esquire.com – I play it cool/I dig all jive/That’s the reason I stay alive.

PHILADELPHIA—On the crowded convention floor on Wednesday night, as the President of the United States gave his heart and his soul to the campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton to succeed him, I found a spot to stand with the delegation from Louisiana, which has been the center of so much heartbreak and redemption over the past 10 years, and which also is the place where the American concept of cool was born, the one that captured the world through a million silver trumpets.