How I Met Pansy

True to my word to you, dear readers, I attended a musical concert at one of Williamsburg's many bars last weekend. Saccharine Pansy and Her Trail of Tears was the opening act, and I think it is fair to say that no finer opener had ever graced a stage. Of course, in this case, it wasn't precisely a stage, more of a corner of the grimy, underlit bar, but regardless, Pansy was luminescent. It physically pains me to attempt to describe her sensational performance with my poor words, so I will instead entreat you once again to watch video footage of Tulip Sweet (either the one below or "Rising Action" from my previous post), replacing her with a woman twice as graceful, a hundred times as vibrant, a thousand times more beautiful; should you manage that feat, you will have at some bare idea of how captivating Pansy truly is.



The act ended in what seemed like seconds, but my untouched hot toddy had become cold, so it must have been close to an hour. In the wake of that artful masterpiece, I felt hot and cold at once, and only one thought occupied my mind: Pansy. My quest to become a hipster felt far away indeed, and I longed to strip myself of my ironic apparel and cast myself literally and figuratively naked at her feet, and implore her to tell me what man haunted her dreams, and do everything in my power to become that man.

Do not fear, dear reader; I was able to master that impulse! If I have learned nothing over the twenty-odd years of my life, it's that the above approach, while satisfying in its abandon, does not, in general, work. No, I steeled my heart, and gave control of my body back to my brain, which quickly posited the following: 1) as a denizen of the hipster world, Pansy would only be attracted to hipsters; 2) her star was of sufficient wattage that I would need to be among the pinnacle of hipsterdom to seek her company; 3) I had become established enough to at least introduce myself.

The thought of actually speaking to sweet Pansy was enough to shock me out of my reverie, and I took stock of my situation: I was still clapping (which, as it was a good five minutes after the performance had ended, was beginning to draw stares); my mouth was gaping open in what I assumed was a foolish manner; and as my tight jeans made abundantly clear, my regard for Pansy extended to the physical. With a Herculean effort, I lowered my arms, affected the disinterested smirk that comprised my "game face," and attempted to minimize, as unobtrusively as I could, the swelling threatening to burst my jeans at the seams.

Thus fortified, I made my way to the crowded bar, and within seconds, found her sitting (miracle of miracles!) alone. Taking a deep breath, I adjusted myself once again, and approached.

"Hey," I said. (I have, as you will note, gained at least some small understanding of the mores of hipster romance!)

She looked up at me from under her veil of golden bangs, and it took all my willpower to turn the smile that threatened to break out over my face into a frown, and prevent myself from uttering the words that trembled at my lips: "I love you, mind, body, and soul."

"Nice set," I said instead.

Her bright red lips curled upwards in a smile, transforming her face into a heavenly vision of beauty. Could a creature so refined even be human?

"Thanks," she said. A shudder went through me as she looked me over, and I unobtrusively dropped a hand over my resurgent tumescence. "So what, you want to try and get in my pants?"

Shocked out of my feigned disinterest, I responded honestly. "I would kill for the chance. Let me prove myself; I will worship you from afar, write sonnets in your honor--anything."

Her face disappeared under her bangs as I cursed my weakness, then I noticed that her shoulders were shaking. Was she laughing? She looked up at me again, her face inscrutable.

"Yeah, okay. Our next gig is on Wednesday. Same time, same place. I'll bring you up on stage when I want you to read."

I nodded, dumbstruck.

"Oh, and wear exactly what you're wearing now. It's hilarious."

I stared, knowing I should say something--a sarcastic quip or backhanded compliment, but when I opened my mouth to speak, no words came out.

"Okay," she said. "We're done here." And with that, she turned towards the person next to her--the accordion player from her band, I realized--and I slipped quickly out of the bar just as the drums from the headline act began to pound.

Cupid's Arrow

I apologize for my prolonged absence, dear readers, but I've found myself unable to eat, drink, or sleep of late. The same malady that has so afflicted me has also robbed me of my ability to write--or rather, of my desire to write. Or rather, of my desire to write about anything but her. Her, that tantalizing vixen of the stage, that incandescent star of hipster nightlife, that melofious sultan of song! She who inflames with a look and incinerates with a smile! Oh, dear readers, she is Helen of Troy, Juliet, and Scarlet Johansson all rolled into one!

