As part of my continuing effort to have the strangest, most meaningless life ever, I have thrown away all the friendship and love I have undeservedly acquired in Chicago for adventure abroad. I have taken a three-month internship writing for a wire service in Bangkok. Depending on whether I can stand being away from the people I left behind, I might try to stay in Asia for a few years.

Another factor is whether I can handle this fucking heat. I’m steaming like a barbecued pork bun, which they have in plentitude here and which are delicious.

But to the point.

My first assignment was to cover the Bangkok International Film Festival. Part of the press packet was the Thai Film Directory 2007-2008. Some of the films listed were in the festival, some weren’t.

This one wasn’t, but I read the description and had to include it in the anticonsumer blog. Here’s a link to something about it, but below is the verbatum description from the film directory.

9th Gift

Director: Araya Booncherd

This hand-puppet play involves an evil two-headed dragon from hell, which is sucking water from the earth, and generally making life difficult for everyone. A king knights a young man and his dog to do battle with the dragon. Eventually, the king must become involved himself to rid society of the dragon, and in so doing imparts advice to society about building a sustainable economy, which involves everyone living within their means, buying only what is truly needed and can be afforded and living a simple life - a philosophy that His Majesty the King has himself espoused with his sufficiency economy theory.

Awesome.

This was one of my favorite blog posts, but my computer frazzed in the middle of me working on it. I didn’t realize that it saved a draft. I just noticed when I got on the site to promote my friend Brad’s Lollapalooza scoop (http://www.windycitizen.com/blogs/lollapalooza-blog/2008/08/02/lollapalooza-2008-slash-joins-perry-farrell-samantha-ronson-for-i).

 Anyway, the entry is about a month old and I got tired of putting links in about halfway through, but enjoy.

-Paul

…

OK, so apparently I’m blogging again. Some demanding schedules and, once again, some serious life changes have kept me from keeping up on this. I suck.

Whatever. It’s the Internet. You’re getting this all for free.

Which is my not-so-clever segue into the topic. Music.

I love music. Fiery passion love. Rob from “High Fidelity” love. Had a discussion earlier tonight about why I don’t like The Shins, which led to the playing of The Eels, My Morning Jacket and currently The Pixies. Just comment and I’ll reply with my explanation of why I don’t like The Shins. Other music played tonight: Gogol Bordello, Husker Du and Hum.

But I’m down with the not buying of stuff. So what of music? Should I buy albums when I can get the songs for free off the Internet? I have a Pandora account and I’m also fine with getting all I can off the free trial period of sites like eMusic and then not buying anything. I got the full Herman Dune, Art Brut and Los Campesinos! albums that way.

I could come up with all sorts of B.S. justifications about doing this (the artists make the most money from tours, record companies are evil, blah blah blah), but the truth is simpler: I never paid for music.

I still have the Spin Doctors and Violent Femmes CDs I just plain stole off my sister. I recently went through a pile of old cassettes (remember them?) and found a dubbed copy of 19 Naughty III I got off this guy Nathan in middle school.

That’s not my good friend Nathan. It was this little white kid who kept talking about how his rap name was Ice-One.

MC5 is on now.

Anyway, there’s a moral line few people are willing to question in terms of the Internet. Aside from some vague notion that artists should get $17.95 for 12 songs of their worth, why should people buy albums when they can get them for free?

In one way, I understand. I worked for a daily newspaper. People should pay their subscription fees for the pablum we shove. That’s how I made my living.

In another way, I know that I didn’t have a newspaper subscription. Like most people, I went on the Internet for my news.

In a third way, I also have an extensive LP collection. My most recent acquisitions were a Pogues import and Scientist Rids the World of the Evil Curse of the Vampires. That last sentence added nothing to the blog. I just wanted to brag about my awesome musical taste. But I do buy this stuff and buy it gleefully.

Fourth and final way, the world is changing. I couldn’t hold on to a life in paid journalism when people got things for free. Why should Metallica? I’m sure scriveners and barber-dentists felt the same way when their careers went to shit. I mean, who needs a cooper? People always piss and moan about change, but I wouldn’t know about bands like Egan’s Rats, Emily Hurd and even Art Brut without the Internet and some college radio (although the latter applies mostly to Art Brut).

