The fine folks at AOL have tried to come up a list of The 50 Best Sitcoms Ever. Your thoughts?
MY thoughts:
• My #1 would simply have to be "Frasier." There's never been a smarter, funnier show on TV.
• Though it aired for only something like what, 9 episodes, it's a crime to list the best sitcoms of all time and NOT include "Fawlty Towers." The John Cleese masterpiece, while definitely a BBC sitcom not intended for the funny bones of us Yanks, was almost the perfect blueprint for all sitcoms to follow.
• The AOL list doesn't shy away from the cheezier sitcoms -- "Gilligan's Island" made the list, for !*&#'s sake -- yet we don't get "Three's Company" on the list anywhere. I'm not saying that it's cinematic genius by any stretch, but "Three's Company" was the catalyst and greatest purveyor of one of the easiest ways to get a laugh: Put 4 characters in a room, have 1 of the characters overhear a conversation but misunderstand what they overheard, and let the antics begin. Totally puerile stuff... but if you think about it, it's the same plot device used almost every week on "Frasier."
• No "Mork & Mindy"? You've gotta admit, it was a wildly inventive show for its day, though most of the laughs were merely the world being introduced to Robin Williams, a guy who we'd sort of like to forget nowadays.
• Other shows I'd consider: Reno 911, Futurama (a show I find infinitely funnier than "The Simpsons" on average,) The Young Ones, Home Movies, and the criminally short-lived Undeclared.
And their 1-50 order is totally wrong.
That's MY take, at least. You?
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
COLUMN: Banned
(or, the column where Shane ticks off half the Catholics in town.)
Time for a quick quiz: Name three things in history that have been banned by the church. Go!
Okay, let's see. 1) Abortion. Hmm, lemme think. Oh, okay: 2) Harry Potter. One more to go... umm, something banned by the church, eh? OH! I know. 3) ME.
That's right, folks. I am officially a Bad Boy. You read correctly -- lil 'ol me has been unceremoniously banned from an area church. The way I see it, I am one motorcycle and a temporary tattoo away from being an official menace to society.
It didn't even take much, either. I didn't have to bite the head off a bat or anything. Heck, I didn't even get a chance to bear false witness. Truth be told, I was banned from a church for reasons quite trivial.
Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably been exposed to the recent wave of charity trivia contests happening around town. What started as a small monthly gathering at the Blue Grass Community Club has evolved into an outright local fad. If it's a Saturday night, you can almost guarantee that somewhere close by, teams are gathering together to test their knowledge and raise money for a host of worthy causes.
I'm part of a team that plays in trivia events nearly every weekend. In fact, there's a good chance you might actually hate me. See, my team has this nasty habit of winning nearly every event we attend. I look at it not as a stroke of luck or a triumph of skill -- it's more like a testament to the pitifully embarassing nerds that we are. If you get beaten by my trivia team, don't feel bad. Pity us and take pride that you've had better things to do with your life than let piles of useless knowledge stack up in your brain.
My teammates are weird trivia junkies. We met one another at various trivia functions and joined forces to become a giant, 8-headed nerd monster. We're not undefeatable by any means - in fact, we've had our egos handed to us on many an occasion. But if the questions line up just right, we can be unstoppable.
We've got a geography guy, a history guy, a sports buff, a lit junkie... heck, we've got a 14-year-old on our team with more book smarts than the rest of us put together. And then there's me. I am our team's go-to guy for the most useless of knowledge: pop culture. I fit in nicely, as my smarty-pants teammates tend not to care a whole lot about Paris Hilton.
Most importantly, we make each other laugh -- and that's what we were doing the other night at a trivia event held at a Davenport church when all heck broke loose.
It wasn't the first time. At the same church last year, we were in the middle of a round of questions when one of the event staff came to our table and demanded that we immediately remove our notebooks. Our BLANK notebooks, mind you, which we use to scribe out and debate answers around the table. We were stunned, but obliged -- only to have the same dude hover over our table with a wary eye for the rest of the night. They never said it out loud, but the inference was loud and clear: someone suspected us of cheating.
Really? Come on now. Cheating at a charity benefit, especially one at a CHURCH, in hopes of winning the grand prize of $20? In the great list of Reprehensible Acts, that would be somewhere between baby-stealing and beating up Santa Claus. My teammates were flabbergasted and some vowed never to return to that church.
Me, I could forgive and forget. And besides, this church held great events. So we put together a new team and signed up for their contest last weekend. We even brought nine players, since we had routinely seen other oversized teams at their past events. We had something to prove, and this time, we left the notebooks at home.
The game went our way. There was even a Beatles category for me to salivate over. We won handily and felt redeemed. All in all, it was a great night out... until the organizers declared that our team had to forfeit due to our extra player. Never mind that 9-person teams could be seen all over the room and that a TEN-person team had won there last year. Never mind that they gladly took the entry fees from all nine of us without complaint.
Our team captain was livid and went to complain. We didn't care about taking home a prize, we cared about respect. Eventually, they begrudgingly credited us with the win. But as we packed up to leave, things escalated. Suddenly, there was the event organizer quite literally SCREAMING at our team captain, calling us "losers." Calling us things I can't print in a family paper. And -- in the middle of a church, mind you -- yelling at us to "get the (expletive) out and never come back." Not that I'd dream of returning.
It's stupid to get worked up over what's supposed to be a fun game for a good cause. I suppose it was stupid of me to write complaint letters this week to everyone from the church pastor to the head of the Davenport Diocese. And maybe it's stupid of me to whine about it in a column. But being called a loser and getting banned from a church wasn't exactly on my weekend "to-do" list, so I think I deserve a whine or two.
In the meantime, I guess I've got to get used to my newfound bad boy image. Join me next week, when I take candy from babies and rip tags off mattresses with wild abandon.
Time for a quick quiz: Name three things in history that have been banned by the church. Go!
Okay, let's see. 1) Abortion. Hmm, lemme think. Oh, okay: 2) Harry Potter. One more to go... umm, something banned by the church, eh? OH! I know. 3) ME.
That's right, folks. I am officially a Bad Boy. You read correctly -- lil 'ol me has been unceremoniously banned from an area church. The way I see it, I am one motorcycle and a temporary tattoo away from being an official menace to society.
It didn't even take much, either. I didn't have to bite the head off a bat or anything. Heck, I didn't even get a chance to bear false witness. Truth be told, I was banned from a church for reasons quite trivial.
Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably been exposed to the recent wave of charity trivia contests happening around town. What started as a small monthly gathering at the Blue Grass Community Club has evolved into an outright local fad. If it's a Saturday night, you can almost guarantee that somewhere close by, teams are gathering together to test their knowledge and raise money for a host of worthy causes.
I'm part of a team that plays in trivia events nearly every weekend. In fact, there's a good chance you might actually hate me. See, my team has this nasty habit of winning nearly every event we attend. I look at it not as a stroke of luck or a triumph of skill -- it's more like a testament to the pitifully embarassing nerds that we are. If you get beaten by my trivia team, don't feel bad. Pity us and take pride that you've had better things to do with your life than let piles of useless knowledge stack up in your brain.
My teammates are weird trivia junkies. We met one another at various trivia functions and joined forces to become a giant, 8-headed nerd monster. We're not undefeatable by any means - in fact, we've had our egos handed to us on many an occasion. But if the questions line up just right, we can be unstoppable.
We've got a geography guy, a history guy, a sports buff, a lit junkie... heck, we've got a 14-year-old on our team with more book smarts than the rest of us put together. And then there's me. I am our team's go-to guy for the most useless of knowledge: pop culture. I fit in nicely, as my smarty-pants teammates tend not to care a whole lot about Paris Hilton.
Most importantly, we make each other laugh -- and that's what we were doing the other night at a trivia event held at a Davenport church when all heck broke loose.
It wasn't the first time. At the same church last year, we were in the middle of a round of questions when one of the event staff came to our table and demanded that we immediately remove our notebooks. Our BLANK notebooks, mind you, which we use to scribe out and debate answers around the table. We were stunned, but obliged -- only to have the same dude hover over our table with a wary eye for the rest of the night. They never said it out loud, but the inference was loud and clear: someone suspected us of cheating.
Really? Come on now. Cheating at a charity benefit, especially one at a CHURCH, in hopes of winning the grand prize of $20? In the great list of Reprehensible Acts, that would be somewhere between baby-stealing and beating up Santa Claus. My teammates were flabbergasted and some vowed never to return to that church.
Me, I could forgive and forget. And besides, this church held great events. So we put together a new team and signed up for their contest last weekend. We even brought nine players, since we had routinely seen other oversized teams at their past events. We had something to prove, and this time, we left the notebooks at home.
The game went our way. There was even a Beatles category for me to salivate over. We won handily and felt redeemed. All in all, it was a great night out... until the organizers declared that our team had to forfeit due to our extra player. Never mind that 9-person teams could be seen all over the room and that a TEN-person team had won there last year. Never mind that they gladly took the entry fees from all nine of us without complaint.
Our team captain was livid and went to complain. We didn't care about taking home a prize, we cared about respect. Eventually, they begrudgingly credited us with the win. But as we packed up to leave, things escalated. Suddenly, there was the event organizer quite literally SCREAMING at our team captain, calling us "losers." Calling us things I can't print in a family paper. And -- in the middle of a church, mind you -- yelling at us to "get the (expletive) out and never come back." Not that I'd dream of returning.
It's stupid to get worked up over what's supposed to be a fun game for a good cause. I suppose it was stupid of me to write complaint letters this week to everyone from the church pastor to the head of the Davenport Diocese. And maybe it's stupid of me to whine about it in a column. But being called a loser and getting banned from a church wasn't exactly on my weekend "to-do" list, so I think I deserve a whine or two.
In the meantime, I guess I've got to get used to my newfound bad boy image. Join me next week, when I take candy from babies and rip tags off mattresses with wild abandon.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Yowza!
Okay, here's where I deserve to be slapped around a bit, as I've spent the past month righteously neglecting this blog.
The GOOD news, though, is that I'm making up for it by posting the last 4 weeks worth of columns all at once. They should be below. I'll be more diligent in the future. Which reminds me, diligent is a funny word. Diligent diligent diligent.
The GOOD news, though, is that I'm making up for it by posting the last 4 weeks worth of columns all at once. They should be below. I'll be more diligent in the future. Which reminds me, diligent is a funny word. Diligent diligent diligent.
COLUMN: Fiction
A few weeks ago, I wrote about my absolute lack of concern when it comes to fashion. I wouldn't know what trends are in vogue even if I was looking in Vogue while listening to En Vogue.
Still, I've apparantly got enough fashion smarts to recognize one thing about myself: I look terrible in green.
One of my closest friends spends her off hours writing books for the demographic I believe you're supposed to call "young adults." And she's great at it. She's already managed to woo a big city agent and is hopefully on her way to a publishing deal.
Happily, whenever she finishes a new book, she lets me have dibs at reading the first draft. This makes for some spirited lunches, where we ponder such questions as "If you were the main character and in 9th grade, and you were kinda cool but not SUPER cool yet somewhat intellectual, would you listen to Beyonce?" (Answer: Beyonce isn't cool no matter WHAT grade you're in.) The wait staff at Ross' must think that we're certifiable.
She just finished her new one, and it's fantastic. It's truly a page-turner, despite the fact that it's clearly written for people half my age, more specifically GIRLS half my age. I didn't care. I got sucked in to her story line regardless, and by the halfway point, I was sitting there going, "Omigod, she had BETTER find a boyfriend before the big Homecoming dance!"
It's so weird that every character, every line of dialogue, and every word in this book came out of the brain of one of my best friends. I'm so happy for her, and so hope that she finds success in such a difficult market to break. That said, the whole scenario is also turning me an icky shade of green.
I can't NOT hear the evil voice in my head that goes, "If SHE can do it, YOU can, too!" That's not to say that I fancy myself a better writer than her, but I mean, heck, the newspaper donates a page for my drivel every week, ergo I must be a Super Awesome Talented Writing Dude, yeah? Fiction for kids -- how tough can it be?
Answer: Very.
Over the past few weeks, I've put pen to paper (okay, who am I kidding, fingers to laptop) and tried to muster up a Work of Fiction For The Ages. Specifically, the ages of 12-15.
This isn't my first stab at cracking open my laptop and hoping that the Great American Novel will pour out. Writing a classic novel involves a level of intellect I simply can't muster up. Think back to your lit classes in high school. Powerful fiction involves symbolism and imagery and poetic narrative and all that other stuff that bores me to tears. I don't think like that, and I can't write like that.
Maybe my problem, though, is that I've been setting my sights too high. I could write 10,000 pages about grapes, and they'd never end up Wrathful. My Gatsby would not be Great; he would be The Mediocre Gatsby at best.
Kids, on the other hand, don't need symbolism. Dr. Seuss didn't write allegorical morality tales about mankind's struggle against societal oppression. He wrote about cats. In hats. This is more my speed.
In fact, I've got a few ideas for a kid's adventure book that could theoretically work if someone with talent were to piece it together. Unfortunately, I decided to do it instead. Bad move. After writing a few pages, I sat back to re-read the beginnings of my epic tale. Annnnnnnd WOW do I suck. What I was convinced would be a future career move turned into the fastest-deleted file in the history of my laptop.
Apparantly, I'm incapable of writing in ANY voice other than the one you're reading now. What I created was no less than five characters who were all, umm, me. Everyone talked, thought, and acted exactly like I would in their situation. My young protagonist hero already had a sarcastic pessimism and a sailor's mouth. The girl of his dreams was a sarcastic pessimist in Katie Holmes' body. The parents could have been locked up for child neglect, whom they neglected in a most sarcastically pessimistic way. The underlying moral at work appeared to be "Well, kids, life's a hopeless suckfest, might as well make fun of it while you can." It was not a good start.
I needed help, so I turned to the mecca of children's adventure lit: I went out and bought myself a Hardy Boys book. In the great pantheon of kid-lit, no heroes were truer to my heart than the brothers Hardy. I opened the book excited to relive my youth.
One small detail the 8-year-old me must have never picked up on: it was written in 1927! I'm somehow supposed to use THIS as inspiration? Seriously, these are lines in the book like:
"Say, we fellows should search for my jalopy after we dine on this Welsh rabbit!" "That's a swell idea, chum!"
Greeeat. Then we can all watch a new-fangled talkie and do the Lindy Hop down to the speakeasy while we oppress minorities and give women subservient societal roles! That'd be the bees knees! Sigh.
So I'm back to square one: a half-corked idea and a writer with a loooooooong way to go. J.K. Rowling I am NOT. Still, I'm not giving up quite yet. Maybe there's a novel idea of a novel in me yet. I'll still keep plugging away at the laptop, though I've changed out of my envious green into a more comfortable embarassment red.
Still, I've apparantly got enough fashion smarts to recognize one thing about myself: I look terrible in green.
One of my closest friends spends her off hours writing books for the demographic I believe you're supposed to call "young adults." And she's great at it. She's already managed to woo a big city agent and is hopefully on her way to a publishing deal.
Happily, whenever she finishes a new book, she lets me have dibs at reading the first draft. This makes for some spirited lunches, where we ponder such questions as "If you were the main character and in 9th grade, and you were kinda cool but not SUPER cool yet somewhat intellectual, would you listen to Beyonce?" (Answer: Beyonce isn't cool no matter WHAT grade you're in.) The wait staff at Ross' must think that we're certifiable.
She just finished her new one, and it's fantastic. It's truly a page-turner, despite the fact that it's clearly written for people half my age, more specifically GIRLS half my age. I didn't care. I got sucked in to her story line regardless, and by the halfway point, I was sitting there going, "Omigod, she had BETTER find a boyfriend before the big Homecoming dance!"
It's so weird that every character, every line of dialogue, and every word in this book came out of the brain of one of my best friends. I'm so happy for her, and so hope that she finds success in such a difficult market to break. That said, the whole scenario is also turning me an icky shade of green.
I can't NOT hear the evil voice in my head that goes, "If SHE can do it, YOU can, too!" That's not to say that I fancy myself a better writer than her, but I mean, heck, the newspaper donates a page for my drivel every week, ergo I must be a Super Awesome Talented Writing Dude, yeah? Fiction for kids -- how tough can it be?
Answer: Very.
Over the past few weeks, I've put pen to paper (okay, who am I kidding, fingers to laptop) and tried to muster up a Work of Fiction For The Ages. Specifically, the ages of 12-15.
This isn't my first stab at cracking open my laptop and hoping that the Great American Novel will pour out. Writing a classic novel involves a level of intellect I simply can't muster up. Think back to your lit classes in high school. Powerful fiction involves symbolism and imagery and poetic narrative and all that other stuff that bores me to tears. I don't think like that, and I can't write like that.
Maybe my problem, though, is that I've been setting my sights too high. I could write 10,000 pages about grapes, and they'd never end up Wrathful. My Gatsby would not be Great; he would be The Mediocre Gatsby at best.
Kids, on the other hand, don't need symbolism. Dr. Seuss didn't write allegorical morality tales about mankind's struggle against societal oppression. He wrote about cats. In hats. This is more my speed.
In fact, I've got a few ideas for a kid's adventure book that could theoretically work if someone with talent were to piece it together. Unfortunately, I decided to do it instead. Bad move. After writing a few pages, I sat back to re-read the beginnings of my epic tale. Annnnnnnd WOW do I suck. What I was convinced would be a future career move turned into the fastest-deleted file in the history of my laptop.
Apparantly, I'm incapable of writing in ANY voice other than the one you're reading now. What I created was no less than five characters who were all, umm, me. Everyone talked, thought, and acted exactly like I would in their situation. My young protagonist hero already had a sarcastic pessimism and a sailor's mouth. The girl of his dreams was a sarcastic pessimist in Katie Holmes' body. The parents could have been locked up for child neglect, whom they neglected in a most sarcastically pessimistic way. The underlying moral at work appeared to be "Well, kids, life's a hopeless suckfest, might as well make fun of it while you can." It was not a good start.
I needed help, so I turned to the mecca of children's adventure lit: I went out and bought myself a Hardy Boys book. In the great pantheon of kid-lit, no heroes were truer to my heart than the brothers Hardy. I opened the book excited to relive my youth.