When I decided to join the hipster subculture, I had no thoughts of love, and indeed, wary of its distracting snare, sought to shield myself against it. But with one toss of her flaxen locks, she unmasked me, and when she began to sing . . . Her voice pierced my heart, and pinned it quivering to the ground.

My friends, you are lucky that I have no footage from that glorious night, for I am certain many of you would be similarly stricken. However, as one must view an eclipse indirectly lest his eyes be burned, so shall I shield you from her full blinding glory! As Fortune has it, my sweet love does not perform her own music; she is in what is known as a "cover band." More specifically, a Tulip Sweet and Her Trail of Tears cover band, cleverly called Saccharine Pansy and Her Trail of Tears.

Like many of you, I had never heard of the original band, but in sharing the below, I believe I can give you some idea of the awesome beauty of my sweet, sweet Pansy. Enjoy, dear friends, but be wary, lest even this pale imitative original prove too much to bear!

A Revelation

Well, dear readers, I have successfully procrastinated on my grand Found Audience Telephone piece for five days, and to be perfectly frank, I might continue to do so indefinitely. It turns out, much to my surprise, that hipsters do not expect much in the way of follow-through!

To be clear, I fully planned on enlisting John's aid this week, but there always seemed to be something better to talk about: John's apparent jealousy towards me, an alarming rash I found on my thigh (which was not, if my physician is to be believed, cancer, but the result of my new, more form-fitting jeans), the respective speeds of Superman and the Flash . . . I confess, however, that I was, to the most minuscule degree imaginable, the teeniest bit hesitant to approach him. You see, John tends to take his job far too seriously, and is prone to lecturing about every minor infraction--taking a two-hour lunch instead of a one-hour, for example, or disconnecting his phone during a sale because he was late to our coffee break. It's not that I am afraid of him, mind, but he is so tiresome when he gets up on his high horse, I just couldn't bear the thought of the inevitable blah blah blah that will ensue when I explain that I'd like him to put his job on the line so that I can improve my standing in hipsterdom.

As a result, I stayed away from Williamsburg until yesterday, and that only because I wanted to make sure I hadn't missed out on some new fashion trend during my time away (I hadn't!). In an attempt to stay incognito, I wore a floppy hat and overlarge sunglasses, but my stature is apparently such that even then I am instantly recognizable, because within minutes, someone I had met last week did in fact approach me. Predictably enough, his first question was about my Found Audience Art. I answered, as mysteriously as I could, that "The time was not yet right," expecting him to see straight through me, then begin to point and laugh, which would in turn prompt our fellow hipsters on Bedford to begin flicking their cigarettes at me while chanting in unison "Poseur! Poseur! Poseur!" (I have not quite recovered, I fear, from the infamous Infinite Jest incident.) Instead, he nodded as if I'd said something profound and began to talk about delays on his own project du jour--a literal rat race that hipsters would be able to bet on.

Well, needless to say, I was quite relieved! Subsequent expeditions confirmed the fact that only some small progress in one's project (beginning construction of a tiny race track, in my friend's case) is necessary to maintain one's standing in hipsterdom. Indeed, I began to get the impression that merely thinking of a clever idea is enough to establish one's bona fides, which is really quite extraordinary! Imagine if our financial system operated in the same way; why, it would be a disaster!

But I digress. My current plan is to continue stalling until such time as I can phase out my ambitious Found Audience project in lieu of something a bit more manageable. Until then, I will maintain my presence in Williamsburg in the hopes of gaining admission to a genuine hipster fete. Next on the docket: an independent musical concert!

Handlebar mustache update: it has now been 24 days since I began, and to be honest, it is taking far longer than I thought it would. I have more or less acquired a mustache (more of the Burt Reynolds variety than the Errol Flynn), but the handlebar portion is still weeks--or even months--away. I shouldn't be too disappointed, I suppose--Rome having taken more than a day and all--but every time I see my little jar of Pinaud Clubman (purchased ambitiously on Day 2), a deep feeling of sadness wells up inside me.

My Descent Into Madness

Pride cometh before a downfall, dear readers, and I fear that today, I have heralded my own.

