Holly Jolly Molly Bolly...Collie?

Note: after receiving more than one complaint about the trippy eye-warbly effect of looking at white text on a black background, I have decided to experiment with different layouts.  Please feel free to weigh in in the comments. 

We're all in the trenches of holiday shopping, and if you're like me, then first of all you are fucking awesome, and second of all, you've picked up all of one present for one person and you don't even actually know how many more you're supposed to buy.

Jewish friends: multiply that last sentence by 8. 

Bling bling  / every time I come around your shtetl / bling bling / Yarmulke cost about fitty / bling bling

Couple this with the well-worn chestnut that commercialism somehow cheapens the whole Xmas experience, and you wind up with what for most people is probably one dilly of a pickle.  How can you celebrate the birth of your own personal lord and savior hallelujah hosanna amen, and still pick up a Furby for your precious little angel Skyler or Tyler or Porsche or whatever stupid shit you named your kid?

I don't actually care. This country is economically depressed, and the culture reflects this in every face I see.  This is completely anecdotal, but people seem grumpier, more worried, and more nervous than at any point that I can remember.  They think that they won't be able to retire, and they wonder if they'll be able to preserve our way of life for future generations.

This is still more crap I don't care about. 

Would that it were so simple

What I care about is helping you, the consumer, to reconcile yourself to the cultural, societal, and signifying act that is consuming.  In other words, I care about the pop-rapper Uffie.

Let me tell you about a conversation I had with a friend this last summer.

This friend and I were talking about the nature of buying and consumption, and we were painting it all with a very broad brush - I'm talking about all those ugly stereotypes of American consumerism, like McDonalds and Hummers and all that shit that people say they hate, but then wind up buying anyway.  For the record, I like McDonalds and dislike Hummers.  The fact that I am completely impoverished informs both sides of the matter.

Or maybe a hummer FROM McDonalds, amirite?  HEYOOOOHHHH!

But the more I thought about any notion of breaking away from a consumerist lifestyle, the more I realized that this would be a long, uphill slog, like swimming up stream, or trying to think of another metaphor for something that is difficult and impedes your progress in a forward motion.  This is not the Taoist way, and I am nothing if not a really half-assed Taoist who only says he's a Taoist when it's convenient.

Thus I realized that, as an American, I am in part defined by what I consume, as are we all.  If you see me in a suit, you think "Hey, there goes basically the hottest guy I've ever seen," and when I see you in your Prius, I think "Hey, there goes a sanctimonious douchebag," and I am right, but so are you, so it balances out.

The point is, we have two votes in the capitalistic democracy that is America: we have ballots, and we have dollars.  A significant number of us don't even bother with the former, but we use the latter every day.  With our dollars, we inform the choices made by every business operating in this country, from the smallest mom-and-pop fruit stand all the way up to the draconian fascist juggernaut that is Wal-Mart.

It's just...I mean that's...do you even know what Marxism is?

And this brings us back to Uffie.

As you think about what to buy your loved ones, think about purchases that can affect positive change.  I'm not going to define positive change for you, because what you think is good may differ from my own interpretation.  You like Fords, I like Chevy's, agree to disagree.

But if you like Uffie, you are wronger than any human being has ever been about anything since liking Ke$ha.  Uffie is awful.  She looks like the way Chlamydia feels. She smells like daddy issues and AIDS.


The sound of her music can only be described thusly:

If you had lost your hearing in some sort of terrible accident, and the doctors took a one-in-a-million chance to restore it, and your family was all there after the surgery and your mother was crying hopeful tears, and your father was there crossing his fingers and propping up your sister who had by that time gone to hysterics because she just...she just...well, the all love you so much and this operation would mean the ... it's better not to hope, isn't it?  If we don't get our hopes up, we won't be disappointed and, well...It's better to just accept that maybe...what son?  What?  You, you can hear?  Oh it's a miracle!  It's a miracle!  It's the happiest day of...huh? That music?  That's Hot Chick by Uffie, but it's not...no, son, why are you?  Your bandages, don't...don't...my god, why are you ripping off your --

Blissful silence.

That's how bad her music is, but you can change that!  Don't buy it!  Don't fucking buy Ke$ha!  You hate Justin Bieber?  Stop buying it for your fucking spoiled kids!  Think about what you buy.  Make informed choices.  Don't just buy things because they're popular.  If something is popular, it means other people like it.  People are stupid!

I have!

Put some thought, time, and effort into your gifts.  If you have to buy something like a gift card for someone who is finicky, or whom you do not know very well, then at least the onus for any terrible purchasing decisions is off of your head.  If you do know someone, and they do happen to be a fan of shitty music or art or whatever, now is the time to expand their horizons.

I'm a size 48 Long, incidentally. 

Happy shopping!