Name: Louis C.K on Walmart and Corporations
Uploaded: 2022-10-12T15:00:29.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Louis C.K on Walmart and Corporations' from I'm Not Louis on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-10-12. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Louis C.K on Walmart and Corporations' from I'm Not Louis on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-10-12. Transcript available.

You know, and it's not the fault of some corporations or Donald Trump.
It's like Walmart kills all small town economists.
But it's not Walmart's fault.
It's the fault of the fucking people.
I used to have a house upstate in upstate New York,
and there was a town that held these beautiful old diners and general stores,
and they all closed one by one because of Walmart.
But it wasn't fucking Walmart's fault.
It was the people that lived in that town that don't give a shit about their
neighbors.
But is it giving a shit?
It's the American basic consumer who's like,
well, okay, I could spend 13 cents less on a mop,
so fuck my fucking neighbor.
Fuck my neighbor who's had that store in his family,
who's taking care.
There's like a million George Bailey moments in that town's history
where the whole, well, I'll give a check to your baseball teams with names,
John's general store.
Like the whole community coming together to do stuff.
Fuck that.
I want to buy a Jim Carrey movie three-pack for $7,
so fuck the old movie theater with a Wurlitzer organ.
But think of like, think of Blockbuster Video.
Now that caused a big thing because it pretty much closed down all the little
mom-and-pop video stores.
Which was a great family business.
Which was a family business and shit like that.
I remember those things and having to go in and you'd have to buy a membership
fee when you first get in,
when it was like a hundred bucks.
And that was just to try to keep the store alive.
Yeah, to keep the store open.
But then Blockbuster came around.
Now what do you want to do?
Go into the mom-and-pop and wait a week for the latest release?
Yeah, why don't you?
Why don't you fucking wait a little bit?
Because I want it now.
I want it now.
So fuck the family that opened that store.
Yeah.
And by the way, fuck them that they used to think about what movies you might
like.
That you might walk in and they go,
Anthony, you like comedies.
Anthony, we got a whole section for you.
Do you even know who Francois Tati is?
And they'd show you something that we went and found this.
Blockbuster would never do that for you.
Fuck them.
I agree with both of you, but...
So that you can save a little bit of fucking money.
The local place that Anne's talking about,
you had to wait for some asshole to bring back the nice new movie.
Oh, it's out.
You'd be like, it's out.
It's like, wow.
When is it coming back?
I want to watch that fucking thing.
Yeah, so again, fuck the ability.
Blockbuster said, look, we could just put a hundred copies on the shelf.
So you're thinking the whole loyalty thing should outweigh the convenience?
Absolutely, because you're supporting somebody who is...
There's a human being and a family who's living off that business,
and they give a shit about you.
By the way, where's Blockbuster?
It's fucking gone, so they leave a vacuum.
You can't rent a fucking video anymore.
But why would you?
Digital delivery.
If there was video stores...
You know why?
It's like bookstores.
A bookstore is not just a place.
It's a place where you can buy books.
It's a place where somebody expresses themselves by deciding what books to put
out there
and what books they want to offer their community.
Right.
And that gets replaced by Barnes & Nobles,
which means you get the same fucking books that every place in the world gets.
I mean, not just America.
Right.
Every bookstore has exactly the same books now.
I mean, people don't realize what a massive...
It used to be.
You go to that bookstore, you're going to get some weird off-color books of
this kind,
or you're going to get maybe a right-wing bookstore, a left-wing bookstore.
That used to be how people fucking...
Right.
And then so Barnes & Nobles comes, and the difference is a family business will
hang on through the tough years if they have half a chance.
Yeah.
But a corporate business will go,
Oh, we're not making it $10 trillion.
Just pull up stakes.
And they're gone.
So now there's no more fucking bookstores.
That's fucking amazing.
Or video stores, yeah.
No bookstores, no video stores.
Right.
Yeah.
The big Barnes & Noble on the Upper West.
Because those are predatory businesses.
Given your thinking, though, wouldn't we never progress?
Like, wouldn't...
Who's progressing?
That's not progression.
I mean, with everything.
Like, wouldn't we not...
Look at the automotive business, which is horrible now, of course, because of
the outsourcing and everything.
But early on, there were guys working those lines.
What about the technology to come in and use robots that did eliminate jobs,
but it makes the car better and faster and...
Yeah, but that's exactly the thing.
These things like bookstores and video stores, they weren't improved.
They were destroyed.
And a book is not a car.
It's not a product that needs to be perfected like a technology.
It's about having a way of life.
But now you just download it on Kindle.
Yeah.
No, exactly.
But it's rubbed out a hole getting out of your house and going to a bookstore
and meeting the bookstore guy and other people.
You used to get fucking laid by going to bookstores.
A way that people used to get laid is by going to a bookstore and standing in a
section that makes you look smart.
