Tiny Wonders

This article should've been written on Sunday.  I won't lie.  But Sunday was Valentine's Day; a day best spent getting wasted in the street and talking about how lame you think Valentine's Day is, even though you secretly want nothing more than to receive a giant stuffed bear holding a heart before you go out to an Italian restaurant and share a single plate of spaghetti with your significant other, which will inevitably end in you guys getting the same strand of pasta, then making out.

Of course, I didn't do that.  I went to some art show/dance party against domestic violence, then got drunk with some lesbians.  Which resulted in immune system failure for the next 2 days, which left me in a state of devastation in which I was only able to lay on the couch in my underwear watching John Hughes movies.  It's basically like taking echinacea, just more entertaining and angst-ridden.

Anyway, the show was awesome.  Tiny Wonders, I mean.  It was a collaborative art show put on by Dylan Hosey, a local artist himself who wanted to showcase a number of pieces from different people across all mediums.  He hopes for this to be the first installment of 'Tiny Wonders' with more to come, at different locations.  This particular one was at The Good Shop on 22nd and Folsom: 

It's a small store owned by a couple (and possibly their baby) offering vintage clothes, not vintage clothes, books, art, cassettes, and on this occasion, free Skittles.  Check it out.

Anywhere offering pictures of Tom Cruise, Bowie and Chewbacca all on the same shelving unit deserves a bit of praise.  But I digress.  Here's what else you might have missed:

People with sexy shoes, shimmying.

Fictional entomology displays (Nikki Garcia)

 

Sexy photo transfers (Sean Dillon)

Mass consumption of PBR

Tiny pictures of people with various occupations

This Cuban drug lord and her needlework (Isla Bell Murray)

Oh, and this picture of Dylan Hosey, host and curator, conquering a stair case.

We even did an interview shortly after this, but I left my voice recorder 2 blocks away from where I am right now, and I'm not walking back.  I jumped out of bed today and broke my toe.  Genius.  Plus, there's about a minute of wasted tape I'd have to listen to in which some drunkard at the show who will go unnamed (let's say Danielle G... no wait, that's too obvious.  How about, D. Garcia) squeezed her way between me and Dylan to ask repeatedly where to buy beer, and having realized we were doing an interview, began to ask repeatedly where to buy butt cream.  If you see her on the street, break her legs for me.  Haha, just kidding sort of.

Anyway, keep an eye out next week for... something.  I don't know.  Photos of mustaches?  You tell me.

Oh, and the next Tiny Wonders event at a different location.  You can't wait. 

Welcome Back, Hipster.

Hey you.  I haven't seen your beautiful face in nigh a dozen fortnights.  And for that, I'm almost sorry.  I went through some big changes with my body, and now I'm a man.  Also, my office was relocated to the cradle of hipster civilization: the mission district!  The jeans are skinnier, the V's are deeper, and the PBR flows like glorious waterfalls.  It's a beautiful sight.

Speaking of beautiful sights, expect an article about this snazzy art event: Tiny Wonders.

It's a collaboration of artists introducing new pieces in a wide variety of mediums.  You won't know what to expect!  If I had to guess though... art.  I'm going to tell you what it was like and take pictures, but you're also welcome to show up yourself.  Oh, and bring beer.  And a sandwich.  I'm hungry.  Also, if there's no mayonnaise, I'll kill you.

ALSO: expect the follow-up to my adventures with American Apparel in the next few weeks!  I have a feeling you'll be disappointed.  IN A GOOD WAY.

American Apparel: The Quest for Sexy

“We like sexy at American Apparel.”  -Dov Charney, CEO

It all started about a month ago.  I was searching the part-time jobs on Craigslist, and came across an ad for open calls at American Apparel.  I’d been wanting to do an article on AA for a while, so it seemed like a golden opportunity: learn more than I could’ve dreamed for the article, acquire a much-needed second job, and get a discount on v-neck shirts and non-prescription glasses?  Count me the fuck in.  I hastily constructed a resumé, and set out for the American Apparel on Grant Ave. in Union Square.  After talking to the manager for about 30 seconds, she scheduled an interview with me for the following Tuesday, telling me to “wear clean shoes, because they’re really picky about that.”

