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thatcrazycajunLongtime readers of this blog will recall I lived in New Orleans, LA for several years back in the last century, and visited there often for many years prior (and still do at least once a year, however briefly). They will also recall that I picked up from that city's newspaper, The Times-Picayune, a fine annual tradition (which they continue here): setting out proposed resolutions for the famous and infamous to make as the year begins.
So here we go again with the latest list. Most haven't a sno-cone's chance on a hot JazzFest weekend of ever actually happening...but a fella can dream, can't he? And feel free to add your own ideas in response.
I, US President Barack Obama, resolve to stop worrying so much about reaching consensus with the retrograde Republicans in Congress and start governing like someone whose party actually has the majority in both houses. I also resolve to start keeping more of the promises I made prior to my inauguration a year ago, beginning with bringing all of our troops home from Iraq, Afghanistan and everywhere else they are fighting someone else's civil wars for them...and NOW, not in another 6-12 months.
I, Mayor-elect Kasim Reed of Atlanta, resolve not to let the fact of my winning the runoff election by only a few hundred votes keep me from acting like the Democrat I'm registered as and doing what needs doing for the city, starting with keeping my number-one campaign promise to get more police officers on the streets...and to find those cops a better chief than New Orleans PD reject Richard Pennington (which shouldn't be hard; this is the second major-city police force he's screwed up). I also resolve not to blame any more of my administration's problems on my predecessor, Shirley Franklin, than I actually have inherited from her.
I, Roy Barnes, resolve not to run for my old job as governor of Georgia and thereby give the state's Democratic Party a chance to nominate someone who can actually beat Karen Handel and whoever else the Republicans put up this year to succeed their incumbent, George E. "Sonny" Perdue.
I, US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, resolve to finally do what I should have done the instant I took this post and order that Republican in Democrat's clothing, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, removed from our party's caucus, and resist the temptation to avoid antagonizing him for the sake of his vote. Since he almost always votes with the GOP anyhow, we might as well try winning over an actual Republican when we need 60 votes...or better yet, find ourselves another Arlen Specter or two to switch parties.
I, US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, likewise resolve to enforce some long-overdue party discipline on those traitorous "Blue Dog" Democrats on our side of the Capitol...and then help get them replaced by true Democrats in this year's midterm elections wherever possible.
We, Kate and Jon Gosselin, resolve to finally realize our 15 minutes of fame were up a long time ago and have a nice big steaming cup of "shut the fuck up already" every day for the rest of our natural lives. We also resolve to stop exploiting our eight children on national television for the sake of said illusory fame, and to set up a savings fund for the extensive psychotherapy they will inevitably need later in life as a result of said exploitation.
We, the publishers, producers and reporters of the national US news media, resolve to stop catering to the narcissism of people like the Gosselins, Tiger Woods et al., stop devoting so much time to breathlessly airing or printing every little thing about their private lives, and use more of our ever-dwindling time and resources to report stories people actually need to know.
We, the heads of Hollywood's major motion picture studios, resolve to find some directors and writers who can come up with some truly original ideas for films and stop remaking old TV shows and films—especially those that don't need remaking because their creators got them right the first time.
We, the heads of the major broadcast and cable television networks, make the same resolution as the studio heads with regard to "reimagining" old shows. (ADDENDUM: See this New York Times article for some industry-insider insight on this subject.) We also resolve to stop annoying the crap out of our audiences (which, in the age of hundreds of niche channels, the Internet, DVD and Blu-Ray and DVRs—and the resultant shrinkage of said audience—we can ill afford to do) by running constant visual promotional animations and titles over every single program we air and "squeeze boxes" and promotional spots over the closing credits of said programs, rendering them unreadable. And we resolve to quit speeding up the closing credits of movies we run so that they, too, can actually be read by our viewers.
I, Sarah Palin, resolve to run a highly visible, vocal and vigorous campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, thereby guaranteeing that my Democratic opponent will win regardless of who he or she may be and keeping my party in the political wilderness for the foreseeable future.
I, Joss Whedon, resolve to stop trusting my highly creative and entertaining shows to the tender mercies of broadcast TV networks that shuffle them around the schedule and cancel them every single time, and instead take them to a cable channel that will give them a fair chance to find and grow their audience...or better yet, direct to the viewer through the Internet, iTunes and DVD as I did with Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. I also resolve to hurry up and finish the Dr. Horrible sequel and get it out there as fast as humanly possible.
We, the players and coaches of the New Orleans Saints, resolve to keep on doing everything we have done to make this past season the most amazing and win-laden in our four decades of existence, and work to make our play even better so that we can at long, long last stop being the National Football League's answer to the Chicago Cubs.
So here we go again with the latest list. Most haven't a sno-cone's chance on a hot JazzFest weekend of ever actually happening...but a fella can dream, can't he? And feel free to add your own ideas in response.
I, US President Barack Obama, resolve to stop worrying so much about reaching consensus with the retrograde Republicans in Congress and start governing like someone whose party actually has the majority in both houses. I also resolve to start keeping more of the promises I made prior to my inauguration a year ago, beginning with bringing all of our troops home from Iraq, Afghanistan and everywhere else they are fighting someone else's civil wars for them...and NOW, not in another 6-12 months.
