A Retraction

OK, I'm a little embarrassed. I've now seen the video that I posted yesterday on CNN twice. I feel like a cultural lemming. The first time was on AC 360, which I could live with because, as I've stated before on this blog, I think Anderson Cooper is alright (as far as mainstream media anchors go). But then today I happened to see it on The Situation Room. Ugh... Wolf Blitzer represents every brutal anchor, mainstream media stereotype in existence. It was infuriating. Kyle, you have my copy of Klosterman's Killing Yourself to Live. If you could track down his Wolf Blitzer jab from the passage on the blackout I would appreciate it.

I should have known. I pride myself on identifying pop culture phenomena in advance of when they hit the mainstream and I beat myself up when I miss one.

FOR INSTANCE: I went out of my way to tell everyone I knew that Modest Mouse's "Float On" was going to be a huge song. This went against some of my indie-snob instincts because we tend to hold on to smaller bands who arn't that popular. But I knew that while I was home for the summer every time that song came on the people I had mentioned the song to would think "man, I wonder what Ben is up to right now" and that was borne out by the number of drunken phone calls I recieved with people saying "BEN! Float On is on in this bar! and I was just thinking about what you were up to! WHOO!OO!"

OK, so I'm a self-centered self-serving douche, but the point holds.

The counter point to this, is that i watched the first episode of "Lost" and thought "how the hell are they going to drag this out for a whole series". Man, was I wrong. The show is awesome and well executed and (obviously) a huge pop culture phenomena.

But there is a distinction here between identifying pop culture phenomena and being caught up with everyone else. In this instance I was had. I think I would feel better about it if I could really get behind something as stupid as this youtube video. But I can't. It made me laugh and something compelled me to post it on this blog. I regret this. Consider this post my official retraction. I'm not going to delete the previous post because I believe in exposing my failures to the rest of mankind. But I do promise to have a better filter. I will attempt to bring more insight and less internet nonsense. Or at least not internet nonsense you will have seen on CNgoddamN.

This isn't my week for conversation starters, but I felt the need to defend and apologize for my previous post.