Tagged: New Year’s Eve
New Year’s Eh..
Oh Jeez…another New Year’s Eve. I’ve written previously about my quickie foray to Times Square as 1969 turned to 1970. This time around I’m looking at nursing my recently repaired left knee and reveling in the fact that Kathy Griffin won’t be on my TV screen. My son will be asleep. My wife’s away on family business. So my New Year’s Eve kiss will be the oversized Hershey variety I received for Christmas/Hanukkah/old guy sympathy.
It sounds lonely but it’s not. We long ago gave up getting blitzed at some bar or party to usher in the next solar circumvention. Besides, I personally also celebrate the new year on Rosh Hashanna in the fall. As Mindy Kaling once aptly put it, “Jews, pick a new year. You don’t get two!” I wasn’t alone for the start of the year 57 bajillion, so I’m good.
The more I think about, the more I’d prefer to celebrate the Vernal Equinox as winter transitions to spring. That’s when things really start to warm up, the bulbs start to sprout, baseball season begins, the snow is melted and reveals the small kid stuck in a drift since February but didn’t cry because it’s fun to drink snow and pee in it, and the gardening departments at the home improvement stores really start smelling like soil, fertilizer and lawn equipment. It also seems to be the time workers at one large home improvement chain finally launder their orange vests and dig the dried up glue out of their pockets…and fingernails.
Sure, people won’t gather in drunken mobs to watch a bag of Scott’s Turf Builder drop to mark the change of seasons, and no one would stay up late to watch Dick Clark’s Vernal Equinox Dripping Eaves, but I’d definitely get in line at the stroke of midnight to take advantage of the coupon I receive every year for a free mower blade sharpening.
Now I understand our culture sees the turn of the year as a way to celebrate the new hope of the 365 or 6 days to come, but then at the end of them it seems all we do is look back at all the famous people who died some time during those days. Nice to remember them but it gets a bit depressing. I admit, when I see those lists, there are some who died earlier in the year I forgot about, but then I’m bummed all over again once I’m reminded. I’m sure when they died they received adequate media coverage. Isn’t that enough? In the spirit of hope for the new year, maybe find an actuary who can estimate how many new lives will begin, and better yet, how many newborns won’t grow up to be reality show personalities or cable TV talking heads.
No, looking back isn’t for me at all. I lived it. I dealt with it. I’m done with it. As the great pitcher Satchel Paige astutely advised, “don’t look back. something might be gaining on you.” With my newly repaired knee, I’m moving as fast as I can…and I’m not looking back. Happy New Year to you all..spring’s just around the corner.
If the Ball Drop…Stopped
I’m not one for looking back at the outgoing year and not naïve enough to think I can predict what will happen in the incoming trip around the sun. What I do spend a lot of time thinking about is that 60 second period between the Times Square ball starting its descent and the moment it hits bottom marking the new year. It’s the purgatory of time. I call it New Years Eve-entually. Yeah, sure, the old year is in its final seconds but let’s face it, you said sayonara to that after seeing the first promo for Kathy and Anderson’s Obnoxin’ Eve. The new year isn’t quite there but that’s where your head is. So what thoughts do you cram into those 60 seconds as the old year dies and the new one’s head is popping through?
Here’s my list:
1-I know New Year’s Rockin’ Eve is pre-recorded which makes it more horrifying that someone at the network could view it first and still air the program.
2-If Donald Trump is elected President I’m glad he’s still not married to Marla Maples because that’s an OK name for a Sesame Street character or someone from Vermont, but not for a First Lady
3-Is the guy standing next to me smoking a joint or do his clothes naturally smell like a decomposing stoat?
4-Why don’t they ever make the Times Square ball look like a butt so when it reaches bottom it looks like it’s sitting down?
5-I would like to begin all staff meetings with 3 minutes of thumb wrestling
6-What if the Earth became bored with orbiting the Sun and spent 2016 making the circuit of Bed, Bath and Beyonds? I’d like that because I have about 50 of those 20 percent off coupons.
6a-Will a certain singer take over store chain listed above and change the name to Bed, Bath and Beyonce?
7-If you hug Eminem too tightly, would he melt in your hands?
8-Scientists reveal the syndrome known as “affluenza” is really a strain of “assholyness.”
9-It would be more fun if hurricanes were named after farm animals. Wouldn’t you love to see the headline, “Hurricane Hog Slops Across East Coast.”? “Hurricane Chicken Gooses Bahamas.” ?
10-Time’s almost up. How fun would it be if the ball got stuck an inch from the bottom leaving us temporarily parked between the past and the future meaning we’d live in the “now”, enjoying the “moment,” savoring it, without regrets about what we’ve already done or frets about what’s to come? That’s the way to start a happy new year!
Happy New Year to all of you!
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