leftovers

This was a difficult year! While I heard so much good music this year, it was very hard to look back and try to organize and rank what I heard. I had to actually wrack my brain and scour the Internet for other top songs of 2009 lists to make sure I wasn't leaving anything out. I still reserve the right to change things later! I'll start off with my "honorable mentions" which go to three very different gay boys who all had big years in 2009. First, my friend Bradley has been working on his forthcoming album from which this song is from: "Rock Hard" - Swivek . I know he has been putting so much work into this album and he asked me to direct the music video for this song, which I am still working on. In addition, I also did a remix of the track, so look for that early in 2010. Another remix I worked on was for the next song: "Bottom Your Way to the Top" - Logan Lynn . I had seen one of Logan's videos ("Feed Me to the Wolves")

So this decade, which hasn't really gotten a proper name that everyone agrees on yet, is about to draw to a close... and what a decade it's been. I was born at the tail end of the 70's and consider the 80's my "childhood" (it's the decade from which most of the music and movies I love come from) although the 90's were host to my high school and college years. But what about this decade? Well, it was my 20's and the first 10 years I spent in Los Angeles. A lot happened and I think that, in the future, I will look back on this decade very fondly. The end of a year is always a time to reminisce and take stock. This has been a good year. I liked it. It was the year I traveled to Boston and reunited with my good friend Courtney and met her husband, Tyler. My band's third album was finally released after a long and arduous process which forever changed the band. 2009 ended with an amazing holiday vacation to Maui with my parents and siblings.

I'm not one of those alleged left-wing Christmas haters, but this time of year is full of mixed emotions for me. Of course, I love the holiday season and the festive atmosphere and decorations, and spending time with friends and family. As a recovering former christian myself, I have years worth of fond memories of Christmas and traditions that I'm glad to have, but in recent years I've grown to despise some aspects of December 25th, namely the commercialism and the Christians who continually try to shove their religious preferences down everyone else's throats. My thoughts about the holidays were brilliantly portrayed on two of my favorite sitcoms last week, so I wanted to share those instead of going off on some rant of my own, because truly if nothing else, this time of year should be an occasion for all of us to celebrate each other and respect our differences, coming together in love and hope. On ABC's "Modern Family," Jay, the patriarch of the fami