1. BAILOUT FOR BOOKS
First people stop buying books as Wii, DVR, and Hulu make it too easy to do eye exercises. Prez Obama sinks a cool billion into life support for the publishing doofuses. Taxpayers take to the street to protest; then the hullabaloo makes people realize Barnes & Noble is in fact a bookstore, not a coffee shop.

2. MACY’S GOES CASUAL
People learn Target and Macy’s basically sell the same stuff and stop paying attention to their advertising. Macy’s becomes “Walmart without dog food and toilet paper.”

3. A HEART-WARMING BLOCKBUSTER?
A movie opens quietly that touches people’s hearts and yet has no celebrities. What occurs is this: Wes Anderson changes his name to something obscure and recruits actors via YouTube auditions. They shoot the feel-good movie of the year in Prospect Park, and it grosses more than a billion. But alas, the goodwill is ruined by the studio’s DVD-release hype.

4. BLOOMBERG VS. CHAINS
The City of New York bans store chains from opening more than one location in any neighborhood. As 7-Elevens invade the territory reserved for the grimy neighborhood bodega, third-termer Michael Bloomberg proclaims that every city block ought to have at least one store where it’s fine for locals to sit outside on milk crates and drink $2 Snapple out of paper bags . Subsequently, taxes rise. I heart NY.

5. A MAGAZINE STAYS OPEN, SELLS ADS
The post-millennial Saturday Evening Post announces that it is merging with Playboy, and suddenly Martha and O’s magazines are in big trouble. The new mag publishes things people want to read and engenders brand loyalty in its readers by being authentic and dirty. The printed word is the new black.

6. A BIG IDEA
Someone not named Donnie Deutsch takes over the 10 p.m. spot on CNBC and does interviews with people who have something to say that isn’t a prepared statement by flacks. Jeff Zucker for once gets a night’s sleep.

7. THE IPHONE TIDE
The iPhone is given away with boxes of Tide detergent. Steve Jobs takes to the stage at MacWorld and proclaims that Tide is all he ever uses on his closetful of black turtlenecks and jeans because, “like Apple, Tide is a noun, and I like nouns.” The iPhone is priced down to $9.99, and Americans begin to make all their spending money selling ideas via the App Store.

8. BANDWAGONING
After the calamitous failure of several self-help biz books, we start noting how much cheaper it is to enact someone else’s great idea — and pretend it’s ours. The ‘09 way to live a saner and more successful existence is by, you guessed it, jumping on the bandwagon in order to forgo sitting at the reins trying to blaze the trail ourselves.

9. BAD TV IS BANNED
All remaining reality TV gigs, “One Tree Hill” and the ridiculously skinny “90210″ are banned by the feds because a CDC study proves they are in fact not guilty pleasures at all but instantly kill brain cells upon viewing. The ACLU challenges the move as a violation of free speech, or at least a bad use of pee breaks. The liberals win, and a Fox reality show is quickly constructed. Its title: “ACLU-Ville.”

10. EXECS SELL THEIR SOLES
Those bass-ackward Kenneth Cole HELP ads inspire jobless executives to hawk $500 loafers on New York’s Canal Street. In a similar story, “My Super Sweet 16″ is canceled because no one is able to afford to pay for parties that huge and absurd anymore. Rational people rejoice. 2009 is heralded as a banner year!

News came on Friday that the Old Grey Lady is starting an Instant Op-Ed feature online. This new technology will “allow the paper’s Web site to post immediate expert viewpoints on breaking news,” said Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal.

Thank you, New York Times.

Golly, imagine. I can get Maureen Dowd’s opinion on something before tomorrow’s paper comes out! I can even, gasp, comment on what she wrote! Paul Krugman can tell me what to think of economic news in the middle of the day!

As one editor reaching put it: “This could be a forum for one of those people to express themselves in a more extended way.”

Well. We are witnessing harnessing of the awe-inspiring power of the Internet…yeah, if this were 2001.

