Only On Sunday

My story The Dance is now appearing in the December issue of Vagabond Press‘ The Battered Suitcase. Be sure to check it and the other stories out. There’s some damn fine stuff there.

Technorati Tags: Vagabond Press, The Battered Suitcase

Not exactly a Happy Camper Holidaze season coming up, huh? The mortgage meltdown, the credit crunch, rising unemployment and rising costs, it’s no wonder folks have wrapped their fists around their hard-earned and diminishing resources, painfully aware of every copper penny they let slip through their grasp. Gotta keep a roof over our heads, wheels beneath our feet, food on the table and heat in the space between the walls. We could be jobless tomorrow. There ain’t no bucks to spare for no stinkin’ holidaze presents.

While a healthy dose of fear is a good thing, if you up the dose too high, it becomes paralyzing.

So, I had this idea a couple of nights back and I’m going to toss it out there. Could work. Especially if I could get enough folks to participate in the plan. Might even send a message up the food chain to the ones who ain’t suffering. And it could help out a neighbor or a friend.

The first thing you have to do is trim that holidaze buying list way down this year. Keep it close: your wife or husband, boyfriend or girlfriend, son or daughter. Your grandkids, if quite young, ain’t gonna miss it but that’s your decision, and Aunt Milly in Idaho can wait until times get better. Hell, Aunt Milly in Idaho is probably tightening her budget and trimming you from her holidaze list as I write this.

Keep in mind that you don’t need to buy five presents for everyone on your trimmed-down holidaze list. One will be fine and certainly better than nothing at all. It’s the act of giving that counts, remember, not the number of gifts given. And it doesn’t have to be some high-priced item either. A well chosen book, a thoughtful piece of jewelry, a warm sweater, a CD you yourself would never listen to but something your son would go ape over, we’re talking under twenty bucks per present here. And whatever you do, don’t use a credit card to buy the items. The credit card companies don’t give a damn about you so why give them a present?

Ok, if you’re still with me here and psyched up to go to it, let me throw a couple of caveats your way.

First: The government doesn’t give a damn what happens to you, especially now that the election is over. We’ve flexed the one tiny muscle we have with our vote and anyone who believes the bums we’ve elected are going to act substantially different than the bums we threw out is sadly delusional. To the government we are but a tax target, a source of revenue to bail out the Fat Cats on Wall Street.

Second: Corporate America doesn’t give a damn what happens to you. You’re nothing more than an advertising target and a source of revenue to pay their CEOs and upper echelon staff obscene amounts of money while laying off the real workers in the company.

So who loves ya, baby? Well, I don’t know if they love ya, but the local neighborhood retailers in your area sure as hell need you right now. Think about it. The guy who runs the local bakery, the woman who owns the local independent bookstore, these are your neighbors and we are all we have left to give a damn about each other. If sales are bad at WalMart or B&N do you honestly think the upper echelon of those companies are going to suffer? Not unless you think a five million dollar bonus instead of ten is suffering.

But, if sales are bad at the local bookstore, the little jewelry shop up the street, that cute little second-hand place around the corner, those folks are gonna hurt and hurt bad. They may have to close their doors. If just one out of every tenth person who reads this bought a gift from a local retailer, it may not be a boom year for them, but they may be able to squeak by. Isn’t that worth something?

So, here’s my proposal. Take it for what it’s worth. Thumb your nose at Corporate America. Just say no to Amazon and Barnes & Noble, to the big-box stores like WalMart and Home Depot, to the chains and the franchises with home offices in cities you wouldn’t visit in a million years and probably couldn’t find on a map.

Buy local! Want a book? Check out the independent bookstore in your town. Jewelry, clothing, music or video, I’m sure there’s a local, independent retailer in your area. Check out the local craft fairs, the second-hand stores, the tiny restaurant you’ve been driving past for the last few years, the little coffee shop hidden around the corner, the home town bakery down near the railroad tracks. Keep your hard earned cash at home where it will do the most good.

On a side note, as an author, I have a special interest in books and I happen to know that authors, especially debut authors, are hurting like the rest of us. It’s hard enough being a debut author, folks are wary of buying into an author they know nothing about, but in these fearful financial times it’s gotten even harder. So, here’s an addition to my proposal: Thumb your nose at Patterson and Clancy, Rowling and King and go for a debut author. I’m not passing judgment on the above authors, not at all, hell, I love Rowling and King, but let me tell ya, they don’t need the money half as much as that newly published author does and, more importantly, if that debut author is ever to see a second book of theirs on the shelf, they have sales numbers to meet before that will happen. The publishing industry is a brutal master.

I usually don’t give much thought to how many folks, if any, actually read my blog posts. I do this as much for myself as for garnering an audience. But this is different. I think this is an important issue and I’d love to see it blown across the blogesphere. I’d love to see other bloggers take up the cause, write their own posts from their own perspective, linking one to the other in a giant web and, as I plan to do below, give out a few recommendations for items to buy and places to buy them in their own city or town.

C’mon, we can do this. And we’re the only ones who give a damn enough to do it. Help your neighbor. Help your neighborhood. Help your local artist. Buy Local!

At the moment, I’m in Albuquerque, New Mexico and here are a couple of suggestions of things to buy and places to buy them.

A few recommended books (if I went all out, you’d be reading this post forever):

Freezing Point by Karen Dionne
Any of The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod by Heather Brewer
The Devil Can Wait by Marta Stephens
Playing with the Moon and Restitution by Eliza Graham

Bookstores:

Bookworks
4022 Rio Grande NW
Albuquerque, NM 87107
505-344-8139 (phone)

Page One Books
11018 Montgomery NE
Albuquerque, NM, 87111.
505-294-2026

Misc. stuff:

Pastian’s Bakery
3320 2nd St NW
Albuquerque, NM 87107
505-345-7773

Paintball Guns N Stuff
6301 4th Street Northwest, Suite 1
Albuquerque, NM 87107

Satellite Coffee
Various locations around ABQ

Native American Jewelry:

Utility Shack Inc
11035 Central Ave NE
Albuquerque, NM 87123
(505) 292-0174

Many of the shops in Old Town and don’t forget to check out the independent sellers with their wares laid out on the sidewalk. Some good values there.

Again, if you like what you’ve read here, send a link to everyone you know or, if you’re a blogger, write your own post and link back to me. Let’s pitch this idea to the whole world.

Save a retailer - Buy Local!