My love and adoration for Janet Jackson runs deep and true, and if I had to choose a single musical artist as my all-time favorite, it would be her. No contest. For most of my family and friends, this confession is neither surprising nor particularly revelatory, since I never kept my fandom much of a secret. Posters of Jackson adorned my bedroom walls. I celebrated her May birthday rather than the end of the school year and never missed an opportunity to insert her music or lyrics into my homework. A number of passages scribbled on the pages of my senior-year yearbook mention my infatuation with Janet as one of my defining characteristics, a badge of honor I was all too happy to carry with me to college and into adulthood. Even one of my tattoos--the first one, actually--is Janet Jackson related: a symbol from The Velvet Rope on my upper left arm, the significance of its permanence not lost on me.
Whereas Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill defined an era for millions of people the world over, my friends and I included, Janet Jackson's The Velvet Rope seemed more singularly important in my journey of self-discovery. Though I fully recognized my adoration for Jackson was well established and others obviously connected to The Velvet Rope for a variety of reasons, I felt as if this Jackson album spoke directly to me and my burgeoning sense of identity when it arrived in the fall of 1997. I was 20 years old at the time and serving my second year as a Resident Advisor in the on-campus apartments at UMD. Many of the close and life-long friendships made that first fall grew stronger over those two years. Others faded. New lasting friendships developed as my position as an RA connected me to new people on an almost daily basis. The days of living within a shell were officially gone, and with the awkwardness of freshman year receding into the past and my first year as an RA successfully under my belt, my self-confidence and sense of purpose never seemed stronger. I felt like I had found my calling and finally began to understand who Chris was. In short, life was great. Never before had I felt so alive or so connected to my fellow human beings. I lived for socializing with my friends, hosting programs for residents, and going to class more often than not (most weeks). I threw myself and all of my energy into the people and activities that brought so much fulfillment to my life. Despite my amazing circle of friends and profound sense of happiness, however, something inside of me was just not adding up, something I couldn't quite identify. Or, more appropriately phrased, there was something I wasn't quite ready to acknowledge and accept. I was having the time of my life but felt as though part of me was missing and false, and I worked really hard to focus energy on everything else. Turns out leaving that shell I lived underneath proved more of an evasive maneuver than a courageous declaration to the world that I had arrived. Shells and living underneath them provide a certain amount of protection from the outside world, this much is true. But they also sometimes facilitate the time and space needed to engage with the type of introspection required for self-discovery. You see, I had a secret I didn't want to confess or confront. I liked men. I REALLY liked men. I lingered over images of shirtless men in print ads. (Marky Mark's famous campaign for Calvin Klein comes to mind.) I anticipated movies starring Hollywood hunks. (Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall anyone?). In the very early stages of the Internet, I also chatted with guys I'd never meet. (Anonymity was key.) But I didn't quite fully understand that part of myself. I definitely did not embrace it yet, and I avoided sharing this information with anyone for fear of rejection, though I'm pretty sure they all knew and accepted me for who I truly was. All the signs were there, stereotypical and otherwise. My ever-so faint lisp. My slightly effeminate affect. My obsession with Disney movies. My love but not lust for Janet Jackson. And, of course, my ogling of guys passing by. So, as aspects of my identity became more difficult and scary to face, I ventured further and further away from that shell, and my introverted self tried very hard and mostly succeeded at appearing as an extrovert. For a while. Along came The Velvet Rope. I plopped the CD into my player and pressed play. The first words Janet spoke were, "It's my belief that we all have the need to feel special. And it's this need that can bring out the best yet worst in us." Wait, what? Something triggered in my brain. Was that what I was doing? The wonderful friends around me made me feel special, that's for sure, and I cherished every moment of that. But by completely embracing that feeling of being special and being part of something special without regard for the scary yet honest truth within myself, was I also bringing out the worst by justifying a false life, a lie? Okay, Janet. Where are you going with this? And did you write this just for me? Over the subsequent 75 minutes of songs and interludes, Janet continued reaching out to me, relating all too closely to my emotional and psychological journey at the the time with lyrics like: "You spend most your life pretending not to be the one you are but who you choose to see" and "Boy meets boy, boy loses boy, boy gets cute boy back. Girl meets girl, girl loses girl, girl gets cute girl back. One rule, no rules. One love, free Xone." She even tackled the subject of meeting strangers online: "How could it be that you knew me? My deepest fears, my fantasies...confide in you what no one knows, but it feels so real." In almost every way, The Velvet Rope proved the album I needed most in the fall of 1997, and to be perfectly honest, that need still resurfaces from time to time. At one point during the title track, Janet sings a line that rings as true today as it did 20 years ago: "One love's the answer, you'll find in you." I'm still working on that, though I recognize and acknowledge that I'm now in a much better place in terms of self-identity and self-acceptance. After all, I didn't have to leave my shell behind, I simply needed to come out of it. It would take another two years before I fully came out. Many wonderful friends helped me through the process, but, in part, I also have The Velvet Rope to thank for that.
