Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War on You (8 page)

They have every right to object. If it were me, and my music were being used during the campaign of someone I disagreed with, I’d say something too. The only candidate I’d allow to play
my music would be Bigfoot and, unless we’re talking about foraging for squirrels, he’s notoriously apolitical.

But viewed through the prism of cool versus uncool, another layer to the story begins to appear. A rocker’s family objects to an uncool politician, one demeaned by our media to be a religious freak (because just being religious makes you a freak). Who wouldn’t agree with the family? Me? I think it’s cooler to live a semi-healthy life, one long enough to provide goods and services to the loved ones around you. That’s cooler than dying from an overdose, whether you’re gay, straight, or whatever Andy Dick is.

And so I offer one objection. The fact is the Romney family would have gotten way more love from our shallow society if they were champions of a liberal, ephemeral social consciousness instead of real, actual charity.

My friend Walter Kirn, a tremendous writer, and also a Mormon, will help me explain what most people don’t know about that dorky, uncool religion. “Mormonism is the greatest example I know of an organization whose charitable work is neither denigrating to the recipient nor unduly guilt-inducing for the giver.” He cites an example that I never heard of, because the media ignores it: Deseret Industries, a division of welfare services of the Mormon Church. “Deseret Industries is a kind of in-house Goodwill store–network that performs all the functions of Goodwill—job training, low-cost used goods—with none of the fanfare.” (I know—imagine that—an honest-to-God charity the networks never bothered to trumpet. If Mitt were a liberal, and the charity focused on sex workers with webbed feet, we’d be organizing Live Aid II).

That’s the key. Real charity has no fanfare. Social consciousness, however, is often nothing but that. It’s fanfare designed to create fans for those publicly displaying their concern. Says Kirn
of the side of Mormonism none of us heard about because no one in the media wanted to: “Combined with various schemes that can and do distribute foodstuffs and other household staples, the church offers members a comprehensive in-house welfare system that is underwritten by the ten percent tithing done by all faithful members.” Ten percent—on
top
of what Mormons pay in normal taxes. Those evil, greedy religious nuts strike again!

I can’t think of a more uncool word than “tithing.” It’s like the opposite of “social consciousness.” But, in reality, why isn’t tithing cool? John Lennon did it. It’s charity, pure and simple. And it’s charity that works.

And let’s remember how this tithing is possible. Someone has to
make
money to make money for tithing available. Yep, it’s the boring businessmen like Mitt Romney who supply the green to make that real, comprehensive charity possible. “This tithing obligation,” says Kirn, “also supports a global missionary program, a worldwide temple-building program. Talk about efficiency. And the wonder of it is that by pooling their resources and doing so cheerfully and voluntarily, church members receive a sense of security, pride, and usefulness that causes them to give even more for specific projects as they come up.” Amazing, right? This is how government is supposed to work. Instead, we get Obama phones, ACORN, and California.

Talk about uncool. Far better for those who ridicule people like Romney to embrace superficial “caring” than to admit that good men in suits with boring personalities are better at it than you. Better not to know the facts beyond the frosting. Fake caring is that frosting—no cake, just a sweet momentary sugar rush that makes you feel good without accomplishing anything but an ego thrill. It’s way more exciting than tithing, so why bother with the real thing?

I bother, because we’re now watching a false morality replacing a real one. I’m not a religious person. I’m half atheist, half agnostic (and all sexy). Meaning, in the daytime, I don’t believe in God. But at night, alone with my thoughts, facing that gaping, terrifying maw without a rail to hold on to, I drift toward something less certain than nothing. Especially in a contract year.

My point: As nonreligious as I may seem, even I know that as our culture wanders further from a desire for universal truth, we find ourselves slogging through an amoral outhouse, following false gods because we’ve mistaken their cool for character. So, by all means, laugh at the uncool who make things work, and champion those who traffic in self-absorption masked as selflessness. It might make you cooler, but it won’t make the world better. And if there’s anything we’ve learned, you can’t get any more uncool than God. In the high school that is America, God is, like, such a nerd.

