COLUMN: Do the Shane!

If you missed my column last week, it was all about how difficult it is for a cool guy like me to hang out unnoticed in a dance club without being constantly harassed and mauled by hot women.

If you READ my column last week, you'll know I'm lying and it was really about how hard it is for an uncoordinated nerd like me to act natural at a dance club. This is a particularly painful awkwardness for me, given that I spend every weekend in dance clubs moonlighting as a DJ. But after years and years of mixing records and trying my absolute best to keep dancefloors packed, being in that awkward environment is second nature these days. Still, sitting down last week and writing a column about it led me to a revelation that I'd never really contemplated before:

Dancing is weird.

No offense to any of you aspiring black swans out there, but dancing really IS fairly abnormal behavior. Is it a natural impulse that just occurs when we hear a good tune? I mean, I like cheeseburgers, but you don't see me doing the hokey pokey every time I cruise past a drive-thru.

Clearly, shaking a tailfeather has to be lodged into our DNA somewhere. Hence: weird. No other species has the propensity for doing the hustle. I, for one, would rethink being a cat-owner the minute my feline houseguests busted out with Lambada: The Forbidden Dance. But just like a cat is born with the knowledge to lick itself clean, we humans must be born with an inherent yearning to do the macarena.

Every so many years, we seem to stumble upon a previously uncontacted tribe of people living contentedly in the dark rainforests of someplace-or-other -- and even though these folks have never been touched by modern society (but don't you worry - we'll get them iPhones and have them playing Angry Birds before nightfall,) the one thing our cultures invariably end up having in common is a penchant for banging on drums and dancing the night away.

So let's say we are a species hardwired to boogie and genetically predisposed to watching D-list celebrities do the tango in fruity costumes on TV every week. The question then must become: WHY? Is it a primal appreciation of the human form? A bio-mechanical response to music? Or is it our version of peacocking in an effort to attract the opposite sex?

Any way you look at it, it's bad news for an uncoordinated, two-left-footed klutz like me. If you must know, I'm not immune to performing the occasional Shane Shuffle when a good tune comes on - but my booty only shakes under the prerequisite conditions of an empty house with blinds drawn and nary even a cat in sight (they JUDGE, I swear it.) My version of dance probably looks more seizure than sexy. Besides, I'm a chubby guy, and the only place for chubby dancing is if you're going "Numa Numa" on Youtube.

In a way, I lucked out. My formative teen years were spent in the 80's -- the one decade that required NO dancing ability. You didn't need rhythm to dance to Devo -- as long as you could pogo up and down, you were good (bonus points if you could mime a whip crack.)

As the 80s moved on, so did me and my friends -- into the world of goth, industrial, and alternative dance music. Here, too, was a collective of people and music that didn't so much care how you danced as long as you looked the part.

You danced to goth rock by staring downwards, swaying about like an addled zombie, and looking really, really depressed -- for YOU were one of the smart ones. You knew that the only human beings who understood the real anguish and pain of life were you, your friends, and Robert Smith of The Cure. It didn't matter how you danced, because dancing was meaningless because life was meaningless. THIS I could handle.

You danced to industrial and electronic music by stepping and flailing your arms like a slightly ticked-off robot. Why? Because the jocks with their Bon Jovi and their shopping malls didn't understand the unbridled aggression, anger, power, and raw sexuality pouring from your muscle-less frame. This was mostly due to four nerds from Basildon who realized that if they started wearing leather pants and singing vaguely controversial songs about underage deviant nookie, they'd certainly gain a following of underage deviant FANS. Thus begat Depeche Mode. Sample vaguely controversial lyric: "Pain, will you return it? I'll say it again. Pain." And any band with an accent posh enough to rhyme "pain" with "again" was inherently cooler than anything on the radio. THIS I could handle.

Nowadays, though, it's an entirely different game -- and frankily, I'm happy to be too old to play it.

The modern dancefloor is a complicated beast requiring far more skill and coordination than yesteryear. You need moves and you need soul. If that's not challenging enough, now there are entire dances you need to learn. Some are kinda cool (the Jerk), some are less cool (the Dougie), some don't appear to make any sense whatsoever (the Cat Daddy,) and some are just downright goofy-lookin' (the John Wall.) All are too complex for my motor skills.

There's one bit of good news, though. I've discovered someone else with dance moves as bad as mine: Cahron "JayAre" Childs, the most talented rapper in Cali Swag District, the trio originally responsible for the Dougie dance craze. Go to Youtube and look up a video called "Cali Swag Teaches You How To Dougie." In it, the group shows off the Dougie dance steps -- except JayAre, who stands awkwardly to the right and looks like he's sweating bullets just figuring out how to sway to the beat. THIS is what I would look on the modern dance floor.

JayAre's got it figured out, though. His verse on "Teach Me How To Dougie" starts like this: "Back of the party, I don't really like to boogie, I'm just trying to get bent and meet a thick redbone," which of course translates to "I might be a good rapper but I can't dance to save my life, ergo I'll just do my best to look cool and steal your girlfriend while you're showing off your lame moves, dude." JayAre's my new uncoordinated hero - a guy who can't dance who made millions off a song teaching people how to dance. My next mission is clear: "Do The Shane." I just need to invent some moves and hire some people who can, well, do them. Who's in?

COLUMN: First Dance

Well, now that I'm officially newly minted as a single guy, I suppose I've got two choices: (1) Become an asexual hermit who collects cats and whose sole hobby is scaring away neighbor children, or (2) try to remember how to (gulp) DATE again. Clearly, becoming a hermit is the easier option.

I remember the very first time that I danced with a girl. And yes, as you may have guessed, it was forced.

At my junior high school, the epicenter of our social calendar -- well, the ONLY event on our social calendar -- was the annual cafeteria sock-hop dance. To prep us for our first mating encounter with the other sex, for one week our P.E. classes turned into hardcore dance lessons. Our gym teachers were two horrid little troll brothers we were made to call Mr. Bob and Mr. Bill. Even at our young age, we could tell that Mr. Bob & Mr. Bill were likely not so hot with the ladies, and you could read their disdain of this week on their faces. But it was their task to teach us man-boys how to slow dance -- in the form of the dreaded box step.

Keep in mind this was the height of seventh-grade awkwardness. Hormones were making all of us a complete wreck. Girls went from being icky to enchanting virtually overnight, and the idea of dancing with one of them was perhaps THE single most exciting concept in the entire world... which meant it was Mr. Bob and Mr. Bill's job to take all of the magic out of it. Instead, we spent what seemed like an eternity staring blankly at overhead projectors, diagrams, foot patterns on the floor, and learning how to count "1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2" like our life depended on it.

In retrospect, I think it was pretty obvious that Mr. Bob & Mr. Bill wanted us so focused on 1's and 2's that we might temporarily forget that our nether-regions were about to be the closest they'd ever been to shether-regions. There would be no forgetting.

At the end of the week, gym class went co-ed and we were paired off with (gasp) actual girls. Mr. Bill set the romance in motion as the DJ for the hour, courtesy a Close-&-Play record player and a beat up Styx 45 on an endless loop -- "Babe" on one side, "Come Sail Away" on the other. (True story: Once "Come Sail Away" hit the rockin' part in the middle, Mr. Bill would lift the needle and just re-start it back on the slow part. Our sensitive pre-teen hormones clearly couldn't handle the unbridled fury of a Tommy Shaw guitar solo.) And then, over the Styx, there'd be Mr. Bob on a megaphone going, "ONE! TWO! ONE! TWO! ONE! TWO!"

I didn't care about the song. I didn't care about the box step. I didn't care about the megaphone. What I cared about is that, by the blessings of the divine, I'd been paired up with June Vianni -- drum majorette, bassoon player, and the love of my preteen life. Only one problem: I was the nerdy, chubby, last-picked-in-gym-class guy, and she was, well, a horrible person. I'll never forget that moment as long as I live.

(Iiiii'm ONE! saaaaailing aaaaaaway TWO!)

Her hands touched my shoulders,

(ONE! Set an oooopen courrrrse TWO! for the virrrrgin seeeeeea.)

my hands touched her waist,

(Cause Iiiiii've ONE! got tooooo TWO! beee freeeeeeee)

we looked at each other,

(Freee ONE! to face the liiiiife TWO! that's aheaaaaad of me)

the scent of her perfume was driving me wild

(On booooard I'm ONE! the captaaaaain, so clii-TWO!-iiimb aboooooard)

and she whispered those magical words:

(We'll search ONE! for tomorroooooow, on ee-TWO!-eeev'ry shoooooore!)

"Move your hands another inch and I'll kill you, fat boy."

