tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35507930598298966522024-03-13T11:56:45.909-04:00ErrTV(Not Actually A TV Station)Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-74103287396446476632015-04-13T18:20:00.001-04:002015-04-13T18:20:56.462-04:00Independence Day
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Dear Will Smith,</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
It used to be that when you released a movie, you would also release a song with the same name as that movie. The world was a happier place when you did this, so I think you should start doing it again. I have taken the liberty of getting things started for you by writing a rap for "Independence Day." Enjoy. Also you should come up with some type of beat for it because I didn't do that.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Independence Day </div>
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<br /></div>
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Independence Day, or
should I say July 4th<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
People celebratin’ from the south to the north<br />
With a cool six pack and some warm apple pie<br />
Hey hold up, what's that flying over there in the sky?<br />
Not a waving flag, not dad's fireworks<br />
Looks more like a spaceship being flown by some jerks</span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Aliens,
coming to invade from outer space</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Gotta
try to fend ‘em off with some fighter planes and mace<br />
Tried to make peace with them but didn't see eye to eye<br />
They just looked at us and said that we were all gonna die<br />
I guess no one went and told them this was Big Will's turf<br />
Just three words for you space punks: Welcome To Earth<br />
<br />
</span>All across the country from New York to LA</div>
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We just want to try
and have an Independence Day</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Don’t care what those
aliens or Secretary of Defense say</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
We’re still gonna
celebrate the holiday</div>
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<br /></div>
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Now we’re fightin’
and we’re shootin’ all across the globe</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Trying not to be the
victims of an anal probe</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Gotta save my hot
wife and her photogenic child</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
So forgive me if my
flying’s just a little bit wild</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
There’s so much at
stake here: our freedom, our dreams</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
And some killer multimillion-dollar
movie scenes</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
My boy Levinson
thinks he can get ‘em with a virus</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
And make ‘em vanish
faster than Billy Ray Cyrus</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Not so sure I wanna
listen to a science geek</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
But I guess we’ve got
no choice if this is what’ll make ‘em weak</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
So let’s fly up to
the mother ship with killer ammunition </div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Then we’ll finish off
these freaks with a suicide mission</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
(Spoken: Don’t worry,
the suicide part isn’t us. It’s just Randy Quaid's character. You won’t miss him that much.)</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
All across the
country from New York to LA</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
We just want to try
and have an Independence Day</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Don’t care what those
aliens or Secretary of Defense say</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
We’re still gonna
celebrate the holiday</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Well what do you
know, looks like the good guys won</div>
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Time to celebrate the
victory and have a little fun</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
It was a crazy
battle—even the president fought!</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Hope he wins a second
term, or that was all for naught</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
I know you might’ve
seen some plot holes while we zipped on through the air</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
But for 800 million reasons,
I just do not care</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Now it’s time to get
some rest with my super hot wife</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Time to ‘preciate the
simpler things in life</div>
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But somehow I think
the quiet life might not last long</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Think I might be
coming back soon with another hit song</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Cuz while it might
seem like this movie cannot have an equal</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Just trust me on
this: wait until you see the sequel</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
All across the
country from New York to LA</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
We just want to try
and have an Independence Day</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Don’t care what those
aliens or Secretary of Defense say</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
We’re still gonna
celebrate the holiday</div>
Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-8161169066376784162013-06-30T20:14:00.001-04:002013-06-30T21:58:09.518-04:00You Gotta Keep The Devil Way Down In The Hole<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">My first indication that I was taking <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Wire</i> too seriously occurred during a phone conversation with a
friend who I hadn’t seen in a while. She asked me what was new, and the first
thing I told her was that I had started watching <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Wire</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">In other words, a friend wanted to know what had changed in my life
since the last time we spoke, and I told her that I was watching a television
show. And it didn’t even seem that pathetic in the moment (although I am
appropriately embarrassed about it now); rather, it seemed like the obvious
response, given how much time I was devoting not just to watching the show but
to thinking about it, talking about it and reading about it. Essentially, I had
become the living embodiment of a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIom3LSbB0I">Family Guy joke</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">I really didn’t expect to get sucked in so strongly. I knew all about
how great the show’s reputation was before I started watching it, but I had
been making a conscious effort to take television less seriously ever since
about a year and a half ago, when I got way too sad after an episode of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How I Met Your Mother</i> and wrote </span><a href="http://errtv.blogspot.com/2011/11/strained-attempt-at-justifying-my.html"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">this</span></a><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">. And when
I watched the first two <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wire</i> episodes
with some friends a few months before diving into the whole thing, I wasn’t
that compelled. It looked interesting, sure, but I was mostly just confused.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">So I’m not too sure why I decided to try watching the entire series
this winter (probably because I’m pretentious, so if the critical establishment
has decided something is great, it’s important for me to think it’s great,
too), but once I got past the bewilderment of the first few episodes, I was
hooked. Beyond hooked, really. All the reminders I had drilled into myself
about television characters being fake and thus not worthy of too much
emotional attachment quickly went out the window. I’m still not completely over
Wallace dying, and any conversation I try to have about Randy or Dukie quickly
devolves into a mixture of sad headshaking and muttered profanities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">This is mainly because, even though <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Wire</i> is ultimately just a television show, it was hard to view
it purely as a work of fiction. This was driven home especially hard during
season four, when the scenes of Prez ineptly trying to teach in a Baltimore
middle school may as well have been documentary footage of me ineptly trying to
tutor in a Boston middle school. The problems this show deals with are heartbreakingly
real—excluding the occasional Hamsterdam or fake serial killer—making it all
but impossible not to view the characters caught up in them as real, too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><o:p> </o:p></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">So that’s why the journeys of Wallace and Randy and Dukie and
countless other characters hit so hard. Their characters might be fictional,
and the actors who play them may have moved onto <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Friday Night Lights</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Suburgatory</i>,
but it’s still far too easy and far too disconcerting to know that there are several
real Wallaces and Randys and Dukies out there, not just in Baltimore but in
pretty much any city in the country. And that makes their fates hard to take,
even when you’re just watching them played out by actors on TV.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Not surprisingly, the writers of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Wire</i> managed to put this concept better than I did, so I’ll let them take
over for a bit. From <a href="http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking08/TheWire.html">an essay they wrote for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Time</i></a>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">“…those viewers who followed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Wire</i>…tell us they’ve invested in the fates of our characters. </span><span style="color: #212a2e; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">They worry or
grieve for Bubbles, Bodie or Wallace, certain that these characters are
fictional yet knowing they are rooted in the reality of the other America, the
one rarely acknowledged by anything so overt as a TV drama.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #212a2e; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">I still think it’s a little silly to get so caught up in a
television show. And I’m still a little uncomfortable with how emotionally
draining it often was for me to get through even one <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wire</i> episode. But if it’s going to happen with any series, it might
as well happen with one that deals with something real.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #212a2e; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">And now, here are:</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">A bunch of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wire</i> lists that will hopefully not make
David Simon angry<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Top 10 Characters (in no particular order because that’s too hard):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Bunk<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Mr. Prezbo<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Bunny Colvin<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Daniels<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Lester<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Kima<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Gus<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">8. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Wallace<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">9. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Carver<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l4 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">10.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Bubbles<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Characters who deserve a completely separate category because they are
named Omar, and trying to compare any other characters in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Wire</i> to Omar isn’t fair:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l2 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Omar<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Characters who are just the fucking worst:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l7 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Templeton<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l7 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Levy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l7 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Templeton<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l7 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Herc in Season 4<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l7 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Templeton<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l7 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Templeton<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l7 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Steintorf<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l7 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">8. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">I could probably win a Pulitzer if I made up
quotes and stories and lied about getting a call from a fake serial killer,
too, Templeton<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l7 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">9. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Namond’s mom<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l7 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">10.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Fuck you,
Templeton<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Most heartbreaking moments:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l9 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Kima getting shot<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l9 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Wallace getting got<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l9 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Dukie<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l9 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">“You gonna help, huh? You gonna look out for me?
You gonna look out for me, Sgt. Carver?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l9 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Prez shooting a cop<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l9 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Pretty much everything else that doesn’t involve
Bubbles walking up a staircase<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Number of songs I memorized from the <a href="http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/414fa4b226/the-wire-the-musical-with-michael-kenneth-williams">“Funny or Die” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wire</i> musical</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l8 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">All of them</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l8 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Favorite versions of the theme song (in order):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo7; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">1. Season 1<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo7; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">2. Season 3<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo7; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;">3.</span> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Season 4<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo7; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Season 5<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo7; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Season 2<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Favorite seasons (in order):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo8; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Season 4<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo8; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Season 3<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo8; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Season 1<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo8; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Season 5<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo8; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Season 2<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Phrases that I just sort of say now:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Oh, in<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">deed</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l3 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">What I feel like eating:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l6 level1 lfo10; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1. </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Honey Nut<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-61005327025317488412013-06-13T10:56:00.000-04:002013-06-14T11:24:55.010-04:00A Brief, Mostly Accurate Timeline Of My First Day At Governor's Ball<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
(<i>NOTE: I obviously went to the bathroom multiple times throughout this music festival.
However, they are not experiences I would like to relive in writing or through any
other medium, so I have left them out for everyone’s benefit.</i>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2:30 pm</b>: In spite of
the steady stream of rain falling outside, my spirits are high as I prepare to
make the sojourn to Randall’s Island. This may be because I am with some of my
best friends. It may be because I am drinking a Red Bull/vodka for the first
time in years. The point is, regardless of the reason, I am excited, as
evidenced by my racing heart. Although I guess that may just be because of the
Red Bull/vodka.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">3:30 pm</b>: We leave
the safe confines of my friend’s apartment and begin trekking to Governor’s
Ball in the rain. Spirits are still high, as I have made sure to prepare for
the weather by wearing athletic shorts, a New Balance t-shirt, an old pair of
running shoes, and my trusty green jacket, fast approaching its ten-year
anniversary. The outfit is virtually impenetrable to water. I may as well be
walking around in a giant, heated bubble.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">3:35 pm</b>: I make
several loud, hilarious, loud jokes on the subway that everyone loves. Multiple
agents approach me as I exit the car with offers for lucrative television deals,
but my focus remains on the festival.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">3:45 pm</b>: We exit the dry safety of the subway to make the rest of our unholy pilgrimage on
foot. The pathway to the island is pockmarked by a makeshift trail of empty
discarded bottles left by our forefathers that extends from the beginning of
the Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge all the way to the festival’s entranceway.
