I’ve spent quite a bit of time wondering what to write for the inaugural column of “From the Bottom Rung”, and I’ve finally made up my mind. Piss on the Eagles! That’s right. Piss on’em!

The Eagles, in case you haven’t heard, just released their new CD, Long Road Out of Eden, in an exclusive distribution deal with mega retailer and global scourge Wal-Mart. Can you believe that? Oh, by the way, piss on Wal-Mart too.

I’ve spent much of the last two years as the chairman of a citizens advocacy group opposing the construction of a Wal-Mart Supercenter in a small town up here in northwest Wisconsin. We may get lucky enough to see them abandon their plans up here, what with all the trouble they’re having all over the damn globe and the slow sales that have ensued, and now the Eagles come along and try to help holiday sales by peddling their music there.

Do these guys need the money that bad? Maybe the record should have been titled, “Long Road Out of Debt”? I’m an almost entirely unknown songwriter, (and a pauper by the Eagles standard of living, hence the column title From the Bottom Rung) who would be happy as hell to sell even a few thousand copies of my latest CD, PleasantVille, but if Wal-Mart officials came to me and begged me to let them sell my CD you know what I’d do? That’s right. I’d piss on’em. Why?

Because Wal-Mart embodies almost everything that’s wrong with America today. They’ve driven tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs overseas, they shift their health care costs to taxpayers, they employ obscure loopholes to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, they’re in court all over the country for alleged labor law violations, gender discrimination, and reviled worldwide for human rights abuses. They go to any lengths to union bust, and they’re probably the strongest lobby in Washington DC AGAINST INCREASED PORT SECURITY! Yes, you read me correctly.

Don Henley defends all this by suggesting he now has direct access to Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott, and perhaps he can influence the company’s business practices. He must be smoking some really good shit.

So here’s what I want you to do. If you’ve got a copy of any Eagles CD, I want you to take it out in your yard right now and piss on it, and send an email to the band that you’ve done so. I mean it. Tell’em you took a leak on Hotel California. You’ll feel better and so will I. Let me thank you in advance.

Steve Carlson
November 11, 2007