2019: The Examined Year
If you think 2019 went by fast, it’s nothing compared to the speed of Ian Shoales’ lightning fast recap of the year. From streaming services to superheroes, from Ukraine and Russia to North Korea, from incels to your mom smoking dope. Not even Santa can cover this much ground so quickly!
There was a dispute about how much AT&T wanted to charge DISH, which led to DISH no longer carrying HBO. I’d have pay more for just HBO, and I already have Hulu, and Netflix, and DMZ, and Amazon Prime, and DISH. And Apple and Disney are leaping into the brave new world of streaming, so I missed the new adaptation of Watchmen. Thanks, 2019.
However, I understand that Dr. Manhattan is being played by a black actor. In the original comic, Doctor Manhattan was a white guy who looked like a cross between the Academy Award statue, and Brainiac. Remember Brainiac? He always gave Superman a run for his money. Why didn’t Brainiac get a reboot in 2019? I mean Superman languished in 2019, because he is kind of boring, but Joker got his own movie. On the rise, with nary a Batman in sight. So whither Brainiac? Avengers is over. Marvel ran out of second string superheroes to fill the roster.
Also, speaking of second stringers, not knowing as of this taping whether the president has been tarred and feathered or given a medal. Could go either way. The Inspector General report said there was no deep state plot to bring Trump down. The next day Trump claimed exoneration. What? From what now? Attorney General William Barr said the report was probably wrong, just one more potshot designed to bring down the high flying bird that is the Trump presidency. Even Obama spied on Trump, or could have—we need to investigate further.
The leader of North Korea has threatened to resume calling President Trump a “dotard.” Which doesn’t seem like much of a threat. It’s what fans of The Avengers could call Martin Scorsese, following his opinion that superhero movies might be rollercoaster rides, but they are not film. 2019 finally brought it home, we are all privileged, yet all victims, and everything is in flux. Like what is “film.” Identity. Democracy. Gender. I read an alarmed conservative tweet that the country is being overrun by a “trans ideology,” whatever that even means. Boys who are girls, girls who are boys, owning their pronouns, children, and all the while the men’s men of Ukraine are just trying to make a damn living.
Is Hunter Biden still working there? What is his actual job? Does it take food from my table? Also, did Ukraine frame Russia for the election rigging which was supposed to help Hillary but went horribly wrong? And did the Democratic party bury a computer in Ukraine? Why? Giuliani is on the case with a right wing news crew, interviewing disgraced Ukrainian oligarchs with a view to bring Hillary down, and make Donald Trump president at last. When imperfect means the very best.
In Manhattan, which is not a real doctor, the Museum of Modern Art reopened—better and much bigger, appropriately, because it has become more inclusive, which is great, but makes everything enlarged and clunky. Takes a month just to virtue signal through the permanent collection.
Over the summer, researchers came up with a new “psychological syndrome” among disaffected young men. Dubbed a “Need for Chaos,” it explains incels, white supremacists, antifa, and fa, toxic work environments. This could even be the dawn of a new age of toxic masculinity, on a boring level, cads, boors, horse’s behinds….They read hidden message from Q Anon, and wait for the signal to leap from the basement with Super Soakers filled with hot sauce, ready to cause blisters to the libtards of this broken world. Alternative realities have taken over, is what I am saying, and we’re all gonna be left behind with our Shen Yun fliers and broken dreams. Q is leaving secret messages which we need to find and translate. JFK Jr is still alive, and Hillary fronts a pedophile ring, and Trump though president is not exactly president, kind of like those dreams when you move back home, and it’s the same except now your Mom smokes dope and Vin Diesel is living in the basement and you didn’t have a basement before. That kind of real. You believe it totally until you wake up, except nobody’s waking up. New studies indicate that unless we act soon, the earth as we know it is doomed. If we’re arachnids in Australia, we might get lucky, if we burrow deep enough.
So anyway the idea that Dr. Manhattan is now an African American, well, he is a shapeshifting god and when you reboot or sequelize a classic doing something to confuse or tick off the fans is part of the process. That’s why Ernst Stavro Blofeld is now James Bond’s long lost brother. Ask Star Wars. Whatever, says the Need for Chaos. To the quid pro go the quos. Veni vidi vici. By by earth. But not before all the grifters of the world cash in a couple more times. You and I will be killing each other for hoarded Red Bulls, but they’ll be on their own island, sitting pretty. With their bespoke oxygen tanks. Their vintage inhalers. Their sunblock so thick they slide uphill.
Happy New Year! I gotta go.