An Aging Hipster on the Tao of Cool
this entry brought to you by queens of the stone age, "little sister"
Some of you are going to read this entry and shake your heads, thinking that I'm the biggest wannabe. But if you are, you're either at least 8 years younger, 8 years older, the uncoolest person in the world, or the single coolest. And if you're any of those but the coolest, I couldn't care less what you think. And if you're the coolest, get off your fucking high horse already. Some of us can't be as cool as you.
When I was younger I didn't put much thought into whether I was cool or not. I assumed I was not, and that this did not matter. Then I got cool, started working around with cool people. This made me incredibly self conscious, because I felt like everyone was much cooler than me. Most time I wouldn't worry about it, but every now and again I'd get to the end of my laundry cycle and be forced to wear something, and I would think, god, this is not cool. I would obsess. I'd ask my friends, "is this shirt cool? Am I cool enough?" Because in my circle of friends, poser was a four letter word. I'd rather be almost anything than a poser-- seriously, if you were gay you were cool, but if you were a poser, fuck you. And I wanted to make sure I wasn't a poser. How would I know? What if I was a clinger-on that thought he was cool, but was really a poser? These moods of coolness self-doubt didn't come very often, but put me in the wrong clothes, and it's all I'd think about.
And yet, if my late teenaged self knew I was spending so much time thinking about the essence of being cool, I'd be really annoyed with myself. "Hey, poser-boy," I'd say. "Cool people don't spend time thinking about what makes them cool. They just are cool. They are just cool." But now that I'm a dad and very rarely walk into public with the intent to have fun, coolness becomes a conscious factor again. I think anyone that's my age and a parent and not thinking about coolness quotient is either on drugs or completely out of touch with reality.
It's not that 26 is that old-- it's not. It's the best time to be cool. You're old enough to know better than a teenager. You know what's cool and have known for years. A teenager's definition of cool will change with the drop of a hipster hat. But you're not so old that you can't change your ways if you happen upon an epiphany. Indeed, once you get too old, you're incapable of epiphanies. Not so with the age of 26.
But 26 and a parent is dangerous because this is the age where you can forget about coolness, whether consciously ("I've got a 9-5 job, I don't have time to be cool"), or not. And if coolness requires too much work, that's fine. There's nothing requiring you to be cool. But turning 40 and hitting that crisis where your kids are worried about being cool, trying to be cool, trying to associate themselves with coolness and you realize that you are not cool, what then? This is what causes 40 year old fathers to get an earring. What causes 40 year old mothers to wear hip huggers and 'do rags. What caused anyone over the age of 18 to listen to Creed. If you don't care about cool, then be prepared that you can never be cool again. There is nothing worse than people clinging on to something they lost long ago and cannot get back. Cool isn't like math. Get rusty on algebra, you go pick up a couple books, take a class or two, and boom, you're good at algebra again. It doesn't work like that with cool.
So here I am, pondering my place in cool, wondering about cool. There's this writer named Chuck Klosterman that I totally adore, and he said part of what makes cool what is is that you don't look like you're trying too hard to be cool. And I thought that was great. Many people who are young assume cool people do not try to be cool. This is untrue. Beck is cool because he dances cool and he raps cool and wears cool clothes. If he weren't trying, he'd just as well not wear those clothes, just as well not dance like a honkey awesome guy. This is also true of Andre 3000, possibly the coolest man alive. If he weren't trying to be cool, he'd be just another rapper. The coolest people in the world put effort into their coolness, but make it look like cool is easy, or that it was an accident. And yet, you and I know that coolness is impossible to accidentally achieve, because when that happens, the veil gets lifted very quickly and you realize that person is not cool, and the backlash this creates-- being tricked into thinking someone is cool and then finding out they are not-- is worse than if they were just forgotten. The coolest people are elevated to cool because they put a lot of effort into it-- but it appears easy. It's like a religion, really. It's a mind-set. The people who approach every decision they make-- What Would Cool Do? And it comes off appearing transcendental. Zen. It's the difference between Jennifer Lopez-- trying so hard to be cool, she comes off as a demon spawn-- and PJ Harvey, so cool she doesn't even have to weigh more than 90 pounds. The difference between Ben Affleck and Johnny Depp. Any of the Backstreet Boys and Jack White.
So as I get older, I understand a lot more about cool than I used to, and I came to the conclusions I have after years of not thinking about it, only having it brought to my attention once Celest was born. I understand that it is important to be cool, because it is a part of who I am. Cool is my religion. It is like a catholic coming to realize their busy lifestyles have the potential to pull them from God. My non-cool lifestyle has the potential to make me uncool. But it is important to be cool by my terms. Just as a person trying to reconnect with God by interpreting the Bible themselves, I will study the discipline of cool while refusing to watch The OC. Coolness, like religion or spirituality, varies from person to person, yet, like spirituality, most cool people know it when they see it, know when it's being faked, know when its being taken too far (Michael Jackson was once so cool that he turned into an inside-out freakazoid. Marlon Brando was once so cool that it turned him into the ruler of his own island).
So I want to be cool. Because 1) I like being cool. And 2) I don't want to be told someday that I used to be cool, and then go do something stupid like buy a motorcycle or get a tatoo of my favorite band from 15 years prior. I may be aging, but I'll never let that take my cool.
