Day 11: Evacuate the Dancefloor

The weirdest thing about Highland is its obsession with dance. The obsession isn't the weird part because every small town is obsessed with something: something they're good at, something to form an identity around, something to make you proud of the otherwise you live, or more likely to temporarily forget the otherwise shitty place you live.

But dance. Fucking dance. Dance in all its dark and pathetic forms. Pom dance, jazz dance, hip-hop dance, and worst of all lyrical dance, which basically involves looking really emotional while rolling around on a dirty floor. Apparently we excel at all of these. 

You wish parents could steer their kids to more worthwhile pursuits, like chess maybe, or Model UN. But no. I guess dance provides the greatest vicarious thrill.

Women are sad to start out with. You live in Highland, or you watch Dance Moms (or the new spinoff Dance Moms: Miami!) and you see that age only makes things worse. I do all three of these things. (This is why misogyny is one of my major problems.)

But now we're making our young males dance. Out of the 100 or so dancers at my sister's recital on Saturday, 12 were male. We have a male dance team at the high school. We also have a winless football team. They really fucking suck. A fucking 0-9 football team and 10 potential future star quarterbacks are thrusting their groins and tap-dancing to Luke Bryan dance remixes*. But he has a dick! And he's dancing! What bravery and courage! And all for art!, if that's what you call aimless movement to Lil Jon's "Get Low."

I don't mind dance, besides feeling like a pedophile while watching it and worrying about the actual pedophiles that certainly lurk in the audience. I cringe at the mustachioed fathers in the crowd yelling "Do your thang girls!" And simultaneously I realize this is my future, a lifetime of yelling at my progeny, wanting them to do all I never could, wanting to relive my own athletic glory days**, wanting to escape the hopelessness and desperation that seem to come once you reach a certain age. 

Let us all hope I live this out on football fields instead of packed auditoriums.

*Really. They souped up the beat to "Rain is a Good Thing" and had this 10-year-old guy do a tap routine to it. When I was 10 I spent most of my time unleashing predatory dinosaurs on my guests in Zoo Tycoon. Any objective psychoanalyst will tell you my childhood was better and, as a consequence, my adulthood will be way more awesome.

**If you consider golf a sport, which you shouldn't. Pussy shit, but I could actually play pretty good and all. My kid will be much more manly and athletically talented. I will not let him take the easy way out. IT. WILL. BE. FOOTBALL. (Or chess. Or Model UN. Or theater. Or anything besides dance or golf, because really, golfers are douchebags, and dance is just fucking awful. Do anything other than those things and I'll luv u 4evr, unborn son!)

Day 8-10: Random Bullshit

If I weren't lazy and surrounded for hours and hours with a TV, an Xbox, and abso-fucking-lutely nothing else, this blogging every day thing would work out. Alas, FIFA 11 (because I'm too cheap to get the new one and will be too cheap to get the next one too) has been calling, along with reading a book on North Korea that I must discuss with little freshmen next fall. Moral - Mizzou is oppressed hellhole like DPRK, right down to the alcoholic tendencies of respective Glorious Leaders Kim Jong-Il* and Gary Pinkel.

* * *

Twitter tells me the Rams released Justin King. That Justin King was ever paid to play cornerback will forever boggle my mind and forever give me hope that I can land a job for which I'm way underqualified. Maybe a newspaper will pay me to write words for them! Maybe they'll let me write for free, just for the shits and giggles and resume building! (So far, no dice - but not for lack of trying.)

In other Rams-related news, Jeff Fisher has set a goal for his defense: break the all-time single-season sacks record. Your response, Dwight Schrute? 

* * *

"Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information."**

Thought this was a ballin' quote. Too bad I found it in one of my 77 daily checks of Twitter.

Is it hypocritical to call oneself a hypocrite?


*Before you ask - of course I know The Glorious Leader Kim Jong Il has passed on. I also know that I do not pass up chances to reference his outrageous Hennessy consumption. Just one of the many reasons I hope to be just like him when I grow up.
** Because of course Kurt Vonnegut is tweeting from beyond the grave.

Day 7: Mila Kunis

Mila Kunis. She looks fucking fantastic. She has talent and, just as importantly for an artist, good taste (evidenced by her roles in everything from That 70s Show to Family Guy to Friends With Benefits to Black Swan). Did I also mention that she's rather hot?

She is the perfect woman. Yet that kid from Home Alone got to fuck her for eight years. Undeniable proof, if we needed any more, that life isn't fair.