Containers range from beer cans that once contained alcohol to bottles of
orange juice that also <s>probably</s> definitely once contained alcohol.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoy0rwUGKzLlzOqJXSkyLEGXKW8ZW82Nz8BskSt6yL9rpjgFd1f8Dwpf22oSIqqa2zNWc3OAQ6Mwhgbkb5q1-EIBo_iaXxdLk-4AB_Y2scfPqx29_mJLwMJF_6jMZs9KrFGNsVZqUBCDYy/s1600/gov+ball.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoy0rwUGKzLlzOqJXSkyLEGXKW8ZW82Nz8BskSt6yL9rpjgFd1f8Dwpf22oSIqqa2zNWc3OAQ6Mwhgbkb5q1-EIBo_iaXxdLk-4AB_Y2scfPqx29_mJLwMJF_6jMZs9KrFGNsVZqUBCDYy/s320/gov+ball.png" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Legend has it both flora and fauna were plentiful <br />
on Randall's Island before the white man arrived. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">4:00 pm</b>: I can hear
the dulcet tones of Best Coast as we approach the actual stages. They are
probably playing a song about how California is nice, as that seems to be the
main theme of every band, person, and burrito that has come out of California
since 1850. Unfortunately, their songs about beautiful weather fail to change
the fact that Randall’s Island already looks like it has been getting rained on
for approximately six presidential administrations. However, I am still not
worried due to my wise choice of clothing. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">4:30 pm</b>: I begin to
notice that, despite having taken the precaution of wearing a jacket, I am still
becoming wet. This is true even after I put the hood up. Something is not
right.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">4:40 pm</b>: We and
several other mud-spattered refugees approach the tent of a gracious,
benevolent company that has decided to give out free ponchos. I gratefully adorn
their garment, secure in the knowledge that it is scientifically impossible for
someone wearing two jackets to get rained on. The fact that I cannot remember the
name of this company should in no way diminish my gratitude. The word “tea”
appeared in their name somewhere, so everyone just go out and buy a bunch of
tea.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">4:45 pm</b>: We wade
toward the Governors Ball NYC stage and begin to watch our first actual concert,
Of Monsters And Men. Unfortunately, they do not opt to play “Little Talks” over
and over again as I had wished, but their set is still lively and entertaining
enough to momentarily distract me from the fact that a small colony of
mushrooms has started to sprout on my back.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">5:45 pm</b>: Of Monsters
And Men stop playing. We decide to get beer before heading to Local Natives at
the You’re Doing Great stage. As we trudge through seven feet of mud and
rainwater, I begin to realize that wearing shoes with holes in them may not
have been the best way to prevent my feet from become wet and gangrenous. I
curse myself for letting down <a href="http://www.moviewavs.com/php/sounds/?id=gog&media=M4RS&type=Movies&movie=Forrest_Gump&quote=socks.txt&file=socks.m4r">Lieutenant
Dan</a> as water, earth and E. coli completely overtake what were once a fairly passable pair of shoes and socks.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">6:00 pm</b>: I purchase
and open a comically oversized can of Foster’s, Australian for "beer that I never saw anyone drinking when I was actually in Australia." It soon becomes difficult to tell whether I
am drinking alcohol or rainwater, but I finish the can anyway, showing the kind
of dedication and commitment I have become famous for.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">6:15 pm</b>: We begin to
actually watch Local Natives, in the sense that they are playing on a stage,
and we are standing kind of close to that stage. However, I soon become much
more preoccupied with explaining to a group of British people why what I just
said was funny and the flash flood warnings that have started to show up on my
friend’s phone. Nevertheless, we decide to stay, as there is nothing better in this
life than being young and carefree and outside and listening to music and ok,
I’m actually getting really wet and cold, are you guys?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">6:35 pm</b>: It stops
raining for approximately one minute. It is a very nice minute.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">6:45 pm</b>: We doggy
paddle back to the Governor’s Ball NYC stage to see Feist perform “1234” and
other songs that are not “1234.” I soon discover that no one except me finds it amusing when I mispronounce her name as “Feast” on purpose. This does not stop me
from doing it many times.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">7:00 pm</b>: Feast
performs approximately 1.5 songs, neither of which are “1234,” before leaving
the stage for safety issues or some bullshit like that. I am rather upset, as
is the small but productive colony of minnows that have recently set up home in
my left sock.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">7:10 pm</b>: Did you
know that one can actually enjoy music inside as well?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">7:15 pm</b>: We swim
over to the Skyy Vodka tent and set up camp in a small riverbed to await Erykah
Badu & The Cannabinoids. I do not know what a Cannabinoid is, but I hope
they have the ability to control the weather.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">8:00 pm</b>: Erykah Badu
begins playing. I’m pretty sure I am getting wetter even though I am under a
tent. Rumor has it that the only one who can conquer this rain is an
African-American demigod named <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/arts/music/kanye-west-talks-about-his-career-and-album-yeezus.html?_r=0">Yeezus</a>, but he is not due to arrive until
Sunday.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">9:30 pm</b>: Erykah Badu
stops playing. My body is now completely saturated. We debate whether or not to stay for Kings of Leon and Pretty
Lights, in a battle that pits the part of my personality that is young and fun
against the part of my personality that dislikes pneumonia. The bands
ultimately make this decision easier for us by canceling.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">9:45 pm</b>: We don our
scuba gear and begin trekking back to the 125<sup>th</sup> Street subway
station. I glance forlornly back at Randall’s Island as we approach the bridge,
certain that nothing will ever grow on this lifeless rock again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">10:00 pm</b>: It
continues to rain.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">11:00 pm</b>: We arrive
back at my friend’s apartment. We attempt to burn our clothes, but they are too
wet and ultimately end up overtaking the fire. The minnows are very angry with
me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">11:30 pm</b>: I realize
I have not eaten anything in approximately 12 hours. I believe this is because
I came down with a condition known as “being too wet to experience hunger.”
(This may not sound real, but you can trust me. I have friends in medical
school.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">12:30 am</b>: We spend a
classic “New York” night out eating pizza and watching reruns of old sitcoms
inside a small apartment. There is honestly nothing else I would rather be doing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1:30 am</b>: Bedtime.
Gotta go back tomorrow because <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/arts/music/axl-rose-and-kanye-west-heroes-of-governors-ball.html?pagewanted=all">that's what heroes do</a>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Other observations:</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
</div>
<ul>
<li>One of the lines on Kanye’s upcoming album is “I
just talked to Jesus/He said, “What up, Yeezus?” I am awaiting final results of
the study, but I believe this is the greatest rap lyric in music history.</li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span>I have no idea if I enjoyed the Guns N' Roses
show earnestly or ironically, and I don’t think I ever will, and I’m totally ok
with that.</li>
<li>The fact that there were phone-charging stations
at this festival represents everything I hate about my generation. Having said
that, I was terrified when I dropped my phone on Saturday, so I’m certainly not
trying to put myself above anyone.</li>
<li>Silent Discos are really weird.</li>
<li>See you next year. Probably.</li>
</ul>
<!--EndFragment-->Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-59913539600042877862013-05-12T15:38:00.001-04:002013-05-12T15:43:30.117-04:00Was it worth it after all?I graduated from Columbia Journalism School about a year ago, wrote this, and then forgot about it. But I just reread it, and I'd say I still believe it, so here you go:<br />
<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
My year at Columbia Journalism School is all but over, as
are the seemingly endless number of assignments I’ve had to do since August. So
last night, I decided to take advantage of my first free Monday since winter
break the best way I knew how: by watching two episodes of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Simpsons</i> with a fellow j-schooler. ("<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR7m-4Vc3MU">Krusty Gets Kancelled</a>”
and “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h1PrSp9uo8">Last Exit To Springfield</a>.” Both are absolute classics).</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://media.salon.com/2013/03/Jschoolbdg.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://media.salon.com/2013/03/Jschoolbdg.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here is a picture of the journalism school.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Although a good portion of the night was thus spent staring
fishlike at my laptop screen, we did manage to squeeze in some time for
conversation as well. Granted, most of this was about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Simpsons</i> and how great it is, but since we’re almost at the end
of an intense yearlong program, it didn’t take too long for a certain question
to inevitably come up:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Was it worth it?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This has been asked and answered countless times since the journalism
school was founded, so I doubt I’ll be able to provide the definitive answer
here. But I did just finish the program, so I figure I might as well give it a
shot.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At the risk of channeling Bill Clinton circa-1998, I think <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/chatterbox/1998/09/bill_clinton_and_the_meaning_of_is.html">it
depends on what the meaning of the word “it” is</a>. If we’re defining “it”
purely in monetary terms, then the answer—at least right now—is an emphatic no.
Yes, I’ll have a paid internship when I leave; yes, I’m excited about it; and
yes, I got it at least partially because I went to Columbia. But I paid about
$50,000 to go here, and suffice it to say I will not be making that back this
summer.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But that’s a very narrow way to define “it,” and given how
broad of a question “Was it worth it?” is, it’s also not a very satisfying
answer. In fact, it’s a pretty shitty one. So let’s move on.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think what my friend really wanted to know when she asked
that—I think what everyone really wants to know when they ask that question—is
why I thought it was a good idea to earn a master’s degree in journalism when I
applied here and whether I still think it’s a good idea now that I’m done.
Because there does seem to be an enormous and constantly growing body of
evidence against doing so. A lot of successful journalists—like, for instance, <a href="http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/profile/50-nicholas-lemann/10">the
dean of the Columbia Journalism School</a>—never earned one. The Internet has <a href="http://www.rockymountainnews.com/">not been kind</a> to print media, to
say the least. And New York City is an expensive place to live, especially when
you’re making negative income.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I thought about all of these things several times before I
applied here, after I got accepted, after I enrolled, and while I was in the
program (especially when journalists who had never earned a journalism degree
came to the school to discuss how poorly most major publications were doing. I
am still not entirely sure what we were supposed to get out of those talks
apart from depression). I think about them now, too (otherwise I wouldn’t be
writing this). Because the realities of the industry are painful, and they did
make me wish more than once this year that I had opted for a career in
something like software engineering or advertising or panhandling. You
know, something stable.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I don’t want to do any of those things—at least not
right now—so they aren’t options for me. I want to be a journalist, and since I
was raised in middle class America, pursuing a career that you want is a
luxury that was always encouraged. It seems like a very simple reason for coming here,
and the part of me that likes pretending I’m some sort of amateur philosopher
wishes I had something more profound to say about it, but this is really all
I’ve got: I came to the Columbia Journalism School because I want to be a
journalist. Crazy, isn’t it?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, was this a vital step to take towards becoming a
journalist? I would have to say no, simply because I know too many reporters—either
through fame or friendship—who have had/are having successful careers without a
master’s degree. I’m not trying to enter a field like law or medicine, where
official credentials and diplomas are necessities, <a href="http://www.theonion.com/articles/im-not-one-of-those-fancy-collegeeducated-doctors,11237/">hilarious
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Onion</i> articles</a> notwithstanding.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Still, when I think back on the year, a few things stand out
that I can’t really deny:<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->I am better at writing and reporting now than I
was in August.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->I am good friends with a lot of people who
didn’t know I existed less than a year ago.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->I have had a lot of fun over the past 10 months.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->New York City really isn’t that expensive if you
don’t mind living in a room with no windows and eating peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches for lunch every day.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 1.0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Look, you don’t have to go to school to learn how to be a
journalist. You don’t have to go to school to learn German, either, or to learn
how to start a company or compose a symphony. But it doesn’t hurt, and it
usually helps. And if you get to meet a lot of great people along the way
and can graduate with a moderately reasonable amount of debt,
so much the better.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There’s some quote about success that I can no longer
remember the exact wording of, but it’s basic point is that the only wrong way
to get to the top is by standing at the bottom criticizing what everyone else
is trying (“There’s no wrong way to eat a Reese’s?” No, that doesn’t sound quite
right). I know a degree from Columbia doesn’t guarantee a successful career in
journalism, but this is what I decided to try. I have no idea if I’ll be making
a living as a reporter five years from now, but that has very little to do
with my decision to come here and a lot to do with me not being clairvoyant.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anyway, regardless of what happens in the future, I don’t
think it will—I don’t think it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can</i>—change
the fact that this has been a fun and rewarding year. And with the way I
idealize events in the past, I’m probably just a few months away from fondly
reminiscing about the time Nicholas Kristof and I shared a laugh over cocktails
at a swanky bar in Midtown, following which he gave me one of his Pulitzers,
saying I had, quote, “earned it.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So yeah. I think it was worth it.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-45788391567961680232013-04-21T13:44:00.003-04:002013-04-21T14:07:27.799-04:00Musings On Boston, Newtown, Life, and "The Dark Knight Rises"<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Not a great few
months for you, eh?”</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">-</i>April 15 text
from a friend</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well, I’ve had better. Although at least we got somewhat of
a happy ending this time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In December, the town where I grew up became the site of an international
tragedy. On Monday, the same thing happened in the city where I live now. And on
Friday, I woke up to a version of Boston that felt like it belonged in an episode of <i>2</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">4</i>. Two homes, two
heartbreaks, four months. If this pace keeps up, I will not make it to age 25
without developing a Prozac addiction.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.braco.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Boston_Ma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://www.braco.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Boston_Ma.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is Boston. Pretty cool, huh?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t want this to be read as a complaint because, in a
sense, I have been absurdly lucky. To have two horrific events happen in such
quick succession in two places that mean so much to me but not lose a family
member or close friend or even sustain an injury in either seems almost unfair.
I am not a victim, and if I’m presenting myself as one, I apologize.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I guess I’m just tired. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m tired of getting the breaking news alerts and hoping
against hope that everybody — not just the <i>New York Post</i> — is getting the story
wrong. I’m tired of getting frantic phone calls and texts and tweets from
friends and family, not because I don’t appreciate their concern but because I
don’t want my existence to be a constant source of worry for them. I’m tired of
events that are supposed to be celebratory, peaceful and safe being interrupted
by madmen. I’m tired of seeing familiar, soothing landmarks overrun with police
officers and media outlets. And, most importantly, I am tired of reading about
dead children. I’m a little ashamed to admit this, but the thought that ran
through my mind most often over the past week didn’t stem from sadness or anger
but from exhaustion: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">didn’t we just do
this?</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I usually try very hard not to think about this because it’s
terrifying, but the past week has made it too hard to ignore: what we normally
consider “typical days” can become perilous in an instant. Getting out of bed
is a risk. Leaving the house is a risk. Getting in a vehicle is a risk. But
most of the time when we do these things — when we decide to live, in other
words — nothing happens, which makes it easy to assume that nothing ever will.
We learned again on Monday that this is not the case, and the fact that it
occurred so soon after Newtown has helped me understand a very basic truth: the
fact that I am alive is a miracle. There are so many things that could have
killed me over the past 24 years, but none of them have, and this is nothing
short of amazing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t appreciate this as much or as often as I should
because of how easy it is to fall into the assumption, especially at such a
young age, that I am going to live forever. But lately it seems like I’m
reminded almost every day that this is not the case. Death exists. It always
has, and it always will, and being a nonsmoking twentysomething doesn’t exempt
you from it. The bad news is you don’t get to choose when it’s your turn to go.
The good news is you do get to choose how to handle this knowledge.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Judging by the events of the past week, it’s pretty clear
that Boston has chosen to handle it by being optimistically defiant. By now,
you have a plethora of options when it comes to inspirational images that
demonstrate this: people running toward the explosions instead of away from
them; the national anthem at Wednesday’s Boston Bruins game; the interfaith
service at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. The city is going to be fine. I
knew that almost immediately after the explosions on Monday, when I walked by a
homeless man singing a song about why people should give him change on my way
home.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And if Boston can choose this, I think I can, too. To be
honest, I’m not even sure what the other option is, but it probably involves
never leaving the house, and judging by what I did on Friday during the city’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dark Knight Rises</i>-style clampdown, I
would get bored with that pretty quickly.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Based on the moment of pure terror I experienced on Monday upon
realizing how easily those two explosions could have hit me had I decided to
leave my office and watch the marathon, I think it’s safe to say that I hope I
don’t die for a very long time. But the fact is, I don’t know when it’s going
to happen. I’m just not going to let it stop me from living.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think this attitude is best summed up by a text my mom
sent me on Friday morning when the manhunt was still ongoing:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Text me when they catch him. Busy pouring wine.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They got him Friday night, mom. No need to stop pouring
wine.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-51858203318458415262013-04-07T16:18:00.000-04:002013-04-07T16:21:00.482-04:00My Chemical Adolescence<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of the nicest things someone has ever written about me
is also one of the funniest. It was a signature in my senior yearbook, and
while I don’t remember the wording verbatim, the gist of it was that I was one of the
only people my classmate knew who was completely unaffected by the stresses of
high school, a quality she admired.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The sentiment wasn’t totally off the mark. I had a great
time and a solid group of friends throughout high school despite being a huge
nerd, probably because I managed to develop a sense of humor almost
immediately after realizing how bad I was going to be at sports. (“Have a good
sense of humor” is the first piece of advice I would offer to all young nerds
out there. The second piece of advice would be “Do not take advice from me.”)
And I think I always knew on some level that any problem an upper-middle-class suburban
white teenage male thought he was facing couldn’t actually be a real problem,
which helped me keep most of the stereotypical adolescent angst at bay. So, yes,
my overall high school experience was fun and largely stress free, especially
now that I get to filter all my memories of it through seven years of
nostalgia.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.knoxroad.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/dawson-crying.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://www.knoxroad.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/dawson-crying.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This usually wasn't me. But I dabbled.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But there’s one image that comes to mind whenever I read
that signature that makes it hard not to laugh about: 16-year-old me going on a
run with “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhZTNgAs4Fc">I’m Not Okay (I Promise)</a>” by My Chemical Romance blaring through my
headphones on repeat, upset because a girl doesn’t like me and my world is
ending. I may have dealt with the stresses of high school pretty well, but I
certainly wasn’t immune to them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” was always my song of choice when
it felt like being a teenager had become too hard. Apart from an early
dalliance with Jimmy Eat World, I never really embraced the emo scene (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f67_og3v_Ow">mocking it</a> was a lot more fun), but that track was the exception. Whether it was a girl
issue, a grades issue, an I’m-not-having-enough-fun issue or something else, my
coping mechanism was almost always the same: put on My Chemical Romance, and go
running until I felt too tired to remember what was getting me so worried. It was
surprisingly effective.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To be honest, I’m not sure what “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)”
is actually about. I usually tuned out most of the lyrics to the verses while
listening to it and focused solely on the intense, guttural screams of “I’m not
okay” that made up the chorus. That was the only part of the song that
mattered because that was the only part that I sometimes felt like I needed to
say. I’m 16; I’m happy; I’m healthy; but every now and then, I’m still not
okay. I promise. I just don’t know why.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anyway, I eventually got older and more emotionally stable,
and my use of “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” as therapy became something to joke
about with my older and more emotionally stable friends while we listened to
super cool indie music by bands you probably haven’t heard of. And then, a few
weeks ago, <a href="http://www.avclub.com/articles/my-chemical-romance-breaks-up,95374/">My Chemical Romance broke up</a>, and I started thinking about that song
again. It’s been a while since I’ve needed it as an antidepressant, and I’m much more likely to laugh than feel like the band is speaking directly to me when I
hear it nowadays, but that doesn’t change the fact that when I was faking my
way through adolescence, it was genuinely helpful in a way that not many other
songs were.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So thanks, MCR. And don’t let anyone give you shit about “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDWgsQhbaqU">Welcome To The Black Parade</a>.” Because that’s a pretty epic song, despite the confusing and kind of terrifying video.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-36274371183306884192012-12-12T22:48:00.000-05:002012-12-12T22:50:08.882-05:00Goodbye, Flippy<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dear Flip Phone,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think we can both agree that this is a little
melodramatic, but after you spent over two years gamely
putting up with nonstop mocking from basically everyone you came into contact
with, it felt a little inappropriate to replace you without saying goodbye.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://cdn.gottabemobile.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Verizon-Basic-Flip-Phone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="http://cdn.gottabemobile.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Verizon-Basic-Flip-Phone.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
This disdain started right from the day we first met, when
the salesman at the Verizon store decided he wasn’t even going to let me know
that you existed. The only phones he bothered to show me were the ones with
giant screens and names like the Kinoba 4G Energy Network Mitsubishi Galant
that were far too busy uncovering nuclear secrets with nearby iPhones to give a
crap about whether or not I bought them. When I noticed and asked about you, he
responded with a befuddled statement that went something like, “It doesn’t have
high speed Internet access.” I decided to buy you anyway, working off of the
assumption that I would still be able to call and text people without high
speed Internet access. Luckily, I turned out to be right.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Granted, I did have my doubts, especially when your front
screen cracked just a few weeks after I bought you for reasons that are still a
mystery to me. (I did keep you in the same pocket as my keys. Were they hitting
you? You could’ve told me; I wouldn’t have blamed you.) But instead of sending
you into an inexorable spiral of decay, this crack turned out to be just a
one-time malfunction. It actually became a little endearing after a while.
Plus, it made you virtually theft-proof—who’s going to bother stealing a
cracked flip phone?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Over the years and months that I owned you, having a
smartphone gradually transformed from a pretty cool luxury to an apparent
necessity for anyone who had anything important going on in his or her life.
This mean that the amount of crap you took from the general public gradually
increased—first linearly, then exponentially, then whatever the thing after
exponentially would be. (I was never much of a math guy. It’s why I used your
calculator so often.) And that whole time, you continued to reliably keep me in
touch with my friends and family, which is really all I thought you were there
for.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think it’s fair to say that I put up with the incessant
derision about as well as you did. At its worst, it was slightly annoying; at
its best, it helped me feel like I had at least a modicum of independence from
technology despite spending about 12 hours a day <a href="http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-90-of-waking-hours-spent-staring-at-glowing,2747/">staring
at various screens</a>. But there is one thing about the criticism that I never
quite understood: you really weren’t that stupid.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You came with a built-in calendar, alarm clock, calculator,
stopwatch, two types of cameras (pictures and video), and something called
“Bluetooth” that I still don’t fully understand. And you did have Internet
access, even if it wasn’t high speed, so I could easily email, tweet, Facebook,
and come up with several other reasons to pay attention to you instead of the people
I was hanging out with whenever I needed to. (It’s not my fault you were more
interesting. If I ever meet someone who can instantly tell me what Jon
Stewart’s last movie was, I’ll pay more attention to them, but you’re number
one until that happens.) (It was “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0763304/">Doogal</a>,”
by the way. I haven’t seen it.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So I’m not exactly sure what advantages smartphones actually
have over you. I guess the obvious answer would be speed—why wait 40 seconds to
figure something out when you could do so in 10?—but I don’t think I’ve ever
been busy enough to the point where those extra 30 seconds would really make a
difference. The other advantage I keep hearing about is how, when you get lost,
a smartphone can tell you where you are and how to get to where you need to go.
