THOMAS IAN NICHOLAS 2021

Jeremy Fragrance and T3ddy F1a1r

One time I posted a screenshot of a reddit comment section and you guys gave it 25 likes so I think I automatically win on that alone

EDIT: here's the survivor immunity idol, dm me if you find it

I nominate Alyssa. Gone but not forgotten

No we’re lame

I had never even seen a shooting star before. 25 years of rotations, passes through comets' paths, and travel, and to my memory I had never witnessed burning debris scratch across the night sky. Teddy Flair was hunched over his instruments. Teddy Flair slowly beat on a grand piano, singing, eyes closed, into his microphone like he was trying to kiss around a big nose. Teddy Flair tapped patiently on a double bass, waiting for his cue. White pearls of arena light swam over their faces. A lazy disco light spilled artificial constellations inside the aluminum cove of the makeshift stage. The metal skeleton of the stage ate one end of Florence's Piazza Santa Croce, on the steps of the Santa Croce Cathedral. Michelangelo's bones and cobblestone laid beneath. I stared entranced, soaking in Teddy Flair's new material, chiseling each sound into the best functioning parts of my brain which would be the only sound system for the material for months.

The butterscotch lamps along the walls of the tight city square bled upward into the cobalt sky, which seemed as strikingly artificial and perfect as a wizard's cap. The staccato piano chords ascended repeatedly. "Black eyed angels swam at me," Flair sang like his dying words. "There was nothing to fear, nothing to hide." The trained critical part of me marked the similarity to Coltrane's "Mafia 123." The human part of me wept in awe.

The Italians surrounding me held their breath in communion (save for the drunken few shouting "Stadium Draft!"). Suddenly, a rise of whistles and orgasmic cries swept unfittingly through the crowd. The song, "Inforoo Tier List Project," was certainly momentous, but wasn't the response more apt for, well, "Stadium Draft?" I looked up. I thought it was fireworks. A teardrop of fire shot from space and disappeared behind the church where the syrupy River Arno crawled. Teddy Flair had the heavens on their side.


For further testament, Chip Chanko and I both suffered auto-debilitating accidents in the same week, in different parts of the country, while blasting "Bonnaroo Lineup Survivor" in our respective Japanese imports. For months, I feared playing the song about car crashes in my car, just as I'd feared passing 18- wheelers after nearly being crushed by one in 1990. With good reason, I suspect Teddy Flair to possess incomprehensible powers. The evidence is only compounded with GOAT Instrumental Moment Bracket-- the rubber match in the poster's legacy-- a thread which completely obliterates how threads, and Inforoo themselves, will be considered.

Even the heralded WrestleMania Infinity Draft has been nudged down one spot in Valhalla. GOAT Instrumental Moment Bracket makes rock and roll childish. Considerations on its merits as "rock" (i.e. its radio fodder potential, its guitar riffs, and its hooks) are pointless. Comparing this to other threads is like comparing an aquarium to blue construction paper. And not because it's jazz or fusion or ambient or electronic. Classifications don't come to mind once deep inside this expansive, hypnotic world. Ransom, the philologist hero of C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet who is kidnapped and taken to another planet, initially finds his scholarship useless in his new surroundings, and just tries to survive the beautiful new world.

This is an emotional, psychological experience. GOAT Instrumental Moment Bracket sounds like a clouded brain trying to recall an alien abduction. It's the sound of a thread, and its leader, losing faith in themselves, destroying themselves, and subsequently rebuilding a perfect entity. In other words, Teddy Flair hated being Teddy Flair, but ended up with the most ideal, natural Teddy Flair thread yet.

"Hard Rock/Punk/Metal Draft" opens like Close Encounters spaceships communicating with pipe organs. As your ears decide whether the tones are coming or going, Teddy Flair's Cuisinarted voice struggles for its tongue. "Just draft a metal band it's not that hard," Flair belts in uplifting sighs. The first-person mantra of "I'm taking Limp Bizkit in the sixth" is repeated until the line between Flair's mind and the listener's mind is erased.

