The Dawning of the Age of...Blogging?

Per the constant opining of several good friends, I've finally been convinced to get off of my rocker and start writing again, which frankly is easier said than done. Great lapses in time have passed since my last entry, and with it, significant developments in both the world and my life. To be honest, consideration of the amalgamation of those developments can be quite overwhelming at times. Just making a call as to what to center a post around, for example, is much more difficult now that months have transpired since my last entry.

Even pulling the cheapest of shots at my hipster friends now seems to be increasingly difficult. Some assert that it is because I, myself, have actually become one of these feared and despised creatures. Not so, I say. To assert a clear distinction between my lifestyle and that of a brightestyoungthings fiend, however, is not completely sound; calling into question what it actually means to be "hip".

With this next string of posts, I'll try my best to answer this question, perhaps raising a few more along the way. For all of the true hipsters reading this, though, don't rest too easy on this fact. I am by no means equating my existence to that of one of your kind. Much to the contrary, I think that further examination of the hipster lifestyle will yield even more contradictions and hilarity. So check back soon, folks. The posts have only begun, and my career as a blogger is still ripe in its youth. I'm looking forward to this, and I hope you all are too...especially you, Alex.

I Was Going to Actually Write Something This Time but Then I Found This

It's Spring Break and You Know What That Means

"It's a celebration, bitches!"

Drug Free Way to Be

And You Thought I Only Listened to Jam Bands

Artists/Groups that I bet you didn't know I'm well-versed in:
1.) Ani DiFranco...was actually my first concert
2.) Indigo Girls...whom my older sister loved around the same time she was making me listen to Ani DiFranco

...I didn't, and still don't, especially care for the granola funk express of solo female acts that brought about the days of the Lilith Fair, but come on you can't say these chicks don't know what they're doing.

I found this example to be of particular interest.
Exhibit A:

Imogen Heap - Just For Now (live at Studio 11 103.1FM)
Uploaded by OochiWally

Person Of the Week

Dina Angress. Couch Surfer Extraordinaire.

As If Things In The Music World Couldn't Get Any Better...

No, the Jonas Brothers' tour bus didn't crash.

But Rothbury 2009 is on! Last year's most-talked-about jam fest is back this summer, after much speculation that the country's current financial woes might prevent its return. No worries, though. Whether you're talking about 3-straight hours of late-night STS9 to keep you grooving 'till dawn or hours of fratastic Widespread Panic, this stuff is simply too HEADY to stop.

He Should've Used The Towel Technique

Yeah, dude, I know that Michael Phelps is making "shit-tons" of money from his corporate sponsorships and advertisement gigs. I am aware of the fact that these ties ensure him a prosperous financial future...

...I'm also sure that, by this point, he has enough money to fill his Olympic-size practice pool with hundred-dollar bills, and still have some leftover to pop bottles at the cluuub.

So when ole' Mikey got busted rippin' da' ROOR in a buddy's dorm room last week, I sincerely hoped that he might use his prominence as a platform to dispel, or at least negate, our society's overwhelmingly ignorant perspective on drug policy and, more specifically, THE REEFER.

But, alas, Phelps seems to be just as much a slave to his sponsors as he is to the weight room, and instead of standing up for himself and the millions of other marijuana enthusiasts worldwide, he stuck his tail between his legs and waved the white flag like it was his job. Come on, man. You're a world-class athlete who smokes dank nugs on the daily. THAT PROVES A POINT!

Reason's Radley Balko hit the nail on the head last week with this online article. In it, he outlines exaclty how Phelps could've made the best out of his situation by simply standing up for himself. Instead, Phelps' approach to the whole situation reflected a total lack of thought and backbone on his part, and left me with a very sour taste in my mouth. Seriously dude, you may be a star athlete, but you're still straight beasters in my book.

On Second Thought...

THIS is the funniest thing that you will see all week, guaranteed.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Probably the Funniest Thing You'll See All Week.

While it may look like these people are receiving some sort of blessing, they're actually just tweaking out post-Cartoon Network Pokemon marathon.

Note: You may need to use Safari or Internet Explorer for this link to work. I had some trouble with it using Firefox.

EPIC!

Epic Ending.

I, Too, Occassionally Struggle To Fight Back My Inner-Hipster...

...but I don't "raise the roof" to get my fans pumped about spaceship synth. I'm seeing these guys at THE 9:30 CLUB with Matt and Kim pretty soon, and I really don't know whether or not I should be pumped or scared. Truth be told, I'm a fan of both bands, and I'm really looking forward to the experience, if nothing else.





Also, please take note of the kids in the audience. Please take note of the TV set. Take note of the bad dancing and over-the-top makeup. Take note of all of this. It really made me feel like I was at Depeche Mode concert or something of the like. To be completely honest, it kind of looks like a bad episode of Kids Incorporated.

Tis' The Season To Be Indie!

