Planet Earth...

I find it so amusing how popular the BBC television series Planet Earth is in box set form.

Wait a minute. Back up asshead.

Okay.

So I work retail right, and one of the most popular things nowadays, dvd wise, are box sets. You got box sets of television show seasons, ya got sets of movies in certain series or by certain directors or starring certain actors/actresses. THen you get the stuff thats documentary orientated, and the BBC's Planet Earth is one of those.

Many of you will know what this series is. If not for my job I would never haave heard of it. But I tell you, we sell these things like pot on a high school campass. Really, epecially everytime we do our big box set sale (couple times a year), then we literally have our inventory beefed up with them (last time I think with somewhere around 100 copies) and we sell them down to single digits, if not out entirely. I have actually seen people get FLAMING FUCKING ANGRY with me for having sold out and not had any. FURIOUS these people become (easy yoda) at the thought of not being able to spend $50-$80 (Depending on which sale) on a box of discs that contain images of animals and landscpes, phenomena and serenity from across the globe narrated by David Attenborough. Angry with us you say? Why?

We're standing in their way of treading up through the store in their Indonesian, child labor-made sneakers, paying at the front with a currency that, in most cases consists only of abstract 1's and 0's, having their their small, 2 lb package swaddled in a PLASTIC bag (at their request because the irony driver in me always has me ask a Planet Earth purchaser "do you need a bag with that') so they can transport it home in their hummers and SUV's, and throw on the 'spectacular images' (one customers words) of the Planet Earth and completely fucking IGNORE the real thing outside the walls to their own protective little existences.

Now, before I go any further let me just say that yes, I'm being somewhat of a hypocrite here. My shoes weren't made in China by World Industries. I don't know if they employ sweatshops or the like. They're a smaller company though, originally manufacturers of skateboards. The point is, Your going to have to wear some form of shoes, they should be something that is comfortable and something to some degree you do not find vomitous. WHY wear something like NIKE when they have had a past of child labor (for one example check out this old article

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1020-01.htm).

Now, I'm not going to go on an all out rampage about shoes here, I'm just using a couple things to point out the ridiculous nature of people. We often joke at work about how many people probably leave with their Planet Earth DVD, unwrap it in the car and toss the plastic wrap out the window. This is so far out of my realm of existence but every once in a while I see someone do this while driving, often I think with cigarette celophane (based on the fact that yes, when I was a 15 year old douche bag punk with long ass hair, a chip on my shoulder about EVERYTHING for NO reason and too many Pantera albums (but then of course, 1 Pantera album is too many in my adult opinion) I also through cigarette celophanes out the car window. And I can remember exactly when I stopped, how I realized what I and so many people I knew were doing was completely thoughtless, without motive and downright terribly hateful. Indicitive of all the things older folks thought and said about us that we tried so hard to rebel against. And I THOUGHT and CHANGED my behavior and attitude. That's what I'm trying to say about... oh, wait, let me end these paranthesis and get back on point...)

Anyway, that's what I'm talking about in this meandering, soapbox post. Yeah, Nike may have changed their policies. From what little research I just did as writing this it looks like they have. ALOT of those sports shoes/clothing/products have. So no, its not fair for me to stand up and say I'VE CHANGED!!! TAKE ME SERIOUSLY AND FORGIVE ME AND LETS MOVE ON and not allow someone else to do the same thing. HOWEVER, the point isn't NIKE, or Hummer or whatever. Its the big joke that in the height of all the talk of 'GREENING' so much awe and respect, sacrifice and time is being poured into a marketable, consumer commodity PRODUCT instead of into the real, living and breathing thing that nurtures us. Text book IDOLATRY. Our real 'GOD[DESS]' is the marvelous machine that gave us life to begin with.

PLANET EARTH, the planet, not the DVD!!!

She is our mother and we forsake here. It's similar to everything else now, where our entire world and all of our intricacies as humans are being encoded into those wonderfully magick 1's and 0's, uploaded like characters in a William Gibson novel, while the flesh and blood bodies we all started with wither away from McDonald's-sized neglect (Billions and Billions served and I'm a fucking hypocrite ehre too because I ate there at some point in the last week).

Alright, I've left you circumnavigating the text here, my out of control ramblings weaving off and on topic, no doubt alienating many. That's the way I write because, honestly, thats the way information happens in my head, it all weaves in and out and that's how, I like to think, I make some of the connections and points (what points I hear you say, outraged) that I do. These are more an idea firing launchpaad than something that will sate those looking for classically trained 'articles'. Too bad, go to Wiki or an Encyclopedia if you want your theories 'opinion-free'.