So there's hope. If Mila Kunis is into former child stars, I bet she could really get into bloggers. Maybe she enjoys discussing matters of sport and government and culture. Maybe she really wants to liberate Highland, IL, and convert our dead-behind-the-eyes citizens into tried-and-true communists. She could probably make it happen if she really wanted to. I would not protest.

Oh Mila. Ohhhh Mila. I forgive you for fucking that. Even though that thing you fucked obviously had gonnorhea, I'd still fuck you. I don't even care. You're worth all of the gonnorhea in the world, and all the syphilis as well, and maybe all the HIV too.

Oh Mila. I just love you that much.

Day 5-6: Teeth Like God's Shoeshine

Our generation has had the most comfortable upbringing of any group anywhere at anytime in the past 10,000 or so years* the Earth has existed. Chances are you're part of this generation, which means you have enough of everything you need - food, water, security, sleep, porn. You probably have too much of these things.

* * *

To do something great, you have to aim to do something great. Jordan wasn't born with that jump shot. Steinbeck didn't stumble upon East of Eden. You make the choice to put the work in for the chance at a delayed reward.

You think ambition is ugly, and yeah, it often is, but you have to realize how beautiful it is too. After all, you are a human being. You always aim higher. You have to. You should. 

* * *

You think the American Dream is a sham. You think you can't make it in this country as easily as you used to. Maybe you're right. Maybe opportunity is disappearing in quantity and declining in quantity. Or maybe you're spoiled. Maybe wealth and status and prestige are finite qualities that are all used up. Maybe  this is where ambition meets economics.

You think the United States is in decline. You think jobs should be plentiful and unions should be strong and our boys should be landing on the moon and constructing new interstates and Dick Clark should be on TV. You want to take home a decent day's wages for a decent day's work.

But what is a decent day's work? Fixing sewers? Picking up roadkill? Microwaving McChickens? Writing press releases? Wasting away in middle management? 

* * *

The good news is that you can still have half the American Dream. You can bring home the bacon or you can bring home your soul, but your upbringing dictates that you can't have both. Because as much as you want to meet those higher needs of love and esteem and self-actualization, you have to survive first. And to survive you need money, and to get money you must help run the magnificent capitalistic machine. 

Your dad wasn't as comfortable as you were. He grew up with nothing, but he made it, through some hard work and some good bullshitting. He doesn't love what he does. That never mattered. What mattered was that he still got somewhere. That he gave you that awesome childhood full of chicken nuggets and cable TV he could never have. That he fulfilled his ambition of getting comfortable. That, as a consequence, you were quite comfortable too.

* * *

You won't be satisfied that easily. You need more than you really need. Something more than money (though, of course, you need that too). 

You realize your dad had all of your big hopes and dreams. You realize he wanted to enjoy his work. And when you grow up, you realize that having a job is more important than having a career. That self-esteem is impossible without shelter, that you can't care about morality if you don't have any money. 

You know the job pool is shrinking. What you didn't realize was how much further your expectations shrink it, the dreams the cogs of the capitalism give up, the fantasies you'll have to give up too. 

Maybe it's just part of growing up. Maybe selling out is necessary for survival. Maybe just because things are doesn't mean they should be.

* * *

So: what to do? 

Maybe you should lower your expectations. Maybe you should get used to manual labor. Maybe the 75-year-old woman scanning your Wal-Mart purchases shouldn't make you sad. Maybe that will be you in all those years. 

You should probably get used to the new economics of America. You should probably worry that your goddamned ambitions might well go unfulfilled.

Day 4: In Which I Rename Myself

Being a Fearless Leader is pretty damn difficult. Lots of peasants to take care of, bureaucrats to appease, hoes to slap. All the pressure was too much. It was time for a change.

So, following the lead of my idol Metta World Peace (and, depending on how much stock you put into conspiracy theories, Tupac Shakur as well), I decided to start fresh, wipe the slate clean, revert to tabula rasa, by taking the radical step of changing my name on the Internet.

In choosing my new name, I considered only one criterion: the name had to feature the word "bro." This leaves you tremendous possibilities. Broseidon, Lord of the Brocean. Bromo Sapiens. Bromeo. Bro Chi Minh. Brohan Cruyff. Broseph Goebbels (as an aspiring PR hack, my personal favorite). All tremendous choices, but one stood out above all others in the end.

I thought about soliciting a poll of all three of my readers. Then I remembered how dumb my readers are. (It takes mental problems to care about any of this shit.) And so, in my last act as Fearless Leader, I have unilaterally changed my name to Fyodor Brostoevsky.