One small detail the 8-year-old me must have never picked up on: it was written in 1927! I'm somehow supposed to use THIS as inspiration? Seriously, these are lines in the book like:
"Say, we fellows should search for my jalopy after we dine on this Welsh rabbit!" "That's a swell idea, chum!"
Greeeat. Then we can all watch a new-fangled talkie and do the Lindy Hop down to the speakeasy while we oppress minorities and give women subservient societal roles! That'd be the bees knees! Sigh.
So I'm back to square one: a half-corked idea and a writer with a loooooooong way to go. J.K. Rowling I am NOT. Still, I'm not giving up quite yet. Maybe there's a novel idea of a novel in me yet. I'll still keep plugging away at the laptop, though I've changed out of my envious green into a more comfortable embarassment red.
COLUMN: Spooky
Well, it's official. Spring has sprung. In little to no time, birds will be chirping. Skies will be blue. Leaves will grow, flowers will bloom, hills will be alive with the sound of freakin' music. It's the happiest time of the year.
Which, of course, is why I've been surrounding myself these days with gloom, doom, and things that go bump in the night.
I don't know what the deal is, but every time I've turned on the TV this past week, I've been sucked into random shows about ghosts and ghouls and witches and aliens and any assorted hodge-podge of hocum-pocum. I don't understand why these shows are attacking our airwaves in such fury this month, and even more baffling, I don't know what my strange compulsion is to constantly watch them.
I'm no fan of being scared. While many of my nerdling friends made heroes out of Freddy and Jason and Michael Myers, I was having none of it. In early high school, I came up with the brilliant idea of asking a girl to one of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" flicks. Not a bad idea, right? Freddy kills somebody, the girl goes "eek" and seeks comfort in the strong, brave arms of her ruggedly handsome teenaged escort.
As I sat there in the theatre watching this thing, I should have been concerned about getting to second base. Instead, I was concerned about trying not to pee my pants every time Freddy jumped out. That was my last in-theatre trip to a horror flick.
And those movies are super corny compared to the monstrosities that play in theatres now. Just sneaking up on some hapless victim with a hatchet is SO 1985. Today's horror movies don't stop rolling until the hapless victim is fileted, dismembered, and if you're especially lucky, eaten. And frankly, theatre owners should put a stop to it, as you'd assume there MUST be a negative correlation between the number of full-screen disembowelments and concession sales of hot dogs.
The point is, I hate being scared. I hate movies where everything is nice and peaceful and calm and BWAAAAAAA LOOK OUT FOR THE HATCHET! I get no entertainment value out of elevated blood pressure. On the OTHER hand, if something can be eerie and creepy without being downright scary, sign me up.
I dunno why, but I've always wanted to believe in ghosts and aliens and paranormal whatzits, provided they keep their hatchets to themselves.
When I was a kid, I saw an allegedly true story about a group of lost hikers somewhere in the desert Southwest. Those hikers would have died, had it not been for the kindly ghost of an Indian tracker who led them all to safety. Neat story until I went to bed that night.
See, my aunt had recently given me a large stuffed dog. I mean, LARGE. The sucker stood taller than me and took up a third of my bedroom. And when my mom would tuck me in and shut off the lights, all you could see at first was this dog's huge plastic eyes. Except, after watching that show, it wasn't a dog.
Nope, it was the Indian tracker ghost. He was stuck inside my dog, he was staring at me through those soulless plastic eyes, and he was anything but kindly. I'm pretty sure he wanted to eat my brain. So every night, after my mom would tuck me in, I would silently creep out of bed, remove the covers from my pillows, and flop them over the dog's eyes so that whatever lurked inside couldn't spy on me. I did this for YEARS.
So a good ghost story can have an impact. That's why I'm addicted to stuff like Sci-Fi's "Ghost Hunters" and A&E's "Paranormal State." I want to find out if there's even an iota of truth to the paranormal, and these shows, while admittedly campy, at least try to use some semblance of science to seek answers. Sure, usually it's a team of people going, "Ooh! What was that banging noise?" followed by an hour trying to establish if it was something banging or SOME THING banging. Most episodes end with a question mark and no conclusive evidence, but at least once a season, they manage to capture some seriously spooky audio or video that makes even the biggest of skeptics raise an eyebrow or two.
I'd love to be a firm believer in the paranormal, but I'd certainly prefer my ghosts to be of the "Casper-the-friendly" variety. I'd like to hope that, should an afterlife exist, I'd prefer it involve more than floating around my apartment for all of eternity spooking any new tenants. If your only job is to make the occasional banging noise in the middle of the night, you'd think that would certainly equal a lot of post-mortem downtime.
Still, I'm fascinated by it all. When the Iowa Paranormal Advanced Research Team investigated an area haunting about a year ago, they let me tag along to write a story for the paper. IPART is the region's only investigators recognized by TAPS (the folks behind the "Ghost Hunters" show,) and they take the job seriously. After the article ran, I became a member of IPART. I don't have many weekends free to go spectre sleuthing, but I still love to take part in the evidence analysis and their efforts to prove the existence of the supernatural. Laugh if you want, but there are weirder hobbies out there.
So, hey, if you think you've got an undead buddy lurking in the shadows of your house, shoot me an e-mail and I can pass it on to IPART. Unless they're chasing you with hatchets, in which case I'll wish you well and take a raincheck.
Which, of course, is why I've been surrounding myself these days with gloom, doom, and things that go bump in the night.
I don't know what the deal is, but every time I've turned on the TV this past week, I've been sucked into random shows about ghosts and ghouls and witches and aliens and any assorted hodge-podge of hocum-pocum. I don't understand why these shows are attacking our airwaves in such fury this month, and even more baffling, I don't know what my strange compulsion is to constantly watch them.
I'm no fan of being scared. While many of my nerdling friends made heroes out of Freddy and Jason and Michael Myers, I was having none of it. In early high school, I came up with the brilliant idea of asking a girl to one of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" flicks. Not a bad idea, right? Freddy kills somebody, the girl goes "eek" and seeks comfort in the strong, brave arms of her ruggedly handsome teenaged escort.
As I sat there in the theatre watching this thing, I should have been concerned about getting to second base. Instead, I was concerned about trying not to pee my pants every time Freddy jumped out. That was my last in-theatre trip to a horror flick.
And those movies are super corny compared to the monstrosities that play in theatres now. Just sneaking up on some hapless victim with a hatchet is SO 1985. Today's horror movies don't stop rolling until the hapless victim is fileted, dismembered, and if you're especially lucky, eaten. And frankly, theatre owners should put a stop to it, as you'd assume there MUST be a negative correlation between the number of full-screen disembowelments and concession sales of hot dogs.
The point is, I hate being scared. I hate movies where everything is nice and peaceful and calm and BWAAAAAAA LOOK OUT FOR THE HATCHET! I get no entertainment value out of elevated blood pressure. On the OTHER hand, if something can be eerie and creepy without being downright scary, sign me up.
I dunno why, but I've always wanted to believe in ghosts and aliens and paranormal whatzits, provided they keep their hatchets to themselves.
When I was a kid, I saw an allegedly true story about a group of lost hikers somewhere in the desert Southwest. Those hikers would have died, had it not been for the kindly ghost of an Indian tracker who led them all to safety. Neat story until I went to bed that night.
See, my aunt had recently given me a large stuffed dog. I mean, LARGE. The sucker stood taller than me and took up a third of my bedroom. And when my mom would tuck me in and shut off the lights, all you could see at first was this dog's huge plastic eyes. Except, after watching that show, it wasn't a dog.
Nope, it was the Indian tracker ghost. He was stuck inside my dog, he was staring at me through those soulless plastic eyes, and he was anything but kindly. I'm pretty sure he wanted to eat my brain. So every night, after my mom would tuck me in, I would silently creep out of bed, remove the covers from my pillows, and flop them over the dog's eyes so that whatever lurked inside couldn't spy on me. I did this for YEARS.
So a good ghost story can have an impact. That's why I'm addicted to stuff like Sci-Fi's "Ghost Hunters" and A&E's "Paranormal State." I want to find out if there's even an iota of truth to the paranormal, and these shows, while admittedly campy, at least try to use some semblance of science to seek answers. Sure, usually it's a team of people going, "Ooh! What was that banging noise?" followed by an hour trying to establish if it was something banging or SOME THING banging. Most episodes end with a question mark and no conclusive evidence, but at least once a season, they manage to capture some seriously spooky audio or video that makes even the biggest of skeptics raise an eyebrow or two.
I'd love to be a firm believer in the paranormal, but I'd certainly prefer my ghosts to be of the "Casper-the-friendly" variety. I'd like to hope that, should an afterlife exist, I'd prefer it involve more than floating around my apartment for all of eternity spooking any new tenants. If your only job is to make the occasional banging noise in the middle of the night, you'd think that would certainly equal a lot of post-mortem downtime.
Still, I'm fascinated by it all. When the Iowa Paranormal Advanced Research Team investigated an area haunting about a year ago, they let me tag along to write a story for the paper. IPART is the region's only investigators recognized by TAPS (the folks behind the "Ghost Hunters" show,) and they take the job seriously. After the article ran, I became a member of IPART. I don't have many weekends free to go spectre sleuthing, but I still love to take part in the evidence analysis and their efforts to prove the existence of the supernatural. Laugh if you want, but there are weirder hobbies out there.
So, hey, if you think you've got an undead buddy lurking in the shadows of your house, shoot me an e-mail and I can pass it on to IPART. Unless they're chasing you with hatchets, in which case I'll wish you well and take a raincheck.
COLUMN: Toilets
As I was leaving work last Friday, I bumped into Sean Leary, our entertainment editor. Sean's mere days away at this point from becoming a first-time dad, so his life has been a whirlwind of home remodeling and baby-prepping.
"How're things going?" I asked. "Did you get the place all baby-fied?"
He then spouted off a checklist of accomplished renovations. Room redesign, nursery creation, wall painting... the list went on and on while my head swam. Here was somebody of similar age and mindset to myself -- yet all grown up, mature, and doing things with his living space I couldn't dream of. He's putting up wallpaper. I, meanwhile, still get jittery when I have to change a lightbulb (Am I using too much force? Is the bulb going to shatter? Should I wear an oven mitt?)
I've got to face it. When it comes to fix-it type stuff (and, well, most things related to independent, self-sufficient survival,) I'm pretty much a flunky. Yet this week, I accomplished my most challenging feat of home improvement yet. And it started, as most good stories do, sitting on the toilet.
There I was, deeply engrossed in some pretentious music magazine's list of The World's Greatest Albums Ever. What? How could they ignore the genius of The Kinks' 1970's output? Any music critic with half a clue would tell you that -- KA-BAM!!!!
-- And I was falling to the floor.
My natural instinct was to assume that I had been shot. Obviously, a pack of toilet-raiding banditos had broken into my apartment, crept into my bathroom with ninja-like stealth and precision, and offed me at point-blank range. And that's where they'd find me, pants around my ankles, just like Elvis. LIFE OF COLUMNIST TRAGICALLY FLUSHED AWAY BY BATHROOM NINJAS, the headline would read.
But I wasn't shot. Not even grazed. In fact, the only thing wounded was my pride. So what the heck happened? That noise -- the ear-splitting, heart-stopping bang -- was the sound of my toilet seat snapping in two. Half was still attached to the toilet, the other half on the floor with me.
This would normally be a clear-cut sign that it's time to lose some weight -- or, at the very least, introduce fiber to my diet. In fact, it would have officially Freaked Me Out, had I not known it was coming. See, during my last home improvement kick - Installing A New Shower Head - I tried a fancy manoevre involving standing on the toilet seat for leverage. Leverage I did NOT attain, but cracking the toilet seat I DID manage to pull off flawlessly.
That was four years ago. In the epic battle of Laziness vs. Toilet Repair, lazy won out. I had learned to live with that crack through the good times and bad. You know how annoying it was when your grandmother would come up and pinch your cheeks? Well, it's kinda like that -- if grandma was a toilet seat and she was pinching an altogether different set of cheeks.
Still, I made do, and just assumed that one day, it'd break. And that day, it broke. I needed a replacement post-haste. But where does one turn for toilet seats? I'm a total novice here. Is there a Toilet Seat Emporium someplace? A catalog I could peruse? Shockingly, the Yellow Pages had no section for Toilet Seats.
Ergo, I went to one of those 24-hour-Super-Mega-Conglom-O-Marts. "Welcome," said the greeter, "can we help you find anything today?"
"Sure can," I replied with a chuckle. "You won't believe it, but I sat on my toilet seat today and broke the thing in two!" In the world of Too Much Information, this was perhaps a record-setting statement. Despite looking at me as though I were there to lure small children into my unmarked van, she dutifully pointed me to the toilet seat aisle.
And I mean aisle. I was expecting toilet seats, but I certainly wasn't expecting a wall of them. Blue ones, pink ones, ones with little palm trees and ocean vistas so that every trip to the potty is like a tropical get-away. Happily, though, I was able to whittle away the selection right away. Why? One word -- "cushioned."
In my day-to-day activities, I am a fairly well-cushioned individual. I lead a padded life, from my poofy desk chair to my overstuffed sectional, from my padded pillows to the padded cell they'll probably lock me in one day. I'm a guy who appreciates cushions. That said, one place where cushions NEVER belong is the bathroom.
I never want to sit on a toilet and hear "koooooooooooosh" as the seat deflates. And let's not even dwell upon the awkward issue of trying to stand up while the vinyl seat is adhered to one's nether-region, as if the toilet itself were clinging to its only companion for dear life. Fact: Padded potties are just gross.
Finally I found a sturdy, no-nonsense, run-of-the-mill replacement seat. And I brought it home and installed that sucker all by myself (though the deceptive pop-top screws almost threw me for a loop.) Yes, my hands had to touch parts of my plumbing that could be legally classified a level 3 biohazard, but I got the job done. I am a Mr. Fix-It after all.
So good news, ladies of the Quad Cities. I'm apparantly mature and stuff, which means (at least according to my grandchild-pleading mother) that it's time to procreate. Step lively, the line forms to the left.
"How're things going?" I asked. "Did you get the place all baby-fied?"
He then spouted off a checklist of accomplished renovations. Room redesign, nursery creation, wall painting... the list went on and on while my head swam. Here was somebody of similar age and mindset to myself -- yet all grown up, mature, and doing things with his living space I couldn't dream of. He's putting up wallpaper. I, meanwhile, still get jittery when I have to change a lightbulb (Am I using too much force? Is the bulb going to shatter? Should I wear an oven mitt?)
I've got to face it. When it comes to fix-it type stuff (and, well, most things related to independent, self-sufficient survival,) I'm pretty much a flunky. Yet this week, I accomplished my most challenging feat of home improvement yet. And it started, as most good stories do, sitting on the toilet.
There I was, deeply engrossed in some pretentious music magazine's list of The World's Greatest Albums Ever. What? How could they ignore the genius of The Kinks' 1970's output? Any music critic with half a clue would tell you that -- KA-BAM!!!!
-- And I was falling to the floor.
My natural instinct was to assume that I had been shot. Obviously, a pack of toilet-raiding banditos had broken into my apartment, crept into my bathroom with ninja-like stealth and precision, and offed me at point-blank range. And that's where they'd find me, pants around my ankles, just like Elvis. LIFE OF COLUMNIST TRAGICALLY FLUSHED AWAY BY BATHROOM NINJAS, the headline would read.
But I wasn't shot. Not even grazed. In fact, the only thing wounded was my pride. So what the heck happened? That noise -- the ear-splitting, heart-stopping bang -- was the sound of my toilet seat snapping in two. Half was still attached to the toilet, the other half on the floor with me.
This would normally be a clear-cut sign that it's time to lose some weight -- or, at the very least, introduce fiber to my diet. In fact, it would have officially Freaked Me Out, had I not known it was coming. See, during my last home improvement kick - Installing A New Shower Head - I tried a fancy manoevre involving standing on the toilet seat for leverage. Leverage I did NOT attain, but cracking the toilet seat I DID manage to pull off flawlessly.
That was four years ago. In the epic battle of Laziness vs. Toilet Repair, lazy won out. I had learned to live with that crack through the good times and bad. You know how annoying it was when your grandmother would come up and pinch your cheeks? Well, it's kinda like that -- if grandma was a toilet seat and she was pinching an altogether different set of cheeks.
Still, I made do, and just assumed that one day, it'd break. And that day, it broke. I needed a replacement post-haste. But where does one turn for toilet seats? I'm a total novice here. Is there a Toilet Seat Emporium someplace? A catalog I could peruse? Shockingly, the Yellow Pages had no section for Toilet Seats.
Ergo, I went to one of those 24-hour-Super-Mega-Conglom-O-Marts. "Welcome," said the greeter, "can we help you find anything today?"
"Sure can," I replied with a chuckle. "You won't believe it, but I sat on my toilet seat today and broke the thing in two!" In the world of Too Much Information, this was perhaps a record-setting statement. Despite looking at me as though I were there to lure small children into my unmarked van, she dutifully pointed me to the toilet seat aisle.
And I mean aisle. I was expecting toilet seats, but I certainly wasn't expecting a wall of them. Blue ones, pink ones, ones with little palm trees and ocean vistas so that every trip to the potty is like a tropical get-away. Happily, though, I was able to whittle away the selection right away. Why? One word -- "cushioned."
In my day-to-day activities, I am a fairly well-cushioned individual. I lead a padded life, from my poofy desk chair to my overstuffed sectional, from my padded pillows to the padded cell they'll probably lock me in one day. I'm a guy who appreciates cushions. That said, one place where cushions NEVER belong is the bathroom.
I never want to sit on a toilet and hear "koooooooooooosh" as the seat deflates. And let's not even dwell upon the awkward issue of trying to stand up while the vinyl seat is adhered to one's nether-region, as if the toilet itself were clinging to its only companion for dear life. Fact: Padded potties are just gross.
Finally I found a sturdy, no-nonsense, run-of-the-mill replacement seat. And I brought it home and installed that sucker all by myself (though the deceptive pop-top screws almost threw me for a loop.) Yes, my hands had to touch parts of my plumbing that could be legally classified a level 3 biohazard, but I got the job done. I am a Mr. Fix-It after all.