What a silly, uncool idea that is. I get atheism. But that’s not what gets me. There are plenty of atheists who find better uses of their time than denigrating the religious. My targets are those who trash religion to elevate their coolness. For them, bragging that they’re a “lapsed Catholic” in order to nervously score cool points in a public setting just shows me how desperate they are for approval. (I’ve witnessed this more times than I can remember—i.e., at least three times.) The only thing you’re “lapsed” in is your ability to discern a level of interest in your stupid, predictable asides about how dumb your religious family is. You’ve “lapsed” in an ability to put your family before feeling cool.

Fact is, the cool, who are almost entirely liberal by default, are also antireligious to a fault. You cannot be religious and cool. According to the purveyors of cool, God cannot be cool because He replaces badass, existential, beret-wearing, clove-smoking nihilism. And religion competes with the artificial charity of government,
which exists to support you in your existentialism. And so liberals, by intent or by accident, have replaced God with government. President Obama is now their supernatural being—a spiritual leader who can do better than simply turn water into wine. He can make trillions of dollars disappear. Then, with a wave of his hand, he can just print more money! The loaves and fishes were amateur hour by comparison.

But you know what else is uncool about church? It’s boring. It’s repetitive. It’s solemn. It’s like a Charlie Rose interview. I hate it. Even more, no matter what charitable efforts you perform, if you’re part of a real church, you can never brag about it (against my nature). There are no special buttons or ribbons. On the other hand, if charity is done as a stand-alone, detached from religion, that’s cool. You always brag about it. I’m beginning to think cool has become a religion for those who find the organized practice so difficult to absorb. I don’t blame them: Religion runs counter to my own internal logic. But my skepticism does not cloud my analysis that going to church might be something slightly more positive than ridiculing those who do. God may not exist, but at least I realize that those who believe in Him (or Her) are often nicer than the people who seek approval through ridicule of faith. It’s no longer about believing in God or not—it’s about having people kneel before you. You’re the false god, and your only commandment is that people like you. And, possibly, find it kind of sexy too, ya know?

I know crazy people. I grew up in California. I’ve seen them up close. And it’s never romantic; it’s never pretty; it’s just scary. I once had a girlfriend who worked at Napa State Hospital (or was a patient there—it’s all pretty hazy), the asylum where the Cramps once played. (Look it up—it’s pretty wonderful.) The way she described it was about as romantic as an ice-cold bedpan, which was how she described our relationship, alas. Back on topic, from afar, the insane are often idealized to a point of sacrificing one’s own safety. “Wow, they are such kooky fun.” But would you let one cook for you?

Living in Berkeley, I encountered my share of crazies. They were treated benevolently by students because it was cool to indulge them. It’s not a bad thing, of course, to show compassion. But this was different. Be nice to an insane person in front of your friends, and you’re immediately seen as cooler than your less enlightened pals, as long as the scraggly behemoth doesn’t jerk off in your eye. At times, students got injured because “out of the goodness of their heart” they tried to engage a “quirky eccentric.”
In Berkeley, this trait is known as “understanding.” Elsewhere, it’s called “asking for a poo sandwich.”

I tried once to engage a homeless degenerate, whom I found daily, masturbating in my parking space, behind a dumpster, at school. I tried to reason with him. (I figured we had a lot to talk about.) He only disappeared after I dumped a bucket of warm soapy water on him from the roof, just as he was finishing. I took no pleasure in it, and if I did I would deny it anyway.

I recall such anecdotes because we need an antidote for the cool obsession with sickness. I do not mean your normal-definition sickness—like the flu, bronchitis, or even cancer—but serious mental illness that filmmakers and editors treat as a silent gift or some sort of romantic novelty, when they shouldn’t. Embracing the mentally ill because you view the illness as a daring rebellion against the status quo helps no one and often leads to the emergency room. Or, in Hollywood, to an undeserved Oscar.

