Here is the story of 2013, based solely on what I was able to remember. I didn’t look anything up (for the most part) or consult any periodicals, websites or folks with better memories than myself. Nope. Just went month by month and wrote down what I remember from this year.
Giddy Up America presents…The Story of 2013
January…
I don’t think it snowed and if it did, it didn’t snow much, at least not here on the East Coast. President Obama was sworn into office for a second time- not the kick the doors down party it was the first time. I recall very little dancing in the street, if any. The NFL playoffs were fun until the Patriots lost to the…Ravens. Again. Stupid Joe Flacco. In the NFC, the 49ers beat…someone, setting up a Super Bowl between two teams coached by brothers. This would have been a dominant story if not for Ray Lewis, his tears, his deer antler spray and most importantly, his retirement. Besides football, Obama, and no snow- Rajon Rondo of the Celtics got hurt. That ended the Celtics’ season. There was the Fiscal Cliff thing that I’m pretty sure we got close enough to enjoy the view and get the dizzys from and there was also a hold up in getting aid to those folks affected by Hurricane Sandy because politicians were being politicians. And I think I saw Django Unchained in January. It was awesome.
February…
The Super Bowl was half of a lousy game and half of an amazing game with an unfortunate power outage in the middle. No really. That happened. The lights in the Super Dome went out. When they came back on, it was a whole new game. And speaking of whole new game, Justin Timberlake announced he was coming back– he’d be releasing a new album, the 20/20 Experience, in March. The Office started it’s final season and there were two major award shows- the Oscars and the Grammys. The Grammys were pretty fun and had some great performances- I think the Black Keys with Dr. John and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band were the best. The Oscars were kind of boring in comparison. Seth MacFarlane hosted and was eh. Jennifer Lawrence really was the big winner of the Oscars, although it was pretty great that Ben Affleck won for Argo, despite not being nominated for Best Director. I heard “Thrift Shop” for the first time. I loved it. And I loved Shane Victorino signing with the Red Sox. I think the Sequester happened in February, even though I’m still not sure what that was. Did I mention the Ravens won the Super Bowl? It took me awhile to be okay with that. Oh shit, and the Pope retired, which was kind of a thing because it really had never happened before…or hadn’t happened in a while. Either way, he was retiring. Pope watch! That’s always fun.
March…
Well personally, I spent a lot of time watching YouTube clips and wrote over 20,000 words about HBO characters while working on my Greatest HBO Character Ever tournament. Spoiler: Omar from The Wire won. In D.C., Rand Paul gave a pretty epic Filibuster about something to prevent something and I started watching The Walking Dead. Those two things are not related. Dazed and Confused turned twenty, Top Chef crowned a new winner and Justin Timberlake released The 20/20 Experience. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to ban large sodas, but was shot down. I still give him an A for effort, though. A new Pope was chosen and the old Pope became the Vatican’s Guy on the Couch, which seemed weird. Rogue Wave returned and the NCAA tournament started. I only lost money on one of those things.
April…
Louisville beat Michigan to win March Madness. I don’t remember who I had predicted to win, only that whoever it was, didn’t. Game of Thrones was back! So was Mad Men. Jay Z got himself into a pickle by going to Cuba and then he became a sports agent, two things he addressed in the impromptu track, “Open Letter,” which Hot 97 literally played back to back for an entire morning. Baseball started and I very quickly grew irrationally confident about the Red Sox. I tried to understand EDM, the NBA playoffs began and the final season of The Office was still trudging along. Watching the final string of episodes kept conjuring up images of a mercy killing, which was probably not the writers’ intent.
May…
The NBA Playoffs marched on. Unfortunately they marched on without the Celtics, who lost to the Knicks. It seemed like the end of the Big 3 era. In Cleveland, Ariel Castro was busted for keeping three women hidden in his house, women who had been missing for almost a decade. Chains, abortions, allotted outside time. Castro’s neighbor, Charles Ramsey, spotted one of the women running down the street screaming. Ramsey was endlessly entertaining. Back on the music scene, Soundgarden released new material for the first time in years and unlike anything Chris Cornell touched on his own, it was really good. The Great Gatsby was a lot to l0ok at. As for The Office, the show finally came to a close and surprisingly, did so in style and did so really well. Bill Hader announced that was leaving Saturday Night Live and those mysterious French robots, Daft Punk, released Random Access Memories, featuring “Get Lucky.” Mad Men got weird, got revved up on a speed for an episode, and became just flat out tough to watch at times. And as a nation, literally all of us, we all wondered- who the eff is this Bob Benson character? We did not however wonder if Game of Thrones would slip at all. Nope, it just kept being awesome. Like, super awesome. Bring on summer.
