Around this time last year, I offered all of you kind readers a list of predictions that, well, I predicted would come true and change California forever.
None of them came true. Not even one. My batting average was worse than the Dodgers with running backs in scoring position in the playoffs.
There was no break from the wildfires. Eric Garcetti did not finish his term as competent mayor. Donald Trump did not relax and left public life forever. Huntington Beach did not erect a monument to Gavin Newsom’s hair, although there is now a black member of the city council, which was such an outlandish idea before 2021 that I never would have dared to imagine it.
Better if you go with that psychic right off the Ditman Avenue exit on Highway 5 South in East Los Angeles, you know, the house with the neon palm you’ve always wondered about, instead of trust Gustradamus for your annual forecasts.
But I’m just persistent.
Part of my job as a columnist is to touch not only what is happening now, but what is to come. So, as 2021 draws to a close, let me show off my clairvoyance skills again. Okay, correction: Let’s see if I can make at least one correct prediction this time.
Find out what is going to happen in 2022: I am so confident that all these events will happen that I am placing a bet of 50 pesos each at the Hustler Casino in Gardena. I only bet where the risk is greatest, you know.
- Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts will exorcise the sabermetric spirits that take over his soul during the sixth inning of every game and allow Julio Urías to pitch in the seventh before pulling him out of a no-hitter with the Blue Crew. leading 13-0. The Dodgers will lose summarily, and Roberts will blame the ghost of Tommy Lasorda for allowing him to pitch Urías for so long.
- Everyone in California will be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. All phases for Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, including reinforcements. Also full doses of AstraZeneca. Even with the antigen against COVID-19 from Cuba, for reasons of diversity and inclusion. We don’t just get vaccinated; we super inoculate. The coronavirus turns around and returns to Texas and Florida.
- Gavin Newsom chooses not to run for re-election and backs Larry Elder to replace him as governor of California, in a move to end the state’s bipartisan grudge once and for all. Elder accepts the endorsement, but the husky voice from South Central doesn’t get a single vote. Instead, voters write Newsom’s name on the ballot to replace Elder and then 100% of Californians revoke Newsom’s term as punishment for trying to make peace with Republicans. Newsom and Elder spend the rest of 2022 investing in cryptocurrencies, a much more stable bet than democracy today.
- Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva determines that cowboy hats are not masculine enough for his deputies. He orders them to wear “Star Wars” stormtrooper helmets with big manly mustaches taped together. Villanueva also provides all Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department employees with spurs, spittoons, large cigars and window decals on his patrol cars that show Calvin from “Calvin and Hobbes” urinating on a crowd of protesters.
- USC goes a whole year without a single scandal. The school … who am I kidding? Even me, I don’t take that bet. Come on Bruins!
- Scientists realize they can harness the speeches of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy as a source of natural gas. Oil and fracking they disappear across the western United States as the Bakersfield congressman becomes a renewable energy icon with every speech. It emits so much hot air that the Central Valley becomes the richest region in the nation, and California replaces its statue of Junípero Serra in the US Capitol with one of McCarthy in eternal gratitude.
- Hollywood apologizes for more than 100 years of stereotyping Latinos and promises a new enlightened era. The studios commission another season of “Narcos,” a remake of “American Me,” a Huntington Park version of “Scarface,” a reimagining of Frito Bandito (he drops the thin mustache in favor of a more Van Dyke-style beard). elegant), a spin-off of the character of the hand of Mitch who represents Jennifer López in “South Park”, and the launch of the Cinematic Universe “Blood In, Blood Out”.
- “Latinx” becomes the de facto word used to describe California’s largest ethnic group. Progressive activists, who have long pressured everyone to drop the term “Latino” because it is a gender term and made fun of those who don’t embrace it as Chicanosaurs, are leaving Latinx in protest. They adopt an even more controversial genderless label: “American.”
- QAnon’s followers abandon their belief that a reptilian-led pedophile ring who hunts down JFK and JFK Jr. rules the world, when they realize that there is a cult of California even crazier than them: the fans of In- N-Out.
- Karen Bass beats Kevin de León in a runoff to become the next mayor of Los Angeles. De León, having lost his second election to a powerful politician in a high-profile race (the former California Senate leader unsuccessfully ran in 2018 against Dianne Feinstein for her seat in the United States Senate), announces that he will never will hit the big time again and is limited to simply being a council member in America’s second-largest city.
- Right-wing media are taking a break from obsessing over armed robberies in the upscale boutiques of San Francisco and Los Angeles and instead offering multi-episode specials on how wage theft in California is on the rise. to almost $ 2 billion a year. You know, real journalism.
- Watch out for the Rams and, yes, the Las Vegas Raiders. The Chargers continue to attract more soccer fans, with a total of 37 in Los Angeles by the end of 2022.
- Eventually the lizard people turn out to be real. And those scaly rascals figure out how to solve our supply chain and inflation problems.
If you want to read this article in Spanish, click here.
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