All of this, of course, was in preparation for the big sock-hop that weekend, where the boys would lurk in one corner of the cafeteria and the girls would lurk in the other. Eventually the popular kids would get enough guts to ask a girl to dance while everyone else pointed and excitedly mumbled. All of this, of course, was lost on the nerd contingency -- we were ostracized to a third no-man's corner of the cafeteria, drinking free pop, not even seeing a girl, and arguing over whether or not a Level 5 Paladin could survive a +1 fireball spell from a Level 7 Cleric.

Still, the excitement surrounding that night never escaped me. Despite being a social leper, I went to every dance. I loved the electricity in the air, the loud music, the lights, the girls, the magic. Of course, I also couldn't dance to save my life -- but I always DID have a pretty decent sense of rhythm, even if I couldn't convey it to my feet. This led me to the ONE place at a dance that I could feel comfortable -- the DJ booth. School dances begat teen clubs which begat frat parties and now nightclubs, where I've been moonlighting as a DJ for most of my adult life. But a sock hop this ain't.

Some things are still the same. The girls have their own corner, aka the dancefloor. They flock there en masse, wearing as feasibly little as possible, and dance and giggle in front of mirrors. The guys have their own corner, too: the bar. I like to divide the guys into two sub-species: those who can dance and those who can't. The guys who can dance will eventually take to the dancefloor and try to pull off b-boy moves that they're super proud of but actually just kinda look like N*Sync. These guys walk around with the utmost swagger and confidence, yet you just KNOW they had to spend HOURS in their bedrooms practicing in front of a mirror to look that cool. Amusingly, they're usually too busy showing off their mad skills to actually get anywhere with the ladies.

The guys who CAN'T dance, meanwhile, have but one recourse: build up enough liquid courage until they eventually saunter onto the dancefloor, find some innocent girl, and then try to dry-hump her to the ground in any kind of vaguely rhythmic manner. Does this EVER work, guys? Because I have NEVER seen a girl respond positively to this kind of nonsense.

"Tell us again how you and Mama met, Papa!"

"Well, son, I was at a dance club, and I noticed your mom on the dancefloor acting real slutty. So I went up and started grinding on her, and the rest was history."

Meanwhile, the love songs of yesteryear have been replaced by choruses of "Call me Mr. Flintstone coz I can make your bed rock, girrrrl." I'm waiting for Roberta Flack to come out with "The First Time Ever I [EXPLETIVE] Your [EXPLETIVE]." I don't care what the song is, if you listen closely enough, I'm pretty sure you can still hear Mr. Bob shouting, "ONE! TWO! ONE! TWO!"

The music may have changed, and the dancefloor these days might look less sock-hop and more Cinemax After Dark, but it still comes down to the same thing: awkward guys being captivated by pretty girls that smell good. And as long as that electricity's still in the air, I'll be happy to be the guy providing the soundtrack. And who knows, maybe one day a girl will stroll in who'll be impressed by my wicked mastery of the box step. If that fails, I'll start readying the cat collection.

COLUMN: Depressed

Hiiii, everybody. How are you all feeling? Are you doing okay there, little buddies? You wanna talk about it? I mean, I don't wanna criticize or single anybody out, but you just seem a little... depressed. I'm worried about you.

Heck, I'm worried about ALL of us. Here I was, going about my business and trying to slog through another January of cold temps, setting suns, and snow shovels when I just happened to read that tomorrow is officially The Most Depressing Day Of The Year.

This particular bit of festive January cheer comes to us courtesy of the late lamented Sky Travel Channel, who apparantly thought it would be a grand bit of fun to distract travellers from their irrational fear of flying by instead filling them with hopeless thoughts of despondency.

According to Sky Travel, the third Monday after the first week of the new year can scientifically be determined to be The Most Depressing Day Of The Year. This nugget of wisdom came to them courtesy of educator Cliff Arnall at the prestigious Cardiff University in Wales. Of course, later it was revealed that Arnall was merely a part time tutor working for a continuing education program called The Centre for Lifelong Learning who at one point held classes on the Cardiff University campus. Following this logic, incidentally, I am henceforth to be known as Shane Brown, Transportation Facilitator with the U.S. Government, owing to the fact that (a) I own a car, and (b) have driven said car across the Arsenal Bridge a couple times.

But why bother attacking Cardiff University educator Cliff Arnall on his sketchy credentials when it's way more fun to attack his pseudoscience instead?

Arnall came to the famed Blue Monday discovery by using the following formula:

[W+D-d]T^Q/MNa

Where W = winter weather, D = your total amount of debt, d = the Christmas debt you can afford to pay, T = the time that's passed since Christmas, Q = the time that's passed since failing your New Year's Resolutions, M = your low motivation levels, and Na = the feeling of a need to take action.

It's just that simple.

Never mind the fact that most formulas provide things like, oh, equations. And units. And mathematical sense. Instead, I'm just going to assume that I don't know nearly as much about contemporary theoretical psycho-mathematic pseudoscience as a part-time tutor at a continuing education center in Wales. It's probably because I don't have a cool Welsh accent where I get to roll my R's.

So let's push logic aside and just assume that our Welsh friend Cliff is correct. That weather and debt and motivation have collided into a maelstrom of maximum suckiness that will make tomorrow the definitive Most Depressing Day Of The Year. Frankly, I'm all for it. If we have to have a most depressing day of the year, let's just get it over with right now. That leaves over 11/12ths of the year 2012 that are now guaranteed to suck less than tomorrow -- and that includes December 21st, 2012, when the Mayans may or may have not correctly predicted the end of the world. So if the world DOES end, it might suck -- but not as much as tomorrow will*.

(* If tomorrow's even correct, that is. See, there's another school that believes the true Most Depressing Day of the Year is the third Monday of the year, regardless of when the New Year falls. For THOSE people, Blue Monday was last Monday -- the very day that I'm sitting here writing this column now. And I've gotta say, the only thing I've felt today is mild hunger. And I suppose a little repulsion, but I WAS watching the Republican debate. Thus far, though, no depression.)

Ergo, I think we should be prepared for the Most Depressing Day of 2012 to strike us tomorrow. You have been duly warned. But don't worry, I think we can beat Cliff and his mandated quagmire of depression. All we need to do is take away key aspects of his formula and the whole thing collapses like the nonsense that it is.

#1 - You know the easiest way to avoid the guilt of failing a New Year's Resolution? DON'T MAKE THEM. They're designed to fail and make you depressed. You're going to improve your life because you WANT to improve your life, not because some arbitrary date is telling you to.

#2 - It appears the driving struggle behind Arnall's formula involves your motivation level vs. your need to take action. The way around this is simple: NEVER AGAIN FEEL A NEED TO TAKE ACTION. This takes time and practice, but let me tell you from experience, it can be done. Take last night for instance. I went to bed two hours late. Wanna know why? Because getting off the couch to walk to the bedroom seemed like too much of a chore. THIS, my friends, is the concentrated power of laziness, and it's something I excel at. Let's face it, a good depression takes WORK to muster up, so just become TOO lazy to get depressed. I'd help you with this, but frankly, I'm too lazy. Just join Netflix, the rest should happen naturally.

See? With a little bit of effort and hard work, we can pull together and get through this. By the end of tomorrow, we may all be lazy, lifeless, unmotivated, obese, disheartened, debilitated, and dull... just don't call us depressed.

COLUMN: Caucus

"And I'll take with me the memories,
To be my sunshine after the rain,
It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday."
-Boyz II Men

Relationships are fickle, fragile things. One day, it can feel like the most natural, exciting thing in the world. The next day, you could wake up to discover they've moved on without you... to New Hampshire.

Farewell, 2012 Republican presidential contenders. We hardly knew ye. The Iowa caucuses are history, and now so is New Hampshire. By the time you read this, the last men standing will be wooing an even newer legion of debutantes under the moss-covered trees of South Carolina while Iowa returns to its usual state of being completely ignored by the rest of the world. Iowa is old news. Two weeks ago, it felt like it was the ONLY news.

Caucus season always drives me a little batty. The whole thing just seems to reek of insincerity -- and I'm not just saying that because I swing to the left while this season's crop of candidates leapt to the right. It bugs me when the Dems strut around Iowa for months, too. All the countless hand-shaking, speech-giving, and suck-upping just comes across as pandering after a while, especially when you just KNOW that the last place most of these candidates want to be is kissing babies while being force-fed local pork in Nowheresville, Iowa.

You couldn't pay me enough to run for a top level political office. The pressure, scrutiny, and high-powered microscopes that today's candidates get put through is nothing shy of ridiculous. Practically every week there was a new Iowa frontrunner, and that person led until they said or did something embarassing, and then it was on to the next guy.

