Song of the Moment: Mind Your Manners

[verb_to_trust]

You didn't ask me any

I asked harmless a few about "war", who we are fighting and whatnot.

Well i'm not harmless so i'm gonna tap out.

You didn't answer my questions either though btw, is eddie a pro-life hobo killer?

I would think he's more pro-life now that he's had kids and probably went through an ultrasound with his wife in the process. I think it would be interesting for him to write a pro-choice song now. I would think that would support his past indignation.

we just had our second kid. My wife is older and a diabetic so both pregnancies, the first one and the second one, had so many ultrasounds we basically have a flip book picture of our kids from eggs to babies. My views on abortion haven't changed. One of my best friends just had twins, and my wife and i both decided that if she had twins they couldn't vacuum one of those fuckers out of her fast enough.

Are you Ed?

Sean Penn had twins?

Aren't we *all* Ed, in a way?

I think Scrooge McDuck would agree

[IlluminEddie]

I don't like the video because, to me, it shows Ed's still sucking Barry off even on political songs. They do and want me to think like them.

Why do I get the impression you won't be happy unless one of the songs is called "Obama Can Burn in Hell"?

I would hate that, actually.

I'd prefer F-off-NSA. Or drones-b-gone. Or hyperinflation-isn't-fun-look-at-zimbabwee-longesttitleinthePJcatalouge

[Norah]

You didn't ask me any

I asked harmless a few about "war", who we are fighting and whatnot.

Well i'm not harmless so i'm gonna tap out.

You didn't answer my questions either though btw, is eddie a pro-life hobo killer?

I would think he's more pro-life now that he's had kids and probably went through an ultrasound with his wife in the process. I think it would be interesting for him to write a pro-choice song now. I would think that would support his past indignation.

we just had our second kid. My wife is older and a diabetic so both pregnancies, the first one and the second one, had so many ultrasounds we basically have a flip book picture of our kids from eggs to babies. My views on abortion haven't changed. One of my best friends just had twins, and my wife and i both decided that if she had twins they couldn't vacuum one of those fuckers out of her fast enough.

Are you Ed?

Sean Penn had twins?

Aren't we *all* Ed, in a way?

I think Scrooge McDuck would agree

How did Scrooge McDuck not break his neck doing that?

[verb_to_trust]

Its all about good form

[harmless]

You didn't ask me any

I asked harmless a few about "war", who we are fighting and whatnot.

Well i'm not harmless so i'm gonna tap out.

You didn't answer my questions either though btw, is eddie a pro-life hobo killer?

I would think he's more pro-life now that he's had kids and probably went through an ultrasound with his wife in the process. I think it would be interesting for him to write a pro-choice song now. I would think that would support his past indignation.

we just had our second kid. My wife is older and a diabetic so both pregnancies, the first one and the second one, had so many ultrasounds we basically have a flip book picture of our kids from eggs to babies. My views on abortion haven't changed. One of my best friends just had twins, and my wife and i both decided that if she had twins they couldn't vacuum one of those fuckers out of her fast enough.

Are you Ed?

Sean Penn had twins?

Aren't we *all* Ed, in a way?

I think Scrooge McDuck would agree

How did Scrooge McDuck not break his neck doing that?

Stunt double.

[harmless]

You didn't ask me any

I asked harmless a few about "war", who we are fighting and whatnot.

Well i'm not harmless so i'm gonna tap out.

You didn't answer my questions either though btw, is eddie a pro-life hobo killer?

I would think he's more pro-life now that he's had kids and probably went through an ultrasound with his wife in the process. I think it would be interesting for him to write a pro-choice song now. I would think that would support his past indignation.

we just had our second kid. My wife is older and a diabetic so both pregnancies, the first one and the second one, had so many ultrasounds we basically have a flip book picture of our kids from eggs to babies. My views on abortion haven't changed. One of my best friends just had twins, and my wife and i both decided that if she had twins they couldn't vacuum one of those fuckers out of her fast enough.

Are you Ed?

Sean Penn had twins?

Aren't we *all* Ed, in a way?

I think Scrooge McDuck would agree

How did Scrooge McDuck not break his neck doing that?

Stunt double (post).

[EJ]

I don't like the video because, to me, it shows Ed's still sucking Barry off even on political songs. They do and want me to think like them.

Why do I get the impression you won't be happy unless one of the songs is called "Obama Can Burn in Hell"?

I would hate that, actually.

