BOOM! Pop Culture Chronicles
Pause & Consider
Random Thoughts
By Mike Olszewski
Since I retired, I’ve been busier than ever. Writing, video projects, travel. But now I keep track of days by what’s on TV.
“Ghosts”? That means it’s 8:30 on Thursday evening. A weekend ritual is nursing a cup of coffee (or five) and watching “CBS Sunday Morning.” Each show ends with “A Moment of Nature,” a minute or so of some unblemished natural area.
I was watching a field of flowers on the big screen and had a sense of déjà vu. Where have I seen this before? Then it hit me: The final scenes in the film “Soylent Green,” where Edward G. Robinson gets a good meal and a look at nature before they make him part of the food chain. The movie came out in the mid-’70s and predicted overpopulation, the greenhouse effect, pollution and widespread food shortages. I started sifting through our DVDs and it occurred to me that director Stanley Kubrick had offered the same predictions years before.
Examples
In “2001: A Space Odyssey,” which was released in 1968, Kubrick predicts talking computers, tablets, flat-screen TVs, video conferences and recreational space travel.
Three years later, in “A Clockwork Orange,” you see digital audio tape, green-blue-and purple hair, and violence in the streets that is becoming commonplace in some areas today.
It wasn’t lost on Kubrick, either. At the beginning of one of the overseas wars, he spoke to a friend about his “Dr. Strangelove” saying, “Well, I hope I haven’t made a documentary.” Circling back, (and spoiler alert) soylent green was made out of people. That hasn’t come true yet, though I question some varieties of block cheese.
Sometimes things have a way of hiding in plain sight. One of the great reporters of Cleveland TV was Joe Mosbrook. Retired from television, he now tracks local jazz history. The great thing about Joe is that he can point out obvious things we so often miss. For example, he recently posted online, “Have you seen those TV commercials for shoes that you ‘Don’t have to bend down to put on?’ It’s curious that the folks wearing those shoes are also wearing socks,” which require a lot more effort.
My wife, Janice, and I love the Boomer Bashes. Music, food, a bar; nearly every vendor table has giveaways. A few weeks back, 9-year-old Cora paid us a visit and asked us about two little growable planters we got at the Bash. One thing led to another, and we bet a candy bar over who could grow their sunflower the fastest and tallest.
I soon started getting emails from Cora with photos telling me to get ready to make good on that bet. She told me to get ready to “Take the L” and pay up. I can play that game, too. I hope she likes black licorice.
Boomer Trivia: Last issue, I asked which of The Three Stooges could claim he was a former Clevelander. Too often, we think of the Stooges as Larry, Curly and Moe (and sometimes Shemp), but the lineup changed over the years. The final incarnation of the Stooges featured “Curly Joe” DeRita, a Philadelphia native who moved to Cleveland and worked as a burlesque comic and host at the Roxy Theater. Next time, which Beatles wife has a connection to the Cleveland Public Library?
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
