Every year various publications trot out their version of things and/or people to watch in the upcoming year. Not only do I find that kind of thing annoyingly presumptuous but more often than not it has the added effect of making me feel bad about all the things I am not achieving in my life and then I have no choice but to hate most of the people and things on that list. So if you're like me and think the world is just as full of shitty things and people to ignore as there are to watch, then keep reading. Otherwise, if you want to take this whole ignoring-stuff-exercise to a much higher level, you can just ignore this whole thing and go back to ignoring the person next to you while needlessly dicking around with your iPhone. Hey, that’s the kind of hi-level ignoring that just might make you a person to watch in 2010.

While you are out at work, a man drives his SUV into your house and kills your entire family. He claims he did this because he thought somehow it would be of service to you. Fortunately, as luck would have it, your grandmother is at the beauty parlor at the time and her life is spared. Unfortunately, she arrives home as the man is leaving and somehow he manages to kill her too. So you gradually go about the task of fixing your house and mourning the loss of your family and assume that you will be left alone to do it in a way that you deem fit. But then, during the course of your rebuilding, the man begins criticizing you. He doesn’t care for the brand of sheetrock you are using and he thinks the place was structurally more sound with the ass-end of his flaming car sticking out of it (and your dead family strewn about the front lawn). He calls you in the middle of the night to tell you this. He takes out an ad in the local paper and manages to convince a local radio station to allow him to broadcast his critique to your entire hometown. To say that I think we should ignore this man is an understatement of the greatest proportions and the truth is I don’t think that all of us should. I think all but one of us should. I also think that the one, non-ignoring person’s job should be to follow him around wherever he goes and hit him, at regular intervals, with a cricket bat. Then, on the day that he dies, we should all stop ignoring him for just one brief shining moment...and rejoice.

Internet Porn

Anyone who is reading this is probably old enough to remember the days before Internet pornography. When acquiring pornographic material meant living by your wits and discovering it in Dad’s secret hiding place or, if you were old enough, dealing with the shame (and strangely the judgment of the dude selling it to you) of having to actually go and buy it. There was a level of respect and appreciation in those days that just doesn’t exist anymore. We treated it much like the Native American treated the Buffalo. First we gave thanks to the porn gods and then we dug in. And we used all of it. Starting with the table of contents, moving on to the stories and cartoons, right on down to the postage stamp sized phone-sex ads at the back. Nothing was wasted and nothing was ever thrown away. I distinctly remember a sack of porn from college (a Hefty Lawn and Leaf Bag to be exact) that was passed from house to house. One day you’d wake to find it on your doorstep and it was understood that you would accept it graciously and give it a kind and caring home. I think one of the problems is that there are just too many sites out there and, not unlike the crappy news we now get as a result of the 24 hour news cycle, this means a lot of the content just isn’t up to par (not that I would know any of this firsthand but I do have two trusty Internet porn research assistants who tell me so). For instance, if two fat people in New Jersey start having sex, someone is firing up the dv-cam, filming it and then posting it to some site with the word “tube” in the title, i.e. NewJerseyFatPeopleSexTube. Not that there is anything wrong with fat people having sex mind you. I have plenty of fat friends but whenever they start having sex not only do I not film it, I usually leave the room. The other issue that my “too many sites theory” raises is that many of the site names don’t make sense any more. Newcomers have been forced to string random words together in meaningless combinations like: PussyCockAssDonkeyMountain.com or TittyManTeenKingMovieMonsterBusFlower.tv (I don’t actually know if either of these site names are taken by the way. If you’re interested I suggest you act fast). But of all the sites that my trusty research assistants came across there was one in particular that I was offended by; Ass is Ass. Yep, that’s right. Ass is just Ass, end of story. Is anyone else bothered by this? How about, Ass is Amazing? Or, Ass is Awesome. Or Ass is the thing that will one-day cause you to get hit by a bus. Those are all much more ass-appropriate porn site names if you ask me. I don’t know what tagline BMW is using these days to get people to buy their cars but I know what it isn’t: BMW, a car is a car. I don’t know what Porsche is using either but I’m pretty sure it’s not: Porsche, there’s probably another well-engineered German sports car out there just like ours, maybe you should buy that one instead. Okay, so, yeah, ignore some Internet porn and go do something productive. Learn to speak Mandarin Chinese or help Stephen Hawking figure out his theory of everything or at the very least help the Ass is Ass people come up with a better name for their site...wait a minute, here’s a thought: Ass, the ultimate driving machine. Nah, probably taken.

Method Actors

Can we all just agree that being an actor isn’t that fucking hard? That to play Batman you don’t have to get so totally lost inside the character that you go completely insane. It’s Batman dude. We all played him as kids and none of us got so into it we tried to punch our Moms (okay some of us did but we were like 9 years old and Mom probably deserved it by calling us for dinner when we were like totally fucking into it). I think we should salary cap these people and start handing out suspensions for un-actorly like conduct. Like when you bitch out your Director of Photography for 20 minutes and threaten him with bodily harm during the filming of T4 you should be fined and sent back to the minors. Go make some Flomax commercials for the next year and prove yourself to us again. Make me believe you are a 67 year-old man who is happy he can ride his bike with his friends because his piss-flow has been restored. That’s acting. Or better yet, go clean the toilets at Grand Central Station for a while and act like you think god doesn’t hate you. Let’s also ignore method actors when they bitch and moan because some paparazzi has violated their privacy by taking their picture. Newsflash Stanislavski, you make the obscene amount of money you make for being a public figure. So if someone wants to snap a picture of your famous, naked, sunbathing ball-bag shut up and go buy yourself another Ferrari. The rest of us, and our non-famous balls, are actually working for a living and worrying about paying rent and having sex with ugly people. So stop whining, drop your pants and tell your balls to smile.

The Next Middle East Peace Plan

I’m no Friedman or Carter or anyone with a particularly in-depth knowledge of the festering sore that is the Middle East, and by “festering sore that is the Middle East” I mean the festering Israeli/Palestinian sore...but I do know this: there is only one plan that will make peace in the Middle East and it is a plan I like to call My Plan. My Plan is based on a highly non-academic theory known as the One Big Wheel - Two Kid Theory but it makes more sense than anything else I have ever heard on the subject. When my brother and I were fighting over the one Big Wheel my parents foolishly bought us, thinking we would share it, there was only one peace plan available for consideration and it was the “share it or we are taking it away from both of you” plan. We never shared it. It was always taken away. And more often than not, we would skulk off to play street hockey. Peace in the form of the two of us beating the shit out of each other with hockey sticks. Not all that peaceful perhaps, but all was certainly quiet on the Big Wheel front. My Plan takes the One Big Wheel - Two Kid Theory and applies it directly to the One Motherland - Two Claimant problem thusly...First you get the Friedmans, the Carters, the Clintons and whoever else wants to join in the futility to come up with one last brilliant, Israel/Palestine share-plan that will be rejected at the final hour of a 12 day summit for some totally arbitrary reason (like there was a menstruating pig in the vicinity when the catered lunch was delivered) and then...you take it away from both of them. You then turn the region formerly known as Israel, Palestine, Canaan, etc. into international territory and technically property of everyone, including all the religious wing-nuts that still believe their god is going to ride back into town and crown their people king (and wipe out the Jews of course because all gods, except for the cool Jewish one, want to wipe out the Jews). The Jews and Palestinians are then relocated to deserts of their choosing at opposite ends of the planet. That’s My Plan-A. My Plan-B is you still take it away from both of them but instead of making it international territory you give it to the Disney Corporation. They then turn it into a theme park called Holyland and start raking in the shekels; half of which must be used to bail out the world’s festering sore of an economy. When you arrive at the gates of Holyland, instead of being greeted by creepy people in Goofy and Mickey suits, you will be greeted by creepy people wearing Yasser Arafat and Menachem Begin suits. Some quick snaps on the old iPhone with some of the heroes of the horrors of the last 50 odd years and then off you go to wait 9 hours for one ride on Falafel Mountain. After that, you can buy an overpriced bag of foam rubber rocks at any one of the many concession stands and throw them at brightly colored tanks as they roll by blaring “It’s a Small Jew and Palestinian Hating World After All”, or even better, you can hurl them at people as they fly past you on the latest death defying roller-coaster called The Rubber Bullet. Peace and prosperity for one and all. Temporary peace at any rate...bring on the hockey sticks.

Bucket Drummers

Okay, so there aren’t many left but the few that are still out there must be stopped. It was fun for about a minute in the 80’s or 90’s or whenever it was that the first bucket man put the first bucket drumstick to the first bucket drum but the laughter has definitely died from repetitive beatings. I defy anyone to try and think about anything other than bucket drumming in the presence of bucket drumming. Not possible. Someone just seconds away from figuring out how to win the war on terror waiting for the F train could suddenly have his or her plan obliterated by one of these men and their devil buckets. That’s right, I’m saying that if the bucket drumming continues, the terrorists win. Hey, here’s something I just made up to hammer home my point: Lab rats that were exposed to bucket drumming in a controlled study didn’t show any signs of physical harm but after several minutes they did develop the ability to speak. A dull murmur is more like it but if you put your ear close to their little, stressed out rat mouths you could definitely hear them say, “please stop bucket drumming, please stop bucket drumming, please stop...” I was planning to do a street performer double-header and say something about ignoring those people who dip themselves in silver paint and pretend to be statues, because I think they are lazy and sad, but I have since come to appreciate the fact that they are not bucket drummers and I like any street performer who isn’t a bucket drummer. Except clowns. Nobody likes a street clown.