Let's imagine if I, immediately following the handing-in of this column, had a change of heart and became immediately active in politics... so much so that 10 or 20 years down the road, I decide to run for office. Even if I were to become the best debater (ha!) and baby-kisser in the world, I'd lose. Know why? Because some yumnutz would pull out THIS column and Fox News would suddenly have it in a headline, "'You Couldn't Pay Me Enough To Run For Office,' Said Brown In 2012, Showing Clear Lack of Vision." In these days of cyber-stalking, paparazzi, and fact-checking, you need to be Presidential from birth.

There's only one thing I hate more than enduring the presidential stumping season, and that's having to endure it from one state away. It's kind of like if your next-door neighbor threw a party, and you could look across the street and see that it's a super lousy party, but you're still mad that you weren't invited. For weeks, I've heard my Iowa friends talk about how annoyed they were by political phone calls, and I'm sure those calls would drive me bonkers as well, but there's still a voice in the back of my head inexplicably saying, "No fair! I wanna be annoyed, too!"

But alas, we live in Illinois, a state where most political decisions come courtesy of a small northeastern piece of lakeside real estate of which we are NOT members. Ergo, we're left to kiss our own babies and live the political process vicariously through our friends across the Mississippi. As much as I love to hate our neighbors' caucus season, there are a few things I will genuinely miss for the next four years:

• I will miss the Magic Mountain Watch. As every aspiring presidential candidate knows, it is ideal to cram in as many photo shoots at iconic small-town haunts as possible -- and here in the Quad Cities, there's no better backdrop than the lunch counter at Ross' Restaurant, where many a candidate tries to stop and make small talk while not gaping in horror at the yummy-but-not-for-amateurs Magic Mountain. This year, Newt Gingrich made the Ross' stop, as did Ron Paul (who I missed by mere minutes!) as well as an entire news crew from Holland sent to basically explain this weirdness to Europe.

• I'm candidate impartial when it comes to Republicans, but I just have to say that I'll definitely miss seeing East Coast businessmen trying desperately to look at home in the Midwest. Love or hate Gingrich or Mitt Romney all you want, you've got to admit the two of them look about as comfortable in a cornfield as I do in a gymnasium.

• Every election season, there's always ONE journalist who comes to Iowa and writes a piece that paints every voter in the state as a backwoods gun-owning tractor-pull enthusiast. This year, that piece came courtesy of a U. Iowa professor who wrote an essay in The Atlantic that makes the average Iowan out to be slightly less intelligent than your average brick wall. Sample sentence: "There are few billboards along the washboard-bumpy, blacktop roads that slice through the countryside, only hand-drawn signs advertising sweet corn, cattle, lemonade, or boar semen." Now, I've done my fair share of aimless Iowa countryside driving, and I can safely attest that I've never come across a single sign for boar semen. If I had, it would very likely be my Facebook profile pic for a good long while.

As annoying as it can be, I hope our democratic campaigning process never changes. Reading a candidate's position papers will never be as powerful as seeing that candidate in the flesh. And as long as they're hitting the campaign trail, I think Iowa's a fine state to start it in. It's a perfect slice of Americana and the folks are generally good-natured and caring.

My favorite story of this election season goes back to Ross' Restaurant: When that Dutch news team went to edit and file their story, they discovered their hotel's wi-fi was out. Not knowing anyone in town, they called the only people they could think of: Ron and Cynthia Friedhof, the owners of Ross'. Minutes later, the entire Dutch crew was welcomed into the Friedhof family home, where the crew worked all night to complete and file their report on time. THAT'S the can-do helping hand Midwest that I want our future Presidents to see first-hand.

COLUMN: Best of 2011 TV

The one good thing about suddenly finding oneself single is that I've been able to dedicate considerably more time to one of my favorite pursuits: sitting around feeling incredibly sorry for myself while watching an absolutely unhealthy amount of television.

In fact, I've watched so much TV this year that I feel compelled to turn it into a Best of 2011 list, if for no other reason than the Golden Globes got it ALL wrong this year. Besides, I wonder if it's possible to write off one's cable bill if one claims one watches TV for one's job?

So, without further adieu, these are MY picks for the ten best TV shows of 2011:

10 - Destination: Truth (SyFy). There's no denying the cheeziness of the premise: A snarky, low rent Indiana-Jones-type leads an expedition of explorers on a weekly quest to capture evidence of ghosts, yetis, Nessies, and Bigfoots aplenty. But its host Josh Gates' ability to mix over-the-top sensationalism with quirky humor that makes D:T the best "reality" show on TV.

9 - South Park (Comedy Central). How is it that Trey Parker & Matt Stone can run around winning Tonys and taking Broadway by storm, yet still produce television's most biting and spot-on social commentary in the form of four trash-mouthed cartoon fourth-graders? With most episodes created in less than a week's time, South Park is a thing of magic.

8 - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Comedy Central). Every television show has its ups and downs, but there's never been a nightly show with the consistency, class, and belly laughs of The Daily Show. I spend my workdays in a true media hub, soaking up the daily news as it breaks... then I get to come home and watch Jon Stewart skewer it mercilessly. If you can't find the humor in life, it's not worth living.

7 - Louie (F/X). Louis C.K. has always been one of my favorite stand-up comedians, and his short-lived HBO series "Lucky Louie" showed promise but was hindered by its strange sitcom format. C.K.'s new series, shot more like an indie film, fits his scathing sad-sack humor like a glove. Interspersing a fictionalized version of his real life with small-room stand-up, this cheaply-produced series gets laughs without pandering or fearing to tread on controversial subjects.

6 - Glee (Fox). Yep, I'm a straight guy who likes "Glee" - sue me. It's a feel-good forward-thinking quirky series that takes an honest yet fun look at some pretty serious social topics -- and with great tunes to boot. What's not to like? With half the main cast set to "graduate" and possibly leave the show at the end of this season, NOW is the time to catch Glee at its finest before it jumps the shark.

5 - Homeland (Showtime). I'll admit it, I tuned in to the premiere of this show simply to see Claire Danes crash and burn in a role beyond her ability. Instead, I was wowed by her portrayal of a flawed yet caring CIA officer who becomes convinced that a recently released American POW has been brainwashed into an Al-Qaeda terrorist. With more twists and turns than Mandy Patinkin's beard, this thoughtful and well-written thriller is the surprise hit of the year.

4 - Greek (ABC Family). 2011 was the farewell season for this fantastic sleeper show. What could have been a lame family-friendly version of "Animal House" instead was an edgy and addictive coming-of-age serial, mostly at the hands of the show's fantastic young cast. Predictable? Sure, a little. But fans of the show couldn't wait to see Cappie and Casey drive off together after graduation.

3 - The Vampire Diaries (CW). Let's get one thing straight -- "Twilight" this ain't. Okay, sure, maybe every single member of the cast hails from the Island of Improbably Attractive People, and maybe the main theme of the show is a romance between a human and a vampire. And, sure, there are werewolves, too -- but that's where the teenage schlockiness stops. The thrills are massive, the plots addictive, and the writing (from Dawson's Creek creator Kevin Williamson) makes this series waaay more than just another teen soap.

2 - Fringe (Fox). It's an absolute crime that the best sci-fi thriller on television -- and maybe one of the best in history -- is lost in the void of a Friday night timeslot. Seemingly always on the verge of cancellation, Fringe (now it's in fourth season) continues to push the boundaries of time, space, and reality while being the most groundbreaking show to air since Lost. A word to new fans, though: don't start watching now without catching up on old episodes or you will have NO idea what's happening. I watch every episode religiously and STILL don't know what's happening half the time... but it's the most fun ride on TV.

1 - Parks and Recreation (NBC). What started as The Office's ugly stepchild has spent the last three seasons becoming the most consistent gut-buster on TV. While The Office has floundered this season with poor writing and a much-missed Steve Carell, Parks & Rec has flourished with the funniest cast and best writing on TV. Who wouldn't want to live in central Indiana, marry April Ludgate, go into business with Tom Haverford, and go out for a steak (or two or five) with Ron Swanson? With that, I conclude my two-part look back at 2011 with a "sayonara, sucker!" and a finger stuck in the air (I'll let you pick which one.) Some years are best left in the dust, and 2011 was one of 'em. Here's to a prosperous and awesome new year full of higher highs, fewer lows, a ladder for every pitfall, and surplus amounts of quality television to live life vicariously through.

COLUMN: Best o' 2011

Some people are naturally gifted artists, with the inner ability to create moving and thought-provoking works that can entertain us, challenge us, and help to reveal truths about our selves, our culture, and our society as a whole. Other folks are more naturally gifted at laying around on a couch and trying to tell other people which art sucks and which art doesn't. That said, here are my annual picks for the Ten Best Records of 2011:


# 10 - The Brother Kite - Eye to Eye EP - How amazing is this unheralded band from Providence, Rhode Island? Amazing enough that they can release a 4-track EP of leftover songs that didn't make their last album and STILL have it be better than most artists' fully realized full-length works.