It’s a free world. Anticonsumerists rejoice, but bands, well, figure out some way to make some money doing this. Either way, I’m not worried about musicians going the way of parchment-makers.

So, I googled “depression.” Make of that what you will.

The number one response was Depression.com, “Facts about depression, including how to manage it and how to live with this medical condition.”

So I click.

I’m too angry to stretch this out with some good writing. The site is run by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline and keeps talking about Wellbutrin.

You evil, evil bastards.

I was thinking about this today as I rode my bike (another thing I’ve had to keep pushing to the back burner). Then it hit me. I’ve been doing this basically all year and I don’t think I’ve mentioned that I used to be an ad man.

OK, so it’s not like I was figuring how to get kids to smoke or revamping McDonald’s image into a healthy one. My biggest two projects were copy-editing a marshmallow company’s Web site and writing the corporate history of a cheese company. There’s no link for the cheese company history, as it was for special events tied with the company’s 60th anniversary. I also worked on a soy company’s client releases, but that’s not as funny.

How do I, guy-who-has-a-site-ostensibly-about-anticonsumerism, justify this? Simple. I needed money.

Right after college, I started freelancing for the firm where my sister worked. They would kick me some work when they were in a bind and give me a couple bucks for my trouble. I kept doing it on and off even after I got a full-time job at a newspaper. Have you ever seen a reporter’s salary? I made more money as a tour guide.

I never felt bad about it, probably because the cheese thing was my first job. Who can feel bad about a cheesemaker wanting to celebrate 60 years in business? Who can feel anythingabout a cheesemaker wanting to celebrate 60 years in business?

The company was an interesting one. It made off-brand cheese. I know that sounds disgusting, but all it means is that the company makes the cheese and sells it to other companies, who then put their label on it. Ever see Tostito’s Salsa Con Queso? That’s the off-brand cheese company’s queso.

What? You think Tostitos bought a dairy just for one product line? Companies do that all the time. It’s like the Brand X raisins versus Sun-Maid or whatnot. They’re the same raisins. Some just go into one box, some into the other. You’re just paying extra for the brand name.

Anyway, I never felt bad about my ad work. Except for looking for typos in a marshmallow company’s Web site (where I learned several interesting marshmallow facts), everything I worked on was B to B. That means business to business. Taking as an example the soy thing. It was a company that processed soy nuts, then tried to sell them to food companies as flour or whole nuts or crushed nuts. They wanted bread companies to put them as a high-protein additive. They wanted those places that cover soybeans in wasabi to use their soybeans.

It was wonderful because there were no attempts to artificially create demand. The bread company might not have included soy flour before, but it would be making bread. The wasabi-soybean places were looking for soy nuts anyway. All it was was getting them to look at this guy’s nuts.

Long way to go for a pretty bad joke, huh? It’s all true, though. I did work on this project.

I’m not against advertising. I find some of it disgusting, but I don’t see the harm in getting your name out when there’s an authentic demand for your product. When people try to manufacture demand, that’s when I have a problem.

Oh, and apparently marshmallow as a candy dates back to ancient Egypt. Who knew?

I woke up yesterday craving cheeseburgers. But not big gourmet cheeseburgers or homemade, fresh-off-the-grill cheeseburgers. I’m talking greasy, lard-infused fast food cheeseburgers.

Don’t worry. I’m going somewhere with this. 

I went to McDonald’s and got one of those value menu double cheeseburger things which, at 440 calories (210 from fat), disturbingly did not sate my burgerlust. So, a few hours later I hit a Wendy’s for another cheeseburger and a small Sprite.

First of all, there’s no way that a 20-ounce drink should ever be called “small.” Secondly, let’s take a look at fast food.

Fast food is a big industry with some big issues. So big, in fact, the New York Times Web site has given fast food a whole topic category in their archives. Take a scroll through that link - after you’re done reading my ramblings, of course.

In 2006, there were more than 3 million Americans employed as fast food and counter workers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That number is expected to go up to more than 3.5 million by 2016. That’s a 17 percent jump, buddy boy.