June…
That thing happened on Game on Thrones that everyone was talking about. And no, it wasn’t just a brief cameo by the drummer from Coldplay. But after that, anything June threw at us couldn’t seem so bad. And that included the Heat beating the Spurs in the NBA Finals and that whole Edward Snowden thing. Yeah, the Snowden thing, or as it could also be known, the quickest way to make a cocktail party combative. And speaking of combative- there was Kanye’s new album, Yeezus. Turns out that dude has some pent up rage. Who knew? The first trailer for the Anchorman sequel was released and Sublime released a live album commemorating the 25th anniversary of their first show. Summer music festival season kicked off with festivals like Bonnaroo, Firefly and Coachella rocking the sleepless masses with performances by Paul McCartney, Mumford and Sons, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and more. Doc Rivers left the Celtics for the Clippers in a move that flunked every version of the smell test you could throw out there. Loyalty runs out when the winning does for some people. But it’s cool. The Celtics hired Butler coach Brad Stevens to replace Rivers. High five.
July…
George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin. In any state besides Florida that would most likely mean Zimmerman would be going to jail. But it took place in Florida, meaning Zimmerman wasn’t going to jail. It would be the start of a banner couple months for George, who somehow looked completely different in every picture taken of him. Speaking of people named George…royal baby yo! And played out song yo…”Blurred Lines.” Weddings would never be the same. The Good, Bad & Ugly of July: the “good” was Jay Z’s new album, the bad was Baseball’s All Star Game, and the ugly was the heat. Dude it was so hot, like fry an egg on pavement hot and not just to show what your brain would be like on drugs. Gross. Thinking about it now has my memory glands sweating, which I’m not sure is even scientifically possible, only sure that’s happening. #science
August…
Kanye and Kim had a baby and it’s name was…is…North. North West? Yes. Are you joking? No. Whatever. New episodes of Arrested Development were slightly more entertaining, but only slightly. Aaron Hernandez of the Patriots was arrested for the murder of Odin Lloyd and Major League Baseball found itself in the middle of a new steroids scandal. Yay sports! No really, North West. Sharknado happened. Pearl Jam, Kings of Leon and Drake released new music. The Pearl Jam song rocked. Then the month ended with Miley Cyrus and the MTV Video Music Awards, where Ms. Cyrus stuck her tongue out a lot, dry-humped stuff animals and improperly used a foam finger. The world would never be the same.
September…
Everyone was a little surprised we made it to September after the Mileypocalypse that damn near crippled America. Luckily another crisis was threatening to cripple the country. A good old fashioned government shutdown. Ted Cruz, a freshman Senator from Texas was pissed about Obamacare and as a result, started driving the bus towards a cliff. I mean, everyone was just loving it except for our President…
But hey, more about that come October. In September it was all about the baseball season wrapping up with the Red Sox surprising everyone by being in first place, football starting and the final few episodes of Breaking Bad, in which, SPOILER ALERT: he did. Then there were the Emmys, in which the only notable thing that happened was Jeff Daniels winning Best Actor. That’s not a joke. That actually happened.
October…
Government Shutdown, y’all! For like, two weeks. It was like a snow day except we all had to still work and there was no mail. So kind of not as fun. But hey, Ted Cruz enjoyed the hell out of it. As for the rest of October, we were introduced to Lorde and weren’t sick of “Royals” yet and Pearl Jam released a great new album. Justin Timberlake? He released just a so-so record. Arcade Fire also released a new album, their first since the Grammy-winning The Suburbs. But whatever, the big news of October…really the only thing that mattered…the Boston Red Sox won the World Series, beating the St. Louis Cardinals! Only one year removed from finishing in last place, the Sox and their beards turned it around and won the title. It was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.
November…
Chris Christie was re-elected Governor of New Jersey and New York City got a new mayor. That mayor had nothing on Toronto’s mayor, though. Rob Ford was caught on camera smoking crack, admitted to smoking crack, was filmed threatening to kill someone and somehow, when this was all said and done, had a better approval rating than President Obama, who had only done that stuff if you only get your news from Fox News. A member of one Iranian rock band killed three dudes in another Iranian rock band…in Brooklyn and a typhoon beat the bejesus out of the Philippines. On HBO Boardwalk Empire finished a pretty, pretty good fourth season and Eastbound and Down had it’s series finale. Oh and I became addicted to Scandal. Like seriously addicted. Giddy Up America also became a Kanye-Free Zone. No Kanye, no problem. Happy Thanksgiving. The new Hunger Games was great. I really think Jennifer Lawrence might be a star one day.
December…
So far in December, Nelson Mandela died and Lou Reed died, although Reed might have died in November. Auburn beat Alabama in a crazy game I totally didn’t watch and Rob Gronkoswki got knocked out for the year. Baseball free agency in nine words: Jacoby to Yankees, Cano to Mariners, Prince to Texas. Anchorman 2 comes out this week and some great movies after that. Ron Burgandy has been everywhere and I’m totally fine with it. Lesson learned in December: selfies are cool if you’re in middle school, not cool if you’re President.
Happy New Year.
Top Photo: New York Times
Categories: 2013, Looking Back at 2013
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