I am reminded of this as I stare at a recent cover of
Rolling Stone
, a magazine about as edgy as a Hula-Hoop. On the cover is Jon Hamm, the star of
Mad Men
—and get this, he’s wearing sunglasses … and smoking! Yes, when you need cool shorthand for a photo shoot you bring in the heavy artillery of the unimaginitive: shades and cancer sticks. The look on Hamm’s face is one of a man trying so hard to be cool, you might insist it’s a parody. Then you read the caption that accompanies the image—“Don Draper Exposed—How Jon Hamm’s Inner Demons Made Him TV’s Hottest Star.”

And there you have it: the “inner demons” BS that pops up whenever you need to apply artificial depth to an otherwise mundane subject. Actually, Hamm seems pretty likable, which should have been enough for a writer to illustrate. Either way, I went ahead and read the piece to find the cause of these demons.
I found lots of swear words, just enough to create a “bad boy” image for a TV star looking to dirty up his profile. Hamm lost his parents when he was young, which can account for melancholy (as someone who’s experienced similar loss, I can vouch), but let’s face it: Those aren’t the inner demons we were looking for. Inner demons suggest wrenching torment, a secret dark side, a black soul. None of that, to the editor’s disappointment, was revealed. So: No dark side? Dark glasses.

“Inner demons”—the real kind that cause actual problems—do not exist in sane people. Writers and editors know this. If Hamm actually had inner demons,
Rolling Stone
wouldn’t go near him without a police escort. You know who has inner demons? Bona fide crazy people, like that dead freak in Florida who ate that homeless guy’s face like a pot pie. Inner demons lead to external demons. But for people who traffic in cool, phony mental illness is an elixir put into motion to create entry points of intrigue. And cool. In real life, “crazy” equals serious injury, horrible hygiene, and incarceration. In
Rolling Stone
’s world, it equals cool. And painfully trite covers.

Magazine editors and their subjects aren’t the only ones guilty of playing the “not everything is in good shape upstairs” routine. But it can only be played if everything else is in good shape otherwise. Meaning, ugly people cannot pull off the romantic, mysterious mental illness. That’s why the Boston Bomber, not Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, made the cover of
Rolling Stone
. If you’re homely, you’d better just win people over with your down-home stability and common sense. Or be ridiculously rich. But if you’re a gorgeous actor or a sexy singer, by all means play up the irrational, the dark, the unpredictable side of
you. Destroy the furniture in your hotel, like Johnny Depp or Christian Slater did until they had finally created evidence for the press of their “dark, brooding sides.” Destroying things makes you appear deep, which might lead to more substantial roles. It works—but only if you have dimples and carefully coiffed hair made to look unkempt. (It’s a vanity I notice Angelina Jolie seems to have grown out of. Take note, Hollywood. It’s called “growing up.” It is possible.)

If you read any contemporary book or see any movie where the antihero is troubled, the troubling part (his mental instability) is usually fetishized instead of feared. Hollywood has now made it cool to be uniquely psychotic—to a point where people pride themselves on their quirky diagnoses. In Hollywood all instability is just a charming scene in
Forrest Gump
,
Rain Man
, or
Silver Linings Playbook
. The patient is sweet, goofy, or really good at blackjack. Unlike reality, they never shoot up a school or hack up their parents. Just last week, the brother of an old drinking buddy of mine killed their parents. He was a mentally unstable felon; he did not look cool. He looked like a mentally unstable felon. But if they make a movie about it, chances are he’ll be played by Tobey Maguire, who is about as dark and deep as Lite-Brite.

In movies it’s the crazies who are cool and the decent folk who are demonic. And what you end up with is a culture more fearful of institutionalization than the people who need to be institutionalized. Only in the counter-earth of Hollywood could such BS be pulled off with a straight face (which could explain the massive popularity of Botox).

Try to track down any opinion on the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, and you’ll almost find a singular culprit: Ronald Reagan. Recently, ferocious frizzball Bette Midler blamed the Newtown massacre on double R, because he let all the crazies
back out on the California streets around forty years ago. What’s forgotten in all this is that the rise of patients’ rights, combined with the softening glow added to the portrait of mental instability, made it impossible to help those who needed it by incarcerating them. I guess, of the two evils—mentally ill on the streets harming others versus mentally ill held against their will in hospitals—it was better to put the community at risk. Making the ACLU about as mentally ill as anyone out there.