Hurricane, Movie Stars, Hipsters

•Hurricane Earl did not destroy the Carolinas and all their denizens, nor did it destroy Coney Island last night during the rockabilly festival at Cha Cha’s, which would have been bad. Paul Taylor tells me the Onion nonetheless had a good piece this week noting various reasons to evacuate New York, all true, though I’m not leaving. (In other emergency news, my favorite real-news headline this week may have been: “Homeless Man Calls 911 from Hot Tub, Seeks Cocoa.”)

•In New York, you get to hear about meta-meta-meta incidents like my rockabilly companion thinking she may have been seated behind Keanu Reeves in the theatre when she saw Inception. That works on…even more levels than Inception (which was good but stiff for a movie about dreams, I thought). She should have at least leaned forward to say that Matrix was better, or better yet to say something like: “The dreamworld you see before you is not real, Neo. One of these franchises has a future. The other does not.” Come to think of it, an ex of mine told me back in 1999 that she supposedly had Keanu’s cell phone number. Why didn’t I think of something like that then?

•In other movie star news, one of my Carolinas-dwelling friends thinks I look a bit like Jared Harris from Mad Men (who plays a dumped guy with an affinity for India, I gather), while an ex of mine is often compared to January Jones (who plays a selfish psychotic, I gather). And, just in time for the new school year, news breaks that Jones will be playing the dominatrix-like, psychic headmistress Emma Frost from the villainous organization the Hellfire Club in next year’s X-Men: First Class. (Oddly enough, since First Class reportedly takes place around the 1960s, some characters like Frost will actually be living in more old-timey times than those in which they were first published in the comics, a reversal of the usual trend of characters appearing in the present even if first published in, say, the 1930s.)

•Speaking of comics, here are words of inspiration and Latino aspiration from the star of Machete (which I plan to see at Kip’s Bay tonight at 7:15 if anyone cares to meet me there), Danny Trejo, from the TimeOut New York interview with him in their Aug. 26-Sept. 8 issue: “My son’s twenty-two, and he’s producing a film. At twenty-two, I was in San Quentin, jacking off to a Betty and Veronica comic book. My whole career — I get kisses in Machete from Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez — they’re like kisses from God’s lips.” (Meanwhile, on a grimmer, and indeed oddly Lovecraftian if misread, note, this gang-related headline reminds us that not every Mexican wronged by evil men turns into a heroic avenger: “72 Dead Migrants Found in Mexico Tip of Iceberg.”)

•And if the rockabilly and the Mad Men and the 60s comics and the 70s exploitation parodies aren’t retro-hip enough for you, here’s an article that’s four months old but good: L Magazine’s “Hipsters Throughout History” — and Williamsburg is mentioned only once.

•And a reminder: since hipsters hate corporate environments, all of them must attend our debate this coming Tuesday (8pm) at Lolita on the question “Are Bosses Usually Jerks?” All capitalists and socialists should probably attend, too. And hot chicks.