What first jaded your view of the future?

I think most of us grew up thinking the future was going to be bitchin.

Now it seems most people long for the past, or chosen fragments of it.

I remember this commercial where a fellow dressed up as an Indian was kinda stomping around in a polluted suburb, and at the end it showed his dour emotionless face with a tear.

It was really sad. (of course now, he woul have a jetski and be part owner of a casino, and be just as guilt as everyone else of polluting)

When they cancelled the Apollo Moonlandings.

I saw Apollo 17 go up. A beautiful nightime launch. Made all the more impressive by my being around the age of 6.

The future was full of promise. Moonbases, humanity united in the exploration of space, and all that.

Then we moved from Florida.

All down hill from there.

The Cuban Missle Crisis.

When Bo & Luke Duke were replaced by Vance and Coy on Dukes of Hazzard! No, in all seriousness I think it probably was when the Space Shuttle Challenger blew-up. At the time I had never heard of any other astronauts being killed and to see that multi-million dollar piece of high tech equipment explode into a billion pieces taking those 7 poor souls with it really effected me. I was under the impression that space travel was going to get easier and easier with the space shuttle and to see the entire space program come to a crashing halt was devistating to me. The future didn't look as rosy as I had been led to believe.

I also have the space program as a watershed moment.I remember watching the moon landing and dreaming of becoming an astronaut.Of course,you need to be good at math,which I am not,so that was completely disheartening.

Without a doubt, after seeing the effects of MTV after a year of it being on the air. Definitely one of the cornerstones of turning popular culture into the vacuum it is today. It basically killed and was the end of any substance in pop music.

When I didn't get my air car by the time I was 20 like I was promised in all the scientific mags I used to read in the 60s.

I want my fu#*in' air car.

in the words of Todd Rundgren:

"Future"
I remember the world of tomorrow,
I remember the world of tomorrow,
I'm supposed to drive a flying car,
I'm supposed to have a house on Mars,
I'm supposed to live two hundred years,
I'm supposed to live, I'm supposed to live in the Future...
is Now,
the Future is Now.

Where's the better world that was declared at the 1964 World's Fair?
Where's the only orb that's got a plan?
That's at Epcot Center, Disneyland.

The Future is Now.

THe past.

Whatever it was, this renewed it.

I always wanted to be a veterinarian. Then I found out that it's more difficult to get into vet school than regular medical school, so I went into the arts instead. My high school offered a Career Preparation Graphic Arts program, and not an animal program.

Maybe I'll volunteer at a wildlife rehab center or something.

When JFK, and MLK was murdered.Such great men with big dreams.
Up to then I thought we were all going to live together in peace, total equality, build space stations, live under sea, harness the sun, cure all diseases, and feed all the people of the world with super new foods. ahhh.....

I'm not sure I ever gave up on it completely (I think my artwork reflects my own cautious optimism, but is probably more "lost future nostalgic" than anything), but the big upswing in my skepticism was probably when Reagan got elected. The age of true space exploration was over and the cost-cutting of everything (except weapons) began.

Shortly after that I went to college to study industrial design. That was my big awakening to the world of consumerism, manufacturing and product cycles. I then saw the world and the aspirations of its people in a whole new light: If the economy wasn't constantly growing and the people not spending, then the nation was failing. Sadly, this seems to be the dominant economic model much of the world is in the process of adopting, and it doesn't leave much room for non-profitable dreamers. It also didn't help that the shuttle blew up then, too.

But I'm so glad I have my great memories of reading Starlog and Future magazines, staying up all night building my own spaceship models and making movies with them, falling in love with every Chesley Bonestell and Bob McCall painting and firmly believing that one day, I too would be jet-packing home to our giant floating city over the ocean.

