THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 25, 1994 TAG: 9408260864
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E01 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: An Essay
SOURCE: By MARK MOBLEY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines
DOWN HERE IN our corner of Virginia, you can go whole days - weeks, even - without worrying about hipness.
Until Time magazine comes along, its cover blaring ``Everybody's Hip (And That's Not Cool).'' You wade through Richard Lacayo's navelgazer about the mall-ification of America, and you agree that the ``Kerouac Wore Khakis'' ads are ridiculous, and you go on with your life.
Then Esquire magazine asks: ``Should You Be Hip or Smart?'' That's easy, because you can be the former without being the latter. Still, this hip thing starts to bug you. You start to wonder if you're missing out, if there's somewhere you oughta be and something you oughta have on.
But hip isn't the answer. You'd be better off cool. And what you really want to have is soul.
Let's put it this way: Anyone with an ATM card and time to kill can be hip. Buy some magazines. Get cable. Go shopping. Make new, young friends. Visit New York. Failing that, go to DC. Failing that, go to Richmond.
Cool is tougher to achieve. Cool is about a balance between responsiveness and detachment. Something approaching cool can be attained by working hard at hipness, then pretending none of it matters. Beware - cool is awfully hard to fake.
Soul is the highest form of cool, the 33rd degree, an attribute of postmodern sainthood.
Hip is self-absorbed. Cool is self-aware. Soul is self-realized.
Body piercing is hip. Having nothing pierced is cool - it shows a resistance to fashion, not to mention assurance that the unadorned earlobe, nose, nipple or bellybutton is enough. Soul is not achieved through puncturing skin with metal.
MTV passes for hip. But on MTV, Woodstock '94 was not hip, cool or soulful. It looked like a political convention. ESPN is cool. C-SPAN has integrity, which is much like soul. (fx is just stupid).
Old sitcoms like ``The Brady Bunch'' and ``The Partridge Family'' are hip again because they're cute, colorful and a way for young adults to taste nostalgia without (they think) wallowing in the sentimentalism of their parents.
``Seinfeld'' and ``Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?'' are cool. ``Mystery Science Theater 3000'' was cool when Joel sat among the 'bots. ``Live With Regis & Kathie Lee'' is anti-cool cool.
``The Larry Sanders Show,'' ``The Simpsons,'' ``Homicide: Life on the Streets'' and the overnight ``ABC World News Now'' are among television's most intelligent, soulful programs.
Jim Carrey is hip. But compare him to Jerry Lewis, and his screen soullessness is painfully apparent. Tom Hanks is cool, with potential for an upgrade. Bill Murray has soul.
Ice beers are hip. Microbrewery beers can be cool. Martinis are hip and cool. Rolling Rock and Dixie Beer (the latter with a little Tabasco added) are anti-cool cool. Single-barrel bourbons have soul.
Smoking, I'm sorry to say, is obviously deadly but perenially hip. Even a magazine as progressive as Details poses its models with cigarettes. And some cool people smoke, though smoking is not what makes them cool. Say what you want about marijuana, but it can gives the soulless a bit of soulful calm.
With all the distractions, it is impossible for a president to be hip, though some first ladies have been. Clinton is in a tradition of cool presidents including Kennedy and FDR. Truman and LBJ were anti-cool cool. Lincoln, Jefferson and - yes, I mean this - Carter had soul.
The Virginia Senate race is unsullied by soul. Wilder had lots of cool people pulling for him when he was governor. Then he turned mean and, to make matters worse, gave crazy Ross Perot the time of day.
North, for whom every moment is another chance to add a scene to the action movie of his life, is hip to the un-hip.
Coleman. Is he still running?
And actually, if you think about it, hip - or at least our local approximation of hip - is why Robb has any competition at all. Lately, he's shown some soul in taking the unpopular stand. But it's the quest for fleeting pleasure that drives a man to allegedly hang out at Virginia Beach nightspots. It's hip, or hips, that lure him to a beauty queen.
Hip is what catches your eye. Cool convinces you to spend some time. Soul makes you come back and stay. ILLUSTRATION: Color magazine covers
Time
Esquire
Color photos
HIP
Jim Carrey
COOL
Tom Hanks
SOULFUL
Bill Murray
by CNB