For those who don’t know, American Apparel has a somewhat unique hiring process.  All of AA’s models are also employees, so if you’re applying for a job as a sales associate, you’re basically applying to be a sales associate/model, which they photograph you for.  All of the photos of applicants are approved either by the company founder, Dov Charney, or his assistants.  It wasn’t something I was terribly concerned about - I do have red hair, which is a handicap in the realm of modeling, but people have been telling me I should do it for years, so I just prayed they weren’t wrong and prepared myself for the interview by reading everything I could on their website, familiarizing myself with the product line, and, of course, doing lots of heroin and sit-ups.

Tuesday finally came, and I put on my immaculate white slip-ons and some semi-professional hipster attire.  The interview went great.  In fact, it was the best interview I’ve had for any job.  I had plenty of knowledge about the company, and the manager and I talked at length about the vertically-integrated business model, the unique styles, the tertiary color palette, and how great it is that everything is made in the good old U.S. of A.  He then took two pictures of me - one head shot, and one body shot, which I’ve recreated here for your viewing pleasure.

I also asked him to put a post-it on the pictures that said I had eyebrows, and that they were just kind of difficult to see.  He assured me that it wouldn’t make a difference, as one of the employees there actually had no eyebrows at all.  Touche.

I was asked about hours, what days I could work, and when I’d like to start.  Like the end of any interview, he told me I could expect a call back within a week, and that we’d be in touch soon for a second interview.  I walked out of the store beaming with delight that day, thinking to myself, “Well, all I have to worry about now are my photos!”  

A week passed, so I paid the store a visit to see what my status was.  The manager who interviewed me was there, and said that they hadn’t heard back from corporate on the photos yet.  He said that it could be another week, and added that if I were to be hired, it would probably be for one of the other stores in San Francisco, as things had slowed down a bit at the Union Square store.  It was a minor setback, but I only live a few miles from the Haight Street store, so I didn’t let it bother me too much.

Another week passes.  After hearing nothing back, I decide to call.  The same manager tells me that “corporate has been responding really slowly” and that hiring has slowed down, but that they have my resume on file, and asks if there’s anything else he can do for me today, as if I was calling to see if they had fanny packs in stock.

Like I said, the interview went well enough that I didn’t really have any doubts about getting the second interview.  The only obstacle was getting my photos approved, which, I have to boldly assume, were denied.  Out of curiosity, I went onto the American Apparel website to look at their models, which they have an extensive list of (http://americanapparel.net/gallery/photocollections/models/index.html).  Most of them look ethnically ambiguous: brown hair and brown eyes is the norm for most, with the occasional handsome black dude or coy Asian female.  Of the 160 featured models, one of them has red hair.  And she’s a lady.  

I’m already pretty familiar with the fact that people with red hair don’t get a lot of face time in the world of acting, much less modeling.  I mean, name three celebrities with red hair that aren’t Ron Howard or Julianne Moore (not counting Shaun White, Carrot Top, or the guy that played Rocky in the movie ‘Mask’ because none of them are real celebrities).  You simply don’t see guys with red hair modeling for anything except maybe sun screen ads.  I can deal with that truth.  Gingers are creepy.

What’s more haunting is the knowledge that Dov Charney and his well-dressed henchmen looked at my photo and didn’t deem me worthy enough to work in one of their retail stores based completely on my appearance.  Hell, I could even deal with that if Dov himself was a sexy beast, but that’s not really the case.  Let’s do a test:  I want you to close your eyes, and imagine what a stereotypical child molester looks like.  Okay, got it?  Great.  Now open your eyes....  Does he look anything like this man?

That’s funny, because this is just a picture of Dov Charney, the founder and CEO of American Apparel.  Yeah, this is the guy that thought people wouldn’t buy a v-neck from me because, you know, my appearance might make them uncomfortable.  Well, allow me to call bullshit.  If my chiseled and mildly awkward features won’t sell slim slacks, then why not try to meet the gold standard for American Apparel?  Why not emulate the man who embodies the very identity of the company?  Why not reapply as a protege of the founder himself:  Mr. Dov Charney....

