Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Secret History of the Foot Clan #2

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Shredder find themselves after the same thing, the man who knows the "secret history of the foot clan," the one who has the ability to grant the Shredder secret power that could allow him to defeat his ancient enemies once and for all and have the most powerful ninja force on the planet at the tips of his fingers (or perhaps the tips of his toes, because they're called the Foot Clan, not the Hand Clan).

Much like in the first issue, the art is great when we're looking at people and not so great when we're looking at turtle-people, the narrative is strong, and the climax is interesting. It is hard to say much past that without either giving away the plot of the mini-series or being entirely redundant. Instead, I'd like to do something that I don't normally do, a digression on the character of Alopex.

Alopex is a mutant fox who was introduced in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Micro-Series issue about Raphael's solo mission. As far as I know, she is an entirely new character, not present in the original comics, the Archie comics, or the cartoon. She's popped up here and there, but it is not entirely clear why she was introduced. Prior to the introduction of Alopex, a mutant alley cat named Old Hob was brought into the origin story of the Turtles and Splinter. It is pretty clear what his future is for the series, but Alopex remains a mystery.

Meanwhile, in the first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Secret History of the Foot Clan, we learn the story of an ancient witch who made contact with a magical force from beyond the stars and sold that power to the ninja clan. This figure is surrounded with much of the same mystery as Alopex. My thought is that Alopex, who keeps popping her head up in this mini-series despite not being pivotal to the plot in any way, is the reincarnated witch. If Splinter can be the reincarnated Hamato Yoshi and the Turtles his children returned from the dead, then there is certainly room for more rebirths. I'm sure Splinter wishes he could see his own wife again, but maybe not until after the threat of the Shredder is defeated. Why would Alopex be a reincarnated figure and not others like Old Hob or Slash? I can't answer that question, but I can mention that Alopex had latent ninja fighting abilities that neither of the other mutants possessed.

Originally, I mentioned that this second issue is exactly the same as the first issue in terms of quality, but after this tangential discussion I think this one might be better. After all, one quality of great art is that you think about it for some time afterwards.

I've syndicated this review at Examiner. You can read it here. If you click on it a few times, spend some time there, or navigate to a new page, I might get some money. But I'm only asking that of you if you liked reading the article here and want to show your appreciation.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Secret History of the Foot Clan #1

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Secret History of the Foot Clan #1 tells the story behind the ninja army lead by the Shredder through historical lecture and Master Splinter's recollection of his prior life with simple literary flashback filling in the gaps that neither could have possibly known. These truths are revealed because the turtles and their allies wish to gain any possible knowledge about their adversary and also because the Shredder wishes to restore an incredibly mystical power to his followers.

I went into this book skeptical of how it would turn out. I have been really impressed by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ongoing series and the various mini-series installations to date. The only thing I found hard to digest was the annual, which read like a Legion of Super-Heroes of thugs, spending every panel and every page introducing a new villain. What I've been impressed with the most is how the mini-series tend walk the tight rope between giving you too little useful information (seemingly unimportant and disconnected from the main story) and giving you too much useful information (making it so you need to read the mini-series in order to understand the main story). These books are written incredibly well. Normally, I'd be skeptical that the writers can continue walking that tight rope with the bomb that is dropped at the end of this first issue which will definitely affect the main story in many ways, but after the flawless delivery of the Fugitoid story among others I trust that these guys know what they're doing.

Mateus Santolouco's art is really impressive. For a ninja-based back-story, the Manga-style drawing works fantastically. My only problem is that the turtles themselves do not look as good. But the people look great, especially in the flashbacks.

It is very difficult to read this issue and not reveal the ending. I just want to talk about it. What I can say is that this issue teases a great source of power that a shape-shifting ninja delivers to the foot soldiers in the distant past. At the very end of the issue, in what felt almost like a really good episode of LOST, the source of that power is revealed. I think the repercussions of this one panel are likely to define where the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics proceed from this moment forward. It will add excitement to this year, but also to the entire run.

The book wasn't flawless, but it was awfully close. Give it a read.

I've syndicated this review at Examiner. You can read it here. If you click on it a few times, spend some time there, or navigate to a new page, I might get some money. But I'm only asking that of you if you liked reading the article here and want to show your appreciation.