I'd prefer F-off-NSA. Or drones-b-gone. Or hyperinflation-isn't-fun-look-at-zimbabwee-longesttitleinthePJcatalouge

You really want to hear Ed sing about monetary policy?

[harmless]

I don't like the video because, to me, it shows Ed's still sucking Barry off even on political songs. They do and want me to think like them.

Why do I get the impression you won't be happy unless one of the songs is called "Obama Can Burn in Hell"?

I would hate that, actually.

I'd prefer F-off-NSA. Or drones-b-gone. Or hyperinflation-isn't-fun-look-at-zimbabwee-longesttitleinthePJcatalouge

I hope you're not in a band, those are terrible song titles.

[malice]

I don't like the video because, to me, it shows Ed's still sucking Barry off even on political songs. They do and want me to think like them.

Why do I get the impression you won't be happy unless one of the songs is called "Obama Can Burn in Hell"?

I would hate that, actually.

I'd prefer F-off-NSA. Or drones-b-gone. Or hyperinflation-isn't-fun-look-at-zimbabwee-longesttitleinthePJcatalouge

You really want to hear Ed sing about monetary policy?

how else can we have evidence that he's not sucking Obama's dick??

[verb_to_trust]

I hate to bring up bad memories guys, but remember yesterday when I called Ed a

Spoiler: show

moron

. Well, that may have been a touch harsh but a "punchy" rocker about monetary policy might be asking too much.

[IlluminEddie]

I don't like the video because, to me, it shows Ed's still sucking Barry off even on political songs. They do and want me to think like them.

Why do I get the impression you won't be happy unless one of the songs is called "Obama Can Burn in Hell"?

I would hate that, actually.

I'd prefer F-off-NSA. Or drones-b-gone. Or hyperinflation-isn't-fun-look-at-zimbabwee-longesttitleinthePJcatalouge

You really want to hear Ed sing about monetary policy?

Ok. You're right. Forget that one.

[harmless]

I don't like the video because, to me, it shows Ed's still sucking Barry off even on political songs. They do and want me to think like them.

Why do I get the impression you won't be happy unless one of the songs is called "Obama Can Burn in Hell"?

I would hate that, actually.

I'd prefer F-off-NSA. Or drones-b-gone. Or hyperinflation-isn't-fun-look-at-zimbabwee-longesttitleinthePJcatalouge

You really want to hear Ed sing about monetary policy?

Ok. You're right. Forget that one.

But to be fair, that would be fairly easy to represent in iconic imagery for a video.

[philpritchard]

I don't like the video because, to me, it shows Ed's still sucking Barry off even on political songs. They do and want me to think like them.

Why do I get the impression you won't be happy unless one of the songs is called "Obama Can Burn in Hell"?

I would hate that, actually.

I'd prefer F-off-NSA. Or drones-b-gone. Or hyperinflation-isn't-fun-look-at-zimbabwee-longesttitleinthePJcatalouge

You really want to hear Ed sing about monetary policy?

Ok. You're right. Forget that one.

But to be fair, that would be fairly easy to represent in iconic imagery for a video.

Yeah, something simple like a quick shot of money being printed or something? I don't know, just spitballing.

[Sgt. Crackpot]

I don't like the video because, to me, it shows Ed's still sucking Barry off even on political songs. They do and want me to think like them.

Why do I get the impression you won't be happy unless one of the songs is called "Obama Can Burn in Hell"?

I would hate that, actually.

I'd prefer F-off-NSA. Or drones-b-gone. Or hyperinflation-isn't-fun-look-at-zimbabwee-longesttitleinthePJcatalouge

You really want to hear Ed sing about monetary policy?

Ok. You're right. Forget that one.

But to be fair, that would be fairly easy to represent in iconic imagery for a video.

Yeah, something simple like a quick money shot of money being printed or something? I don't know, just spitballing.

FTFY

[harmless]

I don't like the video because, to me, it shows Ed's still sucking Barry off even on political songs. They do and want me to think like them.

Why do I get the impression you won't be happy unless one of the songs is called "Obama Can Burn in Hell"?

I would hate that, actually.

I'd prefer F-off-NSA. Or drones-b-gone. Or hyperinflation-isn't-fun-look-at-zimbabwee-longesttitleinthePJcatalouge

You really want to hear Ed sing about monetary policy?

Ok. You're right. Forget that one.

But to be fair, that would be fairly easy to represent in iconic imagery for a video.

Yeah, something simple like a quick money shot of money being printed or something? I don't know, just spitballing.

FTFY

Mind your family planners!

