To properly achieve the mindset of the hipster one must stomach dozens of PBR's while listening to hours of shitty indie music. Only then can one don the costume of the Hipster and mingle among their kind without its most experience of members getting suspicious. . . It is best to at least smell like them. Other necessary items include a pack of cigarettes--the more disgusting the better, for in the hipster mind to go against the grain is choice, to be different from the status-quo means a unique acquired tasted, and if it cannot be obtained it can always be faked--a smug sense of entitlement, glasses (if you don't need them), contacts (if you need glasses), and if at all possible, facial hair strung out like spotty wisps about the neck and face.
If you have these things, and the talent, you too can become an UNDERCOVER HIPSTER, and as I soon found out, in the hipster world, idiocy applies to both sexes. . .
Case #005: The Hipster Chick
Before I called her I felt the need to drink some beer. When I felt boozed up enough I called her, I made every effort to seem desperate. Hipster chicks dig that sort of shit--they like to think its because you've endured so much and faced much prejudice from the mass of callus people deemed unhip that you have no other choice than to seek some love. They like being saving graces. I learned her name to be Ethel, a horrible name which she had no other choice than to love because it was so unhip it was hip. She was quite busy she said, as she was in the middle of some macroni sculpture project but would make time for me on Friday. Oh gee, well thanks a lot Ethel, its nice when a girl gives out handouts, especially when she lets you that she's doing you a favor for even being seen with her.
On Friday I felt quite horrible, and the day seemed to agree with me. There were dark grey clouds in the sky rallying for a little rain. They remained that way all day, scarcely letting the sun come out to play. When the time came I readied myself in my hipster gear. The place we were to visit was called The Crab Pot, a restaurant/bar said to be very hip.
When I arrived she was not there, a circumstance I should have foreseen, as its much cooler to arrive late than on time--God forbid you show up early. While I waited I took in the place, as Ethel had suggested it and I had never been before, nor even heard of it. I could see why she picked the place, it was a veritable hipsters nest teeming with tremendously hip activity. The majority of the people there I assumed came for the atmosphere--all the dining tables were different, with mismatching chairs, stools, stumps, rocks, and other strange things manipulated into torturous furniture. Overhead, planets hung from the rafters and mingled with rockets and stuffed birds. There were also dangling wooden crabs in the mix, that pinched at whales spouting water and schools of fish. I know not what this sort of decor could be called, though it seemed as if someone was going for a theme, but didn't quite know the true meaning of the word; instead mixing a bunch of shit in a conglomeration of douchery that boggled the mind and offended the eyes. Other people actually liked it though, as I sat waiting like a jack ass I heard man people remarking how pleasing they found it all was.
I talked a lot of shit in my head, looked at the menu (Little Mermaid Crab Cakes, and Enchantment Under The Sea Shrimp Platter were just a few of the retarded names dolled out to dishes in an effort to seem cool) and stared at one particular server who had a massive gnarly beard hanging from his face like he was going for the wizard look (he succeeded in this endeavor, in my opinion). I figured he would be our server, my luck being what it was, and imagined all the facial hair I'd have in my food on account of it. Finally she arrived, looking not much unlike she did when I first met her. She wore her hair up, had some shade of lipstick on that she probably bought only because the name of it sounded funny to her, and brown eyes set under a heavy brow. I wouldn't go so far as to say she was ugly, as I'm no gem myself, but she wasn't what one could consider a classic beauty. The ugliest things about her were her vanity and nasally voice; which one I loathe the least I have yet to decide.
We sat at a green oak table, surrounded by metal chairs and tree stumps. She made herself quite comfortable, and looked all along the ceiling counting crabs and planets; looked at her damn iPhone; looked at all the other hipsters; looked at her fingers nails; looked at her self in a compact mirror; looked everywhere and at everyone but me. She ordered some hip sounding drink I had never heard of before, while I ordered a simple beer. When they arrived she sipped hers and finally looked at me.
"So what did you do to Nathaniel?" She asked.
"Nothing." I said, feeling a little like I was being interrogated.
"No. You did something. I know Nathaniel cannot handle his drink. Can you handle your drink? You did something. He hasn't threatened to rape someone in a long while. He only does that when someone really gets him. So you got him alright. What did you do?"
"Did he get raped?"
"Who?"
"The last guy he threatened to rape. I mean does he really rape people? He looks like the type."
"Oh. No. Well, if you consider having a bike stolen getting raped, then yes. But--"
"A bike?"
"Yeah a bicycle. A real nice one too. I don't know what it was called, but it was nice. My brother has a bike. A nice one. I've ridden bikes before too. All kinds of bikes. Tricycles are funny, unicycles even funnier. But I know all about that, what I don't know is--"
The waiter came up, with his massive beard, and she ordered a seafood platter thing, and I a steak. By now she was quite flustered by her own curiosity, and couldn't quite sit still.
"So?" She asked. "And why did you order a steak at a seafood restaurant, that's sooo stupid."
"So what?" I asked cruelly. "I always get steak and lobster at Sizzler. You know Sizzler?" She cringed, as most people do when I mention Sizzler, but the truth is Sizzler is a place you go when you don't want to be bothered. You can even show up high and no one says anything. Believe me it makes for a good time, and the food isn't as horrible as people assume; I've had shittier steaks at Outback Steakhouse.
"Yeah I know it. But that's not what I want to know. What did you do?" She nearly burst out of her seat saying it, and had it not been so loud in the restaurant, I'm certain it would have made a scene.
"He tried to get me on Great Expectations. I wouldn't let him. People who base their superiority on their knowledge being far more vast than anyone else's crumble when you prove they aren't omnipotent." I drank some beer. "I didn't curse him out or anything, or insult his mother, or any of that. Though I easily could have."
"How disappointing. I thought--" she looked quite depressed, her funny colored lips curled into a frown that so impressed upon me their sadness I felt ashamed I hadn't decked the guy.
"Yes?"
"Nothing."
She was rather cold after that, until dinner came which seemed to liven her up. I myself was on my fourth beer and had a nice high going that allowed me to enjoy my meal and ignore her. She started talking about herself in great detail that I won't bore the reader with by repeating, though I will provide a rubric: she was born in Illinois, liked a lot of bands I had never heard of, had a cousin who once threw up all over her, was in theater club in high school, had tattoos of various happy faced animals, enjoyed David Lynch in a fanatical manner, and had a love for studded belts that she could never shed. I was well into my steak (which was great by the way) when she got the idea that after dinner we should go back to The Fox and Fiddle. I felt it a bad idea.
