So. You’ve been invited to go to a shabby dive bar on a Wednesday night in the middle of Hipstertown, U.S.A., and you want to be able to hold your own in the inevitable debate about which indie-band-you’ve-never-heard-of reigns supreme. This is clearly going to be a challenge, oh ye of the Ke$ha-worshiping clan. For your entire life up to this point, you’ve listened only to the Top 40 radio station and the occasional Twilight soundtrack when you want to feel musically diverse. Your definition of music involves auto-tuners, the production talents of Timbaland, and Glee. It’s not music unless a group of beautiful gay boys are able to put on a spectacular dance number to it and/or it is parodied ad nauseam on You Tube by grandmas, fat men, and Asian kids.
Well, my friend, you’re in luck: All you have to do is follow these ten simple steps and you too can appear like a cool music snob. Amaze all your friends! Be the life of the kickback! Impress the attractive emo girl/boy you like! Anyone can do it!
Note: Hipster clothes (e.g. tight jeans, quirky $300 sunglasses, plaid shirts from the Salvation Army) not included.
1. Throw away any and all albums you may have purchased by the following artists: Katy Perry. Bruno Mars. Taylor Swift. Justin Bieber. Anyone who spells their name using punctuation marks, other symbols, or the letter Z instead of S. This will save you hours of making up stories about how you came to own such embarrassing excuses for music.
2. Never, ever buy anything again from the iTunes Top 100 Downloaded Singles List. Those songs are purchased by other schmucks like you who trust large corporations like Apple and Clear Channel to tell them what to listen to. In fact, if the band is any good, their work won’t even be offered on iTunes. Which leads us to our next point…
3. You have no idea how to find obscure indie bands to listen to because, naturally, they’re obscure. So here’s what you do: Make up a name for a band. The name has to be as weird and ludicrous as your feeble, uncreative brain can conjure up. Example: “Mc Skeletor”. Now type the band name into the iTunes search bar. If it gives you nothing, congratulations! You’re one step closer to finding a real band! Now try Google-ing the band name. Bingo. They only have a MySpace page? Perfect.
4. Make lots and lots of “mix tapes,” which are really just CD-Rs that have been burned with a bunch of random songs by your new favorite bands. Since you can’t buy their music online, you’ll have to get it illegally. Note that it is not real music unless you’re forced to steal it. Now, acquiring these music files requires some semi-intermediate computer knowledge, so to save myself the trouble of having to explain it, we’ll keep it simple. For this step, all you have to do is get the nearest nerd to download the songs for you. In fact, why don’t you just have him burn them directly to a disk for you? You don’t even have to bribe him, because he’ll do whatever it takes to help you. See, at this point you’re so obviously mysterious and emotionally layered that simply getting to talk to you will be payment enough.
5. Play the mix tapes everywhere you go, especially when in the company of fellow music snobs. Blast the CDs from your home and car stereos. iPods are also acceptable here, but make sure the volume is loud enough that everyone will be able to hear what you’re listening to (and not recognize it, of course). Take every available opportunity to mention the name of the artist or song title out loud. Gain bonus points by throwing in random music terms you don’t really understand (“Wow, Sinister Six is UNBELIEVABLE. I swear, that guitar riff… And the bass line! Brilliant!”). Shake your head a lot, like you can’t believe how amazing your musical taste is. Yes, you can talk to yourself! It’s okay. You’re cool.
6. Go to obscure underground concerts. Again, it’s difficult to attend a concert if you don’t even know that it’s happening. However, this can be accomplished through a couple of different means. Your first option is to tag along with your new cool music snob friends. However, using this approach will quickly shine a light on the fact that you are still not as cool as them, which will probably make them realize that you are a POSER (Gasp! Shock! Horror!). You can probably get away with being a tag-along for a week or two, but then you have to find your own path. Do this by going to the dirtiest, sketchiest part of town (aim for the streets with the most human fecal matter/body parts on the sidewalks). Listen carefully. Do you hear banging? Loud rhythmic noises? Wailing? That’s called music (or murder… use your best judgment here). Follow the source of the sound. Enter an unmarked metal door. Find yourself in the center of “The Scene.” Revel in your awesomeness.
