Well thank Goddess that month is over, eh my
freaky darlings? My Beautiful Baby is back in her boy's arms,
and Life is returning to [normal].
During one of our many conversations about
her Bag o' Douche ex, my girlfriend told me that one of his
self-appointed jobs was to keep her up on what was Cool in Japan.
When traveling, he would bring her back all these little trinkets
and $100 pieces-of-nothings which were Très Cool in Tokyo
Town. If it was Cool over there, eventually it would be Cool
Stateside. Interesting theory proven true in some rare cases
(God, I wish I still had a Tamagotchi to starve to death, over
and over again), but otherwise, it's just silly. How much of
a slave to Cool do you have to be to spend $100 on a piece of
jewelry for your cell phone because 14-year-olds half a world
away think they're "the bomb"?
or whatever
the kids are saying these days.
Honestly, What is Cool? Is there anyone or
anything that is Forever Cool? Universally, infinitely Cool?
Fonzie, maybe. James Dean, Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack, definitely.
Anyone looking at those guys has to concede Coolness. The one
thing all those guys had in common was Irreverence. For those
of you not keen on your SAT words, it means an utter disregard
for authority and social norms.
More importantly, and more relevant to this
diatribe, if a disregard for the social norm is what's Cool,
why do so many people try SO hard to fit in? I can guarantee
that Jimmy Dean and The Chairman didn't give a shit what you
thought about them, or if they were Cool. They didn't TRY, they
just were. The very TOP of the list of what's UnCool is TRYING
to be Cool.
We can all agree that you're either Cool, or
you're not, and TRYING is the quickest way down the waterslide
to the Piss-filled Pool of UnCool. But that didn't stop you
from buying a trucker hat, did it? At one point, a few of you
would've punched babies to get your hands on ANYTHING with a
real Von Dutch patch on it. FYI, right now you can get Von Dutch
trucker hats on eBay for $10. Run, monkeys, run.
I see it every night here in Vegas, busloads
of people trying to be Cool. Long lines of people who spent
a lot of money in stores and a lot of time that night, working
to be Cool, to be Special, to get laid, get in the club, or
get free drinks. And they all end up looking exactly the same:
Desperate. I can tell you exactly what Desperate looks like
in Vegas on a Saturday night: shoes pulled off any Perry Ellis
model; jeans cost $150 (but look like they cost $15 at Goodwill);
the shirt is light and long sleeved, button down, untucked,
and size Smedium (wearing a Small when they should be wearing
Medium); the hair is pulled up into a Faux-Hawk (the 06 version
of the Mullet: business by day, party by night); and it's topped
off a pair of semi-reflective sunglasses that a: cost more than
my iPod, b: should never actually be worn in direct sunlight.
Bonus points for having only one tribal tattoo, placed somewhere
visible. And women
well, we all know what desperate women
look like. If you don't, you probably are one.
That's the de-facto uniform of "Cool"
in Vegas, much the way dirty boots, dirty jeans, dirty tees,
dirty hair under dirty hats, and dirty flannels tied around
your waist was in the early 90's. If you just shivered because
I just described your once-wardrobe, welcome to my world. While
you're here, let's go back even further to parochial/prep school.
How very UnCool was it to wear a Uniform and look like everyone
else? Even as kids we knew that Truth. So when did we decide
to work SO hard to look like everyone else, to wear the uniform
glasses and jeans?
Newsflash: those glasses and jeans don't make
you Cool. NOTHING you can buy can make you Cool. If you can
buy it, so can I. So can the little retarded girl in the helmet,
drooling on her new Motorola V3i Gold Limited Edition Dolce
& Gabbana Phone. That phone might be gold, and might be
stamped with D&G, and might have every Cool feature you
drool over
but that girl isn't Cool just because she has
one, and neither are you. It only means that you have more money
than the rest of us (or that you're willing to spend what little
money you have on the anything that might impress). Desperation
isn't Cool; either is simply having money.
So what IS Cool? First, as the song said, it's
Cool to be Kind. You win $1500 playing video poker at the bar
and buy the other 10 people in the bar a round of drinks? That's
Cool. My being able to walk up to the club I worked at and get
in sans-cover or wait in line, doesn't make me Cool. But my
walking up to a host I don't know, at a club I don't frequent,
risking the embarrassment of not being Special, so that my out-of-town
friends can save money and time and feel a bit Special
and pulling it off? They all thought that was pretty Cool.
Finally, Cool is Cool. Not rushing to be the
first, not trying to be Cool, not being desperate or demanding
to be separate OR included, not caring what's on the cover of
magazines, who's in the VIP room, or what kind of hair gel Paris
Hilton's third dog uses. It's about you.
Still confused, try this exercise. Say "Fuck
you, Kra-Z. Fuck you and everything you wrote, because *I'm*
going to decide what's Cool and what's not. Not other people,
and definitely not you."
Now, THAT'S Cool.
get.kra.z@gmail.com.
Kra-Z is an Artist. 'Nuff
said. He lives and plays in Las Vegas, but his heart is still
on stage at the Jersey Shore. See his work @
artgonekra-z.com