April 6, 1992

MICHIGAN vs. DUKE or DUKE vs. MICHIGAN -- take your pik!¹ -- (Hint: They're the same) Baseball starts today w/ the CINCINNATI Reds taking on the Padres of the city of San Diego You've gotta admit both teams have improved - The Padres solidified (What a cool word) their infield & the Reds did the same w/ pitching & outfield. So, the Sox play 2morrow vs. CALIFORNIA -- I wuz reading the TV guide -- Hell, what else am I gonna do -- I wuz bored -- And on Tuesday on the CBS Schoolbreak Special or whatever the hell it's called -- They have this show called - "Different Worlds: A Story of Interracial Love" -- Hey, U know I'm taping -- It sez - two high school students who witness a murder during a robbery form an immediate bond, but their different cultures, blah blah -- God I hope it's a white guy & a black girl!²
-JMC 12:28

I'm here at lunch talking to Steve and Plato, which is actually Aar0n M@rsh under an assumed name. That's fine and good, but now I've got to go.
JMC 12:54

This is science -- Salv1a Sm1th's mom is our substitute -- I wuz at Chris T0desc0's hourse on Saturday cuz he had this confirmation party -- only 4 people showed up -- I wuz playing some of my songs!³ -- I played "Bohemian Rhapsody" & Michael & Ian were like, "What is this?" & I say, "BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY - QUEEN, #9, 1976, #24, 1992"⁴ They were cracking up -- Michael told me his favorite group was Boyz II Men, at least he's listening to pop music⁵ -- What else? Probably nothing -- This VCR - $129 or NUTTIN'⁶
-JMC 1:42

1 My pick was Michigan, because I liked the Fab Five and couldn't stand Duke, who seemed just as spoiled as the New York Yankees later in the decade. (Two years prior, after a screening of Joe Vs. the Volcano on my birthday, it was announced that Duke had beaten UConn in the quarterfinals, and my friends proceeded to mock me by singing "Duke of Earl" in the car on the way home (wtf).) The whole week before the 1992 final, my 8th-grade English teacher wrote "Go Duke!" on the chalkboard -- I think she had a son who'd gone there -- which I would try to erase, along with the kids who altered her daily "P.M.A." (Positive Mental Attitude) reminder on the other side of the board by substituting an "S" for the "A."

2 It wasn't. As hinted in other entries, I was obsessed around this time with interracial romance and especially with white male/black female pairs, triggered by a dream that I had in 7th grade in which I kissed an African American girl in the school boiler room.

3 I don't know what "played my songs" means -- most likely, I brought a cassette tape with songs I'd taped off the radio, although part of me wondered at first if I'd sat down at the piano at Chris's house.

4 By this point, I was an inveterate chart-watcher. By the way, the song actually made it all the way to #2 on the Hot 100 in 1992 when all was said and done, propelled by its iconic appearance in the Wayne's World movie. It was deeply weird to hear it every night on the B96 countdown, next to the usual dance-pop tracks the station generally favored -- as if Queen were this total one-hit-wonder novelty band.

5 This is an interesting reaction to me, because on one hand, "pop music" can be seen as sort of lowest common denominator, what you listen to when you're not adventurous enough to seek anything else out, since all you have to do is turn on the radio. But clearly as a 13-year-old, I felt like my pop-culture savvy elevated me above the out-of-touch nerds I hung out with. A sense of coolness at that age was still dictated by mainstream culture: you're either with it or you're not.

6 Probably parroting some long-forgotten TV commercial.