Spit-Chat
I’m not a big fan of New Year’s Eve. Whoever decided the best way to celebrate 00:00 on 1/1 was by partying with overly inebriated strangers followed by the temptation of a DUI is an indisputable sadist. For the last several years, Sue and I have sat soberly on her bed, clicked from ABC to FOX to CNN, and never stopped wondering, “How many of these idiots in Times Square are wearing diapers?”
Last night’s trips around the tube had me wondering why network executives were so unwavering in their desire to annoy me. We’re all guilty of keeping a list of select celebrities who irk us—if you don’t have such a list, you’ve just been added to my non-celebrity tally—and it seemed like the bulk of my antagonists wanted to sabotage the debut of 2020.
Things got off to an ominous start when Ryan Seacrest introduced Ciara and her Reputa the Beautah (“Rapunzel!”) weave as Dick Clark Productions’ Vegas emcee. Despite the fact that she’s sold twenty-three million records, I’ve never met anyone who listens to Ciara’s music. She mystifyingly hosts awards shows, performs on them (even though her 2019 album Beauty Marks had one single that charted…in 2018), and shamelessly rips off my beloved homegirl Janet Jackson. Can we all please accept that she will forever be best known for having consensual sex with the highest-paid employee of the Seattle Seahawks and move on?
Flipping to Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen, a shirtless and (I assume) extremely high Lenny Kravitz was being interviewed while sitting on a Bahamian beach. Anderson called him “the coolest guy alive,” proof that 360’s idea of cool died when the ball dropped to conclude 1989. I silently debated what would be more unpleasant: listening to Leonard’s cover of “American Woman” for the next few hours or having my toenails removed with a pair of pliers.
“COME ON!” I yelled when Rob Gronkowski’s punchable face surfaced on FOX.
“This is not your night, bud,” Sue said.
More jagwagons who make my skin crawl intermittently popped up: Carson Daly, hosting on NBC (“Carson can’t hide his weight gain anymore, huh?”); X Ambassadors performing “Renegade” (“This shitty song was a hit when we had a black president!”); Green Day (“Do they need to continue wearing eyeliner and mascara as they approach their fifties?”); Nicole Kidman (my disdain so oft-repeated to Sue, I merely farted into her mattress and immediately changed the channel in defiance to The Silent Suppressive Person); BTS (I don’t hate them but am baffled by Sue’s fandom given anyone with a thick accent typically drives her nuts—“Beep beep almonds” as she says in thesaurus form—but she loves their K-pop without explanation, which makes my desire to mock it even stronger); thousands of other people I’m forgetting.
ABC cut to the local news at eleven with a shot of WTNH weatherman Joe Furey—the local meteorologist I detest more than any other—teasing the forecast for the new decade.
“THIS GUY!” I screamed.
Sue, mid-sip from her bottle of cucumber melon seltzer, arced a rainbow of flavored carbonated water onto the sheets covering the foot of her bed. Never having seen a spit-take in real life—the closest was making my best friend in grammar school laugh so hard he shot chocolate milk out of his nostrils twice in the same lunch period—I instantly cheered up.
Hopping off the bed, I crouched by Sue’s fake Christmas tree and cry-laughed, my body on the verge of happy convulsions. Several seconds after we both had emotionally recuperated, Sue said once more how my luck had run out in 2019. Not one to back down, The Year of the Pig wanted to rub my face in its slop one final time.
Post Malone, wearing a neon pink leather suit and matching cowboy boots, began performing in midtown Manhattan sporting a new face tattoo (something I hate slightly less than organized religion, crying babies, and traffic/vehicular, not the Steve Winwood-fronted band). I looked on Instagram to confirm the black blob on Post’s face was, according to the inker, a “gauntlet on the baby boy.” But in a weird twist, the cloud of hate lifted.
“This song’s got a strong melody,” a version of my heretofore unknown self said.
“The baby boy’s clearly enjoying himself,” AHFraud announced.
“Only two songs, huh?” a man I’m not proud of identifying as commented in a disappointed tone.
Happy I’d finally found peace with network TV’s farewell to the decade, Sue questioned if there was as much fanfare at the end of 2009. Unable to remember, we smooched as the clock flipped to quadruple zeros. On stage with Seacrest, Post, and BTS stood country singer Sam Hunt and his anonymous, civilian spouse. Contrary to her beau, Mrs. Hunt’s face suggested she’d inhaled the smell of every dirty diaper recently disposed of in the Big Crapple.
“Why’s this bitch acting like she’s better than everyone else?” I asked Sue.
New decade. Same as the old decade.