American Business

Wooo-hooo! Oh, yeah, motherfucker. The roar on the trading floor. Oh, man. The excitement. The Great Wheels Of Commerce roll on, baby. Holy crap! American bidness! The synergies!

Synergies! Holy crapola, dickman! When you hear that Synergy shit it's desk cleanin' time, ain't it? Yeah, you know it is.

It's simple, folks! It's dead easy for any shortbuser to get their hydrocephalus around! You don't have to know a horse's dink from it's patoot as my grandad used to say!

There's two types of products being sold in this Great Marketplace Earth! These would be shit you need and shit you don't need! If you're movin' the former you've got the folks over a barrel and if you're moving the latter, well, you're well-nigh pointless, now, aren't you?

How great is that? Being pointless?

And how about the Great and Mighty Tradition of the Maverick American Businessman? Yeah! Boy I gotta clean my boxers from th' reverence! Don't I!

Where do profits come from?? What's that? From making shit the cheapest! And selling the most of it! Woah, I just got a bidness MBA and I ain't even taken my finger out of my ass! And how do you make shit the cheapest? Why, you treat your workforce as badly as possible! Rip 'em off and fuck 'em over and give them as little in return for their efforts as humanly possible.

All these concepts of Modern Business and Synergistic Hyperwankery and all the breakthroughs of our modern Information Economy! It's alll so excitinggggg! All this big talk and hyperbole and it all comes down to makin' shit the cheapest! Burning rivers and assfucked wilderness and employees in fuckin' Nanking making a quarter a week! Brilliant! Brilliant! On to the cover of Fortune with you! You Carnegie you! You dingbusted Dutch East India Savant!

Pretty much the biggest achievement of Modern Bidness, as it has been with the Less-Modern and the Decidedly-Unmodern varieties, is the bottling and hawking of Human Desperation! Yeah, baby!

It is nothing less than alchemy. Alchemy.

All I'm trying to say is that it's simple. It's stupid simple. Don't make it anything less. Don't jack me off with your New Frontiers in Shoe Products and interactivity.

I can't even enjoy your shit anymore. I can't even see how to walk the fucking earth without being tied into the whole god damn zipless fuck. Never mind the vow of poverty. That doesn't do nothin'. That's just cuttin' off the nose etc.

That's why I'm sayin' get the fuck off the grid.

That's all. We all get off the grid the grid'll have to suck it's own polyp-mottled dick.

I can't even pick up a god damn coffee cup without feeling the sick and unctuous palpitating of human misery. It's like a psychosis.

Face it. We're genetically programmed to be widgeteers. Ah, the glamour. The meaning.

What the fuck happened to how it was going to be? Does Anyone Remember Laughter?

And it makes me wonder. It really makes me wonder. Maybe our stairway really does lie on the whispering wind.

The sheer, blind, driving VISION of modern business. Oh, man. I looked directly into it and now I canna see.

Blurf.

Monsanto

i-Shit

Westinghouse

Clean, Clean, Clean. And Decent. In '06.

Ain't told a lie all year.

Ain't been drunk all year.

Ain't busted a bass string all year.

Ain't had a speeding ticket all year.

Ain't insulted a heckler all year.

Ain't sung "Mustang Sally" all year.

Tagged at last for 7X7

Y'all scared. I don't blame you. Helmut ain't ascared, though. Let's see how we do here. Let's just see what goes down.

And thank you, Mr. Kohl.

Seven Things To Do Before I Die:

1. Get right with my dad. Gord's just about had it with my ass and he ain't gonna live forever, you know? I mean, besides in all our hearts.
2. Blow up VH1
3. Shoot Dick Cheney in the dick
4. Play Svengali to a boy band
5. Blow up Clear Channel
6. Blow up Rykodisc
7. Knife all former bandmates except Paul Courtois. Fuck it. I'm knifing him too. Little prick.

