Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Republicans in disarray!

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

I really should read my own blog.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Books are my comfort food!

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Everyone I Know Is Acting Weird or Way Too Cool

Everyone I Know Is Acting Weird or Way Too Cool

by | 128 Comments

This post is in: 

As a middle-aged pseduo-hipster, a new Aimee Mann album is already a big deal, and it’s even a bigger deal when it comes with a video starring John Hodgman and Laura Linney. I don’t think the video is especially good, but I like the song.

Of course, the real dilemma for any hipster is what to do when your cool little thing goes mainstream. The new movie, Premium Rush is about a bicycle messenger riding a fixie, so I think those are no longer as cool as the hipsters who I see riding them probably think they are. Brakes will probably be the new hotness in Williamsburg this fall.

Here’s an open thread.

Reader Interactions

128Comments

  2. 2.

    Culture of Truth

    I am currently reading the new BOOK by John Hodgman. It is very FUNNY. That is all.

  3. 3.

    forked tongue

    To me, Aimee Mann is strictly NPR (which, especially for music, is not meant as a compliment), but I like the video, which was directed by Tom Scharpling, auteur of even funnier ones by Ted Leo, The New Pornographers, The Ettes, and others.

  7. 7.

    shoutingattherain

    Has anybody seen NARAL recently? Been like 6 years since I heard anything from them. The only thing they were ever really good at was raising money for themselves. Didn’t I read somewhere the gals at the top made $250,000 yr?

  10. 10.

    gbear

    Of course, the real dilemma for any hipster is what to do when your cool little thing goes mainstream.

    No-brainer: Adopt the dB’s. They’re always too cool, and no one from the mainstream ever gives them the time of day.

  12. 12.

    lonesomerobot

    So, who knew the RNC got a $50 million federal grant to help cover the costs for security in Tampa?

    Such rugged individualists!

  15. 15.

    lonesomerobot

    @Chyron HR: Not in the least. Add to that the thousands of taxpayer-funded police officers that will be on extended duty just for this event. SOCIALISTS!

  18. 18.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    A “fixie”? Now hipsters have stolen my bike?

    I love fixed-gear BMX bikes. I rode them long before they were cool, and I’ll continue to ride them long after everyone forgets who “Pavement” was.

    I don’t care, and any naysayers can kiss my pretty white ass.

  20. 20.

    wenchacha

    I like Aimee Mann; love her voice and kind of deadpan delivery. My bike in college was a “me-speed” so I guess I was hip before it was lame to be hip before it was cool to be hip to be square.

    Why can’t Rmoney, Adelson, some of those other Richie Riches cover the $50 mil in Tampa? Why must they leech from the Big Gummint?

  22. 22.

    Dennis SGMM

    @wenchacha:

    Why can’t Rmoney, Adelson, some of those other Richie Riches cover the $50 mil in Tampa? Why must they leech from the Big Gummint?

    Because shut up is why.

  24. 24.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Dennis SGMM: Because an RNC convention is a solemn conventicle of real Americans, the very incarnation of “We, the People[1].” I cannot imagine a more worthwhile expenditure from the public fisc.

    [1] Offer not valid for dark people, queer people, non-Christian people, atheists. See prospectus for details.

  25. 25.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @danah gaz (fka gaz): It’s okay. I am a bit behind on my music hipsterism too; I would have probably gone with Metric (whose music I do like). My indie music snob days were long ago, but I had them so I need to beware of hypocrisy.

  26. 26.

    Mark B.

    I wonder if she still does ‘Til Tuesday’ songs at her solo shows. I’d love to hear ‘Voices Carry’ again.

  28. 28.

    PurpleGirl

    @shoutingattherain: Don’t remember when I got the last funding letter them or a phone call but it’s been a while. Then too I told them I had no discretionary money AT ALL being unemployed. I may have been dropped from the mailing list. In the early aughts I still gave money to the state organization and not the national, telling them that I didn’t like the national body trying to play nice with anti-choicers.

  32. 32.

    Dennis SGMM

    I haven’t been hip since the mid-Sixties. The only reason I was considered hip back then was because weird = hip at the time.