So good news, ladies of the Quad Cities. I'm apparantly mature and stuff, which means (at least according to my grandchild-pleading mother) that it's time to procreate. Step lively, the line forms to the left.
COLUMN: Clothes
If there's one thing out there that I tend not to give a hoot about, it is -- as my friends can likely attest -- fashion. On any given day, my wardrobe usually consists of a funny t-shirt, khaki pants, and a pair of cheap Vans. If it's a work day, I'll have an ugly polo or sweater temporarily hiding the funny t-shirt o' the day. And if you catch me on a particularly high-fashion day, maybe -- just maybe -- I'll have on my Greek fisherman's cap.
Long ago, I realized that my brain simply isn't in tune with fashion sensibilities. I get a kick out of watching that show "Project Runway" -- the kid who won this season is a show unto himself -- but I've NEVER understood it. Every episode builds to the climactic runway show, where the wanna-be designers parade their outfits down the catwalk to the assorted ooh's and eww's of the judges.
And I can never tell the difference. An outfit can stroll by that I think looks fairly decent, and then you'll see Heidi Klum making a concentrated effort to restrain her gag reflex. I've just never taken much stock into what people are wearing. God forbid I ever get robbed one day:
"Sir, can you describe the assailant? What was he wearing?"
"Umm... I'm pretty sure... yes, I'm positive that he was wearing clothes."
The truth is, you could safely come up to me dressed as a rutabega and I probably wouldn't take note of it. My brain is simply not programmed to notice these sorts of things. The only way you could get me to remember your outfit is if you forget to wear it altogether. Naked people I remember well.
So naturally, me and clothes shopping don't get along. I'm not a fan whatsoever, and when I DO have to do it, I want to bring home enough clothes that I don't have to do it again for a really long time. Lately, though, I've been running into a problem.
That problem? My wallet. You would think that my problem would entail my wallet being too empty to shop for clothes. Au contraire. The problem is that my wallet is too full. Acquaintances from decades past, enough insurance cards to provide medical coverage to most of the Quad Cities, little slips of paper with phone numbers that may or may not be of crucial importantance -- my wallet is the centrifuge of my life.
The downside, though, it that it does bad things to pants. In the course of the past month, I have managed to put holes in the rumps of no fewer than three pair of older khakis, all due to the strain of trying to cram a hard drive full of information into my back pocket.
There's only one thing I hate more than clothes shopping, and that's laundry. Less hole-free clothes = more trips to the laundry. More laundry = more wear and tear on my shrinking pants collection. It was a losing cycle, and I had to admit that it was time to (gulp) shop.
One place exists that caters to the fashion ignorants of the world. A store where everything is so fashion-free that it's a safety zone for shopping idiots like me. A store where everything pretty much matches everything else. In fairness, I won't say the name of this store in print -- let's just say that it rhymes with Old Gravy.
Now, I won't give Old Gravy much grief, because it truly is a Godsend. Admit it, the store is so generic that it might as well have a blue and white sign that just says "CLOTHES" in front of it. And I'm perfectly okay with that. I'm all in favor of a store that lets you leap in, buy some cheap pants, and leap out uninterrupted and with sanity intact.
Only one problem, it turns out. It appears that I am now OFFICIALLY a walking freakshow, as I now require a pant size that's an endangered species in and of itself. I know I'm an out-of-shape, roly-poly mess, but I didn't quite think that I was the ONLY out-of-shape roly poly mess in the universe. Apparantly I am, as my pant size was practically non-existant in the racks of Old Gravy.
In fact, I went through every stupid pair of khakis the store had and discovered exactly SIX pair my size, and I bought the lot. Of those six, four of them actually fit when I got home. I know, I know. Shoulda tried 'em on at the store, stupid. But I can't wrap my head around the fact that a waist size should be a waist size should be a waist size, right? It's a measurement, it shouldn't be open to debate. Yet it appears that those little waist numbers mean a vast variety of things in the language of Old Gravy.
Still, I made do, and even picked up some more polos and sweaters to cover up my burgeoning mid-section as best possible. Maybe my two non-fitting pants will be a catalyst to get off the couch and shed some of this belly. And these cargo pants even look big enough to hold the overweight cargo I call a wallet, so maybe they'll last a while. Sadly, though, my word limit for the week has reached its end, which means I can no longer use this column as an excuse to avoid doing laundry. Wish me luck.
Long ago, I realized that my brain simply isn't in tune with fashion sensibilities. I get a kick out of watching that show "Project Runway" -- the kid who won this season is a show unto himself -- but I've NEVER understood it. Every episode builds to the climactic runway show, where the wanna-be designers parade their outfits down the catwalk to the assorted ooh's and eww's of the judges.
And I can never tell the difference. An outfit can stroll by that I think looks fairly decent, and then you'll see Heidi Klum making a concentrated effort to restrain her gag reflex. I've just never taken much stock into what people are wearing. God forbid I ever get robbed one day:
"Sir, can you describe the assailant? What was he wearing?"
"Umm... I'm pretty sure... yes, I'm positive that he was wearing clothes."
The truth is, you could safely come up to me dressed as a rutabega and I probably wouldn't take note of it. My brain is simply not programmed to notice these sorts of things. The only way you could get me to remember your outfit is if you forget to wear it altogether. Naked people I remember well.
So naturally, me and clothes shopping don't get along. I'm not a fan whatsoever, and when I DO have to do it, I want to bring home enough clothes that I don't have to do it again for a really long time. Lately, though, I've been running into a problem.
That problem? My wallet. You would think that my problem would entail my wallet being too empty to shop for clothes. Au contraire. The problem is that my wallet is too full. Acquaintances from decades past, enough insurance cards to provide medical coverage to most of the Quad Cities, little slips of paper with phone numbers that may or may not be of crucial importantance -- my wallet is the centrifuge of my life.
The downside, though, it that it does bad things to pants. In the course of the past month, I have managed to put holes in the rumps of no fewer than three pair of older khakis, all due to the strain of trying to cram a hard drive full of information into my back pocket.
There's only one thing I hate more than clothes shopping, and that's laundry. Less hole-free clothes = more trips to the laundry. More laundry = more wear and tear on my shrinking pants collection. It was a losing cycle, and I had to admit that it was time to (gulp) shop.
One place exists that caters to the fashion ignorants of the world. A store where everything is so fashion-free that it's a safety zone for shopping idiots like me. A store where everything pretty much matches everything else. In fairness, I won't say the name of this store in print -- let's just say that it rhymes with Old Gravy.
Now, I won't give Old Gravy much grief, because it truly is a Godsend. Admit it, the store is so generic that it might as well have a blue and white sign that just says "CLOTHES" in front of it. And I'm perfectly okay with that. I'm all in favor of a store that lets you leap in, buy some cheap pants, and leap out uninterrupted and with sanity intact.
Only one problem, it turns out. It appears that I am now OFFICIALLY a walking freakshow, as I now require a pant size that's an endangered species in and of itself. I know I'm an out-of-shape, roly-poly mess, but I didn't quite think that I was the ONLY out-of-shape roly poly mess in the universe. Apparantly I am, as my pant size was practically non-existant in the racks of Old Gravy.
In fact, I went through every stupid pair of khakis the store had and discovered exactly SIX pair my size, and I bought the lot. Of those six, four of them actually fit when I got home. I know, I know. Shoulda tried 'em on at the store, stupid. But I can't wrap my head around the fact that a waist size should be a waist size should be a waist size, right? It's a measurement, it shouldn't be open to debate. Yet it appears that those little waist numbers mean a vast variety of things in the language of Old Gravy.
Still, I made do, and even picked up some more polos and sweaters to cover up my burgeoning mid-section as best possible. Maybe my two non-fitting pants will be a catalyst to get off the couch and shed some of this belly. And these cargo pants even look big enough to hold the overweight cargo I call a wallet, so maybe they'll last a while. Sadly, though, my word limit for the week has reached its end, which means I can no longer use this column as an excuse to avoid doing laundry. Wish me luck.
Monday, April 07, 2008
2 Hours of Life Lost
Okay, so there are bad movies.
And then there are REALLY bad movies.
And then there's "Next" with Nicholas Cage.
BAAAAAAAAAAAD OnDemand choice, Shane.
I'm just sayin'.
Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been forgetful. New columns coming in the next day or two, promise.
And then there are REALLY bad movies.
And then there's "Next" with Nicholas Cage.
BAAAAAAAAAAAD OnDemand choice, Shane.
I'm just sayin'.
Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been forgetful. New columns coming in the next day or two, promise.
Monday, March 17, 2008
COLUMN: Keys
I am SO not a morning person.
The only thing that allows me to function as a somewhat productive member of society is the morning ritual. Set the brain to autopilot and hopefully wake up at work. Complete all steps efficiently and I make it to work on time. If anything louses up, I'm late. I hate being late. Almost as much as my boss hates me being late.
Everyday's the same. Crawl out of bed. Plop down in computer chair. Suck some coffee and Google up the morning headlines. (I suppose, as a newspaper employee and all, that I should tell you how I get all of the day's pertinent info from my morning paper. Truth be told, my neighbor steals my paper every day before I awaken. I'm pretty sure she uses it to line her vast multitudes of birdcages. I'd say something, but I'd hate to jeopardize our market reach to the much- coveted cockatiel demographic.)
Eventually I drag myself into the shower and throw on some clothes (hopefully in that order.) Grab a coat. Walk to car. Unlock car...
And that's where I froze up last Friday. After doing the hand-in-pocket shimmy for comically too long, I finally realized that I had left my car keys inside. So I trot back up to the apartment... but they're not there. In fact, they're nowhere to be seen whatsoever.
When something is lost, a new kind of ritual takes over that defies all senses of logic and reason. This usually involves two things:
(1) Looking in inane places. Hmm, did I set them inside the microwave? No. Okay, hmm, maybe they fell into the toilet. Nope, not there either. How about this drawer I haven't opened since the mid-1990's?
(2) Checking, re-checking, and re-re-checking my pants pocket, as though my first four searches somehow weren't thorough enough. This invariably ends in me emptying all of my pockets onto the kitchen counter to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that wee key faeries didn't sneak them into my pocket while I wasn't looking.
By this time, I'm in full panic mode and breaking a sweat. Five minutes later, I give up. My car key has obviously somehow been sucked from my apartment in some kind of anti-matter vortex. No choice but to call a cab.
I say "A" cab because it seems that, in the Quad Cities, there is only one. Seriously, I think I've had to use a taxi five times in my life, and every time, it's been the same dude driving. And whenever you need him, he's in Silvis, or Dewitt, or Djibouti.
Keys don't just get up and walk away. That's when I started looking at my cats with a harsh glare. They sure looked innocent. Maybe TOO innocent. I was just about to interrogate when my cab showed.
After a nice five minute lecture from left-field on the FDA's regulations of hot dogs (Why, cabbie guy? Why at 9 a.m.? I was ALREADY sick to my stomach!) and a $20 hole in my pocket (that's $.54 PER BLOCK,) I made it to work. As soon as I could, I called my dealership to find out what would happen if my key was, in fact, lost in the ether.
"No problem," said the parts dude. "I can order you up a new one. It runs about $150. And you'll need to get it programmed, that's another $50." $200? FOR A KEY???
"Well, yeah," he explained. "These electronic keys have some pretty serious technology."
Now, I own a remote control that runs my TV, stereo, X-Box, DVD player, and I'm pretty sure it can make you coffee if you ask nicely. It cost me $20. Serious technology, my fanny. That settled it, I needed to find my key. And the only way I could do it was with the help of those I call the SuperFriends.
"GREAT NEWS!" I exclaimed to friend Jason over the phone. "You've been selected to participate in the 1st Annual Shane Brown Celebrity Pro-Am Treasure Hunt!"
"Uh oh," came the reply.
"At great personal expense and sacrifice, I have hidden one slightly used key to my car. The first one who finds it shall be declared WINNER!"
He didn't buy it, but he still came over after work, as did my friend Linn. We tore the place up. We dared disturb the fragile and delicate ecosystem of the underside of my couch. The upshot of this was finding $42 in pocket change, but no key. We decided the last step would be to cut open the lining of the couch and learn what exactly comprised the bulbous tumor of debris sticking out of its back corner.
"Okay," I said, but I'd gotten so warm I first needed to lose the sweater I was wearing. I went to toss it into the hamper when a gleam of silver caught my eye. There, in the very bottom of my clothes hamper, was my elusive key. How it got there remains a mystery. I wasn't near the hamper the day before, nor had yesterday's pants made it that far yet.
It took a while to get the apartment back in shape -- and the Tumor O' Mystery remains embedded in my couch. Perhaps one day I'll open it like a time capsule and reminisce about the rogue French fry I spilled down a crack in the summer of '06. For now, though, I'm content just to drive to work without learning exactly what by-products comprise a hot dog. Sometimes ignorance IS bliss.
The only thing that allows me to function as a somewhat productive member of society is the morning ritual. Set the brain to autopilot and hopefully wake up at work. Complete all steps efficiently and I make it to work on time. If anything louses up, I'm late. I hate being late. Almost as much as my boss hates me being late.
Everyday's the same. Crawl out of bed. Plop down in computer chair. Suck some coffee and Google up the morning headlines. (I suppose, as a newspaper employee and all, that I should tell you how I get all of the day's pertinent info from my morning paper. Truth be told, my neighbor steals my paper every day before I awaken. I'm pretty sure she uses it to line her vast multitudes of birdcages. I'd say something, but I'd hate to jeopardize our market reach to the much- coveted cockatiel demographic.)
Eventually I drag myself into the shower and throw on some clothes (hopefully in that order.) Grab a coat. Walk to car. Unlock car...
And that's where I froze up last Friday. After doing the hand-in-pocket shimmy for comically too long, I finally realized that I had left my car keys inside. So I trot back up to the apartment... but they're not there. In fact, they're nowhere to be seen whatsoever.
When something is lost, a new kind of ritual takes over that defies all senses of logic and reason. This usually involves two things:
(1) Looking in inane places. Hmm, did I set them inside the microwave? No. Okay, hmm, maybe they fell into the toilet. Nope, not there either. How about this drawer I haven't opened since the mid-1990's?
(2) Checking, re-checking, and re-re-checking my pants pocket, as though my first four searches somehow weren't thorough enough. This invariably ends in me emptying all of my pockets onto the kitchen counter to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that wee key faeries didn't sneak them into my pocket while I wasn't looking.
By this time, I'm in full panic mode and breaking a sweat. Five minutes later, I give up. My car key has obviously somehow been sucked from my apartment in some kind of anti-matter vortex. No choice but to call a cab.
I say "A" cab because it seems that, in the Quad Cities, there is only one. Seriously, I think I've had to use a taxi five times in my life, and every time, it's been the same dude driving. And whenever you need him, he's in Silvis, or Dewitt, or Djibouti.
Keys don't just get up and walk away. That's when I started looking at my cats with a harsh glare. They sure looked innocent. Maybe TOO innocent. I was just about to interrogate when my cab showed.
After a nice five minute lecture from left-field on the FDA's regulations of hot dogs (Why, cabbie guy? Why at 9 a.m.? I was ALREADY sick to my stomach!) and a $20 hole in my pocket (that's $.54 PER BLOCK,) I made it to work. As soon as I could, I called my dealership to find out what would happen if my key was, in fact, lost in the ether.
"No problem," said the parts dude. "I can order you up a new one. It runs about $150. And you'll need to get it programmed, that's another $50." $200? FOR A KEY???
"Well, yeah," he explained. "These electronic keys have some pretty serious technology."
Now, I own a remote control that runs my TV, stereo, X-Box, DVD player, and I'm pretty sure it can make you coffee if you ask nicely. It cost me $20. Serious technology, my fanny. That settled it, I needed to find my key. And the only way I could do it was with the help of those I call the SuperFriends.
"GREAT NEWS!" I exclaimed to friend Jason over the phone. "You've been selected to participate in the 1st Annual Shane Brown Celebrity Pro-Am Treasure Hunt!"
"Uh oh," came the reply.
"At great personal expense and sacrifice, I have hidden one slightly used key to my car. The first one who finds it shall be declared WINNER!"
He didn't buy it, but he still came over after work, as did my friend Linn. We tore the place up. We dared disturb the fragile and delicate ecosystem of the underside of my couch. The upshot of this was finding $42 in pocket change, but no key. We decided the last step would be to cut open the lining of the couch and learn what exactly comprised the bulbous tumor of debris sticking out of its back corner.
"Okay," I said, but I'd gotten so warm I first needed to lose the sweater I was wearing. I went to toss it into the hamper when a gleam of silver caught my eye. There, in the very bottom of my clothes hamper, was my elusive key. How it got there remains a mystery. I wasn't near the hamper the day before, nor had yesterday's pants made it that far yet.
It took a while to get the apartment back in shape -- and the Tumor O' Mystery remains embedded in my couch. Perhaps one day I'll open it like a time capsule and reminisce about the rogue French fry I spilled down a crack in the summer of '06. For now, though, I'm content just to drive to work without learning exactly what by-products comprise a hot dog. Sometimes ignorance IS bliss.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
COLUMN: Rock Band
I'm breaking my own vow this week, Quad Cities. I promised myself long ago that, no matter what, I would waste no more column space talking about the video game Guitar Hero. If you're a regular visitor to my niche of the paper, you'll know that my embarassing obsession with the game has worked its way its way into many of my past missives.
But let's face it -- my journalistic integrity, not to mention my true goal of using my column to woo eligible bachelorettes, would be best served with topics designed for, say, people over the age of 12. Besides, as much as I love playing Guitar Hero, the truth of the matter is that I kinda stink at it. Beating a song on Expert mode requires a brain obviously hard-wired differently than mine. So I gave up on Guitar Hero. Thankfully, Rock Band was there to take its place.
Rock Band is the competition to the Guitar Hero franchise, and it takes nerddom to a new level. In addition to the plastic guitars, Rock Band incorporates plastic drums and a plastic microphone, so you can create your own little fake band right in your living room. And one night, after discovering that I was no better at the Rock Band guitar than I was at Guitar Hero, I picked up the mic.
