The new new year
a SUIT column by Chris Jungle

A new year is on the horizon and we, as a collective, have made it one more notch closer to the mystical and majestic millennium which everyone seems to have been planning since the 90s began. Each new year, people believe they get to start over with a clean slate and do all of the things they failed to get done the year before, and the only reason they feel this way is that the year is new.

Are new years better than old ones? I guess a new year means there is no history for it and no baggage like an old year such as 1985, but that doesn't mean it'll be better. I remember a strange experiment the makers of Coca-Cola did while I was a younger, peppier sprite (pun intended). They made a product called New Coke. Coke had changed its formula to a sweeter but more cough syrupy concoction causing a public uproar. Instead of bringing back the taste the masses dearly loved, they took the old style off the market assuming people would get used to the new version. The public didn't go for the "new" taste, and eventually, the old formula returned after a few months hiatus in the form of Coca-Cola Classic. Nowadays, you can't even buy (new) Coke any more, and the world realized a good old real thing beats a new, shiny real thing.

This winter, there are new movies. There's a new Alien movie, a new Bond movie, a new Home Alone movie, a new Scream movie, a new movie based on an Leonard Elmore novel, a new movie about an old slavery event, a new version of the old Absent-Minded Professor, and a new movie about a big old ship wrecking. Is it just me, or every new movie just a hyped up, watered down version of something that's already been done? New doesn't mean the same thing as innovative, does it?

The hot new Christmas toy last year was Tickle Me Elmo. This year, it's Sleep and Snore Ernie. Next year, it will be Dread Natty Dread Oscar. There's always a new Mortal Combat-style video game, and to be honest, Mortal Combat was just a new version of an arcade game called Karate Champ. There's new cars, new computers, new music, new gadgets, new clothes, new fads, and new loves.

That's what a new year has to offer. Slightly different versions of what was around the year before. We like to think we're changing as a society by getting new stuff with the new fifty and hundred dollar bills. We'll travel to new places, meet new people, have new conversations, eat new foods, make new resolutions, and find new ways to break them.

The United States will have new problems with other countries, new strategies for fighting the drug war, new proposals for universal Medi-care, new arguments about balancing the budget, new presidential scandals, new ways to get tough on crime, new elections, and new tax dollars to spend on new projects.

Taco Bell will come out with a new type food product (possibly with bacon or ham). The popular bands will have new albums. I will have new columns using some new words concerning a new thought I will have about a new hot topic. Saturday Night Live will have new skits. There will be new gas prices, new rent prices, new prices for long distance.

There will be new multiple births, new deaths, new wars, new natural disasters, new business opening up, new books, new famines, new democracies, new slang words, new leaders, new funniest home videos, new sitcoms, new jobs, and new ways to question the relevancy of existing in the new and improved world.

Darn it, I've done and got myself all excited about the new year. This will be the year I break through as a new literary voice. The year I find the girl who can stand to be with me for more than twenty minutes without getting annoyed. The year I become a responsible human being and get into a tax bracket where I have to actually pay a good chunk of tax. And if none of the new things I've predicted occur in the new year, I know we'll all at least be a brand new year older.

Chris Jungle is starting a new New World Order in the new New Year in the new New Mexico.

return to the Shut up, I'm talking page
return to the LIES home page
return to the A&A home page