The way of the cool

Before I talk about coolness, we should clear things up. I am not cool. I am, in fact, a nerd. I am not saying "I am a nerd" to be cool, either. I am not a cool nerd like Rivers Cuomo or Andy Dick. I am bookish, indoor-prone and a bass player. "Well, why is a nerd expounding on coolness?" you ask. First, nice use of the verb "expound." Second, here's why:\nOf all the tenets of coolness, detachment from the social conscience is a friggin' must. Therefore, only the socially sensitive can locate the boundaries of cool, which are, ironically, invisible to the coolest of cool dudes. \nSo as for the dweebishly hyper-aware, we know what makes cool things cool because we're so uncool. How about some rules? Most importantly, as I said, coolness can never give a damn about anything, not even itself. The moment you care, kiss hipness goodbye; cool dudes do not help out, they don't join the army and they don't bring dessert. Second, coolness waxes and wanes with extreme prejudice; it's more impermanent than baby teeth and as mutable as microwaved Play-Doh. You know those jeans where the thighs and ass are unnaturally worn like you were dragged behind a horse? Those are about to be not cool. See how fast it went? Third, the faster something becomes cool, the faster it will become dorky. Perhaps the ultimate example is Fred Durst, whose meteoric rise to coolness was so swift he regularly contemplates suicide now -- in public.\nCoolness also houses many paradoxes and hypocrisies. I cannot account for this, but I can give examples. Spirituality is cool, but religion is not. Civic action is cool, but patriotism is not. Bob Dylan is cool, but singer/songwriters are not. Talking about books is as popular as not reading them. The clinically depressed have a weird cultural cachet, but having clinical depression sucks balls. Celebrities are lame, but Johnny Depp is irrefutably cool as shit.\nHold up. Let's talk about Depp. This man is one of the coolest of our generation, but how? He's a good looking actor with a crisp name who dated Winona Ryder, which makes him as distinguished as a Viagra joke. Here's how the Depputy overcame: Depp is undeniably handsome, but he also played Edward Scissorhands and Hunter S. Thompson. Yes, he dated Winona Ryder -- but -- he did it before it was a national pastime and he changed his tattoo from "Winona Forever" to "Wino Forever." Depp beat the system and is eternally cool, even if he makes it to old age.\nAnd that -- old age -- is the true test of the cool. The bossest realm of cooldom is dying young. If you're cool after 40 … wow. Think of epically cool people -- almost all died before, or have not yet made it to, 35. You know about this. Countless drug-addled or suicidal rock stars, actors, playwrights and novelists check out before evidence of middle age shows either in their work or their hairline. \nPeople who don't have the career foresight to do the mortal coil shuffle at the proper time ultimately suffer for it: Madonna, the Rolling Stones, Peter Fonda and countless others. It hardly ever fails. The young have the capacity for cool, the old do not.\nExcept for Mark Twain, Bob Dylan, Morgan Freeman, Kathy Bates, Macaulay Culkin (who is spiritually older than Alan Greenspan), Alan Greenspan, Kurt Vonnegut and Johnny Cash.\nJohnny Cash is another prime example of the whims of coolness. Coming out in the late '50s, Johnny Cash was about as cool as cold water. Then he toured through state penitentiaries. That was cool on, like, 12 different levels. Suddenly, no one thought Cash was cool. He boosted this opinion by making substandard records. Hey, no one made gold in the '80s though -- not Dylan, not Neil Young. But then Cash started covering Soundgarden, Beck and Tom Petty. And it sounded cool. Cash enjoyed a wonderful revival before his death last year. He's cool, but it doesn't matter because playing at state pens is beyond cool -- it's also beyond contemporary performers.\nSo, let's talk about the White Stripes and MTV. We all know MTV was revolutionary when it began -- new bands, new medium and a young audience. It grew to strangle rock with its own image and compressed pop music into a cube of minutiae. MTV so deeply associated music with its image that image has become the larger component. So when bands want to swim in the mainstream and legitimately rock, their image has to be the focus.\nIn came the White Stripes. The dude obviously gave zero percent of a damn and the girl played drums. Since rock had become so smothered with mediocrity, innovation became as easy as playing without a bassist. The White Stripes, however, rocked. When they went to the MTV Music Video Awards, celebrities thanked them for "making MTV cool again." But, alas, they hadn't. \nMTV will never be cool again. Not because they refuse to play videos, but because they have made music irrelevant to American teens, and American teens rule the world. Kids know MTV will make the White Stripes uncool. It will wrap its dork tentacles around the band and squeeze out the cultural impact of what it means to play Robert Johnson songs with only two people in an age that coined the term "cyber sex." Open your fleetingly cool eyes Jack White!\nThe demise of the White Stripes' cool (which will happen within the year) is the ultimate lesson in coolness: be a nerd because there's no pressure. The clothes are cheap and you can read sci-fi. You think Julian Casablancas can read sci-fi if he wants? Hell no. Oh my God, hell no.