Here's the thing: I can't sing to save my life. When I try, the voice that somehow erupts from my larnyx is feeble, high-pitched, and goes against the very nature of testosterone. But what the hey -- it was a late night and I had no audience except for my cats, and they're pretty good about keeping secrets. So I gave it a shot. And I did it. Actually, I didn't just do it -- I kicked butt at it.
Thus began my newest obsession. Every night, after you and yours were safely asleep, I would be up and alone in my apartment, quietly warbling into a plastic microphone. Eventually, I had the guts to do it in front of my fellow Rock Band-obsessed friends. And despite tears of hysterical laughter, they gave me props at my ability to somehow score huge points. As of this writing, out of the millions of people playing the game, I am ranked the #132nd greatest vocalist in the world. It was time to go public.
Which is why I spent last Saturday at Rock Island's Gameology in their first ever Rock Band tournament. We needed four people to sign up, and we went in with a blistering powerhouse -- me on vocals, my friend Chris on guitar, Linn on bass -- and on drums? Some kid we met that day who agreed to play with us. I didn't even get his name. Like Spinal Tap, our band goes through drummers like water. We needed a band name to sign up, so we improvised: Angry Bob & the Sucktone.
As we waited our turn, we scoped out the competition. Strangely, every other entrant in the tourney was at least 5-10 years younger than us. I know -- hard to believe, right? But who's to say we're too old to rock? Tell that to Neil Young. Tell that to Ozzy. Heck, I'm pretty sure Keith Richards actually died ten years ago and no one's had the heart to tell him. And being old might have its advantages: half of these kids hadn't heard of bands like Molly Hatchet until they opened their copies of Rock Band. We might have this thing won.
That's when we saw them. Our newly-found arch-nemesis. A band whose name I can't even print in a family paper. But they were there to fake rock better than anyone else. They had outfits. Capes. Leather. They carried their little Rock Band guitars in real beat-up guitar cases. They looked like Whitesnake, if Whitesnake had been a fake band playing fake instruments. We were hosed.
As if that weren't bad enough, fate dealt us blow after blow. In the "random song" round, we were the only band to draw "Teenage Lobotomy" by the Ramones -- a fast song that wrecks your hands. Happily, we were also the only band to remember to pack analgesic ointment -- nothing encapsulates the essence of rock like a tube of Ben-Gay. It all came down to our final song -- and fate crushed us. "The Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden. One of the hardest songs in the whole game. Note: if your singing already sounds high-pitched and embarassing, NEVER try an Iron Maiden song.
But we gave it our all. My friends clicked away on their plastic guitars. I reached for vocal notes no man should ever attempt. When it was done, we may not have been perfect, but it was enough for the other teams to break out into a round of applause regardless. I think we ended up in 4th place, which wasn't too bad for our embarassed troupe of geriatrics. There's another tourney at the end of the month, and we're already signed up. If you've got the chops to take on Angry Bob & the Sucktone, I encourage you to do the same.
Now if you'll excuse me, fake band practice starts soon.
But let's face it -- my journalistic integrity, not to mention my true goal of using my column to woo eligible bachelorettes, would be best served with topics designed for, say, people over the age of 12. Besides, as much as I love playing Guitar Hero, the truth of the matter is that I kinda stink at it. Beating a song on Expert mode requires a brain obviously hard-wired differently than mine. So I gave up on Guitar Hero. Thankfully, Rock Band was there to take its place.
Rock Band is the competition to the Guitar Hero franchise, and it takes nerddom to a new level. In addition to the plastic guitars, Rock Band incorporates plastic drums and a plastic microphone, so you can create your own little fake band right in your living room. And one night, after discovering that I was no better at the Rock Band guitar than I was at Guitar Hero, I picked up the mic.
Here's the thing: I can't sing to save my life. When I try, the voice that somehow erupts from my larnyx is feeble, high-pitched, and goes against the very nature of testosterone. But what the hey -- it was a late night and I had no audience except for my cats, and they're pretty good about keeping secrets. So I gave it a shot. And I did it. Actually, I didn't just do it -- I kicked butt at it.
Thus began my newest obsession. Every night, after you and yours were safely asleep, I would be up and alone in my apartment, quietly warbling into a plastic microphone. Eventually, I had the guts to do it in front of my fellow Rock Band-obsessed friends. And despite tears of hysterical laughter, they gave me props at my ability to somehow score huge points. As of this writing, out of the millions of people playing the game, I am ranked the #132nd greatest vocalist in the world. It was time to go public.
Which is why I spent last Saturday at Rock Island's Gameology in their first ever Rock Band tournament. We needed four people to sign up, and we went in with a blistering powerhouse -- me on vocals, my friend Chris on guitar, Linn on bass -- and on drums? Some kid we met that day who agreed to play with us. I didn't even get his name. Like Spinal Tap, our band goes through drummers like water. We needed a band name to sign up, so we improvised: Angry Bob & the Sucktone.
As we waited our turn, we scoped out the competition. Strangely, every other entrant in the tourney was at least 5-10 years younger than us. I know -- hard to believe, right? But who's to say we're too old to rock? Tell that to Neil Young. Tell that to Ozzy. Heck, I'm pretty sure Keith Richards actually died ten years ago and no one's had the heart to tell him. And being old might have its advantages: half of these kids hadn't heard of bands like Molly Hatchet until they opened their copies of Rock Band. We might have this thing won.
That's when we saw them. Our newly-found arch-nemesis. A band whose name I can't even print in a family paper. But they were there to fake rock better than anyone else. They had outfits. Capes. Leather. They carried their little Rock Band guitars in real beat-up guitar cases. They looked like Whitesnake, if Whitesnake had been a fake band playing fake instruments. We were hosed.
As if that weren't bad enough, fate dealt us blow after blow. In the "random song" round, we were the only band to draw "Teenage Lobotomy" by the Ramones -- a fast song that wrecks your hands. Happily, we were also the only band to remember to pack analgesic ointment -- nothing encapsulates the essence of rock like a tube of Ben-Gay. It all came down to our final song -- and fate crushed us. "The Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden. One of the hardest songs in the whole game. Note: if your singing already sounds high-pitched and embarassing, NEVER try an Iron Maiden song.
But we gave it our all. My friends clicked away on their plastic guitars. I reached for vocal notes no man should ever attempt. When it was done, we may not have been perfect, but it was enough for the other teams to break out into a round of applause regardless. I think we ended up in 4th place, which wasn't too bad for our embarassed troupe of geriatrics. There's another tourney at the end of the month, and we're already signed up. If you've got the chops to take on Angry Bob & the Sucktone, I encourage you to do the same.
Now if you'll excuse me, fake band practice starts soon.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
COLUMN: Consultant
The sun hurts my eyes as I raise my weary head from my pillow. I sit at the edge of my bed and wait for the fog to clear my sleep-addled brain. There was something I had to do today, but I can't put my finger on it. And why is there this textbook laying on my --
OMIGOD. I HAVE A FINAL TODAY. I OVERSLEPT. I FORGOT TO STUDY. I grab my keys, hop in my car, and zoom to class. I slam open the door and the whole room spins and looks. The professor glares at me disapprovingly. That's when I look down. I FORGOT TO PUT CLOTHES ON!
I know it's one of those stereotypical dreams the experts discuss, but I think I'm the only one who actually dreams it on a routine basis. So what's the I-forgot-to-study-and/or-wear-pants nightmare supposed to represent? Fear of failure? A lack of self-confidence? Extreme insecurity? Too many tacos before bed? Because I'm guilty of ALL those. And if I didn't have self-awareness of my own shortcomings, I might not have made it through this past week.
For the last seven days, we've had a consultant join us here at the paper. A fellow whose job it is to come in, evaluate our performance and our department, and then offer recommendations toward improvement. And my job, apparantly, was to turn completely neurotic about the whole affair.
Not that the guy put us under any undue pressure or anything. In fact, he was kinda chummy. No, I'm just an idiot and react poorly to the prospect of any type of judgement or criticism. He wasn't there to find the weakest link, but still, all it takes is the knowledge that some kind of Big Brother is watching for me to become unhinged.
In a way, it was exciting. This is a guy who's visited hundreds of newspapers around the world, and certainly can bring a thing or two to the table. We can -- and we did -- learn some pretty cool stuff from him. But at the same time, I've felt a strange uneasiness all week. Whether chummy or not, this guy WAS checking all of us out. What if he went into a meeting with top brass and went, "Gee, I dunno about that Shane guy. He kinda creeped me out. Your best track towards improving this paper would be firing THAT weirdo nerd"?
And then there's the surprisingly shallow and indignant part of me. The immature and irrationally proud part of my brain that wants to scream, "How DARE you come in here and try to tell ME how to do MY job, buddy? MY butt's been warming this chair for 13 years, but if you think YOU can do a better job, plop right on down and show me your magick, dude!" THIS is the part of my brain that probably requires professional help.
But in the end, it was a very harmless and productive learning experience -- apart from the mandatory final training session being scheduled at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday, a time of day not seen by THIS earnest journalist since, oh, the mid-90's or so. But for all the awkwardness of the week, it really wasn't anywhere as bad as my brain had plotted out. In fact, we gained some new ideas that you might be seeing in these pages over the coming months. He offered some criticism, but -- despite this sentence shattering your image of me and bringing the social strata of the Quad Cities to its knees -- I'm not perfect.
This week DID raise an interesting question, though. How exactly DOES one become a professional consultant? I mean, I'm sure our guy came from an extensive background in the newspaper industry, and I'm sure our top brass knows all that, but we underlings were never told this guy's credentials. For all I know, he could be a plumber who one day had his arm halfway up a toilet and went, "Y'know, I've got some swell ideas for the newspaper business."
So maybe THAT'S my true calling. I could be a consultant. Imagine getting paid for walking into a strange place and telling people how to do their jobs. If you found yourself amid a bunch of employees you hate, YOU COULD TELL THEIR BOSS TO FIRE THEM. And before all heck breaks loose, *poof* you're on a plane to the next place who's hired you. All told, that's a pretty sweet gig. The power would be intoxicating. If only I was qualified to consult at anything. Lemme think... Hmmm...
I've got it. The one thing I'm a certified expert at. I hereby offer my consulting services to dance clubs across the globe. My job? To inform inebriated revelers when their dance skills are woefully lacking. Surely I've reached expert status at making fun of drunken morons. Too often a dance floor full of promise gets ruined by someone busting a VERY ill-conceived move. How many potential nightclub hook-ups have been wrecked by some prospective suitor failing to successfully pop, lock, or drop it? It needs not be a horror any longer, America. Just hire me to come in and stand there. At the first sign of a poorly executed breakdance, I step in and just go, "Dude, no. No, dude." And if anyone so much as tries to do the running man, they're banned for life.
Consultants are everywhere. Googling "consultant" brings up 304,000,000 hits. The music you hear on local radio was probably programmed by a consultant in Florida who thinks he knows best what the Quad Cities wants to hear. Your neighborhood was probably designed by a city planning consultant. There might be one showing up to YOUR job tomorrow. But if it goes anything like ours did, don't worry and keep an open mind. It might end up being a good thing. Just remember to wear clothes.
OMIGOD. I HAVE A FINAL TODAY. I OVERSLEPT. I FORGOT TO STUDY. I grab my keys, hop in my car, and zoom to class. I slam open the door and the whole room spins and looks. The professor glares at me disapprovingly. That's when I look down. I FORGOT TO PUT CLOTHES ON!
I know it's one of those stereotypical dreams the experts discuss, but I think I'm the only one who actually dreams it on a routine basis. So what's the I-forgot-to-study-and/or-wear-pants nightmare supposed to represent? Fear of failure? A lack of self-confidence? Extreme insecurity? Too many tacos before bed? Because I'm guilty of ALL those. And if I didn't have self-awareness of my own shortcomings, I might not have made it through this past week.
For the last seven days, we've had a consultant join us here at the paper. A fellow whose job it is to come in, evaluate our performance and our department, and then offer recommendations toward improvement. And my job, apparantly, was to turn completely neurotic about the whole affair.
Not that the guy put us under any undue pressure or anything. In fact, he was kinda chummy. No, I'm just an idiot and react poorly to the prospect of any type of judgement or criticism. He wasn't there to find the weakest link, but still, all it takes is the knowledge that some kind of Big Brother is watching for me to become unhinged.
In a way, it was exciting. This is a guy who's visited hundreds of newspapers around the world, and certainly can bring a thing or two to the table. We can -- and we did -- learn some pretty cool stuff from him. But at the same time, I've felt a strange uneasiness all week. Whether chummy or not, this guy WAS checking all of us out. What if he went into a meeting with top brass and went, "Gee, I dunno about that Shane guy. He kinda creeped me out. Your best track towards improving this paper would be firing THAT weirdo nerd"?
And then there's the surprisingly shallow and indignant part of me. The immature and irrationally proud part of my brain that wants to scream, "How DARE you come in here and try to tell ME how to do MY job, buddy? MY butt's been warming this chair for 13 years, but if you think YOU can do a better job, plop right on down and show me your magick, dude!" THIS is the part of my brain that probably requires professional help.
But in the end, it was a very harmless and productive learning experience -- apart from the mandatory final training session being scheduled at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday, a time of day not seen by THIS earnest journalist since, oh, the mid-90's or so. But for all the awkwardness of the week, it really wasn't anywhere as bad as my brain had plotted out. In fact, we gained some new ideas that you might be seeing in these pages over the coming months. He offered some criticism, but -- despite this sentence shattering your image of me and bringing the social strata of the Quad Cities to its knees -- I'm not perfect.
This week DID raise an interesting question, though. How exactly DOES one become a professional consultant? I mean, I'm sure our guy came from an extensive background in the newspaper industry, and I'm sure our top brass knows all that, but we underlings were never told this guy's credentials. For all I know, he could be a plumber who one day had his arm halfway up a toilet and went, "Y'know, I've got some swell ideas for the newspaper business."
So maybe THAT'S my true calling. I could be a consultant. Imagine getting paid for walking into a strange place and telling people how to do their jobs. If you found yourself amid a bunch of employees you hate, YOU COULD TELL THEIR BOSS TO FIRE THEM. And before all heck breaks loose, *poof* you're on a plane to the next place who's hired you. All told, that's a pretty sweet gig. The power would be intoxicating. If only I was qualified to consult at anything. Lemme think... Hmmm...
I've got it. The one thing I'm a certified expert at. I hereby offer my consulting services to dance clubs across the globe. My job? To inform inebriated revelers when their dance skills are woefully lacking. Surely I've reached expert status at making fun of drunken morons. Too often a dance floor full of promise gets ruined by someone busting a VERY ill-conceived move. How many potential nightclub hook-ups have been wrecked by some prospective suitor failing to successfully pop, lock, or drop it? It needs not be a horror any longer, America. Just hire me to come in and stand there. At the first sign of a poorly executed breakdance, I step in and just go, "Dude, no. No, dude." And if anyone so much as tries to do the running man, they're banned for life.
Consultants are everywhere. Googling "consultant" brings up 304,000,000 hits. The music you hear on local radio was probably programmed by a consultant in Florida who thinks he knows best what the Quad Cities wants to hear. Your neighborhood was probably designed by a city planning consultant. There might be one showing up to YOUR job tomorrow. But if it goes anything like ours did, don't worry and keep an open mind. It might end up being a good thing. Just remember to wear clothes.
COLUMN: Augie
I hate change.
As nifty as progress can tend to be sometimes, there's overwhelming comfort to be found in the familiar. That's why my living room pretty much looks the same as the day I moved in. That's why my closets brim to the brink of structural failure with junk that I simply refuse to throw away. That's why, if I ruled the world, "Frasier" and "Friends" would be forced by law to remain on the air forever. Change is for the birds.
Unless, of course, the change comes with some sort of necessary and/or super awesome technological advancement. My old entertainment center, for instance, had loads o' sentimental charm -- until I got my hi-def widescreen installed, and that's the exact moment it lost its charm.
So change is bad... unless said change happens to be awesome, in which case I'll let it slide. I realize that it's a somewhat childish approach to life. I should be encouraging and accepting of change. But I'm okay with living in a routine if the routine is comfy. That's why each day I drive the same route to and from work. And each day, that route takes me past a big ol' heaping pile of change. I could close my eyes and pretend I don't see it, but driving blind could put the welfare of at least 2-5 freshmen in jeopardy.
I'm talking about my alma mater, Augustana College. Yes, from 1988 to 1992, Augie helped mold me into the person I am today. Were it not for those classes I took, I might not have this column with which to wax poetic on a weekly basis. And were it not for those classes I skipped, I might have the knowledge and fortitude to find something better to do with my life. Yes, I owe it all to those hallowed halls of learning.
Too bad, then, that I can barely recognize the place today. Augustana is the Michael Jackson of academics: the tunes are still pretty wicked, but the face is newer every year. Homecomings get weirder and weirder as we realize just how much the place has changed.
The dorms have internet. Some of them even have air conditioning. In my day, the internet was a new-fangled curiosity only found in the dungeons of the campus computer labs. And as for air conditioning? I remember my roommates and I being threatened by an irate clerk when we paid for $4 of gas in pennies, all for the luxury of driving around in an air-conditioned car for a couple of hours.
And what of Augie's historic Carlsson Hall? Well, drive down 7th Ave. and you can see for yourself. They've gutted the former dormitory and are remodeling the beast into classrooms. In its place, last year Augie opened Swanson Commons, an uber-dorm of modern living that's so nice, I frankly wouldn't mind living there now.
Plus there are Transitional Living Areas where the kids can play My First Apartment, a couple new science buildings, the rec center... it's a different world. Even the college center snack bar -- once home to flimsy tables hosting smoky-aired, marathon card games -- now has booths. BOOTHS, I TELL YOU! These kids have it so good these days.
Which is why, of course, the alumni are trying to stop it. I logged onto Myspace the other day to a frightening message: "SAVE THE AUGUSTANA QUAD!" I clicked to find a letter-writing campaign in its infancy. Augie has plans to erect another new building -- a student center -- and this warning stated that they were going to stick it square in the middle of the school's park-like outdoor quad.
