the secret to being cool (subtitled: the lesson i still need to learn)

this blog is dedicated to chino loco, a super cool motherfucker.


i'd like to consider myself cool. but when i start to put too much thought into it, i start to question myself, what exactly makes someone cool?

i met a dude recently who digs celine dion. a dude who up till that point i thought was a cool fucker. as soon as i learned about the celine dion thing, my opinion started to change. i wanted to believe that he was joking about it. he didn't seem the type. i had this stereotype about celine fans that for the most part, they're either housewives, gay dudes, or weirdos from europe.

he wasn't kidding. he was serious. he knew his shit about her. he even had video and pics he took at a celion dion concert. this dude was the real deal. my gut reaction was to mock him, mock him heavily. surely there's no greater crime to all that is cool. i mean, it's celine dion.

and then i realized that i was being totally UNcool about the whole situation. i had taken the road of the elitist/hipster. i figured what i was into was way cooler than that and that instantly made me too cool compared to the uncoolness it takes to dig celine dion's music.

but hipsters and elitists are wrong... and so was i. it's alright to like the newest, hippest, most undergroundest band... but only if you really enjoy it. and if you do, awesome. but if you're only in it cuz that's where the cool kids are at, then you're uncool all the way.

everyone wants to mock the poseur. and they should! nothing's worse than a fake. but the second worst thing to be is some douchey elitist who thinks they can look down on someone else cuz they dig something that you think is atrocious (in this case, celine dion).

i was guilty of doing the uncoolest thing. i mocked and judged someone who was perfectly comfortable with being a celine dion fan.

so what's cool? cool is liking what you like, cuz you like it, and being 100% comfortable about it. it's a level of honesty with yourself, and not giving a fuck what anyone thinks about it.

so if you wanna judge celine dion fans, and scream about how much they suck, go right ahead. but all you're doing is letting your insecurites shine loud for all to see. some people become so consumed with being cool, that they put all this science and math into it... and if you don't follow the same science and math, surely you're uncool.

but.... it's not that complicated. the math is really simple:

like what you like cuz you like it + don't be a douchebag = being cool.


if you catch me mocking celine dion fans, i give you full permission to go ahead and slap the uncool right out of me.