Garage Days Revisited: 04/29/2003

Back at ya! Don’t call it a comeback!

Last article as an underling. Almost certain that, unlike the last few, this did make it into print.

1. Most of what’s on TV sucks. Even the redeeming excellence of shows like “The Simpsons,” whose worst episodes are easily better than most of everything else, can’t save TV from itself. American Idol. Mr. Personality. Joe Millionaire. Everything else on Fox. Battle of the Sexes. Anything else on MTV. Dr. Phil. All that Japanamation garbage. It’s all crap. Admittedly, most of the shows I single out as bringing television down to its knees are reality programs, which are especially banal and stupid. There is merit to some cable shows that are either really funny or really interesting but, if it weren’t for the aforementioned Simpsons, The Daily Show, and college football, I doubt I would ever watch television at all.

I had forgotten about most of those shows. Now I realize I need to get them on DVD. Did I really watch The Daily Show a lot or was I just trying to be cool? I don’t remember.

2. I’m still mad that Saving Private Ryan didn’t win the Academy Award for best picture in 19-whenever-the-hell-it-came-out. Up until this point in Oscar history, I had never really had any problems with any of the winners, nor really even paid attention or cared. This time I did pay attention. I cheered for a movie that I thought really made a statement and affected everyone who saw it. If I had been Harrison Ford, the presenter, I would have thrown down the envelope onstage as soon as I had opened it. Now, I get misty-eyed whenever I hear the Indiana Jones theme. Shakespeare In Love? Sure, it was a good movie, I suppose, but I don’t think any Shakespearean scholars were having to leave theaters because the film was affecting them too much, as Saving Private Ryan did some D-Day veterans. After five years, I still have the disbelieving reaction of one Birmingham News writer from the day after pinned to my door at home. In retrospect, I shouldn’t weigh the legacy of one of the greatest war movies of all time by the opinion of a cadre of old men who apparently have a thing for Gwyneth Paltrow.

Update: it’s still on my door. Update: I hate the writing here.

3. In my opinion, unless you are quite familiar with crocodiles, you shouldn’t call them “crocs.” The only people who are qualified to use this epithet are the scientists who study them and the indigenous peoples who have to fight them off to wash their laundry in the river. It just doesn’t seem right for someone unlearned on the subject to go around disrespecting crocodiles they don’t even know by shortening their names like they would their cousin Raymond.

It’s just rude. Also, the writing here is dumb. I think I peaked when my stuff wasn’t being published.

4. Isn’t it a little presumptuous for Sewanee to claim to be “The University of the South?” Is this Episcopal, liberal arts college with an enrollment smaller than BSC really supposed to be the representative University of an entire geo-social region?

I’m so stupid. Still, BSC RULZ YOUR SHIT, SEWANEE.

5. After dazzling the publications board and Hilltop News staff with my impressive resume and charismatic persona, I have wrestled the job of Editorials/Opinions Editor away from the incumbent for 2003-04. I’m taking this opportunity in the last paper of this school year to invite people to write for this and other sections next year. It really doesn’t take that long to write an opinion article, especially if it’s something that the writer feels strongly about.

That’s not true. I didn’t win the job with resumes and personality, all I really had to do was have sex with everybody on the staff. That’s not true either, I was pretty much the only applicant. Notice how in just a few short weeks I went from “I don’t want to write, it sucks” to “everybody write, it’s awesome!”