It wasn’t until I’ve been stopped on the street today by a boy 10 years younger than me who enthusiastically exclaimed “I LOVE your headphones!” that I realised how uncool I became.
I bought those headphones — by a certain not very well known brand I won’t mention — largely due to their cool value; I wanted to buy something that’s damn cool, vislble from a large distance, expensive… but mostly has warranty that covers the damn thing being driven over by a bus. I had replaced four pairs of headphones in the last six months because their injuries were not covered by warranty and to be honest that’s a bit enough. Plus, the bright green colour ensures that fellow cyclists will notice that I am listening to music and, hopefully, ring their bells louder or summat. So I had bought uber-cool expensive headphones because of safety and good warranty.
Those headphones fit absolutely nothing I was wearing, which consisted of black coat (cheap and warm and nice, C&A), blue jeans (big torn ones from H&M, and anyway with my legs you can’t wear fashionable stuff, because fashionable stuff assumes you’re anorexic) and black leather boots (warm, comfy and, erm, that’s about all that can be said about them). Underneath I was rocking a purple scarf, which was covered by the coat and thus invisible, black cardigan and black muscle t-shirt, which is kind of cool, but still doesn’t match those headphones.
A whole other thing is what I have been listening to. It wasn’t what I am listening to right now (i.e. Susan Boyle, whose album I will review here soon), but it wasn’t much better. It was Madonna’s “Open Your Heart”. Which I followed by Annie Lennox’ “Diva” in its entirety.
My coolness reached its peak when “We are technology” was played on the Polish radio repeatedly, Martina and me were doing interviews for MTV and I had a regular DJ slot at a club so cool waiters would ignore you for an hour before lowering themselves to notice your presence, even if you were the only person present apart from staff. I wore the perfectly right clothes, listened to perfectly right music (and played it during my DJ sets), and whatever I would choose to put on would be good, because I was cool. When I had long black hair it was cool, and when I shaved my head leaving a blonde mohawk it was also cool. Mind you, I was also 24.
Thing is, it wasn’t me adapting to become cool; it was simply a great timing that ensured that what I liked was fashionable. I kept on listening to — and playing electronic music from the 80s, it’s just that Felix da Housecat happened to hit a golden mine when he sampled “Passion” by The Flirts for his breakthrough hit “Silver Screen Shower Scene” and followed it by sampling Human League, who themselves attempted a comeback with criminally underrated “All I Ever Wanted”. And then that time has passed, and electro sound has gone back to the underground, and got replaced by indie guitar rock. I stopped DJing, Technologic’s second single didn’t get much love from the radio, and that was about it.
Ever since then I have been doing what everybody does — that includes you, dear reader, as much as that shocks you — aging. At the age of 32 certain routes are closed for me. I will never become a professional tennis player; I will never be Madonna’s dancer; I will never be a teenager again, basically, and I will never be a part of the Twenty-Something Bloggers club. I might still become a professional boxer, but I should hurry up.
Being cool is also about keeping up with the times; with the Current New Sounds, trends in clothes, movies, actors, books, social networking. There’s something called Twilight out there, which features emo twink Robert Pattinson who has been more often than not described as lacking personal hygiene; there’s Lady Gaga, who has an amazing image not supported by music I would like to listen to more than once — she sounds like a third rate Britney Spears, and if I want to listen to Britney, I have the original at hand; the jeans available in the stores are almost exclusively skinny, which is bad news if you happen to work out a lot and you’re not one of those funny people who only exercise their chest and biceps. Generally, I know what’s cool, but I don’t give a shit.
I am not cool anymore. I don’t have time for that. I don’t want to listen to Lady Gaga, Marina And The Diamonds, Florence And The Machine, Ellie Goulding or Owl City simply because they are a New Fresh Thing. I know what Chris Lowe has to say about “even if it’s bad, it’s good because it’s new” and I disagree; I prefer to listen to music that I already KNOW is good, rather than spend my valuable time on listening to stuff that I could possibly like… or not. When faced with a choice between Janet Jackson’s “Number Ones” or Lady Gaga’s “Fame Monster” I will choose Janet. I played Gaga once. She didn’t set my world on fire. I played the CD again, and it got on my nerves. There will be no third chance. I’m BUSY.
Why buy a new pair of jeans that won’t fit me if I can wear my old leather pants that do? Why subscribe to Facebook, Twitter, formspring.me and 40 other uber-fashionable social networking sites if I don’t have time to meet my friends — actual living breathing humans — for drinks? Why would I bother listening to Florence And The Machine’s album if singles bored me to tears? Why would I watch mega-stupid people on “Jersey Shore” if I still haven’t found time to watch “City of Angels”?
Yes I know — admitting that makes me uncool. But so what? I’m 32. I will never be cool again, unless I become a celebrity writer (you can be a cool celebrity writer at the age of 60) simply because I am ancient. Seeing what MTV has become (my gym often has MTV on) makes me mutter sentences containing the words “youth of today” and “when I was younger, MTV played music”. I have no interest in being cool ever again unless I get paid for it, and it would better be GOOD money.
