Don't I Already Own This?!

So I'm looking at this week's "Rolling Stone" and on the sales charts in the back, Mariah Carey's re-release of her latest album is number three. In the sidebar is a notation about how "fans came back to the store for extra tracks," and as I'm reading this, I'm like, what the fuck?! Aren't b-sides and remixes what singles are for? Why the fuck would you re-release an album that only came out a few weeks ago? Because of money, that's why.

It's not like Mariah Carey needs the fuckin' money or anything, but still, her and her record company (mostly the record company, I'm sure) insist on re-releasing the fuckin' thing with a few extra throwaway tracks to make her fans go out and buy the fuckin' thing again. Is it just me or is that just wrong? I'm not a fan of Mariah Carey, but it's not like she's the first or only artist to ever do this, and it is fuckin' bullshit.

Now I know more about the music industry than most people do, and I understand that even the biggest artists only take in about a dollar per disc in royalties, if that, but c'mon! If it's not making them that much money in the first place, why is it worth it to release it again?! Artists make the majority of their money from touring and selling merchandise, at least the smart ones do, so the re-release of material is just plain greed.

And this is not just music, this mostly occurs with movies, like when a popular movie gets released on DVD, then a few months later, when everyone who's gonna buy it already has, they release the "extended version" with a few minutes of extra footage that, really, adds NOTHING to the film. And then a few months after that, they release the "director's cut," just to screw you out of ANOTHER twenty bucks. Well FUCK THAT. And what is that director's cut shit anyway? Are you telling me that the director didn't cut the original version of the movie? Bullshit. Yes, I know that studios sometimes re-edit the movies after the director is done with it, but the fucker's name is still on it, right?

Just look at, I don't know, "Lord of the Rings," for example. The original theatrical version was ALREADY three hours long, times three, and all of the major bases were pretty much covered. Tolkien would not have been disappointed. This version was released on DVD and sold incredibly well. But then Peter Jackson had intentionally shot and edited together a longer version that more accurately reflected the text of the books, and re-released the films in the longer cut and made a fucking KILLING off of it. What the fuck?! His reasoning was that, "the longer version is more for the hardcore fans of the books." Bullshit! The fuckin' things are already three hours long, what's another 30 minutes more to get the full story? Give me a fucking break, he did that shit for one reason and one reason alone: to make more fucking money. To make EVERYBODY go out and buy the theatrical version of the movies, then go spend ANOTHER 40 bucks on the "extended version" that, frankly, we should have gotten in the first fuckin' place!!!

And you know who's the worst offender of this? That's right, George Lucas and the whole "Star Wars" thing. Sure, you can believe that he had written 9 episodes of that shit before they even began shooting the original "Star Wars," but you're fucking kidding yourself. Judging by any one of the latest three, it is quite obvious that Lucas doesn't have that kind of imagination. How many times have ALL OF US gone out and bought the original "Star Wars" trilogy? Once on VHS, then the newer "THX" version on VHS, then the re-released "Special Edition" version with all the new bullshit effects on DVD, then these latest three, and now we're all gonna have to go out and buy the "Six-Disk All-Encompassing Set with a Bunch of Other Bonus Bullshit That You Don't Really Care About!" And then in two years, we'll have to go buy it AGAIN on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray or whatever the fuck new format they come up with that's really only slightly better looking than the DVD's we already own. What a fucking blow!

Personally I'm done buying "Star Wars." I don't give a shit about 40 minutes more of "Lord of the Rings." I could fucking care less that High-Definition TV's have two-thirds more resolution than my regular TV. I really don't give a shit that the latest Liz Phair album comes with a bonus disc that you can only download from a specific website and then it's a pain in the ass to even listen to the thing because of the 20 layers of copyright protection programmed into it, I don't fucking care! I only wanna buy shit ONCE, and that's it. I don't give a flying fuck about "bonus features" or "commentary tracks" or "behind-the-scenes featurettes" or whatever the fuck. Does ANYONE actually ever watch that shit? Has ANYBODY EVER listened to the fucking commentary track? Somehow I doubt it. That shit is ridiculous to me. Isn't part of the point of watching movies at home so you DON'T have to listen to some asshole talk about bullshit while you're trying to watch the fucking movie?!