# 9 - Eliza Doolittle - Eliza Doolittle - It's hard to examine pop music critically, since it tends to be fun and disposable by its very nature. But sometimes the pop charts can produce timeless classics. Such is the case for 23-year-old Brit Eliza Sophie Caird and her record full of killer hooks over classic jazz/r&b samples. The end result sounds like something you'd take to a 1940's revival picnic, should one of those ever exist.


# 8 - Josiah Leming - Another Life - Pop culture junkies might remember Josiah as the homeless kid who auditioned for "American Idol" a few years back. Leming's odd faux British accent (which he claimed he picked up by listening to Coldplay & Keane records) was too left-of-center for Simon Cowell, but didn't dissuade Warner Bros., who signed him to a developmental deal. He's now matured to the point that his new record holds its own against the very bands whose style he once aped.


# 7 - Tyler, the Creator - Goblin - So what do you do with a hip-hip album that can be classified as misogynistic, homophobic, overtly violent, AND a modern classic? It's not an easy album for anyone with strong morals to enjoy, but there's no denying that the 20-year-old is one of the most lyrically gifted rappers on the planet. As frontman of the crew known as Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, Tyler and his posse set a new benchmark for DIY hip-hop -- self-written, recorded, produced, & distributed, all by what's essentially a bunch of underage skater kids. With Tyler a lightning rod for controversy and live shows more often than not devolving into moshpit anarchy, the whole wild ride stands a chance of imploding as quickly as they arrived, so enjoy them now.


# 6 - The Vaccines - What Did You Expect from the Vaccines? - Every once in a while, it's good to have a band that just plain rocks without pretense. The Vaccines wear their influences on their sleeves (The Strokes, The Ramones, etc.) and march through their repertoire of 2-minute-long songs with bombast, confidence, and a wall-of-sound production that must be making Phil Spector turn green from his jail cell.


# 5 - Childish Gambino - Camp - You might know Donald Glover as an extremely talented stand-up comic and writer for "The Daily Show" & "30 Rock." But you PROBABLY know him best as Troy on NBC's "Community." It turns out what HE'S best at is rapping. As Childish Gambino (a name he was "assigned" during a visit to a "Wu-Tang Clan Rap Name Generator" website), his gifted flow can bounce from honesty to funny to tragic. At his best, it's magical. At his worst, it's second-rate Kanye West -- but second rate Kanye is still better than most of the schlock on today's radio.

# 4 - Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - self-titled - It was one pre-show dressing room fight too many that finally did in British heavyweights Oasis back in 2009. The two essential halves of the band - brothers Liam & Noel Gallagher - both turned out new product in 2011 to varying degrees of success. Singer Liam grabbed the rest of Oasis, changed the name to Beady Eye, and released an impressive psychedelic blues rock album ("Different Gear, Still Speeding") that barely missed this list. While Beady Eye had all the swagger and atmospherics of Oasis, it was older brother Noel who prevailed with his first solo record a few months later. Full of the sort of midtempo love songs that brought him fame, Noel's album doesn't really pack any surprises -- but it does have the impeccable songwriting and timeless melodies that the elder Gallagher's built his brand on.

# 3 - Frank Ocean - nostalgia, ULTRA. - If OFWKTA does implode at the end of their fifteen minutes of fame (see #7), the sole survivor likely won't be Tyler, the Creator -- it'll be Frank Ocean, the collective's jack-of-all-trades vocalist who proved his worth this year with his debut record. It's not every R&B singer who puts out a record covering Coldplay and MGMT and singing another song over the instrumental of "Hotel California." Best yet, "nostalgia, ULTRA," like most of the Odd Future releases, isn't available in stores -- it's a free download.

# 2 - Ringo Deathstarr - Colour Trip - I came of age listening to the psychedelic, drowned-in-sound indie scene known as "shoegaze." Since falling from favor in the mid-90's (thanks, Nirvana,) shoegaze fans have been left to wallow and reminisce in sparsely attended chat rooms. Then along comes a band from Austin, Texas with the horrible name of Ringo Deathstarr who perfectly replicate the classic shoegaze sound (any time a band from the US spells color "colour," you know it's gonna rock.) Not exactly ground-breaking, but why open new doors when the old ones work so well?

# 1 - The David Mayfield Parade - self-titled - And in a year where most critics are fawning at over-produced, sampled, resampled, and multi-tracked studio-laden records, I instead tell you that the best record of 2011 is one of its simplest. For years, David Mayfield played second fiddle to his younger sister (acclaimed songstress Jessica Lea Mayfield) and lead guitarist for folk rock stalwarts Cadillac Sky. This year, after a Grammy nod for his production work, he decided to do his own thing. That thing is a quaint self-titled record that straddles the wavy lines between country, folk, alt-country, bluegrass, and rock & roll with ease. It's a throwback sound but produced so well you could swear the band's right there with you. All I know is there's been no more enjoyable record released this year.

Next week? I take advantage of my year of living like a couch potato with my picks for 2011's Best TV.

COLUMN: Toys for Tots

Scientists have proven that the sense most closely associated with memory is our sense of smell.

This is a bummer for those of us who suffer from year-round allergies and only occasionally get to experience life with a functioning nose. Still, I think those scientists are onto something, because there's one smell I will forever associate with Christmas.

When I was a kid, one of the greatest days of the year was when Dad would haul down the two big metal boxes containing all of our Christmas decorations. Meticulously packed, it would all be there -- the ornaments, the lights, the garland, the wreaths... but I was more concerned about the hunk of wax that was always haphazardly thrown into the bottom of the box.

It really was fairly hideous to look at, but it was always my favorite Christmas decoration: a red wax pomander in the mold of three slightly deformed Christmas carolers. It sure wasn't much to look at, but the smell that wafted from that piece of wax every year was my absolute favorite part of Christmas. As soon as the coast was clear, I usually absconded with the carolers to my room, where they'd reek up the place for the holidays.

I can't even really describe the smell, because it never really reminded me of anything. It wasn't overly fruity, and it wasn't overly perfume-y. It's hard to explain. It didn't smell like ANYTHING you could put your finger on. It just perfectly and magically smelled like Christmas.

That pomander is long gone, but I still think every Christmas should smell like it... but thanks to last weekend, it's now got competition. A new scent has settled into my brain to forever be associated with the holidays -- the smell of Hefty bags. Lots and lots of Hefty bags.

I conclude every one of my columns with my e-mail address -- and I try my hardest to read if not respond to every letter that I get. That's how I came to meet "Randy." For years, Randy's written me to comment on my columns, debate pop culture, and be a good occasional diversion from the work week. A couple weeks back, I wrote a column about trying to find the Christmas spirit hidden inside today's world of tacky commerce and holiday capitalism. Randy wrote in and suggested that I visit distribution day at Toys for Tots, where he volunteers. Last weekend, I took him up on it. It might be the best decision I've made in a loooong time.

It turns out that "Randy" my anonymous e-mail buddy is actually Randy Murdock III, one of the longest-serving civilian volunteers of our local U.S. Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation. Following his directions, I pulled into their Davenport distribution center last Saturday. My fears of getting lost amidst the warehouse district was put to rest as soon as I saw the healthy line of traffic.

"As you can see," Randy said, "you actually managed to catch us at a slow time." I laughed but he didn't.

As he was saying this, here's what I was seeing: Needy families being quickly processed through a short line by friendly Marines in their dress blues, a room filled with about a dozen busy clerical volunteers, other Marines in their fatigues -- wait, scratch that, apparantly they're now called MCCUU's and the last thing I wanna do is upset a proud Marine. Anyways, these Marines would take off into the donation warehouse at a brisk jog and bring back a bag of toys specifically put together for the needs of each recipient. Everywhere I looked, Marines and civilian volunteers were dashing to and fro with efficiency and smiles. If this was a "slow time," I couldn't imagine what their version of busy must look like.

"This is amazing," I told Randy.

"This is nothing," he said. "Wanna see the toy room?"

I didn't know what to expect. I guess I had pictured sort of a dimly-lit grungy room of chaos where folks scrounged for third-rate toys from haphazard piles, like a weird back office at the chocolate factory that was NOT part of Willy Wonka's tour. Not even close.

Remember the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark"? When the camera pans back to reveal that the Ark is hidden in a warehouse of such mammoth size that you can't even see the end of the room?  Imagine THAT room -- but filled from one end to the other with Hefty bags full of toys. 3,959 bags, in fact -- that's how many local families QC Toys for Tots is helping this year. 3,959 bags, meticulously organized and numbered, filled to the brim with presents for kids of all ages. Kids who will have a great Christmas, all thanks to donors from the Quad Cities.

