Black Friday Is Not Important

Black Friday is quite possibly one of the stupidest American traditions that has evolved in recent memory. And as it keeps revolving, it keeps getting more and more ridiculous. This year is no exception as several large retail stores have decided that it's a good idea to open late at night on the actual day of Thanksgiving for "Black Friday". If you've already figured out that opening on a Thursday for an event with "Friday" in the name is asinine, then you're going to love everything about this story.

Wal-Mart has decided that it will open at 10pm on Thanksgiving. There's no real reason for this that makes any sense. It's not like it's going to attract more shoppers. I'm under the impression that you're either the type who wants to go Christmas shopping as soon as you can or you're not. (And really, the Black Friday "deals" that are advertised are really bordering awfully close to being a scam. There are usually only one or two of a certain item at each store for the advertised bargain price. And the items aren't usually as great as they want you to think that they are. You want to pay only $300 for a laptop? Go right ahead. But if you think that your bargain priced $300 laptop is going to work as well as my $800 laptop, think again. That $300 laptop is probably overpriced at $300.) Target is opening at 11pm and Best Buy is opening at midnight. And really, I don't know if shoppers are excited about this or not. But I do know who is not excited about it and that would be the workers.

The employees of Best Buy are flipping out that they have to go into work so that the store can open at midnight. Something about them not being able to spend time with their families. Now, I know absolutely nothing about opening a Best Buy store and I know equally as much about working at Best Buy. But I do know that opening at midnight shouldn't cut into one's Thanksgiving festivities by that much. Should it? I understand not wanting to go into work on a holiday. I also understand that there are jobs out there where you have to go into work on a holiday. (I worked one of those jobs for 13 years. Hospitals don't care if it's Thanksgiving or not. It's part of the job.) And if you have one of those jobs, you shouldn't really be all that surprised when you're expected to be there on a holiday. But apparently, folks who are working at Best Buy and Target feel differently about all of this than I do.

I'm not so sure that when the unemployment rate in this country is still hovering around 9 percent that anyone should be complaining about what their job wants them to do. Shouldn't these folks be happy that they have a job? And really, is going into work at midnight that big of a deal? I don't see how that is going to cut into someone's Thanksgiving time with their family. What time do those people eat, anyway? You have an early dinner, you take a nap afterwards if you're so inclined, and then you show up when you're supposed to. I am not sympathetic to the workers who think that they're being mistreated by having to show up at midnight or 10pm or whatever on Thanksgiving. Yes, I guess it sucks (although I'm still not real clear as to why or how it sucks), but that's kind of how life works. Sometimes, things suck. Sometimes, your work is going to want you to do stuff that you'd rather not do. Am I the only one who understands that concept? I feel like I am.

And really, is anyone surprised that it's come down to this? The way I see it, Thanksgiving is becoming just a huge inconvenience for people who want Christmas to be here NOW. It's become a holiday that everyone just rushes through so that they can get to the Christmas shopping. For years now, people have been lining up outside of stores on Thanksgiving evening to wait until the store doors open at 5am or some other ungodly hour. Those folks don't seem to give a fat rat's ass about being at home on Thanksgiving, so why should the stores? I'm not saying that I agree with that philosophy. I'm just saying that I can see why it's come down to this.

Personally, I think that the whole Black Friday thing has kind of jumped the shark. Trust me, if a store offers a good enough deal but doesn't open their doors until 6am the day after Thanksgiving, there will still be people in line. Do they really think that those extra six hours are going to make or break their bottom line? I don't get it. Then again, the last thing in the world that I would want to do is to line up outside of a store, at night and in the cold so that I can be amongst a swarm of people and attempt to SHOP. Ugh. I don't want shop period, let alone under those circumstances. But good luck to all of you people who think that you're accomplishing something. I hope that works out for you. As far as all of you complaining retail workers, suck it up.

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He's Dead But the Story is Not

I read an article in the Los Angeles Times which described some of the Michael Jackson memorabilia items which are likely to emerge in the near future as the folks who are involved with this get set to launch Jacko 2.0 - The Brand. I didn't get very far in the article before I couldn't help thinking that there are going to be an awful lot of disappointed people out there. Not so much the fans of Michael Jackson, but moreso the ones that think they're going to make Scrooge McDuck sized piles of money from various Jacko-related ventures. People just don't learn anything from anything, do they?

