Life Of Pi-rates

“I download music.” Is that such a surprise to hear from anyone nowadays? We might be able to justify it to ourselves, but it’s technically still stealing. Because at Wal-Mart, it’s still $19.88 + tax. And so we inevitably turn to cheaper, more easily accessible alternatives. Behind our closed doors, our anonymous IP addresses, and our high-speed wireless connections, we shamelessly download discography after discography. Movies. Albums. Utterly massive personal collections of media, spread around the world with the convenience of the Internet.

SPOILER IRONY ALERT:

Today, my own musical album – with songs and music that I created – will be released. And I actually intend on profiting from it. Needless to say, I hope that it will not be torrented, shared, or downloaded illegally. And now I find myself on both sides of the pirate cannon, so to speak.

This particular cannon, actually.

It’s a complicated puzzle. Musical artists obviously need to make a living off of sales and performances. Pirating music undeniably hurts album sales.  But the majority of profit is taken by record labels, so the artist is only marginally profiting in the first place.

Taking a closer look at Billboard records of music sales, we can see that some artists actually manage to sell millions of copies of a single album, or even millions of copies of a single song. And this isn’t just a one-time occurrence – this happens week after week. Despite downloading, the entertainment industry seems to be thriving. Movie ticket and album sales have never been higher. To the people that claim pirating will kill the cinema or the musical artist, I say no. There will always be people willing to pay for good quality entertainment. It’s just the question of where to draw the line.

I hope that my music will someday make it around the world. The internet can help with that. But I also hope that I might be able to make a living performing and selling my music. The internet can hurt that.

 Perhaps the only advice I have here is to remember the little guy. Support your local musicians. Go to live shows, buy CDs, and wear those t-shirts of bands that almost nobody has heard of – they’re pretty obscure, so they need all the advertising they can get. When it comes to pirating, that’s your own call.

Jason Mraz put it so succinctly: “We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.” Oh is it ever true. Even if it’s just a little bit.

Jack Sparrow only downloads Disney movie soundtracks.

Question The World, Answer Your Questions

I love observation. On this blog, you’ll find me asking a lot of questions – questions about culture, about government, about science and nature, even questions about Lady Gaga. But these questions aren’t going to sit up on this page for you to read, and then say, “Oh yeah, I wonder those same things too, totally.” No, these questions are simply a catalyst for research.

Independent research – it sounds so official, so post-graduate-look-at-me-I’m-getting-my-PHD-so-I-need-to-write-a-long-winded-426-page-thesis-paper (no offense to post grads who wrote a 426 page thesis paper).  I’d like to challenge the notion that that is the only time to do worthwhile research.  In fact, I highly encourage anyone reading this (all four of you so far) to continually integrate independent research into your everyday lives. FACT CHECK. Look it up. Make your life into a haven of discovery each and every day, and fill your “knowledge” with veritable material.

The question asked in my last post was “Is there irony in this picture?” I could have left it at that, but that wouldn’t have been enough for me, nor would it have been very interesting or informative. The answer was YES, as I previously explained. The topics on this blog may range from personal life to politics to planetary overpopulation, but the purpose will remain the same.

So here is my official mission statement. This room of mine won’t be a digital front for my everyday activities, nor will it be a summary of current events. Instead, I intend for this blog to be a consistent, (hopefully) enlightening, and heavily researched analysis of the world around us.

I hope some of you do ask the same questions I do. I hope some of my questions are original and downright weird. But whatever the question, you can expect an answer accompanying it.

Question the world. Answer your questions. And stay truthy, my friends.

This man is truthy

PS - A list of truthy websites:

www.politifact.com

www.factcheck.org

www.snopes.com

www.wikipedia.org (always check footnotes)

fancy college sites with ".edu"

not chain letters

www.colbertnation.com

www.thespicyironyobservatorium.blogspot.com

Don't Tread On Me, Bro

"Don't Tread On Me." The words on the Gadsden flag are all too recognizable - an American catchphrase, representing the necessity of individual freedoms. Your rights, your land, your money. On the flag, there's a depiction of a rattlesnake, a fierce symbol of a sharp and independent people.

The snake pictured is a species called the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake, a common snake in the area of the original thirteen colonies. Just for kicks, I did some research. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Eastern Diamondback population and habitat has declined consistently in the Southern United States - to quote, it's been "reduced and fragmented by agriculture, forestry practices, and urbanization."

So in effect, this symbol of freedom against government oppression - that's been hijacked by American political groups such as the Tea Party - is ironic in and of itself. Those who fly the flag so vehemently fight this oppression, while the symbolic snake itself is an actual victim.

From now on, I think I'm going to imagine the snake saying the phrase. I mean, it's the one that's literally being "treaded on." And to anyone who tries to use this flag - I think I'll try to point out that there are far more victimized crowds out there. Some even represented in their hand. BOOM.

This blog's not called "Spicy Irony" for nothing.