The Culture Bunker
The Future Is Now, Please Bill Me Later
by William Ham
illustration by Space Jockey
As some of you may recently have been made aware, December is the last month of the year. With that comes the end of another wildly adequate year of cutting-edge journalism, edgy opinion-making, and our single-handed revival of the payola craze. In the previous year alone, we have unfailingly capitalized on our past successes, from adding new and better writers to genetically engineering a hybrid race of lizard people to help boost our sell-thru rate. Yet we here at Lollipop are not content merely to rest on our laurels (especially because we can’t afford them – it’s tough enough to keep up on the payments for the moss). A new year is a new beginning for us, a time of rejuvenation, and 1998 will be no exception. (And not just because we can no longer be prosecuted for all the crimes we committed back in ’91. Statute of limitations, we love ya!) When you see us next, Lollipop will be a very different magazine than the one you grew up on, laughed and cried with, and used as reasonably-priced cat box filler. While some of the more drastic changes suggested at the last share holders meeting (which, incidentally, was an enormous success – over 200 different holders, from pot to plant to deep-voiced character actor Geoffrey, were apportioned among our staff that day) have been discarded as unworkable (though our extra-small print edition, for those with really good vision or who just like to squint, is still in the works for ’99), enough improvements, renovations, and a few surprises will be added to the magazine to make it well worth the $9.75 we’re about to start charging per issue. (Oops, ruined the surprise.) Below are just a few of the things you can expect from Lollipop in 1998:
ARTICLES/FEATURES
“Local Music: Why Is It Only Around Here?” an in-depth investigation into one of the ever-present mysteries surrounding the “scene.” We demand to know and nobody’s talking. (Mostly they’re just laughing at us in mocking disbelief and hanging up, which may delay the article for a while.)
Lollipop‘s Endorsement of the Hip Drug of ’98 wherein we finally use our substantial power as underground tastemakers to the cultural effete to point the way to what the plugged-in youth of America will be plugging into their systems in the next year. Will herbal PCP finally hit it big? Are pro-depressants staging their long-awaited comeback? Or is it freeze-dried silica gel’s year? You’ll have to buy our special “Freelance Pharmacology” issue to find out, available on street corners across America from menacing-looking guys with more gold teeth than real ones starting March 23.
Online Skating a look at the new high-tech craze, which is what happens when you’re surfing the Net and your computer freezes.
America’s Funniest Miscarriages of Justice a spinoff of the hilarious reality-based Fox/Mistrial TV program. Lethal injections for three-year-olds? Oops! Life imprisonment without parole for jaywalking? Chortle! Acquitting sports heroes for obvious double murders? Stop! You’re killing me! And I’ll betcha get away with it! A new feature that’s sure to put the “laughter” back in “involuntary manslaughter!”
PROJECTS IN DEVELOPMENT
The Science of the Arts Recent advances in technology have crossed over into the creative realm, and Lollipop hopes to be among the first to intimidate the gullible, slack-brained public into turning over large sums of money to protect themselves from it. Uh, we mean report on it. Among the projects in development: a filter that, when attached to your home stereo, prevents the resurgence of eighties power ballads; and a new, non-osmotic musical genre impervious to being combined with ska.
Flamboyant Bewigged Pianist For Hire Have you lost your job? Been injured in an accident in your home or your car? Legal and medical fees piling up? Depressed? Suicidal? That hangnail acting up again? No, we can’t help you, but for a nominal fee, Lollipop will hire Elton John to rewrite one of his old songs for you. Sure, it won’t help, and all proceeds will be funneled into our Give It To Me, I’ll Hold Onto It fund, but heck, wouldn’t hearing your personal misery put to the tune of “Bennie and the Jets” be kinda cool?
Literature for Pets Just as there are certain tones that only animals can hear, so are there certain tomes only they can read. Lollipop, always committed to greater understanding between the species (no human racists we), plans to begin a monthly series of short fiction, essays, and epic poems written specifically for the bestial crowd… Okay, you got us. That’d be ridiculous. We just thought of The Tell-Tale Heartworm and needed some excuse to use it in an article. Sorry.
TRENDS TO WATCH FOR
We have long prided ourselves in being a step ahead of those two or three steps behind the forefront of cultural innovation, and ’98 promises to be no different. Of course, ’98 also promised to return that cardigan we loaned it, and it never returns our calls asking for it back. But we’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and take its word for the following:
Music For the eighth year in a row, 1998 will be the Year of the Woman in Rock. However, due to a Congressional injunction against discriminatory signing practices, at least two-thirds of those women will be portrayed by men with effeminate mannerisms recruited from the ranks of the Davy Jones School of Male Tambourine Players… the industry will continue to tighten up after another year of poor sales. As a result, the seven major labels will merge into one über-label, Final Solution Records, and consolidate every one of their new signings into one mega-group, Superbox, which will record one single, “You Are Required by Law to Purchase This Record,” and then get buried alive in a mass grave to favorable critical response.
Movies Forget pyrotechnics, ass-kicking chief executives and Gary Oldman using accents unknown to even the most arcane dialecticians – the next wave in major studio merchandising machines will be the inaction film. Producer Jerry Weisenheimer has announced plans to make The Conscientious Objector, starring Nicolas Cage as a narcoleptic former company clerk for the Navy who reacts to a threatened invasion of the U.S. by Upper Middle Eastern terrorists by taking his phone off the hook and watching Nick at Nite for twelve straight hours. They said he wouldn’t fight… they were right!
Publishing Literacy is passé, according to a recent study in The Journal of Recent Studies. Fortunately, the press gangs of the world have met the challenge with a gaggle of upcoming volumes that you won’t need to open to enjoy. Watch for Where’s Waldo? The Cliff Notes, Chicken Soup For the Soul – The Expanded Edition (With Crackers), and Stephen King’s latest, It’s Scary How Rich I Am, in a bookstore window near you as you pass by on your way to buy novelty drink-stirrers shaped like Anna Nicole Smith at Spencer Gifts.
So, as you can see, there are many changes afoot for Lollipop in the next twelve months, of which the above is merely help a sampling. And the changes don’t stop there – for example, we’re implementing a policy somebody please that all music reviews must be written after listening to the record in question, which should bring an interesting new dimension get me out of here to our coverage. As always, we’re open to your i’m serious input – we won’t take it seriously or even acknowledge it at all, but we’re open to it. But, no matter what changes may occur, you can always count on us to oh sweet jesus they’ve had me locked in this musty basement room for over three years now forcing me to write a humor column and i’m running out of ideas if i don’t come up with something funny every month i get the hose and as you can see i’m flailing please somebody get in touch with the authorities before they find out i’ve been lifting things from old art buchwald columns and just adding the word fuck every once in a while i beg you it’s cold and damp and the corpses of the old staffers are starting to smell really bad please if nothing else drop down a dave barry book so i have something new to plagiarize oh god what’s that sound they’re coming they said it’s deadline in more ways than one oh god please he…