I want to reapply to American Apparel, I really do.  But my current ‘look’ isn’t cutting the mustard.  I can’t make myself look exactly like the stunning demigod known as ‘Dov’, but I’ll try to meet him halfway.  The posting of this article (and corresponding video - I’ll link it this week) will mark the beginning of my transformation into the jaded male dream machine that fucker has always wanted in his stores to peddle his tertiary-colored slim slacks.  In 2-3 months, I’ll reapply for the position of sales associate/model with all the ideal qualities embodied by this king of retail kings.  And better yet, I’ll be recording the whole debacle in Part 2 of ‘American Apparel: The Quest for Sexy’.  Mr. Charney, prepare to be blown into the next fortnight.  Your apprentice is coming.

Supporting The Arts: A Fine Hipster Tradition

Art galleries are a little-known staple of hipster culture.  Not the art galleries around Union Square that have old people in dark blazers greeting you at the door before you come in to look at crappy amorphous sculptures and Bob Ross paintings.  I’m pretty sure those don’t appeal to anyone.  I mean the smaller, privately-owned galleries littering the city in the Mission, TL, and downtown areas like White Walls/Shooting Gallery, Fecal Face.Gallery, Park Life, and the recently lost Receiver Gallery.  The main allure is the opening parties every month or two, defined mostly by free entry, free beer (or at least a lenient BYOB policy), and being surrounded by other sexy young hipsters.  It’s the greatest thing to happen to America in a long time, and if that’s not reason enough to go, then you can just march right up to your room, mister.

Last Friday was the opening of Syzygy at The Lab on 16th & Capp, nestled cozily in the armpit of the Mission district.  Syzygy is “a kind of unity achieved through coordination or alignment of two or more things without the loss of identity” (http://www.thelab.org/events/395-syzygy.html).  There were ten artists featured, each utilizing different mediums, and each elaborating on the theme of syzygy.  

All of the pieces had something unique going, including a few video and projection installations, some ridiculously intricate collages, and an asteroid of penises.  What’s that?  Oh yeah, just an asteroid of penises...  You’re intrigued?  Fuck, I wish I’d remembered to take a picture or something... oh, wait, here you go.

Ha, yeah, that was something.  Can’t you just, like, totally imagine the artist who made it, like, changing into a fairy princess costume and, like, dancing around it with a magic wand, totally blessing all of the penises?  ... No?  Are you sure?  Yeah, well...

That.  Just.  Happened.

Anyway, the artist who seemed to get the most attention was a local and possibly Irish man, Flynn O’Brien, whose project, ‘Walk It Out’, had a constant swarm of people standing a polite distance away from the pictures, not realizing that no one could see, thus perpetuating awkwardness for those who might want to take pictures.  Lucky for you, he has a website, http://flynnpobrien.blogspot.com, and I took this:

Each picture is a set of photos taken every 20 seconds or so in the course of a walk, then overlapped as lighter exposures and separated into individual frames to indicate a distinct time frame.  Each collection of images represents the entirety of the walk, each set in a distinct location.  The effect is a strangely familiar, somewhat psychedelic representation of a an almost-recognizable environment, like a park in San Francisco, a cemetery in Colma, or a city street in Almeria.

I sat down with Flynn to interview him after the show.  I even thought up some really fascinating questions I was looking forward to discussing.  We had a great interview at the bar/restaurant Range on 20th and Mission, and though I couldn’t hear everything he was saying, I was confident that the mic on his shirt was picking up every word.

The next morning, I went to transcribe the interview, and realized how very wrong I was.  I listened for a few minutes to the murmurs and mumbles that I had recorded instead, and assessed that I was recording from the built-in mic which was in my lap, thus recording the ambient noise you hear in a restaurant, and whatever noises a lap makes.

Here's a photo of Flynn creeping about the gallery.  I was actually taking a picture of that rat tail, and this photo happened to be way better than the picture I took of Flynn later than night after the interview, as it happened to be in front of a different art gallery five blocks away... I know how confusing that would've been for you.

Anyway, I know there’s an astounding number of people who read this, and last week when I promised you an interview, I wasn’t lying.  I got the interview, but then God intervened, and forced technology to fail me.  That said, I sat down for an interview with Myself to figure out what went wrong.

Me:  So, what happened to the recording of the interview?

Myself:  The voice recorder was recording from the built-in microphone instead of the one clipped to Flynn’s shirt, so I couldn’t hear anything.

Me:  Wow, that’s rough... did you test it out before you left?

Myself:  ... No, but it worked fine last week.

