Authentic Proof of Brian J.’s Coolness

On Cracked.com, a list entitled 6 Awesome Things I’m Not Cool Enough To Own.

Let’s compare the listing to my personal inventory:

• Fedora: Come on, you know me. I’ve worn a fedora, yea, verily, stood out in a fedora for twenty years now, and I’m finally starting to look like a grown up with them. HOWEVER, I wear a classic fedora with a 2″ brim (C-crown, if you’re interested), not those little tipped-up brim raincatchers that the hipsters favor. I also own a couple of Panama hats, although my good Capas hat met its end before the close of its second season thanks to a downpour at Seaworld on Thursday, so I’m in a market for another nice one.
   
• Flask: Hey, I’m from Wisconsin. Of course I own a flask. And not a trick flask, either; a nice engraved one. Actually, I received it for being a best man at a wedding six years ago. One where the minister repeatedly warned us against coming to the wedding while intoxicated. Of course it was in Wisconsin.
   
• Fingerless gloves: I go to the gym, so I have a nice set of fingerless weightlifting gloves. Also, a back-up pair of weightlifting gloves wearing out at the seams. And a pair of weighted gloves. None of these have fingers. Although I might be slipping into this coolness on a technicality. But I did once buy a pair of fingerless gloves when I had a sports car so I could wear them whilst driving said sports car. I might have done so. Once.
   
• An old-fashioned camera: Okay, I have a film camera, albeit one that uses 126 film, not 35mm film. Also, I own an old Kodak Brownie movie camera that I bought that one day in 2007.
   
• A Smith Corona Typewriter: Although I used a Smith Corona typewriter in college (how old am I, anyway?), I did not reclaim it after my sainted mother passed away, so my brother might own a Smith Corona typewriter. I do, however, own an old IBM Electric.
   
• Pocket Watch on a Chain: I only own a pocket watch, but it’s not on a chain. It’s got a bad clasp, and it hasn’t worked since I overwound it thirty years ago. But every now and again, I consider getting it repaired and put on a chain. Although I’m not sure if I’d wear it with my three piece suit or simply throw it in my pocket with the other assortment of items I carry there. Perhaps in the trousers with the cell phone pockets that are too small for current smart phones. Or maybe all of the above.

There you have it. Science on the Internet has proven I’m cool, or at least that I’m a collection of anachronisms that one person on the Internet thinks would be cool until such time as he would be confronted with the actual embodiment of it, namely, me, at which point he’d think, “What a dork.”