The other day I was IMing with a friend and we were discussing one of his recent ridiculous eBay purchases – a hideous cheap watch from Hong Kong with David Beckham‘s face on, well, the face. He got it for a penny. A penny plus ten dollars in shipping, but still, that’s a bargain. Anyway, ever since he sent me a link to a picture of the thing, I’ve wanted it desperately, because of my deep and abiding love for all things hideous and silly. I promised to wear it always. I got the sense I had a shot at it.
Anyway, so the watch showed up last week and my friend was now telling me that he’s going to keep it after all. He’s sweetening the pot with an old Tom Lehrer record, but still, I am deeply disappointed. I had already begun building outfits around my new David Beckham watch! But no, he tells me he’s grown accustomed to asking David the time, and that while it’s pretty bad he likes it. (I have now seen this monstrosity first-hand, and it is every bit as bad as – perhaps even slightly worse than – I had imagined. Already, I’m plotting how to get my mitts on it. He keeps it on Hong Kong time.) And then he says the part that makes me cock my head and furrow my brow: in a totally un-ironic way. Huh?
This launches a conversation about how my friend and his roommate are campaigning to “hasten the death of irony”. Now, I find the hipsters as ridiculous and irritatingly pretentious as anyone, and I’m all for killing them all and letting the baby jesus sort them out, but this is not irony’s fault, people. This is irony’s fault exactly as much as Mickey Rourke is the fault of booze and boxing. Now, boxing is not my thing, but booze certainly is, and I would never hold such a train wreck of a human against the fine whiskey family. Likewise, just because an entire segment of the urban population sees the unbelievably tiresome work of Dave Eggers as the apotheosis of irony and wit doesn’t mean that irony is a bad thing. It’s abuse that’s the problem. And rather like the drug of your choice, when irony is abused, bad things happen to – or at least near – good people.
That said, I really would like to know what the fuck is up with some of these getups I’ve been seeing around town lately. I mean, people. Seriously. I know I’ve been guilty of some interesting (ahem) fashion choices in my time – the pepto-bismol-pink shirt with the angels on and the big hole cut in the front springs to mind – but this is just out of hand. Last weekend, a few of us wound up at Rodan, which is of course chock full o’ hipsters, but the music’s good and they’ve got lots of tasty liquor, so we like it anyway. There we were, at the bar, me in mid-paragraph about the impact of Journey on modern Unitarianism or some random thing, when this dude walks by. I was so floored that I actually stopped not only in mid-sentence but in mid-word and openly gawped at him as he passed. Even Sam did a double take. Let me describe this individual as best I can:
– bad haircut. I mean seriously bad haircut. Not the run-of the-mill bid to look like whatshisname from That 70s Show or a member of the Strokes or whatever, but just plain awful. (While I’m on this topic, can someone please explain to me how it is possible to have an “ironic” haircut? Do you have to, like, pin a sign to your shirt? Is there an irony headband or something? I don’t get it.)
– gigantic square tinted coke-bottle-bottom eyeglasses. Again, as someone with a long and well-documented fondness for what I like to call ‘pimpdaddy’ sunglasses, I can go halfway with this dude. But these? Well beyond. And really, coke-bottle-bottom. Eye distortion, the whole 9 yards.
– hideous sweater. Can’t even describe it. Cosby sweater meets 70s rec room sofa sort of a thing.
– too-short corduroy trousers. Tan, of course. He probably had a white belt on, too, under that god-awful sweater thing.
I either didn’t see the shoes or have blocked them out. I’m sure they were beat-to-hell trainers or white patent disco loafers or something. The long and short of it is, this was one of the worst dressed humans I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been to suburban shopping malls in the 80s. And he walked out the door looking like that. Presumably after looking in a mirror, even, which means it was on purpose. I was standing there trying to figure it out when it occurred to me: he might in fact be retarded.
Mimi and I were discussing this last night over gallons of champagne *. People, I ask you: what is the world coming to when you can’t even tell anymore who’s hip and who’s just plain retarded? Does the short bus stop at Rainbo?
twelve-step program, and stop being so damn critical.
dear fascinating,
thank you for taking time out of your busy day to visit my blog. i also appreciate your concerned and clearly well-informed suggestion that i seek professional help. now, i would like to take this opportunity to ask you, until you are man or woman enough to provide me with some means of contacting you so that i might respond to your sniping, to kindly fuck off somewhere else if you don’t like what i’ve got to say.
have a great weekend!
louisa
If that dude was in Seattle, he’d probably be getting laid.
It’s criminal how *retarded* they try to look.
Oh, I’m sorry, I meant *indie*.
Do you know how hard it is to find a standard issue white hipster belt in preggo sizes? It’s torture I tell ya!
How will people know I’m hip without the damn white belt?
For the record, the shoes were your typical duck shoes — you remember the ones that Jon Cryer wore in Pretty in Pink — but in a loverly mustard color that was exactly NOT the shade of his sweater. What I found even more remarkable than his attire was the fact that he had the audacity to be smiling WHILE wearing the get-up. He should have been curled up in the corner in a fetal position, crying softly to himself and gently rocking. The only thing missing from the costume, I suppose, would be a Puma bag. Better yet, a colostomy bag. I hear those are all the rage.
Weeza
I have a confession to make – I too own a white belt and….god help me…….. some white puma’s too! Can our friendship take this battering? Will you ever think of me in the same way again?
Tinki x
PS i think i look quite cute in them!!!