I’m really pressed for time this week because, well, there’s a lot going on I guess. My work schedule — starting last week — has provided me with just one day off between last Friday and next Tuesday. It’s…it’s starting to wear on me. Plus there’s obligations like Nicci’s show, that other show I saw on Tuesday night, softball, a birthday party…I guess I’m just a busy man. I’m not bragging or anything, if I had my druthers I’d just stay at home all day playing video games and listening to records. Speaking of which, I bought a new turntable so if anyone is in the market for a nice turntable (Pro-Ject 6.1 series) send me an e-mail.
The other day I posted a blog entry about Futurama. In detailing my intensely positive feelings for the cartoon I wrote, “Lest you think I’m speaking hyperbolically, there are precious few things in this world I have ever appreciated on such an intense level that I would say I was ‘obsessed’ with it.” That got me thinking — what are the ten things in my life I have been most obsessed with? At different stages of my development I have been thrilled by many different things. If I look back and highlight my ideas about what was most deserving of my attention at various stages — what I got the biggest kicks out of — how would they stack up when compared to each other? Well, here’s the end-result: a new top-ten list.
The Top Ten Things I Have Been Obsessed With
10. Pizza Hut P’zones (2001-2002) – This may well have been the most brief of my obsessions, but it was also one of the most intense. In the summer of 2001 I departed my home in New Jersey and traveled up I-87 to Burlington, Vermont where I attended college for exactly one year. Then I transferred to another college. While I was at UVM, I opted for a meal plan that was not based on meals but “points,” and my dining card had a balance that was deducted from whenever I went to a cafeteria (which happened exactly twice) or when I ate from a vending machine (which occurred daily) or when I ordered from any of the area restaurants that accepted UVM’s “points” as cash. Like Pizza Hut. There was also a McDonalds that delivered, but more often than not I was ordering Pizza Hut. I didn’t order pizzas, I ordered pepperoni P’zones. Like, two or three a week. Sometimes more. I don’t know how I lost so much weight that first year of college, but sometimes I worry how much I would have lost of I wasn’t completely obsessed with P’zones. I haven’t had one since I left UVM. They were discontinued for a while, and by the time Pizza Hut re-added them to the menu I had begun my boycott of Pizza Hut. Boo.
09. Blanky (1983 – 1993) – I slept with a blanket as a child. It had this weird ribbed fabric around the edges. Apparently I couldn’t fall asleep without the thing, so there were multiples in the event that one had to be washed. According to my mom, the ribbed-edge blanket (or “blanky,” as I commonly called it) was the result of my having been OCD pretty much from the moment I was birthed. I guess whatever hospital gown my mom wore post-labor had this frilly edge to it, and in my first moments of life I grabbed at it and rubbed it between my fingers before falling asleep. I don’t know how she found a blanket that mimicked the effect of that gown, but I also don’t really care. I slept with blanky every night until my first summer at overnight camp (at age 10). I stopped cold turkey because I didn’t want to the be the kid everyone called a fag for sleeping with a blanket. Now that it’s been almost 20 years since I slept with a blanket, I can safely say it was my gayest obsession ever.
08. Slint (2001 – 2005) – It started during my first semester at college — I gave up on listening to arena rock music and started exploring that which existed outside the mainstream. Ian helped by introducing me to Shellac and Godspeed You Black Emperor and Silkworm. But I found Slint all on my own, and the first 200 times I listened to Spiderland (in the first week I owned it) I felt like I was in one some great secret. Two years later I signed up for an account on the Electrical Audio forums and found an entire community of people (who were probably much older than I) that also enjoyed Slint. In 2005 the band reunited for a brief tour. I went, and I enjoyed myself. My obsession decreased exponentially after that. I don’t know why.
07. Gail Simmons’ Breasts (2007 – Present) – I didn’t watch the first season of Top Chef. And I didn’t really watch the second season, either. A few months before I moved to Los Angeles I started exercising. I would walk and run a few miles in the morning, then lift weights in the small gym at the development where my mother lived. One day I was looking for something to watch while I used the treadmill, and I happened upon Top Chef. Yeah, it was cool to watch people cook, but oh man — those tits. I was obsessed from the first moment I saw them. You know all about how I jones for them, you read about it almost every week.
06. Tecmo Super Bowl (1991 – 1994) – If you think having a Mario Kart Wii league is weird, you should have seen how I handled my TSB obsession as a seven-year old. I started my own newspaper to report on the results of Nintendo football games, complete with an injury wire and stats columns. I pretty much learned how to write by creating that newspaper. I wish I still had a copy so I could scan it for you. I don’t even remember what I called it. The only memory I have of the newspaper was that during one season there was a weekly column about how Jets running back Freeman McNeil was suffering from a host of different diseases and ailments because he was carted off the field on a stretcher at least a half-dozen times during a single season. When he retired from real football in 1992, I thought I knew the truth about why he chose to hang up his cleats.
