NOTES AND ESSAYS ON COOL

He stood outside the club leaning against the worn brick wall. It appeared as if he was a piece of artwork carefully chosen to reflect the hue of rebelliousness that would call the children of the night to this den of angst and detachment. The fact that his pose seemed somehow contrived only added to the aura of coolness radiating from him. His was a controlled rebellion, carefully calculated.

He had put aside his youthful anarchist tendencies and now sought to alienate the bourgeois by subtle gestures, slight displays of style and that evil haunting grin. You know the one, delivered with a furrowed brow ala James Dean. With a twinkle in his eyes that somehow suggested both a playful young heart, and a cold vision of death and detachment.

Mom’s would say about him "I don’t like that boy. You shouldn’t hang around with boys like that." The standard response would of course be "but mom you don’t know him like I do". This would send mommy on a trip down memory lane. Yeah mom secretly remembers the attractiveness of bad boyness. They fearfully tell their daughters to leave that man alone. Their own past screams loudly with the memories of that guy who stole their innocence, or could have if he chose to. And now this same guy mysteriously reincarnated has come to once again steal the sacred from them. Only this time it’s their daughters and not their innocence he’s after.

Dad, well dad is just looking for a good excuse to shoot this punk. Dad remembers the type. He lost his girlfriend to one of these while he was away a football practice. Yeah poor dad can’t seem to shake that inner desire to be one of those guys. Even now when his career accomplishments have left those losers in the dust, he still wishes he were cool like that. Some poor father types let these emotions get to them and go running out and buy themselves a Harley, grow themselves a cute pony tail, and go looking for some young girl with plastic breasts to make them feel young and rebellious. It almost makes you feel sorry for the fat old geysers doesn’t it. But at least it keeps the economy going. How bout we stop and look at the new softtails on the way to the surgeon babe? Long live the immortal buck.

So, he continued to stand there, this parental nightmare. He was essentially motionless except for the occasional lift of a cigarette ever so slowly to his mouth and the corresponding flick of ash. Then back to the position. I wonder if he practiced in the mirror.

He leaned hard against the wall. His left leg bent perfectly allowing his left foot to sit flatly against the brick. His feet were covered by a pair of zebra skinned creepers. The way they sat under his rolled up Levis reminded one of the fifties. The fifties in a surreal Fonzy on acid sort of way.

Faded blue jeans, worn a little looser than in previous generations. Definite proof of Mr. Straus; absolute genius. Only the coolest of the cool could have invented a work pant that has survived countless years as the epitome of rebel ware. Oh sure "Dickies" are hip, Bondage pants used to be cool, plaid thrift store pants are definitely fat, but no matter how many yuppies put on a pair, nobody can dispute that we always turn back to the classics. The timeless cool of Levis jeans. Mr. Straus must be so proud. I wonder if he has time to reflect on his accomplishments. I’m sure counting the profits of dominating the cool trade must be a full time job. Oh, but he’s probably dead now anyways.

He tucked his white T-shirt into these symbols of rebellion and capitalism and topped off his ensemble with a beat up leather jacket. He wore it hanging slightly off his shoulders.

As he raised his hand to his mouth, the sleeve of his jacket raised enough to reveal the bottom of his arm. There you could see a little glimpse of a tattoo that stretched no doubt all the way up his arm. What a splendid piece of jailhouse art I’m sure it is. Of course, now jailhouse can be bought with dollars instead of cigarettes and favors, at a frightening variety of clean sanitized shops. Let’s here it for progress huh.

His hair was mostly combed into a pompadour but part was very carefully uncombed into a semi punk spike thing. It was dyed a shocking blue black that contrasted sharply with his pale complexion, and his light blue eyes. His features were slight, almost feminine yet there was a hardness about his face that was manly.

You could tell he was tough, even though he was very thin. His toughness came from experience, not the arbitrary blessing of biological bigness, or the discipline of powerful perseverance in the gym. No he was tough cause he knew he couldn’t get hit harder than he already had been. He knew he would always give better than he got. He knew if he couldn’t take someone he and a few of his friends could. He was tough cause he had long since abandoned fear.

He took long powerful drags off his Camel unfiltered cigarettes. He didn’t really exhale, but slowly let the smoke escape his lungs and mouth so that it framed his face in a transparent brightness of reflected light.

You could tell he didn’t grasp the irony of those cigarettes. He didn’t seem to realize that the three bucks he oh so coolly laid down for those cigarettes at the liquor store would go directly into the pockets of some Armani wearing business type. He didn’t seem to hear the grinding of the corporate machine as these corporate big shots laid down, even more coolly their three million dollars to those advertising agency’s that would show the world just how cool their items of rebellion were. After all there is a whole new generation of James Dean wanna be's out there. He didn’t see the doctors. Some getting Ferrari rich while trying to heal the destruction of years of being a hip smoker. Others taking the large research grants from the tobacco industries, to dispel these ridiculous claims that cigarettes were bad for you. "We have found no evidence that can directly prove that cigarettes cause cancer" now off to the bank. No he didn’t seem to understand that up on Wall Street some stressed out over dressed corporate raider would be leaning oh so coolly against a marble wall, inhaling a more sophisticated version of a cigarette, at the exact same moment he was.

It’s all part of the cool trade. Selling destruction wrapped in the guise of cool rebellion. Capitalism at it’s finest. Long live the immortal buck.

But damn, he sure looked cool.