Run Run Rudolph! (You’re About To Be Trampled To Death By Hundreds Of Insane Holiday Shoppers)…

(Ed. Note: This post will probably be served best as a cautionary tale to those of you planning to do your Holiday shopping at an actual retail store this season.)

I made the mistake of attempting to do Christmas shopping for my respective family at the Paramus Park mall in Northern New Jersey. I was supposed to go with a couple of my friends but they bailed on me at the last minute, leaving me to brave certain madness on my own. This proved to be even bigger a mistake than I originally began to think when I was stuck in traffic just beyond the boro of Saddle River line. First off, let me just say that I hate traffic and more specifically, I hate bad drivers. Northern New Jersey is full of bad drivers and that pisses me off more than anything else. I’m normally a really calm, easy-going type of guy but something happens to me when I’m behind the wheel. I instantly hate every other driver. The main reason I have such road rage is that I feel horrible driving is not something that should not be easily forgiven. When you suck at something like sports or your mundane office job, you are only harming yourself (specifically, your ego). When you suck at driving, however, you’re endagering lives. So when someone tries to make a left turn at a four way intersection when their arrow is in the process of turning from yellow to red and they think that means they should still have clearance to completely cut everyone off, nearly killing someone coming in the other direction when that other person has the green light…yeah, that is really not cool. It’s at those moments when I proceed to power the window down and scream my head off at them (this goes for old ladies and pimple-faced wieners alike).

So, I’m sitting in horrendous, annoying traffic awaiting my arrival at the mall which I know will also be a horrible experience. And when your mind realizes that you are enduring something you hate in order to do something you REALLY hate, it’s immediate reaction is to shut off and terminate your life, effectively saving you from dealing with your enormous stupidity.

I finally arrive at the mall at around 1:30pm. Now, being the forgetful fella I am, I forgot that I was arriving at a mall in the middle of a Saturday during prime time of the holiday shopping season. Yeah…bad idea, to say the least. It was only after I pulled into the parking lot for the first time that I realized how shitty my life was about to become for the next few hours. As I was battling the endless amount of assholes prowling the parking lots for an available space, I saw one individual that seemed to encompass everything about holiday shopping people seem to hate. It was a black car attempting to park rear-end first into a spot that was currently occupied by someone in a green car that was trying to back out and leave. It seems the black car drove passed the green car only to realize that the green car was actually leaving. So, rather than just admit defeat and continue on, the black car decided to stop where he was, turn on his right blinker (the green car was located in a spot to his right) and wait while the green car left the spot. The problem with this plan (despite the obvious) is that he was stopping while there was a trail of cars behind him. So, the black car was now stopped, awaiting a possible vacant spot while causing a major traffic tram that would eventually stretch to the main road leading up to the mall. Not only that, he was actually blocking the green car from leaving because he didn’t pull up far enough! And, he can’t pull up anymore because there was another blue car already waiting for the green car to leave…and that car was actually waiting BEFORE the black car was! Horns began to blow and fists were shaking as hard as I’ve ever seen them shake. When I initially turned the corner, I was promptly greeted with this sad display of human interaction. After witnessing it for a little while, I desperatly wanted an alien ship to soar out of the sky, wipe us all out with it’s death ray, and end this misery that is holiday shopping.

I managed to find a spot that was miles from the mall but since I haven’t gnawed my hands off yet, I was still in good shape walking into the main entrance. The mall itself resembled the running of the bulls in Spain. It was endless sea of people running to and from for reasons that have yet to be defined in any rational matter. The retail companies of America have made us psychotic on a level that is really just ridiculous. People will actually severly injure someone else for a talking doll just so their bratty kid will play with it for two days after Christmas.