Oh, my Times. What you’ve created is called a weblog - or a blog. These have been around for several years. They’ve been scooping you for probably the last few. Your own paper has blogs that are starters. The guys over in Sports run an awesome baseball blog appropriately called “Bats.” There’s “Bits” with several of our well-informed friends writing on tech-smart topics far and wide. This blogging is not a new concept, friend.

As an imbiber of the Times since my days in small pants, I have to wonder and I need to worry. Are they unaware that blogs exist, or are they hoping we don’t know blogs exist? Or, most interestingly, are they calling their blog “Instant Op-Ed” in order to make their so-called experts seem like more than mere bloggers?

This is problematic because - everyone take notes - there are smart people in the world who write blogs without needing the validation of being called an “expert.” A guy named Duncan Black, who holds a Ph.D in Economics writes a fabulous political blog that merits reading daily. A lawyer/veteran from El Salvador has with a single hand organized the entire left into electoral victory with the power of HTML. Heck, the trombone player for our local Philharmonic just started a blog that The Times even wrote about last week. Heavy sigh.

The point is that the New York Times may have officially jumped over the ship, sailed over the shark and run over my admiration. Not only has its Op-Ed department not embraced the technology that has existed for years, they apparently are so hung up on the concept of “expert” that they fail to understand that anyone with a blog tendency is, can be, and should assert themselves with their expertise.

The old-fashioned Op-Ed is dead now. Freely ask anyone with Wordpress capabilities if you think not.

…For more like this, see the book (or, even better: buy it) “2011: Trendspotting.”

Bad news is the new good news. Jump on the bandwagon.

Bad news is absolutely everywhere. It is unavoidable. The economy is in shambles, 50 million Americans are without health insurance, unemployment is on the rise in numbers that scare even me, and 43 out of 50 states are now operating on a budget deficit. Meanwhile, some enterprising projects have figured out how to keep their heads above water and even prosper in some cases despite experiencing these bleakest of times by making the (now official) recession seem almost cool.

Kind of.

A great example of the general mopiness of society today is found on television. Maury Povich, the veteran host whose syndicated

I was reading through a bunch of email newsletters and saw the travel guy I used to respect relating how we might not be able to “trust” Obama. That’s when it hit me: Of course he will win. Republicans with attitudes like the newsletter dude need to be pushed aside in favor of positive enforcement that the world is actually a decent place.

Quote from him: “I’m certain that in one case we can [trust the candidate] - a man with a proven record of decades of unswerving integrity and loyal support and love for his country. I fear the other candidate’s vision of change (because, for sure, he has no record to run on at all, except that of shadowy associations with people who hate America and wish us harm) may be a dark and scary thing quite different to that which many of his starry eyed supporters wish it to be.”

Then the so-called Travel Insider ended with “Nuff said” a smiley face, and I unsubscribed to his letter after seven years. (Travel Idiot for sharing: I’m sure I was one of several hundred who did.)

Obama has done everything in his power to prove himself as a good man — a solid individual who has zigzagged throughout this country telling us what he will do when elected. He’s been consistent and has run a fabulous campaign. We know that. But one aspect of his candidacy is hardly spoken about — the fact he has strived to keep everything above board. He has nothing to apologize for and has handled the entire 21 months with aplomb and forthrightness. Even when I wasn’t sure of him (admittedly) there was always that part of me that shook my head and said “I wish I could be like that.” Even-handed and measured, the way I imagine a president was before I was born.

The fact is, Mrs. Clinton, John McCan’t, Tina Fey Palin, Crazy Huck, and most of the other candidates in this never-ending freak show worked our nerves every time we listened to them, tossing out bright shiny objects until we were dizzy. It made me feel bad that they had to take such cheap shots in order to stay in the race. But our man, Senator O, did not see that road, never even took the easy shots at President Bush when Obama could have beaten the Chief up for acting, if not being, a real shmuck.

It’s time for the world to stop being snarky at every turn (too easy anyway) and to realize we’re all in this together. There’s a lot of muck out there and in the end we are better for it when we act respectfully and honorably, no matter what. In the last few weeks of this election season two of the two biggest purveyors of “oh my G-d did you see that” rumors — Gawker.com and Radar magazine — have seen their fortunes die out. This is not by chance. I think us all, Republicans and Democrats alike, so-called independents and the ones who side fervently, have a single thing in common: we want us to stop complaining, bitching, or making fun! Let’s see the good side instead of piling on the dirt.

