& a blog

it’s time for me to come to grips with myself. it’s time for me to admit it to myself, i want to be a yuppie.

yep, that’s a right a goddamn yuppie.

i’m not talking about a moderate yuppie. i am not talking a semi or a psuedo yuppie. not someone who kinda lives in a gentrifying neighborhood, or occassionally goes to the better restaurants, or sometimes is a pretentious, looking-at-you-down-their-nose asshole.

no, i want to be the real thing. i want to be a yuppie.

boston is a great city for yuppies. there are whole enclaves where they hang out, and have breed so thick as thieves that they almost represent a 100% saturation point.

by this point, the south end is THE destination for 20 to 30 year old yuppies. i know this because i grew up watching my dad work for yuppies, and i saw the boutiques come as the bodegas went. i saw a water bar replace an age old water hole, and a dance troupe take over a seedy cyclorama.

nowadays, boston has even more proto-yuppie enclaves. places like jamaica plain (aka “jp”), somerville (once known as “slummerville”) and, of course, the mother of all yuppie-hubs, cambridge, massachusetts.

after a summer of working almost exclusively in cambridge, it has become clear to me that the first city to approve gay marriage is almost definitely yuppie eden. quiet single family homes and sweet loft apartments sit nestled on tree lined streets just blocks from the restaurants, bars, and shopping of mass ave. in harvard, kendall, porter, and central squares, cool bookstores, art stores, and chic shoe outlets sell cool back to people who feel like they are now too old and too rich to not pay for it. factor in the buzz of a booming technology industry and the vibes of intellect prevasive through the town (harvard+mit =wicked smaht people) and you got one happening hive of yuppiedom.

why i want to be a yuppie

is simple. i am attracted to the visible components of the lifestyle. things like having clothes that need to be dry cleaned, and having a go-to dry cleaner. things like having a new yorker subscription, but not cuz you read it, but because it looks yuppyish to put new yorkers all over your house

there are also a few cornerstones of the yuppie lifestyle to which i am notably committed.

1. expensive, well behaved dogs (such as this black lab)

which always operate as a sort of child-substitute. yuppies don’t get pregnant not because they’re on birth control, but because they have dogs.

2. vespa scooters/posh, efficient means of transportation

the vespa is the choice to beat, because it is stylish, a healthy amount european (which is totally yuppie) and really gay (which is SUPER yuppie).

3. the yuppie apartment,

is the keystone of the yuppie lifestyle. it must be spacious yet well designed (which is to say that it does not feel decadent but rather “informed”). it must be bold. it must assert non-american styles (see round purple rug above) which is to say, it must have avant-garde qualities (which is to say parts of it must be unimaginably ugly.)

4. my-culture-is-better-than-your-culture-framed prints

like this fellini, which begs n00bs to ask ‘what is 8 1/2? a movie or something?’ to which the yuppie responds, ‘it’s a vocation, a calling within a calling, a form of relevation in celluiod’ while thinking (i am soooo f@#$ing witty)

or this ironic, misogynistic bond poster, which i imagine would look good on a black matte, maybe a crimson one (see that style sense? yuppie-in-training here)

or this daft punk poster, which screams cool. (and all kidding aside, i would really like as a framed print. like not kidding anymore, 4real, i needs this poster)

5. the accoutrements,

which have to be referred to as accoutrements, and pronounced overly-correct in french. and by accoutrements, i mean nice stylish silverwear, and radios, and desks, and shit like that.

example given, these plates, which are expensive, and have people drawn on them (like, whoa.)

or this chess set, that has a special glass and light structure that causes pieces off the board to become opaque. (seriously though, that’s contemporary magic or latent modern alchemy at least).

in short

i want to be a yuppie. i like its materialism. and while i’ve yet to penetrate/observe its social structure. i’m sure that’s just dandy.

at the end of the day, you’re at least a pretty rich young person (isn’t that the definition, young urban professional? i.e. attractive money making single person?) so life can’t be that bad.

so people will be disgusted by this post (zack, you want to be a yuppie? that’s like saying you want to work for haliburton). and to them, i say, i just want to be a yuppie, and you are gonna love my house, and my dog, and my cool shit.

4real.