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with love from CRS @ 7:43 PM
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Some of you are going to read this entry and shake your heads, thinking that I'm the biggest wannabe. But if you are, you're either at least 8 years younger, 8 years older, the uncoolest person in the world, or the single coolest. And if you're any of those but the coolest, I couldn't care less what you think. And if you're the coolest, get off your fucking high horse already. Some of us can't be as cool as you.
When I was younger I didn't put much thought into whether I was cool or not. I assumed I was not, and that this did not matter. Then I got cool, started working around with cool people. This made me incredibly self conscious, because I felt like everyone was much cooler than me. Most time I wouldn't worry about it, but every now and again I'd get to the end of my laundry cycle and be forced to wear something, and I would think, god, this is not cool. I would obsess. I'd ask my friends, "is this shirt cool? Am I cool enough?" Because in my circle of friends, poser was a four letter word. I'd rather be almost anything than a poser-- seriously, if you were gay you were cool, but if you were a poser, fuck you. And I wanted to make sure I wasn't a poser. How would I know? What if I was a clinger-on that thought he was cool, but was really a poser? These moods of coolness self-doubt didn't come very often, but put me in the wrong clothes, and it's all I'd think about.
And yet, if my late teenaged self knew I was spending so much time thinking about the essence of being cool, I'd be really annoyed with myself. "Hey, poser-boy," I'd say. "Cool people don't spend time thinking about what makes them cool. They just are cool. They are just cool." But now that I'm a dad and very rarely walk into public with the intent to have fun, coolness becomes a conscious factor again. I think anyone that's my age and a parent and not thinking about coolness quotient is either on drugs or completely out of touch with reality.
It's not that 26 is that old-- it's not. It's the best time to be cool. You're old enough to know better than a teenager. You know what's cool and have known for years. A teenager's definition of cool will change with the drop of a hipster hat. But you're not so old that you can't change your ways if you happen upon an epiphany. Indeed, once you get too old, you're incapable of epiphanies. Not so with the age of 26.
But 26 and a parent is dangerous because this is the age where you can forget about coolness, whether consciously ("I've got a 9-5 job, I don't have time to be cool"), or not. And if coolness requires too much work, that's fine. There's nothing requiring you to be cool. But turning 40 and hitting that crisis where your kids are worried about being cool, trying to be cool, trying to associate themselves with coolness and you realize that you are not cool, what then? This is what causes 40 year old fathers to get an earring. What causes 40 year old mothers to wear hip huggers and 'do rags. What caused anyone over the age of 18 to listen to Creed. If you don't care about cool, then be prepared that you can never be cool again. There is nothing worse than people clinging on to something they lost long ago and cannot get back. Cool isn't like math. Get rusty on algebra, you go pick up a couple books, take a class or two, and boom, you're good at algebra again. It doesn't work like that with cool.
So here I am, pondering my place in cool, wondering about cool. There's this writer named Chuck Klosterman that I totally adore, and he said part of what makes cool what is is that you don't look like you're trying too hard to be cool. And I thought that was great. Many people who are young assume cool people do not try to be cool. This is untrue. Beck is cool because he dances cool and he raps cool and wears cool clothes. If he weren't trying, he'd just as well not wear those clothes, just as well not dance like a honkey awesome guy. This is also true of Andre 3000, possibly the coolest man alive. If he weren't trying to be cool, he'd be just another rapper. The coolest people in the world put effort into their coolness, but make it look like cool is easy, or that it was an accident. And yet, you and I know that coolness is impossible to accidentally achieve, because when that happens, the veil gets lifted very quickly and you realize that person is not cool, and the backlash this creates-- being tricked into thinking someone is cool and then finding out they are not-- is worse than if they were just forgotten. The coolest people are elevated to cool because they put a lot of effort into it-- but it appears easy. It's like a religion, really. It's a mind-set. The people who approach every decision they make-- What Would Cool Do? And it comes off appearing transcendental. Zen. It's the difference between Jennifer Lopez-- trying so hard to be cool, she comes off as a demon spawn-- and PJ Harvey, so cool she doesn't even have to weigh more than 90 pounds. The difference between Ben Affleck and Johnny Depp. Any of the Backstreet Boys and Jack White.
So as I get older, I understand a lot more about cool than I used to, and I came to the conclusions I have after years of not thinking about it, only having it brought to my attention once Celest was born. I understand that it is important to be cool, because it is a part of who I am. Cool is my religion. It is like a catholic coming to realize their busy lifestyles have the potential to pull them from God. My non-cool lifestyle has the potential to make me uncool. But it is important to be cool by my terms. Just as a person trying to reconnect with God by interpreting the Bible themselves, I will study the discipline of cool while refusing to watch The OC. Coolness, like religion or spirituality, varies from person to person, yet, like spirituality, most cool people know it when they see it, know when it's being faked, know when its being taken too far (Michael Jackson was once so cool that he turned into an inside-out freakazoid. Marlon Brando was once so cool that it turned him into the ruler of his own island).
So I want to be cool. Because 1) I like being cool. And 2) I don't want to be told someday that I used to be cool, and then go do something stupid like buy a motorcycle or get a tatoo of my favorite band from 15 years prior. I may be aging, but I'll never let that take my cool.
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