"Dude, did you see that they announced the lineup for Noise Pop 2009?!"..."No, I know dude. I can't wait to see Goblin Cock either!"

When I saw, today, that the organizers of San Francisco's very own Noise Pop Festival had announced the full lineup for this years installment of super-hip left coast fun, well, I'm going to be honest. I LOL'd a little bit. Ok, there I said it. I was so astounded by the lineup, in fact, that I had to think to myself for a minute, "Did you guys seriously do all of THIS for me?! I mean, really, you shouldn't have. All of this absurdity makes my life, as a blogger, waaay too easy."

Oh, and Goblin Cock is a real band, I swear. Check them out if you want. But I'm telling you, they suck.

American Apparel Ads are Going to Destroy the Universe

A friend of mine recently compared my blog to another that some of you may have heard of. Apparently, some dude runs a blog called "Hipsterrunoff" that seems to be garnering the praise of self-deprecating hipsters nationwide. According to sources close to Hipster Headquarters, this dude's blog is even more precise and well-timed than my own when it comes to identifying and scrutinizing hipster cliches ad contradictions as soon as they pop up. I recently visited this alleged KING of blogs, and thus find these assertions to be very amusing for a number of reasons.

3. Unconvenitonal Grammar
The geniuses at hipsterrunoff are so witty, apparently, that they don't have the same uses for grammar as the rest of us. That's right, world, it's up to us to decode the highly contextual messages behind such insightful posts as, my personal favorite, "Reflections on Suburbia
[Via Being Trapped]". *Note*: That title is not a joke. Please visit the above link to read an incredibly poignant and original poem detailing the horrors of life as a white kid in the suburbs...because no one else in this country has thought/blogged/written/whined/made-a-name-for-themselves by waxing poetic about life as a white boy in a gated community. Oh, hey Ben Folds.

2. References to "LOL Cats"
If you don't know what a "LOL Cat" is, read at your own discretion. If you do know what a LOL Cat is, and actually derive amusement or pleasure from their proliferation, then please exit your broswer immediately and hit yourself with a bric.. LOL Cats are the dumbest thing to hit the internet since MYSPACE. This blog that my friend Alex, who I'm now losing a lot of confidence in, referred me to makes a concerted effort to perpetuate the asinine sense of humor that LOL Cats and similar material endorse. For this reason I hope the makers of this site perish.

1. American Apparel Ads
Don't try and tell me that your blog is just a clever parody of hipster blogs and related culture when your entire website is plastered with American Apparel advertisements. Even worse, don't even think of convincing me that your blog is witty, original, or "nonconformist" when those American Apparel ads feature a moderately hairy fellow in a girl's t-shirt and what look like panties. That is gross. Plain and simple.

So remember, kids, just because someone writes in an atypical syntax structure, or with a few extra vowels or "z's" at the ends of their sentences, doesn't mean that they know what they're talking about. More likely than not, they're just another suburbanite in uber-tight jeans and a Jens Lekman t-shirt trying way too hard to set themselves apart from today's cultural norms.

Yeah, that's right. I made fun of Jens Lekman. SUCK IT.

It's a Great Day to Be Alive...

...because I'm seeing the Grateful Dead in April, and PHISH (yeah, I said Phish) in June. So put that in your pipe and smoke it...or pass it to the wookie standing next to you, because 2009 is going to kick some serious ace. Also, I heard about this dude named Barak or Barack or something? I don't know much about him, but my buddy Alex told me that he smokes cig's so he must be the man. No matter how ya look at it (unless youre this guy), we're in for a hell of a year.

Happy New year

STS9; Atlanta, GA; The Tabernacle; 12/31/08

No, those aren't doses falling from the ceiling of Atlanta's famed Tabernacle (see parking lot). That's not to say that things didn't get wild in this abandoned church-turned concert hall, though. Much to the contrary, the Tribe literally shook the foundation of The Tabernacle, and certainly led me, and the rest of the crowd, through a 4-day (yeah, that's right amigos) journey of epic proportions. Now that my brain is back at full speed and my wits are about me, I can't help but wish for anyone reading this an STS9 experience as amazing as my own. Seriously guys, GO SEE THEM.

But the Tribe weren't the only cool cats laying down the beats and ringing in the New Year. They had a plethora of other ill-nana acts to keep them, and the rest of us, grooving before, during, and even after the shows. Amongst them, DJ Rootz and Kap10 Harris kept the party alive in between every Tribe set all 4 nights in a row, and made a fan out of me immediately. Even crazier than those guys, Diplo laid down the dirtiest hip-hop/electro beats that I've ever witnessed...and I can't believe I'm saying this, but he even made Lil' Wayne sound good. Closing out the long list of openers was Tennessee's own Pnuma Trio, who kept things bumping on New Year's Eve even before STS9 took the stage. These guys are dirty. Check them out. NOW.

Other Accompanying Acts To Check Out:

-Pretty Lights
-Bonobo
-Daedelus
-Telepath