04-23-2005, 05:22 PM
You know, a long long long time ago, I was in a conversation that is really starting to haunt me in this day and age.
I was a kid. It was the late 60s. The Moonshot had happened. And I was talking with a couple of older folk, mentors of mine, and some folk my age, or close to. We talked about technology. I said, in this conversation, that one day, probably very soon, computers will become household objects, as common as radios or televisions. On this, I got laughed at. People thought I was totally insane. And said so. I also stated that in the not to distant future, that advertisers would take over our lives with endless commercial overload. TV, radio, signs, jingles, etc. I also predicted that eventually commercials that we could not avoid would be projected directly into our brains, tailored to suit our individual likes or dislikes, or whatever the cooperate dictators deemed that we should like. That got a lot of laughs and a couple of folks told me I needed to stop smoking that smelly marryjoowawnee and reading all those crazy science fiction novels from the dimestore, because that stuff was rotting my brain.
Who's laughing now?
We haven't yet begun eating the tasteless gray nutrigoo I predicted, er, maybe some of us have, but I fear we are getting closer and closer to all sorts of nightmares.
Leonard Cohen said it best I believe in "Everybody Knows."
And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows
I was a kid. It was the late 60s. The Moonshot had happened. And I was talking with a couple of older folk, mentors of mine, and some folk my age, or close to. We talked about technology. I said, in this conversation, that one day, probably very soon, computers will become household objects, as common as radios or televisions. On this, I got laughed at. People thought I was totally insane. And said so. I also stated that in the not to distant future, that advertisers would take over our lives with endless commercial overload. TV, radio, signs, jingles, etc. I also predicted that eventually commercials that we could not avoid would be projected directly into our brains, tailored to suit our individual likes or dislikes, or whatever the cooperate dictators deemed that we should like. That got a lot of laughs and a couple of folks told me I needed to stop smoking that smelly marryjoowawnee and reading all those crazy science fiction novels from the dimestore, because that stuff was rotting my brain.
Who's laughing now?
We haven't yet begun eating the tasteless gray nutrigoo I predicted, er, maybe some of us have, but I fear we are getting closer and closer to all sorts of nightmares.
Leonard Cohen said it best I believe in "Everybody Knows."
And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows
All alone, or in twos,
The ones who really love you
Walk up and down outside the wall.
Some hand in hand
And some gathered together in bands.
The bleeding hearts and artists
Make their stand.
And when they've given you their all
Some stagger and fall, after all it's not easy
Banging your heart against some mad buggers wall.
"Isn't this where...."
The ones who really love you
Walk up and down outside the wall.
Some hand in hand
And some gathered together in bands.
The bleeding hearts and artists
Make their stand.
And when they've given you their all
Some stagger and fall, after all it's not easy
Banging your heart against some mad buggers wall.
"Isn't this where...."