Wal Mart

Welcome to the infamous Wal Mart sucks page on my site. First let me start by saying that as far as I can tell we as a nation are divided about 50/50 as far as whether we think Wal Mart sucks or whether they don’t. Let me tell you right now that I don’t really give a shit about your problems with Wal Mart. If you’re mad because they put your store out of business or they are taking your business away or you’re mad because they hire illegal Mexicans to clean their floors; well then, I guess that you’re in the wrong place.

My problem with Wal Mart is a little different than most of you out there. You won’t hear me pissing and moaning about them being so big that they ran the little mom and pop stores out of business and what not. As far as I’m concerned, they did what they had to do for their business, and they won. If only we could all be so successful at what we do considering that out there in retail, it is survival of the fittest. They kicked some serious ass and therefore I will not piss and moan that they practice shady business and that they are doing sneaky things to take over the world; even though they do, and they are. My problem is a little smaller here.

Music that contains explicit lyrics; they do not sell it.

The following was taken off Wal Mart’s Web site: Wal-Mart will not stock music with parental guidance stickers. While Wal-Mart sets high standards, it would not be possible to eliminate every image, word or topic that an individual might find objectionable. And the goal is not to eliminate the need for parents to review the merchandise their children buy. The policy simply helps eliminate the most objectionable material from Wal-Mart’s shelves.

You know, I have no problem with someone that practices what they preach. If you do not believe that there should be swearing in music and you would like to feel more like a “family” store, that’s fine, however Wal Mart is hypocritical. Let’s examine the situation here shall we?

• Wal Mart DOES NOT sell music that contains explicit lyrics. I think anyone who has ever gotten a CD as a gift from Wal Mart has realized this. There’s nothing like getting the edited or “amended” version for your birthday and getting to listen to scratch noises over any potential swear words.

• Wal Mart DOES sell movies that contain swearing and nudity. Obviously, they aren’t selling porn here, but they do sell standup comedy and R rated movies that do sometimes contain nudity. Hell, I’ve even seen the South Park movie there.

• Wal Mart DOES sell guns. Well, I know there are all kinds of legal reasons to own a rifle or a shotgun, but that doesn’t mean that someone can’t use those guns to kill people. I am sure some of the same people that protest the awful lyrics in a song that talk about shooting people might be a little concerned that the actual gun to shoot the people in the song may have come from Wal Mart.

• Wal Mart DOES sell cigarettes. Any argument you can make that cigarettes are a choice an individual makes can be compared to the same choice that someone buying explicit music makes. As long as I’m of legal age, if I want to breathe death smoke into my body or listen to lyrics that are going to steal my soul and rot my brain, it’s my choice, unless I’m shopping at Wal Mart. Then I only get to have lung cancer but can’t hear bad words.

• Wal Mart DOES sell video games with M ratings. As far as I’m concerned, the M Rating is the equivalent to the Parental Advisory sticker. There is no real reason why you can sell one and not sell the other.

So let me summarize and get this straight here. On any given day I can go to my local Wal Mart and buy a box of bullets, a pack of smokes, a movie full of swearing with either some killing or fucking in it and a video game that has a lot of killing in it… but I can’t pick up an unedited Eminem CD? What’s up with that? Do I even need to get into the recent censoring of books? Both America the Book by the people from the Daily Show on Comedy Central and George Carlin’s new book When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? were pulled from the shelves of Wal Mart across the US because they were found to be objectionable. In fact, with Carlin’s book, they stated that they didn’t believe that the people that shop at their stores would be interested in that type of material… but they can still purchase it online. I guess that means that in order to please these bible belt folks down there, we’re pulling the book out of all of our stores, but you can buy it online if you would like to because we will always take the almighty dollar.

Now if we are to believe that Wal Mart is going to be our Retail Crusader for truth and justice and the American Way, how can they say one thing and do something different? I think it is total bullshit. I would say about 30% of music contains some sort of profanity, and with that large of an amount of music that they are not selling, they are missing a pretty sizable chunk of the market that they could be getting some cash on. You can only sell so many Disney soundtracks.

My best example of this situation is this: A while back I went into my local Wal Mart and I bought the DVD – Chris Rock: Bigger and Blacker. Now that is full of profanity, and I bought it at Wal Mart. I also own the CD of that same performance, but I didn’t purchase that at Wal Mart because it is against their morals to carry a CD with a parental guidance sticker on it. What a group of hypocritical bastards.

Just recently I bought Chris Rock’s newest DVD Never Scared. I’m sure you know the rest… the CD was not available…