Being cool isn’t really that cool anymore.

I don’t watch much television in general as a rule. Actually that’s somewhat untrue. I don’t sit and watch much television on a weekly basis as a rule. This isn’t due to owning a TiVo, which I don’t, but more so because I don’t want to become a slave to my TV as I was during the Star Trek/X-Files/Buffy years. I still watch several TV shows, Heroes being the only one which I’ll sit down and watch every Monday at 9PM. The one new show that stood out for me this season was Californication, which is David Duchovny’s new show. If you’ve been paying attention, you can make the connection between my earlier mention of The X-Files and my desire to watch this new show.

The show has completed its first season run and I am watching it now in full thanks to the Internet and I must say it has me hooked. Duchovny’s character voices many of the thoughts that run through my mind on a daily basis and that fact has made me start to feel more and more sane in an insane world. My experiences in dealing with the insanity that is so prevalent in today’s modern society had me starting to believe that it was normal and that I was the abnormal one for thinking that there was something wrong.

And there is something very wrong. We’re of a generation that has no appreciation of anything that came before us. Technology has brought the world to our fingertips, yet how many people do we see using this technology for some actual benefit? We simply use it to stay completely up to date with celebrity gossip and to look at porn. And the line between that is becoming either severely blurred or fading out of existence. One Night in Paris? Pictures of Britney’s hoo-hah? The Pam and Tommy sex tape?

I take the bus to school. Not because I don’t have a car, but because my school lets me ride the bus for free and I’d rather not stress myself out by fighting traffic at the beginning of what is a very long day for me. Yet I find myself being stressed out by the general stupidity that seems to be inescapable no matter where you go.

Who remembers the Civil Rights Movement? Not many of you reading this, I’m sure, since many of you weren’t even born. But we all learned about it at some point in our academic careers, some of you on several occasions. But who actually can remember anything about this period in time? If I say Rosa Parks, I’m not talking about an Outkast song. Rosa Parks got thrown off a bus in order to force people to begin erasing the color lines in our society. She did this so that people of any color would not have to be forced to sit in a particular area of a bus, namely the back. Yet I see so many young people who try to identify with the ghetto/thug subculture completely disregarding this. And I’m not talking about black people. I’m talking about all young people who try to act “hard” so to speak. What’s wrong with sitting in the front of the bus?

And then this applies to the classroom as well. Now I’m well aware that there is limited space at the front of class, but to sit at the back of a classroom completely disengaged from what’s going on is a ridiculous concept to me. Does it somehow make you a square to sit at the front and try to learn something aside from how to Party Like a Rock Star or how to Get Low or to figure out why you’re hot? With those alternatives, I’ll take being a square any day. The fact that so many squander the access they have to educational opportunities is an insult to people in areas of the world where such access is non-existent.

No appreciation whatsoever. And not to toot my own horn…. Actually who am I kidding? This is my blog; I’ll toot whatever I like. But this weekend, I’m going to see the Body Worlds 2 exhibit at the Tech Museum in San Jose. I’ve seen the exhibit once before several years ago at U$C, but I’m welcoming the opportunity to see it again. It’s a fascinating look at the human body, you know, that thing you use to move around each day. If you get the chance I highly recommend you check it out. Now realistically, how many of you will actually check it out? Very few I’m guessing. But a great majority will be out at a club or a bar getting piss drunk trying to forget about how miserable their lives really are, which is due in large part to their tendencies to fill them with superficial, substance-less pursuits. And they’re going to be there with other miserable people who are doing the same thing as them, and they’ll bump into each other and in their misery they’ll find a connection, which will also be superficial and substance-less and they’ll repeat this pattern every week until they realize that it’s not filling the vacuum in their lives and find another superficial and substance-less pursuit.

My point is, it’s not cool to be cool anymore. It’s hip to be square.