Cool Hunters: Series Piece: Part I

"Cool" is a self-conscious post-modern phenomenon. To be it, you must be aware of it, yet at the same time, in a perpetual state of denial. The word itself is arbitrary, with no meaning besides a constant appropriation, and an existence without stagnation. You cannot capture it and own it, but rather, keep up with it at a jogging pace. Those who sprint, burn out...which leads to being dubbed a drop-out, a sell-out, a failure of cool. Or worse, cool itself may collapse, and move from subversiveness to mainstream. This of course, is inevitable. All counter-cultures will eventually be enveloped by popular culture, allowing their deaths to look like suicide.

This process of cultural appropriation kills the subculture and reduces it to merely a representation of the real. A Black Flag shirt found at Hot Topic, a CBGBs shirt sold at West 49--when this happens, a subculture dissipates, then is reborn again, as its members adopt new styles that appear alien to mainstream society.

Cool Hunters: Series Piece: Prologue

Homer: So, I realized that being with my family is more important
than being cool.
Bart: Dad, what you just said was powerfully uncool.
Homer: You know what the song says: "It's hip to be square."
Lisa: That song is so lame.
Homer: So lame that it's... cool?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Am I cool, kids?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Good. I'm glad. And that's what makes me cool, not caring,
right?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Well, how the hell do you be cool? I feel like we've tried
everything here.
Homer: Wait, Marge. Maybe if you're truly cool, you don't need to
be told you're cool.
Bart: Well, sure you do.
Lisa: How else would you know?

Deceit.

A rat robed in a king's clothing, is still just a rat.

Local anesthetic

It's remarkable.
Turning back the clock while you are still physically aging.
Lost the charm, but regaining the reputation.

Defying rationale, and devoid of attachment. I was like that too. I have changed more than my surroundings have, and I barely recognize my hometown when I pull in.


It's happening in me. I am scared, but letting it happen. I look at those years, and those faces and it is like a work of fiction I have longed to read. I have started documenting it, but how can you record pastiche?

My paradigm is one that left some scars, but they have all formed a trail that I would be willing to show. I would uncover it. I would open my chest like a book and let you go through it, asking questions as you go.

I don't need a support. I want a person who will fly (and fall out of the sky) with me.

But will it hurt

if you see it happen?

Pretty Girls

She tells me she will die young.

I tell her all beautiful women have the same premonition. Brevity is the stamp of beauty, sealing it in the mouths of men.


All the men who see her want to live their wrecked lives forever.

Scramble for Africa.

Cartier, Thomson, and Columbus are all iconified for being founding fathers; however, the idea of discovery has always been problematic for me.

If discovery means finding, why is it that they get the credit for places that have already been inhabitated, or rather, civilized. Now, there's the discrepency. What do we define as civilized? The word's multiple meanings gives way to the discussion I would like to have. Is one only civilized if they are white, Christian men? History would say yes. Reason would say no.

But we credit the wrong people for nearly every discovery. Even if we become educated later, there is still a Columbus day...not a Native American Day (note: I realize that the politically correct term is Aboriginal...at least the last time I was told).

But why is something only discovered once the white man has found it?

Even applying it to modern society, things are only discovered by popular culture once they are appropriated by white, rich men. Whether it be music, fashion, food, or other aspects of culture, we give little accredation to origin, and instead give praise to a diluted, less authentic version of the real. It is the simulacrum. A representation or version of something real. It is an illusion that we maintain.


In a way, I am jealous of men like David Livingstone. Celebrated and cherished for convincing the world that his way of living was the only of living, discovering something that already existed, and having no self-actualization up until death.