The Rawness

Living in Brooklyn, it’s hard not to find yourself drinking in hipster-infested bars from time to time. It often comes with the territory. Now I hate to give hipsters credit on anything, but even I have to admit, they do sometimes have some decent taste in music, at least as far as older music goes. (Newer hipster-approved music acts tend to be too whiny/warbly/nerdy for me, but I digress).

The jukeboxes in most hipster bars are conspicuously hip and filled with indie cred. The music selection is so well-designed that it is almost impossible to pick a song that is not hipster approved. All the major categories of hipster music bliss are well-represented and the jukebox is virtually philistine-proof:

• country, but only from the three country music artists that hipsters respect: Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and Hank Williams (sometimes Patsy Cline)
• Old School East Coast hip-hop
• Backpack hip-hop dedicated to rapping about 1988 and molecules or some other dumb shit
• Punk and hardcore’s sacred cows
• Any Beastie Boys song not from Licensed to Ill
• Any band that is or sounds like Radiohead, Arctic Monkeys, Arcade Fire, The Go! Team or CSS
• A couple of bad, mainstream songs deliberately included for the occasional dose of irony
• Anything featured in an Ipod commercial

Even though much of the music is good, hipsters tend to be so self-congratulatory and smug about their jukebox choices that they almost make jack Black’s music snob character from High Fidelity seem tolerable. Almost. (Nothing by Jack Black is ever actually tolerable) Time after time I’d watch a bespectacled, messy-haired zero muscle tone hipster painstakingly peruse the selection for 20 minutes, sometimes alone, sometimes with a friend, maybe with a girl they hope to impress with their superior music snob acumen. Then you have to watch the self-satisfied smug smirk that comes across their faces as their selections come on and the nerdgasms come over their group.

Drinking with these music nazis used to make hipster bars unbearable until the introduction of one of the greatest inventions to hit the bar scene since the Megatouch machine…..the Digital Internet Jukebox.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Gift from the Heavens"][/caption]

This beauty was introduced almost three years ago and has been slowly gaining ground in even dive bars and hipster haunts. And oh the joy it provides, thanks to a game I invented called Hipster Hell.

For the uninformed, the internet jukebox allows you to no longer be limited by the music preselected by the drinking establishment. You have the choice of going online and downloading any of two million plus songs out there; just about anything you can think of is available. And even better, for an extra charge you can make your selections jump to the front of the queue, allowing you to bypass the first-come-first-serve method of traditional jukeboxes.

Here’s how Hipster Hell works. You go to the digital jukebox and proceed to pick songs designed to drive hipsters insane. Remember, anything liked by a lot of people can’t possibly be good in the mind of a hipster, so go for songs as popular as possible. For example here’s my top 20 Hipster Hell playlist:

1. “Crazy” by Britney Spears
2. “Native New Yorker” by Odyssey
3. “Knockin’ Boots” by Candyman
4. “Vibe” by R. Kelly and Public Announcement
5. “Uptown Girl” by Billy Joel
6. “Idioteque” by Radiohead (to give them a glimmer of hope, a light at the end of the tunnel if you will)
7. “We Built This City” by Starship (to cruelly yank them back into the 7th circle of Hell)
8. “Vogue” by Madonna
9. Any song by a Disney Channel alumnus, take your pick (for example Raven Symone, Lindsey Lohan, Jonas Brothers or Hillary Duff)
10. “Addams Groove” by MC Hammer
11. “Rush Rush” by Paula Abdul
12. “Hanging Tough” by New Kids on the Block
13. “MMMBop” by Hanson
14. “Pump Up the Jam” by Technotronic
15. “Now That We Found Love” by Heavy D. and the Boys
16. “Mambo No. 5″ by Lou Bega
17. “Physical” by Olivia Newton-John
18. “Barbie Girl” by Aqua
19. “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston
20. “Zombie Nation” by Kernkraft 400

Bonus tracks:

1. “I Write the Songs” by Barry Manilow
2. Anything by The Strokes

Pay the extra money to get all these songs bumped to the front of the queue. The beauty of this selection is that for the first song or two, the hipsters will actually be into it and enjoy it, thinking that the songs are being played ironically. By the third or fourth song, they start figuring out that something’s wrong. By the fifth, they start becoming vocally upset. Critical mass tends to hit around “MMMBop.” It gets really ugly by the time the first note of Whitney Houston hits. People even start accusing each other in witch hunts like McCarthyites and I’ve seen some really vicious arguments erupt. Ask random people “Did you choose this?” just to deflect suspicion.

