It’s been a busy week for me but the most exciting thing I want to share is that yesterday my band Cheap City released our first record. It’s called Clocktower Broke. I’m really proud of it and I’m super happy to be in an active band again. Six months ago I sort of thought that my time in ‘rock’ music was done but Cheap City just kind of happened out of the blue and it’s suddenly a project I’m devoting a lot of time to. Anyway, you can stream the new record, buy CD’s, cassettes, and shirts here:
It’s also on Spotify and many other streaming services!
I’m also really excited to announce that I’m now a contributing writer to I Care If You Listen. My first review (Yuko Fujiyama’s new album Night Wave) is here.
Okay. Down to business.
MILLENNIALS ARE KILLING THE PIZZA INDUSTRY.
That’s right. I’ll say it. Millennials are killing the pizza industry. It’s been on my mind for some time now but I can’t keep quiet about it anymore. Millennials are killing the pizza industry.
Once more for those of you in the back.
MILLENNIALS ARE KILLING THE PIZZA INDUSTRY.
Here’s how:
But first an anecdote:
When I was in undergrad and moving into my first roommate-less apartment - a one bedroom in downtown Amherst which was somehow going for like $650 or something - my parents were helping me move in and my dad commented about how I should have my friends help me move in and I could treat them all to pizza afterwards. “That’s a good point,” I thought. But where were my friends? Well all of my Western Mass friends at the time were either out of town, on tour, or unable to help, so I figured I must just be a loser with no real friends or in the position of not having any available friends.
But as more and more of my friends started to move out of dorms and into apartments I noticed I would never get asked to help them. I’m a capable mover! I play in bands and routinely carry amps and cabs up and down staircases and whatnot. I even worked for a week as a piano mover! My friends should be asking me to help them move damnit! Finally one day I just asked someone if they needed help. “Oh no thanks. I don’t really have that much stuff,” they said.
And that’s when it hit me like a sizzling pie in the face. My friends don’t want my help because they don’t need any help. They have a bed and a computer and that’s it. They don’t have books or movies or whatever because everything is digitized. If you have a laptop what else do you need?
Now, some will tell you that a world where everything is digitized is an environmentally friendly world. Computers help us declutter and the cloud is a tool that we can use to stop producing physical items with an ever increasing toll on the environment.
I’m here to tell you that the pro-digitization contingent, however well wishing they may be, have a sinister agenda in mind. Much like corporations such as Whole Foods who promote organic and healthy eating while exploiting prison labor, the push to collect everything in a digital format is a move against the pizza industry. Pizza shops are the exploited minority in a world controlled by binary code. What do we buy for our friends when they help us move? Pizza. If they’re not helping us move because we don’t have anything, then we’re not buying pizza. What do you buy if you have a party? Pizza. But why have a party when you can have a cool Google hangout? You can transfer a file but you can’t transfer a pizza.
So I say all hail the book buyers and record collectors. Without you every small pizza shop in this great nation would be at risk.
AND P.S. Next time your pop-punk band writes a pizza anthem and DOESN’T press it on vinyl, YOU’RE PART OF THE PROBLEM, NOT THE SOLUTION.