At The Hat

A Letter from the Editor

I was at The Hat in Pasadena today and some punk highschooler was chuckling with his friends about Circuit City going out of business. He was talking about how it would be real easy to go in there and steal something since they needed to get rid of everything anyway and everybody was losing their jobs anyway so nobody would really care. Then one of his buddies said a third-party liquidation company now was handling the sales and security would probably be pretty tight. Then they both decided that stealing a TV would be pretty damn hard no matter how lax the security was, and decided not to do it.
And I thought to myself, Kids today are pretty smart.
Then one of these rascals said, “I can’t really imagine life without Circuit City,” and even though he was laughing and was obviously stoned, I knew there was truth to what he said and I related to it. This is fucking crazy! I mean, yeah, times are tough, yeah, we’re in a bad spot and it’s the worst this and lowest that and biggest the other since the Depression. But this is America: Our ATMs still work, I can still go purchase bread at the store and be home in five minutes, I will still watch the Super Bowl over a satellite signal on a television set powered by electricity while companies pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for each second of my attention. Things are bad, yeah — but they ain’t that bad, and I know things will eventually cycle around and get better. But now you’re telling me Circuit City isn’t going to be there when come out the other side?
That’s weird and a little hard. I mean, this is Circuit City we’re talking here. When I was little and my dad convinced my mom it was time for an upgrade to a big-screen and my mom was so on-board with the idea she said “Have it here by the time I get home tonight” on her way out the door (I remember it like it was yesterday), the first place we headed was that place with the big red entrance. When I first got a truck that was worth putting a system into, the second place I ever took the fucking vehicle was to Circuit City. (The first was El Asadero at Oceanside Blvd. and Temple Heights Rd.) And when I moved out of my college dorm room and finally got a place that was truly mine, and my roommate said we needed at least a 50-incher for the living room and that we’d only have to steal and sell about 5 mountain bikes to pull it off…I said no, of course. (But if I had said yes, and we had taken four bikes and turned them into $1500, we would have gone to Circuit City. And we would have bought a 50-inch Hitachi Ultravision.)
And the kids I overheard today at The Hat, when their schemes develop beyond walking into a store and stealing a TV, to more sophisticated two-part plans, where will they take their money? Where will they go?
Oh, yeah — Best Buy.

Signed,
Travis Lee Hunter
Editor and Publisher