[Newspoetry] It was a silly year.

Mon Dec 25 15:00:00 CST 2000

It was a silly year.

Y2K[1] was a once-in-a-thousand-years
[1] http://www.newspoetry.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?type=subjects&subject=y2k&year=2000
kind of joke.  We laughed and rejoiced
in the bunker
while the new Newspoetry website code
silently and without fanfare
failed[2].
[2] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0106.html

How were we to know that the real
stress on critical systems
and their governments
was jellyfish[3]?
[3] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0112.html

It was a silly year.

AOL and Time Warner were the butt
of satire[4] bordering on the
[4] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0111.html
FCC-disapproved,

while the DEA paid through the nose to
retool their prime-time dramas[5]
[5] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0119.html
to scare us straight.

It made us laugh instead,
that a year could be so silly.

A year when eggplant was implicated
in murder[6], and the Tory party
[6] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0201.html
hosted websites that mocked them[7];
[7] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0213.html

A year when Mr. Big reported on the election[8]
[8] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0216.html
and we took the road less traveled[9]
[9] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0223.html

was a silly year indeed.

It was a silly year when

we learned about the importance of bison[10],
[10] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0228.html
both psychic[11] and fermented[12],
[11] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/1214.html
[12] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0620.html

when Don McLean upset George W. Bush in Michigan[13]
[13] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0301.html
while Willie Brown went soft[14].
[14] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0303.html

That year

we came down with DMD[15],
[15] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0313.html
estimated Gorilla Bloat[16],
[16] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0322.html
discovered the MartinLutherVandrossSammyDavisKingJuniorShortXIV Gene[17],
[17] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0325.html
wrote existential haiku[18],
[18] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0326.html

and knew how silly we,
the year, was.

April 1 the Unknown said it all[19],
[19] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0401.html
zipeless[20] and pound-esque[21];
[20] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0402.html
[21] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0403.html

we wrecked the good ship lollipop[22]
[22] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0408.html
and some other classics for good measure[23]
[23] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0412.html
just to be silly,

it was such a silly year.

The horror of "muclear" weapons loomed[24]
[24] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0413.html
and Onon Gonsborg howl'd[25];
[25] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0419.html

it rained cats and dogs[26]
[26] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0504.html
on a lighter earth[27]
[27] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0505.html

that lighter year,
the spring of our silliness.

We made a killing on tourism[28]
[28] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0513.html
fell in love with Alan Greenspan's briefcase[29],
[29] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0516.html
had a heart-to-heart with a firearm[30],
[30] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0528.html
and gave the NASDAQ[31] gas[32].
[31] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/1029.html
[32] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0614.html

Oh, it was a silly year alright.

How silly we were to lose our keys
in the John[33],
[33] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0619.html
to defend our new-growth tree against
the power company[34]
[34] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0630.html
or how about the time we sold
the declaration of independence[35]?
[35] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0704.html

That was silly.

It was a silly year
we held a picnic in Urbana[36]
[36] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0709.html
and sang that new national anthem[37].
[37] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0711.html

It was a silly year
we arrested Bill Clinton[38]
[38] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0719.html
and pierced our cat[39]
[39] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0721.html

How did we get so silly?
It was the year for it.

It was the year for
nourishing our inner freak[40]
[40] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0724.html
and singing the Dick Cheney Blues[41].
[41] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0801.html

It was the year we cracked
the Newspoetry conspiracy[42]
[42] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0802.html
and forgot to write it down[43].
[43] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0805.html

It was a silly year,

and a silly election[44]
[44] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0807.html
with silly candidates[45];
[45] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0808.html
silly weather[46]
[46] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0811.html
and silly prayers[47].
[47] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0828.html

The candidates chose silly running mates[48],
[48] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0829.html
some of them stolen[49],
[49] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0901.html
that year.

That year was a silly one

because we took up the right-to-life
for robots[50]
[50] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0902.html
and overheard slurs uttered off-mic[51].
[51] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0906.html

It was silly of us to e-market shrews[52],
[52] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0908.shtml
put "subliminable" messages in our poems[53],
[53] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0913.html
and hawk black holes[54],
[54] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0919.html

but that's what kind of year it was.

When autumn allegedly came[55]
[55] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0921.html
we were glued to the Olympic turkey slicing competition[56]
[56] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0922.html
on TV.  How silly could we be?

Women's paule vaulting was silly enough,
semiotically speaking[57],
[57] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/0929.html
that silly Olympic year.

It was a silly year,
but just to be sure of it,
we voted for $230 million in pineal gland relief[58]
[58] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/1009.html
and wrote light verse[59].
[59] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/1016.html

It was such a silly year
that we amused ourselves with aimless pastimes[60]
[60] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/1021.html
while the election heated up[61]
[61] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/1025.html
with an intensity scarcely witnessed
since Godzilla vs. Mothra[62].
[62] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/1031.html

It was a silly election,

and Bethany's sexay love man voted for love[63]
[63] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/1110.html
or something silly, like whichever candidate
can do the macarena[64].
[64] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/1111.html

We were terrorized at the laundromat[65]
[65] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/1116.html
that year, which was sillier than it sounds,
and finally decided in an act of defiant
silliness to secede[66] from our silly country.
[66] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/1119.html

"What a silly year,"
we said to each other,
"it has been".

As if on cue both candidates died[67]
[67] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/1208.html
and George Bush Sr. got hip[68]
[68] http://www.newspoetry.com/2000/1212.html
to what a silly year it was.

--
Joe Futrelle
Editor-within-chief,
Newspoetry dot com