And I'm back... sorry, this whole "working for a living" thing really constrains my "life work" of blogging. Without any further ado: the continuation of my serial work on references.
As a history student, I was trained to surround myself with references. One of my less inspired professors actually told his class that their final papers would be graded partly on their gross number of references. He also had a tendency to literally (and when I say literally, I don't mean figuratively) froth at the mouth while yelling about the "namby-pamby" liberals who voted for Nader and lost the 2000 election for Gore! He was a nice man, but very intense.
"Fine," I thought to myself. A footnote is just a simple way of showing the reader where you learned whatever you are writing and is "required" unless you are stating something that is "common knowledge." When writing a history paper, you can footnote almost every sentence. After all, most of the time, I had very little knowledge of the subject before I began to learn about it, so all I had to do was pay attention to where I learned each piece of information, and I could cite it. I averaged around ten footnotes per page... by far the most in the class... and, surprise, surprise, that was quite enough for me to earn a top grade from my reference obsessed professor.
That Freshman year effort of mine was not quite as good as my old chess tutor who claimed that he wrote a senior thesis which consisted of one sentence of body text and footnotes for the remainder of the paper. Irreverent, yes, but I think there is some inkling of a point behind the smart-assness. My guess is that my tutor was trying to make the point that any thesis paper is really just a single statement with TONS of time spent trying to show your reader how you came to believe in the truth of that statement. I'm pretty sure that my point was just that number of footnotes was a silly game to play, but that I could play it to extremes if need be.
Later, when I was writing my senior thesis, I found myself constantly troubled by footnotes. My problem was that I was writing about an obscure (although it was once as well-known as the OJ affair) murder case from the 1920s. Before I discovered it on Google, I had never heard of the Hall-Mills case and I had lived and studied history in the town where it took place for 4 years! So, clearly, I couldn't assume that ANY of the details of the case were "commonly known." And the twenties? Well, all I really knew was that the market crashed in '29, that Hoover was president then, and that Wilson had started the decade; that prohibition was on and that Marilyn Monroe walked like "Jello on springs!" (although come to think of it, surely that's an anachronistic line... wasn't Jello a product of the '50s?) I want everyone to enjoy reading my writing, so I certainly wasn't going to assume more general knowledge than that.
Once again, I felt like I should really footnote almost everything. But, when writing a hundred and something page paper, there's no way I could possibly do that. Nor would I have wanted to, because even at their most interesting footnotes break up the narrative flow of the paper; the story in the history. But as a result I spent most of my time while writing, feeling like I was making shit up. I don't think I really was, but without a footnote to point to, who's to say I wasn't?
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Friday, December 08, 2006
Top Ten Hip-Hop Albums
Low End Theory, A Tribe Called Quest, 1991.
This was the album that got me into hip-hop. The two rappers, Phife and Q-Tip, interact more seamlessly then any other duo I've ever heard.
"If your hair and eyes were real, I wouldn't have dissed you, but since it was bought, I had to dismiss you. So if you can't achieve it, they why not try and leave it, if you can't extend it then you might as well suspend it, if you can't braid it, next thing to do is fade it, I asked who did your hair and you told me Diane made it."
Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde, Pharcyde, 1992.
The first album that I turned off when my parents got home, this California classic is a mixture of pot-head humor, perverted posturing, and posse hip-hop.
"If I were President, I would not carry no spare change, I would just re-arrange the whole government structure, cause there seems to be something that's messing with the flucture of the money, it's not coming to me."
The Score, Fugees, 1996.
Best enjoyed during the summer months, this album features Lauren Hill (yes, she of Sister Act II) bringing by far the hardest and best female rapping ever. Add in a little bit of Jamaican feel and a reference to Rutgers, and you've got a classic.
"Even after all my logic and my theories, I adds a motherfucker so you ignorant niggas hear me." and "While you imitating Al Capone, I be Nina Simone, defecating on your microphone."
Black Star, Black Star, 1998.
I got a copy of this collaboration between Brooklyn MCs Mos Def and Talib Kweli on an audio tape in High School, and it was going strong until a year and a half ago when I got a car sans-tape player. A measure of how much I like this album; I bought the cd.
"Thoughts that people put in the air, places where you can get murdered over a glare, but everything's fair, it's a paradox we call reality, so keeping it real will make you a casualty of abnormal normality, killers born naturally like Mikey and Mallory, not knowing the way will get you capped like a NBA salary.
The Marshall Mathers LP, Eminem, 2000.
After racistly resisting Eminem for years, I found myself in South Africa, where I perceived that racism is not always a good thing. I made a copy of my housemates Marshall Mathers LP, and it became almost my constant companion for five months. Dr. Dre's simple but addictive beats keep your head nodding in time while you proverbially shake it at Eminem's surprisingly nuanced twisted humor.
"I murder a rhyme, one word at a time, you never, heard of a mind as perverted as mine, you better, get rid of that nine, it ain't gonna help, what good's it gonna do against a man that strangles himself?"
Stillmatic, Nas, 2001.
Nas' true talent is in street-story telling. That said, Stillmatic contains a diss song, Ether. In it, he destroys Jay-Z with the second most devastating line in beefing history,* "I rock hos, Y'all rock fellas." (Jay-Z's record label was called Roc-a-fella records at that point.)
*The most devastating single line is of course when Eminem completely ruined Will Smith forever with, "Will Smith don't gotta cuss to sell records, well I do. So fuck him and fuck you too."
Chicken and Beer, Ludacris, 2003.
Beyond the sheer genius of the title, beyond the intermingling of simplicity and wit, beyond everything else that could be said about this album, remains the sweet fact that Snoop Dogg, as a guest rapper on the track, "Who Let These Hos in my Room?" describes Bill O'Reilly as a "white-bread, chicken shit, nigger." I don't know what that means, but it can't be good.
I'm not going to put a quote here, because I have plans to annotate my favorite song from Chicken and Beer, "Hip-Hop Quotables."
Late Registration, Kanye West, 2005.
From track three to track eleven, this album is seamlessly great. Not a bad song, not a song out of place, it all works perfectly together. Admittedly, it is the music that makes this album so great -- but, whatever else can be said about Kanye as a rapper, he is extremely accessible; I find myself knowing every word to entire songs.
"The pressure's on but guess who ain't gonna crack, pardon me I had to laugh at that, how could you falter, when you the rock of Gibraltar, I had to get off the boat so I can walk on water, this ain't no tall order this is nothing to me, difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week, I do this in my sleep, I sold kilos of coke, I'm guessing I can sell cds, I'm not a business man, I'm a business, man... let me handle my business, damn."*
* of course, this, the best bit on the album is not Kanye, but guest rapper Jay-Z.
Lord Willin', The Clipse, 2002.
These guys' whole schtick is that they're primarily drug dealers who only rap as a hobby... and for some reason (probably that the Neptunes did the beats for their whole album,) it works.
"What I look like spending my nights in jail, I could never be a thug - they don't dress this well. Ride in VA, reside in VA, mostly likely when I die, I'm gonna die in VA. Virginia's for lovers, but trust there's hate here, for out-of-towners who think they gonna move weight here. Ironic the place that I'm making figures at, that was the same land they used to hang niggers at."
Ready to Die, The Notorious B.I.G., 1994.
Clearly, I'm a little bit behind the times on this one, having bought the album six years after Biggie's death. That said, it really stands the test of time pretty well. Which just plays into a blog which I won't write (now at least,) that the reason New York and California hip-hop has lost out to all the other regions, is that they can't move on from the styles of their martyred leaders.
"So low, Caviar, shark bar, uh uhn, strictly sex that's sweaty and left-over spaghetti, I know you're used to slow cd's and Dom P's, but tonight it's eight-tracks and six-packs while I hit that."
The albums are listed in the order that I discovered them.
The rules:
1. These albums all had to be albums that I owned (legally or illegally) and listened to obsessively at one point. (Excluding: The Chronic, Doggystyle, all of Tupac, and lots of other all time greats.)
2. They had to be albums whose lyrical content was primarily rap. (Excluding: The Miseducation of Lauren Hill, Baduism, Get Lifted, etc.)
3. The memorable quotes had to be ones that I could quote from memory... but I did check on a few of them, just so I didn't make any unbelievably embarrassing mistakes.
This was the album that got me into hip-hop. The two rappers, Phife and Q-Tip, interact more seamlessly then any other duo I've ever heard.
"If your hair and eyes were real, I wouldn't have dissed you, but since it was bought, I had to dismiss you. So if you can't achieve it, they why not try and leave it, if you can't extend it then you might as well suspend it, if you can't braid it, next thing to do is fade it, I asked who did your hair and you told me Diane made it."
Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde, Pharcyde, 1992.
The first album that I turned off when my parents got home, this California classic is a mixture of pot-head humor, perverted posturing, and posse hip-hop.
"If I were President, I would not carry no spare change, I would just re-arrange the whole government structure, cause there seems to be something that's messing with the flucture of the money, it's not coming to me."
The Score, Fugees, 1996.
Best enjoyed during the summer months, this album features Lauren Hill (yes, she of Sister Act II) bringing by far the hardest and best female rapping ever. Add in a little bit of Jamaican feel and a reference to Rutgers, and you've got a classic.
"Even after all my logic and my theories, I adds a motherfucker so you ignorant niggas hear me." and "While you imitating Al Capone, I be Nina Simone, defecating on your microphone."
Black Star, Black Star, 1998.
I got a copy of this collaboration between Brooklyn MCs Mos Def and Talib Kweli on an audio tape in High School, and it was going strong until a year and a half ago when I got a car sans-tape player. A measure of how much I like this album; I bought the cd.
"Thoughts that people put in the air, places where you can get murdered over a glare, but everything's fair, it's a paradox we call reality, so keeping it real will make you a casualty of abnormal normality, killers born naturally like Mikey and Mallory, not knowing the way will get you capped like a NBA salary.
The Marshall Mathers LP, Eminem, 2000.
After racistly resisting Eminem for years, I found myself in South Africa, where I perceived that racism is not always a good thing. I made a copy of my housemates Marshall Mathers LP, and it became almost my constant companion for five months. Dr. Dre's simple but addictive beats keep your head nodding in time while you proverbially shake it at Eminem's surprisingly nuanced twisted humor.
"I murder a rhyme, one word at a time, you never, heard of a mind as perverted as mine, you better, get rid of that nine, it ain't gonna help, what good's it gonna do against a man that strangles himself?"
