To continue my "insufficiently worried" post, I own a Pop Culture store at a time when Pop Culture seems to be becoming our economy. It's what the good ol' U.S.A. does really, really well. Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Las Vegas, Disneyland, you name it.
And as Pop Culture moves every so closely to being the whole enchilada. Well, I own a Pop Culture store. How can I complain about that?
If I own a Pop Culture store and I can't find things to sell people -- then I would be a complete failure as a merchandiser. I mean, look at all the wonderful stuff I can get!
I've never had so much access to cool material. It used to be a bit of struggle finding things I could: A.) Find at all. B.) Be given access to at a reasonable price, and C.) Could afford.
Now? My only problem is finding enough space to actually display it.
Let me give you some examples.
On next week's invoice I have some foam rubber Thor Hammers (Mjolnir's, eh) coming in. I plan to break one out and set it next the cash register and flatten annoying customers. I'm getting a Sonic Screwdriver in, in case anything needs fixing. I also have a pack of True Blood coming in. In the catalog on my desk, I'm being offered Soylent Green crackers. So some time soon, you'll be able to chow down on Soylent Green crackers and wash it down with some True Blood soda. (I wonder if the Soylent Green crackers are kosher?)
We live in an atemporal time. (Look it up: Atemporality.)
Everything cool is cool again. (Yes, I'm mystified by some of the blank looks I get, especially from younger people -- but there are enough, thankfully, enough who Get It.)
Everything pop culture is available -- from the fifties to the teens. Hell, I have art books about medieval times. It's all connected in this wonderful web of nerdishness.
Anything cool at some point in our history becomes cool again.
I mean, it's been a strange life experience to see everything I loved as a teenager in the sixties and seventies move front and center into the pop culture center ring. It's as if someone is checking off my own personal checklist, one by one. (In fact, it's weirdly egocentric as if the pop culture universe was designed just for me. Why, thank you.)
And at the time, I felt I was the ONLY ONE who loved this stuff as much as I did.
Very strange.
Sure, half my sales are comics and graphic novels, which I truly appreciate and am thankful for. And sure, digital will make inroads into books and comics -- but, those are people I can lose without worrying about, because they probably weren't really my kind of people in the first place.
I expect the vast majority of people to come in the door not to connect. But there are enough, thankfully, enough, and every day I'm being given the opportunity to connect with more people....
So whatever happens, I'm not worried about having viable product to sell. In fact, if you can't adjust to this atmosphere of pop culture dominance, you can't adjust to anything.
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18 comments:
A Archie vs. Kiss comic has been announced.
Do I need say anything more?
Do you think Neil Sedaka will make a comeback?
Ummm....was he EVER cool?
WALMART (CEO) said customers continue to share a "common humanity" in wanting to "live better in a better world." He also discussed the differences in today's world and how people live now: "Our Next Generation Customer will include millions who are striving to join the emerging global middle class. They're connected to the world through smart phones and social media. They're in charge of when they shop and how they shop, and they know who has the lowest prices."
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It's almost an HBM MOMent, ... ah shucks, ... a better life, middle class, smart-phones, ... paradise for everyone in the world, and it can all be found by all worldwide at the WALMART of your choice.
Me thinks that this DEFN of 'new middle class' is what we have today in USA. It's new to ameriKKKan's but for those living in poverty, hanging out at a WALMART everyday sounds like heaven. Could WALMART be god?
I would keep it low on the high end ticket non-essentials, the coming months of austerity is really going to cut back on tourists, and on parental spending for garbage of the likes you have described.
The likes of the coming economy is going to make the last 3 years look like "Bend Paradise".
Confused me is.
Bookstore? or Gamestore?
Pop Store or Geriatric Lounge?
Soda Fountain or Barber Shop for community bullshitting?
I still say 'flea market', in a very small box. No wait ... "Flea market in a bottle", ... like ship in a bottle.
But you really need to do the marketing, I don't have any problem with your focus, and I certainly would do the same with 'segmented marketing' and go after each consumer demographic. But I really never see any marketing. I never see any signs. When I walk by your shop I have the feeling of fear, the kind of fear like that found in a restaurant that is robbed and raped and nobody knows from the street cuz you can't see what's going on inside.
