Suspend Me

Remember the movie “Passengers” from a year or two back? It’s a couple hundred years in the future and big space-liners are ferrying hundreds of humans to a new Eden-like planet that takes, I dunno, a hundred years in Earth time to get to, so everyone mounts their hibernation pods for a big sleep, so they can wake up relaxed and refreshed when they arrive.

Nice concept.

Meanwhile, back here in Earth-bound labs, there’s serious science at a furious pace getting done on this persuasion, simply in preparation for our coming shuttles to Mars, a mere 34 million miles out. Both scientists and shrinks are concerned about how we’ll deal with 7 months of pitch-black window views in a tin can livingroom, twiddling collective thumbs whilst we hurdle towards the red orb at a mere 18K mph.

And rightly so. Look no farther than the panic in people’s eyes when they wander into an earth-bound space with no cell reception: Wait: whaaaaat? Now multiply that by seven months and throw in doses of exponentially rising anxiety, depression and, gulp, animosity. It’s a recipe for disaster, no matter how chill you start out, and one we’ve seen dramatized in a dozen other on-screen space operas.

So what’s a body to do? Sleep! They zip you up in one o’ them pod thingies, turn a valve and a switch and you’re cool (like, REALLY cool) for the duration. We’ve seen how this goes: A trusted crew member wakes you up prior to landing and all’s well.  Easy, right?

Sure it is. Easy as sprouting wings-easy. More next time…

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Star Trek, the Last Voyage

In 1976, just at the end of their first season, the cast did an extended Star Trek skit which few people will remember. It’s remarkable in multiple ways. First, of course, it features John Belushi as Captain Kirk, with Chevy Chase as Spock and Dan Aykroyd playing McCoy. Given that, we know we’ve got great talent on the stage.

 

The first thing that’s so striking is the combination of their age and weight. Both Aykroyd and Belushi were relatively svelte in contrast to the way they both overindulged over the ensuing seasons. And the audience is appreciative but hardly wild about their entrances on set. It’s just the first season, after all.

Then comes the skit itself, clocking in at 12 minutes in length – wonderfully over-written! And evocative of a different era when long dialog and single camera shots were the norm. This whole thing would’ve been a tight 5:30 had it run even ten years ago.

What we get, though, is a very apparent set of building blocks that become the bones of those SNL years. Belushi has somehow rallied himself into clear enough consciousness to do a bang-up job impersonating William Shatner, complete with the intensity, over-enunciation and attitude, blowing through a hugely wordy script in a single, fluid take with nary a flub.

Chevy is truly funny as Spock and Aykroyd struts his deadpan attitude with doctoral style. And it’s wonderful watching them work together, with our advance knowledge of their future careers arcs. Chase will leave for big screen shenanigans. Akyroyd will partner with Belushi for the Blues Brothers and the HOUSE of Blues and Belushi will, sadly and shockingly, go out in a drug overdose his cohorts must have feared, at the peak of his short career.

As to the skit, no story spoilers here. Just an appreciation of some of the earliest iterations of the extraordinary SNL juggernaut. Enjoy!

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War of the Worlds

No, not red vs blue, think bigger! In 1898 HG Wells, one of the founding fathers of the Sci-Fi genre “gifted” us with some incredibly imaginative thinking about an alien invasion, bringing a whole new (ahem) alien concept into sharp focus and leaving us howling at whatever planet suited our fancy.

It took the genius of Orson Wells to turn that story into a radio drama in 1939, when his troop of players, the Mercury Theater, performed a live version of it on the air. This time, it was far more realistic. Using cutting edge tech – radio broadcast – and cutting edge techniques – sound effects, live orchestra, inspired performances – he simulated an invasion of Earth by wicked, up-to-no-good Martian invaders, whose advanced weaponry promptly flattened our puny defenses, dispatching with great swaths of humanity, as on-scene reporters, bystanders and military brass helplessly intoned the bad news in real time. 

One of the coolest concepts that gave the show a more believable bent was to use a small live orchestra, whose job was to play insipid dance music, simulating a normal evening radio broadcast, only to be repeatedly interrupted with breathless reports uttering “We interrupt this broadcast to bring you this special bulletin” or even more convincing: “We now return to our program of evening music…” at which point the (really awful) dance music midst would be cut back into.

