The RR Report: Magic Mountain

*NOTE: I have been made aware that I made the egregious mistake of saying Valencia was in Orange County. Even I know that's not true...sorry, Valencia.

Runway Shows, Valencia-Style

When I told .:tt:. that I had a date to go to Magic Mountain, her first reaction was, "Mullets." Mullets? Yes, she said: when she'd gone a year or two back, she been surrounded--nay, swamped--by guys wearing non-ironic mullets. Needless to say, this made me totally freaking PSYCHEDDDD for Magic Mountain (in addition to the totally bitchin' coasters--"X" truly does enter a fourth dimension, for reals).

However, when we got there, I was saddened to see not a trace of mulletude. Not one. Instead, we were mostly sharing queue territory with bands of high-schoolers. Since I rarely see high school kids in my daily rounds, never mind Valencia-area high school kids, this was quite the anthropological experience for me. My coaster companion probably thought I was purposely ignoring him, when really my glazed eyes were just glued to all the gangly girls in tiny shorts and unfortunate bra choices. But it was he who asked me, "What's Hollister?" Oh, I told him, a small Abercrombie spinoff brand.* "But there are way more people in Hollister shirts than Abercrombie," he pointed out...and ye gods, he was right. Trolling around L.A., I NEVER see anyone wearing Hollister, but in Magic Mountain land, at least one out of four people between 14 and 24 was wearing a big ole HOLLISTER label across their chest. The longer we looked, the more Hollister we saw. I was really unnerved: could it be that I was that unaware of a huge trend? That my bubble of a world was that bubblicious? Frightening.
*[Note: apparently, Hollister is owned by Abercrombie, but their clothes are cheaper. Thanks, Sherrie Just, Boys' Sports Editor of the Viewmont High newspaper!]

In addition to scary numbers of logo tees, we saw an astonishing number of PLAID SHORTS. Now, I remember in high school, when Walter Neel wore a pair of plaid shorts along with his pink Ralph Lauren polo shirt as a total-overkill-prep joke. I mean, he really did wear them, but it was understood that they were funny. The thing is, I don't think all the boys and girls/men and women at Magic Mountain were displaying their finely tuned senses of irony. There were more pairs of plaid Bermudas, plaid 5-pocket shorts and unapologetic plaid booty shorts than there are senses of irony in the average population, so I have to conclude that the slick-prepster look has now been officially co-opted by Southern California as a whole. This contrasts amusingly with the very popular push-up-bra-and-too-small-shirt look.

I'm suddenly having flashes of inspiration re: possible conspiracy between Hollister and Magic Mountain. Conspiracy in that it was unbeknownst to us. Conspiracy being something involving Magic Mountain discounts upon purchases of items (esp. plaid shorts and logo tees) from Hollister. In Psych 101, I was taught that "correlation does not imply causation," but in this case, I am totally implying a causation-type situation. Note: SOMETHING TO LOOK INTO.

So, all in all, it was an educational day out in the wilds of Valencia. Not only did I fly through the air and scream a lot, but I also learned that what I would have considered a fashion anomaly--plaid butt and Hollister ta-tas--can be the norm, making me the anomaly. DEEP.

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