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. . .
No comments:
Post a Comment