I raced around the stores scapping up some pretty good gifts (I won’t go into details on this because the people I am buying the gifts for will be reading this). I had almost escaped without any long term emotional scars when I suddenly had a desire to shop for some winter apparel from Gap (damn promotional posters). I went into the store and found some nice gear, paid, and left. This quick visit to Gap is crucial, however. Had I left the mall before going to the Gap I would have avoided the following incident…

I was beginning to make my way towards the exit when a group of young kids came out of a toy store followed by a large group of adults. A couple of the kids were running and proceeded to continue their stride directly into my legs, nearly tripping me and causing me to spill my bags onto the ground. This, obviously, was frustrating because I had a fragile gift in one of my bags that was probably shattered. I guess I showed a little of that frustration in my face when it happend and apparently, one of the parents of the little rat that ran into me didn’t like this facial expression. When I bent down to start collecting my bags, the mother yelled out, “What was that face for sir?” Sensing a possible conflict with a soccer mom, I just looked down and continued to collect my things, all the while just hoping she doesn’t say anything else to me. But, I was wrong to hope for that. “They’re just kids, sir. They don’t need you ruining their Christmas by making them feel bad. Just pick up your bags and go, please sir.”

It was at this point that my mind completely shut off. By that I mean that I couldn’t piece the logic of those statements fast enough to have a rational response. All I could do was stare up at the woman with a “are you fucking kidding me?” expression and not move. She stared right back at me, nodding her head in agreement with her own moronic existence. For a few moments (you can insert your own idea of the amount of time “a few moments” actually feels like) that was all I could do was stare.

I will now list the events that transpired after these few moments in chronoligical order because I am honestly too tired to explain everything in detail like I have been doing:

My eventual response to the soccer mom: “How about we just accept it was an accident and agree you need to keep your mouth shut?”…

…Husband threatens to hurt me until the little kid “accidently” kicks me in the right shin…

…Sensing a greater incident unfolding, I gather my things and leave as quickly as possible. I look down to see my fragile gift has, in fact, shattered, and return to the store to return the gift where I was informed there were no returns on broken gifts from this particular retailer once they leave the store. Apparently I agreed to this when I bought the damn thing…

…More yelling ensues…

…Fed up, I leave the mall and muscle through more mental-illness-enducing traffic.

After reliving that day with this post right now, I have a sudden urge to find the man (or people) that invented Amazon.com and give him (or them) a big, tears-of-thankfulness filled hug and let them know they have saved my life from here on out.

America’s Alleged Favorite Past Time…

Baseball has long been my favorite sport. Mostly because it was the only sport white dorks like myself could have any possible chance at being successful in. Growing up, I loved little league and relished in being a short stop like my hero Cal Ripken Jr. To me, baseball was pure and when you are a young whippersnapper, you aren’t very interested in the dirty laundry associated with the “business” end of it. Why would that interest a child? We just liked watching our idols belt balls into the bleachers and watch the mascot trip and land on the bat boy. Baseball used to be (to me, anyway) innocent and playful.

In recent times, however, the sport and its athletes are in a constant struggle to regain the public’s acceptance and respect. The opinions of the “organization” as a whole are largely in the toilet and on the surface, it’s easy to see why. Steroids have tainted the game for the past few years and now with the release of the Mitchell Report, the ugliness behind the sport can no longer be avoided (at least according to George Mitchell and Jose Conseco). Obviously this scandal has proved to be very bad for baseball’s public relations, but in the days following this report I picked up on something that has long been my theory as to why the fans are no longer backing baseball the way they used to.

Roger Clemens was without a doubt the biggest name mentioned George Mitchell’s investigation (Barry Bonds doesn’t count; no one had any doubts about his appearance on that list). Not surprisingly, he denied the allegations ferociously. His name was mentioned numerous times throughout the report (the most of any other player I believe) for injecting needles into his posterior for help with his pitching, according to Radomski (the former Mets’ trainer who is the focal point of the accusations in Mitchell’s accusations) and several others. What was disturbing to me, however, was not that Clemens was mentioned (anyone entering their prime at forty-years-old is suspicious). What is annoying to me is that Clemens denied these reports through his lawyer. And there inlays the problem with professional athletes these days. Because it is a business more than it is a sport, baseball is constantly defending itself through the mouths of lawyers and agents. This constant distance from the players continues to destroy the sport’s reputation and image within the public arena. Rather than man up to his responsibility and attempt to squash these claims himself, Clemens has his lawyer speak for him, which only reinforces his guilt in the eyes of the fans.

