As I prepare to make my surgical holiday shopping strike this weekend I was wishing this piece would armor me with some insight into why I feel so alienated and creeped out by the malls. Ok, a bit of a tall order, but this short piece (that could easily expand into and really informative and fascinating longer piece) answered a bit of my wondering. Hollow fabricated fashion offerings (no surprise there) propped up by preprogrammed chords of "conversation" by the young adults helping sell the stuff that they generally cant afford, either. I will make a point of going into one of these stores this weekend and see what happens....The Youth radio stuff generally sounds so refreshing in its reality. It reminds me of old live recorded rock, BuddyHolly-like 3-minute songs. The best have innocence and knowing.