First, an advertisemtent for myself. I will be reading from my book Bo’s Arts and showing a powerpoint presentation detailing the rise of the Bo’s Arts Movement and illustrating my burgeoning talent as a powerpointalist, at the Rendezvous this coming Tuesday, 8/5, at 8pm (probably won’t really start til 8:30, to be honest). The book came out two years ago now, and this is probably the last time I will read from it and give this show. People seem to like it. Come on down!
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One thing I forgot to mention when I started all this Fame/Hip/Cool stuff was a recent customer at the abovementioned establishment. He had the presumptuous brashness, tan hide, and quirkily gelled hair of a well-to-do young city dweller (aka, yuppie) and was wearing a t-shirt with the slogan DIE HIPSTER SCUM emblazoned in large type upon it. Several people asked him about it (One person even asked him what a "hipster" was, which charmed me no end.). Each time he seemed shocked that anyone would even notice the shirt, and repeatedly told of how it got him in a fistfight one time. I find that hard to believe, because who but a self-proclaimed hipster would take offense at such a shirt, and I’ve yet to meet anyone who would claim hipsterdom (again, to be proud to be hip is one thing, to be proud to be a "hipster," a pejorative term, another entirely).
The shirt, itself, though, makes an odd statement. At some point in this train of messages, I remember noting that I find it hard to imagine anyone proudly claiming him/herself to be a yuppie, and yet, this shirt, a seemingly direct response to the DIE YUPPIE SCUM shirts and stickers, popular lo these many years ago, could arguably be seen as a response from a yuppie to a hipster. Perhaps it’s just the next hate-able type, the hipster, and the shirt means to say nothing more than that hipsters are scum and should die, but I can’t help but see it as a yuppie backlash shirt, if you will, or at least it certainly seemed that way on this young man’s back.
Odder still though, was that, with his quirky hairdo and interest in arguably hip culture (he was just BLOWN AWAY that John Hodgman was going to be reading at our little bar in, in, what town are we in again?), he was either being or trying to be three things at once: a yuppie; a hipster; and a hipster-hating cooler-than-hipster, hip (and oh-so-cool) guy.
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And speaking of cool, I’ve enjoyed reading the few responses to the cool poll. If you’d like to participate in whatever I’ll end up making of it, but don’t want to post a comment here, please go to my site and drop me an email with your list. Thanks.
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One note after writing this post and looking at the picture: the woman on the left looks decidedly hip, does she not? Certainly cool as a cucumber. The other woman just looks bored.
