Friday, January 07, 2005

hipster cat fight

the following is a lengthy and true (although somewhat drunkenly remembered) account of the almost-fight i got into last night at the go bar. seriously, i'm not kidding. the go bar. not classic city saloon. the go bar. you know the one (if you live in athens you do anyway). while a fight at the go bar seems ludicrous enough, the fact that i was the one that almost got in a fight makes it even more ridiculous.

so, obviously, i went to the go bar last night. i went with a couple of friends after stopping by boneshakers for a quick shake or two. as we were walking in we passed by a girl standing by herself outside of the bar. we said hello although none of us knew her. just to be polite, you know. it seems rude to me to pass within a foot of someone who is looking at you and not to acknowledge them. as i later found out, that is because of my poor, stereotypical southern upbringing. little did my two nemeses from last night realize that along with politeness, a true southern upbringing also equips one with sass. and by sass i mean a "don't fuck with me- i'm polite because i want to be not because i have to be and i will kick your ass if you force me to" attitude.

after passing by nemesis #1, who shall henceforth be called by the name "bottle-thrower" and approaching the door to go in we were all startled by the sound of an exploding beer bottle right next to our feet. for some strange reason bottle-thrower (now you hopefully understand the significance of her given name) had thrown her beer right at us. ok. so we went inside.

one delayed reaction later, i was like "did that girl just throw her beer at us?"
and my friends were like "yes."
and i was like "aw, hell no she didn't. what the fuck is wrong with her?"
and they were all like "i don't know, let's get a drink."

and i was like, by that time, already out the door and confronting bottle-thrower.

at this point i wasn't really mad. i was just curious as to why this girl that none of us had ever seen before had thrown a beer at us. so i asked her. she looked slightly contrite and replied that she had thrown the beer because she was moving to l.a. tomorrow and thought what the hell, it would be funny. i told her that i thought that was very weird. why would throwing a bottle and potentially injuring someone seem like a funny thing to do? she wasn't sure but stuck by her story. she seemed pretty nice but that is probably only because i was slightly intoxicated and not really the best judge of character under the circumstances. i said ok, whatever and turned to go back inside when suddenly she said with a smirk, besides, if i had wanted to hurt you i would have aimed for your head. that's when i saw the malicious part of her nature that had prompted her to chuck a glass bottle at us in the first place. i also saw something else. this girl really had wanted to throw the bottle at our heads, but had stopped herself, not because she felt bad about it, but because she was afraid to do it. she was, in fact, just a cowardly bitch. i went inside and promptly forgot about her.

until i came face to face with nemesis #2, who i shall dub "jerry-springer-guest-wannabe". she got in my face and sneered that my boyfriend was telling on her friend. ok, first of all my boyfriend lives in virginia so her claim was pretty unlikely and second of all, her friend threw a fucking bottle at us! am i really supposed to feel bad that my friend chose to inform the bartender of this? clearly my two nemeses had already had a bit much to drink and should probably get their annoying little asses home. then jerry-springer-guest-wannabe turns in a huff and goes to sing her terrible rendition of some indie-rock song, as it was indie-rock karaoke night after all (oh-my-god, does life get any more hipster than indie-rock karaoke?).


*intermission*
(snacks available in the concession area)


i had had enough by this point so i headed to the bathroom to take a quick sip from my flask. when i came out feeling refreshed my friend c was clearly ready to go as was i. i mean, besides me and c and j and bt and jsgw there were only about five other people there. lame. so c and i head out only to run into our friend j in a heated conversation with bt and jsgw. we came in in the middle, but here is what i gathered: bt had thrown the bottle not at all of us but specifically at j because he was too friendly for her taste. it made her angry and reminded her of why she was moving back to l.a. the reason? because she came to athens to get away from pretentious hipster snobs and was met with the exact people she was trying to escape when she arrived in our lovely town. apparently, in her mind, j seemed too incorrigibly hipster and deserved having a bottle thrown at him especially because he "pretended" to be friendly in that annoying southern way. that's when it came out that j isn't even from the south at all. he's from new york or something. well, that threw bt for a loop, but jsgw kindly explained to her that many transplanted hipsters go through a "southern phase" where they try to become more genteel or some shit.

