Inspired by this nostalgic-seizure inducing post by the oft-hilarious Kevin Babbles, I am compelled to talk about the ridiculous summer playlist I put together this year.
It’s like… 70% flashback 90s/00s music (mostly rap, hip hop, and pop), 10% awful dance music, 10% indie bullshit, and 10% newer but still outdated rap and hip hop.
A sample of the randomized, 467 song playlist:
Some of my favorites:
L’Trimm, “Cars with the Boom” — 1. I love how similar this video is to JJ Fad’s, “Supersonic” and how fucking awful and great they both are. I have way too many memories of hearing this song blasting from my sister’s bedroom growing up and hearing her and her friends laughing and talking about dudes and generally allowing me to grow into a hateful, resentment-filled pain in the ass. Bitches.
Vengaboys, “Boom Boom Boom Boom” — What horrifies me about this song is that I have this really distinct memory of singing and dancing to it at a slumber party at my house and I always though, “LOL SIXTH GRADE” until I looked it up and this didn’t come out until June of 1999. I was FOURTEEN. What the hell? My shame, let me show you it. Second, what the actual fuck is happening in this video, man? Gay cowboy! Blue lipstick! All those horrible outfits! Titties everywhere! Drunk bros! Ejaculatory champagne! Rampant lesbianism!
Come to think of it, that explains a lot about why I would have been into it at fourteen.
Sarai, “Ladies” — This is the EMBODIMENT of my trip to Las Vegas after high school graduation. I still remember rolling down the strip in my BFF’s dad’s Explorer Sport Trac SCREAMING this song at everyone on the street.
Like this.
Oh, to be eighteen. Additionally, watching this, I do not understand how I didn’t figure out I was a lesbot earlier. I MEAN, COME ON. Also, watching Sarai rap is like watching my BFF talk. We call her DJ Xis.
Khia, “K-Wang” — THIS WAS THE DANCE. I remember watching one of my BFFs (Bryce) teaching DJ Xis how to do this shit in front of the big screen TV in my living room. Their dance was closer to this version (although people are CRAZY adamant that this is NOT THE RIGHT DANCE in the comments) but they disabled embedding because the world hates me. Better version of this TERRIBLE SONG here.
Mr. C, “Cha Cha Slide” — I wasn’t going to embed this one because, seriously, line dance hip hop is so god damn terrible, but this is every dance I went to in high school. Gym full of uncoordinated white kids being led by all the black kids. Diversity at work, y’all. And the video is just spectacular.
Edvard Grieg, “In the Hall of the Mountain King (Techno Remix)” — Also a high school dance thing. Just a representative of the terrible, terrible techno remixes that plagues the late 90s/early 00s. See also: Tetris Techno Remix, Super Mario Bros. Theme Techno Remix (not the one of my youth, but close). I listened to a lot of god awful techno in the early days of mp3.com, OKAY. Don’t judge me.
Monifah, “Touch It” — Bringing the troops joy since 1998, girl.
Eminem, “Role Model” — Every white person I am friends with knows every word to this song. I don’t know what that means, but it’s nice to roll down all four windows of my 2010 Honda Insight and blare this motherfucker with a bunch of white girls in the car. Oh wait, awkward, I meant awkward.
I am currently formulating a brilliant, serious post about how the JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot and The Big Bang Theory have somehow convinced me to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation and how I am spending scorching days in bed, blazing through the discs like FIRE and complaining that they’re not on Netflix Instant (UNACCEPTABLE) and shouting about what a MASSIVE BAG OF DOUCHE Picard is and how the internet has not yet brought forth PICARDICKERY.COM.
But whatever, it is 92F (33.3 C) outside and I am not mentally capable of putting together a string of coherent sentences because my BRAIN IS MELTING, so instead I am going to talk [AND LITERALLY RIGHT THIS SECOND THE POWER WENT OUT UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SUCKS. ALSO, IT WAS OUT FOR ELEVEN HOURS. ELEVEN HOURS. FUCK YOU, SOCAL EDISON, FUCK YOU IN THE ASS WITH A BARBED WIRE WRAPPED BASEBALL BAT.] about how Geordi La Forge is a gaymo and I LOVE IT SO MUCH.
Or, okay, I am going to show you a whopping three screencaps from an early season one episode since that’s as far as I’ve gotten.
