshit on tons more stuff. i'm just getting warmed up now!

i call a total and eternal rain of bullshit on television. i broke my TV a few months ago and i will be honest and say that it was not deliberate at all. in fact, i'm not entirely sure my TV didn't just commit suicide after one too many reruns of the 'friends' episode where rachel and ross break up. i was totally sad at first; my TV had abandoned me. i began frequenting my brother's house (who has digital cable and is addicted to reality programming) just to catch up on 'ER'. but after a while it didn't matter anymore. i don't miss my 'friends' and sitting through even a half hour of commercial breaks is physically painful. the commercials are so repetitive and so manipulative and so monotonous! why didn't i notice this before? is it because i was lulled into a passive submission? now i spend my evenings hanging out with *actual* friends, or making music, or even reading books! i can't believe in retrospect what a hold TV had on me. its bullshit, and when i return home and see my family vegged out in front of the tube it just makes me sad. so if you watch more than 4 or 5 hours of TV per week, do yourself a favor, unhook yourself from the broadcast teat, and smash your TV on the floor. i did and i've never been happier or more productive.

and while i'm swinging at huge, obvious targets, i call all kinds of bullshit on the music industry. did these people sit out the digital revolution? how secure is your revenue model when a nineteen-year-old kid can figure out how to distribute your product more efficiently and without paying you? and who decided it was a good idea to start suing the target market? any sophomore in a home economics class can see that this one is leading straight to a total collapse of everything that multinational media conglomerates hold precious and dear. a part of me can't believe the industry is crying 'poor' and 'theft' and 'copyright infringement' when they've been systematically ripping off both artists and consumers for years. the other part of me knows it makes perfect sense.

and since i'm getting on a plane tomorrow during an hour when only cabdrivers and security guards are awake, i call a hailstorm of bullshit down on so-called heightened airport security. motherf@ckers took a tiny pocketknife off my goddamned keychain on a trip from LA last year. yeah, like i was going to take over a plane with the dull one-and-a-half inch blade. the real kicker was that i had already flown to and from germany and new york already that year and noone raised an eyebrow at my hot pink pocket knife. i was stopped on my way to new orleans because my nail file was longer than considered allowable. look people, i do not fit the profile. i'm so not a terrorist. even if i was, i would have figured out a cool plastic secret weapon so i wouldn't get stopped at security at all. they let the 9-11 bombers on the planes with their box cutters because box cutters were not restricted carry-on items. on american airlines, i was given a plastic knife, but a real fork. where's the logic in that? face it people, we have to actually live with terrorism now. and we're not going to stop it by making everyone take off their shoes. if people really want to blow things up, they will eventually figure out a way around the underpaid, overcaffeinated, flat-footed security guards manning the metal detectors. all my friends are saying stuff like 'i don't mind being inconvenienced for the sake of safety'. but i can actually guarantee its not making us one bit safer. i don't feel safer, i just feel crankier.

i crave your hate mail, so don't hold back.