Now, obviously, since speaking openly about this report has legal ramifications, Clemens (and the other players that will soon be spending the rest of their days proving these claims as false) can’t really be as discrete as he possible could. But let’s not kid ourselves here…this is far from being the first example of players staying behind the curtains while their financial representatives tell us what we need to expect out of the players and the sport. They tell us the “truth” behind rumors and spend their days counting their clients money while we grow increasingly frustrated with the fact that our favorite players just can’t speak to us directly. Everything is top secret in the sport and the fans are forced to decipher their instincts and intuitions from the press releases of people that are more interested in maintaining a profit than defending the sanctity of the game.

What’s so disheartening about this aspect of the “game” is that the players don’t even seem to care about this barrier. No one seems to make an effort to address the fans and let them know what their story is. If Clemens had come out and told the public HIMSELF that he was innocent, we’d be more simpathetic to his case and be more graceful with our insults. By making his lawyer do all the talking, people will continue to blast his reputation and unless he actively convinces us he is not guilty, we will continue to doubt him unconditionally. Because, well, why wouldn’t we? As far as we’re concerned, he’s just another rich athlete that cheated. There is no personal level that we can relate to him on. Ditto for all of the other players mentioned.

It’s why people hate Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez. They are constantly reinforcing their mistakes by not addressing them. Each time they avoid the interview or avoid the camera, they are only making themselves seem cold, distant, and isolated from the fans of baseball. Which, understandably, pisses the fans off. And, as stated earlier, the players don’t seem to care that it pisses us off. Which is, again, another ingredient to the overall problem with baseball today.

Next time some overpaid clown tries to deny steroid use through someone other than himself, he shouldn’t be surprised when the public refuses to accept their side the story. Act like a man and tell us yourself. Then, maybe, we will begin to love the sport again.

(Ed. Note: There is an exception to this argument…Curt Schilling. He has a blog called “38 Pitches” that he writes himself. It’s a great way to get to know him both as a player and as a person. Now, if every famed player followed suit, we’d be set.)

Pardon My Zinger…

I’m not a creep. I’m most certainly not a pervert. But the other day, I somehow convinced a total stranger on the PATH train that I was both.

The morning started off terribly, which is always a good sign that something is going to happen that will have you wanting to wish for a quick and painless death by the end of the day. At least, that’s how it goes for me. Firstly, I was late getting to the main train that takes me into Hoboken everyday. I was only a minute late, but in train time that’s unforgivable. I arrived at the platform as the train was pulling up, but I still needed to pay off my parking spot. There was no feasible way I could pay for the spot on those cracker jack machines they have and get on the train too. There wasn’t nearly enough time. This inconvenience left me frozen. Why didn’t I just not pay for the spot you ask? Because, you see, the police that enforce that parking lot are borderline Nazis, and if I left a car in a spot without paying for it, they will either slap you with a ridiculous fine or remove your reproductive organs (I believe that’s the standard penalty). So, with about just enough time to scratch my balls, I began to walk away, defeated. Just then, a train attendant called out to me. Alas! They were going to wait for me! A train, wait for muah? How could this be possible? Seizing this rare opportunity, I hurried to the first parking ticket machine; “out of order”. I ran to the second one; “coins only”. You see, the only thing the parking Nazis work harder at more than giving out tickets, is making it impossible for you not to get a ticket. So, I gave up and ran onto the train. I found an empty seat and spent the whole rest of the ride saying goodbye to my nuts.

For some reason, however, I put my car keys in my front pants pocket. Usually I just toss them into my bag seeing as how I have no need for them all day. Another reason I choose to put them in my bag (and probably the more paranoid of the two) is because I’m always afraid I will stab myself where it counts. It’s not too likely, but when it comes to sharp objects and my privates, if there’s even a one percent chance of incident, they are going to be separated.

I arrived in Hoboken and quickly bolted down to the PATH train. I got on and miraculously found a seat (almost impossible on the PATH at 830am). Now, when it comes to subway passengers, very rarely do I find gorgeous women to stare at. I wish and hope and pray that there will be one positioned right in front of me, but there never is. They always somehow find the seats that are far away from me. Instead I’m always next to (or across from) the smelly, schizophrenic, malnourished, balding weirdos. I’m talking real X-Men mutant status. So imagine my surprise when an attractive girl actually sat in my vicinity that morning. She was very cute, in that wholesome, quirky way (I hate that word quirky, but I’m too fried to think of a better adjective). She was on the shorter side with nice, dark, flowing hair. I took an immediate liking to her.