So in the episode “Hide and Q”, Q, the first and most obnoxious villain introduced in TNG appears to mess with the crew of the Enterprise and then gives Riker all of his powers. He can control time and space and bring back the dead and change all kinds of shit. And he promises Picard that he will never use his powers again (after saving the whole bridge crew) except for how he and Q come in and Riker’s like, “Heeeeeeeey, I’m gonna grant ALL YOUR DEEPEST WISHES” and everyone is like, “NO DON’T DO IT” basically.
So Riker chooses young Ensign Wesley Crusher as his first victim/recipient and he’s like, “I KNOW WHAT YOU WANT” and Wesley makes the same hapless, joyful face he makes 90% of the time and his mom is like, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” but then it’s like this:
And then:
And everyone is AGHAST because Wesley is ten years older oh noes! WESLEY JUST WANTS TO BE A GROWN-UP OKAY. And Riker smiles rakishly and is delighted and then Geordi La Forge is all, “Hey, Wes, not bad” and makes this lecherous face:
And I was all, YEEEEAAAAH, Geordi La Forge, YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH.
And yeah, so, I love this awful, wonderful television show. I’ve only watched the first three discs of episodes and the whole time I’m doing it I keep thinking, “I should be doing something with this. I could be doing something hilarious. COME UP WITH SOMETHING BRILLIANT” and then I write a post like this and realize that anything I came up with would just be me screaming, “GAYMO LA FORGE, WESLEY CRUSHAAAAH, RAKISH RIKAH” over and over again and for real, no one wants that.
I have most of my brilliant ideas/thoughts/words/sentences in the two most inconvenient places for someone who has a memory terrible enough that if she has three thoughts in her head she has to write them down IMMEDIATELY because the instant a fourth one pops into existence one of those three turds of brilliance will be GONE FOREVER: the car and the shower.
Like, I am a good driver and all, but I am not good enough to just knock off some detailed notes in the middle of the 210 freeway while I am driving 85 miles an hour on my way to my afternoon class that I almost overslept. (It’s an evening class, if I’m honest, but I’m not, so…) Generally, I unlock my phone, fumble around blindly trying to remember which god damn page (folder now, THANKS STEVE JOBS!) I put the voice recorder on/in (OH I NEVER USE THAT, LET’S HIDE IT) while trying not to crash the car AND keep track of whatever idea prompted the suicide recording mission in the first place. IT NEVER GOES WELL.
Having a brilliant idea in the shower is like suddenly having to shit while you’re in there. You either admit defeat and get out, sit down on the toilet soaking wet and get toilet paper stuck all over your damp ass (writing equivalent: finding a notebook and pen while running naked through the house, then dripping all over it) or you finish the shower and shit when you’re done, basically defeating the entire purpose of the fucking shower (writing: lose the thought somewhere between getting shampoo in your eyes and accidentally douching with Dial). There is no in between, but 90% of the time I opt for the naked sprint. The other 10% of the time I just convince myself that the idea was fucking stupid anyway and should immediately be forgotten.
I also get excessively emotional in these two places way more often than should be even remotely possible. Like, sometimes I’m just showering and it’s a pleasant enough experience and I am suddenly like, “DAMN, no one is ever going to hire me for even a menial position after I’ve invested all this money and time into getting my MFA. GOD DAMN I FUCKED UP.” and then I start crying a lot and it’s gross and basically looks like one of those awful post-regrettable-sexual-experience scenes in bad movies. Not cute.
But then one time I was twenty years old and driving home from college for the weekend and I was REALLY INTO LED ZEPPELIN at the time and I was jamming and then “Stairway to Heaven” came on and look, okay, this is my mom’s FAVORITE SONG OF ALL TIME since she was like… sixteen or some shit and I grew up hearing it ALL THE TIME and I know that someday when my mom dies she wants this god damn song played at her FUNERAL she loves it that much, but I had this moment where it was like I heard it for the first time and I started SOBBING UNCONTROLLABLY and there was snot and it was so bad I had to pull to the side of the freeway and have a panic attack.
I WAS THIS FUCKING MOVED OKAY.
And that’s some serious bullshit! No one should ever cry at Led Zeppelin unless Zeppelin IV was playing while you watched your entire family murdered. It’s just unacceptable.