I’m sure this is true. I’m also sure that I’ve had pretty good luck asking people
so far.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I'm still on the family plan (I should probably be more
embarrassed about this than I am), and my benevolent father has decided it’s
time for my sister and me to upgrade to smartphones, so that’s what’s
happening. I just wanted to take a minute to say thank you and goodbye before I
forget how I ever lived without a constant stream of Twitter updates and the
ability to make new photos look like old photos instantaneously. I’ve never had
a phone hold up for more than two years before, let alone in the face of
continuous ridicule and harassment. Nice work.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Regards,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Eddie</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
P.S. Sorry about all those times I dropped you. But don’t
even try to tell me you didn’t love the adrenaline rush.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-83040908145252893602012-10-07T06:26:00.001-04:002012-10-07T06:26:15.659-04:00Bad Boys Bad Boys, Whatcha Gonna Do?
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">I wrote this from an aboriginal community called Kintore. It’s in
the desert, about a five-hour drive on mostly dirt roads from Alice Springs, a
small town in central Australia that’s roughly 1,</span><span style="color: #141414; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">500 miles away from any metropolitan area</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">. And then
there’s the fact that Australia itself is approximately 14 hours from the US by
plane.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 108.8pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">In other words, I’m about as close to the middle of nowhere as you can
get in 2012. And yet, when I walked into Kintore’s dialysis unit, there was a
television set up, and it was playing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bad
Boys 2: The Baddening</i>. (I may have made up the part after the colon. It’s
impossible to know for sure.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">The sheer reach of American entertainment continues to amaze me. It
would seem to defy logic that one could travel to a desert halfway around the
world and find two aboriginal Australians who don’t speak great English
watching Martin Lawrence and Will Smith do…umm…you know, I’ve seen <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bad Boys 2</i> one and a half times, but
I’ve never actually paid enough attention to know what the plot is. But the
point is, they were definitely watching them do something.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">And this isn’t limited to Kintore, either. One of my roommates in
Alice Springs recently referred to two of his friends as Lily and Marshall, the
forever-in-love-except-briefly-in-season-two couple on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How I Met Your Mother</i>. When I was in Dublin, my Irish friends loved
talking about the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Family Guy</i> gag
where an airplane careens through a mountain of empty beer bottles as it lands
in their country. And when I was in Toronto, stores actually accepted American
money, which, while not really related to entertainment, was something I found
hilarious and quintessentially Canadian, so I wanted to mention it. (Can you
imagine if anyone tried to pay for something using a coin with a beaver on it
in the States? I don’t think it would go over too well.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Even the country that we’ve <s>stolen</s> adapted plenty of
entertainment from—the UK—was filled with advertisements for American media
when I visited a few years ago, an observation that helped contribute to what
may be my proudest ever moment as an American abroad. After using the word
“movie theater” in a conversation with some Brits, I was laughed at and
derisively informed that the proper term was “cinema.” I told them that, when
they started using these cinemas to show movies that were actually from their
own country, they could call them whatever they wanted to, but until then, I
was sticking with “movie theater.” Then George Washington and I high-fived.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Look, I think the conversations America’s smart people are currently
having about our nation’s decline are both productive and necessary. I’m no
expert in international politics, but I do know that
it’s not 1947 anymore, making the notion of any one nation being the world’s
“sole superpower” pretty outdated. But as far as I can tell, we still absolutely dominate in terms of
giving the rest of the planet something to do after work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">In short, you’re welcome, other countries. Because without America,
you might have to talk to your kids.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">(Hey, how’s that for a national motto? It’s at least better than "In God We Trust.")<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-13099694592217673592012-09-30T01:09:00.002-04:002012-09-30T01:09:17.347-04:00Fotohut. It's Phabulous.
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<!--StartFragment--><span></span>I’ve
never taken pictures on a vacation or a trip before, outside of a few
spontaneous, low-quality shots with the camera on my cell phone. For a while it
was just unnecessary, as the only trips I went on were with my family, and my
sister took more than enough photos for all four of us. But then I grew up and
started going places without them, and even though my sister was no longer
around to cover for me, I still never brought a camera. Maybe it was force of
habit; maybe I was just being contrarian; or maybe I was still mad at cameras
for taking so many bad school pictures of me. Whatever the reason, at various
points over the past 24 years, I’ve spent time in Paris, London, Rome and
Toronto (not as impressive, but I felt like this list needed a fourth) without
ever taking a picture for my own amusement.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span></span>But
now I’m in the Australian outback (the real one, not the <a href="http://pinchingpenniesandsalt.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/outbackonion.jpg">steakhouse</a>), and this
is no longer the case.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span></span>To
be fair, this trip is different from previous ones, as it’s an
assignment, not a vacation. I’m here to report and write an article, and it made sense to bring
a camera with me to help add a visual dimension to the story (although, as I’m
sure you can tell by now, my prose is often so vivid that it renders
photography irrelevant).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span></span>So
most of the pictures I’ve taken so far have been for work rather than for
pleasure. Still, there is some amazing scenery out here, and since I typically already
have a camera around my neck…well, it seems silly not to use it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span></span>Overall,
taking these photos has been very enjoyable and mainly reinforced my belief
that not bringing a camera anywhere for the first quarter of my life was
probably due to some odd and ultimately pointless type of stubbornness. It’s
cool to thumb/scroll through things you’ve taken pictures of, and remembering
fun experiences is much easier when you have a visual reminder of what those
fun experiences looked like.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span></span>Still,
having now done both, there is one thing about not taking photos that I think
is superior to taking photos: it makes it much easier to live in the moment.
When I’m taking a picture of something, it’s hard for me to be fully engrossed in
the present since there are so many things for Future Eddie to be concerned
about: how the photo will look on my computer, what other people will think of
it, what clever caption to write underneath it, where to hide the body, etc.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
It’s an annoying part of living in
a world where it’s so easy to figure out what anyone else is doing at any given
time. In some respects, actually having fun has become secondary to letting
people know how much fun you’re having. It’s not enough just to go to a concert
anymore; you have to photograph the concert, tweet about the concert, Facebook
about the concert, basically do all sorts of things to let people know that you
were there and you had a great fucking time and, damn it, they should’ve come
with you. It can make sitting down and enjoying the music difficult.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span></span>Look,
I own a sort of expensive camera now, so I’ll probably continue bringing it
with me on trips if only because of my stinginess. And I certainly don’t mean
to denigrate photography, which has been around for much longer than Facebook
and Twitter and does have <a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Feature-Photography">a few decent capabilities</a>. I just think it’s healthy
to put the camera down every now and then and simply enjoy a gorgeous landscape
or a night at the bar without worrying about having something to show for it
later. If you’re really in a situation worth photographing, you won’t need a
picture to keep its memory alive, and it won’t matter how many other people
know what you did or what you saw. What will matter is the experience you had
while you were there, not the experience you have while looking at it later.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span></span>Also,
Instagram is not worth a billion dollars. I don’t really know anything about
economics, but I feel pretty confident about this.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->
Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-73594493413234953382012-02-28T19:47:00.003-05:002012-02-28T19:47:47.443-05:00A Brief ThoughtI have a library card and a Spotify account. In other words, I have free access to virtually every book ever written and every song ever recorded.<br />
<br />
So I really don't think I have very much to complain about.Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-11503375213031305072012-02-21T23:49:00.002-05:002012-02-21T23:52:22.295-05:00Infinite Jest Take 1.5<div style="text-align: right;"></div>Generally, when someone asks me whether or not I’ve read a book, I answer in one of two ways: yes or no. Occasionally I’ll need to throw in a qualifier about having seen the movie (<i>Sahara</i>—what a fucking waste of a night that was) or having started but not finished (some book about dinosaurs I tried to read at the beach in middle school that a seagull pooped on) (this is one of the reasons why I asked my parents if we could stop vacationing at the Jersey shore), but for the most part, “yes” or “no” have proven to be very reliable and satisfactory answers.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The one exception to this is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Infinite Jest</i> by David Foster Wallace. Whenever someone asks me whether or not I’ve read it (caveat: this does not happen very often), my typical answer is that I turned every page. It seems like the most accurate way to describe my experience with the book. I can’t say “no” because I have, technically, read it, but I’ve always felt like saying you read something also implies that you understood something, and I certainly did not understand <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Infinite Jest</i>. I turned all the pages, and I looked at all the words, but the whole time I couldn’t help but feel like I was just giving off the appearance of reading rather than actually absorbing anything Wallace was trying to say. In retrospect, I’m not entirely sure why/how I finished it, given that I’ve given up on several other books both before and since. But I did. I just can’t talk <s>intelligently</s> about it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ve read some of his other books since turning the pages of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Infinite Jest</i>, all of which have been much, much easier to get through. I never really considered trying to read the 1,000 page tome again because…well, why bother? It’s not like I’ve gotten significantly smarter between age 20 and age 23 (exception: last summer, I learned that the first letter in the <a href="http://static.tumblr.com/qzjgaoc/afKliwh77/disney.jpg">Disney logo</a> is actually a D, not some weird, G-like creature), so there’s not really a reason why something that didn’t make sense to me then would make sense to me now.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But my attitude about this started to change last year, when one of my roommates (Stina, if you’re reading this, hello, and I hope Europe is treating you nicely) showed me the <a href="http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/david-foster-wallace-in-his-own-words">commencement speech</a> Wallace gave at Kenyon in 2005. This probably did more for me than anything else of his I’ve read. It just seemed like such a good set of instructions for how to get through life (click on the link and go read it if you haven't already--it's much better than this), and the fact that he delivered it so eloquently and with such little condescension gave me a very strong impression that this was a person who knew what he was doing, not just in terms of writing but in terms of—to borrow his words—“how to think.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The added level of complexity that comes with reading this speech in 2012 (or really any time after September 12, 2008) is that there is now a very glaring, impossible to ignore sign that Wallace actually did not know what he was doing. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I have no idea why he killed himself. I suspect it had something to do with depression, but I’m certainly not going to pretend I can speak with any type of authority about him or why he thought it was necessary to take his own life, especially when so many other people who are both <a href="http://www.mcsweeneys.net/pages/memories-of-david-foster-wallace">better writers than me</a> and <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/18/110418fa_fact_franzen">actually knew him</a> have already done so. All I can really say is that it still makes me sad to think about, despite a pretty funny <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.theonion.com/articles/nascar-cancels-remainder-of-season-following-david,2535/">Onion<span style="font-style: normal;">-related attempt at levity</span></a></i>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now, celebrities committing suicide is nothing new, and the fact that authors aren’t especially happy is not exactly a stunning revelation. But Wallace’s death has always stuck out to me for a pretty simple reason: I really, really love his writing (the parts I can comprehend, anyway). And because I’m a naïve idealistic twentysomething who likes to write, I’ve always equated the ability to write and think and understand as well as someone like David Foster Wallace with a certain level of happiness. So it’s been particularly difficult for me to reconcile the fact that a man who could remind a group of people that maybe the “fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line” isn’t always that unpleasant and is rather just tired because she’s “been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer” was the same man who felt the need to commit suicide.