[stip]

Okay, for reasons that are becoming increasingly unfathomable to me (habit?) I'm responding to this

hy•poc•ri•sy
hiˈpäkrisēSubmit
noun
1.
the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense.

The problem with the way people misuse the word hypocrisy is that they do not account for the fact that people's views may change over time as they discover new information, have different experiences, re-contextualize the old, etc. That's called learning, changing your mind, growing up, being wrong, etc. You become a hypocrite if you continue to publicly affirm one set of values while your behavior undermines those values. Eddie doesn't become a hypocrite if you can no longer hold him to things he said 5, 10, 15 years ago. He may be more or less admirable as a result, but that's not hypocrisy.

you've made up your mind so we're not really debating anything at this point, but

Target: because getting a better deal from one corporation and trying to establish a precedent for other artists (as billboard pointed out) and working out an arrangement to try and protect independent stores, rather than just selling them to ALL the big corporation, is a betrayal of some principle

And, as a leftist, you can sleep at night? It's fucking Target. They left Sony to take a stand and went to... Target. To Target. lol

I'm not sure there is anything sadder than someone loling at their own work to help emphasize a point in an argument. But that's neither here nor there. And there probably are sadder things and I just need to learn to live with it.

Anyway (this is speculation, but it seems reasonable to me) they left Sony because they wanted to be an independent artist and not be answerable to a larger corporation over artistic questions (what songs do you release, how often do you have to put out new music, etc). To control the terms under which their music is released. Perhaps you have confused Target with a record company or label. They do sell a lot of stuff. However, you would be incorrect. Target was a distribution point. If you want to sell your records in easily accessible public places you are probably going to have to use a corporation. Such is the world we live in.

Now, lets move on to step two. In order to sell your wares at this distribution point you are going to have to negotiate terms with that distributor. How many units will they buy, where will they be displayed, how will they be marketed, how much will they pay for them. Sometimes a seller (in this case, the musical group Pearl Jam) is in a place to negotiate better terms for themselves if they agree to certain conditions. I suspect every previous pearl jam album (that was also sold at target, wal-mart, k-mart, etc) involved similar negotiations, carried out under the aegis of another corporation (Sony--these corporations keep popping up all over this story). In the case of the distribution of Backspacer, if Pearl Jam agreed to only sell their record through their website, independent record stores, and Target, they got more money than if they sold their record through their website, independent record stores, Target, AND Wal-Mart. Whoever did the negotiating for the musical group Pearl Jam decided that there would be a better deal to be had at Target.

This may or may not have led to the Fed's policy of QE. The current research has been inconclusive.

I once heard a story from Adam Duritz about Ed being a d&ck to him for using their song in a Coke commercial. I always think back about when I watched the PJ Target ads.

You can type out the word ‘dick’. This is a pretty progressive forum in that way.

Yes, that was a very 90s comment for him to make. I doubt he would make it today (which is why it is not hypocritical). I don't think there is a huge difference here, but if you wanted to draw it, the Target ads did not feature The Fixer playing over pictures of other products unrelated to the music that you could buy at Target (like, for instance, coke). It played in a commercial for the album the band recorded letting people know where they could buy it. The logo of the place where it could be bought featured in the commercial.

Ten Club: yeah, they need a lot of work. Hypocrisy though?

Yes, they sell dog collars and band trading cards. Anything to make a buck. Seriously.

They used to sell t-shirts and stickers. Are these things categorically different? Were the t-shirts mass produced to cover the backs of the workers harvesting grain on our collective farms? Are these dog collars laced with asbestos because it is just cheaper and damn the consequences, we need to make money? Or, are these products they thought their fans (who eat up this collectible sort of shit--didn’t those cards sell out instantly) would enjoy. Isn’t the life of the person who gets reminded of No Code just a little bit better if they are reminded of that album every time they pet their dog. Who are you to stand in the way of that happiness? If it turns out that you are someone who can and should you should please submit a list of acceptable products that can be sold to fans. If someone owns socks or a lighter let them know if they need to be returned.

It’s the job of the 10c to come up with fan stuff they think their fans are going to want to buy. Some of it is cool. Much of it isn’t, but people must like it somewhere. If you really think that they sell enough of these dog collars to keep the organization set for life and that THIS is why the band does not tour and record more frequently you’d have a stronger complaint.

Look, now they linked up with UPS to become more efficient... lol

I didn’t watch that little promo video, but presumably that is better than being less efficient?