7. Advertise the fact that you went to the aforementioned obscure underground concert. Somewhere in the warehouse where the band is playing there should be a large table with various paraphernalia for sale manned by a small pimply kid. T-shirts with the band’s name on them are best; just be sure to buy one that’s at least 3 sizes too big for you. When you get home, use your best scissor/glue gun/Bedazzle skills to make the shirt an almost unrecognizable shadow of its former self. Just be sure the band name is still prominent. Wear this shirt wherever you go and don’t ever, ever wash it. If someone asks you about the band, shrug, smile smugly, and explain that you used to like them, but that was so last week…
8. This is perhaps the most important step of all: Criticize every band that you’ve actually heard of. Even if they used to be embraced by the hipster crowd, you’ve heard of them, which means they SOLD OUT (see: Weezer, Fall Out Boy, Paramore, etc.). Selling out is like giving over your soul to the devil or becoming a hooker and only asking for a smile in exchange. It is the worst possible thing a band can do. Expand on this! Be sure you brush up on your insult skills beforehand. You should refuse to listen to any music besides your own, because everything else is crap. Especially all the music you used to love.
9. Repeat all steps until it becomes habit and you find that you have actually transcended from mere pop-loving mortal into an Indie Music GOD.
10. Hold your head high, proudly don your American Apparel fedora, and confidently venture forth into the world of the cool music snobs who only listen to obscure indie bands… because congratulations – you are now one of them! Just never tell anyone your deep, dark secret about what a loser you used to be.
Next week’s lesson: How To Appear Like You Understand Artistic Foreign Cinema Without Really Trying.
-- Amy Kristen
Dear Hobo/Homeless Man/Bum/Tramp/Vagrant/Whatever you preferred to be called (I don’t want to offend you, really),
I feel like we haven’t been communicating effectively, so I’m writing this letter out of the hope that we can work out our differences. Every time I’ve tried to tell you how I feel, you’ve merely grunted or bared your teeth at me. Mostly, you’ve chosen to ignore me. I’m not sure if maybe there’s a language barrier problem (It’s hard to tell what ethnicity you are, to be honest, because your skin is covered in a thick layer of dirt and excrement… the bathroom is just through that door, you know), but for whatever reason you keep giving me the stink eye instead of listening to me.
I know we haven’t gotten off to a great start. It was really hard for me, at first, when I woke up in the middle of the night to you clawing at my window and ratting my doorknob. I live in a studio apartment on the first floor in the middle of a fifthly, overpopulated city, so I’m used to normal distractions such as gunshots, thumping bass lines, and wailing cats, but I’d never been awaken by an intruder before. I was frightened, and groggy, and I couldn’t hear very well because of my earplugs (necessary to drown out the sex noises of my next-door neighbors). I also really couldn’t see, because, you know, it was the middle of the night, and I couldn’t find my glasses. Without my glasses, I am almost legally blind. So, you see, it really wasn’t my fault that when you shattered the glass of my window and climbed inside my first reaction was to scream and start flailing around at you with the handle of my Swiffer Sweeper. I didn’t mean to hit you in the head and knock you out. Again, I was disoriented and scared and it was the first time someone had tried to break in. I hope you'll forgive me.
I probably should have called the police right away, but I really wasn’t sure if you were dead or not. Plus I had taken a rather large sleeping pill that evening and wasn’t thinking clearly. I may or may not have had a couple glasses of wine on top of that, as well. Yes, the warning labels say to avoid mixing the pills with alcohol, but I’m single. Lonely. Nights are hard. It’s a cold, cruel world: a fact I’m sure you know all too well.
When you suddenly started crawling towards my bed, I got even more frightened and picked up the nearby can of Febreze to try to divert you away from it. I guess I thought it was a can of bug spray, which would have made your eyes sting like a poor-man’s mace, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t since my apartment smelled a lot like Spicy Autumn Harvest when I woke up. I guess my plan sort of worked, since you decided to go underneath my bed instead of on top of it. That was okay with me. My bed’s just a twin, so we both wouldn’t have fit in it. Plus I flail around a lot when I sleep. After that, I couldn’t bring myself to kick you out of my apartment. It was a cold night, and, like I said, I was lonely. It was nice to have a bunk-bed mate of sorts. Also, you’d stopped breathing again, and I still wasn’t in the right state to try to dispose of a dead body.
When I heard you mumbling to yourself in the morning, I figured you’d come to your senses and would finally leave. After all, the window was still wide open. But no. You stayed. You were still under the bed when I came home from work, and you’ve stayed there for the past two weeks.
Yes, I’ve enjoyed having you as a house guest, but I think it’s finally time that you moved on. There’s a Carl’s Jr. down the street that seems to be a popular hangout place for many people who share your lifestyle. Perhaps you could join them? If you’d be willing to split the rent with me, we can talk about our options, but I think it’s pretty clear you don’t have any money besides what you keep stealing from me.
