Garden State Turns 10 (An Intro to Indie Culture)

So I realize Virgo Gumbo is turning into an anniversary site. Already this year I've written on classic albums I love and there's more coming down the pike. It's been a nice distraction from covering sports and it's also good sharing what you discover about something you like as time passes.

With that said, I'm happy to share my stories about Garden State turning 10. A film about quarterlife crisis before I even realized what that was and a film that I would've passed over if not for friends in college saying I should watch it.

One thing I enjoyed about college is being exposed to a ton of things I wouldn't have known. I came to school thinking I would hear about singer-songwriters* and indie artists. So when I entered my junior year in 2004, I was invited to watch this movie in a friend's dorm.

I saw the commercials for Garden State that summer but I didn't get around to it even though I knew Zach Braff was from "Scrubs" and Natalie Portman made it seem good. All I heard was this movie was going to change your life - you know, typical young adult hyperbole we all indulged in. I figure why not watch it.

After I did, I had a feel-good moment that I hadn't felt too often from movies. Just something hit me in a deep place of great storytelling, acting, writing and music. It was different, funny, quirky and had a soul that didn't feel forced or over-the-top.

The College Dropout: 10 Years Later with Kanye

10 years ago today, the greatest rap (musical?) debut of this century came out. Kanye West’s College Dropout dropped in like a breath of fresh air and my ears and love of hip-hop would not be the same. I wrote in brief for Bro Jackson about it but I need to expand more.

For me, it was the first time a rapper had touched me in a way I could relate. I connected with Eminem for his passion, Nas for his lyricism and Tribe Called Quest for their vibe. I enjoyed Nelly and I tolerated 50 Cent while not becoming the full G-Unit fan most were. I still hadn’t found too many rappers that spoke to where I was.

That’s where Kanye West came in. A middle-class kid from Chicago who grew up like I did. A guy who didn’t fit in to what convention said a rapper should be just like I wasn’t what most of my peers expected of Black kids. He cared about his fashion, wore backpacks and looked like a combination of underground cred with mainstream appeal.

2004 - Politics (Seeds of Change)

The first presidential election I watched as an adult was a crazy time in America. You had waves of protest music and it was then that I realized as a country we were turning against George Bush for good and his policies. Like I said a few posts ago, "American Idiot" was the soundtrack of that year and people were waking up - myself included - to a B.S. war in Iraq that felt futile even then.

Anyways, the election was probably one of the most galvanizing events of my lifetime and probably one of the most charged since the 1960's but from it we saw some interesting things.

The 2004 DNC introduced us to a Senator candidate from Illinois with an African name and an idealistic attitude. A stirring speech about coming together under one name - American, not broken down by party affiliation. A message of upholding the country to its ideals and an audacity of hope. It's a shame I missed it because of Youth Group - although I did see Bill Clinton's stirring speech the night before.

By the way, that Barack Obama guy turned out pretty well. The shine from that night I think is still shining somewhat right? I remember writing a blog on Myspace in 2006 saying it was foolish to rush him to the Presidency so soon but he was easily the biggest political rookie to make an impact since Bill Clinton. I was shocked then and I am now.

Crazy enough, John Edwards to me was ill-suited to be Vice-President. He should've been the Presidential candidate - a young, energetic man who believed in the cause of the working poor and the declining middle class. He was way better than John Kerry IMO - but thank God he didn't win the nomination because he screwed himself over with his infidelity becoming public four years later.

The mind-boggling thing to me about it all was how George Bush earned re-election by a fairly comfortable margin. I remember talking to peeps on Instant Messenger and them being nervous that night - especially my sister on the East Coast. I still can't believe he won the popular vote and I think we were nervous about what would happen next.

Alas, he won and we all know what happened next - the mishandling of Hurricane Katrina, his Cabinet abandoning ship, and eventually the near-crash of the American economy as we plunged into a recession.

But 2004 was politically an interesting year mainly because it was the rise of Barack Obama as America mostly supported the reign of George Bush (at least percentage wise). And honestly, I think that's when I realized how divided our country was. I noticed coverage that was slanted in one way or the other and things became more polarizing than ever.

Maybe it was my coming of age to see how dirty and messy politics were. But even in the muck, something can at least temporarily unite people.

2004 - Sports Recap (The Foundation for 2009)

It's funny how this year altered several franchises forever. The Lakers, Chargers, Pacers, Pistons, Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers, NY Giants and USC can trace almost where they are now back to what happened in 2004.

The biggest sports story of the year was the "Malice at the Palace" brawl between the Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers and the fans at Auburn Hills who added fuel to a smoldering fire. SLAM Magazine has a great piece looking back at it but several things happened as a result

- The Pacers were never the same. A Eastern Conference power to a lottery, rebuilding team

- NBA Dress Code instituted.

