Respect Authority

My defenses are down. On an impromptu outlet shopping adventure this week, I found myself considering all manner of unnecessary purchases, things I couldn’t even begin to claim I “need” - sneakers, jeans, jewelry, wholesale quantities of chocolate truffles. Surrounded by a triple threat of pricing markdowns - outlet, recession, Christmas - I was unprepared to bring forth the will power necessary to just say no. To half-price Nikes, to $20 Chuck Taylors, even - in a moment of sheer nostalgia - to $15 Pacific Sunwear jeans.

If this is shopping now, when the recession is little more than a buzzword for middle America, and “depression” still associated with 1929, bread lines and our grandparents’ complaining, I find myself increasingly concerned that next year, and the unavoidable economic melee sure to come with it, will yield another flurry of discount shopping - one which I might find myself even less capable of evading.

What the fuck America? Isn’t it shopping - designer goods, credit cards and living beyond our means - that got us into this mess in the first place? (Ignoring for the moment predatory lending, subprime mortgages and corporate-jet-owning investment bankers) How then are we to solve this country’s economic woes by luring weak-minded consumers back to the very stores that put them $25,000 in debt and three months behind on their student loan payments? How am I, specifically, going to maintain the paltry sum I call a “savings account” when being incessantly bombarded by images of half-price clothes and bargain-bin book sales?

The future, it would seem, is a hell of a fucking lot like the present.

Respect Authority’s Best of 2008

• Movies — “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan had me at “Scrappy Coco,” but where it really took off was how easily they solved the Israeli/Palestinian awkwardness. All it takes is some comedic gerontophilia and Robert Michael Schneider.”
• Music — “Vibe magazine readers may have named Eminem the best living rapper, but I would bet cash money (millionaires) that’s because they haven’t listened to Lil Wayne’s ‘Shooter’ while smoking a joint on the fire escape.”
• Television — “2008 was the year I finally accepted that Dave Chappelle would not be finishing the 3rd season of his show, and with MTV’s doubtlessly upcoming Meet The Obamas no where to be found, there was a void in my heart where insightful black comedy is supposed to live.”

Come back this week for RA’s favorite foods, trends and current events. …Umm, and never-before-seen nude pictures of famous hot chicks.