Alice's Pest o' Rant

"This guy is still BRILLIANT..." says nobody.

That didn't stop the desperate idiots at PBS from offering a "fundraiser special" on Arlo Gusty, and his classic (gosh, it was made into a movie nobody has seen in decades) "Alice's Pest O' Rant."

THIS is something so FANTASTIC they think they can chop it into 15 minute segments with 10 minute pledge drive rants in between?

Quarterly, PBS tries to find things that affluent white people will find SO fantastic, they'll rush to the phone and donate hundreds of dollars. "Oooh, thanks PBS, for giving us a Peter Paul and Mary re-union...a re-union of creeky Doo-Wop groups...another of those God-awful Ken Burns documentaries...some bewildering stereotypical British shit like Upchuck Downstairs..."

PBS gets limited government funding, and is greedy for more than what big corporations and philanthropies offer. They do raise money the old fashioned way (by producing specials so good, they can sell them later on DVD to libraries and the general public). But why not make the general public feel guilty? So they offer "you gotta see this" TV specials and then interrupt them constantly to remind everyone that only PBS put this thing on the air. So put something in the tip jar.

Scraping the bottom of the stable, THIS time around it's...THIS guy?

He's nice enough for a doofus. That "Don't touch my bags if you please, Mr. Customs Man" thing was hippie-dippie in its day. That day is long gone. We have customs men searching for Muzzie maniac bombs of mass destruction that can be hidden in something the size of a pack of cigarettes, or Arlo's brain.

IF I'M BEING HONEST, this guy was not too interesting 40 fucking years ago. "I don't wanna pickle, just wanna ride my motah-sickle..." Jesus Fuckin' Christ. OK, sad that your Dad got a horrible disease and wasted away, but SHUT THE FUCK UP.

I suppose there was some question, "Is Arlo gonna get it, too? That would be sad. We should all be extra nice to him, and invite him to sing along with Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs at benefits."

As for Alice's Pest o' Rant, it was ok, if tedious. It wasn't exactly THAT much different from Andy Griffith's affable drawling hillbilly shit. Griffith used to do long drawn out monologues belaboring how football is played, or how Romeo and Juliet talked to each other. So here's this long, long, LONG routine about the draft and whatnot, which did appeal to all of us skinny pot heads and long-hairs worrying about getting shot in Vietnam, but please, it wasn't genius. It isn't STILL brilliant, and that inane refrain could drive anyone back to drugs even after 40 years sobriety.

PBS always insults the intelligence of rich people. If you "pledge" $100 or $200 or whatever it is, you get "as our gift" a copy of that fucking album on CD. Right. It's been a "nice price" low budget item nobody wants almost since CDs were first made. You think you're fooling anyone by giving away a $6 Best Buy CD with a pledge of $150??

The other thing they offer, if you donate an outrageous amount, is a copy of Arlo's fresh new concert (featuring all his "classics'). Thing is, you can record the fucking thing right off the air. "Your DVD has bonus material not on the broadcast." Which means it wasn't considered too fucking important.

This latter point recalls what a blogger friend wrote about the recent fetishistic "300 limited edition pressing" of some rock group's old vault material. Indeed, what IS the point of giving parasites more reasons to be cheerful?

Why put a high price and make a "collector's item" out of crap that wasn't worth releasing before?

Isn't it enough that the crooked ticket situation means that parasites grab off all the best tickets, bribe all the right people, and turn around and make quadruple face value on every ticket they have? Does this have to happen with records and CD's? If it isn't "Record Store Day" it's some other sneaky game...where a record store dealer either puts the item on the wall for $500 or tosses it on eBay for a big laugh. "Into the valley of GREED rode the 300..."

Putting it out for "Black Friday" and the Christmas bullshit is even seedier. How weird it is, that we're supposed to NOT buy all year, because for ONE month, there will be sudden savings. Yeah? Why not have a decent price in the first place? Why is it that today I got a notice from EBAY that if I use a special code, I get 10% off on anything? Oh, nice, I can get an external 2TB drive that was $117 for $104. How does this encourage me to buy any other time of the year? Why do I get the idea that all year long you bastards are taking advantage of me and pumping up the price? Why is it that so many department stores suddenly offer 50% off either before or right after Christmas? It tells me you pricks have a lot of nerve charging way more than you should.

The business of putting out a record in a limited edition "for copyright reasons," makes no sense at all. You really have no faith in it? Then let copyright lapse!

Otherwise, press a decent amount and hope there will be an Adele-type rush before the pirates throw mp3 versions all over the Internet (like they've done with the Bob Dylan 6 CD set).

Sad to say, there's very little worth buying, period. I "support" a few artists and buy their stuff, preferably off their websites if I can. But I ain't goin' out of my way to buy an expensive import on a French singer who is a millionaire...not when a FLAC version is instantly on a torrent. Not when the art work on the cover isn't anything spectacular. Not when CDs are almost never packaged with lush booklets or exotic cases. At one time this singer offered fantastic packages...digipacks with secret envelopes and compartments...cases made out of tin that looked like a holy relic of human skin might be inside. I don't see that from her anymore.

I'm not going to "support" some half-comatose rock group like Squeeze, just to "vote" and encourage them to do more. Not when they haven't been interesting in 30 years, and I don't need more musical wallpaper to play while papering a wall. And since CDs go DOWN in value and are shitty little things with microscopic print on the booklets (and booklets that are sometimes only a few pages), I'm not that eager to toss money away on things that I don't really want. I'm curious about it? Not good enough.

So in the end, they kick themselves in the end. That rare 300 limited edition vinyl? Magically, SOMEBODY turned it into a FLAC and everyone can hear it...and not be impressed.

Alice's Pest o' Rant had that infamous line, "You can get anything you want..." but these days, who the fuck wants it?