Nader: i voted for Nader in 2000 and did not vote for him in 2004. Am I a hypocrite too?

Did you stand on a soapbox for an entire tour or three preaching about third parties and their importance, then bail on that thought completely?

Like most people who vote for a third party, I’m sure I was an insufferable self righteous prig about it for a while. And then I decided that it was more important to me to stop Bush than support Nader, and that my time would be better spent trying to make the democratic party more liberal than push for a third party that did not have a large enough mass base to do anything beyond throw an election to the party I usually despise.

So yes?

Ticket Master: They did a boycott. No one joined in. Ticketmaster was not hurt by it. It made life more difficult for their fans. They lost. They stopped. Everyone's life got easier, including the fans

I know. I was at the San Fran show when he got sick. They made a big stink.. they did something about it for a bit, realized it was hard and then changed their mind.

Hard is not the same thing as ineffective (although the boycott and stand against ticketmaster did draw attention to the problem). And, as a fan, I was glad they decided to try and negotiate a better deal for their fans (see also, Target) and for themselves then make me drive all the way out to fucking Randall’s Island to see a show. Getting to MSG is much easier, and the lives of tens of thousands of people are tangibly better because of it.

MTV: What about it? Making videos? shit, that hypocrisy started in 1998 if that's your problem. But the no video stand was annoying if you liked videos (as a fan I was glad to see them stop, even though I had a certain silly admiration for their willingness to do it). it's also not hypocrisy. you seem to be conflating hypocrisy with changing your mind.

Actually this was also the year they ended the ticket master boycott. I didn't realize their hypocrisy peaked 15 years ago. Maybe that's why Yield is such an upbeat record.

If it was just Ticket master and MTV, I wouldn't call them hypocrites.

Don’t look at me. This was your list.

Dog Collars: then don't buy it. it's not like that dog collar was the only way you could hear cold concession. Some fans have disposable income and want to buy that shit. More power to them

I love this - "then don't buy it". Capitalism is only wrong if someone else's doing, right Ed? "If you hate something then don't you do it too" - is kinda lost here. It's a mystery to me "we have a greed, with which we have agreed. You think you want more than you need. Until you have a dog collar or PJ trading cards you won't be free".

Okay, a few things here.

1. I think international corporate capitalism as currently practiced, is essentially just the process of criminal exploitation made legal. That doesn’t mean I don’t like buying stuff or having nice things in my life. People who are opposed to capitalism, unless they are insufferable luddites, are usually opposed to the power dynamics involved in how things are made and distributed. Who reaps the benefits? Who pays the cost? Who is exploited in the process? Who has a voice?

2. Society was not a song written by Eddie. It was an appropriately chosen cover in a biographical film about an insufferable luddite. I’m sure there is a part of Eddie that is romantically attached to that idea. There is a part of me that loves the idea of living in that dilapidated mansion in Fight Club. But then there is also the part of me that loves the framed S/T album cover in my living room.

G.R.E.E.D: I'm not sure what that stands for. Oh wait, it's greed! Money is nice. I'm not sure they ever said anything to the contrary. What matter is what you do with it, or what you would do to get it. Making dog collars available on your website does put them right next to the Koch brothers, I agree.

Yes, it's a lyric from a song called Green Disease. Nah, they never, ever preached about greed. Never. I mean "sorry is the fool who trades his sole for Pearl Jam dog collar.

I think I covered this pretty well up above. But Green Disease is a song about the harm that is inflicted upon people in the pursuit of excessive wealth, and Soon Forget is about devoting your life exclusively to the pursuit of material things at the expense of people. Neither song says ‘don’t have things in your life that make you happy’

[evenslow]

Okay, for reasons that are becoming increasingly unfathomable to me (habit?) I'm responding to this

hy•poc•ri•sy
hiˈpäkrisēSubmit
noun
1.
the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense.

The problem with the way people misuse the word hypocrisy is that they do not account for the fact that people's views may change over time as they discover new information, have different experiences, re-contextualize the old, etc. That's called learning, changing your mind, growing up, being wrong, etc. You become a hypocrite if you continue to publicly affirm one set of values while your behavior undermines those values. Eddie doesn't become a hypocrite if you can no longer hold him to things he said 5, 10, 15 years ago. He may be more or less admirable as a result, but that's not hypocrisy.

you've made up your mind so we're not really debating anything at this point, but

Target: because getting a better deal from one corporation and trying to establish a precedent for other artists (as billboard pointed out) and working out an arrangement to try and protect independent stores, rather than just selling them to ALL the big corporation, is a betrayal of some principle

And, as a leftist, you can sleep at night? It's fucking Target. They left Sony to take a stand and went to... Target. To Target. lol

I'm not sure there is anything sadder than someone loling at their own work to help emphasize a point in an argument. But that's neither here nor there. And there probably are sadder things and I just need to learn to live with it.

