“Do they know it’s December? Do they care?” I awoke this morning asking myself this question. There are four Fridays in December, and each one has to be dedicated to a Year-End list. Why? Because that’s what every publication on the face of the planet does starting the moment Thanksgiving dinner ends. Across all forms of media, the next few weeks will be filled with cloying fits of nostalgia, hindsight-enriched wistfulness, and even some good-old-fashioned navel-gazing. On each Friday in December, Swan Fungus will present a new Year-End list. If you are an old-timer, you know how this works. If you’re new, let me lay it out for you.
Friday December 3rd, 2010: The Top Ten Top Ten Lists of 2010
Friday December 10th, 2010: The Top Ten Negative Reader Comments Of 2010
Friday December 17th, 2010: The Top Ten Deaths Of 2010
Friday December 31st, 2010: The Top 100 Albums Of 2010
And so it has been blogged, and so it shall be. This is the order. Follow it. Or don’t. I don’t care. Just so long as you enjoy what I have to say. If you don’t, I’ll fuck your mother in her mouth and have her cook me some dinner.
The Top Ten Top Ten Lists Of 2010
Honorable Mention:
– The Top Ten Things I Would Rather Have Than An iPad – It started off pretty well with an iPatch joke, but then it kinda faltered. Still, this list was funny enough to warrant a positive comment from Kasi. She never has anything nice to say about my writing. This list will forever be memorable because #2 on the list is “a pocket pussy,” and then a few weeks later Ken and KT got me one for my birthday. Awesome.
– The Top Ten Episodes Of The Twilight Zone – January 1st was a Friday, so this was the first list of 2010. It also received the most comments (I think) of any top ten list this year. Nine. Wow. How embarrassing. Why am I still doing this?
– The Top Ten Reasons Why Swan Fungus Matters More Than Blog.com’s List Of The Top Ten Los Angeles Blogs – Bold title, bold subject matter. This one didn’t receive any comments from fellow bloggers (like my anti-music blog top ten list did), but that wasn’t the point. I needed to show the world, and this city, that there isn’t a more important blog than this one.
10. The Top Ten Theme Party Ideas – It only received two comments, but it was the most-accessed top ten list of the year. In fact, according to Google Analytics, it was the 28th most accessed page of the entire blog. That makes it more popular than interviews with popular musicians to rants about Gail Simmons’ tits and all the Sunday Mix Tapes I shared. Personally, I don’t like the list, but some stupid college kids must. I am reminded of the Rules Of AIM Etiquette website I made during my freshman year of college that was a hit on the College Humor website…
09. The Top Ten Coolest Things About Flat Conner – At some point I forgot whether he spelled his name Conner or Connor. No matter, he’s the best friend I’ve ever had, and I still miss him every day. It’s like I said on my list of things I’m thankful for in 2010: “The best part of 2010 for me was meeting and befriending Flat Connor. You remember him, right? He was just a little guy from the midwest who came to LA and wanted to see the sights. He was only supposed to stay a day or two, but we really hit it off and wound up spending quite a bit of time together. Until that fateful night when Conner disappeared, I wouldn’t hesitate to say my days with him were some of the best of my life. I still think about Conner every day. I think about Conner and I think about the motherfuckers who kidnapped him, and it makes me want to cry. I don’t cry, though, because I’m a real man. Still, I know he’s out there, somewhere, fighting for his life and thinking right back about me. Sigh…I love you Flat Conner. I miss you. I’ll find you. I’ll fucking find you.”
08. The Top Ten Oasis Songs – You all know my little secret. I am a closet Oasis fan. Nothing after Be Here Now, of course, but a big fan of the first three albums and their singles. Would you have guessed that the Oasis top ten list was the second-most visited list of the year? And if you were a casual Oasis fan looking on the Internet for a list of the band’s ten best songs, and searched Google, you’d see Swan Fungus as the third-ranked result.
07. The Top Ten Classical Composers Of All Time – It’s hard for me to think of this list without remembering the glory of The Top Ten Worst Classical Compsers Of All Time. The original list brought some of the dumbest folks ever to this website. They all left comments as if they couldn’t tell it was a joke. The revamped, rebranded best-of list (written by my dear friend Jet) is actually one of the best-written posts of the year (because I didn’t write it!).
06. The Top Ten Things I Have Been Obsessed With – I don’t read any blogs. I don’t even read my own posts once they have been published. Hence the typos. If I did read blogs, I would probably be grateful for lists like this one. I imagine that, to most of you, I am a weird faceless curmudgeon who uses too many bad words. A list like this one humanizes me. There are precious few opportunities for readers to truly learn who I am or where I’ve come from. Swan Fungus is mostly anti-(insert thing) rants. Sometimes the personal posts are the best, most-honest stuff.
05. The Top Ten Ways To Make A First Date Painful – Through the years, more than one Swan Fungus reader has emailed me to thank me for a piece of relationship advice I have written. Two people have e-mailed me. That’s why I keep trying to think of new, funny dating/relationship posts. This list was a chance to revisit the first date motif I’ve written about before. Instead of writing about how to get laid on a first date or how to end a first date early, this one was about just making it awkward and painful for the other person. Because sometimes we need to have a little fun at the expense of others. Or at least I do. And I have done some of these things before. And they work. And they are fun. So that makes me an authority. So there.
04. Ten Must-Have Japanese Records – This was not meant to be a definitive “Top Ten,” but it was still one of most positively reviewed lists by readers in all of 2010. Even that guy from the UK who writes a comment every single day saying gay I am said this was one of my best ever posts. That means a lot to me. Sorry the MP3s won’t work anymore, but I provide enough details for you to find more music on your own. Good luck. Enjoy.
03. The Top Ten Summer Seasonal Beers – I like to write about beer because people from all over the world will chime in with their two cents. I haven’t tried every beer ever brewed, and geographical restrictions limit me from sampling countless brews just in America. I like this list because it’s both honest and accurate. I could have lied and assumed Bells brews an amazing summer beer, but I’ve never tasted it. Taking into account only the beers that I have tried in Los Angeles as well as those back east where I grew up and laid the groundwork for my current drinking problem, it’s perfect.
02. The Top Ten Worst Episodes Of Futurama – When my friend Matt told me he found a website ranking the worst episodes of Futurama (pre-cancelation), I had to check it out for myself. They got it all wrong. Someone actually called “Jurassic Bark” one of the worst episodes in the entire series (uh…that’s easily in my top-five). I knew I needed to strike back with as good a list as an obsessive fan could create. And I did. I think I nailed it.
01. The Ten Types Of Emotionally Crippled Women – Making fun of women is pretty much the best thing I do. There’s Gail Simmons jokes, there’s the occasionally insightful music post, but mostly Swan Fungus is where I demean women. I’m not proud of it. It’s a learned behavior. Still, any chance I have to both make fun of girls and The Frisky is a recipe for a successful list. See, it’s funny because all women are emotionally crippled! Get it! No? Go to hell.
Re-read the lists and let me know what you think. Come back next Friday for the most-highly anticipated Top Ten Year-End List of ’em all, the one where I rank the best insults people hurl at me. Prepare yourself for a lot of juvenile remarks about how I’m gay and should go fuck myself.
