Who is to Blame?

Ever since hipsters have come on the scene, they have been despised by anyone not wearing skinny jeans.  They have been around for quite a while now and my question is, who is to blame for this?  Just like any other trend, you can't blame it all on one person or one event, but it sure is fun to try. 

I blame Hollywood.  Well, that was easy enough.  When in doubt, blame either Hollywood or the government.  There are two mainstream movies that I think had a hand in getting the hipster movement going.  'Juno' and 'Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist'.  I've seen both movies, I enjoyed both movies.  But both had an air of pretension.  The main problem is the music.  If you think of hipsters, one thing most people think of is 'you've probably never heard of them' when they refer to the music they listen to.  Now think back to the both of these movies.  Think about the music that was in both of these movies.  Most of the music that was used or referenced in those movies were on the outskirts of mainstream.  Go look at the soundtracks of both of those movies and show them to people on the streets.  Now ask those people to list songs from those bands.  Most probably can't.   

And it's fine, I have no problem with movie makers using music that is obscure.  It exposed the music to people that could find it fun to listen to.  I found the Pixies through movies, so it can't be all bad.  What I have a problem with is people seeing a movie and finding some new music that they had never heard of and think that they are on to something new.  And then chastising others for never hearing of these bands.  Once the music domino fell, it was only a matter of time before they took over other parts of people's lives.  They took Converse Chuck Taylor shoes (dicks), beards (mega dicks), and cool shirts from places like Threadless.  I have several shirts from there, and I always feel a little dirty wearing them knowing that there are hipsters out there that wear the same thing.

In the end, I think that it is just a phase.  A trend that may die out, much like the hippie movement.  They eventually all moved out to the Pacific Northwest and were never heard from again.  So maybe in about five or six years all the hipsters will congregate in New York or Los Angeles and we will never hear from them again.  Hopefully.  And it'll be a reason to never visit those cities.  






Need another reason to think that one of these movies were on the hipster forefront?  Hamburger phone. 

Holy Sheet

The NCAA men's basketball tournament is just about underway this year.  It is the one time that I truly pay attention to any sort of basketball.  The conference tournaments themselves are so fun to watch because there are times when a lower seeded team goes on a run and makes some huge upsets, which could end up being the highlight of their year.  Take, for instance, Southern Illinois in the Missouri Valley Conference.  They beat the top seeded team (Wichita State, number fourteen in the country) in the quarterfinals and lost in overtime to Creighton (number twenty four in the country).  They had a great run and the only way for them to make it to the 'Big Dance' was to beat those two teams.  A bittersweet end to their season as they lost and will be playing in the NIT.

One reason that I watch the tournament is because of the bracket.  I enjoy filling one out each year and see how I do picking the teams.  I do decently most years and then there are other years when I stop checking my bracket after the second round.  That's just how it goes.  But that's it, just one bracket.  The most I have ever filled out has been two, and they were so close to each other in the teams that I picked that they ended up looking the same in the end.  My problem with the whole filling out a bracket thing is that people do way too many of them and get way to into it.  When I fill one out, it is on ESPN's website and it gets ranked along with everyone else.  Just for fun, no money involved.  But I see on there people that have five, six, or seven of them and it takes the fun out of it.  I have always thought that it was fun to put one together and go with it, but now people put together so many different brackets that they may have one bracket that is almost perfect, but the rest that they fill out could have teams scratched out from the first round all the way to the championship game, but they won't brag about that one.  They'll tell all their friends about their near perfect bracket that they filled out.

That's why I fill only one out.  I go with my gut and the numbers one time and let the bracket be.  Making more than one takes the fun out of filling the bracket out and the excitement of the upset games because there is always a chance that on one of your other brackets, you had Cinderella winning.

Scary Spring

Spring Training is under way for baseball.  I am very excited about it.  In fact, earlier this week, the local Fox Sports channel had a Twins Spring Training game on and I got sucked in.  It's a game that means nothing.  A game that has no name players on the field after the fourth inning.  A game...that makes me smile. 

So far, the Tigers are streaking at six wins and zero losses.  Pretty awesome right?  WRONG!  It gives fans a false sense of hope and comfort.  I want them to play a game and just get dominated.  I want them to lose a game 10-0.  And here's why.  They need to feel the pain of a loss.  As a group they need to sit down and analysis where they can improve.  They have players that are smart enough to know their weaknesses, but are they strong enough to let their teammates know where they could improve their game.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the defense is going to scare me this year.  That is the trade off they made by signing Prince Fielder.  Not only do they need a bad loss in the spring, but they need a losing streak at the beginning of the year, when the games matter.  I don't want them to go out and lose nine or ten in a row, but would losing five or six in a row be bad for them?  Wouldn't it make them hungry to go out and prove every MLB person that will start to criticize them wrong?  I think it would.  Especially if they lose games to teams that will be in the post season.  It's one thing to beat up on teams like Kansas City and Oakland, but it's another thing to go to Texas or Boston and take two of three or even to sweep a series. 

Now obviously the Tigers aren't going to win one hundred and fifty games (or can they....), but when the bar is set so high and the expectations soar after last year and from all the off season acquisitions what happens if they fail?  This happened in 2008.  They were suppose to be this great offensive power house and carry the pitching rotation and bullpen.  Then they ended up winning about seventy five games.  It was a failure on all levels.  This year, they will do better than that just because of the pitching staff.  It's more well rounded and the bullpen is tons better than it was in 2008.

Battling back from adversity will be good for the team.  Take the 'us against the world' mentality and run with it if the season doesn't start out like we all want it to.  Hell, I would love to see them clear the 35-5 mark the organization set back in 1984 on their way to the World Series.  I would love to see them win one hundred games (which last happened when I was two).  The closest they have come to one hundred wins was last year and back in 2006.  And, of course, I would love to see them win the World Series. 

Signing one offensive power hitter does not make a team.  A winning attitude makes a team.  Go Get 'Em Tigers. 

Love Him or Hate Him

Two books down, four to go.  Basically ten months left in the year.

• Guns, Germs, and Steel:  The Fates of Human Societies
• Tell All
• Damned
• A Little Matter of Genocide:  Holocaust and Denial in the Americas from 1492 to Present
• Suttree
• Founding Brothers:  The Revolutionary Generation

 So, the thing about Chuck Palahniuk is you either love him or you hate him.  Tell All could be the breaking point for anyone who has been sitting on the fence about him.  Don't read it if you aren't fully entrenched in his style of writing.  I have now read eight of his books and every time I get into one, I think to myself 'this is it, he has finally lost me.'  Then I finish the book and think 'Goddamn you Chuck Palahniuk!'  I even throw a fist in the air and shake it angrily like an old man.  I got a third of the way through Tell All thinking that nothing will happen.   Then two thirds of the way through I still thought nothing was going to happen.....then the last third of the book.  The twists in his books are what M. Night Shyamalan's twists dream about being.  He always seems to have something in each book that is just different about it.  In Tell All, any name drop was in bold lettering.  A little annoying at first, but it makes sense as you go on.  It's all about name dropping, along with the other parts of the plot.  

The nice thing about his books is that they are fairly short.  This one was under two hundred pages.  A nice break considering the last book I read was a history book.  And over four hundred pages long (still don't regret reading it).  The bad thing about his books is that the hook to get the reader to keep going is past the halfway point.  Oh well, I still love his books.