Mac Geniuses

Obviously if your Nano is acting up (like mine is) or if your MacBook Pro is making a weird “buzzing” noise and beach-balls all the time (like mine does), you should probably skip this exercise. Everyone else, roll with me a while. I mean, here’s the thing...let’s assume, for the moment, that Mac Geniuses are in fact bonafide geniuses. Let’s assume that when you walk up to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store and sit your non-genius ass down you are sitting across from a bonafide genius who, by the way, hangs out in the break room and complains about their dumb-ass genius boss with like 12 other geniuses on a regular basis. Well if you ask me, which you didn’t (which is why people blog), I think Mac is genius hogging. And I think that having all those geniuses in one place is bad for everybody. So I think we should ignore Mac Geniuses until they disperse themselves evenly about the country and the world. In other words, “fan out Mac geniuses” or, as I prefer to say, “fan the fuck out” (okay, I’ve been told I curse too much and didn’t mean to but “fan the fuck out” just feels too good to say). So fan (the fuck) out Mac geniuses. Go to Verizon Wireless. Go to Time Warner Cable. As anyone who has ever dealt with those companies can tell you, their genius levels are at dangerously low, non-genius levels. Go to Detroit and work for some car companies and go to an Airline (just pick one they all basically suck). Go to Wall Street and Washington and lastly, and I’ll admit this is for purely selfish, “greater New York metropolitan area” reasons, can some of you, just a few, please go to Duane Reade? Please? Go there so that the next time I go there to buy a pack of gum, I won’t need to wait an hour to get rung up. Go there so that when I put my pack of gum on the counter you won’t look shocked, amazed and offended that I am asking you to ring something up. Like I just walked in on you taking a crap or something and you are genuinely shocked and amazed to see me, and that I am asking you, a person whose job it is to ring things up, to ring something up. Please? Sorry, that was so self-centered of me. How odd for a person writing a blog to be so self-centered and bore his 6 or 7 readers with something so self-centered. Right. Back to the wider world. Fan out Mac Geniuses, or fan the fuck out, whichever one you prefer. The non-genius world needs you. Duane Reade needs you. And I need you to fix my Nano, and the weird buzzing noise, and the beach-balling...

Jesus

He has been a person to watch every year for approximately 2009 years but other than doing a bunch of cool stuff while he was actually walking the earth, let's face it, he’s come up pretty light in the miracle-working category ever since he died for your sins. Yeah thanks for sinning dude, you killed Jesus. Oh yeah, but he loves you anyway. What? Okay, so occasionally somebody scores a winning goal or knocks another man unconscious and he is behind it all but other than that it’s been a pretty bad showing. So let’s give him the year off. Can’t hurt. Maybe then he’ll descend from the heavens and heal the sick, feed the hungry, stop priests from buggering little boys or at the very least save us from people who still wear Crocs.

Vegan Dog Owners

A lot of dog owners love to say that their dogs are like people and then talk to and treat them as such. So I’m assuming that vegans who feed their dogs vegan dog food are doing so because they think that their dogs are not only like people but like vegan ones. Well I have news for you, vegan dog owners. If your dog was a person, he would be the kind of person that would walk into your meat-eating mother’s house, take a long cool drink of water from her toilet, then lick his balls for an hour, and then eat 3 pounds of raw chop-meat off of her kitchen counter. Your tempeh patties, on the other hand, would remain blissfully untouched.

Audiophile Headphone Wearers

"Hey, look at my gigantic, studio quality, audiophile headphones upon which I listen to my shitty collection of pirated MP3’s comprised of bands that are so obscure that they haven’t even heard of themselves." Nope. Not looking...ignoring.

Switzerland

I haven’t ever really paid too much attention to Switzerland but I think 2009 should be the year we step it up and make ignoring Switzerland an actual movement. The Belgians make pretty good chocolate, the Japanese make a decent watch and it's probably safe to say that the big cuckoo clock purchase you were going to make this year can wait 'til next. Maybe, if we ignore the Swiss for a while, they’ll wake up, join the world community and start some wars and shit.

The Amish

I was fine with the Amish until they started running those infomercials for those faux fireplace, heater things. First of all, doesn't the production of an infomercial violate some tenet of technophobic Amish law? And isn’t that sort of thing the Amish equivalent of an elevator shaft leading straight into the vice-like grip of the Devil's anus? Beyond that, what’s up with only allowing 2 per family? How dare you try and put a limit on my rights as an American consumer Amish people! It’s Amish attitudes like that that put us into the bad economic situation that we’re in. Man, the Amish are getting me so worked up, now I’m thinking that maybe we shouldn’t ignore them. Maybe we should keep an eye on the Amish or perhaps, even better, we should beat them senseless with some of their lovely, handcrafted furniture.