As Americans, we're tempted to lay claim to anything before anyone else, at any cost. Of course, we have every right to - just think of all the things we found before anyone else: rock 'n' roll, the full-court press, nightly news, America.
Oh, about that.
We're the kings of Bandwagonland. When I was younger, and TBS replaced WWOR on my family's standard cable, the Atlanta Braves took over for the New York Mets as my favorite baseball team. Moving from worst to first, my friends and I would rip on anyone who claimed to root for the Braves once they met up with the Twins in the 1991. We started it.
No, not anyone in Atlanta. Us.
It steps past sports, too. I remember vividly walking into my sixth-grade class armed with the knowledge that I had just heard a Snoop Doggy Dogg song I had never heard before. By the time I found out that Dr. Dre's "Ain't Nuthin' But A G Thing" wasn't a new song, and that I didn't know all the words to Salt 'n' Pepa's "None Of Your Business," I was crushed.
I was also 11.
Yet today, at 23, I see it all around. It's hearing a new CD before anyone else and then "being sick of it" by the time anyone else catches on. I have friends who went to see The Postal Service in Detroit a good year before "Give Up" took off, and now Benjamin Gibbard's side project is "so overrated."
Even worse, a friend of mine hyped 50 Cent more than any new artist I've ever heard two years.
"Dude, he's so good, and he got shot in the face."
Three weeks later, "In Da Club" broke out, and 50 wasn't some crappy gangster rapper on the underground to kids "in the know," he was some crappy gangster rapper on MTV.
To my friend, all of a sudden 50 sucked. He was just Curtis Jackson, which is actually a pretty slick handle. Way better than 50 Cent.
A few weeks ago, on Austin-based rock band Centro-matic's Web site, project mastermind Will Johnson wrote a hilarious commentary on a shirt he had been given as a gift that said, "Puppies: An American Tradition." He continued to delve into the part of the psyche that would have the audacity to claim the puppy as distinctly American.
We have this all-encompassing desire to call things our own, and I hate it. I'd like to go on record to say that no matter how popular they become, I will always like the following things:
a) sweet peppers
2) Boston Celtics sixth man Ricky Davis
d) Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band
37) "The Royal Tenenbaums"
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That said, only one question remains, courtesy of Evander "Real Deal" Holyfield's Web site:
"How does an average boy grow up to become a four-time heavyweight champion?"
If I knew, you wouldn't be reading this.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