Stillmatic, Nas, 2001.
Nas' true talent is in street-story telling. That said, Stillmatic contains a diss song, Ether. In it, he destroys Jay-Z with the second most devastating line in beefing history,* "I rock hos, Y'all rock fellas." (Jay-Z's record label was called Roc-a-fella records at that point.)
*The most devastating single line is of course when Eminem completely ruined Will Smith forever with, "Will Smith don't gotta cuss to sell records, well I do. So fuck him and fuck you too."
Chicken and Beer, Ludacris, 2003.
Beyond the sheer genius of the title, beyond the intermingling of simplicity and wit, beyond everything else that could be said about this album, remains the sweet fact that Snoop Dogg, as a guest rapper on the track, "Who Let These Hos in my Room?" describes Bill O'Reilly as a "white-bread, chicken shit, nigger." I don't know what that means, but it can't be good.
I'm not going to put a quote here, because I have plans to annotate my favorite song from Chicken and Beer, "Hip-Hop Quotables."
Late Registration, Kanye West, 2005.
From track three to track eleven, this album is seamlessly great. Not a bad song, not a song out of place, it all works perfectly together. Admittedly, it is the music that makes this album so great -- but, whatever else can be said about Kanye as a rapper, he is extremely accessible; I find myself knowing every word to entire songs.
"The pressure's on but guess who ain't gonna crack, pardon me I had to laugh at that, how could you falter, when you the rock of Gibraltar, I had to get off the boat so I can walk on water, this ain't no tall order this is nothing to me, difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week, I do this in my sleep, I sold kilos of coke, I'm guessing I can sell cds, I'm not a business man, I'm a business, man... let me handle my business, damn."*
* of course, this, the best bit on the album is not Kanye, but guest rapper Jay-Z.
Lord Willin', The Clipse, 2002.
These guys' whole schtick is that they're primarily drug dealers who only rap as a hobby... and for some reason (probably that the Neptunes did the beats for their whole album,) it works.
"What I look like spending my nights in jail, I could never be a thug - they don't dress this well. Ride in VA, reside in VA, mostly likely when I die, I'm gonna die in VA. Virginia's for lovers, but trust there's hate here, for out-of-towners who think they gonna move weight here. Ironic the place that I'm making figures at, that was the same land they used to hang niggers at."
Ready to Die, The Notorious B.I.G., 1994.
Clearly, I'm a little bit behind the times on this one, having bought the album six years after Biggie's death. That said, it really stands the test of time pretty well. Which just plays into a blog which I won't write (now at least,) that the reason New York and California hip-hop has lost out to all the other regions, is that they can't move on from the styles of their martyred leaders.
"So low, Caviar, shark bar, uh uhn, strictly sex that's sweaty and left-over spaghetti, I know you're used to slow cd's and Dom P's, but tonight it's eight-tracks and six-packs while I hit that."
The albums are listed in the order that I discovered them.
The rules:
1. These albums all had to be albums that I owned (legally or illegally) and listened to obsessively at one point. (Excluding: The Chronic, Doggystyle, all of Tupac, and lots of other all time greats.)
2. They had to be albums whose lyrical content was primarily rap. (Excluding: The Miseducation of Lauren Hill, Baduism, Get Lifted, etc.)
3. The memorable quotes had to be ones that I could quote from memory... but I did check on a few of them, just so I didn't make any unbelievably embarrassing mistakes.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Thoughts on Thanksgiving and the Latest Bond Flick
According to the New York Times, "For thousands of years communal meals have been a key to building cultures," and Thanksgiving is our chance to relive an older time; a simpler time. A time when people could celebrate the coming of winter with a show of overabundance. A time when Turkeys grew with ducks and chickens inside of them, and cranberries grew in cans.
With this in mind, shortly after my family's Soul Food Thanksgiving, I set off to the movie theater with two of my oldest friends to watch the latest offering in the James Bond series; Casino Royale.
Casino Royale is the Ian Fleming James Bond novel, and this movie is faithful to that concept. Which is admittedly a little weird, since, not only are we supposed to be introduced to a character who we all know so well already, but also one whose movies are so intertwined with the technology of the day and the near future. Since nobody wants to see a 'period' Bond film -- one made today, but set in the 60's, we have to deal with the fact that Bond of Casino Royale, a prequel to Dr. No (the first Bond Movie made,) drives a WAY more modern car than the Bond of Dr. No... even though... well, you get it.
Casino Royale also introduces the newest actor to take on the mantle of James Bond. I had only ever seen Daniel Craig in Munich, a movie that I disliked, so I wasn't so hot on him to start out. Plus, he's blond. And Bond shouldn't really be blond, should he?
The jury is still out on Craig as Bond. And here's why: he didn't actually play James Bond in this movie -- not a fully formed Bond, anyway. The movie intentionally set out to create an arc (I'm not sure what the hell that term means, but I've heard people (Christopher Moltisanti, I'm afraid) use it, so why can't I) wherein only at the last moment of the movie would James Bond become The James Bond. This was signified by only foreshadowing the famous Bond theme song until the ending credits. Which, by the way, was infuriating... like going to a ball game and not singing the national anthem until the game was over. There were several other lines that seemed to be in the movie just to hammer across the point that we weren't watching the real James Bond, not yet, anyway. For example, at one point, a waiter asks Bond if he would like his martini shaken or stirred and instead of the classic, "Shaken... not stirred," Craig does a single take at the camera and replies, "Does it look like I give a damn."
