Through being cool

When did I realize I was through being cool? It was about 1981, and I realized, looking around me, that the world had grown cooler, and yet I had stayed in the same place as I had been in 1968. I was cool then. Oh, so cool. I dug the sounds, the vibes, the what's-hap'nin'-now-brutha, the scent of herb in the air, the indelible experience of the psychedelic experience.

But in 1981 I was just another uncool, a former cool, no longer cool. I hung my head at the loss of coolness, the attitude of coolitude, but resolved, if I am not cool, if I am a--choke!--dork, or worse, a nerd, then let me be the coolest dork or nerd there is! but now, yes, now, I am still a dork, a nerd, but have achieved another level of coolness for that fact. Dorks and nerds have been become the new cool!

Devo, bless them and their devolved descendents, showed me the way, showed me the truth. I am through being cool. I will not be cool. I will run from, walk from, swim from cool. I will be uncool again. I will grow my hair to uncool lengths, wear the uncoolest of the uncool threads, the uncoolest shoes. I will devolve myself to 1968 again, and by that kind of cool, I will be totally--and finally--through being cool.