Vices of the "Underground"

So, the trip to Portugal was certainly a success. Many memories were made, a plethora of pastries consumed, and countless hours of sleep lost (due in part to an oven-like train compartment and a hostelmate with the snoring volume of a chain-saw orchestra). But all in all, it was certainly worth it.

The following is the article I made mention of in the previous post. It's a satiric piece written from the perspective of a hipster that feels the music - a terrible fault/sin/whatever. Unlike the things that I write for the paper, this isn't available online and I'm not entirely sure what it looks like after editing, so here's the text in it's original form. (Supposedly in the next few weeks Move - the name of the magazine - will be online and I'll post the website at that time). Enjoy.

(Also, it should be kept in mind that it is indeed satire, and a sense of humor should be kept when reading it):

You’re only cool if you sway. Dancing, jumping, drinking, smiling, heaving, vomiting, passing out, smelling, smelling good, smelling bad…and breathing (unless enriched by a cigarette) are all strictly off limits.

It’s not that it’s an addiction. It’s an image. You all think this facial hair comes naturally? That these pants come this tight? That this hair comes this disheveled through powers of the divine? Man, you don’t even know.

It takes hours to get this outfit together. Each stitch carefully chosen from among the threads of Goodwill and Salvation Army; hours spent diving in piles and breathing dust balls, risking the devastating “dust-lung.” Belts with colors not known to man, clove cigarettes six years old, pin stripes that go beyond the coat into infinity.

Feel that beat. Feel its pulse. It’s alive and breathing, thumping, beating. Hit the bass and lash at the snare. Oh God, do it man – I feel it. It’s a part of me now. But I am a stone.

You never move, that’s the cardinal rule. Movement only serves to disturb the beautiful flow of rhythm that circulates through the air. Those of us who don’t move, speak, or give any signs of life are the saviors of the show among heathens; messiahs, if you will. You move, you die. That’s all there is to it. We’re also quite a bit better than you. At life.

The guy with two pitchers of beer belting out incoherent lyrics, covering the dance floor with movement; the girl sitting alongside the opener on the piano bench, her head thrown back and howling to the smiles of the crowd and security alike – do you think that they’re having fun, (no matter how many times they say they are)?

Psh, the animated don’t even know what their missing. I bet they can’t even hear the atonal 12-tone patterns this guy on stage is totally rocking, or the feeling of blood rushing to the feet due to the 20 minutes of complete inactivity.

Sure, I could quit. But someone’s got to represent the music virtuosos and connoisseurs. I mean, there’s really not that many of us. But I can feel it. There’s no one out there like me. I’m an individual.

But despite my all my incredible hip-ness, I feel that I’ve betrayed our Code, unspoken and beyond the ears of the proletariat. I have a confession that not even God (Steven Malkmus of saintly Pavement) can forgive: I’ve begun to feel the music in such a way that my muscles have begun to contract against my will.

At first, I believed it to be spasms brought on by the imported beer Belgium “bier” with a label weathered with age – perhaps the hops had mutated into some sort of stimulant?

But then I realized the worst, that these muscles pulsed evenly, mediated by the beats of the stage…and I realized that I was moving in such a way that it could be interpreting as “danc-ing.” I passed them off as epileptic fits, but I think some of the guys/girls have begun to talk (most have such donned an amount of clothing that sex has disappeared within the plaid and tweed that it’s simply easier to avoid distinction).

Recently, I’ve taken to filling my shoes with concrete to stave off hints of movement. I’ve got three compound fractures in my right ankle and it’s totally worth it. I’ve also been stuffing my ears with bad album art – I can’t hear the music and pus has saturated the areas around the plugs, so I should be all right. It’s an image.

The “ear plugs” have worked better than I could have ever imagined. Not only do I not have to worry about my limbs spontaneously moving, when people question me about music or why I have four inches of paper sticking out of my ears, I don’t hear them and can totally dig the music (or lack thereof).

But still there pulsed the movement – I could feel it in the vibrations. But now, thanks to my utter ingenuity and brilliance and sheer mind power, I have devised another option: I’ve decided to put myself in a coma with the assistance of a brick, and then be wheeled to shows. Not only will this kill the potential for movement, but it will also destroy any festering element of “lameness” that I might have been infected with by the surrounded “lameness-carriers.”

I’m about as indie as they come.