LAS VEGAS – With 2017 looming right around the corner like a hungry predator, it’s time to take a sober look back at 2016 – which is unfortunate, because I’ve been drinking like a fish for the last three days solid, trying to get the taste of this shit year out of my mouth.

Accordingly, instead of a sober look back at the last 12 months, we’re going to take a thoroughly hammered look back at 2016, or as I like to think of it, the year an alarming percentage of the remaining musicians who were worth even a single shit during in the 1970s and ’80s suddenly upped and died.

January: As always, the year began with tremendous optimism and a series of unerringly accurate predictions concerning the future of the adult entertainment industry, including this was the year we’d all get rich off the internet of things. While this specific prediction didn’t hold true for me, I’m sure if I attend one of the upcoming January trade shows I’ll hear all sorts of reasons why if I just stick with it, my luck will change in 2017. Samsung has finally invented a smart fridge that can display porn without immediately exploding into flames, or whatever.

February: With primary election results rolling in, the nation’s journalists became increasingly desperate for new angles to cover, so the ever-popular connection between porn and politics was drawn repeatedly. First, there was the strangely sexless and extremely short porn comeback video by performer Amy Lindsay, which left everyone wondering why Ted Cruz would knowingly associate with a relatively obscure porn performer rather than hitch his star to someone better known and more clearly representative of his politics, like Shelly Lubben. Later in the month, there was a brief dustup in the press regarding the eventual GOP nominee, and the question of whether he had really moved a major architectural landmark all the way from India to New Jersey just for the purpose of hosting a porn trade show.

March: With the dawning of spring came a new hope and new enthusiasm — for opponents of porn, at least. Eager to get out the news about porn’s detrimental effects, a Canadian bioethicist named Jonathon Van Maren claimed porn’s violence had escalated to the level of genocide, and was now “murdering the moral character of millions of men and women.” Possibly as result of such extreme rhetoric, porn entrepreneurs found themselves in an increasingly hostile legal climate, forcing them to adapt and move quickly (in some cases, quite literally).

April: Early in the month, panic set in when it was discovered a Christian filmmaker intended to carpet-bomb L.A. as part of his strategy to combat porn production. Thankfully, the attack never came to pass (or hasn’t yet, at least), but many producers decided it might be time to leave Porn Valley anyway. In looking for new locations for their businesses, however, for most producers the great state of Utah was quickly ruled out.

May: With the dreaded “summer slowdown” already starting, censorship concerns suddenly took center stage when it was revealed the federal government was using a dead physicist to filter and block content on government-owned networks. Making matters worse, it became clear during the same month even many dead people would prefer not to be associated with porn.

June: Just in time for the scorching heat of summer, there was finally some good news for the adult industry, with the release of a revolutionary new product called PeNice, a surefire bestseller in a market stuffed with the dreaded condition known as “Dick Stank.” Honestly, June was otherwise kind of a slow news month, although my hunch is  at some point during the month, a porn studio probably offered a job to one disgraced celebrity or another.

July: Addressing the hottest-burning question since “What kind of antibiotics should I take for chlamydia?”, adult studio Oak Missile polled male performers for their feedback on facial cumshots, providing a revealing look inside the mind of the modern porn stud. Meanwhile, on the porn-science front, researchers from the University of Calgary found, despite Biblical proscriptions against such, even religious people are more or less likely to watch porn.

August: Sending a strong signal of intent to the porn industry, soon to be president-elect Donald Trump took an important pledge: His future fourth wife, whatever else she may turn out to be, will not be a hardcore porn star. Later in the month, another male celebrity was forced to defend his chosen form of personal pornographic expression against rampant political correctness.

September: With election season heating up, things got more and more political across the country, and the porn industry was no exception. First, Trump-backing performer Jenna Cames launched an unusual fundraiser for the construction magnate, filling his election coffers one quarter at a time. Later in the month, supporters of third-party candidates finally got in on the action, releasing porn parodies in tribute to Jill Stein and Gary Johnson.

October: With summer behind us, things took an introspective turn for the porn industry. First, we learned about several surprising habits of men who watch porn, then later we were given the scoop on which porn stars are popular with various common food items.

November: In the month of Thanksgiving, like the rest of the country, the porn industry found itself puzzling over the outcome of a selectively-rigged election, which saw not only the defeat of Prop 60, but the unexpected election to the office of President a stubby-fingered, thin-skinned reality TV star who has a tightly puckered butthole where his mouth is supposed to be. Then, just as the industry was pausing to ponder the potential impact of these unexpected electoral outcomes, a new threat to American freedom, liberty and security emerged.

December: As the year comes to an end, it’s becoming quite clear things aren’t getting any less strange as we approach 2017, and porn continues to be at the center of the strangeness. From neo-Nazi porn stars who dabble in producing thoroughly unlistenable music to German spies who dabble in making gay porn for radical jihadists, one year of death, politics, porn, ghosts and internet-connected toasters appears to be melting into another.

All of this raises two troubling and interrelated questions: Is there any chance the remaining members of Pink Floyd will survive the coming year, and if not, will Steve Hirsch offer a job to their bloated corpses?