Randy told me that donations were SO good this year that they've already got a jump on NEXT year's drive. And what I saw wasn't lame stuff, either -- we're talking brand new dolls, board games, skateboards, bikes... stuff that kids will LOVE. I'm honored to live in a community as giving and people-centered as the Quad Cities. Randy's been across the country and has volunteered at other Toys for Tots programs, and he says the community response in other locales doesn't hold a candle to what the Quad Cities does year after year.

Personally, I think it's all part of the Midwest mindset. Sometimes journalists can be really hard on the Midwest -- just read some of the national coverage of the Iowa caucuses that paint us to be a bunch of backwards podunk zealots -- but the truth is, Midwesterners show a kindness you just don't get anywhere else. On the whole, we're raised right -- we know about sharing, we know about caring, and we know that you don't just walk all over your fellow man. You stop, pull him up by his bootstraps, and offer a helping hand.

This weekend, I saw that helping hand in action.

I never thought I'd catch the Christmas spirit in a chilly warehouse that reeked of Hefty bags, but there it was in full bloom. I saw it in the faces of the volunteers, I saw it in the smiles of our Marines, and I saw it in the gratitude of families.

"As far as I'm concerned," Randy told me as we walked around, "THIS is my Christmas, right here and right now."

Thanks, Toys for Tots, for everything you do -- and for bringing me a much-needed dose of reality, compassion, fellowship, and Hefty-bag-scented warm holiday fuzzies.

COLUMN: Sofa

My new sofa!  The one I decided on -- coming to a basement near you soon!

I get easily led astray from my column-writing duties around the holidays. Between staring vacantly at festive lights, surviving shopper stampedes, and watching any of the seemingly endless and endlessly cheezy holiday movies, my schedule for the month is pretty full of yuletide distraction.

So when in doubt, my old journalism teacher used to say, "write about what you know." Well, what I know this week is sofas. Actually, what I know now is that I know very, very little about sofas.

After 1.5 years of living here, the basement of my new house is officially finished. New walls, new ceiling, new carpeting. It looks AMAZING...ly empty. It might be the most unfinished finished basement in history. I currently have an astoundingly beautiful and entirely barren empty subterranean room. Now that I'm single again, outfitting the perfect man-cave has taken a back seat to maintaining an entire man-house.

Good thing, then, that I have the greatest parents in the world. I find it charming whenever people say that they have the best parents in the world. Charming because those people are all WRONG. I'm fully convinced that, given an ample budget, sizable enough control group, and an on-call team of theoretical physicists, I could scientifically prove that MY parents are, in fact, the greatest parents in the world by definition. And those great parents just informed me that they're springing for a new sofa for my basement. Holy Christmas, Batman!

"This will be AMAZING," my brain thought. "All I need to do is hit up a furniture store and find something affordable yet stylish."

In retrospect, I'm now convinced that fixing the economy would be an easier task than picking out a sofa.

The first place I went to is my dream store. It's my dream store because everything in it -- and I mean EVERY single piece of furniture from one end to the other -- makes me drool. It's also my dream store because I'd HAVE to be dreaming to think I could afford ANYTHING in the place. I'm pretty sure that purchasing ONE sofa in this store WOULD fix the economy. Still, I figured I'd pop in to see if they had any good holiday deals. Sure enough, quite a bit of their inventory was marked down at 20% off. I suppose that's a good deal, but when the original price is $10K? I'd need about another 70% off, and despite my pretty face, my bartering skills didn't extend that far.

My primary goal here is to keep things cheap. First off, there's no need for my folks to over-extend themselves just to make sure I have a comfy basement. Second off, until I get rid of this newfound "single" status on Facebook, I probably won't be spending a whole lot of time in the man-cave. But mostly, I know that there's no reason to pay good money for something that's destined to become yet another oversized scratching posts for my home's OTHER tenants.

When I bought my first ever new couch, I had a salesperson tell me that it was made of high-quality, tear-resistant leather. I was also told by that salesperson that cats aren't big on scratching leather furniture. I wish she'd have come home and told that to my cats, because from the first HOUR I had possession of the couch, my cats made it their mission to rip it to shreds. I bought scratching posts for each side of the couch; they batted them away to get to the couch. I even bought a fancy can of some foul-smelling substance that you spritz on your furniture and supposedly it makes your cats stay away. I spritzed it and the cats came racing and spent the next week incessantly licking the couch like it was some kind of fancy exotic treat. I worry that my cats might be "special."

So with cat claws deemed inevitable, there's no point going for high fashion. Instead, I wanted something comfy, cool-looking, and cheap. The second store I went to delivered just that in spades... which ended up being a worse outcome. My eyes immediately landed on a really cool sectional with an even cooler price tag. It was hip, modern, and fit my tragically deranged sense of "style." Just one problem: It was kind of uncomfortable. Well, it'd be comfortable for a doctor's office or something, I suppose, but for a basement? I could do better.

Better was the next couch I tried. Sitting in it was like floating in a marshmallow paradise. Plus it reclines, so double awesome. That said, I swear to you that it might be the ugliest couch I've ever seen. It looked like a taxidermist stuffed Jabba the Hutt and molded him into the shape of a couch. I don't care how comfy the thing is, I just couldn't bring myself to have this tan monstrosity blighting my basement.

That's when it hit me: I am Goldilocks. All I should need is a simple device upon which I can plop my chubby rump and watch a ridiculously unhealthy amount of TV. But nooooo... "this couch is too big," "this couch is too ugly," "this couch is too uncomfortable," "this couch is not the exact shade of toasted mocha I'm looking for," and I'm STILL as of press time unable to find my "juuuust right."

I've been to many other stores, and each came with mixed results. At one place, every sofa in the joint looked like it was designed BY my grandmother FOR my grandmother. At another place, the sales staff was so aggressive that I had to leave before I started strangling the innocent. Everywhere I went, I was greeting by a surplus of pros and cons. It's starting to come across like I'm looking this gift couch in the mouth, and I swear I'm not. I'm just an indecisive idiot.

Reason #3423 to have a signifigant other: let THEM pick out the furniture. Until then, I'll be sitting in the middle of an empty room, rocking back and forth on the floor, in a state of perpetual "maybe." Wish me luck.

COLUMN: Occupy

I am a HUGE fan of online commenters. You never realize just how much people like to argue until you give them the power to do so anonymously. Nowadays, even the most innocuous of news stories can result in epic acid-tongued online warfare. In other words, it is pure comedy gold.

I like to picture these people in their day-to-day lives. Is the guy grocery-shopping next to me really "AwesumDude38" who believes our President is a Kenyan-born Antichrist? Is the sweet-looking little old lady in the next car really "SilvisMama" who believes the CIA was behind 9/11?

Some people think anonymous public commenting is annoying. I think it's cathartic for all parties involved -- of which there are TWO: extreme left wingers and extreme right wingers. If you're a moderate these days, apparantly you don't have internet access (or perhaps have better things to do.)

It's always been my dream to figure out a way to write a column that gets BOTH sides of the fence riled up... and after half a decade at this, I may just do it here today.

It's not very often that I bring politics into this column -- other folks get paid to do just that and they do a MUCH better job at it than me. Still, I've never really made it a secret that my own political views tend to swing rather liberally to the left. But I've got to admit, I'm having a crisis of liberal faith, folks. There's a movement afoot that should normally have my blue state toes a-tappin' -- but they're not. Instead, I sit with raised eyebrows and a curious expression over something that I just don't comprehend -- and I'm worried that my lack of understanding means I'm secretly becoming (a) Republican, (b) my parents, or (c) just plain old:

Occupy Wall Street. I don't get it. Now please don't take away my liberal decoder ring and membership badge.

First, let me see if I've got this right: You're mad because 1% of the population has gobs and gobs of money while the other 99% of us are struggling. You're right -- that sucks. You SHOULD be mad. We should ALL be mad. So let's get united, let's get together, let's make change, let's make history, let's... hang out in a park and hold up signs saying how bad things suck?

I'm all for improving things, and I respect anyone right now who calls for progress. If there's a movement to be joined, count me in -- or at least sign me up for your mailing list. But I don't exactly understand what Occupy Wall Street expects to change by their current methods. If anything, I'm afraid that it's making even the outspoken, intelligent members of our 99% come across as smelly, whiny neo-hippies with an astonishing sense of entitlement.

The main goal of the Occupy movement appears to be raising awareness. But I don't need a sign that says "The Economy Sucks" to know that the economy sucks. Almost 10% of us are unemployed. Foreclosures are rampant. Daily existence is a struggle for WAY too many families. I don't think any of us are blindly walking around whistling "Zip A Dee Doo Dah."

