CONSUMER CONFIDENCE? WHICH CONSUMERS? On Sustainability, Need-Based Lifestyles, and the Naturally Green Choices of a Cheap Fucking Bastard

The astronomical growth in the wealth and cultural influence of multinational corporations over the last fifteen years can arguably be traced back to a single, seemingly innocuous idea developed by management theorists in the mid-1980s: that successful corporations must primarily produce brands, as opposed to products.

- NAOMI KLEIN, from No Logo
(2000, Full e-Text Here)

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- I'm not what anybody in their right mind would consider to be a man driven by consumerism.

In fact, I'm quite the anti-consumer, especially when my infrequent forays into luxury spending are weighed against the downright gluttonous behavior of a good portion of my countrymen at the hog trough of reckless capitalism.

A few DVDs, books, the occasional magazine or candy bar.

Yup. That's about it.

Not that I'm bragging or talking shit - that's not my point. I've always been like this. I've never really seen the point in spending money on things - often junk - that contribute nothing to my well-being or to that of my neighbors.

I don't buy clothes for anything as silly and bourgeoisie as style; I consume my basic wardrobe of jeans and tee-shirts as thriftily (often second-hand or in the form of gifts) as possible, based on need, digest them slowly over years until the fabric's threadbare and the holes in the pockets can no longer be restitched.

That's right. I said restitched. I'm lousy with a needle and thread, but I know at least how to sew on a button of fix a tear. I see no sense in wasting that which I have so carefully digested.

Hell, my Baltimore Orioles baseball cap - the "lucky" one (not for the Os, obviously) my parents bought me at a game at the old Memorial Stadium - is roughly the same age as my last girlfriend. And, as ratty as the damned thing is, I'll probably keep wearing it until it rots into oblivion, or I do.

I'm a notoriously cheap fucking bastard. Emphasis on the fucking bastard.

And on top of that, I'm not to big a fan of wasting natural resources simply because some advertising agency generated market trend tells me I won't fit in if I don't conform.

My anti-consumerist behavior doesn't stop with my wardrobe, either. Roughly 90 percent of all of my apartment's furnishings were either found on the street, inherited from somebody, of acquired at yard sales. The rest? Bought on clearance or off the scratch-and-dent racks.

I own no video games or consoles. I don't have cable. My microwave was stolen from the curb and the dresser in my bedroom used to belong to a Super Bowl quarterback.

Hell, I'm writing these very words you're reading right now on an Ubuntu machine, using open-source software.

My electric bill - with electric heat in a region that experiences single-digit temperatures at night occasionally - hasn't topped 80 bucks in more than two years. Thermostat's set at 53 degrees in the winter - if you're cold, grab yourself one of the half-dozen second-hand sweaters that don't fit me anymore that I keep on hand for guests.

And I don't use air conditioning. Period.

Cheap. Fucking. Bastard. I say it loud, say it proud.

* * * *

Why?

For one thing, well, it's better for the environment, better for the planet. It fucks rampant unchecked corporate greed in the ass with a greener chainsaw and keeps extra cash in my pocket.

And it's become a comfortably sustainable lifestyle.

Yes, not the media buzzword version of sustainability, not the White House teleprompter versions touted in speeches in Copenhagen or Kyoto.

We're talking My Ecological Footprint is roughly one-third that of other 30+ single males living in North America sustainable lifestyle.

Sustainability requires one to be just about as conservative as possible in resource consumption, especially of that which the consumer has few controls over the means of production, to be minimalist and marketing-resistant, consciously frugal in both purchase and usage, to make compromise not over what one needs but over what one does not.

Why give more money to the same multinational corporations that already own our politician and media outlets, defecate in the very global market capitalist buffet they feed upon, and, hell, already take my money without my consent through government bailouts and state contracts?

Sure, they naturally get some of my paycheck. I have to, after all, buy foodstuff and toiletries somewhere, still have to have a provider of laundry detergent and of consumable goods. And in rural parts of the US, like here in Oxford Fucking Ohio, some of my consumables are either purchased in the local-employing Big Box Stores or small locally-owned businesses, since it'd be, well, a waste of about a half-tank of gas to shop in the nearby cities.

But, seriously, who pays full price for such things? Wait for the sales. If such businesses are to get chunks of my paycheck, why not simply wait until I can rob them blind by binding my time for clearance markdowns?

And like I said, I'm in no way bragging. It's just how I live my life, and its not a perfect model.

I forget to recycle. Often. I drive a late-model pickup like a Los Angeleno, hitting the road for any trip longer than to the mailbox, despite being a avid hiker, out of sheer laziness. I forget to wash out old plastic containers for reuse, forget that only a hypochondriac needs plastic produce bags for a few avocados or oranges.

It's a work in progress.

But at least I'm trying.

* * * *

Which is more than I can say for a lot of people, probably the majority of that undefined bulbous mass called the Average US Consumer.

You know. That mass that supposedly holds the fate of the global economy in its "consumer confidence" indexes and other measurements of the perceived movement of wealth?

