Green Day Are Idiots

At the company I work for, if I were to cuss all the time, peppering each sentence with expletives, I would get warned, then fired.

End of story.

There are certain standards that places of business have, that, like it or not, they stick by.

It's easy for me not to cuss at work, because I don't cuss anyway. Not to say that I haven't, but it's not part of my vocabulary any more. My choice.

But this week, Green Day, a band I must say I don't like in the first place, are bad-mouthing Walmart for refusing to sell their cuss-word laden newest CD, 21st Century Breakdown.

Turns out that Walmart is the country's largest music seller, and Green Day refused to offer an edited version of their latest CD, something that's been done by other artists for decades now.

I think it is fine, even good that Green Day refuses to offer an edited version. Nobody can make them, but what galls me is that they turn around and state that Walmart should be made to carry "their art."

Uh, uh, there Bill Joe and Mike, you little pencil-necked, pip-squeaks, can't have that both ways.

If you can't be bothered to offer a cuss-word free version of your CD, then certainly Walmart doesn't have to bother to sell your original version if it falls below their standards.

When you guys play concerts, can you shoot off huge columns of fire in small venues? Nope.

Can you perform sex acts in your concerts in any American venue and not expect to be arrested? Nope.

Likewise, Walmart has, for decades, had a standard of musical content that they sell. Simply cussing on your CD is over the mark, as far as Walmart is concerned.

You knew that when you made the recording, and now you're whining about it.

Boo, hoo, hoo. Go home and cry in your piles of money.

You know, and I know, that your real fans will buy it at Best Buy or on Amazon, so your complaining about Walmart sounds pretty darn pathetic.

I don't get upset when I hear folks cuss, but gee whiz, to expect a company to sell my product when it goes against their long-standing practice?

Please, this is America.

If Walmart won't sell it, you know others will.

"Wal-Mart's become the biggest retail outlet in the country, but they won't carry our record because they wanted us to censor it," frontman Billie Joe Armstrong griped to the press. "They want artists to censor their records in order to be carried in there. We just said no. We've never done it before. You feel like you're in 1953 or something."

Billie Joe continued: "If you think about bands that are struggling or smaller than Green Day...to think that to get your record out in places like that, but they won't carry it because of the content and you have to censor yourself. I mean, what does that say to a young kid who's trying to speak his mind making a record for the first time? It's like a game that you have to play. You have to refuse to play it." Added bassist Mike Dirnt, more succinctly but just as effectively: "As the biggest record store in the America, [Wal-Mart] should probably have an obligation to sell people the correct art."

Walmart HAS NO obligation to sell anything they don't want to.