Anyway (this is speculation, but it seems reasonable to me) they left Sony because they wanted to be an independent artist and not be answerable to a larger corporation over artistic questions (what songs do you release, how often do you have to put out new music, etc). To control the terms under which their music is released. Perhaps you have confused Target with a record company or label. They do sell a lot of stuff. However, you would be incorrect. Target was a distribution point. If you want to sell your records in easily accessible public places you are probably going to have to use a corporation. Such is the world we live in.

Now, lets move on to step two. In order to sell your wares at this distribution point you are going to have to negotiate terms with that distributor. How many units will they buy, where will they be displayed, how will they be marketed, how much will they pay for them. Sometimes a seller (in this case, the musical group Pearl Jam) is in a place to negotiate better terms for themselves if they agree to certain conditions. I suspect every previous pearl jam album (that was also sold at target, wal-mart, k-mart, etc) involved similar negotiations, carried out under the aegis of another corporation (Sony--these corporations keep popping up all over this story). In the case of the distribution of Backspacer, if Pearl Jam agreed to only sell their record through their website, independent record stores, and Target, they got more money than if they sold their record through their website, independent record stores, Target, AND Wal-Mart. Whoever did the negotiating for the musical group Pearl Jam decided that there would be a better deal to be had at Target.

This may or may not have led to the Fed's policy of QE. The current research has been inconclusive.

I once heard a story from Adam Duritz about Ed being a d&ck to him for using their song in a Coke commercial. I always think back about when I watched the PJ Target ads.

You can type out the word ‘dick’. This is a pretty progressive forum in that way.

Yes, that was a very 90s comment for him to make. I doubt he would make it today (which is why it is not hypocritical). I don't think there is a huge difference here, but if you wanted to draw it, the Target ads did not feature The Fixer playing over pictures of other products unrelated to the music that you could buy at Target (like, for instance, coke). It played in a commercial for the album the band recorded letting people know where they could buy it. The logo of the place where it could be bought featured in the commercial.

Ten Club: yeah, they need a lot of work. Hypocrisy though?

Yes, they sell dog collars and band trading cards. Anything to make a buck. Seriously.

They used to sell t-shirts and stickers. Are these things categorically different? Were the t-shirts mass produced to cover the backs of the workers harvesting grain on our collective farms? Are these dog collars laced with asbestos because it is just cheaper and damn the consequences, we need to make money? Or, are these products they thought their fans (who eat up this collectible sort of shit--didn’t those cards sell out instantly) would enjoy. Isn’t the life of the person who gets reminded of No Code just a little bit better if they are reminded of that album every time they pet their dog. Who are you to stand in the way of that happiness? If it turns out that you are someone who can and should you should please submit a list of acceptable products that can be sold to fans. If someone owns socks or a lighter let them know if they need to be returned.

It’s the job of the 10c to come up with fan stuff they think their fans are going to want to buy. Some of it is cool. Much of it isn’t, but people must like it somewhere. If you really think that they sell enough of these dog collars to keep the organization set for life and that THIS is why the band does not tour and record more frequently you’d have a stronger complaint.

Look, now they linked up with UPS to become more efficient... lol

I didn’t watch that little promo video, but presumably that is better than being less efficient?

Nader: i voted for Nader in 2000 and did not vote for him in 2004. Am I a hypocrite too?

Did you stand on a soapbox for an entire tour or three preaching about third parties and their importance, then bail on that thought completely?

Like most people who vote for a third party, I’m sure I was an insufferable self righteous prig about it for a while. And then I decided that it was more important to me to stop Bush than support Nader, and that my time would be better spent trying to make the democratic party more liberal than push for a third party that did not have a large enough mass base to do anything beyond throw an election to the party I usually despise.

So yes?

Ticket Master: They did a boycott. No one joined in. Ticketmaster was not hurt by it. It made life more difficult for their fans. They lost. They stopped. Everyone's life got easier, including the fans

I know. I was at the San Fran show when he got sick. They made a big stink.. they did something about it for a bit, realized it was hard and then changed their mind.

