If you’ve been wearing cut-offs, bandanas, and ironic accessories (and, yes, a beard is an accessory) while smoking Parliaments and drinking PBR; or choosing to be white trash in a punk-artsy way and have not been to Bar BQ Bar, you may need to evaluate you hip status.

Seriously, you might as well be in a fraternity. Rush is coming up this fall.

Bar BQ Bar, in Downtown Orlando, is wallpapered in DIY, graffiti styled art, Molskine-esque drawings, found objects, and, of course, band stickers. On top of that, there is a traveler-kid sentiment reinforced by a half of a camper just chilling above bar waiting to be hit on.

In the bathroom, you can pay homage to The King, who died on the toilet, by taking a crap surrounded by etchings of Elvis (and, also, by not taking sleeping pills; he would want you to be alive so he can continue to receive royalties because we all know he never really died).

At first I was intimidated to go because of the whole hipster vibe, but then I had this internal monologue: ‘Hipster’ is an umbrella term for those who associate themselves as hip based on a platform of what their sect thinks makes them hip; namely arts and politics. Therein, art branches out to include music, visual arts, theatre, etc.; and politics branches out to include liberalism, hippie kids, bike punx, anarchists, etc. However, no one wants to think of them selves as a hipster because that would be labeling and that would be counter-productive to the movement. The movement being: to become hipper, and comparative term that must involve the hipster to be more unique than the next.

Thus the term itself is self destructive and I had to remind myself it's just easier for people to label; that's why there are cliques everywhere.

My internal monologue was probably not as smart sounding, maybe a series of pictures of newborn kitties stumbling and unicyclists falling over, which made me laugh and forget I was self-conscious.

Every Monday they present Adam and Tybo’s Photo Booth Contest, wherein contestants play around in the photo booth for three bucks a session, judged by their two hosts and a mystery guest.

The top three winners’ prizes change from week to week, but apparently always include big-kid drinks.

For losers and soon-to-be-winners they offer $3 High Life drafts until 11pm and $3 Narragansett King Cans all until last call.

I was hoping there would be more dressing up because I was under the impression that hipsters like to dress up as a form of the carnivalesque, which is a means of disguise derived from medieval peasants, who would transgress their status via costuming their appearance.

However, it was more of a pretty people parade (that’s alliteration, folks) of BFF’s kissing non-romantically, people showing off how many layers they can wear even though it’s 90 degrees out, and others proudly displaying they’re decadent taste for some organic/microbrew/

independently owned ale they bought.

Maybe, it’s just the curse of the Monday’s. Generations heard Garfield the cat repeat over and over how much they stink.

Nowadays, Thursdays are the new Friday; Sundays are the new Saturday; so, after four days of partying that leaves three days to chill out and get stuff done. And Monday’s have this internal collective connotation that even if it isn’t the start of the school/work week, they just feel blah.

Anyways, to those who did, have, and will continue to dress up, I commend you! Some sort of Cross Cultural theorists will study your efforts of modern theatrics as a means of masquerading your wage-slave status in out generation, loosely titled, “It’s the Economy, Man;” and compare it to the medieval peasants’ throwing carnivals dressed as nobles to say F. U. to the upper class for enabling socio-economic discrepancies, taxation, inflation, famine, and all sorts religious hoopla.

And, said theorists, of whom I made up for the sake of this article, will dub this as some vague blanket term of neo-neo-medievalism, a cross-section of fantasy and social transgression in response to hard times.

Thank you. I enjoyed pretending to be a philosopher for a moment. Back to the article.

Bar BQ Bar is located at 64 N Orange Ave and the contest is from 10pm to 1am with no cover. Also, all shows are free and 21+ are welcome (sorry kids, I don’t make the rules).