I need my space. I think I’ve realized through all this that I actually prefer to be alone. Also, you’re making my place reek. Really, the bathroom is not off-limits. Febreze can only do so much.
Anyway, I’m going to leave this letter here on the floor next to this plate of toast (okay, yes, it’s moldy, but you’re not picky, right?) in the hopes that it will lure you out from under my bed. Please try to consider my point of view. It would mean a lot to me.
Also, even if you decide to stay, I would like my stuffed monkey back. It was given to me by my now-deceased grandmother, and it tortures me to listen to you masturbate with it.
Yours truly,
Amy Kristen
Sometimes you are just gazing at the back of a woman
sitting a few chairs in front of you, wearing a strapless
dress and the muscles of her black skin form mountains
her hair sometimes gets lost in the wind
her mind gets lost in foreign lands, her heart is scattered
in beautiful streets across the globe and she won't rest
until she recovers every sliver and painstakingly pieces
her soul back together and it is no surprise
why she doesn't believe in love, she hates leaving
tasks half completed, so contemplating her back
is the same as looking into never;
so there is no reason to dream of happily ever afters.
even if her smile makes you want to become a better man,
even if her tears are prayers that wishes swim in -
her every movement makes you want to dance,
recreate the ancient response to a pounding heart;
you know she will only leave you as broken
as cars on the edge of the sea,
unlike she, you are not a mountain;
and have far less heart to spare, nor
are you a conquistador, climbing is not in your blood,
so even though your body threatens to collapse
from all the hope, and bashfulness, and desire
that is beating against the walls of your skin
breath quickening, eyes closed, trying not to fall
in love with the back of a girl, two chairs in front of you,
who is the only person you've ever met
who made you feel safe.
Sometimes imagination makes the space around a thing
more important than the thing itself.
It is a way of defining life more by what isn’t there
than by what is.
For instance, on a Sunday afternoon,
still clad in church clothes,
going around a curve a little too fast -
either still caught up with the holy spirit,
or just happy to be free. Car careening
slightly out of control, out of the corner of your eye -
you see an old fashioned mail box
and think it is a predator, a small cougar,
or oversized bobcat, ready to venture out
into the middle of the road, ready to confront
your car in one last showdown between man and nature.
Or for instance take a boy who has lost his mother.
How his life is shaped by her absence
how he has dreams that he can’t understand:
his ex-girl friend pregnant, sitting in the doctor’s
office, trying to get an abortion,
his dead mother holding her hand.
And what else can you do, if nightmares
try to devour your soul, but transform the feelings
that haunt you, into something beautiful:
a poem, a film, a piece of art.
What are these constructs but ways
to make demons pause;
small attempts to escape from an ever shrinking cage.
Or maybe imagination is a female, who feels
torn down and worthless, and finds
a smart black boy, who prays with her
instead of fucking her, and holds her hand
as she cries until she is salty as a sunflower
seed, and glistens like a diamond.
And he looks at her and realizes that she deserves
for him to grow up and become a man
just to earn the right to love her unconditionally.
Or maybe imagination is a man who has been praying
all his life, watched his reality sink into darkness;
lost his faith in God, chatted with demons and angels,
about whose side of the fence had better grass;
who cheated on the only girl who ever loved him,
who lost his best friend, who tried to kill
himself, at least three or four times,
who walked into the woods in the freezing cold,
just hoping to disappear,
who was found wandering
around a subdivision at 4:00 am just praying for miracles,
who survived those times and all the others,
and now lives a life of passion, faith, and love.
Imagination is not settling for what life gives you.
Of realizing that the wind blowing through the trees
the sunlight that feels a little hotter coming through the glass of your car,
the pounding headaches that are preludes to creativity,
the people who you touch and the people who touch you,
the light switches and the car keys,
the small desperate moments when you are talking
to someone that needs you
For motivation, for direction, for piece of mind,
your heart still split asunder,
over a murdered brother, found suspects, and revisted ghosts
And you try to tell him that you have nothing left to give
but how can you leave lonely a soul
who might be transformed by your presence?
So even though you are weeks past
Having tears left to shed
you look up and see a man who has made girls cry all of his life
who thought, that like a cigarette, it was a habit
that could be sworn off, left forgotten like an empty beer bottle
yet girls are still breaking down all around him
; now, because he listens to them instead of hurting them
and he is emotionally drained
trying to reconcile who he was and who he is
And that there is no difference between laughter and tears.
