So. Where was I? Right. I was telling you how I became the hippy festival hatin, fuck experimental art and music, money hungry corporate scum that I am now.
And I am hungry. It’s nine am. Time to go to work.
It all started that Friday afternoon, when I was booked to play Soundcloud’s company party. I really almost didn’t take the gig, because the words “company party” are a huge red flag, almost as bad as “trust me, this is gonna be the best festival you’ve ever seen in your life.”
When I think company party, I imagine a room with a stage at the front and a bar at the back and a comedian on stage, sweating bullets and tapping on the mic saying, “is this thing on?” and “hey guys, can you hear me ok” as the roar of drunkin conversations drowns him, like a guy floating on the remains of a ship wreck as the company scum all stand back at the bar sucking down the free drinks and yelling to each other about how cool they are and how they wish that annoying little piss ant would shut up for five minutes.
So when my friend called me about the booking, I was still skeptical.
Here was our conversation.
“They want a comedian.” She said.
“I bet they do. No thanks.”
“Seriously. They’re cool.”
“No, their not. They’re dicks. They’ll talk over me and make me feel useless while they get drunker and meaner and drunker some more.”
“It’s on a boat.”
“Even worse, they ignore me until I’m done, then one guy will puke on me in the middle of telling me how horrible it was.”
“They’re gonna pay you XX,XXX euros.”
“WAIT, did you say XX,XXX euros? ARE YOU SERIOUS?”
“No, I’m just trying to make you look Super cool on this blog post, but they will pay you decently.”
“OK. But I still think it’s gonna suck.”
And now I’m gonna do what I gotta do. It’s something I hate doing and it’s something I don’t do very often.
I must admit, I was wrong.
I was wrong.
It wasn’t only fun, it was amazing. On the top of a boat, with the seats all full and yes, some people in the back talking, ok, and they were drinking too, but they didn’t obnoxiously ruin me, and more importantly, they were behind a group of people all paying attention and wanting to laugh at my stupid humor.
They were more than a decent crowd, they were a good crowd, even the two little kids in the front row. Even they were laughing.
Dumbest joke of the day?
“Hey look guys, come on, you think this is fun for me? Come on, we’re all in the same boat here.”
Ah, good times.
And it was good times, so I have to now OFFICIALLY let you know that SOUNDCLOUD is very high on my list of companies that doesn’t suck Satan’s cock.
And as the boat docked at that mansion in the middle of nowhere, and someone asked me,
“Hey, you stickin around?”
I thought,
“Why not, you nerds are pretty fuckin cool.”
And they are cool. These people are some of the friendliest, most outgoing, and approachable people I’ve ever hung out with in a large group, and they are also some of the most intelligent people I’ve probably ever met in my life.
I mean really. The conversations were amazing.
Somehow, this guy and myself were chatting very casually about the revolutionary aspects of the Internet and you know, shit like that.
I kind of gave him my philosophy about how paper money, is the glue that holds the system together, and if we could find a way to sneak behind banks backs, and get services to each other for something better than paper money, it be a big step to getting power back.
To which he then said, “Have you heard of Square, and blah blah blah blah?”
And in one breath mentioned like seven companies doing different versions of what I was talking about.
I almost cried. Not saying that this saddened me. It gave me hope. It really did. That Soundcloud party gave me hope.
With more people like this in the world I really think we’d be on the right track.
And then I met one of the inventers of the company.
Alex.
He introduced himself, and thanked me, and asked me if I had enough to eat and drink and said I was very funny, and he was impressed, and then I said something that struck me as so real I had an epiphany, when I said,
“You know, it’s like my worst fear that Red Bull or Coca Cola will call me and want to work with me, because I hate their product, and I think they’re ruining the world, but I also need the money, and I couldn’t ever say no, and that would haunt me, but I’m not even mad at doing anything for Soundcloud because your product is actually a good thing. It’s not fuckin the world up at all, I mean sure, the record labels might be mad, but who cares about those shit heads? That’s what they fuckin get for trying to fuck us all making us buy everything again on expensive ass CD. Fuck the record industry.”
And I realized I was in love with Soundcloud.
And then, I looked him in the eyes and and he looked at me, and smiled, and we started making out, and I was crying, because he was by far the best man I would ever meet, but then he apologized and told me he was really drunk and had a girlfriend and then I said something like,
“Don’t worry, it’s just a blog post, everyone knows it’s just a joke.”
And he laughed and I laughed and wow.
Soundcloud.
ON GLUE MEDIA 