Struggling with cool

There once was a time in my life when it was effortless to be cool. Cool wasn't something you did; cool was something you were. But, like staying skinny on a diet of pizza and ice cream, or waking up presentable on two hours of sleep, that time is long gone. It's so long gone down the road that it's out of sight, the dust has settled, and I'm standing there forlorn, abandoned, and beaten. I know this because I am reminded of it virtually every single day by my teen-aged daughter. For those of you who have managed to get through life without one of those, believe me, you have missed one of life's greatest joys. I love learning at this stage of my life that I am hopelessly out of step and that my best attempts at, well, almost anything, are woefully inadequate.

Who knew? Do. Not. Answer. That.

Coming home from school today, my daughter was monitoring the music. This is an activity that  she considers vital to the trip -- any trip -- and apparently it is a highly esoteric process with a number of variables, about which I haven't a clue. Numerous songs that I liked were being skipped, but when she came to "Somebody That I Used to Know", I said, "Let's listen to that. I haven't heard it in awhile."

"Oh please! That song has been done to DEATH! NO ONE listens to it now."

OOPS! Not cool. Whatever.

"I listen to it," I insisted. "They played it alot for awhile, but that was months ago. You used to like it. How did I miss that it stopped being cool?"

"You haven't seen this?"

And she took my phone and brought up this YouTube video.

And we laughed ourselves silly.

So, it seems when there are 6,000,000 views of a send up ridiculing how lame your song has become because it was too popular, you are officially uncool.

I remember when it was cool. That was when Rachel Lucas was writing about it. But that was back in July and I imagine she has known for some time the song had reached its zenith and descended into the NO LONGER COOL abyss.

Andy Warhol once said that everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes. He was right. But I am from the era when people were famous for decades...or their whole lives. You got used to them. You could rely on them. Being cool wasn't that hard because it didn't change that fast. This fifteen minute stuff is really difficult for me to keep up with.