"What?" She was quite upset suddenly, but only for an instant. Her lips then turned into a sly smile. "I was hoping for a round two."
"There will be no round two. That wouldn't be a fight. Four on one? More like a brawl. And I wouldn't win."
"Oh I don't care who wins."
I scoffed.
"Well I do."
"How bout if you go, I'll let you sleep with me."
I couldn't help but laugh. She didn't expect this response, and flashed that wretched frown of hers once again.
"Did you ever think that after such a fight I wouldn't be able to do anything? Did you think that perhaps--just maybe you aren't worth fighting for?"
"Well if you're going to be rude. . ."
"Well if you're going to be stupid. . ."
She gave me an evil glare. She sat across the table with evil intentions, the knife in her hand looking less like an eating utensil and more like a deadly weapon.
"You just think you're smart because you know of all those books from like four-hundred years ago."
"Four-hundred years ago? Care to make another guess my dear?" I asked.
"You're a real asshole you know that?! I'm not your dear! I'm not your anything! And never will be! You sit here, as I suppose you sit everywhere--looking down on everyone and talking shit. Acting like you're better than everyone else yet you still hang around them, loathing them and everything about them. Why don't you just leave? Why don't you find people you actually like, and who are as smart as you? As smart as you think you are? My guess is you can't find any of your own friends. So you just hang out with people and are mean and jealous because they can make real friends and all of that. Can live social lives. Can be other things other than a self-righteous asshole that doesn't like anyone or anything."
This made me think a little, but she had to ruin it, as she then said:
"You know what you are?" She asked rather matter of fact, like there was no use in asking in the first place. "A fucking hater. . . and I can't stand fucking haters."
"A real epidemic as of late."
"Yeah you're probably some cyber bully too. You pick on little kids?"
"I pick on everyone. . ."
"Oh, so you are one?"
"A what?" I asked. "A cyber bully? Maybe. Maybe not. May I remind you though--" she pulled out her iPhone at this point, and checked up on the Almighty Facebook. "May I remind you we are not in cyber space. Though it appears these days cyber space and reality are becoming one in the same. A horrible thought." So horrible in fact I finished my beer upon its surfacing.
She slammed her phone on the table (think not this to be hyperbole, she really slammed the damn thing) and looked at me with ugly eyes to match her ugly face. In my imagination I saw steam coming from her nostrils.
"You really are an ass aren't you? I know we aren't in cyberspace. A bully is a bully. You're full of shit."
I thought to inform her of being quite full of shit herself, but instead replied:
"An ass, a bully, or full of shit. Which one is it?"
"All three!" She said with passion. She grabbed her phone and left. Suddenly the room seemed more peaceful. The waiter came up then and asked if I would like the check. I told him yes, though I had very little money to speak of and thought of all the things I would much rather spend it on: namely, beer. So as the waiter went off to print up the check, I pulled out my pack and lit up a cigarette right in the middle of the restaurant/bar. I did this all very casually, and got a few puffs and wild stares in before another waiter came up to me.
"Sir, you can't smoke inside."
"I know," I replied, again rather casually.
"Sir, you have to smoke outside."
"I know."
"Sir...?"
"I know, I know." I said quite annoyed and swatted him away with my hand as if he were a fly.
The next thing I remember was a pair of large gorilla hands grabbing me by the shoulders and pulling me out of my seat, all in one motion. My wrist was then seized with great strength, clenching tighter and tighter until I let go of the cigarette. It fell on the table and was put out with a glass of water, as if it were a bomb lit by a fuse. I was then chucked out the door and encouraged never to come back. I never saw the beast with gorllia hands that tossed me out, and still to this day I believe The Crab Pot has a gorilla for a bouncer. . .
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Friday, September 16, 2011
CASE #004: The Charles Dickens Hipster
To properly achieve the mindset of the hipster one must stomach dozens of PBR's while listening to hours of shitty indie music. Only then can one don the costume of the Hipster and mingle among their kind without its most experienced of members getting suspicious. . . It is best to at least smell like them. Other necessary items include a pack of cigarettes--the more disgusting the better, for in the hipster mind to go against the grain is choice, to be different from the status-quo means a unique acquired taste, and if it cannot be obtained it can always be faked--a smug sense of entitlement, glasses (if don't need them), contacts (if you need glasses), and if at all possible, facial hair strung out like spotty wisps about the neck and face.
If you have these things, and the talent, you too can become an UNDERCOVER HIPSTER, and as I soon found out, literature can be a horrible thing indeed, when in the wrong hands. . .
Case #004: The Charles Dickens Hipster
Though at great length we have mentioned the hipster's adoration for music, his love is not singular and often he strays into many of art's other forms. It appears that under the douchey clothes and retarded ideas, there is indeed a human there after all. The hipster's eyes are too so changed by all art and as such are too guilty of that time honored tradition of conjuring up a facade of superiority through the use of bogus bullshit knowledge. They use it well, making for a calamity of many bored listeners all around, and has ruined very, very, very many hip parties. It is considered very unhip to challenge another's interpretation of art (or any other hipster, for that matter) less one wish to risk a calamity far worse than death: to be labeled with that pussy drying label of UNCOOL.
I mention all of this, for I uncovered one such hipster the other day. The Fox and the Fiddle is a bar set in the middle of Los Angeles, with an old European feel maintained with a selection of many European beers, and male servers that are forced to wear kilts. It is gated off from the street, and upon walking through the gates into the courtyard, one feels immediately like they are entering into another world. Its courtyard is most popular, and furnished with seating for nearly a hundred people, and they are always full. Another popular section is a fountain, which many people sit around and has been a watery grave for many beers. Outside, you can smoke, and as such is often a loud smoking din, filled with many a hipster. Upon entering I found a prominent group of hipsters clustered around the fountain, one of them already well into his drink and taking moments to look into the fountain to spit, or laugh, or toss in bar napkins. They are loud and boisterous, and walking past them into the bar, I made a mental note of their location and numbers. I ordered myself a pint at the bar, after that usual waiting game with the bartender. The place was packed, as usual, and as such I waited for nearly 5 minutes to get my brew. I also purchased a pack of cigarettes for the scandalous price of ten dollars, but felt it would be worth it if the fellows outside had any good material worth writing about.
Returning to the patio I was hit with a scene of people of advancing years throwing caution to the wind and drinking themselves silly. It is a refreshing thing to see for any alcoholic, for in that moment they can feel less guilt for their own shortcomings in a world where apparently everyone gets drunk. There were people in all different stage of drink, some eating a late dinner from steaming plates of fine smelling foods, and even one drunk girl already staggering around. It was a fine scene indeed.
