Caught the world premiere of Repo Men starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker—two men hired to recover the inner makings of body parts that keep families together and those heading the household alive. Because of this company, patients needing a liver, heart, lungs, kneecap or kidney no longer wait in long lines. The cost is through the roof and there’s no room for those who bail out on their monthly payments.
Is this fantasy or reality? Will we one day walk into Wal-Mart and pick up a big toe crushed while doing flying jump kicks in Tae Kwon Do? How far are we from Rent-A-Center running ads on television that offer arms, legs and a new jaw bone? Short on cash? That’s ok! Next door is Checks-Are-Us who’ll give you the money without questions asked—just pay it back within 30 days or we’ll raise the interest rate to 90% while taking the cute dog you cuddle up to in the middle of the night.
Freaked out yet? I sure was on December 1, 1982 when Barney Clark became the first recipient of a manmade heart. I remember reading the story on KOOK in Billings, Montana and feeling proud about this incredible journey while fearing what might lie ahead. You gotta remember, this was during the day of light sabers and C3PO—was the new decade lifting us toward a George Lucas Empire that would one day strike back?
I love science! What must it be like to hold a vision that one day becomes someone’s first step or breath of a brand new beginning? It’s not their incredible gifts that I am questioning—but rather the consequences of what could happen if something so brilliant lands in the hands of Corporate America…
In Repo Men you have 90 days to pay off three installments of $600,000 or more. I get sick each time I fork out the bucks to Time Warner for cable and internet. When you’re late, they send a nice letter or two. In Repo Men…they hire Jude Law. Gulp!
The greatest thing about America is opportunity. If there’s a need, someone is going to create a business around it. Look at the Beanie Baby rush of the 90’s! If you didn’t score the Princess Di its first day out…you were forced into bankruptcy. I kept waiting for Keith Hawthorne Ford to offer, “Get 3 mint condition Beanie Babies with the purchase of a new Mustang!”
The closest we got were the mini-Beanies from McDonalds. No wonder I had a heart attack! I crammed every kid’s meal burger into my system all in the name of making sure I got every single last one of them. We waited in long lines hoping the new box would be opened. Once set free the crowds would cheer while tossing cash out like it grew on Beanie trees.
What if big business started offering body parts at prices you can afford? Would you allow them to slap a bumper sticker on our forearm that reads: Monkey Joe’s Kidneys without the stones? Heck, maybe they’ll hook up with a NASCAR driver and your new gallbladder features the number 24. You know how big business works, they’ll hit up radio stations with promotions that offer free tickets to the concert and a real New Year makeover that includes a heart and six arteries. If you buy one lung you get the other free.
Wouldn’t it be great to latch onto six seconds of the future and see how close to science fiction Repo Men is? And if it’s truly going to come true then scientists need to get to work on turning every movie into a reality such as The Hangover…no matter what happens in the end…the entire embodiment of people involved are still loving each other like nothing happened. Steven Spielberg can re-release Old Yeller…because the body parts featured in Repo Men could save a dogs life too.
And I thought cloning was a scary situation. Don’t even take me there—the movie Moon totally waxed me out on the what if factor. Seriously…how would you react if you suddenly bumped into yourself at Home Depot? Forget how Arroe-2 and Arroe-3 comb their hair or wear fancier clothes. I’d bust their tail on the way they speak, “You’re out of tune! Where’s the inflection? I didn’t say volume! I said stretch the word without making it sound like you’re delivering four different sounds. How do you expect to sell cars on the radio if you don’t speak from the tummy? Where are you going? There aren’t eight hours in the workday, you go and go and go until you can’t remember where the beginning began.”
Maybe I’m not ready for the future.
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
Showing posts with label george lucas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label george lucas. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
I ate a booger in the first grade...
Spent some priceless time with Social Networking Guru Nathan Richie yesterday—his strength being the ability to look deeply into each presentation given on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and My Space and spot extreme weaknesses in the way we’ve elected to communicate.
Like any drug, if it feels good you’ll continue to use it until it kills you.
Conversation without face to face contact is the greatest invention since the birth of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich—to speak when not spoken to without having to visually change our attitude due to selling out to unexpected facial expressions is like walking into a jewelry store and taking home the most expensive diamond without paying for it.
The most common connection we share is an addiction to where we’ve been.
