I came across this little "ditty" while going through an old notebook. Written in 2005, it's probably as relevant as ever:

So you wants to be a hipster!

But do you have what it takes? Sure, you’ve moved from the mid-west to New York; OK, you’ve made inroads in the Lower East Side music scene, and yes, you shower no more then once a week. But does that really make you a hipster? An emphatic no! Sir or Madam; an emphatic no.

To understand what a hipster is, we must first look at the origins of the word: “Hipster” comes from the Latin “Hypsterdoophus”, meaning a group of slightly different potatoes, or potato salads. It has, in recent times, come to define a culture of young, mostly unemployed (or unemployable), layabouts whose main talent is sleeping, being ironic about irony, and sleeping some more.

Let us dissect these creatures.

When moving to New York City from Generic Small Town, the true hipster knows that appearance is everything.

First, adorn your body with several tattoos. Who would know you were into Asian lettering or stars on your elbow without pumping ink your frail, pasty arm?

Next, you must find decent clothing. Go to designer stores that sell vintage shirts for a 4000% mark-up. Tee-shirts are a must: Sleeveless, preferably, to show-off aforementioned tattoos. They should have pun-filled sayings poking fun of irony, like, “Tee Shirts are So Yesterday”, or “Ithaca is Gorges”. To be post-modern is no more! Post-Post modern is the way to go: remember it makes a delicious paradox. And so do you, sexy hipster, so do you.

The shirts should be tight enough that nipples show: whether they be erect or not. Make sure the shirt is so ridiculously tight that it forces your posture into a sloping hunch. This way, pensively gazing at your shoes isn’t such a chore!

If you’re really feeling brave, a form-fitting blazer is a plus. Remember nothing says, “I’m sort of sophisticated, in an ‘I dropped out of college to spend more time writing my blog’ sort of way” like a blazer that you found in a salvation army “rejected by the homeless” pile.

For pants, the lower the cut, the better. Even for men, show it all: Shaving your pubic hair isn’t just for the criminally insane and people riddled with STDs anymore!

Glasses are requisite, whether you have eye sight problems or not. Remember, glasses make you seem pensive and emotionally troubled. Plain old thick black frames went out with mesh caps like 6 months ago! Nowadays it’s all about REALLY thick black frames. Remember to obscure your ugly, acne scarred face.

As for hair cuts, there’s an easy equation you can remember:

Today’s Style=Hair Style of musicians 20 years ago

Does anyone remember when long, dirty hippie hair was popular in the late ‘80s? Or when people spiked their hair punkishly in the late ‘90s? Well, the same can be applied today. It’s that simple! Beat everyone to the punch: Flock Of Seagulls is making a comeback.

Now that you’re dressing like a hipster, it’s time to live like one. Living within your means is out, living within your father’s means is in. Here’s a little guide to help you choose where to situate:

POTENTIAL LIVING SITUATION	HIPSTER QUOTIENT
300 sq foot “2 bedroom” 6th floor walk-up in alphabet city. Potential price $2500	Pretty darn good. You’re near some bars that serve Pabst Blue Ribbon and of course, drug dealers. Plus some points if you sleep on only a mattress, no bedframe, or a futon you found on the street.
Huge loft in Willamsburg. Preferably near Bedford Ave. $3000	Great. You’re near some more bars that sell Pabst Blue Ribbon and of course, even more drug dealers. Williamsburg is an artist community, which means that no one is actually employed: you’ll fit in well.
Reasonably priced and sized 2 bedroom in Astoria, Queens. $1200.	Horrible. You can’t find Pabst anywhere, and don’t even ask about the drug dealers. Astoria is like 20 MINUTES outside the Manhattan. No, if your parents can’t afford to pay for you to live in Manhattan or Brooklyn, you don’t deserve to be a hipster. Go find a job or something, loser.

Next, you must find music to talk about. This forms the basis of every conversation and social event that you will have for the rest of your mid-20s. Sure, you may “enjoy” the Beatles or REM, but these are bands you listen to-not talk about.

Seek out bands that have two word titles, where the first word is “the”. This is generally the way to go. If you can’t think of any bands, just make up one: “The Somethings” or “The Fake” are just as believable as any other band name out there. Tell people they have an EP out. They’ll believe it, and some will even claim to have heard them before, or even own the album. Also, remember to sneer at people who don’t like your music. They don’t understand you, or your movement.

It’s also important to KNOW people in a band. Even if they only know you as “the guy who stands next to us at the bar all the time”. Constantly say to people, “I’ve got to go, my friend’s playing a gig”, or “hey, you should come with me to see my friend’s gig”. Sure, that “gig” is in someone’s basement or a Mexican restaurant, but who cares? You KNOW someone in a BAND!