The effect was electrifying, so much so that it caused actual panic in the streets, with people spilling out of their homes, armed with guns and pitchforks. Heady stuff.

Now comes the latest iteration of the show (which was redone as  2005 Spielberg feature with Tom Cruise), a War of the Worlds OPERA (!) staged by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, based on the Mercury Theater broadcast, based on the book. The company has gone so far as to schedule not only the premier performance at Disney Hall in downtown LA, but a simulcast at three additional yet-to-be-announced outdoor public spaces, where a live actor will take to a makeshift stage and perform along with the live show. This will be done via loudspeakers mounted on poles built to hold the original 50-year old air raid sirens that were installed back in the days of the Red Scare. Quaint!

Just bought tickets (including the $14 per ticket convenience charge) and can’t wait to go next week. Stay tuned for broadcast interruptions.

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Gaga: Five Foot Two

Born this Way, Bad Romance… I know these tunes by cultural osmosis more than having listened to them in rotation. As a baby boomer, I’ve moved from pop to denser electronic and experimental genres, but I listen to all manner of playlists and  I wonder if given the limited involvement and exposure I’ve had to this newest Joanne incarnation, I may have a different reaction to her new doc, now streaming on Netflix.

I remember watching her initial TV appearances on the talk shows and SNL and remarking about the genuine talent and technique she brought to her game. And those nutsy vids, so superfluous but so entertaining. And now, what, nearly a decade later, here’s the woman unmasked, as it were, committing to making both an album and a video recording of her life as honestly – nakedly – as she can.

She did it by allowing a trusted director, Chris Moukarbel, to point the camera and essentially be a one-man tag-along buddy. And it appears he was allowed to follow her virtually everywhere but the loo. What we get, as a result, is an unvarnished behind-the-scenes treatment that deconstructs her glitzy concert dates and feature videos, as she relates to a coterie of about a dozen close-in entourage people, who assist, sew, remind, make-up, style, drive, bodyguard and give family comfort.

And what we net is the portrait of a woman in her prime, dealing with an avalanche of challenges – from joy to managing physical pain, from stadium jitters to lonely depression, from intensely creative flourishes to exhaustion. It’s constant, it’s overwhelming, it’s real.

I think some of her mega-fans may find exception with the film. What’s she got to complain about, who does she think she is, stop whining. But my perspective is of a star who has expertly channeled her seemingly unlimited energy and who is acutely aware of her status and resolve to be fair and even-handed with staff and fans alike, when so many others of her ilk are dismissive, rude or have simply morphed into egotistical nightmares.

Gaga is none of these things. She shares the traits of a sober Amy Winehouse crossed with a strutting Beyonce, injected with true originality, creatively on fire on the inside while striving to maintain a practiced sense of calm and survival on the out. It’s a bitch being a superstar. But this superstar’s no bitch. She’s simply unafraid.

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Close Encounters of the Third Kind, post-screening follow-up

What an experience to see it present day. Had a pre-screening dinner in the towering LA Live section of downtown LA with 50 new friends, all brought together by Paul Hynek, son of the man who worked closely with Steve Spielberg to bring the original movie to light 40 years ago and who defined what the three phases of close encountership are: 1) sighting, 2) physical evidence and 3) contact.

Then into the cavernous theater for the 4K digital director's cut, which did not disappoint. Spielberg has always had a gift for capturing the American cultural zeitgeist of the moment on the screen, lingering over families and especially kids. While scenes were much longer then than now (who has time to watch people talk at dinner?) one of the reminders that we get when we watch something decades old is how it preserves the former age of people we know now as old or ancient.

Richard Dreyfuss as a virtual kid, with the reckless energy to match, not to mention that this was Spielberg’s, what, third feature film? How insane is that on the genius scale? And how in hell did anyone get along without hiding their phone under the dinner table for continuing updates on whatever? Eh, whatever.

What really resonated was the final third of the film, as Dreyfuss hones in on the secret governmental operation on the mountain plateau in Wyoming, where an enormous temporary landing strip has been assembled by a devoted corps of engineers and scientists, preparing for the greatest moment in modern Earth history. Which happens and does not disappoint.