There is a reason that APPLE & STARBUCKS has the open and wide and comfortable store layout. I find the stacked to the ceiling 'flea market in a bottle' to be extremely intimidating, if I were a child I would be terrified of entering your store.
I can't understand where Buster gets the idea I'm a big fan of Wal-Mart. Then again, I can't understand where Buster gets most of his ideas.
"The likes of the coming economy is going to make the last 3 years look like "Bend Paradise".
Yep, looks like the Teapublicans are set to kill off whatever remains of the economy by letting the US go into default rather than approve modest tax increases for billionaires. Brilliant, simply brilliant.
http://www.myloansconsolidated.com/2011/07/21/escape-from-america/
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I don't publish links often, but my GAWD is this one apt, and from non other other than the grand asshole himself 'jesse ventura', himself a comic book character, ... so this is apt to dunc's site.
In a gist, jesse is saying that if the woman that 'groped' the TSA agent is convicted by TSA that jesse will MOVE to Mexico. Ahhhhhhh shit moment, now even TEA-PARTY folk have figured out what I have advocated long ago, "If a ship is sinking you get off the fucking ship". If you simply stay on the ship and bitch and moan your still going to die, just like staying in Bend, your still going to die a slow and painful death. Secondly this article targets something I have said for a long time, ... that ALL of todays HONEST MEN who write well, and think well, have already LEFT THE USA.
It's called 'starve the beast', something that has been discussed quietly in smoke rooms in Salem, I can remember back in the 1970's.
Essentially its a right-wing christian theme. That the US government as is exists today ( post mcCarthyism ) is the road to hell.
That the US government is beyond redemption. That the entire toilet must be flushed. Out of the ashes will come a new JEEBUZ GUBMINT and all will be good.
When I first heard this story back in the 1970's I first thought it was crazy talk, after all by day these men were elegant mormons in suits, and rising stars in the cause of the day, e.g. anti-gay, and save the schools, ...
As a 'closet' emma goldman anarchist, I'm all for 'starve the beast' but for different reasons. The fascist US police state has to go, and defunding TSA & home-land security, ... etc is the solution. Also of course the public pension system cannot be paid, by that I mean soldier & cop retirement ( fbi, batf,... ) is all going to end.
This theme by HBM that that the 'riche' some how control all is BULLSHIT as it is the rich that wants imperialism and police state to protect them at taxpayer expense. The riche want status-quo just like HBM.
It's all going down, its reset time, ... 'starve the beast', kill the beast, ... Kill the US government.
"It's called 'starve the beast', something that has been discussed quietly in smoke rooms in Salem, I can remember back in the 1970's."
It has been discussed in right-wing stink tanks all over the country, and quite openly.
"It's all going down, its reset time, ... 'starve the beast', kill the beast, ... Kill the US government."
I can understand your frustration, but I'm more inclined to think the collapse or near-collapse of the federal government would be used to usher in a REAL police state -- firing squads, concentration camps, the works.
No HBM, what I said was the 4th estate 'enabled walmart', ...
I know you hate walmart, because it is for the little people, and you hate all things the little people love, like flats of canned beans for $1.
I'm not fond of walmart myself and never set foot, in either Bend or Chinese walmarts. I simply don't like large air-conditioned buildings.
Walmart is the future of the world. The 4th estate is going down and hard. Even the seattle PI has now ceased. NYT is broke, and financed by the asshole of Mexico.
Bend is going to be worse, ... but because of PUG's?? I don't think so, Bend is going down because of COMMON GREED of the Grifters that make Bend and much of ameriKKKa.
Nobody needs to be blamed about the demise off ameriKKKa other than ameriKKKans' themselves.
The 4th estate such as yourself only want to protect the status-quo, because back at princeton, they convinced you that you were part of the system.
I myself was never part of any system.
The US DOLLAR is going down, the world is going off the USD as the reserve currency, and quick. This debate as has been said by Ron Paul & Jim ROGERS, is that this DEFAULT must happen to BITCH-SLAP the US GOVERNMENT to live within its means. US imperialism is finished. Gone is the day of bombing Libya everyday for oil. Every power on earth MUST stop the US DEVIL, thus the US DOLLAR will be destroyed. GOOD MEN all over the world are ensuring today that this is so, and has NOTHING to do with PUGorDEM war-mongers.