Even more unBondlike, perhaps, is that throughout the first two thirds of the movie, he also seems to be having trouble getting laid. He actually leaves a woman in his apartment to pursue her boyfriend to Miami. Early in the movie -- this was the first sign that Bond wasn't quite himself -- the old Bond would have (and often did) made love to someone else's woman and then chase after him. This unformed Bond was also much more temperamental, showing both more anger and more insecurity than the veteran Bond.
The New York Times review claims that "this new Bond marks a decisive break with the contemporary iterations." For my part, I hope that this is not the case. And I think it won't be. With the final line of the movie, "Bond, James Bond," and the playing of the theme song, I think the movie makers were telling us Bond lovers (don't take that the wrong way) that with the next edition in the series, Bond will return, more or less as he always has been. Which is good. More than anything, Bond symbolizes immortality. And for there to be a beginning to Bond hints that there might, one day, be an end to Bond. Which (unless they film it soon with Sean Connery,) I would never, never want to see.
For supplementary reading, check out this cool review in the Hindustan Times! Also note that in the original book, the featured high stakes game was Baccarat, not Poker. But, given the current poker craze, I think the directors made a smart decision... but did they really have to explain what a tell is?
With this in mind, shortly after my family's Soul Food Thanksgiving, I set off to the movie theater with two of my oldest friends to watch the latest offering in the James Bond series; Casino Royale.
Casino Royale is the Ian Fleming James Bond novel, and this movie is faithful to that concept. Which is admittedly a little weird, since, not only are we supposed to be introduced to a character who we all know so well already, but also one whose movies are so intertwined with the technology of the day and the near future. Since nobody wants to see a 'period' Bond film -- one made today, but set in the 60's, we have to deal with the fact that Bond of Casino Royale, a prequel to Dr. No (the first Bond Movie made,) drives a WAY more modern car than the Bond of Dr. No... even though... well, you get it.
Casino Royale also introduces the newest actor to take on the mantle of James Bond. I had only ever seen Daniel Craig in Munich, a movie that I disliked, so I wasn't so hot on him to start out. Plus, he's blond. And Bond shouldn't really be blond, should he?
The jury is still out on Craig as Bond. And here's why: he didn't actually play James Bond in this movie -- not a fully formed Bond, anyway. The movie intentionally set out to create an arc (I'm not sure what the hell that term means, but I've heard people (Christopher Moltisanti, I'm afraid) use it, so why can't I) wherein only at the last moment of the movie would James Bond become The James Bond. This was signified by only foreshadowing the famous Bond theme song until the ending credits. Which, by the way, was infuriating... like going to a ball game and not singing the national anthem until the game was over. There were several other lines that seemed to be in the movie just to hammer across the point that we weren't watching the real James Bond, not yet, anyway. For example, at one point, a waiter asks Bond if he would like his martini shaken or stirred and instead of the classic, "Shaken... not stirred," Craig does a single take at the camera and replies, "Does it look like I give a damn."
Even more unBondlike, perhaps, is that throughout the first two thirds of the movie, he also seems to be having trouble getting laid. He actually leaves a woman in his apartment to pursue her boyfriend to Miami. Early in the movie -- this was the first sign that Bond wasn't quite himself -- the old Bond would have (and often did) made love to someone else's woman and then chase after him. This unformed Bond was also much more temperamental, showing both more anger and more insecurity than the veteran Bond.
The New York Times review claims that "this new Bond marks a decisive break with the contemporary iterations." For my part, I hope that this is not the case. And I think it won't be. With the final line of the movie, "Bond, James Bond," and the playing of the theme song, I think the movie makers were telling us Bond lovers (don't take that the wrong way) that with the next edition in the series, Bond will return, more or less as he always has been. Which is good. More than anything, Bond symbolizes immortality. And for there to be a beginning to Bond hints that there might, one day, be an end to Bond. Which (unless they film it soon with Sean Connery,) I would never, never want to see.
For supplementary reading, check out this cool review in the Hindustan Times! Also note that in the original book, the featured high stakes game was Baccarat, not Poker. But, given the current poker craze, I think the directors made a smart decision... but did they really have to explain what a tell is?
Monday, November 20, 2006
References Volume 1
Even before my last, far too lengthy entry about the no-longer-undefeated Rutgers Scarlet Knights football team, I had begun an entry about a pervasive theme in my life: references. After a few weeks of jotting down ideas, I now have enough to swing a cat. So, for all of our sakes, I will explore the role of references in my life in an episodic manner reminiscent of Dickens (although he was getting paid by the word) or Tarantino (although he must have been getting paid by the ounce of blood.)
Since I moved to Brooklyn I've been meeting a lot of new people and getting a chance to hang out with some old friends who I haven't seen in a while. One thing I've noticed is that when I speak to almost all of my oldest and closest friends, we speak in a language specific to our friendship. It is a language riddled with references to past conversations, events, arguments, and movies we've seen together. Of the people who I meet, the ones who stick, tend to be the ones who manage to build a shared referential language in the shortest amount of time. Sometimes it only takes a single conversation!