There's a song by Aimee Mann that captures much of the dashed hopes of futurism:

Fifty Years after the Fair

Fifty years after the fair
The picture I have is so clear
Underneath the clouds in the air
Rose the Trylon and the Perisphere
And that for me was the finest of scenes
That perfect world across the river in Queens

Fifty years after the fair
I drink from a different cup
But it does no good to compare
’cause nothing ever measures up
I guess just for a second we thought
That all good things would rise to the top

But how beautiful it was - ’tomorrow’
We’ll never have a day of sorrow
We got through the ’30’s, but our belts were tight
We conceived of a future with no hope in sight
We’ve got decades ahead of us to get it right
I swear - fifty years after the fair

Fifty years after the fair
I live in tomorrow town
Even on a wing and a prayer
The future never came around
It hurts to even think of those days
The damage we do
By the hopes that we raise

But how beautiful it was - ’tomorrow’
We’ll never have a day of sorrow
We got through the ’30’s, but our belts were tight
We conceived of a future with no hope in sight
We’ve got decades ahead of us to get it right
I swear - fifty years after the fair

Nixon's resignation speech. I remember our all crying at summer camp while listening to it on the radio. It was so sad to see the leader of our nation fall. (Not intended to start a politics discussion or anti-Nixon rant.)

I feel so sad that kids today don't know what it was like before then to respect The President. I thought, "My daddy should be President, because he's the smartest man in the world and he always [knew] what's right." (Your basic, lucky child eye's view). And we all wanted to grow up to be President.

Nowadays, you just have to be crazy to want to be President! I's sorry - it's true. It's a HORRIble life! And it destroys your family, their privacy, their future's privacy. Thanks GAWD my dad never ran for any kind of office!!

Can you see my Secret Service men following me, the President's daughter, around at Oasis or Hukilau? They'd get hammered just taste-testing my cocktails!! Maybe I could get them to loosen up and wear aloha shirts with their suits and Ray-Bans.

Oh yeah, and I also became disillusioned with the future when it became evident that I wasn't getting my damned jet-pack!!

I didn't sizzle in an Atomic Holocaust at 13.

When do we get our entirely silver-colored wardrobe? Why isn't there a division of the Gap just selling silver stuff? It must not be the future yet.

Actually, I became profoundly disillusioned when I found out that every piece of luggage on all flights does not go through x-ray. I had presumed my entire life that it had been ... call me naive, I thought it was common technology. I can't believe now that I wasted a lifetime of misdirected paranoia!

When I was a tyke in San Francisco, The Smothers Brothers, Mort Sahl, and Bill Cosby were always in town performing on a street somewhere called Broadway. When I was old enought to find my way there, everything had turned into strip joints.

I think that there was a promise made to a lot of us (in our imaginations) about what the future whould be. I thought I would live in the Monsanto House of the Future and get around on a hover scooter like on Fireball XL-5. I've made do with a Honda Insight and an ipod.

On 2005-04-18 17:57, ZebraTiki wrote:
When do we get our entirely silver-colored wardrobe?

Yeah, baby, YEAAAAHHHH!

This guy's "Where's the future we were promised" site is fun:

http://davidszondy.com/future/futurepast.htm

When I realized no one is ever going to check my Permanent Record.

The death of John Lennon.

Not just for the music, but of hope.

T

On 2005-04-17 23:22, Gigantalope wrote:
I remember this commercial where a fellow dressed up as an Indian was kinda stomping around in a polluted suburb, and at the end it showed his dour emotionless face with a tear.

OMG Gigantalope, when I saw the topic of discussion, before I even opened up the tread... the first thing that popped into my head was that commercial with the crying Indian! That is so funny!

By the way... I'm not sure, but he may not have been just "a fellow dressed up like an Indian"... he actually looked like one to me!

As I recall the crying "Indian" was actually Italian.

I think they mentioned that on I LOVE THE '70S.

On 2005-04-19 11:03, joefla70 wrote:

On 2005-04-17 23:22, Gigantalope wrote:
I remember this commercial where a fellow dressed up as an Indian was kinda stomping around in a polluted suburb, and at the end it showed his dour emotionless face with a tear.

OMG Gigantalope, when I saw the topic of discussion, before I even opened up the tread... the first thing that popped into my head was that commercial with the crying Indian! That is so funny!

By the way... I'm not sure, but he may not have been just "a fellow dressed up like an Indian"... he actually looked like one to me!

I don't remember his name right now, but he was a real Indian (Native American, sorry) who was quite active in the politcal/conservationist scene for many years. I'll try and find more info on him.

Chief Dan George?

The Disneyland souvenir guides from the early 60's describe Tomorrowland as depicting life the way it will be in the 1980's.

I'm still looking for an all plastic house built by Monsanto to live in.

