I’m not sure how you rang in the New Year, but if it was anything like the way I did let me be the first to say, I’m sorry and there is always next year. Yes, if you’re like me New Years Eve always seems to turns out to be a big disappointment and this year was no different. Being that I tend to plan on a 36 hour time horizon, I failed to buy tickets in advance to the Future Rock show that I originally planned on attending. And Being that even when I do manage to figure out what I’m going to be doing more than ten minutes prior to doing so, I still just like to “go with the flow” the other Event I was planning on attending was also sold out when I arrived. Being the resourceful and mildly personable personality that I am, I had a back up plan, a punk rock party. Since punk had gone out of fashion, unlike house music, about twenty some odd years ago, I figured it was an infallible option. Unfortunately, some things are just beyond control, like the Chicago Police Department. The CPD are never a fun guest at a party. As they wrangled up the first group of underage kids to arrive and threw them in the paddy wagon, my friend and I hung our heads in despair. There was only one option left. I had been invited to another party. One I didn’t want to attend, though there was guaranteed to be many girls there.
So my friend and I mounted our bikes and rode off to the party, the lesbian party. When we arrived everyone seemed confused. They eyed us suspiciously. “Who do you know here?” an assertive female voice demanded.
“Eh? Jessica.” I said naming the friend of the roommate of the house who I was better acquainted with.
“Uhh… there’s no Jessica here!” another snidely countered. I knew she was there I had just gotten off the phone with her. However, you don’t contradict a testy Sapphic princess in her own house.
“Well what about Tiffany?” Immediately all doubt was erased from their faces.
“Oh she’s up in her room. Come here I will show you.” Said one of the guests. The scene in Tiffany’s room was a bit depressing. Besides being led up and away from the party like a patient placed in quarantine Jessica’s and her boyfriend had broken up just two nights ago. Whiskey was the answer. We all drank deeply. The highlight of the night occurred just after twelve. We went on the roof and screamed profanities and love songs. Then we went down to the party to exploit some Champaign. Soon though the bubbly, whisky, and beer proved to potent drunkenness and I can’t recall some of the surely more terrible and hilarious moments of the evening. I woke up on the masonite flooring in Tiffany’s room thinking wow that night went by really quick.
Though I’ve never been good at big events or holidays, I have a theory that New Years Eve is a big fat disappointment waiting to happen for most of us. We try to end the year with a bang, even though we could say the year starts for on January 26 instead, like the Chinese. Either way though we will hype the celebration so thoroughly that few if any real experiences can live up to it. For example even if I had the money to go to Playboys Party at the W. I still probably wouldn’t end up hanging out with any playmates unless I was a V.I.P. But then I would be disappointed if I didn’t bring one home.
Another example is my other friend who attended a Black Keys concert on New Years Eve. He is a huge fan and has liked the Black Keys since they were just gaining a little traction with Thickfreakness. Unfortunately for him they only played a short hour and half long set. Not only that, but he had to share the experience with a bunch of people who didn’t have the same enthusiasm for the band as he did. Also, the girls in his party were obscenely drunk. The point isn’t only that the expectations are set to high and no matter what New Years Eve is going to be a disappointment, but also that magical forces come together on New Years to make sure it sucks. I think these forces are due to the fact that were celebrating something that doesn’t deserve celebration.
Think about it on New Years people celebrate finishing one year and starting another. So we’re celebrating being done and starting over, but nothing has actually ended or started. Instead of looking back over the last twelve months and taking an honest look at how we spent our time, we rubber stamp them and move on to next year, the next big movie, the next gadget, the next pop star, the next party ect. We say were going to do things differently. We have resolutions and make pacts with our friends about losing weight or quitting smoking. But do we actually stop and think why it is we want to do these things. Or are they just accepted as good, and that’s that. So in the spirit of reevaluation I turn to some of the dominant themes of 2009 and Make some predictions about 2010.
Health Care
In the face of the “Great Recession” the congress has been completely enraptured in Health Care reform for the last year. Though I doubt know much about our current health care system, I do know that the all the attention paid towards fixing it has left our banking system unregulated and poised for another crash. So when the next depression hits at least we will all have health care provided that the senate and house can hammer out an agreement before then. Even when they do I predict will be such an amalgamation of special interest provisions and political compromises that Health Care system in this country will remain broken for years to come.
