Thursday, January 01, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Goldberg: Futurama

By Tod Goldberg

So, um, yeah: Where the hell are the flying cars already? And in case you haven't noticed, there aren't a whole lot of underwater cities (or cities on the moon, for that matter), machines to teleport us from one place to another, fantastic telekinetic mind-control abilities or widespread acceptance that people live on other planets in interesting jumpsuit outfits.

It's 2004 and so far the future blows.

When I was a child, certain things were promised to me via TV and movies and books that would make my life easier, or at least would provide me with a slew of interesting choices on how to live a productive 21st century life. On the flip side, the future also promised more interesting menace than crazed religious fundamentalism--people have been killing each in the name of one god or another since the beginning of recorded history, so what's the fun in that? I remember very clearly watching the famous "Vegetable Rebellion" episode of "Lost in Space" with something very close to physical terror as the space-family Robinson was faced with angry carrot and celery stalks that wanted to enslave poor Will Robinson, wanted to ass-rape Dr. Smith and had real designs on having a three-way with Penny Robinson (or something like that...memory is a hazy thing these days) and this was all taking place, according to the show, in 1997! Sure, terrorists killing in the name of Islam are scary, but rogue carrots with anger management issues aren't even remotely comprehensible, which makes them all the more frightening. Here we are seven years on from "Lost in Space" time and a carrot is still a carrot, friends.

And never mind "Space 1999" or even the brilliant "Battlestar Galactica" spinoff "Galactica 1980," both of which surmised that people would a) wear clothes without buttons and that b) space and time travel would be prevalent and people with feathered hair would still walk the universe. I find myself four years into a decade no one has yet found a way to abbreviate (The Oh-Ohs? The Single Digits?), and nothing that was foretold has happened. Who is to blame here?

Ray Bradbury? Phillip K. Dick? Harlan Ellison? They all lied to me. Oh, sure, we have supercomputers and governments that spy on us and California recently elected a murderous cyborg governor, but as far as I can tell the biggest advancement in computer science occurred about a month ago when I read something about Paris Hilton getting Viagraed by some fuckmaton and five minutes later, in glorious black and white, her naked waif-visage was doing it Mike Piazza-style on my computer screen. Which then reminded me that not so long ago everyone from Time and Newsweek to the kid at Staples who tells me what cables I need for my computer were talking about how we'd all be privy to virtual reality sex in no time, that everyone in the world would walk around with funky helmets experiencing life under their own prescribed terms: You want an office with a view? Just strap this helmet on, sit down in your cubicle and you've got Venice circa 1800 out the window.

By rights, then, I should be virtually screwing Paris Hilton right now, and instead of the current view out my office window of my gardener's ass crack, I should be able to see...me...virtually screwing Paris Hilton. Alas, the future--even the recent future--just hasn't happened as quickly as we were led to believe it would.

Even Ian Fleming lied to me. In his James Bond novels, which took place in contemporary times, albeit a skewed contemporary time, people were building underwater cities and moon bases like John Ashcroft builds paranoia around the holidays, and yet the closest I get to either is when I try to hold a conversation with my 7-year-old nephew about who and what Pokemon are.

I don't have any answers for this lag in invention--I'll leave that to Dr. Ellis at Citylife--I'm just tired of waiting. In the spirit of collaboration--and since I know my column is often used as a prime indicator of what the public really needs--I offer four suggestions for things that should be invented during this year of our Lord 2004 to jumpstart innovation:

1. Reliable shopping cart wheels. (If we can't fix this, what hope does society really have?)

2. A Democratic nominee who can actually beat George Bush. (If we can't fix this, what hope does society really have?)

3. Space travel to planets filled with scary and/or incredibly meek aliens that we can kill, enslave or otherwise subjugate. (Nothing unites people like kicking a little alien ass.)

4. Unitards. (People in the future always wear these things...perhaps by not wearing them thus far, we've hindered our intellectual development.)

Possibly the future is supposed to look just like this and I'm living in a world dictated by the evil, liberal, forward-thinking media. Maybe, just maybe, flying cars are too much to ask for. But it's 2004 and I want to start levitating shit with my mind. Let's get together on this, people. Happy New Year.