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My life among the kids who go to shows: this is not the way...by linz at 08:47 AM on August 29, 2003 |
Last night I went to see an indie band, and many things struck me about the crowd and my personal experience.
First of all, I marveled at the fact that, in a hot room, wearing a skirt without underwear, I can actually feel sweat rolling all the way from my ass to my heel, and that large quantities of sweat originate from either my lower back or my ass... couldn't figure out which one. I will have to do more research.
Secondly, as always happens when I hang out in East Atlanta, I marvel at the general vibe of the hipster crowd. The homogeneity is one fascinating element. Cameron's fiancé said it best, "Yeah, one denim jacket with the name Earl in an oval patch is interesting. It's when you see twenty in one room that you start to get bored." There were so many moppy heads and dark-rimmed glasses. Meticulously mussed girl-curls. Casually perfect thriftstore-esque ensembles that look suspiciously new. It reminded me of the Yo La Tengo tragedy.
Cameron suggested that hipsters are often the kids that were never accepted in gradeschool, and who thusly rebelled, and formed their own community of anti-cool. What aggravates me about this very plausible theory is, if you realize how ridiculous it is to try to be cool and try to fit in, why do I feel just as much like I've snuck into a country club in your neighborhood than in the neighborhood of the people who never tried to deny their desire to be popular and fit in?
I realized that I don't feel like I "belong" no matter what crowd I hang out with. I go to East Atlanta for indie rock. I go to Virginia Highlands with the preppy drink-til-you-drop crowd. I go to Little Five Points where the freaky-freakies hang out. I go to Buckhead, the epitome of what-happened-to-the-Greek-system-post-college. I go to Midtown, land of "glamorous" dance clubs (read: where the kids from Buckhead and Virginia Highlands go when they want to pretend to have flair). I go to the hippie jam band bars scattered about. I go to the blues bars. But across the board, I feel pretty consistently like an outsider.
I am starting to see a trend. I was always too normal for the freaks, too weird for the popular kids, too straight for the bad kids, too materialistic for the hippies, too cheerful for the artists, too suburban for the hip hop scene, too introspective for the party crowd. WTF? I want to belong to a scene, dammit! Instead I always experience socializing like I am a National Geographic researcher, watching the rituals and habits of [insert subculture here].
Anyway, coming back to the crowd at the Echo Lounge last night, there's this sense of being "affected" and forlorn and a weird combination of aloof, inferior and totally superior. It takes them so long to start dancing even though the music is so obviously conducive to reverie. There is a containment of the joy that we should all be feeling at the sound of it. There's a tentativeness to reveal abandon. I'm mystified. Then, I hypocritically note that the one large, sweaty dancing man with a thin excuse for a ponytail, bouncing exuberantly from one foot to another is the one who shouldn't be dancing. I am judging, just like the rest of them. And I certainly hold back, in deference to the greater restraint, when all I want to do is my little silly dance all over the bar.
comments (13)
Sounds strangely familiar. I don't fit in with any particular crowd either. I am not cool enough to be hip, not smart enough to be nerdy, not trendy enough to be chic. I just call myself a dork, but I enjoy every minute of just being me. I just look for like-minded people in the sea of sheep and ignore the ones who make me feel dumb, left out or inadequate because I refuse to conform to their idea of what is cool.
Still, I've seen that man with the pony-tail dancing and found myself feeling uncomfortable for him. But really in the end, who the hell cares, lets just dance around and be silly and have fun. Life it too short to live it out in tiny boxes with labels.
by syd at August 29, 2003 10:01 AM
I have always had the ability to walk in any circle while not belonging to any. It has been this way as long as I can remember. I can recall, in elementary school, being told by little redneck kids not to hang out with the niggers because, evidently, they had some exotic disease that would do horrible things to little white boys. Their Daddys told them this so it must be gospel right? In high school it was "Don't hang out with the jocks." or "Don't hang out with the geeks." or "Don't hang out with the druggies." I never limited myself to one group of people. I guess I have always lived by a lesson my Dad taught me when I was about six. My Mother was a little miffed because I was hanging out with the black boys down the street. My Mom had never had a black friend and was raised in a segregated era. I'm not making excuses. That's just what was. She wasn't going to let me play with them anymore until my Dad stepped in. He told her that our job is not to judge other people period. Later when we were alone he told me "Son, you're going to find out one thing in life. Regardless of color, gender, or nationality, people are either assholes or they're not." You know what? He was right.
