I was talking with Mel(not his real name) the other night about why young people move to sketchy, dangerous, over-priced neighborhoods in NYC in an effort to live a more real existence. Maybe it is the age gap starting to show through like a carefully combed-over bald spot, but to hear young white professionals discussing why they carry a blade on their commute commenced our Generation X eyes to rolling.
Of course we are no better. During the exact same age and stage of our own development we, and near everyone I know worth knowing, were engaged in the same similar true believer questing in other venues. Dude Ranching, Rock Banding, Bosnia-saving too cool for school crunchy hipsters, that is what we were. Bike messenging, Kombucha mushroom tea drinking, first-edition only collecting, Beastie Boy sycophants, and we were proud of it.
Now, it has all been done. Back to the landers, Swing era revivalists, retro-hippies, neo-hippies, Alex P. Keatonists, and new urban revivalism, everything old has become old again.
Except one thing. Generations of young Americans have worn grooves like a rocking chair on a sandy floor from East to West, and South to North in search of something real, but nobody has re-interpreted that least glamorous of American traditions- the settling of the Great Plains. You heard it here first everyone, the graduating college classes of 2010 will head to the middle. Endurance sport enthusiasts will evolve into endurance farming enthusiasts; watch for the 1st Annual
Furrow like a Burro: 24 hour Hand Plowing Invitational.
With the Manatee and Grey Wolf already taken , the Giant Palouse Earthworm will become the media darling of Neo-(neo)/Revivo-Enviromentalists. Abercrombie and Fitch will re-invent the overall (with sag through window in back.)
Sod roofs will come in Pampas, Kentucky Blue, or Bermuda, and they won't be cheap. Extreme sports enthusiasts will harness the power of tornadoes until they are a manageable risk no different than big wave kite-surfing and base-jumping (it will likely involve a combination of these disciplines.)
The new Plains Re-Settlers will spurn the under watered West, and cluck at the Northeast Urbanites whose glasses frames have finally become so heavy they can no longer look to the roofs of their re come de-gentrified properties.
Because just like us, the new Plains Re-Settlers will have figured it all out for themselves.
-Juancho
17 comments:
You are a true visionary and I, well...
I have cousins at least that can detassle corn like mofo's and play ucher or youchre (however spelt) just as well.
BRING IT ON; I DARE you cool, tight pants wearing, cards in your spokes, hair product, hemp growing, greasel burning, hate-everything-else-Juancho-and his cool buds have ever done, apostles to...
Move to INdiana, or missoura and buy up them cheap houses and farms and get freaky!!!!!!!!
Now it's all covered in daisies; I can't get used to this lifestyyyyyllle.
Magnu M
Whoa, this milk is past it's date, sorry for the rant.
Two good rants in one here at BRC. Whew! It was getting lonely out here. Juancho, careful giving away your best ideas to those young brats! :)
My group came to, gulp, Mexico and Central America, and believe me, boozin' with old hippies is NOT appealing. I should've gone the "farmette" route in Southern Ohio (unglaciated Allegheny country). That's why I hide out at home reading down here -- in between trips to WalMart and Home Depot which, admit it, EVERYBODY does!
Wow Magnum. That's some good milk you got a hold of man.
...where the wind goes rushing through the plains!
I hear (insert latest emo band) is playing at the Nebraska State Fair right after the livestock award banquet!
Are you kidding? Once global warming really kicks in, you're all coming north.
Yes North! To Valdosta.
Or Quitman. They have a Carnegie library there.
Val d'Aosta is beautiful; Valdosta is a truckstop.
One I can afford, the other is still beautiful. Both have cattle and good milk.
No way, they have crazy effed up liquor laws out there in the middle of the country. Keeps the hipsters out.
Here in the plains, when we're done mowing the sod roofs and singing Oklahoma tunes in the fields, we like to do a little cow-tippin'! I bet they cow-tip in Italy? And, Georgia?
You ain't living though, 'til you've chased a bison down.
Nicol, If I'm right the price of your sod-bungalow is going to skyrocket in the next year. Then you can buy all the cows you care to tip.
In Italy, the tip is often included.
I need more cows. Doesn't everybody? Thanks for the seemingly wise foresight.
Oh, and good point, Magnu M.
Due to their strong socialist background I guess.
The Italians, not the cows.
I think it's too cold and grey too much of the time for hipsters.
Hipsters are prone to depression.
You would know.
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