Homework #34, "Keep It Cool Boy.. Real Cool.."

Gwendolyn Brooks put herself in the boys' shoes, and felt like they thought they were cool because they were skipping school, drinking watered down gin and listening to jazz music. Kind of like the jokester who's too cool to get to school, and has too much of a life to try and be in school. I feel like the kids that are supposed to be cool, -like in this poem-, aren't really cool. I mean, I do sometimes like walking around during a school day and thinking about all of the kids that are in class at the moment when I'm still outside, but that doesn't really make me cool.

Learning to Labour by P. Willis, there is a quote that says "The lads also tried to identify with the adult, non-school world, by smoking, drinking and expressing strongly sexist and racist attitudes" This really stood out to me because they're trying to be like adults by smoking, drinking, and being sexist as well as racist. They weren't concerned with their education, they just wanted to have a "laff", and act like adults. Kids and teenagers are constantly trying to act older than they really are. Like girls wearing revealing clothing and too much makeup when they're only in middle school, which also happens a lot. But when I read this sentence I got the visual image of a bunch of boys sitting around in their father's too big clothing, and looking like children. Which, last time I checked, isn't very cool. Even though a lot of the time people just want to make other's laugh, and 'have a laugh', and just cruise on by in life. It also says "...and saw manual work as superior to mental work." In other words they'd rather use their bodies than think with their brains. They'd rather do muscle work than thinking work. Another thing I noticed is that it says how the 'lads' realize that they might not get a good job, so they feel like they shouldn't have to bother with school and education. Because they're awesome.

Another really 'cool' attitude is like in the song Smokin' In The Boys Room, by Motley Crue, (or in our school's case, it'd be Smokin Outside of School, or Smokin On The Roof..) where he says "Teacher don't you fill me up with your rules, cuz everybody knows that smokin' ain't allowed in school". He's cool because he breaks the rules in school, and is telling the teacher not to tell him the rules because he's aware that he's breaking them. So, he gets cool points for skipping class, smoking in school, AND for telling the teacher to shove their rules.

I really think a cool place to people watch is Saint Marks. There's all the punk rockers and crazy druggies there, with their mohawks, and dyed hair, and tight pants, and leather jackets, and tattoos, and piercings.. It's an interesting place to go to see all of the different styles and types of people who go there. Like the wannabes, asians, black people, white people, girly girls, punks.. All kinds of people go to Saint Marks. Saint Marks is a "cool" place to go!



Another thing that I actually think is pretty cool is the time of the Hippies. I've seen Hair the musical twice, and have really enjoyed it. The time of having long hair, and being barefoot, burning your draft card.. I actually have a paper that they were handing out durning the play (the picture is shown above this paragraph) which is like a fake burn your draft card invite. My favorite character in Hair is named Claude. He acts as a British guy, and some ways that he was rebeling is that he had the British flag on his butt. Because that's considered disrespectful and all. Claude also wore his mom's necklaces, his hair was sort of my length, he had a headband on.. He was very pretty. These were some of the ways that he, -like all the other hippies- were rebeling against their parents and the war. During that time it was also against the rules for blacks and whites to be together, and for gays and lesbians to exist.. There's a song called Black Boys, that the white girls and one asian lady sing, saying how they tried not being with a black guy but that they -basicaly- can't resist. There's also a song called White Boys, where a bunch of black girls sing about not being able to get enough of white boys. Which is a whole rebellious thing. Sorry if I ruined everything for someone who's looking forward to seeing Hair the musical on Broadway.

So some traits of cool? Cutting school, making people laugh, dressing and acting older than you actually are, breaking the rules, smoking, being a rebel.. If you're a guy back then, having long hair was rebellious, for girls having hair that isn't on your head is rebellious too.. But definitions of cool keep changing, even though the word never goes out of style, and not everyone has the same definition of cool. I could think the quiet kid is really cool, and some one else might think the popular kid is cool. So is someone actually wrong? Or is that just how our maps tell us to see things, and how we view the world?