2014 Annual D-Bag Awards Part 1 - What Am I Doing?

Should I just give it up?  Should I quit this?

What the hell, Internet?  Did I become lazy?  Did I get a life?  Did I actually do work? 

20 blog posts last year.  TWENTY!

That’s abysmal.  I did 123 in 2008 and averaged close to 95-100 a year, until I hit a creative or ambitious wall with 2014.  Granted, 2013 and 2014 were pretty much bad years as my content will attest to.

In any case, I couldn’t close the book on 2014 without doing my annual D-Bag of the Year Award.  And if you’ve been keeping score, I kind of mailed it in the last two years as it is.

In years past, I would go through this tournament consisting of several rounds matching like nominees such as The Grim Reaper vs. Mother Nature.  

2014 has had its fair share of celebrity deaths like Mike Nichols, Richard Attenborough, Joan Rivers, Lauren Bacall, James Garner, Mickey Rooney, James Garner, Ruby Dee, Bob Hoskins, Sid Caesar, Casey Kasem, Shirley Temple, and Eli Wallach.  That was some of the Hollywood Old Guard.  The notable names connected to a younger generation of entertainment consumers included David Brenner, Bob Hoskins, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Meshach Taylor, Harold Ramis, Jan Hooks, Maya Angelou, Christine Cavanaugh, Edward Herrmann, and Robin Williams.  That’s nothing compared to the lives lost through tragedies like what happened with airplanes overseas disappearing or crashing, deaths in Ukraine and the Middle East from war and strife, and deaths of police officers and/or alleged criminals like Ferguson, New York, Cleveland, or even my own backyard Pennsylvania with Eric Frein going all Rambo in the backwoods of PA after killing police officers.

But Mother Nature gave as good as she got plunging us into stretches of subzero temperatures with Polar Vortices, a late fall snowstorm in the Pacific Northwest and New England, cyclones, earthquakes, mudslides, landslides, and eruptions as well. 

I’ve also recounted in past years how various businesses promoted themselves with such great audaciousness, like Apple infuriating some of its consumer base with an automatic download and install of U2’s new album via iTunes, whether they wanted it or not.  There was also Hobby Lobby and the controversial Christian values trumps the ACA for contraception case before the Supreme Court.  Probably the biggest and most forgotten story was the NFL’s domestic abuse problem and how it quickly faded once the season got into full swing.

Then the business of politics always took a lot of the focus as nominees in the category would include people like Congress for constantly being a blight on the Democratic process.  Republicans for the ridiculous amount of time and energy wasted on trying to overturn the ACA, and immigration, and women’s rights.  The Democrats could not escape themselves as they completely dismantled themselves from doing anything during the midterm elections because they just didn’t care and it showed at the polls when they got walloped by the GOP.

But, I always found it easy to pick apart the individuals in my round up.  Chris Brown was an easy target as he was constantly finding himself being a royal d-bag, but this year he seemed to take a backseat to others.  2014 probably would have had me compare nominees like James Franco for being a creepy bastard with that underage girl over texting.   Shia LeBeouf would have been up there with his Joaquin Phoenix level meltdown, had that been real, declaring he was not famous, became the unknown comic, cut his own face for Fury, claimed he was raped during the filming of a movie, plagiarized a graphic novelist, and tried to mug a homeless man of Mickey D’s.  It could all be a stunt or he’s just drunk and off the reservation. 

NFL and the NBA all have players, owners, and commissioners who love to be douches.  The NBA had LeBron James, who went back to Cleveland, which made Cleveland look like such a whipped city because they welcomed him back with open arms.   Donald Sterling made the list this year after his much publicized remarks caught on tape by his “female friend” V Stiviano.  The NBA gave him a lifetime ban and forced him to sell the team which he fought.  In the end, justice kind of prevailed but the means to the end involved Ms. Stiviano being pretty much a d-bag in her own right.  

The NFL produced great d-bags this year like Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice, who were suspended for domestic violence, and supposedly Roger Goodell has “top” men investigating it.  Saying Roger Goodell is handling the situation when it comes to bad behavior in the NFL is like saying Wyle E Coyote is this close to catching the Roadrunner with whatever ACME gadget Amazon Prime just delivered him.   Also with bad behavior, Pittsburgh’s LaGarrette Blount and Le'veon Bell kicked off the season with a rollicking ride in Pittsburgh, while high, missing the team flight and getting pulled over by the police.  It seems a moot point when Bell has been one of the biggest play makers for the Black and Gold, and Blount, after getting less than an acceptable amount of touches, walked off the field and into the locker room, finally being cut by the team and resigned with his former employer, The New England Patriots.  He was happy to be home and Pittsburgh was happy he was, too, I guess.  Still, it’s a move that could be interesting IF and ONLY IF the Steelers are forced to face down their only playoff demon left in the Patriots.   Still, Blount was a d-bag for being a whiny bitch and pretty much a problem child that needed spanked.  If Blount rolls over Pittsburgh in a playoff rout, it isn’t enough to call for the heads of Haley and Tomlin in Pittsburgh.   Christ, people have been calling for them in week 1 and now the own the AFC North.  By the end of the season, another famous d-bag, Ndamukong Suh, finished out his year by stomping on Aaron Rodgers, leading to a suspension, which was appealed and turned over in another great moment by Roger Goodell’s mantra of cleaning up the league.   But then again, I have watched all of five minutes of NFL football this year, taking a much needed breather from all the hypocrisy and thuggish behavior that product has included.   So, it’s really a tossup in sports, but there are no losers in that division. 