TODAY its destroy the US dollar, or let the US destroy the world. The world has decided its time to kill the USA. The blood of the USA is the dollar, so the currency must be destroyed.
I can understand your frustration, but I'm more inclined to think the collapse or near-collapse of the federal government would be used to usher in a REAL police state -- firing squads, concentration camps, the works.
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I'm not frustrated HBM. It's now 3am, and I'm living the good life.
THE US GOVERNMENT is already killing the world. It's like Malcolm X said when kennedy was killed, "Just a case of chickens coming home to roost", ... now 50 years later the 'camps' are here, never heard of WACO hbm?
For many ameriKKKans' the camps, and death-squads ( suicide by cop ) are already here. Most black-men are in prison the USA. TODAY.
NOPE its already beyond redemption. But 'frustrated', hell no, I'm far away, and never coming back. :)
Only time will tell. Defunding the NAZI's is/was the only way to stop them.
Either way its NOT going to be pretty. The police state will NOT easily give up their pensions.
At the present rate, if something is NOT done, then all the private will be enslaved by the public sector.
Most media people brown-nose poly-tickians and end up on public dole,... so they support fascism.
Frustrated? NOPE I have long predicted a 'civil war' in the USA in this time-frame. The best way to survive a war, is to be absent. Perhaps I'll return in 10 years, perhaps not. I would rather return to a 'new USA', than return to an advance fascist corporate police state USA.
The problem with the USA is they have too much money, which is spent on technology to control people. Once the US dollar is worthless, then the police-state will be just like most 3rd world country's. Cop's can go back to eating donuts and walking the hood.
"The 4th estate such as yourself only want to protect the status-quo, because back at princeton, they convinced you that you were part of the system."
But since then I've learned better.
But since then I've learned better.
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Thank you
This is my mind is the first time in our 4+ long years you have ever fessed up that you are one of us little people.
Like in "Blade Runner", ... "If your not cop, then your little people".
Too often a reporter, or Urnalist, ... gets a gubmint job, and thinks he's cop.
Today even USA teachers think they cop.
Firemen, librarians, ... judges, .. everyone at city/county in Bend/Deschutes think they're cop, .e.g. no longer little people, cuz they work for gubmint.
This is why everyone now carry gun, teacher, social-worker, ...
This is why the GUBMINT want to disarm the 'little people' So Gubmint can rob their saving's and prostitute their young. This is why TSA is softening the public ( little-people ) with groping, and sexually explicit scanning. Because in the future all Praetorians will have sexual rights to all 'little people' just like ancient Rome. The GUBMINT may not have money, but they'll pay cops in sex and power, the power to steal from the little people, which will fund the cop-shop for years.
When it comes time to taking away social-security, and the GUBMINT folk still get their pension the 'little people' will rise up in arms', thus those arms must be taken away.
Now even the postal-service may lose their pension. Public DEBT for public employee pension is in the trillions of dollars and is non-funded. Social Security is funded but the money long ago stolen to pay public employee pensions.
The future will be interesting.
'Little People' have no guns, BIG PEOPLE have guns. Might makes right.
Mao Tse Tung said it best, "All power comes from the barrel of a gun".
A few buzzwords to watch in the coming weeks are...
'Debt Jubilee'
'Odious Debt'
Jubilee is biblical when all debts are forgiven, many christians expect to simply not honor the t-bill debt, and expect the 'riche' to accept their loss, the riche being good christians of course :)
'odious debt' is more interesting, from a supreme court ruling long ago, but essentially debt incurred for fraudulent war ( think IRAQ ) shall not be required to be honored,
essentially much of our debt fall's into the above 2nd case, as most of the US debt is-was spent on dubious projects. Bush's illegal 10 year war has cost us exactly 4 Trillion, ... amazing exactly our current shortfall.
The jubilee is the typical christian guilt complex... but whatever works, the USA has a long history of not paying their debt to foreign governments.
We live in interesting times.
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