Role Models, Part One

I was in middle school when reports came in of a child who burned down his family's barn. At face value, this doesn't seem like a story appropriate for national news. But this barn burning was political. It wasn't terrorism. It wasn't the Ku Klux Klan or Al-Qaeda. It wasn't even the Michigan Militia. This crime was much more insidious than all of that. It was committed be a child under the influence of cartoons.

The cartoon in question was Beavis and Butt-head. The story we were fed convinced us that since the teenagers on this show were depicted playing with matches and laughing while saying, "fire, fire, fire," children watching this show had no choice but to become arsonists. By this time in my life, I had already been on my fair share of campouts with my Boy Scout troop in which boys my age were expected to start camp fires. I only had to see two or three of my compatriots melt their windbreakers painfully to their skin only to run back and do it again before I realized that teenage boys have been obsessed with fire since time immemorial. Beavis and Butt-head didn't prescribe our delinquency. They reflected our delinquency.

However enlightened I may have been regarding human nature as a teenager, I was not free from the veritable witch hunt that followed in the 90s under the names of "censorship" and "political correctness." I remember that my brother and I were at a church youth group get-together after school and that we, accompanied by a kid we know named Jake, were trying to do our best impressions of the Beavis and Butt-head laughs. I know that I had never seen Beavis and Butt-head before. I think my brother saw it once or twice at his friend Pat's house. But everyone knew about Beavis and Butt-head back then, even if they had never once seen the show. It was part of the zeitgeist. It was a result of that same magic that granted me knowledge of songs by Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls. We always did impressions of cartoon characters. There was the Bart Simpson: "Don't have a cow, man," the Wolverine growl with the word, "bub" at the end, the Tick's ridiculous exclamations like, "Honk if you love justice!" We never got in trouble for those impressions, but if you were referencing Beavis and Butthead back then you could get in some serious trouble. I remember on this particular occasion I was reprimanded verbally and the guilt was laid on so heavily that I felt like I had just burned down my parents' house with both my parents still inside, and that I had done so with only the power of my words.

It was through the media hype and government focus on my childhood cartoons that I first encountered the discussion of the responsibility of public figures as role models for the children of America. It was also during this conflict that I felt some of my earliest stirrings of authority issues. I had a serious problem with some Senator or Representative telling my parents that I shouldn't watch my favorite television programs. I felt the earliest pangs of righteous indignation with the idea that someone might stand between me and my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

A few years later in 1999, former Mickey Mouse Club child star Britney Spears got a record deal and released the album ...Baby One More Time. As Spears transformed from a girl into a woman she also transformed from the influence of Mickey to Madonna. She was dealing with her awakening sexuality just like any other girl, but unlike any other girl every moment of Spears ascent into adulthood was documented by either MTV, VH1 or the paparazzi. By the time Oops!... I Did It Again came out in 2000, Spears was defined by the lyric, "I'm not that innocent." (If it were up to me, I would define the girl by her overuse of the ellipsis in album titles, but it's not up to me.) Her interviews before this time usually centered around her sudden rise to fame and how grateful Spears was to those who helped her along the way, people like her mom or her friend Justin Timberlake and his band N'Sync. Now her interviews centered around the fact that she was acting as a bad role model for young girls and accusations flew that Britney Spears was responsible for over-sexualizing the day's youth.

I used to try to imagine what it would feel like to take Britney's place. Physiologically and emotionally she was changing into an adult, and sexuality is part of adulthood. (Why else would we put pornographic films in the adult film section?) She was also growing as an artist and doing whatever she could do to keep her dream of singing and dancing alive. In her place I think I would probably feel like there was nothing I could do right. I don't mean to say, "Leave Britney alone!" I'm not trying to excuse anything she's done in the public eye. I mean to say that even with all of the money and recognition Britney Spears racked up during this short period, I would prefer my overweight, zit-faced life with no money and no girlfriend to the life of Britney Spears, because at least I had the option to be myself without the media turning me into the scapegoat for a world full of sins.