And even though he is a man, he recognizes
that she is a mirror of himself, that she helps juveniles
when she has nothing left to give and so he helps her
when he has nothing left to give, and imagination
takes nothing and nothing and transforms it
to the most honest and beautiful and real something
that didn’t exist until you realized
that everywhere and in everyone there is God all around you.
There are few people in life who have the magical, alchemical effect of inspiring us not just to delve down and meet our own potential but to also expand the very possibilities and limits of what we can achieve.
These sirens, these alchemists, these catalysts of love force us to shrug off our mental laziness and look at ourselves with new eyes.
Their very beings change us forever, as their words reverberate through our lives like the echoes of a lullaby.
Even though some of us are lucky to meet more than one person like this - there is never a substitute for our first muse.
What a cosmic jolt of energy, what a pure act of love, what grace it is for another person to cause you to think.
Because even though the gifts of the muse originates in the heart, her ultimately good works are completed in the mind.
It is our mental faculties, once stimulated, that leads to great giant which we call imagination to be unleashed.
And so, Mariana Templin, it is no coincidence that I will always love you.
Because you inspired in me, at the tender age of 15, all the virtues of love, perseverance, faith, creativity, thought, and passion that I would ever need.
You taught me how to write - how to make sentences into hugs, how to make a word be just as perfect as a touch.
And even though you said you were a cynic, that you could never love me - you did.
You were and always will be my first love.
So it shouldn't have been a surprise that you were the one to save my life when I was 16.
That I would forget you for other girls at 17. That I would love you once again at 18. That you would haunt me at 19.
And so it shouldn't have been a surprise, that you would leave me, to figure out my own way in this world, just as suddenly as you entered it.
Yet, I still wonder, even after all of these years, whether your steel ever turned to porcelain?
Whether you ever found out if stardust tastes like honey?
Mar, what did you look like when you finally emerged from your cocoon?
I suppose you would be disappointed to find out that I never mastered saying goodbye, but happy to see that I also never stopped dreaming.
And even now, the memory of you, the letters you wrote to me back when the world still had its innocence, and the very air was heavy and dripping with possibilities, those words still urge me forward. Still has the ability to inspire me to new heights.
How, even now, I am still searching for that place, where you can be you and I can be me.
Unlike my previous adventure, this is more of a collaborative effort than a column. Share with us your bad fiction. Good stories, shitty stories, journal entries you're almost too embarassed to call your own. We'll keep it between us, a secret among friends. If anyone laughs, fuck em! We won't laugh.
Circles and SquaresIn certain circles you can bend the rules of courtesy, good stewardship, even hygiene. Never fidelity. There’s only one way to skin a puss, and it doesn’t involve strange shears. Squares hate this sort of thing, this nonsense telling you where to focus your eyes and how to gird (maybe guard?) your loins against the outdoors. The outdoors is wild. (Squares hate the wild, you see.) The wild is dangerous. Danger is an aphrodisiac. Before you know it you’ll have her facedown into the pillows, drilling away at warm, wet shame. Good shame is always wet. Cicero knew this: it’s why he always washed his shirts before coming home. He knew his wife would smell the perfume, the delicate aroma of a good, long lunch. Thank God it doesn’t smell like pastrami. That would kill the whole damn event.
"AH, FUCK!"
"It’s natural."
"LIKE SHIT!"
Then you’d walk out and cream yourself out of pure frustrated agony. This all happened, to Cicero, of course (he never lived it down). Can’t skin a puss that feral.
Bad People in LoveThey stood there, in the middle of the fucking street, doing that thing where your foreheads almost touch, your arms almost wrap the life out of the opposing body, and your lips almost meet. I had never seen them together before. It seemed so natural, yet wrong. It was wrong because I knew these people, I knew their histories and tendencies. But that didn't matter anymore. Even the Devil looks human when he's in love.Disappointing, isn't it?I walked over to my car, taking strides bigger than Jesus'. There was something pink on my window. I'd gotten a parking ticket.Stretching My FidelityMy fingers closed around the tanned, slender hand. It was connected to a similarly waif-like arm, which in turn attached to a glorious torso with amazing breasts. She was Arab. The bad kind, according to CNN. The shake was a pleasant formality; somewhere in the back of my head, I couldn't wait to fuck her.
Sent. 11:28:06 PM: If you could be goddess over anything what would it be?