Much has been made about women’s rights and the treatment of women this year.  The constant politicizing of women’s right to use contraception took center stage with the Hobby Lobby debate and springing off the Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice stories was the catcalling video “10 Hours of Walking In NYC as a Woman”.  It showed the “reality” of what a woman goes through walking around and being accosted by men of color in “various” NYC neighborhoods.  I use quotes because the 10 hours of footage was not presented in full for viewing.  When taken to task by Slate, the producer said (paraphrased), “White Men catcalled her too, but they were too far off camera or the sound was ruined by a siren.”    That footage was somehow not included.   So, I include the producer of this, not for pointing out the reality of what women go through, but because he did it piecemeal, contextualizing it.  And speaking of being a d-bag towards women, how about Artie Lange and his tweets about Cari Champion?  Or, better yet, the allegations and retraction (apology) by Rolling Stone over the story about campus rape at UVA.  And how about this, as innocuous as this is against women, Justin Bieber managed to piss all over women and the holocaust by writing “Anne Frank Was A Great Girl, Hopefully She Would Have Been A Belieber” in the guest book at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.  That is far worse than those two cancer kids snogging and GETTING APPLAUSE for it in the same house from The Fault In Our Stars.  I jest because I loved the book and the film and thought it was a bit of a WTF moment which made me laugh.  Finally, the invasion of privacy, and sexual crimes against female celebrities due to iCloud hacks calls out a more philosophical question of what constitutes a sex crime?

But no individual’s d-bag story could have topped the one that pretty much crushed a lot of us 70s and 80s kids’ childhood memories when it was reported… A LOT, that Bill Cosby has had a long history of drugging and sexually assaulting women.  Since there have only been allegations and no actual charges filed (I Think) against Cosby and I wish it not true because I have adored the career of Cosby from his stand up to Fat Albert, from Picture Pages to the Cosby Show.   But, there is a hell of a lot of smoke to not think that maybe we should call the fire department. 

In the last segment I usually throw a giant generalization towards something like Me or the Media or Humanity to truly level the playing field in who I think is the biggest d-bag of the year. But one d-bag seems to challenge the faceless nameless category and this year it’s Hackers.   Hackers have been all over the place this year.  First off we need to realize that none of our information is safe.  Hackers hit every category this year.  We have business with all of our credit card and banking information hacked from Home Depot and Target, and NYC Taxi and Limo company.   The cloud was hacked and tons of pictures and videos were stolen from famous and non-famous account holders in what was called The Fappening and The Snappening.  Sony was hacked and emails detailing everything from pay inequality to what people really think of Angelina Jolie was shared.  Online gaming sites like XBOX Live and SONY’s PSN were hacked and kiddies opening up their new PS4s and XBOX Ones on Christmas morning couldn’t go online and shoot each other in the face, leaving them to face the brave new world of actually interacting with people face to face.  And then there is the supposed Sony hack by Kim Jong Un and his legion of TRS-80 hackers a la WarGames who threatened terrorism if The Interview was released.  Frankly, that movie should get its own award this year because I think this was an inside job by somebody looking to boost the hype over watching this film, not actually North Korea.

So, where does that leave us?  We’ve talked about sports and politics and business and celebs and technology in regards to who is the biggest d-bag of the year.  But what could possibly trump all those nominees? 

See Part 2

While You Were Sleeping Part 1: What the cicadas missed from 1996-1999

Welcome back, cicadas.   I know you’ll have been gone awhile, so I decided to put a list of all the things that have happened since you were around the last time.   I wrote these down as they happened. 

Let’s see, that was 1996? What’s been going on since then.

1996-1999 (The world might explode at that point, so I stopped here.)

NEWS

The Summer Olympics, which were in Atlanta that year, had a bomb explode causing one death from the explosion, one from a heart attack, and  111 injuries.  A man who found the bomb and cleared people out of the way, saving lives, was accused and persecuted in the eyes of the media before the real bomber was found in 1997 and convicted.  Don’t worry though, the media probably won’t screw up again in 17 years, right?

