Theme Park Experience

This year has been another fruitful year of new music. While I still dig in and revisit the past, there were many new records that I immensely enjoyed. I have made a Spotify playlist of tunes I liked, but here is the rundown of what I championed in 2016. Albums American Football, LP2 When American Football released their debut album in 1999, nobody I knew considered it a classic whatsoever. The four-piece had a lot of close company in the emo/post-hardcore world at that time, including Pedro the Lion, Rainer Maria, the Get Up Kids, the Promise Ring, Jimmy Eat World, and many more. Seventeen years later, this once-short-lived Mike Kinsella project is bigger than any other band he's been involved with. The debut inspired many young bands to create a sound that was more from the heart instead of the hope of becoming famous. Their second LP was a bit of surprise as it seemed to be a project that was under wraps until it had a release date. The bigger surpris...

Recently, a couple of writers/podcasters and musicians I know took to social media to vent their frustrations about how certain publications have seemingly done a 180 on emo/post-hardcore. Mainly, Pitchfork . Ten to fifteen years ago, being an emo fan meant receiving a lot of guff from people who didn't "get it." But what was to "get," and what was "it"? Validation that this music was worthwhile? Praise for albums that have been breakthroughs in the genre? Perhaps, but do we really need validation in being a fan of this genre? Yes, we do. Before social media and Spotify took hold, music-centric blogs were the best ways to find out about emerging artists. You could sample a lot of stuff for free, but you also had to dig, especially if you weren't a fan of indie rock that sounded like '70s pop rock or hip-hop that was perfect for a party. Pitchfork , which started as an online zine, seemed to be the strongest influencer on what people che...

Two years ago, Noel Murray wrote a very thoughtful and well-worded  think piece  about how your opinion about a movie can change over time. Whether you love the movie every time you see it, you love it more (or less) over time, or you love it now but you originally hated it -- these kinds of shifts happen. There are various reasons why this happens. I don't believe it's to impress peers or be a contrarian. When you come back to a movie, you are going to see it differently than how you originally saw it. In my case, as of this year, I have a significantly different opinion on  Halloween III: Season of the Witch . This is the one Halloween film that does not feature Michael Myers as the antagonist, and none of the other films in the series reference the events that happen. Written and directed by Tommy Lee Wallace, it's a bastard child, a misfire. It's something that should be forgotten by many people. But thanks to the enduring popularity of the franchise, it conti...

Prior to this past Saturday night, I didn't think I would ever ask Kevin Smith a question during one of his Q&A's. What kind of question hasn't been asked at his events for the past 22 years? Worse, if I thought I had a good question, I'd feel crestfallen if it had been answered thoroughly on a podcast I had not heard or an interview I had not read. I had seen audience members boo questions in the first two An Evening With Kevin Smith DVDs. I had heard of people yelling "Summaries!" when someone asked about something that had already been answered many times before and didn't read the Summaries section of the now-defunct NewsAskew.com. I tried to interview Kevin for the Observer , hoping to ask him questions that were more about his visits to North Texas rather than talk about his current TV, film, and podcast projects. I did get a response from his manager, but the trail went cold as Kevin was locked into filming an upcoming episode of The Flash...

Last month, I was asked to be on a panel at UNT on careers in digital media and print. Meant as a way to give college freshmen an idea of what it is like to work in the field, the coordinators asked me and four other writers to share our stories. I had a while to think about what all I wanted to share. The attitude I kept reminding myself was, encourage rather than discourage. I don't think I'm a discouraging person, but my cynicism can easily come out and it can sound discouraging. I ran through what I wanted to say, remembering what I have found to be helpful and not helpful. I believe the panel went well, as me and my fellow panelists (two of which I have worked with at the Observer , one I've known at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram , and one at the Dallas Morning News ) talked to a packed room, and we chatted with a few people who wanted to ask more questions afterwards. No one on the panel came off as bitter or angry. We acknowledged how writing in digital media is...

There was a time when I went to movie theaters quite often. Whether with my parents or friends, it was a major part of growing up in New Orleans and later, Houston. This was combined with watching videotapes (Betamax and VHS) and movies run on TV channels. All of these movies offered a view of the world that I didn't experience first-hand. But about fifteen years ago, I almost stopped going to a theater completely. I would go maybe a couple of times to see something I really wanted to see (the Star Wars prequels, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Matrix sequels, four of the Saw sequels). The pull of DVDs, whether purchased or rented, was so strong with top-quality picture and enlightening (most of the time) supplemental features like commentaries and documentaries. I was much more comfortable watching a DVD at home alone and occasionally, with a friend or girlfriend. Blame it on the cost of seeing a movie in a theater or feeling very alone out in public, I decided to kee...

A self-deprecating excuse for 30 years came to an end this past Friday night. With the help of my fellow Oil Money FC teammates, I scored three of our six goals in a victory. Along with the goal I scored in our first game together, I can now say those two own goals in 1986 are in the distant past. But what's the big deal here? I scored goals in a league where the points don't really matter and everyone gets a free beer afterwards. This is like a friendly; not the Champions League final. I make a big deal out of a lot of things, and arrogance can come across when describing any sort of accomplishment. It's probably because I often invest a lot of emotional baggage into why I cannot competently do things in the present. In other words, I make a lot of excuses. Scoring those goals means I don't have to let the past shackle me. Whether it's with what happened at previous jobs, in previous relationships, or previous friendships, life isn't over when the outco...