Need to be Cool

Cool is a gift. It's having eight pounds of hip in a five-pound bag. It's not bought, bred orbequeathed. Clinton lost it, McCain can't buy it and Bush thinks it's spelledwith a "k."


America's drive to be cool is like an endless game of "Follow the Leader," withall of us in a dog-sled-train, struggling to keep up with the alpha maletrendsetter, when all we can make out are the hazy, glistening outlines of hisice-flecked, rhythmically pumping butt cheeks. Sorry, I got a little carriedaway, there. I'm still recovering from Gay Week on Animal Planet.


The United States is the birthplace of cool. If the world was a high school,America would be making out in study hall with Sweden, picking on India, andsmoking in the U.N. restroom with France and Colombia.


Coolness appeals to us because it represents being free from the constraints ofsociety while still living within it, dropping in to give Richie and Chachi adose of hard-earned street wisdom, and then headin' off to Arnold's to grab ashake and pound a free song out of the jukebox when the Cunningham scene gets alittle too "square." (By the way, almost triggering a petite mal seizure bydoing the finger quotes thing - uncool).


Now, there are many types of cool. There's the classic, iconic, Brian Kinney/Queer as Folkapproach: cryptic and unflappable, squinting through the smoke from thecigarette dangling between your lips, never letting a trace of emotion showexcept for an occasional sardonic half-smile at the foolish world around youthat you couldn't give a rat's ass about.


As a matter of fact, some celebrities reach a cool of such mythic proportions,it transcends their physical being. Jack Nicholson is so cool, he hasn'tbothered to take a breath for years, and he could still kick the shit out ofyou.


Then there's the demographically researched, pop-media faux-cool, the type ofinsouciance that bears the corporate patina of mass-marketed nonconformity.This is shopping mall cool, easily attainable: You don't have to Harley toSturges; or Master the Guitar; or Trek through Nepal-- just plunk down yourDiscover card and buy some threads at Urban Outfitters or a barbed-wirebicep-tattoo at the Henna Hut, and not only will you enter the kingdom of cool,you'll also get a valuable cash-back bonus that can be applied to cruise travelor a Reader's Digest subscription.


I think some manufacturers may be trying a little too hard to envelopeverything with a hip aura. I was at a drug store and watched an old man spend15 minutes trying to decide if he wanted his Ex-Lax in Extreme Orange orTotally Wacked Wintermint.


There are certain places and situations where it's virtually impossible to putup a cool front. For example, when your doctor gives you a prostate exam, orwhen the supermarket cashier calls for a price check on super-small-sizecondoms.


One of my favorite pastimes is to look around and try to determine who thecoolest person in the room is. For example the other day at Starbucks, as Iobserved the 20-something counter jockey with the pierced prefrontal cortex andthe dust bunny on his chin, and the as-yet un-produced screenwriter sitting inthe corner staring at a four-year-old script-in-progress that still has fewerwords in it than his latte order, or the heavily perfumed walking designer racktalking into her cell phone like she was trying to be heard over a fuckingchainsaw, I realized with some pride that I could honestly say I was thecoolest person in the immediate proximity, until I looked out the window andcaught the eye of the Guatemalan landscaper trimming the hedges outside,obviously wondering what kind of schmuck I was to pay three dollars and seventyfive cents for a cup of coffee.


Let's bottom line this. For me, the only real cool people left are those whodon't buy into the coolness mystique. People who don't take themselves tooseriously and don't screw over other people and understand that life goes on,the earth abideth forever, and what is cool today may not be cool tomorrow.That's why it's best just to be yourself. You know, unless, of course, you'rean asshole.