Speaking of Music That Plays With the the Rhythm of Rolling Hills on a Moonlit Autumn Drive…

This is in reference to my last post. The Fleet Foxes record came out this summer, and after I heard it I purposefully waited until September to buy it, since I knew it would be a better soundtrack for the fall than the summer.

So this video is dedicated to my wife who loves autumn, Fleet Foxes and goats nearly as much as she loves me…

The Calico Rebellion

An Almost-Autumn Drive

Our car steamed through the chilled summer night, sliding in the grooves of the worn country road like new rain in some forgotten river bed. The encroaching weeds that threatened the road’s existence from both sides stood up and claimed their innocence as we rushed past the McMansion developments surrounding leaning, creaking farmhouses who refused to sell. The wind squeezed into our open windows, chilled our exposed faces and hummed hymns to the coming of fall.

Many people speak of Christmas as the best time of year. Those people are delusional. At the very least they’re senseless. And by “senseless” I mean they must lack several of the five senses the average person acquires at birth. When fall comes, smell, touch, taste, sight and sound are overwhelmed in the best of ways, like a feast of fresh vegetables after a forty-days fast. The fast is the long, woozy summer which numbs us every year. And the feast is the turning of trees, crunching of leaves and the feel of the chilly North wind that wakes us up from our summer slumber.

My wife and I always look forward to a long drive to welcome approaching autumn and to tell summer to not let the proverbial door knob hit him in the proverbial ass on the way out. In order to make it through the exhausting Oklahoma summer I tell myself that summer makes the autumn feel all the more refreshing. I’m not usually in favor of lying, especially to myself; but in this instance I feel it’s necessary for my own sanity. So a few weeks ago we felt the chill in the air and decided it was the right time to take that first autumn drive.

We began by filling our stomachs with free wine and hors d’oeuvres at the dozen-or-so art galleries near our house. Then we grabbed coffee to set our already-revved minds into a whir of thoughts. We live in the heart of the city, but in twenty minutes in any direction we can envelop ourselves with the scent of pine and dirt, the chirping of insects and the prying stares of a million blinking stars. We played music that gently strums with the rhythm of the wind on the rolling horizon as the air chilled our throats and our lungs gasped as if they hadn’t breathed in months.

For me, the fall makes my body, soul and mind all yearn at once for a new way to understand myself in relation to the world; I want to do familiar things in unfamiliar places; I want to see familiar objects from unfamiliar perspectives; I want to overwhelm myself and make sense of it at a later time.

I know this may seem a bit sappy, but I don’t really care. This is the time of year when I always get the sappiest, and I never experience the slightest regret. So let this be my ode to approaching autumn. We welcome you, and we wait with much anticipation.

The Calico Rebellion

You got any change?

He was young, and his expression was less like a man and more like an old beached ship-worn by waves and salt, yet refusing to just simply slip back out into the sea and disappear. He gave me a big smile and said “brotha, where ya goin t’day? I’m just headin’ over to ma sistahs and I run outta gas. You got some change?”

And this was the part that made me stop. I did have some change. I had exactly two dollars and fifty cents that I’d counted out in dimes and quarters and put into my pocket this morning. And that’s all the money I had. I knew I would come to this coffee shop after I was done with the lunch shift. So I’d counted it out before I left. Two fifty.

I typically drink two cups of coffee a day. In the morning it’s not really worth noting the expense, since I roast my own beans and thirty dollars in quality, green coffee can last me four or five months. But a cup of coffee from this particular shop-the one I’m going to as I’m stopped by the man with a fuel deficiency-costs two dollars. And then I tip at least fifty cents, because I’ve been that guy behind the counter.

And it’s not just any cup of coffee. The beans are fresh-no more than a few days from the point of roasting. The roaster is a master of the art, far greater than I can hope to be with my amateur equipment. After being ground the beans are mixed with steaming water in a French press and brewed no longer than three minutes before sliding into my cup.

And this is what I pay two fifty for every afternoon. The thing is that my wife and I are running pretty tight on money. She just started a new semester of school and I’m still waiting tables. I come here, sip a damn good cup of coffee and mooch the wifi for the next three hours, sending off my resume to the offices of all the lawyers and business execs I wait on every day. I ask them if they’d like a cup of soup with their salad, when I’d really like to ask them how it feels to provide health insurance for their wives.

But this morning we looked at our available funds and our regular expenses and notice a two dollar cup of coffee every day can add up. So rather than cutting the cost out all together, I reasoned that paying in change would be a proper solution. Because apparently change is not money, but don’t tell that to the guy approaching me on the street.

