Think About It: 2006 -- Year of the Pain in the Butt
Well friends, a lot has happened in the last 12 months, both personally and across the globe. A contentious election divided the nation. Sylvester Stallone put out a new Rocky movie. Celebrity after celebrity got married, divorced or pregnant. I spent a preposterous amount of time reading comic books. What year could this possibly have been but 2006?
Even now, with only a few days left before the end of the year, the big events around the world keep happening. Just yesterday, former somethingorother John Edwards, having finished communing with the dead, announced his intention to run for President of these United States in 2008. Edwards joins the likes of Hilary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Barak Obama and John McCain in the club of people who have tossed their hats in the ring a good 13 months before any rational human being wants to go through the headache of yet another freaking election cycle. Also in political news, the Democratic Party managed to seize control of the Senate and U.S. House of Representatives from the Republicans. For the average American, this means the big change is that they will now complain about the other party when they’re ranting and raving that nothing is getting done.
In international news, deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is currently 1) awaiting his imminent execution by hanging; 2) dangling from a rope with a broken neck and no control over his bowels; 3) pushing up daisies, assuming daisies grow in Iraq, I really have no idea; 4) soaring across the galaxy in the spacecraft of the alien overlords who broke him free at the last minute but are unaware that Will Smith and an iPod are stowing away in the storage bay, virtually guaranteeing their ultimate destruction. (Just plug in whichever of these applies by the time you read this.)
In entertainment news, Britney Spears/Reese Witherspoon/Pamela Anderson broke up with that guy/that guy/that guy she was with whose name currently escapes me, surprising a grand total of 3/21/.7 people across the planet. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes had a baby, who I actually feel sorry for, because it’s really not the kid’s fault that he (or she - is “Suri” a boy or a girl’s name?) has the most obnoxious celebrity parents since Rosie O’Donnell. The two of them then proceeded to have the most publicized wedding since Charles and Di, although most people consider them far more likely, in the long run, to become a national disgrace.
Speaking of Rosie O’Donnell, she has gotten engaged in a war of words with mogul Donald Trump, supposedly over a Miss USA contestant or something. She snipes at him on The View (incidentally, kudos to Barbara Walters for finding the one potential co-host on the planet that would make me less likely to watch The View than I already was), while he issues press releases and talks trash about her on Larry King, where the two men compete to see who has the worst hair. Trump’s true accomplishment here is that he’s finally managed to find someone less appealing than himself to get into a sniping match with.
The only reason Rosie is on The View, of course, is because a position was vacated by Meredith Viera, who left the estrogen-pumping talk show to take a spot on the Today show. The Today spot was left open when Katie Couric valiantly left her cushy gig to take over the last-place CBS Evening News. CBS’s news division, under Couric’s careful leadership, has experienced a metoric rise from last place among the three broadcast networks to (drumroll please) last place among the three broadcast networks.
Speaking of metoric rises, NBC - which has been languishing for a few years since Friends and Frasier went off the air, to be replaced by the likes of Coupling and The Faculty - suddenly found itself again battling for supremacy with the addition of Heroes. The show focuses on a group of people scattered all over the globe who suddenly develop superhero-like powers and abilities. No word yet over whether NBC plans to pay royalties for using virtually the same idea for their character Peter Petrelli as I did for the main character in my 2002 novel Other People’s Heroes, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that they won’t.
Speaking of not paying me royalties, this became the year of the unnecessary sequel, with Sylvester Stallone reprising his most famous role in Rocky Balboa, Sharon Stone reprising her most famous role in Basic Instinct 2, and Ben Stiller reprising the only character he ever plays in Night at the Museum. There were also new X-Men, Superman, James Bond, Pirates of the Caribbean, Clerks, Jackass, Big Momma’s House, Omen, Pink Panther, Lassie and Poseidon films. Interestingly, the most original movie of the year involved Samuel L. Jackson cursing at thousands and thousands of snakes on a (em-effing) plane.