Change doesn't come from having a month-long campout. If you're sick of the way things are, don't stand around in a park with a smartphone waiting to film police brutality. Be pro-active. I know it's hard to find a job, but you're never going to get one if you don't at least TRY. Make products that help commerce. Invent something. If you want to change government, run for office. Go to city council meetings. Petition Congress. Let them know that you're a voter and your friends are voters and you expect more from your elected officials. The system wasn't made for Wall Street -- it was made for YOU. USE it.

You've actually got a leg up on the fat cats on Wall Street. Know why? Because YOUR generation was raised on the internet. My dad can build a house with two bare hands, but he doesn't even know where the power button is on his computer. This gap gives your generation the advantage of global communication. Stop looking at videos of Chuck Testa and run with it.

I believe in the power of the common man to make change, and I believe that with the right leadership and cooperation, we can crawl our way out of this economic mess. If I didn't, I'd be my uncle who lives down south and keeps a "ready bag" at his door full of ammo and supplies for the day that the economy fails and the world descends into anarchy.

The intentions of the Occupiers are good. Like I said, people are desperate and they at least care about changing things, so that's half the battle won right there. But let's be realistic. Last week, I logged onto Facebook and received an event invitation to something called, I kid you not, "Drum Circle for Economic Reform." Really? REALLY? We're standing on the precipice of a global recession and THIS is your plan?

I just don't think you're going to find too many people in the 1% who are going to be moved by your bongo solo, no matter how wicked cool it is. Instead, you're going to find people like Newt Gingrich telling you to "cut your hair and get a job." And, God help me, I kind of agree with him.

What I'm really honestly hoping is that I've got it wrong. That I've fallen victim to the media's incorrect portrayal of a movement with the capability to make a real difference. I hope an Occupier reads this and comments and takes me to task for being short-sighted. I want to be with you, I really do. But right now, I'm just not seeing the point -- so PLEASE, convince me otherwise.

This doesn't mean I'm flipping sides, either, so bait me or hate me all you want, right-wingers. Like most of you, I'm in the 99%, and I just happen to believe I'm with the right (left) people to get our country back on track. Do I have all the answers? Heck no. I'm the guy who just wrote a whole column about Slurpees, so go easy on me while I occupy my couch and read your online comments.

COLUMN: Christmas Lights

My house with my handiwork!  Well, Friend Jason helped, too!

Well, it's barely December, but I'm already trying my absolute hardest to not let the Grinch set up shop.  Every year around this time, I get jazzed up about Christmas and the prospect of harvesting some of that holiday magic that's usually only found in our childhoods and/or cheezy Christmas movies on Lifetime.  This year, though, that's gonna be one especially tough order to fill.

(Cue violins.)

The sad real truth is that this humor columnist hasn't had a whole lot to be humorous about this fall.  My girlfriend and I split after almost three years together, and it's kinda made things a little topsy-turvy in Shaneland.  Not to tug the heartstrings and play the sympathy card any more than necessary, but it's a fact that I'm typing this column in the living room of an empty house that I was pretty certain would one day be "OUR" house, and the stale pizza boxes littering my landscape are testament to just how not "our" house it is anymore.

(End violins. Promise.)

That said, I refuse to let current events dictate my level of holiday cheer.  Just because I may be hopelessly alone, despondent, and destined for a life of cat-owning solitude doesn't mean I can't be hopelessly alone while decking the halls with some jingle bells on a silent night.

Which is why I found myself the other night marching into Target with only ONE thing on my Christmas list:  lights, lights, and more lights. Apartment-dwelling Shane never had the opportunity to decorate -- the one time I tried to put up a Christmas tree, my cat threw herself at it kamikaze-style until it was Christmas mulch. But THIS year, come heck or high water, my house will look festive, even if the weirdo loner guy living inside isn't.

Just one problem:  I had NO idea what I was doing.

Step One seemed simple enough: Buy a bunch of lights. Easy, right? That was before I rounded the corner at Target into their room-o'- infinite-lights.  In all my light-buying glee, I never stopped to think about what KIND I wanted. One color or variety? LED or standard? Blinkers or solids? Little bulbs or big ones?

My initial choice was go to all red -- it's festive, understated, and looks classy without being over-the-top. But I just couldn't take my eyes off Target's display of blue lights. I think it was just three weeks ago in this column that I rambled on about how it was impossible for me to have a "favorite" color, but darn it if those blue lights weren't screaming out, "PICK ME! PICK ME!"

Then it hit me: I'm the sole decision-maker now. I like red, I like blue, so why not do both? Red lights around the pillars and blue along the handrails.  People would drive by the house and go, "Wow, what great red lights! Wow, what great blue lights! Whoever lives there must be a super cool guy and not at all some weirdo loner loser!"

The next morning, I proudly told my co-workers about my awesome independent decision-making skills. I had barely gotten to the good part before every one of my female co-workers, pretty much in unison, went, "Ewww! Noo! You can't mix red and blue Christmas lights by themselves!"

What is this mystical power that girls seem to have when it comes to matching colors? There's a complex system of rules, regulations, and timelines that govern these sorts of things, and only girls are privy to them. Guys, being born sane, generally do NOT comprehend. If colors don't make our eyes hurt and clothes feel comfy, we're wearing them -- at least, until a girl tells us not to.

"Feh," I said to myself. "What do THEY know?  This is MY independence, MY house, and MY light show."

It took a few hours of untangling, hanging, stapling, un-doing, re-hanging, and re-stapling, but I managed to get every last light up sans falling or electrocution.  All that was left was to flip the switch, walk out front, and bathe in the glory of...

...a horrible, horrible decision.  I was displaying my independence, alright.  In fact, the whole front of the house looked like Independence Day gone horribly awry. Red lights are pretty, blue lights are pretty, but put 'em together and you've got one horrible mess.  It was a grand and patriotic salute to tackiness. The red lights were totally outshined by the blue lights, which cast this sort of unhealthy pallor over the entire house and made the whole thing just look... ill.  Look, I get PAID to put things into words, and I can't even begin to describe the ugliness of this collision.

Score one for the girls and their distressingly accurate advice, I guess. I spent the rest of the night taking down blue lights, running to the store for more red, and going back to my original plan. The blue lights came inside and are ending up on my tree, where I hope their bright weird glow will make all cats flee in terror.  I now have a fully red porch and it looks faaaantastic if I do say so myself.

So fantastic, in fact, that I went ahead and left them on for the season -- two weeks before Thanksgiving.  That's right, I was THAT guy -- Mr. Premature Christmas. Mock me if you like, but it was 60 degrees when I put those lights up. Think about THAT while you can see your own breath as you're clinging to a frozen ladder for dear life this weekend.

I also discovered that it would be REALLY easy to fall into the Griswold trap.  Once I got done, I looked at my porch and went, "That looks great.  If only I had some icicle lights... and then maybe some smaller strings to go around every window... and a star for the upstairs window... and then... and then..." And THAT, my friends, is how you end up with a house that can be seen from space.

So I'm sticking to my guns and going with my understated yet festive red porch lights and little else.  Maybe, just maybe, it's the perfect amount of holiday spirit to get me living again.

Is Victoria Jackson REALLY This Ignorant?

Wow. I just can't help but hope and pray that this is all some kind of absolutely brilliant Andy Kaufman-esque parody that will one day be played for laughs.

Because if it's NOT, then Victoria Jackson is a racist xenophobic intolerant homophobic hatemonger who should be sent very, very far away.  Like Alabama or somewhere.

COLUMN: Slurpee

Arriving in the Quad Cities as an Augie freshman in 1988, I've witnessed the demise of some truly iconic Rock Island businesses. I can't grab a burger at the 7th Ave. Porkie's or bowl a frame at Town & Country. I can't go rent a movie at Hilltop Video... or Hogan's Video for that matter. I can't go talk music with Dave Harrington at the 14th Ave. Co-Op Records, and I can't go back to work for Mike King at Co-Op of the District. If I wanted to relive my days of all-campus parties at the Rock Island F.O.E., I'd be in the parking lot of a funeral home – and if I wanted to nurse all these sad memories over an adult beverage at Lee's, the clerk at Auto Zone would be REALLY confused. As much as I like to fight the good fight, the times continue to a-change.

That's why I bristled at first when I found out yet another local institution was losing its identity. I remember seeing the sign when I came up to tour Augustana as a high-schooler and turning to my mom: “Ha! They have a gas station called Mother Hubbard's Cupboard.” Back then, I had no idea that Ma Hubbard had MANY a Cupboard throughout the Quad Cities -- but that's all changed now. Earlier this year, Old Mother Hubbard handed off the keys to her Cupboards to the big boss daddy of incorporated convenience: 7-Eleven.