I called one of my fellow dorm-dwellers from back in the day: a kid named Kirby Winn, who now happens to be Augustana's Director of Public Relations. Kirby informed me that yes, Augie IS building a new student center with an optimistic 2010 completion date. But NO, it's not going smack in the middle of the quad. After consulting with the architectural and campus planning firm of Sasaki Associates, they've decided to build into the hillside southwest of Andreen Hall.
Kirby says he envisions the new student center to be a "sixteen-hour-a-day hang-out space," and I'm down with that. Best of all, it will probably mean a new home for WAUG. Did you even know that Augie had a student radio station? Probably not -- unless you live in the dorms, the only way to pick it up is to be within a block of campus, and it probably wouldn't hurt to cover your whole car in tinfoil beforehand. But the little-station-that-could has had a huge impact in regional radio. Ever listen to Captain Kirk on Q106? Jeff James on Star 93.5? How about Scott Steele, morning guy on Cedar Rapids' top-rated KHAK? They all got their start on WAUG -- and for a short, sweet time from 1990-1992, I was their boss. WAUG currently broadcasts out of a studio roughly the size of my bathroom, and a new student center means an upgrade to something at least the size of a bathroom-and-a-half.
So, sorry Myspace. I'm all for causes, but you guys have this one wrong. Yes, I'm sure a tree or two will lay down its life for the sake of progress, but this one's worth it. If it wasn't for change, Augie would still be one building teaching to Swedish immigrants. The students at Augie need a new hang-out. WAUG needs a new home. This is one change you won't hear me complaining about.
As nifty as progress can tend to be sometimes, there's overwhelming comfort to be found in the familiar. That's why my living room pretty much looks the same as the day I moved in. That's why my closets brim to the brink of structural failure with junk that I simply refuse to throw away. That's why, if I ruled the world, "Frasier" and "Friends" would be forced by law to remain on the air forever. Change is for the birds.
Unless, of course, the change comes with some sort of necessary and/or super awesome technological advancement. My old entertainment center, for instance, had loads o' sentimental charm -- until I got my hi-def widescreen installed, and that's the exact moment it lost its charm.
So change is bad... unless said change happens to be awesome, in which case I'll let it slide. I realize that it's a somewhat childish approach to life. I should be encouraging and accepting of change. But I'm okay with living in a routine if the routine is comfy. That's why each day I drive the same route to and from work. And each day, that route takes me past a big ol' heaping pile of change. I could close my eyes and pretend I don't see it, but driving blind could put the welfare of at least 2-5 freshmen in jeopardy.
I'm talking about my alma mater, Augustana College. Yes, from 1988 to 1992, Augie helped mold me into the person I am today. Were it not for those classes I took, I might not have this column with which to wax poetic on a weekly basis. And were it not for those classes I skipped, I might have the knowledge and fortitude to find something better to do with my life. Yes, I owe it all to those hallowed halls of learning.
Too bad, then, that I can barely recognize the place today. Augustana is the Michael Jackson of academics: the tunes are still pretty wicked, but the face is newer every year. Homecomings get weirder and weirder as we realize just how much the place has changed.
The dorms have internet. Some of them even have air conditioning. In my day, the internet was a new-fangled curiosity only found in the dungeons of the campus computer labs. And as for air conditioning? I remember my roommates and I being threatened by an irate clerk when we paid for $4 of gas in pennies, all for the luxury of driving around in an air-conditioned car for a couple of hours.
And what of Augie's historic Carlsson Hall? Well, drive down 7th Ave. and you can see for yourself. They've gutted the former dormitory and are remodeling the beast into classrooms. In its place, last year Augie opened Swanson Commons, an uber-dorm of modern living that's so nice, I frankly wouldn't mind living there now.
Plus there are Transitional Living Areas where the kids can play My First Apartment, a couple new science buildings, the rec center... it's a different world. Even the college center snack bar -- once home to flimsy tables hosting smoky-aired, marathon card games -- now has booths. BOOTHS, I TELL YOU! These kids have it so good these days.
Which is why, of course, the alumni are trying to stop it. I logged onto Myspace the other day to a frightening message: "SAVE THE AUGUSTANA QUAD!" I clicked to find a letter-writing campaign in its infancy. Augie has plans to erect another new building -- a student center -- and this warning stated that they were going to stick it square in the middle of the school's park-like outdoor quad.
I called one of my fellow dorm-dwellers from back in the day: a kid named Kirby Winn, who now happens to be Augustana's Director of Public Relations. Kirby informed me that yes, Augie IS building a new student center with an optimistic 2010 completion date. But NO, it's not going smack in the middle of the quad. After consulting with the architectural and campus planning firm of Sasaki Associates, they've decided to build into the hillside southwest of Andreen Hall.
Kirby says he envisions the new student center to be a "sixteen-hour-a-day hang-out space," and I'm down with that. Best of all, it will probably mean a new home for WAUG. Did you even know that Augie had a student radio station? Probably not -- unless you live in the dorms, the only way to pick it up is to be within a block of campus, and it probably wouldn't hurt to cover your whole car in tinfoil beforehand. But the little-station-that-could has had a huge impact in regional radio. Ever listen to Captain Kirk on Q106? Jeff James on Star 93.5? How about Scott Steele, morning guy on Cedar Rapids' top-rated KHAK? They all got their start on WAUG -- and for a short, sweet time from 1990-1992, I was their boss. WAUG currently broadcasts out of a studio roughly the size of my bathroom, and a new student center means an upgrade to something at least the size of a bathroom-and-a-half.
So, sorry Myspace. I'm all for causes, but you guys have this one wrong. Yes, I'm sure a tree or two will lay down its life for the sake of progress, but this one's worth it. If it wasn't for change, Augie would still be one building teaching to Swedish immigrants. The students at Augie need a new hang-out. WAUG needs a new home. This is one change you won't hear me complaining about.
Friday, February 22, 2008
COLUMN: Flat
That's it. I've had it.
I can't deny it any longer, Quad Cities: I'm in a funk. The world has been conspiring against me lately. Let's take stock of the current situation, shall we?
Our entire universe is covered with ice. The temps have dropped from cold to freezing to unsustainable-for-human-life. When it's not been sub-zero out, we've made up for it in treacherous snow dropped on us by the pound. It's been so abysmal outside that the only recourse is to hide out in one's apartment and watch TV -- but thanks to the writer's strike, the only TV option appears to involve grown men and women dueling one another with giant Q-Tips on "American Gladiators."
And, of course, to top it all off, this week finds me staring down the umpteenth Valentine's Day spent woefully single and alone (Eligible Bachelorettes: insert pity party here).
Suffice to say, the world is my bummer. I'm sick of bringing people down with exasperated sighs. I'm sick of answering "how are you today?" with mono-syllabic grunts of displeasure. It's time I brought myself out of these winter doldrums.
That's why I had a brilliant idea for this column. I would write an epic ode on things to be thankful for, even in this, the winter of my discontent. Spring is a month away. The writer's strike is ending and new episodes of "Lost" are on. Our company's parking lot may be a solid block of ice, but perhaps we could rent it out to the QC Flames as a practice rink. There's no need to be so glum. I was looking on the bright side. I left work that night excited to compose my cheery masterpiece.
So what if there was a -20 wind chill? (Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah!) Why fret over a new-fallen inch of snow? (Zip-A-Dee-Ay!) Who cares about THE FLAT TIRE ON MY CAR? (My oh my, what a sucktastic day.)
It was dark, it was freezing, and my back left tire was flat as a fritter. I got in the car, turned on the heat, and screamed every single one of George Carlin's seven words. I even made up a few new ones of my own. Then I called the only person who I knew could help me: Julie, my personal roadside assistance claims tele-representative. I might have been freaking out, but Julie had a good head on her shoulders, I could tell.
"Do you have a spare tire in your car?" she asked.
Well, let's think about this. The contents of my car's trunk, as best as I can recall: Two or three blankets. A bag of decaying garbage. Somewhere around 100 ruined cassette tapes. Shards of glass from the bonehead who put a brick through my back window a couple years ago. The body of Jimmy Hoffa. The lost treasure of the Sierra Madre. And somewhere, deep under that metric ton of debris, was my spare tire. I knew what had to be done.
"Nope," I replied.
"I can call you a tow," said Julie. "You said you were leaving work. What's the name of the business?"
"The Dispatch," I said.
"Okay, what dispatch?"
"The Moline Dispatch," I clarified.
"Sir, your tow will be dispatched from Moline. I need to know where you're at."
"I'm AT the Moline Dispatch office. That's the business."
"You're at a dispatch office for what business?"
"No, I'm not at a dispatch office. I'm at The Dispatch office."
Once we got the Abbott & Costello routine out of the way, she informed me that someone would be there lickety split -- provided, of course, that my definition of lickety split was in the range of 90-120 minutes. I hung up and called my friend Jason, who gets serious kudos for bringing out an air compressor.
"It took me forever to fill my bike tire with this thing," he told me as he hooked it up and headed back to the heat of his car. "This'll be a while."
"What's it reading now?" he asked me a few minutes later.
"I dunno," I replied, craning my neck to read the gauge in the dark, "forty-five something?"
Jason and I have been best friends for over a decade, and I have NEVER seen him move faster in my life.
"SERIOUSLY?" he yelled. "Oh my God, get out of the way!"
Truth be told, Paris Hilton probably knows more about fixing a flat than I do. But that night I learned that my tire holds 30 pounds of air pressure, and that we had just forced nearly 50 pounds into the thing and narrowly avoided the tire popping like a grape with my head inches away.
We got the tire filled as my tow truck showed up. Rather than risk my bumper to a tow, we had the truck follow us as I drove slow and steady to the one place open at 8:30 p.m. for a tire fix. The one place that defines everything that is NOT me: Farm & Fleet.
And it was a learning experience. Their nice staff hooked me up with a pair of new tires while Jason and I sought entertainment browsing the "Bowhunting" aisle. (And you know what? For as much of an animal rights guy as I am, if deer are dumb enough to be lured by cheap cardboard cutouts of 2-dimensional she-deer, then maybe they deserve the occasional arrow strike.) And in the absolute best moment of the week, I was perusing their CD bargain bin and found an exceptionally horrifying Best of John Travolta disc for four bucks (SCORE!)
So the world isn't so bad after all. I survived the flat tire, the farm, AND the fleet. I'm going to survive this winter, too. And hey, I might not have a girl this Valentine's Day, but the next time I do, she's getting a mixtape with some awesomely awful Travolta action on it.
I can't deny it any longer, Quad Cities: I'm in a funk. The world has been conspiring against me lately. Let's take stock of the current situation, shall we?
Our entire universe is covered with ice. The temps have dropped from cold to freezing to unsustainable-for-human-life. When it's not been sub-zero out, we've made up for it in treacherous snow dropped on us by the pound. It's been so abysmal outside that the only recourse is to hide out in one's apartment and watch TV -- but thanks to the writer's strike, the only TV option appears to involve grown men and women dueling one another with giant Q-Tips on "American Gladiators."
And, of course, to top it all off, this week finds me staring down the umpteenth Valentine's Day spent woefully single and alone (Eligible Bachelorettes: insert pity party here).
Suffice to say, the world is my bummer. I'm sick of bringing people down with exasperated sighs. I'm sick of answering "how are you today?" with mono-syllabic grunts of displeasure. It's time I brought myself out of these winter doldrums.
That's why I had a brilliant idea for this column. I would write an epic ode on things to be thankful for, even in this, the winter of my discontent. Spring is a month away. The writer's strike is ending and new episodes of "Lost" are on. Our company's parking lot may be a solid block of ice, but perhaps we could rent it out to the QC Flames as a practice rink. There's no need to be so glum. I was looking on the bright side. I left work that night excited to compose my cheery masterpiece.
So what if there was a -20 wind chill? (Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah!) Why fret over a new-fallen inch of snow? (Zip-A-Dee-Ay!) Who cares about THE FLAT TIRE ON MY CAR? (My oh my, what a sucktastic day.)
It was dark, it was freezing, and my back left tire was flat as a fritter. I got in the car, turned on the heat, and screamed every single one of George Carlin's seven words. I even made up a few new ones of my own. Then I called the only person who I knew could help me: Julie, my personal roadside assistance claims tele-representative. I might have been freaking out, but Julie had a good head on her shoulders, I could tell.
"Do you have a spare tire in your car?" she asked.
Well, let's think about this. The contents of my car's trunk, as best as I can recall: Two or three blankets. A bag of decaying garbage. Somewhere around 100 ruined cassette tapes. Shards of glass from the bonehead who put a brick through my back window a couple years ago. The body of Jimmy Hoffa. The lost treasure of the Sierra Madre. And somewhere, deep under that metric ton of debris, was my spare tire. I knew what had to be done.
"Nope," I replied.
"I can call you a tow," said Julie. "You said you were leaving work. What's the name of the business?"
"The Dispatch," I said.
"Okay, what dispatch?"
"The Moline Dispatch," I clarified.
"Sir, your tow will be dispatched from Moline. I need to know where you're at."
"I'm AT the Moline Dispatch office. That's the business."
"You're at a dispatch office for what business?"
"No, I'm not at a dispatch office. I'm at The Dispatch office."
Once we got the Abbott & Costello routine out of the way, she informed me that someone would be there lickety split -- provided, of course, that my definition of lickety split was in the range of 90-120 minutes. I hung up and called my friend Jason, who gets serious kudos for bringing out an air compressor.
"It took me forever to fill my bike tire with this thing," he told me as he hooked it up and headed back to the heat of his car. "This'll be a while."
"What's it reading now?" he asked me a few minutes later.
"I dunno," I replied, craning my neck to read the gauge in the dark, "forty-five something?"
Jason and I have been best friends for over a decade, and I have NEVER seen him move faster in my life.
"SERIOUSLY?" he yelled. "Oh my God, get out of the way!"
Truth be told, Paris Hilton probably knows more about fixing a flat than I do. But that night I learned that my tire holds 30 pounds of air pressure, and that we had just forced nearly 50 pounds into the thing and narrowly avoided the tire popping like a grape with my head inches away.
We got the tire filled as my tow truck showed up. Rather than risk my bumper to a tow, we had the truck follow us as I drove slow and steady to the one place open at 8:30 p.m. for a tire fix. The one place that defines everything that is NOT me: Farm & Fleet.
And it was a learning experience. Their nice staff hooked me up with a pair of new tires while Jason and I sought entertainment browsing the "Bowhunting" aisle. (And you know what? For as much of an animal rights guy as I am, if deer are dumb enough to be lured by cheap cardboard cutouts of 2-dimensional she-deer, then maybe they deserve the occasional arrow strike.) And in the absolute best moment of the week, I was perusing their CD bargain bin and found an exceptionally horrifying Best of John Travolta disc for four bucks (SCORE!)
So the world isn't so bad after all. I survived the flat tire, the farm, AND the fleet. I'm going to survive this winter, too. And hey, I might not have a girl this Valentine's Day, but the next time I do, she's getting a mixtape with some awesomely awful Travolta action on it.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Eclipses Rule.
Photo thieved maliciously from CNN.comEclipses are cool. I went outside like the nerd that I am and stared up at the moon for about five minutes. Two neighbor kids were outside gossiping about boys and music. I wanted to explain to them how an eclipse happens. I wanted to explain to them that the little star right next to the eclipsed moon is actually Saturn. They didn't care. They didn't even look up. They were far too busy trying to figure out what rapper does the song "Low." I knew it was Flo-Rida, but I didn't tell them.
Monday, February 11, 2008
COLUMN: Superbowl
The Diary of a Sunday that can only be described as fairly Super: A story in which our hero faces 5 hours of wall-to-wall hi-definition football coverage and lives to tell about it.
4:30 p.m. Friend Chris beats the snow and arrives at my apartment armed with a metric ton of chicken wings, a box of Coke, and nacho fixins aplenty. We brown some hamburger, throw on some cheese and salsa and sour cream, and dump it all atop an armada of tortilla chips. It is, by all definable measurements, an unquestionably super bowl of nachos. We are focused, primed, and football-ready.
4:50 p.m. The precise moment when the month-long pre-game show apparantly runs out of things to say about the game. This is the only acceptable answer as to why football legends are currently on my screen reading the Declaration of Independence. Something tells me that "the freedom to watch awesome, bone-crunching action" was NOT atop the Founding Fathers' pros and cons list for revolution. Still, these historic words have never carried such weight as when they're read by great orators like, oh, Peyton Manning.
5:30 p.m. Kick-off.
5:36 p.m. Bud Light claims their product can make people breathe fire. Friend Chris and I have a quick con-fab before pronouncing the idea "pretty cool."
5:46 p.m. Internet start-up SalesGenie.com decides that the best way to spend $2.5 million dollars is to make condescending racial stereotypes of Indian workers. Later their next ad involves crudely animated panda bears and stale jokes. Each second of these two spots costs around $83,000. I could do a lot with $83,000. They could have simply given me $83,000 and I could have walked around telling people, "Hey, visit SalesGenie.com," and it would have been a better thought-out ad campaign.
5:47 p.m. An announcer informs us that 30 minutes of the pre-game show was powered by a roomful of ridiculously muscle-clad people on exercise bikes. I laugh snarkily, and that laugh was powered by one dude sitting on a couch eating nachos.
6:03 p.m. Derek Jeter is the new face of Gatorade G2. Now, there's no one on Earth more diametrically opposite myself than a professional athlete. That said, I recently discovered that I quite like Derek Jeter's new cologne (men, ask your Avon reps!) If I like his cologne, perhaps there's hope for his low-calorie electrolyte beverage as well.
6:24 p.m. Sobe Life Water decides that their product is best represented by lizards dancing to "Thriller" with Naomi Campbell. They are VERY wrong.
6:32 p.m. New England QB Tom Brady starts to look less than perfect. I celebrate by running to the kitchen for a tasty beverage when I distinctly hear the announcer from the other room. "Oh, say," he says. "Human urine helped break up that play." Hrrrm. A myriad of thoughts course through my brain. I'm not exactly Mr. Sports, but I at least thought I knew the basics of football. That said, I must admit that I was unfamiliar with the human urine section of the playbook. In fact, I feel that human urine should count towards pass interference at the very least. Then I walked back in and discovered that "Oh, say, human urine" is, in fact, Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora.