  35. 35.

    Anton Sirius

    @danah gaz (fka gaz):

    I’d sooner stab myself in the face with a fork than pay attention to whatever hipsters are listening to right now.

    The most hipster band in history will always be Tilly and the Wall, who use a tap dancer for percussion instead of a drummer. Everyone else are just poseurs.

  36. 36.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @Anton Sirius: There was a punk? band called “Nurse Diesel” at my highschool – way back when – the lead singer played a flute in between vocals. I wonder if that counts. =)

    ETA: Looks like there is a NY band of the same name founded well after this one was long gone. Poseurs.

  37. 37.

    mamayaga

    @Dennis SGMM:

    I haven’t been hip since the mid-Sixties. The only reason I was considered hip back then was because weird = hip at the time.

    Same here. What is this “hipster” of which you young people speak? Also, too, get off my lawn.

  40. 40.

    raven

    CNN

    “Official: All 9 people injured in Friday’s shooting near the Empire State Building were wounded by police gunfire. “

  41. 41.

    dmsilev

    TPM is reporting that a non-Rasmussen pollster finds that Congressman Legitimate Rape is currently a nine point underdog. This includes being on the wrong side of a 55-37 split among women voters.

    I hereby encourage every Republican candidate to be fully open and honest about what they really believe.

  43. 43.

    mamayaga

    @dmsilev: There’s been a lot of speculatin’ as to some possible internal polls that have put the Repubs into a state of panic. Could it be they found they are starting to lose even Republican women? Of course, their logical response seems to be to double down on the angry white male vote…

  49. 49.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    My s/o just ordered a two-stroke kit for her bike. We’ve been borrowing a craptastic SUV (chev suburban) for awhile, and the thing is ridiculous – the gas mileage sucks and we were too embarrassed to be seen in it. Hopefully once my medical stuff is sorted out we’ll be able to buy a new engine for our little camry. =/

  52. 52.

    Anoniminous

    @Dennis SGMM:

    Really hip, really cool, people follow their own Cultural Muse(s) and don’t give a damn what other people are doing. Only Teh Sheeple follow “breaking hip trends” (sic) fueled by mass advertising for mass consumption.

  53. 53.

    raven

    @danah gaz (fka gaz): I left the points and distributor when I put the 350 in her. There isn’t much firewall room on the 61-66’s which is funny because with the radiator out you can stand in the engine compartment.

  58. 58.

    raven

    @Lojasmo: Ha, I have one of those too. A 99 and I love it though I am fixing to buy a 2006 from a friend cuz we want them stow and go seats. Great dogmobile.

  60. 60.

    Anoniminous

    @danah gaz (fka gaz):

    Check to see if a local community college offers a course in Automotive Mechanics. If so, wander down and talk with the instructor and see if what you need done fits with what they need to teach. If you’re lucky it will match and you will only end-up paying for parts.

  62. 62.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @Anoniminous: They do, and I would, but we’ve got our trump card. A genuine Mexican(TM), patents pending – best fucking mechanics ever. He wants to swap it out for fun, and he’s got a cherry picker. We just need to scrounge an engine. About $600 on ebay =P

  67. 67.

    Anoniminous

    @danah gaz (fka gaz):

    Picked the wrong dude to snark that at. A (former) in-law is one of the first American MtF transition.

    So THERE!

    :-þ
    pffffffffffffffffttttttttttttttthhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

    lol

    ETA: @danah gaz (fka gaz):

    Ok, so you are the cat’s pajamas when it comes to saving money!

  68. 68.

    trollhattan

    Laura Linney is hilariously deadpan in that vid. Also, too, Aimee’s housekeeper stint in “Portlandia” is worth digging up. They figure out it’s her, badger her to play for them and still manage to whinge about the quality of her cleaning job.

  69. 69.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @Anoniminous: hehehe..

    Seriously though, I’m glad I wasn’t one of the first. Things are finally getting a bit better. Sometimes I wish I was a millennial even. As it is, my insurance company takes no small amount of pleasure in fvcking with me, but at least they cover a small amount of it – and I’ve got a sympathetic PCP that writes some of it up using alternate medical codes they can’t complain about. And I only had to ditch some of my family (my “liberal” boomer mom, of all people). My biological mom is cool, she was nearly a Romney supporter. Go figure.