When I was a kid, we had a couple of 7-Elevens in my hometown for a while, but they were in what my parents used to call “the bad part of town,” so we never stopped. Still, the non-stop ads for 7-Eleven in print and on TV made the company feel like a distant pen-pal that I've finally been given the chance to meet. With that understanding, though, comes an embarassing admission.

As a result of growing up sheltered from the alluring neon of 24-hour convenience stores, there's one thing I've never tried in all my 40 years... and since it's the product most often associated with the 7-Eleven franchise, I can't very well write this column without giving it a go.

My name's Shane... and I'm a Slurpee virgin. (I swear that sentence didn't sound nearly as Cinemax-y in my head as it does on paper.)

How I managed to make it through forty years without succumbing to the temptation of nearly-frozen sugar-water is beyond me. You don't need science to tell you that cold plus sweet equals awesome. I think I was just intimidated by the big swirling machine that I'd never used before. What if I hit the wrong button and Slurpee nectar went flying about the store willy-nilly? People would point and laugh and go, “Look at the 40-year-old weirdo who's clearly never had a Slurpee in his life.”

Well, a funny thing happens when you tell the local 7-Eleven PR rep that you've never had a Slurpee before. What happens, if you're wondering, is that you're pushed in front of a Slurpee machine while photographers gather around to take images of your first ever Slurpee, which in turn causes people to point and laugh and go, “Look at the 40-year-old weirdo getting his picture taken with Slurpees!” The end result is bad for social anxiety yet heaven for the taste buds.

I have officially Slurped. And, honestly, I even went back later after the photo shoot and Slurped again. These things are GOOD. And the way I figure it, they must be good for you, too. Think about it: If you're suffering from dehydration and go to the hospital, what happens? They hook you up to a glucose drip, which is essentially sugar and water. Slurpees are, essentially, sugar and water. That makes Slurpees MEDICINE in my book, and if you're gonna take medicine, it might as well be wild cherry flavored, no?

Thanks to the folks at 7-Eleven, I've been learning LOTS about Slurpees. Did you know they were accidentally invented by a guy named Omar Knedlik? When the soda fountain broke at his hamburger stand, his only way to serve cold drinks was to stick sodas in his deep freeze. It turns out his customers preferred the slushy, half-frozen sodas to normal fountain pop. 7-Eleven bought into the idea in the mid-60's and the Slurpee was born. Nowadays, those swirly machines keep the Slurpee at exactly 28 degrees – the perfect temperature to maintain its sherbet-like consistency.

Today, the Slurpee is a household name. Thirteen million of the suckers are sold and Slurped every month. While I was standing in the Rock Island store for my photo shoot, customers were literally pushing me out of the way to get to the machine – and I witnessed nothing less than master Slurpee chefs, mixing and matching varieties for triple and quadruple-flavored brainfreezes. 7-Eleven even sells divided cups that let you sample multiple varieties with a straw capable of Slurping two flavors at once.

“It's a brand that connects with people in an emotional way,” explains Laura Gordon. She's 7-Eleven's Senior Director of Proprietary Beverages, which I'm pretty sure means she's built a career around playing with Slurpees. “Slurpee brings out the kid in all of us.”

There's a town in Washington called Kennewick that relishes its fame as the world's leader in Slurpee sales. The local 7-Eleven there claims it was all due to their local high school football team hanging out in the store and downing Slurpees like oxygen. 7-Eleven responded with freebies, t-shirts, and even launching new and exclusive flavors in Kennewick. A newspaper in nearby Winnepeg reported on the claim to fame with the headline, “Kennewick Sucks!”

My proposal, Quad Cities, is this: Let's take Kennewick's crown away. Some towns are best at commerce, other towns are best at tourism. Let's become the town that's best at sucking. It would certainly give THIS writer some good future column fodder.

Times change. People and businesses come and go, and what we're left with are fond memories of the past and hope for the future. It sounds like 7-Eleven's here to stay, and I'm all for it. My hope is that we become the future Slurpee capital of the world. With lots of work, dedication, and a whole lot of brainfreezes, I'm pretty sure that if we all come together, the Quad Cities can officially and definitively suck harder than ever (in a good way.)

COLUMN: Mouse

Since becoming a homeowner, I've learned to roll with the punches. When the washer backed up and nearly submerged my basement, I rolled with it. When I hit the wrong button on the vacuum cleaner and a gallon of dirt foomp-ed all over the kitchen floor, I rolled with it. When a wind storm came precariously close to depositing half a tree in my living room, I rolled with it. But there's one thing I will NOT put up with:

Squatters.

A month ago, I came home from the store with a load of groceries. Among my purchases? A new bag of cat food, which I placed in the hall closet. A week or so later, I went to open the new bag... to find that mission already accomplished. As I lifted the bag, rogue bits of kibble cascaded from a gash at the bottom of the bag. Several scenarios sprung to mind:

• My cats are NOT dumb. The bag of food was so close to the door that they reached through the crack and clawed open the bag. Bad kitties.

• My cats are capable of premeditation. Clearly they conspired together to jump up, turn the knob, open the door, claw open the cat food, and then shut the door leaving me none the wiser. VERY bad kitties.

• I am the worst cat owner ever and somehow managed to shut one of them in the closet while getting ready for work. Can't blame the cat for clawing open the food bag for survival. Thankfully, she must've escaped when I got home and hung up my coat. Bad human.

• The house is haunted by a ghost with a particular affinity for Cat Chow. All I need to do is set up a series of motion cameras, thermal and electro-magnetic field detectors, and perhaps a grey-haired psychic to croak, “Go into the light! There is peace and serenity in the light!” Bad undead.

Maybe the bag had ripped at the store. Maybe the bags are just cheaply made. It could have been a billion things, so I just ignored it and transferred all the food to a plastic container.

But then I got another new bag of cat food, put it in the same closet, reached for it a week later, and once again got showered in kibble. That's when it hit me:

These bags are being ripped by a non-cat, non-human, and likely non-ghost entity. Dare I say it, methinks I have a mouse In the house.

Mice are cute. I could watch them do their thing all the live-long day... provided that thing occurs safely behind glass. Mice tend to lose their cute when they're free-range walking about your house.

My old apartment complex had mice -- until I got my first cat. Chelsea was a mouser extraordinaire, a skill I discovered one morning at exactly 7:02 a.m. when she jumped on my chest and proudly spit a freshly-dead mouse onto my neck. Coincidentally enough, 7:03 a.m. that same morning was when I first discovered that it's possible to go from a dead sleep to a scream in under a minute.

That wasn't the only time my first cat gifted me with a mouse corpse. All told, there were 4 in total over the years, each more disgusting than the last. But when Chelsea went to that big ball of yarn in the sky, I missed my mouser.

A year later, I took in the sister kitties that I have today. From that day on, I never saw or heard another mouse in that apartment. My neighbors would complain about mice all the time, but with the twins on patrol, it was a non-issue.

That's why I now needed to call a family meeting. My security team is NOT known for slacking. In fact, just last week, I saw them take down Mothra's little cousin with tag team precision, aerial acrobatics, and a hang time Michael Jordan himself couldn't pull off. All they needed was motivation.

“You understand that I allow you to live here rent-free, right?" I began. "I give you food, I clean up your poop, and I scratch under your chins when you come up going 'mrow.' All I ask in return is unconditional love, continued cuteness... and your unwavering diligence in keeping mice out of the house. Step it up a notch, ladies.”

I sensed understanding, but apparantly not. As I type this, they're both dead asleep beside me on the couch while Mickey and Minnie could be turning my hallway closet into mouse-miniums for all their little friends. No good. Time to get pro-active.

That's why I just placed my very first mousetrap. Don't worry, I'm not snapping any necks today. Like I said, mice are cute, albeit just a little terrifying. Ergo, I bought a little mouse apartment from whence there is no escape until I pick up the trap, take it outside, and let the little sucker go. To bait the trap, I bought something called "mouse attractant" that is advertised to be "better than cheese or peanut butter" but looks like purple snot and smells considerably worse.

It's been baited for two hours now, and thus far, no takers. In a way, this makes me happy, because I still don't know if I've got the guts to pick up a mouse-filled trap and take it outside without dying of fear that a legion of angry rodents will spring forth, run up my pant leg, and promptly give me both the black plague AND cooties simultaneously.

Maybe the ghost explanation IS the best. After all, I've yet to hear any mice scurrying about -- and if they ARE making a home in my closet, they're clearly tidy and potty-trained residents, because the only evidence I have to their existence are two holes in two bags. Frankly, if they keep their droppings and Lyme Diseases to themselves, they can turn the cracks and crevices of my house into Mousetopia for all I care. Just back off the Cat Chow, buddies. And if it's something other than mice? I'd rather not know about it and live a blissfully ignorant life where holes in bags can be blamed on ghost cats.

