YSaC, Vol. 1058: It’s like making love in a canoe.
hipster house cleaner
Like most hipsters I spend my time being totally ironic and getting seriously awesome. I recently lost my job being hella tight, looking sweet while hanging out in American Apparel and started a business cleaning houses and doing chores. I offer services that are so basic it’s almost not funny; except it is, because while you’re at work you can think about how badass I’m being at your house. You can rest easy with the fact that a sweet dude in skinny jeans is totally taking out the garbage and cleaning your toilet etc. + If you tip me a 6er of PBR I’ll totally update your iTunes collection with the freshest jams so you can impress your friends with your newfound musical knowledge.
Services priced based on services rendered.
Let’s get together!
The problem here is that I don’t speak hipster, so there’s really only one way to respond to this hipster ad, and that is with text courtesy of Hipster Ipsum:
Cardigan fanny pack locavore seitan. Letterpress farm-to-table organic tattooed, craft beer VHS american apparel. Chambray high life. Banh mi, vegan freegan cred single-origin coffee aesthetic mixtape artisan tattooed ethical shoreditch terry richardson. Williamsburg tofu brunch stumptown, pitchfork iphone yr 8-bit banksy twee. Readymade sartorial, jean shorts lomo dreamcatcher hoodie. Austin portland cardigan beard.
Yep, I think our favorite hipster hit all the high points in his ad, except for the fact that PBR is not, in any way, a craft beer. For that reason alone, I refuse to hire him. I don’t care how well his skinny jeans are cleaning my toilet (side note: ew. Use a brush, dude. I don’t know where those skinny jeans have been!) … if you’re drinking PBR, we’ve got issues. Big issues.
Thanks, Liz!
I must hire him, I have always wanted to see someone iron ironically.
But it’s so hard to get them to use starch.
“You use carbs in your clothing? Not cool, brah, not cool.”
Or if they do approve, it’s because it’s artisanal, upcycled starch (don’t ask from where).
I wish I could adore your Hipster Ipsum portion, drmk. Best part of the post. As an aside … I need to stay away from hipsters more, apparently. I understood waaaaay too much of the Ipsum.
Other than that, I got nuthin’ – too early for snark, apparently
*gets Stumptown coffee with locavore vegan soymilk*
I read your post as Hipster Ipsum potion, which, I guess, would be Stumptown coffee with locavore vegan soymilk.
*ahem* I read it that way too, ‘cos I got early access into Pottermore and stayed up way too late last night playing in Potions class. 🙂
[/geekling brag]
You’re already in Pottermore! Congrats!
Not in the fandom, myself, but I have many, many friends who have been talking about nothing else for weeks.
I’m adoring Lola’s Stumptown coffee because that’s what a hipster PDXer would do.
I have (definitely non-hipster) friends who live in PDX, and one of them sent me some Stumpy. That’s nice coffee. 😀
Also, do you mind if we call you Bruce? It’s less confusing, right Bruce?
Rule Four: No one is to be caught not drinking before Lights Out!
I know a few basic tourist phrases in hipster, so allow me: “I got sacked for goldbricking at American Apparel, so instead let me goldbrick at your house.” Well, at least he promises that he won’t partially take out the garbage and clean your toilet; that could get unpleasant.
I’d totally hire him, if he wasn’t so last Thursday.
Pardon me while I be ironically awesome.
The Hipster Ipsum is even more awesomely existential if you read it aloud as if you’re in a poetry slam. *snaps* Dig?
I was thinking more Billy Joel:
Cardigan, fanny pack, locavore, seitan
farm-to-table, Letterpress, organic, tattooed
craft beer, VHS, american apparel
Chambray, high life, vegan, Banh mi
freegan, coffee, aesthetic, mixtape
artisan, ethical, single-origin
shoreditch, tofu Williamsburg stumptown
pitchfork dreamcatcher, Readymade sartorial
We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it
Since when has a hipster cleaned anything in the history of forever?
Sparky will end up on the couch, in a ring of PBR cans and clove cigarette ashes, snoring under an organic recycled-soy-yarn afghan. But I bet he will do it ironically.
Which will either be fake or illegal clove cigarette ashes, too.
Okay, gotta say it: Skinny jeans were not attractive the last time they were popular, like 20+ years ago. They made your skinny parts look too skinny and your fat parts look huge-normous. And they made your feet look like clown feet. I wore them back then ’cause I was a toothpick at 5’8″ and 120 lbs. I refuse to wear them now.
So: If I refuse to follow the hipster crowd and wear what they wear, that actually makes me a rebel and original and MORE COOL than them, right?
I’ll be over here in the lounge, if you want to sit by me and look hip by association. Just don’t touch me, you’re not cool enough.
PBR’s totally a craft beer. My grandfather used to craft these huge walls in the garage with the empties.
Wait… was my grandfather a hipster? Let’s see… dropped out of school, lots of pictures of him in tight pants with funny hats (okay, naval uniform), chronically sarcastic…
OH CRAP I HAVE A HIPSTER RELATIVE!
(Does this qualify me for some federal grant?)
*dies*
By that reasoning, I know some geekish types for whom Mountain Dew is totally a craft beverage, also.
Papa Johns is similarly a craft food restaurant by those standards.
If your grandfather was a hipster before hipsters existed, would that make him an Ãœberhipster?
Pfft.
How great a hipster could IF’s grandfather be? I’ve never even heard of him.
…
OH CRAP!
Damn, he’s good.
Well, actually, he’d be “Großhipster” which would be überhip.
(Unless one’s Großvater fought in the ETO, in which case you might want to call Farfar om-hip, as swenske less likely to result in profanity about hotdamjerries.)
Ahem, Capn, you’re breaking character.
I believe Not-a-Cap’n just herniated a few of my synapses.
Perhaps less uber- more of an ur-hipster? Hipster precursor?
Even since Hipster house cleaners went mainstream I’ve been cleaning my own house. But I clean it ironically.
I hired a hipster house cleaner before it was cool. 8)
I think that sentence is redundant.
*verifies Taco’s assessment*
Yes, yes it is.
Sincerely,
Xenia Recordia, Keeper of Stony Flagtail Feifings and
Secretary, Dept. of Redundancy Department
“A true Canadian is one who can make love in a canoe without tipping.” — Pierre Berton
“Anyone can make love in a canoe, it’s a Canadian who knows enough to take out the centre thwart!” — Philip Chester
So Canadians are hipsters?
I always thought PBR was a redneck beer. I mean anything that Johnny Russell sang about can’t be considered hipster.
Sorry weird hipster Sparky, but I already have a cleaning person.
[PBR Corey]
Actually, PBR ran a successful hipster campaign in the early 2000s when their sales were flagging. They gave out tons of free samples to skate board parks and pretentious people along with an aggressive NPR advertising campaign. It spun itself as a retro beer, which the hipster community swallowed hook, line, and sinker. It’s been the underground beer of choice for almost 8 years now.
I think part of it also has to do with the general disdain most people have for PBR. If the general populace hates something, then hipsters tend to embrace it as edgy.
But you probably never heard about all that.
[/corey]
Why didn’t they just spend all that money to, I don’t know, make the stuff taste better? Non-pretentious people would drink it if it didn’t taste like mule sweat and nightmares.
What’s that? You rate food and beverages by anything as banal and bourgeois as how they taste? Back to the suburbs, you.
I’m a country girl – our likker comes in clear glass jars and it’s best not to ask too many questions ’bout where it came from.
Five worst words to hear at a Moonshine tasting convention:
“Anyone seen mah pee jar?”
Ghostie, I’m pretty sure Mule Sweat & Nightmares is the name of a hipster band. If it isn’t, it should be.
And I liked them better before they sold out.
Mule Sweat & Nightmares is my hipster Blood, Sweat, and Tears cover band, but you’ve probably never heard of them.
Silly TM, you would have a pee can, not a pee jar.
[pee can corey] In an effort to correct my pronunciation of pecan, my Gramma would always tell me; “A pee can is what you keep under the bed at night, a pecan is nut from a tree.” [/pee can corey]
One of my faves down to the local pub in Big Sky Brewing’s Moose Drool Brown Ale. It’s tasty.
Also, if it is loud in the pub, you can hold your hands on either side of your head like antlers to order another.
It’s probably ironic that a pint of Moos Drool costs about what a hipster is willing to pay for a “sixer” of PBR.
Moonshine Story Time:
A friend of mine inherited a bottle of moonshine from his great grandfather who acquired the bottle during the prohibition. It’s stored in an earthenware jug with three faded ‘x’s drawn on it in white chalk. It’s sealed with a dark wax plug that appears to be made from re-melted candle wax.
My friend is frightened enough of this mystery brew that he refuses to open it up and try some. Smart move really, as we both agree that the contents are unlikely to be palatable in the first place without even considering the high probability that it’ll be little more than turpentine mixed with antifreeze.
His plan is to wait until he’s dying of something incurable. At that point he figures he’ll have nothing to loose in taking a big swig of it. Can’t say that I disagree with the logic there.
There’s no telling what’s in it. According to my retired Revenooer uncle, it was common practice for ‘shiners to hide the open tubs of mash in a henhouse, where the roosting birds could add … “organic matter” to speed fermentation. Roadkill and leaky car batteries could also be tossed in for the same reason.
[funny Revenooer story] My uncle was following up a tip he had gotten concerning a still that was out in the country, when he came across a herd of cattle acting oddly. Staggering about, falling down, that sort of thing. He later discovered that the cows had found the area where the ‘shiner was dumping his used mash and they had eaten most of it, getting absolutely smashed in the process. [/story]
Ghostie, the “now with added chicken product!” is apparently nothing new, nor limited to this country. I recall, still all-too-vividly, that we were reading … something … in one of my college English classes (same one where we had to read Spenser and other suicide-inducing works (my tastes are rather more modern), so my memory isn’t entirely clear, plus it was almost 20 years ago) and the prof (weird, weird lady) explained that a reference in the text to the quality of local quaff obliquely referred to the pub/brewery proprietress keeping her chickens over the area where the barrels of product were fermenting. We (though not usually I) drank some cheap, nasty stuff at that age (cf. entire thread here) and that description was still still clearly worse than the cheap swill that was frequently favored.
*mouth hanging open after reading about chicken-sprinkled-hooch*
Grandpa Monkey was a moonshiner (no shit, chicken or otherwise) and that’s one secret he kept to himself. The one time I tried old White Lightning the taste was so bad that poop could only have helped it.
ADDENDUM: Just thinking about the ‘shine has made my stomach burn. Blech.
@Karmyn: No, redneck beer is Schaefer’s. It’s the only beer that tastes worse than PBR or Milwaukee’s Best. Ah. Brings back memories of college.
Are we all forgetting about Schlitz and Coors? Now thems the real redneck beers ’round these parts.
And Keystone, can’t forget Keystone.
And Miller High Life.
“Champagne of Beers” my ass.
It makes more sense if you dislike Champagne.
One word: Stroh’s.
Despite being in nearly the center of the beer drinking universe, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen any Stroh’s.
The choice of the “helenic society” crowd here is MGD, preferably the MGD64.
The “rural” crowd drinks either Lone Star or Pearl if funds allow; then Keystone since a suitcase costs what 12 or 6 of ‘good’ beer does; after that, it is down to which is the larger quantity for a smaller price of Natty, Beast, or the like.
Despite having about 60,000 college students in the county (about 40,000 transient, and this week, too), and being rural for being at least 90 miles from a major metropolis, we have a dozen places with at least ten taps of high-end or artisanal beer. I’m going to miss this county.
Amazingly, in my neck of the woods, Keystone Ice is typically the low man on the pole price wise. Even the Beast costs more then Keystone when compared per ounce. Mostly because a 36 suitcase of Keystone comes in at just under $10 and comprises of the 16 ounce tall cans, whereas the 36 of Beast is about the same price but only packs the 12 ouncers.
I’m ashamed to admit that my wife rather likes Key Ice. Bleh.
Keystone is a product of Coors. Allegedly a deliberate one, despite how it sometimes seems a “factory second.”
I guess they have to do something with the water they use to wash out the brewing vats.
AR: We’ll have to have a proper beer tasting at the YSaC Convention. I’ll even ship out some of my own homebrew products, although I don’t think I have any of that stuff left that ended up tasting like PVC*…
Still better than PBR.
*Yes, I did manage to recently brew something that tasted like PVC. I used a cinnamon oil, and something about the process broke down the spicy flavor notes in the oil and amplified the faint plasticy part of the taste that one gets on the front end. I’ve used cinnamon sticks in the past to good effect – the oil was simply too refined.
Home brewing is something I need to get back into. My father did it a bit when I was in highschool, and some of it was rather good (though the inclusion of a filtering process would have been… appreciated during the consumption of the finished product).
He made a whicked pilsner.
[homebrewer corey]
I started racking to a secondary fermenter about 18 months ago, and it really helps with the clarity and filtering issue. I just bottled a (slightly late for the season) spicy hefeweisen over the weekend, and I’m eyeing the serrano peppers that are plentiful in the garden as an additive for the next next batch. (The actual next batch is a Rogue Dead Guy clone for a brewing demonstration I’m putting on in a few weeks.)
The PVC brew notwithstanding, I think I’ve had more good than bad recently. My schwarzbier is one that’s consistently a good quality brew – I’d put it against Sam Adams Black Lager or Sierra Nevada’s Black Forest any day.
[/homebrewer corey]
IF, your timing is horrible.
I’m home alone until 7pm today, there is a brewery store 2 blocks from my house, I just banked my on-call pay from last week, and there are peppers ripening in the garden.
I wonder how pissed TacoMa’am would be to come home to $300 worth of brewing equipment and ingredients set up in the basement.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
Well, you’d be contributing to the free market economy:
Beer Charts of the Day
80% of all beer in America is created by two breweries, A-B/InBev or SABMiller.
The second chart on the page shows the meteoric rise of craft breweries since the deregulation of homebrewing in 1979, Jimmy Carter’s finest hour if you ask me. The conjecture is that most of those are amateurs who went pro; the documentary Beer Wars (highly recommended!) bears this out.
Hilarious, Bacontini! You sound a lot like a friend of mine. Hummmmm.
IF, I’ve got nothing like peppers to harvest for homebrew, but I DO have seven varieties of hops going on, two of which are about ready to harvest.
Can’t wait to start brewing with fresh hops.
I read this whole thread disturbed by how many of the redneck/hipster beers I recognised – we don’t get them here, but you see them referred to in movies, tv shows, memebase etc…
BUT then you mentioned Rogue and I had a swoon – it’s a regular feature of our beer tastings! Usually the only American entry, too… We recently tried their American Amber Ale – yummy yum yum!
I still think the best cheap beer is Natural Lite, or called “Natty” by us so-hip-we’re-UN-hip hipsters.
I’m a fan of the classics myself. Old English 800 all the way, Baby!
Colt 45… Another classic from the Old West… 😉
Where I was from, Schmidt, which had pictures of wildlife on it, was known for being cheap & nasty. Due to the can design, one of its nicknames was “animal beer.” Tasted like something from animals, anway.
Wait… What about Monster Beer (Meister Bräu)?
Where does that fall on the scale of donkey urine?
Let me consult the chart…
“4-day-old, stale donkey urine strained through a used army sweatsock.”
Hope that helps.
I’ve never liked beer, and you guys are killing any remaining vestiges of a desire to “acquire a taste” for been.
Thanks!
There are plenty of good beers out there. None of the ones we’ve listed are those good beers, though.
OMG….Meister Brau….
*successfully subdues gag reflex*
My father-in-law was a champion beer drinker…not connoisseur, but drinker.
His beer of choice for his three-case a week habit?
BEER
No, really a plain white can with the black label on the side that read “BEER”.
It was every bit as good as it sounds.
At least it was spelled correctly.
Now the brown glass bottle that’s been resealed with wax and has “Beir” written on it in orange crayon… that’s a good brew right there.
CJ, 20 years ago and more when I was a wee young grocery checker, we sold BEER beer. I was afraid to try it. I think my father purchased it to drown slugs, and that that was as close to it as I got.
I remember visiting one of my father’s coworkers one time with my parents and the guy was drinking BEER, and later my father commented, “Well, at least he’s not pretentious about it!”
You know, back in the days when generic “branding” was cool, I always wanted to buy a mid seventies Caprice Classic, you know, the quintessential square American 4 door sedan, and paint it white, with a blue stripe down the side, with the word “CAR” painted above it.
Now that would’a been hip…
CJ: I saw Al Bundy drinking Beer brand beer. Kewl.
I’m going to take pickle juice and water from the toilet tank and mix it with some dishwater and bottle it and convince hipsters that it’s the next PBR. I will make elebenty jillion bucks. I’ll put somewhere on the label that it’s organic and not tested on animals. I’ll call it Grunge Juice.
For those who want some BEER.
Scoff if you must, but I have fond memories of paying 79 cents a six-pack for PBR at the Navy Exchange. No hipster was I, but the hundreds of gallons of PBR I consumed got me through some trying times. Today my tastes tend toward Allagash Curieux and Chimay. See, no permaaant damages….
The generic “Beer” a person would find in Texas used to be overruns of the MilSpec PX/BX supply.
The contract for which, until about 15 years ago, was owned by Pearl Brewing Co. The cans bearing the label “Product of Pearl Brewing Co., San Antonio, Texas.” So, you were getting “factory second” Pearl. Rolling Rock bought the ailing Pearl Brewing to get that military contract; then sold off the “name brand” side of things, which is now alleged to be owned by Lone Star.
PBR is not bad for trying times; or for crying times–although one seems to go in concert with the other, all too often.
Well, for my money you can’t beat a good Shiner Bock – on tap.
In fact, being a bit of a beer snob, I refuse to drink any beer from a bottle/can.
Aye Captain – Pearl’s not a girl it’s a beer…….
Slangevar!
Reply to waaayyyy up there. Huber. The upper midwest libation of po’ folk.
{Ward medicine corey: When I was a young lad working on the Medical Surgical Ward at Groton Ct.,
There was kept in the Meds reefer a six pack of BEER. It was explained to me that chemo patients would lose their appetites, and this was one way of encouraging the munchies. / Ward Stuff}
Running out the door, but Astro is in the box. Will snark later. Going to my favorite bird store! Hooray!
I want to know whether American Apparel’s job description actually contained the phrases “looking sweet” and “being hella tight”.
My guess is no.
That is probably why he’s rocking the house-cleaning scene these days.
And is also ineligible for Unemployment, too–but, in a hip, ironic, way.
Alternate snark:
Those parts of the job description are only on the underground job posting, but you’ve probably never applied to it.
I thought being hella tight was an insult, not a compliment.
I am the anti-hipster.
It’s probably a bigger compliment in the Porno/Prostitution industry than in normal circles.
I’ll be in the corner.
Slightly OT – I have actual hipster friends (I think they like me ironically) and not one of them likes American Apparrel. One in particular started a boycott due to their (AA’s) overly sexual ad for tube socks. The boycott is hardly effective considering she has only told about ten people about it with none of those ten being a part of the company, and of all the seven people who have joined her boycott, only one has ever bought anything there.
Boycotting stores we’d never shop at in the first place is an awesome idea! I’m totally boycotting the entire spectrum of clic/chic mall clothing stores!
Take that, Zumies!
I know, right? I’ve been boycotting Mercedes dealerships for like EVER. Those materialistic, conspicuous-consumption, capitalist PIGS!
I’ve been boycotting Porche, those elitist jackwads.
I’d like to boycott every one of my bill collectors.
Somehow, I don’t think they will go for it.
Dammit.
That’s the trouble with my brilliant ideas.
They.Just.Aren’t
If a hipster falls in the middle of a house cleaning and there is no one else around, is it ironic?
If a hipster is cleaning your basement, but it has a ground level exit, is he still considered to be underground?