Mamma Mia! Iron Eyes Cody was born as Espera DeCorti. I always thought he was really Native American too but Snopes says something different.
http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/ironeyes.htm

[ Edited by: DawnTiki on 2005-04-19 12:22 ]

I'm still not jaded about the Future. Try reading some of Buckminster Fuller's Auto/Biographies, the man suffered setback after setback & kept coming back to dream of bigger, better & brighter futures for us. So we don't have Hover Bikes & Rocket Cars, try out a Moller Air Car:

We don't have Robot Domestics? Try out a Roomba Robot Vacumn:

I'm still hoping to live in an ultralight inflatable space module, with zero-G swimming pool/radiation shield before I die.

what really jaded my view of the future was when i found out that Iron Eyes Cody was really an Italian guy from Louisiana. :(

On 2005-04-19 13:23, Palama Tiki wrote:
what really jaded my view of the future was when i found out that Iron Eyes Cody was really an Italian guy from Louisiana. :(

Would it make you feel any better to know that he was loved & adopted by all the Indian Tribes in America? Pretty much all of the real Indians in Hollywood knew he was Sicilian & denied it to anyone that asked.

Thanks Freddie..! my faith has been restored to it's former glory and i now view the future with confidence and optimism!

On 2005-04-19 13:22, freddiefreelance wrote:
...try out a Moller Air Car...

We don't have Robot Domestics? Try out a Roomba Robot Vacumn.

I'm with you, FF, on the Roomba - I really want one of those. I'll even name it "Rosie".
But the Moller Skycar is nothing but an expensive boondoggle. I've read all there is to read about it and it's a joke. I'm not saying people shouldn't dream this big, but in the great tradition of crackpot flying car inventors, he conveniently pushes aside issues of human nature, safety, air traffic control, user training & fallibility, and noise pollution, all for the visual appeal of a helicopter disguised as a car.

The Moller Skycar reminds me of those drawings from the end of the 19th century where they proposed men would fly to the moon in iron capsules fired out of canons. He's using ancient technology to elaborately solve a simple problem of overcrowding on our roads. It's like using an h-bomb to kill a mosquito.

When it comes to transportation, I dream of extensive networks of mass transit trains and high speed rail - all attainable and doable with current technology and infinitely more practical than everyone flying around in their own gas-guzzling air-cars. They can even look like Disneyland's monorail to give them that futuristic touch.

Fuller was great. Dymanxion World!

I loved his houses modeled around grain elevators, and of course the actual Dymaxion Auto (one of which is still in Reno)

It's funny to consider when Walt built Disneyland it was to capture a moment in time special to him...America @ 1900.

About the same amount of time has passed since from the time the park opened until now. It would be interesting to consider the idea of establsihing a Main Street Garden Groveland where the strawberries are grown by japanese speaking guys and sold from plywood huts to tourists in aqua finned DeSotos, and slant 6 valiants (along with Orange Julius' and Tommy's Originals) A short animatronic feature could be "visit with B1-Bob...all in hopes of candycoating and encapulating a moment in American time which Disneyland might have helped drown out by it's own sucess.

There should also be a Swap Meet (not flea market) like the Bazaar in Adventurland.

I guess it sounds like a synical view of the California park...and maybe it is...with less Frankie and Annette, Golden Gate and movie set. More Oil pumps and eichlers.

[ Edited by: gigantalope on 2005-04-19 23:58 ]

Where is all this great stuff we were promised? I want my damn helicopter pad!!!

JohnTiki

Aloha from the enchanted Pi Yi Grotto in exotic Bel Air Maryland!

[ Edited by: johntiki on 2005-04-20 07:27 ]

Cool pic! where did you get it?

that reminds me of Disney's Carousel of Progress.

That pic, along with many other cool futuristic images from the 50's and early 60's are in a book called "Populuxe" by Thomas Hine. Anyone that has an interest in pop culture/mass consumerism in the 1950's has got to own this book! Now that you mention it, it does remind me of the Carousel of Progress! :)

I always thought we'd all have 'modern' houses like the one at the end scene of the Carousel of Progress ("It's great, big beautiful tommorrow"), but with the grandpa off in the corner with the 1920's radio still trying to get reception. They had a great view out that panorama window, or was that my imagination?