Things to Come
This will be an eventful century, if our science fiction writers are right. Here’s what to expect:
- 2008: Jason Voorhees is captured. (Jason X)
- 2012: Aliens begin to colonize Earth. (The X-Files)
- 2015: Time travelers Marty McFly and Doc Brown arrive from the year 1985. (Back to the Future Part II)
- 2019: Former blade runner Rick Deckard agrees to do one more job. Ben Richards is forced to compete on The Running Man.
- 2022: New York City has become overpopulated, with 40 million starving citizens. (Soylent Green)
- 2035: Mankind lives in gigantic underground cities. (Things to Come)
- 2050: Newspeak eclipses oldspeak. (Nineteen Eighty-Four)
- 2052: New York City launches a giant ball of unwanted garbage into space. Experts warn the ball might return to Earth someday, but their concerns are dismissed as “depressing.” (Futurama)
- 2053: World War III. (Star Trek)
- 2062: The Flintstones arrive via a malfunctioning time machine constructed by Elroy Jetson. (The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones)
- 2063: First contact with Vulcans.
- 2084: Dancing is outlawed. Flash, Strobe, Laser and Pyro escape Earth to live on Moon Base Alpha to dance in freedom. (Dancemania)
Oh, and in the late 21st century Superman leaves Earth. Better hurry and get that autograph.
Incognito
Sean Connery wore a toupee in all the James Bond movies. He started losing his hair at 21.
See Other Album
Long song titles:
- “You Got To Get Through What You’ve Got To Go Through To Get What You Want, But You Got to Know What You Want To Get Through What You Got To Go Through,” The Wildhearts, Coupled With
- “Some People Know All Too Well How Bad Liquorice, Or Any Candy For That Matter, Can Taste When Having Laid Out In The Sun Too Long – And I Think I Just Ate Too Much,” The Hives, Oh Lord! When? How?
- “Sir B. McKenzies Daughter’s Lament for the 77th Mounted Lancers Retreat from the Straits of Loch Knombe, in the Year of Our Lord 1727, on the Occasion of the Announcement of Her Marriage to the Laird of Kinleakie,” Fairport Convention, Full House
- “We Were Stoned When We Thought Up The Title Of This And We Didn’t Want To Give It A Name That We Had To Explain As ‘Oh Yeah We Were Stoned When We Thought Of It’ So We’re Just Calling It Improvisational Jam 11-02-01,” !!!, Brain In The Wire
- “The Sad But True Story of Ray Mingus, the Lumberjack of Bulk Rock City, and His Never Slacking Strive to Exploit the So Far Undiscovered Areas of the Intention to Bodily From the Opposite Species of His Kind, During Intake of All the Mental Conditions that Could be Derived From Fermentation,” Rednex, Sex & Violins
- “The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You’re Going to Have to Leave Now, or, I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them until They Are off Our Lands!”, Sufjan Stevens, Illinois
- “Regretting What I Said to You When You Called Me at 11:00 on Friday Morning to Tell Me That 1:00 Friday Afternoon You Were Gonna Leave Your Office, Go Downstairs, Hail a Cab, to Go Out to the Airport, to Catch a Plane, to Go Skiing in the Alps for Two Weeks. Not That I Wanted to Go With You; I Wasn’t Able to Leave Town, I’m Not a Very Good Skier, I Couldn’t Expect You to Pay My Way, But After Going Out With You for Three Years, I Don’t Like Surprises. (A Musical Apology),” Christine Lavin, Future Fossils
Starting Small
The first KISS concert drew an audience of three (at the Popcorn Club in Queens, January 1973).
