On Being Cool

Being cool is fucking awesome.

I wasn't always cool. For years, growing up, it seemed like everyone insisted I wasn't cool. I accepted that. Then one day I looked up to discover that somehow I had become cool. It was a relatively easy transition. All I had to do was stop trying, stop caring, and just be myself. There was a cool person inside me just waiting to emerge.

Luckily I don't mind isolation because being cool can be a bit lonely. The hip and the trendy have loads of friends they must surround themselves with as constant reminders that they are part of the in-crowd. The cool stand alone. I think it has something to do with the cool aura and people falling into the "I'm not worthy" mind set. It's all good. It means people don't bother me at the coffee shop when I'm trying to read or write.

The best part about being cool is making hip, trendy types squirm in discomfort. It takes a lot of work to be hip. You have to be seen with the right people, eat the right food, wear the right clothes, listen to the right music, and drink the right beer/wine/coffee/tea/whatever. It also seems to help if you can list at least ten bands that no one has ever heard of but you 'know' are the greatest undiscovered talents. I don't have to put up with all that bull shit. I can hang with rock stars, Jesus freaks, and rednecks if I so choose. I can eat at Taco Bell or Big Daddy's BBQ instead of going out for bento, sushi, or mock dog shit or whatever else is the plate du jour. I can wear a beat up t-shirt and my oily, smelly work pants. I can buy a Rolling Stones greatest hits album without having to appreciate the irony. In the middle of August I can drink dark beer and dark roast coffee. The hip crowd knows that their trendy status is tenuous at best, and my presence is a constant reminder of the fleeting nature of their shaky social standing. One screw-up and they will get shamed off to the suburbs. I can do all kinds of stupid shit and it will usually just make me cooler.

I didn't really want to be cool. At some point in the middle of the whole grunge/slacker hip scene I just said fuck it. A few years later, all these people started telling me how cool I was. They just don't stop. Everywhere I go people feel the need to tell me I'm so cool. You learn to accept it and live with it after a while. It's a sweet gig. Imagine being able to tell people that The Hives suck, Bjork is barely tolerable, and ABBA rules. And I can maintain that position indefinitely because I don't have to stay hip, I'm already cool.

There-in lies the danger. I'm cool as long as I never try to be hip. Luckily I have no clue nor any desire to be hip, so I'm safe for now.