Sunday, November 30, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Why We Rage: Confessions of a Twixter
The word “rage” first entered our Lexicon in the early aughts, when a friend’s friend band was then encamped in LA and, from what I understand, living out of a van down by the river. During a transcontinental phone call he’d inquired if we’d be “raging” on a certain night. We’d been raging for years and didn’t even know it.
What’s a rage? The word often inspires radical interpretations: young lads swinging from chandeliers, scandalized women with rouge lips and hiked skirts piled unto pickup trucks, and empty bottles of liquor lining powdered glass tables like pines in an Alpine forest. In reality, a rage is something two or more decently educated post-collegiate dorks engage in on weekend nights after psyching each other up and pre-gaming on undergrad nostalgia. “We came, we raged, we conquered” is merely a group euphemism for innocent debauchery involving no more than a half-dozen extreme beers, silly inside comedy bits, and minor property damage.
Two weeks ago, I was at Bar None, an NYU haunt where, thanks to fake IDs, the average age probably falls short of 21. We strode in with a coupon (sign of the times) offering 2-for-1 beers handed to us outside by a bespectacled girl. After some ritual sideline mockservations, we were drawn into a friendly beer pong exhibition resulting in a fairly dominating win for us (it’s common knowledge that beer pong always comes down to the last cup, so it’s all about the start).
So what separates me from the hordes of age-denying post-collegiate frat rats packing bars from the UWS to the LES? Am I any better than the button-downed Lehman Brother carpet-bombing his friends with Jagerbombs and Stellas? Is it merely my preference for extreme beers and ironic perspective? Nope, any old hipster doofus can provide these dubious alternatives. As for me, I have another theory.
In the decade of doubt between school and responsibility, raging is not just a celebration of youth: it’s a small redoubt from the rapidly invading future, a raft in a fast-flowing stream with a certain terminus—the only question is how long until the plunge? Raging is a boycott against the inevitability of life-by-script and our invisible queuing to meet vicissitudes large and small. It’s a constant in an uncertain time dominated by certain variables. Rage is an anchor in the stormy sea of family, career, mortgage, disease, divorce, and death. Rage is way of life—at least for today…
What’s a rage? The word often inspires radical interpretations: young lads swinging from chandeliers, scandalized women with rouge lips and hiked skirts piled unto pickup trucks, and empty bottles of liquor lining powdered glass tables like pines in an Alpine forest. In reality, a rage is something two or more decently educated post-collegiate dorks engage in on weekend nights after psyching each other up and pre-gaming on undergrad nostalgia. “We came, we raged, we conquered” is merely a group euphemism for innocent debauchery involving no more than a half-dozen extreme beers, silly inside comedy bits, and minor property damage.
Two weeks ago, I was at Bar None, an NYU haunt where, thanks to fake IDs, the average age probably falls short of 21. We strode in with a coupon (sign of the times) offering 2-for-1 beers handed to us outside by a bespectacled girl. After some ritual sideline mockservations, we were drawn into a friendly beer pong exhibition resulting in a fairly dominating win for us (it’s common knowledge that beer pong always comes down to the last cup, so it’s all about the start).
So what separates me from the hordes of age-denying post-collegiate frat rats packing bars from the UWS to the LES? Am I any better than the button-downed Lehman Brother carpet-bombing his friends with Jagerbombs and Stellas? Is it merely my preference for extreme beers and ironic perspective? Nope, any old hipster doofus can provide these dubious alternatives. As for me, I have another theory.
In the decade of doubt between school and responsibility, raging is not just a celebration of youth: it’s a small redoubt from the rapidly invading future, a raft in a fast-flowing stream with a certain terminus—the only question is how long until the plunge? Raging is a boycott against the inevitability of life-by-script and our invisible queuing to meet vicissitudes large and small. It’s a constant in an uncertain time dominated by certain variables. Rage is an anchor in the stormy sea of family, career, mortgage, disease, divorce, and death. Rage is way of life—at least for today…
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