The key to this is to appear as openly upset as the other hipsters at the shit music that’s playing. Find someone 35+ to blame it on. Really play it up. A few hipsters will sacrifice their Pabst money and even do a collection for wrinkled dollars in an effort to regain control of the jukebox and move some Pitchfork Media approved jams to the front of the queue. Encourage this, and for added effect stand over the hipster hero’s shoulder and offer suggestions like “Psycho Killer” by Talking Heads and “Mongoloid” by Devo. This is necessary to deflect any suspicion and keep the ruse going.

After the hipster leaves, congratulate him on his choices and act like you’re about to add some more indie goodness. As soon as the coast is clear, it’s time for the final phase of hipster hell: BILLY JOEL POWER HOUR. Choose every single Billy Joel song you can think of and move them to the front of the queue. This is endgame, show no mercy in selecting your barrage. You’re taking no prisoners.

At this point, you don’t give a fuck, the jig is up. As the Joelly goodness hits the speakers, start punching your fists in the air, singing along, dancing with your friends, yelling at the top of your lungs, jumping up and down. Hipsters don’t fight, even when drunk, because they’re too passive-aggressive, so the worst you’ll get is some serious glares and really loud sighs. If they’re really badass it may escalate into a sarcastic comment or backhanded compliment. Nothing to really worry about.

The most fun you can have with hipsters without actually punching them.

Happy Friday.

One goal I had with this blog was not to just talk at people like a know-it-all. What I really wanted to do was to create open and honest two-way communication with total strangers. I wanted to have a real exchange of ideas with people and learn as much from commenters as they hopefully learned from me.

That’s why I occasionally want to do a piece like this, where I ask the commenters to educate me on something. This is what I affectionately will call my “People Who Need To Die” series. I’ve been compiling this list of pet peeve personality types since, I dunno, 6 years old, and the list has spiraled out of control to where I lost count. Every now and then I’ll pull a random personality type out of a hat and ask for feedback and insights about it.

Today’s person who needs to die is #378: the conversational hostage-holder known as the phone squatter. I had an experience with one of these people today. This is the type of person who, once he or she has you on the phone, will do whatever it takes to keep you on as if their very life depends on it. Lulls do not deter them. Yawns, hints, overt statements…all are just challenges to be trampled over or sidestepped entirely.

Phone squatter comes in many varieties. For example there’s the gorilla squatter. This one strongarms you into staying. He pushes past all objections and just keeps talking. You try to signal that you are signing off and he’ll just cut you off and ignore you. Sometimes if you manage to actually vocalize that you want to get off, he will go ultra-direct and actually call you out on it, like so:

You: “All right, well it was nice talking to you.”

Gorilla Squatter: “You gettin’ off?”

You: “Yeah, I have a bunch of things to do…”

Gorilla Squatter: “Like what?”

You: “Uh…like, I have to…”

Gorilla Squatter: “Yeah right, nigga, you just want to get off the phone. You don’t have to lie to me. I know how that goes.”

You: “No that’s not it, I really have a lot of stuff to do.”

Gorilla: “Yeah, right. You just trying to get off. I see how you do, son.” [NOTE THE CONFRONTATIONAL APPROACH COMBINED WITH THE REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY]

This is where the gorilla squatter gets you, because he has strongarmed you into a corner, then tricked you into justifying and explaining yourself for doing what is your God-given right, which is to get off your own damn phone! Now you are not only on the defensive, but you’re practically apologizing and have a vague guilt over being called out.

You: “Hey, it’s not that I don’t want to talk to you, it’s…”

Gorilla: “No, you don’t. It’s cool, I can take a hint.”

You: “NO! I do want to talk to you!

Gorilla: “All right then, fine, let me finish telling you about what Rayray and them did….”

The gorilla squatter uses a mix of intimidation and reverse psychology to get you every time. The key is to never waver or get caught in the trap of justifying yourself for trying to get off, or like a shark sniffing blood in the water, he’ll pounce on you and rip you to shreds. He can smell weakness and doubt from the other end of that receiver. He’s a pro.

