Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War on You (14 page)

At Hugo’s funeral, you saw Iran’s hirsute hothead Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shoulder to shoulder with our own Secretary of Stupid Sean Penn. Jesse Jackson also paid a visit, which seems odd, priority-wise, given the state of
his
family. But they all hit the same red carpet (fitting that it is red—as a tribute to the country’s murder rate). Maybe this will turn out to be an adult moment for America, when we stop and wonder if following the cool is the right thing to do. This naive embracing of anti-American bullies seems purely adolescent—a desire to thumb your nose at evil Daddy.

But while being callously cool means mourning the death of thugs and fraternizing with our country’s enemies, it also requires celebrating the death of someone great. Just weeks after Chávez, Margaret Thatcher died. Before the news sank in, the ghouls were already in the streets celebrating, in force. Impromptu street parties popped up in Glasgow and London, with drunken yobs stumbling through the streets, holding all kinds of sinister signs, rejoicing in the death of Maggie as they shat their pants. On Twitter, as always, the ghoulishness is amplified, because it’s anonymous and easy. When a British celebrity (a Spice Girl whose name escapes me, and probably her) expressed sorrow over Lady Thatcher’s demise, she was met with vile slurs (all of which rhymed with the word “bunt”). The second-most trending topic on Twitter was “no state funeral.” Amazing. From the very people
who want the state to pay for everything else. If Churchill were alive, he’d slap somebody. Probably everybody.

But because the left thinks the right is evil, and they believe the prime minister is a monster, their vileness is sanctioned. Their ghoulishness is coolishness. Their celebration mimicked those in Libya after Gaddafi croaked. But the Bedouins had better hygiene.

When I looked at all the footage of the partiers in the streets, I could not help but notice that they were young. They had zits. And iPhones. These dolts were way too young to remember Thatcher, who was less a “warmonger” than the Austin Powers lookalike who came after her. All this vitriol was emanating from students—all stuck in that Hacky Sack socialist mind-set. The
Daily Mail
reported on the National Union of Students conference in Sheffield, where some delegates actually cheered when told of Thatcher’s death. I’m sure they were cheered, in turn, for their cheering. Then they went back to reading the
Guardian
in their underpants, listening to Moroccan Dubstep, and waiting for “Mum” to serve beans on toast.

So why such hate, from people who only knew Thatcher by grainy pictures of her in the paper? Well, if you swim in the sewer, you’re going to come out stinky.

And that’s your typical product of academia these days, soaking in a scholastic cesspool where the coolest thing you can do is crap all over the West and its glorious achievements. An anti-West relativism—that banal evil that infects every corner of your average campus—makes it totally acceptable to view Thatcher as just another Hitler. And to believe the West is no better than its enemies. For a cool student, hating America makes them cooler. It’s like saying you’re with the band. A shitty band. Think Maroon 5 with a better singer.

If only bin Laden had been younger and hotter. If only he’d had
abs
. Then Jann Wenner, publisher of
Rolling Stone
, who put the Boston Bomber on the cover of his rag, might have done him first. But the Boston Bomber cover proved my book’s premise: The moral bankruptcy of the cool culture makes evil attractive and decency boring.

The cover featured the bomber as a delightful, doe-eyed ragamuffin. It was a shocking cover, in that you were shocked as to why a once-venerable publication would choose that picture—one that mocks the dead and their suffering families. I don’t think that’s the kind of “shock value” Wenner had in mind. For shock to have any “value,” it has to contain some truth. This was shock for shock’s sake—and its message seemed to be, “Look how cute this kid is. He can’t be that bad, can he?” If you didn’t read the article and just went by your gut response to the cover (revulsion), you’d be right and save yourself an hour.

But I read it anyway.

I do not subscribe to
Rolling Stone
, for I find it a sad, laughable
shell of its original being. I used to adore the rag. The beautiful cover of Joe Strummer and Mick Jones of the Clash adorned my teenage bedroom wall for years, until it evaporated into a desiccated shroud. When a favorite band made the cover, you were happy for the band and for yourself—because your tastes were validated. I felt the same way when they put Cheap Trick on the cover. But not when President Obama appeared. (I had no idea he was in a band!)

More recently, I would buy the magazine when I needed something to read on a flight. When zonked out on Xanax and a glass of wine, forking over five bucks for some inane editorial seemed entirely appropriate. The writing was as mushy as my brain matter. The magazine is so incredibly stupid that I need to be stupid to absorb it.

