The education of the misinformed
Posted by on April 21, 2010In my need to help my brother Kevin out during his time of grief I recorded a brief announcement for his show the Underground Short Bus (USB) basically stating the loss of his wife and the hiatus of his show. I sent it and he took a few seconds to post it. This is the immediate email that I received at bearcrawling@gmail.com posted as it was written to me.
“I have no idea whether this makes a difference or not, but in the “Anouncement” show you uploaded in the USB feed, the show said ‘Clean’, and it wasn’t. The only reason I bring this up is, I know for a fact that there’s people that don’t want the USB to exist, and will take any chance they can to take it off the internet, so it might be a good idea to change it to Explicit.
I dunno, it’s up to you. I just thought I might bring it up.”
There are so many things that piss me off about this so lets make a nice “Clean” list for you shall we.
1) In the announcement I focused on the fact that HIS WIFE DIED. I don’t know about you but that seems to be the most important thing here is my brother and fellow human being is in a world of hurt because of this. I only made the announcement so that his fans would know and that they could reach out and donate to help him through this time of need. This is the true message here and if you missed it then you are not as smart, loyal, or caring as you think you are.
2) To the author of the actual email – Really! Really? You say your a fan, you pride yourself in meaningless facts and research, and you would like to think you could be actual friends with Kevin and Mike, but your focus is on the clean label? You didn’t take a second to think about the grief and the pain? You didn’t take a second to realize labels are only for ITUNES use and mean nothing? You didn’t think even for an instant that maybe Kevin posted it in his time of grief and didn’t even listen to it or care if it was correct because HIS WIFE DIED? Get your head out from where ever you keep it and get it on straight.
3) Now to the fallacy of labels and ratings. Until the laws change drastically and the internet becomes censored and controlled YOU CAN NOT REMOVE A PODCAST FROM THE INTERNET MORON. People get stuck on these ratings: clean, parental guidance, and explicit. Itunes has really embedded these into the podcasting world and some are worried about what they mean. You can not “get” and explicit rating and do you want to know why? Because you set your own rating. When you publish your feed you set this yourself and all that happens is a sign that is posted for all to see that says “this is a clean podcast.” Now in a worst case scenario if you are explicit all of the time and you left your “rating” as clean then people may actually complain to itunes and they may indeed refuse to list your podcast in their store.
News flash jr itunes is only one of many podcast listing sites and are probably the biggest just like walmart is one of the biggest retailers in the world. Many artists refuse to censor their album just to be sold at walmart and we are at no great loss here. The Bear Crawling Nation LIVE! is not listed by itself on itunes and I have not hurt in any growth whatsoever because of it. So what if Itunes is an ass. The podcast is still on the internet and that can not change due to outside forces. Kevin wholly owns the show and its properties and can alone decide what to do with it. This is the core principle of podcasting or did you miss that fact? We create what we want, publish it how we want, say what we want, and that is why podcasting has changed the game of broadcasting – no rules!
4) “I know for a fact that there’s people that don’t want the USB to exist, and will take any chance they can to take it off the internet.” Who is after the USB and wants it removed from the internet? I imagine whomever may be foolish enough to actually try to do it probably has their hands full removing porn and presidential slanders at this time and the USB doesn’t really rank on their radar.
Come on people it is time to open our eyes to see how life really is. Stop listening to what your told. Stop believing “rules and societal norms” without asking the question why and actually receiving an answer that makes sense. I am going to start writing on a regular basis for two reasons. 1) To vent the little angers and irritations that I think about but don’t make it on the show Friday nights and 2) to bring light to your eyes to free you to see for yourself the world around you. I am writing this blog to give you one more way to learn how to live the Bear Crawling way.
