YOU SAY YOU WANT A RESOLUTION
by Bill Delaune

Great literary figures like Scarlett O’Hara and Orphan Annie have always thought-quite optimistically-that things will get better “tomorrow”.

Even that great American philosopher Lou Holtz once proclaimed, “That’s why the Good Lord put our eyes in front of our head instead of the back-so we can see where we’re going and not where we’ve been.”

So just think how we hopeless romantics feel entering not only a new year in 2010 but a completely new decade.

Sure we’re nine years past the “2001: A Space Odyssey” craze and we still don’t have jet-powered backpacks yet. And yes, we’re only two years away from the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012. But those minor items should not prevent us from making a rousing round of resolutions designed to change our lives for the better in 2010.

Of course we will miss 2009 when the phrase “hiking the Appalachian Trail” became the newest euphemism for “having sex with a hot bimbo” but certainly there are many other legends-in-the-making waiting to be discovered this decade.

So without Freddy Adu, I give you my personal New Year’s resolutions titled “A New Begin in 2010”. I know I left out an “-ing” but I’m out of characters on my Twitter.

January- For starters I’m going to order every ab-improvement apparatus featured on TV infomercialsand whip this body into tip-top shape one last time.

Over the years my upper body has taken on a Johnny Depp-like quality-sort of a pirate’s treasure featuring a sunken chest with a rum keg where the six-packs should be.

But according to those ads on late-night television, I should be bulked up and kicking sand in some 90-pound weakling’s face by summertime. In addition, I look forward to all those scantily-clad young women hanging on me like sausage on a smokehouse wall.

I also plan to order a Vegematic, a Pocket Fisherman, and a set of Commemorative Presidential Plates so I can eat my eggs off the President’s face.

February- I resolve to do more investigative reporting so I can unlock some of the great mysteries of the Universe for you, my faithful readers.

Instead of the whimsical fantasies you’ve grown accustomed to in this column, you’ll be treated in future issues to the answers of some of the most disturbing questions of our time.

For example- Who really shot JFK? What goes on in Les Miles’s mind in the final minutes of a game? Where Jimmy Hoffa is buried and why is the end zone in New Jersey’s Meadowlands Stadium called “the Coffin Corner”? Why has LSU offensive coordinator Gary Crowton forgotten all those creative plays that worked so well in the BCS title game in 2007?

How do you get the “Change oil soon” light to go off in your car the day after you changed the oil? If the band at Southpaw’s quits at one o’clock, why do women expect their men folk to be back at home and in bed at two minutes after one-and against a stiff northerly breeze?

These-and many other haunting issues-will be addressed because inquiring minds want to know.

March- This year I resolve to give you a well-researched, carefully-thought-out, intelligent pick in the NCAA March Madness Basketball Tournament so that you can win your office’s Final Four pool.

Forget the mistakes of thepast like the year I toutedXavier to win it all because the “X-Men” movie had just been released. Or the time I picked Louisville, Utah, Connecticut and Kentucky to reach the Final Four because their first letters spelled out the word L-U-C-K. Or Georgia Tech because they had the best fight song. Or UCLA because I was on a Doors kick and that’s where Jim Morrison got thrown out.

Not this year though. I’m through will all those hare-brained schemes. This year I’m going to see Sister Marie.

April- When the Masters draws near, I resolve to improve my golf game but not improve my lie. I will play the ball down-no matter where it lies-and resist cheating in any aspect of the game.

Speaking of cheating, I also resolve not to fall into the same trap as Tiger Woods who allegedly has been hiking the Appalachian Trail with an entire troop of nightclub hostesses.

However, this subject will be brought to light in one of my first exposes in which I identify most of these women- who apparently sleep all day and come out at night to lure their prey- as vampires.

I can see the movie now-“Tiger Prowls at Twilight”.

May-I resolve to reverse my bad fortune and win a Wells Fargo truck full of money on the Kentucky Derby this year. No more horses that go off at 20 to 1 and come in at 20 after two-no siree. Our Derby motto this year is “2010-The Year We Win”.

Early tip-the winning jockey will be from Louisiana.

June-July-August- For your summertime baseball features, I resolve not to bore you with any more articles about the WORLD CHAMPION NEW YORK YANKEES.

Instead I will focus on local players now playing in the Majors like Reid Brignac of Tampa Bay and Ben Sheets who is coming off arm surgery and not on the WORLD CHAMPION NEW YORK YANKEES.

Unless I happen to get back to Yankee Stadium this summer that is. Then it’s more stories about me hanging out with Derek Jeter of the WORLD CHAMPION NEW YORK YANKEES that will knock your Red Sox off.

September-This football season I resolve not to be two-faced in my support of Coach Les Miles and the LSU Fighting Tigers. I will be totally supportive, upbeat and positive and will never question or boo any coaching decision.

As long as they don’t run that ill-conceived, yard-losing, pitifully executed frickin’ option that we’re all so fond of. Then all bets are off.

We’re with you, Coach- win or draw.

October- Like my old friend the Wolfman, I resolve this fall to become an agent of change. I will follow the lead of our two Louisiana senators who seem to be able to change their spots depending on the situation. Certainly you remember David Vitter riding to victory on a platform promising family values and then changing his mind once in office to allegedly begin hiking the Appalachian Trail with a troop of prostitutes from Washington D.C. all the way to New Orleans.

But I do resolve to feature Mary Landrieu in our Halloween issue if she will change her name to Marie LaVeau and get New Orleans voodoo included in my national Health Care package.

November- I resolve to catch more fish than a certain member of our Thanksgiving Fishing Rodeo and Coaching and Officiating Clinic crew this November when the group convenes in Venice. I will vanquish this pretender- whose name shall remain anonymous due to certain legal complications {but his initials are Don Alexander}- and re-establish myself as Barnacle Bill the Sailor- Ruler of the Redfish with a Spec Scepter.

Or maybe I should start off by just trying to stay in the boat.

December- By the end of the year 2010, I resolve to have broken all of the previous resolutions and still be the same out-of-shape bad golfer, worse fisherman, giving you bits of sordid satire and sheer lunacy as well as poor political advice {complete with politically-incorrect pictures} and more sports losers than a 300-pound jockey.

But stick with me, faithful readers. It’s been a long, strange trip so far and something tells me it’s about to get even stranger.

So, all aboard the 2010 train. The road may get a little bumpy but it’s the journey that’s important and not the destination. Unless you prefer hiking the Appalachian Trail.