I happen to be the sore thumb in a very very trendy part of town and I become more and more aware of it each and every day. These people that surround me are beyond all the new terminology to describe them like "yuppie," "yupster," "yindie" or whatever you might make up to call them, they are something that can't be named with conventional English. I'm afraid that you'd have to blend the inflected languages of the south pacific with the clicking based languages of the mid-African tribesman to really capture what it is these people are. Since the word I came up with in that blended language can't be typed I'm just going to have to describe these assholes to you. In fact, let's just call them "Assholes," because they are the absolute definition of the word.
Demographics - We're talking married couples and the occasional single guy in their early 30's to the early 40's. They are white American assholes for the most part. You run into some European assholes that actually married into the asshole culture, who bring their own asshole attributes to the mix. Most of them originate from the East Coast, but you have your Colorado string of assholes and your California assholes too and let's not forget the Pacific Northwest assholes.
The assholes are closet racist assholes. They are liberal in politics but choose to live in communities where very few blacks, hispanics or other races/ethnicities live. They do however have an affinity for adopting Asians babies. These assholes are all either Asianphiles or sterile, either way they are freeing Chinese babies by the shipping container (Yes, I meant that how you think I did. Hate mail goes to bradkanus@gmail.com. There's always some asshole with a family member who died in a shipping container because they used the Triads as their travel agency).
They're rich assholes. They have money and I can't tell you exactly what it is they do, but they are well off. Of course, they are "new money assholes." New money assholes are like the proverbial "rich assholes" that we all know and love, but they lack any hint of class and their tastes are far below that of the "old guard assholes" who make livings as "socialite assholes." They talk about their money a lot and usually in front of people who have a shit-load more than them (shit-load = $5 million not counting trusts).
Pick a school that graduates a bunch of assholes and you have their education pegged – Harvard, Yale, Stanford, VA Tech, St. anything and a special nod to those schools that are just a noun standing alone like "Brown," whose mascot is an asshole.
Homes – They like paying city prices for city sized condos minus the city convenience.
They all bought condos in 2003 (possibly three or four of them) in a revitalized area just outside the city lines. They flipped a few of them and made a gazillion dollars off of up-and-coming assholes in 2004. If they don't still live in a condo, they bought one of the houses nearby. They happily bid up 60 year-old 1,000 square-foot homes without central heating and air conditioning to $600,000 and then spend another $600,000 "updating" the house only to find out later that the foundation is cracked. Regular hardwood floors aren't good enough for these assholes; they've got bamboo floors or some other type of wood from the same village in China where they adopted their little Asian kid from. They are the largest buyers of track lighting in the country behind gay men.
Cars – Almost always German, but surely foreign and nine times out of ten a Toureg or other midsize SUV. Audi, Volkswagen Jetta/Passat and three series BMWs with sport packages seem to be the non-SUV type car they crave. Mid-performance cars at high performance prices sums up their habits – they actually like the car commercials that play before movies. Bike rack goes on before dealer plates come off. I've never understood this, it's like having a shoe rack on the back of your f'ing ankles – either ride your bike there, or drive your car there it's that simple. They drive like assholes because they are assholes. They inch-up at red lights until it turns green and then drive 10 MPH under the speed limit checking out places where they might buy another five condos.
Clothes – These assholes all think they are in a fashion magazine. They wear layered clothing that costs hundreds of dollars, but looks like something your grandpa uses for a shop rag. They wear sport coats with jeans as if that's the way Men's Warehouse intended. You'll never find an asshole in a suit. Most weekend mornings you will find assholes in very trendy workout clothes at brunch or at a Starbucks, only they haven't worked out at all. Apparently they think merely wearing workout clothes constitutes an "active asshole lifestyle." Assholes spend more money on running attire than people who actually run races for a living.
Hobbies/Activities – These assholes are seriously trendy. If GQ told them that sliding down stair rails on your ass was the new hot activity you can bet there'd be a club full of assholes with padded pants meeting at the Starbucks next week to talk about it.
They all have $5,000 mountain bikes with full suspensions, moon roofs, incorporated DVD players and GPS navigation systems along with helmets made of NASA developed materials and special shoes that clip into their pedals so they look like extraordinarily uncoordinated assholes when they fall over the first time they stop at a light. They ride their $5,000 bike, on average, about 87 feet to the nearest Barnes and Noble with a Starbucks. They sit there in their full Lance Armstrong ensemble, helmet still firmly attached to their head, reading magazines about people who actually have the skill and physical ability to constitute needing a $5,000 bike all the while sipping a mocha latte. On that 87 foot trip to the bookstore the asshole will ride his bike in the middle of the street rationalizing it by pointing out the relative cost of his bike and the value of the average used car. One day that asshole gets hit by a car and then a bunch of assholes have to get together and ride in the dead asshole's honor in the middle of the same street. This serves to provide a new mate for the widowed asshole who will choose the single asshole with the best Lance Armstrong jersey to marry and raise her Asian baby. It's not like the baby knows the difference, not one of the assholes look like him anyhow.
Their other activity they love is walking their asshole dogs. These dogs cost as much as their bikes do and are status symbols in the asshole world. Their dogs go to "puppy schools," "puppy playtime," and have "puppy parties." They are usually crossbred specialty dogs that are a mix of like a Labrador and cocker spaniel and they call it a "Cocker Spanador" and think it's cute. They gather in little asshole groups at the dog park where they let their genetically fucked-up dog trip over its ridiculously long ears while talking about the next condo they are going to buy or the next set of track lighting they are going to install on their mountain bike. They refuse to talk to me because I don't dress my dog up in a sweater to go to the dog park and I use pigeons I shoot in my backyard to play fetch with. All the while their little Asian babies sit in strollers off to the side reprogramming their adopted parent's cellular phones to move satellites around and launch missile attacks on Taiwan. Most of their dogs will go missing once their Asian babies are old enough to eat them. (Yes, I went there – hate mail goes to: bradkanus@gmail.com).
You probably didn't need my little guide to these assholes, since you've either hit one with your old jalopy or flipped one off as he pushed his Asian baby across the street against the light in a stroller made by Range Rover. The asshole revolution is at hand my friends, and it's only a matter of time before your loved ones are sucked in.
Start the counter revolution now! Cut the sleeves off your shirt and wear jean shorts with black high-top shoes to Starbucks. Order black coffee and buy a paper. Throw every section out but the comics and read them out loud to your friends. Walk to your Ford F-350, crank up Alabama and do a burnout as you leave. Put your refrigerator on your porch and never mow your lawn. Get five dogs that can't grow consistent hair and bark all the time and let them roam your yard behind a chain-link fence you and your buddies erected drunk in one afternoon. Park on your lawn! It's time to take back our communities and we're only going to do be able to do it one three-legged dog at a time.
Fight the power!
This is good stuff - keep writing!
Posted by: FDC | April 03, 2008 at 06:48 PM