So whatever, anyway, my car and my shower are basically my two most important creative outlets and I spend a lot of time thinking in those places and sometimes some brilliant shit comes from it like some of my favorite lines/moments from the in-progress first novel and the idea for the second novel which I am not even allowed to think about until the first one is done and a couple of pretty boss academic papers and a poem or two and a short story and a lot of really great music mixes… and whatever.
I think about a lot of stuff while I am occupied by menial, ordinary tasks. THAT’S HOW THE HUMAN BRAIN WORKS. And it’s probably one of the only normal ways in which my short-circuited mass of brain cells does work.
So anyway, I’ve been like this for my whole life, essentially, and at some point (I think in college, but this revelation has become so much a part of me that I can’t even remember when it happened. It was like realizing my body breathes without me telling to do it!) I was in the shower and I was washing my hair and I was like, “DANG, someone in the world’s favorite band is Eve 6! That shit is crazy!”
I know that doesn’t seem like a big deal and it’s not even really interesting and it was a fucking long road to sow to get to this point and it’s a weak point, I admit, but COME ON. There is someone out there in the world who is REALLY into Eve 6. There are probably multiple people who, when asked “What kind of music are you into?” actually say, “Well, I listen to everything, but my favorite band is Eve 6.”
I think it really boils down to like, the world is SO FUCKING BIG and there are SO MANY PEOPLE LIVING IN IT, that SOMEWHERE OUT THERE is a person whose FAVORITE BAND IN THAT GIANT WORLD is EVE 6.
How is your mind not blown right now?
Bob Dylan or the Beatles or the Ramones or Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber or Elliott Smith or Tom Waits or Black Eyed Peas or the Black Keys I can accept, but somehow EVE 6 is the one that blows my mind.
My in-depth research for this post (lurking this message board, basically) I even found the one thing that could further blow my mind.
AN EVE 6 TATTOO.
This dude HAD an Eve 6 tattoo, possibly one that he got when they were marginally popular on modern rock stations in 1998 and then he got a great big angry jester tattoo many years later in a place that would allow for a PERFECT COVER-UP of that Eve 6 tattoo, but instead, his love for Eve 6 is still so strong that he instead incorporated it into his new piece. That’s love, guys.
FOR REAL, in the world RIGHT NOW in 2010 there are people walking around in the world with Eve 6 ephemera indelibly inked into their human meat! There are enough people to keep an Eve 6 internet message board semi-active! THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO FREELY AND PROUDLY ADMIT THAT EVE 6 IS THEIR FAVORITE BAND IN THE WHOLE WORLD! STILL! NOW! IN 2010!
Anyway, I am NOT mocking these people. Korn was my favorite band for like eight years. And, had my parents let me have my way, I would have an ugly, faded reminder of that fandom somewhere on my back to mock me EVERY SINGLE DAY OF MY LIFE.
Ugh, I am so glad I will only have been a teenager once.
So, seriously, not mocking, it is just mind-breaking to me in the way that the size of the universe and the infinity of space is.
Anyway, FINALLY, I would just like to point out:
“I would swallow my pride, I would choke on the rinds, but the lack thereof would leave me empty inside. Swallow my doubt, turn it inside out, find nothing but faith in nothing. Want to put my tender heart in a blender, watch it spin around to a beautiful oblivion. Rendezvous then I’m through with you.”
Lyrics to Eve 6’s “Inside Out”. The song which launched them to temporary stardom in the late spring of 1998. All typed straight from my memory. The same shitty memory that cannot keep track of birthdates, the locations of my keys or wallet, more than three thoughts at the same time, or whether or not I put on deodorant before I left the house.
Everything I know about high school, I learned from Saved By the Bell.
Countless writers before me have recounted their own experiences with SBTB, writers smarter, funnier, and more poignant than me. But I have something Chuck Klosterman doesn’t: an unironic love of the show and the fact that it pretty much ruined my high school experience.
SBTB debuted as Good Morning Miss Bliss in 1989 when I was a paltry four-years-old. I don’t specifically remember watching it at the time (the only media viewing I remember at the time was A Nightmare on Elm Street. What can I say, my parents were… forward thinking.) and I don’t particularly remember watching new episodes on TNBC Saturday mornings (thought I know for a fact that I did).
What I remember most vividly about SBTB is how deeply it skewed the vision I had of my future high school experience.
