That's Just, Like, Your Opinion, Man

One afternoon a semi-regular customer who waitresses at a greasy spoon diner-slash-gas station in nearby Peeweeston comes in. She browses the Adopt-a-Movie Box for a short while before selecting a title from it to claim as her very own. As Fernando retrieves the film and inspects the disc to make sure it doesn't look like someone knifed it, she tells him, “A weird lady came into the restaurant last night.”

“Weird? Weird how?” Fernando asks, snapping open his rental case and moving the movie in question to its new home.

“Well, she was really quiet and kept to herself. Like, she didn't talk much even when I went to serve her. So she comes up to pay and then she asks me, 'Do you guys do a lot of business here with people coming through?' And I'm like, 'Well, yeah.' And she said, 'I thought the sign would maybe turn people off from coming in.'”

This establishment, you see, does not adhere to a Fernandesque view of keeping the personal and business life of its proprietor good and separate. No, the owner of this joint instead proudly puts his politics on display, not in the last through a rather large sign which reads, in big bold letters, “DEFEAT OBAMA.”

This is the deep kind of political discourse Fernando's rural neighbors embrace.

Fernando's customer continues, “So I looked at her and I said, 'I don't know why you would think that,' and she goes, 'The man in the shirt over there doesn't help things either.' So I look and there's a guy who always comes in and he's wearing the same shirt I've seen him wear a bunch of times.”

“And which shirt is this?” Fernando asks, more out of obligation to be a good conversationalist than because he finds this tale of any interest.

“It's one of those ones that reads, 'Twenty years ago we had Johnny Cash, Steve Jobs, and Bob Hope. Now we got no cash, no jobs, and no hope.'”

“Classy,” Fernando says in a deadpan tone.

“Right? Why couldn't she just keep her opinion to herself?” his customer says, mistakenly believing that Fernando's thrown his lot in with the bumpkin who attires himself with puerile talking points.

Fernando shrugs. “Why be upset?”

“Nobody needs to hear about any of that.”

“I notice you don't seem to have any problem with the guy in the shirt.”

“No, why would I?”

“Because he's doing the exact same thing.”

“No he's not. He's not bothering anybody with it.”

“Weird. It sounded to me like it was bothering somebody.”

Fernando's guest looks at him for a moment as though she is about to retort with something, but instead she closes her mouth, scoops up her movie, and departs.

Conspiracy Conspiracy

One afternoon Fernando is trying his hand at Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup when a man enters the Dominion. He approaches the counter and Fernando greets him.

“Yeah, do you have any documentaries on 9/11?” the man asks.

“Not really documentaries, no,” Fernando replies. "I've got the Oliver Stone picture, off the top of my head, if that was something you would maybe be interested in.”

“No, I'm looking for ones that are about covering up the truth.”

“The...truth? No, sorry, I know I don't have anything you're looking for with that particular...slant.” Documentaries are piss-poor renters to begin with, and the most recent one in the store is Michael Moore's Sicko...which came out around two years before Fernando even took hold of the Dominion's reins of leadership.

Notwithstanding most social and political so-called “documentaries” are attention-whoring malarkey with an investigatory and explanatory outlook about on par with the average 24-hour news channel, in that the creator holds to a normative position, rather than an empirical one, and then seeks out examples to shore up this preconceived notion. No scholarly or investigatory work can be wholly objective, as the researcher always imprints some of his or her views into the investigation at hand. But biased, histrionic bullshit is what sells to the average American; and even then “sell” is grossly overgenerous. As stated above, the Dominion's customer base doesn't care to watch the newest Michael Moore schlock; and Fernando would rather spend money on titles that turn a profit rather than pandering bullshit which, while it aligns itself politically with the plurality of nearby ignorant customers, they still don't rent.

Anyway, the guy wandered the store for a few minutes and then left.

Butter-Two-Face

Paula Deen said some bad things recently.

