2021: The Year in Review
Looking back, 2021 began with such promise.
A new year. A new president. A new vaccine. And, Betty White was indestructible.
Now, here we are. Totally fucked.
–January–
The first week in January, thousands of tourists descended onto the Mall in Washington. After a pep talk from their President, the peaceful patriots marched in an orderly fashion to U.S. Capitol, let themselves inside, and took a bunch of smartphone selfies in the grand rotunda. We were sure lucky they were there. I’m glad so many Trump supporters were outfitted in S.W.A.T. gear and were armed with clubs and steel pipes so they could preserve the peace. They busted out windows, crashed through the doors, and stormed into the Senate chamber, which was actively in session performing its constitutional duty — in other words undermining the will of the people, doing “Deep State” stuff. Gee, imagine the chaos of might have happened if the Trump patriots weren’t on the scene? Meanwhile, after seeing gallows strung up in the parking lot, Vice President Mike Pence reportedly needed a change of underwear.
Just two weeks later, America’s true president was preening at Andrews Air Force base giving his very own McCarthur-esque “I Shall Return” speech to a roaring crowd of 29 sycophants. The My Pillow guy pledged his full support. OAN carried the speech live, and ran a 6-second ticker on the other big political event of the day, something to do with the inauguration. Then, OAN returned to its regularly scheduled programming, an encore presentation of the “History of the Third Reich” marathon. Meanwhile, 16 miles up the road, the fake President who stole the 2020 election was being sworn in by Lady Gaga holding a copy of the Holy Koran. It was bizarre seeing normality on display again at the presidential inauguration after four straight years of ceaseless melodrama. The new guy is such a bore, begging the question — who will fall asleep first, him or us?
–February–
In February, the United States surrendered to the global conspiracy to save planet earth by rejoining the 2015 Paris Climate Accords. Exxon-Mobile, Chevron, and BP stocks instantly tanked by increasing only 9 percent that same month, while suffering their most disappointing financial quarter in 11 years when it was announced the big three oil companies only made $223 billion during the previous yearly cycle. But that was oily peanuts compared to the monster year enjoyed by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Tom Brady. Musk and Bezos now basically own every square inch in between the earth’s inner core and the asteroid belt. But, 44-year-old Tom Brady *really* did something impressive, winning the Super Bowl at an age when most NFL players are long retired and their brains have soured into cottage cheese from CTE.
Meanwhile, Phil Mickelson glanced at 44-year-old Brady and said, “hold my beer.” The 50-year-old Lefty won a golf tournament nobody in the world would typically care about, other than the fact an old guy triumphed in a field with competitors young enough to be his kids. Of course, this didn’t happen until later in the year, but I’m sticking it here since the segway from Tom Brady to Phil Michelson was way too tempting to pass up.
The first vaccines began. It was great connecting with people in real-time again. Well, sort of. Umm, kinda’. On second thought, nope. Bring on COVID Mach 2. Netflix is such a great Linus blanket, isn’t it? Most of the people I didn’t want to connect with kept on calling me asking to go out, and I frankly, I’ve run out of believable excuses. Speaking of reconnecting, my phone hasn’t stopped ringing in two years. What’s with all the anonymous phone calls in the middle of the day? How did that get to be a thing? But hey, I’m now signed up for the Rolls Royce deluxe auto warranty plan that costs more than my car payment, and I got 7 cash offers to buy my house. So, there’s that.
–March–
The year was stoked with some mind-blowing legal decisions. In Pennsylvania, disgraced ex-comedian Bill Cosby told Tom Brady and Phil Michelson to “hold his beer,” but nobody’s touching an open beverage anywhere within reach of Cosby at this point. Nonetheless, the convicted date-rape drug kingpin starred in the Legal Network’s “OJ the Sequel” when the previous jury trial was declared null and void and he was found not guilty by reason of judicial insanity. Cosby’s Tinder profile is now the hottest thing since the Halloween John Wayne Gacy clown costume.
In Minneapolis, a jury found former police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of murdering George Floyd. Despite dozens of witnesses, the entire incident captured on video, and a torturous execution that lasted nearly 10 minutes, far-Right conspiracy crank Alex Jones declared the brutal murder a “false flag” orchestrated by “paid actors.”
Speaking of “paid actors,” the 93rd Annual Academy Awards ceremony was held in Los Angeles. I’d report on the winners and losers, but fact is — nobody watched. Or cared. Let’s just declare the entire season a loss, write off the pain, and start fresh again my making some movies people actually want to fucking see. Is that too much to ask, uncle Oscar? Oh, and “Best Actor” winner Anthony Hopkins slept through the entire slumber fest in his country estate in Wales. He was reportedly awakened at 7:15 am with the big news and responded, “oh great, now I need to take a piss.”
–April–
The global financial hyper-fad known as Bitcoin skyrocketed to an all-time high in April, hitting a staggering price point of $64,156, and it wasn’t even April Fools. Thousands of half-shaven, unbathed cryptoslingers working micro podcasts out of their dungeon basements 17 hours a day breathed a heavy collective sigh of relief knowing that they’ll be employed for at least another year hyping plastic tulips. Remember the playbook: When price inevitably crashes, repeat the mantra — “buy the dip.”
Vaccines were in full force in April, when a record number of people were given their first and second doses. Meanwhile, 74 million other Americans who weren’t brainwashed by the mainstream media passed on the inoculations while stubbornly awaiting The Second Coming (of Trump, not Jesus). Dr. Anthony Fauci testified before a Senate committee that he was “quite pleased” with the progress of vaccines, although Sen. Rand Paul protested the lifesaving federal initiative on the grounds it was another attempt to impose Socialism on the American people. Sen. Ted Cruz, still vacationing down in Cancun, wasn’t available for comment.
–May–
Prince Harry and Princess Meghan, desperately trying to avoid the obsessive 24/7 media attention surrounding their lives and live a normal existence, do their very best to keep out of the public eye and be a perfectly normal couple by going on “Oprah Winfrey Live” in an insufferable 3-hour interview during which the would-be royals totally trash everyone in the royal family, surely ensuring complete and utter oblivion from any future paparazzi-fueled gossip. It was good to see the youngsters finally put all that to rest.
–June–
Things went from bad to worse for President Joe Biden and the new administration. Just 6 months into office, the falsely-elected 46th faux-President watched his poll numbers tank lower than Gary Busey’s IQ test scores. High gas prices and inflation didn’t help any, while Right-wing networks and fanatical politicos continued to blame Biden for everything from the chronic flight delays at Spirit Airlines to the failure of Preparation-H aspirin. Clearly, the honeymoon was over when the price of 4×4 beams at Home Depot reportedly shot up 74 percent even though nobody was buying or building anything during a pandemic. That’s really going to piss me off if I ever need to buy a truckload of 4×4 beams. But President Biden did have a justifiable reason for optimism. At least the winddown to the Afghan War and peaceful transition to the democratic government was going really well.
In mid-June, a national emergency was declared when Dollar Tree announced severe shortages of cat scratchers, Tupperware, books by Rev. Franklin Graham, and bleach. American consumers, exasperated by the decline of domestic manufacturing while hopelessly addicted to cheap stuff made by slaves in China, responded with a wave of mass panic-buying, thus resulting in empty shelves inside many stores. The appearances of many Walmart shoppers, unable to update their wardrobes with the latest fashions made in Chinese sweatshops, deteriorated into some really frightening imagery, gratuitously plastered all over social media. Cargo ships, stuck at sea because now LA’s monster traffic jams have even spread into ports, basically anchored down and said fuck it.
–July–
In a shocking turn of events that surprised absolutely no one on earth with a pulse and an Internet connection over the past 20 years, Afghanistan’s democratic government collapsed quicker than a Miami Beach condo built on quicksand, which just so happened to be the other big news story in July (too soon?). It was heartbreaking to see such an unnecessary loss of life. The common thread linking the two horrible tragedies was all the finger-pointing certain to follow in coming years and the sad fact we probably won’t learn anything at all from the mistakes of the past.
Speaking of the Afghan War, President Biden demonstrated total incompetence by evacuating more than 130,000 military personnel and civilians around the clock during a chaotic downfall, all while terrorist militants aligned with Al Queda in Kabul attacked the new Taliban government for being “too soft.” Biden took all the blame for the Afghan disaster, which after two catastrophic decades of preposterous foreign policy mismanagement is like blaming the coroner for the Kennedy Assassination.
–August–
Speaking of coroners and working with the dead, the ageless Rolling Stones began their final world tour (really, they mean it this time–this is the last one, promised Stones’ drummer Charlie Watts) while at the same time the Olympic Games in Tokyo were held in front of mostly empty stadiums and fanless arenas. It had all the excitement of a juggler performing at a funeral. If you thought the Tokyo games were fun, wait until the 2022 Winter Olympics take place in China. Wait, didn’t China release COVID-19 unto the world? Wasn’t that horrible enough? Now, we have to watch their Olympics?
–September–
In the NFL, the Urban Meyer era officially began in Jacksonville. Season ticket sales reached an all-time high. ESPN talking heads declared it was only a matter of time before Meyer would break down the glass door between college and pro football coaches. The first week in September the hapless Jaguars began the dawn of the Meyer Dynasty by going out and getting absolutely destroyed by the NFL’s worst team, the Houston Texans. Following the humiliation, Meyer promised a much better performance as the season progressed. And we have to admit, the coach’s dance moves at that disco hours after the loss to the Colts were mighty impressive.
–October–
In the fall classic, otherwise known as the Major League Baseball playoffs, the cheating bastards lost to the Atlanta Braves. It was terrific seeing justice prevail in professional sports. An evil team that for years bent the rules took advantage of a preposterous free-agent system and basically bought their previous championship was defeated by an honest-to-goodness homegrown baseball team. Yeah, it was great seeing the LA Dodgers lose in the NL Championship. Oh, and right after that, the Houston Astros lost the World Series to the Braves, 4 games to 2.
–November–
November gave us all reason to be thankful when Oscar-winning film director Peter Jackson released his 3-part, 8-hour, much-anticipated treasure trove of “Let It Be” outtakes from the Beatles 1969 studio sessions. And who says there’s no such thing as good music anymore?
The Kyle Rittenouse double-murder trial ended with a stunning “not-guilty” verdict, thus ensuring the innocent teen-tyke will eventually get his own show as a host on FOX News. Speaking of FOX, Chris Wallace, the lone sane anchorman who had yet to fall off the crazy cliff into a giant tub of Koolaid, finally announced he’d had enough of his network’s pandering to an alternative universe of absurdities. The three loyal viewers who watched Chris Wallace nightly on FOX reported they will shift allegiances over to CNN, which means Don Lemon’s ratings just doubled.
–December–
On December 30th, just days away from her 100th birthday, the legendary Betty White died.
When he learned of the loss, Keith Richards in recovery from his “grueling” world tour with the Stones while celebrating with a kilogram of freshly cut cocaine, reportedly said, “I’m still here, you fuckers.”