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">All of this is an incredibly roundabout way of saying that I think I’m going to try reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Infinite Jest</i> again because, if I want to figure out more about David Foster Wallace, it might be helpful to understand—or, failing that, to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">try</i> to understand—what his seminal piece of writing was actually about. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">(To be fair, this probably isn’t the only reason I’m attempting to give it a second/first read. I also recently got an unexpected $20 Amazon gift card, which meant I could just buy a copy instead of having to worry about trying to finish it before the draconian U.S. library system tells me it’s due. Also, about a year ago, I went to a party with a girl on what may have been but probably wasn’t a date, and I asked why the host had two copies of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Infinite Jest</i>, and she seemed impressed that I noticed this. So I might just be subconsciously hoping that something like that will happen again.) <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I have no idea whether or not this will be effective or whether I’ll even finish this time (I am currently in grad school, meaning I’ve spent the entire time writing this being worried about the other work I should be doing), but I figure I might as well give it a shot. Hell, even if it winds up not helping at all, hopefully I’ll at least make some <a href="http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-reading-pynchon-on-bus-takes-pains-to-make-cov,3192/">people on the subway</a> think I’m smart.<o:p></o:p></div>Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-19128545615453627192012-01-30T23:36:00.000-05:002012-01-30T23:36:33.673-05:00What A Difference Four Years MakesIn 2008, the presidential election was historic because our country finally had a chance to elect its first black or female president. In 2012, the presidential election is historic because no Republican has ever won his party's nomination without winning the South Carolina primary, and that might happen this year.<br />
<br />
I think 2008 was more fun.Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-88460235086853180202012-01-30T01:21:00.000-05:002012-01-30T01:21:35.781-05:00Why I Hate Times Square<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://abcnewsradioonline.com/storage/news-images/120811_NewYearsEveMovie.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION%3D1323392271847" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="http://abcnewsradioonline.com/storage/news-images/120811_NewYearsEveMovie.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION%3D1323392271847" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I did not see this movie.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">This was both the second year I spent New Year’s Eve in New York City and the second year I made sure to stay as far away from Times Square as possible. Only this time, it wasn’t enough to just stay away from Times Square. I also felt the need to have multiple conversations with my friends about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">why</i> I wanted to stay away from Times Square and how I couldn’t imagine why anyone in their right mind would ever voluntarily go spend eight hours in such a crowded, cold, bathroom-less place.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In short, I don’t like Times Square very much, and the occurrence of yet another New Year’s Eve gave me an opportunity to think about why.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s not the tourists. Yes, they make it exceedingly difficult to walk, and yes, I become incensed every time I see someone stop in the middle of a crowded sidewalk to take a picture of the M&M store, but Times Square is a tourist attraction. If I got angry with tourists for visiting Times Square, I would have to retroactively get angry with myself for visiting the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Space Needle in Seattle, the Lincoln Memorial in DC, etc., etc. I hate mankind and myself for plenty of things already. I don’t think I can handle adding “visiting tourist attractions when you’re a tourist” to the list.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">No, the reason I hate Times Square is the same reason I hate Paris Hilton (sorry if that reference is too dated): it’s famous, but it doesn’t deserve to be. In other words, I don’t begrudge tourists for visiting it; I just don’t understand why they visit it in the first place. I’ve been there plenty of times (rarely by choice, just so you know that this piece isn’t a giant exercise in hypocrisy), and the most complimentary thing I can think of to say about it is that it looks kind of cool at night when <a href="http://www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com/bigmap/manhattan/midtown/timessquare/night/0512-15-07.jpg">everything is lit up</a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Apart from that, it’s always appeared to me as nothing more than a collection of larger and more neon versions of stores that exist pretty much everywhere else in the country. The logic of going to New York City and eating at an Olive Garden even though the food is going to taste exactly the same as it did in Davenport except hey <a href="http://livesmall.blog.com/files/2010/06/livesmall-53-the-olive-garden-time-square.jpg">look at how cool the sign is at this one</a> completely escapes me and brings back memories of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaKuT3dIwfc&feature=related">Michael Scott’s first trip here</a>. If you’re in the mood for Italian food, why not go to, say, Little Italy? Or pretty much anywhere. As Jon Stewart once pointed out, New York is <a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-june-1-2011/me-lover-s-pizza-with-crazy-broad">a pretty good place to get Italian food</a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The same could be said about the McDonald’s, the T.G.I. Friday’s, and, yes, even the M&M store. I’ll admit that it offers more variety than your typical candy shop, but ultimately, a bag of personalized mauve M&Ms is going to taste about the same as a bag you buy from CVS.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">CVS, by the way, currently operates over 7,000 stores across the United States.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I can’t imagine this will actually change anyone’s mind about Times Square, given that it’s been famous for over 100 years and I haven’t gotten recognized on the street since I switched to contacts in 2005 and stopped getting mistaken for Harry Potter. But on the off chance that anyone reads this who’s thinking about visiting New York City, please trust me: there are <a href="http://www.nps.gov/stli/index.htm">several</a> <a href="http://www.esbnyc.com/">better</a> <a href="http://www.moma.org/">tourist</a> <a href="http://www.centralparknyc.org/">attractions</a> to go to than Times Square.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Unless Olive Garden is doing its Never Ending Pasta Bowl promotion. That deal is too good to pass up. The trick is to order a bowl after you aren't hungry anymore, have one bite, and then take it home. Boom: second dinner.</div><!--EndFragment-->Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-86838897356595983552012-01-23T23:14:00.001-05:002012-01-23T23:17:49.012-05:00On The Bro'd<i>(This is a profile I wrote of funny person <a href="http://mikelacher.com/">Mike Lacher</a> for my Cultural Affairs class at Columbia back in December. You can check out the tumblr account/book that it focuses on <a href="http://onthebrod.com/">here</a> and read the profile directly below these parenthetical remarks.)</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxkd1sIIye1qa5i8y.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxkd1sIIye1qa5i8y.jpg" width="207" /></a>In 1957, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New York Times</i> boldly proclaimed that the publication of Jack Kerouac’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On The Road</i> was “a historic occasion.” The nation’s paper of record praised his tale of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty—the alter egos for Kerouac and Neal Cassady, respectfully—traveling back and forth across the American landscape as “the most beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet made by the generation Kerouac himself named years ago as ‘beat,’ and whose principal avatar he is.” The prophet of the twentysomethings had spoken, and it turned out that what he had to say was intelligent, poetic, and inspiring.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3550793059829896652&postID=8683889735659598355" name="_GoBack"></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> Blogger turned author Mike Lacher sees it a bit differently.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> “A lot of the stuff they do in that book is just bro stuff,” he said, referring to the characters’ frequent bouts of drinking, partying, and hooking up. “It just happened to be that they wrote really well and were crazy. So then they were able to be beats instead of bros.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> Although a precise definition of bros is difficult to pin down (Urban Dictionary currently has<a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bro"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;"> </span><span style="color: #000099;">220 options</span></a><span style="color: black;">), most people can agree on the following</span>: they emerged on America’s cultural scene sometime in the past decade; they are extremely and vocally fond of indulging in alcohol, revelry and sex; they tend to be males in their late teens or twenties; and they enjoy the music of Dave Matthews, the writings of Tucker Max, and the humor of Dane Cook.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"> Late in 2010, Lacher decided to combine the latent bro tendencies in Kerouac’s seminal work with the blatant bro ethos of today. The end result was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On The Bro’d</i>, a parody of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On The Road</i> written in bro-speak that started as a tumblr account and will be published as a book this coming spring. Dean is now a Beta Phi Omega brother from Arizona State, and although the only ones for Sal in the 1950s were those who “burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars,” he is now more intrigued by those who “<span style="color: black;">chug, chug, chug like fucking awesome players exploding like spiders across an Ed Hardy shirt.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"> “That’s the part that makes it most appealing,” said Lacher. “Hearing that contrast between what’s sort of accepted as higher literary culture interacting with the lowest form of slang.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;"><o:p> <b>* * *</b></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"> Lacher himself does not give off the appearance of a bro. He is tall, fair-skinned, thin, and unassuming, making him a much better fit for an NBC sitcom than an MTV reality show. Nevertheless, he has been informally learning about the social group since his college years at the University of Michigan.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"> “I went to a Big Ten school,” he said. “As soon as you’re at that first fraternity party, it’s like, ‘Oh, this is really just a type of human being.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"> Lacher moved to Chicago after graduating in 2007, where he planned to work at his friend’s restaurant while performing improv in his spare time. The restaurant wouldn’t hire him, though, and he was forced to fall back on a skill he had learned earlier as a favor for his mom: flash development.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"> “The previous year, my mom needed me to build her a flash website, so I learned flash for that purpose,” he said. “Pretty much every job that I’ve had has depended upon that skill.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"> Shortly after his failed attempt at gaining employment in the food service industry, Lacher got hired at NogginLabs, a company that builds custom e-learning software. He still made time to perform improv on the side and continued doing so until moving to New York with his girlfriend “for fun” in October 2010. Around the end of 2009, however, he started growing less interested in the comedic potential of improv and more interested in the comedic potential of the Internet.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"> “It feels like unconquered territory,” he said. “Everyone has already done plenty of good improv shows…but people are still figuring out what you can do that’s funny on the Internet.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"> Lacher took it upon himself to try figuring this out and has so far come up with a variety of answers. An application that could <a href="http://wonder-tonic.com/geocitiesizer/">transform any website into a Geocities page</a> straight out of the mid-90s was funny enough to receive over 600,000 visits in its first week and merit a mention in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New York Times Magazine</i>. A tumblr account featuring images of <a href="http://bubleraptor.tumblr.com/">Michael Bublé getting stalked by a <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">velociraptor</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> made it into <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">GQ</i>. And the equally self-explanatory </span><a href="http://muppetswithpeopleeyes.tumblr.com/"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Muppets with People Eyes</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> got written up by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Time</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> The one thing most of these projects had in common, according to Lacher, was that their time in the spotlight didn’t last long.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> “People have a short attention span on the Internet,” he said, “and also, those single serving websites…I think they’re just not that funny after a while.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> These were Lacher’s initial expectations for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On The Bro’d</i>. Born out of his simple observation that “road” and “bro’d” rhyme, he thought it would entertain both him and the Internet for a brief period of time before they each moved onto something else.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> Thus, approximately one year ago, Lacher launched <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On The Bro’d</i> as another one of what he calls his “one-joke tumblr things.” By the initial post—a parody of, appropriately enough, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On The Road</i>’s first paragraph—he had already firmly established the tone: Sal’s “serious illness” was replaced with “a wicked fucking hangover,” while Dean was shrouded in Axe Body Spray instead of mystery.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> This strong, humorous voice was enough to convince Hannah Gordon, a literary agent with Foundry, that Lacher’s most recent project had more potential than a series of photoshopped Muppets. She first heard about the fledgling tumblr account from one of her colleagues, and unlike Lacher himself, she did not see it as just a one-joke tumblr thing. She saw it as a book.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> “You kind of have to go with your gut on these things,” Gordon said. “If you’re really enjoying it, and you want to keep reading it, you can’t think, ‘Oh, I’m the only person out there who would like this.’ You have to imagine there are pockets of people who think like you do.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> The Internet has recently become a great resource for literary agents trying to find new clients, said Gordon, especially in the wake of fruitful blog-to-book deals such as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Stuff White People Like</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Awkward Family Photos</i>. However, both Gordon and Brendan O’Neill, Lacher’s editor, acknowledged that these past success stories do not automatically mean a blog that turns into a book will be a hit.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> O’Neill, who works at Adams Media and has previously edited book versions of popular blogs, said the biggest factor regarding the ability of these projects to sell effectively boils down to whether or not the author has the ability “to write and write funny.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> “I think Mike’s able to do that,” he added.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><o:p> <b>* * *</b></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> Although Lacher had not considered turning <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On The Bro’d</i> into a book before Gordon contacted him, he was very receptive to the idea. The two put a proposal together, and Adams Media—a publishing company that has previously printed literary parodies such as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Stoned Family Robinson</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bad Austen: The Worst Stories Jane Never Wrote</i>—decided to buy it during the winter of 2011. Now, all Lacher had to do was write the thing, a process he said went “pretty well.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> “It had its ups and downs,” he continued. “Getting to try to use that Kerouac-y poetic cadence but with bro stuff is fun. But there’s other parts where it can reach a certain tedious level where every day it’s like, ‘How do I rephrase this?’”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> Lacher frequently referred to numbers when describing how he wrote <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On The Bro’d</i>. There were 240 pages in total; he tried to write at least two pages per day; and it took him approximately 40 minutes per page. This mechanistic update of Kerouac’s three-week typing binge enabled him to finish his first draft in August, which he is currently waiting to get back from Adams Media.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> “I’d usually try to wake up at six and get some done, and then try to get whatever else done at night,” Lacher said. “That was the part where it just got exhausting because it’s like you wake up and work, then go and actually work, like in an office, and then come home and work more. I know there definitely were times where people from work would be like, ‘Hey, we’re going out!’ and then I’d be like, ‘I can’t. And I also can’t begin to explain to you why.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> Lacher currently works at Google doing rich media banner advertising, having left NogginLabs this past January. Although he is happy in his current position, he does wonder if having a good job at one of the world’s most highly valued companies has prevented him from developing the same drive as other writers.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> “I don’t feel like I’m a struggling bohemian artist,” he said, “which I guess on one hand would maybe make me claw and scratch my way to the top harder. But on the other hand, it doesn’t make me feel like I’ve got to achieve ‘x’ goal right now.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><o:p> <b>* * *</b></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> The fact that a version of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On The Road</i> retold for bros is now viewed as a viable commercial product is a clear indication that bros have become an established part of American life, as is the popularity of TV shows like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Entourage</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How I Met Your Mother</i>, movies like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hangover</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Old School</i>, and websites like </span><a href="http://www.brobible.com/"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">BroBible</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> and </span><a href="http://mylifeisbro.com/"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">My Life Is Bro</span></a><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;">. At this point, it seems, the bro has been around for long enough to fully infiltrate the mainstream. Recently, however, Lacher believes a relatively new element has found its way into bro culture: pride.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> “I think there’s definitely more of a self-identification now that’s made it cooler to be that sort of dude who loves to party and loves to be concerned with his appearance as well,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> Streeter Seidell, Editor-in-Chief of CollegeHumor—a company he describes as “implicit in the brosplosion”—agrees.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> “I feel like bros are aware that they’re obnoxious and dumb and annoying, but they kind of take pride in that a little bit,” he said. “They’ve become self-aware.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On The Bro’d</i> seems far too tongue-in-cheek to contribute to the nascent bro pride movement, a reflection of Lacher’s overall attitude toward bros as harmless sources of amusement. However, that did not stop BroBible—the Internet’s self-proclaimed “ultimate destination for bros”—from referring to it as “a fantastic and hilarious read.” It was a move that startled Lacher and suggested that the emergence of bro pride does not necessarily mean bros have started taking themselves seriously. Otherwise, it seems difficult to understand how they could be complimentary of a book about them filled with passages like, “But the way I picked cotton was sorta retarded. I took like forever trying to pick the white shit off the other shit; everybody else did it way faster.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> Before getting praise from BroBible, Lacher said, he had always assumed that bro was an exclusively disparaging expression. Now, he recognizes the word as “something that’s taken both as a positive and a negative. People who are labeled bros will happily accept it, and other people will use it as a derogatory term.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> Seidell thinks this incongruous combination of bros being simultaneously proud and mocking of their identity is a sign that the archetype may not be prominent for much longer. As evidence, he points to one of the hallmarks of bro culture: an episode of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jersey Shore</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> “There’s a point where Pauly D and Vinny are doing characters of guidos,” he said, “and they’re heightened, but they recognize that they’re also guidos. But they’re like, ‘We’re the good kind.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, man. It’s become meta now, and people kind of hate meta after a little while.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> Still, Seidell said, he may just feel this way about bros because of the large role they’ve played in his job for years.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;">“I’ve been so immersed in it for so long that I’m…sick of it,” he said. “Bro humor could just be hitting in other places.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"> “So who knows, man? It could stick around forever,” he continued. “You want to do shots?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-31541451165572021552012-01-22T14:03:00.002-05:002012-01-22T21:01:08.867-05:00American Idiot<div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/518vUjTWNNL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/518vUjTWNNL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">There have really only been a few albums that I can honestly say I was obsessed with. I’ve liked and continue to like plenty, but when it comes to ones that I legitimately did not stop listening to for months, the number drops off significantly.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The one album that stands out among these select few is Green Day’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Idiot</i>. I was actually worried that I wouldn’t be able to listen to it when it first came out, as it had the dreaded “Parental Advisory: Explicit Content” sticker on its cover, something that my parents took very seriously at the time. At least, I thought they took it very seriously until I came home from school one day in October and saw <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Idiot</i> waiting for me on the couch because my dad didn’t notice the sticker when he went out to buy it (I was comically horrible at getting away with anything in high school, so I pointed this out to him almost immediately. He shrugged and grinned sheepishly. It was a nice moment for the two of us). Then it went into my CD player, and it remained there until sometime around Christmas, by which point I had memorized the lyrics to every track.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I still enjoy listening to the album, but I don’t do so nearly as often—or with nearly as much fervor—as I did back in the halcyon days of 2004. This is partly because I just don’t get as excited about things at age 23 as I did at age 16, a phenomenon I am going to blame blindly on biology. But I think it’s more so because it’s not 2004 anymore, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Idiot</i> was very much an album meant for 2004. More specifically, it was an album meant for burgeoning teenage rock fans who knew they were upset about the Iraq war and wanted the Bush administration out of office in 2004 but weren’t very good at articulating why.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Part of me remains slightly upset about having missed out on the 1960s, although this part did begin drastically shrinking once I went to college and needed to start doing actual research on the decade for history papers. This quickly revealed that, while it had certainly been an exciting and interesting decade, it had not been the nonstop parade of America’s Most Important Historic Events the way <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Forrest Gump</i> had made it seem.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But this didn't matter when I was 16. When I was 16, the only thing that really mattered about the 60s was the music, and the music was incredible. And not just incredible but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">important</i>. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrkwgTBrW78">Great bands</a> were writing <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3rnxQBizoU">great songs</a> about war and social change back then, a topic that seemed a lot more worthwhile than the topics music was exploring in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiXbRBS5Z58">2004</a>. So I largely retreated into classic rock that year. Seeing if <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sgt. Pepper’s</i> was really as good as everyone said it was seemed like a better use of my time than paying attention to any bands that had gotten together after 1988.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And then <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Idiot</i> came out, and all of a sudden I realized that new rock music could be about important things, too. This was an album about a war, and the war that it was about hadn't ended 13 years before I was born. It was pretty messy and occasionally pretentious, but so were my reasons for not supporting the Iraq war in 2004, so this worked out pretty well for me. Besides, the mess and pretention didn’t matter nearly as much as did the mere fact that this was an antiwar album that came out in my lifetime. I didn’t have to pretend that I had been protesting alongside <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJeA7yD8DXg&feature=fvst">Creedence Clearwater Revival</a> in 1969 anymore because there was an actual war going on and actual protest music being written about it now. It finally felt both like there were important events going on around me and like there was music being written to reflect this. 23-year-old Eddie recognizes that this is a pretty reductive and egotistical way to look at current events. 16-year-old Eddie didn't give a shit.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Oh, and the songs were good, too (and pretty innovative, at least for Green Day. Who would've thought the guys behind "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy5XR-oxCus&ob=av2n">Longview</a>" could pull off <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA8v3B1SxR0&ob=av2e">two</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awHSVx99Y_g">nine-minute</a> tracks in one album?). So I decided to listen to them for three months straight.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And then Bush was reelected, and I went up to Minnesota for the holidays and got really into Oasis, and Green Day released the still good but relatively inconsequential <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">21<sup>st</sup> Century Breakdown</i>, and the war in Iraq went on for another seven years. So realistically speaking, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Idiot</i>’s lasting impact—on me, on the band, on the country—wasn’t especially significant. But it’s hard for anything not to seem especially significant when you’re 16, especially a political rock album that happens to come out right when you’re starting to get very interested in politics and rock music. Being too young to find it condescending when celebrities tell you what to think about anything except themselves didn’t hurt either.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So thanks, Green Day. Having said that, I have to admit that I’m not particularly interested in how you feel about Afghanistan.</div>Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-32261779525742885772012-01-17T22:42:00.000-05:002012-01-17T22:42:05.607-05:00What Is Dubstep?I know I'm not old. Sometimes I like to say I'm old, but all I really mean by this is that kids today aren't watching the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvKsCcHiB4Q&feature=related">same</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j49T5kc8Kxs">shows</a> I watched on Nickelodeon when I was eight, and this makes me insecure. When you get right down to it, I'm still only 23. I'm not a kid anymore (although I do still have an affinity for <i>Hey Arnold!</i>), but I haven't started losing my hair, I'm still convinced that "joint pain" is just a rumor propagated by AARP lobbyists, and I don't really have a problem with Pop-Tarts for dinner as long as you're not making a habit out of it (once a week, max) (maybe twice, but we'd have to be talking about some <a href="http://i.walmartimages.com/i/p/11/13/00/02/35/1113000235338_500X500.jpg">pretty outstanding Pop-Tarts</a> in a scenario like this).<br />