Returning to the story of the boy who burned down the barn, I can say that I don't feel any connection with this boy. The two of us liked our cartoons and we liked our MTV, but this kid was known to the nation as the poster child of a poorly spent youth while I was emerging as an example of a well-raised son. I was a Boy Scout. I was engaged in community service. I stayed in school. I respected my parents and credited their teaching for any kindness anyone said to me. I went to college. I went to church. Most importantly, I was never caught burning down any buildings. I sometimes wondered if there weren't more similarities between me and the barn burner. To paraphrase the Joker in Batman: The Killing Joke, perhaps the difference between me and him was as insignificant as one bad day.

Maybe it's just the philosopher in me, but I cannot think about these events without stumbling into a difficult string of questions. Who are the role models that our children look up to? Who ought our children look up to? Who gets to make the choice? What is a role model? How ought a role model to act? How do we understand responsibility in light of the influence of role models in people's lives? How should we respond when we believe that role models are not acting properly? Should we respond at all? Should our government representatives intervene in these matters? What should they do? I know that if I am to listen to the testimony of someone pointing a finger and placing blame on cartoons and pop singers for the corruption of our youth, I'd like them to be able to answer all of these questions for me. I'd really like to be able to answer these questions for myself.

Role Models, Part One can be viewed here.

Things '90s Kids Realize

There's a blog out there called Things 90s Kids Realize that speaks to a certain zeitgeist of the first full decade I ever experienced. (I was born almost three years too late to fully appreciate the 1980s, but if you have ever met me you'd probably never guess.) I suggest you check it out.

Below is just a snippet of what you'll find on this web site:

DIY Turtle Van

If you're anything like me, then you wish that you owned the Turtle Van that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles used in the original cartoon. A 23-year old woman named Britney Schneck has used her automobile detailing skills to transform 1 '94 Caravan into her own personal Turtle Van. I'm super jealous.

Here is a before and after picture of the Caravan and the Turtle Van.

And finally a comparison between the toy Turtle Van and the full-sized Turtle Van.

So far as I'm able to track it, the original story was posted on CarDomain and can be read here. Jalopnik and Slashfilm retell the story here and here.

14 Movies From Which a Justin Tiemeyer Can Be Constructed

(In chronological order)

1. The Care Bears Movie (1985)

Amy now gets annoyed whenever I sing The Care Bears Movie theme song Care-a-Lot by Carole King.

But I keep singing it!

2. The Labyrinth (1986)

My aunt used to baby sit us during the summer sometimes, and the really cool thing about being a teenager at Aunt Sue's house was that she usually had one or two premium movie channels that we did not have. One afternoon, a movie called The Labyrinth came on, a beautiful creation of Jim Henson and David Bowie, completely new to me in the mid-90s, and yet eerily familiar. When it came to the scene of the baby walking on the ceiling, I recognized a scene that I'd seen in dreams for most of my life, that I'd described to my mother on more than one occasion. When mom and dad got home from work and picked us up, I talked to them about this strange feeling, and in quite a Dickensian fashion it was revealed that some months after my brother had been born, making me three-years-old, my father took me to see The Labyrinth. Showing this children's film to his child was an excuse for him to get out of the house and enjoy a film starring one of his favorite musicians, David Bowie. Since my Labyrinth renaissance of the '90s, I've come to enjoy much more of the work of the Thin White Duke and I've gotta say that it's brought my father and me closer.

3. Robin Hood (1973)

 
One of the most told stories of my childhood is that my mom had recorded the Disney animated Robin Hood film from the Disney channel when we had one of those free weekends (back when there was programming on Disney worth paying more for), and that I watched that video until the tape was worn straight through. I bought it again a couple years back, but I have trouble believing that Robin Hood will ever be the same with what I now know about those Crusades that the good king was off on.


4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991)

 
If you've ever been to a karaoke bar, there's always that one white guy or girl who gets a kind of ironic kick out of doing a token rap song, the grin on his or her face shouting out, "Hey, I'm singing black people music and I'm not a black person." And it's cute, because this karaoke bar is a hole in the wall that only white people go to anyways. These people generally sing either "Baby Got Back" or "Ice Ice Baby." I've always been of the opinion that if you're going to go Vanilla Ice (wipe that smile off your face!) there's a better way to do it: "Ninja Rap." Instead of saying "Yo VIP, let's kick it," for example, I'm much more inclined to say, "Yo, it's the green machine, gonna rock the town without being seen. Have you ever seen a turtle get down?"