To paraphrase a song from my 20’s: Whine time is over. After this election is over, let’s all take a deep breath, live with the meltdown, and say out loud: “What can I do to make this a better world?” And to you who think this all sounds Pollyannaish, I offer the final words of this soliloquy:

“Deal with it. You’re secretly hoping everyone can start acting like our country (and perhps the world) is one big village. Smile a little. Encourage good behavior. Compliment someone for the hell of it. Don’t make fun of the next guy. Just be yourself. Look upwards. Hide from no one. Say something to the person standing by you about where you are headed in life. And celebrate a new beginning, one that says “Uh huh, the last eight years were one big messy period. So what? We don’t have to look backwards anymore. We can change.”
Congratulations. We are on the way up.

I’m Richard Laermer, and I’m the author of a hopeful book, 2011: Trendspotting.

According to Clay (”Don’t Touch Me!”) Aiken, it is a big gay world out there. And that’s what the press wants you to believe. From my viewpoint, as a fuchsia card-carrying gay alpha male, every few years there’s a boondoggle in gay stories in America: the Supreme Court said OK to sodomy in Texas; Iowa in the heartland says OK to gay weddings; Richard Chamberlain (Richard! Chamberlain!) claims he’s a homo; while finally (my favorite) MTV said OK to the airing of a band (t.A.t.U.) that portrays itself as being “all lesbian, all the time.” The mega-ratings grabber Tia Tequila featured a bisexual lady of indiscriminate taste, but I’m not sure if she’s into sex as much as she is into showing off her inanity.

Yawn, digress. Is all this really the series of huge breakthroughs the media are suggesting? Because it sounds to me like just a lot of hype to sell a bunch of dying papers. Truth is, we’ve seen this all before. As I clamor for someone to just enact a single bold headline: “He’s Gay, So What?”

A generation and a half ago, Rock Hudson came out to the world on his deathbed because of complications from AIDS, smack-dab in the middle of Reagan America. At that point, a scant few years before the Supremes said no to sodomy in Georgia, the mass media talked a good game and asked Americans to be a lot more compassionate in their dealings with their gay brothers and sisters.

Then we waited for 24.5 years — past noise like “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” past Barry Winchell’s horrific death from homobashing Army boys, past that shady Defense of Marriage Act and doe-eyed Matthew Shepard, to, finally, a gay bishop happening upon the scene somewhere up north.

So the big news now is that it’s OK to be gay. Of course, it isn’t entirely OK. The media message of the moment notwithstanding, Bill Frist, once the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate, reacted to gay movement forward by grandstanding that he’d like an amendment to the constitution that gay marriage be disallowed. That is progress with a small “p.” Not gay with a capital “G.”

So how can we explain this dichotomy? Perhaps the public isn’t really so much more accepting and the culture isn’t really that much different — just as it wasn’t back in 1985, when Rock died. Perhaps the reality is that the media have grabbed onto this story line more because it’s a sellable one than because it’s the truth.

Let’s go back to Chamberlain, who has been an icon much longer than Aiken (and take Lohan, please…). Chamby’s story says a lot about why people were going “Senator Craig?” (who cares; just go away) last year. Chamberlain’s publicist insisted breathlessly that he should get a big “wow!” for his act of boldness. He should? For 40 years he played dull and, oh yeah, straight. Then he got exciting and on the cover of People magazine for telling the world that he’s gay. Really? And, oh yeah, he happened to have a book for sale.

Which I’m sure is just a coincidence. Much like Liz Smith, who also conveniently came out in what very briefly became a must-read memoir. But don’t get me started on Liz Smith.

