Through a Freshman's Eyes: "Snakes on a Plane" Edition

 It's graduation season yet again. Another batch of high school seniors have achieved the minimum requirement of being a U.S. representative from Colorado. All joking aside, it's time for my annual "mindset list," as Beloit College used to publish every summer. This year's high school grads and incoming college kids were mostly born between late 2005 and mid-2006, and I try to explore their viewpoint of the world so far in their young lives.

With that said, if you are matriculating this year...

...New Orleans has never flooded.

...it has always been possible for a woman to be Chancellor of Germany. 

...Vicente Fox was never President of Mexico.

...the Vice President of the United States never shot a guy in the face.

...you've never shopped at Marshall Field's.

...you never found a severed finger in your Wendy's chili.

...it has always been possible to get a face transplant.

...Twitter (or X) has always existed.

...the Playstation 3 has always existed.

...Google has always owned YouTube.

..."sexting" has always been a thing.

...the Chicago White Sox have never won, or played in, a World Series.

...everyone knows Magnolia Cupcakes are crazy delicious. 

...you might run into Tina Fey and Maya Rudolph on a campus visit.*

...TV Guide has always been standard magazine size and never had local listings.

...you might also run into a girl who claims Enrique Iglesias is her nephew.

...Britney Spears and Kevin Federline were never married.

...Bob Denver, Justice William Rehnquist, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Robert Wise, Sid Luft, Donn Clendenon, Simon Wiesenthal, Don Adams, Hamilton Camp, Nipsey Russell, August Wilson, Charles Rocket, Rosa Parks, Geoffrey Keen, Link Wray, Eddie Guerrero, Pat Morita, Vic Power, Richard Pryor, Eugene McCarthy, Michael Vale, Vincent Schiavelli, Patrick "Blue" Cranshaw, Lou Rawls, Jim Zulevic, Shelley Winters, Wilson Pickett, Chris Penn, Coretta Scott King, Wendy Wasserstein, Moira Shearer, Grandpa Al Lewis, Betty Friedan, Franklin Cover, Elton Dean, Peter Benchley, Ray Barretto, Harold Hunter, Curt Gowdy, Don Knotts, Dennis Weaver, Darrin McGavin, Harry Browne, Jack Wild, Kirby Puckett, Dana Reeve, Gordon Parks, John Profumo, Boom Boom Geoffrion, Slobodan Milošević, Maureen Stapleton, Oleg Cassini, Ray Meyer, Buck Owens, Jackie McLean, Gene Pitney, Proof, Muriel Spark, Steve Howe, John Kenneth Galbraith, Louis Rukeyser, Floyd Patterson, Jim Lemon, Lloyd Bentsen, Desmond Dekker, Craig "Ironhead" Heyward, Billy Preston, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the dog from "Frasier," Randy Walker, Kenneth Lay, Syd Barrett, June Allyson, Red Buttons, Mickey Spillane, Jack Warden, and Carl Brashear have always been dead.

*both had babies in Fall 2005

(731)

Radio Dazed

From 1999 to 2010, I worked at a radio station in some capacity. This ultimately fruitless pursuit of a life's dream could be broken down into four chapters. Chapter one would be my 3 1/2 years with WDGC-FM, my high school station. Chapter two (and to some extent, the epilogue) took place at 90.9 FM WDCB, my first paying job and as well as my first taste of professional radio. The final chapter was my two tumultuous years at Salem Communications' Chicago branch. The third chapter, however was relatively short but carried the longest-term consequences.

I was persuaded into going to community college after graduating high school. I was dead set upon attending North Central College in nearby Naperville, but the cost of tuition for a four-year private school forced my hand. As I was wrapping up my associates degree, I did some research on other schools, partially out of curiosity. I discovered that not only did Illinois State University's radio station (and school of communications) offer a higher quality program, but it was more cost-effective. After a short discussion with my parents, I set my sights on transferring to ISU in January 2006.

After settling into my dorm room at Watterson Towers and purchasing my textbooks, my first order of business was to get acquainted with the student radio station. I had first visited Z106 when I was on campus the previous October; I was impressed by the quality of the station's aesthetic and the various IBA accolades it had received over the years. I attended an open meeting where each department director (music, promotions, news and sports, etc.) introduced themselves and explained what they were seeking in a staff member. I ended up applying for four departments: rock music staff, rock DJ, traffic/billing, and sales. I eventually worked in three of these departments, but was only hired for the rock music staff.

For my first semester at Z106, I largely kept a low profile. I was happy to be there, but I didn't want to make waves. I tried out as a rock DJ again in May 2006, with a new programming director proctoring the auditions. Because of a miscommunication, I didn't know I made the cut until two weeks before Fall Semester started. After that, my presence around the office grew incrementally. By my third semester, I had been assigned to a special project reorganizing the station's manager handbook (the station bible, so to speak) and held two on-air shifts. After spending the Summer of 2007 interning at the station, I was on rock music staff, a rock DJ, an undergraduate teaching assistant, and working in the station's traffic/accounts receivable department. I had made a plethora of friends and contacts, and graduated in December 2007 thinking the impact I had made at Z106 would transition into a long career in the radio industry.

