Tag carmageddon

STFU Fridays, with our special guest: STFU Socrates

Heather Christena Schmidt 12 Comments

This morning I woke up and looked on Facebook, wasting time while trying to figure out (like usual) how exactly to get through the day. Much to my happiness, the “I fucking love science” page shared a quote that could not be anymore relevant and important, both to my day and us as a society:

This was Socrates’ mantra, and why he was called the wisest man on the Earth. He wasn’t wise because he was a great philosopher. Nor because he knew how to get into the pants of just about everyone in Ancient Athens, despite his garish appearance. He was the wisest man on Earth because when he was told this, he couldn’t believe it. Quite frankly, he told the Oracle at Delphi to shut the fuck up. (I always like to imagine Socrates saying “shut the fuck up, bitch – I ain’t no wise man!” with one of those ghetto, Jerry Springer snaps of the hand.) After that, he went out on a search to prove that he wasn’t the wisest by questioning everything he and others thought they knew (and in doing so, proved the Oracle’s statement absolutely correct).

What happened to Socrates you ask? He was put to death by those dumb motherfuckers who thought they knew everything for trying to prove that he, himself, did not know shit. Talk about ironic. This is the theme for our STFU Fridays, and I have three groups of people that deserve a resounding “shut the fuck up.”

STFU Socrates is joining us.

Hipsters

This weekend in Los Angeles, we’re having the second edition of Carmageddon. If you were around the news or LA last year, you know what this meant. A section of the 405 freeway was shut down, and despite the fact that there are a bagillion other routes people normally take anyway, as well as the fact that it was a goddamned weekend and wasn’t going to be a big deal, the city acted like it was the end of the fucking world. End. Of. The Fucking. World.

Hipsters everywhere came out of the woodwork, celebrating local and bike riding tandem. Yuppies organized a 405 shutdown tandem bike ride. I shit you not, everyone talked on the news about how great this was to re-embrace LA. It was a foodie’s wildest fantasy: what a great opportunity to stay put and eat locally grown organic produce!

Yay local! Yay tofu! Yay Pitchfork!

I’m not sure how shutting down a stretch of the freeway turned into the biggest convention of ugly pants-wearing hipsters ever, but it did. Coachella didn’t even compare. So earlier this month when I saw on the freeway the dreaded sign that Carmageddon 2 was upon us, I immediately prepared myself for more self-aggrandizing, pompous assholes to make their way into the limelight in their lime-colored sunglasses and wearing stretched out, oversized tank tops.

With their cool sense of irony and $99 “vintage” American Apparel hoodies, hipsters annoy me in such a way that I can’t even really describe accurately. It isn’t their ugly taste in clothing. It isn’t their lack of understanding of the term irony. It isn’t even their shitty taste in bubble-gum pop, pseudo-dance music played by morons with 12 inch ear gauges and barely more than a junior high education.

It’s their fucking arrogance.

Hipsters think they know everything. About everything. They have an understanding of music that you just don’t get. They have a taste in fashion that you would never understand. Your deep thoughts are mere blips on the stream of consciousness that is their deep, emotional, and ironic thinking.

I think if Socrates were alive today, he wouldn’t waste his time questioning hipsters. He’d just beat the shit out of  their neon orange skinny pants, bike riding through Carmageddon asses.

What do you have to say to the hipsters, Socrates?

Hypocrites

Hipsters are kind of hypocrites because they embrace cheap and vintage and local, and yet pay a big price in places that manufacture goods in Guadalajara for 5 cents an hour wages. But not all hypocrites are hipsters, so this is a different group. A different STFU.

A hypocrite is someone that quite literally says one thing and does another. A great example of hypocrites are people that go to church and preach fire and brimstone, then go home and drink a case of beer while beating their wives. Another great example of hypocrites are people that say they want a relationship with an honest person, but when the person is honest they call the person an asshole.

A hypocrite is someone that wants women to have equal rights and be treated with respect; yet, at the same time tells her she has to clear things with him first, or have no control over her own things.

I feel like I am surrounded by hypocrites in my daily life. From my misogynistic husband that, indeed, got just as upset about my mentioning how much of a pig he is in my grocery blog as I thought he would; to my trailer trash mom, who complains when I don’t go to family parties but then dumps on every time I offer to host them at our home.

What infuriates me so much about hypocrites, though, isn’t just their hypocrisy; but really their arrogance paralleled to the arrogance of the hipster. The hypocrite knows better than you – that’s why he can be a hypocrite. The hypocrite just has a much better understanding of life and whatever he’s doing that makes him so hypocritical; and you are just too stupid to realize that it isn’t hypocrisy, but the right thing.

What do you have to say to hypocrites, Socrates?

Foodies

I’m really starting to dislike foodies. I don’t mean people that like to eat. I also don’t mean people that like to eat new things.

I mean these motherliving assholes that know more than everyone about food. Epicureans. Food connoisseurs. Foodie fucks.

I talked a little bit about this in my Food Nazis STFU, but now I want to touch on these foodie assholes that think their feta don’t stink just as much as the next guy.

