I went thrift-store shopping this weekend, looking to retool my winter wardrobe. When I was younger, of course, I was into the idea of getting clothes from thrift-stores because it's grungy and the grungier the better. Then I got older and started being embarrassed by the fact I was still continuously buying some clothes at thrift stores. That's what happens when you're over thirty and mainly unemployed and have to shop at thrift stores because it's all you could afford. I'd look at all the poor people also shopping there for clothes and wonder if that, kind of proud offspring of the Main Line, made me one of the poor too.

Now that I'm working, I can afford to not buy clothes at thrift stores anymore. I can walk right into the Gap and not only buy last season's discounted colors, but also this season's colors. But even though I could (and did a few months ago), I was feeling the need for sweaters (I love sweaters) and some not so-fancy but still nice button-down shirts so I decided to go thrift-store hunting. Why spend $50 on a new sweater when you can possibly get a really nice (even cashmere!) sweater for $5?

Okay, so yeah, I'm kind of cheap.

So anyways, I'm checking out thrift stores in the Mission and I realized that there appears to be two types of thrift stores in the neighborhood- the one's for the immigrants (read poor people) and the one's for the hipsters. It's like the King of Prussia Mall back home which had two sections two it- the one where all the rich Main Line types went and the other one where all the white trash-y Catholic School kids went to. The one's where mainly immigrants shopped, nary a hipster would be seen. Go into the hipster thrift store and nary an immigrant is to be seen. And so I started to wonder, why is it the hipsters mainly goto the hipster thrift store? Is it because the clothes were usually a bit cooler? Or is it because shopping for clothes in a thrift store in which actual poor people shopped made the silliness of the déclassé pose that much more obvious?

Oh, and while at the hipster thrift store, I couldn't but help notice that the mix tape that the workers had put on to play in the background included U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name." Maybe it's because I've lived in the Mission for far too long but I started to break down the possible meaning, the semiotics as it were, of playing "Where the Streets Have No Name" on the tape. After all, it's probably the un-coolest U2 song they've done, making it one of the uncoolest songs ever- it's big sounding and symphonic, earnest and heart-felt, passionate and stirring. In other words, it's everything that according to the prevailing norms of what is cool and what isn't, isn't cool. And when I say not cool I don't mean that the song isn't any good (I think the song maybe one of the greatest songs ever created), I just mean it's not "cool." It's definitely not lo-fi and it's the complete opposite of obscure or indie. The lyrics aren't enigmatic or murkily oblique (like Pavement) and most importantly, it's meant to be played in huge stadiums where a huge audience sings along while waving lighters. So why would the hipsters who work there play it? It could be the person who made the mix tape was feeling nostalgic but the song is still played enough on the radio to make it feel current. And it could have been done ironically but the song is way too good and way too earnest to work ironically. I mean, I'd expect to hear Bon Jovi or Phil Collins played at one of those thrift stores before I'd hear "Where the Streets Have no Name". Could it be then that the person who created the mix tape just thinks it's a great song and wanted to put it on their tape? Is that even possible? Wouldn't they loose their cool cache in playing the song? Or maybe that's the hook then, it's so uncool that they think it's cool? Or maybe they just like the song?

My head hurts just thinking about it.