Step 1: Come up with some ridiculous headline. Don’t be afraid to really tap deep into your inner hipster self. The more witty, indie, or hip you can be the better. Making any logical sense doesn’t count here. Feel free to steal song lyrics (as long as they’re from a hip or punk band) as well as lines from movies such as Scarface. Extra points for some lame ass poetry or pointless dramatic, grandiose, hai ku spoutings about how punk your life is in the suburb.

Step 2: Get some cool pictures of yourself. At your parents house in your bedroom, don your most hip, cool, and punk rock gear you’ve been collecting on shopping outings at the mall, and grab a camera. Try to look as cool as possible by keeping an abject, disinterested look. Remember: you’re so cool that you can’t even look at the camera (while you take pictures of yourself in your bedroom or bathroom). Don’t forget to let the world know just how punk you are by flipping off the camera (even though you’re only really flipping off yourself and no one else is around). Nothing says punk rock louder! And last, gather any party pictures you have, or any pictures of you in a really exotic location so you can show the world the truth about how your life is just one non-stop hip party.

Step 3: Come up with some sort of play on words about where you live. Here’s an often times overlooked step by people less hip than yourself. Instead of actually putting the city and state of where you live, replace it with a witty derogatory reference like Hellville or Fuckville. Basically anything that trashes where you live will let people see just what a rebellious suburban hipster you are. Anarchy rules!

Step 4: Put together your music list. Gather the most obscure indie or punk bands you can (don’t be afraid to stray from your normal mainstream MTV programming to find these groups). The less people have heard of them, the better. Don’t worry about if you actually have any of their music. List as many as you can. The longer the list, the cooler you must be…it’s only obvious! Duh!

Step 5: Add your occupation and income details. Here’s another way to let your unique hipster self shine. There’s no better way to mask the fact that you are completely lazy and live with your parents than to say “F You!” to this category and wildly inflate your income. Make up some kind of cool occupation like “gypsy” or “punk rock ‘n rolla”. It doesn’t matter that you couldn’t get a job to save your life as long as you’re cool. I mean, we’re going to be young, sexy, and cool forever, right? Who needs a job or education when you’re this cool!

Step 6: Add as many friends as possible. Go around and start psychotically adding as many friends as you can. Don’t forget to only add friends as long as they uphold the same produced, homogenic, hipster, punk standards that you do. Remember, everything is about image…including your friends. You can’t be a punk hipster without cool looking friends right? Who needs real friends when we can express our-alter-punk-selves in witty comments and bulletins?

Author’s note: quoted text taken from internet sources such as Dictionary.com and Wikipedia.com

     I just finished reading Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle. One of the better books I have read this year, The Jungle is best known for inspiring creation of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug act. However, the true aim of Sinclair was to throw light on the failings of capitalism and to inspire a socialist revolution. And while reading the book and being appalled at the inhuman working and living conditions depicted, I couldn’t help see some similarities between 1900’s life in the meat packing warehouses and modern life in the stockades of corporate cubicles.

     You might say, “How can life in an office cubicle be similar to a meat industry warehouse?” Yes, it is true I rarely see horrors such as limbs being crushed, workers freezing in pools of cow blood, hands rotting off due to skin diseases, and men falling to their death into vats of chemicals. And it is true I do not have to worry about starving to death on the streets, freezing to death in a blizzard on the walk home, dying from inhaling powdered cow bones, or getting so sick I could not survive. In these respects, yes, we have come a long way.
     However, the similarities I started to observe were not so much the physical hardships these men and their families endured, rather, the mental and spiritual abuse which were part and parlay of the capitalist jungle they lived in where the powerful preyed on the weak and where everyone was in a constant battle for survival. This unseen spiritual damage may have been greater than any of the outwardly visible damage. Man can endure physical hardships as long as his spirit is intact, but break his spirit and you have broken the man. This fact is demonstrated time and time again in Jurgis, the main character of the book, as he and his family are slowly annihilated by the unjust political, economic, and social system that was depicted in Sinclair’s book.
     In the beginning of the book Jurgis arrives in America full of dreams and pride. Although he sees the old and beaten workers that have been used up in the factory and tossed aside, he is blinded by youthful ambition and a devotion to his family. Of course, this does not last as he himself becomes just another cog in the “machine” and is quickly used up. Towards the end becomes another worn out hand that cannot find employment in the very factories he helped build and is summarily discarded, thus fulfilling the vicious cycle of work and wear.
     Now this cycle, I say, is not so different from modern day corporations. So often we are asked to “take one for the team”, or “give a little extra for the company”. But aren’t we tossed aside as soon as we become a burden on the bottom line? Aren’t we just as summarily “let go” after putting our soul into the company? It is a common practice to place more and more responsibility and work on an employee, in a way like adding more and more rocks to a pack, until that employee reaches the breaking point. All the while saying, “do it for the company”, and, “we care about our employees, we’ll take care of you”. After time though just as in the book, once the youth and energy has been mined and depleted, the tired and worn employee is tossed aside like a used up rag in place for younger, more eager workers.

To be continued…