The funniest thing to come out the health care debate was blue-collar schmucks who were terrified that Obama was trying to turn America into a communist country. Most hilariously pathetic were the people on Medicare and social security telling the government to stay out of their lives. Oh if only they picked up a book once in a while maybe they wouldn’t be so stupid. The thing I am sure we won’t see in 2010: some one with a national audience asking if its right that health care is a for profit industry in the first place. Should a sick person be at the mercy of a capitalist enterprise when trying to get well? Is it right to make money off of other peoples sicknesses? Of course some jackass is out there screaming the free market does it better! But do that jackasses know that the pharmaceutical industry spends twice as much convincing you that you need their drugs as it does developing them?
Holy shit, can we please stop talking about it? It’s a website that allows people to post short message that then get relayed to their “followers” cell phones via text message. This technological marvel impressed the hell out of ever media outlet in the U.S. in 2009. The media, not surprisingly, attributed some sort of hyper significance to “tweeting.” Sounding like a smart phone commercial the media often probed as to whether twitter was a true information technology revolution that would bring us all closer together into and the interwoven digital network of virtual society… or if it was just a bunch of bullshit. Meanwhile people in the suburbs still don’t talk to their neighbors and I am sick of idiotic celebrities 140 characters or less anecdotes about where they are currently shopping or eating at. My prediction is that in 2010 the media will finally stop pretending that twitter is an awesome tool to foster greater interconnectedness when Obama accidently tweets on the toilet “Oh mama that’s stinky… you can really smell the egg fu young from last night” only meaning to text Joe Biden who secretly shares his sick, disgusting sense of humor. At that moment the media will realize that some things are better kept amongst small circles.
Sustainability
Everyone from businesses to governments has been talking about sustainability. It’s the magic word that charms and amazes without ever being defined or contextualized. Massive oil companies can continue to drill and spill millions of gallons of crude each year as long as they remind us that they are also looking for sustainable sources of energy. Governments are legislating sustainable stimulus packages that will borrow us out of over indebtedness. For all the talk of sustainability there has been little action. We still source our Nikes and Hanes from the poorest nations in the world. Investment Banks and Hedge Funds still can make un-collateralized financial innovations. Two wars still rage on in the Middle East with both sides sustainably firing millions and millions of rounds per year. The corpracotracy still is dependent on consumers buying consumption goods throwing them out only to run out and do it all over again. It seems the only thing we are sustaining is our propensity for bullshit and hypocrisy. I predict that half way through 2010 “sustainability” will be dropped for a new buzzword because people in the media will realize how oxymoronic it is to talk about sustainable pollution practices. Of course our pollution practice are sustainable. I bet it is exponentially sustainable. I bet we can turn out more trash each year for at least another thirty years! My three guesses for the buzzword to replace sustainability are proportionable, torrentially, and snowballity. I can here Katie Couric now, “But Ms. Speaker how is this program going compensate for the lack of snowballity we’ve seen with other like programs?”
Lady Gaga
Why Lady Gaga? Because Gwen Stefani is getting old and just isn’t weird enough any more. In this post post modern world we need our pop starts to be weird, really weird. We don’t have flying cars yet and that just pisses us off. So we need a futurist gothic sexually ambiguous pop star with an immense capacity for babble to distract us. In this day and age of euphemism were so sick of hearing dribble that is supposed to mean something, we’re just dying for dribble that doesn’t mean anything at all, just words with no underlying idea or concept behind them. Ga Ga Rah Rah Rah, Ga Ga Rah Rah Rah because thinking is just too damn hard. And, I mean everything has been said before, so why not just make some shit up. I predict in 2010 that Ms. Gaga and Lindsey Lohan will elope and then make a sex tape. Then get divorced and become more famous than ever. The sex tape will likely feature techno-bondage, some mild bestiality, and plenty of incomprehensible babble.
That is my reconsideration of the biggest themes from 2009 and how the fate of these fads will play out in 2010. Thanks for reading. Happy Fucking New Year.
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