Me and Chuck aren't coming to blows, but I have taken issue with his overgeneralization that people who claim to like "all music except country" are "wretched," "boorish and pretentious," and just want hipsters to like them. I've been one of those people plenty of times, not because I wanted to be accepted or because I think I'm better than people who like country, but simply because it's an easy way of saying I like a diverse range of music, with one major exception. And I can say that, too, because I grew up in the South and was exposed to country music 1,000 times more often than any hipster who swears by bands I've never even heard of but claims the same thing. I will admit the phrase is a lazy cop-out, but I can remember using it as far back as elementary school. Before I knew what a hipster was. Before hipsters existed. Before the dawn of time.
And I'll admit, too, that there are a few country songs I do like. Chuck raves about the Dixie Chicks in this chapter, and for good reason. They're probably my favorite country act, and actually probably the only one I can even say I like as a whole. The rest of my country affinities are individual songs. It's possible that I like David Allan Coe -- I have seen him in concert twice and enjoyed myself, but it wasn't my idea to go, nor was it my idea to even begin listening to it. But some songs grew on me. Just like when I was a kid and my dad played country music sometimes, and there was one CD that had some songs I could tolerate. Specifically, "Boot Scootin' Boogie" and "Chattahoochee." And there are a few Reba songs I dig, and maybe a Faith Hill or two, but these are not things I ever choose to listen to, they're just the ones I can tolerate if the situation calls for it. Country just doesn't appeal to me. Johnny Cash doesn't count, either. And while it seems vaguely hipster to say you only like old country music, I can see that it does make a difference. But Johnny Cash is the only one of those I've clung to much yet.
This has nothing to do with people perceiving me in a certain way for my feelings about music. I also don't like jazz. Lots of people love it, but I've never heard a single piece of jazz and thought, "I gotta hear more of this! Who is it?" I just plain don't like it. It doesn't give me the warm fuzzies like my favorite bands do, or even the good old one-hit wonders. I hate country because I don't like the way it sounds. I don't feel it in my heart, my head or my hips. Chuck tells us why hipsters hate country:
"...because it speaks to normal people in a tangible, rational manner. Hipsters hate it because they hate Midwesterners, and they hate Southerners, and they hate people with real jobs."
This makes me laugh because on any given day I can see as many hipsters as I want in Williamsburg, and on the L train that runs through Williamsburg, and in various Manhattan locales, usually on the street. If you ever have trouble defining hipster, get off at Bedford in Brooklyn. You will drown in people who think they are too cool for Earth.
There was another Chuck quote I liked today in the chapter about movies that question reality: "The strength of your memory dictates the size of your reality." It's so true. My memory is awful, so it's possible that my reality is frequently skewed. That's the other reason writing is so important to me, because it's the only way I remember what happens in life. At work there's a tiny, fat book that's called "The Five-Year Journal." Every day for five years you'd write in it what you did that day. I used to do this in high school, and it was fantastic. I vainly read and re-read my life and color-coded things and used acronyms I'll never remember in order to keep my secrets safe. This is the reference I'll use to write the book of my youth. Too bad if I don't keep it up more, there won't be a sequel.
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