Seven Things I Cannot Do:

1. Give in to Th' Man
2. Be unfaithful
3. Worship some shitty deity
4. Be content
5. Remember birthdays
6. Give a flying fuck about "Reaching A Larger Audience" registered trademark
7. Be patriotic. Give me a fucking break. Boy Scouts is fuckin' over as is the fucking Anschluss. Did I say that. Fucking numbskulls. Jesus Q. Christ.

Seven Things That Attract Me To Syd Barrett:

1. Fine drugs
2. Great basement decor
3. Nurturing mum
4. Interesting conversationalist
5. Leaves cash around
6. I always get th' girl when we're around town
7. When I hang out with him if I close my eyes I can see his hallucinations.

Seven Things I Say Most Often:

1. "What the fuck is going on?"
2. "Thank you and good night!"
3. "What the fuck are you doing?"
4. "Freebird? Larry Byrd's in jail?"
5. "Good night, Cleveland!"
6. "Shut the fuck up! I don't tell you how to bang sheep!"
7. "What day is it?"

I have an inner monologue on stage when something goes wrong; it's like a mantra: suckandfuckandfuckandsuckandsuckandfuckanddammit...

hear the rhythm? It's like a strident passage in a string quartet.

Seven Books That I Love:

1. Poe- Collected Stories
2. Great Expectations
3. A Spaniard In The Works
4. Leonard Bernstein: On Music
5. Steinbeck's goddamn Sea Of Cortez
6. A Massive Swelling
7. Visions of Cody

Seven Movies I Watch Over And Over Again:

1. Animals Gone Wild: The Outback
2. A Hard Day's Night
3. Yeah, that's about it.

Seven People I Want To Join In:

1. Ned
2. Th' Viscount
3. Simon
4. Toulouse Lautrec
5. Don Costa
6. Janis Ian
7. Sam Cooke


There. That wasn't so polesmokin' bad, now was it?

A Shoutout To Th' Friends of The Orchestra in '05

IN NO PARTICULATE ARDOR:





NED JINGO!!!















TH' BRENTMEISTER GENERAL!! WHERE ARE YOU?



















MOM!!!










KEVIN WOLF!!!


















TH' VISCOUNT LACARTE!!




















XTCFAN!!!




















LORI LIGHTFOOT!!!



















SAL TH' FEIST!!















SIMON!!!













EMPLOYEE OF TH' MONTH!


















CORNDOG!!

















FRED 'N' MARK!!














RES PUBLICA!!










TEH L4M3!!!











PINKO PUNKO!!!























SOUNDSURFR!!

Some New Year's Fucking Resolutions Yo.

1. Stop asking beggars how much debt they're in and when they give me a blank look tell them to give ME some fucking cash because they're actually god damn richer than me.

2. Stop saying "thank you" by pure blind habit when some piggo drops me a speedin' ticket. That shit keeps me up god damn nights.

3. When some band opens for me and th' bass player comes out into the crowd because he's wireless and actually thinks it's cool, I'm going to try and break the habit of reaching over and cranking their tuning pegs. That makes me no friends, as funny as it may be.

4. Get myself a bitchin' wireless for my bass.

5. When I simply can't avoid going to Guitar Center, I'm going to stop picking up a mic stand and telling the sales guy it's going through the display case if he says, "how much do you WANT to pay?" when I ask how much something is.

6. When I stay at a motel on th' road I'm going to stop mimicking the maid when she knocks on the door and says, "housekeeping!" Also no more spread-eagling naked on the bed and not answering. As oddly stirring as it is.

7. No more slipping into Hitler-ese during "Girl From Ipanema".

8. Stop firing bandmates when they have gear of mine. It's expensive.

9. When Christers with literature stop me on the street and ask me if I've "heard the voice of God" I'm going to stop saying yes but that I'm too old for LSD and "Houses Of The Holy" at 78 RPM.

10. When I have to cancel a gig, no more calling the club and acting like I'm in jail.