Ask a Track Bike

So, over the past eight or so months of hibernation, I thought most of you had forgotten about me, until I received the following cry for help. Ahem:

Q. Dear Ephraim, I like going to hip-hop shows, but unfortunately I'm your typical unhip white guy who —

A: Dear Mildly Racist Bastard:

Let me stop your question right there, since I think I know all I need to know about your question, your kind. Can I take a stab? Thanks. You're a liberal arts graduate. You are presumably heterosexual. (Sure, you were down with the fags in the Gay '90s, but since that's not indie-rock chic, and after seeing one particularly riveting episode of South Park that used "gay" to describe things other than that of a queer sexual state, that word is in your lexicon's top favorites.) You also love to throw around words like hyphy and watch YouTube videos of people jumping in and out of their car "ghost-riding the whip," as it were.

Now, of course, you just love hip hop. All overeducated brats from across this country claim to love it — with an appropriate amount of ironic detachment, of course. It's a vile way to enjoy any type of art form, really. What's more, for some inexplicable reason, you feel guilt over your choice of musical tastes, so you reflexively qualify everything with offensive crap like "I'm just a dumb white guy" or "as a none-too-cool white girl." But secretly, as we both know, you wouldn't give up being that diaphanous shade of white to save your goddman life, so cut the bullshit.

In attempt to halt this phenomenon, I'm declaring a moratorium on the use of the white dude = silly nerd equation in all publications. Because when you stop fetishizing hip-hop culture, I worry about what words you might then use to describe those who don't fall under the safe and secure umbrella of unhip and white. (Oh, and to answer your question, just get a new chain and oil it regularly.)

And now, I must return to my funky and drafty stairwell. Maybe forever. Remember me well, kids. You thought I was gone? Fuck no, silly. Like any good mommy-and-daddy-funded hipster, my master got a most boss Mini Cooper for his 28th birthday. Thus, I get shoved into a stairwell alongside his stacks of vinyl (his failed attempt at a DJing career) and itty-bitty used plastic baggies (his successful attempt at his full-blown cocaine habit). But I'm back one last time before I'm sold to another, younger owner-to-be. Help dig my grave, won't you?