Here are just a few of the most common movie references that have entered my vernacular and they're suggested uses, enjoy:
After realizing that I've just explained something that really didn't need the elucidation, "That's more or less the thing."
To excuse inexcusably predictable behavior, "Don't give me a gun, you know what I'mon do." and "What happened? They put me in a room with Joey Zazza. What do you think happened? I bit the guy's ear off."
After I put my foot in my mouth, "Street slang is an increasingly accepted form of expression. Most of the feminine pronouns to contain mocking, but not necessarily with misogynistic undertones."
To express disagreement, "I do not think that means what you think it means."
Or confusion, "I can only express puzzlement, bordering on alarm."
Impatience is actually expressed most clearly through quoting, not a movie, but an anonymous audience member at one viewing of a movie, "Lose the shoes lady."
When confronted with a frustratingly badly designed mechanism, I tend to fall back on, "You mean, you can recall it, like a defective pinto."
In the car, "Four lefts is a circle, you idiot."
If someone asks how much I want of something, I may respond, "Not a whole lot, just a little lot with nothing on it."
When asked to do something that I should have no problem doing, but for some reason am unwilling to do, I lower my voice into almost subsonic levels, and rumble, "We are the United States Government, we do not do that sort of thing."
From The Scottish Movie comes, "I told you it was my island."
At the dinner table, "It's got scallions."
For when you're in a tight spot, the simple answer is: "We're in a tight spot," but if you have a companion who you want to scare a little, try, "The lord says he can get me out of this one... but he's pretty sure, you're fucked."
Other movie quotes have managed to stick in the vernacular without actually having a discernible meaning. Prime among these is the highly dubious, "I'm your Huckleberry" and "Don't eat the penis. It's just garnish..." you'd be surprised how often that one gets used.
Finally, there's the always useful, "We didn't do that, did we?"
Please leave a comment with a movie quote that you use in everyday conversation or one that I do, but forgot to include!
Since I moved to Brooklyn I've been meeting a lot of new people and getting a chance to hang out with some old friends who I haven't seen in a while. One thing I've noticed is that when I speak to almost all of my oldest and closest friends, we speak in a language specific to our friendship. It is a language riddled with references to past conversations, events, arguments, and movies we've seen together. Of the people who I meet, the ones who stick, tend to be the ones who manage to build a shared referential language in the shortest amount of time. Sometimes it only takes a single conversation!
Here are just a few of the most common movie references that have entered my vernacular and they're suggested uses, enjoy:
After realizing that I've just explained something that really didn't need the elucidation, "That's more or less the thing."
To excuse inexcusably predictable behavior, "Don't give me a gun, you know what I'mon do." and "What happened? They put me in a room with Joey Zazza. What do you think happened? I bit the guy's ear off."
After I put my foot in my mouth, "Street slang is an increasingly accepted form of expression. Most of the feminine pronouns to contain mocking, but not necessarily with misogynistic undertones."
To express disagreement, "I do not think that means what you think it means."
Or confusion, "I can only express puzzlement, bordering on alarm."
Impatience is actually expressed most clearly through quoting, not a movie, but an anonymous audience member at one viewing of a movie, "Lose the shoes lady."
When confronted with a frustratingly badly designed mechanism, I tend to fall back on, "You mean, you can recall it, like a defective pinto."
In the car, "Four lefts is a circle, you idiot."
If someone asks how much I want of something, I may respond, "Not a whole lot, just a little lot with nothing on it."
When asked to do something that I should have no problem doing, but for some reason am unwilling to do, I lower my voice into almost subsonic levels, and rumble, "We are the United States Government, we do not do that sort of thing."
From The Scottish Movie comes, "I told you it was my island."
At the dinner table, "It's got scallions."
For when you're in a tight spot, the simple answer is: "We're in a tight spot," but if you have a companion who you want to scare a little, try, "The lord says he can get me out of this one... but he's pretty sure, you're fucked."
Other movie quotes have managed to stick in the vernacular without actually having a discernible meaning. Prime among these is the highly dubious, "I'm your Huckleberry" and "Don't eat the penis. It's just garnish..." you'd be surprised how often that one gets used.
Finally, there's the always useful, "We didn't do that, did we?"
Please leave a comment with a movie quote that you use in everyday conversation or one that I do, but forgot to include!
Friday, November 10, 2006
The Banks Ain't Never Shook Like That
I suppose literally everything is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You never had breakfast this morning before nor will you ever have it again. Reading this entry is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. That said, I think we all intuitively know what a once-in-a-lifetime experience really is, and I have to report that being in New Brunswick last night to watch Rutgers beat Louisville was exactly that.
The first sign that New Brunswick was going to be a little different last night came in the form of a "mobile precinct" set up directly outside Stuff Yer Face, the beer and Stromboli joint where Mario Batali got his start. Cops were everywhere; on the corners and outside every bar. Surprisingly, at twenty minutes till game time there were only lines at a few of the bars. Maybe this was because Rutgers had added bleachers in the open part of the horseshoe shaped stadium to accommodate the overflowing crowd. Or maybe I've forgotten what it is like to live within five minutes walk of all of the bars. Nonetheless, it filled up quickly.