I didn’t entertain thoughts of being best friends with Kelly Kapowski (I mean, I was obviously Jesse Spano, but that’s really beside the point.) and I didn’t particularly imagine a world in which I could date Zack Morris or even AC Slater with his truly atrocious Jerry Curl. But, growing up in Southern California, I envisioned my high school future as something not too far from the halls of Bayside High, an experience rife with a hang out like The Max (more likely to be an In N Out in my suburban Los Angeles hometown) and the potential for an oil reserve under our football field.
I knew, logically, even at the time, that these were unlikely and extraordinary scenarios, but I know that I also secretly hoped that we’d have a radio station or an advice line that would lead to wacky hijinks.
My high school didn’t even have lockers, let alone a drivers ed class with in-car (or…cart) training, not even a principle that could have pulled me from a police line-up.
Somewhere in the back of my mind as I set foot on my campus that fateful September day of 1999 when I began my high school education, I expected Mr. Tuttle to run a glee club and for someone to have a caffeine pill-induced freakout.
I’d like to say that these delusions were my own, that I was simply a mindfucked product of too much TV at such a young age, but I wasn’t.
Sitting in my honors world history class, I turned to my close friend and said, “Man, I wish we went to Bayside†and she looked at me and without a moment’s hesitation said, “We don’t even have lockers. Saved by the Bell creates unrealistic expectations.â€
We then proceeded to have a conversation about it that lasted the rest of the day.
I’d like to say we learned something profound about our expectations, about the image that the media creates for the youth culture, about how SBTB is secretly some profoundly counter-culture experience.
But we didn’t. We spent what amounted to about four hours just discussing episodes.
“You remember the one where Lisa sold all of her clothes to pay her dad’s Visa bill?†“Yeah!†“Remember Screech’s robot?†“Steve!†“Remember the time that they did the anti-pot episode?†“Totally. With the Brandon Tartakoff message at the end?†“YES.†“How about the one where they make spaghetti sauce?†“With Punky Brewster!â€
And it always culminates in the great remembarance. “Dude, the caffeine pills!†“I KNOW.†And in unison, “I’m so excited. I’m so excited. I’m so… scared!†complete with melodramatic Elizabeth Berkely sobs.
That’s it. For four hours.
And I have proceeded to have the exact same conversation at least once a year for the last eleven years.
I watched four episodes of SBTB a day, five days a week for the four years I was in college. It was a staple in our dorm room and the on-campus apartment I lived in for the year after that. The two years that I lived at home and commuted depressed me infinitely because I wasn’t home to catch them. Gratefully, my Tivo was. I own all of the seasons on DVD and I watch them.
This is not some fleeting, nostalgic interest like I have in Mr. Belvedere or Salute Your Shorts. This is an all-consuming passion for some of the worst television programming to ever grace our airways.
I love Saved By The Bell. Unironically and unapologetically.
One of my favorite episodes of the show is the one where Mr. Belding’s brother Rod comes to work as a substitute teacher at Bayside. He’s the perfect image of a “cool guy†of the era, long hair and cowboy boots, that kind of obnoxiously perfected image that was really only cool for about twelve seconds in 1993, if it ever was at all.
While working as a substitute teacher at the alma mater that had so failed me as my own Bayside, I introduced myself to the class. “I’m Ms. Russell. You guys can call me Ash.†I grinned and was blindsided by a mostly mortifying realization: I was Rod. I had somehow modeled my entire method of substitute education after a one-off character on an episode of SBTB who ultimately turned out to be the bad guy.
Saved by the Bell is not a show to me; it is an inexplicable cultural phenomenon of such importance that it has integrated itself into my personality and my professional life.
I am not what I eat; I am what I watch.
I know that I am not alone in my slavish devotion to a show that’s seventeen years off the air. SBTB is a language of my age, an utter cultural staple. I have never once met someone in my age bracket that hadn’t seen at least one episode and more often than not they are almost as intimately familiar with the show as I am. If you are looking for a uniting force for Generation Y, there is no pop cultural icon quite like Zack Morris and his brethren. I cannot imagine building a long-term friendship with someone who is not at least relatively familiar with the canon of what probably amounts to the single most important television show of my life.
In the end, that is, of course, what it amounts to: a TV show and a really shitty one at that. It’s not the great American novel or Citizen Cane; hell, it’s not even well-done Saturday morning programming, but it is the kind of media that leaves a mark, the kind that will likely (and probably sadly) outlast the great masterpieces of the ages because it’s left that mark on the hearts of a generation of pop-culture addicts who are never going to let it go.