Remember the memorial service? In the few days preceding the event, we heard numbers tossed around by almost all of the news and media outlets that estimated the size of the crowd that would be converging upon Staples Center to be between 100,000 and half a million. It turned out that there ended up being more police than there did "mourners". I think a huge part of that was that the number of Michael Jackson "mourners" wasn't anywhere near what people thought it would be, period. Those coming up with the outrageous attendance predictions apparently forgot to factor a couple of things into their equation; those being child molestation trials One and Two. Who'd have thought that you could lose so much of your fan base simply by being accused of and charged with being a toucher of young boys. Go figure.

Here's how the article starts out. It seems...wishful. At best. Ahem....
"Moving quickly to capitalize on fans' appetite for anything related to Michael Jackson...." Um....the "appetite"? For ANYTHING related to Jacko? Perhaps y'all have forgotten, but see...we ATE. We ate a LOT. There's really not so much of an "appetite" left. Oh, sure, we might snack a bit here and there, but we're full. There's barely room for dessert. Yet the way these folks are acting, you'd think that we'd been starved for weeks.

There appear to be "...elaborate plans for merchandising deals, a tribute concert, a television special and even a traveling exhibition of Jackson memorabilia." OK, of all of those, the only one that I think most folks would have any interest at all in would be the Jackson memorabilia. And even then it's going to depend on what's in the exhibit and how much I'm willing to fork over to look at it. What's in the exhibit will determine the amount of money I think it's worth. Of course, include certain items in said exhibit and I'll pay any price. Things like:

• At least one prosthetic nose
• The hyperbaric chamber, preferably with Bubbles the Chimp sleeping in it (heck, throw Macaulay Culkin in there WITH Bubbles and the lines will never stop!)
• An exact recreation of the bedroom he was in when he moonwalked himself into the arms of death, including the alleged IV-drip set up
• Some of those wax mannequins that he had all throughout Neverland
• A group of those prisoners from the Philippines just constantly doing the Thriller dance

What a great line up! That'd be awesome! (Why don't I do this for a living? Never mind. Continue.)

According to said article, there are "... proposals for embossed wine decanters, virtual tattoos and a high-end clothing line all bearing the Jackson brand." Wait. What? Wine decanters? You mean like this?

What the heck is his going to look like? THIS?

What is up with the wine decanters? Oh, right, because Jacko was SUCH the purveyor of decanter-ed wine! Please. And "virtual tattoos"? What are those? NOT tattoos? Wait. Virtual? Do you mean like on the computer? How in the heck do you folks figure to make money off of THOSE? That doesn't make any sense!

Entertainment Tonight is reporting that some of the other items will be "...Michael Jackson T-shirts, calendars, trading cards, lighters and stuffed animals that play the singer's music" as well as " video games, X-Box themes, cell phone screen savers, in addition to other digital items." OK, just stop. Hold everything! (Oh. We're talking about Michael Jackson, aren't we? Never mind. Don't hold everything. Just stop.)

X-Box themes? Because all of those Halo3 players out there want to immerse themselves in death and destruction with an X-Box looking all Jacko there in front of them? Right, because if it's one thing that's missing from the realness factor of video games, it's the presence of an item that reminds you of Michael Jackson. (We could have been done in Iraq YEARS ago if we had just thrown in the Michael Jackson factor!) And cell phone screen savers? Who has their phone on long enough for the screen saver to pop up? Aside from (allegedly) Dr. Conrad Murray? Who else has their phone on for a long period of time but isn't using it? No one!

What else is there? Lighters? Michael Jackson lighters? Does it look like Jacko when he did the Pepsi commercial and you go to flick it and the fire shoots up through the head so it looks like his hair is on fire? That'd be strange. (Oh, I'd want to see it all right, but it'd still be strange. I'm just sayin'.)And can you just imagine the transactions that would go on with the trading cards? "Here, I'll give you two of when he was white for one of when he was black." "Hey! This one isn't Michael! This is LaToya! Gimme back Bubbles!"

