Jan. 1, 2010
It's the end of the end as we know it
It's the end of the end as we know it
It's the end of the end as we know it
And I feel fine
--It's the End of the End, nodak89
What's struck me the most in the wave of end-of-decade retrospectives crashing over the pop culture landscape recently is that nobody can come up with an underlying theme for the years 2000-2009. We seem to be stuck on figuring out what to call the decade in the first place. In this topsy-turvy world of 24-hour news cycles, a 65-team NCAA Tournament, and 808's and Heartbreak, we apparently failed to get around to the business of developing a zeitgeist.
This was certainly not the case as we approached the last decade changeover in December 1999--the Millennium provided the occasion for a worldwide celebration and, we assumed, a cultural watershed. Come to think of it though, the lasting cultural memories of that era appear to boil down to a widely successful Backstreet Boys album, the successor to Generation X, and an overwhelming fear that our computers would crash, banks would lose track of our money, and the washing machine would eat us alive.
As the clock ticked down toward your Kenmore's feeding time, the local Top 40 radio station in my corner of Florida held a vote to determine which song would be played on their airwaves at exactly 12:00am on January 1, 2000.
By the narrowest of margins, the winner was R.E.M.'s 1987 stream-of-consciousness classic "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)". It's hard to argue with the choice (particularly in light of the song that finished second--cultural watershed this was not) as a tongue-in-cheek commentary on how humanity collectively held their breath for just a second as the clocked ticked over to a new millennium.
But in a larger context--isn't it entirely appropriate that a time when we pause to take stock of the events of the past X number of years should be symbolized by a song whose lyrics are a string of seemingly unrelated observations (Leonard Bernstein!)?
The cultural watershed for Georgetown Hoyas-related popular culture in the new millennium surely has to be the oeuvre of Chris "nodak89" Tiongson (COL '89), whose three albumsof acoustic guitar-driven Hoya Rock provided the soundtrack to the revival of student fandom on campus. The penultimate song on nodak's first album "What Rocks" is quoted above. Aside from being the tightest, most rocking 4 minute synopsis of the 2004-05 Georgetown basketball season you will ever find, "It's the End of the End" provides a subtle but important tweak on Michael Stipe and Co. that I find particularly relevant to Hoya basketball and my experience writing for and editing the Hoop Club Blog during the past year.
Nothing is really "The End of the World As We Know It"--it's all in how we experience it. There isn't some cosmic significance to the ten years that ended last night--we just choose to wrap up our popular culture into neat ten-year packages, or as one of our esteemed bloggers put it, shoehorn everything into a larger narrative. But who needs all that effort? "The End of the End" gets more to the point--sometimes it's just nice to take a look over our shoulder and enjoy the past for what it is--a series of scattershot memories and good times.
Michael Stipe and nodak have one thing right--it doesn't always sound coherent when you string it together, but it sure is fun.
Over the past year, I've been in the privileged position of editing the work of the ten bloggers whose insights, travels, and (often) stream-of-consciousness observations on Hoya basketball have appeared in this blog. We strive to have staff of writers representing the broadest swath of Hoya fans possible, and I think the diverse experiences chronicled on the blog in 2009 prove we're doing a pretty good job on that front--and in impersonating a certain R.E.M. song.
Because as you'll no doubt have learned from the Hoop Club Blog over the past 365 days:
The Georgetown-Syracuse rivalry is a lot like the Sharks and the Jets in "West Side Story"...West Virginia's home arena belongs in a 1980s horror movie...Georgetown's late February victory over Villanova at the Wachovia Center reminded us of Fulham FC during the 2007-2008 English Premier League season...existentialism is not the proper framework within which to analyze the Hoyas' home-opener win over Temple...and that rather than tempo-free statistics, the key to understanding Georgetown basketball is post-impressionist painting.
It's not all just a kaleidoscope of movies and philosophy in Hoyaland though.
We do stop to eat, whether it's bratwurst and cheese curds in Wisconsin, Ledo's pizza in the District of Columbia, or a two-pound reuben sandwich at Roxy's in Manhattan.
And we enjoy some tunes now and then, including Journey, U2, and Tom Petty.
At our core though, we are a blog devoted to chronicling and analyzing Georgetown Hoyas basketball.
Sometimes our predictions are spot on:
It's safe to say that this year's Georgetown team is at a fairly critical juncture...If previous history holds, right about now is when we as fans learn something important about the identity and prospects of this year's team. (Prior to Jan 25 game at Seton Hall)
I hate exam games! I hate them almost as much as I hate the first game after semester break. This Saturday's game is, you guessed it, an exam game! (Before...you guessed it, the Old Dominion game)
And sometimes we'd like to have a do-over:
As I sit here and write this posting, there is one thing that keeps crossing my mind, "How the heck is Duke ranked 2/3 in the nation?" (Ahead of last year's trip to Cameron)
One advantage of employing a cross-generational staff of bloggers is our collective memory of the rich history of Georgetown basketball. We've always had a tremendous memory for Hoya games over the years gone by--whether it is the game Hoya fans will always remember, a game even Georgetown historians will struggle to remember, or the one we'd all like to forget ever happened.
Over the years gone by and memorable games, Georgetown has built some of the best rivalries on the East coast that to this day inform the intensity of modern matchups on the hardwood. The gold standard of course is Sharks vs. Jets...ummmm, I mean Hoyas-Orangemen...although the rivalry that has really taken off lately belongs to the participants in the 2007 and 2008 Big East Tournament finals.
And if that weren't enough history for you, there's always William Jennings Bryan and Red Auerbach.
The most fun thing we do at the Blog is travel around the country following the Hoyas--it's a point of pride for us that a Hoop Club blogger attended 28 of the 30 Georgetown games in 2009.
Nobody on the staff--and, I'm throwing this out there, no Hoya fan I can think of--travels farther and more often to follow the Hoyas than Hoop Club blogger Tom Wong. In 2009 alone, Tom filed dispatches for the Hoop Club blog from San Francisco (on his way to Durham), Savannah State, New York City (on his way to Los Angeles), and the Wooden Classic in Anaheim. As I type this essay, Tom is currently...you guessed it, travelling to Chicago to watch Sunday's game against Depaul.
As much as we'd love to have Tom's bank of vacation hours and frequent flyer miles, many Hoya fans find themselves chained to their desks far from the Verizon Center, not to mention a television or even a radio to catch Rich Chvotkin's call of the game.
No worries. Just skip out of work early. You've earned it, Hoyas fans!
I'm proud of each of the 37 posts that appeared on the Hoop Club Blog this year, and they speak to the talent, humor, and perspective each of our bloggers bring to the table.
I want to take this opportunity to thank each of them...
Alan Greene, Athena Chang, Bob Maruca, Christina Besozzi, Kasper Statz, Leslie Tyburski, Mike Karam, Paul Campbell, and Tom Wong
...for going the extra mile (in Tom's case, apparently several thousand of them) to bring you some of the best writing out there on being a Hoop Club member and a Hoya basketball fan.
But most of all, thanks to all of you for being loyal readers of the Hoop Club Blog in 2009. It's always been our privilege to share these experiences with you, on the blog and in person at the Verizon Center, Madison Square Garden, the Honda Center...really, anywhere Georgetown basketball visits.
It's been a great...if somewhat random...year. Here's hoping for...more of the same in 2010.
Birthday party, cheesecake, jellybean, boom!
John Hawkes (SFS '04)
Proud Member of Generation Burton