It was nuts. Crazy. Insane. Unbelievable. Brendan and I watched the game inside the packed to capacity Golden Rail, a bar that we have happily been the only customers in to watch some previous games. People were so attentive to the game that the bathroom lines were only full during commercials. The crowd in the bar was chanting Rutgers cheers... although I do have to report that the school's fight song (a very simple chant "R U Rah Rah, R U Rah Rah, Hoo Rah, Hoo Rah, Rutgers Rah. Upstream Red Team, Red Team Upstream. Rah (hoo) Rah (hoo) Rutgers Rah) seemed to have become to sophisticated for the current football fans, so we were reduced to screaming ARRRRRR!!!! YOUUUUUUU!!!! over and over again.
Before the game there was a really special moment. William Seward a 110 year old Rutgers alum and former water boy for the Rutgers football team (he was there when Paul Robeson played!) was interviewed and sang the Rutgers alma mater. In the bar, we couldn't tell that he was singing the alma mater, but when he pumped his fist holding a Rutgers pennant at the end of the song, I thought the windows were going to blow out we cheered so loudly!
The first half it seemed like everything was going wrong. The only solace was found in a shot of James Gandolfini on the sideline. With Tony Soprano on our side, how could we lose? The second half, things started going our way. In the last few minutes of the game I was jumping up and down screaming at the top of my lungs, and hi-fiving strangers like there was no tomorrow. When we won, the jumping continued, but the hi-fiving turned into bear hugs and comradely punches. I wanted to jump through the ceiling (and felt like I could) and at the same time I wanted to fall to the floor (which I definitely could have, but refrained from doing.)
An hour later, the scene outside was bizarre. The intersection of Easton Avenue and Somerset Street was jammed full of hoarse, screaming fans, triumphantly honking cars, and -- in case you were wondering what all of those policemen from earlier in the night were doing -- cops standing around with goofy grins on their faces watching over the celebrations with benevolence.
Classic Rutgers: Watching the game in a male dominated, dingy, dimly lit bar, drinking Yeungling for a dollar.
Classic Rutgers: We start the game out trying to do something that we don't do very well on offense (throw the ball) while neglecting the thing that we do really really well (run the ball) and end our first two drives with a punt and an interception. On defense we give up a couple of big pass plays and seem to be unable to get pressure on the quarterback. On special teams, we give up an enormous 100 yard kick return for a touchdown and then somehow manage to block an extra point attempt... and snatching a negative from the jaws of a good play... let a Louisville player pick up the ball
and run it into the end zone for two points. All of a sudden its the second quarter and we're down 25-7.
Old Rutgers: The television coverage repeatedly shows scenes from New York; the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State building (lit up Scarlet Nights Red,) and does a series of interviews on the streets of New York. We in the bar respond
by giving the television screen the finger and cursing at the network.
I suppose many of you might be thinking, "So what? Team wins big game. We get it." I think there are two reasons why this means so much. The first reason is personal. I never had a sports team to root for growing up. Not only did I not inherit allegiances to sports teams in the way that many people do (except of course for the sadly defunct Brooklyn Dodgers) but also, in Central Jersey, there is no clear geographic solution. You can root for Philadelphia teams or you can root for New York teams (many actually play in New Jersey.) You could root for the Devils (woefully bad until they got to be very, very good by playing the most boring style of hockey in the universe) and you can root for the Nets (which I do) but they're now moving to Brooklyn. When I got to Rutgers, I decided, the hell with it, they're terrible, but they are now MY terrible team. So, I became a fan.
I went to many home games. They were actually quite fun. There is nothing quite like being in an empty stadium, screaming with the other 500 people crazy enough to be out there. What were we screaming about? Usually we were cursing the ineptitude of our own players and coaches. I'll never forget the game when my section spent the first quarter and a half cursing at our starting quarterback, until we realized that he wasn't even playing. That must have been a real trip for him. After losing the starting job he has to sit on the bench and listen to us insult him anyway! Watching Rutgers football for 6 years has been an exercise in controlled pessimism. No lead can ever be big enough to be safe. No play can be safe enough that Rutgers hasn't managed to give up the ball, give up the first down, give up the big play, get called for a big penalty, somehow blow the game. Even at 8-0, until we won last night, I didn't feel secure. It wasn't real. We hadn't played anyone really good. Louisville and West Virginia were still looming. We could still blow it somehow. Under all those layers of New Rutgers, Old Rutgers was still lurking. Today, I don't feel that way anymore.
The second reason that last night was a big deal is that it is actually really important for New Jersey. I know a lot of people view big intercollegiate sports as something that detracts from the real purpose of the University. I have a bunch of arguments against that proposition in general and maybe I will blab about those at another time. But, specifically for Rutgers? Rutgers has always had an image problem. Where I went to high school, the reaction to someone matriculating at Rutgers was akin to there being a death in the family. Even within the Rutgers community, there is more talk of "the RU Screw" than there is of anything positive. We have never been able to either attract good students from out-of-state or get the good students from New Jersey to stay in state and go to Rutgers. This will help. I promise. It isn't necessarily rational and it might not be a good thing that football has this power, but I promise that in the next few years, brilliant students from afar will start showing up and those from New Jersey will look around and decide to stay in state and go to Rutgers.
And remember, what's good for Rutgers is good for New Jersey, and as goes New Jersey, so goes the nation. So, 9 down, 3 to go! Go RU.