The fact that an old, southern woman might have within the language centers of her brain the capability to use words in a fashion commonly deemed as racially inappropriate seems to have come to a complete shock to America at-large, who are, astoundingly, treating this as more newsworthy than Kim Kardashian having recently whelped and naming the kid after the latter half of a Hitchcock movie, after she drew the Apples to Apples card referencing it during her last family game night. Everybody is fucking outraged that Paula Deen planned to organize a wedding themed with a level of social ignorance/ineptude I could only dream to attain. And then, by Mimir's Well, all the so-called journalists and investigators have dredged through this woman's life history for every single race-related social faux pas she'd perpetrated over the course of her long existence.

I'm not defending her; she said and did some stupid shit and she should suffer the consequences thereof. I'm not excusing her poor decisions based on her age or the social cues and mores she'd picked up during her upbringing that stuck with her, perhaps overtly and perhaps only subconsciously, the rest of her life. That said, America, get some goddamn perspective.

Why are we suddenly giving so great many fucks about the Queen of Butter and her verbiage? “Probably,” one might say, “because it's symptomatic of all the things we suspect about southern people but can't really prove.” The South does get the short end of the stick on racial issues more often than not (rightly so or otherwise I'll leave as an exercise for you to puzzle out on your own), and on such occasions the rest of the country can come together for snide chortling at the South's expense. After all, though Americans pretend otherwise, we are among the pettiest and most Schadenfreude-seeking people on the planet. We crave stories of other peoples' fuck-ups. How the hell else could reality television thrive?

The thing is, the media has treated this Paula Deen fracas with all the gravity of the average Entertainment Weekly So You Think You Can Dance? article. Editorial-writers (people doing the exact same thing as me, except their works are presented via ostensibly well-regarded publications or institutions) poo-poo their noses at the poor reflection on her character which this horror provides. This is inappropriate and wrong, and this sixty-six year old woman's racist history which we've gone out of our way to (re)construct, why, it's just scandalous!

Okay....and now what? Let's agree it's scandalous that this thing happened. Do we use our fervor to some noteworthy end or....No, we don't? We'll just be incensed for a short while then, watch things invariably die down, and return to a daily slog identical to the one before this media buzz began, except maybe Paula Deen is out of a job? Okay then.

Here's my take: Let's stop pretending that we as a society have a responsibility to engage in this farcical moralizing. Stop being disingenuous with your surprised cries that this isn't how Real America does it, that we're not all like this, and that Paula Deen is a social anomaly. Don't post to Facebook or Twitter how sad and shocked you are that someone like this exists in modern America and swear up and down that you'll never buy a Smithfield ham or cook anything in butter ever again. Don't even bother wringing your hands at the travesty of it all if you can't or won't nut up that shit like this is commonplace all across the country among all age demographics and not limited to people living in Bumfuck, Missalabameorgidennesstuckansolina who happened to have one black friend while growing up under Jim Crow.

Or, we could take this opportunity to have a frank discussion on race and racism in this country, both of the overt and institutionalized varieties. This would require that the members of the American media take something resembling an objective, empirical approach to the matter, like maybe bringing sociologists or political scientists who do research in that area onto their news programs rather than reinviting those old-hat demagogues (and you know who they are) who provide absolutely nothing of value and instead offer up only their own biased claims and exclamations.

One of these options is the much easier and more likely of the two, and that's why this screed is the only fuck I'm willing to give on the matter.

Mushrooms

One day Fernando comes into the Dominion to find that the grassy island separating the road/parking lot before the store and the highway had sprouted campaign posters for assorted local politicians, advertising their zealous bids for power. Sadly, the Dominion claimed jurisdiction over none of that particular parcel of land and so Fernando is unable to just go out there and tear them all out of the ground. He could perhaps have acquired posters for the individuals' opponents and thrown them up in the interests of overall balance, but his job is movies, not politics, and he did not want anyone to believe that the stink of local elections and inevitable partisan bickering had permeated the store any more than they already had through the grace of those posters twenty feet away.

So he did nothing. The posters stayed where they were. They were blown down one day on which Mother Nature decided to smite the Dominion a good one but the following morning saw them standing back up.

About a week later, another poster appeared. This one was shoved into the dirt a mere fifteen feet from the store, but, lamentably, still not on or in front of Fernando's property. Fernando groaned and rolled his eyes and did his best to ignore them. None of Fernando's customers ever mentioned the posters, and that was fine.

On one afternoon in October, a gigantic white pickup pulls into the Dominion's parking lot. A young man, maybe twenty-five or so, steps out. He wears a pressed blue button down shirt and his hair is styled with significant amounts of gel. The chimes tinkle and the man comes up to the counter with a huge shit-eating grin on his face.

“Hey there, I noticed you have a Ted O'Mop poster out in front of the store. I'm with his campaign. How are you doing today?”

Fernando does not rise from his seat to give his guest a more polite welcome. At this juncture it seems good to mention that Fernando does not particularly agree with Mr. O'Mop, the cohorts who share his political inclinations, and the policies they seek to enact. He does not blame Mr. O'Mop personally; the man is barely older than Fernando and is serving his first term, so his personal input on policy decisions within his chosen political party is minimal. However, one who sleeps with dogs wakes up with fleas, and Fernando does not like having to break out the shampoo.

“I am well. However, those aren't my posters. I assume they belong to the gentleman who owns the vacant lot over there.” This vacant lot, by the way, is a scant bit larger than the one on which the Dominion rests. It lacks any sort of building or permanent fixture, yet the man who owns it values it at roughly triple the price of the plot of land on which the Dominion rests—this is including the building in the math. There is little mystery why this lot has remained vacant for over twenty years, ever since an old grocery store which had been there burned down.

“Oh, I see. Well, would you like a poster for in front of your store?”

“No thanks. It's not appropriate to involve my business in politics.”

“How about one for at home?”

“Apartment. Sorry.”

This does not faze the man. “Okay, well then. Have a nice day then!” He leaves and climbs back into his truck.

About thirty seconds later Fernando hears metallic clanging coming from outside. When Fernando exits his office and peers out his front door to investigate, he sees the well-groomed man and an associate in a blue t-shirt. The second man uses a hammer to pound stakes into the ground near the rather small Ted O'Mop sign. They then erect a larger sign, maybe four by three feet, to loom above it as a patriarch might loom over his brood of young and cast judgmental looks earthward.

It never ends.

Business Politics

Three guys come into the store one evening near closing time. Fernando's never seen any of them before, and he presumes they are up here for either the off-road races two towns over or to slaughter some type of vertebrate life in their free time. Two of them fan out into the store while the third comes around the entry foyer and stands a few steps inside Fernando's office. “Hey, what's it take to rent here?” he asks.

“I just need name, address, driver's license, phone number, the basics,” replies Fernando.

The man nods. “Okay, okay. How do rentals work?”

“New releases are three-fifty, the older ones are two bucks a night. It's a buck-fifty for each additional night for the new releases and fifty cents each night for the older ones. They just have to be back by seven P.M. the following night.”

“That sounds good, sounds good,” says the man. “You got any good sports movies that come out lately?”

“Hmm...only one I can think of off the top of my head is Moneyball. Let me track that down for you.” Fernando rises from his seat and weaves among the trio of strange men to the movie's resting place on the rental rack. “Aside from that....” he continues, searching for something else having to do with sports.

One of the men whom we will refer to as “Vietnam” picks up the case and flips it over to read the back. “I won't watch this,” he says.

“Why not?” asks the second man, henceforth arbitrarily named Thailand.

Vietnam replaces the case. “It has that scumbag liberal Damon in it.” Fernando wishes he had some small proficiency in toxicology, as there was some grade-A venom lacing the man's words just waiting to be harvested and analyzed.

The third guy, the one who had first spoken with Fernando—we'll call him Laos—turns back to the Keeper. “Yeah, this one ain't gonna work.”

Well, alright. The invisible hand works in all directions. “Okay...uh, I've got All Things Fall Apart. It's football-themed, has Curtis Jackson. It's pretty much a more cynical Remember the Titans.”

The three men exchange a look. Laos speaks. “Eh, I don't think that's what we're going for either. What else you got?”