(Image: Wikimedia Commons)
Music to the Eyes
Most expensive music videos, as of July 2006:
- Michael and Janet Jackson, “Scream,” $7 million
- Puff Daddy, “Victory,” $2.7 million
- Mariah Carey, “Heartbreaker,” $2.5 million
- Busta Rhymes, “What’s It Gonna Be?!” $2.4 million
- Backstreet Boys, “Larger Than Life,” $2.1 million
- Ayumi Hamasaki, “Fairyland,” $2 million
- Madonna, “Bedtime Story,” $2 million
- Madonna, “Express Yourself,” $2 million
- Will Smith, “Miami,” $2 million
- Missy Elliot, “She’s a Bitch,” $2 million
Seeing Things Differently
- Dan Aykroyd has one blue eye and one brown eye.
- Gracie Allen had one green eye and one blue eye.
- Jane Seymour has one green eye and one brown eye.
- Elizabeth Berkley’s eyes are green, but her lower right eye is brown.
- Kate Bosworth’s eyes are blue, but her lower right eye is hazel.
- David Bowie has a permanently dilated left eye that can appear brown or green.
No Tips
Throughout his entire professional career, Andy Kaufman kept a day job busing tables at Jerry’s Famous Deli in Los Angeles.
Rowrrr!
“She is now in the vile embrace of the Apollo of the evening. Her head rests upon his shoulder, her face is upturned to his, her bare arm is almost around his neck, her partly nude swelling breast heaves tumultuously against his, face to face they whirl on, his limbs interwoven with hers, his strong right arm around her yielding form, he presses her to him until every curve in the contour of her body thrills with the amorous contact. Her eyes look into his, but she sees nothing; the soft music fills the room, but she hears it not; he bends her body to and fro, but she knows it not; his hot breath, tainted with strong drink, is on her hair and cheek, his lips almost touch her forehead, yet she does not shrink; his eyes, gleaming with a fierce, intolerable lust, gloat over her, yet she does not quail. She is filled with the rapture of sin in its intensity; her spirit is[Pg 16] inflamed with passion and lust is gratified in thought. With a last low wail the music ceases, and the dance for the night is ended, but not the evil work of the night.”
– From the Ball-Room to Hell by T.A. Faulkner, Ex-Dancing Master, Formerly Proprietor of the Los Angeles Dancing Academy and Ex-President of Dancing Masters’ Association of the Pacific Coast, 1892
Unquote
“The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.” — Alfred Hitchcock
Sssssss
What do you get when thousands of drunken sports fans stack their beer cups into a huge chain? A beer snake, that’s what. They’re not very dangerous, as snakes go — they tend to appear at cricket matches, which take hours and sell a lot of beverages. But they get big: The largest so far measured 23 meters. Cheers.
It Binds the Galaxy Together
In April 2005, Grabowiec, a village near Torun, Poland, named one of its streets after Obi-Wan Kenobi.
No word on property values.
(Image: Wikimedia Commons)
Jamming
Bob Marley was buried with a guitar, a soccer ball, a bud of marijuana, and a Bible.
(Image: Wikimedia Commons)
Rodent Culture
Mickey Mouse was originally going to be called Mortimer.
Walt Disney’s wife didn’t like the name.
Self-Made Man
Jay Leno has hosted the Tonight Show for 14 years, but he has never touched a cent of his earnings, living off stand-up performances instead.
“My original profession was and still is a comedian,” he says, “not a personality.”
Eddie Gaedel
Playing baseball for the St. Louis Browns, Eddie Gaedel had a career on-base percentage of 1.000, but most people have never heard of him.
Why? Because he had only one at-bat. Gaedel was a dwarf signed by the Browns as a publicity stunt in 1951. He had a legitimate contract, so the umpire had to let him play, but since he was only 3’7″, his strike zone measured an inch and a half. Tigers pitcher Bob Cain threw four balls, all high.
The Tigers won 6-2, but Gaedel got a standing ovation. Today his jersey (number “1/8″) hangs in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Welcome to Town
The “Hollywood sign” started as an advertisement for a housing development in the 1920s, but a deeper symbolism soon became clear.
In 1932, actress Peg Entwistle committed suicide by jumping to her death from the letter “H”.
