Since defaulting on last weeks Old School Friday I refuse to miss it this week. It’s Friday somewhere. The theme for this episode is tenth grade.
When the facts of 10th grade are revived they are colorless, a year of pointless existence is now a felled branch of the growing up tree. Seeing Fugazi in a D.C. park was not enough to save that year. Junior year memories are vivid, they come with better music as well. In 11th grade SOAD released Toxicity, and Flaming Lips released Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. I was planning my escape to college that year, and the year long preparation for the clandestine departure of my virginity began . Sophomore year was a scaly dead fish in comparison.
The music memories of 10th grade are of the unrelenting radio play of Staind’s “It’s Been A While”, and Marc Anthony’s “I Need To Know”, a big hit at those Friday night SG dances, the ones meant to keep us off drugs and into a sterile form of dirty dancing. I was coming off my 9th grade introduction to Carlos Santana, via Smooth, and still recovering from an embarrassingly traumatic incident — blogged about here in a 2005 post titled One Hand in My Pocket and the Other on my Credit Card — where my mother had taken me back to a store to return Alanis Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill after I put in the player on the way home and she heard the line “do you think of me when you fuck her”.
The year wasn’t a total bust. I fell in like with the surfer dude’s Brushfire Fairytales, Flake more well known, Sexi Plexi my favorite. Bright Eyes released Fevers and Mirrors, a CD no one but me listened to, but they lured me in with the Poe reference in “Jetsabel Removes the Undesirables”.
With so many “good but not great” songs shouting “choose me”, choose me”, I’m going with Macy Gray’s I Try. I sang the song for two years, it’s only fair.
The Strokes Hard To Explain makes the cut because in 10th grade, while my liberal yet still RC parents are trying to convince me I should go to Georgetown, Villanova, or BC, I saw the Strokes and thought “hell no, if they are from NY I’m going to there”.
Marshall Bruce Mathers III made the 10th grade cut because in 10th grade you felt pretty cool if you knew his real name and thought no one else did.
OSF sponsored by Miss Marv and Mrs Grapevine
Possible Players:
Electronic Village | Kevin — A Slant Truth | Marcus LANGFORD | iriegal | John | Kreative Talk | Regina | AJ | Sharon | SJP | BklynQueen 86 | Hey Shae | Malcolm |
peace
My high school gf loved that Staind song. I’d have to look up the dates too, the songs sort of float around and you know they came from sometime back then ya just don’t know exactly when.
“the year long preparation for the clandestine departure of my virginity began” a more interesting set of words I have not heard this year. ha ha
i could tell you were organized, that just proves it.
casey’s last blog post..My Michael Steele
I am nothing if not organized.
Yeah, this is where your old school and mine part ways. I like Macy Gray, though.
Doug’s last blog post..Arena
I knew we would part eventually.
“Parting with Thee reluctantly,
That we have never met,
A Heart sometimes a Foreigner,
Remembers it forgot”
I recall being 5 more clearly than I recall being 14 OR 15.
The memories are back there somewhere. There should always be a story to go along with music posts, and there should always be an explanation for ever having to listened to Eminem.
john’s last blog post..Desperation
I think 5 comes easier to me as well.
Don’t dis my man Jack.
Does Eminen really suck in retrospect?
I remember Fugazi in the park. I remember 8th grade.
I started a non private twitter account, i sent you a, whatever you call it invite, it’s a concept — join up you get a free paas. It is my only concession, besides my private facebook, to this thing called social media.
g’s last blog post..Pretty People
“Does Eminen really suck in retrospect?” More or less.
I’ll check it out.
In 10th grade it was “I’m Too Sexy”, and they released “Bohemian Rhapsody” again so we discovered Queen. Def Leopard was popular, that’s all I remember.
loved the prelude cooper
jacob’s last blog post..Tiger loses match to Tim Clark
The Strokes made you do it?
Your parents are practicing RC? Wow. Almost all my friends are lapsed. Have one friend who actually goes to church and retreats.
I saw my first concert in 10th grade Simon & Garfunkel. It was a great year for music though in Jericho it was all bad pop. I went into the city every Saturday to get away from the evil influence of nothingness
pia’s last blog post..Hey Daddy, part 3
I loved listening to the Macy Gray
thanks Cooper
ps I remember my first concert was Rod Stewart
laketrees’s last blog post..The Spirit of the Bush
Macy Gray, the Tracy Chapman of the late 1990’s. Never saw Gray play in hahvahd squay-ah, tho.
Never liked m&m… or the sexual questions the girls would ask each other about melting candies.
sauerkraut’s last blog post..CPAC draws a crowd
Nice to see Macy Gray show up on OSF.
sHaE-sHaE’s last blog post..Ne-Yo Weighs in on Chris Brown/Rihanna Incident