I remember watching an interview with Harvey Diamond.  He was speaking on behalf of animal rights.  Harvey argued,

“Put a baby in a crib with an apple and a rabbit. If it eats the rabbit and plays with the apple, I’ll buy you a new car.”

But I always found that argument to be unfair.  I mean, the apple is ready to go, but I’d probably want to slice the rabbit to apart with a machete and then skin, smoke, and salt it (and then drape the intestines over myself as some sort of coat to keep warm).  I figure then I’d have a delicious smoked rabbit as well as an apple.

I hate black and white thinkers like that.  People that don’t consider the alternatives for each one of the problems we face every day and the willingness to adapt, try new things, and eventually (if we don’t shelter ourselves enough) evolve.  The reason I bring this up is because of this:  Fuck the RIAA.

I sincerely hope, dear readers, that none of your family members work for the RIAA (or even a recording studio, or in some sort of studio fronted band for that matter) because they are aboard a flaming sinking ship amidst the vast sea of the Internet and I plan to rape and pillage the shit out of them.  Because as long as the pirates such as myself sail their flag high, we will keep pummeling their ship, one torrent or limewire download at a time, until they die of asphyxiation.

Really, fuck the RIAA and the ancient dinosaurs that are running it.  It is time for Hollywood to realize that the days of rebuying the same product over and over again are over.  I will no longer drop cash to have my DVD’s swapped to Blu-Ray or for my cassette tapes to be remastered onto a CD.  I have grown up as a part of the Napster generation.  A mind blowing number of youths that spent sleepless nights waiting damn near three hours to hear The Kids from The Marshall Mathers LP.  A generation that took analogue mixtapes into a digital era.

And God-Bless it.  Because I don’t want to live like my parents did, RIAA.  They’ve been re-eating your shit for years.

The truth is that the RIAA does not realize that this is a generation that embraces both technology and its progression.  It is a fascination of sorts.  And now that we have but a fading taste of absolute ownership, we do not want it to leave.  We don’t want a physical representation and marketed package of music any longer.  We want to have the absolute right to hear it.

And that is the beauty about downloading Radiohead’s “In Rainbows,” Nine Inch Nails “The Slip,” Harvey Danger’s “Little by Little,” or Saul Williams’ “The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust!”  Finally I am able to directly relate to these gray thinkers, these new artists of a new frontier.  And finally, I am able to directly and truly support them.

But for the Wolf Parades, and the White Stripes, and all of the other bands that still cling to a label – I can tell you this.  While it is true that I pirate your music, I still respect you (I know, it sounds like I’m using your for your totally young and supple body and then making excuses to back out of commitment, but it’s true) and I have seen you every single time you have toured through Chicago.  And someday, if there is an opportunity to fully support you and not have a chunk of it bit off by a label, you better be goddamn sure that I will do it.

So call me a dick.  Call me a degenerate.  Call me a lunatic – whatever.  I just don’t give a fuck.  But years down the road just remember – I was the type of person that was able to adapt to change and ride the crest of a new generations wave.  I was the type of a person that could eat an apple, but have a rabbit too.