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.
TYPE O NEGATIVE-Bloody Kisses
TYPE O NEGATIVE-World Coming Down
RUSH-R40
RICK AND MORTY-Various Episodes
