The Geezer’s Paradox states:

You don’t become cooler with age, but you do care progressively less about being cool, which is the only true way of being cool.

My Pal DH brought The Geezer’s Paradox to my attention. Certain people are tuned-in without needing to join-up. DH is one of those. It’s a cool way to be, in my opinion. DH was a member of the crowd I gravitated to in High School. I was a Geek but I yearned to fit in with the Cool Ones. Those I sought out were the cool ones. That is, they were the outlaws. Rebels. Malcontents. Dead Enders…Santa Cruz produced a whole shit-load of outlaw-minded kids. Most of them are now Dead or Deranged or Too Fucked-up to get around. If they made it to seventy it’s cuz they gave up some of the cool ethic to reach old age…which kind of negates the whole idea of The Geezer’s Paradox. The idea that you can become “more cool” with age. Can you start out a geek and end up cool? That would be a more desirable result, in my opinion, than starting out cool and ending up dead before you reach old age…

But what exactly is cool?

Wikipedia sez:

Coolness, or being cool, is an aesthetic of attitude, behavior, comportment, appearance, and style that is generally admired. Because of the varied and changing interpretation of what is considered cool, as well as its subjective nature, the word has no single meaning. For most, coolness is associated with exemplifying composure and self-control.^[1] When used in conversation, it is often as an expression of admiration or approval, and can be used when referencing both people and items of interest. Although commonly regarded as slang, cool is widely used among disparate social groups and has endured in usage for generations.

Kind of a stiff ass definition.

See what I can do.

Cool as a thing

When you say you’re cool with a thing, lIke, “I’m cool with smoking some Pot before we go to the movies.” What you mean is you’re Good with that. The thing or situation is good. Good as in it’s cool. When you’re defining stuff, if it’s “cool” that means you’re stating your approval.

The attitude of “Being” Cool

The opposite of cool is uptight. When some dufus starts wiggin out over shit, you need to remind them to “Be Cool.” Just be cool. Cool down. Relax…..This is an attitude.

Cool all the time is what I think we’re getting at here. To be Cool All The Time means you got shit figured out. Figured out both with yourself and any object or situation you’re dealing with. You know what’s what. You don’t give a shit if people agree with you or not. You’re not a debater. You’re mind is settled. Or…you don’t let on your mind is unsettled. Expressions of ambivalence or uncertainty is strictly uncool.

Some “Cool” Notables:

John Dillinger. The coolest Criminal of the 20th century. Not a Mafia Dude. A Bank Robber. The ultimate non-conformist. Cool down to the bone. Outlaws just naturally fall into the cool zone.

Marlene Dietrich, 1901–1992. Another Actor. Singer too. Performer. Probably the coolest woman that ever lived. Looking Cool is almost the whole nine yards, I think, if you’re a woman. Male chauvinist comment number 9999…

Albert Camus. An example of a Writer being “Cool.” There’s many others, but I’m too lazy to look them up. Still, you can’t get cooler than Camus. Read the Stranger and you’ll see.

Amy Winehouse. The “coolest” female singer that ever lived. Excuse me, I take it back. Billy Holiday was just as cool. And there’s others. Still, Amy’s up there with the best of them.

Jimmy Cliff in the film The Harder They Come. I’m including Jimmy here mainly because he played the lead of IVAN in the coolest movie I’ve ever seen. I’m sure he rates cool as an individual. But the Movie. I saw it with Gary Salter (RIP) back in I think 76 or 75 on Acid. I don’t think I ever fully recovered.

Jimi Hendrix. Goes without saying…

Miles Davis. Cool Jazz…Birth of the cool…He was cool! He’s dead but he’s still cool.

Emiliano Zapata. A cool mexican revolutionary. Look at him. He’s not taking any prisoners. He’s made up his mind. You don’t like it? Put up or run. There a reason Marlon Brando played him.

Malcolm X. A Civil Rights leader. Another one took no prisoners. I read his autobiography. The man was extremely cool. There’s a reason Denzel Washington played him.

Malcolm X with Martin Luther King. King is an example of an extremely good man also being cool. King was extremely cool in spite of being good. This goes to show you don’t need to be an outlaw or a rebel to be cool.