The aliens throw a half dozen gorgeous little scout ships around just to bedazzle, which apparently signal the mother ship all's well, clearing the space for the landing of this giant vessel that handles gravity like it was a raindrop, then disgorges a group of air force crews it had scooped up 30 years prior, ostensibly for benign probing (everybody seems dazed but in perfect health) before beckoning a replacement crop of volunteers to join the friendly naked-looking aliens motioning them to walk up the gangway. Which, you may remember, includes a blinking, grinning, mind-blown Richard Dreyfuss, who has been summarily written off as certifiable by his clueless earthbound family, anyway, so what's to lose? This is what he was born for.  

It was a religious experience for me in 1977. And while time changes everything, it still left me buoyed and otherwise uplifted the other night. That scene, that visitation. Have we already experienced it? Are we simply descendants of a race that touched down a million years ago and dropped off the building block DNA to get us started? And if not, why not? And why haven't they made themselves more known if they have the tech to get here?

We'll never know. Until we know.

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The Guns of Sci Fi

They shoot colored beams of light, in streams, lines and glowy balls. Interestingly, they all shoot slowly, to better illustrate the path they are taking and show off said balls. They're various forms of deadly, depending on the weapon. Some just stun their target, some flame and spark on the clothing of their intended victim as he/she/it stares at the wound incredulously.

Size: Star Trek phasors were quaint compared to most modern scifi weaponry. Your basic sidearm is a big damn thing designed to make you look important, impressive and just plain scary. Gun barrels are 4 inches in diameter, the better to pack a bright flash. Handles barely fit in demure human hands, barrels run from 8 inches to a foot and a half and we're talking side-arms here. Magically, they are lightweight and easily maneuverable. THAT'S a good thing.

Bigger armaments -- handheld rifles, repeaters, bazookas and the like. Them's some POWERFUL colorful light-balls, brah... They'll blow holes in the interior wall of a ship’s hallways, but not to worry, your outer hull always stays intact. Lightweight, easy to run with, big guns use fine-quality scifi materials designed for minimal impediment and maximal explosive appeal. Right on.

Now: Accuracy. The count-onable anomaly of scifi gunmanship.  The law of scifi gunfights -- say it with me is: Good guys hit, Bad guys miss. Simple as that, and think about it, could it be any other way and if it were, would you really be willing to deal with the consequences? There are obvious conclusions long drawn on this principle. Good guys have had access to the finest marksmanship training and munitions schooling in the galaxy. Bad guys have, for the most part, had to deal with aiming at zero-grav space garbage or landfill smeer cans for practice. No wonder they can't hit the broad side of a shuttlecraft.

This is a good thing. It preserves the balance, saves the day, makes for happier endings and indemnifies the genre for future generations. So support your local third act and be thankful for the balance of handheld weaponry in space. It's a simple ecosystem that errant mutants are gunning to change, but good luck with that, sucker. Take your best shot.

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Dark Blather

This series cancellation brought to you by I-Former, the app that sorts out your past life and keeps mostly the best parts. Purchase a one-year membership and get two months of memories free.

Click here for clone reconstruction. When you choose TablaSordidum, you're in charge of your future destiny -- for a while… Act now and get a fast pass one-way Marauder ride to Zairon and a free android tune-up at any authorized Ferrous Port. Offer limited to oxygen-breathers whose social security numbers have not been breached within the past 30 microns.

Side-effects may include envy, deceit, hallucinations, visions of grandeur, insane gunfights with aliens, random character number switching, intense personality shifts and home gravity envy. 

Employ nanites for self preservation. Blink Drive not included.

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Keepin' Up With the Jetsons

What's it gonna be like to run with the fast crowd in the year 2400? Will we still be waiting at rope lines to get into the coolest zero-grav clubs? Dropping big bucks on magnums of GoThereJuice and sporting the latest pomp-doos?

I wrote this song to give myself a little tour of what money could buy 383 years out. Or whatever money's called by then. Maybe retinal scans will be so retro you'll just need to think’n’pay... Jet packs, vacation planets, fetching androids, textured ultra-beats, flying cars! Oh, it's ALL comin' baby. 

