Repent Ye Repent Ye the Shopocalyps is at Hand
Saturday night Kate, Kate’s brother and father, and I went to see a movie called What Would Jesus Buy, an entertaining documentary about Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir. Reverend Billy believes the US has lost its soul to consumerism and he and his rag-tag choir are hitting the streets to get Americans to stop shopping during the holiday season. The movie is absolutely amazing, fun, and inspiring. At one point Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir commandeer a stage in Minnesota’s Mall of America and sign anti-consumerist tunes until the mall police expel them. Now that’s entertainment.
This holiday season everyone should see What Would Jesus Buy.
Lyrics to one of their songs Shopocalyps
Will you survive the fire? The Shopocalypse, the shopocalypse!
Can you feel the heat in this shopping list.
The neighbors fade into the super mall.
The oceans rise but I – I must buy it all.
Shopocalypse, Shopocalypse…
It aint the blues, it’s convenience
Will we drive fast all night - to wilderness, into the wilderness!
Will we die of fright when the logos hiss
Can we go home, break in our own front door
The TV stops to hear our insides roar
Shopocalypse, Shopocalypse…
It aint the blues, it’s convenience
Will a hard rain we pray confuse the darkest gods,
confuse the darkest gods!
Did Jesus buy on time to improve his odds
The brightest lie it screams into the happy face
The bluest sky betrays, betrays the human race
Shopocalypse, Shopocalypse…
It aint the blues, it’s convenience
Will we sit down and write a blood-stained hit
Will stand and fight, to live without it
We say no, say yes – I’ll love one time well
I take it back, not now, it’s a hard hard sell
Shopocalypse, Shopocalypse…
It aint the blues, it’s convenience
words: bill talen music: rick ulfik
I cannot cannot cannot wait to see it! I have all these performance art ideas dancing in my head that I fear it will only depress me to watch the video and find that they have already been done!
Comment by ashsan — 14 December 2007 @ 6:56 pm
OK, I, for one, am NOT going to be impressed until he is weaving his own clothes Ghandi-style as the travels the earth. Those clothes of his look way too much like the 80’s John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever.”
Is it Ok to shop if you dress disco style?
And, he probably drove a Suburban to the mall. . .
Comment by Momalicious Kelly — 14 December 2007 @ 7:16 pm
I can’t wait to see this movie! I am sooooo addicted to shopping that I just purchased a pair of your Frida Khalos earrings via your webstore . . . and my ears aren’t even pierced!
Comment by jph3 — 14 December 2007 @ 7:28 pm
I’ve been thinking about consumerism of late. I agree whole-heartedly that consumerism is bad. We focus too much on getting things in this culture and having more than others. I think that’s a shame.
But I’m not so sure that not shopping is the solution. What happens if we stop shopping? Money stops moving around in the system, and people start losing jobs. A healthy economy (read: plenty of jobs) needs to have strong liquidity, without having people exceeding their income (because then we get loans and subsequently defaults which are clearly bad). If we were to all squirrel away our money like Scrooge, it would be awful.
I think the solution is that we take the same money that we would have spent on all sorts of things that we don’t need except for the purpose of keeping up with the Joneses and instead, spend it on things that improve society. That way we keep the spending up, so there are plenty of jobs being created, a generally stable economy. But, at the same time, we reduce the consumerism.
Just some thoughts I’ve been having.
Comment by Michael Bailey — 15 December 2007 @ 1:42 pm