My Top 200 Albums Of The Past 20 Years (1991-2011)

A band logo from a previous life

Music has always held an important place in my life.  When I was a kid, the sounds of Billy Joel and Elton John (my Mom's favorite artists) were ubiquitous in my home.  My Dad enjoyed a great deal of classic rock, so I was exposed also to plenty of phenomenal tunes that likely contributed to my subconscious love of music as well as my unconscious development as a musician.

It wasn't until I reached junior high school though that I began to develop my own taste in music.  I remember getting my first CD player from my parents during this time.  It was a Marlboro one that they were able to get with the points from the packs of Marlboro Lights that they smoked.  It was ironic given the degree to which I held smoking in disdain...but I have capitalism in my blood and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to own my very first CD player.  At the time, the only disc that I could play was my Sonic CD video game (it would cycle through the game's soundtrack if inserted).  My Dad felt bad giving me the player without having anything to listen to and so he took me to The Wiz on the corner of Avenue U and Flatbush Avenue.  He let me pick out a few albums and, though I can't remember all of the ones I got, I do remember a few--the very genesis of my collection: Elton John's "The One," Seal's "Seal," the Batman Forever Soundtrack, and Ace of Base's "The Sign."

By the time I got to high school, I had already begun to open myself up more to music.  1997 proved to be a landmark year for me as I was introduced to some of my favorite music of all time.  It was during this time that I began to listen to the radio on a regular basis (Z-100 back when they played a variety of stuff), tuning in for the "Nine at Nine" each night and even voting on occasion to champion a favorite band or song.  My love for alternative rock deepened with each new album I explored: The Wallflower's "Bringing Down The Horse," Third Eye Blind's self-titled album, and Vertical Horizon's "Everything You Want" to name but a few.  I also enjoyed the requisite pop of the time including the particularly rich collection of one hit wonders that came and went during the late '90s.

As I progressed through high school, I saw my musical interests vary a great deal.  Where I had previously shunned rap, I developed a love for it and added a few solid albums to my collection.  Then, in 2000, I was exposed to some heavier music for the first time through the wave of nü-metal, particularly Linkin Park and Disturbed.  3 Doors Down's "The Better Life" and Linkin Park's debut album quickly became among my favorites, adding to my ever-growing collection of CDs.  I also begun playing acoustic guitar, which brought my love of and interest in music to a completely new level.

College exposed me both to myriad new types of people and music alike.  I went to my first concert in October of 2001 (Hoobastank at "The World" in Times Square), I learned about some great bands through a friend of mine (Lit, in particular, developed into one of my favorites), and I finally ended my hatred of country music thanks to an ESPN commercial for the '04 World Series Of Poker (it featured Big & Rich's "Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy)").  I started a band called "Dark Horse" (see picture at the beginning of this entry) and watched it ultimately fall apart.

From a musician's standpoint, I found that listening to a broader array of music helped me to develop my abilities as a guitarist more fully.  I stuck mostly to acoustic guitar and grew adept at singing and playing chords simultaneously.  This, in turn, led me to play almost 1,100 songs for my unborn and then-born son from September 2009 through September 2010.  During that same time-frame, I practiced a great deal at my electric guitar playing, finding that I enjoy it even more than the acoustic.  My crowning achievement though came earlier this year when I was able to tab out an entire album by ear.

Overall, though, as much as I love to play music, I'd go nuts if I couldn't listen to it.  Silence, though welcome in a few special instances, is a sign that something's wrong.  There is always something playing in my home; it's important to me to expose my son to as much music as possible in the hope that he will develop an interest as strong as my own.  With that said, I decided to take a look back at the past twenty years' worth of music and give in to another interest of mine: making lists.  For this one, in particular, I had to dust off a number of math skills that I had not employed for some time; the fact that I was able to figure out the calculations and to achieve what I had set out to was quite fulfilling.  Here's a quick note about the list and the methodology behind it:

The way that I ranked the albums was through a fairly detailed scoring system that I developed solely for this project.  Each song on an album was given a score of 0 through 10 (inclusive) unless it was a skit, a verbal interlude, or an extremely brief instrumental piece (twenty seconds or less), in which case it was not included for grading purposes (such songs were labeled "N/A" in my spreadsheet).  The rubric that I used is slightly unconventional in that it does not follow a traditional bell shape distribution of points (with "five" being average, per se).  The rubric is as follows:

0 = Unlistenable
1 = Barely Listenable
2 = Listenable  ***(This is what a "filler" track would receive for a score)***
3 = Alright
4 = Decent
5 = Pretty Good
6 = Good
7 = Above Average
8 = Great
9 = Excellent
10 = Hit/Single/Perfect

A track that received a score of 0 is one that I would skip immediately (if using a CD) or not add to a playlist (if using Winamp).  Scores of 1 and 2 are applied for filler material; scores of 3 and 4 imply slightly better-than-average filler tunes.  Scores of 5 and 6 refer to above average filler or songs that have memorable riffs and lyrics.  Scores of 7 and 8 are used for the better non-single material on an album while scores of 9 and 10 are reserved for only the best tunes on the album.

Now, where it gets complicated is with the songs that received a score of 10.  Obviously a really catchy single that was popular in its time might be deserving of such a grade...but to have it rub shoulders with tracks like "Everlong" and "One Headlight"?  Not happening.  And thus I developed a second scoring system for singles.  Any track given a perfect 10 on the initial scoring was subjected to a second analysis that featured a range of 1 to 10 (inclusive) where 1 represents only the most banal of hits and 10 represents my favorite, most cherished songs by that particular band.

The problem with calculating the total album scores arose with the consideration of "quantity over quality."  I had to find a way to reward both the quality of the individual perfect 10s while taking into consideration the overall number of such tracks.  Ultimately, my solution was to break the total album scoring down into two factors: percentage of the sum of the individual track scores plus a percentage of the bonus points that the album earned.  I decided on a 90/10 breakdown.  What I did first was to sum up the total point values for the songs on a given album.  I think divided this by the total number of tracks on the album multiplied by ten.  This gave me a percentage of points earned versus points possible--a decent representation of an album's standing. The issue that arose here though was that there were too many albums on an even footing that I felt should have been much further apart, hence the employment of the bonus points system.

The bonus score was also broken down into two constituent parts: Strength of Single score and Percent of Perfect Tracks.  The former was meant to reward the quality of the songs while the latter rewarded the quantity.  Strength of Single scores were calculated by summing the bonus point values for each song on an album (each one out of ten), multiplying the number of perfect 10s by ten, and then dividing the former into the latter.  Basically, if you have two singles that are pretty good (each receiving a bonus value of 5), then the SOS for the album would be 0.50 (the two scores (5+5=10) divided by the number of singles times the total point potential for said number of singles (2*10=20) (10/20=0.50).

The Percent of Perfect Tracks was integral in determining my top fifty albums.  All of these received 10s across the board because, in my opinion, every song is worth listening to and could stand alone as a solid track.  The differentiation, then, came in the quality of each individual track in terms of the bonus points.  Basically, I felt that if I was declaring an album to be one of my all-time favorites, it really should be devoid of any filler or fluff.  Therefore, if an album had even a single song that I would routinely skip (sorry "The Sickness"--you can thank "Droppin' Plates for that one), it would be ineligible for the clean sweep of 10s.  An imperfect system, sure, but it made things more manageable in the long run.  Plus, without doing what I just outlined, a double-album like the Foo Fighters' "In Your Honor" would have destroyed something better simply because it had more songs.  By keeping everything calculated in terms of each individual album and rewarding a greater percentage of solid songs instead of simply a greater number, I was able to achieve a much more balanced (and in my opinion, accurate) set of results.

Finally, the overall calculation for each individual album's score was as follows: 90% of the "Album Score" added to 10% of the "Bonus Points," which, in turn, consisted of 60% of the Strength of Single calculation and 40% of the Percent of Perfect Tracks.  Symbolically, it can be read as:

((0.9 * AS) + (0.1*((0.6*SOS)+(0.4*POPT))))

I then converted the decimal results into a percentage and, voila, the final values out of 100% were tallied.  I'm going to post the list in reverse order beginning with # 200 and I will add comments sporadically throughout until I begin to get near the top; then I will explain my thoughts and feelings about each of the albums.

Only full-length albums (LPs) were used and, in most cases, only the original release of the album was considered unless a re-release served as the de facto version; EPs, remix albums, cover albums, and acoustic versions of an album were not used regardless of popularity or superiority to original releases (as in the case with Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill.")  Bonus tracks were not counted except in two cases where they were part of the re-release and should have been included as featured tracks anyway (Plain White T's "Hey There Delilah" and Dead By Sunrise's "The Morning After").  Hidden tracks were scored in conjunction with the songs they followed (both tunes were given a single score) instead of being separated (in most cases the scores wound up being identical anyway).  Cover songs that stood as individual tracks were counted as such but remixes and alternate versions of earlier songs on the albums were not included.

*DISCLAIMER!!!!!!*

This is NOT a list of the best 200 albums of the past 20 years as such a list would be remarkably difficult to draft.  For one, I haven't listened to a thousandth of a percent of all of the music that has been released during the past two decades and for me to speak intelligently to the "best" of even a single genre, I would have had to have listened to an incomprehensible quantity of music.  With that said, my list represents MY favorite 200 albums of the past 20 years.  Nonetheless, there will still invariably be people who will balk either at an inclusion or an exclusion and so I offer these caveats:

If an album isn't listed it's likely because...

A) I've never listened to the album before (Candlebox & Silverchair's stuff, for example)

B) I don't like the particular artist (Radiohead and Muse for example)

C) I didn't like the particular album or didn't listen to it enough to warrant its inclusion (AX7's "Nightmare," for one).

If you feel an album should have been included let me know--the odds are that it fits in under A, B, or C...but maybe it won't.  If I overlooked something I shouldn't have (we're not talking about the Muse shit or "OK Computer" here folks) then I can try to amend the list.  Otherwise, just enjoy a trip down memory lane and thanks for reading!

