Do you have the time to listen to me whine? No? Well, do you have the time to listen to me talk about Green Day’s Dookie, which was released twenty years ago and is one of the most important albums I ever purchased? You do? Great! I’ll give some history on the album, go through it track by track and then explain exactly why, when I was 17 years old, this punk classic changed my life.
The second year of The ‘Nam continues as two long-standing characters leave: Sarge on a chopper and Ramnarain via capture. And in the middle is Rob, trying to keep everything together. It’s “Good for the Goose” by Doug Murray, Wayne Vansant, and Geof Isherwood. As always, in addition to the summary and review of the issue Ill be talking about the storys historical context as well as taking a look at the letters, ‘Nam Notes, and ads.
Bill Clinton plays the sax (“we’re Animaniacs”) on The Arsenio Hall Show in 1992, probably the most iconic moment in the show’s history.
While this will date this entry years hence, I guess it should be noted that I’m writing it the same week that Jimmy Fallon starts hosting NBC’s long-running late-night talk show, The Tonight Show. In the last few weeks there have been all sorts of farewells to both him on Late Night (which is being taken over by SNL alum Seth Meyers) and Jay Leno. Leno, in 1993, received his first stint as permanent host of The Tonight Show after the retirement of Johnny Carson and the fights behind the camera as well as resulting late night ratings wars between Leno and Letterman (who would go on to do his own show after being passed over for Carson’s) would be one of the more well-known (and notorious) television stories of the 1990s.
One of the biggest casualties of the late night wars of 1993 was The Arsenio Hall Show. Since its debut in 1989, the syndicated talk show had garnered respectable ratings and was very popular among younger audiences, but when three other late-night shows debuted during that year and many of the CBS affiliates that were carrying Hall’s show picked up Letterman’s instead, the ratings started to take a turn for the worst. On May 27, 1994, the final episode of the show aired.
Now, when Arsenio was at his height of popularity, I wasn’t a regular viewer of his show. Staying up that late on a school night was not an option for me in those years, and while I was allowed much later nights in the summer, those were usually spent watching a baseball game. But if I happened to be up and not watching a random movie and had a desire to watch a late night talk show, I would tune in to Arsenio because like a lot of people who were watching his show, I found Carson to be … old.
And that sounds so pedantic, especially considering that Johnny Carson was such a huge legend in comedy and also considering that I would occasionally tape Late Night With David Letterman and Letterman was Carson’s heir apparent. But Hall was cool–he must have been since he hosted the VMAs four times in a row (still a record to this date)–and he had guests that I was familiar with. Granted, I knew who most of the guests on your average Carson episode were, but people I actually might have a chance of watching/listening to with more frequency were on Arsenio.
When Hall’s show went off the air on May 27, I wasn’t watching. However, I had a good reason not to: Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals between the New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils (“MATTEAU! MATTEAU!” … oh, sorry … that’ll be another post).
I found the final episode of the show on YouTube and while I’m not sure if it’s the entire show (it’s in three parts and a couple of things do seem to be missing), it’s enough to get a feel for what Arsenio was about for its brief life. In what I’ve seen, the episode’s format is what you’d expect from a talk show–a monologue and guests (Arsenio wasn’t really one for comedic bits). The two guests mentioned are Whoopi Goldberg and James Brown. You don’t see much of Brown–I have a feeling that whomever posted the video missed his performance or it was trimmed down in the original broadcast–and Whoopi’s conversation with Arsenio is about how his show was successful and the cultural impact he had. Being a horribly naive 17-year-old white kid from the suburbs in 1994, I wouldn’t have been able to say word one about the cultural impact of a talk show hosted by an African-American but with twenty years of life experience and perspective now behind me, I completely understand what she’s talking about. Hall was not only the first but he was also successful. No, he didn’t have the long runs that Carson and Letterman had, but five years in syndication and holding on to an oft-fickle youth audience is something to be commended.
I am sure that Mr. Blutarsky’s purity test score was in the negative numbers.
The Internet is full of memes–lists, gifs, videos, and other things that often go viral–and that’s been the case since, well, since the Internet was invented. A couple of weeks ago while cleaning out some old files, I found a few things and decided to spend a few weeks talking about memes that I first encountered in 1995.
My final entry is about The Purity Test.