We’ve developed a life and style around an assumed fifteen minutes of fame. While in the sixth grade I was the hall monitor at Ponderosa Elementary—it was during the week President Richard Nixon elected to help out the farmers and change Daylight Savings Time. To be a monitor protecting hundreds of children in the dark was an important position based on trust and leadership. That was 35 years ago! Surely I’m not the same person!
Why torture readers with chapters already written when it’s the future we’re trying to get to?
It kills me to see The Beatles outselling Jay Z, Jordan Sparks and Carry Underwood…it shows how lazy record companies have become in the art of discovering raw, unrehearsed, un-researched talent—they do what comes easiest, rely on the classics. Those rules didn’t exist in 1979 when a group of cousins and friends from Tennessee brought their four part harmonies to the forefront of Country music. I’ll never forget my radio station program director Lonnie Bell at a little daytime station in the armpit of the world screaming the praises of what he called the new kids on the block…Alabama ripped a hole in Porter Wagner’s glorified rhinestones generating enough pomp and circumstance to revamp a dying art. Can you imagine what the face of Country music would look like today without Randy Owens and Teddy Gentry having the guts to put a little rock guitar beside the fiddle in the band?
Your web page and Social Networking outlets are no different. They’re stuck in Beatles-mode. In 1983 blank blank blank was named best to succeed during a nationwide recession. Who cares? What does it have to do with those surrounding you today? What did you do then that could be utilized in 2009?
The one story I personally can’t stand to talk about is a weird event that unwrapped its pretty little face in late 1987 when Casey Kasum elected to leave American Top 40. At the age of 25 I was named one of the five finalists to replace him. Wanna know a secret…it’s never been a deciding factor in landing me a radio job. Sure! I wanted to be Ryan Seacrest years before he was pulled out of diapers! But why paste it to my history?
Social Networking is a tool. Former Vice President Al Gore predicted it would become a valuable source of communication but seems dumfounded by the fact that once we get a hit, laziness sets in. In the latest edition of Rollingstone Magazine he’s vividly clear about how the Obama campaign has totally missed the purpose of the medium. They dedicated their souls to its strength during the election and have done nothing since to keep American’s abreast of what’s going on behind closed doors.
To radio people Social Networking has become an open microphone ungoverned by program directors and decision makers. By being up to date and clear with reasons to stand on a box, the avenue described as broadcasting has hit a level of performance the masters before us didn’t have so they relied on two speakers to stretch their points across cities and states. Rather than saying, "Here's another four in a row without talk," listeners are seeing we're extremely human and go through everyday circumstances just like them. A thicker more meaningful bond is being created. But must be maintained everyday.
In theory Madonna is the greatest creation known to music—she never stopped reinventing. Maria Carey on the other hand has sold more CD’s scoring more number ones than Elvis Presley. Until she married Nick Cannon who the heck was she? Tommy Matolla a record company President vowed to make his wife the best thing since the invention of chicken McNuggets—once the divorce took place she totally disappeared having to reinvent a career that’s respected more today than the moments those incredible five octaves tore up your favorites list.
I love The Beatles! I can’t stop being inspired by Paul McCartney but they weren’t part of George Jetson’s life. We were supposed to be living in space by now working at Spacely Sprockets with our houses being cleaned by extremely friendly robots named Rosie.
How are we supposed to get to the future if our hands are Super Glued to a past we can’t change?
Nothing peels my potatoes more than hearing someone blurt out, “The music was better forty years ago!”
If that’s the case why do producers continue to re-master the Beatles collection? George Lucas rakes in millions every other year with added features or newly designed digital scenes in a movie series we’ve seen 16.9 billion times. James Camreon waited for technology to catch up to his dreams and next week we'll see it come to life in Avatar.
My brother Larry was wrong! Mighty Mouse and Howdy Doody were not the last of the great Saturday morning cartoons. The success of Sponge Bob Square Pants is a stolen page from the book that says, "Hey lets take a chance."
If you don’t think we live in the past…go back and count how many times I reverted back to its witchcraft in this short story? I’m cursed! I’m melting! Melting! All because my Facebook and personal web page have nothing in common with the future.
Nate might be onto something here…if you’re having a hard time landing a job or picking up new accounts—try allowing the power of Social Networking do its magical mystery tour…
If what you're screaming is, "Look at me!”
What’s in it for me?
Steal Nathan’s art…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
Like any drug, if it feels good you’ll continue to use it until it kills you.
Conversation without face to face contact is the greatest invention since the birth of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich—to speak when not spoken to without having to visually change our attitude due to selling out to unexpected facial expressions is like walking into a jewelry store and taking home the most expensive diamond without paying for it.