The twist in the song is about being able to AFFORD it. You think you can join in on a piddling salary? Honey, if you have to ask... So my avatar in this one is bound and determined to be a playa, even though he has no business being there. His FOMO runs so deep, he's about run through his second mortgage hangin' in, and those beautiful people he's running with? Every now and then one whispers to another: Wait, WHO'S this guy again?

You know the type, the sad wanna-be who's just so doggone determined, he'd be cute if it weren't for how hard he was trying to be someone else. Give the dude a nod for tryin', but without the scratch (or whatever slang it'll be then) it ain't gonna happen. With this crowd? You gotta be bad, beautiful or filthy rich -- pick three.

But thanks for playin' our game, and damn, look’it the time. Gotta jet!

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The Orville

Cool CGI, big music underscoring, shiny interiors and costumes that look like everyone is about to get in formation and march down the football field playing an arrangement of the latest Taylor Swift tune.

The Orville (Fox, Sundays) made its debut last night with Seth McFarlane doing what he does best – starring Seth – and opening with a pretty funny bit about spousal cheating when it’s about getting caught in bed with a panic-stricken alien. This one, a blue-hue guy who splooshes when scared.

Let’s be sure we understand this is a Star Trek-type spinoff comedy series, meant to, like, disrupt, outer space, that place that’s always been fraught with peril and discovery and drama. And that no one ought to be more qualified to do so than Mr. Family Guy, who looks cute in his marching suit.  The challenge comes from pushing the envelope every which way until it’s no longer mailable.

McFarlane, the show’s writer, dances between what he seems to want to portray as legit dramatic saga combined with silly pizza party jokes, and illustrates how you really can’t have it both ways. The movie “Airplane!” is the perfect example of a serious soap opera genre going rogue, leaving us with a permanent joke about gladiators and filling every 20 seconds with another pratfall. That was funny, because funny was what the producers aimed squarely to be.

The problem with Orville is that it tries to go both ways, dipping its characters into ostensibly real danger, running around to neutralize it, then relaxing back into goofy characterizations to frame the after-jokes that no longer fit with the seriousness of what was just supposed to have been being portrayed (self-editor: woah, interesting sentence construction).

The net result is a show that doesn’t seem to know what it is. Is it middling SciFi drama lurching boldly forward or is it cartoon shtick, portraying frat-party humor in the 24^th century? Keep on eye on your main screen to see how warped things get.

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Mars vs Doonesbury

Surprisingly thought-provoking Sunday comic from Gary Trudeau, the beloved author of the 40+ year strip, who, along with Charles Shultz, ranks as the only artist to be regularly published with vintage re-runs while being listed as "On vacation" during most weekdays. He's that good and that entertaining and an American treasure.

This Sunday's comic features the now mature and wizened Uncle Zonk, sharing a doob with his young college-age nephew, who asks if he thinks humans will ever make it to Mars. And his surprisingly pragmatic answer: "I hope not." Zonker goes on to explain that the tech required to sustain humans on the round-trip flight and keep them from harm's way will cost billions and would be a catastrophic disaster if something went wrong. Interesting response, especially in light of the catastrophes dotting the US in this most volatile September ever. 

Robots, he explains, could do the job, likely better than humans, and at a far cheaper cost. Interesting debate. Trudeau nails the premise masterfully, ending, as he always does on a side joke, this time about fixing any in-space problem with duct tape. But leaves the discussion to us.

So let's do a quick review. We're on the precipice of a spectacular technological future (just wait 'til Apple unveils its new iphone this week) that may well be dominated by AI. Along with mechanical technology that changes our whole notion so revolutionary, it changes our very sense of purpose over the next hundred years. And it well may make sense to send sentient beings to Mars and beyond to explore and gather data, just as we've been doing with satellite launches for the past 57 years.

But nothing is going to stop the progression of events that lead to human space exploration because it's simply what we as a species are programmed to do: To inquire, examine, risk and reach out. The economics of human missions to Mars are something to be reckoned with. But every administration has been, and continues to be, on board with making it happen. The logistics will require years more of development, study, testing and preparation and will undoubtedly include the use of robotics and robots to smooth the way (at least until they wake up enough to demand their OWN set of rights).

But we're goin', folks. 