A college dorm is some sort of primordial hormone soup, especially when you’re a freshmen. Whereas you may have “hooked up” from time to time in high school, it was never to the extent that you do, or at least try to do, during your first year of college. Okay, I should say “other” people do because when I started college I was at the first serious girlfriend stage that most guys are when they are freshmen in high school. But my track record as a terribly late bloomer aside, it did seem like conversations about love and sex were everywhere and completely unavoidable. In fact, sometimes they got intellectual, like the time a few people from one of my survey classes and I spent a Saturday night in a dorm room having our own version of Plato’s Symposium. And that’s not a double entendre; we actually had an intellectual and philosophical discussion about love and sex … at least until it got interrupted by our gawking at the fire in Gardens A across the street.
Anyway, the quickest way to discussion about sex with the purity test. Forwarded around at about the same time as the rest of the forwards I’ve looked at (for some reason, by spring semester and then in subsequent years, forwards would become less common, probably because the novelty wore off), this 100-question test was meme as group activity. I remember printing copies out and taking it in a group of about ten people then comparing scores. I think you were supposed to shoot for somewhere in the middle–a high score got you ridiculed as a virgin while a low score got you derided as a slut–although I don’t know why any score was ever a mark of distinction. It’s not like “Hey, let’s lower that purity test score” was ever a successful pickup line, and there was more distinction in successfully completing the acrobatics necessary to have sex in an extra-long twin bed than a score on a test.
I haven’t looked at this list of questions in a good decade and a half, so I have no idea what my score would be (or honestly what it was at the time). If you’re curious, you can take it yourself.
Join me this time for one part of a special two-part crossover with “The Quarter Bin Podcast” over at the Relatively Geeky Podcast Network as Professor Alan and I look at The ‘Nam #15. In this issue by Doug Murray, Wayne Vansant, and Geof Isherwood, Ed Marks writes a letter from home relating his experience after leaving the ‘nam at the end of issue #13. So listen here for my take on the issue and then head over to The Relatively Geeky Networkto hear Professor Alan’s take! As always, in addition to the summary and review of the issue I’ll be talking about the story’s historical context as well as taking a look at the letters, ‘Nam Notes, and ads.
My freshman dorm, Wynnewood Towers of Loyola College in Maryland. The building is now Newman Towers and the school is now Loyola University Maryland.
The Internet is full of memes–lists, gifs, videos, and other things that often go viral–and that’s been the case since, well, since the Internet was invented. A couple of weeks ago while cleaning out some old files, I found a few things and decided to spend a few weeks talking about memes that I first encountered in 1995.
This time around, it’s instant sentimentality and nostalgia for a few weeks gone by with “Going to College is Easier Than It Looks”
Your first semester of college is more thank likely one of the strangest three months of your life. After all, if you’re like me, you go from living with mom and dad and having your own room to being shoved into what was once a one-bedroom apartment with four other guys who all have their own eating, sleeping, hygienic, and recreational drug habits. Plus, unless you have a carry-over from high school to college (like friends or a girlfriend who came with you), you’re more or less figuring out both the social and academic landscape by yourself. This is why those months–heck, the first few weeks–of college seem much longer than they actually are.
There was a point in mid-October where we were about a week away from my fall break and I had some sort of “you’ve changed” fight with my girlfriend. Had I? I’d been gone for all of five weeks and it’s not like I had dropped off the face of the earth for five years. But at the same time, as I calculated the amount of stuff that had happened in those five weeks, I thought maybe I had. A forward that landed in my inbox around the same time confirmed this. Unlike the roommate lists, finals funnies, and other stupid crap we’d been passing around, this was especially popular among the girls and “romantic sensitive” doofuses like myself.
For years, the author of this particular piece was unknown. But in digging around on the internet for it, I found a version attributed to Ashley Wilson of Carnegie Mellon University. I don’t know how true that is, but it may have been a newspaper column or essay that got picked up and sent around, her name being dropped at one point or another along the way.
“Going to College is Easier Than it Looks”
By Ashley Wilson
Carnegie Mellon University (more…)
Do you have the time to listen to me whine? No? Well, do you have the time to listen to me talk about Green Day’s Dookie, which was released twenty years ago and is one of the most important albums I ever purchased? You do? Great! I’ll give some history on the album, go through it track by track and then explain exactly why, when I was 17 years old, this punk classic changed my life.
Here is the orignal version of the CD’s back cover …
The second year of The ‘Nam continues as two long-standing characters leave: Sarge on a chopper and Ramnarain via capture. And in the middle is Rob, trying to keep everything together. It’s “Good for the Goose” by Doug Murray, Wayne Vansant, and Geof Isherwood. As always, in addition to the summary and review of the issue Ill be talking about the storys historical context as well as taking a look at the letters, ‘Nam Notes, and ads.
Pop Culture Affidavit 