Aside from the fact that I really don't think that there are that many people clamoring for this type of stuff, there's already a huge black market for stuff like this which can cheaply take care of the basic T-shirt for most folks. With a few exceptions, if you own anything besides a shirt and/or some albums, you're going to be seen as a bit of a strange ranger. If you own any of the things I'm about to show you, you're just a freak. It's that simple. How else do you explain someone who has a pair of the Thriller headphones? Behold!

Oh, what the hell is that? They're just what I said. Thriller headphones. Headphones with the video "Thriller" depicted on them. Headphones showing Thriller. Not quite doing it for you? Perhaps some Michael Jackson nesting dolls will suit your fancy. See how he changes over time on the containers and morphs from a young black man into an old white woman. Behold!

Or maybe you're the type who would like to shower with Jacko. Wait. That sounded funny. Never mind. Behold!

And finally, my personal favorite: The Michael Jackson California Raisin figurine. Behold!

Ah, yes. What better way to immortalize a fall pop superstar than to Claymation him into a little California dried fruit knick-knack. But that aside, the point here really has been that I think that the folks who think they're going to be heading straight for the bank after the release of Michael Jackson branded products are going to be sorely disappointed with the meagerness of their sale. It doesn't even seem as if their suggested product line up even comes close to matching up to the caliber of the non-authorized items. They're going to need to come up with something that can at least go head to head with the nesting dolls.

Yeah. Good luck with THAT. This will not end well, but stay tuned to find out someday, won't ye?

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Going Once, Going Twice, Weird!

Michael Jackson is doing 10 shows in London in July and according to him, "This is it. This. Is it. This is it." He's seeming to imply that he's leaving open the possibility to doing more shows at a future date, don't you think? Regardless, it would appear that the man-child is strapped for cash and needs to generate some income. That was the implied reason that I derived from an auction of his personal belongings said to be taking place April 21-25, 2009 in Los Angeles.. After all, he has three children (yes, I, too, shudder at the thought) whom he needs to raise. Blanket and the other two, um, I always forget their names.....oh, Pillowcase and Dust Ruffle, that's right! He has to make sure that they're taken care of! So what better way that to make some quick cash than selling off some of the weird ass stuff that you, as one The King of Pop, have accumulated over the years. (Lifesize mannequin of Macaulay Culkin strangely absent.)

Here are just a few of the many, many items that, for a price, can be yours. Behold!

Here we have some bronzed figures of Michael dressed as a Peter Pan like character. Odd that he would have these. Odder yet is the positions that the characters are in. It's like some sort of medieval torture chamber dipped in bronze.

He seems to have taken that "King of Pop" nickname a bit too seriously, as here are his bejewelled crown and furry and tasseled royal cape. I picture him wearing them around the house, just to lounge in, possibly on Sundays. You know, while doing the dishes with Be-Dazzled rubber gloves as to avoid sequined dishpan hands.

I also picture him wearing them whilst sitting in his red velvet and gold throne and staring into the eyes of the portrait of Prince Michael. Huh.

That he owns the actual scissorhands from the movie Edward Scissorhands does not surprise me. It shouldn't be a shocker to anyone that the man tends to relate to those who find themselves isolated and embroiled deep within their own inner turmoil. That he's giving them up is a bit more of a surprise than that he owns them.

This is the hood of his golf cart, presumably the one that he could have rode around his Neverland ranch, perhaps when he went out to pick up the morning newspaper from the driveway (in the hopes that some store would be advertising where there would be boys pants half off.)

Here we have props and masks from the Moonwalker movie or video or something else that no one other than him saw. Again, the reflections into the tortured soul of a one Michael Jackson.

Now, I played Cops and Robbers too when I was a kid, but not so much as an adult and definitely not as an adult with my own made-to-look-like-a-CHP-motorcycle Harley Davidson. Seriously, can anyone picture MJ actually riding that? Anyone? I didn't think so.

Here is an odd pairing of items Awards from the Michael Jackson album "Bad" and a wood curio with a Peter Pan theme on the front of it. This whole Peter Pan thing is really starting to creep me out right about now. Did no one that was close to him ever sit him down and just say, "Mike! Snap out of it!" Apparently not. That's unfortunate.