The first sign that New Brunswick was going to be a little different last night came in the form of a "mobile precinct" set up directly outside Stuff Yer Face, the beer and Stromboli joint where Mario Batali got his start. Cops were everywhere; on the corners and outside every bar. Surprisingly, at twenty minutes till game time there were only lines at a few of the bars. Maybe this was because Rutgers had added bleachers in the open part of the horseshoe shaped stadium to accommodate the overflowing crowd. Or maybe I've forgotten what it is like to live within five minutes walk of all of the bars. Nonetheless, it filled up quickly.
It was nuts. Crazy. Insane. Unbelievable. Brendan and I watched the game inside the packed to capacity Golden Rail, a bar that we have happily been the only customers in to watch some previous games. People were so attentive to the game that the bathroom lines were only full during commercials. The crowd in the bar was chanting Rutgers cheers... although I do have to report that the school's fight song (a very simple chant "R U Rah Rah, R U Rah Rah, Hoo Rah, Hoo Rah, Rutgers Rah. Upstream Red Team, Red Team Upstream. Rah (hoo) Rah (hoo) Rutgers Rah) seemed to have become to sophisticated for the current football fans, so we were reduced to screaming ARRRRRR!!!! YOUUUUUUU!!!! over and over again.
Before the game there was a really special moment. William Seward a 110 year old Rutgers alum and former water boy for the Rutgers football team (he was there when Paul Robeson played!) was interviewed and sang the Rutgers alma mater. In the bar, we couldn't tell that he was singing the alma mater, but when he pumped his fist holding a Rutgers pennant at the end of the song, I thought the windows were going to blow out we cheered so loudly!
The first half it seemed like everything was going wrong. The only solace was found in a shot of James Gandolfini on the sideline. With Tony Soprano on our side, how could we lose? The second half, things started going our way. In the last few minutes of the game I was jumping up and down screaming at the top of my lungs, and hi-fiving strangers like there was no tomorrow. When we won, the jumping continued, but the hi-fiving turned into bear hugs and comradely punches. I wanted to jump through the ceiling (and felt like I could) and at the same time I wanted to fall to the floor (which I definitely could have, but refrained from doing.)
An hour later, the scene outside was bizarre. The intersection of Easton Avenue and Somerset Street was jammed full of hoarse, screaming fans, triumphantly honking cars, and -- in case you were wondering what all of those policemen from earlier in the night were doing -- cops standing around with goofy grins on their faces watching over the celebrations with benevolence.
The game was a perfect mix of Classic Rutgers and New Rutgers.
Classic Rutgers: Watching the game in a male dominated, dingy, dimly lit bar, drinking Yeungling for a dollar.
New Rutgers: It was packed to the gills, standing room only, and it stayed that way throughout the game.
Classic Rutgers: We start the game out trying to do something that we don't do very well on offense (throw the ball) while neglecting the thing that we do really really well (run the ball) and end our first two drives with a punt and an interception. On defense we give up a couple of big pass plays and seem to be unable to get pressure on the quarterback. On special teams, we give up an enormous 100 yard kick return for a touchdown and then somehow manage to block an extra point attempt... and snatching a negative from the jaws of a good play... let a Louisville player pick up the ball
and run it into the end zone for two points. All of a sudden its the second quarter and we're down 25-7.
New Rutgers: We didn't panic. Our offense started making some plays, and our defense decided it had seen enough. In the second half Louisville had 6 possessions. They didn't score once. On five out of those six times Louisville had the ball, they went "three and out"-- they weren't able to advance the ball ten yards in three plays, so they punted the ball and gave it to our offense.
All the little things that used to kill Rutgers started going our way. The fumbles, the bad calls, the tipped balls. But the funny thing was that instead of disappearing, they kept happening, but with different results. For instance, Freshman Kenny Britt catches a pass and runs 67 yards down the sideline until he is inevitably stripped of the ball (Old Rutgers,) but recovers his own fumble (New Rutgers.) Jeremy Ito misses a field goal with less than half a minute left in the game (Old Rutgers,) but a Louisville defender jumped offsides on the play, giving us another chance and making the field goal five yards closer -- Result? Rutgers (New) wins the game on a 28 yard Ito kick that flies right through the middle of the uprights.
Old Rutgers: The television coverage repeatedly shows scenes from New York; the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State building (lit up Scarlet Nights Red,) and does a series of interviews on the streets of New York. We in the bar respond
by giving the television screen the finger and cursing at the network.
New Rutgers: The final call of the game, "... and it's Pandemonium in Piscataway!" as the crowd rushed the field will probably be remembered for a long time.
I suppose many of you might be thinking, "So what? Team wins big game. We get it." I think there are two reasons why this means so much. The first reason is personal. I never had a sports team to root for growing up. Not only did I not inherit allegiances to sports teams in the way that many people do (except of course for the sadly defunct Brooklyn Dodgers) but also, in Central Jersey, there is no clear geographic solution. You can root for Philadelphia teams or you can root for New York teams (many actually play in New Jersey.) You could root for the Devils (woefully bad until they got to be very, very good by playing the most boring style of hockey in the universe) and you can root for the Nets (which I do) but they're now moving to Brooklyn. When I got to Rutgers, I decided, the hell with it, they're terrible, but they are now MY terrible team. So, I became a fan.
