12.27.12 PUTTING THE DICT BACK INTO PREDICTION 2013

This article originally appeared in the 12.27.12 issue of Metroland.

Holy crap it’s prediction time again.  Looking over last year’s, a couple of  purely wistful-thinking predictions came through—that SOPA / PIPA would go down in flames and that Mittens would get nominated and then pounded in the general election.  I had no faith either of these things would happen and lookie lookie!  Madonna didn’t get booed at the Superbowl, but she did get ignored, which is probably better.  I for one am glad this year is almost behind us, as it’s been chock-full of tragedy, betrayal, crisis, data caps, and an inability to score any goddamned Pappy Van Winkle bourbon.  But we plough on, boats against the current, thinking a better life lies right around the corner.  And we’ll prove it in 2013.

            OK, here we go:

            Congress will initially be unable to pass meaningful gun control legislation, and then there will be another mass shooting at an elementary school. Congress will then finally pass gun control laws that will cause a number of uneducated white guys to go on rampages with their Bushmasters, the only remaining vestiges of what they understand to be their manhood.  Parts of Texas will declare independence from the United States and try to stage some kind of sad trailer-trash armed insurrection.  Obama will, once again, show what true leadership is all about.

            For the third year I predict that at least one daily newspaper in the region will fold.  Editorials in other local papers will decry this, blame the internet, and say that this is bad for democracy.  The rest of us, if we even notice, will shrug.

            A geriatric member of a legacy rock band will croak on stage.  It won’t be a Rolling Stone.  I’ve given up predicting any of those guys are gonna die.  I intend to live to a ripe old age, and they’ll still all be around when I go.  Bastards.

            One local media icon will score big with a new local gig that will allow said media icon to reinvent him-or-herself and to become a real champion of local art, local rocking, and the American Way.  Another local media icon will trash an otherwise distinguished career by saying something unspeakably stupid into a live mic at exactly the wrong time.

            A local teenage singer-songwriter will break internationally with a song we won’t be able to get sick of no matter how hard we try.

            Congress and the FCC will land on the telephone companies for holding bandwidth hostage and denying rural parts of the country (like my house) the ability to get high-speed internet at a reasonable price.  A bunch of pinhead Koch-funded fake tea-baggers will yell “socialism” but no one will be listening.

            Speaking of the tea-baggers, there will be a mass-shooting at some “conservative” event by some Christianista nut-job who finally realizes that he’s being used by the Republican establishment to make the world a better place for billionaires, oil companies, and insurance companies.

            A local cult masquerading as an “executive training organization” will disintegrate when the feds swoop in with subpoenas and indictments.  A bunch of people, including several prominent local attorneys, will end up in the hoose-gow.

            A local distiller will unveil a bourbon so bitchin’ I’ll forget I ever liked Pappy Van Winkle.

            True conservative intellectuals will continue to beat the drum for copyright reform.  Tea-bagger types won’t play along because they’re too stupid to understand the concept, and Democrats will resist it because they’re too bought-off by Big Media.  But the populace will start to take note.

            The hundreds of porn copyright-troll lawsuits will get blown out of federal court system by angry judges.  A gaggle of porn attorneys will get disbarred.

            Dub-step and other types of electronic dance music will continue to dominate the music scene in Albany, despite City Hall’s ham-fisted attempts to stop it.  Ditto for post-modern burlesque.  It’ll take an expensive civil rights lawsuit to get City Hall to behave and play fair.  A capital region promoter will do an EDM show in the Berkshires and make a fortune. 

            Justice Anton Scalia will reveal he’s gay in the unanimous decision he writes holding that gays’ rights to marriage and equality are inherent in the United States Constitution.

            Five Alpha Beatdown will get signed to a major label that thinks the band is really from Iceland.   You’re Boring As F*** will be a major, major hit, and will inspire the next Judd Apatow film of the same title.

            We’re gonna make 2013 one to remember.

Paul Rapp is a Berkshire IP attorney who sometimes forgives if he’s in the right mood, but never, ever forgets.