So now I’m faced with a dilemma. This guy asks if I have change. And I do. And normally the people like me that he approaches carry the same belief regarding change that I used this morning with my wife: change is not money. And it usually holds true with me. Getting hit up for change is a simple fact of life in this part of the city. And occasionally I comply. I pull out any change in my pocket followed by a variety of responses. “Thanks”. “I said I needed a dolla, not sixty cents”. “Fuck you”. That sort of thing.

But right now, in this instance, these six quarters and ten dimes are the only thing that can provide that thing I’ve been waiting for all day.

But this is not what needs to be going on in my head at this moment. This guy doesn’t need an essay, he needs a response. Do I give it to him and go home? Do I keep it and defy the very logic I used with my wife to justify coming here this afternoon?

“I’ve got enough for a cup of coffee and that’s it.”

He looks at the shop’s sign. “It’s cool man,” he says with a suspicious look as he walks away. He probably thought I was lying. And in truth I’ve lied about this to guys before, so it’s not out of the question.

And now I can’t get this interaction out of my head. I wasn’t heading to a movie. I wasn’t going out to dinner as I’ve been before in this instance. I was walking into the coffee shop with exactly the amount of money I needed for one cup of coffee. I picked that change from the bottom of my dresser drawer.

And in that instant I’m in the same situation as this guy walking away from me, and at the same time very far away. I’m on the edge, scraping for what I can to make rent in two weeks. Yet I’m one good interview away from health, dental, 401K and a steady check. It’s a strange life we sometimes live.

The Calico Rebellion

Group Thought

The Calico Rebellion

A Mainstream Counterculture?

I read an article in the newest issue of Adbusters entitled “Hipster: the dead end of western civilization.” The article ironically used gritty hipsteresque photos of American Apparel-clad twenty-somethings as well as deft observations: “ten years ago a man wearing a plain V-neck tee and drinking a Pabst would never be accused of being a trend follower. But in 2008, such things have become shameless cliches…”

It’s an interesting and keenly observant article. However, the conclusion alluded to in the title is misguided. The writer portrays the Hipster movement as if it is the most recent heir in a rich tradition of countercultures which ends the line of succession by absorbing the mainstream, rather than rejecting it, and eventually exploding… or maybe imploding. I’m not sure. The “exploding/imploding” metaphor is mine, not his. Regardless, he says the movement ends, taking Western civilization with it.

This is where he goes wrong. Not by failing to use my metaphor or suggesting an abrupt end to Western civilization, but by suggesting that the movements of the past were right and this new one is wrong because it’s become too trendy.

In modern American history we truly have had a string of counter-cultural movements in the post-WWII era. There were the beats, the hippies, punk, hip-hop, grunge… and all of the variations and offshoots in-between. And all of them became commercialized and mainstream in some capacity. It is the end result of every compelling modern movement.

But this article forgot to mention the true countercultural movement of today. The social justice movement. It’s movement of young people all over America, and the rest of the developed world, informing themselves of the global plight of humanity.

Those of us born after 1980 are the first generation that has grown up with the internet, allowing us to not only learn about remote regions of the world, but to communicate with those regions in real-time. And then, in a matter of seconds, we can just as easily purchase a plane ticket for a visit .

The movements of the 1960s did great things, but the majority of the changes produced affected primarily Americans, rather than the rest of the world. I’m aware that Kennedy started the Peace Corps in the 1960s and that many of the revolutionary events involved the Vietnam war in some way, but there can be no comparing the global understanding of that age and ours.

Unfortunately the marketing world has become too observant to let this movement develop untainted. GAP has its Red campaign selling clothes that benefit HIV/AIDS relief in Africa. And we also have Tom’s shoes. Toms is the company that donates a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair you buy. They now sell $120 boots that look like an Ace bandage wrapped around your calf. It’s a good idea for a socially conscious company. It’s just funny to see a pair of Toms as an accessory to an outfit that includes a pair of $300 sunglasses. [full disclosure: I'm wearing Tom's as I write this. And tight-fitting jeans. Yes, apparently I'm a hipster too, damnit.]

However, even with this mainstream aspect, the social justice movement is still counter-cultural. What’s more counter to American culture than a movement rejecting political boundaries, and striving for just treatment for everyone, regardless of which side of an arbitrary line a human was born? Obviously we can be sedated by the ads into thinking this is just a fad.

But I believe there’s too much information being communicated out there for this to be the case for everyone. And we as a generation have experienced too much of this first-hand. If I had enough fingers and toes, I could count for days the number of people I know who’ve been to or even lived in a third-world country.

This is why the isolationist approach of the past does not take hold on our generation. This is why we don’t give in to blind patriotism. This is why we don’t want to just bomb the hell out of our “enemies”. We’ve looked into their eyes, and can see from their perspective. We want reconciliation. We want to talk.

No, the aimless, self-involved hipsters are not the counterculture of our generation. It’s the global revolutionaries.

The Calico Rebellion