Now the BLS estimates for the category of “Combined Food Preparation and Serving Workers, Including Fast Food” show that, averaged out, these folks made $15,930 a year in 2006. Now, according to the 2006 federal poverty guidelines, that person wasn’t poor - provided they lived alone. If that was the income for a family of three, however, they were living in poverty back in 06.

The $15,930 number is misleading, though. That category of workers includes waiters at fancy restaurants, lunch ladies, bartenders, bar backs, folks working at food kiosks, etc. The highest-paid workers in that category can make nearly $14 an hour.

Most fast food workers make minimum wage. The federal level is $5.85 an hour, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Luckily, fast food workers - at least fast food workers who work for businesses that make at least $500,000 a year - fall under the Fair Labor Standards Act. If not for this, they would be subject to the minimum wage each state sets. These can vary. For example, Kansas’ minimum wage is the lowest in the nation. I checked this out at like four different places because I couldn’t believe it. Kansas’ minimum wage is $2.65 an hour. Don’t believe those U.S. stats? Let’s hear it from Kansas itself.

Screw you, Kansas.

But even though they have to make at least $5.85 an hour, at an average of $6.81 an hour, fast food cooks were the lowest paid profession in Kansas, Kansas reports.

So in a state with a minimum hourly wage that wouldn’t even buy a gallon of gas, fast food cooks are the lowest of the low.

OK, so working for a fast food joint is a crappy job. Who didn’t know that?

Either way, here’s the point. McDonald’s 2006 annual report state that the company took in $21.6 billion in revenues that year, returning $4.9 billion to shareholders. Poor little Wendy’s only took in $2.4 billion, according to their 2006 annual report. Burger King barely broke $2 billion.

That’s a lot of moolah that’s not going back to the workers who made it. Think of that next time you’ve got a burgerlust.

Why the hell were my American Eagle jeans made in Hong Kong?

Probably the same reason my Hanes undershirt was made in the Dominican Republic and my Croft and Barrow boxers were made in Thailand.

Hanes’ slogan, by the way is “An American Original.” American Eagle is part of the Martin + Osa brand, claiming to be the moral descendents of Martin and Osa Johnson, “photographers, explorers, naturalists, authors … and native Kansans.” Croft and Barrow is a “quality private brand” of Kohl’s, a store name trademarked to Kohl’s Illinois, Inc.

Kansas and Illinois are U.S. states, for my burgeoning international audience, which - if I’m reading Google Analytics correctly - consists of two guys from the U.K. and a Canadian and Swede who accidentally clicked on the site, then hit return. 

It started as a cute blog idea - take a look at what I was wearing at the moment I started the entry. Then I got disgusted and realized that the only articles of clothing I was wearing that didn’t blare the name of a country with notoriously low labor standards were my socks, my belt and my 1970s velour shirt.

(Long story short, my maternal grandparents bought the shirt for my father when my parents were just dating. He was ashamed to wear it, but couldn’t throw it out considering he wanted to marry their daughter. I proudly wear a shirt a man who got married in a velvet tuxedo with a ruffled shirt was ashamed to wear in the 1970s.)

Anyway, the socks and belt have no markings declaring their country of origin and the 30-year-old shirt’s country of origin was faded. So it’s not that they weren’t made in sweatshops, it’s just that I don’t know. But once I took the velour off to read the label, I decided not to put it back on. I threw on a red Van Heusen dress shirt that turned out to be made in Mongolia.

Mongolia. Here’s the CIA World Factbook entry on Mongolia. Read that then tell me if you think that’s a country in the best place to make fair labor practices for its workers.

But thank God all these companies have standards. Take Van Heusen’s corporate responsibility page. It declares, in part, “Employees of our vendors must be over the applicable minimum legal age requirement or be at least 14 years old or older than the age for completing compulsory education in the country of manufacture, whichever is greater. Vendors must observe all legal requirements for work of authorized minors, particularly those pertaining to hours of work, wages, minimum education and working conditions. We encourage vendors to support night classes and work-study programs, especially for younger workers.”