Michael apparently felt it was important that he leave his mark everywhere or that he made such an impression upon everyone that he encountered that they couldn't help but take on some of his trademark traits. Does he see himself in all of these figures, I wonder, or does he see all of these figures in himself? And it's such an unlikely grouping of characters. Two American Presidents, one genius, one fictional (and very lonely) space alien and a portrait of a mystery woman. And all with sunglasses and Be-Dazzled glove. Odd. Very, very odd.

Ever wonder if you have too much money? Here's a good way to tell: If you start having gold and silver heads made that are supposed to resemble your own head, that's a good indicator right there! Seriously, what the hell?? Behold!

Below is his Rolls Royce limo that made me think I had stumbled onto a little corner of normalcy in his life when I saw it. It seems normal. On the outside.

But on the inside? Um, well....Behold!

What the hell is that? Did he buy this limo used from Liberace? Why is it like that? How could you relax in there with all of that....that.....that going on around you? I, for one, could not.

So there you have it. Secure your place in line now. Many, many more items await your desire! (ugh.)

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Death by Sale Stampede

What in the hell is wrong with people? Listen, if I am hearing about a stampede in which someone was killed due to many, many throngs of people running on top of other people who have inadvertently and unfortunately fallen down, I'm going to expect that the story has originated out of South Africa or Guatemala or someplace like that and it was at a soccer game where raucous fans got out of control. I am not going to expect to hear that it did not take place in South Africa or Guatemala. I am also not going to expect to hear that it did not take place after or during a soccer match. So it was clearly unexpected to hear that there was a freaking stampede in Long Island, New York at the Valley Stream Mall at the freaking Wal-Mart. Wait. What?

Correct. About 2,000 people had gathered outside of the Wal-Mart in anticipation of the Black Friday sale that was to begin at 5am the day after Thanksgiving. Apparently, a whole bunch of people thought that there were some pretty sweet deals to be had and some had been "in line" since Thursday morning. (And I'm one that's all for a good deal, but at 5am when it's as dark as the inside of a dog outside? No thanks. No deal is that great.) So by about 5am on Friday, they were getting rather antsy. So antsy that when 34-year old Jdimytai Damour went to open the front doors, the crowd surged forward and knocked the guy to the ground. Despite that, the mass of morons proceeded to plow straight ahead and trample Mr. Damour to death. The crowd was so out of control and in such a frenzy that when they were all pouring into the store, "...a metal portion of the (door) frame crumpled like an accordion." That according to the folks over there at the AP.

According to the AP, "Dozens of store employees trying to fight their way out to help Damour were also getting trampled by the crowd. Shoppers stepped over the man on the ground and streamed into the store." What are you people thinking? Oh, there's a guy lying on the ground and it seems as if he's going to get trampled if someone doesn't do something, so I'll step over him and go find me a flat-screen TV! There's something wrong with you if that's your thought process in an instance like this.

Oh, but it gets better. Of course, when I say "better", I mean "worse like you wouldn't believe". When the Wal-Mart employees were trying to get people out of the store because someone had been killed, people were not happy about it. Not about the death...about having to leave the store! The shoppers (ie, stampeders) are told that an employee has been killed and what do they do? That's right. They kept shopping. Some kept shopping and were yelling, "I've been in line since yesterday morning!" Someone gets killed and you're upset because you've been in line a long time? (You know, I think this whole story might actually make me physically ill.)

First of all, what in the hell are you even doing there if, when you show up, there are already say, 1,000 people in line? Or in a large, pre-stampeding mass? Why are you staying? What do you think your chances are of getting one of the "great deals" that the store is offering? None. There are a thousand people in front of you and they all want the same damn thing that you want. I will guarantee you that the store did not have over 1,000 of that thing in stock. (Office Depot had HP laptops for $349 on Black Friday. Do you know how many each store had? SIX.) Guaranteed. You had no chance of getting whatever it was that you were hoping to get and yet you stayed and the mass of people continued to swell. Why? Why would you stay? It sure as hell didn't look like it was enjoyable at any point in the ordeal. Before. During. After. It all looked like hell.

