Not too long ago Brian (Pan) came into the office with a “story” about how Bill Murray was party-hopping from random Halloween house parties all over the neighborhood. “Yeah right Brian!” was the general reaction to his claims until he provided photographic proof a few days later.

Those of you living outside of NYC, or even just outside Williamburg are probably completely oblivious to the whispers of Bill Murray being here or there permeating small talk and local forum chatter. These aren’t the usual “Oh Karen O or Michael Pitt (click the IMDB link for an “Ohhh! That guy!” moment) were out at such & such place/who cares?” type dialogues… it’s Bill Fuckin’ Murray!

It seems like the whispers have obviously gotten loud enough to warrant some intervention from the authorities, The NY Post’s Page Six. Page Six Magazine ran an article on the Bill Murray/Hipster Party Phenomenon this past Sunday which you can read here.

Reading this article I feel like Bill Murray is slowly turning into an amalgamation of his character from Rushmore & Broken Flowers. Midlife crisis or not, nothing would make my night (I’m sure many people’s nights) like being randomly chatted up by DOCTOR Peter Venkman. But alas I’m sure this article is like the Keymaster to his Gatekeeper and a signal of the end of days… of Bull Murray randomly crashing house parties.

Our boy Joel, aka Lamour Supreme, teamed up with Andy at Fyxomatosis to finally print up this awesome graphic. Andy met Joel years ago in NYC at Monstertrack and has since grown Fyxomatosis to the cult website it is.

Swoop over and pick up one of these shirts if you’re a hipster who rides a track bike.

Alright here comes my rant. Until now I have sat idly by while pop culture around me slid deeper and deeper into the depths of the abyss. If some people expressed the eighties as a slight in cultural progression, then the thousands (tens?) are going to be considered a gaping wound stinking of gangrene. My beef is that too much inspiration today is coming from A) Nostalgia, and B) Irony.

Nostalgia: It seems as though the majority of the trendsetters of this generation have collectively decided to halt creative progression and rely on completely ripping off fads of yester-year. I realize this is nothing new in the history of art and creativity however, when the final product is simply an inferior version of your inspiration…then a failure has occurred, not a new trend.

Irony: All things ironic have a cool factor these days. What was ugly is hot, what was lame is cool, what was dirty is clean. Have you ever looked over at the crew of leopard print, fluorescent-clad uber-kewls in the bar and been saddened by the fact that everyone (including themselves) are taking them completely seriously? I hate the fact that at a Halloween party decades from now one person will be dressed like a greaser, and somebody at the party will say “Cool costume, you must be from the fifties!” while at this same party somebody wearing their best hipster costume might hear comments like: “You look like an asshole, you must be dressed as 2008!”

In conclusion, we need some tough love. People have had it too easy and the arts have suffered. The best music, fashion and culture almost always come from oppression. If the economy continues to crash people will start being a little more discriminating in their investments, and a lot more of the garbage will get weeded out. Then again maybe I just need to relax and get weeded out… nah fuck that.

It’s really easy to knock this guy.  But truth be told that’s like shooting fish in the barrel.  And quite frankly, unloading rounds on unsuspecting fishies is unfair in my books.

Plus, what’s really to hate about the dude?  Name ONE rapper that knows who the fuck Hedi Slimane is, can wrap off Radiohead albums, and has revolutionized rap fashion releasing it from the the throes of over-sized jeans, tall tees and fucking Toucan Sam embroidered Nascar jackets?

There’s something quite endearing and magnetic about his honesty and candidness, humility notwithstanding.

Dude is basically me.  Minus the fame.  Minus the money.  Minus the musical talent.  Minus the ego.  Well maybe not minus that.

I don’t know about you guys, but within my social circle, you could substitute Kanye with anyone of my friends.   Actually I take that back.  No-one in my social circle would ever listen to Coldplay let alone brag about it.

Click here to watch the entire news confrence. 

Black Metal has gotten a lot of recognition over the years. Whether it’s Varg killing Øystein Aarseth at his home in Oslo, the number of church burnings in Norway or Peter Beste’s art book entitled True Norwegian Black Metal, what began as a dark and underground musical movement is now an icon of, well, comedy?

See below.

KFC has branched out a bit from their normal commercial audience in an attempt to get hipsters back into their restaurants. Now if those guys had better corpse paint, it would have been a better commercial.

Say hello to one of South Williamsburg’s permanent residents. This fella has been cold lampin’ it for the last month and a half in a drain gutter along Hooper and S. 1st street. I admire his tenacity. Every day I walk past the remnants of this night dweller and he’s right where I last saw him. Maybe he knows Pennywise. The so-called teenage gutter punks hanging around St. Marks could probably learn a thing or two from this guy, although I doubt this little guy bothers the locals for spare change.

I think I’m gonna start calling him Panini, since he looks pretty gotdamn flattened and anyone that has eaten lunch with me probably knows how much I despise using that word. Ordering a panini ALMOST bothers me as much as having a waiter serve me a deadrat sandwich. The closest thing I can equate it to is the sizing system at Starbucks. This is America; just give me my medium coffee with a grilled flatbread sandwich and quit trying to make my food sound like something fancy from a European café.

I forgot that I had photographed this the Friday following  Election Day while out & about in Williamsburg. I always forget about the term “Trustafarian”… it’s so so good.