The Year in Rock

Whenever I stumble upon a college student's blog, and he or she is discussing midterms or grades or campus fave Carrot Top, I'll reflexively want to mime a jerking-off motion with my fist. No one wants to hear what college kids have to say because they inhabit a shut-off make-believe realm where merit is evaluated by letter grades, instead of real-world metrics like Are you the kind of guy your manager would want to go out for a drink with after work? Also, college kids are, for the most part, fucking retards. When grad students talk about their grades, on the other hand, it's almost always awesome and captivating and, in my case, winsome.

The last time I wrote anything in this space, I was working on my 20-page seminar paper two nights before it was due. That night was strictly devoted to research -- I skimmed over a couple of books, dozens of academic journals and countless magazine articles. I had wanted to at least start the actual paper, but instead I fell asleep with my clothes on at five in the morning. The next night I stayed up till six in the morning writing the paper, and with just six or so pages completed I fell asleep with my clothes on. When I woke up around nine-thirty the next morning, I got to work right away, not stopping till I was done around five p.m., 90 minutes before the class start time. After a quick shower I took about twenty minutes to type up a two-page abstract. At five-thirty I started on the first of two five-hundred-word critiques on any two texts that we had read and discussed in class during the semester. I was out the door a little after six and arrived in class fifteen minutes late, punch-drunk and semi-delirious, with the completed seminar paper, abstract and critiques in my bag. All two hours and fifteen minutes of class time that day were spent on oral presentations on our seminar papers. A number of my classmates brought handouts, while others went the PowerPoint route; me, I just talked for twenty minutes in a zombie-like fugue state. My guess is I resembled a mildly sedated William F. Buckley. After class, I sleep-walked to my car in a light rain, relieved it was over, but also thinking, "Holy fuck, I'm going to get a C in that class."

When our grades were posted on the class Web site the following week, I was genuinely surprised to see an A next to my student ID number. I'm better at this than I thought. Consequently, I'm giving myself no more than four days to start and finish my graduate thesis.

And now, the part where I make like a media critic at the end of 2003, instead of the beginning of 2004 (also, I seriously only remember things from the last three months, so it's likely that nothing from January to September will make the list):

Best movie of the year: Lost in Translation. (With what I like to call "le cinema," it's not that I don't remember the movies I saw at the begnning of the year -- I'm pretty sure I saw only four movies the entire year.)

Worst movie of the year: The Last Samurai. (The only good thing about seeing this movie is that a girl I met just that night was forced to pay for my popcorn, soda and Sour Patch Kids. That's like sixty dollars.)

Movie of the year that wasn't as good as Lost in Translation, but infinitely better than The Last Samurai: In America. It was touching enough that I didn't tell any mick jokes for, like, two days.

Movie of the year that most made you picture Elijah Wood and the guy from Rudy teabagging each other, whether you wanted to or not: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the Jedi or whatever.

Best album: The Rapture, Echoes. Because I love disco, punk, Miami Vice, cowbells and falsetto singing. Also, "Sister Savior" is the best song to feature the word "sister" in the title since "Sister Christian." Runner-up: My Morning Jacket, It Still Moves. I'm pretty sure they sound exactly like the Band ("pretty sure" because the only Band song I actually know is that "take a load off Mandy" song).

Best song: Justin Timberlake, "Rock Your Body." (You could claim to hate it, but then you'd just be this huge fucking liar.) Runners-up: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Maps"; The Strokes, "Under Control"; that "Get Low" song I heard every single time I turned the radio to the rap station.

Worst album, even if you haven't heard one song from it, but just take a look at that stupid-ass album title: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Take Them On, On Your Own.

Christmas song of the year, yet again: Wham!'s "Last Christmas."

Album you'd probably guess that I own, but you know what, fuck those guys: Radiohead, Hail to the Thief.

Best TV show: a four-way tie between Chappelle's Show, The Daily Show, The Office and SportsCenter, mainly because those are literally the only TV shows I saw all year.

Best Christmas present: aside from all the cash money my family gave me, a year's subscription to The New Yorker magazine. Rumor has it that the same person who got me the New Yorker subscription is getting me this for my birthday, which is so ridiculous, ostentatious and gay that it's sort of awesome. And, like the New Yorker subscription, totally useful, as you all know how I feel about wallets.

So two things have been keeping me away from the Internet lately. One is Mario Kart on the Nintendo GameCube, and the other is what's contained in the picture below:

She left for Japan this morning (she'll be there for one week), and when she called me to ask what I wanted from Japan, I told her to get me a cool T-shirt with a picture of a Japanese cartoon character or something, and a cool robot action figure of some sort. She reacted like I was being weird, and I almost told her, "Wait, aren't T-shirts with cartoon characters and cool action figures what you Japs are known for?" which would have been stupid, because how could I forget cars, electronics and bukkake?

I promise to write more this year.

Posted by john at January 2, 2004 01:29 PM