Well, thank God for that. I wouldn’t want 13-year-olds making this very nice red 65 percent polyester, 35 percent cotton blend shirt that is on my back right now. They’re a good company operating out of Mongolia, not like that Dong Fang Guo Ji factory out of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. You know, that one that the U.S. government banned in 2000 due to forced child labor. According to that government press release, Dong Fang Guo Ji put out 90 percent of its textiles under its own brand name and 10 percent under the name of the companies they subcontract for.

Great country to get a shirt from, huh?

What about the rest of my outfit? My Dominican Hanes, my Thai Croft and Barrow and my Hong Kong Eagles?

Well, I’m tired, so I’ll let the U.S. government do the talking. U.S. state department reports on human rights violations in the Dominican Republic, in Thailand and in China (home of Hong Kong).

 Search for “child labor” in those links. Search for “forced labor.” I’m not saying the clothes I’m wearing were made in sweatshops. I’m not saying they weren’t. I’m saying I don’t know.

But even if my clothes weren’t made in sweatshops, do we really want to be rewarding those governments by sending our consumer dollars over there?

I’ll put in more frivolity and pictures of George Peppard and Michael Jackson in later entries. Right now, I’m tired, disgusted and want to go to bed. I wonder who made my blanket?

Originally appeared Jan. 17, 2008 as “Trash Talk”

It’s time to talk about garbage. Why not? If you’re an average American, you produced about 4.6 pounds of it today.

To be fair, that 4.6 pounds (which, technically, was a statistic from 2006), is before some of that trash was recovered to be recycled, composted or combusted for energy. Only about 2.53 pounds per person per day goes to a landfill.

Recycling, composting and combustion weren’t so common in the past. In 1960, an average zero pounds per person per day were combusted, 0.17 were recycled and the amount composted was so negligible, the EPA didn’t even bother to put it in the report. Darn those people in 1960! We’re so much better with them with our blue bins and computer drop-offs.

Yeah. So we’re putting 2.53 pounds of garbage per person per day into the landfills. In 1960, they were putting … wait for it … 2.51 pounds of garbage in the landfills per person per day.

How? We’re recycling. We’re composting. We have that lady from Sex and the City picking up trash on the beach. How are we putting more garbage in landfills than those slobs in the Eisenhower era? (Don’t correct me. 1960 was an election year. Kennedy didn’t take office until 1961.)

Here’s how: They were throwing away less. In 2006, the average American produced 4.6 pounds of garbage each day. In 1960, that American, albeit with a different haircut, was producing 2.68 pounds per day.

Recovery recycling, combustion and composting just can’t keep up with our personal consumption.

1. Basic classwork at grad school. This quarter is beating me down to the ground. By the way, if any of you readers happen to be from the Hong Kong area, have spinal cord injuries, work at the Fisk or Crawford coal plants or work in a business that produces paleontological supplies, drop me a line. I need all of you for various stories I’m behind on writing.

2. Still moving. Half my stuff is at my friend Nathan’s apartment, half at my new place. For an anticonsumer blogger, I sure have a lot of crap. I guess I don’t need my dresser, but I’m really sick of laying out my clothes on the floor. I miss my comic books too.

3. Expanding my media empire through a new blogging project. I am now the alternative culture blogger at The Windy Citizen, a Chicago-based news site some folks I know started up. It used to be called Methods Reporter, but no one outside of Medill really understands what that means. Here’s the blog. Here’s my profile, complete with photo of me in front of the world’s largest boot. The profile used to have a list of other of my stories that the Citizen ran. I don’t know what happened to that. And, just for grins, here’s a link to the Methods Reporter project of which I’m most proud. I did the video about the Mr. Rogers team.

4. Expanding my media empire through a podcast project with an old friend from undergrad. It’s hush-hush for now, but it’ll be awesome. It’s just hard to pull together a project between a busy grad student in Chicago and a busy surgeon in San Diego. Thank you, Skype.

5. Drinking beer. If my mom is reading, she should know that “beer” is the hip, young slang for “decaffeinated iced tea.”

