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Excerpts from Electric Degeneration, Degenerate Press' semi-weekly e-zine, free and ad-free. A full episode contains sections for music reviews, upcoming events, blasphemy, classifieds, and anything else we feel like saying. If you'd like to subscribe just contact us.

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6/25/2000

EARPLUGS
Friday we vegitated instead of hitting the Catfight/6x/Scooter's new band
show at Dottie's. Just too beat to get off our seat. However, a roving
degenerate attended the show and gave it the thumbs up. "I wish Scooter and
Lara would get back together, they're voices work well together."
Amen.
And we were too demotivated to get to Athfest this weekend - anyone go?
Send us a report!
Back at the ranch, things were falling together so smoothly for the
Summertime Blast I was waiting for the other show to fall.
It fell.
I've never had my grand finale act cancel one week before the show but due
to family illness X-Impossibles can't make it. So if you're in a loud,
raucous band that will play for beer, barbecue and explosives contact us
IMMEDIATELY. Other fringe benefits to be discussed. As mentioned, this is a
free party so we can't pay in cash but every act that has played this gig
before has had a blast.
All the other acts on the bill are still on the bill so I'm sure we'll all
manage to have ample fun and nobody but me will be saying "Gee, wish
X-Impossibles had been here" come Sunday morning.

BLASPHEMY
Last episode's smoking commentary has sparked a debate, as usual. Here's a
response from degenerate RVI:
Degenerate MB, in his/her response to the editor's frustration at being
required to obtain cigarettes in order to get into an event, takes the
easy way out of a difficult problem. "Hey you, I can understand being
frustrated with being "excluded" because you are a non-smoker, however,
this event would have never even taken place without the marketing
dollars from Camel...." Nor would the event have taken place without
participants, MB, and amongst those participants are people who do not
smoke, some out of moral conviction and some out of a pragmatic concern
over their health. Are such things as morality and health to take a
backseat to some multinational's expenditure of ad money? I would hope
the answer is 'no,' though I know, with too many people, it is 'yes.'
"You had choices: Join the fun "under the tent" sponsored by the
Camel folks and deal with these "hoops", park and watch the movie with
your friends or not deal with it at all and rent the movies and watch
'em at home....It's not really about "excluding" non-smokers...." The
term 'problematic' is not harsh enough to describe this statement.
There is all the difference in the world in excluding people from an
event based on their possession of something versus banning people from
an event based on REQUIRING their possession of an item. Especially
when the item in question is hazardous to one's health.
If a company was requiring everyone to show up and consume pork products
at its events, it would automatically exclude Jewish people and Moslems
who, because of religious/moral reasons do not touch pork. This is
especially so if the events did not inherently involve the consumption
of pig flesh (e.g. you've got to eat a barbeque sandwich to get into a
truck pull or a pool hall). Such a situation would be easily seen as
discriminatory in the worst sense of the word. With a little more
imagination, it is not too difficult to see that someone who objects to
cigarettes on moral grounds is in the same boat as the Jew or Moslem in
reguards to pork - if you exclude him from a Camel event because he
doesn't buy or use smokes, you have violated his right to avoid
cigarettes while attending public events.
And don't hand me any arguments about the drive-in in question being a
public site - it is not the possession of a club and no one has to
belong to the club to enter. Plus it is questionable at this point
whether a club based on tobacco use would have full legal status because
tobacco's claim on being completely legal is in jeopardy at this point.
"I really don't think Camel is out to exclude anyone that isn't a
smoker, it's just the regulatory blah blah they have to go through to
market their products...........................besides, if it
infuriated you so much, why did you go through all the hoops you did to
get into the tent? You could have just joined your smoking friends and
watched the movie? Don't you think it's a bit hypocritical to be angry
about this because of the industry politics, then sneak around the
politics and then write about it?"
First, if the editor hadn't snuk past 'the politics,' he couldn't have
written about it for the rest of us, could he? As an underground
journalist without press credentials, there is no way for a writer to
report about events unless he at times dodges the rules. It isn't so
much hypocricy as it is guerrilla warfare. The real question remains,
so far as I am concerned though, not whether people should sneak through
Camel's requirements to see an event, but whether Camel has any right at
all to require anyone to possess cigarettes as a passport into its
sponsored events in the first place.
degenerate RVI

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