Then What Happened: Aaron Carter

I wrote an article about Aaron Carter for Forces of Geek. I watched the entirety of “House of Carters” for research, so don’t tell me that I don’t suffer for my art.

Aaron was popular because he was the cute little brother of one of the Backstreet Boys. If you were a fan of BSB, you were probably closer to Aaron’s age than to Nick’s, so, in a weird way, Aaron was the more approachable of the two. He was just like you! He threw parties and got into trouble with his parents, he fantasized about being really good at sports, he had nation-wide tour with the A-Teens… you know, just normal tween stuff.

Note that I pointedly did not mention that I actually saw Aaron and the A-Teens on that tour. I like to include a personal anecdote in these articles whenever I can, but I do have my dignity.

(also, I did not put together the pictures/captions for this article, which I only point out because the caption beneath that picture of Paris Hilton is kind of weird. everything else is cool, though.)

Before We Cared: Green Day

My new article is up at ForcesofGeek. This time, I’m talking about Green Day and making more jokes about my own life. As these columns go on, I’m getting further and further away from what they were originally supposed to be. Such is life!

So while “real” punk held no sway over me, American Idiot sort of became my religion when it was released in 2005, right as I turned 15.

It’s hard to pin down exactly what about it touched me so deeply: the half-baked political ideas, the never-ending hooks, the recurring characters and musical motifs…  Whatever the reason, I listened to that album at least once a day for over a month. There was a brief but vivid period in my life where the opening chords of “Jesus of Suburbia” were more important to me than any human relationship. Sometimes I would sit by my CD player and just replay the first two minutes of that song over and over again.

You could say I was something of a fan.

Check out the full thing, and decide for yourself if the Jawbreaker reference in the title increases my punk cred or just makes me look stupid.