It began, as these things often do, in a Williamsburg coffee shop, with me modestly admitting my previous triumphs in the art world, and a small group of fellow hipsters expressing their understated admiration for the same. Then these inquisitive hipsters began to wonder, innocently enough, the purpose of my art. I panicked, as you can imagine, dear readers, since my "Art" was a sham--an excuse, if admittedly a clever one, for my own failings as a hipster. I began to hem and haw, and was, I saw quite clearly, losing my audience, when it dawned on me: just because I hadn't intended to create art didn't mean I hadn't. After all, art is a relative proposition. Warhol could easily just have been some guy who liked to paint soup cans, but the world perceived him to be an artist, and so he was. What was the difference in my case? The fact that I could not readily conceive of an answer had a salutatory effect on me, and my confidence grew. As my pontification became assured, more and more "cools" and disaffected shrugs followed. This high praise intoxicated me, as a dance troupe of slim-hipped youths would a pederast, and when they asked me what my next project was, I carelessly alluded to telemarketing.

Yes, I had brazenly exposed my own greatest weakness! They raised their eyebrows--the hipster equivalent of a shocked gasp--and I wildly sought to reassure them. I had faked my way into telemarketing, I told them, so that I could execute a Found Audience Art masterpiece. Which would have been well and good, had what I had so crapulously laid out not committed me to something I fear 1) is not possible, 2) will cost me my job if attempted, and 3) will cost the job of my dear friend John, without whom this attempt cannot be made.

A disaster, dear readers, entirely of my own making. If only I'd left it simple--claimed that I would, say, passively resist, like Bartleby the Scrivner--I might have escaped unscathed, but oh no, I had to make this grandiose announcement: that I would convince my fellow telemarketers to play a game of telephone with a rival teleconferencing company.

I knew that the idea--a long-running joke I share with John--would be well-met (how could it not?) but even I could not have predicted the collective excitement from the group. I even got not one but TWO admiring chuckles! Suddenly, I was the focal point of the entire room, as hipsters began hurling suggestions at me faster than I could take them in, each one hitting me like a snort of snuff. Before I knew what had happened, I had giddily committed to not only performing this insane feat, but making an audio recording of it to boot!

I believe I have worked out the logistics, dear friends, but it is madness--a veritable suicide mission--and its success will require not only my efforts, but those of my closest friend, who I fear will not be easily convinced. At stake: my reputation in the hipster world.

A Portrait of the Found Audience Artist as a Young Hipster

Well, dear readers, yesterday I discovered something remarkable: Found Audience Art, created in a panic by me just a few days ago, had taken on a life of its own. Or at least, that's how I interpreted the new signs springing up in Williamsburg like so many Spring flowers. They were unadorned, plain sheets of paper bearing the printed message, "Have You Been Found?" and they were stapled to trees, taped to street lamps, and hung in the odd window.

At first, I thought it a mere coincidence, but as I saw more and more of them (at least 30, dear readers!), I grew increasingly hopeful that they referred to my new art form. Wishing for confirmation, I stopped at one such poster and pretended to look at it more closely. Within seconds, a baby-faced hipster joined me! I nearly asked him if he knew what the poster meant, but fearful of projecting ignorance instead of hipness, I remained silent, thinking rapidly. How to signal that I knew exactly what it was, approved of it, and wished to initiate a conversation about it? Obviously, saying those things were quite out of the question--from hard experience, I have learned that one does not approach a hipster in such a direct manner. Then it dawned on me; acting quickly, I nodded once at the poster, said "Cool," and turned to go, pausing ever-so-briefly before doing so.

"Yeah," said the young hipster next to me, halting me in my tracks. It had worked! "It's like, the newest thing."

"Indeed," I said.

"At first, I thought it was like some sort of corporate marketing campaign--it's not, though" he added quickly, "and I was like, that's totally lame, but then I heard about Found Audience."

"Genius," I said, and I confess, dear readers, I began to preen a bit.

"Yeah, it's pretty cool."

"So, have you been found?" I asked.

Obviously, this young man was, like me, just starting down the road to hipsterdom, as his face all-too-clearly telegraphed his embarrassment at having to answer, "No."

