Earlier today, I had the displeasure of listening to a band called "Brokencyde." A band who bills themselves as "The Originatorz of Crunkcore," (more on that atrocity later) they are, picture if you will, a combination of Linkin Park, Soulja Boy, Slipknot and Lil' Jon. Now take that, loop it through Auto-Tune several thousand times, and you have Brokencyde.

However, Brokencyde deserves more than that as an explanation of their work, as they are, in fact, a startling textbook definition of everything that is currently sickening about American culture as we know it. Brokencyde isn't one of those bands that are popular despite being absolutely terrible. Rather, they are more of a lens into the current state of society. And when you look through that lens, you begin to lose all faith you might have had in humanity. So to begin this diatribe, lets all start with the video for "40oz" as a reference point.

It's Thanksgiving again, which for those of you who celebrate this holiday will be spending it days off from work, scarfing down food and supposedly "giving thanks."

I have a question for the people who legitimately celebrate this holiday: What is the point of it? Is it to "give thanks?" Why just one day of the year? Do you really give thanks? Who do you give thanks to? Or is this all a bunch of bullshit?

I asked those questions to a lady last year while waiting in line at the grocery store, and she shot back at me "Well, Thanksgiving is really just a day for being together with your family and relaxing." OK, even if that is the case, why do you need a special day for it? If that is something that is important to you, shouldn't you be striving to do that every day out of the year, instead of just one? Seriously, what a bunch of shit.

That out of the way, it's "Thanksgiving Tradition" around these parts to recite "A Thanksgiving Prayer" by William S. Burroughs, a poem taken from his book Tornado Alley and adapted into spoken word on his album Dead City Radio:

Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons, destined to be shat out through wholesome American guts.

Thanks for a continent to despoil and poison.

Thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin leaving the carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream, to vulgarize and to falsify until the bare lies shine through.

Thanks for the KKK. For nigger-killin' lawmen, feelin' their notches.

For decent church-goin' women, with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces.

Thanks for "Kill a Queer for Christ" stickers.

Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

Thanks for Prohibition and the war against drugs.

Thanks for a country where nobody's allowed to mind his own business.

Thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the memories -- all right let's see your arms!

You always were a headache and you always were a bore.

Thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.

Hit the jump for the music video, adapted from his Dead City Radio performance.

One thing that I've noticed since living on my own is how, for most of my younger years, I had taken food for granted. Now, the first thing you are thinking is what every college-age kid goes though, wishing he/she had a nice homecooked meal that they were used to their parents making. Please, throw those assumptions out the window so I may continue, thank you.

No, is what I'm talking about is the preparation aspect, and even more, what goes into said food. Our society places value on an efficient use of time, and because of this, "common" meal choices to be things like pre-made frozen products that you pop in a microwave, or things you just unwrap and eat. This is something that has always kinda gotten to me. However, it wasn't completely apparent how depressing a system it is until I moved out on my own and became self-employed. No longer faced with having to punch a clock or for that matter wake up at a certain hour, the idea of trying to rush through everyday activities to beat a schedule sounded almost silly.

One day when I had woken up at midnight and was up all night, I found myself with the unfamiliar predicament of not only being wide awake when the sun rose, but with plenty of time to stand around in the kitchen and cook a real breakfast. And I don't mean something quick like a bagel or a Pop-Tart. No, I finally cracked open that box of Cream of Wheat I bought a few weeks prior on a whim. Boiled a pot of milk on the stove, and stood around for nearly 10 minutes. It was a strange feeling, as actually "cooking" a breakfast was an alien concept. I'd do it years back when I had a snow day from school, but otherwise having to beat a clock to work combined with me not being the kind of person who can wake up early an on a schedule... well, you get the idea.

Social networking has done a lot for us these days. We can more and more easily converse with distant friends, find new friends based on similar interests, or find new enemies to harass based on opposing interests. And no one website has proved itself more valuable to catering to people with a wide range of interests than Facebook.

The fan page feature is one of the more interesting areas of the social networking behemoth. Not only can you become a "fan" of your favorite things, but for journalistic types such as myself, it becomes an invaluable tool for instant polling results of your average internet populace. People of all ages and demographics are using the site, so you can easily cross-compare the popularity of various interests. I'll admit right now that it is far from the most accurate source of opinion data, but more times than not, it provides a decent snapshot. (Or, at least some very interesting numbers.)

So we decided to scour the Facebook fan pages to determine the popularity of amendments to the Bill of Rights, that lovely piece of paper that us Americans like to flaunt so proudly over other countries. But how exactly do we feel about the so-called "rights" the Bill of Rights provides? To Facebook!

I really hate the mainstream news media. I really do.

No doubt by now, you've all heard of the story of the boy trapped in a balloon that turned out to be an elaborate hoax. The reason I say "no doubt" is the 24/7 news coverage this story has gotten over the past week. As soon as the makeshift aircraft went up in the air with a boy supposedly inside it several thousand feet in the air, a media frenzy descended upon Fort Collins, Colorado, eager to capitalize on the harrowing story of a boy on the brink of death.

So everything else was literally dropped, and "Balloon Boy" had quickly become the only footage on TV as the entirety of America was glued to their sets waiting to see Balloon Boy's craft crash and get a glimpse of the child's entrails shoveled into the back of an ambulance so they'd have something to talk about at work the next day.

Needless to say, ratings skyrocketed and fed the frenzy, and with broadcasters going as far to proclaim that it could not possibly be a hoax. In fact, when the solid balloon crashed, the only possible scenario was that the boy had somehow passed through the solid walls of the balloon and fell from it and a manhunt was organized to find his pieces. Because after all, it could not possibly be a hoax, right?

I don't know about you guys, but society has been missing one thing lately, and that is the wise voice of George Patrick Carlin.

Because your work week needs to start off better than waking up for your boring mind-numbing job, Zangaroa Blog is here for you: Every Monday will now be George Carlin Mondays, where we'll showcase a random Carlin sketch to provoke your thoughts a little before settling into the grind.

After the jump, check out Carlin's thoughts on Homelessness, Prisons and Golf, taken from his Jammin' in New York HBO Special.