The hipsters were still around the fountain--they had taken a table and pushed it up against it, and when their party had grown too large, they had simply taken to sitting upon the edge of the fountain. Management seemed not to mind, for their party was nearly fifteen strong, and had ordered much food and drink, as proven by the stacks of glasses and half finished plates on their table. I made my way toward the group looking for an opening. There were many smoking cigarettes, so I took out my fresh pack and felt around my pockets as if I were looking for a lighter. I put the cigarette in my mouth and continued to feign searching as I walked. As I drew near, one of the hipsters eyed me, and after a quick appraisal of my garb decided I was one of them and out in my path shot an arm at the end of which a hand clutched a lit lighter.
"Here," he said. It was a testament both to a hipster's kindness amongst their own kind, and my disguise. I lit my cigarette and thanked him, taking a spot up on the ledge of the fountain. I sat and listened for awhile, pretending to be quite interested in my cigarette. It didn't burn quite as I liked it to, so I adjusted the burn with my finger nail and frowned. It was a cold night, for California, and as I gazed up into the sky there was an unusual amount of stars, the smog had lifted on a beautiful night, and here I was in this rotten scene pretending to be a hipster.
I know not, even now, why I even pursued this endeavor, less it be for a want to write. I thought of oh so many better ways to write--far more legitimate ways, and felt it was all just another case of me fooling myself. No writer writes about such foolish things. No writer writes in the 21st century--not in the traditional sense, because no one reads anymore anyway. It was depressing, and never before have I so enjoyed a deadly cigarette. I was beginning to feel like a real fink; a loser; a no one; when at my side I heard a voice all too familiar:
"J. Wood?! What the fuck are you wearing? Its not Halloween yet!" It was said with such emotion I turned my head in shock, and noticed the other hipsters did too. The voice belonged to this really funny guy I know, who has a way of telling jokes out of the side of his mouth with his body half turned away from you, as if he had developed this style of delivering jokes as a kid in the classroom, and had to thus be sly about it. "Where have you been? I haven't seen you around."
"Nowhere." I said plainly "You know me."
"I thought I did, what's with the hipster gear?" He asked loud enough for the others to notice. They were beginning to take notice of our conversation. I felt the need to say something to him, so I leaned in and said softly:
"Look, man," I whispered. "I'm trolling these hipster fucks, and you're about to blow my fucking cover."
To this he smiled, and leaning in said:
"What's the angle? You gonna fuck one of their girlfriends? If so lemme get in on this."
"No!" I said, and then recovering whispered, "They'll never believe it. Sure maybe we'll pull it off. . . but who are you meeting here? Who are you here with? Everyone else will give us away; no hipster keeps more sane friends than they do hipster friends. You must go. . ."
He thought for awhile, and then smiled. He agreed with me and soon left. Being a member of The Nothing Generation I knew he would respect my "trolling" and not further bother me. Though I felt a crisis had been avoided, I felt their prying eyes upon me, measuring up my interaction with a clear non-hipster. My status was being questioned, and less I wished to betray my hidden identity (how stupid this sounds now) I knew I had once again to defend myself. It is one of the many downsides of being a hipster, having to constantly prove oneself to your so called 'friends'. I turned to them slowly, bitterly, and said with all the disdain I could muster:
"Non-believer."
I said it with such pain many of them sadly shook their heads--one girl I daresay was so touched she was brought to tears.
"Yeah man, we hear you." One hipster said, and then added rather angrily "I have when people do that. . . We are what we are! Get the fuck over it!"
Everyone agreed, and took a thoughtful sip of their beverage, and I joined them. I could feel my fake moustache curling at the ends and slipping off.
"Hear, hear!" I said, taking my arm to my mouth to both wipe away the beer and adjust my moustache. There was then a great lull in conversation between myself and anyone else, as I have never really been one for conversation, especially among strangers. In such a situation I usually just smoke and drink, to keep from looking like some asshole with no friends and nothing really to do. On this occasion it was no different.
Nearly an hour passed, with little significant happening. I had consumed many beers and was getting drunker and drunker till I found myself to be well oiled and looking for trouble. I never know what mood I'll enter when I get nice and drunk, though usually it depends on the atmosphere. I was feeling mean, I knew in part because of my ridiculous outfit, but mostly because of the hipsters and the little snippets of conversation I had been putting up with:
Hyperbole:
RANDOM HIPSTER: What you drinking?
RANDOM HIPSTER #2: Bud Light and soda. I used to just drink straight vodka, nothing but vodka all the time. . . but I'm trying to slowww dowwwnnn
Hypocrisy:
HIPSTER MONK: You know I just try to stay positive. You know, there aint no use in gettin' negative--you know--about anything . . . Know what I meeeean?"
Then upon noticing his Heineken missing, he threw a massive bitch fit, and accused one of the waitresses of cleaning it up.
Idiocy:
HIPSTER CHICK: You mean Tommy Chong isn't Chinese?
They all came back into me in that moment, the horrid memories of not long ago. I rubbed my head, feeling the beer take its hold as the world began to take on a softened comical hue. I thought to leave, but as I got up I staggered about and felt it best to at least wait a little while. Then, a hipster I had not seen before appeared there in the courtyard double fisting two beers. He wore an ascot and Bob Dylan shades, and as he went to sit down he put his beers on the table and pulled out a book from his back pocket. He placed it on the table next to his beers and sat down. He did this all very solemnly--I figured the book to be The Bible from the way he treated it, but I couldn't see what it was. It piqued my interest, as I have never seen anyone bring a book to a bar, or any real social event for that matter.
No one said anything about the book, though he had made such a point that he had brought it. Conversation resumed, and he kept mostly to himself--the majority of his energy going to looking intellectually hip. He sipped his beer and pulled out a cigar and started smoking it. . . that pretentious bastard. The smell of it quite demanded everyone's attention and before long many of us were watching him smoke his cigar like it was the first one we had ever seen smoked before. He smiled, and a waitress came up to him and he promptly ordered a brandy. He was setting up for a real intellectual debate--all he needed was a roaring fire. After awhile he said:
"So. . ." and like magic a few circled in around him and they began. Those deemed unworthy were left to wonder bitterly what they were on about. A few were so upset they left the table.
"What's his deal?" I asked a girl next to me, who had remained to complain and talk shit.
"You haven't met Nathaniel yet? Lucky you. . . Who do you know here anyway?" She asked.
"Julie." It was a total lie, and the first name to come to my mind.