One day after Richard’s big moment, I stood in a trendy Santa Monica video store and spotted the original Bourne Identity, which was remade last year with the straight (well, today!) Matt Damon. Chamberlain played Damon’s role in the first version, which no one remembers now, since Damon has turned this into his role. I had to laugh at the laboriously butch face Chamberlain was making on the box. He hasn’t had that kind of fame in years, and his new efforts — retired and notoriously gay — reek of a last-ditch effort to gain a buck off fame.

To make matters smellier, the old boy told Dateline at the time that he is “not a romantic leading man anymore and [no longer needs] to nurture that public image anymore.” Did anyone in the press ask about his implicit suggestion that his fans are total idiots? What Richard Chamberlain’s old-world PR people were pulling was very 1950s: let’s tell the world he’s gay to get some more attention. Right. Ask Rosie O’Donnell how far being queer’s gotten her, really. Certainly not the lead of Price Is Right or a punditry on MSNBC. Chamberlain is an actor who has been downgraded to his generation’s Larry Storch. You know, another TV actor who has had to pay the rent by appearing in, say, cheaply constructed bus and truck companies of My Fair Lady. Now that he’s gay — I guess this goes for Clay–maybe people will pay attention to him.

Again.

I’m the author of 2011: Trendspotting. Essays like this fill the damn thing.

Last year, responding to a question about President Bush, now-beleaguered Representative Charles Rangel told his television interviewer:

Yes you heard it right: “I’m a fuckin’ redneck who likes to snowboard and ride dirt bikes. But I live to play hockey. I like to go camping and hang out with the boys, do some fishing, shoot some shit and just fuckin’ chillin’ I guess. Ya fuck with me I’ll kick ass.” (MySpace)

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet America’s future groom and parental kick in the pants, namely Levi Johnston. Fisherman? Hunter? Ass kicker? I don’t know how Bristol Palin feels, but I can tell you for sure that George W. Bush just found the love of his life, damn!

Levi is choosing life and Levi is pretty much choosing a life in politics. And he has singlehandedly changed the Republican Party - forever.

If you ponder what happened (stop laughing and think), Conservatives all over our fine nation are thrilled with the couple’s decision to keep the baby. Gosh, Bristol and Levi are role models for pregnant teens.

NY Daily News coined the parents-to-be “the all-American teen twosome.” They have taken the shame associated with teen pregnancy and somehow turned it into all American bravery. (What the hell? Diablo Cody must be pissed that Juno didn’t have anything like Bristol going on!)

Already making a real impact on politics, the self-proclaimed redneck - yes, America, Alaska too has rednecks - is is expected to be publicly unveiled (and lovingly so) at the Republican National Convention.

Sure to draw wads of nonstop attention during the dull post-Clintonian election month, this couple was all atop the stage this week, singlehandedly bringing (Republican) politics to its knees. Levi and Bristol have pulled off something quite extraordinary,’cause not only have they taken teen pregnancy out of movie theatres and trailer parks and into our living rooms, but the hopeless future First Family have given both GOPers and Dems a giant jolt: they have switched roles, a la Parent Trap. Yep, Levi is being trapped into being a parent. Too two terrible!

A couple of harmless teens got the Right and Left wingers really up in arms. In a newfangled twist, howvever, Conservatives have changed their tune about teens being with child for the very first time. Instead of a moral lynching, the Grand Old Party is offering only blessings to Sarah & Family throughout this Grandmama drama while the Befuddled Libs are screaming hypocrisy. Turns out teenage pregnancy outside of a marriage isn’t so bad, huh? It’s a big case of mistaken identity and two teenagers are behind it all. It’s like Tina Fey cooked it up.

(Yes, I know who Sarah looks like.)

Well, the amniotic fluid is on the wall and a pretty fly fishermen and his 17-year-old baby mother are the people’s people. They are changing party identity, taking the election by a storm even bigger than Gustav. Esteemed politicians have spent decades in politics without shaking things up as much as this all-American duo has in less than a week.

Get used to, kids, since the charming Pallins from Lake Whateverwasi are going anywhere. John McCain, you are being pushed aside by a Levi from the other side of the tracks.

…I’m Richard Laermer, author of the infamous book 2011: Trendspotting. And you bet I approved this message.