So It Goes

Jelisa Castrodale is a freelance writer who has covered sports, technology and pop culture on both sides of the Atlantic. She is also a one-time Jeopardy! champion who should probably stop mentioning that in polite conversation.

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I’m In Disgrace

I was at a record show in Greensboro on Sunday and, while I debated whether I really needed a bootleg copy of Prince's Black Album (ultimately, I did not), I listened to the couple beside me trying to decide what they were going to buy. 

The woman, who was probably in her late 20s, held up The Kinks Schoolboys in Disgrace and shook her head. "I'm not getting The Kinks," she said. "Definitely not. I will get KORN though." 

No. NO, NO, NO. That doesn't even work. Schoolboys is not prime Kinks, but that's still like saying "I'm not getting toothpaste because I can just use this oven cleaner instead." There's no point here, except that you should never put yourself in a situation where you're picking Jonathan Davis over Ray Davies. I probably should've told her this in person.

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Illustration 13: Adult Male and Donald Trump (at Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU))

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A man working out in cargo shorts and a fanny pack just thanked me for playing the Misfits in the weight room.

That's today's moment of unexpected joy.

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My most influential teen albums were Big Star’s Third demos, a mix tape of unreleased SST Records singles and a 60-minute recording of a rabbit screaming.

This week for Triad City Beat, I wrote about that “Name 10 Records” meme that went around Facebook. Read it HERE. 

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Everything sucks, we’re all going to die of communicable diseases and we’ll probably never be as fluent in Russian as our new overlords would like, so here’s a picture of a Freddie Mercury My Little Pony. [via Etsy]

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The Sunday Herald (Glasgow, Scotland) wins everything.

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Trump's inaugural concert lineup looks like he found a CD wallet in a Hooters parking lot.

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I’d like to thank the academy | The NC Triad's altweekly

What I’m saying is that I’m never going to be Meryl Streep.

I write a weekly column for Triad City Beat, which sometimes I forget to post anywhere but on my mother’s Facebook wall. This week, I wrote about Meryl Streep’s Golden Globes acceptance speech and why I’d like to be more like her. 

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TFW people keep arguing that actors should know their places and stay out of politics.

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My life goal is to have the easy self-assuredness of an early 1970s Rod Stewart.

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credit @lushsux

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YES! 2016 ENDS WITH GOOD NEWS!

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I found my first baseball glove at my folks' house, wedged in the top of my childhood closet behind a stack of hardback books I'm pretty sure I never read. This is a Kirk Gibson model, so I probably got it when I was 9 or 10, sometime after THAT home run, that 1988 World Series home run. When it came to baseball (or when it still comes to baseball) I was too clumsy and uncoordinated to get more than a Participant ribbon and the one inning that every kid was promised when their parents signed them up. But I still remember putting oil on this thing, wrapping it in rubber bands and sleeping with it under my mattress, and slamming a baseball into it during lulls in conversation at dinner. I imagined that eventually my signature would be stamped above the word Wilson in some other kid's glove, that he'd spend meals ignoring his parents and tracing the oversized loops of that J, the aggressive curve of that C. That obviously didn't happen. This glove didn't turn me into a superstar (and neither did my lack of depth perception) or even a second-team starter, but man, it taught me to dream big.

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I blasted George Michael for most of my extra long, extra slow drive down I-77 South today. At the second toll booth, I couldn't find stray dollar bills AND turn the volume down, so everyone in all twelve lanes on both sides of the divider probably heard this song. The toll booth worker, a thin man whose state-issued hat couldn't be pushed any further back on his head, gestured toward my open window and said "I'm going to miss him too."

Rest easy, George. Rest easy.

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It had to be done. 

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If you ever want to experience all of the awkwardness of a first date without the pressure of romance, I recommend talking to the cashiers at Trader Joe's. 

No, I didn't know that it was Marvelous Mango Month. 

Yes, I have plans for the afternoon. 

No, I had no idea that this steak was from Uruguay.

Yes, I always get hives when I'm uncomfortable. Paper bags are fine.

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Dear Guy Walking Out of the Y

Ironically, I had been smiling, at least until you flashed your uneven incisors at me and told me to smile.

“It’s not that bad,” you said.

Oh really? How ‘bout you don’t tell me what to do with my face, and I won’t tell you not to wear shower shoes more than five feet from an actual shower.