Salon.com > John Dicker

Wal-Mart needs a date

Wed, 01 Sep 2004 19:30:00 +0000

Name: Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Age: 42

Hometown: Bentonville, Ark.

Occupation: Behemoth

Education: $256 billion in annual sales and you care about a degree?

Religion: Everyday Low Prices, Cornpone Populism

Height/Weight: 1.5 million associates in more than 4,300 stores in 9 countries on four continents. But I'm not fat, I swear!

Hobbies: Some days I'm all about squeezing my suppliers; other days all I want to do is cut my payroll. But one thing's for sure: I'm always up for frisbee golf!

Turn-offs: Labor unions, zoning laws, and drivers who dont use their blinkers.

In 10 Years, I See Myself... Turning $600 billion in annual sales with 20 percent of the domestic retail market, expanding into banking, gas, auto, air travel, healthcare, etc... And hopefully NOT STILL SINGLE!!! LOL.

You Should Get to Know Me Because: I will own you.

Last Great Book I Read: "Chicken Soup for the Class-Action Defendant's Soul"

Celebrity I Resemble Most: Some say Kmart, others Target. I kinda think Kevin Spacey.

Favorite Onscreen Sex Scene: Tie between "Bankrupt Municipalities Gone Wild Vol. 3" and "Porky's" (the shower scene, duh!)

Getting uppity in suburbia

Thu, 22 Feb 2001 20:20:00 +0000

While the sun has long since set on the British Empire, its legacy lingers at a cul-de-sac near you.

"You have people like me to blame for that," confesses Gary Stefanoni, director of sales for Pulte Homes' New Jersey market. They know that northern New Jersey bears little resemblance to the Yorkshire Dales and that Detroit-upon-Michigan is a far cry from Stratford-upon-Avon, but judging from the names of these so-called "communities," they don't care. Want to snuggle up with royalty? Head to Buckingham at Queensbridge in Las Vegas, Nev., or Regency at Kingsgate in Woodstock, Ga. At a crossroads in your life? Try Southwyke at Victoria Crossing in Manassas Park, Va., or Canterberry Crossing in Parker, Colo. (But don't go looking for canterberries; they don't exist.)

These are the American suburbs, served up by Pulte Homes, K. Hovnanian Companies, Ryan Homes, Toll Brothers, Inc. and a handful of other corporations responsible for America's McMansion housing developments. "Aristocratic British names are popular, they're safe, no one complains about them," says Stefanoni. "With ethnic names there's problems with pronunciation. Usually we try to use something that relates to the area. We try and find out who owned the property, if there was a manor or estate, we look at old maps. We might spend three months researching a name." Stefanoni took this formula to New Jersey and came up with "Brettonwoods of Paramus." "Well, there's woods nearby," he explains, "and I found the name of an old English estate in a book."

The other new economy

Wed, 24 Jan 2001 20:00:00 +0000

To an outsider, Regent, N.D., seems a place one would visit only under extreme circumstances, perhaps to bury a relative or repossess a vehicle. Drivers approaching the town from Interstate 94 encounter few fellow motorists, only a vast expanse of brown prairie grass, rusted farming equipment and abandoned houses. The sudden appearance of a 40-foot grasshopper is as menacing as it is delightful -- Tim Burton meets John Mellencamp. The grasshopper is surrounded by 20-foot-tall blades of metal wheat that sway in the fierce prairie winds.

Gary Greff is transforming his hometown of Regent into the "metal art capital of the world." His vehicle for the journey is the inchoate "Enchanted Highway": a series of four (out of a planned 10) colossal metal sculptures on the two-lane county road connecting Regent to the interstate 30 miles north. Greff's aim is for the Enchanted Highway to eclipse the "western" town of Medora, complete with its "pitchfork fondues" -- every summer evening, folks gather on a bluff and fork slabs of steak into kettles of boiling cooking oil -- as the premier tourist attraction in the state.

I was a union mole at Kmart

Thu, 04 Jan 2001 20:30:00 +0000

There was a rhythm to it at times, slapping labels on boxes and heaving them down the line. Some nights I would zone out in a throwing frenzy, look down to check my watch and find I had missed break. But more often I would discover that the 44 boxes of Hefty Cinch Sacks I had just put on the belt were supposed to be 44 boxes of Tide.

Huggies diapers, halogen floor lamps, Depend undergarments, I launched their journeys to the Kmart store near you. Some nights I moved so much Quilted Northern that I felt personally responsible for the collective ass wiping of the Mountain time zone. To Kmart, I was Associate No. 22699 at its Denver distribution center, the guy from Boulder who didn't smoke or eat meat. To the AFL-CIO, I was a "salt" or a "colonizer," a spy in the service of the American labor movement.

"This is not 'Norma Rae,'" Mark, the organizing director, told me. "You're not there to rile people up. Stay quiet, blend in as best you can and keep your ears open. If someone mentions anything about a union, don't say anything. If the campaign is a go, we might put you on management's anti-union committee. Anything can happen. Be prepared to be bored; pretty soon you'll forget that you're anything but a Kmart worker."