Fernando's cheeks puff out in a sigh. It's so hard to please people. “That's about it in terms of newer stuff in that vein. Sports drama isn't the most in-demand genre out there. I've got some older stuff—Invincible and stuff like that—if you're interested, though. The releases that've been really big lately are mostly action-thrillers and comedies.”

“What about action? Just straight action,” asks Thailand. Fernando surmises that genre of film must have a fewer scumbag liberals per capita.

“Guns-and-explosions action or ass-kickery fisticuffs action?”

Vietnam chuckles and shakes his head. “'Fisticuffs.' Get a load of this guy here.” Fernando ignores that.

“Give us the best of both,” says Laos.

“Alright. Hobo With a Shotgun's basically a homage to the single angry man seeking revenge for a slight done to him or his community movies from the '80s. Rutger Lauer plays a badass homeless man who's fed up with the mob.”

Laos nods. “Good action?”

Fernando shrugs. “He sticks a guy into a sewer access, ties a rope around his neck, and hitches the other end to a delivery truck.” Vietnam and Thailand make approving noises upon hearing that. Laos takes the case from the rack and carries it with him as Fernando guides them to the next item on his to-sell list.

“I've also got Haywire. It's a...well, I won't call it a kung-fu movie, but it's quite a bit like Fighting or Blood and Bone, stuff where people beat the everloving shit out of other people using parts of their body.” At this juncture Fernando tries putting a bit of a sell on a third movie. “The main actress is actually a professional martial artist so, while the acting suffers a little—kind of like how it was in Act of Valor, the one that had the SEALs—the actual choreography and execution of the fight scenes is spectacular.”

Laos selects that case too. He doesn't bite on Fernando's additional recommendation, however. “I think that's about it for tonight, yeah?” he asks, looking at his companions. They shrug and make noises of agreement. “Okay, get us set up to rent these things.”

Fernando nods. “Easily done.” He retrieves one of his applications and the three men silently bicker over who gets the honor of filling it out. The responsibility becomes Thailand's in the end. He jots down what needs jotting down, hands over his license for inspection without complaint (miraculous, that!) and completes the slip of paper to Fernando's approval.

“Alright, that's seven bucks then.” The men pay and get ready to leave.

“Oh, yeah, almost forgot!” Fernando says. “Friday and Saturday I've got complimentary microwave popcorn, if y'all'd like a bag.”

“Sure, sure, we'll take one,” says Laos. The man extends a hand out to Fernando after the bag of popcorn is transferred over. “You know, Fern, you're alright.” Fernando shakes his hand. “Firm grip, too,” Laos says with some surprise.

Fernando shrugs. “I do the best that I can.” With this, the three man depart.

The not-really-remarkable thing is that Vietnam's binary worldview, which is apparently constructed in no small measure through political inclinations, would immediately shunt Fernando into the scumbag segment of the population, yet Fernando ended the encounter quite amiably. This is something that far too many people both locally and on a nationwide scale don't or refuse to grasp: political leanings don't fucking matter if you're trying to be a good servitor to a customer. Only a douchebag injects (or interjects) politics into the personal business relationship between customer and provider. Be Keepers of your respective Dominions, not Morality Polices of the External World.

Don't Drop the SOPA

I haven't done one of my vaunted opinion pieces in a fair while. Now seems like as good a time as any to climb onto my SOPA-box (D'HOHOHOHO!).

For those of you who don't really follow the political shenanigans of our lofty federal legislature or keep up on internet-related news, Congress is looking to pass a bill called the Stop Online Piracy Act. Read the Wikipedia link to catch up if you haven't already (you really should), but if you're intellectually lazy the tl;dr is as follows: Congress wants to stamp down on intellectual property trafficking by allowing the Department of Justice or the holders of copyrights in question to investigate any shady dealings that may or may not have occurred on websites that may or may not have links to such violations. The arguments for passing it but basically come down to “it helps make money for the people who hold legitimate copyright on things which could be infringed.” I'll be forthright at this juncture: I think this law is stupid and an unnecessary burden upon internet citizens. I would much rather that it returned into the murky pit of Orwellian, fascistic control from whence it crawled.