This is all just corporate bullshit fucking greed. Record companies and film studios are not in the business of producing art, they're in the business of making money however they can, and that means SCREWING you and me for every penny they can. If they were operating with the same profit margins as, say, a grocery store, CD's and DVD's would cost five bucks. Artists are required to repay EVERY PENNY that the record company spends on them, from recording costs, to marketing, to printing CD booklets, the artists are responsible for ALL of that shit. The company is really just the middle man, except in this case the middle man is making 95% of the money, most of which is markup. Fact is, producing a million-selling album, after recouping their costs from the artists, costs the record companies just PENNIES per CD. And yet we have to pay thirteen bucks for it? Bullshit. And film studios are even worse, because most big-studio movies, even if they flop at the box office, STILL at least break even just from opening weekend because of the 6 months of hype beforehand. DVD sales are just gravy, and they're still screwing us, the consumers, on THAT.

You wanna see something that gets at what I'm talking about? Go rent "Fight Club." No matter what you think of the movie itself, it totally expresses how I feel about the consumer society we live in today. Everything is about "Buy shit! And then buy more shit! And then go buy it again in a few months because the shit is specifically designed to crap out within a year!" That's some scary shit, and I am doing my best to keep myself out of it, and if you're smart, you will NEVER give another red cent to George Lucas, or Peter Jackson, Mariah Carey, or ANYONE for shit that you already fucking own.

Gross Fact of the Day 12-14

Sorry, I don't actually have a gross fact for you today, but I thought I would share a few things that I, personally, think are gross. Some of these are obvious, others might be a bit strange, but hey, so am I.

Worms. Gross. And not just the normal ones, pretty much all types of worms gross me out. Not that I have a phobia about them or anything, I'll totally handle heaps of them just for fun, and have, but they definitely creep me out. I guess it comes from biology class in middle school, because instead of dissecting something good like a frog or something, my class had to dissect a worm. And this was no ordinary worm, this thing was freakishly fuckin' huge. No joke, this thing was easily a foot and a half long, and thick as your finger. Okay, maybe that's just a tad bit hyperbolical, but seriously this thing was massive. It was at least big enough to cut in half and actually see and identify individual organs. It was all green and rubbery and shit from sitting in formaldehyde, and it squished when you cut into it, kind of like cutting across the grain of a really rare steak, and brown juice and gunk and shit oozed out of it, all over the place, and then you had to walk around the rest of the day with worm juice on you because you had biology 3rd period. Gross.

Wet plastic bags. I don't know why, but having a wet plastic bag touch my skin is just freakin' gross.

Wine. I just don't get it. Shit tastes like rancid grape juice. Well, I guess that's what it really is, so I guess this one's just me. But that being the case, why the fuck would you drink it? Gross.

Dairy products that don't require refridgeration. You ever seen that "Parmalat" shit, y'know, the milk in a box that the nerdy kids used to drink at lunch at school? What the fuck's up with that? I mean, I'm sure it's safe and all, but that's just fuckin' weird.

Dairy products in general. I still eat them, cheese and ice cream and all that, I just don't drink milk. What grosses me out about it is, one time when I was a kid I was thinking about milk for some reason, and it's "discovery" or whatever, and I concluded that at some point in history, somebody must have looked at a cow, cocked their head quizzically, and then thought, "I'm thirsty. I think I'll go over there, yank on that thing, and drink whatever comes out!" That's a very disturbing scene right there, and it freaked me out then, and it still does today. That's some fuckin' freaky shit. I realize, now, that it likely did NOT go down that way, no pun intended, but a disturbing image nonetheless. So no fuckin' milk for me!