Looking Ahead to 2017

By Ryan O'Connell on 12/22/2016 • ( 0 )

My mother could always find the positive spin in things; she has always been a huge advocate of moving on and believing that things will get better. So it’s with that in mind that I turn the page on 2016 and steer the ship towards 2017. Without getting into it, it could be argued that 2016 was troublesome at best, loathsome at worst and overall, kind of a bummer. Of course there was some quality moments sprinkled throughout and we’d be remiss to ignore them. I mean dude, the Cubs won the World Series. That’s not something that happens every year, although given their team, it could from now on.

So let’s put 2016 in the rear view. What can we reasonably expect from 2017? Or let’s look at this way, outside of a Trump presidency that currently creates severe bouts of heartburn and nausea, what does 2017 have in store for us? Let’s look ahead but let’s look ahead and do so with an undercurrent of positivity and hope.

Things Scheduled to Happen in 2017

Super Bowl 51 will happen and Super Bowls are generally fun. Lady Gaga is this year’s halftime performer, which is is fine I guess. Who else were they going to pick? I’d say Taylor Swift, but she’s doing some pre-game gig. As for the game, of course I’d like the Patriots to be in it and I think a Patriots/Giants game could be exactly what we as a country need. We love sequels, but trilogies are where it’s at.

The Grammys will happen and based on the nominations, the night looks to be an epic showdown between Beyonce and Adele. It also appears to be a funeral for rock music and so help me God if the Chainsmokers take home Best New Artist. It should go to Chance the Rapper or Anderson .Paak. After the Grammys, there will be the Oscars and with a little hope, we can avoid the whole #oscarssowhite thing that cast a shadow over last year’s awards. It looks like a possibility with Moonlight and Fences, but as Dave Chappelle said during his opening monologue on Saturday Night Live, “I know the whites. You guys aren’t as full of surprises as you used to be.” No, no we’re not. The uproar when Passengers gets nominated could be disruptive enough to derail Twitter from Trump-related tweets for at least twenty minutes.

On TV, The Bachelor returns on January 2nd and later that week, the 12th season of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia kicks off. Twelve seasons! See, there are some good things happening in the world. The best show on television, The Americans, returns in March and a month of so later, we get more Game of Thrones.

And then it’s summer.

Summer is great.

Things That Might Happen in 2017

Lightning round!

Someone important dies on Game of Thrones

The Patriots win their fifth Super Bowl

The Patriots don’t win their fifth Super Bowl

Bruno Mars performs during halftime of the Super Bowl

We all agree that form-fitting sweat pants are dumb

Beyonce and Jay Z release an album together

The Beyonce and Jay album is uh, just okay

One of these teams don’t win a championship: the Cubs, the Warriors, a soccer team

And…

…and…

…and

I don’t just don’t know, man. It’s kind of hard getting super pumped for 2017 right now and yes, it’s due in large part to how 2016 is drunkenly stumbling out the door and we’re forced to somehow make sense of stuff like this:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/811977223326625792

It’s cool everyone. It’s just the next President casually tweeting about expanding our nuclear weapon arsenal, which is already insanely large.

The reality is that no matter how we want to spin it, the specter of a Trump presidency is hanging over all of our heads like mountains of student loan debt saddled with irritable bowel symptoms married to being stuck on hold while waiting to talk to Comcast about problems with your bill. There’s no way to ignore it. Yes, you could think about the return of Twin Peaks or the next Guardians of the Galaxy, but it’s not going to stop you from thinking about walls and bans and what the fuck, we’re cool with Russia now?

A late-in-the-game slogan for Trump was “drain the swamp” and while the phrase has come under fire because it definitely seems like Trump is making the swamp bigger, I’d argue that dude, we’re all in the swamp right now. We’re all covered in mud and making eye contact with frogs and snakes and we stink. We smell like sewage and no one wants to admit it because they stink too and denial is easier than acceptance. In 2017 gas prices might hit record lows and a film starring mainly African-American actors takes home the Oscar for Best Picture because according to everyone, Moonlight is really effin’ good and to make things really crazy, it beats out Fences because shit is crazy. But unfortunately, shit is crazy and if you feel the ground coming apart underneath you, don’t worry, it probably is.

So maybe 2017 will be great. Maybe 2017 will feature remarkably wonderful weather, more feel-good sports stories than we can deal with and something totally out of the blue that we all celebrate and rally around – like another season of Stranger Things. But until that starts to happen, we’ll be forced to jump the hurdles of despair and inner turmoil. It’s the life we lead now.

But hey, at least we’ll always have this: