Photo: Wonderlane, flickr
An Alberta man is suing his former East Vancouver neighbourhood for refusing to acknowledge the ironic ethos behind his 1970s moustache.
DJ McSweeney – now known as Bradley Brummond of Medicine Hat – launched a Defamation of Character lawsuit Wednesday, alleging that the defendants, a group of political progressives known as “The Hipsters” – engaged in “willful and repeated efforts to make him feel sad, old and uncool.”
“My client’s ‘stache was rocked in good faith,” says his lawyer, Tom Stenton. The lawsuit alleges that ‘the ‘stache made its first East Vancouver appearance in 2003, at a winter solstice lantern ceremony. For the next eight years it provided the community, known for its progressive values, with a moribund gender identity/social class they could easily look down upon.
“MWMs (Men With Moustaches) are statistically more likely to be less educated, labouring in lower-income jobs with limited opportunity for advancement,” said Stenton.
“Progressives get a real kick out of that type of thing,” he said, adding that since the box office failure of the 1990 movie Three Men and a Little Lady, incarceration and suicide rates among MWMs have skyrocketed.
Brummond’s troubles began in December, 2010.
“Shortly after his 34th birthday, the Hipsters began interpreting his ‘stache literally. He’d take it for an ironic stroll up Main Street only to be bombarded by earnest questions about lawn care, interrogations centred upon “sweetheart deals” on Jacuzzis.
“Increasingly desperate, my client would go to a farmer’s market. He’d light a marijuana cigarette; try to get a game of hackysack going. It didn’t matter how seditious his behaviour would be, folks started taking notes, believing he was there to host a seminar on the perils of Drunk Driving or the virtues of responsible Workplace Safety.”
Three weeks ago, the DJ woke up with an Eagles tune purring contentedly through his head. Realizing he had nothing left to live for, he boarded a Greyhound to Medicine Hat where he changed his name, began coaching girl’s soccer and became assistant manager of Canadian Tire. Here, his moustache is referred to as “Ye Olde Soup Strainer”. He likes that very much.
“Most of the time he feels nothing: the brass ring for a person his age,” says Stenton. The only hiccup so far: the fixed-gear bicycle he brought with him on the Greyhound was mistaken for a girl’s bike.
“The shit was kicked out of him accordingly,” says Stenton.
In a related story, Brummond’s younger brother, DJ Erasure, is suing Vancouver’s West End neighbourhood for mistaking his homosexual moustache for that of a hipster’s.