I knew that the hip thing to do would be to snort, then walk away, asserting my superiority, but my tender heart went out to him, and instead, I nodded, staying where I was. He just barely managed to contain a pleased smile (which made me, I confess, quite proud of him. He was learning so fast!).

Then he asked me the logical follow-up question.

"No," I said, to his obvious surprise. "I find; I am not found."

His little brow furrowed, and, pleased with my riddle, I turned, and walked away majestically. Or at least, I tried to, but a patch of ice hindered my exit, and instead of exiting majestically, I slipped stupendously. Limbs flailing, I groped for the pole, tearing off the "Have You Been Found" sign, then falling onto the sidewalk.

I got up as quickly as possible, surreptitiously rubbing my rump, which had born the majority of the impact, then slipped, again, on yet another patch of ice, lurching this time into a female hipster. Groping for purchase, I latched on to her shirt with my free hand, and very nearly righted myself before her shirt tore. I caught only the merest glimpse of bare flesh before I returned to the ground, this time hitting my elbow. The pain was quite severe, dear readers, and I confess to rolling around on the dirty road, yowling in pain.

By this time, needless to say, the progress of my fellow hipsters had all but ceased as they watched the spectacle before them. I could scarcely blame them; why, the sight of a half-naked hipsteress along would have been enough to make me stop, and with the addition of a rotund hipster moaning on the ground in agony, I expect only the blind and deaf would have kept moving! As the pain slowly subsided, I realized that I was still holding both the shirt and poster in my hands, and became acutely aware of the infamy such an embarrassing display would provoke.

I had, I knew, only one option, and extracting a pen from my coat pocket, I held the muddied poster in front of my face, and changed the text to read, "Have You ^(Have) Been Found," then rising (carefully!) to my feet, handed it, along with the scrap of shirt, to the hipstress, whose arms were now crossed protectively over her chest. She accepted them wordlessly (looking a bit shocked, I must say), and I bowed with as much of a flourish as I could manage, then picked my way slowly, but nonetheless with a certain regal dignity, towards the subway station.

I held my breath as I walked away, hoping against hope that I would hear a light patter of applause swell behind me. Alas, this did not happen, and I quickly drew the conclusion that I, along with Found Audience Art, were finished before they could properly have begun. My squalid trip home was wholly depressing, dear readers, and I might have even succumbed to tears had it not been for a conversation between two hipsters that I overheard at Union Square.

"Check it out," said one hipster, holding up his cell phone to his friend.

"Cool," said the other. "Found Audience is deck."

Now, had it not been for my dear friends over at How To Impress a Hipster, I would have been sure that "deck" meant either "lame," "embarrassing," or "tragic," and might very well have died from this confirmation of my worst fears; instead, my heart, like the Grinch's, grew three sizes in that moment, and for the rest of my trip home, I felt like the returning conqueror!

Inauguration Day

As promised, I spent some time in Williamsburg yesterday afternoon to celebrate the inauguration of our 44th president, Barack Obama. Williamsburg was majestic as always, and my fellow hipsters indeed seemed to be in a festive mood--instead of their usual sullen and slouched demeanor, their heads were held high, and they even nodded (and occasionally smiled!) as they passed each other on the streets. It was all quite inspiring! Change I could indeed believe in!

I walked immediately to a dive bar I had read about online located near the Lorimer stop. As I approached, I saw a fellow hipster sitting outside the bar, which I found quite unusual, given the cold weather. He was perhaps in his early 30's, with artfully disheveled brown hair that he blew carelessly away from his face as I got closer, and was well-protected against the elements, having taken layering to an extreme level. He wore no fewer than 6 different shirt of varying thickness, with the outermost layer consisting of an oversized t-shirt which read "Special Olympics." The entire ironic package (including what I believe were tattered orange shoes that reminded me of those designed for skate boarders) was quite a remarkable example of hipster fashion, I thought to myself.

Cognizant of the new, more friendly attitude hipsters were taking towards one another, I greeted him, and inquired as to whether he was excited about the inauguration. He mumbled something that I couldn't quite make out in response, but I distinctly heard the word "Change" in his answer, and thus encouraged, I sat down next to him. He companionably made room for me, then mumbled something, of which I only caught the words "drink" and "cold." Thinking this mumbling was perhaps a new hipster trend, I quickly adopted his lingo, inserting the words "Obama" and "Inauguration" into a stream of gibberish. He seemed impressed by my quick grasp of the vernacular, and invited me in to the bar for a drink. Either that, or he asked me to buy him a drink, but either way, I was quite sure he wanted to go in to the bar, which was just as well since I was not quite as well-prepared for the cold weather as my new hipster friend. Concrete is cold!