The train began to move and over the course of the train ride we continued to catch each other’s glances. It seemed relatively innocent, but I started to wonder that maybe, just maybe, she was thinking the same things about me. Maybe she was actually trying to get my attention. I tend not to entertain these thoughts because it’s usually a guaranteed path to emotional distress, but I continued to cross eye sites with her. It was at this point that I noticed her glancing down at my crotch. She could have just been looking at my feet, but I was pretty sure it was right on the money. There is no way that just happened, I thought. Were my most perverted fantasies of an early morning, anonymous sexual dalliance about to come true? But then she countered that initial glance with a facial expression that seemed to be a combination of fear and concern. Confused, I looked down to see my car keys, poking into my jeans and forming a forged erection. My key chain is kind of bunched together so it appeared as one solid object. I realized the horrible illusion, and I tried to reach into my pocket and flatten the keys. It was too late, she had already stood up to walk out of the train at her stop. I wanted so desperately to stop her and explain, but it never happened. I was pretty embarrassed, but I felt even worse when I began to think about the size of the phony phallic symbol. In the words of George Costanza, “If she thinks that that was me, she is under a complete misapprehension. That was not me, Jerry, that was not me.” It was a weird moment in my life and I wish I could find that girl and apologize. Maybe I should do what this guy did.

Earlier that morning I was awarded something that comes along only once in a lifetime when it comes to public transportation: a second chance. That train attendant, for whatever reason, decided that I was a person that deserved to be given that second chance. That, perhaps, my catching that train would help better our society. And all I was able to do with that opportunity was freak a girl out with a fake boner.

Crazy Is A Lifestyle…

The other night I had arranged to meet up with this girl Ellie at the Met. It was freezing out, so I layered a black hoodie underneath my tan, somewhat-thick jacket. It was a bit uncomfortable but it kept me warm enough. There’s this weird enjoyment I get out of wondering Manhattan at night, especially when it’s cold. It’s very serene and intimate despite all the goings on. Like the romantic loner constantly searching for a place to go.

I had my ipod locked and loaded with a play list featuring the Verve, the Smiths, and Radiohead; a trio of melancholy if there ever was one (editor’s note: the Verve’s album A Storm In Heaven is the best night time music I’ve ever heard). I hopped on the 6 train uptown to 86^th and 5th, upon which a man claiming to be an angel boarded. He said, “Yes folks, I am an angel. I was sent here from heaven to collect a debt. So if any of y’all got some money to spare you could really help me out of a jam. Jesus is pissed!”

I was heading towards the Met when Ellie called me to let me know she was going to be late. So, I wandered for a bit looking for a place to eat, but I just wound up getting a slice of pizza and hanging out in a Barnes & Nobles, waiting for Ellie to let me know when she was good to go.

After about an hour of this, she called back to tell me she was tired from work and was just going to go home and sleep. It wasn’t too late but the night was starting to get really frigid so I hopped back onto the 6 to go back downtown to 23^rd street. I stopped off at Madison Square Park by the flat iron building to finish my pizza on a bench. I had my tunes playing through my earbuds, but I could still overhear a man’s voice echoing from a nearby bench a little ways away from me. I put the music on pause and began to eavesdrop. He was clearly homeless, but slightly more organized. He was yelling at a pigeon that was waddling around in front of him. I’ll try to recreate the argument as best as I can remember it…

“How could you take that bread? You know I give you the bread with the seeds!”

Pigeon begins to waddle away.

“Why you doing this to me, baby? Don’t take no more bread from no one else!”

The pigeon stops and looks back.

“C’mon honey, don’t do this. Here, have some seeds. From me this time!”

The man tosses some chunks of bread onto the ground. The pigeon begins to peck away.

“That’s it. Cheatin’ ain’t right, and you know it! Stay with me baby!”

