hot 1" action

R.F., they ask me, or would if those were really my initials: How did you get so cool?

I went to a button show, I answer.

The show was in Strathcona, and it really was called Hot 1" Action. They were not trannies, so far as I could ascertain. They were just Being Clever. Fifty artists each made a button design. These were up on the walls gallery-style, with titles. The curators had made all the buttons on a button press. (Note to self: get button press. And rock tumbler. We've always wanted a rock tumbler.)

The concept of the show was that you bought a baggie of five random 1" buttons, and then traded them with other eventgoers.

Let these lower case Os stand for my buttons:

ooo
oo

I guess there is a Button Scene in Vancouver. It probably overlaps with the Big Black Glasses scene. There is a reason I can never be a part of these scenes. I can best illustrate why with this story:

Many of the Button People had their buttons lined up on their vests or jackets or bags. This made them look like: hipsters. I thought, well, I should do that, to facilitate trading. So I pinned my buttons in a row:

ooooo

on my vest. I looked at myself. I looked at the other people. They still looked like: hipsters. I looked like: a tool.

But I was too proud to remove them, since to back off from a gesture like that screams insecurity, and visible insecurity more than any other single factor is the death of cool.

It's the same reason that in a previous incarnation I could not wear bright red lipstick and cat's-eye glasses. Some people put on bright red lipstick and cat's-eye glasses and look: hip and ironic. I put on bright red lipstick and cat's-eye glasses and look like: your mother.

I had to stay, though, tool or untool, because I had seen the button of my dreams (above), and my love made me bold. I even spoke to people. I offered what I had and bore rejection bravely. Finally, I found someone of equal or greater toolicity (or anyway insecurity, see above)  than me, and let him practise his opening lines on me in exchange for the button. He went off to hopelessly chat up the pretty girls, and I went home knowing that, for a moment at least, I was the coolest person alive.

What makes it better is that this is a misuse of the button from the artist's original intent, since I'm pretty sure the buttonmaker had no idea how relevant his slogan was to your Transman on the Go. So I am out-ironizing the ironic. I am juxtaposing the pose. I am so damn pleased with myself.

I am going to be late for work.

Two brief anecdotes before I run for the bus:

1. My first real job was working at The Badgemaker, a place that made buttons (also on a manual button press), cut those plastic badges that servers are made to wear because they deserve no privacy at all, and engraved trophy nameplates. From them, I get my easy familiarity with the world of buttons and my 50% hearing loss on the left side. (No protective gear.)

2. When I was in high school, I had an acid-wash jean jacket covered in buttons (both 1" and 2-1/2") with various slogans. I called it "my armor." My favorite slogan:

They said it couldn't be done, so I didn't do it.

-rf