Deep in the Heart of Hipsterdom

Last night, a friend of a friend of mine's* band was playing down in Oakland, so three of us went out to see them.  There's this thing called the "Art Murmur" in Oakland, the first Friday of every month.  You know those bumper stickers that say "Virginia is for Lovers" or whatever?  There's got to be one somewhere that says "Oakland is for Hipsters".  Holy cow, the number of flannel shirts, trucker hats, tattoos, and bad haircuts in Oakland is astounding.  Often when I'm out and about, the thought occurs to me that these people are just trying really hard to look like they're from Oakland.  It's this dirty-kitschy-so-ugly-it's-a-little-cute-but-mostly-still-ugly look that just screams Bay Area.  I think whenever we move somewhere else, I'm going to be pleasantly surprised but a little sad at how normal, non-Bay Area people look.  It's kind of like when I got to Paris and the way people dressed and got their hair cut was really foreign at first, and then after a while, you start to get it, and it becomes so normal that you don't notice it any more, until you leave.  (Not that Oakland people dress like Parisians!  Although the weird half mullet haircut is somewhat similar.)

*I love that this sentence is perfectly grammatical in English.

Thank you, SFWeekly and Joe Mande for this visual.

So, the Art Murmur.  It's this thing that takes place over a few city blocks, maybe half a mile north of Downtown, where there are some art galleries that open their doors, and people out on the streets with various artsy things, and bands playing in bars and on the street.  Last night there was a troupe of (traveling?) musicians who called themselves The Homeless People (which may or may not be accurate, it was hard to tell), who were singing in the street.  They were pretty good!  There was an upright bass, an accordion, a violin, a washboard, and a saw.  I always wanted to learn to play the saw.  And the upright bass.  And maybe the accordion.  As I was saying this out loud, I thought, hmmm, I am a little hipstery at heart.  But nothing like these people.  If my nose piercing were a ring going through the middle part of my nose instead of a stud in my nostril, and I had at least four tattoos, and a random inexplicable third of my hair were shaved off and spiky, then it might be time for me to start looking for a place in Oakland.

The band we were actually going to see was really good, I think, but it was hard to tell because the acoustics in the bar were absolutely awful.  The bar itself was this really long, narrow room, with concrete walls and a staircase mostly cutting off the back half of the room from the front.  Well, they had the band playing behind the staircase, in the back half of the room, facing the concrete wall.  It was somehow all reverberate-y and muffled and mushy sounding at the same time, and it hurt my head, but I wanted to like them because they were clearly good musicians and were having a good time.

So once they stopped playing, we left and wandered up Telegraph Avenue to this bar called Kim's Back Yard.  It seemed to be run by a Korean woman and her mother.  I had never been served beer by an elderly Korean woman at a bar in Oakland before.  It was interesting, but so kitschy.  The walls were 100% wood paneling, and there were mirrors and Christmas decorations everywhere.  There was indeed a back yard, too, where we hung out for a while.  I mostly felt like I was at someone's house and it was 1972.

Once Kim's Back Yard lost its charm, we headed to yet a third bar in the same row, and this one was a real trip.  The walls were all blood red, and there seemed to be some sort of Halloween theme going on, because there were some little plastic skeletons and spiders around.  So this place, the Stork Club, apparently has a burlesque show every Friday night.  Let me tell you.  Slightly goth hipsters doing burlesque?  Definitely worth a look sometime.  The first two acts we saw were women just sort of writhing around on stage, and then eventually they started smearing fake blood on themselves, so I was really hoping there was a Halloween theme going that night, but then none of the other acts were like that, so I think we just happened to get there during the hipster vampire set.  The last girl up there was actually pretty good, but most of them made me feel very slightly vicariously embarrassed.  Well, I take that back.  They were having a great time, and it was fun to watch them having such a great time, so I think I was just surprised to be reminded that there are people in the world who would voluntarily get up on stage in weird lingerie and dance around (badly) for a room full of strangers.  Obviously not my cup of tea, but more power to 'em.

Speaking of dancing for a room full of strangers, after the burlesque show was over, we got up and danced, but then I noticed at one point that we were the only ones dancing.  Oh well.  The floor was creepily sticky, so that was interesting.  And then the music kept getting worse.  And worse.  And worse.  And we realized there was some guy who didn't seem to know what he was doing just choosing songs from an iPod or something, and they really were not very good or even particularly danceable songs.  That's the problem with kitsch - well, one of them - it means you have to listen to 80's music that was so bad the first time around that it's not even good in a nostalgic way, 25 years later.  It's got to be a nostalgia thing and an ironic thing, right?  No one actually likes bad 80's music, right?  (Right?)  Although Man from Mars by Blondie is acceptable once in a while.

Well, that was my night.  Oh, no, we also got approached by a really drunk guy when we got off the bus on the way home.  He decided to tell us a joke (ahem... "joke") about the devil, and playing golf, and a hunchback, or something.  I dunno, the devil took the hunchback's hump, and then there was a series of interactions with a whole cast of characters, and then the hunchback did something, and the devil was like, "Well here's your hump back! Haha."  I think my version was funnier than the original.

Ok, that was my night.  Life is interesting.  And good.

So good, in fact!  Because I turned in a draft of my qualifying paper yesterday!  So I don't know what to do with myself this weekend.  I think I'm gonna drink tea and get some reading done, and probably go for a long run tomorrow.