Speaking of foul language, Mike Tyson was arrested today. I didn’t catch what he was arrested for, but does it really matter?
Over in the world of newspaper comic strips, Bill Amend announced he will be ending the daily strips of his comic FoxTrot after 18 years. Beginning January 1, FoxTrot will be a Sunday-only comic strip. This is pretty sad. With Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side all gone, FoxTrot was frequently the only strip left on the newspaper page worth reading. I suppose it shall now pass that crown on to Frazz, which is a great strip marred only by the fact that whoever picks comic strips in the New Orleans paper doesn’t run strips that good. Anyone mentioning Cathy will be beaten with pogo sticks.
Moving on to the really important things in 2006 - the World of Blake. Back in March, I got a job as a substitute teacher. In August, a friend of mine who teaches English helped me get a permanent job teaching ninth grade English. As the teacher of a group of ninth graders, I am now subjected on a daily basis to the sort of abuse, disrespect and incredibly poor writing skills that, in my previous occupation, was only present when my boss let his daughter take over the newspaper. Still, I’ve found that the clichés about the teaching profession are true - there are good kids out there, kids who want to learn, and working for them is what really makes the job worthwhile. I’ve published two novels and won a Louisiana Press Association Award for best columnist, but maybe the most gratified I’ve ever felt was when I saw a kid I knew was working his butt off break out into a smile when he got a “B” on a vocabulary test.
Speaking of butts, I’ve had a big ol’ pain in mine for the last several weeks. About three days after Thanksgiving, I came down with a sore back. Three days later, that pain was so intense I had to miss several days of school. A quick trip to our good friends at the MRI lab showed that I’ve got a big, happy, bulging disc in my spine that may ultimately require surgery. After weeks of being bounced from doctor to doctor like a ping-pong ball (doctors are actually quite skilled ping-pong players, most people think they just golf), I wound up with a pain specialist who became my new Best Friend Forever when he gave me a steroid treatment. Since then the pain has decreased dramatically and the injury to the nerve feels like it’s finally starting to freaking heal. I never thought I would be so happy to be walking through a Wal-Mart the day before Christmas, but seeing as how the last time I was there before that was to get a prescription for painkillers filled and I had to stop and grab a display every ten paces because it hurt too much to walk, it was downright pleasant.
I participated in my second National Novel Writing Month this November, meeting the 50,000-word goal for my detective yarn, The Book of Lisimba, but getting smacked down by my back pain before I could finish the final chapter. I’m planning to go in soon and rework the whole thing in the hopes that I can find someone insane enough to publish it.
My theatrical output was quite different this year. For the first year in a long time, I did not appear on stage in any production in 2006. Instead, I directed one show (It Runs in the Family) and produced another (Murder Most Fouled-Up). I loved directing, I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I hated producing - the job requires a lot of legwork that basically keeps me away from what I really love: being there in that theatre, working to make a great show. It’s an important job, and I appreciate the great producers I’ve worked with now more than ever, but it’s not a job for me. On the other hand, after being called on to work the light board one night for Murder, I’ve officially done every possible job in our little theatre except for stage managing, which is fine with me because our resident stage manager is going to keep doing her magic up until the day she dies, which will be sometime after Dick Clark.
Both of my siblings got married this year, and congratulations to them. In related news,, if you hear about me being suspected of a homicide any time soon, it’s because one too many people finally asked me, “So when is it your turn?”
2006, friends, had its ups and downs. It had its rights and wrongs. It had its positives and negatives. In other words, it was a year. But it was a year that, in the long run, feels like it’s put me in place for some cool things in 2007. From all of us here at Think About It Central, have a Happy New Year and a great 2007!
Blake M. Petit can’t believe 2006 is almost over. He still hasn’t quite gotten over 1997. Contact him with comments or suggestions at BlakePT@cox.net, visit him on the web at www.EvertimeRealms.com or visit the Evertime LiveJournal,
blakemp.