“The only true
currency in this bankrupt world if what we share with someone else when we're
uncool.” –Lester Bangs
The Uncoolest of the
Uncool: Charlie Brown and Billy Joel
By Katharine
McKinney
If you are anything
like me you are not cool. I’ve tried to fake it over the years, from wearing a
leather jacket that never quite got broken in enough to look authentic, to dyeing
my hair black (Ok, I’m still trying.) Like any good nerd I love the theater,
but even there the geeks get the shaft. Consider the hopelessly square Sandy, from Grease. Yes, she gets Danny Zucko at the
end, but only after she rats her hair, dons a painted on pair of cigarette
pants, starts smoking and presumably engaging in all other forms of bad-girl
behavior in her attempt to find coolness. Theatrically speaking, what’s a nerd
to do? Is there a show out there for the uncool?
Enter Civic Theater’s production of
“You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” There’s no better way to celebrate being
uncool than a night of theater showcasing the quintessential American symbol of
insecurity. The show is scripted from various famous Peanuts cartoons fashioned
together to represent a single day in the life of “Good Old Charlie Brown.”
Performance dates are May 16th,17th, and 18th. As the proud owner of of a
Peanuts lunch box, The Complete Peanuts box set and mother of a boy named
Linus, I’ll be there, even if I have to get past a kite eating tree.
If you took Charlie Brown’s lack of
peer respect and mixed it with Schroeder’s piano chops then you might end up
with someone like Billy Joel. Chuck Klosterman’s “Low Culture Manifesto” Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa
Puffs makes the claim that while Billy Joel is great, he is not cool. “Joel
is the only rock star I have ever loved who I never wanted to be” says Klosterman, who goes on to compare Joel’s
songs on loneliness to “the way it feels when you are being hugged by someone
and it somehow makes you feel sadder.”
Klosterman is not alone in his
inexplicable love of the Piano Man. In his punk rock glory days my
green-haired, dog-collar clad husband would drive around the sleepy Alabama town where he
lived with the windows down, playing “Uptown Girl” full blast. Perhaps it is
his lack of cool that provides Billy Joel with his nearly universal appeal.
Regardless of the kind of music you listen to, 90% of the population is uncool
(yes, I made up that statistic.) So, all you ninety percenters have another
theater opportunity, because someone named Twyla Tharp took twenty Billy Joel
songs and turned them into, of all things, a rock ballet. And it’s coming to The Centre on Tuesday, May 8, at
7:30. Go, unless you have something cooler
to do.
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