Over and out

Bored with Britney? Done with the Dow? Sick of steroids? You are not alone. As the new year approaches, we asked our decidedly unscientific panel what they were 'so over' in 2007. From the responses, we can already forecast a frustrating 2008 for a few of our esteemed experts.

AMANDA PALMER, musician, Dresden Dolls:

Bottles of water with "No Fat! No Carbs!" printed on the wrapper. Dear lord.

Movies filmed in Southie.

The Karen O bowl haircut. Looked weird on her, looks even weirder on everyone else.

Harvard Square. There are a few last shreds of boho and charm hanging on for dear life (see Cafe Pamplona, Cafe Algiers, Oona's, Cardullo's), but the corporate takeover is pretty much complete. When you start chatting with traveling street performers worldwide and they all tell you that Harvard Square is offically stricken off the list, you know it's so over.

THOMAS ROLFS, principal trumpet, Boston Symphony Orchestra:

I'm so over the subprime lending rate. Now, tell me again, exactly what is the subprime lending rate? No, wait! What am I thinking? Please don't tell me any more about the subprime lending rate. My eyes started glazing over months ago. I don't want to know what it is. I don't want to know why it is. And I especially don't want to know how it will be the ruin of my financial life. Just surprise me.

RACHEL PERRY WELTY, artist:

I'm so over bottled water, not that I was ever a big user. . . . It's an embarrassment on many levels. There's the waste of resources - not only the bottles themselves, but the fossil fuels used to get the water from one location to another. And then there's the pervasive brain-washing we've received to distrust our water supply, when in reality we have some of the best quality water in the world. Also, why do people need to walk around with this pacifier? I would like to see a national competition for the design of a sanitary, sturdy, and beautiful public water fountain so that there would be two water fountains for every public restroom in every community.

CHARLES LAQUIDARA, former Boston radio personality:

I am sick of political hate ads and hate radio. (By the way, do those morning AM sports-radio guys EVER talk about sports?)

I am over celeb gossip pieces running as top stories on (what are supposed to be) news stations.

I am over trying to understand why people sleep with their dogs and cats. I concede defeat: "There are more of you than I thought, and you have a stronger lobby."

Please: Spare me from smokers whining about their "rights." The only reason you are not in jail for smoking around your kids in the "sanctity of your own home" is because the powers-that-be made nicotine legal years ago.

I am sick of going to see a great live show and having a bunch of impolite, selfish morons standing up in front of me dancing for half the concert. You want to dance? Get out of your freakin' seat and go dance in the aisles! I paid to SEE the show in the comfort of my chair - not to LISTEN to it. I can do that on my iPod. (And it's not a "generation gap" thing. I felt that way when I was 18.)

BEN KARLIN, co-creator of "The Colbert Report":

The thing that I am most over from the year 2007, but also probably the year 2006 and possibly 2005 - but come to think of it, REALLY in 2007, is the "digital revolution," if there ever even was one. A pretty solid axiom says that if Pepsi is trying to maximize ad revenue from something, by definition it can't be called a "revolution." No, it's just a new flavor of capitalism, with a few new faces, a new vocabulary, and apparently, an insatiably horny target demo. A far better term would be "digital evolution." The difference between Nielsen ratings and click-through rates may indeed be significant and historic, like beak length on Darwin's finches. But to the lay person living in the here and now, it all looks like a bunch of the same damn birds.

JUDY GOLD, star of "25 Questions for a Jewish Mother":

No leg room in Boston cabs.

Non-gay Republican senators soliciting anonymous gay sex.

The entire Spears family.

Ann Coulter.

BRANFORD MARSALIS, musician:

I am over people telling me - a jazz musician - how much they like and listen to jazz, only to find out in a matter of seconds they have no idea what jazz is. Try to inform them and you often meet indignation and the ever-defensive, "Well, what is jazz?" I would like to introduce these folks to Confucius, who said, "If the names are not correct, the judgments are not clear. If the judgments are not clear, the works are not accomplished. If the works are not accomplished, then rites and music do not flourish . . ."

MICHAEL RUSH, director, Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University:

There not being a Whole Foods in the South End.

Olives.

Thai food, thick-crusted pizza, rosemary, flavored toothpaste, flavored water, flavored pencil tips.

Kidney stones.

Anyone with a "bee" at the end of their name.

Some people not seeing the great shows at the Rose.

Anyone with a "huck" at the beginning of their name.

Myself missing some great shows at the MFA, ICA, and Boston's terrific galleries.

Wealthy hedge-funders just throwing money at the Rose. Enough already. (Not!)

