How hip is your street fair?

Last of ye olde posts from my procrastinators past non-public form of written procrastination...

How Hip Is Your Street Fair?

Mine is hip. Very hip. So hip it hurts, as they used to say.

It doesn't take a PhD in Cultural Studies to theorize that the community street fair is a window into the community. And in the ultra-hip neighborhood of Silver Lake, it is no exception.

The headliners at this year's street festival were The Donna's (rockunroll for those who don't mind that Olympic Beach Volleyball appeals to our prurient interests – I don’t!) and seminal LA punk rock icons X. Har-Mar Superstar, Arthur Lee and Love, Camper Van Beethoven, Juliette (as in Lewis) and the Licks, rounded out the Bates Street stage, aka the rock stage. Past year's line-ups have included Sonic Youth and Sleater Kinney. The crowd is cool-patrol central - some even having left their safe haven of the west side and ventured east of the La Brea Tar Pits to slum it in chic style with us die-hards who could care less about better air quality by the beach. Live in traffic and die on the 10 if need be, we'd say. Ok, I exaggerate, but if I'm going to play out the stereotype of the great east/west divide, I may as well do it with highway-specific apocalyptic aplomb. And might I point out there are far fewer Hummers on this side of town, thank you very much.

Back to The Hip-ness, cos we all know Hummers are the least hip monstrosity to plague our visual and environmental landscape. I consider myself someone who is not unhip. I am not a hipster mind you, though I may have feebly aspired to be associated with some in the early nineties halcyon days of punkrock music in LA. But I am not unhip, even though I am 35 with a fashion sensibility this summer that is limited to off the rack items at American Apparel, a sweatshop free clothier based in downtown LA with stores in, yes, the hippest parts of town. But a casual stroll down Sunset Boulevard at this year’s Sunset Junction, and I was like Ashlee Simpson at a Black Flag reunion show. Ok, I’m not sure exactly what that actually means, but the thought sends me shivers. Basically, I was in awe of the rockabilly hair and tats mixed in with the thrift store dresses and cowboy hats bought nowhere near a thrift store or saddlery. And that was the oldsters. Younger generations favored the Pat Benetar / Belinda Carlisle / Flahshdance look. And there was no shortage of eighteen year olds with Mohawks and studded leather jackets. There are so many competing styles of retro hipness out there right now, the fashion age is separated by 3-5 year increments - tops.

When X belted out their late seventies lyrics about “poverty and shit” I couldn’t help note that most of the Industry Hipsters made a hell of a lot more money then Exene did on, say, her recorded reading of the Unabomber’s Manifesto. An endeavor far more creative then whatever faire Epitaph Records is peddling these days. (NB: Unfair – I have no idea what they are peddling when I wrote that. I subsequently went to their website and though I profess a longstanding rock star crush on Greg Graffin of Bad Religion, my Unabomber Manifesto comment stands.)

This year's Sunset Junction, located across a few blocks of Sunset Boulevard - though not the rock n'roll fancy shmancy Sunset Boulevard of Chateau Marmont and other celebrity-ridden hotels, nor the hair metal Sunset Strip of G N R and the Rainbow Bar & Grill, but the formerly Latino cum gritty mini mall LA-scape of well-traveled land between Hollywood and Downtown, if, say, you are en route to a Dodger’s Game. There’s still a Latino feel to the neighborhood, but most of the punk rock element these days is of the Industry-heavy retro-style leopard print and soul patch variety.

But my ranting about The Hip-ness is not the sum of Sunset Junction. Nor is the Bates stage the only music on offer. If Sunset Junction is the epicenter of indie cool, it is also home of one of the oldest leather scenes for boys, though there were fewer chaps sans back doors this year and more utilikilts, sadly. So the leathermen age gracefully to be supplanted by the muscle-bound beefcake boys and the techno dance tent. At the far end of the stage was the R&B / World Music stage featuring Stephanie Mills, Ashford & Simpson, the Ladies of the Supremes and Café Fuego. In between was the DJ stage featuring a predominance of Latino artists. Sunset Junction thus replicates Los Angeles’ ethnic polarization where we largely stay on our sides of town but all meet at the fairway. Only at Sunset Junction, the fairway is full of five dollar a pop carny games and giant inflatable jungle gyms mixed in between delicious Salvadorean pupusarias and hippie chick vegan quesadillas, equally yummy tho with a decidedly different aesthetic. If music is the great divider in the world of format-driven radio and street festival stage booking, food is definately what brings us together, even in a hip neighborhood where the rental price for a one-bedroom apartment now averages $1200 a month.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not a curmudgeonly old former wannabe. This is my community after all. When Joe Doe implores everyone to be sure to vote from the stage, he doesn’t have to say who for. There’s nary an open Bush supporter in this district that often doesn’t even have a Republican on the ballot for Congress. I’m such a snotty local I even walked past the $10 donation collectors without even dropping a dime, a fact I am not exactly proud of. But right now, I am an unemployed student who remembers when entrance was $2. Besides, I’m broke. Now that’s hip.

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