2026: Already Off To A Bad Start

I hate “New Year’s Resolutions.”

Always have.

They are either doomed to disappoint you when you inevitably fail, despite your best efforts, or they never give you the sense of accomplishment you wish they would when you made them. It’s because of this that for years, the only “attempt” at one was borrowed from the old Storm Of Spoilers (later renamed The Storm) podcast.

Hosts Joanna Robinson (The Ringer), Dave Gonzales (Fighting in the War Room), and Neil Miller (Film School Rejects) suggested a very simple one years ago: “Don’t Fall Down.” Yep, it’s that simple! Simply, don’t fall down for an entire year. So long as you stayed upright every time you meant to and caught yourself every time you didn’t, goal achieved! For years, this simple mantra was enough.

But after fighting my depression, reawakening with my dormant Boricua revolutionary spirit and losing 80 lbs…I thought to myself, “What the hell! Let’s try for loftier goals for 2026! I’ll write more, try new projects, and talk about my passions! 2026 will be a great new start!”

Oh, what an Icarus-like hubris that was.

Which is why it’s taken this long to even try to tackle any of it. I originally intended to share my joy at attending the New York Public Library’s ¡Wepa! Puerto Ricans in the World of Comics | ¡Wepa! Puertorriqueños en el mundo de los cómics exhibition. I should be discussing the art of Alex Schomburg, a man who Stan Lee was quoted as saying was to Golden Age Marvel Comics “what Norman Rockwell was to The Saturday Evening Post,” or about Turey: El Taino or La Borinqueña, or Miles Morales’ Spider-Man. I should be sharing the pictures of his art I took when I saw it at the exhibition and happily discussing it.

I took a lot of pictures. Here are some:

Instead, my thoughts are on another Alex. Namely, the senseless murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis this past Saturday. The coincidence of my son also being named Alex, and the equally senseless murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis before my recent trip to New York, makes this hard to just shake off. I feel partially guilty that I even feel I should “shake this off” because NO WE SHOULDN’T! That’s how the fascist evil wins.

So what do you do when the universe is intent on stopping any goals you had and battering your psyche?

Well…I don’t have an answer, but I know what I will do: I will push on. If only to spite this universe and the dark times we are in. We all should.

We should all fight to not succumb to depression, to not undo the progress in our lives, to be more engaged, and to be creative. I should continue connecting to our revolutionary and antiauthoritarian roots. Because none of this is ok, but we are the heroes we are all waiting to save us. We can’t all be Superman or Luke Skywalker or Captain America to singlehandedly “save the day.” But we can all be Cassian Andor or Lois Lane or this SHIELD tech who refused to follow an unlawful and amoral order in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

We may not have superpowers, fantastical weapons, or be able to deliver inspirational speeches…but we all can do our part to refuse to go quietly into the darkness.

Personally, I will continue to connect to my Boriken roots, the “Grito de Lares”, and the essence of freedom and justice it represents. I will make a schedule to write more here (maybe less about myself personally) and try to fight in the little ways I can.

That’s all we can do. Even noted Nazi puncher Indiana Jones wasn’t doing that at all times.

2026 has been a bad year, and we’ve lost a lot already, but we don’t have to like it or accept it.

Have a week.

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Also, check out Michael Mora’s writing for Wonkette, where I do a political Sunday shows rundown and the occasional politics/pop culture hybrid post!