Melina: An Evening In Williamsburg, or, It's Not Easy Being Cool

Hey! I managed to get back on "old blogger!" I wonder what changed.

Last night my high school friend Katherine was in a fashion show. It was just a little one. She didn't tell us about it, so we only found out by seeing that she'd joined a Facebook.com group called 'Just Because She Dances Go-Go It Don't Make Her a Ho, No." When interrogated, she told me and my other high school friend Mary not to go, but of course we went anyway. Urban Caballero in tow.

The show was at a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, just across the river from the Urban Caballero's house. Very convenient. It is always slightly weird going to Williamsburg because nobody who lives there is over 30. You sort of feel like you're in Logan's Run and everyone in your subway train is about to be shot. What's more, it's always a little bit like Halloween in Williamsburg. A lot of people just go around in costume, just because. Mary said she'd seen someone in a Williamsburg bar who she was sure was a nun. But was it really a nun? Or was it just clothing styles coming full circle? "Hey, you know what we haven't done? Baggy, plain brown floor-length dresses!"

The bar was holding the fashion show because they'd just lost their cigar license - New York is notoriously strict about its tobacco laws. This was particularly a problem because the bar was called the "Velvet Cigar Bar" and they had been unable to serve hard liquor because they were serving cigars. So now they had no cigars and no hard liquor and so they decided to sell sexy women instead, by way of this fashion show. Pretty much the logical choice, it seems to me. I wonder if that will be a good enough concept to keep them in business.

Melina's cocktail ($8): Champagne, pomegranate juice, mango juice.
Urban Caballero's cocktail ($8): Sake, ginger, cucumber juice (this took a long time to make because the cucumber shreds got stuck in the cocktail shaker and the bartender had to poke them a little).

The fashion designer made all "recycled clothes" - ie cutting up some baggy pants to turn into a sexy top, cutting up a baggy t-shirt to turn into a sexy dress, cutting up a sexy dress to make it into an even sexier dress. I actually used to do stuff like this as a kid and was impressed that someone had pursued the concept.

Katherine was wearing a very sexy dress but she was in a foul mood. I was in a good mood but was quite overdressed. All the women in this bar - if not wearing recycled clothing - were wearing very tight very dark blue jeans and small slinky tops, and carrying gigantic leather purses that could have fit half a case of wine apiece. More upscale than your typical Williamsburg crowd. The Urban Caballero, who doesn't like crowds, said in a bewildered tone, "all these women look the same!" They kept accidentally hitting him witih their gigantic leather purses. I told him I thought it was like wearing a uniform, or like camouflage. You don't want to be picked out from the herd. It's like Wild America with Marty Stouffer. Anyway, I had been feeling slightly under the weather, so I was wearing flannel pants and the Urban Caballero's hunting cap.

The men were wearing tight-ish jeans (are tight jeans on men coming back?? Oh joyous day!) thin button-down collarless shirts or worn t-shirts, long shaggy hair (Irish Setter hair, sort of), and sometimes corduroy caps tilted oh-so-slightly to the side and worn high on the head (as if to say, I'm too carefree to adjust my hat correctly on my head).

Katherine pulled herself together and walked in the fashion show (to the end of the bar and back). We were very proud of her. Then we left Williamsburg and went home and watched a few episodes of The Simpsons to calm our jangled nerves. It's not easy being cool.

-Melina