Take a trip to any large in door shopping mall, into any major retailer, even into your neighborhood supermarket. Look around you. Look in every shopper's cart, at stuff you know they're buying that they don't need to actually improve their lives.

Listen to the squeals of fat kids begging for name-brand candy and proprietary-code video games, the sounds of obsessive sports fans drooling over hi-def televisions they'll only enjoy a handful of Sundays out of the year. Watch men and women stop by clothing racks adorned by celebrity endorsements yet still made for pennies in places like Bangladesh or, worse, in conflict areas.

Or maybe, if you're lucky, you'll catch a middle-aged woman adorned in the bling of African blood diamonds and gold, lugging a rat terrier in a purse, as she shops for the latest cosmetic product tested, probably, on animals just like her precious pet.

These shopping habits? All lifestyle choices.

You will see consumption of things, many glorious gluttonous things, that are not so much bought for need but for image, to maintain the fallacy of "Free" marketplaces that dictates freedom in terms of who can acquire the most junk.

And what you'll see is in no way sustainable. Eventually, natural limits are reached beyond the ability of one to purchase them, scarcity leads to higher prices, higher prices leads to panicky conservation and state intervention. So long as consumption of resources is tied to image or brand instead of actual human need, sustainability is but a wet dream in a capitalist society.

Yes, I'm really just a cheap fucking bastard.

And the scary thing?

No matter how bad the economy gets, how much the numbers are doctored and the shady accounting sold to reflect recovery in terms of bullshit measurements like "consumer confidence," my lifestyle will rarely be affected.

Me and, well, the Amish.

Some things in life are bigger than one's lifestyle. Sometimes, there's a conscience behind such choices.

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JUST A TYPICAL SUMMER IN A COLLEGE TOWN: Of Urban Hiking, Coppertone Patrons, & Why Your Campus Creeper's Really Scared of Librarians

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- I'll go ahead and call them the Sunshine Sisters.

All summer long, on my "walks" (seven mile, average, urban hikes - a habit I picked up from the Italian Backpacker Fling), I pass by these two young women, a pair of undergrads who seem to spend every sunny, summer day bikini-clad out on their front lawn, drinking Natty Light and reading fashion magazines through overpriced sunglasses.

Three or four times a week, I pass by. And they're out there, always.

I could hike up their street blind, in fact, and still identify their house - the scent of tanning oil and baked skin whips down the tree-lined street, drifts in between the decaying Victorian homes and student apartment tenements. They've become a benchmark along my hikes, a point at which I'm able to estimate my time and distance, as familiar a landmark as any house or street sign.

They watch me like hawks as I approach, their gaze following me as I passed by. At first, I'd do the polite wave thing. That evolved into an 'D Afternoon, ladies or a stray weekend Mornin', girls.

And they'd just stare through their shades, no movement or acknowledgment whatsoever aside from above the neck, bearing witness to my half-naked, sweat-soaked sidewalk sojourn at the fringes of their lawnchair kingdom.

* * * *

I didn't recognize her at first.

I'd happened upon this wayward patron while searching for a monograph myself in the second-floor stacks. She looked lost, the scrap paper crumpled up in her hand covered in scribbled partial Library of Congress call numbers, so being a, well, librarian, I asked if she needed some help.

And I didn't recognize her, actually, because I'd never seen her in anything but a bikini. She looked naked without a copy of Vogue on her knees. And, well, I think she figured out who I was, sorta, about ten seconds after I did - I'm the half-naked hiker.

You'd be surprised how fucking awkward it can be when two strangers, accustomed to seeing each other in swimwear, meet fully-clothed in a library. Took a good and painfully graceless five minutes to find the books she needed for her essay, simply because, well... what does one say, really?

Finally, the ice broke, the inelegance gone when the books were found, and the discussion evolved from course-related, needles-to-the-brain reading to pleasure reading to, well, just enjoying the Great Outdoors.

"Uh, this is gonna sound weird, but what's with the walking thing?"

"Oh. Bad knee. Can't jog. Kinda a hiker anyway..."

"Nuh-uh! Shut up! You're hiking? In Oxford?"

The patron's eyes light up. She lifts her leg and plops her foot down on one of the library's step stools. Pointing towards a zipper-shaped scar just below her patella, she explains that she's been having problems with pain since her surgery a few years back - high school sports injury.

I'm really glad, sometimes, that the library's been unusually dead this summer. Not sure how I'd explain to the ol' Boss of Bosses how, exactly, I'm helping a patron when the patron's pushing my fingers into her scar tissue in between rows of European history.

Yep, probably not the most professional of patron interactions. But it's a really cool scar.

* * * *

So let's fast forward, oh, five hours or so.

An unusually cool afternoon, partly cloudy skies, intermittent rays of good ol' summer sunshine tormenting my poor red back.

I hit the usual turn. No smell of tanning oil.