The most common connection we share is an addiction to where we’ve been.
We’ve developed a life and style around an assumed fifteen minutes of fame. While in the sixth grade I was the hall monitor at Ponderosa Elementary—it was during the week President Richard Nixon elected to help out the farmers and change Daylight Savings Time. To be a monitor protecting hundreds of children in the dark was an important position based on trust and leadership. That was 35 years ago! Surely I’m not the same person!
Why torture readers with chapters already written when it’s the future we’re trying to get to?
It kills me to see The Beatles outselling Jay Z, Jordan Sparks and Carry Underwood…it shows how lazy record companies have become in the art of discovering raw, unrehearsed, un-researched talent—they do what comes easiest, rely on the classics. Those rules didn’t exist in 1979 when a group of cousins and friends from Tennessee brought their four part harmonies to the forefront of Country music. I’ll never forget my radio station program director Lonnie Bell at a little daytime station in the armpit of the world screaming the praises of what he called the new kids on the block…Alabama ripped a hole in Porter Wagner’s glorified rhinestones generating enough pomp and circumstance to revamp a dying art. Can you imagine what the face of Country music would look like today without Randy Owens and Teddy Gentry having the guts to put a little rock guitar beside the fiddle in the band?
Your web page and Social Networking outlets are no different. They’re stuck in Beatles-mode. In 1983 blank blank blank was named best to succeed during a nationwide recession. Who cares? What does it have to do with those surrounding you today? What did you do then that could be utilized in 2009?
The one story I personally can’t stand to talk about is a weird event that unwrapped its pretty little face in late 1987 when Casey Kasum elected to leave American Top 40. At the age of 25 I was named one of the five finalists to replace him. Wanna know a secret…it’s never been a deciding factor in landing me a radio job. Sure! I wanted to be Ryan Seacrest years before he was pulled out of diapers! But why paste it to my history?
Social Networking is a tool. Former Vice President Al Gore predicted it would become a valuable source of communication but seems dumfounded by the fact that once we get a hit, laziness sets in. In the latest edition of Rollingstone Magazine he’s vividly clear about how the Obama campaign has totally missed the purpose of the medium. They dedicated their souls to its strength during the election and have done nothing since to keep American’s abreast of what’s going on behind closed doors.
To radio people Social Networking has become an open microphone ungoverned by program directors and decision makers. By being up to date and clear with reasons to stand on a box, the avenue described as broadcasting has hit a level of performance the masters before us didn’t have so they relied on two speakers to stretch their points across cities and states. Rather than saying, "Here's another four in a row without talk," listeners are seeing we're extremely human and go through everyday circumstances just like them. A thicker more meaningful bond is being created. But must be maintained everyday.
In theory Madonna is the greatest creation known to music—she never stopped reinventing. Maria Carey on the other hand has sold more CD’s scoring more number ones than Elvis Presley. Until she married Nick Cannon who the heck was she? Tommy Matolla a record company President vowed to make his wife the best thing since the invention of chicken McNuggets—once the divorce took place she totally disappeared having to reinvent a career that’s respected more today than the moments those incredible five octaves tore up your favorites list.
I love The Beatles! I can’t stop being inspired by Paul McCartney but they weren’t part of George Jetson’s life. We were supposed to be living in space by now working at Spacely Sprockets with our houses being cleaned by extremely friendly robots named Rosie.
How are we supposed to get to the future if our hands are Super Glued to a past we can’t change?
Nothing peels my potatoes more than hearing someone blurt out, “The music was better forty years ago!”
If that’s the case why do producers continue to re-master the Beatles collection? George Lucas rakes in millions every other year with added features or newly designed digital scenes in a movie series we’ve seen 16.9 billion times. James Camreon waited for technology to catch up to his dreams and next week we'll see it come to life in Avatar.
My brother Larry was wrong! Mighty Mouse and Howdy Doody were not the last of the great Saturday morning cartoons. The success of Sponge Bob Square Pants is a stolen page from the book that says, "Hey lets take a chance."
If you don’t think we live in the past…go back and count how many times I reverted back to its witchcraft in this short story? I’m cursed! I’m melting! Melting! All because my Facebook and personal web page have nothing in common with the future.
Nate might be onto something here…if you’re having a hard time landing a job or picking up new accounts—try allowing the power of Social Networking do its magical mystery tour…
If what you're screaming is, "Look at me!”
What’s in it for me?
Steal Nathan’s art…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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