Hipsters On Ice

First the Lower East Side, then the Mission District, now Los Feliz, Silverlake, and Echo Park. Managing always to be surrounded by these tight-pantsed tattooed creatures, I've moved from enclave to enclave, learning their language of apathy for anything other than outdated technology and bicycle riding. Between the fauxhawks, and the American Apparel, and the takeoff on ethnic scarves, they are unmistakable. They studied art and the social sciences, mashed up mod and punk and hippie and anarchist, and attempt the appearance of low-income lifestyles while spending about half a million dollars every day on a hand-crafted latte. They are mulleted yuppies on wheels, meant to work in a show called Hipsters On Ice.

Imagine hordes of waifish men and women in grey jeans posing and skittering across a glossy rink while the White Stripes play over the intercom. There could be a girl dressed as Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs doing figure 8s while the president of Urban Outfitters skates with a rose in his teeth to a pack of boys admiring moccasins. There could even be a giveaway where the winning audience member gets a messenger bag filled with an ironic Christmas sweater and a vegan burrito. The winning audience member will be picked by the cast member who has the worst posture and owns barrettes made out of Legos, which will also be criteria for getting cast in the first place.

The sequel to the show will of course be called Hipsters On Nice, in which it is revealed that all the little poppets really wanted in the first place was to go back to their childhood in the 80s. The marketing potential therein is endless. They've got to slouch and remain their teenage weight for something.

Potato.com

Potato.com will mark the dawn of an era of websites that don't even require words. What I'm saying is, Illiterates, we want your money too. You will simply open the URL, scroll down to the image of a potato of your choice, and click on it. That potato will be added to your cart, by which I mean an elderly woman in your neighborhood will hustle up to your porch with the potato and put it in the basket on your porch. Nothing says you don't read like owning a basket, or knowing someone old. Voila! You've bought a brand new potato, and now I have your clams in return!

Why the potato-by-potato approach? Culturally we're moving towards the unique, the individually prepared, the hand-picked. Nobody's going to want a bushel of potatoes--who knows what bad fruit therein lingers? I don't know about you, but there's something about an individual root vegetable that screams, You're going to be my pet chicken Cackles and follow me around like the lover that you are until one day, I roast you for dinner.

And yes, there is a bit of resemblance in potato.com to those websites for Russian brides, but the difference is weight. Those brides are way fatter, no offense. And they talk more and relate to you, and if I get you correctly, you'd rather be eating or making stamps with a third grader than knowing somebody on a personal level. Bottom line: potatoes aren't demanding. They fry well, and go with ketchup. And coming to a website near you, they'll be available one at a time.

Me, Dita Von Teese, and a Piece of Bacon

Girl Woody

Sometimes I do feel like a girl Woody Allen. Even aside from the Sagittarius Jewish New Yorker comedy writer part. In recent history I felt terribly depressed, and when asked why, could only say, "Because I'm so happy." I was! I was very happy, and quite frankly, it was bringing me down.

Unable to successfully get out of bed this morning like the Aries stockbroker goyim, I reminisced about a better time in which I may have still experienced depression and sadness, but was at least on my feet for it. Oh, the motivation I had, bounding from my slumber to stare mournfully out the window! I can respect that: stumbling through one's personal fog in sneakers.

You psychoanalysts out there might be saying, "Oh, that's actually an agitated depression you're describing; there's the difference." I wouldn't say that the former experience was agitated so much as vertical. When the makers of the DSMV V call me back, I'm going to explain that here on out there should be two kinds of depression listed: vertical and horizontal. Maybe it's a blood-flow sort of issue: when you're horizontally depressed, there's some sort of biochemical effect such that if you stand on your feet or your head, the blues get worse. If I could find my old board game with the guy you operate on and when you do it badly, the whole thing lights up and honks at you, I could really prove this theory of mine.

But don't get me wrong, when all you want to do is hide under the covers, even a neurotic person such as myself longs for happiness. Even when I recognize that it might make me a little anxious, and therefore maybe a touch sad. If I have a say, however, I'd like to request the kind of happiness that does include lying down.

In Honor of Groundhog Day, The Mighty Beaver