i seem to get a lot of bulletins and mass texts that start off with "Hello, friends" or "Hey, friends" or just simply "FRIENDS"-and then it goes on to tell me about some totally rad Dj night or alcohol funded "party" or mud wrestling/pumpkin carving contest. now i know we all get these--fuck, we all SEND these-and i have no problem with this. it's called "networking", right? and even though i hate that meaningless word as much as i hate "multitasking" or "millenials" (and puh-leeze! can you alt-rag music writers stop with "earworms"?)--i get it. i mean i'm writing this on myspace for chrissakes. and, hey-i wanna be kept in the loop, too. i mean, who wants to miss out on free black/grey swan/goose from 9 pm to 9:13 pm at lumen's, huh? certainly not me. BUT-what i do have a problem with is this irresponsible use of the word 'friend'. it's smarmy. if i'm such a friend why do i only ''hear'' from you in mass texts? i have more respect for mass texts that read, 'hey, all you fuckers!' at least with that i know where i stand. the respect level feels pretty consistent. no mixed signals there. but 'friends'? i'm not sure if i'm even comfortable with 'acquaintance'--chances are that i was pretty drunk when we met and i'd have trouble picking you out of anyone's top 8. not your fault--some people are good with names-some are good with faces. i suck at both.

i'd like to think this gross misuse of the word ''friends'' may have started with the lcd soundsystem track 'all my friends'. makes sense-this seems to be a fairly hipsterish problem/delusion--and the alt-rags tell me that mr. murphy is the clown king of hipsters (love that picture of you with espresso cup, jim). add to that equation the overall general excellence of that song and i think we're on to something. but i doubt very much that john mcCain has 'the sound of silver' in his i-tunes. and this guy uses the word "friends" like paris hilton uses ACTUAL friends (although, i suppose her friends deserve quotation marks, too). but what makes his use of the word that much more disingenuous is the inclusion of "my"---"my friends". "my FRIENDS'. so fucking galling. i'd rather listen to a million of palin's ''you betcha''s than endure just one more of mcCain's "my friends". dude, i'm not your friend-in fact i'm probably one of those americans that you call un-american (sound logic, sir. the fundamentals of that logic are SO strong). so stop smiling that creepy grin at me and stop prefacing everything with that condescending "my friends'' spoken in that pinched, aggravated voice of yours. it's a stinking, belching lie. and while we're on the subject : who the fuck are your friends? who will you be sending out the e-vites to? who will be coming out to your slammin' Dj night? i know you used to be friends with bush-but you guys don't appear to be so tight anymore. and besides, didn't he used to talk shit about you back in the day? like in 2000? biden says he's your friend-but i KNOW he talks shit about you----i'd watch my back with that one. and palin's your soul mate--sooo i'd rule that one out-sex always ruins the friendship. trust me, dude. so who's that leave? joe the plumber? yeah, you guys are obvious homies-there's no way that he's just using you to get his 15 minutes of soul sucking fame. and you obviously aren't using him to demonize obama and pretend that you AREN'T a rich fuck with 13 cars, 8 houses, and a family with a net worth of 136 million. so, you go on with your bad self, mickey-C. you and joe the plunger can go ahead and party down. make sure you bring plenty of nickleback. and if the plumber dude turns out to be a total tool (did i really?)-don't worry you've still got cheney in your corner.....but i'm pretty sure that-just like the entire republican party-he's just using you to get to palin. and hopefully, the last time i'll ever have to hear you call me your "friend" is this wednesday-during your fucking concession speech. now THAT's gonna be a party worthy of a mass text. holla!



scott