Positive Cynicism – Observances for the coming observances

Aaron R. Davis

The Late December Holiday Mash-Up is nearly upon us, and the orgy of corporate-mandated Good Cheer that comes with it, and I want to wish you all a safe and happy season of whatever the season means to you personally and will offend you the least.

I wish you good tidings and a pause to ill news. I wish you a lack of long lines and a decent parking space. I wish you less awkwardness than ever when dealing with your families, especially if you’re interesting enough to have found your own identity in spite of how you were raised.

May all of your technology work the way it’s supposed to for a change. If you have to contact a call center, I wish you help instead of belligerence, and an actual human voice instead of a goddamn recording.

I hope we all learn to drive for a change in 2012. No more of the dozens of daily car accidents we take for granted because we assume people are too stupid to pay attention when cars are trying to merge during rush hour. Seriously, people, pay attention to where you’re going. Oh, and people in Mini Coopers, I know you have a tiny little car, but that doesn’t give you license to weave in and out of traffic constantly like you’re zipping around in a goddamn Vespa. Seriously, what is wrong with you people? You still have to obey the rules of the road. And why the hell are you driving a Mini Cooper, anyway? Look at your life, look at your choices.

Um … I mean … may we all learn to forgive others, and ourselves.

I wish more Muppets for the world in 2012.

I wish us actual good movies again.

May Steven Spielberg finally make a movie that isn’t about penis or how creepily magical little boys are, may Pixar make a movie that isn’t a giant allegory for sexual dysfunction and may Hollywood finally relent and finance some Terry Gilliam movies, since almost every popular movie ever has just been ripping the man off. Alright, maybe I’m too hard on everyone; it’s mostly joking, guys. Except for the boy thing, Spielberg, what the hell? AI was like a damn NAMBLA ad.

May Michael Bay never make another movie again and instead travel the world making explosions that help mankind somehow.

I wish some kind of happiness for the people who lost Community only to get a freaking Chelsea Handler sitcom instead. I wish some serious perspective for NBC. I hope Kate Beckett and Richard Castle finally get together, already; seriously, you’re running out of excuses to keep them apart that aren’t just straight trolling the audience. May all of our sweeps weeks contain something worth watching that isn’t all gimmicky.

May Kat Dennings get everything she wants forever until the end of time, because she is perfect and I love her.

May we each win $20,000 in contests we didn’t even know we entered and that don’t turn out to be scams. May all scammers and people who create viruses drop dead from massive coronary episodes that create immense pain. And may they be revived, only to feel every artery harden, then feel their brains shut down and then finally die once again as the people they victimized kick them repeatedly. And this isn’t a one-day thing, oh no, this goes on for like a week, with one artery hardening at a time, and one synapse in the brain shorting out. Yeah, yeah, and then they have to relive all of their most painful moments, like when their dogs died or that creepy guy with the shed next door touched them inappropriately, and then they overload on the pain, but they can’t even become unconscious or numb to it, they just have to sit there and take it all in, just feel all of that pain and sorrow, they can’t filter that shit out.

Oh. Um …where was I? I mean, of course, may we all find inner peace and enlightenment.

May we all understand the value of other people, or, failing that, may we all somehow find ways to work from home and get paid for, I don’t know, entering data or something. Man, that’d be sweet.

May we all get the exercise we need and eat more fruit.

I wish jobs for the people who need them. May corruption be weeded out of our institutions and may cops stop pepper-spraying people in the face for exercising their rights of free assembly. May anyone who says that pepper spray, hotter than the hottest pepper known to man, is merely a food product, get pepper-sprayed in the face so they can see what they’ve been missing. I wish for a Congress that isn’t filled with traitors, who want to do the best for the people of this country and the Constitution of the United States instead of putting a promise made to Grover fucking Norquist above their oaths of office.

I hope the Republican debates get more interesting. Like, instead of the same idiots saying the same stupid garbage over and over again, they have to make it through the final round of American Gladiators or something. Or the games in Tron. Something to make it exciting instead of an exchange of non-ideas. It’s like watching a Model UN made up of D students. Seriously, you know you’d rather watch Rick Perry have to try to be a cowboy instead of just dressing like one and blathering on about prayer in schools. I bet he gets stomped to death by a bronco, which would just make the world a better place, anyway. And who doesn’t want to see Newt Gingrich crying his eyes out while trying to wrestle a bear?

Oh, and let’s tax the rich in 2012. Fuck the one percent for always asking the rest of us to contribute more and more while they contribute nothing to the economy AT ALL. You can’t take it with you, chumps. (Oh, and before you get all pissy in the comments about “job creators” and other buzz-lies, take a deep breath, realize you aren’t rich and you never will be, that you will never be in the one percent ever at all, and that they in fact laugh at you for defending them while they steal your pensions and your 401(k), and go play with your kids or volunteer at a shelter or just read a book or something. If you’re in the one percent, you’re certainly not reading this.)

Oh, and no more corporate personhood. Give me a fucking break with that.

I wish you no racism in 2012. No sexism. Actual compassion for all people. An end to the irrational fear that because someone is a different religion, they want to kill you.

I wish Pat Roberston a quick and very, very quiet retirement.

No more hate. No more war. No more disparity. No more demonizing other people and bombing them because we don’t want to fix problems at home. Economic recovery. Hell, economic prosperity.

Peace and all that. Live long and prosper. May the force be with you.

See you in 2012. I hope it all works out, but maybe bring a helmet just in case. Ooh, and some sandwiches.

Aaron R. Davis lives in a cave at the bottom of the ocean with his eyes shut tight and his fingers in his ears. You can contact him at samuraifrog@yahoo.com