ROMI BEPPU, principal dancer, Boston Ballet:

I'm so over Britney Spears and her problems, but even more over the press and media coverage she gets in regard to her out-of-control behavior and antics. There are many other issues in the world that need attention and media, but instead it seems that Ms. Spears remains an object of our interest and curiosity. We are not interested in paparazzi shots of her intoxicated, shaved head stumbling out of line! So please, Mr. Media, a little less trash and a little more taste for the new year.

DAVID CROSS, actor/comedian:

I'm so over end-of-the-year lists. Also, the phrase "so over it." It fills me with that sense of hyperbolic drama about nothing that privileged Westerners are so very good at conveying.

CHRISTIAN HINOJOSA, organizer and DJ, Clandestino Latin dance parties:

I wish there was less emphasis in 2007 on the "Latino" label, which I believe is totally misused and misguided. We are many things, but it is clear nobody really knows exactly what and who we are here. This year I was tired of salsa, merengue, baseball, and immigration discussions when there is much more to "us" than that. But no one likes to talk about it. When I came from Peru, I realized Puerto Ricans don't really love Dominicans, Argentineans have issues with Chileans, Colombians and Venezuelans are still at war (even here in the United States), and my fellow Peruvians are not too nice to Ecuadoreans and vice versa. It is a complex issue, but "brothers" we are not, maybe distant "cousins."

ROBERT PATTON-SPRUILL, film director:

I am so over Boston's institutional racism. How are you going to separate people on how they look? It is so dumb, and it just holds us all back, leading to an incredible brain drain. And I am over youth violence in Roxbury and the shrines we put up to remember these lives cut short.

I am so over commercial television or "Channel Zero" (as Chuck D calls it); all of the shows alienate me now, and I am so over TV news. Just give me the weather and the sports, thanks.

I am so over tobacco, an old friend, a buddy that snuck up and tried to kill me with a stroke last week. I love you, but we're done, and I am so over you!

I thought we knew how to drive in the snow. I am so over how weak Bostonians have become with snow. Does anyone remember 1978? I do.

ROBERT BRUSTEIN, founding director, American Repertory Theatre:

I am so over representational democracy. Any system that can twice elect George W. Bush (once even legitimately) is clearly crying for major reform. In a parliamentary democracy, the opposition would have backbenched an incompetent leader a week after his deceptions were exposed. Yet, here we are, seven years later, with almost 4,000 young Americans and countless innocent Iraqis dead, being assailed by daily revelations of torture, eavesdropping, corruption, suppression of evidence, and other criminality, and neither the Congress nor the electorate can restore the nation's honor. Must we wait until January 2009 before Bush stops swaggering back and forth to Air Force One, smiling, waving, and saluting in his blue suit, lapel flag, and sprayed hair? Jefferson, Madison, Adams, ye fathers of our nation, we call on your spirits to repair our deeply defective electoral system.

MICHAEL GANDOLFI, composer:

One thing I am "so over" is the expression "amazing." Over this past year, I have heard it used with such frequency, that it seems to appear in just about every other sentence uttered. Its ubiquity is amazing! I am "so over" Kevin Trudeau and his snake-oil infomercials. Another far more important thing that I am "so over" is professional baseball players who deny using performance-enhancing drugs. The sudden statistical anomalies that materialize along with the obvious, rapid, super-human developments in the physiques of these players are proof enough - not to mention the more typical, pedestrian statistics and normal physiques that return when the drug use is stopped in an effort to avoid being caught.

BARRY GAITHER, director of National Center of Afro-American Artists and producer of "Black Nativity":

I have had enough of movies where guns are a star. It seems impossible for a movie to have drama and get your attention and drag you in without guns at the center of it. I am very sad with that. I think it ought to be possible for brilliant artists to come up with brilliant things that grip us on the human story without having to have a gun at the center of it.

DAMIEN FAHEY, host of MTV's "TRL" and Longmeadow native:

Every day we see a photo of one of our most famous pop stars looking a little sicker. I'm curious when we will get to see a photo of them with clean hair and dining on a good wholesome meal with his/her manager and supportive family instead. Maybe a new rule is that when someone becomes a celebrity, they can receive a copy of Nikki Sixx's "The Heroin Diaries" to show them how low addiction really is, and how good it feels to be sober. I'd rather see celebrities carrying that into an AA meeting than that "The Secret" book everyone is always toting around. I would like to put a ban on celebrity sex tapes and nude photos: Kim Kardashian and Ray Jay and Vanessa Hudgens all made headlines this year. I don't think it is very classy, and, of course, the chain of "no tape exists" and "issuing a cease and desist" and "yes, we admit there is a tape" and finally "I'm moving on with my life" is just so unbearable. I think I heard about some of these tapes for a year straight. Let's just keep it in the bedroom. Trust me, young Hollywood, there are better ways of personal marketing!