Hard is not the same thing as ineffective (although the boycott and stand against ticketmaster did draw attention to the problem). And, as a fan, I was glad they decided to try and negotiate a better deal for their fans (see also, Target) and for themselves then make me drive all the way out to fucking Randall’s Island to see a show. Getting to MSG is much easier, and the lives of tens of thousands of people are tangibly better because of it.

MTV: What about it? Making videos? shit, that hypocrisy started in 1998 if that's your problem. But the no video stand was annoying if you liked videos (as a fan I was glad to see them stop, even though I had a certain silly admiration for their willingness to do it). it's also not hypocrisy. you seem to be conflating hypocrisy with changing your mind.

Actually this was also the year they ended the ticket master boycott. I didn't realize their hypocrisy peaked 15 years ago. Maybe that's why Yield is such an upbeat record.

If it was just Ticket master and MTV, I wouldn't call them hypocrites.

Don’t look at me. This was your list.

Dog Collars: then don't buy it. it's not like that dog collar was the only way you could hear cold concession. Some fans have disposable income and want to buy that shit. More power to them

I love this - "then don't buy it". Capitalism is only wrong if someone else's doing, right Ed? "If you hate something then don't you do it too" - is kinda lost here. It's a mystery to me "we have a greed, with which we have agreed. You think you want more than you need. Until you have a dog collar or PJ trading cards you won't be free".

Okay, a few things here.

1. I think international corporate capitalism as currently practiced, is essentially just the process of criminal exploitation made legal. That doesn’t mean I don’t like buying stuff or having nice things in my life. People who are opposed to capitalism, unless they are insufferable luddites, are usually opposed to the power dynamics involved in how things are made and distributed. Who reaps the benefits? Who pays the cost? Who is exploited in the process? Who has a voice?

2. Society was not a song written by Eddie. It was an appropriately chosen cover in a biographical film about an insufferable luddite. I’m sure there is a part of Eddie that is romantically attached to that idea. There is a part of me that loves the idea of living in that dilapidated mansion in Fight Club. But then there is also the part of me that loves the framed S/T album cover in my living room.

G.R.E.E.D: I'm not sure what that stands for. Oh wait, it's greed! Money is nice. I'm not sure they ever said anything to the contrary. What matter is what you do with it, or what you would do to get it. Making dog collars available on your website does put them right next to the Koch brothers, I agree.

Yes, it's a lyric from a song called Green Disease. Nah, they never, ever preached about greed. Never. I mean "sorry is the fool who trades his sole for Pearl Jam dog collar.

I think I covered this pretty well up above. But Green Disease is a song about the harm that is inflicted upon people in the pursuit of excessive wealth, and Soon Forget is about devoting your life exclusively to the pursuit of material things at the expense of people. Neither song says ‘don’t have things in your life that make you happy’

Somewhere, Orson Welles is clapping.

[IlluminEddie]

Okay, for reasons that are becoming increasingly unfathomable to me (habit?) I'm responding to this

You can stop. If you do, I won’t also feel the need to respond.

hy•poc•ri•sy
hiˈpäkrisēSubmit
noun
1.
the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense.

The problem with the way people misuse the word hypocrisy is that they do not account for the fact that people's views may change over time as they discover new information, have different experiences, re-contextualize the old, etc. That's called learning, changing your mind, growing up, being wrong, etc. You become a hypocrite if you continue to publicly affirm one set of values while your behavior undermines those values. Eddie doesn't become a hypocrite if you can no longer hold him to things he said 5, 10, 15 years ago. He may be more or less admirable as a result, but that's not hypocrisy.

Yes, being wrong is certainly possible. However, most grown ups who were wrong and preached one lifestyle for a long, long time and “change” would say they have in the 1000s of interviews, etc.
As for time, I see no mention of time in the definition of above. I certainly agree one can change. I disagree that stip decides that time and whether one does or does not live up to the definition.

I'm not sure there is anything sadder than someone loling at their own work to help prove a point in an argument. But that's neither here nor there. And there probably are sadder things.

Anyway (this is speculation, but it seems reasonable to me) they left Sony because they wanted to be an independent artist and not be answerable to a larger corporation over artistic questions (what songs do you release, how often do you have to put out new music, etc). To control the terms under which their music is released. Perhaps you have confused Target with a record company or label. They do sell a lot of stuff. However, you would be incorrect. Target was a distribution point. If you want to sell your records in easily accessible public places you are probably going to have to use a corporation. Such is the world we live in.

