Everybody Loves a Good (2006) List

Well here we are, we’ve almost made it out of 2006, and first of all, I want to thank Time magazine for naming me its Person of the Year, and I also want to thank all of you who made this possible. I mean, I know this column is very important to a lot of you but this honor was most unexpected…

Oh wait, by “You”, they meant everyone? Oh… never mind…

Anyway, what a crazy year in our world. I hate to predict the downfall of civilization but this wasn’t a year that made you all that positive about the human race. We’ve got civil war brewing in Lebanon, a civil war (or not technically) in Iraq, lawmakers are brawling in Mexico, an entire U.S. congressional campaign was won on hatred of the president, I can’t drive anywhere without getting cut off or almost run into at least once… you see my point. Across the globe, it almost feels like the two sides are lining up players for the next massive global conflict, with us one side and Iran on the other. Here in the States, Congress changed hands, Britney dumped K-Fed and showed her woo-hoo to photographers, Mel Gibson and Michael Richards became the latest targets of the PC crowd… who also blasted Bill Cosby for telling the truth about the problems of the black community. Locally, developments went up in Camillus, nothing went up at Carousel or the convention center (again), and most of the top stories of the year involved a lawsuit against either Bob Congel, the Oneida Indian Nation, or Honeywell for the lake cleanup project.

However not all was bad in the world this year; we had plenty to keep us occupied and entertained, or just plain scratching our heads. This was the year of YouTube, the year William Shatner got his own game show, the year Justin Timberlake “brought sexy back” and broke the record for the shortest amount of time it took for a catch phrase to get OLD… In an effort to prove that you can still laugh about all this unpleasantness, I have renewed my old tradition of compiling a list of some things you may have missed in the past year, or perhaps a new take on things you already knew. And here we go…

Parent of the Year: Wayne Derkotch of Philadelphia pulled a gun on his son’s Pee Wee football coach because the kid wasn’t getting enough playing time. The crazy thing is at the SAME GAME, a referee was also charged with assault for throwing a punch at someone…

Yeah, That Will Fix Everything: the NFL banned the use of the crowd anthem “Rock ‘n Roll Part 2” (a.k.a. that “hey” song) because of Gary Glitter’s child molestation conviction in Vietnam. Boy am I glad they did that, cuz I know every time I’m at a ballpark and that song comes on, the first thing I think of is child molesters…

Biggest Foot In Mouth Moment: After barely surviving his re-election campaign, Congressman Jim Walsh said he was “disappointed” by the voters in the Syracuse-area who didn’t vote for him. Jim, I know you’re trying to prove you’re a moderate now, but that’s something a liberal would say; going out and sounding elitist probably isn’t the sharpest thing to do when you almost lost your seat. As a result, the 2008 campaign to get Walsh out pretty much started the NEXT DAY…

Dumb PETA Protest of the Year: This used to be the “Dumb Protest of the Year”, but PETA won every year, so it just became academic… Anyway, this time around, PETA sent a protest letter to a church in Alaska because it bills its holiday nativity scene as a “living” one… however, they don’t use animals… oops…

Just In Case You Missed It: The guys from Blink-182 split up into two bands, Tom formed Angels and Airwaves, and Mark and Travis formed +44, and they’re both VERY GOOD. Also, there’s these bands called Paramore, Flyleaf, and Damone, who all prove that there is still a place for women in modern rock. Meanwhile, next up on K-Rock, Three Days Grace for the 1800^th time this week…

Most Overplayed Song of 2006: Rihanna, you may be quite hot, but you don’t screw with “Tainted Love”… “S.O.S.” is your big winner/loser this year…

I Guess Winning Really Is Everything: Poor Larry Coker, fired from the U… but not because of a televised bench-clearing brawl that made the Miami football program a national embarrassment… no, it was because the Hurricanes only went 6-6 this year…

Most Hilarious Commercial: And one I’m surprised hasn’t become the basis of ANOTHER PETA lawsuit… the Jeep commercial where the hawk sees what he thinks is a ladybug ripe for the picking… only it’s a Jeep Wrangler, which the hawk proceeds to crash into at high speed.

Best New CD I Got This Year: Beck “The Information”. Beck takes all that he’s picked up the last decade or so, teams with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich and creates an album that is both introspective and danceable at the same time. Between this and “Guero”, he is definitely peaking artistically. Honorable mention goes to Pearl Jam’s self-titled album and “We Don’t Need To Whisper” by Angels and Airwaves.

Just In Case You Miss the ‘90s: Everclear is still putting out new stuff, and it’s pretty good. Also the DeLeos from Stone Temple Pilots teamed up with the lead singer of Filter to form Army of Anyone, and their debut album is excellent.

Who We Will Talk About in Music in 2007: Britney (unfortunately), Velvet Revolver, Corinne Bailey Rae, John Mayer, Jay-Z, Incubus, Fall Out Boy, and Switchfoot

Who Will (Hopefully) Just Go Away in 2007: Gwen Stefani (until you remember what GOOD music sounds like), Fergie, Pussycat Dolls, Nickelback, and Guns ‘n Roses… may that long-delayed new album miss the radar completely…

Memo to Developers Who Keep Telling Us They Want To Build Something In Syracuse: 2007 is put-up or shut-up time. Stop flapping your gums and BUILD!

We’ll Keep Trying Until We Get It Right: Remember all those doom-and-gloom predictions that global warming would cause a horrible hurricane season this year and we were due to get about 2-3 Katrina-like storms and we’d have to go into Greek letters to name them all again? Yeah… didn’t happen. Not even close. So naturally, the same forecasters have already predicted the same doom-and-gloom scenario for 2007. I’m inclined to not believe these guys, but not because I don’t believe global warming is really happening. It’s because these forecasters are at COLORADO STATE. How many hurricanes have you ever heard of that hit COLORADO?

And a Final Thought on 2006: I plan a full blog entry about the news media early in 2007 (in other words, the next entry), but let me just note now how many of the big items of the year took place toward the end of the year, because all we could talk about the first 9-10 months were things that were going to happen… North Korea was going to test a nuke, the election was upcoming… I’d like to think this will change next year, but just remember, we’re entering the now 2-plus year long presidential election cycle…