is a hipster without the swagger really a hipster at all?

yesterday afternoon, tom and i sat in a dark green booth at grasshopper, enjoying food i've heard him rave about since he moved ot boston. sure enough, i enjoyed the closest thing to hop sing general's chicken i've had anywhere. who would have thought i'd find a dead ringer for burlington chinese chicken at a vegan restaurant in allston?

as i tried to hide the fact that i haven't used chopsticks in eons, i chatted with tom about how he found the place. he informed me that the restaurant is a hotspot for punks and hipsters, then commenting on the fact that both were represented at our booth. as the mohawk and punk gear was still in full effect across the table from me, i raised an eyebrow and asked if he was trying to refer to his beloved sister as a darkly sarcastic hipster.

his response amused me to no end (and fine, yes, it secretly pleased me). taking a moment to contemplate the best choice of words while popping a floret of broccoli into his mouth, he carefully replied. looking at my general personality, he would have to go with no because i tend to be too optimistic for strict hipsterdom. while i did dye my normally sunny blonde hair darker, it wasn't black, which also helped the argument against my being a hipster.

but, he countered, i am frequently very sarcastic and he knew i "have a tendancy to be a cynical bitch" when i want to be (i took no offense, as it was stated matter-of-factly and he's said more than once that he gets a kick out of my cynicism). and as far as my interests and preferences, they all foray into hipster territory.

thus, the final analysis: "you are someone possessing the characteristics and interests of a hipster without the pretention that comes with identifying oneself as a hipster."

as i opened my mouth to laugh, he added the kicker.

"except when it comes to music."

he then went into a quite indepth analysis of my musical taste and attitudes, based on previous conversations and particularly the chat we had just finished on the train on the way to allston. during the train ride, i filled him in on my conversation with michelle the night before, when we discussed how much mayer each of us could listen to and how we viewed him both prefame and now, he nodded in understanding, then asking me how i felt about the success of mraz and howie in comparison. as i rolled my eyes at references to "the remedy" (but, i should note, grinned like a fool when he said he really liked "you & i both"), he heard me discuss the wonder of an intimate show with people who really love the music and not the hype.

my soapbox moment came back to bite me, as he described my musical hipster pretention. but it was all good, he assured me, as he's proud of being a pretentious punk.

later in the afternoon, we waited for the bus to pick us up across from the "jim did it sign company" (love it) and bring us back to harvard square and i learned the intricate punk dance steps. my favorite is the two-step, pizza-maker combo. i suppose the fun may have been lost on those driving by, as two twenty-somethings were flailing about at a bus stop on a sunday afternoon, but we kept warm and i was loving every second of it.

as he gave me a hug and thanked me for such a fun afternoon at the alewife station, i thanked him for the perfect end to a fantastic weekend. in truth, i can't recall having three days of constant fun in ages.

there's no way i can do justice to it all, but i'll do quick summaries. friday night found beth and myself taking on the gavin degraw/vaco/michael tolcher show at uvm, where we realized how old we were and how long it's been since we attended a college (read: see and be seen) concert.

vaco is crazy and would make a great headliner. gavin would make a fine headliner as long as he let loose from the beginning of his set - and had more original material to work with. his cover of "let's get it on" will go down as the second best cover i've ever heard live (first place going to pmb/vaco/hd covering "sympathy for the devil" at paradise circa 12.28.00). for the rest of his set, he was great, although for some reason i found myself singing "i don't wanna be" with my cartman voice for the rest of the evening and much of the following morning. good times, 1 a.m. pizza/breadstick calls and the first homemade vodka/sprite drinks since college days.

after writing my column and sending it in, i headed down to massachusetts late saturday morning, greeting the boston skyline with glee when i drove around the bend on 95. i love that moment.

i do not, unfortunately, love the results of the big dig. i hate the tunnel going beneath the city ... i love massachusetts drivers. i consider myself a massachusetts driver by birth and get in touch with my flatlander roots as soon as cross the state lines. but i'm not crazy about tunnels as is, and being in a new tunnel with a whole bunch of massachusetts drivers ... not so much. especially since one of my favorite things about the drive is driving through the city ...

after arriving in quincy, i caught up with michelle and rita before michelle and i decided to try to prevent any debacles like our last trip to providence. therefore, we looked up what time the show was set to begin and found directions to the living room ... i thought we'd really covered our arses. so, with the plan to drive in, get dinner somewhere nice, then hit up the show, we got our concert-coiffed selves into the jeep and headed to rhode island ...

yeah. by the time we got there, we thought we'd be late. so we walk in - an hour before averi does, before most people did, for that matter. which gave us plenty of time to freeze ... the place was so cold. there had been some pipe issues after the deep freeze and, long story short, it was cold. you could see your breath kind of cold. but we wound up getting to enjoy a space heater that charlie, the owner/bartender, placed before us ... we had the best seats in the house.

averi wound up being the second of three bands and went on to play a ... well, it was cold, they weren't using the keyboards for whatever reason and many people there - audience, musician or otherwise - were using alcohol to warm up (hey, i was too). so we all just made the best of it and had fun being the few members of the "x averi team." the extreme fans ...

chatted with some of michelle's friends who i've met numerous times at various shows, met a couple of new people, which is always fun. said hello to a couple of the averi guys, which was nice. encouraged an averi show in burlington ... we'll see if that happens. then rocked out on the way home and just had a good time catching up with michelle ... good night, random adventures. sure we didn't get lost. and if the place was warm, the living room would actually be a fun place to kick back and relax, in a dan's cafe sort of way. but with it being so cold, would getting lost have really been that bad a thing? hmm ... ponder that ...

anyway, the next day i headed over to my brother's for our catchup time ... music shopping in harvard square (where i finally found a copy of guster's "parachute" - hurrah!) and just lounged around. i came across the pendant currently hanging from my neck ... pewter with the rune of communication. reading the information that came with it and considering the writer's block i've gotten so frustrated with lately, i figured it would be perfect. the rune of communication for the girl about to be a full-time communicator ... how can i go wrong?

all in all, a wonderful time ... three fabulous days and a weekend that gave me a much-needed ego boost ... delightful.

... thank you music, the road and massachusetts.