This decade ain’t over until I say so…

The author, during the dark ages

And I don’t believe it’s just me. The noughties aren’t over, and the teens don’t really begin until 2011. It’s a simple matter of the most rudimentary addition. Nine years do not a decade make. You need a full set of ten for that. Yet journalists everywhere, even some of the generally cool heads at True Slant, are making lists of the best and worst of the decade, and heaving collective sighs of relief that the most troubled decade since the 1940s is drawing to an end. The same thing happened ten years ago when 1999 turned into 2000. We partied like it was 1999.

Was it just because the artist formerly known as a symbol told us we should? A decade ago in 1999, New Year’s Eve found me roaring drunk in an Irish pub in Krakow, Poland. Ever the stickler however, I wasn’t celebrating the millennium, because there was no millennium yet to celebrate. (I had a damned good time anyway).

No folks, my personal millennium celebration didn’t come until the following year, which I spent in the town formerly known as New Amsterdam. Regards this decade, I have mixed feelings. Geopolitically, America has probably had the worst president on record, committing the US armed forces and untold billions to the greatest military blunder since Napoleon marched on Moscow: Greater even. America, Britain, Canada and others have now become caught up in an endless and unwinnable war on an adverb. It seems also to me alot of the most intractable world conflicts have just dug in deeper. I’m thinking for example of Israel and Palestine. Well I would, as they’re right next door to me here in Beirut. Global warming continues apace. Or doesn’t. I tend to think the former, but I wish the so-called experts would make up their minds, and the governments who are supposed to protect us would do something about it. Borrowing, spending and greed almost brought the entire global economy to its knees, and then the people and institutions who perpetuated this colossal fraud were rewarded for their behaviour, setting the stage for another, possibly even bigger crash a few years down the line. On a lighter note, but we all have to live with this stuff, reality television and K-list celebrity culture have done the unthinkable, and succeeded in dumbing down the populus even further. That witless twat Victoria Beckham is now considered a style icon, and people are interested in what the prattish Simon Cowell has to say about music, and God help us, Oprah Winfrey about literature. The world has indeed, gone to hell in a handbasket.

So er, given all that, I suppose I can understand people wanting this goddamn decade over. Except that aren’t journalists supposed to be you know, at least kind of interested in the facts?

On the specifically personal front, most of the really interesting things that have happened to me in my life, or that I’ve made happen, have occured in the last decade. I helped author guidebooks to Hungary and Florence and Buenos Aires. I started making films, and acting in them; playing a crafty KGB agent, a Nazi apologist lawyer, and a cokehead aristocrat living in Buenos Aires. I wrote a book about feral cats, for which I’m currently seeking a publisher. Hint, hint. If the old Chinese curse is ‘may you live in interesting times’, I believe I’ve met that particular blight head on.

And we might be getting on a bit, but we know when we’re onto a good thing. Let’s have two end-of-decade/beginning of a new era blowouts: Starting with this one. The Jet-Set Hobo requires no excuse to drink Champagne and kiss every acquiescent woman in sight, but if he did, this would do nicely… so Happy New Year/Decade/Era of Peace and Prosperity everyone, and let’s not spoil it by thinking too much!