Greg Stereo

I like the premise of Joe Trippi’s book, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything“; but I like the lyrics of the original song even more:

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o’clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver’s seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

The 21st Century Revolution is over, and they have won. Big Pharma, Big Media, and Big Politics have won – and note that I am not including Big Government in the list of winners.

They’ve taken over “our” media online. We’ve sacrificed privacy in exchange for free web services and cheap applications. We’ve sacrificed our free will for video games and cheap, scandalous amusement. As usual, the current search trends on the major search engines show what we as a culture are really interested in:

March Madness, the latest wardrobe malfunction, and some pills that will make us better in bed or have lower cholesterol like magic. Sign me up, all I need is a bracket, a bypass, and a bottle of pills. Better living through chemistry was the funny term we used to use for self-medication. Now it’s legitimized by advertising about the latest miracle cure to shed those unwanted pounds, get it up more often, and find the gold at the end of the non-existent rainbow.

Need some entertainment while you’re waiting for that pill to kick in? No problem, here you go, we have 57 channels of Ultimate Mixed Martial Arts combat! Here you go America, watch these pituitary cases bash each other’s brains in (to slightly update and paraphrase the late, great Bill Hicks). Go back to bed America, we are in control.

Get the book “Love All The People“, edited by John Lahr and presenting the best of Hicks’ philosophies, for some light reading. You can also buy Bill Hicks’ DVD’s and CD’s online, or go to youtube to see some video clips of his genius, or find them at fine retailers everywhere hardly anyhwere in the States. Hicks still isn’t that popular in his own homeland. So much for the artists being appreciated more when they are dead.

We’ve been lulled into thinking that we want all smoke and no fire. Fire burns and is hard to figure out. Smoke is interesting to watch but illusory.

Speaking of which, there’s a pill for that – just take it to quit smoking. Then go back to bed, America, your government is in control.

While you’re drifting off, think about who the government really is….sweet dreams:

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