Things I missed in 2011
Blogwise there is a lot I need to take care of before putting 2011 to bed. I have that high school thing, that California thing, and a couple anniversaries and milestones to recognize.
I am usually on the ball regarding notable dates but let a couple fall through the cracks this year, both purposefully and accidentally. However, I want to make up for it and decided to make a little list tonight.
~
January 19: The Quiet Man turns five.
Holy cow — I wrote that in my very first Quiet Man post way back on January 19, 2006. Needless to say I never remember wanting to move to the Caribbean or South Pacific and form a band called The Rummies. My excuse: the prospect of college graduation and the unknown thereafter wracked me so badly I forgot who I was. Plus, I must have been reading a lot of Hemingway. I was not taking any English classes and probably had the time.
Shamefully, I just forgot about this anniversary. It was one of those when I thought, “I should write about that. I wonder when— Oh. I missed it.” Oops.
Why did I start the Quiet Man? I do not recall one specific reason but believe it stemmed from the confusion of my personal life and the era: my graduation induced identity crisis, blogging was all the rage, and I was trying to be more social and adventurous. I wanted to break my sometimes painful shyness and blogging seemed the perfect way to do that by writing. At the time The Quiet Man mirrored my personal uncertainty: I had no clue what I was doing or who I was. Eventually, though, I figured it out and The Quiet Man came into its own. It is now my own personal newspaper and I can write whatever I want.
Anyway, happy very belated birthday, Quiet Man.
~
August 1: MTV turns 30.
I have to admit to not being a MTV person. I watched a handful of shows — “Beavis and Butthead,” “Liquid Television,” “MTV Oddities,” “The Grind,” “Live” (the all but forgotten predecessor to “Total Request Live”), “Pimp My Ride” — but I was never one who watched a lot of MTV. It never influenced me as it did many others and I never got into “The Real World,” “Road Rules,” the nauseatingly long combination of Real World-Road Rules challenges, and just about every other “reality” show. By the time I was in junior high MTV had all but stopped playing music videos except for once in a blue moon (MTV2 was launched August 1, 1996 to be “the music channel’s music channel,” and it truly was for a while), so the broader appeal escaped me.
However, MTV turning 30 is notable. It became a cultural icon and force in the eighties and has now hit the big 3-0 as us Millennials are now doing. I want to say its power and influence has diminished at lot since the advent of the Internet and the development of social media, but do not know that for sure. It does, however, still hold sway over part of a demographic.
~
September 2: [adult swim] turns 10.
Yet another good thing about 2001, the year that became dark: [adult swim]. According to its Wikipedia page (which offers the total history), Adult Swim, as it was stylized back then, officially premiered September 2, 2001.
I was a freshman at Iowa at the time and vaguely remember watching “Cowboy Bebop” or something one night that fall, but the channel (it apparently is a channel that shares space with Cartoon Network) never really registered with me until a few years later. I would return from one of those awful, 7-9:30 p.m. creative writing classes in North Hall on Thursday night, sit in my recliner in Apartment 12, and happen to find it while channel surfing. At first I thought it was only a weekend thing, like “BET: Uncut” (that deserves its very own post), but eventually realized it aired nightly, much to my amusement.
I am willing to go out on a limb and say that [adult swim] influenced my generation more than MTV — at least during the naughties/noughties (however the hell it is spelled). We already loved “Space Ghost Coast to Coast” and the Nickelodeon original cartoons, so we were primed and ready, even yearning, for [adult swim]. It made anime, adult cartoons, and discarded Fox favorites easily accessible. Its bumps are iconic. Some of the programming is hit or miss, and I am not familiar with the newest batch of original shows, but my favorites include “Cowboy Bebop,” “The Venture Bros.,” “Metalocalypse,” “Sealab 2021,” “Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law,” “The Boondocks,” and “Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace.” I rarely watch it now, but there were times when I did watch it nightly.
~
September 11: 9/11.
Everyone was talking about it so I decided not to throw in my memories. We all know what happened.
~
So, what else? Am I missing anything? Hmm… I do not think so.
