Archive for Me as A Teenager

I’m A Kid, That’s My Job

Aug 7

I’m very sad about the passing of John Hughes. It makes me mad that this comes fresh off the tails of the Michael Jackson hysteria, because now everyone’s all cynical about talking celebrity death on the Internet and has already moved. John Hughes’ work meant so much more to me, in that way that you forget how much it impacted you until you really think about where something comes from and you realize it was a scene you saw in a movie or a line from one of his films. That’s how much it was a part of you, you just always assumed it was there.

And who will replace him? Who will capture that kind of normalcy, that innocence? Does it even exist anymore? I do know that his movies framed my ideas of what love was, of being an outsider, of what it felt like to yearn for something you couldn’t have, of staying friends with them anyway.

That being said, my favorite John Hughes movie, probably because of my age when the movie came out, is Uncle Buck with John Candy. I watched it over and over again, like kids do.

And my second favorite, which I know he only wrote, is Some Kind Of Wonderful. What’s great is even Lea Thompson’s “hot girl” character has layers to her. A similar movie made today would have just turned her into nothing but a sex object, of that I am sure. But, Watts! Watts was so cool. She was kind of an asshole, but we rooted for her, we wanted her to win, we knew she was the right one.

So, here’s to you, John Hughes. Here’s to teenage crushes, heartbreak, laughs, Chicago, high school outsiders, detention, forgotten birthdays, breakfast clubs, and hope that people continue watching your movies. I know I will be.

Filed Under: Me as A Teenager

RIP Geocities

Apr 24

Geocities, long forgotten by most of us, is finally shutting down. The Internet, those of us who’ve been around that long, is sad. It’s like the college dorm of the Internet; we all remember our tiny rooms in there and how we thought we knew how to decorate with our tapestries and Christmas lights. It was so important to us at the time. Until you moved into a real apartment where you could smoke without putting a towel down on the door.But still: you feel a tiny flicker of sadness for its demolion and all the good times you had in there.

When I think about, Geocities was actually not my first rental property on the Internet. I’m pretty sure my first web site was the free hosting our ISP (remember actually using that stuff?) gave us. Back then, they were called “homepages.” There was a hideous little template where you filled out your name, some text, and added photos that were ganked from other websites (which haha, we still do). Geocities was a step up and getting into the neighborhood of your choice was a really big deal. I remember getting a coveted spot in the Soho Studios, Number 2058. There were discussions about moving from one Geocities neighborhood to another, to one who’s address more was more reflective of the unique web person you were. I never moved. SoHo Studios was where I wanted to be. I held on to it, using it as storage while I moved from URL to URL.

It was not an easy task to move a website in those days, even the simple tiny ones we had that were all HTML. You had to go in and change all of your links and put up a clever re-direct page so your 5 obsessive readers could follow you. And we moved a lot. Geocities at first totally free and with a simple banner ad, started to put pop up ads and become a lot more intrustive. There was a big exodus to Xoom, another free host, without ads. And then, a year later, I remember moving from them, too. This continued forever and ever.

What this ending of Geocities does make me realize is, for all our scary talk of how we need to watch what our slutty, drunken selves put online because oh no someone who may pay us to do something might see it, is how not permanent so much of the web truly is.  This is why I think talking about the Internet’s history is so important. So much of what happened is gone now.  We have to discuss it, there’s so little evidence of it but our memories and a few pages with dead links.

*The last crawl of my Geocities page, in 2003!

Filed Under: Internet Historianship, Me as A Teenager

still there's something in you that i believe in

Nov 11

One of my favorite records, if we can even call it that, is Third Eye Blind’s, self titled debut. I told a friend that I was obsessed with this record my senior year of high school, where I would listen to in between bouts of listening to The Cure & Garbage (& later on, a slew of pop music that literally saved my life), and she was shocked to know I listened to the whole thing. I’m listening to it tonight when I’m feeling strange and emo and alone, much like I did in high school.

3EB isn’t …”good” music; it’s not the kind of thing we write essays about. It’s pure high school overly emotional melodramatic romanticised pure rock music, with lyrics that make sense, are just deep enough to make you want to scrawl them all over your notebook, or if you were me, you would use those lyrics as filler for your online journal (you would write a paragraph of your actual entry and then some song lyrics and then another paragraph of your entry). It’s simple; music you can sing along to, the best kind of pop music.

For a long time, I would go past the first two songs and straight that ode to crystal meth Semi-Charmed Life, which was the single and the third song on the record.  When I finally discovered the first two songs, “Losing A Whole Year” and “Narcolepsy”, I made up for lost time by quickly playing those out.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBGmc3bmgaY]

The other big hit off 3EB was How’s It Going To Be?, which is so over the top sappy I refused to listen to it, especially since they used it in an ending montage for the Real World Boston, a cast I connected with very strongly, especially the chat room addicted Genesis and the fiery redhead (or whore) Montana. There was also equally emotionally manipulative Jumper, which we won’t even go into.

I liked the heavier, sexier, not as radio friendly songs such as this one, “Good For You”, which has the following amazing high school girl lyrics:

Cause all I want to do is be there
For the things that you’re going through
Well, is it good for you, is it good for you
Cause you haunt my nights when
I don’t know where my life should go
Well, is it good for you, is it good for you
Hey child please stay a while
My smile will not mislead you
Cause I’ve been without, I go wild with doubt
I grab at you, I can’t stop grabbing at you

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w3AtSeY1Hc]

However, ever the consummate romantic lovesick girl (I had some particularly painful crushes, plus one real honest to goodness ICQ affair) and I think if I had to pick one song that really defined that moment in time for me, where I spent most of my time on subways with a discman on, it would be this song, I Want You, which asks us if we want to know how deep Stephen Jenkin’s soul goes. The answer? Deeper than Bones.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/v/6C8buGnZDvU&hl]

And of course, the end to the tragic love affair going on in my head, there is Motorcyle Drive By, which tells us “I could never have you/I knew that before you did/but I’m the one who’s stupid/”. It’s like a 17 year girl wrote them herself.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/v/lXRLEyIoJZA&hl]

Third Eye Blind never really got that good again, ever. I was excited to get their follow up, Blue, but I listened to it once and then never heard it again. These songs however are oddly a part of me. I can slip right back into them and still know every word.  They are all still my jams.

Filed Under: Me as A Teenager, music

Archives