Money, time, fires, quakes and hurricanes be damned. We are so goin'.

Can't hardly wait.

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This Sci Fi Weather

In 2004, the movie “Day After Tomorrow” depicted a freak weather system that inundates Earth with Armageddon-style weather, from tidal waves engulfing New York City to a permafrost that kills billions, while survivors hunker down awaiting a thaw. Cool CG, including your basic mob panic and flying trucks in a debris storm you needed to jump out of the way from in order to survive.

This was, among other things, a warning fable about global warming and the trouble we’d be in for if we didn’t pay attention and do something now. They even included, a computer forecast of the continental-sized storm weather pattern forming on a globe scale that would do the number.

See any resemblance to what’s happening in the Caribbean today?

The "Day After Tomorrow" hurricane map

 September’s real thing

Spooky. As I write this, Irma is making landfall on US soil and no doubt will be a horrendous event affecting millions of people. But hopefully, the future will bring change that helps to regulate or even eliminate the worst natural disasters.

One such solution has been proposed  by a group of serious science geeks based on a detailed plan to build thousands of giant floating plastic donuts -- enormous plastic rings made up of thousands of discarded automobile tires -- that would be strategically anchored in the Caribbean. As they floated on the surface, the water that washed over them would be gradually pushed down by its own weight through long hanging plastic tubes to exit in colder deeper water, exchanging the surface water with colder water from below the floats.

Done en mass, this could theoretically cool the surface temperature of the ocean enough to mitigate or entirely prevent the formation of the kinds of high pressure systems that typically turn into hurricanes, ridding us of this incredibly dangerous and repetitive disaster process.  (more about it here)

Preposterous? Welcome to my daily world of scifi wonder, where magic is the stuff of greater dreams.

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Monolith

Fifty years after the fact, the majestic black structure found on the moon by astronauts in the film 2001 still stands as a perfect metaphor for the mysteries of space. Left by some vastly superior race, they are present on Earth at the dawn of man and in the astronaut's Jupertarian bedroom in what appears to be his final destination.

Author Arthur C. Clark, the brilliant geek who brought us this vision, describes them as objects that were placed around the universe to observe, interact and when necessary, to regulate... Behave and everybody gets to evolve the way they will, including you messy humans. Eww.

But how perfectly symbolic to turn to a solid black rectangular block as the key to unfolding the mysteries of the cosmos. A big black block o' “Huh?" Never mind, silly Earthlings. When you're ready, you'll know.

Meanwhile, I've got a monolith of my own. No, not a metaphor for a belief or how I live my life. It's a real, miniature model of a monolith! Six inches tall, it's solid black plastic and sits majestically on a dusty section of bookcase, just waiting for me to throw it some attitude. I love this thing, which came wonderfully blister-packed on a card that pronounced it an action toy, featuring "zero articulating parts!" Bought several and gave them to friends couple Xmases back, proudly inviting them into my elite club. They were, all of them, struck more or less speechless with what I can only conclude was sheer and grateful delight. I imagine the places of honor where their facsimiles now reside, these graceful reminders of our puny insignificance in this minute li'l corner of galaxy.

Brothers and sisters, WE are the Monolith. We stand tall, proud slabs of black plastic, wildly gesticulating, windblown, winsome non-articulating parts. Don't let the opportunity pass. EMBRACE the Monolith. BE the Monolith. We are ALL Monoli-Thick.

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Close Encounters

Let me tell you about my experience with Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I’m old enough to have seen it first run at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood back in 1977 and this weekend is its 40^th anniversary, celebrating with new prints in a one-week run at theaters around the country.

I’d never imagined anything close to the overwhelm of witnessing the moment we make actual contact with beings from another planet, who naturally, would need to be coming to us, seeing as our piddling technical prowess is hundreds of years away from finding them. 

There were two extraordinary things about Steven Spielberg’s vision, brought to life on-screen. First, there was an incredible cinematic build-up with sightings and visions to the ultimate major encounter, which was run by government experts and professionals who were both welcoming and awestruck. And second, here was a story of a peaceful visit. No ray-guns, no megalomaniacs, no nervous, trigger-happy army generals or panic in the streets.