If you really want some hipster cache, start a band. What’s that? You don’t know how to play an instrument? Who cares. It’s all about the look, which you have already. Anyway, if you're able to pick up a ukulele and strum tunelessly, you're 90% towards "having a jam session in my friend's living room. He's got Vinyl; Bring some pot!"

That way, when people ask you what you do, instead of saying “Drink alone while crying” or “throw rocks out the window to watch people bleed”, you can say “I’m in a band”, which will invariably lead to you getting sexy-hot action, or at least a venereal disease.

As for other forms of music: you’re allowed to like rap, but only for it’s irony value. Remember to use the word "crunk" a lot. Call your ghostly pale friends “niggas” and adorn your neck with gold-plated chains. Continue to cross the street at night when you see black people approaching.

Speaking of booty shakin’- how do hipsters get some arse? It’s hard, because it’s so yesterday to be honest with someone and tell them you want to buy them a drink. It’s just…unironic.

Solution: The INTERNET! Yes, the internet, once thought of as merely a device to acquire music and illicit underage pornography, it is now home to a growing community of dating sites that masquerade as places where “friends can connect”.

Putting up a singles profile is not as easy as you think. The specifics are key. Never say you are actually interested in sex or a relationship. Make it seem like someone put you up to it, or that you’re doing it for a laugh.

Say things like “Reading books is sexy, bathing myself in mayonnaise is sexier”. Make sure to play down the deadening loneliness that eats you from within, and say something like “Celebrity I resemble most: "HAL 9000 from 2001.” Always make sure that your personal ad is a long, winding parody of other personal ads. You don’t actually want to be with someone, do you? Nah, that would be pathetic.

Remember, you’re just doing this for fun, and after no one responds to the first 100 emails you send out, you’re just doing it between the time you cry and the time you masturbate.

Well, you’re dressed to the hilt, you listen to the right music, you live in a cool neighborhood and you cry daily. Congratulations: You’re a hipster. Join us next week when we examine “Genital Warts: Acne’s Wacky Cousin!”.

For more on hipsters, check out my hipster count!

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15 Years Of Desert Island Discs

My 5 Desert Island Discs.

by me, age 12, 17, 22, 27

Discs by Matt, Age 12:
1) Stone Temple Pilots - "Core" : Because even though they were poseurs absolute, they wrote the kickass music that any 12 year old would love.
2) Guns N Roses - "Use Your Illusion II": Even though I was about 2 years late to the GnR fad, any angry 12 year old is going to love songs like "You Could Be Mine". I remember getting to 8th Grade so happy to have finally gotten into the music that everyone else loved...only to find every kid was a gangsta rapper.
3) Wu-Tang Clan - "Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)": To this day, I can recite almost every lyric of every track from this album. I saw them on "The Box" before they got big and immediately fell in love with ODB. Who could resist?
4) Porno For Pyros - "Porno For Pyros": This is actually the one album that I have not bothered listening to since I was 12. It was among the first tapes that I got, and there were some remarkable tracks; "Pets", "Cursed Female", and the like. I don't know why I never picked this up again, but I just haven't.
5) Spin Doctors - "Pocket Full of Kryptonite": A reasonably awesome album with some really amazing tracks. The blend of blues, Greatful Dead jamming and whistle-licisious melodies have made these songs stick with me longer than perhaps they should have.

After this, I really got into Mudhoney for about 2 years. I was obsessed! I got every single one of their albums, as well as about 10 bootlegs (who would have thought Mudhoney had bootlegs!).

Matt, age 17, lists his Desert Island Discs:

1) David Bowie - "Diamond Dogs": This and "Scary Monsters" were probably my favorite Bowie albums at the time. The "Candidate/Sweet Thing/Candidate (reprise)" suite is a-mind-blowin'!
2) Frank Zappa - "Apostrophe *": I dare anyone reading this (OK, that would just be me) to list a better commercial Zappa album. It's got great musicianship, catchy suites and funny lyrics. Plus all the Yellow Snow any 17 year old boy could want.
3) T. Rex - "The Slider": Simple, whistlable guitar lines with simple, whistlable vocal melodies really combine to make one...whistlable album. Even if I'm not in the T. Rex mood, I can always play a track or two from this "joint" and jam on my air guitar. Also love the space-age, vaguely gay lyrics, and the fact that Marc Bolan was Jewish. Oh, and he named his kid "Rolan": Rolan Bolan. Good times.
4) The Rolling Stones - "Some Girls": Probably the best latter-day Stones album (IE, the best album they've released since "Exile On Main Street"). Pretty diverse too. What other album at the time would have the country honk of "Far Away Eyes" placed next to the new wave of "Shattered" and the disco of "Miss You"? A precursor of today's "iPod-shuffle" albums from the Gorrilaz and N.E.R.D. Good stuff.
5) Syd Barrett - "Barrett": I think his first album's better now, but back then I couldn't resist "Gigolo Aunt" and the "Effervescing Elephant". Looking back, I think people are obsessed with him because what MIGHT have been, rather then what was. Both of his solo albums are really a hit or miss affair.

