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All right, Portland, this is it. It's a new year, which means it's time to give up old habits—namely, ruining objectively good things with exaggerated enthusiasm. Enjoy your Bourbon & Bacon Fest this week, but after that, we are declaring a moratorium on hype for both bourbon and bacon, along with a few other things that start with the letter B.
Bacon
Oh, really, you love a delicious pork product? So does the rest of the carnivorous world. Stop faking an orgasm whenever you catch a whiff of it.
What You Should Start Overhyping Instead: Pastrami.
Bourbon
Yes, we do catch that faint hint of caramel in that Pappy you just bought for the price of a moped. Congratulations on discovering that there's more than one kind of the drink that's done more to keep down the South than Duck Dynasty.
What You Should Start Hyping Instead: Gin-infused alcoholics.
Bill Murray
We get it, he's the charmingly lechy uncle you never had. But the beatification of St. Murray is based almost entirely in myth: that he goes state to state crashing college parties; that he's legally allowed to commit heists on behalf of Wu-Tang Clan. In reality, the guy's spent most of the last decade making movies no one actually wants to see while angling desperately for an Oscar.
Who You Should Start Overhyping Instead: Woody Harrelson.
Beards
Sorry, facial hair is not an identity, and I say that as someone who dyed his goatee red in high school.
What You Should Start Overhyping Instead: Unibrows.
Beyoncé
Yes, she is supremely talented, in ways that she often doesn't get enough credit for. And I'm with Kanye in believing she deserved that Grammy over the Scientologist scarecrow. But when even Saturday Night Live is perceptive enough to spoof your draconian fan worship, maybe it's time to draw back a bit. And now, I await the Beystapo to haul me off to the sparkle mines.
Who You Should Start Overhyping Instead: Ciara.
The Big Lebowski
I know what you're going to say: "That's just, like, your opinion, man." Yes, we've all seen it, we know all the quotes. You are very smart for getting the jokes about nihilists and Shabbos. Now stop coming to the theater in a robe, please.
What You Should Start Overhyping Instead: Pineapple Express.
Birthday Suits
Look, I'm all for public nudity—don't make me prove it—but if the point of things like the Naked Bike Ride is to normalize the sight of the unadorned human body, shouldn't we be past the point of making a big spectacle of it?
What You Should Start Overhyping Instead: Casually going bottomless at 7-Eleven.
GO: OMSI After Dark's Bourbon & Bacon Fest is Saturday, Jan. 9. 7 pm. It's sold out, duh.
Willamette Week
