Get Like Me

I’m not sure what the purpose of Lil Indies really is. The Mills mystique is upper class children living the Bushwick dream of food trucks, PBR, and dressing like an idiot without jocks beating you up. The comedic part of Orlando’s Bushwick (read: Colonialtown) is the food truck is $11 a meal instead of $4, the PBR is $3 a beer instead of $1, and you’re still dressed like an idiot.

I’m sure it’s a comfortable life style, although the BMW in the driveway of your 3/1 you share with 4 people in shitty local bands probably gets bad gas milage. For the ‘I’d move up north but it’s too far from dad’s cushy office job he’s lined up for me in 24 months’ crowd, LI should be your favorite bar. It’s dark, so your date’s poor judgment in attire can go unnoticed until you’re drunk enough to fuck anything- regardless of headwrap, and it’s dingy, just dingy enough to scare mom and dad when they leave Windermere to come see the new place you share with Jacob and Brad, the same guys you lost every game of YMCA soccer with when you were Cub Scouts so few years ago. 

Look around, the Bushwick lifestyle is complete, straight down to the fair trade toilet paper in your bathroom. You’re officially in the lower SES (not to be mistaken with the LES), you even dropped out of UCF (or Valencia if you really underachieved). Now you’re stealing jobs from the actual poor people who aren’t living on a parentally-subsidized income. Ready for it? Here comes the ultimate fallacy; a place like this that’s attracting the ‘cool to be poor’ crowd is charging $3 for a PBR on a menu written on a paper towel. Dive bar aesthetics- check. Dive bar prices- not so check. Who is stupid enough to buy 1 PBR for the price of 4 when a 7-11 and a Circle K are within a two minute walking distance? You are.

In this ever-growing cooltobebroke scene (ie. street meat, PBR, hand-me-down glasses from your mom’s wardrobe circa 1986), you’d think $9 beer night would be pushing your luck as a bar owner. Then again, these guys have a true pulse on the market, and I obviously don’t. He knows the ‘rents are bailing these kids out. He knows they’ll do anything to hold a cliched ‘poor mans’ beer while taking Facebook/Pinster/Twitter pictures outside his newest overpriced dive bar soon to be tagged as “here” on Foursquare (do they have that in Orlando?). It’s Uncle Lou’s without the risk of running into the people that actually have to live the lifestyle you’re playing dress up with. 

I know what you’re thinking: psychoanalyzing scene kids is so easy it’s boring.

The obvious truth is this is just a fad to keep credibility when you fold under the pressure of Papa Johns delivery money after your iPhone breaks and you have to get one before the upgrade discount. Mom and Dad make that ever-so-constant “if you come to work for your dad’s company…” pitch and you cave. You get an allowance to shop for dress clothes at the Limited or Urban and punch your time card as the heir to the throne. But man, wasn’t it fun to live the simple life for two years?

I bet it was even more fun for bar owners.