Fight For Your Right To Party: The Legal and Moral Victory Against a Soul and Money Sucking Shark

Holly and I went to the city planning commission’s public hearing on Wednesday to show our support for rejecting Wal-Mart’s bid to be granted a rezoning of its property on Parley’s Way. A rezoning of the property would have changed it from allowing a 15,000sq ft. building to allowing a 200,000sq ft. building. As some of you know, I have a great dislike (one might even call it burning hatred) for Sam Walton’s Box Store Gone Wild, Spring Break Edition. I hold it specifically responsible for many dishonest and crooked businesses practices at least, and several blatantly unethical and severely immoral crimes against humanity in general and individuals (both foreign and domestic) in particular at most.

But this hearing wasn’t about whether or not to allow Wal-Mart to build a store at said location—it has already purchased the land and is going to build a store there—rather, it was whether or not to allow them a rezone which would up dramatically the size of store they would be allowed to build. The hearing was packed—standing room barely. The room was chock-full of neighbors from the general vicinity of where the new store will be, as well as seven commission members, two mediator-type fellers, and a few reporters and cameramen.

And there on the front row in expensive suits, leather shoes that were shinier than a bucket of brand new pennies, and hairdos that could put Pat Sajak AND Vanna White to shame, sat an attack squadron of four highly trained you-don’t-look-like-you’re-from-‘round-here Wal-Mart lawyers. Their perfectly straight and white teeth made a shimmering glimmering fence that separated the people from the politicians, the masses from the masters, the locals from the legislatives. They presented their cookie-cutter case just as they had countless times before at countless other city meetings, probably word for word. In fact, I can’t prove that they weren’t high-tech holograms beamed in directly from Superstore headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. I never saw anyone touch them, they seriously could have been holograms.

After giving their pretty PowerPoint presentation (via projector, a.k.a. 2-dimensional hologram…the evidence is adding up), they smugly sat down and the public was given time to speak—two minutes per person, five minutes if you were speaking on behalf of a neighborhood council. I’d say thirty to forty people stood up at the podium to speak their mind, and out of forty people maybe three spoke in favor of approving Wal-Mart’s request. The rest spoke with wisdom and experience, articulately and effectively. Several WM claims were opened and exposed for the lies that they were, and in the end the shiny-toothed lawyers sat humiliated in their expensive suits, fumbling for excuses and fake explanation attempts.

When the planning commission cast its vote of 7 – 0 in favor of rejecting Wal-Mart’s request, happy sighs swept across the room. The crowd didn’t erupt in applause—this wasn’t a football rally or political party national convention. Instead, everyone smiled and hugged or shook hands with those around them and said “We did it” and “I’m so glad.” A sense of power filled the small individuals in the room who had come together and fought against an invading Goliath. People were reminded, or maybe learned for the first time, that you don’t have to be a huge company, a government, a wealthy organization to accomplish something big or to defend yourself against something giant and dark. It was a good lesson for me and I hope that it sparks the motivation to fight harder and more often on the side of good and against those things that are fundamentally bad, wrong, even evil.

The 4 Horsemen of the Shopocolypse

This weekend we put on our "Shop Outside the Box" parade downtown. It was great--we had a full police motorcycle escort, the city blocked off the streets and we marched our little selves, along with our floats, bikes, dogs, and not so hellish hellfire and brimstain on down to the City County Building, where we heard brief comments from local business owners. We also heard me reading this on the steps:


I put a lot of work into my garden. It's mine. It's mine. Not because a piece of paper says I own the land. I mean, can a person really own land? Just because I stick a flag in a pile of dirt—dirt that was there for thousands and millions of years before my great-grandparents were born and will still be there for thousands and millions after my great-grand kids are dead and buried in it. Dirt that will eat me like a cowboy eats beef...like a poet eats life...like an empire eats the cowboy and the poet and then eats itself.

Just because I stick a flag in a pile of dirt, does that make it mine? Did I create that dirt? Did I earn the dirt? Was I given the dirt by some all wise dirt-distributing genie that looks over the deeds of everyone great and small, then deems them fit or unfit to have dirt? What? The bank? The bank gave me the dirt? Who gave the bank the dirt?

I can't make dirt. My great-great-grandpa Orville Redenbaucher “Dirt Head” Thatcher, a prominent rancher and corn farmer in the young days of the West, could not make dirt. Chief Wabi Sabi Oatmeal Pie Head who walked these Salt Lake streets 2000 years ago, could not make dirt. Neither Adam, nor Eve, nor Steve could make dirt.

I think, generally speaking, if I make something then I can have it. If I make a sandwich, I can usually eat it. If I make a joke, I can claim it as my own. If I make a bust sculpture of the president's head, I can keep it. Unless that bust is made from a petroleum-based substance, in which case the president will surround me with armed soldiers and confiscate that bust. He will then take it to his Oval Bathtub, melt it down, swim in it, and then drink it down until there isn't a drop left. Not one drop.

But otherwise, generally speaking, if I create something then I can have it.

I can't create dirt. I can't make land. So when I say that this garden is mine, I don't mean that I own it. I mean that it is mine like a friend is mine. Like a song I used to listen to growing up is mine. I mean it is mine in the sense that I have spent hours working in it, with it, inside of it. As I have covered it, it has covered me. Its fruit has entered my mouth, turned in my stomach, spread through my veins, and come out as energy that I have used to till its surface, plant its rows, harvest and eat its fruit. It is mine AND I AM ITS.

I am this garden, and this person is mine. This person is me. This garden is me. I am this garden and I have spent hours working this man. I have opened up and swallowed his shovel, his water, his seeds. I've covered him in my dirt. I've planted in him my fruit so he would have the energy to plant in me his. I've planted in him peace, when he couldn't find it elsewhere. I've planted in him a sense of pride and accomplishment and work and rest. I have fed him like a baby, and he has fed me. My seeds are in him and his seeds are in me. We are one and we are married—but not legally.

This garden is mine. This neighborhood is mine. I grew up here. I swam in the canal, I crashed my bike on the hill, I made a dirt fort in the field. I played with every kid on ever block. I kissed some of the girls, ate dinner with some of the neighbors, door-bell ditched thousands of houses and played football at every park. This neighborhood has made me, has raised me. It is mine and I am it. THIS NEIGHBORHOOD IS MY GARDEN.

These mountains are mine, and if you have spent enough time in them to know what I am talking about, then they are yours. WE belong to them.

And I don't want Energy Solutions to build a huge sports arena on top of my favorite backcountry ski peak, even if it brings in millions. Millions of what? Who cares? I don't want to put an electric vending machine in my garden. I don't want a shiny, neon-lit with metal stuffed-animal grabbing claw, filled with plastic wrapped waxy chocolate and unnaturally bright and colorful candy pellets, eternally humming box in my garden. I don't want to hear Louis Armstrong play covers of all of Britney Spears' songs BECAUSE THEY GOT NO SOUL. THEY GOT NO SOUL!

They have no soul. They don't have any soul. They have no breath. If they do, then it's bad breath. They don't come from a garden, a neighborhood, a mountain.

I don't care if they will bring in MILLIONS of dollars. They are without SPIRIT. They are shells without turtles. They suck and drain and pretend to give back. They are the turkey dinner from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Remember what happened when Chevy Chase cut into the turkey?

No. This garden is mine and I am its. I will plant only seeds that will bring only beautiful delicious healthy fruit that will make me an my family and my neighborhood and my mountains beautiful and delicious and real and healthy.