Welcome to Faceless Spending

(Here is what I love about the 120 Minutes block on VH1 Classic. They just showed Soul Asylum’s “Black Gold”. I immediately remember two facts about this song 1) it freaking rocks and 2) for some reason Norm from Cheers is in the video. Again, why they don’t do this every night is beyond me. It would be classic rock radio for Gen X.)

I found myself in a Wal-Mart today. I am not proud of this fact at all. I pretty much make it my goal to never shop at Wal-Mart, less as a political statement and more due to the fact that I can’t step into the building without being incredibly depressed. It’s like their motto should be, “You can purchase any item under the sun while simultaneously losing all faith in modern society.”

(For the record, I needed to pick up another memory card for my MP3 player and I forgot that there wasn’t a Best Buy around where I was going and hence the only way I was going to put a checkmark next to the task on my To Do list was venture into Wal-Mart. I would much rather have ventured into a Venture.)

I’m not alone in stating my dislike for Wal-Mart and again, it is not due to some well-honed belief that Wal-Mart destroys independent businesses. I mean, they do but that isn’t why I avoid them. It’s more like their entire design focus is on emphasizing consumerism and nothing else and I just find that disturbing. I’ll gladly pay more to shop at another store just because shopping at Wal-Mart makes me feel dirty.

Here’s my reasoning. You park in a massive parking lot next to hundreds of identical cars, many of which are fuel inefficient to the point that they waste a gallon of gas when you turn on the headlights. Then you walk into a faceless box of a building to be faced with harsh fluorescent lighting and a seemingly endless sea of stuff. There isn’t anything that you would define as sections, nothing where you feel like you are shopping for clothes that will make you look good or new furniture for your apartment. It is just aisle after aisle of UPC codes, piled up for your benefit. And just that massive amount of stuff, much of which really isn’t necessary, just seems to go against my very nature. I remember hearing stories of people leaving Russia and being brought to tears by going to a grocery store and seeing all of the choices in front of them. A Wal-Mart would probably give them a seizure.

But while choice and cheap prices are nice it doesn’t make you feel good. Because at it’s core Wal-Mart turns you into a consumer, nothing more and nothing less. You are just another cog in their value chain and even though they might have someone greet you at the door they don’t give a crap about you other than you go in, find your pile of stuff, and leave. There’s nothing in there that makes you feel human, that makes you feel part of a community as opposed to a walking wallet. And it’s that dehumanization that causes me to avoid the store.

Admittedly, all this shows is that I am a classist at my core. I can afford to pay more and I can wax philosophical about people buying paper towels. But there is still something quite disturbing about consumerism being shown at its purest form. We don’t like to be shown as a people who only seek to fulfill their basic needs. There is no poetry in that image and without poetry all we are is highly intelligent monkeys who for some reason decided that guilt was a useful evolutionary development.

(Note: Posts may be intermittent over the next two weeks. Apologies in advance, especially to the people I begged to comment. The good news is that I should have a lot more material when my life returns to normal.)

The five random CDs for the week:
1) Arcade Fire “Funeral”
2) Blue Mountain “Homegrown”
3) Blue Mountain “Tales of a Traveler”
4) Cathy Richardson Band “Fools on a Tandem”
5) Terrance Simien and the Mallet Playboys “Zydeco on the Bayou”