OK, then I went to college and people started downloading music and albums became worthless relics of an earlier age. Those who still listened to CDs were dragged out into the street, beaten with a Zune and cast into a river tied to a rock to see if they were witches.

I still managed to get an album or two here, but like it was for everyone else, it was about the song, rather then the delectable whole of a well-sequenced record.

Matt, age 22:

1) The Psychedelic Furs - "Forever Now": This is by far and away their best album. I should add an "IMHO", but screw Internet initialisms. Almost every track is bursting with energy; mostly because of the subtle synths and the blistering lead guitar work. Have you heard "President Gas"? Listen to that lead line: it makes me want to punch a transient.
2) The Teardrop Explodes - "Kilimanjaro": Wow, here's another eye opener. Disco bass, super-charged Philly soul brass, angular guitar lines and weird-ass lyrics truly make this sucker a golden remnant of a long-gone era. That was a shitty way to end a sentence, but there you go.
3) Julian Cope - "Interpreter": Again, this is not my favorite Cope Album (that award would probably go to "World Shut Your Mouth"; I just didn't get that one until I was 23), but there are three or four tracks on this album that would blow a deaf person's mind. "S.P.A.C.E.R.O.C.K. With Me" and "I Come From Another Planet, Baby" are slickly sweet camp amazingness and "Cheap New-Age Fix" has an instrumental coda which would melt the wax of any record player you dare put the album on.
4) The Smiths - "The Queen Is Dead": That's one fine album. I think it's probably their best, especially as Morrissey is at his morbid poetess peak and the chugging pop riffs are as catchy as humanly possible. The depressive 12 year old girl smoking cigarettes by the graveyard and cutting initials into her arm inside me totally has a favorite album.
5) Adult. - "Resuscitation": Hey, it's Dance Punk! Remember how Electro got big in the early-naughts? No? Well @$!% you, then! This is actually a pretty good album and I burnt a hole in the CD because I listened to it so much my senior year of college. No one else liked it for some reason! I would play it for almost everyone and I would generally get rolled eyes and one time, someone projectile vomited at me. I remember I thought I would impress a bunch of stoned filmies at my house party by playing this for them, and they walked out! Getting stoned film students out of your house is a pretty tough task, so I guess Adult. was good for something. I suppose people weren't ready for their Nintendo-y drum beats and dissonant female vocals. They were pretty shitty live though; just two people: a singer, bass player and a whole lotta sequenced drums.

OK, Matt, age 27, what do you think?

OK, third person narrator; my ALL TIME TOP FIVE DESERT ISLAND DISCS*

*subject to change on a daily basis.

1) The Beatles - "White Album" - I mean, come on. Sure, there are a few tracks here and there which aren't up to Beatles standard ("Wild Honey Pie" or "Good Night", for example), and it's not as good as "Revolver" or "Abbey Road", but it's got more Beatles songs then any other of their albums and includes 2 of my favorite George Harrison compositions ("While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Savoy Truffle").
2) David Bowie - "Ziggy Stardust" - This is a close one, because I would almost rather choose "Scary Monsters", but this album gets the nod because it is so perfectly arranged; I could listen to it a million times and find something new each time. Thanks, Mick Ronson.
3) Frank Zappa - "We're Only In It For The Money" - It's a close race between this one, "You Are What You Is", and "Apostrophe *", but this one wins because of the sheer volume of different music on it. I love the 30 second song-snippets, but I just wish Zappa had fleshed some of them out a little more and made them into legit songs. Zappa gets the last laugh because he writes way better pop music then the pop music he's lampooning.
4) The Teardrop Explodes - "Kilimanjaro"- Unlike all the other albums on this list, this has been my desert Island choice since I got it. I don't think it's been demoted or overtaken by another Teardrops disc in the past 8 years.
5) The Rolling Stones - "Exile On Main Street" - This is one album I don't come back to all that often (maybe once every 2 years or so), but I consistently acknowledge that it's an amazing collection of songs that the Stones never really equaled. I could imagine laying back in the hot sun, popping open a cocoanut, snuggling next to my favorite Monkey, and falling asleep while listening to its' melodic hard rock and bluesy interludes.

Good times on Desert Island.