Layaway, T-Shirts, Politics, and Sports Patriotism

There have been a few things on my mind lately that I'd like to discuss briefly. Considering this is National Blog Posting Month, I would seem obliged to.

KMart seems to have brought back layaway. I saw the commercial for this and had to simultaneously laugh and think about our economy. I'd link to the commercial, but I can't seem to find it anywhere. See, it's sort of funny that we had to bring back layaway, but was it gone all that long ago, really? Am I that old that people are shocked about layaway? I ask this not because KMart bringing back layaway was such a big deal, but because the commercial actually had to explain how layaway worked. Seriously? It's that old that I needed a refresher course on "you can't have it yet, but you can make payments?"
How many of us went through our childhoods due to the wonder of layaway? It completely eliminated the need to hide presents. No one had to tell me not to look in that hall closet. I knew where my gifts were: Target and Montgomery Ward and Solo Serve and other department stores. It's refreshing that with credit not acting like it used to, we had to go back to layaway. It'll be interesting to see how the people of privilege face this method of old.

My parents were wearing their Obama shirts at Wal-Mart today. All the black people gave compliments and many white people avoided eye contact. All this got me thinking about how huge this really is. This presidential campaign is seen in the eyes of black people like a sporting event. You've seen the t-shirt vendors on the side of the roads and outside arenas, peddling their inventive products and compelling you to wear what's going to be hot on the streets the following morning. This is an artist revolution for who can best depict the junior senator from Illinois on 100% cotton.
But I've been thinking about Tuesday night specifically. You know how t-shirt vendors make two sets of shirts for championships and once the game is over, the sell the winning shirt and trash the losing shirts? You think this crop of Obama t-shirt vendors has that planned for Tuesday night? Once Sen. Obama becomes President-Elect Obama when that 270th electoral vote is called late Tuesday night (i.e. Wednesday morning), will there be t-shirts all along the side of the road, proudly bearing "Yes, we did!"?
Is someone editing clips of Obama's acceptance speech with Nate Dogg's musical narration from Chris Rock's Head of State. True, black people now have more of an interest in politics, but they still are going to have their own bent on matters. It's not like there were a lot of inventive Kerry or Gore t-shirts in years past. This may just be the beginning.

As a San Antonian, it pains me to say this, but I may actually have to not like the Spurs for outsourcing American jobs. I mean, they have two Argentinians, two Frenchmen, and while the Virgin Islands belong to the US, it's a bit iffy. Maybe people don't hate the Spurs because they're the niceguys of the NBA or because they're so boring to watch. Maybe people hate the Spurs because of deep patriotism (and a smidget of xenophobia).

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Artistic Partnerships

To Be Young, Gifted, Black, and a Jazz Enthusiast: Apparent Needle in a Haystack

2022: I Lost My Father and Got Into Milton Nascimento