5. Wayne's World (1992)

 
Wayne's World is the occasion of the first time I ever really felt cool, like I was a part of something. The kids I went to school with never defined what was cool. The TV shows I watched kind of did. (I mean, come on, I watched the Ninja Turtles and Saved by the Bell - how does that not define cool?) In truth, it was the comedic interchanges between my Uncle Paul and my cousin Angie that first defined cool for me. They were always quoting some funny lines from Airplane or Naked Gun or Caddy Shack, and I would just bask in wonder. Their wit was sharp and fast, and they quoted some of those favorite lines non-stop. I wanted to be like that, and my first opportunity was with Wayne's World, which I saw in the theaters at least three times and continue to watch to this day. This was one of the first, and last, times I ever studied anything in my life, and the object of my study was Wayne's World. The result was magnificent, however: I attribute my relationship to my Uncle Paul to this movie, a man I consider not only one of my best friends of all time but also like a second father, the first person after my nuclear family that I want anyone I care about to meet, 1/2 of my concept of who and what a man ought to be. All I can say about that, and forgive me if I lapse into Mandarin, is: Zang!

6. Jurassic Park (1993)

 
When I was younger I was much better at writing novels. By that I mean that I get more than thirty pages into writing them before giving up on the idea. If I listed the names of some of my early novels, you might get an idea of what one of the most important movies in creating a Justin Tiemeyer was: Prehistoric Park, Cretaceous Park, Prehistoric Park, and Golden Gate Park (about a dinosaur park under the Golden Gate bridge). You guessed it, I was a really big fan of Tron. (PSYCH! I was really into Jurassic Park. DUH!)

7. American Beauty (1999)

 
Lester Burnham (played by Kevin Spacey) strongly prefigures the latter years of my high school experience when he begins to see life as a farce and simply starts treating life as a farce. It seems simple in writing, but in actuality it is radical - it is both incredibly sad and incredibly comedic. A short while later I would have a similar experience. School is aimed toward people who don't care and don't know anything. The woman I was infatuated with at the time had begun dating my best friend. The bottom seemed to have fallen off of reality and my guiding principles were falling apart, something which has happened at least two other times in my life. But like Lester Burnham, I felt a kind of freedom, a kind of second chance at life. I spoke out in classes, half as comedic disruptions, half as well-thought answers and comments on the topic at hand. My popularity began to sky-rocket, getting me elected to the court for two dances (but never king!), and out of that turmoil I found a bigger, stronger version of myself that, despite issues with depression, would turn into a juggernaut of self-confidence. I was an iconoclast and rebel who stuck by Lester Burnham's sarcastic words: "You don't get to tell me what to do ever again." He was speaking to his wife. I was speaking to the world.

8. The Shining (1980)

 
When I first saw The Shining, I encountered Jack Torrence, a father who wore the same kind of clothing as my own father, who had difficulties with alcohol and who ended up attempting to kill his entire family. I have to admit that Stanley Kubrick's presentation was so brilliantly strange, and yet close to home, that I was kind of frightened of my own father for a couple of weeks. The man who my mom had offered as assurance of security when I heard strange noises in the night was now the object of fright, of intense fright, of the killer you live with. I think the difference between my father and Jack Torrence, however, is that my father hasn't attempted to kill us all.

Yet.

9. American Psycho (2000)

I remember the occasion of my first viewing of American Psycho fairly vividly. We had a half day at high school for some reason. I went to the mall with some girls I knew (and made them hold my hand whenever we went into a clothing store). Afterward, Jared and I decided that we were going to see American Psycho up at Studio 28, a theater that was kind of far away but featured the only reel of American Psycho in the area. A girl named Lisa, a girl I would later date for three months, called us up and decided to tag along. I think if Lisa were to describe herself in high school she would probably say that she was sheltered. She once told me that the only reason she knew of any of the songs on Guitar Hero and/or Rock Band was because she dated me. If you know anything about American Psycho, you can see why I find this occasion fairly humorous. She's a sheltered girl from a hardcore Christian Reform family and the first scene we see when we arrive at the theater somewhat late is of a businessman killing a homeless person and his dog. You think that's funny? The two of us ended up watching Requiem for a Dream a couple weeks later in Jared's basement. Lisa is happily married now, which suggests to me that I did not, in fact, break her.