I agree that they left Sony with intentions of “independence” of some sort. But, I disagree it was all art. I think there was a large element of greed, you are leaving out on purpose to try to make your point. They wanted more money. They didn’t want to pay other entities.
Target was used as their distributor. This is an organization that is in many ways similar to WalMart.
The truth is, which you’re largely ignoring, they could easily sell everything through the Ten Club. It was the late 2000s. They could have sold most of the stuff via iTunes. They could still do phycial products too. They went with the large corporation. And the reason, wasn’t because Target was knocking down their door – as I’m sure you know – it probably had to with (drum roll) money.

Now, lets move on to step two. In order to sell your wares at this distribution point you are going to have to negotiate terms with that distributor. How many units will they buy, where will they be displayed, how will they be marketed, how much will they pay for them. Sometimes a seller (in this case, the musical group Pearl Jam) is in a place to negotiate better terms for themselves if they agree to certain conditions. I suspect every previous pearl jam album (that was also sold at target, wal-mart, k-mart, etc) involved similar negotiations, carried out under the aegis of another corporation (Sony--these corporations keep popping up all over this story). In the case of the distribution of Backspacer, if Pearl Jam agreed to only sell their record through their website, independent record stores, and Target, they got more money than if they sold their record through their website, independent record stores, Target, AND Wal-Mart. Whoever did the negotiating for the musical group Pearl Jam decided that there would be a better deal to be hard at Target.

This integrity you continue to assume doesn’t exist, in my opinion. They JUST wanted more money. It was about MONEY. No matter how much you spin it. They thought the Target deal would give THEM the most MONEY. They were sick of giving that money to Sony.

This may or may not have led to the Fed's policy of QE. The current research has been inconclusive.

Not sure why this was tossed in.

I once heard a story from Adam Duritz about Ed being a d&ck to him for using their song in a Coke commercial. I always think back about when I watched the PJ Target ads.

You can type out the word ‘dick’. This is a pretty progressive forum in that way.
Yes, that was a very 90s comment for him to make. I doubt he would make it today (which is why it is not hypocritical). I don't think there is a huge difference here, but if you wanted to draw it, the Target ads did not feature The Fixer playing over pictures of other products unrelated to the music that you could buy at Target (like, for instance, coke). It played in a commercial for the album the band recorded letting people know where they could buy it. The logo of the place where it could be bought featured in the commercial.

Yeh, he can’t make it today because he’d be 100% “obviously” hypocritical in saying it. Yet, that doesn’t mean he’s not a hypocrite. He is. If he apologized, said he was wrong, then I’d agree – he’s not a hypocrite. Otherwise, we’re supposed to think he somehow still lives in that way.
They had their target sign sitting there the whole time. The product was Target!

Yes, they sell dog collars and band trading cards. Anything to make a buck. Seriously.

They used to sell t-shirts and stickers. Are these things categorically different? Were the t-shirts mass produced to cover the backs of the workers harvesting grain on our collective farms? Are these dog collars laced with asbestos because it is just cheaper and damn the consequences, we need to make money? Or, are these products they thought their fans (who eat up this collectible sort of shit--didn’t those cards sell out instantly) would enjoy. Isn’t the life of the person who gets reminded of No Code just a little bit better if they are reminded of that album every time they pet their dog. Who are you to stand in the way of that happiness? If it turns out that you are someone who can and should you should please submit a list of acceptable products that can be sold to fans. If someone owns socks or a lighter let them know if they need to be returned.

Yes, t-shirts and stickers are categorically different from dog collars coming from a “ROCK BAND”. They are doing everything they can to cash in because they know they can. The motive to cash in, ironically sounds familiar to – ummm… Ticket Master... beter yet - Wal Mart, even better - Target. They hate the consumer driven aspects, except of course, when they are benefiting from them.

It’s the job of the 10c to come up with fan stuff they think their fans are going to want to buy. Some of it is cool. Much of it isn’t, but people must like it somewhere. If you really think that they sell enough of these dog collars to keep the organization set for life and that THIS is why the band does not tour and record more frequently you’d have a stronger complaint.

I get it you defend everything that is Pearl Jam. But, seriously? The Ten Club? That place is 100% indefensible. Every argument one makes for why the Pearl Jam needs to help out the Ten Club workers, is the same argument a corporation could make to help out it’s own workers.

The place charges fans who have been supporting the band for two decades to post there. It’s a fucking joke.

Look, now they linked up with UPS to become more efficient... lol

I didn’t watch that little promo video, but presumably that is better than being less efficient?