I’m talking about the foodie that won’t shut the hell up about the tannins in the wine. The foodie that sticks her large, fucking schnoz into the wine glass to smell the flavor and aroma, as if she really knows what the fuck she’s sniffing for. I’m talking about the foodie that sits there and comments on all the distinct spices that he can taste in a dish. I’m talking about the person that says “ha ha ha … oh, that’s precious and homey!” when you bring over a regular square cake with normal fucking frosting, instead of some berry-infused, fondant-covered plate of shit.

Again, just like hipsters; just like hypocrites – foodies think they fucking know everything. I was on a date once where I brought wine because the guy was cooking pasta. I brought white; a white that World Market said would go well with any pasta or other Italian dishes. I walked in and that motherfucker told me that it “technically” wasn’t the appropriate wine for pasta. I told that arrogant prick he should “technically” call World Market and tell them to change their pairing cards.

The Ancient Greeks were all about eating and drinking. Have any of you ever read Symposium? Those motherfuckers drank wine out of jugs. Jugs! They lived well into old age (for the most part) too, and they weren’t all as fucking arrogant as people are now. I cannot for the life of me imagine a bunch of guys standing around in the Agora sticking their noses into their dirty wine jugs and talking about tannins and shit.

So with that, I think STFU Socrates is the best person for the job on this week’s final STFU. What do you have to say to foodies, just like you did to the hipsters and the hypocrites, Socrates?

Reasons #Carmaggedon Could Be A.K.A. Yuppy-fest 2011

Heather Christena Schmidt 1 Comment

It’s my worst nightmare come true:  a festival of yuppies, hipsters, and yupsters banding together in a festival of – dare I say – epic proportions.  That’s right, it’s Carmaggedon.  It’s the weekend we’ve all been dreading, when the section of the 405 freeway between the 101 and the 10 interchanges is closed.  How is Carmaggedon – the event KCET is calling the “freeway apocalypse” – the same thing as Yuppy-fest 2011 you ask?  Well before I get into why, let’s look at some facts first:

Fact #1:  The major Los Angeles 405 freeway will be closed for roughly 12 miles, for about 53 hours, over the weekend.

Fact #2:  This weekend marks the end of the most-traveled time this summer, meaning that most people will have been (and will continue until the end of the weekend) be out of town anyway.

Fact #3:  For those that are in town, alternative routes (including the Pacific Coast Highway) are already common place on weekends, due to plans, scenery, beach-related activities, and other similar recreational factors.

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let’s make the connection.

The Midnight Ridazz

That’s right, the hipsters have named their attempt to do a massive 300+ person walk/ride on the 405 freeway Saturday night the Midnight Ridazz.  The plan is to have this cadre of cyclists (no doubt in their mod outfits, their heads headbanded, all wearing their neon-rimmed glasses) make their way up the 405 North on one of the only times you will see the freeway completely desolate.

Except for a couple of things.  First, the freeway isn’t going to be desolate because it’s been closed for construction work, which not only means a crew of workers and trucks, but a major danger to the unprotected pedestrians.  The second is that the California Highway Patrol has already stated it will have a force just as massive as the hipsters out there, ready to ticket and arrest anyone on the freeway, and out of line.

The Bikers Versus Jet Blue Race

And in come the yuppies.  After Jet Blue announced it would be offering flights from the Long Beach airport to the Burbank airport for a measly $4 a flight, something that deserves a section of its own, some jokesters on Twitter suggested that the bicyclists could beat Jet Blue in a cross-town race during Carmaggedon.  And now, it’s apparently on.  Beyond the sheer stupidity of taking an airplane across town, this really begs the question:  don’t these people have anything better to do with their time?

The Buy Local Yupster Explosion

Now, I’m all for buying local, and supporting local businesses; but the yupsters take it way too far on a normal day.  From their organic farms, to their locally manufactured clothing, support of the local market has been a hallmark of the yupster mentality.  But since NBC LA came out with its 405 Things To Do During Carmaggedon list, emails, Facebook notifications, and Twitter announcements have been made by the hundreds for special “buy local” deals going on over the weekend.  Pictured here is the email I received just today – a huge sale at New Balance LA in honor of the weekend.

Photo credit ME!

With the yuppies, the hipsters, and the yupsters in full force this weekend, Yuppy-fest 2011 makes me crave a good old fashioned L.A. riot – at least then the “countdown to carmaggedon” media coverage of this “historic event” would be justified.

The real deal is this:  sure, the 405 freeway is going to be closed for the weekend and that sucks.  Yeah, the commute time anywhere in or around town will be longer, so you need to make sure you have enough gas in your tank, and snacks on hand to avert crankiness.  Other than that, it seems that the media and the yuppies have again created a hype that is going to end up embarrassing for no one but them.  This evening on the news, the broadcaster said “… well, if you are on the 405 northbound right now, you have reached the point … of no return.”  Sure, traffic is going to be bad, but it’s L.A … what else is new?