10. Mr T's Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Fool (1984)

  
I couldn't talk about movies without talking about the wildly successful movie night that happened at the Tiemeyer household once a week involving my little brother, all his little friends, and his loser older brother (me). We would watch ridiculous movies from Chuck Norris's Forest Warrior (where he transforms from a bird to a ninja, mid-jump-kick) to Monster in the Closet. But the crowning jewel was Mr. T's Be Somebody or Be Somebody's Fool, a movie Micah found on the free children's and instructional rack at Family Video. After sharing this movie often with one another, we went off into the world and shared it with others. I shared it with my calculus class senior year and it was such a success that it made its way into my Salutatorian's address at my graduation. 

11. Donnie Darko (2001)

I currently own three copies of the film Donnie Darko. The first is a VHS copy of the film that I bought before we witnessed the massive conversion to DVD. The second is a DVD copy of the film that I bought not because I thought VHS was on the way out, but because it included various bonuses. Most people forget that it is precisely bonus features, and not some human drive toward progress, that really sky-rocketed the DVD medium into mass use. The third is a DVD copy of the Director's Cut, possibly the most unique re-presentation of a film I have ever seen, focusing on the science fiction elements that were hinted at in the original, but also including a hilarious featurette on Donnie Darko's biggest fan. I still have use for all three copies, because Donnie Darko is one of the movies I am most inclined to loan out to friends. It is as if watching this movie is understood as a condition for understanding who I am. (For example, who I am is a fan of Tears for Fears, but this was not so until I watched this film, which features "Head Over Heels" and a cover of "Mad World.")

12. Purple Rain (1984)

Eye once tried 2 write a story where Jesus came back n the 1980s n he was essentially Prince, being very much like the Purple One and yet very Jesus at the same time. When eye became blocked on that story, eye decided 2 write a kind of Andy Kaufman story about a writer trying 2 get a story published n which Jesus comes back in the 1980s and is essentially Prince. Then eye just gave up on the whole thing and listened to some of the best music that has ever been made. It was probably the best decision eye could have made.

13. Dawn of the Dead

Last semester I went to see a movie in Fort Worth with a couple friends/colleagues of mine. The movie theater spanned multiple floors, the first consisting of a large parking garage and a couple smaller businesses, and the upper levels of the ticketing counters, the concession stands and the theaters themselves. I remember leaning over to my friend David and admiring with him how defensible this structure would be in the event of a zombie apocalypse. The garage could be armed with explosives and fire traps in the event that we'd need to clear the area and bolt, but this might be better done with ladders and ropes as other tall buildings were within climbing or swinging reach. A gigantic picture window overlooked the square, a picture that at this point in time was dominated by a muddy construction site. Between this and the area overlooking the escalator one could easily snipe zombies. Laughing over the choke points and strategies, I honestly think David and I became better friends.

14. There Will Be Blood (2007)

 
I'm finished.

The Justin/Jeff Project: Death Wish (1974)

In the spirit of the Julie/Julia project in which writer Julie Powell chronicles cooking all of the recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, 524 recipes in 365 days, I bring you the Jeff/Justin project. The Justin/Jeff project chronicles my descent into the filmography of Jeff Goldblum and will take as much time as it takes.

If you were born in time to experience the 1990s you are likely to adore Jeff Goldblum with a fiery passion. Few films are more quotable than his 1993 film Jurassic Park, and few actors can pull off long pauses and verbal junk ("Uhhhhh") better than Jeff Goldblum. Jeff Goldblum is to 90s cinema what the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are to 90s television. Of course, the TMNT film trilogy complicates this analogy, but that's not important right now.

What is important is Jeff Goldblum's cinematic excellence. The strongest of rivers often begins as a trickling mountain stream, and so too with Jeff Goldblum, whose first cinematic role is a character named Freak #1 in the 1974 Charles Bronson revenge flick Death Wish.

Freak #1 is one of three disturbed twenty-somethings who run around New York City looking for trouble. Viewers are lead to believe that the three freaks are capable of horrendous acts of carnage by the uncivilized manner in which they knock items off of shelves and eat snacks they haven't paid for at the super market. Shock! Menace! They are like velociraptors hunting in a pack formation.

