Alyce Wilson
(Standard-Journal,
Sept. 8, 2000)

Lenny Kravitz is cool. Undeniably cool. I saw him in concert Wednesday night at Penn State, and he blew the audience away with funky grooves, amazing guitar licks and sleek showmanship.

In fact, if you look up "cool" in the dictionary, it says, "See Lenny Kravitz." Or, at least it should.

To be undeniably cool, coolness has to be your natural state. This is why Willie Nelson is undeniably cool, but Madonna isn't. The Material Girl has a distinctly crafted kind of coolness, while Willie ... well, Willie just is.

Blue jeans are cool, but trendy denim fashions — whether 1980s frosted jeans or today's cargo pants -- are not. Trends in general are uncool. Poet, writer and spokesman for the Beat Generation Jack Kerouac, for example, would never have been caught wearing anything but plain old blue jeans.

Neither would James Dean. And everybody knows he was undeniably cool.

Leather jackets have been cool since about the dawn of time. The first cave people wore them, and everybody from greasers to country music stars look good in them.

And before animal activists write in, let me add that live cows are cool, too. After all, they wear untreated leather from head to toe. So if leather jackets aren't your bag, just get yourself a pet cow.

Joan Jett is undeniably cool. So is Annie Lennox from the Eurythmics. Cher and Bette Midler are not.

Fine line, you might think. Jett and Lennox dye their hair and cultivate outrageous looks, as do Cher and Midler. Yes, but neither had plastic surgery, which is completely uncool. And neither one had to call herself "The Divine Miss Something-or-Other" to get noticed.

Geek chic can be undeniably cool, if you're not truly a geek. Elvis Costello and Lisa Loeb are undeniably cool. But Bill Gates isn't. The difference is that Costello and Loeb have artistic talent and a relaxed personal look, while Gates has a pile of money and a bad fashion consultant.

Of course, there are always exceptions. Just like Andy Warhol predicted a future where everyone would be famous for 15 minutes, most everybody has at least one moment in life when they are undeniably cool.

Like the moment someone comes up with the funniest pun any of their friends has ever heard. Or the moment someone does something incredibly brave, just because it has to be done.

Even poodles are occasionally cool.

Very few people have never had such a moment: Wayne Newton comes to mind. Wayne Newton could not be cool even in blue jeans, a leather jacket, and geek chic glasses. Even if he stood on his head and twirled plates with his toes, Wayne Newton would not be cool.

You can't make a silk purse out of a cow's ear, and you can't make Wayne Newton cool.

You can, however, in the immortal words of the Blues Brothers, buy as many blues albums as you can. Cool, man.

Copyright 2000 by Alyce Wilson

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