MAGICAL MILESTONES (THAT YOU MAY OR MAY NOT CARE ABOUT)

Nostalgia is a ridiculously huge market; it seems like I can't turn around without someone reminding me of some anniversary of something, and providing a link where I can buy my memory back. Therefore here are a bunch of milestones you may have had forced down your throat this month, along with some that only I care about.

5 years ago: I got LASIK laser eye surgery (2/14/2002). Okay, it's not exactly five years ago, but I was reminded about it because I just had a checkup last week.

10 years ago: Jeff Buckley died at the age of 30 (5/29/1997), tragically drowning while taking a break from working on his second studio album.

12 years ago: I saw the aforementioned Jeff Buckley live in concert for the first time (6/1/1995), opening for Juliana Hatfield, of all people, at Tradewinds in Sea Bright, NJ. After he was done the crowd was still buzzing about his performance; perhaps sensing that he may have upstaged Juliana's set, Jeff jumped onstage during "Universal Heartbeat" and pumped his fists and dove off the stage to wake up the crowd.

15 years ago: I graduated from Villanova University (5/31/1992). Man, that was a long time ago.

20 years ago: I saw U2 on the Joshua Tree Tour, at the Brendan Byrne Meadowlands Arena, section 234, row 17 (5/16/1987). They also had the #1 single in the land that week, "With Or Without You". My friend Phil reminded me of this, as I drove us all to the show in my giant black 1975 Chevy Monte Carlo. The tickets were $16.50. (Ha!)

30 years ago: Star Wars was released (5/27/1977). Even though I was only 7 years old, I vaguely remember seeing it over the summer at the Leavitt Theater in Ogunquit, Maine. It's a shame that Lucas had to go make those 3 sh!tty prequel movies to ruin the franchise forever. I heard there was some massive geekfest out in California to mark the occasion, but I prefer this video from 5 years ago, where Triumph the Insult Comic Dog takes on the geeks on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, May 2002.


"Here's a spoiler: you will die alone." Classic.

40 years ago: The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (in the US on 6/2/1967). Though I wasn't alive for this, my dad played this album quite a lot when I was a youngster to the point where I know it backwards and forwards. BBC has some interesting stuff about this classic album on their BBC Radio 2 site. (Oasis are Beatles fans? Shocking!)