- Flagrant fouls punished under a microscopic glare.

Of course the irony is that the Pistons shocked the world a few months by ending the Lakers dynasty and proving team over individual. Their blue collar work ethic kept that team among the East's elite until 2008 and made Chauncey Billups go from a journeyman into a borderline Hall of Famer. As a Lakers fan, it made me hate the Pistons once again but that was a weird year for the team.

You had a super team of Karl Malone and Gary Payton join a visibly shaken Kobe Bryant (dealing with his rape charges) and a slowly declining Shaquille O'Neal. You had Derek Fisher proving his value with the 0.4 shot against the Spurs (still remember screaming in my dorm room when he hit that). Kobe played some great basketball under pressure but some of his worst too - one shot in a half against Sacramento? Taking over Game 4 of the Finals when he didn't need to?

It was the end of an era. Shaq left, Fisher left, Gary Payton left. Karl Malone later got in hot water over some comments to Kobe's wife. And thats when the Lakers became Kobe's team for worse and later for better. A leader who had to learn by being selfish that leading means getting guys to follow you and trusting them to step up.

The Dodgers made it a bad sports year for L.A. professionally all around. They made one of their worst trades ever in giving up Paul LoDuca and Guillermo Mota to Florida for Brad Penny. LoDuca was the heart and soul of that team and Mota was the bridge to the unhittable closer Eric Gagne (who was overworked down the stretch). Let's not forget the Boys in Blue were in first place in the NL and cruising - no need to make that deal and Brad Penny was a solid pitcher - until the 2nd half of the season started.

Of course all of that changed when Gagne and LoDuca were on the Mitchell Report but hey, it was a bad deal then. The last year the Dodgers made the playoffs til 2008 but who can forget Jose Lima pitching a four-hit shutout for the Dodgers' first playoff win til 88. I remember watching that in my dorm with awe. LIMA TIME forever!

Then again who cares about that because everyone will remember the 2004 postseason. The greatest NLCS nobody saw with an absolute classic in Game 5 (Jeff Kent's walk-off ended a scoreless tie). And the greatest ALCS ever leading to the Red Sox finally ending the Babe's curse. Pretty much ensuring we'd hate Boston fans but nobody ever thought they'd win one - much less, TWO - World Series in our lifetime.

The Red Sox became the standard for winning in the decade and running a great franchise. Who knew? And the Yankees ended up going on massive spending sprees as a result to finally field a championship team in 2009. That 2004 ALCS is where it all started - losing the torch and taking it back.

And then there's the Chargers and Giants who swapped picks in the 04 draft and got Philip Rivers and Eli Manning. Yeah that worked out pretty well, the Giants got Super Bowl XLII and the Chargers got four division titles and their first playoff wins since 1995. Did I mention that trade brought along Pro Bowlers Shawne Merriman and Nate Kaeding to SD?

Oh yeah, Ben Roethlisberger was drafted that year. Drew Brees had a great year for San Diego that paved the way for him to be traded to New Orleans in 2006.

Which bring me back to my city. USC's road as a dominant program in college football started in the 2004 Rose Bowl where they split the national title and ran the table the following year to win the title outright.

To me that 2004 USC team deserves to be ranked among the best college football teams in recent memory - a better defense than the 2005 squad and just as deadly on offense. But that's when the Trojans became the talk of Los Angeles and began establishing their dynasty. One that nearly crumbled this past year.

It was a funny sports year. Tiger Woods and the Williams sisters didn't win anything and were thought to be slumping. At the Olympics, Michael Phelps won 8 medals, Jeremy Wariner showed white guys can win at track, and Team USA didn't win gold in basketball for the first time.

5 years later, this year set up a lot of things that are happening right now.

2004 - Music (Ushering in the Last Stand)

Like I said, it was the last great year for the music industry as we know it. I've talked with one industry insider this year and she pretty much told me that there is no industry. Credit the downfall to rampant downloading, Soundscan not taking album downloads into consideration, and the lack of connection that'll tie fans to a movement.

That's why I say that Usher exploding with Confessions with the last of a dying breed. It was a monster that combined the rising crunk sound, a 3-year wait between albums and a deeply personal album that involved him and TLC's Chilli (allegedly). It had all the ingredients to be a monster and it was.

1.1 million sold the first week, four No. 1 singles that spent 28 weeks at the top, the last album to sell 10 million in the US - that's why I call it the Thriller of our (this) era.

