am going to be on Howard Stern’s show on Wednesday.
Even though he has trashed me in the past, I have said nasty things about nearly everyone who is living or dead – so fuck it, I am not gonna cast the first stone. I am horrified that our First Amendment Rights are being eroded and that we have less and less of a voice in the media. Dissidents are being charged with breaking the rules. Even the most minor infractions are punishable by monstrous fines and people cannot risk speaking up for themselves because they could lose their jobs, or have illicit pornography dropped into their computers, or be brought before a New World Order Joseph McCarthy and be forced to snitch on all the other shock jocks.
“Have you now or ever been a shock jock?”
“Have you now or ever had strippers in your studio?”
I never understood the phenomenon of strippers on the
air. How can you hear titties?
I don’t listen to any radio. I don’t have one. I listen to hip- hop downloaded from iTunes. Don’t you just love the iPod revolution? But I stick with music and read the news online. I believe that if the content of anyone’s art is offensive to you, don’t listen. You have the power to free yourself from the airwaves. We’d been going along peacefully with the notion that we are allowed to say whatever we like, even bend the rules a bit, as long as we were still considered American. As long as we were still free.
I got a package this weekend, from a young woman in the military, stationed in Iraq. She’s a pilot in the Air Force, and her squadron watched my DVDs to keep up morale when they felt like there wasn’t anything left to smile about. She included a group photograph, about ten men and women, dusty and tired, glasses raised up to me in the dark blue desert night. They are so young, their faces practically embryonic that it is heartbreaking. They should be home, going to college, learning about physics and art. As a gesture of thanks, she sent me an American flag. I have never had one before. It came with a document that said the flag had been on a plane over Iraq in my honor, and that my name was added to the long list of freedom fighters who battle at home as well as overseas. I wanted to cry, because the freedom that we are fighting for, all over the world, is not being given freely. We fight, but when will our battles become crimes? We speak for freedom, but when will we be held accountable for it?We may lose our livelihood, but the kids out there might lose their lives.