Tonight, in Atlantic City, Kanye West launched us into 2013 a day early. Yes, Kim is pregnant. Yes, it is Ye’s. Yes, it, after becoming best friends and/or marrying Blue Ivy, will save us all.
This is the beginning. It’s all real. The Throne is growing. 2013 will change everything. America has a royal family. It’s what we’ve wanted all along. We are all blessed. Truly, truly blessed.
#RoyalFamily
The other night, while attempting to pick out a movie to watch with my roommates, I noticed some important selling points that serve as a list of prerequisites for a film to have the opportunity to be shown in our room. Now, this list is not complete, and not all the requirements have been agreed upon by all parties, but a movie does need to fall into at least one of these categories to be taken into serious consideration. However, if the movie meets three or more requirements, then it is immediately fast-tracked. The list is as follows:
Then, of course, there are the automatic qualifiers for fast-tracked movie selections. As of now, there are only three:
It’s coming in softly, routine. The fielder positions himself instinctively, there’s no critical thinking to it. His body is his mind, his being. Leather cushions the impact, and he raises up, recognizing the ball by its hardened stitches. He eyes his target, pinstripes against a black-capped background. His movements are crisp, precise, enchanting. Hand grips then releases, the ball cutting through cold air like a sharpened blade through flesh. His eyes widen, and he gasps for air. All of a sudden there isn’t enough oxygen in the stadium. The ball hits an empty chair in the fifth row. The heavens open, and boos pour out.
A working stiff. A flawed hero. A man outside body.
Is this lyric, from the Japandroids astonishing, rock and roll reclaiming anthem, “The House that Heaven Built”, the saddest lyric ever? Let’s investigate…
The lyric: “It’s a lifeless life/With no fixed address to give/But you’re not mine to die for anymore/So I must live”
Short answer: Yes.
Longer Answer: It is totally and unequivocally the saddest lyric of all time, especially when placed amidst the context of probably the most defiant, sincere rock and roll song of the past decade. This lyric is not out of place; it’s the broken piece of the puzzle, the one with edges that just don’t fit anymore. Can you see it? It’s the uncertain life of an underachieving musician being stripped of the girl he used to write melodramatic lyrics for. And he admits this during his anthem, the same song where he screams, “When they love me and they will/Tell them all they can love in your shadow/And if they try to slow me down/I’ll tell ’em all to go to hell.” I’m devastated. I hope you are too. The less upsetting video is below. Happy holidays.
After reading about Brittany Howard getting mugged, I started making a list of the worst people I could attempt to rob. This is that list:
That’s it. I’m done. I’m gonna go sit in a bright room so I can see the bugs coming.
There are nights that end quietly. They never quite get off the ground and drift away like Yukon Cornelius making a crafty ice raft escape. Then there are the other nights, the ones where you find videos of Alison Brie freestyling with Danny Pudi laying down beats in front of a raucous crowd. The clip soon grows into an all out jam session, as these types of immaculate moments tend to do. There is no 8 Mile “Papa Doc scene” anymore. There is just this. And only this. God bless everyone involved in making it happen. The Mayans can take me now.
“See that was the time/When Danny Pudi would rhyme/But he’s not, so I’m still doing it, why?/I don’t want to, but I say, ‘Pie’/Cause I like to eat it/And 3.14/I don’t know, I’m a nerd/What are you sayin’ that for?/You know me, I know you/We’re in it together/We watch TV/We don’t even know what to do.”
(softest mic drop in the short yet storied history of mic drops)
It’s our generation’s “Imagine” with 100% less Yoko. There’s Andre 3000 and Big Boi, Ye and Jay, and now Pudi and Brie. We are all truly blessed.
1. The word “loose” isn’t a very good one. It makes me uncomfortable.
2. This great article from Rolling Stone furthers the narrative of The Gaslight Anthem as a rising Jay-Z-type force in the relatively decrepit rock and roll purist scene. Brian Fallon has even admitted to sampling some Dave Hause lyrics in his own work. So, in short, Brian Fallon is Jay-Z and Dave Hause is Kanye West. More as this parallel narrative develops and, inevitably, diverges when the two songwriters refuse to dismantle a Maybach while Aziz Ansari watches.
3. Frank Ocean is going to write a novel, apparently, and might not make another album for a while despite channel ORANGE being the runaway album of the year. Too bad Ocean’s rookie literary effort will have to compete with Robert Kelly’s Broadway tour de force of closet-related high jinks.
4. My rommate and I split a Papa Johns’ pizza tonight. There is nothing more to say about this. I just feel shitty about it. Papa John sucks.
5. Martin Scorsese is making a documentary on Bill Clinton. In directly related news, the cause of Mayan Apocalypse will be a black hole created by this collision of pure, uncut dude. Also, I no longer believe in Twitter. As of right now, #ClintonDocTitles is not trending. We can all do better.
Take James Earl Jones’s speech from Field of Dreams, replace “baseball” with “Saturday Night Live”, and you’ll have a slightly overstated explanation of why this clip is significant. For better or worse, SNL marks the time.
“Can we be funny?”
“Why Start now?”
Cool rain sits like bile on the lawns of Princeton’s campus. It won’t support even a step without letting you sink in. You’ll track the mud all through your dorm room, and some of it will linger on your carpet.
I’m trying to make it back to my room but keep getting distracting by hands of poker at an eating club on Prospect. Everyone at the table believes in their chips. It’s a social contract for addicts, which we all are, of course. It’s not about power, but it certainly feels like it. Every game has this same connotation.
I drift in and out of sequence with the songs playing over hidden speakers, their substance held over me like a spotlight. I’m incapable of hiding in the music, like I tend to do while on the train or any form of public transportation. I derive import from the lyrics; they provide separate parts that fit into a larger, contrived story. It’s not unlike Rob Fleming’s mixtape tutorial in High Fidelity. I just attempt to curb the condescension.
The walk back to our dorm is quiet. The campus is empty. It feels, for a moment, as if we could embrace all the world if we just stood still. But we keep walking, through the light fog, and into the dim lighting of our entryway.
“Shall we just have a cigarette on it?”
The sweeping orchestral crescendo and Bette Davis’s eyes filled my head as the ceiling closed in. My eyes were closed, breath felt hot against my face. I was lying on the floor of the projection room, and all our films were splayed around me. Each of them destroyed.
It had been a little under a month since we had shut down the drive-in. The screen was crushed underneath the force of the ceiling, so all we had was a bunch of film and a projector. Some people still came out to sit in their cars. Guess it was just a habit. We kept selling popcorn.
When the ceiling was just above me, falling slowly towards the floor, I put in one last movie and let it play pointed at the reflective mystery. The light washed over me, and I just listened to the audio track.
Near the end, I started laughing wildly, uncontrollably; Bette Davis’s tear-filled eyes the only image in my head. She was hoping this wasn’t the end, the last time she would see the man she loved. She watched the leaves rustle outside her window and cried forth words.
In the light, I laughed harder, filling the small space between ground and ceiling. My eyes were closed. My hands were shaking. I didn’t sweat. I was too cold. I reached up briefly, trying to push the ceiling away, but it was stiff and unyielding. So we waited, me and Bette Davis, hoping it would stop and retreat.
Then I folded my hands across my chest, laughing all along. Detritus from the splintered table stuck in my skin. Each one like a bee’s stinger, but they lingered. I just let them be. I wasn’t sure what taking them out would do.
Then I opened my eyes, and the light was blinding and severe. I thought once more of Bette Davis, and those eyes, and the smoke, and then the light.
“Don’t let’s ask for the moon. We have the stars.”
Midnight Prayers 
