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August 17, 2007

GREAT MOMENTS IN ANDYTOWN HISTORY

One of the guys at the AV Club really liked INTO THE WILD and wrote a good encomium of the book and its protagonist. Read it here.

Now, for a great moment in Andytown history - here's a list I wrote back in May of 2005 (remember 2005? STAR WARS III was terrorizing the box office? Ryan Adams was in the middle of releasing THREE albums in one year? Peter Jennings left ABC? Brangelina?) where I remembered/envisioned the ten worst crimes I had/ever would commit. I looked back at and chuckled, and thought it was at least worth another look. Just so you know, I refer to 2005 as MY YEAR ON AMBIEN. That may explain a lot.

TOP 10 CRIMES I HAVE/WILL PERPETUATE ON THE PLANET

1. In 1991, I claimed to have an INXS fan since I was in fifth grade. I was in the seventh grade. At the time, I had only heard one INXS song – the day before. It was “Suicide Blonde.” In 1995, I claimed to have been one of the first to have recognized (in fourth grade) INXS as “a bogus attempt to channel the energy of an aesthetic without the proper passion.” Then, in 2001, possibly because of September 11th, I swore up and down that I was never “too cool” for INXS’ seminal album KICK, and listened to throughout my “college experience.” In fact, the only three CDs I listened to consistently during my entire “college experience” were:

BOB DYLAN’S GREATEST HITS, VOLUME 3
MAGNOLIA SOUNDTRACK
THE BIG LEBOWSKI SOUNDTRACK

2. In 1994, I hopped a freighter to Ashland, Wisconsin. Telling my parents that I was going on a First Evan Church Retreat (called the “Kickin’ (sic) It Old School Weekend”), I intended to spend the weekend fishing and working on my Sophomore Thesis (title: Elmore Leonard and the Literary Physics of Convention). While in Ashland, I met a man who claimed to be the greatest identity thief in the world. This feat, he told me, had all but eradicated his own identity, thereby leaving him without a childhood or even a proper name. Desiring to be the greatest identity thief in the world, I killed him with my bare hands and drowned him in the briny, nonpenitent waters of Ashland. For the following weeks, I was incapable of responding to my own name.

3. In 1998, while a Sophomore at Mississippi State, I filled out a “career indication” form for the Arts & Sciences department that would allow me to continue without a declared major. I inked in a box which stated that I enjoyed working with my hands. This has never or will never be true.

4. In 1984, my first grade teacher asked the class if anyone had ever seen a constellation. I raised my hand. What I had actually seen was not, in fact, a constellation, but a mere formation of stars resembling a human foot.

5. In 2008, I will become the first person to successfully cheat at the World Series of Poker. This crime, however, will not become evident until after my death in 2027. At the time of the event, my only known infraction will be a violation of the Horseshoe all-you-can-eat buffet privileges. Victory will evade me in the WSOP ’08, unfortunately, because of a faulty cable between X-Ray vision knee-pads and my cybernetic glass eye.

6. Until I was 21, I believed that the “Caspian Sea” was named after the CS Lewis book Prince Caspian, not vice-versa.

7. When I was ten years old, my father took me to the Cook Convention Center to hear a lecture on World Defense to be given by then Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. After Weinberger’s obligatory address, an arbitrary and optimistic take on a future of “pride, protection, and power,” I raised my hand. Weinberger took my question, perhaps assuming that I wanted ask him a question about President Reagan’s favorite kind of jelly bean. Instead I asked if he had ever knowingly participated in the transfer of United States TOW missiles to Iran. Weinberger was later convicted of felony charges for what became known as the “Iran-Contra Affair” and resigned his post. To this day, Weinberger blames me for the disintegration of his political and personal life.

8. In 2003, I told a student that I hated being called “Mr. Black,” and if it were up to me, I would just as soon allow all students to call me by my first name. In fact, if it were up to me, I would not allow students to directly address me at all. They would need to submit a form with any query to a state-appointed secretary, who would pass that form to another medium, who would then summarize the inquiry into an expedient variety. I would then entertain the student’s thoughts with a form letter stating that while their question (something along the lines of: “Can I go to the bathroom”) interested me greatly, I have neither the time, energy, nor obligation to answer this or any other question. Also, the students would refer to me by neither my first name nor my last, but instead as “The Culmination of Education.”

9. If reincarnation were real, I have always stated that I would like to come back as Steve McQueen’s stunt man, Bud Elkin. I’ve always thought this would be a nice way to meet women (“Hey, remember when McQueen jumped the fence in GREAT ESCAPE . . . yeah, that was me – want another Tom Collins?”). How this is a crime . . . I’m not sure, but it does amplify my more pathetic qualities – as my psychiatrist explained it to me, “It’s fascinating to me that, given the whole spectrum of human existence and the interesting people who lived over the course of all time, you would choose not even to be a successful movie star, but his stuntman.”

10. May 6, 2005 – In the heading of a blog post, I misused the word “perpetuate.”

| By Andytown | 01:48 PM

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Posted by: Jennifer Barr at August 20, 2007 10:25 PM

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