More on Cool - 11/23/2006 in 2005 - 2007: High School

When we went to the concert - before we got there, actually - the first thing I noticed was the way people looked. It was ludicrously noticable. In fact, we didn't even have to look at a map to find the club once we got off the subway. We just followed those kids who looked like they were going to a ska concert. The closer we got, the more of them there were - kids with checkered suspendors and fedoras, girls with hair shorter than mine is now, ripped jeans, three peice suits, Buddy Holly glasses, pink mohawks. It was almost silly. At first I was in awe of it. Look at how these kids are dressed! Doesn't it look cool? They must be such interesting people. They must be cooler than I am. Once we got into the club though, and I saw the way they were acting, they started to disgust me. Their mannerisms told me that most of them devoted much of their mental energy towards maintaining their coolness. And what is "cool," really?

I honestly don't know. I haven't figured it out. But I don't think it's anything too important.

I liked the ska kids even less when the music started and we tried to find a place in the crowd. We stood towards the back of the main part of the floor for a while, which was not a great place to be standing. We couldn't see much, and there was a huge crowd all around us. Within the crowd, there was an obvious battle going on - everyone wanted to get to the front. People did not hesitate to shove. I tried to suggest that we go up to one of the raised areas along either side of the floor, where people were not dancing and the battle seemed less intense. But Molly and Dave wanted to stay where we were.

The first band was Suburban Legends. I didn't really know them before, and I wasn't really impressed with them last night. They were too punk for me. There wasn't enough horn stuff. While they were on, I realized that Molly and Dave intended to participate in the battle. They were slowly, subtly edging forward - snaking through the crowd to a new space when one would open up. Suddenly I got the urge to move farther up too, so I followed them. It wasn't because I would be able to see or hear the band any better, I just wanted to be closer to where the action was. I wanted to be more a part of the crowd. We got to a group of kids who had formed a quasi-mosh pit. They were running around in a circle, jumping and dancing wildly. We stood at the edge of it. Molly looked at Dave and then Dave looked at me, and through the eye contact we established that we would go in. They did, and then I did.

I lost them. I lost everything. I just knew that I was being shoved. There were people all around me, and I couldn't see any of their faces, but I could feel them slamming into me and I knew that I couldn't control where I was going. I panicked and fought my way out of the circle. After I got out of the circle I realized that I was still hadn't escaped - there was still a crowd all around me. I fought my way out of that too. Instead of pushing people out of the way to get forward, I was pushing people out of the way to get back. Again, they were all faceless. I could only feel their bodies.

I finally got the back of the floor and went up onto one of the raised areas. Here the crowd was thin enough so that I didn't have to push. The people around me were standing and listening to the music, and if they did consider themselves to be hardcore ska kids, it was less obvious. I had a better view of the band. I knew that Molly and Dave were still in the quasi-mosh pit, but I decided that I wouldn't worry too much about finding them.

I thought a little about what it had been like down there in the crowd and what it was like up there on the raised area. I wondered why I had wanted the mosh pit. I wondered why Molly and Dave had wanted the mosh pit. I thought about how my life has changed over the last year. I have been faced with things that I have never had to seriously think about before. And Molly and Dave have actually been experiencing them. Drugs. And sex, or something like it. Somehow something related to those things makes people change. That's what cool is. A loss of innocence. Cool kids are bad kids, free kids, kids who can do whatever they want and who prove it. Cool kids understand more, and they can do more, but somehow... they're not as real. They're not as trustworthy. There's something about them that's disgusting, that I don't ever want to be a part of me. Now here we were at a concert in the city with a mosh pit where people had mohawks, because we had the freedom to do it. And in some way, we were cool enough to be a part of this culture. But I looked around me and saw, on the floor at least, mean kids. Selfish kids. Kids who were powerful because they fit into their culture, who had worked hard to get that power, and who sure as hell were not going to give it up. I thought, "I liked us all better before we were cool."

Then I thought, "What would Julian do if he were at this concert? He wouldn't want to be on the floor. He wouldn't want to be part of the crowd. He wouldn't pay any attention to the crowd. He would stand right here and close his eyes and listen to the music." So that's what I did. At this point, Suburban Legends had left the stage and Westbound Train had gone up. They were playing a more intelligent, more reggae kind of ska with lots of horns. I closed my eyes and let the music have sex with my mind. I didn't think about wanting to be cool or wanting not to be cool. I didn't worry about the crowd and I didn't worry about Molly and Dave. I stood there and let myself be alone and listened to the music, and I started to really, really enjoy myself.

After Westbound train went off, my cell phone rang. It was Dave. "Where are you?"

"I'm over on the left side."

"I don't see you."

"I'm waving, look."

"Look, I'm still on the floor, but Molly went to the bathroom. Why don't you meet us over there."

"Alright."

I did.

"Sorry I lost you guys," I said. "I just freaked out when I was in that circle, I didn't want to be there anymore."

"I was enjoying it for a while," said Molly, "But after a while I didn't anymore. You couldn't even really dance, the crowd was too dense."

"Yeah," said Dave, "It got old. Where were you?"

I pointed.

"Oh. Do you want to just all go over there?"

"Yeah, alright," said Molly

I felt better about them after this. I felt a little bit more like we were in the same universe and that they were the same people I knew in eighth grade who still had their innocence in large amounts and who were barely cool enough to walk downtown on Friday afternoons. The Molly who was morally opposed to swearing and the Dave who did his homework every night. We went up to where I had been and watched Streetlight Manifesto. The music was amazing, and I seemed to become a part of it the way I do when I perform. I started dancing, and for perhaps the first time in my life, it was natural. I actually enjoyed it. For perhaps the first time in my life, I really, truly did not give a fuck how ridiculous I looked, but strangely, I don't think I looked that ridiculous. By the time Reel Big Fish came on, I was cheering naturally and singing along naturally. I was having a really fucking good time. Reel Big Fish was both excellent to listen to and fun to watch. At one point they played the same short song eight or nine times in a row in different styles, introducing it every time with, "This song is off of our new live album. It is entitled S.R." Well... towards the end it got down to "This song is off of our new live album... IT'S THE SAME SONG!" They played a Metallica song with no explanation. They brought some girls up from the audience to sing She Has a Girlfriend Now. It was... fun.

The concert ended. The subway was filled with ska kids and the train was filled with ska kids. We started talking to some of the ska kids for a while because they couldn't find their way to the station and we helped them out, but they stopped talking to us when Molly brought up physics. Eh.

"I kind of want to go to sleep," I said on the train, "but if all three of us fall asleep we're screwed."

"I'll stay awake," said Molly. (Dave was already leaning on her, sort of sprawling and looking tired.)

"Well, I also don't want to be like... In a pile..."

Then Dave rolled his eyes and took my sleeve and pulled me towards him. I figured he had given me permission to do what I wanted to do. So even though I knew that maybe I shouldn't do it, I leaned against him, as he was leaning against Molly. He was soft and warm and I fell asleep with my head resting in the crook of his arm.

Um. Maybe that wasn't the best idea.