So it’s been a while since I’ve written, but there has been no shortage of travel and addition of pins to the map. The Empire State Building, Golden Gate Bridge, Hollywood Boulevard, Scottsdale Fashion Square, Pebble Beach … Shake Shack, McCovey’s, Lefty O’Doul’s and more, yum. But I’ll delve into that another time, for now I feel the need to plea with hipsters.

Dear trendy hipsters,

Stop it.

Best regards,

Wedge

I realize there is a very blurry line between art and “art” and being unique and “being unique,” being green and “being green,” but for those who are unaware of it let me put out a scenario that, I guess, in retrospect I should have been expecting seeing as it was L.A.

If I travel to a region, let’s call this place Scmollywood or Dos Jangeles (yeah that disguises it enough),  and everyone from the area is bragging about the oldest most awesomest farmer’s market in the area and how super awesome it is, I don’t expect to only be able to find root beers mass produced in New Jersey and Texas!? WTF!?

Look nothing wrong with Boylan and A&W root beers, they’re good, in fact Boylan is in my top 5 all time, and A&W which was founded in California but hardly local anymore, but what the heck is the point of a farmer’s market that doesn’t sell local or at least regional products?

What is more astonishing is that 2 of the more popular trendy eco root beers are from California (Natural Brew and Virgil’s). Those are even some very good brews. Though the whole “we’re natural and eco friendly” idea goes out the window when the only place I can find your products are at the Mecca of “green” Whole Foods around the nation, be it Nashville, D.C., N.Y.C., Louisiana, it never fails, you find those 2 brews shipped anywhere, just not in the California farmer’s market apparently.

This is coming off quite rant-ish, but what I’m getting at is the beauty and should be the point of travel; it is to find something new, unique or distinct to wherever, not to create safe haven bubbles that you can travel to. I’m probably a little more aware of all these idiosyncrasies when I travel because I’m a marketer by day. But, the distinction is between what is different and unique and what is a relaxing destination which is what most Americans confuse for –travel- basing it solely on whether or not a distance exists between point A and B, and usually complaining when people have accents or don’t speak English.

So back to the market, how should it be done? I don’t think there’s a definitive answer, but I’ll tell you one good place for a farmer’s market: Boise, Idaho. You can go out on the weekend and meet all the locals showing off what they’ve grown, raised, sewed, brewed etc. I got to meet the 2 founders of BuckSnort Root Beer there, who poured me a cup right out of their keg; and who I hope will begin bottling soon so I can add it to my root beer bottle collection. Kelly bought a nice handbag from a woman who (we think may have been high, but) designed and sewed them all as her job/craft; not because its was a decided non-trendy trend.

And more important, they take showers! For the love of all that is holy, all you hipsters being dirty and smelly on purpose doesn’t make you cool or non-trendy trendy, it just makes you dirty and smelly. Just like shopping at Urban Outfitters doesn’t make you homely, it just makes you support a corporation that is profiting off of you. Save money, buy at Wal-Mart and then wear clothes out yourself. But anyways, here in northern Virginia, I visit the local Buckland Farm Market where they sell their own products, or regional products from their partners, and also bring in random regional brews from time to time; always something new and unique to try, not something shipped across the world because it’s a safe marketable sell for hipsters.