Say it Ain’t So. PLEASE!!

Good Lord.  I mean it.  Breathe, pause, general expression evoking the name of God.  A God.  Any God.  It’s been five years and that is a relatively conservative measure of time since I worked at a certain mall, in a certain shoe store.  Let me say as a mall veteran, someone who has worked in two different malls for a grand total of roughly four years, that the mall sucks.  All malls suck.  Sorry Arizona, but not really.

I don’t like the mall.  I’m starting this paragraph without knowing where it will take me, so consider the following a mere matter of the general flow of my consciousness: I don’t like malls because they are unnatural.  They are corporate.  They are the worst example of consumerism.  A mall is a place where good ideas go to die.  Where teenagers go to loiter and steal, at least I did when I was a teenager (the latter, I didn’t loiter (at least at a mall)).  Where zombies convene to terrorize average American citizens.  Actually, Dawn of the Dead is probably the best criticism/caricature of mall culture that exists.  Better than Mall Rats.  Immensely more important than Debbie Gibson.

I think my biggest problem with malls are that they are static.  The products don’t change from one to the next.  Perhaps that’s a comfort to others but it scares the bejesus out of me.  Complacency is a silent killer and malls are so blatantly complacent that I don’t understand how people get roped in.  But they do.  It’s been five years or so since I worked at this particular mall, in this particular store and it still has the same manager and one of the same sales associate there today.  The associate had been there for years already when I showed up.  How does this happen?

Drugs is a quick and easy answer.  I had already left but seen one of the two in what I wouldn’t hesitate to call his ‘meth phase’.  I’ve never partaken in meth, nor do I have any interest in it, but I saw all the acute signs.  It’s a real shame because his mental capacity went down the toilet, and quickly.  But the other has never had a drug problem to the best of my knowledge.  He’s never bragged or offered or shown symptoms, he’s just been lulled into latency.  I feel for him most.

It’s not just malls.  The setting isn’t the only contributing factor and I realize that.  I understand that comfort and fear of change and sticking with what you know are all attributable agents.  But I think all these reasons fall under the umbrella of security.  Our culture seems obsessed with security.  It drives people into cubicles and malls and behind counters and, even worse, keeps them there.  Has risk been totally driven to the wayside?

Perhaps.  Perhaps that’s why modern music sucks.  Perhaps it’s why characters in comics and novels are being recycled and TV shows are nothing if not formulaic nowadays.  How many CSI’s are there?  How many different ways can you fill in: So You Think You Can..?

I guess I shouldn’t complain too much.  I truly believe that there is a direct correlation between the amount of crap out there and the quality of worthwhile expressions of art.  For every five crappy and predictable shows like Raising the Bar or CSI you get a gem like Dexter or It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  For every dozen or two crappy, serialized characters you get original titles like Locke & Key (comic) or characters like Meyer Landsman and Berko Shemets.  You just have to sift through it all and maybe that makes the prize all the more worthwhile.