Sorry Linz, I got a bit off the post. I believe in experiencing everything I can while I am here and refuse to be limited to a group. This gives you the ability to fit in to any group without pledging to any.
by Ezy at August 29, 2003 10:59 AM
I guess I agree with you guys... I do prefer it this way. But it's lonely sometimes, I think... bc I don't ever have like a big mass of friends who are all friends with each other. I am a fringe element on several masses, affiliated with each of the groups through just one or 2 people.
by Linz at August 29, 2003 11:12 AM
Don't get me wrong Linz. I have a few very close friends. I can count them on one hand though. Only two of them live in the same area as I do. I, also, have varying degrees of friends in the groups I hang out in but I just don't hang out with them exclusively. I guess I hang out with like minded people, as Syd said above, so we just get together and have a good time. While it may not be a "Friends" type environment we are still pretty close.
by Ezy at August 29, 2003 11:51 AM
that line about socializing like a national geographic researcher hits home. that's a great line and I'd like to steal it. my take is that you like many others, feel compelled to go out lest you miss something... its like, ther is all this shit going on out there, people partying and dancing and drinking, so it must be SOMETHING that is going on. really it is nothing.
but you go andyou watch and you look at the empty eyed people trying to have fun, getting smashed or whatever and everyone is so concerned with how cool they look that its just a pantomime and you KNOW IT. you can sense it, smell it like a fart in a car.
I am getting to the point where doing anything "young" makes me feel like an old freak so sometimes i hang out with friend in bars that are clearly for old fuckers. the blues bars here are defintely for oldsters. guys like me are considered young in that crowd. but they dont give a shit because they are old and just want to have fun without judging anyone or being judged.
being young and noticing what bullshit there is out there is tough because when you are oblivious to it, at least you can pretend that you are having fun.
Find out where your niche is. maybe it is just staying home and reading. if that is actually fun, why not? Maybe its library book clubs or playing your guit on the street down in peach tree for the tourists and making money and meeting people from all over?
most importanly, if you gotten this far, remember that THE COOL TABLE is wherever YOU ARE, it isn't over there and 'how can i sit there' it is wherever you are sitting. that helps me.
by eff at August 29, 2003 03:21 PM
Cliques and labels stifle relationships. Back in HS I was offered a chance to have the cakest job on the football team, placekicker. The coach admired my soccer skills but I had to turn him down cuz I was a freak and freaks don't play organized sports. For three years the lines between freaks and jocks remained like the DMZ in Korea. But then some of the jocks' chicks (the choicest in the school) began to turn up at our stoner parties. While this was a mixture of slumming, rebellion against convention and drug-seeking behavior, they seemed to realize we weren't so different from one another after all. And they were great fun both in and out of bed, unlike our drowsy hash-head girls. We didn't know what we'd been missing. Make of that what you will.
by anna at August 29, 2003 05:35 PM
I fully understand not belonging.I'm not sure I have any real freinds.I mean there are people I know...but when they call me it's like;"Do you still have that pick-up truck?""Can you come over my car won't stay running."So on and so on.I haven't been in a club for a long time.The last I was in an alcohol establishment there was Karaoke.What were those people thinking?Off-key tone-deaf drunk morons.Oh,and Linz I have read the majority of your postings I hope you find what you are looking for in the love department.
by Windex at August 29, 2003 08:33 PM
I think we have a new entry into the cool screen name sweepstakes. Move over Elongatedbadger, make room for Windex!
by anna at August 30, 2003 06:41 AM
I don't know Anna. Elongatedbadger is pretty tough to top.
by Ezy at September 1, 2003 01:51 PM
yes the great yo la tengo concert fire. a cautionary tale among the anti-pop elite. other fabulous disasters laying in wait (tom is that grammathematical?)....the garth brooks sea of boiling blood, the britney spearing of '04, the dave matthews fraternity date rape-a-thon, metallica's low volume metamucil tour for homes of the aged and infirmed, the eminem promotional racist statement...
i live in a hipster town to be sure. i go to see too many shows. i see too many of the uselessly affected. an army of the 'you'll never get what's happening here, like i get what's happening here' set. it's pomp and a put-on. my friends and i enjoy oursleves despite this. we love the sound, not the scene.
someone once said - 'one who has no home, is home everywhere'
or maybe it's like serpico said - 'love the garden... you gotta love the man'.
i suppose our job is to choose. but i like having a ticket to everywhere.
by truncatedlajoie at September 1, 2003 03:09 PM
You know what I hated? I used to have this co-worker who totally had a crush on me. He latched onto a vague mention I made once about my semi-Goth-y years in high school, when I had a lot of Goth friends (who lovingly accepted me even though I wore my mom's hand-me-downs to class and couldn't quite tell Alien Sex Fiend from Christian Death), and ever after, I was "Goth Girl" to him. Even on the days when I was dressed head-to-toe in Banana Republic (i.e., every day).
by jean at September 3, 2003 02:19 AM
Well, at least you had a nickname. In my youth I tried in vain to get people to call me "The Kid." *cringes uncontrollably"
by anna at September 3, 2003 06:48 AM
The Kid! I love it!
by jean at September 4, 2003 01:35 AM