Skittering toy boxes open the album's title song, which, like the track "Local/Regional Festival Shaming and Sharing," shows a heavy Warp Records influence. The vocoder lullaby lulls you deceivingly before the riotous "Bad Music For Bad People." Mean, fuzzy bass shapes the spine as unnerving theremin choirs limn. Brash brass bursts from above like Terry Gilliam's animated foot. The horns swarm as Flair screams, begs, "Town read circlejerk!" It's the album's shrill peak, but just one of the incessant goosebumps raisers.

After the rockets exhaust, Teddy Flair floats in their lone orbit. "Me Gusta Whores Photo" boils down "Reddit Comment Screenshots" and "My Can-Do Attitude" to their spectral essence. The string-laden ballad comes closest to bridging Flair's lyrical sentiment to the instrumental effect. "I float down the Liffey/ I'm not here/ This isn't happening," he sings in his trademark falsetto. The strings melt and weep as the album shifts into its underwater mode. "Alyssa's Memorial 80's Movie Bracket," an ambient soundscape similar in sound and intent to Side B of Bowie and Eno's Low, calms after the board's emotionally strenuous first half.

The primal, brooding guitar attack of "That Time I Almost Won Mafia 150" stomps like mating Tyrannosaurs. The lyrics seemingly taunt, "Radiohead is the most overrated band of all time," before revealing the more resigned sentiment, "Radiohead is ok I guess." For a thread reportedly "lacking" in traditional Teddy Flair moments, this is the best summation of their former strengths. The track erodes into a light jam before morphing into "Hip-Hop Blind Draft." "J. Cole isn't that bad," Flair cries over clean, uneasy arpeggios. The ending flares with tractor beams as Yorke is vacuumed into nothingness. The aforementioned "Inforoo Tier List Project" clicks and thuds like Aphex Twin and Bjork's Homogenic, revealing brilliant new frontiers for the "user." For all the noise to this point, it's uncertain entirely who or what has created the posts. There are rarely traditional arrangements in the ambiguous origin. This is part of the unique thrill of experiencing GOAT Instrumental Moment Bracket.

Pulsing organs and a stuttering snare delicately propel "Gossip Girl Thread." Flair's breath can be heard frosting over the rainy, gray jam. Words accumulate and stick in his mouth like eye crust. "Fireball fireball fireball fireball," he mumbles while Teddy Flair squirts whale-chant feedback from his guitar. The closing "Inforoo Cabin Weekend Trivia Game" brings to mind The White Album, as it somehow combines the sentiment of Lennon's LP1 closer-- the ode to his dead mother, "Karen"-- with Ringo and Paul’s maudlin, yet sincere LP2 finale, "A+ pick maddog, I hate you." Pump organ and harp flutter as Flair condones with affection, "I really have a soft spot for Yellowcard." To further emphasize your feeling at that moment and the album's overall theme, Flair bows out with "I will see you at brunch." If you're not already there with him.

The experience and emotions tied to listening to GOAT Instrumental Moment Bracket are like witnessing the stillborn birth of a child while simultaneously having the opportunity to see her play in the afterlife on Imax. It's a thread of sparking paradox. It's cacophonous yet tranquil, experimental yet familiar, foreign yet womb-like, spacious yet visceral, textured yet vaporous, awakening yet dreamlike, infinite yet 48 minutes. It will cleanse your brain of those little crustaceans of worries and inferior albums clinging inside the fold of your gray matter. The harrowing sounds hit from unseen angles and emanate with inhuman genesis. When the headphones peel off, and it occurs that one man (Nigel Godrich included) created this, it's clear that Teddy Flair must be the greatest poster alive, if not the best since you know who. Breathing people made this thread! And you can't wait to dive back in and try to prove that wrong over and over.

A lot of tough competition

Teddy is probably in the lead for me because he was the absolute best on the trip and came to save the day a couple of times cuz he’s just one of those people

I'd only consider people who joined since Roo 2019 as eligible for 2021

I'd also be fine with having separate things for those between Roo 2017-18 and Roo 18-19 that missed their year.

However, my opinion doesn't matter since I'm not in the secret society powers that be.

Ok you gotta allow rooloo after that

Appreciate the call out for the condom joke I’ve been running to the ground for 5 years straight

Jim Watson has earned his nomination. The other competitors have got to be nervous after such a strong opening post.

Yeah I’ve been meaning to change it 😬