Well, I'm back. It's hot. It's only 11am in Los Angeles and it's already hot. Gross. I want to run screaming back to the cloudy grey skies of Berlin, but the urge to go in search of my favorite taco cart is winning out. I hope it's still here.
I went to a former favorite bar of mine last night, and found that it's gone even further downhill than last time I was here. It started out as a cheap, comfortable dive bar where you could get a full pint of Pabst for 1$ during happy hour. As the Silverlake hipsters spread their way down to Echo Park, the crowd got trendier and trendier. The mixed drinks gradually got more expensive. Finally, they added a pool table, put in a dance floor, raised the happy hour Pabst to $1.25, and switched to 14 oz. "pint" glasses. But the hipsters were still eating it up, and if you got there early enough you could sit back, enjoy the energy of the place buzzing around you, and leave before the crush of white belts and greasy, in-the-eyes, product-infused hair became unbearable.
Not so much, last night. I went in about 10pm to find the place relatively vacant, by it's usual standards, and those who were there were a crowd that I find possibly more depressing than the hipsters. It was filled with wanna-be-hipsters. Now, I don't really like hanging out in a bar full of hipsters. They're pretentious, they look down on me for not being "one of them," and their conversations rarely stray to anything deeper than the latest album out on Dim Mak records. See http://www.bluestateslose.com for further examples. Suffice to say, we don't have a lot in common.
The problem with wanna-be hipsters is that they have a lot of the same social pretentions of hipsters, but none of the cocaine cool that at least brings some energy to the bar. It's the giant middle ground of the school lunch room between the socialites and the social fuckups where, in reality, nothing much is going on at all. It makes for terrible people watching, which is really the only reason to hang out in a bar by oneself anyway. That, and pinball, but the change machine was broken last night. So, after watching two Echo Park natives get creamed at a game of pool by a guy with side-swept hair and a buttoned up blue plaid shirt, I gladly took off.
Schedule of events for today:
1) deposit all the US $ traveler checks that I needlessly brought to Europe with me. (They have ATMs there too, people.)
2) Trader Joes!!
3) Sallys Beauty supply for bleach and goop for my hair. No one in Berlin seems to know where to buy professional quality bleach without going to a salon.
4) Freestyle, to convince my former coworkers to buy a bunch of cheap Holga cameras for me to take back to my friends.
5) Echo Park, for the taco cart.
6) Possibly Footsies, later on. (See the Bar Interiors group on my Flickr page for examples - although for some reason I forgot to post the Jackalope photo.)
7) Possibly out to Carnies hot dogs for a delicious chili and kraut hot dog that I'll probably regret later.
I went to a former favorite bar of mine last night, and found that it's gone even further downhill than last time I was here. It started out as a cheap, comfortable dive bar where you could get a full pint of Pabst for 1$ during happy hour. As the Silverlake hipsters spread their way down to Echo Park, the crowd got trendier and trendier. The mixed drinks gradually got more expensive. Finally, they added a pool table, put in a dance floor, raised the happy hour Pabst to $1.25, and switched to 14 oz. "pint" glasses. But the hipsters were still eating it up, and if you got there early enough you could sit back, enjoy the energy of the place buzzing around you, and leave before the crush of white belts and greasy, in-the-eyes, product-infused hair became unbearable.
Not so much, last night. I went in about 10pm to find the place relatively vacant, by it's usual standards, and those who were there were a crowd that I find possibly more depressing than the hipsters. It was filled with wanna-be-hipsters. Now, I don't really like hanging out in a bar full of hipsters. They're pretentious, they look down on me for not being "one of them," and their conversations rarely stray to anything deeper than the latest album out on Dim Mak records. See http://www.bluestateslose.com for further examples. Suffice to say, we don't have a lot in common.
The problem with wanna-be hipsters is that they have a lot of the same social pretentions of hipsters, but none of the cocaine cool that at least brings some energy to the bar. It's the giant middle ground of the school lunch room between the socialites and the social fuckups where, in reality, nothing much is going on at all. It makes for terrible people watching, which is really the only reason to hang out in a bar by oneself anyway. That, and pinball, but the change machine was broken last night. So, after watching two Echo Park natives get creamed at a game of pool by a guy with side-swept hair and a buttoned up blue plaid shirt, I gladly took off.
Schedule of events for today:
1) deposit all the US $ traveler checks that I needlessly brought to Europe with me. (They have ATMs there too, people.)
2) Trader Joes!!
3) Sallys Beauty supply for bleach and goop for my hair. No one in Berlin seems to know where to buy professional quality bleach without going to a salon.
4) Freestyle, to convince my former coworkers to buy a bunch of cheap Holga cameras for me to take back to my friends.
5) Echo Park, for the taco cart.
6) Possibly Footsies, later on. (See the Bar Interiors group on my Flickr page for examples - although for some reason I forgot to post the Jackalope photo.)
7) Possibly out to Carnies hot dogs for a delicious chili and kraut hot dog that I'll probably regret later.
posted by Kristal at 11:11 AM
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