Best of 2021
Three years ago, I started to keep track of the stupidest things I had done all year in my phone. My hope was —that despite lying awake many nights thinking of what an unbelievable idiot I am—that I would reach the end of the year and see that, “hey, actually, I only did like four astonishingly moronic things this year.” And, honestly, for the most part, that has worked. Sure, there are plenty of teeth-gritting moments, like when I tried to step onto the bowling lane to retrieve a stalled gutter ball in January 2019 or when I mistakenly thought a friend’s dad’s eyepatch was a costume prop on Halloween this year. But for the most part, I’m really not as dumb as my brain likes to tell me I am. So, before I get into my favorite music, movies, books etc of 2021, let me tell you about (maybe) the dumbest thing I did all year.
It’s what I have come to term the Diet Coke Can Full of a Million Ants Debacle.
Which, okay, yeah, is a bit of a spoiler as far as incident titles go. Still though, much like The Wire, there are levels to this ___.
The DCCFOMAD took place on a beautiful, crisp, cool, fall morning as I pulled up to Night’s Shield to start my workday. I walked to the front door, taking in the tranquil majesty of the morning sky and stretched-out cotton ball clouds, breathing in the gratitude of being alive yet another day, until I noticed a discarded Diet Coke Can in Night’s Shield’s front yard. Now, this happens quite often. Either our clients, visitors, neighbors, wind, or passersby leave their trash in our yard and that’s fine. Just whenever I notice, I try to pick it up and throw it away, because I’m an outstanding human being and citizen. So, I picked up the can, silently admonishing the neglectful fool that left the trash while praising myself for my own grace and stewardship in this one great world we have been given.
It was then, as I unlocked the front door, that a single ant crawled out of the can. I (carefully) flicked the little guy off of my hand and onto the ground where I watched him scurry away, praising myself in the process for sparing this peaceful, tiny creature when I could’ve easily Thanos’d him in my triumphant grip. I stepped into the corridor as a second, then third ant scuttled from the can. I knocked those onto the floor, not paying them much thought at all. I rounded the corner for my office in time for a swat team of ten ants to advance from the can. This is where I began to sense that my morning wasn’t going as I intended. They crawled down my arm while I kept hold of the can, mumbling a cuss word as I unlocked my office door while doing that little leg dance thing like I had to badly go to the bathroom. I burst into my office as a band of ant brothers poured from the can opening like they were storming the beaches of Normandy. I flung them to the floor, stamping on as many of those little malevolent mother-effers as I could. Then I went into my bathroom and threw the soda can into the waste basket. I braced my hand against the wall, breathing deeply, trying to regain composure, thankful that this incident was over. Then…I saw it: a wave of ants pouring over the lip of the trash can in a terrifying mass which can only be accurately described by comparing it to that scene in World War Z when all those zombies climbed over one another to get over that giant militarily enforced wall that no one thought they’d get over.
They say that in moments most dire, humans dig deep to reach previously unknown feats of strength and/or brilliance. So, much like an adrenaline-fueled mother lifting a car off of her baby or like that one dad at a baseball game who caught a foul ball with one hand while holding his beer and toddler in the other, I reached deep within, and did something incredible…
I picked up that evil soda can full of ants and I threw it in my bathroom sink.
I then turned on the tap in an attempt to drown the bastards, but turns out, ants can swim quite well. At least these ants could. Much like the tale foretold by Hesiod, Pandora’s Box had been opened and there was no going back. Countless hordes of wicked creatures (tiny ants) streamed forth, unleashing physical and psychological torment on (at least one) man. They filled my sink, flipping me off with their tiny limbs as they backstroked over the ever-rising water, mocking me with their mandibles.
I stood there in defeat, helpless to watch as ants filled the sink and continued their assault from the waste basket, soon they would claim the bathroom as their own.
No. This couldn’t be happening. Not here, not now in the holiest of all bathrooms connected to my office. I fled from the office. Shimmying my shoulders and flinging both real and non-existent ants from my arms, hair, neck, and legs. I ran to the kitchen where I retrieved two trash-bags then sprinted back through to my office, thankful that I didn’t encounter any co-workers or residents whose respect I needed to maintain. Then I did what I should’ve done in the first place, what any reasonable adult would’ve thought to do much sooner than I — I threw the soda can and the whole waste basket in the trash bag, tied it shut, and took it outside to throw away in the dumpster, smashing escaping ants the whole way. I then returned to my office, sweaty and frazzled yet triumphant and thankful that this whole escapade occurred without any other humans noticing, unless they went back to watch the cameras later.
So that’s the Diet Coke Can Full of a Million Ants Debacle.
I’m sure next year, I’ll do something even dumber.
Now here are some lists.
Favorite Albums of 2021
1- Manchester Orchestra- The Million Masks of God
2- Lucy Dacus- Home Video
3- Turnstile- Glow On
4- Foxing- Draw Down the Moon
5- Bo Burnham- Inside
6- The Mountain Goats - Dark In Here
7- Tigers Jaw- I Don’t Care How You Remember Me
8- J Cole- The Offseason
9- IDLES- Crawler
10- Tyler the Creator- Call Me If You Get Lost
11- Wild Pink- A Billion Little Lights
12- The Copyrights- Alone in a Dome
13- Julien Baker- Little Oblivions
14- Arlo Parks - Collapsed in Sunbeams
15- Illuminati Hotties - Let Me Do One More
Honorable Mentions: Starflyer 59, Katy Kirby, My Morning Jacket, Baby Keem, Toy Cowboy, Japanese Breakfast, Benny the Butcher & Harry Fraud, Claud, Camp Trash
Best EP- “Everything Will Be Okay Eventually” - Michigander
Best New Artists: Pizza4Sluts (Check Out “Don’t Believe”), Durry (“Losers Club” or anything, all their songs are awesome), Michigander (the aforementioned Everything Will Be Okay Eventually EP)
The Three Best Concerts I Saw Online
2/12- Jimmy Eat World playing Clarity in full
2/12- Manchester Orchestra playing Black Mile in full
3/5- Tigers Jaw playing their new album in full
Also, any live video or performance of Turnstile is essential viewing.
Best song: “Thumbs” by Lucy Dacus
Best Concerts I Played:
7/10- Granada Theater- Ravenhill with Oakwood Grove
7/9- Hangar 9- solo set, Ravenhill with Bad Ghost
Top Fifteen Movies of 2021
1- Old
2- Bo Burnham: Inside (Netflix)
3- DUNE
4- Tick Tick Boom (Netflix)
5- Judas & the Black Messiah (HBOMax)
6- Nobody
7- No Time to Die
8- Annette (Prime)
9- Get Back (Disney+)
10- Shang Chi & the Legend of the Ten Rings (Disney+)
11- Matrix Resurrections (HBOMax)
12- Jagged: Alanis Morissette Doc (HBOMax)
13- Moxie (Netflix)
14- The Mitchell’s vs The Machines (Netflix)
15- Don’t Look Up (Netflix) – (it’s very hacky, but I liked it)
Honorable Mentions: Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage, The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Empty Man
I haven’t seen Spider-Man or Licorice Pizza or else I’m pretty sure those would be in the top three.
Top Ten Johns Family Movies Not Already Listed
1- Encanto
2- 8 Bit Christmas
3- Black Widow
4- Ron’s Gone Wrong
5- Space Jam
6- Raya & the Last Dragon
7- Jungle Cruise
8- Flora & Ulysses
9- I Don’t Know What But I’m Sure There Was Something Else Better Than…
10- Freaking Boss Baby 2
Movie Worse Than Freaking Boss Baby 2 & Thirty-Three Other Movies: Marvel’s Eternals
Movies I DNF:
The Little Things (bailed at the 20min mark)
Mortal Kombat (bailed at the 30 min mark)
Top 6 Movies Not From 2021 I Saw for the First Time
1- Magnolia (1999)
2- Spirited Away (2001)
3- 20th Century Women (2016)
4- Hard Eight (1996)
5- The Sound of Metal (2020)
6- Knives Out (2019)
Top Ten TV Shows
1- Ted Lasso (Apple)
2- What We Do in the Shadows (FX/Hulu)
3- How To With John Wilson (HBOMax)
4- Midnight Mass (Netflix)
5- Squid Game (Netflix)
6- Succession (HBOMax)
7- Reservation Dogs (FX/Hulu)
8- Invincible (Prime)
9- Mare of East Town (HBOMax)
10- Hacks (HBOMax)
Honorable Mentions: Sweet Tooth (Netflix), Mythic Quest (Apple)
Ranking of Marvel Shows on Disney+
1- Loki
2- Hawkeye
3- WandaVision
4- Falcon & Winter Soldier
Not Ranked Because I Don’t Know What to Do with It: I watched 8 seasons of Survivor this year and I loved them all.
Also, Station Eleven (based on maybe my favorite novel of all time) just came out on HBOMax in December and I really like it a lot, but I haven’t finished it. I liked the first episode of Book of Boba Fett too.
Shows I Started but Didn’t Finish & Where I Bailed on Them
-Pretend It’s A City (2 episodes)
-Mr Mayor (3 episodes)
-Bridgerton (4 episodes)
-Made for Love (3 episodes)
-Shadow & Bone (6 episodes, I actually liked it! Just lost interest)
-Hard Knocks Dallas Cowboys (3 episodes)
-Y: The Last Man (2.5 episodes)
-Dopesick (1 episode, I liked it too!)
-Swagger (4 episodes, I may go back to it at some point)
Johns Family Cartoon Power Rankings
1- Bluey
2- We Bare Bears
3- Gravity Falls
4- Owl House
5- Big City Greens
6- Amphibia
Video Game of the Year: Metroid Dread for the Nintendo Switch
Top Ten Books I Read This Year
1- A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders (2021)
2- The Glass Hotel by Emily St John Mandel (2020)
3- No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood (2021)
4- The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green (2021)
5- Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (2021)
6- The Electric Kingdom by David Arnold (2021)
7- SELLOUT: The Major Label Feeding Frenzy that Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore 1994-2007 by Dan Ozzi (2021)
8- Giannis by Mirin Fader (2021)
9- Can’t Knock the Hustle: Inside the Season of Protest, Pandemic, and Progress with the Brooklyn Nets by Matt Sullivan (2021)
10- Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas (2021)
Honorable Mentions: The Silence by Don Delillo (2021), Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It by Ethan Kriss (2021), Yearbook by Seth Rogen (2021)
Best Short Story: The Mom of Bold Action by George Saunders (The New Yorker, Aug. 23rd)
Currently Reading: Where the Deer & the Antelope Play by Nick Offerman and Best Short Stories of 2021 edited by Jesmyn Ward
Next Up: Crying in H-Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zimmer
Comic Series I worked through: X-Men, X-Force, Excalibur, Marauders, Way of X, New Mutants, Hellions, 90’s X-Men, New X-Men, 90s Gambit comics, Cable, Excalibur 80s, Hawkeye
A Definitive List of the Daddest Things I’ve Done This Year
1 -took the whole family to Shoe Carnival after we got our tax return
2- watched a nine-hour documentary on the freaking Beatles
3- bragged about how good I am at opening jars (on more than one occasion)
4-watched so many physical therapist vids on YouTube it messed up my algorithm
5- on the morning of May 1st, I ate a bowl of Raisin Bran at my in-laws and I really liked it
6- went 0/365 for every time I said “let’s go to bed early tonight.”
7- sometimes I gave the kids the answers in homework just so we could be done with homework
8- discovered that egg nog is actually awesome / tried to get everyone to try egg nog
9- walked out of the Ford dealership when I couldn’t haggle the car salesman to a lower price than his “lowest price” on a 2019 Ford Flex
10- went back 3 days later to get the 2019 Ford Flex at the price he gave us
Six Mostly Inconsequential Things I’m Looking Forward to in 2022
1- James Harden & the Nets hopefully going on a championship run in the playoffs starting April through June
2- LA Rams playoff run this January
3- New John Darnielle book, Devil House out January 25th
4- New Season of Atlanta starts March 24th
5- New Kendrick Lamar album? New album from the National? New Jonathon Safran Foer book? Breath of the Wild 2?!
6- -Going to finally release my first novel, The Futile. Details coming soon.
(Most) Everything Else Completely Out of Order in a Long Rambling, Nonsensical Block of Text:
On May 9th, I found $60 in the street and I’d like to do that again. In June, I hurt my neck and it was one of the worst pains I’ve ever felt in my life. It was like glass shards in my neck, so glad that went away. In August, I was mean to a lady in a bank drive thru in Florida because I waited for like twenty minutes then she wouldn’t make change for me, I wish I hadn’t done that. Despite some Achilles tendinitis, I reached my goal of running 400 miles this year (and actually passed that goal by 21 miles- brag). I forever want to remember how hard Eli made us laugh by making Pokémon noises this past summer. Or how Stacy made us all laugh by saying “look at Ezra’s butt hole!” –I feel like I must clarify she was pointing out a hole in Ezra’s pants, thus explaining why butt hole was two words there and not one. January 20th was a particularly good day because I was still off on paternity leave (shout out Baby Ewan), we bought the Ford Flex, I attended a virtual George Saunders reading, and I got to watch James Harden’s first game with the Nets. In February, we all got to enjoy some snow days. Made good on my plans to see Dad more. In April, we surprised the boys with a trip to the zoo (instead of going to school) for Eli’s birthday and I don’t know if Stacy and I will ever pull off a better caper in the rest of our parenting career. I was (randomly) awarded the prestigious honor of being the designated party animal at Tyler & Melissa’s wedding and fulfilled my sacred duties despite being (mostly) sober. Long may that title carry. I lost five pounds. I lost an estimated 78 days worrying that all my friends secretly hated me and then an additional 63 days arguing with people in my head. Going to try really hard to not do that anymore. Throughout March, there were consistently weird booms in West Frankfort every night and it allowed me to daydream that there was something cool going on like UFOs or secret underground government projects, but most all of us reached the conclusion it was some farmer dude shooting Tannerite to scare away