Monday, July 2, 2007

Slouching Towards Euphoria: The Attic



On Saturday night, I saw a friend perform in a Hip Hop dance show. Hip Hop dance is fluid movements, punctuated with sharp stops symbolizing major attitude. You definitely do not want to get into these people’s grills. My friend is an excellent dancer, and his time on stage was woefully short. After the show, we retired to a bar a couple of storefronts away from the theater. I’ve never heard of The Attic, but San Francisco never ceases to surprise me.

The Attic resembles many hipster bars in the Mission. The interior is painted in black, and the paint job looks sloppy, as if the painters were hitting the hooch as they worked. The entrance is like a long narrow hallway with the bar on one side. In the back is a bigger room with booths and tables. Horror movie posters sporadically line the walls. A few peculiar paintings hang on the wall. One has a giant head of a conquistador floating above a harbor, very strange. We sat in a booth, whose seats seemed entirely covered in duct tape.

We sat and drank and made fun of the hipsters. As the title implies, hipsters try to stay hip by wearing unusual clothes. I knew one guy that wore women’s pants and clown shoes?!? I kept making fun of two guys wearing bright-red tuques, a knitted hat they wear in Canada because it’s so freaking cold there. I am way too lazy to dress hip. I look like a preppy that has gone to seed. A D.J. started spinning records of hard rock bands from the seventies and eighties. I complimented him on a Pat Travers choice; I haven’t heard Travers in a long time. He also played Saga, another band I haven’t heard in some time.

On going to the bathroom, I noticed a flyer for a drink special: Canada night, all Canadian whisky and beer discounted. Hmm, I thought, they have a Canadian night, how hipster-ish. When I returned to the booth, they handed out the words to “Oh Canada” in English and in Québécois French. Ah, the light bulb appeared over my head. Sunday must be Canada’s Independence Day or whatever they celebrate since they are still under England’s queen. That’s why people are wearing the tuques. That’s why the D.J. is playing Pat Travers, Saga, Rush, April Wine, and Triumph. Canada did put out some fine hard rock bands.

At midnight, we sang “Oh Canada” along with a recorded version by Céline Dion. I pounded my chest, just like the screecher from up North. With the exception of a friend who went to camp up north and knew the melody, we butchered the melody. Of course, this is a perfect example of hipster-ness, a mix of fascination, adulation and a huge dose of irony. They are making fun of Canada while worshipping it. While annoying as that is, it is also fun. It sure beats a normal night of drinking. And it is surely more fun then drinking in a Marina bar, watching the aging frat boys and sorority girls do the sad mating dance they do.

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