Thursday, September 9, 2010

Common Ground


So The Ruler of the Universe wants every planet to elect a genre of music that most embodies its cultural and historical identity. This music will be broadcast to all space craft within 5 days travel distance in all directions from the planet, thus serving to welcome weary travelers and tourists. On the second Weekend of November, everybody will play their favorite music, and The Ruler of the Universe will tour the world and select the type of music heard most consistently.

Citizens of Earth were very excited about the chance to show off their good taste and witness the collective good taste of their civilization. There were even some reality shows where a couple dozen people lived in a big house and had to vote one another out based on their taste in music. Every show would erupt into bickering about vague generalizations about culture and human behavior, and every single debate would end with nothing settled and nothing learned, with people agreeing that everybody has a right to express their opinion.

With news of the musical election, the Subterranean Storage Dwellers recently started integrating themselves into society; or at least the parts that didn't bother them. The Subterranean Storage Dwellers are a society of mostly white men who decided that they aren't very fond of social interaction... or people. Since they couldn't crawl back into their mothers' wombs with all the the ammunition they were carrying, they decided to live in the closest thing they could devise: an underground 7' x 7' concrete enclosure with pink walls. "Somebody" (and nobody knows who) feeds them buckets of leftovers from the nearest Ponderosa Steakhouse buffet three times per day. It absolutely has to be Ponderosa. Jim Baker of Sheridan, WY was once caught accepting leftovers from the Golden Corral Buffet. The overlords of the society of Subterranean Storage Dwellers held a press conference announcing to the world that Jim Sheridan was not a true Subterranean Lard Creature but a pale obese misanthrope in a pink concrete box. The rest of the world couldn't tell the difference so they ignored it entirely as they have always done. The Subterranean Storage Dwellers held chapter meetings across the land to decide what music they will select. It was a short meeting because they have all done the exact same things at the exact same time as one another and have had the exact same experiences, so there was only one song even suggested.

So the big day came and the world was was full of rhythm and melody. The Ruler of the of the Universe was scanning the world with all the state-of-the-art sound data collection devices and hearing all completely different types of music:

Jazz. Country. Baroque. Rockabilly. Ska. First Generation Ska Revival. Second Gen. Ska Revival. Third Gen Ska Revival. Fourth Gen Ska Revival. Dubstep. New Wave. Hardcore. Grindcore. Metalcore. Nerdcore. Spazcore. Zydeco. Zouk. Rap. Romanian Techno. Romanian Trance. Transylvanian Romantic Techno. Edgar Winter Group. Pat Metheny Group. Blue Man Group. 9 Nordic Men Pouring a Bag of Wrenches Upon an Upturned Drum Kit Group. Spanish Gypsy Music. R & B. Tenacious D. Prog Rock. Kraut Rock. Pirate Rock. Crocodile Rock. Jam. Jock Jams. Mamie Jams. Indie. Folk. Tecnho. Indie folk with a little techno thrown in for good measure. World. Goth Industrial. Spanish Art Song. French Art Song. Old Fart Song. Pan flute.

-70% of Earth's population played no music, ostensibly because they didn't know how to operate a stereo or are indifferent to music altogether.

-28 million people said "Aaawwww shiiiit, that's my jam, yo!" 27.99 million were trying to be ironic.

-7 million relationships ended over song choices.

-11 Million people thought to themselves that they would have chosen a more obscure Radiohead song.

The Ruler of the Universe couldn't make any sense of it all except that he heard one song most often: "Margaritaville". It was initially announced that Classic Rock was the official genre of Earth, but the Subterranean Storage Dwellers protested that they only voted for "Margaritaville", nothing else. The rest of the world vehemently protested in one big garbled mess of colliding voices that the Ruler of the Universe couldn't understand and, given that the rest of the universe was still to be visited, didn't have time to figure out. So throughout the universe, Earth is represented specifically by the song "Margaritaville", while other planets treat listeners to an entire genre of music with immense variety and enchanting nuance. Whenever other beings headed towards Earth carrying new technology, culture, and cures to the latest diseases, they had to endure 5 days of nonstop "Margaritaville". In the first 3 months, 307 spacecraft intended to visit Earth, every single one turned around in less than 10 hours.

Slorb Sarzlebarts has it tough. He works two jobs and commutes across the galaxy once a month. He uses a shortcut that takes him right past Earth, which meant that he now had to listed to "Margaritaville" for 5 days going towards Earth, and another 5 days once he passes it... so 10 days straight during his monthly commute, "Margaritaville". He spent a while trying to decide if he would rather avoid the shortcut and add a week to his commute or just endure the torture. Then he remembered his planet-vaporizing proton laser. He scolded himself for considering that an option. "These poor fuckers must really have it rough," he thought. "It's probably all one huge misunderstanding that they selected "Margaritaville" as their best representation. They are probably trying to contact the Ruler of the Universe right now to correct the situation." Slorb decided to approach Earth's atmosphere and listen to our non-"Margaritaville" transmissions. The first thing he picked up was an FM radio talk show where some maniac was yelling at someone who called in to their talk show, "Do you not like hearing "Margaritaville"? If not, then you must hate Earth, and I don't think you should be entitled to the same freedoms we all enjoy. If you don't like "Margaritaville", then you should just move to another planet because you are a real threat to our culture and our happiness. Everybody loves Margaritaville. Our troops fought and died for Margaritaville!" Slorb navigated to a safe distance and mercifully destroyed Earth, and the rest of the universe pretended not to notice, but they marveled as a mysterious remote cloud of debris spiraled brilliantly into the sun like salt spilled from a shaker.

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