Monday, January 2, 2017

POSTMORTEM: BAGGING AND TAGGING 2016

It's late December as I start writing this and we're coming up on all that Auld Lang Syne nonsense that helps us compartmentalize our lives into digestible blocks of time for posterity or whatever. Bag and tag it, it's done.
I'm probably competing with every sentient being in the Western World in my commentary on 2016, and yeah, yeah, I know, it was awful, eighty billion celebrities died and now we're all supposed to be mad at those tricky Russians who (allegedly) rigged our election by proving that the Democrats were unethical and rigged their primary. Or something to that effect. But I'm going to put another spin on it, and my grumpy ass is gonna be nice for a change.
2016, for me, was actually a pretty good year....I think that the jumping off point for me is that I tend to evaluate what happened over the course of a year by what I did, what I accomplished and so on. As such, I really liked 2016. I got to go back east and visit family members, some of whom I hadn't seen in a decade, some of whom I may never see again. I got to record vocals for my old band and we're going to release the damn thing as an album (Look out, everybody). Exciting new friendships happened, bonds were forged and I got to act in a movie. Rounding out the year, I got to help plan my first solo show as a visual artist.

 
My wife got to attend this kickass film festival in New York, she got to meet lots of longtime friends face-to-face for the first time and she solidified some new friendships; she appeared in a horror anthology and did her first-ever book signing; she got named music and culture editor for DIABOLIQUE, appeared on eighty bazillion podcasts and got involved in a whole slew of projects that will see the light of day in the coming months.
We're counting our blessings, because there've been quite a few.
Most people were bothered by the seemingly endless list of celebrity deaths this past year and yeah---we lost some heroes and some muses, to the point where a lot of folks were crying, “2016, stop killing people!” To me, 2015 was worse on that front, and I may have been yelling that a bit last year because we lost actual family and friends. My cousin gave me the best reality check ever when he told me, “shit happens, people die and I don't really assign blame to years for that.” And I may have lost an aunt that year, but he lost a mother---so if anyone was able to make that call, it was him. 
I was made aware, over the last week or two, of the condition called Apophenia, which is the tendency to perceive meaningful patterns within random data, e.g., to perceive patterns where there are none. It's a human condition----we all do it from time to time. This won't be the last time I mention it. Years aren't predatory entities....they don't actively hunt and kill people. I think I learned that in 9th grade Biology.
For the most part, of course, few if any of us actually believe that. We're talking figuratively---I just got tired of the figurative talk back in February or March.
As for celebrities? We miss who we miss, but celebrities have been dying since there were celebrities, and you can expect that to continue.
 
And yeah, the election was a dumpster fire, but they all are, realistically. I'm no fan of the loud orange guy, but I got through Nixon, Reagan, both Bushes, Clinton pushing through NAFTA, GATT and the Telecommunications Act and repealing Glass-Steagall, Obama flushing Habeas Corpus down the toilet....we got this. My hope for all my lefty-liberal friends in the coming four years is that they'll all have a common Boogeyman, which will be nice-----'cause every time Uncle Barack messes with civil liberties they seem to conveniently ignore it....so that's something to look forward to. 

 
So we're walking into 2017 without negativity and hoping the seeds we've sewn bear some awesome fruit. Wishing peace, joy, action and prosperity for alla you and yours.

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:
TYPE O NEGATIVE-Bloody Kisses
TYPE O NEGATIVE-World Coming Down
RUSH-R40
RICK AND MORTY-Various Episodes