Boston Herald and CNBC

Yesterday, some lady from the Boston Herald emailed me, wanting to do a phone interview with me regarding PLA’s Wal-Mart site. I told her I’d much rather answer her questions via email and she agreed. I didn’t get put into the article too much, I think mainly because I don’t really oppose Wal-Mart as much as she’d hoped. Here is the article from today’s Boston Herald. And here is the email of questions that I answered for her.

I’m not sure if my answers will be very useful to you, since I’ve never worked for Wal-Mart and I don’t really have an objective. But here you go…

Are you “Joe the Peacock”? (I saw that you live in Alton, Ill., but the link to Joe’s ”mentally incompetent” website has a Georgia address)

Nope, Joe can be reached at joe@—–.com. He lives in Georgia. I used to live in Illinois but I just moved to Oregon a few weeks ago. Joe might be able to give you some better answers than me, regarding Wal-Mart.

Did you formerly work for Wal-Mart? If so, in what capacity, during what period and where?

I’ve never worked for Wal-Mart before and I’ve never attempted to get a job there. I’m merely an occasional shopper there.

Do you shop there now or have you?

I try to never shop there. Sometimes it can’t be helped since they’re open later than most of the other large retail stores or they might have a certain product that the others might not have, such as a kids toy or something. I’d say I probably end up in a Wal-mart 2 or 3 times a year, but I make it a point never to make any large purchases there. While I realize that their prices are quite often lower than the other major stores, I stay away from them simply because I don’t like what they do to communities.

What do you have against the company that would make you spend time on doing a Website like this?

If you look at phonelosers.org, you’ll notice that everything I do stems from just way too much time on my hands. Even if I loved Wal-Mart, I probably would have made this page. Just as I put together the Fred Meyer page at http://www.phonelosers.org/issue/pla025.html or the 7-Eleven page at http://www.phonelosers.org/issue/pla008.html. I spend lots of money in those places. It just seemed like a funny idea when I originally put it together, which was 4 or 5 years ago.

I could say that it’s because of a few bad experiences I’ve had with the Wal-Mart in Wood River, Illinois, which are written about at http://www.brad-carter.com/consumer_alert.html. But it’s not. It’s all in good fun to me.

What’s your ultimate objective?

As far as Wal-Mart goes, I don’t really have an objective. I don’t really care for the Wal-Mart company and as a result, I try never to shop there. My Wal-Mart page honestly has nothing to do with my dislike of Wal-Mart. Since the ideas on it are so generic, really they could be applied to any retail store. I just really enjoy making entertaining content for other people to enjoy, and the Wal-Mart page is a result of that.

Lastly, are you being straight with me? I realize that this could be a prank…

Come on, do I seem like the kind of person that kids around? :)

Good luck on your article. I realize my answers are probably useless to you since I don’t have any kind of serious ultimatum with them. I’d be happy to answer any other questions for you, though, if you have any more.

Brad

I thought it was pretty retarded that she asked me if I was being straight. Here’s where the bizzare part of the story is…a producer from CNBC read the article this morning and emailed me, asking for my phone number to do an interview. I replied that I would prefer to just answer the questions via email if that was okay with her. After a few emails, we finally end up talking on the phone and she talks to me a lot about the site. In the end, she ends up wanting me to drive to Portland to do a live interview with the host of the CNBC show “On the Money.” I politely decline. She even offered to send a car for me.

Then I tell Jammie and Joe Peacock about the encounter. Both Jammie and Joe relentlessly encourage me to do it. Then murd0c starts in on me. Finally, my weak mind gives in. I’m going up there later today to talk live, via satellite, to Anchor Dylan Ratigan. It will be approximately a 4 minute segment starting around 7:40pm EST. They’re going to play some of the sound clips from the Wal-Mart page, including one that has murd0c in it. I just finished editing that clip for her to make it more TV-friendly.

I fully expect to regret this somehow in the end. The producer assures me that they’re not going to ambush me and call me a horrible person for encouraging people to give grief to Wal-mart. She says it’s going to be a “fun” segment. Something about that doesn’t click, though, since it’s a money program. I’ve never seen the show, though, and I’m too lazy to Google it. The producer seemed genuine in her phone calls and her emails, although she gave me lots of fake-sounding encouragement. We’ll see how it goes. Even if it turns sour, it’s not every day that I get to be on a nationwide TV show. That’s probably what those people on Jerry Springer think, right before Jerry spends an hour making them look like fools.

Anyone have any suggestions? Other than encouraging me to rip off my clothes on live TV and scream, “OMG HAX!@#$”