Let’s Say Goodbye to 2010, Amongst Other Things

As the Gregorian calendar flips to a new year, I figure this is as good a time as any for us to affect some change.

With that, goodbye 2010. Also, goodbye to…

Bulls*** News Stories
This was, to be frank and brutally honest, an embarrassing year for local news. The amount of attention and coverage given in a year with an election and a recession to things like kids ringing doorbells and getting tackled in the streets by grown men was disgusting, and rather than express dismay the people of the Capital Region reveled in it. This was not news, this was nonsense. Shame on us all, especially those of us who cried that we wanted real change in November when all we wanted to talk about in June was petty monkey shines.

No Gay Marriage in New York State
Remember when New York was a progressive State that set the tone for the rest of the nation, rather than one that fought progress coming from elsewhere (Iowa even!) and would shun bigoted political hacks like Ruben Diaz? It wasn’t that long ago. Marriage Equality is long overdue. Let’s make it happen, and let’s see those politicians who tell their friends they think it should pass but can’t afford the political capital to grow some balls already.

No MMA in New York State
The arguments against this are…well, stupid. There’s no other word for it. And Bob Reilly’s the worst of the bunch, spouting off information he knows and has been told is factually inaccurate in a continued campaign against the sport. By the way, did you know that nobody in boxing had ever won a fight by knockout until the last ten years, and that now even boxing has degraded into a violent bloodsport? Well, that’s what Bob Reilly tells us anyway. Ridiculous, right? So’s the fact that MMA still isn’t legal in New York State.

Leggings
It’s gotten out of control. Some will say the shark got jumped when the fake denim leggings popped up, but really it happened the moment people who have no business wearing them started doing so…and without anything covering up, well…*shudder* Listen, I don’t walk around in half-shirts for a reason (as you saw at this year’s Santa Speedo Sprint). Let’s retire this fad already.

Auto-tuning
It’s gotten to the point where if I turn on any borderline CHR Top 40 station I’m assaulted with what sounds like a robot being beaten to death. You don’t need to have a great voice to make great music; just ask Tom Waits. You do, however, have to sound human. And not make my ears bleed.

Katy Perry
I felt terrible about the whole Sesame Street thing, which really was innocent enough and a controversy completely fabricated by sexually frustrated pedants. That said, her music is awful awful awful and I cringe every time she pops up in another Lady Gaga Lite outfit.

Jingoism
After a cessation in the last few years, brainless jingoism reared its ugly head again in 2010, putting personalities before principles and resulting in an epidemic of ignorant catchphrases and haphazard lending of the term “patriot,” all while anything resembling meaningful debate was shouted down by fat, deluded, pathetic, insecure man-children holding baseball bats. Now that the elections are over, it’s time for us to stop trying to re-write history, stop embracing anti-intellectualism, and start talking like big boys and girls again.

Julian Assange
Let the truth out! Well, here it is: the dude’s a creep with a God complex that talks in the third person. I’m all for transparency…to a degree. But man do I wish this wasn’t the guy to do it.

The words “epic,” “meh,” “FAIL!” and other Internet-speak
The use of these makes me want to scream. Yelling out “epic” and “fail!” doesn’t make you funny, it makes you look like a drooling idiot. Stop already! As for “meh,” there are ways to articulately express ambivalence and/or disapproval using real words. Why not try it?

The Recession
Let’s start making things again, let’s start supporting local business again, and let’s start building our new economic models and ideas instead of waiting for the old ones to somehow rise from the dead. Also…

Local Businesses Crying to the Media
Whether it’s the Troy Food Co-Op or the Judge’s Inn, this year saw a new trend of failing businesses crying to the media about how they’re not doing as well as they should. In one case, the Judge’s Inn, it resulted in their expected demise. In another, the owners had a sudden turnaround and said “actually, things are looking up, we just need to be patient and keep on keeping on.” There was a time when businesses thrived on how they presented themselves to the general public and owners didn’t blame customers for not coming to them (seriously!). The harsh reality is that running a business is hard work, and few failed in 2010 that couldn’t be directly attributed to incompetence and/or a poor work ethic.

Mis-Spellings in Local Advertisements
Folks, you don’t need to be Wordsworth to run a local business, but would it kill you to spellcheck or at least ask someone else in the shop what it means when a word has a red squiggly underline?

The Jersey Shore
It was fun while it lasted. Actually, it was fun for a season, then all of a sudden nobody was in on the joke anymore.

—

What’re you hoping to see gone with 2010?