Also, the Echo Park group on Myspace is, in a word, HOSTILE. May I say, the resistance to hipsters is not only futile but arbitrary. You're better off using a firearm to get rid of a ghost. They're here regardless of whether or not they're welcome and soon enough they'll return to their suburban middle class roots anyway. They're not going to fight back when intimidated, they'll just act indifferent. The only evidence they ever even occupied these rental properties will be the walls they painted a flat green and were too lazy to paint back to a sweaty, oil-based eggshell white. That or maybe the ruins of a custom jeans store that used to be a women's boutique that used to be a convenience store that used to be a delicatessen that can just as easily be boarded up and painted yellow to match every other business in the community. I mean seriously guys, no worries, it's just a difference in aesthetics but we're all immigrants on some level or another.

The only mark a hipster will ever leave on his or her environment will be ephemeral at most. When it's white soccer families moving in and tearing down Jensen's Recreation Center to open a Best Buy, then we'll talk. Until then, enjoy the hipsters while they last!

This entry was inspired by a series of events including taking a wrong turn and getting lost downtown tonight as well as receiving myspace messages from angry 19 years olds clinging on to the idea that they've come up in a rough part of town as a means to filling out their identities.

Flashback to three years ago with a 23 year old me standing at the bar at Shatto Lanes talking to a man covered nearly completely by gang tattoos telling him, "You should be really proud that you're from Compton. Do you ever think about it like that? I mean, everyone in America has heard about Compton and you're from there! It's actually kind of exotic." (Fahrenheit 9/11 had just come out.)

22 December 2005 - 12:43 AM

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