JON ABBOTT, president and chief executive officer, WGBH:

I'm over the exhaustive coverage of steroids and baseball. Some may have hoped the Mitchell Report would be a 21st-century version of the Pentagon Papers, but no such luck. We'll never have the whole story. There's more than enough blame to assign to pretty much everyone within 90 feet who cheated or stood idly by for the ride. Everyone is looking for answers and closure, and there's none to be had. The real tragedy is that we focus on sorting out how to asterisk the record books but lose sight of the pressures on young athletes who, driven by pressure to excel and succeed, need more support to make wise choices and protect their health.

JOJO, pop star and Foxborough resident:

I am so over celebrities behaving atrociously, and the media and the paparazzi following them everywhere, not giving them a moment's peace, and glamorizing their bad behavior. I am tired of all the celebrities (who will remain nameless) who drink and drive, do drugs, bed hop, and act like people without intelligence, respect for themselves or others, or morals, and all the headlines and tabloid shows, which talk about them endlessly. It is time to stop glamorizing trashy behavior, like we see in many music videos, where the women take off their clothes and act like bubbleheads and strippers. I am so over men demeaning the women and the women allowing it. It is time to stop "dumbing down" the women, and time for celebrities to behave with dignity, intelligence, and respect for themselves and others. After all, many people look up to celebrities, and there are a lot of young people who emulate their behavior.

PATRICK HOLLENBECK, arranger, Boston Pops:

Perhaps I'm the "master of the obvious," but I'd say Britney Spears is - how should we say? - a bit "overripe." Her performance on the MTV Video Music Awards alone qualifies as musician-assisted suicide. Maybe she can revive her career by collaborating with Andre Rieu. His endless reruns on PBS are beginning to feel like waterboarding. Next on my list: iPods. Time to pry your ears away from those iPods and go hear some live music for a change. Your friendly neighborhood musicians of all genres need your support.

RYAN LANDRY, actor/impresario, Gold Dust Orphans:

Frankly, I am so over everyone being "so over" everything. We've gotten so jaded in the past decade that a large part of our society behaves like runaway brats. Those who missed the original rock 'n' roll boat are now "teaching us grown-ups" a lesson by hitting all the proverbial roads - to ruin - they can find, not so much to damage themselves but to prove that they've been damaged by those who came before them. The ones who "ruined it" for them. We LOOK for things to be "over," things that will cause us to sigh and roll our eyes, make us whisper "whatever," jump on our blogs and complain. On the opposite side of this "great chasm of yawns" lies a whole new tribe, awaiting their moment. Their cellphones and Blackberrys on the ready, never sleeping, always talking, always connected. The only thing they're "over" is us.

MIKE DAISEY, monologist:

I am so over "America's Next Top Model," a shameful secret vice my wife and I have had since cycle two. Watching Tyra coax models out of her "girls" has been a strange fascination for a few years, but the show has gotten totally pathetic. Every cycle Tyra gets crazier - her eyes get bigger, her hair bigger, her behavior more extreme, her squawking and shrieking about "Top Model" values feels like these poor girls have been locked in a house with an abusive stage mother. Watching her torture waifs from trailer parks across America until they perform like trained monkeys for her pleasure feels less and less like hilarious sadism and more like actual sadism. When they lost Janice Dickinson, they lost the ridiculous heart of the show, and now this sanctimonious program seriously believes that modeling is a redemptive act for the human spirit, an idea so stupid that the producers should be impaled on the end of a finely polished Manolo Blahnik stiletto heel.

JEREMY GEIDT, senior actor, American Repertory Theatre:

There are so many things I am so over. George Bush: I think he's an idiot. I'm over the war: That dominates my thinking at the moment. I'm over my computer. I can't get it to send anything, and I've tried everything. And I am over this snow and ice and trying to drive and park. Winter hasn't set in yet, and I'm over it already.

CLAIRE COOK, author of "Must Love Dogs: A Novel":

This is a shameful admission for a longtime Boston suburbanite, but the truth is I'm soooooo over winter. The coats, the boots, the gloves, the icy ruts in the driveway. Even with global warming, I don't think the winter weather scenario is likely to change for 2008. I miss most of the winter because I'm chained to my computer, and when I do have to venture out into the cold, visions of flip-flops dance in my head.

MARIE-HELENE BERNARD, executive director and CEO, Handel and Haydn Society:

After moving to Boston in April 2007 from Ohio, I'm so over the Cleveland Indians (and looking forward to becoming a Bruins fan!).

I am so over traffic jams on Massachusetts Avenue and getting lost in Boston.

I am so over the weakness of the US dollar (no more shopping when I go home to Montreal!).

I am so over Britney, TomKat, and Paris (they would be so much more interesting if they listened to Handel and Haydn's music).