You otter know it's 2024!
Larry David & Joe Burrow help us ring in the year!
Happy New Year, Otters! I believe Larry David has a rule where you have to stop wishing a happy new year to people after January 3. Today is January 6. Whatever. It’s fine.
(I really need to re-subscribe to Crave and binge watch Curb Your Enthusiasm. This maybe isn’t the hottest take of all time or anything, but I personally think that Seinfeld is the greatest show ever. So then I guess by that logic Curb Your Enthusiasm is therefore the 2nd greatest show of all time.)
ANYWAYS. What I was trying to say was thank you to all of you wonderful Otters for making subscribing to and regularly reading Things You Otter Know one of your new year resolutions for 2024!
Oh.
It wasn’t?
Well. It is now.
I’m just going to throw in a bunch of Larry David GIFs to make up most of the remainder of this post. It’s my Substack, after all, let me do what I want.
I’m excited to finally return to my usual programming on Things You Otter Know. The song and album recaps were pretty sick, not gonna lie, but now we get to turn the page on a totally fresh new year and I am choosing to be an optimist about that.
I told you one of my new years resolutions (I have many, sadly, and half of them have already been broken, and it’s January 6th) was to send something out every week. So expect lots of sports talk and music stuff and Significant Otters and complaining and shenanigans. You know. The usual. The stuff you subscribed for.
I know we’re three years into this thing and you’d think I’d pick a niche by now. But I am SO not. I am nichless for the long haul. Deal with it.
How have y’all been? Figured I would tell you how I’ve been because that’s kind of the point of this Substack. LOL.
Like, I’ve effectively retired the column known as Damkeeping because I think for the time being every post I send out is going to consist of updates on my life. It’s the beginning of the year so nothing ginormous has happened in pop culture yet. But once Page 6 starts going, oh boy.
(Now THIS is what we call a GIF.)
Not sure if I mentioned this earlier but I’ve been off classes for the last little bit. I had a bunch of final papers for the semester to write but then once that was over (I honestly thought it was never going to be over) Christmas happened, and that in itself was busy.
But then once that was over I proceeded to do absolutely nothing other than read a bunch and watch inordinate amounts of college football. Let me tell you why.
First, the reading. I read a bunch because I wanted to hit my GoodReads goal of 52 books—and I actually achieved it! With, like, 5 hours to spare.
I had to read a ton of Jacques Derrida and Harryette Mullen and especially James Baldwin for one of my final papers. I swear I gained so many brain cells from that.
I also read a ton of poetry. It’s been a good while since I sat down with a collection and gave it the time and space and energy it deserved. But I’ve been poeming regularly again so that I have actual poems to include in my 35-page final portfolio I have to compile for that year-long writing workshop course I told you about a while ago. And I find that when I read a lot of poems, the poems I write end up feeling and sounding better. Who knew?
But yeah, I was devouring so many collections. Both Roger Reeves collections. Another two from Matthew Olzmann (who, it turns out, is brilliant). Four from Terrence Hayes. FOUR! And then, you know, Frank O’Hara, Alex Dimitrov, Adrienne Rich, all the faves. Reading for pleasure! What a beautiful thing.
And then there’s the college football portion of my winter break. I figure this one warrants more explanation. Some of you are probably scratching your head at this like wtf. I get it. But let me explain!
If you know me (and if you’ve read long enough, tbh you probably already do) you know I love sports. But before this collegiate season I was just a casual college fan. Growing up, I knew that Alabama and Clemson and Michigan and Georgia were good. I could tell you who was the #1 pick in the NFL draft that year and where they played in college and stuff. But that was about it.
I didn’t watch an actual game until the 2020 College Football Playoff. It was one of the semifinal games. Oklahoma vs LSU in the Peach Bowl. For context, these are two elite collegiate athletics programs.
Jogging onto the field and putting on his helmet (if you’ll allow me to break from the tradition of Larry David GIFs) is this mofo:
This is Joe Burrow. Then-QB for LSU, now-QB for the Cincinnati Bengals. Oh my LORD, this guy. First of all, this photo. INCREDIBLY badass. INCREDBLY hot. I fell in love instantly.
But then you watch him on the field. He throws SEVEN touchdowns. IN THE FIRST HALF. 493 passing yards total. This is Tim Tebow levels of college football sorcery.
Except Joe Burrow is the polar opposite of Tim Tebow. Joe Burrow has more swag in his pinky finger than Mr. Wannabe Pope has in his whole body.
All this to say that Burrow led LSU to win the National Championship! And then for some reason, even after learning who Burrow was, I didn’t watch another college football game until the start of this season.
It turns out TSN (the Canadian ESPN) airs a couple games every week. And so, because I have no life, I would tune in while I wrote my papers for university. And I got hooked.
So last week I watched both semifinal games, and then on Tuesday I’m going to drop everything and watch the National Championship, and then later next week you will be getting a post from me all about it.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and if you’re going back to school next week, just know that I know how you feel, because I’m also going back next week, and I send you my condolences.