Fonz Factor

Inspired by a recent column by Stephen King in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly, wherein he talks about cool, and who has it and who doesn't, I had the idea to talk about that myself. The idea of 'cool' is one that's interested me ever since I was a little kid in the 70's. That's when Happy Days was one of the big shows, and every Tuesday night I was sure to be in front of the television set watching the Fonz. Fonzie, is of course, the epitome of cool, at least for most of us who grew up in that era. I'm not sure how younger generations feel on that subject, but for my money there's nobody cooler than the Fonz.

Now whether or not I'm cool is something I'll leave for other people to decide. Colleen has gone on record in the past as saying that I am, and I believe Guinevere thinks that I am, but it would be uncool for me to definitively state that I'm cool, so I won't. I do think I have interests that are cool, and the fact that I pursue said interests whether or not anyone else likes them does in fact raise my coolness quotient. I like what I like, and I'm content with that. I think it's cool to be writing a book, too. If I were to meet someone tomorrow, and he or she told me they were writing a book, one of the first things I'd tell them is how cool I thought that was. Colleen and Guin are both, for the record, pretty cool chicks themselves.

People who don't know how cool they are, or care, are very cool. People who try to hard to be cool -- and we've all met those people -- aren't cool. You can't try to be cool: you either are cool or you aren't. The last part of that comes from Stephen King himself, so you can take it to the bank. People who tell you how cool they are, probably aren't, unless it's in a humorous, mock ironic kind of way, which ironically tends to make that person seem cool. I always used to write Libby that way. Now she was much cooler than I am, and she would tell you so, but then she'd deflate it and herself right afterwords, and that made her totally cool. If you asked her internet friends, I'd bet most of them would say Lib was a pretty cool, badass chick. Oh, and being a badass is very cool.

You can find cool everywhere. On tv there was the Fonz. In the cartoons there was Bugs Bunny. In the comic strip pages there was Snoopy. In the movies there was Han Solo, the Bandit (of Smokey and the Bandit), and the John Travolta character in Grease. Oh, and the Olivia Newton John character, too, especially at the end. It isn't just a guy thing. Oh no. There are tons of cool women out there. Pinky Tuscadero was cool, and so was Rizzo (also from Grease). I remember Shaft being cool back then, too, even though I don't remember ever seeing the movie. I was kind of just aware of it, and had the theme song on a 45. That reminds me of Kojak, who was pretty cool, too.

Cool appears in more recent works, too. Jay and Silent Bob are cool. Penny Lane from Almost Famous is awesomely cool. And Tarantino movies are filled with coolness. Mia Wallace (from Pulp Fiction) is one example. Any role played by Sam Jackson is another. He's so cool that people write cool roles just for him to star in. John Travolta was super cool in the 70's, lost it for a long time, regained it during Pulp Fiction, kept it for a few years, but doesn't seem all that cool anymore. Will Smith is cool. Kristen Bell is cool. And Bruce Willis is both badass and cool.

Batman is cool. Superman isn't. Spider-Man is. Captain America probably shouldn't be, but he is. I almost hate to mention Wolverine, because he's so over-exposed, but yes ... Wolverine is cool. Now, I'm not knocking Superman, because he's obviously one of the greatest, if not *the* greatest superhero character ever created, but he's not cool in the same sense that Batman is. Although, if you watch the Justice League cartoon, which itself is cool, that is the coolest version of Superman that's been done. Back to Batman, his own animated series ranks among the coolest cartoons ever made. In live action, Adam West was and will always be the coolest Batman. There have been other good Batmen, like Christian Bale, but none of them can touch the Adam West version, which is funny because the West version is also the most square ... by far.

Buffy Summers (the vampire slayer) is cool. Veronica Mars is cool. The Starbuck character in the newer version of Battlestar Galactica is supposed to be cool, but really I think she tries too hard. Jessica Alba's Max was super cool in Dark Angel, but surprisingly, Alba is hardly ever cool in her movie roles. Arrested Development might have been the coolest show ever on tv, which might be why it died an early death. If AD wasn't, then Twin Peaks might be. It's hard for me to gauge shows like Seinfeld and the Simpsons, because they've become such institutions, and maybe the average person might not think of them when compiling their own lists, but in their time they were both about as cool as it gets. News Radio has to get a mention, too.

The coolest comic books ever put down in print: Preacher, the Authority (but only the first 12 issues, and no more), The Ultimates vols. 1 and 2, Wanted, The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, Sandman, Love and Rockets, and yes ... Stray Bullets. Going inside a couple of those comics, Jesse Custer (Preacher) and Amy Racecar (Stray Bullets) are both everything that cool should be.

The Illuminatus Trilogy may be the coolest book I've ever read.

There's a lot of cool in the music world, too: Johnny Cash, the Rolling Stones, the Velvet Underground, The Ramones, The Misfits, X, Nirvana, the Pixies, Sleater-Kinney, the Donnas ... and that's just for starters. The Police are really cool; Sting is not. John Lennon was as cool as Paul McCartney is square.

There's even coolness in wrestling: Bret Hart, Cactus Jack, the Four Horsemen, the original incarnation of ECW, the Dynamite Kid, Roddy Piper, "Macho Man" Randy Savage, the Fabulous Freebirds, the Road Warriors, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and it's harder to get cooler than The Rock. If you've ever watched the Rock peform, you know why. Hulk Hogan is not and has never been cool.

Melissa may be the coolest person I've ever met.

I have two really cool parents.

I know I've said this before, but I've always thought smoking looked cool.

Strip clubs? Oh yeah. Drinking? Yes. Getting so blitzed that you puke/fall down/make an ass of yourself? Not so much.

Jen, despite everything we've talked about here, was another pretty cool chick.

This may be politically incorrect of me, but I've always found violence in movies and such to be really cool. That's part of why I think Kill Bill is so damn cool, and part of why I think Grindhouse (Death Proof & Planet Terror) is the coolest fucking movie I've seen this year. Oh, creative and egregious cursing ... also cool.

Let's end here. Are we cool? Yeah, we are.