Princess Diana was killed in a car accident in 1997 in Paris after being chase by paparazzi through the city.  They stood around and took pictures of the wreckage instead of helping.  But… not worry, paparazzi wouldn’t cause any more issues since, right?

A bunch of people, believing that they were going to ride on a comet/alien spaceship, committed suicide in California, but it probably will be the last time that anyone died, believing something somebody told them to be true, right?

OJ Simpson was convicted of wrongful death in a civil trial, even though he was found not guilty in the criminal trial.  He’s probably not going to do any time for anything, so don’t worry.

Bill Clinton was accused of having an inappropriate relationship with an intern in the Oval Office.  So, his career and credibility are pretty much screwed for eternity.  It’s not like he’s going to have any effect on any future politics. 

The U.S. had a budget surplus, the first in 30 years.  Everything concerning the economy will probably be great until you return.

Two boys in Columbine, Colorado went on a shooting spree in their high school, killing 15 ppl.    They died in the incident from self inflicted gunshot wounds.   I think it will be an isolated incident and should be the last time we ever talk about guns or school shootings or anything like that.

Some guy named Osama Bin Laden set up a base of terrorists in Afghanistan and was responsible for the bombing of the American embassy in Africa.   Isolated incident.  Probably be the last time we hear his name, ever.

And don't worry about catching up on news.  I'm sure CNN will still be the best place to get news from on television.

TECHNOLOGY

DVDs are a new thing.  They might replace VHS tapes, so when you get back your Star Wars movies, you know the ones you got on Laserdisc, might not be worth anything.   In fact, they are coming back into the theaters, so we’ll get to see the same movies you have on those discs on the big screen.  Great, right?  You may want to stock on a bunch of movies on DVD when you get back.  They should be the best thing going.

The Internet is kind of taking off, a bit.  Not sure if it will still be around when you get back.  There is this cool website, though.  It basically goes out and looks for everything based on a set of words you type into the search field.  They call it a search engine.  Should be really popular.  It’s called Ask Jeeves.

Speaking of the Internet, there was a little web browser that was out just before you left.  It’s the biggest thing going.  Should be pretty advanced by the time you get back.  I’ll make sure you have the latest copy of Netscape Navigator installed on your Pentium II when you awake.   (update) Scratch that.  Pentium III.

I still need to find your password for your computer.   There’s some talk about this thing that will happen on midnight 1999.  We may have to print this list out and put it somewhere safe.  A lot of shit is going to break come January 1^st, 2000.  Hopefully, the list will still be here.

I took the liberty of creating you an account on a pretty sweet website.  You can meet a lot of people, put pictures of yourself on there, share stuff, make a lot of friends, too.   I will actively update it and make sure you keep making friends.   You’ll probably have 1000s by 2013.  Your site is www.myspace.com/cicadas

Remember all those mix tapes you had when?  I know you were pretty upset I left them in my car that one day during that heat wave.   Don’t worry, when you get back in 2013 you can do this new thing called CD burning.   All your music can be put on CDs, now.  And there’s this cool place you can find all those old Emerson Lake and Palmer songs to burn on your CDs.   It’s called Napster.

POP CULTURE

Will Smith, you know, The Fresh Prince, did a good job in a movie about Aliens attacking Earth.  It will probably be the greatest Sci-Fi movie, ever.  Though, I’m sure Mr. Smith is just content playing Fresh Prince on television.

There’s also a new Star Trek movie.    I see no reason to tinker with the Next Generation format.  They should be good for a number of films, just like the cast of the original series.

George Clooney is now playing Batman.  Should be good.  He’ll probably be Batman for a long time.

If you thought Toy Story was good, this new film from Pixar is pretty nice.  Glad to know they were able to do one more good movie, though I don’t know where they’ll go next.

I know how you liked Law & Order, so you’ll be happy to know it will probably be on when you come back.  Good show, not many like it.

Simpsons are still on believe it or not, even after almost 10 years.  Though, I’m sure it’s bound to done here real soon.  Probably only catch it in reruns in 2013.

Lot of talk about game shows making a comeback and something called a Reality Show.   Personally, I don’t see it working out.  Who wants to watch real life when Friends and Dawson’s Creek, and ER is still going strong.

SPORTS
The Yankees won the World Series three out of four times so far.  They'll probably win another ten before you come back.

A lot of people are talking about this kid named Tiger in golf.  Wonder who he is?

I know how upset you were that The Dallas Cowboys beat our Steelers in the Super Bowl.  I know they are America's Team, so don't be surprised when you come back and they still have more trophies than Pittsburgh. 

You were wondering about how hockey would turn out during your absence.  You were pretty unsure about it since two expansion teams went to the Stanley Cup that year.  I'm sure it was a fluke and probably won't happen again.  I mean, what does the Southern portion of the United States know about having a winning hockey team?  Go Canada, right?  They invented the sport.