What's wrong with America

No friends, you haven't accidently found your self at Glenn Beck's blog (although that would be the second greatest trick the devil ever played, after convincing the world that he didn't exist). And while you may not be reading the gospel according to Glenn right now, I will tell you that there is something wrong with America, and today I learned what that thing is.

As I mentioned earlier in the week: I've lived. I like to party. Yes friends, I've been down to the paradise city where the grass is green, and the girls are pretty. But now I'm getting older, and the party's over for me. I'm not sad about this, quite the contrary in fact. I'm quite content to pass the torch along to a new group of kids who haven't figured out yet that they (in fact) not immortal. You can have fun this weekend out on the lake, and I'll have fun listening to my Frank Zappa albums.

Sidebar: I actually hate Frank Zappa, his music, and his oddly named children (yes, I'm reffering to you Dweezil, Moon, and Ahmet), but I didn't think it would sound as cool if I had said "and I'll have fun listening to my Hall & Oates cassette tapes.

That being said, since I've come through my partying days and lived to tell the tale, it goes without saying that I have to find some outlet to spend my free time. I could take up macrame, lawn darts, or translating the complete works of 1990s alt rock sensation Bush into italian... but I won't.

Why? Because I'm both a.) lazy and b.) an armchair intellectual. That being said, what else is there for a boy to do on a Friday afternoon that won't end with said boy finding himself in the drunk tank down at the pokey? The answer: a used bookstore.

I love used bookstores. I love the smell of used books. I love the fact that the books are almost never in any kind of rational order. I love the fact that the people who own/work at a used book store often look like they could've been cast as one of the nerd's in Gidget, if the nerd's in Gidget had full sleeve tattoo's and pot bellies.

I wish my yard was this emo... so it would cut itself.

I love the fact that a good used book store is one of the only places where you can hear someone refer to someone or something as a fascist pig without any trace of irony. I love the fact that there usually only two kinds of books in a used book store: high brow works of contemporary literature by authors you've most likely never heard of, and bodice ripping romances that border upon the pornographic. They're just good places, filled with good people.

And the one I visited this afternoon was a doozie. Not only did it have books, but it had used DVDs, blu rays, music, vinyl, and comics (or graphic novels, if you want to be a jerk about it). I walked around in slack jawed amazement for at least 45 minutes, until I found a copy of Wonderboys (a book that I seem to be incapable of finding anywhere for some reason) and a book about the days just before the government issued the Comics Code Authority.

Note: The comics code authority was a governmentally designed system meant to regulate what was and was not "appropriate" for a child to see in comics. Here's a quick sample: Vampires were bad, but it was ok for a super hero to magically transform a criminal into a candle that could still talk and feel, and then set that candle on fire. The 1950s was a weird time.

This rant brings me back to my original point: what's wrong with America. There just aren't enough places like this left. Today, people are too impatient to actually search for anything, especially when it's quicker and easier to find whatever book you're looking for by heading down to the local Barnes & Noble, or going to the internet. Because the used book store has one thing that big market chain store will never have (and no, I'm not talking about a book about the history if the erotic bakery... but they had that too): personality.

So in conclusion, go do something different this weekend. Go into a store you've never been in. Buy a book by an author you've never heard of. Rent a movie that isn't the Blindside (sidebar: I want that two hours of my life back!!!). In essence: whatever you do... just do you.

Ya'll stay classy... wherever ya'll is....

Blakely A-dam Sumner