Jack be nimble

By John O'Riordan
Collegian Staff
February 28, 2007

Jack Nicholson is quite possibly the coolest man on the face of the planet. There, I said it. Everyone thinks it, everyone knows it and it’s about time to just throw it out there.

As you may have heard, Jack Nicholson recently showed up at the Academy Awards with a shaved head. Now, 99 percent of the world population would immediately be questioned and criticized for such a rash decision. Just ask Britney Spears. But not fast Jack. The immediate reaction of just about anyone who witnessed him went a little something like this: “Damn, that’s cool.”

Let’s face it, Nicholson could make watching poker on television cool. Everything the man embodies is sheer style. He walks cool, talks cool and looks cool. Over his long and illustrious career, Nicholson has done a fantastic job of making every character he plays impossible to dislike. Whether it is a life-loving lunatic in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest or, in his most recent project, a murderous crime boss with Irish roots and manners. Nicholson simply embodies everything that any man wishes to be, except he does it so nonchalantly.

Jim Breuer, of Comedy Central and MTV fame, once told a story of Nicholson that proves how cool he is off of the stage. After hosting an episode of Saturday Night Live, Nicholson and the cast were to attend a party in the building. Nicholson walked over to an elevator and pressed the button, and an incredibly tired and hungover Breuer was waiting inside. As the elevator descended towards their destination, Nicholson, who had barely spoken a word to Breuer during the show, turns to him, and says “You look exactly how I feel right now.”

Apparently Nicholson chuckled to himself, faced the elevator door and didn’t say another word to Breuer. Cool.

In my home in Boston, we have a black and white picture of a young man in our bathroom. The shot is a close up of the man’s head. Though positioned in profile, his head is turned so he is facing the camera. A simple picture of a man in an office, the picture is made cool by the simplicity of the man’s face. It says, “I don’t want to be here, but if I’m going to, you’re going to know I am.” The picture is, of course, one of a young Nicholson from the movie Chinatown.

What is the lesson you ask? The only person in the world who can have a picture of himself over a family toilet and look cool is Nicholson. Respect the cool.

oriordanj1@lasalle.edu