1. Stop smoking. (Failed)
2. Write more, continue to work hard and make more money. Maybe even ascend into a new tax bracket for 2015.
3. Eat only delicious food. Life is too short for shitty food.
4. Stop opening a new soda can, taking only one sip, abandoning the can and then opening a completely new can, creating an endless cycle of wasted full Diet Cokes and Diet Dr. Peppers.
5. Achieve my lifelong dream of driving all chair people away from the racetrack at Jazz Fest.
6. Rescue kitten from burning home, then appear on talk shows and publish a book about my heroism. Build empire.
7. Call Mom and Dad every day.
—Kate Russell
I want to relearn how to sight-read and play piano, apply for a scholarship for a book arts class at Penland, get my home waste veggie-oil filtration setup up and running, and make a personal portfolio website that doesn’t look dumb or cheesy. I’m going to become a better bookbinder and a more timely mail-order shipper. Maybe I’ll even get my own postage meter. Great things are in store for 2014. I just know this is going to be the year that punk stops looking backward and starts looking forward.
Less ‘80s throwback hardcore, more new shit I haven’t even thought of yet. This is going to be the year Bryan Funck and I form a secret council to issue cease and desist notices to bands that should break up, and redistribute their resources. This is going to be the year people get bored of fests and shows with more than three bands. Trim the fat. When I was watching the fireworks over the San Francisco skyline from my vantage point in the East Bay, I had this hot feeling rush all over my body from head to toe. I haven’t felt this warm since Thatcher died. I just know this year is going to be special. Prepare your best Brad Pitt marinade. This year we will finally eat the rich.
—Beck Levy
Last year I set a goal that will be hard to top. I decided I would go to the beach at least once a week throughout the summer and I made it happen every week (sometimes twice in a week). Being the semi-retired magazine mogul that I am, I would sit on the beach in Pensacola posting pics on Instagram to make all of my friends with real jobs jealous of my newfound stress-free approach to life. I swam with manta rays and sea turtles, wrote bad poetry about porpoises, made beach trip playlists, ate a lot of raw oysters and looked like a tea bag until early October. I don’t see a need to change, as I hope to keep this year as stress free as possible. I’ve worked a lot of high stress, long-houred jobs in the past and I want to continue to stiff-arm that lifestyle for as long as I can. I’ve lost too many people in recent years not to take some time to enjoy life and the ones I like to live it with. —Kevin Barrios
Write in longform just as much as I tweet (I’m over 95,000 tweets and counting. Yes, I am a twaddict). Review more local authors’ work than ever before. Take in more live music than ever before. Do my best to help counter city noise ordinances that allow leaf blowers more leeway in the streets than damned good musicians (unless the Noisician Coalition cobbles a melodic leaf blower together, that’s just not right). Avoid many of the usual suspects but one resolution-wise: I must get fit. Yeah, it’s not alternative and “out there” as resolutions go, but without it, I won’t be able to do all the others. Whatever you resolve, readers, all I and the rest of Antigravity ask is that you keep reading in 2014. We couldn’t do this without you. —Leigh Checkman
A few years ago, I made a resolution to give up resolutions. Sometimes, being the perfectionist that I am, the constant reminder of minute failures would spiral me out of control due to the resultant apathy created by constant disappointment in myself. But I do have some nagging things—that are less vague notions and more specific bullet points—that I’d like to tick off my list in 2014. I want to build an appropriate home for all the vinyl my boyfriend and I own. I find it unacceptable to be knocking on the door of 30 and have my records living in milk crates on my living room floor. I want to get around to framing my old family photos, finally executing this “really cool project” I’ve been talking about inside my head since moving into this house two years ago. I want to take my female dog on loads of playdates and teach her how to stop being such a bitch to other lady dogs. I want to execute a perfect 7-layer caramel cake from scratch. I want to create an online home for all of my writing and photos so that my computer nerd boyfriend will stop hassling me about exposure. I want to run a 5K, even though I’m pretty sure I hate running. I want to make it to one non-Sirens dance class per week (or at least two per month if I’m feeling lazy). And lastly, I want to make more of an effort to talk to my siblings on at least a semi-regular basis. Not to be morbid, but my parents aren’t going to be around forever, and life will certainly feel richer if the bonds I have with my brother and sister are solid when it happens. —Erin Hall
I’m going to invoke the royal “we” us editors and tapeworms are fond of using and make a resolution for all of us: we need to stop taking shitty cell phone pics at shows. We are a fucking embarrassment and frankly, it’s a slap (or a flash) in the face to the artist working in front of us. I will try and personally resolve not to get infuriated with people who insist on doing this at concerts. I will do my best not to fantasize about throwing my empty beer bottles at the very bright screens as they bob above the crowd and obstruct the view. I will meditate on my own imperfections when I see that special brand of inconsiderate scumbag who aren’t satisfied with a pic and insist on video, and how I wonder what would happen if I started bringing a water gun filled with my own urine to shows and aiming for the outstretched phones until they go dark. I will accept that we live in the future, that everyone must constantly justify their online personalities and withdraw into their own orbit of self-importance and over-documentation. I will also resolve to be less passive aggressive and try and sit back and enjoy the show. —Dan Fox
I stopped doing resolutions for new years when I realized it’s kind of more poignant to do them at one’s own birthday, as that is truly the beginning of your individual year and the proper time to start fresh. As far as the new year that the whole world on a whole is recognizing, I know some resolutions I’d like to to see happen, like with the Julian Assange and Edward Snowden situations; that’d be great if there was a political and fair resolution for them (Obama erased his pledge to protect whistleblowers off his website like it was something he never said). I’d like to see some resolution to the bold-faced lies the NSA is saying about their data collection programs. I’d like to see some resolution as to why Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg is being treated worse than mass murdering terrorist Anders Breivik. I’d love to say something along the lines of resolutions for Syria, gays in Russia, and the crumbling civil liberties of America, but those are really just so vast and complex that I guess it’s safer and more realistic for me to just concentrate on getting my lipids under control (again) and losing 15 pounds for vanity. —E. Willy P.