"Oh," she replied, as if it was of no consequence anyway. "Yeah well his name used to be Nate, or that's what we all used to call him. It was what he went by. You know what I mean. Well anyway he goes by Nathaniel because he thinks it sound more Victorian or whatever. I think he's a dick."
"Why Victorian?"
"Questions. Questions. Questions! What are you writing a book or something?"
I nervously lit a cigarette (afraid of getting found out b a hipster chick--I really am a pussy).
"No."
"It was a rhetorical question. Are you stupid or something? I know all about stupid--I should--I hear it all day, from everybody. So many stupid people. Only stupid people are breeding. . . Isn't that a song? I think that's a song. I wonder if I could find it. I'm sure I could." Perhaps the wonderment of such a dilemma was too much for her, for she then proceeded to look it up on her iPhone.
"So?" I asked.
"So what?"
"Why Victorian?"
She rolled her eyes at me, then said:
"Because he reads those kinds of books okay?" she blurted out. "Ones we all used to know from back in grade school, but were so boring and stupid none of us have ever actually read them." She went back to her iPhone after yet another sigh.
Victorian. Of course. What a prick, I thought, and got up to get a better look at him. Nathaniel was surrounded by a bunch of intellectual hipsters, one of which actually wore a French beret. Nathaniel was expounding with his head up in the stars, with this look on his face like could see Heaven up there, and it fed him all the answers as if sent by God himself. He gazed into the sky and some how gazed even father into the sky, but then they fell, fell upon me. He gazed back at two glazed eyes intent on destroying him I'm sure, for I did feel the need to destroy him. I was quite drunk and the look upon his face changed with the quick knowledge of my hatred. He had seen such a look before.
"Here, he arrives! Sir Pip!" Nathaniel said, gesturing towards me. He and his boys laughed.
"The fine young gentlemen!" I replied. "Shall I beat you now, or after I get the stuck-up wench?"
"Well, can't we just be friends, dear Handel?"
"That depends. . . do you wish to call me sir from here on out?"
"Oh you mean to say you haven't fallen from grace yet?"
"I've fallen more than you know." I replied. It was terribly funny and terribly funny to me and me alone, for the others knew not the pain of pretending to be a hipster (or maybe they knew all to well).
"Oh hell you probably haven't even read the book." Nathaniel replied, apparently having tired of our bullshit confrontation.
"Great Expectations. Yeah. Dickens right? Never read it."
"Of course you havent you f---how did you know it was Great Expectations?! You must have seen the cover." He seemed to be getting irrationally angry with me, which I can only assume was because I had beaten at his own game and he didn't very much like it. "Don't ever look at my stuff. . . don't ever."
I felt I had awoken some spoiled toddler and let a smirk come to my face, which he didn't like much either.
"Don't you laugh at me. Don't you fucking laugh at me man. I've had enough of that shit in my motha-fucking life already." By now any notion anyone had to the properness of Nathaniel had been destroyed, leaving a rotten yolk of distilled douchery and morose malevolence. "How dare you. How. . . dare. . . you!"
By now he was making quite the scene. He threatened to throw the book at my head, and I would have feared injury had I not know he would never part with the book; he would really be nothing then without it. His friends seemed less willing to fight (I am no intimidating presence), and his friend in the beret took off running altogether.
"You alright there, Nate?" I asked him. He turned a bright red, the color of a nice apple, though this apple had no seeds to spit at me, only words:
"Nate! Nate! The mother fucker calls me Nate! I'll rape you bitch!"
It is amazing the things that happen when someone screams rape. Women instantly freeze, and any man with a daughter or sister immediately thinks of hate. It is an undeniable force, a practical law of the physical world; what goes up must come down. In this case, man screams rape and bouncers take him down. It is a wonderful scene (provided you aren't the one being tackled) and quite a funny one at the Fox and Fiddle, for all male staff are required to wear kilts.
Homophobes turned away for fear of unwarranted nut shots, women looked closer for hope of unwarranted nuts shots, and your truly staggered out of the place, for fear of being associated with such a fool. On the street outside there was that hipster chick on her iPhone, still looking at song lyrics for all I knew.
"You're dangerous," she said slyly.
"Yeah," I smiled. "I guess I am." I felt good, like I had be victorious though I didn't really do anything. I felt as good as if I had actually tackled the bastard myself.
"Here, call me." and with that she put a bar napkin in my hand and walked off.
I felt quite victorious then indeed. . .
If you have these things, and the talent, you too can become an UNDERCOVER HIPSTER, and as I soon found out, literature can be a horrible thing indeed, when in the wrong hands. . .
Case #004: The Charles Dickens Hipster
Though at great length we have mentioned the hipster's adoration for music, his love is not singular and often he strays into many of art's other forms. It appears that under the douchey clothes and retarded ideas, there is indeed a human there after all. The hipster's eyes are too so changed by all art and as such are too guilty of that time honored tradition of conjuring up a facade of superiority through the use of bogus bullshit knowledge. They use it well, making for a calamity of many bored listeners all around, and has ruined very, very, very many hip parties. It is considered very unhip to challenge another's interpretation of art (or any other hipster, for that matter) less one wish to risk a calamity far worse than death: to be labeled with that pussy drying label of UNCOOL.
I mention all of this, for I uncovered one such hipster the other day. The Fox and the Fiddle is a bar set in the middle of Los Angeles, with an old European feel maintained with a selection of many European beers, and male servers that are forced to wear kilts. It is gated off from the street, and upon walking through the gates into the courtyard, one feels immediately like they are entering into another world. Its courtyard is most popular, and furnished with seating for nearly a hundred people, and they are always full. Another popular section is a fountain, which many people sit around and has been a watery grave for many beers. Outside, you can smoke, and as such is often a loud smoking din, filled with many a hipster. Upon entering I found a prominent group of hipsters clustered around the fountain, one of them already well into his drink and taking moments to look into the fountain to spit, or laugh, or toss in bar napkins. They are loud and boisterous, and walking past them into the bar, I made a mental note of their location and numbers. I ordered myself a pint at the bar, after that usual waiting game with the bartender. The place was packed, as usual, and as such I waited for nearly 5 minutes to get my brew. I also purchased a pack of cigarettes for the scandalous price of ten dollars, but felt it would be worth it if the fellows outside had any good material worth writing about.
Returning to the patio I was hit with a scene of people of advancing years throwing caution to the wind and drinking themselves silly. It is a refreshing thing to see for any alcoholic, for in that moment they can feel less guilt for their own shortcomings in a world where apparently everyone gets drunk. There were people in all different stage of drink, some eating a late dinner from steaming plates of fine smelling foods, and even one drunk girl already staggering around. It was a fine scene indeed.
