Those Wacky Non-Mormons, OR, A Fixie of Hipsters

[robotnik2004]

Early this morning, a pack of clean-cut kids swarmed through our neighborhood and put up big American flags in front of every house on the street. I guess it's a Labor Day thing? I've got no problem with the flag but you don't need a PhD in U.S. history to know that the relationship between the U.S. flag and the international labor movement has had its ups and downs.

What's the collective noun for these roving bands of clean-cut youngsters, anyway? An emigration of Mormons? Whatever you call them, they're a regular feature of our new neighborhood. It actually reminds me of my childhood a little: kids playing up and down the street from dawn to dusk, knocking on the door after dinner to ask if the Ukelele can come out to play. We have lots of kids in our neighborhood at home, but you book your playdates three weeks in advance, and nobody goes nowhere without a car seat, helmet, and three chaperones. Don't these Utah kids know the wild spaces of childhood have been paved over, we're all paranoid helicopter parents now? Maybe they don't read the New York Review of Books. Or maybe it's just that they have such a surplus here, it's not so crucial to look after them.

In Ontario, our new Mazda I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-A-Minivan felt like a big car. Here, it's the smallest thing on the road. We've become darkly fascinated with the as yet unseen driver of a bright yellow Humvee who has a child in the Ukelele's daycare. Almost everyday it blazes past us on the way to school, using the two-way left turn only lane as its own personal detour. Then when we get to campus, it's always taking up two of the drop-off spaces in front of the daycare. And inside the parked Humvee, a little chihuahua with a pearl collar is yipping and yapping its head off. The chihuahua makes it. Way to be obnoxious in all the most stereotypical ways, Humvee lady! Big evil car, rude driving and parking, neurotic yappy dog straight out of rich obnoxious lady central casting... Fifty bucks says you cackle, wear fur, blow smoke in people's faces, and are two Dalmatian puppies away from the coat of your dreams.

Lest you think this is all going to be snarky comments about Those Wacky Mormons^TM: so far we're actually more amused, by and large, by our interactions with Salt Lake City's non-Mormon population. They always find a way to signal, within five minutes of striking up a conversation, that they're not LDS. At first we couldn't figure out why everybody we met insisted on mentioning how they like to have a glass of wine with dinner or grill with a beer in their hand. It's sort of like how potheads feel each other out: "Hey man, are you cool?" "Like, cool how?" "Oookaaay..." "He was asking if you get high." You also see a lot of tattoos here--butterfly, tribal, hula girl, it all says the same thing: I'm not one of Them!

It took me a while to put my finger on what was different about SLC's alterna-hipster scene. They all seem so cheerful, so well adjusted and sure of their place in the world. But consider: your New York or California hipster has no real hope of shocking anyone anymore. He or she hasn't had anybody serious to rebel against since Spiro Agnew. So unless you're willing to actually kill yourself with excess, there's little to be done but spiral off into parody or recursive self-loathing. But the SLC hipster, or hippie, or punk, or whatever, has an honest to Moroni theocracy to rebel against! It's like living in a White Wolf setting, or NBC's Kings. It centers them, gives them purpose, identity, definition. Plus it sets the bar for rebellion so low--coffee?--they can fight the power and still be in great shape for mountain biking and hacky sack.

P.S. Turns out the clean cut kids were a boy scout troop. We found this out when they returned to present us with the bill for our flag.

Comments

[athenalindia.livejournal.com]

Our neighborhood is like that. Except the kids knock on the door to ask if the cats can come out to play. (They can't.) And also to hit me up for a donation for whatever school event they're pimping now. They've figured out I'm a soft touch.

[mgrasso.livejournal.com]

So basically they put a flag on your lawn and then charge you for it. So if you were to refuse the flag and thus payment, you'd be marked by the neighborhood as an unpatriotic troublemaker.

...

It's genius. Bloody genius. It's some sort of Mormon protection scheme. I love it.

[emilytheslayer.livejournal.com]

This is fantastic and all, but I'm a little boggled that the Uke is even big enough to get asked out to play! It's great, it's just mindblowing.