  71. 71.

    Burnspbesq

    @gbear:

    Adopt the dB’s. They’re always too cool, and no one from the mainstream ever gives them the time of day.

    And their recent record is great.

  72. 72.

    Burnspbesq

    @forked tongue:

    To me, Aimee Mann is strictly NPR (which, especially for music, is not meant as a compliment

    That makes you either closed-minded or stupid, both as to Aimee Mann and to NPR.

  74. 74.

    lamh35

    Obama ad & quote f the day:

    Obama Campaign: ‘America Doesn’t Need a Birther-in-Chief’

    Obama: Romney Locked Into ‘Extreme Positions’ Even If He Doesn’t Believe Them

    From President Obama’s interview with the AP:”I can’t speak to Governor Romney’s motivations,” Obama said. “What I can say is that he has signed up for positions, extreme positions, that are very consistent with positions that a number of House Republicans have taken. And whether he actually believes in those or not, I have no doubt that he would carry forward some of the things that he’s talked about.”

  75. 75.

    nastybrutishntall

    What’s with all the hipster-hate? Because they like mostly noncommercial music that you’ve never heard? Just like the beatniks/hippies/every arty group before them? Because they wear weird clothes? Just like the beatniks/hippies/every arty group before them? Is it the skinny jeans? The glasses? What the fuck?

    Youth: how the fuck does it work?

  77. 77.

    Dennis SGMM

    @lamh35:
    Do I take it that Obama believes that Romney is neither sufficiently clueless nor sufficiently spineless to allow the things that he’s talked about to happen at the hands of a Republican Congress?

    If that’s the correct interpretation of Obama’s remarks then I think he’s wrong on this one.

  78. 78.

    Anoniminous

    @danah gaz (fka gaz):

    Sorry to hear your boomer mom couldn’t handle it. Just no telling how anyone will react when their boundaries are challenged. If at all possible remember it’s their inadequacies gushing forth and keep on walking the path you need to walk, for you.

    (I realize you know that but sometimes it’s nice to be ‘validated’ by a stranger. :-)

    Good to hear about your PCP. Any chance of getting a prescription for psychology counseling? The inside of your head is going to be a strange place for a while. (At least according to other MtFs I’ve talked to.)

  79. 79.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @Anoniminous: That’s the part my insurance is willing to cover.

    ETA: In fact, when I started all of this, you were required to have a psychiatric professional sign off on it – and a 2nd one to get the surgery itself – now that’s changed due to the WPATH standards of care – revised in 2010, but many doctors, including mine, still require “the letter”

  80. 80.

    raven

    @Dennis SGMM: Yea, I used POR 15. It was 7 years ago and it has held quite well. In my studies of the 61-66 I discovered that “some” think the rocker panel issue is related to faulty sealing on the rain gutter on the cab. Apparently water runs down inside the body and collects there. When I had a 62 jimmy in Illinois I thought it was from salt but the same thing happens down here.

  81. 81.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @raven: IIRC, there is a lip that runs along the inside of those panels and it tends to trap water in it. That’s why you’ll see rusted out rockers even here in WA, where we don’t have a severe problem with it otherwise.

  85. 85.

    Corner Stone

    @raven: Hope you fitted your baby for some floaties. I see you guys are supposed to get pounded in the Isaac aftermath.

  87. 87.

    Corner Stone

    @raven: @Dennis SGMM
    I love it when you guys start talking all metal and fabrication and shit.
    Makes me want to go buy something and start taking it apart.

  88. 88.

    Corner Stone

    @raven: MSNBC guy seemed to think it may be up to a foot over 2 days. But, eh, who’s to say?
    As long as it stays on your side of Lousiana I’m cool. Otherwise I’ll be eating at food trucks in Austin asap.

  89. 89.

    Anoniminous

    @danah gaz (fka gaz):

    Actually, that’s possibly better than spending it on the physical stuff. For reasons I’m positive you know & I see no reason to stick my nose in.