It was at this point that I finished my cheese slice and left the park, because even though I was curious as to how this relationship would unfold, I figured retaining my own sanity was just as important. If I had stayed and continued listening, eventually I would have become obsessed with the man-pigeon bonding and collapsed into a fetal position of confusion on the ground. That’s the problem with a place like New York. You’re constantly bombarded with odd behavior until you become so used to it that you start to think, “why shouldn’t I date a pigeon?”

I made my own way home by midnight and was disappointed that my night with Ellie wasn’t fulfilled, but I didn’t care about missing out on the Met anymore. After all, who needs centuries and centuries of creative expression and timeless pieces of artistic beauty when you have an unlimited supply of crazy New Yorkers to entertain you?

Live From India, It’s Elephant Aid!…

Paris Hilton is starting to use her status to do some good in the world for a change. I know she’s been traveling to god knows where doing god knows what to make up for her jail stint, but I found this quote from her and it has really opened my eyes to an epidemic that isn’t really getting any mainstream media attention these days:

“There would have been more casualties if the villagers hadn’t chased them away. And four elephants died in a similar way three years ago. It is just so sad. The biggest problems are in Assam and Meghalaya. The elephants get drunk all the time. It is becoming really dangerous. We need to stop making alcohol available to them.”

Alcoholic elephants? When did this start? All this time there’s been a drinking problem amongst the elephant population and there hasn’t even been a single news piece alerting us of this problem? I remember that coke outbreak with the squirrels a few years back but this is very different. Paris is right, we have to do something about these lushes. Forget Darfur and the Middle East, it’s time we use our power to accomplish some real change. I bet it’s those lazy liquor store managers. They never ID and now underage elephants are excessively drinking and ruining the villages with spilled martinis and used condoms.

And how much booze must be required to get an elephant shit faced? A lot I’m guessing. That’s a whole lotta alcohol being wasted on these behemoths. Alcohol that could be being used to destroy towns and villages over here in the US instead.

After learning of this startling revelation from Paris, I did some statistical research. As it turns out, elephant fights in India have increased by twenty percent in the past year, while anonymous sex and public urination have increased by nearly thirty percent.

The Good Ol’ Days…

My nephew is about to turn one year old on November 26th and, son of a bitch, does it make me feel old. OK, I know I’m not old old (22 is nothing to complain about), but every week this kid changes and it really makes me think about how fast time goes by these days.

I don’t get to see him all that much (basically every other weekend), so when I do see him, he’s either grown another inch, gained another pound, or learned how to say “hello”. It certainly puts things in perspective…too much, really. (Yeah, I know, Spinal Tap references have been done to death these days.) He was born when I was entering my final year of college, and now here I am a year later, graduated with a job and drinking much, much, much less than I used to.

Enjoy these early days little buddy. Life picks up speed real soon…

It’s The Little Things That Get To Ya…

I’ve apparently forgotten how to chew properly today, again. No matter what I do, I can’t stop biting the inside of my lower lip. And the more I think about not doing it, the more I do it.

I even tried slowing the chewing process to reduce the risk, but I wound up just biting the exact same spot…only slower and more painfully. It was the single stupidest moment of my life. I could actually see myself about to bite down on the sore spot. It was in slow motion. And even though I could see it happening, I just kept slowing biting my lip and moaning in agony. I had to keep explaining to my friends at work what I was doing, and at first they laughed. But after a few more incidents their smiles turned to genuine concern for my well-being.

There’s something very sad about not having the ability to chew gracefully anymore. It actually almost ruined my day. I felt like jumping out of the window immediately after that regretful display, just to end this cruel existence.

If I can’t chew a pizza, how can I expect to live a successful life?

An Office Party That Isn’t Awkward…

My job often functions more like a college party than as an actual job. It’s hard to tell if anyone is doing any valid work whatsoever, and the ones that are actually accomplishing something are usually done in fifteen minutes then go for a two hour long lunch break. It’s really great. I just surf the web endlessly all day and every once in a while do some legitimate work. So it’s no surprise that one of the biggest drunken bashes I’ve ever been to in my life occurred at this place last week.

