Dissecting the Hipster, Part 1

I have no fucking clue what a hipster is. There, I said it.

I really thought all that mess was just kind of the style these days.

Now I just feel old and totally out of it. Clearly this means I have to start wearing nude pantyhose and orthopedic shoes and taking Metamucil and writing checks at the grocery store and keeping hard candy in my pocketbook now.

Hold the phone.

Let's wiki-pedia it. "Hipster is a slang term that first appeared in the 1940s, and was revived in the 1990s and 2000s often to describe types of young, recently-settled urban middle class adults and older teenagers with interests in non-mainstream fashion and culture, particularly alternative music, indie rock, independent film, magazines such as Vice and Clash, and websites like Pitchfork Media."


How about Urban Dictionary? "Hipsters are a subculture of men and women typically in their 20's and 30's that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, an appreciation of art and indie-rock, creativity, intelligence, and witty banter...Hipsters reject the culturally-ignorant attitudes of mainstream consumers, and are often be seen wearing vintage and thrift store inspired fashions, tight-fitting jeans, old-school sneakers, and sometimes thick rimmed glasses. Both hipster men and women sport similar androgynous hair styles that include combinations of messy shag cuts and asymmetric side-swept bangs...Despite misconceptions based on their aesthetic tastes, hipsters tend to be well educated and often have liberal arts degrees, or degrees in maths and sciences, which also require certain creative analytical thinking abilities."

So, hipsters are men or women, 20-39, who like art and music, wear cool clothes, including old-school sneakers and funky glasses, have good hair with side-swept bangs, and college degrees? That sounds like half the people I saw out last weekend. That sounds like half the people I know.

(On an unrelated note, make sure you look up your name on Urban Dictionary. Mine is crazy accurate.)

I am now on a mission to decode the hipster mystery. To help me with this, Sol and I are engaging in a friendly game of Hipster Bingo. This might be preliminarily unfair, considering Sol is actually from New York, the mecca of all Hipsterdom, and he has an automatically cool name, grew up without television and wears cool Elvis Costello glasses. Hipster? Hmmmm...

Time to study The Hipster Handbook, I guess. Game on.

Criminal Stupidity: "Son, you've got a panty on your head."

So you feel like knocking over a drive-thru. OK. What's the first thing you grab to cover your face from nosy surveillance cameras? Ski mask? Nah. Chewbacca mask? Nah. Dirty jock strap and some paper clips? Yeah, that's the ticket!



This dumbass brings to mind one of the funniest movie scenes in history.

Pseudo-Adulthood Chronicles: When I Feel Most Grown.

So I'm 30 years old, but there are some things that always make me feel like an adult. Which I clearly am not.

• Dry cleaning - This is like the ultimate grown-up errand. Every real adult's to-do list includes, "Pick up the dry cleaning." I have no special instructions regarding starch. I'm more like, "Please make sure this suit jacket doesn't still smell like happy hour when I come back for it." I'm not sure what it is about carrying a pile of freshly pressed slacks and blouses to my car...maybe it's simply the fact that in order to need dry cleaning, I have to wear professional clothing, unlike my typical uniform of knee socks, pizza-stained college t-shirts and pajama bottoms.

• Gas pumping - This one is simple to figure out. No need to pump gas unless you can drive, which means that this is a chore only for those 16 and older. Grown-ups. I wonder if you can ever completely feel like an adult in states like Oregon or New Jersey, where you can't pump your own gas. I highly doubt it.

• Having a P.O. box - I've moved a lot, right? So a few years back I finally wised up and got my very own post office box, to avoid the forwarding of forwarded mail from a twice-forwarded address. Making a special trip to the post office (with my very-own special key) just feels different than getting mail at home...along with infinite piles of those damned coupon sheets that never fail to bombard my mailbox at apartment complexes.  

• Buying booze - I gotta say, this is a major perk of adulthood. After you pass birthday number 21, I'm not sure any of the others are worth much. Long gone are the days of trolling liquor store parking lots for potential booze buyers and slipping them an extra $20. Not that I ever did that.

• Going to jail - Just kidding.

Stuff I Hate, a Non-Exhaustive List (Part 2)

• Orange people. When will the madness end? I won't even go into that nasty, pungent chemical smell. (What is that, by the way? It can't be healthy.) Anyone who has ever studied art knows that orange is the exact complement to blue, which is to say that orange and blue are exact opposites...enemies. You know who's blue?

So orange people = Gargamel.

• Rush. If I ever find myself in a prison-camp torture situation (pretty likely at some point in my life, actually), there are only a handful of things guaranteed to make me talk. I don't want to compromise my situation by divulging these outright, but a steady stream of Rush songs may or may not be on the list.

• Getting up to pee at night. Maybe there's something to the adult diaper thing.

Bright Lights, Big(ger) City

Well I'm over the moon. My very first business travel! (Those years of slinging peanuts and sodas do not count.) On Monday I'm heading to New York for a marketing and social media conference.