<br />
But this whole dubstep thing is making the "old" issue a little more complicated.<br />
<br />
I want to make one thing clear right away: the problem is not that I hate dubstep. Hating a genre of music that's popular hasn't disqualified you from being young and hip since at least <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS9OO0S5w2k">1978</a>. Personally, I completely gave up on trying to like all types of popular music sometime last year, as I was working with middle school students who repeatedly made sure that I knew this was never going to happen. And it turned out to be easier and more enjoyable to retreat into my narrow little slice of pop culture where everyone is really excited for the new <a href="http://whiterabbitsmusic.com/blog/">White Rabbits</a> album and pretty unaware of what Katy Perry is up to anyway.<br />
<br />
So, to reiterate: the problem is not that I hate dubstep. The problem is that I don't know what dubstep is.<br />
<br />
I mean this very, very literally. I know that it's a type of music, and that's it. I've read the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubstep#Mainstream_influence">Wikipedia</a> entry (kind of) (I mean, I read the intro to the Wikipedia entry. I would've read the whole article, but it was long, and I'm a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM">busy man</a>), and I've listened to a few YouTube videos named something along the lines of "Song [Dubstep Mix]," and I still can't really figure out what dubstep is. The videos I've found either just look and sound like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXO-jKksQkM">bass heavy remixes</a> of already popular songs or <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFu2DfPDGeU">postmodern Target commercials</a>.<br />
<br />
Honestly, though, I can't say the Wikipedia entry was entirely unhelpful, as it did offer this relatively concise and straightforward definition of the genre: "tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals." I don't really understand what this means, but I can see how it might be helpful should dubstep ever come up in conversation:<br />
<br />
<b>Hip Young Person</b>: Say, have you heard the latest dubstep song?<br />
<br />
<b>Me</b>: You mean the one featuring tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals?<br />
<br />
<b>Hip Young Person</b>: Umm...yes. That one. Anyway, I'm going to walk away now. But you should stay here.<br />
<br />
Which would actually be great for me because I wouldn't have anything to say after that first sentence, thus proving that we've really only treated the symptom here.<br />
<br />
It's one thing to hate something popular. There's honor and occasional foresight in that, as anyone who didn't buy a Furby can attest to. But to be almost entirely ignorant of something popular? There's not too much honor in that. Just a lot of senior discounts.<br />
<br />
I think I'm going to grow my hair out.Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-42866369101327085982012-01-16T23:35:00.000-05:002012-01-16T23:35:19.891-05:00A Few Tips1. If you ever wake up one day and decide to go running at the gym instead of outside because it's too cold out but then get extremely cold on your walk to the gym and decide you'll run there to keep warm, the best way to deal with the irony is to not think about it.<br />
<br />
2. If, while running, you put your iPod on shuffle and "<a href="http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/f03d464867/total-eclipse-of-the-heart-literal-video-version-original">Total Eclipse of the Heart</a>" comes on, causing you to realize that, at some point over the past 23 years, you have learned all the lyrics to "Total Eclipse of the Heart," reassuring yourself that you did so ironically will not prove especially comforting.<br />
<br />
3. If a song by this <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jn0PBHLgL8">hip new indie band</a> you've been checking out lately comes on afterwards, it will help a little bit. But not too much. Especially because, deep down, you know that running to "Total Eclipse of the Heart" was more fun.<br />
<br />
4. And, hey, at least the version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" you have on your iPod is the one where Meat Loaf sings backup. He's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN_YjM4V4fc">legit</a>. Kind of. I mean, he was in <i>Fight Club</i>.<br />
<br />
5. If you're trying to melt cheese that has been refrigerated, bring it to room temperature first.Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-36410160129828470362012-01-12T12:47:00.000-05:002012-01-12T12:47:06.757-05:00Why Headphones Are ImportantIf headphones didn't exist, and you happened to be at the gym with a lot of people who are much stronger than you are, and you wanted to listen to the soundtrack from, say, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3i_4NML1fw">The Book of Mormon</a> or <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMeU_szhZ6E">Avenue Q</a> or <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGoLJZaNnyE">Spamalot</a> while you worked out, it would be very difficult to do so without publicly compromising the aura of masculinity you have worked so hard to maintain over the years.<div><br />
</div><div>I'm not saying this has happened to me before, but I am saying that, yeah, this happened to me when I went to the gym today. Thank you, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Baldwin">Nathaniel Baldwin</a>. </div><div><br />
</div><div>But not for supporting polygamy. Just for headphones.</div>Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-48387417845140627262012-01-11T11:07:00.000-05:002012-01-11T11:07:14.709-05:00I Usually Believe In EvolutionThere's an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence in support of the theory; you get to use the phrase "vestigial structures" when you discuss it, which is a lot of fun to say; and <i>Futurama</i> did a pretty funny <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Origin">episode</a> about it.<br />
<br />
But then it takes me four tries to successfully open a pint of Ben and Jerry's. And when that happens...well, I can't help but have my doubts.Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-67335061988814786882012-01-10T11:11:00.000-05:002012-01-10T11:11:28.238-05:00Mediocre Criticism of a Movie Most People Don't Care About<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">(I'm not really sure why you're still reading after a title like that, but, hey, onward.)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BNjc2OTg5NTM1NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODM3MTMyNA@@._V1._SY317_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BNjc2OTg5NTM1NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODM3MTMyNA@@._V1._SY317_.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">I really, really wanted to like <i>Take Me Home Tonight</i>. As soon as I saw the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gYL9znVmGs">preview</a> for the first time about a year ago, it seemed exactly like the type of movie I usually enjoy a lot more than I have any right to. It stars Topher Grace, who I have an almost unlimited amount of goodwill towards based on loving <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">That 70’s Show</i> as a kid and not watching it after it got awful, and features cameos from Michael Ian Black and Demetri Martin, two of my favorite comedians. It’s about kids who just graduated from college and don’t know exactly what to do with their lives, a topic that resonates pretty strongly with me for some reason. The action takes place almost entirely during one night and centers on young people trying to have fun, much like two of my favorite movies, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Superbad</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dazed and Confused</i>. And it takes place in the 80s, making it a very effective way for me to indulge my weakness for <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_o6dd_1ulw">80s pop hits</a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">So despite the tepid reviews and the fact that it was forgotten about seemingly moments after it was released to an already small amount of fanfare, I still wanted to see this movie pretty badly. Several months after it came out, I still wanted to see it pretty badly. A few days ago, I finally did.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">And it was kind of disappointing. Not outright bad, but not great, and certainly not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Superbad</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dazed and Confused</i> (or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Graffiti</i>, probably, but I haven’t seen that movie, so I can’t really compare the two). “Reasonably watchable,” as <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/movies/04take.html"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New York Times</i> review</a> aptly described it. But I was hoping that at least for me—not just a member of the target audience, but a member who was eager enough for this movie to be good to ignore a lot of its flaws—it would prove more than “reasonably watchable.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .5in;">But it didn’t. Here are a few of the main reasons why:<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1. Topher Grace’s big speech</b>: This was clearly meant to be the defining moment for his character/the film’s protagonist, Matt Franklin. It was supposed to be the climax of the film where he transformed from someone who was afraid to do anything into someone who was going to start making decisions in his life. And to symbolize that transition, we got a clichéd speech about why you shouldn’t pretend to be something you’re not that ends with, “Tonight I got one thing to say to all that bullshit. Fuck it.” And that’s it. It’s not entirely clear what the bullshit is or how we’re supposed to go about fucking it, but then Matt goes ahead and takes a risk and gets the girl and starts cutting down on carbs and etc. The speech could have worked as a semiserious drunken call to, say, continue partying, but it felt far too vague and artificial to actually represent a major change in the main character’s attitude and outlook on life.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2. Chris Pratt’s character is not such a bad guy</b>: His character, Kyle Masterson, is supposed to be the dopey, overgrown frat boy who prevents Wendy Franklin—Matt’s twin sister and Kyle's girlfriend—from doing anything with her life by making her be his wife and nothing more. And he kind of is, but not in a “this guy is a huge asshole who absolutely deserves a comeuppance” kind of way. He’s genuinely excited to see Matt at the party. He doesn’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">force</i> Wendy to marry him; he just asks her, and she says yes. He gets upset when he finds out she applied to Cambridge for graduate school, but again, not in a villainous, I’m-trying-to-destroy-your-potential type of way but in a moderately reasonable I-don’t-want-my-girlfriend-who-I-just-proposed-to-and-bought-a-condo-with-to-move-to-England type of way. Granted, he’s a little happy when she doesn’t get in, which is undeniably a dick move. But is it enough of a dick move to warrant feeling gleeful when Wendy decides to turn down his marriage proposal a few hours after she had accepted it in front of hundreds of people they went to high school with? Maybe I’m having too hard of a time not viewing Chris Pratt as the eminently likeable <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySptysWzA-Y">Andy Dwyer</a> on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Parks and Rec</i>, but I don’t think so. He’s kind of a jerk in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Take Me Home Tonight</i>, but not enough of one to serve as the de facto villain of the movie, which is how I felt the film was trying to portray him.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">3. Matt’s dad seems proud of his son when he breaks laws and disappointed in him when he doesn’t</b>: Bill Franklin starts out as a typical authority figure. The first time we see him, he’s sternly lecturing Matt at the dinner table about the need to find some direction in his life. Later, because he’s a cop and this is a movie, he and his partner happen to be the officers who run into Matt and his friend Barry Nathan after they’ve stolen and crashed a car. He asks Matt about the level of involvement he had in taking the car and actually seems disappointed when Matt says he left the dealership before Barry did the stealing. Later, after Matt has decided to take his first risk by “riding the ball,” (In the context of the film, this means literally getting rolled down a hill in a giant metal sphere, and it’s a big deal. Confusing, I know), Bill smiles when he finds Matt’s work ID in the yard that he landed in and destroyed. So the person who is giving Matt life advice is upset with him for not committing grand theft auto and proud of him for destroying the property of an innocent, law-abiding neighbor. It makes the earnest advice he gives him about the need to take a chance on something in life ring hollow.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">4. “Are you going to Kyle Masterson’s party tonight?”