The hipsters were still around the fountain--they had taken a table and pushed it up against it, and when their party had grown too large, they had simply taken to sitting upon the edge of the fountain. Management seemed not to mind, for their party was nearly fifteen strong, and had ordered much food and drink, as proven by the stacks of glasses and half finished plates on their table. I made my way toward the group looking for an opening. There were many smoking cigarettes, so I took out my fresh pack and felt around my pockets as if I were looking for a lighter. I put the cigarette in my mouth and continued to feign searching as I walked. As I drew near, one of the hipsters eyed me, and after a quick appraisal of my garb decided I was one of them and out in my path shot an arm at the end of which a hand clutched a lit lighter.
"Here," he said. It was a testament both to a hipster's kindness amongst their own kind, and my disguise. I lit my cigarette and thanked him, taking a spot up on the ledge of the fountain. I sat and listened for awhile, pretending to be quite interested in my cigarette. It didn't burn quite as I liked it to, so I adjusted the burn with my finger nail and frowned. It was a cold night, for California, and as I gazed up into the sky there was an unusual amount of stars, the smog had lifted on a beautiful night, and here I was in this rotten scene pretending to be a hipster.
. . .a scene of people of advancing years throwing caution to the wind and drinking themselves silly. . .
I know not, even now, why I even pursued this endeavor, less it be for a want to write. I thought of oh so many better ways to write--far more legitimate ways, and felt it was all just another case of me fooling myself. No writer writes about such foolish things. No writer writes in the 21st century--not in the traditional sense, because no one reads anymore anyway. It was depressing, and never before have I so enjoyed a deadly cigarette. I was beginning to feel like a real fink; a loser; a no one; when at my side I heard a voice all too familiar:
"J. Wood?! What the fuck are you wearing? Its not Halloween yet!" It was said with such emotion I turned my head in shock, and noticed the other hipsters did too. The voice belonged to this really funny guy I know, who has a way of telling jokes out of the side of his mouth with his body half turned away from you, as if he had developed this style of delivering jokes as a kid in the classroom, and had to thus be sly about it. "Where have you been? I haven't seen you around."
"Nowhere." I said plainly "You know me."
"I thought I did, what's with the hipster gear?" He asked loud enough for the others to notice. They were beginning to take notice of our conversation. I felt the need to say something to him, so I leaned in and said softly:
"Look, man," I whispered. "I'm trolling these hipster fucks, and you're about to blow my fucking cover."
To this he smiled, and leaning in said:
"What's the angle? You gonna fuck one of their girlfriends? If so lemme get in on this."
"No!" I said, and then recovering whispered, "They'll never believe it. Sure maybe we'll pull it off. . . but who are you meeting here? Who are you here with? Everyone else will give us away; no hipster keeps more sane friends than they do hipster friends. You must go. . ."
He thought for awhile, and then smiled. He agreed with me and soon left. Being a member of The Nothing Generation I knew he would respect my "trolling" and not further bother me. Though I felt a crisis had been avoided, I felt their prying eyes upon me, measuring up my interaction with a clear non-hipster. My status was being questioned, and less I wished to betray my hidden identity (how stupid this sounds now) I knew I had once again to defend myself. It is one of the many downsides of being a hipster, having to constantly prove oneself to your so called 'friends'. I turned to them slowly, bitterly, and said with all the disdain I could muster:
"Non-believer."
I said it with such pain many of them sadly shook their heads--one girl I daresay was so touched she was brought to tears.
"Yeah man, we hear you." One hipster said, and then added rather angrily "I have when people do that. . . We are what we are! Get the fuck over it!"
Everyone agreed, and took a thoughtful sip of their beverage, and I joined them. I could feel my fake moustache curling at the ends and slipping off.
"Hear, hear!" I said, taking my arm to my mouth to both wipe away the beer and adjust my moustache. There was then a great lull in conversation between myself and anyone else, as I have never really been one for conversation, especially among strangers. In such a situation I usually just smoke and drink, to keep from looking like some asshole with no friends and nothing really to do. On this occasion it was no different.
Nearly an hour passed, with little significant happening. I had consumed many beers and was getting drunker and drunker till I found myself to be well oiled and looking for trouble. I never know what mood I'll enter when I get nice and drunk, though usually it depends on the atmosphere. I was feeling mean, I knew in part because of my ridiculous outfit, but mostly because of the hipsters and the little snippets of conversation I had been putting up with:
Hyperbole:
RANDOM HIPSTER: What you drinking?
RANDOM HIPSTER #2: Bud Light and soda. I used to just drink straight vodka, nothing but vodka all the time. . . but I'm trying to slowww dowwwnnn
Hypocrisy:
HIPSTER MONK: You know I just try to stay positive. You know, there aint no use in gettin' negative--you know--about anything . . . Know what I meeeean?"
Then upon noticing his Heineken missing, he threw a massive bitch fit, and accused one of the waitresses of cleaning it up.
Idiocy:
HIPSTER CHICK: You mean Tommy Chong isn't Chinese?
They all came back into me in that moment, the horrid memories of not long ago. I rubbed my head, feeling the beer take its hold as the world began to take on a softened comical hue. I thought to leave, but as I got up I staggered about and felt it best to at least wait a little while. Then, a hipster I had not seen before appeared there in the courtyard double fisting two beers. He wore an ascot and Bob Dylan shades, and as he went to sit down he put his beers on the table and pulled out a book from his back pocket. He placed it on the table next to his beers and sat down. He did this all very solemnly--I figured the book to be The Bible from the way he treated it, but I couldn't see what it was. It piqued my interest, as I have never seen anyone bring a book to a bar, or any real social event for that matter.
No one said anything about the book, though he had made such a point that he had brought it. Conversation resumed, and he kept mostly to himself--the majority of his energy going to looking intellectually hip. He sipped his beer and pulled out a cigar and started smoking it. . . that pretentious bastard. The smell of it quite demanded everyone's attention and before long many of us were watching him smoke his cigar like it was the first one we had ever seen smoked before. He smiled, and a waitress came up to him and he promptly ordered a brandy. He was setting up for a real intellectual debate--all he needed was a roaring fire. After awhile he said:
"So. . ." and like magic a few circled in around him and they began. Those deemed unworthy were left to wonder bitterly what they were on about. A few were so upset they left the table.
"What's his deal?" I asked a girl next to me, who had remained to complain and talk shit.