05. Chuck Palahniuk – From my sophomore year of high school through my sophomore year of college, the only books and articles I read in my free time were penned by Palahniuk. Or Bret Easton Ellis. I waited in line at my local Barnes & Noble to get the first copy of Playboy with the official publication of “Guts,” then hungrily read the story over a bacon cheeseburger and fries from Outback Steakhouse. I wrote so many short stories that bit his style I feel like I cheated my way through countless English classes. Even in the height of post 9/11 political correctness I was online singing various petitions to have Survivor made into a feature film. Then one day I just grew tired of his work. Around the time Diary and Lullaby came out I stopped being moved by his writing. Anymore, the only slight nod I give to my former obsession with Chuck Palahniuk is when I start a sentence with the word “Anymore.”
04. Smashing Pumpkins (1993 – 1999) – I believe it started with the first time I heard “Today” on the radio. My utterly embarrassing obsession with the Smashing Pumpkins. My ardor peaked around the time the double album came out in 1995. I had enough Smashing Pumpkins t-shirts to wear them every day to school without having to do laundry for weeks. A girl who jerked me off in the woods behind my high school first contacted me on America Online by asking if I was the kid who wore Smashing Pumpkins shirts to school all the time. I did stupid shit like skipping school to buy new albums, making ridiculous mix tapes and downloading live concerts to my computer and then recording them to tape by positioning a My First Sony tape recorded in front of my computer speakers and leaving the room for an hour or two. I learned to play guitar by having my friend Dan teach me “Cherub Rock.” I could go on, and on, and on…but it would only make you lose that much more respect for me. You’re lucky I’ve admitted to this much.
03. LOST (2007 – 2010) – I wasn’t obsessed with the show even from the start. But once I got hooked, I was hooked. Stupid shit I’ve done in the name of LOST includes skipping work, waiting on stupid-long lines to see artwork related to the show, waking up early to get tickets to see the music of the show performed live, skipping work to pre-game before episodes…I bought a fucking boar leg to roast for the finale. I bought Nate a legit DHARMA jumpsuit for his birthday. I blogged once or sometimes twice a week about the show during its final season. I was interviewed for a podcast. I spent part of my first interview with Paul Levinson talking not about his music, but LOST. Now that the show’s over, I think the last thing I have to do is go to the auction in Los Angeles on August 21st and 22nd to buy an actual prop from the show. My target: Mr. Eko’s club.
02. Futurama (2000 – 2007) – Maybe it ended post-2007, whenever that first straight-to-DVD movie was released. I don’t know the exact dates. But once I learned about Futurama I never missed an episode. And when I was in high school and then college, I had rituals and routines that you wouldn’t believe involving marijuana and my then-favorite television show. My college roommate during my senior year would sit there and watch me recite entire episodes verbatim. I wrote spec scripts for episodes in the event that the show might return. I would often stop jam sessions with Jack, Ken and Z in order to watch Futurama. It wasn’t uncommon for me to watch the same episodes twice each night in the 10pm – 11pm time slot and then again at the 2am – 3am time slot. When TBS started that weekend line-up that included Mr. Show and Futurama, I would make sure I was home to watch that shit too. There are about 100 episodes of Futurama — which amounts to about 50 hours of television — and I would venture to say that I’ve probably watched two or three thousand hours of Futurama. Wait, that means I’ve probably watched each episode roughly 40 times? Hmm…that seems a little light to me. I’m sure there are episodes I’ve seen over 50 times. Nevermind, I’m going to quit before I calculate the horrifying truth.
01. Bagels (1996 – Present) – It started shortly after my Bar Mitzvah. I had to start going to religious school on Sundays until I was 16 years old in order to…I don’t know…be even Jew-ier than I already was? I still don’t quite understand why my parents forced me to attend Sunday school, but each week I looked forward to the amazing bagels we got to eat during our mid-morning break. I would eat two, sometimes three bagels each week during that break. That began the obsession. In high school I graduated to bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwiches on bagels, or I’d order a “toasted” bagel, which in my school meant the guy at the grill would spoon some butter onto the grill and then drop the bagel into the butter, before pressing it with one of those bacon-press things. The result was a spongy, buttery bagel that tasted like bacon and ham. It was the most amazing thing ever. I ate one every day my freshman year of high school and my doctor told me six or eight months later that my cholesterol levels were through the roof. In college I started every-single-fucking-day with a bagel. After college, I still eat bagels almost every morning for breakfast. Los Angeles might have the worst bagels in America, but my obsession with them is so unyielding, so demanding, that I’ll eat a fucking gross, utter disgrace to bagels bagel every single day. My love is so unflinching. I am that obsessed.
Nostalgia is a bitch. What have you been obsessed with?
Infinity Window – Internal Compass
