Taxes and Death.

by Louis Bertrand Shalako

c2010

All Rights Reserved


Ten or fifteen years ago, the music industry lobbied the government of Canada to put a fifty cent tax on cassette tapes. This was because I was ripping off the music industry every time I bought a cassette tape to record my guitar practice.

That’s because I am a criminal. Oh, yeah, and that tax is still in place.

Why, it was only last week when somebody or other was looking for a new tax, because if I re-read the magazine I just purchased, I was ripping them off.

Oh, yeah, I remember now—some asshole wants to tax hard drives because every time I use my computer, I am ripping off their God-given (or God-damned,) rights. Somehow. I don’t know, it’s not my job to explain it, as the CRTC will rubberstamp it anyway. That’s their job.

So now the big Canadian music stars (Alannah Noniabu, Melville Straighto, The Knucklehead Shitberries, Freddie and the Fucksticks,) are lobbying the CRTC for a tax on MP-3’s, and of course the reason given is that somehow I am a criminal for liking music or something. An MP-3 is a stream of data, actually, but somehow the government doesn’t know this. They want to tax my data. That is the real issue here, but none of them will admit it—listen to the streaming lies coming out of their lying, thieving, fucking dingbat media outlets.

You know, it seems like it was only last year when I lobbied the CRTC against CTV’s (The Olympic Channel,) demand for a $10 per month tax on cable. Oh, yes, Canwest Global just sold their unprofitable EM broadcast stations to some foreign dingbat who will instantly transform those into money making outfits, (or otherwise they just got ripped off.) I guess that tax pays them to take it off Canwest’s hands. That and the thirteen percent HST in Ontario. That tax killed the BC premier. Dalton McGuinty seems pretty safe, for some reason. The mainstream media always says, the 'tax and spend' NDP. Hah! They haven't governed since the early nineties, ancient history. The media carried all the demands for the present massive deficit on their front pages and their evening news.

They also endorsed it in their editorials, yeah; it was called 'stimulus.'

You want to know the truth? I watch the Weather Network. Otherwise I can’t stand looking at the fucking television, and incidentally, the fact that ‘Heartland’ was picked up by CBC and French public TV is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the milieu.

(I won’t comment on French public TV. It’s not my job, thank you very much.)

I haven’t been to a movie in the theatre for thirty years. I haven’t been in a bookstore in about the same amount of time. I have not bought a CD in at least ten years. I haven’t bought a magazine since 1986.

I fell from a scaffold and broke my back in three places, but I got a fuck of a lot more spine than you piss-ants. Just for the record, I’m not asking for anything.

What I am doing, is telling you fucking jerks to fuck off.

One more thing: I hereby demand a fifty-cent tax on every every e-book reader bought by a Canadian. That’s because I have four published e-books. And I’m getting ripped off, I tell you. It’s just a rip-off, and every one of them is one hundred fucking percent Canadian Content.

I’ll be back next week with a few more formats and demands. Why, I’m a Canadian artist, I tell you. I’m a fucking star.

Why don’t you fucking assholes go apply for a cultural grant or something, your fucking back’s not fucking broken.

Aw, fuck, somebody please kill me.