Pet Peeves #9 - (Originally posted 9/23/08)

1. Calling people who aren't rock stars "Rock Stars".
Maybe I'm being elitist, but I'm really getting annoyed at who gets called a 'rock star' these days. Rock music, if I can offer a very loose definition, is music that guitar-based, not quite commercial, not always standard, is fearless and has some kind of edge. Miley Cyrus, The Jonas Brothers, Rihanna, Shakira...they are POP stars. They play commercialized, formulaic, safe music for the masses and except for a song or two where the guitarist had to dig out his lame-ass dusty distortion pedal, it is NOT ROCK MUSIC. NOT. Lil' Wayne and Jay-Z are RAP stars, NOT rock stars. C'mon, people, get it right. Motley Crue are rock stars. Metallica are rock stars. The Rolling Stones, Tina Turner, Prince, even Kid Rock, Ice-T and Good Charlotte are rock stars. Sting is still a rock star even though he's mellowed considerably. Pink could be if she wanted to. Pussycat Dolls? NO. Lindsay Lohan...you can't b/e serious. I don't care if their stylist puts them in a Motorhead shirt. I don't care how much they party like rock stars or try to. They aren't. If being called a pop star is too boring, then they need to play real rock music. But we know why pop stars won't. Playing real rock music is too risky and dangerous, which is what rock should still be about and about the other thing you need to be a real rock star - BALLS. Until Miley cranks up the amps and sings about death, pain, sex and curses - censors be damned - wear your pop princess crown with pride, honey. Because I don't care how many mags try to say you are, or how many songs title "Rock Star" you write, you will never truly be one. Sorry. I'm not dissing any of these wanna-bes, because obviously they are doing quite well for themselves. But stop aligning these people with something they're clearly not.

2. Christian organizations that send spam.
I'm sorry, there is just something fundamentally wrong with that.

3. "The Scene".
I've been a musician for a long time now and still love what I do. I am proud of the music I've made over the years with the musicians I've played with and the friends and fans I've played for. There is truly nothing like it, and if I did a memoir it would be very entertaining. But what has really been burning my biscuits is how hard some of us work to uplift a scene full of ungrateful, unprofessional and uninterested people. The fans want good music and we want to bring it to them, and some bands, venues and promoters work hours a day to support their local scene making hardly anything while the rest just seem to float, try to scam or flat out not give a shit for whatever reason. I've decided that I'm taking a break from promoting and such and concentrating on my band, the bands I manage and my colleagues who have businesses that work hard and appreciate what I bring to bear. That will be more time for my husband, my family and friends, time that isn't wasted on people who could care less or always looking for experience and knowledge for nothing and to do nothing with it. Any information or experience I glean in the future will be shared with those people who truly support. You know who you are :)

4. Don't bitch about foreign call centers if you don't do things right in the first place.
I hate calling India to fix my printer as much as the next person. However, if you were to do something non-technical and you FUBAR, or worse still, just didn't do what you should have done in the first place, don't think I'll be be sympathetic because you had to call someone you could barely understand in some developing nation to get you out of your self-made morass. Next time, DUMBASS pay attention to your work. The only good thing about outsourcing is that people here actually take more care doing something because they don't want to call the foreign help desk and get someone who you can call "AJ"...and that was last thing he said you understood. Which brings me to #5...

5. Stop selling our country out by outsourcing to foreign countries.
It's becoming more and more apparent that if you're American and looking for a job, maybe you should move to India or China or South America or the Phillipines since that's were the jobs - our jobs - went. Big business loves outsourcing. It saves money, which keeps the shareholders happy (don't you love how when a company lays off people their stock goes up?). The American that used to do that job that was supporting his family and is now applying for unemployment...not so much. You know who else isn't happy? Workers like me who are grateful for the job they have but really hates this outsourcing shit for two really good reasons - our fellow Americans getting laid off by the thousands and the fact that outsourcing DOES NOT IMPROVE EFFICIENCY. If our system farted and we couldn't do our work, I used to be able to leave my cubicle, walk 25 feet and get our IT guy to come over and fix it so I could get right back to work. Now, I have to fill out a form. Then I have to go to what's left of the IT department (everyone else was laid off) and THEY fill out a form. They then call a number which routes through the Philippines to India to put in a ticket, then I have to call India with the details of my problem. I'm already pissed off because I've already wasted 20-30 minutes, and now I'm talking to some dude I can't understand and getting more and more pissed because I'm asking him to repeat just about EVERYTHING that come out of his mouth. I really love the part when they ask how important my situation is on a scale of 1-4, and do I feel it needs to be taken care of immediately. ARE WE KIDDING? WOULD YOU FIX THE MOTHERFUCKER BEFORE I FLY WHERE YOU ARE, AND TAKE YOUR HEADSET, AND CRAM IT UP YOUR ASS, PLEASE! YES, THIS IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE UNTIL IT'S FIXED MY ENTIRE MOTHERFUCKING DEPARTMENT CAN'T DO OUR MOTHERFUCKING JOBS, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Then I have to wait anywhere from 1-2 HOURS (or more) before they get around to fixing my problem. This is efficiency? This is worth selling out America and saving a few bucks?