It was also the year Kanye West said hi. I'll never forget people going nuts over bootlegging it and the day it dropped, someone recited "All Falls Down" at a poetry slam and I thought it was dope without knowing who it was. College Dropout still remains one of the best albums of the decade and one of my all-time faves.

Like I said in my last post, Kanye spoke to me like no rapper had before. Some other music highlights/lowlights

- Conscious rap was supposed to be in vogue but it turned out not to be what we thought. Talib Kweli's album wasn't as solid, Mos Def's album was as inconsistent, The Roots dropped arguably their worst album.

- Kanye's ascent coincided with the last stand of the three rap heavyweights. Jay-Z was in the middle of his retirement album, Eminem dropped his worst album (which still has some gems on there), and Nelly dropped 2 albums, his last major success. I still love Suit and think it showed the direction that Nelly was gonna succeed with.

- Maroon 5 dropped with a dope sound. It's funny cause I remember my friend Vanessa going to see them in Fall 2003 at this local bar in San Diego before they blew up. Then they came out to our campus in 2005. Unbelieveable

- T.I. dropped his biggest hit of the time "Bring Em Out", setting the stage for his rise as the next biggest rapper.

- Franz Ferdinand was a breath of fresh air and dropped one of my favorite joints of the decade "Take Me Out", rock needed a kick in the balls and this song smashed anything else at the time. And then MIA dropped "Galang" and it still sounds as fresh/original now.

- Biggest comeback had to go to Green Day, who changed their sound, elevated punk rock and made the soundtrack to a crazy election year and eventually the recession "Blvd. of Broken Dreams" still sounds relevant today esp. for college graduates and 30-somethings who watch their dreams get re-evaluated.

- "Why?" was one of the best songs Jadakiss ever did. Ironically it may have been the last major hit from NY from a non G-Unit artist. Oh wait, forgot about wack Mims.

- Oh yeah, I also got into Prince a lot more closely. I bought his comeback album "Musicology" in December and I remember enjoying it all over Washington D.C. It made me discover a lot of his music. In 2005, I bought his greatest hits album and "Sign O the Times"

- Still can't believe people tripped out over Britney Spears "Toxic" - might just be the best reviewed single of her career. I actually liked "Everytime" because it was a piano ballad.

- And although I didnt discover it until 2005, one of the most beautiful albums ever dropped. Changed the notion of what I thought hip-hop could sound like. The Foreign Exchange - Connected. An album made with two guys in different countries who never met except on a message board and showed how the Internet could aid in making great music.

It was probably one of the last years we all had a shared musical experience. Everything was going to end up on I-Tunes, rampant downloading and message boards (plus the radio shifting towards a younger audience). Take it for what it's worth. Fond musical memories for me. What about you?

2004 - One Crazy Year

I know 2009 is winding down but I meant to do this sooner. 2004 might go down as one of the most interesting years of the decade. A lot happened musically, politically, athletically that we are seeing a lot differently with perspective.

Personally it was the year that I rediscovered Illmatic and the opening line of Nas' verse on "Life's a B--ch" that said "I woke up early on my born day, I'm 20 years a blessing, the essence of adolesence leaves my body now I'm fresh in." The fact I turned 20 that year made that song even more personal and I still have the mix CD I made my birthday dinner (the first one I had in San Diego)

It was the first calendar year I had the car for myself. Transitioning between sophomore and junior year meant I'd be in leadership roles at my school for the first time. And all that motivated me was Big Boi's verse on "Y'all Scared" from Aquemini, "Even though we're two albums in, this feels like the beginning," 2 years into college, I felt like I had a fresh start and ready to just be me without fear.

An added bonus was discovering a new rapper that I felt spoke to me. A smart kid who didn't always fit in and enjoyed carving his own map to success. And he dropped the perfect album for someone like me being in college. Enter the College Dropout - Kanye West. Funny how he turned out isn't it?

The Lakers dynasty

The infamous 2004 election swept our campus (and the Democrats were buzzing about some Illinois state senator who made a brilliant keynote address that I missed) and Usher had arguably the last great solo year that any of us will ever see in the music business.

I think maybe I needed 2004 after a sad 2003 of losing my Dad, adjusting to college life and realizing I had to grow up a lot faster as a man. That's probably why I remember it so vividly and it had such a big impact on me - that and being in New Orleans the year before Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast.

Oh yeah, that was also the year a little thing called Facebook blew up. I actually remember the early template for it that looked amateurish and the fact you needed a college email for it. People tried to get me to join all these social networks I never heard of - mainly Friendster and Xanga.

I might challenge myself and do some posts on that year before 2009 ends. I usually do my year in review in January anyway...you know, after 2009 passes us by instead of waiting til the end of December.