And then a chick comes around.
Yeah.
Oh, do you also like this book?
I'm perusing this book.
Yeah, you can't do that anymore.
When I grew up in Boston and there was a place in Harvard Square called The
Coffee Connection.
And this was a place that was obsessed with coffee.
And they had coffees from all around the world.
And they'd have stuff like you'd get like a cappuccino and they'd shave
chocolate onto it.
Not like a canister of chocolate powder.
It took time.
I mean, it's like...
They had a cheese grater and a block of chocolate and they'd shred chocolate
onto the fucking thing for you.
That's like how good it was.
You sound like my grandfather talking to me.
You don't even understand the old days.
I know the point he's about to make, man.
Or you'd go to the fucking coffee connection and you'd sit there like trembling.
And they'd bring you this thing that would just change your life.
Or they'd go, hey, you want to try Turkish?
We have a new Turkish coffee today.
It's a weird thing.
Oh, that sounds good.
Never tried it.
So then Starbucks opens down the street.
But this coffee connection hangs on.
So Starbucks opens another one like on the other side of them.
Starbucks isn't doing so great that they can open another one.
They're just trying to fucking kill.
Oh, shit.
So they open like five within a block of the place until Coffee Connection goes,
this is getting hard.
And they sell themselves.
They go, let's just be at Starbucks.
So then Starbucks buys them and then closes the other ones.
And then you're just left with fucking just one choice.
You get Starbucks.
And the quality of Starbucks is horrible now.
It's okay.
And the instant Starbucks isn't making a profit.
They'll give up.
And then there won't be a fucking place to even get coffee.
Right.
Then we go back to having no coffee again.
No coffee.
He's right.
I remember the lumber stores.
I remember we did a lot of renovation on our old house.
Because we had seven kids, a small house.
And we were constantly adding rooms and this and that.
Mom and pop lumber shops.
Mom and pop.
Yeah.
I would get in the car with my dad.
I remember like it was yesterday.
We'd go to the local lumber guy.
He knew my dad's first name.
We got this for you.
We made your pile.
It's all set.
Putting a dormer on the house, are you?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, you're going to need some of that.
No, no.
I'll come over here.
I'll help you out.
We need that for the joists.
But it was a social thing, too, man.
How are the kids?
Lumber stores were very social.
Right.
And then, you know, the Home Depot.
It's a fucking massive warehouse and no one wants to fucking help you.
It's inhumane.
You're just mad right when you walk in.
You're just mad people working there.
Right.
The buying of the lumber is not a happy exchange.
It used to be that you could say to yourself, you know what, if I invest in a
good saw and
I get some trucks, I could go out and get some fucking poplar and cut it well,
and people
will come here and build fucking houses with it.
Yeah.
And you go and you go, hey, you got some nice poplar.
Not as good as Joe Wilson's.
Yeah, well, mine is down three cents.
Right.
Oh, I'll buy yours down.
This was like a, this was, and by the way, we don't improve through this shit.
No.
We actually don't.
It's like, it's, it's, what happens is the more, the second place product
always wins
by being more vicious to, to take over.
Yeah, like Microsoft versus Apple.
Right.
Microsoft is, is bullshit software.
It's hard compared to Apple.
I know.
Believe me.
It's horrible.
But Bill Gates is a capitalist and he was vicious and he fought Apple.
And so for some years anyway.
Yeah.
Yeah.
America lived on shitty computer technology because of his ambition.
It was a point where we all thought Apple was gone.
Yeah.
It's VHS versus VHS versus beta.
Beta is still used today.
Yeah.
Beta videotape is still what most TVs are, as TV shows are shot on.
Yeah.
And we all watched VHS tapes because the VHS people said, we make the second
best.
So we're going to be cutthroat and fucked up and pay off people and go to
litigation and
like sue beta.
And beta is like, we just, well, we're making the best kind.
We can't even get people to buy it.
Yeah.
And so everyone gets VHS.
Unbelievable.
This is Tesla and fucking Edison.
Edison.
Edison and Tesla.
Yeah.
One guy's a genius and is selling a beautiful thing.
The second in this place guy copies it, doesn't do it as well.
And then takes him to court in every fucking state in America and muscles him
and fights
him and outdraws him.
Ruins his credibility.
Gets some fucking Texan to pay for it.
And then we all have to buy the shitty product.
You're fucking brilliant.
It's true.
It's the same with cars.
They would be better if what you're saying was actually true.
If it was like the guys still on the assembly line.
Yeah.
But your coffee story is deeply depressing.
It is.
What happens is everywhere.
I was thinking as you're talking about that, like the Starbucks popping up or
like weeds.
Yes.
Taking out the really nice fucking crop.
Yeah.
Nice flowers.
That's what they do.
And they're only interested in.
Putting weeds all over the place to destroy it.