No! Not a Sears Poncho!

Citizens, have you no shame? No dignity? No respect for the planet we share with giraffes, fireflies, and vampire ostriches? Our fellow citizens are dying by the dozen, and your own ignorance is complicit.

Biodiversity is everyone’s responsibility. You may not abdicate nor delegate this solemn duty – the Collective will not hear of it. (We respond only to email.) Therefore – an assignment!

Begin developing the following new organisms immediately and release them into the wild, that their novelty may spread like rumors of a celebrity’s unseemly acts. Let the gene pool of our too-strange planet grow ever stranger, ever deeper, ever more full of mayonnaise.

• The Porcusnake – part cobra, part porcupine, all deadly.
• The Scorpieagle - at last, death from above in time-delay!
• The Burro of Destiny – only its mother could love it, but its mother has the cold hard heart of a test tube.
• Poison Rhinos – trained to pose impossible moral conundra.
• Debra Messing – because one is simply not enough. Extinction looms, probably within this century.

Major Events in Future History

Citizens, the world is in dire straits these days.  Our economy is in peril. Global climate change is inevitable, and we can only begin to imagine what terrors that may bring as our filthy, filthy chickens come home to roost.

The Collective has taken the current world situation under serious consideration. After much thought, here are our careful predictions of what is to come.

2019: Aliens invade our world. Seeking to eliminate the fiercest resistance first, they land in Afghanistan. After a long and bloody campaign, the desperate aliens use transmogrifcation beams to turn the Afghans into Frenchmen. Surrender follows in five minutes, but the lactose-intolerant aliens are forced to leave anyway.

2021: The UN banishes all bikini and lingerie models to St. Kilda. Photographic overflights for tourists generate enough revenue for Scotland to buy France, Germany, and Sweden.

2022: Atlantis rises from the mid-Atlantic, confounding naysayers, skeptics, and commonsensicons everywhere. The enlightened Atlanteans offer to share their advanced technology with the rest of the world, which says, “Duh. We already have water mills, cotton gins, and spandex. Thanks anyhow!”

2024: Porn becomes America’s number one export, making up the majority of the GNP.  President Jameson gives the Statue of Liberty a makeover, including a dominatrix costume, massive implants, and a number of intimate piercings.

2025: War of the Two Frances. Classic France and New France come to blows over who truly represents the French spirit. Surrender follows in five minutes – from both sides. Unfortunately this leads to more fighting, as they are unable to resolve who surrendered first.

2026: Ninja cyborgs take Parliament hostage. The British stifle a collective yawn and continue fantasizing about being tied up and whipped bloody by Margaret Thatcher dressed as Ronald Reagan.

2027: Aquaman claims Florida for his own and makes Epcot Center his palace. He still gets no respect.

2028: The Marines invade Cuba. Cuba invades Texas. Texas invades New York. New York invades Connecticut. Connecticut invades West Virginia, then turns around to accept New York’s occupation as by far the lesser evil. Cuban women quickly tire of hearing “The Marine’s Hymn” and move to Miami.

2029: George Washington returns from the dead and destroys most of Chicago with his awesome cybernetic powers.

2030: The European Union outlaws tobacco. France tries to quit the Union in protest, but can’t get up enough breath.

2031: George Lucas finally files for creative bankruptcy after Star Wars XIV: How Han Solo Got His Vest.

2032: Fictional characters are given full citizenship rights in China after Disney takes over the Near East. Governor-General Jafar immediately recruits Lara Croft, Betty Boop, and Ginger from Gilligan’s Island to his harem in the Forbidden Palace. He is assassinated by Ginger, who flees to Ecuador to escape prosecution.

2033:  Quentin Quillpot Quincy is elected as the first Pope from Cleveland. Or maybe the Falkands.

2034: You realize the utter pointlessness of your life after yet another Walker, Texas Ranger marathon.

2035: Dead-eyed reptiles from another dimension take over the Republican Party. No one notices.

2036: Short-sighted invertebrates from another dimension take over the Democratic Party. No one notices.

2037: Adam Sandler falls into a pit of his old DVDs and is forced to eat his way out.

2038: General Mills unveils “e-Cheerios”, a subscription-based cereal downloaded directly into your brain every morning.

2039: The Rapture finally happens! All the good Christians are taken to waiting spaceships, which Xenu programs to crash into the sun.

Ascend the Throne, Claim Your Crown, And Declare 2009 “The Year Pork Bellies Had No Future”

Citizens, we cannot begin a newer world until we are done with the old.

This is a world of staid conformist toadery, where lickspittles and Communists of every kind run rampant as though the circus were in town and they’d just been given advances on their allowance.  People seek to dispel their demons with fairy dust concocted by chemists, when the answer stares them in their self-bloodied faces: live well! Live like there’s no yesterday! Live wild and weird and free, like the wind in a dead porcupine’s quills.

We of the Collective have found that opportunity knocks but once before heading down the hall to that guy with the lazy eye and the cookie-crumb-crusted gut. Does anyone want to see that sublime beauty in the arms and on the lips of that slovenly beast? No, of course not. So while there’s still a “Vacancy” sign lit over your grave, get up off the sofa and answer the next time she knocks. Maybe clean the place up a bit – polish the turtles, wax the candles, sharpen the radio. Freshen the pepper in the grinder and grind the good salt for a change.

Carpe that Diem, citizens! You only live once, and you can’t be Sean Connery’s butler. The Hooters Girls aren’t coming to save you from your sloth, and there’s no Chippendales Peace Prize just because you got the high score on “Pac-Man vs. Qbert”. You won’t win the heart of that delicious young man down at the pool by fading into the background behind the wallflowers and discarded Toblerone wrappers.

The future belongs to those who understand and embrace the absurdity of all existence without trying to fondle it. Risk is as illusory as any other certainty: it is a cup of bitter tea that packs on the pounds as fast as pure lard. If you want to run the race, strap on your shoes and step toward the finish line instead of staring down your fellow Wikipedians over the history of “Knight Rider”.

Your destiny is no more than the end of the path you’re walking – there’s no map to mistake for the territory, there’s no prophecy worth more than the quatrains you wrote to impress you tenth-grade girlfriend. Carve the message in every tabletop, tree trunk, and treasure chest you see. Burn these holy words on the inside of your eyelids to flash their hot neon truth at you every instant, waking or sleeping: make your fate.

Make this your year!