They aren’t efficient now. Are you a Ten Club member? Anyway, it’s just tying the band to more of Fortune 500 companies. Champagne Breakfast for everyone…

Nader: i voted for Nader in 2000 and did not vote for him in 2004. Am I a hypocrite too?

Did you stand on a soapbox for an entire tour or three preaching about third parties and their importance, then bail on that thought completely?

Like most people who vote for a third party, I’m sure I was an insufferable self righteous prig about it for a while. And then I decided that it was more important to me to stop Bush than support Nader, and that my time would be better spent trying to make the democratic party more liberal than push for a third party that did not have a large enough mass base to do anything beyond throw an election to the party I usually despise.

You didn’t “stop Bush”, superhero. He served two terms.
Anyway, to answer my original question – NO, you didn’t stand on a soapbox for an entire tour or three preaching about third parties and their importance, then bail on it completely. You aren’t Ed.

Ticket Master: They did a boycott. No one joined in. Ticketmaster was not hurt by it. It made life more difficult for their fans. They lost. They stopped. Everyone's life got easier, including the fans

I know. I was at the San Fran show when he got sick. They made a big stink.. they did something about it for a bit, realized it was hard and then changed their mind.

Hard is not the same thing as utterly ineffective. And, as a fan, I was glad they decided to try and negotiate a better deal for their fans (see also, Target) and for themselves then make me drive all the way out to fucking Randall’s Island to see a show. Getting to MSG is much easier, and the lives of tens of thousands of people are tangibly better because of it.

It wouldn’t be utterly ineffective. Is it nicer for you? Yes. Capitalism does that for consumers. Walmart and Target, for example, are quite convenient.

MTV: What about it? Making videos? shit, that hypocrisy started in 1998 if that's your problem. But the no video stand was annoying if you liked videos (as a fan I was glad to see them stop, even though I had a certain silly admiration for their willingness to do it). it's also not hypocrisy. you seem to be conflating hypocrisy with changing your mind.

Actually this was also the year they ended the ticket master boycott. I didn't realize their hypocrisy peaked 15 years ago. Maybe that's why Yield is such an upbeat record.

If it was just Ticket master and MTV, I wouldn't call them hypocrites.

Don’t look at me. This was your list.

I’m not. I stand by the list.

Dog Collars: then don't buy it. it's not like that dog collar was the only way you could hear cold concession. Some fans have disposable income and want to buy that shit. More power to them

I love this - "then don't buy it". Capitalism is only wrong if someone else's doing, right Ed? "If you hate something then don't you do it too" - is kinda lost here. It's a mystery to me "we have a greed, with which we have agreed. You think you want more than you need. Until you have a dog collar or PJ trading cards you won't be free".

Okay, a few things here.
I think international corporate capitalism is essentially just the process of criminal exploitation. That doesn’t mean I don’t like buying stuff or having nice things in my life. People who are opposed to capitalism, unless they are insufferable luddites, are usually opposed to the power dynamics involved in how they are made and distributed. Who reaps the benefits? Who pays the cost? Who is exploited in the process? Who has a voice?

You do? But, ummm… Target, an international corporate company, doesn’t live up to this criminal exploitation? Neither does UPS, right? Why? Because they are affiliated now with PJ? Which companies live up to your list?

2. Society was not a song written by Eddie. It was an appropriately chosen cover in a biographical film about an insufferable luddite. I’m sure there is a part of Eddie that is romantically attached to that idea. There is a part of me that loves the idea of living in that dilapidated mansion in Fight Club
. But then there is also the part of me that loves the framed S/T album cover in my living room.

[/quote]

I know it wasn’t, but that makes it even more apt. He picked it. Once again, no matter how often you sub yourself in for him in our discussions, you aren’t him.

I think I covered this pretty well up above. But Green Disease is a song about the harm that is inflicted upon people in the pursuit of excessive wealth, and Soon Forget is about devoting your life exclusively to the pursuit of material things at the expense of people. Neither song says ‘don’t have things in your life that make you happy’

[/quote]
You didn’t write Green Disease or Soon Forget, so although you’re entitled to an opinion on what it is about, you don’t know. You’re not Ed.
The songs, to me, are about greed. And, I disagree, that they are telling people to buy PJ dog collars or pay for the ability to post on the internet.

[evenslow]

They could have sold most of the stuff via iTunes. They could still do phycial products too. They went with the large corporation.

iTunes = Apple = For a time last year, the largest corporation in the world.

[malice]

see, and I always thought buggy was eddie vedder.