"You haven't met Nathaniel yet? Lucky you. . . Who do you know here anyway?" She asked.
"Julie." It was a total lie, and the first name to come to my mind.
"Oh," she replied, as if it was of no consequence anyway. "Yeah well his name used to be Nate, or that's what we all used to call him. It was what he went by. You know what I mean. Well anyway he goes by Nathaniel because he thinks it sound more Victorian or whatever. I think he's a dick."
"Why Victorian?"
"Questions. Questions. Questions! What are you writing a book or something?"
I nervously lit a cigarette (afraid of getting found out b a hipster chick--I really am a pussy).
"No."
"It was a rhetorical question. Are you stupid or something? I know all about stupid--I should--I hear it all day, from everybody. So many stupid people. Only stupid people are breeding. . . Isn't that a song? I think that's a song. I wonder if I could find it. I'm sure I could." Perhaps the wonderment of such a dilemma was too much for her, for she then proceeded to look it up on her iPhone.
"So?" I asked.
"So what?"
"Why Victorian?"
She rolled her eyes at me, then said:
"Because he reads those kinds of books okay?" she blurted out. "Ones we all used to know from back in grade school, but were so boring and stupid none of us have ever actually read them." She went back to her iPhone after yet another sigh.
Victorian. Of course. What a prick, I thought, and got up to get a better look at him. Nathaniel was surrounded by a bunch of intellectual hipsters, one of which actually wore a French beret. Nathaniel was expounding with his head up in the stars, with this look on his face like could see Heaven up there, and it fed him all the answers as if sent by God himself. He gazed into the sky and some how gazed even father into the sky, but then they fell, fell upon me. He gazed back at two glazed eyes intent on destroying him I'm sure, for I did feel the need to destroy him. I was quite drunk and the look upon his face changed with the quick knowledge of my hatred. He had seen such a look before.
"Here, he arrives! Sir Pip!" Nathaniel said, gesturing towards me. He and his boys laughed.
"The fine young gentlemen!" I replied. "Shall I beat you now, or after I get the stuck-up wench?"
"Well, can't we just be friends, dear Handel?"
"That depends. . . do you wish to call me sir from here on out?"
"Oh you mean to say you haven't fallen from grace yet?"
"I've fallen more than you know." I replied. It was terribly funny and terribly funny to me and me alone, for the others knew not the pain of pretending to be a hipster (or maybe they knew all to well).
"Oh hell you probably haven't even read the book." Nathaniel replied, apparently having tired of our bullshit confrontation.
"Great Expectations. Yeah. Dickens right? Never read it."
"Of course you havent you f---how did you know it was Great Expectations?! You must have seen the cover." He seemed to be getting irrationally angry with me, which I can only assume was because I had beaten at his own game and he didn't very much like it. "Don't ever look at my stuff. . . don't ever."
I felt I had awoken some spoiled toddler and let a smirk come to my face, which he didn't like much either.
"Don't you laugh at me. Don't you fucking laugh at me man. I've had enough of that shit in my motha-fucking life already." By now any notion anyone had to the properness of Nathaniel had been destroyed, leaving a rotten yolk of distilled douchery and morose malevolence. "How dare you. How. . . dare. . . you!"
By now he was making quite the scene. He threatened to throw the book at my head, and I would have feared injury had I not know he would never part with the book; he would really be nothing then without it. His friends seemed less willing to fight (I am no intimidating presence), and his friend in the beret took off running altogether.
"You alright there, Nate?" I asked him. He turned a bright red, the color of a nice apple, though this apple had no seeds to spit at me, only words:
"Nate! Nate! The mother fucker calls me Nate! I'll rape you bitch!"
It is amazing the things that happen when someone screams rape. Women instantly freeze, and any man with a daughter or sister immediately thinks of hate. It is an undeniable force, a practical law of the physical world; what goes up must come down. In this case, man screams rape and bouncers take him down. It is a wonderful scene (provided you aren't the one being tackled) and quite a funny one at the Fox and Fiddle, for all male staff are required to wear kilts.
Homophobes turned away for fear of unwarranted nut shots, women looked closer for hope of unwarranted nuts shots, and your truly staggered out of the place, for fear of being associated with such a fool. On the street outside there was that hipster chick on her iPhone, still looking at song lyrics for all I knew.
"You're dangerous," she said slyly.
"Yeah," I smiled. "I guess I am." I felt good, like I had be victorious though I didn't really do anything. I felt as good as if I had actually tackled the bastard myself.
"Here, call me." and with that she put a bar napkin in my hand and walked off.
I felt quite victorious then indeed. . .
Saturday, September 10, 2011
CASE #003: Bob Dylan Sings Santa Monica
To properly achieve the mindset of the hipster one must stomach dozens of PBR's while listening to hours of shitty indie music. Only then can one don the costume of the Hipster and mingle among their kind without its most experienced of members getting suspicious. . . Its best to at least smell like them. Other necessary items include a pack of cigarettes--the more disgusting the better, for in the hipster mind going against the grain is choice, to be different from the status-quo means a unique acquired taste, and if it cannot be obtained it can always be faked--a smug sense of entitlement, glasses (if you don't need them), contacts (if you need glasses), and if at all possible facial hair strung out like spotty wisps about the neck and face.
If you have these things, and the talent, you too can become an UNDERCOVER HIPSTER, and as I soon found out, sometimes things don't get better with age. . .
Case #003: Bob Dylan Sings Santa Monica
A Bob Dylan concert sounded like a good idea, in that the opportunities to see him have been dwindling, and he is just the sort of person that attracts hipsters like shit attracts flies. His music falls into that rare category that allows people to actually feel more cultured and cool for having listened to it, whether or not they really understand it, the key of course being that one could always at least fake it. Faking is what hipsters love to do, and many have said they are modern day hippies, so what better person to go and see than the man who helped lay the frame work? (a frightening thought).
He was playing some Civic Center near the ocean, making for a delightful drive, had it not been for all of the traffic. When I finally got there, there were hipsters and hippies making their way to the place, of which my favorite was this aging man there with his old lady. He was wearing a Bob Dylan t-shirt, and jeans and his face was framed by these big grey dreads that swung about as he laughed and kissed his wife. The center was a small little place that looked like it had hosted more than its fair share of local beauty pageants and beach trash balls. I had no problem getting into the place, as I was in fact half an hour late but at the I.D. check in I had some troubles with the two women working the table. I chalked it up as another example of the failure of the public education system, as they seemed to struggle with simple math and take more time deliberating over the date of my birth than any normal functioning human being would find plausible. Finally, they gave me that ever precious wrist band, and I was allowed to drop 14 bucks on two beers.
