Bitching is NOT Acting

Let me start this blog off by saying that I hate Wal*Mart. Honestly. I think that they are evil. The only time that I ever shop at a Wal*Mart is when I visit my folks in Arkansas, because in Arkansas there IS nothing but Wal*Mart. And I’m not saying this as some weirdo who lives a million miles from any Wal*Mart. I have a Wal*Mart within easy walking distance from me. Right next to the car dealership where I get my car’s maintenance done. Whenever I drop off Jhmes (that’s my car’s name) for maintenance, as a matter of fact, I walk through their parking lot as a shortcut to come home. I STILL don’t shop there.

Having said that…

I don’t understand why people feel the need to picket chain stores or even pass local laws to prevent their being built. Trust me, brothers and sisters… whether it’s a Wal*Mart, a Starbucks or a McDonald’s, these things cost a LOT of money to run on a day-to-day basis. So if you don’t want them there, DON’T SHOP THERE!

I just finished watching a documentary called “Mom and Pop America” about the impact, both positive and negative that chain stores are having on locally-owned stores. For instance, in one segment, some teenage girls circulated a petition to prevent Hollywood Video from opening up a store right next to a locally-owned video store. Opening your chain store right next to a small competitor is what’s called a “dick move” by the way. The petition failed, Hollywood opened and, some months later, the narrator informed us ominously, the small video store closed.

First off, please allow me to say that I think, as far as chain stores go, Hollywood is “one of the good ones”. They practice censorship only to the extent that you can’t rent graphic pornography there. You can still rent Martin Scorsese’s excellent “Last Temptation of Christ”, which you can’t at Blockbuster, because of pressure from narrow-minded religious groups.

Second off, if people didn’t want the Hollywood to succeed, why did they ever set foot in the store? I mean, you might be able to get a movie rental at Hollywood for $3.99 that’ll set you back $6 at the local, but isn’t it worth that much to keep the money in the community?

A similar thing happened back when I lived in the Capitol Hill district of Seattle. We had both a Hollywood Video AND a Blockbuster. There was also a small, boutique video store, locally-owned, called Vertigo Video and another called Broadway Market Video, and one on 13th that I forget the name of that set up shop in an old fire house. As far as I know, Broadway Market Video and the one on 13th are both still there – Vertigo shut down. I went into Vertigo once, about a year before they shut down, and frankly wasn’t happy with their selection, so never got a membership or rented there. When they were in the process of shutting down, a bunch of kids (twenty somethings) from the neighborhood started circulating flyers to try to keep the business open. When one pretty young punk girl tried to give me a flyer, I looked at the flyer and asked her “Do YOU rent videos at Vertigo?” She shot me a look of pure contempt and venom and said “That’s not what it’s about!”

Yes.

Of course it is.

Businesses… ALL businesses are in the business of doing one thing. MAKING MONEY! That’s it. They may do good things or bad things on their way to that bottom line, but that bottom line is why they’re there.

So look, brothers and sisters. If you don’t like Wal*Mart, don’t shop there. If you don’t like Blockbuster, as I don’t, then don’t rent there. Netflix has been a miracle worker in putting a stake in Blockbuster’s heart. If you don’t know Netflix, go to their website, Netflix.com, and get a free trial membership. They’re awesome! And if there IS no competition to the chains in your area, then take out a small business loan and open one. Or do like this community on the film did… with a minimum investment of $500, the members of the community opened up their OWN department store. Not only does that put the money from the store back in the community, but each investor is entitled to share in the profits. How cool is that?

I guess that my bottom line on this, as it is on so much else, is that if you’re not willing to take action, don’t bitch.

Peace.

Randal