6:40 p.m. Pepsi gives me a highlight of the night: watching Justin Timberlake get tortured for 30 seconds. But the question DOES exist: Why does Pepsi even need to advertise? Is there somebody out there going, "Hmm... Pepsi or Coke. Well, which one would Justin drink?" Why would you want to spend 2.5 mil on 30 seconds of airtime if you were Pepsi? There's only one logical answer: people are willing to put up absurd amounts of money for the joy of seeing Justin Timberlake get tortured.
7:08 p.m. Someone needs to alert the authorities: Tom Petty has been kidnapped and replaced by someone's very, very ugly grandfather. Happily, no wardrobe malfunctions occur and a grateful nation breathes a sigh of relief. Yes, nothing says hip, exciting entertainment like a geriatric rocker and his mid-tempo anthems o' blandness. Congrats, NFL, you've managed to suck almost ALL the life out of halftime. Maybe next year you can seal the deal by simply re-animating the corpse of Glenn Miller for the most rip-roarin', rootin'-tootin', swing-tastic bathroom break of them all.
7:36 p.m. Bridgestone wants to prove the durability of their tires by showing a car deftly swerving and NOT running over exercise guru Richard Simmons. Dear Bridgestone, I would be a far bigger supporter of your company had you proven the durability of your tires by repeatedly running over exercise guru Richard Simmons.
And then somewhere around here it all goes a bit grey, as my charming stroll through the world of advertising keeps getting interrupted by a pesky good game of football. New York wins while New England coach Bill Belichick storms off the field like a pouty baby. Either that or he wanted to be the first to log on to SalesGenie.com.
All told, a good night out without ever having to leave the apartment.
The winners: The Giants, Justin Timberlake, the E-Trade baby, and Chris' nachos.
The losers: The Patriots, SalesGenie.com, anyone who likes Tom Petty, and my nacho-ravaged GI tract. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go. I think the 2009 Super Bowl pre-game show starts in like 20 minutes.
4:30 p.m. Friend Chris beats the snow and arrives at my apartment armed with a metric ton of chicken wings, a box of Coke, and nacho fixins aplenty. We brown some hamburger, throw on some cheese and salsa and sour cream, and dump it all atop an armada of tortilla chips. It is, by all definable measurements, an unquestionably super bowl of nachos. We are focused, primed, and football-ready.
4:50 p.m. The precise moment when the month-long pre-game show apparantly runs out of things to say about the game. This is the only acceptable answer as to why football legends are currently on my screen reading the Declaration of Independence. Something tells me that "the freedom to watch awesome, bone-crunching action" was NOT atop the Founding Fathers' pros and cons list for revolution. Still, these historic words have never carried such weight as when they're read by great orators like, oh, Peyton Manning.
5:30 p.m. Kick-off.
5:36 p.m. Bud Light claims their product can make people breathe fire. Friend Chris and I have a quick con-fab before pronouncing the idea "pretty cool."
5:46 p.m. Internet start-up SalesGenie.com decides that the best way to spend $2.5 million dollars is to make condescending racial stereotypes of Indian workers. Later their next ad involves crudely animated panda bears and stale jokes. Each second of these two spots costs around $83,000. I could do a lot with $83,000. They could have simply given me $83,000 and I could have walked around telling people, "Hey, visit SalesGenie.com," and it would have been a better thought-out ad campaign.
5:47 p.m. An announcer informs us that 30 minutes of the pre-game show was powered by a roomful of ridiculously muscle-clad people on exercise bikes. I laugh snarkily, and that laugh was powered by one dude sitting on a couch eating nachos.
6:03 p.m. Derek Jeter is the new face of Gatorade G2. Now, there's no one on Earth more diametrically opposite myself than a professional athlete. That said, I recently discovered that I quite like Derek Jeter's new cologne (men, ask your Avon reps!) If I like his cologne, perhaps there's hope for his low-calorie electrolyte beverage as well.
6:24 p.m. Sobe Life Water decides that their product is best represented by lizards dancing to "Thriller" with Naomi Campbell. They are VERY wrong.
6:32 p.m. New England QB Tom Brady starts to look less than perfect. I celebrate by running to the kitchen for a tasty beverage when I distinctly hear the announcer from the other room. "Oh, say," he says. "Human urine helped break up that play." Hrrrm. A myriad of thoughts course through my brain. I'm not exactly Mr. Sports, but I at least thought I knew the basics of football. That said, I must admit that I was unfamiliar with the human urine section of the playbook. In fact, I feel that human urine should count towards pass interference at the very least. Then I walked back in and discovered that "Oh, say, human urine" is, in fact, Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora.
6:40 p.m. Pepsi gives me a highlight of the night: watching Justin Timberlake get tortured for 30 seconds. But the question DOES exist: Why does Pepsi even need to advertise? Is there somebody out there going, "Hmm... Pepsi or Coke. Well, which one would Justin drink?" Why would you want to spend 2.5 mil on 30 seconds of airtime if you were Pepsi? There's only one logical answer: people are willing to put up absurd amounts of money for the joy of seeing Justin Timberlake get tortured.
7:08 p.m. Someone needs to alert the authorities: Tom Petty has been kidnapped and replaced by someone's very, very ugly grandfather. Happily, no wardrobe malfunctions occur and a grateful nation breathes a sigh of relief. Yes, nothing says hip, exciting entertainment like a geriatric rocker and his mid-tempo anthems o' blandness. Congrats, NFL, you've managed to suck almost ALL the life out of halftime. Maybe next year you can seal the deal by simply re-animating the corpse of Glenn Miller for the most rip-roarin', rootin'-tootin', swing-tastic bathroom break of them all.
7:36 p.m. Bridgestone wants to prove the durability of their tires by showing a car deftly swerving and NOT running over exercise guru Richard Simmons. Dear Bridgestone, I would be a far bigger supporter of your company had you proven the durability of your tires by repeatedly running over exercise guru Richard Simmons.
And then somewhere around here it all goes a bit grey, as my charming stroll through the world of advertising keeps getting interrupted by a pesky good game of football. New York wins while New England coach Bill Belichick storms off the field like a pouty baby. Either that or he wanted to be the first to log on to SalesGenie.com.
All told, a good night out without ever having to leave the apartment.
The winners: The Giants, Justin Timberlake, the E-Trade baby, and Chris' nachos.
The losers: The Patriots, SalesGenie.com, anyone who likes Tom Petty, and my nacho-ravaged GI tract. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go. I think the 2009 Super Bowl pre-game show starts in like 20 minutes.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
COLUMN: Corn Chips
"The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley," quoth the Bard of Scotland, Robert Burns. I'm no expert on 18th century Romantic poetry, so I can't speak on exactly what's being gangly aft-ed, but I can certainly tell you that this week's column has gone horribly, horribly a-gley.
Two weekends ago, the Quad Cities saw the opening of Energy, a new dance club strictly for the under-21 sect. "O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!" thought the innocent newspaper columnist, "A story idea presents itself."
Being an alumni of the teen club crowd myself, I was happy to hear that a new place was opening in town. Frankly, it's been too long. The kids of the Quad Cities need something fun to do on the weekends, and at least MY dictionary defines "fun" as "(noun). See: Dance club."
So I was going to write a grandiose column about teen clubs and time it to Energy's grand opening.
On their first two nights, they packed some 800 kids into their Moline location. And then, like the Party-Pooping Patrol, the city of Moline swept in and shut the place down after one single weekend in business. Not that the city's to blame. It turns out that the owners didn't have the building up to code, nor had they received the proper licensing from the city, and that's a big ol' bummer. Moline no longer has a teen club, I no longer have a column idea.
Or do I? Just because Energy's closed doesn't mean I can't still take my nostalgia trip. And the guys behind the Energy club haven't packed it in -- they're scouring the Quad Cities for a new, up-to-code location, and I for one sincerely hope they find one. As far as I'm concerned, a teen age without a thumping bass beat and a dancefloor with which to potentially embarass oneself in life-altering ways is a teen age I'd rather skip, thanks.
I'm sure it'll be of no surprise to learn that I was something of a nerd in high school. I wasn't particularly downtrodden or anything about it, but suffice to say me and my drama geek friends were not exactly invited to the A-list parties. Until, that is, I learned how to DJ them. Music was my social saving grace back then, and when Galesburg opened up a teen club -- Checkpoint -- I had to be a part of it.
Now I could lie and tell you all that the club went and sought me out for my exceptional DJ'ing abilities. Truth is, from the day the place opened, I wouldn't leave the owners alone and eventually weaseled and begged my way into the DJ booth. I fear that the inside of that DJ booth at Checkpoint might be the one memory that I will forever refer to as "the best time of my life."
Checkpoint closed down about the same time I moved to Rock Island for college, and my central weekend hangout simply shifted to Bettendorf's Stage 2. While my collegiate brethren were obsessing over keggers and frat parties, I was obsessing over which Chess King ensemble to best make the scene down at the teen club. Only-child-syndrome made living on my own kinda rough -- and since beer parties really weren't my thing, the teen club was my solace. If it hadn't been for the friends and fun of that club, I don't think I would have made it through freshman year.
On any given Friday night, you could find us down there. Half of the club would be filled with the preppies and the underage social elite, and the other side -- our side -- would be packed to the brim with the folks they called... "corn chips." To this day, I don't know where the name came from or how it was meant to be derogatory. I don't know if anyone does, really. Today the labels "goth" and "punk" might apply to similar cliques, but back then we were all a bunch of corn chips.
All it meant is that we liked different music than most, and admittedly had a unique flair for expressing it. And even on the outcast corn chip side of the club, tables were chosen by high school clique: The UT kids sat over here, the Moline kids over there, Bettendorf kids had the back corner, and the table by the snack bar? That was Galesburg territory and our nesting place. The drama would play out in perfect teenaged form. One of our favorite hobbies was to wait until the DJ played the corn chip tearjerker anthem "Somebody" by Depeche Mode and take bets on the number of girls who would run to the bathroom distraught over their unrequited crush o' the week.
Like all good things, eventually my time at Stage 2 had to end. As much as we hated to leave the teenage years, we had to, fighting tooth and nail the whole way. My friend Natalie was the only person I knew who had a fake ID -- to prove she was UNDER 20 and still admissable to the teen club. Me? I knew my time at Stage 2 had reached its end when I was a junior in college and got an invitation to a fellow club-goer's 14th birthday party.
Still, that building -- now a barren Bettendorf parking lot -- was where I forged some of the best friendships of my life, met amazing people, listened to amazing music, and made me want to be a DJ for the rest of my life. Here's hoping Energy can get it together and do the same for some other socially adrift kid out there. Good luck on finding a new location, and if you ever need a fill-in DJ, I'm your guy.
Two weekends ago, the Quad Cities saw the opening of Energy, a new dance club strictly for the under-21 sect. "O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!" thought the innocent newspaper columnist, "A story idea presents itself."
Being an alumni of the teen club crowd myself, I was happy to hear that a new place was opening in town. Frankly, it's been too long. The kids of the Quad Cities need something fun to do on the weekends, and at least MY dictionary defines "fun" as "(noun). See: Dance club."
So I was going to write a grandiose column about teen clubs and time it to Energy's grand opening.
On their first two nights, they packed some 800 kids into their Moline location. And then, like the Party-Pooping Patrol, the city of Moline swept in and shut the place down after one single weekend in business. Not that the city's to blame. It turns out that the owners didn't have the building up to code, nor had they received the proper licensing from the city, and that's a big ol' bummer. Moline no longer has a teen club, I no longer have a column idea.
Or do I? Just because Energy's closed doesn't mean I can't still take my nostalgia trip. And the guys behind the Energy club haven't packed it in -- they're scouring the Quad Cities for a new, up-to-code location, and I for one sincerely hope they find one. As far as I'm concerned, a teen age without a thumping bass beat and a dancefloor with which to potentially embarass oneself in life-altering ways is a teen age I'd rather skip, thanks.
I'm sure it'll be of no surprise to learn that I was something of a nerd in high school. I wasn't particularly downtrodden or anything about it, but suffice to say me and my drama geek friends were not exactly invited to the A-list parties. Until, that is, I learned how to DJ them. Music was my social saving grace back then, and when Galesburg opened up a teen club -- Checkpoint -- I had to be a part of it.
Now I could lie and tell you all that the club went and sought me out for my exceptional DJ'ing abilities. Truth is, from the day the place opened, I wouldn't leave the owners alone and eventually weaseled and begged my way into the DJ booth. I fear that the inside of that DJ booth at Checkpoint might be the one memory that I will forever refer to as "the best time of my life."
Checkpoint closed down about the same time I moved to Rock Island for college, and my central weekend hangout simply shifted to Bettendorf's Stage 2. While my collegiate brethren were obsessing over keggers and frat parties, I was obsessing over which Chess King ensemble to best make the scene down at the teen club. Only-child-syndrome made living on my own kinda rough -- and since beer parties really weren't my thing, the teen club was my solace. If it hadn't been for the friends and fun of that club, I don't think I would have made it through freshman year.
On any given Friday night, you could find us down there. Half of the club would be filled with the preppies and the underage social elite, and the other side -- our side -- would be packed to the brim with the folks they called... "corn chips." To this day, I don't know where the name came from or how it was meant to be derogatory. I don't know if anyone does, really. Today the labels "goth" and "punk" might apply to similar cliques, but back then we were all a bunch of corn chips.
All it meant is that we liked different music than most, and admittedly had a unique flair for expressing it. And even on the outcast corn chip side of the club, tables were chosen by high school clique: The UT kids sat over here, the Moline kids over there, Bettendorf kids had the back corner, and the table by the snack bar? That was Galesburg territory and our nesting place. The drama would play out in perfect teenaged form. One of our favorite hobbies was to wait until the DJ played the corn chip tearjerker anthem "Somebody" by Depeche Mode and take bets on the number of girls who would run to the bathroom distraught over their unrequited crush o' the week.
Like all good things, eventually my time at Stage 2 had to end. As much as we hated to leave the teenage years, we had to, fighting tooth and nail the whole way. My friend Natalie was the only person I knew who had a fake ID -- to prove she was UNDER 20 and still admissable to the teen club. Me? I knew my time at Stage 2 had reached its end when I was a junior in college and got an invitation to a fellow club-goer's 14th birthday party.
Still, that building -- now a barren Bettendorf parking lot -- was where I forged some of the best friendships of my life, met amazing people, listened to amazing music, and made me want to be a DJ for the rest of my life. Here's hoping Energy can get it together and do the same for some other socially adrift kid out there. Good luck on finding a new location, and if you ever need a fill-in DJ, I'm your guy.
COLUMN: Spinach Dip
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't like to use my column to dole out free advertising to area businesses. Not that I don't love and support some of our local shops, because I certainly do. But giving a business a free plug -- even one that I adore and frequent -- creates an ethical grey area, and frankly, I've never looked good in grey.
If I were to mention Company A in a column, Company B might get upset. And what about Company C who drops a dime or two on print advertising in our papers? To be fair to all concerned, it's best to leave the advertising to the pros. Except this time.
One establishment in town has discovered the necessary trick to get me to step off my ethical high horse and shout their name from the rooftops. Well, maybe not the rooftop - it IS kinda cold out. Regardless, ethics (and editors with grouchy faces) be darned, for I'm making an endorsement right here and right now:
THE ROCK ISLAND BREWING COMPANY SERVES THE FINEST FOOD ON PLANET EARTH, IF NOT PERHAPS THE ENTIRE GALAXY. You should go there for lunch and/or dinner every day. Fold this newspaper up, put it under your arm, and strut on down to RIBCO where you can read the paper and enjoy the best meal of your life. Tell 'em Shane sent ya!
There ya go. A 100% unbiased, 100% unsolicited recommendation from yours truly. Trust me. The fact that I spend my weekends DJ'ing for RIBCO's sister club 2nd Ave. should be dismissed as mere coincidence. No, I'm speaking from the heart here. The food at RIBCO is oh-so-good. Especially, in fact, the spinach dip. To be honest, I was unaware of the wonder, majesty, and pallet-quenching joy of RIBCO's spinach dip until quite recently.
Well, until this very afternoon -- when I got a phone call from Debbie Tilka, who owns and manages RIBCO along with her husband Terry. I can safely say that it was the first phone call I've ever received from someone needing to urgently speak with me on the topic of spinach dip. As it happens, RIBCO has just redesigned their menu, adding and renaming many dishes.
Their spinach dip is now no mere spinach dip. It is, as of this writing, DJ SHANE'S SHOUT OUT SPIN DIP. That's right, mortals, I've officially arrived: I HAVE MY OWN MENU ITEM.
Accolades come few and far between in this business. Well, I suppose a successful newspaper columnist might yearn to one day win a Pulitzer Prize. Not me. For one, I bet the Pulitzer judges aren't progressive enough to recognize the esoteric genius of a column devoted to spinach dip. For two, have you seen a Pulitzer Prize? It's like an weird coin/medallion thing with a dude on it who appears, in my infinite knowledge, to be doing arm pulldowns on a Bowflex. It's not my scene.
Granted, I suppose the prestige of a Pulitzer Prize might outweigh the prestige of DJ Shane's Spin Dip. Still, the Pulitzer people need to face the harsh and ugly truth that, while their golden icon may be the pinnacle of journalistic success, it simply doesn't make a nice complement to whole wheat crackers or rye bread.
So I'm setting my sights on something higher than journalistic acclaim: world domination. Here's how it'll work: If you, dear reader, decide that you'd like to dine at RIBCO and try some of DJ Shane's Shout Out Spin Dip, when your waitress comes to the table, simply ask for "the Shane." Once enough people start getting used to calling spinach dip a Shane, perhaps it'll catch on at OTHER locations.
"Would you care for an appetizer?"
"Yes, please. I'd like a Shane."
"Coming right up. We make our Shane fresh!"
And so on and so forth, until one day my name will become synonymous with spinach dip everywhere and the world will bow before me. Don't believe me? Ask my friend, the Earl of Sandwich.
But I've got to be honest. There's one thing I need to do first before global conquest can ever possibly be mine. Over the past decade, I've eaten at RIBCO approximately a bajillion times. I've ravaged their menu -- there's not a dish I haven't tried. Except one.
