I have a retention problem. By the time December rolls around, I’ve forgotten everything that happened between January to October. And let’s be honest here – November’s pretty fuzzy. Maybe I should drink more. At the very least, a solid alcohol habit would excuse my terrible memory. And it would explain my nose, which is slowly turning into a lumpy pocked protuberance. It seems to happen while I sleep. Is that just age? Goodbye youthful looks! Remember me fondly.
But a lousy memory doesn’t make a year-end list difficult or onerous – it makes the task incredibly fun. I keep looking stuff up and thinking Holy mother of God, that happened less than twelve months ago? It’s like I’ve rediscovered the entire year in the space of an afternoon.
5. Sparklecorn Ruled
MamaPop’s Sparklecorn party at BlogHer 2010 raised the bar for awesomeness and threw that bar at the moon like a candy-striped unicorn horn. Hundreds of women, surrounded by new and old friends, got all hopped up on booze and candy and just danced the living hell out of that thing. If Kate Chopin had dropped in from the 1890s, she’d have thought that her all-female utopian visions had come true. She would have been screaming the lyrics to Party And Bullshit until hotel security tased her.
MamaPop Sparklecorn 2010 from The Panic Room Videos on Vimeo.
5. The New Doctor Who Ruled
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpbmMhNe6aA[/youtube]
Recently, Craig Ferguson devoted his entire show to Doctor Who. Why? Because Doctor Who rules (so does Craig Ferguson). Let me bust out some logic here. Premise A: You probably don’t watch Doctor Who. Premise B: Everything you watch is not as awesome as Doctor Who. Conclusion: All men are Socrates. Ah hell, that’s the wrong joke.
But who cares about jokes when you’ve got showrunner/mad genius Steven Moffat (Coupling, Sherlock) carrying the Who flame with a brand-new Doctor (Matt Smith) and companion (Karen Gillan) going off on brand-new adventures? After the reign of Russell T. Davies and David Tennant ended, many feared that it wouldn’t be the same. And guess what? It isn’t. But the core remains the same: a show about a character who never loses his love for the new and unexpected, even after nine hundred years of rocketing around time and space in a blue police box. That is some beautiful enthusiasm, people. We could all stand to be a little more like The Doctor.
The Doctor Who Christmas special airs on BBC America on Christmas Day. Spoiler alert: it’s going to rule.
4. The Ladies of Song (also ruled)
A number of great albums came pouring out of the spilled pitcher of 2010 (LCD Soundsystem, Kanye West, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti all come to mind) but two of my favourites came from strong, self-determined women. Robyn’s Body Talk albums had some great dance music, hitting their peak with the heartbreaking but strangely happy “Dancing On My Own,” which feels like a summary of the last thirty years of electronic pop.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcNo07Xp8aQ[/youtube]
And then there was Janelle Monáe, the pompadoured androgyne with a James Brown dance style who made The Archandroid, an album about an android from the far future leading a robot revolution. But more importantly, she fucking rocked.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwnefUaKCbc&feature=channel[/youtube]
3. Awful People (did not rule)
Every year a new crop of seriously awful fucking people are grown in the Fields of Reality. We raise them from slightly shitty seeds, keep them safe from predators as they sprout into assholes, and when they’re just right, we cut them down. Because they are just awful fucking people.
The worst non-politician awful person of 2010, as far as I can tell, was Michelle “Bombshell” McGee. Remember her? The one who did webcam shows and fucked Sandra Bullock’s boring husband? The one whose bolt-on tits matched her weird bolt-on head? Seriously, Michelle McGee is a drag Frankenstein monster encrusted in ink. She’s like something out of a biker’s wet nightmare. To top it off, when someone suggested that the “W” and “P” on her legs stood for “white power,” she claimed that it stood for “wet pussy”. So happy to hear it.
2. 3D Was Bullshit
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMoGFeMmhKA&feature=channel[/youtube]
Hey everybody! Do you like spending more at the movies? For even less fun? Then 3D was made expressly for you.
2010 was the year that 3D went from a novelty to a mainstay at the multiplex. Avatar, Piranha, The Last Airbender, etcetera. Unfortunately, it was largely terrible. The screens were dim, the tickets were overpriced, and worst of all, we looked like complete gits in those glasses. You know that iconic image of people in a theatre with 3D glasses? You know how you look at that photo and a sense of contempt for humanity floods your soul? That’s us, people. That’s us.
1. The Triumph of the Stomach
Once there was a time when food was advertised as fun or nutritious. Or both! But somehow in 2010, food became a challenge. We were “challenged” to suck down sugar-stuffed yoghurt cups for two weeks or over-processed bran cereal for thirty days. I don’t know how many people took up the challenge, but if you did, just remember: you probably shouldn’t be congratulating yourself on eating cereal every day for a month. That’s like boasting about pooping in the toilet for an entire week and not just leaning your butt over the armrest.
Just as weird as the constant health challenges were the fast food ordeals: the Double Down sandwich, the Burger King Pizza Burger, the grilled cheese sandwich burger from Friendly’s (and it’s exactly what you think it is). You weren’t supposed to enjoy these items: you were supposed to endure them and gain gustatory bragging rights. 2010 was the year that stuffing your face with crap became an achievement.
That’s it. That’s all I can remember. British science fiction, party and bullshit, fake neo-nazi tits, groundbreaking women musicians, Food By Ordeal and the hideousness of 3D. What do you remember?
BONUS: My award for Favourite MamaPop Post of 2010 goes to Jurgen Nation and her exhaustive, excessive exhumation of Heathers. Once you read her post on that deranged ’80s cult movie, there is nothing more you need to know about it.
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