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Once in a great while an album comes along that truly defines an era, one that proves impossible to ignore yet equally impossible to resist. A pop-culture phenomenon that defies convention and unites an entire generation. A zeitgeist, if you will. Such was the case in the mid-1990s when Alanis Morissette released her angry-pop masterpiece, Jagged Little Pill.
I distinctly remember when the album exploded onto the scene. It was my freshman year at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Like all who leave the comforts of home for their first year of college, I floundered to find my footing as a fledgling adult and solo human being. Who am I? What is my purpose in life? What do I want to be when I grow up? Who are all these strange people? Unsure of myself, I spent the first half of freshman year focused almost entirely on my studies. Sure, I socialized some and established a few friendships early on, but drinking and parties weren't really my thing. They never had been. Instead, I put my nose to the proverbial grindstone, did my homework diligently, and spent much of my free time keeping up with my Top 40, a security blanket of sorts. That's not to say, however, I was a total recluse. It just took time for me to come out of my shell. As fall progressed, I started to attend more of the programs and office hours held by my Resident Advisors. These events fostered connections with my fellow hall mates, many of whom also preferred hanging out, watching movies, listening to music, playing games, sharing meals, and hiking around campus to binge drinking and house parties. As a result, a core group of close-knit friendships gradually blossomed and grew in the weeks leading up to winter break. In fact, the shared intensity of our first-year experiences in that specific time and in that specific place meant that I could not wait to return to campus after break. I needed to reunite with my new friends, the people who knew and understood me better than I thought anyone had before. I was officially done living under my shell. So what does Jagged Little Pill have to do with all of this? My newfound college friends and I bonded over many things. We introduced one another to new games and television shows. We took turns hosting movie nights. We checked out each others' Christmas decorations. We ordered and shared pizza late at night. We left messages for each other on white boards fastened to our room doors. We devised secret phrases to help one another avoid awkward situations. And we all listened to Jagged Little Pill. Repeatedly. It seemed you couldn't walk by one of our rooms or have someone's car pass by without hearing Morissette's lilt emanating from within. The tunes were catchy and lyrical. Some were angry power anthems, some confessional ballads, and some poppy love songs. They were introspective and non-conventional. But as freshmen initially feeling lost in a sea of unfamiliar faces and experiences, I think the album's emotional rawness may have been what we connected with most as we found our way through the year together. I couldn't think of a more fitting way to officially kick off my Countdown to 40 than with Entertainment Weekly, a publication that has fueled my proclivity for best-of lists and kept me in the pop culture loop for more than 20 years.
After moving to west-central Minnesota from suburban Saint Paul, I felt acutely aware of how rural and disconnected from any sense of culture I was. Sure, we went to the movies and watched television, but as an over-dramatic and angsty teenager, I thought our new geographical location severely limited our access to what I considered the outside world. After all, I thoroughly enjoyed and had grown accustomed to the variety of programming offered by cable television in the Twin Cities area. The four local stations, or sometimes five, depending on the weather and position of the antenna, therefore just didn't cut it. Then there was our town's cinema. Though it gradually increased to include seven screens by the time I graduated high school, only three existed when we moved to the area. Adding insult to injury, many friends and relatives, including my older sister, still lived near our old hometown, and trips to visit them only exacerbated my sense of cultural isolation. Looking back, it's not surprising, then, that I often romanticized living a more suburban lifestyle, which would bring with it many of the cultural opportunities such a lifestyle could provide. When Entertainment Weekly came along, it superficially granted me access to the sense of suburban belonging I so badly wanted, and suddenly I felt much less alone and culturally uninformed. I eagerly anticipated the arrival of each weekly issue, without which I may not have heard about or seen films like Dazed and Confused, Trainspotting, or Velvet Goldmine. Nor would I have given Gilmore Girls or Sex and the City a chance. But the magazine also did more for me and my sense of self than I ever realized at the time, something subtle and perhaps wholly unintentional. In covering all things popular culture and generally throwing its support behind the entertainment industry, Entertainment Weekly introduced and reinforced the idea that being gay was okay, if not normal, and homophobia simply was not. For a not-yet-out teenager--heck, for a not-yet-aware teenager--those sentiments made a huge impact, even if only subconsciously at the time. I still read my Entertainment Weekly every week, though I've transitioned from print to electronic copies over time, and consistently rely on the movie reviews, often agreeing with them before ever seeing (or not seeing) a film. It doesn't hurt, either, that the magazine always seemed sympathetic if not approving of Janet Jackson. Still, the year-end double issue remains my favorite annual EW offering, primarily because it recounts the best (and worst) in the year's pop culture releases. A no-brainer for a pop-culture geek and list enthusiast, right? This March I turn 40. That's right, the big four-zero. An age that greeting cards, popular culture, and American advertising companies would have us believe marks the crest atop some proverbial hill of adulthood. One on which life and life experiences steadily decline afterwards, so much so that when we reach 50 years of age, society declares us officially over said hill. But you know what? I say phooey to that and refuse to subscribe to such an outdated and obsolete narrative. Truth be told, I'm neither nervous nor anxious for March 12th to arrive. Dare I say I'm slightly excited?
