This is the time of the year when fake journalists, busy with a hectic schedule of office parties and finding excuses to drink all the free booze publicists send them, phone in their copy even more than usual.
And if there’s one way to fill up a page without trying, it’s the Top 10 list.
Anytime you tell the reader what’s cool & what’s not, you’re in the win zone, but the Top 10 List is in a class of its own. Look at any Top 10 list, movies, music, books, whatever– and you’ll see the exact same formula:
- 33% generally accepted critical successes
- 33% iconoclastic ‘outside the box’ choices designed to make you comment or respond.
- 33% things the fake journalist genuinely liked and/or has a good relationship with that person’s publicist.
This year, my first as a recovering fake journalist, I got to thinking about Top 10′s and how meaningless they are as forms of criticism (right up there with assigning letter grades to movies) and realized that the only Top 10 list I’d be interested in reading, would be a personal one.
That is, what’s YOUR Top 10 for 2010? What are the 10 things you’re going to put in your personal highlight reel for the year?
Mine are below. If you get a minute, I’d love to hear yours.
My Personal Top 10 of 2010:
- All the amazingly hard-working and talented people who have come into my life via FOODIES and he knowledge that “This is the team.”
- After a few years of being a hermit, going out, meeting new people and then hurling dodgeballs at their face.
- Kanye West, who always seems to know what to say and when to say it.
- Big Bear with Jeff, Craig, Dan and Brian.
- Learning a new meaning of gratitude through my friends who have helped me so much this year. I wouldn’t be on my fet without them.
- My parents finally visiting me in L.A. and having In n’ Out & Pinot Noir for dinner on my couch watching Obama crack jokes at the press dinner.
- Death Valley in a Mustang convertible.
- Deciding to go after what I want and not what I think the rest of the world thinks I should want.
- Not putting up with anyone’s shit, especially my own.
- Los Angeles, which asks nothing of you other than to stop sinking into the ocean (not gonna happen!) on film.
And because old habits die hard, here’s my favorite albums of the year, in no particular order:
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – Kanye West
The ArchAndroid – Janelle Monae
Friday Night Lights – J.Cole
High Violet – The National
Tron : Original Motion Picture Soundtrack – Daft Punk
The Lady Killer – Cee-Lo Green
So Runs the World Away – Josh Ritter
The Age of Adz – Sufjan Stevens
Lose Your Sleep – Natalie Merchant
So, what’s your Top 10 of 2010?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
1. Emerging from a claustrophobic wilderness to an illuminated universe.
2. Fostering my new voice and delighting in how sublimely it harmonizes with my old one.
3. Admiring the complexity of simple awareness and simply navigating through complexity admirably.
4. Being the destination for my nieces first ten steps.
5. My sisters courage, strength and determination.
6. My Family.
7. Profound perspective and its creative power.
8. New friendships that define, remind, inspire, challenge and tickle.
9. Being on the FOODIES Team.
10. Los Angeles, which allowed me to wail, derail and prevail without a flinch, pinch or inch.
2010 has been the year of growing up for me. Character building, big wins, big losses and big life lessons have been the name of the game.
1. Getting my first grown up apartment with my significant other.
2. Finding out that the restaurant where I was the sous-chef was being sold.
3. Having to step up and be the chef for the closing.
4. Going on unemployment for the first time.
5. Finding out how deeply in debt going to college put me.
6. Realizing that I am in control of my life.
7. Finally feeling like I’m good at my job.
8. Creating a home with the woman that I love.
9. Learning to knit.
10. Learning how to earn people’s respect