top ten lists of 2008

In honor of the occasion of my tenth and greatest blog post, I’ve assembled a list of lists, the ten greatest and most significant lists I’ve made during this time of reflection on a year which I think we can all agree went hard as fuck.

In no particular order:

10. Top ten books I wanted to read but didn’t (brothers Karamazov, gravity’s rainbow, that book by joe the plumber…)
9. top ten mark-on-kip roughhousing sessions
8. top ten drunken metro north rides back to poughkeepsie MANG.
7. top ten meetings to discuss what to “do” about opportunity firings in the Vassar English department
6. top ten naps (ten-way tie!)
5. top ten pictures seb took of the sky/groups of people walking down the street
4. top ten reasons why I wish id kept taking italian (#1: seduce bondavalli. Psyche! Just playing - so I could go abroad with Kenny and Laura!!)
3. top ten mustaches MANG.
2. top ten trips to the hamptons (okay so it was just one but you guys! We had so much fun.)
1. top ten blog posts

For the lists themselves follow this link: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/02/05/guest-column-top-ten-songs-white-people-love/

everybody's cousin is a crust punk

i see my cousins on my dad's side about once a year. it was christmas eve that we convened in seguin texas (old people and drugrunners) for a stoeltje roundup, you know, get us all in the same room together and eat deer sausage and play wii bowling. but something changed this year, my cousins got a whole lot more real.

what does this mean? i'm not entirely sure. all i know is that when james rolled up in a leftover crack shirt talking about going to parties in abandoned houses, and getting kicked out of rock bottom (a satown club) for smoking on the floor, i was like, what the fuck, who are you? when did you stop playing half-life in your bedroom all the time and start believing in women's rights and shit? it was weird.

and my other cousin eli, the one that's been in rehab and is super skinny, i heard he was gonna join the army reserve. i asked him what was up, like how could he do that, and he explains what i should have expected, that he thinks its alot of bs, but he needs an income. i mean, the guy's a pacifist, but his biodad is such a fuckup that his fuckuppery has necessarily spilled over into my cousin's life.

what i guess im saying is, i saw more of myself in my extended family this christmas than i ever have. which i guess should be alarming, but somehow im comforted instead. eli and i were standing on the deck and he asks me if i smoke weed. my parents were in the house so i tried to slip him a discreet little nod. he goes, "i had a feeling. from the look of you."

and i said, "aw, that makes me feel bad."

and he said, "no, i don't mean like i thought you were high right now, just that, you look like you've been through the dark side of the forest is all".

i hope we all make our way out.

listening to:

sorry this post was so heavy. stay tuned for the top ten lists of 2008.

hey alec and kenny! this was the thing i was gonna do on your radio show all those years ago. dig it:

Mystery
by Super furry sanimals

It was a mystery. They found the body in the parlor with a knife handle quivering in the air above its back, although most likely that was just our imagination, for how could the murderer flee the scene of the crime so quickly?
The body was that of Anthony Patterson, who had mentioned while we took the aperitif that he was a private investigator, and then naturally Simon Greenwood offered a witticism playing upon the possibility that Patterson was investigating one of us, to which Patterson replied that he was not on duty this evening.
Which is an interesting thing to say, considering he is, or was, a “private” investigator, and surely he decides when he is or is not on duty.
If he had been on duty, than we could now say that he had died honorably, in the performance of it. But then Simon Greenborough pointed out that perhaps Patterson wasn’t really dead at all, for was this not an elaborate dinner theater that the present company had agreed to participate in?
Joann Freely proceeded to grab hold of the quivering/not quivering handle and withdrew the knife, which was indeed very sharp and very bloody, and she said something along the lines of, “does this look like theater to you?”
…At which point Simon Greenborough turned and vomited in the sink of the wet bar, then turned back around, wiping his mouth. He proposed that in order to discover the murderer, we systematically review the events of the entire evening, searching for clues.
Sarah, however, the matriarch of the Greenborough clan, began a rather boring diatribe about how she was growing tired of Simon always taking control, and how it was possible, and indeed, likely, that he had in fact killed the Private Investigator, or P.I., as he was now being referred to, considering that in the course of their domestic existence he had revealed himself to be a violent man.
I was confused. Could I have killed Patterson? Could this in fact be a dinner theater in which everyone was a confederate but me? I felt lost and alone.

goths

(so cool!)

in middle school, i hadn't yet really figured out this whole sam"game, and i was always intrigued by the goths with their scary pants and their makeup. they all hung out together and they all acted like they were in on some really cool secret. then i went to hot topic, it must have been seventh grade, and i was like, "oh".

this is really stupid.

but i have since then come to realize that there's more to goth fashion than the social pariahs of barbara bush middle school (actual name of my middle school). if you set aside your preconceptions and judgmentalism, the fact is, these people look pretty cool. also scary. and cool.

(bettie page RIP)

(nine inch nails? more like, really cool)

why I spent my night in the slammer

Why I spent my night in the slammer

by Sammy fucking steeltoes

so I'd just finished up a totally rad set at the knitting factory with my band better than better than ezra, and i was lighting up a parliament on some stoop with my boys when this fineass honey came up to me and she was all,

"can i interview you for my blog?"

she was looking pretty cute in her neon leather mumu, so i figure sure, i mean, i'm tripping on this designer drug (i think it was called "awesomeblossom") but i can hold my shit together, right? she got into all these stupid questions about my influences, i didn't know what to tell her, i mean, i don't really listen to anything except that william shatner album, and remixes thereof. then this skinhead comes up to her and he does,

"damn girl, you lookin ARYAN"

those awesomeblossoms had my pulse running all jacked up style so i dropkicked his ass. then his whole crew rolled up, but luckily better than better than ezra, they had the nunchuks and brass knuckles, and the blackjacks and shit. we fucked em up pretty dirty and by the time the cops showed up i was in like super-adrenaline gorilla mode, so yeah, maybe i put one of those blueboys in a headlock, it's all a little fuzzy now...

I JUST WANT TO GO HOME

mafuckin snowstorm is crashing my christmas party. i had a flight tomorrow morning, shit got cancelled. so it looks like im in poughkeepsie for an extra day. what should i do? post suggestions. I'm a pretty fun guy, fond of raging, electrotrash type stuff.

snow is stupid. global warming step your game up.
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: weezer duh.

Helter Skelter

much has been made of helter skelter and if you've heard it you can probably understand why. "Helter skelter started punk music" they say. "Helter skelter started metal". But if we're are really going to get real, no band has EVER touched this song, never before and never since.

Charles Manson heard helter skelter and thought it was a prophesy about an impending race war. this is the kind of song that sociopaths should not be allowed to listen to. every musical idea threatens to pull the whole thing apart, and the guitar on the left (according to my headphones) just keeps droning the root note but on every 1st beat there's that terrifying half-bend, such an ugly/evil sound.

Please be careful when listening to Helter Skelter. I recommend no more than two plays a week.

My very first blog post

Hi everyone my name is Sam.

I am an english major at Vassar College.

I am a SNAKE THAT SHOOTS BUILDINGS AND THEY BLEED!

can you believe that guy threw a shoe at the president? HA!

I AM WRITING AN ESSAY ABOUT KING LEAR

King lear is a play by william shakespeare about a dumbfuck king in pre-Christian England that's so dumb he gives control of his kingdom to women. Women.

Nah jk. He goes crazy though. Look at him in that picture! What a nutjob.