It was Thursday and the day was dragging on forever. I was dying of heat but if I opened my giant window I would freeze immediately. Heat exhaustion combined with boredom is a recipe for incompetence. Luckily, around four o’clock or so, a co-worker ran into our room (there are about six of us) and started shouting about two kegs that were delivered to the offices upstairs. So without any hesitation, every one on our floor rushed up the only stairway leading up and began to drink exuberantly at exactly 4:15 pm. None of us had eaten since about noon so all of the signs pointed to catastrophe.

The party was pretty normal at first, just a bunch of people drinking and chatting about work they should be doing at the moment. Then, at around the 7pm mark, things changed. Things changed because Matt, my immediate boss, brought weed.

Everyone was clearly belligerent by this point, so naturally the voices got louder and the sexual tension increased dramatically. Two people vomited simultaneously all over our brand new ficus plants. This was followed by Sam (my partner in crime) standing on the balcony of a window flirting with a group of girls in the building directly across from ours. It would have been funny, had the threat of Sam falling eleven stories down onto Broadway not been present.

We’ve had office parties plenty before, so people shouting out the windows at anyone within earshot was not a new form of entertainment to us. This time, however, the ones within earshot didn’t appreciate the humor. So they called the cops. The cops were called to break up an office party!

So we all headed off into the night, with piles of work still accumulating on our desks. Since I don’t live in the city, I was a little confused as to what I should do. Although I was pretty baked so I didn’t care that much. Somehow we made our way to a bar, only I couldn’t tell you which one. It was dark with green bottles lining the walls. That’s about all I can remember. I pretty much talked to Christine the whole time we were there, while Sam and Matt got into a fight with some homeless guy. I’d explain it greater detail, but again, I was shit faced.

So we departed and went to another bar, where for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to buy a screwdriver. Now, I’ve never had LSD. But something happens to me when I mix liquor after I’ve been drinking that much beer, along with weed. And I’d imagine it to be very similar to an LSD trip. I don’t remember anything really beyond the screwdriver, but I can remember sitting on the R train with Christine and Sam for a brief period. Then, I’m told, I passed out. Not like I slowly laid my head down and gently whisked myself into dreamland. I passed out. Eyewitness reports say that I was awake, then my eyes closed and I slammed my head off of the metal seat handle and collapsed onto the subway floor.

I woke up the following morning on Sam’s couch in a haze of debauchery. I couldn’t remember anything from the day before really and I had a giant bandage around my forehead.

I later found out that 12 people had called out of work that morning.

They Just Don’t Make Fetishes Like This Anymore…

So there’s this story evolving over in Scotland that has caught my interest. Not because of the weirdness of the act in question, but because of the potential consequences. The story goes like this: guy gets caught in a hotel room attempting to have sex with a bicycle (yes, you read that correctly), freaked-out people call the police, guy goes on trial for breach of “sexual peace” (I wonder if they give out Nobel Peace Prizes for that category, too).

Apparently he wasn’t answering the door after several knocks so the cleaning service people barged into the room and saw Robert Stewart (the name doesn’t help his case) on his bed with the bike, naked from the waist down thrusting himself into the bike, simulating sex. I’m not even sure how sex with a bike is possible. We’ve been trying to figure out the mechanics of it all day today at work. I guess that all depends on whether it was a girls’ bike or a boys’ bike.

The saddest part of this, and the part that no one seems to be disputing, is the fact that they are trying to put this guy in jail. They are actually wasting jail space on something as stupid as this. What’s so disturbing about seeing a guy hump a bike? Crazy, yes, but prison-worthy? What this guy needs is a psychiatrist, not a place that will only reinforce his sexual insecurities.

You put someone in jail for doing something that harms someone or something else. Inanimate objects don’t have feelings. It is impossible to make them feel bad, let alone violate them. When I was six I tried to make my Winnie The Pooh stuffed bear jealous after I told him I was going to start playing with my Transformers action figures more. He didn’t seem to care much.

Stewart banging out a bike in the comfort of his own rented, seedy hotel room is his own business. It’s not harming anyone (unless he gets his own pecker caught in one of the gears). Stop humiliating this guy in public just because it makes you (the news people and that hotel staff) feel like upstanding citizens. There are way more people that deserve to be in jail instead of this guy.

