My Giant Hipster Brother

For those of you who do not know Max, he is my younger brother. I have two younger brothers. The giant one and the fat one. I'll get to the fat one another time. The giant one is what one might call an eccentric. Actually, to call him an eccentric is an understatement. Max leans more towards social deviant. In fact, I'm sure he gives some people the willies. It's a wonder that we are related, what with me being the majestic specimen that I am and he being the violin-wielding, velour tracksuit-wearing, home aquarium-raising nutjob that he is. Are you picturing what I just said? Are you seeing the tracksuit? As a child, he was on the path to becoming a perfectly normal,  upright citizen, the delight of suburban society. He played baseball, soccer, collected Pokemon cards, had a laser tag birthday party... then somewhere along the line he found the way of Sonny and went cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. He became nuttier than Gran's pie. Max got a taste for the nutty and never looked back. Over the years he has become stranger and stranger, and now I think I know what it's all about. He has become the greatest hipster of hipsters.

When we imagine a hipster, we typically picture someone wearing plaid, scarves, anything that can be found in your city's vagrant or crackhead's chic wardrobe. We picture someone sporting a hairstyle precisely arranged to look messy and carefree. Of course, MGMT is probably playing in the background. Max is none of these things. No scarves, no skinny jeans, no beard, and he has never even heard of MGMT. He doesn't fit into any of the hipster stereotypes, and that is how he became the greatest hipster of all. He has gone so far into the alternative that he has surpassed all his hipster contemporaries by light years. If he is to keep his hipster throne, he knows that he has to live and breathe the lifestyle of complete irony. Did he really just spend hundreds of dollars on that horrendous outfit from Urban Outfitters? No, he got it at Costco, and it was a double pack for $12.00. Is he trying to be ironic with that asymmetrical haircut? No, it's because his sister cut one side of his hair and couldn't finish so his dad cut the other side. Max is a walking ironic statement. When he says he's going out after work, he means he is going to the fish emporium. Because that's alternative, that's postmodern. No one can touch Max's flair for the obscure, ironic, and random. He lives every day like he is the greatest gift to man, except no one knows who he is... because he's very underground, you've probably never heard of him. 

Last night my family went out for a belated birthday dinner for my mother. Max wore a black velour track jacket zipped all the way up the neck with bright blue, shiny, basketball pants that showed his socks because they were too short. The following conversation ensued.