Switch New Year's and Hog Callers' Day

I NEED ANOTHER new year like I need another hole in my head. That's right, another. How I got the fi rst one, I have no idea. All I know is that there is a throbbing ache where a thought process used to be.

Some would say it is not a hole but a hangover.

Hey, you say tomatoes, I say hole in my head. All right? The point, though, isn't my head. The point is the new year.

Look at it out there. It is as dark as the long night of a tortured soul and as cold as, to quote the Foreigner singer guy, iiiiice.

Why I quoted the Foreigner singer guy, I have no idea. Probably because I have a hole in my head.

Which reminds me: I need another new year like I need another Foreigner reunion tour. Which will probably happen this year, because it always happens.

Anyway, the thing is, what I really mean is, yours are the sweetest eyes … oh, jeez, now I'm quoting old Elton John songs. That hole just keeps getting bigger.

I need food. Somebody give me a cheeseburger!

(That's from the old Steve Miller song Living in the USA.)

Please. Make it stop.

My head is a jukebox that plays only bad songs.

Last issue, I lamented that all the wonderful, cheery, relentless Christmastime music would end around the New Year. I hadn't considered that an entirely new batch of songs would take its place.

But here they are. And you know why? That's right: Because I have a hole in my head.

Even so, I do remember saying that it is cold outside.

But maybe it's not. Maybe it's unseasonably warm.

And if it is unseasonably warm, that's even worse. Because unseasonable may not be unseasonable anymore. Unseasonable may be just the way things are.

It may be tanning in February, shoveling in July. It may be oceans rising, snowcaps melting, sidewalks erupting, skyscrapers crumbling, bulldogs purring, teenagers behaving. It may be climatic beer cans smashed into planetary foreheads. Which is to say, meteorological lunacy on a John Belushi scale.

Which is to say, the world as Animal House.

Which is to say, global warming.

In that case? Unseasonable is the new season.

And that is why it being warm might be worse than it being cold outside. Because it is winter. It's supposed to be cold outside. Unless, of course, it's unseasonable. Then it's okay.

But I'm not talking about global warming.

No, what I am talking about is celebrating the New Year in the middle of winter. And what I am saying is that we need to stop doing it.

We should spend winters as bears do: watching football.

Oh, I forgot - we already do that.

No less an authority on the United States than the United States says so. This is purportedly from the U.S. State Department: "Many families and friends watch television together, enjoying the Tournament of Roses parade preceding the Rose Bowl football game in Pasadena, California.

"In the warmer regions all around the country, there are other games whose names are characteristic of the states. People watch the Orange Bowl game in Florida, the Cotton Bowl in Texas, and the Sugar Bowl in Louisiana."

Note I used the word purportedly. That is because when I did an Internet search on the phrase "American New Year's," I came across the preceding material on www.stockholm.usembassy.gov. The page has the official United States eagle insignia in the top left corner, and, at the bottom, it has the words, "Embassy of the United States of America." But I couldn't find the same document when I ran the search on the U.S. State Department's site.

I did find similar pages on the U.S. site, though. There was a lot of the same material about federal U.S. holidays, but there wasn't anything about watching football. It did, however, cite - and I am not making this up - Hog Callers' Day.

I did an Internet search of "Hog Callers' Day," and, from what I can tell, there isn't one. But my guess is that it is in the summer.

So I don't know what is going on. Is there some guy at the U.S. State Department giving false information about American holidays for national-security purposes? Or are the Swedes making stuff up about Americans watching football, but it's true?

Coincidence? Conspiracy?

You decide.

Whatever it is, the United States, preferably with Sweden's backing but alone if need be, should officially move New Year's from the dead of winter - whether cold or not, it is still dark - to a time more fitting to the occasion.

Sometime, say, in the summer, when the grass is green. When the days are longer. When the songs are better.

When I am over my hangover.

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