My Father, Hipster Hero
Norman Mailer said in his essay , The White Negro that the negro is the source of hip because he has been living on the margin between totalitarianism and democracy for two centuries. My father Virtis Lanier embodies hipster values to the hilt even as he lies speechless from the bed of his nursing home room were even without speech, he is still the king of hip. A stand-up guy and the leader of his group of true hipsters whose passion was being hip . It was his passion, not fashion .
Growing up it was always cool to live in the same house with the king of cool, who as a true hipster did not draw attention to himself and approached life with a sense of cool beyond Frank, Sammy and Dean. If they were the Rat Pack, he was the cheese. My father approached life's situations with a coolness that to this day has helped me get through many setbacks in my life with a cool that glides me over the rough spots. His favorite expression was either you learn the game or be played by it.
He taught me that anger is not the way to solve problems thinking them through and knowing that anger only creates illusion and not much else. As a hipster, he laughed in the face of racism and class ism knowing that the only attitude that you can change is your own and that prejudice was uncool. He felt that the cool would outlive the uncool and eventually have more say to how things are going to be .
My father's style oozed of coolness from his shades to his suede Stacey Adams. He taught me how to dress with style and not trend. How your trousers should hang and how to match clothing that makes you in hipster fashion blend in not stick out. That was his goal in life not to draw attention to himself and focus on home, family and friends
He taught about jazz both as an art form and a lifestyle. I first heard the intense bebop rhythms of Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk and what it means to be original over an imitator. He loved all music but his love affair with jazz as mine goes on to this day . He gave me an appreciation of Jazz and the artists that created it more than even a university education did.
Speaking of education, my dad gave me a good understanding of what it meant from a hipster's point of view . I was taught and I still believe that education that does not open your eyes and pull your coat to what is really happening in the world around is useless. As a teacher this is what I teach my students that education is first to open minds then hearts, then doors. Throughout the Civil Rights Era he taught me that superficial achievements were worthless if they did not first open the heart and the mind. To this day the lesson of true education being the freeing of the mind and understanding what thinking really means. Thinking is not compliance or compromising it is construction of thoughts, ideas and ideals.
He always knew what was important, job promotions were uncool because they caused stress and made a person into an uncool pile of nerves incapable of enjoying the life you were blessed with. He thought that family, friends, building relationships and honor were more important. It took me a long time to learn that lesson, but now that I have, I am more relaxed, less stressed and extremely healthy.
On this father's day I have reflect on my father and the greatest gift a father can give a son, that of hip and sense of person.
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