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I don’t know about you, but I’m seriously disappointed. Its 2001, and I don’t live on the moon. By now, we should have a huge spermatozoa shaped spaceship on its way to Jupiter with a supercomputer with a suitably punsome name (JCN?), huge circular space stations, inhabited colonies on the moon, and making regular business trips to space. We’re not. Thank you very much, Stanley Kubrick, and I blame Arthur C. Clarke while we’re at it also. I’ve waited for this moment for all my life, and now it just feels like any other day. Its still raining, and I’m still overdrawn.
And don’t get me started on Gerry Anderson. Ok, I will. By the example of Space 1999, we’ve encountered foxy space chicks called Maya, established bases on the moon again with crappy space effects and well, that was going to be the future when I grew up. Now we’re here, well, This is the future, and I feel seriously cheated. As I write, its 23:42 on 31st December 2000, and I don’t know about you, but I really do think NASA are cutting it awful close to putting those space stations in orbit we’re waiting for. They’ve only got 18 minutes left, and there’s no launches planned. Talk about cutting it close. The futures we’ve got now is rubbish, thanks to sci-fi films and cheesy TV shows building up our hopes and dreams. I guess we’re slowly learning the fact that we will not grow up to be Millionaire rock and TV stars neither, as Tyler Durden pointed out.
You watch 2001, and what do you notice? That’s right. Nobody in debt. Nobody with piles of rubbish in their living rooms. No crime, no Social injustice, poverty eliminated. Bah Humbug, Santa didn’t bring us that for Christmas. The future we got instead was rubbish, I hope you kept the receipt. Come back when you’ve got some proper gadgets. Like death ray guns, star wars gadgets, flying saucers..stormtrooper helmets, zero gravity pens, (after all, the Russians saved $2 million by using pencils…!), talking robots, teleporters. This is the future, and its dying one minute at a time.
That’s it, I’m off to sulk, watch repeats of Star Trek, and re-emerge in 2019, and If I don’t see Rutger Hauer as a replicant….guess what I’m gonna do. Probably give up on my dreams, wonder why I spent 19 years in bed, and do something real like cut my hair.
Graham Reed, last survivor of the 20th century, signing off.
