To whom it may concern:

Why you dirty sonsabitches.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that you have half the free world walking the earth wearing headsets and babbling to themselves during every free moment in their waking lives and the other half falling victim to the rude inconsideration of your “network” or “army” or “master race” or whatever the shit you choose to call it. Now, in the midst of our culture’s raging hard-on for expanding technology to the breaking point of Matthew Broderickian global thermonuclear war, it seems you have chosen to strike a blow directly to the proud society of which I count myself a member. I speak, of course, of the music snob.

One of your foot soldiers was kind enough to demonstrate to me a new V CAST product by the name of Song ID. Frankly, I was appalled. Just point your phone in the direction of an audible song and voilà! Song title, artist, album. Suddenly, I knew the exact feeling of that fatal gut-blow that any hard-working red-blooded American factory worker feels when he is forcibly removed from his long-held post and replaced with a… a machine.

Do you realize how long I sat in my room reading liner notes? Listening to countless songs? Memorizing every little bleep, whistle, opening riff and bassline that crossed my waiting ears? Do you realize how little I got laid for my sacrifice? Fuck you, dear verizonites. Fuck you until it’s quite uncomfortable down there.

Throughout my music trivia endeavors, I had but one dream. To be the friend who everyone turns to in that moment of utmost despair. To hear that most begrudging of phrases uttered: “Hey, what song is this?”

What joy rushed through my system as my mind calculated the answer faster than a speeding Yngwie Malmsteen riff, as if running into the phone booth of music snobbery and exiting as, well, that guy who knows every fucking song there is.

And oh, the phone calls! Those late-night drunken barroom inquiries seeking my exquisite skills for myriad drunken conversations, bets and quizzo rounds. I am on call 24/7, you heartless cellular Nazis! But now, I fear the calls may cease.

Now, any moronic bastard with your V CAST technology can simply point their phone and get the information they need. I bet you think you’re pretty goddamned smart, don’t you Verizon? But you know what they can’t get? They can’t get my explanation of how there’d be no Siamese Dream without Queen II. Or how Black Sabbath’s sound of doom emerged when their guitarist’s fingertips were cut off in a factory accident. Or how Buddy Holly fucked everything that moved while on tour. Or how Bono sucks. And he does, Verizon. That bastard sucks fat old cocks. A lot.

So, until you can do more than spit out cold song titles, I say you are inferior, and I will take the John Henry challenge any old day of the fucking week. I highly doubt you have The Frogs “Grandma Sitting in the Corner with a Penis in Her Hand Going No No No No No” in your database, and I bet you’re shit out of luck when it comes to insulting people’s awful music tastes in a witty way that thinly veils your low self confidence and urgent superiority complex. Ha! Take that, you dirty sonsabitches.

Sincerely,

Arod McFoolish
Better Than You