I soon discovered, however that staying in touch was easier said than done. Of the three people that made the greatest impact for me during my time at Z106, there's one person I've only run into twice since graduating (both in the same weekend in 2011), one I last saw the month after I graduated, and one right before I graduated. Social media helps, but the opportunity to have lunch or even grab a beer is scant to physically impossible. I blame part of that on geography, but also on a mountain of miscommunication.

Sometime in late 2009, I noticed that I was unfriended on Facebook by a fourth Z106 cohort. This particular girl was short in stature but big in personality; she was an aspiring comedian of sorts, and had created a persona of being bubbly and vapid. (Her signature bit of sorts was asking "what's a Porter Moser?" after our men's basketball coach was sacked.) At the same time, the station could be a hornet's nest of drama, and her cliquish and entitled mindset sometimes drove that undercurrent of tension. At the same time, I was on good terms with her (so I thought) and never had a personal issue with her.

After realizing I was unfriended, I waited a few days to message this girl and talk things out, but I never got a straight answer. I sent a friend request, which over six years later is still pending. When the station held its 30th anniversary reunion at Homecoming 2011, I approached a group of people that I was cordial with, with the girl in question somewhere in the middle of the cluster. Since I really hadn't discussed the situation with anyone, and didn't want to look squirrelly, I approached everyone in the group with a handshake and a hug. When it was this girl's turn, I embraced her gingerly and moved on to the next person; as I did so, she clenched a teeth for a split-second and muttered "well fuck, he's a hugger."

I don't think we spoke for the remainder of the evening.

Though this girl is not the only former co-worker to unfriend me on Facebook, she might have been the most astonishing. A couple of my old peers simply weren't that close, and as near as I can tell there's no tension between us. Another co-worker, the assistant traffic director during my one semester in that department, unfriended virtually everyone in our office and has totally fallen off the grid. One girl that I nominated for Staffer of the Semester (and ended up sharing the honor) proved to be humorless and easily offended. Granted, she wasn't that easygoing to begin with, but she was reliable and I admired her work ethic. In a way, her unfriending me in late 2012 felt like looking the gift horse in the mouth.

Admittedly, I am driving down to Normal in early April with some trepidation. The visit will be succinct; I'm attending a wedding in Texas the same weekend, so my time back at Z106 (now just WZND) will be somewhat abbreviated. There are a few people that I know will be happy to see me and vice versa, but it will be tricky to navigate around some of the drama and unresolved tension that lingers on after all this time. My career in radio didn't work out, and for most of the Z106 staff in the mid-to-late 2000s, they also saw their broadcasting pursuits sputter out a few years after graduation. We were a group of disparate college kids with a common goal. And we're gonna celebrate.

(506)

That Wonderful Year in Music... 2006

Good evening everyone, and welcome to my first complete do-over of a "Wonderful Year" blog.

From a music standpoint, 2006 seems like an eternity; a different world, even. Some shameless opportunist gave Kevin Federline and Paris Hilton record deals, emo-pop was still in vogue, and people were anticipating rapper Lil' Jon's first solo album (which was released to minimal fanfare four years later). Justin Bieber was in sixth grade, Lady Gaga was still a struggling cabaret pianist in New York City, and Adele --the unlikeliest woman to ever have a #1 hit for five straight weeks in the US-- was just an average British high school student with a good singing voice and zero stage presence. Looking back, 2006 was also a challenging year to be a music critic. The splintering of subgenres in the early 2000s resulted in a year (not unlike 2005) where there was no consensus "best album." Debates were raging and endless. With that said, I have posted the list below fully confident in knowing it looks like no one else's top twenty.

So why the mulligan? When I first posted my list 4 1/2 years ago, I whipped it out almost as an afterthought; several notable albums were excluded because I hadn't listened to them. Of course, there's also the sentimental factor: the rock albums on this list more or less comprise the unofficial soundtrack to my junior year at Illinois State University. I'll listen to any given disc and find myself waxing nostalgic about college. Most of the hip-hop and R&B selections, however hit my radar later on. Plus, I thought it'd be fun to see what's held up since '06; oddly enough, most of the albums that made my list the first time around made the new cut (sorry, Hotel Lights) though their positions vary.

BEST ALBUMS
(note: parentheses note previous ranking)

1. Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, Arctic Monkeys. After the Britpop movement of Oasis, Blur, and Pulp collapsed upon its own weight in the early 2000s, the British rock scene didn't make much of an American dent for awhile. Hey hey, along came the Monkeys, four Yorkshire lads who were in their early teens when Damon Albarn and the Gallagher brothers fought for world control. One of the first rising bands to take advantage of internet word-of-mouth, the Monkeys played raucous dance-punk and made the entire English-speaking world eat out of their hand. More than five years later, Whatever is a musical statement they have yet to compliment, much less replicate.
2. Black Holes and Revelations, Muse. After flirting with epic bombast on 2003's Absolution, Muse goes all in on the theatrics with Revelations. Sounding and acting like the missing link between Freddie Mercury and Thom Yorke, frontman Matthew Bellamy is the little fella with the big voice, the British rock deity for a generation that badly needs one. For those of you listening to this CD for the first time, I'd go with the expensive headphones.
3. Yellow House, Grizzly Bear. The honor of most improved band of '06 goes to this New York City art-rock quartet. Humongous and intimate at the same time, Yellow House has better songs, stronger production values, and more heart than GB's somewhat forgettable debut two years earlier. The guitars have a
chugging cool that will remind one of The Velvet Underground, but the meat is in the harmonizing, which evokes The Beach Boys by way of The Mamas & The Papas.
4. St. Elsewhere, Gnarls Barkley (2)
5. Return to Cookie Mountain, TV on the Radio (3)

6. Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, Neko Case (4)
7. Jay Dee Donuts, J Dilla
8. Modern Times, Bob Dylan (6)
9. Futuresex Lovesounds, Justin Timberlake
10. The Information, Beck (1). I'm not embarassed to admit I like this album, but looking back this was not a worthy numero uno. As I stated back in '06, the best tracks are upfront; the more experimental second half of the disc is alternately trippy, meandering, and maybe a tad pretentious. Regardless, I can't give an album that contains "Cellphone's Dead," "Nausea," and "Think I'm In Love" any bad press; if this were an EP, though The Information would be a masterpiece.

11. Sam's Town, The Killers
12. The Black Parade, My Chemical Romance
13. Robbers & Cowards, Cold War Kids (10)
14. First Impressions of Earth, The Strokes
15. Carnavas, Silversun Pickups. This intriguing debut long-player shares a few things in common with Grizzly Bear: striking harmonies, lush dream-pop cravings, fuzzy guitars. The greatest difference is SP's debt to Smashing Pumpkins and their varying allusions to the '90s grunge sound; the songs are less twee and more brooding. Regardless, there's something new to discover with each listen.

16. Begin to Hope, Regina Spektor
17. Springtime Can Kill You, Jolie Holland (11)
18. Rabbit Fur Coat, Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins
19. Show Your Bones, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
20. Broken Boy Soldiers, The Raconteurs. Long before Jack White had a gazillion side projects, in 2006 he had only one distraction from the White Stripes, this short-lived collaboration with fellow Detroit native Brendan Benson. "Steady As She Goes" is the no-brainer hit single, a catchy lark of a tune that was intended to be a one-off effort and proved to be so much more. The '70s rock stylings of cuts like "Hands," "Intimate Secretary," and "Yellow Sun" otherwise carry a fun though imperfect offering.


BEST SINGLES

"Crooked Teeth," Death Cab For Cutie
"Dani California," Red Hot Chili Peppers
"How We Operate," Gomez
"World Wide Suicide," Pearl Jam
"Tear You Apart," She Wants Revenge
"Breathe Me," Sia
"Satellite," Guster
"Ain't No Other Man," Christina Aguilera
"Ain't Nothin' Wrong With That," Robert Randolph & The Family Band
"Punkrocker," Teddy Bears feat. Iggy Pop


BEST VIDEOS
(note: due to site HTML limits, I could not post links to all the clips. They are, however all readily available on YouTube.)

1. "Knights of Cydonia," Muse. A solid contender for video of the decade, "Cydonia" is several masculine fantasies thrown in a six-minute salad bowl: a kung fu shoot-um-up spaghetti western... in space?
2. "Hung Me Out to Dry," Cold War Kids. The oeurve of early indie-flick director John Cassavetes is homaged in this gritty, eye-catching B&W beauty.
3. "Nausea" (Version 1), Beck. Everything is better with marionettes... right?
4. "Here It Goes Again," OK Go. The first of several memorable "concept" videos by the Chicago-based quarter, it's a telltale sign that '06 was a strong year for clips if something this wonderful could only muster fourth place.
5. "Knife," Grizzly Bear. Speaking of outer space...
6. "Fidelity," Regina Spektor. A certain petite Russian-Jewish pianist/songwriter first gained notoriety with this MTV2 and MTV-U favorite, which proves that a little color makes a big difference.
7. "Rise Up With Fists," Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins. A tongue-in-cheek recreation of "Hee Haw," complete with a Junior Samples lookalike and a wacky cameo from Sarah Silverman.
8. "Read My Mind," The Killers. The stars of the popular Japanese kids' show "Hirake! Ponkikki" interact with Brandon Flowers et al. on a catawampus, whirlwind trip to Tokyo.
9. "Crazy," Gnarls Barkley. How no one thought of doing a trippy, Rorschach ink blot-inspired video until the mid-2000s is beyond me.
10. "Move Along," The All-American Rejects. The song is pop piffle, the lyrics border on cliché, but this clip is cleverly edited.

Before I ask for your thoughts, I'd like to touch upon some of the breaking news that has occured in the past 36 hours. As you might expect, I am relieved to know that my corrupt laughingstock of a former governor is facing a minimum of ten years' jail time. The verdict was not only long-anticipated by my fellow Illinoisans, but also a highly damnening (potential) death knell for the Land of Lincoln's incubator of greasy palms and coffer-filling. I feel sorry for his wife and two young daughters, but I have absolutely no pity upon Rod Blagojevich. Without question, justice has been served.