Christian Lander knows the Stuff White People Like

Los Angeles Times ^ | July 4, 2008 | Mindy Farabee

[forkinsocket]

Two white people walk into a bar, a badly lit Culver City saloon called the Backstage whose interior design could be summed up as one pool table, a no-frills photo booth and some scattered neon. Blondie and the Rolling Stones belt out of the stereo, $3 Newcastle comes on tap and sticky laminated menus offer up garlic fries, chili cheese fries and buffalo wings. In other words, welcome to No. 148 of 150 things white people like: dive bars.

"If you want to say I was planning that far ahead, that's great," said Christian Lander, resident white person behind the ridiculously popular blog Stuff White People Like, a snarky bit of grass-roots anthropology that recently transmuted into a rumored $300,000 book deal. "But I just like this place. I like the darkness. I don't like overpaying for drinks. I'm not a very picky bar patron."

Now "Stuff White People Like" the book has arrived, and if it is a joke -- and really, it's filled with bons mots such as "For those of you who don't know, a dive bar is a place with cheap drinks and minimal decoration that was formerly frequented by those who dislike white people" -- then the joke's on Lander.

Wearing jeans and a faded navy UC Berkeley T-shirt (No. 84), procured from Goodwill (No. 49), thin, black angular frames (No. 140), and sporting red hair (No. 97) and a closely trimmed beard (No. 95), Lander sidled up to the Backstage on his bike -- that is cycle, not motor, a.k.a. No. 61. Though it must be said that, born and raised in Canada, Lander at no point during our early evening together threatened to move back there (No. 75).

[forkinsocket]

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[SoDak]

That’s one of the few blogs I read on a consistent basis. The replies are just as funny as the blogs.

[wally_bert]

It is very funny all around and pretty accurate in many respects.