I’m not a hipster
But you might be.

One of the first nights I arrived to Portland this summer, we met friends at Amnesia, where there are great microbrews and hipsters. Funny enough, I wasn’t thinking about the hipster part when we decided on a location. I was just thinking it was within stumbling distance of where I needed to end up at night.

So, I have a beer or two, and by No. 3, my eyes go wide at the bar because OH MY GOD there are two total hipsters sitting at the bar counter. Wide-framed black glasses, checked long-sleeve shirts, tight jeans, the whole deal.

I prance back outside to our table and start convincing my wonderful friend that of course she wants to strategically pose for a picture by the bar so that I can really take a picture of the hipsters. Back inside we go, she leans up to the bar, and SNAP. I take my blinding-flash photo, and we run back outside. Super subtle, right?

Apparently not. Friends who went in for beers right after my photo op heard the hipsters saying things like “what the fuck was that?” One even answered them: “You’re just so hipsterlishous.” And they were okay with that.

On a roadtrip West this summer, we traveled from Moab, Utah, the Gateway to Arches National Park, to Brigham City, Utah, Gateway to the World’s Greatest Wild Bird Refuge. Not the biggest or oldest — just the greatest.

Brigham is a town of 17,000 and shows signs of what looks like the crisis on every corner. Across from our hotel, Donna’s restaurant is closed with a sign that proclaims “Rent for Cheap.” Main Street has nearly more empty buildings than occupied ones. At 8:30 p.m. on a Wednesday, only Domino’s and a copy shop were open. If you enter past the cracked plexiglass windows, you’ll find the copy shop runs without employees, instead using a payment slot on the back wall next to a sign that says thefts have been on the rise, so smile, you’re on camera. One corner is crowded with ancient copier machines, a graveyard of sorts.

Across the street, another copy shop, although this one sells copiers you can buy too. The downtown only lasts a few blocks, but in the orange sunset, the red brick buildings glow, and the moutains that frame the city to the east bask warmly in the last rays.

Yes, I now live in Hipsterville, as evidenced by the sign. Jealous, are you? I understand, although, because I am a hipster now living in Hipsterville, I don’t really care that you are jealous. I will give you a nonchalant look to prove it the next time I see you.

As I was saying to friends tonight (there may or may not have been drinks involved), hipsters can get to be a bit boring to write about. I love to watch them and be amazed by their indifference. But how many times can you write “it looked like he/she didn’t care?”

One of the things I love most about PDX: the biking culture.

If you never saw Michael Jackson’s full Bad video, now’s the time. It’s a spectacular West Side Story meets hair commercial filmed in a parking garage. His classics never fail to get me out on the dance floor, no matter how tired.

The bars in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, are packed with hipsters and neon lights.

The Hipster Olympics are held in this area.

I was in Brooklyn, New York, for a brief visit a few weeks back. And who should walk right in front of our car but two oh-so-stylish hipsters. In fact, they didn’t just walk. They stopped still long enough for me to take numerous photos, and then one even lit up a cigarette, completing the look.

Granted, they didn’t know they were posing since they didn’t bother to look at the car in front of them. But since I didn’t have to move to take the pics, I’m pretty sure that doesn’t make me a stalker.

I love this:

http://action.thisisreality.org/page/s/coenbrothers

So, Fed Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke talked about when the recession might end today. But apparently, he told people in the UK something different than those of us here in the US.

Headline on BBC: US recession ‘may last into 2010′

Headline on Yahoo.com: Stocks up on Bernanke’s report that recession might end in ‘09

The second paragraph in the AP story on Yahoo states: “…Bernanke predicted the economy is likely to keep contracting in the first six months of 2009, but that “there is a reasonable prospect” the recession will end this year.”

There’s not even a mention of “2010″ in the AP story. According to the BBC story, Bernanke said “only if” getting credit and financial markets to operate more normally again is successful, “Only if that is the case, in my view there is a reasonable prospect that the current recession will end in 2009 and that 2010 will be a year of recovery,” he said.

I may have spotted a hipster in State College. The other night, we went to this kind of funky bar/restaurant where the chairs are upholstered in zebra-print fabric, with little chrome tables, heavy chairs and black leather sofas in the bar area. At some point during the night, I looked behind my date and spotted (drum roll) a hipster! I was so excited. I haven’t seen any hipsters since last time I was in Portland.

Here’s my drawing of him. He met all the hipster criteria: skinny blank jeans, tight black, collarless sweater lined with neon strips. Required bored look and big-time slouch on the sofa.

As we left, we walked right past him and I sneaked a closer look — only to hear him say something in French to the girl he was with. So, now I’m not sure if he was a hipster or just French.