Not Hip Enough to Be a Hipster
April 27th, 2009 § 4 Comments
I wanted so badly to be tragic.
Moving from Orange County to Los Angeles was a tremendous change for me. The first time I heard the word hipster I wasn’t sure what to make of the term, but I was pretty sure it involved black converse.
I was familair with the terms goth, straight edge, and alternative but hipster-that was a new one. When I was nervous my tendency to smile and laugh meant I was ill fit for Goth. I also didn’t want to carry a lunchbox and, although I tried really hard to like Morrisey, I couldn’t listen to him for too long before all I wanted was for his incessant whining to stop. As a teen, I liked Red Hot Chili Peppers, would watch the punks skate the Irvine Bowl, and I could even pull off black leggings and a plaid flannel tied around my waist. The best I could hope for was alternative.
My move to LA, and my friends desire to show me all the trendy hip places hidden within, led me on a spiritual journey of late nights and lots of challah french toast. We frequented Swingers diner, a place where I am sure having tattoos is a prerequisite to admission. We went to Brass Monkey every Friday night for drunken karaoke. We spent a summer day at Sunset Junction listening to the indie bands in the hot LA heat. She took me to movies at the Grove, we went to the Hollywood Bowl, we saw small artistic productions at seedy theatres…and I tagged along like a good student making mental notes of my travels and the new vocabulary associated with it.
And then, to test my ability to really assimilate into LA lifestyle, I started dating musicians. It started off as a fluke really. The first musician I dated was far from the starving artistic type. He owned his own house in Long Beach, was gainfully employed and well adjusted. His music however, suffered the brunt of his stability, as it was terrible.
Then there was my short-lived romance with an old friend of a friend who started his own band. He was scruffy with poor hygeine, he was impulsive, erratic, tormented, and lived in a Silver Lake apartment cluttered with worn novels and music lyrics scribbled on walls. And his music was…beautiful. His passion helped me overlook his self-obsession, his need for stability made me excuse his erratic schedule and late night band practices. His hipster appeal helped me to rationalize his predisposition for being hammered by noon.
I knew I wasn’t his type, at most, I served as nothing more than a rest stop. I was the place where he could fuel up on food and drink, get a good night’s sleep and be gone by dawn so he could miss morning traffic. My apartment was fully furnished, with soft lighting and probably felt more like his parent’s house than it did, “the chick he was hooking up with’s.”
Hipsters want a tragic girl. Someone with smeared black eyeliner, waifish appeal and torn leggings. Not someone who was quick to utter, ” I really want to go out with you tonight after band practice, but I have a senior management meeting in the morning.” He was so cute and I wanted so badly to be tragic enough, frail enough and lost enough to hold his attraction. I longed to be a waif but my bone structure wouldn’t cooperate. How could I ever keep my indie band guy interested if he couldn’t fit into my jeans?
From all the VH1 I watch and from all the stories I hear, true relationships with rock stars end in fireworks, and passionate arguments that end only when the cops are called. Ours however, just slowly faded away.
As months passed my phone began to ring less and less at 4 in the morning. He stopped calling me when he was drunk in an alley. We stopped getting together for Chinese food on his living room floor when he was back home in between tours. My short-lived LA musician romance didn’t even have an interesting ending.
Sadly, I was too together to stay in the hipster scene long enough to be naturalized. Though I had emotional torment of my own, it wasn’t channeled into guitar playing, song writing and cigarettes but was more accurately marked by pints of Ben and Jerry’s and Netflix.
I was sorry to hear it didn’t work out with tragic hipster boy. I thought you were a good match and he was lucky to have you. I know when it was all said and done and he was healthier than when you two dated, he asked about you. Any man, regardless of the size of his jeans and disposition would be lucky to have you.
Great read. Its like Indie life is all I ever want to do inside of me. But I just know that the other things I need. Like food and security and the ability to help my family force me to be responsible.
Great f’n read.
Good read. I was never hipster either. Too responsible. Darn.
Wish I’d Said It #5,763
“I longed to be a waif but my bone structure wouldn’t cooperate. How could I ever keep my indie band guy interested if he couldn’t fit into my jeans?”
Best. Ever.