COLUMN: Skrillex

Listening to me whine about growing old is a recurring theme of this column, and based on my inbox, it's a theme that a lot of you have very little patience for.  After all, I'm only 40 -- it's not like the news networks have my obituary on standby or anything (though, based on the number of drive-thrus I've frequented since my girlfriend and I broke up, it might not be a bad idea.)

In many ways, I'm still a young pup.  And to sit here and be all, "Woe is me, for the sands of time hath blown me closer to the tomb!" when my primary audience is likely OLDER than me?  Yeah, that's not gonna fly.  So I've made it my mission to stop complaining about life as a 40-something.

But just because I've stopped complaining about it in print doesn't mean that I've grown any more comfortable to its dread arrival.  What it comes down to is THIS:  In my mind's eye, I still picture myself as a counter-culture college student. Truth be told, when it comes to MOST things in life that I like -- music, DJing, TV, video games -- I'm past my prime. That 18-34 demographic came and went.  I'm supposed to now be stuck in my ways, listening to dated music and watching reruns of "Law and Order" while telling teenagers what life was like before cell phones and mp3's.  I choose to NOT go gracefully into that good night, thanks much.

So I'm coping.  And trying to keep my yap shut so I come across as calm, cool, and still in possession of as much youth and charm as I can muster up.  But this weekend, something really evil dawned on me that truly brought it all home...  

One of my favorite hobbies is playing in trivia nights around the area, but an ever BETTER time is getting asked to emcee one of them. This week, though, I'd bitten off a little more than I could chew: TWO trivia nights in one week. That meant coming up with 100 questions, 100 answers, and a nifty Powerpoint presentation for each of them.  So while you guys were enjoying the last decent weather week of 2011, I was sitting in my living room, unshaven and occasionally unbathed, furiously looking up random facts about random stuff.

Since trivia nights draw crowds of all shapes, sizes, and ages, careful attention must be paid to creating a set of questions wide-ranging enough to keep everybody happy. So when I was working one of our music categories, I was focusing on artists from all eras and genres... and it hit me.

When I was in high school, the primary objective was to be cooler than the next guy. So when everyone I knew was listening to Bon Jovi, I rebelled by discovering the Beatles.  In a time when radio was ruled by new wave bands that sounded like the future, wandering down Penny Lane through Strawberry Fields Forever seemed nothing less than archaic.  It was, and is, wonderful music; but even back then, it sounded like a beautiful remnant from a bygone and distant era.

I've just realized that I'm now on the OTHER side of that coin.  When I was listening to the Beatles in high school, their music was 20 years old. NOW it's the "new" music I listened to in college that's just turned 20.  Nirvana's "Nevermind" just turned 20.  I believe this may even constitute it now as "classic rock."  Does this mean that kids in high school today hear Nirvana the same way I heard the Beatles?  As some of kind of crusty old antique?

In a way, it's a little disappointing.  Back in high school, bands like Duran Duran and the Pet Shop Boys sounded so futuristic they couldve been from Mars.  And I remember thinking, "Wow, in another 20 years, music will be SO cutting-edge, it'll be unrecognizable!"  Umm... future FAIL.

Guitar rock, for the most part, sounds about the same now as it did back in the early 90's, and about the only thing that differentiates Britney Spears from Debbie Gibson is less clothes and a slightly superior synthesizer. The only REAL evolution in music over the past two decades has come from hip-hop, and a good chunk of that just samples beats and loops from my era and before.

The high school me would have assumed that, by now, our Top 40 charts should sound something like the cantina band from Star Wars crossed with power tools. Thus far, future music hasn't been very futuristic.  Then I heard Skrillex.

Every week, I'm getting more and more requests for his music at DJ gigs, and his popularity continues to grow and grow.  There's a genre of music big in Europe right now called "dubstep" - slow-tempo dance music characterized by throbbing basslines and little else. Skrillex, an American producer, takes that blueprint and adds as many abrasive synth noises as possible. It is definitely the music that was in my head when the 1981 version of me wondered what the music of 30 years down the road would sound like. And it's entirely unlistenable.

Every Skrillex song employs the same formula:  A harmless beat kicks in and is usually surrounded by some etheral synths and dreamy vocals.  Then, right as you're about lulled to sleep, someone screams and the song explodes into what sounds like malfunctioning, shrieking robots through the din of a bassline that goes "WUB! WUB WUB WUB!" violently for 6 minutes.  It is impressive in its awfulness.

This is the music that Death Stars should get destroyed to. The music to turn Elroy Jetson into a delinquent.  It is ahead of its time, proof positive that the world is evolving, and God-awful to my 40 year old ears - just as it should be. But when I first heard Skrillex in a CLUB, where every screech and WUB gets pounded into your soul by subwoofers, I understood.  It might be awful but it's AWESOME, too.  

I'm getting older, going grey, and officially hating a form of modern music.  But even though I can't the stuff, I get why kids would like it and appreciate its awesomeness.  Skrillex is the Kurt Cobain of its time, and maybe even the Beatles of THEIR time.  As long as I've got THAT understanding, I'm ok with getting a little older.  Just keep it off the soundtrack of my video games or I'm gonna get irked.

Hawaii Five Oh No!

Umm... what the HELL, Hawaii Five-O?

Okay, here's my take on THIS show:  I don't have one.  BUT now I super hate it.

Here's the thing:  Even though I've never really seen an episode of the rebooted show, it's pretty much always on my TV.  My Monday night ritual usually involves turning on the TV, watching "How I Met Your Mother" and "Two & A Half Men," then turning the volume down and working on my newspaper column for the week.

As a result, "Hawaii Five-O" is on my TV a lot, though I've never paid attention to it.  The original was before my time a little bit, but I kinda thought it was a standard run-of-the-mill crime drama, wasn't it?  I assumed it was just like Kojak or whatever, but in Hawaii to create slightly nicer scenery, no?  And maybe I'm wrong there, since I never saw the original.

But every time I glance up at THIS reboot, it looks less like "Kojak" and more like "Apocalypse Now."  There's always someone being tortured or dudes running around with AK's and machine guns or what appear to be wicked Rambo-style jungle fights or huge explosions... this is NOT your parents' Hawaii Five O.

Well, even though I've never really watched the show, I've secretly rooted for it for a number of reasons... primarily the cast.  I was a "Lost" junkie, so it was cool that they cast Daniel Dae Kim as a lead character.  And then there's the show's leader, Alex O'Loughlin, who was really quite great in that-one-vampire-show-that-was-only-on-for-one-season-whose-name-I-can't-remember.  He's another in our current pantheon of British actors who play bad-ass Americans, and I dig that.

Then, THIS season, when they got Terry O'Quinn -- aka John Locke from "Lost" -- on a multi-episode arc, I respected the show even more.

But there was one secret reason why I reeeeeally rooted for Hawaii Five-O -- Larisa Oleynik.  Some of you might remember her from the classic Alex Mack Nickelodeon show... some of you might know her as Julia Stiles' little sister in "10 Things I Hate About You"... or you might remember her as Joseph Gordon-Levitt's girlfriend from "Third Rock from the Sun."

What I remember her from is the HUGE CRUSH I've had on her for years.  Call me pervy if you want, but she was always in that shortlist of girls that make me go "Wuh." (See: Holmes, Katie; Seyfried, Amanda; Birch, Thora; and Mulligan, Carey.)  And I was always kinda sad that she'd all but dropped off the Hollywood map.  But then, lo, there she was on Hawaii Five O, playing some kind of techie specialist person I think (based on my muted TV.)

So tonight I get home, watch sitcoms, and then bang out my column in record time.  "Cool," I thought to myself.  "Enough time to turn up the volume and catch a little of this Hawaii Five O nonsense."

I turn up the volume.  There's O'Loughlin getting tortured, as usual.  And there's the rest of the cast, running through random jungle.  And hey, there's Larisa Oleynik!  Aww, and she's still fairly cute.  It's so good that's she's on.....

BLAM!   BLAM!

And with two point blank shots to the chest, Larisa Oleynik is apparantly no longer a recurring cast member of Hawaii Five-O.  Worse yet, they apparantly turned her character EVIL at the end or something.  Or at least deeply, deeply flawed.  She apparantly was responsible for turning O'Loughlin over to the bad guys in exchange for some dude they'd kidnapped, and, well, he was dead, too, whoever he was.

Can't. Believe. They'd. Kill. Larisa.  It should be a crime to kill someone that cute, even a fictionalized version.  Actually, I think it IS a crime, and one that O'Loughlin will probably spend the next 2 seasons trying to remedy, IF the show goes that long.  I know it sure just lose its hardcore Alex Mack fanbase...