When I rename this blog, it will be “dude who ludicrously keeps attempting to deny his existence as a slave to the calendar year way of life and then posts another ‘year end’ bit of business.’”
1. What did you do in 2004 that you’d never done before?
Took a trip by my lonesome, without any relatives or friends.
2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I can’t remember what my new year resolution was last year. I already swore to stop saying “hipster” as a put down. My guess is that I’ll force myself to give up fast food cold turkey (and hot, juicy saturated-fat-laden burgers) during Lent (not that I think I’m supposed to, obviously… the penance is purely masochistic-unto-healthiness) and hope that it sticks.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
“Close” is up for grabs, but one of my conservative-with-a-chip-on-her-shoulder friends from Concordia reached her fulfillment as a woman. Another couple acquaintances are pregnant, but I’ve got to save something for next year’s much awaited survey.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Unfortunately yes. I lost my first grandparent. (First in terms of still having the other three, as well as his being the oldest.) It might have been a much harder death to take if said grandparent’s son hadn’t already died six years back.
5. What countries did you visit?
Blue state country.
6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004?
A sense of direction. The fact that ‘04 was probably the first year since graduating from college that I wasn’t lying awake at night wondering “what the fuck now?!” is, in its own way, even more disturbing. I fear I might have finally started accepting complacency. I might feel happier than I did throughout ‘02, but at what price?
7. What dates from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I don’t remember dates; my brain simply doesn’t process them. If I remember any birthdays outside of my immediate family’s, I consider it a brain spasm.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Nothing. I am not happy with my writing, I remain a social wallflower, still keep friends at arm’s length, and hold romantic possibilities at even further distance (not, to be clear, like I’ve had any opportunities to beat potential paramours off with a switch, but even if I did, I would’ve reacted with paranoia). Bleak, perhaps, but I am very slowly fulfilling my destiny as an Olsen. [sorry Mom, et al, and I'm not saying being George Bailey is a bad thing, either]
9. What was your biggest failure?
Recognizing anything good in my life. [note to anyone reading this: I am not fucking fishing for compliments, and I essentially agree with rburton that seeing the better portion of LJ users treat this internet service as a dispenser of self-heating massage oil for the ego is pretty tough to stomach most of the time] Also, not ever getting any further than day 2 in my trip journal… yet.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
My chronic neck pain still lingers, and I should probably start exercising to alleviate some of the soreness.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Stacks of DVD-Rs.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
I thank everyone in NY whose hospitality made for a memorable trip.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Most everyone, at one point or another. For someone as easy-going as I am, I can stifle outrage pretty easily.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Building my checking account up to the point that it toppled the $10K threshold. Oh, but what indignities and shortcuts I’ve had to take to get there.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
My friend Adria returning home, having the foresight and strength to dump her neglectful and sour boyfriend (who dared to call the chile con queso at Pepito’s no better than Cheeze Whiz), hitch up with the guy in her unit that she always had a latent interest in (a sweet guy), and continue on her life as it was before being sent to Iraq without a hitch.
16. What songs will always remind you of 2004?
Brass Construction, “Moving” — my sister Mandy pulled a hilarious, barrel-rolling dance move to this song while impatiently waiting at Paisley Park for the aftershow to start.
Jason Okrzynski, “Old Glory” — I still regret not talking you into the window blind percussion.
Practically anything in the “music” column on the past year’s worth of LJ entries, surely.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) richer or poorer?
Richer and sadder. Ain’t that a bitch.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Seen more movies, ludicrously.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Spent time on the internet. Slept.
20. How will you be spending your income tax returns?
I don’t know if I should expect any. Some of my money came from City Pages, and not only did they not take any taxes out, I’ve been told to expect a big fat audit for writing there. Instead, I plan on spending the money from my out of print Playtime on a better cell phone. I may cash out my savings bonds and put them into mutual funds. I think I’ll open a 401K and put 17 cents in every month. The DVD purchases have to be staved off a bit, but I doubt that’ll happen, what with forthcoming titles like L’Eclisse from Criterion, a Val Lewton box from WB, and the still-possible Kenneth Anger collection from Fantoma.
22. Did you fall in love in 2004?
I think it’s how I stay sane.
23. How many one-night stands?
None. How are they even defined?
24. What was your favorite TV program?
I rarely watched any with anything resembling regularity. I’d say Daily Show like everyone else, but I’d actually rather not remember anything about this past year’s politics more than I have to. SCTV, what with those sweet DVD releases.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
No. I’ve always hated myself. [note: HAHAHAHA! Frankly, my behavior in this entry is an insult to people who really do have depression problems.]
26. What was the best book you read?
Jonathan Rosenbaum’s Moving Places was a lot of fun, and one of the only books I read from start to finish for the first time this past year.
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
“Discovery”? I don’t know that I discovered anyone I hadn’t already known about this year. Plus I’m scared of new things.
28. What did you want and get?
I’m not at liberty to remember.
29. What did you want and not get?
I’m not at liberty to say.
30. What was your favorite film of this year?
I’ll skip new films here and mention my favorite older films I saw for the first time this year, and the entry I wrote on those films elsewhere:
1.
