Incipient Hipster

Sitting, drinking coffee and eavesdropping are pass times for people with little else to do. Retirement from work leads to free time and the opportunity to sit, drink and overhear. Looking over at two too thin young people, paunchy Prat Punmeadow remembered when. But that was so long ago... what was the point. Just like a day that had run its course, for him, the sun had come up and was now going down. Oh well...

But Prat was by no means dead yet. Still with a keen intellect and cat curiosity, he pushed on. He even again shopped at Urban Outfitters, which is a store he shopped at 40 years ago. It, like him, he reasoned had gone out of style and now was back in vogue. At least he thought he had come back into the mainstream. Funny, he mused as he shuffled his black All Stars under the table, how the sneakers he wore as a kid were now a statement of hip.

There it is was again. Hip... He just heard those stick kids use the term hipster. In fact, he had been hearing this sobriquet more and more. Up until now, he thought that a hipster was a hippie. Hip-hip-hip- adoo. Indeed, once Prat Pun had been a sort-of hippie. That was back in '67 when he grew his then present hair long and he dressed like burned out old beggars do today. Flowered shirts and bell bottom jeans and wide belts and open shoes, shabam and schlamazo.

But a hippie is not a hipster and vice versa. Nonetheless the terms both are hip rooted and moreover both have a connection to cool and Jack Kerouac. While the hipsters antedated On the Road, doubtless the hipster movement influenced the thinking and style of the late 40's and 50's. And the beat generation, so well defined by JK in OtR, was the progenitor of the hippies. Think back to Maynard B Krebs, a beatnik with a hippie incipience. He was a sort of hominis erectus in terms of the evolution of human intelligent design. He-he.

As he slugged down another gulp of Starfuck, he did a little searching on his MBP. In short order...

• Urban dictionary, Hipsters are a subculture of men and women typically in their 20's and 30's that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, an appreciation of art and indie-rock, creativity, intelligence, and witty banter.
• Wikipedia, Hipster is a term frequently used to refer to a subculture of young, recently settled urban middle class adults and older teenagers. Usage of the term reappeared in the 1990s and persists to the present. The subculture is associated with independent music, a varied non-mainstream fashion sensibility, and alternative lifestyles. Interests in media would include independent film, magazines such as Vice andClash, and websites like Pitchfork Media.^[1
• 22 steps to becoming a hipster, http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Hipster

Hmmm, he pondered. Too old, he was simply too far along his timeline to be a real hipster despite the fact that he had the shoes, the hoodie, he shopped thrift stores and he like weird new music. Somehow that closed window, that shut door saddened him. In some ways, life was only fun in what one could call the acquisitive phase. Over 55 communities and early bird dinners and arthritis, mole checks and rectal exams were not conducive to a buoyant animus.

Perhaps retirement was a mistake? Too much time to think about his personal physiology left him opinionated about quilted toilet paper. Too much time had made him miss living life. Having moved to the sidelines rendered him a spectator in life's game, a game which is best played actively.

Damn, this coffee is potent. Needing to pie-ute, he creaked up off his chair and headed for the men's room, a place he always called a piss hole. Passing the hipsters, he smiled, lips-no teeth. Seeming disaffected, the two high hormoners acknowledged him with eye flicks. So cool and detached, hipsters are like that. In fact, hipsters are so removed that they deny being hipsters, if asked.

As he got a few steps past them he heard the girl say to the boy, "Hate to see a guy like that wearing Chucks, kinda ruins the brand." Upon which, young stud replied, "Old people disgust me." Upon which Mr. Prat tripped over his feet and he tumbled to the floor.

Fuck he thought. He quickly righted without help (the hispters made no effort to assist him), dusted himself off and made it to the toilet. He was in there a long time, what with the ordeal of emptying coupled with the fact that he was too red faced to want to return to the scene of the fall. By the time he emerged, the hipsters had gone away. By the time he emerged, he had decided to get a job. This feeling sorry for himself had to stop.

Zooey is a hipster...

Ciao