Why, Why, Tell em that it is Human Nature/Why, Why does he do me that way?

I didn’t write on June 25^th. I couldn’t. I didn’t write on July 7^th. I still couldn’t then. After enduring the first year of graduate school, I found myself literally escaping O-town and hiding out (minus the 3x a week for 3 hours of French) because I was so happy to not be responsible to anything or anyone but myself for the first time in a long time. I am experiencing the normal existential breakdown that I think a lot of people experience once they go through that first year. I struggled a great bit, and I guess I was mostly disillusioned to find that academia wouldn’t be a retreat from the corporate world. In fact, in many ways it may be worse. At least the corporate world doesn’t pretend to be a more noble cause. I guess it is all pretty dirty. I realized there are still people to step on and to be stepped on by and the competition is just as fierce. It may sound cliché but all I want to do is to help people, to make a difference, to have them look at history (something that most people respond to me by saying “oh I hated history in high school”) and get them to look and think about it differently.

I want to make a difference, I want to make it right. Call it coincidence but with over 500 minutes of songs on shuffle, Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” just came on.  I am still really in a state of grief about his death. I think that is why I couldn’t blog about his death or all the nasty things that people said about him after he died. He is undeniably the greatest entertainer of all time- period- there is no arguing against that. The night that Michael Jackson died, A&R, PCH and I went up to the Den where we literally took over the jukebox and played all Michael. People were getting angry, but I didn’t care. I was angry. I wanted them to shut up about the eccentricities of his life and appreciate his talent. Nevermind the fact that the stuff they were talking about was stuff that the man was never found guilty of—does the constitution and the court of law mean nothing to them? Some of my greatest memories involve Michael’s music. There was the one night at A&R’s we watched his Live from Budapest and I sat on their couch bawling my eyes out because I was so moved my his music and I felt so silly for crying like that, but now I don’t anymore. I watched the memorial service on July 7^th- and it was like ripping a scab off that had just begun to heal- the wound was fresh and so was the loss.

I’m really lucky to have friends that feel the same way that I do and that we can understand how important this is. So to the people like the assholes who harassed us the Den, making nasty claims about how MJ wasn’t anything— just ask yourself, would a majority of a whole planet- yes planet- be mourning for nothing?? I felt at least a little reassured when one of the assholes mentioned his news source, Bill O’Reilly, and the coverage there- because then I knew we were clearly dealing with a complete idiot and not just an asshole. Try NPR or BBC. That’s the other thing though. All these snotty little npr-ers are writing in about how this is so not “newsworthy,” it makes me wonder if they just don’t like it because HEAVEN FORBID IT BE SOMETHING THAT APPLIES TO THE MASSES AND NOT SOME INTELLECTUALLY ELITE GROUP.

I think that the first year of grad school and particularly the fact that I want to do more cultural history now has really made me feel even more like I don’t fit in anywhere. I just wish people would quit drawing up borders and boxes. Yes I like to read, but I also like that thing snobby little buttholes call the “idiot box”- in fact I like it so much I am writing my thesis on –GASP- a television show. I listen to NPR daily, I also watch One Tree Hill. One of my favorite books is Ulysses and one of my favorite albums is Thriller. I love foreign films but I also love Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. I like wine, but will be fine with Jack any day of the week too. When will we all be done with cramming ourselves into the little boxes that Facebook and Myspace supply us?

I’ve decided that I don’t fit in anywhere: I fit in everywhere and I’m done apologizing it for it.

Let be be finale of seem, starting now.