Received. 11:38:30 PM: Maybe goddess of love, or the hunt lol what makes u ask? U god of what?
Sent. 11:40:56 PM: What is so seductive about the hunt?
Received. 11:44:08 PM: Well particularly when its a woman. I love the idea of a beautiful woman conquering masculine power. Men love to be dominated in the presence of a powerful woman.
Sent. 11:47:06 PM: And you think you are this dominating woman?
Received. 11:57:48 PM: Lol well you asked a hypothetical. But I think I sometimes embody that persona - it is a difficult side of me. Do you always try to get to know new people with intense hypotheticals?
Sent. 12:12:02 AM: Sry. At a bday party. Lol no I don't but it was my question of the week and you gave a feisty answer. I would be the god of small things.
Received. 12:26:26 AM: Hmn I like that, tell me more.
Sent. 12:32:17 AM: I would be the god of paper bags that get caught in the wind, of the dream life of dragon flies, of subatomic crushes and particles, of leaves falling at midnight, of first meetings.
Sent. 12:42:58 AM: Of pebbles that are worth nothing but are pretty to look at, of chalk boards and stick figures.
Received. 12:50:51 AM: Hmn I like ur imagination
Received. 12:51:16 AM: My battery is low btw
Sent. 12:52:14 AM: Well then. Let's call it a good first impression :) agree?
Received. 2:02:35 AM: Lol I do believe I agree
It is always dangerous to talk about love while staring into a girl's eyes.
The big brown vessels that are mirrors, that are tunnels, that are gavels rendering judgment.
You were a feminist who hated questions.
A traveler who loved the bed.
Maybe you are a fierce lover.
Maybe you bite and cry.
I hope you unravel like a ball of yarn.
I hope you slink that sexily.
I bet you have been broken. Hurt.
You want someone to love. I just want something real.
I want to fall in love with an angel and teach her about God.
I want to have my heart cry.
I want that joy and that uncertainty.
I want something even jazz can't bury.
I need more than cool Dallas nights.
I need more than her beauty. Her soft brown features.
I need more than what she can give me.
I need pain. I need that brokenness. That fragility.
That triumphant strength, that ecclesiastic exhale.
I need that faith, that judgment, that fire,
that loneliness, that mystery -
I need so much more than just a good fuck.
Brandy alexander nights when cinnamon slips past the lips
delicious milky kiss, liquid dreams, jazz bar scene
sippin summertime, texas was easy
living in a jeweled city,
bass guitar color of a peach martini
harmonica cues ragtime rules
scattered applause whenever words go off
holdin the mic cocky like music ain't enough
like you wouldn't trade a trumpet solo for a sculpted ass
like a hundred g's ain't better than jazz
like you don't wish you could be the immaculately dressed
too hot to retire lounge singer
who still has pipes enough to make young women cry
whose grandkids would rather listen to lil wayne
who is tucked away in the corner of a forgotten bar
singin' Stand By Me, holding a cigarette,
glistening as the band jams fun glam
what you wouldn't give to be that real
on nights as quiet as a timpani roll
I go to bars to find God
to find myself a stranger
black man singin Etta James, I like to feel
that blue struggle, the grimy love, interlocking melodies
the tug of war of the soul
the caress of a woman on my back
the unknown comfort of the stranger
those moments when you can sip your favorite drink
and find yourself lost in a breeze of piano chords
the bustle and laughter all around you
when you can be by yourself and still be happy
when you can find out what love really is
those sometimes when you close your eyes
and there are flowers all around you.
This girl once told me that sharks are like God.
She fears sharks but also reveres sharks - and hopes to feel that way about God.
She said that she wanted to be a shark - dangerous, powerful, and beautiful.
She said she wasn't sure about love. That she hates dating. That it is always a roller coaster, and there is never a connection.
She smoked a cigarette and had beautiful eyes.
She said that all she wants to do is get married. That she immediately judges a guy on whether there could be a long term connection.
She said that when she has a connection with a guy she will do anything for him.
But there are no guys like that in this country.
She said she had her flaws.
And I looked at her, stunned by her fragility - how lost she was, how vulnerable, how honest, and we were touching now. In that moment, she saw herself through my eyes and realized that she was no longer just shooting the bull. That somehow she had become deeply honest and vulnerable - and that she had gone too far, said too much.
She got up, went to the restroom, and got another beer.
She lit another cigarette and sat down next to me.
"Any revelations?" I asked.
"No" she said, "tonight I just want to keep things simple."