coyotes. Stacy and I celebrated 13 years of marriage and 17 years of being together in August. I tried in futility all year to get the Flex wave to become a thing like how Jeep Drivers wave at each other as I flexed at fellow Flex drivers all over southern Illinois. I went whole days or weeks at a time without thinking about the president at all. Fourth of July was a wonderful family time and I’m still thankful I didn’t accidentally punch a child while using the Pondelicek’s VR gaming system. Got to reunite with my old Ravenhill buds and play some shows, maybe the best we ever played, I still need to upload that video though. Stacy’s sister Katie visited, Matt visited, Ethan visited several times, we went on hikes, went to wineries, ate good food, shared so many laughs and had a hard time picking our favorite moments from each day. James Harden pulled his hamstring and lost a step. Giannis had a legendary finals run. I played basketball in the rain with my friends at the vocational building like we were so much younger. Went to LA with Taylor in September, saw the Pacific Ocean & Santa Monica Pier, laughed embarrassingly hard at a weird painting, had some ridiculously good Ramen, saw Marc Maron at the legendary Comedy Store, went to one of those cool speakeasy bars where the bartender just makes you whatever and you like it, saw the Rams beat the Bears in the season opener, then despite being an airport novice, I navigated LAX for the flight back by myself. I released a solo album in May that few people besides my closest friends actually listened to but I’m pretty proud of it. Made a music video with Major. Got an illustrator for the cover of The Futile. Worked through round after round of edits on The Futile. We launched a great new Homeless Youth program at Night’s Shield, got it fully staffed and operational. We also got the federal grant in September and it felt like winning the NBA championship. Kept up with friends on Marco Polo and Group Chats. Going to keep trying to check in on friends / be an actual friend. Had a small Friendsgiving. I kept trying to get healthier physically and mentally, two steps forward, one step back. Stacy went back to work in April and worked one out of every three weeks at the office, making two out of three weeks wonderful when I got her hugs on my lunch break, and that third week sad when I didn’t see her sweet face on my lunch break. Got bad news in July about a beloved family member being sicker than we thought. We pulled together and kept going for them and each other. I finished the big revision of new novel, Our Extended Universe (cut 20k words / made it work) and turned it back in, but probably going to have to wait until maybe 2023 for that one to come out. Thanksgiving in Joliet and Minooka after not having it the year before was soul-fulfilling. Got to see the Durfee family on Christmas Eve, again, could’ve cried. Ethan came in for Christmas and we had an all-time amazing holiday, the boys were so full of joy, Ewan is awful at opening presents though, but still, also, I could’ve cried. Got fully vaxxed then boosted. Brice Evans is great at standup. Finished the Sopranos. I don’t think Tony died in the end. In August, we went to Fort Walton Beach Trip- got caught in the storm in Nashville on the way down, couldn’t find a hotel for hours, immediately got in the water when we finally made it to the ocean, Ezra’s excitement, Eli’s positivity (except when he was cranky), Stacy smiling when she didn’t know I was watching her, Ewan just being a cute baby, he slept almost the whole way there, T-Rex goofy golf, Eli got the sword from Alvin’s Island, Ewan pooped in the sink, the weirdest mall ever and I kept breaking Eli’s heart when I couldn’t win the Yoshi plushie in the crane machine, good shrimp burrito, nighttime beach walk, comic book store, awesome beach day afternoon, saw the sharks, like legit actual sharks out there swimming and swarming around like they just live in the ocean, then later, I remember feeling so much joy I shed a tear as I held a sleeping Ewan and watched Stacy and the boys having so much fun in the water, ate a bleh whataburger, attempted another beach walk, went night swimming with Eli and had a blast splash fighting with him, then we drove to Alabama, had Zaxby’s again, Ezzy had the best day of his entire life at the Tim Wellborn museum, met that Alton dude that was super nice, the hotel was crappy and the pizza was crappier (never knew that was a word), then we drove back to Nashville, played at that awesome park, went to the mall, Eli got a Build A Bear Dragon named Ziggsy, the hotel was cool, ate good pizza, watched Team USA win the Gold, the next morning went to the Antique Archeology and Ezra was bummed that it was just a glorified Merch store for American Pickers. Drove downtown Nashville. Drove home. Ate dinner & cake for Stacy’s birthday. Felt good.
Keep a note/list of embarrassing moments and I bet you’ll find at the end of the year that you’re way cooler than you give yourself credit for.
Make a note of the good stuff too.
Or maybe don’t do either of those things but find some small way to be kinder to yourself.
Thanks for reading.