[ Why Mr. Mayeux is Not Cool ]

In response to a student's comment that I am cool, I feel it necessary to point out that I am anything but cool. That anyone could think to call me cool boggles the mind. If one looks at my life, the way I act, the way I live, the things I own, and the clothes I wear, never could anyone think, “Hey, this cat is cool!”

But what is cool? This confusion of my coolness could be the result of dissonance over the meaning of cool. Perhaps the student and I do not agree on a definition of the word. Cool, to the student, could have the basic meaning of "interesting." Mr. Mayeux is “cool” because he's decent, and different, and fun (though I don’t think I’m all that fun either, but that’s a different essay). By this definition, I might acknowledge the description of myself as cool. However if this is the meaning of cool, the word has lost some of its edge in recent years.

To look at the word cool is to find connotations reaching far deeper than merely interesting. Cool taps into an almost primal part of humanity, extending beyond superficial features or interests; cool is a state of being, a way of thinking, a philosophy. Perhaps we need to imagine cool, or people that we know are cool: Humphrey Bogart onscreen, Johnny Cash, Shaft, the Fonz, the younger Elvis Pressley, James Dean, Johnny Depp, and Jack Kerouac—naming a few "cool" males. What did they do that made them cool? They took style to the edge or more powerfully didn't worry about style at all. They skated the edge of the law and society’s mores, expanding their minds beyond society’s constraint of thought, usually achieving all of this through the use of controlled substances. They gave society the finger and then turned their backs because they didn't care, or at least didn’t want to appear to care. What particularly quality denotes them as cool? They’re rebellious.

I, on the extreme other hand, do not fit any of these qualities. I fail in every category when it comes to cool. Because really, when it comes down to it, I am THE MAN, the anti-rebel. That's right, I am a government mule, a public school teacher, slaving for the system. I am a factor of control, telling students what they should know, how they should learn it, and why they should learn it to fit in with their society. I might teach them how to change the system, yet I’m teaching them how to cause paradigm shifts from within, as part of the system. I am the MAN. To be cool is to attempt to bring down the MAN; to be cool is to never answer to the MAN.

There are many external signs of this slavery to the system I embody. Take my dress. On any given day at work you will see me in Oxford style dress shirt (lame), solid-color tie (lame), black slacks (lame), black socks (lame), black shoes (lame) and a dress-coat (uber-lame). My self-given haircut is the most standard style possible. I actively avoid standing out and do attempt to look as professional as possible. I dress like a banker, an accountant, or. . . well . . . a teacher. This is not the uniform of a person ready to take on the system.

In addition to my style (or complete lack thereof as it were), my possessions give other clues to my lack of coolness. Visit my apartment and you will find a simple place in an apartment complex. Cool people do not sign leases . . . that would tie them down to one location for too long. Cool people live on the road, in lofts, in the basement, or on the couches at friends' houses. Look inside my apartment and rather than multiple modes of changing my consciousness or subversive literature you will mostly find canonical, literary books, writing utensils and cooking utensils. We're not talking Graceland, or a starving artist's New York loft in the Village.

Perhaps most telling of all are my modes of transportation. The cool are their cars and/or motorcycles. If you don’t have a cool set of wheels you are NOT cool. My modes of transportation are walking, a bicycle and a Toyota truck, both chosen not for their speed, power or looks but simply for their practicality. Choosing a way to hit the road when you're cool means wanting something that reflects your coolness, not saves you gas money or allows easy movement. In fact, you want something that guzzles gas and is as impractical as possible. If one's coolness is reflected in their stuff, mine is a dim coolness indeed.

But if you look past the stuff, the pad, the transportation, there is one thing above all else that marks me un-cool, one thing that starts in the soul. I am Catholic. Catholicism is THE organized religion. And remember, the cool rebel against organization. Ritual, dogma and structure are anathema to the cool (and Catholicism is dripping with all three). If they are not atheist, the cool may still have faith, but it must be an unorganized, non-traditional, non-patriarchal faith (or, even better, philosophy) that allows for any kind of activity as long as you're not hurting other people. Cool people don't look at the world in black and white, sin and grace, but rather is many subtle shades of grey. I believe there is a right, and there is a wrong, and those standards were clearly outlined to us by a man (who was also our God) two-thousand years ago. What kind of cool person listens to a man from two-thousand years ago? Coolness is the here; coolness is the now; coolness is listening only to the self.

For much of the world, to be cool is a good thing. To rebel, to have the cool stuff, to be subversive, is good. But I don’t believe that. I believe that we are each a member of humanity. We cannot stand alone; the values, feelings and thoughts of others and the community do matter. The loner will not last; the rebel will not stand; and the sinful will fall. We need order; we need structure; we need morality and justice. We should strive to be healthy. We should strive to be good. We should hope to be un-cool.