Fantasy version of the trip:
I step out of the airport in my Sunday best, and manage to awkwardly hail a cab.

He helps me with my luggage.

I'm practically hanging out the window all the way to the hotel, just to take it all in. (I was going to say I was peering out the top of a limo, but come on, that would just be cliché.) 


The doorman at the hotel doesn't know quite what to make of me, nor I of him. But don't you worry - by the end of my journey, I'll win him over with my irresistible country charm...and you never know, I just might pick up some street smarts from him along the way.

The next day, I stumble into a radio station while I'm out looking for jobs. (Play along, all right?) They mistake me for a renowned radio talk show host, throw me on the air...and what do you know? I'm a total hit. No one ever finds out, I move to the city and live happily ever after.

Reality version of the trip:
I just moved back to Dallas from Hoboken, people. The most exciting thing about this trip is the 12-degree difference in temperature. Oh, and also H&M. 


I'll be there for three days, only one in its entirety, which will be spend at a conference with other tech company marketing geeks like me. Score: Allison for free breakfast, lunch and "snacks." Fingers crossed for promotional schwag, including but not limited to, pens, thumb drives...could there be some type of laptop bag? Let's not get crazy. 


Somehow those nutty gods of fortune saw to it that I will be there for my friend Josh's birthday Tuesday. We haven't made any solid plans yet, but I can promise it won't be nearly as off the chain as Josh's Birthday Extravaganza 2009.

Gift time! A cowboy hat, a mini flashlight, and a check for $12.60. Let's just say I paid off some folks' very old debts last year.

Blanket Forts FTW

I just got the following picture message:

"Sweet!" I replied. "I loooove indoor camping. So fun!"

"Yeah, ha ha."

I assume the sender thought my response was oozing with my usual amount of sarcasm. Not so.

I freakin love inside tents, and it all started with blanket forts. Oh, you don't know about blanket forts? Let me edumuhcate you.

Blanket fort - When every pillow, sofa cushion, movable chair, and (obv.) blanket in the vicinity is used to assemble a complex, massive, sometimes multi-room-spanning construction of tunnels and chambers, through which children can burrow, while scarfing junk food and hoarding toys.  Every mother's clean-up nightmare.

My siblings and I had some epic blanket forts. We would live in there for days, pretty much until my mother wanted to used the sofa...or a blanket...or a chair...or was looking for any of the the food in the house.

What is so special about forts for kids? Maybe it's having that first taste of your very own space, a place that's just your size, that you created, a place where you can hide and eat Oreos, or read a book, or daydream, even if it's a towel hung between two dining chairs.

I wonder if that tent in the picture message would have the same feeling now that I've had my own place(s) for so long? I doubt it, but I wish it would.

Check out the big brain on Joe!

Baby bro Joe is officially a college graduate. We now have the complete set of diplomas.

He has decided to skip the commencement ceremony. I don't know...miss the chance to sit outside for hours in 100-degree weather with a buttload of people you don't know, while wearing a baggy polyester dress over your (hopefully) clothes, complete with an awesome matching cardboard hat with a tassel? Oh, and at the end, you get handed a diploma blank piece of paper, all while trying not to fall up and down the stairs? Count me in.

Joe is a super smart cookie, graduating with a philosophy degree. Yeah, yeah, let's have it. I'm sure he's heard it all.

I would just like to say, tease all you want. College is tough, especially when you're a super-star college athlete like my bro. No, for realz!

I just barely beat him out of school...and he's like seven years my junior. So big fist pumps.

Tommy: Did you hear I finally graduated?
Richard Hayden: Yeah, and just a shade under a decade too. All right.
Tommy: You know a lot of people go to college for seven years.
Richard Hayden: I know, they're called doctors. 

And let's not bust too much on the philosophy thing, mkay? There are far less promising options out there.


He could have chosen to major in:


Equine journalism - Now, OK, I majored in journalism, and I'm not exactly playing in mountains of money like Scrooge McDuck. But I can't fathom the reason for spending four years learning how to construct proper sentences solely about Mr. Ed.


Canadian studies - Canada rules, eh? But are they really cool enough to study for four years? Now, I'd be down with Belize studies or Iceland studies. But...Canada? Really?


Bakery science and management - Mostly I'm just pissed because this was not my major. WTF. My entire college career could have been spent eating cupcakes? But seriously, you have to study to manage a bakery? Rule #1: Try not to eat yourself out of business (or into an untimely death). Rule #2: Lock the door when you leave. 


Adventure education - This is some hippie, hippie shit here. Where else but in Vermont could you get a college degree in playing outside?


Sports ministry - And then in Kentucky, they put a religious spin on games, where you can learn to read scripture while you swim laps. And you can get a college degree for it.


So in short, congratulations to the final kiddo to graduate from college. Now we can follow our life-long dream and form a kick-ass all-sibling rock band.