In honor of my namesake, I plan to use this summer to write classic literature and seduce a fuckload of Russian bitches. It's gonna be the best, you guys.

Manchester City 3 - 2 QPR

Football is an amazing game.

I mean that equally on both sides of the Atlantic.

* * *

While Americans have a notoriously lukewarm attitude toward "soccer," allegedly because it's boring, but also partly (I suspect) because we aren't very good at it. Our greatest moment as a footballing nation came in a 1-0 victory over a poor Algeria side (though, in fairness, it was an EPIC moment). 

We wonder why so many could love a game that's so often boring and unfair, rife with mercenary superstars and corrupt management, that often ends in a tie. We wonder whether we could eventually do the same. It seems possible every four years when we come together to watch Donovan and Dempsey and co. lead us into the knockout stages of the tournament, only to quickly fall to Ghana. We then trade in the international game, with all its patriotism and pageantry and intensity, for sparsely attended Major League Soccer contests in exotic locales like Kansas City. Turn on the World Cup and you realize how great the game can be. Turn on the MLS and you realize how appealing that Real Housewives marathon looks. 

I first started watching football during the 2006 World Cup out of this vague sense of guilt, that I was somehow wrong for not appreciating our world's self-appointed "beautiful game." ESPN promised the world a chance to see dazzling superstars like Ronaldhino and Beckham up close on daytime television. The two, of course, combined for one goal throughout the tournament, their much-hyped sides eliminated early on. Instead, the trophy went to Italy, an elderly team much better at keeping the ball out of their own net than putting it in themselves. 

The final featured two early goals, one for each team, then 80 minutes of soul-crushing boredom, before I learned to love the game for good. After 108 minutes, the France legend Zinedine Zidane barreled his bald dome into a flopping defender's chest, acquiring a red card that forced him to watch his nation's penalty shootout loss to the Italians from the showers. I had no idea what was going on, but for the first time I understood why so many people cared. Now I'm one of them.

* * *

The situation: first-place Manchester City needs a win at home against 17th-place Queens Park Rangers to capture their first English league title in 44 years, with second-place crosstown rivals Manchester United needing a win and a City draw or loss to capture their sixth crown in seven years. QPR, led by City's former manager and featuring five former MCFC players in the starting XI, needed at least a draw to guarantee safety from relegation. The plot was juicy from the start. Nobody could predict how much it would thicken.

The first half played out as most gross mismatches do. City possessed the ball about 80% of the time, laying siege to an able QPR defense that finally broke after half an hour on Manchester City right back Pablo Zabaleta's first goal of the season. QPR had no shots on goal in the first half, rarely keeping possession long enough to get even halfway up the field. Things looked hopeless.

But Manchester City, the team assembled for a measly $1.5 billion, notoriously struggles to smoothly close out games. Right after halftime, City defender Joleon Lescott headed a ball right into the path of the equally scary-looking QPR striker Djibril Cisse, who promptly hammered the chance home. 

The score now 1-1, City needed another goal to capture the win and the title. It looked like that would be no problem after QPR captain/infamous numskull Joey Barton got sent off for landing an elbow under Carlos Tevez's chin and a knee to Sergio Aguero's groin, but QPR held strong. 

Down a man, QPR elected to stay back and defend, only breaking past the halfway line three times in the second half. They scored twice - first on Cisse's strike, then on a header minutes after Barton's red card. With QPR motivated by revenge and looking stronger than any other point in the season, one wondered whether City's title drought would continue. 

The team in light blue poured cross after cross into the box, time and again headed out by valiant QPR defenders playing the game of their lives. With 92 minutes gone, three minutes of additional time to go, City still needed two goals for the win and the title.

Of course, they got them.

* * *

* * *

Feel the roar of the crowd. Listen to the commentators' breathless calls. Look at all those people going absolutely insane. 

Think you could give this soccer thing a chance?

Day 2: 50/50

The best movie I've seen so far this year* is a semi-serious romantic comedy about cancer.

As stupid as that sounds, 50/50 really works. Joseph Gordon-Levitt acts all pathetic and sexy and bald, Seth Rogen says funny shit, and profit follows. 

Hollywood has the opportunity to tell fantastic stories; it's just that most of the time, they seem to not have the ability to do so. Yes, economics dictate the stories told, as most people use the movies as an escape; these people are the reason Michael Bay is a multimillionaire, and probably also why Glee and Nickelback continue to haunt our airwaves. 