Another similarity between the three freaks and velociraptors is that they all know how to open doors, which leads to the beginning of the movie's revenge theme. Freak #1 and his posse assault two women named Joanne Kersey and Carol Anne Toby in their own home after getting their address from a grocery store delivery slip. The whole crime is perpetrated with the use of their amazing door-opening skills.

In the aftermath, Carol Anne is comatose. Joanne dies. The family's partriarch Paul Kersey goes on a criminal hunt. All this and the fate of Freak #1 is never revealed. I imagine that Kersey's highly publicized vigilante justice scares Freak #1 off the streets. He cleans up and goes back to school where he studies criminal justice or city-planning and goes on to make New York City a better place. Maybe there's a Mrs. Freak and some little freaky children. He does all of this in the name of the Kersey family.

Why this optimism? Because Jeff Goldblum is a better man than Freak #1. He stands up for a dinosaur's right not to be cloned (Jurassic Park). He stands up for Earth's right not to be destroyed by alien death rays (Independence Day). This is why Freak #1 becomes a pillar of his community in the off-camera future of Death Wish.

12 Television Programs From Which a Justin Tiemeyer Can Be Constructed

(In chronological order)

1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The one thing that I can think of that distinguishes me from the other Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles acolytes of my generation is that I have memorized much of the album that was released by the joint effort of Pizza Hut and TMNT. If I were to become a rock star, there's a good chance I'd start a set with the tune "Pizza Power," which goes something like this: "Growing up in a glass bowl / with chameleons, lizards and tadpoles. / It hardly enters your mind / that there's something better than this."

2. Saved by the Bell

It took me 20 years before I ever kissed a girl, but when it happened I already knew what do do from watching Saved by the Bell. I've even been called a good kisser by a couple of ladies. Don't thank me, ladies. Thank Saved by the Bell. Oh, and thank me.

3. Full House

I've rarely been more angry with my father than the night of the series finale of Full House. The television show that I'd watched for so long on TGIF was going to end amazingly, and I would never know, because my father was determined to pre-empt the most important day of my life by watching a memorial tribute to Michael Landon. This was back before the days of DVR or free streaming. It was long before you could buy television programs on VHS or DVD. If I was to watch this episode, I would have to wait until it came back around in syndication. I ended up forgiving my father, but I wonder how much that has to do with the fact that I eventually was able to watch the emotional finale.

4. X-Men: The Animated Series

Micah had a bird named Petey. We kept him in a cage in the living room. I used to call him Piotr after Piotr Nikolaivich Rasputin (Colossus) or sometimes Pietro after Pietro Maximoff (Quicksilver), both characters on X-Men: The Animated Series. I remember the day of Petey's death, mainly because I think the television program that gave me so many nicknames for the bird was also responsible for his demise. One Saturday morning, Micah and I were getting ready for watching one of the last five episodes of the series, but first we had to feed Petey. Micah had the door to the cage open and was pouring in the food when we heard the theme song to our favorite cartoon. I began to run to the living room, and so did Micah, but when Petey's cage door shut it did so with Petey's foot in the door. The bird went into shock from the pain and died almost immediately. Were he Piotr he could have surrounded his foot in organic steel. Were he Pietro he could have moved his foot quickly out of the way. But he was Petey, and Petey is no more.

5. The Ren & Stimpy Show

Fourth-graders in Michigan are required to take a writing test called the MEAP (Michigan Educational Assessment Program). I can't remember what made me feel better, the joy that my MEAP writing test received the highest possible grade, the elation that came from hearing my writing read to the class as an example of how you ought to write, or the hilarious satisfaction that all this recognition came from an essay about the fact that if I could spend a day with anyone it would be bathing in kitty litter with Ren and Stimpy from the popular (original) Nicktoon.