At first, I think I've somehow forgotten the street, the house. But, well, the landmarks are all the same - same rundown Victorian homes, same rotten student duplexes and triplexes, same slummy undergraduate upperclassman ghetto.

As I approach I notice there's no furniture in the lawn, the Who Dey! curtains gone from the windows, the inside of the house black as a starless midnight.

The Sunshine Sisters... moved? Without even saying goodbye? How the hell am I gonna gauge my time and distance now?

And I wonder if that chick got her paper turned in before five o'clock?

* * * *

So let's fast forward again, say, oh, another 36 hours.

Two in the morning, ten to twenty minutes until Last Call! for almost all of Oxford's Uptown bars. And I'm outside on the sidewalk on High Street, slightly inebriated and enjoying an unusually cool June night, walking past the main strip of bars when the ol' cell phone starts vibrating in my back pocket.

A text message from a strange number. The message read: Hey still awake? Are U Out or home??? I delete the text, figuring its just a drunk dial. Thirty seconds, later, same message. Not being too good at the whole text message thing, I simply dial the number back...

"Hiiiiii JAYY-sinnn. What's up, Mr. Librarian?"

"Um, not much. Who's this?"

"Izzahizz... I'm...hold on... SHHH! Shut up! I'm asking HIM... are, ah, you like somewhere near [my library]. 'Cuz I'm outside and its closed an' there's this CREEPY guy, like hanging out..."

Researcher Sunshine. Took me a moment to recognize the voice. Don't even remember giving her my phone number, actually.

But obviously drunk enough to have staggered to an expectedly closed library at two in the fucking morning. Normally, during the school year, we're a 24-7 facility. But during the dog days of summer, when the Local U. kids are mostly out of town, we operate like, well, a normal library with normal library hours.

"...Okay chica, tell ya what. 'Bout a block away. Stay right there..."

Another hike. Great. At two in the fucking morning.

* * * *

Turns out both Sunshine Sisters - former roommates - had staggered down to my library after one too many whiskey-diets.

Having just moved out of their summer digs, well, they'd sorta drank enough to sorta forget where they were temporarily staying until they could move into their new place. Still having the keys to their old house, and a few days left on that lease, they figured they'd just go back, crash on the floor...

And the other Sunshine Sister? Well, turns out she'd interviewed me for a class assignment a few years back, about my library's $6 million face lift and the distractions caused to our users by the construction. From what I made out in the Drunk Girl / English translations, that's how the idea to give me a call came up, for some odd reason...

Creepy guys following you, walks down dark alleys, and too much booze rarely mix well in small college towns. Wasn't hard to figure out who the creeper was - the guy was skulking beneath a street lamp on the corner, doing the drunken zombie shadowdance with lager-fortified urine running down the front of his pants. Kid couldn't have been any older than twenty, twenty-one...

You know, I've been blackout, fall down blitzed before, but I've never been so completely bombed as to wander around in public, covered in piss, hollering at female passersby about my prowess in the sack. And I've slept with enough women to know that, yeah, anything that would find such behavior, er, lubricating, is probably marginally able to identify itself as a woman.

Anywho...

All I had to do was to walk two intoxicated super seniors past a barely standing kid who was creepy, sure, but in no condition to pose any threat to three people without so much as a weapon, much less a quickly debuzzified 30-year-old male.

I mean, c'mon - it's only a quarter-mile walk, right? Easy enough, right? I told the two women to just keep quiet, walk past the guy, and let me deal with it if the guy decided to start following us.

Well, if you've ever had to deal with drunk women, you can probably guess that the best laid security plans of mice and men...

"HEY YA FUCKIN' STALKER!" Interviewer Sunshine hollered as we passed the obliviously wasted kid. "This IZZZAGENTLEMAN! BRINGIT ya bishassfuckin CREEPER!"

"Yeah, my librarian'll kick your fucking azz ya fucking azzhole!" chimed in Researcher Sunshine, before turning to the street and other late night passersby, hollering, "MY LIBRARIAN WILL KICK ALL YOUR ASSES!"

The creepy guy just stood there, staring for a moment as he swayed in some nonexistent breeze, then, well, just staggered off into the night with a Fuck you, bishes! of his own.

He even growled at me, flexed imaginary biceps. Growled. Not like a scary, rabid dog growl, either. We're talking yapping poodle growl here.

But what kinda guy bails when he hears someone threaten to have a friggin' librarian kick some ass? Seriously. Why not just get a tattoo that reads IMA PUSSY scrawled across your forehead?

By three in the morning, I'm heading down dark, familiar streets, being pulled along by two women who smell of familiar tanning oil towards a familiar house. Literally walking intoxicated Super Seniors like a pair of hyperactive cocker spaniels, with one woman tugging at one hand and another dragging me along by the other.

Oh yeah. I'm glad most of my colleagues aren't usually up that late.

Don't even want to know what they'd think.

Most definitely not the most professional of patron interactions. But I'm not exactly the most professional of librarians at times, either.

- # # # -