You Damn Kids? Get Off My Intellectual Property Lawn!

Ok, this is kind of a load of bullcrap. A Flaming Lips web forum of which I was unaware until a couple of days ago and only joined in order to better manage what was being linked to my blog under my name, has banned me from their site. Call the Uh-Oh Squad!

Slow Nerve Action (http://www.slow-nerve-action.com/), an UNOFFICIAL fan-based Flaming Lips web forum must literally ejaculate when Kliph, the drummer, decides to post something on occasion, like it's The Fucking Rapture. They revere his words and opinions.  As per my last (exhaustingly drone-ish) blog, I waved my beef about Kliph's "we can speak for ourselves, we don't need you interfering, who the fuck do you think you are?" and all this bullshit Wayne's spewing about drugs, et al, and I will go to my grave with my heart in the right place for attempting to defend my friend, which I believe he would understand inside his own heart and mind, though he himself vocalized the absurdity of his personal life being dissected online on Twitter this morning. (By the way, Kliph...you're not using Sunflower Broadband on a Mac in Lawrence, KS, or am I mixing you up with another freakazoid? It's been such a whirlwind day that I lost count of the visits from this particular place. And, like, how many times do you have to read it over again before you, you know, understand it, whomever you are?)

Was I wrong in openly defending Steven's well-being amid rumors of his untimely demise? I still don't think I was, but IF I was, that's between Steven and me, not a web forum, not the rest of the band, no one. I wasn't touting "Oh, I know stuff y'all don't know and I'm going to pontificate!" I was simply interested in, on the web forum, monitoring how *I* was being quoted, how *my* statements were being twisted around, and to clarify snippets of my own writing with regard to the Rolling Stone article versus what I knew to be (here we go again) verities and what was balderdash about the whole shebang, all stemming from statements attributed to Coyne himself regarding members of his own band, who are his friends.

Here's what the dopes at Slow Nerve Action don't seem to understand, because they're probably all ON dope. I never would've gotten involved in your cliquey bollocks and retarded favoritism had you not overtly, publicly, blatantly violated MY, um, we call them "INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS." Most of you, at the time, appreciated my clarification and contribution to your little site, hell, some of you even endorsed it and encouraged others to read it further. But reading it is one thing. Linking to it or quoting from it is quite another, and no, at no time did I give anyone my permission to do so.

I'm sure, in the forum members' dissection of my own work, they never scrolled down to the little statement at the bottom of each blog page that says this:

c Andrea C. Miklasz, All Rights Reserved. May not be reproduced or distributed without permission.. 

And what was the forum doing? Reproducing and distributing my original writing, links to it, and quotes from it without my permission. Hi, guys. That's ILLEGAL. If you don't understand that as an example, as perhaps it's too literal for your small brains and pot-soaked synapses to wrap around, maybe you'll understand this example:

Wayne Coyne turns on his TV to sit and have a cup of coffee in the morning, over his English muffins, and a commercial comes on featuring "Feeling Yourself Disintegrate" in an advertisement for ant and roach spray. "What? I didn't license my song to RAID!?! What the fuck? They didn't ASK me if they could use our song! Get Booker on the phone and let's sue!" he says. "My song's not about killing roaches!  They misheard me!" Wayne says. All discombobulated, copyright attorneys, managers, accountants and The Guy Who Tunes the Guitars all get together and find out, trace, and locate how the fuck the song got in the godforsaken commercial in the first place, when Coyne/Drozd/Ivins and their publishing company didn't expressly grant the Raid Company their permission, nor were they paid any due royalties, for the use of their material in a context, place, time, or mind-frame sanctioned by the intellectual property owners (they themselves or their publishing company, whoever oversees that stuff). 

Just because I write a blog that's published online and is open to the public doesn't a) mean I somehow don't own all it or b) give anyone permission to, while at first I appreciated the virtual nod and the traffic, rub me on a cheese grater over a piece I wrote on music publication criticism (Rolling Stone) regarding ill-founded rumors about a friend of mine who deserves more than the benefit of the doubt, only to be forcefully banned from a forum I wanted nothing to do with in the first place, but felt the need to watch. I didn't HAVE to speak up and introduce myself. I could've joined and not said a word, and none of you would've been any the wiser. But just as I don't hide behind a pen name, I don't hide, period. Being a silent observer of how my work is distributed doesn't suit my personality and is but one mark of an honest-to-God writer. 

And what's doubly ironic? I'm still getting dozens, if not hundreds of hits to the blogs about the Lips directed from Slow Nerve Action or other exterior links, or Googles, or bookmarks, etc. They banished me from their little web world for being intrusive, then turn around and hang on my every word on my personal blog. In reading what's left of the thread about the upcoming album, "The Terror," whomever moderates the board decided to get rid of all of the Annie-Action, drug-talk/speculation and happy hoohah. So they created a *new* topic to follow, just based on *Wayne's* drug use speculation. Enjoy. You all know how much Wayne appreciates the publicity and idolatry that turns a profit, even, it would seem, at the expense of how others might feel or be affected personally. Up to the point where these 2 interviews were published, I had nothing but love in my heart for Wayne. He has lost quite a bit of credibility and respect as a result of his recent stunts.

What particular sentence that I wrote unnerved the Slow Nerve Action readers the most, I think? My exclamation to Kliph, in my blog yesterday, in which I said, "I'm a writer, sir. I have been trained in manipulating dialogue to form a fictional but contextually accurate piece of prose. " THAT statement, which was taken UTTERLY out of context, painted me as a fiction writer, when I'm not. Like I'm making all this shit up.  My life might live out like a fucking Harlequin bad romance novel, or a modern-day adaptation of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," but it's MY life story, and that of my friends, peers, loved ones, mentors, lovers, siblings, band, family, down to the pastor of my church. What I implied, and, again, the "slow-nervers" didn't pick up on, was the fact that I could see the forest for the trees with regard to the implications in the Rolling Stone review. 

Someone on the board suggested I write record reviews. I mentioned that I actually had, in the past, to the extent where I did a semester-long music criticism (live shows and records) independent study under the guidance of and being mentored by former Chicago Sun-Times rock critic (now on NPR and his own blog), Jim DeRogatis, who coincidentally wrote the official fucking book on The Flaming Lips, "Staring at Sound: The True Story of Oklahoma's Fabulous Flaming Lips." So much has changed in the lives of the Lips since the publication of that book that perhaps it's time DeRogatis amended or updated it, for it reflects the band from inception to a tiny microcosm of the present-at-the-time.  Consider the original Lips blog I wrote, about the Rolling Stone magazine, a piece of music or literary criticism, if you will, that happened to involve the reputation of someone I know, so my stake in the criticism was a bit more heart-felt and personal. 

Ok, Chickie Babies, you can go back to your vague and quasi-humorous, yet utterly, ultimately clueless fandom. I guess that some of you are douchebags must really ring true. Just don't ever expect to quote me again, reference my blog's URL, talk about me personally, or otherwise misuse the information and words presented on this blog, for I it belongs to ME, without my expressed written consent. Or I'm coming for you....

Ok, new creepy stalking-worthy people? Why are you Googling "Andrea Mlkesz drummer blog Steven Drozd?" Fuck, if you want to google me, at least look at my page more closely where my name is SPELLED CORRECTLY. Fucktard.