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.