I have been thinking a lot about my looming birthday over the past few months--especially as more and more friends from high school and college cross that bridge ahead of me. Curious about their journeys, I like to follow my wishes for a happy birthday with a question about their newly-turned-40 perspectives. They consistently report the view from the other side of 39 is just as good, if not better, and brings with it a clearer vision of one's self. Which makes sense, when you think about it, as meaningful introspection tends to deepen with age. Maybe that's a good thing, too, since navigating the unmapped road of adulthood is singular to each person and takes years to figure out. Still, several questions keep returning to mind: what does it all mean, this aging process? Who am I, and how did I get to the brink of 40? Of course, the answers to these questions are equal parts exceedingly simple and immensely complicated. I am a son, a brother, a grandson, an uncle, a husband, a nephew, a cousin, a friend, a coworker. I grew up in Minnesota and lived there until I moved to Virginia in 2011 with my husband, which also tells you I am gay. I identify as Christian and believe with every fiber of my being that my religious beliefs and homosexuality are absolutely compatible. I think education is the single most important asset to a person's life. My favorite color is orange, my favorite season is winter, and my favorite foods are tacos, popcorn, and chocolate chip cookies. These are the easily identifiable answers to the questions I've been pondering about age, experience, and identity. Each simple answer also forced me to question the assumptions and understandings I held about my sense of identity and purpose. Then, to complicate things further, every time my path seemed straightforward and I thought I had figured out which way I was heading, I hit an unexpected turn. Or a switchback. Or a speed bump. Or a series of potholes. Or a five-point intersection. Maneuvering such obstacles, both seen and unseen, took and takes a certain level of maturity and perspective that only come with age and experience. Along the way, many family, friends, coworkers, and contemporaries helped me navigate the road before me. Sometimes they held my hand. Other times they pointed the way or offered suggestions and alternate routes. I think that's true for everyone, even if not always obvious and intentional. After all, one person never gets very far alone. Many wonderful people aided me on my journey and continue to do so. (A number of not-so-wonderful people pushed me along, too, but I'm an eternal optimist and like to focus on the positive.) There are also many people I've never met--some real, some fiction, some not even people--that helped me along the way as well, and I am not afraid to admit that they, as elements of pop culture, helped me through this life and world, too. Books and publications, movies, music, television, and video games all provided moments of self-discovery, motivation, reflection, and pure, unadulterated joy. It's an attribute specific to our late-twentieth and early-twenty-first century society that popular culture invades our lives, admittedly not all for good. But every once in a while a movie comes along that changes the way you see the world. A television show teaches you the value of friendship. A song tears at your heart, inspires you dance, or makes you believe you have perfect pitch, no matter how often you hear it. A book provides a passport to a world that pushes the boundaries of your imagination. A video game transports you to an alternate yet fantastic reality. An album gives meaning to your struggle and by doing so also gives that struggle a much needed voice. Yes, it is hard to deny the power of popular culture and its ability to shape and reflect our sense of self. And that's where my Countdown to 40 comes in. On the eve of this culturally-defined milestone, I want to take a look back at the movies, books, albums, songs, television shows, video games, and publications that carried me along the way or that I carried with me. So, beginning February 1st I will be reflecting on 40 of the most important, influential, and favorite pop references of my life so far. Then, each day until March 12th, the big day, I will post my thoughts on a particular movie, book, album, television show, video game, or publication that influenced my sense of self and why. Concurrently, I'll be counting down my Top 40 favorite songs of all time (as of January 2017--the list is never entirely set in stone). Because, let's face it, I'm a sucker for a best-of list and couldn't narrow things down to a single countdown. |
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I am a self-proclaimed pop culture geek and list enthusiast who is celebrating the big four-zero by counting down the most important, influential, and favorite music, movies, television shows, books, and video games of my life so far. Categories
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