Pagan Kennedy - Pagan Kennedys Living: A Handbook for Maturing Hipsters

To my mom
living proof that theres nothing hipper than maturity

Thanks to everyone who consented to be interviewed and photographed for this book, allowing me to delve into their nontraditional lives. Scot Hacker and Sprax Lines came to my rescue whenever my cranky PC crashed. My writers groupLauren Slater, Karen Propp, Nadine Boughton, and Mary ClarkHelped edit the essays and even the cartoons. Sprax and Marcus Aurin frequently acted as photographers, and I borrowed all kinds of equipment from Sprax and Scot. As always, my friends came up with many of the ideas in here. I just happened to be the one to write them down.

Find Pagan online at www.pagankennedyproject.com and www.pagankennedy.net

Copyright 1997, 2016 by Pagan Kennedy. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kennedy, Pagan, 1962

Pagan Kennedys living : the handbook for maturing hipsters.

pages cm

Originally published: New York : St. Martins Griffin, 1997.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-939650-50-4 (trade pbk. : alk. paper)

1. LifestylesUnited States. 2. HippiesUnited States. I. Title. II. Title: Living.

HQ2044.U6K45 2015

305.568dc23

2015026209

Published by SFWP

369 Montezuma Ave. #350

Santa Fe, NM 87501

(505) 428-9045

www.sfwp.com

Also by Pagan Kennedy

• PLATFORMS:
  A Microwaved Cultural Chronicle of the 1970s
• SPINSTERS
• STRIPPING
  and Other Stories
• ZINE:
  How I Spent Six Years of My Life in the Underground and Finally Found MyselfI Think
• THE DANGEROUS JOY OF DR. SEX
  and Other True Stories
• BLACK LIVINGSTONE
• THE FIRST MAN-MADE MAN
• EXES
• CONFESSIONS OF A MEMORY EATER
• INVENTOLOGY

Contents

Work is a Four-Letter Word
But Then, So Is Play

Youre an aging slacker. In fact, youve been slacking off for so long that you can hardly remember what it was you originally decided to slack off from. Years ago, you left the mainstream world of career paths, malls, expensive hair-care products, regular TV viewing, and wearing deodorant. Instead, youve taken up residence in this strange place at the edge of town, where the frozen-yogurt boutiques yield to thrift shops, where the mailboxes on the triple-deckers are covered with scratched-out names, where the jukebox in the diner sill knows how to play Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves.

You wouldnt live anywhere else. Youve grown to love this part of town. But there is one niggling problem. Youve begun to notice that, while this is the perfect place to be young, its a hard place to be, well, not so young. You never quite feel settled here. Everyone keeps moving aroundpeople are always trading apartments, roommates, bandmates, jobs, girlfriends and boyfriends. Your life sometimes feels like the Mad Hatters Tea Party; you have to keep switching your seat, and you never know what kind of odd characters will share the table with you.

Yet in the midst of this chaos, youve managed to build a family out of housemates, co-workers, neighbors, lovers, ex-lovers, and ex-lovers ex-lovers. Theres often someone sleeping on your couch. Whenever you clean out your pantry, you find strange plates and dishes and youre not sure which roommate or boyfriend/girlfriend left them there. Youve accumulated a pile of other peoples keysto apartments, to cars, to motorcycles, to practice rooms. This revolving-door community was fine when you were in your early twenties, but could you carry on a really, really long-term monogamous relationship in the midst of this chaos? Would you want to? And how do you raise kids on this side of town?

Then theres the job thing. Most likely, youve learned how to earn a living without losing your human dignityand thats required some compromises. Maybe you work part-time and do your art on the side, in which case you make ends meet by living like a monk. Maybe at this point youve actually decided to become a monkafter all, you might get paid to sit on your butt all day and you wouldnt have to do data entry. Or maybe youve found a job you love, but it pays a pittance and your funding is always about to be out. Maybe youre stuck in some white-collar job that bores you, but instead of quitting youve decided to Quit in Placeyou pretend to do your work, all the while using the offices phones, faxes, and copy machines for your own illicit purposes. Maybe youve become a professional temp or freelancer. Whatever your job situation, if you live on the slacking side of town, you probably dont have any health insurance, savings, or security. At this rate, it looks like you may spend your retirement years in a house with five roommates and some stained futon furniture.

But wait! Dont lose hope. I know theres a lot of pressure to sign up for The Programget a full-time job, buy a car on credit, move to the suburbs, get married, stop doing your art. Actually, theres a lot to be said for The Program: Its a clear-cut path through the wilderness, a path that leads a lot of people to happiness. And those of us who can get with The Program any time we want should never forget how lucky we are. For much of the world, these banal American luxuries are not even an option. But just because we can have gas-guzzling cars, pointless desk jobs, and wall-to-wall carpeting, should we?

A lot of people are quietly pioneering a different kind of life for themselves. Theyre patching together bizarre families, inventing new types of romantic relationships to suit their needs, finding low-budget and creative ways to raise their kids, tuning out the mainstream media, doing what they love, and trusting that the money will follow.

How do you know whether you yourself are one of the pioneers? Heres the test: When you meet someone at a party and they ask you what you do, can you sum up your job in a few words or does it take you half an hour to adequately explain your situation? Same goes for living arrangements. If your life is incredibly complex and jury-rigged, consider yourself a success. You have managed to resist The Program. Of course, if you cant pass the fifteen-word test, well, that can be okay, too. You may have accepted societys labels even while subverting them. The important thing is to live your own lifenot the life thats being sold to you by a bunch of corporations.

Designing your own job or family unit or living situation from the ground up takes a lot of energy, especially in these dark days when anyone tainted by non-traditionalism gets lynched by the media. Marcia Clark, Joycelyn Elders, Patricia Irelandsuch women have been vilified as Bad Moms, Masturbation Fiends, and Bisexual Good-for-Nothings when in fact they are just sensible people trying to pursue happiness without hurting anyone.

Why are those women so dangerous? Why are the Powers That Be attacking anyone who doesnt imitate Ward or June Cleaver? There can only be one answer: Lifestyle choices are the front lines of the political battle these days. And if we consumers fail to live the way Corporate America wishes us to, we become dangerous. When we form our own communities, when we find our furniture in the trash, when we take care of our friends who cant take care of themselves, when we organize our own old-age homes and day-care centers, when we make our own fun, when we refuse to drive cars, when we turn off our TVs, when we do all that and more, well then, Corporate America has little to sell to us. We might not need Exxon, General Electric, or Procter & Gamble. We probably wouldnt need full-time jobs. And we certainly wouldnt need products like LOreal (because Im worth it) to make us feel important.