Me:  Are you sure it was plugged in all the way?

Myself:  Yeah, I’m not that stupid.

Me:  ... Did you check?

Myself:  I don’t want to do this right now.

Me:  Okay.

From what I could derive, it kind of just sounds like I didn’t even have the mic plugged in all the way, and I’m just in denial about it because it’s such a stupid mistake.  I guess we’ll find out next week.

Speaking of which... NEXT WEEK:  Have you heard of those giant concrete slides on Seward Street?  Me neither.  I’ll go and tell you whether or not they’re fun.

Updates!

A couple brief thoughts for you to chew on:

<> Last week I said there would be interviews.  I lied.  The couple times that I went into The Mission to do them, I got too drunk and didn't feel like fucking around with my voice recorder.  It's okay - I would've just made up quotes if I didn't hear what I wanted anyway.

<> There's a new posting called 'So Lame' that you should read.  Keep in mind that a few of the paragraphs are in invisible ink (fun, right?).  Just high-light the empty black space between where the Gavin McInnes quote should be and the picture of teenagers in a white room, and like magic, it will appear.

<> Next week there will be interviews.  I promise.  Because I love you.

So Lame...

The hipster fashion is an amalgamation of all styles, which isn’t a bad thing.  Rather than conforming to one specific style, it has integrated aspects of multiple cultures and fashions to, in a sense, form its own identity.  In a way, creating something entirely new, and in quite another way, something found to be so dismissible and unequivocally uncool, that it’s almost a joke.  In either case, it creates a lot of hatred towards hipsters, specifically in New York and L.A., where hipsterdom is taken to the next level of absurdity via people with far too much creative energy and vanity and an unlimited allowance from their parents.  That, or they’re regular ass adults who have regular ass jobs by day, then put on their hipster costume and stalk the night like Batman.  Just look at these fucking hipsters...

Apparently hipsters in New York are people just like your dad.  They have an office job, love ‘the sports section’, and it kind of seems like they love the family dog more than you or your mom sometimes.  The main difference is that when they come home from the office, they slip into skinny jeans and Chuck Taylors and go out to dive bars to live out the street trash lifestyle.  Hipsterdom is now considered a fashion statement, as wealthy people spend money on vintage cat shirts and slip-ons in an effort to resemble the effortlessly creative poor kid instead of using said wealth to buy the elite brands (bebe, juicy, Versace, Louis-vitton) as they used to.  It’s no longer cool to be wealthy and show it off.  It’s way cool to be poor though.  Maybe the whole ‘irony’ thing comes into play when you spend $100 on a haircut your 8-year old niece could’ve given you in exchange for a chocolate chip cookie (it’s her favorite). 

Rich kids who aren’t too busy being rich will, in some way, do the whole rebellion thing.  Remember that street punk kid that went to your high school, who everyone was like “I heard he lives in a box and his parents beat the shit out of him everyday”?  That kid got picked up in his Mom’s Jaguar after school and driven back to his mansion, which is really awesome, but kind of ironic given what was initially implied by the punk movement.  He really did get beat by his dad everyday though. 

A differentiation needs to be made between the good-hearted party pal hipster and the vain, egocentric d-bag dressed as one because it makes them feel even cooler than when they were a vain, egocentric d-bag dressed like an asshole.  If you haven’t been recognizing the difference, then shame on you and your heartless ways.  The only book that should be judged by its cover is Goosebumps; they told you almost exactly what you’d be reading about, and some of them were super scary.

What’s with people getting butthurt over the fact that hipsters integrate aspects of all styles?  You tell me what’s wrong with a pirate-chic grunge punk beat cowboy, and I’ll tell you to shut the fuck up.  It’s called cyclicality.  Everyone was way over the whole plaid flannel thing around 1997, but that shit only took about a decade to come roaring back.  That, and paint-splashed acid wash denim.  Really though, how cool is that?  It’s fucking boring to put on the same old shit every day.  Get crazy with it, and next time you go out to your favorite bar, be like “I haven’t worn my snake skin jacket/moon shoes/Def Leppard shirt in forever!”  You’ll be the hottest shit at the club.  I promise.