That's right, DJ Shane has yet to try DJ Shane's Shout Out Spin Dip. I'm certain that it's quite tasty, don't get me wrong... but, well, it's green. And creamy. And being the world's most finicky eater, one of my devout rules is that things green and creamy are likely eccchy and hence should stay away from my mouth.
But as of right now, I am rescinding my rule. I simply refuse to have a food item named after me that I myself won't eat for fear of color and texture. And I swear to you all, I've watched my friends eat RIBCO's spinach dip and go on and on about how good it is. (And that's lucky for them, as DJ Shane's Shout Out Spin Dip shall henceforth be the expected mandatory order for all of my dining companions.)
As much as I tease, I really DO get a kick out of having my name on a menu, especially at a place like RIBCO with such great people as the Tilkas. And I'm honestly touched and warm-fuzzied by the sentiment, even if the menu DOES go on to say that "it's the only thing cheesier than our resident DJ!" I can live with cheesy. I've been called worse, trust me.
So go to RIBCO. Try the Shane, it's awesome. Then hang out and listen to me spin records next door. Then read all my columns, all our other columns, and support all of our fine advertisers. Even the ones who don't name stuff after me.
If I were to mention Company A in a column, Company B might get upset. And what about Company C who drops a dime or two on print advertising in our papers? To be fair to all concerned, it's best to leave the advertising to the pros. Except this time.
One establishment in town has discovered the necessary trick to get me to step off my ethical high horse and shout their name from the rooftops. Well, maybe not the rooftop - it IS kinda cold out. Regardless, ethics (and editors with grouchy faces) be darned, for I'm making an endorsement right here and right now:
THE ROCK ISLAND BREWING COMPANY SERVES THE FINEST FOOD ON PLANET EARTH, IF NOT PERHAPS THE ENTIRE GALAXY. You should go there for lunch and/or dinner every day. Fold this newspaper up, put it under your arm, and strut on down to RIBCO where you can read the paper and enjoy the best meal of your life. Tell 'em Shane sent ya!
There ya go. A 100% unbiased, 100% unsolicited recommendation from yours truly. Trust me. The fact that I spend my weekends DJ'ing for RIBCO's sister club 2nd Ave. should be dismissed as mere coincidence. No, I'm speaking from the heart here. The food at RIBCO is oh-so-good. Especially, in fact, the spinach dip. To be honest, I was unaware of the wonder, majesty, and pallet-quenching joy of RIBCO's spinach dip until quite recently.
Well, until this very afternoon -- when I got a phone call from Debbie Tilka, who owns and manages RIBCO along with her husband Terry. I can safely say that it was the first phone call I've ever received from someone needing to urgently speak with me on the topic of spinach dip. As it happens, RIBCO has just redesigned their menu, adding and renaming many dishes.
Their spinach dip is now no mere spinach dip. It is, as of this writing, DJ SHANE'S SHOUT OUT SPIN DIP. That's right, mortals, I've officially arrived: I HAVE MY OWN MENU ITEM.
Accolades come few and far between in this business. Well, I suppose a successful newspaper columnist might yearn to one day win a Pulitzer Prize. Not me. For one, I bet the Pulitzer judges aren't progressive enough to recognize the esoteric genius of a column devoted to spinach dip. For two, have you seen a Pulitzer Prize? It's like an weird coin/medallion thing with a dude on it who appears, in my infinite knowledge, to be doing arm pulldowns on a Bowflex. It's not my scene.
Granted, I suppose the prestige of a Pulitzer Prize might outweigh the prestige of DJ Shane's Spin Dip. Still, the Pulitzer people need to face the harsh and ugly truth that, while their golden icon may be the pinnacle of journalistic success, it simply doesn't make a nice complement to whole wheat crackers or rye bread.
So I'm setting my sights on something higher than journalistic acclaim: world domination. Here's how it'll work: If you, dear reader, decide that you'd like to dine at RIBCO and try some of DJ Shane's Shout Out Spin Dip, when your waitress comes to the table, simply ask for "the Shane." Once enough people start getting used to calling spinach dip a Shane, perhaps it'll catch on at OTHER locations.
"Would you care for an appetizer?"
"Yes, please. I'd like a Shane."
"Coming right up. We make our Shane fresh!"
And so on and so forth, until one day my name will become synonymous with spinach dip everywhere and the world will bow before me. Don't believe me? Ask my friend, the Earl of Sandwich.
But I've got to be honest. There's one thing I need to do first before global conquest can ever possibly be mine. Over the past decade, I've eaten at RIBCO approximately a bajillion times. I've ravaged their menu -- there's not a dish I haven't tried. Except one.
That's right, DJ Shane has yet to try DJ Shane's Shout Out Spin Dip. I'm certain that it's quite tasty, don't get me wrong... but, well, it's green. And creamy. And being the world's most finicky eater, one of my devout rules is that things green and creamy are likely eccchy and hence should stay away from my mouth.
But as of right now, I am rescinding my rule. I simply refuse to have a food item named after me that I myself won't eat for fear of color and texture. And I swear to you all, I've watched my friends eat RIBCO's spinach dip and go on and on about how good it is. (And that's lucky for them, as DJ Shane's Shout Out Spin Dip shall henceforth be the expected mandatory order for all of my dining companions.)
As much as I tease, I really DO get a kick out of having my name on a menu, especially at a place like RIBCO with such great people as the Tilkas. And I'm honestly touched and warm-fuzzied by the sentiment, even if the menu DOES go on to say that "it's the only thing cheesier than our resident DJ!" I can live with cheesy. I've been called worse, trust me.
So go to RIBCO. Try the Shane, it's awesome. Then hang out and listen to me spin records next door. Then read all my columns, all our other columns, and support all of our fine advertisers. Even the ones who don't name stuff after me.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
COLUMN: Loose Meat
I've never claimed to be a particularly worldly kinda guy, but there's a secret part of me that's convinced I am.
I went to a liberal arts college, and that's supposed to make me well-rounded and stuff. I've travelled to at least a third of these United States. I watch a heck of a lot of TV, because I like to be aware of the issues -- or at least the latest episode of "Lost." As I type this, my web browser is tuned to a streaming video feed of a courthouse that perhaps sometime today Britney Spears may or may not walk into. See, I'm well-rounded and informed.
And as a well-rounded, pseudo-worldly cool dude, I like to stay abreast of national politics -- or at the very least find out who these mildly annoying people are who've been stumping through Davenport for the past month. As a former speech major, I'm intrigued by the campaign process and the tactics used by the candidates to gain support. Let's face it: Many, many people vote solely on a candidate's personality and NOT the issues.
Look at the famous Nixon/Kennedy debate. Polls at the time showed that most radio listeners felt that Nixon easily won the debate, but those who watched the debate on TV found Kennedy to be the clear victor. Why? Because on TV, Kennedy looked confident and unstoppable while Nixon looked like a pale, sweaty mess. To the average voter, the way a candidate comes across on camera is far superior to their message -- just ask Howard Dean, who was one "hooooooooah" away from the White House four years ago.
Anyways, as a fan of the way candidates manipulate the media, I was perusing an article in our paper the other day when something caught my eye. An Associated Press reporter was following the Clinton campaign and wrote this, in a piece we ran on January 3rd:
"Clinton put massive resources into the state over an objection from one of her top advisers who warned early on it would be tough for her. In pursuit of the Iowa prize, the world-famous senator ate locally popular 'loose meat' sandwiches while cameras recorded every bite..."
I was perplexed by this paragraph. Why the big deal about a loose meat sandwich? In fact, why the quotation marks around "loose meat" as though it were some strange Midwest delicacy unbeknownst to the rest of the world?
I mentioned this to a co-worker and was blind-sided by her answer: Loose meat IS a strange Midwest delicacy unbeknownst to the rest of the world. I couldn't believe it. I mean, I knew Maid-Rites were sort of a Midwest phenomenon, but I never had a clue that the entire concept of loose meat sandwiches is lost on the rest of the country.
Surely not. I decided to prove my co-worker wrong. As part of my work week at the paper, I routinely speak with an advertiser who lives in sun-baked Palm Desert, California. I immediately got her on the line and grilled her over the sensitive topic.
"What would you say if I mentioned the phrase 'Loose Meat Sandwich' to you?" asked the naive columnist.
"I dunno," she replied, "For starters, I'd probably go 'Ewwwwww!' What on Earth is loose meat?"
Maybe they just call it something different in California.
"It's like a hamburger but with crumpled ground beef," I tried to explain.
"Ewwwww!" again came the response. "You EAT that?"
All I could do was sigh.
"We kinda have that," she said as I felt a momentary relief. "It's like when you're grilling a hamburger and the meat accidentally breaks in two. Is that when the meat becomes 'loose'? Because I just call it 'Oops, the burger broke.'"
I tried to explain it one final time to her, to no avail.
"So it's like a Sloppy Joe but without the, umm, slop?" she inquired as I affirmed. "It's just, like, a Joe?"
"Kinda," I said with an eye roll.
"Ewwwww!" she said for the millionth time.
My "worldly" self had no idea that loose meat sandwiches are thought of as freaky by most of the continent. My friend in California, in fact, was so fascinated that she insisted I go take a picture of one and e-mail it to her. As all this talk of loose meat set a hankering in my gut for one, so I happily obliged and popped across the river to Ross'.
As I sat there enjoying the sandwich that apparantly the rest of the world considers more of a "Fear Factor" stunt than lunch, I wondered just how many Presidential candidates had choked one down for the cause. I have no idea, but I certainly hope that most of them did it at Ross'. I like to imagine countless Washington bigwhigs smiling their way through a Rossburger while staring at the bizarre mural that appears to show Humphrey Bogart mingling with Ross regulars, while I-74 is drawn as if bearing down on the restaurant itself (and is that Truman Capote sitting alongside a guy with cornrows in his hair?) Between the mural and the Magic Mountains, Ross' is a cherished institution and should be the dominant tourist attraction in town.
Apparantly we're not the only weirdos, though. My Californian friend tells me you can't find a BLT in the Golden State without avacado on it, which totally grosses me out -- though someday I'd love to walk into a restaurant and order something called a "BLAT." All I know is that I'm done pretending to be worldly. If the rest of the world can't get their head around loose meat on a bun, I'd rather stay a Quad Citizen.
I went to a liberal arts college, and that's supposed to make me well-rounded and stuff. I've travelled to at least a third of these United States. I watch a heck of a lot of TV, because I like to be aware of the issues -- or at least the latest episode of "Lost." As I type this, my web browser is tuned to a streaming video feed of a courthouse that perhaps sometime today Britney Spears may or may not walk into. See, I'm well-rounded and informed.
And as a well-rounded, pseudo-worldly cool dude, I like to stay abreast of national politics -- or at the very least find out who these mildly annoying people are who've been stumping through Davenport for the past month. As a former speech major, I'm intrigued by the campaign process and the tactics used by the candidates to gain support. Let's face it: Many, many people vote solely on a candidate's personality and NOT the issues.
Look at the famous Nixon/Kennedy debate. Polls at the time showed that most radio listeners felt that Nixon easily won the debate, but those who watched the debate on TV found Kennedy to be the clear victor. Why? Because on TV, Kennedy looked confident and unstoppable while Nixon looked like a pale, sweaty mess. To the average voter, the way a candidate comes across on camera is far superior to their message -- just ask Howard Dean, who was one "hooooooooah" away from the White House four years ago.
Anyways, as a fan of the way candidates manipulate the media, I was perusing an article in our paper the other day when something caught my eye. An Associated Press reporter was following the Clinton campaign and wrote this, in a piece we ran on January 3rd:
"Clinton put massive resources into the state over an objection from one of her top advisers who warned early on it would be tough for her. In pursuit of the Iowa prize, the world-famous senator ate locally popular 'loose meat' sandwiches while cameras recorded every bite..."
I was perplexed by this paragraph. Why the big deal about a loose meat sandwich? In fact, why the quotation marks around "loose meat" as though it were some strange Midwest delicacy unbeknownst to the rest of the world?
I mentioned this to a co-worker and was blind-sided by her answer: Loose meat IS a strange Midwest delicacy unbeknownst to the rest of the world. I couldn't believe it. I mean, I knew Maid-Rites were sort of a Midwest phenomenon, but I never had a clue that the entire concept of loose meat sandwiches is lost on the rest of the country.
Surely not. I decided to prove my co-worker wrong. As part of my work week at the paper, I routinely speak with an advertiser who lives in sun-baked Palm Desert, California. I immediately got her on the line and grilled her over the sensitive topic.
"What would you say if I mentioned the phrase 'Loose Meat Sandwich' to you?" asked the naive columnist.
"I dunno," she replied, "For starters, I'd probably go 'Ewwwwww!' What on Earth is loose meat?"
Maybe they just call it something different in California.
"It's like a hamburger but with crumpled ground beef," I tried to explain.
"Ewwwww!" again came the response. "You EAT that?"
All I could do was sigh.
"We kinda have that," she said as I felt a momentary relief. "It's like when you're grilling a hamburger and the meat accidentally breaks in two. Is that when the meat becomes 'loose'? Because I just call it 'Oops, the burger broke.'"
I tried to explain it one final time to her, to no avail.
"So it's like a Sloppy Joe but without the, umm, slop?" she inquired as I affirmed. "It's just, like, a Joe?"
"Kinda," I said with an eye roll.
"Ewwwww!" she said for the millionth time.
My "worldly" self had no idea that loose meat sandwiches are thought of as freaky by most of the continent. My friend in California, in fact, was so fascinated that she insisted I go take a picture of one and e-mail it to her. As all this talk of loose meat set a hankering in my gut for one, so I happily obliged and popped across the river to Ross'.
As I sat there enjoying the sandwich that apparantly the rest of the world considers more of a "Fear Factor" stunt than lunch, I wondered just how many Presidential candidates had choked one down for the cause. I have no idea, but I certainly hope that most of them did it at Ross'. I like to imagine countless Washington bigwhigs smiling their way through a Rossburger while staring at the bizarre mural that appears to show Humphrey Bogart mingling with Ross regulars, while I-74 is drawn as if bearing down on the restaurant itself (and is that Truman Capote sitting alongside a guy with cornrows in his hair?) Between the mural and the Magic Mountains, Ross' is a cherished institution and should be the dominant tourist attraction in town.
Apparantly we're not the only weirdos, though. My Californian friend tells me you can't find a BLT in the Golden State without avacado on it, which totally grosses me out -- though someday I'd love to walk into a restaurant and order something called a "BLAT." All I know is that I'm done pretending to be worldly. If the rest of the world can't get their head around loose meat on a bun, I'd rather stay a Quad Citizen.
Monday, January 14, 2008
COLUMN: Gossip
In Journalism 101, they teach you that the most important part of a newspaper story is the lead. You need to start off with a real bang -- something that'll lure the readers in and keep them glued to the story. Well, after a couple years of trying, I think I've finally come up with a lead worthy of your attention. Let's see if it works:
Word on the street is that I'm a sex addict.
Did it work? Are you hooked? Sadly, I couldn't even type that sentence without laughing -- but it's the truth. Well, kinda.
I work on the third floor up here at the newspaper office, and on our floor, the girls outnumber the guys by about 4 to 1. Not that I'm complaining, mind you -- there are worse fates than being surrounded by lovely ladies for 40 hours a week. But being in daily close quarters with the girl gaggle, I've discovered one stereotype that DOES ring true:
Ladies, you DO love to gossip. You're not happy unless no fewer than five juicy and/or salacious rumors are making their way around the office at any given time. I have a working theory, in fact, that gossip is what gives women their power. (Men, conversely, are powered by video games and ESPN.) If we could only harness the mighty energyof gossip, I'm certain we could cure global warming overnight.
In all fairness, I suppose I like a bit of gossip myself. I'm not immune from the lure of celebrity-skewering websites, and it's not as if I ignore those bawdy workplace rumors when they eventually reach my desk. But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that the newspaper office would be a hotbed of she-gossip unseen since high school.
Did you hear? So-and-so is mad at So-and-so because of what So-and-so said about So-and-so behind their back! And so-and-so on and so-and-so forth, that's what I hear on almost a daily basis. But this past week, we've entered a new realm, because full-on scandal erupted! (Note: If that last sentence made you excited, congratulations -- you are a girl.)
It turns out that Co-worker X "secretly" went on a few dates with Co-worker Y. This, as you'd expect, is front page gossip. I could care less. For all I know, they're off making baby Co-worker Z's as I type. I dunno. I'm staying out of it.
All I know is that it's made me horribly jealous. Why do I have to be the mousy guy in the corner? Why can't I be the center of attention? Why can't somebody talk in hushed tones about MY exciting life? As I was laughing about this to my immediate desk neighbors, we began to get devious. One of my co-workers suggested planting a rumor that I, too, was secretly dating a colleague.
No, that'd never work. One query to my "lucky" bachelorette would likely be answered with a "Shane? Eww, no!" and that'd be that. I laughed and said it would need to be something juicier. No, if we wanted a proper scandal, it would have to be something like, I dunno, someone saw me at a support group for sex addicts or something.
How brilliant is that? It's completely tawdry, completely unprovable, and best of all, completely ludicrous. I mean, look at my picture. Is that the face of a sex addict? I have a difficult enough time TALKING to girls. Let's just say that if I AM a sex addict, I'm doing a really, really lousy job at it.
We laughed and I went back to work. What I didn't know, however, is that mere moments later, another co-worker was headed my way when she was cut off by my friend Jerri. "I wouldn't talk to Shane," Jerri whispered in hushed tones. "He's having a bad day. Haven't you heard?"
I honestly didn't even hear it happening, but Jerri spent the next few minutes giving an Oscar-worthy performance. She made up a whole story: I had confessed my addiction to only my closest co-workers after their prodding. I entered treatment only after the repeated pleas of my parents. [I liked this one a lot, only to imagine the look on my poor mother's face if I were to waltz in and announce that I was addicted to nookie.] I was in recovery and looking to make a fresh start at life. It was a magical and gifted performance.
"Well, that's that," Jerri said after the co-worker left the room. "Congrats, you're a sex addict."
We laughed, but I didn't think it would really go anywhere. Six hours later, I'm off the clock and gallavanting around town when I bump into one of my co-workers. I begin to tell her about my nefarious day when she stops me. "Oh, I've already heard allllll about it, Mr. Sex-aholic."