</b> This is a very, very small complaint, but when Tori Frederking—the hot popular girl who was Matt’s high school crush—asks him if he’s going to the party that’s the impetus for everything that happens in the movie, she uses the host’s full name. That’s not how hot popular girls refer to anyone they went to high school with. They only use first names because, since they’re popular and hot, they’re on a friendly, informal, first name basis with everyone. Using someone’s full name implies that they’re more important than you are. It’s one of the reasons we always refer to celebrities as, for instance, “Will Smith” instead of just “Will.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So having a hot popular girl refer to a classmate by his full name sounds unrealistic and forced. This ruined very little about the movie but bothered me anyway.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .5in;">Yes, there were more disappointing factors, but these are the ones that still stick out to me.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .5in;">And now, because, damn it, I still like Topher Grace, and Demetri Martin was extremely funny in this movie as a wheelchair-bound, Goldman Sachs-employed asshole, and optimism is always more fun than pessimism, we’ll end on something about <i>Take Me Home Tonight</i> that I really liked and didn’t expect:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">No one’s story wraps up too nicely at the end</b>: Wendy doesn’t get into Cambridge. Barry gets fired from his job. Tori hates her job. These details all come out at some point during the movie, and although the characters appear upbeat and ready to keep trying at the conclusion, none of the aforementioned problems have been solved. Out of all the characters, Matt is the one who gets the strongest sense of closure, and even his plans don’t extend much further than traveling for a while. It’s a fun thing for a postgrad to do, but it doesn’t solve the problem of not knowing what to do with your life so much as it does postpone it. It would have been very easy for the filmmakers to have Wendy get into Cambridge and Barry get his job back and Tori quit her job and Matt find his perfect job, but none of these things happened because life doesn’t work that way. Problems don’t disappear because of one wild night, and you shouldn’t expect them to. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Take Me Home Tonight</i> seems to understand this, but, as the smiles on the characters at the end indicate, it also seems to understand that this doesn’t mean you have to go through life miserable.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: .5in;">It wasn’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Superbad</i>; it wasn’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dazed and Confused</i>; it wasn’t even really that funny. But it had a good ending and a few good moments, so it watching it wasn’t a waste of time. And sometimes that’s all you get.</div><!--EndFragment-->Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-85013169365556412162012-01-09T10:50:00.001-05:002012-01-09T10:54:38.856-05:00How To Have A Fun Saturday Night In New York City<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://traveltips.usatoday.com/DM-Resize/photos.demandstudios.com/65/32/fotolia_3958473_XS.jpg?w=440&h=440&keep_ratio=1" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://traveltips.usatoday.com/DM-Resize/photos.demandstudios.com/65/32/fotolia_3958473_XS.jpg?w=440&h=440&keep_ratio=1" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Concrete jungle where dreams are made of</td></tr>
</tbody></table>1. To ensure that you have the maximum amount of energy going into the night, get no more than five hours of hollow, inebriated sleep on Friday, eat an <a href="http://errtv.blogspot.com/2012/01/double-down.html">offensive fast food concoction</a> for lunch, and pregame by watching the Republican debate alone. Then take a few swigs of Monster immediately before leaving your house.<br />
<br />
2. Do not learn the name or location of the place where you are going. Rather, assume other people know this information. This will probably work out well.<br />
<br />
3. Get on the downtown 1 train at 110th St around 11:30 PM. Once you reach 96th St, switch to the 2/3 express train in order to get downtown faster.<br />
<br />
4. Actually, guys, it says the next express train isn't coming for 19 minutes. So maybe we should just stay on the 1 train? Guys?<br />
<br />
5. Spend 19 minutes in the 96th St station pacing.<br />
<br />
6. Take the 2 train to 14th St. When the conductor announces that this train will be making local stops between 34th St and 14th St, further invalidating your decision to wait for the 2 train instead of staying on the 1, pretend you don't hear him.<br />
<br />
7. Transfer to the F train at 14th St. While waiting for the F train to arrive, make a hubristic comment about New York having the best public transportation system in the country that will probably not come back to bite you in the ass later in the night.<br />
<br />
8. Board the F train. Intend on taking it to Delancey St until you hear the conductor announce something about the F train making stops on the C line after West 4th St that you still don't fully understand.<br />
<br />
9. Get off at Canal St because why not.<br />
<br />
10. Despite not really knowing where you are or where you're trying to go, stubbornly refuse to take a cab because you're a grad student, damn it, and such luxuries will have to wait until you're making more than negative five figures a year.<br />
<br />
11. Bid a cheerful farewell to your friends who decide to take a cab. Smugly congratulate yourself and your remaining friends on your frugalness. This also will probably not come back to bite you in the ass later in the night.<br />
<br />
12. Decide against walking to the club because doing so would take almost 20 minutes. Attempt to find the J train and take that to Delancey St instead.<br />
<br />
13. No, that's the 1 train.<br />
<br />
14. That's the ACE train.<br />
<br />
15. That's the 1 train again.<br />
<br />
16. Shit.<br />
<br />
17. Wait, wait! Here it is! We found it! Nice work everyone! And it only took, like, 20 minutes! Things are finally <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7z192I-mQM">looking up</a>!<br />
<br />
18. Take the J train one stop from Canal St to Chambers St, after which it will stop. Do not realize you took the train in the wrong direction until the next day when you are attempting to write a blog post about your night.<br />
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19. Get off at Chambers St. Establish that you are now farther away from the club than you were before getting on the J train.<br />
<br />
20. Hold on, is it seriously after 1 AM right now? So we've been trying to get to this place for, like, an hour and a half?<br />
<br />
21. You know it takes me an hour and a half to get from the city to my <i>house</i>, right? My house in Connecticut?<br />
<br />
22. Call your friends who took a cab to see how the club is.<br />
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23. You're still waiting in line? Wait, there's a <i>line</i> to get into this place? <i>And</i> a $10 cover? Seriously?<br />
<br />
24. Decide not to go.<br />
<br />
25. Decide to go.<br />
<br />
26. Try to catch a cab. Fail.<br />
<br />
27. Decide not to go.<br />
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28. Take the 2 train back to 96th St. Experience a brief sense of relief that you at least managed to catch an express train home before realizing that it is making all local stops.<br />
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29. Order mozzarella sticks at the <i>Seinfeld</i> restaurant while discussing the Republican debate you were all watching earlier and attempting to convince yourself that none of the girls at that club would've talked to you anyway.<br />
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30. Go home. Watch an episode of <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT2DOz2McW8">Party Down</a></i> before going to bed.<br />
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31. Realize any night that ended with you and some good friends eating together at 2 AM really couldn't have been that bad.<br />
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32. Apologize for the cheesy ending. Rectify it by acknowledging that it was cheesy in a snarky, self-aware fashion.Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-31410165091244953612012-01-08T13:30:00.000-05:002012-01-08T13:30:40.312-05:00The Double Down<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6vdgBjx2Jr2Eaao7LTaRy0OrMKigDqU2igPVBnFa1UoB9_hzWfuqicnAGle2eaB7DeKiok1EOOtV8Ekno7JBeBCjslApaG5Cv_SolWED7Tdp3WLUeESZyUzEK416MiYHoU6Dl_hnnOd34/s1600/double+down.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6vdgBjx2Jr2Eaao7LTaRy0OrMKigDqU2igPVBnFa1UoB9_hzWfuqicnAGle2eaB7DeKiok1EOOtV8Ekno7JBeBCjslApaG5Cv_SolWED7Tdp3WLUeESZyUzEK416MiYHoU6Dl_hnnOd34/s320/double+down.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo courtesy of good friend and Twitter legend Andrew Katz. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>I've been fascinated with the Double Down ever since I first read about it in <a href="http://www.avclub.com/articles/kfcs-double-down-sandwich,32804/">The A.V. Club</a> over two years ago. Something about the idea of a sandwich that contains two fried chicken patties in lieu of two slices of bread just seemed so purely, perversely <i><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_-1K8To6cNmY/S9tN-Jb03XI/AAAAAAABYzg/nUUrdeTvI0w/baconnaise%20slogan.jpg">American</a></i> to me, to the point where trying one felt almost like a patriotic duty as opposed to an impulsive, lustful decision I might make while stoned.<br />
<br />
So way back in 2009, I decided that, at some point, I needed to try this sandwich (if you could call it that). The problem was, other things kept getting in the way: school, work, schoolwork, the Arab Spring, dignity, etc. My desire to try the Double Down gradually started to wane, and eventually, it was pushed into the already crowded realm of Things I Like To Joke About Doing But Will Probably Never Actually Do (heroin, prostitutes, showering) (I'm kidding about one of these things. Try to guess which one!).<br />
<br />
Until yesterday.<br />
<br />
The process actually began on Friday night when--our passion abetted by a few drinks--my friend Lorenzo and I declared that tomorrow we would go to KFC for lunch, and we would each order and eat one Double Down. Granted, I had made similar promises before, but there was something about this one that seemed more honest and genuine. Again, this may just have been because of the alcohol, but it's possible <a href="http://www.calebwilde.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/PythonGod.png">bigger forces</a> were also at play.<br />
<br />
Sure enough, at 1:00 in the afternoon the next day, I found myself waiting in line at a KFC on the Upper West Side with Lorenzo, mere moments away from finally bringing this dream of mine to fruition. We briefly debated backing out and ordering something that didn't spit in the face of the Earl of Sandwich but decided that, no, we had come here to try the Double Down, and, by God, that was what we were going to do.<br />
<br />
And it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.<br />
<br />
Having said that, this is mainly because my expectations were almost comically low, and I certainly don't think I'll ever order a Double Down again. But I had assumed that this sandwich would instantly give me a heart attack or, at the very least, Type 2 diabetes. What I got instead was a sandwich that looked disgusting and that sat heavily and unpleasantly in my stomach for several hours but ultimately tasted fine, minus a few bites that were a little heavy on the Colonel's Sauce (I don't know what this is, but it was light orange, which made me slightly uneasy).<br />
<br />
Because at its core, the Double Down really isn't a very nauseating combination of ingredients. It's chicken, bacon, cheese, and sauce. The infamy and the sense of deep, existential shame you experience while ordering and eating it both stem almost entirely from the presentation: you are clearly eating a sandwich that has substituted two slices of bread for two fried chicken breasts, and it's difficult to get past that. Really, all KFC would have to do is slap some bread above and below each piece of chicken to essentially turn the Double Down into a chicken club sandwich (incidentally, it would also become more unhealthy, as the bread would add calories and carbs). But a chicken club sandwich isn't very exciting. Not exciting enough to make a supposedly intelligent 23-year-old spend years of his life wondering what one tastes like, anyway.<br />
<br />
So I guess it's possible that this whole Double Down thing was just an elaborate marketing campaign, an attempt by KFC to pique the morbid curiosity of consumers that I completely bought into. In which case I say to the fine people at Yum! Brands: nice job, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with next. How about just shoving all of your popular menu items into a bowl?<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfan5MacmsI">Oh, wait...</a>Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-80655328426706163562012-01-07T18:43:00.000-05:002012-01-07T18:43:47.749-05:00Grocery Store MusicYesterday, when I went into the grocery store to purchase a few seminal food products (jelly, Pop-Tarts, and granola bars), "Head Over Heels" by Tears for Fears was playing.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/XS2YMu56vC0?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
I immediately broke out in a huge smile and start singing along. This led to more than a few strange looks from the other shoppers, but I was enjoying myself too much to care.<br />
<br />
I'm not sure where my life is headed or what I'll be doing five months from now, but I feel like as long as I can keep getting absurdly happy when a Tears for Fears song starts playing in a grocery store, things will be ok.Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-90610764315130624402011-12-06T00:20:00.000-05:002011-12-06T00:20:30.741-05:00Blogging About BloggingSome college friends and I are attempting to start a blog together because we think it's still 2005. So most if not all of my posts will go there until we all lose interest, after which they'll migrate back here. In the meantime, if you would like to read my thoughts on the latest <i>Rolling Stone</i> countdown, please click <a href="http://poonpalace.blogspot.com/2011/12/100-greatest-guitarists.html">here</a>.Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3550793059829896652.post-66718485621390420612011-12-03T12:33:00.000-05:002011-12-03T12:33:52.593-05:00A ThoughtI don't think you're truly great friends with someone until you reach the point where you're incapable of taking that person seriously in a position of authority.Eddie Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11572575180075112510noreply@blogger.com0