PJ, Brad, Howard and everything in between (originally published in Cape Cod Community College's newspaper, The MainSheet)

Those of you who read my writing in this paper on a regular basis and eagerly await each successive serving, I commend your lack of outside activities and “simple” tastes.
If you’re still reading now, I thank you again and ask that you get off the pills, spit out the beef jerky and get rid of that “Mike’s Hard Lemonade”- soaked futon you vowed you’d keep forever since it was on it that you banged the sister of the guy who won the last “Survivor.” There, see? You’re better than that. Damn straight.
Now, as you know, regular reader, I have been on a bit of rampage of seriousness lately, covering such topics as gay marriage, reality TV, the war in Iraq and other issues that one might consider somewhat important.
Now, I don’t mean to distance myself from any of these issues that I will forever stand for, (except for the reality TV bit; I was watching the “Make Me Look Like Brad Pitt” thing the other night and I confess, I laughed, I cried, I wrote bad checks, they got me) However, the level of pretentiousness that has been building exponentially in me as a result of my sober opining on this string of hard topics has begun to worry me a little bit.
I’m afraid to look in the mirror because I’m afraid I might see Joe Lieberman looking back at me, and behind him Tipper Gore (as my secret, conservative inner woman.)
My sense of humor, once a staggering force revered by fearful relatives and extremely close, sympathetic friends, has taken a back seat to a furrowed brow and (yeesh) thoughts of working for the Kerry campaign. So, my remedy? My cure-all for what ails my increasingly snicker-less soul? Dumb lists of who is and who is not cool. Come with me as we elevate and skewer, together, just like we said we would.

Cool:
Polly Jean Harvey-

The British rocker who makes Liz Phair look like one of the Spice Girls. Sure, Liz told us that women want all sorts of things done to them that no one was willing to attest to in such a way before she got so bold, but PJ chimed in that she wanted all those same things as well, done more often, and she still won’t be even close to satisfied. Oh yeah, and if you do a real piss-poor job, she’ll kick your ass and then write a song about it.
All of this would be moot and Ms. Harvey would be just another 100 lb. chick with the guts to be an effective bouncer were it not for the fact that her first two albums “Dry” and Rid of Me” still stand as two of the finest, rawest, most aggressive guitar/bass/drums records of the last 30 years. Period.
To top it all off, she gave the coolest compliment to another musician ever when she concluded that the band Morphine was the sexiest band she’d ever encountered. How did she arrive at this assessment? By sitting on top of Morphine bassist/singer Mark Sandman’s bass cabinet during a show while wearing really tight leather pants. Rock on. Rock on hard.
Benicio Del Toro-

The second coming of Brando is one of those guys who could show up at a poetry slam in New York, read the tag off a mattress and walk out with not only first place, but the deed to the club. Sure he’s had some pretty parts, (hey, when you look like that, it’s OK to let the camera be nice to you once in a while) but he’s also played a mildly retarded, alcoholic Native American (The Pledge) and a pot-bellied, vomiting lawyer (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) and walked away with both films. He’s the rare blend of almost incomprehensible talent, weird beauty and verve that comes along rarely. The man is bad-ass to the bone.

Uma Thurman-

If you don’t already hate Ethan Hawke for his unbelievably bad writing, cheesy facial hair and making an entire demographic look bad in “Reality Bites,” hate him just for cheating on Uma. What a putz.
Uma’s got the looks that kill. She doesn’t even have to be as gorgeous as she is. She could look more like Ethel Merman than Uma Thurman, she could look more like Thurman Munson, she could have even had something to do with “Monsoon Wedding” and she’d still have that special something going on that transcends it all (yes, even “Monsoon Wedding,” the film that Americans everywhere who also enjoy Hugh Grant movies, “World Music” and frozen Indian dinners thought was “just so…different.” Right. Different in the sense that this time, the same recycled, predictable Hollywood story has people with darker skin, there’s more peach everywhere, and lots and lots of yogurt. Yes, I realize this has nothing to do with Uma, but I still feel it’s deserves mentioning.

Honorable Mentions:

David Bowie (beyond cool), Patti Smith, Donald Rumsfeld (sure the man’s as evil as 10 Hitlers, but boy can he riff), Ani DiFranco, Elvis Costello, Brett Favre (toughness is cool), Lance Armstrong (his kind of toughness is extremely cool), Alanis Morrisette, Erykah Bydu, Lili Taylor, Spike Lee, the Coen Brothers, Everyone in Jane’s Addiction and all of their friends, likewise for The Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Beastie Boys, and all sorts of dead people from Dizzy Gillespie to Joseph Campbell to Anais Nin.

Not cool:
George Bush-

(Bet you didn’t see that one coming.) Note that I have intentionally left the distinguishing middle initial out because I can’t really decide which is the lamer. George I is more intelligent (then again, so is his refrigerator with the new-fangled ice maker) than George II, but even George II isn’t as stiff as his pop. I mean, who would you rather drink with? In the end I suspect each of them would try to kiss you if you’re a boy, as I’ve long theorized that the bizarre, almost psychotic aggressive behavior displayed by each of them is simply the byproduct of bottled up homoerotic impulses. And you know Rummy’s battling that demon every damn day.
Howard Stern-

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I know. I don’t want him pulled either. Hell, I’d fight to the death to make sure the KKK has the right to say whatever the hell they want. The radio, like the TV, has an off switch. My problem with Howard isn’t that I think he’s vulgar (you will never know how many prospective loves I have foiled by inadvertently revealing my propensity towards truly juvenile, lewd, disgusting humor. I mean stuff that would make Stern himself start passing out bibles in front of Wal-Mart.) No, with Howard it’s that I really don’t dig his ego and his intellectual laziness. He could be just as base as he is now, but he’s also got the brains and the chops (not to mention the resources) to really stick it to the powers that be. Listening to him is like watching a pro athlete that you know has loads of talent and no desire to train and learn how to maximize it. Howard Stern is Derrick Coleman.
If I want to watch (or listen) to some awkward guy with bad hair, mentally (or otherwise) get off while his underlings (carefully chosen to not be nearly as intelligent as him) laugh at all of his jokes in even, measured guffaws, well, then I could just watch a White House press conference. Hey, I go to the humor media to get away from politics, man.
If Howard goes, I hope it’s only because the ratings went naturally bad. If the FCC wants to take him out, (which does in fact seem to be the case) I’m in the fight against it all the way.
For example, as much as I want to see Pat Robertson off the air, I only want it to be because hundreds of thousands of people realized in close succession that there is no big invisible eye in the sky ready to burn them to death if they aren’t good little Santa’s Helpers coughing up dough for absolution.

Honorable Mention:

Hootie and every single one of the Blowfish and anyone who even so much as worked as a roadie for them, Don Henley and Jimmy Buffet (may they both be burned to a crisp by a Tequila Sunrise), John Ashcroft, Reggie White, Jeremy Shockey, Nick and Jessica, Dave Mathews and his terrible violinist, and all sorts of dead people from Pol Pot to John Wayne to Mama Cass.

So there you have it. Again, my gratitude for your continued enthusiasm and attention. I feel much better now, my relatives are laughing again as they clutch their gin & tonics and edge towards the door. My friends are gently patting me on the back like the characters in a futuristic Spielberg film might symbolically console the hologram of a chum who’d been lobotomized years ago. “Ahh, yes, that’s better. If only his Jell-O dish was real.”
Now, on to more serious matters. Where are my leather pants?