"Weren't you on vacation this week?" I ask.
"I got a call at home."
That's right. In less than a day, the gossip had made its way through the building and onwards to off-duty co-workers and lands beyond. Right now, someone in Uzbekistan is learning that I'm one tawdry dude.
So it stops now. I have taunted and disrespected the awesome power of the gossip machine for the last time. For the record, I am not a sex addict, and weird apologies to those of you who are. No more rumor-mongering for me. In case you hear something, I am also NOT the walrus, I did NOT shoot the sheriff, and I did NOT let the dogs out. Oh, and as for the hearsay about me & Britney? I issue a terse "no comment."
Word on the street is that I'm a sex addict.
Did it work? Are you hooked? Sadly, I couldn't even type that sentence without laughing -- but it's the truth. Well, kinda.
I work on the third floor up here at the newspaper office, and on our floor, the girls outnumber the guys by about 4 to 1. Not that I'm complaining, mind you -- there are worse fates than being surrounded by lovely ladies for 40 hours a week. But being in daily close quarters with the girl gaggle, I've discovered one stereotype that DOES ring true:
Ladies, you DO love to gossip. You're not happy unless no fewer than five juicy and/or salacious rumors are making their way around the office at any given time. I have a working theory, in fact, that gossip is what gives women their power. (Men, conversely, are powered by video games and ESPN.) If we could only harness the mighty energyof gossip, I'm certain we could cure global warming overnight.
In all fairness, I suppose I like a bit of gossip myself. I'm not immune from the lure of celebrity-skewering websites, and it's not as if I ignore those bawdy workplace rumors when they eventually reach my desk. But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that the newspaper office would be a hotbed of she-gossip unseen since high school.
Did you hear? So-and-so is mad at So-and-so because of what So-and-so said about So-and-so behind their back! And so-and-so on and so-and-so forth, that's what I hear on almost a daily basis. But this past week, we've entered a new realm, because full-on scandal erupted! (Note: If that last sentence made you excited, congratulations -- you are a girl.)
It turns out that Co-worker X "secretly" went on a few dates with Co-worker Y. This, as you'd expect, is front page gossip. I could care less. For all I know, they're off making baby Co-worker Z's as I type. I dunno. I'm staying out of it.
All I know is that it's made me horribly jealous. Why do I have to be the mousy guy in the corner? Why can't I be the center of attention? Why can't somebody talk in hushed tones about MY exciting life? As I was laughing about this to my immediate desk neighbors, we began to get devious. One of my co-workers suggested planting a rumor that I, too, was secretly dating a colleague.
No, that'd never work. One query to my "lucky" bachelorette would likely be answered with a "Shane? Eww, no!" and that'd be that. I laughed and said it would need to be something juicier. No, if we wanted a proper scandal, it would have to be something like, I dunno, someone saw me at a support group for sex addicts or something.
How brilliant is that? It's completely tawdry, completely unprovable, and best of all, completely ludicrous. I mean, look at my picture. Is that the face of a sex addict? I have a difficult enough time TALKING to girls. Let's just say that if I AM a sex addict, I'm doing a really, really lousy job at it.
We laughed and I went back to work. What I didn't know, however, is that mere moments later, another co-worker was headed my way when she was cut off by my friend Jerri. "I wouldn't talk to Shane," Jerri whispered in hushed tones. "He's having a bad day. Haven't you heard?"
I honestly didn't even hear it happening, but Jerri spent the next few minutes giving an Oscar-worthy performance. She made up a whole story: I had confessed my addiction to only my closest co-workers after their prodding. I entered treatment only after the repeated pleas of my parents. [I liked this one a lot, only to imagine the look on my poor mother's face if I were to waltz in and announce that I was addicted to nookie.] I was in recovery and looking to make a fresh start at life. It was a magical and gifted performance.
"Well, that's that," Jerri said after the co-worker left the room. "Congrats, you're a sex addict."
We laughed, but I didn't think it would really go anywhere. Six hours later, I'm off the clock and gallavanting around town when I bump into one of my co-workers. I begin to tell her about my nefarious day when she stops me. "Oh, I've already heard allllll about it, Mr. Sex-aholic."
"Weren't you on vacation this week?" I ask.
"I got a call at home."
That's right. In less than a day, the gossip had made its way through the building and onwards to off-duty co-workers and lands beyond. Right now, someone in Uzbekistan is learning that I'm one tawdry dude.
So it stops now. I have taunted and disrespected the awesome power of the gossip machine for the last time. For the record, I am not a sex addict, and weird apologies to those of you who are. No more rumor-mongering for me. In case you hear something, I am also NOT the walrus, I did NOT shoot the sheriff, and I did NOT let the dogs out. Oh, and as for the hearsay about me & Britney? I issue a terse "no comment."
Saturday, January 05, 2008
COLUMN: Best 'o 2007
I first got into journalism by reviewing records. In fact, it was a review of Bon Jovi's "Slippery When Wet" that was my first published work in high school. I trashed the album, and my locker and my house got toilet-papered for a week straight as a result. Music remains my first love, and you have to indulge me annually when I spend a column waxing poetically over my favorite records of the year.
Our entertainment editor recently published his year-end picks, and I watched as he took the usual heat from our online commenters over his choices (as I suspect I will for mine.) Many of the comments questioned whether or not the musings of an entertainment writer from the Quad Cities really matter in the grand scheme of things. The real answer: No, they probably don't. We're not handing out Grammies, and our opinions aren't being sought after by record execs.
However, we ARE hardcore music fans blessed with a forum to share our love for pop culture. If you hate my picks, big deal. I probably hate yours, too. But if one person out there reads this list and discovers a band that they like, then hey, mission accomplished. That said, bask in the glow and wonder of my picks for the Best Darn Albums of 2007:
#10 - I'M FROM BARCELONA - Let Me Introduce My Friends (EMI)
Neither a single entity nor from Barcelona, the Swedish collective I'm From Barcelona finally saw their debut record get released in the U.S. this year. If you think a 29-member band from Sweden who sing songs about chicken pox and stamp collecting might be a little silly, you'd be right. But the feel-good silliness of the band is combined with a knack for crafting perfect, sunny-day pop songs that would fit on an Archies record, if Archie were Scandinavian and had 28 friends. What could have been a silly novelty record turns out to be a joyous celebration of the spirit of pop music. You'll be humming it for days.
#9 - ROBIN GUTHRIE AND HAROLD BUDD - Before the Day Breaks (Darla/Bella Union)
(Guthrie & Budd don't make videos, but above is a clip of Guthrie playing live in Peru earlier this year.)
I have to get past the fact that I once interviewed guitarist Robin Guthrie for a music website and found him to be one of the most egotistical, arrogant jerks I've ever come across. He might be a schmuck, but there's no denying the guy's immeasurable talent. This year Guthrie hooked up with ambient neo-classical pianist Harold Budd for two records of blissed-out ethereal soundscapes. It's not their first collaboration, but it may be their best. Despite what I think of the guy, if there's a heaven, Guthrie's guitar is its Muzak.
#8 - APPLES IN STEREO - New Magnetic Wonder (Simian)
The Apples in Stereo have been leading the resurgence of psychedelic pop music for nigh on a decade now, and fans were mortified last year when it was announced that husband-and-wife bandleaders Robert Schneider and Hilarie Sidney were getting a divorce. Rather than pack it in musically, though, the band persevered through personal strife and completed the album they'd spent two years crafting, and it's a magnum opus of pop cool. Featuring a guest list of some of the greatest indiepop musicians around the world, the Apples may have their best record yet, which softened the blow when Sidney officially departed the band upon the album's completion.
#7 - JUSTICE - Cross (Ed Banger/Vice)
Daft Punk have spent the last decade making France the epicenter of cool when it comes to dance music, but fellow countrymen Justice came on the scene this year and stole their thunder. Where Daft Punk excel at hard driving robotic beats, Justice inject their dancefloor grooves with electronic emotion. Thieving elements of soul, R&B, lounge, funk, and melding them with the relentless deep bass beats that are the calling card of the French scene, Justice have made THE soundtrack for the dancefloor this year.
#6 - M.I.A. - Kala (XL Recordings)
Sri Lankan rapper M.I.A. was supposed to record her second record with American uber-producer Timbaland, but visa problems (likely stemming from the rapper's outspoken radical political beliefs) prevented her from recording in the U.S. Instead, she made the album in sporadic bursts while travelling the world, self-producing the record alongside friends. It's still the same beat-heavy, politically-driven hip-hop that made critics fall in love with her debut, but "Kala" absorbs the cultures it was recorded in, adding an irreverant world music flare to an already thrilling record.
#5 - MIKA - Life in Cartoon Motion (Universal/Island)
A record that you want to blare from your car but don't dare due to the questionable looks you'll get from passersby, Lebanese-born Mika has made the year's most flamboyant debut. Unabashedly thieving the best bits of classic Elton John while simultaneously resurrecting the over-the-top grandeur of Freddie Mercury, this record is the year's greatest guilty pleasure, and responsible for many shades-drawn dance sessions at my place.
#4 - PANDA BEAR - Person Pitch (Paw Tracks)
Panda Bear is the nom-de-plume of one Noah Lennox, best known as the keyboard noodler for Animal Collective, a band that music critics drool over but I personally can't stand. Lennox's solo work escapes the weird-for-the-sake-of-being-weird prentention of Animal Collective, and instead takes the listener into a simple yet complex world of looped guitars, otherworldly samples, and ghostly vocals. The result is a haunting epic that sounds like Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys trapped on an iceberg.
#3 - ROBYN - Robyn (Konichiwa)
You might remember Robyn as the Swedish chanteuse who reached the American Top 40 with "Show Me Love" in 1997. Modeled by her record label to follow in the shoes of the Britneys and Christinas of the world, Robyn found herself stifled by lame songs and image consultants. Instead of going along for the ride, she bought out her contract, formed her own record label, and put together her own team of producers, shunning mainstream pop for fierce Nordic electro beats and synths. The result is a snapshot of poise and confidence, and the album Gwen Stefani's been trying to make for years now. Right now, it's only available in Europe, but with a stateside release due this spring, she'll be a household name by this time next year.
#2 - BAND OF HORSES - Cease to Begin (Sub Pop)
Sometimes the best records of the year don't have to be overly-indulgent artistic statements. Sometimes all it takes it takes is great rock & roll, and that's what Band of Horses specialize in. When co-founder Mat Brooke left the band last year, most critics thought it would spell the end of the group, but in the hands of frontman Ben Bridwell, the band took on a new vision and came out with a record of mature, uncomplicated beauty.
#1 - OF MONTREAL - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? (Polyvinyl)
The brainchild of acclaimed songsmith Kevin Barnes, of Montreal have been crafting eclectic pop gems for over a decade now... but this is no ordinary pop record. Over the past couple years, Barnes married, moved to Norway, had a child, fell into a stifling depression, saw his marriage crumble, and eventually pulled himself together and reconciled with his wife. This album, recorded mostly solo on a laptop computer, chronicles it all - from the lowest moments of clinical depression to the highest peaks of personal redemption. It's an emotional rollercoaster of dance beats and glam funk. The greatest album thus far from the greatest band making music today, period.
Honorable Mentions:
The 1900's, Cold and Kind
Tiger Saw, Tigers on Fire
Shout Out Louds, Our Ill Wills
Architecture in Helsinki, Places Like This
Caribou, Andorra
Airiel, The Battle of Sealand
Miguel Migs, Those Things
The Polyphonic Spree, The Fragile Army
Britney Spears, Blackout
(Seriously tho, for the train wreck that she is, Britney's producers made an amazing top 40 record.)
Our entertainment editor recently published his year-end picks, and I watched as he took the usual heat from our online commenters over his choices (as I suspect I will for mine.) Many of the comments questioned whether or not the musings of an entertainment writer from the Quad Cities really matter in the grand scheme of things. The real answer: No, they probably don't. We're not handing out Grammies, and our opinions aren't being sought after by record execs.
However, we ARE hardcore music fans blessed with a forum to share our love for pop culture. If you hate my picks, big deal. I probably hate yours, too. But if one person out there reads this list and discovers a band that they like, then hey, mission accomplished. That said, bask in the glow and wonder of my picks for the Best Darn Albums of 2007:
#10 - I'M FROM BARCELONA - Let Me Introduce My Friends (EMI)
Neither a single entity nor from Barcelona, the Swedish collective I'm From Barcelona finally saw their debut record get released in the U.S. this year. If you think a 29-member band from Sweden who sing songs about chicken pox and stamp collecting might be a little silly, you'd be right. But the feel-good silliness of the band is combined with a knack for crafting perfect, sunny-day pop songs that would fit on an Archies record, if Archie were Scandinavian and had 28 friends. What could have been a silly novelty record turns out to be a joyous celebration of the spirit of pop music. You'll be humming it for days.
#9 - ROBIN GUTHRIE AND HAROLD BUDD - Before the Day Breaks (Darla/Bella Union)
(Guthrie & Budd don't make videos, but above is a clip of Guthrie playing live in Peru earlier this year.)
I have to get past the fact that I once interviewed guitarist Robin Guthrie for a music website and found him to be one of the most egotistical, arrogant jerks I've ever come across. He might be a schmuck, but there's no denying the guy's immeasurable talent. This year Guthrie hooked up with ambient neo-classical pianist Harold Budd for two records of blissed-out ethereal soundscapes. It's not their first collaboration, but it may be their best. Despite what I think of the guy, if there's a heaven, Guthrie's guitar is its Muzak.
#8 - APPLES IN STEREO - New Magnetic Wonder (Simian)
The Apples in Stereo have been leading the resurgence of psychedelic pop music for nigh on a decade now, and fans were mortified last year when it was announced that husband-and-wife bandleaders Robert Schneider and Hilarie Sidney were getting a divorce. Rather than pack it in musically, though, the band persevered through personal strife and completed the album they'd spent two years crafting, and it's a magnum opus of pop cool. Featuring a guest list of some of the greatest indiepop musicians around the world, the Apples may have their best record yet, which softened the blow when Sidney officially departed the band upon the album's completion.
#7 - JUSTICE - Cross (Ed Banger/Vice)
Daft Punk have spent the last decade making France the epicenter of cool when it comes to dance music, but fellow countrymen Justice came on the scene this year and stole their thunder. Where Daft Punk excel at hard driving robotic beats, Justice inject their dancefloor grooves with electronic emotion. Thieving elements of soul, R&B, lounge, funk, and melding them with the relentless deep bass beats that are the calling card of the French scene, Justice have made THE soundtrack for the dancefloor this year.
#6 - M.I.A. - Kala (XL Recordings)
Sri Lankan rapper M.I.A. was supposed to record her second record with American uber-producer Timbaland, but visa problems (likely stemming from the rapper's outspoken radical political beliefs) prevented her from recording in the U.S. Instead, she made the album in sporadic bursts while travelling the world, self-producing the record alongside friends. It's still the same beat-heavy, politically-driven hip-hop that made critics fall in love with her debut, but "Kala" absorbs the cultures it was recorded in, adding an irreverant world music flare to an already thrilling record.
#5 - MIKA - Life in Cartoon Motion (Universal/Island)
A record that you want to blare from your car but don't dare due to the questionable looks you'll get from passersby, Lebanese-born Mika has made the year's most flamboyant debut. Unabashedly thieving the best bits of classic Elton John while simultaneously resurrecting the over-the-top grandeur of Freddie Mercury, this record is the year's greatest guilty pleasure, and responsible for many shades-drawn dance sessions at my place.
#4 - PANDA BEAR - Person Pitch (Paw Tracks)
Panda Bear is the nom-de-plume of one Noah Lennox, best known as the keyboard noodler for Animal Collective, a band that music critics drool over but I personally can't stand. Lennox's solo work escapes the weird-for-the-sake-of-being-weird prentention of Animal Collective, and instead takes the listener into a simple yet complex world of looped guitars, otherworldly samples, and ghostly vocals. The result is a haunting epic that sounds like Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys trapped on an iceberg.
#3 - ROBYN - Robyn (Konichiwa)
You might remember Robyn as the Swedish chanteuse who reached the American Top 40 with "Show Me Love" in 1997. Modeled by her record label to follow in the shoes of the Britneys and Christinas of the world, Robyn found herself stifled by lame songs and image consultants. Instead of going along for the ride, she bought out her contract, formed her own record label, and put together her own team of producers, shunning mainstream pop for fierce Nordic electro beats and synths. The result is a snapshot of poise and confidence, and the album Gwen Stefani's been trying to make for years now. Right now, it's only available in Europe, but with a stateside release due this spring, she'll be a household name by this time next year.
#2 - BAND OF HORSES - Cease to Begin (Sub Pop)
Sometimes the best records of the year don't have to be overly-indulgent artistic statements. Sometimes all it takes it takes is great rock & roll, and that's what Band of Horses specialize in. When co-founder Mat Brooke left the band last year, most critics thought it would spell the end of the group, but in the hands of frontman Ben Bridwell, the band took on a new vision and came out with a record of mature, uncomplicated beauty.
#1 - OF MONTREAL - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? (Polyvinyl)
The brainchild of acclaimed songsmith Kevin Barnes, of Montreal have been crafting eclectic pop gems for over a decade now... but this is no ordinary pop record. Over the past couple years, Barnes married, moved to Norway, had a child, fell into a stifling depression, saw his marriage crumble, and eventually pulled himself together and reconciled with his wife. This album, recorded mostly solo on a laptop computer, chronicles it all - from the lowest moments of clinical depression to the highest peaks of personal redemption. It's an emotional rollercoaster of dance beats and glam funk. The greatest album thus far from the greatest band making music today, period.
Honorable Mentions:
The 1900's, Cold and Kind
Tiger Saw, Tigers on Fire
Shout Out Louds, Our Ill Wills
Architecture in Helsinki, Places Like This
Caribou, Andorra
Airiel, The Battle of Sealand
Miguel Migs, Those Things
The Polyphonic Spree, The Fragile Army
Britney Spears, Blackout
(Seriously tho, for the train wreck that she is, Britney's producers made an amazing top 40 record.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)