Like that guy that got caught humping pavements in ‘93. Sicko.

 

Here’s the link to the news story if you’re interested (you know you are):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/26/nsex126.xml

Radiohead And The Fickle Fans…

Since everyone else has given their two cents on the Radiohead pay-what-you-want business model, I might as well have my say, too. If you don’t know (those of you living under slabs of stone I would imagine), alt-rock giants Radiohead released their last album on October 10th. The difference this time is that since Thom Yorke and company had no label deal worked out by then, they decided to release their eighth studio, titled In Rainbows, on their own via the Internet. The album was only available as a digital download and only through a website Radiohead created. The key aspect that has everyone talking, however, is that you could choose how much you wanted to pay. Any amount was acceptable, especially zero.

In the month long wake of this market-bending approach, every music and business enthusiast has come out of the wood work to either criticize or defend Radiohead for doing this. Even the fans are engaging in fierce debates over this move. Many industry insiders are claiming foul, while others are showering with praise.

I myself am a huge Radiohead, uh, head. The Bends is probably my favorite album ever and OK Computer is not far behind. When I learned of In Rainbows and how they were going to let us hear it, I was ecstatic. Not so much for the concept of the whole thing but just because I was going to be hearing some new Radiohead tunes. That was really all I cared about. From what I’ve been reading lately, however, many others don’t share that same sentiment. Here’s an example of someone on a “Slicon Alley Insider” message board and their reasoning for paying zero dollars for In Rainbows:

“Lack of technical info about the MP3…lack of uncompressed or lossless version…no album art…slow website…the manufacturing costs of what I downloaded was 0…I am going to buy it on CD anyway…They got an email address out of me (which they didn’t need)…If I paid real money, then I would have to probably provide my credit card info. Not if I can help it.”

Wow. The sad thing is, this is a common response to this whole situation. People everywhere are slamming Radiohead for the intricacies of the In Rainbows release. Yeah, the quality isn’t perfect. Yeah, there isn’t any album art. But you know what? Who cares?

Here is one of the most popular bands around today, choosing to distribute their new album to us for free if we so choose, and people have the nerve to complain about it. It’s music. I don’t understand why an art form as free and limitless as music is constantly scrutinized under these terms. Music’s primary duty is to please you aesthetically. You listen to it, you enjoy it, then you listen to it again and again at your heart’s content. Radiohead tried to focus on that, but they still catch hell for it. This need to rationalize slamming someone else’s music based on reasons other than the music itself has got to stop. What would you rather Radiohead do? Give their music to a major label and sell it to us through places like Wal-Mart or Best Buy where they can charge you almost twenty of your hard-earned dollars for it? Radiohead was trying to show us, the so-called “consumers”, that they care about us by letting us pay what we wanted for the album. They tried to give us a break and, surprise, people still have problems with it.

People like that guy quoted above probably spend their days complaining about the current state of music and how utterly disgusting the mainstream acts are. They hate major labels, support indie chains, and blah blah blah. Yet, they refused to support Radiohead for trying to be the ultimate advocates of independent thinking because of reasons like mp3 quality and the fact that they asked for an email address. Cry me a fucking river.

Music is music. It shouldn’t be a business. It shouldn’t, but I know that it is. Between record labels swallowing indie labels left and right and huge retail chains killing off independent record stores, it’s getting harder and harder to get music by reasonable means. I’d like to have more bands follow Radiohead’s lead, but I know that not every artist can do this. Quite simply, Radiohead can afford to do this. They have enough fans and enough of a respected musical past that they didn’t even need to promote In Rainbows.

The best part of all of this, however, is how silent Radiohead have remained throughout it all. Johnny Greenwood, the only member to speak out about this career move in any detail, simply stated that they just wanted to get their music to their fans as quickly and with as little strings attached as possible. That’s all. They wanted people to hear their new songs, and they extended their hand to us all and said, here, have our music and we hope you enjoy it. Then, let me just say, thank you Radiohead. I appreciate the gesture along with the music and I hope my fifteen dollar tip serves you well.