I readily accepted, and he sprung spryly to his feet. I imagine you know me well enough by now, gentle readers, to guess that I felt quite proud of myself for having made such a successful entry to the hipster inaugural celebration! I held the door open for him, and he immediately procured a table in the mostly empty barroom. I headed to the bartender, and asked him for two hot toddies. He was, apparently, not as practiced in hipsterease (as I began calling it in my head) as I, and asked me to repeat myself three times before I finally abandoned the argot and asked him in plain Queen's English for two hot toddies.

When I returned to our table with drinks in hand, I couldn't help but notice that my new friend had fallen asleep! Undoubtedly, I thought to myself, he had been partying excessively before I had arrived (which would also explain his rather pungent breath), and the warmth inside the bar had lulled him to sleep. I mumbled to him that the drinks had arrived, and handed him the toddy, which he gulped down with astonishing speed. Before I could so much as begin to discuss the finer points of Infinite Jest or the latest Animal Collective album with him, he had leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes again. Thinking this was perhaps the "hip" thing to do in mostly empty dive bars (after all, I told myself, one must conserve one's energy when one can if one plans to party all night), I plugged my nose, downed my toddy, and followed suit.

Before I so much as got comfortable, I was rudely shaken by the bartender, who told me, if you can believe it, to take myself and my "bum friend" out of his bar. At this point, the few other patrons, hipsters all, were looking at us with what I took for intense interest. Mindful of the audience, I rose to my feet, and indignantly defended my friend, explaining that he was hardly a bum, but rather a fine example of your modern-day hipster, and that not only did he likely have a home in the form of an artist's loft, but a trust fund to boot! Unfortunately, I explained all this in hipsterease, which as you'll undoubtedly remember, our bartender did not speak. All he seemed to pick up from my speech was the word "hipster," and it seemed that he took it for an insult, as he responded by saying, "I'll show you a fucking hipster, asshole," then he bodily dragged me to the door and tossed me outside, followed shortly by my new friend.

As we dusted ourselves off, I couldn't help but notice that my friend did indeed bear some of the mannerisms common to one who was homeless: the few-days growth of beard, initially taken for disaffected scruffiness, now seemed the result of having neither hot water nor a razor; the the ripped jeans not a fashion statement but a necessity; the odor coming from him not an environmental statement against deodorent's chemicals, but rather the lack of access to a shower.

Suddenly I felt like quite the fool, and apologized to the homeless man for having mistaken him for a hipster. He was quite gracious, and (I'm fairly certain) thanked me profusely for the drink, and settled himself back into his original position against the bar. Meanwhile, I began castigating myself mentally for the error, and hoped--futilely, as I shortly discovered--that the bar's other patrons were ALSO bums instead of hipsters, as that would have negated the impact of my gaffe.

As I started to trudge away from the bar, the door swung open and two hipsters (I was quite certain they were hipsters and not homeless people, as one clutched a laptop to his chest and the other wore a Swatch; fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!) emerged. I squared my shoulders, ready to accept their abuse manfully.

"Hey," said the one holding the laptop.
"Hey," I mumbled back.
"That was hilarious," said the other, with no expression whatsoever.

At this point, I paused, wondering if they were perhaps playing some cruel trick on me. Either that or they thought I had intentionally invited the homeless man in as some sort of joke. Quickly deciding on a course of action that would suit either scenario, I simply shrugged, then turned to walk away.

"Was that, like, performance art?" asked the Swatch one. I turned again, a faint flicker of joy budding in my chest.

"Yeah," I said, quickly dropping the mumbling and instead adopting their deadpan deliveries.

"Cool."

I had garnered a "cool" from a bonafide hipster! Containing my excitement, I shrugged again, then asked, "What do you do?"

"I make hats," he said, pointing at his own, which had red crosshairs superimposed over a yellow truck.

"Cool," I said.