    Re: “The Letter”

    :rolleyes:

    Yeah cuz a thundering horde of people want to go through the process just because they can.

    And I gotta go …

  90. 90.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @raven: hehehe. You had one of those “milk vans” – at least that’s what I’ve called them. We’ve got a few around here – people tend to lift them.

    As far as the 68 – a better link http://www.pattson.com/maych/67_72_gmc.htm

    And I apologize, because I was wrong. I like the ’68 GMC, not the chevy – if I got that right this time. The one with four headlights – not two. I’ve seen a lot of nice customs with that style. That’s probably the clincher for me. It’s all in the grill. It’s got style, IMO =)

  93. 93.

    TBogg

    @Mark B.: I’ve seen her a half dozen times and can’t ever remember her ever doing a Til Tuesday song. She does do an awesome “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch” at her Christmas shows.

  94. 94.

    different-church-lady

    It’s amazing: Microsoft’s new logo and design orientation make their website look like one of those generic placeholder pages you get when you make a typo in the URL.

  100. 100.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @raven: I like 61′ E300 benz (and of course the other variants with the same body style).

    Massive grill appeal, and bonus points for the little fins in back. They are absolute murder to work on though =(

    ETA: That chevy hood looks like it was imported from the Tatooine (sp?) set of an old George Lucas flick =)

  102. 102.

    different-church-lady

    @danah gaz (fka gaz): Well, I’m kidding, or course, but damn don’t it seem like they’re just hellbent on making every obviously wrong, bland, corporate-safe decision they can make?

    My father worked for Polariod, so I’m familiar with the smell of a tech giant losing their way.

  104. 104.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @different-church-lady: They lost their way a long time ago. Remember ActiveX? Yeah – nobody else does either. They still keep going – and they still have more money than God, unlike Polaroid. They’re here for a looong time yet, regardless of one’s position on whether or not they should be.

    ETA: As long as Herb Sutter still works on their C++ compiler team I could give less than two shites about the rest of their products. The latest MS C++ compilers are great.

  105. 105.

    different-church-lady

    @danah gaz (fka gaz): Abosolutely, it took even Polaroid 15 years to finally tumble over. But the writing was on the wall long before that.

    The questions for Microsoft are: a) will they figure out a way to pull out of the death spiral, or will they just enjoy the view on the long, long, long journey down? And b) are they going to respond to their crisis by letting the MBAs make them ever more bland, more safe, more generic, and more chase-the-leader. You know, kind of the way Apple was in 1996.

  106. 106.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @different-church-lady: They have 3 flagship products that will keep them going.

    1. Windows (say what you will, it’s what’s for dinner)

    2. Visual Studio (even among other platform developers, this is widely regarded as the most capable IDE on the market – not universally of course, but it’s an opinion held by a large number of people – even a ton of unix devs)

    3. SQL Server (a mainstay of back office and websites everywhere – MySQL doesn’t scale, and Oracle isn’t as popular as it once was)

    #1 costs a few hundred

    #2 costs upwards of 10,000 depending on the trappings.

    #3 can cost tens of thousands depending on connectivity and cluster licenses.

    And people keep buying them. Short of selling those off, they’ve got an in for the foreseeable future

    ETA: and that’s not counting hardware, like their extremely popular xbox line

  107. 107.

    different-church-lady

    @danah gaz (fka gaz): But the company is losing money. Apple had more cash than God and Oprah combined back then, but even that wasn’t going to keep them from dying.

    These are nothing but early warning signs, not death knells. But I just don’t see MS making the right decisions in response — I smell desperation moves. Desperation moves will undermine the solid bits of the business.

    Am I talking out of my gut on this? Yeah. Maybe even my ass…

  108. 108.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    @different-church-lady: I guess what I’d say is that they’ve lost money before. In the 90’s they were slow to catch on to the Internet boom, and when they finally did, they did a shit job of it.

    Having followed them, and even having worked there before, I can say that they’ve been “fast-followers” at best most of the time.

