Imitation Elvis and real cash
Man, I had a basketball jones for the last month. Too bad the Thunder couldn’t beat the Heat. For a podunk cowtown like OKC to win an NBA championship would’ve been a nice feelgood. Also, I have to admit, and this is coming from an old baseball guy—it’s more fun and more exciting to watch the NBA Finals than it is to watch one of those glacial World Series. Goddangit, nine foul balls in a row is NOT a great at-bat. It’s a masterful method of brain-glazing.
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Probably the big thing to happen this year at the Coachella Music Festival in Palm Springs was the resurrection of the late Tupac Shakur as an amazing light projection (inaccurately but conveniently called a hologram) which could literally perform with his old pal Snoop Dogg for a couple of songs. The effect was stunningly cool—if you haven’t seen it, it’s on You Tube—and it doesn’t take a genius to guess where this new technology might go. I mean, in a world filled with tribute bands (Iron Maiden? Bryan Adams? Jamiraquoi? Yep.) the hologram factor will undoubtedly be mega-huge. It’s just a case of how fast it will become mega-huge.
Digital Domain is the company that blew everybody’s minds with their Tupac, and it now reports work is underway on the Jimi, Jim and Elvis holograms. Totally predictable, and why not? I’d guess you’ll see a serious Vegas Holo-Show sometime in 2013, maybe late 2012. You know the order has been made and the race is on. $150 tickets, and you see Elvis do three songs, then hand it off to John Lennon, who does a couple of numbers and then introduces Michael Jackson, who sings a few and then—you get the idea. Mega mega mega. And if you’re saying “Jim who?”, well, you need to break on through and light the fire of an L.A. woman, a stone cold 20th century fox, who will love you two times. And quite madly.
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Our national election this year is going to drown in an obscene tsumani of cash. It will be horrible, hideous, and disheartening. The election is not only up for grabs, it’s up for sale.
I say this after seeing what happened recently in Wisconsin and the election to recall Governor Tooltime, aka Scott Walker. The first election Walker won by a margin of 53-46 percent. In the recall, Walker won by 53-46 percent. How did this happen? Simple. Massive injections of Koch Kash that funded an advertising blitz that got the job done and made the whole enterprise look silly.
The same will happen on a national scale. Citizens United has basically made a mockery of campaign finance laws. And thanks to Citizens United, all the wealthy folks who want those Bush tax cuts to remain on the books can literally spend as much as they want to gunk up the minds of millions and get their guy in the White House. And their guy ain’t the current occupant.
