Hipsters?

Can anyone give me a definition of what a hipster is? I recently finished reading Jack Kerouac's "On The Road" and he talks about hipsters all the time in the book. It's also a word that I frequently see in the style section of magazines like Time Out New York when they're talking about style or about Williamsburg in Brooklyn or Manhattan's Lower East Side. I was down in the LES a few weeks back and was talking to someone about how often they frequent the bar we were at and how they liked it and she said "there's a lot of hipsters here, but otherwise most of the people are pretty cool" or something like that. What's that supposed to mean?? I picture hipsters as people who dress very stylish / industrial and don't really have a lot on life's agenda except to have fun and plan for today. I wouldn't think that I'd find a hipster working as an accountant for a Big Four accounting firm, for example. I picture them as someone content to work in a parking garage. But I'm just not really sure...

Besides meeting someone that isn't particularly fond of hipsters, the last week has kept me quite busy, as you can probably see by the plethora of pictures. On St. Patrick's day, we did the traditional festivities, including a visit to a gentleman named Mr. O'Hurley, who runs an Irish restaurant / bar on the west side. On my first trip out to New York to visit Cathy and Paul for St. Patrick's day, we wandered around the west side looking for a place to settle in for the evening and we came across this joint called O'Hurley's. We stepped in and an older gentleman sat us at a giant table in the corner of the room, which was perfect in case you don't realize how crowded these places get on March 17th. When the waitress came to us, we asked if the gentleman who sat us was Mr. O'Hurley himself. Her response? "No, he's just some old guy who's been coming here for years that likes to help out on St. Patrick's Day". A legend was born that day, and the old guy was christened by Paul and I as Mr. O'Hurley. He doesn't know we exist, but we frequently talk about Mr. O'Hurley seating us at the massive table and about Mrs. O'Hurley in the kitchen cooking up our corned beef and cabbage. So this year we revisited the place to make sure that he was still working the tables and, sure enough, he again gave our small group the massive table. And Mrs. O'Hurley again served up some fine traditional cuisine for Paul, Cathy, D, Kevin, and I as we got the evening started.

The evening continued at my micro-apartment after dinner, where we continued the St. Patrick's day tradition by...having a South American party. Vanessa served up Pisco Sours from Peru and Mili was hard at work being DJ on my digital iTunes turn-table. Paul (unfortunately Cathy had to work), Alan, his girlfriend (Andrea), Sean, his girlfriend (Lauren), the Peruvians, and some random neighbor of Lauren's all attended. Some of us even learned how to salsa that night!

Friday morning, roommate #3 showed up for the weekend, Vanessa and Mili's cousin "Wila" from Miami. I was curious to see how things would turn out with 100 square feet per person in my apartment. Lucky for me, Wila turned out to be easy going and so space wasn't an issue (for me, anyway!) for the weekend. Clausterphobic? You might not want to come visit me with two of your best friends, then :) !! Friday night was pretty mellow, everyone was tired. I made us a little vegetarian meal with some wine and chilled out while the girls sang Shakira and Britney Spears songs (how did those get on my iPod?) and belly-danced to some Arabic music. Boy, life sure is rough for me ;o) !!

Saturday evening was locked and loaded to be a big night, though. After much perusal, I dug up Baldo Vino in the East Village and made our 10:00 dinner reservations for my guests and Cathy & Paul. We enjoyed a fabulous dinner in good company and a warm atmosphere with sangria that had a hint of nutmeg and cinammon (no, I didn't need to ask the bartender, Cathy ;o).

After dinner, we bid P&C farewell and headed to the West Side, Chelsea, to hit up a megaclub. When we arrived, we were pleasantly surprised to find that Sean had bought a bottle service inside, meaning he paid an exorbidant amount of money for a bottle of top-shelf vodka and mixers so that we could have our own table and our own waitress. And no cover charge! That definitely made things really enjoyable and we didn't have to fight the crowds inside. So we had a nice little evening with ear-ringing hip-hop and rock music and tearing up the carpet. Nothing too scandalous happened that night and we had a great time until it closed at around 4:30. Naturally, I saw many a "wing-man" formations flying sorties in an attempt to raid our table, but it was fun to see our surface-to-air defense system strike them down before they got too close ;o).

Some of us have to work, so stay tuned...
J.