MY TOP 200 ALBUMS OF THE PAST 20 YEARS (1991-2011)

(A shout out first to Andy McKee's "Art of Motion" and Loreena McKennitt's "The Book Of Secrets."  Both albums are near-flawless and flawless, respectively but given the fact that neither album represents an easily compared genre, I didn't feel that it would be fair to include them and to rate them against their rock, metal, pop, and rap counterparts.)

Format is: Artist - Year of Release - Album Title          Score


200-151

200. Authority Zero - 2004 - Andiamo                                                                    22.500%

199. Rage Against The Machine - 1999 - The Battle Of Los Angeles                       23.250%

198. Matchbox 20 - More Than You Think You Are                                                23.883%

197. Stone Temple Pilots - 1996 - Tiny Music...Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop  24.000%

196. Everclear - 1995 - Sparkle And Fade                                                              24.029%

195. Rob Zombie - 2010 - Hellbilly Deluxe 2                                                           24.036%

194. Rage Against The Machine - 1996 - Evil Empire                                              24.545%

193. Buckcherry - 2008 - Black Butterfly                                                                24.750%

192. Good Charlotte - 2004 - The Chronicles Of Life And Death                            25.071%

191. Audioslave - 2002 - Audioslave                                                                       25.271%

190. Authority Zero - 2007 - 12:34                                                                         25.500%

189. Sum 41 - 2001 All Killer, No Filler                                                                   26.433%

188. Backstreet Boys - 2007 - Unbreakable                                                            27.486%

187. Colbie Caillat - 2008 - Coco                                                                            29.250%                 
186. Matchbox 20 - 2000 - Mad Season                                                                 29.415%

185. Stone Sour - 2007 - Come What(Ever) May                                                    30.000%

184. Rage Against The Machine - 1992 - Rage Against The Machine                        30.400%

183. Cowboy Troy - 2005 - Loco Motive                                                                30.750%

182. Creed - 1997 - My Own Prison                                                                        31.500%

181. Offspring - 2008 - Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace                                              31.683%

180. Rob Zombie - 1998 - Hellbilly Deluxe                                                                32.167%

179. Gin Blossoms - 1996 - Congratulations...I'm Sorry                                             32.433%

178. The Eagles - 2007 - Long Road Out Of Eden                                                     32.600%

177. Foo Fighters - 1995 - Foo Fighters                                                                     33.000%

176. Evanescence - 2011 - Evanescence                                                                     33.000%

175. Verve Pipe - 1997 - Villains                                                                                 33.585%

174. Blessid Union Of Souls - 1995 - Home                                                                33.855%

173. Coldplay - 2000 - Parachutes                                                                              34.000%

172. Sum 41 - 2002 - Does This Look Infected?                                                         34.100%

171. Red Hot Chili Peppers - 2002 - By The Way                                                       34.213%

170. Stone Sour - 2002 - Stone Sour                                                                          35.062%

169. Eminem - 1999 - The Slim Shady LP                                                                   35.243%

168. Red Hot Chili Peppers - 1999 - Californication                                                     35.400%

167. Good Charlotte - 2002 - The Young And Hopeless                                              35.557%

166. No Doubt - 1995 - Tragic Kingdom                                                                     35.714%

165. Stone Temple Pilots - 1999 - No. 4                                                                      35.991%

164. Slipknot - 2004 - Vol. 3 - The Subliminal Verses                                                    36.114%

163. Nine Inch Nails - 1994 - The Downward Spiral                                                     36.271%

162. The Strokes - 2011 - Angles                                                                                  36.500%

161. Seether - 2011 - Holding Onto Strings Better Left To Fray                                     36.633%

160. Avril Lavigne - 2002 - Let Go                                                                                36.692%

159. Incubus - 1997 - S.C.I.E.N.C.E                                                                            37.117%

158. 10 Years - 2008 - Division                                                                                      37.231%

157. Tom Petty - 2010 - Mojo                                                                                       38.067%

156. Big Kenny - 2009 - The Quiet Times Of A Rock And Roll Farm Boy                      38.700%

155. Daughtry - 2009 - Leave This Town                                                                        39.000%

154. Default - 2005 - One Thing Remains                                                                        39.273%

153. Creed - 2001 - Weathered                                                                                      39.345%

152. Limp Bizkit - 1999 - Significantother                                                                        39.492%

151. Queens Of The Stone Age - 2003 - Songs For The Deaf                                          40.443%

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Reaction to the bottom fifty albums:

--Way to lie Sum-41: some killer and plenty of filler.

--Creed...such a shame that Scott Stapp is such a douchebag--they had some great albums.

--Tragic Kingdom definitely should have been higher; looking forward to the next No Doubt album!

--The Downward Spiral is one of the best albums, as a whole, of this period but individually (and thus taken out of their original context) most of the tracks do not stand out, hence its low standing.

--The Daughtry album is surprisingly good but I'm hoping he steps up the rock aspect on the next one.

--If there's only one album you check out from these fifty, let it be Default's 2005 release "One Thing Remains."  Really great stuff.

50 albums featuring a total of 39 different artists.



150-101

150. System Of A Down - 2001 - Toxicity                                                                  40.553%

149. Bush - 1994 - Sixteen Stone                                                                                40.567%

148. Audioslave - 2005 - Out Of Exile                                                                        40.683%

147. Maroon 5 - 2008 - It Won't Be Soon Before Long                                               41.283%

146. Puddle Of Mudd - 2001 - Come Clean                                                                41.545%

145. Backstreet Boys - 1999 - Millennium                                                                    41.683%

144. The Fray - 2005 - How To Save A Life                                                                41.767%

143. Evanescence - 2006 - The Open Door                                                                  42.754%

142. Finger Eleven - 2000 - The Greyest Of Blue Skies                                                42.855%

141. Jimmy Eat World - 2004 - Futures                                                                         42.918%

140. Nirvana - 1991 - Nevermind                                                                                  43.267%

139. Creed - 1999 - Human Clay                                                                                   43.300%

138. Slash - 2010 - Slash                                                                                               43.314%

137. Papa Roach - 2004 - Getting Away With Murder                                                    43.417%

136. The Strokes - 2003 - Room On Fire                                                                       43.736%

135. Rob Thomas - 2005 - ...Something To Be                                                               43.800%

134. Jason Mraz - 2002 - Waiting For My Rocket To Come                                           44.433%

133. Sheryl Crow - 1993 - Tuesday Night Music Club                                                   44.549%

132. 3 Doors Down - 2002 - Away From The Sun                                                         44.917%

131. Blink-182 - 1999 - Enema Of The State                                                                  44.917%

130. Disturbed - 2010 - Asylum                                                                                      45.000%

129. Cold - 2000 - 13 Ways To Bleed On Stage                                                            45.031%

128. Static-X - 1999 - Wisconsin Death Trip                                                                   45.133%

127. Alice In Chains - 1992 - Dirt                                                                                   45.333%

126. Switchfoot - 2003 - The Beautiful Letdown                                                             45.755%

125. Boyce Avenue - 2008 - All You're Meant To Be                                                     46.000%

124. Lostprophets - 2004 - Start Something                                                                    46.231%

123. Blues Traveler - 1994 - Four                                                                                   46.267%

122. Godsmack - 2006 - IV                                                                                            46.727%

121. Hinder - 2010 - All American Nightmare                                                                  46.800%

120. Tonic - 1996 - Lemon Parade                                                                                  46.867%

119. A Perfect Circle - 2000 - Mer de Noms                                                                  47.433%

118. Jimmy Eat World - 2001 - Bleed American                                                              47.827%

117.  Darius Rucker - 2008 - Learn To Live                                                                     48.000%

116. Third Eye Blind - 1999 - Blue                                                                                   48.031%

115. Hootie & The Blowfish - 1994 - Cracked Rear View                                                48.283%

114. Stone Temple Pilots - 1995 - Purple                                                                           48.582%

113. Sarah McLachlan - 1997 - Surfacing                                                                         49.150%

112. Ace Of Base - 1993 - The Sign                                                                                 49.400%

111. Weezer - 1994 - Weezer (The Blue Album)                                                               49.600%

110. Chevelle - 2002 - Wonder What's Next                                                                     49.982%

109. Matchbox 20 - 1996 - Yourself Or Someone Like You                                              50.833%

108. Jay-Z - 1998 - Vol. 2...Hard Knock Life                                                                   51.760%

107. Kelly Clarkson - 2004 - Breakaway                                                                          52.183%

106. DMX - 1998 - It's Dark And Hell Is Hot                                                                   52.433%

105. Cold - 2003 - Year Of The Spider                                                                             52.615%

104. Weezer - 2008 - Weezer (The Red Album)                                                                53.000%

103. Godsmack - 2003 - Faceless                                                                                     55.267%

102. Metallica - 1991 - Metallica (The Black Album)                                                        55.950%

101. Wallflowers - 2002 - Red Letter Days                                                                        56.415%
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Reaction to albums one hundred-fifty through one hundred-one fifty tracks:

--Toxicity...there's nothing like it man.  Same goes for System Of A Down.

--Just saw Bush in concert last month--they sounded as good if not better than they did almost twenty years ago.

--Maroon 5...thanks for one of the most incredible spontaneous karaoke moments of my life.

--I honestly didn't want to include the Backstreet Boys stuff on here but it would've been disingenuous to leave it off.  The hits on that album were among the ones I listened to on the radio every day.  Granted, just about everything else on the album sucked but those songs are a part of that era.

--Nevermind...I'm okay with where it landed--not as big a landmark album as people make it out to be.

--I can't believe the Black Album was so low but there are a bunch of solid albums ahead of it.


100-91

100. Foo Fighters - 1999 - There Is Nothing Left To Lose                                               57.091%

99. Weezer - 2009 - Raditude                                                                                         58.300%

98. Green Day - 1994 - Dookie                                                                                       60.160%

97. Goo Goo Dolls - 1998 - Dizzy Up The Girl                                                                61.391%        
96. Big & Rich - 2007 - Between Raising Hell And Amazing Grace                                  62.655%

95. Disturbed - 2008 - Indestructible                                                                                63.633%

94. Filter - 2010 - The Trouble With Angels                                                                      64.100%

93. Stone Temple Pilots - 1992 - Core                                                                              64.867%

92. Lifehouse - 2010 - Smoke & Mirrors                                                                          64.867%

91. Lifehouse - 2005 - Lifehouse                                                                                       65.327%

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Reaction to albums 100-91:

--Dookie is just an amazing album.  Would've been career-defining if not for American Idiot.

--Seriously--how many hits are there on Dizzy Up The Girl!?

--Big & Rich's album was incredible--I really hope the next one is as good if not better.

--Filter.  Scope them out!!!

--Core = Epic grunge



90-81

90. Eminem - 2000 - The Marshall Mathers LP                                                                 66.041%

89. Breaking Benjamin - 2006 - Phobia                                                                             66.800%

88. Lifehouse - 2007 - Who We Are                                                                                 67.633%

87. Disturbed - 2005 - Ten Thousand Fists                                                                        69.286%

86. Goo Goo Dolls - 2002 - Gutterflower                                                                         76.950%

85. Linkin Park - 2007 - Minutes To Midnight                                                                   80.162% 

84. Third Eye Blind - 1997 - Third Eye Blind                                                                    84.229%

83. Shinedown - 2005 - Us And Them                                                                              89.619%

82. Disturbed - 2000 - The Sickness                                                                                 90.748%

81. Crossfade - 2004 - Crossfade                                                                                   94.600%
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Reaction to albums 90-81:

--Goddamn...I remember when the Marshall Mathers LP came out.  Do you remember the craziness that came with the track "Kim"?

--Supposedly Breaking Benjamin designed Phobia to have every song potentially be a single.  I don't know if they succeeded but it's definitely a great album.

--Gutterflower would have been SO MUCH higher if not for Robbie's horrendous vocals.

--Third Eye Blind's self-titled album is insane...except for two or three tracks.  Should've been top ten and would've been if not for these duds.

--The Sickness blew my fuckin' mind the first time I heard it.  It would've been top ten if not for "Droppin' Plates," which is, hands down, the worst song I've ever heard.  Ever.  By any band.  The worst.


80-71

80. Three Days Grace - 2009 - Life Starts Now                                                              94.976%

79. Seether - 2005 - Karma And Effect                                                                           95.200%

78. Seether - 2007 - Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces                                                  95.500%

77. Seether - 2002 - Disclaimer                                                                                       95.800%

76. 12 Stones - 2002 - 12 Stones                                                                                    96.100%

75. Nick Carter - 2002 - Now Or Never                                                                         96.500%

74. Hoobastank - 2006 - Every Man For Himself                                                            96.650%

73. Lit - 2001 - Atomic                                                                                                    96.815%

72. 3 Doors Down - 2008 - 3 Doors Down                                                                     97.000%

71. Incubus - 2004 - A Crow Left Of The Murder                                                           97.043%
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Reaction to albums 80-71:

--Seether's become one of my favorite bands, especially after seeing them live.

--I've listened to the 12 Stones album a hundred times--just a good overall listen.

--I still can't believe people hate on the self-titled 3 Doors Down album--it's their second best one behind The Better Life.


70-61

70. Finger Eleven - 2007 - Them vs. You vs. Me                                                          97.055%

69. Nine Days - 2000 - The Madding Crowd                                                               97.150%

68. Eve 6 - 1998 - Eve 6                                                                                              97.273%

67. Sublime - 1996 - Sublime                                                                                      97.320%

66. The Fray - 2009 - Fray                                                                                          97.327%

65. Mighty Mighty Bosstones - 1997 - Let's Face It                                                     97.350%

64. Flogging Molly - 2008 - Float                                                                                 97.382%

63. Lit - 1999 - A Place In The Sun                                                                              97.400%

62. Gin Blossoms - 1992 - New Miserable Experience                                                 97.400%             
61. Incubus - 2006 - Light Grenades                                                                             97.415%
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Reaction to albums 70-61:

--A bunch of self-titled albums in a row...weird.

--Let's Face It is probably my favorite ska album ever.

--New Miserable Experience had some of my all-time favorite songs, especially Hey Jealousy.  Awesome album.

--Light Grenades could have been SO much more if not for the "new direction" Incubus started heading in.
          

60-51

60. Finger Eleven - 2003 - Finger Eleven                                                                       97.450%

59. Lonestar - 1999 - Lonely Grill                                                                                 97.545%

58. Jason Mraz - 2005 - Mr. A-Z                                                                                  97.550%

57. Avril Lavigne - 2004 - Under My Skin                                                                     97.650%

56. Foo Fighters - 2002 - One By One                                                                          97.655%

55. Collective Soul - 1995 - Collective Soul                                                                   97.700%

54. Sugarland - 2004 - Twice The Speed Of Life                                                           97.709%

53. The Wallflowers - 2000 - Breach                                                                              97.780%

52. Papa Roach - 2006 - The Paramour Sessions                                                           97.785%

51. Green Day - 2004 - American Idiot                                                                           97.785%
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Reaction to albums 60-51:


--Where The River Flows on the Collective Soul album is one of the heaviest songs ever.

***THE TOP 50***

50-41

50. The Bollox - 2009 - The Bollox                                                                                 97.818%

49. Authority Zero - 2002 - A Passage In Time                                                               97.850%

48. Linkin Park - 2003 - Meteora                                                                                    97.900%

47. Maroon 5 - 2002 - Songs About Jane                                                                        97.900%

46. Fuel - 1998 - Sunburn                                                                                               97.927%

45. Papa Roach - 2000 - Infest                                                                                        98.000%

44. Fastball - 1998 - All The Pain Money Can Buy                                                          98.015%

43. Staind - 2001 - Break The Cycle                                                                                98.062%

42. Dead By Sunrise - 2009 - Out Of The Ashes                                                              98.062%

41. Foo Fighters - 2005 - In Your Honor                                                                          98.080%    

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Reaction to albums 50-41:

--If you like Flogging Molly or the Dropkick Murphys, scope out the Bollox--you won't be disappointed.

--Songs About Jane was HUGE for what felt like forever.

--Infest--definitely an underrated album because of the genre it falls under.

--In Your Honor--not sure there was a more diverse album to come out of the past ten years, man.


40-31


40. Fuel - 2000 - Something Like Human                                                                     98.100%

39. Flogging Molly - 2002 - Drunken Lullabies                                                              98.200%

38. Hoobastank - 2001 - Hoobastank                                                                           98.200%

37. Dry Cell - 2002 - Disconnected                                                                               98.246%

36. Alanis Morissette - 1995 - Jagged Little Pill                                                             98.250%

35. Linkin Park - 2000 - Hybrid Theory                                                                        98.250%

34. Nickelback - 2005 - All The Right Reasons                                                            98.255%

33. Foo Fighters - 2011 - Wasting Light                                                                        98.255%

32. Billy Joel - 1993 - The River Of Dreams                                                                  98.260%

31. Metallica - 2008 - Death Magnetic                                                                          98.260%

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Reaction to albums 40-31:

--It pisses me off to no end that the phenomenal music on Something Like Human is Carl Bell's doing and not Brett Scallions.  Saw Brett perform with the revamped Fuel at the Starland Ballroom.  What a killer voice, even now.

--Drunken Lullabies is the single best album for St. Paddy's Day, period.

--Hoobastank's album should be higher but "Better" and "Give It Back" are such pedestrian tracks that I couldn't bear to mark them up any more than I already did.  "Pieces" is a WICKED tune with such a crazy arrangement (in Open E it's crazy, in standard it's almost impossible) and of course "Crawling In The Dark" and "Running Away" are among the top songs of the decade.

--Dry Cell's only problem was being signed (briefly) to Warner Brothers at the same time Linkin Park was blowing up.  One of the most expensive albums you'll find on eBay.

--Jagged Little Pill: the quintessential alt-female album from the mid-90.  Fuck you Dave Coulier a.k.a Mr. Duplicity!

--Hybrid Theory would have been higher if not for "Cure For The Itch."  I hate that on every album they have at least one shitty track that prevents it from being 100% listenable.

--Wasting Light...best album of the new decade, hands down.  Bridge Burning?  Why that would be my third favorite Foo Fighters track right behind Everlong and HJP!

--Billy Joel and Metallica...probably the only time you'll ever see them in the same sentence lol




30-21

30. Audiovent - 2002 - Dirty Sexy Knights In Paris                                                       98.300%

29. Foo Fighters - 2007 - Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace                                    98.350%

28. Jason Mraz - 2008 - We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.                                    98.400%

27. Plain White Ts - 2007 - Every Second Counts                                                         98.431%

26. The Script - 2009 - The Script                                                                                98.440%

25. Three Days Grace - 2006 - One-X                                                                         98.450%

24. Hoobastank - 2003 - The Reason                                                                           98.450%           
23. Shinedown - 2008 - The Sound Of Madness                                                          98.527%

22. Daughtry - 2006 - Daughtry                                                                                    98.550%

21. Disturbed - 2003 - Believe                                                                                      98.550%

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Reaction to albums 30-21:

--It shouldn't be a surprise that the brothers of Brandon Boyd and Mike Einziger would create some awesome music together...it was just a surprise that it happened on only one album.  I blame shitty single selection as much as the charges of nepotism and what not for their downfall.

--Fact: Jason Mraz is one of the best songwriters of our time.

--Every Second Counts has a special place in my heart because I listened to it at least a dozen times, start to finish, while driving around the Big Island of Hawai'i on my honeymoon.

--Saw The Script for the first time opening for Paul McCartney at Citi Field.  Wasn't surprised they blew up the way that they did.  Kick ass album.

***THE TOP 20***

20. Bryan Adams - 1993 - So Far So Good                                                                  98.586%

An album that features just about every one of Bryan Adams' hits except for "Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman."  Still can't believe "Summer of 69" isn't about the year.


19. Shinedown - 2003 - Leave A Whisper                                                                     98.600%

Brent from Shinedown has one of if not the best voices in rock.  I absolutely cannot wait to hear the new album next year.  This one--their first--was a revelation at the time.  Shame these guys aren't more well known.


18. Three Days Grace - 2003 - Three Days Grace                                                         98.600%

Adam Gontier's voice has that scathing quality to it that I love in a singer.  He writes some amazing songs--an even blend of awesome acoustic work and skull-splitting heavy electric work.  This album is by far their best.


17. Big & Rich - 2004 - Horse Of A Different Color                                                      98.615%

One of the few albums that I can listen to for days without getting bored.  Love these guys like they're family and SO proud that John Rich won Celebrity Apprentice (which allowed him to raise upwards of a million dollars for St. Jude's).


16. Hinder - 2005 - Extreme Behavior                                                                           98.620%

Hinder gets a lot of shit for being a generic band of the Nickelback variety but I couldn't care less.  Austin Winkler's got a voice that could cut through glass and this album was simply chock full of great songs.


15. 3 Doors Down - 2000 - The Better Life                                                                   98.636% 

Kryptonite gave me one of the best van memories ever.  Loser was one of the first full songs I learned to play on guitar.  Duck and Run made Heather even cooler than she already was.  If Smack, The Better Life, and Down Poison weren't such pedestrian tunes this album might've been even higher on the list.


14. Vertical Horizon - 2005 - Go                                                                                   98.650%

This album has grown on me in recent years and I'm glad it has.  Matt Scannell's acoustic guitar work, in conjunction with his infectiously beautiful vocal melodies, really come through on the songs featured on Go.


13. Evanescence - 2003 - Fallen                                                                                    98.650%

I had as big a crush on Amy Lee's voice as legions of goth teens probably had on her.  She has one of the purest voices in all of rock...it's just a shame she's such a cunt (as the reports of the behind-the-scenes stuff that went on in her band seem to say).


12. Foo Fighters - 1997 - The Colour And The Shape                                                   98.662%

Everlong is one of the greatest songs ever written (up there with the likes of Stairway, Layla, Freebird, Hotel California, and Wish You Were Here/Comfortably Numb) and features what has to be one of the most insane drum riffs ever.  And to think that it's just one of four of the Foo's best tracks (HJP, Monkey Wrench, and My Hero are the other three) on this album. 


11. Lit - 2004 - Lit                                                                                                         98.662%

Of course I fell in love with Lit right when their hiatus went into effect.  I've been waiting seven years for new material...anxiously awaiting, thanks to their self-titled release.  This is just an insanely good album...really hope the new stuff lives up to it!

***THE TOP 10***

10. Incubus - 1999 - Make Yourself                                                                              98.662%


If it weren't for that goddamn Battlestar...ugh!  This album was damn near perfect and it showcased Mike's ability to craft deceptively simple and mind-boggingly complex songs.  Pardon Me, Drive, Make Yourself, Stellar...craziness.


9. Lifehouse - 2003 - Stanley Climbfall                                                                           98.700%

Another album that I've only recently come to appreciate more fully, every track on this album is a stand out one.  I probably like the songs, collectively, even more than the ones on No Name Face; it's only the history associated with the latter that gives it the edge.


8. The Wallflowers - 2005 - Rebel, Sweetheart                                                               98.700%

I really couldn't stand Red Letter Days when it came out...but Rebel, Sweetheart?  Love at first listen.  "God Says Nothing Back" inspired me while writing my second novel and every single song is amazing.  Here's hoping the next Wallflowers' album is as good as this one!


7. The Calling - 2001 - Camino Palmero                                                                         98.745%     

I liked "Wherever You Will Go" when it was on the radio but I came to love this album and all of the other songs on it.  "Stigmatized" is a beautiful tune and "Unstoppable" and "Adrienne" are addictive in their own right.  Heather will be happy that Camino Palmero is (deservedly so) sitting in the Top 10.


6. Lifehouse - 2000 - No Name Face                                                                             98.750%

It's funny that every time I share the music that I have written with friends and family that they like the heavier stuff but love the acoustic tunes.  Aside from my favorite alt-rock bands of the mid to late-90s, no other band encapsulates so purely the sound that beats in my musical chest.  No Name Face was probably the first album that I really loved from end to end and it's for that reason that it's what I'm listening to right now as I write out the last of these reflections!


5. The Wallflowers - 1996 - Bringing Down The Horse                                                   98.800%

No single album is more important to me than Bringing Down The Horse.  It's what inspired one of the best friendships of my adult life and what established both taste in music and my obsession with expanding my musical horizons.  I love every song on this album and feel that, as a whole, it pretty much defines my adolescence in a way that nothing else could.  It was the first of innumerable connections that I've had with my hermano through the years and I'll forever be indebted to Jakob Dylan for making this incredible album.


4. Everclear - 1997 - So Much For The Afterglow                                                          98.800%

I always loved this album as a teenager but as an adult I've developed newfound respect for Art Alexakis' lyricism.  As some of the songs on this album grew more personal for me, I realized just how intelligent his lyrics are and it makes me sad to think that shit like Ke$ha and Nikki Minaj dominate the radio and collective consciousness of teenagers right now.  Instead of listening to a man bleed his life story onto paper, creating truly personal and penetrating lyrics, they're listening to the nonsensical, self-aggrandizing drivel that passes for modern pop music.  So Much For The Afterglow will never be dated but will instead age like a fine wine.  Believe it.


3. Vertical Horizon - 2009 - Burning The Days                                                                99.000%

When I walked 21 miles last winter, what helped me through the rough final stretch was this album.  Once again, the guitar riffs and vocal melodies, in accord with the lyrics themselves, produce an almost incomparable listening experience.  I still can't believe this album is only two years old...in another ten years, I'm sure it will still be deserving of the bronze medal in my list of top albums.


2. Vertical Horizon - 1999 - Everything You Want                                                            99.509%

The final song on this album is, like Everlong, one of the best songs ever written, bar none, hands down.  I've never seen another song before or since with such an amazing guitar arrangement.  Everything You Want is an album I know intimately, start to finish, every note, every drum hit, every line of lyric.  I can listen to it perpetually and still find new things to love about it.  It's an almost perfect mix of songs and is probably the one album I would take with me if trapped on a deserted isle with only a CD player or iPod with unlimited battery life lol  One of the only full albums that I played for Timmy during the concert series I set up and deserving of every ounce of effort I put into learning the tunes.  Can't wait to listen to it in the morning on my way across the island!


1. Incubus - 2001 - Morning View                                                                                  99.677%

In my opinion, there's no such thing as a perfect album...but if there was, it would be Morning View.  There is simply no better arrangement of songs in existence than those featured on this album.  It was the pinnacle of Incubus' career and it will never be reached let alone approximated by those boys from Calabasas.  Song after song, every track is technically perfect in its own right with only varying levels of awesomeness separating them.  Nice To Know You is one of their best tracks with an almost Cantrell/Staley-an vocal harmony for the chorus.  Circles is a complicated, heavy, amazing song that demonstrates how quickly, easily, and smoothly the album can transition from heavy to heavier and then to lighter.  Wish You Were Here has some great lyrics and laid back guitar-work.  Just A Phase is a quintessential Incubus track: deceptively simple on the surface but, deep within its inner workings, rife with musical complexity and depth.

Then there's 11am.  The greatest set of lyrics of any song I've ever heard.  Brandon Boyd's metaphors and wordplay is tremendous and incomparable.  Blood On The Ground continues his wordsmithing ("Blood in my mouth beats blood on the ground"--think about that for a second).  Mexico is one of my all-time favorite acoustic tracks of any band.  Warning is undeniably creepy, not even accounting for the really unnerving video associated with it.  Echo features a riff that was co-created with guitar virtuoso Steve Vai and has an incredible ambient sound to it.  Have You Ever and Are You In fall into the same category as Just A Phase and are just awesome tracks.  Under My Umbrella is a wickedly intricate song when you consider the guitar work, bass riff, and drum beats used.

And finally there's Aqueous Transmission.  There's nothing like it.  The most relaxing song I've ever heard on a rock album.  It features a Chinese stringed instrument (the Pipa) as well as the sounds of frogs that the boys in the band heard on a nightly basis.  By including those chirps, Incubus tied in the very location that the album was recorded at into the mix, transforming it into a song in and of itself.  Close your eyes while you listen to it--tell me you're not transported immediately to that river, feeling yourself drifting away to a better place...

The album begins on a heavy note and ends on a light one that blends perfectly right back into the opening notes of the initial song.  It's not a concept album and that's part of what makes it amazing--how smoothly it forms a musical circle--a never-ending sonic sequence that, like the river in Aqueous Transmission, never changes and is never the same at any given moment.  It's like Finnegans Wake, beginning and ending in the middle of the same sentence.

Morning View.  The best album I've heard in the past twenty years' worth of music...and possibly beyond!

The Past Ten Years: A Life Lived, A Life Just Begun (Part II)

Ten years ago I started college as a member of the charter class of the Macaulay Honors College.  It was a time of excitement, of potential, and of the unknown.  Little did I know but as I sat down in Professor Anne Swartz's first session of the very first Macaulay Honors College seminar course, I was embarking upon the rest of my life: sitting within only a few seats of me was my future wife, Heather.  We had encountered one another at one of the numerous orientation events but we met, truly, in that class, on that day.

Over the next eight months, we got to know each other and became friends (something my mother and father always advocated as an integral component to the success of any enduring romantic relationship).  I'll never forget the events that led up to our courtship, culminating with me taking Heather down to the water to ask her out and her saying yes.  I was thrilled but wound up being perplexed by my friends' reactions.  Most responses were of the "Yeah we know" or "You weren't dating already?" variety.  Apparently, we had been flirting for months (if not since that very first day of class back in August) and it was only after a few years had passed that I was able to look back and see that I had loved her from the very first instant.

Ten years ago, I entered adulthood for what I thought was the first time.  I had turned eighteen in March of 2001, exercising my legal status as an adult only once to sign myself out of school when I was feeling ill in April of that same year.  When I started college, though, I truly began to feel like an adult (or so I thought).  I was traveling to "the city" by myself, was making decisions for myself about everything from what to eat for lunch on a given day to the career trajectory I wanted to follow.  I can say that I grew up a lot in those four years that I spent as a Macaulay Honors Scholar but that maturation and life experience pales in comparison to that which I have gained in the years since as an alumnus of Macaulay.

To begin with, I faced the first true challenge of my life when I obtained an internship at a respectable corporation in Midtown.  In a way, I was set: I would work there through the remaining two years of college and then, if things went according to plan, I would have earned a full-time position that would allow me to begin climbing the corporate ladder.  Except they didn't.  I worked there for only a few months before realizing (much to my horror) that I hated not only the job but the career that I had chosen for myself.  I felt so empty every night that I left the office and I began to think about changing fields.  To what, I had no clue but Fate would serve to hook me up.  Sitting on the 7th floor at Baruch's Vertical Campus, moping and bemoaning the lot that I had been given, Heather spotted a flier offering a tutoring position at Baruch.  I had been considering switching to education but Baruch offered no such programs; the department had dissolved the year prior.  I saw that a fellow Macaulay scholar was the contact person for the position and, well, the rest is history.

By the time May of 2005 rolled around, I was ready to graduate--to move on to the rest of my life, whatever that might be.  Of course, I had my own personal difficulties that I was dealing with at the time (and had been since May of 2001) and they would ultimately force me to reassess the way that I lived my life.  I was a compulsive worrier and that began to take a physical toll on me.  Fortunately, by the end of 2006, I had started graduate school at Brooklyn College, had sought help for the things that were affecting me, and I found that I had a new perspective on life and the world at large; it was the second time that I felt like I had become an adult.

On July 7th, 2007, I married the love of my life--the shy, beautiful, funny, smart girl I had met in the first Macaulay seminar almost six years earlier.  I enjoyed the life of a newlywed for three months before I began my student teaching assignment at the High School for Health Professions in Manhattan.  It had been looming over my for months--this gargantuan black hole that would deprive me of my free time, force me to work harder and to multi-task better than I ever had in my life, and, to challenge me to see my pursuit of a Master's degree through to the end.  Between October 2007 and May 2008, I juggled over three-hundred hours of student teaching, two-hundred hours of classroom observation time, nine hours a week of working at Baruch, and six intense graduate-level English and education courses.  I had a nightmarish tri-borough commute that never got easier: get up around four o'clock in the morning in Staten Island to be in Manhattan by six-thirty.  Teach for a few hours, then head up to Baruch to go to work, then back to Staten Island to get the car to drive then to Brooklyn for class, finally getting home around ten or eleven in the evening.  And my situation was far from the worst it could be in comparison to those of many of my classmates.  But I made it through.  A few weeks after finishing up, Heather and I took our Cross-Canadian/Cross-Country road trip up to the Alaska Highway--an experience that served to help me to grow up quite a bit as well.

And then came 2009.

The relief that I felt in April of 2009 was both pervasive and ephemeral.  The end was in sight; in only another month, I would complete my graduate studies, thus earning my Master's degree and rendering me able to begin at long last my career as a teacher.  Classes finished, I tied up the bureaucratic loose ends, and attended an unexpected award ceremony a few days before graduation.  I was notified the week prior that I was nominated to receive an award for my accomplishments as a student and a teacher.  I was flattered and was blown away when I attended the ceremony to see how much respect my professors had for me.  Professor Jessica Siegel was announcing the names in my grouping for the awards and she (along with everyone else) had been instructed simply to read the names so as to keep the evening moving along smoothly.  Instead, she stopped on my name, made me stand up, and began to tell all in attendance about how amazing a student, instructor, and person I was; it is a moment that will stay with me forever.

Then came Thursday, May 28th, 2009.

I was nervous and considerably stressed on the morning of my graduation.  For one, it had been confirmed earlier in the week that there would be an unofficial but unavoidable hiring freeze in effect for teachers for the coming school year.  I worried about the implications of the news as I got dressed.  Also on my mind was the weather (it was going to pour--the first time it rained on a Brooklyn College graduation in twenty-seven years!) and the fact that the next morning I would be leaving for Ireland on the longest flight I'd ever taken. 
Then we came home.

The plan was that we would arrive home on Saturday, then spend the day on Sunday and Monday resting up, preparing for a return to work on Tuesday.  We did arrive home on Saturday (after being held up on the plane so that Nicholas Cage could exit first) and we did rest up on Sunday.  But then Monday morning came.  It was 5:50, if I remember correctly.  I was fast asleep but I heard Heather's voice call out to me.

"Matt."

It was something about the way that she said my name that roused me from my slumber.  She called out again and this time I woke up.  She asked me to come into the bathroom because she wanted to show me something.  I complained that I didn't want to go in there to see something gross.  Her response was "I'm pregnant."

Believe me--I was awake in that very instant.

I remember lying still on the bed, bringing my hands up to my eyes, rubbing the sleep away, and then running them up through my hair.  I replayed the words in my mind making sure that I had heard her correctly.  Then I got up, went into the bathroom, and truly began my adulthood.

Unequivocally, becoming a parent--hell, the prospect of becoming a parent--made me feel more like a man and an adult than anything else in my life.  I saw my folly--my inexperience with each previous moment and I laughed because I knew then what it meant to be an adult: it was being accountable to and responsible for someone other than myself.

That's the secret kids: adulthood is all about responsibility.  That's the secret--the key.  I didn't understand it exactly then but it came to me tonight while I was typing this.  Adulthood is commensurate with one's quantity of life experience and responsibility.  Think about it, it makes perfect sense.  Ever notice how friends who are being raised by a single parent or grandparent and have a few brothers and sisters that they have to look after seem more "grown up"?  It's because they are.  The opposite can be said for the thirty-something year old guy who still lives with his mother not as a temporary circumstance but as his actual way of life--the one who has said mother pay for his groceries and do his laundry on occasion.  That person is not a man--an adult--but rather an overgrown child still trapped within the confines of childhood.  Why?  A lack of responsibility and accountability.

Spending four months sending out over sixty resumes, trying desperately to land a teaching position so that I could help to provide for my growing family only to come up empty-handed?  That's real life.  Agreeing not to pursue work so that I could stay home and take care of my son, thus dealing with the implications and baggage associated with being a stay-at-home-dad?  Yup.  Real life too.  And making decisions that no longer affect only me but three lives?  On a daily basis?  You already know what it is.

But I digress.  This is meant not to highlight my journey towards adult enlightenment but rather to elucidate how I came to the understanding that I now have regarding my adulthood.  It actually happened fairly recently: Wednesday, August 24th, 2011.  It was a great night--one that I was honored to have partaken in.  Earlier in the summer, I had been contacted by an employee at Macaulay asking me if I would be willing to participate in the orientation of the incoming class of freshman.  I would be introducing an author at an orientation event.  I was flattered to have been asked, especially given that I am now, myself, pursuing a writing career.  I had participated in the commencement of the Class of 2010 last year by serving as part of the Grand Marshal for the ceremony, getting to sit on stage at Lincoln Center behind author R.L. Stine, and so I was thrilled to be able to take part in another important Macaulay event.

The night of the event came and I was both nervous and excited.  I stood on stage with the guest of honor while the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs of Macaulay introduced me in a very special way.  He mentioned that I was a member of the first graduating class and proceeded to tell the story of how I had met my wife (who was then standing at the back of the auditorium with our son).  The students applauded my status-as-alumnus, with the Baruch contingent cheering raucously at the mention of my alma mater.  I walked to the podium and thought two things: I had never spoken before so many people in my life (over four, possibly five hundred were in attendance) and I was a full ten years older than the kids sitting in the seats below.

And that was when it began.

As I left Hunter College, I couldn't help but smile, for a number of reasons.  For one, some things that began with me and my friends had remained unchanged in the intervening decade: students still took great pride in being members of the Macaulay Honors Program AND they had already separated into sects based upon their respective college of enrollment (and Baruch still had the most students!  Tough, Hunter!).  Then I realized what it all meant.  Something that I had not only participated in but helped to shape through that participation had not only survived but had thrived during my years there and especially since.  My fellow Class of 2005 members and I served to help to smooth out the wrinkles in the program, finding out what worked and what didn't through our own personal experiences.  We watched the program grow and took pride in the fact that we had done our small part to help to make that happen.

And again, I am reminded of what I felt on my first day of college, this time directed through a Macaulay lens: a sense of potential in its purest form, the excitement of the unknown, and the realization that we were a part of something bigger than ourselves.  It is with great pride that I attended both that commencement ceremony last year and the orientation this past August.  The former celebrated the fifth graduating class while the latter announced the promise of the tenth.

I bought into Macaulay's mission, full-tilt.  I took great pride not only in being an honor's student at Baruch but at being part of the Macaulay Honors College.  Ten years later, that pride has not waxed a bit; if anything, it has grown exponentially.  Standing atop that stage at Hunter College a few weeks ago with a gulf of thirty feet and ten years separating me from the students in the audience, I was awestruck by how far the program had come, as a whole, and how far I had come, individually, as a man.  Macaulay has provided me with so much--an incomparable education and set of life experiences, innumerable pleasant memories, a sense of camaraderie and community, and, most important of all, the opportunity to have met my wife, which paved the way for the family that we are now building.

So from one alumnus out of a sea of many, thank you to the Macaulay Honors College for all that you've done for me over the past ten years!

The Past Ten Years: A Life Lived, A Life Just Begun (Part I)

In the past three weeks I have had the unique reflective opportunity to look back on two events that truly shaped who I am today and forced me to shed the shackles of childhood forever.  Though the nature of these events or times in my life are as disparate, perhaps, as one can get, they are two experiences that are indelibly linked.  I debated about exploring this connection for it would dredge up painful memories unnecessarily...but many times pain is life--it helps us to live, to appreciate the life that we've been given, and it provides us with clarity that is often lost in the face of complacency.

During the last week of August in 2001, I began to leave my childhood behind.  I got on an express bus and rode into Manhattan from Gerritsen Beach, Brooklyn for my first day of classes as a freshman at Baruch College.  It was also my first official day as a student in the then CUNY Honors College (now and at every point hereafter in this entry the Macaulay Honors College or MHC); I had so little idea of how much my life would change in the coming weeks and months--how much I would grow up and how my life's path would begin to reveal itself to me.  It was the beginning of one of the best times in my life but it would also include one of the most painful experiences of my life.

Everyone who was in New York City on the morning of September 11th, 2001 has a story of what happened to them that day.  I'd go so far as to say that perhaps every American does but certainly anyone who was directly affected by the terrible tragedy that befell my city and my country that morning does.  When pressed, people will often recall in vivid, lengthy detail, the entire ordeal that they endured that day; I am no different.  Though the purpose of this entry is not to enjoy a cathartic release of my own personal memories from that day, I intend to share them for they help to shape all that has come since then.  So here's my story.

What I remember most from the morning of September 11th was the weather.  The sky never seemed bluer, the temperature was perfect, even the breeze itself seemed lighter than air.  I remember looking forward to coming home from school so that I could go outside and do something--play basketball, take a bike ride, something to make the most of the gorgeous clime.  I got on the Command Bus that I had just started taking barely a week and a half earlier to head into the city to attend my Psychology 1001H course.  The bus ran its route as usual and nothing seemed out of the ordinary until we had neared the last stop in Brooklyn.  I think people could see smoke coming from Manhattan and there was talk of a plane crashing into a building.  When we reached the final stop, we were held up for a moment and I remember looking out through the front windshield of the bus and seeing more police, fire, and emergency vehicles than I could count go flying by on Ocean Parkway towards Manhattan.  I knew that it had to be bad not simply because they had shut down the roadway but because of the sheer speed with which the vehicles moved; I had never seen anything like it and I hope I never do again.

Fortunately, we were held up as wave after wave of vehicles flew by.  Our driver was given instruction to turn the bus around and to take us back home along the same route.  I remember feeling a brief moment of panic as we drove next to Ocean Parkway.  I wasn't too familiar with the route so I was concerned that we were going to be heading into the city but we turned around near the first exit.  The driver was calm and expressed genuine concern for each of us.  As new information became available, he relayed it to us.  I remember texting my friend James and asking him if he wanted me to come to try to sign him and his girlfriend out of school (they were seniors in high school at the time) and him saying that they were fine and were heading home.  After that, cell service was pretty much shot because of the bombardment of the lines.

I remember walking into my house stunned, thrilled, afraid, unsure of what to feel.  I'll never forget my parents' reaction to me coming up the stairs--seeing the way that they clutched at me as I walked through the doorway.  It's taken me ten years to understand what that reaction meant; it was only after becoming a father myself that I recognized it as the fear of losing one's child.  My parents brought me up to speed as we watched the news and settled in for one of the most numbing days of my life.  I remember going up to the avenue (Gerritsen Avenue) several times throughout the day, walking over towards the fields, and standing atop a guardrail to look out at Manhattan.  I could see the smoke emanating from Downtown and I knew then that the world had changed, at least for me and for the United States.  Later in the day (and the next), soot-laden papers began to rain down like giant snowflakes; a few are stored in a memory box somewhere.  They were papers from the various businesses that were housed in the World Trade Center.  In a way, each fluttering sheet was like a ghost returning to earth, asking if it all really happened--if their time had truly come.  It gives me chills to think of what that scene was like--fallout from the worst attack our country has ever suffered on its home soil.

Ever the conscientious student, one of my primary concerns was whether or not classes would be cancelled the next day; they were.  And the next.  In fact, I didn't return to school until the following Monday.  Before I get to that, though, there are some thoughts and feelings that I feel compelled to vent--things that might offend some people reading this, so I apologize in advance and beg your pardon.  You see, there were things that I witnessed in the weeks and months following that horrible event that have stayed with me.  Now, ten years later, I've been able to look back on them with hindsight and with the lens of my current worldview of personal situation.  A recent conversation that I had with a buddy of mine has spurred me to vent what I am about to unload.

I remember attending two candlelight vigils very shortly after the 11th back in 2001.  I'm not sure of the exact dates but I'm pretty confident that they were later that same week, possibly Friday and Saturday.  One was held at Marine Park and the other--almost as much of a political rally as a vigil--was held at the Point (the end of Gerritsen Avenue).  I remember the sense of bonding that I felt--that we all felt--at those vigils; it was the first time that I felt like I was a part of a community larger than that of my family or my neighborhood.  I remember bursting with patriotic pride in the weeks that followed--absorbing that indomitable New York spirit that said that we would never back down--that we would rebuild, bigger, better.  I remember seeing so many American flags; they were legion.  They were emblazoned in windows, flew from porches, from flagpoles, and, most importantly, from cars.  That's what stuck out the most: the number of cars that had flags waving from their antennae or affixed to their windows.

Then October came; there were fewer flags.  November followed and by then we were ensconced in military maneuvers overseas, so some of the flags returned...but by December?  They had all but disappeared.

Now don't get me wrong--I understand completely not only why it happened but why it had to happen that way; people have to move on.  There's no sense in slicing open a healing wound on a daily basis and, in a way, that's what those flags were beginning to represent: buildings destroyed, lives lost, friends and family deployed to faraway lands.  And so I get that and I hold no ill memory towards any of those people; you can't blame them for doing what needed to happen for them to return to their lives.

The first thing that pissed me off was Bloomberg telling us all to go shopping.  I understood his point but it was the first time (perhaps an indication or an omen) that his condescension--his "I know what's best for you so don't question me just do it" attitude came through.  It appeared again during the strike, during a few winter storms when people complained about alternate side parking, and a few other occasions.  It definitely didn't endear "Mayor Mike" to a whole bunch of us.  The second thing--and indeed the most powerful impetus for the scathing condemnation to come--was the call to arms for us to "Never Forget."

"Never Forget."  How many times have you heard that over the last ten years?  I know that I sure as hell can't put a number on it.  On paper, it's a great mantra imploring us to be careful, to look out for each other, to recall the departed with due reverence...but in practice?  Not so much.  I can't tell you how many different "Never Forget" statuses I saw on Sunday but there were plenty.  Unsurprisingly, most people seemed to have statuses about September 11th.  I understand why too: it was a significant anniversary--a full decade since that day.  But, in a way, Facebook is part of my problem--part of the issue that I take with the society that we now live in.  2001 was a year of great change in this country but so was 2004.

My issue is this: we have become a society that lives almost exclusively in the moment and for only the moment.  We have no patience; we expect everything to happen instantaneously because it does.  The things that served as distractions during those first few post-9/11 years have become the things that are the forefront of our attention--at the core of our respective lives.

I don't mean to disparage anyone who had a status up on 9/11 about their memories or feelings about the event, it's just that, to me, it was something I have seen scores of times over the past few years.  See, back in the 40s, 50s, and 60s--when Americans remembered an event of significance (Pearl Harbor is an apt example), they did so genuinely.  They gathered in stolid solidarity; they showed instead of said, and I think that's part of what my problem is.  It's not so much that I doubt people's sincerity when they share the aforementioned thoughts and feelings, it's more that those expressions strike me as empty--as simply words with nothing behind them. 

People say "Never Forget" but I think it's more "remember when you're told it's time to remember"; it's been reduced to a slogan that will stick around for the moment until it's gone, replaced with the next pop culture phenomenon.  Our collective attention span has been reduced severely since social networking and reality television have risen in prevalence; one need only look at Twitter updates and Facebook statuses to see the validity of my argument.  You can tell what's been going on in New York and in America as a whole simply by looking back through people's statuses.  You'd know that it was the tenth anniversary of 9/11, that there was a wicked hurricane that came through the Northeast, that there was an earthquake, that Osama Bin Laden had been killed, and that New York had been HAMMERED with blizzards.  But in between all of those?  You'd have the requisite pop culture and reality television nonsense that will invariably supplant all of those moments and events of notes.

THAT's what the problem is: moments of local or national historical significance are relegated to the same plane as nonsense like the Royal Wedding or how much Kim Kardashian earned last year.  "Never Forget" has become tantamount to "WINNING!" or a joke about LeBron giving only three quarters.  And when things do happen, the first thing people seem to do is run to Facebook and Twitter so that they can throw their two cents (which is really the same as everyone else's two cents when it comes down to it) into the mix.  It's the sociological equivalent of saying "FIRST!" on a messageboard where someone feels compelled to post the same inane nonsense that everyone else is posting so as not to be left out.  My beef is that I feel like so many people posted the things that they did on 9/11 not out of genuine remembrance but out of the unconscious need to raise their virtual Facebook/Twitter hands to be counted for attendance or roll call.

"OOH ME ME!  I REMEMBER!  I NEVER FORGOT!  MEEEEEEEEEE!!!  I'M HERE TOO!"

Remember thought: actions speak louder than 160 characters or less.

LIT: Band of Brothers

Seven years ago I got to see Lit in concert for the first time and meet the guys outside of the Bowery Ballroom in New York City with my wife (then girlfriend). Five years ago we took our first cross-country trip and made the Slide Bar in Fullteron our ultimate destination before heading back. Last year, after our son was born, I played him every album from New Vibe Revolution through the self-titled one. And, tomorrow, I'll be showing him the first demo from the new album on Youtube. Amazing how time flies and life changes, man.

R.I.P. Allen.  Still can't believe it's been two years.  I hope you're at peace and that you're still with your brothers in spirit. 

Breaking The Mold

So I read an article last night about a Heterosexual Pride Day being proposed in Brazil on Ultimate-Guitar.com.  I know--weird place to find it, right?  The article itself was about Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford's reaction to the parade/pride day, basically decrying it as childish.  Based on the information provided in the article, it does appear that the reasoning behind the event is suspect, as evidenced mostly by this snippet:

"In late June, the Washington Post reported that evangelical leaders in São Paulo were pushing a "Heterosexual Pride Day" after being unable to rid the city of its "Gay Pride" parade." [Emphasis not added.] 

(The article can be read, in total, at this link:  http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/rob_halford_says_brazils_heterosexual_pride_day_proposal_is_childish.html)

Now, it wasn't the article that got me thinking so much as the comments beneath it.  Surprisingly, the majority were mostly tame and thought-provoking (as opposed to the juvenile flaming that often occurs on such messageboards).  I saw a number of people defending the Heterosexual Pride Day and asking what would be wrong with having such a thing.  Some conversations turned to race or religion and, again, people proposed and defended the idea of having White History Month alongside other races or Christian events with other creeds.

Is there anything inherently wrong with having a Heterosexual Pride Day or parade?  Not at all.  Or a White History Month?  No, again.  The issue, though, is that it would be redundant and that is why such things are rare.

Now here's where it starts to get touchy, so take a deep breath before continuing.

As I see it, the problem is that whites, as a group, are mostly reluctant to admit or completely ignorant of the fact that they are the dominant culture and thus central source of power in the United States.  It makes people (again, mostly white) uncomfortable to discuss the idea that whites enjoy a level of privilege that is unavailable to most if not all other groups in the country.  There's no judgment value being placed here, it's just a simple fact.  Don't believe me?  Ask any non-white person and see what answer you get.

The truth is that whites enjoy an unconscious and perhaps even subliminal position of power in this country.  They are catered to in so many ways it is ridiculous and most don't even realize it.  The most obvious example would be major network television.  If you were white and born in the early '80s, the odds are that you watched some or most of the following shows:

The Wonder Years

Saved By The Bell

Perfect Strangers

Home Improvement

Charles In Charge

Cheers

Coach

Diff'rent Strokes

Doogie Howser, M.D.

Empty Nest

The Golden Girls

Family Ties

Family Matters

Full House

Growing Pains

Night Court

Three's Company

Mr. Belvedere

Murphy Brown

Roseanne

Step By Step

Seinfeld

Friends

The Cosby Show

The Jeffersons

The Odd Couple

Webster

Who's The Boss?

There are plenty of other shows but this is a representative-enough list for our purposes here.  Many of these shows dominated television during the height of their respective popularity.  Most were on during the weeknight-evening hours, some were part of that great line-up called "TGIF," and some appeared on the weekends.  What's the common denominator between 90% of the shows listed above?

They were mostly about middle-class, heterosexual, Christian, white characters facing typically white problems or situations, which, in turn, appealed to its mostly white audience. 

It might not have appeared obvious at the time but it's remarkably obvious in hindsight.

Some more food for thought:

How many Asian characters can you recall from Home Improvement or Saved By The Bell?

How many recurring black characters were there on Seinfeld or Friends--two of the most popular shows of all-time?

How many homosexual characters can you recall from Doogie Howser, M.D.?  (Okay, a bit of an inside joke with that one but you get my point.)

Whatever characters you do see are often simple stereotypes of that particular group; they embody only the most popular (and often inaccurate) conceptions of people.  Sure there is programming geared towards the oppressed voices but the master narrative of television is still the white experience; the counter-narratives of the essentially colonized people are relegated to single channels like Telemundo or Univision.

Television is just one example of many.  Music is another, albeit slightly weaker one.  Most of the radio stations that you will find play Top-40 pop music, country music (outside of the city), and rock/alternative music.  Of course you will find stations dedicated to other types of music but they will be far fewer in number.  One more quiz question for the road:

Why are so many suburban white teenagers attracted to rap and hip-hop when it stands almost completely at odds with the experiences of their daily lives?

Because rap and hip-hop represent black culture, which, to those suburbanites, in turn represents a counter-culture: a rebellion against the things that their parents or authority figures stand for or enjoy.

So the reason that there are such things as Black History Month, Hispanic History Month, and Gay Pride Parades is that they are opportunities for the voices and faces of these silently (or not) oppressed groups to be heard and seen.  The reason that you don't see White History Month or Heterosexual Pride Parades is because history, whether the subject taught in school or the programs on the eponymous channel, tends to refer, by default, to white history. 

So where does this leave us?  What's the point?

For me, the heart of the matter is this: there is too much attention being paid to differences between us and separations among us.  Do various groups--underrepresented or otherwise--deserve their own parades/days/months/recognition?  Undoubtedly.  But should they (including whites) have it?  I don't think so.  The problem, as I see it, is that we are loyal to labels.  We identify ourselves based upon our affiliations with various groups, each of which is inherently inclined to exclude and to create social rifts.  Ask someone "So what are you?" and they will invariably run through a litany of identifications.  They are Irish-Catholics from New York, African-Americans from the South, Orthodox Jews from the Midwest.  No one ever says, "I'm a person" or "I'm a member of the human race" even though they clearly are those things first and foremost.  Perhaps that's the reason why they don't make such qualifications for themselves--why state the obvious?

Group affiliations clearly help to establish some sort of cultural-religious-ethnic identity but, again, they force exclusions and produce only further differences.  Identifications based upon skin color are the worst because they lend automatically to the creation or perpetuation of stereotypes.  "I'm black" will bring about a string of stereotypical characteristics of that group for non-members just like "I'm white" or "I'm Asian/Hispanic/Native American" will.  Stereotypes, for all their misrepresentation, do have some truth to them...but only from a statistical standpoint.  The odds are that a number of people who are black/white/etc. behave in a certain way or like certain things...but it's strictly numbers.  When you take people individually you begin to find that these things are not necessarily true or, more importantly, that the stereotypes have nothing to do with their race/creed.

Take me for example.  I'm a white Catholic with a mostly Irish/German heritage.  The stereotype for white Irish Catholics is that they love to drink to excess or simply that they love to drink.  The syllogism for me would be:

Matt is Irish.

Irish people drink alcohol.

Matt drinks alcohol.

The problem is that it's not true as written.  I am Irish and I do enjoy consuming alcohol but, and this is an enormous but, I do not consume alcohol because I am Irish.  That's where the stereotype falls apart for me.  Now, that's not to say that other Irish Catholics don't drink because of their heritage but it's not true for me, even though I drink AND I am Irish.  On the other hand, the stereotype that all Irish people drink Guinness does apply to me.  Guinness is my favorite beer not only because of the flavor, texture, etc. but because of its cultural significance and importance in Irish history.  When I drink a pint, part of me feels like I am in communion with my Irish ancestry.  But, again, this isn't true for everyone and thus only at the individual level can such generalizations be assessed and evaluated.

Modern, Western organized religion is perhaps the second worst culprit of creating divisions among people, right after or behind skin color.  The "major" religions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam revolve around precepts, not concepts and thus seek to establish what is "right" and "wrong."  The problem, though, is that, in so doing, they are creating separations between groups.  It becomes the whole "my God is better than your God" or "you're wrong because" scenario, excluding others by creating otherness and they-ness.  "They don't believe in the Ten Commandments (or whatever) and so they must be wrong."  Organized religion is, at its core, a popularity contest (or at least for some Christian sects hellbent on missionary work) that focuses on the for-or-against mentality necessary for such groups to thrive.  That's not to elevate Eastern religions, necessarily: those that are based on concepts of self-improvement through the idealization of spiritual states and ideas over historical figures and allegorical people, it's just that they tend to be a lot less severe about differences; there's far less judgment from a Buddhist towards non-Buddhists than there is between Christians/Jews/Muslims and non-members of their respective faiths.

Think about it: the white Irish Catholic from New York.  What do those designations really say?

If you're pigmented, you're different.

If you're a non-Christian, you're different.

If you're from a rural, small town, you're different.

And what do those differences imply?

We cannot relate.

And THAT'S the problem.  There is too much difference in the world.  Do you know what two of the ugliest words in the English language are when paired together?  Racial tolerance.  Is that really the message that we want to be spreading?  Tolerance?  Think about a small party that you're attending at a friend's house.  There are maybe ten people there, all of whom you are acquainted with.  Your friend's brother-in-law was invited--you know, the creepy, obnoxious one who makes everyone feel uncomfortable, especially the ladies.  You'll stay at the party because you can still have a good time...but what do you do about the brother-in-law's presence?

That's right.

You tolerate it.

Pretty shitty message to be conveying when you're attempting to forge unity among groups.  Although, I take pause with that term too: unity.  Unity implies otherness, separateness, two things that seek to be joined but are not because they are different and thus are detached from one another.  There is a void between them, a gulf, that needs to be crossed so that they can be "united."

Again: the focus is on what is different--on the things that are separate instead of shared.

I had many conversations with an awesome, awesome woman when I worked at Baruch.  She worked in another department located in the same office as mine.  There would often be groups of people congregating around her desk, almost always engaged in some thought-provoking conversation.  One day, the conversation was about race and how people identify themselves and each other.  Someone argued that you have to identify people by race; she called bullshit.  She used me as an example.  She said something along the lines of:

"When someone comes into the office looking for College Now, I don't tell them to go over to the white guy in the back.  I tell them to look for the man in the hat, or the green tie, or the tall guy."

That always stuck with me.  Never the white guy in the hat or green tie, nor the tall white guy.  Sure the hat/tie/height are still descriptors...but they lack the weight--the gravitas--of a racial/skin-tone-oriented identification.  As soon as I become the "white guy," I am immediately categorized in that person's mind as whatever collection of stereotypes and experiences that they have had with caucasians.  Sure that could still happen when they eventually find me and see that I am a white guy...but maybe they won't?  Maybe they'll hear the music I have playing at my desk, or see the photos I have up on my cubicle wall, and thus that will alter their perception of me.

Perception trumps preconception every time.

And thus my overarching point of this rant: we need to stop focusing on stereotypes and on designations and identifications that seek only to foster separation and "otherness" among us.  You know how you end "black and white" racism?  You stop identifying people, first, as either black or white.  We are more global now than at any point in the history of the human race.  In a way, racial and even ethnic identities are becoming obsolete.  When you play a video game online, you might be playing with someone in Vietnam, Russia, Ecuador, and Australia--Buddhists, Muslims, Pagans.  But when you're playing those games you're playing with, simply, other people.  That's all that matters.

The problems in this country stem from a dogged persistence in perpetuating the histories associated with skin tones and cultures.  The concept of white guilt or certain racial groups deserving special treatment for things that happened in the past is ludicrous.  Whites engaged in slavery over one hundred and fifty years ago.  Was it a terrible thing--something inexcusable to the modern, cosmopolitan mind?  Absolutely.  Have whites committed heinous acts of violence?  Things so reprehensible that they would make even a hardened criminal cringe?  Without question.  But these things happened in the past; there's no changing them.  The only thing we can do is to learn from them and use that knowledge to influence the present. 

Should I feel guilty because my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather might have been a slave owner?  Absolutely not.  I have as much control over that man's actions and beliefs as I do over Alexander the Great's or Cleopatra.  Should a black person claim that he or she is oppressed because his or her ancestor was a slave?  No way.  That genealogical fact has no influence over his or her present condition.  Whites are often made to feel guilty for the crimes that they have committed historically (ignoring recent activity, of course.  We're looking at you, President Bush) but it's ridiculous and it's caused whites to become so skittish when it comes to discussing race that it's almost comical.  Go and talk to the Aztecs or Mayans about whether or not they feel guilty for committing genocide, see if the Ancient Egyptians become abashed about their slavery practices.

