Sure, there is still more than a week left before we find ourselves (as in, ‘Hey, look, how we find ourselves in 2024!’) in the New Year. But hoping to get a jump on things, it seemed the time was perfect to scribble off this little blog to wish whoever is reading this (if anyone is, beyond the folks I force-email these blog posts to) a healthy, happy and safe new year…and beyond. And as is typical when writing these kinds of posts, a little look back at the past year might prove fun and even educational.
Then again, it probably won’t.
So, there you have it; enjoy 2024.
Ok, I’m joking …well, not really. But for the sake of having to try and make this blog post wordy enough to be picked up by Google search engines, I will try and give forth a bit on bite-size nuggets of substance concerning the news of the past year. I warn you, though, it was a deep dive from my perspective trying to find anything even slightly worth writing about.
And below I only write very slightly indeed about any of it.
I’ll admit here and now that I am not conversant enough in politics to even try to figure out what invasion, ridiculous political hack, party, or policy, nationwide or globally impactive makes the grade for any kind of comment. All that news kind of all morphs, mixes, and matches into the same old screed after a time for me: some country is invading another because they feel it is their right, either from their geo-political standpoint or their God told them they should; some political party or party head feels they are better than the other and any opposition is seen as dangerous; somebody knew has got ‘cancelled’ for something they twatted or that their little band of brothers or sisters has protested about. Have at it, I say. It all seems to come down to just another chance for this person or that to bloviate. I dare opine that 2024, even with a supposedly important U.S. election looming, will turn out, as old Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend said so long ago in a “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss,” result.
If you want a deeper dove into the above, go here: These Are the Top Global Stories to Watch in 2023 | TIME. They seem to have a lot to say on the world-view.
Yes, I know AI is on everybody’s minds, but fear it, love it, or lay low under it, as I am wont to do (yes, I am a lazy slug), it’s gonna be what it’s gonna be since we all got us here. Careful what you wish for? I have no idea, but I can tell you, ain’t much we can do about it now, Ringo. And even if we could, we wouldn’t anyway.
Film, music, streaming shows, books? Yeah, I guess there was some fun stuff released, and more might be coming (got to give The Rolling Stones their due, at the very least, and the popularity of old Taylor Swift can’t be denied), but really, in the end, the most I got was a tickle, nothing that will sustain me like a Brain Salad Surgery does or some Bradbury shorts. I guess it was nice to see Margot Robbie wearing pink; she’s a pretty lass to look at.
I guess my biggest takeaway, a few years now after a supposed pandemic, is that we haven’t really changed all that much in how we treat one another. And if anything strikes me as kind of important beyond the health of the one’s I care most about, it is indeed how we treat one another. But in 2023 I was reminded how narcissism is becoming more of a dangerous disease than COVID ever could, and pretty much I have given up caring that nobody cares. Really, who the hell am I to get in anybody else’s lane? “You do you…just don’t f with me” is the mantra I have been living for the past decade or so and the best I think we can hope for in 2024. And if indeed this is narcissism of a kind on my part, slogging off my fellows as inconsiderate naked chimps who haven’t really evolved to any real degree, well…I don’t give a rat’s dingus.
(Rat’s dingus, $4.50 a pound, right now, on sale at Shop Rite.)
I do wish you all a happy and healthy 2024, though. I’ll give you that much.
See you in the funny papers.
Happy New Year Ralph!