    But also, having followed them, and worked for them before, they still manage to recruit top talent – and as long as they do that, they’ll still have the ability to pull out of a nosedive. They have before – and I don’t see that changing until they can’t get top people to work for them. In the mean time, they have plenty of cash on hand to weather the storm.

    The bottom line is that MS is still a “glamorous” place to work, career-wise, if you are a whiz. They can recruit on that. That’s why they get people like Herb Sutter and Mike Abrash. These people have the ability to be game changers, and periodically, they are. I wouldn’t write them off until they can no longer recruit the best of the best, on their name.

  109. 109.

    Jay in Oregon

    In other news, a group calling themselves Kansas City Hacker Homes is launching a campaign to bring high-tech entrepreneurs to Kansas City once the Google Fiber project brings cheap broadband there.

    How do they plan to do this? by asking KC residents to host a “hacker” in their house, rent-free, for 3 months. (“Hacker” in this sense refers to talented programmers who “hack code”, not people who break into computer systems for fun or profit.)

    Remind me who the moochers are in Ayn Rand’s fever dreams again…?

  110. 110.

    LanceThruster

    Speaking the car talk of one devoid of funds or skill, a concept vehicle I always wanted to do was this van conversion idea. There was a Dodge van model around the time they moved the engines forward (late 70’s early 80’s?). The grill looked liked how kids would shove an orange slice in their mouth and smile showing nothing but rind. I had previously hated to looks of the vans with the extended hoods but thought Dodge got it right. I also thought they looked a bit like a passenger train engine. I wanted to chop a second matching van to create a trailer, put small porthole windows on it and the lead van, and paint it in the red and yellow paint scheme of the Santa Fe Super Chief. I’ll bet that would trun some heads. In my yoot’, I might have built a Revel model of it to flesh out the concept. If one of your gearheads ever runs with this, please send me a pic.

  111. 111.

    Mnemosyne

    @raven:

    I had a “wait, was that Edie Falco?” moment.

    Yep, that was her in the orange jumpsuit playing his imprisoned mom. 1997, so pre-“Sopranos,” so she gets pretty much no billing in the trailer. I bet she’s featured on the DVD cover, though.

  116. 116.

    raven

    @danah gaz (fka gaz):

    Hate fords, love Nanci

    Now she sings her songs around this country
    From Seattle to Montgomery
    Those kids are grown and that rounder knows
    You cannot cage your wife
    Along the back roads of our nation, she’s become a living legend
    She drives a Coupe DeVille but her heart rides still
    In that Ford Econoline

  119. 119.

    raven

    @danah gaz (fka gaz): God, I was in one of those in 74 when Machine Gun Mike hit a hydrant and telephone pole and I ended up with rods on my spine and carried a full bodycast for a year. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard the sound of a phone pole slamming into the top of a van. On the upside I just came from swimming a mile so it all worked out.

  123. 123.

    skippy

    mistermix, you know your first sentence says that a record album is a middle aged pseudo hipster, don’t you?

    i am unsure if you meant aimee mann or you, but i’m pretty sure you didn’t mean the collection of songs themselves.

  125. 125.

    LanceThruster

    @raven:

    That was a Chevy I built as a model (an early version of vans with sliding doors) because I wanted to put the two-tone stripe where I thought it belonged like a surfer van (from the grill back) instead of how the factory was doing it from the windsheild back.

    Here’s the Dodge body style ( http://www.curvirostra.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/gladiator-1970s-custom-van-guy-girl.jpg ) but the early grilles had vertical chromes slots evenly across the entire grill.

  127. 127.

    LanceThruster

    And I don’t know why I thought this van looked more train-like than others but I thought it could be tricked out to look like this – http://www.legotreinen.nl/lego_wiki/images/9/9e/Super_chief.JPG

    Rememebr the van names? (I graduated HS in 75) “Smoke on the Water” was one of those flat winsheind Dodge vans painted…wait for it…Deep Purple (with accompanying soundtrack on a very cool pre-boom stereo sound system), and I also remember the van names with Van worked into the name (Vanishing Point being the coolest one).

    Stabbin’ Cabin (snork) Never heard that one. xD

Comments are closed.