Young narcissistic douches everywhere are ruining the whole hipster thing for just about everyone and their mom (who read about hipsters in Yahoo! News and thinks that “it sounds silly”).  I don’t think I’ve used the word ‘snarky’ before in my life, maybe it’s just because it sounds funnier when your 4^th grade teacher says it, or because it kind of epitomizes the whole problem with the hipster movement.  That, and it’s probably ruined by the idea that some people actually consider it a movement.

Props to Douglas Haddow for writing the cover story for Issue #79 of Adbusters: “Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization”.  Not because it was a good article (in fact, it’s the cynically-written piece of garbage that almost single-handedly inspired me to create this site), but because he quotes Vice Magazine’s co-founder, Gavin McInnes, calling him “one of hipsterdom’s primary architects”, as saying that:

“I’ve always found that word ["hipster"] is used with such disdain, like it's always used by chubby bloggers who aren't getting laid anymore and are bored, and they're just so mad at these young kids for going out and getting wasted and having fun and being fashionable," he says. "I'm dubious of these hypotheses because they always smell of an agenda."

                

           Doug was busy as fuck meditating on how smug and hipsterly Gavin was about the whole thing, and apparently didn’t realize that the quote was describing people exactly like him.  You could call it the only counter-point he provides in the whole article if it wasn’t so blatantly unintentional… poor baby.  Making fun of people who make fun of other people can still make you an asshole if you ‘take it to that level’.  Seriously, read the article (https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html).  He sounds like an eloquent high school school student with a grudge against the cool kids for not inviting him to their birthday parties (he heard they played ‘Seven Minutes in Heaven’ at Suzy Henderson’s sweet 16… shucks!).

I’ve lived in SF for two years now, and in all my nights of going out to dive bars, and being surrounded by people who, by all means, would be considered hipsters by stereotypical convention, they are delightfully friendly gems of human beings who like to party and have fun.  I’m almost certain that all this hipster hate is being blown over from New York and LA via dust clouds and air molecules.  I’ve only met a handful of hipsters who fit the ‘2 kewl 4 skool’ bill, and (surprise, surprise) they were all hanging out together.  Way to ruin it for everyone, dicks.  Them, and the people who stand on the escalator on the side where people are walking, because they don’t know about the whole ‘escalator etiquette of standing to the side’ thing.  And they don’t know that you’re late for work.  Or they do, and they’re just being a dick.  

Welcome to my daymare...

Hey, fella.  Why the long face?  Did someone steal your fixed-gear bike?  Did you spill PBR on your skinny jeans?  Then you and your roommate mixed up your non-prescription eyeglasses with her real glasses, and now you can’t see so good at that dive bar in the Mission?  Yeah, I’ve been there.

Seriously, I have.  My fixed gear bike got stolen in Oakland (go figure), I ruined my favorite skinny jeans, and I don’t wear glasses, so that last one was made up.  Really though, if you haven’t made the connection, hipsters take a boatload of shit every day for representing a style that’s accused of trying so hard to be cool that it mangles the idea of ‘cool’ itself into some twisted mash-up of pretentiousness and street cred.  The word itself, ‘hipster’, is so wrought by negative connotations that the people who supposedly represent it will deny the title adamantly.

Read the first 20 definitions for ‘hipster’ in the urban dictionary (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hipster) and you’ll get an idea of how most people perceive hipsters (if you’re too drunk on PBR to read it, about 9/10 of the definitions are negative).

Balls to that, I said.  If I have to be the first person to admit it, I will.  I’m a hipster.  What exactly that entails, I’m not sure.  In fact, one of the first articles you’re going to see on here is an exploration of that concept.  Hipster Trash SF is going to serve as my beacon of holy light in a scene so wrought with self-loathing and contradictions that it’s on the verge of collapsing like a Jenga tower at any given moment.  Remember Jenga?

Check back every week for really uncool updates about really cool things that are associated with a scene so enigmatically prevalent it might not even exist: local artists and musicians, dive bars, gallery openings, “special” events, regular ass events, and all shades of alternative amusement and collective intelligence you can wrap your sausage fingers around.

NEXT WEEK: ‘So Lame’ – I’ll be venturing out into the Mission and the Tenderloin, conducting interviews in a vain attempt to discover what it means to be part of the scene, if it exists, and whether or not anyone will admit to being a hipster, or for that matter, punch me in the face and break my voice recorder because they think I’m accusing them of being one… seriously…