Back to the Hip Parade

Hipster self-loathing delivered me to a book, HIP: THE HISTORY, which I started reading last year.

I am a reluctant hipster. Just as I am a reluctant human, black man, responsible adult, etc. No one ever asked me to be any of those things when the doctors yanked me from my mother’s stomach. They were forced on me. I’d like to think that I was born to be hip, but I was a dweeb for most of my younger years. Now I look around and what’s hip ain’t so hip to me. It’s as corny as shit and it reeks of little effort or too much effort. Either way, it’s confusing as hell.

My problem is this: Hip is not shopping at H&M. Nor is it liking only indie bands and ’80s revival rap. And yet hip can be found in those places. I meet far too many people for whom hip is a facade, easily cast aside.

I saw this book and started reading it. That may not be hip, but I think hip is knowing where you came from. I threw out my skinny jeans the other day. Still don’t own a pair of those florescent Nikes. If Hip is the shuffle between conforming and anti-conformity and so many people appear to be hip, I wanna rebel.

Not Like Before

I refuse to blog like before.

Folks called me the rock’n'rollnigga, at my own urging, when last I kept a blog. I was fine with that. Hell, my girlfriend (back before she was my girlfriend) tracked my digital posts to my email address. Keeping up with other bloggers was the norm back then. Increasing page counts was the aim and to do so one resigned oneself to the pettiness of popularity games now normalized by Facebook and MySpace.

Employment wasn’t so much a concern back then; I was in college. Employers also hadn’t quite realized that their employees (present, future or soon-to-be fired) were detailing their lives for all to see.

So one networked, visiting the “cool/popular” blogs and hoping that their popularity would prop up your Internet existence. You left comments and linked to each other sites. All of this was fine and well until it (and other things, no doubt) began to choke my desire to blog.

Grooming myself (stylistically) to appeal to the bloggers whose readership I lusted after soon struck me as ridiculous. To compete meant stripping naked, figuratively more than literally. Add to that an overwhelming distaste for much of what my friends fellow bloggers were writing.

Rocknrollnigga.blogspot met its end soon after (though it amuses me to see that it had been resurrected as some sort of porno-spam dumping ground).

I’m not trying to compete with this blog. That time may indeed come, just not right now and not here. I want to lay some ground rules, for myself and the few people who may stumble across this site.

1. I will not make permanent links to any other blog here.
2. I will write what’s on my mind to further my skills.
3. This is not my diary journal.
4. I will keep most posts under 300 words.

Democratic Daps

What was unimaginable to so many people, a black man winning the Democratic nomination, is now history. True to form, Barack Obama let loose another soul-rattling speech. But it was the final method of congratulation, chosen by his wife Michelle, that revealed so much.

It began with a kiss. Following that came a hug, an aborted high-five and then the pièce de résistance, a dap. That age old communication between blacks, co-opted so long ago. Not angry about that one. Out of touch with the urban black community? Whitewashed by his Harvard education? Not with a dap-giving wife.

For more information on daps, please see this film or this one. I invite you all to make your own daps.
Oh and please don’t forget to dap responsibly.

Slate compiled some quotes:

“Taking a fist-pound from wife Michelle, Obama stepped to the podium Tuesday”—MTV.com

“Michelle Obama (L) gives her husband, Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Senator Barack Obama, a knuckle-bump as a sign of support before he speaks to supporters.”—Monsters and Critics

“At 09:09:27 Central Time, Michelle Obama gave Barack Obama a pound in St. Paul, Minnesota.”—Lola New York

“I never realized how romantic and respectful and mutually appreciative and loving a frat-tastic fist bump could be. Could it be the new peck-on-the-cheek?”—The Frisky

“… Obama, who was joined on stage by his wife Michelle, with whom he shared a celebratory fist-bump.”—Reuters

“Obama, began with a loving fist to fist thumbs up with Michelle.”—Capitol Hill Blue

“Michelle is not as ‘refined’ as Obama at hiding her TRUE feelings about America—etc. Her ‘Hezbollah’ style fist-jabbing …”—Human Events

“I loved that moment, when they touched their hands together like that.” –Commenter, bjkeefe

Plunging deep into the decolletage

Décolletage. Weeks ago, this word to me was foreign. Thanks to Julie Couillard, former flame of Canada’s former foreign affairs minister, Maxime Bernier, first my eyes and now my vocabulary have been titillated.

Brief recap: Bernier brings Couillard to his swearing-in ceremony. Couillard wears revealing sundress. Prime Minister’s Office not happy. Couple breaks up. Couillard once dated some tough dudes in biker gangs (think Hell’s Angels, not the Schwinn racing team). Media freaks. Runs photos/video of Couillard’s décolletage ad naseum. (I’ve chosen to cover it up so as to distinguish myself from said media, and also as homage to perennial douchebag Perez Hilton). Bad taste, read the quotes. Tut tut, went the opposition. Bernier reportedly left his briefs (sensitive NATO documents) at her house for five months. Bernier resigns. Media whips itself into a frenzy.

Another lurid scandal to direct the public eye away from more important issues, like this. General Motors casts off 2,500 manufacturing jobs in a province, Ontario, whose manufacturing industry is under tremendous stress. In case you didn’t click.)

Story after story made mention of Couillard’s décolletage. Common sense allowed me to figure it out, but its definition eluded me, and so I looked it up.

–noun

1.	the neckline of a dress cut low in the front or back and often across the shoulders.

2.	a décolleté garment or costume.

It’s cleavage. I mean, it doesn’t actually mean cleavage but décolletage reveals cleavage. Why one word over the other? Cleavage is something most men paw at; décolletage seems like some dainty thing you ring up Indiana Jones to find. I read articles in the Globe and Mail and Maclean’s, where décolletage was in effect. Over at the tabloid Toronto Sun, paper of the working class, cleavage was the preferred choice: Grits Claim Cleavage Will Be An Election Bust, editorial here.

Back On The Scene

Growing old is easy; it’s acting your age that’s tough. These thoughts and others seem to be tumbling around my brain today, elbowing their way from the back of my mind to this blog. I used write a lot. Poetry, rap lyrics, articles. Then I got a job. And another one. And occasionally another one on the side. Some people I cared for died. An uncle, suddenly, and an aunt who lasted longer than we thought, but whose death was nonetheless painful. Those things became my excuses, a plug for the hole in my soul. I quit writing for fun and rarely put my all into any paid writing gigs. Plenty needed to be said and written, but I refused to let it pour out. It found other outlets: often egged on by alcohol it manifested itself in profanity-laced tirades directed at relative strangers. It required sedation of the spirit by any means necessary and I was all too willing to appease.

I’m 28 now. Once alluring, the only thrill of the bar scene (hipster or otherwise) is the eye candy. The fruitless pursuit of cool now seems a tremendous waste of time. Maybe I forgot who I, a writer, was. Maybe I forgot about all the things I wanted to do. Maybe I forgot that spirituality/writing has always been my balancing board. I remember now.