(CODMAN SQUARE, BOSTON) - First of all, they eat babies in China. Just wanted to mention that first rather than, say, write a fifty thousand word article on the gruesome activity I heard of while m.i.a from my assignment covering the 2008 Olympics.

Needless to say, as ambitious as we were, there was no way I could do the story on our budget, with the lingering legal issues and state of the economy, and as I contemplated what to do over a $375 bottle of Stamping Ground Bourbon, the carpet came right out from under us, and the empire was bankrupt.

With a little luck, the Chief has been able to carry on with no internet, a desktop computer made by Hyundai, and one of those toffee colored printers which prints on rolls of paper with those little holes on the edge. A foul mouthed lesbian intern receives the missives from an MBTA driver at Science Park, picked up that morning steps from the Chief’s (and DontPry Enterprises’) new home in Wellesley, MA.

As many of you know, and made sure to write about in the Chronicle, we closed our San Francisco offices in September after a Meatball incident which it turns out was a payback for an undisclosed episode from the Baron’s past. The city couldn’t protect us after the animals rioted, and a few overfed goats and brush babies jumped from an office window–broke through the glass actually–and fell to their death on Grant Street. We could hardly move out fast enough before the toxicology report could be published, and of course, they were all high on PCP.

So, to say the least it was tough times. 2009 will go down as the first year since the gold rush, that DontPry.com did not publish their Fall Fashion Preview and Collegiate All-American Pie Throwing Contest. In times like these we are very grateful for your readership, especially the subscribers who are not reading this, because they were told we would never go online.

This year reminded me of 1951. I was living in Manhattan at 34th and 9th on weekdays and in SF at Turk and Powell St. weekends. I had two black German shepherds in each apartment and I couldn’t tell them apart. I called them both Roger, but suspected one of them was really his brother Marvin. The world was abuzz about candy, it had gotten so different and kids were eating it now! Old timers looked at us like Martians, with our small radios and cameras around our necks. I literally killed a woman who saw me unbutton my sport coat and use a fork to eat gelato. She keeled over and hit the pavement outside the cafe while no one said a thing, the bums rushing in to steal her magazines and high heels.

When I think of those times, I remember how anxious we were to be savants, to be so noble in our great leap forward that we would even be smiling as we held out our hand to the not so fortunate and not so bright as they tailed along in our jet stream tumbling into the new world already on the ground to shine our shoes and aerate our lawns. Also, since much of the country was openly racist, homophobic, prejudiced, and sexist, we had a much different appreciation for cartoons, and things like Bugs Bunny and Disney meant a lot back then, much like the shows of today.

So, if the year confuses you because things were great, while things were also truly awful, and not yet completely screwed up as bad we probably were aiming to do,  than yes, go ahead and make a pledge of allegiance, or whatever it is fat people say to themselves five slices into that chocolate New Year’s Eve cake. But, if you are like us at DontPry and know that babies and old mutts call the shots, then you would not worry about your shitty year, you would worry about how much spittle is on your suit or will Marvin make it up the stairs of this porn star’s condo?

Ah, but things did happen. Michael Jackson’s funeral: Pryer San Diego, in a blitz of plastic handle vodka, drove Liz Taylor to the old Forum across the street where those circus elephants were being kept. Remember, we were not allowed press credentials anywhere, and so we had the perfect in with Ms. Taylor, but the damn vodka was so tasty, and Mr. San Diego totaled a 2011 Cadillac Escalade while fracturing Fetu the elephants left leg.

Jah Rastafapry sat on a plane next to Balloon Boy’s mom. She into it, too. Jah also knows Sarzosky somehow, I believe from college. Either way, everyone by now has seen him in the headlines arm and arm with the UCLA cheerleaders; apparently they were trying to keep Mexicans from cutting through the quad.

The Colonel married his sweetheart of 17 years, an orange and black Chevy Impala with a vintage Yellow Wyoming vanity plate that says “Bitchin”. His term ended at DontPry after landing a coveted spot editing the Reader’s Digest joke section. Imagine reading thousands of jokes sent in by readers just like you–and thanks to a footnote in the will of Jefferson Davis Airplane, jokes can be submitted more than once! Jeez, the Colonel is loving life!

This brings us to the Baron. Rumors surfaced around the time of MJ’s death, that the Baron would step in to Michael’s shoes for the Jackson 5 reunion one off at Isaack Levine’s birthday party, but, in the process of cementing their reality show deal, the producers, Randy, Tito, Papa Joe, Michael from the grave, Latoya, Denise, Rudy and Claire all felt that the storyline of Jermaine trying to get back in the limelight was better than that of the Baron fulfilling a promise he made to Slash outside the church in that video.

I want to thank you all again for the letters and support as I found my way back to Boston, moving into my childhood home on Melville Street in Dorchester. Kicking khat was tough and leaving Manhattan helped, though I will miss rooting against the Yankees in Yankee Stadium. It has been almost 60 years since I walked around Dorchester, from Cappy’s Meats to the Jamaican cell phone store to buy a hollowed out cigar and bubble gum flavored Chubby soda, yet nothing has changed–they even have an EPMD poster in there.

We have finally settled with Time-Warner and will be on the road covering the news of the world, like you trust us to do. May the cold winds blow you a kiss and see you in TwentyTen!

Cazart,

The Duke

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