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The New Year
by Mike
January 4, 2003

Did anyone notice that another year is gone? It just sailed by like a light breeze, a little warm, but nothing hanging on, nothing substantial.

Two-zip-zip-two was a hell of a year for me. The breeze that brushed against my psyche knocked me over, knocked me down and then picked me back up again and sailed me off on another adventure.

What I remember…

Well we have been on the verge of war now for more than a year. Just how stressful is that to us on a daily basis? I mean we don’t really talk about it, oh maybe occasionally but if there was research done, what effect does it have on us on some sub-conscious level?

We spent an entire year hearing all the hype on how the economy was getting better, oh no, wait, it’s failing, oh there we go, it’s ok again, oops, it’s the holidays and no one is going out and buying anything and as a result the whole year is considered a bust. I think if you asked those who are having trouble getting jobs or holding onto the jobs they have, the year was a bust way before the holidays reared their ugly commercial heads. All the analysis in the world isn’t putting a paycheck in a lot of people’s pockets. Stop it with the fluff. We are in trouble.

Of course now all the intellectuals of the information clover leaf freeway to Dante’s Inferno will now rant and rave about how evil the holidays are and how the meaning of these holidays have been lost. Does anyone really think that holidays have meaning anyway? It’s habit, repetition, sales, retail, manufactured feelings and stress related diseases.

I think we should start the campaign right now on doing away with all this ridiculous commercialism of the holidays and continue that sentiment throughout the year. We have much more important things to worry about, or be happy about, for that matter than what little Georgie is going to give us or get for Christmas two-zip-zip-three.

Cable was a vast wasteland of top tens and biographies. If you are a cable junkie you are now completely informed on every celebrity who is dead, living, great or ridiculous. We were once again privy to the top twelve hundred one hit wonders of all time. The life story of Don Knotts, which I thoroughly enjoyed but I’m betting I am only one of two, maybe three and alas, the madness of the talk shows was taken to a new level of disgrace and shame.

We were taken back to the top forty big hair bands of the eighties who are all ashamed of the fact that they were a big hair band at all, well except for Warrant, they seem to be happy with their success.

Ozzie Osborne is known in heavy metal families as well as in damn near every family in America now. Wasn’t he considered Satan just a few years ago?

And of course, who can forget Anna Nicole Smith. I sit and watch these shows and wonder if they have any idea of just how much they look like trailer trash. Trailer trash with money, but trailer trash all the same.

Politics didn’t disappoint the cynics. Politics just gets weirder and more surrealistic every year and I can predict without any worries that two-zip-zip-three will be another banner year of some idiot politician saying something stupid which makes us all stop just long enough to go, “Hey, have we evolved at all?”

Last year for me on a personal level brought me closer to loved ones and family. I was also brought face to face with that demonic stage of life called mid-life crisis. Yes, there was a couple years ago when I was trying to call this mid-life celebration but that was before I found myself right smack dab in the middle of the belly of the beast. You know, when you wake up in the middle of the night sweating and unable to breath wondering if you have done or accomplished anything of any worth or value and convincing yourself that you haven’t how the hell you can change anything so that it might be different come two-zip-zip-four.

Alas
Mike