What Would Jesus Buy?
Giving thanks for Buy Nothing Day
By Coco Tanaka
It’s too late to harp on grain-fed tofurkey, cage-free turducken or any other hyphenated portmanteaux of flightless birds whose gilt skin you’ll be knifing this Thanksgiving, so I’ll skip the “Green Your Gobbler!” bit. I know we all plan this miserable gluttony-palooza several days in advance, so there’s no sense in pretending we’re not all going to turn to the same overplayed, Snake Pit-evading traditions we’ve relied on for years. Maybe some of you will compost your leftovers or mash up locally sourced cranberries. I will remember to give thanks for you and your good deeds. You are just like the gentle-hearted pilgrims, with their buckled shoes and muskets.
Thanksgiving is my least beloved holiday, and not just because the even years are cursed with the Biennial Tanaka Family Cataclysm, wherein the cousins get wicked-drunk, Aunt Kay insults Grandma’s pie, and people storm out of the room sobbing, wishing aloud they’d never been born or wondering how they can turn this whole Cormac McCarthy dystopia into a potentially profitable screenplay – oh my god, a musical! – starring the Twilight kids or whatever.
No, I can handle the circus family, and the tryptophan hangover, and the general shame of realizing I just drank three bottles of Cabernet and am now crying in the locked bathroom because I will never write a screenplay good enough for the Twilight kids, and who do they think they are? No, it’s the day after Thanksgiving ’08, November 28, the aptly christened “Black Friday,” that grinds my gears. What’s more, I can’t even bitch about it in good conscience this year, because the economy is in dire straits and I suppose we need these morons to abandon filial pie-throwing in order to go to Costco and get all UFC for flat-screens.
See, after the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag clasped hands to celebrate Plymouth’s first “we didn’t screw it up” harvest, they took a catnap and then shopped the shit out of the following day, which is now supposedly the busiest shopping day of the year. Big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy have gone ahead and made the day after Thanksgiving a part-deux holiday to buy junk at insanely! low! prices! even though sources tell me that most of these stores advertising GPS units for the nifty price of $20 and a lap dance only have, like, five units to sell. I am not speaking from experience. I don’t do lines (especially the kind you stand in), I dislike tents, and extreme weather – frigidity or hellfire – makes me cranky, like I am now. Local news crews love this bedlam. You can practically hear the cameraman salivating over getting that perfect “spirit of the holidays” shot in which herds of Americans trample into GameStop like rabid wildebeest, screaming that THEY NEED THE 80-GIG PS3 NOW OR SOMEONE’S GONNA GET CUT!
The same-day solution (which is not at all a solution in terms of finding an economic upturn): Buy Nothing Day. I am about 14 years late to the party on this one, but I’m planning on staying for a bit, and inviting friends. The alternative faux-liday advocating 24 hours of debit card detox was brilliantly founded by Adbusters Media, which challenges its celebrants to indefinitely postpone their mass shopping sprees. Its umbrella shelters Santa Monica Zombie Strolls (the moon-faced undead wander malls and frighten shoppers) and Whirl-marts, in which bizarre conga lines of folks with empty carts circle mall aisles. Freaky, right? I know. Anyway, the message is that buying more stuff – even eco-friendly stuff – is not the answer. Consuming less is a good start. We’ve been here before.
In the interest of procrastination and research, I watched last year’s fantastic Morgan Spurlock-produced film What Would Jesus Buy? Not much, as it turns out. As Reverend Billy, performance artist Bill Talen sports big hair, a televangelist swagger, and a full-fledged gospel choir that goes city-to-city promoting the good reverend’s Church of Stop Shopping. In his crusade against the “shopocalypse,” he performs an exorcism on Wal-Mart. Last year he brought “elves on strike” to the Grove. Dude’s a genius. Please, get in on that this year.
I basically detest Thanksgiving, but I am a big proponent of being thankful. Be thankful that when the flames stop raging, we still live in California, which sure as hell beats any of the tornado states. Be thankful for the new dawn summoned by our president-elect. If you’re straight, be thankful that no one has revoked your immutable, sacrosanct right to marry the person you love. (And if you’re gay, please, please keep the faith.) On November 28, be thankful that in spite of all this hyper-discounted crap available, technically, you need absolutely none of it.
Published: 11/26/2008
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genius!
yes, you are.