It's easy to put together a somewhat-engaging story about ROBOTS and LOVE and BOOM EVERYTHING ASPLODES BUT THE LOVERS SURVIVE UNICORNS AND RAINBOWS YAY! But what artists make imitates life, which doesn't fit into any categories. It's sad and happy and pathetic and incredible and awful and hilarious all at once - like 50/50. 

*Though Drive was also incredibly fucking fantastic.

Day 1: We, The Fucked People

(Editor's note: Inspired by a different blog of greater repute, we have decided to exhaustively chronicle our summer in Highland. Most posts will probably have nothing to do with Highland; its just an excuse to blog more and something to fill these long days. We'll call it (85) Days of Summer (in Highland (with 100% Less Zooey Deschanel)). Or something like that. Enjoy it more than that shitty movie, motherfuckers.)

* * *

I come from a family of political animals. Both of my grandpas are passionate Reagan-hating liberals, peculiar for middle class white men from rural towns surrounding Saint Louis, and they make sure everyone related to them felt the same way. I certainly do.

But even though most of my family members are Democratic partisans, they can't really explain why. That's not necessarily wrong, and surely not uncommon in America, where politics is too upsetting a subject to dwell on - but it is harmful. Mix in media narratives and the apolitical animal is easily misled.

My mom wants Mitt Romney's DNA checked. She swears he's too robotic to be a real person, and that that's the reason she can't vote for him. It's a complaint that's common (and also true I suspect). But is it really valid? Can the President of the United States, the Leader of the Free World, the man with the biggest job of any human that's ever walked the earth, be a normal guy (or gal)? And, more importantly, why would we want him to be normal?

Since the arrival of blowhards like Bill O'Reilly and Chris Matthews on cable TV, we've heard that presidential candidates have to connect with the common man. Go out, shake hands, hold babies, touch, feel America's pain.

You gotta have empathy. It's why Ronald Reagan will be on the $10 bill some day, why Bill Clinton is held up as a model politician, why a decent dude like John Kerry could never be President but a scumbag like John Edwards could lead the polls. Because the average American, after all, not only doesn't understand politics, he also doesn't want to. He isn't seen as an intellectual being but as an instinctual soul,  a stupid "Joe the Plumber," only desiring someone who can understand his feelings if not fix his problems. It's a pernicious prophecy, propagated by everyone from Rush to Dr. Phil, and it's turned out to be self-fulfilling.

All the talk about connecting with the common man seems grossly misplaced, considering the President actually deals with other hardly-human politicians and lunatic dictators and media fiends and especially billionaire businessmen. The presidency is an uncommon job that forces its holder to do uncommon things and cooperate with uncommon people. So why should a common man hold it?

I won't ever get to have a beer with the president, so why should I use that as a litmus test to choose who gets my vote? Do I really want people like my friends in the Oval Office? Do I want Ricky, who would shun speeches and interviews in favor of animated gif propaganda? Do I want Amanda, who would make Russian our official language and generally behave like some horrid combination of Margaret Thatcher and Imelda Marcos? Do I want Mr. Strong, who wants to TAKE ALL THE OIL AND NUKE THE FUCK OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST?*

Or do I want my president to be a Harvard graduate, calm and cool in the face of overwhelming pressure, experienced in wheeling and dealing with the weirdos who control our fucked world, an exceptional man fit for an exceptional job?

I won't vote for Mitt Romney in November, but not because he doesn't appeal to my emotions. I'll vote against him because of his pledge to repeal health care reform, his proposal to let the auto industry go bankrupt, his opposition to gay marriage, and his shitty rendition of the Baha Men classic "Who Let the Dogs Out?"

My mom won't vote for Mitt Romney because she doesn't like his wooden posture, slicked-back hair, flat voice tone, awkward mannerisms. Sure, she cares about the things I do too, but she doesn't understand them because the commentators she watches ignore them in favor of cheap, diversionary gossip. And as long as this continues, as long as politics prizes personality over policy, we further lose track of what really matters and lose hope of ever making things better.

*Actually, yes. I would definitely vote for all three of these people.

Meet a J-School J-Bag

Anyone can stand out as an asshole. In work, in classes, in daily interactions. It's not that hard unless you're in journalism school. Then you're surrounded by supreme dicks of the highest order. It takes something special to stand out, something extra - incessant ingratiation to authority figures usually works, and so does general creepiness. This case study possesses both of these traits in addition to a hobby too bizarre to be believed.