Now, however, I cannot look at the magazine without sensing a corpse. A dead, lifeless product. As I write this, Bob Dylan is on the cover. I cannot even look at it. And he’s a great man, with decades of great achievements behind him. He’s also a smart man, and I’d like to read what he’s thinking. The man loved Barry Goldwater for Chrissakes! But it doesn’t matter. I can’t get that bomber cover out of my head. And it’s not Bob’s fault. It’s
Rolling Stone
’s. I compare it to food poisoning. I used to love lamb kabobs. I’d get them before taping my late-night show. Then one night I got sick to my stomach. It might not have been the kabob’s fault. It could have been the quart of cough syrup. But I threw up so many times I could have qualified for Fashion Week. Once I recovered, I never had lamb again. That’s how it is with
RS
. They poisoned me once. Never again.

I am not saying I decided to boycott the mag. I hate boycotts. I stopped buying
Rolling Stone
because I decided I no longer
wanted to contribute to an engine that elevates evil. Placing the bomber on the cover gave his fans something to frame. It awarded him the pinnacle of fame desired by so many losers today.

Which leads me to another reason why I no longer buy
RS
. They
don’t
want me to buy it. This is no epiphany, just a reminder that liberal magazine editors
hate
America. They think the rest of us are stupid, narrow-minded idiots who don’t understand the injustices of life. So if they put a bomber on the cover, and we don’t like it, it’s obviously
our
problem. They might express some regret over the fallout (and the millions of dollars lost from fleeing advertisers), but secretly that cover was a “fuck you” to everyone who doesn’t live on a coast or who thinks Sarah Palin is probably a decent chick.

The bomber cover, in all its glossy, curly-haired adorability, validated doorbell-ditch terror as an alternative path to stardom. To be a different kind of rock star. You can truly rock the world, with explosives. It used to be bad to “bomb” as an artist. Now the artist is the bomb. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is an explosive talent, the kind that costs an arm and a leg.

For the purposes of a
Five
monologue, I read the entire cover story as research. And afterward, I threw up. But also, I sensed that those who defended the cover were way behind the times.

Their only real point was to show that terrorists no longer have to look like terrorists—they can look like members of One Direction, the latest incarnation of the ubiquitous, adored-by-millions boy band. (If you aren’t familiar with the band, they’re toothy lollipops with hairpieces.)

This idea—that evil can be elegant—was apparently a revelation for the magazine’s lame editorial staff. For the rest of us, it was old news. Come on. We’ve known since we were kids in
Sunday school that bad can be beautiful. Many of Josef Mengele’s surviving victims described him as “handsome” and “distinguished.” It’s old news—evil comes in many forms. Including
Rolling Stone
.

Isn’t that the point of the whole Adam and Eve story? Eve chose a fruit, not a rutabaga. Had any of the
RS
editors heard of Pretty Boy Floyd? He had that name for a reason. He was pretty and boyish. Like an old-school Lena Dunham with a five o’clock shadow. And what of Ted Bundy? His aesthetically pleasing visage enabled him to rape and mutilate countless females. The idea that evil is always ugly is held only by the profoundly naive.

Perhaps the writer assumed all terrorists are homely. That seems a tad bigoted. Maybe it’s that prejudice that causes average-looking men to become terrorists!

Or maybe Middle Easterners just aren’t the writer’s type, but this Chechen bomber is. Perhaps she thought she might have a shot with him. He is single after all, and being in prison for the rest of his life means you’ll always know where he is. Not a bad catch for most
RS
editors (Jann included).

The real epiphany: By placing the bomber in a flattering light on their cover, they had inserted sickening evil into the clichéd “bad boy” mold. This “guy who makes your dad nervous” stereotype is the backbone for all stories on renegade rock stars and “unstable” actors and pop stars. We’ve seen this, from Brando to Bieber. Now, the pretty boy is a bomber. That’s what I would call a shift.

The
RS
piece on this punk broke less ground than a rubber shovel. The template for such pieces is this: [Insert name of artist] is so dark, so mysterious, so “other” … yet he’s also irresistibly sexy. His darkness invites you to know more about his secret
torment, and his boyish good looks plead for your desire to connect. Maybe you could change him!

On
The Five
, I ran through a list of actual descriptors of the bomber, from the article. They included: