oh lana del rey hilary (lana del hilarey, if you will) we're really in it now

2016 Favorites/Worst

Favorite Movie: the Nice Guys TV DRAMA: Game of Thrones

TV EPISODE: Game of Thrones’ finale TV COMEDY: Veep LIFE CHOICE: getting a new double-sized bed First bed I’ve had in 30 years now. Game-changer. I guess if THIS is the best thing about my year, I suck. But it’s the simple things, really.

SHIT: messing up my shoulder   Physical Therapy for tendinitis in my shoulder—lost 15 pounds down to 165, gained it back and now back around 180. Took 9 months for my shoulder to feel right again to lift or do really any basic shit.

BEST GAMES I ATTENDED: DIVISIONAL: Pats-Chiefs

Pats-Ravens was dope and felt like a playoff game on Monday Night. 10 rows from the field. But nothing beats a playoff win though and hanging with my brother. WORST GAME: Pats-Seahawks Pats lost—plus the crowd was REALLY fucking dead, Seahawk fans are underrated for how annoying they are. I did not know they had their own chant: “Sea” “Hawk”. It’s dumb. Raven fans remain my most hated with their ‘Seven Nation Army’ chant.

Favorite Live Show: Rihanna @ TD Garden Honorable: Thrice (House of Blues) Missed out on seeing Brian Fallon & Chvrches. Bummer.

BEST STAND-UP SHOW: Bill Burr & Robert Kelly @ Comics Come Home Didn’t go to any shows this year other than that. Went to a shit ton the year before. Favorite Podcast episode: Joe Rogan’s End of the World election night podcast: just because of what Bill Burr FAVORITE PODCAST: Bill Burr’s Monday Morning Podcast BEST NEW PODCAST: 600 Hundred Dollar Podcast Best Sports Podcast: Pardon My Take Favorite Record: Brian Fallon-‘Painkillers’ FAVORITE SONG: Francis & the Lights & Bon Iver: ‘Friends’

HONORABLE… Bon Iver-’33 God’; Brian Fallon-‘Rosemary’; Car Seat Headrest-’Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales’; Chance the Rapper-’No Problem’; Thrice-’Hurricane’ OTHER… Beyonce-‘All Night’;  Desiigner-‘Panda’; Explosions in the Sky-‘Disintegration Anxiety’; Fifth Harmony-‘Work From Home’; Hotelier-‘Goodness Pt 2’; Naked & Famous-‘Higher’; Pinegrove-‘Old Friends’; Sia-‘Reaper’; Sing Street-‘Drive It Like You Stole It’; Struts-‘Could Have Been Me’; Tegan & Sara-‘Boyfriend’; Tribe Called Quest-‘We the People’; Weeknd-‘Starboy’; Zayn-‘Like I Would’ (Remix)

BEST COVER: Dustin Kensrue-‘Round Here’ (Counting Crows) & ‘Down There by the Train’ (Tom Waits) Julien Baker-‘Photobooth’ (Death Cab for Cutie); Brian Fallon-‘Atlantic City’ (Bruce Springsteen) & ‘Won’t Back Down’ (Tom Petty) JUST CAN’T GET INTO: Drake; Solange BEST SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE PERFORMANCES: Chance the Rapper (‘Same Drugs’); Tribe Called Quest WORST SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE PERFORMANCES: Lady Gaga (like watching a 50-year old woman perform: Tony Bennett aged her); Solange; 21 Pilots

Late Pass bands: Beach Slang, Lana Del Rey, Story So Far Favorite Celebrity Death: Antonin Scalia (Supreme Court Justice) Just a cancer for America for my whole life. Unfortunately, GOP’s are cunts—and they withheld long enough to nominate someone somehow worse than him probably. Least Favorite Thing in America-Donald Trump is President, Neo-Nazis somehow being a thing

Favorite Sports Moment: Tom Brady being Tom Brady—enjoying that as a Pats fan is unreal. Don’t want it to end, but it’s going to soon. Least Favorite Sports Moment: Pats losing to Denver in AFC Championship Least Favorite Sports Story: Deflategate/Roger Goodell Trash.

Favorite non-Boston sports story: LeBron bringing a title to Cleveland and near-dunk over Draymond to cement the Finals. Favorite longreads: Anonymous rape victim’s reading to Brock Turner, the Stanford swimmer rapist douche who got off with a ridiculous light sentence, is made public

-‘Voyeur Motel’ (best accompanied w/ Justin Halpern podcast) -Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos takedowns (the whistleblower and the Vanity Fair profile). Frotcast mocking Holmes’ voice/mannerisms & wannabe Steve Jobs-isms were fun to hear in association wih this.   Favorite Snapchat follow: Kelly Oxford

Favorite Other: my brother getting engaged New Year Day—and 2 of my other friends being engaged (childhood friend; former roommate) Fucked Over Moment: Dentist abruptly leaving office for San Diego—and being footed with a $2,000 dollar bill—going back to 2012 I always thought this family dentist who took over overcharged, but this capped it off. My whole family got footed with bills going back years when we thought we were all paid up. I pay TWO different dental insurances to maximize what I get. 2014, I paid $5,000 out of pocket for a root canal and to get a crown in. Less than 6 months later, same tooth was fractured and I got an implant put in: $5,000. So $10K on 1 single fucking tooth, easily more than one third of what I make a year working full time. So I think I am in the clear—no. I got it knocked down in half when protesting it and feeling like it’s fraud. Still, that is well over one month’s pay when I had money stashed away for new car tires, Christmas gifts, etc. To be blindsided just sucks. At no time did my family receive notice that we owed anything in the mail or in person when we go every 6 months or less.

Best Stand-Up Performance in person: Bill Burr at Comics Come Home (bad airplane ride bit) Honorable: Robert Kelly (Comics Come Home)

BEST COMEDY/STAND-UP SPECIALS: Roast Battle (the Wave, everything)—super fun  OTHER -Goddamn Comedy Jam—hear Bill Burr talk about this on his podcast and then to see it done? Awesome. Went overlooked. -Pete Holmes-‘Faces & Sounds’ -Kyle Kinane-‘Loose in Chicago’ -Pete Davidson-‘SMD’: some jokes felt curbed from my own life/shitty college experience. He’s this young and this good already, goddamn.

-Patton Oswalt’s clown story is real good—but it’s not his best special. I tried going to that taping in San Francisco but it was the same time as Chvrches on Treasure Island. If they were on different days, I would have purchased a flight out in a heartbeat. Bummer. -Gary Gulman’s bit on Conan with the state abbreviation bit was great.

SOMEWHAT DISAPPOINTING… Hannibal Burress (saw him live—special didn’t capture how great he is)

RANDOM SPORTS MOMENTS -Allen Iverson’s 30-minute Hall of Fame speech. He gives shout-outs to Dipset and Jada Kiss. Amazing. -Kevin Harlan’s Idiot on the Field call during 49ers-Rams game. Better than that shit game.

Favorite books 1) Stephen King-11/22/63’ Time-travel + love story in 1960s + adventure. The time travel is cool, but you find yourself caring more for the love story. It’s magical. King is super readable—the book flies the fuck by. 2) Paul Neilan-‘Apathy & Other Small Victories’ Like Jonathan Tropper said, ‘funniest book that no one has read’. Just about every line is boiling with humor. 3) Jonathan Tropper-‘This is Where I Leave You’ Movie sucked even with a loaded cast, but good book. I love this and ‘the Book of Joe’ (that SHOULD make an awesome movie—but it will probably be fucked up). Tropper is an American Nick Hornby but better: lot of heart, humor. And his TV series, ‘Banshee’, was pulp fiction action that was the shit (kind of a rated-R ‘Justified’)—except the final season sucked. 4) Gillian Flynn-‘Sharp Objects’ Amy Adams is starring in a David Fincher mystery serial killer series on HBO. It’s going to be fucked up, dark, and excellent. 5) Ben Fountain-‘Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk’ Excellent Iraq war novel. Kind of reminded me of ‘the Outsiders’ and if you kind of view it like that, it becomes cooler: the soldiers don’t TOTALLY belong in the setting they are in and are being used to promote a war. All takes place at a football game with flashbacks. 6) David Mitchell-‘Slade House’ Kind of a Sci-Fi version of ‘the Shining’. Quick book—I plan on getting more into Mitchell. I know his books all link up and I missed something in the last chapter that related to the ‘Bone Clocks’ or whatever. 7) Gillian Flynn-‘Dark Places’ Doesn’t flow as well as ‘Gone Girl’ or ‘Sharp Objects’ but it’s got killer twists and a cool plot. 8) Emily St John Mandel-‘Station 11’ Survival apocalypse + Shakespeare. 9) ‘Second Life of Nick Mason’ Solid crime thriller that could be a solid movie. 10) Lev Grossman-‘Magicians’ Didn’t get into this the way I wished. Harry Potter meets Chronicles of Narnia with some Rated-R shit; I thought that would make it more cool/fun, but nope. Like Quentin, you’re just left feeling incessantly let down. 11) Craig Clevenger-‘Contortionist Handbook’ Kind of Chuck Pahlaniuk-ish when he was on fire-ish.

