It’s been just over a year since I started the Anti-Hipster Forum, and I’ve been carping for a few weeks on whether to address this anniversary or not. It seems like these kind of pronouncements tend to act, more often than not, as grim foreshadows of impending devastation. But I’ll tempt fate just this one time. The thing is, I’m working on a book. Writing, that is, not reading. Yes, yes, you roll your eyes. You’ve heard it before. But I don’t mean this in a, ‘I’m tinkering around with some ideas’ or a ‘I just moved to Williamsburg and I’m doing a lot of coke’ kind of way, either. So watch out for updates. Also, I have a story in the latest edition of Rated Rookie magazine.

Since I’m continually amazed by the bizarre searches that lead people to my site, I’ve collected a bunch of the most outstanding search terms for my first anti-hipster anniversary. Here they are, in descending order of weird, with guesses on how they came to pass:

"vegetable instruments"

The first Vienna Vegetable Orchestra has been playing cucumbers and carrots long enough to generate a good, hearty swath of Google searchers and I suppose I was just caught in the crossfire, but I’m happy to know that at there are still people out there with a completely innocent curiosity about using vegetables for other purposes than simply eating. Point of origin: Question Askers


"fleece hat park slope new york"

Ahh, poor bastard. Probably a Park Slopster scrambling to get some things together for a morale-boosting, team-building, corporate survival camping weekend in the wilds of Pennsylvania. I hope she found the fleece hat she was looking for. Hopefully it was a purple one with fleece dreadlocks bouncing around on top. And I really hope some cold hot dog juice didn’t drip on it from the cooler during the long drive to Pennsylvania, because while she drudges around the woods in a cloud of yellow hazard smoke playing capture the flag with her PR department, a hungry Grizzly Bear’s liable to rip her head off. Point of origin: Park Slopesters


“six fag camping"

Oops. I think you meant ‘six flag camping,’ honey. I’m not snickering! No! Of course I’m not reading anything into it. Why should I? I love you, Ted. That’s ridiculous. My dad likes you just fine. No! He did not call you a pansy last Thanksgiving. Of course he liked the quiche. He was very impressed with your culinary tact. Broccoli is his favorite vegetable! Oh, stop it, honey. You’re just being paranoid. You know, I think this camping trip at Six Flags is going to be the perfect opportunity for you to get to know him better before we announce the engagement. Point of origin: Hipster Groupthink


"fuck you slimy bastards"

Don’t get me wrong, I love bubble tea. But once in a while those cute young ladies in the starched hats (bless their hearts) shovel so many fucking tapioca globules into the bottom of the cup that I can’t help myself from shakily pointing my oversized purple straw, still dripping with the sticky film of taro bean, at the first mesh trucker cap or greased-up Jersey Guido I see and pelting them with a chamber-full of slimy, stinging, bruise-colored spit-wads. To which they might well respond: “Fuck you!” and as they begin peeling the tapioca lumps off their necks and foreheads, they might mutter “slimy bastards.” Point of origin: Operation Santa (go figure)


“I need to get laid in new york city with a pretty young girl"

There’s a middle-aged podiatrist from Cleveland in town for a podiatrist’s convention (what else?) at the Javits Center. All the companies give away free ink pens and key chains and Frisbees and shit, all branded with the latest anti-fungal prescription logo. They’re all asked to wear nametags. After a long day of skimming through pamphlets and discreetly walking out of presentations about laser bunion-removal surgery and advances in women’s arch support, they shoot the shit down in the lobby. Some of the other guys opt to check out ESPN Zone and watch the game. “Nahh,” he says. “I’m just gunna go back to my hotel room, maybe call my wife. She’ll be worried. She thinks I’m gunna get mugged for God’s sake!” he says, shaking hands with another balding podiatrist from Philadelphia (Bill? Bob?) “Besides. Gotta big day tomorrow!” They laugh so you can see deep into their mouths, all the way to their molars. Back in the hotel room he kicks off his shoes. He unloads his pile of reading material from the convention and unclips his nametag. He lays on the bed and stares at the wall. He picks up the phone and sets it back down. He never has any time to himself anymore. He sees the little Bacardi bottles in the fridge. He turns on the radio. He drinks them all with Diet Coke. He takes a walk around the hotel, just to check it out. How often does he come to New York City? Never, that’s how often. On his way back to the room he passes a sexy young woman in businesslike attire. He smiles at her. She smiles back. Lordy, Lord, would’ya look at those legs! He turns around to look after she passes. An extremely impractical thought enters his head. Oh, you dirty dog, you! He’s gunna do it. He’s just gunna friggin’ do it. He should be able to do it. Has he no rights? He has trouble with the goddamn card-key thingy. He enters his room: he’s crippled by his hard-on, he’s drunk, he’s alone in the greatest city on earth and he’s free for the entire night! He closes all the blinds and turns on the television. He cracks open the laptop his wife made him bring and plugs in the modem. Email is a heck of a lot cheaper than long distance. He smirks. He gets up and checks the door lock again. His son has shown him how to ‘Yahoo!’ recently. You type in what you’re looking for and it brings it up. Like a calculator mixed with a Yellow Pages. There must be some kind of escort service or something; this is the Big Apple after all. Something quick, no questions asked. Hmm. Does he need cash? He looks in his wallet and throws it on the bed. They’ll probably take credit. No, can’t have a paper trail. His wife would kill him! Or Divorce him. Does he want that? He’ll run down and get some cash before the escort arrives. He sits down and types his request into Yahoo! Hmm. He considers re-phrasing. He’s thinking of something sort of tasteful. Like Spice channel. Nothing too raunchy. Low-key, but not too low-key. A black lacy number would be just fine. He hits the ‘search’ button. He vaguely remembers reading about a man who burned his penis on the bottom of a laptop computer. Ah, here we go. He clicks on the first thing that pops up. Hmm, no pictures. He’s expecting pictures, buttons to click, something. He squints and sighs at the complexity of it all. He scrolls up and down. Still no pictures. All he sees is the name Claire at the top. Oh Christ. That’s his daughter’s name, and his mother’s name. His erection deflates. Goddamnit. He burps and closes the laptop. It’s probably for the best. He pulls up the blinds and stares out the big window at the city. Then he calls his wife. Then he jerks off and goes to bed. Point of origin: Friendster


“cockstuffers"

Needless to say, whoever was searching for ‘cockstuffers’ probably wasn’t looking for interesting reading material. I count it as a singular (and probably short-lived) victory against the web porn industry that a search for this term brings my site up first. Take that, digital smut peddlers! Point of origin: Electroclash Party


“sucking grails photo"

Wow. I don’t even know what the fuck this means. Maybe there’s a band called the Sucking Grails? Or maybe there’s some little known sexual fetish involving grails? Sadly, the most likely scenario is that the putz meant to type ‘sucking girls photo’ but, as has happens to us all from time to time, he mixed up the ‘i’ and the ‘r,’ yielding ‘grils,’ and since his fingers were thick with booze, he managed to tap an ‘a’ in there, giving us, finally, ‘grails.’ I hope he found the sucking girl he was looking for. Point of origin: Hipster Dreams