I've never talked to this particular J-bag; he's been in two of the three massive journalism lecture classes in my freshman year. I don't know if he means to be a dick - in fact, I think he has good intentions - but shit, does it ever come off bad.

You'll seem weird when you're the only kid talking in big lecture classes - in blatant but successful attempts to win favor with professors. But that's standard stuff that goes on in any class or major. This kid clings onto everything journalism. He hangs around at office hours. He tags along to professional conferences and takes awkward pictures of himself standing in front of unimportant things or with fairly unimportant people. The professors at our amazing School of Journalism have to get tired of giving each other handjobs every day. This kid helps with that by basically blowing the ego of anyone that can edit a grade on Blackboard - provided they'll put in a few points extra on that test. (Which they will.)

That stops with fellow students, of course, who fall short of the level of importance necessary to interact with the J-bag. He'll condescend the fuck out of you. He'll reprimand you for the stupid question you asked during the review session, or sigh when someone gets up the nerve to speak and contradicts a professor's point. And then he'll go home and friend you on Facebook and follow you on Twitter, as he's done with seemingly every freshman majoring in journalism at this fine university. How does he figure out who all these people are? Does he think this will help in networking later in life? Can he not understand we laugh and mumble during his rambling speeches not because they're brilliant, but because they're bullshit? This I do not know - but as a fan of train wrecks, I sure as fuck pressed the "accept" button on that friend request and kept my eyes peeled.

It turns out the J-bag's major hobby, his purpose in life even, is "ballhawking," or going to random baseball games, mostly at high schools and now at Mizzou, and trying to collect as many foul balls as possible. Why you would want to collect OVER A THOUSAND BASEBALLS OF LITTLE TO NO IMPORTANCE, just to store them in your basement, never to touch them again? I do not know. Regardless, the newspaper, with all its students desperate to produce content, did a story on him and dat bizarre hobby. It includes him quoted: "Don't get me wrong, I love giving balls to kids..." You can read the rest yourself.

Now the J-bag is pimping out his blog, with thousands-of-words-long posts (complete with pictures!) about how he got seven foul balls at the Mizzou game yesterday, which is bad enough. But THIS. POETRY. HE WROTE A POEM. ABOUT A BASEBALL. The best (worst?) part? It's tagged as "postmodernism." I ask, when you click on this link, to ponder: is there any fragmentation present in this narrative text? Maybe some paradoxes? Unreliable narration? Any metafiction perhaps? Does it read like David Foster Wallace? (Answer: more like Ian Fleming. So, spy fiction! James Bond wasn't so postmodern...but not that there's anything wrong with that.)

TL;DR: annoying kid in my journalism classes creepily friends me, I creepily find his blog and mock his hobby and admirable attempt at writing. 

Yes, I'm a terrible person. No, I don't give a fuck.

HLA's Top 10 Not-Top-10 Songs of 2011

It's become clear that our first attempt at listing the best songs of mankind's bitchinest year yet fell woefully short. First of all, Random Subway Guy's Niggas in Paris should have been number one, and second of all, 2011 had way more than just 10 fine songs worthy of pimping to like five readers who may or may not have already heard them. So without further ado, we expand upon our first list. We hope to blow up your mind and your iTunes library.

10. Washed Out - Within and Without

Because these sound waves are the chillest (and the fucking on the album cover is the illest).

9. Glee Cast - We Found Love

Because of its moving lyrics and subtle message of hope.

8. Explosions in the Sky - Last Known Surroundings

Because instrumental music is the best to write papers to. (Also, makes you seem super pretentious, if that's what you're going for. I know I am.)

7. Black Keys - Gold on the Ceiling

Because fuck Amanda for seeing Black Keys and Arctic Monkeys live, that's why.

6. Nicki Minaj - Roman in Moscow

Because I'm a sucker for dirty golf metaphors.

5. Cloud Nothings - Should Have

Because deep-throating each other's braids is just the sexiest thing a couple can do.

4. Youth Lagoon - Montana

Because awesome song + awesome Tree of Life homage = all-around awesomeness.

3. M83 - Wait

Because DAWWWW CUTE MONKEYS OH SHIT THOSE DOUCHEBAGS ARE SENDING THEM TO CERTAIN DEATH IN SPACE, and the song makes it that much sadder.

2. Yuck - Rubber

Because if you like dog grooming and/or boobs, the video will satisfy you, and if you like good guitar noise, the song will satisfy you, and if you like both, the orgasm will be twice as nice!

1. Bonny Bear - Holocene

Because rarely does anything sound this fucking gorgeous.