"So, like, did you advertise at all or anything?"

"No," I said, thinking quickly, "I want the audience to be surprised. You know how Found Art is just made up of random objects? Well, I want my audience to, uh, be found. I call it 'Found Audience.'"

Both sets of hipster eyebrows raised as one. "Found Audience," said the laptop hipster.

"Cool," said the Swatch one.

Needless to say, dear readers, I wanted to shout my joy to the world! Instead, I shrugged again, said "Later," then walked to the L train. Not only had I survived what could have been a fatal gaffe, I had carved out a niche for myself in the hipster world! I was a Found Audience Artist!

Barack Obama

I suppose, since it is after all Inauguration Weekend, that I should at least briefly touch on politics, even though it is not something I've considered much since my days as a Young Republican. In fact, 2008 marks the first election year that I have not submitted an absentee ballot bearing the write-in, "Ming the Merciless" (while he could be quite brutal, one could hardly argue with his success as a leader; I imagine being President of the United States would be quite easy after having been Emperor of the Universe!). In truth, even as a Young Republican, I was more interested in their natty attire, posh cocktail parties and, I am chagrined to confess, the distinct whiff of old money one caught when lunching with them. At the time, my interest was quite sincere, but upon reflection, I had been blinded by their wealth, and their close-mindedness and latent hostility did not become apparent to me until they mistakenly took me for a homosexual. I tried to explain that I was quite straight, and even offered to conclusively prove my sexual orientation with our president's delightfully flapper-esque girlfriend (whom I'm certain would have been amenable; she often seemed as taken with me as she was bored with him. When inebriated, she engaged me in long conversations about non-YR approved music, the United States' unfair drug laws, and my days as a Rasti. Although upon reflection, it's possible that she was asking me in a roundabout way for marijuana. Hm. Either way, she was entirely unsuitable for our jack-booted President, and I rather imagine she is now a hipster in some urban mecca, perhaps even sporting a mustache!). At any rate, they did not receive this offer in the spirit in which it was intended, and quite literally chased me out of their association.

Fortunately, their persecution ensured my acceptance into the Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transexual community, who were quite sweet, but who as I discovered later, labored under the same misconception. I'm not quite sure why I make this impression; I dress entirely appropriately to the subculture with which I identify (which in some cases has been rather similar to homosexual attire), and while I do occasionally use words such as "gay" and "queer" in the classical sense, I hardly think that alone should be evidence of gayness. Quite the opposite, in fact! One would have thought as well that the L/G/B/Ts would have finely honed "gaydars" and would be able to see in an instant that I do not share their predilictions; one would, however, be sadly mistaken. When I attempted to purge them of their misunderstanding, they said they knew what I was going through and would "be there" for me if I ever changed my mind. It was all quite confusing.

But I digress. In terms of our forthcoming president, I am optimistic. In addition to his youth and style, he is quite articulate, although those are not the only reasons I broke my streak of "Ming the Merciless" votes; no, due credit goes to the young Obama supporter I saw shouting obscenities at an octogenarian bearing a John McCain button. In addition to being quite lovely in her rage (homosexual, indeed!), she was breathtakingly inventive. If all she had called him was an "inebriate fascit f***" she likely would have won my vote for Obama, but that turned out to be only her opening salvo! Before it was all said and done, the object of her ire (whom from context I believe must have said something about stricter language regulation of the film and music industry) had turned an ashen gray and looked about ready to collapse to the ground! Had it not been for her cane, in fact, I think she might have. After our young heroine was done, I attempted to tell her of her success converting me into an Obama supporter (and, truth be told, ask her out for a hot toddy) but I believe she thought I was "yanking her chain," as it were, because she cut me off with an invective (a somewhat dissapointing one, to tell the truth, but one can hardly blame her for being a bit drained just seconds after completing such a virtuoso performance).

All in all, I do think Tuesday will be a splendid occasion; I fully intend on spending as much of it as possible in Williamsbug, celebrating with my fellow hipsters! Assuming, that is, that they will be celebrating; I get the impression that they approve of Obama, but they are sometimes a bit understated/ironic about their heroes. I shall have to be prepared to modify my "Huzzah's!" to "cool's" or, if necessary, even indifferent shrugs . . .