On the spotify boycott

On the spotify boycott 

I love music so much I 
could literally walk up to any number
of my favorite artists 
just open my billfold wide & say
please take my money 

I don’t believe you
that protesting one streaming platform
is the moral outrage issue of the week
when we have people getting 
shot down in the street

there are so many vast 
contradictions & cascading 
immoralities in the 
production & consumption
matrix of our world 

so unless you are going full
blown drop-out organic 
anti-tech left-wing amish
don’t give me so much dish 

about the ethics of these choices
in the mass consumer world 
where we are not all riding
bicycles or farming with horses

I just don’t believe you
that it has come down to this
so hear me out with these
words I am about to piss 

Of course I imagine you are
also outraged at the banning of Maus
us too we hate bigotry & book 
banning up in this house

But are we not giving the
Bro Joegan
the same kind of protest bump
more wind at the back of his fans
who could care less about your 
switching to Amazon or Apple Music plans 

I understand that we each have 
the hill that we go to die on
but this one isn’t mine 
if it is yours that is fine

But before we depart let me 
unload a little more about 
what is 
on my heart:

I only know about this trending
because of this one social media platform
on which way too much time
we are all collectively spending

You do not have to be a scholar
of the career of King Zark Muckerturd
& this brain sucking Facepalm to know
the irony that is not my joy or balm 

Or the laptops or ipads or phones
on which these viral messages are cloned 
Let me just talk about phones to
bring my message home

Phones are an environmental disaster
because building every phone requires 
the polluting extraction of 
precious substances like 

gold cobalt or lithium 

When cell phones are improperly recycled 
or end up in landfills remember they 
contain harmful toxins including lead 
mercury arsenic cadmium chlorine & bromine
which can leak into the groundwater or 
impact soil water supply vegetation 
animals & humans 

not to mention the inherent horrible of
the planes or trucks that were
needed to bring them to your 
mobile provider or your home 
now as to paying artists 

if you can afford it 
I do hope you do more than stream
that is the performer’s dream 
so have you paid your tithe 
so in guilt we don’t writhe

you should see the real problem 
that I have storing all the
t-shirts posters or other merch
not to mention the albums
on CD or vinyl or cassette 

thank you for coming to my poem
where I feel compelled to vent & vet
since it is payday i must go to the record store
put my money where my mouth is you bet

I guess this is sort of like the time
some gas guzzling good ol boys
said all environmentalism is wrong
just because of Al Gore’s private jet 

there is a collective songbook 
of independent artists out there who
are not the great Joni or Neil did
you ask them how they feel?

if I discover one of them on 
one of the big platforms then I 
can head over to Bandcamp where
the real values of my performative 
consumer love gets adorned