Seriously, about the laptop. This is what y'all were camping out for?! This POS?

Look, I understand that $298 is $298. That is inexpensive, I'll give you that. But come on, only 2GB of RAM? A 160 GB hard drive? An Intel Celeron 575 processor? (It's not even pink! Or Pink!) Look, for not much more than that, you can get a laptop with twice those specs that really kicks some serious ass. (You'd be amazed at how happy people get at stuff like that. It's so cool!) And you're not going to get killed in the process. Tell you what, if you bought one of those, you let me know about 6 months from now how that's working for you and tell me if you still think it was worth it. I guarantee that you won't think so.

And you people that are pushing and shoving and running to get inside, why do you do that? What is so damn important that you have to physically move other people out of your way to get what you want? Nothing, really. That's the correct answer to that question. There's nothing that important.

(Side note: What in the hell happened to this "recession" that we're supposed to be having? What happened to our "troubled economy" and all of the new unemployment claims and all of the people who have no money? Why are there thousands of people stampeding at Wal-Mart during these troubled times?)

And then some of you have the audacity to complain that you are asked to leave after someone dies?! Whoever you people are, you're a-holes. Total a-holes. What are you going to tell those loved ones of yours, whom you were shopping for, when you trampled some guy to death to get at the sale items you wanted? "You'd better like this gift, honey. I had to step on top of some guy who fell down and he ended up dying, so really, a life was sacrificed so that I could get you this Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28. Merry Christmas!" You know what, a-hole? You probably would.

Hey, Wal-Mart! If you have over 2,000 people in an eager, cheap-ass frenzy outside of your front doors, don't open them! You need some law enforcement to enact a little crowd control. It sounds like a miracle that only one person died (which is just about one too many people to die during a sale at Wal-Mart!). Actually, here's an idea: Take a small part of those gazillions of dollars that your massive, worldwide corporation has made off of a-holes like the ones en masse in New York, and spend some of it on extra security on this day for this crazy ass sale day that retailers insist on holding every year. It would be a small price to pay.

Look, no one should be dying while there's a sale going on at Wal-Mart because they were trampled to death, of all things! Again, not a South African soccer match. A sale at Wal-Mart. A sale. (I was right. This story has made me physically ill.)

I've been trying to figure out or narrow down exactly when it was that this "Black Friday" became so popular. The waiting in line outside of stores before they open has been going on for at least ten years, but I'm talking more about these huge, massive, day after Thanksgiving sales that people camp out for. I know that the number of people who have been participating in the mayhem seems to have steadily increased year to year, but I'd really like to know what it was that sent it over the top to the point where people become obsessively crazed about getting an item on sale. It's definitely not healthy and it's not supposed to be normal. I fear that it may becoming more and more normal as time marches onward. I don't want a world of stampeding a-holes at Wal-Mart to ever be the norm. Anywhere. Ever.

There is cell phone video footage of the cops giving Mr. Damour CPR that someone stood there and filmed and uploaded to YouTube, for cryin' out loud. You're going to have to go find it yourself if you're interested in watching it. I'm not posting the footage or a link because a) I'm not a reporter and b) I think it's sick and wrong. I know I wouldn't want a video of my family member who was just trampled to death to be circulating on the Internet. I just wouldn't. I'm very sorry for his family's loss and don't plan on trivializing the matter by including a video (of the aftermath of his death in front of the freaking Wal-Mart) for voyeuristic purposes.

I swear, Christmas time is one of my favorite times of the year. (I'm also really partial to spring, just in case you were wondering how many favorite times of the year I have. Two. The answer is two. Christmas and spring.) But December is also when it becomes more and more apparent to me as to just how self-centered a lot of people are. I had a conversation with a friend the other night and she said that gift giving shouldn't be a chore, that it shouldn't be something that you have to do just for the sake of doing, and that if you're obsessed to the point that you're trampling people and waiting in a crowd of over 2,000 people for hours on end, you're missing the point. Um, yeah. I'd say so. (And well said.) And I'm willing to bet that this trend will continue and that once again, the American people will show just how oblivious they are to everything other than themselves (around which their world revolves). Let's just hope they can continue their pathetic trend without stomping anyone else to death, shall we?

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