I went to many home games. They were actually quite fun. There is nothing quite like being in an empty stadium, screaming with the other 500 people crazy enough to be out there. What were we screaming about? Usually we were cursing the ineptitude of our own players and coaches. I'll never forget the game when my section spent the first quarter and a half cursing at our starting quarterback, until we realized that he wasn't even playing. That must have been a real trip for him. After losing the starting job he has to sit on the bench and listen to us insult him anyway! Watching Rutgers football for 6 years has been an exercise in controlled pessimism. No lead can ever be big enough to be safe. No play can be safe enough that Rutgers hasn't managed to give up the ball, give up the first down, give up the big play, get called for a big penalty, somehow blow the game. Even at 8-0, until we won last night, I didn't feel secure. It wasn't real. We hadn't played anyone really good. Louisville and West Virginia were still looming. We could still blow it somehow. Under all those layers of New Rutgers, Old Rutgers was still lurking. Today, I don't feel that way anymore.
The second reason that last night was a big deal is that it is actually really important for New Jersey. I know a lot of people view big intercollegiate sports as something that detracts from the real purpose of the University. I have a bunch of arguments against that proposition in general and maybe I will blab about those at another time. But, specifically for Rutgers? Rutgers has always had an image problem. Where I went to high school, the reaction to someone matriculating at Rutgers was akin to there being a death in the family. Even within the Rutgers community, there is more talk of "the RU Screw" than there is of anything positive. We have never been able to either attract good students from out-of-state or get the good students from New Jersey to stay in state and go to Rutgers. This will help. I promise. It isn't necessarily rational and it might not be a good thing that football has this power, but I promise that in the next few years, brilliant students from afar will start showing up and those from New Jersey will look around and decide to stay in state and go to Rutgers.
And remember, what's good for Rutgers is good for New Jersey, and as goes New Jersey, so goes the nation. So, 9 down, 3 to go! Go RU.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Toasty Warm Apartment
This Saturday my housemates and I threw a housewarming party. After several months of floating around, it has been amazing to settle down into my new place and being able to entertain is one of the key benefits. Thanks to everyone who came out, it was, in my opinion, a smashing success!
West Ninth Street residents Aimee Brosnahan, Greg Zeleny, and Ezra Fischer
I forget who's idea it was to do this, but one of us suggested getting a roll of paper and some markers, and create a large poster for people to sign, doodle on, leave messages, draw on, etc. It seemed like people really loved it, and it was great to be able to go back the next day and have a visual reminder of the party (other than the empties, and few beer stains on the walls; beer stains on the walls - now that's a party!)
Here's a general view of our housewarming mural, with a few details.
The next morning, in a desperate attempt to clear the cobwebs out of our collective head, we cooked some brunch.
Check out Georgina's bizarrely perfect pancakes!
So, once again, thank you to everyone who attended, drank, danced, shouted, drew, kissed, schmoozed, ate, and, of course, left.
Until next time!
West Ninth Street residents Aimee Brosnahan, Greg Zeleny, and Ezra FischerHere's a general view of our housewarming mural, with a few details.
The next morning, in a desperate attempt to clear the cobwebs out of our collective head, we cooked some brunch.
Check out Georgina's bizarrely perfect pancakes!Until next time!
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Ten O'Clock on a Tuesday
Boston Legal is by far my newest favorite TV show and this is one example of why. One of the lawyers on the show, Denise Bauer, defended a man who tried to buy a lung off of a man who was dying of cancer. Bauer finds out that he died during a lung transplant surgery from a mariachi band that invades her office. She decides to go to the hospital, accompanied by another member of the firm, Alan Shore, to pay her last respects.
When they get there they are surprised to find that his remains are enclosed in a medium sized Tupperware container... the explanation: that the man donated his entire body to science and other people. All that is left is a foot. Since they are there anyway, they decide to look -- Shore gets the first line after the foot is uncovered: "He looks so peaceful."
Hysterical. The woman objects that not only was her friend's foot smaller than the one in that box, but that her friend was not African-American. The attendee at the morgue doesn't know what to say, because she is getting a little upset. Finally the deadlock is broken by Shore who says, "Look, can you just find my friend something a little lighter, possibly in a size 8?" And end scene.
And, end blog.
Ooops, not quite, just finished watching the show... turns out that his body was stolen and sold on the black market, his head to a haunted house in Salem. Since the information was ascertained in a lawyer-client privileged situation, the mourning lawyer ends up going to the haunted house to seek closure.
When they get there they are surprised to find that his remains are enclosed in a medium sized Tupperware container... the explanation: that the man donated his entire body to science and other people. All that is left is a foot. Since they are there anyway, they decide to look -- Shore gets the first line after the foot is uncovered: "He looks so peaceful."
Hysterical. The woman objects that not only was her friend's foot smaller than the one in that box, but that her friend was not African-American. The attendee at the morgue doesn't know what to say, because she is getting a little upset. Finally the deadlock is broken by Shore who says, "Look, can you just find my friend something a little lighter, possibly in a size 8?" And end scene.
And, end blog.
Ooops, not quite, just finished watching the show... turns out that his body was stolen and sold on the black market, his head to a haunted house in Salem. Since the information was ascertained in a lawyer-client privileged situation, the mourning lawyer ends up going to the haunted house to seek closure.
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