THE LADIES’ MAN (Lewis, 61)
THE PATSY (Lewis, 64)
THE BELLBOY (Lewis, 60)
THE NUTTY PROFESSOR (Lewis, 64)
… and throw in the other two titles Paramount released on DVD this fall (plus THREE ON A COUCH). I wrote a million words on these films over at Slant, but won’t post a link because I’m not sure the writing’s any good, especially when compared to B. Kite’s awesome article last year in The Believer. Hunt that down instead.
2.
MOI, UN NOIR (Rouch, 58)
CHRONICLE OF A SUMMER (Rouch/Morin, 61)
… both amazing examples of auto-critiquallé new wave. Here’s what I wrote somewhere else after seeing SUMMER: “First three-quarters of the film, I’m sort of sitting (with a splitting headache, mind you, and not from the film) and waiting for the moment when worlds opened up before me and I understood the genesis of verité and whatnot. In fact, I was sort of questioning the validity of many of the figures documented. Some seemed to be consciously acting, others were struggling to ignore the camera, some strained in a seeming effort to overcome the limitations of their own intellect (not saying anyone was stupid, just that their motives always drove them towards failure of some type)… and then comes the denouement, where (SPOILER, I guess) the entire ‘cast’ is shown the film up to that point and they debate as to the true nature of it’s ‘authenticity’ and the inner dialogue I was having becomes the actual subject of the film! It’s achievement is clear, and astonishing. I can’t remember the classic final line from Edgar Morin now, but it’s one of the most beautifully succinct readings of the film. Self-reflective is scarcely the word for it.”
3.
BLONDE VENUS (Von Sternberg, 32)
The only new Sternberg-Dietrich I saw this year (only ones left to track down: DISHONORED and DEVIL), and I thought this one stood apart (and, on my most masochistic days, above) the other ones I’ve seen because it ends up resolving the psychological tug-of-way between von Sternberg and Dietrich’s girdle straps on the side of repression, domestic bondage and social martyrdom. Well, I guess one could say that all of their collaborations (maybe not SHANGHAI EXPRESS, and I’d argue that the suggested madness of EMPRESS is still escape of a sort). At any rate, you just don’t see musical numbers as gonzo as the blond-afro, gorilla-suit “Hot Voodoo” every day.
4.
BREAKAWAY (Conner, 66)
UN CHANT D’AMOUR (Genet, 50)
ROSE HOBART (Cornell, 36)
VINYL (Warhol, 65)
PUCE MOMENT (Anger, 49)
… five a-g touchstones, five instances where the kindness of fellow cinephiles (and their bootleg tapes) allowed me to expand, ever so tentatively, my limited exposure to said genre. Of all five films, I was surprised to find that the one I’d suspect least to my taste — BREAKAWAY — actually ended up flooring me the most. (Not to give the short end of the stiffie to Genet’s obviously blazing foray into filmmaking/artistic masturbation.) Nothing more complicated than a zoom-happy, polka-dots-and-monochrome-paint cinematic dance to rockabilly music with a pretty girl, Conner’s film stops halfway through and rewinds the entire event. I’ve seen nothing in cinema that more closely approximates the sensation of being seduced and then, afterwards, rewinding the entire fevered tryst in your mind in a vain hope to remember exactly what you could have said or done to precipitate the event, trying to file it away for (a hopeful) next time.
5.
THE CHAPERONE (Jaacovi, 73)
RED TO KILL (Shing, 94)
… or, blatant non-AZ posturing. Actually, no. These are two extraordinary examples of extremely nihilistic, hysterical exploitation that went well beyond what I thought possible for a genre that frequently tumbles into the frictionless territory of self-parody. What sets both of these films (the first, a fake-Euro T&A jaunt to the remote cabin in the woods that slowly becomes the very birth of the FRIDAY THE 13TH-style slasheer; the second, what I sincerely *hope* is a bad-faith satire of the very real HK rape film subgenre, set inside a retard shelter… you read that right) apart is their willingness to keep a poker face even as every audacious scene threatens to give the audience the “relief” of realizing “oh, now he’s *trying* too hard to shock us!” On the off-chance that someone here might someday run across one of these films (and odds are pretty low on CHAPERONE, since I suspect I might have been watching the only extant print of the damned thing), I won’t say any further.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I didn’t celebrate it further than going to Pepito’s, but I turned 25.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
These questions are just starting to get repetitive now. Suddenly being the most attractive guy in history, getting married to a fucking brilliant, exaggeratedly male dude and having everyone in the world approve and God/Buddha/etc itself descend from above and inform mankind that the event was what he had intended our species to strive for in the first place. How’s that?
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?
Hot.
34. What kept you sane?
I did answer this one already.
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I hate to say it, but Adam Brody. Reason I hate to say it: it’s one of those crushes that make me feel like a straight woman rather than a gay man for having it. No one out of high school should probably be attracted to that guy.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Nope. Not playing this today.
37. Who did you miss?
The person who died. Also, I miss my college roommate Ryan. He won’t answer my emails.
38. Who was the best new person you met?
It has been scientifically proven that Stebano is the “best” “new” “person” that I “met” in “2004.” Or maybe he’s simply the only person I started hanging out with on a fairly regular basis last year.
39. What do you look forward to in 2005?
Et al.
40. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004?
Happiness, in the form of complacency, is the enemy of personal growth. Therefore, nourish the self-loathing in your life.
