Unprecedented Playlist & Shawn Hunter's Eyebrows
this, right here, is my (second) Substack
The Mix
At risk of doing the Very Online thing of taking a global catastrophe + the further splintering of society and reducing it to “blaming a year”, did anyone else feel like 2020 was gonna be a lil’ off as we were coming into it? This past New Year’s Eve was bittersweet since we had just moved into our real-deal home (sweet) but it was also the first NYE not hanging out with any friends or family (A little bitter. We like people). We enjoyed your standard NYE programming including the controversial Steve Harvey / Gronk collab and also watched a thousand East L.A. fireworks from our balcony. Even the people I talked to that did go out to make a proper NYE of it said things felt a bit more weird and forced than your standard weird-and-forced NYE celebration. Every “Happy New Year” sort of had an implied question mark after it.
The first resolution-y thing I decided to do was make a (Apple Music) mix adding a song every day through 2020. Actually, I think I stole this idea from my buddy Chris. Even the first two tracks: I’m on Fire by The Boss and Frank Ocean’s cover of Moon River feel a bit ominous in a “Uh oh. I know we got a fricked-up year on our hands” sort of way. I’d love to flex how futurist my thinking was, but to keep things honest with the subscribers of this newsletter, I’ll share that those are the opening tracks ONLY because the first thing we watched on 1/1/20 was the Seth Rogen/Charlize Theron joint Long Shot and, along with some solid jokes and flashy windbreakers on Rogen’s character, those (awesome) songs are prominently featured in the film. The soundtrack kinda cooks in general.
Long Shot is a solid, if not required, installment of Seth Rogen’s “look… I know I’m a big, stoned idiot but…I really like you!!” genre of rom-com. Endless respect to Seth.
It has been a great daily discipline. The playlist is a blend of new 2020 stuff that I’m fortunate enough to come across, not-so-new stuff I’ve finally gotten into, and even All-Time Toppers (favorites) that you just wake up ready to bust out. Even amongst times that are strange and unprecedented as hell, I haven’t missed a day of updating the playlist.
Click your favorite iPod Nano colorway for some tunes.
I’d love it if you give the 2020 playlist a spin (just click the Nanos above) and see if you find some new stuff you’re excited about or All-Timers that take you back to happier times. Apologies to Spotify folks, but I did make a decade “best of” mix at the end of ‘19 you can check out here.
Any tunes that should be on my radar for the rest of 2020? Well, tell me about ‘em buddy...
The Brows
As I’m sure many have during the pandemic, we decided to throw it back with the nightly bingeing and rewatch a classic: Boy Meets World. It’s fun late-night, iPad-in-bed viewing for sure, but folks I am here to tell you: it’s not an easy ride.
As you recall, Boy Meets World centered around the extremely ‘90s (and extremely white) Matthews family, consisting of two sort of interesting + overall likable, good parents, an inconsistently mischievous little sister (so inconsistent that she just disappears for several episodes before returning as a new actress. A tried-and-true ‘90s sitcom move), the oldest brother Eric (beautiful dumbass), and Cory Matthews, the sometimes sensitive, sometimes hot-headed star of the show. Shawn Hunter was Cory’s best friend from the wrong side of the tracks. Topanga was Cory’s girl who is sometimes earthy/Kind Vibes and sometimes not, and of course there was the triple threat (teacher/neighbor/principal) Mr. Feeny, who was wise as hell.
Oh, and the singer from Hepcat, the first band I ever saw live (opening for the Mighty Mighty Bosstones), played a teacher for a little bit. He ruled.
Shawn Hunter was an absolute tier 1 kick-ass teen of this era, no question. I was one of those kids who wanted to be a Shawn Hunter but was absolutely destined to be a Cory Matthews. I’d try to part my hair down the middle and rock the grungiest of hooded flannels and baja jackets aka “drug rugs”. Nothing I tried worked at the end of the day. Who was I kidding? I’d always be a Cory Matthews.
So back to the show being a much tougher pill to swallow as an adult in 2020. To start, probably due to the timing of its popularity, there’s plenty of problematic themes -especially (and somewhat surprisingly since it was a family show) how young women are portrayed. The teen dudes basically treat women at school and in their lives like Vinnie Chase and the Entourage boys did in their prime. Even the “good guy” Cory is alarmingly possessive towards Topanga at times. He also strays for an emotional affair and to smooch some other ladies, totally getting away with all of it.
The focus of the show is all over the place too. One season relentlessly pushes the agenda of the cool, young bachelor teacher Mr. Turner (my research dug up that this entire pivot for the show was in response to “Friends being so popular at the time") which is abandoned out of nowhere. There’s a very disjointed Sabrina the Teenage Witch crossover where the magic talking cat is just sorta hanging around during a weird dream storyline. I recalled Minkus, the classic TV nerd who was likely engineered in a Hollywood lab to give Steve Urkel a run for his money, being a HUGE part of the Boy Meets World Cinematic Universe (BMWCU) but he actually only appeared in season 1? Many people also remember Minkus as an integral part of the entire show. Maybe that speaks to his impact? Perhaps his solo go-of-it in the BMWCU starting lineup was as impactful as Kawhi Leonard’s one-and-done championship season in Toronto?
Speaking of, at one point we discover Shawn has a gritty bad-boy older brother in the trailer park, then we are told he is an only child, then later discovers a clean-cut college-aged brother played by one of the Lawrence Brothers. Plugging a Lawrence Brother into the BMWCU in the mid ‘90s should have been similar to putting Kevin Durant on the 73 win Warriors team, but really all it did was add a little more balance between foolish Eric and bad-boy Shawn, who now all live together in an apartment, of course. Topanga also has a sister at one point, then she’s an only child, then her parents split for Pittsburgh and she starts living with an aunt who seems British.
What you see above is three ‘90s Kings at their absolute fashion peak.
As an adult, I now realize Feeny was the best dressed gentleman on the show. No question. As evidenced by his ability to bounce between Babar and Paddington Bear energy seamlessly.
Perhaps the wildest inconsistency of the show and most glaring continuity error? Shawn’s eyebrows in season 4. This was just jarring to discover.
Here’s Shawn’s ‘brows looking exceptionally normal. And then…
Thanks to my wife for manually taking pics of the iPad screen since Disney + does not allow screen grabs because everyone made Baby Yoda smoke joints or some shit.
As you can see, this is perhaps more shocking than swapping out little sister Morgan with a new one. I thought there’d be plenty of online chatter amongst BMWHeads but I surprisingly found very little. One tweet (below) and a post on the “Boy Meets World Confessions” Tumblr. This real-deal fan on Tumblr suspects they shaved his ‘brows for the cringeworthy “Chick Like Me” episode where Shawn dresses up like a girl and all the dudes want to date him, of course.
The extra wild thing about #eyebrowgate is that it wasn’t for an entire season like this verified Twitter user suggests. In fact, Shawn bounces from tweezed to natural quite often after the first shocking reveal of the 'brows. I didn’t realize how something like occasionally tweezed eyebrows could distract and take me out of a story, yet here we are.
All of this and we aren’t even through Season 5 yet, so maybe everything will wrap up smoothly OR shit will truly get wild. In summary, if you’re thinking of diving back in, or enjoying Boy Meets World for the first time -proceed with caution. It IS a touching and spectacular take on young bestfriendsmanship and a sort of touching look at American family life in the ‘90s, but it was also made in and for different times. Suspend some disbelief, prepare to cringe a little, and I’d also suggest balancing it out with a MUCH more realistic and cohesive family show from a similar era: Tahj Mowry’s Smart Guy.