To this guy:



For what reason do I rise? I’m afforded the right as an American citizen to air my feelings about you over the net waves. I intend to exercise that freedom. Your PhD program? I oppose it, sir.

This is from your website:

“When I’m not blogging, I’m a PhD candidate at Indiana University, in the departments of Communication and Culture and Ethnomusicology. My dissertation will center on indie music fandom during the peer-to-peer era”

I’ve got some grievances I’m going to air here, Eric. But before I do, let me get this straight. When you finally get that piece of Indiana paper from the guy in the weird medieval cloak, you could be writing things like this:

“modern-rock guitars are stunningly bland and repetitious”

…As a mother-flogging professor?

Here’s my beef, Eric. Sometimes when I flick on the news, I hear about China and India producing an assload of cutting-edge scientists, top engineers, and mathematicians who don’t forget negative signs in calculus. Now, I’m not saying that America the Beautiful’s world-dominating universities ain’t churning out bright young minds. What I’m saying, if you catch my drift, is that maybe studying how Napster fertilized Radiohead’s internet base…should be something you do as a pastime. You know, like surfing Wikipedia or snapping black and white pictures of wheelbarrows.

Look, I know what you’re probably thinking. Who the hell is THIS upstart? How dare HE talk down to ma shit? What did HE accomplish? What level of education has HE completed? These are things you might ask.

I finished undergrad. I came out of college with a degree, but an ass-load of debt and not much else. So I respect people who are able to put in the extra miles and additional years to build a better life through school. I’m proud of how they push the envelope and advance the standing of our great nation across a competitive world. That takes determination, grit, and smarts.

But are you fucking kidding me, dude? What the hell are you going to be adding to society by furthering research in this field? You sure you’re in a field, Eric? Is it a field or just a half-acre of chaff? What kind of wheat ‘that field producing, son?

Aside from the obvious children of Ungoliant, who the hell else is going to study your research once it’s published? I’ve got a hunch who might. You know who just might read your dissertation in the field of “Communication and Culture” even more than the 5 music cretins with PhDs in the Sex Pistols? The god damned MUSIC INDUSTRY. Yep, I mean that art-crushing boogeyman so often referenced. With every piece of dense, plastic text, you could be gifting useful data to R&D departments of the very companies you think construct Lady Gaga out of legos. That’s either really funny or it murders my soul in this hard decade ahead. Or it could be complete bullshit. Hell, I’m just making it up.

Sure dude, be all grumpy and wave me off as a yappy corn dog. But consider this. The next time Arnie Duncan addresses the state of post-post-post secondary education, I don’t think more grant funding for “indie music fandom” work is going to be on his short list of priorities. Save your breath, son. I’m not saying I’ve walloped your poot tooter in life, Eric, because I haven’t. But wow dude…wow.

Hold your mule. One more thing you gotta do. You’re going to watch the following clip and imagine it’s me talking to you on a beach somewhere in the skeezy part of Italy.














Nah, I’m just messing with you. Did you actually do it?