Ringing in the new year has never been a particularly significant event for me, more like something to ignore or not focus on, just another day that doesn’t command any defined traditional activities, no running around drunk and blowing horns in the street with hats on, no countdowns in some significant place, no cheering in timed unison with other revelers and none of those tedious resolutions for the fresh new year either. I must admit though, the New Year was just a little bit more exciting when considering that a former president of a very troubled nation was tried and convicted of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide and was executed by the interim government of the country he reigned over with complete madness and tyranny. I always love it when an evil empire is toppled and the formerly powerful are reduced to criminals and put down old school style by hanging or some other barbaric method. It just doesn’t happen all that much in the modern world and the totally base primitive or old testament feeling it conjures, the blunt final punctuation of a neck snapped by a noose is kind of… I don’t know, exciting. We haven’t had anything like this happen since the Romanian Revolution of 1989 which overthrew the communist regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu . Increasingly violent clashes culminated in the summary trial and execution of Ceauşescu and his wife Elena, which is a nice way of saying that the public killed and decapitated them and put their heads on sticks for all to see. They deserved it for many abuses of power and willful neglect of the citizens needs while they enjoyed opulence and luxury. The whole situation sounded like something from medieval times, something you just wouldn’t think possible just over a decade ago. That’s what Husseins execution seemed like in a way, a throwback to another place in time when executions of fallen leaders were more commonplace, like the French revolution and decapitations and all that fun stuff. Oddly enough I owe it all to our current technological age that I was treated to the cell phone camera footage of the barbaric event which made it to Youtube in the expected timely fashion and probably was viewed more times than Britney Spears wide open and shaved beaver by now. Or has it? It’s truly hard to say what is more important to the people of America and the world for that matter, seeing the last of the red hot tyrannical dictators death by hanging or the shaved gash of the pop superstar who has much less than a tyrants hold on her own faltering new roles as wife and mother of two. But she is still alive, and America certainly enjoys watching actual deaths, accidents, blood-shed, people getting hit by trains, when animals revolt and executions, be it prisoners of war or war criminals. Britney’s only crimes seem to be against herself and maybe Children’s Services Division, nothing like crimes against humanity…yet.
America is also very fond of forgiving their fallen celebrities as well as remembering and celebrating the lives of those who’ve passed away. A stunning example of these two human dynamics can also be viewed on Youtube several times over, and that is the appearance of Michael Jackson at two of the three services held to honor the passing of James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, who went through three different costume changes for this trio of final engagements. I googled the event to find the best images or footage of this and that led me to a website called dlisted. It featured the headline, Michael Jackson Makes Out With A Dead James Brown. Now c’mon, you just gotta love that! The accompanying photograph looks exactly like what the headline claims and the copy is hilariously barbed with wicked details like, “Michael also refused to take part in a performance of “Sex Machine” and opted to stay in his seat. His ass was probably wet from making out with James.” I immediately had to know more about dlisted and the brilliant minds behind it as the alphabetical list of categories running down the right side of the page included all the right celebrities and a few errant subjects like crackheads, big ones, buying children, gay, guess the ho, and more. I clicked on Courtney love and found all Courtney items the site has run ever and they were all marked by lies, half truths and evil conjecture regarding sexual habits and what-not. This was totally hilarious stuff and it brought to mind the early work of Vaginal Crème Davis when she used to publish a zine called Fertile Latoya Jackson about 15 years ago which printed nothing but lies about hollywood brat-packers and their perverted sexual activities. A certain kind of fearlessness of repercussion just makes these buoyant bits of gossip fly and I was laughing outloud in no time. There were subjects like, “Britney Barfs Up Sushi”, “Britney Decorates her Christmas Tree with Bottles of Rat Piss”, “Is Pope Eggs Benedict A Fag?” “Dakota Fannings Rape Scene Went Well” and “Jessica Simpson cant Do Anything right.”
The person responsible for this site goes by the name of Michael K., raised in Beverly Hills but relocated to New Yorks East Village in his 22nd year. I bet he didn’t go to times square for the ball to drop on new years eve either. Check out dlisted for some good wrong fun. I just remembered there was actually one traditional thing I did to ring in the new year after all, the old kissing a special someone at the stroke of midnight thing. Yeah, I did do that, for a change.