i think that's when i actually got mad. or maybe it was when jsgw started pointing at each of us in turn and chanting "hipster" in a really grating way. i mean, i'm not going to either claim or deny hipster status. i'm sure that is up to each individual i meet to judge if they choose to care about something so superficial and stupid, but i am certainly not going to stand there and be made fun of by some dumb girl who is about as stereotypically hipster as you could hope to find. and seriously, what were they doing at the go bar of all places if they hated hipsters so much? at indie-rock karaoke night? please, even flicker and manhattan, two townie hipster meccas, have got nothing on the go bar. so basically the two chicks are total hypocrites. they are easily the most judgmental, snobby, pretentious hipsters i have yet to meet but they choose to ignore this fact. it's sad really, because it means that they hate themselves more than they hate anyone else (and they really seem to have lots of hatred to go around) since they are the epitome of what they claim to detest.

so i got mad and said something along the lines of "shut the fuck up you dumb bitch. take a look in the goddamn mirror if you want to make fun of hipsters because you're making fun of yourself, too you fucking pretentious hipster."

i think she started yelling something but c was like, ok time to go so we left and got in the car.

but it wasn't over yet. bt ran up to the car and actually said "where are you going? take me with you. jsgw is mad at me because i started all of this and i don't want to go with her. i'm sorry, don't be mad." looking back, i see this for the cowardly cop out that it is. bt actually turned on her friend when push came to shove. sadly, that poor girl cannot even claim loyalty as a virtue. at the time, however, i thought that she really seemed sorry and was maybe an ok person after all and that her evil friend was the one causing all of the problems. i think i had temporarily forgotten who actually threw the bottle at us.

inevitably, jsgw came over to the car to get bt. i don't remember how we started arguing again, but i think j and jsgw were going at it verbally when i chimed in with a "shut up, you're just a bitch and your friend is nicer than you." for some reason the fact that i thought bt was nicer than her made her furious. she claimed that she had been trying to take up for us but i must have missed that part because all i remember is her either making fun of me or getting in my face or yelling. in any case, she got so mad that it was actually comical and maybe my sadistic side came out a little bit too because i seem to remember noticing how mad it made her and deciding to repeat it a few more times for effect. "your friend is nicer than you are. your friend is nicer than you are. etc."

now, i have a very limited experience with physical violence, most of it learned from defending myself against my sister when we were kids so, although this may come as a surprise, i was rather shocked when jsgw reached into the car and backhanded me across the face. my first reaction was to jump out of the car and beat the shit out of her. fortunately (or unfortunately depending upon your point of view) i couldn't get the door open so i had to resort to yelling some more obscenities at her from inside the car. things such as: "what do you think this is, the jerry springer show?" and "do you really expect me to get in a fight with you right here in the parking lot? that is so trashy." to which she responded, "call me trashy then. let's go!" to which i responded by calling her white trash followed by a few unsavory words. truth be told, the door wasn't really what stopped me from paying her back the backhand plus some, it was the ridiculous image of the two of us slapping at one another and pulling each other's hair and rolling around in the parking lot that stilled my hand. now, maybe that image sounds arousing to some of you male readers but, trust me, your imagination has seriously misled you. the reality of it would have been nothing but pure silliness. so we drove away with me laughing at the stupidity of the situation.

my last image of my two nemeses as we left was of bt cowering on the sidewalk because she was afraid we would run over her and of jsgw giving me the evil eye as i laughed in her face. of the two of them i think i prefer jsgw. she, at least, showed some loyalty to her friend and some spunk. it's just too bad that she's so damn angry with life. fucking hipster.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Jenna it's HE Jenny - wowie wow wow what a crazy night! Glad you held back from the cat fight but how crazy those girls were. You could have kicked both their asses. ;-)

Anonymous said...

I doubt they were really from LA. As an Athens expat and current LA/OC resident, they sound more IE to me (Inland Empire), which is the Rockdale County of the LA Metro Region. My circle of friends had a different taxonomy for "hipsters" - we called them "indies." And the Manhattan - Flicker - 40Watt was the "pretentious triangle." But of course this was all tongue in cheek, as most of us worked at Blue Sky or some other acceptable service industry establishment and played in one indie rock band or another. It's just a subculture is all, and there's no need for seeing people as pretentious just because they look "indie." And white trash is white trash no matter how recently you emerged from Urban Outfitters with your new ironic t-shirt.

LordSomber said...

>> "it means that they hate themselves more than they hate anyone else (and they really seem to have lots of hatred to go around) since they are the epitome of what they claim to detest."
Hilarious because it's true. The Hipster-dominated realm bitterly resents intrusions on its privileges from outside its domain. Denial simply crosscuts the grain of history as heretics are crossed off the proverbial Guest List.