I am usually on the ball regarding notable dates but let a couple fall through the cracks this year, both purposefully and accidentally. However, I want to make up for it and decided to make a little list tonight.
~
January 19: The Quiet Man turns five.
I want to move to a Caribbean or South Pacific island, tend bar for money, and read, fish, swim, and write all day; learn how to play bongo drums and form a band called The Rummies.
Holy cow — I wrote that in my very first Quiet Man post way back on January 19, 2006. Needless to say I never remember wanting to move to the Caribbean or South Pacific and form a band called The Rummies. My excuse: the prospect of college graduation and the unknown thereafter wracked me so badly I forgot who I was. Plus, I must have been reading a lot of Hemingway. I was not taking any English classes and probably had the time.
Shamefully, I just forgot about this anniversary. It was one of those when I thought, “I should write about that. I wonder when— Oh. I missed it.” Oops.
Why did I start the Quiet Man? I do not recall one specific reason but believe it stemmed from the confusion of my personal life and the era: my graduation induced identity crisis, blogging was all the rage, and I was trying to be more social and adventurous. I wanted to break my sometimes painful shyness and blogging seemed the perfect way to do that by writing. At the time The Quiet Man mirrored my personal uncertainty: I had no clue what I was doing or who I was. Eventually, though, I figured it out and The Quiet Man came into its own. It is now my own personal newspaper and I can write whatever I want.
Anyway, happy very belated birthday, Quiet Man.
~
August 1: MTV turns 30.
I have to admit to not being a MTV person. I watched a handful of shows — “Beavis and Butthead,” “Liquid Television,” “MTV Oddities,” “The Grind,” “Live” (the all but forgotten predecessor to “Total Request Live”), “Pimp My Ride” — but I was never one who watched a lot of MTV. It never influenced me as it did many others and I never got into “The Real World,” “Road Rules,” the nauseatingly long combination of Real World-Road Rules challenges, and just about every other “reality” show. By the time I was in junior high MTV had all but stopped playing music videos except for once in a blue moon (MTV2 was launched August 1, 1996 to be “the music channel’s music channel,” and it truly was for a while), so the broader appeal escaped me.
However, MTV turning 30 is notable. It became a cultural icon and force in the eighties and has now hit the big 3-0 as us Millennials are now doing. I want to say its power and influence has diminished at lot since the advent of the Internet and the development of social media, but do not know that for sure. It does, however, still hold sway over part of a demographic.
~
September 2: [adult swim] turns 10.
Yet another good thing about 2001, the year that became dark: [adult swim]. According to its Wikipedia page (which offers the total history), Adult Swim, as it was stylized back then, officially premiered September 2, 2001.
I was a freshman at Iowa at the time and vaguely remember watching “Cowboy Bebop” or something one night that fall, but the channel (it apparently is a channel that shares space with Cartoon Network) never really registered with me until a few years later. I would return from one of those awful, 7-9:30 p.m. creative writing classes in North Hall on Thursday night, sit in my recliner in Apartment 12, and happen to find it while channel surfing. At first I thought it was only a weekend thing, like “BET: Uncut” (that deserves its very own post), but eventually realized it aired nightly, much to my amusement.
I am willing to go out on a limb and say that [adult swim] influenced my generation more than MTV — at least during the naughties/noughties (however the hell it is spelled). We already loved “Space Ghost Coast to Coast” and the Nickelodeon original cartoons, so we were primed and ready, even yearning, for [adult swim]. It made anime, adult cartoons, and discarded Fox favorites easily accessible. Its bumps are iconic. Some of the programming is hit or miss, and I am not familiar with the newest batch of original shows, but my favorites include “Cowboy Bebop,” “The Venture Bros.,” “Metalocalypse,” “Sealab 2021,” “Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law,” “The Boondocks,” and “Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace.” I rarely watch it now, but there were times when I did watch it nightly.
~
September 11: 9/11.
Everyone was talking about it so I decided not to throw in my memories. We all know what happened.
~
So, what else? Am I missing anything? Hmm… I do not think so.
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