I am demonstrating against the hypocrisy of a free society that seems to insist that I must regard the Gregorian calendar as the only reason for this coming turn of the day, what is commonly referred to as New Year's Day by followers of that calendar.
I do not celebrate New Year's Eve, even though it seems the majority of people in society expect me to adhere to their holiday. They even insist on wishing me a happy new year, so I retort a coy "have a nice day!"
I couldn't prevent the construction of the Times Square crystal ball this year, as I could not in other years. In fact, no one even returned my complaint calls. In other cities, other things drop to the joy of onlookers who are followers of the Gregorian calendar. But it's difficult to target larger cities to prevent such anti-other-calendar practices that infringe on the freedom of others. It seems small cities and towns don't really drop something, unlike all those Nativity scenes that darken the lawns of little city halls all over the place. Those baby Jesus scenes serve as easy targets for sensitive atheists who want to make their personal freedom equal to that of others by berating any community effort to celebrate holidays that the atheists don't want to celebrate. Not so lucky for people who don't want to have to follow the Gregorian calendar nor celebrate New Year's Eve.
But, instead of lamenting the plight of my noble stand against "New Year's Eve" as the closed-minded Gregorian calendar-only holiday that it is, I thought I'd discover what the most important and influential organizations in America were doing to ring in this, empty, offensive, invasive, tyrannical event known as the new year, 2014.
Television channels are, for the most part, not airing anything terribly special. But here is a small sampling of what was shown as available across the dial, the pro-New Year's and the others.
News channels are offering a stimulating variety. Fox News is ringing in the new year with a special, with show hosts Elizabeth Hasselbeck and Bill Hemmer, which should be exciting to someone, but I don't know who. The paragon of journalistic integrity, MSNBC, is not bothering with any new year's sentimentality: they're airing a 2012 episode of the prison documentary series "Lockup: Raw." Not to be outdone by the news channel that ends with the same initials, biz channel CNBC is airing "Porn: Business of Pleasure" featuring interviews with real live porn stars.
Meanwhile, all too meaningful to the occasion, HLN looks back at 2013 with an encore airing of "50 Stories 50 States: What you shared in 2013." If you want a headache even if you don't drink too much without proper hydration, or have sinus problems, or fell from your second story balcony onto your head, on CNN there's "New Year's Eve Live" with CNN nights and morning talk show host Anderson Cooper and... Kathy Griffin. She is reason enough to skip CNN.
On the ole major networks, NBC set the high bar for entertainment for the night, providing as host for the night the sometimes very edgy -- sometimes his hair sticks up, all edgy-like -- Carson Daly. Jane Lynch is co-hosting, making this a true yin and yang event; if yin were an exceptionally dull white man who seems to have never figured out how to not look like a typical, clean-cut and kinda air-headed douche from college, and yang a brash, wacky blonde comedic actress. CBS, it seems, doesn't care about this so-called holiday, offering up their standard fare come midnight: David Letterman. Holiday? What holiday? This is just another Tuesday night to drink heavily and watch Dave!
ABC holds to their tradition of about 150 years (give or take some years) to celebrate this oppressive annual rite, "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest." Okay, the Seacrest bit isn't so old. That's fairly recent. Apparently, even though Clark has passed on, his estate still owns New Year's Eve, as far as ABC is concerned. Kinda like how Christians seem to think they own the Winter Solstice thanks to Jesus' birthday being celebrated on December 25 of the Gregorian calendar.
I guess the top brass at ABC figure everyone must want to watch Seacrest on ABC to the very end, so they can hear him say "Seacrest out" and then swoon at their slumber parties. That could explain why ABC Family didn't dare try to compete, and opted to air several episodes of the 1980s Will Smith comedy "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" to ring in the new year. Just another night for them -- hoorah!
Owned by Disney, ABC outdoes their parent's eponymous channels for the Gregorian-calendar-centric evening. On my satellite service, Disney Channel East is airing "Austin & Jessie & Ally All Star New Year" which, before you go thinking it is something all that special, is a rerun from 2012. Disney Channel West, though, for East Coast viewers is showing at midnight for East coasters the movie "Up." That's just some movie, no new year meaning to it. But by the time the double-O hour reaches the West Coast, Disney West airs the same thing Disney East aired at midnight on its coast.
MTV and MTV2 are showing, respectively, "New Year's Code" and, suitably for many crowds on New Year's Eve, "Jackass: The Movie." VH1 proves that edginess has pretty much intentionally lost their phone number and email and says mean stuff about them on Facebook, because on this, the most amateur of drinking nights, VH1 is running a marathon of a show called "Happy Endings" and the episodes haven't got a damned thing to do with a "happy ending" of the year.
The lineup on TV is even less respective of the holiday beyond that. So, as you can guess, I'm pretty excited that it seems the majority of television channels agree with my estimation of New Year's Eve -- who cares!
I am awaiting a call back from the ACLU regarding my lawsuit preventing us all having to be subjected to the Gregorian calendar. If you wish to join what I am sure can be a class action suit against the government for pushing this archaic, ancient calendar on us all, please email or tweet me.
- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)
(this is satire)