Since my Gramma Monkey has had hip surgery, is she an honorary hipster?
*Lobs a door at the monkey*
Well played, madam, well played indeed.
*Sigh* that was supposed to go under FM’s hipster grandma comment.
*catches door and lobs it back at TM*
His jeans are so skinny they have rendered him sterile. And lame. His music collection is arranged from least to most obscure. He blogs about his morning BMs. He is…the World’s Most Hip Man.
“I don’t always consume mass-produced beverages, but when I do drink beer, I prefer PBR.
Stay douche-y, my friends.”
Bacontini tink dat sounds oddly familiar.
But he tinking dat it normally about some man and his liquor drink. Not as good a liquor drink as de Bacontini, of course, but a liquor drink just de same. And dere are more ladies. Not as many as all de ladies if Bacontini make de commercial, but lots of ladies anyway.
Bacontini not sure where he going wit all dis, he just tink it all very familiar to him.
Bacontini always be here for everyone; and when he is here, he here especially for de ladies.
Keep eating de big meat, my friends.
What? Why everyone laugh at Bacontini?
Sparkie McTyler here with another recomposed song.
may not be up ta snuff but who evar sed i got standerds
Turnaround, every now and then I get a
little bit awesome ’cause I’m hella tight.
Turnaround, Every now and then I get a
little bit of time for looking sweet and hanging out.
Turnaround, Every now and then I get a
little bit nervous that my musical knowledge ain’t used.
Turnaround, Every now and then I get a
little bit serious and then I want to offer my muse.
Turnaround badass, Every now and
then I get a job.
Turnaround badass, Every now and
then I lose my job.
Turnaround, Every now and then I get a
little bit of hank’rin’ for a PBR.
Turnaround, Every now and then I get a
little bit careless trampin’ ’round in my sweet skinny jeans.
Turnaround, Every now and then I get a
little bit hungry and I know I’ve got to get out and clean.
Turnaround, Every now and then I get a
little bit terrified but I’ll still do the toilet right.
Turnaround badass, Every now and
then I get a job.
Turnaround badass, Every now and
then I lose my job.
And I’ll clean your house tonight.
And I’ll take your garbage out.
And if I update your itunes.
We’ll be hipsters gone forever.
Rest easy, I’ve got the freshest jams.
We’ll be ironic together.
You only pay for services rendered.
And I don’t think this song has any memes.
So I guess I’d better mention some bees.
I’m still living but my brainpan has atrophied.
I really need OBO’s tonight.
Whenever it suits you right.
And I hope the last stanza’s tight.
Once upon a time a good friend of mine.
Clever as the day is long.
There’s nothing I can do.
A total sweet dude with a song.
Once upon a time I was holding his beer.
Watchin’ him do something smart.
There’s nothing I can do.
Darwin award on his part.
Love it!
Oh, and thanks a LOT for THAT earworm.
Awesomeness.
And I like the earworm.
Of course, I liked ABBA before Mama Mia made them popular too.
Does that mean I am a Swedish hipster?
FANTASTIC!
But, you know, ironically.
If I had access to someone’s iTunes library, I’d leave everything looking the same. However, every song would be secretly replaced by Never Gonna Give You Up. If they actually had that song, I’d secretly replace it with Ballad of Bilbo Baggins.
You’d want a little variety to the list, how about;
It’s A Small World After All
I’m Henry The Eighth I Am
The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald
That “Friday” song
Hey, I like the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Would that be an MP3 Roll? I heart ye, Kelli.
When I was in college, we didn’t drink beer. We drank wine coolers. Okay, one friend did drink Shiner. Do they even have that outside of Texas?
I MISSED A WHOLE DAY OF SNARKING!! And beer. And stuff I don’t understand because we don’t have hipsters out here. I think. Well, had a good day, saw an eagle in the wild, saw an old adobe brick building, saw mountains and shopping malls, endured 100 degree weather and a stretch of washboard road. Crashed for an hour. Going to sleep now. Will try to catch up some day.
Astro Jailbait Punchity Punch Punch!
G’Night, New York!