Walking into the main hall I found it had a sloping cement floor with a stage at one end and fifty some odd seats at the other end, for those who paid the big bucks. In true star fashion, Bob was late, and as I pondered how long the poor bastards in the front row had been waiting, I shuffled in behind this old hippie looking dude, with a long grey beard and beady brown eyes. At one point he put on a brown bandanna, and I couldn't help but notice that I was one of the youngest people there, save for the few kids who were dragged along by parents and complained bitterly that they couldn't see the stage at all. I had been hoping for an abundance of hipsters, but at the moment felt sure they would arrive fashionably late, and in the mean time I could take in the 'originators.'
There was no doubt the concert had attracted a certain type of beast, and of those in attendance the majority was made up of two groups: hippies who had given it up over the years and now only let loose when the kids were out of the house at a sleep over, and hippies who had never given it up, ever. The latter was indeed more eccentric, with strange speech patterns and behaviors all of their own, while the former carried a certain sadness through which the 'square' world made itself apparent upon all that they deemed 'beautiful' like some sort of rotten blemish they themselves were conscious of, and in turn sensitive about. And I'll tell you now, there's nothing worse than an aging 'weekend' hippie at a Bob Dylan concert with a square world crew cut and hip world temple beads around his neck draping down some polo shirt as he screams his head off to Bob Dylan, stopping only to reach in his pocket and read some text from the office.
If ever there was proof of the death of the 60's, it was there in that room with me, but that's another topic all together. To keep from even thinking about it, I looked up at the ceiling, where even now the stage crew was still rigging up technical shit for the show. After awhile, out of sheer boredom I took to bothering the hippie fellow in front of me, who seemed like he could use some distraction himself, as he couldn't stop playing with his bandanna.
"Where's your beer?" I inquired. He turned around with a big ole grin.
"Beer? Beer? No beer," to which he added sheepishly "I'm already buzzing on uppers."
"Uppers?" I asked, apparently with too much intonation for him for he quickly replied:
"Yeah. Caffeine."
He turned awkwardly and after another fifteen minutes Bob Dylan finally came out. He was wearing this big hat atop his head, and went straight to his keyboard. Then came the band, and they too took up their instruments, and without a word started playing. He opened with Rainy Day Women, though I couldn't really tell which song it was until his smoke riddled lungs let out "everybody must get stoned" with all the muster of a cancer patient on their last legs. The sound was less than to be desired, and soon I found myself leaving the hot sweaty beer soaked masses to go and get another beer. I took refuge in the back, where people were standing around looking mildly interested. The sound was so bad the farther away you got the harder it was to understand him, which I felt impossible earlier, huddled in with everyone else around the stage.
It was then that I saw my first hipster. Fashionably late, as to attract as much attention as possible.
He appeared with friends in tow, wearing neon pink jeans and neon green shades. They walked into the place like they owned it, and just in time for the tail end of the show. They naturally gravitated towards me, being the closest to their age, and they all seemed to be laughing and having a great time. They seemed to pay little attention to Bob, as if they were just stopping by for a visit to take in the scene and grace all the rest of us squares with their presence.
Fittingly, Bob Dylan started playing 'Ballad of a Thin Man' and after awhile one of the hipster chicks piped in with this gem:
"This is a hoax." She said it all disgusted like just saying it left a bad taste in her mouth. Her friends turned to her as all hipsters do when one of their kind says something completely retarded: they turned to her in reverence, and listened intently, as if they were in the company of some great sage with information they, and they alone, were to soon be privileged with. "This is such bullshit. . . This is NOT Bob Dylan."
They all agreed, and turned to sneer at the old man "pretending" to be Bob Dylan. I started laughing, audibly. They turned to look at me with a disgust, as how could another hipster dare laugh at another hipsters hipness? After a few choice words they said under their collective breath, they moved to the other side of the hall, as if in some way this would make me feel some sort of shame. How ironic it all seemed, an idiot expressing idiocy as Bob went on with his sandpaper voice, "cause there's somethin' happening here, but you don't know what it is. . . do you, Mr. Jones?" I thought to call after her, giving her the name Mr. Jones, but I have met many Mr. Joneses in my life, and many are so dedicated to their title they are ignorant to their own ignorance and as such felt such an exclamation would be pointless; a waste of air. Perhaps she meant that this was not the Bob Dylan she knew, which would make for an even greater level of retardation, for who would go and see a 70 year old man expecting to get the 20 year old man? I suppose the only answer would be a fucking hipster, and proven by goldie locks with the retarded look on her face.
The ordeal was enough to make me want to get another beer, if only to help eliminate the memory from my mind. They had moved towards the bar, and as I went to get another beer I heard but more snippets of their conversation. Bob Dylan was playing 'Like a Rolling Stone' (again it took awhile to decipher this, until he finally made it to the chorus.)
"I could live out on the streets," one of them said confidently.
"Yeah, I don't see what the big deal is," another agreed.
"Whats to get used to?" Mr. Neon Pink jeans.
It was then that the saw me, and I saw them, and we both shared a look that would kill, if looks could. They quickly stopped their conversation and looked at me with the utmost disdain. I left to the other corner of the room, moving past a old people and a couple dancing closely to the hoarse sound of Bob Dylan. I spent the rest of the concert in the corner, finishing my beer and listening to Bob Dylan with a worried look on my face, for it truly looked like this man was close to death, and what air he did have left in his body was being expelled to a group of aging hippies and a bunch of hipster who didn't understand it wouldn't ever understand it.
When it was over we all shuffled out to the parking lot, where the nearby surf was beating up the rocks. The sky was grey and rather ominous looking. Getting in my car I headed home, and ended up at a local burger joint where some friends were already well into their drink. We drank more beers, and I told them all of my adventures in Santa Monica, and when all was said and done I went home to sleep off another successful night as THE UNDERCOVER HIPSTER.
If you have these things, and the talent, you too can become an UNDERCOVER HIPSTER, and as I soon found out, sometimes things don't get better with age. . .
Case #003: Bob Dylan Sings Santa Monica
A Bob Dylan concert sounded like a good idea, in that the opportunities to see him have been dwindling, and he is just the sort of person that attracts hipsters like shit attracts flies. His music falls into that rare category that allows people to actually feel more cultured and cool for having listened to it, whether or not they really understand it, the key of course being that one could always at least fake it. Faking is what hipsters love to do, and many have said they are modern day hippies, so what better person to go and see than the man who helped lay the frame work? (a frightening thought).