That blew me away; the concept that this wasn’t some catastrophe on the way, but that given the right circumstances, we could actually handle it. And welcome it. And be invited into this heretofore hidden galactic community that we had no inkling of until that moment.

I staggered home and spent the next couple of days in contemplation, ultimately writing a deadly serious song about our present situation call Exile in the Universe. 

The chorus:

We are in exile in the universe

And we’ve been sentenced to serve ten million years

Let the courts of the Infinity

Be the judges of our destiny

As we struggle with our prejudice and fears…

That was the chorus, for cryin’ out loud… And I’m looking for the tapes but don’t know if I’ll find them. If not, I’ve got to get around to re-recording something, just to have it and share it with you guys.

That experience changed me in my conscious and unconscious relationship with everything out beyond. And made me the person who ultimately came around to wanting to share that future vision on stages around the world. The movie is playing for one week only (THIS week) – so join me in experiencing history’s most powerful positive experience of things to come. I’ll be sitting center row halfway back, in awe all over again.

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Unbearable Love

Solaris, the Stephen Soderbergh’s 2002 film starring George Clooney and Natascha McElhone, frames a classic story of heartbreak a billion miles from Earth, orbiting a mysterious planet in a space station sent to figure what’s up. Something big enough to fly Clooney’s eminent psychologist and space higher-up out to investigate why people are flipping out and dying.

This is a love story, built around a rare level of attraction between two people, which is so powerful, it seems like it could transcend life itself. Which, thanks to the weirdness around Solaris, it does. Spending his first night on the orbiting station, Clooney awakes to find his beautiful wife sitting next to him, smiling serenely. Shocking not only as to the mystery of how she got there, but because she’d committed suicide on Earth years earlier. Yet here she is, flesh and bone and heart and brain, dark memory-free, in one piece, staring at him innocently and asking what’s wrong.

Remember how little dialog there was in 2001? The empty spaces were filled with huge and lush mixes of giant orchestral works, including the iconic Also sprach Zarathustra – Daaa-Daaa Daaaaaaaaaaaaa…. DiDAAAAAA, boom-boom-boom-boom-boom… etc.

The paucity of dialog in this film makes for the most underwhelming framework since then, adding to the mystery of these manifestations that it turns out each member of the crew is dealing with. Whoever meant the most to them – they’re there now. How to go insane in one easy step.

Clooney makes an ultimate decision at the climax of the film, all the more desperate because in this brainy experiment, he’s ostensibly the brightest bulb. Yet he cannot resist chasing the greatest love of his life towards what must surely be his doom, satisfied it’s what’s worth living for.

Heady stuff, the things that matter most. The greatest love. The biggest score. The most magnanimous gift. The ultimate expression of art, skill, gratitude, forgiveness…

These things that stir our souls, now and a thousands years hence. It’s the stardust talkin’. And we’re all made of it.

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What to Watch

Every year, many thousands of hours of mass market professional film and video content are produced and released and several of those thousands of those hours are eminently watchable, whatever your taste. Add to that my official count of 2.3 gazillion peta-hours of product already in watchable existence (not including cat videos) and you are confronted with a creepily uncomfortable FOMO on a skin-crawling scale.

How important is it to see Casablanca, Citizen Kane, 2001, The Partridge Family, Batman and the Lion King, when Housewives of Dallas is streaming on Bravo right now!? Depends on what's relevant to your basic grokking of what entertainment means to you. Play that out over the next say, 40 years and you reach an inescapable fact: the longer we live, the more stuff we're missing. It's piling up way too fast and at some point, everybody's gotta take a break to pay the rent! What's a concerned cine-TV-phile to do?

Chill. Produce your own content and let someone else worry about not seeing it. Pick the stuff that matters to you and screw the rest. Or go looking for what might matter to you and download that. Five hundred years from now, there will be 11.7 to the 6th power sextupla-jillion movies, series, holograms, injectibles and implantibles available for your viewing pleasure. And we’re talking the GOOD stuff… Maybe that's what the whole concept of digital immortality is about -- watching a portion of that whilst yer inanimate butt is implanted in some earth-bound cloud farm. Seems plausible. Just hope that don't mean it won't be garden-gated with monthly credit charges that relegate less fortunate souls to dealing with an inevitably endless stream of summer re-runs.

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