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these kite strings: the funny papers (for a longtime ex-lover and others like him)(a.k.a. i'm the asshole)

Taylor P.Comment

I spent a large portion of the past few years dating the lot of you cool, hipster douchebags of Knoxville. I was an easy target, apparently, because I was a tourist to the snobbery of Knoxville's finest and a purported

"hipster" myself. Growing up with cool parents and a love of mail-ordered music, vintage kitchenware, and recreational reading, I was immediately drawn to you and your charming facades and appreciation of all of

the things that I enjoyed.

But while I can greatly commend the majority of you for your love of old mint 45's, your handmade haircuts, your eclectic vintage fashion, your iPods that practically were glued to you (and whatever the newest or

most expensive phone was on the market at the time), your Macbooks that your parents bought you (for school, although you dropped out "to focus on your art/music"), your organic lattes from Earthfare, your noncapitalized

texts (because good grammar and capitalization isn't "cool" apparently), your knowledge of popular culture and tall tales from living in Brooklyn/Philly/wherever for all of two months before you had a panic

attack from being homesick and had to have your folks wire you money to skip town, your fashionable home decor that you thrifted from Amvets (or said you thrifted and actually bought at Nostalgia with the money

you made off the last bit of your student loans or the semi-part-time job), your wide range of friends who you never get close enough to because you're afraid they might find out your dirty secret of superficiality, your

frequently-updated Facebook photos of you performing at a show in someone's basement to show off your incredibly obtuse ego, your interest in modernist architecture and postmodern philosophy, your proclaimed

aversion of faith in anything, your fixed-gear bikes, your oldschool dance moves, your frequent name-dropping, your well-stenciled tattoos, your love of gourmet and ethnic foods, your constant lack of funds and

failure to pay your bills, your frequent library trips (to use the free internet or hit on the hot librarian in the media room), your status as one of Knoxville's best lead singers/guitarists/drummers/artists/etc, your love of

astrology (which you hold great pride in being a Leo, we've noticed) or other metaphysical subjects, your supposed devotion to the book "Geek Love" and cheap beer, your notorious one-night-stands and various

friends with benefits situations (because you are too much of a pussy and loser at 28–35 or whatever to actually be devoted and faithful to one person and have to have the constant attention of bar sluts who attend

your shows and will only have sex with you because they are wasted at the end of the night), your knowledge of classic literature and Dali, blaming your ED or other problems on a long-time ex-girlfriend that

supposedly treated you lousy (just to make us feel sorry for you)...

Therefore, I have to bid farewell to you, because, as cool as all of these things are, you are an empty and lonely person inside who will spend your life chasing the impossible in order to satisfy the void within your

pathetic life. Because, in truth, you are just living day to day in order to avoid the responsibility of adult life and would rather spend your days in pleasure and decay. But if you don't know this by now, listen up: You

are a user and unhappy, selfish person who avoids peace and thrives on drama because it makes you feel a wee bit better about your role in society as a slacker-loser. Until you change that fact about your life, you

will continue to be complacent but not fulfilled in your existence and a pain-in-the-ass to people like me who actually want to find someone of value and substance. You will spend the rest of your ridiculous life

growing older and uglier with your impending beer belly and thinning hairline, your inadequate surface knowledge of what is unique, maybe pop out a kid or two (because you got too drunk and forgot to put on a

condom...again), and wait until your parents pass away so that you can live in your childhood home rent-free, unless you are fortunate enough at 40–50 years old to find a girl gullible enough to take care of you,

since all of you tend have Peter Pan Syndrome and need a Mommy or a babysitter anyway. You will probably contract a bunch of bad STDs from all of your unprotected drunken nights on the town and then, sadly,

your obvious alcohol problem and addiction to smoking ("because it looks cool") will be the least of your worries. Even if you mean well, you are only getting by with some innate luck and a good understanding of

how to bullshit and deceive people on a regular basis to get what you want or need from them. If you don't know where you are when you wake up in the morning (or afternoon, since you usually sleep until 2 or 3

o'clock anyway) or who you are sleeping next to, there is a good chance that you need to grow up and stop being such an idiot. "Free love" is only a mentality for people who don't care about themselves (or others)

enough to have something sustainable and creates longevity. And just a little FYI, if your band isn't touring in the next 6 months (or 6 years), please refrain from telling us about it like it is actually a selling point.

“Touring” does not count if you are just driving your friend’s van to Chattanooga for a day trip.

But, alas, hipster Knoxvillans, I am not here to satisfy your shameless vanity and substantial egotism anymore. As cool as I once thought you were, it didn't take long for me to flesh out that you were all talk and you

would always plan to be a big fish in a small pond without aim or alternate destination. All of your surface influences were just a ploy to get the intelligent and sophisticated girls into bed with you, when in reality you

spent weeknight after weeknight eating old twice-refrigerated party pizza and learning about all of these things through the internet or emulating your best friend (who did actually know about all the "cool" stuff)

before heading off to a show at the Pilot Light or Barley's. And, it's a crying shame, because when you first swept me off my feet, we seemed to have so much in common to the point that it appeared to be kismet.

Your aloofness at first and then loving gazes got me hook, line, and sinker over the many months as we sauntered off to go home together night after night. And it seems like all of you are like this— it is like you took

a course at UT or something about the art of seduction and destruction. But beneath the layers of vintage western shirts and black-rimmed glasses, the LP's and good taste in indie bands, I found there was nothing

else there but a shallow and insensitive asshole who can just barely take care of themselves, much less anyone else. I would like to think that one day you will grow up and submit to some form of normalcy that

doesn't include degrading other human beings and being a general waste of good clean oxygen (which Knoxville barely has to begin with), but I doubt it.

So, farewell to you, my hipster boy-friends that time begat! Maybe someday a plague will wipe out the lot of you scenester jerks so I don't have to see you toting your records and messenger bags of books around

and being all cute and shit, but for now I can just bask in the balmy glow of that professional, hot, hard-working neighbor (he can cook, too) your age that actually OWNS a house down the street. Ciao!