Hey, why get all worked up about The Topic? It's just a store. For some of us, it's a job. A good job. I don't feel like I've been used as a show monkey to entertain the masses. Do we sell dumb shit? Sometimes. Are our fourteen year old "punks" dumb? Sometimes. Are we "ripping off" people? No. We make a profit, sure, but we are a business. Businesses do that. I doubt Boston is being ruined by the Topic. I know all the managers in the Boston area and they're nice people. My company treats us well. The Topic is gay friendly, tollerant of my tats, and I can listen to the Murphys at work. All the shirts I sell are liscenced, so the bands are getting their cut. Plenty of stores with "street cred" are selling shit that the bands won't see a dime from. We aren't competing with AYP or Two Tone or any street shops in a big city. We don't need to. We sell stuff that appeals to a wide variety of subcultures. I guarantee the kid in Ass Swallow, Indiana is never going to go to AYP. He wants a Clash Tee, I got one, he buys it, who gets hurt? Yeah, I sell anarchy patches. Two bucks please, fight tha power. A "real" anarchist might be pissed, but what the fuck is he in the mall for? Besides, anarchy is a bullshit pipedream anyway. If we had true anarchy, your computer would not be working because some asshole would have blown up the power plants just because he could. And if you did still have power, you'd need it for you electric fence to keep the thieves, rapists and murders out of your compound.

My company is a small one, as retail goes. We aren't owned by any bigger company, it's just us. There's no Montgomery Burns in a suit pushing the buttons. Our home office people come from our stores and look like us. Our VP of operations started as a sales guy and has tattooed sleeves.