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This Is The Future, Right?

11 Nov

from May 12, 2007

This is the future, right? I mean, when we were little kids, the 21st century was it. IT. Flying cars, robots, atomic supermen, that sort of thing. Criswell said it best- “We are all interested in the future, for that is where we shall spend the rest of our lives.” And damn if he wasn’t right, ’cause I haven’t managed yet to live in the past, at least not for real.

I was reading an old Ray Bradbury story that was set in the far-off future year of 1978, and I hate to complain and pick on such a “legend,” but man, was he wrong. I’m sorry Mr. Sci-Fi Legend Guy, but I’m not living on a Mars colony. And my “atomic-powered short-wave radio” doesn’t exist. So what’s the deal?

I’m very well-read and I’ve seen tons of movies. I know what I’m talking about. I want my ray gun! I want my personal robot! I want my own jet pack, flying car, and combination space radio-slash-TV! My hat is supposed to protect me from atomic fallout and my food is supposed to be in pill form. I should commute to work by rocket and my personal computer should be about the size of my bedroom and have the computing power of thirteen abacuses.

But I know that old movies and TV shows can be somewhat unreliable when it comes to showing things as they are. You just have to be selective. For example, I don’t really take The Jetsons seriously. How can you? It is so phony. I think that show has the worst special effects I have ever seen. That car folding into a briefcase? I can see the CGI. And the actors? I don’t know who played George Jetson but he was so weird looking! He had a head that was about as big as his torso. I’ve tried reading the credits, but they don’t tell you who played any of the Jetsons. It may be for their safety- can you imagine how many stalkers Judy Jetson had? I must have written her thirty or forty letters when I was a kid and she never wrote back. I was so stupid back then- it took me until I was 23 to realize that she lives in the future! She hasn’t gotten the letters yet!

Movies do a little better job. I like Abbott and Costello Go to Mars. These two goofy delivery guys get mixed up for scientists and, somehow, end up piloting a ship to Mars, with two bumbling crooks along for the ride. Now it may sound silly, but the film has a rather complex inner-logic and the use of soft-focus cinematography is particularly effective, especially in the sublimely genius sequence when Costello is blasting people with his freeze ray. If any film could be held up as proof of the auteur theory of filmmaking, this is certainly it. Subtle in its satire and carefully nuanced in the use of pre-Marxist Soviet propaganda, my only problem is that how can these be the same guys who played janitors who met Frankenstein and Dracula in a previous film? That part I could never figure out- when did they change careers from janitors to delivery men?

At any rate, that future was clear- men would travel to Mars and meet a race of giant dogs, as well as mechanizing the Statue of Liberty so it can duck when a rocket flies too close overhead. We would all have freeze rays and we would wear spiffy space suits. I want my spiffy space suit!

So far the future is not all it was cracked up to be. I blame Congress. They keep holding up all those laws I want them to enact. Just last month I sent Congress my Bill For The Construction Of Lunar Radium Mines. And what did they do? Sent an FBI guy with a search warrant to my house. It’s like they don’t appreciate all my help.

I sent Congress my ideas for a Rocket-Man Brigade to protect us from Interstellar Plutonian Ice Hounds and all they did was pass some sort of dopey Iraq troop-funding bill.

So as I get older I’m resigning myself to the fact that maybe I won’t be getting that robot any time soon. I may not live on the moon or have a Martian space-dog as my pet, but at least I have my fifth-grade imagination. And maybe I don’t have a jet pack or own a space-yacht, but I know that I will someday. Flash Gordon said so!

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Chicago Wrap-Up

8 Nov

from July 22, 2006

Time to wrap up Chicago, and I’m sorry that this will be a rather sad topic. Like New York or any big city, Chicago suffers from the typical urban problems. Pollution, overcrowding, and inflation are all issues that the citizens of Chicago deal with on a daily basis. However, what I’m going to write about is the homeless problem.

Living in New York, we see the homeless all around us- the subway, the corners, alleys, even right on the streets of the most expensive parts of Manhattan. Men, women, children, even babies without any food or shelter can be found looking for some help, anything, to keep them going even one more day. How many of us have seen the people on the trains, asking for some spare change while playing a guitar with two strings? How many of us have driven by the people on street corners who try to wash your windshield with a filthy rag? And who hasnt seen the children who will dance for change? It’s heartbreaking.

And that is the biggest difference between the New York Homeless and the Chicago Homeless. The Chicago homeless just don’t work for it. I don’t mean jobs- if they had jobs then they wouldn’t be homeless. I mean they don’t work for IT- your change. I must have walked up and down the Magnificent Mile a dozen times, past Nordstroms and Eddie Bauer and the Virgin Mega-Store and not once did I see a homeless person do so much as smile. Jeez, there must have been about 4 of them per block, each one with the same sad, hungry look and beat-up cardboard sign asking for spare change for food. Nobody stood up and did a little dance. Not one of them even tried to bang on a can and pretend it was a drum. No homeless there stood up and offered to shine my shoes or even make a small speech about how they were abused or thrown out of their homes. They just sat on their little piece of dirty cardboard and expected us to give.

Hasn’t anyone told them that we live in a country where you have to earn your money? OK, so it’s hard for a guy who stinks like a swamp and dresses in rags to get a job, and who would hire a woman with two teeth and what appears to be a huge goiter on top of her head anyway? Does that mean that I just have to ante up some quarters? Hell no. Earn it! Sing a song, dance, or even shuffle- its the effort that counts! Stand up and ask for some food, apologize for bothering me, make me like you and want to help you. At least pretend to be a veteran- people always feel sorry for homeless vets. Just dont sit there and act pathetic. Have some dignity!

This is why Chicago will always be known as the Second City. Until the homeless start putting in the effort it takes to be homeless, then they are doomed to stay homeless. At least here in NYC the homeless know they need to work it a little. Some of the New York homeless even have shopping carts- I didn’t see one cart in Chicago.

The Chicago Homeless did have one huge advantage over the New York Homeless- they were easily ignored. They were quiet and stayed out of my face. Good for them!

I have to go now- I’m on my way out to steal candy from a baby.

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