2006: Year of the Grieco

When I arrived in my hometown of Dallas for Christmas I realized that I hadn’t gotten enough presents for my friends and family. In a last minute effort to rectify the situation I drove my sweet-ass Hyundai to what I’m fairly sure is the largest Tom Thumb in the world. After grabbing various gift cards, several “holiday” bags of Cheetohs, and a nutcracker that does the running man I headed to the checkout line. While the woman in front of me complained about how she just couldn’t find Steak-ums anymore, I perused the tabloids as I am want to do. All of the best ones (those in black & white) we’re offering their predictions for the coming year. There are too many forecasts to cover, but let’s just say you, me, and the world’s fattest baby are in for some serious stuff in ’06.

Reading these predictions made me realize that for too long I have neglected the one-hour training I received from some guy in Louisiana when I got my telephone psychic job. I decided to give my powers of prognostication a workout and to do my best to make the actress who played Miss Cleo proud. Wait. Kids, I’m only joking. There really is a Miss Cleo, and on one special night each year she dresses up in a quasi-Jamaican accent and tells all the good boys and girls who have lovers in prison, a fear of dying alone, or an unquenchable thirst for Pop-Tarts and Robitussin exactly what they need to do to make everything OK. Whew! That was close. I would never forgive myself if I ruined things for the little ones. Anyway, without further Grieco, here are my predictions for the New Year.

1. It will finally be revealed that Sarah Jessica Parker is actually that nerdy dude who plays Mitch in Real Genius.

2. My prayers will be answered and Colin Farrell, Russell Crowe, and Eva Longoria will be sucked into a worm hole and deposited on a planet where drunken louts, overrated boorish Aussies, and photo-op whores are forced to work as production assistants on a straight-to-video re-imagining of Godspell.

3. In fulfillment of Prophecy, Grieco’s post-apocalyptic wasteland zombie picture, Raiders of the Damned, will shock the world and break all previous opening weekend box office records.

4. Dako Fa-Fa will raise an army of super-intelligent spider monkeys bent on world domination. She’ll also take on the role of a 12 year-old Eleanor Roosevelt in a life-spanning biopic that will also star Charlize Theron and Shirley MacLaine. All three women will be simply delightful in the film.

5. Sharks will take to the sky.

6. The Cruise-Holmes baby will be born and it’s ability to manipulate both time and space will make us all feel bad for doubting Scientology luminaries like Vinnie Barbarino, Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, and that chick who played Dharma.

7. Ocean’s 13 will go into production, but the level of self-satisfaction and masturbatory filmmaking involved will actually cause Soderbergh and the entire cast (except Don Cheadle) to explode in a brilliant display over Clooney’s Lake Como villa.

8. The Chicago Cubs will win the World Series.

9. Special Agent Dale Cooper will get out of the Black Lodge

10. You, gentle reader, will pass this post onto ten of your friends, thus keeping the chain alive. After all, Chet Dinkins of Missouri failed to pass this post on in the allotted time and three days later he found himself working in a call center selling radio ads disguised as PSAs to people who despised him from the moment they heard his voice, while the middle-aged women in the ½-cubicles next to him showed each other the shirts they had made with iron-on pictures of their cats and the guy across the aisle talked about how the community bathroom in the men’s boarding house he lived in was a great place to practice his singing even though it reeked of month-old urine. OK, that was totally me. I had that job in Chicago. There is no Chet Dinkins. But still, if you could pass this on to even like one or two people it would totally help me out, because Burning Man is coming up and I really need something nice to wear.

Happy New Year!