By Troy Brownfield
12.31.02
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Face
you now
The Rack of Mordor!!
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THE YEAR THAT
WAS WEIRD
This was
a weird friggin' year, wasn't it? Maybe it was normal and
steady for you, but it was certainly bizarre for me. Too much
time spent in hospitals. Too much time spent second-guessing
things. Too much time not doing what I really wanted to be
doing. Christ, I sound like Styx.
While
this isn't the place of the Best and Worst of 2002 (our annual
feature on that will arrive in January, after the year is
officially over), I thought that I might look back at some
odd and defining moments from '02.
January:
Lucas gave Star Wars: Episode II a subtitle that ended up
making little sense in retrospect (the clones attacked, but
saved the day. Huh?). Bush and his cronies attacked civil
liberty with impunity, even if they couldn't pronounce it.
Bush himself was attacked by a pretzel. K-Mart filed for bankruptcy,
and I announced to the world the fact that Jennifer Garner
had made my almighty List of Five.
February:
The Super Bowl was good, Waylon Jennings died, rock bands
started to come back to Indianapolis radio, The Winter Olympics
captured popular attention, and David Lynch actually got nominated
for an Oscar again. Had to get X-rays after a night out with
The Shivers.
March:
I.U. beat Duke, Michael Moore thrashed the Bushites in his
book "Stupid White Men", and the big story in Indianapolis
was how a wrestling coach at Avon High School bit the head
off of a bird to "fire up" his team. He'll get my
award for Big Fucking Dumbass of the Year when our Year-Ender
gets posted. Also, Britney and Justin broke up; that affects
me not, as she hasn't yet posed for Playboy (although this
month's Maxim with Christina Aguilera is almost a worthy substitute).
April:
When no one was looking, I solved the crisis in the Middle
East.
Summer:
There
was one holy day when comic shops gave away books for free.
The day after that, there was a holy day when The Frank Booth
Project practiced for the first time since 1995. Spider-Man
opened to much fanboy rejoicing. A vice-principal in California
ordered girls to show her their underwear before being allowed
into a school dance, giving me the wide-open initiative to
drop in a shot of Anna Kournikova's ass.
And at the end of May we waxed nostalgic for the days of high
school as I finally told the story of my and webmaster Shawn's
ferocious graduation from 1991. Becky's
grandfather Marion, who was as tough as the day is long and
loved his granddaughter mightily, unfortunately passed away.
The aforementioned Anna lost big in more tournaments, looking
especially bad in the U.S. Open. The BMV was a pain in my
ass. The local music scene in Indianapolis thrived as IndianapolisMusic.net
began to make a wider impression. People went apeshit
of the Pledge of Allegiance, even though you don't freaking
say it after grade school. John Entwistle died. "Politically
Incorrect" got canned because it actually abided by its
name. I had a piece in "Indianapolis Monthly". The
Russ retired and started dating The Erika. And Ms. Ruth Hodson
made her first appearance, as did Ms. Caitlin Lance, trashing
Mommy and Daddy's plans to go to Mommy's high school reunion
(speaking for myself, who attended said reunion with my wife,
they didn't miss much).
Fall
and Winter:
I turned 29 in September and began falling apart, apparently.
I got back into promoting live music. I started doing columns
for Comicon.com's
Pulse News, not to mention monthly columns for Nuvo
Newsweekly. My omentum landed me in the hospital in November,
wrecking my entire month in fabulous fashion. My favorite
new TV show, "Firefly", started in September, and
Buffy returned to form (the show; SMG never left it). The
bastards are cancelling my "Farscape" (and probably
"Firefly"). "Birds of Prey" soared, then
sunk. The Indianapolis News Anchor Beauty Pageant was a mighty
draw for us. Shawn broke his wrist playing Flag Football.
The Russ and The Erika became The Man and Wife at the end
of November. Shania Twain's new CD, in a genius feat of marketing,
featured 38 songs; 19 were country, and 19 were pop versions
of the same songs (international fans could buy a different
special edition, which featured those 38 plus 19 more tracks,
which were the same songs AGAIN remixed in world rhythms).
My piece on Stuart Sayger for the Indianapolis Star on December
15th was subsequently picked up for other newspapers. And
The Two Towers did indeed kick mighty ass.
In the
end, I guess the year was truly weird because so much of it
seemed NON-eventful. After a strange and tense last quarter
of 2001, 2002 started more like a coda to a period of history.
Our government is further from what the people need than ever,
and yet no one seems to notice.
For my
part, I've decided to go back to doing something that I always
enjoyed: booking live music. I've tried my hand at other writing
projects too. Mainly, things seems like they're in a holding
pattern of sorts. The site remains, and shall, for the forseeable
future. Maybe it's time to do more and different things with
it. Let me know what you think, just so we aren't crying in
the wilderness here. I read once that the world is what you
make of it. Maybe we just need more people making more of
it.
Troy
Brownfield is the Editor-in-Chief of Shotgun Reviews. Email
Troy at psikotyk@aol.com
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