I've followed some of the arguments about this bill because I have little better to do with my time, and in the spirit of true and honest American political discourse the word “capitalism” was tossed about like it was going out of style. What's more, capitalism as an economic system was, in true and honest American fashion, equivocated with morality. “More capitalist” equaled “more moral” in some instances, and in others people argued that it was somehow anti-capitalist to control the content on the internet. After all, laissez-faire is preferable to regulated. It caused a quite interesting divide (and a fair bit of trolling) between the stereotypical “liberal” and “conservative” political viewpoints.

Capitalism is all about the private accumulation of wealth which comes about through individual, rather than state, ownership of means of production. The widely-held ideal that a free market is the best market is flawed. To those who treat capitalism as an ethical framework, the best market is the market which allows maximal accumulation of capital by the individual. Freedom (political, social, or economic) is irrelevant to the discussion, except that actors should have the greatest possible freedom to amass wealth.

Unfortunately, people with vested economic interests oftentimes have vested political interests as well, and humans are greedy, self-serving fucks by nature. We like things and stuff, and the more things and stuff we have or could have, the happier we become. If a strictly regulated internet would make more money for those with a vested economic interest in that area, then that sort of internet is the way to go. Toss in a little bit of kickback to the people who make it possible and TA-DA! You have your SOPA.

What irks me the most about this whole thing is not really the fact that SOPA exists. I don't pretend to be a shining avatar of Lawful Goodness; I'm as much a bastard as any other person out there. It's that the nature of politics in this country allows for the fact that SOPA can exist so easily. If I were to offer money to one of my representatives in government in exchange for political favors, I would quickly find myself befriending gentlemen in some sort of correctional facility (insert call back to title here). Ah, but if there is enough money being thrown about, or if the perks are oblique enough to not constitute “bribery” under whatever jackassed conception of the term is written into the laws dealing with the issue, then the sailing is smoother than a milkshake made by God Himself.

Is copyright infringement a problem? Absolutely. Gutting individuals' rights in order to retain a profit margin from a bygone era on media, before the rise of Hulu or Bit Torrent or Pandora or The Pirate Bay, is not the solution. Christ, I know about better than anybody about that sort of competition. Hell, by all rights I should be supporting this piece of shit legislation simply because it would only help my profit margin. I've had to adapt my business model and my budget to account for an omnipresence of Netflix. In an ideal market, competitors adapt their products and services to meet demand or they die out as new players supplant the old.

Such a pity the real world doesn't work that way. And that is why I hate economics.

Fernando Shrugged

On a beautiful mid-October day, Fernando plays a bit of Torchlight because his customer flow is nonexistent and he is between internet services at the moment. The phone rings; the caller ID reveals the caller to be a rather elderly customer, someone who comes to the store maybe twice a century and only rents half the time.
“Hello, Dominion of Movies.”
“Hi, do you have Atlas Shrugged?”
“I'm afraid I don't right this moment. It doesn't come out until early next month.”
“Oh. You'll be picking up some copies then?”
“Yeah, I'm snagging one.”
“Only one?”
“Well, I don't think I'll be needing more.”
Fernando's attempt at cordiality and not using words that belie how he really feels about Objectivism must have come off as facile, as the caller degenerated into frothy rage. “Lots of people agree with the message it has!”
“Actually not so much. It only made like 5 million at the box office and money I put towards that will be money I can't put towards, say, Harry Potter, or my own salary. As an apparent fan of the, ah, work in question, surely you can understand, even though I am under no obligation to provide you a moral justification for my actions beyond 'I want it that way,' why I would look out for my self-interest like that.”
“So you're biased against it!”
“Ma'am, the only time I inject politics into my business life is when other people bring it up first. I find it rude to spew derp at my customers, especially given the current unhealthy division that can result from airing one's political leanings.. The only 'politics'--” here Fernando makes air quotes with his free hand even though no one is around to see them-- “at work here is old-fashioned capitalism, and not stocking vast quantities of a movie that won't make me much money. Now, I'm sorry, but I have a line of customers to help. Good bye.”
“Oh. Okay. Bye.”

Fernando hangs up and palms his face.