I, Mayor-elect Kasim Reed of Atlanta, resolve not to let the fact of my winning the runoff election by only a few hundred votes keep me from acting like the Democrat I'm registered as and doing what needs doing for the city, starting with keeping my number-one campaign promise to get more police officers on the streets...and to find those cops a better chief than New Orleans PD reject Richard Pennington (which shouldn't be hard; this is the second major-city police force he's screwed up). I also resolve not to blame any more of my administration's problems on my predecessor, Shirley Franklin, than I actually have inherited from her.
I, Roy Barnes, resolve not to run for my old job as governor of Georgia and thereby give the state's Democratic Party a chance to nominate someone who can actually beat Karen Handel and whoever else the Republicans put up this year to succeed their incumbent, George E. "Sonny" Perdue.
I, US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, resolve to finally do what I should have done the instant I took this post and order that Republican in Democrat's clothing, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, removed from our party's caucus, and resist the temptation to avoid antagonizing him for the sake of his vote. Since he almost always votes with the GOP anyhow, we might as well try winning over an actual Republican when we need 60 votes...or better yet, find ourselves another Arlen Specter or two to switch parties.
I, US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, likewise resolve to enforce some long-overdue party discipline on those traitorous "Blue Dog" Democrats on our side of the Capitol...and then help get them replaced by true Democrats in this year's midterm elections wherever possible.
We, Kate and Jon Gosselin, resolve to finally realize our 15 minutes of fame were up a long time ago and have a nice big steaming cup of "shut the fuck up already" every day for the rest of our natural lives. We also resolve to stop exploiting our eight children on national television for the sake of said illusory fame, and to set up a savings fund for the extensive psychotherapy they will inevitably need later in life as a result of said exploitation.
We, the publishers, producers and reporters of the national US news media, resolve to stop catering to the narcissism of people like the Gosselins, Tiger Woods et al., stop devoting so much time to breathlessly airing or printing every little thing about their private lives, and use more of our ever-dwindling time and resources to report stories people actually need to know.
We, the heads of Hollywood's major motion picture studios, resolve to find some directors and writers who can come up with some truly original ideas for films and stop remaking old TV shows and films—especially those that don't need remaking because their creators got them right the first time.
We, the heads of the major broadcast and cable television networks, make the same resolution as the studio heads with regard to "reimagining" old shows. (ADDENDUM: See this New York Times article for some industry-insider insight on this subject.) We also resolve to stop annoying the crap out of our audiences (which, in the age of hundreds of niche channels, the Internet, DVD and Blu-Ray and DVRs—and the resultant shrinkage of said audience—we can ill afford to do) by running constant visual promotional animations and titles over every single program we air and "squeeze boxes" and promotional spots over the closing credits of said programs, rendering them unreadable. And we resolve to quit speeding up the closing credits of movies we run so that they, too, can actually be read by our viewers.
I, Sarah Palin, resolve to run a highly visible, vocal and vigorous campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, thereby guaranteeing that my Democratic opponent will win regardless of who he or she may be and keeping my party in the political wilderness for the foreseeable future.
I, Joss Whedon, resolve to stop trusting my highly creative and entertaining shows to the tender mercies of broadcast TV networks that shuffle them around the schedule and cancel them every single time, and instead take them to a cable channel that will give them a fair chance to find and grow their audience...or better yet, direct to the viewer through the Internet, iTunes and DVD as I did with Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. I also resolve to hurry up and finish the Dr. Horrible sequel and get it out there as fast as humanly possible.
We, the players and coaches of the New Orleans Saints, resolve to keep on doing everything we have done to make this past season the most amazing and win-laden in our four decades of existence, and work to make our play even better so that we can at long, long last stop being the National Football League's answer to the Chicago Cubs.
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Date: 2010-01-01 03:50 pm (UTC)But notice in Dollhouse how every episode *starts* with you being titillated by the latest sexy scenario, only to end with you going "Ewww. No! Actually, that's not sexy, that's SICK. Eww Eww Eww.". Yah, do that enough times and Fox is gonna cancel you. Why does that play right into Joss' sick little hands? Because from the get-go this show was set up as a Greek/Shakespeare style tragedy. There's all this wrong doing and "ends justifying the increasingly terrifying means", and the Hubris (OMG, the Hubris!), and the fact that every single character reacts to their Fate by further staining their Karma. It would take character development on the level of _My Name Is Earl_ multiplied by _Alfie_ to redeem this lot. There are a couple of innocents who may get a chance to jump out of this trainwreck, but this show is headed straight for "Act Five- Everybody DIES!" And all along, Whedon just upped the ante until Fox folded and said the game would end. They're saving face by letting Whedon end it rather than just yanking the rug. All of this tells me all that *all along* Whedon knew this was gonna happen, and was just seeing how sick it could get before they did it. And now they did it, and everyone's gonna die, just as he planned all along, and Fox gets blamed for what Whedon was gonna do- All Along. As in all good tragedies, unless you fix your own Karma and turn yourself around, you're going to play the part that Fate has written for you. But in this meta-drama, Whedon played Fate, and Fox played their role perfectly. They're doing exactly what he intended them to do, and we are going to blame Fox for following Joss' script. It's brilliant!
Whedon took control of the system from the bottom and made art out of making them do what they couldn't help but do. He sold them a show that they could not resist, but were bound to hate, and then milked that dynamic until they gave him what he wanted all along.
It's the perfect revenge.