But who invented “Cool”?

Which bring me back to the central thesis (thesis???) of my blog post. The idea of THE GEEZER PARADOX. The notion that an entire group of people or even a group of people of a certain age can attain a state of cool.

But first, who invented cool?

Black People invented cool. That’s right. An entire race of people are just naturally cool. Don’t take my word for it. I’ll refer you to this dude, Joel Dinerstein, a sort of scholar, who’s written three books on the subject of The Birth Of Cool. (click on the link and check out his books)

Joel sez:

African-Americans invented cool as a stylistic defiance against racism during World War II. This is simply well-documented social, historical, and linguistic fact. To be cool in the 1940s referred to the ability to be relaxed in one’s own style in any environment, an act of courage and mental strength for any Black person during the Jim Crow era. Whether meaning high praise (“Cool!”), vetting someone to others (“she’s cool”), or referring to a relaxed state of mind (“I’m cool, man”) — our modern usages all began in jazz culture. Jazz fan Jack Kerouac caught the new word at clubs and wrote of his “theory of cool” to Neal Cassady in 1950 and William Burroughs registered this “new word in the hipster vocabulary” in Junky (1952).  By the time The Jazz Lexicon came out in 1963 — the definitive dictionary of jazz jargon — Robert S. Gold called cool “the protean word” of jazz culture. There were two pages of citations from magazines and a page each for “uncool” and “cool it,” as well as for “hip” and “unhip.” Jazz was the dominant subculture of the post-World War II era in NYC and jazz musicians’ slang became the first rebellious code of cool.  Jazz legend Lester Young was the first to spread this underground gospel of cool. To be cool meant you would not Uncle-Tom  — i.e., produce a fake smile — to show white Americans you knew your place. Young then added stylistic markers to defy the white gaze: a personal, impenetrable slang; wearing sunglasses at night; inhabiting a smoky alcohol haze for insulation. Both black and white jazz musicians put on their shades, torqued up their slang, smoked dope or shot heroin, and became cool cats. Within a decade, sociologists began writing about cool, Norman Mailer became obsessed with the concepts of hip and cool (in his Village Voice columns on “The Hip and the Square”) and Leonard Bernstein registered its presence in national consciousness with “Cool” in West Side Story (1957). White appropriation and dilution of “cool” and “chill” continues, then as now. (Read more in chapters one and five of The Origins of Cool in Postwar America.)

Black people gotta stay cool because they’re dealing with white people.

This makes perfect sense to me.

I’ve been dealing with White People my entire life. It hasn’t been easy. Most times its a pain in the ass. Whether its some asshole teacher. Or Boss. Or a Cop. Or a Judge. Or a public service clerk. Some officious little bastard likes to push his weight around. Up till lately it’s been White people in these roles. This is changing. Someday Blacks will be as uncool as white people. That will be a sad day. Unless Black People manage to drag White People across the aisle to the cool side. I don’t see that happening.

But you never know.

Currently, the only cool white people are criminals, and actors, and artists, and writers, and musicians, and……Geezers?

Old White People

One thing I know about myself. About myself as an old white dude. One thing I know for positive. I give a shit a whole lot less about most things than I used to do. I certainly no longer crave attention.

Wait a minute.

What about this? This blog you write in all the time? This Gloomy Boomer shit you put out there? Isn’t this a kind of a PAY ATTENTION TO ME deal?

Not in the least. If I gave a shit what you thought I would do my best to please you. I’d be writing a FASHION BLOG. Or a SPORTS BLOG. Or a FOOD BLOG. I’d be running adds to attract readers. Begging Subscribers. I’d have a shit load of readers by now. Cuz I know that’s what successful blogs do.

But I do not give a shit. Frankly! I’m only doing this cuz I like it. It’s sort of like how I used to like Jacking Off.

This is why I tend to believe there may be a kernel of truth in THE GEEZER’S PARADOX.

I’m getting cool because I no longer give a shit about being cool.

We are all getting older.

It could be one of the few advantages of growing old…becoming cool.

You become Cool…which is just another way of saying, you become Wise.

Eh? Eh?

What do you think?