6. Riding my bike. As all Chicagoans know, the winter seemed like it would never end. Then it did. I like my bike.

7. Tending my now very impressive sideburns. I shaved them off a year or two ago to try a new look. They’re back, baby!

8. Spending a lot of time writing this post to procrastinate further on finding people from the Hong Kong area, who have spinal cord injuries, who work at the Fisk or Crawford coal plants or who work in a business that produces paleontological supplies. I probably should go.

Oh, yeah. It’s supposed to be an anticonsumer blog. Umm … don’t buy stuff.

I call it asinine because it is. The article at one point describes an upcoming ritzy party at the Plaza Hotel.

“It will feature a dozen female string musicians made up to look like statues and clothed in dresses of fresh flowers, like roses and gardenias. There will be caviar and Cognac bars, as well as a buffet designed to visually replicate 17th-century Dutch paintings from the recent Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibit, “The Age of Rembrandt.”

Or this.

The ($50,000, four-day) trip (for four people) was an exercise in luxuriant male bonding. Mr. Tachman, who is 38, and his friends got around by private jet, helicopter, Hummer limousine, Ferraris and Lamborghinis; stayed in V.I.P. rooms at Casa Casuarina, the South Beach hotel that was formerly Gianni Versace’s mansion; and played “extreme adventure paintball” with former agents of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

… they soldiered on until the moment the wheels of their private jet returned to the tarmac in New York. There were hand-rolled cigars, massages, guided rides in racing boats and fighter jets — all arranged by In The Know Experiences, a travel and concierge service in Manhattan.

Jackasses.

But I also called it obvious. They’re rich people. That’s what rich people do.

I’m sorry, I mean the super-rich. The rich people are hurting.

[P]roviders of luxury goods reported anecdotal evidence of a widening gap between the merely rich and the ultrarich. Clifford Greenhouse, who owns a household-staff employment company, said he suspects that the merely rich might be starting to lag behind their far richer counterparts, and are trimming their budgets. He cited reduced demand for chauffeurs — a relatively small-ticket service — yet ever-strong demand for private chefs, butlers and “household managers.”

So, apparently, there’s a widening gap between rich and poor, super-rich and rich and, for some reason, chauffeurs and butlers. We live in a crazy-ass world.

I recently read this article from This Magazine (that’s its name) and it’s awesome. Basically, it’s about an upcoming book called “The Rebel Sell” about how anticonsumerism ends up propping up the consumer society it tries so hard to tear down.Quoth the article:

“This isn’t because the authors, directors or editors are hypocrites. It’s because they’ve failed to understand the true nature of consumer society.”

I mean, you can buy Adbusters at a store. That’s one of the article’s examples. Of course, being Canadian, the article authors called it your “neighbourhood” store. Damn excessive U usage.

Anyway, to the point. People market anticonsumerism and rebellion. They sell “Fight Club” on special edition DVD for the love of God. Simple. Read the article for more information on it.

I did think the article was pretty unfair to some of the examples it used, for example “American Beauty.” It pretty much rips the film a new one for portraying Kevin Spacey’s character as a man in anticonsumer rebellion, then pointed out parts where his rebellion was pretty consumer.

I didn’t think that was the point of the film at all. I thought Spacey’s character was part of what was being satirized, which is why at the end he realizes his whole rebellion was bull and his dying image was of what’s really important, i.e. his family.

I guess I liked the film more than the article authors, though. “The Rebel Sell” is the Canadian name. We poor schmucks in the US are stuck with the much lamer name of “Nation of Rebels.” I really liked the article and look forward to borrowing the book from any friend of mine who happens to buy it and then never returning it. My final point, babies and bathwater. Don’t throw one out with the other.

People need venues and formats for discussing these very important issues. Personally, that’s why I like the Internet. One person’s thoughts - or even better, the e-mail listserv from The Compact - are hard to package as a for-profit product.

I agree, Adbusters is weak. “Culture jamming” is asinine and tax code changes are a better way to combat advertising than fake ads spoofing real ones (see the article for what I’m talking about with the tax code thing).

But just because this issue attracts a lot of pretension and crap doesn’t mean the core argument of “We don’t need all this crap” isn’t a valid one.