Honey M. Barc is a comedian, performance artist and provocateur who lives in Los Angeles.
The Reluctant Hipster: Soundtrack of My Life
I pop Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone by the Walkmen into the CD player, crank up my compact gas guzzler and set off on the day's odyssey. Down go the windows—it's common knowledge that music sounds infinitely better when mixed with wind and street noise. The weather's great; it's close to 83 degrees. Santa Monica Blvd. is the place where the heat is most felt. Hispanic men and women, originating from "Mayheeco" to Equador are dressed for the occasion. Seas of brown skin cloaked in cut-off jeans and tank tops and flip-flops parade back and forth in front of the oncoming traffic. I pass the old Harvey Apartments which was my first place of residence upon arriving here in 2001. The building is a real hell-hole, save for the cool Beatles mural on the side of it. I'm less impressed with the adjacent rendering of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis and the Terminator. Just one block southwest of my former abode is Lemon Grove—the street where my girlish heart was broken for the last time (by a musician named Aaron back in 2002), ushering in the jaded and cynical me the world has grown to know and love. Heading eastward, my car cuts through a road decorated like a movie set with Latin-themed party supply stores housing everything one would need in order to throw an elegant Quinceañera, family BBQ or backyard shotgun wedding. I can smell the carne asada and hear the sizzle of family grills amid the violent horns of Salsa music blaring in the distance. I pass the spot where the old Hollywood Star Lanes bowling alley used to be and think about my first date with Eli James. Sure, he's now a famous Random house author, but back then, he was the Starbucks flunky to my Urban Outfitters slacker. I had a lot of great times at that bowling alley just a few short years ago. I feel a tinge of sadness as I gaze at its spot from my rear view mirror and see that it's now a fully erected high school adorned in security bars and bullet proof glass. Man, they just don't breed kids the way they used to… Blocks and blocks whiz by in the sweltering SoCal sun. Coming up on Los Feliz, I see the Vermont street subway terminal. It looks like a post-modern rendering of Noah's arc. To my left, is the urgent care facility which always has a line extending around the corner. Are all those people really that ill or are they waiting for the bus and I'm just incredibly mistaken? Hmm… I loop around the funky Santa Monica Blvd./Myra Street rigmarole until suddenly I find myself on Sunset Blvd. This street is like heaven to me. It's the place where all the hipsters live. Where guys and gals in aviator shades, skinny jeans and the coolest kicks knock back lattes at Intelligentsia and argue the importance of bands like Autolux and Earlimart on the local scene. Sunset Junction is abuzz with glory and splendor and I can't imagine another day as perfect as this one. Speeding past Micheltorena, I remember my friend Addy Dante and the guest house she used to live in while divorcing singer Patrick Park. I spent many an evening sprawled out on her bed with Matthew and Michelle, soaking up stories about her heated make-out sessions with Brian from the Silversun Pickups. I breathe in deep and drink up my playful past. People like Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese have created many a great love story around the goings on of New York and its inhabitants. But no one knows L.A. like I do. More importantly, no one loves this city as much as yours truly. ¤