The other type of phone squatter is the Sneaky Squatter. This is the guy that doesn’t confront you or guilt you out like Gorilla. His tactic is to act like he’s agreeing with you. He puts up no overt resistance. He acts like he’s trying to get off the phone too. But somehow or other, he sneakily hooks you into another strand of conversation, while making it look perfectly innocent and natural. You’ve tried to sign off about 20 times and each time he agrees, yet next thing you know a knew conversation topic somehow started. His key weapons are evasion, deflection and rapid fire, naturalistic segues. After realizing you’ve been duped into continuing the conversation, you try to get off again a few minutes later only to get tricked again. After trying to get off several times and getting duped each time, you find yourself feeling guilty for constantly trying to get off even though you’ve done nothing wrong, or you get so fed up you blow up at this character, and then feel bad over that. Rather than describe it further, let’s just click the icon below and listen to an example (warning, salty ass language ahead):

The last type of phone squatter is the Storyteller Squatter. This type of squatter is an attention whore that loves to get people to listen to his problems, real or imagined. It’s never “Hi, how’s the fam, how’s the wife, how’s work, I’m fine, bye.” Instead it’s sort of like free association PCP-induced venting; it’s really vague, the story is nonlinear and goes nowhere, and you never understand what it was about once it’s over. The substance of the story isn’t as important to this cat as the feeling that he’s being listened to and humored. He’s a narcissist to the nth degree. This dude doesn’t even care if you get a word in edgewise, and may even cut you off and talk over you, even when all you’re doing is agreeing with him. For example Storyteller starts off by telling you about some major problem, like he’s mad at his coworkers and he thinks he’s going to lose his job. That’s the major hook, right? Once he unloads something heavy like that on you, you can’t just get off the phone without looking like a major insensitive dickhead, right? Now that he knows he’s got you captive, he’s free to go off and regale you with tangents about his baby mama, his money problems, his dating issues, why he can’t get his car fixed, how his parents pissed him off, the circus, all the while claiming that it relates to his original point (which he’s probably forgotten by this point anyway). This dude’s preferred method is layering and complexity. He just adds layers and layers to the story until you can’t even follow it anymore. By the time the circus midgets and the bulimic strippers enter the story you’re too heavily invested to bail out now, he’s no closer to explaining his original problem and he’s guaranteed that there’s no easy way to wrap the story up at this point. If you say, “Let’s just finish it tomorrow,” he’s just say “No prob, I’m almost done, let me just tell you the very last part.” Then he’ll introduce a whole new tangent and cast of characters. When (if) he finishes his story, DON’T remind him that he never actually returned to the original point of the story (in this example, it was the tension with the coworkers and his fear of getting fired) because he’ll just say “Oh yeah, you’re right!” and start all over again. (I fell into this trap before)

Does anyone know people like this? What motivates them? Is it loneliness? Idleness? Insanity? Did they receive too much attention growing up? Not enough? I’m the type of guy that hates long phone conversations because I imagine a million more productive things I could be doing instead. But the phone squatter seems like if left to his own devices, he would never sign off of a conversation on his own. Are they oblivious to the fact that people want to get off? Or do they realize it but are just so shameless that they don’t care?

The worst situation with these guys is when they actually have some piece of information you need. This happened to me recently. I started doing the balancing game: “Is what I need from them important enough to risk being held hostage on your phone? And if it is important enough, then you have to phone and having to do battle to get off?” I decided it was, so I dialed the dreaded number. 1 ring (hm)…..2 rings (looking good)….3 rings (come on, one more to go)….4 rings (I can see the promised land!)…VOICEMAIL!!!! YES!! Left him a message telling what I needed. Hallelujah!

He calls back later, I screen the call with Caller ID (first line of defense against the squatter), voicemail symbol comes on and I check the voicemail to get my information.:”Yo T…Got what you need….call me.” Motherfucker. This is not an accident or a harmless character quirk.

The squatter is a social sadist.

You ever feel like society’s attempts at taking the risk out of everything are also sucking out all the spontaneity and funtoo?

I consider myself to have a decent grasp on human behavior and why people do the things they do. I spend a lot of time thinking about it, and even if I don’t know the cause of something for sure, I usually have at least a half-baked theory to throw out there.

Take attraction between men and women. Men basically judge women primarily on how hot they are. There are other factors too, but for the average guy, if a woman is hot enough he will start disregarding just about every other personality flaw she has at least until the novelty of her hotness wears off and her more irritating secondary aspects start becoming more noticeable.

Women, however, look more for a mix of things. Looks are important, but so are power, status, confidence, ability to provide security, social intelligence, leadership, rapport, independence and wealth.

That being said, I simply cannot understand this site. As someone very knowledgeable about the creature known as the guido, I’ve never been able to understand their ability to attract hot (although admittedly trashy) women. Many of them live at home, don’t have high status jobs, ruin any natural good looks they had with burnt orange tans and weird spiky hair and many of them still live at home and live off their parents, meaning the level of independence is pretty low.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Bonus videos: The guido outside his natural element. (Not for the faint of heart)

This piece from The Onion is pretty old (1999), but it’s a classic. Click the blurb below to read it: