A Street Fair At The Corner Of White And Uppity

I wandered through a street fair yesterday. It was hot and, having spent most of the day in the car shepherding some relatives to the airport, I decided it might be nice to walk around for a while and stretch my legs.

I was there for about 10 seconds before I realized why I rarely bother to visit these things. The street had been closed off and filled with tiny booths. There were perhaps 100 little tents and tables lining the sidewalk, each offering a truly diverse range of items for sale. Well, it was diverse provided all you ever decided to wear was billowy tie-dyed gowns, and jewelry with semi-precious stones the size of raccoon’s brain and roughly as attractive. Seriously, I’m not sure if the sparklers were intended to worn or used to decorate the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. Blind pimps wouldn’t be caught wearing anything as ostentatious.

It was kind of amusing to walk up and down the street, because virtually all the booths were identical. Who the fuck would need to see 15,000 different varieties of amber necklaces? Rich, stupid, white people. It’s a demographic on which the tie-dye and turquoise industries are built on. Much like golf, Protestantism, and over-blown feelings of self-importance.

There were probably a grand total of six booths that weren’t desperately trying to exploit white people’s crimes against fashion. One of these places sold (I shit you not) grandfather clocks. Look, I realize that I said this street fair was teaming with rich stupid crackers, but enough is enough. Who has ever, EVER made an impulse buy of a grandfather clock? Who the fuck has walked through a street fair, sipping on a five dollar lemonade, and said, “Oh, that grandfather clock would be so perfect for the backseat of my yellow Hummer. What the hell, I have six grand to spare. It’s just a couple dinners at Nobu. Rupert, carry that to my car.”

Next on my list of bizarre booths was a pretzel stand. To give you an idea of how upscale this street fair was, let me fill you in about a couple details regarding this particular stand.

1. It was the only stand in the whole place selling pretzels.
2. The pretzels were made from all-natural ingredients.
3. They weren’t pretzel shaped. Instead each one was braided like bitchy, white, tennis-player’s hair.

All of this I took in stride. The thing that made it amusing to me was a giant banner they had made to advertise. It read, “Sample Our Mustard Bar!” Did they really think that mustard was going to be the big selling point? It took all my willpower not to belly up to the bar, slam my fist down and demand two shots of honey mustard with a horseradish back.

About a year ago, I was walking through Manhattan when I passed an optometrist’s office. There in the window was a pair of the largest, ugliest Gucci sunglasses I had ever laid eyes on. You know those tacky state trooper glasses people used to wear back in the 80s? It was one of those things on steroids. “Christ those things are hideous.” I thought. “A person’s got to be a fucking moron to wear those.”

Turns out I was right, but I had severely under-estimated the number of morons in New York State. It seemed as if every single female attending this street fair had bought one of these crimes against taste and was wearing it along with an expression that screamed “unless you make six figures a year, technically, eye contact constitutes rape."

I have a theory that in two years, people will be wearing sunglasses made from two, purple-tinted car windshields. They’ll start at your nose and go eight feet straight out on either side. They’ll cover everything from above your head to you crotch and you’ll have to use a neck-brace just to support them.

At any rate, it was an interesting day. And I’ve decided that white people suck, though in all fairness, I’m not sure how much of that is just the fifteen shots of Passion Fruit Wasabi Mustard talking.