#WhatsHappening for December 24, 2016

Hey kids- Merry Christmas Eve.

If you aren't ready by now, time is seriously running out.

The big news yesterday was that Carrie Fisher was in an LA hospital after suffering a "cardiac incident" on a flight from London.

Witnesses on the plane said that Fisher fell ill about 15 minutes before the plane was going to land. Flight personnel and passengers aided Fisher until paramedics on the ground were able to take over and provide "advanced life support, aggressively treated, and transported" the patient to a local hospital, according to LAFD spokesman Erik Scott. 

Fisher's brother, Todd, told Variety that the actress/author/all-around bad-ass was "in the ICU and everybody’s praying for her. There’s nothing new from the doctors. There’s nothing new at all. … There’s no good news or bad news."

Because their are always "those people", when Mark Hamill Tweeted (I can't believe that's a fucking word) "as if 2016 couldn't get any worse ... sending all our love to @carriefisher" some immediately took it as a political statement, and got all butt hurt (these would be the same people who ridicule "safe spaces" and keep saying "get over it" while their chosen candidate continues to sell them out, renege on promises made, and basically threatens war via Twitter).

They couldn't be bothered to stop and think that maybe Hamill, like many of us, is fucking fed up with a year that's already taken Bowie, Prince, Lemmy, Gene Wilder, John Glenn, Glenn Frey, Maurice White, George Kennedy, Alan Rickman, Patty Duke, Gary Shandling, Muhammad Ali, Anton Yelchin, Steven Hill, Gary Marshall, Arnold Palmer, Florence Henderson, Ron Glass, Kitty Kallen, Abe Vigoda, and too goddamned many more- and just wants his friend and co-star to recover fully.

I said it yesterday- FUCK YOU, 2016. Your successor can't get here fucking fast enough.

Just a reminder: There'll be no creatures stirring for karaoke tonight. 

While I realize that the existence of unions has led to some very significant and important protection for workers in this country, I've never really been a fan (does the name Hoffa mean anything to you?). The idea of some amorphous entity telling me I had to stop going to work because of some perceived slight just doesn't sit well (I have... issues, shall we say?... with authority) and some of the members I met- well, let's just say their attitudes strike me as a tad elitist. 

And then, there's being forced to work. 

See, I support an employer's right to instruct their staff (within reason, of course). Sometimes you get the shit end of the stick. Other times, though? Well, it's just wrong. 

Take the case of the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes. It was announced earlier this week that the group would be performing at the presidential inauguration ceremonies next month. Some of the dancers (quite publicly) said they didn't want to.

The Hall, for its part, said that for their dancers "to be considered for an event, they must voluntarily sign up and are never told they have to perform at a particular event, including the inaugural. It is always their choice. In fact, for the coming inauguration, we had more Rockettes request to participate than we have slots available. We eagerly await the inaugural celebrations."

The dancer's union, however, (the American Guild of Variety Artists) ruled that a boycott of the inauguration by the dancers would be "invalid"- making it a command performance, rather than a voluntary one.

And let's not even get into how unsettling it is to expect a group of scantily clad women (I mean, have you seen their costumes?) to high kick for a man who lecherously claims he can just "grab them by the pussy" any time he cares to.

Speaking of butthurts, count Avril Lavigne as a victim(?).

Lavigne called Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg a bully after his promotional video for his new home artificial intelligence system took a jab at Nickelback.

In the video the CEO asks the system to play him "some good Nickelback songs" to which it replies, "I’m sorry, Mark, I can’t do that. There are no good Nickelback songs."

Lavigne didn't care for the dig at ex-boyfriend Chad Kroeger's band, posting to Twitter that Zuckerberg "you may want to be more responsible with promoting bullying, especially with what’s going on in the world today."

Hey, musical tastes are musical tastes. I can't say I've ever heard a good Nickelback song, either. Bullying? Hardly.

Birthdays today include: Ricky Martin; Millard Powers of Counting Crows; Former Anthrax vocalist Neil Turbin; Mary Ramsey of 10,000 Maniacs; and Ian Burden of Human League. #MusicalBirthdays