Celebrity New Year’s Resolutions

By Dave Granger

On behalf of Academic Probation, I’d like to welcome you, our faithful reader, to the new millennium. If you thought that blessed event already occurred at the 1999/2000 junction, I urge you to flip to the TLF section, which is more your intellectual calibre. At any rate, as a special 2001 treat, I’m going to share a few lists of new year’s resolutions compiled by some of this era’s most influential and famous folk. Don’t thank me! Spare your applause for these uncensored accounts of what will hopefully exemplify self-improvement!

Stockwell Day [typewritten, King James Bold font]

1. Get more exercise. Start with a brisk program of bible-thumping in the morning followed by a solid half-hour of jetskiing in the afternoon.

2. Attempt to publicly refute theory of evolution, despite the fact that God agrees with it.

3. Allow children to listen to more lyrically risqué music, such as Gipsy Kings and Duran Duran.

4. Change first name to "Doris", as proposed by This Hour Has 22 Minutes, thus demonstrating presence of sense of humour. Follow up with sex change.

5. Read Of Mice and Men and Catcher in the Rye. Then attempt to ban them from schools.

6. Look up "catcher" in the dictionary. Then ban the dictionary.

7. Write defamatory letter to Gauntlet, in an unofficial capacity. Have legal bills from ensuing lawsuit paid for by federal government.

Marshall Mathers/Slim Shady/Eminem [handwritten, in blood]

one: get treatment for multiple personality disorder.

two: me too.

three: count me in. a shrink is in order.

four: buy new mattress to jump on; invest in new teddy bear.

five: reconcile with mother and ex-wife; start hating father and brothers instead.

six: write less songs about homicidal tendencies. write more songs about bunnies. fuzzy bunnies. Fuzzy bunnies with huge f*cking guns who like to kill people.

seven: smoke doobies and discuss world politics, Calvinism, and the photoelectric effect with Dre.

Tom Green [handwritten, using crayon]

1. Show up at daddy’s work wearing only his favourite socks with cameras rolling, of course.
    
2. Give head to an elephant. Yes, for national broadcast.
    
3. Marry Glen Humplik, my long-time friend and co-host (make sure it’s taped for TV).
    
4. Look at my bum! Hey, guys, look at my bum! Check it out! It’s my bum!
    
5. Undergo circumcision as rite of passage into Judaism. Have it recorded for the show.
    
6. poo poo. pee pee. penis. rectum.

Al Gore [typewritten, Automaton font]

1. Return to cyborg factory for needed emotion chip implant.
    
2. Start staging electoral comeback for 2004; to this end, engage in extra-marital affairs with interns and have the whole world know about it.
    
3. Claim to have invented the following: Furbies, breast implants, and the kazoo. Like the Internet–which I also invented–they’re all fun to play with for a while, but in the end they’re completely useless.
    
4. Market "You are hearing me talk" doll (as depicted on The Simpsons) to Wal-Mart.

George Lucas [handwritten, with obvious signs of gleeful twitching]

1. I will continue to produce mediocre sequels to my out-dated one-trick pony.
    
2. I will make a killing at the theatres despite weak film plots, tiring effects and shitty stock characters.
    
3. I will summon aliens from a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away and go joyriding with them across the universe.
    
4. I will be God.

God [handwritten, in calligraphy script]

1. Smite peons, await world destruction.
    
2. Send Imperial Troopers to destroy George Lucas.
    
3. Arrange lunch date with Eminem.
    
4. Appear to Stockwell Day in a dream and tell him what a silly, deluded fool he is.
    
5. Bowl a perfect game (as usual) against Tom Green and Al Gore.
    
6. Make Rob and Dave kings of the world, rulers of the planet, supreme overlords of Earth.