OKAY… -Stephen King-‘Joyland’ MEH -‘Between World & Me’ (boring; short book—but felt like one big run-on sentence; felt like it needed an editor; I’ve read Coates stuff before that’s good, but this was boring. Like Kendrick Lamar’s music, I acknowledge this is important and doing something good, but I don’t think it was for me?) -Chuck Klosterman-‘But What if We’re Wrong’ (disappointing, forgettable, meh) -Denis Johnson-‘Jesus’ Son’ (lot of praise for this collected short stories of drugs and a lot of my favorite writers cite this as among their favorites—but didn’t do anything for me) -Drew Magary-‘the Hike’—Best online writer for a decade now. But I was glad when I finished the book that I was done with it. MOVIES THAT SUCKED -Ghostbusters Wrongfully hated before it came out for starring women by weird dudes. But, uh, no way to sugarcoat this, but this was a complete piece of shit. I want to fire Hemsworth’s character into the sun and it crescendos at the climax. Funny people are in the cast, but it’s like they wouldn’t let them be funny. Just awful idea and bad tone. Lenny Clarke, in a throwaway scene as a Sox fan, should not have the funniest moment of the movie. Movies that were as bad as everybody said they were -Batman vs Superman worth watching if only for the ‘MARTHA’ scene twist they had; holy shit, it’s stupid. I bought the uncut version just to see if it in full because Joe fucking Derosa said that this was the best Batman movie ever; so I bought it just to see how stupid he is—and I’m the moron now.

-Suicide Squad Honest Trailers breaking down Enchantress’ dancing is great. CRITIC MOVIES I Thought Sucked: the Lobster; the Witch

DISAPPOINTING SEASONS FROM GOOD SHOWS: Banshee; Mr Robot DONALD TRUMP: I don’t think I’ve felt sadder/shocked/crushed. I was in a daze/cloud for 3 days or so—luckily I took the day after the election off work in case something unimaginable happened (Trump being elected). There was always the fear it would happen, but I just didn’t think it would or even imagined how I would feel until it happened. Just complete despair and disbelief. Hillary winning would have been awful too, but Trump? THAT guy? Next 4 years are going to be interesting: there’s going to be a ton of protests/strikes to fight off madmen politicians, corporations, Neo-Nazis, everything-Occupy Wall Street never got off the ground with a unified message. But people like me just might end up protesting for the first time in my life because everything will be at stake. I don’t know what will happen, but it’s naive to not be scared and fear the worst (war; climate change; water shortage causing mass migrations/deaths in my lifetime; corporations fucking over workers; a country splitting; power being in the wrong hands in a surveillance state; violence; regressive agendas; Wall Street getting more power and another bubble collapse) HILLARY OVER BERNIE: because Bernie would have won. Democratic establishment rigged the system and chose the worst possible candidate in an election in which establishment politicians were hated and anger was tapped into (good: Bernie, Bad: Trump). Choose the candidate that people are enthusiastic about. ‘It was her turn’ is bullshit. It was her turn in 2008 but she lost to a guy with a Muslim-sounding name, basically lost to a 70-year old Socialist Jew, and then to Donald f’n Trump. When Democrats start choosing better candidates, they will win every election. Shut the fuck up about politics -oh, right.