So much emphasis is paid to the stereotypes of being white, black, or whatever, and to the historical horrors that have befallen those races or been caused by them...but there's no way we'll be able to move forward, as a race, if we keep looking back at the past.  You can't demonize a group because of the things that they've done, only for things that they continue to do.  Hating white people as a group because of what a percentage of the white population did sixty, a hundred-and-sixty, or six-hundred years ago doesn't accomplish anything.  Ditto for hating on blacks, Hispanics, Asians, or any other group.  We have to stop prejudging people that we have never met based upon the history of their skin color, and start judging people based upon our personal interactions with them.  Stop viewing them as part of a larger group and allow them the opportunity to be the individuals that they are!



Now, there is still plenty of white/black racism in this country but it's because (in part) each group still chooses to look at the other as just that: other.  The biggest contributing factor to racism is simply ignorance--not knowing about another group of people.  The reason for that lack of knowledge and experience is, in part, the fact that they are viewed as different (being afraid to go to a "black" neighborhood, or to eat at a "Hispanic" restaurant for example) and are thus set apart.

There's that void again.

Without question there are other factors that contribute to racism: socio-economic status, personal history with particular groups of people, previous upbringing if raised in a sheltered culture.  Still, though, most, if not all, can be tied back to two things: ignorance (which I would define as a lack of knowledge or simply accepting gross generalizations about a group of people without seeking any factual basis to back them up) and a lack of personal, hands-on experience.  The former tends to break pretty quickly when the latter is attained but it's taking that leap of faith, of actually seeking out that new experience with a different group that prevents it from happening.  This, in turn, is due mostly to fear: fear of the unknown, perhaps fear of rejection.  But the easiest way to overcome that fear is to stop focusing on the differences!  Start thinking of people simply as people and not white people, black people, or whatever kind of people! 

When I'm on line at the DMV and I strike up a conversation with someone, I don't assess the crowd and look for only one type of person.  Usually it just happens to be the person closest in proximity to me.  I never say to myself, "Gee...I can't talk to that black guy about the heat wave or that Jewish woman about how crowded it is here today."  To me, they're all people, stuck waiting in the same godforsaken line that I am, all tending to various errands, seeking to achieve a multitude of goals.

And at the end of the day, isn't that what we are all doing?

So the next time you go to describe someone as something other than just a person, or find yourself inclined to judge someone you've never met personally with a generalization, take a step back, stop for a moment, and think of the hierarchy.  We're human beings first, part of a global species, and individuals second, unique personalities that will fit some but not all of the molds. 

Everything else is just unnecessary nomenclature.

POST SCRIPT

My boy Adrian Vaughan Scott is a wise, perceptive man and he wrote an excellent piece on the state of Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn.  The core of his argument pertains to what I am trying to say; we're speaking to the same issue.  In a way, his piece is microcosm to my macrocosm.  Scope it out below:

Newcomers and a Kinder Gentler Racismcopyright 2011, Adrian Vaughan-Scott

“Number three is the unconscious racist

Not knowin' they're racist they invade your spaces

They say, ‘I'm not a racist, I'm not a bigot’

Yet they allow it to go on and won't admit it”

-      KRS-One, The Racist, 1990


Brooklyn has undergone changes.  It used to be the borough that the rest of New York City was afraid of, maintaining its criminology core well beyond the old 40-deuce and what once was Hell’s Kitchen.  This seemed to remain true all the way up until the tragedy of September 11th, 2001, after which all of New York would change forever – some for the better, some for the worse.  Without denying the fact that pockets of BK still remain nothing shy of dangerous, it’s in central Brooklyn (Bed-Stuy, Bushwick, Crown Heights, and parts of Flatbush) where the taming of the Borough of Kings has become the most insidious.  It is within the grasp of gentrification and the invasion of naïve hipsters not quite in the know that has turned the once infamous “Bucktown” into a bridled, muzzled amusement park for college kids, artists and European tourists, and it is under this shadow of whiteness that we find the most dangerous forms of racism.
Make no mistake, Brooklyn needed to change.  The level of poverty and street crime that became synonymous with neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy only developed out of a systematic neglect by city leaders, following a nation-wide trend where problems connected to black communities were not of great concern as long as they stay confined to black communities.  This was only further echoed by racial conflicts and confrontations in BK exemplified in the Crown Heights riots and the murdering of Yusef Hawkins in Bensonhurst.  Brooklyn needed to change.  Along comes gentrification in the wake of 9/11 and the acquisition of property in low-income neighborhoods.  The purpose of this… tangent… is not to blather on about the ills of gentrification because it’s simply too late for that.  And the excellent point was made on more than one occasion that the infusion of new ethnicities and new businesses have made neighborhoods like the Stuy safer for long-time residents who remember all too well the wild west it once was.  What is important to look at are the subtleties of contemporary, liberal racism as it further invades Brooklyn under the guise of artist communities and alternative lifestyles.  It’s no longer the blatant hatred of central Brooklyn’s surrounding areas that threaten the borough’s black and brown communities, but the kinder, gentler invading force of young white people and urban professionals who love to say that they live in Brooklyn, but never intended to be immersed within the communities they now find themselves occupying.
 Returning to the quote from rapper KRS-One above, it’s the unconscious racists that can often be the most perilous to communities of color.  Similar to what  Malcolm X would refer to as the liberal fox vs. the obviously dangerous wolf.  By no stretch of the imagination is it the intention of the unconscious racist to dislike people of color or cause any harm in the neighborhoods they move into, but their naïve disregard for the culture of the neighborhood can only be viewed as a symptom of their own privilege.  At no time in American history have people of color been able to move to a white neighborhood and not have to be acutely aware of what they are stepping into.  It’s one thing if an individual from outside the neighborhood purposely packs up and moves into the neighborhood to experience it, but it is altogether another thing if an individual only moves into the neighborhood because there are others like themselves already here.  This smacks of racism.  Not intentional, overt, cross-burning racism like Hollywood likes to relieve white people by showing, but rather a general xenophobia that would have prohibited that individual from moving to an area like central Brooklyn when there were next to no other white people here.  In its shortest form, that simply means that many hipsters, artists, and alternative heads (especially those from out of state) who would tout Brooklyn as the home of rebelliousness and creativity succeeded in doing the least rebellious and creative thing they possibly could, which is to surround themselves with people just like themselves… where it is safe.  This unfortunate set of circumstances shows itself all too clearly when the new white people in the neighborhood can never be seen anywhere with anybody other than other white people – on the street, on the train platform, and especially after dark.  They are polite, jovial, often considerate, and certainly liberal and well-read, but ultimately shielded by their unacknowledged fear and trying desperately to maintain the bubble they knew all too well before they ever set foot in Brooklyn.  But how is this insidious and dangerous, especially if they keep to themselves? 

Because they are catered to… and don’t even know it. 

White faces in urban areas make property values go up, and landlords know this.  Even grungy and strange white faces make property value climb more than black or brown faces, and the more that landlords can encourage white people to move in, the more they can charge for rent and the more their property is worth.  Not only has this resulted in many new residents being told lies about what neighborhoods they are actually in, it has also encouraged the city to try and rename certain neighborhoods that have nefarious reputations.  It’s often surprising how many people think Bedford-Stuyvesant is Clinton Hills or East Williamsburg (not unlike how the Lower East Side was dubbed the East Village a few years back).  So the insidiousness becomes two-fold.  On one side, the presence of new white people is desired and catered to, such to the extent that there are entire buildings in neighborhoods surrounded by people of color that are inhabited almost entirely by young white people, which inevitably means that landlords are ultimately discriminating against who they sign on as tenants and alienating the original residents of the neighborhood.  On another side, the hipsters and artists who move to Brooklyn to be surrounded by hipster/artist communities and succeed in finding near all-white niches in central Brooklyn, succeed in developing no empathy for the struggling communities they now find themselves in, let alone any sense of responsibility to participate and contribute beyond trying to turn a Hip-Hop Mecca like Bed-Stuy (home of Big Daddy Kane, Jay-Z, Biggie Smalls, and countless other emcees) into a rock and roll neighborhood.  This lack of empathy and involvement can lead to pure apathy when newcomers sit by and benefit from the actions of the city while long-time residents and communities of color are victimized by them (please read KRS quote again).  Sadly, Williamsburg, a once Latino dominated community is now the shining example of the worst of this in Brooklyn.  Counter-culture needs a home too, and America certainly needs counter-culture, but when counter-culture and hipsters become an unwitting invading force that ultimately changes the entire ethic of the community, then that by definition is simply colonialism – something a good many of the new white people have books on their shelves denouncing.
Brooklyn has undergone changes.  Many of these changes were needed, and the upside to gentrification is that communities of color are no longer isolated to the point of segregated.  New people have moved in, new businesses have flourished, and many parts of BK are safer than they were years ago.  Nonetheless, this is not the result of some revolutionary movement designed to unite people and build a multi-racial and economically viable utopia.  It is largely the product of property grabbing and slightly deceptive marketing, coupled with landlords’ preferential treatment and rent raising.  The new Brooklyn has the potential the be something amazing, even though many nostalgically reminisce over being the borough others feared (including yours truly), but not without honest interaction, which brings us to the point.  By no means is this tangent meant to evoke guilt, point fingers, or alienate the newcomers.  But maybe, with a little luck (and circulation), some of the newcomers might read this and reassess their interaction and involvement with the communities they are flocking to, especially as their privilege continues to benefit them while people they look in the eye every day are pushed to the back of the line, the back burner, and the back of the city’s mind.  Welcome to the neighborhood… if you know what neighborhood you’re in and you meant to come here out of appreciation for what the neighborhood is, not what you want it to be.  Don’t be afraid, history has shown that black and brown communities have always been more welcoming to whites than whites have ever been to black and brown folks.  But if you’re still uncomfortable, then maybe Brooklyn really isn’t the place for you.