6. X-Files

This past Spring Break while you were in Key West or Cancun I was in Roswell, New Mexico with a couple of my friends. We were determined to investigate X-Files while we were there. I can recount the particular X-Files that we dealt with because of the documentation I kept:  

S01E01. Teyollocuani --- the mysterious "soul sucking" of nearby Lovington,  

S01E02. Stranded --- fields of poison gas just outside of town --- a vehicle actually pursued us during this X-File), 

S01E03. Monolith --- the strange UFO monument in someone's fields, 

S01E04. Eis Ton Aionas Ton Aionon --- Stephan's dream that we'd drink McDonalds shamrock shakes together,  

S01E05. Rumbles --- a strange occurrence whereby Adam showered in the evening and put the curtain on the inside of the tub and yet it was on the outside in the morning,  

S01E06. Siphon --- a haunted hot tub that sucks the life out of those inside it, and  

S01E07. Mirrors --- Stephan's missing pair of shoes.

7. FRIENDS

Immediate family was a different concept for us. According to most people's definition, it is the mother and the father and their children. According to my definition, it is the people you buy Christmas presents for every year: mom, dad, Micah, Smokey and Uncle Paul. There was a time when my immediate family got together once per week. It was Thursday night. Uncle Paul would come over and we'd eat pizza while watching FRIENDS. Micah now lives in North Carolina, I live in Texas, Smokey was put to sleep a couple years back, and FRIENDS completed its run long before that, but FRIENDS, in my memory, will always mark the golden age of my family.

8. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I think I first watched this show with Justin Metz. He had an episode or two from the first season on a VHS tape and we watched them together. I remember watching the episode "The Pack" in which a group of popular students and Xander get possessed by hyena spirits and turn into dicks. If I had watched that episode for the first time today I would probably comment on the brilliant juxtaposition of the supernatural with normal high school problems, the amazing wit and sheer brilliance of the writing. But back then I was going through puberty. All I could think of was the cute girl. I think I spent most of the episode saying, "Yeah! Yeah! Sniff her!" in a terrible Beavis and Butthead voice. I feel the need to thank those hormonal surges, because Buffy has since proven to be one of the most rewarding stories I've ever encountered.

9. Dawson's Creek

Sure, Dawson's Creek was always melodramatic, but it was melodramatic in the same way that kids of that age would be melodramatic. Buffy the Vampire Slayer drew me to the WB, and the WB bombarded me with commercials about the upcoming drama Dawson's Creek. I had no choice but to watch. Dawson and gang were my age, encountering problems that kids my age faced. They were intelligent and childishly in love with one another. For me that was so real. Throw in that kid from The Mighty Ducks (Pacey, who even references his love for The Mighty Ducks in the first season) and one of the early loves of my life, a young Katie Holmes, and I have no shame to say it: I was in love with Dawson's Creek.


10. The O.C.

You didn't have to sell me on the O.C. Months before the first trailers for the O.C. came out I became a huge fan of the band Phantom Planet, featuring Jason Schwartzman on drums, and their amazing album The Guest, after hearing them open for Incubus in 2002. When the first trailer came out all I saw was beautiful, half-naked women and all I heard was the beautiful Phantom Planet song "California." When Becky and I tried to get out buddies Elliot and Brian to watch the OC with us, however, it was a hard sell. They were too cool for a teenage prime time soap opera. It only took a couple episodes before they were hooked. Brian, the most difficult to win over, was astounded at the end of some episodes, saying things like, "Guys, I don't know what's going to happen." After watching a season, the hecklers were turned to acolytes, so devoted to the show that they weathered the terrible second and third seasons, and the hit-or-miss fourth season. I'll admit that I cried during the series finale. I don't know if Brian or Elliot will admit the same.

11. LOST

I devoted six years of my mental capacity to the television program LOST. I don't mean that I just watched it. I lived in their universe, sometimes more often than I lived in my own, possibly as a way to cope with girl issues. My longest relationship was somewhere around a year long. The longest amount of time I was ever in college was three years. The longest I've ever worked anywhere is three years. As LOST approached its series finale I began seeing that it may have been standing in the way of my availability for a whole lot of things. I predicted that after LOST concluded I'd finally be able to enter into a serious adult relationship and write a novel. Within a week of the finale, the first came true. (BEST RELATIONSHIP EVER!) Looks like I'll be needing a little more time on the novel...

12. Community

I must have watched the scene where Annie (Alison Brie) sculpted a large phallic object in pottery class at least thirty times. I'm not even joking.

Sam Rockwell

Actor Sam Rockwell. You probably recognize him as Sam Bell in Moon or Bronco in Gentlemen Broncos. You may also remember him as Head Thug in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.