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

Well, she's really not big enough to go out and play by herself, but she's big enough to get asked, apparently, which is indeed mindblowing.

[emilytheslayer.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to remember when I started getting asked, and I'm really not sure.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

When we stayed in SLC on vacation, it was the only place I had ever seen people saying grace in a restaurant (maybe this is more normal in the US than here in heathen England).
I was also amused to see that there seem to be Mormon and non-Mormon NPR and PBS stations.
I came to the same conclusion as you about the hipsters, we read a copy of the alternative paper in a coffee bar or somesuch, and it was clear that they benefited from a common 'enemy'.
I was also amused that thanks to God telling them how wide the roads were that not only was there enough room to put a LRT system in the roads but that they could put it in without closing the roads.

As you probably know, the thing about alcohol was more amusing before the laws were relaxed (in time for the winter Olympics), supposedly it used to be the case that restaurants could sell alcohol but not mention it so you had to ask for the alcohol menu. Then, of course, if the waiter / management were LDS you would be told they didn't do it and get the cold shoulder for the rest of the evening.

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

Yes! The alternative weekly was one of the things that inspired this line of thought for me, too.

I have heard the tales about the liquor laws before the Olympics. The current alcohol regime is not much more restrictive/byzantine than Ontario's, so I don't find it a great hardship.

[papersource.livejournal.com]

I was also amused to see that there seem to be Mormon and non-Mormon NPR and PBS stations.

This seems to be the case, although it's hard to tell the difference. KBYU has the Newshour AND MI-5, so it has won me over. I am so pleased to have regular, low-tech access PBS and NPR. Def one of the perks of crossing the border.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

Yep, they seemed pretty similar. I think when channel surfing late at night we found some weird very low budget Mormon educational program on the Mormon PBS, I really can't remember what about, though.

[sben.livejournal.com]

I visited Utah when this was the case. The restaurant conversation went something like this:

Me: What do you have to drink?
Waiter: We have milk, juice, water.... [Meaningful pause.]
Me: Um, do you have any beer?
Waiter: Yes we do! We have Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and Sam Adams, and [a short list of low-to-mid-grade craft brews].
Me: What just happened there?
Waiter: [Explanation of state alcohol laws.]

[equine-cocoon.livejournal.com]

Last thing you want is to be on the business side of "Scouting for Boys," pay the children of Baden-Powell the bill, and thank them for the opportunity to do so.

It's clear that not only have you travelled in space, but in time, too. Sounds like you've skipped back a couple few generations. Sure, there's Humvees 'n' tattoos 'n' crap around to keep you at ease, but it's mostly illusion. There then is not now. Every historian's dream, to uhhh go back in time. Do whatever the chihuahua sez, it's clearly trying to communicate to you and is probably your only way back to the present.

"Slide!"

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

Do whatever the chihuahua sez, it's clearly trying to communicate to you and is probably your only way back to the present.

Oh great - my spirit animal is the Taco Bell dog?

Re: "Slide!"

[equine-cocoon.livejournal.com]

That's no spirit animal, but a freakin' nexus-portal, gatekeepin' thing. Try giving it a milkbone next time you hear it yapping. The humvee is obviously the nexus transport, so you'll need to acquire it so you can drive it as fast as it will go.

Then again, sometimes a chihuahua is just a chihuahua.

a fixie of hipsters?...

[(Anonymous)]

i'm sorry. some reason i came across this and can't stop myself 1. look up hipster - urbandictionary.com 2. you don't have a clue what a fixie is in reference to hipsters. so don't. 3. humvee is a military vehicle 4. unfortunately, utah isn't the only state in america to contain inconsiderate, ignorant women driving 12 mpg suv's 5. living in utah for 3 years now, i'll let you know, you'll never get used to mormons/non-mormons here 6. no one is rebelling. where do you get these ideas? are you misinterpreting individuality? 7. spiro agnew? are you serious? that's your arguments' premise... nothing since then, huh? 8. livejournal.com 9. fallacious 10. don't self interpret without some acquired knowledge. preferably, outside what you don't understand in conversation from the uninformed.

thanks

Re: a fixie of hipsters?...

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

You make many excellent points. "Livejournal.com", indeed.