I Eat Hipsters For Breakfast

I wish.

Living on the Upper West, I'm spared my hipster frustration. After Vassar, it is so bizarre to pass whole days, even weeks, without even setting eyes on a single pair of out-sized sun glasses, or one chunky necklace. In San Francisco, I lived in hipster-central (although secretly I believe that Mission hipsters really are much cooler than I am, and that their irony is much sharper but not as cruel as North Eastern hipsters - they are still hipsters none the less); so to find myself, after so many years, hipster-less is quite a shock and an odd relief.

(Of course, now my days are filled with obnoxious, entitled yuppies. I kind of miss the irony.)

Yesterday, however, I ventured into Williamsburg, aka hipsterdom's ground zero. It would have been one thing if all I had done was go to see the show which was the ultimate intention - if I'd gotten off the L at Bedford and speeded my way to the space, watched the show, and then scurried back to Manhattan. But my friend Jacob and I brought food and wine and had a picnic in McCarren Park.

I'm not going to lie - Williamsburg really is interesting. It reminds me of a grittier New York version of the Mission. There are little restaurants and diners, interesting bars, and a multitude of thrift stores. The buildings are all short, with long staircases, and the Williamsburg natives sit in lawn chairs out on the sidewalk, chatting to their neighbors and watching the youth stroll by. It feels like a neighborhood, it feels like a place where everyone knows each other. And you don't have to dodge baby strollers everywhere you go.

I was kind of awed by it all, as I strolled down Bedford Avenue. I kept wishing my neighborhood was more of a neighborhood - that I could afford to go to my local bars (that my local bars were even appealing). I kept wishing that my neighborhood had more people like me in it, and therefore had more stuff that I might like, more of a reason to hang out up there.

I finally arrived at the park, and spread my blanket out near a baseball game to read in the shade. It was absolutely beautiful (it has been remarkably cool for August, and therefore the city hasn't been rotting the way it usually does - one positive of global climate change), and there were people all over the park, eating and drinking and hanging out. The grass was not manicured like in Central Park, and there were Corona bottle caps everywhere, but I didn't really mind. When Jacob arrived, we ate picnic fare (cheese, bread, olives), and drank red wine out of little yogurt containers that I'd brought (which I thought was simultaneously cool and resourceful of me). It was so chill. Everyone was just there, there were no police patrolling with huge dogs (that will be a later post, believe you me), just people hanging out. we watched a group of little boys have a pow wow in Spanish and then execute their plan for the next twenty minutes. We watched a man doing something potentially sexual to the bench near us. We watched the game. We ate and chatted. It was lovely.

And as we left to go to the show, pot smoke wafted towards us from somewhere across the field.

Sometimes, you just need a drink...

Here are some things I hate:

1) Hipsters
2) Lines
3) Hipsters in line

Odds are that whatever they're in line for is way too cool for me to be in line for, like indie films or ironic live music. So, when I found myself a couple of weeks ago in line for an indie film that was showing on a roof with a pre-show band playing loudly over the neighborhood, I wondered aloud what I could possibly have been doing there. Not only was I clearly out of my element, in my H&M dress, but I was also down in Chinatown, an area which I never visit.

That part was the exciting part. The shitty part was that I was alone, towards the end of a really long line, and unable to reach my friend Maya who had suggested I come to the show. As it neared closer to eight, I realized that all I really wanted to do was go exploring, so I jumped line, left a message on Maya's answering machine, and started off in search of a place called the Bowery Poetry Club.

I had hoped that the Club would have some sort of open mike or reading series. But, alas, it was a Saturday, and that meant the bar was open and a band was setting up. I decided to face my fears, and I went into the bar by myself. I was there for 45 minutes, watching hipsters arrive, and waiting for the band to stop setting up and play already. I left because after checking equipment for almost an hour, they left the stage and all got alcohol. I figured it was fruitless, and I really hated my canned PBR anyway (number 4 on my list).

But it wasn't a total loss - I was in a bar alone. Not looking to get hit on, just looking. And it really wasn't so bad. I will definitely be going back to the Poetry Club, although on a night when I can see if the place lives up to its name - because, ultimately I don't like going to bars by myself, but poetry readings sound pretty cool solo. But the point is, I didn't die from embarrassment, and I proved that I am perfectly capable of going out alone. Which is what I set out to prove anyway.

Bars are definitely more fun in a group. I've been going to a place called Greenwich Treehouse down on Greenwich Avenue in the West Village, because my friend Mike is the bartender there. Our group of friends hangs out there occasionally, and we drink beer while Mike does his thing - he is an excellent bar tender because he understands the performance aspect of the job. Anyway, he shows movies on Monday nights, and when the bar starts to empty out, we play Wii. The place is cool, and on weekends is pretty packed. They have a juke box. And aside from that, I'm starting to dig the West Village, with its pretty tree lined streets and small, themed hang outs. Christopher Street just feels apart from the hipster strewn East Village. I might just be ignoring the sad truth that hipsters own downtown Manhattan as well as Brooklyn and Queens, but I don't think so.

We'll find out more tomorrow when I go to a Christopher Street bar on a date. The place is called The Fat Cat and I've actually been before - I liked it. And my date said it's his favorite bar, which gives me hope that maybe I'll like him. And besides, if it doesn't work out, there are enough pool tables and ping pong tables to distract us from awkward conversation. Could be worse.

The final place of note that I've been to since my last post is The Beer Garden in Astoria. I loved it. It reminded me of a bar in SF that I really loved - a kind of hippy biker bar called Zeitgeist in the Mission. Big back yard, lots of tables, pitchers of beer. And all the bartenders were Czech. So were the guys at the table next to us. I thought that was pretty fucking cool.