70 GSCENE
CHARLIE SAYS
RESOLUTIONS
CHARLIE BAUER PhD ON WHAT
HE WILL BE, AND WON’T BE,
DOING IN 2013.
I never look back and I never look forward, so when I was asked for
my New Year’s resolutions, I began by thinking what had to be
resolved in the here and now. Being an amateur etymologist, I came
up the further definition of re-solving some of the bugbears of the last
year. The implication being that if issues weren’t solved first time
around they’ll unknowingly linger someplace in the background like a
herpes zoster.
1. I’m going to have another try but we
keep inching away from it - World
Peace. There, I’ve said it. Just as I
thought we were going to actually get
through the year concentrating only on
the important matters of global
capitalism, Israel kicks off at Palestine.
I mean, don’t they know this stuff costs
us all money? America, however, had
their own weapon of mass distraction
and sent over Hillary Clinton who
slapped their wrists and sent them both
home. This is why we need more women in high-end political roles.
This, Daddy Santa, is my first wish and I resolve to use what vote or
surplus cash that I have to get Hillary into the White House in 2016,
with Michelle Obama as her VP. It has to be worth it for the glamour
alone.
2. I won’t leave my good underwear in
The Bushes any more.
3. I’ll stop worrying about the global
economy. At a recent event in London, I
was introduced as the world’s first preapocalyptic journalist. WTF. All’s I can
say is that I’m very sorry. I had no idea
that my views on the corrupt, hateful,
unjust, phobic, murdering and humiliating world that we live in was
having such an evil effect on me. I also need to remind you that I’m
doing all of this without medication. Prescribed medication.
4. The weather. I will prevent myself
from snapping at people about the
British weather. When we’ve reached
the 28th successive day of gray skies
and rain, and somebody turns to me,
mystified, stating that ‘It was so nice
this time last year...’ I won’t bark at
them. I won’t remind them that it was
only that single week in September that
the sun actually shone last year, and
the same week the year before that. I’ll
remind them that they’ve mistakenly spread that one week out across
their fu*king memories as an entire summer. I won’t tell them that to
remember otherwise is only a method of getting by with our dire
climate hanging above us like, well, a dark cloud.
5. I wont say ‘I told you so’ as I have done with increasing regularity.
So, when newspaper empires fall and their editors are impeached as a
result of gross misrepresentation,
racism and gay hatred, I wont say ‘I
told you so’. I won’t say ‘I told you
so’ when catastrophes like
Hillsborough are finally exposed in
the favour of the victims and their
families. When the people who
carried away the dying were then
accused of rifling through the
pockets of the dead by the same
tabloids. I won’t say ‘I told you so’ when the Mayan calendar and
Nostradamus predictions have come to nothing this month and that
January is still going to be there, all gray and rainy as it always was. I
promise, I’ll never say ‘I told you so’ ever again. Honest.
6. I promise that I wont sabotage my associates’ lectures if I think
they’re irrelevant. I won’t tamper with PowerPoint presentations on
their memory sticks and fill up their lecture notes with what I think the
students need to hear. I won’t encourage the apathetic student body to
riot, either. I will take their values into account. Even the lazy ones
who are only doing a degree to get a job and nothing more. And I won’t
question the religious extremists who for some reason have undertaken
an English Literature degree without
realising that they will have to deal with
feminism, communism, ‘weird writing
shit’ and sodomites. I won’t sit on
academic board meetings secretly
wishing that they were all dead, or that
there could be a freak earthquake where
only certain students and myself survive.
“I won’t question the religious extremists
who for some reason have undertaken
an English Literature degree without
realising that they will have to deal
with feminism, communism, ‘weird
writing shit’ and sodomites”
7. I’ll bring my Bender photograph up to date by another 25 years.
8. Next year I’ll prevent myself from
schlepping hundreds of pounds worth of
Christmas presents across the country to
a gang of ungrateful relatives, most of
whom have not paid me a visit for over
25 years. (I’ve been saying I won’t do
this for well ov \