Greasers

Maybe it was my recent viewing of American Graffiti that sparked up my interest in these rebellious teens from the 50's and 60's but its gone pretty far. I mean I'm considering carrying a comb on me at all times and yesterday when someone cut me off I yelled out "Watch it chicken shit!" without even noticing these were curse words from another era. Whether I'll trade in my Nas Illmatic album for some Rocabilly shit from the 50's and invest my hard earned money into a gas guzzling hot rod with the tail fins jutting out the sky remains to be seen. If you ever see me pull up to the party in a 59' Cadillac El Dorado and I look even remotely like this please slip something in my drink and institutionalize me before I harm my reputation as a cool guy any further. But, without going to the extreme, I think my obsession with the Greasers has something to do with my obsession with this undefined, obscure concept of being cool with in today's society seems to more or less be a function of how much money you have. If anyone did cool really well it was the Greasers and it definitely didn't have to do with your money. If you had some change for smokes thats really all you needed, what mattered was your heart and your commitment to the gang. These guys walked the streets with no fear, not necessarily looking for trouble but not afraid to find it either. That's probably (although no one can say for sure) what cool is. In my mind its definitely more cool then these frail hipster types that snort coke in their spare time and I think gangster rap stop defining coolness somewhere around 2002. So in my perpetual search for all things cool I'm currently revisiting the era of teenage rebellion but please, for my own sake, don't let me take this too far. I have an office job and I don't think they'd appreciate my hair grease dripping all over the photo copier. Cheers