19 years ago today (8/22), the Korean Broadcast System interviewed me in New York about dissent in America after 9/11. A quaint issue by today's standards. They even used my song "George Bush, What's Your Problem?" as the bumper music. These are the results:

"George Bush, What's Your Problem?" is the special bonus track on Vol. 1 of my greatest hits albums, Sideburns in the Sun. The first 4 greatest hits albums are available as a name-your-price deal on Bandcamp, though you can listen to them on YouTube if you like.

Which is a carefully-manufactured opportunity to remind you that a 20% discount applies to everything on my Bandcamp through September 18th. Use the discount code "birthday" at checkout.

"Four shillings was a perfectly reasonable price to charge, considering the very heavy initial outlay I had incurred: still, as the Public have practically said, 'We will not give more than a shilling for a picture-book, however artistically got-up,' I am content to reckon my outlay on the book as so much dead loss, and, rather than let the little ones, for whom it was written, go without it, I am selling it at a price which is, to me, much the same thing as giving it away." Lewis Carroll, Preface to the 1896 edition of Through The Looking-Glass

The greatest hits albums have always been intended for promotional use, a starting point for people who are completely unfamiliar with my work. If you hear something you like, go the extra, necessary mile and peruse the discography until you find the album you like best. Then, please do buy something.

Anything less has the potential of devolving into voyeurism. Looking through the bedroom windows of your own culture is creepy. To stand on the outskirts in order to catch a peek at the upskirts of culture, browsing the aisles of other people's lives with binoculars of noncommittal entitlement indefinitely, while leering at them from the bushes like a scumbag,

Is to become a culture creep of the lowest, most high-down kind. "High-down" meaning, low-down by way of lecherous, sanctimonious entitlement. The only thing any of us are entitled to is destruction, death, and hellfire. Everything else is a gift.

Everything.

And I do mean sanctimonious entitlement.  I recently received a comment on one of my YT videos in which the commenter informed me that he didn't have anything to say about the "content," but that he was commenting solely to boost my position in the almighty algorithm, the artless, soul-proof machine we are all expected to subjugate ourselves to.

Which was an act of such magnificent benevolence, the commenter actually assumed my gratitude for it, to the point that he ended the comment by saying "you're welcome," a presumptuous, self-important sentiment that bored me so immediately and aggressively, I had no choice but to delete the comment on impact. It was a reflex. Like swatting a fly, or crushing a scorpion with your bootheel.

"I don't care about you or your work at all. You're welcome."

It actually leaves me speechless. It's like watching the waiter unzip his pants and urinate in your soup. The act transcends both credulity and belief. "I have ignored you with such totality, I actually assume you will be grateful for my ambivalence. Enjoy your soup."

Welcome to the machine.

It shouldn't come as a surprise, but not all of us are insecure enough to actually be motivated by followers and likes. Followers are creepy. Jim Jones had followers. Charles Manson. Christ. You have to be the literal Messiah, whether true, false, drug-induced, or otherwise, to have actual followers. Nobody ever said they were a follower of the Pogues, or Jack Kerouac, or the Ramones. Cult leaders and social-engineering projects have followers.  Artists, actors, writers, and the like, have fans.

Not only are they not the same,

They are opposites.

Anyway, if none of this applies to you, and you haven't outsourced your heart, mind, and soul to any of the behavior-modification platforms we're being conditioned to accept as not only normal, but necessary,

Head on over to the consignment shelf at the cultural thrift store, where the provider of the shelf space is considered more valuable and important than the secondhand items scattered like the shrapnel of a long-since exploded culture on the shelf,

A.k.a. my Bandcamp,

(We've traded our bands for bandwidth)

And consider actually buying something. I have been living on the side of the road far too long to be anything but truly grateful.

Thanks for listening.

p.s. August 22nd also happens to be the release date of Wild Hearts Forever, one of my personal favorite albums of mine. While no album has any filler to the one writing and recording it, Wild Hearts Forever is uniquely concise and to the point. Like a scale model of a greatest hits album. With live standards such as "When You Go To Hell," and "It's What It's (Hell reprise)" (reprise due to the fact that both songs have the exact same unchanging 3-chord pattern on a loop),

In addition to low-key numbers like "Wild Orchid," and "Farewell Song Sweet From My Trees," 

Wild Hearts Forever remains an undeniable highlight of my discography. If you're looking for a recommendation, there are worse places to start.

The soup, for instance. Don't order the soup. If you drop a bowl of soup in the shower, don't pick it up. You heard it here last.

Thanks again.