It Was the Best Annus Horribilis. It Was the Worst Annus Horribilis.

And if your anus doesn't agree, we'd like a word with your anus.

Even a blind man could see…we’re never going to get out of this life alive? Maybe could be so… (Photo by Chris Purdie)

“Well, you know…I’ve got a quirky sense of humor.”

There was nary a pause before the self-characterization fell to the sounds of laughter.

“Quirky? Is that how you see yourself? QUIRKY?!?”

This wouldn’t have been so bad if it had come from a casual acquaintance or a professional associate but given the fact that it was coming from one of my four daughters made the correction, er…noticeable. As was her laughter and the tears now in her eyes as she struggled to breathe against, apparently, what was the funniest thing she had ever heard.

I smiled too, and said “ok, ok…” as though to forestall whatever I said that amused. But she was not moved.

“You tell the most horrific stories ever and you think that constitutes a quirky sense of humor?!?!”

She laughed and sputtered and I do what all smart fathers do: I conceded.

So it is with all of this in mind that I tell you now that my year end round-up, which is what this is, is supposed to be light and frothily amusing. You know…quirky! Whether it is or not though?

Well, listen…you have my guarantee: I’M amused, at the very least. And if this brings some measure of joy to your life, well for this I am glad. I mean everyone needs a little light under the sun, to quote George Clinton…and before we all die the miserably depressing deaths that await us, there’s at least that.

Apologizing for his work with the Red Hot Chili Peppers? Well, we can hope.

THE GOOD

Being able to offer some sort of salve to a man who in large part needs none, but perhaps might enjoy some, I offer this. I give nothing for free though and so it is that I attempt to redeem myself from the apparent insult I offered the man backstage at the Royal Albert Hall after we had both finished singing some stuff for Barry Adamson’s bow at the London Jazz Festival. Have I done so? Well, do I get points for trying?

The Irish are reported to have great funerals. Drinking, drugging and all manner of excess. And this is all in the limo on the way to the graveyard. So it is within the spirit of that tradition that we’re going to try to turn one of the shittiest days of the year into one of the best by way of declaring that while he is gone, we’re still high. And miss him like nobody’s business. Which is, really, good business. One, which I am sure, he’d wholly appreciate.

THE BAD

I’m an older brother. Of four younger sisters. So I bring a bigger brother vibe to “it all.” But then she says this, “if I was a man, I’d be him and if he was a woman he’d be ME,” and I’m perfectly ok having Lydia Lunch big sister me. Especially given that since James Brown’s death she is clearly the hardest working man in show business.

I’ve been chasing PJ HARVEY for years. YEARS. Not in some desultory way that a fan might have, though I am that too. No, in a fairly concerted way through the musicians she’s played with. My goal? A duet. Her one time drummer Rob Ellis who while he was said to have appreciated my musical output to a certain degree was equally certain Harvey, herself, would decline. Have I given up? Not even a little bit.

THE UGLY

I love, when I love, completely and with the whole of my heart. But when I hate, I hate with a passionate intensity that follows straight to the grave and beyond, if allowed. On the occasion of the death of my father I said to a gathered room of groaning listeners that “I truly wished he was alive. Just so I could watch him die AGAIN.” While everyone wants the afterschool special ending I like mine just fine.

And the WINNER for the story that got me in the New York Times, Salon, the great Alta Magazine, and a half a dozen more as a named source, the whole Carlos Watson imbroglio at OZY Media. While he gets sentenced tomorrow/Monday for the crimes he’s committed, my true joy here resides wholly and totally in the title I gave to the first piece I did on a truly miserable example of a human…OZY Rules: The House Negro Gets It In the End.

And Honorable Mention for the ugliest thing to happen (to me at least) in 2024 goes to…me and the band I started back in 1988, OXBOW. It sucked, sucked, sucked. And there’s not a day that goes by where I don’t think exactly that. But it is what it is, no one’s dead, or permanently disfigured and unlike the aforementioned shitheel Watson, no one here is going to prison it seems. So it’s just sorrow and the end of a year that seemed like it would never end.

AND THERE YOU GO…happy holidays to all and to all a good fucking night.

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