He was playing some Civic Center near the ocean, making for a delightful drive, had it not been for all of the traffic. When I finally got there, there were hipsters and hippies making their way to the place, of which my favorite was this aging man there with his old lady. He was wearing a Bob Dylan t-shirt, and jeans and his face was framed by these big grey dreads that swung about as he laughed and kissed his wife. The center was a small little place that looked like it had hosted more than its fair share of local beauty pageants and beach trash balls. I had no problem getting into the place, as I was in fact half an hour late but at the I.D. check in I had some troubles with the two women working the table. I chalked it up as another example of the failure of the public education system, as they seemed to struggle with simple math and take more time deliberating over the date of my birth than any normal functioning human being would find plausible. Finally, they gave me that ever precious wrist band, and I was allowed to drop 14 bucks on two beers.
Walking into the main hall I found it had a sloping cement floor with a stage at one end and fifty some odd seats at the other end, for those who paid the big bucks. In true star fashion, Bob was late, and as I pondered how long the poor bastards in the front row had been waiting, I shuffled in behind this old hippie looking dude, with a long grey beard and beady brown eyes. At one point he put on a brown bandanna, and I couldn't help but notice that I was one of the youngest people there, save for the few kids who were dragged along by parents and complained bitterly that they couldn't see the stage at all. I had been hoping for an abundance of hipsters, but at the moment felt sure they would arrive fashionably late, and in the mean time I could take in the 'originators.'
There was no doubt the concert had attracted a certain type of beast, and of those in attendance the majority was made up of two groups: hippies who had given it up over the years and now only let loose when the kids were out of the house at a sleep over, and hippies who had never given it up, ever. The latter was indeed more eccentric, with strange speech patterns and behaviors all of their own, while the former carried a certain sadness through which the 'square' world made itself apparent upon all that they deemed 'beautiful' like some sort of rotten blemish they themselves were conscious of, and in turn sensitive about. And I'll tell you now, there's nothing worse than an aging 'weekend' hippie at a Bob Dylan concert with a square world crew cut and hip world temple beads around his neck draping down some polo shirt as he screams his head off to Bob Dylan, stopping only to reach in his pocket and read some text from the office.
If ever there was proof of the death of the 60's, it was there in that room with me, but that's another topic all together. To keep from even thinking about it, I looked up at the ceiling, where even now the stage crew was still rigging up technical shit for the show. After awhile, out of sheer boredom I took to bothering the hippie fellow in front of me, who seemed like he could use some distraction himself, as he couldn't stop playing with his bandanna.
"Where's your beer?" I inquired. He turned around with a big ole grin.
"Beer? Beer? No beer," to which he added sheepishly "I'm already buzzing on uppers."
"Uppers?" I asked, apparently with too much intonation for him for he quickly replied:
"Yeah. Caffeine."
He turned awkwardly and after another fifteen minutes Bob Dylan finally came out. He was wearing this big hat atop his head, and went straight to his keyboard. Then came the band, and they too took up their instruments, and without a word started playing. He opened with Rainy Day Women, though I couldn't really tell which song it was until his smoke riddled lungs let out "everybody must get stoned" with all the muster of a cancer patient on their last legs. The sound was less than to be desired, and soon I found myself leaving the hot sweaty beer soaked masses to go and get another beer. I took refuge in the back, where people were standing around looking mildly interested. The sound was so bad the farther away you got the harder it was to understand him, which I felt impossible earlier, huddled in with everyone else around the stage.
He appeared with friends in tow, wearing neon pink jeans and neon green shades. They walked into the place like they owned it, and just in time for the tail end of the show. They naturally gravitated towards me, being the closest to their age, and they all seemed to be laughing and having a great time. They seemed to pay little attention to Bob, as if they were just stopping by for a visit to take in the scene and grace all the rest of us squares with their presence.
Fittingly, Bob Dylan started playing 'Ballad of a Thin Man' and after awhile one of the hipster chicks piped in with this gem:
"This is a hoax." She said it all disgusted like just saying it left a bad taste in her mouth. Her friends turned to her as all hipsters do when one of their kind says something completely retarded: they turned to her in reverence, and listened intently, as if they were in the company of some great sage with information they, and they alone, were to soon be privileged with. "This is such bullshit. . . This is NOT Bob Dylan."
They all agreed, and turned to sneer at the old man "pretending" to be Bob Dylan. I started laughing, audibly. They turned to look at me with a disgust, as how could another hipster dare laugh at another hipsters hipness? After a few choice words they said under their collective breath, they moved to the other side of the hall, as if in some way this would make me feel some sort of shame. How ironic it all seemed, an idiot expressing idiocy as Bob went on with his sandpaper voice, "cause there's somethin' happening here, but you don't know what it is. . . do you, Mr. Jones?" I thought to call after her, giving her the name Mr. Jones, but I have met many Mr. Joneses in my life, and many are so dedicated to their title they are ignorant to their own ignorance and as such felt such an exclamation would be pointless; a waste of air. Perhaps she meant that this was not the Bob Dylan she knew, which would make for an even greater level of retardation, for who would go and see a 70 year old man expecting to get the 20 year old man? I suppose the only answer would be a fucking hipster, and proven by goldie locks with the retarded look on her face.
The ordeal was enough to make me want to get another beer, if only to help eliminate the memory from my mind. They had moved towards the bar, and as I went to get another beer I heard but more snippets of their conversation. Bob Dylan was playing 'Like a Rolling Stone' (again it took awhile to decipher this, until he finally made it to the chorus.)
"I could live out on the streets," one of them said confidently.
"Yeah, I don't see what the big deal is," another agreed.
"Whats to get used to?" Mr. Neon Pink jeans.
It was then that the saw me, and I saw them, and we both shared a look that would kill, if looks could. They quickly stopped their conversation and looked at me with the utmost disdain. I left to the other corner of the room, moving past a old people and a couple dancing closely to the hoarse sound of Bob Dylan. I spent the rest of the concert in the corner, finishing my beer and listening to Bob Dylan with a worried look on my face, for it truly looked like this man was close to death, and what air he did have left in his body was being expelled to a group of aging hippies and a bunch of hipster who didn't understand it wouldn't ever understand it.
When it was over we all shuffled out to the parking lot, where the nearby surf was beating up the rocks. The sky was grey and rather ominous looking. Getting in my car I headed home, and ended up at a local burger joint where some friends were already well into their drink. We drank more beers, and I told them all of my adventures in Santa Monica, and when all was said and done I went home to sleep off another successful night as THE UNDERCOVER HIPSTER.
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